Asian Spring? First Challenge to Dictatorship in China Since Tiananmen

Are we seeing the beginning of an Asian Spring, in China? Or the prelude to another bloodshed like Tiananmen when students wanting democracy were crushed by tanks and guns.

Tomorrow is "National Day" in China. This photo is me, when I happened to be there on national day during a legal negotiation in 1982. I have stayed connected to China's evolution ever since.

 Above: Michael Fjetland, Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China 1982

Above: Michael Fjetland, Hong Kong, 1982

Not since the Chinese Tiananmen Square incident in  Beijing in 1989 - when the government destroyed student protestors -- has China been confronted by protests on its streets.  A small gathering of students demanding FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY has grown dramatically.

This time the protests are in a unique area. It is not the northern capitol of Beijing, but in the southern province of Hong Kong, which was controlled for over a century by England. That all changed in 1997 when they cut a deal to return Hong Kong to China's control, based on promises by Beijing that Hong Kong would be "special" and allowed to elect its own leaders. Now they are changing the rules.

Hong Kong students have been joined by up to 300,000 citizens in their fight for the democracy.   In 2017 Hong Kong Chinese --unlike the 1 billion on the Mainland subject to one-party Communist rule - were to be allowed to vote for the chief executive of Hong Kong.

China wants to renege on the deal. They want to "select" the candidate the people could vote for. It's the same thing as one-party dictatorship, not democracy.

Stay tuned: Follow updates on Global American Values

This is What I Saw in Syria - Ready for some Reality? Or Go Over There Yourself

America - I am seeing a lot of false information going around on Facebook and Social Media. Heads up!

The only people who really know what they are talking about regarding Syria and the Middle East are the few who have actually been there --especially if they have international legal experience.

I am one of those rare people. Have YOU been there? How about listening to someone with actual knowledge instead of someone forwarding misleading photos on Facebook?

 Michael Fjetland at Great Mosque, Damascus, Syria

 Michael at back of a Christian church in Maloula, Syria - this used to be the hidden entrance back when Christians were killed by Romans for their faith. Sound familiar?

 This photo is Maloula, the Christian town just north of Damascus. One of the men was our driver. His car was a small, white Mercedes.

I documented it in a book of my global experiences. I added photos of what it looks like today.  I made the book as cheap as Amazon and Barnes & Noble would allow--its not intended as a money maker but as a reference source for Americans wanting to know what is going on over there and what we can do about it.The final chapter "Agenda for American Greatness" offers SOLUTION to make America No. 1 again - its a free chapter at the website.

Americans need to know exactly what is going on in Syria (not to mention the rest of the world). We have a lot at stake whether we like it or not. Could ISIL/ISIS attack the U.S.? Will this drag us back into a place we don't want to go? Do we have a choice?

ISIS/ISIL has beheaded two American journalists and a British one, along with countless children, women and men in Syria and Iraq. They are even relentlessly killing other Muslims, which violates the Koran (which I am reading to find out more about what's in it.)  ISIS is as intolerant as Hitler. There is no negotiation with their absolute intolerance and their indifference to killing thousands of innocent people.


Until you read and consider what I experienced over there, you might as well ask plumbers to advise about Ebola. They are just guessing. Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, and the rest are bullshiting you - none of them have been over there and seen what I have seen. Or done what I have done.

Here is my own example of why experience matters. I have been doing global negotiations for three decades - have practiced law in over 50 countries but I had never been to Norway. So I should already know it, right? Wrong.  I read up on it before a trip and thought I really knew all about Norway it. When I got there in 2011, I realized that I didn't know squat about Norway. A week on the ground and lots of debriefings later, I was an expert. But not before then.


For daily events, I recommend you follow my Global American Values blog. Otherwise, you are listening to amateurs who have no clue. Until you have actually been on the ground in Syria (or any country for that matter) you are CLUELESS.

I was in Syria as an international attorney negotiating a child kidnapping case. Know anyone who would do that?  The child was actually a few miles away in Lebanon. I was in Syria's capitol Damascus, one of the longest continuously inhabited cities on Earth. I document this story and what it looked like in my ebook "Better Times Ahead April Fool"

Who Got Bribed at NASA for BOEING to win over More Advanced Dreamchaser?

I have one question: WHO got bribed at NASA to declare Boeing's untested capsule a $4 billion winner over the more advanced Dream chaser?  The Dreamchaser is the only vehicle under consideration for NASA's private launch initiative that takes off and lands on a runway unlike all the other selections by NASA? 

I live 5 minutes from NASA and have worked with advanced technology worldwide so I am familiar with what NASA does. And I know people at NASA. I highly respect their astronauts but have great reservations about their management. Common sense doesn't seem very common in their decision making. This selection proves my point.

Because if someone was not bribed then it ranks as one of the stupidest decisions by mediocre minds in the space agency in a generation. Basically NASA just passed over a reusable craft in favor of a technology that is a half century old - and put all its eggs in one basket. It went with Capsules, capsules and capsules.

Boeing's capsule needs over 20 square miles to land in water and the expense of ships retrieving it from the ocean. The Dream chaser (photo below) would take off from a runway and land the same way for the maximum efficiency to bring costs down.

NASA is building the Orion, a capsule. It just contracted with Boeing, for another capsule. Why build two of the same kind? That's duplication and a waste! SpaceX also flies a capsule. That is three in a row. It appears that NASA picked the least advanced technology with the best political connections instead of the best technology regardless of the politics.

NASA's decision awarding a contract to SpaceX was justified since SpaceX is currently shuttling payloads successfully to the space station, and it will soon have the capability of landing itself on land. But why did it pick Boeing that hasn't even made a test flight?  And something else they did looks damn peculiar

NASA gave Boeing $4 billion of the $6 billion contract for an untested capsule! It gave Space X only $2 billion, even though its technology has been working! How does this make any sense?

Here are photos of what NASA has selected:

Boeing capsule

Here is a photo of NASA's Orion capsule:

Here is a photo of SpaceX's capsule:

Do you feel like you have double/triple vision?

Now here is a photo of Sierra Nevada's Dream chaser:

And here is how it would look in space:

There needs to be an investigation. Success depends on a reusable craft like the Dreamchaser that can land on a runway instead of an ocean far away from land. 


I found this statement about the bidding process on the Sierra Nevada website. Apparently they also feel something was wrong with the bidding process at NASA. I hope they pursue legal action and an investigation into this award by NASA.
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/09/dream-chaser-fight-snc-protest-cctcap-decision/


This is not your father's NASA making decisions. Let them hear your voice too.

Please pass this along so America can get back into the lead space technology with the best technology instead of the technology selected by politics and limited thinking.

Upgrade White House Security Before Its Too Late

I am starting the re-write of my original "Fire Over Arabia" ...it still fits today's crazy world as much as the original did.

The original, written in 1990 (but not published) was about a terror attack on the U.S. AND a war in the Middle East. The photos represent what I predicted - Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11 was targeting either the Capitol building or the White House (which is harder to see from the air than Capitol Hill).

We could have lost the entire Congress that day, including my nemesis, Tom DeLay. If Congress were wiped out today, there is no way to replace representatives without Special Elections, whereas the Senate could be appointed by Governors.

The photo also represents what I was warning about in the linked video - which I made in 1994! 7 years foresight should count for something.  I talked about it during the Gulf War in 1991:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr_SXX2qp-M

And here is the 1994 version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfRE-JkUSRg

After the recent White House breach by the man jumping the fence, terrorists now know how easy it would be to breach even that secure location. So if a bunch of right wing thugs (or Isamists) hit it with heavy weapons, this is what could result. They need to put a second fence around it with a moat in between--it won't spoil the view but makes a terror attack on the first family much harder.
I am TOTALLY serious. Death threats against Obama are triple of what Bush had, simply because of his color.

In my book "Better Times Ahead...," I talk about how the book came about as a result of a lay off. Yes, bad things that happen to you can open your eyes.

Standby for updates on key issues that impact all of us by following the
Global American Values blog:
http://globalamericanvalues.blogspot.com/

In the meantime, UPGRADE the access to the White House NOW. Breaching it from the street has been proven to be too easy. Fix it before it happens again. The occupant in 2017 will need it just as much as President Obama does now.
www.BetterTimesAheadAprilFool.com

Separation of Politics and Business - If only the Koch Brothers and Fortune 500 Followed it

Has this happened to you?

I just had a heater guy come to check the heat unit at my place.

Out of the blue he says something political.  He assumed I thought like he did. Assumptions are dangerous and usually wrong. Especially when you are at someones HOME.

I didn't say anything but it really made me mad. A business person should NEVER inject a political statement while on a trade call. Bad form. I won't say who it was, but I won't use them again for that reason. It's bad enough to see TV news injecting slanted politics.

You may not believe this BUT i keep my business and politics SEPARATE.

Global American Values is my political side. It's about making America BETTER and SMARTER.

Few of my Armor Glass customers know my view or that i have written a book or had a bunch of incredible global adventures few ever dream of.

Why? Because the focus is THE CLIENT, not me, or the rep. If I go to someone's home and started going off on how wonderful and clever I am, they would be right to wonder "who the hell is this guy?" LOL. I have seen reps do that so I have to remind them NOT to go there.

I have a CODE OF CONDUCT for my company reps and installers. Political debates on the job are off limits! If a customer makes a political statement, they are to either keep quiet --even or agree with them (the memo says they can go throw up outside later but don't get into a debate with a customer on politics!) An argument is ground for termination immediately.

I devised the code because of an experience a few years ago not long after I started Armor Glass. I had one installer (and only one and he's gone now) who actually got into a debate with a client while he was installing our security film on the man's house down in the (Rio Grande) valley. The client never mentioned it to me --the installer was dumb enough to say to me: "That guy doesn't understand politics." That steamed me.

I told him that clients aren't paying us to hear his Effing political opinions! He (or she) is supposed to be focused on doing a top job not debating a client who is paying us and will refer people if you aren't being an ass and making them mad. So I wrote the Armor Glass Code of Conduct.

Same goes for my Sales Reps - NO politics allowed. I won't even let them put a bumper sticker on when representing us. Some people will like a sticker but it just makes half of the people mad. That's DUMB for a business.

Ironically, what I do protects the butts of people with whom I don't agree with politically (as well as those I do, like the client in the valley.) In this business the "fear" people (the R's) are my best clients, usually upper income. To their credit, none of them have really mentioned politics to me, primarily because they are focused on personal security.

But it is IRONIC that it is a progressive liberal that is providing the security they are using for protection. Even MORE IRONIC: the conservatives in competing businesses aren't providing the quality stuff this progressive does.

Instead of offering the same quality, most of the conservative guys come in and sell the clients discounted cheap crap --like worthless solar film that doesn't provide breach protection from a burglar or hurricane force winds when you live in a burglar/hurricane zone. They undercut us by 10%-20% by offering something half as good. Instead of getting security film, they get cheap stuff that will fail. How is that good? The customer doesn't even know it - film looks the same once its on the window.

Frankly, they offer cheap alternatives to grab peoples' money - like selling you a 2 ply tire but promising it to be "just as good" as a 4 ply tire. Yeah...and the person thinks he or she is saving the money when they never got what they wanted. They got cheated. I don't play that game. I provide quality of material and personnel. period. No games.

I have a Code of Conduct for my company because I want a brand that says first class -- without politics involved or muddying the water.

My personal views are here, NOT on my Armor Glass blog...

As it should be...agree?

Big Difference: USA Has 5 Arab State Partners for ISIS - Sunnis dropping bombs on Sunni Extremists

Obama was SMART - instead of us being the Calvary riding to the rescue of failed states like Iraq (thanks Bush) and Syria, the President took the time to get 5 ARAB countries involved--4 of them flying fighters and dropping bombs.

 Now we have Sunni's bombing Sunni extremists -- instead of it just being us "Christian" westerns appearing to be the only one "beating up" the Muslim natives.  This is IMPORTANT.

This Arab coalition shows that Muslims oppose these extreme killers who are even blowing up Muslim Mosques.  The only problem is that all of our allies are monarchs.

BIG difference...!

Imagine an ISIS/ISIL with an AK 47 --or driving one of our stolen tanks-- and he looks up to see its Bahrain and Jordan flag on the plane dropping a big bomb on his ass.  That is one less fighter butchering Christian and minority children and raping women they bought for $1 after an ISIS raid on dozens of Kurd and Shia villages...

Consider this: If the bomb hits civilians, it is an Arab country doing it, not just us. Let them be mad at Egypt and Qatar instead of us.

Thank god we have  a Smart(er) President who doesn't rush in like a fool (like 2003, which set up the rise of ISIS). We have a wise, thinking President who plays a smart game in an ever changing, complex world...

Take a Trip to Syria Without Losing Your Head - Right Here...

Today I heard a guy say "There aren't any 'moderates' in Syria. I know that's wrong. Why? Because I have been there and met them! I gave the man a card with my book link. He was interested.

How many of you have been to Syria? How many have been to Turkey? I have been to both countries - as an adult. In Syria it was a child kidnapping case.

If you want to see what Syria looked like before Assad started murdering his own people and ISIS/ISIL became a cancer from the Iraq war, then check out  my insights in "Better Times Ahead Apri Fool."  It shows Syria before and after the war started. It traces the last 30 years from Reagan's wars (he helped Saddam for 8 years in a war against Iran), to Bush I, Bush II, 9/11, etc. It even traces how we got into this economic mess, and how we get back to No. 1 again.

Regarding TURKEY - I didn't cover it in the 2013 Ebook because I was just there for the first time last December. While there I viewed the grave sites of the Virgin Mary and St. John in southern Turkey to Istanbul. I will cover it in my Global American blog in coming days...How many of you know that the Virgin Mary and Jesus are honored in the Koran? Right...

I love it when bubbas who have never been outside of Texas or Anytown USA start spouting what they think about Syria, etc.  That would like me claiming to be a climate scientist, which I am not. My climate views come from LISTENING TO CLIMATE EXPERTS, not from the oil industry or idiots on talking head TV.

In the coming weeks we are going to see a lot of news about Syria and Turkey (which is a problem for us since terrorists are crossing its borders).

I made the price as low as Amazon would let me. I tried to make it 99 cents but both Amazon and Barnes have a floor of $1.99.  It has eye popping photos so you can get a 'feel' for it.

Read and learn without the risk of going yourself and losing your head. Please SHARE.

http://globalamericanvalues.blogspot.com/

http://bettertimesaheadaprilfool.com/

Three Afghan military "vanish" at Cape Cod. What This Means

As a Terrorism Analyst, there are two possible reasons for these Afghan military guys to disappear from a training exercise in Cape Cod:

(1) They are going to do a terrorist hit since they are really Taliban OR

(2) They are refugee deserters who DON'T want to go back...

Neither is a good thing for different reasons.

For updates on this and ISIS by one of the few who saw 9/11 coming, follow at our Global American Facebook page 

or Global American Values blog.

How Predicting 911 Came About - It Started with a Lay Off and a Fiction Book That Became Fact

Recently while moving papers I discovered an old dusty thick file. Inside I found a printed original manuscript for a "fiction" book I was writing about a terror attack against the U.S. - in 1990!  The original title was Fire Over Arabia.  It was fiction that become fact in more ways than one.

I wrote it because I had lost my high flying global negotiating job after being sent to over 30 countries in a five year span--from Egypt to China and India and South America. I figured it might be a way to take my unique knowledge of people and strange places far and wide that I had come to know -- and make a buck trying to be like Tom Clancy or Dan Brown etc. since I was broke!  Little did I know I was writing a non-fiction scenario that would soon occur.

Fire Over Arabia was my fictional story of "a flash war in the Middle East" and a "terror attack on the U.S."  I was about half way through the manuscript, writing about my main character becoming caught in an unexpected flash war in Iraq, when the news broke that Saddam had invaded Kuwait.  Part of my fiction book had just become real. America was heading for the first Gulf War.

Being broke means you have a highly refined radar for sensing opportunity. I didn't let not having a car at the time stop me (it had broken down and been repossessed).  I sent my book info around to Houston TV stations.  I got exactly one favorable response: Houston's Fox 26 station sent for me.  I got a friend to drive me there and one of the broadcasters dropped me back at my apartment afterward.

This is IMPORTANT: Fox 26 then and now is nothing like the national Fox network.  Houston's Fox 26 has always had the nicest group of people in studio with no political agenda. It presents straight news in a non-biased, non-political manner. I like everyone there - from Fran Fawcett (1990) to Jose Grinan, Melissa Wilson, etc. and I still appear there from time to time.  It is totally different from the national Fox network which is become like Russian TV, which is one-party controlled propaganda media for Mr. Putin instead of straight unbiased news.)

Within three years the second part of Fire Over Arabia would also come true.

In 1993, we had a warning. It was was the first bombing of the World Trade Center. Few Americans remember it but I paid attention. Six people were killed when terrorists set off a bomb in the parking garage below the twin towers.  The second plot part of "Fire" was a terrorist attack on the United States. People remember 9/11, but we had a series of warnings long before then, from the attack on the USS Cole to the African U.S. embassy bombings and including the famous August 2001 memo President Bush received warning about an imminent Al Qaida attack, but Americans didn't notice until we had our generations Pearl Harbor size event.

My Fire Over Arabia terrorist plot was about a nuclear device, not planes flying into buildings. The result is the same although the delivery systems will vary.  My "Fire" did have a (nuclear) missile flying towards Washington DC, launched offshore by terrorists operating from the Middle East.


Why did the local Fox station pick me?

Because few people in Houston, then and now, had the unique experience I had in the Middle East doing actual business deals (not strolling around as a casual tourist).  I had been a young Fortune 500 legal negotiator for a major oil services company (Dresser Industries).  Before that a company called Brown and Root (now KBR) had hired this kid out of school and sent him to Nicaragua, so I was there at the beginnings of the Contra war in the Reagan administration and witnessed a lot of other very weird stuff -- like the company getting indicted and the then B&R President coming suicide.   I even had to try to get $ 2 million out of Saddam in the 1970's for Brown & Root on an oil drilling deal.  I was "kicked" out of a room at the Nile Hilton in Cairo, Egypt to make room for President Carter's entourage for the first ever peace treaty between Israel and an Arab country (all described in "Better Times Ahead".)

"Fire" never got published. Why? Because back then it took a year to get a book processed and printed.  The publishers said "Saddam will be gone within a year" and then the book would be out of date.

Well, they were wrong. Saddam was around for over another decade because the first Bush administration knew what would happen if they toppled him (I just heard James Baker talk about it on "Meet the Press" today).

In 1994, I produced a TV video talking about the potential of a 9/11 coming and my guest was a weapons expert from the Reagan administration. It is posted on YouTube. I sent a copy to VP-Elect Dick Cheney and Congress Majority Whip Tom DeLay nine months before 9/11. No Response. This link is the video they would have seen if they looked.

I am attaching the Prologue that I wrote for "Fire Over Arabia" in 1990 --so YOU can judge if I had vision of national significance or not.   And if you want to know what America should be concerned about next - and how to FIX it then read a new book I have published called "Better Times Ahead April Fool."  Sorry, its a jpeg converted from a PDF but it is authentic, except the address and phone number which I haven't used in twenty years.

If I was right about 911, then read my latest book and ask yourself if I am also right about how to make America No. 1 again in the final chapter "Agenda for American Greatness."

Fire Over Arabia was written in 1990 - 11 years before 9/11.  That was almost a quarter century ago from today and still America isn't listening. Agenda for American Greatness is all about looking ahead.  Because we can win, but only if we are smart.


Here is my 1990 Prologue for Fire Over Arabia...let me know with a comment if you think I should publish it, or even update it.

Where Were You on 911? I became a terrorism analyst that day...

11 September 2014

Thirteen years ago today 9/11 shook America. Where were you that day?  I ended up in a different place. Normally I would have been practicing law. But I spent the day in a TV studio as a terrorism expert, watching the images and trying to analyze a confusing situation.

                                                     Michael Fjetland on 9/11, 2001

                                                      

                                                     Inside the World Trade Center 1994

Why was I on TV as an expert in that area?  Because I had been an international negotiator before getting laid off during the “Great Texas Oil Bust” of the 80’s. Looking for a project that might earn a buck and use my knowledge of the world (I had been in the Middle East and over thirty countries) I had written a “fiction” book about a potential terrorist attack on the United States (and a flash war in a place called Iraq). I had no idea my fiction book would soon become non-fiction.

In the middle of my book, Saddam invaded Kuwait, which led to the first Gulf War in 1990-91.  When the second plane hit the WTC, I called the same TV station and asked: “Would you like me to come in?”  The answer was yes.  I saw photos that were never published. Some were of people falling from the towers. A close look showed that they had no feet, apparently burned off by the burning towers. I couldn’t imagine the choice they had faced.

Nine months before 911, I had sent to the just-elected VP, Dick Cheney, a video I had produced and aired on cable TV with a weapons expert from the Reagan administration, Dr. Ron Hatchett. I made it in 1994, a year after the first bombing of the World Trade center that killed six people. I asked Dr. Hatchett if the premise of my fiction book could happen: a terror attack on the U.S. He said “Yes” and went on to explain how it could occur.  In late January 2001, I sent a copy of that video to Mr. Cheney and to my local Congress rep at the time, Tom DeLay. Neither responded or asked “What is this about?”  In the months preceding 911, they cut counter-terrorism funding.  I cover all this in my chapter “Predicting 911” in my book “Better Times Ahead April Fool.” The proof: the video is available on YouTube if you search my name.

In 1994 Al Qaida was just forming – something I didn’t yet know, so my focus in the book and video was on Saddam Hussein. But it became clear after 9/11 Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. It was all about Osama bin Laden and a place called Afghanistan.

As a result of the invasion of Iraq, the borders of Iraq opened to Al Qaida. Until then, Saddam had kept Osama bin Laden out of Iraq – he HATED him. Osama bin Laden was the religious nut and Saddam was the non-religious nut. I still remembered Reagan supporting Saddam in the eight year war against IRAN. Without Saddam, Iran was free to build its nuclear capability. 

And without Saddam, Al Qaida morphed into ISIS, which we now confront today – an organization so radical that it was kicked out of Al Qaida.

So, I remember all too well 9/11, and what led to today’s mess. The President is right to attack ISIS – a group that not only beheads American journalists, but kills children and sells women into bondage. Iraq’s Prime Minister Maliki had kicked us out of Iraq, but then they screwed it up so badly they had to invite us back in.

Osama had hoped the attack would get the U.S. into a war that would make us become the enemy in the Shia vs Sunni sectarian battle, and it worked. President Obama has been smart enough to make sure that we aren’t picking sides and forced the Iraqis to become more inclusive.

We should remember that on this day. The Iraq war cost over $5 Trillion dollars on borrowed money and nearly 5,000 U.S. lives, on top of those lost on 9/11.  We did much of the damage to our own economy – just as Osama bin Laden wanted.

The person who brought bin laden to justice was President Obama. He deserves Congress support against ISIS and their support in rebuilding our own country’s roads and bridges that are over 70 years old. We have done enough damage to ourselves. 

Let’s start investing in our future.

Michael Fjetland

Author, Better Times Ahead April Fool

www.BetterTimesAheadAprilFool.com

Follow Global American Values blog updates:

http://globalamericanvalues.blogspot.com/

Get ready for Our first SPACE ARK....for humans to survive

I have been watching "How the Universe Works" which raises some fundamental things for us humans to think about if we wish to avoid extinction -- by either our own actions or a cosmic event like a meteor strike like the one that killed the dinosaurs.

                                            Last thing dinosaurs saw. We could be next

Eventually we will have to leave this planet to survive as a species. Can you imagine making a 300 day trip in a vehicle the size of a SUV to Mars even with people you like? How about your mother in law? lol. OK, how about four or five people in a small space for nearly a year with current NASA technology? How long before someone will want to KILL someone else?  It's not possible for someone to go for a walk or "leave" in that space prison.

                                            Artists conception of a "Space Ark"

Obviously, the answer is that faster transport may be required to prevent murder in space! lol. Calling Scotty for Warp Drive!

The "How the Universe Works" episode on the "Space Ark" is fascinating -it raises the question how would we migrate to another world to survive as an intelligence, space-technology species?

Even if we built a huge space vessel filled with all kinds of humans (WHO gets to go? Who would decide?) and our cats, dogs, bbq pits, etc., it would be a 42 year trip to reach the closest sun to our sun star - Alpha Centuri A.  Once there, no guarantees it would work. Being adaptable will be vital to success.  Scientists think with a "Warp Drive" we could be there in 5 months! Right now, its 42 years! Let's start with Mars and start planning ahead. It's stupid not to.

As the sun ages it will GROW into a red giant, evaporating the Earth. Sooner or later, humans will face a day when we will HAVE to become planetary migrants and fall back to the outer planets like Mars to avoid becoming extinct as our solar system heats up from the sun.

So today's immigration debates will look silly. We are all about to be migrants on a grander scales since the GOP does not want to minimize the damage to our planet by human emissions.

Unlike dinosaurs, we are lucky enough to have a space program, so if we don't survive it will be because we were too dumb to take advantage of it. Frankly, we have been pretty damn dumb lately - our politicians would sell their souls for a lobbyist plane ticket and not give a second thought to any of this.

At some distant future billions of years from now (no one living today will have to worry about it) our Milky Way galaxy will collide with the Andromeda galaxy, requiring even more ingenuity of our species to survive.

Of course the GOP Congress will be against doing anything about any of this, or paying for it! They don't even want to fix 70 year old bridges before they collapse, so vision is not their long suit. But all these things will happen anyway.

Either build the ark or drown in the flood!

Either we build an asteroid early detection and defense system or risk losing a city like New York, Houston or Paris to a city killer meteor like the one that hit Russia in 2013.

Just today another huge asteroid just buzzed within 25,000 miles from us - closer than the moon! We are getting dozens of hits from space rocks that we don't see coming.  Earth is "flying blind" because we don't have a global asteroid detection system, so it is a matter of time before we pay for our negligence. We are not defending our planet's trillion dollar economies from a real threat that we have the technology to avoid. All it takes is the vision to make the investment. It should involve every country since all of us face the same risk and each of us, from Moscow to Bombay and Chicago, would be devastated by a hit.

The effort would create jobs and advance technology while providing our first-ever planetary defense system.

                                            Artist concept of Mars Terraforming station

We WILL have to make changes to survive as a species.

Right now that means "do no harm" to our only home in this vast empty part of space. I for one am not anxious to live on our dead moon, or even move to Mars, but Earth is being suffocated into a hothouse Venus-type planet with our man-made carbon emissions.

                                                                   Planet Venus

If we kill our own planet with climate change it will end up forcing us to begin that transfer sooner rather than later....

They say if you put CO2 machines in Mars it would eventually create an atmosphere, just the opposite of the impact on Earth....photo above.  Let's put off the need for a Space Ark and save our planet as Priority No. 1. All else is relative versus a dead planet.

Stay tuned. Follow here or "Like" us on Facebook.

How ISIS is Recruiting Americans to Fight For It While Beheading Those It Doesn't Like

This summer has been one of the most bizarre in recent history, a bonfire of blood.  As our attention has been focused on the unrest in cities like Ferguson, Israel and Gaza exploded in a rocket and bomb exchange, Ukraine has been overrun by Russia’s mercenaries, Ebola is getting out of control in Africa (and threatens the world) and that’s before we get to Iraq. The Pandora’s Box that was kicked open in the 2003 invasion of Iraq continues to spawn more horrors, now in the guise of ISIS, a killing machine so extreme is was kicked out of Al Qaida! It has been murdering Muslims, Iraqi minorities, Syrian soldiers even before it beheaded two Americans while recruiting Americans to come fight against us and our Iraqi allies. 

Killing Americans while recruiting Americans -- it doesn’t get much more strange than that. How do we fix this?

Donald Morgan is one of those Americans who fell into the “Internet Brainwashing” of ISIS and went to fight “jihad” in Syria. He has returned. Is he a threat to Americans?  Why is ISIS attractive to Americans who decide to fight for our enemies? It turns out that Minneapolis, Minnesota is a prime area for recruiting young jihadists. Who would think it would happen in a state known as "Minnesota nice?"

Apparently Mr. Morgan was an “angry young man” with no job, struggling to “fit in.” He felt mistreated by authorities. Then one day he started watching hours on the Internet, intently following the fighting in the Middle East and the slick recruitment videos of ISIS (young men sitting around, talking in English how “cool” it is to come over and “do jihad” to protect the faith.)  Suddenly, Morgan’s friends said “he changed” and before they knew it he was leaving America to “defend Islam” and wage war. Then he came back. Can we trust him? I really doubt it.

How many more of these Donald Morgan’s does America (and our European allies) have?

Part of the problem is that we have angry young men with too much time on their hands, no job and easy access to the global brainwashing now possible. When I hear Americans say “All Muslims are terrorists,” I know that is not true. But when young Muslims hear their religion constantly being attacked, then groups like ISIS can use that to convince these gullible young men that they are doing the right thing to join them--even though it is all a big lie by ISIS. 

ISIS does not represent Islam any more than the Catholics who were setting off car bombs in Northern Ireland in the 70’s represented true Christianity.

They enter Syria by going to Turkey, which has a long border with Syria. Turkey is doing almost nothing to stop these young men. It is the same entry point used by the journalists who were killed in Syria. More could be done to block these young wannabe fighters from Europe and America at the border.  

Back here in the U.S. and in Europe, we need to get these young men into jobs, but Congress has refused to pass any jobs bills or major infrastructure bills to fix our 70 year old bridges, etc. that would create jobs for those living on the margin. We need to establish dialogue between cultures and tone down the prejudice that Muslims encounter – which is not unlike that faced by young black men and Hispanics every day. We need to show them that America is a great country because it is not a sectarian nation, but is a tolerant society in which all religions are freely practiced and all deserve respect – a nation where differences are not settled with armed miltias but in a court of law.

At the same time we must attack ISIS in Syria, with local and global allies, to neutralize these unredeemable extremists and the American heavy weapons they stole from Iraq.  But then Iraq must fix its political system so that it is as tolerate of each different religious group as America is. 

ISIS lack of tolerance and promotion of conflict has also been embraced by Mr. Putin, who needs to put Russia back on the road to democracy and press freedom. Instead, Putin has been promoting armed aggression in Ukraine where he has taken over the Crimea and seems to be bent on taking more Ukrainian land to establish a land route to his latest conquest. This is just like ISIS. In Russia, all the media is state-owned and Russian people have no independent news source.  They don't see the same news we do in the U.S. and Europe.

Therefore, America must continue to lead by example.

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