Another Day in the Life

They held the twentieth and perhaps final debate last night starting at six o clock. To my way of thinking it was important to show that he had "grown" throughout this campaign process. I thought both candidates handeled themselves well. It was a spirited debate. I think Obama won it simply because he was Mr. Joe Cucumber under all fire. Hillary used the Romney argument talking about uninsured people under Obama’s plan. He countered that he’s talked to people who would rather pay the fine for being uninsured rather than the exorbanent cost of medical care. Obama’s biggest score of the night was with NAFTA. He had the moderators on his side for this one pointing out the countless times over the years that Hillary has supported NAFTA. The endorsement of Luis Faracon came up and Obama first said he rejected it and Hillary used the word “denounced” and Obama came back and said “OK, I’ll concede the point; I denounce his support”. The crowd loved it. Hillary was the more convincingly pro Israel policy of the two. It seems Obama was cut off by the moderators when he was defending himself against a Hillary charge of voting against a credit card interest limit bill. The debate was held in Cleveland and the weather outside was terrible.

This morning when I got up I felt like singing “Good Morning USA, I have a feeling that it’s going to be a wonderful day”. For the first time in quite some time I didn’t need a jacket when I went out on the patio this morning. Coincidentally I am wearing my white American flag shirt. For breakfast we had cream of wheat that wasn’t excessively thin, and fried eggs. I went out after a while to the bakery for a large coffee.

Now Obama and John Mc Cain are in a shouting match over whether Al Qaida is in Iraq, or something. Mc Cain was trying to accuse Obama of ignorance. Of course it's flattering for Mc Cain to know whom he's going to be campaigning against in the fall.

Last night I watched American Idol. That “Rolling Stone” was the best song that far of the evening and Simon was absolutely right about that. How all three greviously missed the boat on the last song, which was the best song of the night with that guy singing “Without Love” absolutely flawlessly. He was perfect. I guess these people must have a tin ear or something. Once again I had a sore throat and coughing last night. I don’t cough during the day. Oscar informed me that this morning’s was the last of five days of anti-biotics. Oscar gave me two pieces of mail. One was from Time-Warner. Someone must have put me on their mailing list since I never used to get mailings from them before. The other was an “urgent” pink envelope from the phone company, which only informed me that my “Life Line” form had gone through with no problems.

This time of year in 1968 forty years ago the first primary had not yet occurred. This year after Tuesday there will be “the long wait” till late summer. Having the conventions so late makes absolutely no sense, particularly this year. In history books they’ve even made reference to party conventions being held in June, and this year that wouldn’t be at all a bad idea. People are going to just snooze and forget about the campaign till “After the World Series” as they point out on “Making of the President 1960”. That year both party conventions were in July. The Democrats were in Los Angeles (after I was no longer living there) and the Republicans were in Chicago. One thing that puzzles me about election night that year is I remember my Dad was gloating in the fact that Kennedy was pulling away from Nixon, JFK winning state after state. Then the guy announced on the TV that it had just turned midnight. "I guess I better be heading to bed, I've got school tomorrow" I thought. But all of the pundits say that during the night the race tightened, and I guess I'm puzzled as to how late it DID tighten?

Today’s religious thought consists of this: We know O Master that perfection can not come of sin, nor can corruption breed flawlessness. Therefore how can God or Jesus say of an illigatimate bastard birth that that baby’s life was pre-ordained of God and that good things for that life are predestined. The logical deduction is that his parents did not sin in producing him. For example- - if you have a crick in your arm and are throwing darts with a friend and despite your pain, you throw a dart dead center in the target, you can be said to have thrown a sinless shot. But the perfect results could logically not have come from anything other than a sinless throw. (Selah) If everything we do is preordained from the foundation of the Universe, how can it be said to be sin? In God’s mind it already “exists” and it’s only in our perception that the passage of time occurs.

Finally, William Buckley died today, founder of “Firing Line” and I think he personally commissioned J S Bach to write the theme song. Unlike everybody else I’m not going to make with a history of his life. You can find that elsewhere. I’d just like to say that the first time I heard of him Dad was playing a reel to reel tape of Buckley debating some Black guy like James Baldwin or something. I naturally assumed that both of the speakers on the tape were Black. Buckley is known for his hoity-toity intellectual brand of conservatism. In the circles I ran around with in the “seventies, Buckley would automatically be considered a communist because he was from New York. Besides this he was just too liberal and too “Jewish”. Buckley was for the leagelization of marijuana and some other “liberal” causes as I recall, and has notably been absent the past seven years as to people lining up to defend George Bush.

I had Rush Limbaugh on this morning for the full three hours, and then I switched to Sam Cedar at noon and at two. I had the soap opera on at one. Kimberly is back, but with a different actress, a flaming red-head. Of the people not at the funeral, these consisted of Alice Horton, the couple’s “best friend”, and “Uncle Eric” whom Eric was named after and who molested Kimberly as a little girl. “Uncle Eric” was notably absent from the recent Ireland flashbacks. Eric the younger was absent. Lucas went to prison without passing Go. They did not cover one court appearance of Lucas. Even if he were found guilty he’d be allowed three weeks or something to “get his affairs in order” before official sentencing. Also not there were Carrie and Austin, and of course Will, who is staying with them in Switzerland. Then there is Frankie, the “other” adopted son. Is Gennifer shacked up with Frankie now or is she back with Jack? I forget.

Thom Hartmann the other day was again talking about the “religious gene” others have mentioned. They say the gene may have helped mankind cultivate a sense of unity when mankind was just starting out. Those who had this gene prospered and survived more than those who lacked it, so eventually everyone got the gene. Christians say you are born with a “God-shaped hole” in your soul. The trouble is you could make the same argument about the size of a man’s penis. I guess my advice is to “get over it”. I’ve had dreams where I craved a drink of alcohol. When I woke up the craving was gone. More important than having a perceived “need” (which, by the way isn’t being met by the churches anyhow) but whether in fact there actually is a God who could meet the need.

Failure to Catch On

It's clear from the numbers that almost nobody is reading my blogs. This to me seems odd since at times I have considered writing another book of my thoughts but apparently I needn't bother because people won't read my thoughts for free. Of course you can enter a name like Chuck Hagel and get a whole raft of blogs with long dissertations on whatever subject you choose. I don't stay on one subject and run it into the ground but like Rush Limbaugh I consider my blogs news driven and I try to be "ahead of the learning curve" and come up with stories that are just breaking and may not be dominating the air waves for another two or three days. I will admit I don't do a lot of heavy research or heavy reading and the taking of extensive notes and organize them into some sort of "term paper" for my blogs. That's just not the way I do things. So I sat back and thought this morning "What is the most pround thing I could mention now?". Did you know there is a vast difference in popular music between the two years of 1979 and 1981? I was reminded of this this morning listening to the Drive's "Ten at Ten". There were still groups that were "behind the learning curve" in 1981 such as Tom Petti, Adam and the Ants, and some would argue- - Steely Dan. People growing up as teenagers in the 'eighties would understandibly see seventies rock or even Yahoo's "Glitter Rock" station- - as containing material that is markedly different from the material they grew up on. I'd like to talk about two different types of brains. There are the "A" people who come to a relatively quick decision on things. I can make a very quick decision on things where I actually have the facts. The only time I get even a little indecision is when it's some Christian or other person in moral or psychological authority over me suggesting I take a path with nothing but unknowns, but prior experiance tells me isn't a good idea but morally I don't want to let them down. If you give me the facts, I can decide. That isn't how some brains work. They like to emote. They like to talk issues to death and hem and haw back and forth for hours or days or longer and somewhere down the road after what seems to me a useless expenditure of mental energy, they finally get a "feeling" about something. I find it disturbing that a lot of people vote this way. I'd like to say something about "curiosity". The ONLY time Christians say curiosity is a GOOD thing is if they are being baited with a hook held out by some evangelist or Pastor-Teacher as they call themselves. Once you are under their control, you don't need curiosity any more in your life. People like John Lennon and George Harrison were "curious" about other religions. But today's pastors would call both John and George is "trapped in the flesh" because they still had curiosity. They wanted to grow. And if there is one thing Christianity is anathema to it's growth. For these people you step into some sort of 'seventies time-warp and are never heard from again. I want to talk about a caller Dr. Dean Edell has on his show yesterday afternoon on KFI. This guy's wife was talking about her husband with cerrosis of the liver and he drank a whole fifth of Vodka every "three or four days". I thought about my own drinking "twords the end" and my own rate of alcohol consumption markedly exceeded this rate. I would buy two "tenths" or half fifth bottles or either Thunderbird or those fruit flavored Cisco Coolers at 18% alcohol at nine o clock in the morning and buy two more half fifths of this same fortified wine- - like I say orange or strawberry or something flavored wine- - at night. So I was spending close to eight dollars a day on alcohol, which by the way I could easily afford with my money then. But the good doctor's words got me to thinking. If he thought the guy who drunk a fifth of Vodka every three or four days was in serious trouble and "addicted", I shudder to fathom what he would have thought of me. You know, over the past seven years I have cursed the date my drinking came to an end on June 1st. 2001. As I saw it the event ruined my life and I have longed for the good old days. But just maybe I should "change my way of thinking" and get real and look at the facts and realize I was actually headed tword serious trouble and be grateful I'm no longer drinking now.

John Mc Cain is in the news for alledgedly having an affair with a forty year old woman in the late nineties for a couple years, who physically resembles his wife. I didn't know that John Mc Cain was involved with the Keating Five that Rush Limbaugh used to always talk about. This involved Keating Savings and Loan and financial scandals and the government having to bail out innocent customers. All of the other parties to this scandal has to resign in disgrace but Mc Cain remained unscathed. People on KTLK 1150 are saying that Mc Cain is more heavily involved with lobbiests than Mitt Romney and Huckibee combined, and all this business about "Mr. Straight Talk" being "squeaky clean" is just a well constructed myth. But now the media (KABC) is saying "You know that Mc Cain story sure went off the air waves quickly. This is because John Mc Cain took bold steps to confront the issue. Well Mc Cain talked about the sex part of it. But this isn't the part that concerns liberals. In retaliation someone alledgedly put a You-Tube video up that made certain allegations about Obama I won't go into. Apparently John Wendell started this roomer Saturday morning on KTLK and the guy after him ran with the ball. But I looked for the accusitory video against Obama and didn't find it. Perhaps they already took it down. Conservatives no doubt want to use this Obama as a "bargaining chip" against the liberals saying "We won't talk about ours if you don't talk about yours", as if the two accusations were of equal value. In my book the one reedeming trait John Mc Cain had was his homisty, and now if it turns out he doesn't have that, there really IS no reason to vote for him.

On the NAFTA issue Berock Obama has come out against it. And this is one of the issues that I've been calling a key issue in this Presidential campaign- - what is the candidate's stance tword NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. Apparently Obama has been sending out mailings in Ohio saying he's against NAFTA and that Hillary is for it. You need only to watch an old Mc Laughlin VCR tape from 1993 to know that the Clintons were very much for NAFTA, as "everybody" seemed to be. This is no big state secret. Bill Clinton as recently as a week or two ago compared to abolishing NAFTA to some guy going into a bank for a loan and insulting the bank president up and down, and after he's done then asks the guy for an extension of a loan. Apparently Bill Clinton sees us as an extortion victim of China and we have to do whatever they want or it's all over. I myself say "It's time to take our country back". In terms of Health Care, I don't like the idea of either mandentory Health Care or mandentory Social Security. That's where my head is at on these issues. My thinking is that if it's really a good idea people will volentarily do it. If they don't see it that way perhaps private people have a Better plan they want to try and my thinking is "This is America. It's a free country. Do what you like".

We have the Three Musketeers on Afghanistan, Joe Biden, Chuck Hagel, and John Kerry. Apparently there was an election held in Pakistan last week I didn't hear about where Musharif's party was voted out of power. I''d like to know what the Bush Adminestration is going to do about that. To me, supporting Musharif has always been a compromize. Now they have the oppertunity to extricate themselves. Let's bring moral authority back in our quest to hunt down Al Qaida and the people responsible for 9 - 11. And the way to do that is not to "play games" with a leader like Musharif who blows hot one day and cold the other. We need leaders like John Kennedy used to be who had a clear vision and didn't go around making moral compromizes.

Ralph Nader is running for President again. He gave some pretty good reasons why on Meet the Press. He said that the issues he talks about such as corporate fraud and manipulation and mal feasence are the issues America cares about. He says by running in 2000 he actually pushed Al Gore to the left and using the Hartman argument, if you push a party in the direction of it's base, who brought then where they are, the candidate will get more votes. So by this reasoning Ralph Nader actually helped Al Gore get more votes. I have to agree with Nader that you can't forever second guess yourself. He isn't the only third party candidate to have ever run. The "two party system" has become an article of almost religious Faith in this country. I would be very happy with a poliferation of new ideas and new parties. Let's see what happens. As Nader points out if the Democrats can't win 70% to 30% against a guy like John Mc Cain this year above all years, then they'll never win. I think there will be a democratic land-slide this year.

Sixty Minutes had three disburbing segments on last night, the first two of which I had never seen before. They had a politically driven investigation against a democratic Governor in Alabama, who was successful and they couldn't stand this. They tried ruse after ruse to get him out of power and they finally came up with something that worked, once they could find a judge that was biased enough to even take the case. Karl Rove was the one who orchestrated the smear campaign of this democratic liberal individual. People say that Karl Rove does this sort of government involved political take-down of an individual all the time. I think Karl Rove needs to be investigated and hopefully, impeached or fired. The other case involved a "Donut shop" or something in Oakland that was run by Black Muslems. These people wern't nice. They were more like the mafia with very little "baking" going on at this Bakery. Worse yet they were more like a cult, like Johestown or something. If seems they even had friends in the Oakland PD. The final segment on the loss of the bee hives is disturbing. I couldn't help think that perhaps the UFO space aliens have switched their sites fro people probing to bees. Perhaps aliens have abducted these bees to examine them and contaminate the honey so that no other bees will touch it. Very unusual behavior. Apparently some nicotine based pesticide is to blame. I don't know, but as CBS pointed out last night, this troubling story is not going away.

The Rehabilitation of George Bush

Our esteemed President is on a roll now. Castro's resigning after 49 years is the best thing that could happen to freshen up a stale presidency. Now if Bush has the sense to normalize relations with Cuba he will defuse a lot of liberal complaint about him that he is intransigent. By the way the words intransigent and intransitive don't mean the same thing. But all indications are that even the democratic candidates don't want to open up relations with Cuba. We trade with Comunist China and Cuba's torture and human rights violations are no where as grevious as China's. It's just that Nixon is a good guy but when people think of Cuba they think of Kennedy and Kruschev and the Cuban missile crisis. When Nixon stabbed Tihwan in the back in 1971 it was seen as a good thing. It was "ping pong diplomicy". But the idea of normalizing relations with Cuba is resisted by the Cuban lobby, who always vote Republican. And we know how Hillary loves the Latin vote. If I were president I'd approach Raul, whom the country has been turned over to, Fidel's brother, and I would hint "today is your lucky day" and I'd say that if he doesn't cease this oppertunity and give us any concessions we happen to congure up that we want in exchange for trade, that the door may close and there would be another forty-odd years of trade isolation. All of the psychics are already saying that Raul will bring democracy to Cuba in one way or another. I think our rationalization for isolating Cuba is decades outdated, and I'd just like to say few of us share the Mafia's romantic notion that is Baptists were still running Cuba then everything would be just peachy. Harry Truman stated while he was alive that our government made a major strategic mistake in not volentering to help Castro in 1959.

Obama has won state number Nine in his string of victories. Apparently Obama has won every state in the month of February by a margin of at least twenty percentage points, except Maine, which he won by nineteen. Clearly everyone has been wrong about Obama, particularly in the Clinton campaign. All of the negativity of "Billery" has gone unheeded by the people of Wistonsin as they have of every other state where the people came to know Obama. Of course I found in dealing with Christianity and the Calvary right, the better people know me, the fewer of these absurd stereotypes that crop about me. And I like Obama know what it's like to fight phantoms floating around in peoples' minds. The Clintons and company have raised three recent charges against Obama. First that he promised to take public campaign funding only like Mc Cain is accusing him of. But Obama should challenge Mc Cain to only taking public money for the fall campaign. There is no way Mc Cain is going to pass up all that money from the Busy Dynesty to fund his fall campaign. Mc Cain in this area will "lose his nerve". Mc Cain in abandoning the principles of Mc Cain - Feingold, is an area for the democrats to launch a major attack against him in the fall campaign. If Mc Cain is going to continue to kiss conservative ass, he's going to lose all the respect of those centerest people who voted for him in this primary campaign. The second area of the Billery attack against Obama centers on this plegurism business. This to me is absurd. Where is it written that you can't use someone elses' words in a campaign. It's been pointed out that someone else ghost wrote "It Takes a Village", which people think that Hillary wrote. Bush believes she wrote it. Besides it's a friend of his he borrowed the words from and they borrowed words from each other. But I don't understand how Joe Byden was knocked out of the 1988 campaign by plagurizing speeches. Of all the issues you could fault someone on, this issue seems pointless. The third area of attack is the debating issue. Obama has appeared in eighteen debates and he's scheduled to appear in two more for Texas and Ohio. But Hillary used this failure to debate issue in Wisconsin, in vain. The thing is that if Obama were to schedule a debate he'd have to prep for it and it would take time away from the capgaign and nobody has that much time between elections these days. On the issue of Party unity the one area where I disagree with Randi Rhodes on - - well, two - - the other is the Open Primary. I'd like to see fewer open primaries. But I also disagree with Randi on this whole idea of "We don't care who runs in the fall because they are both outstanding camdidates. Let's go back to John Kennedy. The reason why he was picked over Johnson or Humphrey or even Stevenson, is because he had the personal charisma and "the vision thing". Leaders need to instill a vision of hope. One can say that Jesus was good at making speeches, because nobody today believe that Jesus actually does any of that other stuff like heal or cast out demons or raise from the dead. If you ask a liberal about Jesus like Thom Hartman, you won't hear how Jesus gave to the poor or volenteered for the red cross or the peace corps, or supported popular charitable foundations. You will hear little of how Jesus overcame temptations with women or to drink alcahol. Jesus is not remembered for these things. Jesus today is remembered for his Words. It's his Words more than his deeds that people strive to live up to. So I'm just staying that Obama can point to precident for relying on his words. To illustrate a greater truth, there are times when we have to "Clear our minds to see the truth" to even Know what to do next. We need a type of spiritual clenzing. Personally I don't give a crap about whether we have universal health insurance or not. If that's the only appeal a candidate has then forget it! I don't think we need to engage in some massive contest to see which candidate can promise the biggest government giveways to the people. The fact is that neither candidate is going to do anything about issues such as civil liberties or the growing size of government or the growing Imperial Presidency. Neither candidate is talking about prosecuting people in the Bush adminestration. Just a week or so ago Bill Clinton gave an "apology statement" for why he is still for NAFTA and not raising terrifs with Comunist China in particular. I don't know that Obama is any better on terrifs than Clinton is. He's talked little about it. In short my support of the democratic party at all is tenuous. Any number of issues could sway me to vote either Republican, or for a third party.

They are celebrating in Kosovo because that country has signed a declaration of Independence, and they were endoursed by Western Europe, and condemned by Russia, who continues to be pro Serbian after over 90 years. People on the far right like to use Kosovo as a case in point of the US supporting Moslems living there and that they are somehow "ungrateful". Dennis Miller has spoken of his detesting the word Palestinian, insisting that that is not a race, and even if they were a race they don't deserve to have a nation. Thankfully, President Bush is more liberal than the right wing whackos who support him. President Bush has been spending time in Africa trying to rehabilitate his image with help for AIDS and malaria and the like. They teach primarily abstinence before marriage. He is handing out free mosquito netting. He’s more popular now in East Africa than he is here.

This and the previous three paragraphs was typed February 19, 2008 and the elections are being held today in Wisconsin and Hawaii and also a primary in Washington State, which doesn’t count. Obama is trying to “beef” up his image, like Mondale. Obama can't go wrong in specificity for people like me who are actually curious. If it's true that people in general vote with their gut rather than their minds, then it doesn't matter. I think a big turn off, and it is for me is that ranting "whine" that Hillary gets to her voice when she campaigns on the stump.

I have certain favorite photographs I use for wallpaper, like “Mt. Reneir II”, which I have on now, which I’ve used the previous two years about this time of year. We had chili dogs for lunch and I got a letter there from Time-Warner I’d forgotten that I already picked up. I got a cigarette from Phyllis, which is a “free” cigarette I don’t have to pay back, because she already owed it to me. I was talking to Nancy about the weather and now we’re supposed to get some rain every day this week. I guess if you just had enough inputs in Excel computer programs, you could predict weather with exactitude. We aren’t there yet, but if you’re like me and believe that nature is one continuous cause and effect force, then you should be able to “get it right” every time.

GNOSTIC TEACHING IS GROSSLY MISUNDERSTOOD

This next paragraph may turn out to be several times longer than intended so hold on to your hats. Thom Hartman was debating with someone whether a corporation is a person or not. I believe corporations are persons and therefore ought to be taxed. This guest on the radio says corporations are not persons and shouldn’t be taxed. But conservatives are not the only people guilty of hypocracy. Christians do it when they talked about “The Gnostic hericy”. First of all they misstate what gnosticisum is just like they misstate what epicurianism is. With both they say “It’s a license for the flesh to sin and not be accountable, even though if you look up Gnosticism, it has virtually nothing to do with “the flesh” in this way. That didn’t stop Irenius, who is not my favorite theologian to begin with, to say that Gnosticism is a license for the flesh to sin. According to Christians, the Gnostics unduly separate out the spirit life from the flesh life, when in reality you can’t divorce one from the other. I am among those who agree that the spirit and flesh cannot be divorced. However Christians turn right around and endorce this separation of spirit and the flesh in another way. Phyllis was just telling somebody that Christ was the second Adam. What this means according to Dr. Price is that Jesus was not born perfect; he was merely born innocent. None of us have a chance for salvation by our own action when we’re born. We are born guilty have having committed sins already. (The last time I checked, guilty was the opposite of innocent) Jesus had the opportunity, as the first Adam did, to live a perfect life, but we don’t. Now- - when we are saved- - St. Paul tells us that marvelolus things happen to us like the spirit of right and truth comes into us and we have the ability to live perfect. (in a perfect state) Now… the Gnostics likewise teach that once we encounter Sophia, we have the ability to be saved. As they teach it and as I’ve gone into already- - there is a devolutional quality with “The One” meaning God in his perfected First State, which apparently goes back to the pythagerians. (The term “The One” reminds me of ‘Hue” in that StarTrek “Borg” episode) Anyhow, “The One” begat other gods and goddesses and each “aeon” of layer of gods was inferior to the previous one. Finally you get to Sophia and Christ, who occupy the lowest rung. (Jesus was created a little lower than the angels, ect) Sophia had “unauthorized reproduction without a man” (or copyright clearance) and begat Man, and as punish for her sin the baby was exiled and emveloped in Darkness where she could never find him. The school of Gnosticism that made its way to Rome at the turn of the 2^nd. century originally came from Egypt, which I find interesting. To make a long story short- - Gnostics teach that you can have a personal encounter with God, or The One, and thus be saved in your soul and spirit. St. Paul tought the same thing. But these neo dispensational Calvinists come along and teach that “Well yes, some people are saved by emvoking Christ, but you can’t count on it, and only God knows whether a man is really saved”. They will go on to state that “It’s all on Faith” and there no visible signs such as a “feeling of deliverance” or any Spirit that comes upon you or any healing of your body or anything. Salvation has nothing to do with the soul, but only with “the spirit”. This is what these neo Calvinists teach. So in the end you can not know whether you are delivered from your “Total depravity” or not. You have to wait till you die, when, according to these people, all your questions will be answered and all your doubts resolved and all your desires fulfilled. It’s kind of the dyspensationalist’s way of justifying “Nothing” and calling it “Something”. In their mind if you in your own flesh have an “Experience”, ie. seeing flashing lights or hearing voices or whatever, this experience doesn’t count because it happened to your Flesh. The only true experience is one of “the spirit”, which can’t be proved or in any manner demonstrated to exist to begin with. FYI, when I used the term “soul” I used it to refer to “Self”. To these people “soulish” is akin to “Self” and therefore is Baaad-!

There was new stuff about the Kennedy assasenation last night. They discovered a whole closet full of evidence that the Warren Comission reviewed and rejected including part of an alledged “Play” where Oswald and Jack Ruby were talking about killing the President before it happened”. Apparently they plan to make all this information public in a museum or some sort. The new D A believes the public should see it. My position is the same on this as it is on Christianity and the origen of the Roman Catholic Church. We may never know the truth. The question is whether you trust the people who are indoctrinating you. As for me, I do not.

Not it’s 12:30. I’m going to make a complete list of all the people I owe.

I’d like to explain what I meant by “the pond” in one of my recent postings. It’s simple. If there is a speed boat where do most all of the waves form. From behind the moving boat. If there are waves propagated in front of something moving in the water they are shrunk in the direction of the moving object and stretch out behind the object but the overall speed of the propagation is the same. For the most part big waves in the ocean travel at about the same speed as little waves. They just aren’t as high. I say all of this to illustrate a simple point. You don’t need the special theory of relativity to explain the speed of light if you accept the ether theory of space. Go for the obvious!

It’s after six now. I just did “Plaza” in sketch. The thing wigged out when I tried to draw a circle on that flat roof enclosure. So I used a square. Obama won in Wisconsin they project. This is big news if it holds up. I bought a big Hershey’s chocolate bar for just a dollar from Janet when I paid her back the cigarette. I ate the whole thing before dinner. I couldn’t help myself once I got started. So far I’ve also paid Bill back and James back. I went out to the bakery for a large coffee after dinner. We had what you’d have to call vegetarian soup with a few strands of chicken in it. I had seconds on that. We also had Spinach and corn bread, and you know what desert. Oh, Dianne is back but she didn’t talk about her sougern much but seems no worse the wear.

An Epidemic of Xenophobia

Before we get started I"d just like to say that this is the second time I've entered Blogger and not been asked for my name and password. I'm wondering whether I've been hacked. I don't recall doing any check marks, but I guess I'll have to check this out further.

As you know Wisconsin and Hawaii vote next week. It would appear that Obama will win both states. Nobody is denying Obama will take Hawaii but in Wisconsin there is talk of all these poor catholic union workers (who used to be middle-class Catholic union workers before Reagan) and they may opt for Hillary. To counterballance this, there is the younger University students who are allowed to register to vote the same day and they may rush to Obama. Yesterday as you know I was with the family on an extended outing and I happened to ask my right-wing Sister in law whom she would support if she were one of these Super-deligates. She said she would pick Hillary as the standard bearer rather than Obama because Obama is a Moslem and the Republicans will make a lot of all this Islamic influence Obama is subjected to and won't be able to resist. This goes back to her xenophobia of Arab culture in any form in this country. Our Iraq War policy is crippled by this xenophobia because people fear what ended happening in Viet Nam where the poor refugees fled in a panic being pursued by the advancing hordes of North Vietnamese Comunists and clinging to the skids of the hilocopters taking off. In my oppinion this won't happen in Iraq and probably because of the surge and a re-assessment we have done of the Iraqi people realizing they don't like Al Qaida any better than we do. Keep in mind that the majority of Iraq is Shiite, as is the government. My sister in law is so xenophobic she obviously forgot this fact and if her concern is Al Qaida, they have other fish to fry now and it's no longer in their interest to mess around with Iraq. I don't want an epidemic of either racism or religious bigotry breaking out when Obama becomes the Democratic standard bearer. We truely do need to come to a new dawn and a new day in America. Hillary can talk about empty words. No religion is more replete with empty words than Christianity. They talk of Heaven and Jesus being the Resurrection and the Life, but nobody has risen from the dead and nobody has gone to heaven and come back to talk about it. Hillary has spoken her own "words" involving the destruction the American family as we know it with things like gay marriage and the ability of children to sue their parents. Hillary has a really radical past if you "Vet" her. There is a train of offenses a mile long in Hillary Clinton's past - - if you just review Rush Limbaugh's old programs from fifteen years ago. This is back when Rush Limbaugh was in his hay day and he still did all of those cute skits and song parodies he's since given up.

I’d now like to discuss a topic I’m not sure I wanted to bring up. Certain news events “push my buttons” as they say. As you know and I already mentioned, Johnny Wendell discussed that ex college student who offed a bunch of people and then turned the gun on himself. He went off his medication. Well, Johnny suggested in a rather emotive, biased “John Kovelt” manner, that such people as the killer ought to have mandentory reverse drug testing. He says “Anyone who goes to see a psychiatrist and gets prescribed a drug ought to prohibited from not having a required amount of that drug in his blood stream. I thought “Maybe that makes sense”. Then Stewart from the Federation chimed in and said “It’s a violation of a person’s civil rights. Scientologists don’t believed people should be drugged and being drugged is not the normal state of cells in the human brain”. Besides this there are two other reasons not to have drug testing. The most compelling is that it will keep people from getting needed medical help for real problems. Not to mention it breaks the normal trust between a doctor and patient. Of course that didn’t stop the Asshole from El Paso from ratting me out to my parents and saying things Dad never recanted like, “He says you threatened him with violence”, which is beyond false. Apparently he and parents had a little chat about what therapists I should be seeing and what drugs I should be taking. Of course back in the “Arimid” period (referring to a series of DOS files covering the years 1966 through early 1968, I state how hostile my family living environment was. In fact really the sort of harassment and other stuff I was subjected to could only be equated in a prison setting, in which the guards are completely corrupt and turning to them for help would be suicide. Dad once admitted that perhaps a reason why my “medication” didn’t work, in fact “things” got worse, is because things “really WERE getting worse”. The point is that it seems crazy to me upon reflection to institute some government piss in a jar policy for psychos because that “definition” could be changed at any time, and it could be that some day (and perhaps soon) controversial or non cultural behavior or “revolutionary” activity could be seen as mal adjustment, and something for which you should be drugged. And there is no telling who has or hasn’t tested and certified the drug that the government wants to use on you. Scientologists are always saying that rationalism is achieved through rational, analytic thought and not through chemistry. I was reading the book “Mine Race” from the box I just retrieved, and happened on a page that said “events are not pre-determined and only certain events such as chemical reactions can be said to be pre determined. But brain cells in our brains (obviously) are just chemical reaction going on. Of course Ron Hubbard teaches that individual calls have a “Will” such as the will to survive. Of course “Survive” is a bad word among Christians. For instance a poor woman saying “I did what I had to do to survive on the streets”. Survive is a synonym for Sin. For Christianity to wish to survive is a sin as per the scripture, “He who seeks to preserve his life shall lose it”. But for scientology- and perhaps other religions, the soul is seen as a sacred entity that is separate and apart from the rest of creation or events that happen. This is the non deterministic view. If you are a determinist like me you believe, and the Federation teaches, that the Life we appear to have is an illusion and that nobody has ever proved the existence of the soul. If we in truth have no souls, then perhaps we are just chemical cell reactions waiting to be manipulated through drugs. If you are of the John Locke, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson school, then you believe in a hierarchy of authority beginning with God- - and then going to the constitution, and then laws- - and then individual human beings. In such a world right and wrong are “self evident”, as Scientology would agree with. I’ve always thought right and wrong were self evident. But under Christianity with its “total depravity” doctrine, right and wrong are NOT self evident. The only self evident attribute of God to these people is whether you are “In the blessings of the Lord”. Faith is imputed to you if you have these Blessings, and if you lack them you lack Faith. Jesus made an interesting statement. He said if you have the faith as a grain of mustard you can say to the mountains “throw yourselves into the sea” and it will be done. My response is, “If you can do THAT with a LITTLE faith, then obviously I possess none. (Think about it) Under Calvinistic Christianity, which has more in common with Hillary Clinton’s beliefs than you think, the human being has no Soul with rights that are “sacred and undeniable”. If you have no rights, then if other people treat you like crap, “legally” you have no recourse. And that’s my problem with this whole drug testing thing. Jesus on the radio is always talking about “Us and Them”. Other people such as John Kovelt and Tammy Bruce are in this “Us and Them” mentality. There is altogether too much of this in the world. Tammy Bruce once said she doesn’t want a subway to the San Fernando Valley from LA to be built because negroes from the slums will only board the trains and come out in mass to the affluent neighborhoods of the valley. Just how often does some psycho flip out and kill a bunch of people. Maybe there are three or four in a decade. Should we suspend our constitution all to catch three or four psychos? The math just doesn’t work out. What is to stop them passing other laws like mandentory genetic engineering of kids and if your kid is a “bad seed” then you can be sued if you didn’t go through the proper engeneering channels when he was conceived and you didn’t purge all the bad genes from the fetus? Johnny Wendell spoke of people who lose their insurance and can’t get the drug any more, and he said “Well if we had single payer health coverage, this wouldn’t be a problem. You can’t win an argument by appealing to something that does not yet exist. Christians do this every day, of course when they threaten people with divine judgement and of going either to Heaven or Hell.

Solidarity on the Right

This is Potomac Tuesday and Obama has done a decisive clean sweep of the three areas where elections were being held, Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. Obama has a land slide victory in all three places. If this doesn't "send a message" to the Clinton campaign I don't know what will. If you look at a map, Obama has a solid block of states in the north and west part of the Country. Obama's momentum is growing every day. If they want to count Michigan, they at least should have put Obama's name on the ballot. As I hear it Hillary told the Obama camp it was silly to worry about just her name being on the ballot because they know it won't count. Of course Hillary is a congenital liar. She has to outright lies, misstatements in fact, in order to win an argument. She made up that story about Obama people keeping pro Hillary from the caucuses in Nevada. She also made numerous mis statements about the bills she voted on leading up to the Iraq War and what each vote meant. As we also say later in this blog she is still doing race baiting even now. People have learned a brand new word lately, "Super-deligate". Randi Rhodes and I were hoping that perhaps if this were a brokered convention we could see something "historic" happening in our life times. Randi and I were both disabused of that notion in the past couple of days, when we see the lock the Clinton people have on the party apperatus. I imagine millions of independants and some disaffected republicans who thought of voting democratic, will not be voting democratic if Hillary carries through with what she is planning now. In the real world, she's lost eight elections in a row, with a likely two more losses next week. After Wisconsin neighbors Iowa and Illinois and Clinton has yet to win any state remotely in that part of the country. I don't know how she can go into Ohio and Texas with any remote idea that she will win victories in both of those large states. If Obama is the democratic candidate, I'm voting democratic. If Hillary is the candidate I'm voting for Mc Cain. It's just that simple. And I'll be joined by millions. I know the Clintons and what they are like. They don't have an altruistic bone in their bodies but are always looking out for number one. I have no doubt Hillary would rather be the Party's standard bearer- and lose to Mc Cain, than let Obama be the standard bearer and have the party win. Rush Limbaugh has Hillary pegged right. She has been waiting for this moment ever since 1992, if not longer. And she is going to fight like a rabid animal to prevent defeat from happening. I'd like to modify an oppinion I gave a few posts back. I am against the idea of mandentory medical insurance, if you have to go to a private insurer to get it. They're in the business of making money and when you look at the premiums you'd have to pay to get it, I'd much rather just not go to doctors and take my chances as people have been doing for thousands of years. As to that bit about people in Emergency rooms leeching off the system, they obviously haven't been to many hospitals. They have you fill out a million forms even if you're at death's door, and if they don't like what they see on the forms, you don't get service. Thom Hartman can talk all he wants to about "shared risks" but the most obvious "risk" that's a certainty is the risk to your pocket book. (Selah)

Thom Hartman today had one of these guys who says our liberal values are what are “provoked” the 9 – 11 attacks by Al Qaida. This would be a classic case if true of “blame the victim” like “she was wearing a provocative dress”. It is a war on values, but it’s between the 21^st. century and the 12^th. century. Apparently ten years ago when Al Qaida declared war on us it was because we had troops in Saudi Arabia, even though we were doing it to protect them. Also they wanted their “sacred” oil valued at a hundred dollars a barrel, which they have now. Apparently one Islamic cleric was incensed when he was over here when he learned they held square dances at churches.

It’s kind of a love fest among the republicans now. They’re all gathered around the camp fire singing “Kom Bai Yah”. Mc Cain and Huckibee now “understand each other” and there is no ill will Huckibee is still in the race. That Bowers guy from focus on the family has endorsed Mc Cain now. Overall they are doing everything they can to keep the far right fringe happy and like I say the President is in on the act. If the President speaks at the Republican convention, a lot of people will vote democratic. Thom Hartman was saying this was something the Republicans absolutely would not do. Nobody likes Bush, not even his beloved conservatives. Indeed, the republican will truely be "drinking the Kool-Aid if they turn to our President.

It’s kind of funny how the media is “spinning” this triple primary today. Hillary knows they’re going to lose all three racking up eight unanswered Obama victories in a row. Their whole thing is “Well, Texas and Ohio is where the “real” Americans are”. There is an obvious Obama tide rising and this scares Hillary, because if people discover that it’s occurring- - she will be out of ammunition in her political rhetoric. But Hillary is not the kind of woman to "go quietly" when she's been defeated. She'll drag down as many others as she can along with her.

That bill amendment (“Tel-Com" immunity provision) was voted down prohibiting the people from suing Utility Companies that give information to the government. In other words, the Senate favors protecting Tel-Coms by granting them blanket immunity so that John Q Citizen is denied access to the courts of our land to seek justice as would normally be his right. .In the Senate the amendment was voted down 67 to 33 or so. Of course as Hartman points out, the whole FISA bill sucks whether you can sue utility companies or not. The whole bill is a massive violation of our Civil Rights turning overseeing survailance from the justice department to the President himself and his henchmen. Obama has mentioned this bill in passing but neither candidate has discussed the bill at length, but they should.

THE FOLLOWING WAS TYPED MONDAY FEBRUARY 11th.

The Clinton campaign according to Randy Rhodes is still heavily engage in playing the racial card. They went after Blacks as long as they voted for Hillary but now that they are voting heavily for Obama, they could care less about courting Blacks. But they are spreading the roomer that Mexicans “never will vote for a black leader”, which is patently untrue. But even among Chicanos, Obama is gaining. Obama gains everywhere where he campaigns and all the “demographics” for Obama are going up and the figures for Hillary are going down. It looks like Obama is going to sweep the Potomac primary of Virginia, Maryland, and Washington DC. It’s my guess that Obama will really “clean up” in Texas and get all sorts of deligates. It appears that we are headed into a brokered convention where the party bosses decide which one will win. But if it’s Clinton, there will be an unprecedented backlash of Blacks voting republican.

This is after dinner on Monday. Well you heard it just now. Diet drinks make you fat. This is right up there with vitamins give you cancer and personal disasters make you stronger. Someone should write all these down. How about “It is more blessed to give than to receive”. When I successfully borrow a cigarette I feel blessed. We had roast pork for dinner and Brenda gave me her portion. I felt blessed. Of course another adage is too much protein is bad for you. Turning the other cheek is a universal remedy for aggressors against you. Prayer takes your mind off your problems. Going to church helps put God in perspective in your life. Everybody should be encouraged to vote- even blithering idiots like Forrest Gump. Second hand smoke kills. Ethanol will cure the global warming problem. Diamond lanes should be abolished because “nobody” used them. Daylight Savings Time saves energy. People spend more time using pennies in commerce than they do in freeway traffic, waiting in lines, or waiting to see the doctor. Cholesterol drugs are the way to deal with high cholesterol. Unelected super-deligates are necessary to make sure the others vote right. If you hang on to a losing stock long enough it will “come back”. Term limits are the cure for government corruption. Don’t build more public transit because “Nobody uses it”. If you use the internet you will be sucked into a life of obsessive pornography addiction. If you never stick up for yourself your detractors will magically come to respect you in time. People who promote their own personal interests are somehow “Evil”. The profit motive is “ungodly”. If more people (or everybody) used medical insurance, medical costs would go down. You should never compare yourself to people around you. Women hate lusty and promiscuous men. Reality emanates from your own mind. Never pass judgement on whether you think anything is right or wrong. And above all, people, as much as possible should be separated from the consequences of their own actions.

I guess I could go on all day with those. There are so many absurdities that have made their way into common usage. Personally, my body knows the difference between a diet Coke and a regular Coke. And you know a diabetic will notice the difference.

Yahoo turned down Microsoft’s offer to buy them out because Yahoo says they’re worth forty dollars a share and that they are under-valued. I salute them. Microsoft does not need another area they can monopolize. Leo Le Port fears Flicker and other services might be altered or shut down if Microsoft takes over. Now Yahoo is thinking about connecting up with Google and letting Google take over their “search” services.

Obama won in four different sections of the country. He won in Washington State and in Nebraska and in Louisiana and in Maine. He’s leading in all three “states” in the Potomac primaries on Tuesday. Phyllis Green says she likes Obama even though she is a Christian. I have been rooting for Huckibee to win his states because I’m already getting tired of seeing and hearing from Mc Cain. Now President Bush has taken to defending Mc Cain in saying he’s a true blue conservative. Mc Cain has also “clarified” his stance on conservative issues. I don’t think the Republican standard bearer needs a man who is 32% in popularity ratings to vouch for his character. Mc Cain seems to want to do anything to slavishly appease the far right and to hell with this vast number of people in the political center. It’s kind of like I was writing a letter to our church pastor twenty years ago saying all the members were either under twelve or over sixty, and the entire middle generation, my generation was just blown off. I don’t see why political candidates want to dismiss the vast number of Americans not on the political fringes. I believe Obama is in a better position to bridge this gap than is Mc Cain. Obama only picked up 72 delegates in last weekend’s victories. That isn’t going to help him much with the super delegates breathing down his neck. If Hillary wins the nomination because people are pulling strings in the back rooms a lot of the people from the political center are going to cry “fowl”. Clinton fired her campaign manager and how has another woman in the post. It’s Maggie Williams, who used to be Bill’s Chief of Staff, associated with taking Vince foster files out of his office before his untimely death. .So I’m wondering, “Are dirty tricks in or out now?”