There's a poem with a quote about best-laid plans that I won't...

repeat since I'm sure you already know it.  But the last two days have been a litany of  plans going astray or nearly so.

Friday I had an interview to do right after tax class ended.  He called right on time too, not early as I was afraid of.  But the horrible instructor who was substitute-teaching our class ran well over the time and she wasn't happy that I ducked out early.  This in spite of the effect that she'd snapped at me earlier not to answer any more questions, so the other students could look it up.  When three or four minutes have passed and they can't find the answer to a question she's phrased poorly, I spoke up and she slapped me down for it.  If I go to the class on Monday when she subs again, I'm not going to say a word.  I'm just going to list all the shit she gets wrong or is unclear on, and give the list to the regular instructor on Wednesday.

My interview ran a little long, and so I didn't see all of the trailers for the movie I went to after the class.  One of my pet peeves is missing trailers at a movie.  I love movie trailers, especially ones I haven't seen before.

Friday I was to meet two friends to play "Buzztime" trivia and the location changed at the last minute.  Okay, adjust plans, get directions and go to other location.  No problem.  But when we arrived, Buzztime wasn't working.  So we hurried and went back to the other location.  Again, no problem.  Except this is a bar that doesn't serve food and since I missed lunch to get to the movie, I was hungry.  But I didn't give in to the temptation to eat their snack crap like chips, cashews and the like that were reasonably priced but not a good meal.  I finally got a sandwich on the way home at 9.  A bit late to eat dinner.

Saturday of course was parkinglotmageddon here.  I went out at 8:55 to put quarters in the meter and they were sealing the entire lot and street.  There were cars at almost every meter on both sides of the street and I was worried that when I got back from the movie I was going to, there would be nowhere to park.  That fear was groundless.

After the movies (plural), I wanted to go to the used book store.  I'd missed the start time of the earliest show and as a result, I was worried that I might have missed the store's operating hours, but took a chance and went there anyway.  They'd closed at 4 and I was out of luck.  I've read all of the used books I've bought the last two trips.

Then I got home and the two DVDs I was expecting to have arrived weren't in my mailbox.  I looked around the office and discovered that the mail was sitting, unsorted on the floor.  I had to raise a fuss to get my DVDs. 

The doctor changed my meds on Wednesday and as a result, another med I take has to be changed.  They were supposed to send written instructions on the second change and they promised they would arrive before the new medicine.  The new medicine arrived yesterday, without the written instructions.  So now I either have to toss the extra doses of the other med, or try to get them to give me the proper amount of pills without written instructions.  Good luck with that.

Yesterday, Lisa Ann Walter of KFI was talking about food stamps and that woman who got dissed at Kroger's by a manager over the fact that he worked for a living.  She was saying that she will give the "benefit of the doubt" to people who show up at grocery stores with new, expensive cars, and use food stamps.  So I checked.  Imagine my surprise when I learned that a car is not counted as an asset in the determination of whether or not someone can qualify for food stamps.  Hey, a family driving a five year old, paid for car shouldn't have that counted against them in the qualification process.  But someone who just paid cash for a $40,000 SUV goes from ineligible to eligible in an instant.  There's something wrong with that equation.

I like watching eating contests on TV.  The hot dog eating contest every July 4th is a must-see, even if we know Joey Chestnut is going to defend his title. And as long as they don't involve really spicy foods, or foods I don't like, I like to imagine myself eating the food. But there was a bacon eating contest recently in Kansas City that I can't see myself taking part in.  I love bacon, but three or four slices max.  After that, it's just too fatty and too salty.  The winner ate 1.9 pounds of bacon in five minutes.  If you just threw up in your mouth, my apologies.

If I were ever in Amarillo, I might try the big Texan 72 oz steak challenge, but I already know I couldn't eat it in an hour, which is the time limit.  Maybe I'll just have their 12 ounce New York strip.  Or the 16 ounce. Maybe the 20 ounce.

If you don’t want to read political ranting, stop here.  There’s nothing else in this particular blog entry but a political rant/discussion.  I’m giving you fair warning, so you can just move on to another entry in the blog to be entertained and informed. 

There’s an opinion piece on CNN’s website today that I take issue with.  So I’m going to reprint most, if not all of it, and respond to it on a point by point basis.  The italicized, bolded text is mine.  The rest is from the author who is introduced before his own rant begins.

 

Editor's note: Jose Antonio Vargas is the founder of Define American, a nonpartisan, nonprofit campaign that seeks to elevate the immigration conversation. An award-winning journalist, Vargas disclosed his undocumented immigration status in an essay for The New York Times Magazine in June 2011. Vargas attended California's public schools and early this year was named Alumnus of the Year by San Francisco State University.

(CNN) -- Arizona's immigration law, Senate Bill 1070, has generated a lot of ink recently, especially with a court ruling last week that allowed a controversial provision that in my view will result in racial profiling to move forward.

The law's goal is chilling: ramp up deportations of undocumented people by forcing local police into the difficult role of immigration agents. And with last week's ruling, police are now required to go out of their way to investigate the immigration status of everyone they "suspect" might be undocumented whom they arrest or stop.

 

Let’s start here.  Once again we have the usage of the word “undocumented” substituted for the word illegal.  The fact is that every single person described so gently as being “undocumented” is in fact, in this country in violation of our laws.  8 U.S.C. § 1325 : US Code - Section 1325: Improper entry by alien – is the law on this subject.  It makes entering or attempting to enter a criminal act.  Every single “undocumented” person in this nation is guilty of violating this section of the United States Code.  Regardless of why they are here, or how they came to be here.  This point is inarguable.

 

In practice, that will mean targeting people just for the way they look or speak, separating families, and trapping undocumented people in local jails for minor infractions to await deportation.

 

That may happen, but it isn’t the intent of the law.  The intent of the Arizona law is to investigate when someone is stopped in the course of ordinary law enforcement activity, if there is something to indicate that they aren’t in the U.S. legally.  The simplest evidence of this fact isn’t appearance, accent or anything else that would involve racial profiling.  The simplest evidence would be an adult who doesn’t have a driver’s license, particularly if they are being investigated as the result of a lawful traffic stop.

 

 

As an undocumented American -- and I am, in my heart, an American -- it is my hope that our nation doesn't follow Arizona's discriminatory example. Will Arizona become the norm, or can we work as a nation to fix dysfunctional immigration policies so that they reflect our best values as Americans?

All eyes are now on California for a key part of the answer.

Mr. Vargas is free to consider himself an “American”.  But he isn’t a citizen and he isn’t in this country legally.  I challenge anyone to name another nation on this planet where someone can enter the country illegally and not be subject to immediate arrest and subsequent deportation for simply being in that nation in violation of their laws.

 

Sitting on the Gov. Jerry Brown's desk is the most important piece of legislation for immigrant communities this year. By signing the bill, called the TRUST Act, Brown can prevent the separation of thousands of families, establish an alternative to Arizona's approach and send a powerful message to the nation: In a state built and replenished by generations of immigrants, fairness and equality matter.

Under the TRUST Act, local law enforcement would only be able to hold people for extra time, for deportation purposes, if the person has been convicted of, or charged with, a serious or violent felony.

 

The test for deportation shouldn’t be, being convicted or accused of a serious or violent felony.  The test should be presence in the country illegally.  Sadly, because of the deleterious impact on the economy, and the fact that there is a voting constituency that will support any candidate who panders to facilitating keeping illegals here within the borders of the U.S. in violation of our own laws, we are not actively enforcing this particular law.  The answer is a comprehensive solution, whereby we provide one final amnesty opportunity, with a path to citizenship for those who are here illegally who haven’t committed any other serious violation of our laws, while at the same time we seal our borders once and for all.  “Dream Acts” and what Obama has done for young people are not viable solutions.  The test Mr. Vargas wants to impose in the present situation is silly.

 

 

With the TRUST Act, Juana Reyes, the "tamale lady," never would have been stuck in Sacramento County Jail for 13 days on an immigration hold after the most absurd of arrests. With the TRUST Act, Reyes' children wouldn't have spent weeks worrying if they would ever see their mother again. She's still undocumented.

 

If Ms Reyes were actually Ms Smith, a U.S. citizen, in Mexico because she felt there was economic opportunity there, and she’d been arrested for the most absurd of reasons, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.  Because as soon as she’d been arrested, she would have been deported back to the United States.  No discussion, no lamenting the plight of the “undocumented”. 

 

If Brown signs the bill, he will bring hope to millions of undocumented Americans like me, and some relief to our family members who fear that if we are arrested for even the most trivial of charges, they will never see us again.

 

If the risk of being separated from your loved ones is so daunting, perhaps that should be factored into the thought process on whether or not you should remain in this nation in violation of its laws.  The triviality of a crime is irrelevant.  The major crime in this case was already committed.  Illegal entry into the United States.   A crime that carries a maximum punishment for the first infraction of six months imprisonment, which rises to two years imprisonment for a subsequent violation.  The fact that there is a potential fine of $250,000 for engaging in a fraudulent marriage in order to enter the nation illegally makes it quite clear that our Congress considers illegal immigration a crime of more than a trivial nature.

 

Undocumented people and their allies -- their relatives and friends, their neighbors and co-workers -- have created a new political climate in which the passage of the TRUST Act is not simply the right thing to do, but the politically strategic thing to do, with supporters from across the political spectrum, from Nancy Pelosi to right-leaning think tanks such as the Cato Institute and Competitive Enterprise Institute.

 

It must be noted that the current climate is the result of pandering to a constituency within the electorate whose support is a requirement to win control of the government through the upcoming election.  That is what makes it a strategic political move at this point in time.  The basic parameters of the equation haven’t changed.

 

And I recognize that the children of illegals who are here illegally through no fault of their own are victims.  But as I maintain, the answer isn’t patchwork solutions like the bill Mr. Vargas wants Governor Brown to sign.  It is only through comprehensive immigration reform that a real solution will be found.

 

Further, the hypocrisy of Mr. Vargas’ position must be pointed out.  When the courts were discussing SB1070, Mr. Vargas and other opponents of this bill argued strenuously that immigration law and its enforcement is the province of the Federal government and that state’s shouldn’t be enforcing immigration law.  Under Brown’s bill, the state of CA would be instructing law enforcement to not enforce immigration law so it may seem consistent, but it is not.  In fact it’s asking state law enforcement to break its sacred covenant with federal law enforcement, that they will cooperate with one another, support one another on request, and hold each other’s suspects until such time as these violators can be transferred into the custody of the agency with appropriate jurisdiction.  Should we sit by and watch helplessly as other states react to this by refusing to hold CA suspects apprehended in other states?  Do we want the FBI, DEA and other federal agencies to refrain from holding people wanted by the State of California, because we will no longer cooperate with ICE?

 

The enactment of TRUST would also help turn the page on a painful era of our state's history that the implementation of the Arizona law evokes.

A year after I arrived in this country at the age of 12, four years before I knew about my own undocumented status, I watched with anxiety as California voters passed Proposition 187. That ballot initiative, in many ways, was the precursor to SB 1070 and House Bill 56, Arizona's and Alabama's "show-me-your-papers" laws, respectively. Although courts would ultimately reject Proposition 187, fear immediately gripped immigrants in California upon its passage in 1994.

The specter of local police acting as immigration agents was one of the measure's most unsettling provisions. And despite how much California has changed in nearly two decades, the federal Secure Communities deportation program, which was supposed to target people "convicted of serious criminal offenses," has instead effectively done what Proposition 187's backers tried to do -- turn local law enforcement into de facto immigration authorities.

 

The flaws of Prop 187 can’t be used to justify the TRUST act as retroactive justice. 

 

What if while driving from my alma mater, San Francisco State University, down to my hometown of Mountain View, I were stopped for the most minor traffic infraction? Or, perhaps, simply profiled?

I could be detained for driving without a valid license. Then, under "Secure Communities," my fingerprints would be sent to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement no matter how minor the charge. ICE would then ask the jail to hold me for extra time, at local expense, until it came to pick me up for deportation as my grandmother, a naturalized American citizen, waited for me at home in Mountain View.

 

Mr. Vargas, should you have been driving from your alma mater to your hometown without a license, on the public highways?  That’s another crime.  You’re an award winning journalist, according to your profile? Were you employed by someone when you won those awards?  That’s yet another crime, both by you and the employer.

 

How many of us are forced to spend money to purchase uninsured motorist coverage because of people like you, who are driving on our highways in violation of our laws and failing to carry the required insurance?  Oh wait, that’s another crime you’ve committed.  Assuming you worked illegally, my count of your infractions is now at four and possibly rising.  Do we want to discuss the higher accident rates of unlicensed drivers?

 

This is essentially what's happened to about 80,000 Californians who have quietly been torn from their families under the ridiculously named federal deportation program, "Secure Communities."

Seven out of 10 people detained nationally under Secure Communities either had no convictions or committed minor offenses, according to ICE statistics. And even though top law professors have confirmed that requests to detain immigrants for additional time are "optional," many California jurisdictions have submitted, no matter the damage done to community-police relations.

Enter the TRUST Act, which limits responses to ICE's requests to detain people in local jails for additional time for deportation purposes.

 

If Governor Brown signs this act, which I suspect he will, it will be a travesty of justice.  The government of California is endorsing a violation of federal law by doing this. 

 

I have no desire to see Mr. Vargas deported personally.  I want there to be a solution to this problem once and for all.  The TRUST act is not the solution,  just as the fight to legalize gay marriage in CA wasn’t the comprehensive solution.  Overturning the Defense of Marriage Act once and for all so that every state will be forced to recognize same-sex marriage performed in any state is that answer. 

 

Let’s force the Congress to deal with and solve this problem once and for all, not do dumb, patchwork things that will cause more problems than they solve.

If, and that's a big if, my legs feels tomorrow like...

it feels today I may try to take a walk tomorrow.  I'm crossing my fingers.

Yesterday I was coming back from seeing a movie and I was travelling South on Westwood Boulevard.  If you're not familiar with the intersection of Westwood and National, when you're going South on Westwood and you get to the intersection with National, the street is two lanes going South.  The inner lane crosses National and the right lane must turn right (and yes, a third, "left-turn" lane forms just before the intersection).  Traffic was backed up in the lane crossing National to some degree and this black, brand-new Mercedes was coming up from behind and ducked into the empty right-turn only lane.  But when it got to the intersection, rather than turning right as required, it went across National and wove its way into the line of cars crossing National.

Now this car probably passed 15 to 20 cars with this move, and committed at least two moving violations in doing so.  Probably three.  (speeding, illegal lane change, failure to observe a posted sign).  What the hell was so important that this guy couldn't just wait his turn? Or is he just privileged because he can afford a brand new Mercedes?  I wish I'd gotten his license plate number so that if I ever see his car parked, I can let the air out of at least two of the tires.  Okay, I wouldn't do that, but I can at least imagine doing it.

Something I ponder often, and I think I've ranted about it before, is how many people don't understand the definition of, or ignore the signs that read "Compact Only" on parking spaces.  Yet again I saw an idiot who parked an oversized SUV in a compact only space, just because it happened to be the space closest to the escalator from the parking lot going into the mall.  There were plenty of non-compact spaces further down in either direction.  I'm thinking of printing up 100 copies of the definition of compact to start leaving on people's windshields.

I'm a fan of the TV show "Blue Bloods".  Last night was the season premiere, and I fell asleep about 30 minutes into it.  I hate when that happens.  Fortunately CBS has posted the episode on their website already, so kudos to them for solving this problem for me.  The only difficult part is getting past the commercials to fast forward to where I nodded off, which I can live with.

There are commercials now touting smaller needles for flu shots.  Reminds me of a wild rumor that was going around when I went to Basic Training.  We were informed officially that one of the first week's days involved getting a bunch of vaccinations.  The rumor was "one of the shots you have to get goes in your left nut, with a square needle".  Now I knew that couldn't be true.  There are shots that have to be given IM (intra-muscular) versus IV (intra-venuous) but not IN (intra-nut), but I didn't say anything to those trying to scare my friends. 

They would have been more scared if they'd known the truth.  The injections were mixed and given one shot in each arm from a pneumatic "gun" and we watched as a group of women went ahead of us and many of them fainted from the injections.  The guys joked and said women were weak and guys would never faint.  Then it was our turn and as many of the guys fainted as girls had.  Maybe more.

My car is parked on the street.  I'm going to have to get up in the middle of breakfast and walk outside to put money in the meter right around 9 a.m.  But at least I didn't have to park six blocks away last night when I got home from trivia.

Yes, I "scabbed" last night.  What does that mean?  Buzztime is an interactive form of computerized trivia played across the nation.  It's run by a company that has its headquarters in Carlsbad and it's been around for a long time.  It's also never turned a profit.  Bars and restaurants that host the game have the "blue boxes" you use to play kept in chargers and you watch the game on a TV screen and answer the questions as they come up.  For years the games were fed across the nation on one feed on which everyone competed.  This past Feburary, they split the feed.  One East Coast feed and one West Coast feed.  We can no longer play against everyone, against the best in the nightly one-hour premium games.  So we boycotted.  We no longer gather to play the premium games as a team to compete against other teams at bars and restaurants across the nation.  But sometimes we'll gather in small groups and play anyway.  Last night I joined two other players and we played one of the blue boxes each.  By not playing five boxes between us, we weren't generating a competitive location score (the game registers two sets of scores at the end of each game, a location score that's the average of the top five boxes played at the location, and an individual score).  We managed to generate the top individual score on our West zone feed, although we won' t know if it was the best in the nation until later today.  Hopefully Buzztime will end the split before the company fails altogether.

Oh, I was mentioning going to yesterday's movie.  The audience was small (it was a documentary after all) but the two women sitting closest to me talked throughout, as though they were alone in the living room.  I tried politely to get them to shut up but nothing polite worked and I wasn't going to get rude.  It dawned on me afterward why they felt so entitled.  The documentary was "The Other Dream Team", about the story of how Lithuania won its freedom from the former Soviet Union and then had its basketball team (made up of players that were part of the 1988 gold medal winning Olympic team)  go to the 1992 Olympics.  As they were leaving, they stopped speaking in English and started speaking in what I am 99% sure was Lithuanian.  So maybe they felt entitled to talk because they felt it was their story?

Almost forgot, supposed to include my twitter address, which is @cyclist1959 in my blogs, to try to boost my number of followers.

I like to go through each day having faith in our system of justice.  But it gets more and more difficult each day when I read about people being exonerated by newly uncovered DNA evidence, and now we have a chemist working in Boston who may have sent hundreds, possibly thousands to jail by falsifying lab results.  Okay, I can live with the fact she lied about not having an advanced degree.  That's a firing offense, but not a big deal.  But mixing cocaine in with samples that tested negative in order to get convictions, that's just unspeakable.  Makes me wonder how many of the millions who are behind bars actually did what they were convicted of.  The presumption of innocence has been damaged, perhaps beyond repair.

Why do networks, cable channels and others who put programming into my room on my television feel this obsessive compulstion to push the volume way up when commercials come on?  It's like they think if they make it so loud that it hurts my ears, I'm going to be more likely to not change the channel or pay attention to their ads.  I'm here to tell them, that's not the way to get my attention.  Be smart, be clever, make me laugh.  Those all have a chance.  Volume does not.

Yesterday was tax class.  Our regular instructor was not there and we had a substitute.  She's been doing taxes off and on since the 1970s, but she just doesn't have what it takes to teach.  She's impatient, she snaps at people, and she doesn't know the material.  She said at least three things to the class that were just downright wrong and since they think she was accurate, their knowledge base has been corrupted.  Worse yet, she didn't even bother teaching the California portion of the course material and there was an important area where CA doesn't conform to the federal rules.  Since she's substitute teaching on Monday I may just skip the class altogether.

Things I'm pondering this morning...

Why is it you still see signs on printing businesses advertising "full-color" printing?  Color printing isn't new anymore.  It hasn't been new for decades.  Is someone going to choose a printer because that establishment can print in color?  If so, there's something wrong with this customer's decision making process.

Why is it motels advertise that they have "air conditioning"?  Are there any motels out there in this era that don't have air conditioning?  I can't imagine anyone renting a room that doesn't have it.  Except maybe in the skid row areas where a motel is just a roof and a bed and is still overpriced.

What ever happened to the guy who used to be in the commercials for Larry H. Parker, the guy who Larry had gotten "$2.1 million (over his lifetime)"?  There are still a slew of commercials for Parker on L.A. area television, but he no longer pimps his legal services by parading clients who made a big score in court on TV.  He just touts how many millions (or is it over a billion now) he's won for his clients, and that promise that he'll "fight for you".  Dude, people need lawyers, not boxers or MMA fighters.

Is DUI defense attorney Myles L. Berman obsessed with Tom Cruise or Val Kilmer, or both?  Why else does he refer to himself as a "Top Gun DUI Defense Attorney"?

What will it take to get Joe Francis to shut up about Steve Wynn?  He now owes the man $40 million for spouting shit about him and Wynn's gone to the judge to get a permanent restraining order against him.  Look Joe, pay the man, sell some new Girls Gone Wild DVDs and just move on.  Or are the girls no longer going wild for you?

Is there anyone in the world who still thinks alcohol doesn't lower one's level of inhibition, in the wake of the success of Girls Gone Wild?  Does anyone really believe that the girls who flash their boobs for t-shirts and other swag didn't imbibe at least a little before doing so?

What the hell is so hard about saying "you're welcome" when someone says "thank you"?  Where and when did "no problem" become the acceptable replacement for "you're welcome"?  I was eating at a restaurant yesterday and the server said "no problem" at least three times when I thanked her for doing things to make my experience there better.  Honey, if it were a problem, that'd be a different story.  You brought me another glass of water.  I thanked you.  If I'm not welcome to ask for more water, say so and I won't ask.  Of course, I'll lower the tip accordingly.  I actually tipped less because I'm sick and tired of being told things were no problem. 

How serious is your coffee addiction if you're willing to plunk down $11,111 for the latest, greatest coffee maker that comes with Wi-Fi and a QR reader to allow it to learn brewing recipies from bar codes?

How lucky was it that Anderson Cooper had his dog with him at a taping of his show when his scheduled co-host Taraji P. Henson suffered a wardrobe malfunction, to stand in as co-host until her dress' zipper was fixed?  Are designers putting cheap zippers in expensive dresses these days?  This is the 2nd time in a week a woman's zipper has "burst out", and both involved women who aren't stick figures (Sofia Vergara was 1st).

What is the appeal of watching golf on television?  Especially when it's nation against nation?  I won't argue that golf isn't a sport, because I consider bowling a sport so golf must be a sport.  But at least bowling involves constant shot-making and doesn't have men pacing back and forth, trying to figure out how a putt will "break".  Or bending over and putting markers down while waiting for someone else to pace back and forth to dissect an upcoming putt.  I just don't get the appeal of golf.  Minature golf maybe, because trying to hit the ball at just the right moment to get past the spinning windmill is a real challenge.

Do talk radio hosts think things through pre-show before they go on the air and rant?  John and Ken, were ranting yesterday about how horrible it is that 381 TSA agents have been caught and fired in the last ten years for theft.  Dudes, there are 60,000 TSA employees.  Let's assume that 25% don't work gates.  That's still 45,000.  Over ten years that comes to 450,000 man-years of employment.  So the rate of employees caught and fired for theft represents less than 1/10th of one percent of the employees.  In one year, 381 out of 45,000 is still less than one percent.  I bet the rate of dishonesty in most retail businesses is around the same level or higher.

I don't watch American Idol and I don't watch the X Factor.  One reason is that I think Simon Cowell is an arrogant ass.  But he did something on the X Factor that has me re-thinking.  Not about watching, but that he's not as big of an arrogant ass as I thought.  He struck a deal with a 540 lb man who sang well, but can't get out of his wheelchair just yet, where they will help him get healthy so he can stand on the stage on his next appearance when he will sing again for the judges.  That was a compassionate act.  Give the devil his due.

Before I go, let me tell a story of why the Boy Scout motto of "Be Prepared" is really good advice.  Years ago, when I was a reporter/anchor/writer/editor for an all-news radio station, I stopped by the station on my day off to get my paycheck.  The receptionist was so happy to see me, you'd have thought my walking into the studios was the second coming.  "Brian, you have to do an interview" she said.  "Uh, no I don't.  I'm on my day off."  "But the governor's office is on the phone and they have him ready for his scheduled interview with Linda and she's out on a story."  We didn't have cellphones back then.  So, I took the call from the governor's press secretary and agreed to do the interview.

It was on a healthcare proposal.  I wasn't prepared for it, and when the governor came on the line, I told him so.  He laughed, said he knew I was good at my job and that I should just ask him general questions and he'd lead me through the interview.  I knew nothing of his proposal, but I managed to not sound clueless thanks to his being so generous.  If I were going to interview someone today and knew about it in advance, I'd know to write down all my questions in advance, so as to not look and sound stupid.  Be prepared.  It's a good idea.

Did you hear that sound?  Listen closely.  There it is...

oh wait, there is goes again.  Recognize it?  You should.  It's the sound of ballots being placed into ballot boxes.  Not on November 6th, but today.  Yesterday.  Tomorrow.

Early voting began on September 6th in North Carolina with distribution of absentee ballots.  On Sep 17th, Kentucky and Indiana joined the list of states where absentee balloting was open.  Wisconsin, West Virginia, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Georgia, Arkansas, Idaho, Maryland, South Carolina, New Jersey, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Delaware, Virginia, Louisiana and Missouri were all doing absentee balloting before today, 9/27/2012.  Today, the states of Alabama, Wyoming, North Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois joined them.  Three of the above listed states are allowing early, in-person voting now, which ends on November 5th.

The numbers of voters who vote early or via absentee ballot has been growing by leaps and bounds since the 2000 election.  The trend augurs well for whichever party can do the best job of motivating their members to get out the vote and get those who can't or won't go to the polls on election day to cast absentee ballots.

Because I heard another sound today.  It was the sound of victory for President Barrack Obama.  Mitt Romney is going to lose on November 6th, barring some major gaffe by Obama between now and election day.  Not because his policies are worse or better than those of Obama.  Not because people want four more years of Obama.  Mitt Romney is going to lose because of one word.  "Message".

With all of the flaws of Mitt Romney's campaign and it's been going on in reality for over a decade now, there is no clear, coherent message in what Romney is trying to sell.  Ronald Reagan, who may have been more charismatic, may have been a smarter, better communicator when he ran for office the first time, didn't lack a clear, coherent message.  His message was simple:

1.  Taxes are too high.
2.  The Soviet Union is an evil empire and needs to be dealt with.
3.  We need to restore our military strength.

There was more to his message, but those were the three key points and he hammered them home.  And won a landslide victory.

Let's suppose for a moment that rather than his idiotic statements about 47% of the people thinking themselves entitled and being victims, Mitt Romney had said:

"My message is that I want to lower tax rates while limiting deductions, which if done right will raise revenues.  Because there is a segment of the population who already don't pay any federal income tax, that portion of my message isn't going to resonate with them.  So I have to find another message that will resonate with them, on an issue where what I want to do will make their lives better and it's up to me to find that message."

Any idiot could have thought that up, but apparently there weren't any idiots with a lick of common sense writing for the man.  Someone got him focused on the idea of that 47% and victimization and pretty soon the tasseled loafer was deep down the throat and he's been doing damage control ever since.

Message wins political campaigns.  Oh there are other factors, but the candidate with the clear, coherent message finds it much easier to reach that key pool of undecided voters and gets them to consider hearing his or her message and possibly garnering their support.

I don't think anyone can save Romney's campaign at this point.  People are already voting.  In droves.  For Obama.  It's too late to turn the tide.  Maybe in four years he'll think to ask me my opinion.  Naw, probably not.

I think my attitude toward some things is improving...

because I played trivia last night and things that would have normally upset me really didn't bother me.

I was 99% certain that Ian McKellen was the answer to the question, "who was the only actor ever nominated for an Academy Award for playing a wizard", but I was overruled.  I was fairly certain the last time the Washington D.C. area had post-season baseball, FDR was president, not JFK, but I was overruled. 

I didn't like the category on Guinness Beer, even though half of the answers were right there on the wall on a Guinness sign.  I really didn't like the round on the history of the U.S. in space, mostly because I should have and didn't know the answers.  I knew half of one, but again, was overruled.

So we did awful.  But it was fun.  That's all that matters.  I'd do it again, even knowing I would be with a team I didn't know and not doing well.  That must mean a shift in attitude.

I'm watching the final season of ER and the biggest, most pleasant surprise was that they finally put more than four episodes on each DVD.  That means the going speeds up. Strangely, I'm finding that the quality of the writing didn't really drop off all that much in the final three seasons, as I thought it would have.

So the VA doctors are changing my medications.  But one doctor wants me to stop taking some drugs prescribed by another doctor, but said I should stop not taking them if I start to feel poorly, and then wait until I see the other doctor to check and see if stopping them in the right things, because when X + Y = Z, then we should be doing A, rather than B.  I liked the doctor who I saw and what he said makes sense, but the protracted time between seeing the two doctors from different clinics is frustrating.  I won't see that other doctor until November.  Heck, I could get real sick between now and then if I stop those drugs and start to feel badly.  I'm doing it, but I'm not real happy about it.

Some moron who works as a non-sworn jailer for Orange County is in jail.  He had attached his cell phone to his shoe and was taking photos looking up the skirts of random women at a Target (that's where he was nabbed).  Really?  With all the porn and photos on the web, he was risking his freedom to snatch (pun intended) photos of women's undies from beneath their skirts?  What drives someone to do something that's so clearly dangerous.  If an outraged husband gets hold of you first, you may end up in the jail ward of a hospital for a long time, before you go to prison and register as a sex offender upon release.

If that's not weird enough, what are we to make of the 67 year old man who was nabbed in Orange County for dumping dirty adult diapers on a highway where cars and bicyclists were running over them and experiencing a "bio-hazard"?  He lives in a multi-million dollar home on the Newport Coast, and is apparently quite successful financiallly.  He couldn't hire a diaper disposal service?  He couldn't just bag them and leave them with his garbage? 

Sophie Tweed-Simmons is auditioning again. First it was on American Idol.  Now on the X Factor.  Just because your dad is Gene Simmons doesn't mean you're going to make it as a singer.  Jim Carrey's daughter Jane auditioned for American Idol and didn't go very far.  Of course, these days she's probably out shopping with her father's latest girlfriend, who is probably 2 or 3 years her junior.

Snoop Lion, or Snoop Dogg if you prefer, defends smoking with his 18 year old son.  I'm going to share something I've rarely shared with anyone.  The reason I never, ever tried pot was because I saw my late father and his then 2nd wife smoking it while we were on vacation in Wyoming and I was frightened by it's apparent affect on him.  He acted very strange in the hours after the two of them filled the living room of the cabin we were staying in with that smoke, as we played Monopoly.  So every time someone offered me a chance to try pot, I passed.

Heck, while I'm sharing, I'll share the story of why I don't drink alcohol at all anymore.  Next year will be 30 years since I was out late one night, tossing back more than a few and finally somehow driving myself home.  I don't remember driving home, but I woke up the next day in my bed with my undamaged car in the driveway.  That afternoon, while doing the Air Force security police thing, we were following a drunk driver off-base and couldn't stop him (there's a law called the Posse Comitatus Act that prohibits military personnel from enforcing law in the civilian jurisdiction except in a time of martial law).  We ended up peeling him from the wall of the building he ran his car into and impacted his face against after he flew through the windshield.  I stopped drinking (with two notable exceptions, dad's 50th birthday and my 2nd wedding) right then and there.

Apparently Samohi doesn't want its athletes exploited by anyone but Samohi.  The principal refused to allow one of the star football players, Sebastian LaRue to be honored on campus.  LaRue was selected to play in next year's Under Armour All-America game.  Like every other student, Under Armour and ESPN wanted to hold a ceremony to present his official game jersey to him on campus, but Samo's principal Laurel Fretz refused.  "...we cannot support a sporting good company coming to campus to take advantage of Sebastian in order to sell shirts" is an except from an email between Fretz and LaRue's mother.  Ms Fretz, are you not exploiting Mr. LaRue by selling tickets to his games, refreshments at those games and so on?  So it's alright when you do it, for the school's benefit, but not when someone outside the school does it?  Are you related somehow to Oliver North, who also believed the ends justified the means.  Change that nameplate on your desk to Ms Hypocrite.

I've been advised to start listing my twitter address within my blogs and asking those of you who read here to follow me on Twitter.  I don't know if it will do any good, I know most of the FB audience isn't on Twitter, but what the heck.  Please feel free to follow me, @cyclist1959 on Twitter. 

Tuesday thoughts

So chalk up Tuesday as a frustrating day...

I got the run-around from the city of Culver in trying to find out what the story is with the parking meters on Overland for this coming weekend is. It took a number of "I don't know, you should call so and so" calls going from one bureaucrat to another before I finally got someone to commit to something. The final verdict is I can park at the meters on Overland as long as I put money in them until 6 p.m. on Saturday. Sunday they allegedly aren't in operation. Now you'll be able to hear my scream of outrage if I were to get a parking ticket for being at a meter with no time on it, this coming Sunday. Stay tuned.

My leg feels a bit better today but I'm going to give it one more day of rest before attempting a short walk tomorrow. Not to mention having to go to the VA again today, something I didn't have to do yesterday if their left hand would talk to their right hand. I extol their virtues when they do well, so I don't feel bad about dissing them for making me go there on back to back days just for a blood test, when I had an appointment the next day where I could have just gone then.

When we played trivia last night, a question was asked.  "What movie won the 2004 Oscar for Best Animated film?"  It's an ambiguous question.  If you're talking about the 2003 Oscar awarded in 2004, it's "Finding Nemo".  If you're talking about the 2004 Oscar for that year, awarded in 2005, it's a different answer ("The Incredibles" I believe).  We got it wrong and we should have asked for clarification although this particular hostess wouldn't have given us any.  It's just as well.  She favors Brit-centric trivia and we struggle every time we go there to play because of that focus.  If it weren't for the insistence of some of my teammates to play there rather than our other Tuesday night location, I'd stop going there.  But I'm a team player.

I was reading an article in the style section of the L.A. Times not too long ago and I've been wondering about it ever since. A man was writing about the "style" of Ricki Lake and in the first paragraph he makes a point about how she's wearing a pair of designer high heels. A valid point in a style piece. But why did we need to know the specific model name of the shoes, and how did he know it anyway? Maybe he's just a fashion reporter and that name was right there in his mind from having written about them on a different day. I admit that I find female and male reporters who report stories that aren't "hard" news to handle appearance differently. The women go into much more detail about how females they are writing about look, clothing, shoes, etc. The men write more about the overall attractiveness of the women without going into details. Being a curious sort, I was taken a bit aback when I found out that one pair of the shoes Lake was wearing retail for over $1,000. I guess I shouldn't have been, when there's a female poker professional whose shoe collection was valued at $1 million and became a property issue in her divorce settlement.

If I didn't mention this before, the Centrist Party is going to propose the legalization of marijuana on a federal level. I say that having never tried marijuana. Unlike the case of Bill Clinton, I can honestly say I've never inhaled. I may have gotten a contact high one time, when I was riding in this guy's Mustang when he and the other two guys in the car were smoking like madmen and the interior of the car stank of that odor. It was so bad I finally just jumped out at a red light and took the bus home. But we will legalize, regulate and tax marijuana, which should also drive the price down.

I've come to another realization about crime and behavior. I was opposed to the legalization of prostitution for a long time. Now I'm in favor of making it legal, therefore safer, and something that can be taxed. It's a billion dollar industry where women are constantly victimized by pimps, johns and where disease can run rampant. But with the proper settings, precautions and regulation, it could be made much much safer. Clearly it's a state's issue and the states need to deal with it one at a time. But I believe all 50 states should undo their laws that make prostitution a crime. I'm sure Xaviera Hollander and Heidi Fleiss would concur. For those of you too young to know how Xaviera Hollander is, back in 1971 she wrote her autobiography "The Happy Hooker" about her life as a call girl.

I'm pondering the purchase of a one year post-warranty package for my laptop and thinking it's a bad deal. It will cost $100 or so for one year of coverage. I can replace my laptop for less than $400 or so. So why would I spend more than replacement cost over a 3 year period for warranty protection. What I need to do is find those flash drives I bought, and start backing up my documents on a regular basis. Anything else on this computer can be replaced. If I had a big investment in the laptop or it would cost a huge amount to replace, the warranty would be cost-effective. It isn't. Sorry, HP.

The ex-wife of former Dodgers owner, Jamie McCourt wants more money. She's filed a motion in court to toss out the settlement in her case, claiming that the value of the Dodgers was fraudulently understated, and even if the valuation was based on errors rather than fraud, the errors were so bad, she should get more money anyway. Raises an interesting question. We no longer worry over who did what in a divorce, it's just irreconcilable differences and split evenly. But in this case, the evidence is she's the one who bailed, having affairs outside the marriage. Should that be considered in issues involving property? I don't know. I'm just posing a question.

Aside from getting Wild Turkey to sponsor us...

the Centrist Party needs to have a way to deal with the problem of the budget deficit and the national debt.  So, I'm about to make....

A Modest Proposal

The Centrist Party proposes a Constitutional Amendment to pass a wealth tax.  This will be an emergency measure that will create the authority to tax wealth by removing the requirement that taxes be apportioned among the separate states, and will be an emergency measure that will expire upon the total repayment of the public debt.  Any time in the future during which the Congress spends money resulting in a new public debt, this Amendment will take effect, automatically triggering the wealth tax.

This Amendment also imposes a "balanced budget" approach to future budgets and government spending and any bill that would involve deficit spending will require a 60% majority in both House and Senate.

The wealth tax will be imposed as follows:

Net worth of $1 million and below - no tax
Net worth of $1,000,001 to $25,000,000 - a wealth tax of 2% per year will be imposed until the public debt is fully retired.
Net worth of $25,000,001 to $50,000,000 - a wealth tax of 3% per year will be imposed until the public debt is fully retired.
Net worth of $50,000,001 to $100,000,000 - a wealth tax of 4% per year will be imposed until the public debt is fully retired.
Net worth of $100,000,001 and above - a wealth tax of 5% per year will be imposed until the public debt is fully retired.

Note:  Net worth includes any and all cash, investments and property anywhere in the world, with the exception of IRAs, 401(k)s and any other tax-deferred retirement account.

The wealth tax must be paid in cash.  Stocks, bonds and other investments cannot be tendered to the government to avoid capital gains taxation. 

Funds generated from the wealth tax can be used only to pay down the public debt.  They cannot be used to fund any other goverment program. 

This is only a first step, other changes to spending and taxation have to be made, but it's a good first step.  Example:  Bill Gates currently has a net worth of $66 billion, according to Forbes Magazine.  If the wealth tax were in effect this year, he would pay $3.3 billion in tax.  So he'd still have $62.7 billion in wealth.  The 2010 Forbes 400 list members had a total net worth of $1.37 trillion dollars.  The wealth tax would generate only $65 billion, but bear in mind that the top 1% of the U.S. own 40% of the total wealth.  The total wealth estimate for 2010 was around $55 trillion.  5% of 40% of that would mean that just the top 1% would generate $1.1 trillion in wealth tax in one year, right around the amount of the current budget deficit.  Throw in the 5% of wealth taken from the rest of thoe who have a net worth of more than a million excluding their retirement accounts, and we would make significant headway in retiring the public debt.

I already plan not to walk this morning or tomorrow, because I have...

doctor's appointments at the VA to go to.  So I will get up early, eat early and get to my appointments.  I have to try to rush through the one on Wednesday because it means missing part of my class.

But first, before I deal with the mundane day to day stuff, I must deal with something I heard on talk radio last night that nearly had me popping a blood vessel.  The sage of South Central, Larry Elder finally crossed over and began spewing forth bloviations that were nothing but utter nonsense.  It seems that Jonathan Karl of ABC News was saying that with Mitt Romney paying 14.1% as an effective rate on his 2011 income, he was paying a lower rate than an auto mechanic earning $75,000 a year.  Elder denied this, saying that it is untrue.  So, was Elder being honest, or lying?

It depends.  Let's look at case #1, a single man under 65, who is an auto mechanic earning $75,000 per year.  In 2011, the first $9,500 of his income is not subject to taxation due to his standard deduction and personal exemption, so he pays tax on the remaining $65,500 in income.  He pays 10% tax on the first $8,500 he earns, 15% on the next $26,000 he earns, and 25% on the remaining $31,500.  That's $850 plus $3,900 plus $7,875. for a total of $11,625 in tax.  That's a 15.5% effective tax rate, or more than Romney.

Case #2 is a married couple both under 65, with no kids and he's the sole breadwinner.  The numbers change.  There is $11,600 in standard deduction and $7,400 in personal exemptions, so $19,000 is not taxed.  That leaves $56,000 in taxable income.  10% on the first $17,000, and 15% on the remaining 39,000 for a total of $1,700 + 5,750 for a sum total of $7,450 in tax.  That's a 9.9% effective tax rate or less than Romney.

So while he isn't lying, he isn't telling the truth either.  It's possible that the auto mechanic would pay more, or less than Romney, depending on his situation.  But he's mostly right, in that it's only in the instance of a single auto mechanic, who is both unmarried, and childless, who would have a higher rate of income tax.  Jonathan Karl's spin on the story is way off the mark.

But that wasn't the really egregious thing that Elder said.  Elder said that "capital gains income is taxed at a lower rate, because the money used to invest in the investment was taxed already and shouldn't be taxed again.

I have news for the Sage of South Central.  He's a moron if he thinks investment funds get taxed again when there are capital gains.  Let's look at a typical capital gain investment, shares of stock.  We'll pretend that the Sage bought 1,000 shares of the XYZ company at $100 per share in February of 2007.  He invested $100,000 in this stock, money he'd already paid tax on.  Now, here in 2012, he's going to sell it and he's done quite well.  Those shares he bought for $100 a share five years ago are now worth $600 a share and he is going to get $600,000 after paying the required commissions.  That's a profit of $500,000.  So here's how it works.  The $600,000 sales price is reduced by his original basis.  In effect that investment capital is handed back to him.  It isn't taxed at all.  It's called return of capital.  So Larry invested $100K and now he has his $100K back and nothing happened tax wise.  But then we have this $500,000 and it's new income derived from capital gains.  Because Congress is generous, it's taxed at only 15% in 2012 (the rates are going up to 20% in 2013). 

So let's review.  Larry's investment that had been taxed when he earned it was NOT double-taxed.  It was returned to him.  Larry's profit, which is new income, got taxed at a lower rate because Congress said it qualified for that lowered rate.  No income was double-taxed.

Thusly, the Sage of South Central needs to just shut up and stop saying that capital gains get taxed at a lower rate because the money invested was already taxed.  It's a f##**ng misnomoer.  It's grossly misleading.  It's a downright falsehood.  Yet it remains a conservative mantra, a talking point of the right that's totally inaccurate.  Whoever wrote that talking point out needs to find new work.

Not too long ago, the owners of this place and the one next door had workers here tearing up the street and it was a pain.  Now they've chosen this weekend, which happens to be the weekend the 405 will close for Carmageddon II, to close off our private street and parking lots, to "seal" the street and lot, and to re-stripe the spaces.  There are metered spots on Overland, but they aren't clearly posted as to the parking rules.  I don't mind plugging the meter every few hours during the hours they will operate on Saturday, as long as I can find out what the rules are.  Sundays is a non-meter day in almost every non-commercial, non-retail area in L.A. County and I'm hoping that's the case here as well.

There's a lawsuit in New York that all of us should pay attention to if we dine out, particularly in large groups.  A group of food servers at Yankee Stadium are suing their employer, a "hospitality" business formed by the Yankees, Cowboys and Goldman-Sachs, claiming that a 20% service charge that was added to the checks of patrons they served meals to during games was never given to them.  Would you not assume if you were in a big group eating out and the check said "20% service charge for groups larger than six, the charge goes to the server in lieu of the traditional tip?  I sure would.  Welll, from now on, I'm going to ask to make sure and if it doesn't go to the server, I will refuse to pay the additional charge.

I'm still laughing about what happened with Cowboys.com and the confusion that football fans are probably suffering anytime any of them uses it.  You try to go to your team's homepage and you find a gay dating site.  Nothing wrong with gay dating sites, straight dating sites, bi-sexual dating sites, dating sites for men who like women who are large and in charge, and so on.  But when you wanted football news about your team and instead you get a dating site, that's not good.  If you're straight and it's a gay dating site, that may be a bit more disconcerting.  For the homophobes that I suspect live en masse in Dallas, it will be downright unnerving.

Dodgers are 3 games out with 9 games left.  Not mathematically eliminated, but damn close.  Even if they won all 9 games, they'd need the team they're chasing to go 6 and 3 just to get a tie.

That the Gubinator is about to release a tell-all book makes me wonder about just how books have changed because of technology.  In the old days we could have bought a bunch of copies of his book and held a book burning to show our disgust at the notion.  But somehow, having everyone who bought an e-copy of the book do a mass deletion of the volume at the same time on the same date won't have the same visual or visceral effect.  So let's just let it sit on the shelves both in brick and mortar bookstores and on-line, and leave it unpurchased.  It isn't like TMZ.com and other entertainment outlets won't give us all the details anyway.  I hate the idea of putting money into Ahnold's pocket just to hear about his copious infidelities.

I wonder how a couple who are suing the producers of a game show for almost $600,000 will do in their case.  They're claiming that they were victims of a trick question.  They were given three choices and asked ""According to the data security firm IMPERVA, what is the most common computer password?"  The choices were:  a. password  b.  123456  c.  I love you and they chose B, based on having researched the issue themselves on the internet.  But the answer was A, based on surveys not done by IMPERVA, that involved a single hacking incident on one website.  The contestants say they were promised there were no trick questions.  I hope they win.

Later on today I'm going to think that I want my...

18 minutes of sleep.  I woke up at 5:42 a.m., when the plan was to wake up at 6:00 on the nose.  I even had made arrangements for one of the Residential Aides (they're PCAs rather than RAs now, but I can't remember what PCA stands for) to come by and wake me right at 6.  So I'm sitting here banging away on the keyboard when he unlocked the door to wake me.  My leg feels better, but no time for a walk this morning.  However if it feels this good tomorrow, I may be able to walk.

Speaking of can't remember, I saw more evidence of what a train wreck old age can be yesterday.  I was going out to brunch, but I went down to the dining room anyway because I get the Sunday edition of the L.A. Times and read it at the breakfast table every Sunday.  So I grabbed my paper and went down there to read it.  One of my neighbors, at the adjacent table, wants the leftovers that I'm done reading, so it's nicer on my part to read it there rather than taking it back to my room, even though I wasn't eating.

Now we have one resident who has to be told at every meal which table she sits at.  I think in her case it isn't just dementia, it's a case of her wanting to sit with certain other people if she can and since she's assigned to a table where none of them sit, she tries to join them anyway.  But it's an every meal thing.

There is a man here who was doing fine in remembering where he sits, but now that has changed, and he has to be led to the right table at every meal.  In fact, he got upset at what he thought was someone sitting in his seat when he wasn't led to his table and after a discussion yesterday, I think I understand more about how people suffering from Alzheimer's and/or dementia get so angry.

In those rare, lucid moments, when they come to grips with how they are living their lives, losing their grasp on reality and their faculties, that has to be extremely annoying and upsetting.  I shudder to think about what life would be like when my best feature, my brain starts to fail me.  I have made a mental note to be far more understanding and compassionate about those who suffer from dementia, because I may be among their ranks someday and hope others will treat me that way.

Last night I finally got to watch a movie I'd wanted to see, but hadn't been able to.  It was the remake of "The Karate Kid".  Now I'm a big fan of the original, think it was a brilliant film and that the casting of the last Noriyuki "Pat" Morita as Mr. Miyagi was outstanding.  The amazing Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune was the first choice for the role and he would have brought a different take, and what I feel would have been a less successful one to the part.  Morita brought Miyagi to life in all four of the Karate Kid films.

So this turned out to be a remake that's entertaining, although it clearly doesn't surpass the original.  It was fun and I plan to watch it again.

I have an idea for a new business opportunity.  Any of you who want to run with this feel free.  Someone should get a pass to be on the red carpet at the Emmys, the Oscars, whatever, and offer to sell adjectives and superlatives to the vast pool of commentators and reporters who opine on the attire of the guests entering the event.  We hear the same adjectives and superlatives over and over, and if someone were out there selling different ones to be used, the commentators would sound so much better.

Okay, time for a political rant.  I won't deny for a moment that there are Republicans out there who want to suppress voting and voters among certain groups through the issue of voter ID.  But the issue of the integrity of our system of voting deserves attention.  Voter fraud, where people vote under other names, cast votes for the dead and so on is a very miniscule issue and while elections that can turn on one vote need such issues to be eliminated, not at the expense of disenfranchising eligible voters.

But, there are larger issues.  Let's suppose for a moment that a state makes it free, and simplistic to get a driver's license or state ID card for people to vote.  They address the issue of such IDs not being issued at night and on weekends for the working poor to have time to get them, and they deal with the issue of elderly who have no access to a birth certificate, by accepting alternative proof of citizenship.

That's the issue, citizenship.  In CA, you don't have to prove you're a citizen to get a DL.  So is a DL actually viable as proof of identity in determining right to vote?  Remember, it's a right but it's only a right of citizens.  Resident aliens who are here legally don't have the right to vote.  Illegal aliens definitely don't have the right to vote.  But shoddy voter registration processes make it very easy for members of either of those groups of ineligible residents to register and vote.

So let's return integrity to the system.  When you vote at the polls, you do like they do in many other countries and dip your finger into ink, to prevent you from voting again.  It's like wearing the sticker that says I voted, but it serves a secondary purpose.  Let's require that all states maintain records for all new voter registrations involved the registrant providing proof of citizenship.  Once done, as long as they live in that state, moving and re-registering is just a change of registration and doesn't require providing proof of citizenship again.  But if you move to another state, you prove your right to vote again.

I have to prove who I am to board a plane.  I have to prove who I am to enter a Federal building.  I have to prove who I am to get a certified letter at the Post Office.  But I shouldn't have to prove who I am to cast a vote?  There's a disconnect with that logically.  Yes, there are people who have issues proving who they are.  Resolve those issues and restore integrity to the ballot process.

Who here hasn't heard of the Chicago ballot box stuffing and voting of the dead in prior elections?  The possibility that it could have happened is enough to cause us to question the integrity of the process by which we elect our national representatives.  Unlike the other "civilized" nations our process is compared to, we don't have a centralized, federal ballot and election process.  Each state has their own rules.  So the comparisons are useless.

Find a balance between not suppressing voting and restoring integrity to the process.  That's all I ask.

Pity poor IHeart radio.  They organized this awesome concert in Las Vegas to highlight and promote their free app that lets you listen to so much radio programming and all anyone is going to talk about the week after that concert is how Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong melted down on stage with a profanity-laden, guitar smashing tirade after he was told he had only one minute left to play.  Now he's in rehab and the video of his tirade is going viral.

One last little factoid today.  If you ever find yourself confronting an alligator who wants to make you into a handbag and shoes, rather than vice versa, remember this little tip.  The strength an alligator has in holding his giant jaws shut is enormous.  Once he (or she) clamps down on a body part, you aren't going to pry them off.  However, the amount of strength they possess in being able to force their own jaws open while closed is almost non-existant.  A reasonably strong adult can hold an alligator's jaws closed easily for an extended period, assuming they could handle the thrashing and shaking.  So before the gator opens its mouth, hold it shut.  I know, I know, not going to happen, and not practical.  But the fact that us weak humans could actually do that is interesting, to me anyway.

"Curiouser and curiouser" is how I believe the quote goes...

although I'm certainly not in Wonderland.  I'm referring to my leg.  Yesterday the pain was all knee-related.  Today the knee feels fine, but the upper leg muscle is all spasmed.  I'll be at the VA for something else on Tuesday and when I do, I'm going to arrange to get seen over this as soon as they can get me in.

I don't even know what appointment I have on Tuesday.  I just tried calling the automated information line and it confirms I have an appointment on Tuesday but it doesn't tell me where or for what.  So now I have to get there even earlier than normal to find out where to go in that maze.

It can be confusing.  Clinics that serve one specific purpose get used to for other clinics that have no permanent homes at times.  There will be paper signs hanging outside those clinics on the day they are home to some other purpose.  Clearly they can't do that will all of their facilities.  The chairs in the Podiatry clinic don't work well with other types of treatment, as an example.

Last night I actually did my homework for class in full for Monday's class session.  I have to admit it was the first time I've done so.  And it was weird.  I ended up calling the instructor because the answer they want us to get on the tax return we were doing is wrong.  Without going into too much detail, on the California return, the fictional taxpayer is actually entitled to a credit that we haven't covered in the course yet, so the answer doesn't include it.  It makes a difference on this return, which confused me.  So I called to ask if I was right in not including the credit.

Today is the brunch I tried to organize.  I think there will be four other people there if I'm lucky.  Not the turnout I had imagined.  I think I know now why my friend who had been organizing these gave up on it.  Too much work for too little return.  It will be great to see the people who show up though.

I actually woke up at 5 a.m. this morning.  I did go to bed early, but that's way early on a Sunday morning.  So I spent a lot of the morning writing.  Since I'd finished the three film reviews I needed to write on Saturday, there wasn't anything I had to write (not that I have to do those, they are a labor of love). 

With storms and neglect having destroyed a large portion of the collection, it's mind-boggling that there are still almost 800 pairs of shoes from the collection of Imelda Marcos still surviving in pristine condition.  If you wore a different pair of shoes every day of the year, it would take more than two years to wear every pair in her collection that still survives.  Based on estimates that range from 1,800 to over 3,000 of the original collection first seized when the assets of Imelda and the late Ferdinand Marcos were taken by the government, up that figure to 6 to 8 years.  Mind-boggling.

I was shocked to learn from a recent news story that Texas still permits students in school to be paddled.  The story came to light when a woman got upset that her daughter was spanked by a male vice-principal as a female watched.  I remember getting a swat with the paddle by one of the gym teachers at Lincoln Junior High School.  My transgression had been trying to sneak out of the locker room after P.E. without taking a shower.  I still remember the sign in the coach's office on what to do when receiving a swat.  The last line on the sign, after being told to bend over and grab ankles was to "smile".  I assure you I was not smiling.

What's amusing about that is that back then I wouldn't have thought twice about doing P.E., getting all sweaty and just dressing without showering.  But now I can't imagine that.  If I get sweaty at all, I immediately feel the need to shower.  I guess our feelings on such things change as we mature.  Maybe kids don't mind smelling bad.

Interesting how the news works.  I read many stories about the guy who jumped into the tiger exhibit at the zoo and was mauled.  The stories all mentioned that he'd broken an arm and a leg.  Now there are reports that he lost a leg in the incident.  The report doesn't make it an update, it's as though it had been reported that way from the beginning.

Meanwhile CNN is supposedly using the journal of the slain ambassador to Libya, against the wishes of his family.  The concerns voiced by the slain man in his writings about the security of the embassy and his possibly being on an al-Queda hit list were discussed on CNN as though they'd been sourced elsewhere.  Terrible, just terrible.

Okay, now I'm going to rant a little about a story in the news and this rant is political, although I'm not taking a position on either candidate in the presidential race.  But I'm sick and tired of hearing all this crap about how Romney "paid so little in income taxes".  Assuming that he did nothing illegal, what did he do that was any different than anything any of you do who don't file form 1040EZ?  You take advantage of every single provision in the income tax code that allows you to lower the amount you pay in income tax.  You take credit for your charitable contributions and the mortgage interest you pay if you itemize.  If you can, you contribute on a pre-tax basis to a retirement plan or an IRA.  If you're a teacher, you take advantage of the educator expense adjustment.  Mitt Romney did NOT write the income tax code as it exists today.  Congress did that.  If you're pissed off, or have an issue with the fact that someone earning millions of dollars can pay only 14% in federal income taxes, bitch and moan at Congress, not at the man who has done nothing wrong.

Worse yet, people are moaning and groaning because he chose not to claim all of the charitable contributions he could claim.  Now I've heard person after person bitch that if Warren Buffett feels that he should pay a higher rate than his secretary, he should just write a check.  That's all that Romney did here.  He voluntarily paid a little more in income tax.  What was his transgression?  Paying more money than he had to?  Some say that he did it to make sure that this year's return conformed to the statement that he had paid at least 13% in income taxes for the past ten years.  What's the issue?  This was a new return and he didn't know the final numbers for 2011 when he made that statement.

The amount of income tax a presidential candidate has paid in income taxes shouldn't be a major issue in the campaign.  If people are angry that he's proposing tax cuts, argue against those.  That's a valid argument.  If people are bothered that his proposals might raise taxes on the middle class, argue about that.  That's a valid argument.  How much he paid or didn't pay because of laws he had nothing to with the passage of is NOT a valid argument.

If I'm going to make judgments based solely on the information in tax returns, should I therefore conclude that the Obamas are less charitable people than the Romneys, because the Romneys gave a larger percentage of their income to charity?  I didn't think so.