VOTING ENIGMA
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s our political system. They’re doing the thing in Iowa, New Hamp. and other states which seems to have something
to do with who will be our next President. (Think Trump with Sarah Palin!), I called upon my close sources (Google) to
clarify what in hell is going on. You
see, in my day, each Party had a convention when all the politicos got
together, got drunk, and had a hell of a
monstrous party, and nominated one of their lessor criminals to represent them
against the other party, who did the same. It’s always better to be a senator
or such as you don’t seem to have to go to work for the next year, until the
election is over. Anyway, a caucus is a bunch of people arguing ,waving around,
then taking a hands up vote, then giving it to the ‘Delegates to carry on. There
are about a dozen states that do the caucus bit and the rest do closed primary,
semi-closed primary, open primary and semi-open primary. Well, I was going to
give you a rundown of all the ramifications of this fucked up system (which by
the way, is not considered or supported in our Constitution) but I got lost in the morass of irrationality
and I just give up.
There are some actual issues to be addressed other than
abortion, for instance , here is what the Libertarians think is
important;
Gay marriage, Cannibus Legality, End War on Drugs, Gun control, Police
accountability, Anti-Surveillance, International Wars, Economic & Fiscal
Issues, Government Debt, Taxation, Free Marketplace, Open & Inclusive
Political Process, Poverty, Alternate
Currencies (Bitcoin, etc.), Voter
ID, Problem of only Two Parties. Immigration.
Anyway, it’s Martini time. I’m outa this blog today.
Back on the job with a ;
BOOK REPORT
Try QUEEN OF THE SOUTH by Arturo Perez-Reverte. From the
Drug Lords of Sinaloa (El chapo, Batman) to the European Drug kingpins, this
little gal became the Top Dog in drug running from Morocco to Europe. A true
story (more or less) but will keep you on the edge of your page. South refers mostly
to Spain and Gibraltar. Shipping cocaine by the ton!
NOT FORGOTTEN MODERN
Just had word that one of my 1960’s work of art (House to
you) has been designated for exceptional and outstanding historic design
integrity. Located in the hills of Laguna Beach (1968 San Remo Dr.) it was
called “The water tank” and was one of the first houses to cause a law suit
with the neighbors because “it didn’t look like a house”. Well, you can’t have
everything, you know.
THE EAGLE HAS DIED
Along the same lines I see one of the Eagles Band has died.
I gave them an early start as I hired them for a concert- fundraising for my
“Citizens Town Planning Assoc.” in Laguna Beach in the ‘60’s. As usual with
Langworthy Economic Projects, hardly anyone showed up and we lost about
$10,000. I formed our group to fight a
Freeway that was being planned through the heart of Laguna. We somehow
prevailed and I believe we were the first to stop a freeway from ripping the
heart out of a town. Later, the San Francisco Embarcadero freeway suffered the
same fate.
GAZOLE & PETROL
For those of you who will be traveling to Europe, dodging
Islamic Terrorists, you will probably be renting a car between Train trips. You
will unconsciously put gasoline into a Diesel car and I want to assist you on “
what the fuck do I do” scene. Now I’ve
been to Europe many times and rented many Fiats and Peugeots but only once have
I gazed up a diesel engine. Hopefully, you will come to your senses before
filling up the tank with gas and can top off with diesel like I did. I can tell
you not to worry if you’ve only but about a third of a tank into the diesel, as
it will run as long as you keep topping up with diesel every chance you get.
But last week I read a bit by Click & Clack about doing this. They say that
putting diesel in a gas engine the car will go a few miles and stop
dead, so when the gas is used up, the engine can’t combust the diesel
fuel. It will cost about a grand to
clean out all the lines, etc.
And putting gas
in diesel can be just as bad as the
diesel is also a lubricant so the engine starves the fuel-injection pump of
lubrication. Also due to different combustion properties, the gas detonates too
early in a high compression diesel and can cause a lot of miss-firing so you
may have to change some parts as well as purge it all. But from my experience, and as the Brit who
pulled into the station at the right time said “I say, we used to put a bit of
the gas into our diesel up in Alaska to keep it from freezing”. With that , we
rolled on to Nantes without any problems except a speeding ticket which arrived
a month later back home. Watch out for those damn automated speed traps!
MILLIONS & TRILLIONS
Our politicians are tossing around terms like three
Trillion, etc. as if it is not a large number.
I decided I should get some idea of how much that is. A trillion dollars
is a shit load of dough. If you spent 10
million a day for 273 years that would be one Trillion. That is an incomprehensible
number.
A million is equal to a thousand thousands (1,000 x 1,000)
A billion is equal to a thousand millions (1,000 x
1,000,000)
A trillion is equal to a thousand billions (1,000 x
1,000,000,000)
For a really good visual of all this go to www.pagetutor.com
Which brings me to my favorite Things I hate”. Most of us haven’t noticed that our Federal
Gov’munt has stopped making all our currency probably due to some
misguided aspect of the “ War on Drugs”. Our Drug Tzars , in all their wisdom, and screw us citizens,
has determined that the drug pushers ( Let’s not talk about the Big Pharm here)
would stop buying drugs if all they had was $100 bills to deal with. Well,
hell, all we have to do is print up zillions more $100 bills to make up for the
lack of larger currency. (This scam was probably thought up by the money paper
industry). It wasn’t that long ago (well,
maybe it was) when I was a builder in Covina that my client, the inventor of
Go-carts, paid me every two weeks in cash with four or five $1,000 bills (I was
also the Contractor). That was sometimes a problem when I took my grubby crew
to Clifton’s Restaurant and had no small change. (Do you have change for a thousand?
See my book “Education of an Architect for the fun details).
And why does the United States always have to be at War? The
War on Poverty, The War on Drugs . How about a War on War?
Also notice we always have Tzars in charge of it all?
BAN VALENTINE’S DAY !
I knew I wasn’t the only out there who cannot, will not , be
a party to the bane of my life “called “Valentine’s Day”, the Prostitute of
Holidays, where every poor guy is sucked
into a HUGE GUILT TRIP until he spends a lot of his hard earned cash on his
significant other. I’ve just come across
a Website called “Ban Valentine’s Day”!
Yes, there are other souls out there who can see thru the flimsy pseudo
love of the commercialized version of love.
Several countries have actually banned celebrating the damn day (Russia,
Iran, Malaysia, etc.) Some High Schools
in U.S. have banned it also. Hurray for our side !! I have just found out that there is a Special
Hell for guys who do not Kow-Tow to the miserable gift giving to someone. I
think it’s called “ Saint Valentine’s Purgatory” where you spend the rest of
your miserable after-life buying gifts for people you hate. So, join me and go
to Facebook and find the “ Petition to ban Valentine’s Day” of Scott Manning.
