What can the NSA do? Plus other news updates / Emotional state / Searching for my…

A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues. Theodore Roosevelt

What can the NSA do? Plus other news updates

Well, it turns out that the NSA can do quite much, including tapping to all internet and phone traffic, filtering and data-mining it, etc. Nobody really knows what it can do, as it all is so secret. But from the article we can conclude, that Orwell's 1984 has not turned out to be an unrealized dystopia. If I were an US voter, I might ask my congressman to create some oversight on such a sweeping spying program.
At the same time, many developments are hinting to a birth of a new multi-polar order. It seems that USA cannot really govern the world as it pleases, as China, India, Japan, EU, and Brazil are all getting stronger and the neo-conservative (another oxymoron: there is nothing conservative in neo-conservative politics) project is failing. I am happy to be alive at this time of history - very interesting times are these.
According to Mr. Bush, Iran is one of the serious threats to the peace and stability, and certainly a part of the "axis of evil". In short, a country which USA should not support by its tax-payers money. However, according to a Russian paper Georgia is using financial aid from USA to buy gas from Iran. The great game is on - and there are no rules, just opportunism and sometimes also long term strategic thinking.
Mr. Rumsfeld spoke about the terrorists: They will either succeed in changing our way of life, or we will succeed in changing theirs". Many would claim that the terrorists had already changed the way of life in the USA, but they are just hoodoos.
A list of international hotspots by the CIA include India, China, Egypt, Cambodia, Darfur, Iran, Iraq, and others. Die Tageszeitung claims that NATO intervention in Darfur is "inevitable" and that US is taking Darfur up in the security council this month. That would be good.

Emotional state

Yesterday, I made an unexpected observation. If I was sitting on the reclining chair and reading, writing, I was happy and calm. When I moved on the couch and started to watch the TV, I was suddenly lonely and miserable. I tried moving back and forth several times and my emotional state changed every time. Moral: if one is lonely, it is not wise to watch the TV.

Searching for my extraordinary life

The course continued and was not as fun as yesterday. The basic idea seemed to be that we are all just a punch of jerks, full of all kinds of fear every moment of our lifes and that fear guides our lives (army? medieval Christianity?) . We also have all kinds of excuses for not doing what we want to do (agreed). The way to get redemption, to live an extraordinary life, is to establish a strict set of rules for everything: for not being late, for not eating cheesecake, for telling the spouse everything, for loving the spouse, etc. One also needs a set of punishments for breaking the rules. We also got to know at least too many times that "life is life" and "time is time", which I do admit, but do not consider overly surprising, or informative.
I find this emphasis on rules most strange. The lecturer is from an orthodox Jewish family. I do not know whether it explains the need for rules and punishments. Or is it coming from the Calvinistic tradition? The emphasis seems to hide huge insecurity of oneself. Since I do not have any insecurity, I find the whole thing BS. I will continue to live by my only rule: doing everything un-reasonably much, which cause my life to be happy and nice. Even eating a cheesecake is OK.
It was curious to notice, that the rules the lecturer so proudly told us, were all very well aligned with the latest fads around. For example, the huge emphasis on going to the gym is just a fad. In the past, adults were not that preoccupied with their bodies. Can you imagine Einstein rushing to the gym every morning?
For the last 30 minutes, the topic was an idea that we have our real self and an double agent, which keeps having monologues in our minds. The idea makes some sense. However, I think we really cannot master our minds, our brains are doing things without conscious orders or permissions. Trying to stop that completely is futile and may be dangerous. I agree, that repeating over and over all kinds of excuses for not doing something one has committed to do, is stupid and counterproductive. Maybe the concept of having two agents in our minds rings true in some of us, but not me. I found the idea naive to the extreme.
In the end, the lecturer emphasized that the most important thing is to live by our beliefs and values. Doing so equals to living a great, if not extraordinary, life. I agree on this and have been trying to do so for a long time. It just does not happen easily.
I got utterly bored during the class today. Repeating same ideas over and over and using very bad English (you know like etc and cursing as a seafarer) is not my cup of tea. I am not too tempted to sit in the last 3 hours tomorrow.

Priorities clear

So, Bush promised to rid America of its addiction to oil, to make renewable fuels a reality. He also promised some money, up to at most a few billion. Today, the speech is over, the news crew has gone, so it is time to go back to real priorities. So, the news is that Bush is to request $70B more for war funding. Well, how do we reconcile these two goals? Bush wants to get rid of oil addiction, but puts his money elsewhere. He must be truly addicted. The withdrawal symptoms are going to severe. Unfortunately he is not the one to suffer the symptoms, it will be ordinary Americans and citizens of other countries.
Oops, $70 billion were not enough: Bush to seek $120 billion for wars, sources say. Just spending this $120 billion on energy systems would be a good start to make US citizens reallly safe and secure.
Maybe Mr. Bush could walk his talk for just $28 million and pay the federal researchers of renewable energies, who are about to get fired. That would still leave $119972000000 in the extra military budget. Should be quite enough for creating a bigger mess than the current one.

A happy group

I enjoy looking down on the street from the Buddha's Delight-restaurant. One sees pimps going to the strip-joints, drunkards tottering with their walking sticks in search of cheap booze, food lovers on the way to Pho Pasteur, and Chinese minding their own businesses. Today, in midst of them all, I spotted a group of 3 blind men with one seeing guy. The seeing guy had not changed his style since Saturday Night Fever was moving the hips of the hip: large glasses, shoulder-lenght curly hair, colorful jacket. The blind guys were laughing at something. One of them looked like the tall, iron-teethed man from old Bond-movies. Except that he was smiling and gesturing lively with his free hand.
I was delighted when they came to Buddha's delight and sat in the table next to mine. The tall guy was laughing and smiling all the time, the other two blind guys were telling jokes. Mainly they were teasing the 70s-man, who was about to undergo a surgery. He got really scared when the blind men told him that the surgeons will pump him full of gas during the surgery. He did not relish the prospect.
The blind men really made my day. Their joy and happiness were infectious. Seeing how well they managed gave me hope; not even blindness is a reason for not smiling and laughing and living a happy life.

Confessing or bragging

After reading S's comment on confessions, I came to think whether the CEO's confession was really a confession in the sense as defined in the course: something one is embarrassed of, reluctant to tell, and source of worry etc. Let me tell another excerpt from her confession. She confessed that whenever she would see a cute man walking by the office, she would tell her secretary to find out his name and then have sex with the cute man later that day. Now, what can she be embarrassed of? Using the hierarchical power or sex? I would assume sex, since I am sure she is not embarrassed of using her power in general. I would say she was actually not embarrassed but bragging - and also enjoying reminiscing about the sexual acts. I think it would be much more embarrassing for the cute man to tell anyone about the act. And, for that matter, I would assume that the CEO would not have confessed if she had had sex with the chairman of the board on her way to the CEO's chair. That would be embarrassing, indeed, for a powerful non-sicko CEO, wife, and mother.
Somehow confession and claiming embarrassment for sexual acts in which one is the active party and initiating party is kind of fake. I am not sure though. This is an interesting thing to think about.

Mongering and paranoia

Some commentators expect US and Israel to attack Iran in a month or so. Maybe they are a bit paranoid, for I cannot see how Bush could survive long term oil prices of well over $100, even at $200. But Bush has promised to defend Israel if someone attack it. Let's hope not. I just wonder why Israel is so special, why not defend innocent civilians in Darfur, Kongo, or elsewhere where internal and external conflicts are claiming millions of lives? Maybe they do not have the right religion.

Bush's bosses are spewing excuses

It certainly did not take long before the real CEOs of the US government came forward and told that their mouthpiece, Mr. Bush, had not really meant what he said two days back. US does not want to reduce oil imports from the Middle-East, saying so was just an example. They do not even want to reduce the growth of oil consumption. They just want to fiddle a little with corn-petrol and stuff. Well, the farmers need their subsidies. At the same time, the budget Bush has just agreed on causes The Energy Department will begin laying off researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the next week or two because of cuts to its budget., for a budget cut of $28 million. Wow!
As someone pointed out, just raising the CAFE standard to 40 miles per gallon would free US from importing from the Middle East. It might also force the Detroit carmakers to rethink their designs. They might even survive.
If I were a president and my "aides" would tell that I did not mean what I said, I would get embarrassed.

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs January to February 2006".