Bad Times in Summer 2014

Yesterday at about three thirty- - - a massive thirty inch diameter water main broke on Sunset Blvd north of the UCLA campus and because of the topography there- - the water ran down hill into the campus.  The water cascaded off the steps of Poly Pavillion, where UCLA holds their basketball games.  They just refurbished the center at the cost of millions of dollars, and now the fancy wood gym wood floor is completely ruined.  This was the biggest water geiser I’ve ever seen- and will leave in its wake a giant sink hole on Sunset Blvd.   That Drake stadium was inundated.  Students came to frolic in the water and one guy was actually swimming in it and bring belly boards to the party.  But the fired department shewed them out after an hour or so.  Some 35,000 gallons per minute were flowing out- - in this drought ridden state.  Instead of saying “Oh the humanity!” I feel like saying “Oh, the water”.  Of course people in Westwood in the neighborhood probably won’t have water service for days.  Other campus buildings had to have the carpeting and baseboard completely ripped out.  The Dept of Water and Power- - says it took so long- - to turn off the water because they need a slow shut down.  This is a hundred year old pipe installed in 1921.  That’s why we need to maintain our infrastructure.    Of course I first saw this thing on the news just before five but Eye Witness is known for driving certain stories into the ground and they had uninterrupted coverage of the story for an hour and a half, with no commercial breaks- - and I felt lucky they broke for the ABC network news. 

You know these cease fires in Israel and Gaza are getting shorter and shorter.  We used to speak of a 72 hour or 48 hour cease fire.  Now it’s down to twelve hours, and the latest “cease fire” that Israel is “observing” is down to four hours.  That will give them an opportunity to re-load.  Really!  I live in Gaza and the best I can now hope for is a four hour break in the volleys of rockets- - which destroy whole neighborhoods?   This is getting out of hand.  They say that Israel’s bombing of Gaza was the heaviest ever on Monday when the Muslems celebrate one of the biggest holidays of the year, when they come out of the Ramadon fast.  But they were feasting not on food, but on bombs.   Children were playing on the swing sets during one cease fire and I imagine many of those children were killed in the next attack.  You know how Israel bombed a United Nations school deliberately set up as a refugee center.  And Israel also loves to bomb hospitals.  People used to say Israel was known for ‘Surgical strikes” but this patient died a long time ago on the table.  It’s pretty much turned into total carpet combing- - and it would seem that is Sean Hannity got his way- - every building would be leveled and every man, woman and child in Gaza would be dead.   Just remember that Gaza has been like a prison for the past ten years anyhow- - with restricted border crossing and a ban on fishing beyond a certain point, and ports blockaded.   Some of this stuff Israel has said about how ‘You people in Gaza could have had a wonderful life but you chose war” is something I’m not buying.  Of course we have to side with Israel because it’s in the Bible we’re supposed to support them.  Jesus Christ would not even support the government of Israel.  Is your memory that short?  Jesus Christ not one time supported Israel over her enemies!  The Bible line they quote from is one that according to “traditional evangelists’ doesn’t even apply to Israel to begin with.  “He who messes with God’s elect will be punished by God”.   Because “God’s elect’ for the past two thousand years has referred to Born Again Christians- - not Israel.  So Ted Cruise should be making speeches saying that I deserve vengeance on MY enemies!   That’s not going to happen.   By the way- this so called 144,000 they say Israel is- - are “brides maids”.  They are frustrated old maids that aren’t getting any sex- - and in case it escaped their attention THEY are not the ones that got married!

Thom Hartman has more economic factoids for us.  President Lincoln carried on correspondence with Karl Marx over the value of the average grunt level employee- and Abram Lincoln in anti slavery speech has spoken of how worker's labor is "economic capital" of a sort, of something where corporations get their value- - and that Slavery would circumvent this basic fact.  It's like that lady who lamented how her great grandfather lost his 'workers' after the Civil War and how it wiped him out economically. LIke Darwin's wrigings- - Max's writings were discussed in intellectual circles- - back around that period.  Hartman states that a libertaian would make free markets subserviant to Democracy and government.  Good roads, good power and water delivery, and good economies go hand in hand with government.  But Adam Smith would be the first to admit that free market capitalism like any other good thing must be "maintained".  It too can malfunction or be "out of order" if neglected.  However Hartman is still a bit of a slave to people like Glen Beck saying that the Federal Reserve is "producing money out of thin air' and that the American people are being "defrauded" because of that.  Hartman and Beck should know that this is not the Wymar republic of 1920.  I turned "cautious' on the Stock Markets last week and if you had taken your profits then it the DJI was just over 17,000.  Now it's just under 17,000.  It has been pointed out that prices are being "bid up" divorced from any expension in plants or production or consumer buying power.  The Wagner act passed in 1935 went a long way in guarenteeing Union rights, that businesses would have a broad "consumer demand base".  It didn't hit me that the Republicans overrode Harry Truman's veto of the Taft Hartley law saying that "states can opt out of the Wagner act" passed in the 'thirties and had worked just fine for a dozen years.  But it highlights the fact that- - for democrats to actually win back the house and the senate in one election- - they had to win an enormous number of seats far in excess of the paultry eighteen that would be required this year, and which now seems so impossible.  It was thanks to good speech making by people such as Ronald Reagan that the Democrats were able to win back both houses of congress in 1948.

Just call this summer “Bad Times in Summer 2014”.  Get together we could have a bad time.  Now the latest “line” from the Republicans is - - after ALL of the talk from Fox news and Sarah Palin about impeaching Obama, but now they’re saying “President Obama WANTS to be impeached.  And it talked the ultimate narcissist to want to be Impeached, because he can say to the house “Go ahead and crucify me because I have Eternal Life in the US Senate”.   So am I wrong or did this guy call Jesus Christ the ultimate narcissist?   I have Stephanie Miller on now and I’ve noted something.  President Obama was getting all serious about the severity of the economic sanctions against Vladimir Putin yesterday and saying things like ‘It didn’t have to come to this’.    He reminds me of- - that scene in Little Rascals where Spanky’s father is getting ready to give him a paddeling and he says “This is going to hurt me more than it does you” but of course Spanky put a book in his pants.   My warning is “Beware to those who bring a gun to a knife fight”.  Even if you buy into the theory that Trayvon Martin was winning the fight before Zimmy pulled out his gun and killed him - - - it’s kind of like the rampaging Women on Days of our Lives now.  You have four women, Samantha Brady, Christine Di Mira, Eve Donavin, and Teresa Donavin - - all on the warpath.    People call Putin a “Periah” or whatever- - like the whole world hates him now.  People were saying the same thing about Christine.  “Oh she wouldn’t dare show her face in Salem now”.   Remember that Putin has said that he “reserves the right to use Nuclear weapons if the conflict gets too severe”.    We tried economic sanctions against Japan in 1941 and you know how well that worked out for us.  This is a football game where there are no referees and no rules.  Diplomacy is out the window.  You may think “Oh I’m safe- - I have the moral high ground; I have world opinion behind me”.  Don’t kid yourself.  These are dangerous times, just like a hundred years ago when World War I started.  Keep in mind nobody thought WW I would be nearly as hellish of a war as it turned out to be, and it "Made things for nations worse and less stable than they were before the war began".  (Selah)  There is an dangerous epidemic both of the Ebola virus, and intransigence at the negotiating table, which could prove fatal to human civilization if allowed to go unchecked.

Stephanie Miller is on and they played that “drunk speech” of Sarah Palin getting her freak on in Colorado and making one bad joke after another and appeared to call Colorado a “border state” but it’s OK. “In her mind” she was thinking of Texas. Sarah Palin has her own TV station now for all those who just can’t get enough of Sarah Palin’s words of wisdom. And there will be more family “fun stuff” like Sarah pardoning a Thanksgiving turkey while turkeys behind here were being shoved into the wood chipper. And maybe we can see Bristol have another out of wedlock pregnancy. Now Piper, her youngest daughter (who must be a teenager now) has her own video out. President Obama signed this bill to allow people to unlock their I Phones. This was something Leo mentioned last Saturday as something both parties can manage to agree on. It’s a key victory for the consumer. At least it’s now no longer a crime to as it were “Do what you want to with your own property”. The first Law and Order was a thing on assisted suicide. But this Amy lady stepped over the line of ethics. She made a “suicide pact” leading on a very troubled woman named Christine, who has since killed herself. But of course Aimy was only faking it and only entered the suicide pact as some sort of “encouragement’ to Christian “to let her know I was with her” even though she betrayed her just like Nicole betrayed Eric’s trust. I didn’t watch all of the second Law and Order episode- - but went to bed shortly after nine.  I had the new “Ring of Fire” episode from July 27th on Sunday. There was more vulture capitalism discussed on ‘Ring of Fire” and sort of a Cliven Bundy recap, and City Bank pin pricked with a nine billion dollar fine. This is later at ten twenty and experiencing “letter lag”. I got another rolly from Ron just before nine thirty. I went for coffee in the courtyard from Dora after ten and had two cups of coffee. So it looks like the 24 hour lunchtime tally for total cigarettes smoked will be three and a half. We haven’t heard any more about the plan to pave the streets with photo voltaic cells.

Today on the soap opera is the ugly return of Christine Di Mira more evil than ever, it seems.  Samantha is on a rampage taken vengeance on Abigail by getting her fired from her hospital position and she wants Kayla to do it.   She wants Kayla to dismiss her “with cause”, which means “with prejudice” so that Abigail can never apply for another hospital position.  And she is threatening Kayla with the loss of a big donation if she fails in her duty, but clearly she wants the thing made public because people can look it up in the public record what Abigail was fired for.  So again- - Samantha wants to punish Kayla- - or imply "I could have your job" and to publicise an "pecadello" of one employee that occurred months ago- - and disgrace Abigail and the Hospital- - and put the whole going concern and a big donation at risk- - all for something nobody would know about it Samantha didn't tell them.  So Samantha is a complete hypocrite, and maybe Will can exert pressure on her to stop her rampage, but as Will says “Samantha has been known to hold a grudge for years (if not decades) despite her own past moral misdeeds.