It has been about 3-1/2 days since I was told my comment is awaiting for approval, so I will try again. No changes to text made. I think there were links that I removed shortly after I got the “awaiting approval” message. I added a (*) now, that was not appearing correctly for some reason without the () and added and removed a few ()’s in a few places. This post might have been more useful to Craig 3-1/2 days ago. Maybe the insults wouldn’t have started flying.

Hi Craig,
Climate change is not “the” cause for the fire, it contributes to the cause, just like Nixon and Bush Junior long ago “contributed” to making China the country it is today. It looks like so far there are many factors that contributed to the fire. I did read so far that the power poles were in bad shape, Plantation Owners long ago imported European plants which burn more easily than native plants so when plantations were abandoned the invader plants spread, and the high winds from the offshore hurricane (of which there are more of when temperatures rise, you know the “climate change” part), all played a factor. I also just read today that there are no Fire Hydrants in the area either, just a stream that is used by everyone for many things including fire fighting. Some people say the power company should have shut off the power. True, in my opinion. But what is also true is no power companies shut power down pre-disaster until just recently. I think it was the Paradise fire in California that started the trend. Whether the power company in Hawaii should have known to do so is debatable, and I am sure if they are found liable or partially liable they will debate it extensively in court. Until this fire, I would have never thought something like this was even possible in Hawaii. Fires caused by a volcano destroying buildings, I could see that. Which factor or factors will be considered the “fault” or majority of the “fault” is still too early to determine definitively. We have a lot of data though. Lots of people recorded video with their phones, so we probably will be able to determine definitively the cause or causes eventually.
Have I helped clear up your confusion any? 
We made China powerful enough to threaten us all on our own. Nixon started in 1972 with his visit, Bush Junior let them into the WTO (Dec 11, 2001*) even though their human rights violations should have disqualified them. I believe the argument he advanced then was that when they see how awesome we are, they will become just like us and peace will rule the world. I am sarcastically paraphrasing there. The businessmen drooled over potential profits from selling to a huge market and taking advantage (and I do mean advantage) of the cheap labor. How has that worked out for us all so far? Do I need to point out to you that two Republicans did more than anyone to make China what it is today? (Some that voted to let them in, would prefer you forget they voted for it today, like Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas). He was for it, before he was against it). I am sure you could find Democrat examples too, if you search. My point is many of the political comments made on this site are not as black and white as the commenter implies. I wish the people that post here would be more careful about painting with a broad brush. How about Businessmen? The majority are Republican by a large margin. You know, the ones that can afford to move factories to China. A mom and pop business would never even consider it. (Top business execs more polarized than nation as a whole by the Harvard Gazette, Aug 15, 2022.)–“Nearly 70 percent of America’s top executives are affiliated with the Republican Party and 31 percent with the Democrats, according to the recent Paper “The Political Polarization of Corporate America,” written by Elisabeth Kempf, associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, Vyacheslav Fos of Boston College, and Margarita Tsoutsoura of Cornell University. “). I did not look up earlier data, for most of my life (since Reagan, I would say) it has been pretty common knowledge that the wealthiest businessmen are mostly Republican. There might even be less Republican business owners today than there used to be.
I do completely agree with this part of your comment though–“One thing is for sure, most IQ challenged individuals of this country will believe what ever scrolls across their tv screens.”
·       (*)– (Dec 11, 2001 above)–This is my part where I show how context matters. Clinton also wanted China in the WTO and he laid the framework for Bush. But before you get too excited, Bush Senior before him also spent time advancing China’s entry during his time in office. I think they all claimed China would magically “change” for the better with entry. Clinton just continued. In my opinion, the Clintons always showed Republican tendencies anyway. Might be why he won. And the bottom line is the entry happened under Bush Junior. That is how we apportion blame in this country, right? You know, whose watch did it happen under.
·        I was telling Dazed and Coinfused in one of my earlier posts how he has plenty of complaints but never offers any possible solutions. How about you? Have any constructive political suggestions to offer, or just complaints? Your post above reminds me quite a bit of one Dazed and Coinfused would post, actually. The overall tone is negative, not positive. (I am not sure why a bullet point is appearing at the front of every paragraph now. The first one was supposed to be a *, it changed on its own, and the one at the start of this paragraph appeared all on its own. Maybe it will self correct when I post?)
You have seemed reasonable so far to me, Craig. Can you try to do better going forward? Honestly, if we can get both sides talking civilly to each other here there might still be hope for the country at large.

Hi Kaiser Wilhelm,
If they are unpleasant outside issues, I am sorry to hear it. Otherwise I hope you are having fun. I am feeling Deja Vu here lately, and a comment I just saw from Major D on “Gold Gets First Weekly Gain After Four Straight Weeks of Declines” might have just ended my patience with Dazed and Coinfused.

Along with ideas I proposed above, I also think that Congress should not be in control of their pay raises. In fact, I think their pay should be set at the median (not average) pay for Americans so they never have to discuss it again. When ours goes up, only then can theirs can go up.
“But you’ll find fault with something there. You’d rather be crucified than admit I am right or have good ideas. Or see that some things said are so ridiculous as to point out just how ridiculous the subject is. But that’s your deal, not my job to fix you.“–You are talking to me here? That’s funny, because I did not see anything I disagreed with. I am not a Democrat. The Republicans have driven me towards the Democrats because they are the least bad option. The only thing I can say for sure is I am not a Republican. They have marginalized me since I was young, and they still wouldn’t care if I lived or died. I am tired of picking the least bad choice. I voted for the Libertarian candidate in 2016. I couldn’t stomach Clinton or Trump as President. Neither deserved the Presidency, in my opinion. I haven’t changed my mind, either. When I was young my friends who knew me best said I was a Libertarian, but I did not start voting until I was over 30. It seemed pointless. Neither candidate ever actually represented me. None ever actually has to this day.

I looked at my post above here, and I do not see that I mentioned anger in any of these. “misplaced anger”, since I wondered if we were reading each others stuff out of order, but not “anger” here. Other articles I did. And I am pretty sure I highlighted actual examples so its not like I just threw it out there without a reason. I haven’t gotten to those yet to see if you replied to any of them.
Looks like you are under the mistaken impression I served in the Military. I thought I would be drafted soon when Reagan came into office, but no draft ever occurred. I am familiar with firearms though. I grew up on a farm. I knew even before I was eligible to join that I would not be a good fit. I ask “why” too often and push back on authority regularly. I would have been in trouble all the time, and I knew it. I also enjoy military history and am familiar with strategy and tactics through historical board games, miniatures and computer games. Did paintball too. I might have already said this when we first started conversing years ago, but thank you for your service.
I am sure the government has not given you your due, they seem to pitch our soldiers aside once the war is over and they do not need you any more. I think the last time they did not was WW2. They sure pitched my uncle aside after Vietnam.
The fact that there all these non-governmental veterans charities soliciting donations today is disgusting to me. Veterans should be automatically taken care of by our government, in my opinion.
This one is good, Dazed and Coinfused. It is pretty cohesive, and I mentioned before I enjoy learning more about the people that post here. The tone is nice too. I don’t think there was an insult in the whole post. With the length, that is impressive.
You even threw in a compliment in there (to Major D, no less.)
You really do have the potential to be one of the best poster’s here. Not just for 1/2 or less of us.

I don’t click on links here. Neither was here when I started typing the one above. I noticed the first one you posted today.

I expect when they put together all the videos people took chronologically, we will be able to get to the bottom of it this time. You are still wandering a bit (Texas? We are talking about Hawaii.), but that is your choice. The tone is much better than a few days ago. Thanks!

You just repeated my second sentence from above in a different way. If we cannot agree on common terms of usage, how can we ever communicate effectively with each other? Pangea is a supercontinent. To refer to it any other way is inaccurate. You could have referenced an actual Island in your first post (Britain, Hawaii) and I wouldn’t even have generated these two following posts (with more to come?).
You say this- “Now it’s whatever you want it to be, or what it means to you.“, then rattle off this “ Like record set in nfl before Brady rule vs rules after. Who was better babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle. Jordan or Kobe. Point of my writings is to bring curiosity, and like I said, whatever you want to find out of it, you will. Did Greeks call home island, or was that title after other discoveries made. I mean better example, Columbus day. American holiday. He didn’t discover America. He discovered India. Oh right, Bermuda, Bahamas and Haiti. Who are native Americans in one area but indigenous people in other area. All are in America. North America central America, South America. And he was Italian with Spanish ships. On a boat of criminals and outlaws. What could possibly go wrong. Better than sending cops though, amirite.“— Couldn’t just one of these examples (out of five) have made your point equally effectively here, if not more so? You doubled my own post now just by me including one point you were trying to make from yours. Both of our posts could have been half as long if you do not wander so much. Would you like to have more time to do other things besides posting here? Even if not, you would be able to share a larger variety of your musings with us all if you communicated more efficiently and accurately. Thanks for your efforts, I believe you are trying. We are still talking anyway. If you are SENZA (irrelevant to me), then you have come a long way compared to three years ago.

“If that’s what the people want, it’s what the people want. They put in Adolphus, see what they got? Even after what he did people still fought for him.“–Yes, and he used propaganda, violence and hate of “other” to keep them in line. Republicans have been following that same play book (minus violence, though it is increasing lately) since Newt Gingrich in the 90s. Trump supercharged it. He has praised many strongmen and dictators over the years.
“And since we can’t seem to live together mixed we’ll have to divide the states up and separate. That’s the only feasible solution (not racist, fact. Think of it like this. Each state is a country. Jerusalem doesn’t like Palestine. Germany doesn’t like Poland. Mongolia doesn’t like China. Puerto Rico doesn’t like Mexico. Russia doesn’t like Ukraine. Scotland and Ireland don’t like anyone. Vikings hate British. Italy hates Egypt.“–It is less about the differences than how they treated each other in the past. You might have noticed lately, it is hard to stop once two sides start offending or physically hurting the other. We are supposed to be different. We are supposed to welcome anyone from anywhere as long they become “American”. It worked in the past. All the waves of immigrants eventually assimilated into American culture, usually by the next generation. My Grandparents learned English. Seems today many immigrants do not even bother anymore. Only the next generation learns it. I could not even imagine me deciding to immigrate somewhere if I was not intending to learn the language. Just to avoid getting ripped off, I would want to learn it pretty quickly.
“Humankind will never coexist. But countries of similar ethnic and religion or culture are relatively stable.“–Never is a long time, Dazed and Coinfused. Stable could be just another word for stagnant. Diversity is a strength, not a weakness. Genetically and creatively. Ireland relied on Potatoes to feed its people by the 1840s. When a blight wiped out the potato crop multiple years in a row, they were screwed. Just because we are a diverse people does not mean we cannot find common ground and defeat a culture of homogenous ones.
“And if you think trump being president will lead to all that. Don’t be surprised if his loss or arrest is the shot at fort Sumter that gets it going either.“–Don’t be surprised if it isn’t either. People underestimate just how big our government is. I think we will be in more trouble as a country in the long run if he is found innocent rather than guilty. We will see what happens.
“They should have consolidated and went after the top 10 charges. Any sentence over 20 years is probably life, and any conviction would be grounds from holding office 14th amendment.“–Since I was a young man, Law Enforcement has piled charges on anyone in trouble, rich or poor. I remember the first time I saw someone was charged for each bullet they fired, not person they hit or killed. I think they got 31-35 counts for all the bullets they shot. I thought that was overkill. At Trumps age, I think 5 years would be more than he could afford. These troubles could kill him, he has probably never been so worried in his life. I recently saw that 2 members of the Federalist Society (which is not a Democrat organization, it is Republican, like all the witnesses against Trump. Nobody thinks Trump let any Democrats into his inner circle so they could spill his secrets, do they?) claim he can be barred from office even without a conviction, it will be up to each state to decide, case by case. Even one denial might be enough to deny enough electoral votes for him to win.
“Getting hard to try to do a pro per con when the scales get one sided like this.“–I guess I do not understand what you mean here. One sided? The voters are closely divided near the 50/50 level, aren’t they? How does that make it one sided?
You are certainly pessimistic about our future. If you are anywhere near my age, you probably won’t have to worry about it anyway. Even big changes at the National level take a long time to affect the Local level. War is an exception. But if you are old, even then it probably won’t have too big of an effect unless your side is losing. For peasants like me, very little changes no matter who is in charge. Maybe Drones, Camera’s and AI will change that equation going forward though.

As the rich and powerful tell us all the time Dazed and Coinfused, it might have been unethical, but it wasn’t illegal. It can’t hurt that they helped our politicians (or became our politicians) to decide just what is considered illegal in our law books. I wouldn’t even be surprised if there are more laws directed at the bottom half of our population than the top half.

I am pretty sure Major Ds comment was directed to Craig this time, Dazed and Coinfused.
“Once again I see no viable candidate worth going to spend my time registering to vote. So I’ll make fun of what we got till election ends.“—Did you just tell us that with all of your political talk, you are not even registered to vote? You have no right to talk politics at all if you are not. Voting is like the first duty of a citizen. People died to allow us that right.