NATURAL GAS -- FRIEND AND FOE

Natural gas is a very clean burning fuel. This makes it the fuel of choice if one does not want brown air.

Natural gas can also be dangerous. A leak in a natural gas pipe line can blow up. Natural gas has no smell, so we add a horrible smell to the gas so we can smell and report a leak.

Natural gas pipe lines do not last forever. The pipelines bringing gas to our homes and businesses need to be inspected on a regular basis and replaced if necessary. Accurate records of installation, inspection and replacement are very necessary to insure safety.

Inspection and replacement and record keeping are EXPENSIVE. Gas companies have to answer to shareholders, which means they need to make a profit.

Pressure to make money has caused many gas companies to delay and/or avoid these expensive safety requirements.

Here in Silicon Valley, 8 people died when their houses exploded in a natural gas fueled fire ball. A street burned for hours due to a gas leak. Many plastic gas pipes known to fail are not even being considered for replacement.

Even the gas companies want regulations which would force them to do the safe thing. The companies know that the pressure to make money conflicts with the need to replace, inspect and record. Gas companies do not want people to blow up. They know that the safety people need the clout of safety regulations in order to insure that safety does not get put off until "next year". (Sometimes a series of "next year" decisions can kill people.)

CLOSING MARIJUANA CLINICS INCREASES CRIME SAYS RAND CORP.

Critics of medical marijuana keep repeating that the medical marijuana clinics cause more crime.

THIS IS NOT SO according to a study by the think tank The Rand Corporation. Rand studied the crime rates for the 10 days before and after Los Angeles ordered hundreds of marijuana clinics to close. They found that, in the areas around the closed clinics, CRIME ROSE. This was especially true for breaking and entry, and assault.

Rand believes that the clinic's security caused crime to drop. I think that buying from liquor stores was, and is, a lot safer than buying from bootleggers. It follows that buying from marijuana clinics is a lot safer than buying from dealers.

You can read the study at www.rand.org.

The grand social experiment of making alcohol illegal was a failure. Prohibition of alcohol caused crime, violence, widespread refusal to obey the law, and made it profitable to form criminal gangs, some of which exist to this day. No amount of punishment could get people to obey the law against possession of alcohol. Prisons got full and criminals got wealthy beyond their dreams.

We are repeating the social experiment with marijuana.

Our drug policy is costly, ineffective in stopping drug use, and is causing a large number of normally law abiding citizens to laugh at the law.

If you do not believe me, Ken Burns has an upcoming PBS documentary on the original prohibition. Watch it, please.

HAVING MONEY DOES NOT MEAN YOU HAVE "CLASS"

"Class" is a word used to indicate that someone is above or below you socially. It can also mean a person who should be looked up to, as in "(s)he has real class".

You can not become upper class just by having money. Ask the Brits about their many poor aristocrats.

One of the reasons that the new rich are not considered to be upper class, is that the new rich have a tendency to use their money to bully people. There is a fine line between being an effective leader and being a bully.

No one minds if a person becomes rich through brains, talent, or just sheer luck. Unfortunately, too many people become richer by being bullies. The "I have more money than you, and therefore YOU WILL LOSE" is prevalent here in Silicon Valley. We all know stories of companies who will not let you have manuals for their software unless you use their consultants, who will not sell you ANYTHING unless you buy exclusively from them, who deliberately copy the work of a young company to put the young company out of business.

Luckily, being a bully is considered "low class" so the children of the new rich bullies generally are not bullies.

The normal way for a known rich bully to be considered a good guy is to start a charity. Carnegie was considered to be a robber baron before he started building libraries.

BEN FRANKLIN'S ADVICE ON CHOOSING A MISTRESS

Ben Franklin's famous letter regarding choosing a mistress is good advice to an employer choosing an employee.

Ben said that young men should take an older woman as a mistress because they are skilled, experienced, loyal, and above all, grateful.

Now substitute employer for "young man" and employee for "woman" and "mistress".

Remember that youth is enthusiastic, but as likely to rush into trouble as into solutions.

Older is generally wiser. We were wrong when we said, "You can not trust anyone over 30." It is my guess that the saying referred to buying marijuana, not living life.

REVOLUTION CAN BE RUINED

It is possible to destroy a successful revolution.

Here are some of my suggestions to avoid destruction of your revolution.

BE WARY of someone who says the enemy comes from outside of your country. Right now very few countries have to worry about an enemy invasion. Because fear and hatred are such useful ways to control people, the "old guard" will try to use the fear and hatred of a neighboring country to get the revolutionaries to do stupid, violent things. Then the "old guard" will use the violence as an excuse to continue arresting and imprisoning people without a fair trial.

MINORITY GROUPS within your country MUST be protected. The "old guard" will use the fear and hatred method against these minorities, for the same reasons that they will use fear and hatred of your neighbors.

LISTEN TO THE MODERATES. Many revolutionaries make the mistake of thinking that the moderates did not take to the streets so they do not need to be part of the discussion. Usually, the moderates helped you with their silence. By NOT supporting the "old guard", they were giving you more power. Without this silence, you would have been imprisoned and the revolution would have failed.

YOU CAN NOT CHANGE EVERYTHING OVERNIGHT. Democracy is like life. It is born, and as it grows, it becomes more than what it was at birth. Like life, it is a constant struggle.

ELECTIONS; BALANCE OF POWER BETWEEN THE EXECUTIVE, THE JUDICIAL, AND THE LEGISLATURE; AND CIVIL RIGHTS FOR ALL. These are the important things. Concentrate on the important things.

REMEMBER that words are just words. What is REALLY HARD is making those words a reality in the lives of all of the citizens of your country.

GOOD LUCK! You are going to need it. We made it happen, and you can make it happen.

KILLING SAN JOSE'S GOLDEN GOOSE

Since March 2011, medical marijuana clinics in San Jose have paid $1.6 million in the extra marijuana tax. The clinics have also paid slightly more than $1.6 million in regular sales tax. THIS IS OVER $3,200,000 IN SIX MONTHS.

Does this make the cash strapped city happy? Oh, no! The city wants to kill the marijuana clinics by putting in stupid, draconian, and unnecessary regulations requiring the clinics to grow their marijuana on site. The city council may also accept large political contributions from the clinics who wish to become the "anointed ten" clinics allowed to operate in San Jose.

Marijuana may be an effective and safe CURE FOR CANCER. The National Cancer Institute, at www.cancer.gov is still stating that the cannabinoids in marijuana have been found to shrink cancer tumors. (You really need to search carefully for the information, as the "do not tell me the facts, I have already made up my mind" people keep making them take specific pages down.)

There has been NO scientific proof that marijuana has killed even ONE person.

Even if marijuana clinics were causing trouble, the $6.4 million a year would pay for a lot of police officers. However, there is almost no indication that the clinics are causing problems.

Patients who have mobility issues will have trouble getting their medicine if the "anointed 10" plan goes through. Patients who prefer to have their marijuana grown in natural sunlight will not be able to get such natural medicine.

IF YOU CAN, please attend tomorrow's city council meeting. If you can not attend the meeting, call, fax or phone your city council person and tell them to leave medical marijuana clinics alone.

* I have no information on such political contributions. But if there were only 10 liquor stores allowed in San Jose, don't you think that large political contributions would be given to the city council persons from those who wanted to be one of the 10?

REMEMBRANCE OF 9 11

This weekend is the 10th anniversary of the mass murders that were planned, executed, and thwarted on September 11, 2001.

These horrible mass murderers were using the excuse of religious fervor. They were not the first people to use religion as an excuse to murder.

King Richard the Lionhearted murdered thousands of helpless prisoners of war because he did not want to "waste" manpower on guarding them. He figured he needed all of his men to take Jerusalem, which he believed was his religious duty.

Too often, people use religion to revile anyone who does not believe exactly as they believe. "Non believers" are considered to be "non people", who can be killed with impunity. The people who believe this are not actually following the teaching of their religion. They are using a few sentences, taken out of context, to justify their reprehensible actions.

Every time you say, "That person is not one of us, so what happens to him/her does not matter", you are making it a little bit easier for someone, somewhere, to commit an atrocity.

Many of the world's religions believe that Jesus of Nazareth was a prophet and/or the son of God. Jesus said, "The meek shall inherit the Earth." I think he meant that those who could learn to live without violence will be the people who rule the Earth.

In order to live without violence, we need to RESPECT each other. My beliefs may be different from your beliefs, but we can live together in mutual respect and without violence. But there will always be violent criminals, and we will need the good guys who use violence within the confines of the law to bring the bad guys to justice.

If you lost a loved one on 9 11, please accept my condolences.

STOCK FEARS AGAIN

Using the US August job statistics is an extremely iffy reason to make an investment decision.

In the US almost no one actually gets hired in August. This is because hiring is a multi-person decision, and too many of the decision makers are on vacation in August.

August is also the month that politicians pick to make unpopular announcements. This is because most people are on vacation in August and will not notice the unpopular decision. So, if a city is laying off a lot of people, they will try to make the layoffs happen in August.

Therefore, US August job numbers are not a real indication of the US job market as a whole.

Again, you are using the European "debt crises" as a reason to go crazy. I think you are WAY overreacting. In fact, you may be selling based upon a deliberate propaganda campaign designed to get you to sell low and buy high.

It is possible that this same propaganda campaign is behind the US "debt crises" fears. Especially since the US debt is actually a lot less than reported if you do not count the debt the US government owes to the US government.

Fear is WAY easier to trigger than confidence. So, if you want to manipulate people and/or markets, you generate fear in any way you can. Such manipulation and propaganda is protected free speech. Therefore, you are going to have to learn to protect yourselves.

The best way to protect yourself is to invest in something you know or can research. It is VERY RISKY to make quick market decisions for a culture with which you are unfamiliar.

LABOR DAY -- UNIONS AND EMPLOYERS

Lately there has been a lot of talk about how unions are no longer necessary.

"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Actually, I think it is more that powerful people see things only from the point of view of their own supporters. They begin to think that what they think is right and everybody else is wrong.

If you think that corporations will always be fair to their employees, may I recommend reading Steinbeck or Dickens?