Category: Satire

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Q & A BY THE BOOK

All writers know the column, By the Book, published every Sunday in the New York Times Book Review section.  Each week the editors pick a popular writer and ask him or her a fairly standard set of questions that would be impossible for normal people to answer off the top of their heads.

The authors rattle off the names of all kinds of titles and writers and say smart things designed to dazzle the little people who are always starved for an entertaining read.

I’m a pontificator who has never sold a book and never will, most likely. Authors sell their souls to write for money; they do exhausting tours where they answer stupid questions asked by stupid people day after stupid day. From these gatherings of stupidity they hope to sell a few books. It’s stupid.

Through books and other media, the public is exposed to a version of truth filtered by the most powerful people on Earth — to paraphrase Pulitzer Prize winner, Ronan Farrow.

Yes, it’s sickening. People are reading crap; they are immersed literarily in fibs and fabrications, which are shaped to make the world seem less evil, more friendly.

The truth that no wants to hear — I’m screaming it from cell towers to swarming people who seem to lack ears — billionaires have enslaved us. We are living in a gilded prison.

Totalitarianism has already won — not through governments but by supremely advantaged individuals who have no limits on the money they can make and keep — no limits on their power or their reach.

It’s true.

The rest of this essay is a parody of By the Book. The imagined interviewee is Billy Lee, the Pontificator. That’s me.

Billy Lee, the Pontificator

What books are on your nightstand?

I honestly don’t know. Can you give me a minute to run upstairs and look on the floor and my wife’s dresser? I keep current reads close to bed where I do most of my reading. It won’t take long… …

Ok. Thanks for waiting.

“The Periodic Table in Minutes,” by Dan Green; “Genetics in Minutes,” by Tom Jackson; “The Making of the Atomic Bomb,” by Richard Rhodes.

What kind of reader were you as a child? Any favorites?

“The Poky Little Puppy,” by Janette Sebring Lowrey and Gustaf Tenggren was my all time favorite. Mother read it hundreds of times.

I remember being amazed to learn that anyone can dig a hole under a fence to open a world of naughty possibilities. It cost a serving of strawberry shortcake to get caught; it seemed worth it to my little mind.

Your nightstand doesn’t seem to include fiction.  What genres do you avoid and which are you drawn to?

I’ve read a lot of good fiction, but most are classics like “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy and “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I would say that Fyodor ruined my interest in fiction. His book was a nightmare that threw me into depression.

War and Peace was different; it taught me how the world works; Leo laid bare the fallacy of the great man theory of history.

But yes, I avoid fiction. As a teenager I read “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand a couple times. The book ruined my life more than any other work of fiction, because it claimed to be truth. Living life proved it wrong, but its view of the nature of humans derailed me for decades.

I am drawn to books about science and math. Enough said, I hope.

I enjoy history.

“Retribution” by Max Hastings is a block buster about World War II — as is “Devil’s Voyage” by Jack L. Chalker.  “This Kind of War” by T. R. Ferenbach is a history of the Korean War that knocked my socks off.

You like history. Is there any history you learned from reading that isn’t taught in school? Anything you learned that’s shocking?

During the 150 years before America became a constitutional republic, two-thirds of all white people immigrated as slaves, who in those former times were called indentured servants. Amazing, right?

They came unchained on boats voluntarily, because life was brutal in Europe for poor people. Their term of slavery lasted seven years and ended with emancipation.

Africans came in chains. They served until they became too frail to work; they were set free to die of starvation. The term used was manumission. Ten percent of African slaves were set free this way by the time America became a republic in the late 1700s.

From before the beginning, America was a slave state. The privileges of freedom were extended to white men who owned property. Only they could vote, but not for Senators. State legislators with approval from their Governors appointed Senators.

The founders enshrined slavery in the constitution. Eighty-five years after its signing, half of all Americans went to war against the other half to preserve slavery, but they lost.

After the Civil War, it took the Confederates twenty-five years to terrorize blacks back into submission. At the same time, northern whites committed a genocide against the native peoples they called redskins.

In the 1900s, slavery was renamed capitalism by industry titans to help them make a more appealing counter argument against a system that was catching fire in Europe called communism.

Communists believed wealth should be produced cooperatively and then shared. The idea of sharing was anathema to slave holders (business owners) who referred to their slaves as workers.

Owners abrogated their obligation to care for their slaves by forcing them to provide for their own food, housing, and medical care out of a tiny stipend they bestowed, which today people refer to as a minimum wage. The owners somewhat derisively called the new rules freedom.

After WWII, the wealthy created what they liked to call a middle class (which included about ten percent of the population) to reward the mostly poor farm boys who had risked their lives to protect them.

After 1980, the entitled kids and grandkids of the aristocracy began to disassemble the system their fathers and grandfathers had built, because they felt that the little people weren’t grateful enough. They called it the Reagan Revolution.

Today, leaders promise to make America great again. No more Negro presidents. No more subsidized health care. No more regulations to protect the disadvantaged. Everyone will stand on their own two feet or perish.

It’s the way it’s always been. The escape to America, it turned out, was an escape from freedom.

The USA is now the most merciless police state in world history. The country is demoralized by a military occupation punctuated by non-judicial executions and excessive displays of military force against civilians.

The occupation of America is undergirded by a nightmarish penal system that locks up millions in high-tech prisons where tens-of-thousands are tortured with solitary confinement.

What is the worst part? The USA is building a wall to lock people in. Soon everyone in the USA will be a prisoner unable to leave. That’s the future.

America is going to create a society that reflects the values of its billionaires and the cartel of foreign oligarchs they call friends.

Guess what? There’s nothing anyone can do about it. Take the pills they give you and pretend life is great.

Try hard to cope, and you just might.

Wow, Billy Lee. Glad you got that off your chest. If you could require the president to read one book, what would it be?

The Bible.

Does he have time? It’s close to 800,000 words —  twenty novels.  It’s a lot of reading for a man in his seventies who golfs and is known for not reading much.

Who knows how much time any of us have?  I don’t.

What book are you embarrassed not to have read yet?

“Moby-Dick” by Herman Melville. I own the book and have read through the first half at least twice. It’s going to sound strange, but I honestly think the book is about homosexuality. There is a scene in one of the first chapters where two men sleep together in the bowels of a boat. They seem to have an affection for each other that, frankly, I find touching.

The title is a little suspicious. Try screaming it three times in a church without offending anyone.  Moby-Dick!  Moby-Dick!  Moby-Dick!  It’s hard. It’s a bit of a tongue-twister to boot.

You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which of three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?

Well, first, I have to get a buy-in from my wife, Bevy Mae. Beverly isn’t going to throw a dinner party just because I say so. But assuming she agrees, I’d invite Michael Faraday, Albert Einstein, and Richard Rhodes.

All three lived on the edge of knowledge where uncertainty rages; where fear can overwhelm the unprepared. Faraday’s The Chemical History of a Candle is one of the best science books about candle flames that I’ve ever read. Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity is a joy that anyone can imbibe in a few short hours if they skip the math and physics. And Richard Rhodes proves in his tomes that any idiot can build and store thermonuclear bombs in their basement.

If you would be gracious enough to permit me a fourth invitee, it would be Che Guevara — probably the best read and most informed writer of all time according to declassified CIA assessments. John Kennedy organized the original Green Berets based on one of his books. 

Much of Che’s work is unpublished. His published work is under a suppression protocol inside the USA. Expect releases now that new leadership has risen in Cuba and the United States.

Who would you want to write your life story?

Jesus of Nazareth. People say that he never wrote anything, but he was literate and knew things most folks can only wonder about. Of all public figures past and present, Jesus seems to be the one who understood people best and loved enough to be tender. I don’t think he would humiliate me.

Paul Newman. (January 26, 1925 – September 26, 2008)

What do you plan to read next?

Something I’ve written, probably. I’m the greatest pontificator there’s ever been. Why go out for hamburger when there’s steak at home?

Paul Newman said the same when someone asked why he stayed faithful to his wife, Joanne Woodward. For those who understand what love is, no explanation is necessary.

Billy Lee

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REASONS

This essay is Billy Lee’s rewrite and revision of a politicaldig.com blogpost written by Ron Delancer, which circulated widely on social media and Facebook.

Billy Lee used it with permission it turns out — the post ends by encouraging readers to copy, paste, and share it on their Facebook timelines — but he revised it extensively, mostly for formatting, but also to make it readable for his thin slice of the web-reading public who, it seems, suffer from, among other things, personal problems related to the understanding and processing of complex ideas.

In defence of Billy Lee (who pays our salaries), he claims that his version is a parody of the original; a satire, really — a controversial satire at that. As parody and satire, his essay is sufficiently differentiated and is not intended to infringe or undermine any copyright protections of the article it satirizes.  

The last ten paragraphs are original work by Billy Lee alone. We sue people who copy, duplicate, publish, or possess hard-copy of Billy Lee’s original work, so don’t do it. Links that take readers to our site are fine. In fact, we encourage it.

Here is a link to the original article: Poor Suffering Trumpsters

The BillyLeePontificator Editorial Board

A Trump supporter told a Hillary/Obama supporter whose initials are S. M., We suffered for eight years. Now it’s your turn.

S.M. wrote a brilliant response asking how exactly his “friend” suffered under Obama. Our readers will find below Billy Lee’s fractured mess — his version — of S.M.’s reasonable and respectful inquiry.

It is satire, people. Supporters of our nation’s newest president can click on the word satire to learn the definition. It’s fun to learn new words — especially those with more than one syllable.  The Editorial Board

Dear Trump supporter,

I am surprised you would wish suffering upon me. You know, you always hurt me when you are mean and insulting. Of course, it is your right under our Constitution, I suppose. I’ve never wanted to hurt anybody. I really don’t. You seem to hold an “US versus THEM” mentality.

Do you like to fight?

The election is over. Isn’t it time to put the political campaign behind and look for ways to work together as fellow Americans instead of lunatics?

There will never be a president who does everything to everyone’s liking. There are things President Obama (and President Clinton) did that I do not like and on the other hand I can point to  stuff President Bush did that I actually agreed with. Notice I said “some.”  Bush destabilized the Middle East and almost bankrupted our country. I didn’t much care for that part.

If you’re like me you owned a 401K retirement account in 2008. I lost about forty-grand bailing out Wall Street bankers. How did your 401K do? I lost my job when my company was forced to downsize; they couldn’t borrow to make payroll. How did your employer do? Did you keep working?

The United States was hemorrhaging close to a million jobs a month when Obama got elected. A person would have to be strung-out on meth not to remember. You do remember, don’t you? It was an economic free-fall for everyone. Billionaires did OK. That was the good part. For them, anyway. They not only survived, they prospered. 

So let us recall that almost ALL of America was suffering at the beginning of Obama’s presidency. You get that, right?

Of course you do. But I wanted to look back over the last eight years and ask you a few questions. The hayseeds in your pant cuffs and pig manure on your rubber boots tell me that you might not know much about economics, but you do know what pig-shit smells like.

Well, here’s some shit. People said Obama was a Muslim from Africa who lost his birth certificate. He was gonna impose Sharia Law, Take Away Guns, Create Death Panels, Destroy the Economy, Impose Socialism and worse — his wife was a terrorist.

Some evangelicals insisted Obama was the anti-Christ.

Does your wife allow you to track pig poo-poo into your house? I didn’t think so. You have too much class to track yucky-stuff everywhere. So I was wondering: Why do you always say that you suffered so much under the Obama presidency?

I’m going to guess why and ask leading questions, you know, to sort of help you think up some answers. Maybe you’ll do me the kindness of answering a few of them, so that my readers can better understand why you choose to think and act like a moron. Hope you’re ready. Here they come:

Gays and Lesbians can now marry and enjoy the benefits of freedoms long denied. Has this caused your suffering?

When Obama took office, the Dow was $6,626. When he left, it had tripled — to $19,875. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama gave us eighty-two straight months (nearly seven years) of private sector job growth – the longest streak in the history of the United States. Has this caused your suffering?

Think about the economy when Obama took power. The economy was in free-fall. President Obama created 11.3 million new jobs (far more than President Bush). Has this caused your suffering?

Obama dropped the unemployment rate from 10% to 4.7%. Has this caused your suffering?

Homelessness among US military veterans dropped by half. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama shut down our overseas black-site prisons, where people were tortured — in some cases to their deaths. Has this caused your suffering?

President Obama started the policy to pay travel expenses for the families of fallen soldiers. Grieving families, for free, can meet the returning planes that carry the remains of their loved ones. Has this caused your suffering?

We landed a rover on Mars and expanded our exploration of the cosmos. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama passed the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Has this caused your suffering?

The percentage of folks with no health insurance has fallen below 10%; 90% now have it-–an increase of 20 million people. Has this caused your suffering?

People are now treated for pre-existing conditions. Poor people with heart disease or cancer can buy good insurance at discounted rates. Has this caused your suffering?

Insurance premiums increased 58% during the Bush administration. The growth of premiums was far lower during the Obama presidency. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama added billions of dollars to mental health care for our veterans. Has this caused your suffering?

Consumer confidence grew from 38% to 88% during Obama’s tenure. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. Has this caused your suffering?

His bi-annual Nuclear Summit helped to convince sixteen countries to dispose of their loose nuclear material, so it could not be acquired by terrorists. Has this caused your suffering?

He saved the USA auto industry. American per-year car sales doubled during his presidency (to nearly 18 million vehicles). Has this caused your suffering?

The deficit as a percentage of the GDP (gross domestic product) fell from about 10% to 3%. Has this caused your suffering?

The total deficit dropped $800 billion. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama preserved the middle class tax cuts. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama banned solitary confinement for juveniles in federal prisons. Has this caused your suffering?

He enacted credit card reforms so that your interest rates can’t be raised unless you are warned first. Has this caused your suffering?

He outlawed government contractors from discriminating against LGBT persons. Has this caused your suffering?

He doubled Pell Grants. Has this caused your suffering?

Abortion is down. Has this caused your suffering?

Violent crime is down. Has this caused your suffering?

He protected Net Neutrality. Has this caused your suffering?

Obamacare extended the life of the Medicare insurance trust fund (it will be solvent until 2030). Has this caused your suffering?

President Obama repealed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Has this caused your suffering?

He banned torture. Has this caused your suffering?

He negotiated with Syria to destroy their chemical weapons. Has this caused your suffering?

Solar and wind power usage is at an all time high. Has this caused your suffering?

High school graduation rates rose to 83% – again, an all time high. Has this caused your suffering?

Corporate profits are up. Bankruptcies are down. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama started the process to normalize relations with Cuba. We share embassies now. Has this caused your suffering?

Reliance on foreign oil is at a 40 year low. Has this caused your suffering?

US exports are up 28%. Has this caused your suffering?

President Obama appointed the most diverse cabinet ever. Has this caused your suffering?

He dramatically reduced the number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. He avoided war with Iran and stopped their nuclear bomb program. Has this caused your suffering?

Obama decimated Al Qaeda and recovered a treasure trove of intelligence during the raid in Pakistan, which he directed and approved to apprehend its legendary leader. Did this cause your suffering?

Enough questions, already. Reasonable people should be able to agree that Obama pulled the USA out of a financial collapse and kept our country safe from attack by foreign terrorists.

Things are not perfect. A few dozen Americans went postal and shot up some places with weapons of war that no civilians should ever own. A lot of children got killed by crazy people.

It seems to me that our newly elected leaders are bonafide lunatics. I heard one psychiatrist say, no; it’s unfair to people who struggle with mental illness to equate their suffering with the behaviors of wicked people. Bad people don’t suffer. They are not debilitated by hurting others. They are energized.

It seems to me that people didn’t suffer during the Obama years; they hated, some of them; there’s a difference. Nasty people posturing as patriots hated on a black man who managed to become president of the most powerful slave-state in human history. He won a Nobel Prize for it; no one believed a country with a reputation for racial-cruelty would ever permit such a thing to happen. But it did.

I was 20 years old before a black man could sit at a counter and drink soda at a drugstore. Because of Barry Obama, most 20 year old kids today don’t remember a time when a white man was president. They were 12 years old and not paying attention, many of them.

Our new president is white and rich. He has over 5,000 times as much money as Obama. It’s one reason why he doesn’t respect our former chief executive. Lack of respect is one reason his family won’t live in the White House.

It’s not the only reason.

If he and his family colluded with foreign crime bosses to take control of our beloved America, well, everyone is going to suffer except those who choose to become collaborators.

When the nightmare ends, maybe years from now, the collaborators will suffer too. We live in the land of the free and the home of the brave — remember it, people — despite the low opinion some of our leaders might have of us. We will find new leaders.

We will find a way to save our shining city on a hill.

Billy Lee

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TOP TWEETS

twitter 1Last month we published tweets from my first thirty days on Twitter. This month, we publish a sampling of my best tweets ever, gleaned from the three years I tweeted regularly. A lot of thought went into each tweet when it was composed, and more thought has gone into selecting the “finalists” which made it into this new collection.  I hope readers find them entertaining and thought provoking. 

I’ve come to regret tweeting some of my original tweets, which, in retrospect, seemed to me too emotional and extreme. My son once told me my tweets were dumb. After reviewing all of them, it’s clear he was right about at least some of them. I no longer tweet regularly on Twitter. 

Anyway, get ready for a controversial ride. These tweets are hot.  If you disagree or have doubts or if you’re simply curious, click on the many embedded links to learn more.  

Note: links have been added to some of the original tweets to provide readers with background and context. A few tweets have been edited for clarity. 

If acorns tasted better, there’d be no need for farming.

The squirrels in our neighborhood have opposable thumbs & sometimes stand upright.

An airline CEO told a friend that 24 Al-Qaeda crews were active on 911.  I know, sounds crazy.

Where’d daddy go? He died, momma.  When’d he die?  Two months ago, momma.  Oh, did I kill him?  Alzheimer’s 101 

In the old days cigarette butts were everywhere.  Now you rarely see one.

Living forever, or just one day, feels the same.  We live in the present.

Going for a walk.  Hope the packs of wolf-coyote hybrids NatGeo says are out there don’t eat me.

Has it occurred to anyone else that the Restasis lady may, in fact, be an alien?

We have freedom of speech as long as nobody listens.

If USA GNP was divided equally, every family of four would get $200,000 per year.  [($15.2 T/309 M) * 4 ].

Clean coal is only clean before you dig it up and actually touch it.

During the next 25,000 years, containment structures for nuclear weapons will corrode & release plutonium killing all life on earth.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 40 – Son: Dad!  Stop Twitter now!  You sound loopy!  Me: You don’t understand, son.  I’m free.

What we learned during the past 10 years: throwing an election has consequences.

Have waited 50 years to vacation on a Cuban beach.  Still waiting.

Love this animation showing how DNA/RNA works…  http://t.co/rYaG8cau

Michigan has thousands of clear-water lakes.  Fish got there from geese and ducks carrying sticky fish-eggs on their webbed feet.

Solar bottle-bulbs provide free light to folks in dark houses.   http://t.co/1Hk01AA1

Only a nation asleep would allow individuals to accumulate billions of dollars.  Are you kidding me?!?

Permitting the wealthy to go into the prison business presents incredible dangers to our freedoms.

If aliens are the size of grasshoppers, we might not notice an invasion until it’s too late.

Ayn Rand destroyed America.

Nuclear plant meltdowns are almost certain during earthquakes above 8.0.  Since 1900, 100 have occurred, none in the USA.   http://t.co/KUhuFw88

tend to lie about the effectiveness of their drugs.

USA GNP is 7% of its accumulated wealth.  It’s why small changes in GNP don’t affect us much.  http://t.co/PmHlp5xL

Billionaires harm democracies.  You know they do.  Set max. worth at $150 million.  Those who have more must divest.

During slavery, plantation owners were the job creators. They created millions of jobs.

Research seems to show that brains decide seconds before humans are aware they’ve decided… http://t.co/1yngCw7b

The only threat to our freedom greater than billionaires is a government controlled by billionaires.

How differential gears work is hard to grasp.  This video can help. http://t.co/GyR0ht6z

No such thing as trace amounts of plutonium.  It gets passed around in wind & rain forever.  You will never see the speck that kills you.

All drones are piloted by somebody.

I’m old and cold and not very bold; my teeth are inlaid with gold. My chin has a fold; I’m covered with mold; when I go, my nose I must hold.

We don’t need a revolution.  We just need to limit how much people can steal before they have to divest.  No more billionaires.   http://www.theguardian.com/video

Pre-Civil War plantation owners were some of the most effective job-creators in our nation’s history.

Ayn Rand Objectivism is a modern day Divine Right of Kings written to convince the gullible that billionaires have a moral right to rule.

Squirrels have developed agriculture.  They plant trees and store walnuts which they eat out-of-season.

Favorite Spartacus video clip…  http://t.co/IsedM4xD

Copyrights that last years after an author’s death are un-American.  People get money for what they didn’t write?

I love the smell of marijuana in the morning. It smells like freedom.

Capitalism is the plantation system of the old South renamed & repackaged for modern wage earners.

This explanation of ozone is very good…  http://t.co/cwRrYIQo

Chances of being eaten by a mountain lion are 1 in ten million — unless the lion is 100 feet away & hungry.

This notion that somehow people are entitled to unlimited wealth is destroying civilization.  Soon, we’ll be serfs again.

Big Tobacco — when they advertised in the 1950s — talked 70% of men into smoking. We can be brainwashed. https://watch?v=sxrCjmqRTz0

Advocates of nuclear energy are like the people of Easter Island who destroyed their civilization for a few more hours of campfire.

America has a permanent over-class. Until we deal with it, we are serfs.

Atheists would rob me of any hope against death.

Incandescent bulbs — now banned — are hot.  We need them in winter.

40% of electricity bill is wasted charging AC/DC electronic devices.  This fix is cool.  http://t.co/8gWRO1l6

Plutonium escaped at Fukushima.  How dangerous is it?   http://uploads/1997/07/no-3.pdf

At the heart of every fortune lies a dark secret.

The wealthy have divested the middle-class & limited our incomes.  It’s time to turn the tables.

USA politics consists of arguing about how aggressive the financial shake-down of the middle-class should be.

It’s the redistribution of wealth to a permanent over-class that we’re fighting against. #occupywallstreet

Fantasy-nightmare vision of Ayn Rand was a poison apple.  It ushered in a facist USA, where billionaires now rule us.  #ows

Gated communities are another form of segregation.

Homework in elementary school demoralizes students, short circuits passive processing, dampens creativity & makes kids dumb.

RT @pdjmoo: THE LIONESS AND THE CALF: Lovely Watch.  A short documentary that will open your eyes. –  http://t.co/S8okiyJ2

Baby Boomers are the Greatest Generation. They ended racial segregation & the Vietnam War.  They started the high-tech revolution.

Rage and old age make a sage.

If humans were the size of squirrels and lived in people’s yards, could they survive?

RT @nytimesscience: Bursts of Fission Detected at Fukushima Reactor in Japan http://t.co/lZsThJNT

JFK fired the CIA Director who later sat on the Warren Commission.

It’s easier to control un-informed people.  Education will never be cool while billionaires rule.

Nice one-minute explanation of GPS & effects of special & general relativity…
http://t.co/T1z6gUm4

Twenty-three million government workers in the USA.  No way private sector can provide full employment.  See pg 30.  http://t.co/2Btdfbjs

Tea Party types don’t get that government is all that stands between them & tyranny by billionaires.  Divest billionaires.  #ows

Billionaires build their power by corrupting our representative government.  Divest them.  #ows

Well, Gitmo prison is going strong & we’re killing Americans with drones.  What good is Obama besides not being a Republican?  Just asking.

That country singer who used to crow, wanna watch some football?  & called Obama Hitler was on CMA tonight.  He got a standing ovation.

Billionaires seduce consumers into supporting “free markets” which they rule as personal fiefdoms. #ows

Billionaires used the tax cuts we gave them to solidify their vice-grip on our “democratic” institutions. #ows

Cults of personality never work out well.  #Paterno

MSNBC reporting that the District Attorney in the #Paterno sex crime scandal went missing in 2005.

How many of those who laughed at Howard Hughes for using Kleenex boxes as shoes ever tried it themselves?

USA psycho-terror:  Bahgram, Gitmo, SuperMax, rampant solitary.  Sick minds created these nightmares.

Many billionaires are tied to drugs (legal/illegal) & the military.

Earth is broadcasting itself on all EM frequencies.  If aliens are out there they will find us.

After Vietnam, anti-war activists were black-listed from top jobs.  The consequences for the USA have been devastating.

If billionaires won’t agree to tax fairness, what other reasonable requests will they crush?

TWITTER-LOG: Day 117 – been following some celebs like Vonnegut & Von Braun.  Even tweeted them.  Wife just informed me, they’re both dead.

Portraying oppressor as victim is as old as human tyranny. #ows #OccupyEarth

Quantum physicists & priests approach absurdity in different ways: one through reason; one through faith.

Am passing by hundreds of hyperactive squirrels on my walks.  Thus far, none have mindlessly attacked me.

Successful revolutions never have popular support until they’re won.

Rupert Murdoch of Fox News bought the Wall Street Journal.  It’s Fox propaganda now.  Don’t read it.

You treat us like dirt & live safe behind gates.  The least you could do is pay some taxes. #ows

The Bush tax cuts gave more money to the average millionaire than a lifetime of social security checks.

Cuba has one of the best health care systems in the world.  Our sick can’t go there.

Bell’s theorem is irrelevant if entangled particles are single wave-particle objects (like oscillating bubbles).  http://t.co/qzWRDLqx

Carbon dioxide is heavy, so the little there is stays close to the earth where plants can breath it.

The notion — main-streamed by Ayn Rand — that taxation is theft ruined all that was fair & good about the USA.

If life is distributed over the widest range of temperatures then typical civilizations might be cryogenic & radio-wave sensitive.

The dilemma of the rich is they can only live in one place at a time, operate one transport at a time, make love to one person at a time.

People understand the Universe the way smart goldfish might understand the Earth.

Earth’s neighbors are small with little gravity. We can visit & come back.  We have the perfect spaces to learn.

First thing women did after getting the vote was enact Prohibition — because their husbands drank & beat them.

This could be huge — esp. regarding intelligence & learning.   http://t.co/8OEbNOtd

How did paper planes launched from a small number of boats & dropping unguided munitions sink so many ships at Pearl Harbor?

GOP repealed Michigan unit-pricing.  At check out, we can’t tell if stuff rang up right.  At home, we can’t review what we paid.

No black man has ever led a major world power until Barack Obama.

Kirk Douglas reflects on life in letter to Christopher Hitchens…  http:/?2011/09/kirk-douglas-201109

Billionaires will be passing 30 trillion dollars to their kids in coming decades.

Somewhere in the oceans are a few genius dolphins.  We should find them.

When looking into the eyes of war-dogs returning from Iraq, one can’t help feeling that some have seen too much.

Christopher Hitchens said his biggest fear was — near certain death & in pain — he might cry-out to Christ Jesus to save him.

North Koreans fake-cry better than citizens of any other country.  http://t.co/qg3LFCWz

If private companies could create full employment, they would have to hire 13M unemployed & 23M govt workers: 36M people.

Government should provide free basic-food to anyone who wants it: potatoes, rice, beans, oil, corn.  It would cost almost nothing.

Drew USA flag billowing in the wind. Teacher said: you can’t draw straight lines?  Art career died that day.  In kindergarten.

You never hear about good marriages, because the people in them aren’t talking.

All trees fall down, yet few people have ever seen one fall.

We could put direct-current fuel cells in every neighborhood in the USA for the cost of a few nuclear power plants.

People who make sure they eat at least three balanced meals per day are usually fat.

25 dimensionless constants make our universe work the way it does.

Nothing smells better to me than my own armpits.

If the current Social Security tax rate was applied to all income, it would provide $25,000 per year to every old person.

Genes, like those for intelligence, can be passed between species by viruses.

Didn’t watch GOP debate but am certain it was the stupid-est thing on television tonight.

RT @cracked: 5 Absurd Solutions to Huge Problems (That Actually Worked): http://t.co/RpJpSWYL

Einstein’s statement that God does not play at dice flies in the face of Proverbs 16:33.

Billionaire propaganda station, NBC News, is reporting Romney family origin was in Mexican poverty.  That should work.

The Siberian wilderness in Russia has 35% more land mass than the contiguous USA.

Billionaires destroy democracies.

Assume reality is an [n x n] matrix.  Then the least expensive # of dimensions is when (n^3 / 3) = n^2 .  So n=3.   http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm

Romney said his speaking fee ($375,000) wasn’t much.  It’s about what the President is paid per year.

RT @QuotesByArtists: There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love. — Christopher Morley

The Romney Flat Tax (15%) works out to a 300% increase on low wagers; 50% decrease on the 1%.  Typical GOP idea.

Obama can sing like Al Green.  Makes me feel happy.  http://t.co/GspEqOEd

Never understood why anyone would put themselves on a boat with thousands of people they don’t know.   http://www.cnn.com/travel/carnival

We don’t know the names of the billionaires who rule us.

Until we get it — that billionaires we don’t know rule us — nothing political will  make sense.  It not about us.  It’s about them.

Insiders who killed Kennedy want us to know he was a monster.

The conspirators sat on the Warren Commission.  They put a Secret Service agent on the grassy knoll.  Oswald was a patsy.

Workers need a Bill of Rights.  Take away employers’ power to fire “at will.”  Due process required.

The public lives inside an information bubble created to entertain, not inform.

Politicians are not the best people to teach us about Jesus.

20% of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth.  Kudos, USA.   http://t.co/wWdEmDNv

Ronald Reagan accepted a $2M gift from the Japanese after his final term. Why?  Auto imports?

Iran can get a nuclear bomb anytime by buying one from another country.  What they can’t do is buy hundreds.

Expansion of space means our current vehicle technology — given unlimited fuel & time — can take us no further than 1B light years from Earth.

All cars in Iran run on natural gas.  All cars in Brazil run on sugar cane flex-fuel.  Why?  The oil is running out.

Don’t kid yourself.  If you are worth less than $20 million, you are one of the little people.

Most of USA’s best food is exported to wealthy nations.  We import from poor countries to make up shortfall.

12% of voters who earn less than $25K/ yr have no photo ID.  GOP says they shouldn’t vote.

RT @thequotemaster: Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves. -Abraham Lincoln http://t.co/J1mB7Eoa  #quotes

The Bible is written for the wretched.  It gives hope to the powerless, the exploited, the poor, the despised, the unloved.

Billionaires have the USA in a vice-grip. They control the media, courts & Congress.  Everyone works for them.

In case you didn’t notice, Florida is still segregated.  They have gated (segregated) neighborhoods everywhere.

The space between Earth & 1B light/yrs from Earth is expanding faster than our fastest spacecraft can travel.

Many Americans seem oblivious to the huge sums spent on ads to get them to accept the agenda of billionaires.

USA police forces are increasingly being manned by Iraq/Afganistan vets.  Caution: these men are “militarized” and “weaponized.”

When someone says they totally agree with you, odds are they totally don’t.

The Bush family unleashed more hell on Earth than any family in recent memory.  Kuwait, Iraq, Afganistan, 2000 election, 2008 crash; etc.

Anyone still remember when Enron & GOP drove Calif Dem Governor out & put Arnold in?  Enron bankrupt & Calif a mess.  Thanks GOP.

Enron’s Ken Lay sat next to Bush at 2000 Inaugural.  Jack-boots in street, protesters on sidewalks.  Anyone remember?   https://www.youtube.com/

Anyone who can donate $100,000 to a politician is, in all  probability, a crook.

Hunger Games shows a world where the wealthy use government to torment the common people for fun. Sounds like the USA.

USA is run by permanent over-class who inherited money, reputation and power from their parents.  Divest billionaires.  Tax them.

If everyone drove cars with Chevy Volt style power plants, we could dismantle pipelines.

Tea Party “christians” let negative ads manipulate them into nominating a Mormon billionaire.

President Obama’s statement about Jesus this AM… http://t.co/NX2ZYha8

Let’s calm down.  No Court worth its salt is going to overturn health-care.  That would be insane.

All wars are wasteful. When we left Vietnam we left billions in air-conditioners, office furniture, vehicles, buildings, etc.

Fibonacci series in music with astronomy graphics in case you missed it…  http://t.co/JbsSsBuO

Either tax twillionaires 92% like Eisenhower did or divest them.  Otherwise lose the country to a permanent over-class.

Even in the contest between beast & man, the outcome is not certain.  No Country for Old Men.

RT @keepingitraw: Radiation from Fukushima Disaster Found in California Kelp http://t.co/E9qNMokO

Earthlings: your puny brains have created a simplified approximation of reality you call “mathematics.”  Free yourselves.

Revolutions never have popular support until they’re won.

What did Castro do?  He threw the Mafia out of Cuba & set up an egalitarian society.  No wonder billionaires hate him.

The Coal Cartel is right about one thing. They have a lot of coal to sell.  They are wrong about this: coal is not clean.

Can’t we all just stop eating bacon…?   http://t.co/HwOCP3gL

Imagine a 28 yr old black man with a gun on neighborhood-watch picking a fight with your son & killing him.  Manslaughter?

Hannity is reporting a Fox News poll that shows Romney beating Obama 46% to 44%.  Might as well forget about truth telling for a while.

RT @Art_Guy1: FACT: Obama’s tax plan raises his tax rate. Mitt Romney’s plan cuts his own taxes in half.

Churchill: I like pigs.  Dogs look up to you.  Cats look down on you.  Pigs treat you like an equal.

We had a leader of the NY Stock Exchange who made more money in one day than Obama makes in a year.

Rush said Secret Service hooker scandal is Obama’s fault, because he overworks agents & keeps them from their wives.

According to Gallup & Fox polls, the election is over.  Romney will be President.

Are we going to throw out a sitting President to satisfy the lunatics…?  Ted Nugent threatens Obama… http://t.co/TeBX54wE

USA has been war-ing Stone-Age peoples since Vietnam.  It never tires.

Make it a felony to possess more than, say, $150M, in cash, property & assets.  Limit yearly incomes to $15M.

RT @JeffDauler: RT @CassandraYoung: Just remember, kids: every time you make a typo, the errorists win.

Communism, Socialism, Capitalism are utopian fantasies that don’t exist & never will in the real world.  The USA is what it is.

The problem with the USA space program was lethality to employees. At least 82 died during its tenure.  http://List_of_spaceflight-accidents

Obama doesn’t look American.  You know.  Fat.

Most prosecutors in the South don’t bring charges against whites in racial cases due to chance of being disbarred.  Like the Duke rape case.

RT @YourAuntDiane: I like to talk to everyone like they’re dying of a dreadful disease. It makes me a better listener.

One thing to remember about the BP screw-up: there are thousands of wells in the Gulf.  They all leak.

Taxes on the one-percenters are one-third of 1960; one-half of 1980.  https://www.yhoutube.com/watch

Mexicans are beautiful people.  Why can’t we open the border & let folks drive back & forth freely?

If we divested billionaires & divided their wealth equally to every citizen, a family-of-four would get $1,250,000.

The price of two wars & tax cuts for the rich has been $60,000 per family.  Could use the money right now.

Does anyone find this explanation of consciousness compelling?  It is certainly fascinating in the extreme.  http://t.co/OqWiKSz4

It would be nice if the equation for the Theory of Everything was found to be less than 140 characters, so it can be tweeted.

Money loses its promise at the point of dying.

Have been hearing that Social Security is going bust for 50 years now.  It’s like a broken record.  The 1% don’t pay Social Security taxes.

Most gazelles in nature never get eaten by lions.  They never even see one.  https://www.youtube.com/

We never hear anyone on television talk about divesting billionaires.  Why is that?

One of the good things Bush did as President was to popularize the now famous lexicon, Mission Accomplished.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?    https://www.youtube.com/watch

There is always some new disease to worry about and a drug dealer on TV eager to sell a solution.  Only in America.

Americans don’t know the names of the billionaires who rule them.  Who will tell them?

How do they keep black folks out of the Derby?

GM makes the best cars.

There’s this CIA guy named Rodriquez who is going on right-wing television slamming our elected officials.  Weird.

When the wealthy push down wages, skilled labor evaporates.

Safety regulations, which auto firms once fought tooth and nail, have saved over 200,000 lives.

Leonard Susskind said it will take an accelerator the size of our galaxy to see the smallest particles.  We aren’t there yet.

We had hamburgers tonight with no pink slime in them.  What a difference.  So good!  https://www.youtube.com/watch

The game of pushing black men until they finally stand their ground and get killed or imprisoned is as old as America. #trayvonmartin

Honest people who have integrity and are not greedy cannot be cheated.  They can be robbed and sometimes are.

It should be a felony for a private citizen to possess a billion dollars.

#ThoughtsLiberalsHaveAroundConservatives  This guy’s a lunatic.  Hope he doesn’t shoot me.

RT @therightblue: Antibiotic residue in seafood purchased at US grocery stores, experts say:   http://t.co/mIPRDzFX

USA dropped equivalent of one Hiroshima bomb per day for 25 years on Bikini atoll.  Ruined tourism.    http://www.youtube.com/watch

Do you self-censor tweets, because your employer is watching?  That’s not freedom.

God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.  Jesus.

Should we be fishing from the same pond we drill our oil and dump our garbage?

Long after humans, and all we’ve built, have vanished, alien visitors will know we were here from the plutonium we left behind.

Thirty-seven old nuclear plants on the Great Lakes with no place to store high level waste.  http://t.co/Iasqrjn3

A country like the USA comes along once in ten-thousand years.

First Silent Majority, then Moral Majority, now New Majority.  The GOP is always trying to start a bandwagon.

Still remember nuclear engineers telling me in 1977 that nuclear power was safe, and waste storage was no problem.

Seems like China is going to own the moon, it’s helium and rare-earth metals.

This Colbert quote about Christian Nation is pretty good. http://t.co/lZIMNw7j

Yes, it’s hot.  But look at the bright side.  In the next few years, it’s going to get a lot hotter.

RT @QuoteRevolution: The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. ~John Hay

If you can discourage 1 out of 100 voters from voting by requiring photo ID, you can throw a lot of elections to the GOP.

Are Focus on the Family execs calling the USA to pray for rain at Romney nomination speech like they did for Obama 2008?    http://t.co/XIdXcclo

How they hate Obama.  What’s he ever done to them?

We learned how much the GOP wanted America to succeed when they refused to be led by a black man and trashed our country’s credit rating.

Billionaire-owned media portrays a failed President.  But he saved the USA from collapse, killed OBL, passed medical-care.

We knew the Vietnam war was lost when USA soldiers fragged their officers.  Afghan green-on-blue is same thing.

The political dominance of billionaires is USA’s biggest problem.  GOP’s solution?  Make one President.

The only thing not better than four years ago is right-wing media.  Those morons never shut up.

Everyone fights for the middle-class.  But they’re in the top 20% of income earners.  What about the vast under-class?

It feels like the GOP/right wing/media/billionaires are sucking the air out of America.  They are relentlessly negative.

As we age, our bodies become less like prisons and more like torture chambers.

It is disrespectful to bear-hug the President and lift him off his feet.  The man is lucky he wasn’t shot.

USA should pass amendment making anyone who serves as President more than 3 years a natural-born citizen.  Would shut-up birthers.

Tell the truth.  Weren’t you scared of the Axis of Evil and Saddam’s WMD’s?  GOP scared the crap out of us.  No way we let them back in.

Only one person knows what it’s like to be the first black President.

The six Billionaires who own 85% of USA media have convinced most Americans it is a “liberal media.”  Wow.

Romney said he will end estate taxes, which are the last defense the USA has against the establishment of a permanent royal-class.

GOP hack, John Sununu, called Obama “lazy” on Fox News.

Obama said he wasn’t perfect to counter GOP websites that are saying he claims to be Jesus and, therefore, is the anti-Christ.

Can’t remember an election with no GOP bumper stickers.  Haven’t seen a Romney sticker yet.  Anywhere.  Strange.

Ambiguity is a tactic artists and politicians use to attract a mass audience.

It’s hard to believe that the land of the free and home of the brave would let 400 people sequester 1/8 of our national treasure.

Imagine Obama losing 241 Marines to a terrorist attack; losing an entire Shuttle crew; flooding the USA with Japanese cars…that was Reagan.

If the tax rate was at Kennedy levels, the USA would be awash with surplus cash.

To put things in perspective, Romney will get $4,566 from his annuity during the debate.  Obama will get $91 from his salary.

Romney says his dad was born in Mexico.  I remember when his dad ran for President.  He said he was born in the USA, I think.  https://www.youtube.com/

Today, Federal investigtors revealed more Secret Service agents using prostitutes while on duty overseas.

I don’t want to believe the GOP is strong enough to overthrow a President who hasn’t done anything wrong.

Many Christians turned on Jimmy Carter with a vengence.  Now they rally around a Mormon to destroy Obama who is a convert to Christianity.

I keep waiting for conservatives to come to their senses about Obama — a brilliant and decent man.  They never do.

What good is democracy if the billionaires always win?

Employers threatening to shut-down if Obama re-elected reminds me of  threats to close shop if Civil Rights Act passed in 1964.

Today my pastor preached that Obamacare forces church organizations to participate in abortion or go out of business due to fines.

People think taxes will go down on the middle-class if Romney is elected.  No, taxes will go down on the billionaires.

No one on television or radio or in newspapers or magazines will ever tell us to tax or divest billionaires.  No one.  Never.

How can anyone say USA is free when 400 families have sequestered 1/8 of our national treasure?  Our country is a plantation.

Obama, a born-again Christian, must feel like Jesus himself as Christian leaders desert him for Mormon Romney, a compulsive liar.

Christian leaders showed their true colors this election.  They took sides with the rich and powerful.

Put a Mormon missionary billionaire with strong ties to Mexico who won’t financially disclose in the White’s House?

Romney/GOP convention disrupted by hurricane.  God making statement?  http://thecolbertreport — hurricane-isaac

Seems like during every storm we find hospitals that put their back up generators in the basement where they are disabled by floods.

Four more days until Romney goes away.  Can’t wait.

Female CNN announcer just said “atta boy” to Don Lemon.  Young people don’t get how racist that sounds.

Do white people in Florida stand in four-hour lines to vote, like they make their colored folks do?  Just asking.   https://www.youtube.com/

On C-Span, just heard South Carolina woman say, Obama is the best candidate; and, yes, I am white.

#LieLikeMitt   Jesus is Satan’s brother. Look it up.  And thank you to all Christians who are voting for me.

Hope Romney and Ryan have a sense of humor, because the election tomorrow is going to be a joke.

Romney just lost in NH and Mass. where he has homes; MI where he grew up; and Wisc. where Ryan is from.

Thank you, Jesus.

Christian leaders hate Obama, because “sinners” love him.

Evangelical leaders sided with southern racists and the rich and powerful.  https://www.youtube.com/watch

Romney was going to do a fireworks show in Boston Harbor after being declared winner.  Thank God, it didn’t happen.

RT @A_ThinkingGirl: Boehner and McConnell Dissed Obama on Election Night; Refused Phone Calls from the President   http://t.co/Pw4JkhpE

Thomas Ricks just told CNN that if you haven’t had an affair your not a player in the CIA.  That is disturbing to me.

Getting old.  Tweeted “your” instead of  “you’re.”  Sorry.  Please forgive me.

Officers serve subject to the Code of Military Conduct.  It prohibits adultery.

People who are good at maximizing their personal advantages over others often consider themselves worthy of further advantages.

Any business owner who lays off his workers because Obama won is mean-spirited.  We need a bill of rights for workers.

Always thought embracing Bush holdovers like Betray-us was a mistake. Imagine if he’d been Romney’s VP choice.

Romney thought he was the savior on a white horse foretold by .  Maybe next time.

RT @MariaLiaCalvo: Obama cries as he thanks his volunteers and campaign staff; Romney fires his staff and leaves them stranded.

From our adversaries point of view, Petraeus — who led the fight against them on behalf of the “great satan”  —  is an adulterer.  Ouch.

Paula Broadwell might want to apologize to the nation and to her children and to her lover’s wife.

Never admired Petraeus, because Cheney and Bush pushed him into top leadership.  Obama should have cleaned house, but GOP prevented it.

Got my skills going to school while on unemployment.  Kids can’t do that today.  GOP regulations destroyed this option in Michigan long ago.

Of all the top biographers Petraeus could have picked, he chose Paula Broadwell.  It was a clue.

Would like to know if the Muslim militia got their prisoners back during Benghazi attack.

People love to go to war.  Years later they complain about how it ruined them.

General Allen of Afganistan is now under investigation for links to Lebanese-American, Jill Kelly.  Wow.

What we are witnessing is a high level purge of Bush protégés as Obama finally takes control of USA military and intelligence agencies.

RT @keepingitraw: Sky-high levels of radioactivity in fish from Fukushima means inedible seafood for at least a decade.  http://t.co/vM3IyCbH

The Monica-Benghazi scandal is in full swing on the Hannity show.

Dear God, Barack Obama is in the belly of the beast fighting for what is right.  Thank you for your holy angels who guard him.

Friend of my sister went back to her New Jersey apartment a week after Hurricane Sandy to find it ruined, not by water, but by rats.  Everything lost.

I hate war because you have to choose sides, everyone suffers and, in the end, you compromise anyway.

GOP Generals underestimated Obama.

We need to help our Conservatives heal.  They came within four-million votes of electing a lunatic.  What is the cure?

John McCain, under torture, signed a confession and attempted suicide.  No one blames him, but that’s what happened.

Limiting doctor salaries to $400K/year would discourage greedy people from becoming doctors.  It would help everyone.

Obama cried after election, just before news broke on Petraeus.  It may be an indicator he really was just finding out and dealing with it.

Am hearing that Hostess execs looted the company before firing the 18,500 folks who created the wealth they took.

Letting individuals keep unlimited wealth and field private armies is a bad idea unworthy of a free people.

You’d think Obama would have carried more southern states, since large black populations voted 90% for him.  He didn’t carry any.

Surprising to learn that people who couldn’t say who ran for President in the last election knew all about the Hostess Twinkie crisis.

Billionaire media owners drone endless negativity until they get the President they want.  Then messaging gets positive.  Remember Reagan.

The big problem for America is the voracious appetite of our billionaires and the vast underclass they have created in their wake.

What DNA actually looks like.  http://t.co/msEjIPEG

In the 40’s and 50’s most white people saw nothing wrong with segregation.  Today, they see nothing wrong with gated communities.

Executive gangs who pay themselves huge salaries are not creating value.  They are looting.

Billionaire owners of NFL teams don’t get traumatic brain injuries.

NBC reported that Boehner avoided receiving-line at holiday party last night, so he wouldn’t have to shake Obama’s hand.

At the root of our fiscal-cliff crisis is the belief by the GOP that the country is not worth saving as long as Obama remains President.

RT @ReformedBroker: “If Buffett didn’t exist, the rich would have to invent him.” http://t.co/Xz3HHVCj

Billionaire media owners want Americans to think there is something cute and innocent about British-royalty.

The GOP is fighting a war, not for freedom or fairness, but for the idea that a handful of families are entitled to own everything.

All the good jobs go to the children of the wealthy.

Want to limit corruption?  Make it a felony to keep more than $15M per year or own an estate larger than $150M.

Billionaires are every bit as wicked as anyone else.  The difference is, they have a billion dollars.  That’s scary, or it should be.

GOP named Right to Work law to hide its intent to weaken/wreck unions and drive down wages and benefits.

If athletes and actors make millions, what do you think the people who pay them make?

Michigan GOP exempted cops and fire fighters from Right to Work law.   Cops won’t get the “benefits” of working for less money.

Hundreds of cops are standing guard around Michigan State Capitol through Thursday.  Cops exempted from Right to Work by GOP bill.  https://www.youtube.com/watch

Someone said boxing is morally wrong, because one human has to inflict injury on another human to win.

Billionaire advertisers in Michigan are calling RTW “Freedom to Work.”  Yet they won’t free cops and firefighters.  They need them on their side.

Can we please raise taxes on the wealthy to stop the looting?  If you are greedy, go to Russia or Mexico and loot there.

I remember that in the 1960s most Americans thought Nelson Mandela was a black communist thug who should rot in prison.  Times change.

If America was free, most companies would be employee-owned and most companies would have unions.

Lack of limits on the personal wealth of its rulers is what wrecks Capitalism for the vast underclass who must endure it.

GOP leaders are charging protestors who crossed police-lines with felonies.  So, now we have political prisoners in Michigan.

If Right to Work is so great, why did the GOP exempt police and fire unions?  GOP is not interested in fair play, apparently.

The way to balance our budget is to spend more money on the poor, elderly and disabled.  It’s counter-intuitive but always works.

If it weren’t for six billionaires who own 85% of the media, we would be arguing about how much to increase Medicare and Social Security.

GOP deficits are always the result of looting.  Think of all the money wealthy families stole from the USA during Bush years.

Since the Reagan era the wealthy have had no limits on what they can make and keep.  It’s why they loot.

Unless limits are placed on personal incomes and estate size, capitalism always devolves into a kind of feudalism.

GOP advertisers are flooding Michigan with this message: Protect collective bargaining.  Support Freedom to Work.  Right out of Orwell’s 1984.

Amazing how Michigan GOP sprung Right to Work on us at the very moment a mega-million dollar ad campaign for its passage appeared.

It’s already impossible to start a Union in Michigan.  Right to Work will enable business owners to kill off the few that still exist.  https://www.youtube.com/watch

Surprise attack on Unions by Rick Snyder and GOP was well-planned and executed. Felony charges against protestors is the frosting on their cake.

The wealthy work overtime to undermine confidence in elected government.

Billionaires, some tied to drugs and guns, know how to get their way.  It’s not easy to speak truth to them.

People think unlimited wealth is an incentive for innovation.  Not true.  It enables looting and the suppression of competition.

Regular viewers of Fox News don’t get that the joke is on them.  Sad.

It’s un-American to let kids inherit vast wealth they didn’t work for.  It threatens our freedom.  http://t.co/8tsf3aPj

There isn’t a gun made that can defend against a government-sponsored SWAT team.  Get real, NRA.

More Guns = Less Crime; Clean Coal; Right to Work; Virtue of Selfishness; Gated Community; Genetically Modified Food; all wrong.

MI GOP passed a law to allow concealed guns in church, schools, stadiums and daycares.

Am told the shooter was draped in Kevlar.  Teacher with a gun would have been helpless.

Was doing good until the President mentioned a six year old who knew karate and wanted to lead everyone to safety.

Reagan closed the mental hospitals.   http://t.co/D2E9mZ5Z

The Lord sides with the oppressed; feeds the hungry; sets prisoners free; gives sight to the blind; lifts up those who are beaten down…

Jesus was born a baby, so as not to frighten us.

Old age has ruined me, physically and mentally.  But #Jesus renews my spirit, and somehow, I feel better.

Will someone invent an iPhone that can be charged by body heat?  #goodIdea

Would NASA position some colored lights in the sky so everybody can navigate by sight?   #goodIdea

The right to accumulate unlimited wealth has brought corruption and looting on a massive international scale to all areas of human endeavor.

An NRA family member murdered 20 six-year-olds, and they threaten the President’s kids?

It’s time to amend the Second Amendment.

Obama tries to protect kids from gun violence, so the NRA vilifies him and drags his kids into it.

Make a list of legal guns.  Guns not on the approved-list are illegal.  Will prevent work-arounds by gun sellers.

Am reading Oliver Stone’s Untold History, a Christmas gift.  Have yet to read a single page where he hasn’t blown my mind.

Gun makers should be required to get a license to sell each gun-model they manufacture.  If it’s a weapon of war, no license.

This is an impressive crowd — the haves and the have-mores.  Some people call you the elite.  I call you my base.  Bush, 2000.

In 2006, the 25 top US hedge-fund managers earned an ave. $570M each. In 2007, it jumped to $900M.  Oliver Stone, Untold History.

GOP says they are against tax increases, but in Michigan the GOP raised taxes on seniors by $1,000s / year.

Everything written or broadcast is recorded, stored and analyzed.  It’s been going on since the 1950s.  It’s raison d’etre for the NSA.

RT @MiaFarrow: JFK Report to the American People on Civil Rights, 11 June 1963
http://t.co/jZNo5UgYMz

Google has pics of the outside of our homes. The government has pics of the inside — taken through our computer camera-lenses.

Obama taught us, unwittingly, that bad people with ugly thoughts and hate-filled hearts really do live in America.

twitter 1Seems like CNN covers the weather while FOX covers Obama-Care.  Who covers the news?

Christians bearing false witness against a President who says he belongs to Christ makes no sense to me.

Billy Lee

 

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TWITTER – MY FIRST THIRTY DAYS


tweeter 4

I started tweeting during the summer of 2011.  It was the summer after the Fukushima nuclear disaster; the Blackberry Riots in England raged; Hurricane Irene ravaged our east coast; the launch of the Endeavour marked the end of the USA space shuttle program; Libyan citizens overthrew and assassinated Muammar Gaddafi; Navy Seals killed Osama Bin-laden; the Tea Party rocketed to prominence in the 2010 elections; Obama-Care ignited its roll-out and a ramp-up of a GOP war of opposition; etc., etc.; on and on. There was a lot to tweet about.

twitter 2In the first thirty days, my follower base grew from zero to over one-hundred. This fast start made such an impression on me that I ended up tweeting for almost three years, trying pretty much everything I could think of to enlarge my follower base even more. But, try as I did, my followers never numbered more than 275. What was most discouraging: three-fourths of them, on closer inspection, didn’t seem to be real people. They were organizations, or marketers, selling things like books and self-improvement programs. 

Today I use twitter to follow lists of people and organizations I’ve collected to help me keep-up in subjects that interest me like science, politics, religion, government and French language. The enthusiasm of the early days has faded. It no longer matters if anyone follows me or not. I rarely tweet anything anymore. 

Twitter announced they would send a complete list of a tweeter’s tweets to any tweeter who requested them. I took them up on it. The following tweets are a sample from the first 30-days of my twitter history. I tweeted a lot of interesting tweets back in the day, it now seems, mostly to bots.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 1 – My first tweet, everybody. Let me know if it worked.

I’m tweeting in bed. Have signed-up to follow lots of cool people & organizations. Seems to be working good.

I think the rich thought they would recoup Iraq war costs thru mineral/oil acquisitions. Oops!

I’m loving Twitter!

Immersed in fields and waves, we create the material world by observing them.

The old Confederacy (the New Tea Party) won’t be led by a colored man.

After WW2, the rich rewarded our young soldiers by loaning money for college and homes. They built the middle class their grandkids forgot.

Khan Academy is brain candy.

People who hate, hate Obama.

If we live long enough, we will lose everything.

Nuclear power plants must be monitored until the end of time — especially important after we shut them down.

Republicans axed unit pricing in Michigan. We can’t tell what something costs after buying it and tossing the receipt!

Fox is nasty!  Surprised they didn’t run a pic of the President eating watermelon.

Africa, if you build it you will own it until the end of time. A nuke plant can be shut down but never abandoned.

Michigan is an oasis on a warming planet.

If life started on Mars and transplanted to earth on debris from an asteroid hit, it might take two planets to advance complex life.

A long time ago the atmosphere was so thick and oxygenated that dragonflies with three-foot wingspans flourished.

When you are ready to retire, lowering the retirement age will seem right to you.

Are tea-bag staples made from heavy-metals? My tea tastes funny.

Do people eat Vanilla Wafers in Britain? There’d be fewer riots.

Five Guys fries, yellow mustard and an ice-cold beer…come on!

Have been tweeting for 8 days and have 35 followers already. If I wasn’t blocking hookers, I would have a hundred!

If Japan could start over, would they build plants to recycle plutonium from NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

“Aroint thee, thou rump-fed ronyons!” Shakespeare.

Michigan is a clean water refuge on a warming dirty planet. Come to Michigan!

Ducks and geese spread sticky fish eggs from lake to lake with their feet sometimes.

Save yourselves from global warming. Come to Michigan!

I’ve tweeted 9 days now. I have 51 followers, and not one of them is a hooker or a relative. Wow!

Eliminate disease and old age. Eliminate birth. In 50,000 years everyone will be dead due to accidents. We can’t keep ourselves alive.

All I want for you, my son, is to be satisfied. And be a simple kind of man, someone you can love and understand. Good lyric.

For 1,000th time: where’d daddy go? He died, momma. Why’d he do that? He got old, momma.

Manual labor can be euphoric. I mowed my lawn today. My neighbors are euphoric.

Mmmmm….who is this girl with ‘slut’ in her domain-name & no tweets?

Tonight, in CIV5, I will use nuclear weapons to destroy Genghis Khan. Ha!Ha! Ha!Ha! (burp!).

In the 10 days since I started tweeting, I’ve learned there are some wonderful beautiful people in Twitterville.

Rupert Murdoch of Fox News conspired to throw a USA presidential election, it’s alleged.

I am luckier than most men. My wife loves me.

My kids are kind of stupid and kind of rich. It’s not right.

Greenpeace: Our monitoring team in Japan is finding high levels of radiation in Japanese seafood.

Why would you spray mosquitoes when you have an army of frog volunteers eager to eat them? No spray!

This is my 10th tweeter day. Amazed by what I see & learn.

All I want in this life is to be heard. I love twitter!

If we can’t have intelligent conversations with dolphins, how are we going to have them with aliens?

Chimps fight. They have their reasons.

If you become very wise, people stop listening. By then you are insane anyway.

Je n’ai pas confiance des hommes puissantes qui me disent le socialisme est pour les perdants.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 11 – a favorite unfollowed me. Don’t know why.

Accidentally discharged ‘safe for humans & pets’  bug spray into my face, mouth, and eyes.

Corporations, like insects, lack empathy and are constantly feeding.

USA opinion makers hate baby-boomers. Why? They know too much.

RT @YourAuntDiane: I’m walking around taking trash out of public garbage cans, painting the trash, then putting it back in the garbage…

When an ex-girl friend called to say she was pregnant I thought, worse news ever.  25 years later I know it was one of my best days, ever.

I’m the only old person I know who has nice toenails.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 12 – wife complains about possible twitter addiction. Can’t worry about that now. 5 new followers!!

My nightmare: eating fish heads and dirty rice while watching Fox News on 60″ plasma TV.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 12.5 – despite tasteless tweets and mindless prattle with celebrities, follower base is growing.

Frog to his mistress: I want to know you. I want to know every slimy wart-covered part of you…

Romney says corporations are people. Demand to see the birth certificates.

Love letter from a frog: I love your bulging eyes, your fat puffy body…the feel of your webbed feet caressing my warts…

TWITTER-LOG: Day 13.5 – feeling remorse for vulgar tasteless stupid tweets.

We cling to the hallucinations of our brains and see particles instead of waves…

We focus on integers when it’s irrational numbers who rule us…

The only best way to observe a field is to move through it…

Tomorrow might be a better day!

TWITTER-LOG: Day 13.75 – Discovered the tweeter “delete” button, finally! Now, I don’t have to kill myself.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 14 – suffering from TBO [twitter burn-out]. Didn’t tweet today but collected 4 more followers.

My son hasn’t changed the oil in his Camaro for over a year. Commodus, your faults as a son is my failure as a father.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 15 – sometimes wonder if people self-disclose too much.

When Cepheids dim, is it because they become more opaque or more transparent?

In a bubble-chamber, how much larger is the bubble than the “particle” that generated it?

Feynman talks about living in a wave pervasive space… http://t.co/yo443O1

You can describe green by math to a blind person who will then know everything & nothing about it. Feynman http://t.co/yZQRR5J

TWITTER-LOG: Day 16 – where are the sad places in twitter-world? …find the voices…who in this valley sheds the poison tears…?

The less you pay “the help” the harder they work & the more efficient your business. It’s a win/win all around.

Eliminating social security/Medicare helps elderly be more self-reliant & lowers the tax burden. It’s a win/win all around.

GOP leaders know when they smite their enemies on the “other cheek” they not only hurt them, but it’s in the Bible.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 17 – tossed out some “political” tweets. Lost a few, gained a few (followers, that is).

Obama is gracious toward adversaries; works hard; sincere; informed, smart, educated. These are virtues, GOP!

Obama took out Bin-laden, and you didn’t. So shut up! Obama isn’t “the worst danger facing the USA.” You are, GOP.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 17.5 – seems like copious tweeters & celebrities have the most followers.

Lagrangian method to discover differential equations is magic… here’s why it works.    http://t.co/oRlpYc0

TWITTER-LOG: Day 19 – posted a math instructional video… lost followers…

Grand-daughters refuse McDonalds for lunch. Say it makes you fat. What?

@profbriancox   Are there any subatomic particles that can be detected twice?

@profbriancox   In Young experiment, if emitter is moved off-center to one side, do detectors behind slits see changed hit ratios?

@ProfBrianCox   Is it not true that a soap-bubble, passing a phalanx of bubble detectors, will be detected only once by only one detector?

TWITTER-LOG: Day 19.5 – picked up 11 followers today, 7 tweeter-marketers…no hookers, no relatives…

During Depression, USA had 25% unemployed, but women weren’t counted. Otherwise, rate would have been closer to 75%.

Quantum intuition: imagine particles as soap bubbles with oscillating surface waves. Bubble stretches to fill space but can “pop” only once on only one detector. Some paradoxes resolve.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 20 – Sometimes tweeting feels like tossing into the vast ocean a little message in a bottle. Who will find? Who will read?

TWITTER-LOG: Day 20.5 – am thinking there might be a point where twitter peeps reach a critical mass & start multiplying geometrically.

Planck length defined at 35 decimal places. Irrational Pi forces a quantum bubble (that wants to be round) to oscillate.

Genes can spread among species by viruses. Expect hi-level intelligence to become pervasive over next million years or so.

Starving Columbian missionary wakes up to find tape worm crawling out of his throat seeking food, wife just told me.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 21 – seems like tweeters use weekends to cull follower herds. Those culled never told why.

Qaddafi needs to pursue a new career but unfortunately for him, his views aren’t extreme enough to become a Fox News commentator.

Lied to get away to tweet for an hour…oops! Just got caught.

Let’s do a “maximum wage.”  Set it to 1,000 times minimum wage. Then watch Congress raise minimum wage fast.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 22 – feeling like my tweeter legs are finally beneath me, planted firmly in the twitter air!

Military school used to be where parents sent their sons to avoid desegregation.

To celebrate Bin-laden kill, blocked Fox. Quit Xanax. I feel good!

TWITTER-LOG: Day 23 – Incredible. After 23 days of idiotic tweeting, 84 people I’ve never met follow me. In a year they could be millions!

After USSR collapsed in the 80’s, recall reading USA bought their earthquake weapon to keep it out of terrorist hands. Maybe there were 2.

Tesla earthquake machine… http://t.co/5bfrGJW

Pravda article about HAARP geophysical weapon… http://t.co/VKHFbQb

TWITTER-LOG: Day 24 – sometimes someone follows me who has thousands of followers but no tweets. Who are these people? What do they want?

Y U NO FORROW ME?   CUZ I NO TREET RIKE U?

One of the best non-math explanations of light to be found… http://t.co/2DwMAtm

Cheney said his book would make “heads explode.” He wrote the book to blow up people’s heads! How cruel.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 26 – tweeted about lost dog & fawn. Now receive tweets from animal lovers who don’t follow me. How does Twitter do it?

Since bees are attracted by UV light, would spreading sunscreen on flowers make them invisible to bees? Someone do the experiment & get back to me.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 26.25 – tweeting a complex idea is not so hard if you leave stuff out & simplify.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 26.5 – Tweeters cull their follower herds on weekends.

Michigan has clean water, clean air and lakes you can drink from. It does not have hurricanes and 100-degree weather.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 26.75 – My greatest fear is that someone might un-follow me.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 26.8 – Too immersed in Twitter, wife says. Can’t worry about that now. Finding new ways to enhance follower base.

NBC, CBS, NBC, etc. love to cover weather, because all they have to do is look at satellite pics & make up stuff. Maybe look outside once in a while.

You might be rich if you always take steaks and lobsters to potlucks.

You might be rich if the local swim club holds swim-meets in your family pool.

You might be rich if it takes six guys with moving van a week to steal enough stuff for you to notice.

You might be rich if the only way to your house is by helicopter.

A small piece of light with just the right color can dislodge an electron. Does that make it a particle? No.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 27 – no one in my family follows me. They don’t want to encourage my twitter obsession. Who needs family? 98 followers!

One of the most controversial & censored movies ever. Oliver Reed & Vanessa Redgrave. 1971; Devils. http://t.co/szuL64C

Have contracted either dengue fever, West Nile virus, bacterial meningitis, esophageal cancer, or swimmer’s ear.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 27.5 – got my 100th follower today. Feel serene & deeply comforted.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 28 – added twitter traffic makes hurricane, earthquake, & nuclear meltdown “venues of opportunity” to harvest additional followers.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 28.5 – changing profile pic entails a risk to my follower base I’m unwilling to take at this time.

Anyone who hasn’t figured out that Fox News is a brainwashing mental institution wants to be lied to.

Saw mentally challenged woman splashing at the beach. She kept saying to no one in particular, “I’m having fun! I’m having fun!” Don’t know why I started crying.

When we tweet, though we be infested by lice and every sundry sort of squirmin’ vermin, we become beautiful, like birds.

Wife accuses me of being deaf. What she can’t see is, I’m also blind.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 28.75 – having mastered follower and blocking tools, I am now more confident than ever that only beautiful people will live within my twitter sphere.

If geometry is quantum — that is, granular — then no irrational numbers can exist in physics. They round to 35 places.  Imagine the implications.  http://t.co/AWXKIIE

Objects that want to be round can’t do it in quantum (granular) space. Due to a forced round-off of PI, they must oscillate between two real boundaries.

Quantum oscillations are incredibly small compared to anything we know. But a granular quantum geometry demands them.

We love billionaires, because their PR bureaucracy brainwashes us.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 29 – tweeters keep tweeting me profile pics of people I follow saying they found a hilarious pic of me. I don’t get it.

TWITTER-LOG: Day 29.5 – am finding that tweeters are kind and gentle sorts who encourage my creativity right up to the very moment they block me.

tweeter 6TWITTER-LOG: Day 30 – have gained new respect for what it really means to have two or three hundred followers.

Tweet! Tweet! TWEET!! TWEET!! TWEET!!!  HaHa! HaHa! Tweet! Tweet! TWEET! TWEET! AGAIN, AGAIN!  TWEET. Ha! All done.

Billy Lee

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WHY DO HUMANS LIKE MUSIC?

No one knows why humans like music; why dopamine floods our brains when we hear certain patterns of sound and tempo. Scientists are conducting research on the subject.

On April 1, 2014, scientists in Jefferson City, Missouri discovered that mice could play the tiny saxophones they manufactured in their labs.

One surprise, for me at least, was to learn that some animals enjoy music. The music should resonate with their heartbeats and play at natural, species-specific pitches and timbres.

It takes effort to create the music animals like. And they won’t pay for it. Even pets—most of them, anyway—don’t self-identify as music lovers.

The Prairie Dog Three are currently on tour in Utah and New Mexico.
The Prairie Dog Three are currently on tour in Utah and New Mexico.

As far as I know, only one species take the time to create tools to play music: homo sapiens. But many animals such as gibbons, birds, whales, insects—even the dog next door—make noises that sound suspiciously like music to most people. Research continues.

Music is not something that exists in the universe apart from conscious life. Music seems to require a conscious mind to produce and another more or less semi-conscious mind to hear and appreciate it.

The sensation of pleasure initiated by vibrations of air entering the ear canal is the result of auditory hallucinations created in the mind. Air molecules bounce off structures in the ear to stimulate the brain to manufacture mysterious sensations called sound, which unleash an avalanche of chemical (emotional) reactions inside the body of the listener.

Many parts of the brain are involved in music appreciation. It is known, for example, that the visual, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory areas of the brain are stimulated by music. Research is ongoing—with special emphasis on definitions of words like olfactory and gustatory.

music what sound looks like
3D image of a musical sound. The sound doesn’t look at all like what the sound sounds like.  …mmm…ahhh…

There seems to be no similarity between the simple vibrations entering the ear and the complex and textured mental experience the brain makes when it processes these vibrations to conjure music. It might be sad for some to learn: when life in the universe comes to its end, it will take music with it.

Thomas Edison wore the phonograph he invented on his head as a hearing aid late in life.
Thomas Edison placed the phonograph he patented on his head.  Thus was invented the world’s first hearing-aid.

Most people did not hear much music before the invention of the phonograph in 1877. What music they heard was played by itinerant flute musicians and the occasional wood-nymph on tambourine.

It took decades for the phonograph to become enough widespread to impact the listening habits of average people. As the technology of music became more sophisticated and pervasive, its mystery and wonder inspired scientists to try to figure out just what the hell is going on!?!.

music 1
Simon Cowell stops cotton-candy from dribbling out his ears. Simon’s television career revealed that he is unable to evaluate musical talent.

Current research suggests that as many as 4% of humans do not enjoy music. Whatever the process that is not going on in their heads, it seems to be inherited. Some people simply lack the genetic coding required to process the pleasures of music. If all life mimicked these unfortunates, the concept of music might cease to exist.

Some have said that folks wouldn’t miss it. Music is not necessary for our survival, they say. Humans have lived on Earth for tens-of-thousands of years without any but the most primitive forms.

Grandma, when she was younger.
Grandma when she was young. Note bulky headphones, popular 50 years ago.

That might be. But its irrepressible popularity during the past 50 years in all parts of the world is proof enough. People prefer music. It’s going nowhere.

Here’s some music to help persuade skeptics that music is special:

https://youtu.be/EQ9ftKMWTW4

Billy Lee

Update:  5 July 2016: When Billy Lee wrote this essay two years ago, he was naive; he didn’t know about the dark side of music. Recently he learned that music has been used by intelligence agencies since the 1980s to torture detainees.

Imagine being forced to listen to old sound tracks from the Lawrence Welk Show over and over. It’s a sordid, terrifying prospect.  Billy Lee didn’t want to soil his essay by discussing it.

Alex Ross’s article in the 4 July 2016 issue of the New Yorker Magazine ripped open the underbelly of this stinking carcass of evil. Ross titled his essay, The Sounds of Hate.

Since then, links to the essay have been retitled to When Music is Violence. No one at The Pontificator  knows why the print version and the Internet version are titled differently.

Billy Lee asked that we provide a  link for readers who might want to know more.

The Editorial Board

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