One for $5, two for $20

Remember the outrage when Obama pushed for a universal health care plan? It would cost us $950 billion over a ten year span. It was all over the news for months. How about the enormous debate when we talked of TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) and the $700 billion price tag? Dominated the news. Do you recall the latest debates about extending the unemployment benefit to the millions of people out of work? We can't afford $60 billion in one year to assist these people, especially since they're lazy. Have you forgotten a few months back when we decided to stop exploring space because the $7 billion a year NASA budget was just too much? Don't like the idea of $8 billion a year on high-speed rail? Then you probably don't much care for the idea of the Federal Reserve secretly loaning out $7.7 trillion (notice the "T" at the beginning of that word) to the private sector and then fighting all the way to the Supreme Court to keep it hidden?

The Federal Reserve is an enigma to most people. Seems strange that a creature so obsessed with accruing money has no idea what the money truly is or the institution that controls it. Seems odd that a creature that fights with its own kind about money and the cost of everything wouldn't know more about this prized possession and how it works. An enigma plus a strange plus and odd equals a no biggie when it comes to one of the biggest scams pulled on the American public.

Have you ever had someone lie to you by not saying a word and then their defense is "I didn't actually lie to you"? You know like when your husband says he's going bowling and then you find out he went to a strip club and then he says, "We did go bowling, I just didn't mention we were going to the strip club too. I didn't really lie." Isn't it insulting? So why wouldn't it be a slap in the face when your elected officials act this way toward you by lying about their financial activities and then attempt to hide it? I'm assuming it's not insulting because you have no idea it even happened, or if you do you don't know what it means, or if you know what it means you already knew this stuff was happening and have come to terms with the tactic. Whatever the scenario it doesn't seem a good place to be.

At some level we have to step up and take responsibility for the reality we have all created. We have become apathetic to everything that requires one more minute out of our day. We're so exhausted by it all we've become apathetic to being called apathetic. We sit back and watch the process unfold and have limited involvement, if any at all. Then when it all takes form, and the ones that are really involved get everything they've paid for and want, we blame the system. If you feel you perform your patriotic duty simply by pulling a lever every four years (maybe two if you're really red, white, and blue blooded) then you might as well save the gas money come election Tuesday. The process has played out by that point and the powers that be, whoever they may be, have won no matter who takes office at that point. They have dwindled the field to just two candidates and you will complain you voted for the "lesser of two evils", in fact it will make you feel good to say it. If someone hears you then you are absolved of any responsibility for the direction or course the country takes for the next few years.

More alarming is the fact these people that pulled this scam fought hard to keep it a secret because they feared the backlash from the public and the public was too naive to know they were supposed to get upset because their "news" channel didn't tell them the forecast called for anger. In fact, the forecast called for a little "How many chicks did Herman Cain bang?" in the morning with a sprinkle of "Bernie Fine" and "Jerry Sandusky" in the afternoon. Oh, and did we forget to mention your government secretly loaned out nearly 8 trillion dollars to private industries and set the rate at 0.01 percent? More on that story coming up later when someone cares about it. Now back to Susan at the "Drug Test Welfare Recipients Rally" on Facebook.

We are a strange creature.

Now You Went And Did It

In last night's Republican debate Newt Gingrich seemed to score well with many viewers. Even people that don't agree with his ideology confessed they thought he had a good showing. The pundits, immediately after the debate, all thought he performed very well. But the one headline that emerged from the debate was Gingrich's comments on illegal immigration.

Gingrich was very clear, on more than one occasion, when he explained his position with how to deal with the current 11 million (according to him and most people at the debate) illegal aliens in the United States. He didn't suggest amnesty. He stated that he would find it hard to believe that average Americans would be comfortable expelling their neighbors that have lived here, been productive, caused no harm, raised a family, held a job, and participated in a church for over twenty years. He said there were plenty of illegals with no ties here and no reason to be allowed to stay. He said millions would be sent back to their homeland if he were President. He said he would deal with our borders and thought that should be addressed first. But he stated it wasn't reasonable to believe we are going to send back all 11 million illegal aliens. He suggested we find a way to "create a legality" that wouldn't grant them citizenship but wouldn't separate them from their families. He even went as far as suggesting we act "humane".

Immediately he was attacked by the other candidates on the stage. Not one of them agreed with him. The last time Gingrich said something that seemed moderate back in July, suggesting that he didn't like "radical right-wing social engineering" (referring to Paul Ryan's budget plan) anymore than he liked "radical left-wing social engineering (anything Obama does), he immediately had to back pedal and within two days warned that any ad that quotes what he said in the future would be a falsehood. That's some funny shit. However, this time he says he will actually "take the heat" for his remarks.

Here's a guy I don't really care for, at least when comes to being my President, but I can recognize when he says something that makes sense and seems honest. He was doing what we all ask for, he was shooting us straight. He knows it is completely unfeasible to remove every one of our illegal aliens. In fact, it would probably be quite damaging and very costly. And he seems smart enough to understand that most people wouldn't really want to kick out people that have been established here and have become our friends and neighbors. But it is just this kind of thinking, moderate and reasonable, that draws "heat".

The National Journal and CBS News released a chart showing the moderate Senators in the Senate over the last 30 years. In 1982 sixty Senators were deemed "moderate" and were willing to work with the other side to get things accomplished and govern the country. By 1994 there were only thirty six moderates, nine in 2002, and currently ZERO. We are responsible for this. We can blame politicians for the way they act when they get there but it is us that is demanding the divide. They aren't acting all renegade and going against our wishes. They are doing exactly what we are asking for, digging in and never budging on any issue. We are so divided we can watch videos of 84 year old women get blasted by chemical agents and feel ok with it. Same is true of the UC Davis incident where police officers casually strolled back and forth dousing college students in the face at point blank range. This type of stuff should be sickening to everyone. People cheer at debates when we talk of the death penalty and people dying from lack of health insurance and boo at gay military servicemen. What is wrong with us?

Mitt Romney can't get more than one in four Republicans to back him and he's been running for President for five years. The base thinks he's "too moderate". At what point do regular people that have a brain in their head step forward and call out this nonsense? Our education system is lacking and we are falling in the world rankings why we do nothing and talk of shortening the amount of school days due to budget concerns. Our atmosphere faces serious problems with climate change and man's role in it and we dismiss overwhelming scientific consensus and say it's "just a belief". We discriminate against gays. We run up our debt at record levels. We don't invest in infrastructure. We demonize people if they have a differing opinion. We have no desire to be "humane" to one another. We are a strange creature.

Hotchpotch

The color black absorbs more heat than the color white. Have you ever really pondered that fact for a while?

The San Francisco Forty Niners were a pretty good team last year. They lost some very close games at the very end of the game. Not that the preseason means a damn thing but they finished the 2010 practice game schedule with a perfect record. Then they come out and start the regular season 0-5 and the focus turned to having Singletary's head on a platter. The Niners could have easily been 3-2 after the first five games. They then went 4-2 over their next six games and could have been 5-1 if they wouldn't have blown a game against the Panthers. My point being, they just didn't have the ball bounce their way when they needed to last season. Singletary was hardly the issue and isn't nearly as horrible a coach as many believe. Granted, I think Harbaugh is probably better, but the team is nearly made up of the same personnel (a year older and wiser) and the main difference is the ball has bounced in their direction this season. They have played in all close games but two of the nine and have won eight of them, and they easily could have won all nine. It just shouldn't be a surprise to all the analyst on Sunday morning. They should be smart enough to understand why the Niners have an 8-1 record.

My buddy AJ asked my pal Louie if he had some coffee last night while we were playing cards. Lou answered, "I have a fresh pot I made this morning".

American English is the only one that places the period inside the quotation marks with only one exception. When the last item enclosed inside the quotation marks is just a letter or a number then the period will go on the outside of the marks. The British are inclined to place periods and commas logically rather than conventionally, depending on whether the punctuation belongs to the quotation or to the sentence that belongs to the quotation, just as Americans do with exclamation points and question marks. I know the rules, the American ones, but it doesn't feel good when I follow them so I always place the period where I think it belongs and that is usually outside the quotation marks.

If you've only voted for the same party in every election in your life do you think you're being honest with yourself about your ability to compromise and perform unbiased evaluations?

If you answered "yes" to the last question do you think you're being honest with yourself?

When I was younger in my college days my friends and I used to play a drinking game called "asshole" (I've heard it called Mr. President too). It was played with cards and the crux of the game was based on a hierarchy system where the person in charge got to make all the rules and the power reduced all the way down to the "asshole" who had to do everything anyone else told him to do. The "President" got to take the best cards from the "asshole's" hand and start the round with an advantage over the other players and made it nearly impossible for the "asshole" to aspire to become anything more than "not the asshole". Eventually the power would shift and different people were assigned different roles. It was always interesting to watch someone that had been the "asshole" for the majority of the evening, pouring beers for everyone, doing silly tasks, giving up their best cards to the player in charge, finally obtain power. Then they would make all the rules so they would never lose power. And they could do that because the only real rule was the person in charge makes all the rules. It worked fine when everyone knew and followed the code that you don't take advantage of the system and rig the game to assure you never lose power. Once that occurred the game was ruined and all of us that were wise enough to know this knew the game was over. I never envisioned our American political system would end up like a game of "asshole".

I absolutely love this time of year when it gets dark early and it rains all day. I love the fresh, cool air and the smell of rain. I hate when it's one hundred degrees and hot and I remember those times when I turn my heater on and open my front door and stand there and look outside.

Do you know how close the next closet star is besides our Sun?

Do you really know why the sky is blue?

Last night with eight seconds to go in the third quarter USC lead Oregon by 18 points and found themselves punting to the Ducks. My buddy Landon informed the poker table that Oregon couldn't win if they didn't return the punt for a touchdown. The USC punter kicked it out of bounds (maybe he knew this formula Landon knew). So it was no surprise to any of us when the Oregon kicker missed a 37 yard field goal to tie the game with just a few seconds left. Oregon's fate had been determined nearly a quarter ago, they were destined to lose.

Cool story, bro.

I'm pretty much an "in the moment" type of guy. I don't say that to sound cool or convince you to live this way. I mention it to explain how I live. And anyone that knows me well and has involvement in my life and dealings with me understands this about me. It's not meant as a gimmick or some quirk to annoy people. It is what brings me joy and allows me to find happiness at a frequent rate. The now is the only thing we really know and the only thing we are guaranteed. There is a lot of good and happiness and miracle happening each moment and it is easy to not see it when focused on the future. So even though this is what I believe and pretty much how I live I still have to live in the real world. I know I'm going to Dinuba next Friday to watch a playoff game. That seems to contradict what I've been saying. When I won a cruise a few years back I planned vacation days from work, again seems to go against the grain. I know I will go to my mom's house on Thanksgiving and my aunt's on Christmas. I apply my "in the moment" philosophy as much as possible and when applicable to my life. However, I live around a lot of other people and there are times I have to interact with reality and abandon my personal preference as to how I wish everything operated. But I would still say I'm a "now" type of guy. This is how I view my libertarianism. I am totally for individual rights being the standard and as little government as necessary being the mark. However, I live in a country of hundreds of millions of people and on a planet with several billion humans. Not to mention billions of other life forms. Sometimes I have to be flexible and recognize there will be needs the government must fill. We must all pull together and invest in our youth, are health, our infrastructure, our exploration, our defense, our future. That's not very libertarian. I still think I'm libertarian I just live in the real world.

Every single week at 10:30 a.m. Pacific time on Sunday morning almost every single, if not all, NFL football game will be at halftime. That's pretty amazing if you think about it. It's an entertainment business. It's as much about football as a game of Monopoly is about the property. It's really about collecting money and everything else is just a device.

If more people watch one source to get their news than any other, how can that source call all of the other sources the "mainstream"? Wouldn't the main stream literally be the primary stream where most people got their water?

At most middle schools here in town the classes reach a level of 35 to 36 students in one class. I can rail on the public education system for a lot things. I've even argued for years that I'm not a fan of public education for various reasons, the fact your child receives an education simply based on the location of your home seems prehistoric to me. I could go on and on. However, if you as a parent accept the fact you send your child off to receive and education while occupying the room with 35 other twelve and thirteen year old's then you need to reexamine your expectations. And if you settle for anything less than truly educating your child, teaching them how to reason and grasp ideas and form their own opinions and study known ideas and formulas and techniques to have a better chance in the world, to have a better life than you, then you are failing your child if you allow them to exist in this environment. There is no one else to blame but yourself. You are responsible for your child. If you can only points fingers and make an excuse and feel apathetic and hopeless to change the system then you're hardly an example to an impressionable mind. When we settle for less than acceptable (36 kids in one class) at the cost of our children then we have lost our way.

This is my favorite stretch of the year. Literally right now. This week we head into the Thanksgiving week and most people have a shortened work week. The weather is perfect, football is on the tube, the food is great, friends and family in town, and when it's all over we aren't too far off from starting another stretch just like it followed by another holiday. Good times.

Quite often I remark about my life being some type of Truman Show. It's not really because of all of these remarkable things that happen that make me feel this way. In fact, it's the opposite. It's a bunch of unremarkably small things that seem strangely odd to me that make me wonder. Let me give you an example. Going for two in football is actually not even a decision almost every time it's done. Only toward the very end of the game when the coach must decide whether he wants to tie the game or win it does a decision arise. Every other time it is simply a formula. Yet, at all levels of football I see this mistake made time and time again. Even at the pro level where the coaches make millions they still get this wrong. And they have thirty dudes on the staff that are coaches as well. This makes me think it's just all part of the script. The writers know me and know this is something that will get my goat so they continually throw it in front of me. It's not because I'm so vain or delusional that I think my life must be a reality show, it's because it almost makes more sense to me. There is no way this many people, including professionals, could continually get this two point non-dilemma situation wrong.

Math isn't about numbers, it's about concepts.

Peace out.

Papa's Got An Old, Tired, Worn Out, Brand New Bag

A little over a week ago Politico published a piece bringing to light two sexual harassment settlements that Herman Cain was involved in during the 1990's. The report states two females that worked for the restaurant association Cain headed were given settlement packages and agreed to not discuss the event at any time in the future.

Immediately all of the sub-stories surfaced: Who leaked the story to Politico, is the mainstream media creating another Anita Hill scenario against a conservative black man, Cain has raised over a million and a half dollars since the story was released, when will Mark Block get axed. But the one story that seems to be the elephant in the room that is not even being mentioned: Do these guys think we're stupid. Ironic since Cain authored a book entitled "They Think You're Stupid".

Politico informed the Cain campaign (or book tour advisers) ten days prior to publishing the story they were working on the piece. Still, when the story broke Cain's response was unprepared and avoided addressing the situation. This is the real story, a man running for President of the United States paid two women settlement packages to leave their job and not ever talk about it after alleging they received unwanted sexual advances,everything else is simply distraction. Sadly, distraction is all we require these days to stay entertained and we no longer care to have honest dialogue about any subject.

I'm not a fan of Cain for President, just my opinion. However, I still have the ability to assess different circumstances and form honest conclusions that aren't based on my personal preference. I can completely imagine a scenario, even two, where employees came forward with these claims and the best option for the association was to settle and move forward. This happens all of the time. The action of settling has little to do these days with guilt. Each case has its own merits and sometimes the settlement looks fishy, yet other times it's easy to see a settlement was easiest and probably the most efficient way to handle the situation. The guilt of the accused can't be determined simply by the fact a settlement occurred.

This is why it is so troubling to me that we can't all just act like adults that care about real issues and focus on the most pressing matters. When someone is running for the position of the presidency and something of this nature surfaces the reality is we're going to have to address it. But it doesn't have to drag on and on and we don't have to get side tracked talking about everything but the incident at hand.

There is no way anyone running for this position doesn't have some skeletons in their closet. It would almost be strange if they didn't. We've even come to expect it as a part of the process. We know something will emerge and then we'll see if that thing makes the campaign sink like an anchor or press on and gain credibility for surviving the vetting process. That is why Cain's handling of this issue has been so disappointing, he seemed so unprepared and then employed the duck and weave tactic and now asks us to get lost in the distraction of it all and forget about acquiring the real answers we need so we can move forward.

A good friend gave my a framed picture of a Chinese saying that deals with misfortune several years ago. Basically the message to be conveyed in the phrase is there is opportunity in every crisis. When W. Bush had to address his party days he tackled it head on. He manned up and said this is me, more importantly that was me and this is me now are you going to be o.k. with that. Isn't that what we expect? Romney, known as a flip flopper, has had to address two main issues in abortion and Obamacare being drafted after Romneycare in Massachusetts while campaigning. It would seem Romney, in my opinion, has taken these perceived negatives and explained what he was and what he is and why that makes him the person he is now and is comfortable with letting us decide if we accept that. That's all one could do in such a position. However, Cain has decided to play us for the fools we are so proud to be and use nothing more than the "look, squirrel" approach on us.

When it comes to being asked about how much money these women were paid Cain doesn't really know he tells us. Still, a large chunk of the conservative party is cool with him being in control of the nation's economic policy. Odd. He has zero political experience, something most conservatives pointed out as a weakness last election cycle toward Obama. Strange. His personal position on abortion is confused in a party where there is no room for such ambiguity. Interesting. And he's totally black, Obama's only half and that seems to be a point of contention. Funny (not funny "ha ha" but funny like "odd" or "strange" or "interesting").

In the end none of this really has much to do with Herman Cain for me. It has more to do with all of us and how we process information. We develop habits that dictate how and what we think about things. Facts should dictate our thoughts. When it comes to the sexual harassment incident I just want the facts ma'am. The people that vote strictly on party lines could care less about the actual incident, they are going to vote for their guy no matter what. It is the people that actually entertain the idea of voting for the best person on the ballot that are making up their minds about the contenders and their antics. Treating me like an idiot by completely dodging the question and worrying more about who leaked it than simply tackling it and moving forward is insulting. More troublesome than be insulted is the realization that I'm in a small minority of people that actually recognize the insult. We are a strange creature.