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Various thoughts and classic rants:

     Radio isn't necessarily an interactive medium, but the Marconi Experiment has been.  Listeners have, on a few occasions, turned me on to music I might not have otherwise listened to, and I have been vastly influenced by people with whom I have shared Friday nights on WCVH.  This doesn't happen much anymore because I no longer have access to the music library at the radio station, and I have been working alone for a long time.  If you call in a request, in all probability, I won't play it, not because I don't want to, but because I can't get a copy of it in time, which bugs me almost as much as it bugs you.

June 16, 2013

If you're going to lie to me, at least be respectful enough to do a good job

April 26, 2013
    Here's the latest in the massive ripoff of the American people.  We've nearly all heard the study that says that an economy tanks if the debt exceeds 90% of the GDP.  Ours exceeds that by around 10%.  The study shows a clear change from a healthy economy to a failing economy at that 90% level. The GOP has been waving that study in our faces for years and using it as proof that we need to cut spending.  That conveniently ignores the fact that you can cut the deficit by raising revenues and that most economic experts say we need to cut spending AND raise revenues.  A graduate student obtained the data from the noted economists who released the study so he could duplicate the results.  He found so many errors in the data that he had a hard time believing it.  His professor had the same problem, but ultimately had to concede that the data was clearly in error.  The original study omitted data from crucial countries and data from some years from countries they otherwise included.  They used a highly questionable method to assess the data.  When the student and his professor included all the omitted data and corrected the errors, the effect found in the original study simply disappeared!  I'm using the term "errors" since the people who discovered the troubles used that term.  I, personally, believe that the original study was deliberately falsified.  The magnitude and nature of the "errors" look like the original authors decided what result they wanted, and cherry-picked the data and methods to deliver that result.  Among us common folk, that's called lying.  The original study was utter bullshit and the GOP has been feeding us that bullshit for years.
Another fact the same source from which I got this information had was that the austerity crowd insists that deficits cause the economy to tank, but the timelines they found indicate that the economy tanks BEFORE the deficits rise.  With greater need and reduced revenues during a recession, increased deficits are a no-brainer.  I am so fucking tired of being bullshitted by these people and I'm even more tired of the dimwitted assholes who believe all of it.  We are systematically being lied to.  Why aren't a lot more of you pissed at that?
    Another bit of GOP bullshit is that they only want to cut spending on safety net, environmental and domestic programs.  The actually want to INCREASE military spending when we spend more than the next 12 nations combined, many of which are friends.  They want to spend more money on weapons systems that even the Pentagon does not want.  They want to spend more on weapons that are almost useless to fight the sort of enemies we have today.  They want weapons in the 21st century that are designed to fight 20th century wars.  We could cut our military budget by 50% and still be spending more that the next 6 nations.  So while our roads and bridges crumble, many of our people are homeless and starving and far too many of us are jobless, they're preparing to invade the rest of the world.  If we cut our military spending by 80%, we would still be spending more than China and Russia combined.  This is just crazy.  With all that military spending, we still can't stop 2 loonies from detonating bombs in Boston, and nothing in that military spending is designed to stop such an act.  So just how does all this spending make us any safer?

Added May 27, 2009

No amount of lipstick can disguise a turd:  September 13, 2008

    I'm still puzzled as to what McBush was thinking when he chose Sarah Palin as his running mate.  You might still be able to judge Barack Obama as a bit light on experience. but Sarah has none, nationally or internationally, and Barack has an experienced veep to back him up.  That "National Guard" statement some GOP pundits have used is just absurd.  If governors had command of their National Guard, a lot fewer of them would be in Iraq.  You can't avoid the observation that McCain could easily not finish even one term, so a GOP vote this November is probably electing Palin president and she'd totally unequipped.  Read up on her beliefs.  Her grasp of reality is tenuous at best, and the statement that Iraq is "god's war" and that we should consider war with Russia if they continue to poke at neighbors is downright scary.  You're sweating terrorists and there's a candidate who'd go to war with the only viable nuclear opponent left on the planet.  Stupid just doesn't cover it.  I find it ironic that these same people are holding Ronald Reagan up as a standard, yet they are responsible for rekindling the cold war that Ronnie had a hand in ending.  Of course the Russians are saber rattling.  We led the way and have so overextended ourselves that there's nothing we can do short of a nuclear threat, and they can threaten right back and make it stick.  So just what do they expect to accomplish with Sarah?  Are they stupid enough to think Hillary supporters will flock to her just because she's a woman, despite the fact that her policies would be almost exactly the opposite of what Hillary would have done?  More important, do they think WE are stupid enough.  I think that the answer to that is: YES.  They played the stupid card in 2000 and 2004 and it worked.  I'd stick with what works.  What we have to do is learn to be less stupid, so this ploy doesn't work again.  The pig here is the Bush policies that McCain is trying to recycle and no amount of lipstick will help that.  You can't polish a turd.

    Did you see the report just released by a group of military experts giving our advances on homeland protection a "C"?  With an administration that has trumpeted security and curtailed our liberties in the name of that security, they're doing a really crappy job of delivering.  They talk the talk, but they're stumbling badly when they try to walk the walk.  On top of that, they're spending a trillion dollars stirring up the very loonies we need to protect ourselves from.  That's just idiocy.

Drill, drill, drill and other bullshit.:  Septermber 9, 2008

    I've spent a lot of time thinking about oil and offshore drilling.  McBush has been getting his rallys chanting DRILL, which plays really well to the yahoos, but is heaping bullshit if you really give it a bit of  thought.  Answer this:  what business is an oil company in?  Obvious answer is wrong!  All for-profit companies are in the business of making money.  Oil is just a means to that end, so follow the money trail.  Why do they have 68 million acres they could be drilling on, but are not even exploring them?  The answer is simple and it's the same with offshore.  If Washington ends the ban on offshore drilling and gives them the leases they want, their stock prices will rise. despite the fact that we don't actually KNOW that there is any oil out there.  They have to drill to confirm that the geologic indicators are being correctly interpreted.  Suppose they drill and find no oil?  Stock price spirals into the toilet, big stockholders, including all the company honchos, lose a bundle.  Suppose they find a huge deposit of oil, and rush into drilling?  They've already said they don't have the refining capacity to use it anyway, so maybe they sell it to China, but we don't get any, unless it washes ashore as a spill.  So maybe they're feeling particularly patriotic and build refining capacity while they drill. so 10 years from now when the oil actually flows in sufficient amounts to make any difference, they can make products out of it.  They've spent a boatload of money to drill the wells and spent another boatload to build refineries and the result is that oil prices drop.  Invest a pile to make less money.  Sounds really stupid when you say it that way, doesn't it?  So what they do when they have the leases is just sit on them, like the other 68 million acres, while the price of oil rises and their profits continue to rise.  You have certainly noticed that they oil companies are making record profits on reduced sales.  You can bet THEY'VE noticed!  Once they have the leases, the best thing they can do is nothing.  Anything else will reduce their profits.  They'll drill when profits start to fall and you can bet a gallon of gas for $4.00 will be as hard to find as a 30 cent gallon is today.  It's ALL BULLSHIT!!!  If nothing else, understand that the oil companies would be insane to increase refining capacity just when the world is passing peak oil and the need for that capacity is going to drop.  Yeah... spend the cash and build refineries that they will be closing in just a few years for lack of oil to refine.  

    If nothing else, it shows that manufacturing in this country has lost it clout.  This is hurting the auto industry.  They make the big bucks on big vehicles.  Subcompacts cost almost as much to build as hummers, but you can sell a hummer for a whole lot more, hence bigger profits.  Expensive oil is costing domestic automakers.  It's costing the imports, too, but a lot less since they've been living with expensive gas at home for a long time and are tooled up to meet the demand for thrifty vehicles.

    Every once in a while, something so shocks and appalls me that I can't even wait to get it on the air to rant about it.  Yesterday, in the quiet Maryland suburb of  Berwyn Heights, a police swat team committed what can only be called a home invasion, tied up the occupants, the local mayor and his family, and executed the family's two labrador retrievers.  Mayor Calvo stated:  "Sheriff Jackson said that deputies were engaged by our dogs. This is simply false. The deputies opened fire and executed our dogs the very second they broke down the front door. The flawless execution of Payton and Chase was premeditated without provocation, and it appears to have been done for sport," Calvo said.  So far, the police officials haven't even apologized.  One of the dogs was fleeing when it was shot.  This wouldn't even be close to sufficient.  Even resignations won't serve justice.  Those responsible should be prosecuted and those responsible for the sensless execution of the dogs should do time.  People like this have no business being police.  For justice to work, the police need to be trusted and these can't be.  I also read that this isn't the first time they broke into the wrong house and killed a pet.  I have to wonder how many people they've murdered, to cover up previous mistakes or to eliminate the need to collect enough evidence to convict.

    I suspect that even if the mayor can get the FBI involved, this egregious action will be justified and the victims written off.  One commentator wondered what would have happened if instead of the local mayor, the occupant had been a lone black man.  He'd be dead now, too.  With police power comes the responsibility to exercise that power carefully and with discretion.  This was an act of brutality that cannot and should not go unpunished.  Where the hell is PETA?  They seem to be running around picketing hunters in cases where failing to reduce the population will result in environmental damage and starvation while such cruelty goes unchallenged.  They should be picketing about this incident, demanding justice, or are there just some animals that they don't care about?

    And what precipitated this outrage?  It was a marijuana sting gone wrong due to the police not checking their facts before they went in with guns blazing.  While I believe we don't have a prayer of "winning" the "war on drugs", at least the police should use better tactics than the gangs they are allegedly after.

Before August 2008