Here is a funny 1990’s video clip of Jim Carrey playing the whacko, satirizing extreme environmentalism. Fifteen years later, he is not a whacko. Bad science is helping big government to take away our liberties and in the process, slowly strangling America’s economy.

From the TV show, In Living Color.

Drifiting Left.

At the end of the video, the police haul the environmentalist away for being crazy. Today, tables are turning. It is the average guy who will be hauled away by the environmentalist. Our culture is slowly drifting leftward. What was considered extreme 15 years ago is now normal. If we continue at this pace, where will we be in 2020?

The World Prepares for a U.S. Decline.

Other countries can see it better than us. In today’s Wall Street Journal is an article worth a read,  A Pacific Warning, Australia prepares for U.S. decline.

Since World War II, U.S. military dominance has underpinned the Asia-Pacific region’s prosperity and relative peace. So it’s cause for concern when one of America’s closest allies sees that power ebbing amid unstable nuclear regimes such as Pakistan and North Korea and the expanding military power of China.

Chasing the wrong priorities.

Extreme environmentalism is symptomatic of a big problem in this country. We are focused on the wrong set of priorities. As American power ebbs, tyrannical government will rise up to fill the gap. New religions will replace Christianity as the core of our culture. Extreme environmentalism is that new religion. It’s the big distraction as people obsess over an imaginary enemy called climate change while real despots in human form rise up through out the world.

There has not been, nor will there ever be a country like America, founded on the liberty of the individual as greater than that of the state. Take that away and we will have a despot-like central government. That is when you may see a truly changed America.

An Arizona man attacks a freeway speed camera with a pick ax.

He was fined $3,500.

Speed-cams and red-light cams are used to meet budget shortfalls; not safety. They take a picture as you drive by and the next thing you know you have a ticket in the mail. It’s amazing to see all the ways we will be tracked and taxed in our cars.

Big Brother is Worse than Dad.

The government has the the ability to track everything you do, everywhere you go. All in the name of safety. And you pay if you do not conform. In his article, The War on Short Yellows, Holman Jenkins of the Wall Street Journal opines on the abuse of traffic cameras and other technologies by governments, all in the name of safety. Local and state governments set traffic timers to increase the number of tickets. You ain’t seen nothing yet. Read on…

Britain has gone furthest in using cameras for comprehensive auto surveillance, and now says it’s capable of monitoring every car trip in the U.K. and keeping a record for five years. Most traffic cameras are “on” all the time, and capable of being networked with plate- and even face-recognition software.

Never in America, you say? Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is moving ahead with a plan for mandatory GPS devices in cars that would be read at gas pumps and automatically charge drivers for miles driven… the quality of your emissions, etc. In Britain, the data yielded will be incorporated in a database of all kinds of personal information and camera observations to enable “data mining” to let the government know who’s doing what, when and where.

Your car already contains electronics that could report on, say, the quality of your emissions. How long before government knows not just where you went, but how fast and how much CO2 you vented in the process, and thanks to your email and phone records, whether you were visiting somebody or doing something that might warrant a further look?

In the former Soviet Union, if you were suspected of being a poor citizen, your home was bugged with listening devices, monitored by the KGB. Of course, the state also defines what a good citizen and who is one. With cameras everywhere, and tracking through GPS, when can be monitored very precisely. Not for imprisonment, but to be charged for behaviors. Officials who now call paying taxes, our patriotic duty, will want you to see all this monitoring and taxation the same way.

Smile, you’re a patriot!

Read the article in the Wall Street Journal here…

Will robots be chasing us one day?

Yes, soon. Very soon.

The most recent movie that advanced this topic was iRobot starring Will Smith. The robots had brains and killing power. Then they got emotion and went out of control. See the trailer here.

Reported in AlertNet, Killer robots and a revolution in warfare, a whole host of machines have been used with great effect in IRAQ, primarily helping our soldiers as pack mules, doing recon and bomb diffusion. The are now being developed to kill.

Ground-based robots in Iraq have saved hundreds of lives in Iraq, defusing improvised explosive devices… The first armed robot was deployed in Iraq in 2007… . Its mounted M249 machine gun can hit a target more than 3,000 feet away with pin-point precision.

And, it won’t take long before they make their way into law enforcement here in the USA.

Robots will not have emotion any time soon, but the people who operate them do.

It’s sooner than you think.

Watch this video of BigDog and imagine being stalked through the woods. Creepy, especially when you consider where the technology will evolve to over the next 5 to 10 years…

At a press conference today at the G20 economic summit, world leaders unveiled the car of the future. Termed the “gCar” or Green Car, President Obama hailed the breakthrough as a major step forward in “making the United States independent from foreign oil and revitalizing our national auto industry”, fulfilling major promises of his 2008 political campaign. He also took the opportunity to announce a technology cooperative with Russia and China , saying…

This is proof that the socialist nations of the world have much to offer America in our time of need.

President Obama was also quick to extoll the technology breakthroughs of the gCar including the one horsepower engine, which promises near continuous energy for up to 10 hours at time. A “fuel collector” upgrade feature will be available, to remove the engine’s emissions for use in fertilization or the home compost pile. Fuel subsidies will be available from government distribution centers in the form of hay and oats.

America’s consumerist mentality…

When asked about advanced forms of the gCar technology, such as the two-horse model already in use in development by Mercedes and BMW, the President chastened the reporter, saying…

America must change its consumerist mentality. Government experts have determined the one-horse model is the ideal for our workers. Any more will overburden our delicate infrastructure. Let’s not forget we’re in a crisis here.

When asked about other possible drawbacks, including lack of top speed of the one-horse version, the President was quick to point out that speedy transportation is a classist tool that would no longer be used to oppress the poor.

I hope you all got a kick out of that — my attempt at an “Onion” style article. The best Onion articles are the ones that almost seem possible. We have so much absurdity in our culture, some harmless and some dangerous. And there is nothing more absurd than the fact half the population of America is looking to the government and its leaders to preserve a standard of living built with a free market.

I am not aware of a single example of a government program or initiative that has advanced our nation’s economy. Free markets have proven themselves over and over building a standard of living that has benefited hundred of millions of people throughout the world. Did the government mandate the phone, the lightbulb, the airplane, movies, the Mac? No. Capitalists did, motivated by personal gain. Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, Louis B. Mayer, Steve Jobs were all motivated by the opportunity to profit in a free market. The great irony is, if they didn’t meet a need, they would not profit. Thus, the needs of the “people” drive innovation, not the dictates of a government planner. Who will buy the one-horse gCar, or its equivalent from Washington’s central planners? Nobody, unless they regulate out the good stuff. Ever see the cars from the Soviet Union?

Our hope should be in ourselves and God, not the government. It is not time to abandon  the great experiment that started in 1776.

A good question to ask yourself, “What motivates you to get out of bed in the morning?” I doubt few will answer… “my government.”

An irreversible crisis is usually preceded by a slow, accelerating decay with ever increasing signs of doom. Living in denial, we typically take the path of least resistance by making small changes. And doing this, we typically respond to where the problem was yesterday, not where it will be tomorrow. We end up chasing our tail in a death spiral to the very end. We finally wake up and will try anything, but then it’s too late. It’s really hard to have the guts to get out in front. The best advice I’ve ever heard comes from Barney Fife, when he says, “Nip it. Nip it in the bud!”

This seems to be what has gone on for years at General Motors (GM). Since the 1980s, they have been in a long death spiral. They have had the best and brightest talent, or as Rush would say, “the wizards of smart”. But GM was hamstrung by an inculcated, calcified culture trying to preserve the status quo (along with the slow strangulation of labor unions and government regulators). This is not a case of Monday morning quarterbacking. From way back when, many saw this coming. Now, GM has little time left. See the cartoon, “sixty days to evolve”, as Mike Luckovich so aptly cartoons.

A good question to ask in any crisis…

“If I were starting from scratch, is this the place I would work so hard to get to?”

If not yes, then make a change and make it fast and hard. Get out in front. Too far in front is better than not far enough. I do not think the wizards at GM would have started a car company in the 1990s with the dream of making indistinguishable cars across six divisions / brands. So, always try to approach you crisis or problem with the question, “If I were starting from scratch, would I…” and you will get a fresh perspective.