a place for Tom to rant

Keppra Vivid Dream

2025-03-12T20:54:00.000-07:00

I cannot describe all of the vivid dream I had last night about sending maneuver commands to a new satellite in orbit...

"Boss, Dice, send Silo muffle muffle muffle."
Where are the TAs?
Why doesn't the MC have a passplan?
Is 10:27 time critical?
How come we feel the thruster firings when the TAs move around the building?
I should have pants on.
How come I don't see the thruster firings when I lean out the window?

The best part was realizing the shaking we were feeling in the building as the TAs moved around was the spacecraft compensating for CG shift. That just made the goofball TAs move around more and me yelling at them to stop wasting fuel!

Never got to the end of the maneuver support. I did walk around and find the rest area with some lady in there smoking. Backed out of there pretty quick since there were also unmade beds in there. I found the TA room which had a stage where their table was. They were not at their station because they were not getting data. Their laptop was connected to a camera which was pointed to another computer which was on its screensaver.

There are windows in my Keppra induced vivid dreams. Not in any of the buildings I ever worked spacecraft operations.

The usual "nightmare" with frustration, not fear or terror. I seldom get those. Also nobody I recognize, that seldom happens either.

Glossary

Boss - New Hampshire satellite tracking station. We used to have to send command via voice to the tracking station. Pre-internet satellite ops.

Dice - Where I was in the Blue Cube in Sunnyvale. Google it.

TAs - Technical Advisors from the satellite manufacturer, supposedly the experts.

Passplan - a written list of satellite commands, verifications to perform an operation.

Silo-xxxx - a command in the command database transmitted to a satellite to perform a function.

MC - Mission Controller, executed the passplan and told the tracking station operator what commands to send and when.

CG - Satellite center of gravity. If that moves the satellite may need to compensate.

Thruster - small rocket motors to move the satellite and control its orientation.

Maneuver - firing thrusters to change the satellite orbit.

Keppra - an anti seizure drug. Mild, glad I don't take anything stronger.

It's one life... it's this life. And it's beautiful.

2021-05-25T22:18:00.000-07:00

Life hit me hard again, close to the hardest so far.

On Friday, November 13th, I left work to go sign some refinance papers for the house I cosigned with my daughter in Sacramento. I didn't make it to that appointment.

A mile or less from work some stupid fucking neuron decided to fire off a seizure like it did in 2014. This was while I was moving slowly in traffic after a light turned green. I made some weird sounds, rode up onto the center median from the fast lane, fell off that and crossed all three lanes to the right turn lane and plowed head on into a traffic light pole. One of the new big solid ones. It hardly wiggled as seen from the windshield mounted dash cam. At one point I was headed straight for five cars in the cross street left turn lane, all of the drivers staring at me approaching. Fortunately my right foot went away from the gas pedal and I just coasted into the pole instead. All the other cars had room to maneuver around me, thank you Covid traffic. The pole was undamaged.

On the other hand I seem to have hit the pole while in the throes of the seizure. With a stiff body the forces of the impact went though my body in ways unintended by the air bag and seat belt designers. My left foot seems to have been braced awkwardly up under the dash where it was bent sideways, crushing a bone in there, and getting gouged by something. My left ankle was then broken and the head of my left femur jammed into my left hip socket, fracturing it. My knee just took it like a trooper. My right foot sustained no damage but the ankle broke like the left side. The head of my right femur badly damaged my right side hip socket, getting pushed almost through it. Again, the right knee just passed the forces through. Good knees. Recovery would be very hard with busted knees. No internal injuries, the airbag or seatbelt cracked my sternum, no head injuries. Arms and hands uninjured too, very important for recovery. The worst thing above my navel was I bit the crap out of my tongue. And had another fucking seizure.

I never paid the $100 per month for the VW equivalent of OnStar emergency and other services so was surprised to hear in the dash cam video my car immediately calling for help. I didn't know it worked. Good thing, I wasn't conscious at the time in the normal sense. You can't trust the dozen other people around to help. But someone did, a pedestrian named Dotty immediately came to my assistance, talked to the VW guy who wanted to confirm the location of the accident, found my phone for me, unbuckled my seat belt, talked to the responding police, and made witness statements. None of which I remember. I was still gibbering in the final throes and fog of the seizure. Actually a couple of other drivers and pedestrians came to help too but Dotty took charge until the police arrived. Apparently, I can't listen to the audio after the crash so I know this from a friend of Liz's who listened to it all. She said it got ugly after the crash.

When the police and EMTs tried to get me out of the car, the extent of my injuries was made known to them by Other Tom, the version of me they were interacting with. Other Tom is who emerges after a seizure. He is very vocally angry, afraid, paranoid, and vulgar. So I hear from those who are around me then.

My return to reality was later that night when I see a doctor looking down at me, he wore a black skull cap with the Michigan State emblem on it, ceiling lights behind him, and he tells me he is going to drill some rods through my legs just above my knees so they can do "something something something." "Ok!" I say. It isn't going to hurt but I'll hear some sounds. I think "Cool! Does this mean I've had another seizure? Damn, flying has ended." Notice no thought of Liz, Amanda, Allena or Mom. Sorry. Sometime later I talked to Liz via FaceTime which I sort of remember, she doesn't get to see me in person until late December, thanks Covid.

I don't remember the first few surgeries, I was in ICU and drugged up pretty good. Liz and the lead orthopedic surgeon made decisions and did what needed to be done. With Covid everything had to be over the phone, Liz never met the surgeon until March after I got home and we went back for a checkup and plan for next steps.

The disability and health insurance have been a nightmare. Duh.

GOP Conservatives are cowards.

2019-12-04T18:24:00.001-08:00

I don’t understand why the GOP (Gang of Putin) Conservatives are so hard bent on defending Trump to the death.

All I can think of is:

Cowards cannot face fear and work through it to a solution.

They fear loss of power due to perceived loss of safety.

They fear loss of control due to loss of power.

They fear loss of privilege due to loss of control.

They fear change due to loss of privilege.

They fear unknown due to change.

They have no imagination to fight fear of unknown.

They have no imagination to understand the unknown they are driving us to.

Pet Shop

2019-08-26T09:49:00.001-07:00

I woke up a 3am about to be murdered.

In a pet shop

In a dream

I am an employee in a pet shop (I am really a nearly retired aerospace engineer) examining dog leashes. The girl at the cash register was not interested in my comments about them.

Two middle aged male employees declared they were going to murder another employee and left. I continued to examine the dog leashes. She continued to ignore me.

The men returned. The heavier round one pissed me off somehow and I moved away. Somehow he grabbed my wrist and brought my left arm across my body. Then I noticed the skinny guy on my left angling for my right wrist.

The cashier was still ignoring everything. I realized they were going to try to hold me with my arms crossed in front and murder me with a dog leash.

Then I woke up.

I wonder if the cashier was going to do the murder?

Ticket to Mars

2019-05-26T23:18:00.003-07:00

Last Mission Dress Rehearsal?

2019-05-18T01:30:00.001-07:00

It just occurred to me. I am on the last night of performing in what is possibly my last Mission Dress Rehearsal, or MDR. MDRs are where the spacecraft launch team proves to the customer they are ready to go, that the team is ready to perform the launch and early orbit operations with competence, the facilities are up for the effort, the procedures to be used on the spacecraft are safe and effective.

After nearly 39 years, this will be my 18^th MDR, by my count. I’ve helped place into orbit approximately 25 spacecraft so far, most as part of the launch team, some as auxiliary help. One more to go this summer. Maybe two more if I stick around for the 2020 launch. Depends on things.

A Picture

2018-10-23T02:47:00.000-07:00

I wish I could take a picture of where I am working right now. I am in a large windowless room with about 24 other people at workstations arrayed in rows and along one side. The workstations have two or three monitors each. The rows face one wall of monitors that are displaying for all what a few of the workstations have up on one display. The displays are of live spacecraft telemetry, schedules, graphics of spacecraft orbit and ground system status. The workstations are staffed with people whose jobs are to assess the performance of this new spacecraft. A few days ago, it rode on top of a rocket from a standing start to thousands of miles per hour into orbit around the earth. The first few days and weeks after such a ride is when if anything is going to break, it will. The team in place tonight is assessing the performance of the spacecraft in all its subsystems. Are the solar arrays providing power when they are on the sun, are the batteries taking the charge they need to power the spacecraft when there is no array power? Are temperatures staying warm enough to keep the propellant from freezing? Is the attitude control system keeping the vehicle oriented properly? Is that nagging temperature alarm serious or just cold fuel sloshing past a temperature probe? Is the orbit from the last delta-vee what we expected? Is there some brewing problem that isn’t obvious?

The small patches of boring brown walls visible are offset by the colors on the screens, maps, and diagrams. The room is a sea of colors on the screens and of the people. The room is mostly quiet, some conversations here and there, some laughter, some groans from the hours of being in one place for too long, for the hour which is 1 am. Every now and then activity picks up as planned events fire up as the controller’s voice in Colorado comes over the speakers, announcing the next procedure, calling involved console operators to ensure they are ready to follow and respond as required. Most of these events are low key data collects, memory dumps from on-board processors, small reconfigurations needed for the current conditions. Some of these events are serious for the continued success of the mission. None of that tonight. But if something decides to break tonight, threatening the future of this spacecraft, there is a team ready to guide it back to health.

My screens have plots of battery charge currents, reaction wheel speeds, propellant line temperatures, command counts incrementing, and documents of schedules, logs, briefing charts for management on that troublesome temperature. The background on my windows desktop is a picture of the instrument panel of my plane while flying over the coast. It shows navigation radios, airspeed and altitude, attitude and engine parameters. I can only peek small parts of it in the window gaps, but I know it is there. There is a contrast between flying my plane and flying this spacecraft. In my plane, I am by myself with my life literally in my hands. Here I am on a team of people here and in Colorado who are, around the clock, striving to get this spacecraft turned on, tuned up, and placed into its final orbit and operational. The plane is always, gently, trying to dive into the ground for the few hours I am flying it. This spacecraft is going to be in operation for decades if we can help it.

Monstrous

2018-07-07T11:39:00.000-07:00

The Trump adminstration separated children from their parents at the border.
They did this with no real means to reunite them.
They announced that DNA testing will be used to try to search for parents and connect them with their children.
I suppose this is a step in the right direction.

But separating kids from their parents without a plan or means to rejoin them?
This would be less monstrous if

They had put RFID chips under the kids scalp.
They had clipped livestock ID tags to the kids ears.
They had tattooed a number on the inside of the kids forearms.

But no. They didn't bother to keep track.

They are just brown children of brown people and not worth the effort to track.

The people who took care of the kids after separation seem to have some level of morals. Most of them, not all.

The demonizing of "others" like immigrants and Muslims is a tool of fascism. This whole immigration "debate" is nothing but fascist theater. Immigration isn't a problem in the US. We need the people, we assimilate immigrants better than any nation in the world. The fears of crime and job loss to immigrants is not based on evidence.

But the fascists need a target because they've got nothing else.

Watsonville Fire In The Sky open house and fireworks

2018-07-07T10:27:00.000-07:00

We had a WEACT and EAA119 Young Eagles booth at the open house this year. The Red Cross guys next to us gave me some tips on how to take pictures of fireworks. Came out ok!

Remembering Dad

2018-05-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

Today would be Dad's (William Roger Hail) 85th birthday. Since his passing away in December I've been trying to compose my thoughts. I knew the day was going to come but I wasn’t ready for it.
Dad had been in decline for years due to Parkinson's disease. I don't think it affected his personality any but it hit him physically and with hallucinations. He was frustrated as a person who had always been very active and busy; to see things that he knew (or was told) couldn't be there; to be unable to move or even read the way he wanted. That is a hard way to fight the last years of your life. I suspect there is more I could have done to help him, I think I let him down in that battle.

There are a lot stories to tell, things he did, places he visited and worked. There are a lot of things I don’t know. That is a hard part about losing someone, you think of things you didn’t know and now can’t ask. It is probably always that way unless you are a real tight family where there are few secrets with an open and honest relationship. We weren't that in some ways. Dad worked hard for us, he was out in the field a lot doing work he seemed to love. I don't fault him for it, it was what was expected of his gender and generation but I grew used to some distance from him. It also didn't help that I didn't share his love for hunting and fishing, I tried but wasn't into it. The same for sports, Dad played baseball, football and basketball in high school and college. We went to games and watched on TV but for me it wasn't all that interesting. Peter did a lot better in those departments although I think I ended up being a better shot.

Were we did click was military history. He studied it like nobody else I know and because it was interesting to me, I picked up a lot of it. I could never study it like he would, reading all 15 volumes of Morison's History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, more than once for example. He could answer any question I had about WW-I or WW-II or of many other conflicts in history. He and I were never in the military but we had a sense for how conflict starts, how wars progress, mistakes that end up killing innocents, and the evil of those trying to remain in power. I think he studied military conflict to understand who we are as people, not to be impressed by things being blown up. He studied the planning, the execution, the consequences of action, and the leaders who were successful in honorable ways and and then showing them to me as examples. I learned a lot from him, he definitely had an impact on who I, Peter, and Louise became.

His work was pulling out of rocks and mountains the secrets they had about water and where it would go and do. From ranches in Lassen County to flooded Bengali plains to African deserts to a Caribbean island to Middle East deserts to Peruvian mountains to the US Rockies, he found his working knowledge of water and rocks to be a fulfilling and worthwhile career. I think, I never asked that question, but I am pretty sure it was for him. I learned what it was to be an engineer by watching him work and on occasion going out to the fields with him. He showed me responsibility, I could see his work led to important, expensive decisions that would be made from his data and conclusions. I could see being precise and concise was important in communicating his results. And I could see, which is true in engineering, that many things don't have to be precise, that some things are not significant, they can be rounded off. Not sweating the insignificant details is part of my engineering career. Not always a good thing in personal relationships I eventually learned.

And then there was the fishing. Everywhere, how was the fishing? From the smallest creeks of Lassen County, to the Sacramento River, to any river running to the sea in Northern California, to Alaskan rivers, to Russian rivers on the Kamchatka peninsula, to rivers everywhere in the US Rockies, to probably every fishable river in New Zealand.

So many stories with Dad.
Fishing around Snag Lake.
Fishing at Bear Lake.
The cabin on Clear Lake.
Hunting Chukar at Pete's Valley.
Showing me fossil sea shells in a mountain range.
Forgetting the trigger lock key for my shotgun, having him look at me, roll his eyes and leave me at the truck to figure it out. (I used the hacksaw blade on his pocket knife to cut the lock casing and then joined him on the goose hunt.)
Telling me not to shoot yet, I shoot anyway, the goose shakes it off and takes off again.
Snorkeling in the Caribbean looking for lobster and coming eye to eye with barracuda in the murky water.
Logging data from a water well test in the middle of a sugar field.
Listening to him tell ranchers that water witches are hooey.
Listening to him tell uncles Ray and Leo where to try to find water on their land and what was happening to the water table in the Susan River valley.
His smoking cigars and drinking scotch with grandpa Evan.
Talking to grandpa Bill about rocks and fishing.
Trying to teach me poker and cribbage.
My taking the head off the Ford Falcon engine and putting it back on, his amazement it ran again.
His telling me to turn that crap down when he caught me playing Black Sabbath too loud. (I thought the speakers were off, I had headphones on.) Dad was a classical guy.
Taking him for an airplane ride for the first time in the Bonanza and the door popping open half way through the flight. The one door was right next to him. Not a problem.
Snake charmers in our yard in Dacca.
He and I searching for the guys who tried to kidnap me in Dacca.
Taking me to the hospital after Peter ran me over with his bicycle. "Hey Dad, I think I did something to my elbow."
Regrets for not flying to Fort Collins to attend his retirement party.
Going to the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
All of us flying to Tokyo in 1966 on a Pan Am 707.
All of us climbing around the Acropolis in Athens.
The Imperial War Museum in London.
Riding a train up into the Bengali tea plantations.
Golfing around a Hindu temple.
Hanging around the pool at the club.
Watching a movie on 16mm film at the Embassy.
Watching a very unexpectedly raunchy cowboy movie.
Watching John Wayne movies. He loved John Wayne.
Watching the original Star Trek original broadcasts.
Only getting to see so many cartoons Saturday morning until the basketball or football started.
Going to a Giants game with Willie Mays.
Having Raiders season tickets.
Watching Peter play football.
Vegetable gardening with the mali in Dacca.
Vegetable gardening in San Jose.
Vegetable gardening in Fort Collins.
The story of catching a goose by its leg.
The story of him shooting grandpa Bill in the foot.
Showing me how to clean fish.
Sliding off the road in uncle Glenn's station wagon one icy snowy night out of Susanville.
Throwing up on the road between Chico and Susanville.
Helping Jill birth her puppies.
Telling me I had to take my "tree house" out of the almond tree, which was probably crazy dangerous.
Showing me how to write the number four properly, as an engineer.
Letting me do what I wanted in college, as long as I was an engineer.
Backpacking in the Sierra Nevada.
Backpacking in the Cascades and he has a heart attack, we found out when we got back after three days.
Backpacking in the Rockies and denying we made those nice pine bough beds the nice ranger people found behind us.

I'm glad Dad is no longer suffering, I hope he was ready. He lives on in my memories. I am sure in many others.

Slander becomes the tool of the loser?

2018-04-20T15:22:00.001-07:00

"When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser" -Socrates

Let’s disassemble this.

1. There is no evidence of this being a quote of Socrates. It has been attributed to him in various social media since 2008 but no scholarly source has it as a quote. But then experts.

2. Since it isn’t a quote, I’ll call it a phrase and we can parse it out.

“When the debate is lost” – What debate is that? Our Presidential election was a debate? In the context of this posting that seems to be it. So how was the debate lost? Trump didn’t have a landslide win despite what people tell him and he believes. 46^th out of 56 elections, since Kennedy in 1960 his win is better than only Carter’s and the two GW Bush elections and only 48% of the vote. An election isn’t a debate in any case. It is a battle between competing ideologies and policies. The “winner” gets to try to implement their ideologies, that doesn’t mean in any way they are correct or that the “losers” are wrong. That is a false dichotomy logical fallacy. But then logic.

3. “slander becomes the tool of the loser.” slan . der noun the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person's reputation. So who’s reputation are false, damaging statements being made against? Trump’s? Maybe his policies or those of the GOP? First there is an assumption here that false statements are being made. What would those be? That Trump’s campaign personnel talked with Russians before the election and lied about it? That Trump has made many trips to Russia over the last few years with no deals made and lied about it? That he owes millions to Germany’s Duetche Bank which has been fined 100’s of millions for illegal laundering of Russian criminal money. That Trump is making money personally from his being President, in direct violation of the Constitution? There are so many. Are any of them false? There are a lot of investigations ongoing that seem to be finding evidence. Any of this slander? They are valid questions, more valid than questioning Obama’s US citizenship for which “Slander! Slander!” was not cried. To say Trump is a child molester could be slander because there is… oops, there is evidence of that. To say Trump was born in Peru of Peruvian parents would be slander. But then Kenya.

4. The insidious part of this phrase is that it implies that the winner is right, the loser is wrong, and that the loser is lying. Not just lying, committing slander in a legal sense. To be shut up in a legal sense. This is fundamentally un-Constitutional and un-American, directly violates the First Amendment. If acted upon by the government, fascist. The first amendment establishes free speech against the government. Trump is the government now. He is in the big boy game now, not his New York real estate wheeling and dealing bullshit life. Slander is off the table for him and his supporters now. But then World War II.

5. But then emails!

Initiative

2017-07-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

It appeared the light at the construction site between 236 and 35 was stuck this morning. I came up on it and there were five or six cars there in front of me, I had let most if not all of them by me at the 9/236 intersection. Ok, it should change soon. We waited. Cars behind me beyond the curve. We waited. A car came through from the other direction. We waited. Another truck came through. This is wrong. The road workers were out of sight. I thought I could pull off to the right and find one to kick the lights. But someone honked behind me. Shit. I’ll just go and flag off any oncoming cars until this gathering passed through. I pulled left, no one coming (I could see, I was in my Jeep and tall enough) and I passed the six in front of me.

As soon as I passed the second car in line the light turned green!

Woo hoo! I’m in front of an angry crowd on Hwy9 in my slow and poorly handling Jeep!

I suspect I kicked the motion sensor at our end into wakefulness.

Lesson: If it seem you aren’t getting through… maybe move forward a little to wake up the sensor. The people up front seemed content to wait forever.

Immigration Ban

2017-01-30T14:34:00.001-08:00

Fought with conservatives about Trump’s Holocaust Remembrance Day immigration ban. Why is it that conservatives don’t get that ethnic, religious, sexual discrimination is unconstitutional? What is so incomprehensible about it?

How is it a good idea to ban immigration from these countries at all anyway? What threat does refugees from here pose? No terrorist attack in this country has been committed by a refugee from these countries. Instead our troops are at higher risk because we are reneging on hope and promises for those in the region that they can escape in return for the help they gave us. People are getting screwed, it could be people die. So the question is, how many more terrorists did Trump create with this ban? Nothing new here. Our name is further trashed internationally. Russia laughs at us. Who knows what China is thinking?

What a fuck up Trump is.

One web site I read thinks this is all testing of the waters for a coup d'état in US government, where would resistance come from, give an idea who would support such a thing. I think that’s farfetched but the testing goes on. Is the administration going to back down in the face of court orders? Trump fucking better. What is disturbing is that the Department of Homeland Security seems to be following unconstitutional orders without question.

Fascism Short Description

2017-01-26T14:48:00.001-08:00

Fascism doesn't play by the rules. It subverts them to gain power and then eliminates them completely. There's no freedom of speech under fascism, there's no democratic process, no freedom of press, no politely disagreeing about political views...
Fascism abuses our cherished and most fundamental values and turns them into fatal flaws. If you play by the rules against fascism, you die by the rules.
Fascism is also inherently violent.

Actions to take against Trump

2017-01-26T14:06:00.000-08:00

Join (Organization who will go to court or help elect who you want.)

- Planned Parenthood - https://www.plannedparenthood.org/

- American Civil Liberties Union https://www.aclu.org/

- Union of Concerned Scientists http://www.ucsusa.org/

- Southern Poverty Law Center (good civil rights org but they pissed me off)

- Emily’s List http://www.emilyslist.org/

- Freedom From Religion Foundation https://ffrf.org/

Subscribe (A free press supported by readers is needed to keep tabs on Trump.)

- Washington Post - https://www.washingtonpost.com/

- The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news

- Slate - http://www.slate.com/

Call (Tell your congress person what you think, what you want.)

- Senator Feinstein and Harris - https://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm?State=CA

- House Representative - http://www.house.gov/representatives/#state_ca

- (Calling is easy… State one sentence of what you want, they’ll ask you your zip code and maybe name.)

- (“Hi, I’d like to register my opposition to Senator Sessions being confirmed as Attorney General.” They ask your name and zip. Done)

There’s more…

Follow activists on Twitter and Facebook

Comment on Facebook and Twitter, don’t be silent.

Comment on news articles. You’ll get criticized and called names but f—k them.

March. Trumpie didn’t like the bigger crowd after his big day.

There is a March for Science coming up soon.

There will be immigration marches.

Thoughts on 25 January 2017

2017-01-25T17:18:00.001-08:00

President Tr…. erp… gulp… <gag> … Tru… <cough> <gag> <cough>

I can’t say it. The baby handed manbaby took the oath of office last Friday and the real horror show has begun. EPA scientists silenced. A wall has been ordered. Extreme vetting discussed. Funding for any organization that is connected or mentions abortion is banned. The killing of women has begun. The martial speech was horrifying. Somehow crime will now end. ISIS will now somehow be destroyed.

And all the news about Putin’s influence has disappeared for the moment. The DNC has no leadership.

The fascism of this administration is hardly hidden anymore.

The whining about how bigly his inauguration crowd was compared to 2009 Obama’s. The man is a child. The lying continues, the sheep are lapping it up.

The Supreme Court pick is coming out next week. I can’t imagine what this horror is going to bring. It may be good that I watch zombie shows and movies, I’m somewhat prepared for dystopia.

The day after the inauguration Liz and I marched with 30,000 other people in San Jose. A couple of million around the world. That was good. The things to do in response to this cluster fuck are: Join ACLU, UCS, Planned Parenthood, Emily’s List. Subscribe to good journalism because we need that more than ever now; Slate, NYTimes, Washington Post, The Guardian, NPR.

The rage at this isn’t going away. Rage at the DNC and Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, Sanders supporters, Sanders, Clintons, Lynch, Comey, Assuange/Putin/Wikileaks. All still there. I can’t believe this happened.

Angry

2016-11-11T10:39:00.000-08:00

I am so fucking angry.
At myself for allowing myself to be swayed by polls in an unconventional election.
At pollsters being so sure of themselves in an unconventional election.
At the third party voters who needed to make a point.
At all who could have voted and didn't.
At Putin or whoever was feeding Assange his bullshit.
At Assange for fucking with our election with bullshit that DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER for his personal gain and ego.
At FBI Director Comey for whatever the fuck he thought he was doing.
At Clinton for being uninspiring to too many in the south, especially Florida where she had to win.
At whites across the country voting out of fear and greed for a rapist, lying, fraud who doesn't give a flying fuck about anybody but himself.
At the GOP who are going to use their power to try to fuck over millions of people on health care, civil rights, and a future of climate change disasters to support greed, fear, and religious bullshit.

What I expected:

Found on Facebook

2016-10-20T20:58:00.001-07:00

"Bill Clinton cheats on his wife. Impeach him. Trump proudly brags about sexual assault (and has cheated on his wives). Elect him. Hillary oversaw the department of state while 4 people died in an embassy attack. Put her in jail. 2 Republicans were in office while over 200 people died in embassy attacks. No problem. Immigrants don't pay taxes. Round them up and kick them out. Trump doesn't pay taxes. He's a business genius. Hillary's foundation only spent 87% of their donations helping people. She's a crook. Trumps foundation paid off his debts, bought sculptures of him, and made political donations to avoid investigations while using less than 5% of funds for charity (and he got shut down by NY State). So savvy... Put him in the white house. Trump made 4 billion dollars in 40 years, when an index fund started at the same time with the same "small loans" he received would be worth $12 billion today... without a trail of bankruptcies, thousands of lawsuits and burned small business owners. He's a real business whiz. Hillary took a loss of $700k. She's a criminal. Trump is the first candidate in the modern era not to release his tax returns, and took a billion dollar loss in 1 year. Genius. Hillary takes responsibility for private email servers and apologizes. Not credible. Trump denies saying things (on the record) he actually said (on the record), he's just telling it like it is.

Your arguments are thin. Your ignorance of reality is shocking. Your double-standards are offensive, and your willingness to blindly support him and recycle the rhetoric is absurd. Your opinion is not fact. Your memes are not news articles. And your hypocrisy is not a platform."
- Alex Schiller

Republican Disrespect

2016-10-06T16:06:00.001-07:00

History will look back and note that Republicans in Congress treated President Obama with unprecedented disrespect.

President Obama is the first president to be asked to show his birth certificate.

President Obama is the first president to face over 500 filibusters in the Senate.

President Obama is the first President to be denied a hearing on his budget.

President Obama is the first president to be denied a hearing on his Supreme Court nominee.

Barack Obama is a very good man. He deserved better than the unprecedented disrespect Republicans have shown him.

- Harry Reid, US Senator, 29 September 2016 @SenatorReid

Choices

2016-07-31T16:33:00.000-07:00

It is a hard choice that has thousands of people starving and suffering at your border fence because of the probability that some small fraction of them would turn on you if allowed in and creating more people who will turn on you in the future. It is difficult to determine if this is objectively the correct choice. The US is making this choice. Germany did not. In my opinion Germany made the right choice.

The other choice is to allow in the refugees, build communities with them, develop trust with them. The community will help with security fears. If they can't be allowed in, help them where they are, real actual help that works, to help them adapt and move on.

I think things are going to get a lot worse with climate change, learning this now will make the future less bleak.

Links for Hillary Clinton

2016-07-27T22:44:00.000-07:00

This may shock you: Hillary Clinton is fundamentally honest

I Was One of the Most Ardent Hillary Haters on the Planet…Until I Read Her Emails

It’s time to admit Hillary Clinton is an extraordinarily talented politician

Why I will vote for Hillary Clinton, without qualm

2016-07-26T15:53:00.000-07:00

1. The email “scandal” is not an issue. She has admitted the private server was a mistake. The FBI had no indication that she intended to compromise classified information. Intent is 9/10ths of that law. By Presidential decree in 2009, the heads of the State Dept, Defense Dept, and CIA define what is and isn’t classified in their departments. As Secretary of State, by definition, anything she wrote unclassified is by definition unclassified. Conflict with other departments to be adjudicated by the President. Fact. That’s the way classified information works. The FBI’s opinion on the subject stopped at opinion. They had no evidence of a crime. Unintentional negligence is not a crime.

2. She has the experience required to be President acquired as Secretary of State, US Senator, and even as First Lady. She is qualified.

3. Her policies as Secretary of State more closely correspond to my own. Combating terrorism requires thoughtful and coordinated response. Open indiscriminate warfare against terrorism will not end it, it will breed more, as has been demonstrated by decades of Israeli/Palestinian conflict as only one example.

4. She has reversed position on TPP. That means she can listen to dissent, to the other side of argument, make reasoned positions and correct them when necessary.

5. She recognizes that tax cuts for the wealthy and spending cuts that cost jobs do not create jobs. People with money to spend do, particularly a healthy middle class.

6. She is pro-choice.

7. She objects to the Hobby Lobby decision that says religious corporations can avoid paying health care insurance costs.

8. She objects to the decision that removed voting rights protections.

9. She objects to the Citizens United decision that makes unrestrained spending of money on elections free speech.

10. She supports the marriage equality decision and objects to the other “religious freedom” bigotry sweeping through local governments.

11. She recognizes the need for national gun control laws and regulation.

12. She will likely be in position to select three Supreme Court justices. Her selections will better align with my views and the views of the majority of the people of this country.

13. Benghazi is not an issue. There was no “stand down” order. That was established through millions of dollars of Congressional investigation.

14. She has the personality to remain calm, to assess, and to respond intelligently to crisis.

15. People say she is a genuinely nice person one-on-one.

16. She is not running for President for personal glory.

Sure, she isn’t perfect. Her laugh makes me cringe sometimes but this isn’t a personality contest.

Nearly every one of these points is counter to Trump/Pence.

Voting for Hillary is easy for me.

Iraq, Daesh, and Obama

2016-06-19T14:18:00.000-07:00

McCain pissed me off blaming ISIS/Daesh/ISIL on Obama. So wrong in so many ways. I found this, copied it and lost the link but here it is anyway. I've said and read this many times in the last few years.

1. John McCain supported the war in Iraq. He was one of the most ardent fans of invading Iraq and every other step taking by the Bush administration.

2. In 2008, before President Obama took office, President Bush signed a Status of Forces agreement with Iraq. It established that U.S. combat forces would withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, and all U.S. combat forces will be completely out of Iraq by December 31, 2011.

3. The Iraqis wanted the US forces out of Iraq. They viewed us as occupiers. 75% of Americans wanted our troops to come home, too.

4. President Obama tried to renegotiate the withdrawal and leave 10,000 US troops in Iraq. The State Department’s lawyers said troops couldn’t stay in Iraq unless the Iraqi parliament authorized them to do so, including granting them immunity from Iraqi law. The Iraqi parliamentarians would never OK such a decision, with Iraqi popular opinion staunchly against U.S. troops staying.

5. Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki – who was the Bush administrataion’s choice to run Iraq – said this about troop withdrawals: “The incomplete sovereignty and the presence of foreign troops are the most dangerous, most complicated and most burdensome legacy we have faced since the time of dictatorship. Iraq should get rid of them to protect its young democratic experiment.”

6. Our troops withdrew in Dec. 2011 before ISIS.

7 Maliki attacked Sunnis across Iraq in the following two years. The sectarian violence was a key part of the rise of ISIS as the Sunni leadership abandoned Maliki.

8. The Sunni-Shiite rift in Iraq and the Middle East has been going on since the 7th century.

9. The Iraqi army deteriorated.

10. The greatest catalyst for the rise of ISIS was the Syrian Civil War.

Finally, let’s remember that the GOP KNOWS all of thise. And that includes John McCain. But, rather than accept the facts and work together to fight the ISIS threat, the GOP blames the President.

Orlando Florida

2016-06-14T22:12:00.001-07:00

Last weekend 49 people died and another 53 were wounded by a guy with a gun. This took place in a gay bar by guy who swore allegiance to ISIS in a phone call to 911. This guy had been on the FBI watchlist for terrorism. He had made a couple trips to Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage.

He was able buy two guns a couple weeks prior.

The FBI wasn't told of the purchases.

The purchases couldn't be blocked because he had ever been on the watchlist.

You can't get on an airplane with a full bottle of shampoo but you can buy an AR-15 even if you are on the terrorist watchlist.

The 9/11 terrorists used airplanes as weapons and so access to airplanes is restricted.

This attack against a Latino gay community is more about religious homophobia than Islamic terrorism. The religious right does not care about any of these people.

I want every gun registered.

I want every gun owner trained, licensed and registered.

I want every gun transaction recorded.

If that means the second amendment needs to be amended, so be it.

This is your objection to Hillary Clinton?

2016-03-25T10:54:00.001-07:00

To my friends who object to Hillary Clinton as president.
So, my understanding is this.

Your objection to Clinton is that in the throes of a crisis some emails were written and sent that turned out to be classified in post crisis review.
You want a strong decisive leader but one that is incapable of making a mistake in an area where they are not an expert.

And some of you think Donald Trump is the answer?

Really?

Actually, she is the expert. As Secretary of State, she defined what is classified under the Department of State. If she sends an unclassified email, regardless of the server, it is by definition unclassified from a State Department point of view. If the DoD or CIA comes along later and says "oh, we'd like to keep that info protected"... fine. But that doesn't make the initial email classified. Nor was there a security violation.

Yeah, that's how it works.