To recap.
The evil committee of rules and regs, under the cover of obscurity, slipped in a change that mandated that only white lights would henceforth be permitted on the railings of the building. This happened just before Christmas last year and noticing that the balconies were as usual hosting many strings of multicolored lights and nobody was being fined I thought the board was taking the wise course of not enforcing a stupid rule.
I was awakened from my fool's paradise this spring by announcements in the elevators that this hateful rule was to be enforced by fining offenders. I took up the sword, went down to the board meeting and made a stink. To no avail, a rule is a rule was their ruling. Well what can I do, I asked, can I get up petitions? Nobody said I couldn't. So I spent a few days roaming the concourse between the towers about the time that people would be getting home from work. I approached maybe 150 people and three quarters of them signed my petition asserting that people should be able to have whatever color lights they want on their balconies.
I sent jpeg copies of the petitions to all the board members, and as a result the subject was placed on the agenda of the next board meeting I attended loaded for bear and made an elegant presentation and discovered that the board was split on the issue. When it came up the first time it had been a close vote and some of the members still would be happy to get rid of the rule.
I tell you it was an odd experience after my presentation to be questioned by board members who were all strangers to me and I didn't know who was for me and who was against me, but in the end the board decided that we would take a survey to discover what the feeling of the people of the towers was. I felt like I had won because my experience with the petitions had led me to believe that most people were in favor of permitting multicolored lights.
I was allowed to attend a meeting of the rules and regs committee to figure out how to do the survey. At the meeting I discovered that I was the lone ranger and that they were considering refusing to do a survey at all, contrary to the mandate of the board. The chairman of the board however decided that a survey would be done. She wrote the survey herself with certainly no input from me. When I suggested an addendum to the survey to explain why it was being taken (I hoped that this would prompt a bigger response) my email got no response.
I was surprised when the survey returned that 47 percent of unit owners wanted whites only, and 37 percent of owners wanted multicolored. Renters however went 64 percent to 24 percent for colored lights, and if the two are totaled a majority of residents favor multicolored. But the committee has no concern for renters and decided on the basis of the response of the unit owners to come out against making any changes in the rules. Well they were going to come out against making any changes in the rules no matter what so this was no big surprise.
As to that survey, I discovered that it was not done by person, but by unit, so that owner's votes were multiplied by how many units they owned, and so to say that 47 percent of owners are for white and 37 percent are for multicolored is simply incorrect.
This is but one of many issues I will be bringing up at the meeting next week, or possibly it won't be until next month. I won't know until next Tuesday, but I will keep you posted.
Whether you like it or not.
Thursday, September 5, 2019
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
smote by The Scourge
It looks like I have pulled a Biden. I got the where and the when of Wallace's speech wrong, though I got the gist of the story right. But that is not good enough. Unlike Biden I am not saying it is okay. I started out well enough. I remembered the quote, but I wasn't sure it was George Wallace's so I looked that up, and sure enough it was. But then I remembered him at the gates of the state U and I conflated that with the speech, and then I remembered the hard times at Old Miss. Looking it up now I see that I should have called it Ole Miss, not Old Miss, and I conflated that. Looking that up just now I see that it goes by the colorful moniker of The Stand in the Schoolhouse Door. Well I knew George Wallace was from Bama so it's unforgivable that I placed him in Mississippi.
I know Old Dog doesn't like being called The Scourge, but I was smote by the Scourge and rightly so. I fucked up, through my laziness I sinned against my cause, Objective Reality, and I beg forgiveness. You know how they say that when you read something from somebody who is a poor speller, all the big words are spelled right, but some of the simple common words are wrong, because the guy looks up the hard words, but he doesn't look up the easy words because he is sure he has those right. I was just sure I was right, I had a picture in my mind of Wallace at The Schoolhouse Door and I put those words into his mouth.
The big problem Wallace and his followers had with the feds was that they were forcing the south to integrate. That state's rights thing was just a figleaf so they didn't have to admit what they were really up to and could look like they were acting on some higher principle. It's like those southerners who claim that the civil war was not about slavery. It's just not true.
I brought up George Wallace because Beagles said that that was the only kind of democrat that he could envision himself voting for, and I wanted to point out that the dems would never nominate such a man.
If what Old Dog is talking about in that deepfake thing is how easily videos can be edited to appear that something that didn't happen did, and how much better they are getting at it every day and we approach a day where we won't be able to tell the real from the unreal, then yes, I have been reading about that and yes it will likely be a big problem.
It's odd, the things that we used to be able to do and then all of a sudden we can't. I discovered some years ago that I can no longer skip, Kind of an odd thing because the brain doesn't tell the legs to act like this then that, it just gives the metacommand to skip and the legs don't know what to do. Also that flutterstep when you want to go down the stairs in a hurry, and you just slip into the mode. I can't do that anymore either. Just as well I suppose. I fear falling and I don't mind looking like an old man going down the stairs if that will keep me from some major injury.
I have had a setback in my Christmas lights war, but the battle is still far from over. More on that later.
I know Old Dog doesn't like being called The Scourge, but I was smote by the Scourge and rightly so. I fucked up, through my laziness I sinned against my cause, Objective Reality, and I beg forgiveness. You know how they say that when you read something from somebody who is a poor speller, all the big words are spelled right, but some of the simple common words are wrong, because the guy looks up the hard words, but he doesn't look up the easy words because he is sure he has those right. I was just sure I was right, I had a picture in my mind of Wallace at The Schoolhouse Door and I put those words into his mouth.
The big problem Wallace and his followers had with the feds was that they were forcing the south to integrate. That state's rights thing was just a figleaf so they didn't have to admit what they were really up to and could look like they were acting on some higher principle. It's like those southerners who claim that the civil war was not about slavery. It's just not true.
I brought up George Wallace because Beagles said that that was the only kind of democrat that he could envision himself voting for, and I wanted to point out that the dems would never nominate such a man.
If what Old Dog is talking about in that deepfake thing is how easily videos can be edited to appear that something that didn't happen did, and how much better they are getting at it every day and we approach a day where we won't be able to tell the real from the unreal, then yes, I have been reading about that and yes it will likely be a big problem.
It's odd, the things that we used to be able to do and then all of a sudden we can't. I discovered some years ago that I can no longer skip, Kind of an odd thing because the brain doesn't tell the legs to act like this then that, it just gives the metacommand to skip and the legs don't know what to do. Also that flutterstep when you want to go down the stairs in a hurry, and you just slip into the mode. I can't do that anymore either. Just as well I suppose. I fear falling and I don't mind looking like an old man going down the stairs if that will keep me from some major injury.
I have had a setback in my Christmas lights war, but the battle is still far from over. More on that later.
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Use It or Lose It
The other day I discovered that I could no longer whistle. I never could whistle really loud like some people can do by putting two fingers in their mouth, but I used to be able to whistle a tune, and now I can't. The more I thought about it, I couldn't remember the last time I whistled, so I don't know if I lost that ability gradually or all at once. I also don't know why I haven't whistled in such a long time, I guess I just never felt like it. After trying for long enough to make my lips sore, I was able to get one or two soft notes, but mostly all I got was air.
Remember, I qualified my statement about the Freedom Dividend by saying, "As long as our economy is being driven by consumption instead of production." The US economy was driven by production up to and beyond World War II. Indeed, without our productivity, the war might not have been won, and the post war recovery might never have happened. When Europe was flat on its ass after the war, the Marshall Plan provided it with the cash to rebuild, and most of that cash came right back to the US because we were the only industrial nation that had any production capacity left. Sometime after that, they began shipping our production overseas and turning us into a nation of consumers. I don't know if this was done deliberately for some nefarious purpose, or if it was just a matter of short sightedness or negligence but, one way or another, our production economy was lost, or thrown away.
I clicked on Old Dog's link about the behavioral sink. It appears that there is more to this overcrowding thing than meets the eye. I am willing to concede that merely minnimizing global population growth may not solve all our problems, especially since birth control is not being used by the people who need it most. Indeed, I may be biased because I never did like city living or being in large crowds anyway. Like Daniel Boone, I crave elbow room.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that Labor Day used to be on May 1 which, coincidently, is also a be a big commie holiday. Actually, the celebration of May Day predates communism by a few thousand years, but the commies took it over. So it came to pass that Labor Day was moved to the first Monday in September to distance it from the people who had given May Day a bad name. The correct name for the Fourth of July is "Independence Day", being the day that the Declaration of Independence was signed, but it is commonly called the Fourth of July. I seem to remember that, there was once some kind of commie plot to change the name of Christmas to "Xmas" but, thankfully, it never caught on.
I clicked on Old Dog's link about the behavioral sink. It appears that there is more to this overcrowding thing than meets the eye. I am willing to concede that merely minnimizing global population growth may not solve all our problems, especially since birth control is not being used by the people who need it most. Indeed, I may be biased because I never did like city living or being in large crowds anyway. Like Daniel Boone, I crave elbow room.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that Labor Day used to be on May 1 which, coincidently, is also a be a big commie holiday. Actually, the celebration of May Day predates communism by a few thousand years, but the commies took it over. So it came to pass that Labor Day was moved to the first Monday in September to distance it from the people who had given May Day a bad name. The correct name for the Fourth of July is "Independence Day", being the day that the Declaration of Independence was signed, but it is commonly called the Fourth of July. I seem to remember that, there was once some kind of commie plot to change the name of Christmas to "Xmas" but, thankfully, it never caught on.
Belabored day
It's been a while since the topic of Objective Reality made an appearance and since then a new term has entered the lexicon: deepfake. I wonder if it's too late for OR (objective reality) and we are at a tipping point where we can never be absolutely sure of anything that we don't personally witness, and even then our perceptions may be incorrect. If I observe someone getting hit on the shoulder what did I just see? Was there a blow struck in anger or was a poisonous insect knocked away?
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Studies have been done with non human animals which found that overcrowding causes them to get cranky and pick on each other, even when abundant food is provided.
Yes, but availability of food isn't everything. These are caged animals, after all, hardly a good environment to study their behavior, which is why I suspect that over-population is a phony issue. Mr. Beagles may be referring to Calhoun's study of behavior in his mouse utopia and the idea of a behavioral sink. This is heady stuff; the mice had plenty of room but after a while many of them chose to crowd themselves together and started acting goofy. Other mice withdrew to a remote spot and spent all their time grooming and eating. In the end it all fell apart and they all died despite the availability of food, water, and ample living space. I didn't follow up to see if research has gone any further on this and I am hesitant to make any conclusion except that mice can make bad decisions just like their humanoid cousins.
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Remember that George made his speech on the steps of Old Miss, a taxpayer funded school that would not allow Blacks to attend.
What speech was that? His "segregation forever" speech was at his inauguration as governor in 1963. He did, indeed, stand on the school steps but it was the University of Alabama and he finally did step aside, if my viewing of the news video wasn't part of the fake news. I got the impression that Wallace had a big problem with the federal government and not black people but I could be mistaken. Isn't this all old news and something we have moved beyond?
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Some topics of discussion have worn me out to the point where my mind is made up and unlikely to change. If I fail to participate in a healthy give and take, so be it, but I think we are all being played for chumps and it's not the elected officials that are in charge. The politicians are proxies and placeholders for the real powers that are hidden by PACs and offshore financing, and I need more tinfoil for my hat. George Carlin was right.
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Studies have been done with non human animals which found that overcrowding causes them to get cranky and pick on each other, even when abundant food is provided.
Yes, but availability of food isn't everything. These are caged animals, after all, hardly a good environment to study their behavior, which is why I suspect that over-population is a phony issue. Mr. Beagles may be referring to Calhoun's study of behavior in his mouse utopia and the idea of a behavioral sink. This is heady stuff; the mice had plenty of room but after a while many of them chose to crowd themselves together and started acting goofy. Other mice withdrew to a remote spot and spent all their time grooming and eating. In the end it all fell apart and they all died despite the availability of food, water, and ample living space. I didn't follow up to see if research has gone any further on this and I am hesitant to make any conclusion except that mice can make bad decisions just like their humanoid cousins.
-----
Remember that George made his speech on the steps of Old Miss, a taxpayer funded school that would not allow Blacks to attend.
What speech was that? His "segregation forever" speech was at his inauguration as governor in 1963. He did, indeed, stand on the school steps but it was the University of Alabama and he finally did step aside, if my viewing of the news video wasn't part of the fake news. I got the impression that Wallace had a big problem with the federal government and not black people but I could be mistaken. Isn't this all old news and something we have moved beyond?
-----
Some topics of discussion have worn me out to the point where my mind is made up and unlikely to change. If I fail to participate in a healthy give and take, so be it, but I think we are all being played for chumps and it's not the elected officials that are in charge. The politicians are proxies and placeholders for the real powers that are hidden by PACs and offshore financing, and I need more tinfoil for my hat. George Carlin was right.
Why is Labor Day on Labor Day?
Labor Day is come and gone. It's time to put those white shoes back in the shoebox and store them away until. well probably May, don't want to get them muddy with those April showers. There ought to be a name for the Tuesday following, maybe something like Back to School Tuesday. Most schools open earlier but Chicago still is the day after Labor Day. Not everybody goes to school of course, but we all once did, we all know the gloom of those last dwindling days. The sun rising later, setting sooner, Back to School Sale adverts in all the store windows. I never found it much to be so, but I suppose that there was some excitement in having a new box of crayons with the pristine tips and just everything new and clean and seeing your old buddies again. I'm pretty sure girls liked it, what with the new clothes and they're the ones that played school in the summer for Chrissake,
Speaking of Back to School I have been remiss on doing my internet research on the One Child Policy and exactly what Yang's Freedom Dividend is. I'll get right on it, really,
I find myself in agreement with Beagles about getting money into the hands of consumers, I mean don't those Richy Riches realize that they need to have somebody buy their products? Henry Ford was not a very nice man, but he did pay a decent wage so that his workers could buy his product, you don't see that among the Koch's and their ilk today who oppose raising the pitiful minimum wage at every turn. Doesn't that whole idea go with a fairly run graduated income tax? Isn't that income redistribution at which reps and libertarians throw up their hands in horror, but is one of the cornerstones of my beloved Liberal Agenda?
I suppose that there was some pie in the sky talk about racial harmony among the integrationists, but the driving force was to allow people to have equal rights. Remember that George made his speech on the steps of Old Miss, a taxpayer funded school that would not allow Blacks to attend. How about all those restaurants where Blacks could not sit on the stools, those neighborhoods where Blacks could not move into, the employers who would not hire them? We've come a long ways Baby, and if there is still some incivility, well aren't you nitpicking?
Talking about nitpicking the fact that there was an entourage in Cleveland of a dozen Black people, pales in comparison to the faces of the assemblage of Republican senators. We do have huge ghettos in Chicago but that is an economic thing, nobody gets bricks thrown through their windows for moving into an all-white neighborhood anymore.
Just in on the radio, Biden is saying it really doesn't matter if he gets all that shit wrong because his overall message is true. This sounds like Colbert's truthiness. I'll still pull the lever for him if that should come to pass on election day, but I'll be shaking my head ruefully.
All this time I was wondering why we chose this kind of sad day to honor labor and off the top of the google machine it says because the day is halfway between July 4 and Thanksgiving. Kind of odd, but at least some thought was put into its placement. Why don't we celebrate Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington on their half birthdays so that we would have their holidays in July and August?
Why is the Fourth of July the The Fourth of July? We don't call Christmas the Twenty Fifth of December?
Speaking of Back to School I have been remiss on doing my internet research on the One Child Policy and exactly what Yang's Freedom Dividend is. I'll get right on it, really,
I find myself in agreement with Beagles about getting money into the hands of consumers, I mean don't those Richy Riches realize that they need to have somebody buy their products? Henry Ford was not a very nice man, but he did pay a decent wage so that his workers could buy his product, you don't see that among the Koch's and their ilk today who oppose raising the pitiful minimum wage at every turn. Doesn't that whole idea go with a fairly run graduated income tax? Isn't that income redistribution at which reps and libertarians throw up their hands in horror, but is one of the cornerstones of my beloved Liberal Agenda?
I suppose that there was some pie in the sky talk about racial harmony among the integrationists, but the driving force was to allow people to have equal rights. Remember that George made his speech on the steps of Old Miss, a taxpayer funded school that would not allow Blacks to attend. How about all those restaurants where Blacks could not sit on the stools, those neighborhoods where Blacks could not move into, the employers who would not hire them? We've come a long ways Baby, and if there is still some incivility, well aren't you nitpicking?
Talking about nitpicking the fact that there was an entourage in Cleveland of a dozen Black people, pales in comparison to the faces of the assemblage of Republican senators. We do have huge ghettos in Chicago but that is an economic thing, nobody gets bricks thrown through their windows for moving into an all-white neighborhood anymore.
Just in on the radio, Biden is saying it really doesn't matter if he gets all that shit wrong because his overall message is true. This sounds like Colbert's truthiness. I'll still pull the lever for him if that should come to pass on election day, but I'll be shaking my head ruefully.
All this time I was wondering why we chose this kind of sad day to honor labor and off the top of the google machine it says because the day is halfway between July 4 and Thanksgiving. Kind of odd, but at least some thought was put into its placement. Why don't we celebrate Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington on their half birthdays so that we would have their holidays in July and August?
Why is the Fourth of July the The Fourth of July? We don't call Christmas the Twenty Fifth of December?
Monday, September 2, 2019
Hungry Hordes
My concern with the hungry hordes crossing the desert is not about littering, it's about all those trampling feet stomping on what little vegetation there is and compacting the soil, which generally makes it harder for new vegetation to take root. According to the article, this wall is not impermeable, it's one of those bollard things that looks like jailhouse bars, and it's replacing an existing 15 foot fence that has proven ineffective in keeping out the hungry hordes. As for the non-human wildlife, the new structure shouldn't impact them any more than the old one. I am not aware of any animal in North America that can jump a 15 foot fence.
As for the Freedom dividend, I have said in the past that, as long as our economy is driven by consumption instead of production, they are going to have to get money into people's hands somehow. If they don't want to pay people to work, then they're going to have to pay people not to work. Although unemployment is currently low, the wage scale, adjusted for inflation, is still below what it used to be back in the day. It takes two paychecks nowadays to support most families, either both spouses working or one spouse holding down two jobs.
Back when Obamacare was being debated, it was reported that half the people in the US were already on some kind of government health care. Might as well make it unanimous, since we will be paying for it either way.
What George Wallace said about segregation seems kind of quaint today. I mean, you don't hear words like "segregation" and "integration" anymore. I suppose you could say that the segregationists lost, but I don't think the integrationists won either. Everybody's equal under the law now, as they should be, but they still don't like each other and avoid each other as much as possible. Uncle Ken has reported that Chicago still has it's ghetto, and I suppose most other big cities have theirs as well. On the TV news some years ago, I saw the mayor of Cleveland up on a stage with his whole entourage. There were more than a dozen people on that stage and every one of them was Black. Integration? I think not!
As for the Freedom dividend, I have said in the past that, as long as our economy is driven by consumption instead of production, they are going to have to get money into people's hands somehow. If they don't want to pay people to work, then they're going to have to pay people not to work. Although unemployment is currently low, the wage scale, adjusted for inflation, is still below what it used to be back in the day. It takes two paychecks nowadays to support most families, either both spouses working or one spouse holding down two jobs.
Back when Obamacare was being debated, it was reported that half the people in the US were already on some kind of government health care. Might as well make it unanimous, since we will be paying for it either way.
What George Wallace said about segregation seems kind of quaint today. I mean, you don't hear words like "segregation" and "integration" anymore. I suppose you could say that the segregationists lost, but I don't think the integrationists won either. Everybody's equal under the law now, as they should be, but they still don't like each other and avoid each other as much as possible. Uncle Ken has reported that Chicago still has it's ghetto, and I suppose most other big cities have theirs as well. On the TV news some years ago, I saw the mayor of Cleveland up on a stage with his whole entourage. There were more than a dozen people on that stage and every one of them was Black. Integration? I think not!
the return of Objective Reality
A problem Throughout Latin America is that the tinpot dictators generally don't allow birth control or abortion, they want to have as many subjects as possible. I think this is particularly acute in central America, well in Brazil anymore, now that they have the Trump of the south.
The hungry hordes yearning to breathe free travel lightly, and though they do leave some refuse along the trail I am sure that damage is dwarfed by a huge impermeable wall.
I am surprised that Beagles does not have much of a problem with the freedom benefit, which seems counter to libertarian principles. Ayn Rand would scream her head off.; I also detect a fondness for what his ilk call socialized medicine. And I think he has shown some tolerance for open borders (which by the way, is not what the dems believe in, though we are constantly being accused of that by the reps in the theory that if you say something often enough people will begin to believe it is true). I wonder if he could be saved. But I don't think we could ever convince him that we don't want to pry Old Betsy from his hands. Also we are not likely to nominate a candidate whose platform is segregation forever.
Latest polls show almost all dem candidates would beat Trump by double digits, of course these things could change, but it's better to have them on your side than against you. The main reason to nominate Sleepy Joe is that he is the most likely tool to oust Trump, and I think there is some truth to that in that he will siphon some of the buffoon vote from Trump. and that has made me more tolerant of his candidacy, but this recent gaffe (about pinning the medal on the soldier) has me perturbed. And that is because it goes against Objective Reality.
A single gaffe is no big deal, my candidate, Warren, has that Pocahontas debacle which still makes me cringe. Once a week is more problematic, but what is more problematic is Biden's attitude towards it, that it is no big deal, that the gist of it is true and isn't that what matters?
But I think it does matter. I mean if it was all that important to Biden, if it meant that much to him, how come he can't remember where it happened, or when, or what his role was in it? There are these stories that go around, rife on fb, but also in the real world like, oh I remember one lately that some cities in Britain had become ruled by Sharia law and no non muslims were allowed into them. On the face of it this was preposterous,. In order to track it down and prove it was false, one needed to know where those cities were and when this came to pass, but of course that was nowhere to be found in the story.
That's why getting the place and the time correct is so important, that's how we can track things down and find out if they are true or not. It is one of the linchpins of Objective Reality.
I used to rant about this a few years ago, and I feel a rant coming on now, but outside the horizon is becoming pink, and it is time to get the rest of my day going.
The hungry hordes yearning to breathe free travel lightly, and though they do leave some refuse along the trail I am sure that damage is dwarfed by a huge impermeable wall.
I am surprised that Beagles does not have much of a problem with the freedom benefit, which seems counter to libertarian principles. Ayn Rand would scream her head off.; I also detect a fondness for what his ilk call socialized medicine. And I think he has shown some tolerance for open borders (which by the way, is not what the dems believe in, though we are constantly being accused of that by the reps in the theory that if you say something often enough people will begin to believe it is true). I wonder if he could be saved. But I don't think we could ever convince him that we don't want to pry Old Betsy from his hands. Also we are not likely to nominate a candidate whose platform is segregation forever.
Latest polls show almost all dem candidates would beat Trump by double digits, of course these things could change, but it's better to have them on your side than against you. The main reason to nominate Sleepy Joe is that he is the most likely tool to oust Trump, and I think there is some truth to that in that he will siphon some of the buffoon vote from Trump. and that has made me more tolerant of his candidacy, but this recent gaffe (about pinning the medal on the soldier) has me perturbed. And that is because it goes against Objective Reality.
A single gaffe is no big deal, my candidate, Warren, has that Pocahontas debacle which still makes me cringe. Once a week is more problematic, but what is more problematic is Biden's attitude towards it, that it is no big deal, that the gist of it is true and isn't that what matters?
But I think it does matter. I mean if it was all that important to Biden, if it meant that much to him, how come he can't remember where it happened, or when, or what his role was in it? There are these stories that go around, rife on fb, but also in the real world like, oh I remember one lately that some cities in Britain had become ruled by Sharia law and no non muslims were allowed into them. On the face of it this was preposterous,. In order to track it down and prove it was false, one needed to know where those cities were and when this came to pass, but of course that was nowhere to be found in the story.
That's why getting the place and the time correct is so important, that's how we can track things down and find out if they are true or not. It is one of the linchpins of Objective Reality.
I used to rant about this a few years ago, and I feel a rant coming on now, but outside the horizon is becoming pink, and it is time to get the rest of my day going.
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