Come Towards the Light

MRI of the Female Orgasm

2011-11-21T20:15:00.001-05:00

Well said:

2011-11-12T09:23:00.001-05:00

Mike McKee on Occupy Wall Street's "problems"
The political left owns these morons. They're merely a more visible manifestation of what most liberals think. This circus ought to invalidate liberalism for good (or at least until the next generation comes along that unfortunately has to learn this lesson all over again).

Contrast the crime, disease, and overall idiocy of OWS with the Tea Party demonstrations and anyone with a functioning brain cell can immediately see the stark difference. When 1.5 million Tea Partiers descended on D.C. in 2009 not only was there no crime or arrests (a ridiculous notion if you were actually there to witness it, and I was) but they didn't even leave so much as a discarded gum wrapper in their wake. After the rally, Tea Party protesters also neatly stacked their signs around trash cans. I walked the entire section of the mall where the ra lly took place during, after, and the next day and once everyone left it looked like no one had even been there. The very same result occurred a year later when 500,000 - 600,000 attended Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally.

Why the vastly different results? Simple: Leftists/liberals/progressives think the world owes them something and that everyone else should provide it. They also want to be able to engage in whatever depraved behavior they desire free from criticism. This is one reason they are so eager to wield the force of government to bend everyone else to their will, and if that is not possible then they use it to shut up their critics.

Conservative America, on the other hand, is composed of people who represent what has traditionally been good about this country. They are hard-working people who have common sense (ergo, why you don't see them sleeping in herds in the park) who understand certain immutable principles that are necessary for a happy life and a functioning, civilized society.

Eat the rich? If it weren't for conservatives the loony leftists wouldn't have the time to utter such silly statements. They'd be too busy eating each other in a vain attempt to survive.

The Coinage Act of 1792

2011-04-08T08:00:00.003-04:00

The Coinage Act of 1792 is the enactment of the laws that support the United States Constitution. It has been amended and added to, but it is still the controlling legal law for our currency and coin. It was even the basis of a great part of the prosecution of von Nothaus. (aside: after reading the text of the jury verdict of von Nothaus's trail in Statesville, NC, I am no longer so certain that the Gov't was being tyrannical. Not sure they were right, but not certain) But that is not why I am writing this. I have discovered that § 19 of the Act authorizes the death penalty for government officials who debase the currency. Wouldn't that be a sensation! Just one trial of a Secretary of the Treasury. We would need to win, of course. But even if he were given clemency instead of actually killed, it would still put the fear of the Lord in the next Secretary.

Wikileaks observation:

2010-12-03T17:14:00.002-05:00

How can I take this guy (Julian Assange) seriously when he looks so much like David Spade?

Reply to Adrian Vance

2010-11-14T07:29:00.005-05:00

A response to Adrian Vance's blog.

You are more generous to the state than I. My inflation estimate was ten times from 1964 to 2000 alone.
A Coca-cola was a nickel at work and a dime at the gas station in 1964. Fifty cents and a dollar in 2000.
A loaf of bread 18¢ to $1.80. A gallon of milk 32¢ to $3.20. In 1965 had a lucky Summer job, a union job that paid more than my minimum wage cohort. Grown men were buying homes and raising families on it ... $2.25 an hour. The equivalent paid $22.50 in 2000. That top of the line Ford Mustang I bought for $3200 in 1969? My son bought the equivalent for $32,000. There are others, but it general I find a ten-fold increase from 1964 to the year 2000.

There were, of course, exceptions: medicine, taxes, and gasoline.
1) Medicine was much cheaper in 1965 when I spent a week in the hospital, but it consisted of penicillin, aspirin, measuring temperature and blood pressure, and sleeping pills. Had I had my throat cancer then rather than in 2005, I would have had no radiotherapy, no micro surgery, no chemotherapy. In other words, I would be long dead.

2) My taxes went to 40 times the amount I paid back then but allowing for 10x inflation (in amount, not the damage done by inflation) that is only 4 times. Four times? That's still a lot.

3) And finally gasoline: Remember two Summers ago? When gas was 4 dollars plus a gallon? When everyone was told to blame those evil oil companies? I thought it was cheap. In 1964 one dollar would buy four 25¢ gallons of gasoline. In 2008 one dollar would buy four gallons of gasoline - one SILVER dollar. It wasn't the gasoline that changed. It wasn't the silver dollar that changed. It was that paper thing, the FRN, the only bill of all the different kinds ever printed¹ in this country that actually purports itself to be the dollar and not redeemable with a dollar. That was the one that changed. But we were told to damn the oil companies, not the government and dutifully we did. But for the longest time, our gasoline has been incredibly cheap compared to 1964. It is just the numbers that look bigger.

You appear old enough in your avatar to have been around in the Spring of 1964. I was awaiting graduation and had college, girls and other things on my mind and did not notice the world around me. The media was concerned with the grassy knoll and ignored all else. The most important thing in my lifetime occurred. It was one of Lyndon Baines Johnsons' very first official acts, something he had been wanting to do since 1932 when he was a Representative from Texas and a protégé of Senator Sam Rayburn, and instrumental in removing private ownership of gold - He demonetized silver. Then can blame the Nixon shock, stiffing de Gaulle's run on our under-priced gold, thus breaking Bretton Woods, but the truth is the tie to silver is more responsible for our inflation that lack of gold is. The tie to silver was the tie to limited dollar printing.

Thank you for you patience, and I have enjoyed what I have read and will go read some more.

¹ http://luxomni.blogspot.com/2008/08/as-constant-as-dollar.html

We resemble that remark

2010-11-11T06:13:00.002-05:00

The continued health of a democratic state requires the interplay of three factors: [1] the covert processes of realpolitik wherein the electorate is consigned the role of rubber-stamping either of two fungible candidates offered up by the owners of the system; [2] reinforcement of the fantasy that voters have some real-world influence over the selection of their political rulers; and [3] the illusion that the winning candidate is the one who is really running the government.
- Butler Shaffer

Bridgeport, Connecticut Found a Bag of Uncounted Ballots!

2010-11-05T12:57:00.008-04:00

In an election related development, it is reported that election officials have found a bag of "uncounted ballots" under a bridge in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Previously there was a problem with insufficient preprinted ballots, so the State of Connecticut officials had to Xerox sufficient ballots for the number of people voting. Now a bag has been found that was previously uncounted that changed the State Governor's race from Republican to Democrat. This raises several interesting questions:

1) Why is it that these "mistakes" always seem to favor the Democrat candidate?

2) Were just enough found to get the job done?

3a) Did they even bother to make some Republican fraudulent ballots to look like an honest mistake?
3b) Or did the not even have to worry about that kind of scrutiny?

4) Were the ballots Xeroxed with the candidates already selected so that it would be less work filling them in?

Just like Florida, the press will ignore the fact that the cheating occurs at the county level; and all the state does is total the results from each county. They never even see the ballots. (Or didn't back when there was visible evidence.) If only our news reporters had taken basic civics.

Fair and Balanced.

2010-11-03T05:59:00.005-04:00

Fair and balanced is not just an expression, some one nicknamed jayzz posted it best over on Real Clear Politics:

The difference between MSNBC's coverage, and Fox News coverage of the election results is that Fox News is not ridiculing any of the democratic winners. Fox News is showing the speeches of the winners, and treating them with respect. MSNBC is laughing at republican winners, and ridiculing them. The liberal media is disgusting.

This is what the Liberals do not get. This is why CNN is losing ratings to Fox. Civility. The Progressive movement is about [perceived] superiority. They believe themselves to be the elite ... the intellectual elite. And they have teamed up with the financial elite to put the rest of us "great unwashed", "rubes", "hicks", "country class" out here in "flyover country" in "our place".

Well, Chris Matthews, Chris Ness wouldn't even swap his mean little country home for your Park Avenue Apartment. I have seen (and lived) in a few of the blue areas¹ of your map. Not a life a sane person should want.

¹ You guys controlled the media. Any particular reason you kept blue and gave us red? Like maybe red was too closely associated with who you are pretending not to be?

Not All Viruses Are In The Body, Some Are In The E-mails

2010-10-30T09:51:00.007-04:00

As they told me during my cancer treatments: "The purpose of Chemotherapy is not to either kill or eliminate Cancer. Chemotherapy is to stop the spread of cancer by making the body inhospitable for the successful spread of cancer."

The best way to analogize it is that metastases are cells that have broken off of the primary cancer due to the fractal way that it grows (think cauliflower). These then circulate through the body through blood, lymph, or even open passage to ultimately become "marooned" on some distant part of your body like the liver or brain. Because these cells are genetically "you", the body will not reject them and they will plant like seeds wherever they land. This tissue retains the character of whatever the initial cancer was. Hence, breast or prostate tissue growing on the brain or wherever. This is why they use the term atypical to describe them. They often don't even look like the surrounding tissue. Chemotherapy makes the body inimicable to the attachment and growth of these new colonies and can often starve the growth of the parent cancer, but only at the margins where blood and nutrition are not sufficient to support the cells anyway - the very cells that were to metastasize, break off, and recolonize.

THE ONLY THING THAT WILL KILL CANCER IS SURGERY OR RADIATION (Which is only an electron beam scalpel.) BECAUSE, cancer is you. Any chemical that would kill it would kill you. These diets that claim to starve it away would starve you as well.

I have scattered more commentary throughout Judee's essay

On Fri, 2010-10-29 at 11:14 -0400, af1skee Hotmail.com forwarded:

Johns Hopkins Update – Very Good Article

AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY
IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY ('TRY', BEING THE KEY WORD) TO ELIMINATE CANCER, JOHNS HOPKINS IS FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY .
Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins :
1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer
cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have
multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients
that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after
treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the
cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable
size.

NO, Every cell is a cancer cell. Every cell has the potential to become cancerous. There is little special about them until they actually become cancer. A broken thread of DNA here, or a genetic error there or an inclusion there. This is why prevention is only a false hope.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a
person's lifetime.

At the very least.

3. When the person's immune system is strong the cancer
cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and
forming tumors.

Yes .. but only to outside influences such as HPV. Cancers are errors of the normal reproductive controls of individual cells of yourself. For your immune system to destroy them, you would be definition have an auto-immune disorder. (Are you sure this was written by someone from John's Hopkins?)

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has
nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic,
but also to environmental, food and lifestyle factors.

Big leap here. The second half is correct.

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing
diet to eat more adequately and healthy, 4-5 times/day
and by including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

Propaganda here to support his #4 thesis

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing
cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells
in the bone marrow, gastrointestinal tract etc, and can
cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

True. See my thesis at the beginning.

7.. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars
and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

Yes, but with IMRT the doses at sites other than the target are minimalized. But to an extent, these secondary sites are those same sites which might have nearby metastases.
(A side anecdotal observation of no general value: I had bad internal mouth sores from childhood. Since the radiotherapy in early 2005 I have not had ANY. Apparently those cells were killed also)

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often
reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of
chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor
destruction.

Chemotherapy does not kill cancer. See my note at beginning of message. Radiation is actually surgery burning away tissue.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from
chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either
compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb
to various kinds of infections and complications.

Also a burden on the kidneys and liver, BUT, so it the necrotizing tissue from a cancer that overgrows its blood and nutrition and withers.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to
mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy.

No. The cells are not adaptive in that way. Always remember these cells for good or bad are your own. They are difficult to eliminate because of where they are, infiltrated amongst the healthy and important cells of your body.

Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other
sites.

I have read this described as urban legend, but to me, it seems plausible that a sloppy surgeon could screw up.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer
cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.

It might help ... a little, but as a complex system, you will starve to death before the simple system of your cancer.

*CANCER CELLS FEED ON:
a. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc are made
with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute
would be Manuka honey or molasses, but only in very small
amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in
color Better alternative is Bragg's aminos or sea salt.

Here is the author's thesis that she is trying to push, and she is mostly wrong. Aspertame may or may not be harmful (I believe it is), but cancer cells do not feed on it.
Here is why: Asperatame is non-nutritive. That is why it works as a non-fattening sugar substitute. That could also be a reason that it could cause cancer - an inert foreign body (like asbestos) where it shouldn't be irritating and interfering. But, "Cancer cells feed on" real sugars. They eat 1000 times more sugar that a normal cell. This is why (most) cancers can be located with a PET scan of radioactive tagged glucose.
Therefore, her honey or molasses will only feed the cancer. Sorry, Judee.

b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the
gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting
off milk and substituting with unsweetened soy milk cancer
cells are being starved.

Never heard that cancer feeds on mucus before. But even the premise is odd. Milk has a mucus-like protein called casein that leaves the film on the inside of the glass or your mouth. Casein was the protein in the medical food that I was prescribed for PEG tube feeding during my cancer. I could not tolerate it and it caused me to vomit. Real Mucus is entirely different and not even related. The reason that Casein leaves a film on the inside of your mouth is that it doesn't mix easily with the body's own mucus. Casein based medical food was prescribed so that my body would have a supply of protein and not cannibalize itself while I could not eat. The author here is recommending starving your body of protein to avoid feeding the cancer.
I think I detect a Vegan health-food zealot rationalizing her beliefs.

c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based
diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little other meat,

Exactly the opposite. Chemotherapy lowers the body's pH. There are good reasons to reduce our consumption of meat, but this is BS (and that is a meat by-product)

like chicken. Meat also contains livestock
antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all
harmful, especially to people with cancer.

I thought I smelled Vegan propaganda. They might initially cause a cancer, but to a cancer in progress? Rationalization of pre-held conclusions.

d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole
grains, seeds, nuts

No warning about the dangers of nuts and colon cancer?

and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment.

Overreaching BS. Do a little figuring - if it were even possible to raise the body's pH, would would be the effect on the Amino acids that are your body? A little Googling to find the natural pH of the body found 72 million different answers! These had ranges from 7.68 to 6.8 in the first few dozen I found. All were pushing some kind of agenda or other and not one credible scientific establishment!

About 20% can be from cooked
food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live
enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to
cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance
growth of healthy cells. To obtain live enzymes for building
healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most
vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw
vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at
temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C)..
e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high
caffeine Green tea is a better alternative e and has cancer
fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or
filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap
water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

Johns Hopkins, huh. Distilled water is acidic? Distilled water is pH7. By definition, water is neutral.

(50% of the population will always be of below average intelligence.)

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of
digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the
intestines becomes putrefied and leads to more toxic
buildup.

Gotta love the Progressive food police. I think the truth is that the Progressive elite do not want us competing with them for food. Malthus, anyone?

13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By
refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes
to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the
body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

BS, cancer cells are the same compositionally as the parent cells. It is the reproduction that has been turned on to high gear.
But let me understand her logic... The enzymes would be digesting the protein covering on cancer cells (read her own body cells) were they not occupied digesting the meat in her colon. I don't think so...

14. Some supplements build up the immune system
(IP6, Flor-ssence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals,
EFAs etc.) to enable the bodies own killer cells to destroy
cancer cells.. Other supplements like vitamin E are known
to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's
normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or
unneeded cells.

Some truth carried to presumed conclusions. But always back to that same premise that somehow cancer cells are not cells of the host.

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit.
A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior
be a survivor. Anger, un-forgiveness and bitterness put
the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to
have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy
life.

Aom. You really passed this New-Age shit on to me? There I go, another cancer.

16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated
environment. Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to
get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen
therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer
cells.

Pure oxygen kills most everything.

1. No plastic containers in micro.
2. No water bottles in freezer.
3. No plastic wrap in microwave..

Sort of jumps around doesn't it. Hitting all the issues that those who would tell us how to run our lives espouse.

Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in its newsletters. This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as well. Dioxin chemicals cause cancer,
... [more redundant drivel removed for brevity]...
Please share this with your whole email list.........................

Johns Hopkins may have published something. But there are many hands at work here pushing a number of "Liberal" agendas. (I use Liberal here in quotes, because true liberal was libertarian, not about controlling others as Progressive "Liberalism" is now) This is propaganda, pure and simple.

Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.
This is an article that should be sent to anyone important in your life.
> --
> Judee
>

(Even the name is a give away to her bias. Judee is an just affectated way of spelling Judy.)

By the way, I have outlived all my health food fanatic peers but one. And I'm waiting for him ...

TANSTAAFL

2010-10-25T06:15:00.002-04:00

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.

"Gospodin," he said presently, "you used an odd word earlier--odd to me, I mean..."
"Oh, 'tanstaafl.' Means ~There ain't no such thing as a free lunch.' And isn't," I added, pointing to a FREE LUNCH sign across room, "or these drinks would cost half as much. Was reminding her that anything free costs twice as much in long run or turns out worthless."
"An interesting philosophy."
"Not philosophy, fact. One way or other, what you get, you pay for.
. - The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A Heinlein

Repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell - Useless News Filler

2010-10-14T17:41:00.005-04:00

Both the Authoritarian Socialists and the Authoritarian Conservatives have staked out their positions on this. But what does it really mean anyway? What does getting rid of the rule really mean from a logical standpoint? There are only four logical possibilities.

Dont ask. Don't tell...........Ask. Don't tell.

Don't Ask. Tell................Ask. Tell.

So, which alternative is the preferred one? From my libertarian perspective Don't Ask, Don't Tell seems the preferable one - for heteros as well as homos. Whatever you do for jollies keep it to yourself. Besides, as a lady friend told me many years ago, the best sex was done on the sly.

Other than that, you're just bragging.

Hey! Dummies! You in front of the TV camera.

2010-10-13T18:02:00.002-04:00

Hey! Dummies! You in front of the TV camera, Gold reaching new highs is not a good thing!
Silver, maybe. It may be if it is reclosing the historical 16:1 ratio to gold.

BUT, gold reaching a new high means the dollar is reaching a new low.

Last year, at this time, I wrote a blog about gold breaking $1000 an ounce. Then, as now, I found this to be a worrisome thing. As I write this 54 weeks later, Gold has a bid price of $1372.33 and an ask price of $1372.88¹. This means that in the last year gold has risen 37.23%! In one year! Or more correctly, the dollar has fallen 27.15% against gold. Again, it isn't the gold that is changing. An ounce of gold is always worth ... an ounce of gold.

¹The day's high was $1374.05.

Lazyness Is Not a Disability

2010-10-12T22:44:00.005-04:00

Spare me from tubs of lard on Hoverounds.

I recently had the unmitigated joy of going to Disneyworld. It used to have a very efficient transportation system. Step out from your hotel room and short a bus or a water taxi would come and in moments wisk you away to one of the theme parks or other Disney delights.

Now, the world comes to a stop for people in electric wheel chairs. "You three give up your seats so they can be folded up to stow the electric cart; and you two give up your seat so he can sit down. There will be another bus in ten to twenty minutes."

Does it sound compassionate? Well, it isn't. These are not truly handicapped people. There is no clearing of eligibility for these people as there is with the red and blue handicapped placards at the DMV. The truly disabled have their own wheelchairs; and in many cases pride themselves on walking with crutches or canes. No, these are the fat and lazy who rent the carts as much for the extra privilege of access by going to the front of the queue lines as for the laziness of hauling their fat carcasses around. These are people who could use the extra expenditure of energy to forestall their inevitable appearance on America's Biggest Loser.

One can only long for the day that Obama's medical panels decide that joint replacement surgery is declared cost ineffective and no longer offered, so that these people can have the legal right to their ADA use.

A Federal Answer to a Personal Responsibility Question, NO!

2010-10-12T22:23:00.002-04:00

I am already sick of hearing about freezing foreclosures. The level to deal with alleged deficiencies in the paperwork in your dispossesory trial. A foreclosure is a legal proceding. It has rules. It seems that nobody in the 21st Century wants to play by the rules -- not the homeowners, not the mortgage companies, and not the government.

Look, mortgagees, you made a deal to pay for a loan of money. Pay it. Or give up the house!

Ok, you, bankers, play by the rules. I don't care how many houses you have in foreclosure right now. Dot the "i"s and cross the "t"s. File the paperwork the right way. Make sure you have the paperwork in hand. No cutting corners.

And you, Government, allow the bad loans to play themselves out and clear the market, or we will never recover.

And while we are at it, all of you in the press. The proper place to play this out is in the courts, not the Executive Branch, or the Legislature. The banks and borrowers make a contract. Allow contract law to be settled in the courts on a case-by-case basis as it should be. Believe it or not, the bank doesn't just show up one day and take the house. There is a legal procedure where the mortgage holder must file in state court for default and remedy. AND, the borrower has the right (read duty) to answer the complaint. If there is question of the standing of the lender, the debtor should make it known then. If you have been sending (or not sending or you wouldn't be here) your checks to Washington Mutual and Bank of America is filing your dispossessory, make it known in your answer. If you are in default you do not have a right to your house. Sorry, Charlie.

And finally, anything but enforcing the contract against delinquents is unfair. UNFAIR to those of us who live within our means, pay our bills, and fulfill our promises.

Uh Oh ...

2010-10-11T16:26:00.011-04:00

Normally I agree with Dave Ramsey, at least at a personal economic level. It is good not to be in debt. And I even agree with him on another idea he spoke of today, but not for the same reason. I do not recommend to my friends to buy gold. My reason is that one does not make all that many $1000 (now $1300) purchases. Gold isn't an investment. It is a parking place. As is silver, which I do own and recommend. $20 increments. Dave Ramsey is worried about a gold "bubble", the price being unreasonably high and going down later. In what? Dollars? Unlike shrimp, lettuce, and even corn, silver and gold stay the same. An ounce of silver is worth an ounce of silver. No more. No less.
The ounce of silver that I got for a dollar in 1964 is still worth ... an ounce of silver. The Federal Reserve Note I left in an old coat pocket and found recently now buys about 4% of what it would in 1964. That is the point. Dave Ramsey made a point about the Petroleum bubble last Summer when sweet crude went to $145 a barrel and gasoline was "$5 a gallon", and how that was a bubble too. But he missed the point: it wasn't petroleum nor gold that is the bubble. The dollar is the bubble, and a heavy one at that. When gasoline was $4.50 a gallon here, my ounce of silver bought four gallons of gasoline just like it did in 1964 when gasoline was 25¢ a gallon.

Right now, Mr. Ramsey, gold is at a record high, and silver is as high as it has been since the Hunt Brothers tried to corner the market many years ago. But, this is merely a symptom. The following is a commodity news clip from Friday October 9, 2010 from Brock Associates, a commodities broker to his clients:

Corn, soybean and wheat futures at the Chicago Board of Trade will all have expanded daily price limits on Monday as a result of Friday's sharp gains.
The daily price limit on corn futures will be expanded to 45 cents per bushel from the normal level of 30 cents.¹
...
Price limits will also expand on Monday for CBOT soymeal, soyoil and oats futures. For soymeal, the price limit widens to $30 a ton, from $20.

Straightforward working information that CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC and MSNBC, and even FOX didn't find important enough to mention even though it is a suspension of rules designed to control runaway panic selling and buying. Couple that with this information from today's Economic Policy Journal:

Corn prices have hit a two-year high in early morning trading, jumping more than 8 per cent.
CBOT December corn surged by an expanded daily limit of 45 cents, or 8.5 per cent, to $5.73¼ per bushel, the highest since September 2008. In the last two trading sessions, corn is up more than 15%.

Now, remember that little decal on your gas pump last time you bought gas - "may contain 10% ethanol". Ethanol, alcohol made from corn by Archer Daniels Midland in Clinton Iowa. They are competing with you for the food you eat and the feed that feeds the food that you eat.

No, Dave, you don't have to trade in commodities for the price of commodities to reach down and bite you².
Dave, usually I try to live my live in rules you would approve. I have little to no debt (depending on when you ask me. After a trip or after the next month). But I do have some holdings in silver of which you would not approve. They are not an investment. They are an insurance. Just like term insurance on my life, my silver is an insurance against financial calamity. And just like the life insurance, the health insurance, and more obviously, the fire insurance, I hope never to take advantage of it. I don't track its value from day-to-day looking for my opportunity to sell and make a profit. What would I put my safety net in? Dollars? A 401k?
You often advise your listeners to put their savings in a 401k. Do you suppose that the surge in the price of commodities on Friday and Monday might possibly be connected with a recess hearing at the U. S. Senate on Thursday that revived a long dormant plan to nationalize 401k and other tax sheltered savings plans.

Democrats in the Senate on Thursday held a recess hearing covering a taxpayer bailout of union pensions and a plan to seize private 401(k) plans to more "fairly" distribute taxpayer-funded pensions to everyone.
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee heard from hand-picked witnesses advocating the infamous "Guaranteed Retirement Account" (GRA) authored by Theresa Guilarducci.
...
In a nutshell, under the GRA system government would seize private 401(k) accounts, setting up an additional 5% mandatory payroll tax to dole out a "fair" pension to everyone using that confiscated money coupled with the mandated contributions.³

Which 2000 page lame-duck omnibus bill will this be hidden in? Between theft like this and the regulations-and-debt coming out of Washington, is there any wonder than people are afraid of the future of the dollar?

¹ What this means is that there are no sellers willing to sell at the mandated price high limit. So far, people can not be forced to sell at a loss. Stay tuned.
² Gold here may diverge from the other commodities as it is a hedge against currency variation only, i.e. it does not get traded like all the other commodities primarily as a regulator of supply against future commercial demand - even silver is an industrial metal and traded that way as its primary purpose. Speculation and arbitrage are parasitic riders on the primary purpose of commodity trading; even if, sometimes the tail wags the dog.
³ http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=39336

War Against The Weak

2010-10-10T08:54:00.009-04:00

I am currently reading War Against The Weak, Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race, by Edwin Black. I would describe it as alternately fascinating, boring, horrifying, and intriguing. It documents many of the things Glenn Beck has spoken of on his television show for the last few months - in great detail, and referenced and documented. It will go on, I have been clued in, to explain how the Fabians, Socialists, and Progressives and their elitist attempt to engineer the family tree of mankind became Hitler's attempt to prune that tree by genocide.

The question I am awaiting the answer for is: When did the Progressives change from being elitists trying to eliminate us lesser people from competing in the Malthusian dilemma to elitists being our benefactor protecting us from every sling-and-arrow of life, physics, economics, and biology? Or indeed, Have they?

I have pondered for a long time why so many "Liberal"¹ policies seem to side with death over life. You know, little things like abortion, of course; but also euthanasia; disarming the potential victims of crime; opposition to execution or even harsh imprisonment of violent criminals²; the destruction (in the name of fairness) of the World's best medical system³; policies that will inevitably destroy the currency and savings of the elderly and others on fixed incomes; and an almost zealous promotion of homosexuality coupled with a suspension of normal epidemic tracking of aids (even making a person's AIDS status a secret from the very medical people who would come into contact with him)⁴.

My Democratic Liberal friends seem to have a blind faith in the Federal Government whenever the titular head is a Democrat and a blind paranoia about the Presidency when a Republican is in charge despite the fact that there is little change other than a minimal reduction in the progress forward to total government control of our lives. This, despite the fact that there is an elite ruling class that comprises both parties with a common Ivy League education for both (Both Bush and Obama had Harvard educations); and a persistence of the operating levels of the Federal Government no matter who is in charge. Somehow my friends have a fierce distrust of "business" despite the relative dispersal of control, but have trust in a monolithic government with the power to legally use deadly force. I don't get it.

¹ I put Liberal in quotes, because the meaning has changed so in today's usage. Where Liberal was once Libertarian and on the side of the individual freedom of man, now it is about collectivism, restriction, control, and group identities, in other word, Fascist.
² I know this seems contradictory, but in not doing it, society sentences the victims rather than the perpetrators to death.
³ Here we go again. If England, Cuba, and Canada are so great, Not only why do their leaders come here for treatment, but what great advancements in medicine have come from those systems?
⁴ It seems perhaps the goal of the social planners is the same as the psychosis of some AIDS victims - the deliberate spread of the disease?

What Kind of Union ... ?

2010-09-29T21:19:00.003-04:00

Watching reports about Steven Colbert testifying before Congress about illegal immigrants at hearings ultimately sponsored by the United Farm Workers made me wonder about something that left me puzzled for some time. What kind of union takes care of its workers by encouraging workers who would undercut the employability of its members? What could they possibly think would happen to their current workers by encouraging dilution of the work force? The argument they make is that then all the workers will be union and the wage will not be undercut; but this benefits only the union coffers and not the individual worker - neither the existing member nor the new one. Typically, work is fairly divided with each getting a supposedly equal share. (I know this one having suffered through it doing union work in the 70's and 80's. We spent a lot of time is US District Court) But what that really means is that the worker makes less than they would have without the union. But the union officers ... they do well.

Similarly what was the AARP thinking when they pushed a medical plan that takes from Medicare to give to people of an age when they should be working and able to pay their own way. Shooting their members in the foot they are.

Endgame

2010-09-29T16:32:00.007-04:00

(Let me be the gloom preceding everyone's doom)

In life as in chess, moves sometimes are inevitable and unavoidable after a point. I think politically we are there now. Everyone is so relieved that the Republicans are (most likely) going to retake the House of Representatives and Senate in six weeks. But let me tell you how it will play out due to a fifth column press and unthinking gullible voters.

The lame duck House and Senate will ram through a number of seriously damaging pieces of legislation in the remaining weeks of 2010, "Cap and Trade", "Card Check", "Amnesty for illegal aliens" and probably more. President Obama will sign them immediately. The incoming House and Senate will try to rescind or repeal those nation-destroying bills of the 111th Congress.

The President will veto them.

The press will demonize the 112th Congress for being against the common man even though most of the new laws that they are trying to overturn benefit certain elite groups and individuals.

There will be insufficient voting strength to overturn the veto.

The new laws of the 111th congress will further deteriorate the economic state of the US, with expatriation of the super-wealthy, with collapse of the remaining industrial base, and disruptions in fuel and food supply.

The whole time the press will excoriate the 112th Congress for the damage they have have done in exact counterpoint to how they blamed Bush for the damage of the 110th Congress.

And finally, debt will collapse the US dollar which will render moot the U. S. Constitution and leave George Soros, Obama, and Obama's brownshirts* (who are currently mobilizing for an anti-tea-party march in Washington DC) to step-in to fill the void to the thanks and the cheers of the ignorant American underclasses, the press, and the newest political elites.

Checkmate!

*Want to see who they are? Are there any of these groups you would feel at home with?

Where are Proportion and Consistancy?

2010-09-29T12:31:00.005-04:00

As I was driving between jobs this morning, I noticed three police cars arranged in a semi-circle blocking off a through road nearby. As I drove on I passed a police command-and-control truck as large as a fire truck racing toward the scene. But, a little further away on a side street I found the front of a sub-division where one of my schools is located blocked.
I went on to my destination, another school and went about my business. Later, I found out what the scare was about: a woman threw a box under a bus while both were stopped at a stoplight; and the bus had proceeded on to its destination, a minor elementary school. Now, when the police are called they must do their thing and go by the book. But who called and why? Did a student on the bus exaggerate someone littering to avoid a test or overdue homework? Or did some passerby see someone dispose of their McDonald's breakfast out the window? Or maybe, it was a serious but inefficient serious threat from the bus driver's jilted spouse or lover? In any reasonable event, it was not an international jihadi terrorist going to claim her 72 virgins at Minor Elementary.

But all this is prelude to my point. After hearing the news report on the radio I spoke with several people at a nearby middle school who were all of the opinion that we can't be too careful in this day and age, it just might be a Muslim terrorist. Now why the Muslim extremists would pick this minor elementary, Minor Elementary, I have no idea. World Trade Center, Pentagon, Eiffel Tower I can see. But a minor school in the middle of nowhere in suburban Atlanta? Why start here?

But even this is only prelude. MY real observation is that these women that are telling me that there is every reason to always fear the worst about the possibility of terrorists attacking this group of kindergarteners through fifth graders are the very same ones by whom I recently was lectured about how the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks on 9/11 were Bush's staged inside jobs. Now, which is it? Are they out to get us or aren't they? Or are they only really out to get us if a Democrat is President?

But seriously, ladies, if the world is that scary and fearful a place, maybe you better go home and hide under your bed - all day, every day.

Aren't Progressives Wonderful People?

2010-09-27T22:18:00.006-04:00

This is a fascinating speech by War Against the Weak author Edwin Black who also wrote IBM and the Holocast.
It was an interesting dissertation about the English and American origins of Eugenics in the Hitlerian style. What was conspicuous to me though was that there was no mention of the terms Fabian, Socialist, or Progressive; even though he named many of the most important people in those movements. It almost seems like a conscious omission. He even answered a question whether the eugenics movement still existed by saying "Yes, in the Aryan Nation". That is a prison gang and of no general influence in the outside world. Later, he calls in and answers a question about whether socialized medicine has eugenic impact by stating emphatically that "no, only national policy would do that", completely ignoring that rationing would accomplish exactly that while all would be benignly blaming economics; and further ignoring that the elites will always have the best access to medicine whether they are corporate giants or powerful and connected politicians thus naturally selecting themselves and their kin and ilk.

WARNING: This is an hour and three minute long video. You should watch but it is long.

More Foreclosure ... I thought there was a recovery.

2010-09-13T22:18:00.004-04:00

I have been following the legal notices for some time now. A year ago I was astounded how many foreclosures there were in the paper of record for Gwinnett County (suburban Atlanta) where I live. Last Thursday was this month's posting. Still more than 150 nine column pages of foreclosure notices. I found myself wondering how many there actually were, but I am too lazy to count. Fortunately, WSB news counted for me and broadcast the news as I was driving to one of my schools. 2100 foreclosures this month. Last year at this time I computed the count of column inches as 28,000. This years there are almost exactly the same number of pages with exactly the same number of columns, 9 per page, for a total again of 28,000 inches - 10 inches per listing. Only one problem the ones I see are not 10 inches long. I think they have under-reported the number of foreclosures. Could that be deliberate?

A Little Disappointed

2010-09-04T08:54:00.003-04:00

For a long time, I have been defending the "Tea Party Movement" from charges that Tea Party is a religious movement, from the perception that somehow fundamentalist Christians were the only ones who opposed a massive Federal government. The media tries very hard to paint those who oppose the ever-increasing concentration of authority and power at that one level of governance as narrow-minded "think-as-I-think" religious zealots. Well, many of us are handing them the brush to paint us with.

On Saturday August 28th, Glenn Beck held a gathering at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. He called it the Restoring Honor rally. Although I did not go, it seems to me that this is more than an honorable, admirable pursuit, it is a necessity if we are to prevent becoming slaves to a modern feudal system based out of Washington, DC. But suddenly I am seeing in my mailbox and on my Facebook watched an undercurrent of "Glen Beck is a ... Mormon". "He is trying to be the religious leader of the country". There seems to be as much backlash from the far right Christians as from the far left Socialists. Well, I missed the part where he was trying to make me a Mormon. I heard it as go back to your church; and he appears to be trying very hard to keep a balance of faiths so it remains non-sectarian. I guess there really are levels at which the far-right and far-left are similar. Both are screaming as they see a threat from individual thought and freedom.

So, to the "Tea Party" candidate who barrages my mailbox daily, You miss the point. It is not about replacing one earthly master with another. We are no better served as servants of a theocratic ruling class than a secular one. It is about our personal sovereignty. We do not belong to the Imperial Federal Government to be used and abused as the ruling class desires; no matter whether that ruling class is bureaucrats or theocrats. They belong to us. They are our employees and as such we can give them no more rights than we have ourselves. We can not give them the right to steal or the right to kill. These are not rights that we ever possessed to give them. It really is time for us to remind them and put them back into check. We will never be able to do that as long as we self-divide on whether we are Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Atheist, or Mormon. We will have to stand together on this. We shall all stand together or we shall all hang separately.

Indian Givers

2010-09-04T07:03:00.003-04:00

I was never certain if the term Indian Giver referred to the South-Asian sub-continent or the American aboriginal Indian. But now I am fairly certain that it refers to the American aboriginal variety - Mexican in particular. There is a tremendous area of southern Arizona that has become off-limits to American citizens due to being unsafe. I have not once heard the mainstream media refer to this area by its name. That name we all had to learn in sixth grade geography: The Gadsden Purchase. Known as Venta de La Mesilla, or "Sale of La Mesilla" in Mexico, this was the last territorial acquisition of the continental United States and was purchased by Franklin Pierce for a mere ten million pre-inflation gold dollars. (Someone on Wikipedia extrapolates that to 241.333 million of todays dollars. 25 to 1 is a four cent dollar. About right.)

I do understand that the purchase gives the continental United States that linear filled in geometric look of our border that we are all familiar with, but if the Mexicans really want that land that badly; and if, apparently, our Government does not really wish to continue owning it; then maybe, they should sell it back de jure rather than give it back de facto. With improvements, it should be worth considerably more than 241 million dollars in gold. Lets see, there are highways, and the restaurants in Tucson and ...

The Mood of the American Electorate

2010-08-26T17:06:00.001-04:00

Time Magazine Cover: Is America Islamophobic?

2010-08-20T16:39:00.004-04:00

While I am not one to even suggest prohibiting the Cordoba Center for Islamic Bragging (I say meet it in kind); I have to take issue with the ad hominem defense of the center.

First of all, we are well served to be Islamophobic, "in fear of Islam". One is not paranoid when they really are out to get you. Islam has been at war with all non-Muslims for all its existence. Peaceful coexistence is contrary to the Quran. Despite the best protestations of the American Liberal Media, their own words damn them. And when the time comes, there will not be exceptions made for being a dhimmi (Arabic: ذمي‎ [ˈðɪmːiː]).

Second, Islam is America-phobic also, and has been since the days of Thomas Jefferson. They have been increasingly so for the last forty years, as have their violent attacks on Americans, Europeans, and Asians.

Time Magazine, if you wish to defend the Cordoba Center, defend it on the basis of the United States' freedoms of speech, of assembly, and religion. Attacking the American public for feeling offended and not sharing your infinite wisdom is adding insult to injury. It does nothing to change anyone's mind. It reinforces the general public perception that Time magazine, the media, and the Eastern elites are un-American. And most important, it reinforces the divide between Islam and the rest of the world.

In Defense of the Ground Zero Mosque

2010-08-17T17:18:00.005-04:00

Contrary to what the Political Correctness Police would have us believe, there is no right not to be offended.

I am sorry, but it is so. There is, however, a right to the free practice of religion. Of course they can build. There is also a right to free speech. You can stand outside with a protest sign or build a billboard across the street saying "Jesus Saves". These are parts of the strength of America.

So, maybe, this might be better ...

On one side of the mosque build a synagogue. On the other build a Christian church, preferably a Pentecostal variety of some kind.

And my personal favorites, on the other side of the street, with flashing neon and chase lights a spectacular topless (bottomless?) club. And with smoke a-blowing, a TastyPig Bar-B-Que.

Like I said, in America, no one has the right not to be offended.

No point in building a gay bar, though, some things don't offend the Moslems.

Election Campaigns That Still Don't "Get It"

2010-08-07T07:58:00.006-04:00

It is Political Season in Georgia, and I am so sick and tired of Politicians whose sole reason to vote for them is that their opponent is worse. I have reached the end of my rope. In this case it is a man who wants to be our Attorney General and he wastes three pages of his four page brochure, his one chance to tell me why he would be a good AG and what he would do to help hold us back from the abyss that our President and Congress are trying to push us into. He wastes it telling me about his opponents infidelity - on three pages!

On his one remaining page what information does he try to squeeze in? Well, 2.4 inches at the top of his 11 inches is address space. Then 4.5 inches of the obligatory smiling family picture. Then the obligatory "Proven Conservative Leader" boilerplate. A 12 point line about how he got an "'A+' rating from the Georgia Christian Coalition." That tells me both good and bad about him - the good that he probably is a decent person, but the bad is that he is probably the kind of anti-libertarian Republican that drives people away from the Republican Party, especially when we need to scale back the size, power and cost of ALL OUR GOVERNMENTS. And finally, the coup de grace, the obligatory Pro-Life line. Sam, you aren't pregnant. You aren't running for gynecologist. You aren't even running for the legislature where you could pursue the issue. It has nothing to do with Attorney General. So why is it there? Twice. Twice because this section has a second column consisting of a 16 point this time list of "PROVEN. CONSERVATIVE. PRO-LIFE", his logo and "REPUBLICAN".
I think it is a cynical grab at what he thinks conservative voters are. Cynical because he thinks we, like he, are more concerned about trying to control others than we are about our own freedom, independence, fiscal responsibility and the Georgia and United States Constitutions. He is just another professional politician more interested in getting himself a job than in fixing our government.
No, Sam, I won't be voting for you. It doesn't mean I will vote for your opponent, but I won't vote for you.

Do not reward negative campaigning.
Force them to tell us about what they will do, or withhold your vote.

Seventh Level of Hell

2010-08-02T08:28:00.003-04:00

Unlike Dante, I do not know who it is reserved for or what I have done to go there; but I do know what it is:

It is an endless loop of Pachelbel's Canon in D played over and over wowing & fluttering and fading in & out, interrupted every 45 seconds by "Your call is very important to us. Please stay on the line for the next available [agent]"; knowing full well that if you hang up, you will only have to go back to square one and start over again.

State of New Jersey, Treasury Department, Division of Pensions, fix the damn tape, or better yet, use a digital recorder - they don't wear out!

Don't Worry Your Pretty Little Head, ...

2010-07-29T20:54:00.004-04:00

... your Government is looking out for your best interest.

Further increases in federal debt relative to the nation’s output almost certainly lie ahead if current policies remain in place. The aging of the population and rising costs for health care will push federal spending, measured as a percentage of GDP, well above the levels experienced in recent decades. Unless policymakers restrain the growth of spending, increase revenues significantly as a share of GDP, or adopt some combination of those two approaches, growing budget deficits will cause debt to rise to unsupportable levels, as shown in the figure below. (For more details, see CBO’s recent report The Long-Term Budget Outlook.)

Although deficits during or shortly after a recession generally hasten economic recovery, persistent deficits and continually mounting debt would have several negative economic consequences for the United States. Some of those consequences would arise gradually—but a high level of federal debt, combined with an unfavorable long-term budget outlook, would also increase the probability of a sudden fiscal crisis prompted by investors’ fears that the government would renege on the terms of its existing debt or that it would increase the supply of money to finance its activities or pay creditors and thereby boost inflation. The resulting abrupt rise in interest rates would create serious challenges for the U.S. government. For example, a 4-percentage-point across-the-board increase in interest rates would raise federal interest payments next year by about $100 billion; if those higher rates persisted, net interest costs in 2015 would be nearly double the roughly $460 billion that CBO currently projects for that year. Such an increase in rates could also precipitate a broader financial crisis because it would reduce the market value of outstanding government bonds, inflicting losses on mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, banks, and other holders of federal debt.

From the blog of the Director of the Congressional Budget Office

Our National credit card is maxed out, and we aren't even making minimum payments.

Congress Adds Another Nail in the Coffin of the American Economy

2010-07-28T21:34:00.002-04:00

The United Sates Congress has exempted the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from the Freedom of Information Act. This will really inspire the restoration of confidence in the Stock Market and the United States Dollar. NOT

Omerta.

No Dollars and No Sense

2010-07-25T15:29:00.002-04:00

Federal Reserve Chairman and Time Magazine Man of the Year, Ben Bernanke notes the our economy is "unusually uncertain". How condescending of him to let us know what we already knew.

Open Letter to my Children

2010-07-18T13:29:00.005-04:00

(A response while forwarding some old depression era photographs)
Even by my childhood not even 15 years later, the world had improved a lot from the world of the 1930s, but nothing like you know now.

In the early 1950's:
There were no Interstate highways. Most country roads were still dirt.
Motels were little individual houses in a semicircle - and often had flashing neon signs saying "No Vacancy".
Men still wore dress hats and suit jackets to go to town. Women wouldn't be caught dead in pants in town.
By the way, those hats were always removed indoors.
School teachers were always dressed up. Women wore their good dresses and men suits and ties - always.
Good dress? Suitable for church. Even the kids were dressed up for church. The boys wore jackets and ties too.
Somehow what passed for fat back then don't seem anywhere near today's standard. There were no 300 pound people.
There were no jet planes. Crossing the US took an entire 24 hour day by plane and you were dirty and exhausted.
But that was OK because trains still served small towns and competed in style and service.
Telephone calls still required operators except very locally where it was a four-digit dial. There were no Area Codes or Zip codes for that matter.
Party lines where you shared a line and could listen in to your neighbor's call and vice versa were the norm.
Long distance required setting up a connection ahead of time.
Pay phones were everywhere often in great lines.
Television broadcast in black and white like these pictures but just a few hours an evening - sometimes just 15 minutes.
Not every family had one. If you did you were considered rich. In my high school, I was the first to have my own: a 9inch round tube set (with a plastic water blister to magnify the picture) that I patiently restored from dead myself.
FM radio was an adapter that plugged into some radios. There was nothing on it anyway. AM radios glowed orange with the light of the tubes inside. I got one for my eighth birthday. I was proud of it. None of my friends had one.
Soft drinks came in glass bottles with no screw tops.
Smokestack factories dotted our country.
Most things were made in the U.S.A., not yet with a few shoddy things made in Japan.
Most kids still bragged on what there dad "did in the the war".
A penny would buy you candy, a nickel would even get a chocolate bar and you would
be thankful when one of your parents friends gave you a penny.
Most drug stores still had lunch counters or soda fountains as we called them.
Downtown areas were busy with stores - clothing, hardware, grocery, drug, and of course, the bank.
The big cities had a signature department store or two; and you would go once a year generally before Christmas.
There were no computers - not even at the banks.
There were no credit cards. Not even Diners Club or American Express yet.
The bank was like a fortress with walls with gun-ports between you and the teller.
You kept track of your money in a bankbook which the teller wrote in and you guarded with your life.
A camera folded out with a bellows and your pictures were hand developed and back in a week or so.
There were no meals that merely needed to be heated to eat, but mothers stayed home all day to cook and clean.
No one's home had air conditioning. If it was that hot, you went to the movies - maybe. Otherwise you just fanned yourself and bore it.
Coffee, spam, and tuna fish came in cans that were opened by turning keys that wound off a strip of metal and would often cut you.
Politicians knew their constituents and would greet you by name, so would policemen.
Milk bottles were left in a metal container by the kitchen door and the empties picked up. Some places also delivered bread.
And in some places (York, PA for example), even cases of beer were left at the door.
The annual introduction of the new cars was a big deal shrouded in secrecy and created a great deal of interest.
Penicillin was about it for wonder drugs.
X-rays were dangerous except for that machine at the shoe store I guess.
The doctor made house calls - even 15 miles from his office.
When you had the measles, they put dark curtains over the windows lest you go blind or need glasses.
The dentist's drill was run by strings and pulleys - and hurt. Some even were pumped with foot pedals like old sewing machines.
Remember them? Most kids wore clothing made by their mothers. Patches on the knees of boy's pants were not at all unusual.
High schools did not have student parking. Few teenagers had cars. If they did they were being restored. What they did have was bicycle racks.
Cars did not have air conditioners and barely had heaters. Even windshield wipers were primitive and
driven by vacuum from the engine and would speed up and slow down with the engine.
Some even had radios, but most did not.
The dash board was metal and hurt if you hit it on a sudden stop.
Almost nothing in your world was made of plastic. If it was, it would not be any plastic you would recognize today. It would be something like melamine of phenolic. There was no polyethylene or polystyrene. Nylon was new and a substitute for silk in ladies stockings.
Schools did not have intercoms or door holders other than a kid in your class.
The desks were screwed to the floor, often in long rows, but always with an inkwell.
The teacher was an authority figure backed up by your parents who would sometimes even provide a meal for (generally) her.

And these were things the people in these pictures would have found as marvels and been thankful for!
And however bad things seem today, be thankful for the changes we have made.

(Mis)Leading Economic Indicators

2010-07-17T08:35:00.006-04:00

The cheerleaders for the Government in the nightly news and the shells that remain of Time and Newsweek and our daily papers tell us that the recession is over and happy days are here again. I look around and wonder if they are in a different world than I am.

Sunday afternoon I went to my local Lowe's hardware/builders store and bought something I needed and a few things I didn't and came back home to do a little home repair. Lowe's and Home Depot are big box discounters who sell Chinese made plumbing and electrical supplies cheaply. So cheaply in fact that all of the hundred-year-old mom-and-pop hardware stores have had to either shut their doors or delayed that inevitability a bit by selling the same blister-packed Chinese junk for a somewhat higher price than Lowe's and Big Orange.

Tuesday morning I drove past and noticed plywood over the sign out by the road in front of Lowe's. My first thought was "damn vandals". I noticed the same on the other side and then looked at the building. The name was gone! Sunday evening after I took my ball-cock and went home to fix my toilet, the employees were all called together and told "That's it. Don't come in tomorrow." I guess they figured if I was only going to buy this home repair stuff and not remodel my entire home, they weren't going to waste their time on me.

The true irony was that as I was driving by, the news on the radio was reading a report from the Department of Labor of how "although the number of unemployed was up due to the release of the Census counters, the figures were actually good news because that was offset by the creation of so many jobs in the private sector."

But employment is only one part of it. Much has been made of the collapse of the home housing market. They call it a bubble. I think that to be misleading. If it were truly a bubble, the houses that were built would never have been occupied. They would have been overbuilt by quantity. These were overbuilt by quality. People fraudulently bought houses their income and station-in-life did not really qualify them for - janitors in half-million dollar McMansions.
And then the inevitable caught up with them.

There is something else hanging over our heads: The suburban landscapes is covered with the carcasses of big-box stores like this Lowe's, the remnants of the war of the drug stores of a decade ago, hundreds of small strip malls and office parks that were never full and now boast no real tenants other that the occasional dollar store and imitation Goodwill store. The fast food stores now house title pawn and "We Buy Gold" places. (How can they stay in business? Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Are there enough shameful fools out there to support so many of these crooks?)
'
This real estate is as leveraged as the housing market and due to the miracle of debt-backed currency and fractional reserve is poised as a sword of Damocles over our heads waiting to drop and wreak havoc on our unsound and fragile economic system.

NASA's New Mission

2010-07-08T22:47:00.002-04:00

You may have heard President Obama's new head of NASA, Charles Bolden, explain on Al Jazira what three tasks the President has instructed him to persue, most notably to "reach out to the Muslim World". Well, let us see how the Muslims view NASA and our world.

We Will Discover What is in the Health Care Bill Once We Pass It

2010-07-08T19:57:00.005-04:00

For starters, every commercial transaction over $600 must be reported to the Federal Government. Aside from the burden of extra and increased paperwork, comes the ability to track who has bought what. Privacy will be a thing of the past.

What has happened is that effective Jan. 1, 2012, the whole system of giving and receiving Internal Revenue Service 1099 forms will be turned on its head and all persons (including corporations) who are in business will now have to give 1099 tax reporting forms for coins and other goods that they sell as well as buy.
Numismaster.com

What does this have to do with healthcare?
Well it is one way to keep us in line. Land of the free indeed.

Fourth of July Celebrations

2010-07-05T10:43:00.003-04:00

Was it my imagination, or did once upon a time Fourth of July celebrations include speeches? Not just the why you should elect me and not that scoundrel running against me; but speeches on liberty, freedom, and "why this is a great country". It seems like such a long time ago.

Oh, well, bring on the fireworks and tacos.

Please Don't Squeeze the Customer

2010-07-02T18:36:00.003-04:00

From time to time, I answer surveys for a company from the Midwest. I get a dollar. Today's survey is about Toilet Paper. Question 7 is

For Each statement, select which brand or brands of toilet tissue, if any, that statement best applies to.

Some choices are:

I like to seek out others who use this brand
On occasion I like talking to others about this brand
I feel this brand helps me connect with others

I chose answer number 4 for all:

I feel I have some things in common with others who use this brand.

Somewhere, some company paid a lot of money for this sh ... err,uh, survey.

Something I have suspected for a long time

2010-07-01T17:33:00.002-04:00

From an essay by Walter E.Williams confirmation of some of the things I had observed over the years

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the 2009 poverty guideline was $22,000 for an urban four-person family. In 2009, having income less than that, 15 percent or 40 million Americans were classified as poor, but there's something unique about those "poor" people not seen anywhere else in the world. Robert Rector, researcher at the Heritage Foundation, presents data collected from several government sources in a report titled "How Poor Are America's Poor? Examining the 'Plague' of Poverty in America" (8/27/2007):

Forty-three percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage and a porch or patio.
Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.
Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded; two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.
The typical poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)
Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 31 percent own two or more cars.
Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.
Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.
Eighty-nine percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.

And there is no mention of how many poor kids have the indispensable cell phone - and not some minimal phone only cell phone. No, only the one with texting and a camera will do.

It is tough to be poor in America.

What do these people have in common?

2010-06-26T10:07:00.003-04:00

I mean besides the fact that they all have bad taste in clothes?

Answer in comments.

¿Cómo está?

2010-06-24T20:15:00.002-04:00

The other morning I walked into an office and a man leaning on the counter turned to me and said "¿Cómo estás?"
I stopped for a beat, thought and said, in English, "Not too bad."

After leaving, I though on my discomfort for a while. What should I have said?
I ran a few ideas around in my head. ¿Cómo estás? What does that mean? Idiomatically it means How are you? But literally? literally it means What is your state?

What is my state? Well, 'Georgia'. But more than that, the United States. Los Estados Unidos. Personally, I prefer not to learn Spanish. I am not Xenophobic. I had high school Latin. Three years of high school French and placed out of the language requirement in college (my only out-placement). I used to be able to speak and understand Vietnamese (hardest language I know of) after being in their country only a few months. I Speak some Japanese (better than most sushi-bar patrons. I actually took classes from the local Japanese association) I can say Thank You in seventeen languages, Merry Christmas in six.

But I reserve a special place of contempt for Spanish. You see I live in an area that has been a special target of the Mexican invasion. Some of my schools are 70% or better children of recent Mexican immigrants. Others have immigrants from as many as 100 countries. But there is only one group that will not learn English -- the Spanish.

So my answer to ¿Cómo estás? henceforth will be "États-Unis". Close enough for them to get the point.

Diogenes, Is He The One?

2010-06-17T07:57:00.002-04:00

Roughing It

2010-06-16T10:00:00.005-04:00

The hotel has no pool, there is no firewater served in the Navaho Nation, and it is a long miserable (although beautiful) drive to civilization (or actually anywhere else), but comfort is relative. The hotel, the only one in miles and miles, is so new that it doesn't even show on Google Maps. The restaurant serves Navaho specialties (bring Tums) that are delicious and attracts locals as well as international visitors. The view is spectacular ... and familiar.

When I think of all the films that were shot here I also think of a photo of a woody station wagon in front of El Capitan taken in 1941 of what is now US 191. This was when approaching this area required hours of non-air-conditioned driving on dirt roads across the desert. And I think of John Wayne and John Ford and all the entourage required in shooting a movie being brought out here for who knows how long to shoot against these beautiful and familiar backgrounds.

I am glad I did it ... Once.

A Living, Breathing Document (with Disclaimers)

2010-06-10T14:35:00.001-04:00

New Record: Oldest Person Ever Fired For Cause!

2010-06-07T19:05:00.005-04:00

Is it just me, or does she look like the personification of evil just on appearances?

Veteran nonagenarian Helen Thomas was asked to resign today as White House correspondent. Ms. Thomas was noted and widely loved for her free-wheeling attacks of Republican Presidents over the last 60 years; but she crossed the line and exposed her true feelings about her employer's (Hearst News), and one of William Randolph Hearst's, pet projects:

Hearst described Kristallnacht as “making the flag of National Socialism a symbol of national savagery” and advocated the creation of a "homeland for dispossessed or persecuted Jews.”* When news of the Holocaust began to seep out of occupied Europe, Hearst covered it as important news, in contrast to other newspapers which downplayed the mass murders.*
Wikipedia on William Randolph Hearst

I suspect Ms. Thomas, based on her observations of President Obama's speech and actions toward Isreal and the Jews, and Secretary of State Clinton's and the press's disapproval of recent Israeli defensive actions thought it was now sufficiently safe to be open with her antisemitism.

Somewhere in Highland Ranch, Colorado there is a man ... A man who, I hope remembers a conversation we had in the Summer of 2008. The man was an observant Jew and an Obama supporter. I warned him of antisemitism coming back into favor along with Candidate Obama and his support of the Muslim world. He told me it was the Christians and not the Socialists who were antisemitic. We will see who was right.

*Jerusalem Post, April 22, 2009, Rafael Medoff, Hearst and the Holocaust

Great Comments from Washington Times Online

2010-06-07T06:12:00.002-04:00

f42b3b70037e2dca783d250c37a5f7 says:

Welcome comrades! Our most blessed leader knows what is best for us, oh unworthy sheeple. Soon, we will not be subjected to the incessant arguing that occurs on that hateful FOX News, but will hear only the quiet still words of our dear leader. All will be in harmony, as we rise to new levels of debt and to government spending yet unimaginable. We must throw off the yoke of these outdated 18th century concepts of freedom, constitution, and truth and be liberated to enjoy the unfolding of a glorious new world order. Dear leader knows what is best for us. Listen to his soothing words as he leads the way into the light . . .

Wait . . through the light. . what is this vision? Why do I see teeming masses of people with electronic counters on their heads? Ah, comrade, these are the damned, the taxpayers of the new world. They pay a tax for each breath, each thought, each word, each motion, for the good of dear leader so that he can spread his message of peace and bring harmony to our world.

Good bye America. R.I.P.

*****************************************************

and by Soxconn:

The only thing Obama could not control during the election was the internet. If you take into account the Fairness Doctrine, net neutrality and now this, it is three attempts to constrain the first amendment like no other president has. Number four is placing an 'I believe the first amendment should be constrained for socially redeeming purposes' judge on the Supreme Court. Only time will tell.

We're All In This Together, Really?

2010-06-06T15:36:00.002-04:00

"It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice,
there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings.
Where there's service, there is someone being served.
The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters,
and intends to be the master."

Ayn Rand

Expensive Tomatoes

2010-06-05T10:45:00.006-04:00

I was given a gift bought on an impulse purchase - the latest fad item for growing tomatoes. It cost about $10 at Fry's.
To round out the purchase I have bought:

A Tomato plant $4.00 (The set has to be sufficiently large to survive the transplant)
A Bag of peat moss to fill the bag $6.98.
Tomato fertilizer (OK I had that from last year)
And a stand to hold the bag high enough and out in the sun for 7 hours a day. $15.87

These tomatoes had better be good -- $35.85 will buy a lot of tomatoes!

Not all white elephants are white. Some are green.

We Have Met the Enemy, and He Is Us

2010-06-04T14:38:00.005-04:00

Pogo was right. How many times this week have you heard that we need to get those bastards at BP and "make them pay"? I have even heard the death penalty called for. The more astute among us will note that we are responsible because we buy all that gas. But, even that is incomplete. Who are these bastards we want to get? Who owns BP? Are you certain that you don't? That's right, your very own retirement fund or mutual fund may be invested in BP. That's who owns most companies. So when you say punish them, you are really saying "Punish me". Remember this when retirement time comes.

Or when it never comes.

The Problem With Democracy ...

2010-05-22T10:00:00.016-04:00

... is often described as two wolves and a lamb discussing what to have for dinner. But mathematics would more truly describe it:

.5X+1=X and .5X-1=0. ¹

Substituting the 300 million person population of the United States for X, that means that
150,000,001 equals ALL,
while
149,999,999 equals NOTHING.

So if you are one of the 149,999,999 who pays for the other 150,000,001, be aware the Government, your elected rulers, and you fellow citizens of the mooching class consider you to be nothing.

The United States of America is not now, and never has been a democracy. Remember, the founders were terrified of the tyranny of the majority. (For further information, read the Federalist Papers - while you are still allowed to.)

¹Note that these can be true only if X=2, so what you vote to do with your significant other is perfectly acceptable; but leave the rest of us out of it.

This Explains It All

2010-05-22T09:02:00.005-04:00

From the Australian Broadcasting Company a look at Northern Hemisphere economics from a down-under perspective:

Broadcast: 20/05/2010

Reporter: John Clarke and Brian Dawe

John Clarke and Bryan Dawe calculate the cost of the European debt crisis.

Transcript

KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: Time for John Clarke and Bryan Dawe with a few reflections on Europe's financial woes.

BRYAN DAWE: Your name is Roger yes?

JOHN CLARKE: Roger.

BRYAN DAWE: Ah, that's your name?

JOHN CLARKE: Roger.

BRYAN DAWE: Good. And what do you do Roger?

JOHN CLARKE: I'm a financial consultant.

BRYAN DAWE: Ah, financial consultant, eh?

JOHN CLARKE: Roger, yes.

...

BRYAN DAWE: Fair enough. Okay, Roger your special subject tonight is the economies of the European community. Your time starts now. Best of luck.

JOHN CLARKE: Thank you.

BRYAN DAWE: How much does Greece owe, Roger?

JOHN CLARKE: $367 billion.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct. And who do they owe it to?

JOHN CLARKE: Mostly to the other European economies.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct. How much does Ireland owe?

JOHN CLARKE: $865 billion.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct. Who do they owe it to?

JOHN CLARKE: Other European economies mostly.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct. How much does Spain and Italy owe?

JOHN CLARKE: $1 trillion each.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct. Who to?

JOHN CLARKE: Mainly France, Britain and Germany.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct. And how are Germany, France, Britain going Roger?

JOHN CLARKE: Well they're struggling a bit, aren't they?

BRYAN DAWE: Correct. Why?

JOHN CLARKE: Well ‘cause they've lent all the vast amounts of money to other European economies that can't possibly pay them back.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct so what are they going to have to do?

JOHN CLARKE: They're going to have to bail them out.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct. Where are they getting the money to do that Roger?

JOHN CLARKE: That is a good question. I don't know the answer to that one. (laughs)

BRYAN DAWE: How much does Portugal owe?

JOHN CLARKE: Hang on a minute, what was the answer to that earlier question?

BRYAN DAWE: Just keep answering the questions Roger.

Where is Portugal going to get the money it owes to Germany if Germany can't get back the money that it lent to Italy?

JOHN CLARKE: Just a minute. What was the answer to the previous que-

The question was: How can broke economies lend money to other broke economies who haven't got any money because they can't pay back the money the broke economy lent to the other broke economy and shouldn't have lent it to them in the first place because the broke economy can't pay back?

BRYAN DAWE: You are wasting valuable time Roger. How much money does Spain owe to Italy?

JOHN CLARKE: $41 billion. But where are they going to get it?

BRYAN DAWE: Correct. What does Italy owe to Spain?

JOHN CLARKE: $27 billion but they haven't got it - they're broke.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct. How can they pay each other if neither of them has any money?

JOHN CLARKE: They're going to get a bailout, aren't they?

BRYAN DAWE: Correct. And where is the money coming from for the bailout?

JOHN CLARKE: That is what I'm asking you!

BRYAN DAWE: Correct. Why are people selling the European currency and buying the US dollar?

JOHN CLARKE: Because the US economy is so much stronger than the European economy.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct. Why is that Roger?

JOHN CLARKE: Because it's owned by China.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct and very well done! And after that round you've lost $1 million.

JOHN CLARKE: I've lost $1 million? I thought you said well done!

BRYAN DAWE: Yes well done - you've only lost $1 million. That's an extraordinary performance Roger.

JOHN CLARKE: I've only lost $1 million.

BRYAN DAWE: Very well done.

JOHN CLARKE: That's quite good is it?

BRYAN DAWE: Oh it's excellent.

JOHN CLARKE: Sell everything immediately. Quickly!

KERRY O'BRIEN: I think it's called laughing as you sink.

Good Bye, Senator Spector

2010-05-18T22:43:00.004-04:00

The pundits on TV are trying to figure out why the voters rejected you. Could it be your vote for TARP? Could it be your change from Republican (OK, RINO) to Democrat? (Does no one remember that you were a Democrat before you switched to Republican?) Is it a rejection of President Obama? Or is it because President Obama abandoned you? Or is it because Philadelphia voters won't vote in the rain? (Will they melt?) Was Governor Ed Rendell's machine not as powerful as they thought it was?

Or could it be your blatant arrogance? You even acknowledged that you were changing parties so you could get re-elected. Who were you representing there in Washington? That is, other than Arlen Specter?

Or just maybe, you are the only honest man in Washington.

Is California Really Not buying Anything From Arizona? Oh, Really?

2010-05-17T12:33:00.002-04:00

For decades, California has been famous for an attitude of NIMBY, not in my back yard, when it comes to building power plants. They have even had "rolling blackouts" doing without electricity for periods of time. But where does that electricity come from? Some of it comes from Nevada and Oregon, but most of it comes from generating plants in ... Arizona. So California, go ahead, boycott Arizona. But start with the item that constitutes your biggest import - Electricity.

Additionally, you will not hear this on the news, but the population of Arizona is primarily legal people of Hispanic descent. Calling Arizona law enforcement racist is disingenuous at best.

Pork Barrel Spending

2010-05-16T12:09:00.006-04:00

Pork Barrel Spending is buying votes back home by getting the Imperial Federal Government to pay for services of a local nature. Simple ... and dishonest. It is a game played by incumbent politicians to buy reelection by fooling the sheeple back home into thinking they are getting something for nothing.

There is no surprise that most people are to ignorant and shortsighted to recognize the simplicity of this fact - they have been educated in schools that teach according to standards set by the same government and politicians that benefit by their ignorance.

Again, there are only three possibilities: A state or even local community can get back more, less or the same amount its citizens pay in taxes. There are no other options. Period. You are either stealing from someone else, being stolen from, or for no reason giving power to someone far away and removed from knowledge of your local community the power to decide to give your wealth back to your community back to you.

For some reason the people think that there is magic in Washington, DC; when there are only people serving their self-interests while pretending to serve yours. Now, this is not lost on the local politicians who can improve their power and status by not having to come to you to fund the things about which you rightly should have a choice. It builds their arrogance too. They don't have to come to you to completely fund that minor league baseball stadium that should be funded by the people that will profit from its existence (like Gwinnett County, GA). You only have to fund part of it. The part that is not coming from you already. Think old fashioned shell game.

The truth is that the farther away from you that decisions are made, the less input, control, and influence you have over the things that affect you life! Do everything you can to keep governance at the lowest level possible.

Pork barrel spending is in all cases an obfuscation of the real trail of money.

Mencken Nails It Again

2010-05-13T06:18:00.003-04:00

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
~ H. L. Mencken

Apparently this is the Golden Standard for Politicians. How else could we have elected officials who when the National Budget is drowning in red ink and creditors increasingly balking against extending us long term credit, decide to double ... no quadruple ... down on the debt.

All those news pundits who (rightfully) criticized George Bush on his deficit spending are strangely quiet when this year's deficit month over month is four times as much. I guess they have selective outrage based on whose team is playing.

I personally believe that the acts of government do not subscribe to different logical and moral rules than the acts of individual men. If Thou shalt not steal be the law, it is no different if you have the Government do it for you. It is just as wrong, no matter what the intention behind it. Good intentions do not purify bad acts. And this is giving politicians credit for good intentions they may not even really have. After 80 years of public dole ruining the lives of the poor, I believe that Progressive politicians actually do recognize the damage they have done. It is incidental to their goals and so be it. And if the taxational theft, inflation, and Government dept also ruin the lives of the working and retired classes, that is just a little more incidental damage; so what, there are reelections (and power) at stake.

The presumption our elected officials make is that this can sustain forever. I happen to agree with Karl Denninger that keeping this Ponzi scheme going is iffy at very best and we need to be prepared for all eventualities. (excellent articles. If you don't read Denninger's Market Ticker, you should. )

I take only one partial exception with this caveat - partial. He says avoid metals. He means the gold hucksters on TV primarily, although he may include big bullion investment in silver too. I believe that some tradable silver coin may be of some advantage to you when no one wants to accept little green rectangles of printed paper. As I always say when some one asks me about gold:

"How many thousand dollar transactions do you make? And how many twenty dollar ones?"

Police Arbitrariness

2010-05-01T15:59:00.005-04:00

The state of Arizona has passed a law regarding illegal aliens that has garnered much reproval from the mainstream media and the usual protest leaders (AL Sharpton) but is generally supported or even demanded by us everyday, ordinary, Joes. That is, ipso ergo, when the police have arrested someone, check whether they are illegally in this country. Simple. Common sense. And we all know the police are generally judicious in their use of their power to arrest. (or we might have been right there with them at some point)

On the other hand, there is a sport here in the Atlanta area. Many people regularly watch Gwinnett Mugs and Delkab Mugs, the daily intake mugshots of two of our local county lockups.

This has led me to believe that the police do this too; and I have come to believe that there is some kind of police lottery regarding who can bring the strangest looking catch of the day. Now I'm not saying the prisoners don't deserve to be there ... I'm just saying there might be a pool with a daily winner attached to this version of People of Walmart.

However you get them, if they are not here legally, the least you can do is send them back. It might even make them straighten up, fit in, and behave in order not to be arrested and sent home. And isn't proper behavior all we really want of them in the first place?

Politicians Always Do The Opposite of What They Say

2010-05-01T08:40:00.002-04:00

Has anyone noticed that politicians always do the opposite of what they say? Invariably. I don't necessarily mean on a top level - they say they will vote for a bill and they generally do; no, I mean that the bill generally does the opposite of what the politician says it will do. Stimulus bills that must be passed immediately or doom and gloom will beset the nation, but then the money needn't be spent until just before the next election.

Or how about, Democrats help the poor? More like "I'd like to help you out, which way did you come in." Having finished fscking up our countries medical systems in ways they haven't even read yet, they are going after our national energy system with Cap and Trade. Cap and trade will cap carbon emissions, or at least the approximately 2% that are the results of human action at a level of a few hundred millions less people ago; and let the very wealthy extort money from all of us trying to go about our lives. Extort money? Well, there is this commodities exchange in Chicago (who'd have thought?) that will handle (for a fee) all the little annoying details. It is owned by a number of familiar names in the global climate "sky is falling" movement. (who'd have thought that too?) But what is it going to do? It will affect the price of ALL energy. Sure, it will raise the price of gas. But you won't have the money to buy a car anyway. And besides you won't have money to take a vacation - you will be working to hard just to survive. No, the real energy sink that will go through the roof and make you life a living hell is when the cost of heating and cooling your house becomes so astronomical that you huddle around the heater in the one heated room in your house or apartment, much like I had to do forty years ago when I was a poor college student. This will become the norm for the poor and the working class. (Maybe just the working class - the beloved indolent poor will probably get a government handout) And even those people like my friend Connie way up North who heat their houses with fire wood will be affected. After all, it produces CO2 when one burns wood. There will be chimney police like they have in the Denver area who drive around with their little infrared cameras checking the temperature of chimney gases on no-burn days. In the mean time Al Gore will have his multiple mansions and nine fireplaces because, due to the fact that he is rich AND one of the end recipients of the taxation this puts on the rest of us, he will not live like you and me. Which brings me back to the biggest politician lie:

That they are for the little guy; when everything they do pushes themselves up by pushing down on the little guy.

The Georgia Legislature Backed Down To Extortion

2010-04-24T11:25:00.002-04:00

Once more the Georgia Legislature backs down to protests and steals from the people in this state to give it to those who self-indulgently claim to be "artists". And once more I say "if your art is any good people will pay for it. If people will not voluntarily pay for it - TAKE THE HINT."

Property Tax

2010-04-17T07:36:00.003-04:00

I got a notice of a re-evaluation of my home's assessment for property taxes. I, along with 100,000 others. Normally it would be a time of gloom because of the rising taxes. This time, it is a time of gloom because of the falling ones. My evaluation, like everyone else I spoke with has fallen - massively, nearly 40%. And I am going to appeal yet another $15,000 reduction since one of the nicer houses behind mine has an even lower price posted on the for sale sign in front of the house and is not getting any takers.
There are two parts of the property tax and they are handled differently. The County uses "the book", the total of all property value in the county and divides it by what the need to spend and set this millage*. No real problem, they will change the number of mils and we will pay the same for police, and firemen, and jails.
Now the schools on the other hand have a limit on the millage rate they can charge - 21 mils. Anything more than that requires an act of the state legislature. The City of Atlanta had one a few years back to go up to 25 mils. It was not a pretty sight. Some of the rural counties tax themselves 9 - 12 mils. These are the ones with no growth, and coincidentally (?) the ones where everyone knows all the school board members and the Superintendent. Well, in my county, we have been living pretty high on the hog between support tons (literally) of illegal aliens, and massive anonymous executive salaries (I don't know them, and I work there), and incredible technology we are constantly between 18 and 21 mils. So... there is nowhere up left to go. So down we go. No more feng shui decorations and fancy furniture for the front offices. No more "My room is too hot! It is 73 degrees in here." Now if they would just reduce some of the bloat at the central office. Much of it exists just to satisfy the insatiably demand from the Imperial Federal Government for paper; but some of the bloat exists because" I have a budget and I can get someone else to do the drudge part of my work".
Things are going to get ugly.

*one mil is one tenth of a cent, or one dollar for every thousand per mil. i.e. 20 mils on a hundred thousand dollar valuation = $2000 per year.

Who Gets The Education? The Kids Or Me?

2010-04-14T15:58:00.006-04:00

One of the joys of most jobs is the exposure to world you aren't familiar with. It was true when I worked setting up conventions and trade shows; but it is especially true working in the schools, watching the children learn. But I learned something yesterday. Oh, it was a familiar subject and method, I see it every year at this time. Out in the hall in front of the classrooms are little crudely pasted up graphs of the distributions of various items. Sometime it is favorite TV shows, favorite colors, or favorite flavors of ice cream. This one was about internet access. How did these kids' parents get their internet? More than half of them had Comcast at home; a few had AT&T broadband; a few didn't know where their internet came from, it was just there; one had dial-up; but no-one had an entry in the 'did not have' column. What got my attention was that this school traditionally has a "free-and-reduced" breakfast and lunch participation of more than 95%!
I wonder what a similar survey would say about flat screen TVs? I see the cars their parents drive when they drop them off at school.

Only in America can you be poor and still have broadband, flat screen TVs, and expensive cars. It's easy when you don't have to pay for food, shelter and medicine.

Knowledge is Power, Time is Money

2010-04-14T06:38:00.003-04:00

From http://www.chaosmatrix.org/library/humor/equation.html

Knowledge is Power
Time is Money
and as every engineer knows, Power is Work over Time.

So, substituting algebraic equations for these time worn bits of wisdom, we get:

* K = P (1)
* T = M (2)
* P = W/T (3)

Now, do a few simple substitutions:

Put W/T in for P in equation (1), which yields:

* K = W/T (4)

Put M in for T into equation (4), which yields:

* K = W/M (5)

Now we've got something. Expanding back into English, we get:

Knowledge equals Work over Money.

What this MEANS is that:

1. The More You Know, the More Work You Do, and
2. The More You Know, the Less Money You Make.

Solving for Money, we get:

* M = W/K (6)

Money equals Work Over Knowledge.

From equation (6) we see that Money approaches infinity as Knowledge approaches 0, regardless of the Work done.

What THIS MEANS is:

The More you Make, the Less you Know.

Solving for Work, we get

* W = M K (7)

Work equals Money times Knowledge

From equation (7) we see that Work approaches 0 as Knowledge approaches 0.

What THIS MEANS is:

The rich do little or no work and are essentially ignorant.

Let Me See If I Understand This ...

2010-04-09T09:49:00.003-04:00

April 9 (Bloomberg) -- China’s finance ministry failed to draw enough demand at sales of 273-day and 91-day treasury bills today after the central bank tightened control on money supply to restrain inflation, according to traders at two banks.

Ok, the Chinese are buying our Treasury Bills (think bonds) so that our Politicians have money to buy votes with so that they can stay in Washington, party, makes rules for us to follow that they don't, get a lot richer than their salaries would suggest, and our children and grandchildren will pay back or suffer from the defaulting on; and the Chinese in turn are supporting this with debt (think bonds) that their children in turn will have to pay. But you have to wonder, who are the Chinese selling their T-Bills to?

Charles Ponzi ... Bernie Madoff ... You guys were just pikers, just a drop in the bucket to the U. S. Government.

Has Class Warfare Unintended Consequences?

2010-04-08T08:49:00.006-04:00

Several weeks ago I published a quote from Doctor Karl Menninger on 'Normal'. There is a question that I have been tossing around in my head for years. "Why are today's kids trying so hard to emulate the lowest elements of society rather than reaching for as much as they can?" As I go through the schools and watch the kids pursue the latest fads which invariably make the kids look dumber than a post, I note that no one is reaching for class. No one is trying to show themselves as better than they are. No one is trying to be better than they are. WHY? Or Why not? Has class warfare become such a staple of modern life that they are afraid to admit to having any?
The status symbols of this day and age are those of the thug, those of the poor, those of the hopeless. I started to write "except for their cars". And then I retracted, because even their cars have the declassé status symbols of over-sized mismatched (to the car) wheels and gaudy trim.

There is an old parable about jump[ing] for the highest branch of a tree rather than the lowest for if you miss there are lower branches you can catch; for if you jump for the lowest there is nothing below to catch you. In a day when the lowest rungs of our society are filled by illegal immigrants and out-sourced jobs, to me, reaching for the highest seems more important than ever.

By the way, that is yours truly in the tie and London Fog walking to school in the 11th grade as seen in an old high school yearbook.

Representative Hank "Capsize Guam" Johnson

2010-04-08T07:10:00.012-04:00

The whole world has jumped on Representative Johnson's silly remark that adding more soldiers to Guam might make it capsize. But the truth is that the Georgia 4th Congressional District has a history of ill-formed logic and ignorance.

No one on any news or talk radio shows has mentioned that Rep Hank Johnson replaced six-term Representative and 2008 Green Party (read Communist Party) presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney. Cynthia you may remember was the one who slugged the Capitol security officer for asking for her credentials. She is also the one who went to help Castro harvest sugar cane while she was a US Representative.

She first Representated the 11th Congressional District which was gerrymandered from SE Atlanta all the way to Savannah¹ (check a map for how silly this district is) specifically to include minority voters to assure a Democratic seat and break up Republican areas. But this was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Miller v. Johnson . She was then redrawn into the 4th Congressional District which is no less gerrymandered by population although it is more contiguous.

(Original 11th district shown in dark blue)

Maybe the Representatives aren't the stupid ones. Maybe they represent their voters accurately.

¹ 250 miles long and in places less than 100 ft wide.

The Verse of the Day

2010-03-28T11:34:00.002-04:00

"EVERYTHING Obama has done has hurt America; NOTHING he has done has helped America. Not domestically. Not Internationally. ZIP ZERO ZILCH NADA NOTHING."

And you know why? It's because they hate America. America stands for everything they despise: democracy, capitalism, freedom... Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to bear arms, freedom of association...

When you put people in charge who hate America, don't be surprised when they try to destroy it.
David Peterson in comments to the Wall Street Journal Online

Psalm 109:8

"Let his days be few; and may another take his place of leadership. "

Agent provocateur

2010-03-27T06:56:00.007-04:00

Interesting, I have not heard once the suggestion that there might be any agents provocateur out there amongst those dangerous revolutionary tea party people. Could it be that it is just too dangerous for the agents to expose themselves to the risk of those violent senior adults? Or could it be that just as I would stand out at a Berkeley anti-{insert cause of the day here} rally they might appear out-of-place? Or do you suppose it could be that the press does not wish to plant the suggestion in our minds that our Chicago politicians in charge could be so devious as to have their own planted agents hurl the epithets that they fear so much?
Like Nancy Pelosi says, she saw this in San Francisco in the seventies and it scared her. I had forgotten how the straights, the seniors, the family people, the employed, the homeowners, and the parents had rioted in San Francisco in the seventies. By the way Nancy, where were you standing when it scared you? Too close to the front of the mob? Did those policemen standing in front keeping you from destroying everything scare you?

Those seniors, family people, employed, homeowners, and parents standing out in front of "your" Capitol are trying to protect their pensions, homes, businesses, and children's futures from Representatives who represent their own interests rather than those who elected them. Representatives like you, Nancy, whose arrogance knows no bounds.

Atlanta Representative John Lewis and the Congressional Black Caucus went trolling for racial slurs in amongst the protesters last week and claim to have found 15 of them in amongst the thousands of people in front of the Capitol. Unfortunately neither of their cameras nor those of the press or anyone else managed to capture them. Next time they will place them better. Do you suppose it just might be because race wasn't the issue? Did they miss the point that the protest is over deficit spending, representatives who do not follow the will of their constituents, and ever increasing government power, and not race? Has Representative Lewis become so blind he cannot read the signs and only believes his own hype? Are his ears so closed that he doesn't even know what the protesters are really saying as he hears only the "N-word" that he wants to hear?

The (ever so less than) mainstream news has been trying to pump up the public perception of the violence of those against the non-representative actions of their Representatives. They miss one point though: those people are us, and we know what's in our hearts; and so far, it is not violence. It is simply: we want our government to leave us alone to take care of our own life, liberty, and persuit of happiness.

For Those Who Think That Giving Any Government Broader Powers Is a Good Idea.

2010-03-20T16:58:00.009-04:00

It’s always worth remembering, however, that the vast majority of unnatural deaths in the last century were the direct result of government action – as often as not, action taken against its own citizens.
Casey's Daily Dispatch

The article goes on to state and then to quote from no less a source than the Atlantic:

While there is no comparison in the current context to what occurred in Germany, at least in the U.S. and other developed countries, that doesn’t mean that things can’t degrade, and quickly so.

With the economy in shreds, persistently high unemployment, and another hit to the national bottom line likely, almost anything is possible. Another Timothy McVeigh, or another Waco, or widespread societal upheavals are all certainly well within the realm of possibility. As is, of course, another 9/11.

With the government’s own threat assessment already in a semi-permanent state of Code Orange, it wouldn’t take much to tip things to Code Red, at which point we would witness – and experience – the consequences of the many legal changes that have been put into place since 9/11.

On that topic, the following is an excerpt from an article that Doug Casey sent over, from The Atlantic …

A Detention Bill You Ought to Read More Carefully

Why is the national security community treating the "Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010," introduced by Sens. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman on Thursday as a standard proposal, as a simple response to the administration's choices in the aftermath of the Christmas Day bombing attempt?

A close reading of the bill suggests it would allow the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens without trial indefinitely in the U.S. based on suspected activity. Read the bill here, and then read the summarized points after the jump.

According to the summary, the bill sets out a comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected enemy belligerents who are believed to have engaged in hostilities against the United States by requiring these individuals to be held in military custody, interrogated for their intelligence value and not provided with a Miranda warning.
(There is no distinction between U.S. persons--visa holders or citizens--and non-U.S. persons.)

It would require these "belligerents" to be coded as "high-value detainee[s]" to be held in military custody and interrogated for their intelligence value by a High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team established by the president. (The H.I.G., of course, was established to bring a sophisticated interrogation capacity to the federal justice system.)

Any suspected unprivileged enemy belligerents considered a "high-value detainee" shall not be provided with a Miranda warning.

The bill asks the President to determine criteria for designating an individual as a "high-value detainee" if he/she: (1) poses a threat of an attack on civilians or civilian facilities within the U.S. or U.S. facilities abroad; (2) poses a threat to U.S. military personnel or U.S. military facilities; (3) potential intelligence value; (4) is a member of al Qaeda or a terrorist group affiliated with al Qaeda or (5) such other matters as the President considers appropriate. The President must submit the regulations and guidance to the appropriate committees of Congress no later than 60 days after enactment.

To the extent possible, the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Team must make a preliminary determination whether the detainee is an unprivileged enemy belligerent within 48 hours of taking detainee into custody.

Full article here.

All together now, let's repeat the refrain:
"It Can't Happen Here".

Socialized Medicine is Slavery

2010-03-18T21:37:00.004-04:00

Doctors are not servants of their patients, they are traders like everyone else in a free society and they should bear that title proudly considering the crucial importance of the services they offer.

Ayn Rand(1905 - 1982)

Normal

2010-03-18T21:23:00.002-04:00

"The adjuration to be normal seems shockingly repellent to me; I see neither hope nor comfort in sinking to that low level. I think it is ignorance that makes people think of abnormality only with horror and allows them to remain undismayed at the proximity of normal to average and mediocre. For surely anyone who achieves anything is, essentially, abnormal."

Psychiatrist Dr. Karl Menninger

Mencken Nails It Again

2010-03-14T12:34:00.006-04:00

“The legislature, like the executive, has ceased, save indirectly, to be even the creature of the people: it is the creature, in the main, of pressure groups, and most of them, it must be manifest, are of dubious wisdom and even more dubious honesty. Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner. The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle – a mere counter in a grotesque and knavish game. If the right pressure could be applied to him he would be cheerfully in favor of polygamy, astrology or cannibalism."

H.L. Mencken writing in the American Mercury, May 1930

Sorry I haven't been posting ...

2010-03-14T10:18:00.004-04:00

...I've had other things on my mind and have been stretched a little too thin.

Mother is in Emory Eastside Hospital in Snellville again for a flare-up of her congestive heart failure and has been for about ten days. She is doing a lot better now after the did a thoracentesis and removed most of the water from her lungs. The rest they are trying to remove with Lasix®. Personally, I wish they had done a paracentesis also as that really made the difference last time.

I truly believe the culprit to be Bernoulli. His principle combined with the constant high humidity this winter and her oxygen have caused the moisture in the air to precipitate out into her lungs. The water in her lungs and abdomen is pressing on her heart which like the jaws of an alligator only has muscles to contract and nothing to extend save the relaxation of tension.

My mother is 89 years old. Will they still be allowed to treat us when we are 89?

Unemployment and Wife Beating

2010-02-25T12:33:00.008-05:00

According to Senate majority leader Harry Reid, unemployment is a major cause of wife beating and spousal abuse. Funny, I always thought the media blamed the Super Bowl. At least until statistics disproved that theory.

Now Fred Thompson made the joke that we all have thought and many said - This ought to be be fair warning to Mrs. Reid after November's coming election.

BUT: Now a spokesman for Senator Reid has taken Senator Thompson to task because, Senator Reid was the child of abusive parent(s).

But here comes the big one: Statistically, the common factor for abusers is ... child of abusive parents.

I'll repeat, "Watch out Mrs. Reid. You've got a problem."

This Is So Wrong On So Many Levels

2010-02-24T12:13:00.005-05:00

Danny Williams,Premier of the Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, is in Miami. No, that's not wrong, Miami is filled with Canadians in the wintertime. No, he is there for heart surgery. In an interview with The Canadian Press, Williams said he went to Miami to have a “minimally invasive” surgery for an ailment first detected nearly a year ago.

I thought we were to believe that Canada's health care system is so much better than ours. Well no, the officially allowed procedure up there is to bisect the breastbone and chest and operate through that opening. He decided that he preferred the sound of having merely a laproscopic set of incisions under the arm and the operation being done that way. He thought it might be less uncomfortable and have a better success rate.

But he did make it clear through a spokesman that he was not going to the United States in order to go to the head of the line in getting treatment for his heart condition. Do you mean that there is a waiting line for treatment for heart failure? That is certainly what that statement implies.

I have many times spoken and written of the Canadians seeking treatment for prostate cancer here in the Atlanta area, something that Canada considers a waste of resources; but I admit I am tickled at the prospect of all the Obama-supporting fat school teachers I encounter on a daily basis waking up to discover that joint replacement surgery is a luxury and therefore not covered by government health care.

We can't abandon our health care system - Where would the poor Canadians have to go to get care?

Now for something a little more gloomy.

2010-02-07T07:38:00.002-05:00

From Stella Concepts, one of my favorite Silver advisors; something quite different and good.

A Little Gift For All You New Hope-Solebury Class of 64 People.

2010-02-06T14:28:00.003-05:00

Yep, that's our Kim. You can really see it just before she starts singing.
An interview with Kim about Bird.

The State of the Obama Speech - 1/27/2010

2010-01-28T17:01:00.005-05:00

I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I I I I I
I I I I I I

Me Me Me Me Me Me Me Me

To put it in perspective, here is the wonderful word count program Wordle's relative word count. The program normally ignores pronouns and articles, but in this case he wanted us to see just how the word I fit in, so someone substituted the word hedgehog for every instance of the word I.

How Much Is A Trillion?

2010-01-11T21:51:00.001-05:00

One million seconds is 12 days.
One trillion seconds is 32,000 years.

An Awww! Moment

2010-01-11T19:26:00.000-05:00

Good Luck? Good Grief.

2010-01-07T06:04:00.004-05:00

On my way out the door to a special overtime job yesterday evening, my supervisor wished me "Good luck". It was casually said, a greeting really. But it struck me odd. I am good at what I do - and it isn't luck.
"Good grief", I replied, "or good skill or good job. Good God. Good night. Or even Good riddance; but not good luck."
Little of our lot in life is really luck. Most, good or bad, is the result of our decisions and our actions. Little of our adversity is luck either - most of it is the result of the self-serving actions of other men - most recently the Government providing impediments to our good actions in the named of the so-called "Public Good" which is neither truly benefiting all mankind equally nor good for us as a people.
But one thing it is not ... is Luck.

Good Day.

The Pollution Al Gore Never Talks About

2010-01-01T09:36:00.002-05:00

Tank 7120
Originally uploaded by luxomni

I really should explain that what you are seeing is steam (not smoke and fire) when we are just barely out of a fog.
It is reflecting the High Pressure Sodium light. HPS is getting to be a pollution - it is everywhere. Look around at night little patches of red-orange everywhere. See the orange glow of cities.

I don't remember the first time I saw High Pressure Sodium light. I do remember the first time I saw low pressure sodium (which is even redder). That was in 1967 lighting a parkway in Dallas, TX. It looked so strange - especially from the air. This red strip through town.

By 1967, mercury vapor had been around for a while, but even then most street lighting was incandescent. When you did see a mercury vapor light, it was unique and people took notice. High Pressure Sodium street lighting began three years later, in 1970. In the following 40 years it became omnipresent. No one notices any longer even though there are bright orange skyglows over every city and town in the nation - perhaps the world.

Perhaps over the generations we will evolve to adapt to HPS, but to this generation, orange just does not seem to be the way the night should be.

Paranoia Is the Thinking Man's Mental Illness

2009-12-31T20:58:00.003-05:00

The more you think about it, the more you know they are out to get you.

Lately the paranoid rumbling is that the Progressive Elite wants to thin the herd -- That they are about killing off a large percentage of the world's population.

Maybe it is nothing but paranoia, but do they have to act like it is true?

Underwear Czar?

2009-12-29T23:55:00.003-05:00

"In response to the Christmas day bombing attempt, President Obama will be appointing an Underwear Czar. He will be presenting his briefs on the new position in a television address later this week."

Mark Steyn

Some Things In Life Are Self-Punishing

2009-12-28T20:23:00.002-05:00

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is not sitting too pretty tonight in Federal custody near Detroit. Umar, you might remember, tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day.
Umar had the explosives sewn into the crotch of his pants. The explosive did not explode, but merely caught fire, presumably rendering him of little use to the 72 virgins when he finally gets to meet Allah.

Do you suppose all that celibacy might account for some of the Islamic anger?

2009-12-28T08:14:00.001-05:00

Something new. I can post from my cell phone for those odd fleeting thoughts which I will lose while trying to typwle from the stupid touchscreen.

Uh Oh.

2009-12-27T13:27:00.005-05:00

I thought I was done for the day. I thought that I would be able to leave the pretty little bit of poetry as the top story for a while. I did not count on the sneakiness of politicians doing things under cover of other events. While we were all watching the Senate play games, President Obama issued Executive Order 13524 amending President Reagan's recognition of Interpol by removing all the restrictions that made them different than diplomats. Ipso Ergo, they are no longer restricted by the niceties of observing United States Law. They are just like any Ambassador. They can not be detained or arrested for violation of any law. He has effectively waved all your Constitutional Rights and rules of American jurisprudence. No Miranda, No Habeas Corpus here. He even removed the semi-colon indicating where the exceptions to the Diplomatic rules were. They are not answerable to you or any of your elected officials in any way. There is a new sheriff in town, an international one who don't answer to your steenking law.

Bet you didn't hear that on CBS, NBC or ABC. You didn't even hear that one (yet) on FOX. One world government here we come. Read it and weep.

"Think as I think," said a man

2009-12-27T11:53:00.005-05:00

"Think as I think," said a man,
"Or you are abominably wicked;
You are a toad."

And after I had thought of it,
I said, "I will, then, be a toad."

Stephen Crane

The ist I Am

2009-12-27T09:57:00.011-05:00

Young Matthew asked me: "What do [I] think of race?"
Very simple I guess: I don't.
Unless the other person insists I do. And then somehow I cannot repair the damage done. As an individualist and libertarian I first look at each person as an individual until their own words or actions say "put me in this group" (not just race¹) or "my group identity is more important than our relationship". Then that is how they are filed in that great filing cabinet of my mind.

This segues into something that has bothered me for a few days. A young(?) man who was a regular contact on my Flickr account, who mutually traded comments about railroad photographs, his and mine, found a photograph that editorialized on my feelings about the upcoming changes in our medical system, and left me a rabid disagreeing comment. I responded with logic, gently compared to here, and he left me a scathing reply about why I was wrong about the lack of individual responsibility and malpractice suits as lottery being real problems that aren't even being addressed; and he then promptly blocked and banned me from any further contact. It is a shame, I liked his photographs, and he mine; but he could not tolerate someone having dissenting thought. How far we as a culture have strayed from Voltaire's words in his Essay on Tolerance: "Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too."²

Now, having said that, What would you do? If you came into your child's classroom and found this posted? It is an extremely racist work of I believe student art, although there are no other student works posted in the classroom, at all. So far, I have done nothing, said nothing, probably will not, and this is the first I have publicly mentioned it. But one standard I have always considered is: "If you reverse the parties, would it be offensive? Then it is offensive both ways". But what if you came into your child's classroom and found this prominently posted, what would you do?

¹ I had a correspondent on the internet who was profoundly deaf (don't expect hearing impaired from me). I ultimately stopped writing because the sole focus of her existence was her deafness, like that really was an important attribute on a computer bulletin board.
² The phrase "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" is widely attributed to Voltaire, but cannot be found in his writings. With good reason. The phrase was penned by a later author as a description of his attitude. It appeared in The Friends of Voltaire (1906), written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall under the pseudonym S[tephen] G. Tallentyre.

Please Sir, May I Have Some More

2009-12-27T09:00:00.011-05:00

From an article by L. Ian MacDonald in the (Montreal) Gazette. Sometimes you get more objective news from outside the US, where the newspapers are not dedicated to making President Obama look good at all costs.

There were 192 countries and 120 heads of government in the room at Copenhagen, but in the end there were only two at the table, the United States and China. Welcome to the new world order.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, there has been one superpower, the U.S. Now there are two, as became abundantly clear in the chaotic closing day of the climate- change conference.
At that, Barack Obama was snubbed by the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao. And then the U.S. was snookered by the Chinese.
As the New York Times reported Sunday in a riveting piece from the back corridor of the conference: "Twice during the day, Mr. Wen sent an underling to represent him at the meetings with Mr. Obama. To make things worse, each time it was a lower level official."
The first time, Wen sent his deputy foreign minister to a meeting of major heads of government, including most G8 countries (though not, apparently, Canada). Later on, the Times reported, "after a constructive one-on-one" between Obama and Wen, the Chinese premier sent his climate-change negotiator to another heads-of-government meeting that included the U.S. president.
There's more. The White House set up an evening meeting with the presidents of South Africa and Brazil, as well as the Indian prime minister and the Chinese premier, and when senior staff arrived, as the Times recounted it, they "were startled to find the Chinese premier already meeting with the leaders of the other three countries" - without the president of the United States, the guy who called the meeting in the first place. According to the Times, Obama rushed to the meeting and called out from the doorway: "Mr. Premier are you ready to see me? Are you ready?"
You don't see that in the newspaper every day, about the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth going cap in hand to his own meeting. It wouldn't have happened on Ronald Reagan's watch. His dignity, let alone his sense of the American president's role on the world stage, wouldn't have permitted it.
And what did Obama, and the world, get at the end of the day, after two intensive and chaotic weeks of negotiations under the aegis of the UN?
Not a treaty, not a binding agreement, although they called it the Copenhagen Accord, but a "take note" document, full of blank pages where targets for emissions reductions should have been.

When I was growing up, there was a newsclip from the old Movietone News that was shown of Neville Chamberlain coming back from the Munich Agreement summit just prior to World War II proudly proclaiming "Peace in our time". Why is it politicians never learn from the past?

The article goes on to state what we got for all the pomp ... no, not really pomp, just posturing.

As Obama explained it at his news conference, each country can set its own targets by filling in the blanks. It's quite a concept, running the climate-change issue like an open bar. Obama wants a 17-per-cent reduction of emissions below 2005 levels by 2020. Canada is looking for 20 per cent below 2006 levels. The Europeans would like at least 25 per cent, and they were understandably annoyed to be left out of the G5 meeting that finally came up with a shred of a deal.
Obama said his three bottom lines were transparency or verification of reductions, the actual mitigation of emissions levels, and the financing of developing countries' regimes by the developed nations.
And here's where Obama got snookered. On the second-last day of the conference, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the United States would do its part in creating a $100-billion-a-year fund for the emerging nations by 2020. This, in addition to the $30 billion on the table to 2012. This was a huge concession by the U.S. to meet an exorbitant demand by the developing countries. Clinton said it was "a deal breaker," and that the U.S. insisted on verification in return.
At the final meeting with Obama and the three other leaders, Wen deftly turned the tables saying that China wouldn't be accepting any financial aid, and therefore the question of verification was moot, and its sovereignty untouched. Clinton's deal breaker got flipped into China's deal maker.

It's probably just as well, because by their behavior, we know they aren't serious about the environment. They are serious about restricting the common man.

By the way, where are they going toget $100 billion to give away?

Pax Vobiscum et Cum Spiritu Tuo

2009-12-24T11:35:00.003-05:00

Sretan Božić,
Crăciun Fericit,
Joyeux Noël,
Feliz Navidad,
Chúc Mừng Giáng Sinh,
and a Merry Christmas to all.

People Who Are Not Your Friend - Part 1

2009-12-22T06:45:00.013-05:00

The Banker.

Among my earliest memories was going with my mother to the bank. I don't know exactly what she did there, this being the time before credit cards and when most transactions were done with cash. But this bank was different than today's banks. I even remember the big car the bank president had parked in the lot outside, unlike anyone else's I had ever seen. And there was even a magnificent cast iron box with a bell on the outside of the building. Even though New Hope was a town of less than a thousand people, the bank was ferocious. There was a dark mahogany wall separating the people from the bankers - and the money. It was a wall with thick glass, gun-ports, and revolving traps that would not allow anything to pass directly from one side to the other. It was about seven feet tall and topped with spikes and crowned with electrified wires. The gun-port fascinated me. I didn't really grasp the concept, but it was white marble in the mahogany with a shiny metal lining about two and a half inches deep with a plate on the inner end. It was a relic of the thirties when people before had despised their bankers. And through that gun-port, the nice lady or man on the other side would pass me a lollipop! Oh, it wasn't a very good lollipop, and I had long ago learned not to ask for the cherry that I really wanted and just take the green one I was given, but it was a lollipop. But even then it did not fool me for I observed with person after person they put in big money and got back small money. Something was wrong with this picture. The lollipop couldn't fool me.

But then came the sixties. The banker tried to clean up his image. It was lollipops gone wild. The fortress-like bank lobby became a more relaxed setting with a counter and face-to-face exchanges. The lollipops became ashtrays and toasters. And the banker became a salesman asking if I had a credit card yet,and wouldn't I please sign up for one. Like most everyone else, I had my experience with running it up to the limit, and minimum payments that will stretch a balance nearly ten years, but eventually, I got it paid down and learned to control myself. As, apparently so many responsible are doing lately. So many in fact that the bankers have a kind of dilemma. The responsible customers are not borrowing, and the irresponsible customers want more. So in order to keep up profitability, despite the banks being provided money at 0% or near zero interest rates, they are charging ever more usurious rates - 24%, 36% or even more. Which squeezes out even more desirable borrowers even while the exposure to the irresponsible becomes more tenuous.

Were it not for the Federal Government taking my money and just giving it to them, the bankers would have to live like the rest of us. But the taxman may finally have gone too far. The takings are getting smaller and smaller.

Mr.Banker, I hope you had a fun ride at my expense. My house is paid off. My car is paid off. My credit cards are paid off. And today I mail my last payment on the home renovation. That's it. I'm out. Initials on the door.

Just in time I might add.

Æsthetic or Anæsthetic ?

2009-12-21T19:43:00.005-05:00

One doesn't normally pair these two words, one normally thought of in terms of art and the other in the world of medicine, but why not? They are after all from the same Greek roots.

Æsthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty.¹

An Anæsthetic is used to temporarily reduce or take away sensation, usually so that otherwise painful procedures or surgery can be performed.²

By the rules of semantics, those two words should be opposites. But like so much of what passes for art in the later half of the Twentieth Century, much music neither qualifies as beauty nor reducing sensation (at least not on the ears). Perhaps the real desensitization is that of compassion of some for their fellow man? And perhaps that goes hand-in-hand with cacaphony and antisocial lyrics and the general absence of beauty.

¹ Definition 1 of aesthetics from the "Merriam-Webster Dictionary" Online.
² Definition from the NetDoctor.com website.

Sneaky, Sneaky Senate

2009-12-21T19:23:00.003-05:00

Well, they forced through the cloture vote - one o'clock AM on a Monday morning (or is that a Sunday night?) in a raging snowstorm.
The bribe that got the last Democrat holdout to yield his principles was an exemption from his constituents paying the Medicaid tax - in perpetuity! That's forever folks! A law that exempts the citizens of one state from a tax that effects all others was written into the bill. And if you want to search for it, the name Nebraska is hyphenated at the forced end of a line, so it is difficult to find if you don't know what you are looking for. Senator Nelson is not only unashamed of his sellout, but actually proud of it.
My first thought is that it cannot be constitutional to discriminate in favor of the citizens of one (There is another that effects only five - frontier states) state at the expense of those of another. According to Fox News Network, South Carolina's Lindsay Graham is already asking his state's Attorney General to investigate the Constitutionality with an eye towards suit.

One has to wonder, if this is so great why were the bribes, sneakiness, and hard ball attacks on Hadassah Leiberman necessary? And why does it still exempt Congressmen, Senators, and other high government employees?

A little self promotion

2009-12-13T07:24:00.002-05:00

I just had an opportunity to impress my daughter (again). Back up on her hit parade. We were initially discussing body modifications and tattoos. She has several petite and hidden ones (including a so-called tramp stamp - someday, girls without one will be at a premium); how an old girlfriend increased the size of her breasts unnecessarily and her new boyfriend had a penile implant. And I have no tattoos or body implants (I am as I came, except for two pieces of plastic mesh inserted by a surgeon to keep my guts from spilling out from all that heavy lifting as a stagehand years ago)
We were speaking of "acceptable tattoos", when I mentioned the first time I saw Melvin van Peebles. (to my daughters friend's, that's Mario's dad) I was working on the movie Greased Lightning and he was walking around in flip flops and gym shorts (imdb credits him as writer - I had long thought he produced and directed it - I guess not. Then again he was just wandering around the set) . His skin was almost blue-grey and he had a barely visible tattoo around the base of his neck. Coupez sur la ligne and a string of little bead-like dots. "Cut on the dotted line" was the caption in French. No, dear, that is not subtle enough to be acceptable on you, and maybe some day, when I'm older, I will get my circle "UDSA inspected Prime" on my ass.

Luke 2:1

2009-12-12T14:43:00.006-05:00

(King James Version)

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed .

And then, as now, he had to do it at Christmas time.

When I was a child, I lived for the Christmas season. It meant Christmas lights and trees, the spectacular midnight church service, the Child's Christmas party, Christmas carols, playing in the snow, being off from school, presents, and most of all my birthday.

Now as an adult, Christmas is just a giant sucking sound as the world conspires to shear me like a lamb. Some things are not too bad, like Christmas cards and gifts given; some are merely overbearing by their quantity like every store having a Salvation Army kettle and bell ringer; but the Government in their quest to make sure that they get first pick of my carcass are unbearably depressing. This is the season that I must buy my license tag ¹, renew my driver's license, and get my emissions inspection. It is also the time when I have to start preparing for income tax time.

And that birthday? It's just an additional year towards old age and Social Security.

Good, the car passed ...

¹And also,in November I must pay the ad valorum tax on my home. The Christmas lights are turned on on the city streets, it counts too.

December Eighth -what did we miss?

2009-12-08T21:06:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was the 68th anniversary of the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

But not once did I hear any mention of it. Not on any radio show, on any TV show or in any classroom in any school I was in.

Have we come to that point? A point where Pearl Harbor Day no longer merits even a passing mention.

Global Warming? Not here.

2009-12-05T07:05:00.005-05:00

Our television networks in collusion with the politicians who try to manipulate and maneuver us into behaving in ways that they wish us to behave have perpetrated a fraud that they called "global winter" in the 1980s, and "global warming" in the 1990 and early twenty-first century, and now settled on "climate change". The premise has devolved into "We don't know what is happening to the climate really; but it is all your fault. Change your lifestyle to one of deprivation."
Deprivation? If Cap and Trade or the Copenhagen Treaty pass, as President Obama said in an interview in San Francisco in 2008, "Under my [energy] plan, prices would necessarily skyrocket".

Many years ago when I was in sixth grade, I had a teacher who taught me of the ice ages as part of an earth science course. It was particularly memorable to me because of where I lived. You see, there are lines of rocks that run across New Jersey, Pennsylvania (near where I lived), Ohio, Indiana, Northern Illinois (near where I went to college), Iowa, the Dakotas, and Wisconsin. Many of these rocks are so huge that the line is visible from the air. These lines are terminal moraines. They are the extent of the glaciers. For the last 18,000 years or so we have been having global warming . Obviously it wasn't caused by the behavior of man. Nor were its results what the professional gloom and doom people would have us believe. Without that warming, life as we know it would not exist.

But the real proof of the fraud is not the intercepted emails showing collusion to falsify results on the part of researchers. The real proof is the elitist behavior of the proponents of the theory. If it was the threat that Al Gore presents in his movie, he would not being enriching himself selling "Carbon Offsets". He would not be having Mexican workers plant an occasional tree to eat a little carbon. No he and the Hollywood elitists would ground their jets. Sting and the other rock-and-roll environmentalists would never do another concert with a fleet of trucks and buses. The First Lady would even fly in the same plane as the President when she goes shopping in Europe. They would lead by example, living a life as austere as a Benedictine monk.

No, these people consider themselves and their mission more important than the rest of us, the hoi polloi. Therefore, the rules don't apply to them. But if their beliefs are true and correct, these would not be rules, they would be laws - laws of physics. And unlike laws of man, laws of physics cannot be wantonly ignored by those who consider themselves special.

On Minority Rights

2009-12-05T06:36:00.002-05:00

“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities”

- Ayn Rand.

K. I. S. S.

2009-12-01T20:53:00.005-05:00

The more complicated you make any system, the more likely it is to fail.

Why then, do the experts always try to fix something complicated by making it more complicated?

This morning I went toe-to-toe with a principal who told me that she wanted my personal guarantee that the new "Super" automation system that turns the lights on and off based on whether a classroom is occupied will never fail again. Right.

Now, I have maintained from the first time I ever heard this idea suggested nearly 20 years ago that there will come a time (just one?) when the children will be sitting in a dark classroom with the adults pointing fingers at each other as to whose fault it was, and maybe how to fix it. Here it was for real ... again.

I didn't design it, buy it, or recommend it. I didn't even put it in. I just came to take the bad part out and put a spare part in. Somehow this woman demands lifetime responsibility for the equipment. Of course I deferred. She emphatically declared that to be "Unacceptable".

The excuse for this million-dollar waste of the taxpayers money is for our school system to be an Energy Star system. Yep, we are going green. We will save energy and money no matter what it costs.

But the real punch line is that it neither saves energy nor energy bills. The lights will all turn off automatically sometime between eight and ten at night when the custodians set the burglar alarn and go home, until the morning custodian comes in at six to open the building. Contrast that with the old solution - the teacher would turn the light off at four when she went home and turn them back on at eight in the morning when she came back in, all at a cost of a couple of bucks for the light switch which is there already. That's it, just turn off the lights when not in use.

Don't dislocate your shoulder patting yourself on the back for being "green". Use that hand to turn out the light switch the way my teachers did 50 years ago and my parent's teachers did a generation before that.

A Roofer's Card, It Covers everything

2009-11-29T21:18:00.010-05:00

Very simple - I need a new roof. It has been 20 years and six months since my last twenty year shingles were installed. Straightforward, no?

Despite the current economic situation of unemployment, I had trouble finding someone to do the work. Or at least I had trouble finding an honest person to do the work.

All of the salespeople insisted on trying to claim my replacement on my home-owner's insurance for me as hail damage, which it is not.

I have no idea whether they get to charge more that way or they are just being helpful.

I also don't know whether their understanding of the role of insurance as a wager on future events is faulty; or whether their generation has a different concept of truth and honesty, seeing the evil insurance company as a deep pocket to cover every routine need the way they see medical insurance.

I just know that I see claiming against insurance something that is routine maintenance as dishonest. I bought insurance to cover me against unforeseen disaster, and using it so will ultimately keep my price down. A Karmic balance, don't you see?

But now I notice the hail-damage contractor's roofing signs on my neighbor's lawns. Somehow, my opinion of my neighbors has diminished a little.

Wollery's Conundrum

2009-11-29T20:16:00.009-05:00

It seems to me ... the closer you are to the [US] Constitution, the farther right you are considered to be;
The farther you are away from the Constitution, the farther left you appear to be.
Why isn't the Constitution in the middle and people on both sides moving either toward it or away from it?

Chuck Wollery ........................

Perhaps Chuck, it is because the division is not just a straight line from left-to-right.
The Constitution is a libertarian Document existing close to the apex of the world's smallest political quiz, guaranteeing our freedom from the all-powerful government to which both parties wish to enslave us.

But you are forgiven, for the media does frame the discussion as you describe it. The media does this as an ad hominem argument demonizing their immediate opponent and keeping us from recognizing the real problem. It is a tactic straight out of Rules for Radicals.

A Monopoly on Monopoly™ Money

2009-11-28T19:32:00.021-05:00

Once upon a time in a land that was not far away...

Almost anyone could make a dollar bill. That's right. All the bill was was a certificate of ownership, a receipt. You still get them now - the difference is that with the common green Federal Reserve Note so common, no one remembers that we used to pass the receipts back and forth. The dollar was not the green piece of paper. The dollar was a round piece of 90% silver weighing 0.77344 troy ounces. Under the US Constitution, the US Congress had the sole power to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin... But the certificates, that was a different story. States, banks, companies, cities could and did circulate specie that could be exchanged for lawful money. It wasn't until the Progressive Government became greedy, coveted it all and formed the Federal Reserve, created Income Taxes, and taxed competing currencies, that the government felt the need to channel all our wealth through their hands in Washington.

Just prior to the Great Depression of 1929, there was somewhat of a standardization of currencies with new smaller bills - the ones that we use today. There were six major types, three of which survived the Depression. The ones that didn't make it were:

The Gold Certificate. Circulated in ten and twenty dollar certificates, each one represented a coin of gold of its nominal value. Private ownership of Gold and Gold Certificates became illegal under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1932.¹

There were two types of National Currency:

The National Bank National Currency, backed by Treasury Securities that your local National Bank of Hometown had purchased with "lawful money" from and then deposited with the Federal Government's Treasury Department in an amount equal to the currency in circulation. This effectively doubled the amount of money in existence. The following quote from a publication of the Friesian School.

If the problem during the Great Depression had really been that there was "not enough money," then it would be surprising that National Bank Notes were suppressed in 1935 -- the bonds that had been issued to secure banknotes were all discontinued. If, however, it is understood that the political answer to the Great Depression was that only the federal government can be trusted with power over the economy, banking, and money, then the move is self-evident. (emphasis theirs)

And The Federal Reserve Bank National Currency, issued by the Federal Reserve bank, this bill was backed by Treasury Securities similarly purchased from and deposited with the Treasury Department. Aside from no longer differentiating the currency and note, this is not materially different than recent Federal Reserve Bank actions. These continued to be in marginal circulation until 1945.

The ones that survived until more recent times were:

As with the Gold Certificate,The Silver Certificate. the Silver Certificate is a receipt for metal on deposit with the Treasury Department. No more certificates could be in circulation than silver coin in circulation and in reserve. It was a natural limit on inflation. C. Douglas Dillon, Lyndon Johnson's Secretary of the Treasury ordered silver coin to cease being minted in March of 1964,several months after President Kennedy's assassination. The bills ceased being redeemed for silver in 1968.²

The United States Note,
the Federal Government's own fiat currency. Originally issued under President Lincoln, they became bound to an existing quantity in 1878 that continued until 1990s, although in the later years they existed in captivity and were not issued out to the banks and public.

And finally, the monopoly on Monopoly™ money. The only currency now in circulation. The one that (with the United States Note aforementioned) purports itself to be a dollar and not redeemable for one, the Federal Reserve Note. Between the Federal Government borrowing money to back them and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing printing them to belong to and be issued by the Federal Reserve Bank, a quasi-independent corporation, the current currency is a Gordian Knot of evasion of responsibility while retaining the benefit of wealth. Unfortunately, it is ultimately redeemable only in itself.

So was this one:

The advantage of having multiple currencies, was the same as the advantage of the backed currencies, stability to prevent runaway inflation, while still allowing the advantage of the fiat currencies, liquidity (ready availability without hoarding) to match the real wealth of the Gross National Product.

Having a monopoly of merely one currency, and a non-government fiat one at that, is that there is no balance on their checks. There is nothing to moderate the ease of debasing the currency. We will all be the poorer for it.

¹’² Gold nominally backed the US currency internationally under the Bretton Woods system until 1971, when President Nixon ceased honoring a run on the US gold reserves by Charles de Gaulle when the pegged price was less than the international price.