floundersgreatadventure

Well we survived another dire prediction of the end of the world on Saturday and we’re barely surviving the Trumpster’s run as President. This week he took on athletes who kneel in protest during the National Anthem. I don’t feel that it’s disrespectful and I doubt those doing it feel they’re being disrespectful. What I feel is disrespectful is the way the Trumpster uses the office of President to push is policies of diversion on us. There is no doubt in my mind that he is a white supremacist but I believe he uses these wild statements to hide the fact that he is up to now a failure as President. He can turn things around if he can control his ego if not we’re in a world of shit. In North Korea we have a mini Trumpster with an ego as large as the original. At present they’re throwing insults and threats of total destruction at each other which is really scary because on one hand we have mini Trumpster that has absolutely has nothing to lose and the dick in the oval office that doesn’t understand the stakes. The one thing that might save us is someone with some brains explaining that a war now will not guarantee his reelection in 2020. He thinks because he doesn’t believe for a minute that we could lose in a conflict with little North Korea, that the win will make him a national hero and insure reelection. Not true because a victory next year will be forgotten and all that will remain are pictures of the devastation caused by war and the dead American soldiers. Not only that but other countries might take sides or at least advance their own agendas while we’re busy fighting and celebrating. Remember that line from the song “WAR WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.” The Trumpster might be a complete joke as President but remember he is the President and as President he and his giant ego (the only thing giant about him) can still get us into more trouble than we can handle. Well with all the earthquakes and hurricanes this should make you just a little more crazy scared so I’ll just say this is Flounder and Fats saying CIAO from Medellin Colombia

All righty then let’s get the show on the road. You all know I’m 17 and a ½ years old that makes me about 83 in your years and my buddy fats well he’s a young 71, so together we’ve been around for a long time, we go back to the days when you didn’t know everything instantly. There were only newspapers and they were just as biased as today’s news the difference is the bias showed up on the editorial page not in how the news was told. There were advantages to not knowing everything; for one thing it helped keep the anxiety level low. You weren’t constantly being bombarded with sensational headlines or so called yellow journalism. We have William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer for the way the news is reported today. The two of them were so greedy to control the newspaper business back then they would do just about anything short of murder to get you reading their paper over their rivals. That extends to today’s news agencies which may criticize the so called scandal sheets but are just as bad. Today news agencies pay for those cell phone videos which can be taken out of content since there just a miniscule version of the story. Now don’t get me wrong they help get the story out there just sometimes a little too fast. The last really great investigative reporting was the Washington Post on Watergate. Even that venerable institution along with others like the New York Times have lost some of their credibility by taking sides in politics rather than staying neutral and allowing us to make up our own minds.
They say people were happier years ago and that may be very true. That would lend some truth to the expression that ignorance is bliss. This is the old guys Flounder and Fats saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.

Well another week in the bag and what a week Hurricanes, North Korea and of course the Trumpster. Well I don’t really want to write about any of that stuff so I won’t; instead I want to write about Artificial intelligence and the end of the world. Two of the great minds out there Elon Musk and Steven Hawking have said the greatest threat to the future of mankind is Artificial Intelligence and I’m one of those people who happen to agree for a variety of reasons. I remember when the Terminator movies came out and everybody don’t worry that could never happen. This wasn’t the first movie about a computer taking over the world they had been making ever since the computer was invented. One of the closest to the Terminator films is Colossus the forbidden project from 1970. One common thing in these computers take over the world is the lack of human empathy or emotion in the computer. In most case it believes that the only way to save the planet is to kill off the human race. Well about the time of the first Terminator movie what was known as Bell labs in Whippany New Jersey developed a computer chip that could learn from its mistakes. This is actually how Sky Net in the Terminator movies starts its reign of terror. The two things about Artificial intelligence I don’t like are first it will replace humans in the work place so know what do we do with all these unemployed people. In case you doubt this take a look at what robotics has done to replace humans in such industries as Auto and Steele manufacturing. My second reason is that if we give an unfeeling electronic brain the ability to repair and replace itself it won’t take long for it to become what is referred to a sentient and at that point it will realize how self destructive humans really are and you know what happens next. In scientists minds the great desire to accomplish that which hasn’t been done yet can lead to serious miscalculations on what happens when you do accomplish it. Unforeseen consequences like what happens in the story of Frankenstein are not out of the question. Also our continued dependence on computers to more and more of what we consider mundane thought process’s will have a continuing effect of dumbing down the population. When was the last time you saw a waiter add up a check without a calculator. Well I’m going over and lay in front of the living room window and watch the rain drops till next time this is Flounder and Fats saying CIAO from Medellin, Colombia.

Well this has been a strange week a lot of ups and downs for me at least. The downs were hurricane Harvey and the damage it caused, that idiot of a Presidents response, a huge fire in California, and North Koreas missile launch. The ups for me were I got to spend a couple of days with my wife and my niece Janet and her friend Sandra. We spent a day taking Medellin’s famous cable car up to about 9000 feet. Had a great lunch in the hotel at the top then came down so she could meet Ruby’s sons Hader and John as well as John’s wife and Ruby’s to grand kids Natai and Hari. So it was a great day on Saturday we went shopping for souvenirs for them and I’m not the world’s best tag along with those kinds of things but we once again had a fabulous lunch I tell everybody I’m not going to eat again till Tuesday. Now today were just lying around the house resting.
One of the things I saw this week once you got past all the news people trying to get people to say or do something stupid was a story I read on face book where a person made an observation about how all races and nationalities were just helping those who needed it without checking their ID or citizenship or the color of their skin. This is a sad reality that it takes something as horrible as massive flooding and damage from a hurricane to bring people to the conclusion that we all need each other. The really sad thing that in a week or two they’ll all go back to what is now considered normal. The police will star checking Id’s immigration will become an issue again and well you know the rest. I will never be able to understand how this works. You know on day everybody is pulling together to save each other and the next the name calling comes back. It doesn’t help when you have a leader that has no idea what the word empathy means and is only concerned with his own agenda. It would be great if the state of Texas woke up tomorrow and said Wow we really need each other and color and nationality don’t mean a thing. Well I can dream can’t I? This is Flounder and Fats saying CIAO from Medellin Colombia.