Elections Bought and Paid For

Fifty years we would have collectively cringed at the results of the June 8th. elections all around these United States, considering the millions that were spent, particularly right here in California. Of course that means that Carley Feurina won for Senate and Meg Whitman won for Governor. They aren't elected yet but if money is any indication they're a sure thing. Today ideas are popular that were considered reactionary fifty years ago, such as Monica on the Mc Laughlin report saying that we should get out of the U N because it's just a forum for small nations that would otherwise be unimportant, getting a chance to bash the United States. Blanche Lincoln won with the help of both the Obama Administration and Bill Clinton. Lincoln faced off with lieutenant Governor Bill Halter and won with just fifty percent of the vote. An Obama aid alledgedly said "The other side, the Labor Unions, just took ten million and flushed it down the toilet". This is a remark I might expect from a Republican, and a tactless one at that, but not a member of a Democratic Presidential Administration. But stranger yet are some of the propositions that won here in California. Proposition 17 lost. This is the one where insurance companies would be forced to give us portable savings deals, where we could keep our savings plans and switch companies. The opponets of proposition 17 said that it was "a trick, a measure sponsored by the insurance companies themselves to make more money". I don't see how and frankly haven't investigated further. Proposition 14, the one I was telling you about that torpedoed Party control of elections, that one won. As I said yesterday this seemed really stupid because had the measure been in effect yesterday Tom Campbell and Barbra Boxer might be the two run-off candidate. This is an "old school" political rule where hopefully you can vote for someone like George Wallace (or Hillary Clinton) and throw the election and make the other side pick a losing candidate. We know Rush Limbaugh is a big fan of this election trick. In South Carolina the republicans used this trick yesterday to elect a no nothing named Green against a far more more experianced candidate named Rawls. (no soul connection for either) Thom Hartman believes this type of election manipulation by the Republicans will really get into high gear now by the Republicans in California. The tea bagger won in Nevada to face Harry Reed for that senate seat, as expected. I think the overall intelligence of the national electorate is going down hill fast. I would say they are behaving like packs of wolves, but that's an insult to wolves.

I suppose if you were so inclined, if you were a liberal you might want to pray to your God. Unfortunately my conception of God won't allow me to pray to him. First of all people like to assume two things that aren't so. First that their God thinks like them and shares their moral values. Dennis Prager says your spouse should share your moral values, but I haven't heard him address whether one's God should share one's moral values. Secondly you assume that your God is a God who intervenes on your behalf, ie. that he can be morally or emotionally swayed by your petitions to Him. It's easy for winners to believe in God. You know what they say- - Victory has a thousand fathers; defeat is an orphan. Remember that with my Deist perception of God certain things are intrinsically impossible. One is that is impossible for either me or God to change. Next, the concept of testing or "trials" if you will is meaningless. God can't learn anything about you he's already not well aware of, so what's the point? Sin as we know it is impossible. Also rebellion as we know it is impossible. Rebellion has the idea of "holding off" or somehow delaying the proper will of God from execution. We realize nothing in God's will can be changed for a nanosecond, and if there were rebellion it would have been scripted out by God himself while dinasaurs still roamed the earth. Miracles can't happen because any divergence from the pre planed script is "Intrinsically impossible". Since people like Dobson say God can't do the intrinsically impossible, if you think about there are an awful lot more things God CAN'T do than he CAN. So what's a liberal to do. It's best to come up with some other less intrusive word for God, such as - - Reality. Nobody can argue with that. If someone like Jesus Christ on the radio invokes a judgement that sounds more like a curse on your life, the only thing that remains for you to do is to "Break Jesus" the same way that southern white wanted to "Break President Obama". In other words you have to show them whose boss and make their words as nothing - - null and void. If they say you'll never be healed of that disease, find some mad scientist who has just discovered a cure for it. Do an end run around limiting words. Better still to ignore the words of the "God of the right wing" since he's demonstrated by his people's actions he's devoid of Love. If what Chuck Smith is true about "becomming like your God" this indeed could be the real curse of the right wing. Luckily for me my God is not subject to such curses. (Selah) Another assumption people generally make about God is that he works on a "pass / fail" system. You're either in or your out. You're one of "us" or one of "them". People want God's mercy broad enough to include them, but narrow enough to exclude all the people they despize when they meet them on the street. The idea that such a God as I have postulated could be either fair or unbiased, is impossible. I may not be a Christian but I ask myself certain moral questions. One is "What if everybody did what you do? What would the world be like". The second is "Have you walked a mile in the other person's shoes?" And if you have walked in their shoes, mentally do you become more sympathetic tword them, or is your anger kindled further? The third question is "Are there certain moral and integrity boundaries I will not cross in order to win the favor of God?" Another question I would ask is "Do you even have the authority to offer the things you claim will be mine if I accept your god?" Another question is, "If I accept everything you say and become a convert- - who stands to gain the most from my conversion, you or me?" If you were trying to convert them THIS is the first question they would ask YOU. Also ask yourself, "which one of you cares more about mankind, him or you?" And finally if they are trying to convert you politically or religiously, ask yourself "Is this conversation degenerating into a monologue, and if you left, would they scarcely even notice that you were gone? Don't mind those dates scrawled in the dirt. September 25th. 2010 means nothing at all.

We'll be seeing you on a different blog in a day or two. Hopefully I haven't bored anybody or said something that you're already heard too many times before. Bye, bye.

Tea Parties - - Had Enough???

We don't wait for the polls to close today before knowing the result. The tea baggers win. They will nominate Meg Whitman for governor, who is a billionaire, and Carley Feorina for Senate, who is also a corporate big-whig. I didn't even vote today. Holding my nose to pick from the available candidates was a little much. I might have voted for Tom Campbell just to thumb my nose at the right (for Senate). Campbell was way ahead in the polls before Carley began spending her millions. There is a measure on the ballot for public campaigns. Nobody will vote for that. There is another measure on the ballot to take influence away from the extremes of both political parties in favor of the center. It would be suicide for a tea bagger to vote for that. There is another measure on this ballot that requires a voter mandate before a city develops its own Utility company. I think I might have voted Against that- - for no other reason than to thumb my nose at the right. But amidst all this merryment you have to remember that Tom Campbell is the only candidate on the Senate ballot who can beat Barbra Boxer in the fall, and he won't win. If Jerry Brown is smart he will appeal to the Latino community. Recent cencus figures reveal that the Latino population has increased whereas the white population has gone down as people leave the state. They project that by 2016 that Chicanos will be the majority race in this state. And I can't picture a bunch of tea party Chicanos, at least not that kind of tea. So fair warning. There is always November, and we'll see for whom the bell tolls.

There are ten states holding primaries this Tuesday June 8th. In Nevada they have a similar situation to here in California where the Republicans may vote themselves out of a senate candidate who can win, by picking one so extreme, to run against incumbant Harry Reed. In Arkansas Blanche Lincoln is in a run-off and recent polls have her losing. Results should be known within the next two hours. The President isn't looking too good because of his oil thing right now. When President Obama makes statements like "I'm talking with all these people because I want to know who's ass to kick" you know your party's in trouble. Nobody else has any problem figuring out with whom the blame lies, and that's squarely with British Petroleum. The economy is no friend of the President now and we're all hoping and praying this will all change before November. But we've hoped that before and wishing doesn't make it so. Experts honestly don't know whether the market's next major move will be up or down. Other than repeat things I and others have said before I don't know what can be done. President Obama has sold out to the right wing forces, and seems incapable of "cleaning house" in his own administration, but seems bent on keeping the wrong people in power.

Then we have Helen Thomas losing her job over a gaff about Israel. She said for all the Jews to "go back where they came from", which is akin to the KKK telling the Niggers to go back where they came from. The Federation sees nothing wrong with her statement and in fact has been running articles the past day or so portraying her as a martyr. She is a woman of her convictions. Only she had the guts to ask President Obama about getting the troops out of Afghanistan. Since she is 89 many say Helen's "speech filter" is failing, and fifty years ago during the Kennedy administration she wasn't so bold. At least that's what they are saying. The Federation has no love for the Jews as we do in American but sees them is just another fringe race like the Chechnians or the Armenians, or the Hootoo or Tootsi tribes in Africa. I asked them "what you makes you think we here are biased in favor of Israel?" They said "It's simple. Other people worry about their Christian salvation and going to hell and committing the unpardonable sin, and seek pennance by walking on a long stairway strewn with broken glass on their knees seeking pennance. Whereas the Jews get a pass and you can pretty much pick your terms if you're a Jew who wants to join the Church. It's akin to the Communists who treat their own people like crap but recruit Americans to do their bidding and to be used as propaganda tools". At any rate Helen Thomas is being pegged as "The last news reporter" along the lines of "The Last D J - - who plays what he wants to play and says what he wants to say".

The Federation also chimed in on the topic of water softeners and to my astonishment sided with the people in San Barnadino county who said they could not "allow people to have water softeners any more because the effect was to raise the salt table". I say screw the salt table. I just don't want rust coming out of my pipes or have my water taste like industrial run-off. Our family got a water softener when we moved here to Orange County because the water was so bad. Hard water seems to be a phenominum of the West. They don't have problems like we do back east. People want their clothes to be clean and for their detergents to suds up properly.

The Lakers play the Celtics in a few minutes. A few days ago I told a Federation spokesman "You know rather than just sit on the fence, why don't you side with the Romulans on Denelus II and IV and do whatever supernatural hocos pocus you do and fix it so the Celtics win because you'll make these Romulans happy and you just might strengthen an alliance. I've heard there are still people on Denelus II and IV who want that alliance with the Ionians from several years back, even though this idea has fallen out of favor among the Romulan population and agree it would entail sharing more military secrets than you'd get back in return. I must say that right now before game three begins the odds favor the Celtics because all they have to do is to win three games on their home court and they're home free. This is the time to do it. It would seem the reception of Laker fans in Boston is pretty hostile right now. OK let's get on with it.

Whose Minding the Store?

People like Chris Le Boy were concerned that President Obama wasn't taking charge in the Louisiana oil spill. I still have my doubts. They are still forbidding certain people from being on beaches taking pictures, and they are discouraging the media from showing photographs of dead or dying animals. Now I hear they got a "No fly" zone established in the Gulf as though British Petroleum could shoot down air craft that is in "their space" The way I see it the whole situation is still completely out of control. Now they are saying they didn't just blow up the well with conventional explosives because they wanted to come back later and get the oil. In like manner the reason why they been inviting other tankers to syphen off the surface oil is that they are still greedy and if they can't have it nobody can. They are deathly afraid some other corporation might try to reuse their oil. Likewise, it would seem why they used so much 2-butyl ethanol on the oil slick, that is now the size of West Virginia, is that they wanted to render the oil useless to keep the price up. They have their own tankers they could off-load to China or wherever and come and get the oil, but they don't like the economic effect that glut of oil on the market would cause. But the President has addressed none of these issues. Every now and then I hear someone, someone mutter something about "criminality" but you haven't heard very much. You know if they were serious about something (like say trackking down James Earl Ray they would release a few big names out to the media and let the public know that these are the guys they are after. In terms of their latest move to capture the oil it was sabotaged when a saw got stuck, and rather than have another go at it, they decided to use a much cruder method so that the pipe would not have a smooth cut to cap. Hurricane season is upon us. Hurricane Agatha has already struck a few days ago in the southeast Pacific in Guatemala resulting in many deaths. Fortunately the Gulf of Mexico requires more time to get going. Apparently BP had stated that it is their hope that all these dead animals and birds will just get swept away in the first hurricane of the season and so, "Out of sight - out of mind".

Unemployment is now at 9.7% so we are are back to where we were a couple of months ago. We are coming up on the one year anniversary of the "bottom" of this recession and what do we have to show for it? Not much. The stock market is still very unimpressive. I can only repeat again that in 1982 and 1983 the markets took off like gang busters and nobody had to second guess themselves. Fortunately for the President, this oil crisis has driven economic news from the headlines.

In terms of this baseball pitcher who was denied a perfect game because of a bad umpire call, I guess it's one of those things I just don't get. It would be as if you decided not to sue a surgeon even if he admitted he screwed up the opporation or worse yet- he was exhonorated by a judge over his own protests. It would be like a piece of evidence illegally used to convicted a man for first degree murder and now the man is scheduled to die next week. And the people who used the evidence openly admit it was wrong to have used this illegal evidence. But that some higher up who decides these things says the man must be executed anyhow. I guess there are certain people, such as baseball umpires and Catholic priests, whom you just can't touch because finding a bad one would cause so much damage to the reputation of their profession, it is better to live with a misscarriage of justice. People say "Well now we're going to have instant replay". This is a bullshit, cowardly, kick the can down the road approach to the situation. It won't fly.

You've heard that Al and Tipper Gore have broken up after forty years. Anybody guessing would have thought the Clintons,Bill and Hillary would break up first. But there appear - just in the case of my own parents - Cosmic Forces keeping that marriage together that are beyond human uinderstanding. In other news it would seem that Betty White is this week's winner of the Grandpa Simpson "Sole Survivor" award. Betty White is now the last surviving Golden Girl, since Rue Mc Clanahan passed away at age 76. That means when she was on the series she was younger than I am now. I'm not sure how I feel about that one. In personal news this cough is still hanging on line a London fog. as it is for many people around here in this very late season virus attack. I've asked for cough medicine for it several times but have seldom gotten any at all and none that was specifically prescribed for me. Also the next two months or so for me is littered with a number of unpleasant anniversaries falling hard upon one another, which I won't depress you people with now- - though as they come around I might mention them individually.

As you know a North Korean submarine attacked a South Korean vessle, and they are saying that South Korea "staged the whole thing". What a novel concept! War between North and South Korea. Why don't the Palistinians decide they are going to wipe North Korea from the face of the earth and do us all a favor? Of course some Hammas people decided to run an Israeli blockage of Gaza offering humanitarian ade. And their ship was boarded by Israel and attacked. They say it isn't fair because Hammas fought back. Hammas was of course democraticly elected. Do you remember how proud people like George Bush were of free elections being carried out in the middle east? But then Israel cancled a meeting with Obama scheduled for the next day. What did Obama do? Why is he picked out for social reebuff? That is unless Israel somehow feels guilty for what they did. At least in Israel such things can be discussed in a democratic process. I hope Israel would use that process to reshape their foreign policy. And while they are at it they can modify their position on West Bank Israeli settlements, too.

Afghanistan War Deaths Pass One Thousand

This is Memorial Day even though if you're a purist, the date was yesterday that we celebrated the holiday for over a century. But today is the day they are doing all the military ceremonies. Last week the one thousandth troop was killed by a roadside IED in Afghanistan. There were surely be later one thousand intervals to commemorate along the way. They also announced last week that the overall cost of this war in Afghanistan just topped one trillion dollars. That would build a lot of schools or feed a lot of hungry children. Also just recently the troop level in Afghanistan surpassed that in Iraq. We are now down to 92.000 in Iraq and have 115,000 or so troops in Afghanistan. These are all troubling milestones. No way are we going to beat that July 2011 deadline for starting to pull troops out of Afghanistan. War is an addiction and the more you feed it the harder it is to let go. Of course tacked on to that trillion is all the future medical expenses of those troops who have yet to be, but will be wounded in battle. They will need a lot of intensive care.

Well the "Top Kill" maneuver by British Petroleum has officially failed. Too much mud and oil was continuing to gush up. The plan has been to fill the pipe with mud and later with cement. And they even tried that rubber tire and golf ball combination they were talking about. This is the sixty major maneuver they have tried and now they are contemplating number seven, which is plan G, I suppose. Some day they're going to run out of letters. This plan involves sawing off a pipe and putting a cap on the well, but if the thing blows more oil will be escaping than ever. I don't see why they just don't run a long hose from the pipe to the surface and start filling up oil tankers. They say there is a lot of oil on the surface now that could be skimmed but they just don't have the equipment to do it. Obviously everybody involved in this whole fiasco, including the President, gets an F. People are resigned to the notion of endless oil flowing out till August when they have those relief wells dug.

I guess since living here or at least the last four years (since 2006) Memorial Day hasn't been my favorite holiday. I've had a cold for over a week and most of that time I have had a bad hacking cough that just won't go away. It makes it hard to string two intelligent thoughts together knowing you're hacking your brains out in-between thoughts. Of course these days any holiday that comes at the end of a month I won't like because it means I'm low on money, and ditto if that holiday comes on a Monday. Also I don't like the fact that talk radio thinks they can start playing reruns. I've never figured that one out because if there is one time they'd want to attract new people it would be on a day they don't normally get off. And finally I don't like Memorial Day because it's the start of the endless summer reruns season on TV. Well, that's just my take on the day.

This is Saturday morning a little after nine and I just watched the end of “24” overlapping the last twenty minutes of what I’d already seen. It doesn’t pay to quit before knowing the whole story. Jack Bower was down because Jack had Clowie shoot him in a “clean shot” that missed all major organs and arteries. But they still suspected Clowie and her assistant and brought the data card to the President. President Taylor’s relenting and not signing the peace treaty at the last possible moment was truly the news flash of the final hour. Then it was simply a question of trying to rescue Jack from that ambulance ambush she had planned to put Jack in a “black site”, or kill him outright as former President Charles Logan had planned. .Jack Bower made it through the episode alive, which is more than I expected. People look for that redeeming turn in events in Christianity, but if you're me you never seem to find any there. There is a definite warming trend in the weather today.

When the Plot-line Comes Unhinged

The finale to "24" was last night but I only watched the first hour. I couldn't take any more. There seemed to be no point to it as the whole premise of the plot came undone. As you know Jack Bower had done such things as turn that alley into a shooting gallery when those diplomats were filing in in their cars. Then Bower wasted the entire Russian delegation leaving them all dead. Tonight he strangled one of his most trusted friends, Clowie from CTU. But the biggest development in at least what I watched came when Mrs. Hassan the widow who took over from her husband as president or Sheik or whatever of her mideast country. She had it on semi reliable information that the Russian government was behind the assassination of her husband. She confronted President Taylor with her knowledge. Taylor first responded "The reporter telling that lie has now been arrested and is being held". Mrs. Hassan asked "But why would your government arrest her- - - unless you knew the allegation was true. At this point President Taylor admitted openly that the Russians were behind the assassination of her husband. At this point Mrs. Hassan pulled out of the peace treaty signing. At this point President Taylor overtly threatened her, in a move that surpassed even Adolph Hitler in its brazenness. She told Mrs. Hassan that if she pulled out of the peace treaty signing, that the President would have no choice but to bomb her country immediately with nuclear weapons, at which point Mrs. Hassan relented and agreed to go through with the signing. I have TV dodger remourse today because I am curious now what did happen that last hour, so you people have me at a disadvantage.

But now in real life we have this insane British Petroleum plot unfolding before us. BP has made every mistake in the book and told every lie in the book, and every allowance and deference to British Petrolium in the book has been made by this President. He refuses to federalize the opperation and send in the Army core of engineers or people from MIT to get the job done right. People still say that only British Petrolium has the know-how to clean this mess up that is growing with each passing day. Certainly there are certain Presidential perogatives such as add a stiff per day fine, or cease all British Petroleum well platforms and for that matter to freeze British Petroleum's assets in this country. Chris Le Boy believes the President has alltogether failed to exercise real leadership in this matter. It is pointed out that President Obama has run a really lax ship as liberals view it. 89 key office appointments remain unfilled, and much of this is the republicans' fault. Bush officials still by in large man the justice department. The Obama administration is filled with economic sell-outs. But aside from a few lone voices, no politician is really going after the Obama administration on these matters. It's beginning to look more and more like there won't be any new off shore drilling in this Country. People on KTLK say the United States passed "peak oil" production in 1974 and that right now our energy production is so pathetic it ammounts to less than five percent of the world's total reserves. To this writer it hardly even seems worth running new drilling risks, particularly in deep water, for such a paultry energy pay-off. New forms of energy have to come into production.

If you're waiting for me to give you that Sell signal for the markets, keep waiting. In fact I say that today and tomorrow are excellent buying oppertunities to stock up on bargains. Other countries are rushing to the security of US dollars in these turbulant times in Europe. I have seen it before when waves of pessimisum make the rounds in other world markets, the wave about dies out by the time it reaches here. I think buying Gold and Silver would be foolish at this time, particularly with the dollar strengthening. This is, of course, a really smart time to buy a house with mortgage interest rates coming down, and a really dumb time to sell one.

In other news President Obama is sending twelve hundred national guards troops to the US - Mexican border. John Mc Cain believes we need six thousand troops so he's still not happy. I think the move is a constructive one because it sends a signal to foreigners that we are about to crack down big time. If there is any sort of amnesty bill I would exclude the past year or so, just so that people crossing now don't get any ideas and that "magnet" Steve Poizoner talks about will be deactivated. I have been displeased by the tone of the discourse between Obama and the President of Mexico. The President has let a foreign power walk all over him in some sort of guilt trip. The president has absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. I also think this blow-back to the Arizona immigration law has gotten out of hand. I don't see any point to all these boycotts, for instance, by the LA City Councel. This only breeds a lot of bad feeling and the only people who get hurt are businesses in Arizona, and all of the people that they employ. Basically I am in sympathy with Meg Whitman's new vocalized immigration policies. We need to deny drivers liscenses and welfare payments and benefits such as going to college, and sanctuary cities need to be sent a message. That's what I think.

Glen Beck Is Absolutely Right

Glen Beck said that if you hear the phrase "economic justice" or "social justice" run for the hills because you aren't in a Christian Church. As a person who has probably spent more time "On the Inside" of Christianity, I probably know more than Bill Press and Jesus of KFI put together. And as a moral person I think it cowardly of me or anybody else to "go with the flow" just because it's popular to kick Glen Beck around. Not when he's absolutely right. Here is a reality check. Nowhere is the institution of slavery condemned in the Bible. Nowhere in the Bible is the concept of a labor union enforced in the Bible. Nowhere is big time capitalism condemned. Let me cite examples. Jesus gave the parable of the Tallents where speculating the stock market was praised and the poorest of the three people had his money taken and given to the one who had the most. Jesus seems to endourse "golden parachutes" in the parable of the dishonist manager where if you screw up badly enough you "get kicked upstairs" and your incompetence is rewarded. In another parable Jesus pays people who work one hour and ones who work twelve hours identically. There is one test of morality that is not talked about enough and that is the "What if everybody did that?" test. If everybody did what Jesus did in that parable, people who worked one hour per day would make out and people who worked twelve for the same pay would find themselves priced into oblivian. The Catholic Church, according to Gene Scott is an institution where you may see a guilded church dome filled with rare art treasures, right next to some run down shacks held together with tar paper. And nobody dares question it. While the virtue of giving is apparently extoled do you remember when Mary Magdolane, that prostitute who out of guilt (?) poured three hundred dollars of precious perfune over Jesus' body. Judas said "this should be sold and the money given to the poor". Do you remember what Jesus said. He said "The poor you will always have with you but me you will not always have with you. You know, Dr. Levy said "Be really careful about using words such as ALWAYS and NEVER. Here Jesus seems adament. In the story of the widdow's mite, what stuck out to me is that if I were Jesus at that moment, I would have rather said "You ought not to be giving to an already bloated Sanhedren tresury, but rather they ought to be giving you money". And here is another in the "what if everybody did that" category. Priests are not allowed to have children. So that every bit of money goes not to their children and thence to the economy, but rather gets sucked in like a vacuum cleaner and horded by the Catholic Church. You don't hear words like "Power to the people" or "democracy" much in Jesus' speeches. If you do you're listening to Jim Jones. Now I will say this: If Christianity is like bourbon and you don't like bourbon, you want it diluted to the maximum possible extent. To the extent that a liberal church ad-mixes in Christianity with some social gospell, they do well. But if you don't like burbon you just might prefer that it be absent alltogether. Bill Press may have spent a lot of time in seminary. But it's kind of like being sent off to West Point and saying that's the same experiance as a grunt private draftee to be sent off to Viet Nam. Because West Point graduates are insilated to a degree from the real world, just as seminarian's are. They walk about with a certain aerodyte air about them knowing their destiny is set. This is just something to think about.

Life is Created in a Test Tube

“So Sergeant Pepper took you by surprise- -

You better see right through that mother’s eyes”.

I was going to dedicate a whole posting to last night’s story about the creation of life in a test tube. It’s one of those things religious people thought could never be done. There were even pamphlets saying “even if you could assenble the correct DNA in a lab you would still have a dead molecule. That “spark of life” from God would be missing and without that ineffable “something”, which is the soul, good religious people told us that you could never have new life. That is all by the way side now. What they did was scoop out the DNA from a bacteria cell and then a computer programmed the DNA sequence of ten million genes or whatever, arranged in just the right order, that is the A and T and C and G segments in the double helix molecule. And the DNA was inserted into the scooped out shell and vualah - - life happened. I remember at the Bosc house in early 1983 a group of us were watching the news on TV. They had an article about cloning orchids or something and Shelly piped in “God would never allow that” referring to cloning. This was long before they cloned Dolly the sheep. Now they have gone further and created life from non living elements that were just assembled like an erector set. The thing is it seems to prove the attage that consciousness is just an Illusion of the person experiencing it- - and there appears to be no measurable substance that is mysteriously “Added in by God” to produce life. Today in class I mention to Dr. Levy this topic and I also said “The thing is with God is that there has never been any scientists doing any experiment, who has been able to measurably quantify God.” And to my astonishment, Dr. Levy agreed with me. Elizabeth spoke up in protest saying that she prays to God all the time and that God answers her all the time. She is a Calvary Chapel afficianado who worships the ground Chuck Smith walks on. Chuck Smith is having another of his massive Calvary Chappels rallies at the Convention Center this Sunday. It will be one of their classic “Looking back” exercises, for which they have become famous featuring guests such as Chuck Gerrard, Raul Ruis, John Mc Dowell and Greg Laurie. And they are going to show a documentary film. I thought that maybe I might go if some people from here went, like perhaps some of the Mormon croud. When Dr. Levy mentioned that Jehovah was incoporial, I happened to mention that Jehovah was once a man as we are and that he went off to found and seed his own planet, and here we are on planet earth. The remark was a jab and a test at Bob Guyer, who didn’t rise to the bait. And Dr. Levy only responded, “I haven’t heard of that story”. When it comes to the Calvary Chappels so many lines from the John Lennon song “How do you sleep at night” come true, like “You live with straights who tell you you was king” and the line about “The only thing you done was yesterday” and also “A pretty face may last a year or two, but pretty soon we’ll see what you can do”. To my way of thinking forty years is only “a year or two” to him. Every day must be a bad day for Chuck Smith and Satan must rejoice every morning he learns that Chuck Smith is still alive- - ready to be tormented bu the future he so dreads- - one more day. But I’m not even sure I’ll go Sunday.

“After this nobody dared ask him any more questions…”

Just prior to hearing yesterday’s “Life in a test tube’ news, I had a recall moment of something I had forgotten, but something where I wish my memory had been clearer”. You know how I wrote Mark Bove in August of 1994 that “God lied to me and told me in January of 1988 that I would be marrying Debby Lies”. But that wasn’t the Whole revelation. Let me quote scripture, “Listen to the whole counsel of God”. But you can’t meditate on it if you can’t remember it. It all began on the afternoon of October 2^nd of 1987 when I was walking home to the Bosc house where I lived at the time. And I told God that “something is wrong with my relations with roommates Frank and [Henry] and I want you to expose it and make it plain to me - - and nothing in my own life is out of bounds. This is an unconditional prayer”. It was the following Thursday that Frank torched that whole shelf of my books there in the living room. First of all and parenthetically this loss kind of pales in comparison to the realization that my writings from November of 1991 till I quit writing in April of 2001- - these writings that had not been in my desk but in folders on a bookcase- - were gone, lost, destroyed or otherwise along with recordings I intended to preserve of relatives from the ‘sixties such as Aunts, Uncles, three grandparents, and various other people- - again many of whom who are dead now. But back to January of 1988, God told me “The destruction of those books was NOT my response to your prayer. My answer to your prayer as is follows. Because you prayed unconditionally, withholding nothing, so I shall not withhold from you your destiny. Everything in your life has a reason and a plan I have for you. You will move [back] to a residence of your own, and also Debby Lies is destined to be your wife. This is an unconditional promise and not contingent on anything you do or don’t do. All you have to do is believe it”. Right now I would like to turn on the Marcus camera and let you follow me around for one day to keep tabs on what I do. To answer the riddle of the quote at the top of the page it’s as follows. Chuck Smith will die one day and meet the Centaurian demon who empowered him during his life. And Chuck Smith will see the creature and say “I wish I saw things while living that I see clearly right now”.

I just waited in the medication line. It got “stuck” on Loretta for about five minutes or more. Today is Friday May 21, 2010 and Monday is the 24^th and Chase Bank is offering new customers for “business accounts” a hundred bucks. I’d like to know how you qualify for that. Tonight we had chicken patties that were pretty tough to cut, and mashed potato in some buttery solution, and mixed vegetables, and chocolate pudding for desert. I went to the bakery for a large coffee. I was hoping Dr. Levy would give me some money. Elizabeth says all she has to do is pray for five dollars and it appears out of the air or something. The money I’ve gotten from Dr. Levy was a flook, and the last time was just about six months ago. Eye Witness News is on now. I guess house cleaning was in here and the place smells a little fresher. [name withheld] was remarking that everyone has a caugh now. I’ve just had a cough for less than three days. The Lakers have won eight games in a row but the games have been so stretched out the last game they lost was April 24^th - - which was the day I played “The Empire Strikes Back”.

Last night it was the usual Jeopardy and the Simpson’s, in an episode that obviously first aired in the fall of 1995 with the Simpson DNA reference. Then it was “Flash Forward”. I guess they work these plots to keep you coming back.

In the morning I got up a little later. I went to the bakery for a large coffee and had Stephanie Miller on before and after breakfast. I’m still having problems with the TV not going on but going gray screen to “warm up”. Again after three months of absolutely no problem I began having problems mid day Tuesday. We had hot cereal and Will provided the half banana to slice in the bowl. We had scrambled eggs and I had two toasts with butter and jelly, and just one under-filled really cold cup of coffee.

I listened to Bernie Sanders and went to the liquor store just before nine to buy a pack of Double Diamonds. I’m still wondering whether I should make it my last pack and try to quit smoking. I went for coffee in the courtyard both in the morning and in the afternoon. If they gave you stronger coffee in bigger cups not drowned out by cream and suger it might be worth it. Lunch was an uneventful sandwich affair.

I watched the whole Rand Paul interview in Rachael Maddau, and I must say the interview was mis-characterized. Rand Paul endorses nine out of ten provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights will being worried only about private accommodations and whether a business has the right to choose their patrons. He raised a possible example of people who wanted to carry firearms into a bar and would the owner have the right not to let them in? I don’t think Rand Paul is a bigot. But there are a lot of other tea baggers who are bigots. After this I had some Chris Matthews stuff on briefly.

Now the Texas school system has approved new conservative textbooks the whole country will be using making favorable references to the contract with America and other conservative institutions and equating Jefferson Davis’ words on the same level as Abraham Lincoln, and referring to the Slave Trade as “The Atlantic Triangular Trade”, whatever that is. They wanted to use President Obama’s middle name, Hussein. I think as a liberal we need to pick our battles and spend time on those issues which are genuinely threatening to us, and the education of the Next Generation is such a threat.

In soap land Anna appears to be reviving. Perhaps she’s figured out now that Raphael is not the bad guy but the Di Mira family is. Will thinks Stephano Di Mira is "neat" because he check mated him so quickly at chess. I had Randy Rhodes on briefly.

Dr. Levy had to bring in countless chairs, and this has been a notable problem since we switched rooms. The check-in was very rapid today. Dr. Levy continued to elucidate the religion of Judaism. I must say the class is religiously well informed. Sister Rosetta Stone would be impressed. Marcia asked him about “Making man in our own image” and I echoed with the quote of “Behold man has become as one of us”. Dr. Levy said he didn’t trouble himself with triffles like this. He just said that mankind has an impulse twords good and an impulse twords evil and we have free will and the power to master sin is in our hands. Our calling or “Mitzbah” is to make this World a better place. When Dr. Levy was asked “Doesn’t God say “All things are possible” - - “ and Dr. Levy agreed. Then I said “Isn’t it rather more correct to say “With God all things are predestined”. There is one thing God cannot do and that is change. I also said “There is no such thing as God desiring a thing and it not being so. That’s part of the prerogative of being God.” The thing is that no desire God has is beyond him for the simple reason that God never changes so his desires never can be altered, which works out great. Because the one thing he can’t do will never be made known to God. (Selah)

Economy Looking Uncertain

Stocks as you know are headed in one of their downtrends we have become familiar with lately. It was when the Dow Jones Industrials went above ten thousand six months ago that I told my readers that it was officially time by buy everything. After this the market dipped below ten thousand again before coming back above to stay. But now we are approaching that same ten thousand figure and I'm wondering whether I should give an official Sell signal. I'm not doing it today but look for it. Unemployment claims are up and I imagine the next unemployment figure will be back over ten percent. Houses really aren't recovering the way everyone hoped they would and there is still a large number of home owners living with upside-down mortgages. The problem is people have been so bearish on the economy nobody can accuse the Obama administration of setting our hopes too high. The question now is which country in Europe will go bankrupt next?

Things don't look at all rosey for the tea party set either. Rand Paul, son of Ron Paul, may have won the Kentucky senate nomination but no way does he have the personal carisma of his father, and he comes off as near incoherent in public. We can pretty much award that senate seat to the democrats. Blanch Lincoln was forced into a run-off. This isn't good for President Obama, who sold out his own position on the Health Care bill to support and campaign for her. Arlen Specter is another "ditto" case of President Obama not having what it takes to campaign for people. On top of the failures of a few months ago the President's track record for campaign isn't very good. But it isn't good for the tea baggers either because Joe Sestak is a liberal and younger democrat, who probably stands a better chance of winning then Spector would have, being eighty years of age. It's time to send this war horse out to pasture, with his magic bullet and all. But the one race which really was head to head democrat facing republican, the Democratic candidate won, for Jack Myrtha's old senate seat. This can't bode well for the tea party set either. A lot of their success will depend on what happens here in California in November. But clearly is there is something wrong with this economy, it can be blamed on Obama following the failed Bush policies and perhaps if new blood were introduced, things would change. Republicans fear the completely non existant threat of inflation and "printing press money". One only wishes that that would actually happen, because we could pay back the national debt with cheaper dollars like we did with Reagan. You remember him. But these days the financial community is like a giant vacuum cleaner sucking up any excess funds. We need to put teeth in any financial reform bills that come out of congress and President Obama needs to rally the American people. For all his aledged "gifts of oratory" it isn't showing up in hard votes. His idea of a severe tongue lashing is waving a wet noodle in the air. Obviously we need to bring back Glass Stiegal. Just to refresh your memory on that one more time. Glass-Stiegal was passed in 1935 under Roosevelt. This bill said that you could be either a Savings Bank or an Investment Bank, but that you could not be both. Either you had depositors and made loans, or you were like one of these brokerage houses that played the market. You just can't do it with Aunt Thelma's money. Germany has banned "naked short selling". If I understand this- - in normal short selling you "sell a stock" that you don't own, but normally you have to put up the money to prove you could actually afford to own the stock. Hopefully when the stock drops in market price, you buy this stock that you've already paid for at a reduced price and hence make a profit. So I think a naked short is sort of a equivelent to a zero margin requirement, which is taking a huge risk. If a short goes against you even at 100% equity up front, you could be out several times your investment. On a 50% margin whatever that number is, multiply it times two.

Oil is now creeping ashore on Louisiana beaches at last. This is the thick main mass of the oil slick and not the "sheen" they have talked about. People have been out observing it. But I hear that the Federal Government won't allow scientists and others to conduct measurements of oil concentration or toxisity. Neither will the government do it themselves. But it goes further. CBS reporters were on a public beach yesterday reporting on the oil slick and a coast guard cutter came by and told them to get out of there on orders from British Petrolium. You tell me what THAT is all about. Why hasn't President Obama come out more stridently against British Petrolium and made it plain to them that they will have to pay every penny of the clean up costs, and not the US tax payers. Clearly we need a third party candidate and we need it bad. Because it's clear that Obama is in bed both with the Wall Street bankers and the oil companies. It's time for a thorough spring cleaning, like Tom Dewey talked about doing in 1948.

Well it looks like the LA Lakers are headed for another NBA championship. It's becoming a habitual affair. Actually I'm beginning to find it a little boring knowing they win just about every game and every play-off round like clockwork. The Suns are almost history so bring on the Celtics. Then we can spend money on another victory parade that taxpayers can't afford.

The senate just passed some version of the financial reform bill. I'll have to read the provisions of it but I suspect like the Health Bill, the provisions they include might not be the most important ones. I'll like to know all of the loopholes in the bill, that you might be able to drive a Humvee through. Consumer protection is OK to a point, but it's the funny stuff that goes on in the back rooms that I'm worried about. It's the "deal before the deal" I'm worried about.

"Psssst- - - It's All About the Oil!"

"What the gods can digest

will not sour in the belly of a starving person"

In early 1971 Steppinwolf came out with the song and album "Monster" as in now government is a monster and will not obey. 1971 was the genisis of a lot of the Watergate doings. And in the intervening forty years other than a brief respit in the mid and late 'seventies, government is an unresponsive beast that marches to its own drum. Bill Moyers and a few other lone wolves have done exposees on the build up to the Iraq War we only now are winding down from. Some are saying even now that we will never leave Iraq. Back then in 2002 the drum beat was led by the President to fire up the masses and get them to fear "weapons of mass destruction", which they knew all along was a bogus charge. The media had a tight muzzle placed on it and even liberals watched what they said. Only a few lone wolves such as Ted Kennedy, who lemantably we need a man like him badly now in congress, only Kennedy and a very few others dared even in the hallowed halls of congress voice opposition to the war that everybody knew was coming. Now we know that there was indeed some urgency behind getting the war going and the charge "We go to war with the army we have" reveals more than you think. Saddam Hussein was on the verge of allowing the UN inspectors back into Iraq on a virtually unlimited basis to search wherever they will. But there was also an agreement pending to let Iraq again start selling oil on the open market and competing price wise with places like Saudi Arabia. George W Bush could not allow this to happen. He had to insure that oil prices went up and not down. Someone said that oil was going for $28.00 a barrel the day before the Invasion began. Now it's selling at around seventy and as you know a couple years ago speculators drove the price as high as $140.00. My only consolation was those speculators who paid more than a hundred dollars a barrell for the oil, really took a bath in the market, particularly if they had leveraged short positions. But there is clearly some cozy relation between the past and present governments and oil prices. Otherwise oil would be back at $28.00 or lower, considering the recession of this economy. Think about it.

What people feared, and some tried to deny altogether, has happened. Tar balls from the Louisiana oil slick have been spotted in Key West, Florida. So the oil has matesticized its way into that gulf loop current that carries it southeast, and from there it's a short hop around the Keys to the Gulf Stream. As we said all this oil is sucking out all the oxygen out of the ocean and will be killing off all manner of sea life, and the area around Florida is such a treasure trove of underwater delights. Now people saying that if the oil companies had every concession they want and were allowed unlimited drilling, that the price of oil would come down only thirty cents a gallon, or from three dollars to $2.70. That ain't much. But if we adopted fuel efficiency standards we could really take a bite out of our oil consumption. And as we have said, since oil is not used that much in electric generation, the logical thing to do is use electric cars. Hybreds are increasing in sales, and they will surely increase more. As I said in the last blog, we've had all of the alternate technology for over forty years. It's just a matter of putting it all to use.

I don't know if Thom Hartman has seen the movie "Wall Street" but some time the "free market" can come back to bite you in the ass, if you think you're a big time manipulator. There were things Union Oil employed called "poison pills" to prevent a takeover bid fifteen years ago by T. Boone Pickens. As you know in the movie the Gecko character said "I wrecked your father's company because it was wreckable". But the "Fox" character out foxed the master and being in control of the life blood of Wall Street he had prerogatives few have as a broker to "stick it to the man" big time when Gecko's schemes and plans backfired- - - blew up in his face. So now I'm thinking that perhaps there are things the Greek government could have done, or perhaps other governments could do now to "stick it to these speculators". If you try and be a big time manipulator, you run the ever present risk of being a big time loser, just like those oil speculators who bought oil at the top of the market at one forty. Again I say, think about it.

If ever there was a reason for giving a big thumbs down to Elena Kagan, Tuesday's high court ruling really put the cherry on this banana split. In this ruling there were certain "sex offenders" which doesn't necessarily mean a violent crime. It might be teenagers shooting sex acts of fellow students with their cell phones. It could be someone receiving child pornography.. Maybe it's some seedy troll photographing up women's skirts through an open manhole. Don't suppose that they are all Ted Bundys. But these people served out their prison sentense. But the government decided they were still "dangerous to society" and so someone sued to have they kept in longer. And a lower court voted unanamusly to free these prisoners. You would have thought that would settle it. Even under ancient Jewish law, if a person is found innocent of a crime you can't come back and again try him for the same crime. Double jeopardy. But don't expect the US government to have the fairness of the Jewish Sanhedrin that tried and condemned Jesus. No, no. These men were kept in prison for two more years while the case made its way through the court. And Tuesday the court - -with the support of Solicitor General Elena Kagan, ruled that these mean could be held "till they were too old to get it up" to borrow a famous line from "One flew over the coo-coo's nest". The thing is I have never been labeled as a sexual preditor. But what about mental illness. This was R. P. Mc Murphy's problem. He was due to be released untill that black orderly gave him the sobering bad news. And who's to say they'll stop there. Couldn't perpetrators of various political crimes be ruled "a clear and present threat to society should they be released". I'd like to nip this whole chain of logic in the bud right now. Obama is no champion of the little man. I am reminded that Donald Siegal or whoever that democratic Arkansas governor was who was wrongly convicted is. He was convicted sheerly on a faboricated case for strictly political reasons as part of a vendetta. Why doesn't President Obama consider his case important? I hope that Elena Kagan's case goes down in flames.

Some people say that cultural and religious pluralism is a good thing. I told Dr. Levy that at the present time I am a religious pluralist. But I also said this is because at this time I am a virtual atheist and do not believe any religion is deserving of my undying obediance. And Dr. Levy's expression of "Pluralism" differs from mine to begin with. While I believe that all religions CONTAIN truth- - I also believe that religion contains a lot of lies, including Christianity and even Judaism. I have a definite problem of a culture with literal sacred cows, when masses of people are starving and malnourished. Dr. Levy on the other hand would say All religion is to be equally valued as True. No. People, first of all are different. I will allow for dissinence - - because I think mankind's primary directive in this life is struggle. Men are going to have certain "honist difference" among themselves. But only the "Top Five great traditions" as he calls them, are to be included in this "umbrella", which doesn't include Taoism of Confucionism or any African or American Indian traditions. Dr. Levy like Dennis Prager believes in this myth of a generic "brand X religion" that does marvelous things for you such as give you a longer life and make you healthier and give you a sound marriage and happy, well adjusted children. Dr. Levy makes the classic case of confusing cause and effect. Gene Scott comits the same break in logic when he says "the way to God is through giving". No. If you are a Christian who is extrordenarily blessed, you will be a giving person. If someone had a magic potion that could enable people to leap tall buildings as a single bound- - Gene Scott would come up to me and say "Don't drink the potion but just try to leap the building on your own strength, and if you succeed people will Think you have drunk the potion". Maybe a greater truth is that conservatives are big, fat, rich Piggies and these same big, fat, rich Piggies are also religious. But suppose they're also White, and I happen to be Black. Should I bleach my skin to be white to prove that I'm one of them?? I think not. The thing is I'm not a terribly big fan of excessive religion, and Pluralism carried to the heights Dr. Levy carries it to- - is making a religion out of pluralism. Don't tell anybody but once upon a time God gave one select man audience with him to reveal any and all Truths and answer all of his questions. After he was done and went back, Satan came up to God and said, "You know don't you that your message is going to be garbled. And I'll tell you WHY it will be garbled. Because I am going to approach the man and convince him to make a RELIGION out of the Truths you taught him. And I'll make him institutionalize it with a lot of pomp and tradion and compel the people to be indoctrinated, not to the original Truth but to the Tradition." Who in government espouses pluralism. I'll give you a clue- - how about the Communist governments of old? "Psssst - don't tell anybody but there are Churches all over Russia." Some sincere people would say "It's a government that really hates all religion. They don't mind if you exercise religion as long as it's toothless and impotent." The thing that gives many religions their uncompromising character, is the fact that they don't allow themselves to be defined by others but for each man to look to their own continence. (Selah)