All Together Now- Pull the Chain!

They said that Obama’s speech would be Reaganesque. I found the beginning of the speech rather too predictable with all the usual Obama buzz-words and catch phrases. Today I did something I’ve been contemplating doing for a week or so. I dialed away from the Nancy Skinner show. If they aren’t going to put Randy Rhodes back on then I’m not listening to that show any more. One viewer apparently described Nancy Skinner as “un-seasoned gruel”. I would have to agree because all of the tag trademarks from the old show are gone now. Just as a word to the wise, any host who spends an inordenent time talking about themselves or reliving their past life is running a risk of losing their audience. I listened to Sean Hannidy and his show was as meaty in the first fifteen minute segment as Nancy’s show was in all three hours put together. Sean has some thought provoking analyses about our President. Right now the Republican reply to tonight’s State of the Union speech is playing. I will say this about Obama’s three goals. We need to spend on energy research. There is no doubt about it. We need to spend money on greening up our infrastructure and our roads and bridges and new transportation systems. But as to the other two prongs of Obama’s plan, we can do without them. Health Insurance reform is one we can take on some day, perhaps in the next administration. We can’t afford it now. Perhaps there will come a day when we can abolish the whole, inefficient HMO system that bilks people out of their money. Still the consensus as I view it- - is that we in the US still get superior health care to most nations, and those who say otherwise are cherry picking the results. As to education- - this is an area appropriately left to the states. I’m one who believes even having a national Department of Education is misplaced. It all stems back down to jobs. If the job market is as healthy as it should be, you won’t need a four or six year college education to get a job. If the employment market were healthy, students would be able to get part time jobs and pay for their own education. I guess my statement to those who say college is more expensive now is, “Deal with it”. I didn’t like the tone of Obama’s remarks waving as it were the bloody banner or “Trade Wars” guaranteed to get a response. I agree with Pat Buchannon today on the Sean Hannity show who said if we don’t reform our trade balance, and begin again to begin producing our own goods, cars and TV’s here, then we have had it as a nation. I agree with Obama’s remarks in saying that if we do nothing about our economic crisis we shall indeed put the problem off on the next generation to pay, and we don’t want to do that. I can’t stress enough the importance is raising taxes on those rich people who are able to pay. Were I president I’d hike their tax rate to fifty percent and not 39%. We are too kind. I fear that Obama is going somehow to be conned into rescinding this tax rate increase in the name of “getting along”. Obama needs to get a back bone. I hope he’s serious about monitoring where all this money goes on the second 350 Billion to the banks. I guess I want to know what specific things he plans to do to “make the banks lend the money they should”.

One area where Obama appeared a little spineless- - and I hope it was just an oversight, was the whole idea of trying not just the “terrorist” inmates of Guantanamo Bay but also their captors who engaged in torture both there and at other “black sites” around the world. Is Obama serious enough to actually prosecute those who violate his No Torture edict? I hope so. You know the whole area of “abuse of power” by the previous administration needs to be addressed, and that means looking into all the violations of the privacy of American citizens. As Thom Hartman has said- - certain deeds are so glairing that a blind person could not help but notice them. I speek of the Don Siegleman affair. Siegelman was cheated out of a re-election and when he sought to run again to get his office back, he was prosecuted by Karl Rove and other political enemies. Apparently Siegleman illegally appointed a man of financial means to a post that paid little or nothing, and this is said to be “financial gain”. Forthermore the man he appointed had been serving in that post for two previous terms. If we turn I blind eye and a deaf ear to the cries of those seeking their day in court, we degrade ourselves as a nation, and shrink from the high ethical goals to which America used to be noted for. Even people demolishing a city to build an entirely new city on the site will not do so unless they are certain that the foundation is sure. We risk such a shaky foundation on anything we do from now on- - or in other words, the past will come back to bite us again and again. Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Many of the sins of the Bush administration were “enabled” because Bill Clinton refused to continue with prosecutions of the Reagan administration, which were then in progress. Now thanks to the democrats, the office of special prosecutor has been abolished. This is no way to reform government. You know, Granny of the Beverly Hillbillies used to have a saying “Everybody knows the talking comes after the fighting”. What she means by this is you talk to your enemy after you’ve bashed him around a little and given him an “attitude adjustment”. In this state he will be willing to listen- - and not just nod his head at youand kiss you off five minutes later. People can’t appreciate “mercy” if the punishment they were threatened with and seeking mercy from, was never any real threat. (Selah)

I want to talk just a little about that woman with fourteen children. I think the media is beating her up too much. Yes we can agree she most likely has some “mental disturbance” of one kind or another. But you don’t humiliate people in the national media because they suffer from a weakness. Most likely her kids will all or in part be taken from her because both she and her relatives are financially insolvent. She owes $26,000 in back mortgage payments and owes thousands in student loans. What she needs is kindness and understanding. This way after she’s had the proper therapy, she won’t cringe in horror every time she contemplates her past- - and hopefully won’t see a haf dozen videos on herself on the internet.

You know, I’ve been telling you people about Nicole Walker, this woman on the soap opera with the secretly obtained adoptive baby that her husband believes she gave birth to when he wasn’t around. You know, even if you’re a liar and a deceiver, there comes a time when continuing to lie isn’t just “Immoral” but it’s just plain Stupid, and does a disservice to both her and all concerned. Now she’s being blackmailed by an enemy of her husband- - and she’s conceiling that fact too but trying to steer her husband’s business direction in a way against her husband’s interest, and sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong. Now even when she lies the relation with her husband blows up in her face, and he’s suspecting her of seeing yet another man. It would be simpler for all concern to say “Elvis, I’ve been lying to you a long time. We’re not married now and I don’t think we should be married. After your conduct the other night I feel uncomfortable being around you. You’re right. I’m much closer to Brady (the other man’s name) than I am to you. He understands me in a way I knew you never would. Just throw me out of the house and we’ll call it even. I know you’ll let me keep all the money and jewelery you gave me because you know a messy court case would just be bad publicity for you and we both want to avoid that. What do you say, huh?”

In Dreams

There was some associate of George Harrison who last Sunday was quoted as saying "We have always existed" and also "We will always exist". It's a nice conforting belief. I have often stated that there seems no way in natural science to prove this statement. But one might protest that disproving such a statement is not all that easy, either. It would have profound implications for instance to those who believe there is salvation for Planet Earth by controling the population. If there is something cosmic about our appearence here on this planet in human form, then one can argue that one cannot erradicate the existance of any man, born or unborn. Such a belief in pre existance would pose no conflict with Calvinism, but rather, would complement it. Hartman has his belief still that it's the war like peoples that were able to breed the most children and hence warriers to dominate the planet. One could then start an argument that Evolution is the survival of the fittest and so that God using the human process of natural selection has made his will known, particularly if you're a Calvinist and therefore believe there is no logical possibility things could have happened any other way. I had a dream a couple of weeks ago that I was given a series of extensive revelations about the true nature of Man. And that I was planning to make a movie out of it expounding on my beliefs. Part of it stems from the closed portion of the letter "A", which is a mystic symbol for some organization, I just don't remember what. In the closed part of the "A" are all the secrets of the universe locked away. Part of this secret is that the key to the whole Universe lies in each individual atom and molicule in every living being. Indeed, I was going to begin this movie with the song lyric "Without going out of my door, I can know the ways of Heaven". That's what we all want to know is the ways of heaven. In my dream, George Harrison and Eric Claptin (who isn't even dead yet) occupy a superior place in the After Life to that of John Lennon. Part of the problem with death- - if you believe in the existance of "Eternity" is that the Book of Revelation says that not only the material world will be destroyed at the end of days, but Death itself will be done away with. One might argue that there is a logical difficulty in putting an end to that which has a negative existance to begin with. After all in order to have Death you have to have Time, and if you do away with Time, then Death has no power. That's a heavy concept to deal with, I know. Of course some native peoples believe in shall we say pharmicological help in seeking answers to Eternal Mysteries. There is a lot of talk about the year 2012 right now. There is enough material on the internet about the subject to satiate the most voricious speed reader. Besides the Mayan civilization, they go into the beliefs of the Hopi tribe. According to the Hopi, we have already had three cycles of destruction, one by fire, the next by ice, and the last by water in the great flood, with one more cycle to come. There is also a lot of talk about Callendars and something called The Long Count working with numbers of base twenty. The I Ching is even brought into it since 6 x 6 x 64 x 64 makes 26,000 years, which comproses the grand cycle of the zodiac by which the pole which is the spinning "top" of the earth makes one complete circle in the sky. Others might insistist they believe in Eternity because they just "know it". One of Black Bart's favorite adages is "You'll never run away from You". For this axiom to be true, then not even Death can camoflogue who we are. (Selah)

There is a movie called Dr. Fisher of Geneva. This is a movie about a bitter older man who is both mad at mankind, who aren't worthy of him, and also rage at God. He makes the point that while others "Hate" him, he "Despizes" all of them. You can't really Despize a man without personally being hurt by him or his kind, somewhere down the line. It would seem that Dr. Fisher despizes God. Could it be that God despizes mankind? He doesn't just hate us, but despizes us. Is it that God deep down resents human lusts and emotions? On the Jesus Christ show, Jesus admitted to "You know, living a life of perfection was no picnic". One could wonder just how much Jesus despizes the lusts and emotions of man. If one were to dream up an ultimate revenge against God, he would have to pick a form of destruction or "Deicide" that would be most detestable and unspeakable for the Almighty. Dr. Fisher liked to throw a lot of parties for the very rich, his "Toads". He said "The rich have no pride. The poor would never stand for my methods of humiliation. There is a man with an artificial hand, and Dr. Fisher would be a bit, shall we say, blunt, in referring to his disability. His parties in one way or another each would transgress social norms. In the movie "Spellbound" when Leo G Carol turns the gun around and decides to blow his OWN brains out, they had to construct a giant hand and a giant gun, in order to keep the whole picture in focus. I find this fact, shall we say, rather "metaphorical". Of course to impute mental illness to God or even psycho analise God at all some would say "To a hammer, everything looks like a nail". Let me tell you the dream sequence. Dreams are always much more interesting in the movies than they are in real life. There was a man named Dr. Edwards, who was an impostor of the real Dr. Edwards. He saw the real Dr. Edwards being murdered (by Leo G Carol) on a ski slope and the revolver burried in the snow. The new Impostor in his deluded state thought he WAS Dr. Edwards and he was scheduled to assume an administrative job of a Mental Institution by Leo G Carol. Of course all the people who know, knew there was "something off about this Dr. Edwards". You might say he was a mere shadow of his old self. The Impostor Dr. Edwards had a dream in which he was a card dealer in a casino with curtains with eyes all over them for walls, and patients from the Institution went around cutting the drapes with siscors. The dealer dealt the seven of clubs, and then said to the other player "Seven makes 21". At this time the guy he was playing blackjack with showed his cards and they were all blanks. At this time the Owner of the Casino came up and told the man that if he was going to raise a fuss about losing he was no longer welcome in this place. Our Impostor also viewed a skiing slope and saw a shaddowy man with no face drop a wheel, like a karmic wheel, down into the snow. Dreams are a lot easier to figure out when you know the set up. John Lennon, according to this writer, had an impostor stand in for him at various times over a period of several years. Could it be that the "Revolver" album is about the ultimate farce, of God committing suicide? This Impostor as life continued did not do so well because the murder rap was pinned on him though he was not guilty. And of course the real Lennon, er uh- - Dr. Edwards, was now dead. You know, sometimes if you figure out an awful secret the thing to do is to keep it to yourself lest you endanger your very Life. Some may say that the ability to "Talk the violent person out of killing - - " is a valued tallent. You know in the movie "Spellbound" they "cheat" with the special effects. This is a big secret.

I dreamed a week or so ago that I was involved in the making of a video for the Doors. And I was directing people to do this or that to ham up the scene. In one scene I was in some Van where all five (?) of the Doors were. (Perhaps their producer was with them) They were just getting up in the morning. My Dad was in this dream. I was screaming obscenities at him in this dream and I'm not even sure why. Perhaps just because I thought it would go good in the video. Perhaps it was something more. Sometimes you live your whole life not even knowing What you are mad it. Perhaps it's that man behind the wall laughing at the deception he has pulled off. And you're waiting for him to drop the karmic wheel so you can pick it up and become the dealer and be a winner for once. Tie always goes to the dealer. Well, it's just a thought.

Living Within Our Means

Well, the State of California has finally passed a budget. A key legislator finally decided to go along with the program. They dropped the twelve cents gasoline tax hike but they’re keeping the one percent hike in sales tax, the doubling of motor vehicles fees and also an increase in the State Income Tax. They had this all last night on the evening news but I missed the boat yesterday in that other file because I saw a Google video where the Governor was talking with reporters and was in a downcast mood.

There is a guy who had his internet moment of fame yesterday for saying that Obama shouldn’t reward irresponsible people and punish the 92% of the mortgage payers who actually pay their bills on time, and if Obama is going to help the slaggers, then he should help the responsible 92% also with a check. I happened to think of my own past back to November of 1978 when my source of income was gone, and now I was moving into a different house where I would be paying almost double the rent. But it was only the next August or September (of 1979) that I actually began to get worried, even though all that time I had no money coming in, in fact had actually made a loan to my housemate so he could pay the rent, and I had a $300.00 dental expense for a crown that wasn’t covered by insurance. But that was back in the days when people actually had financial buffers that could absorb the shocks of the unexpected. That could never happen today. People have no drescretionary money. Hartman is trying to tell us that once upon a time fifty percent of people’s money was drescretionary. That’s living the life. Today people are only one pay check away from financial ruin. People who are my age and just older look at their bank accounts and declare they will never be able to make it on retirement. But people do have to live within their means. I don’t see how people can continue to use cell phones. The idea of giving cell phones to your kids, and encouraging them to use them is lucicris on a whole lot of levels. You see these TV sitcoms where everyone is a virgin at seventeen and all the students are applying for these exclusive colleges. That generation seems to live in a different world. You know, where you can travel for three months in Europe to “broaden your experience” or something. They say people have “stopped spending”. I’ll tell you what “stopping spending” is. That’s when a while back I “stopped spending” money on snacks because I couldn’t afford it. I didn’t just cut back fifteen percent. I “stopped spending” on a movie night out, or day excoursions at one of our local theme parks. Cutting back fifteen percent is not “stopping spending”. People have not even “stopped spending” on elective surgeries. There are still incidences, even now, where the Federal Government will dump a lot of money on a community and they have to dream up all sorts of wasteful ways to spend the money. People in the news need to redefine their terms. They still advertise lypho-suction to reduce fat and these laser treatments for excess fat, and stomach stapling. People still seek the same exclusive fashions and accessories that the Stars have. It we were really all that broke, all these places would have gone out of business by now. They say Mc Donald’s has upgraded their coffee. Mc Donalds already had the best coffee of any of the fast food places I went to when I lived in my apartment and still actually had discretionary income, even if it was from the government. I think switching to Mc Donald’s coffee is the only sensible thing to do in these times and long overdue. But you know- - being financially prudent is considered “un-patriotic” by the Bushies, “Doncha Know!” Remember when President Bush’s message to everybody was to “Go Shopping?” This is one recession we can’t shop our way out of. And if other people are thrown out of work because I stop spending money well I guess that’s just too bad. But I’m not going to engage in the same insane behavior that caused this economic mess. The Reagonomics gurus and the Bushies said to use your home as an ATM machine, and to compensate for stagnant wages by going into debt. I believe people should suffer for their own poor decisions unless somehow “The Commons” is affected. That is- if you don’t vaccinate your kid, then it decreases “herd immunity” and increases my kid’s likelihood of getting the disease. Likewise if your neighbor’s house is on fire it is the only prudent thing to do to help him put it out, lest it spread. In like manner if a blight of unsold homes is breaking out in your neighborhood, it impacts the worth of your house. Your neighbor really owes it to you NOT to default on his mortgage. One might even argue if the price of your house goes down because of his actions, than you have the right to sue him in court. People say this recession could last for twenty years. One person in his sixties said “I do not expect to see the end of this financial crunch within my lifetime”. We have to wrong out all the economic poison from this economy. We were able to do that in the early ‘eighties, but only after a protracted period of a high “misery index” in the twenties. Hopefully parent’s misfortunes will be an object lesson to their children, not to spend beyond their means, learned, perhaps at a bit younger age than their parents learned it. Hopefully today’s youths will grow up more responsible people because of the hardships we are facing now, like our grandparents used to be.

America's Uncertain Future

President Obama has signed the historic economic stimulus bill today, presumably in Denver like he said. The stock market responded by going down. As Jim Morrison says, “The future’s uncertain and the end is always near”. There is an air of uncertainty about this bill. The Republicans have pointed out that only 25% of the bill is for things like roads, bridges, and other infrastructure that was so heralded. Mc Cain says that Republicans were not consulted when the bill was put together. Thom Hartman today talked about the Mayan Calendar and how the return of their messiah will occur on December 21^st 2012. That’s earlier than I was thinking. I thought the date was 2024 or something. If that is the right date then we should already be seeing “signs” of the unfolding new Golden Age, longed for by Christians and other religions. Instead we see the same sort of partisan bickering we’ve always seen and we better hope and pray that Sarah Palin isn’t picking out her cabinet during that period. People would like to believe we will never see an eight year period like the Bush Administration again. I have sure felt that way in the past few years. But the reality is that the concerns of the Born Again Christians are real and aren’t going away. Like that Barrabus movie I watched featured the man Barrabus wrestling with his soul for Possession by the Almighty, so the nation’s soul is in a state of turmoil as concerns of the left and the right struggle to resolve themselves. Thom Hartman can talk all he wants to about limiting the world’s population and how this should be a high priority of Mankind, and how a reduced population will enhance the quality of life and for each and every worker. But the truth is anybody who actually tried to “Play God” by instituting a War or something, like the computer in the song “Savior Machine” - - such an individual would rightly be regarded as mad. Hartmann says that the Iraquois and other Indian women only bear a child every seven years and Iraquois women are shocked at the reproductive rates of white women, who have ten or twelve children. According to Hartman- - war is virtually unknown among tribes of “stable populations”. I’d like th fact check that remark. Hartmann believes there were ample people to populate the world during the era of the Crusades after “an unnaturally long period of mild climate raising populations”. Can anybody spell “Social Engineering”? I think this is what people like Senator Mc Cain are afraid of. They are afraid of 250 years of American heritage being flushed down the toilet. As one who comments I would just say “I feel your pain. I am not entirely insensitive to your concerns Mr. Mc Cain.” People, and justly I might say, are afraid of the decline of the work ethic and how “social engineering” will just mess us all over. The thing is there are other ideas of liberals like abolition of “Right to Work” laws, that are just plain anti “free market”. Growing up- - it always seemed to me that Unionism was something that appeared to be “crammed down the throat” of the worker. Part of the problem is the belief in America that “God owes you a Raise” like when you were a kid and got a year older your allowance would be increased. Perhaps we all have a distorted standard as to just what “normal existence” is. People back in the bad old days seemed perfectly happy with the time tested themes of “God and Country” and were content to be monogamous and to “not go off half cocked”. I don’t know. Maybe I’ve under-rated prayer and all of that churchy stuff. I guess what I’m saying as that may we Americans should “Try and see what God may be speaking into the hearts of we Americans”. I’ve had trouble “fitting in” to this societal mode myself. But I suppose one of the legions of Christians who listen to Dennis Prager and insist that “Happiness is a Duty” would tell me that just because I’m a misfit that the world shouldn’t have to fit into my warped mold of it. I don’t know. I know this: The results of the 2004 and 2008 are different only that the Democrats got a few more percentage points in 2008. There was no “fundamental shift in the ground” as Obama implies, or Dylan has suggested in the song “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”. Psychologists persistently tell people to “make peace with their enemies, and those people with whom they disagree”. I believe if it’s possible to make peace with God, then we should do it, because- - not to be too blunt, “God doesn’t lose arguments”. Some may wonder if there were these vast populations of slave labor in the old days, why didn’t they with their sheer numbers just revolt? There has to be some element here that I’m missing. Women outnumber men and yet women of old, voted most likely the way their husbands told them to. Women had the vote when Harding and Coolege were elected yet choose to give these men a pass. One would have thought that if a Black man were elected president (not to be racial or anything) that surely there would be s vengeance and a purging out of the evil influence of the White man. But now we hear that Obama has no desire to go after Bush and Chaney and Rove. Karl Rove is still trying to get out of testifying before congress. I’m not disputing Obama’s decision, after all he is the President. But I am trying to understand his decision. Is this what they mean when they say “The Lord works in mysterious ways?” Obama apparently wants no airing at all of the sins of Karl Rove and all the rest of these people. People say that the secret behind being a successful Christian is “Letting Go of the Past”. Pat Buchannon, has even stated that when Obama screws up he should not admit to making a mistake, like with picking Thomas Dashel. It’s just “un Presidential”. And Obama is the President. Is it one of these things like Christians say, “The husband is the covering for his wife”? He is the head, the protector, he does the thinking??? According to Buchannon, it’s never the guy’s fault at the top of the pyramid if he can blame it on somebody else. Is this what they mean by “New Age Thinking?” They say we’re headed for a new age when man’s nature will fundamentally be changed. If so I might just decide to ally myself with that minority of Reactionaries. (Selah) This would be my new common ground. I have found that a lot of my attraction tword liberalism is not the liberalism of now, that Rush Limbaugh talks about, but rather the fireside chat and apple pie kind of sentimental liberalism of old- - - like Ned Flanders retreating into his basement with all of these Yellow Submarine cut-outs and other artifacts from the ‘sixties.

While we’re here at the Fantasyland station anyhow, we might as well step off the train for a moment for a few Federation facts. You may note that the Spaniards regarded both the Aztec and the Mayan religious practices as Satanic. This is hardly news. The term for this group is known as the Hernandians by the Federation. There is a group we call now “Scorseans” that used to be known as the “Cortessians”, with a non voiced S, but now Federation people say “We changed it because people can be dense” and the original source of the name “Cortessians”, which I know, would be “lost on these people”, the unwashed ignoramuses out there. You will note that I have seldom, if ever matched Federation beliefs up toe to toe against Christianity saying “This one is better than the other one”. I doubt you will find the fraise anywhere in my writings “Federation belief is BETTER than Christianity” or similar direct sentiments. There was one thing in April of 2005 where I was “trying to channel Mark Campbell” where I said that the Red Birds would be Taking Over” in the last Battle. However you may also be interested to know that the Federation yanked their backing of the Arizona Cardinals in their next to the last playoff game- against the Eagles, and in the Superbowl, actively backed that “bastion of Rush Limbaugh Evil” the Pittsburg Steelers. We did this because there was a dangerous alliance forming among the Sutterans and the Crestorians, and this alliance was seen as a major potential danger. The thinking was that if the Cardinals lost- - that the Sutterans and the Crestorians would blame each other for the defeat and the alliance would be broken. And we were lucky because this is just what happened.

Leadership We Can Trust

President Obama will be signing the economic recovery bill on Friday. The conference committee between the House and the Senate didn't take at all long to hammer out a compromize. The final bill is 789 Billion, which is less than either the House or the Senate bills alone. Some democrats fear that some of the best stuff in the bill was taken out. There is nothing that says things left out of this bill can't be resubmitted at a later date. Apparently Arlen Specter, author of the single bullet theory with the JFK assasenation, was the one who "hung tough" and kept this bill in check. Some liberal talk show hosts complain that the majority let a minority of republicans, who lost the election in November, dictate the terms, even though when the Republicans were in power they raised the threat of the "nuclear option" or getting rid of the sixty percent rule alltogether. The democrats were scared to death of the republicans back then. Some are saying that the republicans stared us down and we blinked. She should have called their bluff and made them fillibuster, and let the chips, and the bad press, fall where it may.

In terms of the banking part of this economic recovery project, the name of that is TARP for Toxic Assets Removal Program. But some would call it instead "Trap". Banker after banker paraded before Congress yesterday and each said the same thing. They are being careful with their money now. Each gets a salary of only a million dollars and none of them is getting a bonus. Even Ed Royce called up on one of those robo-calls and says that the thing we need to do is enable people to pay off their bad mortgage loans. Hopefully we all agree on this. At one time this whole 700 Billion dollar package was considered an "investment". We the people buy up these tainted and toxic assets and gamble that enough of them will pan out and be paid up, so that in the course of time the government might even make a profit on them. That's the original story that the Bush Adminestration was selling six months ago. Of course there is a risk in running up the federal deficet so high. But inflation is not the terror it was 25 years ago when Paul Volker was running the Federal Reserve. We are in a deflationary cycle and the dollar is actually gaining against the Euro, and this is a good thing. I don't know of any exact "formula" for how much is enough or excessive, but anyone with an Excel spread sheet can run the numbers and find out for themselves. In World War II we also at that time ran up astronomical deficets but nobody thought anything of it because so much was at stake. My concern, and I am sounding like a broken record on this point, is that our trade figures are an unmitigatted disaster. We need to raise product terriffs to about ten times the level they are at now. It's silly to fear a trade war because our products are already being walled out of so many countries, and our compeditors have no problem with government subsidies of their industries as we do. If we allow domestic industry to die we are literally killing the goose that laid all those golden eggs. We need good paying unionized industrial jobs and then we can "grow our way" out of this recession. There is much work to be done and we need to set about doing it now.

It’s time for more science adventures. There is another Oxy compound, Oxytonin, that women develop when they deliver a baby. It's involved with fertility and a lot of other women's issues. This substances causes all mammals great and small to be monogamus. If you give it to permiscuous mammals it makes them monogamus and if you block it from monogamus it makes them promiscuous. It would seem that governments could put this substance in food to regulate society, in liew of the usual God thing. Flu viruses prefer dry air without humidity. It’s the absolute humidity that matters. Most colder air has less moisture in it so contrary to the bit about windows being closed, it would seem that if you open the windows you increase the chance of catching a flu virus. They say that rich people are less attentive as they listen to you than poor people. Rich people do things with their hair and straighten their tie and do other things to busy themselves while they are listening to your problems. In a poor clan, you are much more likely to feel as though you have really been heard.

Vioxx has properties of coagulating blood. I guess this is official now so that Vioxx will actually cause a heart attack. It’s not just some statistical blooper. So if you take Viox, take it with an asprine to reverse the blood thickening actions of the drug. They say that if it weren’t for the trial lawyers, the corporations would rule the world more than they do now. They’d run the table and rig every outcome so that they were never held accountable for the products they endanger the public with. Every time you hear “Tort Reform” just think about Gothem City. Surely someone on the Gothem city council might sponsor a resolution to get Batman out of town because he was “upsetting the balance of society”. You know people on the right, as opposed to the left, want Federal supremacy over all, as opposed to the intervention of local or state governments when it comes to one thing and that is tort law. If it’s air pollution of product safety these people will declare “If the food & drug administration says a drug is OK that makes it all right.” That’s their insurance policy as they see it, against ever being sued. You know gasoline companies are being pressured now to lower their prices at the pump on warm days because when it’s 85 degrees out, you get less gasoline bang for the buck because gasoline expands. But the dirty little corollary of this is when it comes to paying taxes on their own sales or inventory tax or what-not, gasoline companies already demand that they be charged less in warm weather because they are storing and selling less gasoline. So they have both ends covered. But I say they can’t have it both ways. If they are going to take deals from the government based on temperature they should pass along that savings to the customer. Customers should also benefit from temperature based price

Writers determine the fates of soap opera people. They determine what will come to drive them. We know these forces in the brain as engrams. I guess one could say "God only knows" when it comes to people's engrams. That's kind of a literal truth. With the soapys, the writer is God. Philop caught Melanie red handed trying to print out a copy of the secret blueprints for Nick’s project. She was also caught on video camera. But Philip says he wants to forget the whole thing. He just fired her and told her that if she were ever seen on Titan grounds again that he would have her arrested. Victor didn’t like Philip’s leniency. But the thing is now she’s getting a copy of those same blueprints from Max Brady. If I’m Philip I’m going to forget how nice I was to her when I see Di Mira enterprises developing the project with his blueprints. And I’m not going to worry about such details like “she wasn’t successful in the heist”. I’m just going to release the video tape to the press and the rest, as they say, will take care of itself. Daniel acts like he’s not grateful that Clowie broke it off with Lucas. She makes the ultimate sacrifice for him, and he just shrugs. Brady has really put his ass on the line for Nicole. Maybe he’s not having sex with Nicole now but for what he’s done for her she owes him, say, about five times in the sack. Brady has cast suspicion on himself by making Victor think that somehow he’s gone back to taking drugs. Nicole owes him a lot, and I hope she realizes it. Brady may still be in love with her but he doesn’t know it. You know in the movie Dune they say "He who controles the spice rules the world". But in reality it's "He who controls the en-grams controles all of society. It's engrams that determine how many noble deeds are done or what crimes are comitted. If I were I to do a paragraph entitled "A Conspiracy of Invisable Forces" some of you might think I was talking about space aliens. And yet there are invisable forces that are like steering wheels for the brain, just as the brain steers the body. People with the power to controle the engrams of others, that "software of the brain" in truth, control the world.

GETTING THAT ROCK OVER THE HILL

The question is how is Obama going to get that heavy burden over the hill? Once the bill gets passed it will work. Anything will work. Some liken it to a sugar high but if you’re starving with nothing else to eat, a Snickers bar will do just fine. As this point almost any government involvement in employment and job creation is welcome. I am distressed to learn that the $40 Billion for State governments has been deleted. Logic would dictate that it’s the senate and not the house that will “dictate terms” of this bill because it has to keep those three republicans on board so that the bill will pass the required sixty senators. I’ll say again I was not happy with Obama’s performance in the news conference last night. If it were a ping pong game he would be down 21 to nothing and not know what hit him. You have to think fast as President and talking fast doesn’t hurt and that includes not losing stride or hesitating a well aimed volley you are preparing as response almost from the instant the questioner opens his mouth. People respect a guy who knows his topics backward and forward and were I Obama I would have practiced. Every time a question asked you’d hear those wheels spinning, like a computer with insufficient RAM. The hesitation shuffle won’t work in the big leagues. Obama did well to be dire in his predictions. Some say it will take more than the 825 Billion to plug this economic dike. But you have to do something. Something is better than nothing. Some have said “If there was a formula just how much a government should spend in an economic crisis- whoever marketed that formula would make a lot of money”. To this I say this: Doing the best thing that can possibly done will not insure success. Even the most brilliant surgeon will lose a patient if the deck is stacked too strongly against him. For those who say that Roosevelt prolonged the Great Depression I have two words: “Bull” and “Shit.” Tom Hartman points out that republicans are having a guilt trip from looking in the mirror at what their forebearers did with the Smoot Holly terriff in 1930 and saying “If we were in charge we would never have did what they did”. But Hartman points out that only five percent or whatever of our commerce was from foreign trade. To deny the “bucket shops” and all the other legalized gamboling that was going on at that time is to deny the elephant in the room. President Clinton re-legalized certain “derivative securities” such as insurance swaps that were they insurance companies would not be allowed to exist. In terms of what the Sec. of the Treasury said- - again Hartman has it right. To deny the trade deficit we have Right Now is to deny another of those elephants in the room. If we don’t do something to restore American Manufacturing we’re just whistling Dixie with all this other stuff like tax breaks. Swimming in the nude won’t help Don Knotts win a swimming race against Michael Felps. It is said that there are even now too many “supply sider” Reaganesque. You know, Bob Shiefer the other day on C-Span was lamenting how many bloggers there are out there who put out misinformation over the internet. I only say that I don’t read those blogs and I an confident that my sources are trustworthy- - and if I have doubt about any of my sources I share that doubt with my readers. My advice now is to start buying stocks because I believe we’ve hit the bottom. The risks of missing the bottom now are greater than the risks that somehow if you put your money in and the market doesn’t explode “tomorrow” you’ll take it out. The whole idea behind buying stocks or for that matter gold or rare coins is faith in the value of the object you are buying. If there is inherent value in what you are buying- it’s market value will eventually catch up to it.

I really need to say something about what's going on in Austrailia. What they are experiencing is not your typical heatwave like we experiance here in the Southwest. I looked at those temperatures. For one thing the temperatures in the south part of the continent were hotter than they were in the north, and with the seasons reversed this should not be. They ranged from 40 to 47 degrees, and that is celcius. That means a prolonged heatwave in places like Melborne in excess of a hundred degrees. When I lived in East Anaheim the highest I ever saw the bank gage was 41 degrees celcius. They have been dealing with temperatures of up to 120 degrees ferenheit. These fires rage in a wall four stories high ravaging one town after another. In the past Austrailia has suffered from other calamities from sunburn due to the hole in the ozone layer, to sharks, to invasions of mice, to prickly pear cactus taking over, to Tashmanian Devils, which are real. Living there is no picnic.

Tomorrow is the 46th. anniversary of two events. The Beatles recorded eleven songs this day from ten in the morning to ten at night, ten of which were used for their first album. In our family life, it's the first time we baught a New Car within my memory, a Chevrolet Byscane. It was green, if you're wondering. 1963 to those who have long memories here in California was the year they flipped the licence plates. They used to have gold plates with black letters but then they flipped them to gold letters on black in 1963. I remember it rained lightly that Monday evening but it was bright and sunny the next morning. I remember the song "Mama Didn't Lie" playing on the radio. The Beatles didn't do all that takes on any one song. The maximum was ten for "There's a Place", which was recorded first. "Twist And Shout" was called a wrap after the first take. They say they tried a second take but Lennon's voice was shot. Now you know.

Some will tell you to be suspicisious of blogs trying to lay some "trip" on you. I have come to believe that the secret to most things is to go with the Obvious. For instance, the most obvious answer to what happens to you when you die is that you cease to exist and have no consciousness at all. As Captain Queeg says, "If you're going to go against me you better have a half a dozen good reasons and you'll still get an argument from me". In the same way when I say something that seems forced or strained, like when I'm defending Einstein's theory of relativity- - I indicate my disconfort with the theory. My chiefest problem with the theory is that it raises more questions than it answers, and it strains the credulity of those looking at the Obvious. Some people look at Christianity and say "Christianity is an Obvious truth". What's obvious here is that we've been lied to. Women get lied to every day of the week and twice on Sundays. They are lied to being told they are inferior or that they somehow "Need a man" to be whole or worthwhile in society. Blacks in like manner have been systematicly lied to such that their lack of self esteem is endemic in the race. People are told that the Jews were punished by loss of their Temple for not believing corporately as a nation in the Salvation offered by Christ. I say to them, "You can't be blaimed for turning down an Offer that you never Got". (Selah) Also the key to figuring out history is that there was a man named Crestus, who is historically documented- - and that he was an Egyptian and an anarchist, and people of this sect may well have been guilty of spreading. but not Starting the fire in Rome and that Nero fingered then as culprets as did Pliny the younger in AD 110. But what we know as Christians or "Catholics" (which means Universalists) did not even begin to get going till after the Second Jewish war of AD 135. They lied to you about this war. The Jews were actually winning for a while and even established their own government and their own coinage- - such that words in Jesus' mouth were put in "Show me whose image is on this coin". Likewise this "Son of a Star" had to be replaced by another Christmas Star event. They felt they "had to" connect Jesus with Egypt somehow, and so the genocide was invented, which virtually all historians agree never happened, as they do many other events in the Gospells, such as the alledged "Freeing of the Passover prisoner". People are told lie, after lie, after lie, after lie- - such as to prove the addage, "If you tell a person a lie often and consistently enough, he will of sheer weariness begin to believe it". (Selah) Many people will respond in the affirmitive when asked "I bet you miss the Church, don't you". But Dr. Phil has the ultimate rebuttal for this assirtion. You remember what he says. He says "You don't miss the Church. You miss what you Wish that it were". (Selah)

Today's Message: Grow Or Die

I think the message of the day is “Grow or Die”. Obama was on the TV saying that it’s silly to refer to the current stimulus package as a “Spending Bill” rather than a jobs bill. Of course it’s a spending bill. That’s the general idea. I’ve listened to all the nay sayers in the past few days. I’ve read World Net Daily and listened to the republicans in congress. I have weighed the argument about how this bill is “social engeneering”. Certainly when Thom Hartman says that population reduction is a good thing because he creates a labor shortage and raises wages, it gets me to thinking. Was the Bubonic Plague really a good thing because it produced a middle class? Is this a price we are willing to pay. If the government did limit us to two children per marriage- - I got to thinking. Suppose thirty percent of us don’t reproduce at all. This means the next generation will have thirty percent fewer children. If thirty percent of them in turn don’t reproduce this will reduce the following generation by yet another thirty percent. The math here just doesn’t work out. Right now they are going off on this woman who had fourteen children saying that psycho therapy would be cheaper. I’ve had therapy and other than their continuing to tell you white is black and black is really white- - I didn’t see a lot of point to it. They only break your confidence and broadcast what was said in confidence to people you would least want to hear it. This has happened on three different occasions in my life. Growth is kind of a natural thing to the human species. People grow physically and they grow creatively and spiritually, or else they die. They may not die that day but they’ll die. Bob Dylan said “He who is not busy being born is busy dying”. Some Greek translations of the Bible puts the Greek phrase Born Again in the progressive mode. Obama has listened to all of the republicans. There are those who say that this bill will rob capital from private enterprise. I’ve heard the argument that some greative genious may start his own business or invent something were it not for this bill that consigned him to a government job instead. But I got to thinking. In the 1930’s they weren’t short on scientific progress. We had sound movies, and improvements to electronic sound reproduction in records. There was all sorts of work on synthetic polymers and plastics going on. New vitamins were being discovered all the time and something called “alpha protein” I hear they put on dog food and servicemen’s rations. And Birds Eye and others were inventing frozen foods. Nobody who lived through the thirties would say they were short on forward progress what with rural electrification. Obama has stated that all of the bill has to be passed or the stimulus will be insufficient. A republican amendment was defeated last night that would have reduced spending. Obama said today that it doesn’t matter if you’re in a Humvee or a Honda, if you are headed tword a cliff you need to change direction. And we are rushing headlong off a cliff as each new economic statistic is worse than the one before. And there are those who say that we have to “get all the deflation out of our system and let new real estate prices establish themselves, to create a market where people CAN again afford housing. There may be merit in this argument. But the bottom line kind of boils down to what Jesus said. “He who puts his shoulder to the plow and keeps looking back is not fit for the Kingdom of God. Gingrich can lament all he wants to how Obama isn’t like Reagan, he’s more like Carter. Obama is not Jimmy Carter. But if you’re going to bring up Jimmy Carter’s name- - certain aspects of our economy were a whole lot healthier back then than they are now. I refer to the federal deficit and the trade deficit and whether we were a creditor rather than a debtor nation.

You know, a lot of Super-groups had their chance to make a real difference in music. What if the Buffalo Springfield or Cream or Supersession or Blind Faith had stayed together? What kind of music would they have made? The Beatles were doing fine till someone got this idea to “Get Back”. The White Album “Got Back” to an earlier era. The Beatles to a large extent stopped growing, and the “Get Back” sessions made it official. They had a renewed chance again at growth with “Abbey Road”. Perhaps John Lennon would not have gotten so bored with the group if they were still in their experimental mode and creating new trends. I know both with my BASIC programs and my Sketch drawings- - I always sought to “push the envelope” and do something I hadn’t done before- - or else to do it in a new way. There were lots of giant trend-setter groups in the early ‘seventies with massive sold out concerts but none of the Beatles were among them. Instead the baton was passed to groups like Procol Herem, Electric Light Orchestra, Emerson Lake and Palmer, David Bowie, Pink Floud, and Jethro Tull. These groups pushed the envelope. The past twelve years or so in music has gone exactly nowhere. It would appear nothing new is under the sun. Really a general “evolution” trend in music stopped about 1985. Before then you could tell what year it was by the sound of the music but since them- - with a few exceptions- - the music scene is nowhere.

Christianity had an original concept when it first came out. But it was the hippies of the ‘sixties that talked about “Love” and “Mind Expansion” and “Being Open to new things”. You know what God is, he’s a “Day Tripper”. To make Glen happy I was thinking “What if I decided to go to Calvary Anaheim this Sunday”. Per chance people who were there might say to me “It isn’t just chance that you decided to come this week. God has a purpose for your being here today”. I would rightly respond “Well, if it was really God who prompted me to come this far, it says in the Bible that “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it”. And I would say “God isn’t a Day Tripper, is he?” And if it turns out there was no particular grand design in my being her today, then it was ME and not God who made the decision for me to even be here in church today, wasn’t it?”