Moving

    
      Moving is a major decision to make.  I've listed the pros and cons and this time the cons are heavier than the pros so the future will find me in the same location. For a month or more ago, I was unhappy with the conditions here so I have done my best to either accept them  gracefully or to effect changes in those conditions that are possible for me personally. 

     I like the people here but I dislike that none of them share any interests like mine and I consequently have no one to discuss ideas or events in the world or local news.  I compensate by posting blogs and comments on the internet.  If I moved, I would find mostly clones of the same people types as here. I might like or dislike them and I would have to learn again about this new group.  Why remake that effort?.

     I resented the caregiver here for moving me off the dining room table where I worked for over a year.  She moved me to my room and supplied a work table I wanted from day one here.  I now like it much better than before.  It's not as cool here but my wife reminded me I just spent nearly two years living outside in a tent without any air conditioning besides the wind and nature. Puts things in perspective for me.  I have two roommates that I no longer hear their snorts, snores and farts.  Neither of them talk to anyone or have visitors. They are ideal.

     So I decided like Hamlet to bear those ills I have rather than fly to others.  So here I will stay. On a positive note things keep happening for the good. That can't be beaten. 

Standard Opinion Polls

    I'm reading the presidential opinion polls this week. With such disparity, who can know what to believe or think.  Opinion polls each take a sample of potential voters.  By presentation of questions asked and groups queried, the results can be skewed however desired.  With 1 hundred million votes, any sample of less than a hundred thousand is guaranteed to be inaccurate.  The idea of a sample of 1200 people telling much of anything is ludicrous. I don't think extrapolation that extreme can tell much of anything.  It all boils down to what various analysts think and publish.

     The political parties involved need to get together on a polling revamp they both could benefit from. I propose a standard questionnaire of ten to twenty topics agreed on nationwide.  Each state will receive 2,000 copies.  There should be a lottery drawing in each state among registered voters.  Each filled out survey will be paid three dollars when turned it to a collection station.  Since each survey will be mailed to the address on the voter registration cards, potential voters only will participate this way.

     Each survey will be entered into a computer for an end results printout. This will be sent  to a national computer database for a final printout to be shared with everybody interested. One can't  fight a modern war without intelligence as to an enemies strength and weaknesses. Then one can make rational decisions as to how to proceed.  A political election is a war between parties. The same rules apply.

      Wouldn't all that be nice?

National Security ?

                                                               

 

DESTROY BEFORE OPENING

     Is there really a law that nominated presidential finalists have to be given a daily top secret national security and intelligence briefing?  I just cannot imagine such information given to Donald Trump.  Hillary I can see because of government service requiring top secret clearance.  Trump is not qualified to keep his mouth shut about anything beyond the combination of the lock on a government bicycle.

      I would think if it's necessary the secret service could find some reason to deny access to Donald with various excuses.  After all he isn't the brightest bulb on the tree. They could stall him for close to 10 days by telling him his clearance hasn't come yet due to government inefficiency which they are sure will be eliminated once he is in office. The thought he might really win will stroke his ego for weeks.  The mail truck was robbed by Mexicans. The guard dog ate the report. The secret service is being audited, The local fire chief burned it, etc.

      Surely government fantasies can beat Donald's six ways from Sunday even if he includes
Fox News to help him. The whole point of the exercise is to keep the information here instead of his sharing it with Putin or Netanyahu as Trump is quite likely to do.

Trumpism Syndrome

     I once worked at a state mental hospital. I'm not psychiatrist, although I've picked up enough buzz words to play one at any cocktail party.  I've been watching and listening to Mr. Trump for the last week or so and I think I've gotten enough data to make my diagnosis. Remember I'm not a doctor, I only play one on U-Tube. Donald is obviously suffering with late onset autism, very, late onset.  Along with ASD, autism spectrum disorder.

     I observe signs of Asperger's syndrome as well as Tourette's.  Inappropriate social interactions, tendency to discuss self rather than others and inability to understand social issues or nonliteral phrases.  Tourette's causes him to blurt out obscene observations like the sexual attraction of his own daughter.  All lumped together as borderline personality disorder. 

     Remember I'm not a psychiatrist, I just play one on the internet. I expect Mr. Trump is going to have a complete collapse under the stress of himself and have to be restrained before his trip to fantasy land dissolves into a Haldol haze. 
                                                                               

Riders and Amendments

                                                                  

     The United States Congress is in desperate need of a major overhaul.  I spent some time yesterday reading the constitution.  I did find that riders and or amendments to legislation are constitutional but a line item veto isn't.  I seems it would need a new amendment to accomplish that.

      As far as riders or amendments it seems to be left up to congress as to how to implement them.  In the House of Representatives riders are not permitted at all and amendments have to be germane to the substance of the original bill.  To me this implies that each branch of the congress have equal power to regulate riders and amendments.

     In the free-wheeling Senate, it appears any and everything is legitimate.  To my way of thinking, the rules should be the same as to amendments in the House. As for riders, only one should be permitted to retain the power of blocking legislation with one unacceptable to the opposition and requiring further negotiation.  That would make sense and streamline the legislative process.

     I'm certainly no lawyer but there has to be one somewhere smart enough to rewrite the line item veto to enable a president to use it when needed and still pass Supreme Court muster.  Such a lawyer could name his own price.

 

Red State - Blue State

                                                            

      I've lived in Louisiana, New York, New Jersey, Michigan, California and Texas where I was born and raised and where I live today. In my early years Texas was a deep blue. The winner of the Democratic primary was automatically the next governor.In later years Republicans took over and Texas became a center of lunacy and ignorance.

      People here don't think very much about the red or blue designation and like in other states, most people never care one way or the other. Most are far more interested in meeting the mortgage or rent payment.  Their car payment or repairs and putting food on the table. Buying school clothes and supplies for their children and most important to them; their very own cell phone and number. And the TV set everyone has to own, with or without cable.

     I found these basics in every state I lived. I also found the homeless and poor everywhere.  It should be unbelievable that such exist in the richest nation on earth. And yet it does.  Our politics seem more based on hate and greed than love.  Until that changes, all else will maintain it's status quo.

     Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet "thus conscience does make cowards of us all and makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others we know not."  This accounts for the apathy of the American people and only when they rise up en masse will anything change for the better.
Vamonos y votar.

Conspiracy

                                                          

 

     I finally realized something about the 2016 presidential race.  It's a huge hoax that the Clinton campaign along with the media is playing on American voters.  The same sham with different aims.

The big lie is that Donald Trump has a huge group of supporters behind him.  The big truth is that his

support is mythical and exists mainly in his deranged mind.

     It believe Hillary is really ahead by 25 or 30 points.  They are afraid, rightfully so, that such a huge lead would suppress voting.  Staying home because their votes are not needed for victory.  People are lazy like that.  Madison Avenue knows this and so does the media and the pollsters.  My only question is what was promised the ad men and the polls in return for their cooperation.  It had to be substantial.

     The media has a vested interest in going along with anything that suggests a close race else what would they write about on a daily basis.  Daily inane Trump quotes can't be recycled endlessly without losing audience.  Steve Allen on the old Tonight show said people would rather watch a dog fart the National Anthem over another political speech.

     Don't worry about a landslide.  The media would rather a mudslide burying people.   They will do everything in their power to cause just that.