RIPPED OFF AGAIN!

I'm really disgusted this evening. I spent much of the day harvesting nectarines from our tree. I had thinned them out carefully so the fruit wouldn't be stunted. Guess what? It's the same deal I got when I thought I was planting Thompson Seedless grapes! I got little currant-sized, buckshot-like grapes! Oh, they're seedless all right but a pain to deal with. I quit wasting water on those ...ripoff vines. They can just die.

Same thing with this so-called nectarine tree. You can't buy the commercial grade fruit trees in Arizona and California. They are prohibited to be sold here by law and every catalog specifically tells me so, but they do sell these ripoffs in the local nurseries. It's all to kiss the asses of the commercial interests who want to hold us captive to their orchard-grown fruit! And it works!

By the time I figure in the cost of the tree, the work to promote the trees growth, and the price of the water, I'm gaining nothing! And, I'm going to have to work like hell pitting and slicing up all those little marbles! No wonderful tree-ripened decent sized nectarines for old Al. I've been ripped off royally!

Sometimes, you just can't win and it makes me so damn mad I could you know what with tacks!

WE CAN'T GIVE UP!

I was just whipping down my Facebook posts of the past few days and came across Robert Ingersoll's quote that every religion correctly labels all other religions frauds.

 

They are all right on that point!

Human self-righteous gullibility is beyond comprehension. We're so cock sure that we and ours just have to be the top of the heap and automatically right in our opinions and culture. Daddy and mommy couldn't have been mistaken in any of the things they spoonfed into our naive little minds way back there in our childhood. That nice minister couldn't be a ravening wolf in disguise, but Herbert Armstrong was and Pat Robertson and numerous others are.

I've had to realize, to my horror, that what I tried to push into my children's heads way back there was a poinsonous brew of abject ignorance. I was too deceived to realize it at the time, but I see it clearly today.

Most people are never blessed with that awareness. Generation after generation goes on with the same delusions being spoonfed into each succeeding generation.

That has to stop -- someway, somehow! If it doesn't, we are doomed!
It has been halted in some nations, but the original champion nation of free thought is now one of the most regimented and oppressed bastions of prejudice and ignorance in the whole world. We're becoming a christian edition of Saudi Arabia! A virtual Christian Taliban has taken over the state of Texas, and Rick Perry is its Ayatollah!

All I can do is raise one small voice. It's discouraging to see all the lying propaganda arrayed against reason. I refuse to give up. Someone has to do this, and it's a bit heartening to see other voices raised.

Being silent is unthinkable once you know what is at stake

I WISH YOU ENOUGH

I've been thinking about the old blessing, "I wish you enough."

I know, "enough" is subject to individual aspirations, desires and realities. Right now, Phyllis and I have "enough," barring any calamity that might come along.

So, life is good right now. We have the resources to provide our immediate needs and a few luxuries and joys. No Hawaii vacations are on the financial horizon, but we've already been there and those are joyous memories. I can still bring in extra with wedding ceremonies and floor jobs. Overall, life is good. And, our love and appreciation for each other is greater than ever.

Things could change drastically overnight. It would only take one catastrophic illness or accident to completely reverse everything, but it's self-defeating to dwell on such. Worry only takes away the joy that should be a part of every day.

So, I'm going to go get dressed and amble outside to see what the day offers. The nectarines are rapidly ripening now and I'm looking forward to nectarine cobbler. That's another of the simple joys I treasure.

THE EVIL OF DOGMA

Certainty and dogma. They are the enemies of progress and the favorite tools of oppressors. Give something a prejudicial label and get people to believe in the certainty of that label and reason gets sabotaged and shut down.

I was talking with a new member of our free thought group yesterday and toward the end of our conversation, some comments drifted toward politics. He stated that what he feared was "marxism." That's another hate-filled label guaranteed to shut down constructive thought.

Communism, a perverted version of socialism imposed by Joseph Stalin, was a horrible system, but it was a perversion of the teachings and intent of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, etc. A sociopath ruthlessly gained control and precipitated a reign of terror and oppression that has enabled champions of unfettered capitalism to demonize every aspect of progressive thinking by simply attaching a prejudicial label to it -- Socialism.

Unfettered socialism, especially in the hands of a sociopath like Stalin, leads to tyranny. So does unfettered capitalism. Both soon become basically the law of the jungle where those in power mercilously devour anyone and everything too weak to resist them.

Unrestrained capitalism is just as bad, or perhaps even worse than, unrestrained socialism. Both lead to a master class which enslaves everyone under the ruling elite.

The most progressive and happiest forward moving nations today are nations like Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, etc. where Capitalism has been blended with sensible aspects of socialism.

In this country, reason has been replaced by prejudicial labeling that shuts down reason and replaces it with mindless dogma. It's the attitude that drives that insane "tea party" bunch of mindless "slogan mongers."

Adopting slogans of certainty is the path to ruin. It leads to mental ossification and a ruinous drive to tear down and destroy every vestige of sanity and benevolence that led our country forward for several decades. Now, we're retrogressing back to the age of the robber barons at breakneck speed.

IT'S WEARYING

I'm not quite as depressed as I was yesterday after I saw the bigots of this country given a Supreme Court green light to continue their efforts to didsenfranchise every non-conservative voter they possibly can so that damnable tea party and rest of the Republican fascists can continue to ride rough shod over the American people.

The wicked witch of the west, Arizona's governor, was positively gl...eeful about that abortion of jurisprudence. I wouldn't expect anything else from a hateful bitch like her.

I have no illusions that things have really changed in the old south and other retrogressive areas of the US. "States rights" is as much a code word for hate and suppression as it was in the mid-eighteen hundreds. It fills me with revulsion every time I hear it. It's the chant of hate filled bigots who want to enslave everyone they can by any and all subterfuges possible.

So, I'll just keep hammering away and seeking any outlet open to do what little I can do.

 

I'm weary, but that's nothing new.

HOUR OF DESPAIR

It's a day of despair for me.

For decades, I've watched as the fascist-minded GOP steadily loaded the Supreme Court with right wing, equally fascist-minded so called "Justices." What a misnomer!

We sacrificed mightily to defeat fascism seven decades ago. Ever since elitist Ronald Reagan entered the White House, we've witnessed an ever increasing insane rush to impose fascism on the American people.

It's pretty well succeeded.

We only have the facade of a democracy today. I fully expect racist murderer Zimmerman will probably be acquited by our addled "justice system." I expect every vestige of true civilization, true knowledge, true benevolence to be stripped away and replaced by a faith based hell hole of hateful oppression unless something unforeseen stops it. I see only a nation of the elite and powerful imposing their opinions, their hate and their corrupt system on a mass of serfs whose complaints will be made a criminal offesnse as their rights all disappear.

We are slaves to a fascist elite of millionaires, billionaires and religion-befuddled ignoramuses. I'm sorry, grandkids.  I had no idea this kind of world was coming.  I'm sorry about what you will quite possibly see as the end result.

To all the fascists out there. FUCK YOU! Fuck your fascist Republican party! Fuck your stolen millions and billions! Fuck your ignorant religions! And, FUCK THE FASCIST SUPREME COURT!

RELIGION IS PURE EVIL!

Religion is the most insidious and most dangerous enemy the human race faces! It permeates everything. It warps reasoning and convinces people that black is really white, evil is really love. Etc.

Religion reverses everything, beginning with the beginning. It tells us a mythological construct called "god" just magically always was and made everything, including us. The truth is that men made that god. He's the construct of human imagination and superstitious fears.

The more we learn scientifically, the more religion advocates fight to enforce their superstitions on everyone, beginning with the very young. They seek to control the schools so they can set young minds in a rut of superstitious concepts they will never be able to shake.

I don't care what it's called -- Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hindu, Wiccan, etc. It's all nonsense. It craftily seizes control of minds through high sounding deceptive and emotion generating subterfuge.

It's total evil! Run from it!

EVERYBODY DESERVES TEETH

I have a new partial plate sitting on my lower jaw. It looks great! Lost three teeth in the process. They were caps, so no nerves to give trouble. I'm in no pain. I really appreciate being able to keep up my dentition. So many are doomed to go around snaggle toothed here in the so-called "greatest country" on earth.

 

As a state retiree, Phyllis was able to carry on with dental insurance that also covers me.  We still had to apply for credit to do it, but if we pay that off within a year, there's no interest, and we intend to do so.  We did the same thing several years ago when we bought our sleep number bed.

I was talking to my neighbor who has a mouthful of dead roots and a smile that is anything but pretty.  It would take around four thousand bucks to solve everything for him and he can find no one to help.  He has a small veterans dissability pension, some Social Security and Medicare, but in this "greatest of nations (?!!??)," his dental needs are not considered worthy of coverage.  He doesn't know what to do and has been told his problems could even cause cancer.  Too bad.  He's dispensable.  He wasn't out raiding companies like Romney, stealing the workers pension funds, being an oversize asshole hiding behind his mormonism facade while being a total heartless predator.  He worked for a living.  He worked hard.  He also fought for his country.  Some reward he's getting!

That wouldn't be allowed in Denmark or any of those other horrible "socialist" countries. It's a shame that it exists here, but doing something about it might mean one less mansion for some CEO or no corporate jet to fly around the world while pretending to be some fictitious god's gift to mankind (I'm specifically thinking of Herbert Armstrong and his G2 jet, but it applies to other entitled religious assholes and a host of corporate execs).

You've probably guessed that I'm in my usual "spit in their damn eyes" mood. A few days ago, we went to a meeting of the local Democrats to see how we might do some little things to inject a little reason into this screwed up Republican hell hole of a state. The wicked witch of the west surprised the hell out of us by actually championing and signing something recently that showed some compassion for other human beings. I'm happy, but mystified.

I have no illusions about being any kind of big wheel politically. I'm too old, first of all, and I absolutely refuse to be any form of ass kisser. Long ago, I lost my fear of standing up for what I am. If people don't like it, tough. I'll still get my weddings and carpet jobs. Speaking of weddings, my ceremonies are universally loved and complimented. Nobody seems to notice the absence of references to deities, flowery prayers and sanctimonious biblical nonsense.

That's all for now.  If you want to see a steady stream of what I have to say, visit and friend me on Facebook.  I'm on there daily and not a bit shy about telling it the way it is.

SEEKING ATONEMENT

Many of my readers may wonder why I despise religion so thoroughly. Why do I take every opportunity that presents itself to blast it as the pernicious evil I'm convinced it is?

It comes from a lifetime of experience, of being on both sides of the fence and seeing firsthand what it's all about. Not a pretty picture! I'm trying every way I can find to present the facts and open people's minds to see where their lives and futures are being pirated by know-it-all ignorant narcissists whose only goal is to keep their loyal following under their thumb -- paying, praying and kissing ass!

I know the history championed by all religions in their holy books, their pompous publications, etc. is universally a concocted farce. The Torah is false. The historical parts of the old testament are largely false. The prophets -- what a mess that is, and what nonsense it generates today! The new testament is likewise a mostly fictional concoction invented by people who never knew or heard any of the original people it purports to report on, decades and centuries after the fact. The Quran is a fanciful concoction in the same league as the Book of Mormon or Ron Hubbards blatherings. It would be impossible to list all the inanity out there enslaving human minds. Go to a bookstore or to Amazon and you'll be amazed at the plethora of mind-warping nonsense you could get into. (That is not to be taken as a reommendation to partake, by the way,)

Most religion traces back to people afflicted with mental disorders, among them narcissism and frontal lobe damage that leads to things like epileptic seizures and visions. (I'm thinking of Paul, Mohamad, Joseph Smith, Ron Hubbard, Ellen G. White, Loma and Herbert Armstrong, etc. It could be an endless list.) They are people who should have been cared for in institutions which didn't exist in their time! Instead, they got to parlay their madness into grandiose power and many of them got to bask in opulent luxury and at times a bit of hedonism at the expense of their faith adled dupes! Today, we just don't want to pay for proper care, so a multitude of sick people are wandering around, and some of them are in pulpits.

I know a lot of those lower down on the totem pole are sincerely trying to do what they see as good. I was once one of them. Now, I realize to my horror that I was only messing up human lives with total lying nonsense I've come to abhor. That will bother me to the day I die. I can't redo it, but I can expose the farce, the con games, the infamy.

It's the only atonement possible.

BRIDLE THE BEAST!

Violence is the enemy of liberty and free men. During my lifetime, between hot and cold wars, the world has known no real peace. Ideology seeks to wipe out other ideologies and reign supreme on the earth, subjugating everyone to its certainties. The struggle holds the germinating seeds of tyranny and oppressive control.

I remember the tremendous struggles of World War II precipitated on the world by Nazi Gemany and the Japanese. They very nearly triumphed and would have if their nuclear programs had succeeded ahead of us. Few people realize how perilously close to losing we came in that conflict.

While we were engaged in that monumental struggle, a lot of common liberties went by the wayside. There was draconian censorship. A fledgling FBI and the forerunner of the CIA intruded into society in an unprecedented way and that attitude carried over into the fiasco of McCarthyism.

Up until now, most struggles have revolved around enemies with at least some borders toward whom we could marshall overwhelming might, held in check by the fear of igniting a nuclear conflagration.

Now, we face an enemy with no real borders and no overwhelming victory is anywhere in sight. As we wipe out the old guard, new recruits rise to take their place, just as or even more fanatical than their predecessors. It's a titanic struggle!

So, what do we do?

As in all struggles, we seek defenses. Things like drones and electronic surveillance to tip us off to planned attacks. These strategies have proven effective, so we want to continue them and even expand them.

I'm not too worried about the present NSA. What worries me is future expansion and commandeering by forces that could turn my country into a twenty-first century version of Nazi Germany. Emergency government programs tend to take on a self-preserving life of their own and to get warped all out of shape from the benign original mission.

I remember all to well the evolution of Herbert Armstrong's cult. When I first got involved in the early fifties, it was a rather family-like and somewhat comforting organization. That soon changed into a controlling monstrosity headed by a man who had become a monster.

We certainly need intelligence against our enemies. We also need to take steps to "bridle the beast" and make certain there are limits to what it can do. Maintaining democracy demands constant vigilance, and if we don't take care to ensure our freedoms are protected, we will wake one morning to find them gone forever.

GET REAL ALREADY!

I get rather short tempered with denouncements of our government's attempts to monitor dangerous communications. People get the idea that their chat with their wife or girlfriend, etc. is being recorded and listened in on.

Let's get real here!

To make such a thing possible would require the hiring of millions of agents and increasing the national debt by far more than anyone can imagine. I haven't seen any appeals for such monitors anywhere.

Defending ourselves against terrorism requires intelligence and the very people denouncing our attempts to use technology to detect unusual paterns, etc. in communication, especially with foreigners, would be the first to raise indignant voices about incompetence if those charged with protecting us failed to catch the next blatant attempt to kill, maim and destroy.

Do they expect our protectors to have so-called psychic abilities? Our enemies use modern communication to plot against us. Like with any weapon, we have to take counter measures. Trying to scare me with "Big Brother" bullshit only makes me indignant.

DISASTERS ARE NOT GOD'S WRATH

Life is so scary, even now in this enlightened age. It always has been and my friend, Dennis Deahl, just published a blog entry on Banned by HWA about the wild-eyed pronouncments of how "god" is punishing our nation for it's sinfulness with storms, fires, you name it -- "god" did it -- to get people to "repent," of course. That repentance, naturally, involves people listenng to the magnificent and only true message being brought by that particular over-impressed with himself narcissist. How that's going to happen is never explained, by them or any other deluded "faith monger."

Same old same old crap.

It can't just be that cold and warm air masses collide on a trajectory that starts thunderstorms whirling or that dry lightning hits dry brush and the brush ignites, etc. Some god has to be behind it all. Disasters can't be just natural occurences or dumb mistakes from a moment of distraction. Some magnificent, and somewhat malevolent, deity has to be behind it all -- a deity who has to take roundabout ways of communicating with us instead of just showing up and laying down the law. If he's too busy, I'm sure all those angelic beings casting crowns at his magnificent feet could be spared for a few minutes to carry out the loving assignment.

Why don't we just go back to setting up statues of Baal the storm god and prostrate ourselves in front of them? It would make as much sense as listening to this antiquated, science denying crap.

A beautiful honeysuckle bush at the back of our property is browning up. It's either the heat and dryness taking a toll or some disease is taking over. I soaked it down and hope that pulls it through for a month or so until some humidity comes our way. No "god" cursed it. There's a natural and logical reason.

When trouble comes, it's natural to look for help, just like little Daisy, our beloved Ponchi, sought comfort in my arms a couple days ago. I was real. I was there. I could do something, and I did. It's time for us to realize there is no watchful big daddy "up there" when troubles are looming. The only help we're going to get is from our own preparedness, quick actions and the charity of loving people. We'd better have good insurance, a storm room or basement, medical coverage (if we can afford it in this "socialism" hating nation), etc.

We should have outgrown our primitive superstitious fears like most of the nations which are leaving us in the dust in just about every way imaginable. We need to realize that no "god" is going to send armies of non-existent angels to deliver us from anything or do some marvelous magic in our behalf anymore than such interventions were in the offing for the inmates of Nazi concentration camps. It was the Russian and other allied armies that delivered what was left of those poor people! No god of any imagined majesty did a damn thing.

Empty mental fluff fluff has no power to do anything! Forget that nonsense about being punished for not falling in line and kissing some narcissist's ass!

WE'RE NO LONGER THE GREATEST

It really grates on me when I hear the self-congratulatory cliche that we are the greatest country in the world. This may shock you. It might make you mad.

IT'S NOT TRUE!

We're no longer the greatest country in the world. We haven't been for several decades now. Other countries have long ago left us in the dust, chief among which are the scandinavian countries of Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

If I were an impoverished denizen of the third world looking for a place to which I could migrate, I'd probably choose Denmark -- certainly not the USA if I took a long hard look at both destinations.

It's become an habitual mantra, akin to "jesus saves" and has no more basis in reality than that hackneyed nonsense.

I've recently posted several things, especially on Facebook, that back up what I'm saying, but here is a video of an impassioned American's statements that says it all very well. Take a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMqcLUqYqrs

It's time we quit strutting around like peacocks without their decorative fans and setting ourselves up as the laughing stock of the enlightened world.  We think we're beautiful and oh so special.  Most of the world knows better, and we can't depend on military might to make us top dog forever -- in a world that gets more disgusted and scornful every day.