Trust But Verify

Joe / Kamala:  Signed, sealed, delivered!  I’m yours!!!
2020 Ballot Received!!
Thank You to:  United States Postal Service, Contra Costa County Elections Board / Registrar of Voters & California Secretary of State!!!  Now let’s get to counting…
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On This Day In:
2019	With Faith
2018	Spiritual Matter
2017	Until He’s Elected President…
2016	Reasonable Discounts
2015	Poem For A Friend
2014	A Very Unusual Mind
2013	Just Lucky
2012	The Undeveloped Child
2011	What Is Your Canvas?
2010	Giants Win Games 3 & 4 – One Away From World Series!!

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#CryBabyDonald Is Too Human

To err is human; to blame it on the other guy is even more human.
—    Bob Goddard
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On This Day In:
2019	With Faith
2018	Spiritual Matter
2017	Until He’s Elected President…
2016	Reasonable Discounts
2015	Poem For A Friend
2014	A Very Unusual Mind
2013	Just Lucky
2012	The Undeveloped Child
2011	What Is Your Canvas?
2010	Giants Win Games 3 & 4 – One Away From World Series!!

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Make Voting A Habit

Habits are like a cable.   We weave a strand of it every day and soon it cannot be broken.
—   Horace Mann
[If you are registered:  VOTE!!  If you are not currently registered, see if your state will still let you register.  If not, see if they will let you register and vote on the same day.  Voting is your chance to be heard!  Take the time to learn about your local issues and candidates and vote down ticket as well as for the President.  You vote ONLY counts IF you actually cast a vote.  —  KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2019	2019 49ers Season Starts 5-0!!
	Will Any Republican Senator Vote For Impeachment?
2018	VOTE – We Need A Wave
2017	Soothe, Inspire And Recharge
2016	Aren’t We?
2015	Cold Embrace
2014	Delightful
2013	Apprenticeship
2012	Curtain Rods
2011	A Living Force
2010	BART Rides – A Tipping Point

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Choice

“Are you a socialist?” Ted Turner asked Carl Sagan.  “I’m not sure what a socialist is,” Sagan replied.
But I believe the government has a responsibility to care for the people,” Sagan said.
“I’m talking about making people self-reliant, people able to take care of themselves,” he continued.  “There are countries which are perfectly able to do that.  The United States is an extremely rich country, it’s perfectly able to do that.  It chooses not to.  It chooses to have homeless people.”
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On This Day In:
2019	He Claims It’s Fake News And Spies
2018	Mine, Too
2017	Who’s Turn Is It Now?
2016	Before You Vote In November…
2015	Two Faithful Thoughts
2014	Love Light
	Orange October (III) – Giants Advance To National League Championship Series (NLCS)
2013	Nothing Ridiculous
2012	Keeping Faith
2011	Summon Us, Don’t Criticize Us
2010	Obama’s Wars – Book Review
	Game Two – Hearbreaking Loss

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Insect Instinct

Last night (Wednesday 7 September 2020), we had our Vice-Presidential debate.  During the debate, a fly landed on the current VP’s hair as sat there for a couple of minutes while he spoke.  See the image below…
My question is:  How is it that even the common American fly knew which side of the debate was full of sh*t?
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On This Day In:
2019	Bigger Hearts
2018	Signaled Progress
2017	No Progress, But Still Unreasonable
2016	Notes Unsaid
2015	Still Seeking (Believe It Or Not)
2014	Guidelines For Bureaucrats
2013	Failing At Normalization
2012	Are You An Expert?
2011	Joy!

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The Main Thing: Vote!

No one has the right to sit down and feel hopeless.  There’s too much to do.
—   Dorothy Day
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On This Day In:
2019	A Big “IF”
2018	Committed To Thinking
2017	More Pictures From My (Family) Retirement Party
	A Fondness For Sins
2016	Are You Waiting?
2015	The Future Myth
2014	Hands
2013	Because You Have Lived
2012	47%
2011	Conservative Values: Low And Lax
2010	A Non-Zero Sum Game
	What If “c” Isn’t A Constant?
2009	Pictures from UCLA trip…

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Let The Landslide Begin!!

I VOTED FOR JOE BIDEN!!
Avalanche = Landslide + 1
I hope President Trump FULLY recovers.  I don’t want to see the end of Donald Trump (per se).  I want to see the end of “Trumpism”, and all it’s greed, racism, sexism and anti-Democracy authoritarianism.  Please, my fellow Americans – return us to a nation of laws and remove this offense from “The People’s House“.
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On This Day In:
2019	Somebody’s Watching You
2018	First From Within
2017	Or Vote Against You
2016	Cupid Must Say It Too
2015	Some Of This And A Pinch Of That
2014	Consensus Is Only One Side
2013	Not Ought
2012	If You Want To, If You Have Something To Offer
2011	I See Lots Of Fools
2010	Orange Inside!!
	And The Band Played On…
	Happy New Year!!

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3 November Is Coming!

If you’re going through hell, keep going.
—    Winston Churchill
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On This Day In:
2019	Senate Republicans: Impeachment – Because It Is Right!
	Dave’s Not Here, Man!
	Mixing Business And Pleasure
2018	Intensity Doesn’t Make It Correct
	HF2: 1940’s Grapes
2017	Proof Sits In The Oval Office
2016	Tragic Determinism
2015	Maybe It Should Be Clearer
2014	Make It Your Strength
2013	Four Score
2012	The Ruler
2011	Forever
2010	Just Cuz
	How Do You Mend A Broken Heart?
	It’s Alive!! (3rd Pair Shoe Review)

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Nothing New Here

“Too Much and Never Enough” (2020©)  — book review
Today’s review is for the recently released family psychoanalysis / gossip tale concerning “Uncle Donald” aka: President Donald Trump, the Trump family and the “House”.  The full title is: “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man“, and is written by Mary Trump, PhD., (the President’s niece) who happens to be a trained psychologist.  Mary is the daughter of Donald’s older brother Fred Trump, Jr. With Fred Sr being their father.
According to this story, Trump Sr. wasn’t happy with Trump Jr., feeling Jr. was too weak.  Sr. felt like he was a tough guy and he wanted his heir apparent to be tough, too.  From the sound of it, Sr.’s father was a jerk (a$$hole is a better description), and he passed it down to Sr. who tried to pass it down to all of his children.  It sounds as if Sr. was mostly successful with all of his children (with the possible exception of Jr.), but since the story is being told by Jr.’s daughter, we can’t really be sure.  After all, Jr. threatens his wife repeatedly – at least once with a firearm – and he dies young from alcohol abuse.  Anyway, as near as we can tell from this book, Sr. passed down the coward, liar, cheat, con man, gene to all of his children.  And, by the by, Sr.’s wife was no saint either.  The result of all this is that Don Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Tiffany all seem to be cut from the same poor cloth.  It’s too early to say anything about Barron (the President’s youngest son).  Perhaps his mother has saved him, but it doesn’t seem likely as she is not spoken of well in the book (or in the news) either.
Is this book any good?  Does it shed like on the President, i.e. does it help explain his actions?  Is it worth the time and money to read?  Yes.  No.  And, so-so.
This book is a surprisingly good read.  I fully expected the author to be as incompetent as the rest of the family is presented.  She is not!  Her writing style is excellent and the reader (me) feels like you are right there with her as scenes play out.
Does the book “explain” Donald Trump.  NO!  I started the book knowing (as much as you can “know” anything about a person you’ve never met) that Donald Trump is (in no particular order): a liar, a con artist, a terrible business man, a coward, a cheat – taxes, business and personal, and (IMHO) a narcissistic sociopath with delusions of grandeur.  Basically, he is unmatched as a “LOSER” and the fact he happened to become President and arguably the most powerful person on the planet will never change the BIG “L” which will ultimately be assigned to him by history.  In a very strange way, he has proven himself to be the “greatest of all time”, after all.  I’m just not sure you want to be the GOAT for losers.
At a certain level, reading this book “almost” creates a sense of sympathy for the family.  BUT, then one realizes that lots of perfectly normal people grew up and out of similar familial issues.  To quote my old Drill Sergeant: “I will listen to your reasons, but I will not accept your excuses.”  He is what he is and his upbringing neither excuses his current actions nor does it absolve him of his past ones.  With all the wealth and opportunities he was granted by birth, he has chosen his path(s) and they have always been those of the lazy, the ignorant and the corrupt.
Is this book worth the time and money to read?  If you don’t know anything about the President and his family history, I guess it will have some limited value.  There are lots of particular details about the older brother (Fred Jr.) which I didn’t know.  I also didn’t know the President’s mother was as bad as she is presented.  Other than that, though, most everything has been on the news (especially since the book’s release).  If you don’t watch the news, I guess you may learn something.
Final recommendation: moderate.  This is a surprisingly well written book, a very fast read, but I’m glad I didn’t buy it.  I hope the author wins her suit against Donald and his sister, who both appear to be crooks (based on the book).  This book IS a good gossip read – if that’s what you’re into.  (And, sometimes I am, too.)
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On This Day In:
2019	Love And Leave
2018	Smiling If Not Laughing
2017	Chilled And Smooth
2016	But Sometimes You Have To Stand In Front
2015	The Key Shift
2014	Remember ISIS / ISIL?
2013	What Have You Done Lately?
2012	B8
2011	I’m Definitely Not In Control

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Talk To Me

What’s Going On?
Favorite Line(s):
Picket lines and picket signs
Don’t punish me with brutality
Talk to me, so you can see
Oh, what’s going on
What’s going on
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On This Day In:
2019	Love And Leave
2018	Smiling If Not Laughing
2017	Chilled And Smooth
2016	But Sometimes You Have To Stand In Front
2015	The Key Shift
2014	Remember ISIS / ISIL?
2013	What Have You Done Lately?
2012	B8
2011	I’m Definitely Not In Control

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#45 Never Shuts Up

Self-discipline is when your conscience tells you to do something and you don’t talk back.
—  W. K. Hope
[I’m not at all sure #DonTheCon has a conscience, but we certainly KNOW he has no self-discipline.  —  KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2019	Silly Pooh Bear
	Dominoes Or Jenga?
2018	Very Few
2017	Or The Candidate Who…
2016	The Happiest People
2015	Jumping Into The Dark
2014	I Would Be Sillier
2013	It Keeps Happening Anyway
2012	Take Time
2011	A Mother’s Lesson
2010	3rd Pair – Shoe Review (DOA and Final)

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Watching #45 Hold A Rally

Smiling Faces Sometimes
Comments:  Do I REALLY need to explain the title of this post and it’s relationship to this song?
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On This Day In:
2019	I Think Reading Books Is A Good Place To Start
2018	And Pay In Full
2017	If Only
2016	Equal Justice
2015	Not Enough
2014	Are You Even Listening?
2013	Namaste
2012	Looking Up
2011	Et Tu Brute?

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Why #45 Is Always Crying

Hell is the suffering of being unable to love.
—   Fyodor Dostoyevsky
From:   “The Brothers Karamazov“
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On This Day In:
2019	I Think Reading Books Is A Good Place To Start
2018	And Pay In Full
2017	If Only
2016	Equal Justice
2015	Not Enough
2014	Are You Even Listening?
2013	Namaste
2012	Looking Up
2011	Et Tu Brute?

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The Blind Squirrel And The Suppression Of Uncomfortable Ideas

There are many hypotheses in science that are wrong.  That’s perfectly alright; it’s the aperture to finding out what’s right.  Science is a self-correcting process.  To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny.  The worst aspect of the Velikovsky affair is not that many of his ideas were wrong or silly or in gross contradiction to the facts; rather, the worst aspect is that some scientists attempted to suppress Velikovsky’s ideas.  The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge and there is no place for it in the endeavor of science.  We do not know beforehand where fundamental insights will arise from about our mysterious and lovely solar system, and the history of our study of the solar system shows clearly that accepted and conventional ideas are often wrong and that fundamental insights can arise from the most unexpected sources.
—   Carl Sagan
[Accidents happen…  As the saying goes:  “Even the blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut.”  And, so it appears President Trump has (purely by stupid chance) stated a truth…
A few days ago, while visiting California to view the destruction being caused by wildfires, the President was advised one of the reasons for the massive fires is “Climate Change”.  Trump replied:  “It’ll start getting cooler.  You just watch.“
“I wish science agreed with you,” Crowfoot (Wade Crowfoot is California’s secretary for natural resources) countered.
“Well, I don’t think science knows, actually,” Trump said.
As bizarre as it sounds, President Trump is correct (for all the wrong reasons).  To start off, in less than a week Autumn starts.  Followed by Winter!  So, yes, the daily temperature will start getting cooler.  The second part is the “squirrel finding the nut“.  No, “science” doesn’t KNOW if the climate will stay hot or get hotter.  Just as science doesn’t KNOW the sun will rise in the East tomorrow.  Science does, however, have a pretty good certainty that IF the sun does rise tomorrow, it will be in the East.  President Trump’s BASELESS claims “Climate Change” is a “hoax” and / or invented by the Chinese to cripple our economy are both as unscientific as they are silly, but that doesn’t make his “uncomfortable idea” wrong (from a scientific perspective).  His claim also erroneously conflates two issues:  1) is climate change real; and, 2) if it is real, what is causing it?
And, this is the problem (for science and all rational humanity):  we have overwhelming data supporting the theory of climate change; we don’t have overwhelming evidence of causation – just a LOT of data of correlation.  Our little blind squirrel is denying both the substantial data of change AND the substantial data of correlation.
True science requires that we admit the possibility “Climate Change” is not happening – despite the multiple decades of data which support the scientific conclusion “Climate Change” 1) is real, 2) has already happened, and 3) is getting worse.  More precisely, we must admit the possibility that our current understanding of why “Climate Change” appears to be happening is not valid, i.e., it’s not being caused by human production of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The policy question is:  What if our little squirrel is correct?   Well, if he is correct and there is no climate change, then “eventually” the consistent rise in temperature which the planet has been experiencing with revert back to the norm.  If humanity is lucky, this will happen soon (and quickly) and life will go on pretty much as it has for the last 10,000 years (or at least since the last major ice age).  Policy decision:  do nothing and hope for the best.
Alternatively, if he is correct the climate change (which has been accelerating for the last 50 years) is not caused by humans, what IS the cause and how do we slow, stop or reverse it?  If we don’t discover the “real” cause, humanity (and most of life as we know it) on Earth will become extinct.  Unfortunately, because the data has been so one sided (climate change is real and is happening NOW), we don’t have any good / reasonable alternative theories to human caused CO2 emissions.  Policy decision: we need to pore tons of money into research to come up with an alternative root cause which we can then pore TONS more money into correcting / fixing.   (All the while hoping and praying we’re not too late to fix the problem.)
And if our little squirrel is wrong about Climate Change and its cause?  Well, despite what we’ve seen over the last 20 years (droughts and wildfires / hurricanes and typhoons), you ain’t seen nothing yet!  Forty(40%) percent of humanity lives within 60 miles of an ocean.  What happens when the ocean levels rise and large swathes of that coastal area becomes uninhabitable due to flooding, storm surges and salination of coastal water supplies?  What happens to sea life when the salination in the oceans changes due to the increased ice melts dumping fresh water into their environment?  What happens to the rest of the life on Earth when there is a vast die-off of life in the world’s oceans?  Policy decision:  we better get busy because our window of opportunity to save the habitable planet we’ve known for the last 10,000 years is closing fast!!!
Our little squirrel is in his 70’s and probably won’t live to experience the full results of his blindness.  Somehow, I don’t find that comforting.  —  KMAB]
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On This Day In:
2019	Future Tools
	Three Swedish Girls
2018	Four Loves
	Favorite Westerns
2017	Faith In Science
2016	What The World Calls
2015	Say What?
2014	Start Today
2013	Fly!!
2012	Greater Love
2011	Before

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It’ll Start Getting Cooler. You Just Watch.

Eve Of Destruction
Favorite Line(s):
Yeah, my blood’s so mad, feels like coagulatin’,
I’m sittin’ here, just contemplatin’,
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation,
Handful of Senators don’t pass legislation,
And marches alone can’t bring integration,
When human respect is disintegratin’,
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin’,
And you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.
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On This Day In:
2019	Future Tools
	Three Swedish Girls
2018	Four Loves
	Favorite Westerns
2017	Faith In Science
2016	What The World Calls
2015	Say What?
2014	Start Today
2013	Fly!!
2012	Greater Love
2011	Before

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