Marketing Failure As Success

Fareed Zakaria's GPS program this morning said it best.
Link here: https://www.arcamax.com/politics/fromtheleft/fareedzakaria/s-2084130
"Trump's true talent is marketing failure as success"

I really cannot add anything more than Fareed's succinct summary here.

Why Umerikuns fall for this immoral, misogynistic, sophomoric, bombastic, uncurious, ignorant, narcissistic, illiterate, con man's rhetoric, is beyond my comprehension.

Perfect for Today

I saw this on the book face earlier today, and I've been thinking about how appropriate it is all day.

Sad that in my life time, this 'democracy' has empowered the worst among us.

Maybe something good will come out of this misappropriation of hopeful-but-misinformed-quasi-populist protest vote... like #MeToo, or equal pay for women, or awareness of how Oprah is actually a billionaire while Drumpf is a charlatan thrice bankrupt, thrice divorced, who preys upon his rivals' wives and the worst fears of easily manipulated Umerikuns.

Zobaczymy

полезные идиоты, Useful Idiots

Vladimir Lenin coined a term while he was alive, called the "Useful Idiot" (полезные идиот).  To Lenin, a "Useful Idiot" was a Westerner who agreed with the Soviet view on the world, who idealized the Socialist system, and who willfully over-looked the downfalls of collectivization - downfalls like disincentive to work, disincentive to become an expert on anything, disincentive to be productive (since whether you work or not, you're not going to get ahead... sit back, and let others do the hard work).  A "Useful Idiot" could be manipulated by the Soviet Union to spy, gather information, be counted on as a sleeper cell that the Kremlin could activate when needed... to be useful.

полезные идиоты (Useful idiots)

Now, I don't speak Russian as Roy Moore of Alabama does, to be able to pronounce the phrase correctly.  Roy is apparently very good at speaking to teenage girls, at the mall, at their high school, at the movies, and in his car parked in the darkness behind the restaurant where the girl worked as a waitress.  Roy was also romanticizing about how AWESOME the United States was before the Civil War, when slavery was still legal in the South, families were stronger, and homosexuality "did not exist"... sure Roy, keep convincing yourself of that, in English, or Russian, whichever you prefer.  Had you won your recent Senate race, you'd have been a very полезные идиот.

I've not travelled to Russia, met with their operatives, or colluded with any foreign power to influence the course of a national or local election in the United States as many in the White House staff have done in 2015, 2016, and 2017.  For a very small investment, Vladimir Putin's dictatorship has gleaned a remarkable windfall of apologists, sycophants, Manchurian candidates, "but what abouts...", and shrill voices on Faux News, at all levels.  Impressive R.O.I. for Russia - they probably never thought that So Many Americans would willingly become полезные идиоты for them to leverage.

If you voted for Drumpf, and now you feel remorse or regret for doing so, after the childish buffoon in chief has shown repeatedly how easily baited he is, how his attention span is shorter than most 2 year olds' (even the best behaved ones), how he's going to trash the US economy the say way he ran his own businesses into the ground 4 times, shorting his contractors and declaring bankruptcy 4 times, how know-nothing he is about everything that is not Drumpf-centric, how truth-challenged he is on 99% of everything he says, tweets, expresses and rants about.... if you regret casting your vote for this remarkably unqualified puppet, I can unstained how you're feeling.  I once threw my vote away on Ross Perot, and helped to enable the governor of a rural chicken producing state to become Commander in Chief where he indulged his libido, cozied up to the despicable Newt Gingrich and his "Contract on America", and presided over the dot com bubble that grew the world economy strongly despite Congress's and the Federal Reserve's best efforts to spoil that success.

But if you voted for Drumpf, and you're doubling down on your support, embracing all the lies and vitriol that Faux News spouts out on a daily basis... if you have no regrets whatsoever, and still cling to the unjustified belief that Drumpf will make everything better, then I have only pity for you, and I encourage you to learn Russian as many of the other полезные идиоты have done.  This way, you can better understand what your Russian masters have in store for you, AND, if you learn all the colloquialisms, you'll understand when they are mocking you, snickering, and laughing about how easily manipulated you are as their полезные идиот.

Analytics & Payroll loses to Talent & Drive

Congratulations to the Houston Astros for their victory in the 2017 MLB World Series game seven last night.  I live in Southern California, but I've not embraced the SD Padres as my "home team" yet, since I am a life-long Chicago Cubs fan.  The Cubs won last year...  after 108 years of trying... which apparently opened a trans dimensional portal that let a racist, xenophobic, ignorant, non-reading 10 year old in a 70 year old's carcass, with Vladimir Putin's direct assistance, become President of the United States.  The Cubs can wait another few dozen years before trying to win again - I don't want them to become the universally hated NY Yankees who have been to 40 of the 113 World Series (winning 27 of them).  The Houston Astros had never won a World Series, and it'd been 55 years since they were formed as a team...  so it was about time (even though I will ALWAYS think of the Astros as a National League team, as they've been the majority of my 1/2 century of life).

My actual Cub's hat, bought before they won the World Series in 2016

While the Houston Astros Did rely partly upon analytics, they had been drafting and recruiting some of the best players in major league baseball for years.  They wanted it.  They worked hard for it.  And their manager "could talk analytics all day long, but more often went with his gut and what the situation required" (I heard during Game 6's broadcast, Joe Buck saying it, I think).  The Brooklyn Dodgers... I mean LA Dodgers, paid millions of dollars for analytics, had The Largest payroll in all of MLB, were in the 2nd largest media market, but had worked out a despicable cable deal that MOST of the Dodgers home games Could Not Be Televised in LA when the stadium in Chavez Ravine that seats 56,000 was not sold out - the largest stadium in all of MLB, beating the damn Yankees by 3000 seats.  When the camera panned over the crowds during foul balls, you could see 1/3rd of the most expensive box seats showing EMPTY blue seat backs during Game Seven of the World Series!  EMPTY Seats!?!?  Wrigley Field only had empty seats during the World Series in 2016 from people using the bathroom, and it was < < much less than 5% of all box seats, even when some of those seats were going for $2000 each.

Thanks Jen for the gif!

So the Cubs had been the proverbial underdogs, and they won last year.  The Astros were the underdogs this year, and they won.  I'm a habitual under-dog supporter...  which I partially attribute to going to more than a dozen games at Wrigley as a kid (two of the three games I went to at Comiskey Park ended up with our vehicle being broken into... and the third one, my older brother and his friends picked up a Ford Escort and turned it 90 degrees onto the side walk so that our car would fit... they were very big boys).

Now,  you maybe asking yourself: "Why does JustJoeP oppose analytics so much?" Well, I credit that to my 20 years of working at one of the world's largest companies, where we made model after model to predict how the systems and components would perform in the field, how well they would be able to be repaired, how many times they could be repaired, when they'd need to be repaired, and when they would stop working for our customers.  It was Big Data, little data, good data, bad data. comprehensive data, partial data... and all that data was scrutinized by dozens of mathematics PhDs, data analysts, and engineers to come up with complex analytics that were supposed to add tremendous value, both for the company I worked for And for their customers.  Sadly, after more than a decade of trying to apply these analytics, revising and revising them, combing and scrutinizing the data and transfer functions repeatedly... the analytics Could Not Replace subject matter expertise; AKA experience.

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) like myself were leveraged to make better models, sort & parse data, review repair reports, outage reports, customer issues, design reviews, root cause analysis... but no matter how hard we tried, and how many times we revised models, they still were far off the mark, much too conservative, or far too liberal, rarely ever accurate on predicting reality.  It was a Very Complex environment, with a very complex product and no two customers were the same or operated identically, that the analytic models Could Not Cope With the all of the Variation accurately - much like MLB!  Sure, if you start and stop very few times, and operate in a gingerly, gentle, non-stressful mode, the models worked marvelously!  But that was less than 5% of the all the customers, so the models and their predictions were virtually worthless in the big picture.   But saying that, admitting it publicly, was as deadly as saying that the Emperor had no clothes, when 99.997% of the sycophants had been telling the Emperor how amazing and awesome his clothes really were.

On a post-script, I do not and will not watch Wisdom of the Crowd as Crowds, by definition, are pretty emotional, stupid / ignorant / misinformed, reactionary, and prone to herd mentality.  Similarly, the same goes for the majority of analytics.  In limited applications, for narrow goals, Big Data Can Be useful, and perhaps partially accurate.  But in the Vast Majority of situations, applications, and concepts, data analytics usually don't have accurate predictions or reliable results.  Junk in = junk out.  Getting all the data "in" to be pristine, relevant, and representative of what is going to happen in the future is expensive, time consuming, and virtually impossible.  Anyone who tells you differently, is lying.

Trump Family's Arrested Development

Dr Desert Flower and I have been catching up on old seasons of Arrested Development on Netflix while her shoulder (post-surgery) and my left elbow (compressed bursa) recover and heal.  With the recent Russian emails that have been revealed that clearly show collusion between the Trump family during the presidential campaign in July of 2016, and the Russian governments and government surrogates, DDF and I came to the revelation that the Trump family and the Bluth family are remarkably analogous.  If you're a fan of Arrested Development, read on, you may enjoy this post and could possibly provide comments to make it even better.  If you're no fan of Arrested Development, or have never watched the show, I recommend reading no further, as this post will probably just seem byzantine, trivial, and over-extended in its comparison.

From left to right: Buster, Maeby, George Michael, Lucille, George Sr, Lindsey, Tobias, and G.O.B. (pronounced "Jobe")

The characters in Arrested Development and their Trump analogues are as follows:

George Sr = 45 Himself; enriching his family by buying cheap desert acreage that the federal government will build a wall upon, running a fake university, repeatedly bankrupting the family business, a chronic philanderer who cannot keep it in his pants, throughout his whole life, multiple shady business associates.  George Sr is Far More Intelligent, conniving, devious, wily, and successful than 45 in myriad ways... but as the head of the family, there's similarities. (a 70% match)

Lucille = Ivanka; looking out for herself and her own financial gain, sleeps with George Sr, hyper-focused on appearances, is cut-throat and evil to the core. (a 80% match)

G.O.B. = Donald Jr; oldest son, incompetent, buffoonish, clueless, talentless, sycophantic son who ardently longs for his distant father's approval, full of hubris, arrogant douche bag without the intelligence or talent to back up such arrogance, causes the family intense pain, embarrassment, and catastrophic failure, repeatedly. (a 98% match... G.O.B. is much funnier, and less of a douche)

Buster = Barron; Overly attached to his mother, immature, youngest son (a 60% match)

Tobias = Eric; goof, no-value-added (a 40% match, since Tobias is a flawed character we know, and Eric is just a rich frat boy douche who hunts endangered species like Elephants in Africa)

Lindsey = Tiffany; adopted, clueless, left out of the picture (a 40% match)

Michael = Jared; boyish, has some clues but not enough, son-of-a-formerly-rich-father-who's-gone-to-jail, In WAY Over His Head, doomed to failure (an 80% match)

Maeby = 45's grand children we don't know about yet ( < 50% match)

{Late addition}
Kitty (George Sr's mentally unstable secretary) = Kellyanne Conway; both mentally tenuous, extremely dangerous, and both have "the crazy" in their eyes, but Kellyanne weaves lies much more effectively.)  (a 90% match)

{Late addition}
Ann = Sarah Huckabee Sanders; both come from narrow minded fundamentalist families, though Ann is far sweeter and more attractive than her press-secretary-wanna-bee-mean-girl-who-wants-your-lunch-money Huckabee Sanders.  Both have a mean streak inside them (Ann going off with Steve Holt... Sarah being herself)  {Thanks Jen H for these observations and suggestions!}

Stan Sitwell = Hillary Rodham Clinton, with hair; consistently the foil against the 45 administration, consistently has tried to defeat them but has not been successful in vanquishing them.

George Michael = ?  No equivalent in the 45 administration observed, yet... but stay tuned

Barry Zuckerkorn (played by Henry Winkler, the Bluth family lawyer) = Marc E. Kasowitz; incompetent, shady, does what he's told badly. (a 85% match)

Pence, Spicer, Massive-Foreheaded Stephen Miller, Christie, Gingrich, and Bannon don't have direct Arrested Development analogues that I can think of... at this time.

All readers' comments and suggestions are welcome.  This post will be updated as 2017 progresses and new information is revealed.  DDF and I thought it was pretty funny that there's so many similarities.

Remember, Everything 45 Says Is A Lie

For American adults who are aware of politics, or follow election results and what happens in Washington DC after elections, 2017 has been a very bizarre, chaotic, inconsistent year so far, and it shows no signs of getting better.  I preface this with "American adults" because as kids, or even as teenagers or in my very early 20s, I really didn't pay any attention to what was happening politically in my state (Indiana and then South Carolina, both were led by Democrats back then) or in the nation's capital for that matter.  It was only after my son was school aged, and came home from parochial school during the Bill Clinton administration asking me 'why do people have abortions?' and 'what's a blow job?' that I began to pay more attention to who was running, why I should vote for them or against them, and what they might do once in office.

After we moved to Arizona in 2007 (10 years ago, yep), began this blog in 2008 at my friend Ron's recommendation, and then moved to California in 2012, I increasingly began to pay more attention, to filter out shrill voices, hyperbole, and nonsense, and embraced my own informed opinions about politics, our elected leaders, Congressional Oversight, and Constitutional checks and balances.  Visiting China, India, Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Suisse, Austria, Australia, Romania, Poland, the Netherlands, UAE, Spain, Mexico, Canada, and Scotland for work also helped my perspective to compare parliamentary systems, command economies, and different versions of democracies with various levels of transparency, corruption, effectiveness, and quality-of-life for their citizens.  While some of my friends, 1/2 of my family, and many visitors to this blog may not agree with my view points and positions, I consider myself to be better informed than most Americans, and at least as informed about about American politics as a citizen of any of the developed nations I just mentioned (most non-Americans know far more about American politics than the average American, by at least one standard deviation on the curve).

So with that preamble, as I was trying to make sense of the election last November, and the aftermath and consequences it has led to in the subsequent months, with all the "disruption" and "chaos", the illogical choices and downright stupidity that has been unearthed, I no longer try and see a pattern or a reason behind anything except for these following 2 principles:

1) Everything that President Drumpf says (Drumpf is his real name, he got from his father, just like all the seed money daddy gave him) is a lie, or at best, a gross exaggeration.  He is incapable of telling the truth, except by accident - give a million monkeys a million type writers, and eventually one of them will type out a coherent sentence or two.  He is a habitual liar (pseudologia fantastica or mythomania) who believes himself a "disrupter".  Facts, reality, and the truth have no influence upon his actions or what comes out of his mouth.  Think of Jon Lovitz on SNL, and the Tommy Flanagan character he played where he was incapable of telling the truth.  That's who 49% of America elected.  When Donald accidentally tells the truth, he still thinks he is lying, or that there's a thread of obfuscation in there somewhere but in his perspective, the person he is speaking to is not bright enough to figure it out.  Everything he tweets, everything he says in interviews, everything he says in public, it's all a lie, or a gross exaggeration.

2) While he didn't think he was going to win the election, and he is completely unprepared to be chief executive of a local water district much less the largest economy in the world with the most powerful military the world has ever seen, he HAS and WILL take full advantage of his unexpected position of power to enrich his own coffers, empower his family and friends, and rake in as much money as quickly as possible, before anyone figures out just how corrupt 45's executive branch really is.  He doesn't want Putin to be the only plutocrat to be worth 60+ Billion dollars.  Heck, 45 doesn't even have 1/2 a billion to his name, or he would have proudly shown his tax returns, like a 4th grader who signs his name for mommy and daddy to see "look what I signed!".  Mark Cuban, a real billionaire (+3 Billion, with a "B") estimated that Drumpf's worth is probably south of 75 million dollars, and perhaps closer to as little as 25 or 50 million when all is said an done.  Drumpf doesn't want to "Make America Great Again".  No, America was already great.  He wants to enrich his own family's wealth and the wealth of his friends.  That's why he's appointed such incompetent-and-or-corrupt heads of agencies who want to dismantle the agencies they run.

Keep these two things in mind, and you won't be confused or shocked or aghast at what you see or hear in the news.  I've found that they help me tremendously, daily, or even several times a day on some days.

45 doesn't care about facts, or science, or helping the little guy, or being a "populist", or what is right or wrong.  He cares only about his own image,  his own self aggrandized "brand", which has become synonymous with corruption, incompetence, made-in-China goods, bluster, and a longing for a return to the 1950s by Americans who enjoyed outstanding economic growth and social privileges in that era (and to everyone else who was a 2nd class US citizen or not in the US at that time, too bad; "get him outta here!").

Go FCC Yourself!

gofccyourself.com

Last Sunday night, John Oliver on Last Week Tonight reminded all internet users - left wing, right wing, trolls, white hats, black hats, everyone - how important Net Neutrality is, and how the newly appointed FCC commissioner Ajit Pay wants to reverse the Net Neutrality rules put into place during the Obama administration.  You see, Pai (pronounced 3.141592654), a former Verizon lawyer,  is an ideologue who believes that  "the more you regulate something, the less of it you get".  What he doesn't understand is that Title I and Title II of the FCC Net Neutrality rules, are not trying to regulate free and unfettered access to the internet, No, Not At All.  What they are trying to regulate is that internet service providers (ISPs) cannot scale back, throttle down your speed, in favor of their own content that may be competing with what you wanted to watch / see / download on the expensive and slow internet connection you have in America, land of the gouging ISPs [Asia's and Europe's ISPs are far better, faster, less expensive, and have multiple choices for hard wired as well as WiFi, while in America we're stuck with basically 5 monopolies who put their customers last].

"Why does this affect me?" you might ask?  Well, if you use an internet connection, it can and will affect you.

The most basic, simple example is as follows:  Say you want to download a show, and binge watch the whole season of it some Friday or Saturday, from Netflix or Amazon.  BUT, you have Comcast as your ISP... and Comcast has a series that is Similar to what you wanted to download and watch, so Comcast could then Easily reduce your download speed (loading.... loading....) for your Netflix or Amazon show while opening up extra fast-pass lanes for their own Comcast series that they want everyone to watch instead.  Your download becomes so frustratingly slow, that you search for something else... and your ISP (who knows that you were Just trying to download one of their competitor's products) SUGGESTS you watch their own 'original content series" instead.

Evil.  Despicable.  Enraging.  Yes.

And it is not just movies.  The same can be said for songs, youtube videos, live streaming, anything that requires data transfer, into and out of your home, your office, your mobile telephone, your iPad.  You THINK you're paying for 30 Gig a minute, or 100 Gig a minute, but every time you test it on a bench mark site, you find that it is 1/10th that speed for downloads... because you're not downloading the "recommended content" that your ISP wants you to see, is pushing at you, promoting to you, and making money from providing to you.

So John Oliver recounted how the first time Last Week Tonight did this 3 years ago, that they crashed the FCC website in minutes once the show aired.  And Oliver went on to state how TODAY, for this new period of public comment, the FCC has made it Much Harder to make comments on their website, requiring a multi-step search and entry process, one which Last Week Tonight streamlined by buying the URL gofccyourself.com - witty, hilarious, and most importantly, Easy to Remember.

So before I started this post this afternoon, I tried out the link.  You have to enter in your name, address, and phone number (perhaps for the re-education camps that 45 will implement in the future?) ... and you have to click on the     "+ Express" blue button on the top right of the page once it loads.  --------------------------------------------->>>>>>>

gofccyourself.com

But then you can write in, how you feel about having your internet speed reduced just because of your ISP monopoly's desire to push preferred content at you, instead of what you want to watch, see, hear, read about, download, upload, or enjoy.

For an example of what you could say, I have partially excerpted my entry here, to help spur creative ideas and other responses:

"Title 1 and Title 2 were created TO REDUCE or make it harder for ISPs to throttle, slow down, and give preferential treatment to content.  Ajit Pai is right when he says "if you regulate something, you don't get more of it, you get less of it". Exactly, Regulate ISPs who throttle content and slow down their competitors.  Get rid of Title 2, and throttling will become rampant, common place, ubiquitous.  Pai is right, but in the opposite way his idealogical mind thinks.  "

You can cut and paste mine, if you like, or create your own version.  But I encourage you, regardless of what part of the political spectrum you believe you are most closely aligned, to make your voice heard.  ISPs want to throttle EVERYONE down, to reduce our already slow American internet speeds even further, and promote their own ISP content preferentially.  This affects EVERYONE who uses the internet in America, except perhaps for ISP executives who have fiber optic nodes installed in their homes and who self-exempt from the throttling.

Take 5 or 10 minutes out of your day today or tomorrow, and let your voice be heard.

gofccyourself.com

Tanks And Missel Launchers? No

This is my first post of 2017, and the first one of my 51st year on this planet.  The more I read and hear, I am seriously starting to doubt that we'll make it to my 55th year as a sane, relatively radioactive fall-out free, global community, since nationalism, isolationism, hawkish saber rattling, and ignorance are on a steep rise not just in the United States, but around the world.

I was driving from Greenville SC to Atlanta today, down I-85, listening to NPR (on Album 88) when Wait Wait Don't Tell me came on.  I always enjoy Wait Wait, and I was shocked as I drove through pouring rain to hear on the radio show, that the Drumpf inaugural planners requested that the US Army send armored vehicles, tanks, and missile launchers, for a Red Square, Kremlin style parade in Washington DC.  WTF?  Yes, Drumpf, show us your cards early please.  We know you admire dictators who hold such parades, and you so much wanna be one too... but thankfully, the US Army said 'No, our armored vehicles are too heavy, and they will damage Washington DC streets'.  I hope the US Military continues to put a check on Drumpf's desires.

Link to San Diego Union-Tribune article on the same:
http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/military/the-intel/sd-me-trump-parade-20170120-story.html

Link to The Hill Article on the same:
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/315184-trump-team-wanted-tanks-missile-launchers-in-parade-report

Link to the Washington Post's report on the same:
https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/01/18/trump-proposes-military-parades-in-dc/

Wow.  What an idiot the vast majority of White Umerika elected, out of fear of being governed by a woman; out of a misplaced hatred of crony capitalism (yes, Drumpf has surrounded himself with millionaires and billionaires... common folk, like you and I); out of a misplaced hatred and fear of immigrants who have built this country, and minorities who they've successfully oppressed for centuries; out of a backlash against one of the coolest, most compassionate, best presidents we've ever had who just happened to be 1/2 black.  I spent Thursday and Friday in Greenville SC listening to my co-workers' stretched justifications of why they voted for Drumpf.  Total fabricated BS. "Who would look better in photos on the beach, Ivanka, or Hillary?"  Well, Drumpf's incestuous lover and advisor, of course... but that's no reason to vote for her father.

Soon, Frank Underwood (er.. I mean Mike Pence) will work with Ryan and McConnell to impeach Drumpf for his connections with Putin under the Alien & Sedition act of 1798, and then President Pence can do to the US what he did to Indiana - make it unfriendly to LGBTQ citizens, forced ultrasounds for abortions, gut medicaid, privatize as many state functions as possible (like prisons, toll roads for example), punish blue voting districts (like Lake County, where I grew up), and drive the economy into the ground, Kansas Brownback style.  I doubt I'll be posting much of anything once that happens... since it'll probably wind me up in a privatized federal prison if I do speak out against the state.

On a strange note... my "page visits" to JustJoeP have gone up 10X since the November 2016 election.  I used to get 50 or 60 hits on any single entry.  I now have over 500 hits each on the mere 3 postings I did in November...  Five Hundred and Fifty, for some of them.  That's noteworthy.

Go Falcons.  Thank you for beating Green Bay.  Cheaters from New England should never be victorious as long as they retain their despicable unpatriotic coach. (it's my blog - if you don't like it... don't visit it; and yes, comments are regulated.  Inarticulately attack me or rant against me, and your comments will be published and mocked accordingly).  If you are from New England, I understand why you would root for your local team, tribalism... we are all subject to it.  Same with Green Bay.  If you're not from those places, and you've chosen to root for them... keep in mind that the Patriots have cheated long before deflate-gate was a thing.  The Packers...  well... they keep picking really talented QBs, while the rest of the NFC central/north founders year after year.   I still blame GB defensive player Charles Martin for ending Jim McMahon's career early with a totally unnecessary and egregious late hit in 1986... but he died in 2005 at the early age of 45 from kidney failure, so perhaps karma does work.  That's brutal, yes, but McMahon could have led the Bears to multiple titles just as Favre and Rodgers have done, if his throwing arm was not ruined by Martin.

Waking Up to a Non Fact Based World

On Tuesday night, November 8th, I was very disappointed by the preliminary national election results coming in that I went to bed hopeful.  Hopeful that I'd wake up to a new brighter November 9th, along with my other fact-based fellow US citizens.

Instead, I woke up to the realization that the White Walkers (aka the Walking Ignorant) have chosen not only the most unqualified candidate for POTUS in the history of our democracy, but also a majority (54 of 100) Republican senators who
- will approve SCOTUS nominations be more like Thomas and Scalia
- deny climate change exists
- believe that women should make 76 cents on the dollar that a man makes
- like pre-existing conditions and denied health care, when they'll finally repeal the Affordable Care Act
- want the United States to look more like the failed state of Kansas than the flourishing Republic of California
- want their wives and daughters to be 9s or 10s and that it's fine to "grab them by the pussy" when they have celebrity status
and...
- who do not care about actual facts. Facts, verified and authenticated, not Brietbarted, not trumped up, not delusional and paranoid fabrications.

The Down Jones has plummeted 750 points in less than a day as I write this last posting.  There's no sense or use in worrying or hand wringing.  All I, my family, and my friends who live in a fact based world can do now is endure the next 2 years, and then the next 2 after that.

I'll be advocating that the Republic of California build a wall on our Eastern Border, to stop the influx of non-fact based immigrants who embraced Breitbart and Infowars over Politifact and Snopes (and The Guardian, and The Economist, and every reputable media outlet and fact checking source on the planet).

And since history has proven that fascist regimens and the masses who support them are unkind to journalists, intellectuals, and others who live in a fact based world, this will be my last JustJoeP posting of the year.  Perhaps the last one ever, as there's really no sense to shouting into a hurricane's wind anymore.  The vast majority reject the facts I present, and it just makes my voice hoarse over time.  Mike Judge's prescient film Idiocracy and Scott Adams' predictions almost a year ago were more accurate than any logical, fact-based citizen of the world were willing to believe.  Heck, even Michael Moore - who is often incredible hyperbolic - was accurate in his Trumpland predictions.

The White Walkers have won for a generation.  Winter's not coming... Winter is here, already.  It arrived November 9th, 2016.  America, you had a pretty good run... 240 years.  Now, it's the Chinese's turn I guess.  Commenting further here will only damage my and my family's best interests, so with a heavy heart, I say good bye to blogging and social media.  My real friends, those who live in a fact based world, still know how to reach me.

Adieu.

The Walking Ignorant

My colleague Patrick coined a phrase this afternoon while he and I were conversing at work about next week's election:  "The Walking Ignorant".  Patrick is a resident of Georgia, a very smart guy, and he's a genuinely nice person as well as being a good co-worker.  Since "The Walking Dead" is supposed to be based in Georgia originally (now they're up in rural "Alexandria" Virginia, in the drawn-out series, that I honestly wish would just end - they killed off Glen in a meaningless, brutal, and gratuitous death by barbwire covered baseball bat bashing from the current incarnation of what the worst human urges could manifest themselves) so the "Walking Ignorant" label is particularly poignant.

"The Walking Ignorant" is aimed at supporters of Donald J. Drumpf (his real name, not "Trump" that he made up when he was a kid), as it symbolizes their willful ignorance of facts and their embrace of a false equivalency.  Their candidate Donald spouts lies constantly - according to Politifact more than 75% of the time he's lying - but they scream about Hillary Clinton lying about her emails?  Yeah, that's equally as bad.... right?  Or far worse?  No, it isn't.  Politifact rates Hillary Clinton as lying about 25% of the time, or, for those who are not good at math, Drumpf lies three times more than Clinton does, and the lies he tells are massive whopper ridiculous lies.  But "The Walking Ignorant" don't care about facts or lies or the existence of audio recordings of their candidate contradicting himself constantly, repeatedly.

To illustrate how incredibly ignorant and misinformed the typical Drumpf supporter is, all one needs to do is look at this Daily Show piece from Jordan Klepper who perfectly nails it:



The sheer ignorance, willful ignorance of these Drumpf supporters is beyond description.  It is impossible to write more outlandish racist and paranoid dialogue than what this clip depicts.

I wonder if Jordan feels like he loses a little bit of his soul... his life force... his will to live, when he does these kinds of field pieces?  I know I sure couldn't do it without wanting to slap most of these people upside the head who see themselves somehow as 'patriotic Americans' ... when they're really just an illustration of how massively misinformed the masses are within the American electorate.

People, facts matter.  Actual, real facts, not fabrications or things you 'believe are true' but which there is no actual factual basis to justify that they are true.

Same As It Ever Was, Same As It Ever Was

I turned on MSNBC yesterday afternoon for a moment, before I headed out to go do yoga at the beach, and saw Steve Kornacki present the two graphics below:

These two survey poll results make it extremely clear, how American progressives are optimistic, improving, and growing, while 1950s focused American conservatives long to go back in time (member berries),
- before civil rights legislation passed and became enforceable in all 50 states
- before the EPA existed,
- before Germany and Japan rose up from the rubble of WWII to become economic rivals,
- back to the cold war & fear of Armageddon,
- back when LGBT citizens were treated as outcasts by 99% of Umerikuns,
- back when cigarette smoking in public was ubiquitous,
- back when drunk driving was a sport instead of a felony
- back to when you could fire a woman for becoming pregnant if she was not married
- back to when housing & finance discrimination against minorities was standard practice
- back to when Ike deported a million Latin Americans in "Operation Wet Back"
- back to when there were poll taxes and literacy tests to be able to vote

... yeah, a "simpler era" ... for simple minded people, who abhor change, and who are fiercely clinging to their guns & religion & 'majority white paradigm'.  Those who want all the benefits of living in a free Democracy, while having smooth roads to drive on, fast internet to access, reliable electric power, clean water to drink, a clean ocean to swim in, a bucolic landscape in which to hunt, free land on which to graze their cattle, and a strong army to defend them, without paying any taxes or having any convenience to their own personal preferences and desires.

Count me in the 70% of "it's getting better".  I'm still not a huge fan of any of the 4 candidates running for PUSA, but I will be voting for the woman most likely to defeat and contain the threat of a megalomaniacal narcissist who constantly lies & fabricates his own reality from taking over the Executive branch of our government.  The fossils of the 72% will eventually go extinct.

PUSA Lump Cover

This has been out for 10 months..  and I just heard it today.  Too damn funny!


This is really quite genius!  =)

DDF and I saw The Presidents of the United States back in Indianapolis in the mid 90s, at The Egyptian Room...  awesome show.

Complete Meltdown & Sedition

Last night, as I was grilling, and then eating my grass fed, hormone free rib eye with wild chanterelles (found at COSTCO for a reasonable price) I tried to watch the 3rd, and final US Presidential "debate".   I found myself growing increasingly upset by the lies and denials that the orange reality TV show host kept spewing, so I turned to baseball and enjoyed watching my favorite, the under-dog Cubs trounce the LA Dodgers in Los Angeles.

Then the DVR reminded me that South Park was about to record, and the channel needed to automatically change (I have a 2-at-a-time DVR, not one of the new fancy 8-at-a-time recorders).  Matt & Trey once again beautifully captured the essence of current events in America with their portrayal of Candidate Garrison doing his darnedest to lose and get out of the US Presidential race.  The "meltdown" that Garrison had, complete with orange toner running off him in the rain, was much funnier than the meltdown Drumpf (his real name... own it, don't try to hide it Donald) had on national television last night.

When Fox "News" anchor Chris Wallace tried to get Drumpf to back down on his statement that he would not accept a loss on November 8th and that he would continue to stoke the seditious flames of violent insurrection, with Chris's "But sir..." soft ball question reiterated in the most basic way possible that everyone in America could understand, Drumpf, Putin's puppet, doubled down on his "we'll see, I'll keep you in suspense."

While Drumpf kept talking about how he believes Hillary Clinton should go to federal prison "for 5 years", what he doesn't realize is that inciting Sedition is a violation of federal law, punishable by 20 years in prison; link here: 18 US Code Chapter 115, sections 2381 -  2385  (Thanks Cornell Law School!)   And the more he keeps encouraging the worst of Umerika to intimidate polling places in inner cities (also a federal crime), and reject the free and fair election results in all 50 states, the more he's paving a straight path towards federal prison for himself and his surrogates who repeat his dangerous and violent call to arms.

The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail is often very funny.  Drumpf's meltdown is really sad and pathetic.  The United States needs a viable 2 party (or three...  someday...?) system to function correctly.  Drumpf's nilhilistic attempt at destroying everything shows just what a sad little boy he really is.

If you don't think last night's "debate" was a meltdown, read the 'extremely liberal' links here:
National Catholic Reporter:  https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/distinctly-catholic/trumps-meltdown-third-debate
WSJ: http://www.wsj.com/articles/presidential-debate-after-a-sedate-start-donald-trump-takes-the-bait-1476932103
National Review:  http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/441240/trump-owns-his-trumpiness

Doug Applegate Over Slimey Issa Anyday

I came home from donating blood today, to find this smear campaign against Colonel Doug Applegate from the California Republican Party in my mail box.  The former Colonel is running against THIS CAR PROTECTED BY VIPER Darryl Issa, king of meaningless subpoenas as the chair of the United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.  I unfortunately moved from the reddest of red counties in California (Orange) to North San Diego County where Issa is the entrenched Congressman.

If I was an ignorant, apathetic, or uninformed voter, I Would Have been ALARMED by this inflammatory mailer... look at all the horrible things Applegate wants to do to the booming California economy and tax paying citizens!?!?! How terrible!!  (an uninformed Independent voter might say) Then, I read the fine print:  "Sources: US Energy Information Administration (EIA); Progressive Democrats of American candidate questionnaire"

OK, so the California Republican Party is scared that Issa might lose, they're cranking up ads and mailers to try and smear Applegate, and they're using "Progressive Democrats of America" (PDA) to try and facilitate this?  It sparked my curiosity, so I started google searching it... turns out, PDA is outraged that their words are being twisted, and they're punching back.  I found a link (here)
http://pda.nationbuilder.com/applegate_vs_issa  that explains how the CA Republicans are using EIA future projections and PDA Democratic endorsements to double down on stupid, clinging tightly to fossil fuels, the Republican status quo, and ignoring climate change the inexorable progression of time.  No, Douglas Applegate is not "WRONG for our Economy"... unless the "our" there denotes Republican dinosaurs who deny facts of peer reviewed science, and who want to go back to the 1950s America that they loved so much (except for those 90% taxes on the upper income brackets that were in place during Ike's administration).

Applegates ubiquitous TV ads are factual, and damning of Issa.  The entrenched Congressman Did increase his personal wealth to multi-millionaire status while in Congress, and is cozy with Donald Drumpf.  I hope Drumpf's millstone sinks Issa into the depths of the Pacific Ocean off the continental shelf, 3 miles off-shore of Carlsbad.

Play fair Republicans.  Own your personae, don't try to denigrate your opponent.  You're the party of rich & selfish guys who want to keep the status quo, or go backwards in time, without a T.A.R.D.I.S.  In California, which added 300,000 people, and which has lower unemployment than the rest of the country, where there are 75 craft breweries within a 30 mile radius of my home, where well regulated business are prospering, and where one can find more electric vehicles on the roads than in any other state in the U.S., I really don't want to go back in time.  I prefer to progress forward.  Thanks.

Again, The Idiot Reveals Himself

Donald Drumpf met with Republican Senators today, and once again revealed how really stupid he is.

When Jeff Flake (who I never voted for while I lived in SC, but whom I am starting to have some respect for) introduced himself as "the other senator from Arizona, the one who didn't get captured", Drumpf told Flake "He would not win re-election this November"... to which Flake hilariously responded "I'm not up for re-election".

Donald, study that constitution you so blatantly & repeatedly state you love so much.  Senators have 6 year terms. McCain is up this November, not Flake. Duh.  It's called the 17th Amendment to the US Constitution, you moron:

"The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote. The electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislatures."

Last Weekend's Epiphany on The South

Last weekend, Dr Desert Flower and I went down the hill on Alga Road to go see Free State of Jones at the Cinépolis in Carlsbad.  It exceeded expectations, despite what the critics on IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes say, it was a great film that shined a light on the racist, bigoted, arcane & persecutory laws & culture engrained in The South - in this case Mississippi.  McConaughey was great in it, but so were Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Mahershala Ali, and a host of other excellent actors.  Having lived 16 years of my life in South Carolina, I can talk about how it felt, what I heard, and what I saw when I lived there... I'm not an outsider who never lived nor experienced the hatred and bigotry in the work place, in public places, and in conversations about it with my friends and co-workers who were trying to rise above the ugly, despicable, evil past that ensconced The South before, during, and after the Civil War, and still lives and breathes today (sorry SCOTUS, racism and bigotry are NOT dead even after we elected a black President; they're still alive and well in many parts of The South.

Then, when we got home after the movie, we watched Bryan Cranston in the HBO movie All the Way, where he portrayed LBJ accurately.  The movie portrayed the hatred and bigotry of The South (again, Mississippi leading the way... but other Southern States agreed with them) very accurately as well.  Not only was it well acted, but well written, nuanced, well researched, and well directed.

After watching both of these films so close together, whose settings were 100 years apart, but which accurately and poignantly portrayed the racism and hatred in The South that is still alive today, I am resolved that I never want to move back there and live there again.  Perhaps in another 100 years, after I am ashes, the progress seen since the Civil Rights legislation was passed in the 1960s MIGHT continue and the old entrenched racists die off, with their progeny becoming slightly more progressive and color-blind - similar to how Gay Rights & Equality was unthinkable 20 years ago by main stream America, and now it is an accepted fact for 95% of the country.  But I won't see it in my lifetime.

I am not a hater, and I still firmly believe that there are many very nice, very accepting, very civil & loving people in The South, both in the states that voted for George Wallace, and in the states that didn't.  I've met and worked with many of them, or they were my neighbors & friends.  But the fact remains, that there's a solid double digit percentage block of Southerners who still think lynching is a good idea if they can get away with it, who believe Klan meetings are an acceptable form of social gathering, and who have a false-superiority complex in regards to anyone who is not Caucasian - black, brown, Asian, Jewish, Catholics, Sikh, Muslims, included in their fearful hatred & loathing.  Trump's tapping into their base with his rhetoric and his re-tweets of white supremacists, and "the worst" is manifesting itself amoung us in America.  I do hope that in November 2016 we can close the Trump chapter and not open up a "Wallace 2.0" era of the American political landscape.

No, I'll take the multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-lingual melting pot that is California,
any day over any of the nicest places in The South.  Yes, it is expensive to live in California, but the weather is great, the people are nicer, the hatred is (I've seen) less wide-spread, the wildlife is more diverse, the waves are at least 10X better than the East Coast, the population is more heterogeneous & diverse & growing (+300,000 residents last year! We're gonna add another congressman or two at least in the next census, making the most populace state even more populace!), the businesses RUN BETTER and are safer (and growing), the wine is better, Science is accepted and not argued against or 'disbelieved', the State budget is balanced (after getting a Democratic governor, finally!), the humidity is lower (in Northern San Diego County, at least), religion is less invasive & pervasive, and the people are more accepting of everyone, not just those who look like themselves.

31 Scientific Societies Agree...

Climate Deniers - much like birthers - hate facts but really hate the Scientific Method even more.  Climate Deniers can make up their own facts, and then cite fringe scientists or paid corporate lobbyist studies to reinforce their opinion-pushed-as-fact, that agrees with the idealogical narrative they’ve engrained in their own psyche.  Sadly for them though, the Scientific Method doesn’t care which side of the ideological fence you might be on, or if you’re liberal or conservative… it doesn’t matter.  What matters is that your experiment is reproducible, your instruments are calibrated, and that you didn’t falsify any of your findings.  If your experiment is reproducible, then theories can then be tested and if they’re true, then they’re widely accepted by the scientific community. 

So yesterday, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) sent a letter to the United States Congress, signed on by 31 different scientific organizations, that stated Climate Change is real and that greenhouse gases (CO2 and chlorofluorocarbons) emitted by human activity are the largest driver of Climate Change.  This is a more forceful version of the 2009 letter to Congress that 19 major scientific societies signed… and which Congress promptly ignored.  

The 31 scientific societies on the 2016 letter include:

American Association for the Advancement of Science American Chemical Society
American Geophysical Union
American Institute of Biological Sciences 

American Meteorological Society
American Public Health Association
American Society of Agronomy
American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists American Society of Naturalists 

American Society of Plant Biologists
American Statistical Association
Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation Association of Ecosystem Research Centers
BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium
Botanical Society of America
Consortium for Ocean Leadership
Crop Science Society of America
Ecological Society of America
Entomological Society of America
Geological Society of America
National Association of Marine Laboratories
Natural Science Collections Alliance
Organization of Biological Field Stations
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Society for Mathematical Biology
Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles
Society of Nematologists
Society of Systematic Biologists
Soil Science Society of America
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 

Read the letter here, for yourself:

http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/06282016.pdf

“Dear Members of Congress, 

We, as leaders of major scientific organizations, write to remind you of the consensus scientific view of climate change. 

Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research concludes that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. This conclusion is based on multiple independent lines of evidence and the vast body of peer-reviewed science. 

There is strong evidence that ongoing climate change is having broad negative impacts on society, including the global economy, natural resources, and human health. For the United States, climate change impacts include greater threats of extreme weather events, sea level rise, and increased risk of regional water scarcity, heat waves, wildfires, and the disturbance of biological systems. The severity of climate change impacts is increasing and is expected to increase substantially in the coming decades.1 

To reduce the risk of the most severe impacts of climate change, greenhouse gas emissions must be substantially reduced. In addition, adaptation is necessary to address unavoidable consequences for human health and safety, food security, water availability, and national security, among others. 

We, in the scientific community, are prepared to work with you on the scientific issues important to your deliberations as you seek to address the challenges of our changing climate. “

Problem is, the Republican led congress doesn’t want to work with real scientists.  It derides and dismisses them, denying the scientific community’s CONSENSUS, clinging to a corporate profit driven model of increased compulsory consumption.  

Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t have grandchildren…  or possibly never will… since we are either AT the tipping point currently, or far beyond the tipping point globally… and since I am not one of the wealthiest 1% of Western Civilization I won’t be the one building a well stocked, well filtered, fully independent & sustainable for millennia under-ground bunker complex where my progeny could live & work & go about life after the seas rise, the fish & plants & pollenating insects all die, and hordes of angry surviving scavengers sift through the hell-scape that used to be Earth as they absorb massive amounts of UV from Sun without an ozone layer to filter it, breathing air with a significantly reduced oxygen content, and living much shorter life spans due to the toxin build up and cancer from the unmitigated UV (UV and DNA are not very compatible).  Il faut voir.  

Principled, Determined, Ethical & Admirable

Watching this 76 year old man - old enough to be Speaker Ryan's father - sit on the floor of the House of Representatives, demanding a tallied vote on legislation to restrict no-fly-list and known terrorists from purchasing weapons, trying to protect American citizens last Wednesday and Thursday morning, was inspirational.  This man who marched with Martin Luther King Jr and who has fought for civil rights and the rights of ALL Americans his entire political career, without scandals, without corruption, without compromising his ethics... was a stark contrast to the sophomoric and idiotic assaults by mentally challenged fools like Louie Gohmert of Texas who wanted to physically assault Democratic members who were in the sit-in, and who proclaimed his stupidity by saying he was "going to go home and buy a gun" - woefully inadequate, aren't you Louie?

Time will show that John Lewis was on the right side of history, while inarticulate court jesters like Gohmert will not even be a minor foot note.  Thank you Representative John Lewis, for being one of the best parts of a not very good week.  I hope your health holds out and you're able to continue serving for as long as you're willing and able to do so.

Smug, Cowardly and Disingenuous

Watching this smiling, smug little boy pound his gavel in the House of Representatives early Thursday morning at 230am, passing 'all the bills that were slated to be discussed from June 22nd to July 3rd' in one vote, and then calling the House into recess, was just despicable.  Sad that elected federal leaders from the Republican party do nothing to protect US Citizens while protecting the NRA & their own Primary Election viability instead.  Stop hiding behind your interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, Paul the absolutist.  And then run off and hide for the July 4th recess.  Despicable.  Paul Ryan, you were almost elected Vice President. in 2012  You can do better than being so scared of the NRA.  Where is your leadership?  Stand up, and protect American citizens! The next time you try and run for national office, your cowardice will be remembered.

Confused & Self Loathing, Not a Terrorist

The scared, self-hating, confused little boy who used to be named Omar Mateen was NOT a terrorist.

He was
- a former physical abuser of his ex-wife, before their marriage failed and ended in divorce
- an openly angry and expressive of disgust when with his father in Miami when he and his father saw two men kissing and the son became outraged that men would do that
- a Grindr profile user, where several users blocked him because he was 'creepy' (as I just heard on All In with Chris Hayes)
- a Jack'd profile user (yet Another Gay Men's chat and dating website)
- a frequent visitor to The Pulse night club in Orlando before he went on a killing spree in the early morning of June 12th, right after 'last call' at 2am, armed with a legally purchased AR-15
- completely ignorant of the dichotomy, animus, and outright armed hostilities between Hezbollah (fundamentalist Shiites in Lebanon) and ISIS / ISIL  (fundamentalist Sunnis in Iraq & Syria) when this confused & stupid little boy called Orlando 911 and 'pledged his loyalty to ISIS', AND Hezbollah,  AND the AL Qaeda inspired Tsarnaev brothers of the Boston Bombing.  When you DO NOT understand the centuries long hatred and conflict between the diametrically opposed groups such as Hezbollah and ISIS, and you claim allegiance with BOTH of them, you're ignorant, a fool, and incredibly desperate for someone, ANYONE, to like you, claim you, want to support you.
- A natural born US citizen (Queens NY), not an immigrant
- formerly on the TSA No Fly list & investigated by the FBI after he bragged at work (as a security guard) that he knew the Boston Marathon bombers, that he knew people in ISIS, and that he was a big deal among terrorist organizations [the FBI investigated this little punk Mateen for 10 months, interviewed him with an under-cover agent, and then had 2 formal interviews with him, before finally finding he was 'all talk' and had no actual affiliations to any organizations]

Granted, much of what comes out as "News Coverage" immediately following such horrific and despicable acts is frequently inaccurate.  But it has been 36 hours, and Actual Journalists like Chris Hayes are on the scene, interviewing people who had friends killed, who had been at the night club before the shooting, who had talked to this turd Mateen on gay men's hook-up aps, and the stories are being reported in the LA Times, Washington Post, and other reputable, researched, long-standing journalistic sources.  Even the shooter's own father has told reporters that his son was not stable and angrily blew up when he saw openly expressive gay people with public displays of affection. Nobody ever loved nor will ever love dead Omar.

So wether it is a public marathon in Boston, an African American church in Charleston, a Californian social worker office, an armored US Army Texas military base (Ft Hood), or an elementary school in Connecticut, each of these delusional, hateful, fearful, unloved, incapable-of-loving, heavily armed, NRA endorsed, socially out-cast, social rejects continue to inflict pain and sorrow upon American citizens who have DONE NOTHING to them.  Meanwhile, complete dumbasses like Drumpf try to say they "predicted" this, and thank themselves for their inaccurate self-proclaimed false prescience.

Congratulations to Walmart & Dick's Sporting Goods for no longer selling AR-15s (following Sandy Hook, and the potential of class action law suits and horrible publicity).  Shame on every other gun dealer, gun show participant, re-seller, and NRA stalwart who continues to try and defend "the right" for every miscreant, dumbass, and confused little boy in America to buy & own assault weapons.  What pathetic hunters and terribly inaccurate marksmen they must be! (I used to be qualified as a 'Sharpshooter" by the NRA, 35 years ago... and can still hold my own at a gun range [indoor or outdoor] with a BOLT Action rifle. A real man doesn't need a semi-auto nor automatic rifle to defend himself, period. Anyone who disagrees is compensating for their lack of marksmanship, or their inadequacies in the bed room or elsewhere.

Love will always over-rule fear and hatred.  Fear & hate are effective in the short term, but over the log term love will Always win out.