Delusion

Look up 'delusion' in wikipedia and read what it says. Then go read this and you will understand the definition you just read.

PSWSIPs

It used to be that you would see articles that talked about WASPs (white anglo saxon protestants). I have not seen that term mentioned lately but I suspect it is still in use out there somewhere. I may have, in time, identified with that group, since my ancestors were white and protestant. However, as I have gotten older, I have come to realize that I'm no WASP and my ancestors weren't either. My ancestors were, for the most part, PSWSIP (poor southern white scots irish protestants). To the average layman, the difference may not be apparent, but to some of us, WASPs and PSWSIPs are as different as night and day. To fully understand PSWSIPs, you need to learn about our history. Senator Jim Webb of Virginia has written what I think is a great book, "Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America", that gives tremendous insight into what makes PSWSIPs tick. Of course, he dosen't mention PSWSIPs directly as he is talking about the Scots Irish in general. Still understanding the Scots Irish will give you a great start on understanding the PSWSIPs.

An Interview with Naomi Wolf

The CBS Video that WHNT Blacked Out

Click on this link.

The Status Quo

I read a lot of letters and articles on line, view videos on YouTube and check posts on Digg.com and Reddit.com. From all of this, I had gotten the impression that a majority of Americans feel like Howard Beale from Network, i.e. "I'm as mad as Hell and I am not gonna take this anymore!"

At the beginning of the nominating process, there were four candidates that actually represented a change from the old way of doing things. I know, nearly all candidates talk about change, but look at their platform and you will see which ones are really interested in change and which ones are gonna promote the status quo. The four who actually represented change were Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul and Bill Richardson. They certainly had differences in their individual platforms, but based on their positions, I believe that anyone of them would have, if elected, tried to make a change in the way our country is being run. If you total up all of the votes that they have received so far, I think you would find that it amounts to about 10 percent of the total votes cast. That tells me that there are about 1 in 10 of us that share Howard Beale's sentiments and are willing to do something about it. Everyone else, regardless of what they say, are satisfied with the status quo.

Michael Scheuer On Terrorist

In the video clip on this page Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, talks about the front running Presidential candidates and their approach to terrorist. Here is a little hint on what he says: clueless, clueless and clueless.

I Don't Want It, Here You Take It.

Well, I think I have finally figured this 2008 presidential election out. Both of the major political parties know that the country is screwed up. They know because they are the ones that did it. They also see the handwriting on the wall; the excrement is about to hit the fan. Neither party wants to be in control when that happens. Right now the Republicans are winning the race to loose the presidency. While Clinton and Obama are neither one bargains and I would not hire either one of them to run the downstairs apartment of an outdoor toilet, either of them could no doubt beat John McCain. Face it, only 19% of the American public approve of the way that "W" is doing his job and McCain has been described as Bush on steroids. McCain would be lucky to get that 19% to vote for him. Yeah, the Republicans are winning at losing. With a Democratic controlled congress and a Democrat president, they will be able to sit on the side lines and piss and moan about how much better things would be if they were in control. The American public, whose attention span seems to be about as long as my chewed off finger nails, will no doubt agree with them.

The Snake

Ever so often I read or see on TV or hear on the radio, a story about some politician who, according to the storyteller, "has let us down." The most recent case of this is the computer fund stink currently going on in Birmingham. I don't know enough about the Birmingham business to even make an intelligent comment, so I won't. But I would like to address the bigger problem of politicians, "letting us down."

First, let me say that I am talking here about politicians and not statesmen. If you don't know the difference, do some reading and don't rely too much on dictionary definitions. In my mind, politicans lie but statesmen tell the truth, albeit done carefully. Just as a matter of observation, I would estimate that 99 percent of the elected officials in these United States are politicians, with the rest being statesmen.

When I hear someone refer to a politician as having let us down I always think of the Johnny Rivers song "The Snake." If you don't remember the song Click Here and scroll down to the middle of the page to read the lyrics.

You see, politicians are just like the snake in the song. They will tell you what you want to hear to get you to do what they need you to do, then they will do what is their nature and feel contempt for you because you were foolish enough to believe them in the first place. What is the answer to this problem? I say never vote for a politician, always vote for a statesman, and learn to tell the difference.

I Spam Myself

Let me begin by saying that really, I don't approve of using the word Spam as a verb. I grew up occasionally eating, and always liking Spam. Sometimes my mother would slice it into thin slices and fry it until it had a light crust on either side. It was served with whatever vegetables we might be having. At other times, we would open a can and just make sandwiches with bread, mustard and maybe mayonnaise. To me it is an unfortunate twist of the computer age that good ole Spam has become the name for junk email. However, I alway heard that "when in Rome, do as the Romans do", so herein, little 's' spam refers to junk email.

When I say that I spam myself, I am specifically referring to Yahoo's bulk mail folder. I've had a Yahoo web mail account for years. In fact, I am sure I had it prior to opening my eBay account and I did that in 1997. I like Yahoo and I do appreciate the fact that their email filters send a lot of stuff that I am not interested in to the bulk email folder, but occasionally I am puzzled. Like day before yesterday, I sent an email and included a cc: to myself. The copy did not show up. Later on when I went to empty the bulk mail folder, I did a quick scan and sure enough, there was my cc: to myself. I guess I spamed myself?

Its kind of hard for me to figure how yahoo thinks that anything I send to myself is spam. I know about spoofing and I routinely get emails with my email address as the sender when I did not send them, but yahoo has authentication and it would seem that they would know a true khmiller email from a spoof. Maybe email filters work like humans, they sort and sort and sift and sift and every so often they just get fed up and say to hell with it and dump everything into the bulk mail folder. I doubt that is the case, but as we do with animals and other things, we humans love to ascribe our humanness to non-humans, even computers.

A Story Of Two Signs

Read it Here.

Whither the Remnant?

Whither the Remnant? by Butler Shaffer. Read it, if you don't understand it, Read it again. Then, if you want to read Nock's essay about the remnant, you can do that here.

It's All About The Sun

An interesting article from `Investor's Business Daily' about changes in solar activity.