Reality - Still Postponed Indefinitely

Wells Fargo reported its fantasy-land earnings today. Here's the money quote which is worth preserving for future reference:

"We believe quarterly provision expenses and quarterly total credit losses have peaked," Chief Credit and Risk Officer Mike Loughlin said in a press release.

Bond markets have rallied in the past year. Most of these Big Bank earnings from the likes of JPM, BAC, WFC, are from simply marking up the paper value of their fixed income - much of which is still very toxic. They aren't dumping any of these securities, so the risks of these long-term instruments have not been eliminated or even mitigated. Note the banks deceptively refer to these unrealized, and unsustainable gains as *trading profits* - as if they have a legitimate business operation, one that will consistently generate *profits*. Just wait and see. Once the bond market jitters return, all of a sudden their so-called traders will be wildly unprofitable, again.

Of course, that's not the extent of the financial legerdemain. ALL OF THESE BANKS have billions upon billions of loans held *off the books*. And guess what....those aren't exactly their *good loans*!

The banks are flat-out BANKRUPT. They misrepresent lie about profits and hide losses.

AND they are leveraged to the hilt! See prior post - Capitol Thievery - where Wells Fargo clearly admits they are levered 15 to 1 - meaning they only have $1 in the bank for every $15 of liabilities.

I don't know about y'all, but I'll take the OVER of that 15 multiple.

I bought more puts today. 2012 January 25-strikes for just under $2 apiece.

See also - Greek For Moronic Bankers.

Hoofing It On The Homefront

Over the last couple of years I've been experimenting with *self-denial*.

Instead of my normal 5 pieces of pizza....how about 3?

Instead of my normal brimming bowl of ice cream....how about two-thirds as much?

I've whittled down color TV viewing; replaced some golf rounds with practice sessions; skipped daily showers(!); and cut back sundry other little indulgences.

In particular, going to bed at night without the TV was hard - not to do, but to attempt to do. Not long ago I would shudder at the prospect of spending the night in someone's guest room that didn't have a cable hook-up. I'd often choose to sleep on the floor of the living room!

Realizing this intense dependence I actually became scared. Am I just an incipient set-in-their-ways 'old coot'? Surely this is how my father's queer unbreakable routines began.

So here's my latest idea. Try to spend one day a week either entirely at home or at least without using the car.

I gave it a go on Monday AND made it until 5:32pm before folding. I broke down and took the kids to the park at Nantasket Beach.

While I've more than once Marginalized those harried off-dropping parents, I've acknowledged that I too have a dependency on the combustion engine. I am dependent on rapidly eliminating physical distances at a whim. And that describes most of us non-urban dwellers anyway.

Now the last thing in the world I am is GREEN. Heck, I'll idle my 12 mpg Chevy Suburban all day long just to prove it. So this has nothing to do with *climate un-changed*, emissions, or the eco-pagan religion.

I just think that under the surface of all our dependencies and prosperity there lies some suffocated humanity, some unrealized potential. Eating less makes me appreciate food and taste more; hitting golf balls with only my left hand (no right hand bailout!) has improved my golf swing; and less color TV means more productive time web-surfing, blogging, and reading.

Mix it up a little. You're going to turn into a robotic 'old coot' or 'old bag' eventually....but resolve to fight the process as best as you can.

I'm going to try again to stay completely homebound one day next week. Hopefully this new ascetic endeavor will be more successful than my last one.

The Expert-Religion, Losing Parishioners

Natural News, one of my new most favoritest sites, has its list of 10 Biggest Healthcare Lies In America. There are no surprises there - to anyone who's ever read Health Ranger Mike Adams before. I just wanted to highlight this particular one:

Lie #3) Doctors are experts in health

Doctors don't even study health; they study disease. Modern doctors are taught virtually nothing about nutrition, wellness or disease prevention. Expecting a doctor to guide you on health issues is sort of like expecting your accountant to pilot a jet airliner -- it's simply not something he or she has ever been trained in.

That's not to say doctors aren't intelligent people. Most of them have high IQs. But even a genius can't teach you something they know nothing about.

This is an important point. One doesn't ask a 30-on-1 government school teacher for advice on homeschooling or individualized education - no matter how many *years of experience* they claim.

One doesn't ask a sharp-dressed, middle-aged, flippant real estate agent for her outlook on the housing market - nor a commission-collecting stock broker financial adviser skimmer for his S&P 500 forecast.

And only a Moron would consult a pear-shaped doctor in matters of preventative *health*!

A Diversified Attack, On Scum

I found out that my scumbag landlord has scored himself a job, sort of.

So today I contacted his new employer and had a nice 10 minute discussion with him. Items of discussion included: integrity, debt, bankruptcy, fraud, lying, etc.

His new employer was very interested in the discrepancies between what he had thought about my landlord, and what I had just informed him of!

Next I called a State *loan regulator* with whom I wanted to discuss what might be *illegal* self-advertising on the part my landlord. I didn't get through today but will try again later this week.

Then I issued a formal letter of complaint to my local housing authority about some *ordinance violations* by my landlord. A formal letter requires a formal response - which can be appealed and publicized. (I've done a fair amount of leg-work on this one. And it's additional to my already filed Board of Health complaints.)

After that I contacted the office of the bankruptcy judge who is presiding over my landlord's appeal for a *clean financial slate*. I was told they have considerable discretion in meting out leniency. And I was told to write to the judge and convey the whole story of my landlord's theft/crime/fraud/harassment. Except the woman there (a clerk) essentially blew me off. She told me to go bother the *trustee*. So I did.

I called him up and discussed a couple of *misrepresentations* that I found on my landlord's bankruptcy petition. Though the petition is written under an explicit penalty of perjury, the trustee wasn't very receptive to my Captious input. He shrugged his shoulders and half-scoffed that he handles 600 cases a year. But he did tell me precisely the type of evidence he was looking for. So I'll see what I can do.

Now the C-Nut family is moving on and out of this rat-infested house very soon. So why should I care about this clown?

I'll tell you why - BECAUSE no one else does. BECAUSE that's what he's banking on. He sticks his elbows out, screams loudly, and the invertebrates back off.

Most everyone I've contacted about him (banks, utilities, law enforcement, etc.) has stiff-armed me. They simply don't care. They are large bureaucratic entities funded by third party pools of money.

I really enjoy being the ONLY ONE who cares as it sets me apart, as it elevates me into the saddle of a high white horse.

Understand that my landlord does everything in his power to game the system.

So I'm going to match him and do whatever I can think of to see that he loses!

Like a dabbling entrepreneur....I only have to be right but once.

Guess what his new job is?

He's become a *loan originator* for a distressed debt fund!

So he went from pushing toxic loans on minorities in Dorchester, Brockton, and Worcester...

And personally stealing millions from banks with unsecured HELOCs....

To now being essentially a vulture of the very toxic, now-defaulted loans that he helped proliferate (and profit from) in the first place!!!

He may be only one guy in Boston and perhaps couldn't even get a job as a boot-black in Lower Manhattan...

But his career path is nearly a microcosm of what happened on Wall Street these past several years. They trafficked in junk the entire the way up, and will on the entire way down.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind, Out of Work

Do you know when it's easiest to find a job?

It's when you already have one!

When you're out of work and the bills are piling up it's near impossible to get hired.

My wife interviewed for a position in Manhattan a little over a month ago. They said they same BS that firms always say, "We'll let you know next week."

Only they didn't, of course. Or the next week...

But yesterday they did offer her the position and it looks like she'll sign on the dotted line - once the non-small issue of compensation is addressed.

And that's when these surprises appear, when neither she nor I was watching the pot. Heck we'd almost totally forgotten about this position.

But that's in stark contrast to the recent experience of a friend of ours.

This breadwinner been out of work since November and undergone a torturesome 6 or 7 interviews with an interested new employer. Still, after 8(?) weeks of this process they haven't made a decision one way or another.

That's just cruel. Four formal interviews is where you have to draw the line.

After that, put the potential job out of your mind and get back to looking far and wide for other positions.



One more thing.

In your giddyness, don't forget to negotiate *vacation* before signing anything.

Because if Mrs. C-Nut hears one more story about someone 35-45 years old taking a job with only 2 or 3 weeks vacation....she's going to blow her lid!

It's almost like when someone dies - there's too much emotion to haggle with the gouging funeral director (and he knows it!).

Homeschool your kids. And turn them into entrepreneurs that they may never know the agony of a job search.

The Backbone Of Pop Music

This is kind of funny - and well done even if there are a couple of unnecessary naughty words uttered in it:

Punishing My Kids

I just screamed at my kids for the extra-curricular smut I caught them with on my PC.

I took a screenshot of the *game* so y'all can appreciate my anger:



There's no computer for either of them for the rest of the day!

Eviction Chronicles - Served Again!

In January, my wife and I decided not to pay rent. We took pre-emptive action against our landlord who was going to just *steal* our un-escrowed security deposit on our way out. The Moron kicked and screamed, served us a notice to quit and then tried to take us to court. At the last minute he capitulated in the face of my threatened counter-suit.

In March, with our house scheduled for *auction*, we decided to not pay rent. More accurately we told him that our pre-paid *last month* would have to suffice for March. Displeased with that, the scumbag had us served with a notice to quit on March 2nd!

Recall that gripe of HIS ended up with HIM writing me a $1,200 check in court-sponsored mediation!

April came and we had no hot water due to his negligence (also clogged sinks, a bee hive in our shed, a malfunctioning stove, etc.) so we weren't going to pay him a dime, no less a nickel. He kicked and screamed yet again. Though curiously, he hadn't initiated legal action against us.

That is until today. This morning I was served with my third notice to quit! I expect him, in 10-14 days or so, to attempt to legally *vacate* the terms of our mediation - i.e. demand payment and/or eviction.

It is interesting that he waited until April 19th to *re-start the process*. His uncharacteristic hesitation suggests some exhaustion PLUS, perhaps, a non-optimistic view of what a judge might say.

I'm fairly confident that he'll get buried in court but it almost doesn't matter.

In the rare event a judge says something ludicrous like I didn't sufficiently notify my landlord of the problems and makes me pay....I don't care. The money isn't the issue for us; it's about moral principle. I'd be happy to pay rent to the bank or to donate it to charity. If this dirtbag wants the money I'm going to make him work for it (pay filing fees, pay servers, and pay an attorney).

My wife and I have agreed that we'll happily go to court with light preparation (in terms of not hiring a lawyer, documenting the neglect, etc.) Again, if a judge rules against us....we don't care as we're moving on anyway.

Plus, should I be ordered out I can always just force the broke-a$$ Moron to physically evict me. That will cost him $4,000 out of his empty pockets.

He can't win and I'm trying to pound that reality into his dense skull.

We just don't want the end of our stay here marred by too much animosity. So we're taking a laid-back approach to whatever happens.

I just called to confirm the new auction date and was told that *none is scheduled*. So the scam artist has successfully delayed the authorities, yet again. By rights and the laws of other eras he'd be in jail for $4 million in mortgage debt plus another 500k in unpaid credit card bills.

The problem, for us, with him having punted the auction to who knows when is that it's probably given him more *false hope* and hence more energy to battle us.

Unfortunately for him, I have a rather large reserve tank of fuel myself!

For background see:

War And Peace

Eviction Chronicles - Brimming With Schadenfreude

Do YOU Have Anyone In Mind?

Would You Remarry?

A husband and wife are sitting quietly in bed reading when the
Wife looks over at him and asks the question....

WIFE: What would you do if I died? Would you get married Again?

HUSBAND: Definitely not!

WIFE: Why not? Don't you like being married?

HUSBAND: Of course I do.

WIFE: Then why wouldn't you remarry?

HUSBAND: Okay, okay, I'd get married again.

WIFE: You would? (with a hurt look)

HUSBAND: (makes audible groan)

WIFE: Would you live in our house?

HUSBAND: Sure, it's a great house.

WIFE: Would you sleep with her in our bed?

HUSBAND: Where else would we sleep?

WIFE: Would you let her drive my car?

HUSBAND: Probably, it is almost new.

WIFE: Would you replace my pictures with hers?

HUSBAND: That would seem like the proper thing to do.

WIFE: Would you give her my jewelry?

HUSBAND: No, I'm sure she'd want her own.

WIFE: Would you take her golfing with you?

HUSBAND: Yes, those are always good times.

WIFE: Would she use my clubs?

HUSBAND: No, she's left-handed.

WIFE: -- silence --

HUSBAND: $hit.

From Propaganda To 'Public Relations'

Interesting clip here:

Honor Thy....Even If Willfully Ignorant

Yesterday I blogged on C.S. Lewis.

Growing up he had great difficulty dealing with his crazed father. Join the club, right?

Here's an excerpt from Surprised By Joy that testifies to that frustration:

One conversation, held several years later, may be recorded as a specimen of these continual cross-purposes. My brother had been speaking of a reunion dinner for the officers of the Nth Division which he had lately attended. "I suppose your friend Collins was there," said my father.

B - Collins? Oh no. He wasn't in the Nth, you know.

F - (After a pause) Did these fellows not like Collins then?

B - I don't quite understand. What fellows?

F - The Johnnies that got up the dinner.

B - Oh no, not at all. It was nothing to do with liking or not liking. You see, it was a purely Divisional affair. There'd be no question of asking anyone who hadn't been in the Nth.

F - (After a long pause) Hm! Well, I'm sure poor Collins was very much hurt.

Lewis described his father as:

...not so much incapable of understanding anything as determined to misunderstand everything.

Ever meet anyone like that? Work with anyone like that?

Are you related to anyone who's thoroughly impossible to communicate with on even the simplest terms? With whom even *the weather* is a treacherous subject?

'Yes' on all counts for me.

Most tragically, some even marry their conversational nemesis:

Who Wants To Be An Exterminator?

My back has been aching so I did a rare thing and laid down in front of the color television this afternoon.

And I came across a great new show:



Since I've been battling rodents in my rental house I have somewhat of an interest in this subject now. Heck, one of my buddies found a mouse and the first thing he did was call me, an incipient expert, for infestation advice!

But this show was stomach-turning awesome. They're based in semi-tropical Louisiana so they have a wide variety of critters crawling through the cracks: snakes, beavers, bats, roaches, armadillos, alligators, etc.

They ran three shows in a row so I got a nice taste of the vermin. In the first one, Billy trapped a skunk and got sprayed trying to collect the trap!

In that same episode, some young girl living in a trailer on a zoo complained about mice. Billy went out and found evidence of mice everywhere and set traps. She has also reported having a mouse problem in her *lingerie drawer*! Can you imagine that?

So Billy set a trap in there too.

He came back and found dead mice in all his traps. Up in her bedroom he reached under a dresser to check a trap when he GOT BIT BY A DECENT SIZED SNAKE! It's fangs went right through his glove and his brother had to grab the snake and de-fang him. The chick? She ran so far out of the room they had to go looking for her. Can you imagine a young lady that not only had to grab her panties each morning out of a *shared* drawer, but she also now has to go to sleep knowing there was a king snake in her bedroom? (Apparently, it followed the mice up through the hole in the floor they made.)

Billy also hit two *shacks* that were overrun by thousands of cockroaches. People were actually living in these houses at the time. There was trash everywhere and dead rats whose corpses were picked down to the bone by roaches.

I set up my DVR to grab the upcoming shows.

See also where my adventure began - Rodents.

Another Lazy Saturday

I just had to go upstairs at 9:54PM on a Saturday night and tell my 5.41 year old son to put his book down and go to sleep.

On her way to yet another bar(!), my wife tucked him in at 8:40PM and told him he could stay up and read to himself - and that's precisely what he did - blazing 40 pages into Book 2 of the The Secrets of Droon.

I took that video a few weeks ago. It's funny because for sometime he read to himself ALOUD. He must have really been parching his throat until just now when he figured out how to read silently.

He was up early this morning - not painfully early but soon enough. So I kicked him out of our bed, told him to go turn on my computer, and go to ThatQuiz.org. You never saw him run so fast as when I tell him he can go on the PC - even if strictly for *educational* purposes only.

For a good thirty minutes he brushed up on South and Latin American geography, gave it yet another unsuccessful stab at cell structure, before moving on to coordinate geometry (graphing points is within his ken).

After breakfast his mother sat him down for some seatwork. I believe they did several pages in his Gifted & Talented workbook and then a mapping exercise. They were there for probably more than an hour while I put the 3.83 year old Princess on StarFall.com for her phonics *work*.

While he brushes his teeth, I ALWAYS make the Prince *skip-count*. We do *thirty-counts*. For example, today was easy; he had to count to 10 by one-thirds. Then I make him repeat the count twice more on paper when he's done in the bathroom. A more difficult exercise in his curriculum is say counting backwards from 180 by 6s. A lot of adults can't even do that! I also make my daughter count now EVERY TIME she/we brush her teeth as she's climbing the ladder of numeracy these days. In fact she has almost completed Kumon's Simple Addition workbook.

Next, my son was directed to go read one of his books but for some reason that didn't take. So I told him to go do his daily *piano work* for 10 minutes and off he ran - setting the oven timer and then practicing the Star Wars Imperial March which he loves.

Then Mrs. C-Nut took them to a great children's library a couple of towns over. The Prince came back with 10 audiobooks and who knows how many other books. Put it this way, I did the library *return* today at our local library for last week. There must have been 30 items in the bag my wife gave me; I could barely carry it!

This afternoon, while his mother was at yoga(!), we decided to officially start playing chess (while I was simultaneously cooking dinner!). So he grabbed the set he got a while back for his birthday and I had him read a bit of the rules. Then I taught him how all the pieces moved but it seemed like he was already somewhat acquainted with the parameters, perhaps from having watched me tie/lose to his great-grandfather a few weeks ago.

After dinner, I had him do a blog post on chess, which he did. For a longer post like that, we write it out beforehand. I interview him and try to get him to logically articulate a summarizing post. Usually I tell him we have to *write 5 sentences* or *seven sentences*. I make him read and re-read whatever it is we have scribbled down so he can learn about *flow*. Once it's written up, he has to go over and post it on his own; he can upload pics, spell-check it, title it, and everything. Today it took a solid 45 minutes of work.

For that he earned a homemade milkshake!

Then it was bed. See the beginning of this post.

Keep up with my son's blog here - The Youngest Blogger.

Meatball Frustration

I'm about at my wits' end trying to make some passable meatballs.

Over the last several months I must have tried 10 times to make them edible to no avail. In fact, my latest batch was terrible.

I've tried a lot of parsley, and no parsley, heavy on breadcrumbs, and light on breadcrumbs, two eggs up to 6 eggs, with Parmesan cheese and with a whole lot more cheese...

I've tried frying them and I've tried baking them.

I've even tried expensive organic beef!

I've Googled for recipes....and I've interrogated good cooks I know. All to no avail.

My latest tinkering, in hopes of reproducing the out-of-this-world meatballs some homeschooling *mom* I know makes, involved ultra-lean beef, Worcestershire sauce, and of all things - jarred sauce! (All three ingredients were novel in my experimentation.)

I did just about everything she told me but mine came out, like I said above, the worst batch yet.

There are still some variables I can tweak - like my brand of breadcrumbs (homemade), my brand of cheese (pecorino romano), etc. But my frustration is so high I'm about ready to quit on this one, for now anyway.

My wife laughed her hiney off at me the other day as I cursed this last batch botch. The 100% guidette said I was just proving that there's no way a Polack such as myself could ever concoct a decent meatball!

What kills me is that I can really cook otherwise.

See also - Pasta Rotation - Bolognese.

Book Rec - Surpised By Joy

Personally, I realized the worthless of *the news* years ago. And I've fastidiously shielded myself from all that nonsense since then. It couldn't be more true, that expression I heard:

"Trying to find out what's going on by reading newspapers is like trying to find out what time it is by watching the second-hand of a clock."

Here's C.S. Lewis waxing on the same subject, many decades before newspapers descended to the joke they are today:

Even in peacetime I think those are very wrong who say that schoolboys should be encouraged to read the newspapers. Nearly all that a boy reads there in his teens will be know before he is twenty to be have been false in emphasis and interpretation, if not in fact as well, and most of it will have lost all importance. Most of what he remembers he will therefore have to unlearn; and he will probably have acquired an incurable taste for vulgarity and sensationalism and the fatal habit of fluttering from paragraph to paragraph to learn how an actress has been divorced in California, a train derailed in France, and quadruplets born in New Zealand. (p159)

That was from Surprised By Joy - an autobiographical sketch of his early life.

While I have next to no other quotes from that book highlighted in my notes, I found it a most enjoyable and most edifying read. My notes are, however, filled with many obscure words that I have to look up: ergastulum, cantle, nonce, batrachise, piebald, dyarchy, eructation, pother, slag, corvée, askesis, longueur, anthroposophist, hypostasize, numinous, stile, dram...

Alright here's one other deserving excerpt that addresses "Wyvern" the high school C.S. Lewis attended:

But the essential evil of public-school life, as I see it, did not lie in either the sufferings of the fags or in the privileged arrogance of the Bloods. These were symptoms of something more all-pervasive, something which, in the long run, did most harm to the boys who succeeded best at school and were happiest there. Spiritually speaking, the deadly thing was that school life was almost wholly dominated by the social struggle; to get on, to arrive, or, having reached the top, to remain there, was the absorbing preoccupation. It is often, of course, the preoccupation of adult life as well; but I have not yet seen any adult society in which the surrender to this impulse was so total. And from it, at school as in the world, all sorts of meanness flow; the sycophancy that courts those higher in the scale, the cultivation of those whom it is well to know, the speedy abandonment of friendships that will not help on the upward path, the readiness to join the cry against the unpopular, the secret motive in almost every action. The Wyvernians seem to me in retrospect to have been the least spontaneous, in that sense the least boyish, society that I have ever known. It would perhaps not be too much to say that in some boys' lives everything was calculated to the great end of advancement. For this games were played; for this clothes, friends, amusements, and vices were chosen. (p 108-109)

I guess I'd always had an inkling of the cruel hierarchies of the old British schools, but I must say I was rather shocked reading about the Bloods and the fags. Lewis had to blacken upperclassmen's boots whenever they demanded it!

Though the scariest part of it was the fact that this suffocating student social scene had the explicit backing of school administrators. It was a power alliance not unlike what we have today between Big Business, Big Medicine, Big Education, Big Media, and Big Government - where unlikely partners conspire to retain power; where experts and custodians subjugate unwitting serfs via invisible walls and reduced opportunity.

It's not wonder why over the years so many millions have fled the prison of aristocratic Europe to come here....where they could, heretofore anyway, freely erect their own little jails.

See also - Introducing C.S. Lewis.

Honey-Do List

The last couple of days I've been busy, er re-deployed.

My wife has ordered me to write up (in book form) everything we've done so far in raising and homeschooling our kids.

Could you even sell that?

I don't think so. Maybe. I guess it depends on how informative it ends up being and, potentially, how our kids turn out. For example, if the Prince aced the SAT at age 9 or something....I'll bet that such a book, if ever finished, would become instantly marketable.

Still, parenting and education books are a dime a dozen. The ebook route has the advantage of *profit margin* but also runs the risk of piracy. Traditional paper books have possibly greater reach, but might fetch a mere $1 or so in profit. One idea I have to increase the economic viability of such an endeavor is to bundle an option for personal email support with the text. Raise the book up to $50 but that will buy email/phone support as well. I don't know; that's really looking too far ahead. Job one is to write it up and see whether or not I even have enough insightful content.

In fact I'd already been cataloging my homeschooling insights in some Google Docs, but was convinced I didn't have enough to fill up too many pages. After all, what I do is rather simple and well within the capabilities of most parents. I just enforce more discipline and put in more effort. But my wife convinced me, or at least got me to re-assess how much content I really do have - and I've come to agree with her. And if it only turns out to be 50 pages then that's fine. I have several other book ideas.

One thing I've discovered is that while I've covered most of what I do with my kids on this blog, the content is IMPOSSIBLE to find. Heck, if I can't find it then who could?

A year ago I resolved to write a work of fiction. I did get started on a few ideas, one of which went quite far in the outline process. But of course that *pipe dream* stalled out. I've just got too many ideas and insufficient focus. Should I start a private school? Should I pimp myself out as a high-end tutor? Should I try to ramp up this blog? Etc. As my kids get older, my free time is returning!

Realize at the same time I'm trying to homeschool my kids and enjoy a mild dose of peace here and there. I need focus. That's the alleged shortcoming of this blog. And that was the explicit accusation from Mrs. C-Nut. Even if it goes nowhere, this *next* first book that is.

Coming Back...

I'd say that 1 out of 10 email *forwards* makes me laugh. Here'a an example:

This policeman was being cross-examined by a defense attorney during a felony trial. The lawyer was trying to undermine the police officer's credibility...

Q: 'Officer, did you see my client fleeing the scene?'

A: 'No sir. But I subsequently observed a person matching the description of the offender, running several blocks away.'

Q: 'Officer -- who provided this description?'

A: 'The officer who responded to the scene.'
Q: 'A fellow officer provided the description of this so-called offender. Do you
trust your fellow officers?'

A: 'Yes, sir. With my life.'
Q: 'With your life? Let me ask you this then officer. Do you have a room
where you change your clothes in preparation for your daily duties?'

A: 'Yes sir, we do!'

Q: 'And do you have a locker in the room?'

A: 'Yes sir, I do.'
Q: 'And do you have a lock on your locker?'

A: 'Yes sir.'
Q: 'Now why is it, officer, if you trust your fellow officers with your life,
you find it necessary to lock your locker in a room you share with these same
officers?'

A: 'You see, sir -- we share the building with the court complex, and sometimes lawyers have been known to walk through that room.'

The courtroom EXPLODED with laughter, and a prompt recess was called.

The officer on the stand has been nominated for this year's 'Best Comeback' line.

This next one is much funnier:

In a recent interview, General Norman Schwarzkopf was asked if he thought there was room for forgiveness toward the people who have harbored and abetted the terrorists who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on America.

His answer was classic Schwarzkopf.

The General said:

"I believe that forgiving them is God's function. OUR job is to arrange the meeting."

Boston Celtics - RIP

The Celtics this year started out like a house of fire afire.

But I believe they've only been playing .500 since Christmas. Quite simply they've been terrible - losing big leads often, losing home games, and losing to some of the worst in league history (e.g. NJ Nets).

While I shorted them, kind of, twice this year. I'm still responsible for my widely inaccurate pre-season prediction:

So there's my NBA prediction for the year - a healthy Celtics in four games over whomever.

Now there was a time when they suffered a spate of injuries....but even when they got 100% healthy, surprisingly the team didn't improve an iota. The Siamese twin realities of *age* and *slowness* hit the team all at once.

Lebron or whoever is going to trounce their 'old coot' butts in the playoffs.

And the next bleak decade for the Celts is as great excuse as any to rid myself of this *childish* passion once and for all.

See also:

Time To Short The Celtics

Obsessions Of Yore

Woe Is My Wallet!

Recall from a previous post that I had my banged-up knee MRI-ed.

The procedure wasn't fun, the results were inconclusive, and....

My HMO rammed me on the co-pay!

What should be the co-pay on a procedure that has to cost less than $1,000 now?

They sent me an eye-popping $500 bill and apparently that's what I owe despite paying around $11,000 annually for a family health plan!

I've had MRIs in the past and NEVER paid such an exorbitant amount. Perhaps $100 at best. Heck I think my surgery co-pays have never been more than $100.

And I must say, I've noticed that the bills from dentists and doctors have been getting waaaaaay more aggressive. Seemingly the very next day after any kind of appointment, our mailbox gets spammed with bills regardless whether or not the treatment was covered by our insurance. Surely, many of y'all have also noticed an uptick in aggressive billing.

It's standard, right? They always make you sign that paper agreeing to pay any amount not reimbursed by your HMO. BUT it's never that much or that often in play. From now on I'm going to be a whole lot more careful, a whole lot more financially dilligent before undergoing any medical procedure.

The next time I need an MRI...

I may just walk-in and try to slip the technician $250 cash!

For background, see - Woe Is MY Knee.

Nipping Mind Liberation In The Bud

But guess what...

Swedish blondes, however non-smart they might be, none of will ever achieve their full intellectual potential. That's because homeschooling has recently been banned in Sweden!

Here's the killer line from the article:

Himmelstrand said there are only about a hundred homeschooling families in the whole country, but these are "one hundred too many for Swedish authorities."

See also - Thou Shall Not Be Amorphous.

Government Sick-Care

I just love Mike Adams the *health ranger* over at Natural News!

Today's screed - American Does Not Have A Shortage Of Doctors, It Has An Excess Of Disease

(NaturalNews) Now that health reform relying on monopolized pharmaceutical medicine has become the law of the land across America, the mainstream media is reporting on a sudden shortage of doctors. The nearly one million doctors who already treat a sick, diseased population is no longer enough, it seems, and medical schools are ramping up to churn out more doctors to treat yet more disease. There are never enough doctors to go around when everybody's sick, it seems...

What we're witnessing here is a massive expansion of the sick-care industry which already swallows 20 percent of the U.S. economy. Over the next few years, that percentage will rise to 25 percent, then 30 percent, and this financial sinkhole called "mainstream medicine" may even hit one-third of the entire national economy.

That puts the U.S. in a dire financial situation. If a third of the economic productivity is being spent on sickness and disease, and another third (or so) is being spent on war and imperialism, and another third is spent on debt interest and social security, then where do you get the money to actually build roads and schools, pay government employees or administer the business of government?

We already know that vitamin D, all by itself, can prevent nearly 4 out of 5 cancers (http://www.naturalnews.com/021892.html). It also helps prevent heart disease, diabetes, depression, seasonal flu and kidney disease. Distribute free vitamin D supplements across the entire population and you solve the doctor shortage problem in one year as the public gets healthier and reduces doctor visits.

It's a simple, cost-effective solution that any intelligent nation would embrace without a second thought: Invest a few pennies in the health of the population and save yourself many dollars in reduced health care costs. Regular vitamin D supplementation has no negative side effects and requires no prescriptions, no injections and no visits to the doctor. What's not to like about that?

Except the sick care industry doesn't like it at all. Drug companies, hospitals, conventional doctors, med schools, medical journals and now even the mainstream media all generate extreme profits from the ongoing business of sickness and disease. Vitamin D would disrupt their profit agenda and send people home healthy and well instead of bringing them back into the hospital sick and diseased.

WHOA....hold up.

What's this about Vitamin D?

From his link:

Exciting new research conducted at the Creighton University School of Medicine in Nebraska has revealed that supplementing with vitamin D and calcium can reduce your risk of cancer by an astonishing 77 percent. This includes breast cancer, colon cancer, skin cancer and other forms of cancer. This research provides strong new evidence that vitamin D is the single most effective medicine against cancer, far outpacing the benefits of any cancer drug known to modern science.

The study involved 1,179 healthy women from rural Nebraska. One group of women was given calcium (around 1500 mg daily) and vitamin D (1100 IU daily) while another group was given placebo. Over four year, the group receiving the calcium and vitamin D supplements showed a 60 percent decrease in cancers. Considering just the last three years of the study reveals an impressive 77 percent reduction in cancer due to supplementation. (The full press release of this study is included below. It provides more details about the findings.)

Note that these astonishing effects were achieved on what many nutritionists consider to be a low dose of vitamin D. Exposure to sunlight, which creates even more vitamin D in the body, was not tested or considered, and the quality of the calcium supplements was likely not as high as it could have been (it was probably calcium carbonate and not high-grade calcium malate, aspartate or similar forms). What does all this mean? It means that if you take high-quality calcium supplements and get lots of natural sunlight exposure or take premium vitamin D supplements (such as those made from fish oil), you could easily have a greater reduction than the 77 percent reduction recorded in this study.

American Cancer Society opposes vitamin D

This research on vitamin D is such good news that the American Cancer Society, of course, had to say something against it. An ACS spokesperson, Marji McCullough, strategic director of nutritional epidemiology for the American Cancer Society, flatly stated that nobody should take supplements to prevent cancer.

If it seems surprising to you that the American Cancer Society -- which claims to be against cancer -- would dissuade people from taking supplements that slash their cancer risk by 77 percent, then you don't know much about the ACS. In my opinion, the ACS is an organization that actually prevents prevention and openly supports the continuation of cancer as a way to boost its power and profits. The ACS is the wealthiest non-profit in America and has very close ties to pharmaceutical companies, mammography equipment companies and other corporations that profit from cancer. Notice the name, too: It isn't the American Anti-Cancer Society, it's the American Cancer Society! What they really stand for is right in the name!

Getting back to the original screed:

America, you see, does not have a shortage of doctors... it has an excess of disease. And that's an excess that the sick-care system seems determined to continue.

This shortage of doctors is an entirely manufactured shortage. America already has nearly one million doctors. If anything, we have way too many doctors. We'd actually be better off with far fewer doctors combined with a Health Freedom Protection Act that would allow naturopathic physicians to practice medicine alongside Traditional Chinese Medicine doctors, chiropractors and other holistic practitioners.

And if we could roll back the FDA censorship of nutritional supplements and superfoods, then we could finally start to educate people about how to prevent disease using supplements, herbal remedies and nutritional therapies. All of a sudden we would find ourselves with far too many doctors -- and too many cancer centers, hospitals and clinics, too.

This should be the goal of any intelligent nation: To protect and enhance the health of its people. But America's leaders (if you can call them that) have chosen a different path for the People: A lifetime of nutritional ignorance, medical enslavement, vaccinations, mammograms, chemotherapy, psychiatric drugs and an endless assortment of other dangerous medications.

There's a whole lot more in this article - man, the guy does have some WIND in his bags! Some of which I don't completely agree with. For example, I'm not onboard with his allegations that Congress wants , entitlement-collecting 'old coost' to die so that it can save the nation money. I think there's a more pragmatic reality at work. Congressmen DO NOT WANT reflexive, card-carrying members of their party to die off. And the true rational statists DO NOT WANT dependents of the state to dwindle in number. So I take issue with Mike Adam's *motivational* hypotheses for Big Government *death-panels* and whatnot.

But that's merely an insubstantial disagreement. Whether or not the pols *want* people to die off is irrelevant because the political-economic machinery is set up to facilitate it anyway. Look at it from another angle - no government school teacher geniunely wants to make children thoroughly Moronic, but that's the system's outcome nonetheless.

This Mike Adams may seem a bit kooky and quacky in his own right. BUT, much of his propaganda dovetails perfectly with my own. If you're convinced, as I am, that Big Government is programmed to create wage-slaves, mind-slaves, and statist-supporting dependents....then it's no big leap at all to wax cynical about every aspect of the long-since, government-monopolized healthcare SICK-CARE system.

Tinkering With Food And Whatnot

I'm not sure how *new* this variation of the classic candy bar is....but it is at least new to me. AND I'm really enjoying it!

But I'm wise enough to not get too excited. Surely, they will pull this one - as they do with all these iterative new products. Oh how I miss Bud Ice, the McRib sandwich, and Crispy M&Ms!

I'll enjoy the Nestle Crunch Crisp while it lasts. Though I've been buying them at three a clip....I'm not about to start stockpiling like Elaine did with her discontinued birth control!



Is he *Sponge-worthy*?

But getting back to the fits and starts of Big Food innovation...

After decades of trying to float countless new products, I'm no *brand expert*, but I believe the record of success from these behemoths is quite poor. I once read that McDonalds hadn't had a new product really stick since Chicken McNuggets in the early 80s. And consider all the billions spent by Microsoft in hopes of carving out new ground. What do they have to show for it - XBox? Bing.com?

The fact remains that the vast majority of successful people and successful businesses merely got *lucky* with a single product and, of course, with timing.

But, as that airhead Mark Cuban wisely says - an entrepreneur only has to be right ONCE!

Mice Body Count - 13

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!

I thought I had smelled something funny in my bedroom for the past few weeks - and I discovered the cause last night.

Two things at work here. One, my wife and I agreed to *stop feeding* the rodents in our walls and ceilings. It was better to just hear them scampering ALL NIGHT LONG than to hear them get stuck in and flop around loudly in my baited glue traps each and every early morning.

Secondly, I had run out of the BIG *rat size* traps and so did Lowes. So I had to go with the smaller *mouse size* ones. It turns out they were wholly ineffective - or so I thought until removing the rotting corpse of intruder #13.

My deadbeat landlord slumlord has been out of the country, in fact allegedly on a mission to Haiti, for the past week plus. NEVER have my wife and I enjoyed living here so much as when he's been gone! THAT is how much of a PIA he is. (He's here a lot because he runs his subprime *fraud* operations from a detached office on my property.)

But I fully expect when he returns for legal proceedings to re-commence. Recall that I did not pay him April rent because we lost our hot water and he NEVER even sent a plumber over. There's just simply no way we should have to pay (full rent) to this about-to-be-foreclosed-upon jerk given his full record of tenant torture. A judge will sort that all out.

And given that I expect to be in court in the next few weeks, I think it wise to have a fresh batch of rodents for evidentiary leverage. Note also I have re-deployed my cage traps in the *wide-open* basement; they are baited with crunchy peanut butter and corned beef which I bought on sale after St. Patrick's Day. Hopefully I can land me another rat!

See also the most recent rodent installment - Another One For The Glue Trap

Living In A HeadBook World...

So last Easter weekend a cousin of mine exuberantly their engagement (no, not that one, he's *unpairable*) ....by changing their status on FaceBook.com!

Some of the older set in the family were taken aback, remarking indignantly "I hope she told her mother first!"

Whatever. While I'm against HeadBook in all its aspects, I'm also against 'old coot' Luddites.

Plus, the couple was already living in sin, co-owned co-borrowed a condo, and was raising a wretched puppy I think. So it wasn't so much an *announcement* as it was an expected formality. As my 96.43 year old grandfather commented in his thick Polish accent, "I don't approve how she live with guy [sic]..."

But I'll tell you what - if they use Evite.com exclusively for the wedding reception....it'll most likely be a pretty YOUNG and hence FUN one to attend!

Disorganizing Sports

I'm breaking new ground in the homeschooling of my son. Phys ed started today.

I went outside with my 5.41 year old son and for the first time had him play catch with me. Like most kids his age, he was a bit afraid of the ball and wouldn't watch it into his hands; his head ended up catching more than a few. We continued until he had caught the oversized wiffle ball 50 times. Then I had him hit a few balls off the baseball tee before we headed over to the (lowered) basketball hoop with a smallish ball. He had to make five baskets before we called it quits.

This *sports work* as we called it will be on his *list* now every morning.

A lot of his age-mates are well ahead of him in terms of athletic exposure. I know several that can throw, catch, hit, skate, play on soccer and T-ball teams, etc. and have been for a while now. Those lucky few who've known me for the long haul might be surprised to learn that I, despite my sport-obsessed youth, am deliberately stunting my son's athletic endeavors.

Why is that? Well personally I feel like I wasted too much of my own time and energy on basketball, soccer, and then golf. I grew up in Central Massachusetts, an economically and spiritually depressed region. Sports is the balm, escapism for the lumpen masses. Even worse, it is more accurately *spectator sports* and *organized sports* that reign supreme.

I believe I myself started baseball when I was 7, quit that for soccer when I was 8, and started playing basketball shortly thereafter (golf began at 15). Even with that retarded start I still managed to over-do sports.

So there's no hurry at all to sign my five year old up for organized team sports - even though the planners are now targeting that age level these days. We'll keep it simple, keep it non-competitive, keep it fun, and keep it mostly *disorganized*.

Plus, I have an undeveloped theory that by turning ball-playing into a *managed affair* that it has to take something away from the pleasure of sports. Just as organized education ruins kids for books and life-long learning, I think having parents, referees, team uniforms, and scheduling most likely diminishes the joy that previous generations had playing sandlot stickball, pick-up basketball games, and that Third Worlders got from kicking ersatz soccer balls around.

While I have suffered some major injuries (back and knees) I can't help but wonder why golf became my favorite pastime. Could it be because I never really played it on an organized level? Could it be because I never had lessons forced upon me?

See also - Marginalizing Sports?

Marginalizing Run Amok

I love this Somax golf guy. He definitely seems to know what he's talking about.

But he's got to at least tone down his Marginalization.

Today his aggressively titled video ripped Phil Mickelson. Yeah, the same Phil Mickelson who romped the field last week at the Masters for his third green jacket.



And the week before, he ripped Tiger Woods' golf swing. Tiger's only the greatest golfer EVER!



Next week I expect him to video-critique the integrity of one Jesus Christ!

Though I do respect anyone who *aims high*. See my thoughts on this in an old post - Elevating The NBA And Marginalizing A Harvard Professor.

Vote For The Worst

One of the towns here on Boston's tony South Shore just had a heated *school committee* election.

Out in a landslide went some 'old bag'; she was vilified on account of her support for *deleveling*. That was a proposal to essentially get rid of honors tracking at the middle-high school levels. She was allegedly a proponent of *heterogeneous classrooms*.

There was a tremendous an uproar for her head, albeit mostly from parents of very young children who arrogantly presume their kids will qualify for the *honors* classes some ten years down the road. Just joking there!

Three newbies stood up proudly to dethrone her; and when her head rolled off the guillotine the whole town cheered - like it matters at all. In the larger scheme of things this amounted to nothing more than a dehydrated 5 year old peeing on a forest fire. There's no difference between 1 on 30 teaching and 1 on 20 teaching.

And, as a matter of fact, one of the best teachers I ever had (5th grade) completely ignored the students. He was the one whom I mentioned before; the one that made us read a 200 page book EVERY SINGLE WEEK and write or deliver orally a book report EVERY SINGLE WEEK; the one who told us to open our math books, read the section, DO EVERY SINGLE PROBLEM, and then go to the next section and repeat the process entirely on our own. Mr. Sullivan facilitated more total learning than almost any other teacher I ever had. So the idea that *more targeted lecturing* is so life-and-death important for these poor kids is nothing more than an ignorant myth.

Lastly, look at this from another angle. Anyone who truly cares about education should not do what these local folk just did. No, instead of voting out the real knuckleheads, they ought to let those Morons reign supreme. Because only when the system is a complete joke, as it is in much of the South (on account of school violence), will parents step up and do the right thing - opt out and homeschool their own.

For background on this post visit - Factory School Spin.

Government Schools, Making Kids Brown

Recall I read up a bit on that *revolutionary* unschool Sudbury Valley in Framingham, Massachusetts. That's the one where there're no classes, no curriculum, chaperones in place of teachers, and the kids aged 5-18 can well do what they please - even if it's playing video games all day long.

One thing that the founder, Daniel Greenberg, of SVS thinks vital to a healthy educational environment is to have decent proximity to, if not outright immersion in nature - trees, trails, bodies of water, and whatnot. His whole shtick is pretty crunchy, pretty hippy so I just figured an outdoors fetish went with the territory.

BUT, as my kids get older, I'm noticing more and more how much they enjoy being outside. From right when they wake up in the morning to late at night, they are continually slipping their shoes on and sneaking outside to hop on their bikes, whack golf balls, poke each other in the eye with sticks, to test the temperature, or just to catch some fresh air for a minute.

I don't think it's merely a reaction to the cabin fever suffered over the past five months; there's definitely something else at work here. Perhaps Greenberg has a not-to-be-dismissed point.

Perhaps locking kids away all day in walled rooms as the *system* does is so unnatural that it stunts *natural mind development* in unforeseen ways?



And so long as my kids keep hacking at bushes, tree limbs, and flowers with baseball bats (the Princess takes the scissors to them!)....I won't be scared of them turning into little eco-pagans!

See also - Sudbury Valley Empricism.

My Crazy Parents - 5 - Our Lady Of Blessed Vindictiveness

After 35 years at their local Catholic Church my parents have moved on down the road - to another Catholic Church.

My mother apparently was miffed at how their long-time parish handled the funeral of her mother last year. So she's taking her business elsewhere.

But here's the crazy part - SHE DOESN'T EVEN GO TO CHURCH and hasn't for years, only my father attends mass regularly.

So essentially SHE told him he had to go pray (for her?) somewhere else!

I just don't get it. One doesn't, or shouldn't, go to church based upon the imperfect HUMAN minister. That detail should be mostly irrelevant in the larger scheme.

And I know for a fact that my angelic grandmother wouldn't have given two hoots about the alleged *mishandling* of her funeral.

Lastly, now what are we going to do with my vindictive mother when her time comes?

A *burial at sea*?

See also:

My Crazy Parents - 4 - The Cluttered Fridge

My Crazy Parents - 3 - Russian Gangsters

My Crazy Parents - 2 - Bend Over

My Crazy Parents - 1 - Tiny Pics

How To Unclog A Garbage Disposal

As a consequence of my deadbeat landlord's *deferred maintenance*....I'm learning a lot about fixing stuff around the house: infestations, flooded basements, re-lighting hot water tanks, etc.

I've had two clogged sinks for some time now that the scumbag has refused to fix. I could always call a plumber, pay them to take care of the problems, and then deduct the bill from my rent. The only problem is, now I probably won't be paying any more rent. So everything I pay comes directly out of my pocket.

Today I unclogged my kitchen sink's garbage disposal - a Badger 7.

All that I had to do was insert a 1/4 inch allen wrench underneath it and turn it 90 degrees. That freed up whatever it was that had jammed it. Instantly, I could hear the water gushing down the drain.

I wrote this post because significant Googling did not reveal this very simple solution. Perhaps others will find this post and save themselves some time, effort, and a plumber's bill. Although the solution ended up being easy, that doesn't mean I didn't bend over backwards trying to figure it out!

Be sure to unplug the disposal before jamming any metal tools into it.

Next up - I'm going to have to kill three hornets' nests that have appeared in my storage shed. At least in that deparment, I have some experience.