Warm Weather has Consequences. Pay Up, Dave.

We don't get that much warm weather here. Maybe 4-5 week long stretches a year. The last few years it's been much less, maybe two little stretches a year. Usually in the Summer it's cool and overcast in the morning, burning off by the early afternoon. Maybe the temperature will peak in the low middle 70s. then overnight it cools down into the low middle 60s. It's not really the Sunny California resort weather that everybody imagines but it suits me. I really like the fact that the weather is not that much different, year round. It gets at least up into the mid 60s most days, year round. It's been years since we had a freeze.

We've been having a warm spell the last week. Up to about 80, every early afternoon for an hour or so. The median temperature is enough higher that my 25 year old GE refrigerator is failing to keep the bacteria at bay. Bummer.

Everybody has their favorite place to get major household appliances. I tend to like to get high end ones. My theory is that they tend to work better and last longer. It may not be true but that's what I think. I moved into this house in 1987 and all the appliances pretty much date from that time, except for the stove, which is original, so 35 years old. I need to replace that next, still works good but it has a few ignition problems. Anyway, it was down to the Sears scratch and dent warehouse today. Got a Kenmore side by side refrigerator, with through the door ice and chill water. I'll probably regret that but that's what it came with. If it quits working I'll just detach the guts and go with ice trays. What the Hell. It's black. I don't care for black appliances but it is what it is. Looked like the best deal in the place today. What the hell. It's got a couple of dents and a big scratch on the side. Shipping damage, not a repo. It's their premium line. Looks like an Asian model, probably made by LG. Has one year parts and labor and a valid extended warranty offer. Didn't buy that. It was almost $500 and the refrigerator only cost me $620, down from a retail of $1500. Didn't seem worth it. Edison will come and pick up the old one and recycle it free and give me a $100 rebate for buying a new, energy efficient refrigerator. Thank you, GE.

Hope this one lasts 25 years. Then they can bury me in it.

No Blogging

I haven't been blogging. I especially haven't been blogging about Presidential politics. Here's why.

Likely Republican primary voters, in most States, Red and Blue, skew heavily to Tea Party supporters. They will likely prevail in electing a pro Tea Party primary candidate to stand in the general election of 2012 against Barack Obama. It doesn't really matter which one it will be, even though some are markedly more crazed than others. A Tea Party candidate, any Tea Party candidate, stands no chance of winning a nation wide general election for anything, including the Presidency.

At this point, it really makes no difference how popular or unpopular Obama may be with his base or anybody else. Unless the Republicans elect a centrist, compromise candidate for the general election, they stand absolutely no chance of winning. There's no way that you can massage the numbers to make it work.

The only person at all, that I can think of off he top of my head that the Republicans could put up that might both have a chance at garnering enough primary support and then winning a general election for President is David Petreaus. I haven't heard that he's interested in running, have you?

Suck it up

I have two vacuum cleaners in my house. One for upstairs and one down. They're old, from second hand stores. They were real cheap and worked great when I got them, many years ago. One is a Eureka, probably 70s vintage, the other is a Filter Queen, undoubtedly older than I am. Both are canister types.

They were still working but with decreasing efficiency for a couple years. Didn't bother me too much. I'm just not that fastidious of a housekeeper but I finally realized something must be done.

They both continued to have really good sucking function, as tested by sticking my hand over the intake hole. The carpet sweeper attachments, with the little whirling brushes also seemed to still be working but I hypothesized that the rubber belts that power the brushes from the little electric motors in them were old, cracked and probably too stretched out to work efficiently.

I went to my neighborhood appliance repair store, they do vacuum cleaners, sewing machines and shit like that and got a couple of new belts. Cost me $4 each. They're probably worth about a quarter but what the Hell. Took about 30 seconds to replace. Man, they both pick up that cat hair like nobodies business.

They can bury me with those two vacuums, a few sturdy, copper bottomed cooking pots, my good kitchen knives, pruning shears and the old clothes I've been wearing now for thirty years, inside my old VW Bug. Like a Viking funeral. I'll need all that shit in the after life.

Do yourself a favor. Replace the belts in your carpet sweepers. You'll be happy as a pig in shit, like your old friend Dave.

I'm pathetic. It takes so little to make me happy.

Conservative Drift

Democrats see Obama as a centrist. On defense issues, they even see him as fairly right wing. Republicans see Obama as very far to the left.

Republicans do not believe that they need to move very far into the center to beat Obama. They saw McCain as too centrist in 2008. They see Romney as too centrist for 2012. None the less, Romney is beginning to look like the best compromise Republican candidate for the general election next year.

If the Republicans go with Romney in 2012 and he is beaten by Obama, there will be no compromise Republican Presidential candidate in 2016. The Republican Presidential candidate in 2016 will be an anti intellectual, fundamentalist Christian, anti abortion, anti immigrant, anti Muslim, strongly nationalistic militarist, free market capitalist who demands both decreased taxes and a balanced budget.

Who knows. That might win the Presidency for them.

I Coulda' been a Contenda'

In what is becoming a routine occurrence among young and not so young lions and lionesses of the GOP, Mitch Daniels stated for the benefit of the Sunday news shows today that he chooses not to run for President but that if he had he would have easily gained the Republican national nomination and gone on to beat Obama in 2012.

The Republicans would seem to have a bunch of potential candidates that can beat Obama but none of them wants to run. Does this mean that they don't want to be President? Does it mean that they would just as soon let Obama stay President for another term? Is somebody lying to them about their chances of being elected. Are they all just retards? These are all important questions that the Republican Party must ask and answer for themselves before they actually decide who is going to represent the party in the Presidential elections of 2012.

Just to keep the record straight, every Republican so far, that I thought might be a successful Presidential candidate has declined to run. They all agreed with me that they could have won though, so I'm feelin' pretty cocky.

A Devotional Moment For The Sabbath Day

Bin Laden Dead

I understand that Osama bi Laden has been killed by a Navy Seal team in a daring helicopter raid on an isolated house outside Islamabad.

Great.

Can we go home now?

Black Dirt, Ignorant Pig Fuckers

How do you feel about Barack Obama releasing his birth certificate today?

Let me tell you how I feel.

It was a big mistake.

The Birther movement was never about believing that Barry O wasn't born in this country. The people that whipped it up don't even believe it. Donald Trump certainly never believed it, nor could he care less. All the Donald cares about is who he can next swindle their life savings out of and the next underage girl he can defile. Birtherism is simply a mechanism by which Republican hacks can whip the dimwits into a frenzy of xenophobic fear and hatred.

Only a small group of people ever believed Obama was not born in this country, none of whom voted for him in the first place and none of whom would ever vote for him again.

Releasing his birth certificate can do nothing to change the way people think of him, it only gives credence to the birthers accusations by providing a serious response, thereby legitimizing their claims. It will not assuage their lying charges or silence them in any way. The charges are not and never have been worthy of response.

Letting the birth certificate question continue unanswered on the other hand, would have given daily proof to the rest of us, that they are nothing but black dirt, ignorant pig fuckers and that is a good and true thing.

All Barry has done today has let Republican dirty tricksters know they are getting to him and spur them on to even more extreme and ridiculous charges. See if I'm not right.

Could he be "The One"

All of a sudden, Paul Ryan is everywhere. It looks like he is going to be the Republican spokes model in their continuing fight with the Democrats over the budget, which will have deep deficits, no matter what either side does or who gets their way. He's an attractive figure for the Republicans. No divorces. No scandalous baggage. Not only is he young but he looks young. Hopefully he's SoCon enough to satisfy the Republican base but not so much that he scares away independents.

That's a good thing for the Republicans and maybe for Paul. He's going to be getting a huge amount of free publicity and ample opportunity to blame Barry O for whatever happens. They need a guy just like him right now, unless they want to go with one of the sickly current crop of contenders in 2012. He seems to be shaping up as a Republican Howard Dean. What do you think?

He could easily run for President. It's possible that he could win the Republican nomination, simply because there won't be another viable candidate. Who knows, he might even win the general election. He'd be a sure fire big donation getter.

The problem is, what would he do once he gets elected President? So far, that's been Barry's biggest problem. He's doing OK and in the current environment, that's all anybody can hope for but it may not be enough. The people want a guy who's bullet proof, walks on water and can bring back the Golden Age. It's just my opinion but I don't think that's likely to happen. Do you?

Adulterating Salsa

Recently when making any kind of fresh salsa or pico de gallo, I have been adding green papaya. I have long been looking for a good additive to fresh Mexican style hot sauces. Often they are just too much and need something to mellow them out and tone them down a little. A lot of cooks use tomatillo for this purpose but I don't like tomatillo. I've tried a lot of different stuff, like celery, cucumber, jicama, etc., with varying success. Often it's good but never great. You can either shred it fine or pulverize it in a food processor.

Green papaya is great. It absorbs and combines all the flavors from the other ingredients, lightens it up, and creates a more subtle flavor. It's great right after it's made but even better after several hours to a full day of melding.

I can get green papaya here in the Asian markets all the time. It grows just fine in SoCal and Mexico. It's cheap. I got on to green papaya because it is the basis of many of my favorite, spicy, South East Asian salads that feature salty, fermented crustacean products, lime juice and fiery hot chiles, requiring a lot of buffering.

How 2012 Will Work

The 2012 elections are not going to be about what the majority of the people want.  The majority of the people have no idea what they want. It's questionable that they ever do.

There are a lot more Democrats than Republicans. That's been true for awhile. It's going to be increasingly true in the future unless something changes drastically. Few Democrats will likely cross over vote, that's even more true of Republicans. There are a lot of independents though, maybe more than ever before.  Unless there are attractive third party or independent candidates, probably more than half of independent voters will align with Republicans than Democrats.

Come election time 2012, I bet I will be able to predict the outcomes of a lot of the races pretty well. It's going to depend on who's mad and how mad. Mad people are more likely to vote.  If only the Republicans are really mad, the races will be close but they will lose. If only the Democrats are mad, they will win decisively. If everybody is mad, it will be a very close race but I believe the Democrats will retain the Presidency and make modest gains otherwise. Republicans have to stay mad, they have to convince independents to get mad and they can't allow Democrats to be mad on the first Tuesday in November. That's the only way they can win. It may not be that hard, they're half way there already.

The Republicans have been whipping their troops into a frenzy since the medrassa mud boy won the Presidency in 2008. They do not have time to take a breather before 2012. They're going to have to keep the troops riled and get independents foaming as well. Their biggest problem isn't even that. In order to get enough independent votes, they are going to have to field a slate of candidates, virtually anywhere they want to win, who are not socially conservative.  Social conservatives make up no more than 30% of the total vote, virtually all registered Republicans. Many independent voters have sympathy for fiscally conservative ideals, even some Democrats do but they all think the Socons are wacky, making them unsuitable to govern, no matter what their stand on other issues. The Socons, who now make up a majority of Republican primary voters may well insist on candidates drawn from their number. If it was hard core liberals in charge on the Democratic side, they would insist on the same thing.

There are three issues that nobody should fuck with if they want to get elected in 2012, abortion, the poor and illegal immigrants. My feeling is that both sides would like to throw these issues at each other as they have in the past but there is no way that they can do it to advantage. They are going to agree that abortions are fine but won't be paid for by the government. The poor and illegal immigrants don't vote so they're going to get thrown under the bus.

The wars aren't going to be an issue either. Both sides have so much blood on their hands that they're just going to pretend they don't exist.

Besides fiscal austerity, which is, always has been and always will be, all hand job and no cunt by both sides, it's going to be interesting to see what big issues will shake out. Don't ask me, I got no idea. I think they may still be looking hard for that long form birth certificate right up until election eve, 2012. What do you think, Bub.

A Woman Republican President?

There's going to be a woman President soon. The only questions involved in it are who it will be and what side will she be on.

The Republicans are well positioned to accomplish it. The Democrats, not so much.

On the Democratic side, the only woman on the track is Hilary Clinton. She has good name recognition but a lot of it and especially on the conservative side of the voter spectrum is bad. Also, no matter how you dress up her many skills and accomplishments, a strong case can be made that everything she's gotten is because of the length of her popular husband's coat tails.

The Republicans have a lot of women on deck. Even though many of them have turned out to be weak sisters, it's clear Republicans are willing to vote, in large numbers, for women.

There are two Republican women I think have an especially good chance of capturing the Presidency, Governor Nikki Haley of South Carolina and ex Senator Kay Baley Hutchison, of Texas. Both are capable of mounting a credible campaign.

Kay Baley is an old war horse. She knows all the movers and shakers inside the beltway. She would be acceptable to the old boys that run the party. She's no longer a Senator and would be free to devote the next two years to the run.

Nikki Haley is the newly elected Governor of South Carolina. She's young, attractive and intelligent. She's a woman of color, coming out of the immigrant, minority community and yet models strong conservative values, socially and fiscally.

The smart thing to do would be to get both of them going now, with well funded and professionally staffed campaigns and let them push all of the other contenders down for the count, then let them fight it out between themselves. Whoever comes out on top should get the Presidential slot on the Republican ticket and the other given the Vice Presidential nod at the convention in 2012. That way both of those on the ticket would have had a lot of exposure and campaign experience. One would be from the deep South and the other from the West, strongholds of Republicanism. Both would be acceptable to conservatives in the Midwest.

It would be better if Governor Haley became the Presidential candidate, as the dynamic, fresh face of the party and Kay Baley was the elder stateswoman by her side, kind of a Bush/Cheney arrangement but either way would work.

I don't think they'll do it. I still think the Republicans will field a Southerner for President and a Westerner for Vice President, both men. They are going to miss a good opportunity.

Fuck Them

I haven't said that much about Fukushima Daichi. I have two things to say.

First, if you read between the lines, it's very likely that the US Navy 7th Fleet, within hours after the disaster, offered to back up a super carrier to the plant, power up the pumps and give the technicians time to safely cool down the reactors into a non critical state. This would have allowed the situation to be dealt with, even though it was still serious, in a more organized manner and over a longer period of time. 

The only reason I can think of that the Japanese refused this help is because of their long standing antipathy to American nuclear ships harboring in their ports and perhaps a misguided desire to be seen as able to deal with the disaster on their own and independent of American help. If any part of this scenario is true, then fuck them, they endangered the whole World for no reason.

The second thing is that nuclear power generation was originally entered into, by the major nations, in order to produce the plutonium necessary to make atomic weapons. That's all they cared about. They never bothered to do the work or incur the expense to make nuclear power safe. It could have been done.  Fuck them.

And It's Good For You

You gotta love this. Ann Coulter, on her blog, tells us how large doses of radiation, like you might get if a nuclear reactor core somewhere in your neighborhood melted down, promotes better health for those in the vicinity.

I hope Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann got this message. This is exactly the kind of good, patriotic news they like to get out to their people.

Democracy Doesn't Work

Citizens of democracies initially are happy just not to be oppressed and taken advantage of. Eventually they learn that they can vote themselves whatever benefits that they want. Free education, liberal social welfare benefits, health care, whatever they want. Cool. Then the Governments go broke. Eventually a dictatorship takes over and cracks down. Society is back in balance and spending is under control but so are the people. They are no longer free. It doesn't matter. The majority welcome it.

America is getting close to hat point. Democracy isn't a functional form of government. It never was. It never will be.

In the end, people crave order and function over freedom. I'm not being snotty about this. I 'm just like everyone else. We're all Nazis at heart, including me.

It's still a free country today. Go out and enjoy yourself while you can. It won't last. I guarantee it.

Tuna Melt

Wingnuts want to build a lot more nuclear reactors. I got no problem with that. They need to be shielded and able to shut down in such a manner that they can withstand at least 9 Richter scale earthquakes and tsunamis like happened in Japan last week.

The San Onofre plant is about 20 miles from my house. It's already operated ten years past its designed shutdown date. The reason is because there is no way they can shut it down and stabilize the site in a safe manner. I'm pretty sure that any kind of major seismic event in the area, much less a monster tidal wave would totally fuck up a big chunk of the SoCal coast, radioactivity wise. I doubt it would do the Pacific Ocean that much good either.

What Do You Replace Planned Parenthood With?

The wingnuts want to defund Planned Parenthood. For many years, I volunteered at a local free Clinic that was partnered with Planned Parenthood. 99% of what they did was screenings and treatment for cervical cancer and STDs, contraception and prenatal care and nutrition. It was also set up to provide indigent medical care to those that fell through the cracks and had no other general health care options.

Yeah, they provided abortion referrals. The abortions were through an outpatient clinic, not free but very affordably priced. So what?

I like Planned Parenthood.

Oil Boom

The price of oil is up, way up, on fears about political instability in the Middle East. Buy oil if you want. It may go up more. Probably will.

In reality, I haven't heard that in fact, the social and political unrest in the Arab World has affected oil production at all. In fact, big oil producers are selling existing excess inventory into the steepening price curve.

Around here, gasoline is getting close to $4 a gallon. I assume that similar price increases are taking place around the World. This is going, at least in the short and medium term, to depress petroleum consumption. There is already a World wide glut of oil stocks left over from the last crude oil price surge fueled by rampant speculation that ended precipitously 2 years ago.

In the long term, the price of oil has nowhere to go but up. This current round of price increases will end badly though and pretty soon, I think. Might be time for that last big road trip in the motor home soon.

Travels With Charley

A lot of people are saying a lot of things about Charley Sheen and his notorious lifestyle.

I never really had the kind of resources to devote to the pursuit as Charley but I like to think I  did my fair share.

I think I can tell you exactly how he feels. Sometimes when I would come to, pull myself together and revue recent events, sure, I was a little humiliated by thoughts of the things I had done. I felt bad at the way I had treated family, friends and lovers. It never occurred to me that I was scraping bottom and needed to change my ways.

I always figured I needed a little more practice, get in a little bit deeper, extend my control and at some point I would become perfectly acclimated to the life. I would reach a nirvana of depravity, with no more mornings after.

I only ever quit when I got so old and used up that the turnaround time was eating up most of my life and the turnaround time was no fun at all. If Charley ever reforms, it'll be for the same reasons. Charley may never reform. He may just die. Nirvana. I envy him.

Freedom

I don't know very much about Egypt. I know that the Camp David accords were bullshit. Egypt and Israel agreed to leave each other alone in return for weapons Israel needed to subdue its other neighbors and the Egyptian military its own population.

Egypt has a large population, most of whom are desperately poor. They have no education. They have no skills. Many Egyptians are made slaves in payment of their parent's debt. The idea that Egypt will ever be a democracy is ridiculous.

Perhaps they will achieve some basic freedoms of movement and expression. Maybe a few  hundred more calories a day in their diets. Every little bit helps.

The only real freedom longed for by most Egyptians with any real ambition is the freedom to escape the confines of Egypt, to the West, where the possibility of a real life awaits.