Friday, August 28, 2009

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.


Thursday, August 20, 2009

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."

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

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!

Sunday, August 16, 2009

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.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

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.