The Thing That Should Not Be

If this doesn't transcribe from Word, I'm dead

OK I would like to aim my fire at Johnny Wendell. His first topic was “What was the most important day of your life”. Oddly one of my “most important days” was the day that I stopped drinking. Unlike Johnny I curse that day every day of my life and would go back in time if there was a way to avoid it. This day redefined who I was as an “old person” at a mere age fifty, for one, and a lot of other negative things it’s not edifying to think about. Like so many comtemporaries of mine in this place, I was stabbed in the back by my family. Every other “significant” day in my life is also a negative one if we use the Dr. Phil definition as a “defining moment”. I do not regard a “first day at work” or a wedding anniversary or graduation or anything else as truly significant as the negative days because they did not define who I was. If I were a master automobile designer for GM then the first day I went to work for GM would be significant and I would frame it and hang it on my wall.

The other topic was old people and driving. Apparently Bill Novak at age 77 mowed somebody down in his Corvette, and he says “He didn’t know he hit anybody” even though they slammed into his windshield and bounced off. A guy on a bike chassed him down. Perhaps we can add hit and run to his charges. Does a 77 year old think he can impress the women with a Corvette? Like so many old people and even congressmen, he apparently got a slap on the wrist and was soon back at work. So I agree with the idea that people over age seventy ought to take a drivers test, perhaps every two years. But Wendell doesn’t stop there but indulged in a little twisting of the knife, and that’s what bothered me. First he died it to drawing Social Security “on the government’s dine”. When a lady caller called in to say that people don’t get SS unless they pay into it, Johnny got mad and do that manly thing talk show hosts are noted for. They hang up. You wouldn’t have been able to do that in the Old West if you picked a fight in a saloon. But then he said that the test should be given every six months, and if the entire driving population has to take the test every six months to make it fair, so be it- - Johnny says. Can you imagine how all of that would tie up the Dept. of Motor Vehicles manifold worse than it already is? Johnny further suggests that each year the test be made more and more difficult.

You know that there are good symbiotic relationships and those that are parasitic, and I suggest that Religion is a paracitic relationship. You know that old line Mallery said to Skippy on Family Ties, “I thought we had our relationship down pat. You chase after me and grovel for acceptance, and I reject you”. These pastors have the sheer audacity to talk about “Idols” in your life. Last Saturday night Billy Graham on KTBN was giving one of these “Jesus wants all your money” sermons. And like I say, alcohol was the only thing that kept me sane after a while trying to block out so many negative experiences, many centering on religion. These pastor idiots have forgotten what an “Idol” actually is. An “Idol” is not your car, or your job or your family, as they would tell you that it is. Any time a Pastor tells either a husband or wife to do something behind the other one’s back that would undermine their marriage, I get suspicious. There are certain symbotic relations of plants, and there are certain paracitic plants and animals that only end up killing their host in time. Any God who cant survive without a human “host” really isn’t a “God” at all.

You know the libertarian platform is interesting. It’s for FAIR competition and enterprise and is against either ghetto or corporate walfare. Randy Rhodes has often spoken of “group shared risk with big corporations- - but they get to pocket all the enormous profits them make themselves”. People like to say that “The rich pay more taxes now than they used to”. Heritage Foundation touts this fact. This wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that they MAKE so much more now than they used to- - - would it? There is a glairing way in which rich corporations exert a parasitic relation and influence on all of us. This is by all the high priced attorneys that insurance companies retain, particularly H M O’s in order not to give us our just payments. Sometimes I think for every dollar they save playing the tightwad with us, they spend two dollars on an attorney. I have a draconian solution to this little problem Johnny Wendell is sure to like. I propose a 100% rate Attorney’s Tax that insurance companies have to pay every time they pay their attorneys. And I’d make sure there were no loopholes in the law, either. I believe in the old school philosophy that the government should encourage activities it likes with credits, and discourage those practices that are contrary to societal interest by being levied steep taxes. Of course these taxes would go into a special fund to reduce premiums of everyone who pays into an H M O. I would also put what I call a “Capital Risk” tax on commodity speculators. The goal here is that when an ordinary person loses they can’t “double down” and make their money back and keep doubling down till the cows come home till they win. I’d have this in Las Vegas. How it would work is that the greater your Net Worth- - I’d lop off a certain percent of the Sale price or the cash in price- - and the greater your Net Worth the greater this percentage would be of the Sales Price. What this would particularly do is discourage things like arbitrage where you play both sides of the market off against each other. This is not a tax on “profits” per se, but a “tax at the pump” kind of tax where the tax is levied right at the point of purchase or sale. This tax would have little impact on an average person because it wouldn’t be that large but would hit the market churners. Also if you bought on ten percent margin, the tax would be at ten times the rate of paying 100% cash.

Now we can turn our sights to the political campaign. Obama has redeemed himself in my eyes in that he has stood by his sixteen month withdrawal timetable even under pressure- - and he has reminded Meliki that Meliki had originally sided and agreed with him on this issue. Apparently the German press is so pro President Bush, Obama is getting negatively skewed coverage there. Some have stated that Obama, unlike Mc Cain has a rather hostile view of the press and doesn’t like them. Old man Mc Cain on the other hand is routinely protected by the press. Mc Cain makes all these gaffs that are allowed to pass uncommented on. But apparently John Mc Cain screwed up so badly yesterday that he announced that on Wednesday he would isolate himself. Personally, I’m not sure just one day of not talking to the press will do it. There’s always tomorrow. I agree with Johnny Wendell that whatever you did, no matter the valor, fooury years ago will by itself qualify yourself to be president today. In this day and age a person needs to be mentally on top of all the news. It would seem John Mc Cain has suffered from several “Senior moments” lately. Mc Cain spoke of the nation of Czechoslovakia rather than its two component nations. He spoke of the Iraqi – Pakistani border. And he is noted for confusing Shiite and Sunni. How is he on other sects such as Sufi and Wahabiests and the Bathists Party? Also Mc Cain is wrong saying that the surge was the cause of the decline in Al Qaida terrorism. The truth is that in certain provinces the Iraqi people themselves decided in September 2006 that they hated Al Qaida more than they hated us. Also money talks and if the US government decides to pay both sides for not firing at each other, this one of those relationships that “benefits everyone” so to speak. We all know that “War is a racket” and there is no more obscene profit than a War Profit. Harry Truman wanted the full weight of justice to fall on War Profitiers. I think Obama needs to stress more than he is doing now the obscene relation between Bush and Chaney and Haliburten and other corporations.

I just might say in defense of the oil companies that they are meeting “Market demand at a fair price” and so much of the price hike we have seen is due to the over forty percent decline in the US dollar. Back when oil was at fourteen dollars a barrel a lot of us thought “Well if the price ever gets to forty dollars a barrel then alternate energy sorces will be profitable, but not now. Apparently “Now” never comes, and I’m still hearing the word that all this wind and solar and hydrogen stuff just isn’t panning out as planned You could call what we have an energy “addiction” but still it’s a “Product in demand”. As Rush Limbaugh points out if California were a country it would have the second highest energy consumption of any country in the world. So much for California being a “green” state. It is not. All of this “ecology” and “green” stuff is one bad joke. I think researchers better get their act together quick and find a way to cut the price of solar cells. Perhaps mass sales will result in “volume savings passing lower prices on to the customer”. Astrological indications are things will get worse before they get better. A President might need to smoke a little crack, just to be at his full state of readiness.