Rich Hoffman's Blog, page 388
November 26, 2014
Communism in Ferguson: The unstated menace behind violant riots in America
Watch all the videos on this article for the proof of the following text:
They may not call it by name, but much of the behavior rooted in what has become known as black community relations is undoubtedly communist. During the Cold War communist sleeper cells penetrated college campuses and black leadership to inject that vile political philosophy into those communities through a mask of progressivism. Two movements spun off this activity, the counter-culture hippie movement and the various Civil Rights protests advanced by the Black Panthers—not to be confused with the good work of the Republican Martin Luther King. Behind much of that radical behavior in the 60s and 70s was communist insurgency.
During the 80s and 90s the communists changed their names and hid their activity behind labor union policy, black community religion, and progressive politics. Occasionally they called themselves who they were, but generally hid their behavior behind the designation of “alternative.” In most large cities there are always “alternative” newspapers that mostly steer their efforts at college campuses, sexual perverts, and the black community. In St Louis just such a newspaper was called the Revolution and they were actually at the press conference with Governor Jay Nixon prior to the Ferguson grand jury decision. The exchange can be seen at the video below followed by the way The Blaze reported it. If anyone doubted these claims I have made here, and in the past about the influences which have driven black communities all over America into the very poverty they suffer from, this reporter from the Revolution is all the proof needed. Clearly he advocated the very behavior that the people in Ferguson followed as soon as the grand jury decision was made.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon was interrupted Monday evening while delivering a press conference ahead of the Ferguson grand jury decision by a supposed journalist with a communist newspaper.
“Excuse, me! Governor Nixon, wouldn’t the lack of an indictment be a justification of police violence and lead to more police violence —,” the man, identified as Larry Evers from the “Revolution” newspaper, said.
“I’ve called on this man first,” interjected Nixon.
However, Evers continued asking his question.
“And if I might ask you, you need to let the alternative press speak here,” he said.
“So wouldn’t a lack of indictment mean fear for black people all over this country and effectively a green light for police violence?” Evers continued. “And second, I would like to pose to you, how you would respond to call by … the Revolution Communist Party that if officer Darren Wilson is not indicted … the country be brought to a halt through energetic, civil disobedience by millions of people.”
Nixon dismissed Evers by saying he did not know the grand jury’s verdict or what the prosecutor was set to announce.
Progressive groups largely in control of the black neighborhoods have exposed their tendency toward social collectivism have for years used them to advocate the spread of communism as Karl Marx always intended. That demographic group has been used as pawns in the intense desire to spread communism through capitalist economies. Most of the protestors in the wake of the Ferguson riots would not call themselves communists, but their social beliefs fall nearly in line with that old collectivist mentality. This is because they were trained to believe in communism without calling those beliefs by the official name—instead it was called “democracy,” or “fairness.” However the underlying beliefs were communism advanced through deceit to exploit a race of people who were already primed for revolution.
People like Larry Evers—the communist reporter are just reminders of how much the “alternative” wing of social politics are manipulating the ignorant and easily swayed toward a revolution of their desire. They will exploit any opportunity, and the Ferguson grand jury announcement was just as good as any. Those who still believe in communism must find reasons to churn up the disenchanted with a level of hate that is driven by a perception of their own creation. For instance, the thugs, goons, and low-life’s who took to the streets to vandalize their community supposedly over outrage that a young black male was shot by a white police officer—immediately targeted the capitalist endeavors in their communities. One of the first targets was the burning down of a Little Casers Pizza place which they will regret terribly in a few weeks when they want a $5 pizza. Another target was a local Dollar Store along with many other store fronts with an obvious militant attitude against capitalist oriented objectives. The rage toward the police is only a ruse as they have been portrayed to represent the protection of private property for “white, capitalist, America” and the “imperialism that it imposes throughout the world.
One of the primary beliefs of communism is the eradication of private property so that everything is collectively owned. The anger at the police is that one of their prime motives is the protection of private property, so when a mass of protestors want to insult the police, they attack the police ability to provide that security. That is the military objective behind the behavior. For the street thug, they are not aware of this higher strategy, but people like Larry Evers is as he represents the radical far left beliefs. His point in addressing Governor Jay Nixon was to let the public know that communists were present behind the Ferguson riots providing news outlets like CNN, and MSNBC along with USA Today to appear as left-leaning moderates. Once the public accepts that those news outlets are the baseline of belief, then outlets like talk radio, and Fox News look to be as radical as the communists—in the court of public opinion. But, CNN and the like-minded affiliates are slowly percolating the same progressive positions inspired by Cold War communism with gentle nudges in support of the protestors—radicalized on the streets by newspapers written by people like Evers, or reverends in their churches invoking open communism through collective salvation.
Most of America is wondering what the riots are really about because what is being shown doesn’t make logical sense. The reason for the mystery is not racism or even aggressive police work—but in the bringing down of “white” (capitalist) America in favor of a social movement toward mass collectivism. Those radicals don’t care if it is little “C” communism or progressivism—they only care to advance their cause against capitalism—by any means. To understand the Ferguson riots it is only possible to identify the correct forces behind the movement instead of the allegations of racism—which are used to mask it. To understand what is really behind the riots just read Larry Evers or any progressive newspaper in any city in the country and you will see.
For instance this is how the progressive newspaper City Beat in Cincinnati covered the story. City Beat’s approach is to sell itself as everybody’s friend regarding life in Cincinnati. They tell you the highlights of the news, what music is playing where, and what’s the latest and greatest in the art world. But sprinkled into their dialogue are heavy-handed progressive diatribes with a very left-leaning tendency. Click the link below.
http://citybeat.com/cincinnati/blog-6113-morning_news_and_stuff.html
Now, I’m sure people with the memory of a shallow stream dried up during a July drought will think that I’m reaching by making such a comparison. For those people the proof is in the link below from that same publication mourning the loss of Mark Mallory as mayor.
http://citybeat.com/cincinnati/article-19452-conservative_policies_and_progressive_voices.html
City Beat is not as open about their social collectivism as Larry Evers is, but their intent is the same, to stir unrest among the black communities so that protests in their favor will always have a willing army. Every city has these provocateurs, and it is they who keep those poor people impoverished with derelict concepts and faulting thinking. It is the sympathy toward communism that is so implanted in black communities that these progressive newspapers use to churn up their desire for revolution against any symbol of capitalism, whether it is a business, or the police who protect those businesses. A whole society of people have been kept in deliberate ignorance by social reformers like Larry Evers with the intent to use them to advance a social agenda started during the Cold War—which is still alive and well, and very much a threat. The evidence of that threat is the Ferguson riots.
How serious is this situation? Well, read this link and you’ll know the extent.
Rich Hoffman
November 25, 2014
Edward Leedskalnin: Secrets of magnatisim and the tragedy of “soiled” young girls
I really like Edward Leedskalnin. He was my kind of guy and is one of those obscure geniuses who never had a fair shake during his lifetime, but likely held the secrets that many in the human race most decidedly crave. It is likely that he had the intelligence of Einstein without the fame or platform—and being a natural recluse whose hobby was “thinking,” the outside world just never considered the importance of his work or gave him the respect he deserved. But Leedskalnin likely preferred it that way.
Edward Leedskalnin (Latvian: Edvards Liedskalniņš) (January 12, 1887, Stāmeriena parish, Livonia; December 7, 1951, Miami) was an eccentric Latvian emigrant to the United States and amateur sculptor who single-handedly built the monument known as Coral Castle in Florida. He was also known for his obscure theories on magnetism.
Edward Leedskalnin was born January 12, 1887, according to World War I draft registration records, in Stāmeriena parish, Latvia. Little is known of his childhood, aside from the fact that he was not wealthy and achieved only a fourth-grade education. However Edward was a sickly boy, and often spent his time inside reading books — eventually leading him to discontinue his schooling as it “bored him”. For Ed, his development of a yearning to obtain knowledge became a passionate and potent driving force in many endeavors throughout his later life.[2] At the age of 26, he was engaged to marry Agnes Scuffs, a girl ten years younger.[3] However, the girl that Leedskalnin referred to as his “Sweet Sixteen” broke the engagement the night before their wedding, so he emigrated to North America[4] where he found work in various lumber camps in Canada, California, and Texas.
Then, after contracting a case of tuberculosis, Leedskalnin moved to the warmer climate of Florida around 1919, where he purchased a small piece of land in Florida City. Over the next 20 years, Leedskalnin putatively constructed and lived within a massive coral monument he called “Rock Gate Park”, dedicated to the girl who had left him years before. Working alone at night, Leedskalnin eventually quarried and sculpted over 1,100 short tons (997,903 kg) of coral into a monument that would later be known as the Coral Castle. He used various basic tools, several made from timber and parts of an old Ford; first he built a house out of coral and timber, then he gradually built the monuments for which he is famous.[4] In spite of his private nature, he eventually opened his monument to the public, offering tours for 10 cents. He was a surprisingly accommodating host, even cooking hot dogs for visiting children in a pressure cooker of his own invention.
When people asked Leedskalnin how he had moved all of the stone by himself, he refused to give over his method and would only reply to whoever was asking with the same statement: “I understand the laws of weight and leverage and I know the secrets of the people who built the pyramids (being those at the site at Giza in Egypt).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Leedskalnin
Coral Castle is a stone structure created by the Latvian American eccentric Edward Leedskalnin (1887–1951) north of the city of Homestead, Florida in Miami-Dade County at the intersection of South Dixie Highway (U.S. 1) and SW 157th Avenue. The structure comprises numerous megalithic stones (mostly limestone formed from coral), each weighing several tons.[2] It currently serves as a privately operated tourist attraction. Coral Castle is noted for legends surrounding its creation that claim it was built single-handedly by Leedskalnin using reverse magnetism and/or supernatural abilities to move and carve numerous stones weighing many tons.[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_Castle
He was also a writer and published a few books, one on education and politics, and another on the mysteries of magnetism. Leedskalnin’s first and longest booklet, a treatise on moral education, was printed on only the left-hand pages, and begins with the following preface:
Reader, if for any reason you do not like the things I say in the little book, I left just as much space as I used, so you can write your own opinion opposite it and see if you can do better.
The Author
In the first section, Leedskalnin vents his anger at his “Sweet Sixteen”, arguing that girls should be kept pure, and that boys are primarily a soiling influence upon them. On page 4 of A Book in Every Home, Leedskalnin writes:
“Everything we do should be for some good purpose but as everybody knows there is nothing good that can come to a girl from a fresh boy. When a girl is sixteen or seventeen years old, she is as good as she ever will be, but when a boy is sixteen years old, he is then fresher than in all his stages of development. He is then not big enough to work but he is too big to be kept in a nursery and then to allow such a fresh thing to soil a girl — it could not work on my girl. Now I will tell you about soiling. Anything that is done, if it is done with the right party it is all right, but when it is done with the wrong party, it is soiling, and concerning those fresh boys with the girls, it is wrong every time.”
The second section continues along the theme of moral education, with several aphorisms aimed at parents regarding the proper way to raise children. The last, “Political” section reveals that the reclusive Leedskalnin had strong political views. He advocates voting for property owners only (and in proportion to their holdings), and argues that “Anyone who is too weak to make his own living is not strong enough to vote.”
Some writers have suggested that Leedskalnin’s booklet contains further information on his electromagnetic research and philosophies encoded in its pages, and the blank pages are provided for the reader to fill in their decrypted solutions. It has also been suggested that Leedskalnin’s frequent referral to his “Sweet Sixteen” may in fact refer to the numerological and/or scientific relevance of the number sixteen to his research and theories.[6]
Leedskalnin’s ideas may appear unusual. He wrote that a mother’s most important task is to ensure that her daughter remains “chaste and faithful”:[4]
“In case a girl’s mamma thinks that there is a boy somewhere who needs experience then she, herself, could pose as an experimental station for that fresh boy to practice on and so save the girl. Nothing can hurt her any more. She has already gone through all the experience that can be gone through and so in her case it would be all right”
I find myself agreeing emphatically with Leedskalnin on most of his social and political positions and believe that he was tapped into the elusive power of magnetism as they have a direct effect on concepts of anti-gravity manipulation. His science as obscure as it was indicated by his writing was firmly rooted in a value system driven obviously by the lost love of a potential wife whom it appears he never got over. He applied his massive intellect toward building a magnificent castle garden for her, but she never came. Even at the turn of the century, he was already observing the corrosive effect that males have on females when he references how they “soil them.” And he’s right, just imagine what his thoughts of girls today would be—they are “soiled” at age 11 and 12 now through the same public education system that he found so boring.
Leedskalnin chose to be a recluse it appears for similar reasons that I limit my social contacts—because people are disappointing—they often fail to live up to their potential and are often relegated to poor personal standards. Leedskalnin saw one of those social failures occurring at the young age of women becoming soiled by males—which then lowers the ambition of the males ones they get what they wanted—the benefits of the young woman’s loins. I often have similar thoughts, older women look too often like used up husks and males no longer want to hunt in their loins since the endeavor becomes easy. So the males turn toward younger women not yet ruined by life and its disappointments. Currently we have an education system which seeks to exacerbate this crisis instead of rectifying it with value and that is certainly not good for civilization. Knowing these kinds of things makes dealing with people difficult—deeply laborious in fact—because people can only take from you and have little to give back leaving the thinking person always feeling emptied by such human presences.
So are people like Leedskalnin wrong? Of course not, nobody else in America or the world currently has been levitating three-ton rocks around with anti-gravity devices—no university has discovered his secrets through his decoded writings. He left hints, but a non-thinking world just doesn’t have what it takes to perform the task. And to him the origin of the problem was with women—a woman that left him at the altar likely for a more exciting man. He blames the girl’s mother for not establishing the proper virtue in causing her heart to behold a man who could lift massive stones with just simple garden tools and an ancient secret as opposed to the football star, the Wall Street financier, or the fancy pants scum bag who could purchase a large diamond for her finger to show off to her friends. A failure to have a society of quality women has led to a degeneration of men who simply no longer wish to work for anything any more—especially sex. The young men of our day are a grotesque species pampered from birth to have everything given to them so as adults they only want to soil up women to deposit themselves in so that they can return back to their video games. It is that loss of intellect that has prevented others from discovering the secrets of Leedskalnin even though he posed the challenge gently hoping for takers to solve his riddles. Sadly, most of a century later—he has not had any real takers because of the soiled women and lazy men rotten from their public educations. I like Leedskalnin so much because for once I feel like I’m not the only one saying these kinds of things. For society, they have to weigh out the value of collective foolishness over individual genius—such as what Edward Leedskalnin had. For me, I’ll pick the advice of a guy who can levitate giant rocks over the average Joe who only wants to soil women, any day of the week. The values of the two are not even relative to one another. And it is in the former that the keys to civilization’s future reside. The trouble is that we do not teach our young to recognize this value—which is a tragic loss to human potential now and so long as it continues.
Rich Hoffman
November 24, 2014
Mighty Mike and ‘Blackfish': In defence of Sea World–the hypocrisy of CNN
It’s not a secret that I support and love the Newport Aquarium. Over the years I have never grown tired of it, and consider it one of the great Midwest destination points. For travelers coming from New York, Europe, and Malaysia or anywhere for that matter, even Florida—the Newport Aquarium is a combination of spectacular river views, one of the best overlooks of the Cincinnati cityscape there is coupled with an intense love of aquatic conservation. It is a Cincinnati treasure that never wears out. The sharks, and fish exhibits are wonderful—they are top class. But, it is the Turtle Canyon and Alligator Alley that really set this aquarium apart from others and makes Newport such a special place. The animals at the aquarium are lucky to be there—especially Mighty Mike—the 14 ft alligator designated for destruction in Florida when he was found to be too much of a menace to leave alone by the conservation department. Mighty Mike if left in the wild would have been destroyed—but because of places like the Newport Aquarium there was a justifiable reason to capture the large animal and put him in a resort so people could learn about him while also giving him the most optimal surroundings to retire in as he is estimated to be around 50 years old—old for an alligator.
Mighty Mike left the Aquarium in 2011 for a bit of a tour at a zoo but has returned in the spring of 2014 to a new exhibit much more accommodating for the large creature. Here Mike gets spoon fed a few times a week and gets to hang out in a perfectly climate controlled area that never changes. The new exhibit area spans 44 feet and holds 8,000 gallons of water. This makes the new area 30 percent bigger than Mighty Mike’s previous display space. His viewing height is just over 40 inches above floor level when he’s floating in the water. This puts Mighty Mike at the perfect height for children’s viewing.
The water temperature is kept at 80 degrees, ideal for American alligators. New heaters were installed in the area to assure the temperature is met year-round, and new UV sterilization systems assure that the water quality and clarity is pristine for the Aquarium’s large guest. In addition, a 12-foot by 14-foot basking area was constructed for Mighty Mike’s favorite pastime: sunning.
Over 7,000 pounds of concrete have been mixed, colored and hand-applied to the new exhibit area to create faux-rock work, along with over 3,000 pounds of sand for the habitat.
http://www.fox19.com/story/16578564/mighty-mike-returning-to-newport-aquarium
Without tourism like some of the alligator farms in Florida and the Newport Aquarium, animals like Mighty Mike would be destroyed as a menace. If he lived in Africa which hosts a human population still subservient to wildlife due to technological insufficiency Mighty Mike would not have many natural predators. But in Florida—he was just too big to be kept in the wild. Mankind is not subservient to animal life, but is in command of it—that is an important distinction for what I’m going to say next. Also, human life is not more important than intellectual understanding. Humans need to know, to press the bounds of limitation. Advancement technical and intellectual is more important than the death of any individual—such as the case involving the recent Virgin Galactic crash. Just because handling a large alligator like Mighty Mike is dangerous does not mean that there should not be an attempt so that millions of visitors to the Newport Aquarium can learn about the large creature up close and personal. If an occasional trainer is injured or even killed in that process it is worth the experience and preservation of the animal.
This has never been truer than the recent trouble that Sea World is having after CNN aired purposely in support of their radical left winged agenda driven regressive human position the documentary flop called Blackfish. The film was a flop because it only made $2,073,582 during its release. For comparison of how much money that is consider that the films of the Atlas Shrugged series made more money and they were considered a horrible box office disappointment that were castigated by virtually every national media outlet and critics associations. Yet CNN picked up the rights showing the film in October of 2014 causing stock for Sea World to plummet because it was there that regular people and not progressive radicals saw the movie.
Blackfish is a 2013 documentary directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite. The film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2013, and was picked up by Magnolia Pictures and CNN Films for wider release.
Blackfish focuses on Tilikum, an orca held by SeaWorld, and the controversy over captive killer whales.
The documentary[1] focuses on the captivity of Tilikum, an orca involved in the deaths of three individuals, and the consequences of keeping orcas in captivity. The coverage of Tilikum includes his capture in 1983 off the coast of Iceland, and purported harassment by fellow captive orcas at Sealand of the Pacific, incidents that Cowperthwaite argues contributed to the orca’s aggression and includes testimonial from Lori Marino, Director of Science with Nonhuman Rights Project. Cowperthwaite also focuses on SeaWorld‘s claims that lifespans of orcas in captivity are comparable to those in the wild,[2] typically 30 years for males and 50 years for females,[3] a claim the film argues is false.[4] Interview subjects also include former SeaWorld trainers, such as John Hargrove, who describe their experiences with Tilikum and other captive whales.
Cowperthwaite began work on the film after the 2010 death of Tilikum’s trainer Dawn Brancheau and in response to the claim that the orca had targeted the trainer because she had worn her hair in a ponytail.[5] Cowperthwaite argued that this claim had been conjecture and that “there had to be more to this story”.[5]
The film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2013, and was picked up by Magnolia Pictures and CNN Films for wider release.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackfish_(film)
I love Sea World and find the whale shows enchanting. Yes the killer whales on display there are dangerous, and yes they do occasionally kill trainers, or maim them. Sometimes it is playfully; sometimes they just don’t know their own strength, and sometimes the whales primal instincts come in and they grab a trainer by the leg and drag them deep into the water to drown them. Gabriela Cowperthwaite because her film attacked the “corporation” of Sea World was paraded around from interview to interview by the progressive media hoping to catch fire to her film. Under the entire enterprise is an attack on the corporate nature of Sea World and an intense desire to bring it down. It reminded me of the several films done against Wal-Mart and McDonald’s over the years attacking the corporate profits generated by these types of companies with a barely disguised effort to destroy capitalism behind a ruse of conservation.
Cowperthwaite behaving like a typical neurotic mom type overly careful in her raising of her children—as one of those bicycle helmet safety first parents who strap their kids up to the chin in padding so they can ride their bikes down the driveway of their house—took it upon her self after seeing an orca whale at Sea World kill a trainer to expose the entertainment giant as a profit first greedy company of exploitive evil. She won awards, critical acclaim and a fan following within progressive circles and nut cases like the PETA girls who stand naked in public to protest the harmful treatment of animals. The movie didn’t get any play until CNN offered the film for free on its news station and it was there that it received a bit of an audience.
This has of course put Sea World on the defensive—because it takes a lot of money driven by profit to run those massive parks—and care for all their animals. The Cowperthwaite argument that Sea World’s animals would live longer in the wild, or have a dominate dorsal fin sticking up erect in the water if they were wild is built on the premise that corporations are evil while nature is an eternal benefactor.
The truth about Tilikum featured in Blackfish is that he was an abused whale and was not the most dominant of his herd—meaning in the wild he would have to compete for mating rights, food and even social status with more dominant killer whales. It is unlikely that he would survive long in the wild, but at Sea World he at least is able to live well in nice climate controlled waters and is fed every day on time by people at Sea World who generally cares about him. Yes he is profitable to Sea World—and he has a lot more value to the human population at Sea World than he did off the coast of Iceland—of which people like Cowperthwaite and the geniuses at CNN would declare—“who are we to say such things?” Well the answer is that human beings right to know supersedes nature and even human life if our species is to advance. Progressives (regressives) actually desire to return back to the nature worship of our primitive past when we did not have tools to deal with such monsters of the ocean, or decedents of the dinosaur like Mighty Mike—the alligator.
The attack on Sea World is the same communist rhetoric which founded the progressive movement to begin with—their intention is not animal conservation, which is arguably far better for the animals under Sea World’s care than in the wild—it is the corporate nature of profit that Sea World uses to propel its conservation awareness. Leftist groups that have rallied behind Cowperthwaite’s film wish to use her motherly panic to attack yet another American corporation with the hopes of devaluing it into nothingness. Largely, by the investment reports regarding Sea World, CNN was successful as the stock price plummeted after the October airing of Blackfish.
For those who really love earth’s animals and wish to learn more about them, a zoo, an aquarium or an amusement park dedicated to that study is a wonderful invention. The most important thing to nurture in the human race is the development of their minds—even if death is sometimes a factor. Safety is not more important than intellectual understanding. Cowperthwaite’s panic over what her children saw at Sea World when Tilikum turned on its trainers stroked the fires of activism in her taking a film maker who needed a project that would have some legs and left her to exploit a corporation that does considerable good for oceanic research and used the progressive left to fuel her efforts at legitimacy. She used CNN for fame she wouldn’t have otherwise obtained, and CNN used her to advance their regressive social agenda of climate conspiracies and anti corporation banter.
Whenever I see Mighty Mike at the Newport Aquarium I am thankful that there is such a place where I can see such a magnificent animal on my way to the bookstore at Newport on the Levy and dining at Claddagh’s. If he wasn’t there, I wouldn’t get a chance to see him and appreciate his magnificence along with the nature that produced him. It’s a good deal, he gets a nice place to reside free of trappers and other predators—even climate fluctuations. People get to see a great exhibit, and human beings are able to advance through intellectual stimulation. Everybody wins, just as they do at Sea World. Life in the wild isn’t so great for the killer whales—mother earth is not kind to her children of the sea. Life is hard and food is difficult to find. You would think CNN and the other progressives would see animal captivity as an appropriate metaphor for their social policies of government dependence and wealth redistribution. They don’t think anything of making millions of people dependent on welfare yet they can clearly see the trouble of making animals addicted to human intervention into the natural patterns of a whale’s life. Yet they argue both ways—with illogical conclusions that point to only one ending, the destruction of the human race in favor of nature regaining control of the future of all evolution—instead of the tools of man formed through observations of Mighty Mike and his prehistoric presence.
Rich Hoffman
Mighty Mike and ‘Blackfish’: In defence of Sea World–the hypocrisy of CNN
It’s not a secret that I support and love the Newport Aquarium. Over the years I have never grown tired of it, and consider it one of the great Midwest destination points. For travelers coming from New York, Europe, and Malaysia or anywhere for that matter, even Florida—the Newport Aquarium is a combination of spectacular river views, one of the best overlooks of the Cincinnati cityscape there is coupled with an intense love of aquatic conservation. It is a Cincinnati treasure that never wears out. The sharks, and fish exhibits are wonderful—they are top class. But, it is the Turtle Canyon and Alligator Alley that really set this aquarium apart from others and makes Newport such a special place. The animals at the aquarium are lucky to be there—especially Mighty Mike—the 14 ft alligator designated for destruction in Florida when he was found to be too much of a menace to leave alone by the conservation department. Mighty Mike if left in the wild would have been destroyed—but because of places like the Newport Aquarium there was a justifiable reason to capture the large animal and put him in a resort so people could learn about him while also giving him the most optimal surroundings to retire in as he is estimated to be around 50 years old—old for an alligator.
Mighty Mike left the Aquarium in 2011 for a bit of a tour at a zoo but has returned in the spring of 2014 to a new exhibit much more accommodating for the large creature. Here Mike gets spoon fed a few times a week and gets to hang out in a perfectly climate controlled area that never changes. The new exhibit area spans 44 feet and holds 8,000 gallons of water. This makes the new area 30 percent bigger than Mighty Mike’s previous display space. His viewing height is just over 40 inches above floor level when he’s floating in the water. This puts Mighty Mike at the perfect height for children’s viewing.
The water temperature is kept at 80 degrees, ideal for American alligators. New heaters were installed in the area to assure the temperature is met year-round, and new UV sterilization systems assure that the water quality and clarity is pristine for the Aquarium’s large guest. In addition, a 12-foot by 14-foot basking area was constructed for Mighty Mike’s favorite pastime: sunning.
Over 7,000 pounds of concrete have been mixed, colored and hand-applied to the new exhibit area to create faux-rock work, along with over 3,000 pounds of sand for the habitat.
http://www.fox19.com/story/16578564/mighty-mike-returning-to-newport-aquarium
Without tourism like some of the alligator farms in Florida and the Newport Aquarium, animals like Mighty Mike would be destroyed as a menace. If he lived in Africa which hosts a human population still subservient to wildlife due to technological insufficiency Mighty Mike would not have many natural predators. But in Florida—he was just too big to be kept in the wild. Mankind is not subservient to animal life, but is in command of it—that is an important distinction for what I’m going to say next. Also, human life is not more important than intellectual understanding. Humans need to know, to press the bounds of limitation. Advancement technical and intellectual is more important than the death of any individual—such as the case involving the recent Virgin Galactic crash. Just because handling a large alligator like Mighty Mike is dangerous does not mean that there should not be an attempt so that millions of visitors to the Newport Aquarium can learn about the large creature up close and personal. If an occasional trainer is injured or even killed in that process it is worth the experience and preservation of the animal.
This has never been truer than the recent trouble that Sea World is having after CNN aired purposely in support of their radical left winged agenda driven regressive human position the documentary flop called Blackfish. The film was a flop because it only made $2,073,582 during its release. For comparison of how much money that is consider that the films of the Atlas Shrugged series made more money and they were considered a horrible box office disappointment that were castigated by virtually every national media outlet and critics associations. Yet CNN picked up the rights showing the film in October of 2014 causing stock for Sea World to plummet because it was there that regular people and not progressive radicals saw the movie.
Blackfish is a 2013 documentary directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite. The film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2013, and was picked up by Magnolia Pictures and CNN Films for wider release.
Blackfish focuses on Tilikum, an orca held by SeaWorld, and the controversy over captive killer whales.
The documentary[1] focuses on the captivity of Tilikum, an orca involved in the deaths of three individuals, and the consequences of keeping orcas in captivity. The coverage of Tilikum includes his capture in 1983 off the coast of Iceland, and purported harassment by fellow captive orcas at Sealand of the Pacific, incidents that Cowperthwaite argues contributed to the orca’s aggression and includes testimonial from Lori Marino, Director of Science with Nonhuman Rights Project. Cowperthwaite also focuses on SeaWorld‘s claims that lifespans of orcas in captivity are comparable to those in the wild,[2] typically 30 years for males and 50 years for females,[3] a claim the film argues is false.[4] Interview subjects also include former SeaWorld trainers, such as John Hargrove, who describe their experiences with Tilikum and other captive whales.
Cowperthwaite began work on the film after the 2010 death of Tilikum’s trainer Dawn Brancheau and in response to the claim that the orca had targeted the trainer because she had worn her hair in a ponytail.[5] Cowperthwaite argued that this claim had been conjecture and that “there had to be more to this story”.[5]
The film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2013, and was picked up by Magnolia Pictures and CNN Films for wider release.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackfish_(film)
I love Sea World and find the whale shows enchanting. Yes the killer whales on display there are dangerous, and yes they do occasionally kill trainers, or maim them. Sometimes it is playfully; sometimes they just don’t know their own strength, and sometimes the whales primal instincts come in and they grab a trainer by the leg and drag them deep into the water to drown them. Gabriela Cowperthwaite because her film attacked the “corporation” of Sea World was paraded around from interview to interview by the progressive media hoping to catch fire to her film. Under the entire enterprise is an attack on the corporate nature of Sea World and an intense desire to bring it down. It reminded me of the several films done against Wal-Mart and McDonald’s over the years attacking the corporate profits generated by these types of companies with a barely disguised effort to destroy capitalism behind a ruse of conservation.
Cowperthwaite behaving like a typical neurotic mom type overly careful in her raising of her children—as one of those bicycle helmet safety first parents who strap their kids up to the chin in padding so they can ride their bikes down the driveway of their house—took it upon her self after seeing an orca whale at Sea World kill a trainer to expose the entertainment giant as a profit first greedy company of exploitive evil. She won awards, critical acclaim and a fan following within progressive circles and nut cases like the PETA girls who stand naked in public to protest the harmful treatment of animals. The movie didn’t get any play until CNN offered the film for free on its news station and it was there that it received a bit of an audience.
This has of course put Sea World on the defensive—because it takes a lot of money driven by profit to run those massive parks—and care for all their animals. The Cowperthwaite argument that Sea World’s animals would live longer in the wild, or have a dominate dorsal fin sticking up erect in the water if they were wild is built on the premise that corporations are evil while nature is an eternal benefactor.
The truth about Tilikum featured in Blackfish is that he was an abused whale and was not the most dominant of his herd—meaning in the wild he would have to compete for mating rights, food and even social status with more dominant killer whales. It is unlikely that he would survive long in the wild, but at Sea World he at least is able to live well in nice climate controlled waters and is fed every day on time by people at Sea World who generally cares about him. Yes he is profitable to Sea World—and he has a lot more value to the human population at Sea World than he did off the coast of Iceland—of which people like Cowperthwaite and the geniuses at CNN would declare—“who are we to say such things?” Well the answer is that human beings right to know supersedes nature and even human life if our species is to advance. Progressives (regressives) actually desire to return back to the nature worship of our primitive past when we did not have tools to deal with such monsters of the ocean, or decedents of the dinosaur like Mighty Mike—the alligator.
The attack on Sea World is the same communist rhetoric which founded the progressive movement to begin with—their intention is not animal conservation, which is arguably far better for the animals under Sea World’s care than in the wild—it is the corporate nature of profit that Sea World uses to propel its conservation awareness. Leftist groups that have rallied behind Cowperthwaite’s film wish to use her motherly panic to attack yet another American corporation with the hopes of devaluing it into nothingness. Largely, by the investment reports regarding Sea World, CNN was successful as the stock price plummeted after the October airing of Blackfish.
For those who really love earth’s animals and wish to learn more about them, a zoo, an aquarium or an amusement park dedicated to that study is a wonderful invention. The most important thing to nurture in the human race is the development of their minds—even if death is sometimes a factor. Safety is not more important than intellectual understanding. Cowperthwaite’s panic over what her children saw at Sea World when Tilikum turned on its trainers stroked the fires of activism in her taking a film maker who needed a project that would have some legs and left her to exploit a corporation that does considerable good for oceanic research and used the progressive left to fuel her efforts at legitimacy. She used CNN for fame she wouldn’t have otherwise obtained, and CNN used her to advance their regressive social agenda of climate conspiracies and anti corporation banter.
Whenever I see Mighty Mike at the Newport Aquarium I am thankful that there is such a place where I can see such a magnificent animal on my way to the bookstore at Newport on the Levy and dining at Claddagh’s. If he wasn’t there, I wouldn’t get a chance to see him and appreciate his magnificence along with the nature that produced him. It’s a good deal, he gets a nice place to reside free of trappers and other predators—even climate fluctuations. People get to see a great exhibit, and human beings are able to advance through intellectual stimulation. Everybody wins, just as they do at Sea World. Life in the wild isn’t so great for the killer whales—mother earth is not kind to her children of the sea. Life is hard and food is difficult to find. You would think CNN and the other progressives would see animal captivity as an appropriate metaphor for their social policies of government dependence and wealth redistribution. They don’t think anything of making millions of people dependent on welfare yet they can clearly see the trouble of making animals addicted to human intervention into the natural patterns of a whale’s life. Yet they argue both ways—with illogical conclusions that point to only one ending, the destruction of the human race in favor of nature regaining control of the future of all evolution—instead of the tools of man formed through observations of Mighty Mike and his prehistoric presence.
Rich Hoffman
November 23, 2014
Cabela’s of West Chester: The story of a family enhancing conservation through capitalism
One of my daughters and my wife had a shopping day recently that carried them into Bass Pro Shops at the Forest Park location. I haven’t been there recently because it is moving to the Streets of West Chester and I have been excited for that switch. The store will be impressive and will be a tremendous asset to the destination experience at Union Center, Ohio. The government of West Chester is running the way things should in every population dense area. George Lang and his crew of trustees are creating incentives for businesses to evolve around and lowering the barriers of entry into emerging markets—which is one of the reasons that Bass Pro is moving from Forest Park to West Chester. There are much more lucrative options at the Streets location than at Forest Park—clearly.
The interchange entering the new Bass Pro will be quite extraordinary. IKEA is already quite a draw and will share the Allen Road activity with Bass Pro which will provide shoppers with a truly epic experience. I’m not much of a shopper, but I do enjoy going to IKEA with my wife and eating the Swedish Meatballs they have there. It’s a cool setup and I like to eat in their cafeteria sitting by the windows watching all the cool new development springing up around the Union Center location. Development when it’s done correctly is like a work of art—and the Streets of West Chester, the area around Allen Road at IKEA, and on up Muhlhauser Road to the Jags restaurant is one of the most exciting areas in Cincinnati and I enjoy immensely watching the creation of all the new cool projects. Needless to say, I’m looking forward to the new Bass Pro location.
However my wife and daughter took my grandson to the old one and he had a wonderful time. At two years old he was discovering all the wonderful monstrosities that are featured in that store, the giant fish tank, the shooting range, the climbing wall, the huge selection of boats and pitched tents—for little kids and big kids alike, it is a destination of boundless adventure that is simply just wonderful. When I was a kid I had to get all my outdoor equipment from the Army Store in Fairfield, all my camouflage pants, my rappelling gear, compasses, canteens—all that kind of thing. I still love that store, but Bass Pro has been hard to beat. Their camping equipment is unmatched and whenever I go there I love their roasted almonds. So when my wife returned from Bass Pro she brought home to me a package of those almonds which made for a great snack.
As I was eating those almonds and thinking about the new location I was checking on the new Cabela’s store breaking ground at the Liberty Way location. I had just been looking over the construction at the Liberty Center site—another project I am excited for, and noticed that the new Cabela’s store was moving along in the 4th quarter of 2014 as it was supposed to be. Soon there will be standing an 82,000 sq foot log cabin complete with stone work and all the usual trappings that will give Bass Pro a run for their money just down the road. I am also a fan of Cabela’s and the magnificent store they have in Louisville, Kentucky. It will be quite a treasure to have two of those types of stores in my neighborhood as most communities salivate over having just one. People consider themselves lucky to have a Cabela’s store within a hundred miles of their homes, let alone four or five miles down the road. During the Holiday season if you happen to see George Lang, you should give him a big kiss on the forehead and thank him for keeping West Chester government small enough to stay out of the way of these kinds of developments—allowing them to emerge as profit margins often entice such creativity in business. When it is wondered why this particular point on the map is doing so well, and why there is such a concentrated amount of wealth in one area look at the government—the time it takes to get permits, the rules and regulations of the local bureaucrats and the tax rate–the answer will present itself. Look at areas where fiscal wealth is not present in such abundance and you will find local governments who have mismanaged their resources forcing people to vote with their feet—but pulling out their wealth and leaving.
Many don’t know the Cabela’s story, which is one of the great American success stories. Many don’t know what makes shopping at Cabela’s such a wonderful and fun experience—they just know that it is. So let’s take a moment to get to know the Cabela family—which is featured on many of the videos on this site and are worth watching. Knowing who they are will demonstrate even more articulately why the new West Chester store is such a miracle of capitalism and why I am personally grateful to know of its development.
The company that would become the massive sporting goods reseller and chain was started in 1961. Dick Cabela purchased US$45 worth of fishing flies at a furniture expo in Chicago which were advertised for sale via an advertisement in a local newspaper.[3] When his first effort produced only one response, he placed an ad in a national magazine, Sports Afield, which was more successful. Included with each order was a catalog of other products for sale by Cabela.[3]
As the business grew, Cabela and his wife Mary moved their operation to Sidney, Nebraska in 1963. Dick’s brother Jim also joined the business. From those modest beginnings, the company has since grown to a publicly traded corporation with over US$3 Billion in annual sales.[4]
On February 17, 2014, founder Dick Cabela passed away peacefully at his home in Sidney, Nebraska at the age of 77.
Founders Dick and Mary Cabela and Dick’s brother James Cabela retained 25% ownership of the now public company which trades under the stock symbol CAB.
About half of Cabela’s sales come from hunting-related merchandise with about a third derived from the sale of firearms, ammunition and accessories in 2012. Additionally, in 2012 30% of revenue came from direct sales (through catalog and online orders), and 59% from physical retail stores. The remaining 11% of revenue came from its financial subsidiary and credit card business.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabela%27s
Richard Neil “Dick” Cabela (October 8, 1936 – February 17, 2014) was an American entrepreneur, best known as a co-founder of Cabela’s, a leading outfitter of outdoor sporting and recreational goods.[1][2] He stated that his business was inspired by his bout with polio and a deep love of hunting and fishing.[3] He was also described as an “ardent supporter of the National Rifle Association, a vocal supporter of the Second Amendment, a hunter, and a staunch proponent of wildlife conservation.”[4]
The fruits of their many years of labor carried them to a level of success that enabled Dick Cabela and his wife to build a magnificent home in the tradition of their many stores, a real tribute to wildlife and capitalist enterprise. That home can be seen at the following link along with a descriptive article. It is quite something to see.
http://www.ezpics.com/clients/savides1/PDF/Cabelas%20House%20feature.pdf
What started with a few fishing lures in a newspaper ad became a multi billion dollar industry and it was all started by essentially three people in a family—Dick, his wife, and brother—and they started it just because they had a passion for the products they were selling. Dick at the head of Cabela’s has been one of the most vocal supporters of the Second Amendment and the NRA so his footprint into the kind of politics I support cannot be ignored. So it will be a great pleasure to visit the new Cabela’s store in West Chester.
It took a lot of creative power and tenacity to bring Cabela’s to West Chester, it took a government with as much hands off approach that they could—minus the infrastructure improvements that had to be made off I-75 and the county of Butler for all the stuff that had to go under the ground to make the Liberty Way developments possible. For each new store that is built at Liberty Way there is a story similar to Dick Cabela—which I will think about every time I visit. It is people like him that make America great—and exceptional. That is why it’s a real celebration to enjoy roasted almonds from Bass Pro and to relish the aisles of a Cabela’s looking for new shirts, camping equipment, and rappelling gear. People like Dick Cabela and his family are uniquely American in that they help the environment by making people appreciate it in the best way possible—as active participants through capitalist endeavor. The new store at Liberty Way will have a constant customer in me—I can’t wait!
Rich Hoffman
November 22, 2014
Obama’s Illegal Immigrant Executive Order: The violation against a meritocracy
To explain why Obama’s executive order on immigration is so dangerous requires a bit of a deconstruction—then rebuilt education. John Boehner doesn’t understand it, nor does Mitch McConnell or most of Washington D.C. for that matter. Most members of upper management in typical company structures and the typical unionized slug—they don’t get it. Most every member of every college, most members of the various social clubs, most public school administrators—they don’t get it either. The real evil that is the net result of Obama’s executive orders imposed during his particular presidency are lost to most people because they have lost the definition of value and forgotten the importance of merit. Glenn Beck had a wonderful break-down of the post executive order Obama imposition with the following video describing how Obama’s executive order destroys the value of merit among immigrants and why that is so dangerous, and destructive to the American experience.
If you really care about somebody—or some people—the responsible thing is not to rob them of their merit, their ability to earn for themselves knowledge, resources and experience. For instance when raising a child it is better to let them walk than to carry them around, even if there is danger such as crossing a busy street. If you teach the child self-reliance, they will be able to do it without help in the future empowering them to navigate the world safely. Carrying the child might seem compassionate, but ultimately robs them of the ability to function without the assistance of others—and the opinions that come with them. Merit cannot be purchased with a degree from college. A piece of paper on the wall of an office does not make anyone qualified to be one of the “wise ones” as people like Obama believe. The pretense that one can buy a degree with money and time invested into a four to eight year education is a false one. The belief that the pain earned through trials and tribulations could be avoided was the primary reason that post World War II parents sent their children to college only to be corrupted there by left-winged radicals teaching the social safety net of big progressive government—and those kids had kids of their own who are among the laziest and discombobulated yet known to the human race. Too many from that age group have a hard time getting up to go to work let along leading productive lives because they have had merit ripped from their lives by an education process that sought to destroy it with the promise that obedience to organizational charts would solve all the world’s problems.
Obama is addicted to the organizational chart of Washington D.C. politics. His Democratic party was destroyed by Republicans in virtually every corner of the nation and they are blaming him for his bad presidency. Democrats still feel that Obama didn’t do enough to help many senators and congressional members win seats during the 2014 Election. Obama was so toxic that many didn’t want his help, but now with clarity of hindsight and the need to blame someone beside themselves Obama is a good person to charge. Obama being the typical improperly educated oaf that he is spent a lifetime of having everything given to him by a mother who was guilty of placing him in bad male company, grandparents guilty of raising a crappy daughter who became a crappy mother—lovers of his mother who were communist revolutionaries, and college professors who wanted to blow up the federal government but instead invested their efforts into the color of Obama’s skin to place him behind American defense and into the White House to undo the Western Imperial evil imposing its will to the rest of the world. Obama as a kid never had a chance. He had merit robbed from him as a kid and has since stood wherever other people told him to and said what they wrote for him to read from. He has no thoughts of his own, he is not his own man—Obama is an imprisoned soul destroyed from birth and raised to be a terrorist bureaucrat using organizational charts to replace merit to rule over others. So when Democrats lost the election of 2014 the powers that move Obama’s mouth—those “Open Border” advocates, those radicals at Think Progress and other ultra liberal organizations demanded that Obama accomplish something in his last two years beneficial to them so to cut their loses. That’s why Obama signed the executive order for illegal immigrants offering protection at the voting booth for Democrats already losing the philosophical debate across the North American continent.
Obama however is a rather typical person even though he gets to maintain the illusion of being a king from the Oval Office. There are too many people now in America addicted to their offices, to their nameplates, to their titles yet they are ineffective as leaders because they lost the value of merit in their lives believing that papers like executive orders and college degrees could be suitable substitutes. They were wrong. Most businesses across the world now function with complete idiots at their helm because of this treacherous disease taught in colleges of every kind that a plutocracy, bureaucracy, or even a monarchy has more value than a meritocracy. Yet America was founded by those seeking a meritocracy not a democracy which would simply issue by popular opinion who the ruling class would be over those who were supposed to be subjects based on how many years they attended a university. In the Obama way of thinking college professors because they never really leave the education system should rule the world because they put the most years into an education system that creates the democracy which then issues out power through popular elections. In that type of system, giving millions of illegal immigrants the ability to vote for Democrats out of sheer thankfulness makes sense to a person vacant of values.
But the Republicans aren’t any better—they don’t understand anything that I just said because they are functioning from their own plutocracy and bureaucracy view points. They want to be in power too with a belief that they rule over others just because popular opinion placed them into an office. So they foolishly sued a president that actually controls the legal system—and is a snake oil lawyer to begin with—meaning their silly piece of paper will do nothing and go nowhere. There is no merit in Republican actions, so there will be no respect for their actions. Their lawsuit is just another piece of worthless paper passing from one hand of bureaucrats to another.
There is nothing worse than a worthless person who needs their ego massaged and people who function in life like Obama cost more to the organizations that employ them than anything they attempt to productively do. They are worthless because their beliefs cause them to believe in organizational charts over the value of merit so their focus is always to climb higher on that chart so that they can sign an executive order like Obama did, instead of actually performing tasks that require thought and skill in concert with others operating from the same motivations. Worthless people don’t begin that way—but are taught to be that way through their education systems. Most children are wonderful until their parents screw them up with the assistance of 13 years of government schooling. Meet a child at 7 and the world is open to them—their eyes are bright and wisdom is emitting from them by the handfuls. Meet a child ten years later at 17 and often you have a slug—a confused oaf lost, confused, and primarily concerned with satisfying their animal instincts—eating, disposing of their waste, and reproducing through mating customs. You meet a future Obamanation of young fools ill prepared to live in a meritocracy perfectly willing to surrender their lives to rulers—because they are crippled in their educations of how to think with value instead of social structure.
That is what Obama did with his executive order aimed at amnesty for illegal immigrants. It is also why everyone is missing the point in the aftermath. A nation cannot survive if it does not function from merit—that desire to earn things instead of being given them. Too many kids today expect to just show up for something and be given money, or a piece of paper telling them they are good, or smart. But they lack the merit in actually earning it. Obama has spent his life in this way, so he sees no reason to just make it easy for illegal immigrants to become citizens—after all his party all along wanted to overload the system so to bring down the financial power of Imperial America from the inside anyway—and amnesty helps them do it. Yet, Obama just put another nail in the coffin of merit showing millions of young people that the organizational chart is more important than earning a living the honorable way. Obama has demonstrated that if you can get to the top of the organization chart with lies, deceit, and even corruption that you can literally write laws that control the lives of millions of others. That is where the failure in Obama’s executive order for illegal immigrants is of an utmost travesty in justice—not because it breaks the law in so many ways—but takes aim at merit in America and suppresses it even further than it was before Obama’s demoralizing presidency.
Rich Hoffman
November 21, 2014
ILWU Local 25: A disgrace to American productivity
Yet another labor union is making itself the laughing stock of American manufacturing. A labor dispute which has been going on for quite a long time from ILWU Local 25 on the west coast involving oversea container shipping has created a bottleneck of great inconvenience during the holiday season. Being the collectivist slugs that they are, union members upset at their contract terms—or lack thereof, are deliberating dragging their feet causing mountains of product to sit idle at their docks awaiting transport. Reuters reported the issue this way:
(Reuters) – Tension over prolonged labor talks between maritime shippers and the union representing 20,000 West Coast dockworkers has erupted in public as the two sides blamed each other for escalating cargo congestion at the two busiest U.S. container ports.
As of Tuesday, 14 freighters were anchored waiting for space to enter the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, where container cargo traffic has been backing up for about a month, delaying deliveries of last-minute holiday merchandise, port and retail officials said.
The number of cargo ships kept waiting outside the two ports ranged from about eight to 15 on any given day since the backups began around mid-October, said Phillip Sanfield, a spokesman for the Port of Los Angeles.
“On a normal day, we rarely have ships waiting at anchor unless they want to be there,” he said.
Los Angeles and Long Beach rank as the nation’s No. 1 and 2 container ports by volume, together handling 43 percent of all containerized goods entering the United States.
The congestion crisis there comes as labor negotiations between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the Pacific Maritime Association, representing terminal operators and ocean carriers, have dragged on well past the June 30 expiration of the dockworkers’ latest contract.
Management has accused the union of orchestrating work slowdowns by its members, first at ports in the Pacific Northwest, and then at Los Angeles and Long Beach, to create leverage at the bargaining table.
Union officials acknowledge that individual dockworkers may be acting out their frustration over the pace of contract talks, but deny organizing protest delays. They point to other factors that port officials cite as the main reasons for gridlock.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/12/us-usa-ports-westcoast-idUSKCN0IW05V20141112?feedType=RSS
Even as the union workers deny they are protesting a quick look at the literature from their website will reveal the intentions of their psychosis. The unions often involve themselves in community fundraising activities so that they can trick the local population into believing their intentions are good. But their radical socialist roots demonstrate their general social philosophy as revealed below—which is excessively evident by their own words. Their hatred of “management” is essentially the exact same animosity pulled from the pages of Karl Marx. Management—any management—is to be fought and beaten and left to the “will of the people.” Have a read for yourself:
Hundreds of visitors attending the Port of Anacortes “Bier on the Pier” festival and “Floating Boat Show” in early October encountered a giant banner with a hard-hitting message: “Port of Anacortes: blowing your tax dollars, unfair to maintenance workers, accountability now!”
The banner and public outreach materials were distributed by a dozen Port workers, local community members, supporters from ILWU Local 25, the Inlandboatmen’s Union (IBU), Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 191, Carpenters Local 756, plus staff and volunteers from “We Do the Work” radio. Visitors attending the events showed concern about problems being raised by Port workers. Hundreds accepted leaflets explaining how maintenance workers at the Port are trying to keep things running safely and smoothly – while Port bureaucrats are breaking labor laws and wasting public funds.
Last November, the Port’s maintenance workers voted to join ILWU Local 25. They made their decision after facing years of mismanagement and abusive treatment from Port supervisors.
Instead of honoring the workers’ decision and cooperating with employees, managers ordered workers to attend mandatory meetings with Port executives who threatened union= supporters for wearing ILWU buttons. The Port workers held their ground.
“We refused to be intimidated, stood up together for respect, and voted to form our union after the managers illegally threatened us,” said Mike Wray, a Port maintenance employee.
The Washington State Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) ruled in September that Port management acted improperly and outside the law. “The State validated what workers and community members have been saying publicly for= months now,” said Dave Bost, one of several maintenance workers who was threatened by Port managers.
After winning their union election, maintenance workers began to seek afair contract – while management continued violating the law.
Port managers illegally changed the employees’ health plan; eliminated parking options for maintenance workers and obstructed union testimony before state investigators – by allowing a management witnesses to stay on the clock while Local 25 members were forced to use vacation, unpaid or comp time to testify in a PERC hearing over illegal management activity.
Port administrators recently admitted to a local newspaper that they’ve spent over $50,000 in public funds so far on private lawyers to negotiate a simple contract with employees. As of November, community members estimate that the Port’s legal fees are approaching $100,000.
http://www.ilwu.org/port-of-anacortes-contract-fight-expands/
The dispute described centers on the “legal right” to organize against management, and when management fights back in any way at all—it is castigated. The next terrorist attempt is to make the management feel the pain for not giving in to the extortion practice of organizing against them in the first place. The union intention is to make management feel pain one way or another with the message intended to destroy their resistance to aggressive—unified take over of the company management of resources.
Every time I hear a story like this I am embarrassed for American productivity, the lack of “can do” attitude that it creates for foreign markets. There is nothing more embarrassing than to explain to an export destination overseas that they do not have a product from the United States because some small mentality scanky union dudes are dragging ass at the shipping docks because they want more money or a better health care package. Labor strikes in general speak of a lack of personal pride in the production of one’s work, and only illustrate a commitment to collective ambition toward the mediocre. There is nothing good that comes out of a work stoppage except as an act of terrorism against productivity. There is no justification, there is no upside to allowing shipping docks to stack with product while a bunch of dock workers stand around talking about Ariana Grande’s rear end puffing away on cigarettes that mandate they have good health coverage because of their own irresponsibly lifestyles. They are an embarrassment to American productivity and a shame to global commerce.
Rich Hoffman
November 20, 2014
“Interstellar” Epiphany and Soundtrack Review: A 50th Anniversary at Virgin Galactic’s first space resort
I had an epiphany that my wife and I were stepping off a Virgin Galactic vessel into the first hotel of their design floating above the earth with the horizon spinning outside of a massive lobby window. It is Virgin’s first hotel in space established as a resort location rivaling the Atlantis vacation destination in the Bahamas complete with an indoor water park covered with large glass windows looking out into the vastness of space. The lobby was lush and expensive with exotic restaurants all offering outrageously epic views out every window. The moon is always full and casts a constant—haunting shadow through every object and mixed with the brilliant light shining off the earth is a bluish hue that has never been replicated by any light on the home planet. It’s our 50th wedding anniversary and we have a $5000 bottle of wine to mark the year of this writing to celebrate our first week-long vacation in space. We have worked hard and deserve to pamper ourselves with a very expensive outing that will mark many years of persistence. In the lobby is playing the old soundtrack to the classic 2014 movie Interstellar, which has by then become the standard of music referencing space. It was that award-winning Christopher Nolan movie that changed it all and set the tone for the second world-wide space race causing Hilton, Marriott and Virgin Galactic to build the first space stations catering to tourism. Virgin was the first to achieve it.
The majestic views out of the multiple windows demand the music of Interstellar because nothing else would be sufficient. The hotel operators just play constantly the old Hans Zimmer soundtrack to help alleviate the shock of being grounded so firmly to the floor as the view outside swirls around like a marry-go-round. It takes some getting used to for some people; some actually throw up with the disorienting effect of the earth’s horizon spinning around so rhythmically. There are trash cans stationed along the pathway toward the check-in counter large enough for visitors to dump their stomachs in the most graceful way possible. A cleaning crew quickly removes the contents so not to alter the smell of space—that rusty metal odor mixed with the fragrance of lobby vegetation that is intended carefully to greet guests as they step off the shuttle from their journey below.
We walk to the counter as track 7 on that enchanting soundtrack plays with organs chiming to the tempo of a clock’s second hand—the earth still swirling, the light from the moon and sun moving around the room casting shadows in all directions hauntingly. Bright overhead lights on the ceiling between more large windows cast stabilizing light so that the lobby looks to be the only stable element of a universe in chaos outside—which adds to the otherworldly sensation of a species raised on a planet where the sun rises and falls every 12 hours and the horizon is always fixed. Here, the sun is always out, the moon is always full, and the horizon never stills—it spins perpetually so to provide an earth like gravity for the visitors—some who are already in their swimming suits and heading for the massive domed Water Park behind the check-in counter.
My wife and I aren’t sick; the music brings our minds to ease with a familiarity that we know well. We have listened to that soundtrack every week for the last 25 years and know its notes by heart. Before checking in we just listen to it while we sit in one of the lobby seats and watch the Virgin Galactic shuttle pull away from the docking station and head back to earth with its navigational thrusters silently pushing it back into a declination orbit to Spaceport America—our home launch point. In another three hours that same ship will be back with more visitors and within 30 minutes another ship will arrive from Spaceport America and fifteen minutes after that, one from Space Port Japan, then one from Spaceport Europe. Because Virgin Galactic has brought the Internet to Africa—they now have one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Soon they will have their own spaceport in right in the middle of the Congo.
My wife and I head to our rooms and prepare for dinner. We spend five solid hours drinking our expensive bottle of wine sitting on our hotel bed watching the world turn—literally. And we cherish that this event has finally been made possible after many years of dreaming. The whole time we listen to our well-played soundtrack for the several hundred thousandth time—Interstellar, as we have always loved it and likely always will.
That soundtrack actually only came out a few days ago, on November 17, 2014, so my son-in-law rushed to Barnes and Nobel to get it for he and my daughter the moment it was unloaded from the delivery truck. They spent their evening listening to it while eating Chinese food from their favorite restaurant—and they gave me a copy. They have already seen the movie twice and are looking for ways to see it many more times. In what’s being touted as a first-of-its-kind promotion, Paramount and AMC Theatres are offering movie patrons in North America the chance to see Christopher Nolan‘s Interstellar as many times as they want, for one price.
As with any deal, there are rules. Those who want to participate must be members of the AMC Stubs program, which has an annual fee of $12.
The unlimited tickets will be available for sale to AMC Stubs members at 330 AMC theater across the country, including AMC Imax locations. The price will range from $19.99 to $34.99, depending upon the location (currently, the average cost of a movie ticket price in the U.S. is $8.08.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/paramount-amc-theatres-partner-unlimited-749512
Interstellar requires for most people many viewings just to understand everything that is happening. Many critics of the film on their first viewings were used to a more conventional film experience and didn’t know what to make of some of the sound issues. As I said in my review—I think I was the first and only one to date to point it out—the sound in Interstellar was entirely on purpose. Christopher Nolan wanted there to be times where the events overwhelmed the sound made by the actors—because in real life—that happens often.
“I’ve always loved films that approach sound in an impressionistic way and that is an unusual approach for a mainstream blockbuster, but I feel it’s the right approach for this experiential film,” Christopher Nolan said, speaking for the first time in detail about the use of sound in his new film.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/behind-screen/christopher-nolan-breaks-silence-interstellar-749465
It is because of this approach to sound that the Interstellar soundtrack was so exceptionally good—and is why it will become the inspiration for all that I described above. When my kids gave me the first copy of the soundtrack and I played it for much of the day on Tuesday and Wednesday listening to it many, many times—it was easy to conclude that it was a masterpiece. I remember the music being great during the movie, but listening to it by itself, it was simply phenomenal as it steps up and well beyond anything that’s ever been attempted. The closest that I can think of is Philip Glass—but the Hans Zimmer approach comes with a much bolder, and narrative link to the future by drawing so historically on the past.
Blasting through the track on the soundtrack titled “S.T.A.Y” all that I began this writing above occurred with the epiphany. Many of the world’s problems seemed so miniscule and the minds that made them that way even less relevant. I could literally reach out and touch that future space station/hotel as if I were there, as if I could smell it, taste it and walk across its vast floors with Richard Branson still alive and standing in the corner welcoming his guests with long flowing locks still beyond his shoulders with a smile from ear to ear.
At dinner in my epiphany there was a guest who played in the center of a vast dinning hall with a clear picture of the moon out the distant window—again spinning around with rhythmic precision upon a large glass piano lit from beneath with blue lights that made it look like it was made out of ice. That guest was an elderly Hans Zimmer playing the Interstellar soundtrack live with a deeply personal concert, graced too with a smile from ear to ear knowing that it was his soundtrack that helped build this palace of achievement in defiance of the earthly stupidity which attempted to shackle man’s ankles to earth forever. His music helped free those shackles to usher in this entirely new age of dreamers, fortune hunters and lovers of science and possibility. It was and would be the best dinner of our lives. Happy 50th Anniversary to us—and it was.
Rich Hoffman
November 19, 2014
The Scumbag Jonathan Gruber: I hate to say I told you so……but I told you so
I have not covered all the gaffs and fiascos from the Jonathan Gruber meltdown in addition to all the lies emitting from the mouth of Barack Obama simply because I covered those issues years ago and reported them well before these latest revelations.
MIT economics professor Jonathan H. Gruber ’87, often referred to as a key Obamacare “architect,” has come under fire recently for videos from 2012 and 2013 in which he called American voters “stupid” and attributes the passage of the Affordable Care Act in part to “basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter,” according to press reports.
http://tech.mit.edu/V134/N55/gruber.html
To me this is nothing new—to everyone who thought that my comments were just right-winged hatred and mean spiritedness—the evidence is present for all to see. Obama and his companions centering on Obamacare always planned to pass their health care law through deceptive practices and hid key provisions from the American people purposely to get it across the voting process. This isn’t just bad or deceitful politics—it is criminal behavior worthy of serious punishment. But then again, I have said all that before too.
The news cycle is incredibly behind the curve of current thought, most of what they report are the results of things that happened months or years earlier and the Obama supporters behind the Affordable Care Act knew it, and deliberately attempted to deceive the American public with a radical take over of a fifth of the national economy. Their insurrection was nothing less than the equivalent of the nationalization of the health care system which affects the health of every American—and those around the world who depend on the care of Western Civilization. It is as grand of a conspiracy as the communist take-over of Petrograd during the Bolshevik Revolution and it was all conducted under a cloak of deception.
Mysteriously Obama is not shackled and chained for his criminal conduct, but is still given a platform of further lies and fraud to launch new waves of counter logic attacks against those who see what he is and has always been about. For those who wanted to elect a man of color for the White House, there are other options—Obama isn’t the only one—Ben Carson comes to mind or any of the fine people who call themselves Fredrick Douglas Republicans. Even the Civil Rights leader himself Martin Luther King was a Republican—as was the party that ended slavery in America against the Democratic advocates. Obama is a creation of the domestic terrorists left over from the Weather Underground and he was sent to destroy Imperial America for all the hippies who wanted to make themselves into bombs to fight against Western Tradition rooted in capitalism. Obama has always been a terrorist—he is not a representative of American Excpetionalism and does not represent a vast majority of the North American real-estate. Sure they like him in the big cities where welfare recipients have their hand out for government benefits, but in the vast amount of space between major cities, Obama his not only disliked—he is hated. He does not represent America any more than a towel boy represents an NFL football team.
In many ways Jonathan Gruber is worse than Obama, he was hired by the government to provide talking point lies to domestic terrorist politicians. He was hired to be the mind behind the deception and even went so far to brag about it hoping that everyone would forget about it if only he denied the allegations. These treacherous New England liberals watched too closely how Bill Clinton snaked his way through politics and conspiracy to arrive at a level of celebrity that they all aspire to. And arrogant little punks like Gruber felt confident that they could take the scam several steps further even making himself the center of a comic book explaining Obamacare to a naive public—which he was the star.
The result has been lies and lies and lies coming from Obama and his people—especially hired guns like Gruber. Everything from the Fast and Furious scandal, Benghazi and the video controversy which was a complete fabrication designed to save his presidential run—to the IRS attack of conservative groups meant to quell insurrection against Obama and his political machine of socialist Democrats. It will take decades to dust off all the layers and layers of deception conducted by Obama and his criminal class government thugs—and they know that people don’t have the temperament to sort through the mess. Gruber himself said so much. Imagine what they say when the cameras aren’t rolling.
Attend a liberal dinner party at a Nantucket mansion and you will hear far worse than Gruber’s revelations. The people who speak those types of words are not normal people who live in red county America—which is almost every bit of land from New York to Nevada. Their talks of insurrection are mutiny from logic to chaos, from security to instability, from freedom to domination by a bunch of goon squad campus geeks who only have power when they convince the masses to jump off a fiscal cliff into eternal debt that only people like Gruber can solve—because they created the puzzle in the first place.
None of these revelations are surprising to me however. This and more is just the tip of what we will soon discover—and much of it has been discussed here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom. I am keenly aware that the Nantucket types and their vast swarms of wanna’ be’s—particularly those pretentious ass wipes who live near me in Four Bridges—they hate this site because they want to stay anonymous to the eyes of the world. They want to conduct their lives as policy terrorists from behind the mask of social health and reform instead of the insurrection that they really intend. But they can’t, because to surrender to them would be a crime in itself. It is a crime to not report a crime—you can’t just pretend you know nothing—that doesn’t make the crime go away and Obama has committed many crimes with a lawyers swiftness figuring that whatever law he can’t openly manipulate, he can just scoot around with a technicality—just as he is planning to do over the immigration issue involving executive orders. The worst kind of criminal there is are those who can make laws to cover their deceit—which is what Obama is attempting to do through his current actions—cover his crimes with executive orders both in concealment and in winning over grateful patrons who might forgive judgment against him at a future date because of one of two good deeds performed during his term.
With Obamacare the economic terrorists hoped that the good deeds of health care coverage for the poor might offset the crimes committed to achieve the criminal elements of the case. They see themselves as Robin Hoods—taking from the rich and giving to the poor. But what they forget is that theft regardless of who it comes from is still a crime. And Obamacare is the theft of our medical industry for the benefit of the few while bringing it under the care of government bureaucrats. When Jonathan Gruber called voters stupid this is what he meant—they are easily deceived by pick pockets in government—so the taking was ripe for plunder. Then when he was caught saying such a thing—everyone was surprised. Well, I wasn’t, and if you read here often—you weren’t either. But comparatively, Gruber’s comments are small stuff—as the big stuff hasn’t hit the fan yet and when it does……………………………”SPLAT,” and it won’t be a pretty sight.
Rich Hoffman
November 18, 2014
Cliffhanger Research and Development: Stories from inside the rabbit hole
As I promised I have a new project coming which should be obvious by some of the new icons on the side bar to this site. I have hinted at this venture as a second Cliffhanger book which is a sequel to my 2004 novel, The Symposium of Justice. When Tail of the Dragon was released, I heard from many fans that they wanted my work available as uploads to their devices which took me a while to accept. But after my second novel was out for a while and my publisher struggled to keep copies flowing to Amazon.com it was obvious to me that traditional publishing had changed in a way that was not to my liking.
As a writer I was very proud to have Tail of the Dragon move through the process of approval at a traditional publisher and to have it offered through a major book distributer. It was a personal goal of mine to gain that type of acceptance and to go through the process of getting celebrity blurbs and do interviews promoting the novel. It was a fun experience, but what became evident quickly is that really only media personalities already well established are getting play at a book store, and online publishing has changed the industry to such an extent that the new Stephen Kings, and John Grishems are not being moved up the chain in the fashion they once were. It has become much more of a crap shoot just to get exposure to have a chance to write another novel. So I listened to my fans and decided that in the future I would take more personal control over the distribution of my material and make it available in a way that modern audiences want—over their personal devices. My son-in-law spent many hours convincing me that the old publishing model was dead as well—so he deserves considerable credit for this new approach. Publishing in this fashion makes written work available to many more people over a vastly larger area—literally the world is at our feet these days—so any enterprising individual must take those considerations seriously when creating a new product.
By the time my publisher went out of business bringing to a halt access to my novel, which had been selling well compared to their other titles—it was easy for me to detect much of their problem. For me I had a very good experience with the publisher, their art department, editors and assistants to the CEO. But the trouble started when I had to deal with the marketing department where a snippy liberal leaning young man was lost on how to market anything. He had obvious problems with me personally since all of my blurbs were from very conservative personalities and my views were so contrary to his. My publisher liked my controversial stances and had heard many of my radio interviews on WLW, but their head of marketing had a serious case of the goo when he heard my controversy about the latté sipping prostitutes—which he thought was sexist. Even though everyone I dealt with at my publisher was women, and he was the only man, he was the only one who was offended which I had no sympathy for—and I told him as much on several occasions. He decided to have a contentious relationship with me that lasted during our entire contract—right up until they went out of business in October of the following year—2013.
Clearly to me their failure was because of people like that marketing guy who was picking and choosing the kind of products the publisher would support and he was making the wrong picks. He was trying to sell books to red states offering blue state sentiment—which clearly was the wrong strategy. In hindsight it appears that the publisher was hoping I would find some way to deal with their very liberal marketing department stationed outside of San Francisco—diplomatically—which I know how to do…….I just don’t like it. But from the outset he decided he didn’t like my position, he certainly didn’t like my blog, and he hated my radio interviews especially my latté sipping prostitute interview on WLW where I refused to apologize to women everywhere for calling levy supporters whores and materialistic Obama supporters. Needless to say, we didn’t get off to a good start and in spite of the healthy sales, good blurbs, and media coverage our relationship only got worse over the next year. When they sent me the notification of going out of business I wasn’t surprised. Everyone at the publisher was nice, and we all said our goodbyes—except for that guy. We never spoke again—and likely never will. He was an idiot and he cost their company sales–and ultimately their jobs.
But I’ve been in that position before and my first company Cliffhanger Research and Development was my first experience with that type of issue. I had invented a new tooling concept and was seeking a patent—and the firm I was working with had a similar personality—this time the issue was not my political views, but my age—he simply thought I was too young to be filing patents. I quickly lost patience with the guy realizing that it was people like him who were keeping new products from being created, so I started my own R&D Company— which led to a whole new series of adventures.
Uniquely I have a past that is loaded with these types of experiences, so inevitably those types of plot lines find their way into my stories. They bring richness to my characters that are exceptional to my stories. Most of the time failure of an idea or project comes down to a weak link in the chain, so to guarantee success, fewer links in the chain mean less opportunity for error. So the decision to release my next book The Curse of Fort Seven Mile was made taking into consideration my experience—and input from fans. And as an extra caveat, just for sentiment, my old company of Cliffhanger Research and Development is a major part of the plot of this new story. That is the reason for the sudden appearance of its title and website.
It’s not that everyone in the world is incompetent—but it only takes one in a chain of collaboration to destroy a new concept or idea—when Cliffhanger Research and Development was first brought forth over twenty years ago, I spent more time in court than actually making anything which has provided me with a rich backdrop to create this new novel from. Truth most of the time is stranger than fiction and when I write, it is usually from experience. For instance, I would not be able to write about a character calling a group of prissy, progressive, latté sipping, levy supporters names of castigation unless I had done something similar in real life—which obviously I have. So with a clean conscience I can write with that type of authority which is essentially the nature of the work behind The Curse of Fort Seven Mile. I like to know that whatever I write about I have done in some capacity before. Growing up, one of the people I most admired was Douglas Fairbanks who actually expected himself to be the masked man Zorro, to the extent that he trained hard to be the swashbuckling bandit in real life. I am not the kind of person who is happy to write about fantasy from the comfort of a Starbucks on a laptop—I have to actually do and feel the things I write about.
After The Symposium of Justice came out I had written about that world from a vantage point relevant to my experience up to that point. But to go to the next levels—which was required, I had to plunge myself into the inner workers of my accusations—which I have done over the last five years. The result is what The Curse of Fort Seven Mile and resurrection of Cliffhanger Research and Development are all about. I never planned to be a pawn in politics or a player of the inner workings—I had to know that the characters and their stories that I wanted to write about were ones that I had actually lived through—even when the times and circumstances applied great pressure to be otherwise.
Reading back through my notes from my early twenties when I started Cliffhanger Research and Development I could have written the philosophic stance of The Curse of Fort Seven Mile—but I could not have felt comfortable with the aspects of it that I had to explore because I had not yet went far enough into the void to witness the range of emotions mandated to report such a story. But now I have and it would not be wise not to use the tools of modern distribution in cutting out all the insufficient minds of a collaboration chain when for the first time in history such stories of an unchained nature have the opportunity to be told as in this second Cliffhanger novel.
I am now well into the story and am very happy with the progress so far. I am particularly proud of Chapter II titled “Latté Sipping Prostitutes” which obviously draws from experience. It was a hard story to tell because it’s so relevant to the actual happenings of daily politics and the many tricks that occur which prevent mankind from advancing properly into a destiny driven by thought instead of primitive yearnings. In my experience with publishing, I have done my conventional work—notably with Tail of the Dragon. Thankfully, I am now free of those shackles. It was a relief actually to get the notification that I wasn’t going to have to deal with that liberal marketing guy again. We disliked each other so much that even emails were strained communications that neither one of us enjoyed, so realizing that I’d never have to speak to that guy again was better than realizing that my novel would no longer be offered to the public—even with brisk sales. So in the future, the prospect of direct downloads is far more lucrative and has ignited in me the desire to commit to another project.
There are many exciting things on the horizon for Cliffhanger Research and Development and its fun for me to see that name once again listed like a ghost from my own past—which it is. With age comes more variables—more options that are available, and today there are many more options for such ideas than there was twenty years ago—so it is time to use them to the unchained intentions of my imagination which was always a plan in the back of my mind. And the “research and development” portion of this new/old endeavor should be of benefit to many people—which is something that brings great enthusiasm to my very soul. It is a fun time to work on these kinds of projects and that exultation is driven by the independence that is permitted with these new delivery methods that have not previously been embraced to the full extent of possibility. So it is time to make those things……………..possible……………..little by little as 2015 begins.
Rich Hoffman
