theBreeze

If an individual is naive enough to live beyond their means, does not conceive of the concept of debt, repayment, perhaps cannot take the time to read and understand....what sense is it to allow non-repayment of their debts?

Have they not enjoyed living in a house rather than renting one, or renting an apartment? Or churning several houses?

Think about the lower interest they paid for the past ten years, especially when compared to persons who took out a fixed rate mortgage.

If the government is to forgive the debt of those with less sense or non-sense, it must likewise award those borrowers who are now not burdening the government with their debt and stupidity, by giving those with fixed rate mortgages a rebate.

Or, Mister Gov'ment man, stay the hell out of it. It’s sort of a Darwin thing.

---

Here is the msnbc email address:

imus@msnbc.com

Adding LAWSUIT LAWSUIT LAWSUIT to your message could start a nice wave of public opinion

# posted by F X @ 5:11 PM

It has become rather obvious to me that many organizations, of course including government, have decided to look out for us. Nice of them. I am not so sure I need their help.

They profess to know what I should eat. Of course, each Nanny organization has it's own list. The lists change with each study, and the lists conflict. They profess to know what is bad for me, for you. They seem to think they can think better for me than I can think for me, and for you.

They are adamant, eaten up with their divinely righteous attitude. They also expect us to foot the bill for the consequences of their actions. They use phrases like "the people demand." Yet, I have never seen them asking anyone but themselves about what people want.

Here are three typical ones.

ONE > "Big power plants are bad for the environment." So, the utilities build small ones. Based on airplane turbine engines, they are fast to put in operation, fast to fall apart, and burn heaps of natural gas. Result? Nataural gas prices soar, and people revert to heating oil.

TWO> "We need to be independent of big oil"
[ Bush-Cheney - please ignore this one ]
Brilliant idea. Subsidize corn-based ethanol. The government continues to subsidise the corn crop.
The government continues to subsize it's use for ethanol.
First result? Other ethanol options cannot compete.
Second result? Price of corn doubles. Price of everything corn-based doubles.
By the way, how's your gas mileage when burning ethanol? Mine is down 10%, which doing the math, says I am burning just as much gasoline when using 10% ethanol, but the price is higher.

THREE> Nanny drugs. We, a typical pharmaceutical house, develop a new drug. It doesn't do much of a job. Well, we can invent a disease, and use this drug to cure it. Restless leg syndrome.

BONUS> How about Sally and her boneiva friends, who are overtaxed by having to set aside time once each week to take a pill? Some busy schedule.
And do ask your Doctor if all medicines advertized are right for you.
Guess who pays for the advertising?
Pharma's claim their biggest expense is research. People who have audited their finances report otherwise. Their biggest expense is advertising.

Thanks so much, all Nanny's. Go mind your own business, please!

As an adolescent, I learned that I was responsible for my actions. Today, adolscents are taught otherwise. They are indeed lectured to be responsible for other's behavior.

A nation of Nanny's.

An easy way to select political candidates this year. Watch TV, look for 'Sponsored by the Republican National Committee' and vote for the other guy.

P.S. And what's with these idiot politicians who, following their own basso profoundo pronouncements, declare, "I approve of this message." What's the alternative? State that they make pronouncements in public they dissaprove of?

---

Dear Laura,

Some say it has to happen – nationalization of big oil. George has his finger on that pulse, ‘cept it appears he regards the oil industry itself as being the government. He has been found working for them. Not so in Venezuela, which is about to take over US oil there.

Venezuelan Rodrigo Cabezas, president of the National Assembly's finance commission, just announced that all oil projects in the Orinoco River basin should be under state control. "It is necessary to approve a nationalization law for the Orinoco belt in order to recover a majority stake and control Venezuela's oil future. The fact that we don't have a majority stake is a humiliation," Cabezas said.

Projects are currently controlled by U.S.-based Exxon, ConocoPhillips and Chevron, France's Total SA and the U.K.-based BP PLC. Other oil fields in the country were brought under state-controlled joint ventures earlier this year, and the government has been seeking legal revisions to allow similar measures in the Orinoco.

So, please nag George to talk to his fraternity brothers, have them retire with more money than most countries, nationalize oil here in the good old USA (George can smirk here) and return oil and gasoline to the American public.

"Good morning Cuz." Kenny wrote. "I am getting the lobsters when the place opens - 9:00 AM. That should put us on the road around 9:30, and give us an ETA of 2:00."

"Linda suggested that we could leave earlier in the morning by buying everything the night before. I told her that the lobsters would grow a little bigger by letting them stay in the tank over night."

I first saw her in the frozen food isle of the local ACME grocery store. I stalked her. She was perfect! And then. And then, she stopped at the book and magazines section. I snuck around the back of the greeting cards to get a better look at what she was reading. Dismay! - she had found me out, or would, all too soon.

Frank Baby!
WoW! Thanks for the great idea. I told George about it last night, just before we brought the dog to the bed. Well, George jumps up right up and calls Condi over from her chair in the corner. In no time at all, there are a gazillion advisors around, and the dog.

Here's what they came up with.

Release the prisoners from Guantanamo.
Declare Cuba a hotbed haven of al Qaeda operatives.
Bomb the BGeezers out of everything.
Declare victory (one out of seven is good these days ~ what with Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Syria, Israel)
Confiscate all financial claims from American citizens and corporations, and use the money to pay for the other wars.

Laura

Hi Laura,
I'll bet you guys are weary of all the wars going on. I imagine the rocks thrown at the windows are even worse. It came upon me in a flash that there is a nifty distraction George can spin to look like a hero! He may even be able to smirk during an announcement of his new plan. Here it is.

You know, Fidel is pretty sick, or weary too. Even Cardinal Cuba calls for everyone to stay seated in the boat.

A bad idea is to allow US companies and thousands of people whose possessions were confiscated by Cuba after the 1959 revolution to demand payback for their expropriated assets.

A good idea would be for George to forgive all bad debts, apologize to the people of Cuba, go see Fidel, and give him a big hug.

Good image, huh?

"Tuesday already. I have so much to do, I hope there's an extra work day at the end of the week."

Heart raging, erratically booming - cold sweat. I awoke with wide eyes. It was 4:14 AM. I reached over to the table, and knocked what was left of a triple vodka gimlet onto the floor. Actually, onto a pile of books on the floor, most half read, all not so good. Maybe the lime juice would impart some flavour to them, or at least draw large black ants. Marie likes them in cereal, along with cut up pieces of lipstick. Not one for shopping, cereal consists of potato chips in ginger ale.

I stared at the glowing green digits of the clock, wondering if the light was slowly mutating my genes. Maybe it was a good mutation.

How goes your morning? I pruned some tree limbs in the heat yesterday. It was not really so hot. Perhaps switching from diet Pepsi to refrigerator water and ice is cleansing me of sticky molecules that make one feel hot. The sticky ones are longer, bumpier than H2O, and may have more trouble escaping, like cars lined up after a drive-in movie.

Remember the hotdogs in aluminum bags? Cardboard pizza? Fireworks? Playground in front of the screen? live entertainment? sitting on a patio with sticky steel tables in front of the projection booth before returning to the car? Bugs flying into the flourescent lights above the trough urinals? Sitting on the front fenders watching the movie, and the neighboring cars occupants? Wandering on the roads checking kids out? The rollercoaster feeling of running down the parking places slopes in the dark? The countdown movie? It was often as good as the feature. Do I recall seeing guys on screen in slacks and plaid shirts with monster heads on their shoulders - Green Men from Mars?

In-car heaters in the dead of winter in at a drive-in on the road to Woonsocket? Waiting later for a snow plow to follow up the hill to Ronnie's Orzechowicz' house? She was sweet. So was Lenear Rudinsky, who owned a black 56 Ford, and used to pick me up at St. Ray's before I could drive. And Pamela Kline, who talked a policeman out of arresting us for having half a sixpack at Colt's drive, and who was later solely instrumental in my Mom having the State police arrest me for stealing my own car?

Then Ed Bailey, rookie Pawtucket cop and best friend since we could walk, recently hired by the Attleboro police, having a gang of his cronies stopping cars at the RI - MASS border by the State Line Resturant? And having me arrested. They drove me handcuffed in the back seat of a patrol car not to the barracks, but to a dirt road behind the reservoir - I knew I was gonna get punished, a pre-booking routine I'd never forget in case a judge got it all wrong. Only to find it was Ed in the front right seat, with a trunk full of pizzas and beer? Spotlights later illuminating beer can targets.

Last night I went outside to again enjoy seeing a sliver of orange Moon. And this morning a heavy Sun split by horizontal dawn clouds lurked at the tree lines.

I digress. It's still Tuesday. Maybe it's the heat.

I am a practiced study in cynicism. This makes me cynical, not better. I feel as though I would let a loved one down at some time in the future, so I avoid commitment. It leads to my liking the chase, yet never closing. Is this all just a way to suffer, in the belief that I do not deserve happiness?

Schedule an activity, and watch how quickly the thing either gets done, or expands with each attempt to finish it. I think that the American worker is being burned out by employers. Employers think they can reduce benefits, reduce vacation, increase employee participation and thus please Wall Street, and their own greedy pockets.

Yet, they see no need to make a real return to the employee. We have ‘Employee Appreciation Day’ which translates to permission to wear jeans, and be handed a donut under watchful eyes, lest someone gets two. At the same time, alternate Fridays off are cancelled resulting in a staggering 9% increase in commuting costs. Did I mention that for offering employees a reduced commute, the State allocated a tax break to the employer. Funny, the employer has forgotten to report the revocation of the nine day schedule to the State. As for holidays, we now have six rather than eleven. Sick leave? – get sick on your vacation. Sick leave is no more.

The slightest breakdown in the nonstop work pace cascades in all directions. It affects the company where it started, and seems to quickly move outside that environ as well. It touches everywhere there’s a link.

So, keep the Blueberry charged, keep the cellular phone in your ear, and be sure to answer it at all times, under all circumstances, even while occupying the company commodes. And as the final note, keep call-waiting, for the next incoming call is always more important than the present one. Yaah, right.

Have you received emails suggesting cessation of gas purchase on such and such a day, or from such and such a company? No effect on the extortionists.

There is something you can do. Cancel your cable subscription. This is another unregulated industry, yet it is one you can do without - not the case with gasoline. Cancel your cable subscription, and let it be known that it's due to gas prices. Set one industry at the throat of another, and while you're at it, free up some cash, and time.

Written in response to a request from the Virgina delegation to provide some ideas for establishing a Virginia charter, releasing them from British rule. Jefferson, who later drafted the US Declaration, was one of those making the request.
It also afforded John Adams with a window to replace some of the negatives found in Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. I have abridged here.


Thoughts on Government

John Adams
1776

My dear Sir,
We ought to consider what is the end of government, before we determine which is the best form. The happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow, that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest number of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best.

Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.

Honor is truly sacred, but holds a lower rank in the scale of moral excellence than virtue. The foundation of every government is some principle or passion in the minds of the people. The noblest principles and most generous affections in our nature, then, have the fairest chance to support the noblest and most generous models of government.

There is no good government but what is republican. The very definition of a republic is an empire of laws, and not of men. That form of government which is best contrived to secure an impartial and exact execution of the laws is the best of republics.

Good government is an empire of laws. In a large society, inhabiting an extensive country, it is impossible that the whole should assemble to make laws. The first necessary step, then, is to depute power from the many to a few of the most wise and good. Agree upon the number and qualifications of persons who shall have the benefit of choosing, or annex this privilege to the inhabitants of a certain extent of ground.

This representative assembly should be in miniature an exact portrait of the people at large. Great care should be taken to effect this, and to prevent unfair, partial, and corrupt elections.
A representation of the people in one assembly being obtained, a question arises, whether all the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judicial, shall be left in this body? I think a people cannot be long free, nor ever happy, whose government is in one assembly. My reasons for this opinion are as follow:

1. A single assembly is liable to all the vices, follies, and frailties of an individual; subject to fits of humor, starts of passion, flights of enthusiasm, partialities, or prejudice, and consequently productive of hasty results and absurd judgments.

2. A single assembly is apt to be avaricious, and in time will not scruple to exempt itself from burdens, which it will lay, without compunction, on its constituents.

3. A single assembly is apt to grow ambitious, and after a time will not hesitate to vote itself perpetual.

4. A representative assembly is unfit to exercise the executive power, for want of two essential properties; secrecy and dispatch.

5. A representative assembly is still less qualified for the judicial power, because it is too numerous, too slow, and too little skilled in the laws.

6. Because a single assembly, possessed of all the powers of government, would make arbitrary laws for their own interest, execute all laws arbitrarily for their own interest, and adjudge all controversies in their own favor.

Most of the foregoing reasons prove that the legislative power ought to be more complex; to which we may add, that if the legislative power is wholly in one assembly, and the executive in another, or in a single person, these two powers will oppose and encroach upon each other, until the contest shall end in war, and the whole power, legislative and executive, be usurped by the strongest.

The judicial power, in such case, could not mediate, or hold the balance between the two contending powers, because the legislative would undermine it. And this shows the necessity, too, of giving the executive power a negative upon the legislative, otherwise this will be continually encroaching upon that.

To avoid these dangers, let a distinct assembly be constituted, as a mediator between the two extreme branches of the legislature, that which represents the people, and that which is vested with the executive power. Let the representative assembly then elect by ballot, from among themselves or their constituents, or both, a distinct assembly, which, for the sake of perspicuity, we will call a council. It may consist of any number you please, say twenty or thirty, and should have a free and independent exercise of its judgment, and consequently a negative voice in the legislature. These two bodies, thus constituted, and made integral parts of the legislature.

The governor should have the command of the militia and of all your armies. The power of pardons should be with the governor and council. Judges, justices, and all other officers, civil and military, should be nominated and appointed by the governor, with the advice and consent of council. All military officers should have commissions, under the hand of the governor and seal of the colony. A militia law, requiring all men, or with very few exceptions besides cases of conscience, to be provided with arms and ammunition, to be trained to defend their country.

The dignity and stability of government in all its branches, the morals of the people, and every blessing of society depend so much upon an upright and skillful administration of justice, that the judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that. The judges, therefore, should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention. Their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests; they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of men. To these ends, they should hold estates for life in their offices. For misbehavior, the house of representatives should impeach them before the governor and council, where they should have time and opportunity to make their defense. If convicted, they should be removed from their offices, and subjected to such other punishment as shall be proper.

Laws for liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.

A constitution founded on these principles introduces knowledge among the people, and inspires them with a conscious dignity. You and I, my dear friend, have been sent into life at a time when the greatest lawgivers of antiquity would have wished to live. How few of the human race have ever enjoyed an opportunity of making an election of government. I hope you will avail yourself and your country to assist her in the formation of the happiest governments and the best character of a great people.

“If you....” identifies a user. Negotiation has no place in friendship.

Albert died on Thursday.

Yesterday we relocated one of Albert's paintings to the music room, and CX placed a clear and silver bow on the corner. Albert had once wished to paint the speakers. Last night I saw Angela, and for the first time we did not engage in roundabout dueling conversation. She was, I think, herself. The thought that I came away with from this is that we fear love - comes from Sarah McLachlin. God bless you Albert.