Eliot Spitzer
“Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth:” – Proverbs 24:17
I admit I stumbled by sporting a broad smile when I heard Eliot Spitzer got nabbed in a prostitution ring. The grin I could not help was telling of my opinion of his activities as governor, not the man. He is only a man after all. And this is what is important to remember; no one is innocent. We all have something we hope never comes back or is found out, maybe only thoughts, maybe a failure to hold to our principles when opportunity comes in perfect arrangement at our weak moments. I realized the error of my grin, but then I realized the truth behind it.
I didn’t wish evil to befall the man, I wished a way out of the fiscal mess his spending spree is causing New York. He is the image of George Bush operating at the state level. Anyone who believes Bush is spending us to national doom cannot fail to acknowledge Spitzer is spending this over taxed state to a similar fate, unless they are hypocritical party partisans. I hoped his resignation would come from this and provide an opportunity for us to have another who might actually cut the spending and shrink the government in New York. Albeit, this is a great deal to hope for.
As far as the man goes, he has issues, one of which is to call this a mistake and against his core values. This only occurred when he got caught, so it is reasonable to recognize that he doesn’t have those core values, really, since a mistake happens once, not many times, deliberately repeated. It is encouraging to know he understands what his core values should be, but he clearly needs to work on that.
The other issue has to do with self-worth. To pay four to five thousand dollars and hour for sex says something about a man’s perceived value of himself. There is nothing a woman could do, sexually, that is worth one-hundredth of that amount. And of course there is his wife and family and the appropriate guilt he should have had while doing these things, not to mention the misappropriation of money.
All this displays a clouded mind out of balance and not capable of the reasoning and judgment needed to create laws affecting public life and to lead the governed.
But he has not yet resigned, and NPR radio is busy, as I write, making apologies for him, dumbing down the moral standard, excusing him because others have done it—the word mistake is making the rounds, in the metaphor of accident, and citations of our permissive trend toward immorality in the vein that it is something which ought to move more quickly and never should have been part of our social fiber.
Scotts Miracle Grow; the Orwellian antithesis of the US Constitution; liberty, pursuit of happiness
Let;s start with an example of what everyone has heard about lawn care chemicals--thanks to
Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog.“Scotts Miracle-Gro Company advertising this season is particularly misleading because it suggests practices such as sweeping chemical granules off driveways and pavement after lawn application to protect local waterways, while the program they are selling introduces unnecessary health and environmental hazards given the viability of organic non-toxic practices,” said Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides. Chemical lawn pesticides are linked in the scientific literature to cancer in people and pets, and are known to be toxic to the nervous and immune system, endocrine disruptors, and tied to respiratory effects such as asthma. Organic practices rely on maintenance techniques and soil health that prevent unwanted insect and weeds."
We all have been clued into the concerns of chemicals in the groundwater, but that is not all that concerns us about
Scotts.Recently our local newspaper and the USA Today carried a column by Lisa Cornwell, pulled from the AP, informing us that Scotts charges employees $65 a month for not reducing what Scotts' considers health risks. According to Cornwell, Scotts no longer hires people who smoke and reserves the (what only can be unconstitutional) right to fire employees who smoke. Scotts charges $40 more per month for health insurance for those who do not complete an annual risk assessment; in other words, if you smoke in the privacy of your own home in your free country, then the only way a person can be found to be smoking is by invading the privacy of their body to take samples, and if you don't give up your right to privacy, they effectively charge you for what is already yours. One wonders just how discriminatory this Scotts --which claims, "We pride ourselves on maintaining high ethical standards and a culture that values honesty, integrity and transparency in all that we do."-- is with this campaign. Is it a level playing field? Do you pay more if you drink, get speeding tickets, use power-tools without safety equipment, have homosexual sex--leading cause of AIDS (~$70,000 a year for medicine alone), sky dive, race cars, have unprotected sex with multiple partners, or......use Scotts chemical products on your lawn?!!
It seems Scotts is worried about the good health of the public when it comes to the perceived cost to the company, but the rest of us, well, they don't seem very concerned when it involves profit.
But it's not that, just common business sense I suppose, it's the Nazi type infringement on Americans' rights to privacy and pursuit of happiness.
Some states allow them to do these things, so blame could be placed on our representatives who do not seem inclined to let us know what they've done. But to supersede the rights of the people by use of corporate power and lobby places the guilt equally on the business.
I confess to have used Scotts' products, but having seen this, I have removed any I had from the house. No more Scotts for me and I'll be spreading the word, we all should, for life, liberty, and the right to pursue happiness in our private lives, without discrimination and bigotry qualifying our jobs.
This & That: Illegal, Pervs, and Anyone can be a Journalist
In New Haven Conn. the law of the land became a matter of choice recently. According to the
Courant. "In July, New Haven rolled out the Elm City Resident Card. The program is designed to provide identification cards to those who may not have them, including ... illegal immigrants." This allows people who are here illegally to have access to bank accounts and public services which they do not legally have a right to.
Meanwhile Tyrone Williams has received additional charges including conspiracy and harboring illegal immigrants, which come to 33 years and nine months in prison. This is what Hew Haven is doing, harboring and conspiracy, and I want to know why the Law hasn't arrested Mayor John DeStefano Jr. and the New Haven Board of Aldermen.
On the perv front we have the Anglican Church of Canada and the U.S. Episcopal Church feign a desire for unity while rewriting the Bible to suit their whims. The Anglican leader Archbishop of Canterbury isn't rewriting the Bible for them and things will soon be coming to a head.
The conservative side stands on the obvious: the Bible straight out bars same-sex sex. The liberals expose their twisted logic on the premise: the overarching message of Scripture is full acceptance of all people, which is wishy-washy and disingenuous. The misleading premise suggests that conservatives will not accept all people, but nothing is further from the truth; they accept all people who wish to confess their sin and be saved by grace. The liberal acceptance, if indeed full, means that a person can deny their sin, continue in it, and still be in the will of God. The Bible makes it clear that a person can not deny their sin and have the truth in them.
The Big Gay Cruise is leaving Albany for a three hour tour on 8/25 to benefit AIDS.
The party includes drinking, drag show, and massages. Imagine a straight cruise to obtain funds for sexual abuse victims that included a strip act and body massages along with alcohol for its lubricating effects; sounds a bit twisted doesn't it. Well maybe the cruise is for the benefit of spreading AIDS and not prevention.
On the "Anyone can be a Journalist," we have Emily Fredrix, carried by the AP, writing that New York City has a minimum fine of $440 "for having a muffler or exhaust system that can be heard within 200 feet." This is aimed at motorcycles, and It says that if you can hear it beyond 200 feet, you are OK, but if it can be heard within that distance, you are going to be fined. So if you put your ear to the muffler and can hear it, you are breaking the law.
Additionally we have a local wanna-be who calls people who have paid for their crimes and have received their right to live back in free society "convicts." Now ex-convict is the right term, albeit still slanted. But the issue here in Schenectady County is the making of new laws to apply retroactively to past sex-offenders who have committed no new crimes; Schenectady wants to re-sentence them according to the new law. Calling these folks "convicts" does not exactly follow a rule of unbiased journalism.
Erin Davies' Fagbug-contrived or coincidence or absurd
On the 4th of May 1925, John T. Scopes did not find himself caught and arrested for breaking Tennessee’s newly enacted antievolution law. Scopes became the defendant by agreement to an idea by George W. Rappleyea—a man with his nose out of joint by disdain of the law—and conspiring attorneys Herbert E. Hicks and Sue K. Hicks to manufacture his arrest, facilitating the ACLU to begin argument with intent for an eventual constitutional test through the courts, effectively bypassing the will of the people. The deception supplants minimal or non-occurring offenses, tolerant balances, and processes of critical, rational thinking with artificially generated offenses tuned to raise feverish panic, relative moral ground and victim status.
Arguably, the case may never have occurred due to a balance between the law’s toothless penalties and the state’s approved text for biology complete with a section on human evolution. Such a balance irritated the agenda of social engineers intrigued with eugenics. When one knows what precipitated it, the convenient time of “discovery” of Scope’s “crime” calls for questioning coincidence. In this case, the actors attempted no clandestine operation, freely admitting their purpose; but if they had not, it would be just and prudent to consider that they had.
On September 17, 1998, Harris County sheriff's deputies, responding to a false report of an armed intruder, coincidently broke into the apartment at just the right time to catch two men breaking the state’s sodomy law. Inflammatory fallout came quickly, widespread, and remarkably organized in final draft quality asserting routine invasion of privacy and, for that reason, ostracizing anyone opposed to buggery. Rebutters became villains, accused by a tide of the beleaguered.
Since activists and attorneys could cite no Texas case in which consenting adults were prosecuted for engaging in private sexual conduct (two or three sodomy law cases had been prosecuted over the last 30 years, witnessed by others in a public jail), it was a fortuitous opportunity for a group which “needs to get this off the books…to see it move all the way up the ladder and be declared unconstitutional.” (Bagby, HGLPC)
More recently Erin Davies, residing in Albany, New York, appeared with “UR GAY” and “FAG” spray painted on her car. She reported having no enemies. She believes the vandals do not know her since words used usually describe male homos and not female. She thinks the vandals did the deed upon seeing a rainbow sticker on her car. A routine vandalism by any consideration. In such cases police would normally advise the victim that they have encouraged the problem by putting controversial statements on their property and file the report. Not very newsworthy.
What does this share with the first two stories? First, we are to believe that with all the inciting stickers on cars-—ie. Abortion statements—and the huge number of rainbow stickers representing everything from Jesse Jackson to God’s promise through Noah to Homosexual behavior, that someone saw Erin’s rainbow, went and obtained spray paint, came back and painted the car, and they got the meaning of the sticker right even though they didn’t know her or her gender. This happened while the thousands of other vehicles with inflaming messages are left alone.
And then by coincidence news of this petty crime spreads into major circulation. Although "gay" and "fag" are not words associated with "hate", in no time flat Erin appeared in Metroland, an alternative publication, with her story, fluffed with disbelief, emphasizing accusations of hate speech, and stated intentions to really go big with this ground shaking crime; local news carried the “hate speech” story; she suddenly has this idea to drive the car as is and supposedly has many people regularly consoling her; messages came within days from across the world bearing sympathy and encouragement (imagine, a routine vandalism and the report turns up in places like Australia, moving people to make contact; horrors and disasters happening everywhere in the world pale next to this chance to be a victim); she conveniently has the time and financial fundraising to drive her
fagbug, as she now calls it, across country with a film crew that is apparently instantly available and funded, to raise awareness (awareness of what, her over the top reaction to ordinary vandalism?); T-shirts with pretty pictures of her car are already out and for sale.
Isn’t it amazing, all this instant, ready availability of time, publicity, money, and organized promotion and film crews just fell into place when most groups plan months in advance just to try and get a chicken BBQ reasonably organized? How remarkable of a coincidence, how convenient for the homosexual crusade, which seeks to have any written or stated objection to their lifestyle prosecuted as hate. These are the folks that, in this land of liberty and free speech, silenced the popular Dr. Laura remember?
Note: Harris County District Attorney John B. Holmes Jr. said two or three cases had been prosecuted over the last 30 years, although those involved homosexual contact witnessed by others in a public jail.
Gay activists have tried for years to have the sodomy statute struck from the books, arguing that it is often used to justify anti-gay discrimination in such areas as hiring and adoptions. But with no defendant in a criminal case, efforts to remove the law have met with mixed success.
Clarence Bagby, president of the Houston Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. "We certainly hope to move this forward, and we'd love to see it move all the way up the ladder and be declared unconstitutional. We need to get this off the books."
*The willingness of a group to create such events requires that some purpose for deception be considered when there is one or more of the following: exceptional vigor applied by law; sudden, unprecedented far reaching interest; a remarkably instantaneous, well organised response plan; a litigious organisation affected.
Foreclosures just say no to bailouts Chuck Schumer
My letter to Sen.
Charles SchumerI've just read your call for millions of taxpayer's dollars to be used to bail out the expected foreclosures in the housing market. My wife and I would really like a house a bit larger than the tiny one we are currently crammed into, but we are responsible enough not to enter real estate's irrational frenzy and go into debt for price rises that exponentially exceeded inflation. Now, for our responsible restraint, for recognizing the market as absurd, for realizing prices are way to high and debt is way too high, you want to take our hard earned money and hand it to the 20-30% who are either flippers caught at the peak, or participants that did not belong in the market; the actors who helped price us out of a home--the market would not have inflated to this extent without them. This is offensive. I have been an appraiser for 20 years; the best thing that could happen right now is for the ridiculous 220,000$ median price to fall rapidly back by 30%. That will put housing realistically where it belongs and where the most number of buyers can sustain it.
Your pursuit of regulations regarding subprime lenders is very appropriate, as is seeking to make these lenders responsible where they have deceived buyers that legitimate Realtors knew better than to work with. But as for the rest: I urge you not to artificially float this industry on the backs of those of us who have behaved responsibly. This will only keep affordable housing out of the reach of many and more painfully postpone the inevitable.
I would have written more, but I couldn't be sure if I was not falling on deaf ears anyway. What makes this particularly bad is the additional whining of the
real estate industry complaining over the median price falling 0.7% to 220,000$--well they weren't complaining when the price went up 60+% in five years or less. What a bunch of greedy bastards. I know maybe 100 people, and out of that I would guess three of them would be able to save 200,000$ over the next 20 years. Think about this: a 200,000$ mortgage at current rates for 30 years comes to 455,090$ in payments; this is enough to retire on. Now divide that by the 30 years you work----ready--it's going to cost 15,169.68$ a year just to service that loan, after income taxes which will run you about 10,000$ for the feds bite alone if you're at the median income. Now, if I have your interest, go to Google and search out the median income in this country.
Now think, use your God given head, and go out and offer at least 30% less than the asking price for any house you may really want, and when you don't get it, celebrate; you're not broke for the rest of your life.
Power Before The People: Bruno's Bourbon Empire Again
We know now what most of us have known for some time, New York's
Bourbon King, Silver, and Cronies place their kingdom ahead of the best interests of the people of New York. With their nose out of joint and fixed on teaching the new Gov.
Spitzer a lesson, they have voted DiNapoli to the $151,500-a-year Comptroller job.
Optimistically, it is said DiNapoli has but little financial experience. He now serves as the chairman of the Assembly’s Environmental Conservation Committee and previously headed committees overseeing local governments, consumer affairs and ethics. His best foot forward for past experience is working at New York Telephone Co. and AT&T in various management positions, rising to oversee an office of more than 100 employees; a resume that resembles a hamburger flipper vying for an airline pilot's job. This isn't comforting when the man will be responsible for the office’s 2,400 employees and auditing government operations and managing a $150 billion pension fund.
Martha Stark, in contrast, has been City finance commissioner since 2002, and has experience as Portfolio manager for Edna McConnell Clark Foundation. Stark is obviously the better choice, but once again it's all about building the kingdom and power for the Bourbon King and his followers at the expense of the people of NY State.
Blair's Intolerance
So, Britain will not exempt Catholic adoption agencies from new anti-discrimination laws which require the Church to place children with gay couples.
Blair said in a statement, "Everyone is agreed that, above all, the interests of the child and particularly the most vulnerable children, must come first."
I suppose placing a child in a home with a pair of homosexuals is good for him? Well maybe if he's queer, but if not, then should the child be subject to suffering a regular gag reflex and disgust when exposed to the affections of the unnatural couple? The children placed in these "families" are indeed the most vulnerable, once placed.
Apparently Tony is a regular pervert, setting aside a sensible foundation of decency and respect for the Church and its rights, in favor of demanding everyone swallow a human defect and immoral lifestyle as acceptable. Tony is a very sick man.
But he is right in step with a sicko nation where the mayor of London forced the transit authority to remove advertisements for Sandals Hotel chain because the chain serves couples only and, with one exception, doesn't allow same sex couples. This is a Caribbean destination which said nothing in its ad about homosexuality, but the bigots and hate mongers in the queer community got the ads pulled, no doubt by threatening to out some politician; the usual persuasion. Many hotels operate resorts appealing to niche markets and there are markets for homosexuals. Sandals could be called a niche for heterosexual couples who don't want their stomach turned by queers on honeymoon. The hotel is doing two things; serving its market and preventing singles from teaming up and spoiling the couples only atmosphere. But the homosexuals see things one way. What they need to do is see their way to homosexuals anonymous and get help, just like the alcoholics who cannot help how they are must do.
A STEP TOWARD HUMAN
Thanks to the long hard work of New York motorcyclists who are supporters of
ABATE November 1st 2006 brought legislation to stiffen penalties for drivers who fail to yield the right of way to motorcyclists and cause them injury. The increased penalty is most welcome, albeit still quite light considering the damage these people do--and it doesn't force the prejudiced cop to deliver the ticket, which is another sad problem. But even drunk driving laws started small, and I hope this is the beginning step toward more appropriate action against those who view bikers as less than human and carelessly use their vehicles as weapons to murder and maim on the roadways.
On "Summer For The Gods" by Edward J. Larson
o It isn’t often one reads a technically correct non-fiction account of a historical period, or worse, a specific issue of the period containing multi-faceted ideas, truths, and fictions of social, scientific, and emotional divide and not find its readability comparable to watching paint dry. But Edward J. Larson’s book, “Summer For The Gods” is one of those we all hope to experience when spending our hard earned money on something which was deemed publishable.
A remarkably well researched book, complete with pages of citation, Larson has given us a clear and orderly picture of the Scopes trial bracketed in the events leading up to it, and some unexpected – or at least little understood – events following it that illuminate just how effectively emotion and the prevailing social influences can trump the facts.
For many of us, the sole record of the Scopes trial came bundled in a high school reading of “Inherit the Wind” and a brief summery in a social studies class, usually based on the same book. Larson discusses that book and its intended purpose, which was not written to be an accounting of the Scopes trial, and offered more fiction than fact.
If you believe Bryan wanted evolution tossed out of schools and religion taught instead – or continued to be taught - or that he was a Bible literalist, you will find a very different man exposed here. You will also find the influential actors behind the defense and prosecution exposed.
There were driving issues in that day that are forgotten today and some which are still with us. The swell of Darwinism brought a very serious interest in eugenics – the cornerstone of planned parenthood – and a question of responsibility. Darrow has won a case defending a brutal murder – 1924 Leopold-Loeb case – with arguments of psychological determination and free will, challenging concepts of morality and religion. Bryan holds concerns regarding the taxpayer’s right to the education of their children, and he believes the State should not control them via the public schools.
The players are all identified, their motives and positions revealed, and the plot unfolds in a well-organized fashion that keeps a reader turning pages, as in a story well told by the best of writers. History was never so pleasant to read.
Real Estate Opportunity Time
It’s fast approaching opportunity time for all those who patiently sat on their cash while the Real Estate market went stupid.
It’s hard to imagine what went through buyers’ minds the past four or five years. Didn’t anyone tell them that cost does not equal value; the market is them and if they don’t pay the price it has to come down; that prices exceeded actual income potential; that mortgage products such as 40 year loans, adjustable rates - followed by rate increases that anyone could see on the horizon - and interest only loans are tell-tale signs that prices were higher than anyone can afford, higher than can be sustained? Did they believe the media pumping out nonsense about a soft landing and no crash, the need to jump in before it was too late?
Now the interest rates have predictably gone up. This alone reduces Real Estate values, just as declining rates increased it; but people who needed the lower rate and the interest only loan now face the payments that drove them to these sucker products to begin with.
Foreclosure is rearing its ugly head and currently investors are only buying about 35 percent of them - smart, they know what’s coming. This is only the beginning of the carnage. Fueled by external forces such as energy prices (gas is approaching $3.50 per gallon here), heating and cooling these monster homes, and, if your unfortunate enough to live in a state like New York, property taxes going through the vaulted ceiling, mortgage defaults are only beginning.
Add in the reduction in health care coverage by employers, the refusal to honor contractual pensions by simply eliminating them (and getting away with it), and real - not Government measured - inflation devaluation of the dollar, the money simply isn’t going to be there to pay the mortgage, and people will soon be handing the keys to the banks.
Fortunately we probably won’t all have to pay for many of the stupid people and greedy lenders this time around. Last time our taxes bailed out the banks which were eviscerated by loan defaults. This time the REIT’s investors will take it on the chin - at least those who haven’t gotten out by last week.
Since I called this a few years ago and now it appears I’m right on track, my recommendation is for the person with cash to continue to wait. Resist getting jumpy and enjoy watching it materialise before your eyes awhile longer. Watch the trends and the
HUD foreclosures, and be prepared to act later next year. Things ought to be getting real juicy by then.
