On Mountain Climbing

I always wondered what kind of person climbs successfully mountainous heights unimaginable and unattainable by most human beings who are happy and comfortable in their own gardens, back yards, homes, or sitting by a lake, enjoying nature. Their idea of adventure is a hike in the woods, riding a horse, sailing, or swimming.

Most people view such difficult mountain climbing as frivolous, narcissistic, grandiose, selfish, and self-aggrandizing, having one’s moment in the limelight.

But to understand what drives a serious mountaineer, you have to be one, and most people have no such desire.

Jon Krakauer, in his 1997 book, Into Thin Air, explained what mountain climbing is, from his standpoint as a climber and journalist. He wrote that “climbing Everest was primarily about enduring pain.” And it is not just any pain, but excruciating pain.

He added that the less virtuous motives are those seeking a minor celebrity, career advancement, an ego massage, ordinary bragging rights, and filthy lucre.”

There is something about being able to say, I’ve climbed Chomolungma, and I reached the top. Chomolungma is the name that the Nepalese call Mount Everest. It is how I learned in my primary school geography class, Mount Chomolungma.

Successful professionals or moneyed individuals want to add this climbing feat to their trophy cases. To succeed in climbing such heights, they must train to endure horrific pain and to be willing to sacrifice their lives for this one unique athletic and endurance trial. They have to be tough, driven, and extremely stoic.

To a large degree, ordinary people believe such individuals to be selfish because they abandon their families for months on end in order to satisfy their need and intense desire to climb into the clouds. And if they ever reach the top of Mount Everest, they know then that they have made it to “the roof of the world.”

And it is the “roof of the world” when below you there is nothing but an icy abyss, and you are standing at a height that most large airplanes fly. It is a rarified atmosphere, thin air lacking oxygen, but also an environment that few dare to experience.

It seems that escalating the tallest mountains in the world gives mountain climbers a temporary sense of satisfaction until it wears off and they are searching for the next challenge.

The sad part of climbing Mount Everest is that a marvel of nature is fast becoming a trashed environment in the eagerness of many to leave their mark and to add their names to historical immortality.

Some climbers never leave the mountain - their frozen bodies rest where they have fallen asleep and froze to death, or inside deep crevasses when they tripped and have fallen to their deaths.

On a Dreary and Rainy Day

I prayed for rain for weeks and weeks. Even though it’s the middle of May, grasses looked dormant and yellow, no matter how much fertilizer we applied.

Finally, one day after Mother’s Day, the grey and cloudy skies finally opened, and a deluge filled the dry swamps, the drainage ditches, and the huge pond nearby. It rained all night and it’s still raining hard. Flooding has overwhelmed ditches and capturing ponds.

It has been raining non-stop for hours today. The bull frogs in the pond were croaking happily last night in a choral unison of “rum, rum, rum.”

Everything looks green, colors look more intense, and the birds are chirping harmoniously from all directions in the forest. The bird nesting under our deck is hiding at the moment but the resident fox came by to snatch the bones I left for her last night. A blue heron landed briefly by the pond but flew away.

On days like today, nature comes alive, but humans disappear. The only vehicle that drove by was the garbage pickup truck.

I am pensive, waxing philosophically about our place on earth at this late stage in our lives. It seems that time flew by, our children now have grey hairs, homes of their own, some have children. We are happy and blessed with our children and grandchildren, but I still don’t understand why we are here, what is the purpose of life, of our lives? Why are we here?

I miss the years of my youth, I miss my people, some of my relatives, the few friends I have, and the place where I was born, a place where I no longer belong and barely recognize.

My closest and dearest relatives have passed away, my parents are gone, and all of my friends have moved on. There are very few people left who are barely in our lives.

I have two second cousins who live in the U.S. but none have made any contact so they might as well live on another planet. Everyone is on Facebook, so impersonal and sad, liking each other’s posts, or getting angry at total strangers, who insult them. The world is smaller but a sad place, thanks to technology.

I am staring out the window, watching the rain and the flooding in my back yard that is greening everything. There is a sort of peace in being inside and dry, watching the animals and birds playing in the rain and foraging for food. It’s a life they enjoy in these moments, not wondering about their existence.

It's a dreary and rainy day but nature is green and alive.

Do You Need a REAL ID?

I renewed my driver’s license recently for $42. The license and photo looked the same as the old one except for the star in the upper right-hand corner. I wondered why the star was there.

I did not protest the extensive line and the various identifications I had to bring with me besides my old license. State bureaucracy and the huge influx of illegal aliens made for a long wait in line at our local DMV and the fact that most of the customers did not speak English. Lucky for them, all the bureaucratic clerks were Hispanic and fluent in Spanish, the emerging national language of the United States. Not sure if Arabic will bypass Spanish but that is a topic for another day.

The clerk informed me that I was getting a REAL ID and I will be able to fly and enter all federal buildings with this DL. I was a bit perplexed as to why we would need the real I.D. with a star. Were our DLs not real IDs?

I have flown quite a bit with my old DL and used my passport on overseas flights. Unbeknownst to us, the REAL ID law was passed by Congress in 2005, twenty years ago, and nobody had a chance to chime in if it was a clever idea. Suddenly, twenty years later, all citizens must comply by May 7, 2025, to fly or enter federal buildings, nuclear power plants, and Arlington National Cemetery.

So far states have not made REAL ID mandatory, and people are not aware about this federal REAL ID and the fact that it is not mandatory to fly domestically. H.R.418 - 109th Congress (2005-2006): REAL ID Act of 2005 | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) introduced a bill on 1/12/2017 to amend the Real ID Act of 2005 to repeal provisions requiring uniform State driver's licenses and State identification cards, and for other purposes. All Info - S.126 - 115th Congress (2017-2018): A bill to amend the Real ID Act of 2005 to repeal provisions requiring uniform State driver's licenses and State identification cards, and for other purposes. | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

What are the potential dangers of such a federally mandated REAL ID?

Many experts agree that REAL ID can be a threat to health freedom and can be used as the Chinese style social credit score as it is currently in China, U.K., and Australia. Twila Brase stated “REAL ID is a national ID, it is a federal takeover of state and individual sovereignty, it is an usurpation of state rights and individual rights that we have under Constitution.”

Brase stated that “it is not a card, it is a system.” When the REAL ID was debated, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee said that he was not comfortable with the privacy implications because this is a national ID.

REAL ID is a form of outsider control, an usurpation of state rights, “he who holds the data, makes the rules.”

The REAL ID law of 2005 has three stated purposes, to access federal buildings, to board domestic flights, and to enter nuclear facilities. However, the language of the law says, “and any other purposes that the Secretary of Homeland Security shall determine.”

What if the current or future Homeland Security Secretary decides that you “need REAL ID to access health care, get married, get a hotel room, open a bank account, or buy a gun or ammunition?” And the Secretary does not need to ask permission from Congress to expand the Homeland Security’s roles, according to a 2008 rule. In the future, biometrics can be required such as facial profile and DNA.

Right now, it is simple to obtain a REAL ID, i.e. birth certificate, Social Security card, your passport, a bill with your address on it, the old DL, permanent resident ID, but in the future, the documentation necessary could be expanded such as what organizations are you part of, voting record, what clubs you belong to, etc. American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators testified to Congress in December 2023 that they plan to digitize the REAL ID, put it on our phones, and have access to it remotely.

The argument that the REAL ID would protect elections and illegals would not be able to vote is absurd as we have seen illegals receiving voter registration cards from Democrats.

The states’ duty is to protect its citizens from the federal government’s overreach. We cannot allow the federal government to be in control of our social services, travel, access to health care, personal biometrics, and every transaction we make, which would ping a government agency that would know where we are and what we are doing. Data will be weaponized.

What would enforcement look like? Despite what they say, after May 7, 2025, you would fly without a REAL ID. The immediate enforcement of the federal rule would create total confusion at airports, especially since 44% of people have not complied and are fighting the change to REAL ID.

 

Green Energy Failure of U.N. Agenda 2030

What would your life be like without electricity? Imagine your existence today as if you lived in the Middle Ages. Is that a far-fetched idea or a conspiracy theory?

We don’t have to look very far for this “conspiracy theory.” Leaving the tin foil hat aside, the reality is more painful than we could ever imagine.

Europe is fast on its way to total green energy thanks to the EU and U.N. controllers and promoters who inscribed into all sorts of laws the so-called net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Some of the United Nation’s goals are demanding enforcement by 2030.  

Nobody questions these already partly implemented U.N. goals in all western societies. But the Trump administration dared to reject United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the American people would benefit greatly in the short and long terms.

Edward Heartney, a minister-counselor at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, called the 2030 agenda “a program of soft global governance that is inconsistent with U.S. sovereignty and adverse to the rights and interests of Americans.” The Latest: Trump Administration Rejects the UN’s 2030 Sustainability Goals

This rejection is wonderful news for the United States but the next president, most certainly a Democrat, “elected” in four years, will reverse this decision.

The other problem is the fact that since 1992, hundreds and thousands of laws have been passed at the local, state, and federal levels in support of and immediate implementation of U.N. Agenda 21, now turned U.N. Agenda 2030. How are we going to reverse those?

 

Alex Newman wrote in 2016 that “the United Nations and its mostly autocratic member regimes have big plans for your life, your children, your country, and your world.” And you were never polled and never voted for these plans, including the coercive climate agreements signed.

The master plan for the planet was celebrated at the time by former NATO chief Javier Solana, a socialist, as the next “Great Leap Forward,” a rebirth of the campaign slogan of the Chinese Communist Party. This master plan includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 169 specific targets “to be foisted on all humanity.”

 “As we embark on this collective journey, we pledge that no one will be left behind,” reads the UN manifesto, entitled Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. “But if you love liberty, self-government, free markets, or the U.S. Constitution, you will almost certainly be wishing that the U.N. would leave you behind,” wrote Alex Newman.

The global warming theory, blaming humans for the ills of the planet, and the birth of the profitable climate change industry, which the U.N. unleashed on the world has given rise to another industry, that of green energy production at all costs because natural gas and petroleum are bad. Except that there is nothing green about this green energy.

Another industry emerged from U.N. Agenda 2030, the capturing of carbon underground, which in itself causes a huge threat to animal and human life as different accidents in Mississippi of ruptured pipes have demonstrated.

And we did not have to wait very long for this green energy to fail on a large scale. Climate Depot’s Marc Morano congratulated Spain on April 16, 2025, for using 100% renewable/green energy. Two weeks later Spain and Portugal were hit with huge blackouts. “They reached net zero accidentally.” https://www.climatedepot.com/2025/04/28/congrats-to-spain-nation-goes-100-renewable-as-of-april-16th-2025-but-then-mass-blackouts-hit-spain-portugal/

What were the immediate results of such green energy failures and blackouts? Airports shut down, homes, businesses, and hospitals were without power for long periods of time. People could not buy essentials, food, medicines, and gas; air conditioning did not work, refrigeration of any kind  was not possible, food and medicine spoiled in grocery stores, pharmacies, and hospitals did not have enough power from generators, oxygen delivery machines did not work, credit cards did not work (so much for cash going away, replaced by digital currency); computers did not work and bitcoin Internet and phone users were out of luck; drugs could not be purchased and hospital patients were left in a lurch if generators could not keep up with the lengthy power loss due to grid collapse. Generators can only provide so much power. Production in small and large businesses came to a halt.

Officials from Red Electrica ruled out the possibility of a cyber-attack or weather as reasons for the grid failure. The key culprit for the blackout appears to be green energy. “Green energy, unlike gas and coal, does not provide synchronous inertia that stabilizes the frequency in the network. When the frequency dropped, solar power plants could not compensate for the imbalance. They depend on inverters that turn off automatically when the frequency deviates from the norm, thus aggravating the grid collapse.”

Spain and Portugal Achieve Net Zero Accidently – Iowa Climate Science Education