Tommy Franks

General Tommy Franks is almost universally respected. He is well educated, articulate, and a gentleman.

Once while describing one of the Bush political appointees he said, “He is the dumbest fucking guy on the planet.”

That is a really nice phrase. Just off the top of my head I can think of several people who that would describe quite nicely.
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Wasting Energy Is Uncivilized

Those people who drive around in those morbidly obese V8 pickup trucks and SUVs getting a fuel economy of 8 - 10 mpg (on a good day) probably go home and stand next to the open door of their refrigerator to cool down.

Wasting energy is not just stupid, it is uncivilized and unpatriotic.



LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6nAYIrxCiQ
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Women Ruled by Hormones

A BBC article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7971578.stm says that women’s shopping sprees are related to their hormonal cycles.

I don’t find this at all surprising. Most of my life I was ruled by hormones. If I saw a nice set of boobies, and particularly if the lady was conveniently showing them off, my brain and every attempt to reason went totally dead. I have three ex-wives as testament to my being ruled by hormonal thought.

So it is refreshing to see that women also have a similar problem.
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Chrysler and Fiat

I have never owned a Chrysler made automobile, but I think this is just sort of a coincidence. Over the years they made a lot of good cars that I admired greatly. The problem was a lack of resources on my part mostly.

The cars I can remember lusting after were muscle cars with big V8 engines which got horrible fuel economy. Back in those days gasoline was so cheap that not many people worried about things like gas mileage. And almost all young guys worldwide bought into the absurd notion that if you drove a really flashy and fast car, the girls would flock to you, and you would get laid…a lot. This was all just marketing lies, but a whole generation of guys fell for it. Looking around at the number of guys driving V8 Mustangs and giant F150 pickup trucks, apparently many guys still do. These men didn't get it. The women want men who can protect them and give their children a good life. This tranlates to wealthy, successs, and power. And driving a Porsche 911 or a Ferarri is indicative one's level of wealth. But if you spend all your money making the car payments, insurance, etc., the girls are smart enough to see through the act.

For the last 25 years mostly the only “fast” cars I owned were also very sleek aerodynamically. They could happily travel all day long with the cruise control set at 130 mph (210 kph) if the traffic on the German freeways allowed it, and they would actually get close to 20 miles per gallon while doing it. I did own one Mercedes SUV with a humongous V8 in it, and of course on really good days it got about 8 miles to the gallon.

I have owned a few Italian engineered and constructed vehicles over the years. Campagnolo was the absolute finest maker of top level bicycle components for many years. Vespas were great, and I sure enjoyed my Vespa motor scooter while I was living in Europe.

And the very last car I owned before I moved back to America two years ago was a Fiat. It was tiny, efficient, and reliable. Ironically it was the same model of Fiat that bumped into Princess Diana’s car in Paris the night that she died.

My bias about Italian made cars (compared with most modern Japanese cars) is that they are very innovative and far more attractive, but not even close when it comes to the solid reliability when they are driven over a period of 10 - 15 years. Sort of like French made cars.

I don’t give the Fiat-Chrysler combination much hope of success. It is kind of a last gap effort, but I sure do wish them well.

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LINK: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN3031035020090330
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El Paso Flickr Group

The El Paso, Texas online photography flickr group got together Saturday afternoon. The weather was fantastic, and it was great to walk around the Sunset Heights area seeing the homes of the rich and famous from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Terry Bell knows the area well and was a treasure trove of information.

Thanks to Rowiegrl for the picture of the guys on the bench!

What a nice group of people.
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Financial Wizards

I really enjoyed a recent entry in Paul Krugman's blog:
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Was I unfair?
A reader writes in to complain about today’s column, in which I compared the supposedly productive activities of financial wizards to the sleight-of hand of stage magicians.
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As a magician, he resents being compared to investment bankers.
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Link to Krugman's excellent article on Securitzation: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/opinion/27krugman.html
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Bill Moyers Journal

On the most recent Bill Moyers Journal he had some interesting questions for President Obama:
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Which do you think comes first: Universal Healthcare or cost containment?


The latest bank bailout scheme is quite generous with private investors while putting the taxpayers at great risk. Would you please explain your rational for this?


What would be your objection to returning to the earlier tax rates by having a 90% tax on all incomes exceeding 3 million dollars a year?
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Flourescent Minerals

The rocks which come out of the Purple Passion mine north of Phoenix, Arizona are a good example of fluorescent minerals which glow completely differently depending upon what wavelength of UV light illuminates them.

The fluorite glows purple when illuminated with long wave UV light.

In this sample of calcite, different portions of the rock fluoresce when it is illuminated with short wave UV light having a wavelength of 254 nanometers or when it is seen under medium wave UV light with a wavelength of 312 nm.
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Nikon DSLR

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The last couple of days I've been doing some experiments using the D300.

One involves the tradeoff in your lens between increasing the depth of field by using a small aperture and picture degredation from diffraction. The other is all the variations on color one can get, still shooting in sRGB.

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New Ink Jet Printer

I just had the most interesting experience.

I lived in Holland for about 15 years. A little over 2 years ago I moved back to America. The HP Inkjet printer I have been using is the one I bought in Europe. It runs on either 115 vac or 230 vac so everything has worked fine.

I finally ran out of European color print cartridges for it this morning. I put in the first American one. HP says this is the correct ink cartridge for this printer, but the printer gives me an error message saying that it is not compatible.

I checked on Amazon.co.UK and found that I could indeed buy the European color cartridge in England and have it shipped to me here in El Paso, Texas. But the odd thing is I can buy a brand new HP Inkjet printer from Amazon.com and not pay any shipping expense or sales tax, and I can buy the whole thing for about the same price as buying the correct color cartridges for my 3 year old HP printer. A new printer all in for $39.99!

So I am saying goodbye to my old friend.

I had read that the ink cartridges were HP’s biggest profit center. Now I know it from personal experience.
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Religious Fanaticism

I don’t care whether it is Jehovah Witnesses, the Taliban, Jews, Buddhists, or fundamentalist Christians. They are all a bit scary, dangerous, and weird.

The following report he surfaced in several news outlets in the last 24 hours:

* Two pilots sentenced to 10 years for crash
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The Tunisian captain of a chartered flight which crashed into the sea off Sicily in 2005 has been sentenced to 10 years in jail. The co-pilot was also sentenced to 10 years. Instead of initiating emergency procedures, the captain began praying when he lost control of the passenger jet. Sixteen people were killed in the crash, which was caused by a lack of fuel.
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Lawrence Summers

Lawrence Summers was on the staff of President Ronald Regan’s Council of Economic Advisers. He served in the Clinton administration in various jobs, eventually being promoted to Secretary of the Treasury. As Treasury Secretary Summers was successful in pushing for capital gains tax cuts for the wealthy. While Treasury Secretary he teamed up with Kenneth Lay of Enron in order to urge the relaxation of environmental standards, in order to reassure the markets.

He sounds like one hell of a guy. Especially if you are a wealthy Republican. But this guy does not fit in with the views of people who supported President Barack Obama at all. Another loser Clinton re-tread.


LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers
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Financial Regulation

The Obama administration is trying to gain authority to regulate or take over any non-bank financial institution which gets into trouble. Can you imagine that the American system is so screwed up that they can spend many billions on a financial company but they don’t have the authority to regulate it?

But they have got it turned around. They want to wait until a company is already in trouble before they begin regulating it? This is lunacy. All these financial institutions and transactions need to be properly regulated in order that they do not get into trouble in the first place.

Barack has surrounded himself with Clinton re-treads, many of whom are just one little baby step away from being Republicans. It is clearly showing in their policy proposals.

Please do make sure that you close the barn door before the animals escape, not always wait until afterwards. OK?
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Deregulation of Derivatives

The casino like betting and gambling at AIG, the large banks, and home mortgage lenders played a big part in causing the current “Great Recession.” The odd thing is how poor most people’s memory is, including the news media.

In 1999 and 2000 derivatives and credit default swaps were deregulated. Prior to then several regulatory agencies kept things largely under control. The “free market fundamentalists” argued that the financial professionals in the private sector were much more sophisticated than the government regulators, and that if they were freed from the restrictions of all those pesky government regulations the market would function much more effectively.

I am a yellow dog Democrat, and I don’t think Bill Clinton was much looser sexually than many of his predecessors. So I am clearly not pro-Republican. But it needs to be noted that this deregulation of derivatives and credit default swaps took place during the Clinton presidency. He was in office until January 20, 2001. In a late night addition that apparently neither Presdient Clinton or any other senators were aware of, Senator Phil Graham inserted wording in legislation wich deregulated derivatives and credit default swaps.

There needs to be much more discussion right now about how to sensibly regulate all financial activities and much less of this shotgun approach of just wildly throwing money around hoping to prime the pump.

The problem with all this instantaneous spending is that these financial crooks on Wall Street really are pretty smart. And even now they are figuring out how to siphon away much of this money to their own private wealth. Part of the answer needs to be appropriate progressive taxation which applies at the end of all the loop holes, deductions, off shore tax shelters, tax losses, tax credits, stock options, etc. etc. Just like the alternative minimum tax now, but with genuine teeth.

The people in congress need to see to it that once a person’s income reaches the level of ten times that of the average school teacher in America the person’s earnings are taxed at a level of 50%, and when it reaches 15 times that of school teachers the tax needs to go up to 60%.

Of course what I am saying is wildly unrealistic. I am tilting at windmills again. Because of the vast corruption of elected government officials in America. What the politicians like to call “campaign contributions” are in fact bribes, and almost all elected officials have been bought and paid for by the rich people who are capable of making large campaign contributions. America has a representative form of democracy, and the elected officials in America first represent the prople who make the big campaign contributions. These politicians talk good, but when they look in the mirror they see nothing but a fraud.
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Extinction

In the morning after I have fed the dog his breakfast I’m standing by my espresso maker waiting for it to make me cup of LavAzza coffee. Around me I see pictures of a few of the more beautiful places I have been since I graduated from U.T. El Paso forty years ago.

Bruges, the most well preserved medieval city in Belgium, sometimes called the Venice of the North. The Eifel Tower, the Louvre, Saint Sulpice Church just north of the beautiful Luxembourg gardens, the Notre Dame cathedral, and the long stairway that Brassai made famous which leads up the hill to the Sacre’ Coeur Basilica in Paris. Gaudi’s famous dragon in the park Guell in Barcelona. New York City back when the twin towers of the world trade center were still standing. The enigmatic standing stones of Stonehenge in the Salisbury plain, and the Roman baths 25 miles to the northwest in Bath, England. The great Egyptian pyramids at Giza, just south of Cairo. Some coral that I picked up off the beach 20 years ago in Cozumel, Mexico. Charlemagne's cathedral, built 1,200 years ago and still standing in Aachen, Germany.

Mankind has made some beautiful things and has been responsible for many wondrous discoveries. Unfortunately, most of the people living on our planet still do not have access to fresh water or modern medical care. With all the coal and oil that has been burned since the industrial revolution, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has now risen higher than in millions of years. There is no question that during the next 50 - 100 years sea level rise will force millions of people to abandon their homes and cities, and move further inland. The planet wide temperature rise will cause massive regional changes in the climate, which will result in countries that are currently farming being turned into deserts.

As high a percentage of people have HIV/AIDS in Washington, D.C. as do in Angola or Haiti.

The overwhelming majority of life on the planet Earth is smaller than the human eye can see. As long as this planet doesn’t dry out completely (like Mars did) this tiny life will continue. Maybe even some larger creatures will survive, like cockroaches and rats.

Nuclear technology and weaponry is continuing to proliferate. It is inevitable that some lunatic fringe terrorist group will get its own bomb eventually. Or perhaps some germs being developed by various “advanced” governments for potential use as weapons of mass warfare.

The chances that human life will continue for another 500 or 1,000 years is looking pretty unlikely. I am really lucky to have lived at the peak, and I’m just as lucky to have had a good job which allowed me to travel so widely.

It is a pity that mankind is so aggressive and cruel. Man also puts far too much credibility in religious faith and miracles, rather than reason. Organized religions have caused more death, suffering, and warfare than any other thing.

There really is no need to worry or get all worked up about Obama’s latest bank bailout plan. Or how he will fail in getting universal health care implemented. Honest. In a few hundred years none of this will matter at all.
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Good Web-Site

If you want to read something intellectually stimulating regularly check out Paul Krugman's blog: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/
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The Obama Administration

I worked in the primary and general election campaigns to help elect President Obama. I still think he is far superior to his Republican predecessor George Bush.

But I am beginning to sort of fall out of love with Obama. It is starting to seem like he may have strong Republican leanings.

Barack you need to remember why you got elected. Many people liked John McCain, he was just a little too old, and his choice of Governor Palin as the vice presidential candidate finally did him in. McCain was viewed as ethical. He was not perfect, but he had worked a lifetime to try and stop the back door bribery of politicians that in America is called campaign contributions.

Mr. Obama, number one you were elected to stop the war(s). Not just to move the soldiers over to Afghanistan from Iraq, but to end the fighting and bring the troops home. Then greatly reduce the spending on the military. And number two you were elected because people thought you could actually succeed at getting universal health care implemented.

Your latest bank bailout is simply Bush administration recycling. It is a huge government handout to rich people. You have put the brakes on re-implementing progressive taxation, i.e., increasing income taxes for people making more than $250,000 per year. You talked great about how terrible and obscene the bonuses were to the AIG crooks, but you didn’t want much of anything actually done about it. Actions speak louder than words Mr. President.

Take the average nationwide salary of school teachers. Then make all income that is ten times this amount taxable at 80%. All income. With no exceptions, deductions, tax credits, loop holes, etc. Like the alternative minimum tax is. All income that is greater than 10 times what the average school teacher makes would be taxed at 80%. This would solve the budget deficit and the pay for both universal health care and properly fund social security.

This latest bailout plan is just a big expensive Band-Aid for the banks and the financial system. It seems that you don’t have the strength of character to actually tackle and solve the problems caused by all these years of deregulation. Start listening more to the Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman and less to all the ex-Wall Street guys.

On all issues you seem to want to take the middle of the road position. When Galileo said that the earth circles around the sun, and the Christian church said that everything revolved around the earth, taking the middle ground would have been just plain stupid. One party was 100% right and the other was 100% wrong. Many of the issues facing you are like this. The middle ground is not the correct answer.

There has not been any conversation about completely stopping the aggressive gambling, derivatives, credit default swaps, securitizing of mortgages and credit card debt, and the various exotic leveraging techniques that got the economy in such trouble. To use the proper word: Fraud. In fact you appear perfectly happy to not rock the boat very much. The chancellor in Germany is saying that we have now spent enough money pump priming and bailing out the rich, and that now is the time to start talking about improving the regulations and the enforcement. But I am not hearing much of this kind of talk come out of the Obama administration.

President Obama, you appear to be intimidated by the rich crooks on Wall Street. Maybe growing up as a half black, half white kid, raised by a single mother has made you seek acceptance too much. Maybe you just want to be loved by everyone.

It looks like all your talk of universal health care has now been reduced to computerizing the record keeping of some of the doctors and hospitals. Maybe somewhat, a little teeny tiny bit reducing the cost of health care in America. Thanks to some big government subsidies.

More than once your administration has talked about the Social Security problem and the consideration of possibly privatizing social security. This is 100% Republican talk. This would be absolute lunacy. Bush had already begun the process of reducing the troops in Iraq. Mostly because the democratically elected government of Iraq has begun kicking us out. You are just following up on Bush.

You have indeed come out forcefully against torture. And you are closing Guantanamo and the other secret CIA prisons. That is good. Especially if you begin supporting accountability for those people who did it in the past.

You will not be a two-term president Barack. It is unfortunate, but the die has been cast. The Republicans hate you, and increasingly your own supporters from the left are beginning to see you as nothing more than sweet-talking sell out. Just accept that you will only have one term as president and get your ass in gear. Stop trying to make all the people happy. You are only succeeding in making everyone dislike you.

Top Priority: Implement 100% government paid universal health care even if it means stopping all other work until this is completed.

Number Two Priority: Get Wall Street back under control. Stop the tax reduction on rich people. Implement progressive taxation again.

If you can just get these two things accomplished you will be a great success. If you tackle a hundred different things and fail at most of them, you will be seen as nothing more than a big talking, cigarette smoking, sell out lawyer.

I sure hope this is not the way that it all works out. That would be such a pity. Really.
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Crybaby

This week The New Yorker magazine has a wonderful cover showing the crybaby.

Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. A very wealthy one. And just like Elvis and other highly paid entertainers, he has suffered from addiction to prescription medication. I have listened to him many times. For a hate monger he is really funny.

Limbaugh earns more than Peter Jennings, Dan Rather, and Tom Brokaw combined. At almost $30 million per year, Limbaugh is the “highest paid info-broadcaster in history.”

This is right up there with the derivatives traders at AIG.

This guy does not represent the normal working people of America. He represents the very worst of the repulsive fat cats.
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President Obama's Final Bank Bailout Plan

I have been a big supporter of Obama since early on. I worked for him in the primary election. He is ethcal and smart. A constitutional law scholar.
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But unfortunately one thing his background lacks is a good foundation in economics. This is really a pity, because of the dire straights that the large banks have gotten themselves into by making one bad decision after another for many years.
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Obama should set up a secret and private group of economic advisers who advise him directly, not through Geitner or any of his staff. No official minutes, no press conferences, just sound "kitchen cabinet" advice. The people in this blue ribbon group should be George Soros, Paul Krugman, and Michael Moore.
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The correct solution to the big bank insolvency problem is for the federal government to take these big banks over, just like the FDIC does all the time when smaller banks gamble and make really bad decisions (and bets), and then go insolvent. But Obama and his economics team apparently don't have big enough balls to allow that to happen with the bigger banks. I hesitate to call this deficiency a strength of character issue. Maybe it is just an ignorance issue.
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The following article by the Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman in the NY Times describes the situation very clearly:
LINK: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/more-on-the-bank-plan/
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Flea Market

At the flea market this morning I bought some tamales from the same itinerant vendor that I usually do. While I was getting my money out and putting the tamales in bag I intentionally dropped the leash for my dog. He won’t run off. The leash is only for the people…some folks are frightened by dogs.

The tamales guy knows us well, and he has really fallen for my little dog. He was concerned that Inu might run off, so he picked up the leash. He wanted to know if Inu had ever had any puppies. Of course the conversation was 100% in the Spanish language. I think he was hoping to get one of Inu’s puppies. I answered that no he hasn’t. So he asked if he had been “operada”, i.e. operated on. In English we would say fixed or neutered but apparently in Spanish the word is operada. I think that in Mexico it is less common for a dog to have his testicles cut off than it is here in America.

A little later an old woman and I guess her granddaughter just fell in love with Inu. They were rubbing him and scratching him. He was in heaven. They had something interesting for sale. I asked them if they knew anything about it’s origin (using the Spanish language of course) but they didn’t. It is a home made three-ring binder prominently marked Emily Dickinson. They were asking $1 for it.

I can imagine a doting father or grandfather having made this binder for some little girl. Emily Dickinson was a poet from the 1800’s that pre-pubescent girls seem especially drawn to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_dickinson

A few meters on a vendor that we often see waved at me. Inu and I went over. He asked again what Inu’s name was and apologized for not remembering it. Among other things he had a water proof military issue thermometer carrying case about 7 inches long (180mm) which will make an excellent Geocache. He wanted $3 for it, but before I could even say anything (such as “Wow, what a great price.”) he said, but for you it is $2-.

Then we passed the fresh fruit stand who we normally buy from. For $4 we bought a week’s worth of bananas and some really, really beautiful tomatoes still attached to their vines.

We had a nice time at the Socorro, Texas flea market today. We usually do enjoy going there, but it was special today.
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Spring Equinox

Various religions officially define the spring equinox as March 21, but in 2009 it actually took place astronomically on March 20. Many years it does occur on March 20. In simplest terms it is the dividing line between winter and summer. The date when the length of the night and the day are equal. In the northern hemisphere we now enter that part of the year when the day is longer than the night. South of the equator it is just the opposite.

The Christian churches calculate Easter as the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the March equinox. The official church definition for the equinox is March 21; however, as the Eastern Orthodox Churches use the older Julian calendar, while the Western Churches use the Gregorian calendar, both of which designate March 21 as the equinox, the actual date of Easter differs. The earliest possible date for Easter in any year is March 22 on either calendar.

Neopagans celebrate the Sabbats of Ostara on the spring equinox. In terms of Wiccan ditheism, this festival is characterized by the rejoining of the Mother Goddess and her lover-consort-son, who spent the winter months in death. Other variations include the young God regaining strength in his youth after being born at Yule, and the Goddess returning to her Maiden aspect.

I can’t find a great deal of truth or societal relevance in any of the religious fairy tales. The first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox. Give me a break; this sounds like some kind of astrological nonsense.

The Druids wearing white robes, getting really drunk, and smoking lots of herbal cigarettes seems about as relevant to the needs of society.

It is a very nice tradition having the kids hunt for psychedelically dyed hard boiled chicken eggs. Except in these times of morbid obesity most of the children are now waddling over to pig out on sugary chocolate, pre-diabetic-coma Easter eggs and bunnies. Parents allowing that sort of “nutrition” is terribly irresponsible. Almost indictable as child abuse.
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World Population Growth

I am 60 years old. When I was born the total world population was 2.5 billion people. Now in 2009 the world population has grown to 7 billion.

When I was in college we learned about the population explosion and the ideas of the economist Thomas Malthus regarding the dangers of continued world population growth. I was a member of Zero Population Growth, and after my wife had one child I got a vasectomy.

Many people later thought that Malthusian Economics had been proven false by the “green revolution” which used large amounts of pesticides, herbicides, and chemical fertilizers in agriculture; and large amounts of antibiotics in the meat supply. Now the various health and ecological dangers of the widespread use of all these chemicals is well known.

All over the planet supplies of fresh water are already being pushed to their limits. Providing the vast amounts of energy needed to continue the American and European standards of living is polluting the planet and increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The energy usage and pollution coming from China and India will soon be greater than wasteful America. The consequences of global warming are hard for any of us to understand. Sea level rise, changes in climate. Who knows? But the results of the carbon binge mankind has been on since the industrial revolution began will surely be massive.

Forty years ago it was well known that in order to keep the world’s population within tolerable limits one of the most effective things was to provide education for women. And that birth control (such as condoms) needed to be readily available.

I am shocked and disappointed at how little humanity has learned in the last 40 years. The fundamentalist Muslims are growing, and their opposition to girls going to school is increasing. This week the Pope was in Africa, and he said that condom usage would make AIDS/HIV even worse. I can’t imagine this. He is a well educated, worldly wise man, and he comes out with something destructive like this.
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Obama Recovery Plan

I get the majority of my news from the internet, and some from the nightly news on PBS.

For close to 40 years I got the Wall Street Journal, I read the local newspaper, and Time magazine. Now I no longer read a daily printed newspaper at all. Times change.

But once in a while it is nice to pick up a real magazine and read the in depth articles. The March 19, 2009 edition of Rolling Stone magazine has a long article by the Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman which looks at the pros and cons of President Obama’s recovery plan.

This article by Paul Krugman is first class. All educated people should read it.

This edition of the magazine also has a good article entitled How The Drug Lords Run Mexico.
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Castle Rock

Click this link to check out my picture of Castle Rock in the Florida mountains near Deming, New Mexico.  I used the Gigapan process to combine 450 ea. 10 megapixel pictures into one massive high resolution picture.

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LINK:  http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapanFullscreen.php?id=18903

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Lines and colors.

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Pope Benedict and Trojans

Dear Pope Benedict,

I am not a Catholic, but I still like and respect you. You are well educated, humble, and you care deeply about suffering.

Yes, it would be better if married people were faithful to each other and didn’t screw around. And if single people did not ever have sex it would greatly lower the incidence of HIV and AIDS.

But the stance that the church and you are taking against condom usage is neither realistic nor helpful to mankind.

You are a wise man, and you know your history. You are fully aware that for many years after the death of the carpenter from Nazareth it was alright for priests and popes to have a wife and to have sex. The idea that priests should abstain from sex is what has filled the church with perverted gay men and has caused so many priests to rape young boys from their congregation, engaging in the most dangerous form of sex, anal sex.

The times call for someone like you to take bold steps. I recommend that you establish a blue ribbon commission of church leaders to openly look at the church’s position about sex. If this anti-sex perversity isn’t put to en end, the church probably won’t survive much longer.

Wishing You The Best,


Paul Garland
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Spring In El Paso, Texas

Many years El Paso, Texas has miserable sand storms in the spring which would make the Saraha Desert proud.

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But so far this year it has been really nice!

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Representative Democracy

It seems like more and more people are beginning to understand that their senators and congressmen in Washington mostly are not representing the wishes of the voters. That in order to keep their jobs their first and foremost job is to represent the wishes of the wealthy individuals and organizations who make large donations to their campaigns.

This is corruption and bribery. Pure and simple.
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Republican Senator Says AIG Traders Should Die

Republican Senator Charles Grassley was talking about AIG’s $165 million in bonuses after having received a $173 billion bailout from American taxpayers. He said, “The first thing that would make me feel a little bit better towards them if they’d follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things — resign, or go commit suicide.”

Senator, you Republicans are the ones who supported all this de-regulation lunacy. The Republicans have taken enormous campaign contributions from these derivative traders. I would say that you are just talking out your ass to compensate.

Death or committing suicide is probably just a little bit overblown. How about these crooks just forfeit all of their assets and go to jail for a long, long time?
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Organized Religion

Joseph Ratzinger is currently the leader of the Roman Catholic Christian church worldwide. I have a lot of praise for this man. He speaks many languages, is extremely well educated, and is genuinely humble. I rate him right up there with Barack Obama as a truly great man.

He is in Africa at the moment, where there is a terrible problem raging with HIV and AIDS. The BBC reports that despite all the death and suffering from this horrible disease he still openly opposes the use of condoms.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7947460.stm

How does he propose we deal with this terrible situation? Abstinence?

The Catholic priests not being allowed to have sex with women is what has led to a terrible perversion in which they butt fuck young boys from their congregations. And they do so in the name of God. What sick bastards.

Yes, it is a real tragedy but organized religion continues to cause far more suffering and evil than it prevents. What a pity.
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Republicans in America

The Repulbicans in Ireland are good, but the Republicans in America are corrupt and sick.

The two most popular leaders of these people are Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney.

Not much more needs to be said.

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Detroit

The latest Rolling Stone magazine has a good article about how Detroit is dying.

Just google Detroit Real Estate and you will see how bad things are there.

It gets so miserably hot down here in the desert in the summer that I am tempted to go up to Detroit and look around. For a summer home. But since I drive a Toyota that only has liability insurance it probably would just be asking for trouble.
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Wildlife All Around Us

---------------------------------------------- (click on any of the pictures and they will enlarge)

I saw these bugs out in the Chihuahuan Desert near El Paso, Texas and photographed them.

A friend of mine tells me that they are called AssAssIn bugs and that their venom is very nasty.

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Then today I saw this beautiful little ladybug on the concrete right in my own back yard.
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When the dog and I took our afternoon walk we saw this group of industrious ants.

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Over The Hill At Age 30

Recent research published in the professional journal Neurology of Aging shows that intelligence peaks at age 22, and that by age 27 one has started the gradual decline into old age. Athletes know this about the other organs in one's body, why should it surprise us about the brain?
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Alexander The Great died at age 32 and the carpenter from Nazareth also died in his early 30's. We were right in the 1960's when we said that anyone over the age of 30 was over the hill.
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LINK: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7945569.stm
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Escape

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I have been retired for several years now, and it is wonderful.
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But I can recall more than a few times during my working career when I sure felt like escaping.
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Cave Of Letters

The Cave Of Letters is located west of the Dead Sea and south of Jerusalem in the Judean desert of Israel.

There have been some remarkable archaeological discoveries made in this cave complex. In November of 2004 PBS aired an excellent Nova episode about it. This cave has now been probed using ground penetrating radar and various other high tech methods.

I was in Israel in the early 1970’s, and I travelled all over the country. From the north where Jesus allegedly walked on water near to the modern contested area called the Golan Heights, Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and then via the Jordan River down to the Dead Sea. I’ve sat a couple of feet away from the dome of the rock which is one of the holiest locations in the world to Muslims, Jews, and Christians, and I have dangled my bare feet in the Sea of Galilee (Lake Tiberius).

During the rein of the Roman Emperor Hadrian a great many Jews were killed by the Romans in the area that was then called Judea. Later the Romans renamed it Syrian Palestine.

I have been to Hadrian’s wall in northern England several times, and I have walked much of it. In my coin collection I have several Roman coins issued during the rein of the Emperor Hadrian which contain his image. He was a bearded scoundrel also. Hadrian originally came from the area that today is called Spain. I’ve also spent a good bit of time in Hadrian’s massive villa about 9 or 10 miles east of Rome in central Italy. And many times I have been inside of the church that Charlemagne built 1,200 years ago.

I am now 60 years old. I guess if I am going to achieve any level of wisdom it better come quickly. The older I get the more I am convinced that organized religions are fairy tales that have caused a great deal of suffering and warfare. Blind unquestioning faith appears to be one of the most negative things that human beings have ever invented.

To view the excellent PBS video about the Cave of Letters in America go to: http://www.hulu.com/watch/23348/nova-ancient-refuge-in-the-holy-land

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Investing Your Money

When you put aside some money from every paycheck for your eventual old-age retirement, this is called saving your money. If you use this money to buy small portions of companies it is called investing. That is a good thing.

When a Wall Street gambler who makes many millions of dollars each year shorts a stock, buys or sells credit default swaps, or deals in derivatives that is gambling or speculation. Which is clearly a bad thing.

These exotic speculative financial transactions were deemed gambling, and were regulated and mostly treated as illegal for many years. Now thanks to the almost religious fervor of the market fundamentalists and the Republicans, we have gotten rid of a great many laws and regulations which were intended to protect the common investor from fraud and theft. The market fundamentalists are very proud of this, and they have named it Deregulation.

Unless all of this damaging speculative activity is stopped, America is doomed. Look at Italy if you want to see a good example. Except in Italy at least all of the people have health care.
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AIG - All In Greed

The press is reporting that AIG is planning huge bonuses after the $170 billion bailout. This is a company which is now owned 80% by the federal government.

The Treasury Secretary for the Obama administration says that the $165 million of bonuses to people in the financial products division of AIG cannot legally be stopped. These are the same people who wrote all the credit default swaps which bankrupted the company.

Oh horse hockey. Get real. How stupid and out of touch are you Geithner? I am about to conclude that you really are as stupid as you look. Just declare Force Majeure and do it. Let the chips fall where they may. The courts can finally decide it after years of fighting and appeals.

If the Obama administration keeps supporting Wall Street’s lunacy like this we are going to be in even deeper trouble than we are now.

The voters in a democracy don’t really know a new candidate until he has been elected and then has served in office for a while. It is beginning to appear dangerously like Obama may be just a good talker. It may end up that the rich continue to get even richer, more people lose their jobs and their houses, and the poor keep getting poorer.

On the issue of health care the debate is continuing to shift away from how to actually achieve 100% universal health care in America and all of the people who are under-insured, to how to moderately lower the cost of health care to the people who are insured. By computerizing the record keeping. It is looking like we will lower somwhat the troop levels in Iraq instead of getting us completely out of Iraq, and that the majority of these soldiers will just move over to Afghanistan.

The Chinese have now officially warned us that they are beginning to get nervous about the safety of all the money that they invested in U.S. Treasury Bills. I really can’t say that I blame them.

Barack. Solid as a Rock. I’m sorry man, but I’m beginning to have some doubts. Not yet about your integrity, but it might eventually even come to that.
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See: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dot.comments/2009/03/tar_and_feathers_for_aig.html?hpid=topnews
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One of my friends who I respect the very highest lives in Belgium. Here is his response:
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You can’t change the World in a month. You can’t do it in four years. If you want a second term then tread lightly and save the best for last.

I would be disappointed if Obama took on the establishment head on… Heroic but foolish and if he bites the sand then who will replace him?

Greed and opportunism are what America was built on when times were rough and those were the qualities you survived on. You can’t expect a nation to grow into adulthood in just 2 ½ centuries.

These kind of changes usually take a bloody revolution to change. Those who have will fight to keep.Remember JFK… His only mistake was to try and stop a very profitable war.

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Jesse Stone

Having lived much of my adulthood outside America, now that I have returned there are so many wonderful things to catch up on.

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For example I have been gradually working my way through the Matrix movies. Neo, Morpheus, and Trinty. So truly fantastic.

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And now I have begun watching the Jesse Stone movies with Tom Selleck. I just finished the one called Stone Cold. Gosh, what a wonderful movie. I am 100% straight, honest. Not any doubt. I really like women and I have absolute zero sexual attraction to men. But if I ever wanted to try going gay, Tom Selleck would be the man for me. What a guy!

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Flickr Map

I don't know if this link will work for those who don't have a (free) Flickr photo account.
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It is a map showing the various photo which I have linked to a specific location:
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_garland/map?&fLat=31.9425&fLon=-106.2424&zl=10&order_by=recent
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Accountability

More than a week ago I said to a very dear friend of mine who is a school teacher that, “Accountability is as American as apple pie.” My friend is still not talking to me. Apparently school teachers have a different definition or view of the concept of accountability than I do. If a plumber or car mechanic is incompetent and consistently doesn’t get the desired results they are sacked. The same with an insurance salesman or an accountant, or a nurse. I am having a hard time thinking of many professions where accountability does not operate.

I guess maybe in tenured professors at universities. After a number of years they get tenure, and then pretty much it becomes really hard to sack them.  This is done to promote academic freedom from political influence.   But with "due cause" even tenured professors can be let go.

Another job description where accountability doesn’t always apply is with civil servants, i.e., government employees. Anyone with any experience in life has dealt with government workers who are rude, lazy, and incompetent. But for some reason they still manage to keep their jobs, and their pension still pays off even if the economy tanks.

Of course teachers have always been held accountable. Most of those teachers who regularly have sex with their students are eventually held accountable, and they are sacked. The same applies if they regularly inflict major physical injuries on their students while enforcing discipline.

Almost all teachers really do want their students to learn. Some small fraction of teachers either do not care or simply do not have the skills to adequately teach their students. Accountability is all about rewarding those teachers who are better at teaching, and on the down side sacking those who are grossly incompetent.

I think maybe part of the problem is who decides what the rules are in deciding whether a teacher gets a bonus or loses their job. Is this done on a fair and open basis or are personal or political biases and prejudices allowed to interfere with the decision? And then there is always the possibility of bribes or other corruption in the decision making process.

Certainly the system of accountability that has been used to compensate CEOs and Wall Street bankers has not worked out. In fact the results have been quite the opposite.
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Re-Regulation

Much of what caused the current “great recession” is in fact due to deregulation. Over the last 40 years many important laws and regulations were either rescinded or were simply ignored. The almost religious fervor of these free market fundamentalists meant that U.S. Government agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission no longer had adequate resources and were no longer staffed by competent people. So ponzi schemes like the one run by the crook Bernard Madoff were allowed to continue, even when whistle blowers gave the SEC everything it needed to see the fraud and the massive theft.

Corruption, including large bribes to elected officials (ingenuously called campaign contributions) has grown more and more common and widespread in America.

Every year an increasingly larger percentage of the population does not have health insurance. Company funded retirement plans are becoming less and less common. Even when people have properly saved for their old age, the go-go scheming of the market fundamentalists has resulted in their 401(k) retirement funds being decimated.

The Germans and the French have properly spent large amounts putting money into their economies following the pump priming ideas of Keynesian economics. It is not often that we have seen the French and the Germans agree on much of anything, but they are now in agreement that it is time to shift our focus. Any companies which are still shaky after this much money being spent to bail them out need to be allowed to fail. And it is time to reduce our emphasis on large spending plans intended to get the world economy going again.
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It is now time to begin the process of re-regulating.

Vast areas of modern society have been excessively de-regulated. The financial industry is the most obvious, but adequate and effective government regulations which are well enforced are missing in much of the rest of society too.

Regulations which encourage and help one to drive a socially responsible vehicle which gets good fuel economy. Regulations which better protect the nation’s wilderness areas and National Parks. Regulations regarding lead or other toxic substances on children’s toys. Food safety regulations. Regulations regarding advertising of foods which are largely sugar, salt, and saturated fat. Workplace safety regulations have been downgraded and so have those regulations which helped improve the quality of the air and water. Regulations which assure that rich people pay their fair share of taxes have been hideously eliminated. Regulations which prevent lenders from defrauding borrowers need to be strengthened greatly. Regulations barring spam and computer viruses need to be upgraded and enforced. Regulations ensuring one’s right to privacy.

I have to agree with the French and the Germans. It is time to shift our focus in order to assure that many of the worst abuses in society are properly re-regulated.
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Deming, New Mexico

Deming is in the far south of the American state of New Mexico. If it were just a little bit further south it would actually be in the country of Mexico. It sits about 34 miles (55 km) north of where Pancho Villa famously attacked the United States from Mexico in March 1916. Deming is visually dominated by the beautiful Florida Mountains just to the East. Deming is in the Chihuahuan Desert and has a mild climate. During the winter the population of Deming blooms as all the snowbirds arrive from the frigid north.

The Deming Luna Mimbres museum, housed in the historic Deming Armory (1916) and Customs House features a world class collection of Mimbres painted pottery, historic period-furnished rooms in the Seaman Fields House, an antique auto collection, and countless other displays. This is one of the finest museums in the southwestern United States.

Nearby are the City of Rocks State Park with interesting volcanic rock formations and the Rockhound State Park. The area offers vast mineral & rock collecting opportunities. Each year the Deming Gem & Mineral Society hosts a mineral show called the Rockhound Roundup which attracts visitors from all over the world. I was talking with a man at the show in 2009 only to find out that he was from Barcelona, Spain.

The Florida Mountains is pronounced “Floor-Reed-Ah” not pronounced the same as the phallic shaped American state that so many New Yorkers hope to retire to. The Floridas are beautiful wild, young, rocky mountains. Geodes, chalcedony, calcite and other minerals are found in abundance.

Using the Giga Pan process I recently took a 1,740 mega pixel picture of an interesting area in the northern part of the Florida Mountains which is called Castle Rock.
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To view the full size high resolution picture go to: http://share.gigapan.org/viewGigapanFullscreen.php?id=18903

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Investment Advisers

What makes us believe that the psychopath Bernard L. Madoff was an abberation? He had been the top man at one of the nation's biggest stock exchanges. The business-oriented, Republican staffed SEC checked out what he was doing a couple of times, and they didn't conclude that there was a big problem.
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This crook should be treated like a murderer. More than one person has killed himself because of losing everything to this liar.
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I would enjoy hearing stories about him bending over in the prison shower to pick up the bar of soap and getting an unpleasant surprise. He sure should not go to some "country club" prision.
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Disagreeing Without Being Disagreeable

One of the signs of maturity and a wide life experience is the ability to disagree with someone without being disagreeable.

If we are going to be able to work our way through the enormous problems mankind is facing, we have got to be able to honestly state our thoughts, opinions, and conclusions.

Then when others do the same but they don’t agree with our conclusions we can either get in a knock down battle or nuclear war, or we can rationally discuss the matter. It is not possible to remain rational when you or your opponent is saying or doing impolite and hateful things.

It is vital that we learn to disagree without being disagreeable.
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Tank Traps

In the heavily populated areas along the border with Mexico the USA has built an 18 foot high fence that is lit at night with stadium lighting. It will stop vehicles, people, and animals.  http://hpgarland.blogspot.com/2009/01/undocumented-immigrants.html

For much of the 60 mile length of the international border with Mexico from Columbus, New Mexico to El Paso, Texas in the past there really wasn’t much of a fence, if any fence at all. This is a really wild area, and not many people come out here.

I was out there today and saw the solution they have come up with for these remote areas. It looks a lot like the WWII tank traps the Germans built in Europe. It will not stop small animals from passing to feed or migrate, and a person could very easily get through it. Someone really determined could cut through the six inch square (150mm) one half inch thick steel that is the backbone. But this would not be easy or quick, and would be readily detectable.

However for the routine drug dealer carrying 1,000 lbs. of illegal drugs in the bed of his 4-wheel drive pickup truck, this is a formidable barrier indeed.

Very good solution!

I was at 31.78376N, -107.17696W when I took these pictures.
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Kodak Brownie Bull's-Eye Camera

One of my old film cameras is a Kodak Brownie Bull’s-Eye. They were sold from 1954 until 1960, so roughly fifty years ago.

In the advertising materials Kodak makes a big deal of the lens being coated, and the fact that this camera has a lens which has two elements. In other words two layers of glass.

Even the very cheapest cameras today use coated lenses. The surface coatings really do help.

One thing that I find fascinating is the two element lens. Many quality non-zoom lenses (prime lenses) have eight elements or layers of glass nowadays.  My favorite Nikon lens has 15 elements, and the lens that I normally put on my cheapo Nikon digital SLR camera when I am going out to walk the dog is a Tamron brand of zoom lens which has sixteen elements.

Lens technology has improved during the last 50 years, especially zoom lenses. A couple of other things really pop out at me. Virtually all cameras have built in strobe lights now. In fact flash bulbs are just about impossible to find.

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The other thing is that this camera used a roll of film which provided you with 8 shots.  I remember how important each shot was back then.  Now with 8 gb memory cards common, it really is not at all out of the ordinary for me to take 150 or 200 pictures, and only end up using one or two of the pictures.  Or often even delete them all.  

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I shot a lot of "quality through quantity" photography back in the days of 35mm film and chemicals, but it sure is easier to do now.
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Education in America

President Obama has been very open and eloquent in his criticism of the results of the public education in America. He has asked that good teachers be properly compensated and that incompetent or ineffective teachers be sacked. The people who are teaching our children are as important to the continued success of our country as the Wall Street traders, and both should be receiving roughly similar compensation. These teachers should be given the latitude and freedom they need to get adequate results, and they should be receiving the appropriate amount of societal respect and financial compensation.

Obama has indicated that he feels that significantly more Charter Schools may result in improved results. I wasn’t sure what these words meant, so I looked it up.

According to Wikipedia Charter Schools are elementary or secondary schools in the United States that receive public money but have been freed from some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools in exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results, which are set forth in each school's charter.

Accountability is as American as apple pie. But getting rid of rules and regulations has proven disastrous to the other parts of society, and has now been totally discredited. This is that same old reactionary idea of “deregulation.” The government regulations need to be improved and enforced, not abandoned.

Education needs to be funded in a manner where every school in America gets the same amount of money per student. What we have now is separate but-not-equal. Kids from poor sections of town or poor parts of the country receive a much worse education than kids who grow up in rich areas. Funding schools from local property taxes has got to cease.

Schools in America are not getting the RESULTS that the citizens want. That much is clear. The schools are not preparing the students for the real life experiences of the workplace. There needs to be a track (which most students take) which teaches the skills needed by employers. Electrical, welding, refrigeration, plumbing, medical, computer programming, accounting, etc.

It is also clear that many schools have been spending far too much effort trying to teach thousand year old right wing religions, and to prevent children from learning about birth control or sexually transmitted diseases. Many schools have taken an actively anti-science approach and have tried to teach the Christian fairy tales about Biblical creationism instead of Charles Darwin’s ideas about the scientific method and evolution. What ever happened to the ideas about separation of Church and State?

I recently heard Sandra Day O’Connor speak. One of the things she noted was that in 50% of American schools children can get a high school diploma without ever having taken a single course in civics or American history. These kids don’t know about the 3 branches of government, the importance of the separation of church and state, the history of fascism or racial discrimination, the role of the robber barons in America’s recent past, or what the concept of rule-of-law means. How can they be expected to become good citizens in a democracy without having any understanding about the past or how the political system works?
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Wal-Mart Is Losing It

I used to think that Wal-Mart was a well managed company which had intelligent people at the helm. I am gradually being forced to revise my opinion.

Over the last 24 months both of the Wal-Mart supermarkets near my house have stopped selling anything healthy in the refrigerated deli section. They used to have a good variety of healthy salads including broccoli salad, but gradually they have stopped selling any of these. It got to where you could only buy cold salads which were loaded up with pasta and mayonnaise.

So when I was doing my grocery shopping this week it was a real pleasure to see that they have begun selling broccoli salad again. I was so happy that I said something to the sales clerk. And he agreed that the broccoli salad tasted good, what with the bacon bits in it.

I bought a big container of it, but sure enough when I got home I found that Wal-Mart has changed the formulation of their broccoli salad. They have added bacon to it!

Do these people not have any brains at all? Are they completely ignorant about nutrition and what the consumer wants?
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Class Warfare in America

Because of the executive pay restrictions in the bank bailout, some banks have decided that they want to quickly pay the government back the money that the government recently loaned them in the it’s massive effort to bail the banks out and get credit flowing in the economy again.

According to the New York Times the list of banks not wanting any regulation includes small banks like the TCF Financial Corporation of Wayzata, Minn., and Iberia Bank of Lafayette, La., as well as giants like Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo.

This brings it clearly out into the open: Bankers and many other greedy Republicans have grown used to not having much regulation by the government. And now they don’t appreciate it when the government re-asserts its right to regulate their way of doing business.

This is like the rich kid in Mexico who is able get away with racing his car around recklessly, and openly taking sexual advantage of poor girls, simply because he comes from a wealthy family. The police in Mexico are well known for being corrupt and not applying the law equally. If you are rich you simply do not have to obey the same laws as everyone else.

So the anger we are seeing from the newly re-regulated rich in America is that of people who have grown used to getting their own way, and now don’t appreciate it one bit that the government thinks they have the right to question or regulate them. The same sort of attitude that allowed Bernard Madoff to steal so much money. The Enron phenomenon.

Over the last 50 years there has been substantial class warfare going on in America. And the rich have taken massive amounts of wealth from the poor and middle classes. Now that the poor and middle classes are beginning to demand that this theft stop, the rich are absolutely up in arms. How outrageous! Who do these people think they are? How dare they?
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