One of my friends in Grade school was a notorious prankster. He was once seen on the Kansas City evening news, explaining to a reporter how he had stopped dozens of motorists on the highway with a wallet he’d attached to a fishing line. I recently remembered him when at the entrance to a grocery store; I discovered the quarter I tried to pick up had been glued to the pavement. I enjoyed an odd conflux of anger and amusement over this, but still hesitated before kicking it loose. I don’t believe there is much to be gained these days by making one feel like a sucker.
True it is, that luck may not be in the ascendency these days, but I fear that the collective politic that is America, has been too obsessively trying to pick up that quarter.
Despite the obvious ironic humor, of watching our congressmen grill Chrysler and GM executives for their “irresponsible spending”, we don’t need to play the fool anymore. The housing market has nearly collapsed, the Fed drops its rate to 1%, but I still can’t get my mortgage down from what I paid 3 years ago. The banks are basically getting their bail outs just to stay in business.
Excepting the price of gasoline, we’re not really getting many breaks, nor do I expect much “bail out” for us within the next few years.
The automotive giants (only the giants can play this game) are petitioning congress for 35 billion dollars, also to stay in business. Why don’t they just give all of us Americans, $35,000 dollars to go out and buy a brand new American automobile? That should ‘fix’ things.
The gimmicks of course, are the one-dollar salaries (after last years 20 times salary bonuses), using a commercial airliner, and driving a hybrid car to Capitol Hill. The real gaps with this industry lie primarily in bloated labor costs (about 40 % more than Japan), the recent higher gasoline costs, and extended losses in the value of the American Dollar. Yep, its true here as well, guess who gets millions of dollars in handouts from the very industries holding their hands out now to congress within the last two months?
Answer: Our good old congressional and senatorial reps are looking pretty fat and happy these days. Their silly thespian appeals notwithstanding, fewer people will continue to accept explanations for government excess as the pain threshold from this recession ratchets up notch after notch. One can almost hear this supernatural clicking sound, like the pawl on an Inquisitor’s winch. “Confess! Confess you self-reliant infidel! Only the government can save you! You are nothing without your government!”
“No! Never! I well never accept a government bail out! Never!”
I digress once again.
Please accept my apologies for this insipid detour into the macabre.
But I’m not here to complain. I merely see opportunity knocking on our American doors. Truth is an amazing thing. No matter how confused we may get, no matter how trifling it seems to be when times are easy, it waits for us to return, eon upon eon. And, not to be too surprised, some of us do come back after our defeats, for another look now and then at TRUTH.
I see the opportunity for “change”, now to abound more before the specter of collapse than during our lazier days of plenty.
Before our sine wave can ascend, it must pass zero, descend into the trough of its minimum – and then begin anew. When we have exhausted ourselves of failure, success will still be a viable option.
Not to rant, consider what already waits in the wings of progress:
I frequent the patent archives as an inventor and keep up pretty well with the technical science literature. I invite you to Google and flip through 30 or so recent issues of Scientific American.
During the last fifty years, Americans have paid out trillions of dollars into a vast nuclear defense system. A thimble full of Plutonium ‘sells’ for about one hundred thousand dollars. About 20 of these can go into a warhead/warheads, that goes into a rocket, that is serviced by about 100 highly paid people a year and . . . whoopee dingo; that’s a lot of money!
The American taxpayer saves the world from communism, our politicians sign treaties to dismantle thousands of warheads and lots of the left over plutonium then goes into ‘peaceful’ domestic nuclear power production.
First the taxpayer pays for the plutonium, the rockets, the guidance systems, the politicians who signed the treaties, the air force that protects and maintains the systems . . . and then . . . then we pay again for the power generated from the plutonium we already bought!
We also pay for the disposal of toxic radioactive isotopes in the burial grounds largely paid for by the defense department that uses these too . . . and . . . nearly every American still buys the same dumpy excuse . . . that we are using up all of our worlds resources . . . that mankind seems an alien on his own planet, that we must somehow prioritize our worth . . . based on our ‘carbon foot print’ . . . to get at the back of the food chain somewhere behind polar bears and sharks, so that Mommy Earth, Gia, cosmic consciousness, Al Gore (or lengthen the list how you may) will be contented to see that humanity at large . . .
Just does NOT get too UPPITY.
Well here is an ‘UPPITY’ fact.
There is no energy shortage.
I love oil and coal and biodiesel, etc., but . . . Thorium (what the heck is Thorium!?) costs about $1 per pound. It is cheaper than lead and though not fissionable, is a nuclear-fertile element. A small seed of fissionable uranium emits neutrons, which Thorium then absorbs, then transmutes into Uranium 233 which then feeds more neutrons into a chain reaction of further transmutations of other Thorium/Uranium atoms, etc.
A reactor with only a ton of Thorium can produce a billion watts of power for at least a year. We have enough Thorium in the United States for another one hundred and sixty million years (by then we should have evolved and be using anti-matter space drives)
Pound for pound, Thorium (very cheap stuff) is capable of producing more energy than either uranium or plutonium (very expensive stuff).
Well, the taxpayer helped pay for the research reactors that tried the thorium fuel cycle and also paid universities (federal grants) for much of the research on the new intrinsically stabilized pebble reactors that Thorium could be used in. And, Thorium radioactive waste is very small compared to uranium and plutonium waste. Thorium is not dangerous to handle like Uranium and Plutonium. Thorium would be of no use to a terrorist. It would lower the average operating costs of even the cheapest utility by at least 45%.
Don’t you think the American taxpayer should get that 45% decrease in his utility bills?
I do.
Habitable land is supposed to comprise a mere 7 million square miles (only about 12 percent of the worlds actual land mass). This includes cities, farms, amusement parks and highways. Planet Earth currently sustains about 6 billion people with less than half of its farm land being used effectively (some of us eat too much too) and our planet has twice as much water than land on its surface.
Do we really need all these deserts to be so big?
My Grandparents lived in a small farming town in the middle of the Nevada Desert. Fallon is apt testament to the proposition that almost anything will grow in an arid environment when supplied with water. The Lahontin water project diverted some of the Carson River which made this town possible. The Carson river lies on the dry east side of the Sierra mountains and contributes only a fraction in volume compared to other water projects, yet there are the Walker, Lahontin and Pyramid lakes within a two hour drive of Fallon.
Today, the discovery of carbon nanotubes has spawned research into many composite super materials, chemical detection systems and . . .
Ttaah daaahh! (drum roll, cymbal snap, thud!)
One hundred times more efficient osmotic separating barriers!
With the new carbon nanotube separation technology, a desalination plant the size of a high school gymnasium, could provide a river of absolutely salt-free, pure water, the size of which would rival the Colorado river and could be supplied from virtually any shoreline in the United States.
Water, the staff of life, (all life, including polar bears) could be pumped inland with Thorium fueled power plants (which need the cooling anyway). There is no square inch of land on this planet that needs go to waste. Fresh water streams could be multiplied and at last . . . high volume toilets that can really flush, should be affordable and guilt free . . . once again!
Then we have the automobile:
Batteries are also in the ascendency these days, not because of Washington DC, but because of clear thinking productive folks who are prone to more scientific efforts.
Most battery-powered cars don’t deserve to be on the highways. After conventional electric cars destroy 10% in rectifying alternating current into DC current, 10 % of the electricity in charging losses and then throwing another 10 % away in discharge losses, any righteous feeling one had about not polluting because he drives an electric car, will get a sound slap in the face with these facts:
Conventional Utilities convert about 53% of their coal fired plants into electricity, then electrical losses reach an average of 8% due to transmission losses in the power grid, then the batteries and charging system loose 30% of the remaining 45% electricity delivered from the utilities . . . thus rendering the current electric car at a measly 15% efficiency (which is a little less efficient than a well tuned model T).
Modern gas combustion automobiles can do 28% efficiency with fuel injection and about 33% (may old Otto reign supreme) with diesel. And then there is the lead, cadmium, nickel hydride, or whatever the batteries were made of, that has to be recycled or land filled.
Oops! I thought electric cars were a GOOD thing! This stuff is really toxic! (Ralph Nader should be ashamed of his pompous, Washington DC, congressional, do gooder, ass!) Who new?
Honestly, it is really hard to get good news out into the media these days.
Well, surprise!
Batteries may still improve the automobile very soon. Production batteries representing a new echelon of technology have been entering the commercial horizon, recently demonstrating very high efficiencies, longer charging life, growing power densities and shortening charging times down to within 6 to 9 minutes (about the time it takes to fill your car now with gasoline).
Discoveries in laboratories are proving battery power densities are approaching 2400 watt-hours per kilogram (Los Alamos laboratories, also funded with tax payer money, dangles this prize). These are not power densities better than gasoline or diesel, but after removing large heavy transmissions, replacing power conditioned electric motors for both the brakes and drive systems inside the wheels of a car and integrating the heavy battery source into a low CG automobile chassis, you have parity with even the best automobiles now in production.
But . . . we don’t now have an electrical power distribution system equal to this task.
Did I mention that a small pebble reactor with Thorium fuel could easily fit into the same space as an underground gas station fuel tank? Well it’s true. What a delicious fact aye?
Should Americans pay less for their automobiles? Shouldn’t we be less guilt ridden concerning what a lousy species we are? Shouldn’t we kick the louse of a representative we have sitting in congress, the senate and . . . the white house, right out on his keister?
Someone of conscience should serve us, the taxpayer, with far more due diligence and mindful humility. We do share some of the blame for the despots we have. VOTE smarter next time! Get rid of that guy who so easily used ten times the budgeted millions on the ‘visitor center’, so he wouldn’t have to “smell” us taxpaying ‘visitors’ stinking up his legislative burrow. Who votes for these people?
You should be spanked!
Shouldn’t we spend less of our taxpayer money protecting all the democracies of the world for free (including over 100,000 military personnel in Europe) and make Europe pay for it? After all, defending the world from evil has hurt American competitiveness with a higher tax burden. Shouldn’t we be able to “change” ( yes Obama, may Allah be praised) our destiny into a more favorable situation? I don’t see any Germans or Frenchmen stationed here to protect me from invaders, terrorists or riots.
Why do Americans have to keep taking crap from these neighbors . . . about how arrogant we are . . . how wasteful . . . how polluting?
Whenever I introduce a new invention (all inventors face this) I hear the same thing over and over. “This goes against an embedded technology”. While this is generally true, take this brief look at history:
The car went up against the ‘embedded’ horse. The Airplane went up against the ‘embedded’ car and the American citizen needs to believe it can disrupt any problem that is ‘embedded’ from the fabric of our existence.
We are NOT embedded!
We are Americans!
We decide to fix things!
We decided to kill Hitler and Saddam Hussein!
We decided to go to the moon.
We decided to stop Communism . . .
Embedded?
We can decide to be . . .
EXCELLENT!
Milton
Friday, December 5, 2008
Thursday, November 20, 2008
A Shire's Day
I’m not what I once was. I once ran a five minute mile, kept my high school record for the 220 and the 440 for 12 years, ran two miles a day, worked 10 – 12 hours in the summer for a cement contractor, took a full load in college and worked nights for 4 hours as a janitor, charged into 148 acres of Idaho real-estate not fully realizing how fast trees could annually grow into my 3 mile easement. My life has become the diary of a workhorse. I may be fundamentally obsessive compulsive as I rarely stop my work. I come home to talk about it and then I even dream about it.
Every day I check the news. The stock market just dipped down under 8,000. Congress seems daily to be focused on how to give away more of my tax money. Iran may have a nuke. Somali pirates, who apparently are equipped with no other job skills for life, are raiding 1,000 foot super tankers with little more than a few fishing boats and the weapons of the day, AK 47s and RPGs. The daily signs and the news constantly remind me that our country is sinking into a deeper recession.
Then there is my work. I have several business interests I try to keep viable. One account declares bankruptcy and then I pick up a new one my competitor doesn’t get. It’s not a loosing proposition. It’s more of a zero sum game right now, but this mode of business requires immense effort. It taxes ones spirit.
Last night I stopped working for about 2 hours. I haven’t seen an eight-hour day for years, but last night, the draft horse stopped pulling the plow and watched a butterfly flutter by and noticed the cooling of the breeze against his sweaty hide. My wife, who does more than any woman should, to keep our house in order, cooked a fabulous low calorie dinner. While slaking down a fine stew with a slice of toasted sour dough, she says to me, “you work so hard and you’re doing such a fine job honey”. I nearly cried in that moment. I don’t like to cry, so I thanked her and tried to focus on the butterfly.
The horse wears blinders you know. He has his head down because it helps him center the load he pulls against. All he really sees most of the time is the hard pan crust of life that he must break through day after day, acre by acre.
The boys are arguing and telling each other to shut up. Hans is engaged in a pantomime of his day. And she says, “you’re doing a fine job honey.” I’m still chewing on a piece of that sour dough and I look around at my house, still there, still the noisy place it always was, but this dear sweat woman is smiling at me from across the table and it is an epiphany of happiness.
Last night, the big horse was put away. He got brushed down, given a bag of oats, a blanket was thrown over his pack, he got a kiss on his nose and put into his stall.
Today is a brand new field.
Milton
Every day I check the news. The stock market just dipped down under 8,000. Congress seems daily to be focused on how to give away more of my tax money. Iran may have a nuke. Somali pirates, who apparently are equipped with no other job skills for life, are raiding 1,000 foot super tankers with little more than a few fishing boats and the weapons of the day, AK 47s and RPGs. The daily signs and the news constantly remind me that our country is sinking into a deeper recession.
Then there is my work. I have several business interests I try to keep viable. One account declares bankruptcy and then I pick up a new one my competitor doesn’t get. It’s not a loosing proposition. It’s more of a zero sum game right now, but this mode of business requires immense effort. It taxes ones spirit.
Last night I stopped working for about 2 hours. I haven’t seen an eight-hour day for years, but last night, the draft horse stopped pulling the plow and watched a butterfly flutter by and noticed the cooling of the breeze against his sweaty hide. My wife, who does more than any woman should, to keep our house in order, cooked a fabulous low calorie dinner. While slaking down a fine stew with a slice of toasted sour dough, she says to me, “you work so hard and you’re doing such a fine job honey”. I nearly cried in that moment. I don’t like to cry, so I thanked her and tried to focus on the butterfly.
The horse wears blinders you know. He has his head down because it helps him center the load he pulls against. All he really sees most of the time is the hard pan crust of life that he must break through day after day, acre by acre.
The boys are arguing and telling each other to shut up. Hans is engaged in a pantomime of his day. And she says, “you’re doing a fine job honey.” I’m still chewing on a piece of that sour dough and I look around at my house, still there, still the noisy place it always was, but this dear sweat woman is smiling at me from across the table and it is an epiphany of happiness.
Last night, the big horse was put away. He got brushed down, given a bag of oats, a blanket was thrown over his pack, he got a kiss on his nose and put into his stall.
Today is a brand new field.
Milton
Saturday, November 8, 2008
The Soldier's Dilemma
Every time an American enlists in military capacity for our country he takes the following oath of service:
“I DO SOLEMNLY SWEAR (OR AFFIRM) THAT I WILL SUPPORT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES AGAINST ALL ENEMIES, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC; THAT I WILL BEAR TRUE FAITH AND ALLEGIANCE TO THE SAME; AND THAT I WILL OBEY THE ORDERS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE ORDERS OF THE OFFICERS APPOINTED OVER ME, ACCORDING TO REGULATIONS AND THE UNIFORM CODE OF MILITARY JUSTICE. SO HELP ME GOD.”
If one is to take this oath seriously, and I would propose our nation would not now exist as a democracy if it had not been taken seriously, one must consider the dilemma it presents. Our history is rife with unconstitutional actions our military has supported. The internment without trial or hearing of USA citizens who happened to be of Japanese ancestry. Amendments 4,5, and 6 were utterly and without apology (until decades later) stripped, via military force their constitutional rights for reasons which at the time seemed compelling but for which, in hindsight, there was little justification. Sequestering suspects has never been synonymous with the taking of all of their major possessions. There was no consideration for even an Escrow holding service when President Roosevelt issued this infamous executive order.
I site this case from our history, to cause the reader to pause before reflexively shaking their head to what I am about to say.
The President is also sworn to uphold the constitution of the United States. The true citizen also recognizes the covenant with this sacred charter . If we cannot abide as a unified nation under its directives we are in peril of loosing our purpose and strength as a nation.
The American soldier is trained to kill. He (I use the pronoun, he only because it seems nature has given men the advantage as the recipient of testosterone) is the deliverer of destruction and chaos to our enemies “both foreign and domestic”. As Rush Limbaugh is famous for noting the military must ‘kill the enemy and break their stuff’. I never served in the military. I have had family and friends who have described their service to me however and I have listened to their accounts with great interest.
A soldier takes orders. He always has a superior officer to whom he must answer, and obey. His options in the face of an obvious absence of legal directive are complex and difficult if not impossible to exercise. The possibility that a soldier may be issued an order to kill an innocent, either without due cause or even by mistake, is the most unsavory of dilemma’s. I have never met a bad soldier and I have known many. It is my opinion, though some exceptions exist, that the American soldier is righteous. The fact that a soldier can regard himself rightly as righteous and installed under a banner of goodness is the most empowering aspect to a man tired, wet from sweat, hungry from lack of food and faced buy difficult odds. It is the heart of his charge and the menace to our enemies. Gods arms do not wilt at the approach of his sons in arms. It is by unbounded mercy and wisdom of the most high that mercy and justice prevails, but the Almighty’s ledger of sins weighs heavy with bloody ink whenever this nations covenant has been treacherously breached. The dilemma presents, leaving the innocent soldier as a mere mercenary of dubious action. Soldiers are not murderers. They are men (and women) of high conscience. Their children are adored and their spouses often incredibly strained by the self imposed limits of fidelity;
this comes in addition to the weight of a rifle, with the keeping of a creed ready to exercise by the quick side of the angel of death. By force of will and years of training the soldier carries the means of death, with a commensurate ability to push aside natural empathy.
Death rides quicker when it is fastened to the means by which it is dispatched. To feel compassion for ones enemy must be set aside during the felling of the sword. The gore and agonies must ultimately be traversed in order to bring it to an end. The unholy misfit who deems himself supreme commander, must never imperil the righteous conscience of the American soldier. The men and women whose hands must necessarily be stained with blood, must know at their death, that they have been faithful to their covenant. I speak of the constitution of the United States of America for which these saints among us walk into peril.
The constitution has been more imperiled within the last few decades than perhaps any other time in history. Heads of state (sworn to uphold the constitution) are espousing publicly the merits of surrendering our sovereignty with the United Nations, Federal amalgamation with foreign treasuries, the fairness doctrine is juxtaposed horribly against the first amendment right of free speech, the second amendment in particular, namely the right to bear arms nearly erased in several states and in addition to the perfidious compunction of these weak minded men we have the inventions of homosexual marriage and one racial inequity placed upon the scales against another in fearless experiments, to see rather, if the paper which sits helpless within its glass confines in Washington D.C will get up and defend itself. These men are mistakenly, arrogant in the surety of their actions. For in the roles in her defense there is civilian and there is soldier. The American military is more conservatively linked to the defense of the constitution because it is born and sworn to uphold it. It is composed of a might and purpose which transcends its implements, its guns and bombs and missiles. We the people, when called to muster, are no fiction. Blood may indeed be taken one day when the bounds of our constitution are obliterated by the foolish whims of tyranny. The faces of communism and socialism are entering the worlds alleyways, a fevered couple engaging the ancient unity of lust and profit, power and subjugation.
We should play neither the harlot nor her patron. We must stand accountable to this covenant with our fellow man. The constitution is a compact made before God and to this I do not render as fiction.
Count me the citizen and let me aspire as soldier for America and her constitution.
Milton
“I DO SOLEMNLY SWEAR (OR AFFIRM) THAT I WILL SUPPORT AND DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES AGAINST ALL ENEMIES, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC; THAT I WILL BEAR TRUE FAITH AND ALLEGIANCE TO THE SAME; AND THAT I WILL OBEY THE ORDERS OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND THE ORDERS OF THE OFFICERS APPOINTED OVER ME, ACCORDING TO REGULATIONS AND THE UNIFORM CODE OF MILITARY JUSTICE. SO HELP ME GOD.”
If one is to take this oath seriously, and I would propose our nation would not now exist as a democracy if it had not been taken seriously, one must consider the dilemma it presents. Our history is rife with unconstitutional actions our military has supported. The internment without trial or hearing of USA citizens who happened to be of Japanese ancestry. Amendments 4,5, and 6 were utterly and without apology (until decades later) stripped, via military force their constitutional rights for reasons which at the time seemed compelling but for which, in hindsight, there was little justification. Sequestering suspects has never been synonymous with the taking of all of their major possessions. There was no consideration for even an Escrow holding service when President Roosevelt issued this infamous executive order.
I site this case from our history, to cause the reader to pause before reflexively shaking their head to what I am about to say.
The President is also sworn to uphold the constitution of the United States. The true citizen also recognizes the covenant with this sacred charter . If we cannot abide as a unified nation under its directives we are in peril of loosing our purpose and strength as a nation.
The American soldier is trained to kill. He (I use the pronoun, he only because it seems nature has given men the advantage as the recipient of testosterone) is the deliverer of destruction and chaos to our enemies “both foreign and domestic”. As Rush Limbaugh is famous for noting the military must ‘kill the enemy and break their stuff’. I never served in the military. I have had family and friends who have described their service to me however and I have listened to their accounts with great interest.
A soldier takes orders. He always has a superior officer to whom he must answer, and obey. His options in the face of an obvious absence of legal directive are complex and difficult if not impossible to exercise. The possibility that a soldier may be issued an order to kill an innocent, either without due cause or even by mistake, is the most unsavory of dilemma’s. I have never met a bad soldier and I have known many. It is my opinion, though some exceptions exist, that the American soldier is righteous. The fact that a soldier can regard himself rightly as righteous and installed under a banner of goodness is the most empowering aspect to a man tired, wet from sweat, hungry from lack of food and faced buy difficult odds. It is the heart of his charge and the menace to our enemies. Gods arms do not wilt at the approach of his sons in arms. It is by unbounded mercy and wisdom of the most high that mercy and justice prevails, but the Almighty’s ledger of sins weighs heavy with bloody ink whenever this nations covenant has been treacherously breached. The dilemma presents, leaving the innocent soldier as a mere mercenary of dubious action. Soldiers are not murderers. They are men (and women) of high conscience. Their children are adored and their spouses often incredibly strained by the self imposed limits of fidelity;
this comes in addition to the weight of a rifle, with the keeping of a creed ready to exercise by the quick side of the angel of death. By force of will and years of training the soldier carries the means of death, with a commensurate ability to push aside natural empathy.
Death rides quicker when it is fastened to the means by which it is dispatched. To feel compassion for ones enemy must be set aside during the felling of the sword. The gore and agonies must ultimately be traversed in order to bring it to an end. The unholy misfit who deems himself supreme commander, must never imperil the righteous conscience of the American soldier. The men and women whose hands must necessarily be stained with blood, must know at their death, that they have been faithful to their covenant. I speak of the constitution of the United States of America for which these saints among us walk into peril.
The constitution has been more imperiled within the last few decades than perhaps any other time in history. Heads of state (sworn to uphold the constitution) are espousing publicly the merits of surrendering our sovereignty with the United Nations, Federal amalgamation with foreign treasuries, the fairness doctrine is juxtaposed horribly against the first amendment right of free speech, the second amendment in particular, namely the right to bear arms nearly erased in several states and in addition to the perfidious compunction of these weak minded men we have the inventions of homosexual marriage and one racial inequity placed upon the scales against another in fearless experiments, to see rather, if the paper which sits helpless within its glass confines in Washington D.C will get up and defend itself. These men are mistakenly, arrogant in the surety of their actions. For in the roles in her defense there is civilian and there is soldier. The American military is more conservatively linked to the defense of the constitution because it is born and sworn to uphold it. It is composed of a might and purpose which transcends its implements, its guns and bombs and missiles. We the people, when called to muster, are no fiction. Blood may indeed be taken one day when the bounds of our constitution are obliterated by the foolish whims of tyranny. The faces of communism and socialism are entering the worlds alleyways, a fevered couple engaging the ancient unity of lust and profit, power and subjugation.
We should play neither the harlot nor her patron. We must stand accountable to this covenant with our fellow man. The constitution is a compact made before God and to this I do not render as fiction.
Count me the citizen and let me aspire as soldier for America and her constitution.
Milton
Friday, November 7, 2008
The Problem With Charity
Nearly every one has done it. Over the years I have handed many five and 10 dollar bills from my car window to some weather worn transient holding a sign that says: “STRANDED . . . NEED BUS FARE” or “HUSBAND OUT OF WORK . . . NEED TO FEED CHILDREN.” Who can ignore the desperation and pathos from a picture like that? The realization that our own luck could change one day, no doubt inspires a faint if not consciously acknowledged preemptive attempt to assuage karmic indebtedness. But, I believe, that we as human beings, also have a natural optimism, that sustains itself alongside our acts of charity and that causes us to hope for our charity as sustenance to another human as a possible investment in his renewal.
Most of the time however, especially in more populous states like California, I find the same characters day after day working the same spot near an intersection or parking lot, sometimes emitting the strong odor of alcohol or counting substantial wads of cash during a pause in their activities. To be sure, some of our charity does help the worthy, but the surety of my odds with my handouts does not encourage me theses days. When that ten spot goes into a liquor store, it has lost more value than when it goes into a McDonalds.
The American Stock market has lost considerable value within the past few weeks and it has continued to lose value after the 700 billion dollar Federal Bail out.
Americans, as a people, are a far more generous lot than many others. Our private charities abound and Americans often vote for politicians who virtually promise us higher taxes when human charity is to be the monies intended use.
Obama is filling his cabinet. He is proving already, to be unworthy in one respect, of his own mantra, the word “change”, repeated ad nauseam for nearly two straight years, appears now to be nothing more than a political cattle prod used to rouse the American voter, presumably shocking into a state of higher alertness concerning the “new candidate” before them. At least Obama understood better than McCain did, that America indeed wanted things to change. We are currently still ignoring the necessity as to the how, to “change” this economic aspect of existence.
Paul Volker, or Tim Geitherner, respectively and alternately from the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve and also having served stints in both, are sharp, intelligent executives with pedigrees that are certainly worthy of notice. But like everything else going sour in both our economy and in Washington politics, these men lack an essential quality that is nearly impossible to find these days in establishment hierarchies. Experience is a tarnishing crown, because of its now frequent inability to anticipate and implement “change.”
The formula is supposed to work something like this:
Find people with considerable experience, then find the smartest and most highly recognized among these, then establish their loyalty to you (rarely difficult with remuneration of sufficient magnitude), and above all, let him wave in the proverbial wind for a brief while, at some press function or dinner party, like a subtle perfume to the American focus group that we are. It must be determined that popularity will be among his assets. And, it is no accident that good looks and youth, are now also one of the preeminent qualities Obama is looking for.
Obama had no problems rotating his shoulders to wave at his fans, and both Saturday Night Live and Mad TV demonstrated a peculiar strain of comedy that emphasized the lack thereof with McCain. What I believe McCain had in spades, a lifetime of experience in Washington politics, is not regarded as highly as it used to be. The fact remains, that many, including Senator McCain, by evidence of Senate Bill 109 that never succeeded in making it to the floor for a vote, saw our looming crisis at a time when it was still possible to avert it, but to no avail.
Experience also was on the side of Barney Frank and other similar “denizens of our demise,” who I doubt Obama will oust, because of their supreme political contribution by mere presence, to the new radical constituency which is now the Democratic Party.
Check and checkmate are the order of the day. Hardly one voice can be heard crying wisdom and boldness without two others to counter it with idiocy and partisan invective. Tim Geithner, as president of the Federal Reserve, noted at great length in one of those snoring sessions before the Senate Banking Committee on April 3, the model which would later become that for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, specifically, the infusion of funds, from the Federal Reserve at the behest of JP Morgan Chase to the happy tune of a mere 13 billion dollars. The loan was intended to shore up an instability in an important lending institution and signal solidarity and cohesion to investors and stock holders that massive losses would be curtailed and that control was the operative mandate from on high.
Instead, as we know from most recent events, the wind became colder and the king’s tits became suddenly perky as he slung back his shoulders and rode nobly . . . and naked . . . with his procession. A domino effect has transpired; from this small domino of 13 billion dollars, successive failures kept leaning to fall with geometric succession, to the point where 700 billion dollars fell from our economy like a domino rivaling the size of a Stonehenge monolith.
Experience abounds. Everywhere, experienced “wise men’”have been working feverishly to avert the growing disaster. We cannot drop the prime-lending rate to zero. It is so low now that serious investors now have to choose between finding new suitable champions in the stock market that will perform better, or, the “absolute” security of a 1% yield from the ‘absolute’ power of his majesty of the Federal Treasury (perky tits not withstanding).
We can print money too . . . lots more of it. But we are now dropping into a recession. You can only put so much money into Pork Bellies and Orange Juice. A lot of cash is now stranded in the “Experience Lane.” Change alone has not given many investors a clue about what to do with their money, and when money sits, it dies. And, dying it is. The Stock market is floundering in the confusion and Americans are now being laid off in record numbers with no end in sight.
When somebody gets a new idea, it often flounders like a fish out of water tries to get back into the river. I am a prolific inventor. I have floundered for that dear water, many, many times. I have experience and I have partners and I have untold agony every time I try to sell a new invention, because, I am always thrust against the prevailing technology with the dutiful task of demonstrating the merits of the new thing. But change, which is part of the inevitable merit of an invention, must be described and defined with its advantages before the scrutiny of patronage and experience. Without experience, we have no starting point for change and without change, we have no start.
It is too soon to know everything in our future. But in order for Obama to truly succeed at benefiting this nation, he will have to define to his growing entourage of “experienced’”Washington insiders, how they must change this nation in a cohesive clear-headed manner that will strengthen it.
But, signs are already up that compromise will be the order of the day. Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi are the types who are incapable of cohesive constructive actions, yet I expect them to remain the impediment they are to their own party, their new President and as they have already proven to be, an impediment to this nation.
This nation walks as a singular proposition, yet it appears twain we will go, one leg here and the other leg there . . . steps painful enough to watch, let alone perform, and I’ve never seen a dismembered person laugh about it. And yet, many Americans still display a considerable propensity to laugh, but . . .
I’m not laughing.
Milton
Most of the time however, especially in more populous states like California, I find the same characters day after day working the same spot near an intersection or parking lot, sometimes emitting the strong odor of alcohol or counting substantial wads of cash during a pause in their activities. To be sure, some of our charity does help the worthy, but the surety of my odds with my handouts does not encourage me theses days. When that ten spot goes into a liquor store, it has lost more value than when it goes into a McDonalds.
The American Stock market has lost considerable value within the past few weeks and it has continued to lose value after the 700 billion dollar Federal Bail out.
Americans, as a people, are a far more generous lot than many others. Our private charities abound and Americans often vote for politicians who virtually promise us higher taxes when human charity is to be the monies intended use.
Obama is filling his cabinet. He is proving already, to be unworthy in one respect, of his own mantra, the word “change”, repeated ad nauseam for nearly two straight years, appears now to be nothing more than a political cattle prod used to rouse the American voter, presumably shocking into a state of higher alertness concerning the “new candidate” before them. At least Obama understood better than McCain did, that America indeed wanted things to change. We are currently still ignoring the necessity as to the how, to “change” this economic aspect of existence.
Paul Volker, or Tim Geitherner, respectively and alternately from the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve and also having served stints in both, are sharp, intelligent executives with pedigrees that are certainly worthy of notice. But like everything else going sour in both our economy and in Washington politics, these men lack an essential quality that is nearly impossible to find these days in establishment hierarchies. Experience is a tarnishing crown, because of its now frequent inability to anticipate and implement “change.”
The formula is supposed to work something like this:
Find people with considerable experience, then find the smartest and most highly recognized among these, then establish their loyalty to you (rarely difficult with remuneration of sufficient magnitude), and above all, let him wave in the proverbial wind for a brief while, at some press function or dinner party, like a subtle perfume to the American focus group that we are. It must be determined that popularity will be among his assets. And, it is no accident that good looks and youth, are now also one of the preeminent qualities Obama is looking for.
Obama had no problems rotating his shoulders to wave at his fans, and both Saturday Night Live and Mad TV demonstrated a peculiar strain of comedy that emphasized the lack thereof with McCain. What I believe McCain had in spades, a lifetime of experience in Washington politics, is not regarded as highly as it used to be. The fact remains, that many, including Senator McCain, by evidence of Senate Bill 109 that never succeeded in making it to the floor for a vote, saw our looming crisis at a time when it was still possible to avert it, but to no avail.
Experience also was on the side of Barney Frank and other similar “denizens of our demise,” who I doubt Obama will oust, because of their supreme political contribution by mere presence, to the new radical constituency which is now the Democratic Party.
Check and checkmate are the order of the day. Hardly one voice can be heard crying wisdom and boldness without two others to counter it with idiocy and partisan invective. Tim Geithner, as president of the Federal Reserve, noted at great length in one of those snoring sessions before the Senate Banking Committee on April 3, the model which would later become that for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, specifically, the infusion of funds, from the Federal Reserve at the behest of JP Morgan Chase to the happy tune of a mere 13 billion dollars. The loan was intended to shore up an instability in an important lending institution and signal solidarity and cohesion to investors and stock holders that massive losses would be curtailed and that control was the operative mandate from on high.
Instead, as we know from most recent events, the wind became colder and the king’s tits became suddenly perky as he slung back his shoulders and rode nobly . . . and naked . . . with his procession. A domino effect has transpired; from this small domino of 13 billion dollars, successive failures kept leaning to fall with geometric succession, to the point where 700 billion dollars fell from our economy like a domino rivaling the size of a Stonehenge monolith.
Experience abounds. Everywhere, experienced “wise men’”have been working feverishly to avert the growing disaster. We cannot drop the prime-lending rate to zero. It is so low now that serious investors now have to choose between finding new suitable champions in the stock market that will perform better, or, the “absolute” security of a 1% yield from the ‘absolute’ power of his majesty of the Federal Treasury (perky tits not withstanding).
We can print money too . . . lots more of it. But we are now dropping into a recession. You can only put so much money into Pork Bellies and Orange Juice. A lot of cash is now stranded in the “Experience Lane.” Change alone has not given many investors a clue about what to do with their money, and when money sits, it dies. And, dying it is. The Stock market is floundering in the confusion and Americans are now being laid off in record numbers with no end in sight.
When somebody gets a new idea, it often flounders like a fish out of water tries to get back into the river. I am a prolific inventor. I have floundered for that dear water, many, many times. I have experience and I have partners and I have untold agony every time I try to sell a new invention, because, I am always thrust against the prevailing technology with the dutiful task of demonstrating the merits of the new thing. But change, which is part of the inevitable merit of an invention, must be described and defined with its advantages before the scrutiny of patronage and experience. Without experience, we have no starting point for change and without change, we have no start.
It is too soon to know everything in our future. But in order for Obama to truly succeed at benefiting this nation, he will have to define to his growing entourage of “experienced’”Washington insiders, how they must change this nation in a cohesive clear-headed manner that will strengthen it.
But, signs are already up that compromise will be the order of the day. Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi are the types who are incapable of cohesive constructive actions, yet I expect them to remain the impediment they are to their own party, their new President and as they have already proven to be, an impediment to this nation.
This nation walks as a singular proposition, yet it appears twain we will go, one leg here and the other leg there . . . steps painful enough to watch, let alone perform, and I’ve never seen a dismembered person laugh about it. And yet, many Americans still display a considerable propensity to laugh, but . . .
I’m not laughing.
Milton
Sunday, November 2, 2008
2008 and Not Ready to Lose
Matter is great stuff. I love Matter. I love that the universe is full of the stuff that crashes into suns by the silly tons per day, that lights up my night with little twinkles that may add to the passion of a kiss or to the mystery of my human context. But amidst the hiss and swirl of chaos in this universe, exists the scintilla, a mere tickle of energies, the electron and photon, which dance to the lucky quantum tunes of self, at the manifest behest of our sentient awareness. It is the least in energies manifest and yet the greatest to enter the vast waters of time and space.
There are some who buy the naughty idea that self awareness is a mere accident, an illusion to which life falls prey, not to be taken at all seriously . . . and there is the rub, for I do. I believe, that to accept as sacred ones being, conveys a certain advantage, not only in survival but to finding happiness. In the end, no man who is unable to muster enthusiasm for his own life, will feel compelled to protect the lives of others. I also believe that ones self is not to be trifled with . . . that it is best regarded as reality . . . even transcendentally so, because we can perceive the Devine, the spark that gives us all meaning is from a vast flame of personhood worthy of our striving. I . . . am . . . happy. The first two words of that sentence gives meaning to the last word which is a mere adjective and highly dependent on the noun, “I”.
The name of God is, “I Am.”
Here we go. Humor this pedantic school teacher one moment and please pay attention; this is really simple and it means something. Thoughts, when factually representative of Devine principles, have enormous power. Genesis proposes the universe itself was generated from thought. Our persons, are centers of observation. We are the posts, the outposts and the recorders of events. The ideas which zoom through our brains must be brought to task, against results. A thing is either real or not real. An idea is either helpful or not helpful. There are things we can eat and things that can eat us and most would concur the former is to our advantage. We can engage in a vote, as a means of calibration between perceptions, note our preferences of ideology or even experiment with novel opinions, but we cannot vote for a chocolate apport between the cheeks of a donkey nor the symphonies of Mendelssohn to erupt from the same. Something is amiss, and yet, behold! It has been tried before. A larg e crowd is clapping. An ass is bowing. What on earth is all this fuss about?
I digress. Here is the next thought:
“I,” the 8th letter of both the Roman and English alphabet, the normative singular pronoun, which in the vernacular English, is understood to be used by a speaker in reference to himself or herself (the more blessed sex of which I am only witness and adherent) has made note via the synaptic junctions of also singular synaptic monomolecular connections (small though they are) the following observations, which have also been made by similar brains of similar construct as my own, independent of communications between the same. Here then is scintilla:
1. That small instabilities between the correlation of facts, i.e., transfer of data, may enable hidden variables, (idiots) to amplify untruths (lies), into a mainstream data mechanism (news media).
2. Copulatory reflexes (such as the recent expressions from news anchor regarding ‘tingling up his leg’)
Whoopee’s “I would do him”, and crowds of adherents in the latest democratic convention chanting in delirium, hands outstretched to heaven, amidst their Hollywood heaven of Styrofoam and stucco, their mantra, Obama, Obama, etc.
3. There appears to be a contest between me (I, the normative singular person) and others, possessing said similar synaptic conjunctions to dissimilar adherent.
Note the dissimilar:
Obama will reduce the constitution of the United States to an opinion poll of arguable merits. Human life will stand as a force to be tamed. Freedom will become an abbreviated illusion for services rendered. The masses of humanity will become conceptual ploys in four year challenges against reason and against fact. Fact, that empirical impediment to mental chaos, will become the whim of our new leader. Obama will give us our truth, our Obama opium, not even inhaled but sucked down unrefined and chunky, down our emaciated soul bellies. Forsaken are the reality based synaptic injunctions. Welcome all America to your new savior! Here he is! Good bye to the promises you thought where genuine! Goodbye America! Is their really any proof for this? Read Karl Marx, Obama’s mentor: “nothing can have value without being the object of utility.” (hard core materialism) “the first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion”. (Materialists cannot abide a supreme spiritual being, nor the worship thereof) “The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism”. (And this “absence” has always meant forceful elimination.)
Am I connecting too many distanced dots? Has Obama ever exhibited, in all his campaigning, any reverence for the Almighty. Has the reverend Jeremiah Wright been expressing the supreme love of our God? Hasn’t the theme of “Abolition” been continually spouted by Wright, Ayers and now Obama under the new guise of “change”. Isn’t there anything Obama can leave untouched because it works well enough? And this “absence of peace” is certainly equated by Obama’s actions as the need to “eliminate opposition”, his mud hunters sent to Alaska and his attempt to intimidate “opposition” in Missouri with conscripted police, seeming to be only limited by the governor, not Obama’s reason.
Ah, but I digress, the contest is not yet over! There is after all, still a faint chance that McCain will win. The fact is, that to fall off the wire when so many solid footings abound, is humanities preeminent dilemma. Now more than ever, the tipping must not prevail. We are a frail race with amplified abilities that laugh at the spears and clubs and arrows of yore, for we now command the nucleus, the gene, the masses, with pixels and digital sound bites within millisecond delivery. Sanity is such a fragile thing and self-destruction is such a tempting abyss. We have newsreels of frenzied masses adoring other catastrophic choices, choices which cost us millions in human life. What of us who still hold life sacred, who hold ourselves in contempt for losing to such chaos?
Obama . . . that having been said, let us see how quickly the contest resolves in the headlines of American events. Let us see how quickly the ecstatic followers of Obama evaporate, when his messianic claims are abbreviated by the facts. To be sure, we will all suffer shortly. The events of the following years will impact America like the blade of a bulldozer. We will all suffer.
But let it stand for the record, that I, Milton, the normative singular person, noted with others, the disaster to come and the millions of voters who couldn’t grasp the facts, which were in evidence, of the person to whom they where so infatuated beyond reason . . . Obama . . . the name will resonate in history and about whom no voter will beat his breast in shame for the election of the presiding personage over the demise of America, its constitution, its republic, its democratic invective, the worlds hope, and all doubts to the imperative doom of the human race . . . . let the few who have read this blog (the meaning of which stems from the synaptic monomolecular firings within the person of Milton, born 5-23-58 in a small farm cottage in Fresno California, a place not frequented by any politico-VIP or front page face from Newsweek, but nonetheless noted by God the omnipresent, which means “everywhere”, even Fresno California, a subset of “everywhere.” God, who counts hairs and sparrows, the ninety and nine and by implication if not inspiration, humans, we, idiots and presiders extraordinaire over a world most upside down, and yes, even these monomolecular singularities which preside in the divine consciousness of God as quantum fluctuations, pushed into singular event-hood by the powers instilled by our Creator, the very sacred human power of choice, the collective, that is, a democratic majority, hereby spat in the face of the Almighty, and said as plainly as might be said by the powers of human proclivity and sentient action . . . I choose death! Death to my unborn . . . Death to myself and any meaning to my existence (which is merely a thing of opinion) . . . Death to any generation who espouses hope in purpose, life, liberty, happiness, freedom and independence. Let the record now stand, that a “tingling of the leg” has decided the doom of this age. Cursed is our race. Only the grace of a benevolent God can save us.
May the travails of this generation be shortened by the reason and sanity of our righteous and all-powerful God! America is where we ran to find solace and freedom from European tyranny. There are no more Americas. Someone just stepped onto Plymouth Rock and said, “Take me back, I liked the Inquisition, the potato famine, the king’s axe . . .” This paragraph is merely reflective of my own incredulity and utter amazement. I just see America’s thumb struck hard with a hammer and thought I heard, “Wow, that felt great! I’m going to do it again!
It should be said, for balance sake, that evil is recursively slaved to visit itself like a flame run amok after the pyromaniac strikes the fatal match in the middle of a dry pine forest. The apocalypse of John makes this self-evident. The Devil is about to burn. And I do not presume Obama is the devil. God almighty will prevail. But the ride through this future is not to be trifled. How can this be? Do I rant like a southern Baptist at camp meeting? I’m not a Baptist, but I’ll bet you finish reading this blog anyway.
God is all-powerful and all-merciful. We wish for his grace in moments of pain and cry for his mercy when doom approaches. He is at the center of a billion curses per hour and thus mankind avows his existence continually if not humbly.
A reckoning comes; this, like the rising of the sun, is the morning I await. All else is soon to be the shameful history and a painful digression. Obama will be remembered. But not well.
Heaven knows, and we might guess with good odds, the dozen others waiting in the wings, but Obama made the cut. He stands eagerly on the sidelines. His destiny arrives . . . he sees the curl of an ancient finger and bolts off the bench. Here he is!
My head aches for myself, for my children and even for him. He is such a believer and with no evidence at all supporting the efficacy for socialism, he looks not once to the evidence at hand. History, after all, can be interpreted. Yet, the war on poverty is now an engulfing subsidy for more. Nobody stops and says, “Oops, that doesn’t work!” Socialist empires like the Soviet Union lie smoldering in economic ruin, yet 250 million of these people can’t be trusted to report on their pervading condition; it causes Obama no pause.
It is we he now wants. “We, the people,” in some grand nightmare called “hope” and “change.”
Ah the “audacity”!
Milton
There are some who buy the naughty idea that self awareness is a mere accident, an illusion to which life falls prey, not to be taken at all seriously . . . and there is the rub, for I do. I believe, that to accept as sacred ones being, conveys a certain advantage, not only in survival but to finding happiness. In the end, no man who is unable to muster enthusiasm for his own life, will feel compelled to protect the lives of others. I also believe that ones self is not to be trifled with . . . that it is best regarded as reality . . . even transcendentally so, because we can perceive the Devine, the spark that gives us all meaning is from a vast flame of personhood worthy of our striving. I . . . am . . . happy. The first two words of that sentence gives meaning to the last word which is a mere adjective and highly dependent on the noun, “I”.
The name of God is, “I Am.”
Here we go. Humor this pedantic school teacher one moment and please pay attention; this is really simple and it means something. Thoughts, when factually representative of Devine principles, have enormous power. Genesis proposes the universe itself was generated from thought. Our persons, are centers of observation. We are the posts, the outposts and the recorders of events. The ideas which zoom through our brains must be brought to task, against results. A thing is either real or not real. An idea is either helpful or not helpful. There are things we can eat and things that can eat us and most would concur the former is to our advantage. We can engage in a vote, as a means of calibration between perceptions, note our preferences of ideology or even experiment with novel opinions, but we cannot vote for a chocolate apport between the cheeks of a donkey nor the symphonies of Mendelssohn to erupt from the same. Something is amiss, and yet, behold! It has been tried before. A larg e crowd is clapping. An ass is bowing. What on earth is all this fuss about?
I digress. Here is the next thought:
“I,” the 8th letter of both the Roman and English alphabet, the normative singular pronoun, which in the vernacular English, is understood to be used by a speaker in reference to himself or herself (the more blessed sex of which I am only witness and adherent) has made note via the synaptic junctions of also singular synaptic monomolecular connections (small though they are) the following observations, which have also been made by similar brains of similar construct as my own, independent of communications between the same. Here then is scintilla:
1. That small instabilities between the correlation of facts, i.e., transfer of data, may enable hidden variables, (idiots) to amplify untruths (lies), into a mainstream data mechanism (news media).
2. Copulatory reflexes (such as the recent expressions from news anchor regarding ‘tingling up his leg’)
Whoopee’s “I would do him”, and crowds of adherents in the latest democratic convention chanting in delirium, hands outstretched to heaven, amidst their Hollywood heaven of Styrofoam and stucco, their mantra, Obama, Obama, etc.
3. There appears to be a contest between me (I, the normative singular person) and others, possessing said similar synaptic conjunctions to dissimilar adherent.
Note the dissimilar:
Obama will reduce the constitution of the United States to an opinion poll of arguable merits. Human life will stand as a force to be tamed. Freedom will become an abbreviated illusion for services rendered. The masses of humanity will become conceptual ploys in four year challenges against reason and against fact. Fact, that empirical impediment to mental chaos, will become the whim of our new leader. Obama will give us our truth, our Obama opium, not even inhaled but sucked down unrefined and chunky, down our emaciated soul bellies. Forsaken are the reality based synaptic injunctions. Welcome all America to your new savior! Here he is! Good bye to the promises you thought where genuine! Goodbye America! Is their really any proof for this? Read Karl Marx, Obama’s mentor: “nothing can have value without being the object of utility.” (hard core materialism) “the first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion”. (Materialists cannot abide a supreme spiritual being, nor the worship thereof) “The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism”. (And this “absence” has always meant forceful elimination.)
Am I connecting too many distanced dots? Has Obama ever exhibited, in all his campaigning, any reverence for the Almighty. Has the reverend Jeremiah Wright been expressing the supreme love of our God? Hasn’t the theme of “Abolition” been continually spouted by Wright, Ayers and now Obama under the new guise of “change”. Isn’t there anything Obama can leave untouched because it works well enough? And this “absence of peace” is certainly equated by Obama’s actions as the need to “eliminate opposition”, his mud hunters sent to Alaska and his attempt to intimidate “opposition” in Missouri with conscripted police, seeming to be only limited by the governor, not Obama’s reason.
Ah, but I digress, the contest is not yet over! There is after all, still a faint chance that McCain will win. The fact is, that to fall off the wire when so many solid footings abound, is humanities preeminent dilemma. Now more than ever, the tipping must not prevail. We are a frail race with amplified abilities that laugh at the spears and clubs and arrows of yore, for we now command the nucleus, the gene, the masses, with pixels and digital sound bites within millisecond delivery. Sanity is such a fragile thing and self-destruction is such a tempting abyss. We have newsreels of frenzied masses adoring other catastrophic choices, choices which cost us millions in human life. What of us who still hold life sacred, who hold ourselves in contempt for losing to such chaos?
Obama . . . that having been said, let us see how quickly the contest resolves in the headlines of American events. Let us see how quickly the ecstatic followers of Obama evaporate, when his messianic claims are abbreviated by the facts. To be sure, we will all suffer shortly. The events of the following years will impact America like the blade of a bulldozer. We will all suffer.
But let it stand for the record, that I, Milton, the normative singular person, noted with others, the disaster to come and the millions of voters who couldn’t grasp the facts, which were in evidence, of the person to whom they where so infatuated beyond reason . . . Obama . . . the name will resonate in history and about whom no voter will beat his breast in shame for the election of the presiding personage over the demise of America, its constitution, its republic, its democratic invective, the worlds hope, and all doubts to the imperative doom of the human race . . . . let the few who have read this blog (the meaning of which stems from the synaptic monomolecular firings within the person of Milton, born 5-23-58 in a small farm cottage in Fresno California, a place not frequented by any politico-VIP or front page face from Newsweek, but nonetheless noted by God the omnipresent, which means “everywhere”, even Fresno California, a subset of “everywhere.” God, who counts hairs and sparrows, the ninety and nine and by implication if not inspiration, humans, we, idiots and presiders extraordinaire over a world most upside down, and yes, even these monomolecular singularities which preside in the divine consciousness of God as quantum fluctuations, pushed into singular event-hood by the powers instilled by our Creator, the very sacred human power of choice, the collective, that is, a democratic majority, hereby spat in the face of the Almighty, and said as plainly as might be said by the powers of human proclivity and sentient action . . . I choose death! Death to my unborn . . . Death to myself and any meaning to my existence (which is merely a thing of opinion) . . . Death to any generation who espouses hope in purpose, life, liberty, happiness, freedom and independence. Let the record now stand, that a “tingling of the leg” has decided the doom of this age. Cursed is our race. Only the grace of a benevolent God can save us.
May the travails of this generation be shortened by the reason and sanity of our righteous and all-powerful God! America is where we ran to find solace and freedom from European tyranny. There are no more Americas. Someone just stepped onto Plymouth Rock and said, “Take me back, I liked the Inquisition, the potato famine, the king’s axe . . .” This paragraph is merely reflective of my own incredulity and utter amazement. I just see America’s thumb struck hard with a hammer and thought I heard, “Wow, that felt great! I’m going to do it again!
It should be said, for balance sake, that evil is recursively slaved to visit itself like a flame run amok after the pyromaniac strikes the fatal match in the middle of a dry pine forest. The apocalypse of John makes this self-evident. The Devil is about to burn. And I do not presume Obama is the devil. God almighty will prevail. But the ride through this future is not to be trifled. How can this be? Do I rant like a southern Baptist at camp meeting? I’m not a Baptist, but I’ll bet you finish reading this blog anyway.
God is all-powerful and all-merciful. We wish for his grace in moments of pain and cry for his mercy when doom approaches. He is at the center of a billion curses per hour and thus mankind avows his existence continually if not humbly.
A reckoning comes; this, like the rising of the sun, is the morning I await. All else is soon to be the shameful history and a painful digression. Obama will be remembered. But not well.
Heaven knows, and we might guess with good odds, the dozen others waiting in the wings, but Obama made the cut. He stands eagerly on the sidelines. His destiny arrives . . . he sees the curl of an ancient finger and bolts off the bench. Here he is!
My head aches for myself, for my children and even for him. He is such a believer and with no evidence at all supporting the efficacy for socialism, he looks not once to the evidence at hand. History, after all, can be interpreted. Yet, the war on poverty is now an engulfing subsidy for more. Nobody stops and says, “Oops, that doesn’t work!” Socialist empires like the Soviet Union lie smoldering in economic ruin, yet 250 million of these people can’t be trusted to report on their pervading condition; it causes Obama no pause.
It is we he now wants. “We, the people,” in some grand nightmare called “hope” and “change.”
Ah the “audacity”!
Milton
Thursday, October 9, 2008
The Hero We Don’t Know
I saw something on my way to work this morning that I see every year in October. Mountains of pumpkins at roadsides and grocery store entrances. Nobody really eats them. We carve them up into ghoulish cartoon-like displays and they soon rot on our porches around the country. Smashing Pumpkins is also the name of a popular band, if not a familiar pastime to mischievous youths.
Pumpkins helped keep the first pilgrims alive.
Pumpkins are food.
Since the oil crisis in 1973, OPEC once again has been flexing its muscles by manipulating the price of oil. I note, that according to the United Nations food and agricultural statistics, all 12 OPEC nations are currently experiencing higher prices for food. Being that all of these nations are importers of food and most are unable to produce sufficient sustenance to their populations, the reflective economics from nations such as the U.S., which is a major exporter of food, makes one wonder why more pressure to lower the oil prices cannot be brought to bear on OPEC.
It seems “Satan America,” does more than contaminate the pristine Muslim mind with its entertainment and fashion industry.
We produce food, a very direct contributor to human life.
Of course, I read the politically correct explanations too from UN publications. Most of them recite poor growing conditions, global warming and the impact of expanding populations. There is very little I find that relates to the pressures of inflating oil prices on the price of food.
I suppose, that when a nation such as the United States, does such a fine job of surpassing itself year after year in food production, an illusion emerges, something to the effect that food merely bursts out of our croplands and into stores around the world somewhat like the color green comes with spring.
You will not find a more honest, hardworking, generous soul than the American farmer. Farmers grow food. You will not find a multinational consortium of farmers like OPEC, who are trying to overinflate the price of food. To be sure, every farmer likes to make a profit and won’t complain when he sells wheat or beef at a good price. But farmers are a private lot. No farmer I know of gets national recognition for producing 20 tons per acre of oats one year. No farmer I know of goes on a bus tour around the country showing films on modern agricultural technology. Maybe they should. None are the subject of morning talk shows.
A box of corn flakes or a medium rare steak go a long way in my life to making me happy.
Sure, farmers complain about the price of oil too, but about like I do, when the commercials are too long between my sitcoms. I’ve seen quite a few farmers growing up. I never met one I didn’t like. Farmers tend to be chap faced, squinty and missing a few digits. They are typically self reliant and resourceful. I never met a farmer that couldn’t replace his own starter or couldn’t find the right breaker in the milking parlor.
Farmers can build their own houses, raise their children, feed themselves, fix most critical things that break, tow your car out of the mud for free and put in a month of 16 hour days. I know several factories that employ farmers on the off seasons, all to their benefit. If you lack an understanding for what constitutes a true American, behold the farmer. During the depression, if a farmer couldn’t make ends meet on his land, he would do it in the factories.
The American farmer prays in the field, he prays at the table and he prays at his bedside, but he may not care for religion. He knows his God like his next door neighbor but doesn’t think about jihad. He may not like congress or the President, but he gives of his sons to fight in places he has not seen and he loses them about as frequently as he looses a crop to draught.
If you can’t farm, you don’t. National subsidies not withstanding, farmers create far more wealth than they take in. In the years ahead, I am convinced we are in for hard times. The entire world economy is rocking wildly near the precipice of economic collapse, but there is virtue still.
People like the American farmer don’t give up. They don’t stop. To them, virtue is a fine sunny day, the smell of wet dirt and a chance to work . . . one more day.
Pumpkins helped keep the first pilgrims alive.
Pumpkins are food.
Since the oil crisis in 1973, OPEC once again has been flexing its muscles by manipulating the price of oil. I note, that according to the United Nations food and agricultural statistics, all 12 OPEC nations are currently experiencing higher prices for food. Being that all of these nations are importers of food and most are unable to produce sufficient sustenance to their populations, the reflective economics from nations such as the U.S., which is a major exporter of food, makes one wonder why more pressure to lower the oil prices cannot be brought to bear on OPEC.
It seems “Satan America,” does more than contaminate the pristine Muslim mind with its entertainment and fashion industry.
We produce food, a very direct contributor to human life.
Of course, I read the politically correct explanations too from UN publications. Most of them recite poor growing conditions, global warming and the impact of expanding populations. There is very little I find that relates to the pressures of inflating oil prices on the price of food.
I suppose, that when a nation such as the United States, does such a fine job of surpassing itself year after year in food production, an illusion emerges, something to the effect that food merely bursts out of our croplands and into stores around the world somewhat like the color green comes with spring.
You will not find a more honest, hardworking, generous soul than the American farmer. Farmers grow food. You will not find a multinational consortium of farmers like OPEC, who are trying to overinflate the price of food. To be sure, every farmer likes to make a profit and won’t complain when he sells wheat or beef at a good price. But farmers are a private lot. No farmer I know of gets national recognition for producing 20 tons per acre of oats one year. No farmer I know of goes on a bus tour around the country showing films on modern agricultural technology. Maybe they should. None are the subject of morning talk shows.
A box of corn flakes or a medium rare steak go a long way in my life to making me happy.
Sure, farmers complain about the price of oil too, but about like I do, when the commercials are too long between my sitcoms. I’ve seen quite a few farmers growing up. I never met one I didn’t like. Farmers tend to be chap faced, squinty and missing a few digits. They are typically self reliant and resourceful. I never met a farmer that couldn’t replace his own starter or couldn’t find the right breaker in the milking parlor.
Farmers can build their own houses, raise their children, feed themselves, fix most critical things that break, tow your car out of the mud for free and put in a month of 16 hour days. I know several factories that employ farmers on the off seasons, all to their benefit. If you lack an understanding for what constitutes a true American, behold the farmer. During the depression, if a farmer couldn’t make ends meet on his land, he would do it in the factories.
The American farmer prays in the field, he prays at the table and he prays at his bedside, but he may not care for religion. He knows his God like his next door neighbor but doesn’t think about jihad. He may not like congress or the President, but he gives of his sons to fight in places he has not seen and he loses them about as frequently as he looses a crop to draught.
If you can’t farm, you don’t. National subsidies not withstanding, farmers create far more wealth than they take in. In the years ahead, I am convinced we are in for hard times. The entire world economy is rocking wildly near the precipice of economic collapse, but there is virtue still.
People like the American farmer don’t give up. They don’t stop. To them, virtue is a fine sunny day, the smell of wet dirt and a chance to work . . . one more day.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Reality 101
Gold has always held a certain allure. It’s natural beauty and permanent luster seems to exemplify what man seeks in life. But for all of its intrinsic qualities, if modern man had to choose between steel and gold, steel would be the right choice. The last time I went to the salvage yard, they would only pay three cents per pound for it. But, our automobiles, air conditioners, skyscrapers and ships all rely on steel to perform the roles in life we all count on.
Gold is such the pretty metal, heavy, and also a non oxidizing excellent conductor. Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t mind having a few tons of the stuff sitting in my home in small little ingots; it just seems to me that gold is valuable for a variety of other reasons.
Gold has always required an inordinate amount of labor to extract from our planet. Hence its value comes with the price of human effort. Gold mines today can run profitably off of a quarter ounce per ton ore. Currencies have been hung for generations on the gold standard. It has bolstered confidence in nations and is still redeemable almost everywhere. But our nation’s economy can’t go back to the gold standard. There is no longer enough gold left on this earth to represent all of mans useful activities. A man driving a cab and a gallon of gasoline also has tangible value.
So what is and is not tangible? That question is being revisited almost to exhaustion in the stock markets.
Again we are in trouble with our economy because a bubble has broken in Wall Street. The bubble is complex and delicate. Inflation is rapid, formed by a thin layer of liquid until instability on its surface is punctuated by disruption and a vanishing ephemeral burst as short as the blink of an eye.
The metaphor, though poetic, is not the actual thing however. The mortgage industry was inflated largely by exterior forces. When an applicant for a loan no longer has to present evidence of eligibility for the transaction at hand I think a serious situation ensues.
Honestly, I was not aware that such a thing was possible. Who would have known? I suppose those "no cash down" seminars were serious after all. I had to present check stubs, tax records and have a decent credit rating for my mortgage. I thought everyone did.
Nope, apparently not. If I was the correct ethnicity, underprivileged or had the right congressman in my district, I could get a loan on barely my signature. So, instead of letting the bubble burst and getting on with life, it seems so many of us are now confused about the value of our holdings and that values daily oscillate in the market like yo-yos on a string.
The economy loves us, it loves us not, it loves us, it loves us not . . . but that’s another metaphor. This bubble is so darn big it is taking weeks to pop. I’m as stymied as most folks are on how badly this will affect us. I for one don’t want someone telling me my dollar has sunk in value, and I don’t need my taxes raised. Either way, the burden hits us all.
To brighten your day, consider the proton. Fifteen Billion years and counting, we still haven’t seen one decay. Its mass remains constant to within 15 significant digits, and this only because of the known limits of observation. Along with gravity, electric charge and a host of other factors that make life possible, if we had to depend on the universe operating like the stock market, we couldn’t exist.
The weight of this silly idea must have caused God to pause. He would snicker for a brief blink in time and then he would say to himself . . . “Nope . . . I’ll create man instead.”
Gold is such the pretty metal, heavy, and also a non oxidizing excellent conductor. Don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t mind having a few tons of the stuff sitting in my home in small little ingots; it just seems to me that gold is valuable for a variety of other reasons.
Gold has always required an inordinate amount of labor to extract from our planet. Hence its value comes with the price of human effort. Gold mines today can run profitably off of a quarter ounce per ton ore. Currencies have been hung for generations on the gold standard. It has bolstered confidence in nations and is still redeemable almost everywhere. But our nation’s economy can’t go back to the gold standard. There is no longer enough gold left on this earth to represent all of mans useful activities. A man driving a cab and a gallon of gasoline also has tangible value.
So what is and is not tangible? That question is being revisited almost to exhaustion in the stock markets.
Again we are in trouble with our economy because a bubble has broken in Wall Street. The bubble is complex and delicate. Inflation is rapid, formed by a thin layer of liquid until instability on its surface is punctuated by disruption and a vanishing ephemeral burst as short as the blink of an eye.
The metaphor, though poetic, is not the actual thing however. The mortgage industry was inflated largely by exterior forces. When an applicant for a loan no longer has to present evidence of eligibility for the transaction at hand I think a serious situation ensues.
Honestly, I was not aware that such a thing was possible. Who would have known? I suppose those "no cash down" seminars were serious after all. I had to present check stubs, tax records and have a decent credit rating for my mortgage. I thought everyone did.
Nope, apparently not. If I was the correct ethnicity, underprivileged or had the right congressman in my district, I could get a loan on barely my signature. So, instead of letting the bubble burst and getting on with life, it seems so many of us are now confused about the value of our holdings and that values daily oscillate in the market like yo-yos on a string.
The economy loves us, it loves us not, it loves us, it loves us not . . . but that’s another metaphor. This bubble is so darn big it is taking weeks to pop. I’m as stymied as most folks are on how badly this will affect us. I for one don’t want someone telling me my dollar has sunk in value, and I don’t need my taxes raised. Either way, the burden hits us all.
To brighten your day, consider the proton. Fifteen Billion years and counting, we still haven’t seen one decay. Its mass remains constant to within 15 significant digits, and this only because of the known limits of observation. Along with gravity, electric charge and a host of other factors that make life possible, if we had to depend on the universe operating like the stock market, we couldn’t exist.
The weight of this silly idea must have caused God to pause. He would snicker for a brief blink in time and then he would say to himself . . . “Nope . . . I’ll create man instead.”
Friday, September 26, 2008
Native Virtues and Pernicious Vices
I have always tried to maintain dinner in our house as a mandatory ritual. I travel frequently, and my eldest son is in college and also has a job, frequently arriving late from work. I have learned that my family’s presence quickly evaporates due to the Internet, sleepovers, late work and assorted other events.
A difficult comedy has recently arisen from this ritual. We are, to put it plainly, a rather fat family . . . all except the youngest newcomer who is six years old. The evening ritual is now carefully controlled by low calorie portions and strange new vegetable combinations. Since hunger prevails at this hour, it is disconcerting to see the youngest among us ignoring his ample portions of baked potato with sour cream, broiled chicken and whole milk. In fact, all this little fellow ever seems to do at dinner is fidget and tease his brothers.
Dad barks frequently, almost with metronome rhythm, for him to quit elbowing his brother and eat his food . . . all of it. The rest of us sit around him like so many wildebeasts watching the lion take a nap by the water hole. Ah yes, this wicked little fellow is not fat, not interested in food and completely oblivious to the rigors of diet and exercise. He does chin ups on my forearm, can dangle with one hand from the banister, runs everywhere and seems to have 86 ribs.
I still have two high school track records for the 220 and 440 and the guy who could beat me in the mile was six foot six. My wife was on the high school gymnastic team and was as svelte as a professional dancer. What could cause us to get fat?
I don’t really keep up with these things, but diets seem as manifold as the weeds in my lawn these days. We chose the one we are on because it was supposed to be merciful and quick and because our neighbors tried it first. “Merciful” in this case is a word gauged against concentration camp victims and lifeboat survivors. My wife and I are both chefs of significant calibre, my wife moreso than I, and every hour in the kitchen is will against memory . . . a mental game at best.
Mental games not withstanding, the difficulty of savoring a cucumber against the memory of BBQ ribs and potato salad is rapidly compounded by the sight of your youngster ignoring these fine vices during the family meal.
May the skinny remain so, and the fat . . .
find peace and safety in the virtuous glycemic index of life.
Milton
A difficult comedy has recently arisen from this ritual. We are, to put it plainly, a rather fat family . . . all except the youngest newcomer who is six years old. The evening ritual is now carefully controlled by low calorie portions and strange new vegetable combinations. Since hunger prevails at this hour, it is disconcerting to see the youngest among us ignoring his ample portions of baked potato with sour cream, broiled chicken and whole milk. In fact, all this little fellow ever seems to do at dinner is fidget and tease his brothers.
Dad barks frequently, almost with metronome rhythm, for him to quit elbowing his brother and eat his food . . . all of it. The rest of us sit around him like so many wildebeasts watching the lion take a nap by the water hole. Ah yes, this wicked little fellow is not fat, not interested in food and completely oblivious to the rigors of diet and exercise. He does chin ups on my forearm, can dangle with one hand from the banister, runs everywhere and seems to have 86 ribs.
I still have two high school track records for the 220 and 440 and the guy who could beat me in the mile was six foot six. My wife was on the high school gymnastic team and was as svelte as a professional dancer. What could cause us to get fat?
I don’t really keep up with these things, but diets seem as manifold as the weeds in my lawn these days. We chose the one we are on because it was supposed to be merciful and quick and because our neighbors tried it first. “Merciful” in this case is a word gauged against concentration camp victims and lifeboat survivors. My wife and I are both chefs of significant calibre, my wife moreso than I, and every hour in the kitchen is will against memory . . . a mental game at best.
Mental games not withstanding, the difficulty of savoring a cucumber against the memory of BBQ ribs and potato salad is rapidly compounded by the sight of your youngster ignoring these fine vices during the family meal.
May the skinny remain so, and the fat . . .
find peace and safety in the virtuous glycemic index of life.
Milton
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Bread Upon the Water
By now, most of us with a mortgage are aware of the new crisis we face emerging from the lending industry. That many facts are still in evidence should only be obvious to anyone trying to find them.
The President in his address last night can be quoted on many fronts. On the frontier of financial precedent, “These are not normal circumstances.” But this is not entirely true, since the Clinton administration strong-armed the banking industry to exclude down payments and include welfare payments and unemployment benefits as income for “underprivileged” mortgage applicants, a situation that has been on the rise for at least the last twelve years, I would say the word “normal” has been squeezed a little bit too hard by the political expediency for rapid absolution, and from what George Bush also obviously had adopted into his administration.
But is this all the President’s fault? Obviously not – the players in this expanding drama are not all able to hide. A very long list of congressmen and senators have been generously padded with cash by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, institutions which have severely blurred the line between free enterprise and government bureaucracy, while at the same time growing over the past sixty years into enormous entities. “We're in the midst of a serious financial crisis, and the federal government is responding with decisive action.” Quoting again, let me point out that “decisive” is not always an “encouraging” term. Incrementally the government has made “decisive” decisions, which have encouraged the current crisis almost to the point of inevitability. The word “decisive” does not necessarily steady my knees at this point.
Well, you can finger point at other factors as well. When CEOs continue to garner massive and unprecedented pay raises for poorly performing stocks, one immediately begins to suspect either the stock holders have been misinformed, which is the operative euphemism in Wall Street for “lied to,” or as is now obvious, the stock holders feel adequately insured by federal government guarantees, for all the largesse of financial nonsense going on in plain sight. I am sure, if all the congressmen and senators who were and still are, being paid generously by the very companies committing this massive malfeasance of money-mortgaged morbidity, actually muster themselves into a higher state, of even the mildest conscience of mind, there will be “decisive” reforms, or at least attempted “decisive” reforms, passed with the grand intention, and publicity, of shoring up our economy.
There will also be pork . . . lots and lots of pork . . . for what better time to hold down the “tax-paying whores,” that we appear to be, for one more trick. Obviously, since saving the American economy is so vitally important to ordinary people who actually have to work for their money, those turnip-museums and avant-garde steel confusions that always seem to end up in our city parks and bus depots everywhere for no apparent reason, will be in the ascendancy for many years to come.
Jesus said, (another quote), “Cast your bread upon the waters and it will be returned to you in good season.” Well – cast away my brethren! Perhaps on this good earth good deeds will follow. I think Jesus was referring to Heaven, but then again, perhaps excellent management will prevail in government, conscionable stewards will be rewarded with salary incentives to redeem all the bad paper in the mortgage industry with someone’s actual names still on them, the financial markets will rebound in a few years and the American taxpayer, after an arduous stint in “rehab for whores,” will receive a dividend from the also rehabilitated “pimps” in our government who for once feel obligated to do the right thing. NOT.
Oh yes, I have to include the American taxpayer. You see, a lot of us voted for the scoundrels who created this mess. A lot of us still think we should get something for nothing. Co-enabling has been somewhat of a national pastime and pulling our own wagon has never been a popular theme. So, next time you see someone you know who voted for “that guy,” slap them in the face and give them some “tough love” . . . and some better advice.
Your candidate is not like the quarterback for the New York Jets. He is on your team and you may feel compelled to remain loyal as any good fan is expected to do, but he is not a quarterback starring in a favorite diversion. He will be the leader of the free world.
He will control a sizable portion of your future and if he tells you he can give you something he can’t control, don’t vote for him, because he will inevitably . . . hurt you.
When the economy falters our efforts are arbitrarily sapped and an unseen announcer seems suddenly to narrate our demise. “That retirement you're expecting just sank 15% in 8 hours. Your extra job will have to be taxed harder tomorrow and your kids are going to raise their offspring in a cramped one-bedroom apartment.”
If that slap in the face doesn’t cause a flinch, then it's too late. That American is so fully anesthetized by the years of crap he’s been listening to, that he doesn’t have even the slightest remnant of self worth, not even a mere reflex, to pull away from the hot light bulb of nonsense upon which he is charring.
Milton
The President in his address last night can be quoted on many fronts. On the frontier of financial precedent, “These are not normal circumstances.” But this is not entirely true, since the Clinton administration strong-armed the banking industry to exclude down payments and include welfare payments and unemployment benefits as income for “underprivileged” mortgage applicants, a situation that has been on the rise for at least the last twelve years, I would say the word “normal” has been squeezed a little bit too hard by the political expediency for rapid absolution, and from what George Bush also obviously had adopted into his administration.
But is this all the President’s fault? Obviously not – the players in this expanding drama are not all able to hide. A very long list of congressmen and senators have been generously padded with cash by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, institutions which have severely blurred the line between free enterprise and government bureaucracy, while at the same time growing over the past sixty years into enormous entities. “We're in the midst of a serious financial crisis, and the federal government is responding with decisive action.” Quoting again, let me point out that “decisive” is not always an “encouraging” term. Incrementally the government has made “decisive” decisions, which have encouraged the current crisis almost to the point of inevitability. The word “decisive” does not necessarily steady my knees at this point.
Well, you can finger point at other factors as well. When CEOs continue to garner massive and unprecedented pay raises for poorly performing stocks, one immediately begins to suspect either the stock holders have been misinformed, which is the operative euphemism in Wall Street for “lied to,” or as is now obvious, the stock holders feel adequately insured by federal government guarantees, for all the largesse of financial nonsense going on in plain sight. I am sure, if all the congressmen and senators who were and still are, being paid generously by the very companies committing this massive malfeasance of money-mortgaged morbidity, actually muster themselves into a higher state, of even the mildest conscience of mind, there will be “decisive” reforms, or at least attempted “decisive” reforms, passed with the grand intention, and publicity, of shoring up our economy.
There will also be pork . . . lots and lots of pork . . . for what better time to hold down the “tax-paying whores,” that we appear to be, for one more trick. Obviously, since saving the American economy is so vitally important to ordinary people who actually have to work for their money, those turnip-museums and avant-garde steel confusions that always seem to end up in our city parks and bus depots everywhere for no apparent reason, will be in the ascendancy for many years to come.
Jesus said, (another quote), “Cast your bread upon the waters and it will be returned to you in good season.” Well – cast away my brethren! Perhaps on this good earth good deeds will follow. I think Jesus was referring to Heaven, but then again, perhaps excellent management will prevail in government, conscionable stewards will be rewarded with salary incentives to redeem all the bad paper in the mortgage industry with someone’s actual names still on them, the financial markets will rebound in a few years and the American taxpayer, after an arduous stint in “rehab for whores,” will receive a dividend from the also rehabilitated “pimps” in our government who for once feel obligated to do the right thing. NOT.
Oh yes, I have to include the American taxpayer. You see, a lot of us voted for the scoundrels who created this mess. A lot of us still think we should get something for nothing. Co-enabling has been somewhat of a national pastime and pulling our own wagon has never been a popular theme. So, next time you see someone you know who voted for “that guy,” slap them in the face and give them some “tough love” . . . and some better advice.
Your candidate is not like the quarterback for the New York Jets. He is on your team and you may feel compelled to remain loyal as any good fan is expected to do, but he is not a quarterback starring in a favorite diversion. He will be the leader of the free world.
He will control a sizable portion of your future and if he tells you he can give you something he can’t control, don’t vote for him, because he will inevitably . . . hurt you.
When the economy falters our efforts are arbitrarily sapped and an unseen announcer seems suddenly to narrate our demise. “That retirement you're expecting just sank 15% in 8 hours. Your extra job will have to be taxed harder tomorrow and your kids are going to raise their offspring in a cramped one-bedroom apartment.”
If that slap in the face doesn’t cause a flinch, then it's too late. That American is so fully anesthetized by the years of crap he’s been listening to, that he doesn’t have even the slightest remnant of self worth, not even a mere reflex, to pull away from the hot light bulb of nonsense upon which he is charring.
Milton
Obama Sludge
http://www.suntimes.com/news/watchdogs/1184049,CST-NWS-watchdog25.article
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1958
http://www.stoptheaclu.com/archives/2008/09/16/will-the-biggest-obama-scandal-of-the-campaign-be-buried-alive/
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-communist-mentor/
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/184952,CST-NWS-obama24.article
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,245582,00.html
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1958
http://www.stoptheaclu.com/archives/2008/09/16/will-the-biggest-obama-scandal-of-the-campaign-be-buried-alive/
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-communist-mentor/
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/184952,CST-NWS-obama24.article
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,245582,00.html
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