If You Know What You Want, You are lucky

Picturing exactly how you want your life to be is not really as easy as it sounds.  Some people say they know but on closer scrutiny, they don't.  Really lucky people don't have to consciously picture anything because they are living it, and realize that they are.   

The feeling that real life is over there flowing along,  and someday maybe you too will be immersed in it haunts some of us.  The truth is that whatever is going on, it is real life.  Maybe many of us have some shade of autism in our makeup which makes it difficult or impossible to meaningfully understand the ways of civilization and the rhetoric used to define it. 

Phrases like "you just have to go out there and do it" can be very vague and confusing.  Go out where and do what?   Out there is a tough one.   I guess it means outside but I'm not clear on where.  How do you know when you are out there, and if you get out there, then what?   Maybe when you mange to do whatever living your life means, it will be evident.  I don't know. 

I've been in that flow a couple of times and it felt very strange.  Not bad, just different.  I ended up back on the bank every time through lack of a mystery quality or ingredient.  Maybe it was that picture of the ideal; what I want, how I think life should be,  and what I ought to be doing.

That last bit is another snafu; what I ought to do.  It is usually right in front of me, but jumping into the obvious action is not natural to me.  It takes fighting some part inside that would rather float on some imaginary cloud dreaming whatever dreams float through.   Not a good recipe for lasting relationships or putting food on the table.

If one is fortunate, there will be people around who insist on pulling him down to earth, or at least not let him fly away so far that he gets lost entirely.  That's a curious phenomenon when it happens.  Maybe the key to arriving in such circumstances is having a bit of purity of heart or at least a desire for a pure heart.  I can't think of any other reason that sort of good fortune would be in place.   

I know I've not always had the same simplicity of heart and degree of empathy that I have now.  Some of the misguided emotion, disregard for feelings, and general wrong conduct in days gone by troubles me at times.  I assumed that what I knew was right was wrong, and that things worked in some dark mysterious way that made no sense.  If you listen to the wrong things you think that way.   

What I see around me may make no sense and there may be a whole slew of false premises loudly broadcast which rationalize it, but that doesn't make a thing right or true.  It is better to feel alone and not human than to defer to that which is at odds with the inner compass just because that is what "everyone else" does or thinks.

Is The Economy a Separate Entity From Normal Life, like the weather?

Never mind.  I deleted the spiel.   Life is life and trying to control the interactions of humans or grab a share of their trades, just because, leads to problems and imbalance.  Simple as that.

Things will always be curbed and influenced.  Perhaps it is a matter of degree which is the crucial point.  I'm sure there is a mathematical way to find the point at which control and interference multiply problems rather than contains their proliferation.  Sort of an offshoot of the point of diminishing returns concept.

How to discern between good and bad economy

That holds in many areas of life.   A case was brought to my attention which demonstrated to me how people seek instability and insecurity.   These people aren't hurting for money, don't worry how next month's rent will get paid, so they manage to create other issues which are equally troubling.  At least from my point of view.  I'd rather live in a campsite than endure the confusing powerplays and tangled web that they are weaving. 

That caused me to wonder if people find difficulty letting go of unpleasant drama in their lives.  They may overcome the financial or job worries only to replace them with other personal stress.   It took me awhile to get used to the reduced drama and stress the ballistictour yielded.  I consciously wanted to free myself of the stuff but it felt weird at first to realize I had accomplished just that.  It takes effort to maintain a lack of drama, but it does become the new habit.  

So now, when I get rich, I plan to take pains not to tangle myself up in some way that offsets the relief that will bring.  Rich, of course, is a relative term.  Rich for me is not all that much, but why put a limit on it?

I think the point is that reducing drama and painful angst is a choice and a hard earned skill.  That is one striking thing about my best friends out here; they are very drama free and don't suffer dramatists gladly.  I have not always been so aware of these things.    Some people think when I am joking and feigning pretend drama that I am serious.   I have to watch that.  If they believe, then I might buy my own act if I'm not careful.

Back to THE ECONOMY.   If my own economy is OK, then the economy is fine.  If I have a roof overhead, can keep my beloved Subaru in fuel and oil, and put food on the table (in that order) then the economy is minimally OK.  The rest is manipulation by elitists and misguided hoodoos.  Hopefully we can curb their efforts enough through non support and dirty looks to keep the world of opportunity alive, if not as free and open as once it was.

----They advertise studies on the radio and sometimes they sound so good I want to participate even though I don't have the problem they are addressing.  I guess they wouldn't be fooled.  

If CA DMV IS Example, Run Away From Gov Healthcare Control

No doubt about it, the governmental partnership with those who own politicians leads to some troubling results in the marketplace.  

However, the usual reaction of "we need more regulation!!" is a big trap.  That results in policies which further favor very specialized, powerful interests, at the expense of private citizens.  It often results in more of what we used to associate with third world underdeveloped countries; long lines, maddening red tape and paperwork, and the feeling that one must walk on eggshells and be careful not to annoy bureaucrats if one is to get what is his logical right to begin with.

CA DMV is an outfit which is inefficient, incompetent, and largely lacking in communication skills, or methods.   

Recently, I registered a car, and obtained a driver's license.  Unlike many states, you don't get a temporary plate, or the real thing on the spot.  If you buy from a dealer you have to ride around with the dealer's advertising plate with temp registration taped in the corner of the windshield until the real plate arrives in the mail.   That takes a couple of month's.  So, like it or not you ride with Joe's Hooplah Auto Emporium!! plates until the other arrives.  

Driver's licenses work in a similar fashion.  Rather than just printing it out on the spot after you spend a day in the DMV filling out forms, supply proper credentials, etc., they give you a slip of paper and you wait for the mail.  

Their much touted web site has forms for changing name, address and other things, but no provision for correcting the problem of a clerk entering your birth date incorrectly.  For this you have to call the 800 number five times hoping the automated system doesn't hang up before you get a person on the line.  Once you get the person, you are told to go to a DMV office and wait in line with proper credentials.  Of course the battery of automated messages include the days they are not open due to "the current financial crisis".  

Since they have my name right on the title, I've opted to put off correcting the misspelled middle name on the registration.  That could be more of a can of worms than it is worth.  

These are not the people I want deciding what health concerns and drugs are approved or denied.  Actually these aren't people I want to have the slightest power over my life.  

If current regulations against fraud, theft, and violating true rights of others were enforced, rather than clouded by feel good legislation with bills named to pique emotions, the problems would be fewer and more adequately addressed.   

What people ignore is the fact that specific, complicated regulations are designed to serve those who keep professional politicians afloat while actually providing the few a path around the nominal purpose of such legislation.   I've seen specific cases first hand, and you can find this general practice without too much effort.  Very often the high profile firms who cry the loudest are the most firmly in bed with the legislators and regulations they decry.  It is an old trick and it has worked well for a long time. 

The more people are willing to allow these additional regulatory measures, thinking they are being administered by benevolent "leaders", the more they are supporting their own rape.  It is a shame but it is the way it is.   I'm shocked at how many intellectuals are sucked in.  Of course many of them depend on grants so they are basically in the same bed as the corporations they claim are evil.   It is an orgy including politicians, companies seeking government enforced monopoly, and the smarmy sycophants who find status in separation from independent entrepreneurs, and who scrap like crazy for the sustenance provided by their orgy bedfellows. 

Anyone who thinks these attempts to further screw with the healthcare world are not backed by the "evil" companies which are held up as the demons is sadly naive and mistaken.   Congress is not going to hold themselves to the same system they want to foist on us.  Why is it that the main people vehemently pushing this are not average Americans, or the working poor?

These people are rich, powerful and use public money for transportation, pensions, salary and more, and they basically write their own ticket.  It is nuts.   The motive has nothing to do with health or care.  

The main players have never been on a hand to mouth budget, and in most cases they have no experience in truly private business.   At best, most have been in so-called private companies that feed off of government money.  They have no clue what they are talking about when they make blanket statements beginning with the phrase, "what the American people want...".  

How many people want what I want?  I have no idea.  How can such blanket statements be made?   People I know mostly want to live their lives as they choose without having to ask permission for every action they take or don't take.

Too bad there are more people who remember when lines were a rare thing in this country.  There were few reasons to have to stand in a government line to obtain some "privilege".  Even DMV was not an all day, by appointment, or else, affair. 

Sad use of technology when you find yourself on hod for 30 minutes or more. and then you talk to someone who doesn't handle English well and can't solve the problem.   Technology is supposed to make life easier, not more tedious.  It is a poor application of the art if it generates inconvenience.  Much of the reason is the fact that many agencies and companies apply a technology or system before considering the consequences, side effects and bugs.  

You track most of that to the increasing possibility that companies can use government to further their ends.   If the government did not have the power it has, they could not be so used.  Those who cry for more regulation and power are only opening the door to more of this misuse and abuse of the dwindling numbers of private individuals who do not choose to partner with tax supported tyrants and con men.   

Every dealing I have with government agencies of any kind tends to make me crazy.  My path doesn't tend to cross with those who may be helping people.  I don't qualify for that need.  

I cannot even imagine the result if the feds gain more control over energy resources and methods and health care options.  Hopefully I am just nuts and stupid, and those who think those who don't go for this stuff are all ignorant and inbred are right.  So far I do not tend to see the value in this kind of authoritarian parent with guns. 

I Heart My WetSaw

It is wet, and it works well on rocks of the West.  It is portable, and easy to set up.  The photo shown here may cause it to appear as large as a person,  It actually is not.

[thanks Class Factotum.  Yes, it is that very same unit of which I speak]

Mystery Brows of Senior Advisor Axelrod

How does he do it?   David Axelrod, who may or may not be paid (I guess the pres can call someone an advisor and pay him out of public money)  to speak as if he is the last word on the domestic and foreign policies of the USA, has the ability to move his eyebrows at least six inches above their at rest position.  They seem to make this journey on their own, independent of one another, and without apparent reason or stimulus.  

The eyebrows also look to be interchangeable with the mustache.  Interchangeable parts.   

What is most remarkable is that his eyebrows can move down below his eyes.   Yes, he can move his eyebrows down so that he can peek over them, and he does this when explaining the unexplainable to that nitwit Bob Scheiffer. 

I think there was a muppet with similarly mobile, autonomous eyebrows.  I'm not sure. I know I've seen the arrangement before, and on a puppet.   It is a new twist to see such facial gymnastics on the puppeteer. 

Why Naturalized Citizens Ought not Be President, in two words

The two words are:  Ah Noad

as in governor of CaleeForneeya

The legislative goons here decided to take a loan from the citizens, with or without their approval, and Ahnold is not vetoing it.  

How it works is that they take 10% more withholding tax than usual from worker paychecks.  Then, without paying interest they claim they'll give it back later, when people file taxes.   Is this totalitarian tactic not unnerving to the average person?   Of course, if withholding money from paychecks, in general, does not rub you the wrong way, I guess more of the same tyranny wouldn't bother you.   

Who do these progressive programs and "solutions" hurt most?   I'd say the working poor; those who attempt to earn their way, and better their lot, but who don't have much income or resources at present.  And of course the middle class, whoever they are.   Precisely the people those who create problems then look to solve them in this way claim to champion.  

The result is that people will find ways around it, and go somewhat underground in their dealings.  

It is increasingly more evident that Arnold has no idea whatsoever how a free people should be governed.  He clearly sees the benevolent dictator as the ideal, and even normal, model.     Increasingly, so do the majority of Americans, a huge portion of whom could not identify the branches of the federal government and the most rudimentary description of the functions of each.   So, it is no wonder that power which was forbidden the US government has been usurped without a fight.   A nominally bloodless coup.

I say nominally bloodless because, although their was no force of arms used to take control, more than a few lives have suffered.   We can't even get a straight answer regarding goals and justifications for most military actions and how they've been managed since the end of WWII.

So, I am quite happy that AhNold can never be president, although I do realize our present top executive is very much on the same page as the governator.  Too bad people didn't have the guts not to vote for either of the two main choices offered.    Mob psychology is a troubling thing when it has any power.  That is why these creeps have risen to power and managed to grab more power than the country's constitution allowed.   It only took 100 years or so for the present initiatives to become possible, but the rate of increase in encroachment on individual freedom follows a somewhat geometric rate of increase.  Actually it follows a more insidious pattern; very slow, with tiny incremental increases, then in the past decade or so the curve has risen sharply. 

If only there was a reasonable haven to escape such tyrants.  Once upon a time this was the place in which people found refuge from tyrants, preferring to chance the rough go of carving out their own future, enduring the attendant hardships by choice rather than submit to tyrants by force.   Now, we are becoming what we tried to escape.

Problem solving: part 1 of 432,000

How does one know where to start when seeking to affect a change of some kind?    "Change", in this case, is not defined as disrupting the lives of others or enslaving them.  Current use of the word may have some people confused.  I mean in the case of a change with some purpose and form, like, "I need to make more money so I can pay rent and buy a motorcycle".  Or, "I need to gain 20 pounds so I won't blow off of the deck in the wind."

So, I'd say the first thing to address is what is the problem.  Is it something you want to add to your life or remove from it?   Removing would be something like not wanting to spend your rent money on dope every month, or not indulging the pretend friend who always screws up your life, smiling all the while and professing friendship while you go under as a result.   Adding would be a project you want to do, or education, or getting involved in something new, hopefully not self serving pat yourself on the back community service.   True community service would be opening a theater in Descanso and showing primo movies and foreign films as well.  That would be supah.

OK, so I want to make more dough.   The trick is to list possible efforts within my capabilities that I think might bring a dollar or two here and there, but do not list all the things that won't pay.  The negative stuff just lands you in the welfare line bitching about "the rich" and how they are robbing you.   Toss out the stuff I do not care to do, like anything that involves screwing people in the name of "just doing my job".   I'm not going to be a cop.  We already knew that, besides I don't qualify.  I won't list the things here because that would jinx everything.  And because this is just one example.   Also look at the safety nets.   Maybe if you have to you could sell something and downsize the lifestyle.    Ideally that is not the way to go.  

The main nemesis in problem solving on the personal level is the tendency to play negative soothsayer when examining possible initiatives to deal with the issue; assuming the worst without really knowing something won't work.  Along with that would be statements to one's self which start with words like always, never, everyone, no one, etc.   Big generalities which are not true.   You can't know what everyone does or say that no one ever gets a fair shake, etc. 

When I figure out what I'm talking about, I'll go to part 2, or so.   I know the exit from my past life involved this sort of thinking, and it all of sudden dawned on me that I had what I needed to move on, provided I had the nerve to jump off into the unknown.  Sometimes the unknown is an improvement over the known.  Especially when the known has become a toxic thing that is closing in around you.   

Now I know there are tons of places to pitch a tent, but not as many places as I'd like which let you build a campfire.  That's because forests burn and it makes for trouble.    Always good to know there is some escape.  

I hope this as been educational.  It was for me.  There are a few matters I need to sort out, so I thought I'd figure it out here while pretending to be an expert.  The cool thing is, when you do narrow things down, then act on the conclusion, it is rewarding, and sometimes chicks dig you.

Hiding From The Alleged News

Never did I dream that anyone could replace Ted K in my imaginary world of neighbors you'd be stuck with in Hell.  I was wrong.   Just one word out of Nancy Pelosi makes my skin crawl.  I think her hypocrisy and willingness to throw the public under the bus "for their own good" while getting rich in the process, equals similar qualities in the late great Liar of the Senate. 

I guess a lot of them creep me out.  

I can't take hearing McCain say anything about anything either.  Of course, he usually says nothing about something.   Or something about nothing .  He's another of the wannabe oligarchy  hoping to rule without limits.  

Oddly enough, I've noticed a great deal of snobbery among the air america types.  They claim to have a broad world view and knowledge of other cultures, yet they clearly know nothing about the vast majority of their own country.  The labeling of midwest, southwest, south, anything outside L.A., Chicago or NYC, as ignorant and intolerant, is prevalent and annoying, at best.   In a very loosely connected way, it adds fuel to my belief that states ought to be able to secede from the Union without finding themselves in a war.   That "house divided against itself" line was a false analogy.  It was about money, not so much slavery or freedom.  That is a shame.  It would be better if it had been about slavery and the principle of freedom.   

At this point, it is all about those who want to be forced to eat their ruffage and wear protective gear, as opposed to those who prefer to make their own choices and rely upon their own sense of autonomy and discipline, unaided and unsupervised by a surrogate parent, omnipresent warden.

Noting the ever growing tendency to demonize and silence anyone who disagrees with governmental policies now or over the last fifty years, or more, I would like to say that I still believe all of congress should have their pensions abolished as well as health care.  The nature of public office was never supposed to be a cushy vocation.  Giving elected officials health care and pensions is absurd.  The IRS is a crime against the principles of a free society as is the tax system they represent.  It is a huge scam which exists because the tendency to resent other economic classes has been applied effectively.  People think it's the other guy, usually the rich, getting screwed, and not to their c redit, they are all for it. Truth is, it is the poor and those who want to raise themselves up through industry and perseverance that get screwed.   

Why do you think we are still screwing around in the mid east with no intention of winning, and little idea of what would define a win?    Trading one war for another?  It is a crime against our military and our taxpayers.  

It is more fun to foment revolution against those who ignore their oaths of office than it is to figure out how to pay rent.  Knowing what could be different in the world of law, energy, transportation, etc., and which would at the same time maximize personal freedom is one thing, actually taking steps to make things materialize to prove it is another.   I have no doubts about these things, but the uphill battle to pursue any of it is pretty much out of my energy range.  It's frustrating, watching the usual pompous types close out the market as if only they could have the answers.  It is the flaw in letting government control science and research while subsidizing weak entries into an industry.   Subsidizing products which can't quite do the job cheaply enough to earn a place in the market merely slows true progress.   Political progressives are, in truth, regressives, in that sense.   In most senses.  

If the Copenhagen cap and trade scheme is embraced by Obama, and he signs up on behalf of the USA, I would say that pretty much seals the deal, and hope for a peaceful prosperous future is dead, at least for many decades.  That would be akin to slicing our own carotid arteries.  It is likely to happen.   

Trouble

Still sick and wondering what's what.  Here's another glimpse into the surreal waking/dream condition that this stuff brings.  

It gets weirder at night.  The best thing is to breathe so subtly and slowly that your lungs don't sense your effort, otherwise they rebel and make you cough until small parts of internal organs break loose.  

 I'll bet THEY created this virus and spread it around to further their secret diabolical agenda.  I feel like a sell out for playing into their hands.  With luck it won't be fatal, leaving me future opportunities to redeem myself. 

Picture of the Plague

I can't explain exactly how it feels, and I've been told I can't label it without first paying a doctor to do a test to tell me what it is.  

However I can illustrate the condition by posting this photo, taken of myself just today