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.)