REST, A value which need not be financed or taxed.

A great value to us all, individually and collectively yet its free, it can't be taxed, stopped, regulated micromanaged, blocked, weakened, or metered. It's always as close as volition. It's REST!

The 1975 book Midworld, by Alan Dean Foster and the current movie AVATAR.

I had the pleasure of reading A.D. Fosters book Midworld when I was a soldier, stationed on Guam for 15 months. I remember longing for nothing as I paged through the grand megalithic descriptive language of the flora, fauna, peoples and levels which comprised survival on that distant orb. I recall the hostile intent of the would be despoilers of it's botanical secrets, their means and their ultimate fate. I recall the heroes, heroines antiheroes and shills. At once I knew that watching a movie of these components interact could never be as exhilarating as the images I could conjure up in my minds eye of this dangerous and wondrous place A.D. Foster had described so vividly in Midworld. After seeing the movie Avatar, I was required to recall these rich impressions. Read the book, then see the movie. You may appreciate Mr. James Cameron's film work and achievement in the new film Avatar even more fully.

Eating as concatenation.

I've reached this conclusion via the realization that I alone am responsible for the process that has the potential to restore or retard my tenure on the planet.Since this is about eating, I'll leave the philosophy on the shelf along with any anecdotes about the motivations of modern food merchants. Cogent relevant process is key to avoiding the pejorative drama of mal-absorption of nutrients and the re-absorption of waste and toxins.What is the basis in formal training I bring to this information?With the exception of S.U.N.Y. EAP Programs run state wide and Rutgers University- both of the other "training institutions" I affiliated myself with are now defunct. The process and product the defunct institutions (a primary alcohol detox inpatient facility in Freeport NY and the mail order school of fitness and nutrition in Scranton PA.) instilled and produced were both non-addictive and relevant. So, I took a mail order course in fitness and nutritional counseling, and I have taken seminars on the psycho-pharmacology of alcohol, trends in employee assistance programs at Rutgers University, as well as volunteer work as leader of an addicted men's group (with clinical oversight present) and co-coordinator of a state run employee assistance program at a State University in New York. Additionally I am coming at this target of eating as concatenation with nearly 55 years on the planet without a gastrointestinal medical intervention.What I have to say about healthful considerations and process with regards to eating will be curtly summed up right now.Fermentation and decay don't belong in or near living tissues of the body. To allow this is to invite disease in substance and process.Such things are avoided in vivo in 3 ways. 1). To split proteins into amino acids requires the acid found in the stomach. This must happen for assimilation to take place in the gastrointestinal trac. If you mix starches which require amylase from the saliva to digest with proteins, these activities work against each other. The protein will rot as carrion and become spoiled without digesting properly, and the starch will ferment. The fats which are handled by bile secretion will become rancid if they are not assimilated properly. These must not be poly-saturated trans-fats or the membranes of all of the cells in the body will be constructed of such material which is impervious to insulin. That leads to diabetes. Plant fiber gives exercise to the smooth muscle of the intestines which keeps the parastalsis muscular contractions strong enough to power the assimilation and excretion processes. Drink clean, pure water to keep urea crystals from forming in the kidneys from urine that is too concentrated. Urea is the by-product of protein synthesis. Do not abuse pain killers or central nervous system depressants or prescription medications or street drugs. Drug abuse robs the body of nutrients by requiring tissues to expend them to metabolize and excrete the abused drug. 2). There are some foods which are either detrimental to processes of your immune system, the villi of the intestines or the proper flow of blood to your body's tissues. You may learn the science of eating the right foods for your ABO blood group which protect and renew these resources by reading and watching material published by Peter J. D'Adamo ND.3). Learn about and practice juicing raw vegetables for their nutrients. (Check my complete profile for my youtube channel web site where a video on basic juicing is listed in my favorite videos.) PLEASE NOTE:In his book "Garry Null's Ultimate Lifetime Diet" PH.D. Garry Null recommends on page 270 That "... if you have diabetes, or another health condition, are pregnant, or on medication, consult your health care professional before you start a new dietary routine such as juicing, because you don't want to be using foods that are contraindicated."

Know your allies.

The difference between survival and death is often the simple act of identifying and knowing your allies in this world. If you know any friends who keep pets and treat them humanely, make it a point to observe the animals around their benefactors. In every part of the animal kingdom, the creatures who know and can identify their benefactors prosper accordingly. Why should human kind be any different?

Working hard?

Working hard? Unlike municipalities, you may be thinking about living within some quotient of accounts recieveable. All businesses must think about balancing what is earned against what is spent on costs. Yet value extraction is a threat to business. Now, witness value extraction as Hispanic family taxi businesses in Suffolk county are fined by Nassau officials for operating ground transportation services across Suffolk County lines. These legitimate businesses maintain Suffolk County Brick and Mortar so as to receive legal service, they consequently pay Suffolk County property taxes under commercial property zoning regulations in Suffolk County. Are Nassau County Operators required to conform to Suffolk County Taxi Regulations? Interstate truckers have always been aware that there is an apportioned road tax that heavy commercial vehicles must pay, assessed through the amount of fuel burned over distance traveled in a given state while hauling goods. This tax ostensibly helps pay for damage on principal highways where these heavy trucks operate. Such businesses are also taxed corporately at state and federal levels. Taxis are not heavy commercial vehicles however. Taxis use parkways where traffic and time permits. Some years ago Nassau County taxi cabs were impounded for operating ground conveyance without NYC medallions in New York City limits (namely Laguardia and JFK airports). When this occurred the blindsided Nassau County operators (who maintained Brick and Mortar for legal service in Nassau County) sought a legal remedy in the courts. Because of the monetary damage incurred (fines and impoundings in NYC) by these Nassau Operators (NOs) at that time a stop gap method of transporting inter county fares (customers) was devised. NOs stopped the impounding and fining of their inter-county commerce by operating D.O.T. Regulated heavy vans across county lines where the borders were Nassau County and New York City. The New York City TLC or taxi and limousine commission was forced to leave those intrastate operated vans alone as they are regulated by the New York State Department of Transportation. Ultimately, an agreement was hammered out in which NYC taxis doing business in Nassau County are required to buy a Nassau County sticker showing they have paid Nassau County tax. Failure to display a current sticker will get the NYC taxi or limo fined and impounded should they be found doing business in Nassau County without a sticker. Having their own medallion is as far as Nassau County Operators have to go, provided drivers maintain a trip sheet of all assigned work (including NYC pick ups and drop offs.) Additionally, Nassau County operators are forbidden to pick up flags (hails from the side walk) when operating in NYC. Nassau County also has no soliciting laws to stop harassment of patrons in it's own communities. If you are licensed to pick up in a specific area this rule is waivered. Now, the largely Hispanic Suffolk operators face a similar application of Nassau County enforcement. As a patron of the largely Hispanic taxi operators in both Suffolk County and Nassau County, such bureaucratic inter-county Municipal tax requirements between non-New York City jurisdictions seems arbitrary, misplaced and somewhat less than congenial. Nassau TLC now impounds and fines operators licensed in counties (Suffolk) other than it's own for both pick ups and drop offs. While such conduct may pass the corporate municipal sniff test, it illustrates how corporations and municipalities manipulate citizens prerogatives and the larger legal question of jurisdiction over the citizens right to travel and the workers right to contract so as to fulfill this right under corporate rather than Constitutional jurisdiction. Do corporations have a conflict of interest with the Constitution where citizens rights to travel are concerned? It seems the municipalities do.

Squared Away gate keeper.

My experience in the military comprises one full term of enlistment as a non-commissioned airman, as well as time spent in the New Jersey Air National Guard during the Lebanon crisis as a result of the  U.S. Marine Barracks Bombing there.

The recent carnage at Fort Hood is truly an unbearable sorrow. My thoughts and condolences go out to the victims and the bereaved. 

My feeling is that when a mission fails, senior ranking personnel  (in this case Base commander on down) has failed to properly ascertain the  readiness of it's subordinate ranks and failed to maintain the process and procedures which address the mission objectives.

This principal never changes no matter how high up the command chain it is realized. The Oath of office (always part of the contract as such), Time in  RANK + credential  + any special and on the job training is observed to comprise the skill set of command at any part in the chain of command. In the possible event that some part of the rank is broken or incapacitated, it is filled in promotions with the best qualified personnel on hand.  In the field promotion comes with subsequent training to hold the position. No one in the service skips the contract and oath.

In the command structure,  the top of each installation is the base commander. Such a command is usually reserved for academy graduates, I believe. That person is accountable for mission success or failure on that base. There are technical orders for procedures which have been tailored to the respective mission(s) at hand. These orders must be followed to preserve the integrity of said mission. When they are not followed process fails to address mission objectives and the mission fails.

Any competent review (standard evaluation from HQ)  of the mission status at Fort Hood will proceed to examine the facts on that basis.

The event in question: It looks like the person alleged to have committed the shooting assaults and murders at Fort Hood was some sort of squared away gate keeper. (Gate keeper: A person in a position of authority and trust who is put there to do a job, but who only gives the appearances of manning the position.)  He was at least 2 promotions away from a stint as base commander. As such, He held a position in the chain of command in a manner that was less than the prescribed duty. His web transgressions, moral and attempts to remove himself from duty roster indicate his readiness for duty and competence at his post were not foremost in his mind. He was not a Chaplin.  According to the news in print, He was a military trained psychiatrist, a MD who could prescribe psychotropic drugs and run a clinical practice.

He gave away his things before he went on the rogue killing mission he orchestrated. FBI and BATF agents who went to his home after he was shot, found little left there to indicate the cause of his homicidal rampage. We are told the rogue attacker  saw to it there was little left there beforehand. The alleged shooter seems like a really squared away gate keeper in this regard.

While it is certainly true that a narrowing of options is one of the hallmarks of mental illness, this individual never resigned his commission or raised doubts about his fitness to serve within the capacity he held in the minds of his superiors. Fact is he had been promoted to Major and was going to be shipped into battle.  Not only is resigning always an option,  he seemed perfectly at home in the acts of violating every cannon of ethics and tenet of the profession (any) medical practitioners would  have had a name for.

You can get out of the service in less than 2 weeks if you really want to get out. I don't have sympathy for the alleged shooter. He could have refused to man  his post. He could have signed papers that he was experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs such as Lysergic Acid Diethylamide.  They would have kicked his butt out of the military faster than Comet Haley travels in a day. He would have had to pay back the bill for his training though, and been barred from any similar work for life. But, he could have REALLY been "the worlds smartest Garbage man" and not done the harm that he did!  If at trial it is found that he did this, IT is treason. As he has sworn fidelity to The Constitution of the United States and has acknowledged the President is his commander in chief, he has acted (the shooter) as the enemy of the United States.

This would make him more of a home styled Manchurian Candidate. A sleeper agent of chaos and horrible  mayhem.

How About a Block Party?

I block people from responding to my postings if they demonstrate they do not understand that steel frame buildings can not collapse when torched by fancy kerosene fires (jet fuel). Kerosene can't melt steel. That's why kerosene heaters aren't made of plastic or wood, or some fool's b.s.! Load bearing Steel framing in a steel frame building must be cut to remove it. You can use Oxyacetylene torches or Lasers (too slow) or explosives, or cutter charges, but you must cut the steel, or blow it up to remove it.
What about resonance? We've all seen the videos of bridges collapsing when the wind itself created resonance in the structure that tore it apart. Could such a wind resonance tear down the world trade center towers once they were opened up to the wind by plane strikes, since it has torn down bridges open to the wind? Building 7 was never hit by a plane and it fell any way. Also, there are plenty of bridges and buildings still standing which haven't succumbed to wind resonance one might notice.
Believers in the hypothesis that this type of building can collapse into it's own foot print with no credible diminution of the load bearing capacities in supportive framing on the floors beneath the points of an airplane strike is part of the end meme "walls of Jericho" screed in the biblical fables. Zealots who rest their mentalities on such castles made of sand internalized these fables during mitigating circumstance of their socialization- when they were raised! As a result, they will carp and gather like zombies savoring the flesh (your time and effort) of any one who attempts to show them their moribund poorly concealed biblical foundation has crumbled to dust beneath a veneer of sociability and credential, even as they seek to relive that end meme again and again. Go to their pages and Block them as I have! Don't honor their insane babbling, insults and calumny with rational counsel. Block them and their pejorative drama! This act of omission will conserve your energy for cogent rational endeavor. Providing free therapy for the insane is never free. The insane are institutionalized at great cost, so they can not harm themselves and others.

U.S. Unemployment graphics from Reuters

Please click on  the following hot link to view the page:
US_UNEMPL1009.gif (GIF Image, 550x731 pixels) - Scaled (66%)

The Movie: Surrogates

I enjoyed the plot detail. However, like "The Matrix',  "Aeon Flux", "The Day the Earth Stood Still",  "Equilibrium", "Forbidden Planet", "Terminator" and many other Science Fiction movies you know these things always end with the destruction of dystopia causing technology gone horribly wrong. These are different than movies like "Alien" or "Predator"  and "AVP" in the sense that in the latter type it is a malevolent life form being eliminated to restore balance among humanity, not a technology. In the movies "Forbidden Planet" "The Matrix", "The Golden Compass" and  "Equilibrium" both boxes would be checked. The point of "Surrogates" seems to be that while real technological surrogates (androids networked to our brains with hardware, firmware and software) could provide a kind of second life in real life for society's handicapped and physically challenged members when they needed it (to go to places physically the challenged found no access), it would ultimately be abused by everybody just like the prescription anti-anxiety / anti-pain medications we're familiar with in real life. Here abuse happens because those seeking fantasy once enabled would soon choose  to never leave their apartments sober and as themselves. To reclaim the human condition for humanity, the hero ( Bruce Willis) must unplug real people from the surrogate network. (I thought that was  Morpheus's job.) So working your way to responsibility and adulthood in this flick would  not guarantee you could do what you wanted with your life because someone else would judge the efficacy of your paradigms and adjust the game accordingly. Any way you splice it, that's a lot of lines of code to corrupt, edit, or debug. Seems that for  something with that much effort and money behind it there would be better safeguards and the location of the mainframe would not allow access to the general population (like in "Aeon Flux",  "Resident Evil" and The Matrix). Yet, TV still exists here and there while our own World Trade center complex faced premature demolition in 2001.
Basing an entire society on surrogate activity as a primary living circumstance is where this screen play becomes utter fantasy,  although like Wall Street trading, it would seem to be one of the ultimate RPGs (Role Playing Games) this life could offer.

Philanthropy is an act of volition, not coersion.

The idea of philanthropy is a prerogative you may wield if you have the means and the inclination. It is not the government's job to extract charity or sacrifice from you by means of force, even if they are democratic or arbitrary about it.

The laws are not as plain.

The constitution says representation and income tax shall be apportioned, not collected according non-apportionment (democracy or political whim or statist mandate or bank fiat).

Apportionment means Congress is supposed to take a census, set up a budget and divide it equally amongst the inhabitants (excluding slaves taxed as 3/5 of a person and Indians not taxed as they are of foreign nations). The 13th amendment abolished slavery.
The 14th amendment gave free non-inhabitants the right to attain citizenship under residency, and the right to due process under the law although not the same dejure status of the FREE BORN OF STATES.
15th amendment gave voting rights to resident citizens which could no longer be withheld due to race, color or previous conditions of servitude.(Women were excluded from sufferage till 19th amendment).

The 16th amendment said "Congress shall have the power to tax all incomes without regards to the origin of the income." It is assessed in a non-apportioned manner on residents (everybody treated as a resident for tax purposes) by jurisdiction and contract where they either never were free born of one of the states or have submitted knowing and intelligent waivers to such inhabitant status (such as by agreeing under residency rules to: "abide by all the rules of the bank" when getting a bank account or receiving some benefit under residency or by having their mail sent to their "residence" instead of a post office box). Prima Fascia proof of residency along with contract to a bank under residency rules places one under the 16th amendment arrangement for non-apportioned tax obligations...... in MY VIEW.

In law, excluding some influence of contract or jurisdiction or both, the words income and wage are separate with separate meanings and so are the words resident (debtor- owing their citizenship to 14th amendment, an act of Congress) and inhabitant (creditor, someone to whom a debt is owed- a peer of any in political power who took such a vocation by volition- to serve the people as representatives.)

Is China getting ahead of the curve in mental health?

Will trends practiced there be perfected and exported?

www.pbs.org
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/july-dec09/china_09-11.html

Search China, mental health. in the pbs.org search field.

The transcript (Originally Aired: September 11, 2009} and audio download of this video which showed the disturbing trend to diagnosis many of the political dissidents in china as psychotic is still available if you go to pbs.org and search the topic "China Mental Health".

The theory of Divine Command as it applies to Government provided Health Care.

What if God handed down through prophecy and revelation
that government provided health care was a sacred
imperative after all?
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine command theory)

Divine command theory is an attempt to cover a lapse
in judging whether "God" spake a just command or not
with the "Fig leaf of belief" that following any such
"Divine Utterance" would bode well for for the devotee(s)
even at the expense of everything related to considering
the epistemological origins of such purportedly divine
utterances.

The Divine Command theory is therefore a valueless
irrational canard and can only represent the most blatant
foray into illogical nonsence.

Loss of value storage in the alien welfare state

Gold is trading at over $1000/ ounce as of 9-9-09. Value storage in dollars is slipping rapidly as federal debt increases beyond any reasonable ability to service that debt. In such a milieu, the (woman/man) who fails to establish and protect his autonomy among fellows on some viable socioeconomic footing is clearly heading towards extinction as as individual. Such a condition, with it's attendant diminution of privacy, is not going to meet the standard for adult resources and prerogatives in a western context. This is the insidious goal of any alien welfare state's direction, legislation or agenda. The alien welfare state is well rooted in American soil today, no matter the Framer's intent.

The case for employing a sence of perportion

The problem with data.
There is a large trail of information indicating the practice of governance over known history. This information is not accessable to functionally illiterate people. Add to this a loss of all sence of perportion and you have tubes of tooth paste knocking down telephone poles and no one questioning the mass and energy impossibility.

Don't swallow the narrative.

Narrative:  No cure for ebola.

Health care is man made.

The health care system is broken , you may have heard. Although some may agree our health care should be considered a basic human right, such an idea would need to draw it's funds and mandate from the corporeal rhealm. This differentiates health care from those other "God given" human rights requiring both faith to discern and belief to sustain them. Additionally, any right to health care would need to be planned for in a coherent manner, a jurisdiction such that it can't be undone by poor purse strings, poor boilerplate or poor ethics, any of which are abundant human resources currently.
A constitutional convention could be convened for this purpose, concurrent with a balanced budget amendment therein, so that we don't go redundant on this mandate or hobble an otherwise noble sentiment with lesser corporeal types of spending on further wars to nowhere. This could begin to face the task at hand, if there were a Ryder to legalize all forms of hemp to act as a "health welfare check" revenue stream for health care. Such a right, which is not the correct word, (lets call it health welfare checks for U.S. Citizens instead) enumerated in the bill of rights would be formidable. This would be less assailable except by a further Constitutional convention to undo it, like alcohol prohibition. It would be more honest also, to call it a health welfare check amendment. And while we're busy adding government welfare fiats to our bill of rights, there's that Pesky notion of apportionment in matters of representation (just redact it to read any corporate or bank officer may serve) and income tax (redacted to read monies from any origin become taxes as banks shall dictate). Also, that slope to hell on Earth needs signage.
Cla.

Jaycee Dugard reunited with family after 18 year ordeal

I had read about it in 1991.
When she was kidnapped from her
neighborhood in South Lake Tahoe,
California she was just 11
years old.
Jaycee Dugard, the first victim
of this crime was taken 6/10/1991
as she walked to her school bus
stop, (police have confirmed) by
registered sex offender and
convicted kidnapper Phillip Craig
Garrido and his wife Nancy using
a gray sedan.

Garrido ran a printing business
as his means of support and kept
his victims in sheds and tents
behind his home near Antioch,
California. Mr. Garrido admits he
brought 2 daughters into the world
with his (at the time under aged)
victim, Miss Dugard, while living
at the same residence, with his
actual wife, the possible
accomplice in this case.

Mr. Garrido was brought under
suspicion after a routine back
round check by Officer Allison
Jacobs flagged him as a prior
sex offender on Federal parole
when he attempted to pass out
religious fliers accompanied by
2 female children on the University
Campus at Berkley in California.
His parole officer was notified
at that time. When Garrido went
to meet with his parole officer
with his wife Nancy and his victims
present, Mr. and Mrs. Garrido were
arrested by police. The sheds
and tents where his victims had
lived along with a gray sedan which
had long been in storage there
were discovered when police searched
the Garrido back yard.

Miss Dugard, now 29 (and her daughters)
have since been reunited with Her
original family.
I hope they are granted the long and
joyous lives together from this moment
forward which they so deserve.

The N.Y. recent Taconic State Parkway tragedy in perspective.

The driver who has been sited as the primary cause of the recent Taconic State parkway wrong way head on collision and deaths certainly behaved in a manner uncharacteristic of any conscientious adult this side of sanity. Which points to some facets of the psycho-pharmacology of alcohol which differ markedly from Cannabis. At the level of non-therapeutic etoh (ethyl alcohol) dosage discovered, black outs may ensue with severe impairment in judgment as a direct consequence. The brain of a binge drinker may also begin to manufacture endorphin like molecules to mitigate the abundance of the alcohol in their systems while at the same time ending manufacture of the body's regular endorphins. These new Tetra-hydra-quinalines or thq's are highly addictive in and of themselves and similar to Morphine. They will lead to the addict's further dosing themselves with etoh to get more. Addicts do protect their supply of their drug of choice and are often expert manipulators to keep those doses coming when the urge presents itself. This person likely died before the unmanaged etoh use was detected and or confronted. It's not such a reach when one considers that ethyl alcohol is revered and used in major religious practices (the blood of christ) in some Christian quarters, in particular that of Roman Catholic religious service. Also with respect to significant others being cast as enablers by the surviving bereaved, I would ask that we honor the dead by remembering their contributions to the lives they touched. The Constitutional admonition to avoid the transference of blame to inculpable parties also seems relevant. "Attainders of treason shall not work corruption of blood."

The philosophical idea that value is a goal and virtue is the means is easily employable.

The old bromide that states "there's no accounting for taste" is actually an attempt at misdirection. You can account for your personal tastes in movies, people or anything else. Once you have understood the philosophical necessity that the things which you value are served and brought about by the virtues congruent to their achievement, you then can at once see the reason you are drawn to (have a taste for) certain activities instead of others.
With this knowledge, I have stopped buying into the idea that I don't know my own mind or my life's direction. I have stopped dissipating my hopes on values or goals which have no virtues to master but depend on chance or a welfare state for the pay out. I'm much happier and self assured as a result!

I am hoping that you my reader find this information useful. Leave a comment.

The value of concurrent war

May 1 2003 began the U.S. Led invasion of Iraq.
We're still there. That's 6 years of current war in the 21 st century. Add to that the time we've been in Afghanistan, since 2001.
That's concurrent war. Why have one when we can have 2 for twice the price?
Should we be pauperized by wars, our business and prerogatives become everybody else's business as it will be they and not us calling the shots going forward from such an event.
Is there any way Canada or The United Kingdom would spend down hard won assets that have accrued the last quarter century in such a manner as we have done since the end of our last big war's wind down in Viet Nam? How about Spain, Italy, France, Sweden, Germany, Russia, China, Japan, pick a likely country, please? We're told there exists a "Just war theory" which is interesting and can be found on the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. For the benefit of those who've never heard of it depending on who you talk to Just war theory consists of two to three parts.
Is the war cause the defense of greater human values? (War would become the virtue here.)
Can it be waged without the cost of greater losses than gains in these regards?
Can it be ended with a restoration of the values imperiled which caused the war in the first place? Notice how in the opening, mid game and end game the values and virtues change criteria. There's no denying this. This realization leads to an all important question.
If the values and virtues in a just war keep changing, how do we know by the end of the war if the war accomplished what we set out to do in the first place? In other words how is war different from any other task which comes to the awareness of the human being? For instance, suppose next weekend we all decide to have a barbecue. The goal is a cook out with friends and family. That's the value. The virtue to accomplish the desired thing, would be the tasks leading up to the cook out. If in the middle of the week we find that the weekend is going to be raining, it's decided that we'd all rather spend the weekend in Las Vegas. This new value brings with it a different means or virtue to make it so involving air travel due to the time window we have chosen to get out of town, party and arrive back for business by Monday morning. (Presidential administrations also have a 2 term limitation to fight a Just... let us say well defined or definitive war. Beyond that they will be viewed historically as having promulgated at best an ill conceived war, at worst an unjust war.) Back to our little trip- We'll end up spending much more money for the Las Vegas trip (potentially ill conceived) than the cook out, due both to the change of venue as well as the virtue or means to realize the value, our trip- unless one of us can get some cheap air line tickets.
Well, it could be similarly argued Mr. Richard Cheney got the Bush Administration some expedited no bid Haliburton contracts ("time is money" after all) to rebuild infrastructure in the Persian Gulf theater of war.
The problem with this barbecue / Las Vegas trip vs. war analogy would be that while having a barbecue or a Las Vegas trip or both would depend on private funds, war spends public funds out of future earnings which pretty much ends any rational aspirations towards a peace dividend for Americans now, and in the foreseeable future . The hole we have dug operating-... that is to say- the virtue of fighting 2 concurrent war venues with multiple fronts has created it's own economic itinerary which entails the value or goal; pauperization of the United States!

Value storage; the individual's privacy buffer

These days becoming unemployed is about as bad as becoming UNDER employed . Either way you won't be able to afford the confidentiality of your own group of professional service providers that run the gamut of human needs and occupations. As the dollar shrinks in value storage capacity people are coming up against frontiers our ancestors could hardly imagine or recognize.
The value storage of money is a prime concern.
There is a simple illustration for this and it does not require a dissertation or graduate school.

In the 1950's gold was available to buy at $32.00 per ounce. Today it's over $900. per ounce.

32 x X = 900

X = 900/32

X = 28.125

32 x 28.125 = 900

So, you'd need 28x the money today to buy the same gold, dug out of the ground or panned out of a stream as you did 59 years ago. Has the value storage of your money diminished, or is the same gold getting better with age, like an antique or a fine wine?

As the dollar continues to loose value, your privacy and your very survival on the planet is adversely affected. It's important to remember that this outcome or value was set in place by a congruent virtue or activity which has been eroding your dollar for some time now.

The constant deficit spending by the Federal Government is that action or virtue, leading to this outcome or value in todays de-valuated dollars. Virtue is ever the hand maiden of value.

Well, if the federal government stopped their deficit spending, a new virtue, or action could stop and reverse the dollar's slide (a new value).

But how could Congress do it?

By the actions (virtues) of 1). convening a Constitutional Convention and 2). ratifying a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, with a 3). Ryder that legalizes industrial Hemp for biomass ethanol production, the train of this Great Republic could be put back on solid serviceable rail (the goal, value or outcome of fiscal solvency is met). 4). All, every, each and every entitlement goes unfunded till they are repealed or money accrues to fund them. 5). A 25 year tax moratorium on all electricity generated from burning hydrogen.

Such virtues practiced in the halls of Congress are necessary to insure the value of economic growth and value storage in the Dollar which is the individual's privacy buffer.

Who's body is it, anyway?

Life in all it's grandeur is a kind of lease which ".....hath all too short a date. " (from Shakespeare's 18th Sonnet)
Death's shadows can bring tragedy to the most well managed and carefully planned set of living circumstances. The facts show we are at best in control of only part of what may eventually work it's way into our respective outcomes. Adding children multiplies this, not in a bad way.
Lack of health insurance in such circumstances can be bad, but not as bad as a carcinogen.

Medical practitioners will tell you "cancer runs in families, cancer screening can detect cancer early enough to treat it, health insurance can pay for the screening and treatment." Yet, remissions of cancer have been known to occur on their own, with out radiation, chemo-therapy or surgery. A bad health prognosis can improve. A person's intake of nutrients is only part of the total health profile.
What is the proximity of their ideas to a behavior that results in a life enhancing outcome? What toxins are contributing to the toxic loading of the organism? How effective are these toxins being removed from the organism? How are the stresses found in modern living being handled by the organism. What is the immune system of the organism occupying itself with? Are they spending large blocks of time under high tension power feeder lines? There are a myriad of relevant considerations to place into the strategy of survival each of us must operate to continue productive life. We are limited, and yet we are responsible as adults.
Let us not waiver this autonomy, this equanimity, this sovereign birth right of ours by instead employing or defaulting to some theocratic, fascist, jurisdiction or fiat of the health care provider, practitioner or the government at large, before we have fully considered what we stand to gain for any such trade off.

Campaign spoils or entitlement programs?

There is of course a democratic (majority rule) aspect to this health care agenda. Because the media has worked tirelessly to portray this nation and the citizens in it as part and parcel of democracy, the affluent individuals in the United States now find themselves at long last without a powerful leader to champion their property rights.
They have sat on the sidelines, knowing that wealth has guaranteed them an inside track while the spoils of eminent domain legislation were carved out of the middle class, for wealthy business exploits and regional economic fiats. The mighty affluent speculated with questionable financial instruments backed by what amounted to bridge loans, and when it all collapsed the world economy, they got in line for their too big to fail government bail out and bonus checks. The empowered affluent have changed the headquarters of their corporations to Dubai, to escape a strict accounting of their no bid contracts here in the United States.
All the while the millennium generation has been learning that "might makes right". That the U.S. Constitution was less of a guide for domestic and international policy than the record profits multinational financial, energy, oil, and drug conglomerates could realize as the worlds energy and resources are bought up corporately and metered back to each person on the planet through the filters and valves and spigots of technology irrespective of the collateral cost on families and the tax base in our own shrinking middle class. The young have been watching, conditioned to reject the idea that to protect the rights of an individual, a republic with borders was established. They reject that for additional rights to be enumerated among the bill of rights they must be ratified at a constitutional convention.They reject that the Constitution and not the transnational corporation provided for a system of representative government formed under democratic principles with a division of powers among the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. They reject that the Constitution sets forth that attainders of treason shall not work corruption of blood, that a relevant system of apportionment for representation and taxation is within the U.S. Constitution and that there shall be no ex post facto law and that there shall be a right to a speedy trial by your peers and the separation of church and state with freedom of assembly and freedom of religious practice.
Although transnational banks, oil and drug companies granted no such contract to the citizens of the United States they own media.
The framers of the United States Constitution who grew Hemp for cloth and parchment had planned for citizens rights within a strong republic. The media ignores them.
We don't even use Hemp for biomass ethanol production today! Should our Constitution and Bill of Rights share a different fate?
So now, the carefully cultivated majority wants their part of the pie. The pundits call it "spoils". Looks like just another garden variety entitlement program to me.
What's the point?
I am highlighting the mob rule our gang political pressure groups who could care less about the rights of the individual and the users of dysfunctional concepts such as reward for non- productivity and virtue attaining a value which works against the lives that ultimately furnish the virtue.

In Philosophy Virtue is ever the hand maiden of Value.

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Sadly, it points back to the flawed idea that President Barack Obama could somehow fix the problems of Wall street without separating the speculative church of high priest lawyers and accountants from the state of collapsing businesses and virtue driven workers (many honest lawyers and acountants and business persons) who's value was that they alone create the goods and services which form the currencies of all true markets.

Barack Obama simply chose to support non-value derivative producing Wall Street with a bail out and true value goods and services Main Street with an unemployment line. But to get to this reasoned hypothesis we must comprehend the philosophical necessity that "virtue is the action that attains the value"; what ever the value chosen- the congruent virtue must fulfill it.
VIRTUE is the hand maiden of VALUE.
Horribly, the value chosen here was not Main Street with it's goods and services, but that of Wall Street, the producer of the empty toxic debt derivatives which collapsed the world financial markets and with it the promised and undeliverable welfare state.
The congruent virtue used to fulfill the value sought in the Wall Street bail out is Congress's Constitutional power to print money, mint coin and assign the value thereof.
Clarence R. Dember jr.

The Federation will be limiting your pay...

Wait, before the hand basket to hell leaves the station, consider this:

Is limiting the pay of executives (lets start with those whose companies accept TARP and other government bail out strategies) ever a good thing?
Probably not.

One of the most blatant ways this has ever previously been done was the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. That law was purported to do away with rampant fraud in the railroad industry at the time of our Nations tax payer financed Transcontinental railroad construction.
(note: The Great Northern Railroad was privately financed by James J. Hill.)
The anti-trust act collapsed an ongoing non-conflict of interest attempt by James J. Hill to open trade with China by sea.

It did punish railroads who had defrauded our government (they employed bad land surveying to lay more track than required to gain greater tax payer monies- A CONFLICT OF INTEREST- for the fraudulent expenses of more & substandard track sold by shell corporations the rail roads controlled) The new law broke these companies up. It was worded to ALSO BREAK UP the businesses of entrepreneurs who used their OWN MONEY- NO CONFLICT OF INTEREST- to spearhead international trade. I ASK WHY?

Poorly run uncompetitive government sponsored and or facilitated monopolies are the REAL problem, the real DYSTOPIA in business, NOT regulating the salaries of the executives in these moribund firms.

Additionally, when your profit margins are shrinking due to currency devaluation from too much borrowing, creating bigger corporations which use the same broken means of exchange (nearly worthless paper money AND SECURITIES) hardly goes to the root of the problem. It spreads the problem around and requires insider lobbyists to escape accountability. Smaller more responsible businesses are squeezed out of such a marketplace by political pull, rather than market competition. The aristocracy of competency is lost!

All such artificially propped up enterprises eventually collapse and lay waste to labor markets globally.

To sum up, RUINING an economy is like mating elephants; it's done on a high level while making a whole lot of noise.
Cla