President Obama Signs Health Bill

This is Tuesday mid day of March 23, 2010. This is a historic day because it’s the day that President Obama expanded the rights of millions of Americans in signing that Health Care bill just about at the stroke of nine AM our time. The ceremony was slated to begin at 8:15 and was about fifteen minutes late. Joe Byden spoke first. Like LBJ before him with the Civil Rights bill he used not a small number of pens to do it, so more people can say they have one. Rush Limbaugh today talked about “Love” on his show. He says all the people against the Health Bill have more “Love” than people who are for it. Last Saturday, perhaps I was gone much of the day, I failed to mention all the racial epithets thrown at congressmen by tea baggers on the Capitol grounds. Bart Stupic was called a “baby killer” because it was a deal he made with the President that enabled the bill to pass to begin with. Randy Rhodes believes the phrase of “breaking” a President stems back in South Carolina when they used to “break” slaves. Of course there have been death threats on people who are for the bill and people hit with pellet and bee-bee guns as well as the unauthorized publication of home addresses. There was definitely an element of ugly racism in last Saturday’s gathering. I guess I thought we were past that, but all that stuff from fifty years ago appears to be headed for a revival. Randy Rhodes had the apparently Black majority whip on her show. (It wasn’t TV) Rush Limbaugh said that all liberals wanted to do is go “Nya – nya!” to the Republican opposition. Well, some of that may well be in order. Of course now Mc Cain and other Republicans are ready to introduce a bill in the Senate to repeal this legislation two days after it’s passed. As you know on Sunday evening close to midnight local time the bill passed in the House on a vote of 119 to 111. So they actually had three votes to spare. I guess it was Gingrich that said that this bill would be a death blow to the Democrats just as LBJ signing the Civil Rights and Medicare bills were a death blow to the Democratic Party for forty years. Rush Limbaugh did point out something very apt and that is 25 years ago the republicans could never have gotten away with such a hate campaign because back then the democrats, by in large, ruled the media. Republicans, by his own admission, were restricted to a few elitist and “think tank” magazines for intellectuals. (Before talk radio his crowd was so illiterate they couldn’t express themselves in writing, anyhow) I may remind you and I’ve heard the allegation elsewhere that this bill is designed to “wreck the insurance companies” and drive them eventually out of business in favor of single payer. Many liberals like Thom Hartman hold this as a hope, while others regard it as a threat or the “camel’s head under the tent”. All I can say is for people like Dr. Levy who claim they are optimists, they don’t approach the outcome of this bill with a cheerful, hopeful attitude, like they should. I wasn’t for this particular bill, but like a good American I’m hoping for the best.

Conrad Murry, Michael Jackson's doctor, is in more hot water now because he was ordering a member of Jackson's enterage to gather up all the syringes and stuff while he was supposed to be performing C P R on Mr. Jackson, such that he delayed in calling 911 for at least twenty minutes. Clearly he cared more about his own skin than the health of his patient. I assure you this little scene won't play out at all well in front of a jury. If I were were the good doctor I've be working out my plea bargain right now. People who change their testimony after two months shouldn't out of hand be dismissed as liars. People do have a conscience and a conscience is a powerful thing and it can work on you. You may not have wanted to implicate yourself to the cops that you were instrumental in a cover-up rounding up medical syringes and "cleaning up the murder site" so to speak. But scripture does say, "The truth will make you free".

Here is a moral problem for you Christians. We so often hear that old grudges and transgressions are best forgotten about. President Obama wants to not prosecute anybody in the Bush Administration or examine any kind of civil liberty or civil right abuses by the Bush Administration. Such a stand sounds almost lofty. Till you look at the details. Here is one. Suppose you are a person of interest in an FBI investigation and you are just about to finger a criminal in such a way that will get him (or her) in a lot of trouble. But while the agent is questioning you you're at a religious tent revival and that very minute you "find Jesus" and jump up and down and are so excited and say "I'm so happy!" and the agent looks at you and says, "Before we were distracted you were about to give me a name" and the subject says to the agent, "Oh, I'm so happy I don't want to wallow in the past. Things like that don't matter now, I'm a new person - I'm born again". You soap freaks know where I'm headed with this. Agent Hernandez was questioning Nicole Walker on the disappearence of baby Sydney, and Nicole said she at least remembers who took her. But then she gets a phone call. It's from the warden. He hands the call off to the Governor? "Who, me?" The governor informs her personally she's received a full pardon for her crimes. Nicole and the black guard hi five each other in celebration. Now suddenly Nicole gives a name, the wrong name, to throw the FBI agent off the scene. Agent Hernandez can't help but think there is "something really funny about the timing of that phone call". He has more questions now. But those who hate "investigating the past" would say he's an old grouch and not "in the spirit of this wonderful moment". Some of us are just that way. Sometimes when you fill in the remaining details of the "artist rendering of the crime scene" things get revealed that were they known to everybody the Truth would be obvious and those who are LOOKING for the truth, and those trying to cover it up, would also be made obvious. Capish?

Chief psychiatrist: Allright, Mr. Mc Murphy, you're a good Irish Catholic, aren't you?

Mac Murphy: "Yess siritos!

Chief psychiatrist: Then could you give me your interperation of the parable Jesus gave in the gospels of The Two Debtors? Certainly you know it.

Mac Murphy: Well, I guess the moral there is- - - You cover up my crimes and I'll cover up yours".

Chief psychiatrist: Allright- - (sighs) I'll write that one right next your answer about "Don't wash your dirty laundry in public".

The Nanny State is something I don't like and a lot of people don't like. Suppose they can do brain scans that can reveal not only what a suspect is withholding, but what he intends to do when he leaves your presence. Should the State adopt this technology. Would THIS be a "Nanny State" or just good government. Is "the right to withhold information" a civil right guaranteed by the constitution? The notion of having a national compulsory requirement of every American purchasing health insurance is a far reaching incursion into our lives. Corporations do psychological profiling to either qualify you or rule you out from contention for a coveted job position. Should the government make broader use of such information gathering? Personally I say no. Just how FAR do you go with "promoting the general welfare"? Could this notion of "promoting the general welfare" be an easy concept to abuse? Now Kraft or one of the big food manufacturers is going to cut salt and sodium in their products by ten percent. But this is no small thing. Radio cooking host Melinda Lee says that being a baker, rather than just a "cook" is an exacting science. For instance the ammount of sugar you put in ice cream with fruit in it is dictated by the freezing point of the fruit. Sodium in food products is used as a "binding" and preservative agent, in addition to taste. Corporations run numerous taste test to come up with ever improving recipes for every product. The federal government dictating such a move is no small inconvienience, as also it would be for this anti trans fat craze. People tie everything together and conversations about smoking invariably turn into conversations about fat and sugar in diets and a whole host of other things. The State of California just banned smoking in almost all areas in State Parks and state beaches. Just smoking in the completely open air is a crime. Whatever happened to "protecting the rights of the minority". One computer link said that homosexuality was only in two percent of the population. We spare no expense in protecting that minority, and yet legislators feel they can raises taxes on cigarettes to the moon and don't think anybody's rights are being trampled on. In the area of texting and cell phones while driving, only here do I feel you do have a legitimate public safety issue. Because people who talk on cell phones are four times more likely to be involved in an accident and people who text while driving are eight times more likely. This is twice the rate of a person legally drunk. We need to as legeslators- - dissern which issues are true public safety issues and which is just fad legeslation. For instance, counties and whole states "going dry" was a fad for a while. Drinking is much more dangerous to public safety than smoking but it gets a pass. Nobody has the notion that habitual alcohol consumption is at all injurious to health. How much better to blame the jelly donut. People say this health bill is "for our own good" and people like Thom Hartman say we owe it to society to "share the risk of getting sick" among everyone in society. It could be that the tea baggers, while nuts on so many issues, may be prophets here- - pointing to a gigantic Nanny State no independent thinking American wants to live in.

House Vote Is Too Close To Call

"People say business expenses are all about waste and the three martini lunch.But the fact is that doing business costs money and you have to jump throughany hoop the client wants you do to get his business. Maintaining businesscontacts is hard work. Developing a business take's time"
Spoken today by one entrepreneur.

President Obama may be confident of the passage of this Health Care bill but nobody else is. Today FOX announces that Democrats may be giving up on the "deem and pass" rule calling it too contraversial. This bill may do a lot of good for many people but I believe it just throws too much money around all over the place, and raises taxes "accross all income tax brackets" according to one source. If you're the President you do have certain perogatives at your disposal. The same thing could be said of Don Corlione. He can do all of the deal making and arm twisting he wants. All he needs is for that one moment when his cause is ahead in the nose count, and he can have Nancy Pelosi call a vote. It's too bad the rest of the world doesn't work like that. There is a saying that "once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it's impossible to get it back in". And once this bill is passed it will be historic precident. It may make the history books as a good thing, but others say it will be the cammel's nose in the tent to get government that much more intrusively into our lives. It has been suggested that if the government wern't in bed with the drug companies to begin with, insurance rates would not be so high. People should be encouraged to avoid drugs whenever possible in favor of proper nutrition and exercise, and even meditation and yoga. Also I think that mal practice laws could be tweaked so that some of the more bizzare cases never go before a jury. Don't you "sign away your rights" in many cases before surgery is even performed? I know in one dentist I was at it contained in the language of the forms the possability of failure of treatment (that I decided not to have anyway) We know for instance you give up the right to self incrimidation before you get behind the wheel. Could it not be committed to statute that in certain cases you agree to defer to a doctor's judgement? Also having a national exchange of providers would increase competetion and "bend the cost curve". There seem to even be in question whether anti trust provisions are in or out of this final bill. May I suggest getting rid of anti trust exemption is of the highest priority? Others, and I am one of them, have concerns about abortions now being allowed and funded with federal money. Why not remove this "non starter" and win back those anti abortion congressmen? Many house members did not want to go on record as having voted FOR the senate bill so that's why "deem and pass" was come up with. But they won't be fooling the people in their home district. They will know what he or she did. And now here is a little something from the buffer from yesterday.

I watched the Kyle guy from Arizona talk about bogus accounting, and counting dollars twice. Assumptions were made doctors would take a 23% cut in salaries, when doctors are leaving Medicare and Medic-aid even as we sprak right now. It seems just about everything will be taxed. We know a lot of money is going to be thrown around all over the place. The thing is that a lot of taxes will kick in immediately and yet many of the benefits won’t kick in till 2014. Obviously this would affect the deficit in the short term. Kyle says “Nobody trusts the figures in the congressional accounting office. My stance on the bill is “thy will be done”. But as for me, I would not be the vote to push the bill over the top. If the bill were to pass it would have to be done without my vote.

Tomorrow is the day of the LA marathon from Dodger Stadium to the sea. It will be a bogus race because it won't be ending where you begin it. Also the race is all down hill and so times will of course be faster, despite the forecast heat, for this time of year. It will be the first time in the Marathon's history that the race course went outside LA city limits. This course goes through West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and Santa Monica. Supposedly they picked this course because it goes past a lot of sites that tourists like to see. But if I were a tourist come to watch the race I might want to be able to camp out on the same site for both the beginning and end of the race.

Google, at least on my machine, has dropped a lot of their links on "even more" including "blogger". I have no idea what their game is. One of the links dropped was web search tools, which informs you of all sorts of shortcuts and tools. When I reentered this blog just now I went via Chrome and Chrome still retains the page with the whole grab bag of goodies on it. Interestingly, Chrome did not remember my password from when I just used it in Firefox. I didn't expect that it would. I think it's important that Google retain the long list as reference.

I guess you heard that story about the guy who got on the Wal-Mart PA and said "All black people are requested to leave the store now". That would certainly make a good Candid Camera gag just to photograph people's reactions. It's hard to imagine that people would not know that it was a gag. As to those people on the French game show who were giving what they thought were lethal electric shocks to contestants, It's hard to imagine that they did not suspect in the back of their minds that something wasn't kosher about the whole set-up.

Pope Benedict has apologised for the fact that he helped cover up a child molestation case, and allow a priest to be returned to the ministry. Of course the Catholic church is quick to offend and slow to apologise. It took decades to apologise for not speaking out against the Nazi Holocaust, and it took centuries to reinstate Galileo. Personally, if I were Pope Benedict I would resign for the sake of my church and urge them to pick a younger, more progressive figure sensitive to today's issues, to lead the Church into the 21st Century. As long as the Catholic Church only has in mind "saving face" it is doomed to being a follower, and never a leader, as it should be.

Pushing A Point Too Far

There is a “Deem and Pass” rule that will be used by Democrats to pass the Health Care vote in the House, because they can’t get the votes even with all of their arm twisting and so they are going to just “declare” that the Senate bill in its original form is passed. They will refer to this bill as “self executing”. The Democrats are working on the "Meme" that SOME health care bill must be passed by this congress "no matter what it takes". They are declaring that the ends justify the means. But basically what this health care bill does is to make the many suffer for the benefit of the few. There are a few people who see their insurance rates skyrocketing so fast that they can no longer make the payments. Certainly these are cases warranting our sympathy. But I don't know if you should try to circumvent any vote on the Senate bill just to get around the fact that they dont have the votes despite all the arm twisting and deal making that's been done. It just seems a little sneaky to me, even if the Republicans have used this maneuver, too. I’m worried about the popular backlash from this procedure, and I don’t like the idea of a bill becoming law whose validity is in question. It just means when the Republicans are in power they will do it to us back, only they will do it dirtier. And so the process goes on and on. This idea of staking everything on one bill is a false "meme". We can hope everyone will regard the bill as so wonderful that "we wonder how we ever lived without it". I've thought about this and just don't see that scenario happening. There are underlying forces driving up medication costs and hospital costs that are beyond the control of even the health care providers.

This Toyota Preas case is looking a little bogus at this point. The man driving on interstate 8 in San Diego county claims he was standing on the break while the car sped up to 94 mph. And yet tests done on the car show that the man alternated between the accelerator and the brake 250 times, which was all the equipment could record. Apparently the man never thought of either turning off the engine, and he never tried to put the car into neutral. He said he was afraid the car would do something even stranger. Now they are investigating the man's economic problems to see if they are providing some motivation for his actions.

The weather is in the news in much of the United States. It seems you know when spring is arriving because the weather turns more violent. You had that "no name hurricane" on the east coast they've been talking about in the news for days. Fargo, North Dekoda is a strange place because the land is almost completely flat and the river, when it does flow, flows north. This may turn out to be a record year as far as rivers overflowing their banks is concerned.

Tiger Woods seems to have re-thought his statement given only a few weeks ago that he has no idea when he will return to playing golf. He had said something about "Hopefully it will be within the year. I'm not ruling it out". Now we hear he's playing at Augusta in just a few, where they say the media is more controlled than at any other golf tournament. Someone on TV said "basically he's not missing a single key tournament this season". Meanwhile John Edward's one time lover, Real Hunter, is back in the news. Now she is saying that Edwards fell in love with her the first time they met, and that he is still in love with her, and his marriage to Elizabeth was already a shambles when they met. We're all wondering why Edwards had the affair, when if Edwards hadn't had the affair he could be President today. It seems that Bill Clinton is the only person who got pass after pass when it came to having questionable affairs. The more women he was tagged with it just seemed to increase his popularity. Even good "religious" people like Gene Scott and Dennis Prager seemed only to increase their admiration for Clinton, the more obvious it became that Clinton was a sex addict. There is no accounting for what "religious" people think.

Jerry Brown's lead over Meg Whitman is "evaporating" in the California governor's race. That's interesting because I never knew that Jerry Brown was ahead. He only got into the race a couple of weeks ago. Also Meg Whitman's lead over primary rival Steve Poizener is increasing. Neither of these results are surprising. I have never seen such a saturation commercial campaign this early by one candidate pointing out where the other candidate's "conservative" credentials were in question. Of course "money talks" and Meg Whitman has an enormous amount of money to spend in this governor's race this year. The people will believe whatever the media tells them to. I'm still a registered Republican and I'm voting for poizoner just because I don't think you should be able to "buy" a governor's race. But I'll be voting for Jerry Brown in November.

Peril In Our History Books

You have heard people on KTLK saying that they were in the process of rewriting all the history books our children read deleting everything that smacks of a liberal cause be it sufferegettes, or else labor unions or other struggles for social equality. Perhaps you also know that most of the nation's history books come from Texas. It's a case of "as Texas goes, so goes the nation". And so yesterday it was announced that the lone old koot who makes policy for Texas social studies book writers has issued his own "Papal Bull" as you might say. The newest books our children will be reading will feature pro slavery remarks from Jefferson Davis with equal prominence of any quote from Abraham Lincoln. It will cast doubt on liberal causes but rewrite the coverage of such people as Senator Joe Mc Carthy and put them in a favorible light, and also include favorible references to the "Moral Majority" movement. Clearly the republican right has been acting as if they still ran this country even though they've been completely out of power for over a year. And you know that he who controls the youth of America controls what the next generation will be believing. Now you have Glen Beck telling his followers to leave their Christian churches if they have any reference in their church literature to phrases such as "Social Justice" or "economic justice". There is an old saying among the poorer nations, "If a churchman gives money to the poor they call you a Saint. If they ask you why you are poor, they call you a communist". Whoever came up with that line it's worthy of Dylan. Clearly the Christian movement has been running on years and years of sheer momentum. It's not even necessary for people to actually ask just why it is that they believe the things they do. When you get more of the young people asking Why they believe what they believe, you'll see a turn-around.

Last week Joe Byden was fawning all over Israel at a Tel Aviv university. I guess I have to ask the question as to just why it is that anybody who speaks in Israel finds it necessary to go through the whole Jewish existance of the Nazi Holocaust and Israel's fight for liberty, and so forth. Haven't we about beaten that topic to death in sixty-odd years? Of course Israel is in the unfortunate position of having the United States as their only ally in the world, and I admit this is a constraining position to be in. Even so, it was within hours that the Israel government announced that they would be constructing 1,600 more settlements on the West Bank. Joe Byden then turned around and criticized the government he has just praised saying that constructing these settlements is a barrier to peace. People on the Mc Laughlin report said that obviously Israel doesn't fear Iran all that much because if they did they would be seeking US help in coordenating some plan to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. But Israel feels confident enough that they can "go it alone" and the United States and the peace progress with the Palistinians be damned. It's their choice. But back in 1973 during the Yom Kippur war, Golda Meir came to Nixon and asked for the latest fighter jets to defend her nation from attack, and Nixon agreed to give her what she asked for. I'm wondering whether that could happen today. People say that people in the Mideast "like the United States" - - but they don't FEAR us. I don't think the United States has instilled enough respect by either Arab or Israeli. I agree with the right that the foreign arena is the wrong place for President Obama to talk about America's faults as a people. No President wants to think of his administration as "someone whom you might as well just ignore". I hope Obama salvages the situation, but right now I don't see how.

Then we have Justice John Roberts' remarks of last week, which by all measure, were just out of place. Justice Roberts and people like Pat Buchannon likened the State of the Union address of last February to a pre game Pep Rally, as though the Republicans never had spirited State of the Union speech gatherings. Some have said that Justice Roberts shouldn't just have to sit there and "take it" while being criticized. I disagree. The President and 80% of all Americans found the decision on Corporate campaign donations as an affront to sensable people everywhere. It's the President's job to take moral stances on issues when the situation warrents. This Supreme Court decision is about as bad as it gets wiping out a hundred years of settled law. In point of fact 95% judges are absolute monarchs in their court rooms. They order a person to shut up and listen to a person's lies from the stand, regardless of how morally upsetting it may be. It's called "Judicial temperment". Pat Buchannon doesn't think the ultimate in court justices should ever show any traits such as restraint or self control. The idea of the nine justices boycotting what is a long tradition, of the State of the Union message, strikes me as nothing less than childish. Or to mix a metaphore, "If you can't stand the heat, then stop setting the damn kitchen on fire!" One can only pray for the time when Robert's buddies on the right fall away from the roster, one by one and in the end he'll be left alone to spew his far right views.

Today they were talking on the Beatles station how when the Beatles got their MBE awards, or "Member of the British Empire" that others in protest gave them back, for instance, heroes of World War II who didn't want their deeds equated with the Beatles. Later in in late 1969 things came full circle when John Lennon gave back his own M B E award in protest. John says he didn't like the British stance fighting on the wrong side of the Biafra war, or that England had supported America in Viet Nam. In 1970 James Dobson wrote his first book he called "Dare to Discipline". The pendulum had swung so far to the left it was time to introduce balance. Now when it comes to Protests for a righteous cause, the pendulum has swung so far to the right that Protests of the left are almost unheard of. The media spotlight seems to be dominated by the Tea Party crowd. How interesting it is that nobody wants to portray "The troops" as anything but the nost noble of Saints. When what you have are volenteers, not draftees, and they were probably egged on by videos that portrayed mass, indiscriminate killing. To call these people "victims" is not to tell the whole story. Though the kill ratios now are twenty to one, and perhaps much higher- despite the "shooting fish in a barrel" nature of their service, still the other side shoots back occasionally. I think it was Rush Limbaugh who said that if the wild animals we hunted for sport had guns and were shooting back, that nature lovers would no longer regard them as so noble. The material in this paragraph may be the most important I've written and that you have read. Let's take it all back to a look at God himself and the cardinal premise that Christianity is built upon. The most Basic axiom in Christianity is that blood sacrifice of an innocent life for the benefit of another less worthy. If you can't accept this premise, then you need investigate no further. Of all the degrees of murder their are, certainly the taking of a wholly innocent life for the sole purpose of covering up another crime has to rate right down on the bottom of the ladder of degrees. Theological apologists state the doctrine of Vicarious Atonement, which means basically that you swap identifies with the donor. That is God assumes your virtues, and you assume God's nature, which includes a willingness to sacrifice a wholly innocent life for the benefit of another less worthy. Personally, I'd rather pass up that deal.

Let's now go back to my statement a month or so again where I said I was half way tempted to convert to Islam because Islam denied this doctrine of blood atonement. They do not believe in the "sacrifice" of Jesus Christ on the cross and don't believe Jesus was thus crucified. I said I found such a religious view more appealing. And unlike Jack Bower, I'm not bluffing when I say this. As I have said before the whole "forgiveness" thing is a real racket. Just as in Comunist China they have laws against virtually everything such that any Chinese citizen is subject to arrest at whim at any time by the government, so then is the Christian subject to the whims of his pastor in "what is going to continually be held over his head". Christian doctrine makes no distinction between lustful thoughts about the female next to you in the church pew, and pre meditated cold blooded murder. Personally I don't like my religion so morally color blind. How funny it is that for all the talk on forgiveness that Jesus engaged in, I nowhere in scripture ever see Jesus forgiving or offering absolution to a murderer. Neither do I ever hear Jesus enforse the principle of priestly animal sacrifice. And one more thing Jesus never mentions is the sacrifice of Isac by his father Abraham. Certainly when the people asked for a sign Jesus would have responded "I give you no sign but the sign of Isac". But Jesus never talked about Isac. Some would say "Well- - God wasn't really intending for Abraham to go through with it". I say, "Fine". You mean God just wanted to find out whether Abraham would shed innocent blood because he was ordered to? Don't they do similar "tests" of you when you join the Mafia. They want to see if you're willing to kill for them. Some would say "Well this was a different dispensation and there were no laws against shedding blood". Wrong again. In Genesis 9:6 it says "If anyone sheds man's blood, then by man will his blood be shed". But what I didn't say before is that some Islamic people believe that Judas was the one crucified on the cross and Jesus went free and fled to Egypt. How would this work and is there any indication of this in scripture? The biggest hint comes in the way the crowd turned against Jesus on Good Friday. Does anyone wonder why that happened? Scripture never explains such a quick 180 in opinion. Picture this: Jesus was in the garden praying for deliverance. He said "Lord, let this cup pass from me nevertheless not my will but thine be done". People interperet this as God's denial but it needn't be that. Suppose that Jesus, like his desciples, fell asleep. And suppose he woke and he was leading a Roman "cohort", which is a massive number of armed troops, out to arrest Jesus and his desciples and prepared for resistance. Meanwhile Judas awoke in Jesus' body and was bewildered to say the least. Now when Judas came, he had Jesus' face and Jesus had assumed Judas' face, so that people who knew them would be confused. But we don't know if the troops knew Jesus on sight. Maybe they wern't even sure whom they were after to arrest at this point. Thus you have Jesus walking up to Judas and kissing him and saying "Master" in bitter sarcasum. And they were told "The one I kiss is the one you want". This is just a thought. There were quite a few "hits" on this topic of Judas and Jesus swapping identities. It would be a rather interesting if ironic twist in divine justice. (Selah)

Realistic Optimism

Yesterday Dr. Levy seems to have found his intellectual equalibrium again and actually conducted a class with an actual point to it, rather than these political roomanations he had been doing lately. He said that optimistic people get by better than pessimistic people. I think they've done experiments with drowning rats where the optimistic rats were able to keep alive several times longer than the rats who had no hope. People who see the glass as half full rather than half empty. I remember one time at a Bible study in the "Sunkist" house where Pete Richards was teaching on this topic, and somebody had a half filled glass of water and I was thirsty at the time and went for the water and they yanked it away from my reach. Sometimes Christians will do that. They will extend a promise to you and then yank it away when they find you are actually reaching for it. This is kind of where the phrase "pie in the sky" comes from. If's OK and commendable to SAY you believe their bullshit because agreeing with them is an act of piety. But to ACTUALLY take them at their word is something Christians shy away from. Their cardinal rule is "Never put your Faith where it is ever in any real jeopardy of Failing you".

People wonder whether our President is an optimist. He wrote "The Audacity of Hope" but as I said in one posting "For this president to hope in anything IS audacious because he hasn't planned for anything. He isn't working to get done the job he needs to do. He expects it all to fall neatly into his lap. I told Dr. Levy that I thought President Obama was an optimist but that he was out of touch with reality. He thinks this health care bill is going to pass. Unfortunately he is in the position where he MUST see it passed because his whole carrier is riding on it. If somehow the house passes the bill, if they can pressure or otherwise round up those stray votes, then the democrats will have a platform to run on in November. If not they will have brought the republican dream of STOPPING the forward progress of this President. I think people who are just now getting around to buying gold and silver are several years late and that ship has sailed already. If you're in gold and silver right now you should be thinking about getting out of the market. Of course optimistic people have to deal with problems, too. In world war II they were optimistic, but they also planned for every contingency and thought every action through to its probable conclusion. I asked Dr. Levy about these people on TV who are always talking about "people being in denial". My personal bias on this issue is that people bring up negatives because to invert a saying "If they can't say something Bad about you then they just won't have a conversation with you". As such people look for the illusive "double dip" in this economy. With each passing day this economy appears to be getting stronger. This idea of the "double dip" recession is the brass ring that republicans have been striving for. I find that a lot of times Christians will find all sort of negative things to say about, for example, people going into business for themselves, if they don't like you will will magnify every conceivable negative.

Of course to point out a negative when I do it is so that problems that do exist can be isolated and dealt with or otherwise neutralized. It never occurs to a Christian that you might be bringing up a problem with the idea of eliminating it so that it WON"T be a problem for you from now on. Some Christians conflate these two thinking on one hand that they are optimistic because they are always talking about how wonderful it will be after Jesus comes. On the other hand if you actually point out a real problem they get hysterical and think you are being negative or "resisting their words" or some such thing. I used to hear the phrase "I'm feeling resistance from you" when I would point out something more than obvious. Of course I have been resisting discussing a period in my life from about May of 1985 through about February of 1987. There were a lot of problems for me in this period. And more to the point, the way certain things were handled or mishandled, set up problems that occurred in the future. Republicans may be "setting up a problem for themselves" if they are too dogged on this filibuster thing. Because every word they say about it now will be used against them in the future when the they are in power and they are being filibustered.

There was an investment guy on KTLK today who claimed that he could make money for you in investments by a broadly diversified plan, in good years as well as bad, consistantly, and we're talking an average of better than fifteen percent a year. I would sure like to know how he does it. I gave a Buy signal about six months ago and since then stocks haven't gone up all that much. But it seems that right now they may be taking off and breaking into new highs. If the economy breaks out of this recession, we could be looking at a Ronald Reagan type situation for Obama in 2012 similar to what Reagan had in 1984 where he was unstoppable. It's been so long since there was really a good economy people have forgotten what it's like. They've forgotten what it's like to say government has MORE money than they expected and now they have extra money for the expansion of old programs and the addition of some new ones.

Obama Takes on Insurance Companies

President Obama is doing now what he should have been doing the past six months in that he is finally making stump speeches in public where he goes after the practices of the insurance companies. But I have a feeling it's too little and too late. The health care bill appears doomed. For every vote, if any they turn into a yes vote on health care, several more votes go "No". Now there is talk of high pressure desperation tactics in trying to round up enough votes to get the health care bill through the House. But meanwhile the insurance companies are staging a public relations counter attack by saying that the fault in high rates does not lie with them but with other aspects of the health care profession such as hospital rates and drug prices. It's pointed out that insurance companies only have a four percent profit whereas drug companies have a twenty percent profit. I think it's time we learned ALL the facts on health care and not just the ones that the Left wants to present to the public. The bottom line is what this bill does is shift health care costs from sick people who use the services, to those who have chosen not to be insured or the otherwise healthy people who are considered "good risks" by the insurance companies. It's funny how we never hear about them. The Left calls people without insurance "freeloaders" who "drive up costs" because supposedly all of these people go to emergency rooms if they ever do get sick. I personally resent this designation. Since this bill really does cause more problems than it cures, I would be voting this health care bill down.

Eric Massa has been in the news a lot because of his gay proclivities and the charge that Rhom Emanuel approached him in the shower and stuck his finger in his chest pressuring Eric to vote for the health care bill. And no, I don't know why they took the shower curtains off the showers. But of course Eric Massa claims he was pressured to resign by fellow Democrats because he will be voting No on health care because it doesn't contain a public option. We are told how Eric Massa engaged in tickling parties of subordinates. Stephanie Miller doesn't know whether he is gay or not but aside from his gayness, he seems to be suffering from some sort of personality meltdown. Apparently he told his teenage children when he was running for Congress in New York to be really respectful to Rohm Emanuel because he was an influencial man. Emanuel told him he would have to raise two hundred thousand dollars a month, for several months, if he had any hope of winning a congressional seat. The whole thing is murky with several sub plots. Massa has attacked Rush Limbaugh for not honoring the fact that he is a vetteran who has spent time in the Navy. But Rush Limbaugh calls you a "phony vetteran" unless you agree with him on everything. Now we hear that Massa had certain proclivities in the Navy by going down four decks to shower with the younger, junior officers. I plan to catch last night's interview on the Glen Beck show last night. I'm glad Glen Beck was willing to have him on.

Another inagmatic personality was one featured last night on KCET. They featured a thing on evangelist Amie Semple Mc Fearson. She came into life with a strong religious background but like me, had to wrestle with the teachings of evolution and decide which side of the fence she came down on. Her first husband, an evangelist named Semple, died on a missionary trip to China right after they were married. She claimed she was called by God to go out on her own and lead a ministry. This took a lot of courage because it involved reaching out to the poor and also to racial minorities, which was not then in fashion. When she came to Los Angeles she was pressured to forgo some of the more extreme aspects of pantacostalism because City People would be turned off by that. But you realize what a bigoted city Los Angeles really was in those days. California of course hated the Chinese. And Los Angeles was hostile to Latinos coming from accross the border. And Police Chief Parker was bigoted against Blacks. But Los Angeles was also snooty against evangelists and fundamentalists in general because they wanted to cast LA as some liberal Hollywood mecca or something. When Aimee disappeared in the spring of 1926 under strange circumstances for six week (she waded out into the ocean and just disappeared), afterward the District Attorney attempted to file charges against her. Some people thought she was having an affair with her radio producer. But this attempt was defeated because some hot shot liberal reporter fresh off the Scopes monkey trial case, began investigating Aimee and writing about her. But when he learned the facts he refused to condemn her as the District Attorney had hoped she would. Later on in the thirties her ministry recovered some of its former glory as she got back to her spiritual roots. Today of course we have this Neo Con Christianity as taught by such people as Gene Scott and Jesus Christ of KFI, who are really down on any idea of supernatural manifestations of any kind or "moves of the spirit". Jesus teaches "Anybody who speaks in tongues it just trying to make himself feel important, when he's really not important". Pastors resent anything "spontanious" unless they are in absolute control over it like Akmadenijab or Kim Ill Sun of North Korea. Their message is "God doesn't run this congragation; I do". These neo cons also regard any supernatural miracle of any sort is "Well, this was put in the Bible for leturgical and theological considerations, and not of its own merit". These neo cons favor the rule of despotism (their own) over law, and state proudly that "Christians don't have rights" and as such would reject the statement of Abraham Lincoln of "No man is above the law, and no man is beneath it". They don't believe in the Bible as much as they believe in the science of "Hermanutics". They in essence believe the only way you can "come to God" is to go through them. Jesus' fondest wish is for a collection of small churches each of which thinks it has the exclusive key to heaven, led by despotic pastors such as Bill Halliday who are in sole control of who is admitted to their church and who is kicked out. Jesus refers to this as the doctrine of "accountability". Mega Churches are seen as undesirable because often these churches grow spontaneously with "moves of the spirit" that is not under the direct control of some pastor's thumb.

Sometimes I feel that life is stagnating. I haven't done any rock compilations outside the Beatle ones in quite some time. Many would note all the George Harrison songs out in the last twenty years (!) that aren't included. Actually George hasn't done that much recording since 1990 and of course Harrison has been dead the past eight years. I feel as though I am no longer on the "cutting edge of societal evolution" as Rush used to say. I am no longer "ahead of the learning curve" in my blogs, because I'm waiting too long to put them out.

An Unexpectedly Sudden Ending

Well the thing that stood out on this year’s 82^nd annual academy awards is the abrupt ending. He was talking about now we are going to do the ten top movies and the last time they had ten movies nominated “Casablanca” won. By the way they went back to “and the winner is” instead of “and the Oscar goes to - - “. Oscars weigh eight pounds. Did you know that? But instead of honoring all ten nominees they just announced the winner, “The Hurt Locker”. They did not name any of the other nine movies or show excerpts from them as they most always do. Before this they consumed an awful lot of time on the Actor and Actress nominations. The Oscars ended at 9:03 our time, but on the east coast, of course, that would be just after midnight. Sandra Bullock won for best actress in “The Blind Side” beating out the “Precious” nominee. Both of those movies were really hyped in the past few days and I was getting sick of that actress in Precious and hoped she wouldn’t win. If I ever see either of those movies again it will be too soon. Jeff Bridges won as a washed up country music star. He had received numerous nominations in the past and they figured it was time they honored him. If course that ex wife won as director of “The Hurt Locker” and that is the first time a woman has ever won for best director. However the movie languished at the box office so if they used the same standards Republicans used for health care, you’d have to conclude that the American Public preferred “Avatar”. But in this political climate, an anti imperialist war movie is going to lose out to a pro war movie. Though I don’t doubt that “The Hurt Locker” is a good movie- - and brilliantly conveyed its message. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin hosted the show. That had to be the worse monolog or whatever in the history of the academy. The show got off to a really weak start in my opinion, and the presentation was utter humorless. Absolutely none of the jokes were funny. “Avatar” won for visual effects and other related categories, and “Star Trek” won for make-up. “Up” is another movies that I have had quite enough of, if you know what I mean.

It could be sudden death for the President Obama administration. The President had imposed a deadline on himself of March 18^th for getting his health bill passed, before the President goes off on a trip, and congress goes on their Easter recess. Have you noticed that Congressional “recesses” seem to take up at least half of the time? Of course March 18^th is when that “Flash Forward” program on ABC resumes showing new episodes. They’ve already let it slip that there is going to be another black-out. You know the first any of us heard the name Berock Obama was at the 2004 Democratic Convention when the man was given a big build-up. Of course everyone that year knew John Kerry would lose, despite how promising the polls looked. Back then I was for President Bush’s completing his job as I saw it. The elections in Iraq had to be held, and new conservative judges had to be appointed to overturn Roe verses Wade, and also it was my hope that they would privatize Social Security because I felt that that was the only way it could be economically solvent. We all thought that the 2008 race would be between Guiliani and Hillary. And it was inconceivable that if Hillary had a majority of her own party in congress she would not steam roller a massive amount of legislation through. Some people are born losers, like Marsha Clark. Everything about her, everything she said in court screamed “loser”. It would simply be out of character for this President to actually win anything as important on health care because he’s backed off on every other issue important to liberals. The American people don’t want this legislation and the President’s cause is losing votes in the House of all places. Now there are major doubts whether the House could even pass this health care bill by a simple majority vote. At this point I would bet against its happening. So what do you do when the thing you care about most is suddenly gone? The President needs to find some other focus for his administration and get behind something the American people care about.