Saturday, October 31, 2015

It's Halloween, Not Christmas

Halloween is the greatest holiday ever, but not for the reasons most people think. Like all holidays, Halloween is commercialized, and it should be the biggest profiting holiday in the USA.

Sadly, the lesser holiday of Christmas is encroaching on every holiday with big profit potential. Halloween has the biggest potential for profit but loses a lot of attention because of old religious superstitions.

Costumes alone cost hundreds of dollars now, they have become elaborate endeavors to try to out freak everyone else. Sadly the marketing for these has failed to increase the customer base, losing billions on a product that actually requires a yearly investment.

Candy is a product with a huge profit, nearly two hundred percent profit is gained from candy sales, which is why they try to integrate it into other holidays. But Halloween is all about the candy, the treats which kids are encouraged to collect under the guise of a "trick."

Because of the season Halloween falls on, many of the products considered to be Christmas based are more suited to Halloween. Pumpkin is a given, which is easy to milk through Thanksgiving, and it has a huge profit potential due to our synthetic versions being identical to the "all natural" flavor.

But the biggest crime against the economy is that businesses invest more in the holidays that encourage reclusivity. Family gatherings are not social, and most people actually don't enjoy them, but Halloween is all about socializing, visiting your neighbors.

In major cities, this is a gold mine of customers, instead I see people just renting movies, sitting at home alone, eating popcorn. Starbucks is bare of customers, other than us regulars, when they could attract many more with a simple and inexpensive dress up party promotion.

The streets of downtown Seattle, where thousands of people live, are bare as the cars roll by rushing home to take their kids out in large groups. But the kids are not brought to downtown, there are no parties here, no celebrations, in the densest commercial center of the city there are no customers.

It has been this way for several weeks, and I see many places already applying Christmas decorations. So instead of encouraging the current gold mine, they prepare for a single holiday which actually does not increase sales.

Most people shop at the last minute, that means they have already spent all their money for the previous months on necessities. So businesses waste a lot of money on advertising for a holiday which is already planned, or limited to one paycheck anyway.

Now here is what makes Halloween perfect, almost all cultures celebrate a holiday of spooky stories, treats, and even giving of gifts during the Halloween season. Less than half the planet celebrates Christmas, making Halloween more popular than Christmas based on cultural relevance.

Dia de los Muertos, the day of the dead for Mexico, kicks off the month with gifts to the dead, pageantry, and skulls made of sugar to sacrifice to their ancestors, a potential gold mine of profit. Even before that, in August we have Ghost Month, a Chinese holiday much like day of the dead, where food is offered to the spirits and people dress up.

October is not so cold as to herd people indoors, but you can see that time drawing close, which encourages people to socialize as much as they can before the cold winter nights force them to isolate more. Giving them reasons to gather will always increase socializing, and profits, and improve our society as a whole.

Friday, October 30, 2015

The Science of Blogging

Blogging is often thought as a lesser form of news reporting, the reality is actually quite the opposite. News agencies are censored by the government, then by their corporations, and finally hype must be injected liberally into every story to attract readers.

Blogging is often in your face, blunt and to the point, only injected with a bunch of anecdotes that may or may jot be related. But the lack of censorship makes the blogs more honest than any mainstream media.

This does not mean either is more factual, blogs should only be a source of inspiration, to encourage you to seek out the facts instead of just taking someone's word for it. Citing blogs which do not cite scientific sources is not providing evidence in any way, citing mainstream media is not providing evidence  for anything either.

When you read this blog, you do not expect it to contain scientific evidence, you should expect none from any blog, but when you read an assertion or statement it should encourage you to scour the scientific databases to find verifying evidence. In science it is not the finding that is fun and exciting, it is the journey of exploration.

There is the huge difference between the masses and us, the scientific minds that discover things to make your lives better. We don't seek out conclusions, we don't want definitive findings that end all research, we want more paths leading to more discoveries.

Every real scientist will tell you one simple fact: discovering the facts is more exciting than knowing them. This is why science always works, always progresses and improves our lives, it is a never ending journey that is free of dogma and reverence.

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Does a Fetus Live or Feel Pain?

There is a subtle but very important difference between being alive and living. Very few people ever consider this in an argument about abortion, particularly those who are against legalized abortion.

Every single cell is alive, from sperms to liver cells, they are living organisms but they do not live. To actually live a brain is required, but no other organs are inherently required.

By definitions, science considers one who has sentience to be living, for humans this occurs about 3 years after birth. Sentience is not a side effect of the brain, though the brain is required.

Sentience happens after enough information has been formed and stored by the brain, when the brain becomes aware of it's own existence. This is a side effect of the information it records.

Without sentience, the brain can even utilize the information in logic and decisions, but it inevitably becomes aware by doing this. Fetuses have no brains, they do have some parts of the brain in later stages of development.

The brain develops in the fetus in much the same way it evolved, from the basic nerve response clusters on through the logic centers, ending in the memory centers. This is why at mid to late stages the fetus appears to respond to pain, it is an autonomic response to nerve stimuli.

It is the same "flinching" response to pain we all experience, which happens before the pain even registers in our brains. Our memory of the pain is what actually makes it pain.

The simple fact of the matter is that human fetuses do not feel pain during abortions, anymore than a mollusk does when it is cooked. Without the memory of the information created by the nerves, pain is not pain.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Transgender Versus Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer has entered the news lately, fueling the tragedies and discrimination of transgendered people for her own agenda. By doing so she has reduced an entire movement to selfishness, turning feminism into the very joke that right wing nuts have called it for decades.

Her fallacy is deeper than just selfishness, it is an indicator of poor education, and thus supports the very stereotypes which feminism is trying to dispel. By calling gender a limited chromosomal set that only determines reproductivity, she has called all women nothing more than incubators.

Some science, the XX/XY combination only determine which gamete are produced, and there are always exceptions. XO is a recent one we discovered, perhaps a new gender is appearing in our species, but most women are not actually going to produce the correct gamete, this is why many are infertile.

Many men are infertile for the exact same reason, natural selection in action. This is because we discovered that more than two chromosomes determine the sex of a person, meaning the binary gender roles we created are obsolete.

Transgendered have always been considered by most feminists to be the few humans who defy the stereotypes and prove that gender is merely a social construct. Germaine, however, uses right wing nut think instead and considers us a threat.

Who are we threatening? We threaten the stereotypes she has used to garner fame and profit, if gender is not based on XX/XY then she her entire approach is wrong.

To her, like so many talking heads, stereotypes are good for business, if people stop listening to the stereotypes then the talking heads lose all their power, and their profit. This is what we see with Germaine, she needs to enforce stereotypes, and using bad science is a good way of convincing idiotic masses that they are correct.

Feminism was never about that, in fact feminism is about destroying the very stereotypes that Germaine wishes to enforce. Women are not genetically inferior, but to her they are.

Her selling point is that women are less capable and should be protected because of it, feminism is about women being strong enough to do it as well as men. Germaine convinces the masses that women are so weak that no one should want to be one, feminism is that women and men should see past the social gender roles produced by archaic minds.

Greer asserts that genetics defies science, while feminism is about women being just as capable of using science as men are. For transgendered women, most of us know that women are more capable of handling logic than men in many situations, due to the hormone levels.

Once you experience polar shifts in hormone levels you know what hormones actually are, they are your disposition. Greer claims that you cannot change biology, yet most medicine is the actual alteration of biology and physiology, we are working on finding methods of changing genetics.

She convinces idiots of her assertion by conflating genetics and biology, any biologist knows that genetics is not law for an organism. So to close, Germaine Greer is an uneducated moron who wants to convince women that they are incapable of doing things on their own so she can profit from their woes.

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Capitlaism Needs Socialism

The notion that Capitalism and Socialism are at odds started during the cold war, ironically the cold war had nothing to do with Socialism. The political elite started this "everything but Capitalism is bad" as a misguided attempt to convince fools to remain patriotic.

Patriotism is not about blindly supporting one's country, and Socialism is not incompatible with Capitalism. The fact is that both need each other, to fund Socialist policies you need Capitalism to produce taxable incomes, for Capitalism to remain stable you need Socialist policies.

Capitalism is literally an open and free market, which means few regulations on the economy itself. We do need some regulations, that is obvious thanks to China, but such regulations must be sane and demonstrably affective.

The EPA has found a balance that other organizations in the USA struggle with, the result is cleaner environments and a stronger economy. But the EPA is a Socialist policy, it is funded by taxpayers not profits.

Fact of the matter is that our entire government is a Socialist policy, they are all funded by taxpayers not profit. The Republicans have tried to privatize portions of the government with disastrous results each time.

The reason they are disasters is that they have no accountability, the customer is the government itself, the taxpayers never knew who to vote out to stop them, and the companies were guaranteed a profit. Of course the internet has changed this, we no know who is responsible, but their sheep are so blind as to be easily convinced it was the other guy.

Yes, even the biggest corporations in the USA depend on Socialism for their profits. Companies that benefit from war require Socialist policies to earn any profit.

War is a national event, and thus all profits for it come from taxes, taxes which the government gets to decide how they are spent. Wait, that's not entirely correct, the government in the USA does not choose what taxes are spent on, the Federal Reserve does.

This was suppose to be a way to regulate oversight, to prevent wasteful spending like war and corporate handouts, but the Federal Reserve backfired because no one paid attention to it. It is now run by corporate cronies who want the entire system in the hands of a few elite and buyable politicians.

Many lobbyists will wrongfully target politicians and they usually get nowhere, but those who can pony up enough benefits for the Federal Reserve always get their way, such as war production. Disbanding this oversight regulatory program is not the answer, correcting it is.

So the best method to find the perfect Socialist balance for Capitalism to thrive is to reduce the power of the Federal Reserve and enact laws which allow the people to have members in it replaced.

Monday, October 19, 2015

Accountability for Climate

Climate change is influenced by humanity, that goes without saying. The basic fact is that all species effect it, a problem occurs when one species effects it too much.

This is usually the result of the population growing out of control, crowding out all other organisms. The ultimate end result is the extinction of that species, not a very pleasant outcome.

Humanity has an added problem, many of our machines double our output of climate changing chemicals. This increase, combined with our population growing beyond tolerable limits, has caused the environment to "tip."

This tipping has begun to destroy environs that we depend on for a more balanced atmosphere, we are eradicating the organisms that can process our outputs into chemicals we can use. By doing this we are causing a huge change in the climate's standard and slowing pattern.

In essence, we are returning the planet to a state before our species could survive. Due to lack of natural pressures, our species is unlikely to evolve to survive that climate.

The arguments against cleaning up our act are all hilariously ignorant of facts. One is "more CO2 means more plants," which is a definitive no.

Increasing the CO2 will not cause more plants to grow, at least not until we move out of the land they need to grow in. Our growth is so fast now that we are encroaching on the last few untouched areas.

When we move into that land, we destroy everything to make room for us. This reduces the plant life to a dangerously low level, so there are fewer plants to process CO2.

I have recently heard claims that CO2 and CO are not dangerous, let that sink in a moment. They have grown so desperate as to deny a fact known for over a century.

A life threatening medical condition known as carbon dioxide poisoning occurs when you inhale too much CO2. Astronauts learn about this as they face the possibility all the time.

Carbon monoxide is worse, it bonds to cells in the lung preventing those cells from absorbing oxygen. Healing from this event has a very high chance of cancer, most causes of CO also produce radioactive particulates increasing the chances further.

Car exhaust carries carbon monoxide well, the particulates keep the gas in a cloud until they fall inert. Any form of burning organic material will create carbon particulates, petroleum is organic.

So is coal, coal is actually concentrated carbon, burning it causes that carbon to bond with oxygen. This can produce carbon monoxide and dioxide, which are currently pollutants because of their quantity in the atmosphere.

There is only one short term solution, replace the lost plants with carbon converters that simulate photosynthesis. This is another huge profit for corporations, assuming we develop them in time.

The only long term solution is to stop population growth and reduce the carbon use. No other solution will have lasting effects, nor will any other solution be sane.

The simple fact of the matter is that we must take responsibility for our use of the planet's resources instead of avoiding accountability.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

God Worship is Religion

When we speak of religion many theists claim they are not religious, but that is a contradiction in terms. Worship of a god is, in itself, a form of religion.


The primary definition of religion is "the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods." So they are either lying to trick more people into accepting them, or they're idiots.

Both are probably true, the preachers need to separate their claims from the others to make it appear special, this is an old tactic in sales, "a hotdog made of steak." It tricks the brain of the less intelligent into thinking that they are different from the others, but the intelligent people can see through this ploy quite clearly.

Right now religions are beginning to flounder, losing their ability to indoctrinate well thanks to the free flow of information, the youth are no longer buying it. Our biggest tool against the tyranny that is religion has always been knowledge, education gives kids the tools to test that knowledge and ensure that it is factual.

The internet cannot be censored, no matter how much money is invested in trying to censor it. This creates an environment in which indoctrination fails, with the proper education the youth can then test any information and verify what they read, all of this is toxic to any totalitarian idea like religion.

Even North Korea is seeing the government's grip on the people weakened, their theocracy is soon to end in a violent and bloody war yet only a few people know of these stirrings. We see the same with the Catholic church, even their pope is beginning to lessen his own grip on the people there.

But the religious zealots are still holding onto their only excuse for hatred, even creating new lies to help justify that hatred. They attempt to call the rejection of their claims a religion, this is because their religion commands them to hate and even kill those of other religions.

Religion is the ultimate divider, it creates an us versus them mentality even through it's own commands. If there is no "them"then the commands cannot be applied. Thus the preachers must convince their sheep that they are not religious, and convince the sheep that everyone else is religious.

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Gods, Religion, and Science

The challenges faced by those who are atheist are innumerable now, because many of us have recently decided to vocally challenge the claims. Religion cannot stand up to scrutiny, none of it does.

Religious people have constructed a double standard, how they test their religion is different than how they test others. They are also very dishonest in their attempts to twist things, so as to convince the nonbeliever that their beliefs are correct.

This is a common tactic used by snake oil salesmen and terrorists. It is no coincidence that terrorism was born from religion, the entire "believe us or suffer" argument is still used by even christians in the USA.

The problem they face is that they cannot convince the majority to embrace their hatred unless they convince everyone that they have some absolute god talking to them. So they get even more insane as the number of people they can convince dwindles to inconsequentiality.

They struggle to convince you that facts are wrong, that their claims require no evidence, and that their assertions should not be questioned. The more they do this, the less influence they have because everyone today is able to verify any statement.

The fun fact here is that none of them have any empirical evidence supporting their gods.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Guns, Money, and Seattle

The law is often touted by those who don't know it but want to abuse it, or use it to abuse others. I recently encountered such a person on first and Yesler of Seattle, Pioneer Square.

A security guard, who was harassing people for smoking attempted to use the law, by lying to the cops. Of course the cops know he's lying, I'm the most regular customer in this area.

But the details are not important, the important part was that he was abusing a law which the police here cannot enforce just to discriminate against one type of person for no reason. This is typically done by religious people, who think they are immune to their own laws but everyone else must follow them.

The end result is that law enforcement become untrusted by people, security companies fail to deliver, and businesses crash as customers decide to just cross the street instead of dealing with an arrogant nit. This is the problem faced in Pioneer Square, businesses are trying to find a balance between policing trouble and inviting customers.

Security companies are often their last resort, but that always fails and thus the businesses always fail when they resort to them. There are uses for security guards, the biggest is as a deterrent.

Deterrents are large, imposing figures that discourage criminal activity. It's a psychological ploy that works very well, the imaginary deterrents will always work better than active ones.

"What you think is happening is always worse than what is really happening," this is a fact of the neural networks we call our brains. Our imaginations are our worst enemies, they will concoct millions of scenarios that will make us fear the unknown.

The problem lies in the active deterrents, such as guns or confrontational security guards, these create an attitude of aggression. They remove the imagination and give people a clear and present target, one for which they can place all aggression on.

Psychologically, when an aggressive target is presented the brain goes into active defense, creating and fueling intensity. This will, inevitably, escalate into violence.

We see the effects often in the USA, comparing to the UK where police are relatively unarmed, most criminal activity in the USA results in violence from someone. In the UK, the imaginary deterrents keep the situation calm enough that criminals will not often resist.

Pioneer Square is losing many of it's good businesses, and all we are getting in return are bars and clubs. These invite criminal activity, and force the law enforcement to tolerate drunken behavior.

In the meantime, the owners of the buildings are driving customers away from good businesses like Starbucks, Subway, tattoo shops, even our local convenience store. This vacuum is deteriorating our neighborhood, then they complain that no one wants to rent their spaces to convince the city to hand them tax breaks for those empty spaces.

The problem that we now face is that there is not enough in our budget to cover them, especially because of the failed transportation projects we have thrown millions at. The best solution is one which even I do not like, but it is required.

we must cap all rents in downtown Seattle, including housing and business rents, to encourage growth. We must also stop allowing building owners to discriminate.

Sunday, October 11, 2015

Terrorism in the USA

The most idiotic arguments come from those who think they're correct only because someone told them they were. From the gun nuts to the creationists, it's always the same arguments.

Now they whine about always hearing the same counter arguments, yet fail to acknowledge their arguments never change. It is telling of a deluded mind, or as Einstein said: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

This habit comes from the fact that these morons refuse to ever learn, either because they fear learning or they are not honest enough to accept new information. Creationists fear learning as it challenges their beliefs, should they ever hold their own claims to the same scrutiny they do for any other god they'd lose all faith.

For gun nuts it is dishonesty, to admit that they are wrong means that they must concede to lying. So they must keep their original lie by adding more lies to cover it up.

Commonly language of these two groups is identical, often they play on emotion and discourage any scrutiny of what they state. They will fire a lot of garbage claims, bullshit points, and obvious lies to overwhelm the opponent, waiting for that moment when you just give up.

The trick to combating this is by staying on topic, even repeating your original point until they address it. The longer they refuse to address that point, the more foolish they look.

Gun psychos are the least honest of all the morons, they will use confusion and fear to dissuade anyone from opposing them. Fear being their primary tactic, once you stop fearing what they claim is a danger they lose their minds.

The other term for their tactics is terrorism. Religious preachers use this tactic as well, scare people into agreeing with them in spite of having no solid evidence to support their claims.

Another terrorist tactic is to target those under the pressure of extreme grief, then use the confusion and desperation of that grief to sell a product. Whether that product is an idea or tangible, it is never a good product if sold during grief.

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Letter to Seattle and Doney Clincs

This notion that different rules apply to humans versus other animals when it comes to compassion is arrogant, and dangerous. It is an archaic notion born of religious superstitions and xenophobia.

While our mammal brains are suppose to be capable of handling situations with compassion and empathy, many humans lack the experiences, knowledge, or open mind to guide these in productive and meaningful ways. Being transgendered, knowing since I was 8 years old, has offered me a unique perspective on our treatment of other animals.

So to address this point anthropomorphically, spay and neuter programs are forcing animals to live with gender disphoria, a horror I have lived for 40 years now because humanity lacks compassion. So I have worked against these spay and neuter programs from behind the curtains, but now it's time to bring this fight to the spotlight.

The double standard we see between how we treat humans and our more distant relatives illustrates that the entire notion of spay and neuter is a scam. To justify this scam they often cite phenomena that humans are responsible for causing.


MYTH: Cats and dogs will overpopulate.

FACT: Due to our intervention, domesticated animals are less capable of surviving against predators. This means that their populations can only increase if we remove possible predators.

During our existence, we have driven nearly half of all life on this planet extinct through our actions. The result is a decline in natural diversity, and we still continue to hunt all other animals without prejudice.

The resulting imbalance has created a need for animals which can live with us, as a species. The number of possible candidates decreases as we poison entire populations out of baseless fears perpetuated by profit hungry businesses.

We have a unique chance to reintroduce some variety among the species that can survive in the world we created, the domesticated species are perfect for this. Their diversity and resilience to our artificial environment make them ideal, and nature loves such situations.


MYTH: The cats and dogs cannot fend for themselves.

FACT: Yes, but to admit this you also admit that your claims of overpopulation are fallacious. This is a tactic that feeds on empathy in order to perpetuate the industry, the same way tobacco companies would advertise.


MYTH: They can spread disease to humans if allowed to be wild.

FACT: Most illnesses cannot be transmitted across species. Of the few that can, we have vaccines now.

Modern medicine has allowed humans to survive deadly illnesses, it has also extended our lifespan causing our own overpopulation. Yes, medicine is one of the primary causes of overpopulation.

The only possible way for cats and dogs to overpopulate is by treating them all with our medicine. Without medicine, overpopulation is impossible.


MYTH: Invasive species are dangerous.

FACT: Often this us used to appeal to fear when all other tactics fail. The fact is that there are no truly invasive species, other species in the environment will evolve, causing them to adapt to the new ecosystem created by any newly introduced species.


MYTH: Spay and neuter causes no harm to them.

FACT: Yes, it causes drastic physiological changes to all mammals, ask a doctor why they require invasive psychoanalysis for the humans who request this. Hormones are regulated, balanced, based on the gamete producers, hormones control our emotions.

So yes, by torturing me and removing my right to choose to have mine removed willingly, you prove that this procedure is dangerous. I am able to take medication to regulate my hormones, yet they cannot.

So to cause that harm to them is immoral, life in a body you do not like because of one tiny thing is torture. My two feline companions are the only thing keeping me from harming others, and your pricing of licenses is solely for profit.

Funding spay and neuter clinics is wrong, immoral, and heinous.


Related articles of importance:

Gamete production, sex hormone secretion, and mating behavior uncoupled
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0018506X84900473

Hormone Effects on Behavior
http://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-1-4614-1997-6_59

Steroid hormone effects on neurons subserving behavior
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0959438895801103

_________________
The statistics of natural selection on animal populations.
http://www.cabdirect.org/abstracts/19850191884.html;jsessionid=888180779C57444ADC1C2914136C3C38

Life historical consequences of natural selection
http://repository.ias.ac.in/10284/

The strength of phenotypic selection in natural populations
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/319193

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

The Issue of Morality

The issue of morality is used by those selling religion because most people only know what events transpired during their lives, and within their limited locale. The fact is, what we call "morality" is a series of highly subjective rules that benefit society the most.

Killing is a perfect example, murder is kling that is against the laws of society, and we kill a lot as a society. In self defense, or defense of a weaker being, killing is generally considered okay, and laws reflect this.

In the past, we would kill for grudges, anger, resources, and religion. Today we kill far less for resources, and this reason for killing is now considered immoral, thus it has always been subjective.

The reasons we now consider many acts to be immoral is because it harms society, our species, and slows progress. So we developed alternatives to these acts, for resources we use commerce and trade instead.

Let us consider the harm kling causes. Suppose you contracted cancer, and in some random shooting the person on the verge of curing that cancer was killed.

That is a direct harm caused to one's self by the killing which illustrates the selfish point here, but we can stretch that further. Perhaps the one killed develops a machine which then leads to the cure for your cancer.

Now we are stretching the thought track beyond what dealers of the drug called religion can even consider. The machine to cure analogy is also the most common event in history.

More often than not, a small discovery cascades into larger ones, using critical thought produces those small steps. The term used to describe this is the butterfly effect.

Now consider the instinctual drive to protect your progeny, to promote your genetic chemistry. This requires you defend your progeny, and thus if they got the cancer later, you could have inevitably prevented a cure by not defending the one who was killed.

Thus, we form laws, society supports itself by discouraging any activity which weakens it using these laws. It is preemptively satisfying your instinctual drive to survive and propagate.

If you look closely at everything we call morally wrong for which there is a rationale, you will see it all impacts your chances of survival.

Monday, October 5, 2015

Sports Arenas in Seattle

Sports in the USA is almost as much of a problem as guns, however no one talks about the problems caused by sports. Forgetting, for the moment, the riots that have always benn common, arenas are the more common problem.

While there is an appearance of sales increase for a handful of businesses, the profits are negligible. Most arena denizens know that they are spending a fortune for their vice, so they withhold most of the money to spend at the arena.

The prices of arena vendors are artificially inflated, by the high rent they must pay for their location. These prices are set by the the owner of the arena, however the vendors must also pay fees to the sports team, and the league organization.

This results in a huge increase of the price, a product that costs one dollar to produce will cost the consumer up to 25 USD, even food and beverage. To reduce competition, the arenas banned all outside food and drink, even if it is necessary for health, to make it worse, the city government and law enforcement allow them to do that.

This forces the arena denizens to spend a fortune on even their own needs, and discourages them from spending in the city that collects almost no taxes from these sales. Fees from the sports organizations are not taxed, none of their profits goes into the city at all, this includes ticket sales.

Now, the biggest part of this problem, in downtown Seattle we see this most, once the game starts there is no parking for any actual customers, none. The streets are bare, save the few brave and healthy individuals who live in the city itself.

This covers the largest portion of profitable business hours for local businesses, especially in Pioneer Square. Prior to the game, the arena denizens use the facilities of local businesses here, making a huge mess, without ever buying anything, and that costs the businesses money which they cannot recuperate because there is no parking for any actual customers.

The rowdiness of the crowds also discourages actual shoppers, as arena denizens are freakishly violent, unruly, and truly disgusting. The city pays for all of this, fronting the bill for cleanup and policing, while businesses fail because of it.

Our city counsel ignores this problem, as they are probably getting handouts from the sports organizations, then they wonder why Pioneer Square is not revitalizing. These two arenas hold games all year long, the noise and air pollution, also the litter and urine, are a serious problem here because of these people.

The local bars do not produce as many belligerent and violent people as the sports arena does. Pioneer Square reeks of urine after every game, and the homeless get blamed for it.

As these arena denizens leave their game, they crowd the streets, scream, yell, blast obnoxious music at ear splitting volumes, and intimidate every possible customer in the area. The insult to this injury is that most do not even live in the city.

Friday, October 2, 2015

Gun Sense is wrong ... and Right

The problem with many people is that they conflate an increase in available information with an increase in presence of phenomena described by the information. This comes from our old mindset, a time before the world wide internet.

So let's take a trip to a time before information was free, as in freely expressed, transmitted, and viewable. Back to the age I grew up in, the 1980s and early 1990s.

Prior to to that age, information came even slower due to a lack of outlets, before that it was even slower due to a lack of media. Remember, most of our modern technology was not available 20 years ago, and it was very expensive to own even a clunky 8-bit computer with no modem.

A modem, for those too young to remember, was required to connect to the few BBS systems available using a telephone. Each modern website would be an entire BBS, and to change to a different "website" you had to hang up, then dial a new phone number.

Any information about current events, government activities, even scientific advances came to us filtered by the ruby lenses of the mainstream media. An outlet of information that is only for profit, and it is censored by the very government who is invested in keeping the masses quiet and uninformed.

As for science, scientific research was discouraged, and businesses kept it from the masses, a monopolized collection of information which was accessible only by corporate elites. Today the scientific community is very pleased that this is no longer the case, which is why we see more advances in both science and technology.

Fast forwarding to today, all of us who grew up in the last 3 or 4 decades are now seeing 300% more information. Ultimately, this has been called "information overload," the result is an illusion of increased events, phenomena, and occurrences.

The reality is that the information is increasing, while most of what that information describes is remaining the same. Mass shootings are the perfect example, there is no actual increase in these shootings.

We are, however, getting live feeds from every one of the shootings now. There is a natural shift in such events, depending on public state in a specific locale, which can cause an increase or decrease based the environment and social climate.

The social climate is usually the primary cause for these changes, but not the primary reason for the event. The reasons for the events are often a separate issue.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

The Responsibility of Guns

When gun violence plagues this country you get two reaction, one side cries for more regulations, the other cries about the first using an example as an example. The fact is, all tragedy is an example of where we must improve.

Regulations can help alleviate problems, so long as the regulations are reasonable and demonstrably effective. One great idea is better enforcement of background checks and psychological evaluations.

Neither of these harm anyone, we know they will reduce the number of criminals who can legally obtain a weapon, they will also reduce the number of weapons in the hands of potentially dangerous individuals. As a side effect, we will see a reduction in guns available for theft.

One factor ignored by the faux-right is that more guns means more opportunity for those guns to be stolen from irresponsible owners. Addendum that could be added is that if you had a weapon stolen from you, you are considered irresponsible and not allowed one.

This would reduce the number of illegally obtainable weapons, by reducing the number of guns in the hands of the gun owners that are giving all gun owners a bad name. The sad part of this, the responsible gun owners are being punished for the acts of irresponsible gun owners because of a lack of regulation.

Every time a legally obtained gun is used in a crime, the responsible gun owners all look bad, the entire industry looks bad. Yet somehow, responsible gun owners have been convinced that the regulations would hurt them instead.