HOW MANY TIMES WILL YOU VOTE THIS YEAR?

It all started before I got there.  Two friends were talking about the fact that it is possible that Mitt Romney had not paid any income tax for ten years.  They both were divided on the fact that more than likely, practically assuredly, there had been no laws broken. BUT, one would still vote for the guy but the other not.  I joined in and said that I would be damned if I would  vote to pay a guy's salary who had not shared in the paying of the salary of at least two presidents before him.  Who had not paid a dime towards the wars that had been declared during those years while I had.  I think that it is immoral to expect me to pay your salary when you ducked out of your responsibility, legally, of course to pay for previous presidents' salary and the wars that they declared.  I will not vote for that.
A dear friend of mine said that the only vote that counts is the one that goes into the ballot box.  I told him that if he believes that, he is naive.  He was hurt.
I walked away because I was called to other venues.  Nevertheless, here's why I believe that he is naive:
1. Grover Norquist votes every time someone who signed his "contract" votes.
2. Jamie Dimond votes every time someone to whom who his group has contributed $1,000,000 dollars votes...and there are many
3. The Koch brothers vote every time someone they support votes...and there are many
4. Every time someone who is supported by Big Pharma votes...Big Pharma votes too
5. Every time someone who is supported by Big Comm votes...Big Comm votes too
6. Every time someone who is supported by Big Oil votes...Big Oil votes too
7. Every time someone who is suported by Big Agri votes...Big Agri votes too

I don't have to go on.  You and I know that we are being out-voted.  Every time a vote is announced in the House or the Senate, the money flows and so goes the, money, so goes the vote.  Why?
Easy.  Job security.  The elected need to run for election.  So the bribery system in the United States is constructed around the "Campaign Contribution."  Your elected "representatives" do not represent you, they represent themselves and their families so that they can continue to be employed.  Yes, this is true.  Every politician is bought and paid for... and not in the ballot box.
So, we have the grand total of one vote  and those who can afford to buy the politicians can vote every time their puppet votes.

I do not belong to a political party.  I have staunchly refused to join a union.  I vote in every election because I want to assure my right to express my opinion about the results of the election.  I do know that all politicians are immoral.  If you don't vote, shut up.  If you vote, we can talk, but don't try to bullshit me.

WHY I LISTEN TO PUBLIC RADIO --- YES, EWTN DOES FLUSTER ME

COMMENT FROM ANOTHER BLOG OF MINE:

Why do you still listen to Public Radio? To keep up with what the Evil one is saying? Switch your radio/internet to EWTN or other Catholic radio. It will never fluster you. It is AWESOME!

FIRST: WHY I LISTEN TO PUBLIC RADIO

1.  I appreciate news reporting from Africa

2. I appreciate listening to news analyses about the hardships vexing Africans

3. I appreciate listening to news reporting from the BBC, rather than from the 

     USA news outlets

4. I enjoy the human impact analyses of life in the United States that do not get 

     presented on the USA commercial or cable airwaves -- like the story I wrote 

     about concerning the young lady who had escaped from child prostitution to 

     finally reach the position of tenured professor at UCLA.  (Work of the evil one?)

                      More on the "Evil" one later.

Second:  WHY I DO NOT LISTEN TO EWTN

1. I spend at least 15 hours per week preparing Bible and Theology classes

2. My sources for these syllabi are the following:

             a) The Jerome Biblical Commentary

             b) The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

             c) The Catechism of the Catholic Church

             d) The Code and Commentary of Canon Law of the Catholic Church

             e) The "Osservatore Romano" official newspaper of Vatican City

3. Aside from the intellectual exercises that the above list represents, my daily 

     prayer life consists of the following:

              v. Listening to the daily reading and following meditation from USCCB

             w. 30 minutes a day of community prayer with my spouse taken from the 

                 Breviary, other wise know as the Book of Christian Prayer

             x. Not less than 30 minutes per day of praying the Bible in meditation

             y. Reading and considering the articles of Catholic bloggers from around 

                  the world

             z. "Breakfast with God" from ParishWorld.net

4. EWTN has not been exempt from succumbing to the wiles and the influence 

     of the "Evil one."  

5. When you get to know as much about the Catholic Church as I do, you will 

     have many reasons to get flustered by EWTN.

SMALLER GOVERNMENT or MICROMANAGEMENT GOVERNMENT?

"The land of the free, and the home of the brave."
I'm from Massachusetts where, fittingly, for today and this thought, the state motto is "Sub ense, libertas."
That's right, "Under the sword, liberty."
We have recycled our swords into "Colts".
We have intellectualized them into laws, sub laws, rules, regulations and tribunals.
We have organized them into moneyed special interests.
We have hacked them dull in the deterioration of our educational system through our pandering to the personal demands of the educators rather than honoring the needs of the students.
We have bent then into corkscrews of dishonor, discord, disrespect, dissimulation, disingenuity, contumely and slander.
We have ceased looking for the "quiet peace" mentioned in the uncut, unedited statement of the motto:
         "Manus haec inimica tyrannis ense petit placidam 
                        sub libertate quietem,"

We keep a sharp sword at hand, shoulder high and threatening those whom we perceive to be nuisances intruding upon our thirst for complete control over the behavior in which we find comfort.  

The sharp sword comes in handy for carving out sections of the citizenry that are different from whom and what we are.  

We seek to excise those who feel entitled; those who even through no fault of their own, are less well endowed, physically, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually and economically.

We use the flat side for those on our side and the sharp edge for the weaker ones.

These are times when the sword is not a unifier but a divider; not a peace maker but a fomenter of discord.  It is not a tool for the lessening of organized government's intrusion into our personal lives, but a wedge driving government deeper and deeper into our individual private space.  

This sword knows no political favoritism.  It cares not whose hand squeezes the haft.  It cares not whether the hand is right or left.  All it cares is whether there is enough blood on it to show one and all that it knows its purpose and is able and willing to achieve it.  No matter what.

Happy Independence Day.

THE REAL CRIMINALS ARE IN WASHINGTON

"When they jumped the fence they broke the law."  Then the employers paid off the lawmakers who let the fence-jumpers keep the jobs because the bribing employers slipped the lawmakers big dollars under the title, "Campaign Contribution."
If I hear one more politician say that the immigration system in the country is broken, I'm going to jump through the screen and wring his/her neck.  The "system" is not broken.  It has been completely destroyed by the very same criminals who constructed it.  I heard Darrel Issa say on "Meet the Press" [Sunday, June 24, 2012] over and over again that the system is broken.  Bullshit!  Stop hiding behind behind these words.  The system is not broken.  What is broken is the moral integrity of the people who have been mandated by vote of the electorate to make it work.  "Systems" do not govern.  People do.  Enough with the euphemisms already!  Admit it, you're all criminals on the take, trying to get re-elected and you don't give a damn about whether or not a 36 year old law has not been effective.  [Simpson - Mazzoli -- November, 1986]  
I know what I'm talking about.  I was a human resources director from 1987 until 2007.  I enforced Simpson - Mazzoli to the tittle.  I also had the opportunities to look the other way in favor of some rather lucrative rewards.  I never took a dime and I am now a fixed income homeowner with my pride and my straight shooting heart as my treasures.  
Don't talk to me about "Broken Systems."  Talk to me about criminally Satanic lawmakers.

EXTRA! EXTRA! ONE CHEATER OUTS ANOTHER -- GETS BEAT ANYWAY!

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/joel-peralta-caught-pine-tar-nationals-rays-crying-130611107--mlb.html

This is why I stopped being a fan of "professional" sports.
Is it because they cheat?  No.  Is it because they are so much better at what they do than I could ever have become?  No.
It's because when they get called out about their cheating ways by another cheater who knows they the are cheating because he knows that the cheater used to cheat for him when he was the cheater's boss before he traded him away to the cheateer in the other dugout, they cry "FOUL" instead of just sitting in the bushes and waiting for an opportunity to bite back.  It's the "cry-baby" syndrome of shedding tears over seeing one of the myriad of "unwritten rules" broken.  Even though I am now an old man, I cannot get used to the reciprocal righteousness of "hypocrite vs hypocrite" one-up-manship."  I have come to a point where the humor of the situation has grown into disgust.  I humbly admit that men grow old way before they ever grow up, but professional athletes and their "mystique" has become more than what I can stomach.  The story of this episode is made humorous by the fact that the whining, offended cheater who ratted out the cheater who used to cheat for him LOST anyway.  So the cheater who ratted out the cheat by "Wiki-leaking" his propensity for cheating to the officials, got beat anyway.  Now that, I like.  
Then, the cheating boss of the cheater who got "Wiki-leaked" whines and cries about the lack of loyalty of the "Wiki-leaking" opposing cheater to the "unwritten rules" of the game.  This type of behavior, says the winning cheater,  will cause cheaters all over the league to have to change their ways in order to protect their cheating ways from other cheaters who would know that they cheat and how they cheat because they used to share cheating tactics when they were on the same team.  How horrendously traitorous of you!  You have contributed to denigrating and despoiling the legion of professionals of the cheating tricks that they have developed to a here-to-fore unheard of level of perfection.
Now that is A+ stupidity on top of political ignorance.
The winning manager should have said [could have said if he too were not a cheater] is: "I have taken my pitcher aside and had a Dutch Uncle talk with him about the evil of cheating.  The pitcher who substituted for him and won the game proved to the august and honorable cheater in the other dugout that the cheating ways that he espouses and the disregard of the unwritten rules that he practiced tonight could not protect him from the ignominy of defeat at the hands of an honest and straighforward, clean and righteous mano a mano fighter who has been spared of having to work in the cheating shadows of my opponent's salacious locker room.  That's all I have to say."
It reminds me of the Country and Western song, "Ladies, Don't Let Your Sons Grow to be Cowboys." [read: Professional Athletes]
So, last night one cheater beat another.  It happens all the time, because in life, there is always a winner and a loser.  Like it or not.  Take it or leave it.  Honest or crooked.   It has always been so and will ever remain so.  
Amen.

BUSH TAX CUTS LAW, AGAIN --- THE SUN SETS, AGAIN???

Mr. Obama.  This is your last chance at redemption.  This is your last chance to give Grover Norquist and his disciples their well-deserved kick in the crotch.  I, and many Americans who voted for you are wondering when you are going to gird your loins and throw your weight around and get rid of your adversaries.  We are starting to get the definite impression that you like having them around.  I don't blame you, in a way.  They are just like a nagging wife.  They keep reminding you about how they are not going to vote for the next thing that comes up to a deadline.  So you already know what you have to do.  What really gags us is the way you buckle under to them.  You have not once used the weight and leverage of your position to get anything done that WE want you to do.  You have even backed down on stuff that you said that you wanted done.  On this blog alone, I have written some very disparaging things about you.  Well-deserved, I might add.  Now I hear Boehner and Kantor threatening you again about the Bush tax cuts.  You know, the ones that had a ten year life span.  Yep, you caved.  The sun that was supposed to set on that one, rose again.  So, the Republicans gambled and should have lost, but you handed them the win.  You HAVE to stop this crap.  Defeat them.  We want you to defeat them.  Put an end to the Bush tax cuts for EVERYONE.  Wake up, Sir.  The facts are the facts.  The country of fair play and rule of law knows that when a law expires, it expires.  It is only the slick, oily types who try to squirm by the fact that they gambled and lost.  Taking the emotion out of it, look at it this way.
Remember this? πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει,'everything flows and nothing is left unchanged'
Did all of the well-educated, august members of the government who voted for a law with a ten year life span forget this unalterable truth about the universe?  Did they all of a sudden get "tsunami-ed" by this calamitous brain cramp?  Things change, gentlemen.  The sun never sets on the same planet that it visited during the day.  You all know that.  Barack Obama, you graduated from Harvard.  Prove to us that you actually learned something there.  So far you have not done a very good job of that.  These tax cuts have to die.  Grover Norquist and his minions have to be put in their place...back in his vest pocket where they belong.  And remember, I said the cuts go across the board -- to everyone.  NO EXCEPTIONS. Fair play.  Rule of law.
But of course, we know that you are all politicians.  So the truth that you espouse today, is relative, and therefore, exempt from the centuries old law of πάντα χωρεῖ.
I voted for you, Mr. Obama.  The reasons for that are many,  but some of them can be found here.  http://fourinchdevil.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-i-didnt-vote-for-john-mccain.html
I voted for you in '08.  Chances are very slim that I will repeat that mistake this year.  Mistake?  You bet.
1.You took the single payer option off the table before the debate even started
2.Refused to change the law that prohibits the US government to negotiate drug prices with "big pharma."
3.The "Colchicine" bribery idiocy.
4.The contraceptive buffoonery.
5.Yes, I remember the Patriot Act vote to allow big Communications to spy on us
6. I also remember Guantanamo
7. I have Afghanistan in mind -- and your sweet bow to the mercenaries in Iraq, and Somalia as well.
8. Your sweet kiss to the "mooning" Republicans when you should have kicked their ass [not kissed it] into the boards and let them shut the government down.
Yeah, Mr. President, I was hoping that you would be the antidote to GW Bush.  He was all balls and no brains.  You, on the other hand, have a brain but no balls.  Three years ago you said publicly that you just might be a one term president.  Don't deny it, it's on tape.  The convention is approaching.  Why don't you consider giving Hilary Clinton the baton.  She and Bill will get things done.  They will not let McConnel, Kantor and Boehner cow them into oblivion.
So:
a. Stop weeping and whining about what you inherted and DO something.
b. Let the sun set on the Bush Tax Cuts for EVERYONE.  We understand fair play.
c. Close Guantanamo.
d. Fire all the XE mercenaries.
e. Recall all the carpet bagging contractors.
f. Give Catholics a pass,  The US can't afford social services without them.
g. Let the Republicans shut the government down.
h. Make the electorate hate Norquist and his minions.
i. You can't reform the tax code, but you can get the wheels in motion.  Do it.
j. Be careful with your drone attacks.  You're approaching the edge, I think.  Maybe not here at home, but elsewhere.
k. Don't jeopardize your stellar foreign policy record.  President Hilary and Sec. of State Willy would be a nice team.  Now, them I would vote for.


You're out of your league in the Oval Office.  


Paul Dion

FDA LYING ABOUT COLCHICINE

Source of colcrys [colchicine]

A story about bribery and lying.
I sent this email to URLPharma, Philadelphia,Pennsylvania

"I have been taking colchicine for 43 years.  I have bought and used colchicine in The Philippines, in Mexico, in Italy, France, Canada and the USA and it has always worked very well. There is nothing wrong with colchicine except that the pharmaceutical companies were not making enough profit from it.   So, you happen to be the ones who invented the right reason with the right wording to make the change.  Then you proceeded to stuff the right wallets with the right amount of greenbacks to get permission to perfect a drug that has a 2,000 year history of satisfactory performance. Nice job.  

I will never buy one single milligram of "colcrys" in the USA for as long as I live.  Take that to the bank."

Click here below for a well written study about colchicine. 

2,000 year history of satisfactory performance. 

Colchicine is a drug that has been used for 2,000 years as a treatment for  attacks of the gout.  These attacks are called "flare-ups" because the pain that the gout causes is like FIRE.  I know.

You will see a picture of the crocus plant from where it comes when it is processed from nature.  Now though, I suppose that the billionnaires who bribed the FDA to let them re-invent the drug probably do it by manufacturing the molecules themselves.  

We live in a country that is so warped that it is difficult to see where common sense, if any exists, starts and where it leads.  So it is said in all the official writing that I have seen, the FDA wants to know if this drug is working like it should.  It has been so long that it has been studied that it has been decided to give a pharmaceutical company the right to market its patented version of it as an exclusive.  Talk about a sweetheart deal!   We can't prove it, and no one will ever admit it, but I personally am convinced that there was a lot of money dumped into some very voracious political deep pockets to get this done.  So now the contract has been delivered and the people with the gout, like me, have to pay exhorbitantly high prices for a drug that should be a dime a pill.

Get ready for the scare tactics now.  

Please be warned that buying colchicine from Canada, Mexico or the Philippines could be dangerous to your life.  

Remember that if you are brazen enough to buy colchicine in another country and get caught with it in your possession upon re-entering the USA that you will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

I keep thinking that the FDA is so fully staffed with incompetents that it doesn't know what the drugs that it has cleared for public use are up to. We are lucky that the original manufacturer of Aspirin is a German company.  Beware, though, there is perhaps a pharmaceutical company here in the USA that is dreaming of a way to allow the FDA to let it re-study the properties of salicylic acid so that it can tweak it to make it a new invention and therefore be sold exclusively for $5.00 per pill.  Oh, yeah!  I can see it now.  Isn't this excitingly reassuring for all you takers of Kumadin?  If the FDA doesn't know if it can trust a 2,000 year old drug, what does that say about its grasp of the properties of a 15 year old drug?  I'll bet that there are more people who have died from kumadin dosage over the last five years than have died from colchicine in the whole 2,000 years of its discovery.

The way this country is being run is very disheartening indeed.  I guess I shouldn't complain too much.  I, and you, still have the freedom to write and say what we think without having too much to worry about.  So I guess I will get away with this.  I still have the gout, but I will find a way to buy my colchicine somewhere else on the planet.