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.