Being a Christian has nothing to do with being conservative or liberal

 The problem is people will view their beliefs through conservative or liberal lenses. This causes them to pick and choose how they behave as a “Christian” versus behaving as a Christian.

If we, as Christians, put what Jesus taught us first and foremost then most of the problems we face would disappear. Unfortunately we decide to put our lenses on first then decide what it means to be a Christian. Hence we end up doing something that was taught that we should not do. Judge people.

I swear there is humor in the Bible and one of the funniest lines is when Jesus says those that have not sinned throw the first stone. The Bible goes on to say the elders left first. Well damn straight! All us old people know, whether we admit it or not, have sinned like heck our whole lives. Yep, the elders left and probably in a hurry. Was it imperative that line about the elders be put in the Bible? Probably not, but someone was having a good time when that was written. 

The current issue is we judge others like crazy based on our viewpoints. And our viewpoints are never being a Christian, they are our viewpoints.

The lesson from the story above is that only God is to judge us. And the great thing is, he also forgives us. So it is better for us to be a Christian first and let God judge us as we attempt to be the best person we can. 

Being conservative or liberal is only in the secular world. 

So the next time you want to decide what is right or wrong, are you viewing it through the lens God gave you, or are you viewing through a man made lens?

So it begs the question, are we a God forsaken world or a world forsaking God?

And yeah, I was about to Tweet out something very inflammatory and judgmental this morning. Thank God I caught myself in time. :-)

Someone needs to stop the madness in Arizona

 Maybe I am missing something since I don’t get local news from Phoenix, but what is going on with this recount of the Maricopa County Presidential votes?

Can someone go get a temporary restraining order and stop this madness? I am not in Arizona so not sure if I would have jurisdiction.

How much longer do we have to sit by and watch the Republicans try to steal the Constitution? 

If we are stuck with this recount, can we at least get a non-partisan recount? And I mean non-partisan not bi-partisan. 

I will be glad to do it for a flat fee. $1,000,000.00 and it is probably cheaper than what is going to be charged by whatever group the Republicans hire or have hired. 

Now it may take me awhile, since I would have to do the recount at home after my day job, but hey I am charging less than 50 cents a vote to recount the whole thing. And I really think we need me or another non-partisan group to count. How do we know that independent and third party votes were counted correctly? No one ever audits for those votes. For all we know Democrats and Republicans have been stealing third party and independent votes for decades. If Republicans think that votes are stolen, why can’t we check for all votes? 

So I think it is a must that myself or another non-partisan person recount the whole thing. Only fair. Republicans have no clue to what they are looking for and would probably botch the recount anyway. Democrats don’t seem to care that this recount is probably unconstitutional since they haven’t filed anything to stop it.

What gives? 

So will someone in Arizona file a temporary restraining order, ask the Judge to hire a completely non-partisan identity, and call me. Again $1,000,000.00 flat fee. I can do it every evening for a few hours. I will stack up the votes in stacks of a hundred and separate the piles. Figure a second or two for each vote I could do a thousand a night, I probably won’t do it every day so 10,000 every two weeks which equates to 20,000 a month so extrapolate out and it will take me less than ten years, but I guarantee a decent recount. They can pay me 250,000.00 up front then the difference when I am done. That might give me incentive to hurry up. Who knows?  And Arizona and Maricopa County save a fortune in legal fees in the interim. And if you are really obsessed with something sooner you can always pay me $2,000,000.00 and I can hire I a couple of part timers and shoot I will pay them more than $15/hour. 

And we will know the truth about if third party and independent votes have been stolen, oh and who won. 

Cheers

I finally figured something out

 It took streaming to figure this out. The better half and I got our indoctrination into streaming here in 2021 and so we have binged watched a few shows.

And do not tell anyone, but one of them is Schitt’s Creek. The son in the show for a few episodes was big on the phrase “I don’t know what that means, but..”  then he would go on about what he wanted or needed.

This is exactly our dog. The better half will go into her lovey dovey all talkie walkie with our dog and she just stares at her with this blank look and then nudges the better half into getting a treat. The stare matches the idea of “I don’t know what that means, but..” and the better half just goes right along. 

Nothing earth shattering, but it is fun to watch the dog just stare without any commitment, then start nudging the hand of the better half till she walks over to where the treats are kept and gives her one. The dog eats it and then goes along her merry way. I think the dog gets more from the blank look than the character ever gets in the show with his machinations.

What???, you thought I had figured out that Liz Cheney has more balls (read values) than over a hundred male Republican Representatives in the House. 

Nope, that is pretty obvious to most people who give a doggie poop. 

It is a quiet evening now

Ah yes, the blissful sound of sirens roaring by going somewhere because someone decided to be an idiot behind the wheel of a car. Ah yes the the sounds of the night living near the fire station near downtown. 

So this happens all the time, what will happen in the next few days is another story.

I read the charges, the descriptions and what the jury must decide. No matter what someone is going to scream an injustice was done. Or not enough was done. 

And yet if people actually put into practice that simple little phrase, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Or what ever version of the Bible you choose to read’s interpretation of the most basic of human interaction--respect others.

It is all so simple to say, yet as I have said before extremely impossible to put into practice. Why? I do not know. More people screw this up on a daily basis than can be measured. And yet, if we all were to act on this, the world would be a much better place.

No one wants to hear it, but it is the truth. 

I hope a correct version of Justice is reached by the Jury. And I hope that somehow they can go back to their lives and not become the focus of an inordinate amount of hate. They are citizens doing their civic duty. Something we should all respect. They convict the cop, the alt right attacks them, they find the cop innocent or choose the lessor of the charges and more potential unrest escalates. 

Again I hope justice is done. I have my opinion. No one will like it, because right now no one wants to accept the truth, whatever that may be. The key factor is what the jury decides is what will be written as the truth. 

I pray they deliberate well, consider all the facts, weigh the evidence and make a good decision. I also pray they find peace with their decision. They did not choose to be on that jury. They were chosen. 

Be glad you are sitting at home and hopefully you can find peace within you about what you feel is right. No one “deserves” to die. The best we can hope for though is a long healthy life, full of shared love, good times with good memories, and at least a reasonably nice lifestyle. Mr Floyd was robbed of ever getting back to having that opportunity. Mr. Chauvin is on trial for taking life away from Mr. Floyd. We sometimes forget what was taken when we take a life. And for those who may have forgotten, respect of life is for conception to natural death. Did Mr. Floyd die a natural death? The jury will decide and as citizens we are to accept the decision. How many of us will like that decision is a whole different story. They were chosen, it is their decision.

The onus of the work lies with the prosecution. They must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Chauvin had something particular to do with Mr. Floyd’s death. The prosecution though does not make the decision. 

The defense must show doubt. Nothing more. The defense does not make the decision. 

The jury makes the decision, people like you and me chosen to decide the future on one human based on their actions towards another. Again why is it so hard to respect another human being. We wouldn’t be here today if that basic fundamental tenet was lived by all. Yet instead a jury must make a decision about whether one life was interrupted by another. Be glad you are home. 

Once upon a life I was chosen for a jury panel that the death penalty was going to be asked. Certainly not the case in this trial, but when you get to the point of having to decide about another person’s life, you might become a bit self reflective. If you are ever honest with yourself, could you take a life? Hopefully not, yet they are deciding it going the other way. What responsibility does a person have when they have a life at their disposal? Simple answer if you live and practice respect for life. If not, we get a trial.

I hope one day we do reach respect for all life so people aren’t burdened with the hate of others just to make a decision. 

Life is too short---updated

 A good dinner, good bottle of wine, a coffee drink, cake, a few shots of tequila while caterwalling along with Juan Gabriel, Rocio Durcal, Luis Miguel, romances, mariachis, for two hours, folks life is too short.

Feliz cumpleanos Senora, te amo.

Get over yourselves if you cannot figure out that we are meant to enjoy this all too short life as long as we respect each other and put everything in perspective.

Social conservatism has many answers, the problem is too many people say they are socially conservative who have no clue what are the true values in life. Enjoy what has been given and take care of what has been left in your charge. 

Salud folks, 

so on the Saints to sinner scale, this is what makes life great, not some red hat.  

Trying to deal with that minimum wage thing again

 So a person may decide to actually put some effort into something and then you realize, damn, that’s a lot of effort.

So I tried doing some research to talk specifically about why arbitrarily picking a number such as $15/hour is not the best way to decide what should be the minimum wage.

The first reason why is the obvious, the economy around the country is different. What it costs to live in New York, New York is different from Des Moines, Iowa.  And you factor in, what it costs to run a business is different, what products costs to manufacture something is different and you can create your own list.

The second factor and this is also affected by the above paragraph is there a difference between minimum wage and a living wage. Should the minimum wage be the bottom end of a living wage? Or should it be the base pay for part time work, summer work, teenage work, or maybe a bit higher like starter salary in bottom rung career work?  And yes, I know, pretty crass to say bottom rung career work. WTH is that?

So I started trying to research the first question, what is the cost of living and income difference between New York and Des Moines and a host of other cities around the country. (nothing like another chart, sheesh). You can get some government statistics and eventually I am going to follow through and put together a chart. I think this chart will be really helpful, however for right now I just wanted to touch on the issues in actually doing the research and there will be more follow up. I think this is a monstrously needed discussion since this is a very important topic. And there are so many angles this can be reviewed. And you can add complexity upon complexity to this topic by diving deeper and deeper into the numbers. Somewhere you have to find the right balance to make the argument effective though.

I know for a fact there will not be a magic number at the end of all this and I bet by now you have realized this, but the goal is for all of us to understand what might we be looking to accomplish in creating a productive minimum wage.

So for now here are some questions that need to be addressed to dig around enough to find the right effective arguments.

What are the parameters to determine cost of living? And what does it mean poverty line?

What is a living wage? How do you determine a budget to determine if you have a living wage?

Should we bother with comparing minimum wage versus living wage? Or minimum wage and the “poverty line”?

Does income inequality play an affect? Does it matter? 

Should a minimum wage allow for economic growth? Or is it just to get by? And what does it mean just to get by? 

How do you write a minimum wage law that allows for a more flexible yet effective minimum wage? And why am I talking about laws right now?

And throw in peripheral factors, such as Social Security, taxes, that go a bit beyond the concept of a budget to determine a living wage. 

How much should the government be involved? And yes this brings up the conservative versus liberal argument. Is government here to protect us on every front or is the market a better determinant of what wages should be? 

I probably will not get into all these questions, but as you can see it will be difficult to successfully create a minimum wage for all. So yes the simplistic answer is to come with one number fits all package, but you do not get the best number. How much research or discussion do we need to find a responsible answer without driving ourselves crazy? I think we need a bit more than a number, but I also realize there will be some compromise in finding an answer. Can’t leave it to politicians, they will always take the loudest and easiest answer.

Cheers

Get over one thing, then there is another and this second one is not personal, but...

 Okay the Mavs played better tonight, still have a ways to go, but the fourth quarter showed some grit.

So really I was mad first today before the Mavs played better.

And this is really frustrating. There is an opinion article by Jeb Bush on CNN.com Business and it is somewhat fairly written. The problem is the topic is a problem that is well known for decades. Even me as an amateur hack bloggest was writing similar solutions in piecemeal posts ten years ago, yes ten years ago. And I was not a unique writer to this problem at that time and there were people earlier than me talking about we need to start retraining workers to evolve into new careers since so much was going automated. 

And yet here we are in 2021 and Jeb Bush all of a sudden figures out there is a problem and it is a highlighted article on CNN Business page. Seriously, this is pandering or something because this is an old problem and his solutions are as amateurish as mine and I am going to brag, maybe more so, just better written. I was screaming in my blog ten years ago, the recession was a great time to begin the retraining of the work force, start INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS that involved new technologies and train workers to move into those jobs. Again ten years ago and I was not unique or first.

I was talking about real infrastructure changes such as building high speed rail in the southwest since there is so much sun and as far as I was concerned the airlines could invest in it.

I was talking about working with Mexico to build desalination plants along the Gulf up and down the Baja coast to create new agriculture or continue current agriculture. Shoot transport the water back to the origins of the Colorado River to shore up what was going on. And with splitting the technology and the water with Mexico you create a true partnership that actually did what the lie NAFTA said it was going to do. And these same plants would be working full capacity by now and helping with the drought in the Southwest. 

These are just a couple of examples, I am too lazy of a person to go back and research them.

And CNN publishes a fluff piece by J Bush about a multi decade old problem. 

I was blogging about how the money going to extended unemployment benefits to people back then, which helped, yet also much still should have been invested in the re-training of large swaths of the current workforce and plans to ramp up the capabilities of a future workforce. I was adamant we need to build up the work force through these economic development infrastructure projects, have better jobs and help to diversify our workforce and reduce the reliance on us just being a service economy. And this service economy is part of the problem as to why we do not have a workforce that can move forward.

2021, the problem is the same and the solutions are still weak. So whoopdeedoo Jeb Bush figured out there is a problem. And he use to be the Governor of a state that has a fairly good idea about helping people afford college that is now under attack by a Republican Senator in the Florida State Legislature.  The Republicans could care less about the American worker or American education and they prove it over and over again, yet J. Bush is now acting like he cares about the future. Where was that 10 - 20 years ago? 

Well thank goodness the Mavs only took one day to figure something better out because our national politicians and national media are still clueless to the solutions to the problems facing our country. 

And it should be blatantly obvious after all these years why I say we need new parties and new leadership. We do not need change in the system, we need change in the people. Or what is scaring me is the change some people are leading us is regressing us to ten thousand years ago. 

Jeb Bush may have a nice article to try and rebuild a political career. We need politicians to put their acts where there words are to rebuild the people.

And on top of everything, all the investment money just gets poured back on top of itself instead of investing in something worthwhile. Yeah folks the market is up, but sooner or later you need businesses to generate real business. And Jaime what’s his name thinks there is a problem with people working at home. The problem is you are more worried about your bonus than your people.

well that kinda sucked

 If you are a sports team and you want to strive for championships, you need to take care of business when you need to take care of business. Start the game, get control and win.

If you just saw that Mavs game against Houston, you know why I am pissed.

That game was so bad that I turned off the game and accidentally started watching Full Frontal with whats her name. At least she had a half way decent segment on some of the issues with QAnon.

Game still sucked.

You can identify the problem, you can identify the solution so wtf

 “...yes, and how many times can a man turn his head and pretend he just doesn’t see

the answer my friend is blowing in the wind the answer is blowing in the wind” Bob Dylan or Zimmerman if you think you are hip.

So let’s make money the number one value; let’s make ignorant entitlement the modus operandi; let’s make hate and violence entertainment; let’s forget where we came from; let’s be shallow; let’s do everything we can to show each other how little we think of them and hey you have your model society. Or apparently some think so. Whaaaaaaaaatttttttt???? that’s a problem???

So if the problem is so easy to be identified, what is the solution, well it is pretty easy to state,...implementing maybe another story

Basically teach children to respect each other, hold them accountable for their actions, and give them a more realistic value system and goals to strive for and hey things can’t be that bad.

Overly simplistic you say? Are you sure?

There are treatises on better, there are books on utopian societies, there is all sorts of isms to make the world better, philosophies, yet, none of them have given us anything better. 

And yet that one simple sentence paragraph above is the most universal truth you can find, but no one wants to make the effort. People will go to the ends of the earth to do damage to people, but show an iota of respect to another person just walking down the street and what gives.

And frankly most people aren’t asinine pricks generally, occassionally we have our moments, but overall most people want some good out of things.

So again, what gives?

And remember this. the only thing the one identity that cannot be named has is deception. And it is not a skill, not a power, not anything extraordinary, just an ability at best. Yet more people will let themselves be deceived than implement that one simple sentence paragraph above. 

So criticize me for being old fashioned, out of touch, not understanding the modern world and I will continue to say just try it and teach it. 

Or you can deal with the total truth of it all.

Happy Easter All

Okay I am a day late and a dollar short.  lol

I have come to the sideways conclusion we have to lie our way to the truth and better public policy

 Yes I know I am writing this late on  April Fools Day, or at least in this time zone, but do not be confused by the title. This may be the only way we get anything worthwhile done. 

We need to start a campaign where we get people on Fox News or Newsmax or wherever saying AOC stole the New Green Deal because she didn’t want capitalists making money off of it. We need to get them to tout that this is the next big stock investment to get those 401ks humming again and we need to make sure Congress passes laws right away.

Or get the anger going saying Republicans need to get back control of infrastructure projects and not let Biden steal Trump’s campaign promise.

Okay this isn’t my minimum wage follow up, but try this out. I read somewhere that one of our finest Republicans had used the phrase Capitalist Communism or some such nonsense complaining about how large corporations are trying to take our rights away or something. Okay so we need to put this in the right wing media that the large corporate communists are taking our money away by not paying us enough. Get the working class fans of Fox all riled up because these Corporate Communists are stealing our money and Congress needs to pass better minimum wage laws and maybe even more. 

Not sure about this idea? Heck of a lot better than the big lies that are being promulgated on Fox and elsewhere right now. They seem to work. 

So look at some policy we need and lets create the package and give it a go.

Cheers