DEFINITELY HEADED THE WRONG DIRECTION

Well as you know my vote on the Health Care plan has been swinging in the ballance like a loose pendulum. But today two definitive actions of the US Senate have pretty much insured which way my vote will swing when the moment counts, and that is to vote in the negative. As of today I as a California senator would vote a reluctant "No" on the Democratic Senate health care bill. The two actions today are as follows. The public option was scrapped. This was part of a "compromise" move to secure the elusive vote of that sixtieth senator, Joe Obstructionist Lieberman. I hope the people at KTLK don't lose their testosterone or overies as the case may be and somehow rationalize this bad decision. It would be as if they voted a civil right's bill that said that Blacks would not be covered by the provisions of this bill. As far as I'm concerned, if I ever heard the news I heard today, that would be the ballgame. There will be no public option. So yes, a health care bill will be passed to "give Obama a victory" but all it will do is blow a few beaths of Rush Limbaugh hot air into Nome, Alaska when the people were hoping for something more substantive like central heating. Glen Beck exhailed a few breaths of the "pollutant" carbon dioxide the other day to illustrate the utter absurdity of the cerbon tax. Today's bill development is about as absurd. The other cute little move is to defeat the Hatch abortion amendment. I thought abortion was off the table, but someone found the fleeing patient and strapped her back on the opperating table. So now women will be able to sign up for abortion plans they couldn't afford before - because of this bill. It's a deal breaker for this writer.

Dana Rorebocker was speaking tonight on this whole cap and trade movement. He doesn't want congress to surrender its sovreignty for some internationalist agency of some sort of a perternal all encompassing nature - regulating all sorts of aspects of American commerce. India and China of course would not be subject to these provisions. So the "giant sucking sound" that Ross Perot warned of in 1992 will only become more pronounced as even more industrialists take their jobs off shore to areas where they can practice their pollution without US interference. I sometimes wonder whether there is a "Hate America" movement throughout the world. They seem to regard the United States as the ultimate sugar daddy "sucker" of all time!

It seems this anti American feeling as even pervaided the courts of Italy. They voted to convict Amanda Knox of pre-meditated murder even though they didn't sequester the jury or even screen then for bias. And they were allowed to read newspapers and have biases going into this case. And they say there was NO forensic evidence Amanda Knox was even at the murder scene with not so much as a speck of DNA. The case is on appeal and the concencus now is that she won't get the 26 year sentense but this will be reduced to about ten. Italians in the tradition of Stephano Di Mira call americans "errogant", which usually means they know we are morally superior and resent us for our superiority - - but they'd rather name call than face reality.

Name calling was on Rush Limbaugh's aganda today. I didn't hear any of today's program escept for excerpts on the Randy Rhodes show. It would seem that Rush Limbaugh in one stroke compared Tiger Woods to President Obama saying that they were both losers, and neither one was good at their appointed jobs. And because both Woods and the President were of "mixed race" they were necessarily "unhappy people" and in the case of the President, left only a wake of misery for all the Black People who supported the President hoping for an economic recovery and are now disappointed. When I heard that "mixed race" line I cringed. Does Rush Limbaugh really want to set race relations back fifty years where a White's worse fear, over and above Black people - is people of mixed race? It is Rush Limbaugh's greatest dread that this economy might recover from this recession. Indeed signs of recovery are becomming more apparent every day and now the President himself is fanning the fires of recovery anew in his new jobs program, where he had launched a new round of economic stimuli. Congress will have to pass the new stimulus measures, but that appears to be no problem. The President wants to do more to directly help small business and "free up credit". But also people want to take some of the recovered TARP money and spend it where it will count. But now the Republicans say "This money should be used to reduce the deficet". But we are reminded that many who passed the Bush tax cuts of 2001 did so to "give back the [Clinton] surplusses to the people who "over paid". Ha! Randy Rhodes is right in that if you placed bets on "who will be proved right" in the upcoming months it will not be Rush Limbaugh and the other nattering nabobs of negativism or the right wing, including Glen Beck.

Now some "Good Guys" institute issued a report against the Zu-Zu hamster pet toys that are so popular for Christmas this year saying that they had dangerous amounts of Antimony. This is a element that is closely related to Arsnic. But the agency did not conform to government procedures in testing, and today it was agreed by one all that the toys are not dangerous.

Yesterday an agency of the Obama Administration officially decreed that we indeed were suffering from Global Warming and that we should institute all of these "carbon footprint" measures that have been talked about. Meanwhile we here in Southern California have been going through a protracted cold spell, and the cold weather is expected to last all week. This could be the best ski season in the High Sierra that they've had in years.

THE TRUE NATURE OF ACTUAL
AND ETHICAL REALITY

One area that I’d like to get into now that we’ve covered the basics is whether there is such a thing as “enlightened self-interest” that can serve mankind. As you know in the “Dune” movie she asked, “Are you a human or are you just an animal?” What’s wrong with this is that animals are not altogether devoid of such “human” traits such as self-sacrifice for the benefit of the whole, or “democracy”. Today Thom Hartman was thumping one of his favorite melons. He was saying that corporations aren’t people and that they shouldn’t be accorded the rights of human beings. There should be an unlikely ally in this from the words of Rush Limbaugh in his having said, “an animal has no rights because he can’t contract together to obtain rights like we did with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Man is there accorded certain “inailiable rights” and also is regarded according to Randall Terry of “being accorded certain divine grace, and also subject to divine laws”. But even the Calvary Chapels, whom I don’t like, can be said to have been accorded “certain inailable powers - - by God”. Because they are what they are and have the power they have because of God’s providence, and I or anyone is a fool to deny this. How you ask can an objectivist deist believe in things like “God’s laws” or “God’s graces”. That’s simple. Because in the words of the Document itself, such things are “Self Evident” and as such exist in this reality and we, be we friend or foe, have to deal with the awareness of that reality. But someone like Captain Piccard would argue that Business Corporations are not “Sensient Beings” and as such should not be accorded the rights of Personhood (although Piccard has at times accorded these rights to things that were clearly just machines) I learned as far back as my senior year in high school in business law that corporations had the rights of persons. But now Thom Hartman says that corporations lack these rights and should under the “death penalty” after a certain set time. According to Hartman, corporations used to need to have a “Reason for being” or a Charter, which explains all the altruistic functions of the corporation and why society would benefit by having them exist, somewhat akin to the Fairness Doctrine of the FCC. But now we learn that according to modern law that a corporations Primary purpose must be to make a profit. And this could become a problem in the area of health care where the primary purpose should be to insure and restore health to the public they serve. If only- - . It is pointed out that in all of Europe including Switzerland, that no for profit corporation is allowed to participate in the health care process. In England the government owns the hospitals and pays the doctors. In Germany and France these are private, but the insurance plan is provided by the government. Last week I heard a guy on the internet talking how single payer health plans could never work, but that doctors would only charge fees for unnecessary care and bankrupt the system. I cannot agree with this assertion. Like teachers, I believe most doctors would be happy just to be insured a decent income and they would give the patient all of the medical care that he deemed that he needed. It’s a question of who you trust. Do you trust the doctors more or the HMO insurers more? This question is virtually self-answering. The question is whether doctors can practice medicine in their own “enlightened self interest” and still provide the amount of medical care necessary and most expedient to the patient. I think it’s an experiment worth running. It’s a solution we have not yet tried in this country except on a much smaller scale. Let’s try out the system they have in France and Germany. In utilitarian terms it will benefit the increased health and “general physical welfare” of society. As such we will get better human beings, because things like mental health and the issues thereof will also be attended to. If you catch a condition in time it will not mushroom into a far more serious medical condition that requires a long, expensive hospitalization. After all we do have police and fire protection and nobody doubts that these things are part of “the commons”. It’s kind of a basic problem that you can’t turn back the hands of time to the 1950’s where the average person could easily afford a doctor. There are times in life where you have to account the past as so much “water under the bridge” and deal with the realities of society that we face now.

Let’s talk about objectivism today. The Wickepedia has a nice article on the subject. This article is closer to representing my own ideas of truth than just about any other writings I have come across. You’ve heard me state the truths in my blogs that the reality is in the thing being under scrutiny and not in the mind or “perception” of the viewer. There are at present completely unknown truths out there and this things are just as real as the things we are aware of, and once we learn of them we need to employ conscious, meaningful, rational terms to describe them. But of course one must have a rational, cognative mind devoid of any misleading engrams for this to be realized. Apparently Descartes speaks of a “veil of perception” and the claim is made that natural science believes in “representational reality” as its philosophical axiom. What is wrong with representational reality is- - we all know that a tree falling in the forest makes a sound, and this can be measured with sound waves. But one might say “suppose you were some as yet unknown and undefined organism and you perceived the sound of a tree falling as that of someone puking on the floor. Would this not be a valid “representation”? The problem is there is an axiom that you are your best source of information. It’s a bit akin to what some defence lawyers do in murder cases saying that someone else must have broken in and did the deed. You then run into the problem of what was in the mind of some imagined hypothetical suspect. The motive here is not to find reality but to deny it. It would be as if one of Phil Specter’s murdered victums went to some cosmic therapist in the afterlife who told them “You don’t know what was in Phil Specter’s mind” and then go into some rambling attack on the person’s character flaws and how they are not qualified to pass judgement on others. This thinking is off the mark. Whether Phil Specter uses and abuses women is not a subject of how I or anyone “feels about it” any more than my evaluation of Calvary Chapel theology and actions of its members is a function of how I “feel about it”. The truth of what Calvary is exists independent of whether I even exist. If I didn’t exist at all the truth of their character or the lack of it would remain unaltered. In like manner if I’m driving in the rain to a party and I get there and it’s pouring rain, coming down in buckets, and I remark to my wife, “boy, it sure is coming down now” this statement is true regardless of for instance a fish in the ocean who might protest “I’m surrounded by more water than you are so don’t complain”. It’s not a tribute to reality to deny the obvious. Likewise I would pose the question “Who is more qualified to say what a block of wood is. A theoretical scientists who specializes in subatomic particle physics, or a life long carpenter?” I give the nod to the carpenter. Because half of the things the scientists looks at and otherwise “deduces the existence of” with his electron microscope or cloud chamber- - half the things he observes are hypothetical constructions to begin with. Some may say that God has to exist because morality exists. But they don’t care to point to any rational scientific evidence that he actually does exist, they merely infer it. Certain aspects of morality are "self evident". But some people in order to hide their charished moral flaws would invoke an alltogether imaginary God and ascribe to said God certain "secret knowledge" about themselves and others that only they alone are privy to.

In the area of ethics, I believe that “enlightened economic greed” might work if everybody plays by the same rules. Of course people like Ronald Reagen and Bill Clinton changed a lot of established economic rules. Utilitarianism may well work- - provided everybody understands the rules and are not just “using the rules” to manipulate the situation to his own greed. Likewise, communism might work- - if people strictly adhere to it. But as David Duke or Tom Metzker may well point out- - it’s this mixing of messigenation of philosophies that gets you into trouble. Because you have separate philosophies designed to work unto them selves, getting all mixed up together creating only a big mess. Adam Smith's economics is a sound theory, in a vacuum. When you play a video game the assumption is made that it's played in the abstract and that no other realities are to be assumed, except the ones presented in the game. An important axiom in playing any game is you don't change the rules in the middle of the game. Human nature loves to change rules while a game is in progress, and the vast majority of the time they do this out of corrupt motives.

HOW THE CONSERVATIVES HAVE
LOOTED THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

You know, I can't believe all of the flack Governor Swartzenegger is getting for being a spending liberal, even from people from whom you normally would not expect such criticism. Some people say that those Ballot Measures deserved to be voted down because California is way over-spending. I can't disagree more. Governor Swartzenegger was put into office you'll remember as a counter-ballance to Gray Davis, who allowed the state to be looted by Ken Lay and Enron by unwise financial dealings and jacking up the price of electricity here in California. But you'd never know that our present governor used to be called "The Termanator" by the way people are reacting to him today. Among the hard right he is being referred to as a "liberal cave in" bowing to the Kennedy connection of his wife, Maria Shriver. All this because the governor believes we should start being energy efficient and bring California into the 21st Century when it comes to cleaning up our polluted air and water. But the seeds of our current Financial problems we are having now, and they are serious, date back over thirty years to that fateful day when Proposition 13 was enacted by the voters of California. This is the measure that restricted all statewide property tax assesments to one percent of assesed valuation of property. Prior to this measure, California simply didn't have financial problems. Now it is learned that some deal was made by commercial intrests that goes like this: "Right now commercial intrests pay three forths of the property taxes in the state and private citizens, one fourrth. We want you to reverse this so they pay three forths and we pay a quarter". So they worked a deal, and they had to take preemptive steps before the thing was even voted on to insure their success. You know that in Windows you set a "System Restore" point prior to the time you actually need it. This is a case like that. These conservative power brokers knew that real estate prices would explode in this state, and said explosion would actually be Caused by this measure, Proposition 13 passing. So what they did was set up dummy subsidiary corporations that owned the property. Now, any time a piece of property is sold it's supposed to be re-assesed and re-valued. But they got around that by not selling the property directly but having the dummy subsidiaries own their property. And then they would simply sell their subsidiaries, and leave title to the property untouched. You getter read that again. Any time they want to sell or buy property they leave the property title itself untouched but merely sell the subsidiaries that own the property, which accomplishes the same thing, only now they pay a fraction of the tax they once paid. With prices ageraging eighty thousand in 1978 and five or six hundred thousand dollars now for a private home, you can easily see the advantage of this set up. And they have worked it well, so that it's John Q Citizen that pays the bulk of local property taxes.

Turning our attention nationally to President Obama, we liberals find ourselves less than overjoyed by many of our President's policies. Now I hear he's intending on erecting a status to Ronald Reagan and also planning many other centenial celebrations to mark anniversary of the former President's birth. What if Barry Goldwater had after being elected said he was erecting a giant statue of John Birch to be venerated by the people in the spirit of Daniel chapter 2? Liberals rightfully wouldn't like that. Now we hear so often it must be true that "renditions" are still going on. Renditions or kidnapping people and shipping them off to third world nations to be tortured- - an practice begun under President Clinton- - said rendition is still going on. Now we hear that Obama is in trouble with West Virginia voters. Why the people of West Virginia would have voted so heavily for Hillary I don't know. Maybe it's because their all inbred. Perhaps if I were President I'd start my own racial "eugenics" policy. I'd re-institute bussing. I would bus in twenty million Blacks from the ghettos of our large cities to West Virginia to interbreed with the native population and improve the racial stock of the people of West Virginia. Anyhow, now we hear that to please all the mine workers, Obama has a plan to blow the tops off of all the mountains in West Virginia to strip mine for coal as part of the President's vaunted "Clean Coal Policy". I know strip mining is going on in Montana, but West Virginia is a whole other ball of wax. Imagine the ecological devistation! And we still hear that in the good old days of President Eisenhaur, Corporations paid 41% or something of all income tax in this country. Today they pay only seven. What's the President going to do about this? Well, he wants to get tough on off shore corporations. In a speech about off shore tax dodges he says there is a building in the Caimen Islands which headquarters a thousand corporations. He says "It's either the biggest building in the world, or the biggest tax scam of all time. You decide which". He says that off shore corporations only pay a two percent rate on income tax. One wonders, and I was scratching my head whether there would be a violation of some sacred Constitutional principle laid down by the Supreme Court or something, if they were forced to pay their share. Apparently this is not the case. Congress can change the tax law whenever they choose, only they are "choosing" not to. We can speculate why. Some say that altering our current tax laws would "cripple our economy further" and exaserbate the recession. I don't believe this for a minute. These corporations don't pay taxes in this country and they skirt the laws in the Caimen Islands or whatever, so they don't pay taxes over there, either. President Obama says if these tax loopholes were closed and they paid their fair share, we could raise 210 Billion dollars in ten years. No offence but this seems a really paultry ammount considering the size of our debt. I am confident we can do much better than that. Rewriting our tax laws so that corporations stay in this country along with their jobs, should be a high priority item for this president.

Some have wondered about me, "You've said many times what you Don't believe on the subject of religion, but just what is it that you DO believe?" Well, as I have said I'm an anti-dyspensationalist, Calvinist, Deist, Objectivist individual. The objectivist part I'll hit first. That means that IF Jesus Christ rose 2000 years ago, it must be a fact that is waiting to be discovered and Will be discovered. An Objectivist believes "The truth is out there- - and one day will be discovered and scientifically proved". Many don't like the idea of our being a nation conceived "By Divine Providence". I have no problem with this statement. I believe also in a form of Creationism. Let me explain. Some believe, and Hartman has said this, that a Deist believes God is somehow in all animate objects. I don't believe this. I am the ultimate believer in the separateness of God and nature. I don't believe God is in nature kind of "guiding the evolutionary force along". I believe that every decision that God WILL make he has ALREADY made. Hence I believe that whatever form that life has taken on planet earth, the seeds of dezign, if you will, were contained in The Big Bang long ago, and things now are just "playing out" as scripted by God before the creation of the Universe. I don't believe, as some dyspensationalists believe- - in a God who appears to be either constantly changing his mind- - or else playing some kind of mind game like Steve Jobs- - like "Can you guess what I'm really planning". I do not believe God ordained either progressive revelation or progressive evolution. I do believe it's proper to thank God for his grace in our own lives, and thank God that we were born in America. If that's corn-ball, so be it. That's what I believe.

You know the Beatles have that new video game out now containing old Beatle studio recordings with chatter never heard publicly before. Paul and Ringo have been promoting this game, due out in September, the past couple of days. It's nice to see a little Beatle unity, however belated. But I'd like to address the original planned cover of the "Get Back" album. This is the photo used on the cover of "The Blue Album" Beatles 1967 - 1970. This whole idea of "getting back" oddly is a gnostic one. It's born of the belief that "Evolution is only Devolution". Any progression foreward only increases the degradation and devolution of the original product. The trouble is of course that getting back really isn't getting back. The songs on the "Get Back" album were so awful that none of the Beatles originally wanted them released. It was John Lennon having a conversation with a certain "somebody" in the Revolution song where he says "You say you want a revolution - - you tell me that it's evolution". I was a big fan of the slogan "Revolution is Evolution" back in 1968. But John Lennon had other ideas, On a show last sunday, we would be led to believe that that certain "somebody" whom Lennon was addressing the song "Revolution" too was Abbey Hoffman. Now John Lennon is attacking people on the left for "ruining it for people like him" who want to live in this country peacefully and not rippling any waves or troubling the Establishment". I think God placed in each one of us the natural desire to grow and evolve personally and intellectually and yes, musically, as the Beatles did. We should always be "pushing the envelope". But Gnosticism was engendered by the desire of a child to crawl back into its mother's womb and find confort there. The hook of attraction to Gnosticism, is "a fundamental lack of belief or confidence in one's self". It's my belief that the Beatles met their demize before they had to, and that there are musical idea forever now laying dorment.

THE PERIL OF THE UNCERTAIN TRUMPET

. Let’s talk about General Motors going into chapter eleven bankruptcy, cince it’s the topic of the day. As with Chrysler, this arrangement should be of short duration, probably only a few months. Of course Pontiac will bit the dust so farewell to the G T O one of the legendary muscle cars of the ‘sixties. What Thom Hartman alerted me to today was the fact that these bond holders aren’t heroes but villains. This is because they aren’t real bond holders but have these hedge funds. According to Hartman, these people are actually holding these investment swap things. As you know the “uninsured” or un-secured” investment swaps are the ones that have caused so much of the trouble because these people are betting against the American economy and the very corporate structures they profess to be under-writing. It’s kind of like betting against your own baseball team. It’s unethical and should be illegal but isn’t.

I changed the screen saver today to “No Corporate Sellouts”. I wanted to put “Obama is a Corporate Sell-Out” but there wasn’t room. As you know the rant against Justice Sylvia Sotomayor is that she is a corporatist and has sided in many cases the way the corporitists want her to, and as such can’t be trusted by Obama’s liberal base to “storm the gates of the Establishment and break down the barriers”. Her views on abortion are the biggest mystery since Justice Suitor, whose lack of opinion bothered me at the time in 1990 but that’s because he was appointed by a Republican. With any appointment by a Democrat, possible waffeling on the abortion issue is just added gravy. It’s just a bonus we pro lifers hadn’t expected. But I’d like to reference Justice Sotomayor’s speech on race that people thought so troubling. Her quoted remarks didn’t bother me when I initially heard them, but now having heard all of her speech, in context I am more troubled by the things she said, because she appeared to be unambiguous in her view that race and background should be taken into account when rendering a decision from a bench. Again – Lady Justice is blindfolded for a reason. This is so she can weigh the evidence impartially without regard to race, color, creed, or socio-economic standing in society. Indeed, if a big corporation were being messed over, I would hope they too, as much as the poor man, would be confident in getting his day in court. Respect for the law and legal precedent benefits everybody and creates an aire of stability and certainty in society- -as it’s natural to human nature to respect basic fairness and impartiality. I hope she will speak of these things in her confirmation hearings.

One case that will be coming before the next Supreme Court is the new case that gay activists will be bringing to say that “equal protection” rights have been denied to gay couples who want to get married. The gay lobby has a Queen Esther type dilemma on its hands here. This was the Queen who dared to speak to the King knowing if he did not extend his royal septer tword her could have her head lopped off for speaking out of turn. The gay lobby has to ask themselves when filing this case, “Do I feel lucky today?” because if they lose, it will deal the whole gay marriage movement a major setback. I’m thinking in my own mind, “Bring it on!” because with this Supreme Court with the four far right justices on it, the gays have a better than even chance of falling flat on their ass. It’s like that Charlie Daniels song about Johnny bargaining with the devil for his Golden Fiddle. Future justice Thurgred Marshell filed the integration case in the early 1950’s. He gambled heavily and won - - so it can be done. But that court, as Alex Travek reminds us, had nine Roosevelt appointees on it. Only Washington himself appointed more justices. The smartest thing the gay lobby could say to themselves when filing this case is “Thy Will Be Done”, which will be a real fine accolade – if they win. Even a Warren Court style “win” may only avail them a phrase like “they should proceed with all deliberate speed”. Loving verses Virginia wasn’t decided till 1967.

Thom Hartman opened his show this morning by having Randell Terry on, the militant anti-abortionist. He weighed in about the gunning down of that late term abortion doctor in a church working as an usher in the morning service. As I said higher up, I don’t believe people should call themselves Christian is they don’t have the goods. There are Bible cases to illustrate my point. In the New Testament a man was violently attacked by demons because he professed to be a Christian and yet wasn’t. Bob Dylan once had a song about going down south and “You could get killed down here so you better get your story straight”. In the OT there is the saga of a profit who was to prophesy against the Northern Kingdom, and he was told neither to turn aside on the trail neither to the right nor to the left. The man failed to follow Jehovah’s explicit instructions and got himself killed. I only say this to say that people should take their commitments to the Lord seriously. I’d like to address another erronius point that Hartman and callers raised. There was the implication that Randell Terry believed that your own blood had to atone for your sins in any case of murder, and that this would justify the man in the afterlife. He couldn’t be more wrong. In the first place I’m not aware of Jesus ever forgiving a murderer as he did with other people. In the Bible it says “There is a sin that leads to death” but the Greeks are vague about indefinite articles. They can be either used or dropped at the descression of the translator, and one should not believe this expression denotes singularity. It could just as easily be rendered “There is sin that leads unto death”. But I’d also like to say that the only sacrificial blood that counts in Christian theology is the blood of Christ. After all, how can the sin of an imperfect man bring about perfection? (Selah) I heartily agree with Randell Terry’s remark about this guy should be put on trial for Nazi like war crimes. This is where the man deserved to rise or fall in the eyes of justice. He should have been found guilty and then promptly executed “in a manner prescribed by law”. But also know this. People will ask, “Was it God’s will for the man to die the way he did?”. You know my answer to this. It’s an emphatic “Yes”. Everything that happens is God’s will. God’s will will never be the subject of mockery. But on the other hand it follows that the deaths of all those late term babies was also God’s will. And this I cannot logically justify. Only know that the decision to take the lives of all those late term fetuses was made before the creation of the Universe, indeed before Time Itself was created. (Selah)

Increasingly I am hearing rumblings of the idea that this economy is in a false recovery. Randy Rhodes is correct in her statement this afternoon, of course. All of this bailing out of the banks is undermining the strength of the dollar. Up till now being a holder of dollars hasn’t been that bad of a deal since this recession has been an occasion for the dollar to gain in value. But I could not expect this to continue. The world is an uncertain place. Both in Iran and North Korea there are the distant echoes of war drums. I continue to say that astrological indications are that we will be in a war, I believe with Iran, before the Obama administration’s first term is concluded. Nothing makes the traders in dollars more skiddish than the possibility of war. If I were President I would engage in a staring down match with Kin Jung Il. What do you do with such a self-deluded leader? He is surrounded by his enemies, and if I were President I would make him painfully aware of that fact by turning up the heat. I would oh so delicately remind him of what we did to two major cities of his neighbor to the east, Japan. And I’d just say “You know we have a lot bigger bombs now than we did then.” In the immortal words of Rush Limbaugh, "We are the ones who actually used the A Bomb. And it was a good thing. We used it to end a war". In terms of Iran, you’ve heard my remarks over the years. I believe we have screwed things up and acted at the wrong times and not acted at the wrong times. Once the preacher gave a sermon on “The uncertain trumpet” and I do not believe we are sending clear signals to Iran. I do not hold out much hope that Achmadenijab is going to be turned out of power in next month’s elections. Remember Zimbabue!

I’d like to close this file and this blog with a reflection on the milk of human kindness. Dr. Levy extended me the courtesy of three dollars today because I told him I was out of cigarettes and couldn’t afford another pack. With this money now I can pay off my debts to others and also be able to extend generosity to others. We need more one on one charity. We need to do things for others to brighten their day, and hope that the gesture is catching. Many times recessions like we are having brings out the generosity in certain people, while revealing the greed in others. Randy Rhodes today remarked that our work force is the best educated best trained work force we have ever had. Our nation should utilize this national resource as much as it would utilize “green” new sources of energy. People can be put to work building new, “greener” more efficient cars, and also rail systems for transportation within and between cities. These corridors themselves will be utilized to further our commerce getting people where they need to go- - so that they can earn and spend money. By contrast all the money we spent on the Iraq War is only wasted and there is no infra-structure to show for it. These are priorities we need to change. One would hope that President Obama would be a conduit for change instead of an obstacle to change that needs to be overcome. Think about that. Is Obama one of those working diligently to clear the log jam, or is he part of the problem? Which side is Berock Obama on, when it comes to “the inevitable march tword enlightenment?

MY INNER SCHIZOPHRENIC

This is Thursday morning May 29, 2009, Sergeant Pepper day. You know, if this place were a restaurant they would long since have gone out of business. We had Raison Bran for breakfast with grape juice - - and after a protracted wait, pancakes and sausage. But there is this twenty minute or longer wait when you are just twiddling your thumbs. Marcus Blackwell once made the remark, “He who steals my time does me a grave injustice”. And yet around here all time stops while you wait for others to do their jobs like last night in the medication line. One longs for the scenario in Coocoo’s Nest where you each line up and are given your medication in ten seconds or so and the line moved on. Around here you wait a couple of minutes per person while whoever is in charge either looks for your medication they misplaced, or they get into arguments about when they can have their pain medication. Last night I had a dream about Gene Scott and the theme was “Pursuing the fight of Faith against all odds”. Many times, as in one of Gene’s sermons, Faith is like the case of Michelle, or something - -one of David’s wives, and David had ordered the deaths of five of her sons to satisfy a demand of Jehovah, so that it says “The five bodies hung before the Lord” and the mother would come by and look at the rotting corpses long past any rational point hoping they would be resurrected or something and she’d brush the flies away and chase the birds of prey away that would perch on the bodies. And finally King David was so impressed with a mother’s devotion that he ordered the bodies be given a proper burial. But this is what it’s like with your Faith sometimes. Like the whole snail mail thing was kept going despite it being an almost solo act on my part. In another part of this dream, and I’ve often dreamed something like this, I’d be writing a letter but something would be wrong. Either the pages would get wet on the way to the mail box, or in this case I ran out of ink in the typewriter ribbon and I would be pounding away at that last key sentence, that formed the keystone of the letter. Of course my snail mail letters (we’re leaving out Mark Campbell’s name for the purpose of this illustration) felt like a solo effort sometimes. But even when you’re alone, I guess Gene Scott would say you aren’t really alone but have God’s power with you. In this dream Gene told how he had to drive in a “Satanic direction” (in this case West) in order to go to church every Sunday, and what an obstical it was for him to overcome. Our snail letters went from weird to weirder in 1982 when we began using imagery from “Satanic Magesties Request” and there was a focus on just the two small “Red Birds”, which were like red Marinatha Doves, and the two stood for “The adequate witness” according to Gene Scott. And the “red birds” stood for Federation War Ships. There was writing which borrowed from Gene Scott’s teachings. These ranged from the book “Holy Blood Holy Grail” starting in September 1982 on through stuff about the Great Pyramid, to astrological stuff where Gene Scott taught there were 48 constelations and 12 zodiac signs each with three “attending decans”. And the whole Zodiac was designed to tell “God’s Story” to the world. But then the station Gene was on went off the air on May 24^th. 1983. But we wrote stories on various themes. There was that “Sheep” Pink Floyd parody where I was transported to what I thought was Heaven, or maybe it was Hell. There was stuff on the mystic symbolism of the waterfall and once I wrote a story about how Christ and his Desciples went into a drug trance beneathe a waterfall at Ceceria Philipi. There was the “Stoned Imaculate” zone of the Universe, which featured a drawing done in bold purple ink of those “squares” from Blue Oyster Cult’s first album. And there was stuff involving black holes going back to at least 1981. When we bought the Rush album with Cygnus XI on it, there was a lot of dissertation on that, how a black hole could transform you. Those of you who have seen our rock compilation of “Going Retro” will note that Cygnus XI is about going back to the period of Greek Mythology. There was still the Zachary stuff but that was being choked out. Then in the summer of 1983 I began to write allegorical stories about being transported to the East Coast in sort of a mirror realm. There was stuff about looking at the crescent moon just above the ocean, and the impending Rapture. In the fall of 1983 I again started talking about a possible Rapture of taking away of the faithful. In the summer of 1983 there was new stuff about elements of the I Ching and the “eight directions” and that number theory and the 1, 2, 4, 8, 7, 5 - - progression and all the numerological mysteries waiting to be unlocked. There were then introduced elements from the Stephen King books, “Christine” and “Pet Cemetary” at the turn of the year 1984 and it just gets weirder and weirder. It’s a whole treasure trove of writings just waiting to be rediscovered at my parent’s house.

After mulling over my dream for a while I went out into the real world and talked to Wally and Richard and I realized “I’m among sane people now; I have to act sane now and can’t tell them the insane musings I’ve been having”. This is part of the problem when I moved into my apartment in July of 1988. I was in “fantasyland” for years and years dealing with people with a tenuous grip on the real world. Of course I no longer have the book “Flashbacks” by Timothy Leary, and a lot of others. When you’re living with a person who’s even more insane than you are you tend to withdraw. But even Clark Kent must from time to time have doubts about the “Double Life” he’s leading where he goes to a boring nine to five job you can almost sleep-walk you way through. (Not exactly, but you know what I mean) After the fall of 1987 I felt myself forced to start thinking about reality and my own future again. Much as it would be an adjustment I had to climb out of that Philip Kiriacus vault I’d been reposing in. Now it was time for me to start dating again. I could buy new clothes, but how was I going to get a new mind. Of course at my apartment I mistook the crowd for College Students since there was a College nearby. In reality they were young married couples, often with newborn babies, who were truckers, utility workers and other redneck occupations. They liked to get stoned on weed and party but they tended to be very clannish. My Romulan friends felt very uncomfortable and warned me I shouldn’t have moved in. Aside from the obvious things I’ve mentioned, there were allusions to possible Satanic activity.

Then we come to Gail Mc Nally’s poetry “My Inner Schizophrenic”. I am dedicating this Blog posting to her. What is poetry written by an insane person? I’m waiting with baited breath to get my hands on a copy of her book. Is it any different from poetry written by a person not diagnosed? You know, it’s been my experience that genuinely insane people really aren’t that creative. They usually get stuck in one groove- - often the “I’m OK but everybody else is an idiot” kick. Quite often, genuinely insane people, like Born Again Christians, become very authoritarian. Look at Marcus Blackwell. He regarded the upper patio as the deck of a ship and he was the commanding officer, and we were all his subjects. If I had the whole Marcus thing to do over again I would have stood up to him and challenged him a lot more. People tend to think of insane people having vivid imaginations when in reality this just isn’t the case. If a person is creative, he is probably sane. People think of Alice in Wonderland and through the looking glass as being the ultimate in insanity. All this shows is a vivid imagination. Compared to the snail mail letters I used to write, my blogs are the epitomy of rock ribbed Sanity. I guess sometimes I’m curious about where the whole Timothy Leary drug crowd hangs out. I guess the problem is that- - this is a pattern since child hood with me- - - I want to bring other people into my insane world- - but often I show little interest in recripicating and going into theirs. Some say insanity is illogic. Paul Mc Cartney once though his line of “I go back so far- - I’m in front of me” would be a line John Lennon would love. I’m not so sure. John Lennon used imagination but it had a point to it. If you sat down and had him explain it to you it would all have a point. Even the one liner statements Bruce makes are reminiscent of the sort of one liners that Jim Morrison would come up with. They would be off the wall declarative statements to reflect and meditate on. Even when John Lennon said “Imagine there is no heaven - - no hell below – above us only sky” his point was isn’t it sad that religion has us so brainwashed that to a lot of us Hell is real and pursuing us every day, isn’t it sad - we have to only imagine a world without spirits and demons and heaven and hell. It’s too idealistic of a world to actually exist.

THE SHAPE OF NUMBERS

If you are like me perhaps you've found the whole field of statistics intimidating. All you know is that there is some magic percent that you can measure from a sample and somehow get a picture of the macro reality. One might infer that the greater the volume of sheer numbers, the smaller of the percentage of a sample you need take. There are no doubt mathematical formulas on this but I want to narrow the topic a little. I want to talk about the herolded "Bell curve". Once I did a program in BASIC where I had the computer spit out random numbers- - and in my model I used the "pile of sand" or the conical model rather than a bell curve. In my model I had the varience from the mean dependant on the square of the different of a number- - in this case a random number between zero and six. What this meant was that the "mid point" where half of the numbers were closser to the mean, would be at nine above the mean and nine below the mean. In other words this means that the middle eighteen points (in this case of IQ scores randomly generated) would comprise exactly half the scores.

However statisticians don't use the "middle hald and two end quarters" number. Instead they use a number two thirds the way out to the two extremes of the score. That is, two thirds of the numbers are between these two lines and one sixth is to the far right, and one sixth to the far left. In this model Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh would be to the far left, if you catch my drift. These two lines are collectively known as "standard deviation". It is best to speak of a standard deviation line or set of lines rather than the oft heard "standard deviation curve".

Now that you understand what "standard deviation" is, I can go on to say that it needn't be always the same number. Obviously it will vary by what you are sampling. For some things it will deliniate a wider range and for others a more narrow range. One might imagine for measuring things like blood PH I would expect a very narrow range, or for human temperature, a narrow range. But there are a few other aspects to the curve you need to know. First there is the right or left "skew" of the numbers, if any. A "normal" distribution of numbers is not supposed to have any "skew". For certain things like personal income- - a rightward "skew" would be assumed. One way to define a "skew" is to the extent that the mean average is to the right of the median. As I may have said before, when you use "median" you are talking about human beings, the domain of the liberal. When you are talking about things like worker efficiency or energy usage or production, then you would use the mean. These are the sort of things conservatives are more interested in. Is this concept now clear to you?

There are two moremore dynamics I want to fermiliarize you with first and that is what I call the amptitude. This is merely "how high is your bell curve"? You can think of it as sine waves. If you turn up the gain on the ociliscope, the sine waves will become more vertically elongated. But this is a dynamic of "projection" of you will, of the image, and says nothing of the "nature" of the wave itself. Moving on - - a large sample of anything will generate more numbers than a small sample, so on the same graph marking or "projection" or one might say "calibration" the bell wave will look taller the more sampling that you do. These things are taken into consideration when you draft the chart. There is another "projection" you should be aware of. And often you hear of a "logarithmic chart". These can either be horisontal or vertical progressions. The key thing to remember with that these charts is that they are proportional, and also that you never reach zero no matter how low the readings go. There are places where logarithmic charts are and are not appropiate, and I think I went into this recently, and let me give you a simple illustration right now. If you bought a hundred dollar stock and it goes down to tem, you are all but wiped out for you have lost ninety. So a logarithmic chart isn't relavant. If you however wait till the stock is at ten to buy it, now the logarithmic chart is relavant. Because it can continue in your eyes to plumet sharpely. People like to use straight linear charts to show a stock's rise. But if you just bought a stock when it about to reach its peak- - a logarithmic chart would be more relavant to you. The first investor may have baught the stock at ten, so if the stock goes up ten now he's doubled his money. But if you paid a hundred and it goes up ten, you've only made ten percent on your money. Capish?

Now we come to the most difficult concept, at least that I am going to discuss here. There is a quality called kurtosis. I became fermiliarized with this word in wolframalpha.com. What it is, to put in simple terms, is the "pointiness" of a Bell Curve. A high kurtosis will be "pointy looking" whereas a low kurtosis will be "more blob like". What I also need to stress here is that the standard deviation curve needn't change for the kurtosis to change. In fact, kurtosis is best illustrated where the standard deviation number or "point spread" as I call it, does not change. Let me next tell of an excell thing I did lately. I took four quarters of a circle. Think of a black line circle on white cardboard pieces. Now take the pieces are rearrange them so that they form the shape of a "Bell", with the high point in the middle. Now, this is what I refer to as a bell curve with "trigonometric logic". This curve had a peak to standard deviation line ratio of 1.409. This number is close enough to the 1.414. square root of two that there may be some connection, since I was not that exact in my "construction of the model". In this model I did it was as though there were some gymnasium with a bell shaped roof, and you had the people file in and stand on the line on the floor which represents their IQ score, or highth or whatever I am measuring. From here it was simply a matter of "counting noses" to see how many were on the node or peak line of the "Bell" and how many were on the two-thirds line and taking the ratio of the numbers. I say all of this because what I'd like to do is recalibrate and simplify the whole "kurtosis" computation process. First you have to know some things about statistics. Reality isn't what you'd logically think. If you have a class room and Chaquille ONeil walks in to the room, his presence throws the standard deviation for height curve way off. Computing the standard deviation doesn't take into account "flook" or isolated numbers. Their motto is "where there is one, there will be more". If the tallest person in the room is six one - - statistical sampling will just tack on a half an inch assuming there are people you didn't count. But it gets a bit freakier than that. I wondered what a "flat" Kurtosis number was. One might suppose it would be a number like One, or perhaps Zero. But it isn't It's the square root of three. But here's another freaky reality. Not all straight lines are equal. You've heard there are certain words you should never use the adjitive "vary" with, such as "pure" or "unique". To use such adjitives here is to diminish the primary word. Are all Straight Lines created equal? No. Longer straight lines are more "pointy" and short ones are "more blog like". So a flat series of numbers counting at some regular intervle, like an Excell copy command, will render different kurtosis figures depending on the length of the line. I discovered that a line of numbers PI length, or 6.28 - -which is twice pi - - will render a kurtosis with the square root of three. My version of kurtosis would have this as ONE. How I would compute kurtosis is to divide the number they give you by the square root of three and take THAT number and SQUARE it. So the "normal" kurtosis of three would remain unchanged. This three would mean (I think) that the node of peak of the curve would be 1.732 - - times the "two thirds" hash marks, as we'll call them. In my model as you know the hash mark reading was only 1.409. So what accounts for the difference? Here is is: The difference is the peak or tightness of the curve of the line at the top of the bell verses the curviture of the line as the ends of the bell. Is this is a higher ratio or difference, then your kurtosis will go up. I'm thinking a scenario where the curvature is equal or "trigonometric" model - - this would have a Kurtosis of 1.96 or roughly two. In case you are wondering I have never seen a kurtosis number lower than one, and these may not exist but don't hold me to that. Even a chart spread with a "hole" or "U" formation of scores, will still have a curtosis number of 1.2 or something. OK, I think you're up to speed now.

CALIFORNIA COURT UPHOLDS GAY MARRIAGE AMENDMENT

The California State Supreme Court today voted six to one not to overturn Proposition 8, the so called anti-gay marriage initiative. It was an amendment to the State Constitution. The State Supreme Court last May voted to legatamize gay marriage in a contraversial 4 to 3 decision, which was unambiguous in its stridency for rights for all of the people. Now the court has changed it's tune. What is so perplexing about today's ruling is that it says that the 18,000 gay couples who got married in the "window of oppertunity" last year, are legally married and every state in the union has to recognize these 18,000 as such, according to a provision in the US Constitution. This indeed creates a strange situation where the Court is saying "You eighteen thousand have this inailiable right that's guarenteed; the rest of you don't". Many have questioned the logic of this decision and I am one of these. I never in a million years thought they would vote the way they did because this Court has a record of overturning the sovreign vote of the people on a lot of issues. The thing is that if this were officially to alter the state constitution, then it should have been first been passed by 2/3 of the state legeslature. This did not occur. The reasoning according to some if "Well, the court used the passage of an illegal amendment to justify their current actions that didn't exist last May". But in my oppinion this is engaging in circular reason, if hot "short-circuited" reasoning. I still am against gay marriage, but I'd like the issue be dealt with in a fair and above board fashion. Now the pro gay people are just going to get another initiative on the ballot and try it again. And this time, I have the feeling, they will succeed, because momentum for this gay marriage issue is growing.

Sylvia Sottomayer - - a Hispanic woman, has been picked for the Supreme Court Justice left open by justice Sutor's retirement. This lady is known for her thoughtful rulings, which on occasion have opted for the conservative side of an issue. I see no reason why she shouldn't be approved. Nobody really fought that hard about approving Roberts or Allito. If the Republicans try to be too obstenate in opposing this nomination they will only bee seen for what they are, and that is - obstructionist. Sylvia Sottomayer has been to all the Ivy League colleges and has served as both a trial judge and a prosecutor, among other things. My only reservation is that sometimes "What's in a person's heart" can be relivant. It's relavant for a husband or wife to be. If you don't love the things your husband loves and want the same things he wants, if you only give out a yawn when he pours out his heart and says what he'd really like to accomplish in this life, then such a man or a woman is not a very goot marital candidate. Personally, I don't like family members who show this kind of apathy. But you know what they say. You can pick your friends but not your relatives. Often when I show I'm really interested in a certain subject, there is a yawn apathy that rises up in them, like I'm talking to the fence posts. If I say, "You know, I'm going to spend some of my stimulus check on eating more snacks that I've been missing the past three years" I'm not looking for a lecture on how bad sugar is. I'm saying all of this because in our personal lives we're looking for empathy. If we have a Pastor we talk to, we would like him to care if we expressed concern for the physical health of a loved one, or if we'd just been fired or had debt problems, or worse were arrested in jail. It's classic Christian compassion to care about such thing and if a pastor doesn't do this he isn't doing his job. But in a Supreme Court justice, I don't want feelings, I want objectivity and fairness and a "rigerous legal intellect" and all of that. I want my candidate to have some respect for what "settled law" is. I would like to get to the other issue I wanted to raise and this is the idea of "Liberal activist justice". Statisticians have pointed out that Clarence Thomas has voted to overturn more laws than any other justice at 69% or higher. Justice Kennedy is in at second and Justice Sculia is in at third at 56% Justice Bryer has only a 29% rating when it comes to voting to overturn a case. So the great liber myth is showned to be a falsehood because Clarence Thomas is the most "activist" Justice we have ever had. Personally I don't like activist justices. Capish?

The US Supreme Court today in one of their famous five to four rulings with "the usual suspects" decided that cops have the right to continue to badger and question a suspect clearly after they have indicated they wish to say nothing untill their attorney arrives. While this ruling may seem proper on "technical" grounds, in the real world it doesn't wash, any more than Plecy verses Ferguson will play in the real world Blacks have to live in. You know as well as I that cops are authority figures and the suspect by the very nature of being in the presence of a uniformed officer feels compelled to so whatever the police officer tells them to do, and in real life that means continuing to answer questions. You know how cops don't take kindly to lying to them, because they have the power to let things ride or else to slap on more charges depending on how you, the suspect cooperates. Here is definitely a case where real life personal experiance would come in handy. But as it is now, this is just one more dimuation of personal Civil Liberties.

People are saying now that the Swine flue will be returning in the fall with a vengance. They say that in the epidemics of 1918 and also in 1957 that there was a virus in the summer time but it was dying out and in the cast of 1918 came back in the fall, of that year, and that's when it killed so many people. Some say that if a virus could think, it would never mutate into a fast acting virus because that way it would kill off its host and die out before it could be spread long enough to perpetuate its kind. But the answer may lie in the fact that the virus now has a short incubation period. If a virus had a long incubation period it could still be deadly but be spread for perhaps two weeks before the host had any symptums that could be tested for. At any rate those in the know say this virus will be coming back as more viralint than it has been to date.

I'd like to discuss for my final subject the Soap Opera. OK, the Soap Opera it is. In that one of Victor's sons named Brady, who is really a grandson, turned traitor and called the cops and fingered the other son, Philip, and interfered with a "hostage exchange" that was in a delicate state of negotiation. Of course the Salem PD can be counted on to muck anything up they get their hands on. Another son of Victor is the police comissioner, named Bo Brady, who has let his contempt for his father and his father's chosen profession, become rather obvious over the years. Meanwhile the other principal in this "hostage negotiation" is Elvis Di Mira. He has an employee who is a screw-up named Owen who goofed up deliverage of their kidnap hostage, a young woman named Stephanie. This put Elvis Di Mira in an embarrising position. In the end I think the king pins on both sides could have "worked the whole situation out" perhaps with a few thrown fists, but still worked out. But with the police involved it's a whole different story with a lot more complicating wrinkles.

AN UNMISTAKABLE OBAMA TIDE

It used to be said many long years ago that people didn't get serious about a Presidential campaign untill the World Series was over with. Right now the World Series has not yet started (it will in a few minutes) but it seems the "decisive" phase of this campaign is over and past. All three debates have concluded (Obama won all three of them) and people have basically made up their minds already. We wish Randi Rhodes luck in voting tomorrow. Apparently she couldn't vote today because the lines were too long in Florida. Certain things are becomming clearer all the time. NBC had a poll on the news saying that Obama had made fantastic inroads with two key segments of the population that Mc Cain was badly counting on - independant voters and older people. Older people now see Obama in terms of being "safe" and "stable". He had passed the threshhold of acceptability for the office in their minds. Mc Cain had a decision to make a couple months back. He could go for the independant voters, which everyone was expecting, or he could shore up the republican base. How ironic it is that Al Qaeda means "The Base" in Arabec. What a twist it is that Al Qaida should prove to be Mc Cain's undoing. Mc Cain was betrayed in his own mind by clinging to "Al Qaeda" at all costs. And he has cost him a great deal of respectability. One caller today was saying that he didn't know his mother had racist leanings untill she joined the Mc Cain campaign. And now Obama is up eleven points both in the NBC poll this morning and the Newsweek (?) poll I just heard this afternoon. There is no other indication but what this eleven point margin will continue to increase as people see the issues more clearly. They don't want to be told that Obama is a Socialist. They know better. How ironic it is that one of the best stump speeches I heard today for the democrats was given by none other than Ronald Reagan. They played that old speech from 1948 of Ronald Reagan stumping for the democrats saying the Republican congress passed laws that were bad for American workers and that now your wages aren't keeping up with the rising inflation. If you want you can hear speeches of Eisenhaur warning of the dangers of an excessively milliteristic society. Franklin Rosevelt made speeches against the industrial barrons of his time saying they want Power and to hang on to their power they will attack anyone who opposes them as Unamerican. No older person wants to vote for a candidate he deems to be running against Franklin Rosevelt. These people worship the ground Rosevelt walks on. If we are to believe Thom Hartman, they don't have this problem in European countries of being accused of being against their native country. The equalivance of "Un-American" is unknown over there. Unfortunately Christianity too has been dragged through the mud because many people see Mc Cain's people and Christianity as one and the same people. It's so petty to accuse someone os "stealing" or "coveting" when they want taxes on the rich raised. If this is true then John Mc Cain is guilty of the same sin of "coveting what the rich have" because he used to be against the George Bush tax cuts. Everyone always reguarded these tax cuts as temporary. But now to see them "expire" evokes howells of protests from the right. In the same way that poor southern whites voted with the conservatives because he believed it was all "Sambo's fault" for the state he was in economically, so people today live in this fantasy world of "I don't earn $250.000 a year but if I did I wouldn't want the government taking my hard earned money away". There is no doubt about it- - Thom Hartman believes obscene, excessive wealth is bad for the interests of America. I suppose the worst you could say is that Obama is "Hartman light". A more pragmatic truth is that the government is short on money and will raise it from wherever it can get it. This is a cold, hard reality but if I were running for President I'd remind the voters of this truth.

They say that Sarah Palin's Saturday Night Live performance actually hurt her as a respectable candidate. Now apparently she is traging her kids around like props or defense baracades or something- - even to places where her kids were not invited and she's putting it on the taxpayer's tab. By the way I've heard one third of corporations don't pay any income tax at all, or maybe the figure is even higher. We must make corporations pay their just and fair share. As to the notion of the 'eighties and the past eight years driving wages down- - Tom Hartman had a painful but perhaps correct statement to make. If you pull down five hundred dollars a week and you're taxed at twenty percent, the Boss knows that you'll work for four hundred. If they cut the income tax rate to ten percent you won't get $450.00. You've already shown the boss that you'll work for $400.00 so he'll cut your gross salary to $450.00. In like manner one would expect if you had a ten percent sales tax and they cut it to five percent, venders would hike the price of the goods and pocket the ammount because you've already shown what you're willing to pay for the product. We've heard outright lies in this campaign like Michelle Obama ordering lobster and Pursian cavier at a hotel where they were holding a charity event. And later it turns out that Michelle was never even at that hotel. Conservatives miss the big picture and fixate on things like flag lapels. How ironic it would be if Obama actually did "Fat" out of the federal budget. It would be the last thing the Right expected. They don't care if we run up a big deficet and make their kids pay for it, just as long as poor people don't get any of that money.

If you people took my advice and bought stocks a week or two ago, don't worry about today's low prices. Consider it a "Sale" that has been extended. It's an oppertunity to avail yourself of buying even more. Now you won't buy stocks, but a year from now when stock prices are up by 25% then you all will be clamoring that you can't wait to buy stocks. Today I was yelling at my TV screen for this lady on "Deal or No Deal" to get out of the game at $43,000. One look at the board told the story. But like all the rest she stayed in far too long and settled for twelve hundred. You know Jesus talked a lot about sowing treasure in heaven. If there is a hereafter, I wouldn't want to be in the shoes of a Mc Cain supporter with all their monitary and racial petty proclivities. The thing about karma is that it's what you do when you think nobody is looking- that counts. It's the things you do without an audience that carries the most weight, for good or for bad. And if you followed my oil advice, it's time to cover those naked shorts. Winter is coming and it's time to take your profits and squerrel away resources for later on.

There are a lot of petty things in the law. Slaves aren't slaves but "other persons". And if your grandfather was a slave it means you can't do certain things. On a game show today they had a man and a woman competing to answer questions and advance to the next round. I think it was the man who got "the wrong kind of question" that randomly was selected and therefore he was "unqualified" to even venture an answer to the question and lost by default. In voting they have their caging techniques. And they want to make sure your name is identical, and that your drivers license number was transcribed perfectly. I've never seen election officials behave in such a biased manner as the stuff I've heard about this year in terms of misplacing or losing ballots or not counting provisional ballots or else lying to people who are qualified saying they are not because per chance they defaulted on their mortgage payments or something. If nothing else Black people need to get smarter. You know, about the first letter I ever wrote to the media was in 1974 expressing my belief that the Symbionese Liberation Army was some kind of a stealth organization organized by the FBI with its one tokin Black, Donald De Freeze. Some people today are trying to rekindle this paranoia about connecting Black people with extremist organizations in people's minds. I'll say this. The Black Panthers got support from communities because they did "community service" and had those free breakfasts for children and all, much as terrorist organizations in the mideast to charity for the poor. Christians used to practice charity but somewhere along the way some bright person stood up and said "Charity is not an essential element of Christianity" and everyone stood up and applauded. We all need to "reach out and touch somebody" like the slogan says. John Lennon says in a song, "A million heads are better than one". This is true on so many levels. There is wisdom in numbers. (Selah) If it works on Wheel of Fortune with just two people, it will easily work with a hundred million.

THE FINAL FORTNIGHT

Well, early voting has begin, and from what we can tell this year could end up a year of total confusion on November 5th. We may not have hanging chads but we'll have the nightmare of the Republicans not wanting to let go - - because in Ohio and West Virginia and in Florida they have had problems with long voting lines and electronic touch ballots not working properly as the machines keep switching to Mc Cain when a person votes for Obama. I haven't even received my ballot yet and I'm a registered Republican. I've gotten recomendations for various state propositions such as no on eleven, the "better government" initiative. Yes on ten. That's the energy proposition where you get tax credit for efficient alternate energy cars, ect. Joe Biden is saying that Obama will be "tested" his first six months in office, and I have no reason to doubt this. As you know I've claimed that "The powers that Be" have a war with Iran scheduled in to the divine master schedule for the next four years. But Obama will not be siding with the Moslems as these Christians claim. They say he's a stealth terrorist and a socialist and a closet Moslem, whom all the extremist Islamic powers can't wait to see in office.

As you know Collin Powell enfoursed Obama last Sunday morning on Meet the Press, and we out here heard about it in the early news before the show even aired. Mr. Powell's endoursement of Obama is dismissed by the born again lobby and apparently people like Rush Limbaugh saying that it's strictly a racial thing. Naturally Powell endoursed Obama because they're both Black. The narrowness which the Far Right is guilty of they are projecting on to their adversaries. Race was never cited as one of the many factors why Powell is endoursing Obama. The reasons were that Obama is cool as a cucumber under fire and shows a "steady hand of leadership". Some may argue that Obama is "playing possum" and he's just waiting till November 5th. Guy Fawks day before he "comes out of the closet" and announces his true identity. Some say the reason why people like Randi Rhodes want early voting is "because something bad is likely to come out about Obama in the next two weeks that could turn things around". Another reason why Collin Powell is endoursing Obama is that the Republicans are appealing to too narrow of a support base, and I'd have to agree with that, and I'd throw in the words "biggoted" and "racist" myself. I have myself heard racist remarks out of the mouths of these right wingers, both against Blacks and against anyone of Arab or Islamic extraction. Collin Powell talked about the grave of a young man who died for his country in the Iraq war with a star and crescent on his grave. There are contrary to belief, actually good practicing Moslems who are 100% pro American. This whole idea of being "un American" is a troubling one. Sarah Palin said she was happy campaigning in the "pro American parts of the country" like in North Carolina. Powell has stated that Obama by contrast to Mc Cain has appealed to a broad spectrum of the population. Many say that Sarah Palin's inclusion on the ticket is a major reason for viewing Mc Cain as unstable. Powell also cited (as did I) Mc Cain's lack of decisiveness on the bail out bill as a reason not to trust his decision making powers. Powell spoke of a virtual "Final Exam" that the candidates have undergone these past few troubling weeks. Many conservatives such as George Will have expressed doubts about having Sarah Palin on the ticket. Supposidly the buzzword is "I'm voting for Obama but don't tell my neighbor". Raher than a white backlash or "The Bradley effect", we may instead see a voter "front-lash" of many coming out in secret for Obama.

I had a conversation with someone the other day and it made me angry. I'm getting tired of this like that restoring the Clintonian tax rates for upper incomes as somehow "socialisum" or "a major redistribution of the wealth" or somehow another form of "welfare for the non tax payer". Of course even thse who pay no income tax because they are so poor still pay sales tax as well as FICA withholding, and perhaps even health plan withholding from their payroll checks. If Mc Cain is going to pitch his campaign for the benefit of those earning over $250,000 then I say say"Who does he think he's kidding?" if he thinks the top five percent of incomes represents the broad main streme of American workers. Somehow Mc Cain wants you to buy into the notion that the mean old government is unjustly conthiscating your "hard earned money". Why would "Joe the plumber" jeopardize his own intrests by coming out for Mc Cain. Clearly Joe the Plumber was a shill for Mc Cain. Even if he did earn over $250,000 he would profit from the Obama tax plan because he'd get more business because potential customers had more income to spend. Also the new health care regulations would help him so he'd pay a net less to the government anyhow. But don't confuse republicans with the facts.

There is this push by the media to recessitate Mc Cain's campaign because they want to peddle the notion that the race is tight and could go either way on election day. But if it does it will be because of corruption of the electoral process. All of the polls show Obama leading from between about six and eleven points. Obama has more money to spend, "hard earned money"- - than Mc Cain does. So if anything the Obama lead should increase. Collin Powell's endoursement should help Obama. In 1992 Clinton increased his lead in the final week. In 1988 Bush increased his lead over Dukakis in the final week. I'm thinking probably Clinton increased his lead against Dole in the final week. It's rare for the media to portray this as a "tight race" with Obama so far ahead in the polls, unless they know something they aren't saying.

IT'S GETTING CLEARER ALL THE TIME

Well last night Joe the Plumber won the day. Mc Cain launched the charges of "class warfare" and "wanting to spread the wealth around" against Obama, whereas Mc Cain says "I want Joe the plumber to keep all his wealth that he's made for himself". I heard the same charges leveled by O Riley against Obama when O Riley had him on as a guest. The truth is that if Joe the Plumber wants to get out of that high tax bracket he can take on an employee and write off his salary as "business expence" to get his income down. Also Obama plans to give small business three thousand or something to provide new jobs. Also if Joe the plumber makes 500,000 only half of his money will be subject to the higher tax rate. One statement that Obama did not repeat often enough was the idea that McCain votes with Bush ninety percent of the time. When Mc Cain said "If you wanted to run against George Bush you should have run four years ago" Obama should have come right back with "That's about the dumbest thing I've heard anybody say" and sit back and listen to the applause. In a head to head confrontation Obama won the day every time. Obama said Mc Cain would tax your health benefits. Further Obama said that under my plan you could keep your health coverage if you were satisfied with it, but Mc Cain may well put the health coverage you have now in jeopardy". Mc Cain tried raising the specter of Ayres the weather underground bomber. Mc Cain brought up ACORN. This is a group who has been in the news for regestering Mickey Mouse and other bogus names such as Al Kilyoo and Pepe Roni. But the truth is that in Colorado, which has swung dramatically democratic in the past four years, more names have been taken OFF the rolls by Republicans than there were newly registered. And these new voters were largely democratic. Obama kept coming back to economic issues every time Mc Cain would launch a personal attack saying how Mc Cain wants to reduce the taxes of big oil companies by 300 Billion or something. Obama reminded us that we have only three percent (?) of the world's oil reserves so cannot "drill ourselves out of the energy crisis". I wish Obama had come up with something a little more specific as to which form of energy he thinks would get us out of our energy crisis. The truth is that we need to explore so many different types of energy and we'll have to see which one does the trick.

On education I like Obama's money for public service feature. A student gets funding for college and in exchange does a year of community service. This helps everybody. Obama needed to stress more the notion that his plans "help the country as a whole" and not just one individual. If we spend money on disease research now we will cut our medical costs later. And if we spend more money on education now we cut the crime rate later and our citizens get better jobs. The one area where I do agree with Mc Cain is this idea of vouchers and the right to let market forces dictate which school parents send their kids to. Both candidates believe that we ought to fire bad teachers who don't perform and this is a good thing. On abortion Mc Cain admitted that he voted for judges Ginsburg and Brior in the Clinton adminestration. Obama said he regarded sex as a sacred act, and this should appeal to Christians. I think it was a cheap shot myself since the issue is not where the partakers of sex have right moral standing by virtue of being married, the issue is the taking of an innocent human life, and I would frame the argument in this way.

Larry Elder says the cure to every economic injustice is to let market forces take over. In the case of this animal rights bill in California I'm inclined to buy his argument. Passing proposition two would wipe out the poultry inductry here in California. We can't have that, especially is we then get eggs from such dubious places as Mexico or China. Rather the solution to a lot of problems including this no smoking quandry is to let market forces and social pressure rule the day, and in the end companies will be pressured into more humane conditions for livestock.

Obama's basic plans for this bail-out bill are better than Mc Cains. He wants to offer job incentives and also a chance for people to remain in their homes and try and make their mortgage payments with a ninety day freeze on foreclosures. Mc Cain wants to cut capital gains taxes and dividend taxes. My understanding is if you're a millionaire and live mostly on stock dividends, you are taxed only at the low rate of fifteen percent. This will not do. I would raise the top income tax rate back up to fifty percent where Reagan CUT it to back in 1981. In terms of capital gains cuts, this will leech capitol from the stock market because people will have an incentive to rush to sell the minute they see any profit because they know they can keep more of their sale price now. The same thing will go on in real estate if we ever recover. Of course capital gains taxes raise revenue on the short term because people have a sudden incentive to sell. But it won't last once the excess capitol is leeched from the system. Thom Hartman has talked about how Jefferson, Madison and others didn't want a nation of filty rich "landed gentry" who owned everything. This is what the progressive income tax prevents. Of course the government has a societal intrest in overseeing the wealth in this country and who gets it. A major purpose of the tax system should be to encourage activities we like, like hard work and production of a needed product, and discouraging of activities we frown on, such as speculation. In this sense we have a remnent of our Puritanical ethic. Mc Cain wants to abolish the inheritance tax in this country and that will insure that we have this Dynastic Wealth that our forefathers frowned upon. It's a strange thing to me that the Joes of the world are worried about and side with the "landed gentry", the multi-millionaires and don't identify with their own pasts and the comon working people. We need to bring back the worth ethic in this country. And I think to a large measure we already have, because the average Joe is working harder than he used to. The trouble is that his bottom line income is not showing it. For the past thirty years the income of the average person has been shortchanged, and it's this situation we must remedy and one way is to raise the national minimum wage to a livable figure. I think we need a quarter or maybe a half percent stock transaction tax to cut down on speculative day trading in the stock market. Michelle Obama gets a huge salary from a corporation that is not doing all that well economically. They had a thing on You Tube on this. Obama is not lilly white in this area. I'll close by saying that we in America need to start looking at the Big Picture economically. Mc Cain can talk about deals with the Columbian government. But we democrats who see the big picture know that dealing with crooks and people who don't prosecute criminal terrorist groups in other countries are not the sort of people with whom America should be doing business.