Like I said, there are lots of poor people in Cheboygan County but, as far as I know, they all have some place to stay. According to that newspaper account I read years ago, most of them are staying with friends or relatives. The Salvation Army takes some of them in, but they don't have a barracks or anything like that, so they must put them up in private homes. There are also subsidized rental units, my brother in law used to live in one before he died. After he died, I helped my other brother in law clean out his apartment and dispose of his stuff. It was nice in there, no frills, but clean and modern. We talked with a few of his neighbors, and I think all of them were pretty poor, but they looked to be healthy and well fed.
There is a lot of camping going on in the summer and deer season, but I think almost all of it is recreational. I have never heard of anybody sleeping in their cars, except for drunks that pull over on their way home from the bar because they don't feel competent to continue driving. I have been told, by people who have done it, that you need to take the keys out of the ignition and put them in your pocket when you do that because, if the cops catch you with keys in the ignition, you are legally driving drunk, even if the engine is turned off. They won't let you sleep on a park bench or anything like that around here. Camping is only allowed in designated camp grounds and you need a permit. I believe the longest they will let you stay in one place is 30 days. There is some camping done on private property with the owner's permission, but I think there is a 30 day time limit on that too. The cops won't roust you out unless somebody files a complaint, so some campers probably stay longer than 30 days on private property. I have never seen nor heard of anything like a hobo camp around here.
The whole point of my plan to pay kids to attend school is that they will have their own money and learn how to manage it responsibly, so I don't see any point in giving it to their parents. I'm not talking about a lot of money here, maybe a dollar a day or something like that for the younger ones, with regular raises based on seniority and grades. I don't see how corruption would enter into it. If some bully steals or cons money from another kid, he would be required to pay it back double, the restitution to be taken out of his own paycheck. What I'm trying to do here is to reward good behavior and punish bad behavior. I don't care how much money the kid's family has, reward and punishment should be based on what you do, not who you are. This is not welfare, it's workfare.
Of course this program would not be cheap, but neither is what thy do now, with all those counselors, truant officers, and other interventionists trying to straighten out the wayward kids. Like I said, I think it would pay for itself in the long run because we would be turning out solid citizens who would pay their taxes and, hopefully, stay out of jail.
I'm not doing anything different with my investments than I have been doing. I take a thousand dollars a month out of my IRA (stock market) and put it into my money market fund so that I don't have to sell stocks to pay large or unexpected bills. You don't want to ever have to sell stocks because, if the market is down that day, you could lose money. If you take the same amount out on the same day each month, the stock prices should average out over time. Timing the market is for the experts, and even they don't always get it right. At this time of my life, I'm not trying to gain money, I'm trying to make what I have last till I and my hypothetical wife die. If there is anything left, our daughter will get it, but we're more concerned that we don't become a burden on her while we're alive than we are about leaving her an inheritance. The market goes up and down all the time, and you can drive yourself nuts worrying about those short term oscillations, or you can focus on the long term picture. If you can live off your investment for the rest of your life and still have at least as much money as you started with, then you're doing all right.
I still find it hard to believe that Trump is for real. In my opinion, the only reason he's out there is to make it easier for Hillary to win. I will certainly not vote for him in the primary but, if he gets the Republican nomination, I will vote for him in the general election. I don't expect him to win but, if he does, it might be fun watching him make a fool of himself for four years, or however long he manages to remain president.
Monday, February 29, 2016
trumpy dumpty
I was just assuming that your side would do away with unions and minimum
wage because that is a big issue among your candidates. I guess both
sides would have some rich and poor but I expect your side would have
more of the former and my side more of the latter.
There was a whole thing about hobos, tramps, and bums some time ago, maybe back in depression days when the downtrodden were riding the rails, and they had some way of marking a house, some grouping of stones or something like that, where a feller could knock on the door and the lady of the house would have some kind of chore for the feller and she would reward him with soup and sandwich. And then there would be those houses where the lady would set her pie on the sill to cool off and an enterprising bum could pluck it off and head down the road.
I wonder how much of that was actually true. In any case I suspect the days of hobos and tramps are gone. There are still some people who call themselves hobos and I've read about people who ride the rails almost like an exotic hobby.
Bums doesn't sound too good, and probably it's unfair in that some of these people are merely unfortunate and not lazy and some of them are not right in the head. Homeless sounds better. It's hard to imagine not having a bed to come home to, and even if you had like a bedroll, it would be tucked away in an alley or an underpass with certainly no locked door to protect it so that anybody could go through it, or the maybe some workers would toss it because it was in their way.
I googled 'homeless Cheboygan' and was informed that there were no homeless shelters withing thirty miles of Cheboygan, but it's hard to believe that there are no homeless there, I mean people lose their homes everywhere. Surely there are people sleeping in their cars or in the parks or camped out in hobo villages on the outskirts of town, but I don't live there.
I think the Republicans had like a dozen debates last election cycle and that was widely seen as dragging Romney through the dirt so that he never had a chance of beating Obama. At the time the Republicans boasted that the more debates they had the better because it was a way of spreading their message. This time they only scheduled eight, and that has proven to be way too many. I think the dems have about the same amount, but it's just the big girl and the commie and they are rather sedate.
I expect the reps would not have had such a circus if it hadn't been for Trump. At first they thought he would fade away and they didn't want to offend his followers so they treated him with kid gloves, but now that it is almost too late they are throwing the kitchen sink at him, and of course he just responds in time, and that's where you get all these pro wrestling spectacles. I just heard the phrase on the radio 'contested convention.' In our lifetimes conventions have been used as an advertisement for the party, anointing their candidates amid speeches and flim clips. Can you imagine Trump at a contested convention? As my ilk used to chant way back when, "The whole world is watching."
I kind of like the idea of paying kids to go to school. Actually I think I would pay the parents because it is their job to get the kids to school. I don't know about better grades because then we would be getting into bribery and corruption. Are we going to pay all kids or just poor kids? It does sound a little like welfare, which is ok by me, but maybe not for you, and it would certainly raise taxes.
As for the stock market, I don't know. As long as it's rising everybody can make money out of it, but when it's falling most people are going to lose money. How about this current bear market? What are you doing to make money off that?
Wait a minute did I hear you right, that if Trump gets the nomination you will vote for him? And you are doing that because you think They want you to vote for the libertarian? Just checking.
There was a whole thing about hobos, tramps, and bums some time ago, maybe back in depression days when the downtrodden were riding the rails, and they had some way of marking a house, some grouping of stones or something like that, where a feller could knock on the door and the lady of the house would have some kind of chore for the feller and she would reward him with soup and sandwich. And then there would be those houses where the lady would set her pie on the sill to cool off and an enterprising bum could pluck it off and head down the road.
I wonder how much of that was actually true. In any case I suspect the days of hobos and tramps are gone. There are still some people who call themselves hobos and I've read about people who ride the rails almost like an exotic hobby.
Bums doesn't sound too good, and probably it's unfair in that some of these people are merely unfortunate and not lazy and some of them are not right in the head. Homeless sounds better. It's hard to imagine not having a bed to come home to, and even if you had like a bedroll, it would be tucked away in an alley or an underpass with certainly no locked door to protect it so that anybody could go through it, or the maybe some workers would toss it because it was in their way.
I googled 'homeless Cheboygan' and was informed that there were no homeless shelters withing thirty miles of Cheboygan, but it's hard to believe that there are no homeless there, I mean people lose their homes everywhere. Surely there are people sleeping in their cars or in the parks or camped out in hobo villages on the outskirts of town, but I don't live there.
I think the Republicans had like a dozen debates last election cycle and that was widely seen as dragging Romney through the dirt so that he never had a chance of beating Obama. At the time the Republicans boasted that the more debates they had the better because it was a way of spreading their message. This time they only scheduled eight, and that has proven to be way too many. I think the dems have about the same amount, but it's just the big girl and the commie and they are rather sedate.
I expect the reps would not have had such a circus if it hadn't been for Trump. At first they thought he would fade away and they didn't want to offend his followers so they treated him with kid gloves, but now that it is almost too late they are throwing the kitchen sink at him, and of course he just responds in time, and that's where you get all these pro wrestling spectacles. I just heard the phrase on the radio 'contested convention.' In our lifetimes conventions have been used as an advertisement for the party, anointing their candidates amid speeches and flim clips. Can you imagine Trump at a contested convention? As my ilk used to chant way back when, "The whole world is watching."
I kind of like the idea of paying kids to go to school. Actually I think I would pay the parents because it is their job to get the kids to school. I don't know about better grades because then we would be getting into bribery and corruption. Are we going to pay all kids or just poor kids? It does sound a little like welfare, which is ok by me, but maybe not for you, and it would certainly raise taxes.
As for the stock market, I don't know. As long as it's rising everybody can make money out of it, but when it's falling most people are going to lose money. How about this current bear market? What are you doing to make money off that?
Wait a minute did I hear you right, that if Trump gets the nomination you will vote for him? And you are doing that because you think They want you to vote for the libertarian? Just checking.
Friday, February 26, 2016
You Don't Get to Say
You don't get to say what laws our guys will pass and we don't get to say what laws your guys will pass. Isn't that the whole point of splitting the people up in the first place? Also, you are doing a lot of stereotyping here. All Republicans are not rich pricks and all Democrats are not poor downtrodden peasants. Take you and I for example. Not that it's any of my business, but I am guessing that you have more money than I do, based on where you live and where I live, yet you are a Democrat and I am a Republican.
That shelter developer was quoted in our local newspaper, and he was quoting a line from the movie "Field of Dreams". You may be right that he didn't mean it the way I interpreted it, but the fact still remains that we don't have homeless people living in the streets in Cheboygan County. It's not that we don't have poor people around here, but they don't live in the streets like they do in the big cities. I thought it was because of the climate, but you're right, Chicago is not all that much warmer than Cheboygan, so I guess I don't know why.
When did they start calling them "homeless people" instead of "bums" anyway? I remember seeing some bums in Chicago on Canal Street when I had a part time job on Clinton, one block over. Actually, they weren't all bums, some of them were hoboes. According to a guy I once met who claimed to be a hobo himself, the difference is that a hobo is a migratory worker and a bum is a migratory non-worker. Another time I read somewhere that a tramp is a migratory non-worker, while a bum is a stationary non-worker. Then again, in Robert Frost's poem "Two Tramps at Mud Time", the two tramps are seasonally out of work lumberjacks. Maybe that's why they invented the term "homeless", because there was no general agreement about the exact meaning of the other terms. Anyway, on Canal Street there were a couple of places that hired people by the day, which is why I say that those guys weren't all bums, some of them must have worked at least some of the time. Be that as it may, what did bums, hoboes and tramps do before they invented homeless shelters? I have read that they had soup kitchens during the Great Depression, but I don't remember reading that they had homeless shelters until they started calling them homeless people. I have never heard of bum, tramp, or hobo shelters, so where did those guys go when it got cold outside?
I don't know what to tell you about Trump, Cruz, and Rubio. I thought that Trump was a joke at first, but now he is being taken seriously. You know more about it than I do. Do you think that arguing with Trump has made the other two guys funny in the head, or were they always that way? From what you tell me, these so-called debates aren't really debates, more like shouting matches. Why are they having so many of them anyway? I don't remember them having weekly debates for a year before any other election. Are the Democrats having that many too? Be that as it may, I have changed my mind about voting Libertarian if Trump wins the Republican nomination. Now I am resolved to vote for any Republican they put up there because it has become obvious to me that is exactly what they don't want me to do. Why else would they have the Republicans making such fools of themselves?
2/28/16: Meanwhile, back at Splitsville, I have come up with as plan for our Republican schools. I saw something on TV once about an urban school district that was actually paying kids to attend. They figured that it was cheaper than sending truant officers after them when they didn't show up for days at a time. It was just an experiment, and I haven't heard anything about it since, so I don't know how it worked out for them. One of the problems with kids nowadays is that there are few paying jobs available to them, so why not make school their job? I don't know how much we would have to pay them to make it worth their while, but I am guessing not all that much, since they aren't making anything at all now, except for the pimps and the drug dealers, but we could never compete with them anyway. I would also pay them more if they got good grades and dock their pay for tardiness, absenteeism, and misbehavior.
Now that they would have a few bucks in their pockets, it would behoove us to teach them about financial responsibility, so I would start teaching money management skills in all the grades. By first grade they should know how to count money and make change and, by twelfth grade, they should know how to make money in the stock market. We could also have something like those 401K plans, where we would match any money they chose to put aside for the future if they commit to leaving it in there till graduation. We might have to float some bonds for start up costs, but the program should eventually pay for itself because we would be turning out productive tax paying citizens. Kids from the Democracy would be welcome to attend free of charge because we would likely transform them into money grubbing capitalists like ourselves.
That shelter developer was quoted in our local newspaper, and he was quoting a line from the movie "Field of Dreams". You may be right that he didn't mean it the way I interpreted it, but the fact still remains that we don't have homeless people living in the streets in Cheboygan County. It's not that we don't have poor people around here, but they don't live in the streets like they do in the big cities. I thought it was because of the climate, but you're right, Chicago is not all that much warmer than Cheboygan, so I guess I don't know why.
When did they start calling them "homeless people" instead of "bums" anyway? I remember seeing some bums in Chicago on Canal Street when I had a part time job on Clinton, one block over. Actually, they weren't all bums, some of them were hoboes. According to a guy I once met who claimed to be a hobo himself, the difference is that a hobo is a migratory worker and a bum is a migratory non-worker. Another time I read somewhere that a tramp is a migratory non-worker, while a bum is a stationary non-worker. Then again, in Robert Frost's poem "Two Tramps at Mud Time", the two tramps are seasonally out of work lumberjacks. Maybe that's why they invented the term "homeless", because there was no general agreement about the exact meaning of the other terms. Anyway, on Canal Street there were a couple of places that hired people by the day, which is why I say that those guys weren't all bums, some of them must have worked at least some of the time. Be that as it may, what did bums, hoboes and tramps do before they invented homeless shelters? I have read that they had soup kitchens during the Great Depression, but I don't remember reading that they had homeless shelters until they started calling them homeless people. I have never heard of bum, tramp, or hobo shelters, so where did those guys go when it got cold outside?
I don't know what to tell you about Trump, Cruz, and Rubio. I thought that Trump was a joke at first, but now he is being taken seriously. You know more about it than I do. Do you think that arguing with Trump has made the other two guys funny in the head, or were they always that way? From what you tell me, these so-called debates aren't really debates, more like shouting matches. Why are they having so many of them anyway? I don't remember them having weekly debates for a year before any other election. Are the Democrats having that many too? Be that as it may, I have changed my mind about voting Libertarian if Trump wins the Republican nomination. Now I am resolved to vote for any Republican they put up there because it has become obvious to me that is exactly what they don't want me to do. Why else would they have the Republicans making such fools of themselves?
2/28/16: Meanwhile, back at Splitsville, I have come up with as plan for our Republican schools. I saw something on TV once about an urban school district that was actually paying kids to attend. They figured that it was cheaper than sending truant officers after them when they didn't show up for days at a time. It was just an experiment, and I haven't heard anything about it since, so I don't know how it worked out for them. One of the problems with kids nowadays is that there are few paying jobs available to them, so why not make school their job? I don't know how much we would have to pay them to make it worth their while, but I am guessing not all that much, since they aren't making anything at all now, except for the pimps and the drug dealers, but we could never compete with them anyway. I would also pay them more if they got good grades and dock their pay for tardiness, absenteeism, and misbehavior.
Now that they would have a few bucks in their pockets, it would behoove us to teach them about financial responsibility, so I would start teaching money management skills in all the grades. By first grade they should know how to count money and make change and, by twelfth grade, they should know how to make money in the stock market. We could also have something like those 401K plans, where we would match any money they chose to put aside for the future if they commit to leaving it in there till graduation. We might have to float some bonds for start up costs, but the program should eventually pay for itself because we would be turning out productive tax paying citizens. Kids from the Democracy would be welcome to attend free of charge because we would likely transform them into money grubbing capitalists like ourselves.
throwing chairs again
I was thinking in the Republic those right to work laws would be very
popular. and in fact, having no opposition, I'm sure the Republic would
outright make unions illegal, and likewise they would pass laws that
would do away with the minimum wage. My thinking is that the laws you
guys pass are applicable to your people and the laws we pass would be
applicable to our people. It does get thorny when we get down to the
private sector. If I am hiring I guess I want to hire people from the
Republic because I can pay them peanuts and don't have to worry about
any pesky unions. But I am probably not going to find many people like
that because most employees will go to the Democracy so they can get a
minimum wage and have a union. Well maybe you guys would just buy a
bunch of robots to build your stuff, but then who would you sell it
too? I suppose you could pay the robots and program them to buy your
stuff, but there seems to be a flaw in there somewhere.
It sounds like a very foolish thing for that shelter developer to say, are you sure those are his exact words? Possibly he meant that even though your mayor said there were no homeless in town, he was mistaken, and once he built the shelter the homeless would come skulking in from the alleys and the ravines and the underpasses. You know those shelters, they are not like the Ritz Hotel, they are just a cot in a big room full of smelly people and you have to get out at dawn and not come back until nighttime. It's not like anybody is going to quit their job and live that life of Riley.
We have tons of bums downtown, where I suppose life is a bit easier with steam grates and fancy restaurants and crowds to beg from than it is in the neighborhoods, Even though we are no frozen swamp just across the river or strait, or whatever, from the socialist popsicle of Canada, we get plenty cold enough in the winter. There were lots more bums in Texas when I lived there. I reckon if I was a bum, I would head south even though Traverse City had that snazzy shelter.
You know they can hack anything, so I wouldn't worry about that chip. Perhaps the Democracy could hack the chips of the Republic and make decent folks of you guys. Not that we would do anything like that of course.
What you are saying about the Republican primary is what the pundits have been saying since the primaries started. Before then the theory was that Trump can't win and now the theory is Oh Fuck. Rubio talks a lot of tea party talk and has a crazed look on his neatly combed boy scout face, but he has roots in moderation, and the moderates see him as the best that they can do. Cruz is batshit crazy and proud of it. Neither guy and neither side shows any inclination to go for that coin toss thing, and even if they did, it's not a sure thing that either one could beat Trump mano a mano. It's a pretty sure thing that in an election including moderates and democrats Trump could never win, but you never know.
Saw the debate last night. If you are a fan of throwing chairs this was the cat's pajamas. At several points all three were yelling at the same time (Kasich and Carson were just there as knicknacks). I don't know why they don't have those buttons where they can turn off your microphone or why they don't soundproof the crowd, or why they have a crowd at all.
Instead of going at each other as they usually do Cruz and Rubio ganged up on Trump, it looked to me like he got the worst of it, but Trump people, you never know what they are thinking.
It sounds like a very foolish thing for that shelter developer to say, are you sure those are his exact words? Possibly he meant that even though your mayor said there were no homeless in town, he was mistaken, and once he built the shelter the homeless would come skulking in from the alleys and the ravines and the underpasses. You know those shelters, they are not like the Ritz Hotel, they are just a cot in a big room full of smelly people and you have to get out at dawn and not come back until nighttime. It's not like anybody is going to quit their job and live that life of Riley.
We have tons of bums downtown, where I suppose life is a bit easier with steam grates and fancy restaurants and crowds to beg from than it is in the neighborhoods, Even though we are no frozen swamp just across the river or strait, or whatever, from the socialist popsicle of Canada, we get plenty cold enough in the winter. There were lots more bums in Texas when I lived there. I reckon if I was a bum, I would head south even though Traverse City had that snazzy shelter.
You know they can hack anything, so I wouldn't worry about that chip. Perhaps the Democracy could hack the chips of the Republic and make decent folks of you guys. Not that we would do anything like that of course.
What you are saying about the Republican primary is what the pundits have been saying since the primaries started. Before then the theory was that Trump can't win and now the theory is Oh Fuck. Rubio talks a lot of tea party talk and has a crazed look on his neatly combed boy scout face, but he has roots in moderation, and the moderates see him as the best that they can do. Cruz is batshit crazy and proud of it. Neither guy and neither side shows any inclination to go for that coin toss thing, and even if they did, it's not a sure thing that either one could beat Trump mano a mano. It's a pretty sure thing that in an election including moderates and democrats Trump could never win, but you never know.
Saw the debate last night. If you are a fan of throwing chairs this was the cat's pajamas. At several points all three were yelling at the same time (Kasich and Carson were just there as knicknacks). I don't know why they don't have those buttons where they can turn off your microphone or why they don't soundproof the crowd, or why they have a crowd at all.
Instead of going at each other as they usually do Cruz and Rubio ganged up on Trump, it looked to me like he got the worst of it, but Trump people, you never know what they are thinking.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
No Fair!
Either I didn't fully understand the rules of this scenario or you are changing the rules in the middle of the game. Why should our side have to eliminate labor unions and otherwise oppress the working people? Indeed, I thought that many of us are the working people. As I understood it, the original deal was that we would pay less taxes and be entitled to less government services. Although the government regulates both labor unions and corporations, that doesn't make them government services. Both belong in what is commonly called the "private sector". Military protection is certainly a government service, but we are already paying for that with the money we saved by not having to fund the social welfare programs, which are also government services. As the old saying goes, "Who pays the fiddler calls the tune." You guys get to vote on the social welfare programs and we get to vote on the military issues. So far we haven't assigned the commercial marketplace to either side, maybe we need to talk about that.
Homeless people: It's been a few years, but I seem to remember it went something like this. There are people in Cheboygan County who don't have homes of their own, but they are all staying with friends or relatives. If you want to call them "homeless", I guess you can, but they are certainly not living in the streets because it's way too cold around here for anybody to do that. Even at the peak of summer, it is not unusual for our night time temperatures to dip into the 40s, and, without adequate protection, hypothermia becomes an issue at 50. Traverse City is only a little warmer than we are, but they get way more snow in the winter, so I don't know where their homeless people came from. My guess is they moved there after the shelter was built. They may have been hanging around during the summer, planning to leave in the fall, but decided to stay after the shelter was provided, I don't know. The fact that the developer was quoted as saying "If you build it they will come." suggests that the homeless shelter he was trying to sell us would be a magnet that would draw homeless people to Cheboygan. Why he would think that was a good selling point is a mystery to me.
I don't know how much information is stored on the chips they implant in animals, but all we would need on ours is name, address, and citizenship or immigrant status. They could scan people with the wand when they vote, run for public office, or apply for any kind of job or government service. Then again, I suppose those chips can be hacked like anything else, so maybe they wouldn't be any more effective than the IDs we have now. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
I haven't heard about the discovery of gravity waves. One more thing to look up in my spare time.
I did pick up some conversation about the primaries on the Bloomberg Channel today while I was checking the stock marker numbers. I turned the sound on when the banner on the bottom said "Can Trump be Stopped?" Apparently I am not the only one who wants to dump the Trump, but nobody is sure how to go about doing that, or if it's even possible. The "establishment Republicans" seem to have given up on the moderate candidates and have identified Rubio as the lesser of three evils. Remember, you heard it first from Talks With Beagles!
Homeless people: It's been a few years, but I seem to remember it went something like this. There are people in Cheboygan County who don't have homes of their own, but they are all staying with friends or relatives. If you want to call them "homeless", I guess you can, but they are certainly not living in the streets because it's way too cold around here for anybody to do that. Even at the peak of summer, it is not unusual for our night time temperatures to dip into the 40s, and, without adequate protection, hypothermia becomes an issue at 50. Traverse City is only a little warmer than we are, but they get way more snow in the winter, so I don't know where their homeless people came from. My guess is they moved there after the shelter was built. They may have been hanging around during the summer, planning to leave in the fall, but decided to stay after the shelter was provided, I don't know. The fact that the developer was quoted as saying "If you build it they will come." suggests that the homeless shelter he was trying to sell us would be a magnet that would draw homeless people to Cheboygan. Why he would think that was a good selling point is a mystery to me.
I don't know how much information is stored on the chips they implant in animals, but all we would need on ours is name, address, and citizenship or immigrant status. They could scan people with the wand when they vote, run for public office, or apply for any kind of job or government service. Then again, I suppose those chips can be hacked like anything else, so maybe they wouldn't be any more effective than the IDs we have now. Oh well, back to the drawing board.
I haven't heard about the discovery of gravity waves. One more thing to look up in my spare time.
I did pick up some conversation about the primaries on the Bloomberg Channel today while I was checking the stock marker numbers. I turned the sound on when the banner on the bottom said "Can Trump be Stopped?" Apparently I am not the only one who wants to dump the Trump, but nobody is sure how to go about doing that, or if it's even possible. The "establishment Republicans" seem to have given up on the moderate candidates and have identified Rubio as the lesser of three evils. Remember, you heard it first from Talks With Beagles!
wrestling for the soul of America
Maybe once the dem poor become plutocrats they will join the reps, but
if they are working class they are not going to want to join the
republic where there will be no unions, no minimum wage, no forty hour
week, and where they will have to pay for schooling and other things
that the government supplies in the democracy. No, it's not, and has
never been, our policy to reduce everybody to the lowest common
denominator. Isn't it your policy to stomp on the poor until they are
like some kind of jelly that you can scrape off the soles of your
Corinthian leather shoes?
I can't speak to the economies of your upper looper cities, but it hardly seems likely that Cheboygan had no homeless people. Maybe the reason Traverse City had to build another homeless shelter was because homeless Cheboyganers moved there.
Myself, they could put a chip in me, I wouldn't have to carry a wallet with ids, or even money come to think of it, all my credit card info would be on it. Actually I don't like those people who pay for everything with their card, or anymore they hold out their stoopid phone, it holds up the line for a busy retiree like me, and I just like cash, the feel of the wad in my pocket, the jingle jangle of the coins. But I don't see how that is going to keep anybody out. They don't stop for id checks on the border, and I don't think most of the guys that hire them do it because they think they are legal.
Some of that stuff like alternate universes or the ones where you have like eleven dimensions only seven of them are all curled up in the other four are just speculation. But stuff like quantum physics and relativity (have you heard way up there that they have just detected gravity waves?), you need that to enjoy many of our modern miracles. Your gps for example won't work without it, but if you are not making, but merely using them, I expect you'd do as well thinking it was the good lord guiding you.
Another Republican debate tonight, I am almost embarrassed to watch it, like somebody walking in on me and discovering I am watching Jerry Springer, but watch it I will.
It's a three man race now, though Kasich and Carson are still hanging in, God, or the eleven dimensions, knows why. It strikes me that Cruz and Rubio are like those guys in the prisoner's dilemma (Where they are both arrested, and if neither one confesses they will both get off scot free, but if one confesses and the other doesn't he will do a lot less time than the guy who doesn't confess). If one of them drops out they wouldn't be splitting the anti-Trump vote, and the guy who stays in will have a better chance to win the nomination. There has been some talk of this lately, where one would be the prez, and one the veep. Maybe they would flip a coin, or maybe it would be more American if they arm wrestled. Hey wouldn't both of those guys make great pro wrestlers? Oh god, I bet right now there is some pro wrestler taking on the Trump character.
And then there is that supreme court thing, right now Obama is thinking of nominating the republican governor of Nevada. He knows the republicans aren't going to consider any of his nominations so he might as well pick the most moderate, even right of moderate, guy he can find, just to make the republicans look as obstructionist as possible. Still a mystery to me why O'Connell is slamming the door so hard when all he had to do was give Obama's nominees a polite hearing and give them thumbs down. I think it had something to do with the election, folks get fired up this time of year.
And now we have something where Biden, in 1992 when the shoe was on the other foot, said Bush I should not nominate anybody in his last year of presidency, but then the leaders of the republicans said the opposite thing. Both sides pretend to be following some higher law of precedence, but it is basically a power struggle.
On to tonight's wrestling match, er, debate. Trump will be the villain with charisma, Cruz will be the villain without charisma, Rubio will be the goody-goody good guy, Kasich will be the good guy who becomes a bad guy, or maybe the bad guy who becomes a good guy, one or the other, and who knows what Carson will be, but then who has ever?
I can't speak to the economies of your upper looper cities, but it hardly seems likely that Cheboygan had no homeless people. Maybe the reason Traverse City had to build another homeless shelter was because homeless Cheboyganers moved there.
Myself, they could put a chip in me, I wouldn't have to carry a wallet with ids, or even money come to think of it, all my credit card info would be on it. Actually I don't like those people who pay for everything with their card, or anymore they hold out their stoopid phone, it holds up the line for a busy retiree like me, and I just like cash, the feel of the wad in my pocket, the jingle jangle of the coins. But I don't see how that is going to keep anybody out. They don't stop for id checks on the border, and I don't think most of the guys that hire them do it because they think they are legal.
Some of that stuff like alternate universes or the ones where you have like eleven dimensions only seven of them are all curled up in the other four are just speculation. But stuff like quantum physics and relativity (have you heard way up there that they have just detected gravity waves?), you need that to enjoy many of our modern miracles. Your gps for example won't work without it, but if you are not making, but merely using them, I expect you'd do as well thinking it was the good lord guiding you.
Another Republican debate tonight, I am almost embarrassed to watch it, like somebody walking in on me and discovering I am watching Jerry Springer, but watch it I will.
It's a three man race now, though Kasich and Carson are still hanging in, God, or the eleven dimensions, knows why. It strikes me that Cruz and Rubio are like those guys in the prisoner's dilemma (Where they are both arrested, and if neither one confesses they will both get off scot free, but if one confesses and the other doesn't he will do a lot less time than the guy who doesn't confess). If one of them drops out they wouldn't be splitting the anti-Trump vote, and the guy who stays in will have a better chance to win the nomination. There has been some talk of this lately, where one would be the prez, and one the veep. Maybe they would flip a coin, or maybe it would be more American if they arm wrestled. Hey wouldn't both of those guys make great pro wrestlers? Oh god, I bet right now there is some pro wrestler taking on the Trump character.
And then there is that supreme court thing, right now Obama is thinking of nominating the republican governor of Nevada. He knows the republicans aren't going to consider any of his nominations so he might as well pick the most moderate, even right of moderate, guy he can find, just to make the republicans look as obstructionist as possible. Still a mystery to me why O'Connell is slamming the door so hard when all he had to do was give Obama's nominees a polite hearing and give them thumbs down. I think it had something to do with the election, folks get fired up this time of year.
And now we have something where Biden, in 1992 when the shoe was on the other foot, said Bush I should not nominate anybody in his last year of presidency, but then the leaders of the republicans said the opposite thing. Both sides pretend to be following some higher law of precedence, but it is basically a power struggle.
On to tonight's wrestling match, er, debate. Trump will be the villain with charisma, Cruz will be the villain without charisma, Rubio will be the goody-goody good guy, Kasich will be the good guy who becomes a bad guy, or maybe the bad guy who becomes a good guy, one or the other, and who knows what Carson will be, but then who has ever?
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
"If You Build it, They Will Come"
My statement about keeping the poor people poor was intended to be advice for your ilk. I don't expect that my ilk will have to deal with the poor people because we won't have any in our group. The poor will flock to your group for the benefits but, as soon as they have anything, they will flock to our group because we will allow them to keep what they have. That's why I said that you should maintain your poor people in their poverty if you want to keep them in your group. Isn't that what you guys try to do now, reduce everybody to the lowest common denominator?
Traverse City built a homeless shelter some years ago, and the developer later came to Cheboygan to try to sell our city council on the idea. One of our councilors informed him that we don't have any homeless people in Cheboygan. His response was, "If you build it, they will come." (I'm not making this up!) Well, we didn't build it, and they didn't come. Meanwhile, Traverse City has expanded their shelter a couple of times and, last I heard, they were planning to build a whole new one.
The more I think about it, there is no way to keep someone out of this country if they want to get in badly enough. It might be better to work on some kind of forge proof national ID, something like the implanted chips that they already use for pets and farm animals. It's not a big deal, the animals don't seem to notice it, but you can scan them with a wand and painlessly access the information. Who could possibly object to something like that?
You know, that "earth, air, fire and water" theory wasn't that far off the beam. Oh, and you forgot about "ether" or, as the Greeks used to spell it, "Aether", which is anything that doesn't fit into any of the other four categories, including all the supernatural stuff that your ilk doesn't believe in. They do, however, believe in other invisible stuff like quarks and alternate universes. For most of us, knowledge of quarks and stuff like that is totally useless, we could live our whole lives without it and never miss it, but we deal with earth, air, fire, and water every day. As for the ether, that comes into play whenever a child asks you a question that you can't answer.
We have bobcats here, but they are seldom seen, being shy and reclusive creatures. I saw one once in my life while hunting rabbits in the thick swamp with my dogs. By the time I figured out what it was, it was gone. Somebody got a photo of a cougar once with a trail cam, and some researchers from the university spent all summer looking for it and only found a pile of its poop. (Your tax dollars at work!) There have been a few wolf sightings over the years, but they are believed to be transients just passing though. We used to have lots of black bears until they closed all the township dumps back in the 80s. There are still a few of them around but, like the bobcats, they are seldom seen. We also have muskrats, weasels, badgers, skunks, porcupines, raccoons, possums, woodchucks, foxes (both red and gray), and lots of different birds.
There are lots of causes of deer mortality around here, but I'm not sure which one is the most important. Newborn fawns are very vulnerable to almost any kind of predator. First time mothers don't always know how to care for and protect them, and it's not unusual for them to lose their fawns. Winter is a hard time for all deer, but especially the young ones less than a year old. Deep snow makes it hard for them to move around and they may expend more calories finding food than they get from eating it. Thawing and refreezing can form a crust on the snow, just strong enough to support dogs and coyotes, but not strong enough for the deer to stay on top. If you've ever walked through snow like that, you know how exhausting it can be. Herbivores have to eat more often than carnivores, and even a small dog can run a deer to exhaustion in a matter of hours. Of course, we hunters take our share, but I honestly don't know if more deer succumb to us or to natural causes.
Traverse City built a homeless shelter some years ago, and the developer later came to Cheboygan to try to sell our city council on the idea. One of our councilors informed him that we don't have any homeless people in Cheboygan. His response was, "If you build it, they will come." (I'm not making this up!) Well, we didn't build it, and they didn't come. Meanwhile, Traverse City has expanded their shelter a couple of times and, last I heard, they were planning to build a whole new one.
The more I think about it, there is no way to keep someone out of this country if they want to get in badly enough. It might be better to work on some kind of forge proof national ID, something like the implanted chips that they already use for pets and farm animals. It's not a big deal, the animals don't seem to notice it, but you can scan them with a wand and painlessly access the information. Who could possibly object to something like that?
You know, that "earth, air, fire and water" theory wasn't that far off the beam. Oh, and you forgot about "ether" or, as the Greeks used to spell it, "Aether", which is anything that doesn't fit into any of the other four categories, including all the supernatural stuff that your ilk doesn't believe in. They do, however, believe in other invisible stuff like quarks and alternate universes. For most of us, knowledge of quarks and stuff like that is totally useless, we could live our whole lives without it and never miss it, but we deal with earth, air, fire, and water every day. As for the ether, that comes into play whenever a child asks you a question that you can't answer.
We have bobcats here, but they are seldom seen, being shy and reclusive creatures. I saw one once in my life while hunting rabbits in the thick swamp with my dogs. By the time I figured out what it was, it was gone. Somebody got a photo of a cougar once with a trail cam, and some researchers from the university spent all summer looking for it and only found a pile of its poop. (Your tax dollars at work!) There have been a few wolf sightings over the years, but they are believed to be transients just passing though. We used to have lots of black bears until they closed all the township dumps back in the 80s. There are still a few of them around but, like the bobcats, they are seldom seen. We also have muskrats, weasels, badgers, skunks, porcupines, raccoons, possums, woodchucks, foxes (both red and gray), and lots of different birds.
There are lots of causes of deer mortality around here, but I'm not sure which one is the most important. Newborn fawns are very vulnerable to almost any kind of predator. First time mothers don't always know how to care for and protect them, and it's not unusual for them to lose their fawns. Winter is a hard time for all deer, but especially the young ones less than a year old. Deep snow makes it hard for them to move around and they may expend more calories finding food than they get from eating it. Thawing and refreezing can form a crust on the snow, just strong enough to support dogs and coyotes, but not strong enough for the deer to stay on top. If you've ever walked through snow like that, you know how exhausting it can be. Herbivores have to eat more often than carnivores, and even a small dog can run a deer to exhaustion in a matter of hours. Of course, we hunters take our share, but I honestly don't know if more deer succumb to us or to natural causes.
another day, another crust of bread and lump of coal
Wow, that first paragraph was spoken like a true plutocrat. The only
way to deal with the poor is not to give them anything beyond keeping
them from freezing and starving. Do you think poor people who get a leg
up, due to enlightened liberal policies, are going to leave the
Democracy for the Republic, where for sure there won't be any minimum
wage and certainly no unions and every penny they earn beyond starvation
and freezing will have to be pulled from some plutocrat's gold teeth?
Cruz is in favor of a wall too, and he had just decided to join Trump in wanting to yank all the illegal immigrants out of their beds and send them across the border. If Rubio sees that this is winning them votes he will be for the wall and the early morning yank also. He's a flip flopper, and that's the only thing I like about him. I thought you were for a wall. In your last post you spoke of sealing the borders good and tight, so how are you going to do that? Line it with guys making peanuts and expect them not to take bribes?
Why stop at creationism in your schools? Why not include that other popular medieval theory about everything being composed of fire, air, water, and earth? It's just as good as the theory of gravity isn't it? And why not just chuck the whole thing and those expensive labs and spend the time in bible study? And you haven't addressed will there still be public education (giving something away for free) in Beaglesonia, or will it all be private? I do like the idea of the Annals of Beaglesonia being required reading.
I think you've told me that you don't have bobcats or cougars, and I've never heard you speak of wolves, or bears now that i think about it. So who eats the deer up there? What kind of wildlife do you have? Do you have those odd little mammals like muskrats and weasels and badgers.
We still call them prairies, or at any rate people my age do. I haven't heard anything about the coyote last week, so I imagine it has moved on. Maybe it didn't get enough handouts after making a spectacle of itself here in the Democracy and is headed north to earn a living my sealing up the borders of Beaglesonia good and tight. Good eating up there too is what I hear.
Cruz is in favor of a wall too, and he had just decided to join Trump in wanting to yank all the illegal immigrants out of their beds and send them across the border. If Rubio sees that this is winning them votes he will be for the wall and the early morning yank also. He's a flip flopper, and that's the only thing I like about him. I thought you were for a wall. In your last post you spoke of sealing the borders good and tight, so how are you going to do that? Line it with guys making peanuts and expect them not to take bribes?
Why stop at creationism in your schools? Why not include that other popular medieval theory about everything being composed of fire, air, water, and earth? It's just as good as the theory of gravity isn't it? And why not just chuck the whole thing and those expensive labs and spend the time in bible study? And you haven't addressed will there still be public education (giving something away for free) in Beaglesonia, or will it all be private? I do like the idea of the Annals of Beaglesonia being required reading.
I think you've told me that you don't have bobcats or cougars, and I've never heard you speak of wolves, or bears now that i think about it. So who eats the deer up there? What kind of wildlife do you have? Do you have those odd little mammals like muskrats and weasels and badgers.
We still call them prairies, or at any rate people my age do. I haven't heard anything about the coyote last week, so I imagine it has moved on. Maybe it didn't get enough handouts after making a spectacle of itself here in the Democracy and is headed north to earn a living my sealing up the borders of Beaglesonia good and tight. Good eating up there too is what I hear.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Jumping to Conclusions
You seem to have a lot more faith in human nature than I do. I don't think most people care about ideology as much as they do about their own best interests. The only way you're going to hang on to your poor people is to keep them poor, give them just enough to maintain them in their current state of poverty. Don't let anybody starve or freeze to death, but don't let them get a leg up either.
I'm not so sure that our guys will want a wall, the only one I've heard talking about that is Trump, and everybody knows the only reason he's here is to sabotage the Republican Party. Military history since the days of the Roman Empire has demonstrated that walls don't work unless they are well guarded. The only way we could do that is to bring most of our troops home or hire lots of new ones. Maybe that's what we'll do instead of paying people not to work, give them government jobs guarding our borders.
I'm not so sure about the schools either. Of course we will teach creationism alongside evolution, explaining that they are both just theories after all. Other than that, I don't know what we would change. I would be in favor of abolishing sports and putting the money saved towards academics, but that's just me. Now that I think of it, we are both assuming that the rest of our ilks would be just like us, which is unlikely. If we made the Beaglesonian Institute required reading in all the schools, we might raise a whole new generation of enlightened geniuses, but maybe not. Kids don't pay much attention to what's being taught in the schools now.
Those deer were back this evening. I can tell it's the same ones because the mother has a bit of a limp on her left front leg. They were really close out the window and the light was good yesterday, but I didn't see any outward sign of injury, she just favors that leg a little. They are eating something close to the ground in the bare patches where the snow has melted, but I don't know what it is. Nothing is green yet, so it must be something left over from last season. They both look to be in good shape for this time of year, but it has been a rather mild winter over all.
That coyote in the vacant lot (Do they still call them "prairies"?) might be sick, so I wouldn't try to pet it or anything. Coyotes are all over these days, but they usually keep a low profile. If this guy is making a public spectacle of himself, there must be something wrong with him. Maybe he's a liberal, or even worse, a fake conservative like Trump. Either way, he should be approached with caution, if at all.
I'm not so sure that our guys will want a wall, the only one I've heard talking about that is Trump, and everybody knows the only reason he's here is to sabotage the Republican Party. Military history since the days of the Roman Empire has demonstrated that walls don't work unless they are well guarded. The only way we could do that is to bring most of our troops home or hire lots of new ones. Maybe that's what we'll do instead of paying people not to work, give them government jobs guarding our borders.
I'm not so sure about the schools either. Of course we will teach creationism alongside evolution, explaining that they are both just theories after all. Other than that, I don't know what we would change. I would be in favor of abolishing sports and putting the money saved towards academics, but that's just me. Now that I think of it, we are both assuming that the rest of our ilks would be just like us, which is unlikely. If we made the Beaglesonian Institute required reading in all the schools, we might raise a whole new generation of enlightened geniuses, but maybe not. Kids don't pay much attention to what's being taught in the schools now.
Those deer were back this evening. I can tell it's the same ones because the mother has a bit of a limp on her left front leg. They were really close out the window and the light was good yesterday, but I didn't see any outward sign of injury, she just favors that leg a little. They are eating something close to the ground in the bare patches where the snow has melted, but I don't know what it is. Nothing is green yet, so it must be something left over from last season. They both look to be in good shape for this time of year, but it has been a rather mild winter over all.
That coyote in the vacant lot (Do they still call them "prairies"?) might be sick, so I wouldn't try to pet it or anything. Coyotes are all over these days, but they usually keep a low profile. If this guy is making a public spectacle of himself, there must be something wrong with him. Maybe he's a liberal, or even worse, a fake conservative like Trump. Either way, he should be approached with caution, if at all.
continuing the split
The economics of the Democracy of the United States could be shaky, but
maybe not. I am guessing we will split mandatory spending between us,
but after that we will be freed of military spending which is more than
half the discretionary spending. We will get some rich people and the
bible thumpers, most of whom are not rich, would go to you. And then
our people, being liberal and proud to pay their taxes wouldn't be
cheating on their taxes. Pretty sure that's true. And those poor
people who we will have lifted up by our enlightened programs will not
desert us just to pay less in taxes. Pretty sure that's true too.
And even though you will get the rich people, they are notorious tax cheats, and your presidents will have to cut taxes every year or else they will be voted out. I imagine you will go with one of those flat taxes, but that will just apply to wages, not to investment money, so I don't think you will have much in revenue to even pay for all that military which you will have tromping through the mideast.
And then there is that wall which i am going to guess you have not done much research on how much it will cost to build it, and staffing it will cost as much as a minor war, and I am going to guess that a lot of your rich guys who make money off cheap labor are going to like it much. Oh, and aren't you going to need a wall along the Canadian border too?
I wonder what we could do locally. I guess we could be checking IDs at the abortion clinics and gun shops, turning away those who affiliation doesn't approve of one or the other. I don't think we can have two police forces though. Probably not two mayors either. My guess is we would get all the big cities and you would get all the small towns. What about public education? I think we are so far apart there that we would have to have two separate school systems, and yours would probably be private. People with kids might come to our side because at least they could get schooling for their taxes.
Well that's enough thought on that for today.
Your photos remind me of that phrase about the things you see when you don't have a gun. But then I think hunting season is way over. You did have a camera though.
We have a vacant lot, between developments actually, here in Streeterville, our richest and densest neighborhood, just a little northeast of downtown, and recently the local news teams have discovered a coyote hanging out there. Actually we have coyotes all over town but none of them living so openly. Nobody was going to shoot it because we don't do that, and word on the street is that they eat rats. And in fact people were leaving food for it. One of our intrepid local tv news teams was interviewing a lady standing by the lot and she was all thrilled. "I've never seen a wild animal before," she gushed, but then she brightened up and added, "Except for pigeons," I've seen pigeons." City mice and country mice.
And even though you will get the rich people, they are notorious tax cheats, and your presidents will have to cut taxes every year or else they will be voted out. I imagine you will go with one of those flat taxes, but that will just apply to wages, not to investment money, so I don't think you will have much in revenue to even pay for all that military which you will have tromping through the mideast.
And then there is that wall which i am going to guess you have not done much research on how much it will cost to build it, and staffing it will cost as much as a minor war, and I am going to guess that a lot of your rich guys who make money off cheap labor are going to like it much. Oh, and aren't you going to need a wall along the Canadian border too?
I wonder what we could do locally. I guess we could be checking IDs at the abortion clinics and gun shops, turning away those who affiliation doesn't approve of one or the other. I don't think we can have two police forces though. Probably not two mayors either. My guess is we would get all the big cities and you would get all the small towns. What about public education? I think we are so far apart there that we would have to have two separate school systems, and yours would probably be private. People with kids might come to our side because at least they could get schooling for their taxes.
Well that's enough thought on that for today.
Your photos remind me of that phrase about the things you see when you don't have a gun. But then I think hunting season is way over. You did have a camera though.
We have a vacant lot, between developments actually, here in Streeterville, our richest and densest neighborhood, just a little northeast of downtown, and recently the local news teams have discovered a coyote hanging out there. Actually we have coyotes all over town but none of them living so openly. Nobody was going to shoot it because we don't do that, and word on the street is that they eat rats. And in fact people were leaving food for it. One of our intrepid local tv news teams was interviewing a lady standing by the lot and she was all thrilled. "I've never seen a wild animal before," she gushed, but then she brightened up and added, "Except for pigeons," I've seen pigeons." City mice and country mice.
Monday, February 22, 2016
The Makers and the Takers
I still think it's a good plan, we just need to iron out a few glitches. Here's one that immediately comes to mind: As you pointed out, your guys would get all the poor people and my guys would get all the rich people. So how would you finance all your wonderful programs? Well you could borrow it like they do now and promise to pay it back when all your poor people become productive citizens but, once they have something to lose, they will likely switch to our side. You would never have to pay the money back if you could keep refinancing the debt like they do now, as long as somebody is willing to loan you more money. If nobody wants your bonds anymore, you could just default and start all over again, like they did in Argentina, and will probably end up doing in Italy and Greece. Our guys could bail you out, but then they would want to tell you what to do, and your guys would never go for that.
I already know what to do with all our military might once we've pacified the Middle East, or given up trying. We could seal up our borders good and tight, from sea to shinning sea. Nobody comes in unless we say so. You guy don't get to vote on that because you're not paying for it.
I don't see a problem with guns and abortions. You guys could have all the abortions you want, and our guys could have all the guns we want. Since none of your people would be armed, they wouldn't have to worry about our guys shooting them because no law abiding citizen would shoot an unarmed man except in self defense. Well, there might be the occasional accidental discharge with all that finger twirling going on, but your guys would soon learn to stay out of range of our guys, so all the collateral damage would be on our side. That would be our way of preventing overpopulation, since we couldn't have abortions or use birth control.
Meanwhile, back in the real world: I never was crazy about Cruz. He might be better than Trump, but not much. Actually, I'm not crazy about any of them, but Trump is the one I like the least. I think what I'll do is wait till after Super Tuesday, which is a week before the Michigan primary, see who is running number two behind Trump, and vote for him. If nobody has a clear majority by convention time, all bets are off anyway. The delegates are only pledged for the first ballot, they can vote for anybody they want after that. If present trends continue, Trump will have a plurality, but not a majority. One can only hope.
Meanwhile, back in Beaglesonia, here's what I saw out the window when I opened the curtains this morning:
I already know what to do with all our military might once we've pacified the Middle East, or given up trying. We could seal up our borders good and tight, from sea to shinning sea. Nobody comes in unless we say so. You guy don't get to vote on that because you're not paying for it.
I don't see a problem with guns and abortions. You guys could have all the abortions you want, and our guys could have all the guns we want. Since none of your people would be armed, they wouldn't have to worry about our guys shooting them because no law abiding citizen would shoot an unarmed man except in self defense. Well, there might be the occasional accidental discharge with all that finger twirling going on, but your guys would soon learn to stay out of range of our guys, so all the collateral damage would be on our side. That would be our way of preventing overpopulation, since we couldn't have abortions or use birth control.
Meanwhile, back in the real world: I never was crazy about Cruz. He might be better than Trump, but not much. Actually, I'm not crazy about any of them, but Trump is the one I like the least. I think what I'll do is wait till after Super Tuesday, which is a week before the Michigan primary, see who is running number two behind Trump, and vote for him. If nobody has a clear majority by convention time, all bets are off anyway. The delegates are only pledged for the first ballot, they can vote for anybody they want after that. If present trends continue, Trump will have a plurality, but not a majority. One can only hope.
Meanwhile, back in Beaglesonia, here's what I saw out the window when I opened the curtains this morning:
The Big Split
South Carolina did fire the first shots at Fort Sumter. They were also
the proponents of a movement that states didn't have to obey federal
laws that they disagree with. Nullification, that's what it was called.
It was in the news a lot a few years ago, but not so much anymore,
maybe because the long nightmare of Obama's Muslim Socialist Republic,
excuse me, Democracy, is almost over.
I was thinking The Big Split, (how is that for a name for it?) would occur with nobody having to move. I agree every four years you would have to declare yourself a dem or a rep, and then for the next four years you would pay your taxes to, and vote in the election of, your party. At the end of the four years, after each party had selected its president, sort of like a primary, you could jump ship, if you didn't like your side so much anymore or maybe you liked their president better. This would give the sides some motivation to attract new people and to keep the old. One wonders if they would both gravitate towards the wish washy center or become more extreme.
I guess the big difference would be big vs little government. We dems would pay more in taxes but we would get more services. We would be paying more welfare, so I am sure we would get most of the poor. Some of the poor are conservative but my guess is they would go with the side that gave them more money. This could be a problem, but maybe our liberal programs would make productive citizens out of them. Still would cost a lot of money.
So as a dem I propose that the reps could take on the support of the army. You guys are generally happy to pay your taxes if you know it is going to the armed forces. I guess that would make our foreign policy more hawkish, your current crop of candidates never met a bomb they don't want to drop. But the current target of hawkishness is the middle east which is a black hole and maybe after losing a pile of money and men, you guys would find a way to bug out with honor.
Still I hate to see you guys with all those tanks and battleships, and all we have is an army of poor people collecting their first paychecks due to our enlightened policies. Well I guess we can trust you guys, can't we?
I guess we would have our own senators and reps. I'm not so sure about supreme courts, I think we are better off sharing one. Probably we would have our own governors, but maybe we would have to share like mayors. For that we would have general elections, whichever side had the most people would probably win, but there would be some cross over.
Gun control and abortion would be interesting situations. We would be able to get abortions pretty much on demand, and likely you would never be able to get them no matter what. But mostly anti-abortion people aren't satisfied with not getting them themselves, they want to make sure that nobody else gets them. We dems don't care for guns and won't mind not having them, but we have to look at you guys who will be walking down the street doing that spin with the finger in the trigger thing and that will make us nervous.
Why the switch from Cruz? Has the Donald gotten to you? He is now casting aspersions on Rubio's eligibility. No real reason, just something someone tweeted him, he hasn't had time to study the issue, just passing ti around. I can't imagine any of the rep candidates in the white house, but I guess Marco would be the lesser of the evils. The fact that he is a bit of flip flopper and an opportunist is to me better than being a true believer like Cruz. He is a big hawk, but maybe that is bluster too. Maybe when the generals show him the map which shows that everybody is fighting everybody else and there is no easy spot to insert our troops he might have second thoughts.
I was thinking The Big Split, (how is that for a name for it?) would occur with nobody having to move. I agree every four years you would have to declare yourself a dem or a rep, and then for the next four years you would pay your taxes to, and vote in the election of, your party. At the end of the four years, after each party had selected its president, sort of like a primary, you could jump ship, if you didn't like your side so much anymore or maybe you liked their president better. This would give the sides some motivation to attract new people and to keep the old. One wonders if they would both gravitate towards the wish washy center or become more extreme.
I guess the big difference would be big vs little government. We dems would pay more in taxes but we would get more services. We would be paying more welfare, so I am sure we would get most of the poor. Some of the poor are conservative but my guess is they would go with the side that gave them more money. This could be a problem, but maybe our liberal programs would make productive citizens out of them. Still would cost a lot of money.
So as a dem I propose that the reps could take on the support of the army. You guys are generally happy to pay your taxes if you know it is going to the armed forces. I guess that would make our foreign policy more hawkish, your current crop of candidates never met a bomb they don't want to drop. But the current target of hawkishness is the middle east which is a black hole and maybe after losing a pile of money and men, you guys would find a way to bug out with honor.
Still I hate to see you guys with all those tanks and battleships, and all we have is an army of poor people collecting their first paychecks due to our enlightened policies. Well I guess we can trust you guys, can't we?
I guess we would have our own senators and reps. I'm not so sure about supreme courts, I think we are better off sharing one. Probably we would have our own governors, but maybe we would have to share like mayors. For that we would have general elections, whichever side had the most people would probably win, but there would be some cross over.
Gun control and abortion would be interesting situations. We would be able to get abortions pretty much on demand, and likely you would never be able to get them no matter what. But mostly anti-abortion people aren't satisfied with not getting them themselves, they want to make sure that nobody else gets them. We dems don't care for guns and won't mind not having them, but we have to look at you guys who will be walking down the street doing that spin with the finger in the trigger thing and that will make us nervous.
Why the switch from Cruz? Has the Donald gotten to you? He is now casting aspersions on Rubio's eligibility. No real reason, just something someone tweeted him, he hasn't had time to study the issue, just passing ti around. I can't imagine any of the rep candidates in the white house, but I guess Marco would be the lesser of the evils. The fact that he is a bit of flip flopper and an opportunist is to me better than being a true believer like Cruz. He is a big hawk, but maybe that is bluster too. Maybe when the generals show him the map which shows that everybody is fighting everybody else and there is no easy spot to insert our troops he might have second thoughts.
Friday, February 19, 2016
That's a Great Idea!
I really like your idea about splitting in place, we could do it by Zip Codes. It wouldn't be much of a hardship for people who don't agree with their neighbors to move to the next Zip Code, not nearly as much as moving to another state. We would need to have open borders to allow people to commute to work and visit their friends and relatives on the other side. We also might need some kind of mutual defense treaty in case some foreign power thinks that we are weak just because we are divided. No Zip Code should be allowed to be neutral, however, you're either a left wing nut or a right wing nut, no wishy-washers allowed. Well, maybe the wishy-washers could have Zip Codes of their own because we certainly don't want them coming in and taking over one of ours. By wishy-washers I mean the moderates. Who needs them? The Republicans ran moderate candidates in the last two presidential elections, and they lost both times.
I don't remember where I got the idea that other countries are not as politically conscious as we are, I must have read it somewhere. I hereby retract the assertion, since I am not prepared to defend it.
Isn't South Carolina the state where the first shots of the Civil War were fired? That should tell you something.
2/20/16: It occurred to me today that your plan might not involve splitting up territory, just people. That might work too, but we'd have to do away with the secret ballot. Well, your vote wouldn't have to be exactly public, but it would need to be registered in a computer or someplace. Your vote would determine which half of the country you were a part of for the next four years, at which point you would have the option of changing it or rolling it over for another four years. There would have to be some kind of identification system too, to make sure people paid the proper taxes and collected the proper benefits for their group. If, as you say, ID cards can be easily forged, maybe we could do something with computer face recognition. Do they have that yet, or is it still science fiction? What would we do with the moderates, would they be forced to chose one or the other, or would we have a third option for them?
At this point, I am leaning towards Marco Rubio as the lesser of three evils. Our primary is March 8, so I've still got some time to change my mind, but that's where I'm at now.
I don't remember where I got the idea that other countries are not as politically conscious as we are, I must have read it somewhere. I hereby retract the assertion, since I am not prepared to defend it.
Isn't South Carolina the state where the first shots of the Civil War were fired? That should tell you something.
2/20/16: It occurred to me today that your plan might not involve splitting up territory, just people. That might work too, but we'd have to do away with the secret ballot. Well, your vote wouldn't have to be exactly public, but it would need to be registered in a computer or someplace. Your vote would determine which half of the country you were a part of for the next four years, at which point you would have the option of changing it or rolling it over for another four years. There would have to be some kind of identification system too, to make sure people paid the proper taxes and collected the proper benefits for their group. If, as you say, ID cards can be easily forged, maybe we could do something with computer face recognition. Do they have that yet, or is it still science fiction? What would we do with the moderates, would they be forced to chose one or the other, or would we have a third option for them?
At this point, I am leaning towards Marco Rubio as the lesser of three evils. Our primary is March 8, so I've still got some time to change my mind, but that's where I'm at now.
splitting
I don't know that people in other countries don't talk politics.
Where do you get this information? I imagine if they have a police
state they don't say much because they don't know who the informer
is and they could end up in jail.
I'm not sure exactly who we are talking about when you use the term wishy washers. I thought you meant more like the undecideds, but maybe you mean more like middle of the roaders. Damn few of them anymore are there? I guess the closest we get is Kasich on your side and the big girl on my side. The dems have some blue dogs and the reps have that woman from Maine, but that's it.
Now that the polls are evenly split the dem race is heating up, I just heard an excerpt from a town hall and voices were raised. Still the dems are still arguing about issues where the reps are mainly just calling each other names. Now we have Donald bad mouthing the pope, and I see an article on Politico that it won't hurt him in South Carolina since they are mostly prots.
What the hell kind of state is this? They still like Dubya for Chrissake. Are they part of America???
I don't seem to have much in the tank this morning, so I looked up wishy-washy, like where did it come from. Apparently it's been around awhile, some think it comes from a German expression, but probably not, probably more from what one of the sites calls a reduplication of washy, which I think means like when you add a similar word but give it a different form, like willy nilly.
Willy nilly? Apparently that comes from will I or won't (nill) I.
I don't see where either of our ilks would be able to get together to do anything, but how about if we just split? It would be way to much trouble for say all the dems to move west of the Mississippi and all the reps to move east of it, but what if we just split up in place? That is, you would pay your taxes to the Republic of the United States and I would pay mine to the Democracy of the United States. If you were part of the Republic your taxes would be lower but you wouldn't get as many services. If you were part of the Democracy you would pay higher taxes, but you would get more services. Since most poor people would want more services the dems would take on welfare. Since the reps are always rattling sabers, they would pay for the army, and so on, and so on. Needs a little tinkering with details, but we have the whole weekend.
I'm not sure exactly who we are talking about when you use the term wishy washers. I thought you meant more like the undecideds, but maybe you mean more like middle of the roaders. Damn few of them anymore are there? I guess the closest we get is Kasich on your side and the big girl on my side. The dems have some blue dogs and the reps have that woman from Maine, but that's it.
Now that the polls are evenly split the dem race is heating up, I just heard an excerpt from a town hall and voices were raised. Still the dems are still arguing about issues where the reps are mainly just calling each other names. Now we have Donald bad mouthing the pope, and I see an article on Politico that it won't hurt him in South Carolina since they are mostly prots.
What the hell kind of state is this? They still like Dubya for Chrissake. Are they part of America???
I don't seem to have much in the tank this morning, so I looked up wishy-washy, like where did it come from. Apparently it's been around awhile, some think it comes from a German expression, but probably not, probably more from what one of the sites calls a reduplication of washy, which I think means like when you add a similar word but give it a different form, like willy nilly.
Willy nilly? Apparently that comes from will I or won't (nill) I.
I don't see where either of our ilks would be able to get together to do anything, but how about if we just split? It would be way to much trouble for say all the dems to move west of the Mississippi and all the reps to move east of it, but what if we just split up in place? That is, you would pay your taxes to the Republic of the United States and I would pay mine to the Democracy of the United States. If you were part of the Republic your taxes would be lower but you wouldn't get as many services. If you were part of the Democracy you would pay higher taxes, but you would get more services. Since most poor people would want more services the dems would take on welfare. Since the reps are always rattling sabers, they would pay for the army, and so on, and so on. Needs a little tinkering with details, but we have the whole weekend.
Thursday, February 18, 2016
It's the American Way
"Small town breed is a motley crew, carpenter, ironworker, fisherman too.
Two three drinks an they'll tell you, if they was in the White house, exactly what they'd do."
(From the song "Small Town Blues" by Tom Rauch of Cheboygan, Michigan)
I think the U.S. is kind of unique that way. Maybe the U.K. is too, which might be from whence we got it. In some other countries the "common people" don't concern themselves much with politics. My grandparents believed that all politicians are crooks. They didn't say it like it was something to get excited about, they just took it for granted and got on with their own lives. It used to be said that you should never discuss religion or politics in polite company, but I don't know if people still say that, or if polite company can even be found in this country anymore. I suppose I should get out and circulate more than I do, but that's what the internet is for. In some other countries they believe, as your man Mao used to say, that "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." When they hold an election, it is only the opening ceremony of the civil war that is soon to follow. We've only had one civil war, and that seemed to have gotten it out of our system. We have protest demonstrations and riots, but they are generally short lived. Americans bitch and complain when an election doesn't go their way, but they grudgingly accept it and start working on the next one.
We learned in Sawyer Elementary that the ink was barely dry on the Constitution when two different schools of thought developed about it. The Strict Constructionists believed that the government could only do what the Constitution says it can do, while the Loose Constructionists believed that the government could do anything that the Constitution doesn't say it can't do. The Loose Constructionists kind of won, but some people still don't accept that. It's only lately that I've heard of the Originalists. (Apparently our spell checker is still not aware of them.) I'm not sure where I stand on that one. When I worked at the paper mill, a grievance arbitrator would usually try to determine what was the intent of the original bargaining parties and go with that. Sometimes they would even call in witnesses who didn't even work there anymore to try to determine exactly what they intended when they bargained that particular clause. We can't do that with our constitution, so I suppose it makes more sense to interpret it in the light of contemporary knowledge, but that makes me kind of nervous. Sometimes there's a fine line between interpreting something and outright changing it. If they want change it, there is a procedure for that, and they should use it.
I don't remember you telling me about your brush with the law. Wait, that didn't come out right, but you know what I mean. I agree that the law should be like mathematics, only one right answer to each problem. I think that's why they used to write it in Latin, because Latin is a "dead" language and doesn't change over time. I wonder when and why they stopped doing that.
Are you sure that the wishy-washers comprise only 10% of the electorate? I seem to remember reading someplace that most people consider themselves to be moderates, but a certain amount of memory loss is normal at my age. Whatever their percentage, I doubt that they are the majority. That means, if your ilk and my ilk got together, they could easily take over the country. Now all we've got to do is figure out how to bring them together. If they had anything in common, they would already be together, so we need to build something on the fact that they don't have anything in common. Lets ponder on that and see what we can come up with.
Two three drinks an they'll tell you, if they was in the White house, exactly what they'd do."
(From the song "Small Town Blues" by Tom Rauch of Cheboygan, Michigan)
I think the U.S. is kind of unique that way. Maybe the U.K. is too, which might be from whence we got it. In some other countries the "common people" don't concern themselves much with politics. My grandparents believed that all politicians are crooks. They didn't say it like it was something to get excited about, they just took it for granted and got on with their own lives. It used to be said that you should never discuss religion or politics in polite company, but I don't know if people still say that, or if polite company can even be found in this country anymore. I suppose I should get out and circulate more than I do, but that's what the internet is for. In some other countries they believe, as your man Mao used to say, that "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." When they hold an election, it is only the opening ceremony of the civil war that is soon to follow. We've only had one civil war, and that seemed to have gotten it out of our system. We have protest demonstrations and riots, but they are generally short lived. Americans bitch and complain when an election doesn't go their way, but they grudgingly accept it and start working on the next one.
We learned in Sawyer Elementary that the ink was barely dry on the Constitution when two different schools of thought developed about it. The Strict Constructionists believed that the government could only do what the Constitution says it can do, while the Loose Constructionists believed that the government could do anything that the Constitution doesn't say it can't do. The Loose Constructionists kind of won, but some people still don't accept that. It's only lately that I've heard of the Originalists. (Apparently our spell checker is still not aware of them.) I'm not sure where I stand on that one. When I worked at the paper mill, a grievance arbitrator would usually try to determine what was the intent of the original bargaining parties and go with that. Sometimes they would even call in witnesses who didn't even work there anymore to try to determine exactly what they intended when they bargained that particular clause. We can't do that with our constitution, so I suppose it makes more sense to interpret it in the light of contemporary knowledge, but that makes me kind of nervous. Sometimes there's a fine line between interpreting something and outright changing it. If they want change it, there is a procedure for that, and they should use it.
I don't remember you telling me about your brush with the law. Wait, that didn't come out right, but you know what I mean. I agree that the law should be like mathematics, only one right answer to each problem. I think that's why they used to write it in Latin, because Latin is a "dead" language and doesn't change over time. I wonder when and why they stopped doing that.
Are you sure that the wishy-washers comprise only 10% of the electorate? I seem to remember reading someplace that most people consider themselves to be moderates, but a certain amount of memory loss is normal at my age. Whatever their percentage, I doubt that they are the majority. That means, if your ilk and my ilk got together, they could easily take over the country. Now all we've got to do is figure out how to bring them together. If they had anything in common, they would already be together, so we need to build something on the fact that they don't have anything in common. Lets ponder on that and see what we can come up with.
nuts and washers
They say that Old Man Scalia was an originalist (By the way have you
noticed that there are already conspiracy theories about his death. It
seems pretty obvious that the internet is a boon to conspiracy
theories). This means that he believed every word of the constitution
was to be interpreted perzackly the way he thought the founding fathers
thought at the time. This is opposed, I suppose, by the guys who
believe in the living constitution which is not so concerned with little
details written in quill pens as they are in the spirit of what those
guys wrote down, they were, after all, revolutionaries.
Of course both theories involve interpreting the constitution, so either way you are giving yourself some leeway. I think you could be an originalist or a believer in the living constitution and still be either liberal or conservative, but it seems like the more conservative judges call themselves originalists or strict interpreters, and the more liberal tend to claim the living constitution. It's sort of like the way hard shell baptists and their ilk read the bible one way and liberal theologians read it another way.
Either way as you say, you can't just toss the constitution into the trash bin. Right or wrong it is something we can kind of agree on, we can maybe bend a rule, but we can't ignore it. I think both our ilks think we are in tune with the constitution, so that if push comes to shove and the case comes before the supremes they will decide for our side.
And they do, roughly half the time. And the other half of the time, well they are wrong. Here are these scholars from our finest schools who have spent years examining the law and spent days debating the case on one side and on the other side is the guy on the next barstool who couldn't name the three branches of government, and he is dead sure that the supremes are dead wrong. Because dadgum it, he knows what's right, and what they decided ain't.
Well the law is a funny thing. I have probably told you, because I am sure that over the course of the institute we have both told each other everything we know, that at one point I was thinking of going to law school, and in the course of that endeavor I read up on it a bit and prepared a bit for the test you have to take to get into it. Before this I had thought that the law was like mathematics where this is this and that is that and everything can be proven true or false.
But it is nothing like that, everything is more or less a matter of opinion, because in math we are dealing with numbers which everybody knows what they are but in the law we are dealing with words and as you know, we can't even be sure what 'is' is.
As for your genius attack, I agree that both our ilks have maybe 45 percent of the vote, and that ten percent in the middle is what you call the wishy-washers (kind of interesting the way we have nuts and washers, where are the bolts?), and some call them independents, and some call them moderates, I'm pretty sure you mean guys who could go either way (but not in that way), who vote rep in one election and dem in the other.
But you know they don't sit out elections, they decide elections. Maybe ten percent of Americans live in purple states, and maybe ten percent of those people are washers, and these are the guys, and maybe half of them are principled thinkers, but the other half are the guys who can't name the three branches of the government, and these are the guys, roughly one percent of the population who the parties try to appeal to and who decide who the next prez, who will be appointing supreme court judges, will be.
Of course both theories involve interpreting the constitution, so either way you are giving yourself some leeway. I think you could be an originalist or a believer in the living constitution and still be either liberal or conservative, but it seems like the more conservative judges call themselves originalists or strict interpreters, and the more liberal tend to claim the living constitution. It's sort of like the way hard shell baptists and their ilk read the bible one way and liberal theologians read it another way.
Either way as you say, you can't just toss the constitution into the trash bin. Right or wrong it is something we can kind of agree on, we can maybe bend a rule, but we can't ignore it. I think both our ilks think we are in tune with the constitution, so that if push comes to shove and the case comes before the supremes they will decide for our side.
And they do, roughly half the time. And the other half of the time, well they are wrong. Here are these scholars from our finest schools who have spent years examining the law and spent days debating the case on one side and on the other side is the guy on the next barstool who couldn't name the three branches of government, and he is dead sure that the supremes are dead wrong. Because dadgum it, he knows what's right, and what they decided ain't.
Well the law is a funny thing. I have probably told you, because I am sure that over the course of the institute we have both told each other everything we know, that at one point I was thinking of going to law school, and in the course of that endeavor I read up on it a bit and prepared a bit for the test you have to take to get into it. Before this I had thought that the law was like mathematics where this is this and that is that and everything can be proven true or false.
But it is nothing like that, everything is more or less a matter of opinion, because in math we are dealing with numbers which everybody knows what they are but in the law we are dealing with words and as you know, we can't even be sure what 'is' is.
As for your genius attack, I agree that both our ilks have maybe 45 percent of the vote, and that ten percent in the middle is what you call the wishy-washers (kind of interesting the way we have nuts and washers, where are the bolts?), and some call them independents, and some call them moderates, I'm pretty sure you mean guys who could go either way (but not in that way), who vote rep in one election and dem in the other.
But you know they don't sit out elections, they decide elections. Maybe ten percent of Americans live in purple states, and maybe ten percent of those people are washers, and these are the guys, and maybe half of them are principled thinkers, but the other half are the guys who can't name the three branches of the government, and these are the guys, roughly one percent of the population who the parties try to appeal to and who decide who the next prez, who will be appointing supreme court judges, will be.
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
The Rule of Law
We have discussed this before. I believe in the rule of law rather than the rule of people. However, as you correctly pointed out, the laws are administered by people, so you can't take the human factor out of the equation. Come to think of it, if there were no people, there would be no need for law, but then we wouldn't even be here, so that's a moot question. I think the difference is in the priorities. If there is a conflict between a person and the law, the law must always take precedence, otherwise any new leader could arbitrarily impose his will on the people without restriction. You may think that's okay as long as the leader is a guy you like, but what if the leader is a Trump or a Hitler? On the other hand, if the law is too inflexible, injustices may occur, and there would be nothing anyone could do about it. I think that's why presidents and governors are allowed to grant pardons and commutations of sentences. They are not supposed to do this without a good reason but, when the law effectively fails, and an obviously innocent person is about to be executed or incarcerated, there needs to be a way to over ride the law, at least temporarily.
I have always been more interested in what is being done than in who is doing it, that's just the way I am. When I was more socially active, I used to forget people's names all the time but, if he would tell me where we last met and what we were doing at the time, I could usually remember the guy, if not his name. My hypothetical wife, on the other hand, remembers names very well and used to bail me out when we ran into somebody whose name I had forgotten, yet she has trouble remembering what the weather was like last winter. It's a good thing that we found each other.
I guess I do have a thing about people who are not like me, but then again, not many people are like me. I seem to remember you saying that most people would rather be oppressed by their own kind than by some other kind, so maybe it's just human nature. I think that tolerance is something that must be learned, I don't think it comes naturally to most people. I am much more tolerant of real people who I know than I am of the nameless faceless hordes that I see on the TV news. Sometimes, when there's a riot on TV, I have this fantasy that I'm on the roof of a nearby building with a machine gun just mowing them down but, truth be known, I would never do something like that in real life. I might use a fire hose on them, but not a machine gun. I wouldn't hit them with the full stream either, I would adjust the nozzle to full fog and just give them a good soaking. Then again, this might piss them off enough to storm my tower, and then I might wish that I had that machine gun after all. Better for me and better for them if I just avoid situations like that, which I do.
Before I forget, I got this genius attack toady, see what you think: What's wrong with the American political scene is that neither the left wing nuts nor the right wing nuts have a majority, so the wishy-washers in the middle get to decide the elections. Why should we allow them to have this power? If your ilk would nominate Bernie Sanders and my ilk would nominate Trump or Cruz, then the wishy-washers would have no place to go, and they might sit the election out. Wouldn't that be fun?
I have always been more interested in what is being done than in who is doing it, that's just the way I am. When I was more socially active, I used to forget people's names all the time but, if he would tell me where we last met and what we were doing at the time, I could usually remember the guy, if not his name. My hypothetical wife, on the other hand, remembers names very well and used to bail me out when we ran into somebody whose name I had forgotten, yet she has trouble remembering what the weather was like last winter. It's a good thing that we found each other.
I guess I do have a thing about people who are not like me, but then again, not many people are like me. I seem to remember you saying that most people would rather be oppressed by their own kind than by some other kind, so maybe it's just human nature. I think that tolerance is something that must be learned, I don't think it comes naturally to most people. I am much more tolerant of real people who I know than I am of the nameless faceless hordes that I see on the TV news. Sometimes, when there's a riot on TV, I have this fantasy that I'm on the roof of a nearby building with a machine gun just mowing them down but, truth be known, I would never do something like that in real life. I might use a fire hose on them, but not a machine gun. I wouldn't hit them with the full stream either, I would adjust the nozzle to full fog and just give them a good soaking. Then again, this might piss them off enough to storm my tower, and then I might wish that I had that machine gun after all. Better for me and better for them if I just avoid situations like that, which I do.
Before I forget, I got this genius attack toady, see what you think: What's wrong with the American political scene is that neither the left wing nuts nor the right wing nuts have a majority, so the wishy-washers in the middle get to decide the elections. Why should we allow them to have this power? If your ilk would nominate Bernie Sanders and my ilk would nominate Trump or Cruz, then the wishy-washers would have no place to go, and they might sit the election out. Wouldn't that be fun?
the man or the system?
Dang, you are right, as usual, Beagles. All those names seem alike to
me, Madison Monroe, Hamilton, and then I thought, isn't he on the ten
dollar bill, but now I realize that so is Franklin.
Well I admit it, the founding fathers are my weak point in historical scholarship. This should be an exciting time, they were mapping out a completely new kind of country, there were big ideas, big personalities, big fights, and yet I can't suppress a yawn. I've forced myself to read books about them, but I can barely keep my eyes open.
I blame it on grade school, it seems like, in an effort to make us patriotic, they kept shoving the founding fathers down our throats. It seems like half our movies were of guys with wigs. Maybe if we had a Jablonski, and an O'Hara, and a Giamatti, back then it would have been more interesting, easier to tell the players apart.
In these days when you can go to the nearest fruteria and find a guy who will give you a whole new set of ids for under a hundred bucks, I don't see how asking some guy for a piece of paper is going to mean anything. I suppose you could go to where he says he is born and check the records there, but why not just drop the stupid requirement?
You say you have nothing against Hispanics (and blacks and gays et al) it's just that there are so many of them, but then there are so many whites too, but then you say you are against everybody, but it's always the Hispanics et al that you complain about, and not so much white people who look and talk like you, so I would say you have something against them.
Cubans are not like other Hispanics. The main difference is that they have no immigration problem, they are legal the second they step on US soil, and they come from an oppressive commie country so they tend to be right wingers. When I am speaking of Hispanics and the republicans I am talking about voting patterns, and the reason they vote mostly for democrats are that the republicans, especially in election times, are always bad mouthing them.
Take gun nuts (please, drum roll). They aren't inherently democratic or republican, but the democrats have bad mouthed them in the past, we don't much anymore, but you guys have long memories, so you tend to vote republican.
Historically catholics were more likely to vote democratic because they tended to be poorer, but I don't know how true that is anymore.
That whole thing about generalizations, it's an inherent fallacy. You know we have to fit things into categories in order to be able to talk about them, but things never fit that well into one category or another so there is always some error there.
Back in my youth it seemed messy to me, the way you had liberals and conservatives in both parties. It seemed to me that it should be more ordered, like in Europe where they had like liberal and conservative parties, but now that we are more ordered it is not so hot. It's a zero sum game anymore where a victory for the dems is a loss for the reps and vice versa. Used to be a group of reps and dems could get together and hammer out something and get credit for it. Anymore if they did that the rest of their parties would be calling them traitors for colluding with their opponents.
That thing where you are not as interested in who makes the supreme court decision as you are in what the decision is highlights what I think is one of the (many) big differences between us. I think you tend to believe that what is important is the system: if we have the right system then it doesn't make much difference who runs it. I tend to believe that the system is not as important as the people who run it: no matter what the system is, they will find a way to get out of it what they want.
Of course that is a simplification (because we can only speak in categories which we know are imperfect), but what do you think of that differentiation between the two of us?
I predict that Obama will nominate some moderate guy or woman, very likely a minority, but not necessarily. The republicans will then decide probably not to hold hearings, but maybe they will because they won't want to look obstructionist, but if they do they will find all these terrible things in his/her record and vote them down, and both sides will use it as an issue in the upcoming election.
I'm sorry if I have been so political, but it obsesses me in an election year.
Well I admit it, the founding fathers are my weak point in historical scholarship. This should be an exciting time, they were mapping out a completely new kind of country, there were big ideas, big personalities, big fights, and yet I can't suppress a yawn. I've forced myself to read books about them, but I can barely keep my eyes open.
I blame it on grade school, it seems like, in an effort to make us patriotic, they kept shoving the founding fathers down our throats. It seems like half our movies were of guys with wigs. Maybe if we had a Jablonski, and an O'Hara, and a Giamatti, back then it would have been more interesting, easier to tell the players apart.
In these days when you can go to the nearest fruteria and find a guy who will give you a whole new set of ids for under a hundred bucks, I don't see how asking some guy for a piece of paper is going to mean anything. I suppose you could go to where he says he is born and check the records there, but why not just drop the stupid requirement?
You say you have nothing against Hispanics (and blacks and gays et al) it's just that there are so many of them, but then there are so many whites too, but then you say you are against everybody, but it's always the Hispanics et al that you complain about, and not so much white people who look and talk like you, so I would say you have something against them.
Cubans are not like other Hispanics. The main difference is that they have no immigration problem, they are legal the second they step on US soil, and they come from an oppressive commie country so they tend to be right wingers. When I am speaking of Hispanics and the republicans I am talking about voting patterns, and the reason they vote mostly for democrats are that the republicans, especially in election times, are always bad mouthing them.
Take gun nuts (please, drum roll). They aren't inherently democratic or republican, but the democrats have bad mouthed them in the past, we don't much anymore, but you guys have long memories, so you tend to vote republican.
Historically catholics were more likely to vote democratic because they tended to be poorer, but I don't know how true that is anymore.
That whole thing about generalizations, it's an inherent fallacy. You know we have to fit things into categories in order to be able to talk about them, but things never fit that well into one category or another so there is always some error there.
Back in my youth it seemed messy to me, the way you had liberals and conservatives in both parties. It seemed to me that it should be more ordered, like in Europe where they had like liberal and conservative parties, but now that we are more ordered it is not so hot. It's a zero sum game anymore where a victory for the dems is a loss for the reps and vice versa. Used to be a group of reps and dems could get together and hammer out something and get credit for it. Anymore if they did that the rest of their parties would be calling them traitors for colluding with their opponents.
That thing where you are not as interested in who makes the supreme court decision as you are in what the decision is highlights what I think is one of the (many) big differences between us. I think you tend to believe that what is important is the system: if we have the right system then it doesn't make much difference who runs it. I tend to believe that the system is not as important as the people who run it: no matter what the system is, they will find a way to get out of it what they want.
Of course that is a simplification (because we can only speak in categories which we know are imperfect), but what do you think of that differentiation between the two of us?
I predict that Obama will nominate some moderate guy or woman, very likely a minority, but not necessarily. The republicans will then decide probably not to hold hearings, but maybe they will because they won't want to look obstructionist, but if they do they will find all these terrible things in his/her record and vote them down, and both sides will use it as an issue in the upcoming election.
I'm sorry if I have been so political, but it obsesses me in an election year.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Politics, Past and Current
Alexander Hamilton was never President of the United States. I knew that, but I looked it up just to be sure because a certain amount of memory loss is normal at my age. Hamilton was indeed a Founding Father and he held a number of government offices in his life, but none of them required that he be a natural born citizen. The presidency is the only office with that requirement. A congressman has to be at least 25 years old, and a senator has to be at least 30. I suppose the Founders wanted people in those offices and the presidency to have a certain amount of maturity. As far as I know, all the other state and federal positions don't have an age requirement, if you are old enough to vote, you are old enough to hold office. There is a certain amount of paperwork required to get your name on any kind of ballot. I think it would be reasonable to require a copy of your birth certificate or naturalization papers as part of that paperwork, to prove that you are a citizen and old enough to vote. What's wrong with that?
I've got nothing against Hispanics except that there are so many of them, but I have the same concern about everybody. There is an old joke: "I love humanity, it's people that I can't stand." Well I'm just the opposite, I like people as individuals but am uncomfortable with vast herds of them that threaten to trample me underfoot.
The reason I mentioned Cruz and Rubio is that they are both Hispanic and Republican, which seems to contradict what you said about Republicans and Hispanics not liking each other. Of course that's only two examples, but I'm sure there are more of them than that out there. Some regions historically vote Republican and other regions historically vote Democrat. It's a lot easier to get elected to any office if you run on the same party that your region historically votes for. I'm sure that Hispanics in Chicago routinely elect other Hispanics to represent them, and it's much easier to get elected in
Chicago if you run as a Democrat. You also mentioned that Hispanics as a group are religious, but aren't they mostly Catholics, and don't Catholics tend to vote Democrat? I understand that Rubio is a Catholic and Cruz is some kind of holy roller, yet they are both Hispanic. I guess Mrs. O'Hara was right, "All generalizations are invalid."
You know that I don't follow politics nearly as much as you do. I have been taking more of an interest in it lately because of our conversations, but I will never be as into it as you are. I am interested in Supreme Court decisions because they define the law, but I never found it necessary to learn the names of all the justices. I am more interested in what the decision says than I am in who decided it. We don't get to vote on those guys anyway, so why bother to learn their names?
I certainly believe in the Second Amendment, I just believe that it was intended to guarantee the right of the states to have their own militias, not to guarantee the rights of individual gun owners. There are other things that guarantee the right of individual gun owners, not the least of which are the guns themselves.
I've got nothing against Hispanics except that there are so many of them, but I have the same concern about everybody. There is an old joke: "I love humanity, it's people that I can't stand." Well I'm just the opposite, I like people as individuals but am uncomfortable with vast herds of them that threaten to trample me underfoot.
The reason I mentioned Cruz and Rubio is that they are both Hispanic and Republican, which seems to contradict what you said about Republicans and Hispanics not liking each other. Of course that's only two examples, but I'm sure there are more of them than that out there. Some regions historically vote Republican and other regions historically vote Democrat. It's a lot easier to get elected to any office if you run on the same party that your region historically votes for. I'm sure that Hispanics in Chicago routinely elect other Hispanics to represent them, and it's much easier to get elected in
Chicago if you run as a Democrat. You also mentioned that Hispanics as a group are religious, but aren't they mostly Catholics, and don't Catholics tend to vote Democrat? I understand that Rubio is a Catholic and Cruz is some kind of holy roller, yet they are both Hispanic. I guess Mrs. O'Hara was right, "All generalizations are invalid."
You know that I don't follow politics nearly as much as you do. I have been taking more of an interest in it lately because of our conversations, but I will never be as into it as you are. I am interested in Supreme Court decisions because they define the law, but I never found it necessary to learn the names of all the justices. I am more interested in what the decision says than I am in who decided it. We don't get to vote on those guys anyway, so why bother to learn their names?
I certainly believe in the Second Amendment, I just believe that it was intended to guarantee the right of the states to have their own militias, not to guarantee the rights of individual gun owners. There are other things that guarantee the right of individual gun owners, not the least of which are the guns themselves.
Alexander Hamilton, founding father or damned furriner?
This has gotten me to thinking, didn't I hear about one of the founding
fathers and presidents being born in the West Indies? Off to the google
machine and there he is, Alexander Hamilton. Surely the ink had dried
on the constitution by the time he became president, so what's the story
with that? I shall leave it to this institution's constitutional
scholar and internet investigator to come up with that.
I don't know if we've always had birth certificates, and back in the day churches and courthouses would burn down and there wasn't always a record. It seems kind of foolish to expect a guy to show up with one. As I recall Obama showed one, but then the birthers wanted a longer form, and then when that was presented they found something odd in the typeface that they claimed was proof that it was a forgery. And then there was the birth notice in the Hawaiian newspaper. Had the plot begun with some kind of skullduggery in 1961 that would lead to Barak Hussein Obama becoming president in 2008?
That's why they are called conspiracy theories, because they fly so clearly in the face of common sense. Like the one about Trump being some kind of Hillary plot, which I believe you have espoused in our correspondence before, and that I have heard espoused by others from time to time. Isn't it much more likely that Trump, with his towering ego, wants to be president because he is the smartest guy in the universe, than to believe that somehow he is being paid off (a rich guy like him) or brainwashed or blackmailed or voodooed or something to clear the way for Hillary? What opposite group is pulling the strings behind Bernie? And who paid off your man Rand to be such an inept campaigner and bring defeat to libertarianism which, if the American people could see clearly, they would adopt in a heartbeat because it is such a groovy system?
While you are researching Alexander Hamilton, maybe you could come up with something about the age of 35. Why not 30, why not 40? Actually
I seem to recall, back when I was dodging the draft, that that was the age when the selective service lost interest in you, so maybe there is some precedence in old Anglo Saxon law or something.
Both Rubio and Cruz are of Cuban ancestry. Rubio is second generation and can speak Spanish. Cruz is third generation and knows maybe a few phrases like we learned in Mr Chadwick's class. His daddy is a fire and brimstone preacher and that's where he gets his peculiar speaking style.
I think your example of me being the only white guy in my building is a bit extreme, but I suppose if they didn't call me Whitey everytime they ran into me and my neighbors didn't blast that awful rap music to all hours of the night, it would be okay. Look at you, you have like less than one percent Hispanics in the town you don't even live in, and probably haven't laid eyes on a Hispanic since you were a pup, and you are upset about them moving anywhere in the USA because sometime you might tune in your tv and see them making spectacles of themselves and that would upset your stomach like somebody had snuck a habanero pepper into your bland gringo chili.
The context in which I was referring to the Hispanics is that the only reason they are perceived as a voting block to be reckoned with is because they vote in a block, and the only reason they vote in a block is because the republicans keep bad mouthing them. If the republicans didn't do that many of them, inspired by republican family values would be solid republicans.
Didn't you know that Scalia was a hero to all you second amendment types? Not that you particularly believe in the second amendment (I think you said you didn't) but anything that keeps Old Betsy in your sweaty hands is jake with you.
If you haven't tossed your tv out the window for spoiling your meal of taco shells and eggplant(?) perhaps you saw Dubya returning from obscurity to stump for his brother. Apparently Dubya is popular in the deep south state of south Carolina, but has it ever occurred to the smart Bush brother that the sane part of the country, where most of the votes are, hates Dubya, and surely these clips would find their way into anti Bush ads should he emerge from the clown car still standing?
I don't know if we've always had birth certificates, and back in the day churches and courthouses would burn down and there wasn't always a record. It seems kind of foolish to expect a guy to show up with one. As I recall Obama showed one, but then the birthers wanted a longer form, and then when that was presented they found something odd in the typeface that they claimed was proof that it was a forgery. And then there was the birth notice in the Hawaiian newspaper. Had the plot begun with some kind of skullduggery in 1961 that would lead to Barak Hussein Obama becoming president in 2008?
That's why they are called conspiracy theories, because they fly so clearly in the face of common sense. Like the one about Trump being some kind of Hillary plot, which I believe you have espoused in our correspondence before, and that I have heard espoused by others from time to time. Isn't it much more likely that Trump, with his towering ego, wants to be president because he is the smartest guy in the universe, than to believe that somehow he is being paid off (a rich guy like him) or brainwashed or blackmailed or voodooed or something to clear the way for Hillary? What opposite group is pulling the strings behind Bernie? And who paid off your man Rand to be such an inept campaigner and bring defeat to libertarianism which, if the American people could see clearly, they would adopt in a heartbeat because it is such a groovy system?
While you are researching Alexander Hamilton, maybe you could come up with something about the age of 35. Why not 30, why not 40? Actually
I seem to recall, back when I was dodging the draft, that that was the age when the selective service lost interest in you, so maybe there is some precedence in old Anglo Saxon law or something.
Both Rubio and Cruz are of Cuban ancestry. Rubio is second generation and can speak Spanish. Cruz is third generation and knows maybe a few phrases like we learned in Mr Chadwick's class. His daddy is a fire and brimstone preacher and that's where he gets his peculiar speaking style.
I think your example of me being the only white guy in my building is a bit extreme, but I suppose if they didn't call me Whitey everytime they ran into me and my neighbors didn't blast that awful rap music to all hours of the night, it would be okay. Look at you, you have like less than one percent Hispanics in the town you don't even live in, and probably haven't laid eyes on a Hispanic since you were a pup, and you are upset about them moving anywhere in the USA because sometime you might tune in your tv and see them making spectacles of themselves and that would upset your stomach like somebody had snuck a habanero pepper into your bland gringo chili.
The context in which I was referring to the Hispanics is that the only reason they are perceived as a voting block to be reckoned with is because they vote in a block, and the only reason they vote in a block is because the republicans keep bad mouthing them. If the republicans didn't do that many of them, inspired by republican family values would be solid republicans.
Didn't you know that Scalia was a hero to all you second amendment types? Not that you particularly believe in the second amendment (I think you said you didn't) but anything that keeps Old Betsy in your sweaty hands is jake with you.
If you haven't tossed your tv out the window for spoiling your meal of taco shells and eggplant(?) perhaps you saw Dubya returning from obscurity to stump for his brother. Apparently Dubya is popular in the deep south state of south Carolina, but has it ever occurred to the smart Bush brother that the sane part of the country, where most of the votes are, hates Dubya, and surely these clips would find their way into anti Bush ads should he emerge from the clown car still standing?
Monday, February 15, 2016
It's Hardly a Loophole
The requirement that a presidential candidate must be a natural born citizen is hardly a loophole, it's in the U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 5. I think they put it in there to prevent some Englishman from becoming president, which is understandable considering they had recently fought a war with England. That shouldn't be a concern today, so maybe it should be changed, but the only way it can be changed is by a constitutional amendment, and nobody seems interested in doing that. The same paragraph also requires that the president must be at least 35 year old, so it seems reasonable that a candidate should be required to show his birth certificate to somebody before he can even file his candidacy. That, however, is not in the constitution or anywhere else in the law, it seems like the Founding Fathers overlooked that detail. It's never really been an issue until Obama ran for president, but it's bound to come up again someday, so it should be written into the law, but nobody seems interested in doing that either. The issue with Cruz is whether or not a person born to an American mother while she is staying in a foreign country qualifies as a natural born citizen. He is a citizen to be sure, but is he a natural born citizen? Now that's a loophole, and it shouldn't take a lawsuit to close it up. All they need to do is pass a law, or amend the current law, to clarify that one point, but nobody seems interested in doing that either.
Speaking of Cruz, isn't he Hispanic, and Rubio too? I have seen their photos, and they both look White to me. Neither Hispanic nor Mexican is a race, they are both nationalities. I can't speak for the rest of my ilk, but my main concern is the illegal immigrants, no matter what their race or nationalities might be. The common perception is that almost all of the illegals are Hispanic, but that might be because they are the ones that seem to make the news a lot. I would also be concerned if millions of people moved into my neighborhood and surrounded me, especially, but not exclusively, if they spoke a different language and had different social customs that set them apart from my other neighbors. I think that most people would. You have said that you have some colored people in your building and you don't have a problem with it. But if they were all colored, and you were the only English speaking White guy in the building, wouldn't that make you a little nervous?
I don't know much about any of the Supreme Court justices, but I understand that Scalia was considered to be a conservative. I think the concern is that, if a liberal judge takes his place, the balance of the court will tip to the left. I agree with you, however, that the Senate should hold hearings and vote on it. The next time there's a vacancy, we might have a Republican president and a Democratic senate, that's the way it goes in the United States of America. I generally don't approve of the way Congress bottles up bills in committee until they expire at the end of the session. They should either vote it in or vote it out, and go on to the next item on the agenda.
I found a thing about Trump on Wiki over the weekend. I wasn't aware that this possibility had occurred to anybody else, but remember that you heard it first from Talks With Beagles.
Speaking of Cruz, isn't he Hispanic, and Rubio too? I have seen their photos, and they both look White to me. Neither Hispanic nor Mexican is a race, they are both nationalities. I can't speak for the rest of my ilk, but my main concern is the illegal immigrants, no matter what their race or nationalities might be. The common perception is that almost all of the illegals are Hispanic, but that might be because they are the ones that seem to make the news a lot. I would also be concerned if millions of people moved into my neighborhood and surrounded me, especially, but not exclusively, if they spoke a different language and had different social customs that set them apart from my other neighbors. I think that most people would. You have said that you have some colored people in your building and you don't have a problem with it. But if they were all colored, and you were the only English speaking White guy in the building, wouldn't that make you a little nervous?
I don't know much about any of the Supreme Court justices, but I understand that Scalia was considered to be a conservative. I think the concern is that, if a liberal judge takes his place, the balance of the court will tip to the left. I agree with you, however, that the Senate should hold hearings and vote on it. The next time there's a vacancy, we might have a Republican president and a Democratic senate, that's the way it goes in the United States of America. I generally don't approve of the way Congress bottles up bills in committee until they expire at the end of the session. They should either vote it in or vote it out, and go on to the next item on the agenda.
I found a thing about Trump on Wiki over the weekend. I wasn't aware that this possibility had occurred to anybody else, but remember that you heard it first from Talks With Beagles.
False flag conspiracy theory[edit]
A conspiracy theory appearing in the Washington Post, Salon, Esquire, Gawker, Talking Points Memo and several other political news outlets, and which has been endorsed by several of Trump's opponents, posits that Trump is running a "false flag operation" for presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. According to this theory, Trump intends to help her secure the presidency by obtaining the Republican nomination, or running as a third party candidate, which Trump was initially reluctant to rule out, but eventually did.[191][192][193][194][195][196][197]R I P Scalia
Egg plant?
Not a fan of hot food huh? You ought to live in Texas for a couple years, you would develop a taste. Myself I like jalapenos, but I steer clear of the dreaded habanero.
You're right, there is a lot of talk about the Hispanic vote. I guess it's because they tend to vote in a block. They wouldn't necessarily do so. As the republican establishment points out, they are religious, family oriented, pretty conservative and their natural home would be the republican party.
But the insurgent wing of the party keeps bashing them because it is popular with a lot of republican voters because, well some will say that they are concerned with national security and the rule of law, but mostly I think it is because they don't like people who don't talk and look like them, which is to say white.
And maybe I am wrong and more republicans are concerned with national security and rule of law than are xenophobic, but if you are a Mexican it sure looks like these people plain don't like you and hell will freeze over before you vote for any republican.
The Attorney General of the US is Loretta Lynch, a black woman appointed by Obama. Do you think any republicans are going to take her word for anything? And do you think she is going to go out of her way to help the second nuttiest republican candidate. And even if she did, you know somebody would sue, because the most treasured right of Americans is the right to sue.
I think that thing about keeping foreign guys out of the presidency is a holdover from colonial days, even though not a few of the founding fathers were foreign born. It seems undemocratic that if the majority of Americans want somebody for president they can't have him because of some loophole.
Well I was settling in to watch the republican debate Saturday night and I went to my favorite political website, Politico, to brush up on what would be upcoming and bam, Scalia dead.
Well dignity in death and I'm sure he was a fine family man and had friends aplenty, but I never liked the sonofabitch and I was glad to see him dead.
The guy was scarce cold when McConnell and the entire slate of rep candidates were declaring there would be no consideration of anybody that Obama would nominate. Flat out no hearings. Seemed kind of odd, I mean why not hold the hearings? I think it's in their beloved constitution and they could just vote down anybody Obama proposed all nice and legal like.
It makes you wonder what will become of the supreme court. If neither party controls both the presidency and the senate they will not be able to confirm anybody, and if a party controls both they can nominate anybody they choose and not a damn thing the other party can do about it.
And then on to the republican debate and holy shit, the only reason chairs weren't flying is because they had podiums, and probably the only reasons podiums weren't flying was because they couldn't rip them up.
Not a fan of hot food huh? You ought to live in Texas for a couple years, you would develop a taste. Myself I like jalapenos, but I steer clear of the dreaded habanero.
You're right, there is a lot of talk about the Hispanic vote. I guess it's because they tend to vote in a block. They wouldn't necessarily do so. As the republican establishment points out, they are religious, family oriented, pretty conservative and their natural home would be the republican party.
But the insurgent wing of the party keeps bashing them because it is popular with a lot of republican voters because, well some will say that they are concerned with national security and the rule of law, but mostly I think it is because they don't like people who don't talk and look like them, which is to say white.
And maybe I am wrong and more republicans are concerned with national security and rule of law than are xenophobic, but if you are a Mexican it sure looks like these people plain don't like you and hell will freeze over before you vote for any republican.
The Attorney General of the US is Loretta Lynch, a black woman appointed by Obama. Do you think any republicans are going to take her word for anything? And do you think she is going to go out of her way to help the second nuttiest republican candidate. And even if she did, you know somebody would sue, because the most treasured right of Americans is the right to sue.
I think that thing about keeping foreign guys out of the presidency is a holdover from colonial days, even though not a few of the founding fathers were foreign born. It seems undemocratic that if the majority of Americans want somebody for president they can't have him because of some loophole.
Well I was settling in to watch the republican debate Saturday night and I went to my favorite political website, Politico, to brush up on what would be upcoming and bam, Scalia dead.
Well dignity in death and I'm sure he was a fine family man and had friends aplenty, but I never liked the sonofabitch and I was glad to see him dead.
The guy was scarce cold when McConnell and the entire slate of rep candidates were declaring there would be no consideration of anybody that Obama would nominate. Flat out no hearings. Seemed kind of odd, I mean why not hold the hearings? I think it's in their beloved constitution and they could just vote down anybody Obama proposed all nice and legal like.
It makes you wonder what will become of the supreme court. If neither party controls both the presidency and the senate they will not be able to confirm anybody, and if a party controls both they can nominate anybody they choose and not a damn thing the other party can do about it.
And then on to the republican debate and holy shit, the only reason chairs weren't flying is because they had podiums, and probably the only reasons podiums weren't flying was because they couldn't rip them up.
Friday, February 12, 2016
Silver Bells and Taco Shells
"Mistress Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
With silver bells and taco shells, and one fucking egg plant."
Funny how you remember stuff that you think you've forgotten. All it takes is a little hint to bring it back.
That Thai restaurant is called "Indo-China Garden", although there is no garden associated with it. They have both Chinese and Thai food there, but we have never tried the Thai stuff because it warns you right in the menu that it's spicy. The place is only a couple miles from us and we get take out from there often, but have only eaten in the restaurant a couple of times. I didn't think we had a Mexican food truck, but my hypothetical wife reports that she has seen it parked by a small Mexican restaurant on State Street. Last she knew, they were both closed, but that may be only for the winter. My hypothetical wife makes really good tacos herself. She buys the shells ready made and warms them in the oven. She also makes really good chili, but she doesn't put any of those hot peppers in it, although she does use chili powder sparingly in both her tacos and chili. My daughter calls it "Gringo chili." My daughter used to live in Petoskey, but she recently moved to Charlevoix, about 20 miles down the Lake Michigan shore.
Maybe it's different in Chicago but, on a national scale, it's common knowledge that the Hispanic vote is becoming increasingly important to presidential candidates. When I used to read our local paper, the experts (what do you call them, pundits?) were always chiding the Republicans for not kissing up enough to the Hispanics. They say that Hispanics are the fastest growing group of voters, and it won't be long before nobody will be able to get elected president without their support. I assume they are referring to the legal Hispanics because the illegal ones aren't supposed to be voting.
There is only one U.S. Attorney General, although each state has one of their own. No attorney general has the power to change the constitution, but they often give legal advice to government people who consult with them, the intent being to keep them from doing something wrong and getting in trouble for it. Cruz could ask the U.S one for a legal opinion about his citizenship, which would help him decide whether or not the presidency is worth pursuing. What would be the point of getting nominated or, even elected, and later being disqualified by court action? That might have happened to Obama if the birthers could have proven their assertion that he was born in Africa. Turned out they couldn't, but they still raised enough ruckus to be a distraction and an annoyance. Who needs that when you're trying to run a country?
I don't think there's sufficient interest for Congress to propose a constitutional amendment abolishing the "natural born citizen" clause. You are the only person I know who has shown any interest in it at all but, of course, I don't know everybody.
With silver bells and taco shells, and one fucking egg plant."
Funny how you remember stuff that you think you've forgotten. All it takes is a little hint to bring it back.
That Thai restaurant is called "Indo-China Garden", although there is no garden associated with it. They have both Chinese and Thai food there, but we have never tried the Thai stuff because it warns you right in the menu that it's spicy. The place is only a couple miles from us and we get take out from there often, but have only eaten in the restaurant a couple of times. I didn't think we had a Mexican food truck, but my hypothetical wife reports that she has seen it parked by a small Mexican restaurant on State Street. Last she knew, they were both closed, but that may be only for the winter. My hypothetical wife makes really good tacos herself. She buys the shells ready made and warms them in the oven. She also makes really good chili, but she doesn't put any of those hot peppers in it, although she does use chili powder sparingly in both her tacos and chili. My daughter calls it "Gringo chili." My daughter used to live in Petoskey, but she recently moved to Charlevoix, about 20 miles down the Lake Michigan shore.
Maybe it's different in Chicago but, on a national scale, it's common knowledge that the Hispanic vote is becoming increasingly important to presidential candidates. When I used to read our local paper, the experts (what do you call them, pundits?) were always chiding the Republicans for not kissing up enough to the Hispanics. They say that Hispanics are the fastest growing group of voters, and it won't be long before nobody will be able to get elected president without their support. I assume they are referring to the legal Hispanics because the illegal ones aren't supposed to be voting.
There is only one U.S. Attorney General, although each state has one of their own. No attorney general has the power to change the constitution, but they often give legal advice to government people who consult with them, the intent being to keep them from doing something wrong and getting in trouble for it. Cruz could ask the U.S one for a legal opinion about his citizenship, which would help him decide whether or not the presidency is worth pursuing. What would be the point of getting nominated or, even elected, and later being disqualified by court action? That might have happened to Obama if the birthers could have proven their assertion that he was born in Africa. Turned out they couldn't, but they still raised enough ruckus to be a distraction and an annoyance. Who needs that when you're trying to run a country?
I don't think there's sufficient interest for Congress to propose a constitutional amendment abolishing the "natural born citizen" clause. You are the only person I know who has shown any interest in it at all but, of course, I don't know everybody.
Dining at the West Coast Tacos truck
Those percents with the decimal points in them are a bit tricky. One
percent is a hundredth, so one percent of 26,152 is 261.52, rounded up
to 262, and .76 of that is about three quarters, so call it oh about
200, hardly enough to support a restaurant, but maybe the people of
Cheboygan, living near an international border, are a cosmopolitan
crowd, eager to taste the cuisine of many lands. But a little internet
research reveals that they are not, the most exotic appears to be Thai,
although there is a Mexican food truck. There are a couple Mexican
restaurants in Petoskey, where I believe your daughter lives. You might
want to sample one and try the food you will be forced to eat every
day, and extra special hot sauce for swamp gringos, once they take over.
I do wonder where you read about them taking over though. Those must be some peculiar tv stations and newspapers, I never see that. Like I said they are about a third of the population here, but by and large they stay away from the ballot box and their aldermen are generally toadies of the mayor and their other elected officials are feathering their own nests just like the Poles and the Irish.
What I meant to say was that Kasich won in the 'moderate' lane of candidates, the one with Rubio and Bush, Cruz has the tea party/evangelical lane all to himself now that the Huck and Icky Rick (yes, I love nicknames) are gone, and the republicans have a new lane this year, the Trump lane, talk about tearing the party a new asshole.
I don't think it is up to a single attorney general to declare Cruz presidential. You know his opponents would find some other attorney general to declare him unpresidential. I think it has to go all the way to the supremes and by then Cruz may be finishing up his second term and we will all be going to some holy roller church every Sunday and Wednesday evening, and there will be somebody there inspecting us to see if our shoes are shined and our buttons polished.
I was looking up amendments last night. The last one passed was in 1992 delaying laws effecting Congressional salary from taking effect until the next election. It was first proposed in 1789. Wow. I have no memory of that.
The last one before that was 1971, the 18 year old vote. I believe that was done to sooth restive youth who were being drafted at that age. I don't remember that there was much furor over it at the time. You would think, if you lived on Mars, that they could do something like that now with the natural-born thing, but if Obama proposed it, it would be treason, and I can't see the republicans proposing it because so many of their constituents are afraid of furriners taking over.
Watched the dems debate last night, it was a lot more civil and issue oriented then the reps, so it was kind of boring. I will be watching Saturday's debate (no I never get tired of those things) and i will give you a report on Monday.
I do wonder where you read about them taking over though. Those must be some peculiar tv stations and newspapers, I never see that. Like I said they are about a third of the population here, but by and large they stay away from the ballot box and their aldermen are generally toadies of the mayor and their other elected officials are feathering their own nests just like the Poles and the Irish.
What I meant to say was that Kasich won in the 'moderate' lane of candidates, the one with Rubio and Bush, Cruz has the tea party/evangelical lane all to himself now that the Huck and Icky Rick (yes, I love nicknames) are gone, and the republicans have a new lane this year, the Trump lane, talk about tearing the party a new asshole.
I don't think it is up to a single attorney general to declare Cruz presidential. You know his opponents would find some other attorney general to declare him unpresidential. I think it has to go all the way to the supremes and by then Cruz may be finishing up his second term and we will all be going to some holy roller church every Sunday and Wednesday evening, and there will be somebody there inspecting us to see if our shoes are shined and our buttons polished.
I was looking up amendments last night. The last one passed was in 1992 delaying laws effecting Congressional salary from taking effect until the next election. It was first proposed in 1789. Wow. I have no memory of that.
The last one before that was 1971, the 18 year old vote. I believe that was done to sooth restive youth who were being drafted at that age. I don't remember that there was much furor over it at the time. You would think, if you lived on Mars, that they could do something like that now with the natural-born thing, but if Obama proposed it, it would be treason, and I can't see the republicans proposing it because so many of their constituents are afraid of furriners taking over.
Watched the dems debate last night, it was a lot more civil and issue oriented then the reps, so it was kind of boring. I will be watching Saturday's debate (no I never get tired of those things) and i will give you a report on Monday.
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Do The Math
According to Wiki, there are 26,152 people in Cheboygan County, and 0.76% of them are Hispanics. By my calculations, we should have 198.76 Hispanics, or maybe it's 19.88 Hispanics. I'm not sure where the decimal point goes. It's been a long time since I and my hypothetical wife have been to school, and I have been driving her nuts trying to remember how it goes. She finally told me to ask you to figure it for us since you are a former teacher. At any rate, however many Hispanics we have, they must be keeping a low profile because neither I nor my hypothetical wife know any of them or where they might live, nor do we remember hearing anything about them in the news. We used to have a Taco Bell, but it closed down a long time ago, and I don't remember ever going in there.
I've got nothing against anybody who wants to live in Chicago. If all the Chicago people followed my example and moved here, it would be just as crowded here as it is in Chicago, and I would have to move away. The only reason I'm paranoid about those people taking over the country is that I keep hearing about it in the news. I already have given up reading our local newspaper, so maybe if I quit watching the TV news I wouldn't worry so much. Only then I would have to depend on you as my sole source of news, and I would still have to look it up on Wiki to see if you're telling me right.
Speaking of which, I thought I remembered hearing on TV that Trump won the New Hampshire Republican primary, and now you tell me that Kasich won it. Well according to Wiki, Trump got 35.34%, Kasich got 15.81%, and Cruz got 11.68% of the votes. Although Trump didn't get a majority, he got a plurality, which is the closest anybody is going to come to winning unless it ever gets down to only two candidates. I understand that your man Bernie won on the Democrat side, so congratulations are in order, although with 48 more states and various odd territories to go, it's a little too soon to do the victory dance.
Why doesn't Cruz ask the Attorney general or somebody to deliver a legal opinion on the issue of his citizenship? If I was running for president, I would want to know early on whether or not I was wasting my time. It seems like, after that uproar about Obama's birthplace, they or somebody should have put a mechanism in place to resolve these issues before a guy could even declare his candidacy. With all those foreigners taking over the country it's bound to come up more and more as time goes on. Congress can't just change the Constitution by its own self. First they have to pass a proposal, and then it's got to be ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures. Another way would be to call a constitutional convention, which could change anything or even dump the whole constitution and start all over from scratch, but that's never been done because nobody wants to open up that can of worms.
I've got nothing against anybody who wants to live in Chicago. If all the Chicago people followed my example and moved here, it would be just as crowded here as it is in Chicago, and I would have to move away. The only reason I'm paranoid about those people taking over the country is that I keep hearing about it in the news. I already have given up reading our local newspaper, so maybe if I quit watching the TV news I wouldn't worry so much. Only then I would have to depend on you as my sole source of news, and I would still have to look it up on Wiki to see if you're telling me right.
Speaking of which, I thought I remembered hearing on TV that Trump won the New Hampshire Republican primary, and now you tell me that Kasich won it. Well according to Wiki, Trump got 35.34%, Kasich got 15.81%, and Cruz got 11.68% of the votes. Although Trump didn't get a majority, he got a plurality, which is the closest anybody is going to come to winning unless it ever gets down to only two candidates. I understand that your man Bernie won on the Democrat side, so congratulations are in order, although with 48 more states and various odd territories to go, it's a little too soon to do the victory dance.
Why doesn't Cruz ask the Attorney general or somebody to deliver a legal opinion on the issue of his citizenship? If I was running for president, I would want to know early on whether or not I was wasting my time. It seems like, after that uproar about Obama's birthplace, they or somebody should have put a mechanism in place to resolve these issues before a guy could even declare his candidacy. With all those foreigners taking over the country it's bound to come up more and more as time goes on. Congress can't just change the Constitution by its own self. First they have to pass a proposal, and then it's got to be ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures. Another way would be to call a constitutional convention, which could change anything or even dump the whole constitution and start all over from scratch, but that's never been done because nobody wants to open up that can of worms.
celebrating Taco Tuesday
Did a little internet research on your guv, hard to determine if he is a
tea partier or not. Apparently he made a big deal out of being a
political outsider and espoused family values and guns and opposed gay
marriage, and was elected in that tea party wave, but he also spoke of
bipartisanship which is a word no partier would ever utter. If I google
Rick Snyder tea party i see a lot of people think he is one. I think
we can say that he may not carry the card but he is a fellow traveler.
Just as it's hard to distinguish who is a tea party guy and who is not, it's a little difficult to distinguish who we mean when we talk about Hispanics, because that includes Mexicans and Cubans and Puerto Ricans and most of South America, but sometimes it is used to speak of Mexicans only, and among Mexicans we have the ones who are US citizens, and the illegal immigrants who come from Mexico, and the people who live in Mexico and have never come here except maybe for a vacation. And not all illegal immigrants are Mexicans, some of them come from South America, Poland, Ireland, Asia.
But by far most of them come from Mexico and Central and South America, and I think these are primarily the people of which we speak.
I go through all this to lead up to the question of if there are any let's see, Spanish Speaking Illegal Immigrants (SSII) in Cheboygan. Well of course they are not going to announce that they are illegal, but I think we can be safe in the assumption that if you have a sizable Mexican community some of them are probably illegal. So is there a Mexican community in Cheboygan? If you want to celebrate Taco Tuesday do you have a good place to go, or do you end up at the Taco Bell?
What I am trying to figure out is what is your beef with these people? You left Chicago and now there are a lot of Mexicans (and SSIIs) living in Chicago, but what do you care? You are far from there. In general we get along pretty well here. Why are you sticking your nose in our business?
So is it just the fact that laws are being not enforced that bothers you? If we repealed the immigration law and welcomed everybody would that be fine with you? Actually you know that during the depths of our downturn a lot of SSIIs went back home because there weren't any jobs for them here. So maybe the free market would solve all that. Libertarians are huge fans of the free market, but you are a delicatessen libertarian and I don't think I have ever heard your thoughts on laissez faire capitalism.
The reason Cruz isn't taking this issue to the courts is that it would take forever. There would have to be some test case and it would have to work its way up to the supremes, and then there would be appeals, and all this time it would be in the news, and it would never be settled in time for the election.
You know what congress should do is just take that natural born thing out of the requirements for the presidency so that this pesky issue wouldn't be coming up every now and then. If the American people choose to elect somebody who wasn't born on American soil, shouldn't that be their right?
Right now the Republican race is between Trump, Cruz, and the 'moderates.' The moderates are Kasich, the winner of new Hampshire, Bush, coming back from the dead, and Rubio, dusting himself off. Neither of those three had more than 16 percentage points, but together they have about 35 and it's widely assumed that whichever one emerges will get the votes of those dropping out.
On to South Carolina and another debate this Saturday. I may even watch the democratic one tonight, now that I am feeling the Bern.
Just as it's hard to distinguish who is a tea party guy and who is not, it's a little difficult to distinguish who we mean when we talk about Hispanics, because that includes Mexicans and Cubans and Puerto Ricans and most of South America, but sometimes it is used to speak of Mexicans only, and among Mexicans we have the ones who are US citizens, and the illegal immigrants who come from Mexico, and the people who live in Mexico and have never come here except maybe for a vacation. And not all illegal immigrants are Mexicans, some of them come from South America, Poland, Ireland, Asia.
But by far most of them come from Mexico and Central and South America, and I think these are primarily the people of which we speak.
I go through all this to lead up to the question of if there are any let's see, Spanish Speaking Illegal Immigrants (SSII) in Cheboygan. Well of course they are not going to announce that they are illegal, but I think we can be safe in the assumption that if you have a sizable Mexican community some of them are probably illegal. So is there a Mexican community in Cheboygan? If you want to celebrate Taco Tuesday do you have a good place to go, or do you end up at the Taco Bell?
What I am trying to figure out is what is your beef with these people? You left Chicago and now there are a lot of Mexicans (and SSIIs) living in Chicago, but what do you care? You are far from there. In general we get along pretty well here. Why are you sticking your nose in our business?
So is it just the fact that laws are being not enforced that bothers you? If we repealed the immigration law and welcomed everybody would that be fine with you? Actually you know that during the depths of our downturn a lot of SSIIs went back home because there weren't any jobs for them here. So maybe the free market would solve all that. Libertarians are huge fans of the free market, but you are a delicatessen libertarian and I don't think I have ever heard your thoughts on laissez faire capitalism.
The reason Cruz isn't taking this issue to the courts is that it would take forever. There would have to be some test case and it would have to work its way up to the supremes, and then there would be appeals, and all this time it would be in the news, and it would never be settled in time for the election.
You know what congress should do is just take that natural born thing out of the requirements for the presidency so that this pesky issue wouldn't be coming up every now and then. If the American people choose to elect somebody who wasn't born on American soil, shouldn't that be their right?
Right now the Republican race is between Trump, Cruz, and the 'moderates.' The moderates are Kasich, the winner of new Hampshire, Bush, coming back from the dead, and Rubio, dusting himself off. Neither of those three had more than 16 percentage points, but together they have about 35 and it's widely assumed that whichever one emerges will get the votes of those dropping out.
On to South Carolina and another debate this Saturday. I may even watch the democratic one tonight, now that I am feeling the Bern.
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