WOMENS' RIGHTS

In every country, slaves were freed and could vote before women were freed and could vote. This is because men early on realized they needed to control the means of production of babies.

Prior to DNA, the only way a man could be CERTAIN that a baby was from his sperm was to make certain that his woman was kept inside a moving prison of rules about where she could go and what she could do. Women do NOT want to return to such 'slavery'.

It has been less than 100 years since women got to vote in the USA. Women KNOW that the most important right that they have is the right to control their own body. Women KNOW that babies should be wanted and welcomed with joy in the heart.

Even so, health of the whole body is more important than fighting the abortion fight while trying to pass a health care bill. There are other elections now that we know that the abortion issue STILL is not settled.

WE WILL REMEMBER!

PLEASE DO NOT LET IRAN CON US AGAIN

Repressive governments who face opposition by reformers WANT sanctions from the Western powers. That way they can blame all of their country's problems on the evil Christians or evil capitalists (whichever fits best).

It is REALLY STUPID to try to control countries with sanctions, especially if that country has a large percentage of the population that wants reform. Do you think that the government is going to suffer because of sanctions? No, it is the people who suffer because of sanctions. In fact, sanctions may keep the people so poor that they are unable to find the energy to try to fix their own government.

TRIALS IN CHINA

I do not understand why they bother to have criminal trials in China. Does ANYBODY get found not guilty?

On Christmas Day, a Chinese reformer was sentenced to 11 years for asking for freedom of speech. Freedom of speech in guaranteed by Article 34 of the Chinese constitution, which reads, "Citizens of the Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration."

I do not understand why our news media call the people trying to reform China and other countries "dissidents". They are REFORMERS, because they want reform.

GOOGLE -- THANK YOU FOR MY CHRISTMAS PRESENT

Google has given $20 million to charity on my behalf (and on behalf of its other AdSense customers). This is not exactly the present that I had in mind, but thanks to Google, charities will get needed funds.

I do need to inform Google that Ms. Manners says that a donation to a charity of your choice is not really a gift to someone else. On the other hand, Ms. Manners also says that you are not allowed to critize the manners of anyone else, so what does she know? %>)

Long time readers of my blog will remember that I asked Google to give me $20 million so that I could start the Pamela Smith Center for Law and Science. Guess that is not going to happen. %>(

MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY NEW YEAR, and HAPPY WHATEVER HOLIDAYS YOU CELEBRATE!

PLEASE CALL OR WRITE NEBRASKA SENATOR BEN NELSON

I know that Nebraska farmers and small businesspersons NEED health care reform.

I was born and raised in South Dakota, Nebraska's next door neighbor.

Senator Ben Nelson has stated that his personal beliefs are more important than health care reform.

If you vote in Nebraska, and believe health care reform is important, please contact Senator Nelson. His contact information is available at www.bennelson.senate.gov.

DO NOT USE BAD LANGUAGE. BE POLITE.

REMEMBER THAT WHAT THE VOTERS THINK IS STILL IMPORTANT.

WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS

For us all to treat EVERYONE with respect. LISTEN to what other people say as they may hold the answer. If you think you have the answer, be prepared to verbally defend your position. No adult is going to take, "Because I said so," as a valid reason.

Remember that people are more important than things.

FORGIVE each other. Hate RUINS the hater.

Pass a version of the health care bill. ANY health care bill is better than no health care bill.

JOBS for everyone.

LOANS for small businesses.

MAY THE SOLAR NEW YEAR BRING PEACE AND PROSPERITY TO THE WORLD.

FEARFUL BANKERS

I think bankers are afraid that they will make another humongous mistake.

The irony is that their fear will make this a self fulfilling prophecy.

This fear is also unnecessary as the events leading to the real estate bubble are probably unrepeatable. I think the FHA not insuring loans so that people in large urban areas could buy houses was one of the main causes of the real estate loan problem. AIG just delayed the crises, and made it happen all at once, rather than slowly.

We all kept our fear under control so that the economic crises could be fixed. Now it is up the the bankers to get over their fear and LEND MONEY.

HOME SCHOOLING IN CALIFORNIA

If you are going to home school your child in California, you must have a teaching credential.

You can check the Education Code sections 48200 and 48224. There is also a recent court case, In Re Rachel L (2008) 160 Cal App. 4th 624.

I believe that socialization is as important as education. Children educated at home do not learn to interact with a variety of other children. It is also important to learn to be part of a group of people working toward a common goal. (My favorite activity for this is joining a marching band.)

If necessary, you can supplement your child's education with books, movies, discussions, museums, cultural events, Boy and Girl Scouts, Odyssey of the Mind, science experiments, computer gaming, board games, card games, and other adult - child interactions.

I believe that most other states have laws similar to California's law regarding home schooling.

GET MY LEGAL ADVICE

I will be glad to look at any legal problem that you have. It will cost you $50 for the first half hour and $100 for the first hour. Please bring all relevant paperwork.

Usually I can give you an overview of what the problem is and what you can do about it. If it is work that I do not do, I can send you to another attorney who is an expert is your problem.

I am also willing to do consulting, for which I am going to charge $1000.00 an hour to any company worth more than $20,000,000.

PLEASE CALL FIRST. My information is on my website, www.LawandLaws.com

FEAR OF LENDING

For years the banks lent money to anyone who breathed, secure in their belief that the loans were insursed by AIG.

Now USA banks are sitting on ONE TRILLION DOLLARS over what regulators require that they keep in order to be healthy.

The problem is that this failure to invest ONE TRILLION DOLLARS is what is keeping the economy from rebounding. Maybe we should send the bankers back to college to take economics again. Failure to lend will cause another crunch in the supply of money. (I am not the only one to believe this. German bank regulators are saying the same thing.)

NUMBERS are not the only thing that makes a borrower credit worthy. Length of time in the community, commitment to a project, knowledge to make the project work, are all factors in making a good loan.

I have been talking to people who have not gotten loans. I am beginning to believe that banks are returning to their old bad ways of red-lining communities and not lending to credit worthy women.

We all kept from allowing fear to destroy the world wide economy. Banks should learn from us.

FEAR OF LENDING WILL DESTROY US ALL.

KILLING INNOCENTS

I can always tell when a valid social protest has lost its way. When the leaders decide that no one is immediately doing what they want done, they escalate their efforts by killing innocents.

A social protest movement that cannot get enough people for a peaceful change will sometimes use violence to affect the change they believe is necessary. This is the quickest way to go from being a GOOD GUY to being a BAD GUY.

NO NEEDED CHANGE is worth killing babies. NO NEEDED CHANGE is worth bombing a place of worship. NO NEEDED CHANGE is worth killing people who are peacefully shopping.

When you use violent methods of social protest, you are saying, "I want you to do what I tell you to do." People who use violence to get social change do not want followers, they want slaves.

CREDIT REPORTS

Most Americans live in fear of having a bad credit report. They have good reasons for this fear as banks and FHA seem to have given up actually looking at individual situations and rely completely on the credit report from only three credit reporting agencies.

We need to ask:

Why do ALL the credit reporting agencies have the EXACT SAME formula for evaluating credit? Don't we have anti-trust laws?

Why does your credit rating go down every time you apply for credit? Why does your credit report go down every time you are turned down for credit? Is it a conspiracy to prevent you from shopping around for better loan rates?

We have a lot of unemployed lawyers. May I suggest they start thinking about the problem of FICA scores controlling people's destiny?

BTW, you can force the credit agencies to put data regarding extenuating circumstances into your credit file. Not that anyone does anything but read the STUPID FICA scores.

WAR ON MINORITIES

Most of us do not give a shite* that our prohibition war on certain drugs causes violence. This is because the violence is not in YOUR back yard.

As long as the violence in in our ghettos, in Mexico, and in Afghanistan, we are happy to pretend that it is not OUR appetite for the forbidden that fuels this war.

Study after study has shown that legalized regulation of drugs keeps the drugs less available to our children. When the drug is illegal, often the sellers do not care WHO buys the drug as long as they are making amazing amounts of money.

Please google the song, 'Beans in Your Ear' for a lesson is forbidding something.

* Shite is British slang. It is pronounced as if it rhymes with bite. It means the same as if it did not end in an 'E'.

FIXING THE FINANCIAL MARKETS

I am uncertain that more regulations are going to work. Some smart people spend a lot of time finding ways around the laws and regulations they do not like.

Financial institutions are owned by their multitude of stockholders who ALWAYS vote for the current management.

Stockholders also vote with their feet, selling stock based on the quarterly earning statements. Computer trading advice programs have made this problem acutely worse, as the programs just look at the numbers and not at the actual health of the company.

CEOs now make the majority of their earnings from stock options, so they REALLY want to keep the price of stock rising.

In order to keep the price of stock rising, it is VERY TEMPTING to deliberately make a bad decision that makes short term profit, but causes long term problems.

I strongly believe that this problem could be solved by my longer and longest term capital gain idea.

To recap that idea:

In order to get everyone to make better long term financial decisions, we need to encourage people to hold their stock for a long time. I believe that people do incredibly stupid things in order to save taxes. So let's get people to make smart decisions in order to save taxes.

We add longer and longest terms capital gains to our tax code.

Longer term capital gain will be stock that is held for between 5 and 10 years.

If the taxpayer sells the stock at a profit after 5 years, the taxpayer pays only 50% of the then current long term capital gains tax. This will be called longer term capital gains.

If the taxpayer sells the stock at a profit after 10 years, the taxpayer pays no capital gains tax at all. This will be called longest term capital gains.

Between 5 and 10 years, the taxpayer will pay based on the number of days that (s)he held the stock. For each day beyond 5 years, the taxpayer pays capital gains tax on a prorated basis based on the actual number of days (s)he held the stock. For instance, stock held for 6 years will be taxed at 40% of the then current long term capital gains tax.

It is important to allow people to decide how long they want to keep the stock for the 5 through 10 year period. Otherwise we will have a huge sale of stock at the end of the first period of longest term capital gains.

I REALLY BELIEVE that this will help make our businesses, our country, and the world a better place. We MUST STOP the insane short term decisions that our businesses are making.

As my grandmother would say, "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."

THANKSGIVING THANKS

I am thankful for my country. As my father would say, "It is not perfect, but it is the best that anyone has yet come up with."

Then he would pause so Mom could say, "You should not end a sentence with a preposition."

And he would tell the Churchill, "Up with this I will not put" story.

This year we owe special thanks that the world wide monetary system did not collapse last year. Thank you to all of you who did not panic while the problem was being fixed.

I am off to make my grandmother's apple pie, and pecan pie with maple syrup.

Have a THANKFUL Thanksgiving.

MAKE HOLIDAY MEMORIES

Your kids will not remember all of the toys that they get. But children remember toys that you played with together, like creative puzzles and the thing that makes giant bubbles.

Better yet, do a trip to a special place for the holidays. In the San Francisco Bay Area, we are lucky to have great places to take the kids. Even small towns have something to visit, even if it is the local fishing hole.

Some of the places I have taken children or think I would want to take children are:

1. The Exploratorium in San Francisco. The science toys are first rate and even you might learn something. Pack a picnic to eat while feeding the ducks in the lovely lake outside the building.

2. Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley. More science toys. I have not been in a long time.

3. The San Francisco Zoo, where you can tell the story about man eating tigers, if your kids are old enough.

4. Gilroy Gardens, where you can feel like Frodo in the cave behind the waterfall, as they have a three story waterfall you can walk (or wheel) behind.

5. The Tech Museum in San Jose where you can play with robots and buy neato toys.

6. The Science Museum in San Francisco, where you can see fish float above you.

7. The NASA tour in Mountain View, which used to be free. Be sure to buy the space ice cream in the gift shop.

8. Big Basin park between Santa Cruz and San Jose and the train from the redwoods to Santa Cruz.

9. The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and the nearby pier where you can see pelicans and sea lions.

10. Art and history museums in every city.

11. Our beaches.

RULES of these trips. Check out the price and the price of parking. NO COMPLAINING. (It is amazing how much more fun it is if no one can complain AT ALL.) Pack warm clothes in case it get cold in the afternoon. Pack a change of clothes for the kids if there is going to be water in the area.

You will make memories which will last a lifetime.

KILLING SMOKE DETECTORS

I have beaten three smoke detectors to death with a wooden spoon. I REALLY BELIEVE that smoke detectors SAVE LIVES.

So why did I kill mine?

The first two detectors, which I carefully purchased with a "stop yelling" button, went off numerous times when I was cooking. (I am not the world's best housekeeper.) This happened even when things were not burning. The shut off button would work for only a few minutes before the loud noise would start again. I may have lost my temper.

So I put the third detector in the hallway outside my bedroom and bath, thinking that it would be too far away from the stove to go off every time I scrambled eggs.

Sitting and relaxing in my hot bath, I discovered that steam sets off smoke detectors. Another dead detector!

Engineers and fire prevention experts do not understand why they find so many detectors missing their batteries. IT IS BECAUSE THEY WORK TOO WELL. The first smoke detectors did not go off unless I could see smoke curling from something I spilled on my stove. I could live with that.

Go back to the less sensitive detectors and you will have a lot fewer detectors with no batteries.

HEALTH CARE COMPROMISE

I think that congress has done a good job on health care reform.

As usual, no one got exactly what they wanted.

The current bill stops the "pre-existing condition" scam which allows the health care insurers to cherry pick only the most healthy as customers. The current bills allows for a government run option along side a privately run group type option.

I think that this is the best that we can do, and that we all need to get behind passing the bill in the Senate, and getting it through the compromise procedure and SIGNED.

I agree with you when you tell me the health care bill is not perfect. No legislation is considered perfect by all our citizens.

Lets get this done. Even CUBA has a lower infant death rate than the USA.

I'LL DO IT MY WAY

Our way is the right way. Your way is the wrong way.

Our spy is a good guy. Your spy is a bad guy.

Our drug is a good drug. Your drug is a bad drug.

Our God is a good God. Your god is a bad god.

Our county makes moral decisions. Your county makes immoral decisions.

Our campaign contributions are ethical and do not cause anyone to vote in a particular manner. Your campaign contributions are unethical and cause you to vote in a particular manner.

We have to accept that people who disagree with us are intelligent and educated and LISTEN to why they disagree with us. Discussion leads to compromise, progress and enlightenment.

Please note that just saying, "I am right because I am right," is NOT DISCUSSION.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

True efficiency comes from lazy people, who want to make the task as easy as possible.

Money is not the only way to be rich. Often people with piles of money are poor in love, family and contentment.

Never blame malice when it is possible to blame stupidity.

"DARKNESS" PREJUDICE IS CAUSING BONE PROBLEMS IN CHILDREN

Ask any person of color. The prejudice against a person of color increases the darker the skin is on the person of color.

This prejudice is old, a side effect of needing to incorrectly believe that slaves are slaves for a reason. It has now become a strong incorrect belief that a "dark" person is less capable than a "lighter" person.

So, to keep children as light as possible, parents use sunscreen on their children. Too much use of sunscreen results in vitamin D deficiency which causes serious problems with bone growth. Feel free to check the Center for Disease Control website for more information on vitamin D deficiency.

WE ALL NEED TO TREAT EVERYONE AS EQUALS. WE NEED TO JUDGE PEOPLE BASED ON WISDOM, EDUCATION, INTELLIGENCE, SKILLS, TALENT, ETC.

FAMILY HOLIDAY FUN

Children actually LIKE to cook. They can make your cooking easier by acting as your prep chefs. In order to make the cooking more fun, I gave my children white cook's aprons and white chef's hats. Be sure to put their names on the hats and aprons. (Craft stores have pens that write in glitter clothing dye.) The children were only allowed to wear the aprons and hats while cooking. My kids were 8 and 5 when we started them as prep chefs.

Get some children's cook books and allow the kids to try something on their own.

Regarding knives... It is necessary to use a knife to cut vegetables. I started by giving a knife to the oldest, with strict instructions not to misuse the knife. Then, when the youngest begged to cut something, I let him use a knife only after he promised NOT to misuse the knife. NEVER leave the kitchen while the children are cutting things. Do NOT let the children use a grater without explaining how you can get cut when the carrot gets too small.

Remember that prep chefs also help with the clean up.

You will not BELIEVE how much fun you will all have.

WE HAVE SAVED THE RICH, NOW WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF US?

The stock market is back, with the Dow Jones industrial average topping 10,000 earlier this month. Banks are making profits and paying back the US Government for their loans.

But the jobless rate is almost 10%. Which means that almost 1 out of 10 people who want to work can not find a job.

We are all mad about the deficit. We seem to be perfectly happy to fund a deficit in order to fight a war, or in order to save rich people from paying taxes. We do not seem to be able to agree to help the 1 out of 10 of our citizens who are without jobs.

We are forgetting what made this country great. We no longer see workers as people, but as "costs". Companies brag about saving costs as they fire large numbers of workers.

Henry Ford was criticized for paying his workers so much. He always replied that he wanted his workers to be able to afford to buy his cars.

5% of the people in the US control 95% of the wealth. If we made a law that you could not pay the boss more than 300,000 times what his lowest paid worker or subcontractor got paid, there would be a great outcry.

A business is a collective enterprise. Each worker contributes to the success of the enterprise. Right now a business can not even reward its workers with stock options, as the government made stock options for any but the top executives a thing of the past.

I guess we all dream that we will be the boss making a million times more than his workers. May I remind you that you can not pay rent with dreams.

VICTIMIZING THE VICTIM

I strongly believe that a girl should be safe from rape even if she is standing naked on a street corner.

However, when a victim asks that the charges be dropped, stating that continuing the prosecution is causing harm to her and her family, shouldn't we listen?

The current debate over Roman Polanski ignores the psychological abuse we are heaping on the victim, who has asked for it all to go away. Instead of listening to the victim's concerns, the court justified its continuing prosecution by unsealing the court transcripts so we could all read the salacious details.

It takes great courage for a young victim to testify in court. Sealing the transcripts allows the victim assurance that her testimony will not be available for all to read. Will other abused children refuse to testify for fear that the transcripts will be unsealed sometime in the future?

I have read part of the transcript on several websites. I am troubled that the transcripts posted are incomplete and do not contain the defense's cross examination of the victim.

Worse, we are all continuing to publicly discuss, in lurid detail, an event where the victim has asked again and again for the case to be dropped so she could have privacy.

I note that the psychological review found that Polanski should be granted probation. I also note that Polanski's wife was 8 1/2 months pregnant when she and four others were murdered by the Manson family.

The case is now complicated by a former prosecutor saying, and then taking back, that he and the judge had decided not to honor a plea bargain because Polanski went to Europe to finish a film and was photographed in the company of beautiful women.

I do not care that Polanski is a famous director. I do care that Polanski himself was the victim of a horrific crime which may have caused him to act in a abnormal manner.

But mostly I care that the victim wants this all to go away. But, instead, we continue to victimize the victim.

ALL NATURAL INGREDIENTS

Arsenic is all natural. Foxglove is all natural. Mercury is all natural. Belladonna is all natural.

Just because something is NATURAL, does not mean that it is safe for human consumption.

Arsenic (a mineral) often causes death by mimicking stomach flu symptoms. It was once used to cure acne and syphilis. It was also used in women's make-up.

Foxglove (a flower) can cause heart attacks as it is a source of digitalis. Digitalis is a common heart medication.

Mercury (a mineral) was used by hat makers, which is why we use the term, "Mad as a Hatter." It causes brain damage. It is in all florescent light bulbs.

Belladonna (a flower) causes hallucinations and sometimes death. Women used to use it to make their eyes look larger and more attractive.

MORE HEALTH CARE HOMEWORK

A congressperson on HBO said that, in order to REALLY get the attention of congress, you need to write a formal business letter to your congressperson. He said congress is very formal and needs to be approached in a formal manner.

This probably means that they are heavily discounting your phone calls. (Assuming, of course, that you made phone calls.)

So write a formal letter. Left justify everything. Put your name and address first at the top, two 'enters', then the congressperson's name and address, two 'enters' then the date, and two 'enters. Start the letter, "Dear Honorable Senator/Representative, (chose the correct title) (then the person's last name):"do NOT forget the ":" , then two 'enters', then write that you want universal health care because...." After the because, write a personal story of how the health care system has failed someone you know. Put two 'enters' between each paragraph, and two 'enters' before "Sincerely," then four 'enters', then type your name. Sign the letter just above your name. Your word processing program should be able to do the envelope. Make CERTAIN there is a return address on your envelope that shows that you live and VOTE in the congressperson's district.

DO NOT USE A FORM LETTER.

I know, I know. Some of you will not use snail mail for any reason. Feel free to use email.

Do NOT put off mailing your letter. All congress' mail has to go through security checks which delay the mail. (If your return address is not on the envelope, it will not be delivered.)

THE PERSON'S LIFE YOU SAVE MAY BE YOUR OWN!

IS A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS PERSON GOING TO BE GOOD AT POLITICS?

SOME of the skills necessary to run a successful business are also the skills that are necessary to successfully be a governor or a president.

However, presidents and governors in the US do NOT run a state or our country by ordering people around. There is very little of the "I am President, so you do what I say." Presidents and governors are not allowed to just fire people who do not do what they are told to do. Unless the person is a political appointee, serving at the will of the president or governor, the governmental employee cannot just be fired. Civil service rules have to be followed in order to fire a governmental employee.

More importantly, congress and state legislators do NOT FOLLOW ORDERS AT ALL. They are allowed to vote any way they believe they should vote. Governors and presidents can not do much of anything without approval of congress or the state legislature. This is especially true when the president or the governor wants to spend money.

The most important skills for a governor or a president is the ability to persuade people, to get people to agree that a particular thing needs to be done, and that money has to be spent in order to do it.

It is usually a bad idea to vote for people who are used to issuing orders.

I know, I know, sometimes it works. BUT, under stress, most people revert to the skills that they know best. Which is why the California Governor thought the, "Do what I want or I will not sign any bills," thing would actually work.

HEALTH CARE -- TIME TO AGAIN CALL YOUR CONGRESSPERSON

Our health care system does not work for many people. As a county, we spend 17.6% percent of our GNP on health care. DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE GETTING HEALTH CARE THAT IS WORTH 17.6% of the money all of us together earn?

Doctors, nurses, insurance companies, health care advocates and sick people have been telling us all for years that the system is broken and needs fixing.

None of us are going to get exactly our favorite health care plan. The nature of politics demands compromise.

Please call your congresspersons (we all have three, 2 senators and 1 representative) and tell them that you want them to do their best to fix health care. Tell them that you do not want them to oppose a plan just to make the President look bad.

Our nation's health should be above politics.

DRUG DEALER JOB PERKS

If you are a drug dealer you get GREAT job perks that almost make up for the fact that if you are caught, you face a long prison sentence.

THE PERKS

You pay NO sales tax because all of your transactions are in cash.

You pay NO income tax because all of your transactions are in cash.

You pay NO employee benefits as your employees are also paid in cash.

You can avoid CHILD SUPPORT because no one can prove you are making any money.

If you are selling an addictive drug, you charge as much as you can, especially since, if you kill the competition, you are unlikely to get caught.

You cannot get sued if the drug you sell contains poisons or pesticides. Since all of the transactions are in cash, it cannot be proven who is responsible for the poison or pesticide.

THE ABOVE TRUTHS ARE NOT MY FAULT. As my readers know, I think all drugs should be legalized. I believe that keeping the drugs illegal is fueling world wide violence, because selling illegal drugs is so profitable.

28 YEARS FOR KILLING A DOG

The taxpayers of the great State of California will now get to pay $47,000 a year to imprison a person who killed a dog.

The Santa Clara County dog killer got 28 years under our three strikes law. This is more than some people get for killing a person.

It costs an average of $47,000 to keep ONE PERSON in prison for ONE YEAR. (California Legislative Analyst's Office, lao.ca.gov) This means that the taxpayers will be spending at least $1,319,000 to punish a person for killing a dog. (Assuming the person serves the entire time and costs for keeping someone is prison do not increase.)

Don't we have better things to do with a million dollars?

TWITTER THOUGHTS

I have not yet figured out how to use twitter. But I came up with some thoughts that should work as tweets:

"You can never be too rich or too thin." WORSE ADVICE has never been given.

Did you know that 'twit' is British slang for 'stupid person'?

Apple is unlikely to care as much as ATT about Google Voice app, which lets you use VOIP rather than ATT for iPhone calls.

There are NO perfect people. All of us have flaws. You should not accept a flaw that includes violence and/or anger towards innocents.

Going camping is a lot of work. It is TOTALLY worth it. The outdoors heals the spirit. Camping work should be shared by all the campers.

Fear and anger make you illogical. It is a BAD IDEA to react with emotion rather than with logical thinking.

YOUR Rx INFO IS NOW ONLINE IN CALIFORNIA

Information about your prescription medications is now online in California. Access is given to any doctor or pharmacy who applies to get the information. Your prescription information is also available to LAW ENFORCEMENT.

Do not blame Jerry Brown. Blame California Health and Safety Code section 11165, which was passed in 1995. 38 other states have similar laws.

H & S code section 11165 requires that doctors and pharmacies report your prescriptions, your name, your address, and your date of birth.

IMPORTANT HEALTH INFORMATION IS NO LONGER PRIVATE.

CALIFORNIA WILDFIRE FIGHTERS ARE 50% FELONS

Did you know that around 3,000 prisoner felons are fighting California wildfires? This is not just a desperate move to save the state money this year. The program has been running for years. The felons are paid $1 an hour. (Note that the rest of the line crew gets paid minimum wage.) At least the state does have workers compensation insurance for the entire fire crew.

In case you did not know, fires are actually good for the forests and grasslands. Fire is NOT good for either forests or grasslands if the fire burns out of control because the fire is being fed too much fuel. (Think of a bonfire vs. a fireplace fire. It is the amount of dead wood that makes the difference.)

We have known for years that forest fires get out of control and DESTROY ALL THE TREES unless there are regular controlled burns. BUT one controlled burn went out of control and we stop doing the smart thing.

Wildfire fighters know that they could keep wildfires from burning out of control if the state would spend monies on controlled burns, and if they could force private property owners to clear overgrown brush.

I WISH TO THANK BOTH THE "GOOD GUYS" AND THE "BAD GUYS" WHO KEEP US SAVE FROM WILDFIRES. They risk their lives for less money than they would make at Burger King.

MADOFF INVESTORS SHOULD SUE THE S.E.C.

Honestly, how hard is it to uncover a scam where the scam artist says he is just a brilliant purchaser of stocks, but he never actually made ANY stock purchases? ALL the SEC had to do was to ask for even one fiscal quarter of stock purchases, and then contact the stock exchange to confirm the purchases. HOW HARD IS THAT?

I believe that securities attorneys could win a lawsuit which charges that the Security and Exchange Commission FAILED to do its job of protecting investors. If the persons who did not bother to investigate Madoff were also sued personally, perhaps the SEC would do a better job in the future.

Attorneys, please note that the Ninth Circuit has said that former Attorney General Ashcroft could be sued personally for possible illegal detentions of Muslims.

WHY HEALTH CARE REFORM PLAN IS DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND

Have you ever read the terms of your own health insurance plan? Not the overview, but the actual legal language which delineates your coverage. Even I avoid reading my plan, and I am an attorney.

Health care insurance plans have to be carefully worded so that costs do not spin out of control.

For instance, many lonely people like to go to the doctor. Some people do not talk to another human for days at a time. Some do this by choice, others are just really lonely.

Dad sold life insurance. When asked why he did not also sell health insurance, he would say, "Well, there is no question about whether someone is dead."

Doctors and nurses have years of training and still sometimes cannot tell whether someone is ill, or what illness they have, or how to cure the illness. Doctors and nurses make complex decisions regarding our health that are sometimes questioned unreasonably by people with no medical training. But if no one questions any health care decision, greedy doctors can make money treating someone who is not at all sick, and does not need the care the doctor orders. (There are greedy people in every profession.)

For this, and other reasons, ALL health care plans are confusing.

HOW TO GET THE INFORMATION YOU NEED

When you are dealing with a front line person, such as a court clerk, an IRS agent, a bank employee, or anyone who is the person who deals with the public, you should not yell at them.

I KNOW. Yelling feels SO GOOD when you are mad and frustrated.

However, yelling almost NEVER gets you what you want. If fact, many companies allow their employees to hang up on someone who is yelling.

TO GET THE INFORMATION YOU NEED:

Have all the paperwork at hand so you can quickly answer any questions that they ask.

Be friendly. Admit that you may have made a stupid mistake. DO NOT LIE FOR ANY REASON. Ask questions POLITELY.

Sometimes when they say, "Can I help you?", I reply, "You probably can not help me, but here is the probably stupid thing that I need."

BE CERTAIN to write down the time and date of the phone call and the name of the person you talked to. Take notes during the conversation.

LISTEN. Sometimes people who can not help you give you important information about where to go next. BE CERTAIN to write down this advice exactly as given. Ask them to spell it for you, if you are not completely certain of the spelling. Sometimes, all you have to have is the correct wording to look up the solution on Google.

If you can not understand the person, ask them to slow down. If you can not hear them, tell them that you can not hear them.

REMEMBER, the person to whom you are talking did NOT CAUSE YOUR PROBLEM. But they can usually help you solve your problem if you are nice to them.

WE NEED NASA -- THEY ARE OUR BACKUP PLAN

We need to fund NASA. At the rate that we are destroying our planet, we will NEED to be able to find other planets to live on.

Without NASA, we will not know if we are going to be bombarded by an asteroid, or be able to divert the asteroid if necessary.

NASA more than pays for itself because what it invents for space can be used by us Earthlings.

Don't you want TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE?

WRONGFUL CONVICTION -- SO EASY A CHILD CAN DO IT

An accusation by a child of sexual abuse has to be taken seriously.

However, sometimes the child will lie when he/she accuses a person of abuse.

Why would a child lie? There are many reasons for a child to lie. But, in the cases I have seen, the child is lying in order to control the behavior of the parental figure. A child who has oppositional defiant disorder can be adamantly opposed to ANY parental control. As the parent tries his/her best to control the child's refusal to follow simple rules, such as get ready for school, fold your clothes, do not see dangerous 'friends', the child may decide to control the parent by threatening to accuse the parent of child abuse. If the parent continues to correctly discipline the child, the child may carry through with his/her threat and call Child Protective Services or the police.

Sometimes, when the parental figures are separating, the child realizes that the other parent will be an ally in his/her false charge of abuse.

When charges of abuse are made, the police and the prosecutor do NOT allow the person making the charges to withdraw the charges. This refusal to allow withdrawal of the charges makes the situation MUCH WORSE. Imagine that IF, when you said, "I HATE my parents, they are SO UNFAIR, I wish they were DEAD," the police and DDA shot them dead for you. (And if you think convicted child abusers do not often wish they were dead, you have NO IDEA of what they go through as a consequence of the conviction.)

REAL ABUSERS, who get away with it for years, are generally VERY CHARMING AND PERSUASIVE PEOPLE.

By convicting the innocent, you make your statistics regarding child abuse look great. You are able to say, if someone is arrested for child abuse, we will get a conviction. Often the conviction is gotten by setting the bail high so the person is in jail while waiting for the system to work. Often, the conviction is gotten by ignoring evidence such bruises on the parent. Often, the conviction is gotten even if the allegedly abused child takes back his/her accusation. Often, the conviction is gotten by overcharging the case. (This is when the prosecution charges an obvious misdemeanor as a felony, so they can plea bargain for a misdemeanor guilty plea.) Often, a public defender is denied, as the person arrested does not qualify for a public defender, but cannot actually afford a private attorney.

BY CONVICTING THE INNOCENT, YOU ARE ABLE TO IGNORE THE REALLY GUILTY. You know, those charming men who do it again and again. THOSE WHO REALLY ABUSE CHILDREN generally leave physical evidence. Sometimes that physical evidence is an entire back yard full of tents and toys.

Luckily, children are not very good liars. The child may say he/she was locked in a room which has an easily accessible window and door to the outside. The child may say that the parent is unfair in discipline. The child may say that something happened 30 times, but when asked to describe each event, can only remember one event. Unfortunately, the statements of abuse are taken as the truth, and every other statement the child makes is ignored.

CHILD ABUSERS almost always make friends with the child. They give the child toys or access to adult activities.

OF COURSE, some abusers do hold the child captive, but such captivity leaves physical evidence behind.

CHILD ABUSE CHARGES, without physical evidence, should result in mandatory counseling for both the child and the parental figure. Let the child decide if he/she should withdraw the charges.

BY PROSECUTING these cases, you are damaging both the parental figure and the child. Can you IMAGINE living with the guilt of having destroyed your family because you lied about child abuse that did not happen?

THE BANKS ARE PAYING US BACK!

So far USA banks have PAID BACK the USA to the tune of $4 and 1/3 BILLION dollars.

How cool is that?

GET US BACK TO WORK

Economic growth in the US is fueled by areas like Silicon Valley where we come up with new toys and better ways to get things done.

If everyone had health coverage, some of the brilliant people with brilliant ideas would feel comfortable in investing their savings, would stop looking for jobs, and would start a new little company that might become the next Google or Ebay.

Small companies would be able to hire the older and wiser without worrying that they cannot then afford to provide health insurance.

You would free the geniuses who might bring you the solution to YOUR problem.

Universal health care is extremely important for our long term economic recovery.

MORE INJUSTICE IN SANTA CLARA COUNTY

On Friday, August 21, 2009, there was a hearing in Santa Clara County regarding a withdrawal of a guilty plea for someone who is being deported as a criminal.

When I took the case, the first thing I did was to go down to the courthouse to get the ENTIRE file on this matter.

Because it is an old case, from 1997 and 1998, I wanted to be certain that the court had followed California law and advised my client that there would be immigration consequences if he plead guilty to the crime of sexually abusing a child.

My client had told me that he had NOT been advised of the immigration consequences of the plea. He stated that he had plead guilty because they would then let him out of jail so that he could feed his family. He said that he remembered that they had advised him that he would have to register as a sex offender, but he had NO IDEA how that would ruin his life.

Because I am VERY WARY of charges of sexual abuse where there is only one witness and there is NO physical evidence, I took his case. BTW, my client has his green card, so he was in this country legally.

The court files that I paid for were extremely confusing. The court was using a one page, dense, check the boxes form, for guilty pleas and sentencing hearings. The same form was used for everything. The form is impossible, even for legal professionals, to correctly interpret. I will attempt to put the image of these forms in a follow up blog.

In my client's case, it was unclear even when the guilty plea was taken. The court said the guilty plea was taken in November 1997. Homeland Security said the conviction (the same as a guilty plea) was in March 1998.

In my clients case, the form for the November 1997 hearing, which may have been where he plead guilty, had a check mark by the part of the form that said, "____ immig". The court form for March 1998 was NOT check marked on the part of the form that said, "_____immig".

California appellate courts have stated that the immigration advisement must be done is a particular way, by stating clearly ALL of the state law, California Penal Code section 1016.5. A clerk's notation is NOT enough evidence that the law was obeyed. Unfortunately, another appellate court allowed collateral evidence that a guilty plea was correctly taken, by having a judge testify that he had ALWAYS followed the law correctly.

When I got the DDA's (Deputy District Attorney) response to my motion to withdraw my client's guilty plea, I was surprised to see an attached police report, and an attached purported felony docket, which is presumably part of the court record in this case. I was NOT surprised to see declarations from a DDA and a judge stating that the DDA and the Judge had a habit of correctly giving the immigration advisement.

Police reports are inadmissible in California as hearsay upon hearsay. Additionally, the DDA seriously misrepresented the police report by saying that my client had touched the child's clothed breasts numerous times. The child finally agreed to tell the investigator about ONE TIME that my client touched her clothed breasts. That time was SIX MONTHS prior to the investigation. NO ONE explained to my client that the law says that illegal touching of breasts has to be done in a LEWD OR LASCIVIOUS manner. (Hugging your child is not sexual abuse.)

The DDA also included a 'felony docket' that had not been included in the court file I was given.

I made every effort to have my client present at the hearing in Santa Clara County. I filed a Writ of Habeas Corpus Ad Testificandum to have the Santa Clara County Court order Homeland Security to bring my client to the hearing. On a Friday, the Judge told me to file a brief on the matter. On the following Monday, the Judge denied my Writ. Additionally, the DDA told Homeland Security that it was unnecessary to bring my client to his hearing.

The DDA also included Declarations from another DDA and the judge who allegedly heard my client's guilty plea.

At the withdrawal of guilty plea hearing, I asked the judge to strike as inadmissible, the police report, the 'felony docket', and the Declarations. I stated that the police report and the Declarations were hearsay, and that the 'felony docket' lacked foundation as it was not kept in the clerk's file of my client's case.

It should be noted that the right to be present at a hearing to confront the witnesses against you, and the right to cross-examine witnesses, are rights which are protected by both the US and California constitutions.

Not only did I lose my motion for withdrawal of the guilty plea, but the judge allowed the hearsay and the 'felony docket' to be admitted.

AT THIS POINT EVERY ATTORNEY IN THE ENGLISH SPEAKING WORLD IS SAYING, "SAY, WHAT?"

(It could be that every attorney in the non-English speaking world is also appalled, but I do not trust translations, as I have seen too many translations of the Bible, each of which reads differently. I am hopeless at learning other languages, having failed to learn Latin, Spanish, French and Russian, in that order.)

IF YOU ARE UPSET ABOUT THIS INJUSTICE, please help with the appeal by donating money to www.PamelaSmithCenterForLawAndScience.com

IF YOU HAVE PRACTICED CRIMINAL LAW IN SANTA CLARA COUNTY, you can help by sending me transcripts of guilty pleas by non-citizens taken after October 1997. I do not think that the local courts actually gave warnings of immigration consequences until after 9/11/2001.

THIS INJUSTICE HAS TO STOP. WHEN A COURT FEELS FREE to deny a motion before the requested brief can even be filed, something is very seriously wrong.

PAYING FOR HEALTH CARE -- LEGALIZE AND TAX MARIJUANA

The United States of America could easily pay for universal health care if we legalize and tax marijuana.

The Federal Government could put a 100% tax on marijuana which would be dedicated to health care. The law could allow those states that legalize marijuana to put a 50% tax on marijuana, to be used for anything the states wish to use it for.

We could put a tax exemption on marijuana sold by prescription.

WHAT KIND OF UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

Frankly, I do NOT CARE what kind of universal health care plan congress passes. All of the plans I have looked at have their good and bad points.

The new plan for a cooperative health plan has merit. It means that THOSE WHO ARE USING THE PLAN, get to help decide how the plan will work once it get started.

WE NEED UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A GOOD DEATH

I have helped care for two people who died of terminal cancer. Both people wanted to die at home. One was able to die at home and one died in the hospital.

The difference was that home care was available to the person who died at home. There is NO WAY the team of caretakers who took care of my friend who died at home could have done it without the help of home health care provided by Kaiser. We could not bathe her when she could no longer stand up. Kaiser sent someone to bathe her three times a week. The home health people trained us in how to care for her, and provided the drugs that kept her from having too much pain.

You do not have to die in a hospital connected to tubes. It is actually less expensive to provide home health care than hospital care.

NO ONE involved in health care decisions is going to allow you to die at home, unless, when you were clearly able to understand the decision you were making, you made the decision to die at home. ALL HEALTH CARE PEOPLE will err on the side of caution. Without a Health Care Directive, YOU WILL die in the hospital connected to tubes and they will revive you as often as necessary to keep you alive until they can no longer keep you alive.

IT IS YOUR CHOICE HOW YOU DIE. But you MUST make that choice while you are well enough to choose.

A California Health Care Directive, sometimes called a Power of Attorney for Health Care, is available at www.LawandLaws.com Click on forms. This form does not require a notarized signature, but I recommend a notarized signature. Do NOT have the witnesses be people who are named in the form.

Congress has been trying to help with this by offering counseling regarding end of life decisions. It was never intended to make your decision for you. It is a way to choose to HAVE A GOOD DEATH.

END OF SUMMER FUN WITH KIDS

Two fun experiments:

WATER, ALCOHOL AND OIL

You will need three clear drinking glasses, cooking oil, several bottles of rubbing alcohol, and a large eye dropper. It may help to have a long, thin tool available.

Mix the water and alcohol in three glasses. Use two parts alcohol to one part water in the first glass, half and half water and alcohol in the second glass, and two parts water and one part alcohol in the third glass. Carefully put a large drop of oil into the center of the liquid in each glass. In one of the glasses, you should get a ball of oil suspended in the liquid. You can carefully add water and/or oil to get the 'ball' centered in each glass. If the oil breaks up, use a thin tool to 'grab' the oil pieces and guide the pieces back into a ball.

My child took this experiment to 'show and tell'. At recess, someone open the glass jar to get out the 'ball'.

This experiment is thanks to the San Jose Mercury News.

VACUUM CLEANER BALL

If you have a shop vac type vacuum, which also blows air, then you can suspend a large, light weight ball in the vacuum cleaner air flow. The air needs to be blowing outward, and the hose to the vacuum has to be almost upright. A little experimentation and your ball will twirl in mid air.

The ball we used was about basketball size, but was much lighter weight. The inexpensive balls at ToysRUs or the grocery store work well. (The kind that they keep in the tall wire baskets.)

This experiment is thanks to the San Francisco Exploratorium. If you are in the area, the Exploratorium is a must for people who love playing with science.

MY INSURANCE IS GREAT -- BUT I DO NOT WANT TO SHARE

There is irony in the attitude of the elderly and the veterans who are upset that they may lose the benefits of Medicare and/or veterans' hospitals.

It is an even sadder version of the "My insurance is great, so I do not care about anyone else."

It is amazing to hear, "Do not take away my Medicare and/or veterans' benefits," in the same sentence as, "the federal government always messes up whatever they do."

The World Health Report 2000, by the World Health Organization, ranks our health care system performance somewhere between Costa Rica and Slovenia.

HEALTH CARE -- DIVIDE AND CONQUER

Too many of us want the health care system fixed. Your telephone calls to your congress persons is having an effect!

So the new strategy, from the people who do NOT care if over 45 million persons in the US do NOT have health insurance, is to divide and conquer. If they can make the health care advocates argue about what is the best way to get universal health care, they can win.

WE ARE THE ONLY HIGH INCOME INDUSTRIALIZED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD WHICH DOES NOT HAVE some version of national universal public health insurance. Germany, Britain, Greece, Canada, Taiwan, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, all have universal health care. Their citizens are in better health, live longer, and have a lower infant mortality than our citizens. See single payer health care in Wikipedia for a good explanation of it all.

IT IS TIME THAT THIS GETS DONE. I am tired of watching people die because they did not have health insurance.

THE PAMELA SMITH CENTER FOR LAW AND SCIENCE

I would like to start a ‘think tank’ where we try to solve four problems.

The increasing lack of due process in US courts.

The increasing use of ‘junk science’ to make major policy decisions.

The increasing violence which probably stems from the War on Drugs.

The increasing number of ‘mystery chips’ which are being put into our communications,transportation and other critical computer systems.

DUE PROCESS is the legal term for a fair process. Generally, it means that people are notified regarding going to court and what the court is going to decide. It means that you can call witnesses for yourself and cross examine witnesses against you. Both sides have to exchange information so that no one is surprised when they get to court. Both sides are listened to carefully and fairly by the judge and/or jury. Due process tries to insure that decisions are made based upon facts and law, not on whether you correctly followed a complex web of civil or criminal procedure.

JUNK SCIENCE is the term I use for science which decides the result it wants and then sets up the study so that such a result is a foregone conclusion. The best example I know for this is the government study on the effects of marijuana for relief of nausea in AIDS patients. The government required that the study use the marijuana grown by the government. There were two problems with this requirement. The marijuana provided by the government was of extremely poor quality. The government stored the marijuana cigarettes in the freezer, and many had turned to mush before they ever got smoked.

VIOLENCE BECAUSE OF THE WAR ON DRUGS. We cannot stop the import and sale of illegal drugs even if we build a “Berlin Wall” completely circling our country. People escaped over the Berlin Wall and drugs are way easier to smuggle than people. If we cannot stop the drugs from coming in, making them illegal just makes them expensive. When you make it illegal to possess a substance that people insist on using anyway, you make that substance cost more. The difference in the cost of manufacturing and/or growing the drug and the amount the drug is worth on the street can be enormous. As the war on drugs escalates, drug dealers invest some of their huge profits in weapons, which they use on law officers, rival dealers, and innocents.

Legalizing drugs means that you can tax the sale of the drugs. Legalizing drugs means that attorneys can bring lawsuits for the damage that the drugs do to people. Legalizing drugs means that you can insure that the drugs are grown without pesticides and do not have any harmful added ingredients. Legalizing drugs means we can concentrate law enforcement efforts on keeping drugs out of the hands of children.

MYSTERY CHIPS are really frightening. The chips we are manufacturing, mostly overseas, are increasingly complex. Because chip makers are afraid of theft via reverse engineering, there is currently NO WAY to verify that a particular chip does what it is supposed to do. Worse, we cannot tell if a particular chip does MORE than it is supposed to do. I believe that we can solve this problem using chip designers and statisticians. Statistics are necessary as some of these chips have more than a million tiny internal electrical switches. (Think of them as hard wired

computer programs.)

We are all concerned about viruses and worms attached to emails and downloads. These virus and worms can destroy the information we store on our computers. My nightmare is that there are viruses and worms hidden in the mystery chips, and that these viruses and worms could be activated, perhaps by a government who wishes to be subtle. These mystery chips are being used in our computers, our airplanes, our trains, our phones, in everything electronic.

I AM ASKING you all to make a small donation to the Pamela Smith Center for Law and Science. I promise to use the money to address these issues. Because I will be required to try to change some laws and regulations, your donation will NOT be tax deductible.

TO DONATE go to www.PamelaSmithCenterForLawAndScience.com

THE POLITICS OF FEAR

Conservatives are again using fear to get you all to make stupid decisions.

Remember the weapons of mass destruction that never appeared in Iraq? The only way to get the American people to go to war in Iraq was to scare them with weapons of mass destruction. As we all now know, there were no weapons of mass destruction.

Now, they are scaring you about government health care.

I will expose the lies as I come across them.

1. They say, "Everything the government does turns out wrong." Without the government, we would not have a Golden Gate Bridge, or an interstate highway system, or medicare, or electricity on our farms, or a military force.

2. They say, "The health care proposal calls for euthanasia." Actually, it calls for each person to make the decision about what kind of end of life health care that each person wants to have. For an example, go to www.LawandLaws.com, click on forms, then click on the Health Care form. This is an example of the kind of form required in the proposed law.

3. They say, "Government health care funds get spent on administration, not health care." Medicare spends about 2% on administration, private insurance spends about 20% on administration (counting advertising dollars as administration).

4. They say, "Government health insurance does not work in other countries." Of course, they only quote the complaints as the system gets started. They never count the kudos after the system is up and running.

My concern is that the private insurance companies get to set the RATES THEY CHARGE and CHOOSE THE PEOPLE that they insure. If you do not currently have a good job, it is unlikely that you have affordable health insurance. The cost of private health insurance is so high that it brought down the auto companies. If you are older, you cannot get a job because health insurance costs go up sharply as you get older.

HEALTH CARE RESEARCH

We should decide the important issue of health insurance by looking at the facts, not by listening to speeches.

ANY of us could lose our health insurance AT ANY TIME, as long as the decision for WHO TO INSURE is in the hands of the insurance companies.

Governments in the US MUST give you a HEARING and an APPEAL, before they make a final decision regarding approval or denial of governmental health insurance.

If you do not have health insurance, you may not have access to ANY doctor, let alone the BEST doctor.

We do not have to rely on politicians to tell us about the effects of various health care plans.

If you are a retired and/or unemployed corporate lawyer, human resource person, or union person who dealt with the health care for your employees and/or your members, you are used to reading the language of health insurance. You are probably an expert on telling us, in English, what the effects of a certain regulation will be or is likely to be. Since you have the time, you could help us all with the decision of what health care plan, if any, Congress should pass.

So tell us. Blogging is really easy.

Or perhaps use Wikipedia.

Be certain to include your name and credentials so that we can know that the information may be reliable.

You can get the proposed legislation from various different government websites. Start with the website run by the US Congress, which is one of the older government websites.

This issue is important, so if you can help us understand the proposed plans, please do so.

CONGRESSIONAL VACATIONS

Congress is going on vacation without having finished universal health care.

We all need vacations. Congress has had a very tense year, so their vacation is even more important. People who do not take vacations get extremely stressed. I, for one, do not want to be governed by extremely stressed people.

However, people have been trying to get universal health care since 1940. It is time for the delays to end.

No system is going to be perfect. We will have to make changes to any system once we know where the problems are. But the universal health care system has to be running before we can fix the problem that will appear.

While congress is on vacation, keep calling regarding health care. If you know a congressperson, tell them politely and nicely how important it is for the United States of America to have universal health care.

Let congress know that we expect a universal health care program to be sent to President Obama just as soon as congress is back from vacation.

Meanwhile, we can all hope that our unemployed grown children do not get sick.

PLEASE CALL CONGRESS ABOUT HEALTH CARE

Too many of us do not take care of our health because we do not have insurance.

A minor problem, easily fixed, turns into an expensive problem because the sick person cannot afford to go to a doctor.

Farmers, small business owners, young people, people paying huge COBRA prices, all need Obama's health insurance plan.

So PLEASE CALL YOUR TWO SENATORS AND YOUR ONE REPRESENTATIVE. Tell them that you want them to vote for Obama's health care plan. Tell them that you want health care NOW.

For some reason, a phone call counts for more than a fax or an email. So call. If the phone is busy, call after hours and leave a message. Call early in the morning, but call. You can call the local office or you can call the DC office, BUT CALL. (Only one call per person to each congressperson, please.)

If you do not do this, you can be certain that someone you know will die because they could not afford health care.

If you do not do this, the lobbyists (for those who are getting rich from the mess that we call our health care system) will win.

HELP WITH HEALTH CARE

Universal health care has always been defeated by the powerful lobbyists hired by those people who are making piles of money providing health care.

Your US Senators and Representatives have to know that you support universal health care. Please call or fax your US Senators and your Representative. You can find out who are your two US Senators by looking in the telephone book. You have one US Representative who represents your congressional district. The League of Women Voters can tell you the phone and fax number of this person.

Please make your comments to these busy people short and to the point.

Even powerful lobbyists can be defeated by the voters demanding reform.

CALIFORNIA BUDGET CRISES

In California, when a school district cannot agree on a budget or when a school district cannot pay its contractors, the State of California takes over the school district.

Perhaps it is time for the federal government to have the power to take over states that cannot seem to reach consensus.

Of course, there is the pesky issue of the US Constitution, which delineates the powers of the state governments.

Alternatively, the US could send mediators to the states in crises, treating the matter as a serious issue pertaining to the nation. Mediators have been used in the past when critical systems have been threatened with crippling strikes by workers.

If you have been reading my blog, you know that I do not trust that the current Governor of California has the political wisdom to chose the correct course for California. He seems to be using the crisis to pass legislation that will have a possible adverse impact on the long term health of the state.

It is unfortunate that people who are used to being appeased by movie producers do not understand when they are being unreasonable.

GOVERNMENT COMPETES WITH SMALL BUSINESS

In Santa Clara County, California, the marriage license desk has ALWAYS handed out a list of ministers who can perform confidential marriages. These ministers specialize in inexpensive weddings at their business or in a park or in a home.

NO LONGER. Now the marriage desk is telling folks that the cheapest way to get married is to get married in their basement 'chapel' at a cost of $120.00 ($80 for the minister and $40 to rent the chapel for a 10 minute wedding.)

Ministers who can perform confidential marriages are MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE than the county weddings.

My friend a 'A Wedding Chapel for You' in Campbell, CA, will perform a desk ceremony for $70.00, and a romantic chapel wedding for $100.00. Other local ministers have similar prices.

(NOTE that you also have to purchase a marriage license, which is actually less expensive at the county.)

I can understand the County of Santa Clara performing weddings if people do not have an alternative. However, to actually compete with the inexpensive ministers available to perform weddings does not seem like something that the county should be doing.

SELFISH PEOPLE

The governor of the great state of California has decided that it is better to allow disabled people to starve than it is to raise the taxes on cigarettes and cars.

Personally, I would rather pay more for my cigarettes and an extra $15.00 to register my car than to know that a blind man will not get his state disability payment.

But do not blame Arnold. We are ALL SELFISH.

A large percentage of the people on this earth do NOT have:

Water in their homes,

Indoor toilets,

Electricity in their homes,

Enough food to eat,

A home with a roof that does not leak,

An education,

Health care, and

Safe drinking water.

Most of these people are rural poor. Some of these people live in slums or on top of garbage dumps.

Here in the US, local governments are stopping people who lost everything in a hurricane from being able to get cottages.

Here in the US, gays are saying that getting married is more important than getting health care. (Guys, a US Supreme Court decision is in the works. If the US Supreme Court decides that gays have civil rights, then your problems are SOLVED. A little patience please.)

Here in the US, we could solve the housing problem almost overnight by setting up trailer parks where people could buy there own tiny plot of land and install a manufactured home. (Trailer parks are politically unpopular as they are thought to bring down the price of homes. No one cares that you have to be rich to buy a home in California.)

TELLING THE TRUTH

An amazing number of people believe that they can tell the most transparent lies in order to get you to buy into their agenda.

MY FAVORITE RECENT FAILURES TO TELL THE TRUTH:

"I am going hiking." ("Actually, I am going to Argentina to have an affair.")

This election was fair. (Actually, in many places the number of votes exceeded the number of registered voters.)

We cannot kill deer, bunny rabbits, and other fuzzy things. (Actually, since we have very few large predators, we have to limit the population of the animals that predators would formerly kill or we will lose the entire ecology of a region.)

Africa is a backward continent. (Actually, Africa has saved more of its large land animals than any other continent. Perhaps Africa has a more earth friendly approach to living.)

Second hand smoke will damage your health. (Actually, some people are allergic to second hand smoke. Many people are allergic to perfume, but no one makes perfume illegal.)

WE HAVE GOT TO START TELLING THE ACTUAL TRUTH or we will NEVER be able to solve our problems.

ON LINE SHOPPING

45% of on line shoppers quit shopping at the time of checkout. The Mercury News believes that this is because of shipping charges.

When I quit shopping at checkout, it is usually because I do not want to remember a password or I have forgotten a password. Honestly, why can't I just put in my name, address, credit card and BUY THE STUFF?

Stop letting your technical staff make the website decisions. Test the site for ease of checkout. Do not allow the technical aspects of your website stop people from buying from you.

STUPID THINGS ON VARIOUS WEBSITES:

1. Sorry, our paper catalog and our website are two different entities and you cannot buy that on the phone.

2. You cannot buy from us again unless you remember your password.

3. Once you get to checkout and have forgotten your password, you cannot get back to your shopping basket to buy the stuff over the phone.

4. If you pay for this using our website, we will feel free to charge your card again for the next month without your authorization.

5. If you do not use our credit card, you will have difficulty figuring out how to pay, because you will have to search for how to pay with another credit card.

YOUR SITE HAS TO BE EASY TO USE. If I wanted to work, I would not be shopping.

ENGLISH AND LOGIC

An amazing number of people do not seem to be able to understand a complex sentence.

FOR EXAMPLE:

People are upset regarding the statement, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Let me rewrite that sentence so that you can understand it. A WISE Latina woman can often make a better decision than A white male." The key word in this sentence is not LATINA WOMAN, but WISE Latina woman. Note that the white male in the sentence is NOT described as a wise man.

Yes, I know I left out the logic of the 'experience' part of the sentence. I notice that those of you who have never experienced the fear of hunger and homelessness are mostly unsympathetic to the reality of poverty. This makes you incapable of truely understanding the choices which are forced on people who just need to feed their families.

SPINACH AND SCRAMBLED EGGS

Spinach and scrambled eggs taste amazing.

It used to be that fresh spinach had to be washed leaf by leaf and there was often still grit in the spinach. (I am not great at hand washing stuff.)

But some unsung genius discovered a way to wash spinach so you can just rip it up and throw it into things. It should be noted that baby spinach is worth the small extra cost as it tastes better.

Anyway, in the interest of eating better, I threw some spinach into my scrambled eggs and could not believe the results. YUMMY. I recommend this as a way to impress overnight guests.

My way:

Use a non stick frying pan.

Have the burner about medium. (Heat is too high if the butter burns. If the butter burns, throw out the butter, clean the pan, and start over.)

Melt a tablespoon of butter into the pan.

Add a handful of spinach.

Sprinkle salt over the spinach. (I use half salt and half potassium, called Light Salt.)

Beat three eggs with a fork. (I break the eggs into a cup and then stir them up.)

Add beaten eggs to the pan.

Let the eggs cook until they turn color around the edge of the pan, then stir, repeat this until eggs are done to your taste.

For the toast, I use Watsonville sourdough square and sliced and use BUTTER again.

The above serves one, so double it for your friend.

BE SURE TO PRACTICE. Eggs look easy to cook, and they are easy to cook. They are also easy to mess up by burning, etc.

POISON ADDED TO CIGARETTES

I have been unable to find out the ingrediants added to cigarettes by the manufacturer as RJ Reynolds will not allow me on their website to get the information unless I give them my email address.

I DO know that state governments are requiring that all cigarettes be "fire safe". In order to do this, they are adding strips of ethylene vinyl acetate to the cigarette paper. EVA causes irritation of the eye, nose, and throat if there is exposure for short periods. www.atsdr.cdc.gov

In January, 2005, the Harvard School of Public Health found that fire safe cigarettes increase carbon monoxide by 11.4% and increase naphthalene by 13.9%.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry states, "When mice or rats breathed in naphthalene vapors daily throughout their lives (2 years), cells in the lining of their noses or lungs were damaged." www.atsdr.cdc.gov

Yes, I know cigarettes are not good for me. What I do not understand is why the government is making the cigarettes worse for me and those around me.

BTW, the CDC says naphthalene could be present in your air freshener. I use Pure Citrus, which contains NO man-made chemicals, so hopefully it does not have naphthalene.

STIMULUS PACKAGE

I want to thank the genius bankers who helped us get out of what I term the supply of money problem.

Now we need to listen to the social scientists, who understand people. PEOPLE ARE HURTING BADLY. They are frightened, and do not understand what caused the economy to tank. PEOPLE NEED JOBS. People need to be able to buy new cars. People need to be able to pay rent. People need to be able to help other people.

YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO SPEND THE STIMULUS MONEY AND YOU SHOULD DO IT FASTER. This will inevitably mean that the Republicans will be able to point to some misspent funds. It is impossible to meet the goal of spending every dime with wisdom. There is not that much wisdom in this world.

SUGGESTIONS:

BART TO SAN JOSE (Ignore the powerful people who wish to stop this wise project. The voters have voted for BART more than once.)

FIX BRIDGES AND ROADS (I do not want to hear about more people being killed because an old bridge collapsed.)

FUND SCHOLARSHIPS (Change the rule that unemployed people cannot get an education. If people are out of work, they might as well learn.)

RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH (We can start with all NASA projects. NASA research helped us get freeze dried food and non stick cookware.)

RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH (We can fund health research to find out what the effect of drugs really is. I find the research on hormone therapy to be enlightening. Makes me believe that it was as OK to experiment on women as it was once OK to experiment on blacks.)

I AM BACK

My Internet has been down for a week. I was very surprised at how disconnected that made me feel. Thanks to Speakeasy and AT&T, I now have a high speed Internet connection for the first time ever. IT IS REALLY NEAT! (Flash is way cool.) (BTW, if your Internet connection is slow, try Google Chrome as your browser. It noticeably helped my search speed.)

My wheelchair lift is now fixed, and my van is now running correctly. Thanks Ed and Tires Unlimited in Campbell. (It is amazing the number of people who do not understand that a lift is what gets the wheelchair in and out of the car, and without a lift, the wheelchair in the car is useless.)

OPERATION LYSISTRATA

'Lysistrata' is a 2400 year old Greek play. The women of Athens and Sparta stop a war. They do this by agreeing among themselves that no women will have 'relations' with any man until the war stops. The women leaders were joined in this endeavor by all women including the ladies of the evening.

I think that what I am doing is important.

I REALLY NEED the $20,000,000 non tax deductible donation from Google to FIX THE WORLD.

If you have been reading my blog, you know what I am trying to do.

So let us women stop having sex with men until I get my $20,000,000 from Google, who can afford it.

I have been signaled that the ladies of the evening are prepared to join us.

WOMEN, YOU KNOW WHAT NOT TO DO!

BayCon 2009

I had a fabulous vacation. My only complaint is that it did not last longer.

I DO want to tell the Klingons that I delivered merchandise that I did not get paid for. I am certain that it was an oversight on the part of the Klingons.

I was also amazed at the power of old ceremonies.

See you all next year, or maybe at SiliCon.

IMPORTANT ADVICE

LAND LINES

Land lines have their own low level electricity, so they may work during an earthquake when the normal electricity is out. In order to have this important safety net, you must have a phone that does NOT need to be plugged into an electrical outlet.

Land lines are also a VERY SAFE way to get your banking and credit card information. The bank and credit card company can verify that you are calling from a land line owned by you. The information sent back and forth on the Internet is NOT SECURE. The Internet was not designed to make the flow of information secure.

CARPEL TUNNEL

I had horrible carpel tunnel, which I fixed by doing hand strength exercises with that little thing that looks like a 'V' with a coil spring in the bottom of the 'V'. (History channel said that this may have been invented by Bruce Lee.) I am guessing that putting weight behind the exercise opens up the carpel tunnel. Now I can again type, which is good for me, at least. I got my hand exerciser at WalMart, which had two for less than $5.00.

CONSEQUENCES

Muslims around the Mediterranean were the Silicon Valley of their era. THEY INVENTED ZERO! 

But they did not listen to the farmers, and allowed overgrazing by sheep and goats. (Sheep and goats eat the roots if there are too many per acre, and the plants do not grow back in the Spring.)

So the Sahara ate cities that had been in existence for 2000 years.

American farmers remembered this. But we had to shoot Navajo sheep to prevent them from destroying their amazing landscape.

Did you know that Genghis Khan was a Muslim? I have watched a lot of American Genghis Khan movies. Not once was it mentioned that he was a Muslim

Legend has it that when Genghis Khan was the ruler of the entire silk road, a virgin carrying gold could walk unmolested from Persia to China.

SAN MATEO COUNTY CPS

NOW San Mateo County CPS is telling me that if my lift is broken, I still have to come to their offices or they will interview my frightened client without me.

DOESN'T ANYONE KNOW THE LAW ANYMORE?

ANOTHER INVITATION TO DREAM CONFERENCE

I would like to also invite the Queen of England. She gets 27 guest invitations.

I REALLY want to introduce her to my mother. They are an awful lot alike.

Anyway, if the Queen comes, bringing important people from Europe, James Bond will have no trouble also attending.

PLEASE VOTE TODAY IN CALIFORIA

GOVERNOR IDIOT is saying that if people do not vote, he will just screw us over anyway.

You can vote WHERE EVER there is a little vote sign. DO NOT fill out the driver's licence information. You will have to give your address and sign the ballot. So fill out everything except for the licence info.

I AM TIRED OF BEING GOVERNED BY IDIOTS.

SO GO VOTE. It is easy. JUST VOTE NO FOR EVERYTHING.

SLOW LEARNERS

Not content with treating all voting black men in Florida as felons, the Republican Party is requiring driver's licence numbers in order to vote in the California special election.

THE SIMPLE RULE. If something is not required to REGISTER TO VOTE, then you cannot require it to ACTUALLY VOTE. 

There is no driver's licence requirement to register.

HONESTLY, ARNOLD IS SO STUPID IT IS BEYOND BELIEF.

I want Governor Moonbeam back. He started Earth Day, did you know?

SAN CARLOS POLICE

The San Carlos Police have an officer who is so bent on framing an abuse victim that she is willing to state that it is impossible to self inflict a wound on a finger.

Doesn't San Carlos require ANY intelligence testing AT ALL?

And, of course, the District Attorney ALWAYS charges 4 felonies for a small stab wound on a finger. NOT.

Can you say RETALIATION?

People do NOT like to lose.

Oh, well. I will just add to the damages I intend to sue for. I think I am now up to $10 million.

THE SAN MATEO COUNTY JAIL REDWOOD CITY

I am an Officer of the Court. You are officers of the law. Unless I am under arrest, you respect me. I only need to respect you, if I actually do respect you. I DO need to be polite, of course. Unless I am tired, in pain, angry and being held up for three hours because of a pissing match. 

Such children.

BTW, I think they deliberately keep the women's side of the jail cold so that the women will shiver. Sort of like in a wet T-shirt contest. How sick is that?

My Dream Conference

Please understand that I cannot hold my dream conference because Google STILL has not given me the $20,000,000 that I asked for so that I could SAVE THE WORLD.

However, many of you will enjoy the guest list and rules of the conference. The rules will be at the end of this posting. 

I hope there will be entertainment by the Bold and Stupid Men from the Casa de Fruita RenFair. It would be fun to have Irish line dancing, and folk music, and a couple of fractured Shakspeare plays. 

President Obama 7

First Lady Obama 7

Former President Clinton 7

Secretary of State Clinton 14

The Los Angles County Bar Association, continuing education division 14

The California State Bar 14

The Arizona State Bar 14

Tom Johnston from Minimax 7

Jim Robideau, Esq. 7

Franklin from Papago Legal Services 7

Russell Means

Dennis Banks

The two main Google Guys

James Abourezk

The two main Mythbusters guys and the engineer Mythbuster

Joan Shullo 7

Fidel Castro

Steve Silver 7

Patricia Wrede 7

Mercedes Lackey 7

Janet Evonovitch

J.K. Rowling

Marcella Cluff 7

George Cluff  7

John Lawler 7

John Lawler's wife or former wife (as the case may be) 7

Any child that was on my Odessey of the Mind team

For one year 1

For two years 2

For three years 7

Christine Seachrist 7

Damian Lucas 7

Andy Hill 7

My black belt judo friend from the U of Hawaii 7

The Strocks 

The Reaves

Emily Drumm 7

David Kessler 14

David Souter

Ruth Bader Ginsberg

Harlan Agnew 14

DA Delores Carr

DA Paul Colin

Chuck Smith 14

Chris O'Brien

The two Steves from Apple 7 each

George Lucas 14

The real NCIS 14

Those two 'news' guys from the comedy channel 7 each

The comedian from HBO, I think, who has people sit around a table and invites the opposition 14

Jay Leno

The Palo Alto principal that told the truth and had to take it back. Early childhood education is really important.

The reporters for "Broken Families, Broken Courts" and the one on the scam being run about forcing guilty pleas in domestic violence cases.

The entire staff of the current San Jose Mercury News

Shou Yongjun 14

Colin Powell 14

Edward Sousa, Campbell's defense attorney

Nancy Pelosi 14

Diane Fienstein 14 (sorry, I cannot spell)

Geri Lynn Green

Paul Dean Nelson

Hal McCall

Ed formerly of A&J Auto 7

PBS 14

Smithsonian 14

Michael Guluso 14 (again I cannot spell)

The Dali Lama 14

Mel Roshi 14

Speakeasy 7

Linda's son 14

Carlos Puig 14

My client with all the patents 14

Linda

Dan McFadden 14

The Pakistani Supreme Court Justice who led the lawyers march for justice. 14

My entire family. My parents, their children and grandchildren can each bring 7 people each. My aunts, uncles and first cousins can each bring 3 each.

There may be more, but these are the ones that came to me this weekend.

RULES

If there is no number by your name, you can bring three people. (Or send 3 people, if you cannot come.) Your current lover is also invited.

You may bring your trophy wife as long as you remember that I do not like people who sell themselves into slavery.

NO HIGH HEELS, including cowboy boots. You have to be comfortable to think well. NO TIES. No suits. No pantyhose.

I, at least, do not intend to obey the drug laws.

I am going on vacation.