2009 Commentary
on the World2009 Commentary
on the WorldThis is a running dialog giving me a place to comment upon issues of the day without cluttering up the primary dialog.
Bishop Richard Williamson does not believe the holocaust happened
and he is adamant and vociferous and was excommunicated. But he
was recently re-admitted by the current pope -- and has
pseudo-apologized to to those whom he has hurt by saying that he would
not have said what he did if he had known the commotion it would
cause. This is NOT an apology. I have been
there. I have seen the gas chambers. I have read "Mein
Kampf". I believe. He has been there too. To deny
history is really sort of stupid. To have a voice that is heard
and deny history is stupid. Not just "sort of". The only
purpose of denial in such a situation is to hurt people. There is
no other reason or you would just keep your mouth shut.
But it reminds me of an incident when I was a child in
Milwaukee. Our family had just gone to an event at the downtown
sports arena. We, along with thousands of others, were
leaving. It was raining cats and dogs. I mean really
pouring rain. There were policemen directing pedestrians and cars
when right in front of us a car ran into a policeman. The car
knocked the policeman down but there was no apparent other
damage. The driver jumped out, helped the policeman up, and
sputtered: "If I had known you were a policeman, I would not have hit
you." We did not wait to see the results of the incident. I
suspect for the safety of the crowd, the culprit was permitted to
continue on. But I always remember the incident.
Why? Because in this situation there is almost nothing more
stupid that could have been said. The same is true for Bishop
Richard Williamson. He could have kept his mouth shut and not
denied the holocaust. To what end did he hope to accomplish with
such inflammatory, stupid, remarks? Nothing positive. Then
to follow this up with a pseudo-apology is to follow a slap in the face
with a kick to the groin. I do not know that there is anything
that he can say now that would be an apology. He should just
crawl back in his hole and go away. The pope should make it clear
that there are no words that can undo such malicious actions.
The United States causes the Mexican Drug violence and could
instantly end it -- if it wanted to. But the USA has no
motivation to end the violence. It is easier to blame the third
world country south of the border for its problems than to accept
responsibility for the real cause. And the violence will continue
-- although possibly mitigated by a very strong Mexican
president. The USA could stop the problem instantly by doing 3
things:
I understand that these items are not easily accomplished. Not
because of physical difficulty but because of political
considerations. But the problem is the basic economic principle:
supply and demand. The Mexicans supply the drugs to the USA
because of the huge demand in the USA. I could have mentioned a
number 4: stop the demand -- but this is not identifiable. The
three that I listed are identifiable. You want the violence to
stop? Just do the 3. Violence will stop. Do not do
the 3 and violence will continue.
In short: If you liked Madoff's Ponzi scheme, you will love the FDA.
I went out to buy peanut butter the other day. The food
companies can put almost anything they want in peanut butter as long as
there is some residue of peanut dust in the jar. This is not
new. Jif, Skippy, and Peter Pan gave up making real
peanut butter years ago. Read the ingredients: hydrogenated vegetable
or palm oil (really bad oils), peanut residue, sugar, salt.
Why? Their claimed reason is that people do not like the oil to
separate from the peanuts. The real reason is that they can
separate out the peanut oil and sell it at a higher price. They
remove the oil from the peanuts leaving a residue that has the correct
color,
smell, and flavor. Then they add an oil that will neither separate
from the peanut dust nor your arteries. They add salt because everyone eats
salt. They add sugar because kids will eat more if it is sweeter
than the next brand on the shelf.
It has gotten worse. I always knew to buy Laura Scudder's or
another "natural" peanut butter. Read the label: peanuts,
salt. That's it. I would rather they left out the salt but
then I'm picky. But the Jif giant and Skippy giant have seen lost
revenue from the natural peanut butters. Their answer: add
"Natural" to their labels and raise the price from their original
product. Same ingredients. Different label. Higher
price. How can they get away with this? The FDA does not
care about you, they care about the hand that feeds them: the food
giants.
To be called "Natural" the FDA does not balk at adding extra product
ingredients as long as they
grew out of the ground all by themselves; like palm trees. The
FDA will let them call it peanut butter regardless. And the
majority of people have no idea that instead of stuffing their kids
with a nutritious food, they are hardening their child's
arteries. And this has nothing to do with the lack of inspections
that you, the buyer, paid for and then afterwards came down with
salmonella. If you want real, natural peanut butter, count the label ingredients:
Ingredient Count |
0 |
1 |
2 |
More than 2 |
Product |
Empty Jar |
Real Peanut Butter |
Real Peanut Butter with salt |
Imitation Peanut Butter |
Results |
Hunger |
Good Stuff |
Real but avoid if you have a heart condition or want one |
Jif, Skippy, Peter Pan, etc. |
If you cannot find real, natural, peanut butter in your store (e.g. Sam's Club), complain to the store manager.
I could go on. The goofy FDA food labeling rules permit sugar to be entered in components (which type of sugar) so that when you add it all up you have to be an agricultural chemist to know how much sugar you are consuming -- and you are consuming a lot. Only it is not real sugar any more: it is corn syrup. And they need more calories and more content to give you the same sugar taste as real sugar. You do not believe me? Drink a Coca Cola in the USA and then a Coca Cola from a country with real sugar (e.g. Mexico). No. Don't. The Mexican sugar Coca Cola tastes so much better that it will leave you with a sugar addiction. You will cross the border just to get a real Coke.
Want more? How about a reverse problem. Catsup. Real sugar can ferment and turn to alcohol. That is how they make wine and beer. If people did not want catsup sweetened, they would just eat tomatoes or sauce. There are two ways to solve this problem. The first is easy: add enough chemicals to stop the spoilage. The second is to use a substitute for sugar. In this case, honey makes a great substitute. Why? It is very sweet and honey is the one food in the entire world that will not spoil -- ever. Here is where the FDA steps in. If the Catsup has chemicals to retard spoilage, it can be labeled as "Catsup" or "Ketchup" with no warnings or anything about additives. But if honey replaces the sugar and chemicals, then the label cannot say "Natural", which it is. Worst than this, it must say "Artificial Catsup" or "Artificial Ketchup", which it is not.
At least Madoff only took your money. The FDA -- controlled by the food industry -- can kill you. Exaggeration? How many people died from the bad peanuts in the last year. What about the killer milk from China? The bad pet food from China? Oh. These came from China and the man responsible killed himself. Before that it was bad chilies or tomatoes. I know: these all came from Texas and it is not the fault of the FDA if Texas cheats. Oh, the bad Texas food came from Mexico so we blame another country instead of the Texas inspectors hired by the FDA? What ever happened to "the buck stops here?" Oh. Obama should have fixed it in his first 60 days? (We know the previous Texan would have made it worse and not better). How much can one man do in 60 days. I get tired of that gripe. At least he has told the FDA to stop feeding us cattle that are too sick to stand up. If in 4 years Obama can address all of the problems and corruption that he has inherited, he will have done a good job. At the rate he is going, he will also get some of the problems fixed.
I have no idea the cost added to your food bill for this farce called the FDA but
I am sure it exceeds 10%. I have stopped buying American produce
and meat. I buy all of these in Mexico now at about half the
price I paid in the USA. But then I eat it in Mexico too since the FDA
prohibits bringing these products back into the states.
So you can read your new FDA labels that tell you about food
origins, sometimes. This is more bigotry than solution. It is not just pass the buck to the consumer, this new
labeling is total abdication of responsibility. Now people who do
not like a country will not buy food from that country. Just what
we need: more "patriots" at the vegetable market instead of more
honesty from our government. Oh. And talking about honesty.
The labels do not apply to "processed" foods. The news reports
that the word "processed" is interpreted very liberally. For
example:
Product |
Bag of Frozen |
Bag of Frozen |
Bag of Mixed |
Label with Origin Country |
Yes |
Yes |
NO |
The United States of America stands alone in using an archaic
measurement system abandoned by the rest of the world more than 30
years ago. The ongoing costs of using this system are
immeasurable and amount to millions of dollars each year. The
confusion of this system crashed one of the first Mars mission
spacecrafts. The cost of this spacecraft alone would have paid
for the remaining conversion of the USA to metric and permitted the USA
to join the real world.
And you know what? The government is leading our way to
anachronism. Your food already prints metric and American.
Your tool box already has metric tools or you will find yourself not
able to repair many things. Your car displays metric speeds and
most display other values in metric or American. What work is
remaining to do? Change road signs. Require equal or better
display of metric wherever both are displayed. Teach metric in
grade school instead of waiting until high school. I am sure you
can think of others but the bottom line is this: the bottom line.
Changing to match the remainder of the world greatly reduces the cost
of everything that you buy. Uniform sizes and weights for
everyone.
You want an analogy of these costs? What does it cost Canada
and merchants to appease Quebec by forcing the entire country to speak
and write in two languages? Your DVD's have French on them so
they meet Canadian legal requirements. They do not have Spanish
on them although more people speak Spanish than French on this
continent and therefore would be a larger market. Boxes of items
sold in the USA and Canada have printing in American and French. Dual
instructions. A large population outside of Canada pays for the
costs of dual language. Just as the American use of its otherwise
abandoned measurement system costs the entire world wanting to do
business in the USA.
I have a real problem with this video taped apology. Several
problems. The first is easy: with instant national coverage of
any event no matter what it is (dance competition on TV shows is news?)
things are coming to light that would not have been known before.
Secondly, abusive cops can now hear about themselves on CNN. With
video cams on police cars (I am in favor of these), abusive police can
now see and hear themselves on CNN.
I have lived in Plano. I drove daily from Plano to Dallas and
back. The Plano hospital was two blocks from home. Dallas is in
Dallas County. Plano is in Collin County. Previously
the only cops on that road were Collin County Sheriffs. I drove
that stretch at 120 to 150 mph just to untie the knots from a hard
day's work -- and I never saw a cop anywhere. Times have
changed. I no longer own a KZ1000, the highway is no longer
farmland, and having raised two daughters, at those speeds anywhere I
would worry about the lives of other people's daughters.
One thing has not changed. The arrogance of police
officers. They take college coursework in situation control
that amounts to arrogance to us citizens. The police do not know
when they need this effort since it gives them power in any
situation. The problem is worse in some areas more than
others. Texas is one of the more serious violators of civil
rights by police officers. Dallas is on the top of my list of
places to never visit.
So this incident of the police officer abusing a citizen fits right
in with local policy and procedures. It is a nightmare for the
Dallas police force because local people have seen the tip of the iceberg
on national news. And the department knows that they have to put
the cat back in the bag before someone discovers what most people
understand: that there is an iceberg and not just an ice cube.
They have only one recourse: fire the officer before his and other
history are video taped.
My take on what should have happened? The police officer
should have stopped the car sooner and when informed of the emergency,
offered to assist as an escort or otherwise. He would have had
ample time to evaluate the situation in his car. If it were a
hoax, he could have thrown the book at them.
The video-taped apology is a sham: a further insult. The tape
shows that he has no concern for anyone involved. You hear the
surname of the family once in the entire recording. No first names. No
situation reference at all. He makes it clear that the reason for
the tape is his fear of being fired and for the safety of his
family. He claims that in the incident he was not himself and
that he was acting out of character. You want to buy some beach
front property in Arizona? I would figure he cannot describe the
incident or his motivation since that is what the department is
currently investigating. But there was no remorse in this
"apology". The entire tape is composed of two things: 1. Someone
else in my body did this awful thing and 2. I am afraid
("terrified") of losing my employment. Personally, I think the
guy needs a new lawyer for permitting this tape to be published.
He certainly needs a new job. Maybe as a medical assistant in the
hospital oncology ward.
Too late: another news article indicates that the officer has
resigned. I have been there: when threatened with imminent firing
or resignation, the second alternative is far better for locating new
employment. It also reduces the pressure on the Dallas Police
department and the iceberg can still be hidden.
I remember Indiana. I remember Elkhart. Here are a few memories.
In 1953 our family was on vacation driving on US 12/20 to go out west. This was before Interstates and toll roads. We
had left Ypsilanti and stopped in Elkhart for gas. Maybe we were
on our way back to Ypsi. I forget. But we stopped at a
Shell station. My father's favorite brand. The attendant
asked how to spell Ypsilanti. I laughed and said: just as it
sounds. He asked me to spell "Elkhart" I got it wrong: I
added a "e" after the "h". I have been more careful spelling
names since -- although I have a life-long habit of ridiculing things
and then discovering I did not understand the problem. I hope
that is not the case here.
In 1954 our family was driving from Hudson, Michigan back home to
Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. We were driving at night on US 12/20.
We stopped for gas. We all got out to go to the bathroom. We left
my sister, Kathie, behind. A little while down the road, Jeanne
asked: "Where's Kathie?" Not too far down the road. We
returned to find Kathie in the care of the attendant. Not too worried
as she figured we would return. But that was Gary and not Elkhart.
In 1969 I went to work at Bendix in South Bend. The computer
center was lodged in a corner of the Brake and Steering building.
The old Studebaker Assembly plant. The union never forgave
Studebaker for going broke. But then they were the major factor:
wage parity with Detroit was the issue. South Bend/Mishawaka was
a dirty place. If I left my apartment window open with the drapes
closed, I got home with a black square frame on the drapes. And
people breath this. One of the two places in my life where a
non-policeman pulled a gun on me (the other was Orlando). I hated
South Bend.
When I was to get married, Carole and I needed vaccinations for a
boatload of diseases to visit Panama. The doctor charged a lot
for these. At Elkhart, I heard the county gave the shots for free
or a minimum charge. I called. This was true. On
Tuesdays only at 10:00. We showed up. I had taken off work.
We drove the 20 miles and waited in line. We did not get the
shots: we needed an appointment. The clerk on the phone could
have told me that when I called to verify that they gave the
shots. But that fit the profile: people in that part of
Indiana were rude as a matter of course.
When I first moved to South Bend I noticed that it was impossible to
pass one of the resident while driving. They would speed
up. They would speed up a lot. Forever after I learned to
pass cars with Indiana 71 (South Bend) and 20 (Elkhart) plates with
extreme care and at higher speed than I normally would.
Elkhart was doing well in 1970 with the growing RV industry.
Travel trailers were the rage. We had had one in 1960. It was
made in Wisconsin. Chilton. Most of these trailers were
made in Elkhart. Many Mennonite and Amish people over there --
they worked hard and made good stuff.
But my parents had moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan. You have
heard about the automobile plants closing in Grand Rapids?
No? Maybe because there were none. The Dutch and other
conservatives in Grand Rapids considered the automobile industry
dangerous. What would happen if they invested in a plant and the
car company went broke? Grand Rapids made furniture
instead. There would always be a need for office furniture.
Elkhart did not learn the lesson of Studebaker and Grand
Rapids. I feel no grief for them. I remember items from my
childhood. I remember guns and anger and rudeness from
young adulthood. I remember my time being wasted and my car being
robbed and other bad things. I remember a few of my co-workers
from Bendix. These were really nice people. Rod
Reber. He took care of me after my collision in Michigan
City. He might have come to my wedding if I had not lost the
invitations when I thought I had mailed them.
But mostly I remember Elkhart being a one-horse town and I remember
Grand Rapids not wanting to be a one horse town and they were near
enough to each other that the lesson could have been learned.
The last thing that I got from Indiana was a letter from the
attorney general that I was a fugitive. In 40 years I never
called to ask why. If they were serious, they knew where I
lived. My father told me about his friend who went to the
Selective Service office to find out why his number was not called.
I really do hate to fly but then it is no longer much of a problem
for me as I do not do it any more. But my worst experiences were
always with American Airlines.
Megan flew on a group trip to Australia. Only the tour was as a
group. Individuals made their own flight arrangements.
Megan lew to australia and back. She got "miles" for her trip
from San Jose to Los Angeles. No matter of sending information to
American (who had on record that she made the trip) could coax them
into giving her the miles for the trip. Los angeles to Australia
and back is enough "miles" to qualify for all sorts of things.
Except she never got them.
I took my daughters on vacation to Hawaii fro a couple of
weeks. We had a blast. WHen it came time to fly home I was
seated to the fattest woman I have ever seen. There were three
seats in the row. she took two of them -- but one was supposed to
be mine. She had raised the armrest so that she could fit.
It was possible for me to fit only by seriously compressing her fat and
myself against the second armrest. They should have made her buy
two tickets. If I had switched with my youngest daughter it might
have been possible for her to have fit into the seat. The
stewardess refused that option. After the plane took off I
noticed that it was less than half full but the stewardess refused to
let me sit elsewhere. She claimed that in an emergency it would
be necessary to know where I was. That was the last straw.
I moved to an empty seat. One that was already not
occupied. The stewardess informed me that I would be arrested
upon arrival. I told her that that was acceptable. Flying in half
a seat was not acceptable. The stewardess would not even require
the fat woman to lower the arm rest. When I hear about "Seats of
Size" I remember the Hawaii trip. No one cared about me as long
as the fat woman was not bothered -- and they said nothing at all to
her. And no miles for this trip either. I forget their word in
their register for me but it was in the vicinity of "hostile".
I flew from Chicago to Phoenix. The smoke in the cabin was so
think that several people were on oxygen. By the time I asked,
all of the spare breathing equipment was in use -- or so the stewardess
told me. I think she lied. In any case the smoke was from
cigars and cigarettes and you could see it across the entire
cabin. This was some years ago but it was still illegal to smoke
on these flights. The origin of this smoke was not obvious until
we landed. The pilot and copilot were smoking cigars. To
keep from asphyxiating themselves, they had opened their cabin
door. They just stood there grinning like cheshire cats as us
passengers fled the plane for fresh terminal air.
The worst part of this was that I followed up the trip with a letter
to American Airlines giving flight number, date, time, seat number,
ticket stub copy. I received a response. It could not have
been one of their planes -- my complaint was forwarded to TWA.
The couple of times I have flown since, I have avoided American so
my only problems have been with security. THere flights were
interesting but not miserable as the American Airlines trips.
Once in Atlanta, I was nervous seeing military people with automatic
weapons walking around like I was in South America some place.
The same time I was not permitted to take any food or water into the
gate area. They at least permitted me to eat and drink what I had
with me and then pass through their barricades.
One flight from Oakland to Phoenix was also interesting. I
always travel with only carry-on so I was using my large
backpack. You know: the ones that you buy at REI that will hold
two weeks worth of clothing and life supplies but fit within the "box"
if your press hard enough. It was full as I a lot with me.
My laptop. My CPAP machine. CD/DVDs, clothing, etc. But I
had forgotten to empty the side pockets before I left. This
started a problem sequence. The bag set off an alarm at the gate
security. The woman guard found my camp silverware set. You may
have seen these: knife, fork, and spoon with holes and tabs to
hold them together. Stainless steel. Before I could say
anything, she had slipped them from their plastic case and had snapped
them apart and then tested the knife blade against the flesh of her
thumb. That may look like a table knife but it has a serrated
blade. She cut herself and was bleeding. There was nothing
I could say. I was glad that she did not blame me for her thumb
problem. But she did send me back to check the bag.
So I go downstairs to check the bag. They have this giant
machine for x-ray of baggage. Up front and not hidden behind a
wall. Like about 30 feet long. My bag enters and I wait at
the other end except I am told to wait at the other end on the other
side of the machine. There are tables there. Security
people start coming out of the woodwork. Maybe they had been there all
of the time but now they were casually walking their dogs closer to the
machine. A guard took my bag and proceeded to take things
out. I informed him of some of the content: CPAP, Laptop (with
cables), umbrella, silverware set, dirty clothes. I shut
up. He knew what he was looking for and the dogs were making me
nervous. He found it: my hard side CD case. Hard side
because anything soft would have been crushed by the pack compression
straps. He told me that the machine had indicated that the bag
contained something plastic inside something metal. Right.
That describes my CD case. The dogs went away. My bag was
repacked. I repacked it. And I found my way back to the gate
checkpoint.
Interesting machine this x-ray machine. Plastic inside
metal? They can do this? Wow. I am impressed. I
was glad I did not miss my flight.
I hear that there is a new drug out there that stops the
craving. Not just for alcohol but for other drugs that will
overwhelm you. You know, I really hope so.
If you have not lived as an addict then you do not understand.
I lived with depression for most of my life. Clinical
depression. The kind that you commit or attempt suicide over and
over. Physical suicide. Relational suicide. Professional
suicide.
When I was 21 I was drinking a quart of brandy at a sitting.
When I was 25 I was taking meth like it was candy. I can tell you
where the bottom is. I have seen the snakes and the bugs.
Do not even attempt to tell me that because I failed at suicide or that
I stopped the drugs and drinking on my own that I am not an alcoholic
and not an addict. Because I did stop on my own. Because I
did reach the bottom and I understood that there is no bottom. I
could go further down. And down.
When I got divorced I started drinking. Not a little. A
lot. A neighbor pointed out that he never saw me any more without
a glass in my hand. Before that it was always a bottle of
cola. I was lucky enough to have more custody of my children than
most fathers. One night I took the kids to T.G. I. Fridays for
dinner. I had one of their "I got potted" drinks. You know
the one: hold about two quarts of drink. Mostly ice. A lot
of rum and fruit liquors. Many theme restaurants had these and
maybe still do. I had about a half dozen of the glasses (you got
to take them home). Mostly they expect two or more to share one
of these things. I would drink one each time I went there.
Even after dinner I was so drunk that I told the kids that if we got
stopped by the police that their mother would have them and I would
probably never see them again. I was that drunk. It also
stopped me dead in my tracks. We made it home OK. No
police. But that instant I stopped drinking. That was 25
years ago and I have not had a drink since. Nothing. I mean
nothing at all was more valuable to me than the time with my two
daughters. When I realized that I would lose it all on the path I
was on, I stopped. 12 step program? No. Drugs?
No. Just fear. I had been down the road before. I knew
where it went. I knew I would get there. And I wanted to share my
life with my daughters. Not one drop.
Meth? In the late 1960's you could buy it over the counter in
a drug store like candy. Getting off of it was the same: just
quit. The two times I quit drinking and the one time I quit meth were
all the same: carry the met pills in my pocket. Keep the alcohol
in the refrigerator. Every minute of every day I made the
decision to quit. Every time I was tempted, I would tell myself
that one failure and I would have to start all over again. One
second at a a time. One minute at a time. One day at a time
I have my sister Jeanne to thank for getting off of the alcohol for
the first time but I doubt she knows how much her help saved my life. I
know.
But why do I write all of this now and write it here? Nobody
reads this stuff. I write it so that somebody who is on the edge
can know that he can do it. I can tell you that it can be done
and I also know how far down the bottom is. Been there.
Done that.
And for you that just say quit. I can tell you that that you
live in a blessed world. The craving is always there. 25
years later I think that that was another life. I can do it
now. And when I am about to order the drink. I say
no. Because maybe this time I could not turn back again. I
had help the other times. Help that did not know they were help
but they were there. Maybe this time the help would not be
there. Maybe my diabetes and my heart conditions would kill me. I
do not take the chance. When I crave the drink the most, I find
something else that must be done until the opportunity is gone.
And I hate you people who think you can just say "No". No. You can't. No. You can't.
If you are where I am describing: get help. Get it now. Ask a
friend to help you. Tell him it is a matter of life or death and
that you need him to do what he must do to help you. Get the
help. You can worry about everything else after you get out of
the hole. I lived with my kids until they left home. No one could
ask for more than that.
Off the top: Copy anything you can to a hard drive. Worry about piracy laws later.
Why? We could get long here but the easy explanation is
that actual DVD's have a short life and you may legally make a backup
copy of any software.
When a DVD fit on a normal buy-the-movie DVD, you could not copy it
to another DVD even with "pirate" software. This is because the
hardware manufacturers in collusion with the movie industry made the
player-recorders only copy 90% of the available space on the dic.
Movie manufacturers added junk to all of their DVD's to totally fill
the available space. (Ever wonder why the DVD comes with all sorts of
extra feature? Piracy protection).
Then came dual-layer DVD's and you could copy, with a pirate copy
program, the entire normal DVD to a new DVD. That is until the
normal buy-the-movie DVD went to dual -layer also. So you copy
your DVD to a hard-drive. Lots of space but the movie industry
has added all sorts of protection codes to prevent you from making use
of your copy. There is a region code number -- purportedly useful
for seling the same DVD in different markets for different
prices. Replacing this code with Hex 0FF will normally get you
past this problem.
There is data encryption. But a simple program will remove the data encryption for copying (DVD43).
The one thing that they could have done but did not is include a key
code built into the DVD itself that could be read by the burner and
included in the protection software. Then a copy would not
work. Maybe someone would invent a DVD43 program for this
too. I am not the expert here.
In any case, to me the movie industry is really greedy here.
The number of users with the inclination to make copies having the
ability to make copies is sufficiently small that their claim of losing
millions of dollars to piracy is absurd.
More customers lose the ability to use their store-bought DVD's due
to data corruption than could ever be lost to pirate copying given the
current level of deterrence and the new Windows 7 platform that adds
another layer of protection.
I live in the desert. Sooner or later any DVD will develop
"scratches" making it unreadable. I must replace my player
periodically because the desert dust covers the laser and the removal
device simply scratches the laser. If you have not lived in the
Sonora (or other) desert you have no idea how corrosive this dust
is. And we are not talking about sand that you can see.
Dust. It coats everything -- including your lungs. And a
simple wiping it off regularly will destroy any smooth surface.
And DVD's (because the bastards are cheap) are made of very soft
plastic that is damaged by anything from fingerprint oil to microscopic
dust.
Now, the DVD industry could have made their medium more scratch
resistant. They could have coated the plastic. They could
use harder plastic. They could have had redundant data. They
could have done things more complicated than I know. But any of
these would have added to the 10 cents that the movie industry pays per
copy. And they sell each copy for up to $30.
So. I make a copy of any DVD that I buy and seal the original in a
case. I then make copies from my hard drive for viewing. This
creates another problem
DVD burners in PCs produce a DVD that has two problems: it contains
only part of the original and it has a short shelf life. SInce I
rarely want to see any of the extra features, I make my copy movie-only
with subtitles and preferred language. When that DVD develops
errors from the heat and dust, and it will, I discard it and make a new
copy. If the hard drive fails, then I make a new copy from the
original.
I guess I could run the AC all of the time an seal everything
hermetically and run HEPA filters full time but then if I do these
things, why do I bother living in the desert?
For me, as long as there is the ability to protect my investment by making copies, I shall do so.
Back in high school in the early 1960's I knew of a classmate, Eric
WIckstrum, that had a Fiat. Or at least his parents did. In
those days, a Fiat was a bad joke. They were Italian. The
general opinion of anything Italian in those days was that it was
junk. High priced junk. You had the prestigious cars like
Ferrari and Mesarati. You had Bultaco motor cycles that always
needed repair and the parts came at a high price. You had
"Brother" machines. Sewing machines: fancy but unreliable. You
know or maybe remember.
Also back in the early 1960's, you had the Chrysler 300x cars.
You had lots of choices from the Valiant to the Imperial.
Plymouth. Dodge. Even Renault for a while. But the low
quality (read as junk) of the Renault was even worse than Chrysler
could handle. My father once joked to a friend of mine, Chuck
Krueger: "Oh, Chrysler makes good cars. It's just too bad that
they don't run better". My dad liked to tease and had had a
series of Chrysler products prior to working for GM. But he was
correct. I worked for Chrysler engineering in the late
1960's. We had the best automobile design engineering
in the world. We were a decade ahead of the others. We
had safety features now required that kept our sales down because
people did not like them. Headrests. Flush door
handles. Separate brake lines. Push button transmissions.
There were reasons for engineering excellence: more engineering
produced a less expensive manufacturing process.
But Chrysler's quality control sucked. Sucked big time. And some of
the engineering things could kill you (e.g. Caravan rear wheel brake
cut out switch).
So Chrysler presented the world with different cars. They
bought American Motors so that they could own the Jeep name. But
with this they inherited the Milwaukee/Kenosha "vibrator" cars and the
union problems inherent in their two assembly plants.
So Chrysler ends up on the chopping block because they never did get
with the program and fell for the GWB line that they were too big to
fail and that there would always be enough gasoline. Wrong on
both counts.
I was loyal to Chrysler far beyond my employment. I owned
several of their cars. Each with its set of serious problems. Most
spent over a month of the first year in the dealer garage. I was
grossly underpaid while working their (1/3 the wages of an assembly
line worker) and as you can read elsewhere on my web pages, did great
things for Chrysler.
But the bottom line is that they have lost it all. Fiat will
pick up the pieces it wants. The union will get the garbage (they
deserve better). And the taxpayer will get an equity in something
-- but we are not sure what that equity is -- but we know what it cost
us.
I do not know. Maybe Fiat has evolved into something.
Maybe. It is my belief that Fiat will just follow the
chain: Kaiser, Fraser, Willys, Studebaker, Hudson, Nash, Chrysler
and now Fiat. Each had some great ideas. Each failed in the
evolution toward quality and uniformity. Mostly I think we are
all losers in the attempt to preserve something. And we are not
sure what the something is and sadly will probably never find
out. And our equity will be sort of like the magic beans except
the beans will forget to sprout, and there is no giant, and certainly no
golden eggs.
Now I know that Fiat is bottom fishing. The second worst car I
ever owned was a top of the line Dodge Grand Caravan. The worst
car was an Opel GT. Fiat has its sites on owning the bottom of
the quality barrel around the world. I write about the Opel
elsewhere but the highlights are:
So I carried rubber bands in the glove box. Axle fluid behind
the driver seat and spent weeks (and dollars) at the dealerships trying
to figure out why the car regularly stalled at highway speeds.
Finally a friend (who was a Buick mechanic) borrowed the car for a week
and discovered the problem: a serious design error. The
carburetor was located so far to the side of the engine that it did not
get any engine heat. As a result in humid, cool conditions, the
carburetor throat would totally close with ice (ask Venturi). By
the time the car stopped, the under-hood heat would have melted the ice
and the car would immediately start again -- only to repeat the process
a few miles down the road. The faster, the sooner. In other
words Winter Interstate driving in Indiana or Illinois was not possible. I lived there then.
These 4 items are the result of non-engineering and lack of
product testing (and from my experience with German engineers purely
the result of misplaced egos). And
now, after buying Chrysler with its reputation for great engineering
but lousy production control, Fiat is trying to buy a company with a
history of lousy engineering and worse production control.
If the Germans could not fix the Chrysler quality problems,
expecting Fiat to do anything more than just eat our tax money falls
into the same category as the Miracle at Lourdes. You just need to have faith.
I have used these for several years. Almost 10 as a matter of
fact. I am probably one of their better customers even though I
have little personal use for them in my motor home. I persuade my
friends to use them. But they have several problems that I
believe are insurmountable.
The first is the delay. We are sort of used to instant on of
the incandescence. Most CFL's come on pretty fast but they are
not instant. This is little noticed in lamps that remain on most
of the time. But when I enter my bathroom, I am in a hurry. The
delay in this case is unnerving at least. When the bulb does come
on, it takes some time for it to come to full brightness this is
unpleasant but livable.
The second is the mercury. These should be recycled and not
discarded. Where are the CFL recycle stations? Do they
exist? And when I break a CFL, must I worry about the mercury as
well as the coated glass?
The third is the size. Most light fixtures are expecting lamps
the size and shape of the incandescent. If you are lucky, the
bulb sizes are equivalent. But the base of the CFL is
giant. This means that the bulb will extend beyond the fixture
glass or not fit at all. Spot lamp holders will not accept the
CFL's -- even those designed to replace spot lamps. If they are
serious about using CFL's as spot lamps, then they must match base
sizes as the fixture will not accept the tennis ball sized ceramic base.
Maybe the CFL's are an interim solution. LED's are coming up
fast. But at this point the LED's have their own problems.
Not the least of which is cost.
We shall have CFL's for too long and although energy saving, they do not replace the incandescents in places that they should.
The concept is easy: destroy a person's memory by electrocuting his
brain. Then hope (and pray) only the good memories return.
My first experience with electro-shock therapy was in a Catholic
hospital mental ward in Milwaukee on Villard. I was there in a
double-room with a kid named Johnny. I could go on for hours
about Johnny. Very, very popular kid at the local high
school. His entire school showed up for visiting hours -- and
they visited everybody, including the maternity ward. One morning
I encountered Johnny walking down the hallway in a total daze.
Not a day dream daze. Total. He asked me who he was.
He asked where he was. He asked what had happened to him. I
helped him back to the room to let him sleep it off. I discovered
shortly that he had just finished electro-shock therapy. He was
better the next day from what I could tell.
But there are serious problems here. If you think water
boarding is torture, believe me, most people would prefer it to shock
therapy (there are statistics on this). Conceptually shock
therapy is bazaar and most people have no idea that it even happens,
let alone happens to a 15 year old boy.
And you have no control over it happening. Once you (or your
parents) sign your life away to a psychiatrist and you get admitted to
a hospital, you are under their total control. I was 17.
When I was 24, I could not get my hospital records to show the
Army. The original psychiatrist vetoed their release. He
was Army medical corps, retired.
Johnny was loose in the hallway with no one caring for or about
him. I encountered others in the same condition during my
visit.
The closest real life experience that normal people will have to
this is onboard an ocean cruise and they get a scopolamine patch.
I saw one guy wandering the halls in the same condition as Johnny (Who
am I? Where am I? What am I doing here?)
The fact that people are released into public space with no concern
about their mental state is evidence enough that the people
administering this torture have no concern for their patients.
No. Even if they could demonstrate positive results from this
torture, any patient should be permitted to refuse further such abuse
at any time.
And if you doubt any of this, watch a rerun of "One Flew Over the
Cuckoo's Nest". I have seen these exact conditions (even the
useless lock on the TV cage) in Milwaukee County General. The
movie could be a documentary rather than fiction.
After attendants forcibly removed me from my car one evening, I
refused to do any more volunteer work. Only serious yelling and
hollering from my church group saved me from being involuntarily
admitted. Or readmitted according to the attendants who claimed I
was escaping.
And who cares anyway? The doctor does not. The hospital
staff does not. The parents believe the hospital and the doctor.
And I would give you odds that there is nothing wrong with the kid that
these same parents did not cause and are purging their conscience while
purging the child's brain. Enough.
With technology the rest of the world is moving forward. The
USA is moving backward. This is really, really dumb to me.
Congress has just passed a credit card bill with the result that banks
are going to start charging interest the instant you swipe your card
for a purchase. This will result in fewer charged
purchases. The banks worked hard to get us to live on our credit
and not they are about to force us back to a cash economy. Not
that I mind, thank you, but now we will miss out on things that other
countries are taking for granted. Near-Enough technology exists
and works. That is, you can pass your cell phone or your credit
card near a device and your charge is recorded without further
action. Maybe enter a PIN. But the idea here is that you
can walk up to a vending machine, select your poison, swipe your card,
listen to the product fall, pick it up, and walk away. All in
less than 30 seconds and no need for pockets and searching for the
correct coins. Other countries have this. The USA does
not. Why not? Americans are paranoid. Granted with
some justification. We hear every day about credit card
information theft. I have been a victim of identity theft and
suspect it shall happen again.
Then there is the idea that someone can steal my phone and get fat
before I can cancel the number. And now the banks with their
newly granted permission to go where no card has gone before.
This is easy paranoia and Congress could have passed a good law rather
than a bank-fattening law at citizen expense.
But where the rest of the world is looking at humanoid robotics,
Americans are afraid, and taught to be afraid, of any machine capable
of any level of "intelligence" and especially those manufactured to
look like an animal or another human, even if that other human is only
18 inches tall. I just went through a web page listing 8 dread
and doom robots. One of the 8 was the Japanese woman model robot
with article text indicating that she should have bullets in her
boobs. How stupid is that? Americans are programmed in many
ways by these web sites. None of this programming is
positive. We must be the most negative society in the history of
the world.
I mean, at a time when the entire world is looking to the future
with machines and machine-assisted living, the USA is teaching us to
fear such things. This does two very bad things. Maybe more than
two. The first is that this fear inhibits our competing for technology
advancement. The Japanese are working on robots which simulate
personalities and are capable of human movement. Better than a
seeing eye dog -- you plug it in rather than feed it. The robot
can tell when the car next to you, absolutely silent with the Japanese
technology, is a threat and can keep you safe. The dog is little
better off than you are for judging this hazard.
While the world is building these sophisticated robots, the USA
looks at a robotic vacuum cleaner with trepidation. And this is the
second problem. We are being taught to fear our own future.
We have the technology to have our computers talking to us and
responding to us for everything from complex programming to simple
dictation to access control. This means that I could invoke a browser
and select a web page by voice. It means I could dictate and
email response to a letter that it just read to me. It means that
upon hearing voices that are not mine it could take actions such as
inquiring who belongs to these voices and take necessary actions such
as calling the police or turning the lights.
These exist. You can buy them. Dragon Speak or whatever
they call themselves now will sell you a dictation package.
What a waste. You pay $200 for a program that ONLY takes
dictation AFTER you have invoked a program which expects to receive
text input. No. I want it all. I want it too invoke
the programs I need. Why would I want half when I know that it
can do it all? Security. These programs are very sensitive
to a particular voice. I learned recently that this level
of selectivity is controllable. Security issue solved. But if I
want y computer to do these things, I need to spend many times the
dollars for software and switching hardware than the original computer
cost me in the first place.
This is where it gets ridiculous. We have Blue Tooth (designed
for a 30 foot range whereas the range should have been triple
that!). Blue Tooth devices cold take care of the security
switching since the computer can read and write to these devices, be
they speakers, microphones, telephones, or door locks.
But we have none of this. I cannot go to the store and buy
what I need for less than $2,500. So. While we have the
technology, we do not have the motivation. America has become the
most un-motivated country imaginable. We just watch the runway
robot model and fear that it might shoot us when we should be looking
at that model and wondering how it could improve our lives. We
sit at our keyboard and type with ever fatter fingers and smaller keys
and know that this is better than talking to an inanimate object.
With these attitudes, it will not just be China that moves ahead of the USA in almost any endeavor.
The USA has the most screwed up values that anyone could imagine. Here are a couple of examples:
In Kansas today (31 May 2009) a doctor was shot and killed in
church. Shot to death. The comments on the local news
station web site were saying that he needed killing since he performed
abortions. I am against killing anyone: fetus, baby, child,
adult, murderer. If you do not like what the man is dong
lawfully, you can always change the law. The doctor previously
has been attacked and his offices bombed. Requests for police
help were obviously disregarded. And people are siding with the
murderer? They have a description of the man and a description of
his car, including license plate. Seeing the local attitudes, the
murderer will probably not spend much time in jail. The murderer
is one problem. The attitude that it is acceptable to kill him is a far
worse problem.
On an MSNBC news clip a while back, there was a news team with a camera in front of the store of a Texas merchant
who happened to be of Mexican culture. He had two flags flying
above his store: one Mexican and one American. The news camera
displayed a white man removing the Mexican flag and destroying it. It
was on film in front of multiple witnesses (the news crew at
least). The man explained his hatred to the crew before he
carried off the destroyed flag. The white man vandalized the
merchant's property for no reason other than he did not like Mexican
heritage and their flags. The news team obviously sided with the
vandal otherwise they would have called the police to have this
terrorist arrested. Terrorist? The difference between what
this man did and the men who flew the planes into the World Trade
Center is only a matter of magnitude. It is the same crime: an
attempt to terrorize the local population: -- and the merchant was
visibly terrorized.
What is wrong with you people?
I just read a news article that says that a person drinking two
liters or more of cola per day has a potassium deficiency which could
lead to other problems. The study also states that such persons are not
rare.
I am here to tell you that I have consumed cola in that range for
the last 50 years. And I know I have a potassium
deficiency. I take supplement pills. How do I know? I
mean your potassium level is not examined during even fairly
sophisticated blood analysis. I know that because I am diabetic,
have heart failure, and on Coumadin. This means that I get a menu
of tests from my physician every 3 months and another from my
cardiologist every year. Nothing. But because of the heart
failure, I need a diuretic: Lasix. Sleeping wilt elevated feet,
compressive stockings, Lasix, exercise and potassium supplements.
I need them all or I die. And it has been that close so I
know. But the potassium. The doctors never said
anything. So I had elephant stumps for legs and could barely walk
up a small, and I mean really small, hill.. A friend of mine with
similar conditions told me about the potassium. Once on the
supplement pills, everything fell in place.
So now I wonder which came first: the chicken or the egg. Do I
have the heart failure causing the elephant stumps n the first place
because I had a lifelong potassium deficiency? Or is it the other
way around. I shall never know -- the heart conditions are not
reversible. A good exercise regime will strengthen my heart but not
reverse the other problems.
So. Maybe doctors should look at potassium levels in their normal
blood tests as a preventative measure or early symptom diagnosis.
Without a national health care system, the insurance companies will
prevent this.
I have said this in other places but it is an issue that so many people have backwards. First let' start with some facts:
Primarily I live in Mexico. A Mexican gets free or low cost
medical care. Surgery can cost nothing. National health
insurance: $360 per year -- and that gets you better care than no
insurance. You can pay private doctors for diagnosis and then go
to a facility under insurance or for free. Mexico. And
people complain about Canada. Their gripe: diagnosis may take too
long but the procedures are first rate and quick.
In the United States people die of simple ailments such as croup
because hospitals refuse non-insurance covered persons
admittance. "Not-for-profit" "Christian" hospitals (e.g. Southern
Methodist University hospital in Dallas).
In the USA we have no national health care for all. We are the
only ones. We have national health care for seniors. I have
it: Medicare. It pays minimal and only part. I pay extra
for the rest. Medicare payment to claims is 90%. This means that
whoever you are, making Medicare available to everyone will reduce your
costs. Did you get that: your costs will be less. You may have to
pay more taxes but that additional tax gets you your choice of doctors
and reduces your insurance costs. And the insurance reduction is
greater than the tax increase.
Choice of doctors? Right now each doctor contracts with each
insurance company separately. The doctor contracts with Medicare
separately. WIth national health care, any doctor not accepting
Medicare gets no business. For now it is the doctor's
choice. Under national health care, the insurance company
no longer chooses your hospital, your doctor, your medications, nor
your level of service. They do do this now. In spades.
So all of you people who are afraid that someone else may benefit
from your tax money I am here to tell you that your are a lazy, stupid,
greedy bastard. Lazy? You do not read enough to get the
facts. Stupid? You carry on ignoring the facts.
Greedy? You will hurt yourself for fear someone else just maybe
will benefit from your life. Bastard? Maybe not. That
is a term of little relevance today but if the adjectives fit, then
maybe the noun also applies.
In other words, what we need is a "single-payer" (i.e. like
Medicare) health care system for everyone. You can add bells and
whistles but if we do not have this when the current government
activity smoke and mirrors settle down, then all they will have
accomplished is to make the insurance companies stronger and have more
control over how -- and if -- you live.
Many years ago I put a steak knife through my right hand while
trying to separate frozen hamburger. You see, we did not have
plastic wrap -- we only had wax paper. If you used only one sheet
of wax paper, the meat stuck together until it was partially
thawed. If you were really hungry, you took your chances with a
steak knife. I lost. I still have the scar n both sides of
my hand but luckily I lost no function -- not even rheumatism.
Now I use plastic ZipLock bags -- one for each burger.
But also in the same vein (no pun intended), I learned a lesson from
my sister Kathie. She pointed out out that some people are dumb
enough to set themselves up to be cut. They do this by cutting
towards themselves or at least toward a body part (e.g. a thumb).
Not wanting to be placed in this class of dumb people, I started to
learn to cut away from myself. As I discovered, this is more
difficult and must be learned and practiced and never wavered.
I mean, you do not even slide cheese toward you. Nothing. I
lost chunks of the fleshy part of my hand under my thumb several times
before I learned that cheese cutters are dangerous. Take it form
me (or my sister Kathie) that the sooner you learn to cut away from
yourself the happier you will be and the safer will be the bandages in
your medicine cabinet.