Well, it's been another long while. We had a too-warm winter, with a deep freeze near the end of February, that totally destroyed Blueberry crops around here. I lost virtually all of my own early crop, and the late crop came early. Only a few berries left, and they are not getting ripe. I probably will spend the next couple of days pruning the plants to allow for more growth for next year's harvest. And the mosquitos are fierce. I neglected to buy fish because my seasonal pond was virtually dry at the start of the season, but then we got some rain, and the pond looked more normal, and I still failed to buy any fish to stock the pond, and now I can't stand to be outdoors for long.... Trying to get a cell phone repeater working in order to have internet access at the house. AT&T has the best signal, but I can't afford their internet. Second best should be Verizon, but even though they are getting better plans, I still can't afford theirs either. Sprint and T-Mobile are decent plans, but no worthwhile signal at my place.So it's time to try to boost the signal. I have an outside antenna, with a Wilson cradle to transfer the signal to the phone. There is no real amplification with this setup, but I pick up 6-7 db, going from -113 to -106, which still is not good enough. So I'll have to find the best amplifier, or see what kind of performance I can get from the cheapest amplifier???? And the election is heating up. I work in retailing, and I always mention that the price with tax is after we pay Rick--as in Rick Scott, the governor of florida. This is the guy who is hurting the people of the state by refusing to go along with the Nation's health care law, and who, after being elected on a pledge to bring jobs to the state, laid off 4000 state workers, and increased payroll deductions on all who remained, and who has 4000 more teachers in fear of losing their livelihood, and his line item vetoes on the state budget affected contracts that were already signed, and resulted in layoffs of people hired to perform the work. He's probably got a 10,000 jobs deficit before he creates the first new job, and he has yet to do that. Anyway, I have only talked to about eight people in that whole time who admitted to having voted for this guy, and two of those said that they were sorry they did so. WE NEED RECALL! But of course, the republic controlled legislature won't give it to us, so it will have to be done by voter initiative. You can tell if a republic candidate is lying (and by the way, if they can shorten the name of my party, I can do the same to them) by looking at his lips. If they are moving, he is lying. Far too many of them support this clown who murdered Trayvon Martin, and we still would not get any support to renew the automatic weapons ban, even after Aurora. This has got to stop! We must make sure that we get the elderly and porr people, including minorities to the polls this year, even if Rick Scott pulls the same shit jeb bush pulled with the state troopers in 2000, intimidating minority voters on their way to the polls. Scott has already gotten in hot water over his attempts to drop "non-citizen voters" from the rolls, and his photo id law. republic candidates are saying now that voting is not a right, but a privilege. There is already case law in Massachusetts, I believe, that says that driving is essentially a right. Voting certainly falls into that category as well. This state is doing everything it can to remove that right from anyone who might be tempted to vote for the Democratic party. The most important thing in November is to strengthen Democratic control of the Senate, to at least sixty votes. If we get enough voters to the polls to do that, we should also be able to ensure an Obama victory. I am not particularly fond of Obama, as I prefered Hillary Clinton, and I believe the health care reform should have included VA-style health care for everyone who wanted it. During Katrina we heard that a new combination VA and charity hospital was being built in New Orleans. We need a lot more of those. But I don't want to see anyone waste a vote on a liberal third party candidate. If only a fraction of those who voted for Nader in 2000, in Florida alone, had cast their vote for Gore instead, we would not have had eight years of the George W. Bush problem. So I am prepared to cast my vote for Obama, even if I have to hold my nose to do so. Because NOTHING would be worse than to see someone named Mitt in the White House!

Phew! Where to start?

So much stuff happening lately. I HATE BAD COPS! Cops all over this country are reacting like Arab police during the Arab Spring. I can't wait to see Arab news sites referring to the American Fall! Wouldn't that be ironic! I've long felt that the only reason that existed to become a cop is the desire to abuse the power that goes with the badge. Peaceful protesting is a right guaranteed by our Constitution.

Now, I've owned two corporations, and I approve of them in general. But when they rip everyone off, and injure innocent people, and spend millions to influence laws. it's time to reign them in.

And when cops hurt the people they are paid to protect, we MUST make an example of them and show the rest of them that we will not tolerate such conduct! Ditto for Judges and other people involved in law enforcement--including attorneys on both sides of the issues.

And the Republicans! We all know what happens when you turn 999 upside down...well, the devil is in the details.... And Cain now saying that Jesus was a conservative. That is the stupidest thing he's done since he slayed Abel!

Troy Davis, RIP

My chief reason for opposing the death penalty is that so many on death row have been proven to be innocent. Now we have a case where 77 per cent of the witnesses who testified that Troy Davis shot an off-duty cop, have now recanted their testimony and stated that the police pressured them to identify Troy Davis as the shooter. THESE ARE BAD COPS! There was no physical evidence at all to indicate that Troy was guilty. All the evidence came from witnesses, the vast majority of whom now say they lied under pressure from the police. Yet the state of georgia (it doesn't deserve to be capitalized) has now murdered a man who in all likelihood was innocent. This is not a civilized society, and georgia is not a civilized state!

Link to new blog

Here is a link to my new blog about Alachua:

http://boycottalachuafl.blogspot.com/ 

Well, it has been a while, hasn't it? I am about to turn soixante-neuf (the only sexual position that can also be a birthday). And I got a ticket for allegedly running a red light in the small city of Alachua, FL 32615. This is a city of perhaps just over 10,000 population, which has THREE UNMARKED POLICE CRUISERS PLUS A MOTORCYCLE UNIT or two! These are used only for traffic enforcement. I have spent hundreds of dollars per month in this city for nearly nine years, and that is OVER! I am announcing a boycott of all merchants in the City of Alachua, Florida. The light was clearly yellow when I entered the intersection, and I see nothing in the law which states that you cannot enter an intersection on the yellow. I have been told by a couple of retired cops that when your front bumper is in the intersection before the light turns red, you have control over the intersection, and that seems to be supported by the laws I have read today, and I downloaded the full traffic law section for the state. I have also spoken with a local contractor/developer who claims to be a friend of the cop who gave me the ticket, and who says that cop interceded on his behalf with another cop who had stopped this contractor, and got the cop to give only a warning instead of a ticket. That shows that this guy is not impartially giving out tickets. I will be starting another blog specifically about this, and would like people to click through their favorite search engine to get to that site in order to raise the visibility of that site. Alachua is a city which hosts tourist events in order to draw people to the city, so that it can make money on traffic tickets. In fact, it is as bad as Waldo or Lawtey, except that, because they do not ticket for one or two mph over the speed limit, they avoid having to put signs at the edge of town that the speed limit will be strictly enforced. Please join with me, if you live locally, in boycotting the merchants of this town, and go somewhere else for July 4th fireworks and/or the Little League World Series.

Those republicans are at it again!

Well, people are saying that recent elections--particularly that of nude pinup model Scott Brown--have shown that republicans are going to win big in the next election. POPPYCOCK! It is still the republicans who are dragging down government at every level.

In particular, Scott Brown used a single issue to get elected, and it was something he could only have done in Massachusetts. Massachusetts, tired of the federal government not doing anything to reform healthcare, created health care reform on a state level, for the first time in this country. Since they already have health care, the citizens did not want to pay for this twice--once on the state level, and once on the federal level. That is how he got elected--not to mention that the Democratic candidate simply lost the election with a very poorly-run campaign.

Last I saw, 61% of the citizens wanted a public option in health care, 29% did not, and 10% were undecided. Splitting the undecided vote gives us almost exactly a 2:1 majority wanting a public option. Any republican who fights this should not be re-elected, period! For the republicans to claim that these recent elections mean that the public does not like Obama is sheer stupidity. He still has not pulled out of the problems left by the previous administration. And he can't do so quickly because they left us in such a precarious state. The ONLY way we can fix things is to get things back the way they were during the Clinton administration--ie, raise taxes on the wealthy. The best way to do this is to eliminate all of the ways that the wealthy people AVOID paying taxes. I hate to say it, but a flat tax, with a basic deduction for cost of living, and no other deductions, would go far to accomplish what we need to accomplish. Just making the rich people pay their fair share would help out this country a whole lot. I have no problem with a break for long-term capital gains, but I don't think that wealthy people actually do that much direct investment. Wealthy people have so many ways to avoid taxes that many of them actually pay NO taxes every year! That is simply not right!

Now we hear that the Greek government is in a sorry state, and needs to borrow money. This recession would seem to be never-ending, yet I work in retail, and we are beating last year's figures handily. Except for January, sales are not that bad.... If companies would just hire more people, I think they'd see sales go up.

I still think that Chrysler makes better cars than Ford or GM, and I base this on having owned four Chrysler products in the last decade or so, along with one Chevy, and a Mazda and a Volvo. Worst of the lot was the Mazda. These are not very current vehicles, ranging from 1986 to 1995 models, but I got to see two Caravans with 191,000 and 208,000 miles on them, and I now have a '95 Doddge Stratus with 112,500 miles on it, which beats the heck out of a Sentra or Corolla. It goes down the interstate far better than, say, a Hyundai Accent, handles well, rides well, and is quieter. Chrysler's cruise control is far better than the others, as well, beaten only in my experience by current Volvos. The new Avenger--which we are seeing used by many police departments--gets within a mile or two per gallon of the much-vaunted Malibu, and it is a noticeably larger car. You should look at Chrysler. Toyota, which I used to sell, and always respected, has lost my respect.

Gotta run....

It's those liars again!

I frequently fall asleep with the TV on, and then wake up listening to something I would not normally want to hear. Why my local channel--owned by a very progressive reform Jewish woman--would run wrong-wing xian broadcasting is beyond me, but there was Pastor Arnold Murray one day telling us that he and his ilk were going to vote out all of these liberal judges and put conservative ones in their places!

Arnold, of course, has no idea that the Court System was included in our government specifically to enforce the rights of minorities, and to overrule the tyranny of the majority! That is why we have a tripartite system of government. This country is not, and was never intended to be, a pure democracy!The legislative, executive, and judicial branches serve as a system of checks and balances against each other, per the intentions of our founding fathers!!!! Not to mention, of course, that all of that hyperbole about judges legislating from the bench, works both ways! When you have a justice--overruled by every other member of his court, who tries to rule that Congress does not have the right to regulate the sale of machine guns, that is precisely legislating from the bench! It is the very definition of that term.

Then another day, I awoke to the 700 Club intoning that the people of Spain had the right idea when they instituted the Siesta! Those idiots don't even realize that the siesta originated in Mexico, where virtually everyone is infected with mononucleosis, aka the sleeping disease. That causes people to fall asleep, particularly in bright sunshine and extreme heat. That is why they have the siesta. With more vitamin B-12 in their diet, they would not need a siesta! This refusal to check their supposed facts is also common with wrong-wing conservatives, and so their listeners go along thinking that things are established fact, when they are not, which then becomes part of the whole darned problem!!!!

The FCC ought to regulate statements made as fact which are not true, just as they regulate the statements of people who use banned words, and for much the same reason.