Fog Day Afternoon

A video blog for the 17th of November 2010

Cool waiting room

Turns out as we work our way through the trial and error that is modern medicine that Don has some lesions on his liver and pancreas so the further we get the less pleasant it becomes. Trying to stay upbeat or at least not be totally bummed. I am taking him for a Biopsy next week after he has been off the blood thinners for a while.

Raider Naition Romp

Won free tickets to the Raiders, Seahawks game and thought I would bring the crisis along.

Vote or Die MF

For what it’s worth

My left wing analysis of the voter initiatives on the California ballot November 2nd, 2010.
The overriding theme of the ballot is that corporations want to use the ballot to create an oligarchy veto. 1/3 of the people controlling the state.

Prop 19 is a no-brainer Yes. The war on drugs is a disgrace, pot is already De-facto legal with prop 215 and it is good for you, unlike caffeine and alcohol. It is effective unlike the anti-depressants sold by Big Pharma and not destructively addictive like nicotine.

Prop 20 is a no vote. It provides an unelected minority with the control of congressional districts so the oligarchic powers only have to pay off 6 people instead of 100. Just the latest expression of the capitalist ethos infecting the body politic.

As one of those wacko environmentalists I am voting yes on 21. I am willing to pay an extra $18 a year to have state parks and wildlife refuges. Disclosure I only have a half interest in a vehicle so in truth my cost is only $9 and I already spend more than that in fees at the parks most years.
I am voting No on 22. This seems a pointless law. Solve the budget crisis and this law has no use. Passing broad statutes to deal with temporary problems is bad government. An example of the disaster capitalism we are subjected to on a regular basis.

NO on 23 is obvious. The greatest crime that the current crop of oligarchs is committing is the refusal to deal with industrial contributions to global warming. The folks that make money selling dirty energy are unwilling to pay the cost of cleaning up the mess. In this case they are unwilling to lose future profit to green energy. When we have destroyed the water shed it will not matter that you saved a nickel a kilowatt hour on your power bill. In reality the solution is to remove all subsidies to fossil fuel and allow the market to work as poorly as it does. The true solution would be to nationalize all energy production and poor the profits into clean energy from wind and solar so we would eventually have free electricity for all. Once the windmill is paid for it continues to provide power. When you burn the coal it is gone, only the poisons persist in the environment.

Prop 25 is a yes on balance. It will restore a simple majority vote to part of the budget process. It has several idiotic gimmick things like docking the pay of legislators if the budget is late and it keeps the tax threshold at 2/3 which I do not like but the political reality is such that the oligarchs won on minority rule for taxes and they are not giving that up without a revolution.

No on Prop 26. This is an attempt to spread the minority veto to fees. No 2/3 vote for anything in a democracy.

Prop 27 is a yes for me. It repeals something the voters passed but has not taken effect yet. I do not favor unelected commissions doing redistricting. It only serves to reduce the cost of buying the outcome for the oligarchs. I am torn to some extent as I am in favor of democracy and the commission was passed by a majority vote. It is my hope that the electorate recognizes the mistake and this is corrective action but am not thrilled with the attempt to prevent the majority from trying something.

Prop 24 wins the prize for most deceptive bullshit proposition of the year. With Prop 25 coming in a close 2nd.

Long Day at Land's End.

The Wizard is the oldest piece I have retained.



Spent a long Day down by the Bay yesterday. Don has been getting worse for a while and We ended up in the SF VA Medical center Emergency room.

As I write this D is getting some great care. The SFVA is fantastic once you get into the system.

Labor what is it good for,

Apparently absolutely nothing. All of the executive branch economists say we are in a recovery. We are still not adding enough jobs to keep up with population growth so if you work for people you are still screwed. If you own a home you are still unable to sell it. You can however refinance at new low low rates and get back in the crap buying business but there is a catch. If you live in the 12% or higher unemployment states chances are your home has lost so much value you are under water.


The new concept is that pensions are some how evil. The same guy that thought it was a good idea to sell snake oil to unsuspecting desperate sick people rather than provide single payer national health insurance is now determined to make sure you work till you die. The only part of the US economy that is expanding for the unskilled is wiping ass for the baby boomers. Simpson wants to make sure that those jobs pay nothing so that his wealth is not dissipated by that evil wage inflation.

As soon as we get rid of unemployment insurance all those freeloaders will be down at the Del Taco to apply for those sweet night shift supervisor jobs. This is the promise of the GOP America. Since 1980 they have been trying to return to the Gilded age and they have succeeded beyond all reasonable expectations. Their greed was their undoing.

It really wasn’t until the speculators drove up the price of gas to the point that average people couldn’t drive to work and pay for their inflated mortgages that the economy collapsed. All of those subprime people living in their homes were okay until they lost two or three hundred dollars from their budgets. The adjustments due to energy costs haven’t taken this long since the Ron Recession in the 80’s.

The public is convinced that it is the union teacher that is the problem. They are the enemy of the living wage and they have already won.

I find myself in an odd an scary position in having to defend the wacko mother fucking book burners but we are not a banana republic where the generalissimo dictates behavior. Maybe I am delusional to expect the world to go “Whatever” when some ignorant dirt eating nimrod in Georgia does something rude.



The idea that some General is telling citizens to shut up, that is a much bigger issue. These are the same folks that claim that any linkage of American action with the terrorist attacks of the past is treason. Douche nozzle Ari was telling anyone that opposed their criminal wars they had better, “Shut It”.

Book burning is an ineloquent method of protest. It expresses the impotent rage of the burner while not elucidating their reasoning. These folks aren’t particularly interested in argument they are more proclamationist in their thinking. Their imaginary friend supplies them with the truth. The reason they are protesting is rather dickish. They don’t want a particular form of ignorance factory built in a place they don’t live and will never go. The only time they speak of the people that live in New York is to deride their gay, liberal, pervert lifestyle. They wish to have a religious war rather than a clash of civilization. They fight to establish the primacy of their ignorance rather than the elimination of superstition in general. That makes them wrong in their conclusion. Even people that are wrong do not lose their rights.

The crazy runs deep in the world these days. Fareed Zacharia opined on the overreaction to 9/11 in Newsweek, worth the read for a little perspective. The folks in Europe are making bold statements about Architecture and Artists and Healers are murdered. Vast numbers of people are out of work in the developed world just as vast numbers of people are having their crops destroyed by Global Weirding.These are the times when populations turn to tribal ties and opportunists like the Becks of the world flourish. These are the times when standing up for fundamental freedoms is most difficult and most important. There is a huge difference between the government stepping on the rights of men and the individuals offending other individuals.

Lies are Bad, M'kay?

If Alcohol an Tobacco taxes do not offset their social cost that is an argument for raising the taxes on Tobacco and Alcohol. It is not an argument for not taxing Marijuana. The folks making this argument also discount the social cost of prohibition propaganda.

Once it is proven you are willing to lie than everything you say is invalid unless you have proof. I am not so old that I cannot remember the change in world view that came with the realization that people would lie about things that didn’t matter. If you wanted to give me a quarter to make me feel better because my gum is sore where the tooth came out I am on board with that. We have one day a year when we all give each other stuff, sign me up. I don’t need a bullshit story about magic fat guys. Even if the magic fat guy story is not as creepy as the guy nailed to the wood fairytale we didn’t need the lies.

I do not have a spectacular memory but I remember thinking as a child. My thinking was not always very good but I did think. This is not much different than my thinking as an adult and that is kind of my point. The folks in the “Drugs are Bad” Mr. Mackeyverse seemed to have forgotten that.

Being a red headed child of the smart ass variety I was beaten a lot, perhaps that is why I became aware but I find that does not make me unique. There is plenty of evidence for the thinking child in the study of human development, the Piaget types and the like, so why do we ignore the idea when it comes to drugs.