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Trivia

GEOGRAPHY FACTS

 

 

Alaska  More than half of the coastline of the entire United States is in Alaska.       Amazon    The Amazon rainforest produces more than 20% the world's oxygen supply.   The Amazon River pushes so much water into the Atlantic Ocean that, more than one hundred miles at sea off the mouth of the river, one can dip fresh water out of the ocean.  The volume of water in the Amazon river is greater than the next eight largest rivers in the world combined and three times the flow of all rivers in the United States.   Antarctica    Antarctica is the only land on our planet that is not owned by any country. Ninety percent of the world's ice covers Antarctica . This ice also represents seventy  percent of all the fresh water in the world. As strange as it sounds, however, Antarctica is essentially a desert. The average yearly total precipitation is about two inches Although covered with ice (all but 0.4% of it, ice.), Antarctica is the driest place on the planet, with an absolute humidity lower than the Gobi desert.     Brazil   Brazil got its name from the nut, not the other way around.     Canada   Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined. Canada is an Indian word meaning ' Big Village.'     Chicago  Next to Warsaw , Chicago has the largest Polish population in the world.    Detroit Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan, carries the designation M-1, so named because it was the first paved road anywhere.     Damascus, Syria   Damascus, Syria, was flourishing a couple of thousand years before Rome was founded in 753 BC, making it the oldest continuously inhabited city in existence.     Istanbul, Turkey   Istanbul, Turkey, is the only city in the world located on two continents.     Los Angeles  Los Angeles' full name is El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula -- and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size: L.A.     New York City   The term 'The Big Apple' was coined by touring jazz musicians of the 1930's who used the slang expression 'apple' for any town or city. Therefore, to play New York City is to play the big time - The Big Apple. There are more Irish in New York City than in Dublin , Ireland ; more Italians in New York City than in Rome, Italy ; and more Jews in New York City than in Tel Aviv, Israel.       Ohio There are no natural lakes in the state of Ohio , everyone is manmade.       Pitcairn Island  The smallest island with country status is Pitcairn in Polynesia , at just 1.75 sq. miles/4,53 sq. km.       Rome  The first city to reach a population of 1 million people was Rome , Italy in 133 B.C.  There is a city called Rome on every continent.       Siberia Siberia contains more than 25% of the world's forests.       S.M.O.M . The actual smallest sovereign entity in the world is the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (S.M.O.M). It is located in the city of Rome, Italy, has an area of two tennis courts, and as of 2001 has a population of 80, 20 less people than the Vatican.  It is a sovereign entity under international law, just as the Vatican is.       Sahara Desert In the Sahara Desert , there is a town named Tidikelt , Algeria , which did not receive a drop of rain for ten years. Technically though, the driest place on Earth is in the valleys of the Antarctic near Ross Island . There has been no rainfall there for two million years.     Spain Spain literally means 'the land of rabbits.'       St. Paul , Minnesota St. Paul, Minnesota , was originally called Pig's Eye after a man named Pierre 'Pig's Eye' Parrant who set up the first business there.       Roads   Chances that a road is unpaved in the U.S.A : 1%, in Canada : 75%     Russia    The deepest hole ever drilled by man is the Kola Superdeep Borehole, in Russia . It reached a depth of 12,261 meters (about 40,226 feet or 7.62 miles). It was drilled for scientific research and gave up some unexpected discoveries, one of which was a huge deposit of hydrogen - so massive that the mud coming from the hole was boiling with it.   United States  The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one-mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.       Waterfalls  The water of Angel Falls (the World's highest) in Venezuela drops 3,212 feet (979 meters). They are 15 times higher than Niagara Falls .   I have always said , you should learn something new every day. Unfortunately, many of us are at that age where what we learn today, we forget tomorrow.   But, give it a shot anyway.

 

A Government Of People, By People, For People...

If you think about it, Citizens are the livestock of a country.  

They can be sent to slaughter as it is with war...

They can be used for breeding as needed to have more consumerism...

They can be put out to pasture when they've served their usefulness as it is with retirement...

And they can serve as collateral for loans with the Federal Reserve and the World Bank.

But through all this do you think government really feels the need to cover our vet bills?

CIT Stiffs Government AND Taxpayers And Gets Little Front Page Coverage...What A Crock Of CIT

Perhaps bank failures are so common place with 100+ banks (another 32 last month?) that who would notice one more?  CIT is a little different.  When running the difference between their assets and liabilities from numbers posted in the New York Times, CIT seems to have a billion more in assets left when it's all said and done.  

Now here is where it gets stickier.  So, after a long battle to keep CIT from filing bankruptcy, it does a turnkey program with Goldman Sachs agreeing to hold paper, bond holders getting 30-60 cents on the dollar, stock holders such as I getting squat, and, oh yeah, they get to eliminate the entire balance of their TARP bail out.  

Perhaps it's from watching the likes of Bank of America, Goldman Sachs or even General Motors (Remember, GM's bankruptcy cleared all obligation to its retirees and yet their crap cars still go for 30K) and realizing that in a slight of hand they can clear their debt, keep executive bonuses and join the fraternity of prosperity.

Its time the government put its foot down.  There should be no exception to bail out money repayment.  None!  Ask the multitude of college graduates still struggling to pay their student loans.  

As the market closed Friday with stocks on the decline, CIT following suit filed for bankruptcy Sunday.  Sunday???  Can anyone say insider trade?  Yeah, let's wrap this one up before the market opens Monday.by already having dumped ours at 3:30 Friday.  We sure have a lot of swiss cheese here.  Is the SEC letting this one slide as it did Madoff?  The news should be clammering about this turn of events.  They got billions in TARP.  Accountability?  Our Treasury Secretary has some answering to the American people.  Too many people are walking, way too many.  And its time for it to stop.

Spiritual Dialogue, This just in from Rev. Jay.... Submitted For Your Review

 ST. THOMAS MINISTRIES FOUNDATION, INC.

2306 GULL LANE

SARASOTA, FL 34237-7102

941-954-0330 Cell 941-5381250

 

October 24, 2009

 

Dear Walter:

 

Barbara just now finished reading the body of this letter and her reaction was the same as her reaction to all of my occasional letters to persons who might have some interest in the work of St. Thomas Ministries Foundation.  She points out that nobody reads my missiles because they are obscurely written – not easily understood, indistinct, and undistinguished.  I reacted angrily that you always seem to enjoy my letters.  She responded that you are awash in pain so great that even my obtuse prattle provides you some slight relief.  I explained that you enjoy my personal theological explorations because they touch on one of the two loves of your life – Jesus Christ and Geraldine.  “Then address the letter to Walter,” Barbara retorted.  To clear the air once and for all, I am addressing this letter to you, Walter.  However, if they wish to do so, I am allowing other persons to eavesdrop on my monologue.

 

LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION

 

Walter, one great consolation that we Christians have is that we worship a God who Himself has wrestled with temptation.  On Judgment Day, you and I shall face not an Olympian abstraction who breezed through on his looks and money, nor a severe and cold-hearted critic who eyes us coldly but by a man who Himself has faced and struggled with every possible temptation the world could ever direct at our suffering species.  The temptations He faced, however, occurred not by accident but by His own divine plan.

 

Before He began His mission, Mark described Jesus as being driven into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil.  God, it is true, asks a lot from us; and I suspect that both of us have sometimes resented it.  The fact remains, however, that He does not ask us to bear anything to which He has not subjected Himself.  Hunger, thirst, misunderstanding, rejection, hate, betrayal, torture, and death - He has faced them all - along with accompanying temptations -  selfishness, self pity, pride, lust, resentment, grudges, vengefulness, bitterness, and despair.  He fought and beat them all.  He tells us that He will give us His Spirit in order that we may do likewise.

 

The Catechism tells us that the petition against temptation "goes to the root of the preceding one" (2846).  Recall that the preceding one is the petition, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."  Partly that's because it is temptation in which sin is conceived, but also because the greatest temptation we feel in human life is the temptation to refuse forgiveness to other persons.  After all, forgiving (as distinct from excusing) is, by definition, for persons who do not deserve it, since they really sinned against us and we really are their victims.  Because of this, we encounter an enormous temptation to ‘stand on our rights’ instead of standing on the grace of Christ.  Like the proud ghost in C. S. Lewis's wonderful little book The Great Divorce, we want to say, especially when we are really wronged, "I only want my rights, I'm not asking for anybody's bleeding charity." (To which our Guardian Angel replies in Lewis's immortal words, "Then do at once ask for the Bleeding Charity.")

 

Walter, it is curious that you and I pray to God - who has already put Himself through hell to win salvation for us - to lead us not into temptation.  It seems odd praying to a lifeguard that He not deliberately drown us.  Why on earth are we asking God to not do what He would never do?  Part of the problem is that the Greek contains more ideas than can be adequately rendered in English.  The Catechism tells us that it is difficult to translate the Greek verb used by a single English word: the Greek means both "do not allow us to enter into temptation" and "do not let us yield to temptation."

 

Jesus is not teaching us that we worship a capricious Olympian deity who might suddenly take an irrational dislike to us, to lead us into temptation, and to try to damn us for fun.  He is teaching us to worship His Father, the God of Israel, who "cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one" (Jas 1:13).  Our God is absolutely consistent and is not about to suddenly and whimsically betray us like a fairy or sprite in some pagan mythology.  He is not perverse and mercurial, like the frightening and half-mad Raven King who rules Faerie in Susanna Clarke's fine novel Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.  His purpose is from ages for all ages: He intends to set us free from evil.

 

Part of His purpose, however, can only be fulfilled with our cooperation.  So, just as we ask the Father God to give us what is good, so we ask Him to protect us from temptation by helping us to avoid and to escape it.  Brother, do we ever need the help!  Like Oscar Wilde, we can resist anything but temptation.  And being inveterate jailhouse lawyers, we want to turn salvation into a legal game in which we seek not to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, but rather to see how much we can perpetrate and, as the saying goes, "still be saved."  We have several elaborate strategies for offering as little as possible of ourselves to God, while trying not to appear as though we are actually seeking our own way.  In my youth, I would have understood this in the sort of questioning that asks: "How far can I go with my girlfriend before it's technically 'fornication'?"  The very question reveals a corrupt will and intellect prior to technical commission of the sin.  In the final analysis, it boils down to the prayer, "Let me be led into temptation!"  I observe the identical pattern even today with other of my favorite sins.

 

So we are taught to ask God to protect us from the path that leads to sin for the same reason we ask Him for our daily bread: because grace is necessary for our spiritual as well as for our physical life.  We are locked in battle between flesh and spirit, and we need all the help we can garner to know how to discern what God is doing with us in the midst of this war zone.

 

As in any struggle, it is sometimes difficult to tell friend from foe.  The devil fights a guerrilla war and is not loath to delivering low blows while donning the uniform of God's troops in order to sow confusion, temptation, and death.  Satan's temptation, of course, always consists of using some good thing God has created to lure us into loving it in a disordered way.  ‘No fish bites a bare hook’; it's always wrapped in a juicy worm that is, like the apple in the Garden of Eden, tasty-looking both to our appetite and to our pride.  The hook, however, is still death.  This is why Paul tells us that Satan appears as an "angel of light."  Flesh and the devil tell us to seek some good (it matters not what) by rejecting what God has commanded.  To break this ancient habit, it is necessary that God permit us to face trials even as He teaches us to avoid temptation - and to learn to tell the difference.

 

Therefore, as the Catechism tells us: Holy Spirit enables us to discern trials that are necessary for growth of the inner man, and temptation that leads to sin and death.  Also, we must discern between being tempted and consenting to temptation.  Finally, discernment unmasks the lie of temptation, the object of which appears to be good, a delight to the eyes, and desirable, when in reality its fruit is death.

 

God does not want to impose the good on us, but desires that we freely are loving human persons.  Temptation has its usefulness.  No one but God knows what our souls have received from Him, not even we ourselves.  Temptation reveals it, however, in order to teach us to know ourselves, and, in this way, we discover our evil inclinations and are obliged to give thanks for the goods that temptation has revealed to us.

 

Note that, when we are not actively courting it, we are facing not sin but concupiscence.  What is that, you ask?  It is the weakened will, darkened intellect, and disordered appetites that afflict every person, including baptized persons.  Sadly, this term has fallen into such disuse in contemporary culture that we can barely pronounce it.  It leads to the tendency to conflate temptation with sin itself.  A pattern of thought that afflicts many believers (and one that the devil, the accuser of the brethren, loves) is, ‘If I were truly a Christian, I would not be having these thoughts and feelings at all.’ This, however, is not so.  Temptation only sprouts into the weed of sin when we will to water it.  That is why the Church speaks of concupiscence not as sin but as the "tinder for sin."

 

Precisely because concupiscence is not sin, God sees our struggle to surmount temptation not as a revelation of how rotten we are at heart but as the battlefield upon which we can grow in virtue and grace.  I once had a conversation with a man who had struggled for years with homosexual temptation.  He was married and had been a faithful husband and father; but, he feared that his temptation revealed how sinful he really was.  I told him that the first thing he needed to know was that his Father in Heaven was proud of him and said, "Well done, good and faithful servant."  He had fought the good fight and loved his wife and family by the power of grace.  He burst into tears.  Nobody had ever told him about concupiscence.  He had been taught that temptation told us who we ‘really’ are.

 

The truth is, however, Jesus is the revelation of who we really are.  He, and not sin, is the final word about the human person.  Therefore, Paul tells us, "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit" (Gal 5:25).  Note what Paul does not say, "Giving into temptation proves you are not really a Christian." That's why he tells a Corinthian Church that is positively riddled with sinful members:  Do you not know that unrighteous persons will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived; neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.  And such were some of you!  You, however, were washed,  sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God (1 Cor 6:9-11).

 

Paul, aware of the possibility of the radical misuse of our freedom, warns of the real possibility of damnation for his flock, but does not enter into the game of attempting to claim that baptized persons who sin, even gravely, are ‘not really Christians.’  Instead, he accepts the reality that they are, at least for the moment, bad Christians, exhorts them to become what they actually are, and reminds them of what that is.  He does not say, "You pretended to be washed, sanctified and justified."  He takes it for granted that they were; and, demands that they conform their lives to the truth of what Christ has revealed in them through the sacraments.

 

The mystery here is that sacraments are grace, not magic.  They do not cancel our free will.  Paul, of course, realizes that we shall fail and fall, but that when we do, Christ's will is to forgive, and to heal and to call us back to repentance once again, because He and not sin is the final word about who we are.  Note as well that, instead of concluding from this that he does not need to bother rebuking the wayward Corinthians because it will all turn out well in the end, Paul considers it his duty to warn them that if they do not repent, they will not see the Kingdom of God.  In short, he understands that just as "give us this day our daily bread" implies a duty to feed hungry persons, so "lead us not into temptation" implies a duty to strengthen, encourage, and, where necessary, rebuke those persons who are struggling in the battle against temptation.

 

Saints teach us is that the battle with sin is the most difficult and enduring battle. This is not a discovery of saints in Christian Scripture but was already old news in Hebrew Scripture.  That's why Proverbs tells us, "He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit is better than he who takes a city" (Prov 16:32).  This imagery informs Christian Scripture as well when Paul tells us: Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.  Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.  For, we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.  Therefore, take the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.  Stand, therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; besides all these, taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one.  And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Eph 6:10-17).

 

The only weapon that will ultimately carry us through this battle to victory is prayer with our eyes wide open, vigilant, and alert.  This is how Jesus Himself defeated the Tempter, and it is why He calls us to "watch and pray."  We are neither to live in fear of the enemy, nor in endless navel-gazing analyzing our own faults.  Instead, we are to live as Jesus Christ did, fixing our eyes on our neighbor, on the Father God, and on the prize to which Christ calls all of us when He prayed for us to the Father: "Keep them in your name" (Jn 17:11).  Only by such vigilant prayer can we overcome the enemy of our souls.

 

Maranatha,

 

 

Fr. Jay

 

Very Rev. Archpriest Jacob J. K. Longacre, Ph. D., S. S. B.

Holy Orthodox Catholic Church – American Jurisdiction

Rather than give people fish to eat, STMF teaches persons of all faiths to fish, thus becoming self-sufficient, so that they and their families need not go hungry nor lack appropriate employment.

 

St. Thomas Ministries Foundation, Inc. is tax-exempt within 501 © (3) of the Internal Revenue Code of the USA

 

 Rev. Jay Longacre may be emailed at frjaykl@yahoo.com

Look for his updates on MySpace and Twitter @ WRVJ

Oh, Some Google Findings Just In...

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1. Allstate Accused Of Leaving Homeowners Dry - CBS Evening News ...

   Jul 14, 2008 ... In 2006, the company hit a record profit of $4.9 billion. .... want to whine their way into a new home and let Allstate hold the bag. I say, screw the Bennetts. ... Allstate''s Bob Daniels says its customers are more valued than profit. ... Read David C. Korten''s latestbook. It''s an eye opener. ...
   www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/14/.../main4261407.shtml - Cached - Similar

2. Allstate Insurance Sucks • View topic - No home repair estimate yet!

   20 posts - 5 authors - Last post: Oct 12, 2006

   They only screw over people that they assume can't afford an .... fire and water restoration (at least it's that way in my phone book). ... I'm sure Allstate probably has some sort of contractor program, as do a lot of companies. .... This is where it is preferred that acustomer get a contractor ...
   www.allstateinsurancesucks.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f... - Cached - Similar

3. Allstate to raise insurance rates here - Chicago Breaking News

   May 25, 2009 ... Crain's Chicago Business reports: Allstate Corp. will raise ... whats going on with the economy? ok Allstate its not a bright move! .... all of these places screw you over when you have a claim. ... My insurance went way up with Allstate and they took my goodcustomer discount away claiming my house ...
   www.chicagobreakingnews.com/.../allstate-to-raise-insurance-rates-here.html -Cached - Similar

4. Allstate's Latest Trouble: Mississippi's Burning a Hole Through ...

   Allstate's Latest Trouble: Mississippi's Burning a Hole Through Its Pocket 1 ... Allstate and other insurance companies are looking at some very ugly numbers. ... The insurance industry cannot screw an entire state and expect that this is .... Feature your business / blog / book · Policy on anonymous contributors ...
   seekingalpha.com/.../24091-allstate-s-latest-trouble-mississippi-s-burning-a-hole-through-its-pocket - Cached - Similar

5. Salon.com Mobile - The past life of AIG CEO Ed Liddy

   Mar 18, 2009 ... The model that Allstate used to redesign all its internal claims practices was based on Enron. ... If that means good deals for customers, then lucky customers. ... The data is all there in the book. By severely limiting claim payments, the insurance costs ...Insurance companies screw their clients ...
   letters.mobile.salon.com/tech/htww/2009/.../index.html - Cached - Similar

6. Don't drop that phone! Fragile devices threaten customer loyalty ...

   Aug 31, 2009 ... Well about a year ago my insurance company Allstate said that they ... the phone may be good but they pretty much screw you afterwards. .... I agree PC_Tool, but as DonGato says it's a case of the devices getting lower in quality too. ... with "A" words to get earlier placement in the phone book. ...
   www.betanews.com/article/Dont...customer.../1251754262 - Cached - Similar

7. Church of the Customer Blog

   Jeanne Bliss has been the Chief Customer Officer for Lands End, Coldwell Banker, andAllstate, .... Continuing to show the rest of us what to do when we screw up, ... demanded $2 million to not write a book and screenplay about Letterman's .... When a company has evangelists, it's often because it has core values. ...
   customerevangelists.typepad.com/ - Cached - Similar

8. Michigan's Top Ten Worst Automobile Insurance Companies | Michigan ...

   Jul 23, 2008 ... Some Michigan insurance companies like Nationwide, Allstate and State ...We're giving them money so they may continue to screw us. ... It's time for the citizens of Michigan to take back control from special interest. ... you are then a better risk since you paid ontime and are a renewing customer. ...
   www.michiganautolaw.com/.../michigans-top-ten-worst-automobile-insurance-companies/ -Cached - Similar

9. FRAUD AND RACKETEERING BY INSURANCE INDUSTRY

   Malicious, calculated and deliberate fraud by insurance companies: ... If they screw up, there is no hope, excepting a domestic insurrection ... http://www.public-i.org/50states_01_101100.htm ... The Information State Farm Does Not Publish On Its Pages.... A very large site devoted to the abuses of Allstate. ...
   graham.main.nc.us/~bhammel/ins.html - Cached - Similar

10. Allstate seeks 15 percent increase in N.J. auto insurance rates ...

    Feb 3, 2009 ... Those hwo raise the Prices to enrish themself only and screw F** the American People ... NOTE: Based on ALLSTATE's credit rating, all of us "customers" should look ... The company is just making a perfectly legal campaign contribution. .... Jerry Izenberg's new book, like its author, keeps it real ...
    www.nj.com/news/.../allstate_seeks_15_percent_incr.html - Cached - Similar

    
    

Health Insurance To Be Stripped Of Its Protected Business Practices... It's About Time!

If any other industry fixed prices or coordinated limited access to trade it would be slammed into submission by the FTC.  In the 90's with the Clinton proto plan in full swing in Florida, I watched as middle level management swallowed up money for patient care in the merger and acquisition games of Wall Street.  

I decided to do a pro se attack on major players just to make my little statement.  I was informed then that insurance companies were exempt form Anti-Trust law.  Hmmmm, just who lobbyied for that special privilege?   

In an era where one could fed ex their bills to carriers such as Allstate insurance, track the delivery, and call the insurer only to be told that they "never received my bills" it became apparent that they had just a little too much damn control and were remiss in their fiduciary obligation to their clients and providers of care for such clients.

Today, it was announced on CNN that Congress was considering removing the exemption to level the playing field.  It's about damn time.  

Fl Senator Bill Nelson Replies To Information/Comment Request...

In a prior post I expressed concern over the additional tax Americans may face by tapping their 401K early to live day to day...  Senator Nelson was kind enough to reply in depth, and his comment is posted here for all to review and comment...

Dear Dr. Fellabaum:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the taxes on early withdrawals from retirement savings accounts. 

Many Americans find it necessary to pull funds from their 401Ks or IRAs in order to keep their homes. Early withdrawals from a retirement account are subject to an additional tax of 10% if the distribution is made before the age of 59 and 6 months. This tax penalty is a hard toll on taxpayers already struggling in a weak economy and labor market. 

Last year, I sponsored an amendment to the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 that would allow for penalty-free use of up to $25,000 from retirement savings accounts for the purpose of foreclosure recovery relief on a principal residence. However, that amendment was not included in the final bill. I will continue to push Congress to enact measures that offer real relief for homeowners.

I recently introduced a bill (S. 1657) that would allow public safety employees who retire before the age of 55, like firefighters and paramedics, to make withdrawals from their retirement accounts without paying a tax penalty. Many public safety agencies require retirement before the age of 55. We must ensure that our first-responders have access to their retirement savings when they retire.

I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue. Please don't hesitate to contact me in the future.

Sincerely,
Senator Bill Nelson

P.S. From time to time, I compile electronic news briefs highlighting key issues and hot topics of particular importance to Floridians. If you'd like to receive these e-briefs, visit my Web site and sign up for them at http://billnelson.senate.gov/news/ebriefs.cfm

If You Put Everyone Out Of Business You Eventually Have To Feed Them For Free...

WGCU, the SW Fl NPR station's fund raiser has Walmart matching 10% of the contributions with food going to the Harry Chapin Food Bank. If Walmart would pay employees more, manufacture and buy American, perhaps this wouldn't be needed...

Home-Buyer Credit: Well If You Really Wanted To Help A Brother Out...

If you are a first time home buyer or have not owned a home in over 2 or 3 years, you may qualify for a tax credit that can help you get into a home.  There is discussion to take it out of unspent stimulus funds.  The states better move and use up that budgetary allowance.

However, maybe it is about time mortgages were outlawed as being one of the largest rip offs and corporate lies to the American consumer.  If you don't know, a mortgage is structured that you pay the interest up front in the first five years.  Traditionally, with a simple loan, your payment decreases both principal due and interest charges as the interest is based on the amount still remaining on the loan.  So after 5 years of paying $1,200 a month, you could still owe 95% of the loan.  Do the math.  Take your house payment, multiply it by 12 then by thirty and subtract the amount you bought the house for.  Better yet divide the purchase price into the above number and you will see that you pay about 3 times the purchase price.  Lenders structure the loan you owe (after adding on junk fees) and after a few years sell your loan after the cream is siphoned off.  During the bubble, they sold them quicker because they were jamming the junk fees down your throat and were making more money faster by feeing you to death.  

Now, for the first time in a long time in this country, people are not rushing out to buy the latest big screen TV.  They are saving.  Something that a consumerism economy frowns upon.  What? You want to keep your money!  If our government outlawed the current form of lending, you would pay principal and interest in such a way with a simple interest loan that you would pay your home off in 12 years.  Yep, 12.  Time to write your legislators.  In the mean time, if you pay half of your monthly payment early, you can achieve the same effect.  And the "effective interest rate" you pay is more like 4%, even if you have a 8% loan.    As Americans you can take control of your country back by first taking control of your money back.  Saving money makes you rich, spending makes the rich richer.

Citizens are the livestock of government...

They can be sent to slaughter as in war,

They can be used for breeding to increase the herd,

They can be put out to pasture as in retirement, and

They can serve as collateral for loans from the world bank.

But through all this do you think Congress feels any need to cover our vet bills?

Bin Laden and the Witch Hunt... It's Over: He's Dead.

According to our CIA operatives,Bin Laden is dead.  Dead after a bout of diptheria leading to kidney failure.

Our nation has spent more to find a dead man than we care to spend on our own health care programs.   Americans have let their fear lead them to justify their righteousness.  Justify it to the point they have all become Ahabs in pursuit of a great while whale of a cause that will lead us to exhaustion and death.  

And what will the Americans that support the war say once the news of Bin Laden's death is general knowledge?  Probably something like "Who should we attack next."

U.S. states suffer "unbelievable" revenue shortages:

U.S. states suffer "unbelievable" revenue shortages:

 

"It's crazy. It's really just unbelievable," said Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, and called the states' revenue situations "close to unprecedented."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091009/pl_nm/us_usa_state_budgets

See My Prior Writing On Subject

Recommended Skimming: War Criminals Are Becoming The Arbiters Of Law

War Criminals Are Becoming The Arbiters Of Law

 

By Paul Craig Roberts

 

"This is the Israeli notion of a fair deal: We're entitled to do whatever the hell we want to the Palestinians because, by definition, whatever we do to them is self-defense. They, however, are not entitled to lift a finger against us because, by definition, whatever they do to us is terrorism. 
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23702.htm

Reccurent Cycles In The Stock Market: When Years Collide...

n a general overview of stock downturns, recessions, depressions and recurrent overlying bear markets, I have assembled the following chart showing the patterns as follows...

 Downturns occur every 10 years in years ending in 3, 20 years in years ending in 9 and 30 years in years ending in 3.  All three sequences occurring sequentially happens every 60 years and the duration is for 7 years.   Also, there also appears to be the tendency to have a bear market every 7 years.  Sometimes the bear market strikes on the above mentioned years, other times in between which I have referred to as black bear markets.  Here is the chart... have fun and let's see if the patterns have merit.  Oh, this current recession is not slated for a continuation into 2013 but this is also a year slated for a bear market in the same downturn year ending in 9.  I have my limit orders in at 50% of the current market for additional purchases.

SIGNTOLOGY: Headlines That Don't Make You Think..

Taxes: One Way Or Another They're The Only Way To Pay For Health Care!

If A Federal Health Plan Fails To Pass, Will Florida Look To A State Income Tax To Pay The Bills?

On average, state tax revenues are currently down 17% from the second quarter and the biggest drop was in state income taxes which are down 28% from a year ago.  Sales tax revenues are also down 9% according to the Wall Street Journal, September 30, 2009.  Eventually, a state income tax may be the tax of last resort.

A call placed last week to Rep. Burt Saunders office last week was not returned, but a staffer at Dave Aronberg's relayed a message via email that current Republican control will not move on a state income tax in Florida. 

There is a growing demand for social programs for working couples and business owners with  Medicaid covering more and more workers following suit of the food stamp program.. 

Whether a federal health plan passes or not, we will still pay for the hospital stays of illegals; you can thank the state hospital lobbyist for that.  At least, if a federal plan passes, then Americans will have their care paid for too. 

Volunteer Air Patrol Group Holds Hangar Dance Fundraiser

Local Air Patrol Volunteer Group To Hold Dance

To Benefit Search And Rescue Efforts For Boaters

On Local Waterways

WHO: The Sundown Patrol Of Lee County

A Non-Profit Organization established in 1965 better known as the Sundowners, an all volunteer group of pilots and observers conducting weekend patrols to find boaters in distress.

WHAT:  3rd Annual Hangar Dance - Flying Our Colors, A Salute To Veterans

Their annual fund raising event supporting patrol efforts that save lives.

The Sundown Patrol of Lee County Inc,, receives no government support or funding.  The voluntary contributions of individuals, boaters, civic, fraternal and business organizations as well as volunteer observer's dues fund day to day operational expenses. 

Event Includes...

Catering by Cohen & Cohen

Music by J J & Company

Local radio personality MC:Dave Roberts

Silent Auction 

Your choice of Roast Tenderloin with Gravy or Chicken Marsala

        Beverages, Open Bar and Meal included in Ticket Purchase!

WHERE:   Page Field Ft. Myers at the ACI Hangar 325 Danley Dr.

WHEN:   Saturday, Nov. 7th   6:00 PM to 10:30 PM (1800-2230 Hours)

COST: Your Tax Deductable Contribution

      Tickets

                      $45 per Person, ($80 per Couple) In Advance

                      $50 per Person at the Hangar Door

VIP Tables Available, Call For Details.

*Event Sponsors Welcome!*

"Come Join Our Salute To America's Veterans And Military Personnel"

CONTACT FOR TICKETS, VIP INFO AND SPONSORS 

 Marsha Gregory  at 239-481-2801 after 5 PM 

                                           or by email at kgreg10461@aol.com

Proceeds Benefit "The Sundown Patrol Of Lee County, Inc." 

Additional Donations Welcome!

Tire Tariff Too liTTle Too laTe?

Chinese tires have been imported to the U. S. for over ten years and after a series of accidents, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued a recall.  The company, Foreign Tire Sales (FTS) needed to find at least 450,000 defective tires that were made by a company in China where supposedly an engineer there just decided to put one less part in.  I have seen some of these shredded tires on the back of SUV's driving down the road similar to this one from Google images...

The problem is that it is impossible to sue the Chinese manufacturer.  Evidently during our trade negotiations both countries forgot to sign that clause whereby we would enforce each others judgements.  So you as a consumer, and hopefully not a dead one, only has the recourse to sue the importer as in the case of FTS (Foreign TIre) in New Jersey.  Here there was a wrongful death suit from a tire that caused a fatal rollover.  The NTSB ordered FTS to recall over 450,000 tires sold to various vendors nationwide ( an order that would probably bankrupt him.)  In reviewing the literature the manufacturer in this case has repeatedly claimed their tires to be safe (ahem, see photo above.)  I had one of these on I 75 about two years ago.  The manufacturer, Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber, one of China's biggest tiremakers, has merely replied that an individual at the plant (their scapegoat) decided to eliminate on his own a strip that helps keep the tire together (!!!!!) and that the part has been restored with the assurance their tires are safe.  

In a related story, Cooper Tire (which I bought religously years ago( recalled 288,000 passenger-car tires earlier this year because their Chinese manufacturerer used an "unauthorized material" in the sidewalls that could cause air leaks and, eventually, tread separation.

I am sure that any improvements in Chinese manufacturing ethics will be maintained long enough to get the tariff lifted.

Tapping Your 401 K To Live May Find You Tapped Out By The IRS Next Spring

Many Americans struggling to get by have been tapping their 401 K to survive.  Many below the minimum age 59 1/2 are taking some or all of their available funds to pay the mortgage and put food on the table during troubled times.  There is one drawback in these times of bank bail outs: Most people are not getting bailed out.  And the problem may have just gotten worse. According to a broker at Scottrade in Ft. Myers, FL, both 401 K and IRA funds distributed prematurely are subject to a 10% penalty.  That's 10% off the total cash plus the required federal payroll taxes due.  Your employer contributed their part at a pre-tax position so they are not required to pay that part on your withdrawl. A co-worker completely drained his 401 K to scratch enough money to buy a Fannie Mae home. He was surprised that in this economy they kept coming back asking for more. I called U. S. Senator Bill Nelson's office in Ft. Myers as to whether any emergency tax relief legislation was being planned to help those that have hit hard times but using their own retirement resources to survive.  At the time of this post, I have not received an information if such plans are in the works. CPA Bob Bean, a financial strategist with the Strickland Financial Group in Ft. Myers and a former IRS tax agent also says that "All is taxable subject to penalty unless you're over 59 1/2."  In March with the market so crapped out I used some knowledge gained in the Strickland workshops and converted my 401 K to a Roth.  I had tax taken out in advance but considering how far down the market was, it was a wise move.  Remember, taxes can only go up and with a 401 K you can not leave the money in there at age 70.  You have to take distributions.  With all the bail out going on, taxes by the time I turn 70 will be astronomical and I will not have much in the way of deductions.  At least I can pass the Roth along to my daughter.

Kash-4-Klunkers and the Windfalls That Didn't Go Where They Should Have...

Many Kash-4-Klunker customers may in fact be due additional funds, read on

 

The radio quote goes "GM was a car company that occasionally leant money and now it is a bank that makes cars."  After all when you can make a car at a 2% profit, or finance it for a 25% profit the math stands out.  I remember as a child my mom or a neighbor saving a car payment monthly and after three years would go buy a new car.  I am from the day of a new model by American Motors called the Gremlin costing $1776.  In 1975ish I read about Ford introducing the Pantera.  It cost $10,000.  As a teen I thought, "who's gonna pay that much for a car."  In fact, three years later I saw one in a used car lot with an empty milk shake cup and some french fries on the floor reminiscent of how girls I knew took care of their car.  It was still going for 10k.  Then as years passed I noticed that although wages were not going up, the price of a new car was.  It was about the price of a new Florida home circa 1980.  The difference, now you had longer to pay.  The downside was that by the fourth year your downside was upside-down.  In the early 80s doctors started buying trucks as the insurance was cheaper.  In the years since 1980 I've seen real estate prices, property taxes and insurance rates go up while wages in the general population remained flat.  College grads were soon to find out that going back for that MBA in the long run of the cost benefit analysis did little for giving them the quantum leap in dollar and cents they hoped for. 

 

Recently the government devised a program for auto stimulus, Kash-4-Klunkers as I call it.  Passing the bill through Congress and into law after the June 1st speed bankruptcy of GM did nothing to pass through some final benefits to the UAW members, especially the retired ones.

If I had to buy a house every five years because the current one was unlivable and only worth 5% of what it was purchased for I wouldn't buy a new house but choose to get fixer uppers.  It is a shame that the fuel standards of today are not much better than those proposed in the gas crunch of the 70s.  I remember the gas lines and the idiots that traded in their paid Chrysler New Yorkers to squeeze into a Toyota with a monthly payment to boot.  5mph bumpers?  That's for another article.  As gas leveled off back then and became tolerated as a norm driving renewed.  I heard a quote once that before the first Gulf War gas inched down around 78 cents a gallon.  Two Bush Wars on the Asian continent and it hasn't been that low since.

 

Pricier gas, pricier car and, oh yeah, more insurance!

 

Not only did the people that contributed to the 700,000 plus auto sales probably get a car not as durable as the one they had gotten years of service out of, but now they pay new car insurance.  Yes, collision on a car that once hit will never drive the same again.  So aside form inventory clearance to pump up the manufacturing quotient, the real winner is the insurance companies, again.  Why?  There are two reasons.  First, the insurance premium is due for the higher coverage as long as you have financing on the vehicle.  And secondly and more to the point, people that bought extended warranties and those advertised high mileage warranties that traded in under klunkers gave the insurance that was pre paid on purchase a windfall liability of relief.  I spoke with a warranty rep at a Saturn dealer and was told that if consumers did not get a refund on the plan they purchased at they dealer, they may be due a prorated return of premium.  There are at least two offshore insurance companies that I know of that sell these warranties but if selling in the U. S. are no doubt bound by any terms or conditions as mainland companies.  Contact your dealer for details.  If so, it's not a clean walk to the bank for the insurance companies again.

 

Considering who really benefited from the benefit derived, as far as the Konsumer is Koncerned, the Kash-4-Klunkers program should have been for Klunkers that were Kaput!

Obama School Speech Needed To Be Watched By Parents More Than Students...

It seems that the only benefit of Home Schooling is mind control.  It is bad enough we have parents telling their children (if they take the time to talk with their children) that what their teachers are teaching them is stupid, why do you need algebra, etc.  

Years ago I was watching Newt Gingrich give a talk on technology and how it will benefit the children from the inner city and other deprived areas.  Then I realized that if the child hollers to the bedroom "Momma, do you know the sun is 93 million light years from earth" after they just learned it on TV, and if at 11:30 AM their Momma is still in bed that perhaps it is a lost cause.  

We have cultural details to work with as well.  A recent NPR program reviewing early start programs revealed the statistic that the one key factor in keeping children accelerated academically was how much and perhaps how in-depth parents talked/discussed things with their children.  

In 1995 the Lee County Florida school board at one of its meetings allowed citizens to come forward and express their views on before the school board would vote to remove the option to allow volunteer HIV testing at school events.  So, the Christian fundamentalist paraded their hot daughters to the podium to cry that the school board was insulting them by infering they were "...having sex."  And the testing was not even mandatory.  It was an option and it offered counseling.  Who was the testing for?  How about the daughter of a Christian fundamentalist that was being forced to have sex with her father.  I don't think political correctness would permit them to consider that.  What about the male that was being homosexually molested by his step dad?  The child with no means of transportation or other way to get away and be tested for the risk they were under.  My thought at the time: "Aren't we raising our children to make their own informed choices by the time they are in high school?"

I have always felt that school teachers do not teach our children.  Parents teach their children. Teachers merely relate material and test assimilation in a structured setting.  So perhaps the Obama school speech would have made them think twice before popping a beer and sitting down to watch the 3 millionth rerun of Gilligan's Island (Hey guys, they never got off the island in the original series...) and "Sacrifice" some of their oh so precious time to review their child's homework with them and perhaps read ahead with them so that the new material was not so new the next day in class.  Is your kid dumber than a 5th grader, grab a mirror, look at the source.

JOB HUNTING: It Pays To Be Entrepreneurial...(even if you can't spell it!)

SIGNTOLOGY: County Road Signs Promote AIDS Prevention

SIGNTOLOGY: Not A Good Sign...

HISPANIC239 celebrates with Hispanic Month "Kick-Off

FORT MYERS, FL

In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month beginning on Tuesday, September 15, 2009, a group of local business people have come together to announce a new business association.

It's called HISPANIC239 for the Lee and Collier county telephone area code.

 

With the growing Hispanic business and residential population, HISPANIC239 is focused on attending to the needs of businesses locally.  "You do not have to be Hispanic to do business with Hispanic businesses. We are providing an  opportunity for all business people to meet, develop and conduct business with each other." comments Charlie Flores.

 

Hispanic Heritage Month begins on September 15, the Anniversary of Independence for five Latin American countries—Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico declared its independence on September 16, and Chile on September 18.  The term Hispanic, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, refers to Spanish-speaking people in the United States of any race. HISPANIC239 displays, in its logo, the flags of 21 countries of Hispanic origin and will function primarily as an English speaking organization.

 

The "kick-Off' will be hosted and sponsored by Fort Myers Toyota and Chico Rivera, Director of Hispanic Sales & Business Affairs located on Colonial Blvd & Fowlers Street in Fort Myers.

It will begins at 5:15 - 8:15 pm and is open to all business people. "Bring business cards and your professionalism" Rivera comments. " It will be 'fantastico !"

 

In addition to general meetings, etc. , HISPANIC239 will print a business magazine focusing on the local area and is open to all businesses who wish to promote their businesses to and from the Hispanic marketplace.

 

HISPANIC239 is an assertive organization with opportunities for those who like to meet business owners and representatives and learn about the Hispanic business culture,  network, attend events, meetings, seminars, and market their products and services to other members and the general Hispanic community.  The website will officially launch the next day on September 16, 2009.

 

For information, call 239.333.7126

YOUTOOINTERVIEWS: Marco Rubio U.S. Senate candidate and former Florida House Speaker

  Marco Rubio U.S. Senate candidate

I have recently extended an invitation to Marco Rubio for an interview on the blog.

Marco will be running against current Governor Charlie Crist for the seat.

Star Trek: The Next Conspiracy Uncovered: Star Trek Paved Way For Iranian Space Program

While many may not have noticed the similarities, here is the proof...

As you can see, the current Iranian President has an uncanny resemblance to Spock in an alternate universe.  Also, the symbol for the Iranian Space Agency was the prototype used for the Star Trek emblem.  Also, there was a Kahn from the middle east (the "Bush wars on the Asian continent") that the ship found (the Iranian's got to deep space first.)  And, the Supreme Leader of Iran is seen here doing a mind meld just like Spock does and looking much like the alien facade of the Thesarius.  All in all though, Ricardo Montalbon has no equal when it comes to the enemy.

There you have it.  The U. N. needs to stop looking for enriched uranium and start looking for antimatter.  

The History of a Campaign That Failed

This came through via InformationClearingHouse.com... its great 

(Apologies to Mark Twain) 

By Sarah Palin 
Former Governator of a Really Big State 

Satire

By Clay Reynolds 

September 04, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- Once upon a time there was a little boy named Barack Hussein Obama who was born in Hawaii, which is near Kenya, or maybe part of Kenya--who can tell? At any rate he was born in Hawaii, maybe, on an island named Oahu, which rhymes with “Wahoo,” which is the yell that came from my daughter’s bedroom so many times when she and her boyfriend were watching the Christian Broadcasting Network’s review of Gospel Favorites—they were such fans!-- and his father was from Kenya, which made the little boy half an African American--a real African American, not one of the fake kinds from Georgia or someplace--or at least half an African American, since his mother wasn't from Kenya or Hawaii, but was from Kansas, which is part of Chicago. I think. At least, there are some nice stores there and a really tall building and a lake nobody can swim in because it’s so polluted bigger than the Bering Straits that you can’t really see across whether the Russians are there are no and can’t swim in because it’s so cold.

This little boy worked hard all his life to earn money so he could go to school, and he made good grades, although he probably didn't deserve them but only got them because he was in Kansas and everyone knew he was from Hawaii or Kenya, which made him special because nobody can remember where Hawaii is, except Anne Marie Smith, who was so prissy that she didn't even have to wear glasses so everyone could see her when she winked. In any case, he grew up and went to Harvard, which is a big college somewhere near Maine or Connecticut or one of those teeny-tiny states that nobody can remember on a geography quiz, or at least nobody in my class could remember the capital of except Anne Marie Smith, who was so snotty just because her daddy was a big deal in town, which is why I wanted to be a president or senator or own my own beauty shop or be something important when I grew up, like maybe governator of the State of Alaska, right after I beat the socks off of her in all the beauty contests we could find to enter—and I did, too! Anyway, he went to Harvard or somewhere like that and became a lawyer or something like that and came back to Kansas and worked hard to make things all better in the neighborhoods of Chicago, which everybody knows is full of Mafia goon squads and such things who are always shooting at each other and not even from airplanes, and finally was elected to the US SENATE from the state of Illinois or Iowa or someplace that has lots of corn and wheat and pigs and stuff, and lots of African Americans, too--the fake fake kind who aren't even from Georgia or someplace. 

While he was in Chicago or Kansas but before he left for the SENATE, he joined this church that is run by Black Pantherites, who hate America and say “G.D. America” and talk about h-e-double two-sticks all the time, not as a place that Muslims go to burn forever even though they think there are a bunch of virgins there, but as a description of the same communities Obama was working hard to organize and became a Muslim and a Nazi and a Socialist. His work as an organizer was because of him being a Socialist, who are also organizers, mostly. He became a Muslim because his daddy was a Kenyan and an African American--the real kind--and because he hates America because his grandmother lived in Hawaii and he didn't get to visit her very much, which is why he hates old people.

He became a Nazi because he heard that the Nazis rounded up all the old people and killed nearly six million of them somewhere in Europe--Australia, I think--during one of those World Wars we had that nobody could keep straight except Anne Marie Smith, who always thought she was so important because her mother could make stew from fresh killed moosemeat, something that I soon learned to do better than she did and got my stew on national television to boot, and not just because it was a slow news day, either, although I had to make the network pay to have the house cleaned up because it was such a mess from my kids tracking in moose guts and fish scales and stuff because they know that because we eat we hunt since the supermarket doesn’t sell moosemeat. So he kept it a secret that he was a secret Kenyan and Muslim and Socialist and Nazi from Chicago, Iowa, which is near Kansas or Hawaii. 

He was in the US SENATE just long enough to get his chair warm and to vote for a bunch of stuff only Socialists believe in—like abortions and not praying and letting homosexuals act like regular people—and then he ran for the PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES, and he won! And I ran for Vice President, I think, but they made me hang around with this really old guy named John McCain who was kind of crippled up and really old and didn’t look good standing next to me because he’s so short and who didn't know how to match his tie with my dress, and who kept wincing and making faces at me whenever I tried to tell him how the cow ate the cabbage, which, by golly, I know! Even though we don’t have a lot of cows in Alaska, because we keep thinking they’re caribou or grizzly bears and shooting them. And so we lost, which wasn't fair, because they made me answer all these really hard questions about Africa and other countries I’d never heard of on television and in other places, and even though they gave me the answers ahead of time and put this gizmo, which I would not wear because it did not match my earrings, in my ear so they could even tell me what they were, I never could remember them the way that nasty Anne Marie Smith would have, just because she thinks she's so perfect because she married a guy with a real job and stuff and who takes a bath once in a while and shaves and looks good in a real suit, but who really isn’t very good in bed, and by golly…well, never mind that, tick-a-lock!. 

And the first thing Obama did was run the economy into the ground and make people lose their jobs and go broke, and the second thing he did was raise taxes on babies and crippled people, and the third thing he did was invade Iraq because they had all these massive destructibles which he never could find even though we had already killed Sadaam Hussein, who was the really bad guy who lived in a hole and never shaved and had fleas and lice and stuff and who I think Obama is related to because they have the same name and who captured a bunch of airplanes and ran them into the Empire State Building in Boston or Philadelphia or someplace like that when he could just as easily have run them into some building in Chicago, like the Sears Twin Towers or somewhere, and the fourth thing he did was invade Afghanistan and try to find Ossama been Laden, who is another really bad man who ran the Taliban, which I think is a kind of religious department store in India or Peru, or someplace, and who makes lots of video tapes even though nobody has a VCR anymore and only play DVDs, and who won’t speak English, even though he can, and even though Obama tortured every man, woman, and old person in the country my making them ride surf boards in the water, and also made them wear these really ugly orange jumpsuits and live in Gitmo,Cuba, which is near Florida or Texas, where there’s no new cars at all, but he never could, and the fifth thing he did was give all the money in Washington D.C. to the car makers because everybody, including Anne Marie Smith, who thinks she's so important just because her daughter has a husband and stuff, wants cars made in Pakistan and other parts of Africa, especially Honduras, which is why we are going to war with Pakistan next, because of all the boarder problems they’re having with the warlords, who are, I think, men who are witches, and the sixth thing he did was give all the other money he borrowed from the Chinese, who are near North Korea and look just like them and who makes Obama look like a chipmunk in a polar bear cage at feeding time, even though the Chinese should probably save all their money to pay for the winter Olympias they had there, even though it didn't snow the way it does in my home state of Alaska, so they had to do all kinds of other stuff that made no sense, like beach volleyball, which may be illegal to watch in Alaska, which is where they should have the Olympias, even though that snooty Anne Marie Smith would probably enter the swimsuit competition again and beat me out, since I had all my children naturally and not by Caesar Section the way she did, and the seventh thing he did was to find this Mexican woman and made her a Supreme, even though she wasn’t even a fake African American and probably can’t even sing or dance because she was a racist and a Mexican and too short besides and who probably doesn’t even speak English and who I think snuck into the country before we could put up a wall to stop that kind of thing, and the eighth thing he did try to make CONGRESS, which is where the US SENATE is, and which is near NEW YORK CITY, which is an evil place, or so Anne Marie Smith said when she was being so stuck up about having a bunch of clothes from fancy stores there, which is something I made John McCain buy for me the very second I became a mate on his running ticket but before he fooled around and lost the election because he hung around with this guy named Joe Plumber who wasn’t really a plumber and who never wears a tie and was even dumber than Anne Marie Smith, try to pass a health care bill which would mean that we would have to give FREE HEALTH CARE to people who had NO MONEY AT ALL, if you can believe that! I mean how are drug pushers and doctors and insurance companies supposed to get ahead if that happens? And then he wanted to kill all the babies, including my own little girl's baby, I'm sure, and just because her boyfriend turned out to be such a jerk--which was a total surprise to everyone, and I don't care what Anne Marie Smith says! And part of his stupid, ridiculous health care thingie was to make sure all the old people were rounded up and put into gasoline chambers where they would be burned alive before being strangulated by poison glasses, the same way the Nazis did, which proves that he's a Nazi, just like giving all that money away to all the banks and car companies proves that he was a Socialist and the fact that he bowed down on his knees before some Muslim in Arabia, which is near Turkey or Egypt or someplace in the Middle of Asia, and then he refused to prove that he was ever actually born anywhere, and then he wanted kids to stay in school so they'd all turn out like Anne Marie Smith, probably, and be so stuck-up, just like that nasty Katie Couric—who actually looks like Anne Marie Smith, only she’s shorter and a little hippy--which I am not!, I don’t care what Anne Marie Smith says—and who I happen to know dyes her hair and wears contact lenses or that mean old Jon Stewart who I think is a Jew and who is shorter than John McCain and not even as cute as Joe Plumber, or that real Nazi Steve Colbert, who I think is really a secret boyfriend of Anne Marie Smith, and who I know for a fact went to Iraq so he could spy for the El Quadas, who are, I think, all Kenyans or maybe Kurdistanis or one of those K words, and so they could remember something they read, or maybe so they could actually read, which is a waste of time in Alaska, since there's lots of wild animals to shoot and hockey to play and snowmobiles to race around, and stuff like that to do when we're not counting the fish floating down stream or watching the Russians off our back porches! So that's why Obama is an evil person and unAmerican and probably wishes he was born in one of the original thirteen colonials, like I was, and that he was more than half an African American--the real kind--which of course, he isn't even that, really, since even Anne Marie Smith knows that there are no Africans in Hawaii! 

Native Texan novelist, scholar, and critic Clay Reynolds is the author of thirteen books and more than seven hundred other publications ranging from critical studies to short fiction and poems. He is presently professor of arts and humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas and for five years served as the school's associate dean for undergraduate studies.. http://www.clayreynolds.info/  RClayR @ aol. com

Will The Stock Market Go Splitz-O-Phrenic?

Is the market over bought as some experts infer?  We already see that the housing market is over built and over the past five year over bought to the point that inventory volume, lack of funding and depreciation have left the average American in a world of hurt.  Dragged into this is the rest of the stock market that may individuals depend on for the financial stream of their retirement.  I am not in real estate.  I therefore do not talk like a salesman.  You can have too much inventory.  If people don't make enough money, lending practices must be skewed to facillitate growth.  I remember a time when you could finance and pay off a car in three years.   As the prices of cars went up, auto financing merely extended the length of time you could finance your car.  Our country got upside down in cars, and upside down in housing.  A readjustment was needed, and it happened. 

Now remember, if you are reading this and are an average American, that there are people with financial means so far above us that we can barely conceive the economics that drive our world.  When I used to trade currencies I noticed that at the time the UK exchange took lunch, that the ticker for a currency would tick up and down like a saw.  This was one of those moments where the realization of immense finance at play came to light.  Invest a million and it ticks up, sell and you've made a million.  Short the next tick, you've made another million.  With enough money, you could trade to the point of making a fortune on everyones lunch hour.  Conceiving of that much money is a stretch for me.  When everyone else returns from lunch, let them have the sandbox again until the next day.

With the stock market collapse, it took Geitner being able to speak well enough to not be scary (which is code for saying "hey guys, it'll be business as usual")  and the market ticked up.  Experts say the market is overbought.  But the players at the top make their money this way.  So to instill confidence, they need to keep the ride going.  The next move for the market? Splitz-O-Phrenia.  I think the next wave of stock actions will be a rash of splits (situations where your shares change in number with a prportionate change in value.)  Historically stocks that split continue to climb in price.  The players of the market need to get prices and volumes for trading up.  This is a simple way to do it.  The "Shareholder Class" want values up so they get their divident (that's how they live day to day.)  The labor class will continue to flounder in bankruptcy, unemployment, uninsuredness and homelessness while social program and governmet bailout plans keep consumerism going and financiers well bonused.

If you have cash, you may have missed the rock bottom prices of March.  If you have stock that your bought low, hold on and ride the wave of splits like the run of mergers and acquisitions we've seen in years past.  If you have a 401K still and do not wish to pay exorbinant taxes on withdrawls as you get older speak to your financial adviser about converting it to something like a ROTH while values are still down.  With those of you heavily into the market, wait and hopefully inflation will once again return to the market and bail you out.  Stocks are just another form of currency, and splits may be the wallet fattener the average American needs.

New IRS Policy May Help Pinpoint Undocumented Workers Paid Under the Table

The IRS announced a data mining operation to evaluate mortgage interest paid in comparison to the income of the home owner.  Most is not all U. S. citizens file for a interest deduction on their tax returns.  A lot of first time homeowners are probably unaware that the amount of interest they can deduct is actually their tax rate, 15% is the lowest, times their interest.  So if you paid $10,000 in interest last year and you are in a 15% bracket you only put $1,500 down on your tax return before doing further computation against your adjusted net.  And, that is if you itemize.

In a "normal" U. S. standard of living single family home setting, one parent with 2.3 children pay property taxes that cover their school and other municipal taxes.

Now let's consider the undocumented immigrant congregal living situation of 2.3 families per single family home with 4.5 children and we run into a problem.  The most obvious is a tax shortfall.  Essentially there is a collective loss of 60% of the muncipal taxes in relation to services provided based on the congregal setting.  This causes a hardship on county schools that spend approximately $10,000 per year per child.

While the government probably has not viewed the IRS information as a gold mine in ascertaining ocupants per dollar it may certainly show that an employed owner and self employed spouse file returns far below the standard of living from rents collected.  If such funds collected from each border are claimed as rental income, where's the state sales tax collected?  Florida wants it's cut.  If such funds are collected but not on the tax return, tax evasion.   If such individuals are found to be "running a boarding house" they may be in violation of code as far as housing and being able to run a business.  The families living there?  Where is their source of income and do they file tax returns?

Several years ago I worked in a clinical study center.  A large number of the subjects were of questionable status.  Many had unsigned laminated social security cards that looked as if the name had been typed with a typewriter from a thrift store.  When the company started requiring I-9 forms to verify if the social security number was indeed theirs, we had six people get up and walk out of the initial screening in one day.

The last time I checked, the IRS had over three million dollars of refund money that never had a tax return filed to claim.

As we see increased government spending to spend our way out of the depression we see that the government will need to increase revenue to pay for such outlay.  While the mortgage interest comparison starts to find people making more than they claim, it will be the tip of an iceberg and open a new can of worms.  Not only by the location of undocumented workers but also on the legal rights of U. S. citizens in their defense against IRS harrassment.

Essentially, if the immigrant information, which I think will prove volumous, is pushed to a back burner as too hot a political issue to touch then perhaps more citizens can use the equal enforcement under the law clause as grounds for defense against selective prosecution in IRS proceedings.

After all, what good is it to be a citizen if it means you just get to hang a bullseye around your neck?

CNN Story on Swine Flu Presences Serious Shortage of Medical Appliances...

The cat out of the bag thanks to 9/1/09 CNN story on Swine Flu. The problem?  There is an expected lack of hospital equipment that now that the story has broke that I can comment on further.

In a medical briefing two months ago this fact was presented me and others attending an in-service on Swine Flu.  Essentially, the U.S. does not have enough respirators to care for the expected hospitalizations that will require them.  Reaction to the virus along with an over reaction of the body to the flu referred as "storm" serious cases will require hospitalization and intensive care.

According to CNN we have about 60,000 respirators in the U.S.  In a minimal worst case scenarios we could see hospitalizations reach 100,000. 100,000 hospital patients requiring respirators in a country that only has about 60,000 of them scattered nationwide.  If on a good day the number of cases to actually require hospital care is 50,000 may only have 10,000 respirators to spare.

Another touchy question in the fear filled days of "Death Panel" advocates: who gets to get them?

Another interesting item to note is the drug Tamiflu which is a first line defense in addition to immunization and of which the exclusive distribution rights in the U. S. are owned by Donald Rumsfeld.

Tamiflu is also not in sufficient supply for all Americans.  I won't even go into the fact that if the virus mutates, the flu vaccine being developed may be useless.

On a lighter note, I personally do not feel the doomsday distribution scenario will come to pass.  I truly do not feel the attack will be as severe as feared.  The statistics for the general population as far as fatalities so far are not overwhelming.  Of concern is that pregnant women do have a remarkably higher mortality rate once contracting it.  And, I am not sure if being pregnant and getting innoculated is wise.  Remember, I worked in clinical research for two years.  Pregnancy was reason to be excluded from the study and during study screening we did catch a female subject trying to get the subject in the next stall to provide urine so she could sneak pass study admission screening and get her pay check for being a test subject.  If it's not tested on pregnant women, and followed through to years after the child is born, no one can be sure the effect the vaccine will have.

I remember when the initial swine flu broke out in Mexico and immediately thought "they need to close the borders."  Later as the disease spread, even with fatalities, the borders remained open.  Watching the diagram of spread I realized the government was using this to study distribution trends.  It was enlightening to observe how the reports of cases followed a specific pattern.  If we ever deal with bioterrorism on this level, we at least know how it will progress through the country.

The above map show that starting in Mexico, the spread had an initial stab into the American heartland.
It follows a path similar to the projected path of the NAFTA Superhighway that most Americans are unaware of...

Which brings me to the final consideration in the actual spread of swine flu beyond a lack of handwashing.  We currently are dealing with an outbreak of the flu among college students in Kansas.  This may prove to be the first documented situation of how the use of pot can spread infection.  Review the map of the flu distribution and consider that it flows up to the middle of the country: Kansas.  Sharing a joint spreads more saliva than running a kissing booth at the county fare.  This may prove to be more of a critical point in curtailing the spread of this disease than any considered so far.

If The Blind Really Knew What The Braille Sign Looked Like Would They Bother To Touch It?

Drugs Are Bad, nKay? So Don't Do Drugs. . .

But there is a time and a place for drugs and that's in college.

The above self defeating Aristotelean loop has taken a new twist.  Other than college, that place is MEXICO. . .  Viva Los Narcos!

So, in it's infinite wisdom and leadership role as essentially a third world country that has more drug cartel employees than the country has citizens and so much organized crime that almost anything can be target for a shakedown, the Mexican government has adopted the following pharmaceutical policy:

Legal Limit (what are we doing, going duck hunting?)

Marijuana: 5 grams

OK, is this weed or THC?   I am sure that Pi is used in calculating the conversion(THC, Pi, munchies. . .).  Imagine if you will, getting pulled over and the police finding 5.1 grams.  In Mexico, I am sure that cops can find enough 0.1 grams in their own pockets to toss into your car to put you over the legal limit so they can strong arm you into buying your way out of this one Joan Wilder.  Actually, probably driving with your windows down alone will do this.  What do you do when you get stopped stateside?  "Oh, that?  I just vacationed in Tiajuana officer, honestly."  Yeah, like that will get you off (sorry for the pun.)  This is not your grandma's bag of weed.  Woodstock anniversary as it may be, drugs are bad, nkay?  Especially drugs and Mexico used in one sentence.  In a recent article detailing the Sicarro in Mexico and one assasins attempt to get out of the organization, drug cartels are in it for the money.  Imagine that.  The assasin that was interviewed was admitted underage to the Mexican police where he was then sent to U. S. FBI and DEA schools to learn our procedures.  Knowing our tactics, no wonder our border patrol fails to catch less than 1% of incoming narcotics.  I did some math on an alternate point that border patrol checkpoints managed to confiscate over ... annually by "finding" cash from drug deals on it's way back to Mexico.  Since border enforcement gets to keep and apply found money to it's annual budget, well, then can do more with the cash than drugs so there seems to be motivation to be unmotivated.  Pot has gone from simple stoner humor to bad news.  Mexican law makers must have gotten into some bad liqour or testing samples when this bill was introduced and passed.  It is no longer a simple case of getting high and getting laid or whatever.  The line from Animal House will need to be rewritten as well.

On to harder drugs.  No, Viagra is not a hard drug nor am I throwing at you that minor drugs lead to more hard core drugs.  The Mexican lawmakers have made sure of that for us.

Additionally, the legal limits are as follows:

Cocaine   0.5 grams  (500 mg)

I thought this one went out of vogue before Miami Vice hit reruns?  

Now, it gets even screwier

Heroin

Yes, there is a legal limit for Heroin; 50 mg.  (That's 0.05 grams to keep it consistent.)  That's 10% of the cocaine allowance.  Though selling is still a crime, can you trade like we did with basebal cards as kids?

And last but not least: Meth

Meth???

The legal limit in Mexico is 40 mg. although you still won't be able to buy cold remedies easily to make it.  No wonder so many illegals keep sneaking into the U. S. to send remittances back home.

In terms of economics, in the U. S., expenditures for drug rehab as well as law enforcement cost for the war on drugs are included in calculating our GDP.  And, since we bring in more drugs from Mexico than we export some may argue that NAFTA has again created a trade defecit.  

Foreign aid to encourage cultivation of crops such as coffee will be scrapped for high value cash crops grown with U. S. dollars..  James, a friend at UF was doing his PhD thesis a few years back on this same concept.  James, you be at the State Department now?  Perhaps this is why former President "W" Bush bought over 100,000 acres in Uraguay earlier this year.

 

In terms of H1N1, or even bioterrorism, what a better way to spread the agent.  Didn't think about the saliva on the joint that has just been shared with you, did you?

Drug addiction requires us all to subsidize rehab through taxes and social programs.  Unfortunately, most street dwelling addicts get a hospital stay via medicaid and therefore our pocketbooks as well.  You can tell the junkies.  They complain the most about their "pain."  To shut them up the physician orders xanax, percocet, fentanyl patches, dilaudid, morphine q 2 hours or on demand rather than practice good medicine and tell them to grow up and detox.  Doctors should not be catering to their addictions.  Some of these users are pretty hard core.  Aside from actually chewing their prescribed oxycontin to get a rush, one nurse caught a patient wringing out the fentanyl patch out to suck the juice.   On the positive side though, some recreational drugs have provided clinical treatment alternatives.  There is a THC derivitive called marinal being used in capsule form for naseau in cancer patients.  The FDA classifies drugs that have no known application withinin the grading scale C1 through 5.  This scale is done in roman numerals so those of you in school considering a career in health care better pay attention in third grade when the teachers cover this.

President Richard Nixon, historically one of our better president even with Watergate and the iconoclastic attacks of counter culture of that era initiated the war on drugs.  While the new law will impair such efforts, Mexican prosecutors view the new law passed in April '09 as a relief to having to prosecute small time users.  Sounds like Mexico just legalized selective prosecution.  They used to shake these guys down and hang them up for sacrifice while the big guys got to walk, now prosecutors could choose to focus on big time dealers but I wonder just what the life expectancy of prosecutors in Mexico is.  This drug war must be a republican thing.  Under the first Bush, Spin Magazine reported  the funds and weapons sent south of the border for the war on drugs was used for social cleansing.  Under "W" (pronounced "Dumb Ya" to those that also say "nucular"), surprisingly, the administration opposed such a change to the law.  This was yet another scenario where President Cheney set policy and Bush looked over his shoulder thinking "dude..."  The first Bush attacked the axis of evil, "W" attacked the axis of evil, if we were in 9th dimensional space, we could have 27 more axi!

As for the Democratic administrations, Under Obama, the current U.S. Drug Czar announced in July that he would adopt a "wait-and-see attitude."  DIdn't being a Czar used to be a bad thing?    The terms Caesar, Kaiser and King are interchangeable with King.  This proto EU WWI inter-marrying and inbreeding is what led to the first War.  Other than admission, the prior democratic administration was a little foggy on the pot issue.  I heard Bill Clinton is considering a run for President of Mexico.  

Learn from this: This was your President on drugs.  Any questions?

Does H1N1 Swine Flu Pose A Risk To Florida Hunters This Fall?

Everyone knows the generically correct swine flu as the politicall correct H1N1.  However, if being offensive to certain religous groups that consider pork unclean and therefore the contraction of the illness very bad unless it carries a nondescript name still does not change one mode of its transmission.  So, if a nun gets syphillis from a priest shouldn't plausible deniability force us to rename it as well?  This virus is a strain that exist in both humans and swine and it is communicable between the two.  Thankfully the more potent and often lethal bird flu does not share this pattern.  So, what we know: The news has often misreported facts on this disease.  In one case, after pigs contracting the disease in Canada after contact with a migrant worker other news services quoted that it does not jump back and forth between people and pigs.  It does.  Secondly, not all people are hygenically equal.  Ever notice a public restroom were the restroom was a wreck?  Forget puting the seat up, some think the floor is just as good as hitting the inside of the urinal.  Handwashing may not help if someone that hasn't bathed since he crawled out from under the turnip truck uses the same light switches, door knobs, fuel pumps (oh, didn't think of that one, eth?), tried your car door handles to see if they could steal anything, served you food or set your table in a restaurant: the list goes on.  In fact, I work in a hospital and have to continually tell nurses they cannot breathe on their finger to get the finger print scanner to work on the drug dispensing machine.  Yes, a nurse can be Miss Piggy too.  Watch our Kermit.  

Now for the hunting season.  There is about half a million mix of domestic roaming and wild hogs in Florida.  Florida is hot and moist.  Usually a prime breeding ground for any tyoe of infection.  A lot of people go hunting.  Hunting legally and illegally.  Some people have no respect for hygeine, and some have no respect for laws.  Simply put, the vast hog population and some of the pigs that hunt them will more than likely only serve to spread a virus that has some lethality.  In particular, while deaths overall have been few in the general population, in pregnant women, the case is different.  Pregnant women seem to have more complication and more deaths per capita than the general population.  Hunters beware.  You can contract swine flu form contact from infected hogs.  If you take your kids hunting, they can as well.  And, you can bring it home to your wife.  Kinda sounds like the clap, eh guys?  You don't know where those hogs have been.  More than likely, processed pork (notice that commercially processed pork carries a religous marking on the packing to certify the pork is OK even though you may not be practicing that religion) and wild game that has been butchered and cured and cooked is also not a threat to your health.  

So, this hunting season, be extra careful handling your wild live game. Scientist are not sure how dead a hog has to be to not be contagious.  Secondly, aside from cleaning your guns mechanically clean contact surfaces aseptically.  This includes your gun case handles.  And as mentioned before, be careful at the gas pumps, vending machines, commercial door handles, light switches, restrooms and that funky stick that holds the key to the restroom.  It's bad enough you can;t even cut your foot in the Gulf without contracting cellulitis or get a kiss from your dog without getting MRSA (medicine resistent staph aureus due to the over use of antibiotics in our society,) but now our enjoyment ot the great outdoors will have one more thing to watchout for this fall.  Happy hunting.

Series: The Other Side Of History-JFK

If JFK Was Never Assasinated He Would Not Have Been Re-elected To A Second Term

In death did his legacy served to make him look better than he did in life?

The cloud obscurring the Kennedy reality, the cloud of shock, of sympathy, of confusion and delerium has led generations immediate to that event to the romanticiing of his character and the exponential nature of the history of a man that if not rich, nor from a rich family would never have gone to Harvard and probably subsisted as a tavern keeper in New England languishing in the  cast of his character flaws of womanizing and excess.

As a youth I remember the nuns, my parochial instructors, being so proud that one of "us" was there.  I also remember Cape Canaveral being named Cape Kennedy then returned to Cape Canaveral as there were too many items being renamed Kennedy.  Some if not many withheld comment.

JFK squeeking to his presidency by a mafia fix in Chicago was left to that uncontested decision by his opponent Richard M. Nixon.  A wise man that knew not to mess with the mob.  However, there are many mobs and many decisions that will cross someone eventually.  It was a fine rope to walk and a walk that eventually lead to Kennedys demise.

Reviewing the letters that circulated between the participants of the Cuban Missle Crisis in the early sixties as well as noting commentary in Robert Kennedys Thirteen Days in historical retrospect and not revision sheds light on the outcome of that situation and leads to the speculation of the eventual demise of the President that tried to play the game his father played.

The second Godfather movie alluded to the involvment of various crime families and their interest in Cuba.  Cuba, a carribbean island beyond the reach of the internal revenue service and a strong competitor for vacationing and gambling to the other mob run locations in Las Vegas.  With one competing mob funding a revolution, Cuban investments were rendered worthless with the coming of power of Fidel and his associates.  Speculation leads one to view the potential of a fixed presidential election by Chicago crime bosses to hold the expressed interesest in a Castro free Cuba.  

In the course of the blockade and dealing with Castros arms supplier, Russia, conversations suggest that Russia came to the conclusion that the zealousness of Castro might not prove best in the interest of the superpowers of the world.  And, a deal cut by Kennedy with Kruschev not to invade Cuba in exchange for removal of nuclear warheads and missles that would lead to the salvation of the world from nuclear war.  This turn of events led to the extrication of someone that essentially double crossed the very ones that got him into power.  Once in the pocket always in the pocket and in Thirteen Days it is noted that John Kennedy cut short a "vacation" in Chicago to return to deal with the crisis.  Whether there for a trist with Marilyn and/or for additional meetings with mob heads for instructions, the eventual death of Marilyn Monroe could have been just as symbolic a jesture as the horses head in the bed of the movie producer.  Perhaps it was the sign of things to come.  The clicking of the eavedropper on the phone in the "Captains and the Kings" before the candidate is shot.

Kennedy was no dummy.  And while he may have lived through the destruction of his boat in the war in the pacific, he was, as a child of privilage, overconfidnet.  After all, "Senators don't have people killed." Arrogance is not a virtue, it is weakness to be exploited.  A weakness  that emboldens pilots to take flight into inclement weather as well as to take rides in an open touring car that would be diverted to remove the option of evasive maneuvers.  In the face of adversity, the arrogant rush in where angels know better.  This has proven to be a flaw that runs in the  Kennedy family.

And so one mob elects a President and perhaps an enemy mobs purposes are served by the eventual turn of events that serve the greater good of humanity but leave the humanitarian the eventual target for payback from a perceived double cross.  The price one may pay for a rigged election.

To Be Continued...

Painless Dave

When my girlfriend first met Dave I guess she just thought he was another goofy friend of mine even if he was from her hometown.  When I first met Dave he reminded me of the actor Dick Gotea.  Flippant and talkative he was, a regular Bret Maverick.  I didn't know or rather didn't realize just how lost he was, is.  I was kinda sessile myself at that point in timelowing the winds of chance to direct my course in life which is interesting since some of my longest friendships came from that time.  So, I guess it should not have seemed akward that Dave would come for visits and talk with me after his death.  

I don't know, maybe he should have been on lithium at one time.  He had a nice girlfriend that he left behind.  She was devastated.  Death had gotten to be something common in my life.  No one really knew.

So on a late night ride after several beers at a college town bar, on a southern pennsylvania curvy hilly road Dave decided to enter oncoming traffic on his motorcycle.  That was it.  I got a letter from our close friend with the news.  As I read the letter in class my friend sent to tell me this I heard Dave laugh.  I looked up  to find him sitting across from me as if nothing had ever happened.  Nothing.  Not a scratch.  Sitting there in a jean jacket as usual.  A thousand miles away from the town where we became friends the year before.  The weather in Atlanta was usually hot.  Just like the un-airconditioned dorms at California State College in Pennsylvania in 1976. There he was, sitting as if he was going to graduate school too.  My friend Tom, the friend that wrote that letter  was never going to believe this.

To Be Continued...

Someplace Called Monessen

NPR has a writing contest ending on 8/28/09 and the requirement for submissions was a story starting with the line "The nurse left work at five o'clock."  So, starting with that line, I wrote the following.  However, after writing it I found I went over the word restriction, but I thought it covered somethings so well that I decided that the story as it is has far more value than the submission to a contest.  While some basics of chronolgy are not accurate, the story depicts a slice of life from that venue.

The nurse left work at five o’clock.  This was unusual as most nurses worked three to eleven, eleven to seven or seven to three then.  Now they work seven to seven for three days with the rest of the week off.  That was not the case of my mom when I was growing up.  She worked three to eleven at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh and later seven to three as a supervisor at Mon City Hospital.  To make money at a time when nurses weren't paid well, she often worked seven days a week.  So it was unusual for any nurse especially for her to leave at five.  Even after giving report she could usually hit the road by four and be home by five after a brief stop to put three dollars of gas in her green 1969 Plymouth Satellite.  The news she received was abrupt.  She was stunned.  And my unusually strong and driven mom had to pause and collect herself before proceeding out the door.  As it was about the time she was usually due, at that moment I was not concerned as mom was mom; always dependable and predictable.  You could set your watch by her.  This time, by five fifteen, I questioned the accuracy of my watch.  I trusted none of the other clocks in the house as my mom had this insane habit of having the bedroom one ten minutes fast, and the one in the kitchen fifteen minutes ahead so she could reduce stress by rationalizing she could get a few more minutes sleep.  After years of calling the operator or time and temperature I took my allowance and bought a watch.  It was set as accurately as I could get it.  However, the damage was done.  Years of second guessing clocks left me in the peculiarly bad habit of always being three minutes late to school no matter how early or late I left.  I am sure that day leaving at five o’clock was not rationalized as being fast or having a few minutes to spare.  Five o’clock hospital time is just that, five o’clock. 

 

Although I had years of dealing with my moms history, pain and issues, she still was affected by the news of death.  She was ten when her mom passed away.  It was the depression and my grandfather had just lost the farm he bought a few years before.  The day after her mom died, she contracted scarlet fever and was in quarantine for ten days and did not attend the funeral.  To make matters worse, we never visited the grave site at St. Bernards in Mt. Lebanon PA as the cemetery had stacked another grave on top of grandmas.  The site was seldom mentioned except in a fit of lashing anger and never visited even though we had many a chance driving past.  This loss resulted in her lashing out at me from time to time with a phrase such as "Wait till your mother's dead, then you'll be sorry."  To hear that hurt.  It hurt as if it had happened.  And when she passed away at the age of eighty seven, it still hurt just as much. 

 

My dad and mom always had a particularly histrionic marriage and were separated.  Perhaps due to an issue with abandonment or abandoning someone she always seemed tethered to my dad.  My dad, always professing that he loved her however failed to treat her as if he did.  Actions spoke louder than words on both their parts. 

 

My mom was the caretaker of the family.  And when another member or members were in need, she was there.  My cousin Dan had been sick for years.  It started with the onset of diabetes in his early teens.  Danny was about ten years older than I.  He would drive to our house every day and my mom would give him his shot of insulin.  When he had his appendix out and was out of the hospital would come by and my mom would change his dressing.  I learned a lot about the practice of medicine watching my mom.  As time went on Danny began to walk a little unsteady and was eventually diagnosed with Lou Gehrigs Disease.  At that point Danny was unable to walk let alone drive my mom started going to her cousins house where Danny her second cousin lived, to give him his shot and check on the status of this chronic, debilitating and eventually fatal disease.  Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is a progressive illness that was taking this jovial, fun loving drummer known as “Sugar Bear” from us.  He was called Sugar Bear due to his having sugar diabetes.  Sugar Bear was known for playing in a band that had a local Pittsburgh hit record called "A Penny for Your Thoughts.”  The disease reduced him to life in a wheel chair pointing to letters and phrases on a sheet to spell what he wanted to say. 

 

Danny was fun loving and loved life.  Always buying a car for a hundred dollars and driving it until it needed a repair then selling it to buy another.  He painted one of his vintage Dodges with a roller.  It had a red interior and he painted it green.  Whether he liked the color or that was the paint he happened to have around I’ll never know.  He was the comedian who once had mailed an application with my brother’s name into an early computer service called "Compatibility Dating."  Life was always interesting to be sure.

 

So even though she would leave work and sometimes stop there on her way home she would always be home by five.  Her cousin called her at work.  She was hysterical. She was calling her cousin Clare Louise, the nurse, my mom, about Danny.  He was not breathing.  My mom had to argue with her.  She wanted to call an ambulance, my mom argued with her not to.  I gathered this years later by piecing together snippets of comments to realize that she had convince her cousin, his mom, to let Danny pass.  Convinced her that he was getting worse and would continue suffer.  That he had gotten to the point where he could no longer eat and that calling the ambulance would prolong his suffering and the inevitable.  My mom was staunch in her position on a lot of things and this was one. 

 

So by the time she had stopped by her cousin's and then came home she had yet another loss in her life, first Grandma, then the aunt that raised her that she later cared for, then Grandpap, then her daughter and now Danny.  Not one to talk or liking to be questioned about her whereabouts and finally home safe, the event that transpired that day were revealed later.  She had always tried to soften the blow of bad news to us all her life, knowing one day that we would experience the pain she knew all her life with the loss of her.

 

I Seriously Doubt That Your Congressman Shops His Health Care Coverage!

Inserted is a copy of a denial letter from "Golden Rule" a health care cooperative that is underwritten by a health insurance company.  You can visit Democracynow.org to see the related program.

Essentially, with the development of a series of "Health Care Cooperatives" we will have yet another managed care shell gam.  One that I ran into during the mid 1990s as more money was spent on merger and acquisition of managed care plans than on delivering reimbursement for health care.  In the story related to the letter, a girl kept getting platitudes until after she had finally run up a bill all of her treatment was denied as non reimburseable.  

Health insurance has had an interesting protest to single pay governmental attempts:

In essence it argues as follow:  

No government plan is any good...

this followed in response to single payor being more cost effective with

No private insurance company can compete with the government.

Richard, a caller to the Diane Rehm's show presenced this on the air on 8-17-09 offering the following conclusion that Aristotelian Logic would warrant: 

No insurance plan is better than the governments.

In an equation of logic it is formatted as

No government plan is any good
No private insurance company can compete with the government
Therefore
No insurance plan is better than the governments

In my years of observation I can confirm that unless the insurance company can turn a profit off of you, they will eventually get rid of you.

Here is what I think is important to review as far as health care:

1-All dollars invested go to care provided.  No shareholders, or CEOs.  Currently 1 of every 6 dollars spent in the US is spent on health care and of that , a vast percentage goes to executive compensation.
2-All premiums to have coverage comes from the group, not the individual.  This means that if you lose your job, are disabled, etc, your care is still covered.  In our current system when the insurance carrier pays too much in claims they will abandon you to the government plans.  If that's not abandonment, it must mean that the government plan is just as good.  And, if you were on a government plan to begin with, you do not have to become catastrophically destitute first.  No bankruptcy, no spending your life savings, no tapping and draining your 401K... NADA!
3-Pay doctors.  Not only will they immediately benefit from being able to trim payroll by needing less employees to collect money, the fact that EVERYONE pays, will bring the cost down.  Currently, only one in ten pays, and that explains why a hospital aspirin cost $100.  A mandated price reduction?  If everyone is paying, it has to be.  There should be no windfall for the providers.

Of concern, the coverage Congress received MUST be tied to what the general populations plan is.  The reason is similar to the pension system.  If Congress needs to raise funds, they can simply create the "Notch Years" or some other bogus program to fund pet projects at taxpayer expense.  This is one such way Vietnam was funded.  In fact, if we never went to Iraq, that money could have easily provided care.  Put the health insurance industry out of work?  Why not!  We did it to the steel industry, the automakers are hanging on by a thread and a whim.  If it relates to money shuffling, congress seems to jump through hoops.  Health care is the last industry in this country.  Keep it here.  Negotiate drug cost.  It is time we stopped subsidizing drug cost for the rest of the world.  Years ago I wrote that we should take all the laws about dealing drugs, remove the word "drugs" and replace it with "health insurance."  Then we'll have a free market untethered by lobbyist.  Perhaps, the lobbist, those getting a million dollars a week to shoot down this benefit to Americans should be outlawed next!

LUV At Night... With A Vengence

"He thought "how easy" it was as he caressed her.  He met her, she brought him home.  How he looked into her eyes as she unbuttoned his shirt and stroked his chest.  It was chilly.  So when it’s cold you don't get goose bumps?  Cold doesn't affect me that way she said as she looked into his eyes. She thought, “ how easy.”  In his eyes though, as with all of them, she had no reflection.  Mirrors were no longer silver.  She could comb her hair anytime.  Photos no longer developed.  Digital cameras allow us to be photographed.  To be reflected is to be detected.  But still, their eyes don't. How will she ever know if the man truly loves her?   Perhaps it was the silver used to inoculate eyes at birth.  Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. 

You like? She asked as she stroked his chest.  He leaned his head back and whispered "yes."  He gasped as she slipped her hand between his ribs and effortlessly inside his chest.  She grasped his heart and squeezed, pulling it out and lapping his blood as he blacked out.  

It was rogues like her that gave the LUVers a bad name.

>Feeding this way made her stronger than most of their kind and on cloudy days she could go out in daylight.  That's how she interviewed for night jobs at hospitals and coroners offices wearing sunglasses and feigning a rare hereditary family eye condition.  It was access to the morgues that allowed her to divert fresh blood when needed.  Divert so no one noticed.  Who needs toxicology screens.  She could smell a good.

Eating a fresh heart was like biting into the bright red juicy tomatoes she remembered from some life that is past.

Love, it doesn't have to be anything so permanent.  Yeah right, she thought.   Love got her in this state to begin with.  Why not payback men?  Deprive them of their life as she had been deprived of hers. The only difference, they would actually die.  She, the victim of a male became living dead.  She would not die.  That's the only thing she got to do.  He not only took her living breathing life, he took her career.  She wanted to have a baby.  She wanted to live again.  She would find a way.

There were others...

Mortgage Foreclosure, And Using The Legal System To Help The Lenders As Well As Using It To Help Republicans Against Opponents...

With all the Karl Rove issues coming to light, I had written a review of the legal system and how it steamrollers over people that just give up knowing that it can take advantage of that trait...

Is It Too Late To Fight Your Foreclosure?

 

I was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal the other day.  The article, in the Wall Street Journal, featured a sketch of Charlie Green our Lee County Clerk Of Court and the bold type heading about Ft. Myers Florida and "Rocket Foreclosures".   Obama coming hear was national news, but this was more.  The story features a thirty second dialogue between Judge Gerald and a woman who showed up to court in response to being served with a notice of foreclosure.  Armed with receipts and files she approached the bench to respond to the action and argue her case.  Thirty seconds and two questions later she was told she had sixty days to vacate her home.  The two questions consisted of "Are you still living in your home?" and "Are you behind in your mortgage payments?"

 

Wow, Ft. Myers has national attention for the expediency of the court system.  What a way to drum  up business and market Ft. Myers.  "Bring your foreclosure cases here, we have an express lane."  "Kids? Who cares?"   "Elderly and helpless? Who cares?"  If anything, as the magistrate preciding over the proceedings twirls his moustache at those that "can't pay the mortgage" and throws the mother and the children  of the orphanage out into the streets.  All this at the sake of expediency and ensuring that these homes get back on the market so money can be made again.  All hail the economic recovery.  Hopefully in the recovery process enacted by Congress and our President we will see a network of staffers to assist those  need and spearhead the revamping of current indebtedness.  In the interim, the public that has fallen on hard times needs to fight back.  And the tools and tactics necessary to help those in trouble fight should be made available to those in need.  Most people can't fathom what a ripoff a thirty year mortgage is with all the nebulous fees and clauses and most probably just get withdrawn and allow themselves to be steamrolled.  These are the people we need to help, those unable to help themselves.  They acted in good faith and got ripped off.  So, here are some ideas.  Unfortunately the law does not provide for you to have an attorney in financial matters as these.  Providing an attorney is reserved in criminal matters although most would feel that what has been done to the homeowner is criminal.    And, if you can't make your house payment, the odds are you cannot affort an attorney either.  So, with that being said, here are some steps. 

First, if/when you receive a notice that your are being foreclosed on, read the document.  You will note that you have so many days to respond.  This does not mean showing up in court.  That is only a formality.  You have a period of time to reply in writing.   And your reply needs be nothing more than a letter (hopefully typed) that includes the case number and why you are asking for a stay of execution from the court in this matter.  You as an individual are entitled to "equal access to the courts" and since you are responding, you merely take this letter to the clerk of courts and have them stamp it so you have it entered into the court system.  You should mail a copy of your letter to the attorneys mentioned in the papers you were served with. OK, so it cost you forty five cents at this point.  Now, the courts can't just sweep you away.  You have responded according to the rules of the court.  But, you may have a better strategy.  There is a little known law that has been upheld in many states.  This law that may help you requires a little explanation.  Amid all those papers that you do not remember signing at your closing were two important items.  First there is the promisorry note.  A note that you promise to pay the money at so many dollars a month for so many years.  Have you ever taken your monthly payment, excluding insurance and taxes, multiply that number by twelve and then by thirty.  This is what you pay on the house over the live of the loan.  Well, probably about three times what you bought the home for.  If your eyes are opening wide and you're saying "holy ..." then you see just how much a ripoff the process is and that losing the home is the final insult to your character and your dignity.  So, the Note is part A.  Part B is the Mortgage.  Mort as in mortal, mortuary and the like.  A latin term for death.  But, what it means is the deed, the ownership document that is yours showing your ownership is dead as far as any rights until you pay off the note.  The mortgage is nothing more than a lien against your rights.  A mortgage is not a loan.  odds are, if you are married only one of you applied for the loan and is on the only one on the Note.  However, in Florida, both husband and wife must be on the mortgage.  It has something to do with property rights.  Leave it at that for now.  So, in a foreclosure, there are legal fees, loan default penalties from the note and while only one may be in default on the note, both will incur penalties if they are both on the mortgage.  So, it again pays you to fight.  A friend of mine was in foreclosure.  He fouhd that loophole in the law about the foreclosure.  The foreclosure attorney must produce the original signed note signed in blue ink.  That's the law.  If this is in your response, it throws a log in front of their machine.  So, what about those facing foreclosure being offered the chance to renegotiate their loan?  They would once again have a signed original that would not get lost this time.  The first time the derivatives market and sale of the notes (topic of discussion for another day) is the reason so many have been lost.  And while the foreclosure attorneys may try and get the judge to accept a copy, the law is quite clear at present.  Hold the judge to the point of law and remember: Posession is nine tenths of the law.

 

My friend started a website to sell a copy of his court response.  I didn't write this as a commercial.  It is just the simplest way to type and print your response.  You may have what, twenty days? www.legallyeliminateforeclosuretoday.com may hold a solution for you.

I wrote the above back in March.  Here is a follow up.  He filed a response, showed up and ...ooohhh they produced the original note.  Ouch.  Shift gears.  When he tried to tell the judge that he had filed a fraud suit the judge cut him off, would not hear it and ordered him to vacate.

Speaking with him later that evening, I asked about the appeals process and he started to laugh.  "Well, J. R., I get about 60 days to notify them that I am appealing, then another 60 days or so to file it and I get enough appeals I could stretch it out a year..."  It was good to hear him laugh.  In the interim, he started to file a bankruptcy to force a judge to listen.  In the process of doing this he was notified that his appeal was granted and his foreclosure stopped.  

Todays lesson class?  Never give up.   

OOOOOPS Watch Where You Land!

This was in AOPA, just had to share it...

The pilot comment was something like, " When I landed I felt my plane tilt to the right..."

New Bunker Buster Developed... Largest Conventional Bomb Ever!

Pentagon Eyes New 30,000-Pound “Bunker Buster” Bomb

The Pentagon is seeking to speed deployment of an ultra-large “bunker buster” bomb on the most advanced US bomber as soon as July 2010 – three years ahead of schedule. The 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator is designed to destroy deeply buried bunkers beyond the reach of existing bombs. Analysts say the request from the Pentagon reflects growing unease over nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea. In a request for $68 million in funding, Under Secretary of Defense Robert Hale said there was “an urgent operational need for the capability to strike hard and deeply buried targets in high-threat environments.” The precision-guided weapon, built by Boeing, could become the biggest conventional bomb the United States has ever used.

Prosecution Attack On A Group Of Americans Suspected Of Terrorism Deprives Them Of Their 6th Amendment Rights

The 6th Amendment gives a citizen the right to confront his accusers...

From Democracynow.org 8/4/09

Terrorism Case in NC May Involve Secret Evidence

Federal prosecutors said Monday that evidence against seven North Carolina men accused of plotting violent jihad overseas may involve classified material that will raise national security issues if given to their defense attorneys. The government has filed a motion under the Classified Information Procedures Act. This might allow prosecutors to present secret evidence to the judge that the defense won’t be able to see.

Great Food, A Lot Of It, Great Prices... And An Interesting Dining Atmosphere!

If you like fried catfish, crab, burgers in an out of the way place I recommend the Linger Lodge just north of Sarasota Florids.  From I 75 go West on 70, take the first left and loop around through all the high end subdivisions till you dead end at the Linger Lodge.  A little get-a-way camper park and restaurant this is the place for you.  Aside from the caged birds on display and the dock out back for kayaking and fishing, you can either park your camper or rent a log cabin for a nice stay with all the amenities.

Inside, aside from the military displays of servicemen patches there are several wildlife displays

And check out how they made the sign over the bar...Download Linger video

Hillary Clinton Tells Thailand What To Do...

Think the Insurance Industry People Are Your Friends? Read Amy Goodman's Article

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090714_health-insurance_whistle_blower_knows_where_the_bodies_are_buried/

Exclusive: Photo of Sanford with his girlfriend...

Return To Gilligan's Island: Did I Call It Right In The Last Article Or What

Marianne busted for pot...  Just where was the coconut bong the Professor made???

Read the whole story...

Night Walkers... Got L.U.V.?

So that's how we girls are. When we were mortal, we used men to get our meals. Now, we use men to get our meals. Unlike male vampires, our victims don't die and come back to life, Thus, we never get detected. Our kind has worked the crowd for centuries and escaped detection unlike our male counterparts. And those of us that prefer women, those meals eventually do join us. Literally. They cross over to the other side with a little persuasion, a little curiosity. But once they shift gears in this realm, there's no going back. Unless we like them, in that special way, we don't frequent them to feed. No need, no feed. No feed, no bleed. A girl can only bleed so much. If they bleed enough, they change: forever. We are very selective about who we spend eternity with. If a guy falls for us, turn him down enough and he get the idea we like girls. All the better for him. Men only bleed so much to so we don't try and tap them out. Men are such pigs anyway. That's why they're always getting staked out. They get over sure of themselves. They still feel adrenaline, especially the young ones. So foolish. It's a good distraction from us. Leaves us free to roam at night, earn a little money to pay the rent. The smart ones hold down jobs. The dumb ones roll their Johns and eventually get caught. A girl's gotta be careful you know...especially at night.

To Be Continued...

Was Gilligan's Island A Metaphor On Hippie Culture Of The 60's?

Stoner's Island

Think about it...

 

Here we have an isolated group in the wilderness.  Not much different from a bunch of hippies in a commune.

 

And of this group, we have the equivalent of a stripper(Ginger), Timothy Leary (no doubt the Professor whipped up some LSD merely using a coconut and a palm frond or a bong from bambo and volcanic rock),  add to that an extremely wealthy reclusive tax evader, (you can guess on that one), a butch, and two men living in one tent (the precursor of civil unions).  The picture below the cast no doubt was what Sherwood Schwartz in a drunken stupor derived his inspiration. 

Their only communication with the outside world was a radio with a battery that never went dead and a three hour trip (tour) went on for three years short of them finding an island with an abandoned bomb testing site that was the setting of "The New People" circa 1968 TV vintage. 

So, Ginger was dancing at Club Marianne on a bamboo pole, while the professor was whipping up narcotics to reimburse the millionare backer of the club.  The alternate gender preference couple set about to do the menial labor.  So, how does a strip club survive on a desert island without customers with exception of the occasional head hunters that frequented the island?  Howell was pretty good at laundering money, eh?