The Solomon Islands, The Next Confrontation?

The Solomon Islands have become another piece, a pawn perhaps,  in the international geo-political chess game between the western "democracies" and the totalitarian east, ie. China and the Russian Federation. 

Just as six months ago the average American would have failed to produce the question in TV quiz show Jeopardy if the clue would have been Kyiv, practically no Yankee realizes that Honiara is the capital of the Solomon Islands, wherever they are, which is way out in the middle of the South Pacific.

 

Residents of the Solomons traveladventures.org

 

In fact, Honiara, population 92,344, is located on the north shore of Guadalcanal Island. The site of intense fighting between the forces of Japan and the US during WWII, most of the violence there since has been domestic rioting. The city is 1912 miles from the Australian capital Canberra, 4,399 miles from Beijing, China and 8,388 miles from Washington, DC, USA. Nonetheless, it's now the focus of international scrutiny. 

Word has gotten out that the Chinese are in the process of obtaining local permission to make use of the port facilities of Honiara. This has raised hackles in Australia, that considers the Solomons to be in their sphere of influence, 

Of course, the US is attempting to be involved as well:

 The US signalled its concern on Tuesday with US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman speaking to Solomon Islands Foreign Minister Jeremiah Manele about plans for a US embassy there and “joint efforts to broaden and deepen engagement”. Kurt Campbell, the National Security Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, is expected to visit Honiara later this month.

The US had closed its Honiara embassy in 1993. 

It might be interesting to compare the situation of the Solomon Islands with that of Ukraine. Western powers are unenthusiastic to accept a significant Chinese influence in a sovereign nation that is in reality a colonial outpost of Australia, just as the Russian Federation was opposed to NATO influences in what were Russian enclaves in Ukraine. It seems unlikely that the current great powers would be willing to trade blows over the Solomons, the least visited populated place on earth, but who knows? 

In a recent speech US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said: "We cannot allow countries to use their market position in key raw materials, technology or products to have the power to disrupt our economy or exercise unwanted geopolitical leverage,"she said. Countries should try to arrange new trade agreements that reduce the influence of non-friendly partners in a move she called "friend shoring" to allied nations, she added. 

In other words, sovereign nations that don't agree with US foreign policy objectives might be subjected to what amounts to international ostracism. 

On the other hand, perhaps the Solomons might be capable of playing the would-be hegemons against one another to their own advantage, getting a better deal after auctioning off their love to the highest bidder. 

Problems With The Rule By Female Gerontocracy

   Michael Reynolds/EPA

 California U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein

 

A member of the US Senate since 1992, 88 year-old Dianne Feinstein seems to be demonstrating mental lapses that are compromising her ability to represent the citizens of the Golden State. 

There are many dimensions to a problem of this nature, one that is common to almost every family at one time or another. At some point Grandpa is a danger to others on the highways so he must surrender the car keys. Grandma can't keep up with her household duties, the kids have their own familial functions, so the much-loved lady ends up in a facility. None of the family members expect either of the them to make important decisions, financial or otherwise, even those that affect only themselves.

The idea that a person nearing their centennial year can be trusted to make an informed decision on complicated legislative issues is preposterous. Just as eight-year olds aren't issued licenses to drive, there must be an upper moratorium on congressional membership, even though an aged one may seem perfectly normal. Driver's licenses aren't given to primary school students that show exceptional maturity. 

But that's only a part of the problem. Women and men are biologically different. Women become mothers, men do not. A subject that has no doubt been in at least the background of human society for as long as there has been one is the biological fact of menopause. At a certain point in life women are no longer able to conceive. During the process leading up to menopause there are physical and mental changes that have always been apparent. The mental ones are the issue, and these changes often persist at one level or another for the rest of the female's life. This is a simple fact, not open to subjectivity, that has been true as long as women and men have walked the planet.

The American Cancer Society, serious about the incidence of breast cancer, says that an American female has about a 13% chance of suffering from it during her lifetime. Menopause, however, is 100% guaranteed for any woman that lives through adulthood. 

What does this mean? At various times and places in history unfortunate events have been blamed on "witches". Not all witches have been female but the majority have been older women. In Puritan Salem, Massachusetts, eccentric old women accused of witchcraft were hung in the early 17th century. No one would wish to do this now but nevertheless it's obvious that the menopausal experience can and does produce negativities around others, from its beginnings until death. That's a given as pharmaceutical companies spend an enormous amount of money producing and marketing medications meant to alleviate it, not always successfully.

The point is that older females, particularly in the West, have become more and more prominent politically and in government, at the elected, appointed and career level. This is an entirely new phenomenon. Historically, women were very influential but in a different sense than today. Charles Martel, victor over the Moors at the Battle of Tours, October 10, 732, and savior of Western Civilization was only able to become the Frankish leader and founder of the Merovingian dynasty through the efforts of his mother. 

Livia, wife of Roman Emperor Augustus, held no office in Rome but was closely connected to every victory and loss in the most powerful city-state in the West. Perhaps there is a biological reason that the most successful societies have been patriarchal ones. Maybe we shouldn't dismiss or ignore biology in a representative government. How can we be sure that a person appointed to a lifetime tenure on the US Supreme Court will still be able to understand the precedent of Marbury vs. Madison on their 90th birthday? Do we want a woman in the midst of a "hot flash" pushing the "big red button"?      

Spectacular Attorney Compensatiion

 A woman who was fired from her job at Amazon took the company to court in 2018 in Santa Ana, California and was awarded by the jury $309,500. Her attorneys requested $3.46 million in fees but Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Linfield apparently thought the amount excessive and reduced their compensation to a paltry $2.7 million. The article doesn't enumerate the number of billable hours presented by the attorneys in the case or the billing rate.

Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins

 [The pace of human ecology] is determined by the progress of man's technology... human ecology (economy) is governed by mechanisms of POSITIVE feedback, defined as a mechanism which tends to encourage behavior rather than to attenuate it. Positive feedback always involves the danger of an 'avalanche' effect... One particular kind of positive feedback occurs when individuals OF THE SAME SPECIES enter into competition among themselves... For many animal species, environmental factors keep... intraspecies selection from [leading to] disaster... But there is no force which exercises this type of healthy regulatory effect on humanity's cultural development; unfortunately for itself, humanity has learned to overcome all those environmental forces which are external to itself

 Let us imagine that an absolutely unbiased investigator on another planet, perhaps on Mars, is examining human behavior on earth, with the aid of a telescope whose magnification is too small to enable him to discern individuals and follow their separate behavior, but large enough for him to observe occurrences such as migrations of peoples, wars, and similar great historical events. He would never gain the impression that human behavior was dictated by intelligence, still less by responsible morality. If we suppose our extraneous observer to be a being of pure reason, devoid of instincts himself and unaware of the way in which all instincts in general and aggression in particular can miscarry, he would be at a complete loss how to explain history at all. The ever-recurrent phenomena of history do not have reasonable causes. It is a mere commonplace to say that they are caused by what common parlance so aptly terms "human nature." Unreasoning and unreasonable human nature causes two nations to compete, though no economic necessity compels them to do so; it induces two political parties or religions with amazingly similar programs of salvation to fight each other bitterly, and it impels an Alexander or a Napoleon to sacrifice millions of lives in his attempt to unite the world under his scepter. We have been taught to regard some of the persons who have committed these and similar absurdities with respect, even as "great" men, we are wont to yield to the political wisdom of those in charge, and we are all so accustomed to these phenomena that most of us fail to realize how abjectly stupid and undesirable the historical mass behavior of humanity actually is.

 A completely new [ecology] which corresponds in every way to [humanity's] desires... could, theoretically, prove as durable as that which would have existed without his intervention.

 The competition between human beings destroys with cold and diabolic brutality... Under the pressure of this competitive fury we have not only forgotten what is useful to humanity as a whole, but even that which is good and advantageous to the individual. One asks, which is more damaging to modern humanity: the thirst for money or consuming haste... in either case, fear plays a very important role: the fear of being overtaken by one's competitors, the fear of becoming poor, the fear of making wrong decisions or the fear of not being up to snuff... 

Konrad Lorenz, 1903-1989   Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins

Executive Compensation

Executives for large public corporations make a lot of money, sometimes more than guys that can throw a ball through a hoop 23' 9" away. One example is this executive, Ben Fowke, of Xcel Energy, Inc.

Jerry Holt, star-tribune.com

Smiling Ben's compensation for the last year of his tenure with the monopoly electrical company was $22,329,408, the fourth consecutive year that his compensation was more than $20 million. As a means of comparison, his return for 2021 could have purchased 24,297 pressure treated cedar distribution power poles, capable of carrying electricity a distance of 575 miles. 

Additionally, what exactly does Mr. Fowke do for Xcel Energy that merits such a lavish salary and perks? He doesn't climb power poles or retrieve electrocuted squirrels from the tops of transformers. Basically, he makes decisions on the future of the Xcel business based on his interpretations of the recent past and the present, as will his replacement. But, like all utilities, and US business in general, these decisions are extremely limited by the US government. Fowke couldn't even determine the rates charged by Xcel for its services without the approval of a state or federal agency. His projections of the future must follow the lead of these agencies. In other words, his business activity is virtually that of a government bureaucrat. The decisions he makes could be made by any low-paid functionary in the US nomenclatura.

The vaunted free-market liberty concept continually spouted by elements of the US elite is a fraud. Business and government operate hand-in-hand and the leaders of both gather the rewards of this cooperation. 

   

How Does One Tell A Man From A Woman?

What does five nanomoles per liter mean in unscientific numerology? Unless you're an educated chemist/mathematician, not much.

For the entire history of the human species the distinction between the sexes was made on the basis of the senses. Women and men had different appearances, they produced different odors, the sounds that they made were generally different. Of course there were individuals that didn't fall into the normal pattern, like hermaphrodites, but they were rare. Others, whose behavior didn't match their perceived sex, weren't considered as a separate sex but something else.

The subject wasn't considered as important until the advent of advanced science. The discovery and interpretation of chromosomes occurred early in the 20th century, principally by Thomas Hunt Morgan. It was determined that humans have 23 chromosome pairs. The pairs that determine sex are referred to as X chromosomes in females. Males have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome.

 

lonetester.com  Model of the DNA double helix

No one is able to obtain the chromosome pattern of an individual without sophisticated scientific analysis so sensory input is still the general standard for making the distinction. However, this doesn't seem to be sufficient in the postmodern era. 

Individuals that have what is called "gender dysphoria" aren't satisfied with their sexuality and find it doesn't match their personality. There are men that don't feel that they actually are men and women who think that they are men encased in a female body. Once again, instances of this have occurred throughout history. Then and now, the casual observer still perceives gender on the basis of sensory impressions.

The scientific method has become more and more sophisticated, operating on a level so miniature, so infinitesimal, that normal human senses are no longer useful. This situation probably began with the invention of optics, the telescope, and later, the microscope, but has now reached an even deeper level, permeating every aspect of our lives. Food products are tested for contaminants at a level of parts per billion. 

A recent example of the dimensions of this new state of affairs has come to light in Orange County, California, where a DNA expert's analysis of crime scene evidence, some from as far back as the '80s, has sent supposed offenders to prison. Further investigation has called her analysis and testimony into question, investigations by other DNA experts, since no layman is qualified to do so. 

The miniaturization of science has had beneficial results but also negative ones in that only a small coterie of specialists with advanced proprietary equipment are qualified to deal with the field. 

The computer with which you're reading this is the product of the microscopic printing process used to produce the chips that operate it. Continuous research goes on in virtually every modern endeavor to make use of smaller and smaller tools and processes. Where this will all end, no one really knows.

     gephartelectric.com

A big building devoted to the study of really little things.

  

Howie Carr On The Mass Media

 What were once well-read print outlets are little more than money-hemorrhaging vanity projects for billionaires (The Post), their trophy wives (The Boston Globe) or their widows (The Atlantic).

Howie Carr, Boston Herald, April 2, 2022