Welcome Back Dial Up Speeds!

Hey, all you Trump voters who voted for a disruptor who would shake up the system...  well, congratulations!  You just got dial up speeds back from your ISP!  Yes, you too can try and download and stream movies, live sports, youtube and other internet content at 14.4kps, or 9.8kps, or some other nauseatingly slow download and upload speed, akin to when Windows 95 was the dominant operating system!  Trump's FCC just voted today, in a 3-2 vote, to annul the Obama era Net Neutrality regulations!!!  Isn't that great!!

Now, when I flew through Atlanta last week, I was TSA Pre, because I wasted a day of my life and $100 of my personal money, down in Otay Mesa, signing up for Global Entry, in an effort to make getting through border (airport) immigration checks faster than the majority of the other 400 people on an international 747 flight.  When I got to the front of the TSA-pre line, I saw "Clear", which had 5 people in line, and dumped Immediately to the TSA ID checker station.  With "Clear", if you PAY MORE, you get to skip the normal lines AND the TSA-pre lines.  For ANOTHER $180 a year, on top of TSA-Pre, I could get "Clear", and use it infrequently.

Why did I mention Clear here, on post about the end of Net Neutrality?  Well, Trump admin spokes-persons have quoted Clear as their model as to why having more money, and more access, is always a good thing.  Disney world fast pass, airport Clear, and now... if you have Koch Brothers levels of money, you can stream Amazon Prime, Netflix, or anything else you want while the meager peasants who make 1/10th or 1/100th or 1/1000th what you do wait, endlessly, for their data to download, so they can enjoy their internet content as well!  It's not a dump truck, it's a series of tubes!!!!

Congratulations Trump voters!  Even though 98% of you can't afford it, you've helped the richest 1 or 2 percent of your comrades.  While I read my book (on paper, not electronically), work in my yard (no electronic connections needed), or enjoy time at the beach, you can curse your slowwwwwww internet connection.  Obama pushed for net neutrality, and the FCC maintained it.  Trump's corporate friends and monopoly alliances reversed that ruling so that 98% of Umerika can suffer!  Fantastic!

He's Got the Fire & the Fury

Back on July 2nd, while on a flight from LAX to Covington Kentucky, I jammed my elbow tween the arm rest and the fuselage in a Delta coach flight (link here) and through the rest of July and the beginning of August, my left arm (elbow, bicep, triceps) has been fairly useless.  I've been icing it, elevating it, trying to stretch it.  Physical therapy began this week, and today was my 2nd PT session, and there's been some increase in mobility, decrease in pain, and I can almost use the left arm for things like shampooing my hair, driving a car and turning a steering wheel, etc... all good things, all good progress.

While icing my arm and keeping my elbow elevated higher than my shoulder, for several hours each day, I caught up on most all of my DVR recordings, and I set out determinedly to watch the entire HBO series The Wire, on my legal HBO To GO account (since Amazon wanted to charge me to watch season 5, after letting me watch seasons 1-4 for "free" with my Amazon Prime account.  Netflix recommended Luther... which I may watch in August, as I still have 2 or 3 more weeks, at least, of PT & icing ahead of me.

When I heard the farsical child who is the 45th President say that the DPRK will face "Fire & Fury", I thought of the opening music for The Wire.  Each season had a different artist (or set of artists) perform their version of the 1990 Tom Waits song Down In A Hole:
Season 1 - The Blind Boys of Alabama (Spirit of the Century, 2001)
Season 2 - Tom Waits (Franks Wild Years 1990)
Season 3 - The Neville Brothers (...and all the pieces matter, 5 years of Music from The Wire)
Season 4 - DoMaJe (Beyond Hamsterdam, 2008)
Season 5 - Steve Earle (Washington Square, 2007)
Season 5, last episode, finale recap - The Blind Boys of Alabama (...and all the pieces matter, 5 years of Music from The Wire)

I like Tom Waits original the best, I think.  They're all good, in their own interpretations.  "He's got the fire and the fury, at his command".  Full set of Waits lyrics here: link


I certainly hope the know-nothing, impetuous, 2-minute-attention-span, Obama-obsessed spoiled child who never got his Daddy's approval doesn't cause massive fissile fallout to rain down over the Western Pacific, and in the process, kill millions of Koreans, Japanese, and Chinese, while taking the US economy, stock market, and West Coast real estate prices; il faut voir.

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

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.

Scott Adams's Prediction Scares The Hell Out of Me

Back in 2015, Scott Adams - the Dilbert creator and trained hypnotist - predicted that Donald J Drumpf would win the 2016 United States general election for President "in a landslide".  I was not aware of this, until I watched Real Time with Bill Maher last night on DVR.


And after this interview,  I decided I will begin stock piling ammunition, lumber, batteries, canned food, fuel, potable water, and the essentials to make it through a post-apocalyptic hellscape that America will become after Donald J Drumpf starts a war with some aggravated country who he thinks he can "negotiate with".  I don't know if it will be Pakistan, or North Korea, or a consortium of the BRIC countries... but Donald will inevitably Tweet or Broadcast or inflame some nation that will then launch an EMP device, or relate a biological agent or contaminate the drinking water or breathable air, and much of America, if not all of it, will be caught up in the conflagration.

I visited shooting ranges in Arizona and California during the Obama administration, and sure there were many posters for "Obama, the greatest gun sales man ever" put up by ignorant fear mongers who questioned the President's citizenship, thought he was a secret Muslim, and that he was going to destroy America.  How did that work out for y'all, dumbasses?  All you did was drive up the price of ammo for yourselves, fools. The demise of America these hyperbolic & myopic nationalists predicted Never came to fruition, and won't come to fruition, while there is an intelligent, educated, thoughtful, rational resident of The White House.  American will be fine until at least the first week of November 2016.  After that, if Scott Adams is right, and Donald J Drumpf wins in a land slide as predicted, leveraging his persuasive marketing techniques on a gullible and stupid populace, all bets are off.  President Camacho from Idiocracy would be a better leader than Donald J. Drumpf.

I hope it doesn't come to that...

For President Camacho's State of The Union Address, go here:  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGUNPMPrxvA

Dark Money - Jane Mayer

For the first 2 days of my drive across the Pacific, Mountain, and Central time zones, I listened to the 15 CD set of Jane Mayer's comprehensive book Dark Money.     Listening to the book-on-CD, it 

- kept me awake

- pissed me off

- educated me on how Charles Koch once ran for Vice President of the United States and lost miserably, on the Libertarian ticket

- how the Koch brothers recruit other multi-millionaires and billionaires to unite against anyone who opposes their 0.01% agenda

- explained how Sheldon Adleson funded Gingrich to the tune of 42 million dollars of attack ads against Romney that ultimately helped Obama defeat the embodiment of "corporations are people my friends"

- described how the Koch brothers reverse engineered the successful 2008 Obama campaign's data analytics of voter rolls, so that after the 2010 census, local and state districts were gerrymandered so effectively as to nullify the popular vote.  North Carolina was their laboratory, and it proved so successful, that even though Obama won the popular vote in NC in 2012 by more than 2%, the state went for the Republicans by having sparsely populated red districts overwhelm more heavily populated but under represented urban, educated, and poor democratic districts.

- told me how the Koch brother's father made his fortune building refineries for Stalin and Hitler

- spoke about how Charles Koch was raised by a militant German nanny, brought over from The Third Reich, until he was 5.  His nanny returned to The Third Reich after Hitler invaded Poland and France, so that she could be closer to her people and rejoice in her country's victory.  She also used to severely physically punish Charles, and enforce daily castor oil & enemas if 8am bowel moments were not produced punctually.  

- detailed how the Kochs, and all of their 0.01% friends, firmly believe that all you need to do in America is work hard, and you WILL BE successful, even though nearly all of their wealthiest friends inherited all of their wealth and they never lived in poverty or fell upon a temporary period of struggle without sufficient means to meet basic necessities even once throughout their lives

- revealed how even though David Koch suffers from cancer, and donates heavily to various cancer research foundations and hospitals, Koch Industries fights every worker's comp & injury claims from anyone exposed to benzene, leaky butane pipe lines that explode, or coal wash pond toxins; that leukemia you have, you got that on your own, pal.

- went into extensive detail how the Kochs hired private detectives who ineptly tried to smear Jane Mayer after she published a 10,000 word magazine article on them by inaccurately stating she plagiarized and misquoted her sources (this is my third Mayer book, she's fastidious in her research and thorough reporting).

- detailed how the Kochs pay college students to take courses in "free market" and "Austrian Economics" through charitable grants, in an effort to try and recruit a larger army of like minded followers

- described how the Kochs are actively reshaping tenured professor ships by funding the publishing of poorly researched and non-peer-researched publications that support their agenda and spread disinformation that "think tanks" then quote to further confuse the masses

- repeatedly described, at every level of their operations, how the Kochs try to obfuscate, and secretly attempt to conceal their profile, their operations, their purpose / intentions, using misleading names on foundations, and labelling voter suppression efforts and entitlement roll back initiatives as "voter wellness" and "election reforms".

After I finished this book-on-CD series (lucky I had a 6 CD changer in my 2007 Mazda, so I could drive for hours without having to change any CDs) I called my Godfather and talked to him as I drove along I-10 in Florida, passing multiple Florida State troopers in the median who all drove Chevy SUVs or low profile Cameros or Chargers, and discussed how great of a study Mayer's work was.  He and I had a great chat on the morning of the 13th, and it was refreshing to speak to another like-minded, well informed adult about American politics and how the richest 0.01% are carving out the country in their own graven image and laughing at the rest of us, all the way to the bank and the ballot box.  

It'll be interesting to see how 2016 turns out, with self-funded Trump, only-evangelicals-love-me-Cruz, boy-in-a-bubble-Rubio, and semi-reasonable Kasich do next Tuesday.  Hillary Clinton has a good chance of beating them all, especially if it is  3 way race with Trump stroking his ego as an independent.  I am not sure Bernie can deliver a victory for the Democrats, since so many Americans don't understand what a Socialist Progressive is, or how Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Head Start, Pell Grants, the VA, Worker's Comp, the EPA, the Voting Rights Act, the Interstate Highway System, Municipal Water Systems, City Parks, Public Beaches, the National Park System, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Centers for Disease Control, and the National Institutes of Health are all agencies that were created by, or further the cause, of Progressive Socialism in the United States of America.    The "great good" of all of us, not just those who have inherited the most money.

How Many People Did Jade Helm Round Up?

The answer is simple: ZERO.
The right wing conspiracy machine was in full "crazy mode" to claim that the US military, Walmart, and President Obama were planning on declaring marshal law and taking over Texas & Utah.  Ridiculous and insane, but given full credit & weight by MANY Republican presidential candidates who want to play to the extreme right primary base who come out to vote like fire ants whose nest has been stepped on by a black booted Federal government thug.

If you don't know what "Jade Helm" is, the CS Monitor back in May laid it out nicely. (link here)
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2015/0505/What-is-Jade-Helm-15-and-should-Chuck-Norris-be-worried-video

If you don't remember how Cruz and Paul and most of the Republican field reacted back in May, the internet does.  (link here).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-stanford/the-pentagons-response-to_b_7251254.html

"J.E.Dyer" foretold of terrible things to come at "Liberty Unyielding".  Fool.

If you'd like to see a Map of "Operation Jade Helm" I've included one below.

To see how many people have been rounded up, and how many Counties and States have had marshal law imposed on them (staring today, July 15th, of course) read here (link).
http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/national/wire/civilians-begin-shadowing-jade-helm-war-exercise-in-texas/article_f3e54fa9-4b0d-5dbc-94e4-2ac1de1a6b0e.html

Yeah, "I've got some concerns" and "questions remain" ...  yes, like "how did you ever get elected, Ted?"

I am so glad I don't live in a backwards, regressive, insane Red State Dumbphukistan anymore.

First Lady Honorable Senator Madam Secretary Khaleesi

Catching up on my DVR'ed Daily & Nightly Shows this week,  found Larry Wilmore's Nightly Show last Monday to be absolutely hilarious!  Following Hillary Clinton's presidential run announcement on Sunday, along with the start of Game of Thrones, Larry's writers had a field day, graphically.

They're really not that different...

Hillary could use Khaleesi's campaign slogan

Both had their kingdoms taken away a few years ago

They were both married to horny warlords

They've both spent years dealing with spiteful, barbaric horse people

Their paths to the throne has been blocked by gold hoarding families

Those families have been guided by a patriarch in shadows, who has been positioning the family

With the torture loving son who famously choked at a banquet

And the brother everyone likes, despite the red flags... 

And the dark horse from the fringes, who might have a chance, but who's brain has been turned to mush by religion

And of course, there's Hodor

Hodor...   I laughed out loud!   Too damn funny!!!!  Highly recommended.

John Oliver Explains Net Neutrality, Perfectly

Last Week, Tonight's host John Oliver is another person who is perfect for the job he is in.  He does an amazing job in HBO's Last Week Tonight each Sunday.  I laugh, I want to cry, it's funny, enraging & relevant all at the same time.

Last night he explained Net Neutrality, and how evil the Obama administration is for taking Comcast's top lobbyist (Tom Wheeler)  and installing him as the head of the FCC.  (Vice covered it here (link) as well, but I didn't see it on Vice last month, and Oliver made it MUCH funnier)

Hooray for John Oliver!

FCC.GOV/Comments...  come on internet trolls & haters.... there's just 118 days left for you to let the FCC know exactly how you feel.

Where Is 9M-MRO?

9M-MRO is the tail number of the Boeing 777-2H6-ER aircraft that was designated as Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing last week.  The location of the aircraft, crew and passengers, remains unknown, but on Friday night (US time) the Malaysian government issued a statement that they believe the plane's South and Westerly flight paths towards the Indian Ocean - instead of the NE direct route intended to go to Beijing over the South China coast line - were the result of a hijacking, and are now treating the disappearance of the plane as a crime.

While this may sound grotesque, I hope a debris field or fuel slick in the Indian Ocean are found soon.  Why?  Because if the passengers are still alive, they are imprisoned, hostages, or worse.  If they are all dead, then their families can begin to have closure and mourn their losses.  

Why would they be alive, and the plane possibly landed somewhere?  Well, consider the following evidence:
- Rolls Royce's monitoring system (9M-MRO was equipped with RR engines, instead of GE90s) continued to get satellite "pings" from the plane, for more than an hour past the time it was supposed to land in Beijing; meaning, the engines were still on, and still running.
- The built in Boeing transponder that sends out location signals was manually turned off over the middle of the gulf of Thailand, just after Kuala Lumpur air traffic control handed over guidance of the air craft to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon, in southern Vietnam).  
- The pilots (Zaharie Ahmad Shah [Zaharie was also qualified as a flight instructor] & Fariq Abdul Hamid) never checked in with Ho Chi Minh city.  They told Kuala Lumpur "Good night", and then turned their plane around, away from the Beijing flight path, over the Malaysian mountains, and out towards the Indian Ocean.
- yes, both the pilot and co-pilot were Muslims
- Not a single cell phone, black berry, iPad, iPhone, smart phone, smart watch, laptop, tablet, or other device carried by the 227 passengers has been answered, or has sent out any kind of tweet, FB post, distress call, text message, or anything else.  If the passengers (from 15 countries, most of them device happy Chinese) are alive, all of their electronic devices have been totally confiscated.  Missing not a single one.  If the mobile devices had been destroyed, then they would not be "going to voice mail" or ringing without being answered.  They would be giving "no longer in service" responses, from their respective mobile provider networks.

So where is 9M-MRO?  Why don't I call it MH370?  Well...  my theory is that it will never be seen again as MH370, unless it has crashed somewhere and a debris field is found, or a fuel slick spotted in the Indian Ocean.  Instead, either a "State Actor" or a "Non State Actor" has stolen the plane, killed or imprisoned everyone on it, and they are in the process of re-painting it to look like another country's airline 777...  probably a United States based airline, like Delta, American, or United, or a Emirates or Qatar airlines 777.  If there is an old, abandoned WWII runway somewhere near the Indian Ocean, and Zaharie was able to land his plane there, my guess is it being repainted, the electronics are being re-configured to send out a less conspicuously serialized signature that no longer resembles MH370, and the plane is being loaded with fuel, and (probably) explosives, or a WMD.  

What would a State Actor do with such a stolen plane?  Well, "Red Dawn" showed what Cubans could do to the US with troop carriers disguised as commercial airlines.  Tom Clancy probably has several novels that could provide a road map as well.  It would have to be a state actor with few connections to the west - like North Korea or one of the former Soviet "disillusioned-stans".  If it is a non state actor, like Al Qaeda, Basque Separatists, Philippine Separatists, Shining Path, or a Bond villain, then all sorts of terrible things could be planned.
- fly it into a large commercial building, ubiquitous in SE Asian capitals
- fly it into a military base, again, ubiquitous 
- fly it into an LNG plant in the gulf (many to choose from)
- fly it near a US Carrier task force, and detonate a nuclear device within the plane, before the navy shoots it down
- land it in a Western airport, and then detonate the WMD (nuclear, chemical, or biological, basically destroying that airport for that city)
- execute one passenger every time a US drone strike takes place, anywhere in the world (it is well known that Al Qaeda fears drone strikes more than any thing else), delivering the video of the passenger execution to Al Jazeera each time it does, so it can't be traced as to where).  With 227 passengers, that will halt the drone  strike program.  

Like I said, I hope a debris field is found soon, and the families can begin the mourning and closure process.  If their family members are still alive, nefarious things are going to happen to them, or they will be used as bargaining chips and more pain and suffering and death will be brought to more people in the world.  

I theorized this on Monday of this week, when everyone in the media and all pilot experts were saying "it is too early to tell" and "we should not speculate".  BS.  Many humans are evil, and the smart ones who are evil have nasty plans for the rest of us.  Plan ahead to deal with such evil, and minimize its impact on the world.

Obama Derangement Syndrome, Still an Epidemic

From The Moderate Voice, I found this sad but strongly correlating article by Dana Millbank on ignorance, poverty, and manipulation by the media entitled "10 Obama Myths" that still promulgate in the reddest states.  (link here)

• Obama conspiracy theories have flourished in the Deep South, where wealth and educational levels are both low. This makes sense: Where voters are least informed, they are most susceptible to misinformation peddled by talk-radio hosts and the like. For this reason, voters in reliably Republican states, which tend to be poorer, with lower test scores, are more vulnerable to misinformation. To use one measure, the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress test of eighth-grade reading, all but one of the top 10 states were in Obama’s column in 2012. Of the 19 doing worse than average, 14 were red states.
• “Obama derangement syndrome is running pretty high right now among a certain segment of the Republican base,” Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling, told me. “There’s a certain segment of people who say, ‘If you’re going to give me the opportunity to stick it to Obama, I’m going to take it.’?” In other words, a large number of that 29 percent who said Obama was responsible for the Katrina response knew that he wasn’t but saw it as a chance to register their displeasure with the president. Obama has driven a large number of Republican voters — Jensen puts it at 15 to 20 percent of the overall electorate — right off their rockers.
• 
  
• The ten myths about the President:
• Obama was responsible for the Hurricane Katrina disaster.
• Obama hates white people.
• Obama is a socialist.
• Obamacare will raise insurance costs for consumers.
• Death panels are a part of Obamacare.
• Obama is a bigger spender than Bush.
• Obama is welfare obsessed.
• Obama is Muslim.
• Obama was not born in the United States.
• Obama is coming for your guns.
• 
  
• Read more at http://themoderatevoice.com/191449/10-obama-myths/#tjWMkyIveJ7wzlYq.99

CFPB Cordray Not Corddry

The newly confirmed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is Rich Cordray - finally confirmed after a ridiculously and unacceptably long wait from republican senators beholden to corporate banks. (link here) Rich Cordray is No Relation to Rob Corddry - thank goodness!  lol  

Good Bye & Good Riddance Jan

When I listen to San Diego public radio (KPBS) and they have a story about Arizona, I feel so very relieved to no longer live in Arizona.   Today, aged Scottsdale blond, turned governor, Jan Brewer toured the Arizona / Mexico border in a helicopter and held a press conference afterwords where she scolded the Nation's President, telling him that he needs to come down here and see the border for himself.  She was disappointed that she couldn't stick her bony finger disrespectfully in his face again, so she used her grating accent and narrow perspective to do so instead. Yes Jan, the Obama administration deported over 400,000 illegal immigrants last year, a new record.   And the net immigration flow is now negative, with more latin Americans leaving the USA and heading back south and leaving US crops unpicked to rot in the fields, lawns un-groomed, chickens un-butchered, and floors un-scrubbed.

Yes, California is heavily regulated, more-so than other states on some issues, but at least there are elected state leaders who are more reasonable and who actually represent most of their constituents, as opposed to just angry white seniors who vote out of fear, in droves, during Arizona primaries.  Each day I live here, I am liking it more and more.

New Minority

Yes, I am a white male, who is not on welfare, who voted for Barak Obama.

That's two, count 'em, two National Elections in  row, where I voted FOR A WINNER.

And to all the Republicans who want to cry sour grapes, and that 'America is full of people who want 'stuff' '  and who are blaming others for their own short comings... get over it.    That's the new norm.   White males are a dwindling minority.  

No such thing as 'legitimate rape', as a "white majority" anymore.   Never was such a thing as 'legitimate American cheese' (it's hydrogenated, it's fake, get over it).  Never was such a thing as "the good old days" (as in the 50s, when the South was still segregated and women were discriminated against in the work place and everywhere else).

(I am sorta liking this Air Book)

Horses and Bayonets

This clip (link here), sums up a nice schooling, and re-direction to the facts.  It's not rhetoric, it's not socialism or fascism, it's just facts.  "We have fewer horses and bayonets today in the military".

Or, to put it more graphically:

Yeah, the USA better build more ships, pronto!

Pakistan Loves Romney

When I heard republican pundits on the radio earlier this week express how they think America has "lost standing in the world" since President Obama was elected, I thought my head would explode.   No, we've not lost standing...  in fact, most of the civilized world wants Obama to be re-elected.  Except Pakistan of course.   They're tired of Pakistani Intelligence sanctioned drone strikes inside of Pakistan, and blame it all on the US, whenever one goes wrong.  They'd rather have Romney elected (yeah, drone strikes would CERTAINLY go down under a republican..  sure).  Link here.  Too bad the whole world doesn't get to vote for 'President of the Free World'.

Carmona Is Not A Flake

Arizona's Jr Senator, Kyle, is "retiring" to pursue his true passion, self enrichment as a Washington lobbyist.  Serving his country, or state, or the greater good...  baaah!  From senator to lamprey... but that's an insult to lampreys. 

His anointed replacement from the GOP is Mormon farmer Jeff Flake, who is also an unspectacular Congressman.  Flake's opponent, is Rich Carmona.  Former Surgeon general, appointed by Bush.  Former army medic in Vietnam.  Former nurse and surgeon.  A millionaire entrepreneur in Tucson.  Oh, and did I mention he speaks Spanish?  He's blanketing ads on Phoenix radio and TV, and appears to be beating Flake, at this point, and has a fighting chance of turning the Solid Red Arizona's Senate representation to Purple.

Flake was mailing fliers via US Postal Service to our residence at the beginning of the month, saying how Carmona is Obama's "hand picked" candidate, complete with unflatering "mug shot-esque" pics of Rich Carmona next to "guy smiley-esque" Jeff Flake prom pics.  But as President Obama's poll numbers have risen after the convention, and Romney continues his downward spiral, those fliers have mysteriously stopped.

(note also how it was 102F at 5:18pm, in mid September, 6 days ago when this poll was shown on Channel 3)

Entitled!

C.Montgomery Burns had a video released this week... I mean... Mitt Romney, comfortably talking to $50,000 a plate donors at a private dinner in Boca Raton, trying to get them to write him checks for his campaign, let slip how he really feels about nearly 1/2 of all Americans.  All those silly Americans who work for a living, instead of investing, like Mitt and his plutocratic buddies. 

The Daily Show characterized the Mother Jones video perfectly, so I ma going to provide all the links here:

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/president-barack-obama/17uve05r4?q=President+Obama&rel=msn&from=en-us_msnhp&form=msnrll




It was remarkable how "at ease" and comfortable Mitt was, amongst the plutocratic elite in Boca, compared to how rigid, stick-up-his-spine, inarticulate, forced-delivery his speaking was during town halls and diner meetings during the Republican primaries.  It's like..  he was an entirely different man.   Watch the clips yourself, to see with your own eyes and hear with your own ears.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/secret-video-romney-private-fundraiser

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU9V6eOFO38&feature=player_embedded

2 million blurred views
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnB0NZzl5HA&feature=relmfu
ENTITLED!

moment of zen
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-18-2012/moment-of-zen---mr--burns-speaks-at-the-springfield-republican-party-headquarters?xrs=synd_twitter

Millionaire John Hodgeman's Eloquent delivery:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-september-18-2012/exclusive---an-elegant-message-to-the-47-

Minnie the moocher
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ5gCGJorKk

You know, I pay a hefty sum in taxes - Federal, state, FICA, et al... and I voted for President Obama, and I DO NOT feel "Entitled!" as Mitt has emphatically stated all Obama supporters feel.  I DO feel entitled to an apology from both Mitt and his boy wonder Paul Ryan for being dismissive & condescending of 1/2 the electorate.

It's really sad how many poor, white, rural and suburban Americans will enthusiastically vote for Mitt, thinking his trickle down, redistribution of wealth from-poor-to-rich will somehow help them someday.  But that's how America rolls.

Old Republican Voters

I am not sure why really old Republicans would vote for Romney / Ryan, when Ryan's proposed budget plan has the average senior citizen's Medicare co-payments TRIPLING.  You see, medicare is funded by those in it, for Medicare and Medicare Part D.  My godfather, who worked for 40 years of his life and then retired, PAYS about $300 a month for this Medicare, and about $80 a month for Medicare Part D (or about $380 a month).  He's a rather healthy 60-something year old.  Under the Ryan budget, that would go up to nearly a $1000 a month.  Now, my godfather was the president of his craft labor union and an excellent machinist and wood worker.   He kept a small pattern making shop alive in Chicago suburbs even when the owner reitred and put his idiot son in charge to run the business into the ground, alienate customers, and decimate the skilled workforce.  He worked hard for a living, for 4 decades, helping automakers and tool and die and pattern makers manufacture usable, real, tangible goods in America.  He didn't earn a living through "investing" or "venture capital" or "inheriting it", and thus, he usually votes Democratic.

If you are an older, retired, middle class Republican, without inherited wealth, and you strongly support Romney / Ryan, I would like to hear from you, so as to understand why you strongly support two rich white guys, who were born into wealthy families, and have never suffered or had to scrape by for a living, and  who have their own self interests and the interests of their rich, country club and corporate executive friends in mind.  I won't mock you, I promise.  I just want to try understand you, and what motivates you.

My wife and I make good livings.  If we wanted to truly vote in our own financial self interests and say "F.U.!" to our maternal families and consciences and the rest of the international world, we could easily vote for the rich guys too.  But we'd feel...  I don't know...  guilty.  Dirty.  Ashamed.  Remarkably selfish, in doing so.  I am no fan of President Obama, and his lack of prosecutorial diligence against those who caused the 2008 financial melt down, his embracing of corporate money and super PACs, his failure to close Gitmo (though large strides have been made to de-populate it), his continuing of Bush era Patriot Act Constitutional trouncing, and his cozying up to corporate interests... but I think over-all, he's done more good than harm.  He's the lesser of two evils.  He didn't grow up wealthy and spoiled, and he's known what it's like to have to work for a living.  He married the daughter of a sewage plant worker, not an heiress or stuck up sorority snotty girl. 

When I hear Republican ideologues say how Obama is "destroying the country" I just don't get it.  Just how is he destroying the country?  By not giving Boehner and McConnel everything they want?  By deporting more illegal immigrants in 4 years than Bush did in 8?  By ordering the mission that killed Osama bin Laden and not listening to his advisers and VP when they all told him to abort the mission?  By not having Single Payer included in the Affordable Care Act - a health care law that has allowed our son to stay on his mother's insurance until he is 26, and paid for the end of life care to our dear friends' son who recently succumbed to a fatal cancer?  What actual, real, terrible things has President Obama done to the country, or to any of it's citizens?  I don't watch or listen to Fox News so I don't have all the rhetoric memorized - I only get it through a Daily Show hilarious filter. 

Please help me understand.

When Harry Met Barack

Dewey Beats Truman. Mandate Struck Down.  Awesome reporting by anachronistic media outlets.