'MAD AS HELL!" DRAWS FIRST BLOOD

Joseph Andrew Stack this morning crashed a small plane into a seven story office building in Austin, Texas, where the CIA, the FBI, and the IRS were headquartered. This may be the first instance of a Tea Bagger "losing it". Joseph Stack wrote a six page Suicide manifesto in which he raked all the people whom he was offended by over the coals, and that includes the IRS and the economy in general as well as the Catholic Church. The government is not labeling him as a "terrorist" and some on the left speculate that it's because he's a right-winger and they never tag one of their own. Before he took off in the plane he set his own home on fire with people inside. In his manifesto he made an interesting observation. He said "Karl Marx said that from everyone according to his ability and to everyone according to his need." But he says "With capitalism it is more like "from everyone according to his gullibility. To each according to his greed". To me that seems like a good addage for the Christian church. Oh, here is a good one. As you know Shakey's Pizza has their sign out "Shakey's made a deal with the bank. The Bank doesn't make pizza and Shakey's doesn't cash checks". I have a good one. "Marcus Arelius made a deal with God. God doesn't emotionally fly off the handel and Marcus Arelius doesn't forgive sins". I could picture hanging a sign like that in my office during counseling sessions. Joseph was recently married and usually suicidal people are loners. But I think their is a societal warning here in that these are stressful times. Chances are we are going to see more people going off half cocked - -and taking their own lives, and perhaps the lives of others. And they aren't all Islamists. The government is investigating any right wing groups in Texas, of which there are many, that the man may have been associated with. Even before today's incident there was talk of getting up some sort of "Mad as Hell" political party going. Network if anything more prophetic than when it came out in 1976 what with it's mantra of "I"m Mad as Hell and I'm Not going to Take It Anymore!" One of these days they'll be able to predict when a person is about to Blow like that. But that day isn't yet here.

Frances Reid apparently died today, who played Alice Horton. Alice the character of the wise old great grandmother has not been on the show in about ten years, but they make passing reference to her. She was apparently even too "ill" to attend the funeral of her own son, who was getting up in years himself. How many Horton children will they bring back for the funeral? There is Marie, the nun, and Tonny Horton, whom before I began watching the show had incest with each other when Tonny had amnesia. I doubt Tommy has been on the show since the 'sixties. Then we have Attie, who is known for getting cancer and dying. But first she had a baby in her 'fifties and that's how Hope Brady was born. Then there is Bill Horton, who used to be a regular and in the early days was involved in a lot of the plot lines. But he hasn't been on the show in twenty years. There are any number of old characters they could bring back, such as Julie's younger brother, Steve. Then there is Julie's son, David. Then there is Josh and Jessica Fallon and that psychopathic murdering son of theirs, Nick. Then there are all Maggie's kids such as Melissa, and Janice, and Sarah, and I lose track of them all. Then there is good old Jeremy, son of Mike Horton, son of Bill. And we mustn't forget Jack and Jennifer. If the only people attending the funeral are Caroline Brady and Bo and Hope and Roman, the thing is going to look awfully suspicious. But when did soap operas reflect reality?

Liberals have been compiling a list of people who want to push a health care bill through with the "reconciliation" process that is about twenty or 25 names long. This is a start. But Harry Reid killed a jobs bill a week or so ago because it was contaminated with republican provisions. They can't get anything right. Of course yesterday was the anniversary of that famed Stimulus package that seems to have produced jobs. But someone pointed out that in Roosevelt's day you could sign a bill today and start digging the next week because there was no environmental protection agency to contend with. Maybe the right wing has a point. These regulations can be a pain in the ass. But the jury is still out on whether the stimulus bill was a success. We keep hearing that more money is in the pipeline but they've been saying that for the better part of a year. I'm giving it another six months - then we'll know. Many say that there will be another explosion of mortgage defaults this year and that event will have its own economically depressive rippling effect. I'd feel a whole lot better if state and local governments were adding programs rather than continuing to cut programs as well as salaries and personnel.

I'm not into "Virtual" reality. You may remember that Sherlock Holms episodes on Star Trek where Piccard says "Can't we find a way of giving him what he wants but not giving anything?" I'm sure the members of the Holy Trinity have that discussion all the time. Is life just some crystal device sitting on someone's desk with all our thoughts encoded in crystals? Some say that the sixth or psychic dimension is a dimension of Mind. I can't buy that. I don't like the term "Virtual" to begin with. "Virtual" more often than not means "Not so". Like "This car is virtually as good as a BMW" or something for three times the price. Dreams and nightmares are a form of "virtual reality" after all. Our minds and psyches are trapped inside an alltogether imaginary situation, and our en-grams register is temporarily over-ridden. I don't know about you but I don't act the same way in dream situations I would really react if I faced it in real life. Some may say that my metaphysics is "bound by physicality". Just as hyperbolic trig has no actual mesurable physical degrees or angles, doesn't mean that there isn't some real function for this branch of math, though danged if I know what it is. I use the terms hyperspace and hyper-matter - as ways of somehow offering some link of physicality to the world as we know it. Even though it can be argued that one MPH over the absolute speed limit is as good as a mile. Just like spitting tobacco on the sidewalk in heaven will get you kicked out just as surely as killing your father and raping your mother. I'm hoping that others will investigate this sphere of reality. Keep in mind that the speed of light is an absolute limit and is the same physical speed regardless of how time and matter and mass are shrunken or expanded. We've explained all this in prior postings but for now, take my word for it. You can't "game the system" the way Joseph Stack tried to game the Tax Code. Just as when you are dreaming what you are perceiving isn't the real you. The real you is lying in bed and probably motionless. So it is that there may be some co-existant reality in hyper-space we aren't consciously aware of, but then after we are made familiar with it upon "Awakening" suddenly the whole thing makes sense to us. (Selah)