Speaking Common Sense To a World that Desperately Needs It

Here is an area Senator Ted Cruz and I can agree on.  Ted Cruz gave a speech in the Senate today “in the absence of a quorum” as he points out,  to propose a law that we don’t let avowed Islamic terrorists become Ambassadors to the United States, as President Obama appears ready to do.  The nation of Iran held those 52 hostages from November of 1979 to January of 1981 and the proposed ambassador the President of Iran has proposed was in the thick of all that.  It would seem that Iran is still nursing desires to drive Israel into the sea.  The United States is called “The Great Satan” and Israel is referred to as “The Little Satan” and Iran apparently imprisoned a Christian cleric to a worse prison than he was then being held in, on the anniversary of the taking of the US hostages.  As they did this they crowed about “Compelling the world to do the will of Iran”.  This is completely unacceptable behavior.  Clearly we should not resume ANY negotiations on Nukes with Iran until they have stopped all enrichment activities of Uranium 235.   But I would propose that even after Iran meets our demands on everything we want- - a sixty day “patience period” should be allowed, where they have to wait out a sixty day probation period to see if there are any infractions in that time.

I think the Conservitives and I are in agreement on another issue.  I am dismayed at the Supreme Court’s refusal to take up the cause of this photography outfit in New Mexico after the New Mexico Supreme Court disallowed them from declining work- - photographing gay weddings.  I mean clearly any professional outfit has the discretion to accept or decline any job they want.  For example, suppose you were a house painter and there was this big old mansion with a lot of du-dads and crannies, and the paint was flaking off and maybe the place was overrun with rats.  It would be perfectly reasonable in my view to decline such a job as “beyond our capability” and “Perhaps you would be happier is another company did it”.  From the standpoint of the gay wedding, I don’t see why the subjects ad said gays wedding would care to be photographed by a crew that finds their personal conduct repugnant.  But it seems that the Supreme Court has gotten lazier over the decades, declining a higher percent of cases, cases I personally feel they should have taken up because clearly the issues in them are of national import and need to be decided.  But this Court only wants to go with Winners or something.  I darkly suspect that these Justices know how they’re going to rule on a case from its outset. 

Having said that, let's discuss Paul Ryan's new budget.  I tire of the right making these sweeping generalities about we on the left like was evident on the Rush Limbaugh program this morning.  Is it really an endless game of “taking away goodies or “free stuff” the government hands out” as if the sole existence of the Democratic party was to get as many poor people “enslaved” by their policies.  Many things Rush Limbaugh says are an obvious projection (a psychological term) and would apply much more to himself than to us.  He speaks of “The Left” as this monolithic entity that walks in lock step and regards President Obama as the supreme arbiter of issues for them.   In reality the shoe is almost entirely on the other foot.  It is the tea party that has their “pre fab” talking points all lined up and ready to go.  In terms of “taking things away from people” Paul Ryan’s newly proposed House budget is so bad every American should read it- - and it’ll scare the begesis out of them.   In almost every case he wants to compound the draconian cuts already imposed by the Sequester, agreed on last year.  So in truth there is no NEED for a proposed budget now because one has already been AGREED upon.  But the strangest thing is how the tea party talks about this "debt that's going to bury us" and yet they aren't serious about cutting the deficet.  Why do I say this?  Because the Obama Administration has cut the deficet in half if not more than half in the past couple of years or so.  So why in the name of all that's sacred would it take Paul Ryan till the year 2024 - to cut the Other Half of this deficet?  Hummm???   Of course- - he does the "bend over and grab the knees" approach to let all of the biggest international corporations have their way with us.   There are statistics that say that the top one percent have 43% of the wealth in America, according to a reference in George Washington's blog.  The bulk, eighty percent of us- - hold but seven percent of the world's wealth.  If they took my suggestion and called our side the 95.5% then - - those who remain the other 4.5% would have about three fourths of the world's wealth.  But I dispute these statistics only to say they are not extreme enough.  You see this was the result of a lengthly study that was released in March of 2010, and the research was no doubt done at an earlier date.  Since this is four years and counting - later, and we know things have Continued to get Worse (as the Republicans endlessly remind us) then more extreme numbers would be evident.  Rush was grilling one caller who suggested that at least the Tea Party ought to pretend to be civil and compassionate in their policies, and not scare the dickens out of the other side in the first fee sentences out of their mouth.  Rush disagreed- - - almost in the tradition of that Kendrick guy in “A few good men” who was just “aching to tell us all just what “The Truth” is”.   So- - just let Rush Limbaugh talk - - and talk and talk.  He’s exhibit A, B, C, D, and E, all himself.

If Thom Hartman is right and not just smoking something funny- - this carbon tax thing is actually a wealth redistribution bonanza for the working man.  Because this carbon is taxed everywhere along the pipeline of production, when the oil is taken from the ground or when the ground if fractured, or when the fuel is refined.  And this tax taken from business is then given TO the average working man.  This would perhaps cover medical expences like with Thom Hartman's father.  It would be money for a average person to spend.  Since the profits of energy companies are enormous- - - and this tax Can't be negotiated down- - then this would give the average citizen a lot of extra spending cash in their pocket, to help the economy.  I am a firm believer that taxation should carry a little of the carrot and the stick prodding.  I believe this Constitutional justified by the phrase "to promote the general welfare".  Right now what we have seems to be government "promoting the general malaise".  In other words, our government has proactively lowered the "wage market".   While gas prices will by necessity go up a little, corporations will feel a pressure to "eat" a lot of the cost due to the lowered demand curve.  But certainly the consumer will have the "stick" applied to him with an "incentive" to switch modes of transportation or fuel used therein.  When Thomas Jefferson extoled the value of free public education, he himself was adhering to the principle of "promoting the general welfare".  In this case it was a literate population, that in Jefferson's mind made for a more qualified electorate.  (Selah)

Of course the dirty little secret about world history is that there was another Renaissance period in the world before our Western one.  It extended from China to Morocco - - and occurred around the eighth and ninth centuries.  This is when Islam was much more scientific and civilized than it is today.  It interacted with India culture and both benefited from this cross pollenization.  This would be during the T’ang dynesty in China.  Of course China was not always so lucky.   You had this emperor named Chin, who by the way got a whole country to be named after him.  He was like in the third century BC and he was one of the first book burners, and had a personal Ego bigger than the state of Texas.  He was the emperor who built the Great Wall, and also had these clay soldiers who “guard his grave”.   There are times when I read certain parables of Jesus and I wonder just what Jesus Christ would be like anyhow, if he had absolute power.

The other dirty little secret is about light- - and how different kinds of light - - waves - - travel at different speeds.   Now light as a corpuscular eneity- - photons - - all travel at the fixed speed we all know about.  I assume this would be true for any sort of lepton, which is a class of sub atomic particles.   But as we have said red - - “waves” are more retarded in that if you are retreating from them, they can’t keep up with you but it takes longer invervals to overtake you if you are a “moving target’ going away.  The opposite would be true for blue waves- - - - which would be like going against the grain like running out as quickly as you can into the ocean to be greeted by wave after wave.  It occurrs to me that many of you may honestly not Know what we mean by red or blue "Shifts".  This is my oversight.  Do you know what the LSH key is on Windows calculator?  Never mind.  Light that passes through a gas has a "line signiture" kind of like its own unique "bar code".  When light is being red or blue shifted this "bar code" shifts one way or the other.  Failing this far code- - one can make certain deductions about light of a certain color.  Blue light for example could be either stationary or moving tword you.  If it is in fact coming tword you it will have a greater amplitude per the original "energy propigation" otherwise known as "candle power".  In like manner red light could be stationary or receding but if it is receding it will have reduced apparent brightness per "candle power".   So just to clarify, though normally - - - -amplitude goes along with frequency- - frequency per se is the thing that denotes color.  Amplitude demotes brightness.   The reason why blue light bends more is NOT its speed as the "Cosmos" thing stated, but merely because short waves bend more than longer waves - - and so you have to throw out ideas about "impact physics" because photons don't have mass as we know it.  Not to get too complicated but any mass photons DO have is due to their "energy" and not their mass, and since photons never stand still, they never have absolutely zero mass.  So it isn't the "mass" of light that determines how much it is bent- - unlike an automobile or a bullet- - but rather its wavelength.

At two I turned it to Dr Oz.  His latest theory which seems well supported is that anti-biotics cause people to gain weight.  My only question is since we’ve been using anti-tiotics for seventy years why is this fact only now being “discovered”?   And I have to question the idea of something used only a tiny percentage of a person’s life, having such an influence overall on how their body processes food.  First of all the anti-biotics create more of the sort of bacteria specialized in breaking down food and extracting calories.  Next, said “bad bacteria” multiply the number of fat cells the body produces, and thirdly, these same bacteria create a sugar craving in the body.  If you were truly sick it might not be such a bad thing to gain back a little weight.  Dr Oz would prefer that you suffered through the ravages of whatever illness you had.  Then I went down for coffee and was moved to the front of the line because I was a first.  I had the guy top off my coffee cup.  I went up to the patio where Janet gave us chocolate covered toffee.  I have the teeth for that.  But that doesn’t explain the mysterious brown stain I just noticed on my pants.  Of course Dr Oz is as much of a broken record on the subject of weight and dieting as the Catholic Church is on sex.  Take Nicole and Eric.  Eric was falsely accused of wrongdoing by the Church and Nicole naturally figured when Erie said he had chosen to leave the ministry it means putting distance between himself in the church.  Eric concealed the fact that the church had told him Nicole being a divorcee, would not be wed in the Catholic Church,  but Lord knows, Edward Kennedy had no problem being pro abortion and also getting a divorce, while staying in good standing as a Catholic.  If Eric is going to have such complete disregard for how Nicole obviously feels on this subject- - then it really is best to end it now- - and Eric can stop wasting Nicole’s time.

Letting the Culture Dictate Societal Norms

It's interesting that Rush Limbaugh would come out in favor of the idea of "Letting the culture dictate the norms of society" because this is not a classic conservative position.  The conservative position would be dictated by religious doctrine.   Rush points out that in a totalitarian society it's the State hat dictates all of the norms of society rather than the Culture, in fact the "culture's" existance itself is not even deemed legal unless the State says it is.  It's pointed out that in England they have a tradition of "Innocent until proben guilty" but on "The Contenent" the tradition is the opposite - - it's "Guilty untill proved innocent".  Also in a free society there is a presumption that anything is legal untill there is a Law passed, hopefully by a body elected by the People, that says it isn't.  It was back in the sixties that a liberal even acknoledged this.  He said "Back in the old days if you were raking leaves you'd gather them into a pile and burn them and there'd be no problem".  After all they are your leaves and it's your property.  But these days gas leaf blowers are frowned upon, and charcoal barbecues are considered carsogenic, and even fire pits on the beaches are being taken out, though they may be more than a football field length away from the nearest houses.  Now you aren't even allowed to have wood fires in your own house without permission.  You can't go dirt biking just anywhere in the desert because you might disturb some "petroglifts' or Indian relics of some sort.  My answer to all of this is "These restrictions all interfere with our southern California culture".  My view is to allow people to be people, enjoying their lives.  Rush's point is well taken about the supreme court and nine men in black robes having the Final Say over what what is 'Proper conduct" at any given time, rather than the Culture at large.  For a free society this is wrong.  Tomorrow is the 41st anniversary of the Roe vs Wade court decision.  This decision just declared that a fetus was not a living being, as science has demonstrated it is over and over again, but rather just some kind of bodily tissue that needs to be expelled, with no right.  I kind of compare Roe vs Wade to the Dread Scott decision on Slavery in 1857.  You see Stephen Douglas of Illinois advocated for "Popular sovreignty".   When you think about it for that time and place, this doctrine seems to be a reasonable one.  That is "Let the people of each state decide for themselves whether or not they will allow Slavery".  The trouble is the Dread Scott looked at this and decided, in the tradition of Roe vs Wade or frankly the Trans Pacific Partnership - - "No you cannot decide for yourself.  We are going to define normalcy down to the lowest common denominator.  So if a Black man is property in a Slave state, then a black man must also be regarded as Property in a Free State".  And so with abortion- - were the people of the "several states" allowed to decide for themselves on this matter- - Rush points out there wouldn't be near the uproar on the subject as there is now.  Because some states would outright ban abortions, and other states might allow it with varying restrictions over length of time, or other proscriptive conditions under which they may be performed.   Up to this point Rush was doing fine.  But then he moves the subject from abortion to marijuana and now suddenly the States don't know anything.  Washington State and Colorado don't know anything.  This is because a Federal study concluded that marijuana was dangerous.  More dangerous than cigarettes as a matter of fact.  Patric Kennedy even says "Today's grass is so much stronger than the grass we grew up with that we have to take a second look at it".   Of course something else that's deemed legal in a free society is Free Enterprise.  This is the natural outgrowth of allocation of resources, "in the most efficient way possible".   In Russia they used to speak of "The black market economy" but if the truth be known THAT was the "Free market economy" because it's not something the government "allows you to have' after standing in line for two hours or God knows how long.   So on the gay issue- - I could use Rush's observation today of "Letting society dictate what normal behavior is" then I would have to, against my own personal preferences what I'd consider ideal, to say "If society is coming to accept gay marriages, than who am I to stand in the way?"

Wolf Blitzer loved Chris Christie's speech today in New Jersey.  Rush thinks Wolf Blitzer is a liberal but I always thought he was a conservative TV commentator.  We have a difference of oppinion here.  Whatever the governor said was pure Bullshit and he doesn't mean a word of it anyhow, but he's just saying it because polesters say it's what he "should" say.  I would agree with Rush on his view about an "Independant".  It used to be indepandants were the swing voters.  But prior to this morning I had already seen a thing, from a liberal site that said that today if you call yourself "independant' you are most likely conservative.  But you just don't want to make an asshole of yourself in public so keep your views to yourself.  And it was said that 59% of these Independant voters went for Romney in the last election, which any other election cycle year means he should have won.  Of course there are these "Troll" callers.  I guess that's what they're called.  They stalk radio call in shows and claim to be "non political" and "fair minded" and "No previous oppinion" and all but let them talk for any time at all and you come to realize they're just another hard right political person.

I was just watching on C-Span this guy saying that most State Houses are dominated by one party or the other.  Only five states have divided government and New Hampshire and Virginia are two of those states.  His point is that both the “democratic approach” and the “republican approach” seem to both be creating jobs, obviously for different reasons.  Better paying jobs occur in the democratic states but more and cheaper jobs were created in the republican states.  I’m puzzled as to just how republican governors are creating more burger flippers and window washers.  If I didn't say before, you know that in 1968 dollars we'd have to hike the minimum wage to $10.40 an hour just to be even with what we were then.  But then I heard that "If you account for the vast increase of per worker production and efficiency between then and now that fifteen dollars an hour would be a more suitable minimum wage figure.  This is what Ed Schultz was arguing for on Tuesday morning's radio program.  In terms of unemployment- - the fact that Congress is off this week is really neither here nor there since the forward progress was jammed anyhow.   He said that a company like Boeing is not necessarily looking at the tax rate when they decided to relocate but rather things like education of the people providing fertile ground to recruit those workers from.

You know it’s lighter now in the evenings than it would be on the first day of Pacific Standard Time, don’t you?  This is Janu-annie month according to Subway.  They say five dollars for any foot long sandwich.  This ad has always puzzled me since back in the nineties when I was buying a lot of Subway sandwiches I think foot longs were routinely five dollars any how.  There was a 6.2 earthquake in Wellington, New Zealand, and they showed what happened during a dog race.  The dogs kept running the track.  And a seventeen year old Russian teenager in St Petersburg may have written the mal-ware that sabotaged all those Target stores, and they say other retail outlets may have fallen victim to this predatory malware that haven’t admitted it yet.  There is a newly discovered or at least released audio recording of Martin Luther King made in December of 1950 explaining all of the “forces” that led to his being released from jail in the South when Kennedy was running for President.  Both John and Bobby Kennedy took action, which seems to have led to his being freed.  People from some other planet watching our ads in the media for all this electronic new stuff, would never have guessed that we in the United States have been in a Great Recession all this time.  There is lots of stuff in the media about steps you can do to “make yourself feel better” and more young and vibrant.  There is a whole lot more stuff on TV now than twenty years ago about people of all sorts “beating the odds” or taking physical daring risks, and more stuff about service oriented programs to help others.  They say that King Day is a “day of service” and it’s a good thing.   But the Republicans wish it were 2011 again, and that people were just as discouraged as they were then, and they aren’t; they are more hopeful.  I’m not but most people are. 

 I find it disturbing that Thom Hartman’s book of “Doom in 2016” rather disturbingly parrellels that movie that was released trashing President Obama in 2012 and promos for the movie were probably a reality even two years ago.  A lot of anticipation was generated for this movie.  Hartman does realize that is an economic crash did occur in 2016 it would be the worst thing that could happen to democrats and the best news the republicans could hear for their chances in 2016.   The question is jut how Hartman could come to such a belief about the economy unless somehow he weren't swayed by "something" of a non objective nature.  Because clearly by any objective criteria- - we are a really long ways from another economic "bubble".    Doesn't Hartman track interest rates?   There is yet another survey that if you have guns in your house, that your kids are seven times more likely to commit suicide using a firearm.   Tylenol causes liver damage.  Perhaps that’s why I don’t take it.  Doctors always endeavored to give me some other drug.   There is some complication called “hepatic encephelopothy” where you can’t think.

Yahoo has reorganized their sports page getting rid of all those convenient headings at the top of the page.  There is only one place I found any reference to that call that should have been “roughing the kicker” and that was in the comments section.    At about nine thirty I watched a good chunk of a “Sleepy Hallow” episode.   But after the morning coffee break - - and wait for the light saver to pass - - I turned on the Ed Schultz show on Media Player.  This show was productive because he was talking about Dawn Zimmer, which I guess is the name of Hoboken, who has been called a liar by the Luitenant Governor of NJ.  Zimmer has volunteered to take a lie detector test, which is something not Christie or any of the others has offered to do.  The tests may not be perfect, but this shows courage and conviction on her part.   It could be we are mere months away from ever hearing Chris Christie’s name mentioned in a serious way ever again as a political figure.  That day can’t come to soon for me.