The adjutant to the Devil is always a fool. He will be dressed up the dandy with a hat to match, but the Devil never pays for the finery, he leased it from God and all the fool ever really gets, are ‘hand me downs’.
Fools vote. This much should be obvious by now. I do not presume to surrender a list, but their numbers are legion and growing. What was intended as a sacred trust to the thoughtful initiate has steadily devolved into a poll for ‘best dressed’. Pants first; then shirt, the time-honored ritual has protected legs from briar, maintained our genitalia as mystery and protected from element what skin does not favor.
Without engaging in another civil war to prove our point, we should endeavor to convince the fool to put his clothes on, if for no other reason to elude the embarrassment of the initiate who must focus fully on his uncertain future.
So what has the fool done, you may ask?
Plenty:
He has discarded God and therefore left the Devil to play.
He has enshrined opinion over wisdom. Oprah is a mime, lip-synched to a sound track skillfully dubbed from popular culture. Nothing of accountability ever comes out and hereby, substance, is the resultant tragedy.
He has voted for an untested Icon, and yes, the lips move as well on this one too. This Icon, the adjutant indeed, works on the careless assumption that when things are bad, changing everything will make it better.
Perhaps in an effort to appear responsible, the fool has made great effort to wag the finger, not only at human error, but to all humanity. It seems our existence is an affront to mommy earth. We must pay. Less gasoline, less babies, less wealth, less privacy, less security, etc. are the prescriptive punishments for absolution to some primal yet foggy remnant of guilt.
Before I underscore doom with a longer list (and it is very long) let me stop here to propose a remedy. We must fashion a trend not with a billion dollar campaign, and not with a media circus. It has to start with a whisper at one of those big Washington insider cocktail parties. It goes something like this:
“Hey Nancy, I heard Chris Matthews is looking for a plastic surgeon who has pioneered a procedure for turning white people into blacks, I mean African American. Nancy perceives a set up, “Oh stop it!” “No, seriously, Michael Jackson gave him a grant when he was in med school with the proviso that he would work on this. Seems he succeeded also on developing a hormone cocktail that triggers the immune system to fight the physical effects of aging.”
A conspirator calls your name holding his cell phone over his head, “Hey Dave, it’s that Doctor again.” “Nancy would you excuse me for a moment,” and you disappear into the crowd, cell phone in one ear and finger in the other.
“Hey Harry, Chris just called my answering machine, said he wouldn’t be able to pencil me in for Hardball this week, said he has a ‘procedure’ that reschedule him at some clinic. You saw him last week, is he O.K.?” Harry stares gloomily back and says innocently, “I thought he was O.K.”
Your fellow conspirator spills some Merlot on your sleeve, “Damn, I’m sorry mate . . . ‘fraid I’ve met my limit . . . get you a club soda there?” You feign some appropriate disgust, “It’s a cotton microweave. I’ll just dab it with some soap and water in the bathroom.”
Obama is posing at teleprompter angles in front of the bathroom mirror with one of his secret service agents. “Oh, Mr. President!” You appear surprised and pleased like an orgasm before church, “Just a little wine on the sleeve.” Chris Matthews gave me this shirt, said his wife got it for him but he didn’t think it would go with his color . . . didn’t really know what he meant . . . but hey . . .”
Obama exits with security in tow. You and your conspirator leave the party and hail a cab; job done.
In the mean time Chris is on vacation for a week in the Bahamas and naturally he cannot be reached. This is doubly advantageous. He cannot verify and therefore accentuates the mystery by also being out of touch.
Chris Matthews comes back from the Bahamas, quite tanned and in good health. He is scheduled to interview Nancy on hardball the next day, who for some reason was very eager for an interview about healthcare. She looks at him a little too carefully throughout the interview and asks him about his color? He thinks she means his tan, “looking better,” he quips and Nancy retreats to the green room for pampering in ‘makeup’. “Can you make me look forty,” she teases the gay artist. “Oh honey, you are so forty! Get out of here!” “Seriously” she lowers her voice, “FORTY.”
Rahm Emmanuel hands Nancy his Blackberry in the morning Cabinet meeting with the president with a raised eyebrow. “Nancy”, he says “you know this is most irregular, It’s some doctor down in the Bahamas. (You), said something about Chris Matthews getting his dream, and him your number.” Naturally, Nancy takes the call.
The doctor (you) is affectionately known as Michael’s angel, and you speak reverently about him. You explain that your future success and those of similar genius of kindly being allowed a clause in health which pertains to ‘rejuvinative procedures for the racially challenged’.
The following weak headlines just before a vote reaches the senate floor, says: Cosmetic Surgery “An American Right.”
The bill fails . . .
. . . By only one vote . . .
One fool less and 100 million to go.
Milton
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
The Christian's Way
The man that I am has nothing commensurate with the Divine grace afforded him. I have, in clear memory, narrowly been saved from death on at least four occasions. Those who also know me more intimately, know that I have been visited twice by a heavenly emissary, which to deny in my experience, would defy all sanity.
Let me say at once as the Plaintiff to life’s vicissitudes, and as the Defendant before God Almighty, that I have lost on both counts, and enjoy my life purely by grace.
My first angelic visit during my youth crushed any fantasies I might have had concerning the personhood of these beings. I was, in fact, afraid for my life and in full knowledge that my mind was as transparent as it was faulted. Needless to say, I survived, and without further diversion into that story, I am completely convinced of the massive powers from Heaven, and within the limits of my personal influence on you the reader, be also assured of what mighty forces of God may be marshaled.
On a broader note, I wish to address Christendom not just rhetorically but sincerely and to its heart. “Why are you so scattered in intent, so divided by credos and so feeble in your causes?” And to the Devil, “why do you attack such a feeble foe with such virulence?”
To these twain queries I declare flatly and without apology, the power of God will prevail and the name of Christ will conquer.
Not being afforded the opportunity of a pulpit, nor exceptionally inclined to deserve one, to the few who actually read my blogs, I say emphatically, that the second coming of Christ is a soon to be reality.
I want you to dispel the leanings of sentiment which have penetrated Christian culture, in particular, the popular idea that the second coming is purely a symbolic idea of the fluffy goodness which by Providence is coming our way. No, this natter-headed nonsense is a dangerous diversion. It stands in startling contrast to the writings of the prophets Daniel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and John the Revelator, and not to let the matter rest too lightly, are in stark contrast with the explicitly recorded personal utterances of Jesus.
Understand, that the forces to which our government has succumbed are little else than what the company of mutually compelled sociopaths commonly renders: In contest it holds no good thing for the benefit of the many, but rather accumulates for itself only more power and tyranny. Human life is cumulatively being drawn down in value by popular culture, sinister environmental policies, threat of war, and rationing of resources. All these things are in concert with the portents voluminously written of in the Bible.
It will require a miracle to save mankind. It will require the second coming of Christ, (Moshiach). The affairs of man will so totally exceed the debauch of any previous age, that only a reboot of civilization will revive the possibility of our survival. And, necessarily our lives must center ‘round our loyalty to God and a resolute commitment to follow His Laws.
Not to discourage mind you, but rather to encourage your allegiance to God, I implore my friends and foe alike, to commit yourselves humbly before God and seek his power to repent. All faith depends on familiarity with Him, and with Him we are not powerless. In fact God is content with our weakness to perform in us great things. I tremble for my family, my nation and my world, but I still tremble at my own humanity in the face my personal failures. I need God in my life more than ever and yet I elude my own needs be denying Him in my life. God is Almighty. Let us stand up for him when opportunity comes, at it will, and let us recognize our purpose in life to lead mankind to Him who led us in the wilderness, who lead us in the gospels and will lead us also to heaven.
An Epistle was not my intention. I rather relish the idea of a purer, happier world. Only the path to it frightens me. Fear lessens with Love, as any child knows from getting a vaccination. Ours is the same as the child’s, in fact, for to our Father in Heaven we are all His Children.
Milton
Let me say at once as the Plaintiff to life’s vicissitudes, and as the Defendant before God Almighty, that I have lost on both counts, and enjoy my life purely by grace.
My first angelic visit during my youth crushed any fantasies I might have had concerning the personhood of these beings. I was, in fact, afraid for my life and in full knowledge that my mind was as transparent as it was faulted. Needless to say, I survived, and without further diversion into that story, I am completely convinced of the massive powers from Heaven, and within the limits of my personal influence on you the reader, be also assured of what mighty forces of God may be marshaled.
On a broader note, I wish to address Christendom not just rhetorically but sincerely and to its heart. “Why are you so scattered in intent, so divided by credos and so feeble in your causes?” And to the Devil, “why do you attack such a feeble foe with such virulence?”
To these twain queries I declare flatly and without apology, the power of God will prevail and the name of Christ will conquer.
Not being afforded the opportunity of a pulpit, nor exceptionally inclined to deserve one, to the few who actually read my blogs, I say emphatically, that the second coming of Christ is a soon to be reality.
I want you to dispel the leanings of sentiment which have penetrated Christian culture, in particular, the popular idea that the second coming is purely a symbolic idea of the fluffy goodness which by Providence is coming our way. No, this natter-headed nonsense is a dangerous diversion. It stands in startling contrast to the writings of the prophets Daniel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and John the Revelator, and not to let the matter rest too lightly, are in stark contrast with the explicitly recorded personal utterances of Jesus.
Understand, that the forces to which our government has succumbed are little else than what the company of mutually compelled sociopaths commonly renders: In contest it holds no good thing for the benefit of the many, but rather accumulates for itself only more power and tyranny. Human life is cumulatively being drawn down in value by popular culture, sinister environmental policies, threat of war, and rationing of resources. All these things are in concert with the portents voluminously written of in the Bible.
It will require a miracle to save mankind. It will require the second coming of Christ, (Moshiach). The affairs of man will so totally exceed the debauch of any previous age, that only a reboot of civilization will revive the possibility of our survival. And, necessarily our lives must center ‘round our loyalty to God and a resolute commitment to follow His Laws.
Not to discourage mind you, but rather to encourage your allegiance to God, I implore my friends and foe alike, to commit yourselves humbly before God and seek his power to repent. All faith depends on familiarity with Him, and with Him we are not powerless. In fact God is content with our weakness to perform in us great things. I tremble for my family, my nation and my world, but I still tremble at my own humanity in the face my personal failures. I need God in my life more than ever and yet I elude my own needs be denying Him in my life. God is Almighty. Let us stand up for him when opportunity comes, at it will, and let us recognize our purpose in life to lead mankind to Him who led us in the wilderness, who lead us in the gospels and will lead us also to heaven.
An Epistle was not my intention. I rather relish the idea of a purer, happier world. Only the path to it frightens me. Fear lessens with Love, as any child knows from getting a vaccination. Ours is the same as the child’s, in fact, for to our Father in Heaven we are all His Children.
Milton
Friday, August 21, 2009
On Human Suffering and the Will of God
I do not wish to be perceived as glib or disconnected from the experience of suffering. I, like most, have had my share of it, perhaps even somewhat more, as a fool generally collects more of it.
I repent the fool gladly, as there are now new pains in my age which haunt me from my youthful foolishness. There are some whose sufferings have been so intense however, as to wilt any hope I should have of facing. I like all, wish for no pain in life.
But as is so often the case in life, suffering emerges against the backdrop of God’s will. Why does God allow suffering? Especially as a loved one or even an innocent child may have to endure its imposition, it is a natural question of the mind; why did this happen? Why, when God is all powerful ‘why’ wouldn’t he make it go away?
I believe there is a big part of this question answered in the last chapter of Revelation. Here, the answer is that suffering will end, and end permanently soon. This is comforting, but perhaps it does not fully eliminate the question as to ‘why’.
I too have heard the usual arguments, some with which I agree, and some with which I fervently disagree, on qualified grounds. I do not believe that we can, nor should we, assign the cliché pat answer to the suffering in our midst, that, “It is the will of God.” This imperious remark seems too willing to place God into a sphere of arbitrary elitism. Though we have no say as to God’s right to be imperial, arbitrary or elite, it is His manifest will however, to share His power of will with us. Albeit far smaller in scale, we call this ‘the power of choice’.
The will is an inscrutable thing. Prisoners are punished by having personal will minimized by a compelled order. Children will have tantrums when it is denied. Love will not blossom without its exercise and our ability to learn and develop character and personality are integral to its use. One need only introduce the hypothetical, of a world wherein all unpleasantness and discomfort would be reversed by a miracle of God, to see one result.
One obvious danger is that the endless perseveration of Divine intervention to prevent suffering, would create the illusion that cause and effect were ultimately charmed somehow. People would eventually be jumping off of cliffs for the mere thrill of falling. Virtually any impulse would encounter a positive end no matter what the intention.
Perhaps something of learning is necessary in this plane of physical existence, for which the determinism of cause and effect puts natural limits on bad behavior and bad ideas. Conversely, this also allows for the exhibition of good effects from deliberate acts which spring from virtue.
The human will must be allowed to exercise itself as a process of self discovery and as development unfolds, however we know also from the record, that God’s will is not excluded from the exercise of miraculous intervention, especially as it reveals his nature as a just and merciful participant in our lives.
Miracles therefore, come mainly as exceptions in our affairs. Every time a miracle unties one of our predicated sufferings, the set of cause and effect must not lose its predominance, for without it, free will may not be accorded relevant information from the same.
Physics seem to be affected as well, when intention is taken into account. For every paradox in nature, a new consequence emerges as reality. There is a classic experiment in quantum physics, which was originally designed to prove one way or the other, on the singular corpuscular nature of light versus its observed counterpart as a dynamic wave entity. In this experiment, single photons can be observed as a wave function if two paths are allowed as possibilities, but if one path is closed, its singular corpuscular nature is observed and not its wave nature. Simply put, the outcomes from this experiment illustrate how we can influence the results on even the most quantum level of temporal reality with our imposition of choice.
The will, of which choice is a manifestation of our personal intelligence, is integral to who we are, and in this essential regard tangled into the issue of our suffering, almost as if we have somehow chosen to endure it on some level. Our God-given nature, the nature to choose, to exercise our will, produces not only a chain of events from cause and effect but an implicit chain of potentialities which interact with others.
We know from history that it repeats itself when conditions are repeated. We can even foretell our own futures based on the trends we have learned from history. If personal experience were to be our only teacher in life we should all die with only retarded ambitions or perhaps worse, we should all simply die very young. We die young enough.
Moses’ farewell address to Israel, before his death, punctuates the entire purpose of his long recitation of the law “. . . they are not just idle words for you – they are your life . . .” (Deuteronomy 32:44) The meaning here, is not that God will kill you if you disobey, but that the law is the condensation of successful human behaviors. To disregard the laws of human behavior ‘would’ result in death. “The Sabbath (law principle) was made for man and not man for the Sabbath” (Jesus).
So, in essence, I believe there is ample evidence that the Bible is largely provided as a condensation of vital human experience, of which we should take note, so as not to retard our progress with only the limited experiments afforded by our short lives, with only our direct results from cause and effect. We have in the Bible a vast repository of true history, millennia of human behaviors which we may absorb to our benefit.
We live in a vastly complicated biochemical organism. Risks continually abound all around us. We cannot eliminate all risks to our existence. A cosmic ray may collide with a cellular nucleus and scramble our DNA. Cancer may be the end effect from this random cause. A good person may indeed suffer thereby. A malevolent sociopath wrapped in hatred may be conscripted by men of like creed thousands of miles away to commit mass murder in the name of his demented god. Towers have burned and fallen; thousands have died needlessly and most, no doubt, were innocent good people.
We live on this earth for a season. Jesus partook in the suffering of man in a deliberate exhibition of solidarity with us and this is also integral to our ultimate salvation. He lives and in this fact, we may live as well. He suffered with us. Why wouldn’t he also redeem us? Redemption from happiness is nonsense. Redemption from suffering has a vastly different weight of meaning.
But he left us a path of righteousness which we should follow if we are to be truly free from the evil effects of our own poor behavior. Our own minds will also exact a toll on our happiness if we do not conform to His principled life. Jesus was a happy Man/God. He spread happiness with his mere presence. He attracted children. People would follow Jesus for long distances without food or drink just to hear him speak. From the narrative in the gospels, He appears to have healed almost endlessly, a procession of invalids and lepers. And he forgave. The prescription for producing a state of happiness seems to have littered his every step in this life.
Our faith is the “substance of things not seen”, not the ‘substance of things never seen’. The Bible exists as a Divine attempt to arrest human attention from chaos and attract it to purpose. Faith is purpose exercised and we can believe in God's Divine purpose.
And the purpose is: Ultimate happiness and freedom from suffering. Eternity would be too cruel without it.
But while we are here you have my loving prayers.
Milton
I repent the fool gladly, as there are now new pains in my age which haunt me from my youthful foolishness. There are some whose sufferings have been so intense however, as to wilt any hope I should have of facing. I like all, wish for no pain in life.
But as is so often the case in life, suffering emerges against the backdrop of God’s will. Why does God allow suffering? Especially as a loved one or even an innocent child may have to endure its imposition, it is a natural question of the mind; why did this happen? Why, when God is all powerful ‘why’ wouldn’t he make it go away?
I believe there is a big part of this question answered in the last chapter of Revelation. Here, the answer is that suffering will end, and end permanently soon. This is comforting, but perhaps it does not fully eliminate the question as to ‘why’.
I too have heard the usual arguments, some with which I agree, and some with which I fervently disagree, on qualified grounds. I do not believe that we can, nor should we, assign the cliché pat answer to the suffering in our midst, that, “It is the will of God.” This imperious remark seems too willing to place God into a sphere of arbitrary elitism. Though we have no say as to God’s right to be imperial, arbitrary or elite, it is His manifest will however, to share His power of will with us. Albeit far smaller in scale, we call this ‘the power of choice’.
The will is an inscrutable thing. Prisoners are punished by having personal will minimized by a compelled order. Children will have tantrums when it is denied. Love will not blossom without its exercise and our ability to learn and develop character and personality are integral to its use. One need only introduce the hypothetical, of a world wherein all unpleasantness and discomfort would be reversed by a miracle of God, to see one result.
One obvious danger is that the endless perseveration of Divine intervention to prevent suffering, would create the illusion that cause and effect were ultimately charmed somehow. People would eventually be jumping off of cliffs for the mere thrill of falling. Virtually any impulse would encounter a positive end no matter what the intention.
Perhaps something of learning is necessary in this plane of physical existence, for which the determinism of cause and effect puts natural limits on bad behavior and bad ideas. Conversely, this also allows for the exhibition of good effects from deliberate acts which spring from virtue.
The human will must be allowed to exercise itself as a process of self discovery and as development unfolds, however we know also from the record, that God’s will is not excluded from the exercise of miraculous intervention, especially as it reveals his nature as a just and merciful participant in our lives.
Miracles therefore, come mainly as exceptions in our affairs. Every time a miracle unties one of our predicated sufferings, the set of cause and effect must not lose its predominance, for without it, free will may not be accorded relevant information from the same.
Physics seem to be affected as well, when intention is taken into account. For every paradox in nature, a new consequence emerges as reality. There is a classic experiment in quantum physics, which was originally designed to prove one way or the other, on the singular corpuscular nature of light versus its observed counterpart as a dynamic wave entity. In this experiment, single photons can be observed as a wave function if two paths are allowed as possibilities, but if one path is closed, its singular corpuscular nature is observed and not its wave nature. Simply put, the outcomes from this experiment illustrate how we can influence the results on even the most quantum level of temporal reality with our imposition of choice.
The will, of which choice is a manifestation of our personal intelligence, is integral to who we are, and in this essential regard tangled into the issue of our suffering, almost as if we have somehow chosen to endure it on some level. Our God-given nature, the nature to choose, to exercise our will, produces not only a chain of events from cause and effect but an implicit chain of potentialities which interact with others.
We know from history that it repeats itself when conditions are repeated. We can even foretell our own futures based on the trends we have learned from history. If personal experience were to be our only teacher in life we should all die with only retarded ambitions or perhaps worse, we should all simply die very young. We die young enough.
Moses’ farewell address to Israel, before his death, punctuates the entire purpose of his long recitation of the law “. . . they are not just idle words for you – they are your life . . .” (Deuteronomy 32:44) The meaning here, is not that God will kill you if you disobey, but that the law is the condensation of successful human behaviors. To disregard the laws of human behavior ‘would’ result in death. “The Sabbath (law principle) was made for man and not man for the Sabbath” (Jesus).
So, in essence, I believe there is ample evidence that the Bible is largely provided as a condensation of vital human experience, of which we should take note, so as not to retard our progress with only the limited experiments afforded by our short lives, with only our direct results from cause and effect. We have in the Bible a vast repository of true history, millennia of human behaviors which we may absorb to our benefit.
We live in a vastly complicated biochemical organism. Risks continually abound all around us. We cannot eliminate all risks to our existence. A cosmic ray may collide with a cellular nucleus and scramble our DNA. Cancer may be the end effect from this random cause. A good person may indeed suffer thereby. A malevolent sociopath wrapped in hatred may be conscripted by men of like creed thousands of miles away to commit mass murder in the name of his demented god. Towers have burned and fallen; thousands have died needlessly and most, no doubt, were innocent good people.
We live on this earth for a season. Jesus partook in the suffering of man in a deliberate exhibition of solidarity with us and this is also integral to our ultimate salvation. He lives and in this fact, we may live as well. He suffered with us. Why wouldn’t he also redeem us? Redemption from happiness is nonsense. Redemption from suffering has a vastly different weight of meaning.
But he left us a path of righteousness which we should follow if we are to be truly free from the evil effects of our own poor behavior. Our own minds will also exact a toll on our happiness if we do not conform to His principled life. Jesus was a happy Man/God. He spread happiness with his mere presence. He attracted children. People would follow Jesus for long distances without food or drink just to hear him speak. From the narrative in the gospels, He appears to have healed almost endlessly, a procession of invalids and lepers. And he forgave. The prescription for producing a state of happiness seems to have littered his every step in this life.
Our faith is the “substance of things not seen”, not the ‘substance of things never seen’. The Bible exists as a Divine attempt to arrest human attention from chaos and attract it to purpose. Faith is purpose exercised and we can believe in God's Divine purpose.
And the purpose is: Ultimate happiness and freedom from suffering. Eternity would be too cruel without it.
But while we are here you have my loving prayers.
Milton
Not Wanting To Bet
I seem bent to say a few things scurrying about my mind after a bout with the CNN pundits I recently saw at the airport.
Everything in liberal land seems validated by an opinion. In fact with out a famous opinion to bandy about there seems to be no fact worthy of contemplation with these elite. The news anchor seemed quite satisfied with the expert they paid to tell them how the new staggering national debt would be paid off when the recession goes away. After all, we’ve had just about enough of the damn thing and recovery pressures are soon surfacing that will reconcile with everything the president has done; (this went on and on like a professor describing the relationship between voltage and current).
Perceptions these days enjoy such a protracted lifetime fluttering through the media, settling on this mind and that, that they actually begin to seem real. These bubbles of fancy just never seem to pop. We are deep in a recession from over-leveraged debt, and the magical asymptote flattens so nicely if you start all over again with a new piece of graph paper.
Maybe we really can borrow so much money as to frighten the recession away. The trick is of course, to convince everyone that, “Yes We Can,” actually means, “Yes We Are.”
Then, just do it.
Borrow more than anyone else ever has in the history of the human race and proclaim loudly (very loudly it seems), that it is working. We will fix the recession with massive health care spending because our bad health care system, (which of course has caused bankruptcies to those ruined by too much of it), is too expensive. "Magical" government intervention will make all the bad stuff in medicine, all the inequities between the “haves” and “have not’s” go away. All we have to do is pass this damned bill now!
But we did now already, several times.
As long as the press can convince people that Obama has magic, the magic will go on. What would magic be without perception? Misdirection? Deception? Illusion? Is this what Americans have been reduced to believing in?
Yes.
“Yes We Can.”
There is an unwillingness, even a palpable fear with these liberal church folk when you start talking about the second coming of reality.
Some kind of reckoning with cause and effect can only be trouble for the liberals out there.
The ball has dropped. In fact several of them have dropped.
They are:
1) Terrorists with nukes;
2) A worldwide economic depression and;
3) A massive loss of liberty to name only a few.
The balls are falling from such a height, however, that there is a sort of weird fascination with the idea that the few years it will take for these leaden balls to fall and create utterly craterous doom seems to be so long as to seem meaningless.
We have learned to re-think our existence into the short span of a sound bite. It seems we can’t hear anything falling but we can hear lots of soothing Obama. So soothe away.
“Yes We Can,” seems to have leapt to, “Yes We Are.”
But are we really?
1) Are we really going to charm Iran out of being a nuclear bully?
2) Are we really creating millions of jobs?
3) Are we really going to save mommy earth with cap and trade?
Really?
Cause and effect is our chain of time and for 5 billion years, tomorrow’s links have come to this earth without a hitch or delay.
I don’t like the odds, sound bites not withstanding.
Milton
Everything in liberal land seems validated by an opinion. In fact with out a famous opinion to bandy about there seems to be no fact worthy of contemplation with these elite. The news anchor seemed quite satisfied with the expert they paid to tell them how the new staggering national debt would be paid off when the recession goes away. After all, we’ve had just about enough of the damn thing and recovery pressures are soon surfacing that will reconcile with everything the president has done; (this went on and on like a professor describing the relationship between voltage and current).
Perceptions these days enjoy such a protracted lifetime fluttering through the media, settling on this mind and that, that they actually begin to seem real. These bubbles of fancy just never seem to pop. We are deep in a recession from over-leveraged debt, and the magical asymptote flattens so nicely if you start all over again with a new piece of graph paper.
Maybe we really can borrow so much money as to frighten the recession away. The trick is of course, to convince everyone that, “Yes We Can,” actually means, “Yes We Are.”
Then, just do it.
Borrow more than anyone else ever has in the history of the human race and proclaim loudly (very loudly it seems), that it is working. We will fix the recession with massive health care spending because our bad health care system, (which of course has caused bankruptcies to those ruined by too much of it), is too expensive. "Magical" government intervention will make all the bad stuff in medicine, all the inequities between the “haves” and “have not’s” go away. All we have to do is pass this damned bill now!
But we did now already, several times.
As long as the press can convince people that Obama has magic, the magic will go on. What would magic be without perception? Misdirection? Deception? Illusion? Is this what Americans have been reduced to believing in?
Yes.
“Yes We Can.”
There is an unwillingness, even a palpable fear with these liberal church folk when you start talking about the second coming of reality.
Some kind of reckoning with cause and effect can only be trouble for the liberals out there.
The ball has dropped. In fact several of them have dropped.
They are:
1) Terrorists with nukes;
2) A worldwide economic depression and;
3) A massive loss of liberty to name only a few.
The balls are falling from such a height, however, that there is a sort of weird fascination with the idea that the few years it will take for these leaden balls to fall and create utterly craterous doom seems to be so long as to seem meaningless.
We have learned to re-think our existence into the short span of a sound bite. It seems we can’t hear anything falling but we can hear lots of soothing Obama. So soothe away.
“Yes We Can,” seems to have leapt to, “Yes We Are.”
But are we really?
1) Are we really going to charm Iran out of being a nuclear bully?
2) Are we really creating millions of jobs?
3) Are we really going to save mommy earth with cap and trade?
Really?
Cause and effect is our chain of time and for 5 billion years, tomorrow’s links have come to this earth without a hitch or delay.
I don’t like the odds, sound bites not withstanding.
Milton
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Manipulated and Maneuvered U.S.A.
Americans these days seem to be forgetting their chartered ideals on so many fronts and on such a massive scale, discarding long held truths into the dustbin of ‘opinion’. We have embarked with breakneck speed after demonstrably minor things such as the Michelle Obama’s tennis shoes, swine flu and with a conjugate sluggishness we barely turn our muddled heads to matters such as the Taliban’s rapid cannibalization of a nuclear state. I am inclined to agree with Mark Twain who once said, “I’ll forget the Lords middle name sometime, right in the midst of a storm, when I need all the help I can get”.
The consumer mind set seems only willing to regard time as a collection of popular events. And in a weird way, this is almost true, for being linear, time can be flooded with voyeuristic abandon and we soon become unable to see the sequence of anything else.
All that is required in my mind, to confirm with what magnificence we have been manipulated into delusion, is to remember and thereby juxtapose this world, with the one a mere 10 years ago.
Here in a brief review:
Conservative talk show host Michael Savage is banned from England (but not Jeremiah Wright).
The stock market has been surging upwards on the news that economic indicators such as April’s unemployment rates are “not as bad as predicted”. Basically, if your ship is sinking slower than you thought, perhaps there is time for another hand of poker.
Our financial system is becoming nationalized, as are auto-manufacturing giants, Chrysler and GM. Oh goody, the same people who right the tax codes are now going to make automobiles.
Let’s Invest money here!
Returning heroes from Afghanistan and Iraq are now under Napolitano’s careful scrutiny as potential “security risks”.
In counterpoint to this fact, we freed several Guantanamo prisoners with one now discovered to be in charge of Taliban military operations in Pakistan. Why let a good killer waste away in prison? Let them go, let them free . . . free I tell you! Praise Obama! . . . I mean Allah.
The urge to vomit, if not yet strong enough, will yet persevere. . .
One needs only to read on.
Air Force One, once the proud angel of protection for our nations highest officer, recently terrified thousands of New Yorkers by its low level passes for a “photo opportunity”. The white house, nevertheless, refuses to share these $300,000.00 photos with the nation who paid so dearly for them.
Obama was seen bowing to a Muslim Arabian Sheik. At least two hundred million of us actually saw this.
Nope. . . Now get this straight people! Obama was too tall . . . he did not a bow.
. . . It’s official, so there!
A witch hunt is underway to impeach the former president and arrest or disbar his personal counsel for allowing water boarding on terrorists, a rigor which the marine corps has also used to toughen its elite.
Bank of America and Citicorp mentioned casually that they need another 45 billion dollars this morning and both these banks stock rose at least 35 cents a share this morning.
We can’t sell enough Treasury bonds to cover our national debt anymore. China has pulled out but Berneke says we will pull out of the recession later this year . . . and “later this year” we will need to sell even more Treasury bonds. I don’t get the math.
Rahm Emanuel, always posing seriously with his index finger guarding his lips and Obama’s official fall guy, announced that the United States was not going to negotiate nuclear limits with Iran unless Israel gave up more of its territory to the Palestinians.
This is like telling your daughter you won’t chase away her rapist until she removes all her clothes.
100 days and only 265 to go! 630? 6,030? (there is a bill before both houses to repeal the 22cd amendment (term limits for the president)) Oh the “HOPE”! Oh the “Change”!
What a brave and insightful president we have! Such diplomacy and deliberated idiocy . . . and instant deniability too . . . because if it doesn’t fly with public opinion (what is our ‘public’ opinion anyway). . . he can chastise Rahm once again for his “misstatement”.
Iraq, timorously close to Iran and completely unprepared to defend itself militarily, announced that the U.S. military must leave next month. Perhaps there is reason to believe Iraq has already quietly acceded as vassal to Iran. Hurray democracy!
A winning beauty queen was denied the crown because she declares belief in the exclusive nature of heterosexual marriage. On the . . . sacred . . . all knowing eye no less! On TV! What hate speak! Oh the outrage!
Obama’s promise to track down “every dime” of the stimulus money(he read this very slowly and dramatically on his teleprompter). The stimulus passed through both congress and senate houses without being read, now Obama says the ‘tracking’ will be “delayed” until 2010 . . . very conveniently I might add, after the congressional elections and he knowing full well, that at least 350 billion dollars of this money is . . .
unaccounted . . . for!
Well, I’m sure we’ll just find it laying around somewhere in a lost and found . . . maybe in a purse . . . nope, too small . . . maybe in a 1,000 foot freighter off of the Somali shore perhaps? Who knows? I’ll help them find it. Is there a finders fee?
Obama refuses to give a speech next to the symbols of Christ at Georgetown University and orders them covered with black painted plywood. If Pilot could say “I find no fault with this man” who the hell are you?
I did say hell didn’t I !?
Well then, would the Pope please throw some holy water on this guy so we can see if he bursts into flames! Just a drop or two would be fine I’m sure.
Arlen Spectre defects to the Democratic party and Jeb Bush tells the Republican Party to move left . . .
Look you knuckle head! You traitorous, Bush, you!
And I’m screaming this loud enough for you to hear all the way from Utah to Florida :
THERE IS NO MORE “LEFT!” IT’S GONE! . . . DONE! . . . THIS FREEWAY OVERPASS RAN OUT OF FUNDING! IT MUST BE GONE . . . BECAUSE . . . I CANT VOMIT ANYMORE!
I am a conservative . . . now . . . under the ‘new speak rules’, of the ever Obama worshipping media, the word has been changed to . . .
“extremist”.
Let’s have a moment of silence, for the sinking of yet another perfectly fine English word, c-o-n-s-e-r-v-a-t-i-v-e, while we watch it slip into the mold ridden pudding which is . . . the PC American lexicon . . . joining all the other lost words like gay, black and terrorism . . .
I said, “pudding” didn’t I? . . . I’m really sorry Mr. Cosby, since it seemed a bit excessive to use another less palliative substance as my metaphor, ‘pudding’ has fallen prey to my rhetoric. Here, light another candle!
It is a quiet day somewhere on a desert isle. Somewhere I am sure natives are gathering thatch for their huts, children are catching pollywogs in a jar and new grass is emerging vibrant and green from the spring thaw.
But I don’t see those things.
Today, all that seems to be available to my eyes is the endless manipulations of the media, things like the afore mentioned silly . . which is our new actuality, our new abyss of madness.
Speaking of manipulation . . .
On a more personal note, I have been looking for some of these good home real estate buys the banks have been listing from the 20 million or so now vacant.
I need to move soon, as employment for me here is uncertain in the near future.
In my first visit to a shaggy weed strewn 3 acre stucco mission style house in southern California, I find a new picture, unlike the one in the ad. Rain water has eroded a once well terraced yard. Everything not sage is dead and dry. The patio pergola has been partially torn apart by migrant squatters (see, I didn’t say illegal Mexicans) and used for what looks like a cook fire. Discarded chicken bones and empty cans of beans are strewn everywhere. Adding to the debris is a mountain of used refrigerators, broken toilets, grass clippings, construction leftovers and a catalog of other items obviously intended to mark this once proud home as a new dump for all comers. It would take more money to repair this house than to build a new one.
So, from the realtor comes this history, shared by millions of other houses of similar fate:
The owners had to leave on a short sale and nobody buys it. The price sinks. Two years later the house is still empty but the bank does not want to sell at the listed price, but rather, samples the traffic in a battle of wills against the buyers market, refusing to sell at the list price. The banks do this much easier now than they could in times past, because federal ‘bail out’ money has infused bank balance sheets with fresh cash . . . from tax payers, and home buyers like you and me.
The banks (investors) need the listings to stay low, so that they can report their losses to the biggest insurance company in town, which is the federal government. The federal government isn’t done yet handing out money and the banks know it. All they have to do is call up the congressman they bought and he tells them everything. So just like a crack whore with 17 kids, you qualify, you sign up . . .
And you get the welfare.
Time to go buy some more Crack!
Mean while, these houses values crumble away from neglect.
Interesting way to “stimulate” our economy right?
I’m just done now . . . and . . . feeling rather depressed.
Thoughts of illegal substances cross my mind . . . but no . . .
I’ll take that desert island.
Milton
The consumer mind set seems only willing to regard time as a collection of popular events. And in a weird way, this is almost true, for being linear, time can be flooded with voyeuristic abandon and we soon become unable to see the sequence of anything else.
All that is required in my mind, to confirm with what magnificence we have been manipulated into delusion, is to remember and thereby juxtapose this world, with the one a mere 10 years ago.
Here in a brief review:
Conservative talk show host Michael Savage is banned from England (but not Jeremiah Wright).
The stock market has been surging upwards on the news that economic indicators such as April’s unemployment rates are “not as bad as predicted”. Basically, if your ship is sinking slower than you thought, perhaps there is time for another hand of poker.
Our financial system is becoming nationalized, as are auto-manufacturing giants, Chrysler and GM. Oh goody, the same people who right the tax codes are now going to make automobiles.
Let’s Invest money here!
Returning heroes from Afghanistan and Iraq are now under Napolitano’s careful scrutiny as potential “security risks”.
In counterpoint to this fact, we freed several Guantanamo prisoners with one now discovered to be in charge of Taliban military operations in Pakistan. Why let a good killer waste away in prison? Let them go, let them free . . . free I tell you! Praise Obama! . . . I mean Allah.
The urge to vomit, if not yet strong enough, will yet persevere. . .
One needs only to read on.
Air Force One, once the proud angel of protection for our nations highest officer, recently terrified thousands of New Yorkers by its low level passes for a “photo opportunity”. The white house, nevertheless, refuses to share these $300,000.00 photos with the nation who paid so dearly for them.
Obama was seen bowing to a Muslim Arabian Sheik. At least two hundred million of us actually saw this.
Nope. . . Now get this straight people! Obama was too tall . . . he did not a bow.
. . . It’s official, so there!
A witch hunt is underway to impeach the former president and arrest or disbar his personal counsel for allowing water boarding on terrorists, a rigor which the marine corps has also used to toughen its elite.
Bank of America and Citicorp mentioned casually that they need another 45 billion dollars this morning and both these banks stock rose at least 35 cents a share this morning.
We can’t sell enough Treasury bonds to cover our national debt anymore. China has pulled out but Berneke says we will pull out of the recession later this year . . . and “later this year” we will need to sell even more Treasury bonds. I don’t get the math.
Rahm Emanuel, always posing seriously with his index finger guarding his lips and Obama’s official fall guy, announced that the United States was not going to negotiate nuclear limits with Iran unless Israel gave up more of its territory to the Palestinians.
This is like telling your daughter you won’t chase away her rapist until she removes all her clothes.
100 days and only 265 to go! 630? 6,030? (there is a bill before both houses to repeal the 22cd amendment (term limits for the president)) Oh the “HOPE”! Oh the “Change”!
What a brave and insightful president we have! Such diplomacy and deliberated idiocy . . . and instant deniability too . . . because if it doesn’t fly with public opinion (what is our ‘public’ opinion anyway). . . he can chastise Rahm once again for his “misstatement”.
Iraq, timorously close to Iran and completely unprepared to defend itself militarily, announced that the U.S. military must leave next month. Perhaps there is reason to believe Iraq has already quietly acceded as vassal to Iran. Hurray democracy!
A winning beauty queen was denied the crown because she declares belief in the exclusive nature of heterosexual marriage. On the . . . sacred . . . all knowing eye no less! On TV! What hate speak! Oh the outrage!
Obama’s promise to track down “every dime” of the stimulus money(he read this very slowly and dramatically on his teleprompter). The stimulus passed through both congress and senate houses without being read, now Obama says the ‘tracking’ will be “delayed” until 2010 . . . very conveniently I might add, after the congressional elections and he knowing full well, that at least 350 billion dollars of this money is . . .
unaccounted . . . for!
Well, I’m sure we’ll just find it laying around somewhere in a lost and found . . . maybe in a purse . . . nope, too small . . . maybe in a 1,000 foot freighter off of the Somali shore perhaps? Who knows? I’ll help them find it. Is there a finders fee?
Obama refuses to give a speech next to the symbols of Christ at Georgetown University and orders them covered with black painted plywood. If Pilot could say “I find no fault with this man” who the hell are you?
I did say hell didn’t I !?
Well then, would the Pope please throw some holy water on this guy so we can see if he bursts into flames! Just a drop or two would be fine I’m sure.
Arlen Spectre defects to the Democratic party and Jeb Bush tells the Republican Party to move left . . .
Look you knuckle head! You traitorous, Bush, you!
And I’m screaming this loud enough for you to hear all the way from Utah to Florida :
THERE IS NO MORE “LEFT!” IT’S GONE! . . . DONE! . . . THIS FREEWAY OVERPASS RAN OUT OF FUNDING! IT MUST BE GONE . . . BECAUSE . . . I CANT VOMIT ANYMORE!
I am a conservative . . . now . . . under the ‘new speak rules’, of the ever Obama worshipping media, the word has been changed to . . .
“extremist”.
Let’s have a moment of silence, for the sinking of yet another perfectly fine English word, c-o-n-s-e-r-v-a-t-i-v-e, while we watch it slip into the mold ridden pudding which is . . . the PC American lexicon . . . joining all the other lost words like gay, black and terrorism . . .
I said, “pudding” didn’t I? . . . I’m really sorry Mr. Cosby, since it seemed a bit excessive to use another less palliative substance as my metaphor, ‘pudding’ has fallen prey to my rhetoric. Here, light another candle!
It is a quiet day somewhere on a desert isle. Somewhere I am sure natives are gathering thatch for their huts, children are catching pollywogs in a jar and new grass is emerging vibrant and green from the spring thaw.
But I don’t see those things.
Today, all that seems to be available to my eyes is the endless manipulations of the media, things like the afore mentioned silly . . which is our new actuality, our new abyss of madness.
Speaking of manipulation . . .
On a more personal note, I have been looking for some of these good home real estate buys the banks have been listing from the 20 million or so now vacant.
I need to move soon, as employment for me here is uncertain in the near future.
In my first visit to a shaggy weed strewn 3 acre stucco mission style house in southern California, I find a new picture, unlike the one in the ad. Rain water has eroded a once well terraced yard. Everything not sage is dead and dry. The patio pergola has been partially torn apart by migrant squatters (see, I didn’t say illegal Mexicans) and used for what looks like a cook fire. Discarded chicken bones and empty cans of beans are strewn everywhere. Adding to the debris is a mountain of used refrigerators, broken toilets, grass clippings, construction leftovers and a catalog of other items obviously intended to mark this once proud home as a new dump for all comers. It would take more money to repair this house than to build a new one.
So, from the realtor comes this history, shared by millions of other houses of similar fate:
The owners had to leave on a short sale and nobody buys it. The price sinks. Two years later the house is still empty but the bank does not want to sell at the listed price, but rather, samples the traffic in a battle of wills against the buyers market, refusing to sell at the list price. The banks do this much easier now than they could in times past, because federal ‘bail out’ money has infused bank balance sheets with fresh cash . . . from tax payers, and home buyers like you and me.
The banks (investors) need the listings to stay low, so that they can report their losses to the biggest insurance company in town, which is the federal government. The federal government isn’t done yet handing out money and the banks know it. All they have to do is call up the congressman they bought and he tells them everything. So just like a crack whore with 17 kids, you qualify, you sign up . . .
And you get the welfare.
Time to go buy some more Crack!
Mean while, these houses values crumble away from neglect.
Interesting way to “stimulate” our economy right?
I’m just done now . . . and . . . feeling rather depressed.
Thoughts of illegal substances cross my mind . . . but no . . .
I’ll take that desert island.
Milton
Monday, April 20, 2009
Where is Elijah When you Need Him?
If I could be a Jew I would proudly declare it. But since I am a Christian who considers himself ‘grafted’ onto the olive tree, let me proudly declare, that the nation of Israel is part of the miracle of Prophecy and that the ‘millstone’ promised to its enemies is one Prophecy the United States should not try to ignore. That Christ wept over Jerusalem should not escape this ‘Judeo-Christian’ nation.
For the rest of you in the United States, who are not proud Jews or Christians, I hope you are at least willing to admit to the vast wealth of institutions founded on Judeo-Christian principles, and for which this nation has been blessed. Our laws, arts and charities abound from these blessings. God has never been so estranged in this nation, nor from the world, as He is now.
The United States seems more and more confused as to its sense of direction, its purpose for being and its identity. Can it be any surprise that its newest president is likewise confused?
I can’t think of any traitor in history who was not confused. In fact, Balaam, Hezekiah, Judas, Barbara Streisand, George Soros and Rahm Emanuel all seem to share a common character trait. They all have exhibited a treacherous indifference to the common welfare of their race. They are all morally confused and ambiguous regarding their loyalties.
Balaam tried three times to curse the new nation of Israel at the behest of a rival king. Hezekiah tried to buy his security from the Assyrians by wrongly assuming that bragging about Israel’s riches and offering them a high tribute would assuage them from a military invasion. Judas turned Jesus over to the Romans by identifying him with a kiss. Some historical scholars think the thirty pieces of Silver was a sign of the treacherous contempt as well, because it was then only the going price for a slave, not the price for someone like Jesus.
Barbara Streisand repudiates nearly every Jewish settlement as an affront to ‘world peace’. George Soros is by his own admission a Nazi war criminal who helped capture his Jewish Neighbors and kept some of their belongings in payment. And now, Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff, and apparently a stand-in for Hillary as head of the State Department, is assailing Israel with a poorly calculated assertion that, “In the next four years, there will be a peace agreement with the Palestinians on the basis of two states for two peoples, and it does not matter to us who is the prime minister.”
Personally I am not surprised to hear this. The calculations of cause and effect, which comprise history, do not afford many exceptions for the results of treachery, either to one's race, one's family or one's faith. It seems today as always, Jews are as much confused about their degrees of loyalty to their heritage as they are about God. Perhaps this is the root of their dilemma. It has been an expensive task for the nation of Israel to keep its own times and customs, but it has always been of benefit to the World.
That nation which has been blessed by another nation, must always be abundant with reciprocity. This is the true spirit of Peace. This is how successful civilization progresses. History provides no model of Peace whereby the sponsor has benefited by the weakening itself before a proven enemy. There are no guarantees from any Palestinian entity in this century, which have been honored long enough to be considered genuine. Israel is still daily under rocket and mortar attacks from the territories it “gave up” for peace.
Israeli outrage at Rahm’s comments is justified. His own father was intensely involved in preserving the Jewish State, and now his son could not be more indifferent. After all, being a 'token Jew' in the Obama white house and a big shot spokesman who can sample canards of pithy threats at the Jewish government, has its advantages.
Obama has a demonstrated penchant for disavowing the words of his supporters when necessary. He enjoys a nearly complete mastery of deniability and can thus test the waters with the toe of Rahm Emanuel without even the slightest tickle of accountability regarding his ‘true’ regard for Israel.
I expect that if this statement reaches some three million viewers on the Fox Network, Obama will have a teleprompted response within twenty-four hours, (or however long it takes his staff of three hundred or so to agree on the same verbiage), declaring the longstanding relationship with Israel and with the same smile he recently gave to Chavez, remind everyone his efforts are for Peace.
Cut to back light, show profile, swivel to the right . . exit with shoulders straight and head high . . . It will be a trademark execution of Obama political rhetoric and a performance we will all have to get used to over and over again, for the next few years of his term.
Don’t be fooled by Rahm's statement. The White house does care who is the Israeli prime minister. Ehud Olmert has proven to be an abysmally week leader, (and thus more useful to Obama), and has allowed so much terrorist activity to go unchecked for so long, one can easily imagine him agreeing to a ‘two state’ solution.
“Thank you Jimmy Carter,” for writing the Obama approved mid-east play book, and also for your newest book, reminding us all how well you dealt with the 'problem' of Israel.
NOT
Benjamin Netanyahu on the other hand will not roll over so easily. In fact, he is publicly announcing that he intends to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, and Israel’s airforce will need to fly and refuel over Iraq to accomplish this.
The United States has a substantial military presence in Iraq.
Can a confused president who attacks republicans with more conviction than he does this nation’s harshest adversaries, really be counted on to not bungle this opportunity to ‘let’ Israel accomplish what will buy the United States and even the world, more time to hold back a despotic and insane terrorist regime from using nuclear weapons?
I doubt it. Obama is more likely to bow, and bow low. If the symbols of Christ are to be covered for the sake of Islam in Georgetown University, if he accidentally refers to his Muslim faith, if he must publicly announce, without qualification, that the United States is not a Christian or Jewish nation, how will he ever defend Israel?
He won’t.
Milton
For the rest of you in the United States, who are not proud Jews or Christians, I hope you are at least willing to admit to the vast wealth of institutions founded on Judeo-Christian principles, and for which this nation has been blessed. Our laws, arts and charities abound from these blessings. God has never been so estranged in this nation, nor from the world, as He is now.
The United States seems more and more confused as to its sense of direction, its purpose for being and its identity. Can it be any surprise that its newest president is likewise confused?
I can’t think of any traitor in history who was not confused. In fact, Balaam, Hezekiah, Judas, Barbara Streisand, George Soros and Rahm Emanuel all seem to share a common character trait. They all have exhibited a treacherous indifference to the common welfare of their race. They are all morally confused and ambiguous regarding their loyalties.
Balaam tried three times to curse the new nation of Israel at the behest of a rival king. Hezekiah tried to buy his security from the Assyrians by wrongly assuming that bragging about Israel’s riches and offering them a high tribute would assuage them from a military invasion. Judas turned Jesus over to the Romans by identifying him with a kiss. Some historical scholars think the thirty pieces of Silver was a sign of the treacherous contempt as well, because it was then only the going price for a slave, not the price for someone like Jesus.
Barbara Streisand repudiates nearly every Jewish settlement as an affront to ‘world peace’. George Soros is by his own admission a Nazi war criminal who helped capture his Jewish Neighbors and kept some of their belongings in payment. And now, Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff, and apparently a stand-in for Hillary as head of the State Department, is assailing Israel with a poorly calculated assertion that, “In the next four years, there will be a peace agreement with the Palestinians on the basis of two states for two peoples, and it does not matter to us who is the prime minister.”
Personally I am not surprised to hear this. The calculations of cause and effect, which comprise history, do not afford many exceptions for the results of treachery, either to one's race, one's family or one's faith. It seems today as always, Jews are as much confused about their degrees of loyalty to their heritage as they are about God. Perhaps this is the root of their dilemma. It has been an expensive task for the nation of Israel to keep its own times and customs, but it has always been of benefit to the World.
That nation which has been blessed by another nation, must always be abundant with reciprocity. This is the true spirit of Peace. This is how successful civilization progresses. History provides no model of Peace whereby the sponsor has benefited by the weakening itself before a proven enemy. There are no guarantees from any Palestinian entity in this century, which have been honored long enough to be considered genuine. Israel is still daily under rocket and mortar attacks from the territories it “gave up” for peace.
Israeli outrage at Rahm’s comments is justified. His own father was intensely involved in preserving the Jewish State, and now his son could not be more indifferent. After all, being a 'token Jew' in the Obama white house and a big shot spokesman who can sample canards of pithy threats at the Jewish government, has its advantages.
Obama has a demonstrated penchant for disavowing the words of his supporters when necessary. He enjoys a nearly complete mastery of deniability and can thus test the waters with the toe of Rahm Emanuel without even the slightest tickle of accountability regarding his ‘true’ regard for Israel.
I expect that if this statement reaches some three million viewers on the Fox Network, Obama will have a teleprompted response within twenty-four hours, (or however long it takes his staff of three hundred or so to agree on the same verbiage), declaring the longstanding relationship with Israel and with the same smile he recently gave to Chavez, remind everyone his efforts are for Peace.
Cut to back light, show profile, swivel to the right . . exit with shoulders straight and head high . . . It will be a trademark execution of Obama political rhetoric and a performance we will all have to get used to over and over again, for the next few years of his term.
Don’t be fooled by Rahm's statement. The White house does care who is the Israeli prime minister. Ehud Olmert has proven to be an abysmally week leader, (and thus more useful to Obama), and has allowed so much terrorist activity to go unchecked for so long, one can easily imagine him agreeing to a ‘two state’ solution.
“Thank you Jimmy Carter,” for writing the Obama approved mid-east play book, and also for your newest book, reminding us all how well you dealt with the 'problem' of Israel.
NOT
Benjamin Netanyahu on the other hand will not roll over so easily. In fact, he is publicly announcing that he intends to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, and Israel’s airforce will need to fly and refuel over Iraq to accomplish this.
The United States has a substantial military presence in Iraq.
Can a confused president who attacks republicans with more conviction than he does this nation’s harshest adversaries, really be counted on to not bungle this opportunity to ‘let’ Israel accomplish what will buy the United States and even the world, more time to hold back a despotic and insane terrorist regime from using nuclear weapons?
I doubt it. Obama is more likely to bow, and bow low. If the symbols of Christ are to be covered for the sake of Islam in Georgetown University, if he accidentally refers to his Muslim faith, if he must publicly announce, without qualification, that the United States is not a Christian or Jewish nation, how will he ever defend Israel?
He won’t.
Milton
Saturday, April 4, 2009
The Four - Legged Bullet
This just in from the memory department:
I’m in a four-wheel drive International Scout with two other people on a wildlife excursion into Denali National Park, Alaska. The road is unpaved yet maintained yearly with freshly graded gravel by a gold mine, which shared it with the park.
Since dawn there had been few sightings and we were already arguing about stopping for lunch. We stopped at a turnout near the edge of one the great mountain’s branches. Below lay the flattened expanse of a graveled shallow river, which was basically fed all summer by a melting glacier a few miles above us.
It was an opportune chance to get out, stretch and to squint through our binoculars on a more steady footing. The driver spotted a small dot about three miles below us that appeared to be moving across the plain below. Sure enough, as I focused upon it, an image resolved of a grizzly bear walking in our general direction.
It was impossible to get a perspective as to size and speed. Every reference object was either a random stone in the river’s wash or a small patch of tundra. It seemed like in only a minute or so that the bear’s size had doubled and he had already glided across the ribbons of glacial runoff. He was now poised at the edge of our promontory and disappeared about a quarter of a mile below us.
I suddenly had the urge to get closer to the Scout and used the excuse of gaining a higher vantage on the roof. The Grizzly was only a few hundred yards below us when it had last been seen seconds before, bursting through some brush into a brief clearing. I opened the doors to the Scout and startled everyone with a warning that we might be too close. Checking the wind direction, I had hoped we were downwind from where the Grizzly seemed to be heading.
Suddenly the sound of branches crashing and stones tumbling announced the entrance of our ‘wildlife’ subject. He seemed to be very busy and intent on getting somewhere the entire time we had observed him, yet now, as he emerged onto the roadway, I was stunned to see this monster stand up on his hind legs to a height of at least ten feet. He paused and panned the air with a rather articulated snout, flaring it like a rodeo horse and snorting a few brief puffs of air.
The feeling of hunger in my stomach quickly disappeared, to be replaced by a slight nausea. I was relieved as this beast retracted again and bounded up to a nearby outcropping of scattered rocks and bare dirt. “What was this bear doing?” I puzzled.
The answer soon became apparent. The bear was what I guessed to be at least 1,500 pounds, and slavishly devoted to its nose. He followed it rapidly to a small hole under one of the outcroppings rocks and he stood up on his hind legs with both front paws raised to the sky. Quite like a blacksmith at the forge, he slammed those paws down above the hole and a fat squirrel emerged quickly between his legs in a state of alarm. It was not to be a good day for the squirrel. The articulation and speed of this once misunderstood animal was far faster than I could have imagined. Seconds later the squirrel had been shaken and swallowed, only to be followed in like fashion by five others.
This event happened a mere fifty yards from where we stood. To say that any of us had time to exit the vicinity before this mighty Grizzly could have reached us was myth. No driver in the Indy 500 could have exited from the pits in enough time to escape from being this guy’s lunch.
The wind and our luck were in our favor.
I would live to tell this story again and again to my family and friends.
How wonderful not to be eaten alive!
Milton
I’m in a four-wheel drive International Scout with two other people on a wildlife excursion into Denali National Park, Alaska. The road is unpaved yet maintained yearly with freshly graded gravel by a gold mine, which shared it with the park.
Since dawn there had been few sightings and we were already arguing about stopping for lunch. We stopped at a turnout near the edge of one the great mountain’s branches. Below lay the flattened expanse of a graveled shallow river, which was basically fed all summer by a melting glacier a few miles above us.
It was an opportune chance to get out, stretch and to squint through our binoculars on a more steady footing. The driver spotted a small dot about three miles below us that appeared to be moving across the plain below. Sure enough, as I focused upon it, an image resolved of a grizzly bear walking in our general direction.
It was impossible to get a perspective as to size and speed. Every reference object was either a random stone in the river’s wash or a small patch of tundra. It seemed like in only a minute or so that the bear’s size had doubled and he had already glided across the ribbons of glacial runoff. He was now poised at the edge of our promontory and disappeared about a quarter of a mile below us.
I suddenly had the urge to get closer to the Scout and used the excuse of gaining a higher vantage on the roof. The Grizzly was only a few hundred yards below us when it had last been seen seconds before, bursting through some brush into a brief clearing. I opened the doors to the Scout and startled everyone with a warning that we might be too close. Checking the wind direction, I had hoped we were downwind from where the Grizzly seemed to be heading.
Suddenly the sound of branches crashing and stones tumbling announced the entrance of our ‘wildlife’ subject. He seemed to be very busy and intent on getting somewhere the entire time we had observed him, yet now, as he emerged onto the roadway, I was stunned to see this monster stand up on his hind legs to a height of at least ten feet. He paused and panned the air with a rather articulated snout, flaring it like a rodeo horse and snorting a few brief puffs of air.
The feeling of hunger in my stomach quickly disappeared, to be replaced by a slight nausea. I was relieved as this beast retracted again and bounded up to a nearby outcropping of scattered rocks and bare dirt. “What was this bear doing?” I puzzled.
The answer soon became apparent. The bear was what I guessed to be at least 1,500 pounds, and slavishly devoted to its nose. He followed it rapidly to a small hole under one of the outcroppings rocks and he stood up on his hind legs with both front paws raised to the sky. Quite like a blacksmith at the forge, he slammed those paws down above the hole and a fat squirrel emerged quickly between his legs in a state of alarm. It was not to be a good day for the squirrel. The articulation and speed of this once misunderstood animal was far faster than I could have imagined. Seconds later the squirrel had been shaken and swallowed, only to be followed in like fashion by five others.
This event happened a mere fifty yards from where we stood. To say that any of us had time to exit the vicinity before this mighty Grizzly could have reached us was myth. No driver in the Indy 500 could have exited from the pits in enough time to escape from being this guy’s lunch.
The wind and our luck were in our favor.
I would live to tell this story again and again to my family and friends.
How wonderful not to be eaten alive!
Milton
More That I Don’t Understand
I puzzle every day about things that don’t add up. I actually enjoy a world with lots of question marks in it, but I think that’s mainly because I like the human process of discovery.
To size up a political candidate’s thinking process accurately, it is best to have some information about his past before he ran for office. Obama has an obscure past, but now that the sanctioned candidate has gone on record, we are more likely to hear the demographically designed media mind mangling which is familiar to the seasoned observer.
Yes, I believe this is what one euphemistically refers to as ‘spin’.
Unemployment, foreclosures, business failures and essentially all the leading indicators one associates with a bear market, seem strangely disconnected as the stock market is bounding upwards today on a supply of optimism I do not share. Nevertheless, I hope wall street knows something substantially factual about the general state of our economy that all this is based on. I would prefer now to be wrong. We need a very long rally.
I render to the reader my own opinions as to the new drivers in the world of stocks and bonds:
There are enough new dollars suddenly appearing in the world economy to threaten a few hectares of forest. Ah, but this is incorrect really, as cotton and linen comprise the bulk of our currency, so I guess the trees are still safe.
Also, The Fed is buying our own treasury bonds to “shore up confidence” in our national debt. This has pushed down yields and made more than a few economists add a few ropes to their furrowed brows. Still, China, though making noise about abandoning the dollar, appears to be cautiously studying us in a manner that reminds me of a past neighbor boy who used to time how long mice could hold their breath under a bucket of water before drowning (he must have realized early in his demented ten-year-old life, that mice emit carbon dioxide). There is here in symbol if not from economic history, a recognized time lag before collateral consequences set in. I personally hold no records for holding my breath, but I do believe that for some speculators, the contrived rule that we are ‘too big’ to fail, is encouraging some of the new buying.
In the energy sector, evil oil and evil coal are going to be produced less in the United States. Obama’s new interior secretary feverishly shut down dozens of new oil leases and Obama certainly made no secret of his desire to “bankrupt” the coal industry, primarily with the use of another contrivance of this century, the carbon emissions penalty. Never mind that a ton of coal only costs about four dollars (roughly 150 times cheaper than diesel) that we are in a century long record breaking solar minimum and also currently experiencing a ten year decline in world temperatures. Global warming still remains a liberal article of faith for Obama. Humans, of whom we are told number way too many, have supposedly caused global warming with all of our unnecessary wanton good living. Shame on us! Obviously, if Obama is going to create a shortage in fossil fuels, then of course, energy stocks are going to go up . . . even though vacations will go down.
What if we have global cooling next? How will this be our fault too?
So we have a less guilt-ridden alternative right? Obama has a “renewable energy plan”? The only thing really standing of record is a 17 billion dollar tax incentive. If America threw 200 billion dollars in hard cash into windmills and solar farms, we might add 3% to our energy needs . . . after about ten years of intensive effort. But perhaps with government-assisted partial birth abortion and legalized euthanasia, I am sure we can cut down on our need for more power in the Obama future.
Fiat, an Italian automaker which specializes in particularly claustrophobic transportation devices, was shrewdly turned down by GM on February 13, with a 2 billion dollar buyout, a survival strategy designed to prevent a contractual merger which probably would have driven American stock holders away in disgust. Fiat, which coincidentally has been loosing about 2 billion dollars a year since 2000, has longstanding and parasitic leftist labor contracts that make the UAW contracts look downright accommodating. Now it appears, that Chrysler is being strong-armed by the Obama team to buy Fiat
. . . or else! Or else what?
Nobody seems to really know why the American Taxpayer has to pay for Fiat’s bail out too. I can only guess at Obama’s reasoning. Perhaps he believes he can force teeny-weeny cars into the American market place after the price of gasoline hits twelve dollars a gallon. Perhaps we need to double the fatal auto accident rate in these cute little death traps, so mommy earth will not have to support as many human life forms. Perhaps we all just need to rethink our commitment to the good life, settle down and buy more stock in our demise. What this all seems to add up to is this:
We need to die.
As most people know by now, weak banks are being fed bailout cash like cotton candy at the fair, while stronger more responsible banks are carrying their own lunch. Of course, in addition to the bailout money come the strings. Bonus money is now taboo and the best executive talents these banks had are being tossed ceremoniously onto the public pyre. Why Wall Street is now eager to replace these executive managers, with government-appointed gnomes, who may have previously had careers at the DMV or IRS, is a mystery to me.
Again, I just don’t know. The last time I was at the IRS, I left counting my fingers, just to make sure they were still there. The last time I was at the DMV, I got the wrong form and had to stand in the same line twice. Take a number folks, its time for nationalized banking.
How do you buy a toxic asset and make it go away, anyway? The last time I bought a gallon of sour milk, I was still short two bucks and I still had to throw it away.
Well, we still have some manufacturing left in this country right? The future of manufacturing in America looks promising right? You should hear the ‘American’ businessmen I deal with, who often contemptuously scoff at bidding even the smallest iota away from cheap Chinese manufacturing.
But let’s be fair. In the United States, manufacturing is taxed on capital gains, high environmental permit fees and enough red tape to fell King Kong – and easily discourage manufacturing in general. But, couple this fact, that many of these business taxes, including our personal income taxes, support a world wide defense umbrella for which America is significantly encumbered. We are thus relieving the commensurate amount of capital from competing nations who would otherwise pay well for their own defense (Japan and South Korea to name a few).
There’s a nearly-dead city called Detroit and there’s a thriving city in Washington D.C. Hear this “tale of two cities.” Washington D.C. has produced more business for Japan, Germany, France and England during the past 20 years than it ever did for American Auto manufacturers. True, democrats do have a love affair with the UAW voting block, and have helped ensure its deteriorating competitiveness with its usual politically incestuous arrangements, but damn it, Americans have an obligation in this country to buy the best automobiles at the best price, even when foreign companies like ‘Fiat’ are heavily subsidized by their governments. How, for instance, does a powerhouse like Boeing Aircraft lose a bidding war for the new airforce refueling tanker? Airbus, a German aircraft manufacturer, pays for inside information from an American congressmen, and then it nudges the German government to subsidize its shortfall. No surprise then, when Airbus wins the contract.
America, Boeing . . . you lose.
The M1A2 main battle tank, arguably the finest death machine in its class, is produced in America right? Well, some of it is. It’s Allison Turbine power house is made in France, it’s radio and fire control electronics are full of Japanese parts and a NATO treaty contract keeps this weapon in tow for years to come with foreign business.
By the way, what part of NATO comes to our aid if we are under attack?
We used to dominate the steel industry, textiles, lumber, refining, chemicals and a long list of bedrock concerns, now lost to countries like Japan, China, Canada and even India. Many times foreign countries can obtain leases for extracting American resources easier than we can, and if they can’t, they may even tap an oil well anyway, like China recently did 60 miles off shore from Florida.
“I drink your milk shake,” is true.
We still sit on mountains of ore, coal, lakes of oil, idle farmlands, which are the envy of the world and we invented many of the chemical processes now used around the world.
Thousands of German chemists came to America over half a century ago because the rewards of American industry beckoned them. The Chemist, with whom I share both passion and profession, used to belong to an esteemed science. The word ‘chemical’ now seems to sit in the American lexicon next to Mafia and Cancer. This is unfortunate, both for Americans who send good paying jobs overseas and for validating the American myth making media machine.
We still make delicious hamburgers and good houses in the United States. Unfortunately, according to most experts, we make too many of both. It’s as if Americans want to be productive. Its as if Americans need to make stuff as a byproduct of its essential character. Many Americans still have this old habit of striving to be the best. It’s as if the American dream wants to come back. Perhaps the stock market wants America to come back so badly, it is now fueled primarily . . .
. . . By this want.
Milton
To size up a political candidate’s thinking process accurately, it is best to have some information about his past before he ran for office. Obama has an obscure past, but now that the sanctioned candidate has gone on record, we are more likely to hear the demographically designed media mind mangling which is familiar to the seasoned observer.
Yes, I believe this is what one euphemistically refers to as ‘spin’.
Unemployment, foreclosures, business failures and essentially all the leading indicators one associates with a bear market, seem strangely disconnected as the stock market is bounding upwards today on a supply of optimism I do not share. Nevertheless, I hope wall street knows something substantially factual about the general state of our economy that all this is based on. I would prefer now to be wrong. We need a very long rally.
I render to the reader my own opinions as to the new drivers in the world of stocks and bonds:
There are enough new dollars suddenly appearing in the world economy to threaten a few hectares of forest. Ah, but this is incorrect really, as cotton and linen comprise the bulk of our currency, so I guess the trees are still safe.
Also, The Fed is buying our own treasury bonds to “shore up confidence” in our national debt. This has pushed down yields and made more than a few economists add a few ropes to their furrowed brows. Still, China, though making noise about abandoning the dollar, appears to be cautiously studying us in a manner that reminds me of a past neighbor boy who used to time how long mice could hold their breath under a bucket of water before drowning (he must have realized early in his demented ten-year-old life, that mice emit carbon dioxide). There is here in symbol if not from economic history, a recognized time lag before collateral consequences set in. I personally hold no records for holding my breath, but I do believe that for some speculators, the contrived rule that we are ‘too big’ to fail, is encouraging some of the new buying.
In the energy sector, evil oil and evil coal are going to be produced less in the United States. Obama’s new interior secretary feverishly shut down dozens of new oil leases and Obama certainly made no secret of his desire to “bankrupt” the coal industry, primarily with the use of another contrivance of this century, the carbon emissions penalty. Never mind that a ton of coal only costs about four dollars (roughly 150 times cheaper than diesel) that we are in a century long record breaking solar minimum and also currently experiencing a ten year decline in world temperatures. Global warming still remains a liberal article of faith for Obama. Humans, of whom we are told number way too many, have supposedly caused global warming with all of our unnecessary wanton good living. Shame on us! Obviously, if Obama is going to create a shortage in fossil fuels, then of course, energy stocks are going to go up . . . even though vacations will go down.
What if we have global cooling next? How will this be our fault too?
So we have a less guilt-ridden alternative right? Obama has a “renewable energy plan”? The only thing really standing of record is a 17 billion dollar tax incentive. If America threw 200 billion dollars in hard cash into windmills and solar farms, we might add 3% to our energy needs . . . after about ten years of intensive effort. But perhaps with government-assisted partial birth abortion and legalized euthanasia, I am sure we can cut down on our need for more power in the Obama future.
Fiat, an Italian automaker which specializes in particularly claustrophobic transportation devices, was shrewdly turned down by GM on February 13, with a 2 billion dollar buyout, a survival strategy designed to prevent a contractual merger which probably would have driven American stock holders away in disgust. Fiat, which coincidentally has been loosing about 2 billion dollars a year since 2000, has longstanding and parasitic leftist labor contracts that make the UAW contracts look downright accommodating. Now it appears, that Chrysler is being strong-armed by the Obama team to buy Fiat
. . . or else! Or else what?
Nobody seems to really know why the American Taxpayer has to pay for Fiat’s bail out too. I can only guess at Obama’s reasoning. Perhaps he believes he can force teeny-weeny cars into the American market place after the price of gasoline hits twelve dollars a gallon. Perhaps we need to double the fatal auto accident rate in these cute little death traps, so mommy earth will not have to support as many human life forms. Perhaps we all just need to rethink our commitment to the good life, settle down and buy more stock in our demise. What this all seems to add up to is this:
We need to die.
As most people know by now, weak banks are being fed bailout cash like cotton candy at the fair, while stronger more responsible banks are carrying their own lunch. Of course, in addition to the bailout money come the strings. Bonus money is now taboo and the best executive talents these banks had are being tossed ceremoniously onto the public pyre. Why Wall Street is now eager to replace these executive managers, with government-appointed gnomes, who may have previously had careers at the DMV or IRS, is a mystery to me.
Again, I just don’t know. The last time I was at the IRS, I left counting my fingers, just to make sure they were still there. The last time I was at the DMV, I got the wrong form and had to stand in the same line twice. Take a number folks, its time for nationalized banking.
How do you buy a toxic asset and make it go away, anyway? The last time I bought a gallon of sour milk, I was still short two bucks and I still had to throw it away.
Well, we still have some manufacturing left in this country right? The future of manufacturing in America looks promising right? You should hear the ‘American’ businessmen I deal with, who often contemptuously scoff at bidding even the smallest iota away from cheap Chinese manufacturing.
But let’s be fair. In the United States, manufacturing is taxed on capital gains, high environmental permit fees and enough red tape to fell King Kong – and easily discourage manufacturing in general. But, couple this fact, that many of these business taxes, including our personal income taxes, support a world wide defense umbrella for which America is significantly encumbered. We are thus relieving the commensurate amount of capital from competing nations who would otherwise pay well for their own defense (Japan and South Korea to name a few).
There’s a nearly-dead city called Detroit and there’s a thriving city in Washington D.C. Hear this “tale of two cities.” Washington D.C. has produced more business for Japan, Germany, France and England during the past 20 years than it ever did for American Auto manufacturers. True, democrats do have a love affair with the UAW voting block, and have helped ensure its deteriorating competitiveness with its usual politically incestuous arrangements, but damn it, Americans have an obligation in this country to buy the best automobiles at the best price, even when foreign companies like ‘Fiat’ are heavily subsidized by their governments. How, for instance, does a powerhouse like Boeing Aircraft lose a bidding war for the new airforce refueling tanker? Airbus, a German aircraft manufacturer, pays for inside information from an American congressmen, and then it nudges the German government to subsidize its shortfall. No surprise then, when Airbus wins the contract.
America, Boeing . . . you lose.
The M1A2 main battle tank, arguably the finest death machine in its class, is produced in America right? Well, some of it is. It’s Allison Turbine power house is made in France, it’s radio and fire control electronics are full of Japanese parts and a NATO treaty contract keeps this weapon in tow for years to come with foreign business.
By the way, what part of NATO comes to our aid if we are under attack?
We used to dominate the steel industry, textiles, lumber, refining, chemicals and a long list of bedrock concerns, now lost to countries like Japan, China, Canada and even India. Many times foreign countries can obtain leases for extracting American resources easier than we can, and if they can’t, they may even tap an oil well anyway, like China recently did 60 miles off shore from Florida.
“I drink your milk shake,” is true.
We still sit on mountains of ore, coal, lakes of oil, idle farmlands, which are the envy of the world and we invented many of the chemical processes now used around the world.
Thousands of German chemists came to America over half a century ago because the rewards of American industry beckoned them. The Chemist, with whom I share both passion and profession, used to belong to an esteemed science. The word ‘chemical’ now seems to sit in the American lexicon next to Mafia and Cancer. This is unfortunate, both for Americans who send good paying jobs overseas and for validating the American myth making media machine.
We still make delicious hamburgers and good houses in the United States. Unfortunately, according to most experts, we make too many of both. It’s as if Americans want to be productive. Its as if Americans need to make stuff as a byproduct of its essential character. Many Americans still have this old habit of striving to be the best. It’s as if the American dream wants to come back. Perhaps the stock market wants America to come back so badly, it is now fueled primarily . . .
. . . By this want.
Milton
Thursday, March 19, 2009
The Devil's Doxology
I used to sing it as the pastor and deacons ascended the podium at church . . . the doxology to the Trinity . . .
Also now perhaps the refrain twisted in honor of the antichrist . . .
My mind trips again on this one too . . .
“Bless be the tie that binds, our hearts in” . . . @#^*!!@#@%*!?#@$#.
The hymn, familiar to Christians and anyone else who has been to more than 3 funerals in their lifetime, may have to do.
I can’t do outrage anymore. I can’t be dumfounded, flummoxed, amazed, amused or entertained either. These abilities have renounced communion with my soul forever and ever.
What does one say to the prospect of 11.6 Trillion Dollars in U.S. debt commitments, care of the American Taxpayer?
We are indeed bound now together.
As of Today, March 19, 2009 the inclusive list from the U.S. Federal Reserves published figures include:
Term Auction “Facility” $2.9 trillion
Economic Stimulus Act $168 billion
Bear Stearns Bail out $ 29 billion
Student Loan Guarantees $130 billion
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac $ 400 billion
FHA housing rescue $ 320 billion
Auto Industry $ 25 billion
TARP $700 billion
Money Market Guarantees $659 billion
CPF $1.4 trillion
Unemployment extensions $8 billion
Citigroup backstop $245 billion
TAS $1 trillion
GSE backed securities $500 billion
GSE debt purchases $100 billion
FDIC guarantees $1.5 trillion
B of A $97 billion
Credit Union deposit insurance $80 billion
CFCU $1 billion
ARRA (nobody read it) $787.2 billion
AIG (including Obama’s bonus) $182 billion
TOTAL $11.6 Trillion
Or . . .
Nearly $400,000.00 dollars collateralized against every man woman and child now living and probably as many more yet unborn in the United States of America.
I contemplate the width of a galaxy, the lifetime of the Universe . . . I invent silly new numbers like “a million jillion silly gills” . . . and I get no comic relief . . .
And yet, the stock market has rallied strongly for 6 straight days around the banking sector of the economy, which feed eagerly on such things as, news that housing starts were not as terrible as expected for February and a rumor that there might be a “mark to market” rule pending for future stock market transactions.
I know nothing.
I now have attained unto a perfect hum in my head.
It must be the background radiation coming from the cosmic big bang from Washington DC.
Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and Obama are furiously and simultaneously indignant . . . and participants in the AIG bonuses . . .
I see them as three giggling green monkeys lined up on my every windowsill, hands over their eyes, mouth and ears . . .
I might be losing one of my jobs . . . or my mind . . . both?
My six-year-old is racing down the street on his new bike. . .
“Lord save him” . . .
The clock at work seems to have stopped at 3:45 p.m. I’ve done over 8 hours, but I don’t even know what that means any more . . .
I am merely but a scintilla, a serf to more ‘audacity’ than the devil could ever have ‘hoped’ for . . . some catharsis is in order . . .
I’ll write a blog.
Milton
Also now perhaps the refrain twisted in honor of the antichrist . . .
My mind trips again on this one too . . .
“Bless be the tie that binds, our hearts in” . . . @#^*!!@#@%*!?#@$#.
The hymn, familiar to Christians and anyone else who has been to more than 3 funerals in their lifetime, may have to do.
I can’t do outrage anymore. I can’t be dumfounded, flummoxed, amazed, amused or entertained either. These abilities have renounced communion with my soul forever and ever.
What does one say to the prospect of 11.6 Trillion Dollars in U.S. debt commitments, care of the American Taxpayer?
We are indeed bound now together.
As of Today, March 19, 2009 the inclusive list from the U.S. Federal Reserves published figures include:
Term Auction “Facility” $2.9 trillion
Economic Stimulus Act $168 billion
Bear Stearns Bail out $ 29 billion
Student Loan Guarantees $130 billion
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac $ 400 billion
FHA housing rescue $ 320 billion
Auto Industry $ 25 billion
TARP $700 billion
Money Market Guarantees $659 billion
CPF $1.4 trillion
Unemployment extensions $8 billion
Citigroup backstop $245 billion
TAS $1 trillion
GSE backed securities $500 billion
GSE debt purchases $100 billion
FDIC guarantees $1.5 trillion
B of A $97 billion
Credit Union deposit insurance $80 billion
CFCU $1 billion
ARRA (nobody read it) $787.2 billion
AIG (including Obama’s bonus) $182 billion
TOTAL $11.6 Trillion
Or . . .
Nearly $400,000.00 dollars collateralized against every man woman and child now living and probably as many more yet unborn in the United States of America.
I contemplate the width of a galaxy, the lifetime of the Universe . . . I invent silly new numbers like “a million jillion silly gills” . . . and I get no comic relief . . .
And yet, the stock market has rallied strongly for 6 straight days around the banking sector of the economy, which feed eagerly on such things as, news that housing starts were not as terrible as expected for February and a rumor that there might be a “mark to market” rule pending for future stock market transactions.
I know nothing.
I now have attained unto a perfect hum in my head.
It must be the background radiation coming from the cosmic big bang from Washington DC.
Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and Obama are furiously and simultaneously indignant . . . and participants in the AIG bonuses . . .
I see them as three giggling green monkeys lined up on my every windowsill, hands over their eyes, mouth and ears . . .
I might be losing one of my jobs . . . or my mind . . . both?
My six-year-old is racing down the street on his new bike. . .
“Lord save him” . . .
The clock at work seems to have stopped at 3:45 p.m. I’ve done over 8 hours, but I don’t even know what that means any more . . .
I am merely but a scintilla, a serf to more ‘audacity’ than the devil could ever have ‘hoped’ for . . . some catharsis is in order . . .
I’ll write a blog.
Milton
Friday, March 6, 2009
Getting With The New Religion
So much of our economy is in a state of conflict, even when overall, it may be doing fine. For example: Stock holders in oil do well when the prices are going up, but stock holders in the airlines tend to do poorly when this happens. Stockholders in pharmaceuticals do well when there is a flu epidemic but my grandfather died from complications of the same. Ammunition manufacturers do well during a war but men who could have been teachers, entrepreneurs and fathers will die by the thousands. Carbon cap and trade seems to be an emerging new ‘market’ that will undoubtedly do better as our nations standard of living plummets.
People who are running to treasury bonds and gold as a safe haven in these times, will have to temper those judgments with the reminder that FDR once closed that door by confiscating gold and making it illegal to own. Treasury bond yields likewise, will have to rise to encourage further investors (this while the prime rate drops to zero) but our nations deficit, which is now bigger than all the nations deficits since George Washington took office all added together, may tumble our nation into insolvency this year. The entire nations economy may grind down into a barter system. This is a little bit of good news for farmers and mechanics, who will still be able to feed their families, if only from the back of their tail gate.
Cries for a world wide economic system are scaring the hell out of me too. America is a stand-alone powerhouse in waiting. It could, if the president would allow it to, unleash new technologies of abundant, cheep and clean energy, it still sleeps on vast mineral reserves and untapped scientific talent. It could, if our president would allow it too, outdo the entire world in producing quality products in a new age of untethered prosperity. But, As our new Obama appointed treasury secretary pointed out in a congressional address yesterday, carbon producing energy giants can no longer be afforded leases to produce from new found reserves and they cannot be given tax incentives for looking for new carbon based energy either. Carbon it seems, the essential stuff of life itself . . . is baaad!
Obama too, made it clear to Putin recently, after failing to interest him in a ‘deal’ to drop our missile defense shield if he would only promise to tame Iran’s nuclear ambitions, that we were going to eliminate the shield anyway. In my opinion, Putin won’t have anything to do with Obama because he is demonstrably so idiotic and inept that negotiations would be too boring.
Apparently, now that Democrats are soundly in power if not of mind, Hillary Clinton today admits to the very thing pundits like Rush Limbaugh have been saying for decades, that they should “never waste a good crisis”. Oxymoronic? . . . pathetically transparent? . . . gleefully willing to use human suffering to advance a socialist agenda?
The answer is yes, yes and yes.
But know, once again we are admonished by Obama apologists and his ardent worshipers alike, that we are not to take recent administration actions, claims and accelerated market deterioration into consideration . . . at least not until we have given Obama at least a whole year to prove himself with his ‘new’ policies. After all, everything he is now trying has been tried before in history with disastrous results, but it is unfair to America’s first ‘black’ president to render judgment just yet. I mean, just because ones clothing is on fire is no reason to drop and roll . . . wait a little longer and see if the pain subsides. Pelosi may need to commission a study on your charred third degree burns and get some opinions in a congressional hearing.
“Jesus Lord, save us I pray”.
Here’s the National Geographic version of things for you:
Washington chimps are running amok and eating our faces off, and Jane Goodall is scribbling madly in her note book . . . a new behavior has emerged today, my once placid and endearing little fellows are enjoying a new form of protein. local claims that chimpanzees can become unpredictably violent, may require further study under controlled conditions.
I digress . . . back to the here and now:
Hmmm . . . and health reform . . . reform is a good thing right? In the dictionary, reform means we make something bad get better. . .
Not if you’re a catholic hospital and the government mandates you must perform abortions to stay open and certainly not, if you need immediate bypass surgery for your heart to stay alive. But Obama asserts now, that the need for ‘health reform’ is also a major contributor to this nations deepening financial crisis. I get it now! Lower the salaries of life saving doctors and nurses and everything will get better right? Disease and suffering will be under . . . Obama control!
I can see Obama reciting from his teleprompter now . . . as if in a vision from CNBC . . . he sits in a yoga lotus position with his hands opened upward to heaven, as if doves will soon alight there and his eyes are closed in deep contemplation . . . alas . . . . . he speaks . . . sweet heaven has opened to us . . . hear his voice:
(slight echo on the mixing board please)
Rest my people; for I am here, I am your Obama, your savior and lord. You may worship me whenever you please. Your adoration is appreciated. You do honor me somewhat with your self-flagellation and your blood is very pretty, oh my deserving ones.
I promise . . . as surely as I am black . . . you will someday . . . someday soon, have biodegradable bandaids and a green tent . . . in my newwww Aahmarika. If it were not so, I would have told you . . . but the time is not yet . . . sometime after you re-elect me . . . or after your 4th abortion . . . it will come!
Peace be unto you Aahmarika.
Milton
People who are running to treasury bonds and gold as a safe haven in these times, will have to temper those judgments with the reminder that FDR once closed that door by confiscating gold and making it illegal to own. Treasury bond yields likewise, will have to rise to encourage further investors (this while the prime rate drops to zero) but our nations deficit, which is now bigger than all the nations deficits since George Washington took office all added together, may tumble our nation into insolvency this year. The entire nations economy may grind down into a barter system. This is a little bit of good news for farmers and mechanics, who will still be able to feed their families, if only from the back of their tail gate.
Cries for a world wide economic system are scaring the hell out of me too. America is a stand-alone powerhouse in waiting. It could, if the president would allow it to, unleash new technologies of abundant, cheep and clean energy, it still sleeps on vast mineral reserves and untapped scientific talent. It could, if our president would allow it too, outdo the entire world in producing quality products in a new age of untethered prosperity. But, As our new Obama appointed treasury secretary pointed out in a congressional address yesterday, carbon producing energy giants can no longer be afforded leases to produce from new found reserves and they cannot be given tax incentives for looking for new carbon based energy either. Carbon it seems, the essential stuff of life itself . . . is baaad!
Obama too, made it clear to Putin recently, after failing to interest him in a ‘deal’ to drop our missile defense shield if he would only promise to tame Iran’s nuclear ambitions, that we were going to eliminate the shield anyway. In my opinion, Putin won’t have anything to do with Obama because he is demonstrably so idiotic and inept that negotiations would be too boring.
Apparently, now that Democrats are soundly in power if not of mind, Hillary Clinton today admits to the very thing pundits like Rush Limbaugh have been saying for decades, that they should “never waste a good crisis”. Oxymoronic? . . . pathetically transparent? . . . gleefully willing to use human suffering to advance a socialist agenda?
The answer is yes, yes and yes.
But know, once again we are admonished by Obama apologists and his ardent worshipers alike, that we are not to take recent administration actions, claims and accelerated market deterioration into consideration . . . at least not until we have given Obama at least a whole year to prove himself with his ‘new’ policies. After all, everything he is now trying has been tried before in history with disastrous results, but it is unfair to America’s first ‘black’ president to render judgment just yet. I mean, just because ones clothing is on fire is no reason to drop and roll . . . wait a little longer and see if the pain subsides. Pelosi may need to commission a study on your charred third degree burns and get some opinions in a congressional hearing.
“Jesus Lord, save us I pray”.
Here’s the National Geographic version of things for you:
Washington chimps are running amok and eating our faces off, and Jane Goodall is scribbling madly in her note book . . . a new behavior has emerged today, my once placid and endearing little fellows are enjoying a new form of protein. local claims that chimpanzees can become unpredictably violent, may require further study under controlled conditions.
I digress . . . back to the here and now:
Hmmm . . . and health reform . . . reform is a good thing right? In the dictionary, reform means we make something bad get better. . .
Not if you’re a catholic hospital and the government mandates you must perform abortions to stay open and certainly not, if you need immediate bypass surgery for your heart to stay alive. But Obama asserts now, that the need for ‘health reform’ is also a major contributor to this nations deepening financial crisis. I get it now! Lower the salaries of life saving doctors and nurses and everything will get better right? Disease and suffering will be under . . . Obama control!
I can see Obama reciting from his teleprompter now . . . as if in a vision from CNBC . . . he sits in a yoga lotus position with his hands opened upward to heaven, as if doves will soon alight there and his eyes are closed in deep contemplation . . . alas . . . . . he speaks . . . sweet heaven has opened to us . . . hear his voice:
(slight echo on the mixing board please)
Rest my people; for I am here, I am your Obama, your savior and lord. You may worship me whenever you please. Your adoration is appreciated. You do honor me somewhat with your self-flagellation and your blood is very pretty, oh my deserving ones.
I promise . . . as surely as I am black . . . you will someday . . . someday soon, have biodegradable bandaids and a green tent . . . in my newwww Aahmarika. If it were not so, I would have told you . . . but the time is not yet . . . sometime after you re-elect me . . . or after your 4th abortion . . . it will come!
Peace be unto you Aahmarika.
Milton
Monday, February 16, 2009
The Madness of Being
Predominately in my blogs I will speak my mind about world events and the collective political scene. As a scientist I look for refuge in my own family microcosm. I feel it necessary as the resident scientist to maintain order and remind my family from time to time when insanity is creeping up on them. Of late I am confronted with my own . . . Well . . . strangeness.
To my eldest son Elvis, who is dating and in denial about dating at the same time, I merely remind him to be sure not to marry a sociopath. I did this once, to forever prove to the world that it is a bad idea! “Sociopaths are everywhere,” I tell him. They are like the mold spores that infect bread after the expiration date, you think you are eating a tuna sandwich and BAM! There’s this new weird thing going on between your taste buds and your gag reflex. And oh yes, be pure and wholesome at all times, I know its hard, but remember, your hormones are the constant adversary of the soul.
Freddy, caught precariously between childhood and a tank-like body like the HULK, understands only that he must be cool. He knows all the "rules," most of which I do not. Among the strangest rules? I note. Don’t walk with me at the mall and don’t make me wear my coat to school. The scientist says, “but son it’s only 15 degrees this morning. I was nearly buried alive last winter during that blizzard last year. Coats are good! Cold . . . BAD! Water, of which composes 75% of your body , freezes at a mere 32 degrees.” As of this date he is still alive.
The scientist does not understand what cool means. That it is not cool at 15 degrees? How cool is cool? Oh I get it! . . . this is a lingo, slang, semantic, teen thing right? In only five more years, I remind myself, his brains frontal lobe will be fully developed.
Then there is Hans. Hans is six years old. When I was five, I was already a scientist. One of my first and most persistent exploits into empirical data, was to take one of my mothers bobby pins and try to race the electrons in the wall outlets around the house. I was sure I could beat them at least once. I practiced and practiced for hours, with my rapid in and out motion. I guessed I had honed the motion down to about as fast as I could blink, which was faster than dynamite on the Lone Ranger. It never worked. There were no slow electrons anywhere in the house. My hand and arm would ache terribly for hours. Science . . . Must . . . Persevere!
Did I mention genes? My genes are terrifying me these days. In the argument center of my brain, the dialog goes something like this:
“Look! Hans is only half you . . . In fact he is less than half you because the woman carries the mitochondrial DNA“. Yes”, says my other self, “but you are squeezing a decimal here, the glass looks half full to me“. “Nonsense!” says the scientist, “he hasn’t jumped off the roof with an umbrella or been scene pushing metallic objects into the wall outlets“. “Yes” says the other part of the brain, “but here is what he asked me yesterday”:
“Dad, can my eyes fall out?”
The question causes a paroxysm somewhere deep in my medulla. Somewhere behind my first seven year old encounter with Lon Chaney’s Wolf Man and my first look at the nuclear test video from the Bikini Atoll, I am pulling myself together to answer this mad mad child. “NO” . . . “and you must never try doing that!”
This afternoon, I notice the after effects of my six year old's early morning explorations before mom and I awoke. It snowed again. Something transfixes my six year old about snow. Feburary at 6,250 feet in the Utah mountains is pretty snowy. I note, while contemplating a strategy to get the hot tub, which is buried in snow, that oblong orange objects litter . . . No . . . decorate the snow which is chest deep in the back yard. “Carrots from last nights dinner”, the thought seeps dimly into my scientist mind . . .
I remember telling him, “Good boy Hans! You ate all your carrots!” That little sneak.
Which half of his DNA did that? Robin and I are still contemplating this.
To my eldest son Elvis, who is dating and in denial about dating at the same time, I merely remind him to be sure not to marry a sociopath. I did this once, to forever prove to the world that it is a bad idea! “Sociopaths are everywhere,” I tell him. They are like the mold spores that infect bread after the expiration date, you think you are eating a tuna sandwich and BAM! There’s this new weird thing going on between your taste buds and your gag reflex. And oh yes, be pure and wholesome at all times, I know its hard, but remember, your hormones are the constant adversary of the soul.
Freddy, caught precariously between childhood and a tank-like body like the HULK, understands only that he must be cool. He knows all the "rules," most of which I do not. Among the strangest rules? I note. Don’t walk with me at the mall and don’t make me wear my coat to school. The scientist says, “but son it’s only 15 degrees this morning. I was nearly buried alive last winter during that blizzard last year. Coats are good! Cold . . . BAD! Water, of which composes 75% of your body , freezes at a mere 32 degrees.” As of this date he is still alive.
The scientist does not understand what cool means. That it is not cool at 15 degrees? How cool is cool? Oh I get it! . . . this is a lingo, slang, semantic, teen thing right? In only five more years, I remind myself, his brains frontal lobe will be fully developed.
Then there is Hans. Hans is six years old. When I was five, I was already a scientist. One of my first and most persistent exploits into empirical data, was to take one of my mothers bobby pins and try to race the electrons in the wall outlets around the house. I was sure I could beat them at least once. I practiced and practiced for hours, with my rapid in and out motion. I guessed I had honed the motion down to about as fast as I could blink, which was faster than dynamite on the Lone Ranger. It never worked. There were no slow electrons anywhere in the house. My hand and arm would ache terribly for hours. Science . . . Must . . . Persevere!
Did I mention genes? My genes are terrifying me these days. In the argument center of my brain, the dialog goes something like this:
“Look! Hans is only half you . . . In fact he is less than half you because the woman carries the mitochondrial DNA“. Yes”, says my other self, “but you are squeezing a decimal here, the glass looks half full to me“. “Nonsense!” says the scientist, “he hasn’t jumped off the roof with an umbrella or been scene pushing metallic objects into the wall outlets“. “Yes” says the other part of the brain, “but here is what he asked me yesterday”:
“Dad, can my eyes fall out?”
The question causes a paroxysm somewhere deep in my medulla. Somewhere behind my first seven year old encounter with Lon Chaney’s Wolf Man and my first look at the nuclear test video from the Bikini Atoll, I am pulling myself together to answer this mad mad child. “NO” . . . “and you must never try doing that!”
This afternoon, I notice the after effects of my six year old's early morning explorations before mom and I awoke. It snowed again. Something transfixes my six year old about snow. Feburary at 6,250 feet in the Utah mountains is pretty snowy. I note, while contemplating a strategy to get the hot tub, which is buried in snow, that oblong orange objects litter . . . No . . . decorate the snow which is chest deep in the back yard. “Carrots from last nights dinner”, the thought seeps dimly into my scientist mind . . .
I remember telling him, “Good boy Hans! You ate all your carrots!” That little sneak.
Which half of his DNA did that? Robin and I are still contemplating this.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
OUR NEW AMERICAN MACHINE
Our nation is still imbued with aspects of redemptive merit. Despite the evidence of our eminent demise, the recent behavior of Nancy Pelosi and the combined treacherous and deliberate surrender of this nations financial future by its government, I counter the twain efforts of said Nancy Pelosi in the house and her counterpart in the Senate, Harry Reid, with the sublime preeminence of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
By these two geographic features it may be possible to prepare some defense from invasion and there likewise perhaps be granted enough time to say our prayers before our nuclear demise. I doubt that Nancy or Reid shall compare in their duration to the persistence of these dividing barriers of water.
And to our president, I hearken to the truth of history, not to the compilation by worshipers who have deigned a faux solidity upon the only existing counterpart in this present incarnation. I speak of the naked facts which are yet remaining, the failure of a past “stimulus
package” which only aggravated an existing depression and which thus persisted for the better part of a decade. This was the “Great Depression” to which Roosevelt was granted the undeserved title of national savior.
We did not learn the lesson. Obama washed his hands of any true oversight in the construction of this abominable excess. In the promotion of this action, Obama will have to continue to grind furiously the media organ forsworn to uphold him. This thin twisted hymn to his honor must continue now for at least four more years, the conductor must untiringly wag his baton year after year as the economic cacophony of collapse rumbles beneath us, from the tingling energies up one's famous leg will come a few notes of the enduring strains reminiscent of those after the sinking of the Titanic; an awful sound of thousands drowning in vain.
More madness than heretofore mustered must be multiplied as conviction. Doom must be made light of. Pretentious pundits must wisp away massive suffering with shrinking news of successes Downright fabrications and lies will often fill the gaps where knowledge begs to lie. The sounded charge of a galant cavalry must be blown by a brigade of disposable bugalists. The sound by now will be deafening it will be a symphony of evil familiar to some, foreign to others. We know the devil has endured some 6,000 years. Legend fitingly casts him also as a musical genius exiled from heaven. Surely now he will nnod to the polyphony of our suffering. I doubt the foundation of this administration would stand a chance without him. After all, Jeremiah Wright is the only significant “reverend” of record to have influenced the mind of our “Great One.”
Let us pray:
For the greater endurance. For continued faith in the true God. For the promise of true deliverance. For the repentance of the masses from this massive darkness surrounding them.
Truly, we all have to wait now. The great gears of a mighty machine are moving. Like a meat grinder, a wood chipper, a milling stone and refiner's oven. I speak of the bowels of this sinking ship, propellers swinging in mid air, boilers shreading its crew, heat and steam let loose, and crushing objects turned against anything in their path. Satire will fall dead after this wait. There are no jokes told by survivors of this nightmare. Satire falls dead in the wait for death.
Let us pray:
For the greater endurance. For continued faith in the true God. For the promise of true deliverance. For the repentance of the masses from this massive darkness surrounding them.
Truly, we all have to wait now. The great gears of a mighty machine are moving. Like a meat grinder, a wood chipper, a milling stone and refiner's oven. I speak of the bowels of this sinking ship, propellers swinging in mid air, boilers shreading its crew, heat and steam let loose, and crushing objects turned against anything in their path. Satire will fall dead after this wait. There are no jokes told by survivors of this nightmare. Satire falls dead in the wait for death.
I expect and entertain many a critic. It matters little to me. In the privilege of tendering the truth, I do not feel worthy, yet I see many who are more eloquent than I, silently scratching their chins. It is as if one is daring to wager the outcome of piranha loosed in the national swimming pool. Get out! Get out of the pool now! Disaster in water is my primary metaphor here. It grabs the imagination in a way that is antithesis to our land faring ways, and we have truly left the precious land thes days.
When an axle has been broken we order a new window. With the corn yet remaining in the field we have summoned the hail, and after the hail we have borrowed money to party. After the party, we can look out the new window, look at our ruined harvest and starve to death.
Perhaps, with some "luck" it will only be to our children this death. Perhaps Nancy will have found those shoes she so wanted in Rome or Paris and she will die the vapid happy fool that she is, in an aged state of blessed dementia. I am not sure of the difference from her present state, however. Hats off too, to the millions who likewise without qualification, entrusted her and her ilk to fashioning our doom.
Once again imagination has taken me back to the water:
I’m looking at a life boat. Seating comfortably in the hollow of its protection are Bernard Madoff, George Soros, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Chris Matthews is rowing madly against the wind with a tingling leg - and who but our esteemed Obama, is posing gallantly at the bow in the guise of the famous Washington crossing of the Delaware painting. Suddenly there is an argument and brittle words are exchanged. Obama keeps his poise, nary averting his magazine-quality pose. It seems the fine boat has a defect. Its one hole, though yet holding back the sea from invasion, is plugged by a 100 karat diamond cork.
Once again imagination has taken me back to the water:
I’m looking at a life boat. Seating comfortably in the hollow of its protection are Bernard Madoff, George Soros, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Chris Matthews is rowing madly against the wind with a tingling leg - and who but our esteemed Obama, is posing gallantly at the bow in the guise of the famous Washington crossing of the Delaware painting. Suddenly there is an argument and brittle words are exchanged. Obama keeps his poise, nary averting his magazine-quality pose. It seems the fine boat has a defect. Its one hole, though yet holding back the sea from invasion, is plugged by a 100 karat diamond cork.
All is lost, greed prevails, and the machine of rescue, which is lifeboat America . . . . . . . . . Sinks.
Friday, February 6, 2009
While Nonsense Reigns
He’s at your door. The eighteen-year-old neighbor boy your sons used to play with is smiling brightly at you with a clipboard in his left hand. He explains, that under the new energy act he is here to check your thermostat and record your last utility bill. Hesitant, but unwilling to be unpleasant, you let him in, guide him to your thermostats and make a photocopy of your last utility bill. Smiles abound, thanks and cordiality marks this transaction without incident. It is 105 degrees on that July day. You notice while cooking dinner that it seems uncomfortably hot. You go to the thermostat and see that it has been changed from 72 degrees to 82. “Why that such and such”, you think, resetting your thermostat back to 72.
It is August 12, and a more modest 98 degrees today. Someone knocks on your door. This time you see a technician standing there with a toolbox clothed in overalls with a strange green embroidered symbol on his chest. He hands you his card with the Department of Energy Conservation Services over arching the name Frank Whittle. You don’t know this guy, he is less polite than your eighteen-year-old pesky neighbor and explains that he has twenty houses to do and is in a hurry. You seem to remember now, that notice you got in the mail late in July.
Three hours later, the ‘Frank’ man is gone. You are now part of the “smart” power grid. It’s getting hot again while you cook dinner. This time when you try to reset the thermostat you can’t. You notice that a small button like device is connected to the outside of your thermostat, and another module about the size of a matchbox is attached to your phone. That night you are so hot you can only go to sleep with the sheets on and then only when the night breeze picks up around midnight.
It is now winter. You live in a northwestern alpine climate. A cold snap has conspired in January to bring temperatures down to fifteen degrees below zero. Here go the blankets. Your children are all knocking one by one on your bedroom door telling you that they are cold. Every blanket you have is piled onto them, including the sleeping bags normally reserved for camping. You notice a fog emanating from your mouth as you breath. Checking your thermostat, just for kicks and giggles, because after all, you haven’t been able to control your own thermostat for over 5 months now, you are astonished to see the temperature is only 48 Degrees. The Thermostat in the master bedroom is a more comfortable 60 degrees but it is more insulated near the center of the house. The thermostat in the master bedroom has the button on it. The other thermostat has no ‘button’.
It is April; the bills have been mounting on your office desk. An annual vehicle registration bill punctuates your expectations for having an extra $500.00 towards summer vacation with an incredible 300% disappointment in the bill. The bill is for $1,800.00.
Your oldest son is furious. He wants to use his own car to go to work, but you can’t afford to register it and gasoline prices have skyrocketed. You try reminding him who he voted for, explaining the hardship the new conservation legislation has caused everyone and that you will drop him off down at the bus depot an hour and a half before he needs to be at work. He doesn’t seem to care what you say. He just vents incessantly, adding that he will be missing a date with his girlfriend.
OPEC now supplies 50% of the nation’s oil. The government seems almost gleefully eager to shut down new oil exploration. For the fifth month in a row OPEC has maintained an unchecked embargo on the United States. Oil imports shrink and gas prices soar to a staggering $12.00 a gallon. But, like every thing else in the news these days, the only thing you hear is how gluttonous and excessive you are as an American consumer.
The current administration in Washington DC seems more concerned with carbon trading and green energy incentives for anything not oil, not coal, not nuclear and not convenient.
“Global Warming”: The billboards by the highway are rife with pictures of scorching deserts, wayfaring polar bears and rotting fish on some nondescript shore. Your misery index is high and assurances that you are saving the world are low.
Large sporting events have been targeted by the government as leaving too large of a carbon footprint. As a result, the Super Bowl is only 1/3 full that year and riots breakout in the parking lot stadium over the high price of parking permits.
Headline: San Diego shipping container from Mexico found with traces of plutonium daughter isotopes.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012: The neighbor fellow who tagged you last year as an energy hog, is seen driving a brand new hybrid. It seems that government conservation officers are moving on up in the world. You stopped being friends with him last winter when he reported you for using an old kerosene heater in your home.
Headline: Construction for a wind farm in Kansas was stopped after a tornado destroyed 83 10-megawatt rotor towers. The president promises emergency funding to revive the 20 billion dollar project.
Headline: A man selling firewood on a San Francisco road side is arrested and given a three-year prison sentence. (His children go to Child Protective Services and then on for Foster Care.)
You vaguely recall hearing in a high school science class that life could not exist with out carbon dioxide.
“Carbon Trading” becomes a mainstream “industry,” becoming the first time in history that an “industry” is described as being something that is ‘not made’ or ‘serviced’ and can also be traded in the stock market.
Headline: Al Gore’s Private Jet gets stranded for two days due to a snow storm in Chicago.
Headline: Despite claims of 60% thermal conversion efficiency, General Electric loses a permit for a new power plant in Virginia because it proposes using coal from two nearby mines. Brownouts, blackouts and the daily news nags remind everyone that conservation is “everyone’s” business.
A bill passes the house and senate, amending the constitutional amendment for two presidential terms and extending the office term limits of president to four terms.
The World Economic Summit tries to convene in a secret resort in Switzerland. The U.S. President is rushed out by the secret service, riots break out and the summit is cancelled.
A Secret Service agent ‘takes one’ (bullet) for the president during a press conference. The agents name is not reported in the news.
Headline: Somali pirates kill over 800 passengers on a vacation cruise when their ransom demands are not met. A bright member of the press mentions that none of the pirated ships to date have been from an Islamic state. A UN spokesman replies emphatically that pirate activities are merely a symptom of desperate poverty conditions in the third world.
Christmas: December 25, 2014, New York City and Lower Manhattan, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington DC are all leveled simultaneously by coordinated nuclear detonations approximating two megatons each. There were no ICBM alerts, and no warnings of any kind. Twelve million Americans are dead. Twenty million more will die in the next few months. News is scarce. No one is claiming the office of President. Marshal law is declared by a U.S. air force general. Quarantines are enforced near the blast sights resulting in 30 million more human deaths due to disease and starvation.
The Midwest and northwestern states form a new provisional protectorate. UN troops flit about nervously in and out of the larger towns. It becomes a popular sport for snipers to pick them off in their convoys, raiding their supplies and leaving their helmets atop the fence posts.
A U.S. peace treaty signed in 2010 with Iran gave them enough time to finish building several modern nuclear devices. Threats to several other nations are rumored to have come from Iran, alluding of like consequences. No one really knows if Iran even exists anymore. Radio Bands are dominated by the military and news comes down largely from these sources.
Your last can of Spam is finished without ceremony. Your family is just too tired to even mumble a complaint. You are carrying your youngest on your shoulders down a long highway. You’ve lost more weight than you thought you ever could. Your wife stopped crying weeks ago. Your water is getting low and you hope your family can make it to the next town before nightfall.
I wouldn’t want to have to live through all this.
Nonsense has its price.
Milton
It is August 12, and a more modest 98 degrees today. Someone knocks on your door. This time you see a technician standing there with a toolbox clothed in overalls with a strange green embroidered symbol on his chest. He hands you his card with the Department of Energy Conservation Services over arching the name Frank Whittle. You don’t know this guy, he is less polite than your eighteen-year-old pesky neighbor and explains that he has twenty houses to do and is in a hurry. You seem to remember now, that notice you got in the mail late in July.
Three hours later, the ‘Frank’ man is gone. You are now part of the “smart” power grid. It’s getting hot again while you cook dinner. This time when you try to reset the thermostat you can’t. You notice that a small button like device is connected to the outside of your thermostat, and another module about the size of a matchbox is attached to your phone. That night you are so hot you can only go to sleep with the sheets on and then only when the night breeze picks up around midnight.
It is now winter. You live in a northwestern alpine climate. A cold snap has conspired in January to bring temperatures down to fifteen degrees below zero. Here go the blankets. Your children are all knocking one by one on your bedroom door telling you that they are cold. Every blanket you have is piled onto them, including the sleeping bags normally reserved for camping. You notice a fog emanating from your mouth as you breath. Checking your thermostat, just for kicks and giggles, because after all, you haven’t been able to control your own thermostat for over 5 months now, you are astonished to see the temperature is only 48 Degrees. The Thermostat in the master bedroom is a more comfortable 60 degrees but it is more insulated near the center of the house. The thermostat in the master bedroom has the button on it. The other thermostat has no ‘button’.
It is April; the bills have been mounting on your office desk. An annual vehicle registration bill punctuates your expectations for having an extra $500.00 towards summer vacation with an incredible 300% disappointment in the bill. The bill is for $1,800.00.
Your oldest son is furious. He wants to use his own car to go to work, but you can’t afford to register it and gasoline prices have skyrocketed. You try reminding him who he voted for, explaining the hardship the new conservation legislation has caused everyone and that you will drop him off down at the bus depot an hour and a half before he needs to be at work. He doesn’t seem to care what you say. He just vents incessantly, adding that he will be missing a date with his girlfriend.
OPEC now supplies 50% of the nation’s oil. The government seems almost gleefully eager to shut down new oil exploration. For the fifth month in a row OPEC has maintained an unchecked embargo on the United States. Oil imports shrink and gas prices soar to a staggering $12.00 a gallon. But, like every thing else in the news these days, the only thing you hear is how gluttonous and excessive you are as an American consumer.
The current administration in Washington DC seems more concerned with carbon trading and green energy incentives for anything not oil, not coal, not nuclear and not convenient.
“Global Warming”: The billboards by the highway are rife with pictures of scorching deserts, wayfaring polar bears and rotting fish on some nondescript shore. Your misery index is high and assurances that you are saving the world are low.
Large sporting events have been targeted by the government as leaving too large of a carbon footprint. As a result, the Super Bowl is only 1/3 full that year and riots breakout in the parking lot stadium over the high price of parking permits.
Headline: San Diego shipping container from Mexico found with traces of plutonium daughter isotopes.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012: The neighbor fellow who tagged you last year as an energy hog, is seen driving a brand new hybrid. It seems that government conservation officers are moving on up in the world. You stopped being friends with him last winter when he reported you for using an old kerosene heater in your home.
Headline: Construction for a wind farm in Kansas was stopped after a tornado destroyed 83 10-megawatt rotor towers. The president promises emergency funding to revive the 20 billion dollar project.
Headline: A man selling firewood on a San Francisco road side is arrested and given a three-year prison sentence. (His children go to Child Protective Services and then on for Foster Care.)
You vaguely recall hearing in a high school science class that life could not exist with out carbon dioxide.
“Carbon Trading” becomes a mainstream “industry,” becoming the first time in history that an “industry” is described as being something that is ‘not made’ or ‘serviced’ and can also be traded in the stock market.
Headline: Al Gore’s Private Jet gets stranded for two days due to a snow storm in Chicago.
Headline: Despite claims of 60% thermal conversion efficiency, General Electric loses a permit for a new power plant in Virginia because it proposes using coal from two nearby mines. Brownouts, blackouts and the daily news nags remind everyone that conservation is “everyone’s” business.
A bill passes the house and senate, amending the constitutional amendment for two presidential terms and extending the office term limits of president to four terms.
The World Economic Summit tries to convene in a secret resort in Switzerland. The U.S. President is rushed out by the secret service, riots break out and the summit is cancelled.
A Secret Service agent ‘takes one’ (bullet) for the president during a press conference. The agents name is not reported in the news.
Headline: Somali pirates kill over 800 passengers on a vacation cruise when their ransom demands are not met. A bright member of the press mentions that none of the pirated ships to date have been from an Islamic state. A UN spokesman replies emphatically that pirate activities are merely a symptom of desperate poverty conditions in the third world.
Christmas: December 25, 2014, New York City and Lower Manhattan, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington DC are all leveled simultaneously by coordinated nuclear detonations approximating two megatons each. There were no ICBM alerts, and no warnings of any kind. Twelve million Americans are dead. Twenty million more will die in the next few months. News is scarce. No one is claiming the office of President. Marshal law is declared by a U.S. air force general. Quarantines are enforced near the blast sights resulting in 30 million more human deaths due to disease and starvation.
The Midwest and northwestern states form a new provisional protectorate. UN troops flit about nervously in and out of the larger towns. It becomes a popular sport for snipers to pick them off in their convoys, raiding their supplies and leaving their helmets atop the fence posts.
A U.S. peace treaty signed in 2010 with Iran gave them enough time to finish building several modern nuclear devices. Threats to several other nations are rumored to have come from Iran, alluding of like consequences. No one really knows if Iran even exists anymore. Radio Bands are dominated by the military and news comes down largely from these sources.
Your last can of Spam is finished without ceremony. Your family is just too tired to even mumble a complaint. You are carrying your youngest on your shoulders down a long highway. You’ve lost more weight than you thought you ever could. Your wife stopped crying weeks ago. Your water is getting low and you hope your family can make it to the next town before nightfall.
I wouldn’t want to have to live through all this.
Nonsense has its price.
Milton
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Chirally Ambiguous Politicos and America’s Renewed Subscription to Amazement
When I have run out of outrage, I find ample confusion from the recent weeks.
Governor Patterson of New York, can, cannot, can, cannot appoint Caroline Kennedy to the United States Senate.
Caroline Kennedy (A “CAMELOT” KENNEDY), can, cannot, can . . . cannot . . . accept a Senate seat. It was virtually handed to her on a silver platter. But no, either she has more pride and dignity than Tim Geithner regarding her tax problems, she is notoriously and insidiously – and unusually criminal beyond any former Kennedy – or she simply doesn’t have the nerve to shrug at reporters with an “I apologize” and “I have fixed it” statement.
Tim Giethener, on the other hand, Caaahnnnn . . . be Treasury Secretary, Caaahnnn be the head of the IRS, and Caahnnnnnought . . . pay his taxes until he is nominated to oversee our National finances and what we (small w) pay the federal government in taxes.
Governor Blagojevich can, cannot . . . can appoint Rolan Burris to the Senate.
Rod Blagojevich . . . can . . . at last . . . be impeached.
Norm Coleman can, cannot, can, cannot . . . can? . . . be a U.S. Senator.
Conversely:
Al Franken cannot, can, cannot, can, . . . cannot? . . . take Norm Colemans U.S. Senate seat.
Obama . . . can . . . do . . . whatever . . . he . . . wants. (Really)
Far away, in the hinterlands of accountability, you may find a rare reporter who cares less for these headlines, who has a quick eye and an index finger that makes the drop on the right shell . . . but the rest of us . . . are enjoying the ‘magic’ of all this deception.
Now you see 'em . . . now you don’t.
Milton
Governor Patterson of New York, can, cannot, can, cannot appoint Caroline Kennedy to the United States Senate.
Caroline Kennedy (A “CAMELOT” KENNEDY), can, cannot, can . . . cannot . . . accept a Senate seat. It was virtually handed to her on a silver platter. But no, either she has more pride and dignity than Tim Geithner regarding her tax problems, she is notoriously and insidiously – and unusually criminal beyond any former Kennedy – or she simply doesn’t have the nerve to shrug at reporters with an “I apologize” and “I have fixed it” statement.
Tim Giethener, on the other hand, Caaahnnnn . . . be Treasury Secretary, Caaahnnn be the head of the IRS, and Caahnnnnnought . . . pay his taxes until he is nominated to oversee our National finances and what we (small w) pay the federal government in taxes.
Governor Blagojevich can, cannot . . . can appoint Rolan Burris to the Senate.
Rod Blagojevich . . . can . . . at last . . . be impeached.
Norm Coleman can, cannot, can, cannot . . . can? . . . be a U.S. Senator.
Conversely:
Al Franken cannot, can, cannot, can, . . . cannot? . . . take Norm Colemans U.S. Senate seat.
Obama . . . can . . . do . . . whatever . . . he . . . wants. (Really)
Far away, in the hinterlands of accountability, you may find a rare reporter who cares less for these headlines, who has a quick eye and an index finger that makes the drop on the right shell . . . but the rest of us . . . are enjoying the ‘magic’ of all this deception.
Now you see 'em . . . now you don’t.
Milton
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
President Obama’s Changes to Come
Despite the massive celebrations to the contrary, I see very little to be excited about with our newest president. Even in the best possible circumstances, what he has promised to do during his administration seems if not impossible, dangerous to America. I think one only needs to take seriously what he has said during his campaign, to realize, we are in for a rough ride. Like every one else, I am waiting to see what will transpire, but . . .
Here are a few facts regarding promises our new president Obama has made during his past election campaign. I see no reasons to doubt he means to do what he has said, and in fact, I have been very puzzled by the lack of Obama voters who understand what his promises are, or what they may imply for our future as a nation.
Obama on Defense:
He has promised a rapid withdrawal from Iraq (at least once suggesting 6 months)
Response:
We did this in Vietnam. Obama knows this. The result was catastrophic, with millions of innocent lives sacrificed as a result of the ensuing massacre. We should consider that what we have accomplished in Iraq is significant, regardless if our original search for weapons of mass destruction produced less than anticipated. To stabilize a portion of the Mideast, formerly ruled by a bloodthirsty and cruel tyrant, that waged war and torture on a scale rivaling the inquisition will not stand as a trivial part of history. To destabilize it now before it can stand on its own would be no less a mark on history, but instead would represent a repudiation of what has already been accomplished.
Obama on Defense:
He has promised to make massive cuts in new weapons systems. The Joint Strike Fighter is one of the first ones of mention.
Response:
The Joint Strike Fighters (primarily the YF-22 and YF-35) are expensive. but would represent a commanding advantage to our pilots in combat. Not only does this weapons system have greater range and capabilities than any other combat plane of its class, its efficiency at destroying other combatants means fewer of our pilots will die and more of the enemy will. One of these fighters can hover, take off and land on a helicopter pad. Both of these fighters go supersonic without afterburners, have extended range, advanced avionics, radar tracking weapons systems and stealth technology. Stealth alone gives U.S. pilots an immense blanket of protection against enemy fire. No other fighter in our arsenal can compare.
Obama on our Nuclear Defenses:
Apparently, United States citizens do not qualify for a missile shield even equal to what was afforded Israel when it was under medium range missile attacks from Iraq. Our strategic nuclear weapons systems would also be dramatically cut unilaterally.
Response:
We have a brand new missile defense system recently successfully tested on a target 17,000 miles away in outer space, with the same profile as an incoming nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile. It was destroyed. I’m glad for you if your life and your families life can’t afford this protection. As for my family, especially since headlines only make it plain how Iran, and North Korea are accelerating their progress towards nuclear missiles, I wouldn’t mind knowing the U.S. has this defense system in place (especially while visiting relatives in New York). As for our Nuclear arsenal, we currently have approximate parity with Russia and China who are still potentially a risk to our national security. If we could reduce their numbers of warheads at the same time as ours, perhaps this would be more acceptable.
Obama on Defense:
“I will not weaponize space”. We have hundreds of defense assets already orbiting the planet. Does he mean to remove these? Does he mean he will not put systems in place to protect them?
Response:
This all sounds very noble and “in” with the theme of “The Earth Stood Still” scenarios, but is it reasonable and in our best interest?
What is it about space that makes it out of bounds for weapons anyway? The Chinese already have a system tested successfully which can destroy other satellites. Are we to be vulnerable to this or other similar capabilities from the Russians? We are not only vulnerable to loosing HBO. In two to three years we may have air traffic controls coordinating flights with GPS systems instead of radar. If we were suddenly to loose a few GPS satellites, all airborne traffic would be placed at high risk and a large portion of our targeting defense systems would be useless. Some would argue that our country is already too vulnerable to EMF bursts and communications shut downs. Personally I don’t believe Putin or any other country engaged in orbiting weapons technology, should be trusted with our national security.
Obama on Energy:
“I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile materials”.
Response:
Holy mother of God! So after “bankrupting” coal, this nations number one source of electrical generating capacity, baring any “new” drilling for oil, we nor any other nation will be permitted to have any nuclear power plants to take up the slack!? That’s a lot of wind mills. And a lot more bioalgae; none of which can be fully implemented for at least 10 years. In short, Americans will just have to “sacrifice”.
Obama on Social Spending:
Obama has spoken at some length of his plans to force students to contribute several weeks worth of “civil defense” labor to a variety of unknown causes. In fact, he claims to install a “civil defense” labor force as large as our military. This would be mandatory and without compensation. In effect free labor.
Response:
Are we talking about installing oil lines or new highways for electric cars? Are we talking about rebuilding public housing or dispensing free needles for drug addicts? We have to wait and see now. But, apparently, about 35,000,000 Students can’t wait to leave school so they can get home and do their homework at midnight. What an altruistic society we are!
Obama on the Economy:
850 billion dollars to a trillion dollars is Obama’s response to the recession. He is not alone. This is the kind of “rapid” and “decisive” “response” to the leaden debts of the nation.
Response:
I note soberly in today’s DJIA that Obama’s inaugural address had no impact on the economy today. We are still on a slope of decline (down 332 points today) and I seriously doubt we can buy out of debt. With even the staggering sum of a trillion dollars. The chances of creating double digit inflation, or worse, are even greater with this tactic. I often have fantasized about printing all the money I wanted. Apparently this will no longer be a fantasy for Obama. Of course, the rest of the world may decide our debt is still worth investing in, which means we will shortly no longer be owning our own country. As a result, China, and Saudi Arabia will be some of our Nations biggest share holders, not only in the stock market, but as holders of U.S. Treasury notes as well. According to our recent elections, aver 55% of U.S. taxpayers feel really good about all this.
An African American is now president of the United States. The Orion Nebula is also very pretty. I never doubted an ‘African American’ could become president, but is President Obama really the crowning achievement to this end? If he is one day noted in history as the architect of this nations doom, what will this mean as an ‘achievement’.
Obama has more free stuff coming too. Free health care, more internet, more “infrastructure” . . . the list makes me a little giddy . . . but “yes we can” is the motto we must all live up to now.
Today, he really IS our new president.
I so hope he changes his mind on most of this ‘stuff.’ I really want my Children to at least keep what they currently possess and not lose it in the promised quagmire of a new socialist regime.
Here are a few facts regarding promises our new president Obama has made during his past election campaign. I see no reasons to doubt he means to do what he has said, and in fact, I have been very puzzled by the lack of Obama voters who understand what his promises are, or what they may imply for our future as a nation.
Obama on Defense:
He has promised a rapid withdrawal from Iraq (at least once suggesting 6 months)
Response:
We did this in Vietnam. Obama knows this. The result was catastrophic, with millions of innocent lives sacrificed as a result of the ensuing massacre. We should consider that what we have accomplished in Iraq is significant, regardless if our original search for weapons of mass destruction produced less than anticipated. To stabilize a portion of the Mideast, formerly ruled by a bloodthirsty and cruel tyrant, that waged war and torture on a scale rivaling the inquisition will not stand as a trivial part of history. To destabilize it now before it can stand on its own would be no less a mark on history, but instead would represent a repudiation of what has already been accomplished.
Obama on Defense:
He has promised to make massive cuts in new weapons systems. The Joint Strike Fighter is one of the first ones of mention.
Response:
The Joint Strike Fighters (primarily the YF-22 and YF-35) are expensive. but would represent a commanding advantage to our pilots in combat. Not only does this weapons system have greater range and capabilities than any other combat plane of its class, its efficiency at destroying other combatants means fewer of our pilots will die and more of the enemy will. One of these fighters can hover, take off and land on a helicopter pad. Both of these fighters go supersonic without afterburners, have extended range, advanced avionics, radar tracking weapons systems and stealth technology. Stealth alone gives U.S. pilots an immense blanket of protection against enemy fire. No other fighter in our arsenal can compare.
Obama on our Nuclear Defenses:
Apparently, United States citizens do not qualify for a missile shield even equal to what was afforded Israel when it was under medium range missile attacks from Iraq. Our strategic nuclear weapons systems would also be dramatically cut unilaterally.
Response:
We have a brand new missile defense system recently successfully tested on a target 17,000 miles away in outer space, with the same profile as an incoming nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile. It was destroyed. I’m glad for you if your life and your families life can’t afford this protection. As for my family, especially since headlines only make it plain how Iran, and North Korea are accelerating their progress towards nuclear missiles, I wouldn’t mind knowing the U.S. has this defense system in place (especially while visiting relatives in New York). As for our Nuclear arsenal, we currently have approximate parity with Russia and China who are still potentially a risk to our national security. If we could reduce their numbers of warheads at the same time as ours, perhaps this would be more acceptable.
Obama on Defense:
“I will not weaponize space”. We have hundreds of defense assets already orbiting the planet. Does he mean to remove these? Does he mean he will not put systems in place to protect them?
Response:
This all sounds very noble and “in” with the theme of “The Earth Stood Still” scenarios, but is it reasonable and in our best interest?
What is it about space that makes it out of bounds for weapons anyway? The Chinese already have a system tested successfully which can destroy other satellites. Are we to be vulnerable to this or other similar capabilities from the Russians? We are not only vulnerable to loosing HBO. In two to three years we may have air traffic controls coordinating flights with GPS systems instead of radar. If we were suddenly to loose a few GPS satellites, all airborne traffic would be placed at high risk and a large portion of our targeting defense systems would be useless. Some would argue that our country is already too vulnerable to EMF bursts and communications shut downs. Personally I don’t believe Putin or any other country engaged in orbiting weapons technology, should be trusted with our national security.
Obama on Energy:
“I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile materials”.
Response:
Holy mother of God! So after “bankrupting” coal, this nations number one source of electrical generating capacity, baring any “new” drilling for oil, we nor any other nation will be permitted to have any nuclear power plants to take up the slack!? That’s a lot of wind mills. And a lot more bioalgae; none of which can be fully implemented for at least 10 years. In short, Americans will just have to “sacrifice”.
Obama on Social Spending:
Obama has spoken at some length of his plans to force students to contribute several weeks worth of “civil defense” labor to a variety of unknown causes. In fact, he claims to install a “civil defense” labor force as large as our military. This would be mandatory and without compensation. In effect free labor.
Response:
Are we talking about installing oil lines or new highways for electric cars? Are we talking about rebuilding public housing or dispensing free needles for drug addicts? We have to wait and see now. But, apparently, about 35,000,000 Students can’t wait to leave school so they can get home and do their homework at midnight. What an altruistic society we are!
Obama on the Economy:
850 billion dollars to a trillion dollars is Obama’s response to the recession. He is not alone. This is the kind of “rapid” and “decisive” “response” to the leaden debts of the nation.
Response:
I note soberly in today’s DJIA that Obama’s inaugural address had no impact on the economy today. We are still on a slope of decline (down 332 points today) and I seriously doubt we can buy out of debt. With even the staggering sum of a trillion dollars. The chances of creating double digit inflation, or worse, are even greater with this tactic. I often have fantasized about printing all the money I wanted. Apparently this will no longer be a fantasy for Obama. Of course, the rest of the world may decide our debt is still worth investing in, which means we will shortly no longer be owning our own country. As a result, China, and Saudi Arabia will be some of our Nations biggest share holders, not only in the stock market, but as holders of U.S. Treasury notes as well. According to our recent elections, aver 55% of U.S. taxpayers feel really good about all this.
An African American is now president of the United States. The Orion Nebula is also very pretty. I never doubted an ‘African American’ could become president, but is President Obama really the crowning achievement to this end? If he is one day noted in history as the architect of this nations doom, what will this mean as an ‘achievement’.
Obama has more free stuff coming too. Free health care, more internet, more “infrastructure” . . . the list makes me a little giddy . . . but “yes we can” is the motto we must all live up to now.
Today, he really IS our new president.
I so hope he changes his mind on most of this ‘stuff.’ I really want my Children to at least keep what they currently possess and not lose it in the promised quagmire of a new socialist regime.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Satire on Text of Barack Obama's Economic Bailout Speech
Text of President-elect Barack Obama's speech on the economy on Thursday at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., as transcribed by CQ Transcriptions.
To give our children the chance to live out their dreams in a world that's never been more competitive, we will equip tens of thousands of schools, community colleges and public universities with 21st-century classrooms, labs and libraries. We'll provide new computers, new technology and new training for teachers so that students in Chicago and Boston can compete with children in Beijing for the high-tech, high-wage jobs of the future.
Yes, of course, please shield yourself from scrutiny by telling me this is all about my children . . . perhaps your jealous about their math scores, but really . . . they have high tech jobs in China all right but, “high wage jobs”? What the F --- are you talking about Mao Tse Obama!? So our target is to be more like China? Don’t you dare touch my “children”!
To build an economy that can lead this future, we will begin to rebuild America. Yes, we'll put people to work repairing crumbling roads, bridges and schools by eliminating the backlog of well- planned, worthy and needed infrastructure projects, but we'll also do more to retrofit America for a global economy.
FDR tried this big time. Most of the roads had to be “rebuilt” sooner than the ones they “repaired” . . . the reason? . . . Government F---s everything up I claims it can fix. Oh yes, the “global” economy, half the reason the whole world is in this mess is because we abandoned common sense to pursue the cheapest crap from the most disreputable countries in the world.
That means updating the way we get our electricity, by starting to build a new smart grid that will save us money, protect our power sources from blackout or attack, and deliver clean, alternative forms of energy to every corner of our nation.
Oh yes great Obama! Let us follow you in the pursuit of “bankrupting” the American coal industry so I can pay three times higher utility rates from Solar farms and Windmills. I’ll bet you read ‘Wired’ magazine like women read the “Enquirer” . . . all Gee Whiz and no depth.
It means expanding broadband lines across America so that a small business in a rural town can connect and compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world.
Thank you Jesus! Now we can all get high definition porn on the internet!
Connect? . . . . . . . . Yeah, I never heard of the telephone, and I really need video conferencing so I can have a look-see at my boss who is sitting in his living room in pajamas.
It means investing in the science, research and technology that will lead to new medical breakthroughs, new discoveries and entire new industries.
Yes . . . SCIENCE! New medical stuff and some “NEW” new stuff . . . got any examples besides all that ‘governator’ stem cell bulls--t? Yes, ‘industry’ . . . placed just before the period. “Industry” is what we already GAVE AWAY to the Chinese! Yes, lets GET some industry . . . and upsize that Coke too!
And, finally, this Recovery and Reinvestment Plan will provide immediate relief to states, workers and families who are bearing the brunt of this recession. To get people spending again, 95 percent of working families will receive a $1,000 tax cut, the first stage of a middle-class tax cut that I promised during the campaign and will include in our next budget.
Oh holly G-D! We just gave away $700,000,000.00 . . . . . less than 42 DAYS ago! That should have made all of us “immediately” more O.K. to the tune of $2,300.00 per man woman and child!
To help Americans who have lost their jobs and can't find new ones, we'll continue the bipartisan extension of unemployment insurance and health care coverage to help them through this crisis.
Well, I’m sure that is the ‘right’ thing to do, considering nobody ever wants to stop sending American jobs overseas.
Government at every level will have to tighten its belt, but we'll help struggling states avoid harmful budget cuts, as long as they take responsibility and use the money to maintain essential services, like police, fire, education and health care.
Help the states avoid “harmful” budget cuts? Oh yes, I forgot . . . the federal government can PRINT more money!
Now, I understand that some might be skeptical of this plan. Our government has already spent a good deal of money, but we haven't yet seen that translate into more jobs, or higher incomes, or renewed confidence in our economy.
I’m not skeptical at all, I just took nine shots of Jack Daniels and 200 milligrams of Thorazine! I still can’t UNDERSTAND a f---ing thing you just said! My “confidence,” is in the hangover I’ll have tomorrow morning!
And that's why the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan won't just throw money at our problems. We'll invest in what works.
Yes of course . . . another TRILLION dollars is not “THROWING” money at anything . . . that much money requires a CANNON! If getting your self elected with only one BILLION dollars is any indication . . . I am truly gonna need some MAJOR sphincter repair soon.
The true test of policies we'll pursue won't be whether they're Democratic or Republican ideas, whether they're conservative or liberal ideas, but whether they create jobs, grow our economy and put the American dream within the reach of the American people.
“True” . . . . “test” . . . testes . . . damn it I hurt already. Where did that Jack go! Oh I’m “dreaming” all right . . . just don’t let me come out of my COMA!
Instead of politicians doling out money behind a veil of secrecy, decisions about where we invest will be made transparently and informed by independent experts wherever possible.
Didn’t you come from Chicago? Nope, no “veiling” or “doling” ever went on THERE!
Every American will be able to hold Washington accountable for these decisions by going online to see how and where their taxpayer dollars are spent.
If every American could hold Washington “accountable” for their decisions it would be a smoldering dump of lifeless oblivion about now.
And as I announced yesterday, we will launch an unprecedented effort to eliminate unwise and unnecessary spending that has never been more unaffordable for our nation and our children's future than it is right now.
“UN – PREC – ED – ENT – ED” . . . 5 syllables . . . “UN – NEC – ES – SAR – Y” 5 more syllables . . . “UN – AF – FORD – A – BLE” 5 more syllables again. And hey! They start with U and end with BLE (pronounced you and bull). There’s a bible code thing here right!
We have to make tough choices and smart investments today so that, as the economy recovers, the deficits start coming down. We cannot have a solid recovery if our people and our businesses don't have confidence that we're getting our fiscal house in order.
Damn it man! You forgot to use the word CHANGE! I really miss it when you say CCCHHHHAAANNNGGGGGEEEE . . . hiccup, snort, pass out . . .
And that's why our goal is not to create a slew of new government programs, but a foundation for long-term economic growth.
That also means an economic recovery plan that is free from earmarks and pet projects. I understand that every member of Congress has ideas about how to spend money. Many of these projects are worthy; they benefit local communities.
But this emergency legislation must not be the vehicle for those aspirations. This must be a time when leaders in both parties put the urgent needs of our nation above our own narrow interests.
Now, this recovery plan alone will not solve all the problems that led us into this crisis. We must also work with the same sense of urgency to stabilize and repair the financial system we all depend on.
That means using our full arsenal of tools to get credit flowing again to families and businesses, while restoring confidence in our markets. It means launching a sweeping effort to address the foreclosure crisis so that we can keep responsible families in their homes.
It means preventing the catastrophic failure of financial institutions whose collapse could endanger the entire economy, but only with maximum protections for taxpayers and a clear understanding that government support for any company is an extraordinary action that must come with significant restrictions on the firms that receive support.
And it means reforming a weak and outdated regulatory system so that we can better withstand financial shocks and better protect consumers, investors and businesses from the reckless greed and risk-taking that must never endanger our prosperity again.
No longer can we allow Wall Street wrongdoers to slip through regulatory cracks. No longer can we allow special interests to put their thumbs on the economic scales. No longer can we allow the unscrupulous lending and borrowing that leads only to disruptive cycles of bubble and bust.
It is time to set a new course for this economy, and that change must begin now.
We should have an open and honest discussion about this recovery plan in the days ahead, but I urge Congress to move as quickly as possible on behalf of the American people, for every day we wait or point fingers or drag our feet, more Americans will lose their jobs, more families will lose their savings, more dreams will be deferred and denied, and our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that at some point we may not be able to reverse.
That is not the country I know. It is not a future I accept as president of the United States. A world that depends on the strength of our economy is now watching and waiting for America to lead once more, and that is what we will do.
It will not come easy or happen overnight. And it is altogether likely that things may get worse before they get better.
But that is all the more reason for Congress to act without delay.
I know the scale of this plan is unprecedented, but so is the severity of our situation. We have already tried the wait-and-see approach to our problems, and it is the same approach that helped lead us to this day of reckoning.
And that is why the time has come to build a 21st-century economy in which hard work and responsibility are once again rewarded. That's why I'm asking Congress to work with me and my team day and night — on weekends, if necessary — to get the plan passed in the next few weeks.
That's why I'm calling on all Americans, Democrats and Republicans and independents, to put — to put good ideas ahead of the old ideological battles, a sense of common purpose above the same narrow partisanship, and insist that the first question each of us asks isn't "What's good for me?" but "What's good for the country my children will inherit?"
More than any program or policy, it is this spirit that will enable us to confront these challenges with the same spirit that has led previous generations to face down war and depression and fear itself.
And if we do, if we are able to summon that spirit again, if we are able to look out for one another and listen to one another, and do our part for our nation and for posterity, then I have no doubt that, years from now, we will look back on 2009 as one of those years that marked another new and hopeful beginning for the United States of America.
Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.
END
Nurse! Nurse! Is it over yet? I heard the word END! Or . . . urr . . . read it in big blazing letters sent from the angel Gabriel.
END ! (in Times New Roman . . . just like the columns from his acceptance gala)
To give our children the chance to live out their dreams in a world that's never been more competitive, we will equip tens of thousands of schools, community colleges and public universities with 21st-century classrooms, labs and libraries. We'll provide new computers, new technology and new training for teachers so that students in Chicago and Boston can compete with children in Beijing for the high-tech, high-wage jobs of the future.
Yes, of course, please shield yourself from scrutiny by telling me this is all about my children . . . perhaps your jealous about their math scores, but really . . . they have high tech jobs in China all right but, “high wage jobs”? What the F --- are you talking about Mao Tse Obama!? So our target is to be more like China? Don’t you dare touch my “children”!
To build an economy that can lead this future, we will begin to rebuild America. Yes, we'll put people to work repairing crumbling roads, bridges and schools by eliminating the backlog of well- planned, worthy and needed infrastructure projects, but we'll also do more to retrofit America for a global economy.
FDR tried this big time. Most of the roads had to be “rebuilt” sooner than the ones they “repaired” . . . the reason? . . . Government F---s everything up I claims it can fix. Oh yes, the “global” economy, half the reason the whole world is in this mess is because we abandoned common sense to pursue the cheapest crap from the most disreputable countries in the world.
That means updating the way we get our electricity, by starting to build a new smart grid that will save us money, protect our power sources from blackout or attack, and deliver clean, alternative forms of energy to every corner of our nation.
Oh yes great Obama! Let us follow you in the pursuit of “bankrupting” the American coal industry so I can pay three times higher utility rates from Solar farms and Windmills. I’ll bet you read ‘Wired’ magazine like women read the “Enquirer” . . . all Gee Whiz and no depth.
It means expanding broadband lines across America so that a small business in a rural town can connect and compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world.
Thank you Jesus! Now we can all get high definition porn on the internet!
Connect? . . . . . . . . Yeah, I never heard of the telephone, and I really need video conferencing so I can have a look-see at my boss who is sitting in his living room in pajamas.
It means investing in the science, research and technology that will lead to new medical breakthroughs, new discoveries and entire new industries.
Yes . . . SCIENCE! New medical stuff and some “NEW” new stuff . . . got any examples besides all that ‘governator’ stem cell bulls--t? Yes, ‘industry’ . . . placed just before the period. “Industry” is what we already GAVE AWAY to the Chinese! Yes, lets GET some industry . . . and upsize that Coke too!
And, finally, this Recovery and Reinvestment Plan will provide immediate relief to states, workers and families who are bearing the brunt of this recession. To get people spending again, 95 percent of working families will receive a $1,000 tax cut, the first stage of a middle-class tax cut that I promised during the campaign and will include in our next budget.
Oh holly G-D! We just gave away $700,000,000.00 . . . . . less than 42 DAYS ago! That should have made all of us “immediately” more O.K. to the tune of $2,300.00 per man woman and child!
To help Americans who have lost their jobs and can't find new ones, we'll continue the bipartisan extension of unemployment insurance and health care coverage to help them through this crisis.
Well, I’m sure that is the ‘right’ thing to do, considering nobody ever wants to stop sending American jobs overseas.
Government at every level will have to tighten its belt, but we'll help struggling states avoid harmful budget cuts, as long as they take responsibility and use the money to maintain essential services, like police, fire, education and health care.
Help the states avoid “harmful” budget cuts? Oh yes, I forgot . . . the federal government can PRINT more money!
Now, I understand that some might be skeptical of this plan. Our government has already spent a good deal of money, but we haven't yet seen that translate into more jobs, or higher incomes, or renewed confidence in our economy.
I’m not skeptical at all, I just took nine shots of Jack Daniels and 200 milligrams of Thorazine! I still can’t UNDERSTAND a f---ing thing you just said! My “confidence,” is in the hangover I’ll have tomorrow morning!
And that's why the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan won't just throw money at our problems. We'll invest in what works.
Yes of course . . . another TRILLION dollars is not “THROWING” money at anything . . . that much money requires a CANNON! If getting your self elected with only one BILLION dollars is any indication . . . I am truly gonna need some MAJOR sphincter repair soon.
The true test of policies we'll pursue won't be whether they're Democratic or Republican ideas, whether they're conservative or liberal ideas, but whether they create jobs, grow our economy and put the American dream within the reach of the American people.
“True” . . . . “test” . . . testes . . . damn it I hurt already. Where did that Jack go! Oh I’m “dreaming” all right . . . just don’t let me come out of my COMA!
Instead of politicians doling out money behind a veil of secrecy, decisions about where we invest will be made transparently and informed by independent experts wherever possible.
Didn’t you come from Chicago? Nope, no “veiling” or “doling” ever went on THERE!
Every American will be able to hold Washington accountable for these decisions by going online to see how and where their taxpayer dollars are spent.
If every American could hold Washington “accountable” for their decisions it would be a smoldering dump of lifeless oblivion about now.
And as I announced yesterday, we will launch an unprecedented effort to eliminate unwise and unnecessary spending that has never been more unaffordable for our nation and our children's future than it is right now.
“UN – PREC – ED – ENT – ED” . . . 5 syllables . . . “UN – NEC – ES – SAR – Y” 5 more syllables . . . “UN – AF – FORD – A – BLE” 5 more syllables again. And hey! They start with U and end with BLE (pronounced you and bull). There’s a bible code thing here right!
We have to make tough choices and smart investments today so that, as the economy recovers, the deficits start coming down. We cannot have a solid recovery if our people and our businesses don't have confidence that we're getting our fiscal house in order.
Damn it man! You forgot to use the word CHANGE! I really miss it when you say CCCHHHHAAANNNGGGGGEEEE . . . hiccup, snort, pass out . . .
And that's why our goal is not to create a slew of new government programs, but a foundation for long-term economic growth.
That also means an economic recovery plan that is free from earmarks and pet projects. I understand that every member of Congress has ideas about how to spend money. Many of these projects are worthy; they benefit local communities.
But this emergency legislation must not be the vehicle for those aspirations. This must be a time when leaders in both parties put the urgent needs of our nation above our own narrow interests.
Now, this recovery plan alone will not solve all the problems that led us into this crisis. We must also work with the same sense of urgency to stabilize and repair the financial system we all depend on.
That means using our full arsenal of tools to get credit flowing again to families and businesses, while restoring confidence in our markets. It means launching a sweeping effort to address the foreclosure crisis so that we can keep responsible families in their homes.
It means preventing the catastrophic failure of financial institutions whose collapse could endanger the entire economy, but only with maximum protections for taxpayers and a clear understanding that government support for any company is an extraordinary action that must come with significant restrictions on the firms that receive support.
And it means reforming a weak and outdated regulatory system so that we can better withstand financial shocks and better protect consumers, investors and businesses from the reckless greed and risk-taking that must never endanger our prosperity again.
No longer can we allow Wall Street wrongdoers to slip through regulatory cracks. No longer can we allow special interests to put their thumbs on the economic scales. No longer can we allow the unscrupulous lending and borrowing that leads only to disruptive cycles of bubble and bust.
It is time to set a new course for this economy, and that change must begin now.
We should have an open and honest discussion about this recovery plan in the days ahead, but I urge Congress to move as quickly as possible on behalf of the American people, for every day we wait or point fingers or drag our feet, more Americans will lose their jobs, more families will lose their savings, more dreams will be deferred and denied, and our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that at some point we may not be able to reverse.
That is not the country I know. It is not a future I accept as president of the United States. A world that depends on the strength of our economy is now watching and waiting for America to lead once more, and that is what we will do.
It will not come easy or happen overnight. And it is altogether likely that things may get worse before they get better.
But that is all the more reason for Congress to act without delay.
I know the scale of this plan is unprecedented, but so is the severity of our situation. We have already tried the wait-and-see approach to our problems, and it is the same approach that helped lead us to this day of reckoning.
And that is why the time has come to build a 21st-century economy in which hard work and responsibility are once again rewarded. That's why I'm asking Congress to work with me and my team day and night — on weekends, if necessary — to get the plan passed in the next few weeks.
That's why I'm calling on all Americans, Democrats and Republicans and independents, to put — to put good ideas ahead of the old ideological battles, a sense of common purpose above the same narrow partisanship, and insist that the first question each of us asks isn't "What's good for me?" but "What's good for the country my children will inherit?"
More than any program or policy, it is this spirit that will enable us to confront these challenges with the same spirit that has led previous generations to face down war and depression and fear itself.
And if we do, if we are able to summon that spirit again, if we are able to look out for one another and listen to one another, and do our part for our nation and for posterity, then I have no doubt that, years from now, we will look back on 2009 as one of those years that marked another new and hopeful beginning for the United States of America.
Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.
END
Nurse! Nurse! Is it over yet? I heard the word END! Or . . . urr . . . read it in big blazing letters sent from the angel Gabriel.
END ! (in Times New Roman . . . just like the columns from his acceptance gala)
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