National Unemployment Goes Double Digit

The new jobless figures are out and unemployment stands now at 10.2% of the population, so it can be said the darkest forecasts have come to pass. This is despite happy talk a few days ago about unemployment claims being down. Perhaps people's unemployment has run out and they've given up trying to get more. In this case Obama's actions should be heartening in that he extended the 26 week limit on unemployment compensation. The stock market has not done what I thought it would be doing now, when I made my "buy" recomendation a few weeks ago. But I'm still giving the same advice, which is to buy on the dips and be thankful the market is not at twelve thousand by now. As I have said, if 1982 is any model, this economy won't even begin to get out of the slump it's in untill the Dow Jones Industrials are making new all-time highs, and that leaves a ceiling of over four hundred points to shoot for by way of financial gains. Those in Gold futures should stay right where they are because, as the announcer says "The future of the dollar is very uncertain" and it's always nice to have a little insurance. Every investor should have a little something put away in gold futures, just in case the worst happens. But what this means is that we need to encourage economic reform legeslation, like Senator Bernie Sanders proposed today of reorganizing and breaking up the major banks. We must remember that the government is really the people. The constitution preamble, after all, begins with the words "We the People". When charges are filed against a criminal in superior court, it isn't "Orange County verses Rodreguez" or whoever but "The People verses Rodreguez". It is the people who are the litigents in both cases against individual felons, and also against giant corporations when they violate public interest. Given this awareness that it's We the People who are acting- - what Ronald Reagan says about those nine most dreaded words is nonsensical. He says you should most fear the words "I'm from the government and I'm here to help". Now I will agree with the axion of "A government with the power to grant you everything you need also had the power to take from you everything you have". But - as a moralist, a liberal moralist, my belief is that we need to restore capitalism's work ethic and that people who MAKE something and work all day with their hands, ought not to pay more income tax than those who don't, who sit by the swimming pool waiting for the dividend check to roll in. The idea of self sufficiency is a value that I charish and that we should charish both individually, and as a nation, as far as our productivity is concerned. Pat Buchannon "gets it". Ross Perot "gets it". Thom Hartman "gets it". But the Bushys and the Clintonites don't get it. What they envision as some economic eutopia is not my America. And it isn't a vision of America that you should defend or fight for.

We've all heard about the Ft. Hood shootings where thirteen people were killed and thirty others were wounded. The shooter was a Moslem who shouted out "God is great" when he did the act. He was a psychiatrist and underscores the truth that psychiatrists have among the highest suicide rates of any profession. This guy was unhappy and got bad job reviews, but somehow he was promoted to Major last May. The warning signs were there but they were ignored. As you know Eric Harris of Columbine shooting fame, was taking Zoloft, and the drug was in his system when he died. I've heard about the danger of seretonin uptake inhibitors for twenty years, that these drugs caused either uncharacteristic violence, or suicide. People should think twice about the semi divine aura we ascribe to the psycho-therapy profession. Many doctors, like the late Sydney J Adler, believe pills are the solution to everything and that it all stems from a "chemical imballance in the brain". You probably have read enough of my writings to know I don't believe this on the whole, but that the human Soul is far more complex.

This is kind of my "neener - neener!" paragraph. Fred Price's wife developed cancer of the hip or something and for a period of time Fred Price was regularly chiding his congragations in his sermons "I know you you people don't go to the doctor. It isn't because you have faith Jesus will heal you, you're just afraid to go to the doctor for fear of what he might tell you". Well, he might tell you that you have cancer. But do you really? New research has suggested that Cancer is not quite what we predicted, ie. that it is progressive and irreversable. Instead the presence of cancer cells indicates the state of health in the body, much as it does in the economy, and that a healthy body knows how to repulse cancer cells and destroy them. In this country our early cancer diagnosis rate has never been better. Yet our mortality rates from cancer are not going down. There seems to be an epidemic of over-diagnosis and over-treatment, not to mention over-worrying. Fred Price forgot to add worry into this equation. Before Halloween of 1997 it was a long, long, time that I had gone without seeing a doctor of any kind, save for dentists and eye doctors. Going so long a period without seeing a doctor didn't kill me, did it? I'm still here. I do believe in sending a little supplication prayer up to God now and then to let Him know that I'm here and thinking about Him.

We are going to meditate on the truth about "Circles". Last time I told you about the births and deaths of universes. And have you noticed that Universes are spherical. I'm not sure all of them are but let's go with the egg shell view for now. Circles are posessive things. They see themselves as complete. They are willing to bend time and space to their will to make themselves seem infinite. Given leave, a circle will go on forever. The limited has become limitless for the time being, and the time being is never ending and circular. This would seem to imply that time itself is circular and repeats itself, as the Hindus claim. Atoms are circular. You penetrate their spherical shells go go for the golden nuggets within, and the atom reacts violently and starts a chain reaction of all its buddies. Universes are formed when a circle of time and space is drawn around itself. The Universe has no need for anything outside itself, and neither has it any place for it. And yet expansion that is inevitable in itself, eventually results in the death of the universe, as it eventually lacks enough cohesive ether binding force to hold itself together. As such a Universe is born of great violence and dies of great violence. (Selah)

And now I'd like to get into the real of Eight Golden Truths. Just by way of review, can you people tell me - - pay attention, class- - can you tell me what three dimensional geometric figure that's symmetrical- - - has eight sides? I'll give you a little hint. All of the faces are triangular, yet when you cut the figure in half in any direction, what you have is perfect square surfaces. And here is the kicker - - all of the cardinal points touch the surface of a perfect sphere. What I'm going to do is give you these eight truths now, and develop them, either in the next posting of this blog, or we may jump to "Skeletons from the Closet" and you'll have to read it there. I haven't decided yet. These truths are kind of a Roreshock test in that, like Dylan lyrics, your mind might interperet the sayings differently, than I will subsequently develop them.

Experiance is the mortal enemy of "Pure religion". Reality is the mortal enemy of dogmatic false belief that prides itself on not needing anything to justify itself. Anything that needs nothing real to justify itself, has no real "right to exist". I welcome experiance - and if it is an experiance with God - this is for the better. Behold, even a Bad "something" is better than a perfect "Nothing". A Christian who needs nothing to justify his existance most likely HAS nothing to justify his existance. Reality is the mortal enemy of the unreal, and Christian theology is unreal. Some say that they have had a bad experiance with God. But people learn from experiance. Would you have fate take back the experiance from having ever happened, only to have the individual go on in perfect bliss ignorance, till the time comes when he has to have the experiance Again? (Selah)

Circles are posessive things; violate them at your Peril

Sometimes, things are exactly as they appear to Be - even First Impressions

When all else fails, look at the computer program text

You have a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon, you're talking about Real Money!

In the long run scheme of things - Adam Smith must be satisfied

An entity too big to fail is too big to exist. This also holds for true for Religion, as well as Corporations.

A God with the power to give you everything you need, has the power to take from you everything you have.

Experience is the enemy of Ignorance, Superstition, and even Bigotry

Election Results Are A Mixed Bag

I did not watch any conservative broadcasts today. I imagine there was great jubilation at the victories of the Republicans in both the Virginia and New Jersey contests. I guess you could say "See I told you so", since so often my blogs are "ahead of the learning curve" to use yet another Rush-ism. But in upstate New York, the Republican being driven out of the race by the Right Wing ended up ill serving their cause because a Democrat was elected in that New York House district for the first time since Whigs held that office. In Maine they voted to legalize medical marijuana but they did a thumbs down on gay marriage. Someone today said that in the 31 referendums where gay marriage was put up for a popular vote nation wide, the homosexual lobby has lost in all 31 of them. That should send a message to us all if true. Meanwhile in New York Mayor Bloomberg narrowly won a contest where he was expected to win by a landslide considering he out-spent his opponent ten to one, or perhaps more than that. One can draw no overriding trend in yesterday's elections. Being an off year election there was an understandibly lower voter turn-out everywhere as liberals refused to vote, in the case of Virginia not finding much in common with even the democratic candidate.

Thom Hartman has leveled a novel new charge against the biggest corporations. He claims that giant corporations actually SEEK OUT government regulations because they will easily be able to afford all the attorneys they'll have to hire to deal with them, but smaller companies will be driven out of business. It would seem that we have a government of, and by, and for big business. Corporations are granted rights of Freedom of Speech for example, in areas where a government would not even grant them to human beings, such as the right of FOX broadcasting to put out deliberate lies over the air. One person was fired because of this because they were doing a piece on genetic food engeneering, and the network told them to lie outright. When put to a trial by a Jury of his piers, the plaintiff was victorius, but FOX news appealed the case and the appeals court overturned the jury decision. Many say that health care is an inherent right of every American. I did not used to believe this at all and when the Clintons came out with their Health Care program in 1993 I was solidly against it. But one can say that since them I have been "educated". We liberals believe that education is the solution to a whole host of problems. We spend fifty percent more for health care than any other first world country, and we get much less for it. Corporations, as we are reminded, are creatures of the state and created with the express concent of the State. As such they really "owe" something to the State in terms of conforming to the norms of society. And today the Health Care companies don't pass the comon decency and fairness tests. Many I imagine would regard the activity of health insurance companies in this country as nothing short of criminal. I'm thinking of that term "zeitguist" or "spirit of the times". Martin Luther King said that nothing is more powerful than an Idea whose time has Come. I believe health care's time has arrived. Many believe we should not have to wait till 2013 for all these public options to kick in. Conservatives still are laboring under the delusion that the Republicans are going to win big next year, 2010. I see no reason that if the economy continues to gain ground, that the democrats can't be the ones to pick up house and senate seats, shades of 1934 in Roosevelt's second year in office. I don't believe that the average Independant voter out there has really thought out his political positions. He needs to be educated on the relivant issues. The tea baggers are spent. The old saying isn't true - the one about tea bags getting stronger after being emersed in hot water. Show me a tea bag that's been used and I'll show you one that makes a weaker cup of tea. Think about it.

The Christian Right is convinced that President Obama wants to wreck this economy by causing hyper-inflation like the Weimar Republic and after a state of chaos insues, then a Dictator will step forward that will begin buying up, not gold, but land. According to Glen Beck it's all about buying up the land of private investors and polluters such as coal companies. They say that the carbon tax will only both add to this inflation and hasten the destruction of the economy and all private business in this country. Of course many of the same "talking points" are repeated again and again over the internet. You will hear of death pannels and how Obama really wants nation-wide subsedized abortions on an ever widening scale. Some of the more grandiose people will even claim that the government on the lines of Nazi Germany will institute a Eugenics program to abort, blacks, kill the infirm, and sterilize the genetically defective. Some even envision that stem cell research will lead to an all new cloned Super-race. How do you go about dismanteling this string of frightful and hysterical beliefs? I don't know if some Christians will ever listen to the Truth. Their own self-generated thought-viruses are too strong. Of course many watching the movie "V" will assume that these liberals aren't even quite human but might be space aliens in desguise with lizzard skin and a human veneer. I'm as patriotic as the next guy and if I thought that any of this was true I'd be the first to enlist in the Right's cause.

Burt Lombard alias Mick Ronson had this view of the Christmas tree ornament view of the Universe. In another illustration Burt said that the Universe was like an air bubble floating in a bottle of Prell shampoo and that "out beyond" is the Sea of Green. I would like to tie in a few things together at this time, only the secret behind the births and deaths of Universes, generalized plural. Let me go back to something else you people may be wondering about, though, about "The Decider" of what is the Soul and can it be measured. Some may say "Did you know that they now have demonstrated that the brain physically changes once it has made a Decision and Intends to do a specific act, be it go see a prostitute or whatever." The brain responds to visual impulses before the Decision is made, and the brain also responds AFTER the decision is made so that we onlookers can "detect the new intent" in views of the brain. But still there is that THING that MAKES the decision. We've never managed to isolate that, and that is what I am talking about. A computer will "Do whatever it's told to do". But you can't use that kind of flow-chart model for a human being, or a higher animal. Some of you others wonder about this notion of "time going flat" as if Time itself could vary in thickness of depth, like a snow bank being much higher in some areas than in others. Well, think of the camera and optical term of "Depth of focus" only think of it in reverse. That is, with a telephoto lenz there is a small "depth of focus". But let's reverse that and call this DEEP time. Whereas with a concave lenz what we would have is what I would call shallow focus in that you see everything clearly at once. You see the near and you see the far. Those in the telescope realm are what you would call living in DEEP time. They can only relate to people in the same "time zone" much as a telescope or telephoto lenz can only focus on areas at one time that are the same distance, with a small tollerance. Having said all that let me confuse you a bit more by saying that ANY hyper-light existance may preclude ANY mass or gravity as we know it. Remember that where relativity is concerned, Gravity is time, or we might say the Depth of Time. Hence ANY hyper-light travel may preclude ANY resemblance to our time and space. As Astronomy Cafe reminds us, to outrun light is to outrun gravity, where there is no time-gravity coerrifient, thre is no time. OK now let us get back to the birth of Universes. I am allured by the idea that the creation of a Black Hole is the creation of a new Universe - with its own dimensions. But now - how does matter in this new Universe arrange itself? As a clump denser in the center? Think of the Igloos the Escamoes build. They are as it were shells of fitted ice chunks. They are held together by a "dynamic tension" of gravity pushing the blocks together and the friction of the blocks, which equalizes this pressure. Chuck Smith speaks of a universal "repulsive force" because of the structure of the atom where "an atom shouldn't stay together". This "repulsive force" would tend to repel matter away from the Center. But as in the case of the rings of the outer planets, gravitational attraction tends to generate perfectly concentric, circular rings. Is a picture emerging. You have such as you would have in a thin shell like a Christmas tree ornament. Now some may ask "Well, if space is in a Circle or sphere, cant you make a Decision just to go in the outward direction and escape the shell". The answer is "No" because Einstein says that if light can't escape a black hole or a Universe, then YOU cant escape it. Time and distance will play tricks with you and you will be no closser to your goal than you started. As I have said, it's possible that wherever you are, you think you're at the Center because there is always "more space out there" however warped and curved. But this theory has a kicker. Suppose you should migrate to the center of this "shell". What then? This is what you would call the Eye of the Universe which would opperate as a de-facto worm hole in that travel in real space-time would be greately accelerated. The Orion Federation has spoken of terriestrial (our universe as we know it) and telestial- - or hyper light speed. But the Federation has also stated that there is a "celestial" existance. Could this third state be where you escape the shell entirely? Also there would be a way by which you could prove circularity, and that is if you passed the same object over and over again, as in a Star Trek episode like "Null Space"

Living in a World of Minutia Obsession

This is Tuesday November 3, 2009 and this morning what happens when I don’t smoke for extended periods becomes evident. I become a little O C D, that is, I obsess and worry about aimless things either possibly missing items or things I have left undone. I shouldn't be bothered about that missing crucifix that Gary gave me the summer before last, after all, I'm not Catholic. This morning it was tough sledding to get cigarettes. Tuesday mornings are the worst time to borrow because everybody is out. After being turned down by numerous people finally John let me have a few puffs on his cigarette that he got from Janet. It was a good brand with a high nicotine content. The TV was working good this morning with KTTV on. I went out again and Nancy let me have about ¾ of a cigarette she was smoking, that I paid my last seventeen cents for.

In the news people are obsessing over these three elections they are having today. It looks as if the democrats will lose all three of them, and if they do I say it’s irrelevant. There is one in way upstate New York where the Republican running dropped out of the race, Afghanistan style, in favor of the whacko Conservative candidate, who will win now. The Republican endorsed the democrat. Then there are the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey, which both appear likely to fall into Republican hands. This in the big scheme of things means little. Of course you know I wish the Obama administration didn’t arm people like Glen Beck with so much amo such as - -essentially doing what Republicans do best. They appeal to “The Big Picture”. They are always talking about five year plans and fifteen year plans. A democratic candidate might ask a man or woman on the street the price of a bagel and coffee and gauge the economy that way. Democrats are more micro, and “people oriented”. People like Larry Summers and Timothy Geitner are more given to grandiose abstractions. But in LA county the next unemployment statistics will be higher, as more corporations plan to drop employees. And that’s what people really care about.

For the fourth day in a row we had that lousy brand of oatmeal. Our remedy for having pancakes seldomly, which was our policy before last week, now that situation has been remedied. We no longer have pancakes at all. We had a fried egg and toast with grape jelly already on it, and we did have sausage. It’s always good to get more meat in our diets. Marsha gave me a cigarette to smoke after breakfast.

Hamid Karzai is the defacto winner of the Afghanistan run off election because the other guy withdrew from the November 7^th election. You wonder whether the CIA used muscle power to intimidate him out of going through with the campaign. I guess you better not say you want something unless you mean it. Because now President Obama has comitted himself to making a decision now on those 40,000 troops. . Randy Rhodes thinks the heroin trade in Afghanistan is affecting our military policy, and she reviewed the facts of Iran Contra. What we need is the moral purity party. Where only candidates who aren't compromised by shady business or financial deals are allowed to run. Perhaps I should join the green party. Last week Hillary criticized the Pakistani leaders for knowing where Al Qaeda people were hiding out, and refusing to tell us. Pat Buchannon threw one of his curve balls from the left saying that we should always take foreign leaders at their word and not state the obvious.

Arab leaders want all Israeli construction on the West Bank stopped before negotiations begin. And I agree with them since they are illegal under any standard. I watched videos on this last night. Also Israel has been evicting Palestinians from their homes on the West Bank, and this isn’t too kosher, if you know what I mean. If President Obama is really the raving Palestinian sympathizer that the Christian Right claims he is - - then - well let's just say Israel would already have had a peace treaty crammed down their throat whether they liked it or not. The United States has the power to make the Israeli nation eat dirt. It's all a question of which we value more, Mideast peace and justice for all, or saving Israel's pride. This whole functional apartite situation with native Palistinians just is not just or fair.

The Orion Federation takes exception to my remarks about the Muhajadeeb last week, or the freedom-fighters of Afghanistan. The fact is that patriots of any country will rise up and defend their homeland be it the USSR or the United States that is invading. The Federation still believes the nation we have to worry about is Iran. The problems we are having with Afghanistan and Pakistan will prove inconsequencial in the long view of things. But with Iran we have a virelent threat that people like Pat Buchannon can't see because his motto is "I never met an anti-semite that I didn't like". Russia may ally itself with Iran in the coming years.

I watched the video of Glen Beck I was going to do a blog on today. Glen does these extended twenty minute comentaries on FOX using the blackboard and other visual aids. Except that Glen is regarded as so nutty that I didn’t want to keep bad company. Glen has the theory that the money supply went up 120% in the past year and back when the money rate was hiked only 13% they had to jack the interest rate to twenty percent to counteract that. So this time they’ll have to jack the interest rates up close to two hundred or triple percent. This would be intolerable. Glen says that the “power” has not yet been applied to the money flow and we’re all just “waiting for that to happen”, which Glen says is certain. My own theory is that the banks and brokerage firms operate as a giant vacuum cleaner more greedy than a black hole, and for this reason we will never have inflation now because as a requisite money has not only to be in circulation, but we pretty much need a full employment economy that can’t take up any slack. 1980 and 1981 were a different case, and things aren’t at all like that now. We don’t have cost, push, or demand, pull, or any other kind of inflation. We don’t have any inflation at all, basically.

Sixty Minutes had a thing on the H1 N1 virus and growing all those chicken eggs to culture the virus, and dress it up in a tux. They say they will kill the virus before use in a vaccine. That Baree syndron people got in 1976 from a Swine Flu vaccine won’t happen again. Basically the H1 N1 vaccine is as safe as any other vaccine you take today. After this was a segment on the Yakasoo or that Japanese mafia organization where people are tattooed all over and have portions of fingers missing as punishments for “making mistakes”. One thing about this evening- - I was very alert the whole evening, if not anxious. My first borrowing of a cigarette was from Joe Drisco about a quarter after six. I did not attempt to have another cigarette the rest of the evening.