Rest in Peace ‘Red Dog’ – I’m Going to Miss You

A dear friend of mine, Robert Cunningham aka “Red Dog” passed away yesterday (photo). I feel like I lost a brother. There were five of us, all high school buddies who stayed in contact these past 50 years.

Now there’s only four. Tom, Larry, Ernie, and me.

I want you to know that Red Dog was very intelligent and a compassionate man. He had a wonderful sense of humor, and espoused passionate beliefs throughout his life.

He was also a loyal friend who was at my side during many important times in my life.

He was at Shirley and I’s wedding 41 years ago this August. At one point I came up to him and patted him on the back. He responded by throwing up on the table! I never let him forget that embarrassing moment – and he owned it in many conversations afterward.

Red Dog went to all three of my sons high school graduations, and their marriages. He was always there for important events in my life.

I don’t know how many times we went to wineries and restaurants as a group and had a fantastic time. Wine, love, laughter. Good times. Wonderful memories. Red Dog cracking us all up with his quick wit.

Red Dog was an independent person, unencumbered by many of societies rules. He was never afraid to speak his mind. And he had a lot of friends. It was an honor to be one of them.

I grieve for his passing. Just another sign of my mortality. He was younger than me. He was going to retire this year. He had the whole world ahead of him.

His big heart gave out yesterday. It’s hard to believe. Just a few days ago we were joking about a portable sauna that you can take camping. He said a luxury like that wasn’t really camping.

Red Dog knew about camping, daily walks, and hiking. He explored many beautiful national parks and especially loved Yosemite. He went on the harrowing 14-mile hike up Half Dome at least twice.

He was careful about the food he ate, always conscious of his weight and health.

Yet, Red Dog isn’t here today. I sure hope he’s in a place that allows dogs because he loved them dearly!

Good bye old Buddy…Cheers! 

I’ll see you down the line.

 

How Much For That Politician in the Window?

    Good Day World!

It’s easy to openly buy our politicians these days because of the corruption in both our government and the Supreme Court.

Illustration by Steve Brodner

The days of funneling money to politicians secretly are gone and forgotten. And why not? In today’s political climate there are no limits to how much money can be donated to buy influence.

In recent years, federal courts have knocked down barriers against the practice. A series of decisions, most notably the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in the Citizens United case, now effectively allows people and companies to spend as much as they like.

Perhaps the last bastion of restraint fell on April 2, 2014.

News item:

“Everyone knows that money talks. But today, the Supreme Court made it official: political donations are speech. Therefore, they ruled, the right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment applies to them too. And that means removing the limits.”

So how can you buy a politician? I’m glad you asked. Check this video out:

How to Buy a Politician

Now let’s look at:

Who wants to buy a Politician?

Okay, now that you know how to buy a pol of your very own are you wondering What do people "buy" with the money they give to politicians?

I leave you with an article that’s five years-old, but still rings true today:

Who Owns Congress?

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

 

Jellyfish Stings, Muscle Cars, Tweeting Nazis, and More

Good Day World!

It’s my sad duty to report that urine doesn’t help with jellyfish stings. I don’t care what old wives tale you’ve been told, it’s actually the worse thing you could use!

Beach-goers on both coasts should know this. Perhaps what’s needed are additional signs – WARNING – PEE ON YOUR JELLYFISH STING AT YOUR OWN PERIL!

I grew up in the era of Muscle Cars, but cars today make them look slow. You can buy a car (street legal mind you) that rockets from 0-60 miles per hour in 2.8 seconds with the press of a button!

We all have our heroes. In politics the names of famous statesmen get bantered about during election campaigns. Presidential candidates like to shamelessly throw out names of people who are also in the public eye.

On a scale of 1 to 10 for bad names to banter about, Ted Cruz easily earns a solid minus one! Why? Remember how important the Hispanic vote is to Ted? Guess who says he’s a big fan of Donald Trump!! Yep! Ted.

A clever campaigner…or just plain stupid? Your call.

Speaking of The Donald…

Trump campaign mistakenly tweets star-spangled Nazis

This story sounds like it could have been a fictional children’s book, but it’s true:

Police in Colorado say a stuffed toy helped save a 5-year-old girl's life after she fell out of a third-story apartment window.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Have You ever known a Hero?

                                        Good Day World!

Simply defined, a hero is a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal.

My definition of a hero has evolved over the span of sixty-four years.

My earliest hero was Davy Crockett, as portrayed by Fess Parker on the Walt Disney Show. My Dad bought me a coonskin hat and a wooden replica of a cap-and-ball pistol that was the hot seller in toy stores in the early 1950s.

It wasn’t long before Davy was replaced with Audie Murphy, a WW II hero that went into the movies after the war was over. He was the most decorated combat veteran in the war.

Up until I was about 10 years-old, my hero’s all centered around WW II. My dad was a Marine stationed in the Pacific theater. My uncle was killed fighting in the Philippines. But it was the Hollywood hero's who captured my attention.

As I struggled through my preteens, my hero’s were baseball, basketball, and football players. Mickey Mantle and Jerry West weren’t just hero’s, they were gods.

When I entered my teens the world was reshaped. My new hero’s were Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. Credence Clearwater Revival and The Animals along with other fantastic rock groups also became my hero’s.

I wanted to be the next Bob Dylan or Woodie Gruthrie.

Then I turned 19 and went to Vietnam. Fighting for survival left me little time for hero’s. My best friend and I were ambushed in Cambodia in May of 1970. He was killed and I survived. Rogers was a hero. He always had my back.

After getting married in 1974 and having kids, I didn’t have time to ponder on who my hero’s were.

When my three sons grew up and went about their lives I began reflecting on all of my life experiences – and discovered something special:

My hero is/and always was my Dad. I just finally figured it out.

After raising three sons I understand him now better than ever. His good heart, intelligence, ability to adapt to any situation, and unconditional love makes him a real hero in my book.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

 

Meet the Man Who Hopes to Reverse Legal Marijuana in America

Good Day World!

The man in this photo is trying to reverse all medical marijuana laws (23 states and DC) and legal recreational cannabis laws in Colorado, Washington, and Oregon.

His name is James Wootton, and he doesn’t give a damn about the positive aspects of marijuana. He could care less that the majority of Americans want legalized cannabis.

He could give a rat’s ass about what voters want. His personal crusade is to turn the clock back on all marijuana advancements made in the last decade. He cloaks his reason for this by claiming he’s saving America’s youth.

Forget the fact that alcohol kills more young Americans (and old) every year than pot. There’s zero pot deaths every year. That should tell the story to any reasonable person about which choice is more dangerous.

But Wootton doesn’t care. He shucks off facts like fleas on a dogs back. Here’s his online petition:

Lawsuit to Block the Legalization of Marijuana

His tact of using the U.S. Constitution to make his case is a manipulation of legalese coming from a strong conservative viewpoint.

Regardless of Wootton’s interpretation, States do have rights. Voters in those states have rights. The fact that one man is leading the campaign against pot tells you something. He’s not representing the majority of Americans.

Wootton could care less however. He’s using a federal law crafted to fight the mob to give marijuana opponents a new strategy in their battle to stop the expanding industry: racketeering lawsuits.

Wootton’s assault began by suing a Colorado pot shop and a laundry list of firms doing business with it — from its landlord and accountant to the Iowa bonding company guaranteeing its tax payments.

One by one, the defendants (afraid of massive legal fees) agreed to stop doing business with Medical Marijuana of the Rockies. That resulted in the business closing its doors. The owners had to sell off their pot at fire-sale prices.

With another lawsuit pending in southern Colorado, the cases represent a new approach to fighting marijuana. If the federal government won't stop its expansion, pot opponents say, federal racketeering lawsuits could.

Marijuana is legal under state laws. Wootton and cronies are claiming any marijuana business is organized crime under a loose definition of the RICO act.

The last time I looked, voters don’t vote for drug lords. By criminalizing all the people who can now legally use marijuana, Wootton hopes to stake a place out for himself in history.

Much like that ass Harry J. Anslinger who was responsible for making marijuana illegal in America in the first place after campaigning against it for seven years (1930-1937). The lies he spread are still told today. And they were lies.

Wootton continues in the same tradition.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

What Scott Walker and Andrew Carnegie Have in Common

Good Day World!

Presidential wannabe, Scott Walker, has something in common with Andrew Carnegie.

Both thought worker’s shouldn’t have any rights.

In Walker’s latest attack on Wisconsin workers he took away their guarantee of one day off per week. Now employers can force people to work seven days a week!

It’s hard to believe Wisconsin is even in today’s America. Walker, as governor, has turned the clock back more than a 100 years when American workers literally had no rights.  

His union busting has helped employers keep wages down to a minimum.

In 2012 Walker took away workers collective bargaining rights. Like Carnegie, he believes workers don’t deserve a living wage, forcing them into an endless cycle of poverty.

The amendment that Walker introduced dismantled a rule that had been in place since 1927, guaranteeing workers 24 hours off a week. Just another example of Walker administration's efforts to roll back worker protections.

Classical economists saw labor as commodity, to be bought and sold according to market demands. Walker is obviously a follower of that theory.

When Andrew Carnegie saw the move toward cooperation as opposed to competition he lamented “…the destruction of individualism, private property and the law of accumulation is upon us.”

The difference between Carnegie and Walker is that Carnegie finally figured out he’d been a bastard when it came to business and how he treated workers. During the last 18 years of Carnegie’s life, he gave away $350 million to charities, foundations, and universities.

Don’t expect Walker to wise up however. He doesn’t give away money, he collects it, and cronies in the form of PACs collect it for him.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

Fringe elements in Texas are sure martial law will be declared today

Good Day World!

Texas under martial law.

U.S. troops patrolling chaotic streets.

Detention and rounding up of citizens.

FEMA trains that oddly enough look like the trains that the Nazis used in WW II.

A labyrinth of tunnels built under Walmart stores for military attacks on civilians.

A dictatorship under President Barack Obama.

Sound crazy?

Not to some conservative extremists in Texas.

The Texas Republican Party platform has long reflected concerns over federal and international overreach, with calls for a U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations and the elimination of the Federal Reserve.

When a U.N. agency named the Alamo, the location of a famed 1836 battle in the fight for Texas Independence, a World Heritage Site earlier this month, some Texans saw the move as a prelude to an international takeover.

What’s really frying some Texan’s grits is planned military training drills in the West and Southwest, including in the Lone Star state.

The U.S. Army Special Operations Command exercise, called Jade Helm 15, has brought these fears to a crescendo. Some of the exercises, scheduled from July 15 to Sept. 15, will be held in this city located east of Austin.

FACT

Jade Helm will be held on public and private land, with the permission of landowners. The military said Army Special Operations Forces will train in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado, with the terrain intended to replicate areas where soldiers find themselves operating overseas.

RESPONSE

In a move a Dallas Morning News editorial called "cringe-worthy," Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, said he would dispatch the Texas State Guard to monitor Jade Helm to make sure it does not impinge on Texans' freedom.

Really? Apparently, the fringe element extends all the way to the Governor’s office.

Perhaps, because Texas is such a large state, it’s just a matter of odds – more people, more fringe lunatics. Whatever the reasons, conspiracy theories outnumber jackrabbits in Texas.

You don’t see the other states involved in the exercise going crazy with outrageous accusations. That’s because they’re in touch with reality, unlike the fringe elements in Texas.

The Lone Star state stands alone when it comes to crazy theories, and crazier responses to unfounded accusations.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

Tunnel Tech: Mexican Cartels, U.S. Border Patrol Wage Underground War

    Afternoon update…new story                                

                                      Good Day World!

Mexican authorities have been searching frantically for the notorious drug kingpin known as "El Chapo” after his astonishing, elaborate escape from a maximum-security prison.

In a devastating embarrassment for the Mexican government, the kingpin, Joaquin Guzman, slipped into a shaft through the shower floor of his prison cell and got away in a mile-long, ventilated tunnel outfitted with a motorbike.

When it comes to tunnel tech, Mexicans have become experts.

According to the U.S.Border patrol there are four general methods for detecting tunnels:

Seismic activity (low frequency digging noises and tunnel transit noises)

Magnetic Anomaly (electrical power lines in the tunnel, metal digging tools or metal shoring)

Acoustic Activity (higher frequency noises)

Density Anomalies (the tunnel is a hole and so the amount of earth below the surface changes when you dig a tunnel)

MEETING THE CHALLENGE

One of the best ways to find a tunnel is to make a history of the area and then compare that history with what you initially found.

What is required is to first benchmark the border in such detail that any tunnel large enough to pose a threat can be recorded. The tunnel detector won't know that it found a tunnel, it will just record what it "saw."

Once a history is recorded for the border area of interest then new scans will show changes which would hint at something that is very likely to be a tunnel.

Some tunnels can be 3,000 feet long, three feet wide and seven feet high with concrete floors, railroad rails, electric lights, water pumps, and Port a-Potties half way along the tunnel.

Such tunnels are very deep.

Another good way to detect these tunnels is to detect not the tunnel, but the dirt being hauled away.

If you have a line array of seismic sensors and you listen to all the noises that are coming from south of the border then it is pretty easy to detect the thumps of trucks full of dirt driving over bumps.

By using several sensors it is possible to "point" to the spot where all those bump noises are happening. If this system determines that somebody must be building a ten story building and all that's on the site is a one story wooden house, then TUNNEL might leap to mind.

The best way - according to DHS in their instructions to border people - to find tunnels is to drive your vehicle over the ground and when your wheel falls in a hole, you have discovered a tunnel (really).

Despite the tunnel tech methods I’ve described drug cartels continue to make them by countering with their own methods – adapting after every discovery. So why do they even bother with tunnels?

Simple. Because they’re the cheapest (and safest) way to smuggle drugs and contraband into our country today.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Two Presidential Candidates to Avoid If You’re Pro-Marijuana

Good Day World!

Democratic and Republican candidates running for the presidency have stated their positions on medical and recreational marijuana legalization numerous times in the past.

Now someone has put together a guide detailing what presidential candidates think about marijuana legalization – both recreational and medical.

The folks at the Marijuana Policy Project have released their Voters Guide to the 2016 Presidential Race, detailing the candidates’ positions on marijuana policy.

They even gave them grades. The two worst grades given out – to no one’s surprise - went to Chris Christie and Rick Santorum.

Christie has even gone so far to say he’d turn the clock back on all of the progress made toward legalizing marijuana. 

Chris Christie

The New Jersey governor not only opposes marijuana legalization, but has spoken out repeatedly against states that have legalized it. He opposed the New Jersey medical marijuana law, which was passed before he became governor, and has hampered its effectiveness with strict limitations he has imposed.

Christie on marijuana policy:

"[Marijuana legalization]’s not gonna come while I’m here … See if you want to live in a major city in Colorado where there’s head shops popping up on every corner and people flying into your airport just to come and get high. To me, it’s just not the quality of life we want to have here in the state of New Jersey and there’s no tax revenue that’s worth that." —International Business Times, July 25, 2014

*******

[In response to the question,"If you were president, how would you treat states that have legalized marijuana?"] "Probably not well. Not well, but we’ll see. We’ll have to see what happens." —Huffington Post, June 20, 2014

*******

[When asked if he would enforce federal marijuana laws in states that have legalized and regulated marijuana:] "Absolutely, I will crack down and not permit it." …States should not be permitted to sell it and profit [from legalizing marijuana]." —Huffington Post, April 14, 2015

Rick Santorum

The former US senator from Pennsylvania rejects marijuana legalization for any purpose, does not believe states have the right to set their own pot policies, and supports enforcing federal drug laws even in states that have voted to legalize it.

Santorum on marijuana and drug policy:

"I think Colorado is violating the federal law. And if we have controlled substances, they’re controlled substances for a reason. The federal law is there for a reason, and the states shouldn’t have the option to violate federal law. As Abraham Lincoln said, you know, states don’t have the right to wrong." —HughHewitt.com, April 16, 2015

*******

"The federal government does have a role in making sure that drug use—that states don’t go out and legalize drugs. That there are drugs that are hazardous to people, that do cause great harm to the individual as well as society to the whole.

And the federal government has a role in making sure those drugs are not in this country and not available and that people who use them illegally are held accountable. Ideally states should enforce these laws but the federal government has a role because it is a public health issue for the country." —Santorum campaign event, Jan. 9, 2012.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

Cruz Caught Cheating, His Book Got Buying Bumps From PACS

    Good Day World!

Getting caught cheating is not a path to the presidency. Its something presidential hopeful Ted Cruz needs to learn.

The New York Times has refused to put his bestseller on their list after finding evidence that his book sales were not authentic.

“According to New York Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy, “In the case of Cruz’s book, the overwhelming preponderance of evidence was that sales were limited to strategic bulk purchases.”

Strategic bulk purchases is a polite way of saying that Cruz, his super PAC, or organization that he cut a deal with, bought the books in bulk to inflate his sales numbers and land him on the bestseller list.

Republicans have been using this tactic for years. Sarah Palin had her super PAC buy $64,000 worth of her books in 2010.

Mitt Romney landed on the bestseller list by declining speaking fees and forcing universities to buy tens of thousands of copies of his book.

Ben Carson’s “bestseller” was fueled by a pro-Carson super PAC buying up $150,000 of his books.

Bestseller list rigging appears to be a uniquely Republican phenomenon. President Obama became a legitimate best-selling author, the same goes for former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.” (source)

For more about how tactics are used by right-wing groups to pressure the media and spread misinformation to the public read The Republican Noise Machine

Republican candidates have been gaming bestseller lists for years, but list makers like The New York Times are beginning to catch on, much to the chagrin of people like Ted Cruz.

Time for me to walk on down the road…