Burned One

While on the campaign trail last month, former Texas gubernatorial hopeful Debra Medina stepped into a Nine-eleven trap. Alex Jones offered to save her. Apparently Medina's response fell short of Jones' expectations because he cut her loose. Jack Blood swooped in with a wind of outrage against Jones. Blood accused Jones of such things as not reading his sourced material, allowing staff to pen his autograph, going to a strip club, being a drunk looking for a fight, and smoking pot. That last one makes me smirk as I think back to the Seventies and imagine someone trying to roll joints fast enough to get Jones mellow.

As easily as Blood could excuse Medina's interview blunders as acts of political naivete, one could excuse Jones' business activities as acts of administrative recklessness. As for Jones' partying habits, Blood admits smoking pot with Jones which cancels out that accusation and poises the strip club and drinking for a similar fate. This leaves Jones' itching for a fight when drunk but anyone with a couple of years of adult socialization behind them might predict that development. The whole thing was distorted and blown out of proportion by the Blood camp. Jones is quiet at the moment but an eruption is expected at some point after the feathers have been cleaned up at the Jones' home.

This is just another one of those petty competitions that flair up between corruption criers; not long ago it was Rense v. Camelot and before that Jones v. Rense. What the alt big cats fail to realize is that - as in the instance of Blood v. Jones - their accusations against one other usually cancel themselves out. Accuser and accused both end up in tattered rags. Their followers become paranoid loud-mouthed bullies in the blog yard. Certainly It is possible that one of the popular alternative blog heroes will turn out to be a mercenary triple counteragent, royal jesuit jewish persian and former hypnotist with the traveling circus. A more likely find is a charismatically communicative person with a cause and air-time acquisition talents who develops an audience that grows by word-of-link. Once organized, incorporated or otherwise registered with the big leagues, then the games begin.

Guess who gets to be the pawns?

How To Do The Big Pelosi

1. Bribe and blackmail each and every voting member with consummate ruthlessness.
2. Dare those who would defy: Arrive with an entourage, a blunt instrument and a great big smile-you-better-not-wipe-off-my-face.
3. Sweat.
4. Repeat wring & fluff cycle (1 above).
5. Reapply smile and become the entourage.
6. Spin dry.

St. Patrick's Day

"Where the Irish meet on the Internet for Parade Information".

Who's Who:

Taoiseach and Mary

"He's a left-hander, isn't he?"

Maureen

Saint Who?

Daylight Saving Buzz

Sunflowers and Benjamin Franklin.

The search is on for the hypothetical dwarf and namesake of this artifact.

Anglicans entering into communion with the Catholic Church will not be absorbed the way "a teaspoon of sugar would be lost in a gallon of coffee".

Catholics and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints must continue to stand together as a "vital bulwark" against those in American Society who want to "reduce religion to a purely private reality".

Why no one cares about privacy anymore.

Pi Day

Brought to us by Congress & Google.

Here Zie Comes!

Courtesy of Australia's New South Wales government, Earth has its first legally registered "Sex Not Specified" human being. The Sydney Morning Herald begins the story:

THIS Mardi Gras, Norrie received a gift that no other androgynous person in NSW has had before.

The night before the parade, the postman brought a certificate from the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages that contained neither the dreaded ''M'' nor its equally despised cousin, ''F''.

Dreaded, despised? That's rather harsh. Cousin? An interesting comparative but - on with the show:

Norrie has since begun doing the rounds to have all offending records changed.

Norrie's first attempt at pronouncement was at a bank where predictably the customer's request could not be processed immediately:

Centrelink was flummoxed and had to call in computer programmers to tackle the task, but agreed to find a way.

Unflummoxing a computer system is a corporate loss but at least Norrie's bank will be ahead of the regulatory curve. In related market news, Forms-R-Us-type shareholders can look forward to profits as the new paradigm takes form.

Speaking of prophets, one was consulted for the Norrie story:

A Catholic ethicist, Nicholas Tonti-Filippini from the John Paul II Institute, said birth certificates should also record no gender in such cases, updated with ''any changes to phenotypic gender''.

He said there was a trend against the practice of selecting a sex for intersex children, which could mean more androgynous people in future.

We may proceed confidently with full knowledge of the approximate location of God's stance on the matter. While the rest of us are prompted go forward with a new understanding, Norrie advises caution:

''It's not a detail I think should be part of my identity,'' neither he nor she said. (Norrie prefers ''zie''.)

Wiki is already there with the "zie" and all the other invented pronoun suggestions. Wiki has gone nowhere near Norrie (aka Norrie May-Welby aka norrie mAy-Welby). The SMH got lost somewhere in the "neither he nor she said" sentence. The rest of us will find our way the best we can when ze come calling.

A Fool And His Gold Are Soon Parted

Every time those claiming to be smarter than the average bear and bull start hawking gold, I think of Obama as FDR on the cover of Time. Then I think of the following:

The Gold Confiscation Of April 5, 1933

From: President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt
To: The United States Congress
Dated: 5 April, 1933
Presidential Executive Order 6102

Forbidding the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion and Gold Certificates By virtue of the authority vested in me by Section 5(b) of the Act of October 6, 1917, as amended by Section 2 of the Act of March 9, 1933, entitled

An Act to provide relief in the existing national emergency in banking, and for other purposes~',

in which amendatory Act Congress declared that a serious emergency exists,

I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do declare that said national emergency still continues to exist and pursuant to said section to do hereby prohibit the hoarding gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates within the continental United States by individuals, partnerships, associations and corporations and hereby prescribe the following regulations for carrying out the purposes of the order:

Section 1. For the purpose of this regulation, the term 'hoarding" means the withdrawal and withholding of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates from the recognized and customary channels of trade. The term "person" means any individual, partnership, association or corporation.

Section 2. All persons are hereby required to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, to a Federal Reserve bank or a branch or agency thereof or to any member bank of the Federal Reserve System all gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates now owned by them or coming into their ownership on or before April 28, 1933, except the following:

(a) Such amount of gold as may be required for legitimate and customary use in industry, profession or art within a reasonable time, including gold prior to refining and stocks of gold in reasonable amounts for the usual trade requirements of owners mining and refining such gold.

(b) Gold coin and gold certificates in an amount not exceeding in the aggregate $100.00 belonging to any one person; and gold coins having recognized special value to collectors of rare and unusual coins.

(c) Gold coin and bullion earmarked or held in trust for a recognized foreign government or foreign central bank or the Bank for International Settlements.

(d) Gold coin and bullion licensed for the other proper transactions (not involving hoarding) including gold coin and gold bullion imported for the re-export or held pending action on applications for export license.

Section 3. Until otherwise ordered any person becoming the owner of any gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates after April 28, 1933, shall within three days after receipt thereof, deliver the same in the manner prescribed in Section 2; unless such gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates are held for any of the purposes specified in paragraphs (a),(b) or (c) of Section 2; or unless such gold coin, gold bullion is held for purposes specified in paragraph (d) of Section 2 and the person holding it is, with respect to such gold coin or bullion, a licensee or applicant for license pending action thereon.

Section 4. Upon receipt of gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates delivered to it in accordance with Section 2 or 3, the Federal reserve bank or member bank will pay thereof an equivalent amount of any other form of coin or currency coined or issued under the laws of the Unites States.

Section 5. Member banks shall deliver alt gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates owned or received by them (other than as exempted under the provisions of Section 2) to the Federal reserve banks of there respective districts and receive credit or payment thereof.

Section 6. The Secretary of the Treasury, out of the sum made available to the President by Section 501 of the Act of March 9, 1933, will in all proper cases pay the reasonable costs of transportation of gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates delivered to a member bank or Federal reserve bank in accordance with Sections 2, 3, or 5 hereof, including the cost of insurance, protection, and such other incidental costs as may be necessary, upon production of satisfactory evidence of such costs. Voucher forms for this purpose may be procured from Federal reserve banks.

Section 7. In cases where the delivery of gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates by the owners thereof within the time set forth above will involve extraordinary hardship or difficulty, the Secretary of the Treasury may, in his discretion, extend the time within which such delivery must be made. Applications for such extensions must be made in writing under oath; addressed to the Secretary of the Treasury and filed with a Federal reserve bank. Each applications must state the date to which the extension is desired, the amount and location of the gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates in respect of which such application is made and the facts showing extension to be necessary to avoid extraordinary hardship or difficulty.

Section 8. The Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized and empowered to issue such further regulations as he may deem necessary to carry the purposes of this order and to issue licenses there under, through such officers or agencies as he may designate, including licenses permitting the Federal reserve banks and member banks of the Federal Reserve System, in return for an equivalent amount of other coin, currency or credit, to deliver, earmark or hold in trust gold coin or bullion to or for persons showing the need for same for any of the purposes specified in paragraphs (a), (c), and (d) of Section 2 of these regulations.

Section 9. Whoever willfully violates any provision of this Executive Order or these regulation or of any rule, regulation or license issued there under may be fined not more than $10,000, or,if a natural person may be imprisoned for not more than ten years or both; and any officer, director, or agent of any corporation who knowingly participates in any such violation may be punished by a like fine, imprisonment, or both.

This order and these regulations may be modified or revoked at any time.
/s/
Franklin D. Roosevelt
President of the United States of America
April 5, 1933

30 January 1934 - Gold Reserve Act. Value adjusted from $20.67 to $35 per ounce

15 August 1971 - Nixon abandons the gold standard.

31 December 1974 - Ford-Congress lift gold ownership limitations.

What the Definition of Ms. Is

Dictionary: Ms. Ms (mĭz)

n., pl., Mses., also Mses, also Mss. or Mss (mĭz'ĭz).

1. Used as a courtesy title before the surname or full name of a woman or girl: Ms. Doe; Ms. Jane Doe.
2. Used in informal titles for a woman to indicate the epitomizing of an attribute or activity: Ms. Fashionable; Ms. Volleyball.

[Blend of MISS and MRS..]

USAGE NOTE Many of us think of Ms. or Ms as a fairly recent invention of the women's movement, but in fact the term was first suggested as a convenience to writers of business letters by such publications as the Bulletin of the American Business Writing Association (1951) and The Simplified Letter, issued by the National Office Management Association (1952). Ms. is now widely used in both professional and social contexts.

As a courtesy title Ms. serves exactly the same function that Mr. does for men, and like Mr. it may be used with a last name alone or with a full name. Furthermore, Ms. is correct regardless of a woman's marital status, thus relegating that information to the realm of private life, where many feel it belongs anyway. Some women prefer Miss or Mrs., however, and courtesy requires that their wishes be respected.

According to an antedater, the history of Ms. began:

"On page 4 of the Springfield (Mass.) Sunday Republican of November 10, 1901, under the heading "Men, Women and Affairs . . . the writer suggests that "a void in the English language" may be filled by Ms., pronounced as "Mizz," as an alternative to Miss or Mrs."

Testing the Servants

A Reuters' photo headline heaves that Nancy Pelosi has the "biggest test" coming up. Clearly this means that Ms. Speaker made passing grades on the alliance test, the leadership test and the toughest test. A short graze through the speaker's website unearthed no mention of the looming biggest nor were there scores available for the other tests. Daughter Pelosi is presumably very proud and profited however there is no mention of daughter either, except in the biographical-referenced group of "five grown children". Cue Jordan Maxwell: What goes on behind the scenes in front of our faces is none of our business. Alas, so there appears pretty pictures and snippets of glowing earnestness at each and every one of the websites of our public servants - with barely a wisp of honesty or trace of factual information.

"The American people" are neither engaged nor educated at the websites of our legislators. Few representatives bother to put up a poll of any sort even though such technology is the straightest pipeline to the people and their trends. Not only are they poll shy, they're link shy too: There are no free puzzle pieces. There are no outlines and discussions of pending legislation. Accomplishments are manufactured and failures blamed away in Kodak moments. Calendars and itineraries are misleading - outside engagements for fun or profit during congressional business hours are unreported.

Drug testing is one examination that is not required of our legislators. This particular test is exclusively on-demand for all other American "employees". The lawmakers apparently deemed themselves and their jobs exempt from the rewards so beautifully articulated by public relations geniuses:

Employee drug testing ensures prevailing of drug free workplace environment that promotes positive attributes like work culture, professionalism, employee productivity, safety etc. Conducting employee drug testing at workplaces curbs the drug abuse among the employees and helps to create a safe and productive work environment. Employee drug testing helps organizations to find drug abusing employees and save considerable amount given towards employee health care and compensation.

Taxpayers are burdened with ridiculous and outrageously high invoices for congressional health care benefits. Why are drug tests not demanded from our highest paid servants, the very ones who found favor with the procedure and enacted it into law? Moreover, is this not a serious deficiency in homeland security protocol?

By The Way

This blog might be more aptly titled "Kathy's observations, speculations, questions and smart remarks". There is time for such in my life now that market forces have blown me into the corner of unreported unemployed baby boomers of relinquished mortgage. Opportunities abound for me to consider the sunshine behind the chem trails - such as this streak of illumination.

Howdy Neighbors

By way of introduction, my last two Yahoo 360 blog entries:


What in the Name of Nothingness is Wrong With This Man?

Hitchens in Pink.


Divorce, Co-creationist Style

Kerry Cassidy and Bill Ryan are calling it quits. Keep this in mind when donating, they ask.

Project Camelot is now a frozen-in-time library pending equitable distribution of the parties' assets. At the conclusion of the present finger-pointing phase, it is anticipated that the division will be accomplished in the spirit of light and love and co-creation.