Playing By the Rules

Here are some debaters Cliff notes if you will to help the Democrats prepare for what lies ahead.  I didn’t steal them from the other side.  They are just issues and responses a well prepared debater should be aware of.  Lets take Bill Clinton’s statement about “Vote for the democrats in 2010 and if you don’t like what we do in two years, you can throw us all out and vote Republican”.  The question was raised “So it’s two years later so why shouldn’t we take Clinton’s advice and throw the Democrats out?”  Simple.  The Democrats were NOT VOTED IN on that election but the tea party has been running the poop deck for these two years blocking needed legislation.  To say that “Obama is all talk and no results” another repeated charge.  The response here is “There are all sorts of jobs bills and trade bills that the Republicans won’t even allow to come to the floor, or if they are they are filibustered and never brought to a vote”.  Obama has done everything he can but only Congress appoints funds.  And where the president CAN take action- - like on the Race and immigrant thing- - Mc Cain criticizes him for that calling it an “unprecedented grab for presidential power”.  Again this is an untruth.  How many out there remember George W Bush for his famous “signing statements’ where he publicly said he would NOT enforce certain aspects of laws passed by his own congress.  I never knew that Mc Cain – Feingold was passed on Bush’s watch, but now I know Mitch Mc Conell fought it.  I guess it passed over Bush’s veto.  And now Romney is playing a different game - - the old famous “Me too” or “Why was I left out?” game.  Now Romney raised this “Temporary fix” line verses a “real permanent solution” like, they have also used on jobs.  You’d never know from this line of Romney that he ever opposed the Dream Act.  And you have to note his words carefully.  Romney said he wanted a real Solution or “Final Solution” to this immigrant problem, if you will, like the Pharicees wanted a “More permanent solution to their problem” with Jesus Christ or Hitler wanted a more permanent problem with the Jews.  Oops!  There’s my first Nazi allusion of the day.  To think that Mitt Romney is sweetness and light on this whole student visa question- - is silly, with or without Rubio.  Of course another thing Bush talked about was this whole “nuclear option” in congress, for ramming bills through that body that were being held up.  I’ve never heard anyone in the past four years discuss the ‘Nuclear option”.  Then you have people saying that “With Obama it’s the same old thing relying on higher taxes and increased beaurocies as a solution to the unemployment problem, and that’s what you’ll just get four more years of voting for Obama”.  The average yahoo hearing that might just be Forest Gump STUPID enough to fall for that line.  There are an awful lot of Simple Minded voters out there, and I use that term in its offensive context.  President Obama hasn’t raised any taxes.  And besides wanting more police and firefighters and school teachers is not what I call “beaurocracy” and in that the devil, Scott Walker himself, doesn’t regard these workers as “part of the beaurocracy”.  Besides, Ronald Reagan was the one who started the whole class warfare thing.  As Pat Buchannon said last night- - wages have been stagnant or falling for the middle class ever since late 1973 when the 1974 “energy crisis” recession started.  So we never really recovered from that.  But it’s been worse the past thirty years.  Reagan CUT taxes for the rich but then turned around and RAISED taxes several times- - for the rest of us.  And yet the Reagan myth lives on.  I wanted to mention this rant Mc Cain went on in 2008 about Mitt Romney when he wasn’t afraid to tell the Truth about Romney in that campaign.  The key factor here is that Romney HAS faced these issues before- - in the person of Mc Cain- - who spelled it out for the Voters of America.  And here’s the KEY thing Mc Cain left out today.  His was a WINNING campaign.  It wasn’t “just something I said’.  It’s “Something he said’ that the American people took to Heart and actually Endorsed.  So I think Mc Cain is stuck with- - the fact that he told the Truth about who Mitt Romney was in 2008 concerning Bain Capital and Massachusetts.

The thing that got most notice by me was the line of “Republicans now believe they can win, but the Democrats believe they can lose”.  

I watched the Mc Laughlin group last evening.  Eleanor Clift said that she attended some symposium or whatever of independants.  They said that nine of the twelve voted for Obama last time but now only three of those same twelve could even consider voting for the President this time.  The President has a severe confidence gap.  People say that this President is risk averse and it’s been a pervasive part of the President’s personality his whole life.  In general Great leaders are ones who take Risks to reveal their greatness.  The President isn’t stepping up to the plate in Syria and is letting Assad rule the day no matter how many innocent people he kills or how oppressive his regeme is.  I think it was Pat who said that controlling Syria would also have a constraining impact on Iran because Syria and Iran are such allies now.  I think Pat and I are in agreement that we need some kind of substantive help in dealing with the economic abuses of China.  Pat says that the West as we know it, is in permanent Decline, and Pat just sees no way we are ever going to pull out of it, but like Rome were on a continued downward course.  And I guess I am getting a little tired of hearing how “Everybody agrees this will be a close election” because of what I said thatThere was a thing on how racism influenced the Presidential race of 2008 causing President Obama a loss of 4% to 6% of the vote that he would have otherwise gotten. So whatever margin he has- he's going to have to shave some of that.  And this President would have won by more in 2008 were it not for N---- word searches reveling the pervasive racism still in so many places in the Unites States.


I’m going to talk about Meet the Press and what was discussed on today’s show but first my attention was flagged by something Neil Savedra said at the end of his show today.  He says “We all know we have to play by the rules but the thing is if nobody else plays by the rules then I don’t see why your daughter should”.  I think this remark was made, of all things, about homosexual indoctrination in the school system.  I think there are times when you STOP playing by the rules and that is when the GAME has become utterly pointless, and Christianity certainly is such a GAME where few people actually care about playing by the rules.  Neil, alias Jesus referred to “portrates of Me in church with my bloody, crucified body” as being traumatic to little kids, but goes on to say “And yet we think it’s traumatic for our young children to be exposed to certain aspects of sexuality”.  I believe there are times when we Should stick by “the rules” regardless of whether ANYBODY else is doing them or not.  For instance I would not want to be a self obsessed egomaniac like most Christian preachers.  I just don’t think I’d ever “get off” on using and manipulating people the way they do because frankly I just have too much respect for the intelligence and dignity of the individual for that.  It’s silly for example to adopt a “No tollarence” policy to someone you are Witnessing too about Christ- - as far as what conduct personally you will Allow from them- - - when in the same “set of individuals” are multi millionaires why buy and corrupt elections, and people who have gone through multiple marriages each of questionable circumstances, or people who run big gambling casinos, or whose primary allegence is to another country other than the USA.  Dr. Levy says he doesn’t like Donald Trump, but in my book TRUMP is the LEAST offensive one of these big whig right wing rich.  Being “Secretive about giving’ is no virtue when you’re a milti-billionaire.  People said they liked Sheldon Adelson because he was “unassuming” unlike Trump.  To me I’d rather prepare for the tiger in the jungle, rather than the snake in the grass that’s at my feet and I know nothing about but I know he’s going to give me a lethal bite, with no defense on my part.


In other news that mystery space shuttle returned to earth yesterday after a multi-year mission into space doing some kind of secret research.  A stage in Torranto collapsed just before Radio Head was scheduled to perform and now the promoters were telling the people the concert is canceled.  There was a pilot in a small plane doing accrobatic stunts till he lost control of the plane and crashed, but somehow was able to walk away from the crash.  That that Nick Voollenta or whatever famous heir to the circus family making his great grandfather proud, crossed Niagara Falls the other night walking a tight rope.  Amazing.  He did extensive practicing for the stunt and did wear a safety harnes, which he normally doesn't like doing.  It took some time to even secure permission from both governments.  They had him miked or whatever and we all agree how how he seemed to be so at peace walking accross commenting like a tour guide or something.   Eye Witness News has a revamped application for your I phone you can buy now.  I'm kind of assuming you can't get all that stuff for free or they would have made that part clearer.  This should be the last posting I do in this blog for a while.  I haven't reviewed a lot of my recent postings and I need to do that just to see where I've been, so I'll know better where I want to be going.

What "Rationalization" Really Is

First I'd like to refer to the Response to the President's Weekly Address on KNX 1070.  It was the devil himself, Scott Walker who spoke.  The message was brief talking about how all the signers of the Declaration of Indeendance pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to enact the document and in this I agree.  You will remember that it was England who was "big international business" back them with the British tea company and all.  It's been pointed out that the middle sized business men here be it the Insurance business or whatever was small potatoes compared to the Landed Gentry of the Empire, with generations of inhereted wealth, and we didn't want to duplicate the same thing here.  Scott Walker claims that his predecessor ran up a big deficet as Governor of Wisconson but he was the big hero entirely wiping out that deficet and now they have a budget surplus and also that the Unemployment figure of the State fell in the last year and a half from just over 9% to just over 7%.  Unfortunately those on the left strongly dispute these figures on both counts.  They say both figures are bogus.  They say that the deficet is as bad now in the state as it ever was if not worse, and Walker's biging tax breaks to big corporations and such actually made the deficets worse creating the need for all these draconian budget cuts and union busting activity, and that even today the state hasn't created jobs and they still have a budget problem.  They say you're entitled to your own oppinion but not your own Facts.  I don't know who is right here any more than I know who is right on the whole gay parents and kids issue.  It's strictly a matter at this point of "He said - She said".

In the Jerry Sandusky sexual molestation trial, now the prosecution has rested and they are taking a three day weekend.  Of course the House of Representatives is taking a two week recess in the light of all sorts of unfinished business so I guess "Taking Care of Business" should be someone's motto.  "Get Your Business Done" was the slogan of a "The Middle" gospell revival program a few weeks ago.  It's a good one.  And nobody likes their Business played around with by even an authority figure- - and that includes psychiatrists who are constantly messing around in people's lives and "business" where they know nothing about it- and any oppinion they render will only cause more Damage.  So it is in the Sandusky trial where the Decence in planning a major hatchet job on those young boys, who are now grown up and can fight for themselves, at last.  The defence is going to put on doctors, psychiatrists saying the boys suffered from "Hysterionics" and that this type of "Hysterionic" personality is one prone to major swings of emotion where they view things radically different day to day, and this type of hysterionic personality "lures older adults through their constant sexual alluring and seduction" and the like.  I don't know, the defense of adultry of "I couldn't help myself- - I was seduced and powerless to resist" won't work there as a divorce defense.  How much less will it work here where you have a grown man claiming to be "seduced" by teenage boys.  It's an insult to the human race to even put forth such an obscenity of a proposition, yet there is no depth to which this Defense apparently will not stoop.  At least as strident as Johnny Cochrin was in OJ's defense, there are certain lines which he would not cross, and these included personal attacks on the Brown and Goldman families, which others to follow weren't so scrupulus about.  This is rationalization carried to a truely sicko dimension.

As you may or may not know today is Saturday June 16th. and it's the fifth anniversary of my prediction of "The end of the world" forty one years ago in June 16th, 2007.  On this date as you know was I believe the very last time all five members or the nuclear family- - - and actually without the in-law wives, were all together in my parent's house in Laguna Hills back when my Dad was living at home after what they had said were "seven emergency trips to the hospital" for digestive and fainting and other crises.  My brother Al for one tried to exhort my Dad to straighten up and fly right and lay off the anti-depressent medication such as prozac, now mixed once again with vodka or something- - because he anticipated 'Having you around for quite a few more years".  That didn't happen.  As with me as you know my Dad built up this WALL that he'd been constructing since at least early 1967 that was "shutting down all emotional involvement" with me.  Perhaps inwardly even more than overtly.  One could rationalize it but the truth of it remains.  In the end "God stepped in and eliminating the conflict" by eliminating my Dad from breathing air on this Planet, which came in late September of 2007.  I guess tomorrow being Fathers Day made me naturally think of this stuff.  But we have other things hard to rationalize away like the rift between me and my Uncle.  In one of our last interactions at Mimi's resturant in November of 2009, I complained about not having any money and my uncle says "Oh that's wonderful not having to worry about Money" missing my whole point.  Being robbed of Money, just as being robbed of a gainful occupation, robs a human being of Dignity.  He just didn't "Get" it.  I first noticed the problem with this Uncle back in late 1987 when my parents still lived in the house I grew up in.  That Bosc roommate had just burned a lot of my books in a bond fire on the patio which set up a rift between me and many Born Again Christians.  Ironically I was actually reading MORE books about Faith and Christianity in 1988, perhaps to "take my own temperature' or try and rationalize my "problem" away.  But I was thinking how a psychologist might say to me "Well, your uncle felt threatened because you know any Christian feels threatened when dealing with weak or oppressed or troubled people.  To protect themselves they put up walls".  But here again whether it's true or not or justified if they do it or not, the point is that a Shrink will always come up with these sort of "rationalizing" explanations to Anything.  When I talked about The Asshole from El Paso - - to Eileen my therapist in the summer of 2000, she kept saying all these things to Defend the reverand, much as Sandusky is being defended.  She'd say things like "Well I'm sure this Pastor cares about you but he's probably trying to protect you from something".  It's a strange line and I never knew what she meant by it.  So often shrinks will come at their job with the meme of "The patient is Always Wrong" and will to go any lengths to defend the Credibility of Anybody the Patient brings up - - except the Patient.  The very idea that the Patient may be the one viewing things Objectively seems utterly behind their power to conceive of.  You know how all these people around here are perpetually out of cigarettes all the time.  It dawned on me one day that they are "Walking advertisements for the notion of Never get in a position like they are- - to be cut off from cigarettes".  Because they only reinforce the idea that going without tobacco somehow de-toxifies your body and eliminates the craving for nicotine.  Their very presence reinforces the notion that "You don't want to be like them" trolling through ash trays searching for a butt with something still on it.  Of course Judy would say in response to this that "Well- - the solution is to get away from the smoking culture entirely because visual cues foster addiction".  People said the SAME thing to me with alcohol and it was kind of wrong then - - too.  Once I got off the physical dependance, I could live next to a liquor store and have money to spend any time on liquor, and NOT be tempted to buy alcohol.  So don't give me this psychological crap- - - it won't wash.

In other news it seems they have just "Given Up" on Syria.  The "Solution" the UN has come up with on Syria is to just pull out all their observers and throw up your hands and call the battle for peace Lost- - and that ends it.  So we said the World would take several weeks to decide to intervene but eventually eventually NATO troops would.  Now a month after I made this statement, it seems I was too optimistic, because NATO apparently doesn't care how many innocent Syrians or other people get butchered by Assad's regeme.  In Egypt they are holding an election between a Mubarek guy and a Moslem Brotherhood guy, with nobody representing the view of the protestors of last year who want freedom.  Given that choice at this point I guess I'd go for the Mubarek guy because at least that's "The Devil We Know".  Clearly the regene in power now is MORE oppressive to the people than Mubarek ever was.  We'll cross our fingers and hope someone decent gets elected in Egypt to at least try and help with mideast stability.  In Greece they are holding another election on the economy or something.  I think they should pull out of the European Economic Community and go it alone.  Portugal, Italy, Greece, and Span or P I G S, all have their problems now that aren't going away.  This whole "austerity" policy doesn't seem to be serving them well.  As some liberal said "No government ever CUT it's way to prosperity".  Also the adage is true that "You have to Spend money to Make money" and Franklin Roosevelt certainly knew this Truth.  I just wish the Tea Party people would learn it today.

How "Free Speech" is Really in Jeopardy

                              

Senator Mitch Mc Conell gave a speech today on preserving first amendment rights.  He points out that Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from the Citizens United decision, but only to stake out a more extreme position.  I’m relieved Clarence Thomas even knows how to string two sentences together.  You’d never know it from his “refusal to deliberate” at hearings.  But the idea is that it’s a violation of Free Speech to have to disclose your sources or money or who gave it because back in the Civil Rights era often people who filed complaints were found out and terrorized- - not that Mc Conell is necessarily a champion of any civil rights.  But the idea that money is “speech” is absurd any more than flag burning or women going around topless is “free speech”.  I argued in college papers back in the seventies that it’s verbal speech of a political or advocational nature that is protected-  and not this other stuff.  Mitch Mc Conell even said that the Socialist party was specificly exempted from such disclosure laws.  If so I disagree with that.  I disagree even with not showing the Juror’s faces in the OJ trial because the constitution says “Public Trial” and they didn’t have TV back then.  This meant you were to attend in person and you actually saw the jury- - they didn’t have masks over their heads- - unless they were members of the KKK or something.  I’m also aware that many apartment managers will tell a tenant that “I’ve gotten a complaint about you- - “ but when will refuse to disclose who.  Some “Somebody” out there.  It takes no courage at all to be a flame thrower and make an accusation and then hide.  I think there is the inherent right that the speaker by Known by whom he is addressing.  Well now we jump to the Bill Mar show last Friday where this former Romney aid, Rob Gray, admitted that they all met last week to agree to block the Transportation bill in particular and give this President absolutely nothing of what he wants.  Rush Limbaugh affirmed his position stated a few days BEFORE the President was sworn into office that he hopes this President fails. The facts are that this same Transportation bill passed in the Senate with a 74% vote, which sounds like a mandate to me.  But though Barbra Boxer and also someone from the right, Inhoff, personally presented this bill to John Boehner (when they had searched enough bars) that John Boehner said “They can just suffer” referring to all the construction people who will be let go when the current authorization ends.  One million construction workers will lose their jobs on July first if this bill isn’t passed, and the House is going on vacation for two weeks.  This bill would add Three Million construction and transportation jobs in all and would lower unemployment significantly.  The Construction industry is the weakest sector as far as job recovery is concerned.  Rush Limbaugh has said that public sector employment such as police and fire or whatever “are not real jobs”.  They look pretty real to the people who have them because they have the money to patronize other business with and they make money, too.  Some have wondered why a very rich person would voluntarily forgo a return on his money that could be put into circulation- “since money is the only language they speak” they argue.  But the liberals would argue it’s kind of a case of a deferred gratification.  A young person might well argue that landing a job right now without a college education would be smart because he wouldn’t have to go into debt and all, but he has the sense of “a big pay-off later”.

President Obama in what even I admit is a brilliant political move, with an executive order, insured that the Latino vote would go to him, nutralizing talk of having Marco Rubio for Vice President.  Because today the President lifted the threat of deportation from children of parents who came to this country illegally.  They had to be under sixteen at the time.  To take advantage of ending the "deportation threat" they have to have resided here for at least five years.  They have to not be security risks and they have to get employment, or join the military, or go to College, and they have six years to do this.  Hopefully they'll have a degree by then.  It makes no sense for someone with a Law degree or a doctorate in science, to then go back to India or wherever he came from, a country where he might not even speak the language (thanks to more brainwashing from the right) and have that nation like Brazil or whoever benefit from his U S education.  These are people, keep in mind, who have always regarded themselves as Americans.  Even at the end of six years they are NOT citizens, but then have the opportunity to apply for "permanent residence" status.  So for Judy and company to call it 'mass amnesty" is a real lie.  Even Texans like Kay Bailey Hudgenson and Rick Perry have been for what has been called "The Dream Act" in the past.  So many of the ideas Obama is pushing now used to be Republican bi-partisan ideas, but the tea party has been pulling all the political strings and issuing the dictates and if they say "Drop it as something we're for", then it's dropped, and overtly fought against.  In terms of cosmic support, I was surprised Stewart Sutcliffe was all for this bill.  I thought Romulans were uppity or something with their national pride bit.  Stewart says "I don't know where you got that idea because even in ancient times we were four reasonable tests for foreigners acquiring citizenship.  And being here on Sirius A we are all aliens- - and we'd be fools to be against immigration".  I admit I kind of stepped in it with that remark.


Here is a theory why this Generation X from approximately age 35 to age 50 is so to the right of their parents.  The reason is abortion was first legal in California or the whole US during this period so children of potential political liberal parents were just aborted before they could be born and Vote.  So we did it to ourselves.  Some may wonder why they these rich old crones are so driven to permanently change America into a "thirt world nation" as far as wealth distribution is concerned.  The reason is that their children are Generation X'ers.  They could also be called the Children of the Jesus Generation and were raised with "Jesus' up the wazoo- - as portrayed by the ultra right wingers.  And so it is surprising but true why so many of these yahoos are running loose now in the country- - actually less so here but more in what's euphanistically called the "Heartland of America".

This is not your grand dad's church or your grand dad's sermon, or even your grand dad's interpretation of the Bible as you and I grew up with and the lessons We were taught from it.  There is a real wrenching out of context of Genisis 47 where Joseph is demonstrated to be the bad guy.  This is the Federation view that also takes a negative tack on Joseph as “arranging their enslavement”.  Tell the tea party and that Virginia Pastor to take it up with God.  That’s the way God wrote it.  A lot of things in the Bible don’t make sense and sometimes have an opposite meaning if you actually think about them- but nobody does.  I went through a lot of E mails where Rush Limbaugh now calls it “Job revision Thursday because unemployment was up.  And of course the Christian lobby calls any studies that say children of same-sex parents to NOT suffer as “junk science’ whereas the left has it exactly the other way around.  So who is right?  I have no way of knowing.  Rush Limbaugh quoted Mitt Romney quoting the President of saying “I can’t fix this economy that George Bush broke”.  And Romney says “Then he should let someone else fix it”.  Logical question here.  Did and would the President make such a statement.  It’s highly unlikely.  So Romney and Rush are both lying.  But assuming that it is true or we conclude that it is true, then why could not that “someone else” also be another Democrat?  I bet Rush never thought about that one.  Here’s a pencil neck geek reply to Dr Oz yesterday talking about how “some foods leave your stomach more quickly than others”.  Is Dr. Oz advocating hard to digest foods or ones that keep “repeating” on you?  Here’s a damn suggestion Dr Oz.  To keep more food in your stomach - - EAT MORE!  Rush accused Obama of granting “amnesty” to the children of illegal aliens, which he expressly SAID he wasn’t doing.  I heard Rush on the radio myself say that Obama now has a “Catch, Release, Vote” platform.  Again this is Completely wrong.  Those affected will not be and may never be able to vote.  I have yet to get a long awaited response from Tim. So Al and Dr Levy have ZERO response to that “God” thing. 

This is Wednesday morning at ten after nine June 14, 2012 flag day.  Usually in late May and in June we have a raft of supreme court decisions.  This year we have gotten none.  It’s already the middle of June with just two weeks to go and none of the many decisions that have to be pending have come out yet including the all together important Health Care decision that may spell an end to all of the tea party’s whining about state socialism.  Now the tea party in addition to the Al Qaeda successes of the Obama administration has yet another thing to worry about and that is falling gasoline prices.  They said the national average has fallen to $3.50 and there are places in the country now that sell gasoline for $2.90 a gallon.  In my personal life I freak out with worries.  I only have four dollars left and I just bought a pack of John Black grapes spending two.  I brewed my last batch of coffee this morning and had those two cups before breakfast.  Stephanie Miller was on before and after breakfast though after breakfast I kind of dozed off.  I was just talking to Glen and he sounds half asleep.  It’s the usual June overcast.

It's Not an Election but an Auction

Putting it as bluntly as calling a Presidential Election as nothing but an Auction may seem like an extreme statement, and yet the way Randy Rhodes breaks it down it’s almost a litteral reality.  She pointed out one bit of wording or “parsing of words’ if you will that Romney said about the “Message” sent by the Wisconsin failure.  He said that “President Obama didn’t get the message but the American people got it”.  Now let’s ask the next question, which is perhaps more important.  Who SENT that message???  The American People did not “send” this message.  But message was “sent” by the Koch Brothers and Norquist and all the others who funded the defense of Scott Walker.  It’s not a “message” that the American people ever came up with.  In fact we are told lies by FOX news routinely.  One person said “The American people are tired of the President whining about Bush causing the Great Recession we’ve been in, and the statute of limitations is up now”.  Well, if you commit a crime, when do you STOP being guilty of that crime- tell me that?   It so happens that even at this late date the people blame George Bush for this recession we are in and NOT the President.  The tea party won’t tell you that.  The President in a speech today gave some facts of life that will curl your hair.  He said that the loss of 39% of property equity in the average middle class household is Seven Times the rate of the drop of the 1929 stock crash.  I sure didn’t know that.  Also this administration has created more jobs in the past three years under adverse circumstances than were created under George Bush in the seven “good years” before the crash of September 2008.  Tea baggers won’t tell you that, either.  Some people may believe that the rich people have “checked out” of the day to day economic cares of the Average American.  Some like Judy have even told me “We don’t make anything in America any more and there is no Money left even to Tax in America now” like the Ten Years after song.  The facts are otherwise- - as they always are with the Tea Party.  The rich have  lot of funds but there is more “out there to be had” that they still want.  They STILL think the Average working American has it too good.  They want to bring down our wages to third world nation status to boost their profits higher.  There is also the 2.7 fund in Social Security out there and they’d love to get their hands on THAT.  And they can if they “privatize social security” and get you to Invest in stocks and they control the roulette wheel and rig this insider dominated market so that they know in the end “the house” or they themselves will eventually get all your money that would other wise be Safe in the social security fund.  Capish?  That is 2.7 Billion.  That’s even more money than Sheldon Adelson has.  Sheldon has 25 Billion so to him someone like Romney is a peon in comparison.  Sheldon Adelson has no political principles.  He dumped a lot of money on the Gingrich campaign running adds showing these poor “victims of Romney’s manipulation” with Bane Capital.  But he has no empathy for these people himself, he’s just exploiting Your empathy!  When it became evident that Romney was the man the Koch Brothers and the tea party were backing, Sheldon just as readily was willing to open his wallet to Romney.  So he has given Romney 24 Million so far, which to him is pocket change.  He says he’s not giving money to Political Action Committees any more because public disclosure is still required.  So he wants to give more Secretly.  Sheldon is willing to go as high as a hundred million before the campaign is done, and for that he respects quite a Return on that “investment”.  He isn’t doing it for naught.  For this election for rich people it’s strictly a situation of “Pay to Play”.  Of course they are committed to telling only lies.  For instance they will cite Europe in saying “Look at Europe.  They are going to drag down this economy back down into a recession”.  Many times with rich people I suspect it’s the tale Rush Limbaugh tells about boiling lobsters.  The ones that try to climb out of the pot and look like they are succeeding, are pulled back into the pot by other lobsters in mindless fashion, so they all die together.  Many would have it this way with the US and Europe saying “We can’t go down the European path”.  But once again the actual facts are quite different.  Europe IS in this “austerity kick” and it’s an easy thing to forget so I’m repeating it.  President Obama says that “In Great Depressions like this one, in other countries it takes some ten years before they begin to pull out of it.  And yet in this country we rolled up our sleeves and got to work, and jobs began to be created six months after I took office.”  And the President points out the obvious, but some are Dense and Need it pointed out to them- - that we ALL agree we need jobs and prosperity and more money in domestic markets.  But the question is HOW we achieve it.  There is the President’s way, and there is Mitt Romney and the tea party’s way.  That’s what we will be voting on, and these are the vital issues hopefully the American People will be educated about in the Debates.

Mike Papintonio is that guy’s name on KPOJ who is the Clinton clone, even the way he strings words together as well as his accent.  They said that “everybody is leaving Detroit” and how it’s lost almost its entire corporate base and half of it’s population of fifty years ago.  They say Detroit never recovered from the 1967 riots.  Well cosmically nobody has any plans to leave.  The Detroit Romulans aren’t going anywhere and neither is the Mo-Town group.  This would be a hybred of the Syracruse Romulans and the Del Phi group.  The latter has strange cosmic history that goes way back but they appeared in Philidelphia in late 1967 or there abouts, and many of them migrated to Detroit very soon after that.  The school system is gutted.  They said it was a geographically large area with vast portions of abandoned real estate.  But this lady did point to a few “sprouts’ of hope here and there.  Mitt Romney would like to turn all of America into a big Detroit.  Also Sao Paulo was mentioned, which I’m not fermiliar with only that they are a very large financial city.  Apparently it’s one big area of private gated community where everyone has their own security because the crime rate is astronomical, as it also is in Flint, and maybe Fred could tell us a thing or two about that.  This one woman has some documentary film on Detroit but she says ‘It isn’t meant to be political” but Mike Papentonio sees political applications.  Mike Papintonio says that Movements are more important than election cycles.  In his view the while Wisconsin “union movement’ was doing just fine till they “reduced it to just an election”.   I just got another Macafee Software Updated notice.  Seventy percent of the people still blame George Bush for this long recession and not the President.  The host emphasizes the deliberate nature of the gutting of the public sector and all those occupations, and they say that millionaires don’t care about infrastructure.  And he said something echoing the hippy generation of my say saying “these old people with tea bags hanging off of them, are on their way out.  They have pretty much “checked out’ of any civic consciousness.  They are in their trailor courts and can just move if there are problems, and like Gene Scott and Rush Limbaugh, kids are the last thing they care about.  Back in the old days, capitalism had a heart and they cared whether the next generation was educated, and saw that is one big advantage of America over third world nations because even fifty years ago they knew we’d never compete with them on wages alone.


Questions that WILL be answered in this post - - later.


State the error in Sequence for "The End".  guitar, bass, percussion, tambourine, organ, Vocal
What is the worst Cherrels song of all time?  (We left this one hanging)
Where was Stewart Sutcliffe in those eleven years he "disappeared" from mid December of 1062 to late 1971?
Since you have so often said that Yoco Ono had "bad vibes" cosmically, why were you suddenly speaking so fondly of her in a recent posting?
Romulan Ale actually exists.  According to one Romulan I talked to, they got the recipee over a thousand years ago from a country here on Earth where it was brewed?  Name that country.

There was a 4.1 earthquake here last night at a quarter after eight or so that was felt as a couple of jarring jolts but then it suddenly stopped and didn’t continue.  They felt it in Tustin according to KNX 1070 and the epicenter was two miles north of Yorba Linda, but they said that nowhere was any damage reported.  I knew it was close, and it was also a “shallow” quake.  In California we are of course overdue for "the big one" - which is hard to believe we haven't had but the experts are thinking along San Francisco 1906 terms of around eight points on the rictor scale magnitude.  Quite possibly it will happen in my lifetime and hopefully I won't be at Ground Zero when it does.

Some may ask me "You't talked about the Other Side a lot, but you've never answered the quite obvious question of just what Life is like on the Other Side after death.  In otherwords what is day to day Existance like up there and what do we do and what do we see, feel hear and taste?"  That's a fair question.  Let's tackle the last part of it first.  I doubt we'll be driven by bodily desires that give pleasures when fulfilled over here.  Perhaps this is why people on the Other Side ever want to come back to This Side at all because they miss these sensual delights of the flesh, in fact probably need to have their memories refreshed as to what they are like, but they know they were once Important.  But in terms of what existance IS like- - to a degree I think they perceive Time the way a kid does- - meaning that he doesn't.  He does't bother about it.  The kid just "wants to do stuff".  And maybe when he is tired of the "stuff" he's doing he might ask some adult what time it is- - more as a conversation starter than really wanting to know.  We said a long time ago that "Oh the Other Side- - - Ideas are Things".  So what do we mean by that.  Do Ideas really have Existance?  Yes.  Good ideas have existance and Bad ideas, unfortunately are Just as Real.  Religion is a bad idea.  Dictatorships are a bad idea.  The being the head of some autocratic polygamus cult is a bad idea.  When you come right down to it what people really Believe- - is what they act on.  Sermons will argue every Sunday that this is NOT the case- - but I tell you that it IS the case.  If the people didn't have the Bad Ideas to begin with- -the who idea would stop right there.  A lot of ideas Exist.  Up there you can be conscious of an idea or your friend or acquaintence can be concious of an idea.  And if he is in your "sphere of influence" or some might say "theater of engagement" then you Too will SEE HIS IDEA just as sure as HE sees it.  You can't HIDE in your OWN Thoughts any more.  Your OWN thoughts aren't just for you any more. Many may find this a problem.  People will be perceived as likable or not depending on the Ideas they Collect Around them.  One might ask "If the Person Himself an IDEA- - perhaps of God who created him in the first place?"  That's an interesting question.  I guess so.  In the "Imagine" song by Lennon we get clues about Imagining.  All those things mentioned in the song are ideas- - - good ideas.  So I guess some (even me) wonder about these trippy geometric patterns we hear so much about?  Some may say "I could not begin to organize anything that intricate".  People have the Will to choose or desire to Know things.  If they Know it- - it becomes Real to them.  It is a part of their world.  So the question about "Is there 3 D space in heaven?" I don't see why not.  As to "poly dimensional space" some abstractly deduce or postulate the existance of- - I can't Imagine how that would work.  That is I can't imagine it HERE with my limited brain.  Over there it might be a piece of cake to Realize or bring into my "theater of engagement".  Foes usually pop up in theaters of engagements.  And here is a little warning.  If you think struggle and opposition ends with death, you are quite Wrong.


THE ANSWERS:
First the Vocal singing comes in and then the organ begins playing
Soldier Boy
This remains a complete Unknown, apparently to anybody
These negative views were influenced by what Stewart Sutcliffe told me.  HE doesn't like Yoco Ono's "cosmic vibes"
Ireland


A BAD IDEA?  Some ideas are rejected as bad perhaps for a long time, but then they are brought back because somebody thinks we may have cast judgement on them too soon.  I was thinking of comparing the Other Side vis a vis This Side to FM and AM radio and saying "I wonder why I didn't think of that one before" and Kurt Cobain chimed in 'Probably because it's a bad idea".  Well his remark gave me the whole idea of the "Bad Ideas" stuff in the final long paragraph.  They just said the NBA finals are coming on.  I'll have Rush Limbaugh beam me over some coconut oil popcorn in his new Star Trek Transporter he just bought from William Shattner.

Chase Bank CEO Does A "Mia Copa"

Jamie Diamond, I guess is the guy's name, who testified before congress today.  Before he had been an ardent of laze fair economics but now agrees to cooporate with Congress in whatever they may propose in the way of regulation saying "I was just wrong".  Of course you had to be a stock holder in Chase Bank to actually lose any part of that two billion or whatever, and it can be said that any stock investor takes a risk every time he puts his money down.  However it clearly shows that the financial community has not learned the lesson of 2008 and continued in its old ways.  My view of consumer protection bills is if it's the sort of case where a Jury would say "There is mal feasence here" even without the presence of a specific law, then we might as well have the Law to speed the whole ajutication process up and make bringing to justice easier.  I am not in favor of any bill that would seek to distort or alter the basic market forces of the economy because you only get a lot more heartache in the end.  To quote Dylan again, "Every day it seems someone comes along with a new scheme to take your money away".  Now they are stealing the identity of children, often young children not yet out of grammar school by kiting their social security numbers.  They say that right now one in ten children in the united states has had his or her financial Identity stolen.  That's amazing!  One eighteen year old female discovered her Identity had been stolen when she tried to get a loan for college.  It's hard enough for students paying back their debts these days, let alone be saddled with  debt that is not even your own.  But on the positive side gasoline prices are sharply down and sinking fast now.  There are already places in the country where gas is selling at $2.90 per gallan.  That will make those auto trips a lot more appealing to go on and I'd imagine you'd save a not insubstantial ammount of money that you could spend to stimulate other areas of the economy.

There is more of the Jerry Sandusky trial in the news.  The testimony is explicit and I'm wondering whether if in person they use the actual words like "blow job" or "sucked my dick" in testimony, or whether there is some grammar board that will utter an objection if you're this explicit.  The question is whether you'll be able to use "Blow Job' or expressions like it on Television in ten years.  The way our level of speech interraction is deteriorating, I wouldn't be surprised.  I think there are scams pulled on prospective illegal ailens or at least abusive treatment and possibly worse- - knowing they'll do almost anything to get into this country.  In other power inequity news you do know that the argument over reviving the equal pay for equal work bill is that- - there used to be a ninety day time limit for filing sexual discrimination charges.  Yet bosses set up a policy where employees were forbidden to discuss who gets which salary among themselves.  So it thus would take a long time to acertain that a woman was discriminated against.  But companies are a lot more eager to look out for their OWN interest.  I guess here with the LA rail transit they have new turnstiles where if you have a ticket- - - you can't go out and back in again waving the same ticket because the RTD will assume that it's a bogus ticket or something.  So it's better to assume that all riders are crooks.

The Lance Armstron seven time winner French Open champion story has always struck me as a little bogus.  I don't know why.  I guess he made the thing look just "too easy" and they were saying things like Armstrong was born with a "super sized heart" and all of that.  On Sixty Minutes a few months ago and apparently on an ABC news program too they interviewed people who personally observed Lance Armstrong "blood doping" himself before a big bike race.  Now the authorities charactize the case against Armstrong as "very strong" and it now appears very likely that they will strip Armstrong of one or more of his seven medals.  In another case of "There's a sucker born every minute' you have this "Forest Boy" story in Germany where this twelve or thirteen year old boy shows up from out of nowhere and answers to the name Ray and says he burried his father out in the wilderness.  Strike up the violins.  This is obviously some publicity stunt for some upcoming movie or product or something. There is another sad case where a veteran claims he was wounded in the Iraqi theater and developed a speech impediment he overcame by singing though he'd never sung before.  Now he's a major guitar folk star singer and people are coming forward to say he was never in the Iraq war and also that he's been striving to be a singer for years.  Just like Mark Bove was striving to be a church pastor for years, but denied it.

John Edwards is a free man tonight.  The US Government announced that Edwards would not have charges refiled against him by the Government.  He was free of any legal impediments and can truely lift that albitros off from around his neck.  This is a wonderful thing indeed.  Back in August of 2007 I issued remarks about John Edwards being the best of the three principle candidates.  In this same piece I also said that Obama was more of a Hollywood star rather than a Presidential contender.  I'm sure Rush Limbaugh wouldn't mind having Obama's job one bit.  Rush genuinely seemed jealous of the President's privelege today to ride around in Air Force I and have people guarding him all the time, and the like.  Meanwhile the Republicans are really going after Att Gen Eric Holder throwing everything they can against the wall and hoping something sticks.  They are after his job; there is no doubt about that.  It's a sign of how powerful the Republicans feel at the moment that they are willing to go on the offensive like this.

They have a new CARS land in California Adventure.  The only time I was ever there was July of 2003 back when I still had money.  The two most intriguing rides was the hang glider thing where I sat right down in the front row and dangled my feet off the end.  The other was the river rafting ride.  Those things are always fun.  Well Disney says this expansion of California Adventure is the biggest not to mention the most expensive expansion of ANY amusement park in the world.  Don't you just love our Capitalist system where entrepenures are free to dream and plan and eventually succeed?  As you may know in August 1972 I drew up plans for a Flintstones Theme Park which I planed to build in what is now "reserved wetlands" in Bolsa Chica.  I was intending to incorporate the swamp into some sort of a jungle ride.  You'd have your Dino Dinasaur roller coaster and your Bedrock Quarry where you were dangeling from one of these crane things swinging around, and you'd have your Slater slush ride- - a log ride, and of course you'd have the Bowling Alley where all the surfaces are done up to look like stone.  Hey- - did you know that Darth Vader is going in for heart surgery tomorrow?  That's right.  This seven year old rather tallented good looking blonde haired boy is the actor who played a mini Darth Vader in a Superbowl commercial.  And he was born with a congenital defect in his heart, which I guess is better than having a defect in the heart of your genitals. Anyhow any little boy would have to be brave to go in for major surgery like this.  We wish him well.

Ignorance, Hate, and the Un-Dead

There is that line in the Dylan song that goes “You search and search- - for that which is not lost”.  Earlier we alluded to that “Vertigo music” and I tried to remember which movie it was where I’d heard music like that.  There you seemingly have a man falling in love with a corpse knowing that the same woman he saw and followed and studied - - - is the same one standing before him talking with him.  John Lennon talked about ‘Ignorance and hate may mourn the dead”.  Ignorance – maybe- - but I don’t know where the word “hate” comes from.  People are beguiled by “Stories” particularly small children.  “Narratives” are things the political masses can be manipulated and led like sheeple by.  It’s an established fact that a Lie told often enough about the Jews or any other target- - - comes to be accepted as rock certain gospel not only by the hearers but in time by the Teller, too.  Narratives are seldom deviated from often using the exact phrasing of words each time.  They dare not vary from their narrative because after all it has become as some kind of God or object of Worship for them.  In it they themselves derive their value and reason for Being.  Of course nobody has power over the living beyond the dead- - not even Stephano Di Mira.  If you have genetic issues as to your own paternity- - once your father dies the “conflict’ in essence ends with his death.  This is one problem Elvis doesn’t have to worry about if that secret dies with Stephano.  Should Elvis find he really IS completely disinherited he has talents both as a race car driver and a good attorney- - and I’ll attest to his keen, cool, logical mind- - he can earn a good living in his own right.  But I imagine that Chad will “come crying to him” to quote another Dylan song.  He’ll be begging for Elvis’ help.  I’ll tell you why they are called the un-dead.  It’s one of two things.  Either they never died but are only faking it.  Or just as logically they were Never Alive.  To say that something or some one is Dead is to infer that it was once Alive.  Think about it.  Tea party people tell their desciples that they have “lost something” and only by becoming a True Believer can they Get It Back.  But here again they are searching for something which is not lost because it Never Existed to begin with.  Whatever mythical “America” the tea party tries to tell the young (who may not know any better) existed- - in fact Never Existed.  And if it HAD it’d have been looked Down upon.

In terms of late summer of 2007 I may do a “request replay” of that one paragraph on the economy that is so insightful.  Also where my opinion has not changed is that the media has sold out to the right wing and never state properly the causes of left wing protestors.  Also we had the same problem then with the sixty percent filibuster rule before you can pass any legiatlation and I give examples.  I suppose the stuff from Word might be more personally “interesting” because the cast of people around here plus my daily habits have morphed a little over the years.  That money loan incident with Marcus occurred the last few days of August of 2007 and at the time I said it “meant our relation as friends was over”, which wasn’t exactly the case and even after he had gone he called me up and used those Naval matephores about being in charge of the deck.

This economy is slowly but surely sliding into a recession. Wall Mart is saying to expect a slow down this quarter because customers aren't coming into their stores. Median housing prices are showing a universal decline throughout the entire United States and they say this is the first time that has happened since the thirties. Problems with Real Estate will only get worse; they won't get better. Summertime is normally the time when people sell houses. If things are slow now, what will happen when the winter comes? I'm also warning you to expect some New international incident next month to again send the stock market into a panic. We're just getting started with the down-trend. Summer is normally a period where nothing happens, particularly in August. The problems we are now seeing in Real Estate will spiral into other areas of the economy. Every day you will read about some new problem that wasn't there the day before.   -Orig Posted August 28, 2007

Some people reading my blogger material and the rather (by today’s standards) trivial issues I brought up and flittering from one “pedantic’ topic to another (I guess that Ruttles word is “Peauselanamus”) they might think, “Gee, what a shallow guy.  Is he really that boring to talk to in person?”  I’m not a shallow person, just a bad writer at times.  Hopefully I’m getting better and better with time.  Practice makes perfect and all.  John Lennon in his final “dotage years” (I’m resisting the use of the term “doltage”) he said, on this Topic “Say a little prayer.  Every day and in every way I’m getting better and better”.  Sometimes I think my growth could go at a faster rate than it is, like this recovery, if “things” weren’t holding back more rapid evolution.  And my problem is I’m better when I’m talking to an actual Person to get psychic feedback from them.  People who don’t relate to people are retarded in their personal “growth”.  Yoco Ono - -  was obviously a stimulating person to be around.  At times I think she was more of a true child of the flower power generation than was John himself.  Unfortunately on the Double Fantasy album you find this “segregation” of writing talents, and that’s unfortunate.  Bad ideas fizzle when subjected to challenge.  Good ideas flourish and grow and gain new strength when they are confronted by the opinions of other people, for now they have something to overcome.  Unfortunately my experience with Google Plus hasn’t exactly borne out this theory with myself.

An atheist would say when it comes to the subject of Death that “My life and well being must in turn subordinate itself to a Higher Cause- - the Well Being of the Planet”.  Others can’t conceive of a world in which they are not a part.  The Ayan Rand ego based view is that “All relivence rests in my ability to enjoy it- - and since God wants my happiness- - therefore I must remain alive for ever so that I may forever reap the Blessings of the pleasures he sends me”.  The last thing I want to be is like these dolts on nighttime Talk Radio talking about UFO’s and the spirit realm- - repeating the same tired phrases and cliches week after week, for his sake, hopefully with a fresh audience that isn’t tired of hearing it.   Don’t make a Religion out of what you don’t know.  Admit that you just don’t know it.  Police detectives work with what they Know a lot more than what they admit they don’t know.  They know that perhaps in time new pieces of the puzzle will be turned over, and able to put a better picture together eventually.

Some Libertarian Issues I Agree With

I guess Jesse the Body Ventura is for Gary Johnson as the official libertarian party candidate for President.  The Nanny State marches on.  Rush Limbaugh pointed out that there is nothing like coconut oil to cook popcorn in and that's what produces the famous "popcorn smell' in theaters.  Nothing else is quite like it.  And coconut oil is actually good for you.  Nevertheless the government is doing everything they can to ban it.  And now they want to regulate sizes of popcorn portions in movie theaters.  To me this is an unnecessary infringement in normal Market forces.  Rush mentioned some other poll that says salt isn't as bad for you as they thought.  I've read a lot of blood pressure stuff that says it is when you go into the sodium and potassium balance of the body and how we evolved our DNA from apes who ate leaves and bananas all the time, that contained a lot of potassium and little sodium.  Sometimes like saturated fat they now say aren't so bad for you and butter isn't so bad.  They are saying now that eggs are OK as an excellent source of a lot of nutrition such as Omega 3's and vitamin A and all.  And they used to say coffee was bad for you.  But now they say coffee actually protects against certain forms of cancer and has anti oxident properties.  I don't think corn syrup the way they do it now of the high fructose variety- - is a good idea, and particularly if it's genetically engineered corn syrup.  None the less I believe that certain products can be boycotted.  If people won't buy them they'll stop making it.  Media exposure and popular demand got "pink slime" in hamburgers off the market.  So indeed we can bring market forces to bear, if we work at it.

I heard in the news that some South Dakota University is going to no longer be called the Fighting Sioux, because some high court deemed that name as "hostile".  I think that's really silly.  Stanford used to be called the Indians.  And then we have the Washington Bullets in the NBA that became the Washington Bullets.  I like the name of "Bullets".  It's catchy and athletic sounding.  Yet "political correctness' dictate that they change their name to "Wizzards" which sounds really corn ball to me.   We need a sense of balance today.  I was against Justice Elena Kagen being appointed to the Supreme Court because I felt she was a "statist".   She seemed to want some legal mandate as to what was "correct speech" that would be enforced by the government, particularly on the issue of homosexuality.   Many Christians wonder whether a Church Pastor would be free to preach from the Bible the "Word of God" if there were government snoops in the audience.

President Obama's poll numbers with Blacks has dropped markedly - by 21% in just a few months.  He had 95% of the Blacks in North Carolina in 2008 but in a recent poll just completed in North Carolina, the poll number on Black people is 20% who overtly plan to vote for Romney.  And only 76% of the Blacks in North Carolina are voting for Obama.  This dramatic drop is due no doubt to the President's unfortunate "Evolution" on the gay marriage issue.  It is said the reason why the President has done so many Hollywood fund-raisers is because his funding from his base is down from four years ago.  People on our side are becoming disaffected.  This President's fund raising trips have now exceeded those of President Bush in 2004.  Rush Limbaugh said that there are statistics going back to the eighteen hundreds that reveal Incumbant Presidents being re-elected - - is no slam dunk.  I've heard it said a lot that if an incumbant's approval numbers ever dip below fifty percent - - that President is in big trouble.  The President's numbers seldom rise above 45% and I think now he's slipped to 42% or something.  The President's poll numbers have NEVER been ahead in a statistical significant manner of the Republicans even in the heeight of the "economic recovery spring" that occurred in the winter.  I identify a little with Rush's complaint of the President 'having a bad week" based on the day to say poll numbers.  If the President's support is so shallow that six spoken words quoted out of context will do him in "The private sector is doing fine" then it's just "not happening" for this President anyhow.  Clearly he doesn't inspire confidence no matter how little nor how much he campaigns.  People like Dr. Levy wanted this President to be the standard bearer again simple, I believe, because he was such an utterly weak leader that even a Bozo like Mittens Romney can and is beating him.

There is good news on the Health Insurance front.  Now a lot of carriers have announced that those reforms that were instituted about not being cut off insurance if you got sick, or children up to 26 being able to stay on their parent's plan, won't change regardless of the Supreme Court ruling.  This may be because they anticipate that the whole mandate thing will be declared Unconstitutional, and they want to allay fears that somehow they will claim they were relying on these mandates to keep premiums down by forcing "healthy bodies" into the pool, who would normally not choose to be there if they were given the choice.  This goes to show that "the public" at large has gotten "used to the new provisions' and doesn't want to give them up.  Therefore once again Market Forces have supplanted the President in this regard because it will then be economic market pressures rather than a government mandate- - that dictates the decisions insurance companies make.

Bill Press this morning was talking about how we suffer the lingering effects of Proposition 13 passed way back in 1978 because that measure casts a long fiscal shadow even to today's "austerity measures" Jerry Brown is having to wrestle with.  People actually didn't have this sort of constant crisis scene in local governments that we have today because people actually paid in taxes what the government services cost.  Howard Jarvis and company never made this mental connection between cause and effect and that is that you really have to pay for what you get.  I don't believe I've posted the following sentament but the reason why John Mc Cain's remarks about "The fundanentals of the economy are sound" is because going back as far as the summer of 2007, and I have it in my writings, there was talk of employment lay-offs.  Even then the middle class was being squeezed.  So for John Mc Cain to call it a "mental recession" or whatever- - was clearly something that I think personally was "out of touch" with the 'pulse of American sentament" at that time.  Just think about that.

Rush Limbaugh says that "It's been a bad three and a half years for America".  Well it's been a bad nearly four years, since September first of 2008 for me.  Any number of people would like to snip out of the calendar all the elapsed time since John Mc Cain picked Sarah Palin as his vice president.   But we have different reasons for believing what we do.  I'm tired of the tea party and I'm tired of a President who has been such a colosally bad leader and spokesman for his own Policies, some of which have actually worked.  I's sick to death of this financial austerity bit choking all aspects of government.  I was just looking at my finances now, and I'm going to be in fiscal deep doo-doo again this month.  Circumstances have been putting the screws to me ever since September first of 2008 when I learned I would NOT be getting the usual two hundred dollar bonus "rent rebate" check, which supposedly falls under the category of "tax refund".  But in Florida they have a built in automatic 21% tip expense built into everything.  The "new norm" for tipping has risen from 15% to 18%.  Who makes these rules?  Given the high prices in sit down resturants these days for just about anything- - even paying the bill is a hassle.  And now they are going to tack 21% on top of a 9% sales tax too?