IT WILL NEVER BE SAFE

It will never be safe for a woman to go into a hotel room with a strange man.* It is even more unsafe to take a drink or a pill from a stranger. Just because you know a person's TV character, does not mean you know the actor.

If Bill Cosby had been a rock star, we would all be yawning over the stories of drugs and hotel rooms. For me Bill will always be a cool spy, as I do not watch sitcoms.

If you are so stupid as to go into a stranger's hotel room and take a strange drug, then you need to report the result RIGHT AWAY. Modern drugs leave the system really quickly.

I understand how upset people get when their heroes are not perfect. My hero is Thomas Jefferson, who wrote those famous words about all men being created equal. Did you know that he had an affair with a female slave? The affair started when the slave was 16, and continued though 6 kids. For me, the worst of it was that he did not even free his children when he died.

What kind of man believes in freedom, but allows his own children to live in slavery?

Jefferson is still my hero, because of the words that he wrote. But I never forget that, for Jefferson, the words that he wrote did not include me.

I do NOT like trial by internet. It is clear that Bill Cosby, along with thousands of other actors, athletes and rock stars, took advantage of his popularity to have sex with young women. I find that reprehensible.

Too many men think that women are put on this earth to provide pleasure and babies to men. But the subtext of all of the complaining about Bill Cosby is that women should be safe when they go into hotel rooms with strange men.

The law has a rule of implied consent. If a woman goes into a man's hotel room, she should still be able to say NO to sex. But the law may be unable to punish the man unless there is clear evidence of lack of consent.

LISTEN TO COSBY'S WOMEN. The momentary pleasure of intimacy with a famous person may not last when you discover that the famous person does not see YOU as a person.

* Hotel employees must also be careful. They should let people know when they intend to go to a room with a person inside the room.

RUINING A LEGACY

One of the most important things that President Eisenhower did was our wonderful interstate highway system. Tea Party Republicans have been allowing this legacy to slowly deteriorate.

No long term planing can be done, because the funding is only for six months at a time.

Now the idiots are planning on funding the highway system for the next three years, BY SELLING OUR OIL RESERVE. They could not have chosen a worse time to sell oil.

In any event, three years is not really enough lead time to make major highway improvements.

One of the first highways to be built, Interstate Highway 10, has a bridge out, causing day long delays, which will get better but will last for months. About 40% of all shipping from Asia goes down this highway.

Quick movement of goods is one of the ways that the US is different from Africa. It allows us all to enjoy the world wide bounty of food, electronics, shoes, clothes, at the lowest possible prices.

As the country grows, so the highway and railroad systems have to grow. This has ALWAYS been one of the responsibilities of the federal government.

Worse, these selfish, short sighted Simpletons are allowing the railroad and highways to fall apart. We have had train derailments blamed on anyone but the true fact that the railroads have NOT been brought up to 21st century standards.

Roads wash out because no one has the money to pay for a soil engineer. Bridges fall down, and everyone just shrugs.

THIS IS OUR COUNTRY. It deserves the best transportation systems that money can buy.

BECOMING RICH

A white man, with blond hair and a charming smile, can usually be successful. Add in a rich father and a private school education, and Trump was well on his way to wealth.

Trump has found a totally legal way to promise the moon and then have a federal judge rewrite most of his contracts.

Trump businesses have declared bankruptcy FOUR times. They were Chapter 11 bankruptcies, where an overextended business can eliminate many of the expensive things that the business had agreed to do.

The federal judge can rewrite leases, agree to not pay pensions, cancel entertainment contracts, pay suppliers much less than they are owed, and totally not pay lawsuit judgments.

Many people seem to find Trump's frat boy humor to be amusing. I guess he is useful in saying, in public, the jokes that old frat boys tell in the NY old frat boy clubs.

Senator McCain needs no defending. Knowing his story, most of us could not imagine having the courage to do what McCain did when he flew into enemy gunfire, and then withstood five years of hellish captivity.

In my fevered imagination, I think Trump, et al, are going after Mexicans, because they want to keep marijuana illegal, so they can continue to have tax free profits. Associating marijuana with Mexico has always worked in the past.

Some people are having real difficulty because the past is gone, and the future belongs to everyone.

POOR NONPLANET PLUTO

Clear photos of Pluto are starting to come into NASA. I am enjoying NASA explaining that "ice" only means "lots of frozen stuff". To a scientist, ice is not limited to water.

My physics teacher was very exited about Pluto. He went on and on about how the math of orbits proved the existence of Pluto before Pluto was found in 1930.

And, of course, Pluto is the name of Mickey's dog.

So Pluto was always my favorite planet.

Until it was demoted to an asteroid or something horrible like that. How DARE those scientists take away MY FAVORITE PLANET?

I must not have been the only person upset about the demotion of Pluto. Because now Pluto has been promoted to being a "dwarf planet".

Best of all, the exploring camera that is photographing Pluto, may have 20 more years of life.

We are a very lonely planet, floating in the vast universe.

When we finally leave the solar systems, we will salute Pluto as we go by.

PROPAGANDA AND POLITICS

It is propaganda that forgiving the Greek debt will hurt European banks. It is propaganda that the Greek crisis is the fault of the Greeks.

The European banks have already forgiven the Greek debt. That is what banks mean when they "write off" a debt.

Forbes says that the Greek crises started because Greece grew faster than Germany; and, that the Euro treaty inadvertently punishes those who buy goods from the more developed countries.

So why all this anti-Greek propaganda?

I have a horrible conspiracy theory that German - Russian criminals wanted to cause a market crisis so that they could "steal" money from the middle class. Causing a market panic always makes the rich richer and the middle class poorer.

It was easy to manipulate Merkel into agreeing to PUNISH Greece. Under stress, we all tend to return to the values of our childhoods. Merkel grew up in East Germany, one of the most repressive dictatorships in history.

Political lies meant to manipulate are called PROPAGANDA. The East Germans were masters of propaganda.

The biggest lie of all was the concept of GREXIT. The Germans are TOTALLY IGNORING the fact that they CAN NOT FORCE Greece to leave the EURO.

If the EU forgave 50% of the Greek debt, then ALL of Europe would benefit.

Right now, Europe is in a holding pattern, waiting to see what happens to Greece. If you completely solve the Greek crisis by forgiving debt, then ALL OF EUROPE can start making decisions for a BRIGHT NEW FUTURE.

GREEK CRISES WARNING!

Small investors MUST NOT buy or sell stocks or bonds until everyone agrees the Greek crises is over. I define small as anyone with less than one million dollars US invested in the stock or bond market.

When powerful politicians are deliberately stupid, they could be planning on stealing from the middle class AGAIN.

So let the idiots lose their own money for a change.

EUROPE NEEDS TO FIX GREECE

The Euro is humanity's future. Rather than criticize the imperfect Euro, it would be really helpful if Alan Greenspan would get off his butt and help readjust the Euro.

I believe that Greece has a systemic problem with unreliable governmental information. Telling people to fix such a complex problem is useless. Providing mentors to show people how to fix such a problem is effective.

So you need a EURO CARE CORP. Send in teams of two Europeans, one retired expert and one young graduate. Pay them poorly, and require that they live among the Greek people. (Sort of like how the US legal aid worked, back when it was funded.) Get a NATO general with field experience to set up the logistics.

Then form a GREEK DATA CORP. Hire the unemployed Greek young people at minimum wage to do the necessary scanning and data entry.

Start with the tax offices, the courts, and the property records. I would consider putting guards on the financial data that needs to be entered. Messy records allows fudging the data. Good records will discover these financial shenanigans.

Europe must also grant Greece what the allies granted Germany after World War II. Forgive 50% of the Greek debt.

This should fix both the short term and long term problems in Greece.

BTW, the Greeks should REFUSE to resign from the EURO. If there is going to be a Europe it needs to be a Europe which believes, "All for one, and one for all."

China needs to realize that if they continue to listen to Russian propaganda and sell stocks, they can wipe out all they have gained, and they will have done it to themselves.

GREECE AND THE EU

It is important to remember that the European Union is by TREATY. Said treaty does not allow for a member to be thrown out without that member's agreement.

Greece needs a Marshall Plan. After WWII, we did not punish Germany, but instead the Marshall Plan helped Germany recover from the devastating war. We decided that BLAME was not the issue, the issue was to prevent another war.

Germany rode high on the economic boom brought by the European Union. I do not know why Germany has decided that they can only have the upside of the EU. The downside of the EU is that sometimes a member country may be in trouble.

Instead of offering Greece effective help, Germany offered Greece BLAME. Be more German, was their advice.

AUSTERITY DOES NOT WORK. AUSTERITY MAKES AN ECONOMY CONTRACT, thereby making certain that the contracting economy can not pay back any loans.

Germany led the EU in insisting upon a policy which was doomed to failure from the start. Now Germany has a chance to lead the EU into a compassionate policy which will help Greece to fix itself.

Germans are not stupid people. I believe that Germany can lead the new Marshall Plan to help out the poorer countries.

The results will be a stronger, richer European Union.

GREECE -- VOTE NO

I have already explained why.

(It is against my religion to work on a holiday!)

This year liberty tastes extra sweet!