Truthy Stuff

An entire month went by without any sandwich truth. I have mission creep from Facebook but hopefully I will be back here doing what I like to do best.

There is a possibility that I will be doing an annonymous sort of blog that you won't see, but I will be writing. I just got back from a cruise and I realized that writing is the missing part of my life. When I found out that I no longer had an off-line app for my Chromebook, I actually had to ask the cruiseline for some paper to use for all these thoughts floating by.

I want to effect the world through social media but Facebook is so frenetic. I feel like I am bouncing around all over the place with no deep passion.

So, without further ado, I will end this entry. :)

Not sure if....

I have been trying to figure out so many things this morning. It seems like I must take someone's word on pretty much everything I do. Written contracts are just not what they used to be. Trust us.

If there is every a time for mistrust... wouldn't you expect it now. But getting something precisely spelled out to you is an impossibility on paper. Why I would have to

I guess I could document it here that I have been told I am able to leave the City of Montgomery's health plan and come back to it if I needed it later, at any time, no less. You see, they just changed the contract amd this makes my current method economically silly.  Heck, if they can change the contract at the drop of a hat anyway, where am I?  It is so confusing and I feel lost in these transactions. Heaven forbid that I ever have to actually go back to coverage by the City of Montgomery to find out I have been lied to. Hell, they may not even be there. I have kind of have made my decision to work through to medicare, I guess, because, how can you rely on them to stick to a "contract."

At any rate, on a lighter note, I hear a bunch of stuff about bonds not being the go-to investment anymore. So I look up on USAA, my bank, to see my investments in bonds and come across this graphic under the allocation of my bond fund:

Sometimes it seems like a struggle to just successfully navigate life to get to the portion where they put you six feet under.

Deleted Comments on Libertarians

The interplay on Facebook can be fun but it is not the place for essays. :) While it is interesting trying to make one's comments succinct enough to be read, it is no place for long winded narratives, which you must know by now, are my specialty. I often hammer things out on facebook into a fine brass form only to delete them. After all, I am trying to hone my writing skills, I tell myself. Then I invariably delete, not just because my writing skills are bad, but because it doesn't belong on Facebook where the swift acerbic comment is king. Anyway, here is an example of the lost writings of me. The last two comments were deleted. The post being commented on was about Julian Assange's endorsement of Paul Rand as his brand of libertarianism. Here are my four comments. You can see there are no responses other than "likes" for my acerbic swift one, but then again, I deleted less than a minute after writing the last. A waste of time? You bet!!

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  Michael DeVore One of his "coworkers" at Wikileaks wrote a book about him... I don't believe everything I read (especially since this author was trying to distance himself from criminal prosecution) but what he wrote seemed logical. Assange is a strange bird. Both Assange and Snowden seem to have this need to be important in realms other than just publishing the documents, and the advantage they have is that official response to them cannot include evidence because their cases are ongoing plus both are dealing with state secrets, which, the less said, the better... for the agencies involved.

  37 minutes ago · Edited · Like
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  Michael DeVore But Rand Paul? That lunacy is beyond the practical into the absurd.

  32 minutes ago · Like · 2
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  Michael DeVore Libertarians in general, seem to like simplistic answers to intricate questions. Some of the things they say are perfectly legit because a simple answer can be the solution. They have, for instance, helped us rethink the war on drugs, However, the same simplistic underpinnings for their argument about drugs would have "buyer beware" capitalism, without government regs, to be the holy grail of economics. They would complicate this by having education purchased rather than available, which would make the buyer an easy mark. It isn't practical or workable.

  12 minutes ago · Edited · Like
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  Michael DeVore And college kids like this stuff. It is easy to understand and a simple world view that allows you to immediately come up with answers to questions based on a sort of utopian framework. Plus the two main parties look completely unresponsive to them. I just wish I could get the college students together with the lady who I knew to be a major player in Rand Paul campaign in this area. They could discuss her views on the world trade center being a demolition job by the government using demolition charges, the planes being a distraction.

It's All Up to What You Value

"It's all up to what you value
Down to where you are.
It all swings on the pain you've gone through
Getting where you are... 

It's all up to what you value, in your motorcar

It all rests on what it cost you Getting where you are. It's what you value."

  - George Harrison "It's What You Value"

Self Indulgent Stuff

Things are rapidly changing in my life but they will all be for the better, in time, or I will modify as I go to make them better. It all started with a medical issue, which is not all that important as I really am an old guy and medical issues are the daily bread of one's later life. However, I started thinking of all the things I know I do wrong. Now it is almost a spiritual journey.

When one is young and has a belief in basically unlimited amount of moments in time, a person sometimes gets lax. I almost feel sorry for those who don't at least get somewhat lax. I remember my childhood summers between school as the best times of my life. I did try to use them somewhat wisely. One summer I learned about research, by researching topics in the Maxwell Air Force Base library. I was interested in mainly science fiction although I also researched POW accounts from World War II. Both interested me at the time. One summer I learned how to type on an electric typewriter. That effected my life as well. On yet another summer, I learned how to juggle 3 balls. This did not really come in handy in the rest of my life. It is not something you actually retain very well without practice. But the fact that I tried endlessly, with the barest of instructions, for at least a month to perfect this skill gave me a great sense of accomplishment and helped hone my tenacity. Otherwise, summers were spent playing, listening to music, reading, or watching television. It is good to learn the art of enjoying life.

I loved reading but I never enjoyed writing much. My standards were too high for myself. I wanted to be as good as the best without the steps in between. This is the whole story behind my blogs really. I wanted to finally begin the journey. Of course it is way too late but I am traveling.

The changes happening to me merely create the need for a new lifestyle. Habits are not easy to shift obviously, but the times I have met with success in the past all amounted to me rethinking everything I did in a new way. I have to keep my mind open for all sorts of possibilities. And I have to do tons of things I am not used to, and consequently do not relish doing being as resistant to change as ever. I might be the most liberal person in the world in politics, pushing for change at every step, but change really doesn't happen that fast in politics. One can control each moment of one's day much more effectively and drastically.

So I embark on a new adventure. What it means for the blogs and social networking, I do not know. Time is an issue. When one changes something, one needs to factor everything in. Take nothing for granted. There is always time in the future to modify.

I'd like to say I rarely write self indulgent entries but... all a blog is self indulgence.. come on, you know it's true. :)

The Crescendo of Scandalous Crises Mode: Research Update

Now that there appears to be some willingness to reform the NSA to higher standards, my lack of an actual equal representation still hampers me from having pretty much any voice at all in the outcome.

I want to add this one graphic about my representation in the House of Representatives. I really got frustrated with this whole project so my research suffered. Here is an addendum which shows the extent of gerrymandering in the House, and so the dilution of my vote:

Before the 2010 election, conservatives launched a plan to win control of state legislatures before the census. The idea was to be in power when national congressional districts were redrawn in order to fix them so Republicans would win a majority of districts.

The Redistricting Majority Project was hugely successful. In 2012, Barack Obama was elected President by nearly 3.5 million votes. In Congressional races, Democrats drew nearly 1.4 million more votes than Republicans yet  Republicans won control of the House 234 seats to 201 seats.

How is this possible?

By pumping $30 million into state races to win the legislatures,  Republicans redrew state maps in states such as Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Texas, Florida and Ohio to place all of the Democrats into just a few districts. 

In this manner, Democrats win heavily in a couple districts and lose the rest.

In North Carolina, the statewide vote was 51 percent Democrat and 49 percent Republican yet 9 Republicans won and only 4 Democrats.

Where is your coverage of this vote stealing, "liberal media"? You're willing to cover voter ID laws, why can't you cover real vote stealing?

Honey, The Garbage Disposal is Broken

Spent a great deal of my day putting in a new food disposal for the sink. I was kind of happy when the old one died as it was a cheapo they put in new construction houses. It's dying sound was HMMMM. So I reset it moved the blades around and it still sounded like a sick Mazda engine. I purchased a new one with the main concern of quiet in our fairly open plan house. I went by a video on the internet in removing the old one. Some things were more difficult than their "simply loosen the bolt" stuff, but basically it went fine. Then a second trip back to the store to buy plumbers putty... 1.97 for about 20 times what I needed... think they might have included 20 cents worth of putty in the kit?  Everything went well but it took a while. I turned it on and HMMMMMM....except....this hum is a sound of a correctly installed "quiet" working food disposal. I thought it was still broken.... I scrambled around for old food to dispose and magically, with almost no noise, it disappeared.

I feel very satisfied. Great day off starting with a note on the fridge that said, "Honey, the garbage disposal is broken."