Every Time You Say No - You're Being a Jackass!

You know, they should re-title the book “When I say No – I feel Guilty” to rather say, “When I say No – it Empowers Me” because there are certain types of personality out there.  Here's a good one, "I say NO whenever I can get away with it".  Some work on the Dr. Phil principle of a parent nagged by a kid to get candy or some toy or other treat and the kid is playing the “How many No’s have you got left in you?” game.  This is like with Mario or John bugging me for a cigarette.  It’s a wearing down process.  But there are other types of individuals like Mom and Dad, who really get off on saying “No”.  To them a Yes means Maybe and Maybe means No.  And No means “Hell No!”  That’s how they work.  Persistence is highly counter-productive with them.  I told you though that the biggest farsical falsehood in the whole Bible is the one Jesus told about the widow and the Judge - -and how constant petitioning is a steady “wearing down process”.  God isn’t like that.  God can’t be “worn down”.  Besides I’d just rather be told straight outright what the “Bottom line on this whole thing is” and not be continuously be jerked around in some “game’ I’d rather not play.  We discussed the three ways in which optimists were superior.  But first I’d like to note that on the list of twelve self improvement steps it says to “Pursue - -  optimism”.  Optimism isn’t an end in itself but a means to an end.  And as a means to some end it should be cultivated.  It’s like as in that other posting you “Pursue - - Justice” or persue love or pursue Happiness.  The Pursuit of Happiness” is not what Dennis Prager claims it to be that “Every American citizen is morally obligated to Be Happy”.   My suggestion is that Dennis start with himself, because he sure says enough negative things on the radio to bring the rest of us down.  I would say the same thing of Neil Savedra.   I would like to cite one other word - - “Temperance”.  I do not hold temperance as a cardinal virtue.  It is an effect and not a cause.  It’s something that’s done to you, for good or for bad, like “tempered” steel.  It’s the creating by outside forces of certain desirable properties within you, and Melinda Lee spoke of how “chocolate can fall out of temper if it’s melted and then refrozen”.  Capish?   I’d now like to move on to those three things - - qualities that distinguish Optimists from Pessimists and as I probably said last week, these things I basically agree with.  Let’s talk about globularity verses local nature.  This one has always been a bugaboo with me.  People assume because you have one localized problem or perhaps flaw- - that somehow it can be generalized into a condemnation of your whole nature.  Dad does this with me all the time.  You will offer a specific to the event explanation of “what you did wrong” or whatever- - and Dad will greet you with a chorus of “Always” s and “Never” s.  Here’s a clue for you all.  You can’t say “Allways” when you mean it’s happened exactly twice.  Think about it.  All means at least three things.  If it’s just two you use the word “Both”.  Capish?  Another abuse of this local verses global “problem” comes with the Tea Party, and I think Dr. Levy was out of the room or distracted when I raised this issue in class.  Because Republicans will say that Obama’s whole speech is some kind of a “Liberal boiler plate speech” meaning I don’t know what.  Because I heard the speech and it’s matter of fact and adopted to the specific problems of our times - - and shows the President’s ability to adjust and fine tune measures.  I had a problem with Health Care as you know.  But I still voted for the President even though I have basic philosophical problems with the whole concept of cumpulsary health insurance.  I question the administration’s statistics as to whether or not it saves money.  But this is a LOCAL issue and doesn’t reflect the “fact” it’s because Obama is a Moslem raised in Kenya by a Communist father and gets advice from liberals whom he hasn’t even talked to in thirty years.  But the Tea Party will constantly speak in these global generalities.  Another of the three issues is whether something is your fault or “circumstances got the better of you”.  I think many kids are given a bad rap for saying “circumstances got the better of me” and the Father will pier down on him and say “Son, that is no excuse!”  May I submit that many times – it Is.  I told Dr. Levy I think I am smart enough to know whether a particular failing was mine or that of circumstance.  And there are times when- - for instance there was “no forseeable way” you could have known.  But the next time this issue is about to come up- you can learn to be a little more circumspect- - which is a polite word for Paranoid.  I mean you’ve heard of “Defensive driving” and I have talked about “Defensive conversation”.  This is- - keep in mind that this isn’t an open field but rather a field that’s already been Mined by the other side with booby-traps and pitfalls all over the place.  The third thing is the example we gave about “chocolate falling out of temper”.  What does this mean?  Sometimes events can be WORSE than you initially think.  This is the third category of permanent verses transient.  We would all like our virtues to be permanent and our vices and shortfalls tobe temporary.  Dr. Levy reminded us that our inate talents and skills are most likely permanent.  Or it’s something like riding a bike - - that will “all come back to you” even if you haven’t been on a bike in twenty years.  So like I say- - this is what separates Conservatives from Liberals.  Conservatives see problems as one thing and liberals view them quite differently.

 It seems today we were hit by a meteor in Russia, and also had that near miss by the Asteroid from 17,000 miles away, which is a whole lot closer than the moon is.  Just to elaborate on the Russian meteor they said that thing weighed ten tons and broke up in our atnosphere sending powerful shock waves that broke glass panes for miles around and even toppled walls.  The local people were crying that it was "the end of the world" - - for Real.  But the experts in the know say "such events are not uncoomon but happen all the time".  I don't know about that.  I turned on David Cruise who volunteered he did not dare even think of “testing the line” discipline wise, with his father.  I guess being a tough disciplinarian is a good thing, unless you get carried away with it and it turns you into a freak.  David Cruise was dealing with bullies.  I think the whole problem with kids today is that they can’t accept either criticism or failure without thinking that it’s the end of the world.  There are times when I wonder if Dad secretly wished I’d just crawl away in some cave and die or something, because obviously I’ll never amount to anything.  I always had more respect for myself than either parent had of me.  Kids today are raised in this nicey-nice “kindergarten class’ environment all their lives where “everybody is special” and nobody ever fails or falls short.  The idea of self improvement or higher achievement is a concept totally lost on them.  I guess I should check my blogger numbers.  I haven’t done that lately.

Nicole Sandler was in for Randy Rhodes today and she said that NASA at some point after the Carter administration sold all of their solar technology to ARCO, who went right and got a patent on it.  Of course ARCO was gobbled up by Exxon-Mobile and apparently doesn’t exist anymore.   I find this highly disconcerting that we’ve been granting oil subsedies since 1916 to help an infant industry - - and 95 years later we are still at it.  And yet if Solar or wind seek to get any assistance at all Paul and Judy will cry “socialist subsidy”.  In Denmark and Germany and France – solar is working out beautifully for them, and we get a hell of a lot more sunshine than those countries.  I’ve always wondered why Solar never became economically feasible over the past forty years.  It has I suspect a lot to do with government meddeling.  We had chili cheese fries for lunch and true to form as I told Irvin, “We never get seconds on French fries” and it was true today.  I was saying in that blog posting about “being sure who you know who your friends really are” goes double for today.  Today Nick met with Gabriel and Kate and somehow it felt more like an inquisition than a pep talk or support session.  It’s kind of like me with [BLANK] and Judy a lot of the time.  You have to pretend “we’re all friends” because if you dare say anything else they put you down as paranoid.  Somewhere along the line Nick is going to have to go “bottom line” with these people and ask them straight out, “are you with me or not?”

 I had KNX on and they said “The Way We Were” and “Benny and the Jets” were popular on the radio at the same time.  I thought “Jets” came markedly earlier.  The President gave an excellent Saturday weekly address.  We had oatmeal and I had a pink sugar in my pocket that was starting to leak.  Finally we got a fried egg and dry toast.  At least they properly toast their toast now.  Then it was the Co Q 10 and Resveritrol and B 12 complex add till eight thirty and- - just then Dr. Levy announced his arrival so I went right down.  The room was already full of people including James Fisher, Irvin, Silva, and Leeshia.  Leeshia used to be in sales, and I believe that.  She’s quite articulate.  For once we actually continued with the pages Dr. Levy passed out last week, and I’ll have more to say about this later.  Both me and Wally were a little proactive as far as interjecting the remarks we wanted to “get on the record”.  Wally talked about times when he and Bill Wardell and Arleen were swimming in the ocean, and apparently there were multiple such trips to the beach before my arrival in the group.  Dr. Levy had coffee for me.  I accepted the three - - packets of coffee but gave the coffee filters to Leeshia because I had more than plenty.  The group lasted till twenty to ten or just later.  Wally asked whether the criteria for mental illness was the same all over the world.  The answer is that basically it is- - whether it’s in India or South Africa or in Europe or the United States.  Mental illness knows no distinctions of either race or age or socio-economic status.  It’s about one percent regardless.  We got to talking about how Stalin was responsible personally for the deaths of between forty and sixth (!) million people during his 31 year reign from 1922 to 1953.  We didn’t talk about Mao.  My point in even including this paragraph in the post is that mental illness is not "culturally determined".  It's like that Supreme Court Justice says about pornography, "Maybe I can't define it but I know it when I see it".  The idea that the "Political Left" would somehow "Define" any action of the conservative right as "Mental illness" is absurd.  Here again - - Dr. Levy said that it was a one percent figure that cuts accross all strata of the world's population.

So now we come to this paragraph.  People might ask me "Those Federation people and dead rock stars you talk to - - they always seem to be volenteering information, but how do they measure up when it comes to asking them a point blank question that demands an answer?"  Today I had the chance to ask for and get just such a response from Burt Lombard, this is a name - alias I have used for him for over 35 years.  First of all this paragraph only covers one micro issue - - of the many I could bring up now.  As you know for decades Burt was in charge of the "Ziggy lobby" so to speak that believes in some earth Messiah (or "Tommy") type figure - - that is the "Savior of the world" or at least the Young generation or something.   So then I was a bit flabberghasted when Burt said to me he was never really "into" this "Robin and Howard" romance stuff- - producing an offspring. (Zachery)   So how could he head up such an Organization dedicated to the principles thereof?  Because Burt had also told me that "Actually I kind of thought the whole Ziggy thing was about Me, if you want to know the truth.  People say "Brian Jones" and I say "Fine.  I have a lot of musical respect for Brian Jones"  (But he did not say whether actually Met him while they were both alive in the flesh.) - - -  Burt's answer to me was, "It's a religion - for Christ's sake!  Of Course- - there is a lot of Fantasy and Imagery - - and things that aren't so".  Of course maybe I haven't said lately that me and Robin were married in a previous life 140 years ago.  I've never seen how this was even relevant since Mal Evans informed me of this 31 years ago - all the way back to early 1982.  But the whole ZAC mythology - had a life of its own and seemed to function nonindependent of any actual "facts".  But the thing is - - - people have fantasies about a lot of things.  The Calvary Chapel people are always talking about the religious golden age of Solomon and how they'd like to get back to that - and how "The Lord is in his holy temple, let us keep silent before him" and taking people past the inner gates into the Holy of Holies to be forgiven" and all of that.  I guess the question is- - "Why keep silent in the Temple.  God isn't so deaf that he can't hear all the comotion outside, is he?"  These church hyms are a real riot anyhow, like the one about "Take my silver, take my gold - - not a Mite would I withhold".  Personally I go for the Michelle Bachman tea party approach.  I start off by assuming that God (like government) is something I owe zero percent of my income to.  And if it's to be anything other than Zero - - then God or the Government is going to have to Justify to me- - the reason they want my money and what they intend to do with it.

Chuck Hagel Appointment Filiibustered by Republicans

THE BIG NEWS OF THE PAST 24 HOURS has to be the Republicans in the Senate successfully filibustering former Sen Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense.  The approval failed by one vote.  They decided to filibuster this routine cabinent secretary vote, which annoyed Majority Leader Harry Reid.  He aptly stated that such a refusal has never occurred in the entire history of the country.  It is unprecedented.  Of course being a precedent they thus prime the Democrats setting up a similar filibuster and refusal to confirm a routine cabinet appointment when it happens to be a Republican President and a democratic senate.  Of course the current Defense Secretary, Leon Peneta gave his “final news conference’ before stepping down this weekend.  He compared himself to Hillary as “someone who is deserving a long period of deserved time off”.  Penneta was with the CIA before he was with Defense.  In terms of the vote breakdown 55 democrats all voted for Chuck Hagal’s conformation, and they were joined by four Republicans.  John Mc Cain had stated that the senate should NOT filibuster this candidate but then changed his mind and voted thumbs down.  Of course the Republicans, even if they change their minds in a few days, could suffer adverse repercussions from this little stunt.  That is when money is doled out for military instelations in various states such as Texas or Arizona, for instance.  It could go real poorly for these Republican districts- - because if I were Hagal I would not forget what the republicans did today.  In terms of the dreaded Sequester, it seems that the Defence Department is and has already anticipated budget cuts and it making them already, and also was making them last quarter accounting for the dip in the GNP.  But the trouble is with an across the board in all departments budget cut of ten percent is that you “can’t build 90% of a battle ship” for example.  But clearly since the senate will be taking off their usual Long weekend- and won’t be back in session till the 26^th or something- - it seems from here they will just plain run out of time before they can undo the sequester.  And from what Republicans are saying now- - they have no inclination to “want to make a deal” at all.  Period.

Moe Kelly was talking about that rogue cop who killed four people and wounded others.  What bothered me about that hysterical rant of Moe Kelly yesterday on KTLK was that it ran no less than two hours and consumed most of the morning.  But the thing is it wasn’t even factual.  Moe says that the police did NOT intentionally start that cabin fire with the tear gas canister.  Yet TV and radio coverage later in the day clearly showed that “They were going to initiate a burn” and there is another radio transmission where it was said “Burn that mother-fucker down!”  But the other thing is this whole “code of silence’ things the cops have and that Randy Rhodes point out on her own show giving an apt rebuttal to Moe.  Randi spoike of statistics that show that Black people are not larger illegal drug users than white kids are.  But the cops protect kids on “proper” white neighborhood for arrests, giving them second chances they won’t give a Black person.  Whites are never subject to the sort of routine shakedowns Blacks, including Moe Kelly himself, have suffered at the hands of law enforcement.  And we must keep in mind that certain classes of crime are almost the exclusive domain of Whites.  These would include child molestations and these psychotic multiple killings, and attempts on the lives of Presidents.  And besides these crimes- - Whites are also almost exclusively guilty of these “white collar crimes” such as embezzlement and the sort of financial stuff Romney was guilty of, but wasn’t even charged.   Police may “profile” a Black man with absolutely no criminal record and doesn’t even look like the guy they’re after, but no police profile nineteen and twenty year old white college students with business majors- - darkly suspecting they may grow up to be Gordon Geckos.

There was more stuff about the Koch Brothers and the Tea Party on Bill Press this morning that is covered in Bill’s book, “The Obama Hate Machine” that I really need to borrow a copy of and read thoroughly.  Like Bill, I never bought into the tea party myth for s second when they got their start in the spring of 2009 that “they were just a bunch of concerned Americans getting together to talk about how to reform government”.  Give me a break!  Thom Hartman has coined the term “astro turf” to describe these people.  Actually of course the Koch Brothers got their fame in the pulp paper business- - cutting down trees.  But they are also classically in bed with big oil and control a lot of the refineries and pipelines in this country.  They made their first attempt at a “grass roots” organization in 2002 when they formed the group “Citizens for a Sound Economy”, but that organization soon fell under endless suspiciou and disrepute.  They formed two more organizations later in the decade that are still around today and these are “Freedom Works” and “Americans for Prosperity”.  This morning while still lying in bed I was just musing over - - what a despicable person Mitt Romney was.  He was absolutely the LAST person you’d pick for any presidential candidate.  We kind of want our Politicians and Statesmen to be at least a little humble, and yet be inwardly brave and have an inner “True Grit” of character.  We like to believe they learned the “right lessons” from life’s experience.  When you think about someone you’d sit down at a bar and have a beer with - - I’d sooner have a beer with Gordon Gecko.  Gecko was a hell of a lot more articulate- - and he also was versed in the literary classics such as Sun Soon’s “The Art of War” and a pretty good racket ball player, and I bet he doesn’t cheat the way Romney does at even routine athletic contests.  Gecko at least fancied himself as an art conosour, but then again if you’re a rich person you’ll pay hundreds of thousand dollars for Crap – and it’s obvious to everybody but you.  What is really galling is Judy’s first real praise of Mitt Romney occurred at the beginning of 2012, when she rather passionately spoke in Romney’s defense when it came to the antics of Bain Capital.  Rick Perry was calling it “Vulture Capitalism” and Newt Gingrich took out lavish campaign adds funded by Sheldon Addelson, who later jumped sides, in pointing out for every would be voter for Romney what a rat their candidate was.  I don’t know about you but I just couldn’t get warm and fuzzy feelings at, say, a Christian dating site- - about a woman who passionately defends a man like Mitt Romney.  I was thinking again this morning of that Joe South song, “These are not my People”.  That would make an excellent title for a book I’d write on my experiences over the past 42 years with Born Again Christianity.  Because These indeed Are Not My People.  I don’t know them any more, and in reality never did.  You know my last gasp as a Born Again Christian was maybe ten years ago when in the late summer and much of the fall I attended a weekly Bible study with my brother at this couple’s nice house.  But you know- - even though this couple had five cats, I didn’t get along with any of them.  Up till that moment I considered myself a “cat person” but I seemed to have “lost my touch”.  I’m wondering if drug medication changes your body chemistry so that you just “smell differently” to an animal, and the suddenly get aloof and testy.  Can you know a person by how well you get along with their cats?

We've got one major paragraph after this one.  Unfortunately or whatever, the Cosmic stuff I've been planning on doing is pushed off into another day.  This is Friday February 15, 2013 and it’s Luprical in Romulan country today.  They don’t celebrate that holiday on this planet any more.  Yesterday was Valentine’s Day and I did not type in Word yesterday.  We’ll get to our opening paragraph topic in just a bit.  I have Stephanie Miller on right now and I had her on before breakfast.  It’s already warming up enough on this sunny morning that you really don’t need a jacket outside.  I woke early and got up at twenty to five intent on taking a long shower since it was so cold in here – then.  But like Tuesday the hot water wasn’t that hot this morning and I spent less time in the shower than planned.  Yesterday however the water did get up to full heat.  In the news that Carnival Cruise line finally pulled into Mobile, Alabama, being towed by tug boats at “walking speed” and at least one point the cable broke, and Captain Queeg wasn’t even around to blame for it.  Of course the people could not stay in their state rooms since sewage was dripping in through the ceiling from overflowing toilets above them.  They have done any number of TV movies about “Luxury Cruises gone bad”.  This is a real life case.  And that asteroid is scheduled to fly by earth today, or has flown by in the pre dawn hours or something.  Though now they are saying the object is still too small to be seen without a telescope.  I heard reports about generating a sonic boom, but perhaps they are referring to that giant asteroid that hit in Syberia in 1921 or something.  And they say that suicide rate skyrocket in states with lax gun laws such as Texas, Montana, and Wyoming.  Of course it’s a lot easier to kill yourself with a gun than by any other method, which at least gives the victim an opportunity to “think about it” first.  The trouble with guns is that their motto is “Your irrational impulse is my command”.  Clearly there would be a lot fewer “preventable deaths” were guns more restricted.  Wayne Lopier is said to be a racist now, and I’m not sure what they are referring to.  At any rate I had the Bill Press show on from the five o clock news on this morning, and the show was informative.  For breakfast we had Rice Krispies and later on we had scrambled eggs and hashed browns with catsup on them.  It was just past a quarter to eight when I left the table- and that’s the earliest I’ve gotten out of there in some time.

We've got one more paragraph .  It's a long one.  So just what did I spend perhaps too much of yesterday doing when I wasn’t listening to Moe Kelly and Randy Rhodes?  Well, I’d like to tell you about it.  We’ll discuss the Valentine party here later on, off camera.  In our last “Chapter” of the Base E saga we told you that I had arrived on the number of 2.665 as THEE number where recripicals of bases and exponents could be swapped out for the same value.  However this ONLY works with the logs of 2 and 4 or that would be “two” and “four’ for those of you in Rio Linda, who don’t know math.  But the Federation has another official established value I learned, which is 2.646 - - and I derived that one, too.  I noticed the discrepancy Wednesday evening and noted that it couldn’t be explained by either rounding off or some calculation anomally.  It was a slight but significantly different value.  This is the figure for 3/2 or 2/3 or 1.5 and .6667 or whatever.  Are you with me?  The one thing I DID learn definitively first thing yesterday morning was HOW TO CALCULATE the value of Base E everybody could agree on.  If you know the N! key in Windows Calculator, you know that one prime function is the key is the calculating of probabilities- - and choices and chances.  But what is done here with Base E is the “incrementalization” of this N! number into its component steps.  So for whatever reason Base E as used by the scientists starts with a ONE and to this you add the inverses (or recripicals) of 2! Plus 3! Plus 4! Plus 5! And so forth.  These numbers would break down to one, six, twenty-four, and 120.  I added each of these proper fractions together and came up with 2.766666 - - which is close enough.  120 for 5! Is the hightst figure I know, but it’s enough to get the idea.  This figure then with a very small exponent or log - - that is Close to value to One on Each Side - - would be Base E.  There was an article which discussed very small exponents and very large exponents and shortcuts you could employ, that we will NOT employ for our discussion here.  So what you have is a “shift factor”.  It became apparent that the farther the exponents and bases were apart- - that is - - their greater logarithmic distance from the value of ONE - - then the mean recripical Base - - would start to get lower- - from the Base E starting point.  Hence you have your 2.665 and 2.646 figures.  This mean base figure continues to drop, ever so slightly at first and then picks up speed radically as it approaches the value of ONE.  When the figure is at ONE - - the required LOG to get back to Base E is of course Infinite, as we previously discussed.  But just to show you I’m not blowing smoke out my ass- - the value of ONE would be a suitable mean figure for a base of base One and Infinity exponent, for example, because the Log of one would be Infinitely high, and the log of Infinity for itself would be One.  But what you’d have in terms of a line would kind of be a curve like the back of a sports car or something- - where ONE represents the rear bumper.  So then my only problem that I wrestled with all day was how to generate such a graph curve, and I hit upon an answer late in the day, and did a whole elaborate Excel program in the evening where I put all the pieces together for you.  First of all you look at a figure for 1.5 and what you want to know is “What value generates a LOG or LN more properly, of 1.5.  The answer would be around a 1.95.  In this model the higher the base number the lower the LOG because, if I didn’t tell you you hit the 1/X key on calculator to make it greater than one.  This may have been troubling you.  You take the LOG value to be the Exponet and Base figure you want to calculate the differential shift of.  OK?  The Value that generates this LOG would be - - like if it’s almost Two in the case of the 1.5 value- - you take that two and take the hyperbolic tangent reading of it, and it comes to a .96 or something.  Now you look at just the four percent shortfall.  Now you apply the final factor you multiply by.  This factor goes up at a straight line value from zero at Base E to what ends up being about 101% at ONE.  The value of Base E alone shrinks down to a 37% at the ONE value from the percent deduction along being 2.7 times 24 as in percent soing with the 76% TANH figure at value One.  But because the sliding straight line scale goes from 0 to .27 times - - but your base can’t be allowed to go below ONE- - you’ve already used up your 1.7 Base E value getting Base E down to One and not Zero, where you don’t’ want to go anyhow.  It so happens that two and a half times 24 is about 63 from a hundred making 37 and also 37 percent of Base E’s value is below one.  Now of course the beginning of the scale starts at a 99.9% TANH reading- - but remember this end of multiplied by Zero, so you’re all set.

President's Speech verses the Rubio Stone Wall

The President began speaking at 6:16 and he spoke an hour and one minute to 7:17 as far as I could tell.  He was interrupted for applause but not as often as past Presidents such as Bush and Clinton have been.  Also the applause on so many issues was almost embarrassingly lack-luster.  The address itself was perhaps the best of the five State of the Union speeches this President has given, and it most certainly ended on an emotional high note, by design.  I smell a smippet of a future campaign commercial here.  The President started off drawing the same general goals and outlines as he had done previously, but they thoughtfully filled in a lot of the details of that sketch to make it a much more viable presentation.  The President wants to raise the minimum wage to nine dollars an hour, like it is here in California.  It’s pointed out that the increased income would be spent and stimulate other commerce, following the “Henry Ford” principle.  It’s pointed out that the last rise in the minimum wage six years ago under George Bush saw little controversy and sailed right through and was signed into law without question.  It’s pointed out that since 1968 that the purchasing power of those minimum wage dollars has lost some thirty percent and that if the 1968 rate had kept up with inflation it would now be ten and a half dollars per hour.  As it is now- the President states that a full time worker can only expect to make fourteen thousand dollars in a whole year, which is below the poverty line.  There is of course a whole other side to the minimum wage questioned based on the probably disruption of “market forces” that is an argument for another day.  The President wants to institute universal pre school care- - or some sort of academic nature- for every four year old in this country.  This of course is far too grandiose and expensive for today’s time.  The President once again wants to highlight math and science and technology skills and both he and Mario Rubio stated that the youth “should be retrained- - because their old jobs are never coming back”.  The President wants Colleges to prove their worth as it translates into getting a good job.  The President also wants outcome based Medicare where you don’t bill the government for every service performed.  How MANY tests a patient has is irrelivent.  The point is - - to make the patient better and get him on the road to Wellness.  There was the usual tip of the hat to foreign policy and standing behind Israel and making sure Iran does not get a nuclear bomb.   Unfortunately Mario Rubio presented a stone wall of defiance when it came his turn.  No Democrat would have dared to exhibit Rubio’s attitude tword a Presidential speech saying there was absolutely nothing good about it- - but it just represented more state socialism and bigger government.  Rush Limbaugh had stated on his morning show that the whole speech last night was something “Just to salute the failures of the government”.  The highlight of Rubio’s speech of course was that classic reach to get a drink of water and the loud “gulp” everyone heard.  Rubio falsely stated once again that he came out of Cuba under Castro and spoke endlessly of “every other nation being socialist AND having a bad economy, and the reason why immigrents come here is for our superior economy”.  I know he can’t be speaking of one of these banana republic where either a corrupt corporation or a drug based junta runs the country.   I’m a little late in downloading the President’s speech.  Everybody reading my blog should do this.  Read for yourself in review – the President’s many good ideas.  Ted Nugent was invited to and came to the Speech last night and none of the media- - wisely- - didn’t give Nugent so much as a few seconds on camera.  My only guess in his motive for even being there is to produce some sort of “threatening presence” to the President- as a distraction while he delivered the speech.

You know,  there are other things of notable concern about this Dorner case.  The first of course is that the soap opera has been preempted two days in a row.  And it would be non stop coverage without even stopping for commercials, apparently- - till seemingly after eight at night because even then CBS has not gotten back to their normal schedule.  I watched the State of the Union address on channel 4.2 because none of the major networks seemed inclined to cover a Presidential address.  I felt for sure that they would take a break from all this other stuff at five thirty for the Network news, at least, but they didn’t.  It’s the media’s ability to seemingly lose track of all Time that puzzles me.  Whatever happened to the doctrine of ten seconds of dead air on radio being fatal to ratings?  The troubling aspects of this specific case is David Cruise talking about this “double yellow line” where if you’re a civilian you can come up to the inner yellow tape line, but the media is confirmed to a more exterior perimeter around that?  And David cruise was told if he were found in this ‘no man’s zone’ he would be shot on sight”.  The police shot that mother and daughter in Torrance.  And yesterday they shot a young white surfer dude.  We are told that the police are “edgy” and therefore this excuses any and all irrational conduct that law enforcement may exhibit.  And then we have the whole media black-out.  We are told now that a telephoto lens from a distance of several thousand feet is “too invasive”.  They then got the FAA to institute a whole TFR thing, temporary flight restriction over a vast area of the San Barnadino mountains.  This is unprecedented according to David Cruise.  But then there is the whole idea of making Christopher Dorner into a martyr to begin with.  Does it really make sense for Law Enforcement to want to do this?  Because in vast segments of the Black community Dorner is an anti-hero now.  And not only that but White people themselves have come out of the shadows to relate their own abuses of various law enforcement agencies.  We’ve got all of this that needs discussion, but the memory of the media and the public is exceedingly short.  And my fear is that every insight we have gleaned over the past few days will be almost immediately forgotten by the public as if it had never taken place.  This is my fear.

This is 2:30 of Wednesday afternoon and I did not type in Word yesterday.  In fact I did not have the computer at all yesterday.  Since that stupid Rogue Cop story - - from one o clock on my time has been consumed either by that or the State of the Union message or its aftermath, or else I’ve just been busy doing other stuff.  I’d like to introduce a new term into the discussion I call “cosmic Spam”.  The analogy is one about- in this case- receiving information with an intent to “sell” something or an idea, but the information has not been properly “vetted”.  If I am going to incorporate any of that ‘cosmic Spam” in my writings I want to “vet” it myself first.  There are those who argue that since there are more sports franchises of all four major sports now, that the pool of talent among talented athletes has by necessity been diluted.  I am in the position of George Harrison doing the “All things must Pass” album ponder how, or IF I am going to handle the backlog of stuff over the past two or three weeks.  I think there are too many “Tweets” on the internet now back on this terriestrial plane.  Most Tweets are worth about as much time and thought as it took to produce them, which is zero.  I admire David Cruise pouring over the news sources for that whole Christopher Dorner stuff.  Because a lot of the information they even broadcast over the air was bogus.  For instance there were those who after the cabin was set on fire claimed to have heard a single shot and then the whole cabin went ablaze as all of the explosives Dorner had  stored in there went off.  It was around four thirty that they announced that the fire had cooled way down and was almost out and then they found a single body in the cabin.  But at eight o clock, after the President’s address, some police chief announced that the cabin was still too hot to even enter, and they were in no hurry to do so.  And even then it would take days, and perhaps longer, to identify the body, even if on Bones they do it in a few minutes.  They always talk about putting a “rush” on lab work on television.  I’d like to order that a “rush” be put on some of the meals you have to wait 45 minutes for around here.

The previous three paragraphs are in an order exactly reversed of what I wrote them.  I have decided not to do any "Cosmic Stuff" in this posting because I don't want to bore you and there are so many other pressing items to relate.  Much of the material I've learned in this area might be chalked up to "deep background material" anyhow.  I'd like to mention just two things about the Soap Opera now. Jennifer was right when she pointed out that "I didn't lie to Daniel - - i lied to You, and given your track record of your own lies you shouldn't be offended".   The whole wedge thing there is 'You aren't right for Daniel because you told him a lie and somehow betrayed his trust".  No she didn't.  We move on to the other area where Hope is giving Nick some advice.  If I were Nick Fallon I'd thank God for good friends like Hope and Julie.  When push comes to shove, these two along with Maggie may be the only three people that are still on his side should this whole custody thing end up in a nasty court battle.  I thought that Hope's point was very well taken that "There is no NEED for any official paternity test because everyone agrees that Will is the father, and Will says he's cool with giving up a claim to his biological issue.  So if the motive behind the test is NOT to establish paternity- - in other words it is NOT a fact finding exercise- - then there must be some OTHER motivation behind having the test done.  If Will is being truthful about his feelings on the matter (when is Will "straight" about Anything, if you know what I mean) then there is no issue.  It's like Jame Roe in Roe vs Wade.  If she's decided she's going to have the child and raise it no matter the outcome- - than what's the whole Freeking point of raising the Abortion issue to the United States Supreme Court?  The answer in both cases is that someone is pulling their strings, for their OWN questionable motives.  (Selah)

[my brother] called me up this morning.  He suggested that if lack of food continues to be a problem around here then perhaps he could get me a jar of nuts or some granola bars to keep around when I got hungry.  I still have that cold from last Friday plaguing me. [my brother] said that he’s been taking a lot of time off work lately.  It seems every time I talk to him lately he’s taking time off work.  Judy is having her problems.  She is dizzy and is suffering from persistent headaches.  As a diabetic, this can’t be a good sign for her.  [My brother] thinks it’s just a side symptom of having some other infection such as lymph nodes, and she’s having her tonsils out in a few days.  Of course Judy is three years older than I am and we know as diabetics advance in age they are subject to a whole host of complications I would not even want to contemplate.  I suggest that everybody remain in prayer for her.  Mom continues to have problems with high blood pressure.  She says “My gauge must be giving wrong readings because they have never been this high before”.  I’ve been down THAT road before myself.  It isn’t the gauge.  Sometimes the readings are just high as a kite and you don’t know why.  Of course I myself have a cold- - and he said I could borrow a blanket if they continue to be chincy around here with the thin bed spread.  Thankfully today is warmer & sunny.  I told him that money wise for me it’s going to be tight for me the whole rest of this month- - if not quite the disaster December was shaping up to be before Mom bailed me out.  [My brother] did not express any particular political opinion about the President’s address at all, though he did watch it.  Over-all I think the conversation was productive.

Pope Benedict XVI Resigns

Earlier today Pope Benedict XVI announced that he would be stepping down as Pontiff as of the end of this month.  Such a move hasn't been done in six hundred years.  The Pope cited the fact that he was 85 and that he was becoming increasingly frail and had concerns he'd continue to be able to fully function at his job.  Of course since such a resignation is virtually unprecedented, other speculation occurs.  It could be that the Pontiff is concerned that his theologically hard line tradionalist views no longer reflect the views of the Catholic Church at large and that many of the elector Cardinals will be of a non White complexion.  They said that 210 cardinals from all over the world would elect the next pope, and the only requirement is that the Cardinals be under age eighty.  They say a new Pope will be chosen on a two thirds vote.  I heard when he first ascended to the Papacy that "He would be a caretaker pope who would not be serving a long time".  The remark puzzled me.  Since there is no requisite nine day mourning period for the previous Pope who died, the Cardinals can get right to work on March first and hopefully elect a new Pope by Easter.  That's assuming that there no unforeseen snags in the process.  So now Pope Benedict XVI can just go back to being plain old Joseph Ratsinger.  Many are hoping the Church will now permit married Priests to serve, and that women can be ellagable to become Priests.  Many want a laxing of the no birth control stance, and allow such commonplace items as UID's and birth control pills.  I'm not even sure that condoms are permitted under current rules.  Of course some may say the current Pope was driven from office on the rash of child molestation scandals.  Cardinal Cushing will be among those 210 members of the College of Cardinals that elect the next Pope.  This is despite the fact he was forced to step down.  Keep in mind there will be pressure to pick a somewhat more progressive Pontiff since he may well serve for the next twenty years or longer and it could be late into the 2030's before his successor is chosen.  It seems to me that allowing Divorces to take place above board in the Church should be the first item on the new Pope's agenda.

Nobody is talking about the President's state of the Union speech tomorrow night, on Lincoln's birthday.  Never before has a state of the Union speech come so late in the winter.  This event is some three weeks later than it usually occurs, though the date has been creeping later.  Last year the Republicans trashed the President's speech before it was even delivered - on the strength of the previews of what would be in it.  This year we haven't gotten any heads up yet.  This morning I watched a thing on why it is essential that we get rid of this Sequestration tradition. It was pointed out that non defence discretionary spending is at its lowest percentage of GNP in over fifty years, and this will not do.  Scientific research is too valuable and other untold hardships will be felt.  But in the afternoon I watched this comittee of Ex Congressmen and Senators headed by Blanch Lincoln of Arkansas- - to the effect that we HAVE to slash the budget now or "the deficet will get completely out of control".  However their own charts reveal the fact that the crisis has "topped out" and the deficets Can be and ARE headed downward- - as of right now, based on what we have already done.  Nobody is talking about the Mideast any more.  There was another economic conference I watched today where they admitted that the economy in so many sectors is much more robust now, and that this will only improve and private industry has tons of cash waiting to be invested and that factories are only opperating at a 78 percent capacity, which is a historically low number.  Truck tonage has risen markedly and housing prices are up.  All sorts of "new energy sources" have been discovered lately in this country, particularly in the area of natural gas.  These are key indicators you look at to gauge a healthy economy.   It all depends on what the President will say tomorrow night.  As I wrote my brother, I have a fear the President is going to do a massive cave-in and basically recommend that we give the Republicans everything they want.  Knowing the Republicans however, the President will no sooner be in agreement with them then they will Up the Ante- - and demand more- - just to insure that they can label this president "A failure", which is a campaign speech they live to Make.

I reviewed that Manifesto of Christopher Dorner this afternoon.  It's an intelligently written, thoughtful piece of work.  The guy is a better writer than me, I'll tell you that.  He's also a better speller.  He was remarkably detailed in laying out his grievences.  But of course the way the Media plays it- - the thing is nothing more than the "Ramblings of a Mad Man".  Of course "Rambling' is one of those over-worked buzz words the Media loves to use to discredit people, when they have no real evidence.  Rush Limbaugh in particular has the knack of throwing gasoline on a smouldering fire.  That's what he's best at and what he lives for.  Rush Limbaugh wants to make it all a racial thing- - just like saying Collin Powell's endorcement of Obama is "all about race".  So of course Rush is going to be sure and remind us that Dorner is a Black man, and that he's also a liberal.  And that Dorner is now the new poster boy anti hero for the entire liberal community out there.  Rush Limbaugh has absolutely no sense of personal responsability as to inflaning conflicts and "being part of the problem rather than part of the solution".  Of course nobody knows where Dorner is now.  But today the Riverside Co DA announced a first degree murder charge for the officer killed in an ambush shooting there, and also the attempted murder of three others, two of which are LAPD officers.  But now there is talk of sending Drone planes out to get him, which would be some kind of a historic first.  Of course LA Mayor Viragosa spoke of the "Reign of Terror' we are all under.  On the other hand Randy Rhodes got a lot of callers today saying they were Los Angeles residents who sympathized with the plight of Christopher Dorner.  This is a late news flash.  Dorner has just crossed the US border into Mexico.

I wanted to throw in just a little E T I stuff or whatever.  Per capita there are more Federation posts in the state of Nevada than there are any other state.  Utah actually comes in second, and southern Idaho comes in at third, making California a weak fourth.  However don't venture too far downstream on the Snake river or you run into the Perseus group and they are jealous of their territory.  I have learned more about Burt Lombard in the past few years, than the previous three decades combined. It's interesting just to "let a person talk" and you learn all sorts of things about his biases and proclivities you weren't aware of.  In terms of the Fullerton PD - - the only thing we know about Fullerton is that there is a "Maginov line" of sorts- - that runs east - west along the Riverside Freeway - - between the Cortessians and regions north.  This line continues due west when the Freeway turns north and extends of that creek thing that is the County Line.  The Bajorans in Lakewood only really claim the territory "around Lincoln' and further north- - with the small land area between the two rivers as kind of a "neutral zone".  Of course if I didn't say- - and didn't know till recently - - the Bajorans and the Reigel VII people are from the same "home planet".  The name of the planet has been tagged as "Bajor' but this is a recent retro-formation based on a term introduced in Deep Space Nine or something.  The term "Bajorans" was tagged originally by outsiders.  It's a term for like a spreading blotch of black-ink stain on a white rug or something.  And technically it's not a hard "J" sound but rather pronounced as "Beige- - Or".  It's kind of got that French thing happening.

Don't Mess With the 76 Percent

We'll explain this cryptic title heading in the last Paragraph

So if God "takes" a lot of people from the same band, does that mean that he likes them -or What??

"My allergies would not allow me to take your top down"

Karl Rove has had enough of the whole tea party scene.  He made them with his generous monetary support, and now he can break them if they don’t realize which side their bread is buttered on.  He says we’ve had enough of the nuts like the Rape nuts or the Immigation nuts or the gun nuts, and all of the racism that goes along with them.  Rush Limbaugh has now turned on Karl Rove, who was responsible for getting “W” elected, calling him a “soft, squooshy republican” and the idea that moderation is the way to go is something Rush Limbaugh disdains.  Rush is dead set against any form of immigration reform and Pat Buchannon echoes him talking about how immigration is dangerous to the fabric of American society for a whole host of reasons.  But Eric Cantor said this past week that “Our American system has always said that the children should not be made to suffer for the shortcomings of their parents”.  That sounds like Immigration reform to me.  But those goal posts continue to be moved to the right.  For instance Chris Matthews reported that 75% of the listeners to the Ed Schultz show are in favor of Obama’s new policy on Drone killings, which targets American citizen on his say so alone.  Now we know that Obama is a regular pussy cat, but some successor to him is not so amenable to civility such as a Mitt Romney or a Michelle Bachman.  The edict says that the President alone has the right to take out any American citizen in the entire world on his word alone.  But quoting Pat once again, the question is whether we aren’t causing more new Al Qaeda members to be recruited in the new countries Al Qaeda is spreading into, such as Yemen.  That Allaki guy was an American citizen and a propagandist in Yemen.  But he was not “an enemy combatant”.  But John Brenner said last week that American policy now has become “Once you sign on the dotted line and join Al Qaeda, you have as much signed our own death warrant, regardless of what you do or don’t do after that.  Of course last week it was revealed that we had a Drone launching site in Saudi Arabia, and a complaint of Bin Laden in1991 was that Bush had established a presence on the sacred land of Saudi Arabia.  And Leon Peneta single handedly reversed the defense policy the President campaigned and got elected on last year, which is a ten percent reduction in our defense spending making our military “leaner and smarter”.  So I guess Leon Peneta wants us to be flabbier and duller.  Because the President now made it official in his Saturday Morning radio address that these proposed cuts in Defense Spending cannot afford to be allowed to happen.  Pat Buchannon agrees with me that- - we need to cut this budget and everybody has to contribute.  To this John Mc Laughlin uttered this utter Bonkers line that “Well, if we don’t spend all that money then it will go into the private sector and stimulate the economy”.  What planet is HE living on???  But the bottom line is- - if the President is not going to stand firm- - and also if the President wants more action “elsewhere” to reduce the deficit, then what may well happen is what the Democrats, meaning us, dread the most, and that is massive cuts in Medicare and Social Security- - using an even more Inflation index to cut raises to absolutely nothing.  Once again the President will cave- and the Republicans in congress will win the day.

Channel two KNXT had this thing on brain health on at three thirty to four today.  They called their product  “Prosarah” some brain memory stimulant, which “enables the brain to talk to itself” and stimulate the neuro transmitters so that the brain is better at communicating information from one part of the brain to the other.  They say that while you sleep that short term memory is transferred to long term memory storage, kind of like downloading a computer file.  This product will give you twenty percent more energy and endurance during the day, and you’ll even sleep better at night.  They never said the name of the miracle substance but I’m strongly suspecting that it’s Astezanten, which we heard about this morning.  It’s a carrotenoid and a cousin of Vitamin A.  These come in three “colors”, red - - as in tomatoes and peppers, and also yellow - - as in carrots, squash, pumpkin, egg yolks and butter, and also green as in lutine, which is now recognized as beneficial to the eyes.  Astezanten is beneficial in increasing memory and also reaction time- - and enables your eyes to focus from distant to near more quickly.  It is a powerful anti oxidant, six hundred times more powerful than Vitamin C, we are told, and beefs up oxygen in the red blood cells.  And by the way it reduces wrinkles fifty percent, and turns back the clock on aging fifteen years, which for me wouldn’t be all that great since I was an alcoholic fifteen years ago.  I know from personal experience that taking Judy’s carrotenoid capsules alone- - - apart from anything else- - that you have increased energy.  And I gave some to Mike because it’s the only GNLD product I had left- - and he agreed that these capsules gave you more energy.  I guess they are kind of like “a computer hard disk clean up” for the brain.

America is going nuts with this gun culture and violence only seems to be increasing.  This Christopher Dornen guy has a fifty calabre weapon and “cop killer” bullets that can pierce a bullet proof vest that police officers wear.  This cop killer also has training in flying plains, and I imagine he flew a small plane right out of Big Bear to destinations unknown.  In his manifesto he’s as much as said that he’s not done killing but that he’ll be back again, and again, and again to kill people related to the “injustice committed against him”.  As you know Monica Quan was the daughter of a police Captain whom Dorner (?) says was responsible for getting him fired.  It seems the Titans held a little memorial moment for their assistant coach Monica Quan before the Titans took to the court, but they still lost.  I would infer it’s the CSUF Titans.  Hadia Penalton was that fifteen year old majorette who performed at President Obama’s Inaugural just days before she was gunned down by gang violence in Chicago.  Chicago had forty murders in the month of January alone.  At least the Black martyrs of yester year had the “luxury” of dying for a cause, and not just killed haphazardly.  LAPD police chief Charlie Beck says that he’s going to reopen the case that got Officer Dorner fired just to assure the public that the LAPD is operating in transparency and they want us to be assured that Dorner was fired with a fair process.  How interesting it is that between all the stories of violence, and also the weather, coast to coast, that violence in foreign nations has been driven completely off the headlines.  But I imagine there will come a time- - like waking up from a slumber- - that the media will again become conscious of the out of control violence all over the world, such as in the Mideast, and West Africa.

I told you that reading that tech and statistics book that there are a lot of “mystery numbers” in science.  There is that multi-syllable one they have in Chemistry, and thee are mysterious terms in Chemistry such as Moles, and I forget what that one is, but it’s very basic.  Then we have the Golden Mean.  I think that ideal Kurtosis in statistics should be the Golden Mean plus one or 2.628 I believe.  If you have too high of Kurtosis it means that your were “over-striding’ to use a Chariots of Fire word- - in your acquisition of data, and were striving too hard to “make the survey come out a certain way.  If Kurtosis is too low it means that you just “didn’t give enough thought of any sort” to any question you asked- - and there were contingencies of solutions or answers that you never even considered. Of course in the way I do kurtosis- - the “standard three” is pretty much the same reading, with a data drop-off at the standard deviation line equal to the square root of three.  If you have a kurtosis of one in my system you are a “flat liner’.  This line isn’t flat forever of course, any more than a “flat frequency response” from an audio amplifier is absolutely flat- - even as 200 thousand hertz or whatever.  Capish?  And then we come to Base E.  In addition to the stuff reported on that other page the most significant aspect of base E is that you can swap out the root figure with the exponential figure.  Or you have the choice that the two numbers, the base figure and the exponent, can be recripricals of each other and in this way average out to One.  But this will only work when the “natural logarithmic relation” is equal to One, neither more nor less.  And I have calculated this figure to be not the normal 2.718, but rather a bit lower figure of 2.665 and yes that figure is accurate to three decimal places.  I spent a lot of time checking and cross checking my numbers.  I wanted to talk just a little more about the cosmic “hour glass”.  As you know when you are born the sands of Time trickle downward.  But your brain is a blank slate and you have an experience as a baby and then don’t remember it.  But then comes the day when your brain learns to store a memory, first short term and then long term.  At this you become what you’d call “Aware” or possessing what Sacrates said “was the ability to reflect”.  So let’s say this is the start of your cosmic consciousness.   Now when you die the whole cone of sand is at the bottom of the glass.  Now turn the sand into some more solid substance such as cheese cake or something.  (I’m hungry now)  You bring out the big knife at the point at which the young life is ready to be “reborn into cosmic consciousness” or “self awareness”.   So then- - as you can see there is a curve at the top of this hyperbola.  This curve doesn’t really “shrink” but in perception appears to get smaller because there is more “Sand” accumulating through the years.  One side of the slice represents the past and the other represents the end of life.  We are now doing what is scientifically known as a “metaphore switheroo”.  OK?  Run a base line up at a 45 degree angle just outside the lower cone of sand.  Now consider the line produced by your little slice into the cheesecake- - and it’s a hyperbola.  Now- - I maintain the normal well lived life- - would start off with steadily growing achievements and the “normal course of living’ these achievements increase- - not really at a geometric rate, but the FASTER logarithmic rate, akin to that hyperbola they showed the Base E curve in the Wickipedia.  We had spoken of the 76% actualization rule and said this was the Maximum any single person could hope for.  If you think about it- - in no graph is the shaded area filling a hundred percent of the graph.  You need your “space”.  Now let’s do another inverse metaphor image for you.  You’ve heretofore thought of the area under the hyperbola as “the substance of your achievements.  But lets look at this area a different way.  Suppose we look at it as “events past”.  Suppose - - suddenly it’s only the area UNDER the line that allows for “free will”.  So the thing is - - “If you’re gona blow it- - it comes out of this FREE SPACE portion of the chart.  (the shaded area in our reverse imigry) and NOT the area on the “inside of the parabola” for lack of a scientific terms.  (Previously we have referred to Inside the Parabola area as “territory where you May Not Go” and this still holds)  So if you’re gona “Blow it” it comes out of the Remaining 76%.  Remember the 76%  This is all really pretty simple if you allow yourself to “go with the flow’ and the metaphor shifting I’m engaging in.

Melinda Lee's Cooking Tips

Melinda Lee had a lot of useful stuff on her program this morning.  We had our own version of Mc Nuggets for lunch with catsup, which was something new for us.  Of course chicken is one food that “Just isn’t brought to its full flavor potential” without the use of monosodium glutamate.  Of course Melinda Lee used to say that “a tomato actually tastes more like a tomato with added salt”.  This is one remark of hers I take exception to because I prefer my salad vegetables “au natural”.   Of course the Frugal Gourmet - - who got sent up the river for child molestation or something and is long off the air- - - anyhow, he used to say that he would not put any wine in his recipes he would not drink directly from the bottle.  So toss out that old bottle of cooking sherry.  Of course Melinda was talking about kosher salt.  I just might say that any food product will be of higher quality if it says “kosher” on or it has that circle K insignia they have, and this includes kosher salt.  The salt is apparently corser grained, which apprently chefs prefer working with. I used to as a kid suck on those salt tablets we used in our water softener and noticed the difference right off.  Of course after we moved from "The City" we had major water hardness problems.  Of course back in "The City" that neighborhood has changed a whole lot less over the years- - than any place around here, that's for damn sure.  Of course you know don’t you that Morton salt and Scotch tape are both Romulan companies.  But the thing is that salt straight from the shaker doesn’t take that good.  As Melinda Lee says it has a rather sharp, metallic taste.  This is because of all the Iodine and a host of other additives they dump in that stuff.  Kosher salt is much better and Melinda Lee likes the thicker grains.  I’ve had a slight varience of opinion with her when it comes to rice.  Melinda Lee says to use a cup and a half of water for every cup of rice you use.  My experience has always been that you use two cups of water for every cup of rice.  Perhaps Melinda uses fresher rice that hasn’t been dried, or something.  But also Melinda Lee says you have to stop at tripling your rice recipe.  That is- - you can prepare as much as six cups of fresh rice using four and a half cups of water.  But if you try to make a bigger batch you “will lose quality control” and have uneven cooking or what have you?   Of course this is the final weekend of Mardi Gras, and I’d like to attend that at least once before I die.  People will be making a lot of jumbeliah this weekend in the Bayou. Anyhow Melinda wants you to make sure and not to overcook the shrimp, or else it will just get tough.  Convection ovens are just a fancy term for “wind current”.  Melinda Lee said something I didn’t know.  She said that baked goods and rolls and stuff- - has a marvelous brown quality with a convection oven you can’t get otherwise.  And it will cook 20% faster.  You can use a convection oven on a small roast but not a large one.  Not only will the roast cook more evenly and twenty percent faster but you don’t have to turn it up and then lower the temperature after browning or whatever.  There is that Missan Plus thing I’ve mentioned before where you be sure to get all of your spices and other ingrediants out before hand- - so you don’t have to go hunting for them later.

Welcome to the year of the Snake, but in Peking (yeah, I'm "old school") they have scaled back their fireworks demonstration due to air pollution concerns.  This is the water snake, actually - in the cycle, which Becky Daniels was born under, which makes her officially a Sexagenarian   That was the word that had Granny Clampett all upset in that episode.  We have a potpuree of other news stories for you.  They use heat sensors to try and track people in the cold and snow, and that makes sense.  They could even track Christopher Dorner at night if they cared to with a chopper, but they don't work at night. This whole thing is looking like a case that could go on for a long time because from where I look - the case has gone cold.  Dr. Levy mentioned how people from California get depressed in winter when they move to Washington State.  Move to Oregon.  There are more Federation connections there. It raises an interesting question about those people with SAD or seasonal affected disorder.  Do Blind people get it?  How can they because they see no light ANY of the time, which has to be depressing in itself.  Of course I'm sure Blind people have evolved their own ways of perceiving.  Of course Arleen talked about flourecent lights but here you'd get the ultra violet light you'd need- - assuming even that the presence or absence of ultraviolet light on your skin is what counts.  But here is a real story from Leo Le Port.  There is now a new virus "product' out there that enables you external control over someone ELSE'S firewall without going on their computer.  So the firewall thinks that a security porthole is being opened up by the URL and it's externally controled so that bogus accounts can be set up FROM your computer.  This could be a problem is the Police are tracking you for your computer activities.  Apparently the corporations who put out this product have no inclination to want to correct it because it's too techy and "nerdy" or whatever, and it isn't worth it.  I guess it would just cost too much money to six and since some of these companies are in it for the money, they just don't care.  Today I've been getting these troubling messages from Blogger warning me of some code error and then I click Close and everything is all right.  But I have some dark suspicion they are a warning of - - something.

Of course KNX has their “rewind” and February 9^th is notable for two major events.  One is the Sylmar earthquake in the San Fernando Valley at 6:01 the morning of the Ninth.  Freeway interchanges collapsed.  The other is this is the Sunday in 1964 where the Beatles first played on the Ed Sullivin show.  Oddly I don’t have any definitive memories of watching the thing, or what songs the Beatles played, although I must have.  The night before was Saturday February 8^th and Nana was out for the weekend.  And we used direct recording off the TV and Dad recorded a lot of stuff from the Laurance Welk show- - as a sort of sound check.  I may or may not still have that roll.  That Wednesday it was ditto for the radio- - employing the first direct connection recording.  Of course Monday February 11^th that will be here before you know it- in 1963 comemorates two events.  One happy event for our family taking place on a drizzly Monday evening.  The other one involves a major event in the lives of the Beatles I’ve probably talked your head enough already.  It was Saturday the 15^th that Dee’s Wedding took place in 1964 in Santa Barbra.  It’s one of the few times I partook of an alcoholic beverage as a child.  Dennis Prager is always saying that celebrating Lincoln’s Birthday and Washington’s Birthday- - were occasions we don’t want to tamper with so that we “understand their historical context”.   Of course we don’t have the nasty trait now of having holidays fall on a Saturday like Washington’s did in 1964.  But Dad got off work that Friday and was over taking photographs of the construction of the Fellowship hall at our church.  On Sunday February 23red 1964 we have the case where we came the closest of actually having sound to go with movies.  That same day I recorded the sound of Alan’s power lawn mower he’d had for a few months- - the previous summer.  Of course here in California the grass grows all year around so you don’t have to worry about work.  There is both film and audio coverage of that event- - - in events that are only a few minutes apart.   I had more to say about reel to reel mic recordings from 1967 but this file is already running into the third page, and will make a fairly lengthly posting as it is. 

Kodac was not blind to the coming digital photo wave but did everything they could, making major adaptions and revisions as to how their country is run and their product and their clientel.  But despite doing everything right- - doing all the right measures - - Kodac still went belly up.  And the reason is that there was just not enough money in digital photography as opposed to the chemical processing of film and paper.  That’s where the money was.  I did everything I could to make Christianity work for me, and still I failed.  Of course some times it’s much less a case of imcompetence than old fashion sabotage- - or in the case of the Post Office, it’s Republican tea party sabotage.  This mantra that “the government never does anything as well as the private sector” is just that.  It’s a falsehood, as Randy Rhodes reminded us all yesterday devoting an awful lot of time to lauding the Post Office.  The government doesn’t need UPS and Fed-Ex, but Fed-Ex and UPS sure need the US Postal Service.  And the government is not allowed to open a lot of stores and sell other things the way private carriers are.  No siree.  It’s like rural electrification and the Tennessee Valley Authority back in the ‘thirties back under Franklin Roosevelt.  There are places that private carries will just refuse to serve because there is no profit in it.  It’s kind of like a Christian Pastor when he comes across what he regards as “a real problem case” will hand the problem off to a secular therapist.  Isn’t that the thing.  There are those who claim they have “The Answer” but in the end if they screw up or something they leave it to others to pick up the pieces.  The private carriers NEED the government, but the government itself was doing just fine without the private carriers, thank you.  Of course the US Postal Service offers free "Franking" preveleges to Congressmen, and these ungrateful bastards retaliate by forcing the Postal Service to fully fund their pension funds for 75 years in advance, which no other business could possibly do.  And they offer free postal service for those in the Armed Forces.

Dr. Levy now has a contract to train the Orange (?) police department on how to deal with mentally people they come across on the street, particularly scitzophrenics. He's committed to doing regular training courses till December of 2014.   He says you should “ask them how they’re doing’ and start off friendly.   But they even do that on the “Cops” show, just to verbally disarm the person.  Apparently you don’t want to say “I know you’re acting crazy because you’ve gone off your meds” but personally I don’t view this as an inappropriate opening line.  What a police officer never wants to do in any situation is to take personal offense from anything the person you’re encountering might say.  But this goes double for a mental patient.  This is the problem the Fullerton PD had with Kelly Thomas.  These people have little cognitive awareness of what they are either doing or saying.  Dr. Levy passed out a thing including “twelve things you can do to improve your life” and one of them is to be optimistic.  My view on optimism is that you should always keep your options open, because you never know which of your feelers will pan out fruitfully at a future date.  I would say the same thing about the US economy in that this economy is "adjusting' and adapting to the times and making inovations, and as such is now "better prepared to face the future" as even conservatives had alluded to.  Of course these people were all hoping this would all happen on Romney's watch and not Obama's.  And don’t make generalizations about yourself or others- - or think one bad event “ruins it for all time”.  And don’t take refuge in words like “Always” and “Never”.  I can testify from personal experience that the ego tires of hearing these limiting remarks from others, and everybody would be a lot better off neither hearing them nor using them.  Of course - - I know a lot of you were expecting “Something Else” for this blog posting.  Well never fear, that “Something else’ is on its way.  It’s not a question of whether but when.  But as William Holden once remarked about Gloria Swanson, “Some people will do it when they get good and ready”.