Clarence Thomas Speaks?

I don't get Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, but neither do a lot of people. Then I see this commentary on CNN:

Ruben Navarrette, Jr. (CNN contributor): "Clarence Thomas has an abundance of two things that are often in short supply whenever Americans talk about race: courage and common sense."[http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/14/opinion/navarrette-clarence-thomas-race/index.html?iref=allsearch]

Thomas complains when people criticize him:
"The worst I have been treated was by northern liberal elites...The absolute worst I have ever been treated, the worst things that have been done to me, the worst things that have been said about me, are
by northern liberal elites, not by the people of Savannah, Georgia."

I grew up in the Northeast and I've been to Savannah, and hypocrisy doesn't pass muster either place. Thomas says, "Now, name a day (race) doesn't come up,...Differences in race, differences in sex, somebody doesn't look at you right, somebody says something. Everybody is sensitive."

Too sensitive? Thomas thinks he didn't get hired out of Yale Law School because he got in on affirmative action.  "Thomas also famously appraised his law degree as being worth 15 cents."
[http://www.businessinsider.com/how-clarence-thomas-grew-to-hate-affirmative-action-2013-10affirmative-action-2013-10]

I don't see the common sense. I see conflict of interest and ethics issues in his wife's profitable lobbying pursuits:
[http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/07/29/groundswell-ginni-thomas-and-continued-conflict/195117]

As for courage, Thomas is famous for never talking--asking questions--as a justice on SOTUS. As much as I don't get Thomas, I don't get Navarrette more.

Pardon My Prejudice

Ever wonder how to react to a stupid remark made by a bigot right in front of you? Do your friends tell you too many criminals are crossing the borders and wrecking our country? Are you uptight about the legalization of same-sex marriage? I have some answers for you: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IDCQYBG

Voters opposed to Obamacre says it Doesn't go Far Enough!

Some polls showing the -for and -against Obama health care bill are misleading. In some cases, people who might have been in the "in favor" of Obama health care collumn were "opposed" but not because they were against health care reform. They simply didn't think the health care law went far enough by excluding the public option and other more equitable measures that would have caost the average taxpayer less while lessening the intrusion of for-profit health insurance companies.

As it stands, and has been combed through SCOTUS, it's about as far-reaching and beneficial as anything that's come up since FDR's Social Security, and LBJ's Great Society.

Don't be afraid of socialism--we live in a socialist republic. Some on the right would use smoke and mirrors to mae you think our form of government is a democracy--it's certainly not communism, but then neither is China--they are run by dictators who champion entrepreneurial capitalism.

The next best move, ASAP, would be astimulus plan twice the size of the last, instituted by Obama in collabroaion with the Fed. Then we'll see happ days come here again...

World -- Stand by...

Syria's government is killing its own citizens. That's about the time when the government becomes illegitimate, at least according to the US Declaration of Independence: "...burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people." The rest of the world watches as relatively small towns in Syria are decimated by Bashar Al-Assad. Even so, thousands thousands are killed and thousands of families are destroyed.

In a brilliant video from France 24 Chris Dickey calmly and eloquently explains that the western countries, including and especially the US, will not intervene.

So a thought came to me--what if Israel, with all of its power and expert intelligence, took it upon itself as a humanitarian effort to relieve the people of Syria of the constant bombing and killing, and got rid of Assad on its own?  The Arabs don't even like this guy anymore, for better or for worse...

I can hear the arguments against me of how ignorant, naive, stupid, and isolated (after all here in California people are either high, oblivious, or so wrapped up in the Oscars they haven't got a clue about politics, the middle east, or anything else for that matter).

But if the US is expected to take up the gauntlet against inhumane rights and atrocities in the world, why shouldn't Israel also take a stand?  I'm sure the world community would condemn and even react against Israel trying to get rid of the Assad regime in Syria, in order to save the lives of innocent civilians. But there is talk about israel attacking Iran because of the development of nuclear weapons--and that would be just as bad a move or worse than attacking Syria. 

At least there could be a perceived positive motive in removing the government of Syria, while a pre-emptive strike against Iran would have very little to recommend it, especially in the eyes of CNN and the networks. Either way, the people of the US aren't going to care much since they mostly don't pay attention to international events or politics--most haven't even noticed the price of gas went up 25 cents over the weekend!

All the News That Fits Shouldn't be Print

Statins don't lower mortality rates--niacin can help, flouride doesn't prevent cavities--xylitol is proven to work, vaccines are tampering with our primary immune systems causing lunges in elevations of childhood diabetes, asthma, and yes, autism spectral dysfunctions.

Banks are foreclosing on the lousy loan holders they goosed into biting at the worng hand. Slow moving DA's back east are pouncing on BofA and Wells Fargo for hazy unethical methods of screwing the little guy who wanted to own his own home.

The media makes every little sensational story about sexual deviancy and celebrity maladjustment and being held up to close judgmental scrutiny a huge ational dilemma--it's not.

Where';s the truth these days? If Israel attacks Iran because they built Nuke capable weapons does that help keep those weapons holstered? As the Republicans spout the stupidest nonsense that school children laugh about because if they said it their teachers would wonder why they were trying to be goofy, one wonders where the cooler heads are that need to prevail because in fact  there are seriously mega-desctructive weapons out there that can kill us all, and there are financial greed mongers and drug pushers who could kill us all a little more cleverly, but dead just the same.

Time for the cooler prevailing heads to speak out loudly, before they start getting squashed into a corner by some Gingrich fathead know-nothing amd makes them look like the radicals of the hippie dippy 60's.--You know, the drug-crazed free-sex nuts who thought the War in Vietnam was wrong and took so many years to gain traction because Nixon said they were commie-infiltrated and anti-American.

Is that what we are? A bunch of drugged up terrified hair-brained whacko's? The middle class that goes to work every day and makes the place run? And have to listen and watch nutball junk coming out of the mouths of policitians, CEO's, pundits claiming to have inside expert knowledge. Or are we lacking clear grounded leadership--or avoiding it. We voted for it last time around,. Time to start giving it some creedence after 4 years of seasoning. Stop believeing everything you read and expecially watch on TV.

Tamiflu Makes $1Bil, Doesn't Work

We've known about Tamiflu but this story tells how smart people can get taken too!
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-finkelstein-tamiflu-20120115,0,6714636.story

Your Trusted Dr Could be a Criminal at Large and it's all LEGAL!

Drs get paid to promote certain drugs to patients when other cheaper or older drugs might be better in the same instance, Who do you trust? Your own research and knowledge, or else you'e at the whim of greed and apathy. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ornstein-doctors-payments-20110908,0,2056950.story

Flu Warning: Beware the Drug Companies!

Tamiflu deception

War to Free the Slaves--Not Exactly...

Ever wonder what the Civil War was really all about?  Did you think they taught you everything in school?  150 years after the war to end slavery and preserve the Union, two writers from CNN set it straight!

Check out this concise and trenchant article,

Civil War's dirty secret about slavery

By James DeWolf Perry and Katrina Browne

--you'll change your mind and attitude about human nature and the history of the United States forever.

Michael Moore Says It Best

"America is NOT Broke." So says Michael Moore in Wisconsin--I knew about the 400 richest people's wealth equalling half of the rest of the population's. I just never heard it expressed as well as in Moore's speech:

"...400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined."

FDA is "Safety Last" on the Lap-Band

Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, on the fall of the US Food and Drug Administration from the old days of real oversight to modern times of rubber-stamping:

"Is the motto of the Food and Drug Administration "safety last" when it comes to the Lap-Band?" --
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/02/michael-hiltzik-the-fda-and-the-lap-band.html

Big Pharma Given Total Liability Shield for Vaccines

U.S. Supreme Court Betrays U.S. Consumer: Big Pharma Given Total Liability Shield for Vaccines -- Read more from Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center: http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/February-2011/NVIC-Cites--Betrayal--of-Consumers-by-U-S--Supreme.aspx

Ronald Reagan is 100 (If he weren't dead)

Besides the Superbowl hoopdedo and Ground hog's day, not to mention the impending meltdown of the thugs who run Arab countries in the Mideast...there is the non-story of dead President Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday.

I have 63 year old 16mm Kodacolor movie my dad shot of Ronald Reagan judging a local beauty contest at the pool of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.Reagan was a 2nd-rate washed up actor in 1948, and if it weren't for his lead-ins to the TV show "GE Theater" in the 1950's, most of us wouldn't know about him today.

It was that presence, plus an ability to read other people's words and sound real sincere, and a measure of political ambition fueled and flourished by wife Nancy, that is the reason so many jaw-droppingly ignorant republicans still love his legacy.


Did I miss something amongst the commentaries about his 2-term slosh as the "Great Communicator," in that he was party to, and possibly even initiator of, crimes against the State as well as utterly abrogating his presidential oath of office to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution?" This morass became known as the "Iran-Contra Affair," of which few citizens understand or care about.

The history of US Presidents abounds in scandals too numerous to mention. Some were political for the sake of power, like Nixon's Watergate.Others were awash in historical events that no one cares about anymore--Harding may even have been poisoned in office. Grant's appointees were so blithely money grubbers that he stood aside and let the chips fall where they may--which is why even his hands-off not knowing what's going on get him listed often as one of the worst presidents in history.

After Watergate, there was a feeling in the land that subsequent laws enacted to provide more vigilance of our elected leaders--politicians after all, the least noble of professions--would prevent another scandal, at least, or attempt to take over the government at most, from happening again.

While the conspiracy-mongers among us, or at least the wink-wink cynical know-it-alls, understand that politics by definition breeds duplicity and deceit--in order to provide the uppity-word version of that, which is "compromise," on a day-to-day basis most of us non-paranoiacs don't see the government as trying to subvert the law on every level in every minute.


So, 10 years after Watergate, when the winds of "The Iran-Contra Affair" started blowing across the country, it was a little bit harder to believe that the Great Communicator Ronald Reagan was involved in anything corrupt or dirty--like selling arms to Iran, which was against the law, in order to provide funds for the Nicaraguan rebels--Contras--whom again by law the US government could not openly support or of course, give them any money.

Big scandal. People should have gone to jail:

"In the end, fourteen administration officials were indicted, including then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Eleven convictions resulted,
some of which were vacated on appeal. The rest of those indicted or convicted were all pardoned in the final days of the George H. W. Bush
presidency; Bush had been vice-president at the time of the affair. Some of those involved in the Iran–Contra affair who were convicted of felonies
and subsequently pardoned, later became members of the administration of George W. Bush."

Every time I see that sound bite "Mr. Gobachev, tear down that wall," I imagine the Soviet Premier with trowel and pick in hand yelling back at Reagan, "I've been working on this for awhile but no one seems to care anymore."

Reagan wasn't just a bad President--he was a non President.

Still, it was fun to take the kids to see his library and trudge through the actual Boeing 707 that he used in office. Boy can you cover up a lot of manure if you have enough money!

Pertussis Vaccine Doesn't Work

Ever since the outbreak of whooping cough among vaccinated children in the early 1990's in Laguna Niguel, it's been obvious that the shot doesn't work.

Now new studies show even greater cases of pertussis, or whooping cough, among the vaccinated groups, and "experts" claim it may be due to a new strain. But these experts receive funding from the manufacturers of the shots:

Public officials around the world rely heavily on two groups of pertussis experts when setting vaccine policy relating to the disease. Both groups, and many of their members, receive money from the two leading manufacturers of pertussis vaccine. [http://www.watchdoginstitute.org/2010/12/13/whooping-cough-epidemic-california/]

Bottom line: stay healthy; avoid all vaccines.

Roger Schank Sets Straight Education Curricula-Again

Once again Roger Schank cuts to the chase better than lesser experts in his field of how people learn:

When you think about education, think about this. We have made people so stupid through our absurd system of memorizing nonsense and repeating it back on a multiple choice tests that we have set the stage for FOX News to simply say what it wants to say, and having millions of people believe it, because no one ever taught them how to construct or refute an argument...

...the problem is that school is boring and irrelevant and all the kids know it. They know they will never need algebra, or trigonometry. They know they will never need to balance chemical equations and they know they won't need random historical myths promoted by the school system. When all this stuff was mandated in 1892 it was for a different time and a different kind of student.

My daughter is a top student in a class of 650. She is taking advanced algebra in order to not have to take it at some future time in high school or college when there will be other, more important subjects she wants to put her mind to. She drives herself down that road to her goal regardless of the burdens and problems in the way.

I'm not so lucky--I hate automatic authoritarian rules that require school children to have to master any subject which not only may not be necessary for them at any point in their lives, but for anyone's life. But I am lucky that my daughter will get through this morass and prevail--I only hope it happens without her losing her divine right to question.