The Age of Aquarius

"We must stay true to the old ways, tradition, and hold back the tide of progress."

On the contrary, let us do away with the old ways, the days of Hate and Disagreement.  Let us herald in Harmony and Understanding, Sympathy and Trust.  Let us be led into no more Falsehoods or Derisions.  Each of us living golden dreams of visions, mystic revelations, allowing everyone the mind's true liberation...

By that I mean that each of us should be granted a renewed sense of freedom and liberty by truly embracing what these words mean.  We should begin to truly hold a solemn duty to the Health and Security of one another.  There are individuals aplenty in this world, without proper food, clothes, shelter, or health care.  This new age affords us the opportunity to accept new levels of equality and security for all.  This is our future.  We need but step forward and embrace it.

Let us end the old world's grasp on our society.  Let us loose the chains of traditional oppression.  Let us embrace the idea of better days through better ways.  Let us shed these skins of old and become a new version of ourselves.  

Our time to become more is now.

"It is not about guns, it is about the COMPLETE lack of Health (mental) Care, in this country!"

The SOURCE of the Violence

"Guns don't kill people, people, kill people."

As a born and bred Texan, I am a liberal who believes in a strong second amendment.  I have owned, bought, and sold arms both with and without background checks through the "gun show loophole."  Basically, it is perfectly legal to buy and gun from a private citizen, sans a background check.  I have done so maybe half a dozen times, for weapons that held high capacity clips, capable of 'assaulting & defending' any given position.  I also equipped these weapons with long and short range capabilities.  Never have I used ANY of them to cause harm to another's life, liberty, property, or pursuit of happiness.

If you made "guns" illegal, I would likely expand my collection of blades and sling shots.  I would spend time learning the trade of knife and sword making, and how to launch deadly projectiles.  My point here is that there are many ways to cause harm to human homeostasis.  What we are NOT talking about right now, is the SOURCE for these violent outbursts toward society!?

So, are there 'commonalities' between these whackos?  I use that as a strictly clinical term, but I guess a more accurate term would be anti-social or psychotic bi-polar blah blah blah.  In any case they were disturbed, NOT normal, outcasts of the social order, people who found themselves on the outside looking in.  Now, while we have all felt that way, most of us don't take an uzi to school and begin to mow people down.

Rather than turn our high schools into the TSA airport, we must begin to ask ourselves if it is worth the risk to continue to build, bolster, and beautify this "have's and have not's" mentality.  We've got to embrace a more inclusive attitude, period.  We've got to reach out to one another.  We've got to see and identify social misfits and give them a path to normality.  Even the last and least among us needs to feel as though they have worth herein.  This has to become the conversation...

But We Are Morally Right

"We are right, we don't have to change, we have to change their minds, back."

I hope conservatives go right back to these old ways, and continue to lose elections.  Times, they are a changing.  Liberals now need to embrace the fact that conservatives were wrong, and that they need to change.  It was once not morally wrong to allow a woman out at night un-escorted, in some countries it still is.

We should step boldly into the future and embrace equal rights for all, fully and willingly.  Traditionalism belongs in yesterday, and is but the anchor holding us back.  One must wonder why some cling so mightily to the past?  So Leviticus says men laying with men is bad, but it says the same thing about eating shellfish.

There are groups of protesters harassing the family of fallen troops over homosexuality, but how many placard pacers do you see pivoting about pork partakers?  It is in the same book, why aren't both rules of equal weight and value?  Do you remember the last time you left the corners of your field for the weird?

These books are thousands of years old.  Trying to legislate them into today's society is beyond unreasonable.  Claiming some moral high ground based on some interpretation of a text more than a century old would be a subjective endeavor, if ever there was one.  However, the greater sin against civility and the future is to apply text millennia old to today...

The world around us changes, and if we can not change to adapt to it, we will perish.  Languish not in the mores of yesterday, but look to the liberation and equality for all, in spite of the past.  Embrace tomorrow and we will all be better for it.

Don't Harsh the Mello

"States will face stiff penalties from federal authorities over their outright legalization of marijuana."

Why on Earth would the federal government, this executive branch, want in any way to punish the very liberals that re-elected him?  These are not violent criminals, these are modern adults who accept the reality that most people smoke weed, or knows someone who does.  They are far less violent and as long as they have coffee far more productive alcoholics, and far less dangerous on the road.

Both of these steps took the initial pre-requisite actions, by going through the 'medical provision' initiatives, while other states languish under ignorant and arcane law.  Marijuana is a medicine.  It may not be pretty, but facts are facts, people get relief from pain, nausea, and spasms from its consumption.  Threatening people with federal prosecution for providing medicine to sick people is NUTS.

The prohibition of alcohol did not keep people from consuming it, it only made a bunch of really bad people really rich.  Why in the world would we want to continue to miss out on the tax revenue, and instead pass that along to criminals.  Then at the same time turn around and PAY to jail non-violent offenders.

Spending money punishing people for taking an herb that hurts no one, and helps the patient, rather than making money from a legitimate marketplace good just seems wrong-headed.

Come on President Obama, you've inhaled, you KNOW this stuff isn't the demon weed straight from hell.  Marijuana is medicine, tax it, and allow people to live their lives without fear of federal prosecution.

We Won!!!

"Democrats now see the election win as a mandate."

Well duh!!!  Hey President Barrack Obama, you have just been re-elected, what are you gonna do next?  "Well, I am gonna thank my wife."

Really?  That's it?  Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the First Lady, she is easily more palatable than the democratic national platform, but is thanking HER really our first priority?  Is there ANYTHING, in the world more important?  I would think maybe peace in the middle east, energy independence, maybe creating a renewable economy?  Oh, I've got one, how about building a high speed rail system?

Nah, let's thank the family for their support...then what???

Hey, how about a couple of words about the war in Afghanistan, or how about global climate change? Like many other liberals, I want for 'progress'.  I want to wake up in the morning to a plan.  I want for there to be something for me to work on, as a progressive liberal.  But there isn't...  I wake up each morning wondering, "Well, what now?"

First, let's address these "secessionists."  Please, pack up, and find another country to plague with your talk of disunion.  This is a united we stand divided we fall world, people.  We need now more than ever, to be united to a wider broader world, and not be cut off from one another.  Comparing Texas to island nations or even Australia is utterly devoid of the reality of ending our union with the U.S.  Our current trade policy with Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Louisiana is most ideal, right now.  Changing this would almost certainly cause a 'trade tax', and this is just my first thought as to what such a reality might mean.  This entire venture is being perpetrated on the populous by less than .3% of the population of Texas.  A few ten thousand can embarrass and otherwise tarnish a state of over twenty-five million sound minded rational adults, just for fun.

What is there to gain by holding back the progress of a nation?

If only the President had something better to do...

Disaster Relief and F.E.M.A.

"We need to cut back on disaster relief programs as a way to balance the budget."

Romney actually said during the debate that he wanted to send disaster relief programs back to the States, or better yet to the private sector.  I don't understand how anyone can say that with a straight face.  Hurricanes can consume "States," and quickly overtake municipal or 'private' resources.  Some catastrophes are so bad that even Federal resources are stretched to the point of ineffectiveness.  Why would anyone even consider arguing that we should cut disaster relief?

There are right now fellow Americans homeless, without proper clothes, shelter, with loved ones declared missing or dead.  They need our help.  Now is not the time to cut funding or undermine our domestic aid system.  To do so would be a crime of the highest sort against general civility.  This is a united we stand, divided we fall world.  All that we have is each other.

In parts of New York and New Jersey there are gas lines miles long, so why don't we have a fleet disaster response helicopters that can air lift in whatever resources are needed for that area at that moment?  We have the technology to deliver M1-Abrams Tanks to the front lines of a battlefield, why can't we get a tanker full of fresh water or gasoline to an isolated town?

We can set up a complete hospital in the desert in Iraq, but we have Americans living in the streets without a roof over their head, right now.

Americans are in need, why aren't we using ever available resource to offer them aid and comfort?

Subjectivity, Concepts of

"I just don't see the world as you do."

Isn't it the truth...?  We ALL look upon the world through OUR own eyes and experiences.  It is difficult to remove us from any judgement we make about something we see.  However, it should be our goal, if only a lofty one.  We should try to see past ourselves, and see things for what they are, and not as we would have them be.  It is not our experiences, but rather the pure quality of attributes presented that matter.

Introspection is how you understand you, and what you want for you.  This is of great import in deciding which direction you will head next in your life, but when analyzing the world- exterior, you need to take off the blinders of your bias.

Politically speaking, this means, ceasing to see candidates through the letter next to their name.  It is their record that needs to be directly addressed, and only their record.  Rhetoric too should be shunned as a source campaign bias.  Neither party affiliation nor empty campaign promises can tell anyone how someone will govern.  Their record however, is the direct effect of their leadership style and decisions on 'We the People'.  It is the only thing that matters.

Votesmart.org 

It should be required reading before voting.

WE Have to Build Tomorrow

"The Democrats just don't have a plan."

Herein, I have to agree with the Republicans.  Democrats, we aren't pushing bigger better ideas.  Why aren't we fighting right now for a single payer health care system?  Why aren't we pushing paying down the debt, as a way of making the money in your pocket more valuable?  Why aren't we suggesting we build bigger wider roads, as a way to reduce travel costs for businesses?  Where are our big ideas for tomorrow?

For YEARS, I have been pushing high speed rail, that carries both passengers and their vehicles, powered by only renewable resources.  Look around, isn't it nice?

Where is our 'tomorrow'?  We've got great gadgets and media devices, but where's our infrastructure of a new age, where are the new means and ways?  Tonight is the third debate, and I likely will not hear any more about bigger and better ideas there either.

Clearly, conservatives are stuck in the past, absolutely unwilling to let go of the old ways, and accept that there are better days ahead, if only WE accept better ways.  So, why aren't progressives out there pushing for a bigger better tomorrow?

What is holding us back?

Drug Testing Welfare Recipients

"Prove you aren't on drugs, or we won't help you."

Conservatives are filled with good intentions that are put forth with ill-conceived notions that have not been fully thought out, and that lack any foundation in fact.  Thinking that you can save money by eliminating drug users from the welfare rolls is a great talking point, when addressing republicans.  However, following through with such a plan requires you to ignore what happens when such a plan is actually implemented.  It also requires you to ignore why we provide aid to begin with.

First, it is important to understand why aid is so important.  When we give someone food stamps or welfare, we aren't paying them to do nothing.  We are providing minimal assistance to those who can't afford basic life sustaining resources, to keep them from stealing what they need.  We provide minimal sustenance so that we can be safe from them.  Believe it or not, people won't just sit around and wait to starve to death.  They can and will take part in some criminal action, to see to it that their basic needs are met.  Those on welfare or other aid packages are there because they lack options.  Oftentimes they are felons who can't find a job, single mothers without viable transportation or accessible childcare, or they are mentally or physically challenged.  Removing aid from them, simply because you don't approve of their lifestyle choices, isn't going to magically make them employable.  It will simply send them into criminal enterprises.

Second, it is of the utmost importance to see actual results of implementing such measures, like the state of Florida did.  Since the beginning of July, Florida has been testing welfare recipients with a $30 test, wherein, a whopping 2% came back positive.  So 98% of Florida welfare recipients received a test, that there was ZERO reason to administer.  Over 40 million Americans receive welfare or food stamps.  Drug testing each one would cost $1.2 billion, and at a 2% failure rate, such a program would COST the nation money, not save it.

Lastly, these tests are not fool-proof.  Passing a drug test is as easy as drinking a cleansing tea, and failing one is as easy as eating a poppy seed muffin.  Imagine now being a single mother of three, who's husband was killed without life insurance, who relies solely on welfare and food stamps to feed her kids and keep a roof over their head, who's just been told that she won't receive any government aid for 12 months...all because she ate a lemon poppy seed muffin and tested positive for opiate consumption?  How much of an appeal process is she entitled to?  How much will that cost?

The only conclusion that a rational person can reach is that stunts like this are a waste of time and resources trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist, with money we don't have, all to save money that we won't.  Slogan-isms make lousy legislation.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

"The President hasn't presented a jobs plan."

Constitutionally speaking, it is not the executive's job to write laws that would stimulate the economy.  If such a job exists, I would argue that the power to regulate the economy rests with the Legislature.  They would be responsible for writing or presenting a jobs initiative, and the President would then sign it into law or veto it.

Job growth has slowed and a GOP led Congress is blaming the President?  When last I checked, our Constitution laid out a system of checks and balances, wherein no one body was given complete control over anything.  For anyone to point the finger at the executive and claim specifically that jobs are not being created fast enough to keep up with market growth, is giving far too much credit to the office.  If a President alone did take steps to personally fix what ails the economy, he'd be a dictator.

That said, there is no jobs plan.  The President has not stated one, the Senate has not put one forward, and the Congress has also failed to produce any jobs legislation.  Wall Street too, although reaping huge profits in this time of want and woe, are also firmly seated on the bench in this jobs creation game.  No one has or is doing anything to create more jobs in America.

If any group is responsible for the lack of jobs being created, it's business owners, large and small.  The second group responsible is our legislators, those actually responsible for writing laws that run our country.  The President would only be responsible, if he were to veto a jobs bill that was passed by both houses.

All this said, our country lacks a cohesive goal for the future of humanity and the marketplace of tomorrow.  Jobs would be plentiful, if we just decided become a progressive people.

Fire Consumes 146 Young Women, 7 Remain Unidentified

On March 25th, in the year 1911 a fire consumed 3 floors of a New York sewing factory in a mere 30 minutes.  Even though fire rescue arrived within minutes, limited resources, elevators, and minimal fire escapes insured nothing could be done to keep scores of girls from leaping to their death to fall some 80 feet, attempting to escape the fire.

One onlooker describes the scene in utterly unimaginable phrases, "thud, dead, thud, dead, thud, dead, thud, dead...the first 10 shocking, but to look up and see scores more that too must somehow come down...the sound a body makes upon striking the concrete before becoming a pile of lifeless bone, flesh and clothes..."  Worse still is the fact that some of them didn't even make it to the ground, and were instead impaled upon the metal fence that surrounded the building.  All this because of cramped unsafe working conditions, and doors locked to keep union organizers out of the factory.

I only just learned of this event in a Human Rights class I am taking, and would like to begin a movement or process to possibly identify those 7 girls that yet remain unidentified.  This incident is more commonly known as the "Triangle Waist Factory Fire":

This event was the beginning of of labor standards we have today.  It would seem that enlightenment comes only from death and suffering.

Texas Water Wrongs

"We decide in this case whether land ownership includes an interest in groundwater in place that cannot be taken for public use without adequate compensation guaranteed by article I, section 17(a) of the Texas Constitution. We hold that it does."


The Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association hailed the ruling, saying it means property owners will have a reliable source of water, ignoring the fact that ground water can at times be a finite resource, and that wells can and do get pumped dry.  This decision literally turned water into oil, making it a private land owner's property, rather than a communal good.  The problem with the decision as the conservationist in me sees it, is that water doesn't exist in pockets section off in relation to barbed-wire fencing.  The water table exists at different levels in different areas, but is most often one large overlapping entity, called aquifers.    


This ruling basically said that you get to use as much water as you always have, and that you can't be denied water directly under your land without proper compensation.  The problem as I see it, is that the decision doesn't assist newly created water districts in 'conserving' the amount of water that can be captured in Texas.  In fact, the decision exacerbates the problem Texas has now that you are allowed to capture as much water as you can get to the surface.  Shallow wells have been going dry, as the recent droughts have forced farmers and ranchers to dig deep and drill more wells, just to keep water tanks from drying up.  


Compound the problem with what corporations like Eron Oil and Gas are allowed to do with dozens of industrial depth wells within a few acres that supply their frack sand mining operations.  The last operational numbers I saw for a single plant were 3,700 gallons per minute or about 2 billion gallons per year.    That's about an average sized swimming pool every 7 seconds.  


This decision was made by conservatives, for conservatives, who have no wish what so ever to 'conserve' anything.  There are two truths herein that need to be addressed.  One, we are using more water than wells can produce, forcing us to dig deeper, and two, Texas lawmakers seem bent on sending us even deeper, abandoning all notion of conserving our most valuable natural resource.  Who knew the establishment of water rights could turn out so wrong.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/02/24/3761508/texas-supreme-court-ruling-on.html#storylink=cpy

The Days of Gold

"When there's trouble in the economy I know I can put my trust in gold."

I think gold is great.  It is pretty, it never rusts, it's a great conductor, it's easy to meld, weld, and solder.  In fact, it's only drawback- its weight, I find appealing.  If you don't believe me, find a gold bar, or stack of gold coins to hold, and bounce it up and down in your hand to feel its weight.  The super heavy result still surprises me, even though I have handled gold on many occasions.  However, the geologist in me fully appreciates a wide range of what scientists call rare Earth metals, and their properties.  So it isn't "Gold", to me, it's just gold.

Recent market trends have the price of gold climbing, and as a result, there's a new gold rush on.  I can think of at least two television programs based on the process of sluicing.  There are literally thousands of groups of people sifting gold out of the Earth as often and for as long as weather will permit, right now.  They risk life, limb, friends, and family for the shiny sparkly sand.

What happens when mankind takes to space, where you can find a single asteroid, with one hundred times more gold than has been mined to date, and brings it back here?  People are paying over $1500 for something that there is more of every day, and it doesn't deteriorate.  If the law of supply and demand applies, the price of gold can not continue to rise indefinitely.

Personally, I like silver.  Because it oxidizes, you have to polish it, to keep its luster.  So, every day there's a little less of it, and some day in the far far future, it may become very rare or be all gone.  Its price also makes it easily attainable.  One ounce of gold. would purchase over two pounds of silver.  Silver coins also have a familiar ring, when handled together.

Silver or gold, it makes no matter, because these metals aren't really rare, at the moment, at all.  With gold, people are hard at work trying to flood the market with it.  Every day, there is more gold in the marketplace, yet its price continues to rise.  I think there's a market correction coming.

Illegal Tuition

"I am sick of illegals getting all the benefits, and not paying their fair share."

I was told it takes five years residence to qualify for food stamps.  The notion that supports this, is that within that time, the individual would have paid any number of taxes, through sales transactions and property rental or ownership payments to have earned such coverage.  The term "illegal" is not descriptive in characterizing what specific social services one has earned.

Taxes are not interchangeable, nor are they collectively part of one big pot.  Driver's license fees, inspection, and registration fees go to pay for roads, bridges, and other transportation needs.  Hospital and educational programs are funded mainly through property taxes.  So paying your fair share of any government service is or should be based on how long you have utilized those sorts of services.  Whether or not one paid in-district rates, or in-state rates would have nothing to do with one's status as a citizen, but rather if you were a resident of that district or state, and for how long.

While all of this is true, "illegals" are still missing out on paying the all important income tax.  Which is why amnesty is so important, and the part of the conservative stance that makes no sense to me.  Clearly there are people in America who don't have a social security number.  They failed to wait in line and now find themselves here, not paying their fair share.  In my head, the right thing to do is fine them, give them a social security number, and force them to begin paying income tax.  Keeping them from becoming legal citizens keeps them from paying only income taxes.

The point here is that illegals pay taxes, and they'd pay more if conservatives allowed them to.

Catholic Health Care

"We (Catholics) should not be forced to pay for procedures we don't morally believe in."

Was there ever a time when religious people opposed organ, tissue, or blood transplants?  Was there ever a time when the church forbid heart transplants, believing that putting one man's heart into another would be akin to a physical possession?  I am almost certain that the church was opposed to blood transfusions, at the onset of this scientific miracle.  Religions' job is or has been, to stand in the way of scientific progress, based on faith-based belief and tradition.

The problem of course, is that the medical profession is not a belief based system.  It is a scientific based world, that demands results, verifiable tests, and careful observation.  When something saves lives, then that is what is practiced.  In some cases, birth control, or reproductive medicine is indeed a life saving necessity.  For any church or religious institution to deny someone medical care, because they personally feel morally conflicted about the procedure is them 'playing God' over someone else's life.  Hopefully, society would laugh at someone who would attempt to deny a heart transplant to a patient, because he or she thought it would make the person become someone else.  Hearts are organs, not the spirit, or soul of a person, and to deny someone a life saving procedure is the embodiment of "wrong".

Making a medical insurance premium payment does not make you the arbiter of what medical procedures someone else is entitled to.  Medical decisions should be made between doctors and patients, not 3rd party peanut gallery attendees dressed in red robes and pointy hats.  If an organization is going to offer health insurance, then unless they are members of the American Medical Association, what they believe should not come between health care providers and recipients.

Churchs and religions have been wrong about medicine in every case for the entire history of mankind, so why are democrats still giving way to traditional faith based beliefs, within medical decisions?  What was evil yesterday, and an unthinkable act, is now today a common practice that saves lives.

Democrats, for the love of life saving medicine, stop letting religions set health care policy!

Thank You

I would like to offer my sincere gratitude to everyone who offered my potential campaign their donations, support, and well wishes.

Sadly, the afore mentioned goal was not reached, so I will not be making a congressional run this election cycle.

All donations made through paypal have been denied, and all the cash donations will be in the mail, and on the way back to their respective donors, by week's end.

Your generosity, well wishes, and supportive outreach is the most heartwarming thing I've experienced in quite a while. You have all made a real difference in my world and my perception of those in it.

From the bottom of my heart, "Thank You". If ever, there is anything I can do to help, support, or aid you in your endeavors, please don't hesitate to ask. For all of you now have a friend, in me.