Checking In

Daylight Savings Time ends tonight and I say it's about a month late.  The weather has been very non discript.  More overcast days than we usually get in the fall.  I still haven't seen that neurologist that I was supposed to have seen over a month ago.  Now they're talking something like December.  I go to Bible studies but Christianity to me is like going through the motions without any real feeling or meaning.  I still intend to elaborate on this one of these days.  I feel vaguely disorganized because I'm not on the right medications.  Here's a few other thoughts from earlier today.

.  Yesterday was the fifth of November or Guy Fawks day.  I was going to do a blog entry because we finally have a story we can sink our teeth into.  All day yesterday we were told that there would be a vote on both infrastructure bills because at long last they had finally come to some agreement.  But late in the day at least Washington time Nancy Pelosi came out with the story that congress would not have a vote on the bill till Thanksgiving.  But then after this we were told that President Biden would be signing a bill today.  It seems the first part of the bill on the basic infrastructure was finally voted out of both houses of congress.  This is a significant victory if it’s true but it’s nothing we wouldn’t have had four or five months ago.  Thom Hartman says the reason why Virginia was lost to the Republicans as far as governor is concerned is that the Democrats didn’t have a program of their own and their candidate was trying to be too moderate.  I read the tea leaves differently.  The democratic governor of New Jersey finally squeaked through when the vote was in doubt for two days.   Overall the news was not good for Democrats.  People are saying that if the republicans win next year they’ll win in 2024..  Yesterday was the fifth of November or Guy Fawks day.  I was going to do a blog entry because we finally have a story we can sink our teeth into.  All day yesterday we were told that there would be a vote on both infrastructure bills because at long last they had finally come to some agreement.  But late in the day at least Washington time Nancy Pelosi came out with the story that congress would not have a vote on the bill till Thanksgiving.  But then after this we were told that President Biden would be signing a bill today.  It seems the first part of the bill on the basic infrastructure was finally voted out of both houses of congress.  This is a significant victory if it’s true but it’s nothing we wouldn’t have had four or five months ago.  Thom Hartman says the reason why Virginia was lost to the Republicans as far as governor is concerned is that the Democrats didn’t have a program of their own and their candidate was trying to be too moderate.  I read the tea leaves differently.  The democratic governor of New Jersey finally squeaked through when the vote was in doubt for two days.   Overall the news was not good for Democrats.  People are saying that if the republicans win next year they’ll win in 2024.

 

Partisan Wrangling in Congress

We've  had a three and a half month hiatus.  A lot has gone on.  The  war in Afghanistan has ended and peole say Joe Biden received advice from his military leaders that he ignored so we had the major disaster of the Talliban taking over.  It took only a few weeks.  Now girls in school are forced to drop out and get married in an arranged marriage and be barefoot and pregnent for the next twenty years.  But the big story now is the national debt and whether we are going to put an end to this endless partisan wrangling.  Both sides think they are right.  Why don't they just pass the trillion and a half dollar infrastructure bill and be done with that and forget the other.  Mc Connel won't extend the debt ceiling untill that bill is off the table and the democrats are like a dog with a bone and won't let go of it.  The debt ceiling was extended till December first and so it's a case of kicking the can down the road.  We don't know how it's going to end.

Meanwhile in other news I've been expelled from my E mail and can't get it back no mater what I do.  I've tried everything but none of Paul's expert friends appear to know any more than I do about it.  I could start over with a fresh account and that looks like what I'll have to do.  Meanwhile I've been trying to see a neurologist because I appear to have some nerve degenerative disease like this rock star on TV who comes out on the stage and appears drunk but it's only his nerves.

I have thoughts about Christianity now but I'll save those till the next posting.  

I think this is the oldest post that we haven't updated.  Today is a belated June-teenth, the new federal holiday where Union troops freed the slaves in Galveston Texas on June 19th 1865.  I am surprised them accepted this holiday so quickly.  The vote was unanamus.  In other news we may get to in detail later is the trip President Biden took to Europe.  First he went to England to visit the Queen, then he went to Brussels to attend a G7 and NATO conference and then to Geneva to meet with Putin.  I guess he covered all the bases with Putin.  I hope Putin didn't just walk over him

This is the first day of summer which starts 8:32 PM tonight.  I heard one report that said it was in the morning so I looked it up.  Today is Fathers Day and Leo has been playing a lot of Fathers Day songs on his show as bumper music.  Breakfast with the Beatles was on at nine and they were plying titles with “Boy” in them and songs with “Mister” in the titles.  I’ve had bowel problems this morning.  I’m trying to get away from the pills.  But when I visit the toilet every hour or more I know it’s time.  I realized I had no appetite when I sat down to lunch today.  I got iced tea and milk as a buffer and canned apples I didn’t touch.  The main course was scheduled to be shepherd’s pie made with tater tots and peas and carrots.  I just got up and left.  I later had a package of Lay’s potato chips out of the machine and just now just before two I went to the store and got a Honey Bun, which I ate, and an apple Danish I’ve saving for later.  The space guy wasn’t on Leos show today.  But Chris Marquart the photography guy was.  Today he was talking about photographing stars.  You can’t expose too long or the earth will move.  I was drowsy in the morning but the coffee and then the tea now leaves me hyper.   I shaved during Leo and I was so tired I sat down on the bed so I could catch Leo. 

    I went for a diaria pill before going to the store.  I ran into Elizabeth and asked about her pre cancerous lip and nose.  She’s getting radiation for them.  I also asked about her back pain.  I got a package of graham crackers from the snack tray.  In the pre dawn yesterday I paid Chris the ten dollars we both agreed on that I owed him.  The LA Clippers are playing the Phoenix Suns today at one.  They used to black out round three of the play-offs.   Channel seven is still possible to get if you move your chair in exactly the right place.

I got some of my clothes back from three and a half months ago last Tuesday.  I am hoping to get more of  them back when I asked Leah, who knows that the majority of the clothes I did get back weren't mine.  Maybe I can runnage back there myself.  This is all I had to say right now.  I am hoping the next blog entry will be longer.  I'm feeling disorganized still.  

The Element of the Demonic

Democracy is on the line just like Stephanie and the Mooks say.   2020 is the year we either save or lose our democracy.   Democracy and fair voting seem to be completely alien terms to President Trump, just as law and justice are.   He got rid of Vitman and his twin brother and also Sonland.  He pardons the law breakers and he disparages honorable people who do things on principle like Romney.  People are blinded by the glair of Trump’s bigotry because it appeals to the inner ID of some of them.  Some people are genuinely deluded.   Yesterday for the first time in a long time that there might be an element of the demonic in president Trump.  I am hesident now to raise the possibility of the demonic element because it implies a demonic “realm”, and then the question also arises of a “supernatural” element.   I see this as the coward’s way out of a very human failing, that people can be genuinely fooled and deluded on their own, out of the disfunction of their own minds, with no necessity of the element of the demonic.  Ruth Montgomery used to talk about “Walk ins” back in the ‘eighties, where people just took over other people’s lives.  These “souls” that took over weren’t necessarily demonic or supernatural, at least as far as my understanding is concerned.  Democrats said for months that Donald Trump had no intention of assuming the office of President even if he won.  They said he was doing it just for the publicity.  It could be that the “old Trump” they knew had no ambition that way.  He was content just to be a gad fly and puntster.   He had his women and his money after all to keep him warm at night.  But for those who was the situation from the point of view of the book of Revelation- - - are, or were, looking for some Messiah figure to take over and run the world.  We have spoken of dominion theology where this idea is front and center.  Nobody is talking about any antichrist figure now, and fundamentalists haven’t raised the issue for a long time.  The further aspect of my conspiracy theory is that some of THEM are ALSO “walk ins” or perhaps out and out demonic.  It’s a lot easier to get a job done if you’ve greased the skids a little with some “help from the inside” or maybe that’s “outside”.  Outside the natural realm.  But like I say the question arises, where does this “outside realm” or “supernatural realm” fall in as far as being an original part of Creation otherwise known as the Big Bang.  I had this all mapped out in my mind but this supernatural hocus pocus doesn’t seem to fit in with any of it.  We see demons as people who are at least a little bit insane and highly charismatic with a “demonic” aura about them.  But they don’t necessarily have to be hanging on the slim edge of sanity or talking gibberish or even backwards or vomiting up pea soup every few minutes.  The Exorcist should not be our model.  These people can and do appear perfectly normal.  On the soap opera I watch, Days of our Lives, you have just two, two people who are not who they appear to be.  If you have two people in the right sensitive position they are in a place where they can do a lot of damage they could not otherwise possibly cause.   Gina and Stephano occupied other bodies and we are supposed to assume that “Dr Rolf” has the technology to do that.  Maybe Satan has the technology to pull it off.  Insert well placed people in key positions of influence.  Then logically you have to assume a couple of other things.  That Satan has “a master plan” and the ability, we know not how, to actually pull it off.   When it comes to Born Again Christianity I will quote you the proverb, “You shall know the tree by its fruit”.  You don’t see the fruit of a tree for years and years.  Yet the seeds of the bad fruit were always there.  We just didn’t see it.  (Selah)

Question:  Will the meek really inheret the earth?  This raises all sorts of questions.
Below we discuss "But what kind of a heavenly body will we have?

We used to talk ages ago about the Sea of Green, which was sort of a demonic realm where thoughts were things and you could “see” people’s auras, their “life force”.  This “life force” or soul or whatever, would not be something that you can measure but rather something that continually eludes science as far as pinning it down to any lab experiment.  This demonic realm does not fit into my multi fifth dimensional model of the Big Bang, because no matter how many Universes were created under this model, they all have a common Architect or creator.    Many people believe there is traditional physicality in Heaven.  The book of Revelation implies this.  Walter Martin believed that Jesus was in his newly resurrected physical body when he appeared to his disciples on Easter night.  It was a body of flash and bone.  According to Walter Martin “Flesh and blood cannot inheret the kingdom of heaven, but flesh and bone can”.   We talked a month or so ago about a possible sixth dimensional universe that could be divided into three demonsions of one “space” and three dimensions of another “space” without overlapping any of the dimensions.   If you had just five dimensions these realms would overlap on one dimension like a line.  If you had just four dimensions they would overlap in two dimensions like a giant plane.   Psychics are always talking about “planes” after all.   But if you had merely a three dimensional body, to take Walter Martin literally at this point, then you could only occupy three dimensions at once, and not six.  That would be impossible.  It would be like a two dimensional photograph of yourself occupying the space in a whole room.  Walter says that Jesus “did not go through walls” when he appeared to his disciples but rather he “switched dimensions on them”.    Could a plane be what they call a “portal” in Science Fiction?  Was Jesus near such a “portal” or did he have the ability to generate a portal wherever he wanted to?  These are questions to think about. 

The New Hampshire Primary

It wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to get numbers on New Hampshire.  Last night they broke in at eight but said little.  Then they had the Conner’s on.   In the early results Bernie was the clear winner and Budagieg and Klovichar were tied for second and third.  But Budajieg advanced and Klovichar fell back.  The final results were Bernie Sanders 25% and Budagieg was 24%.  So Sanders was denied a decisive victory like he had four years ago.  Any Klovichar was in a respectable third at nineteen percent.   Elizabeth Warren was in at nine and something percent and Biden came in fifty place at eight percent.   He didn’t stick around to see the disaster but headed for South Carolina where the Blacks will presumable bail him out.  Nevada has its caucus in February 22^nd and South Carolina votes on February 29^th, only a few days before super Tuesday, which is on March third, which will give us a much clearer picture as to the way things will shape up.  It could be that Klovichar and Budagieg will combine to give a solid moderate vote, as the agrigage progressive vote of Warren and Sanders appears to be fading.  Last night they had the BBC covering the race but they wouldn’t give us hard numbers at six PM but instead flapped their lips in commentary.   They wouldn’t cover live speeches and I’m still trying to get Sanders’ speech, or even Pete’s speech.   Blacks don’t like Pete because of his mayoral record in firing a Black police chief and also because of the gay thing.  Blacks go to church, after all and still have “traditional American values” in this one area.  They’re social conservatives.  We really do need to listen to Bernie Sanders’ speech like we did in 2016, because that’s how he got so popular to begin with.  By far Bernie has the best "roots" of protest demonstrations going back to the sixties.  He has the credentials and the experiance.  There are times when you need to draw the battle lines clearly and spell them out to the American public.   I think once he is the nominee his momentum will only build.   Nobody listens to what the President says anyhow so I'm not worried on that count.  People know what Bernie means when he says that he's a democratic socialist.  He beat Donald Trump by more than Hillary did and we need to insure that Bernie still has the pulling power that he did back then.  He needs to remind us that he intends to go after the drug and insurance companies and break up the big Wall Street banks. 

Juaquin Phoenix kind of stole my thunder the other night when he began talking about exploitation of lesser groups of human beings and the exploitation of animals.   There are two things in my recent Jesus story that I report that Jesus never actually did.  One was to participate in a sabbath service and the other was to make a speech warning of exploitation of lesser groups of human beings and the exploitation of animals.  Nowhere in the Bible does it say Jesus did either of these things.  The closert we have is the parable of the good Sameritan, where rendering aid to the injured is praised.  Some say that Jesus was pro gay and pro abortion and anti capital punishment.  We have no basis to believe Jesus was any of these things.  But this exploitation by the strong over the weak seems an omission that a lot of us can't get past.  The idea of being a victim or being occupied militarily is simply not a concept that Jesus related to.   In terns of drinking milk or consuming dairy products, people thinking of becoming a vegetarian are going to lean on dairy products and eggs for the needed protien.  To give up in one fell swoop, meat, eggs and dairy products is simply a bridge too far.  But gradually with all of this fake plant based meat out there, the market will decide who wins in the end.  It could be that it may be no more morally fashionable to eat meat in fifty years than it is to smoke cigarettes now.  Only time will tell.  

Four Topics

“Doctor” Trump has now announced that the Corona virus will be gone by April because the weather gets warmer then and the virus can’t survive.  That’s a pretty big leap of faith.  But for now 97 people were killed by the virus in the past few days and now this virus is more deadly than the SARS virus that struck in 2002.  People at March Air Force base have been quarenined the last two weeks and no cases have shown up and they are scheduled to be released today after a final physician’s exam.  The virus has been the occasion for new regulations of governments around the world as far as procedure for quarantining is concerned.  We seem to be doing a pretty good job of keeping  the virus in check in this country and we’re pretty virus free here.  Even in the entire  country there are very few virus outbreaks, under twenty.  It could always get worse but maybe not.  

According to the Thom Hartman school of economics if they suddenly cut the payroll tax to zero and you owed nothing in either FICA or wages, that employers would cut your salary by that much.  So if you worked for Mc Donald’s for twelve dollars an hour they might but it to nine or something.  Hartman says it’s all a question of what the employee is willing to work for.   I submit rather that it’s all how much am employer is willing to pay you.  If you regularly had your lawn mowed for twenty dollars each week you wouldn’t cut it to seventeen simply because your taxes went down by fifteen percent.  I’ve done enough accounting to know that it’s gross pay that counts.  This is your salary expense.   So I actually agree with Norquist of all people.  But there was this guy with the southern twang who called the show.  And he said even if what Hartman claimed were true, there would be more money for the employer to work with and if he cut your pay he’d go out and create more job positions perhaps by expanding his hours or something, so his business could make more money.  That southern guy was right.   But let me explain where Thom Hartman may have gotten his idea.  During the Clinton administration we were on an economic up cycle.  The "market" for wages was going up as it does as an up cycle advances.  Clinton took advantage of this up cycle when he raised taxes to bring more money into the treasury.   There was a trend but the causal link isn't what Hartman thought it was.  Likewise during the early years of the "W" administration in the early two thousands, from mid 2001 in fact, we were into a "down" economic cycle.  Cutting taxes did no good because we were in a pre-set economic down cycle.  Who is to say what causes these  cycles?  Maybe it's astrology.  At any rate it appeared to Tom that people were willing to work for less because their taxes were being cut.  I will say that tax cuts benefit the rich a whole lot more because we're talking about usually a larger percentage cut for the rich and a whole lot more cash. 

Joe wanted to watch the entire academy awards.  Otherwise I would have had more news on.  I completely missed Sixty Minutes.   The academy awards began promptly at five with a Black woman singing “Will You Be My Neighbor?”   There appeared to be no growing trend for one particular Best Picture.  They wanted to go out of their way to honor women.  The conducter who did all of the movie scores for us was a woman.  Kobe Bryant’s name was mentioned.  The show lasted till just past eight thirty.   Juaquin Phoenix gave a long speech on the exploitation of lower classes of people and also the exploitation of dairy cows.   The other last two awards also took a lot of time.  Jane Fonda put in an appearance wearing some “old lady” wig.   Jane Fonda is still actively involved in protests.  I didn’t have reception problems with any television station yesterday.   That’s an accomplishment. There was no official host.  “1917” won for overall sound and also cinemicrography.  “Paracite” is a Korean language movie and it scored Best Picture as well as best foreign film.  Juaquin Phoenix was best actor or “Joker”.   The best director was for “Paracite”.     The best score was for “Joker”.   Elton John got the best song for Rocket Man.  “1917” won for best visual effects.  Sar Wars didn’t win anything.  The best actress was the one who did the Judy Garland movie, who didn’t even look like her. 

The debate came on right at five.  There was a lot of unity with the democratic candidates expressing support for each other when needed.  Joe Biden kept using the pronoun “I” a lot saying everything legislatively that he personally got accomplished.  Yang was among them and he wants to give Blacks a thousand dollars as reperations.  Stires was there and he was the most progressively outspoken defending Blacks and attacking Trump and he too talked about reperations for Black people because they have only a tenth of the household wealth of white people.  Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders held their own.  Amy Clovichar talked about how poor her upbringing was and she’s one of the few non millionaires up there.   Budajudge wasn’t very impressive, and one of these days I’ll spell his name right.  I watched the debate on KABC till ten after seven and  for their second break I went out and smoked and got my medication.  Then I turned on Two and a Half Men briefly.  I switched back and Stires was just wrapping up his summation statement and he was the last one.  It was seven thirty.  Then in time I watched CSI Miami till nine.  Joe said turn off the TV but I was already half asleep.

The Butter Churn and the Coffee Grinder

Brother Bart made it here for Bible Study.  It was mostly old ladies in wheel chairs.  We sang a few hymns and Antwenette our prayer warrior opened with a prayer.  Bart talked about three stories.  The first was called “Pardoned” the second was called “Cool as a Cucumber” and the third was called “The Butter Churn and the Coffee Grinder”.   The first story was about a man that was going to be hanged for stealing Federal mail in 1831.   The man refused the pardon, seemingly on the moral principle of it.  I propose a new beattitude.  "Blessed is the man who refuses a pardon.  For he shall go down to his grave with a clear conscience.    Cucumbers really are ten degrees cooler on the inside than they are on the outside.   Coffee grinders are only good if you've got good coffee beans to begin with.  You know, hand raised by Juan Valdez that are cultivated and nurtured with care and then properly cured for peak flavor.  You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, which is what the story would have you believe.   You don't take a process in God's tootelage that was meant for another person and try to apply it to yourself.    As to the butter churn, this is to explain the whippings and beatings some of us appear to get from God.  Maybe a little bit of whipping will give you whipped cream, if you put sugar and vanilla flavoring in it to make it taste good.  But this story indicates that too much whipping (from God) can be self-defeating.  In my oppinion. The study ran till about twenty after three.  (It got a late start)  I was the first to leave.  I went for a smoke and to watch the ABC network news.   We had a hot dog with all of the trimmings for dinner including coleslaw.  Then I got in line for seconds along with Patty, but the line wasn’t moving.  Then a lady with extra plates came and gave me a whole new plate so I got to the table ahead of Patty. 

At 6:03 already President Trump was in the Capitol building shaking hands.  He decided to be on time.  The speech itself lasted an hour and twenty minutes.  It began at six after six and went to about 7:26.  The speech would be a “ten” given the caviat that any of it is true.  I know a lot of things weren’t true, but the media pointed very few things out.  The one was that we’ve been in a steady economic recovery since mid 2009 but you’d think from listening to the president that we only had a good economy after he took office.  His administration has seen the lowest average unemployment of any presidential administration in history.  And in this he may be correct.  I don’t know about Calvin Coolege.  He got the loudest applause when he talked about deporting immigrants at the border and kicking people off food stamps and welfare.  He got quitter applause when he talked about how economically well the lower classes are doing now.  I don’t believe the increase in the lower fifty percent income salaries is greater than for the one percent.  He bragged about so much you lost track of it.  He had so many guests.  It was like a reality show, like an episode of Oprah Winfrey.  He had Rush Limbaugh on and mentioned his virtual death sentence with his lung cancer.  He gave him the medal of freedom award.  It took him a long time to get to Mideast affairs.  He ended his speech with some lofty lines.  He spoke of health care as though he were all for it.  He spoke of private school vouchers as a good thing and “failed government schools” as something children should seek to avoid.  The democratic response was weak.  It was already underway when I got back from my cigarette.  Coverage ended right at eight.  Then I had  KTLA on.  I guess it was an episode of the Flash.  It was one of these shows where they have multiple universes and there is massive death.   I started to doze off and roused at 9:07 and then went to bed.   Trump spoke of freedom of religion. . 

They broke in at two minutes to two to talk about the Iowa caucus results they had been having trouble with compiling.  It was a computer coding error in an application.  The results are that Budajudge came in first at 27% and Bernie Sanders was close behind at 25%.  Then there was Elizabeth Warren in at eighteen and Joe Biden coming in fourth at sixteen.  And finally we have Amy Clovichar in at thirteen percent, with 62% of the votes counted.   All Monday night I kept checking the TV stations to see is any votes were in and there weren’t.  The demise of Joe Biden is something I’m making note of.  Because I had thought of voting for Joe Biden but clearly the voters have indicated he isn’t as electable as we all thought.   [late note]   The democratic debate is tonight in New Hampshire with seven candidates.   Budajudge is still first by a small margin and Sanders is in at second in New Hampshire as well as Iowa.  Now we know who the chief leaders in the race are.  

.   Augustine came to the table and said he would finally get to our room this morning.   It wasn’t that much later after that that Augustine showed up in the room while I was out smoking and was actually fixing the closet pole.  He needed a new pole beause he said that the other one was too short.  After he finished he mentioned the bag of clothes.  I fished out a plaid jacket thing and also a tan short but I threw in the frayed tan long sleeped heavy shirt.  I told the housekeeper to take it today but she didn’t.  Augustine mentioned the emergence of bugs in the bed, but the housekeeper didn’t mention it.  I was afraid she would.  [slight break in sentence flow].  I was worried that I might have a dental appointment today but I waited till after nine when the dentist’s office was open and then I called Autumn and asked her if my authorization had come through.  She said that it would be another two weeks.  They have been running a day ahead of schedule in their cleaning schedule.  Our housekeeper showed up about 9:25 and said right off that she’d be taking a break.  I came back later and she was still in the room so I went and sat in the big room.   Our black and white kitty has been having sex repeatedly with that ugly brown cat.  At one point Augustine ran them both off with a broom handle when they were copulating in the fenced in area.  Now the kitty will be history because they won’t allow a kitten litter around here.  We know that from experience.  I returned a little before lunch and he housekeeper put a thin bedspread on my bed.  I checked and the blanket is also thinner.  That’s what I need the blue blanket for.