A Happy Ending After All

It's as though someone slapped on a late page addendum to a three hour tradgity like Hamlet.  After all those people end up getting killed, they all go to Heaven and see each other and realize they have Eternal Life and so decide to all forgive each other and have now reconciled and they are all best friends and are living Happily Ever After.  No, I don't believe it.  It's like that movie "The Player" where the innocent man dying in the gas chamber was an ending nobody liked and so they changed the ending and the picture earned the Producer a million bucks.  No, I don't believe it either - - as far as John Boehner and Barock Obama kissing and making up.  I'm still scratching my head and trying to imagine that I'm really dreaming.  Well, it's a nice Christmas touch.  They had adjourned and everybody had left town, and one and all had pronounced it defeat.  Well, anyhow here is the script to this late film "Happy Ending" addendum dictated straight from the mouth of Rev Schuller himself.  You remember him.  He's the guy who single handedly turned around Yasser Aarafat into a peace loving God fearing Christian who repented of his ways.  What?  That didn't happen?  My mistake!

WASHINGTON – More than 160 million U.S. workers will pay lower payroll taxes for at least two additional months as part of a deal reached Thursday between House Republicans and Senate leaders.  The deal struck by House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid approves a $33 billion extension of the current cut in the tax that pays for Social Security and extends unemployment benefits set to expire Dec. 31. It ends a partisan standoff that had paralyzed Washington at the height of the holiday season.  "Sen. Reid and I have reached an agreement that will ensure taxes do not increase for working families on Jan. 1," Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a brief statement announcing the agreement.  The short-term deal extends the current payroll tax rate at 4.2% from 6.2% and continues to provide unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed. It also includes a Medicare "doc fix" that will prevent a drop in payments to doctors who treat seniors, and it extends and funds the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program that provides welfare benefits to 4.6 million Americans.  The deal also includes a provision supported by Republicans regarding construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas that Republicans say will create 20,000 jobs in short order. The White House has said the project needs more time for environmental review, but President Obama will have 60 days to either issue a permit to allow it to be built, or to explain why it is not in the national interest in order to halt it.  By reaching a deal, House Republicans ended five days of increasing tensions that developed after a contentious Saturday conference call in which rank-and-file Republicans rebuffed Boehner's initial efforts to sell them on the Senate deal that passed with bipartisan support on Saturday. After voting down the Senate deal Tuesday, Democrats led by President Obama and a rising chorus of Republicans criticized them for blocking a deal.  The impasse was brokered in part by the Senate's top Republican, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who broke with House GOP leaders on Thursday and called on them to approve the short-term patch in exchange for Senate Democrats formally naming negotiators to finalize a full extension through 2012 when Congress returns in January.  "While I am pleased that Senate Democrats and House Republicans have agreed to a solution that recognizes — and resolves — the legitimate concerns on both sides, I think it is crucial for everyone to realize that the larger goal is to move beyond a discussion of temporary assistance once and for all and toward a bipartisan plan to get our economy moving again, reform the tax code, and preserve and protect entitlements," McConnell said in a statement following the deal.  Obama, who had called Boehner on Wednesday and Thursday to urge the deal, applauded the news, saying: "This is the right thing to do to strengthen our families, grow our economy and create new jobs. This is real money that will make a difference in people's lives."  Lawmakers in both parties broadly agree on a one-year benefits extension in principle, but there remain partisan divisions over how to pay for the expected $200 billion cost of a longer term extension. That fight will continue next year.

China Guilty of Massive Industrial Espianage

They have just concluded a government investigation to the effect that China has engaged in one of the most blatent incidences of economic theft of an unimaginable scale.  They have stolen designs for government aircraft and patterned their own fighters after them.  They have tapped into countless computers in a whole hose of cities throughout the US. China has gained valuable secrets as to the inner strategies of US corporations and rigged the markets accordingly.  It is said that China by it's actions has costs US industry 250 billion dollars in economic losses.  Now they want congress to pass laws enabeling them to receive government secret information to block the espianage.  Of course for people like Bachman and Herman Cain, China is our trusted friend and is incapable of wrong.  Of course continued abuses in human rights continue to be exposed in China and the republicans aren't concerned about them either, just as their was almost no anti China rhetoric in any of the many Republican debates, of which we have just seen the last one before Iowa, when it all may be over anyhow.  Of course 'Newt-Romney" unlike three others at the debates, have been utterly unwilling to finger Wall Street in the Great Deboccle that occurred in this country in September of 2008.  Now the government has just completed an investigation of Country Wide reality, which was a company that was bought out by the Bank of America.  Even though Country Wide comitted massive fraud on home buyers due to falsification, misrepresentation, and even forgery, nobody from Country Wide appears to be going to jail.  But instead those who were the most culpible are in fact getting rich off of their transactions.  I'm sure that's something Judy would just call "good old American capitalism".  What we need next year is to elect a President who will be concerned about such things again.  If the President is smart - - or if he were smart- - he would have demanded that indictments be handed down and they could sort it all out in the Courts years from now.  I believe the American people are losing all patients with all of this "business as usual" and won't tollerate it any longer.


They have just handed down new regulations for US Pilots so that they don't get drowsy and crash planes.  It has been a not so hidden fact that Pilots are desperately over worked and over scheduled and get little sleep between shifts.  Now they have to get at least eight hours.  Often pilots have to commute to their work and this adds time.  Often they have "crash pads" at the airports, where sleeping conditions are altogether problematical.  Pilots are required now to report to their superiors when they feel fatigued and "not up to the job".  Unfortunately there are still no protections for pilots to cover them from Airline discipline should they miss work.  Of course now Pilots can work beyond age sixty, and I hope this hasn't adversely affected their performance on the job.  One wonders whether safety regulations in other occupations such as mining or oil rig opperations are any better.  We are so much after the almighty dollar now we have reverted to a moral stance last seen in the nineteenth century where we believe that workers are expendable that profits be maximized and whether society at large suffers is not important as long as we can walk away from culpability.


We know that Congress hasn't passed the tax reduction act.  But they do have time for hundreds of pork barrel projects ammounting to billions of dollars.  It seems they are doing studies now on why apes throw their feces and also funding a magic museum in Michigan, as well as scheduling the completion of that "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska.  Again this is "bad optics" and will incur the displeasure of the American voter come next November.  I'm thinking now that the American voter has risen to a heightened state of political awardness that they will no longer tollerate this sort of behavior in these troubled times.  To answer that question about why the President is remaining in Washington I believe it's as if to say "Are you sure, John Boehner, that you really want to do this?  "Do you really not want to pass a payroll reduction that will put an average of two thousand dollars in the hands of Americans anually they can use to spend in highly needed items in their life?  Are you going to look me in the face and tell me you can really endure the political consequences of your act?"


Apparently our generation is in a frenzy to stay as young as we can for as long as we can.  The media has been trying to put us out to pasture ever since 1996 when President Clinton turned fifty or something.  Our generation was not even CLOSE to retiring then and even at this date most of us are STILL nowhere ready to retire.  I myself am still too young for medicare even as we speak, nor am I now old enough to draw on Social Security even at a reduced rate.  I'm kind of dreading that day anyhow because they will tell me because I'm on SSI I'll get penalized or something.  But our generation is having one medical procedure after another to try and fight off aging from lypho suction to face lifts to knee and hip replacements.  I should pride myself I suppose on having all my original parts.  I haven't gotten a liver transplant.  Some people seem to go through livers the way an average person goes through library books.  Now they say it's the pushing of our physical limitations by "being active" with vigerous sports and work-outs that is causing stresses on our bones and muscles.  When we were young we always wanted to be the ones who hold poser.  Now that we are sixtyish- - we are preempted by younger people like Glen Beck, Rick Perry, and Paul Ryan.  We are preempted by people with no sense of history and have no basis to form the screwball political oppinions they have.


I am not a flaming liberal as you know.  On many issues Thom Hartman is to the political left of me.  I am not a socialist, and I do believe in people suffering the consequences of their acts, as well as reaping the fruits of their positive acts.  It's this very sense of accountability I have that compels me to oppose all these fundamentalist Christians who are in love with Newt Gingrich.  It should come as no surprise that a religion founded on the premise that you do NOT have to suffer the consequences of your own acts, should in these trying times pardon the most corrupt among us.  At the same time I am judged by Calvary of Anaheim by standards they would never apply to their friends or people they really cared about.  Some of them in the same breath will nit pick the smallest "imperfection" they spot in my life- - all while giving Wall Street a pass for their gross financial attrocities.  Now they say that these Mortgage Companies are racist on top of everything else.  They will steer White people away from their bogus loans as if to do them a favor, but will invite minorities such as Blacks and Latinos to take their loans, perhaps thinking because of the mere fact of their race they are therefore stupider.  I hope they are not right.  The pastor of C of A used to say that when he was a kid he used to get younger kids to exchange two dimes for one nickle and tell them he was doing them a favor.  It is my contention that many facets of our basic character are formed at a young age and that we never really abandon them, but merely find more "adult", socially acceptable ways of expressing them.  How ironic that these "breeders" have no shortage of new recruits to fill the church pews as older ones become disillusioned and get a little sense and leave.  It's I guess an apt observation that this younger generation with no sense of history- - are spoon fed a "narritive of how things are" that relies on a religion that people were beginning to consider outmoded two hundred years ago.  I sometimes wonder whether there wern't more religious progressive writers in the nineteenth century than thare are now in the 21st century.  These people have no sense at all that logic, science, and the world at large has passed them by, and that all over the world people are turning away in drove from their brand of "fundamental faith".  (Selah)

The Biggest Political Mistake Of Their Lives

Sometimes the old lessons are the hardest to learn

And the truth of the matter is that sometimes
 you really do - never get a Second Chance
 to make a good First Impression

Bob Dylan said it long ago.  "The Times They Are A Changing".  Rush Limbaugh said this morning that he could not properly “sort out the mess” (my quotes) that is this payroll tax cut extension bill.  But Randy Rhodes did a very good job of it at noon.  First of all what the Senate passed was not just this tax cut extension but it also included restoring cuts that had been made in Madicare that Judy was complaining about last Thursday where doctors would refuse to treat medicare patients if they didn’t get paid.  Also unemployment coverage was extended.  Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of candidate’s positions without a score card.  Newt Gingrich had made a really big thing out of his ability to “get it done’ and make the needed compromises with the President like he did with Clinton in 1996.  However as you may know by now, candidates have this nasty habbit of reversing their positions if they don’t get the thumbs up from Rush Limbaugh and this is the case again today.  This morning Rush says that Newt sent him an E mail saying that he is against the senate bill that was passed and that John Boehner should not call the house back into session to pass the Senate bill.  As you may know the House convened this morning as a procedural guimic and he gaveled the House to order and they recited the Pledge of Allegence and then he gavvled the sessions closed and he adjourned and walked out.  Then he pulled the microphone of a house member who was still speaking about the perils of not passing the Senate bill.  Finally he had C-Span pull their camera coverage all together.  This is the most blatent display of tea party arrogance to date yet.  This is the political “smoking gun” that Democrats have been looking for and were you listening to Newt only last week, it was something that no republican would DARE let happen.  But it did.  And now they will have to live down the biggest mistake they have made and may ever make in their short lived political carriers.

Rush Limbaugh’s show this morning was the usual hopeless mass of hysteria and emotional catharsis mixed with a lot of invective.  He kept referring to the First Lady as “Michelle, my belle” and made much of Michelle and the girls going to Hawaiiai ahead of the President.  Rush asked why the President just doesn’t pull up stakes and head off on vacation himself and claim victory now that he has “made his point” that the republicans are intransigent.  He never answered this question, but it’s one this writer would be curious to know.  Rush then attacked the whole idea of a payroll tax cut saying that it was not even a “tax cut” but a “raid on funds” that we pay into.  I am inclined to agree.  But the point is we need the stimulus right now and this is the whole reason why John Boehner has worked so hard to defeat it the same way they would not even debate Obama’s jobs proposals of last fall.  Because despite the bombardment of favorable economic news lately, the news would be even better by now were these Presidential jobs proposals enacted into law.  Rush then said something he may not admit that he said, but he did.  He said “Of course you all know that I’ve been wanting the President to fail.  But the trouble is that the President has not failed and that’s the problem”.  Then he went on to talk about this “media conspiracy” (in the vein of Judy) to make the President look good.  There was an MSNBC poll that said that most Americans don’t mind paying their taxes; they just want the rich to pay their fair share.  There was some other “non partisan” polling group that concluded the same thing in their tabulations.  Also there is the scathing Wall Street journal article talking about the “Bad optics” of this whole congressional process, and how it’s the republicans’ worst nightmare, being in a position of being the party who is Against tax cuts for the average working American.  Of course the good economic news continues.  California’s unemployment rate stands at 11.3% and yet in terms of numbers they have added more people to payrolls than any other state.  They said that in 43 states the unemployment rate has dropped sharply.  Also there is talk of the economy spontaneously picking up due to natural gas discoveries in Ohio and also this oil boom on the high plains.  Also small businesses are taking off.  It seems that George Bush gutted the staff of the small business administration to make room for these big corporate push outs of the Mom & Pop stores.  President Obama has sought to build up the small business administration.  Rush Limbaugh has also lit into Mit Romney calling his attacks on Gingrich a “scorched earth” policy.   Rush was upset, and this is so looney it sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit, but it happened.  Rush Limbaugh is upset because Mit Romney on an interview did NOT label President Obama as a socialist when pressed on the matter.  Rush was outrages.  Rush then attacked the media for only referring to Kim Jung Il, alias Kim Jung “Dead” as “inigmatic’ and saving their worst condemnation for people like Newt Gingrich.  People like Judy and Rush have elevated Newt Gingrich to the level of some sort of Savior.  Rush went on to say that he wished Romney had called President Obama a “Marxist”.  And then goes on to lament how “the truth” is not allowed to be spoken in the media today.  I just noticed all the speech stuff superimposed itself on the usual icon row.  I minimized it.  (?)  Rush Limbaugh says he trusts the speech controls over his typing.  Believe me, my typing is a hell of a lot more accurate than that speech recognization stuff is.  I’ve tried it.  Rush is just too lazy to do a little wor.  (what a bit surprise!)   Also Rush on his show talked about surveys about fat people.  It seems it’s OK for women to call men fat, but it’s wrong for a man to call a woman fat.  Well, that’s just being a gentleman.  I’m surprised Rush has any civility at all.  To summarize I just don’t think it’s even emotionally healthy for Rush Limbaugh to work himself into such an emotional froth over what apparently is a development he favors because it keeps the social security fund from being “raided” as he puts it.  So one might turn the question around why Rush himself just doesn’t “claim victory”?

I think the American people would just rather celebrate the Holidays and enjoy what little positive economic news there is these days and not to be downed by all this doom and gloom rhetoric by people like Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich.  The thing is that Newt doesn’t even now have a campaign organization and has been less than diligent about regular campaign appearances in Iowa.  Even now here are people who argue that Newt, like Cain before him, is just out to increase book sales.  It’s clear to Americans that they don’t want a man with Newt Gingrich’s temperament on the nuclear button.  Not someone who recently said that they should send out federal marshals to round out Supreme Court Justices who make decisions he disagrees with. It bothers me that Born Again Christians would single out Newt Gingrich as the most qualified man in America to become the 45^th President of the United States.  Every dog has his day but Newt’s season has come and gone.  There are a lot of positive developments such that this administration passed the Dodd – Frank law that insures that these financial crooks will never again be bailed out by the tax-payers of America, a topic that was not so surprisingly absent in all of today’s blatherings.  Bear this thought in mind that the President has a 44% approval rating but approval of Congress is but 11%.  I imagine after the outrage of the past few days, the next poll will show congressional approval even lower and the President’s approval numbers- - higher.  The dirty little secret is that Americans have a natural distrust of “big money” and believe that politicians work by a different set of rules from the ones the rest of us live by.  Capish?  No, ‘Newt-Romney” never talks about how much this Wall Street bail out costs the American taxpayer.  I have a particular bias against Newt Gingrich and the sooner he is GONE from the political scene, the happier I’ll be.    It seems as if left wing Talk Radio has become more popular in American now, being on more stations.  It would not even occur to most people to be as far right in their politics as Dr. Levy or Rush Limbaugh- - without an awful lot of priming and brain washing.  Rush believes that you can write off the political center as irrelivent.  I disagree, as non affiliated voter numbers are growing.  More and more people don’t feel comfortable with either political party.  These people by in large did not express their opinion in 2010, but you can bet they’ll be there in 2012.  (Selah)

Randy Rhodes was upset as the proposed Republican changes to unemployment statutes.  They want to shorten the weeks to a maximum of 34 weeks.  They want drug testing for all the applicants even though studies in Florida, a particularly high drug usage state, indicate only one percent of the unemployed tested positive for drugs when they were doing the program before a Court stopped them.  They have to pay for their own drug tests which run $45.00 a month but if they don’t test positive they get their money back.  Of course how many Jewish elderly are there who eat poppy seed bagels, which could test positive.  The test has an anti marijuana bias because hard drugs such as meth and heroin clear out of your body in a few days, but marijuana can be detected in the body for a month, so you could be using it on vacation and still test positive.  They also insist that the unemployed have either a High School diploma, or else obtain their GED at their own expense.  Randy believes drug testing is counter productive and inefficient regardless.  Drug and insurance companies have banded together to require drug testing on even a white collar job as terms of coverage.  If an employee tests positive,  the employer is penalized with higher rates.  But as an incentive, to even DO drug tests will give you an initial discount on employer rates.  So the drug and insurance companies are working hand in glove because the drug companies are the ones that conduct the tests.

A couple of evenings ago I was listening to this debate between a Believer and an Atheist.  The Believer made three principal arguments as far as I could tell.  First of all he lays this scientific trip on us about advanced protein cells and all the laws of the universe and keeps asking “Why” this and “Why” that.  This is bogus on his part because the implication is we can find out all these “Why’s” if only we became Christians, and we can’t.  His second argument concerned “the lights going out in Europe” upon world war II and he brought up the old chestnuts of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.  The thing is that none of these may have even risen up weren’t it for the aftermath of World War I leaving a power vacuum in so many nations.  It was devout Christian leaders who started this war as heads of their mighty empires.  The Czar was a Christian and so was the King of England and I think Von Hindenburg was, too.  His third argument concerned this sense of existential loneliness we sometimes feel as human beings, as though these were not emotions we all have in common.  Elvis even sang a song on the Sun Sessions called “I’m in a crowd, but I’m all alone”.  I have felt “alone” at Church at Mark’s.  The other guy gets on and utterly demolishes the believer’s arguments.  He spoke of the political corruption of those who call themselves Believers and often miscarriages of criminal justice.  He also mentions that there is enormous waste in nature.  There are those millions of sperm cells that die upon every ejaculation.  They say that one star like our Sun burns out every few seconds in the universe but nobody cares because it isn’t us.  And he speaks of the death and cruelty in nature.  He says that 93% of the species of the world that once lived are extinct now.  I had no idea it was that high.  Of course there is the Marcus argument, to use my Blogger name, that often things are judged as “good” or “bad” by we humans, whose opinions utterly disregards anyhow.

John Boehner Strikes Note of Compromise

On Meet the Press on Sunday, John Boehner indicated that both he and the President agree that the one year payroll tax cut extension must be passed, Boehner was asked about the pipeline and whether the President “has had time to evaluate it” and Boehner aptly said that the President has had at least a year and final government approval for the project was given last August.  Boehner said that the elections “would take care of themselves” and that the House republicans had no political axe to grind to influence that outcome.  He reminded David Gregory that it was last summer when “The President moved the goal posts at the last minute” when it came to that “grand bargain” debt reduction plan   I guess these tea party Republicans don’t want that pipeline as badly as Romney and all the rest say they do because they’re screwing themselves.  Of course one lie was told about this Alberta to Texas pipeline that is a blatent lie according to Randy.  They kept saying that “If this pipeline isn’t built then Canada will just sell the oil to China.  Well it’s going to China BECAUSE of this pipeline and this is WHY it’s even being built.  They wanted to run this pipeline through the pristine mountains and forests of British Columbia, but BC objected too strongly.  Now I hear they will enlarge the Panama Canal to make way for these oil tankers on their trek to China.

What a difference a week makes when it comes to Newt Gingrich.  Last week the media was ready to crown Newt as the Republican nominee.  The last polls I have actually seen on the matter show a sideward blip right at 33% but those in the know say that in one week Newt has crashed and burned and is now at 18% in the Iowa poll with Ron Paul and Mitt Romney ahead of him.  Mitt is on a bit of a roll himself lately, long anticipated.  He’s campaigning harder and has even appeared on a FOX Sunday interview.  He has bagged three endoursments in the past few days.  The Des Monies Register has come out for him in an editorial read by many Iowans.  The South Carolina governor, Nicky somebody- - has come out for Romney and just today Bob Dole endorsed Romney.  Also Romney is campaigning harder and has become a bit more strident.  Michelle Bachman is also gunning for Newt.  Michelle Bachman was praised all around for her performance at the Thursday debate and nailing Newt on the 1.6 million from Freddy Mac.  Michelle Bachman was also on Meet the Press and David Gregory kept pressing her on whether her “facts were always right”.  But as far as I can tell, Michelle’s facts ARE all correct.  People have tried to introduce some sexist element in all this but if I were Bachman I wouldn’t even go there.  Bachman also toned down the flame throwing when it came to Iran and Nukes.  Actually she fielded that question from Gregory almost identically to the way I would have.  She stressed the point that it’s a dangerous situation and left it at that.  Ron Paul has some personal vendetta against Newt because of some 1996 House contest where Newt was instrumental in getting another highly funded candidate to “primary” him, but Ron Paul won.  This piling on against Gingrich occurred on the Friday Chris Matthews show when notably Chris himself wasn’t there.  The piling on continued through the Mc Laughlin group.

In terms of Romney – Randy Rhodes points out that he did one of these “leveraged buy outs” where a private person buys out a publicly owned company.  Normally when I hear the word “leveraged” used in business, it has to do with buying on margin where if you’re on a fifty percent margin, you double your profits as well as doubling the risk.  But according to Randy what Romney does is that he has a company appraised and then borrows to the hilt for what that company is worth.  Then he begins firing everyone in sight and sticking the company with the debt obligation.  Romney collects his multi-million dollar Management fee and a lot of other profit besides for his “chop shop” operations.   In my prophecy book I spoke of Calvary Christians being orange trees that are great at producing other orange trees cut actually Oranges is another question altogether.  Romney is great at using his God given wealth to aggrandize himself and his pocket book, but not so hot on serving either America or furthering sound capital goods production or commerce.

I would like to defend Romney on this capital gains tax business.  Basically if you don’t “get it” by now- - Romney is basically AGAINST a capital gains tax cut or elimination, hopefully for the reasons I have, elaborated on previously.  But what Mitt Romney says is that there may be some retired people who want to sell the family farm at a profit and would like to secure a nest egg, but they can’t do that if they have to pay all these government taxes.  I could assure you for those families it will work out to a whole lot more than $173.00 per year.  They say that if anybody other than Gingrich wins in Iowa it will help Romney, whether Bachman wins, or Paul wins, or per chance Perry wins.  The great unspoken Truth that remains is that Romney is a Mormon and certain Republican fundamentalists will never bring themselves to voting for him.  Romney’s wife has multiple sclurosis, and he is sticking by her and not divorcing her.  As the Register points out Romney has demonstrated a steadiness and “sobriety” that none of the other candidates have.  They say that Newt was never serious because he never had a real campaign organization.  And for all Newt’s money raising skills, he somehow has raised little for his own campaign.  If he really believed in his OWN candidicy, he would put his OWN money into the campaign and he hasn’t done that.  Well dinner awaits but first I want to buy a pack of cigarettes and smoke one first.

Randy Rhodes called last week a week of “lasts”.  It was the last week we had anything to fear from Newt Gingrich.  It was probably the last week I would see Dr. Levy this calendar year.  Perhaps he was just too cowed by my letter extolling the achievements of President Obama.  Well, gasoline prices are now down to $3.25 nation wide but it’s still around $3.45 in California.  Last night at ten thirty the President was informed of the passing of Kim Jung Il.  It’s always good theater to be President when a communist leader dies.   And it was the week the Iraq war came to an end as the last troops left Iraq on Sunday night.  It’s hard for Republicans to say anything about these images, not that they don’t try.  We all know about John Mc Cain’s speech last week.  Mitt Romney is persisting with the lie that Bush believed there were “weapons of mass destruction”.  In fact that Bush KNEW for a fact that Iraq didn’t, but still went ahead with the war.  Also the lie persists that Saddam Hussein would not let UN inspectors in.  But even Pat Buchannon nailed it last Saturday when he said “We had Saddam Hussein in a box and he wasn’t able to do anything.  Therefore the Iraq war was unnecessary”.  Of course there were five heads of Freddy Mac and Fanny Mae who were indicted by the Attorney General last week.  In the eyes of the right I don’t know if they see this as a good or bad thing.  Freddy Mac itself was given a clean bill of health.  Freddy Mac and Fanny May’s job was to insure loans.   But various forces stacked the odds hopelessly against them from the git go.  This anti red-lining bill was blamed for the fact that poor people got loans, though this is a mistaken notion.  And finally we have the increasing stream of positive stories about the recovery of this economy.  Christmas sales are already up between three and four percent and this figure is predicted to rise higher.  And new factory orders are up as companies anticipate the need for inventory because of projected future sales.  We already pointed out private debt was down.  And in John Boehner’s Ohio, the unemployment rate just dropped a half of a percent, which is the sharpest monthly drop there in twenty years.  Also working in the President’s favor is that he is now out there presenting his case and defending his record.  Now there is just a roomer that Newt Gingrich in the tradition of Sen Lieberman, will run as a third party candidate in some “Never say die” stance, not believing that he has really lost.  People warn us never to underestimate the sheer vanity of the man.  It might be well to remember that the President is at 44% approval rating but Congress merits a mere eleven percent.  So to put it in “W” terms- so the President has more “political capital” to work with.

The "In Your Face" Lyrics of John Lennon

These are some of my favorite lyrics- - and why is this print so darned small? OK I get it.  I had it on HTML.  Of course if you read my stuff you know it is my belief that five of these were written by a fourteen year old teenage girl. Any Joe off the street stands a good chance of successfully picking them out. At least I have the five convieniently together.


“I’ve got something to say that might cause you pain. If I catch you talking to that boy again I’m gone let you down and leave you flat, because I told you before You Can’t Do That”.

“- - but I’ll come back again some day and when I do you better hide all the girls. Cause I’m gona break hearts all around the world. Yes I’m gona break ‘em in two, I’ll show you what your lovin’ man can do”

“I’ve got no business being here with you – this way”

“I tried to telephone. They said you were not home. That’s a lie”

"I think of her.  But she thinks only of him.  And though it's only a whim, she thinks of him"

“Oh how long will it be – till she sees the mistake she has made”

“And so pride indeed comes before a fall. I’m telling you so that you won’t lose all”

“I’ve had a drink or two but I don’t care. There’s no fun in what I do when she’s not there”.

“She’s got a ticket to ride and she don’t care”

“Red is the color that will make me blue – in spite of you”

"Here I stand - head in hands - turn my face to the wall.  If she's gone I can't go on- - feeling two foot small"

"I'll make a point of taking her away from you.  The way you treat her- what else can I do?"

“Life is very short and there’s no time for fussing and fighting my friend. I have always thought that it’s a crime so I will ask you once again”

“Now that I know what I feel must be right. I’m here to show everybody the light”

"I sat on the rug - biding my time - drinking her Wine"

“She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh. I told her I didn’t and crawled up to sleep in the bath”

“I get high when I see you go by”

“Did she understand it when they said, that a man must break his back to earn his day of leisure- - will she still believe it when he’s dead”

“Catch you with another man – that’s the End- - dah! – little girl”

“Listen to my sermon I mean everything I said. Believe me I’m determined that I’d rather see you Dead”

“You might as well be dead”

“Father Mc Kinsey - - wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave. No one was saved”

“And you’re making me feel like I’ve never been born”

“When your prize possessions start to bring you down - - look in my direction; I’ll be around”

"If you're down he'll fix you up - Dr. Robert"

“I used to be cruel to my woman I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved. Man I was mean but I’m changing my scene and I’m doing the best that I can”

"And of course Henry the horse dances the waltz"

“I’ve got nothing to say but it’s OK”

“He blew his mind out in a car. He didn’t notice that the lights had changed”

“Living is easy with eyes closed – misunderstanding all you see”

"I am He as you are Me and we are all together"

“ - - but if you carrying pictures of Chairman Mao - - you ain’t gona make it with anyone, anyhow”

“The children asked him if to kill was not a sin. But then he looked so scared – his Mommy butted in”

"I need a fix 'cause I'm going down"

“When I hold you in my arms - - I feel nobody can do me no harm”

“You broke the rules. You laid it down for all to see”

"Cry, baby cry, make your mother sigh.  You're old enough to know better so cry baby, cry"

“Jack knife- - in his sweaty hands”

“You don’t know what it’s like to listen to your fears”

“Nothing’s going to change my world”

"Come together - all together"

“Takes him out to visit the Queen. Only place that he’s ever been. Always shouts out something obscene- - such a dirty old man”

“You should see polytheme Pam. She’s so good looking that she looks like a man”

“I want you so bad it’s driving me mad”

"Because the wind is high it blows my mind"

"I'll promise you anything - just get me out of this Hell"

“Some of you sit there – cock in your hand. Don’t get you nowhere. Don’t make you a man”

“Don’t give me that brother, brother, brother, brother!”

“- - and you think you’re so cleaver and classless and free. But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see”

“Keep your dope with religion and sex and TV”

“They hate you if you’re cleaver and they despize a fool. Till you’re so fucking crazy you can’t follow their Rules”

“Power to the People”

“Just give me some Truth. All I want is the Truth”

"No son of Tricky Dicky gona mother hubbard soft soap me with just a pocket full of hope - money for Dope - - money for Rope"

“I don’t want to be a Soldier, Mama, I don’t want to die”

“Keep Ireland for the Irish not for London or for Rome”

“If you had the luck of the Irish, you would wish you was English instead”

“His name was David Peale - - we found that it was Real” (Marijuana)

"I want you to make Love -not war.  Well you know - you've heard it before"

“So while you’re jerking off each other. You just bear this thought in mind. Your time is up you better know it. Or maybe you don’t read the signs”

“You’re making all our decisions, but we don’t wanna play your game. You think you’re cool and know what you’re doing. And 666 is your name”

“Well I’ve been to Meat City - - to see for myself”

“It’s fish or cut bait”

“And I know- - what’s coming Down. And I know where it’s coming from”

Obama Due to Sign Payroll Tax Cut Bill

Today the Senate passed the payroll tax cut extension bill. Psychologically it was Newt Gingrich who was pushing hard for this bill’s passage even though Republicans had opposed just this very thing a few months back. This bill signing takes out of the hands the opportunity for Republicans to call the President obstinate. Of course in the bargain we get that Canada to Texas pipeline. Who would have guessed that we would be piping oil TO Texas? But if we don’t grab the oil, the Canadians will only sell it to China. I assume that provision for drug testing the unemployed is still in this bill. Who is paying for the two-month extension of the payroll tax cut working its way through Congress? The cost is being dropped in the laps of most people who buy homes or refinance beginning next year. The typical person who buys a $200,000 home or refinances that amount starting on Jan. 1 would have to pay roughly $17 more a month for their mortgage, thanks to a fee increase included in the payroll tax cut bill that the Senate passed Saturday. The White House said the fee increases would be phased in gradually. The legislation provides a two-month extension of a payroll tax cut and long-term unemployment benefits that would otherwise expire on Jan. 1. It would also delay for two months a cut in Medicare reimbursements for doctors that is scheduled to take effect on New Year’s Day. The House is expected to act on the bill early next week. Two more months of the Social Security tax cut amounts to a savings of about $165 for a worker making $50,000 a year. At least that’s something. The conclusion of the year-end payroll-tax debate was unexpectedly shadowed by a side issue, TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone XL crude-oil pipeline, which is supposed to be built from Canada to the Gulf Coast, subject to U.S. approval. The administration has postponed its decision until 2013 because of environmental concerns. Republicans have touted it as a "shovel ready" job-creating project, and pushed language to force the administration to make a quicker decision. Its inclusion in the payroll-tax compromise was expected to help win support from conservative House Republicans who had opposed the payroll-tax break. Democrats called it a pyrrhic victory because they expected the administration to reject the pipeline project if the decision is accelerated. Moreover, they argued that the concession to the GOP would mean little to most Americans. Merry Christmas, taxpayers!

Leo Le Port is bothered about this “S O P A” bill or the Stop On-line Piracy Act” that will supposedly enable the federal government to shot down any site they suspect of piracy. Naturally nobody involved with computers likes it. This is the House bill. The Senate has their own “Pipa” bill or- - Prevent On-line Piracy Act, I would suppose. The trouble is that our laws are made by idiots who know nothing about the internet because they all appear to be relics from another era. There seems to be a major move, along with that preventative detention bill, and the Patriot Act - to get Americans used to a severe limitation of their rights. Leo has little tolerance for idiocy. I don’t know whether people like Dr. Levy are worth writing to at all these days, because they show no signs of comprehending the material, and are too proud to admit they don’t know everything already.. This is a major problem. Apparently it isn’t just site closure, but the power wants the power they have in Michelle Bachman’s beloved Communist China to actually block user access to sites the government deems as either dangerous or illegal, and apparently there is also stuff about terrorist activity thrown into this bill. They were going to vote on it today but have put that off till the middle of next week, giving us sane ones the opportunity to rally forces to our side and stop this bill in its tracks now.


You know this is the 21st Century and time is going forward and not backward so we are going to have to learn to solve our problems because they aren’t going to just go away by themselves. This means things like energy and fuel efficient cars and alternative forms of energy, and ways that will and won’t work as far as our US balance of trade is concerned. And though the deficit is an important problem it is not the number one problem for us now. There are other things such as getting all the groups in this nation to get along or at least co exist with one another. This includes the gay and the straight, and the Midwestern hick and the urban black and the Latino immigrant alike. It means the greens as well as well as the techy science people, who will probably the ones coming up with many of those solutions we definitely need. It means vast financial and wall street reform that goes way beyond Dodd – Frank. It means an aggressive re-establishment of the Civil Liberties of Americans who are in clear and present danger of losing them. It means giving up our prided ignorance and prejudice. When you look at all of these factions and interests we have in this country - - the International corporatist represents only a small fraction of these interests and as of now they are represented by congressmen, senators and lobbyists far out of proportion to their numbers. You have to realize that the economy under a President Perry or a President Bachman would be no fun at all for virtually any of us. But the fact that Ignorance seems to be so highly prized these days as a proper education in US History seems to be out of fashion, makes the work of progressives that much harder as far as educating the voters. We to some degree must “condescend” to the level of the tea bagger in order to communicate with them in some language that they can relate to. They need to understand that there is no causal connection between the wealth of multi millionaires and whether or not their job is secure. Conservatism has become bastardized as a concept. Even Christianity has become bastardized as a concept. People seem to be expecting less and less in the way of any form or moral credibility from their religion than they ever used to. Even Salvation doesn’t mean what it used to. Tertulian the theologian- - in rebellion against Marcion perhaps - - sought a certain "physicality" of the human Soul I find hard to accept, though many do. What he advocates is kind of a "soul karma", which would be fine if we were all Hindus, but we're not. The Bible teaches the Soul is a gift to each of us directly from him at birth, and God has in mind a unique individual destiny for each of us apart from our parents or ancesters. However another view has cropped up. Tertulian teaches that our soul is determined at conception by our parents and the "genetic nature" of Their souls. This same line of reasoning goes we still have the "seeds" of Original Sin from Adam in our souls. So people like Thom Hartman remind us that people on the right view the common folk as evil and if corporations are “neutral” that gives them moral superiority. Of course since God does not really exist- at least in THIS world- - all the preachers have to do a Norman Bates every Sunday- - - speaking for a God who is long dead- - probably in words God would never have used. And they not only speak for a God they so desire the presence of but don’t have- - that in their minds they actually Become God. And since they have now become God - - therefore of “God” tells us to do something or believe something- like the tea party platform- - we are in danger of Hell fire and damnation if we don’t do so. Some have pointed out the problem about the Virgin Mary passing on this original sin of Adam to Jesus- - and therefore have said Mary herself was Immaculately Conceived without this original sin, so she could not pass it on to her son. So how do we deal with that? Some people believe in the "trifercation" of Man. People like Roy Masters and Chuck Smith will say that our soul that we got from Adam is very much alive. It's just our Spirits that are dead so if you have not been Born Again then you are like a wild beast in the Savannas of Africa, unable to control your own Beastly instincts. Masters goes so far as to condemn Gospel music as "soulish" because while it makes your "soul" feel good it does nothing for your Spirit, which presumably you can only cultivate by joining Roy Master's foundation for human understanding. Some on channel 40 have gone so far to say that the blood of Jesus won't wipe out certain kinds of sin, such as if some ancestor of yours was involved in some form of witchcraft or occultic activity- - you yourself may be affected in ways you don't even know. Even Neil of KFI gets into the act by saying that "Well you know the consequences of certain acts (like Adam eating the apple) still live on even after your saved and you can't escape things that were set in motion in the past even after you're saved. Therefore they reason that since “the bill will never be due till after your dead” in terms of their own credibility report card- - these Authorities like Newt Gingrich can tell all the lies they want to on God’s credit card- - at least till the bill comes due. And they say if we turn planet earth into a polluted Armageddon- - well maybe some magic hand will swoop down and save- - well “the elect” - - and so “the elect” at least will never have to face accountability. My response to all of this is "Then what the HELL is the point of it all???" In my book we are all responsible for our OWN actions whether or not we had holy water sprinkled on us when we were infants. And that means the Tea Party, too. I also subscribe to the addage of "Morality was made for Human Beings, not Human Beings for Morality" so if some theologian lays some "trip" on you - - about "God's Morality" I say, "God doesn't have any" (Selah)

I wanted to comment just a bit on that metaphysics particle physics thing we did recently - heading up the blog I was just in a few days ago. That’s probably brain strain for some of you. First of all there is a typo where I have splitting “protons” when I clearly meant “splitting photons” and “photons” is the word I use in the rest of the file. But there is an obvious problem with mass verses speed. For instance if a three ton sattalite were to come crashing down on me at 26,000 mph and a few minutes before it hit the earth it lost ALL of its mass- - then it would not MATTER how FAST it was traveling- - period. If it were headed right tword me I could just throw up my hands like volley ball and bounce the thing off my hands. That’s how things with no mass behave. My ONLY reason to describe photons as I did was because of E – M C 2 and all of that. It’s not a rationalization I would have used on my own. Rather, my own inference is that photons DO have naturally occurring mass do to the mechanics of UV flourcence. This is where a light wave of higher energy like UV hits electrons of a molecule and knocks a few electrons into a higher orbit, kind of like a billard ball principle. And after spending a moment or two in a higher atomic shell than normal, the electron comes back down to its normal shell- - but in the process now emits light waves- - but of lower energy or frequency than originally received. I just wanted to clarify that.

Just to add a remark on bloggers new "edit" window, they got rid of font size and centering and font color. I used to use centering a lot. So I don't know what the deal is.

What I've Been Doing - Vol IV

If it's really Vol IV or something maybe I'll change it later. Anyhow this is just a sample of the sort of madness I have to deal with politically all the time with the far right. Although yesterday it kind of reached new heights. I did not watch last night's Republican debate but heard that the dialog there was just about as nutty. There is still stuff I'm leaving out in this pasting that I'll cover later in my personal file. Anyhow I hope you all found us OK.

Ok this is Friday morning December 16, 2011 and since I will probably be pasting this paragraph to [Al Owens] I guess I’ll leave out certain things like that porn site I visited last night. (Just kidding) Anyhow yesterday afternoon I was cold much of the day so I wore my red jacket. It never warmed up much at all. While we were down there they had a thunder storm and the rain was pouring down and the lights dimmed a couple of times. [Pete] was almost fifteen minutes late. I was out there right at 3:30 but Judy ran into phone delays in ordering parts for my new computer so that is quite understandable. It was kind of an Orwellian experience talking with Judy about politics because issue after issue I brought up things I thought we could agree on and every time Judy threw me a curve ball. I mentioned Michelle Bachman wanting to insure the safety of Social Security, and Judy says we don’t need that anyhow because we should save our own money. I mentioned the stock market crash of 2008 and she said “Well, it’s still better than letting the government do it”. Judy almost qualifies as a Chinese embassy spokesman and is very at odds with my own “Economic Nationalism”. She says it’s “unreasonable” not to expect people to export jobs out of America because in her book greed is a part of human nature and is as American as apple pie or something, and to deny this is foolhardy. So she’s against Donald Trump or Mitt Romney saying we should “get tough with China”. She’s not even in favor of “Buy American” for government contracts. She keeps saying nobody dare attack China because they loan us money. Of course I mentioned the whole thing about “some want to level the playing field and envision a world where every worker makes a dollar and a half an hour”. I said “That isn’t America”. All she said was that it was only “good business” to pay a living wage, and therefore labor unions were unnecessary and wrong. I brought up Gingrich’s attack against Romney on his record with buying businesses. Judy just said “Well at least he tried to save businesses- - he just couldn’t always do it”. Yet at the same time they attack Obama for rescuing General Motors successfully. And I said “You realize if one of your guys were elected president the United States would immediately cut government spending by forty percent” and Judy just said “Then we’ll have to live with it”. She even defended the idea of corporate personhood. At Moms I was saying the fourteenth amendment had nothing to do with corporations since that ruling didn’t come till 1886. Judy just said “Well corporations are an extension of property rights so of course it should be legal”. And of course she was in favor of that Canadian pipeline to Texas and says that it’s absurd to think that Americans will ever give up oil consumption and no alternative energy source is viable. She then went into attacks against high speed rail saying there was a conspiracy to restructure America into “urban corridors”. And there was the usual “Obama is a Marxist”. I explained to her how Rush Limbaugh misquoted the President but she didn’t care. Judy even thought it was silly to bring up marital fidelity in a Republican debate. She said “That remark is as irrelivent as point out that Obama is Black”. She also hated the fact that the questions weren’t ultra slanted to the right wing like they were in the other debates. And also she defended that preventative detention portion of the Arms bill where we could be like Russia and throw American citizens into jail without charges. She said “Well you know these terrorists are a whole other category of people”. She then had the audacity to say that the right wing was more humanitarian and compassionate than liberals- - and there was a lot of stuff about liberals secret agenda for eugenics, euthanasia and “eliminating unproductive people from society”. She threw in a plug for giving birth to Mongoloids because “they are really such nice, sweet people”. She talked about Jesus being born poor and says “All Jesus ever did was love people and give, and all the liberals want to do is take”. After practically kneeling at the shrine of money and greed then she said “Actually, Christians care about important stuff- - like the soul- - but all that liberals care about is money and materialism”. And the political zingers just keep on coming. We encountered just a bit of heavy traffics near the turn-off.

So before we even got to Mom’s I was kind of in a state of political disorientation as to just what the hell “drove” drives Judy and [Pete]. The dinner at the Regency was nothing like I envisioned. It was not candle light, there was no entertainment per se (there were briefly carolers) and we didn’t even eat in the dining room but out in the lobby which was packed with noisy people milling around. Pete wanted me to sit at the “head of the table”, which I didn’t want to do, especially after I sat down at this make shift table. There was metal stuff so I couldn’t even put my legs under the table. We had wooden fold out chairs. The service was rather poor. I had to wait forever for even my first cup of coffee, which was rather cold and filled only three-fifths full when I got it. I did get a later refill maybe forty minutes later. The salad was good with balsamic viniger dressings and herbs. The bread was really good and everybody loved it with a heavy crust, which must have been tough for old people to chew. We had an adequate supply of that- and butter- - - once we hounded the staff enough for it. It was hard to hear others at the end of the table. Mom doesn’t talk as loud as she used to and there was a din of people in there. She was across from that 93 year old lady. Mom was the only person who had champaign. That was about the only thing they came around a lot asking about refills. The salmon some had I tried - - but to me it looked and tasted like tuna and not salmon, and I think I know the difference. I don’t think anyone had the chicken floentine with the spinach or whatever. I had the roast beef and it was good. It was tender and pink and almost like prime rib, and had horseradish sauce cut with sour cream. We also had broccoli, wedge cut potatoes, and other vegetables. I wasn’t really filled up. So for desert I got some heavy cream white cake and iced carrot cake, and some chocolate cake I thought was a brownie but not really. Mom had extra chocolate icing so that worked out well putting that on my cake. It was almost six when we left- - and in my mind that was too slow service. We were there almost ninety minutes. We used the east elevator I’d never used before. We went to that old lady’s room to see her cat, which we never saw because it was hiding. The whole place had a musty “cat” smell. She showed us a photo of another cat who died. She wanted us to stay longer but Mom didn’t want to so we made our way back to her place caty-corner across the hall. I forgot to get stamps I needed, and she said I’d gotten a 2012 calendar the last time I was there, but I don’t know where I stashed it. We talked about my smoking and COPD and good “positive” reasons to quit other than avoidance of illness. I actually have been smoking considerably less lately put pointing this out would have seemed argumentative. Pete said very little about himself. Mom didn’t have much of an opinion at all about the debate. Mom gave me Dee’s letter to take home. Gary Johnson’s (I'm not sure) mother died during the year but there was later commentary about “mother Laura’ and I wasn’t sure whom he was referring to. It was Gene Funkhauser's daughter and the kid was turning four. The other kid who is half Black and the one related to us- - Samuel will be turning three in January. Dee uses a very similar style of language to what Uncle Bob used in his letters. There was a lot of talk about going to exotic places in the world. Mom had a show she wanted to watch at eight. I weighed myself and am still nine pounds down from a year ago, but some of that is because her scale registers light. Mom looked great- - in the pink of health. We had some silly argument or something about money and materialism- - because of something I supposedly brought up but I didn’t- - so why were we talking about it?

I wanted to take the out door “scenic rout” like we usually do. It was told out and I estimated 45 deg when asked, but there was no wind and no rain. The road home was smooth and for once we got off at a different spot and drove near the Palm St. house. On the way home Judy talked about business and more taxes and regulations and just how obtrusive the government can be about things like lead in paint- - and even a small businessman gets buried in regulations. So I agree. What she talked about was unreasonable. I told her I was trying to keep a low profile selling coffee because both Dr. Levy and Sarah had told me not to charge for coffee, if I let anybody else have it. I made a pot when I got home at about 8:35 and Donnie asked about my “party” so he knew vaguely where I was. James proved chatty about computers- - so I just listened to the stuff he said. I only had one cigarette the whole rest of the evening, after not having hat once three. I watched “Bones” on FOX for the first time in quite a while but got bored. Bill had gotten back from visiting Olivia for the day. He never announced his leaving. Bill is notorious for not announcing when he is leaving on a major outing.