Thoughts of a Dead Atheist (short film about the existence of God - shot...

Here is something else way better than the Olympics, and this will make you think, if you can.

the olympics suck, so learn about pig anus and grape seeds

I was traveling and got to the hotel room in time Saturday to see Paul McCartney's convincing case for retirement.  Then Sunday night we made it home and watched a couple hours of the Olympics.  I hate it.  I want to see sports of all kinds, not possible.  Instead it's usa usa, are we the only team there, then how come we can't win all the medals?   So who told the dumbest channel in the universe that instead of watching a race or event, I want to watch someones mother watch it, or set through 5 minutes about the sick uncle of the guy running.   I'm done for.  Last night didn't watch, nor will I watch any more of it.  It is a marketing tool.  The athletes with the most contracts to endorse and advertise get all the time.

I suggest you do the same, it is a giant waste of time when you should be learning, flossing, exercising, creating, or having rough sex with a friend.  As for learning, this funny and science based video from a doctor who is not selling anything except the videos he puts on line for free anyhow, then this will be a good 55 minutes.  I had Cholesterol of 850, started eating healthy and it dropped to 450 in 45 days, 150 in a year, could have died.  You only die once, but you can rough sex a lot.

this is what American capitalism looks like

In the early 1930's Walter and Olive Ann Beech decided they could build airplanes.  Beechcraft was born, the picture here is a 1943 V17S Staggerwing.  A few years ago the company was spotted by Wallstreet buzzards who know nothing of airplanes but more importantly how to use words like leveraged buy outs and synergy.  This group turned 16,000 US jobs and a fine product line into 4,000 US and 2,500 offshore and bankrupted it.

Today they wait approval for Superior Aircraft, a company owned in China, to buy it for a couple billion (if I remember right) , of which he (the Chinese owner of Superior) will get 1/4 of it back when they sell the military aircraft unit off, which can only sell to a US company.  And now we come to the company retirement fund.  Ka-fucking-put!  It has around 40% of the cash in it that it should.  No sweat, the government has to take it over, not clear yet if those already retired will get what they were told they would, or some reduced amount, but tough shit workers you should have been born rich it's your own fault.  A few days ago the company was granted 1.5 million to distribute to 31 current and former managers as bonus for driving the bus in the ditch so skillfully.  Yesterday they went back and ask for another 5.3 million to bonus up 8 executives for deftly laying off 10,000 people while filling their pockets by the book by the rule while building many dozens of airplanes when they were not selling and, this is the best part, as the company smoked and spun into the mountain they got this red state (who rants about Obama helping Detroit) and city to give them a butt load of millions of tax payers dollars and freebee tax deals on the property for years to come.

So, the moral of the story is, Bain Capital the shit out it, this is what American capitalism looks like.  To you it may look like failure, but this is not a failure in the Wallstreet and oligarch haunts of the world, this is what you do, this is how you make money, this is a success, an opportunity maximized.  I'm sure the court will grant the 5.3 million, after all those guys did everything right, they deserve it, there are thousands of MBA's wishing they could have puffed up their resume with the last Beech crash.

Olive and Walter are long gone, and it seems like they were fools, they wanted to make airplanes, but in the last few years guys that have never held a rivet made more money than they did their whole lives.

Trip notes #2, wine, and another disaster for Koch

For a few days I stayed with a friend who spent his whole life studying, drinking, selling, collecting fine wine.  On a modest salary he has accumulated hugh wine cellar of rare high quality wines and Cognac.  I got to taste some 1929 Cognac, year of the crash, very moving, maple syrup nose.  I've tasted better, but never that old.

He travels the world drinking wine for pleasure and business, tours put on by some of the worlds authorities.  He told me one group who has believed in global warming for many years, the vineyard owners.  Example, Reisling, a soft white fruity wine with mineral water backbone, primary area for production Mosel river in France-Luxembourg-Germany, south east France, Austria.  We drank some recent vintage and I said it was more sweet than I recalled in years past.  Yes said he, the grapes ripen faster each year, so suddenly they can no longer easily harvest it in various sugar contents, instead boom, much of it is ready at once, with little warning.  To the wine industry this is a disaster, and it has been a constant shift over the last 50 years and now it is severe.  Other wines are changing as well.  Grapes for fine wine are very persnickity, a few degrees change and oh crap.  Some French fields are moving to higher elevations, but this is an unexpected expense, the old vines below are a lost asset.  The wine industry like the ski industry is not so soft spoken about global warming being a burden now.
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News today tells of a study by a global warming skeptic,  the second big one funded by Koch industries to spread doubt.  Sha-zam, fucked again.  Their chosen skeptic said his own study converted him. The largest study ever, included 14.4 million temp recordings over 44k sites going back to 1753.  Result, 2.5°F increase with 1.5 of it being in 50 years.  The study looked at CO2 and other suspected contributors and, in the words of Richard Muller, PhD and Koch's man, "We were not expecting this, but as scientist, it is our duty to let the evidence change our minds."  Not only did he find warming, he determined by looking at other evidence it is man made. I am a converted sceptic said he.   Poor Koch, the second time in a year a GW study by hand picked skeptics found the same thing, that they are on the wrong side of the earths future.

Trip notes, Kansas to Idaho and Washington roundtrip

Gas, $360.  08 Toyota Camry Hybrid, mpg per tank ranged from 37.1 to 40.3, averaged 39.0.  If I had driven an SUV, or pickup it would have cost 2 to 3 times that, even a high 20's mpg would have been at least another $100.

Came back to 111°f through much of south Kansas and north Oklahoma, they gave the record of 111 to Enid OK.  Fine with me, give the GW deniers a project building another excuse.

In Idaho I saw billboards ranting against wind energy, "not for Idaho" it said, "Idaho will stick with American clean coal".  WTF, show me some clean coal and I'll snort a line, and can't we agree the wind in Idaho is ours, not a foreign nations?  Maybe they hint that some of the windmill components are foreign made, as are the Komatsu bulldozers and diggers or the MANN super trucks in the mining pit, or the German and French ballbearings the mining companies roll on or the Korean steel Caterpillar equipment is made of.


We almost flew, decided to drive, we wanted to see the farms and hills and towns.  I am so glad we did.  It is amazing how much of the US is living in housing that looks like a good rain would bring it down.  Miles and miles of people shoved up against freeways and factories and refineries, no trees, no lawns, a car that could use a set of tires.  I was a little overwhelmed sometimes at the volume of our citizens who clearly missed the gravy train, or was put off it.  You can taste the disparity of opportunity, of basic health care.  Not uncommon in these little towns on blacktop roads to see middle age men hobbling along suffering from some infirmity brought on by poor nutrition, exposure to farm or industrial chemicals (fruit picker disease), bad life choices, most of which could be prevented or cured by proper medical access or nutrition education.

What a beautiful country, what a strange place, what a destructive cycle we are in with unfettered capitilism, which left to it's own ends will never offer opportunities in education or advancement the World War II generation had, it simply will not do it, the machinery to work for the common good of the nation has been unplugged, the race is on to dismantle it before it can be restarted.

More later on the trip, some interesting things we encountered.   (note: I'm all for capitalism, I did just fine, but I recognize uncontrolled it will result in a class of financial royalty)

OK, resume your adoration.

Hey, I'm back from vacation.  Let you know some interesting things in the next couple of days.

Could Mittins be a billionaire, someone thinks so.

Bloomberg?  Not sure, but the media say there is a Republican billionaire telling them the reason Mittens can't release multiple years of returns is it may show he is a billionaire, or so another billionaire  suspects it might.  Rumor?  Maybe, but it was on one Lawrence Odonnells sow, hey the other side goes with talk shows as facts.
I never thought of that as a possibility, but when you give it a minute, at the volume of money that firm handled in some deals, the profits they took off transactions, and you see there are plenty of these kind of guys making 100M a year and more, it only takes a few years of that to add up.  What ever the problem, it is so severe that Mittens thinks taking all this crap is a better choice.  He runs on his success at Bane, but now can't let us know if he really was successful, or what he did, or when, or what they did.  Vote for me on my record at Bane, which is private and you have no right to know if we paid taxes or invested in Russia or profited off the mortgage crisis.

Kansas is #50 in jobs

Red state Kansas, the state with no tax on business income, or farm income, where the GOP says all these things and more are for the benefit of business and agriculture which any day now will hire over 100,000 people.  In a state of less than 3 million with only a little industry, I think the GOP is drinking pond water, the state will be 2.5 billion in debt in 5 years.  Oh no, cut tax and job creators will rush into the street and pay people to shave their daughters back.
Now comes the rankings for Job Creation by state, drum roll tatatatatat, 50th place, fucking last place, ouch, damn it do we still get a austerity participation trophy?  Must be because 30% are still democrats, and they're ruining this recession for the job creators.  

"Makes You Wonder" about taxes and honesty

A couple days ago Mittster declined to pile on with fellow Republicans (and congressional dems) in harping about the Olympic uniforms China gate.  Now we see the year Romney ran the Olympics, our uniforms came from Burma.  Well he just ran everything, the uniforms were in a blind trust he retroactively will resign from.

the letter

My sister just got the news, my brother-in-law just the last 45 days is suddenly very forgetful, and sometimes confused by ordinary events, a couple of scans of the head and neck,,,,,,,,,,Alzheimers.  The last couple of times I talked to him on the phone I told the wife later he seemed like he was asking questions but not paying any attention to the answers.
I got the news late yesterday by email, and I need to write back, I know what I will say, but it seems like I don't want to do it, I'm killing time, doing other things, like this.

Aeronautical design engineer, was at the top of the design teams of some of the worlds best known planes, probably the smartest guy in the family.  Bam.

The Olympics are coming, 10 days till Romney can hide

Scum Dog Millionaire, Citizen Bane*, Retroactive Man, Outsourcer in Chief, the Swiss Bankers Wet Dream... he has got to stop the pounding he is taking over the facts of his life.

2 ways he can do it, trot his VP pick out now, that will eat up days of press time, it may give him a little bump in the polls.  Condi Rice is my pick for him.  Of his 24 foreign policy advisors to the campaign, 17 are from the Bush 43 White House, if your going back to the Cheney years and the neo-conservative oil company colonialism scheme then Condi is your man, I mean girl, or something.
The other way is count on the Olympics, already the press is giving a lot of time to it, it may be the fog bank he can sail into.
*first saw that at Squatlo's, love it.

the magnificent seven teabaggers

Teaparty freshmen charged tax payers for leasing cars.  Its legal and these seven are OK with taking the government hand out.  So much for cutting government spending.  Austerity only applies to welfare mothers, education and healthcare.  Look these Romney supporters have a lot of important decisions to make for the wealthy people of this country and working the least of any Congress in history leaves a lot of time to cruise K-street.  You don't expect them to take public transportation do you?  And sometimes the Koch brothers lemo is already booked.

The seven Republican freshmen’s congressmen spent on cars in the past year and a half:

• Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-MN): $25,580.84
• Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI): $24,525.00
• Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX): $10,997.45
• Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO): $20,978.07
• Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH): $4,889.76
• Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS): $8,848.00
• Rep. Steve Womack (R-AR): $10,746.59
• Total: $106,643

Treating Genital Warts With Green Tea

Cervical cancer, along with throat and mouth cancers can be reduced with green tea.  Check the video out, studies indicate this is valid, not a health food store myth.

Mitt Romney: Extreme on Women's Issues

A little video outlining the future of women's rights, pay, protection, freedom, health, as the American Taliban gain control.

I hate when that happens.

Business opportunity approaches.

Long time ago when abortion was illegal in the US there was a steady stream of young women heading east, a girlfriend of mine in NYC worked a few hours a week meeting women at the airport and making sure they got to the right building and airplane.  These women were flying out of the US, usually to Europe or Israel, in a few days they flew back.  Everything had been organized,  hotels, transportation, the doctors, and someone to stay with them.  Well, now you can't meet people at the gate and show them to the next, but that was in a time a sizable portion of the population had never flown before.
With more states making abortion almost impossible to get, to protect the doctors or maintain privacy of the women, even for rape or to save a women's life, the time approaches again for this type of travel agency.   I think it will appear soon, in fact, it may already exists in some areas.  I just hope it is done well, and safely.
Of course this is expensive, but many can pay.  Many cannot, and of these some will still find a way.  The Reichwing GOP biblethumpers are willing to send those women to the alley with amateurs or drugs, it's fine with them if these girls die, well that was Gods decision.

Cynics might see this as more of the GOP war on women

Thank goodness the Republican governors are going to fight, obstruct, delay, and cut Medicaid.  Why don't women just get a job, a high paying job and get off the publics back, jeeez!

Another secret advantage for oil and gas drillers

Ok, this is ripped from thinkprogress.org, you can read the whole shmear if you go there, then click the green climate button, then scroll down.
This explains one more specialized instrument for oil companies and their investors, one I didn't know of.  Clean energy start ups cannot use this instrument, and there is resistance in altering the law to allow it.  Below explains an attempt at a fix, which is opposed by oil and gas.
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Let’s look at master limited partnership (MLPs) first. Used successfully for traditional oil and gas investments for decades, these vehicles, which trade like corporate stock, allow investors to earn dividends that usually fall in the six percent range. However, current MLP rules are structured to cover only oil and gas, and exclude clean-energy investments. Simple tax code changes could enable these investment structures to leverage the built-in annuity streams of clean energy, and could expand decent-yielding investment opportunities to a broader retail market. Some members of Congress seem to think so, and the idea is rapidly catching on with support from corporate and industry stakeholders. Senator Chris Coons (D-Delaware) has introduced the Master Limited Partnerships Parity Act, which at approximately 200 words, is both simple and powerful.
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Ask your congressman to support this "parity act".  This can make it easier for crowd sourcing of clean projects such as SolarMosiac does, a kind of micro-loan plan, where a few thousand people can put in a hundred $ and they have several million to install a wind turbine or cover a parking lot with solar panels.   Currently these systems can only return the loan as the system makes money, with the change it will be possible for them to pay interest or dividends as well.

Shake, turn handle, repeat as necessary.

Mittens has another problem.  In order to distance himself from Baine Capital laying off people and running up debt on businesses they buy, he has been claiming he exited in 1999.  Well, company documents have his signature on them in 2002, and company records indicate he was receiving compensation then.  Not wages, those are taxed, but things like stock options and complex little ditties that can be taxed at lower rates or go untaxed until later.

His mouthpieces are saying this is just a paper snafuu, never happened.  Shake, turn handle, repeat as necessary.

Mittens Romney Gets Booed at NAACP Convention

This lady makes a good point in the video, Mitt telling those "Negros" he is going to cut things that will specifically hurt their communities, this will bring him millions from the racist, this is a fantastic fund raiser for him.

Ben LaBolt: Mitt Romney's Offshore Bank Accounts and Tax Returns

This video leaves out the statements Romney made when he ran for Senate that the Kennedy's blind trust was bogus, saying of course the owner of the trusts gives instructions and knows what is happening in the trust. Now it's different, he claims blind trusts owners don't have any control over their own money and can't direct it or even know where it is.  So which is true?  Once again the Scum Dog Millionaire owns both positions of an argument.

Look, I am all for American business making money, people succeeding, growing a business and living in a swell house, vacationing in Europe.  I am not against wealth.  I am against lying cheating tax dodging moneygrubbers who lay off people, offshore jobs, funnel money out of the country,  like drug dealers, they ruin ordinary peoples lives, pull money out of local economies, they don't care about America, they don't pay tax or at least not like middle class, and they bully the public by owning the legislature and judicial.

Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack: Protecting Insurance Companies Over Middle...

Adds like this are playing in lots of districts to let people know of the GOP's intent to keep Americans currently without insurance at home and away from treatment for years, if they live that long.

can't make this up

It's real.  A costume party for health care lobbyist.  Just come dressed like people that will never have health care if the GOP garners enough votes in Nov.

6,234,900 people uninsured in Texas

 Rick Perry says he is not going to implement any of that nasty ole Obama Care crap, well gall darn it, helping those people is against the will of the republicans and corporations.   I mean can't you get it through your thick heads, not all kids are meant to live past 3rd grade, poor kids just die, thats a fact.

So Texas joins Kansas and a dozen other red states in the brilliant decision to let the federal tax dollars paid by Texans not be returned to Texas.  More money for the blue states.  Kansas's gov. Brownback the uber Catholic sent back 31 million that was sent in for this program.  I hope it gets used in San Francisco to treat old hippies,  I really do.

Viva the grey haired stoners.  Fuck Rick Perry and Fuck Brownback.
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update, Perry's people say it's only 1.2 million.

Vote Republican if you have health insurance

God bless the child thats got his own.  Nov. 6th, vote to keep irresponsible people out of your doctors waiting room.  Do you really want another 20 million Americans treated for communicable diseases or sewn up after an accident?  Vote no, vote a GOP ticket.

how to save peoples lives

http://www.heartrescuenow.com/

Go to this site and learn how to save a heart attack victim.  This is a pretty good interactive video, have an old or overweight parent, neighbor, friend, teacher?

waste not

The London Stock Exchange has a new rule, starting with April's reports, companies traded on the exchange must include in their financial reports a description of their carbon footprint.  For the first time investors and the public will be able to identify the size and value of their waste output and it's impact on the environment.   It will be seen as lost potential by not reducing it, in other words it is stockholder profit that managers are letting slip up the smokestack, down the drain, and into the electric meter.  It is expected companies will scurry to become environmentally friendly, which in nearly all cases increase profits in the long term.

Mitt pissing Putin off

Foreign Policy magazine, a mostly conservative publication has an interesting article.  They are saying Mitt is really pissing Russia's Putin off with his campaign speeches belittling Russia and boasting of trashing treaties and confrontation.  They suggest Putin holds a grudge and would love to find a flare up that he can come out on top of, even at great cost.  Should the Mitt become the Outsourcer in Chief, Foreign Policy believes Russia will be confrontational in every aspect.  Slum Dog Millionaire should shut up is their theme.

Whats at risk, he could shut off about 30% of the natural gas used in Europe, and few people know but Russia has almost all the worlds titanium, and controls its market.  Russia makes the titanium forgings that go in all US fighters made.  Every week containers arrive at Lockheed and Boeing from Russia.  Without Russian titanium nearly all large aircraft and all military aircraft production ends.

"Holy Sh*t!" From the Ashes, a Call to Heed Climate Change

This is what Global Warming looks like!

 This picture is typical of corns current condition in much of the US, in Russia and the Ukraine.  In the US around 40% of the corn is now rated poor or very poor. Immediate rains and cooling is all that will save it, it's down to a couple of days or it's kaput, otherwise these fields will yield only 10 to 50% of normal.

This is about what my corn looks like.  I have irrigation.  In severe heat I can keep it alive, but the yield will still suffer a little.  When temperatures linger for hours over 100°F the fruiting process and the filling out of the corn kernel is not as successful no matter how much water we use.  It's like you having a fever, you cannot thrive outside of that narrow band.
Expect corn prices to reach near $7 a bushel due to reduced harvest.  Ethanol will get higher.  The other concern, if we exceed our water usage we face a fine.  Cattle auctions are jammed with parched critters.  Grassland has little carrying capacity now and ranchers are forced to feed hay to cattle in the pasture.  A few even have to haul water.
Meat prices will go up, maybe a lot, thats ok, most of us eat to much of it anyway, that could meter us down a few pounds and open up your heart tubes again.  Other products will go up a little as corn prices impact food processors, look for soft drinks to go up, thats fine with me too.  Wheat is up 25% in the last few days with news of Argentina's wheat crop is at risk, and why, storms and foul weather over broad areas of their farm belt, it's global.

Radical Chipotle restaurant wins award

Today I award Chipotle Mexican Grill, a chain, first place for a being radical restaurant, and serving good tasting food.  Radical in the safe and local fresh food they purchase, it must be a hugh effort to keep the supply lines filled with the products they demand.  Try it if you haven't.

Not only is the chicken and pork rasied cage free and with vegi diet only, no hormones, no meds, the beef is also hormone and meds free.  Most of the food they sell comes from within 350 miles of the restaurant, they make it all every day, it's not a can opener and microwave restaurant.  

I give them a 10 on a possible 10 for food taste and appearance, it tastes fantastic.

I give them 8 for atmosphere, the restaurants are pretty noisy.

I give them 10 for using lots of eco-friendly practices and using fresh ingredients.

I give them 10 for a decent (normal) price for a fast food restaurant.

I give them 9.5 for nutrition, check out their web site, the food is low in fat and high in fiber, a bit high in salt.   We get the burrito bowl, leave the tortilla out which is where most the extra fat is in their menu.

I give them 10 for having a simple small menu that fits everyone perfectly, even us part time vegetarians.

Tin foil hat time. Again.

I just got a NRA robo-call tipping me off the UN is preparing to swoop in and take everyones guns.  No shit, this is what they said.   Then a question, do I think it is alright for the UN to take away all our guns, press 1 for no, 2 for yes.  I pressed 2.  Hopefully that will get me off the waco robo call list.  Of course, this call was not to tip me off about the UN, it is a method of finding paranoid contributors, money money money.

Outsourcer in Chief, is he a tax cheat, will the IRS ever look into it?

Scurry on over to Vanity Fair and read their article on Scum Dog Millionaire's off shore money dumps.  It's loaded with curious bits of info like how, considering a $2,000 a year limit on IRA deposits, how can he have over 100 million growing tax free in his IRA?

What kind of swine hides money in other countries?

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/2012/08/investigating-mitt-romney-offshore-accounts

Obama for America TV Ad:

If your not in a swing state you may not have seen this video.

The power of gays, it's the glamour.

A Mr. Long gave us a gem of math and logic in his "opinion piece" in the Saturday paper, responding  to an earlier writer who ask how do gays deprive a young man the opportunity to marry the women he loves?
"If the glamorization of the gay lifestyle increases the number who become gay by only 1 percent, that equates to a 2 percent reduction in the population of heterosexual married people (or potentially married people).
So if I were 21 again, and I again met the woman of my dreams on a college campus, and if she were gay we would not marry, and I would most certainly be very, very, very deprived in every sense of the word."

Oh yes Mr Long, people become gay because it is so glamorous.  That's the whole thrill of it, that's the recruiting tool, glamor.  You should stay on guard, it's like looking at an F-150 with leather, or Lazy-boy with cup holders, it's not easy to say no to a glamorous lifestyle, even if it comes with whole armies of religious cranks praying for your death, insulting you, allowing and even promoting discrimination and bullying.

Well it's beyond my math skill set to understand why 1% of one population can so smoothly equate to 2% of another and uncounted population.  Many gays never marry, Condi Rice comes to mind.  Many gays do marry heterosexuals and raise families, go to church, I know of 2 examples in our circle.  The equation needs a lot of work.

I don't really think the college girl of his dreams is gay.  Believe me Mr. Long, the gay girls may be friendly, sweet, smart, helpful, but to seriously get to the "girl of my dreams" stage is unlikely, trust me on that.  Maybe he fears the advertising could even work on him.  What if there is a Richard waiting for him after class, Dick can be very persuasive.