This bridge, Galloping Gertie, is the one I referred to a few days back. It is famous, those who have not heard of it should remain silent in disbelief. But to suggest the story was made up by collusion between myself and some newspeople decades before I was born is, well, let’s say some people come to this blog for the wrong reasons. I should have put this picture with the original article. But I'll settle for any chance to make my detractors look like idiots. The Hippie and Wallace used to act this way. Instead of saying you might be mistaken because they’d heard otherwise, they’d outright call you a liar. Strange, weird people, indeed. They make friends just everywhere they go.
Another new book, “Project Cyclops”, started right after I set the last one down. This is a spy and terrorist production but it centers around technical topics I [happen to] know. Rocketry, lasers, helicopters, geography. The author knows his stuff and makes no errors. Around 1970, there was a proposal to launch satellites by using dry ice and lasers. The power source, the laser, remained on the ground and vaporized the carbon dioxide, dropping the cost by ten times. There were no lasers powerful enough back then.The book starts with a splash. Literally, a guy in a 2,000 year old sailboat [design] shoots a missile of a Hind helicopter with a pocket pistol during a hurricane. I said the author didn't make errors, not that he understood the bounds of probability. But by now, we all know how our planet is seething with dishonorably discharged ex-Marines who know how to handle every situation with a buck knife. The more so if they punched out a superior officer.
Change my plans about the open mic tomorrow. I usually stay away unless it is a coffee house, which I don’t frequent because there aren’t any convenient ones. Why the change? Well, significant numbers of fellow musicians, including Billy-Bill have called over the past few days and given the personal invite. I will not forward that invite along because the club is a bit rough and tough, but if you want to show, it is Buddy’s Place from 8 to midnight. As always, arrive early if you don’t want others to snag your tunes.
I see the media has finally invented a term for the semi-legal bank slowdown of repossessions that is keeping over three million properties off the market. They call it “foreclosure stuffing”. Clog the courts with so many foreclosures it will take years to clean up the mess. My regulars know the concept was reported here long years before big media caught on. All those declarations that prices are rising are just trying to juice the market. I suspect this is the year the funding for phony federal “extend and pretend” subsidies will tank. The banks and the government are fully aware of what would happen if those properties were allowed to hit the market.
What do I calculate would be the average house price in southern Florida is the free market capitalist system of supply and demand was allowed to operate without interference? I’d say $20,000, with the former McMansions top-ending at $50,000. Folks, that is all a house is worth in this part of the world. And that is only in the few remaining desirable neighborhoods. Desirable meaning Christian, professional, and white. The laundered drug-money pouring into Miami from Latin America does not constitute economic recovery.
The next bubble [about to burst] has to be those student loans. The same people who borrow 120% to buy a house will have offspring who borrow for careers that never materialize. Their payback strategy is not based on repayment with their existing abilities, but on making a bundle at some indistinct point in the future. What you could call an educational Ponzi scheme. Did you know student loans total more than all credit card debt combined? And how do you like this wagging dink gif I borrowed to show what I think of people who think they can borrow their way to success.
ADDENDUM
Since I chose a fairly standard blog template when I began so many years ago, it does not surprise me to find other blogs with the same patterns. But I never saw one until today. This one is from Sweden and concerns philosophy. Allow me to point out some differences to offset the similarities. First, this shows what my blog would look like without manipulating the HTML code. The “AOL” look, with wasted column space along the right edge. You can’t see it here, but once the marginal comment stops, the remainder of the blog does not use the space.
The author is Swedish, but their language follows the same basic punctuation rules as English, so this philosopher doesn’t know how to use the spacebar. You’ve heard of run-on sentences? This guy also has run-on paragraphs. The first one shown here if you squint contains a sentence with 62 words. And since 2009, he has published less than 170 articles. These are just things I happened to notice and mention. Nor would he take 20 minutes of valuable philosophical time to place that 8 pixel border around the image to offset it from the same color background of my work.
I also view philosophy (and their postings) about such problems [such] as poverty with great suspicion. You don’t solve this type of issue by getting expensive university degrees and writing about it. If you want to solve a social problem, studying it is not really the best idea. It’s like building churches to combat world starvation and disease. Yet twenty centuries later, some people are still doing just that.
Last, the Swedish author plasters his material with links, so he has learned that scripting command. Just the one. But after the first few links, you discover he does not always chose sites that are in English. Duh. Must be some philosopher thing he’s trying to prove. And, unlike this blog, his links tend to be supportive rather than informative.
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