TOTAL INCOMPETANCE

The CA Unclaimed Property Office has NO IDEA how to deal with stock certificates escheated to the state.

Betty Yee must be the most incompetent comptroller in the universe.

I have been trying to help a disabled friend get his escheated stock back. One of the stock certificates escheated to the state does not even show up on the unclaimed property data base.

The other two stock certificates are on record as having been escheated to the state. So I helped my friends put in an application. They were told in might take ONE YEAR to even give her an answer. Recently they sent back her entire packet of correctly filled out forms and documents regarding the two stocks they can actually find in their data base. (The packet was returned six months after it was sent, with no explanation.)

I called up the controller's office and they told me that I could not even give them the information they need to start fixing the problem. Understand that I told the poor receptionist that I only wanted to give information, not be given information. FOR WHICH I DO NOT NEED TO HAVE PERMISSION FROM ANYBODY!

The receptionist was so poorly trained that she did not even respond to the words attorney, disabled person, please help get me to a person so I can inform you of a crises in your office.

So I told her I would blog about the problem.

You need a computer program that can remove the escheat on the stock, so the person owning the stock can sell it. You do not need to sell it yourself.

This problem has been festering for about five years. This means that the controller is NOT PROPERLY EXERCISING HER AUTHORITY over the unclaimed property office.

This means that the controller is DELIBERATELY REFUSING TO BE GIVEN ANY UNPLEASANT INFORMATION.

SO HERE IS YOUR UNPLEASANT INFORMATION. It is LEGALLY THEFT if you withhold property from the actual owner.

So the STATE OF CALIFORNIA is guilty of THEFT!

If you think I am wrong, you could ask the Attorney General.

THE EYES OF TEXAS ARE WATERING

My thoughts are with the people of Houston.

Water is both the life blood of the planet and one of the most destructive forces on the planet.

Much of civilization arose around the need to bring water and control flooding.

RIGHT NOW, is a UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY to make maps of where the water comes and goes during this flood. Once you know where there is low lying land you can set building standards and plans for the next flood.

All of Houston lies within the threatened 500 year floodplain*.

If you make maps NOW, you will have an excellent idea of the way water moves in the area around Houston.

Last night I saw the innards of a 500 year old Dutch windmill. It showed the Archimedes screw which augers up the water, the huge gears for turning a small force into a large force. They are attractive and do not kill birds. They are totally off the grid, pumping using wind power alone. They do need caretakers, who can also keep track of the water flow.

Now is the time to contact Holland. Maybe some Dutch engineers can help us with immediate answers on who to evacuate next.

The Dutch method would also work for much of Bangladesh. Bangladesh could even use wooden gears like the medieval Dutch did.

Meanwhile, we all hope that the weather reports are wrong, although I have noticed that the reports were accurate the last several times Napa flooded.

* This means an area where floods are expected about every 500 years. Currently we are building for 100 year floodplains, I think. It should be noted that the 100 years is an estimate over several hundred thousand years. Mother Nature, a flighty creature, is totally capable of giving us two 500 year floods in a single year.

GUESS THE BOOK*

My Dears (in French): ( French phrases scattered throughout.)

I have discovered the greatest art talent of the twenty first century. Why has no one else but me spotted this talent?

Those who know me, know that I prefer buying and producing forged old masters to having anything to do with the ugly modern art admired by today's pretentious art critics.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered first class talent. Bohemians relaxed in a street cafe, smoking and looking attractive. A pallet of greens and golds, echoing the green from Absinthe and the mellow yellow of relaxation.

Beautiful, some room sized. A new voice, with a new perspective, rifting on the master of the masters, the impressionists. Don't you just love those paintings that are both gorgeous and easy to forge. I stick to the old masters, where the art challenge is to forge in oils and canvas circa 1400.

So why has no one noticed this talented paragon? Well, she is a woman. Art is still in the dark ages about women artists.

She paints using acrylics, which the art snobs consider to be lower class art. Of course you read the book by Dick Francis called By The Hilt, where the short jockey again teaches us, this time about using acrylics. I have nothing to add to his analysis.

Why the game?

I want to keep the price down until after I have bought one or two.

* I have written this blog in the style of a blog from a book. Prizes for those who guess correctly. If I come into some money the prize will be boffer weapons. Have you ever had a pillow fight with a sexual partner? Boffing is so much more sexy. (Remember this is for fun and technique, not for hurting and bullying.)

"IF I WERE A RICH MAN*"

I dream so being so rich that I can throw dinner parties where everyone gets to pretend to be a person from history.

I was hoping to trigger discussions of prejudice, by discussing ideas using the words of history or fiction.

Today I am mourning the loss of a vibrant young person, peacefully marching for equality. It could have been me, or any of us, run over by an angry young man.

If alt-right types can only get attention by acting badly, they will act as badly as possible. Because the internet is no longer feeding "click" money to those making outrageously untrue statements, the alt-right needs to act out in public in the hopes of getting donated monies.

Child psychiatrists warn parents that, if you only pay attention to your child's bad behavior, your child will behave badly in order to get attention.

Naturally, they chose to demonstrate in a place that reverberates with Jefferson's words of freedom. Robert E. Lee would have been APPALLED at the actions of those purporting to defend his statue. General Lee was not only the most effective general in the entire war, but he made it as clear as possible that he was reluctantly siding with his home state of Virginia. After the war, he did not want any statutes of himself.

Sadly, family and friends of angry white men may need to report them to the authorities.

IF YOU WANT TO BE PART OF THE SOLUTION.... It is SO simple. You LISTEN to everybody. You look everybody in the eye and smile. TALK TO EACH OTHER.

If you are talking, please try to say what you feel IN YOUR OWN WORDS. Sometimes, quoting other people, or quoting internet memes, is a way to keep yourself from thinking about your own possible prejudices.

SOMEHOW, WE NEED TO STOP YOUNG MEN FROM MONSTERING** THEIR LIVES.

     * In 1755, Samuel Johnson published the FIRST Dictionary of the English language, which is now online. On page 1252 of his dictionary, the FIRST definition, meaning the main definition, of the word MAN, was "human being".
     Thomas Jefferson almost certainly knew this meaning of the word "man", when he used the plural of MAN to write that it is self evident that all MEN are created equal.
     So I can sing, "If I were a rich man", about myself, as I am a human being.
     Feminists have complained for years that our collective nouns are very sexist. It is true that the 1755 second definition of MAN is NOT A WOMAN.

     ** In 1755, monstering was a verb meaning to totally ruin your life with a voluntary act.

NORTH KOREA v US

The problem with never leaving your little country, is that you have no idea how little your country is.

With luck and determination, North Korea may be able to use rockets to deliver a nuclear bomb into territory controlled by the United States.

If North Korea does fire a nuclear missile at ANY target, the United States will almost certainly retaliate.

I worry greatly about the ordinary North Koreans, who already are on a semi-starvation diet.

So may I make suggestions for North Korean targets for retaliation, if retaliation becomes necessary?

We should obliterate all of the fancy amusement areas that North Korea has built for its elite.

We should also change the geography of the mountain that spawned the Kim family. Mount Paektu is central to the myth that the Kim family uses to justify its power. I am certain that we do not even need nuclear bombs to open the crater of the volcano, and to wipe out any buildings built on the mountain by the Kim family.

I am an environmentalist, but people are also part of the environment.

The people of North Korea are not our enemy.

I am so sorry that North Korea is being run by people who are so incompetent that they can not even feed their own people.

ZERO SUM GAME

In tech, diversity is NOT a ZERO SUM GAME. In fact, diversity in tech will almost certainly result in expansion of business. This is because multiple cultural viewpoints actually result in new thoughts, which results in new businesses.

I watched as Yahoo and Google became HUGE doing the brand new thing of searching the internet to get me information.

I have been doing research on the internet since before it was called the internet. I find Google Scholar to be especially helpful for legal research.

I have watched women come up with brilliant ideas, only to have them stolen by men, who then denigrated the woman so that she could not effectively complain. I have watched men sneer at women because women often treat computers as tools, not as toys. Oh, she can't be any good, she does not even enjoy War Craft, they say as justification.

Almost all men, world wide, were raised by people who believed that men and women had different roles in society. This can leave the men with a lifetime of unacknowledged belief in the inability of women to be effective in a male society.

Oh, aren't you pretty, we say to the girls.

Oh, aren't you smart, we say to the boys.

Unless we talk about this, we will not solve it. By yelling or not listening to the concerns of men, women are making solutions more difficult. 

It is entirely possible that women test with more empathy because they are required to do all the family tasks requiring empathy. (Nature versus nurture, if you want to look it up.)

Just do not say that women and minorities can not program or code, because of how their brains are wired.

Because in twenty years, you will be quoted and sound like John Wayne talking about Blacks.

Personally, I think my brain is as good as the brain of any man I know.

DO NOT BLIND THE CHILDREN

ECLIPSE GLASSES MUST MAKE THE DAY LOOK TOTALLY DARK. THE DAY SUN SHOULD LOOK LIKE A CLEAR FULL MOON.

FYI, STARING AT THE SUN DURING AN ECLIPSE CAN MAKE YOU GO BLIND!

This year, the continental US will have the first total eclipse in 100 years.

Astronomers worked hard on preparing the event by inventing glasses where an ordinary person can safely view an eclipse. Viewing the sun with the naked eye can burn your retina, which puts a black spot in the middle of your vision. The retina does NOT heal itself.

Do not bother to check the technicalities of your glasses. The evil fraudsters are copying the specifications and posting fake test results. The glasses should make the day look like the darkest night. The glasses should make the sun look like a clear full moon. If they do not do this, you got ripped off.

The amount of fraud regarding these glasses is totally out of control, because:

     Too many people think that being rich proves that they are good and smart.

     Too often being rich only proves that you were willing to do things like blind children in order to make money.

     Normally, there are customs officers, consumer fraud inspectors, and consumer fraud advocates, who warn us about dangerous goods being sold, and actually sometimes stop the goods being sold. The new administration is both unorganized and true believers in a free market. 

     The government, who should be warning us about these shoddy fraudulent dangerous eclipse glasses, is busily fighting over who gets the corner office, who gets fired, and who may not get paid.

You can view the eclipse using the old school method my father taught me. Get a small deep box. Cut out the top of the box. Poke a hole in the middle of one side. Put the hole side towards the sun. A small bright dot will appear on the inside of the box, opposite the hole. Then you can watch the shadow of the moon go across the bright dot on the inside of the box. This is two experiments in one. (Look up camera obscura.)

ENJOY YOUR ECLIPSE!