Showing posts with label Olympics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Olympics. Show all posts

February 2, 2018

The Hunted Becomes Hunters

I was on the treadmill and on the TV was the movie Rambo First Blood with Sylvester Stallone--he's incredible. 

There is an amazing scene where he is running, outnumbered, outgunned, and being literally hunted in the woods. 

But as he is a special forces trained warrior, he turns the tables on the bad guys. 

- The hunted become the hunter!

Life is not Hollywood.

Yet, miracles do happen, and good can overcome evil. 

Like the more than 150 brave women of the USA Olympics Gymnastics Team who testified and put the creep Larry Nassar away for the rest of his disgusting life. 

The hunted can be empowered through the justice system and do what is right and put the bad guys away--where they should stay and rot out their miserable days. 

The innocent women who suffered at his dirty hands prevail!  ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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August 12, 2016

Anti-Semitism From Obama To The World


This is what happens when President Obama sets a blatantly anti-semitic tone to his presidency by for example, snubbing at the White House the outreached hand of our ally and friend, Israel. 

Subsequently, at the Rio Olympics this week, Egypt (right) snubs Israel (left) in the very same way.

Racism and hatred is a contagious disease of the heart, mind, and soul. 

And this is especially the case, when racism and hatred emanate from the very top--the leader of the free world--the diametric opposite of true leadership by example and with integrity. 

In this case, President Obama has numerous times displayed his outrageous anti-Semitic leanings making the Prime Minister of Israel exit out the back door of the White House, refusing to host him for dinner, to meet with him, or even shake his hand, and condones his administration calling him disgusting vile names.

Nations and people can disagree and they can still be the best of friends and allies, but Obama has chosen to display his very tangible anti-Semitism throughout his administration, and then culminated it with his dangerous nuclear deal and love affair with the Iranian regime, the #1 state sponsor of terrorism and human rights abuses worldwide. 

Racism and hatred begets more racism and hatred in the world. It is an unleashing of evil between different peoples, instead of a bonding and brotherhood of all people. 

Just look at the unfortunate effects in terms of racial divisiveness, global terrorism, civil war and coups, resurgent Russian and Chinese militaries, and the horrific impacts of violence, destruction, and refugees around the world today. 

When the esteemed President declares it's okay to hate--less than 70 years after the genocidal Holocaust that murdered 6 million Jews--then unfortunately it's open season once again. 

From The White House to the Olympics...President Obama has set a shameful, hate-filled anti-Semitic tone for his 8-year presidency.

Let us hope and pray that the next President is one that is not only a genuine solid leader, but also a good, decent, and loving human being. ;-)

(Source Photos: Here with attribution to Al-Monitor and The Israel Project via Facebook)

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October 5, 2015

A Ricksha With A Worthwhile Message

This guy is pedaling this ricksha around town in Maryland, USA. 

And it carries messages of hope and peace. 

Some examples (visible in the photo):

- "Promote the Olympic spirit."

- "Hope for world peace."

- "Protecting mother earth."

It looks like he could be right off the streets of China or something and transported here to deliver and remind us of these important ideas. 

What is interesting to me is that in this day and age of social media and online advertising where messages are often drowned out amidst the daily deluge we get, that here a simple ricksha can grab people's attention and perhaps have a positive influence on them.

With just some subtle messaging along the vehicle's canopy and with pictures and flags around the back.

Perhaps it's not only how much one advertises and promotes, but how thought-provoking and novel it's done. 

I don't know how many miles this guy can pedal a day, but I bet he gets more likes than much of the garbage just being throw up online because it's so easy and available for everyone to do. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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February 23, 2015

Flying Garbage

Thought this was an interesting way to get the garbage to the curbside truck.

This guy is standing in the yard of this brownstone building in the leftover snow.

Almost like an Olympian, he is picking up bag after bag of garbage and tossing them at least a dozen feet (or more).

The garbage in these big hefty bags are sailing through the air to his partner standing by the truck in the street. 

This guy must be getting quite some exercise not only lifting, but also throwing these bags all day long.

And he actually seemed to be having some fun doing it too.

Like my wife said, "What if you get hit by the garbage...ew."

Fly garbage, fly! ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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March 25, 2008

Weather Engineering and Enterprise Architecture

In enterprise architecture (EA) we plan business processes improvement and technology enablement to engineer the business, drive results of operation, and manage change and transformation. We do this for both core mission functions as well as mission support and business support function in our organizations. But how far can our organizations go in architecting change and results?

For the Olympics this year, China will literally be engineering the weather!

MIT Technology Review, 25 March 2008, reports that “the Chinese plan to modify the weather in Beijing during the Olympics using supercomputers and artillery.”

Here’s the architecture plan for how this will work—it involves technology and fine-tuned choreographed processes to achieve the target weather desired for the Olympics:

“To prevent rain over the roofless 91,000-seat Olympic stadium …the city’s branch of the National Weather Modification Office…will track the region’s weather via satellites, planes, radar, and an IBM p575 supercomputer…that executes 9.8 trillion floating point operations per second…then using their two aircraft and an array of twenty artillery and rocket-launch sites around Beijing, the city’s engineers will shoot and spray silver iodide and dry ice into incoming clouds that are still far enough away that their rain can be flushed out before they reach the stadium. Finally, any rain-heavy clouds that near (the Olympics stadium)…will be seeded with chemicals to shrink droplets so that rain won’t fall until those clouds have passed over.”

China’s national weather-engineering program is also the world’s largest, with approximately 1,500 weather modification professionals directing 30 aircraft and crews, as well as 37,000 part time workers—mostly peasant farmers—who are on call to blast away at the clouds with 7,113 anti-aircraft guns and 4,991 rocket launchers.”

How successful is China’s weather modification program?

“The state run news agency Xinhua claims that between 1999 and 2007, the office rendered 470,000 square kilometers of land hail-free and created more than 250 billion tons of rain—an amount sufficient to fill the Yellow River, China’s second largest, four times over.”

Although they possess the world’s largest weather modification program, the Chinese point to the Russians as being the most advanced. In 1986, Russian scientists deployed cloud-seeding measures to prevent radioactive rain from Chernobyl from reaching Moscow.”

What’s our weather modification program like in the U.S.?

“During the 1960s and ‘70s, the United States invested millions…simultaneously the U.S. military tried to use weather modification as a weapon in Project Popeye, during the Vietnam War…[but] a 2003 report from the National Academy of Sciences concluded…‘there is still no convincing scientific proof of the efficacy of international weather modification efforts.’”

Other meteorologists disagree and say “the evidence that it works in certain situations is very compelling.”

For thousands of years, mankind has looked to gain dominion over the environment. From mere charlatans to professional engineers and architects, human beings seek to control the world around them and in essence, their very fate. With modern technology and science, supported by planning and governance, we no longer need to rely on witch doctors or rain dancers to effect change. G-d has given us the resources and the tools to try and make the world a better place.


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