HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Have a safe and happy Halloween. Frankly, I miss having children to take trick or treating. But, trust me, I access my inner child A LOT.

I have had to work this October, so I missed my usual overkill celebrations for my birthday and Halloween. I guess I will just have to over celebrate for Thanksgiving, Saturnalia, Christmas and New Year's Eve. A tough job, but SOMEONE has to do it. :}

WARNING! Halloween is for fun, NOT for violence.

PLEASE HELP YOUR FRIENDS BE GOOD GHOSTS.

"LET THEM LIVE IN PAIN", SAYS THE FDA

Over 95% of patients requesting pain medication are in such real abject pain that they beg the doctor for help. In fear of the FDA, the doctor gives them a lecture on addiction, smiling in superiority as the patient cries. (Because a crying patient MUST be an addict.)

This is happening because the FDA and DEA pressure doctors to NOT give out pain medication. The FDA and DEA pressure medical schools to teach medical students that the patients asking for pain medication are ALWAYS addicts. The FDA gets away with this because the FDA controls which doctors are allowed to prescribe medication. A threat to withdraw a doctor's right to prescribe medication is VERY EFFECTIVE at getting the doctors to OBEY THE FDA.

Now the FDA wants to make it HARDER for people in real pain to get medication. The FDA is well aware that less the 5% of the people in the US are addicted to ANYTHING. But the FDA enjoys its power, and drug manufacturers prefer to have medication difficult to get as then they can overcharge desperate people.

"LET THEM LIVE IN PAIN."

MAKING NEWS ILLEGIBLE

Google news is so COOL, it is illegible to most of us. Their font is thin, blue and unchangeable. News sites where I can enlarge the type keeps down my eyestrain. Now Slate.com has decided that cool graphics are more important than older people reading their site.

The neatest thing about iPhones and iPads is the "making it bigger" option. I am told that you actually have to specify that the website works with the "make it bigger" stuff.

Two months ago, I saw that politics might heat up so I signed up for the New York Times. What I got was a website where I could not make the typeface bigger. When I complained, they told me that the articles would have bigger type if I wanted. This was not true. Like a book, the typeface only had two sizes. And naturally, the typeface was thin and hard to read. They promised me I would be able to read articles using the newspaper website which did get bigger and smaller. This was a lie, of course.

Now Slate.com is joining the "only those with good eyesight need read us".

I think there are two reasons for this insanity. One, print media people can not cope with web design. They want their cool layout to remain a cool layout. "Who cares if people can read it? We do not want old people anyway."

Two, it is possible that there is a patent on the "make it bigger" stuff, and some hardware makers are bribing web designers to NOT use the "make it bigger" as they do not want to put it on their new phone or tablet.

BTW, it is cool with me if you put an ad on before I see the article or video. However, I DO want to be able to close the ad and go to my article. If you allow advertisers to highjack your readers, you will LOSE READERS.

Luckily, there are plenty of free news sites on the web.

But I hate to see the New York Times try to keep selling buggy whips, when they could so easily make a lot of money by moving into the modern world.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT STEALS FROM LOCAL BUSINESSES

Santa Clara County is using the excuse of helping gays get married to undercut the wedding prices of local ministers. This increases county revenue while badly hurting the local wedding businesses. As usual, a seemingly good idea has multiple damaging unintended consequences.

Marrying people inexpensively and immediately damages our social fabric. For hundreds of years, the government has issued licenses, and then ministers married people. Even Las Vegas sends people from the county to local wedding chapels. THIS IS BECAUSE IT IS A GOOD IDEA TO ALLOW PEOPLE SOME TIME TO THINK ABOUT WHETHER THEY REALLY WANT TO BE MARRIED.

$40 for a quickie marriage is a small enough sum that it is very tempting for clerks to just pocket the money. (All people must buy an $80 marriage license. The county is offering to complete the job for $40 while the people stand at the counter.)

I also hear rumors that the marriage clerks offer their own marriage services to marriage license purchasers. "I will come to your back yard and marry you. Here is my card, " is what I hear that the clerks are doing.

This idea has spread to counties across the US. The internet makes it really easy to share ideas that look smart, but are actually stupid ideas.

County officials look the other way as they want to increase county revenue in as many ways as possible.

BUT DOES THE COUNTY REALLY NEED TO STEAL BUSINESS FROM OUR LOCAL MINISTERS?

HIJACKING DEMOCRACY

In order to bring you the federal shut down, the Republicans quietly voted to give the HOUSE LEADER THE RIGHT TO VETO certain LEGISLATION. This VIOLATES THE US CONSTITUTION.

Only the US President has the constitutional right to veto legislation. But House Resolution 368 states that the majority leader is the ONLY PERSON THAT CAN ALLOW a full House vote on certain legislation. 

This is like giving ONE MAN the right to filibuster certain legislation. Unlike the almost equally stupid Senate filibuster rules, there is NO WAY for the House to vote to force the majority leader to allow certain legislation to go forward.

THIS CAN NOT BE ALLOWED TO STAND. It violates the rock bottom values of our constitutional democracy. 

Our system of government was set up so that there is a BALANCE OF POWER between the Senate, the House, the President, and the US Supreme Court. House resolution 368 substantially changes this balance of power. 

DO EVERYTHING you can think of (short of violence) to force the House of Representatives to GET RID OF House Resolution 368.

THE DEMOCRACY YOU SAVE WILL BE YOUR OWN! 

MEANWHILE DEAD CATTLE ARE ROTTING IN SOUTH DAKOTA

Last I checked, the California federal tax dollars going to the feds is less than the federal tax dollars coming to California. This means we are helping the smaller states, like South Dakota. We do not mind doing this, as we think that the rich SHOULD help out the poor.

The tea party people generally come from smaller states, whose voters still think that politicians can be amateurs. Those of us in the bigger states know that a state wide problem that hasn't yet been solved is a complex problem with no simple answers. Complex problems with no simple answers need to be solved by people with experience in solving such complex problems.

It is much more satisfying to think that complex national problems have simple solutions. TRUST ME, THERE ARE NO SIMPLE SOLUTIONS TO COMPLEX PROBLEMS.

These amateurs seem to think that they can justify blackmail by repeating old lies.

It is a LIE that there is a problem with the US national debt. If the US were a corporation, pundits would say that it is not investing enough to be able to deal with the future. Our roads, bridges, and overpasses are an accident waiting to happen. But the tea party is upset because the Chinese buy US bonds.

It is a LIE that we should not give aid to other countries. If the people in other countries become desperate, then they take HUGE RISKS to smuggle themselves into richer countries. If we want them to stay home, we have to help them make their country a better place to live.

I am very tired of the tea party holding us all to ransome. I am also tired of the tea party people telling us that they are not crazy, because they BELIEVE in whatever incredibly stupid statement they are currently making.

WINNING BY CHANGING THE RULES

The TP Republicans changed the House rules so that only one person can bring a House vote on Senate proposals. This is like a football team being told that there can be only one defender during a play.

I wondered when all the TP people were saying, "We will invoke The Rule." As far as I knew, the House did not have a rule that could prevent a vote of the entire House. Well, on September 30, the rules committee quietly passed such a rule.

I honestly do not know what to say.

Have you noticed that it is always the incompetent people who try to win by changing the rules?

BOND VILLAINS

The TP Republicans are acting like the villains in a James Bond movie. "Ha! I will blow up the world so I can rule whoever survives! Braw! Ha! Ha!"

It has become clear that the TP Republicans WANT to risk bringing down the world wide economy, not once, but every two months until the next elections. Why? Every time idiots get the spotlight they get LOTS of money from other idiots.

I am not sorry for calling these people idiots. At least the James Bond villains had a plan to save themselves. The TP Republicans are still denying that they might be causing an economic problem. "You could be wrong," one of these num nuts says to the US Secretary of the Treasury, who seemed stunned that someone could be quite so stupid.

Of course, these were the people who thought that a certified birth certificate was acceptable for driver licences and passports, but did not actually mean that a Black President could be a US citizen. Did you know they appealed this stupid issue to the US Supreme Court THREE TIMES? When I read that, I knew I did not have the patience to be a justice.

These guys are extorting bullies. They need to be stopped.

DOUBLE OH SEVEN, WE NEED YOU!

WHERE IS SPOCK* WHEN WE NEED HIM?

Spock would be logical about the plan to risk the entire world in order to stop sick people from getting health insurance. Spock would fail to understand why anyone believes the incredibly illogical "facts" being spouted by the Tea Party.

Spock would understand that people who blackmail NEVER stop.

Spock would understand that if our President gives in to blackmail, then terrorists will also think that they can get away with blackmail.

Spock would understand that the world's financial markets know that eventually this confrontation will end.

However, the markets will eventually react to the crises. Spock would recommend that everyone hold on to their current stocks and bonds. The arbitrageurs are not going to be able to resist the incredible opportunities to make money during this crises. Spock would remind everyone that only those truly able to gamble away billions should be playing the markets at this time.

It is possible to assume that people are also being blackmailed regarding their misdeeds. (We all have misdeeds.) Spock would recommend the best advice ever given about blackmail. You just reply, "Publish and be damned."

* The original Star Trek taught most of us to THINK about how we treat other people. Mr. Roddenberry is a true bodisapa.

TP BULLIES ARE POOR LOSERS

It is like saying, "I know I lost at poker, but give me the entire pot or I will destroy the world." This is NOT compromising, or negotiating or having a dialog. This is the kind of blackmail that bullies use.

I have seen WAY too many domestic bullies. Many domestic bullies have threatened to crash a car containing the children. The TP Republicans are threatening to crash the world wide economy in order to stop people from being able to buy health insurance.

Just like domestic bullies, they will make this threat over and over again. DO YOU REALIZE THEY ARE ONLY OFFERING TO FUND THE US FOR TWO MONTHS? I think their idiot plan is to have this threat over and over again until the next election.

I have always known that the 2008 crash could have been caused by one person, running the home mortgage insurance coverage at AIG. I always wondered if the crash WAS deliberately caused in order to try to convince us that social progress should stop. It is easy to get frightened people to turn on their neighbors, especially if the neighbors are from a different culture.

We got through the 2008 mess, and we will get through whatever mess the TP bullies bring on.

But we can NOT give in to the TP bullies, because, "If you give a mouse a cookie...."

TEA PARTY IS NOT LIBERTARIAN

If the Tea Party Republicans were actually libertarians, then hemp would now be legal.

The ONLY thing the Tea Party and Libertarians agree on is smaller government. But the libertarians would NEVER choose to allow bridges and overpasses to fall down due to age and overuse.

Libertarians would NEVER allow marijuana to remain illegal, as they believe people should be allowed to indulge in activities that do not harm others.

Libertarians believe in a woman's right to make health care decisions for her own body.

The Tea Party wants to force the rest of the country to obey the religious beliefs of their conservative Christian base.

Many in the Tea Party are absolutely adamant that they will not take orders from a Black or a woman. So their lives get worse and worse, because this attitude make them almost unemployable. No modern US government or corporation can allow employees to discriminate in this way.

So WHY are libertarians supporting these people? Why not at least join with the liberal Democrats and legalize hemp?

REPUBLICAN "YES MEN"*

The House Republicans are certain that they are doing the right thing, because their "yes men" are cheering and patting them on the back.

They do not seem to realize how really angry the rest of us are. The Smithsonian is shut down. Yosemite is shut down. You not be able to close your house purchase if you are trying for an FHA approved loan. And, of course the vindictive Tea Party will NOT pay the Federal workers so that they do not lose their houses.

I hope they have fun drinking and partying. They are getting paid and have health care. Is is totally obvious that they do not care for anyone except themselves.

"Yes men" is a slang term for people who tell their boss how brilliant he is, even when the boss is driving the company over a cliff.