Sunday, August 31, 2014

The Outlook This Labor Day


President Obama has yanked the football once again - - and why not?  It’s a new season.   How many times to we have to be disappointed at President Obama flaking out on the job?  We were promised a “Public Option” on health care.  That’s what he ran on.  We were promised a complete repeal of the Bush tax cuts and we didn’t get that, and when we got some of it, it was two years later.  We know about President Obama “line in the sand” with Syria.  We know how last week that President Obama approached the plate and then balked, and refused to order a systematic invasion of the ISIS power.  And now it’s another disappointment.  President Obama has been saying all summer that he was going to issue a proclamation on liberalizing immigration policy on Labor Day, just as last summer- - for weeks and weeks we were told “President Obama is going to take action on Assad in Syria any day now”.   Well now the President is saying that he’s decided NOT to act on immigration policy.  Even Rush Limbaugh was in agreement that it was politically smart to speak on immigration because it would spur democrats to the polls and increase Latino support for the 2016 Presidential election.  Now to whom will those disaffected people give their vote?  The President - - was already exhausting the patience of the Latino constituency as it was, and now this suddenly balking instead of stepping up to the plate- - is going to infuriate them further and cause many people who would have come out to the polls, to now stay home.  When one thinks of President Obama the old adage is true that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  President Obama now has 55% disapproval numbers as opposed to 39% who still approve.  Now the President seems bent on whitteling that number down further.  To paraphrase a song “Should 39 appear to small, be thankful he hasn’t lost it all” when it comes to personal credibility.  The President is nothing but a gutless coward. 

I listened to the republican response on KNX.  It was this Indiana guy bemoaning the loss of the coal mining industry in - - Indiana.   He stated “President Obama has declared war on the coal industry”, which in fact I heard the President say just the opposite discussing “clean coal” as an energy alternative.  Virtually all of the Republican “jobs” bills center on fomenting ecological disasters or abandoning safety regulations.  There is a roomer that Republicans won’t change ANY tax laws encouraging businesses to stay in the country or return to this country- - unless every last aspect of their fanciful tax plans is put into law.  Later on I listened to this economic program a half hour.  Some calls were pure republican propaganda puppets.  The host tried to set them straight.  Occasionally you’d get the overzealous democrat too.   But there is this persistent perception that the President is a magic genie who can wave his hand and cure all our economic problems.  Where do they get these ideas?  I also had Chris Matthews on (first) and he talked about ISIS and the serious threat they obviously are now.  But the president is waffeling on the issue which won’t play well in Peoria, if you know what I mean.  The smartest thing he can do is be Mr Bad Ass in the White House- - and dare the Republicans to criticize him for THAT.  Meanwhile more undecided people will vote for democrats in the next congress.  I really wish they’d go out to their old site lay-out.  I liked it better.

I’m not happy about that Texas court ruling on abortion clinics.  Pardon me for actually sounding like a “liberal” person- - if you take the word “Abortion” out of this.  It’s my belief that the state has an interest in looking after the safety of patient care in that state, and is completely authorized to legislate on any safety procedures they care to, and doctors have to abide by them.  But is it the legislature’s fault that these abortion back alley clinics are so slipshod that they don’t past muster.  And what’s so funny is the woman said “Well there are other agencies women can go to to get prenatal care and advice” and the man says “Yeah, but they don’t do abortions”.  I think this issue is going to hurt Wendy Davis.  After all this is Texas we are talking about.  Gun reform won’t fly in Arizona and liberalized abortion rulings won’t fly in Texas.  We’ve seen the same thing with medical marijuana in California and some outlets have had to close.  Can I go up to Sacramento and carry and protest “I regard Pot as a Constitutional Right”?

Finally we have this football thing.  This Baltimore Raven guy was only given a two game suspension for spousal abuse.  That lieniency won’t fly in these times when everyone is conscience of the problem with battered women, not the least of which is this ISIS stuff that’s on all of our minds.  But on that other matter- - I am against Michael Sam - - that defensive guy from the St Louis Rams- - being cut at the last minute.  They say he played one of his best games, and let’s face it – cutting him is just strategically stupid- - and a mistake - - if this guy gets picked up by another team and that team begins winning games.  I mean, the way I see it the Rams need all the help they can get.  I just hope there isn’t any “good ol’ boy” locker room mentality that went into this player being cut, and that it truly was unsatisfactory performance.  Of course both on the gay and abortion issue- - the reason why neither is mentioned so little in the Bible is that they are both such supremely unnatural acts- - particularly a mother aborting her own child- - it never occurred to the Bible writers that these things needed to be commented on.

Then it was Breakfast with the Beatles.  They had Billy J Cramer on as guest, whom they’ve had before.  I didn’t know that “I’ll Keep You Satisfied’ or the still rarer “From a Window” were both Lennon – Mc Cartney compositions.  But I remember “Window” being a multi track lead vocal.  Either I have a bad memory or there was a different version of the song out in America.  Billy J Cramer says that John Lennon would audition a new song for them, and they’d have it all learned and recorded several hours later.  That’s kind of hard to believe, even for back them.  It seems to be their bread and brother.  Cramer found George Martin a little polished and intimidating.  They even played their own B side version of “I Call Your Name”, which is a whole lot better than I had been expecting.  Of course John Lennon entered this point where he wanted to divert from the “Beatle formula” and begin making songs- - chunkier- - with more of a “heavy” quality such as “You Can’t Do That”, “When I Get Home”, and “Baby’s in Black”.   And I told you that one times in I Tunes I listened to Lennon do “I’m in Love with a Beautiful Girl” from some bootleg 1963 EMI recording sessions I’ve heard no more about.  In the dining room I heard “I’ll Keep You Satisfied” and would have been more “Satisfied” if I were listening on my own sound system in here.  Cramer performed with all of the other usual Liverpool invasion groups.  Today was also “Mono recording” day.   Interestingly as no time in the whole program – that I was listening – did I ever hear a track off of mono “Something New”.

 I had Leo Le Port on and he was saying he’s a digital and not an analog man.  The stuff about ohms of electronic components is counter intuitive in that it seems as if - - the weaker the current or signal - - not the decibel modulated signal but the raw current- - the weaker that is, the higher the OHMS are.  So you have 300 ohm antenna cable and eight ohm speakers.  But it’s a case of the new math because one eight ohm output won’t drive two fours.  Four and four don’t make eight; eight and eight make four.  I found from personal experimentation that four ohms is higher output than eight and eight ohms is higher output than sixteen.  Of course sometimes like with that transistor ratio- - it will work with one amplifier but not with another. Sometimes the grounding is different.  Sometimes you get "radio" but it's picked up in the wires - and not the thing you were plugging in.  Sometimes something that registers hum on one amplifier will register as radio on another- - probably do to diode rectification circuits.  And sometimes to get it to work you have to clip onto the prongs of the electric plug and the minute you turn the appliance or whatever on- - it seems to deliver some sort of inductance or amperage and “suck out all of the hum and interference” and you get a clear signal.  So much of what I “know” in electronics is from personal experimentation.  But there are other kinds of “new math” out there- such as addition with casting out of nines, or addition of volosities with quantum physics.  And then there is the diminishing remainder math where for instance, three fifths plus three fifths equals - - - thirteen fifteenths, or leaving two fifteenths unused.  You can formulate this stuff easily in Excel.  You can keep it to simple intiger proper fractions.  The first leg would be nine fifteenths.  You need to use fifteenths as your common denominator of five and three.  And since 2 is two thirds of 3 you know of the remaining 6 / 15th you’re going to use four.  Also just after noon was a Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young reunion concert tour in July of 1974 and I ever so vaguely remember something like that.  They played a much longer, developed version of “Love the one You’re With” as well as “Wooden Ships” and “Helpless, Helpless”, which Dylan ripped off three years later.  Of course- given the pathetic state of pop songs on the radio in summer 1974, a four year time-warp would be most welcome.

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