lawrence jose sinclair

Why Doesn't Optimism Work?

2010-01-12T14:42:00.000-08:00

Many people say "you make your own luck" or "you get what you think you will in life". I wish is was this easy.. unfortunately, most of the people in the world think things will work out, but the massive numbers of the insane, suicides, wars, etc, all prove that things really DON'T work out for many people.. I'm willing to bet that 90% of the people are positive, hopeful, optimistic, yet for only a small few reality materializes their dreams. I've never gone into a job without optimism, yet I've been laid off of the last five due to the economy - which I've also always been optimistic about (there's plenty of wealth to feed and employ everyone in the world - so why doesn't it happen?)

Someone just wrote a book about "optimism leading to the downfall of America's economy". This seems to be reality: everyone expects things to work out, then when they don't, we're all surprised.. the night of 9/11, the leading bishop of the U.S. said "nothing fails us as often or as dramatically as prayer", and prayer is an optimistic "talk with God", else it wouldn't be a tool used by most.

It seems that only a miniscule few really have things "work out" as they expect. Estimates are that 90% of us work in jobs we don't like, very few are doing what they really would like to be doing. There's a certain amount "opportunistic luck" involved that lets some people be pro poker players, pro movie watchers, pro game testers, pro musicians, pro actors, pro artists, pros at sports - and make enough at those "fun" careers to survive.. many (a majority) STARVE trying to make careers of those basically fun activities..

Why isn't the world geared more toward allowing people to ENJOY life and work? This has always baffled me, as growing up I constantly heard adults say things like "that's why they call it WORK", or "I wish I didn't have to work here", "I wish I had a million dollars", "I wish I had been born wealthy, not good-looking!"

In a utopia, we'd all be happy in our careers, or when we find a job we like, it should last until retirement but rarely does, thanks to economic upheavals and other unforeseen disasters.. there is NO job security in life, and most people move ONCE per decade for jobs whether they want to or not..

I wish I had the answer myself, my "luck" comes and goes, and my optimism is constantly being slapped in the face. We're start every new venture, every new job, really every new day optimistically, yet tragedies always occur, job layoffs and bankruptcies are common, health problems eventually cripple all of us.

Just my opinion, based on my experiences, that's all each of us has - if anyone had "the truth", we'd all know it, right?

Happy 4th of July: The Greek Rocket War

2009-07-02T20:36:00.000-07:00

This is terrific stuff, we should do this here on July 4th!

Greek Rocket War - For more funny movies, click here

..also, like the Chinese, the rockets can't be aimed well, so they just light up the whole batch, hoping one hits the target!

30 Twitter Tools

2009-06-23T19:29:00.000-07:00

Found this post at another site, and dang if under #2, ReFollow, there's a screen shot with my photo on the top row, right after the NBA logo! It's the stupid little profile pic..

Now that's just too coincidental, what are the odds I'd see this post?
30 Twitter Tools for Managing Followers

Dudeism

2009-06-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

This is a religious group I found at Facebook! funny stuff..

Description: Inspired by the attitude of such famous Dudes as Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski, Jeff Spicoli, Lao Tzu, Epicurus, Julia Child, Heraclitus, Kurt Vonnegut and Snoopy, Dudeism is a real religion that implores us all to "just take it easy, man." What could be more spiritual and uplifting than takin 'er easy? The Dude Abides, and so should all of us. At the Church of the Latter-Day Dude.

There's lots more info at the official websites listed below!

Contact Info
Website: http://www.dudeism.com/

Horse Clipping Art

2009-06-14T19:34:00.000-07:00

[someone has time to kill! the horse is thinking "yeah, like they ever take me to Hawaii.. this is as close as I'll get to sailing" - jose]

Post It Animation

2009-06-10T17:38:00.000-07:00

Pretty amazing stop-action film, all done with post-it notes!

We're moving all the videos to one site, look for them here at Small Cinema

Twitter Ruined My Life

2009-05-30T02:47:00.000-07:00

We're moving all the videos to Small Cinema, please check them out there, getting them all in one place.

Street Evangelist Saves 300 Souls

2009-05-28T23:15:00.000-07:00

From The Onion,
"Street Evangelist Saves 300 Souls"

now, that's just plain funny! - Jose ;-)

The Church of the Subgenius

2009-05-11T23:22:00.000-07:00

[I discovered this wacky group at Facebook, which claims as members Frank Zappa, George Carlin, Pee Wee Herman, David Byrne, many others - and of course they canonized Anna Nicole Smith. EL]

The Church Of The SubGenius is an order of Scoffers and Blasphemers, dedicated to TOTAL SLACK, delving into Mockery Science, Sadofuturistics, Megaphysics, Scatalography, Schizophreniatrics, Morealism, Sarcastrophy, Cynisacreligion, Apocolyptionomy, ESPectorationalism, Hypno-Pediatrics, Subliminalism, Satyriology, Disto-Utopianity, Sardonicology, Fascetiouism, Ridiculophagy, and Miscellatheistic Theology.

ARE YOU ABNORMAL?
Then you are probably BETTER than most people!

Group Link At Facebook

[From the group intro at Facebook]

"We the SUBGENIUSES of the post-human race, in order to preserve life on this planet from immanent destruction, reestablish intelligence, regain SLACK, cast out false prophets, smother forever the fear of fear itself, receive the questionable gifts of the BEFORELIFE and of the SPACE DWELLERS, become as OVERMEN, unmask the CONSPIRACY, grip the reigns of human evolution, control reproduction and mutation, decipher THE CODE, placate the STARK FIST of Removal, achieve TIME CONTROL, see that which must come to pass, become as gods, find the Twins with the Scissors of Sight, avert the RUPTURE of the Equilibrium and secure the financial blessings of JEHOVAH 1 the God of Wrath for ourselves and our descendants, do hereby admit ourselves as such and thus ordain this advertisement of the SUBGENIUS race of Earth."

------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, YOU can rape your own mind. YOU can finally relax in the safety of your own delusions.

This epipastic for the brains of Epoptics, Beholders, and Initiates, works an authentic magician's spell that will drive OUT the foreign personalities and id-demons. Protected by its own occult roots in the most extreme forms of para- and mech-psychology, it places the reader within a "shell" of Weird Phenomena which Must be used for good And evil.

Its system of Mystik Correspondences has already given SECRET POWER to the Church of the SubGenius - the world's first Industrial Church, the prophesied End Times cult of screamers and laughers, scoffers, blasphemers mockers, sinners, and the last true holymen in America today.

KEEP THIS CHURCH NEAR YOU - in your pocket, your bathroom, your glove compartment. Study it. Memorize it. Find within it a NEW DIRECTION- a NEW WAY - a HIGHER yet LOWER REALITY - just as thousand before you have done!

------------------------------------------------------------------

You were led to us, and we to you, by powers much greater than Man, and yet, seemingly, more random than Fate. But the ways of the great Manip-ulator in Space, Jehovah-1, only appear random. YES! Our paths crossed because it was planned - plotted out aeons ago, by alien minds more bizarre than your wildest nightmares, as part of a "WorkNet:" a cosmic scheme woven into such a complex web that not just human history, but the fabric of cause-and-effect themselves was disrupted. FACE IT - the very fact of your eyes moving across this page at this moment is inevitably and subatomically decreed. You are locked into the machinations of a Cosmic Puppeteer who works your strings so skillfully you never knew they were there.

UNTIL NOW! The Church can't cut your strings - you wouldn't want us to, if you knew what they can mean for you - but we can show you where the strings are attached and how to 'sync up' with the Puppeteer...how to stay one jump ahead of the other puppets by assisting the Puppet Master: by following the Path of Least Resistance.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Below you will find SO many links relating to SubGenii or SubGenius oriented sites that it will MAKE YOUR EYES BLEED if you looked at them all in succession! Remember: You've been warned!

Other Sub-Genius Links:
Mediashack
Hour of Slack
Revstang
KPFA
Google Topics
Bulldada Newsblog
Foundation Factory
Cafepress
Euro SubGenius Group
The Prophet Lilith
Bulldada
Subgenius UK
ArchDIkon Zibethicus
Evil Genius Chronicles
Philo Drummond
Puzzling Evidence TV
Revstand Youtube
Quivering Brain
Pirate Cat Radio
John Hell
Stop Bob
Time Mag Article
Facebook Group
Ask Dr Hal

Note: Angels fly because they take themselves lightly

The Alzheimer's Project on HBO

2009-05-09T16:20:00.000-07:00

[Not having seen this yet, I'm trusting the reviews, the subject, and the artistry of these filmmakers, that this is a must-see series - el]

HBO is going to unscramble its premium signal Sunday, at least in some areas, allowing non-subscribers to view "The Alzheimer's Project" part one, at 9-10:30pm Sunday night.

HBO says of the series "It's a new way of looking at the disease". Click here for the HBO Link, and all four episodes can be streamed from here as well.

My lifetime friend, Charlton McMillan, and his wife Shari Cookson were instrumental in creating The Memory Loss Tapes, the first episode of this four-part HBO series. Shari, who is a multiple Emmy nominee for Living Dolls and All Aboard! Rosie's Family Cruise, shares director-producer credit with Nick Doob. Charlton, an Emmy winner for Living Dolls, shares editing credit with Nick. Charlton also did some editing work on the second part of the series, Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am?

Here are two print reviews for the series:
New York Times
L.A. Times
A blog review from critic James Bawden

Be sure to either watch or record this and let people know about it. We never know when we will have to deal with this disease either within our families or within our own minds. Rather than giving money to corporate gamblers, we should be funding cures and care for humanitarian efforts and documentaries such as these.

The Alzheimer's Organization is at http://www.alz.org/

Patients and families affected by Alzheimer’s can visit Icara Study to see if they might be eligible to enroll. [Thanks to Tracy for this]

Our Evolution Blog, One To Visit

2009-05-08T15:18:00.000-07:00

I found a blog I like enough to post about it. Called "Our Evolution", the blog can be found at Our Evolution

Post shown is about 3rd world women having to carry
contaminated drinking water 3 miles on average.

It's about the survival of humanity and making survival a right for everyone on the planet. From Alexander M. Zoltai, here is his own description of himself:

"I'm a poet, essayist, journalist, and humanitarian. Everything I write comes from the desire to help, to heal, to educate.

Our Evolution blog is a process of bringing together Cultural Issues, Personal Commentary, and Spiritual Quotations to Explore the Crises of our time and provide a space encouraging Discussion, Reflection and Action."

Quote is from Alexander's profile here at Blog Catalog, the best blog directory:
Alexander M. Zoltai

This is definitely a ***** blog! That's five stars, not an expletive!

The Henry Miller Method of Diplomacy

2009-05-08T12:38:00.000-07:00

Henry Miller was one of the more misunderstood writers, often censored or banned simply because of the use of profanity. A funny comment he made was "sometimes you just have to blurt out 'Shit!', as nothing else is as appropriate." He used a stream of consciousness technique that let his mind flow from one idea to another with little cohesion other than that it perfectly illustrated how our minds work, while revealing his underlying philosophy, which was a love for humanity, abhorrance of war, strife, and materialism.

My favorite books of his were the trilogy called "The Rosy Crucifixion": Sexus, Plexus, and Nexus. In all of these he has many dinners with a diverse group of friends. He says that he purposely invited about eight people of diverse beliefs and backgrounds, believing their differences would make for interesting debates and conversation.

He says after one of these that "if the world leaders would only get together, have a three hour dinner and share many bottles of wine, they would all agree to disagree, but would emerge as friends after the evening, and all wars could be prevented." He also thinks that the average citizens of each nation never prefer war, but the leaders are able to thrust them into wars without their consent, or use the media to manipulate them into wars for political reasons.

Most of his writing was done after WW1 but before WW2, but I think, along with the Dadaist art movement, that they could all see the potential for another war looming, and were all concerned with its prevention through common sense and comraderie. Too bad we can't seem to make this work in practice, on a large scale.

Miller's best book critically was edited by friend Anais Nin, who took about 2000 pages of outtakes from the pair of Tropic books and created the wonderful short story collection called Black Spring. If Miller's work is new to you, I'd start with this book. The stories "The Tailor Shop", about his dad's shop in the garment district of New York, and "The Angel is My Watermark", about painting a watercolor, are two of the best stories I've ever read. I suppose many writers could benefit from a great editor, as this book illustrates.

Is the Universe a Giant Hologram?

2009-05-07T16:48:00.000-07:00

This is an interesting article at New Scientist.

Is our world a giant hologram?

Be sure to read all the 600+ comments. There's some heady and some funny stuff in there.
Our World May Be a Giant Hologram

ps- now don't tell me that the Washowski Brothers were actually right in The Matrix!

Photo of Saturn's Rings and Titan

2009-05-04T21:33:00.001-07:00

This photo is from the robot spaceship Cassini.
That's Titan in the background, and the little "golf ball" is the moon Epimetheus.

Kentucky Derby Day - Huge Exacta and Trifecta

2009-05-02T15:57:00.000-07:00

When I lived in California, we'd make each Derby day a group trip to the racetrack, since it followed my ex's birthday on May 1. I learned to bet a five horse exacta box (a "box", you get all your picks in separate bets) at $5 tickets for $100 even. This means that any two of my picks came in 1-2, then I'd win on one $5 ticket.

Not knowing horses and thinking all the "bloodlines" and racing forms to be ripoffs of the gullible, I relied on pure psychic intuition for the numbers, getting them just before the race. Today's were "16-8-4-2-1", and they came in "8-16-2"..

Not only would I have hit my exacta again, but had I bet it, the trifecta as well (many more tickets for that, so I avoided it). Todays winner, Mine That Bird, with jockey Calvin "The Rail" Borel, also a winner in 2007 aboard Street Sense, paid 50-1, the second longest shot to ever win.

The $2 exacta paid just over $2,000! My $5 winner would have paid just over 5,000. The $2 trifecta paid over $41,000! dang.. someone is happy - can you imagine: a $10 trifecta winner would have gotten over $200,000!

Update (5.04) - heard today on CNBC that six people won the "Superfecta" with $1 tickets that paid $276,000! yowie zowie..

I can't bet even on horses here in Georgia, nor can I buy alcohol on Sunday (I don't even drink, but still...) - due to "religious freedom", the ability of the majority religion to completely suppress the rights of the minorities.

Yep, that Bible of the imagination prohibits alcohol, gambling, drugs, consensual sex - all sorts of stuff if you just "read between the lines" (but it allows slavery and the raping of female slaves and genocide) - and listen to your country preacher, who "had the calling" so he didn't need theology school. I think when I need brain surgery, I'll take the guy with "the calling" over the one with education.

Woman Claims Her Dad Was the Zodiac Killer

2009-04-30T20:19:00.000-07:00

This is a going to be an intense story. A 42 year old woman named Deborah Perez claims that her father, Guy Hendrickson, was the Zodiac killer in northern California. She says she wrote one note to the police, and still has the cabbie victim's glasses that her dad kept as a souvenir.

Here's the USA Today version of today's story:
Woman's Dad the Zodiac Killer?

Now, everyone interested should see the 2007 movie Zodiac, excellent examination of both the police and a journalist's investigations into the serial killings.

Dogs for Easter TV?

2009-04-12T16:27:00.000-07:00

You simply have to love the tv programmers, who schedule these things. I just noticed that on Turner Classic Movies tonight, they have two versions of "King of Kings", followed by the Swedish comedy "My Life as a Dog"!

Actually, this is a brilliant comedy: a boy can only face his reality by believing he is the family dog. Yes, he hides under the dinner table and barks to beg for food. It's actually a better movie than either Kings film. A better choice for that would have been Pier Pasolini's "The Gospel According to St. Matthew", my favorite gospel film, the only realistic one.

What this comedy has to do with Easter is anyone's guess, but they are showing it after midnight on the east coast, so it's technically after Easter, but it will still be Sunday in at least two western time zones.

Maybe Jim from "Taxi" is making out the schedule, remember when he did that?

Life on Mars Ends... On Mars!

2009-04-04T18:17:00.000-07:00

The now cancelled tv series Life On Mars wasn't much.. unfortunately it was a replacement for one of three better shows that were cancelled by ABC:

Pushing Daisies (the best of the new shows, nominated for 12 Emmys, very creative and unique, a 'fairy story')

Dirty Sexy Money - not even a big and good cast could save this prime timer from being just another soapy yawner - too bad, I always like Peter Krause shows (Six Feet Under, Sports Night)

Eli Stone - which had some promise when it was hallucinatory for no reason, then they had to make it all "make sense" and when it was just a brain aneurism, this also became just another soapy legal show with nothing extra...

Life on Mars had great beginning, a police detective in the present is hit by a car, go unconscious and wakes up in 1973, with the title song by David Bowie setting the tone for what could have been an interesting time travel story. But instead it became just "another police show", just set in 1973 - big deal, so were all the bad cop shows back then as well.

So in the finale, they had to do something unique, rather than just have the hero, Sam, awaken from a coma. The solution? Have everyone in the cast awaken from deep sleep aboard a spaceship, which is now landing on Mars! Great finish - now why didn't someone think of this while the series was losing viewers? The entire story of two alternate realities were all programmed into Sam's dreams while in deep sleep space travel.

..and all the other characters were there as well: Gretchen Mol, the romantic interest, was there, only with long brown hair and not short blond hair. Didn't they get that backwards? Long hair in 73, the hippie era, then short blond hair for an astronaut, a military woman? The grouch Harvey Keitel was there as well, only not as his boss only, but also as his dad! Now that was unexpected..

At least this showed more imagination than the finale of ER, which was more of the same: boring.

Religions Need Auditing for National Security

2009-03-27T15:03:00.000-07:00

"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's"

We should definitely end the tax-free status of religions. We're paying for CULTS as well! Most waste the money on themselves anyway, some send the money overseas to terrorists. Without government auditing, which making them taxable would enable, we have no idea where the money is going.

This affects taxes you and I pay, we're being forced to subsidize religious contributions. Is this fair to everyone? Athiests? The growing number of 'spiritual but not religious' people? Religions like Buddhism or Taoism that don't ask for money, have no word for "tithing"? Why should all of them pay for donations to televangelists? Most would rather feed the poor than air-condition a big building that's empty 98% of the time.

This also hinders national security, the big buzz-word allowing big brother intrusions on all our rights. OK, the government is going to hamper individual rights, why not the self-proclaimed rights of religions - why are they immune to examination and responsible actions?

There actually was a televangelist 'church' raided by the feds recently, because they were trying to buy guns with silencers, granade launchers, all sorts of other nasty stuff, that is not for 'self-defense'. What they found was a minor army of weapons everywhere, cash everywhere (150 million in all, one secretary had 30,000 in her drawer!). They also found a list of proposed islands to buy, and more weapons they wanted to obtain. I hope everyone saw this, and realize that this is sometimes where you're hard-earned charitable contributions are really going.

Both the OLD and NEW testaments warned that churches are for hypocrites, even Jesus said the truly devout pray in private at home, not in public! (Matthew 6: 5-6)

I have this and more at Bible Decoded. This blog is aimed at cutting throught the materialist hypocrisy rampant in religion today and revealing the underlying metaphysical philosophy that I believe religions have forgotten and are hiding from the 'worshippers', who get no education, just a place to worship and sing.

My former Methodist church in Macon, Georgia now has a security guard in the huge parking lot, and a bullet-proof glass and a locked-door for their main office! you talk to the receptionist through a hole in the glass! UNREAL -- when I found out after my mom died, I decided to NEVER go back to this church again. They waste enough money to feed half of Georgia annually (they built a gym and a movie theater on the same site! what's next, a water park?), and brag about their huge income from annual tithes ("fourth in the nation" at one point). This is not a church, this is a banking fortress with armed guards. Any day I expect walls and a locked gate and the military compound will be complete.

What would Jesus think about this, done "in his name"?

Eulogy for Jessie

2009-03-21T02:11:00.001-07:00

___ Jessie [1994-2009] ___

The other four cats and I ("we") just lost Jessie, 15, a shiny jet black female who usually liked to keep to herself but who loved female visitors. She got sick about a two weeks ago with a cold and fever, and we cured that, but she was losing weight and energy.

So her treat was getting to go outside for hours each day, which perked her up. They haven’t been outside since moving back to Georgia from California in 2001, due to foxes, bobcats, roaming dogs. She had felt ok enough even today to go outside, she walks around out there, seems to enjoy it and never got bad enough to be falling down.

Tonight about 9:30 pm was the first time she acted like she didn't feel well - she kinda moaned at me, I held her and she got down after not too long, so that didn't feel good either... I almost called the vet to put her down then but figured it may take awhile for them to come if available anyway. So I did a healing and asked her to go ahead and leave so I wouldn’t have to take her to the vet, and she crawled back under the computer again, in the warm hole by the woofer (that's usually on so it's warm, it's the power for the whole computer speaker system)..

She seemed to be going to sleep or try, so I left her alone.. a little later I sorta sensed she was gone - but was afraid to look, afraid I might wake her and she'd be uncomfortable again. I lit a candle for her and tried to talk to her spirit and tell her how great she was, and how pretty, which was her favorite word; she knew it was a compliment. When I finally had the guts to touch her, her body was already turning cold.

For some reason I didn't let the other cats see her dead like I did with Scooter, who died at 18 on New Year’s Day, and was the “cathouse matriarch”, so I let all the other cats smell her and check out out when she was gone. Not this time. I went to the garage and got one of my rubbermaids with the snap lid, covered her with a towel and put her in that - when I carried her out, Sarah was following me and giving me such a look that I had to stop and tell her it was Jessie - she knew anyway, you should have seen the look I was getting.

Tabby, her littermate brother, the only other one to survive (we think a hawk or owl got the 3rd one when real small), followed me to the door and was waiting for me when I came back in and I had to try to tell him too - he's been sniffing her all week and looking at me like "what's wrong with Jessie?".. I’m sure they sense the aura of death, it’s likely easier for animals to pick up.

[Jessie when a kitty] At least I held her a lot when she'd let me and took her out every day for hours, she loved that, it’s been warm and sunny with lots of birds who would come squawk at her. The others would watch and were jealous and I had to tell them "Jessie doesn't feel good, she deserves a favor"..

In her prime, Jessie was the best dragonfly catcher I've ever seen, back in California. She'd see them coming and time her leaps and grab them about 4-5 feet off the ground. Then with the big wings sticking out for inches from her mouth, she didn't know what to do with them. She had the same wide-eyed look you see in the photo at the top. I'd gently pry them loose and let them go, they'd always fly off again, apparently unharmed from a mere carnivore's big teeth. Feral cats are actually the most efficient hunters in nature, successful around 75% of the time.

I buried her today next to Scooter. She liked to lie on my cool slate stepping stones in the garden, so I pulled one up and put that over her as a marker.

Epilogue
Tonight I'm burning an outdoor fire for Jessie. I think we do that because the flame represents their spirit, and somehow this makes us feel that its still there. But no matter how hard we try the flames will also eventually go out.

Are You a True Southerner?

2009-03-20T16:30:00.000-07:00

Things Only a True Southerner Knows
1. Only a true southerner knows the difference between a hissie fit and a conniption, and that you don’t “have” them, you pitch them.
2. Only a true southerner knows how many fish, collard greens, turnips, beans, etc, make up a “mess”.
3. Only a true southerner can point you in the direction of “yonder”.
4. Only a true southerner knows how long “directly” is – as in “I’m going to town, be back directly.”
5. Only a true southerner knows that the term “booger” can be a (a) resident of the nose (b) a description, as in “that ole booger, (c) a first name, or (d) something that jumps out at you in the dark and scares you into a conniption.

Things a Southerner Would Never Say
1. Aw, heck, I just couldn’t – she’s only sixteen.
2. I’ll take Shakespeare for $1000, Alex.
3. Duct tape won’t fix that.
4. Come to think of it, I think I’ll have a Heineken.
5. We don’t keep firearms in the house.
6. You can’t feed that to the dog.
7. No kids in the back of the pickup, it’s just not safe.
8. Did you mail that donation to Greenpeace?
9. Wrasslin’s fake.
10. Too many deer heads detract from the décor.
11. We don’t need another dog.
12. I’ll have grapefruit instead of biscuits and gravy.

[PS - I was raised in Macon, Ga , home of Little Richard, Otis Redding, and the Allman Brothers, and now live in Pine Mountain, Ga, home of SciFi author Michael Bishop, so I know these things!]

Famous People Who Never Married

2009-03-20T00:55:00.000-07:00

Susan B. Anthony – U.S. women’s rights leader
Jane Austen – British romantic author
Ludwig von Beethoven – German composer
James Buchanan – U.S. President
Frédéric Chopin – Polish composer
Emily Dickenson – U.S. poet (who wrote about love)
Elizabeth I – queen of England ("I'm married to my country")
J. Edgar Hoover – head of the U.S. FBI (rumored to be homosexual)
Henry James – English novelist
Joan of Arc – French heroine, burned at the stake by the Catholic Church, later sainted ('uh, sorry 'bout that fire!' They eventually 'apologized' to Galileo as well, 500 yrs later..)
Maria Montesorri – Italian physician and educator (children’s schools!)
Ralph Nader – U.S. consumer advocate, politician
Sir Isaac Newton – British physicist (also made the “virgin list”)
Florence Nightingale – English nurse, hospital reformer (whose name is an anagram for “Fetch an iron leg, Nigel” Now, that’s funny!)

[Apparently everyone after the letter 'N' that was famous got married!]

The 80-20 Rule

2009-03-19T16:14:00.000-07:00

Statisticians and scientists, using computers to sort quantitative data, have discovered that in nearly field of activity, such as the stock market or sexual activity, eighty percent of the action or movement is caused by only twenty percent of the participants.

It's actually a little worse in the stock market, they actually estimate that 90% of the trading is just the 10% that are really 'pros'. It's because these folks are using their own and other people's money as well (OPM). So this 10% controls ninety percent of the movement, blame them when prices rise or fall irrationally.

Extrapolating this to other endeavors, this also means:

Eighty percent of all divorce is just twenty percent of the people, so the divorced folks marry on average four times to make up for all the “single mate” folks.
In projects, eighty percent of the work is done in the first 20% of the time; the other 80% of the time is spent on the last 20%. This is called the law of diminishing returns. This rule also probably means that 80% of a project's work is being done by 20% of the group. (I think these people are called "workers", the others "management"!)
Eighty percent of the food is being eaten by twenty percent of the people. I’m sure you know a few of them - maybe you've eaten a bag of cookies or chips during one movie! Marlon Brando once ate two gallons of Haagen-Daas and they had to pump his stomach, he almost died.
Eighty percent of the beer is consumed by twenty percent of those drinking - mostly Germans, Aussies, and sports fans..
Eighty percent of the gasoline is being used by just 20% of you - hey, quit all that cruising! (well, we know it's all the truckers out there, some freeways report 50-1 truck traffic over autos in recent studies!)
Eighty percent of the babies are being born to twenty percent of the women; so eighty percent of the sex is being had by only 1/5 of the population – I need to meet some of these women! (actually, I have..)

PS - A manager is someone who comes to work early if you're late, and who leaves early if you stay late.

Obama Gives a Great Town Meeting

2009-03-18T20:56:00.001-07:00

“As President, I have to walk and chew gum at the same time.” - President Obama tonight at the town meeting in Orange County.

Obama gives a great town meeting! Obama started with a short talk, obviuosly winging it, getting into a rhythm and sounding like a cross between Dr. King and Jesse Jackson! He even once said "that be" instead of "that would be", as some street slang crept in - I love it.. we all know what he meant, and now he has street cred as well.

He's sounding a lot more like a real person now, he's even smiling and in a good mood. When he said "I'm hot, so I'm taking off my coat, you do the same", the crowd went nuts. Hey people, it’s not Elvis in Vegas, or Marvin Gaye in Atlanta!

He even had the kind of "amen" stuff going from the crowd as he was talking. At one point the crowd rose and chanted " O-BA-MA , O-BA-MA" and he laughed and stopped them. I was thinking "my god, he's not Hitler!"

Fun stuff though, a very loose and confident guy for a new President. When asked about running again in four years, he said "I'd rather be a good president for four years and take on the tough issues and problems than a mediocre one for eight years" -- obviously a poke at Dubya Bush.

He also held the meeting in Costa Mesa, Orange County – in Reagan and Nixon country! Good idea... as an announcer said "the most cheering for a democrat in Orange county in decades".

Good stuff and blog worthy! I like this guy and will support his efforts wherever I can. I feel that he has a heart, and that it's in the right place: here with the people.

"I'm not going to play the blame game. I'll take responsibility from now on, because I'm the President."

Top 10 Stock Trading Mistakes

2009-03-13T18:45:00.000-07:00

I've been aggressively trading the market since the advent of electronic trading in the 80's. I've made more than my share of mistakes and have witnessed these from amateur investors much too often, more so than good techniques. In today's market, you have to be flexible and move fast, or you won't be trading very long.

The most common 10 mistakes amateur investors make:

1. Buy and Hold - this simply does not work any more, even if you're going to hold a decade or longer. Some stocks have returned to 1930 levels recently, like Ford, GM, and GE.

2. Holding Losers Too Long - even pros have losing trades; the best attitude is that the 'first loss is the smallest' and to go ahead and take a loss when you're getting uncomfortable with it, say 5-10%. This can be done automatically with a stop loss order placed as soon as you buy a stock that will cause it to be sold if it falls a certain amount. Through experience I like a 5% stop, but 10% for some of the new ETFs.

3. Buying Too Many Stocks - most people hear that they need to diversify, then proceed to buy 10-25 stocks 'to be safe'. The best way to diversify is to buy an exchange traded fund (ETF) that represents a basket of stocks and you have instant diversification. I've found the best amount of stocks to own is 3-10, only a few in bear or difficult markets, and only 10 in raging bull markets. As long as some of these are ETFs, you're diversified.

4. Buying with Market Orders - learn how to use and buy with limit orders, or a top limit that you will pay for a stock. Otherwise, you may be the chump that bought at the high of the day just after the market opens when a market-maker takes advantage of your order. I've seen prices jump from 15 to 18 for one order, then come back down to 15 again!

5. Buying Stocks at the Open - the first half-hour to hour of market trading is the worst time in the day to buy stocks. Orders pile up overnight from people who trade after work, from Asians, then Europeans. So when the market is in a rally, these are usually buy orders and the market often opens higher, then dips after these initial orders are processed. It's best to buy after the first hour or during the lunch hour. It's said that 'amateurs trade the open, pros trade the close'.

6. Buying Hot Tips - rarely will you hear the proverbial 'hot tip' that turns into one. What you'll hear more often is unsubstantiated rumors, bogus stories, sometimes downright fraudulent attempts to move a stock. Always fully research these stocks before buying them, and get opinions from numerous sources. There have even been scams online where people faked valid news agency articles about a stock, causing rapid price movement and prison!

7. Buying Companies You Like - most people like Apple stock because they like iPods or iPhones, Disney because they like the movies, or Wal-Mart stock because they like cheap goods; all would have lost money for recent investors, some for a whole decade. Often by the time the public buys a stock, the easy money has been made by the pros and insiders, and the public is left 'holding the bag'. It's better to buy less-known companies that market pros like.

8. Buying Stocks That Analysts Like - this is also often bogus information you're hearing. Analysts quite often are simply 'talking their book', they want the public to buy a stock so they can sell out at higher prices. They may also want to drive a price down to buy in at lower prices - you can never really ascertain their motivation, so be skeptical.

9. Averaging Down if a Stock Falls - this is buying more of a stock as it falls, and 'averaging down your break even price per share'. Its awfully tempting if its a good company; the price will come back, won't it? So you double up and now have twice as much money at risk in a falling stock. After the stock falls 50-90% you have multiplied your original loss, and pros call this 'throwing good money after bad'. It's the equivalent of doubling up your bets in Vegas until you finally win! Average up, but never down, as a stock that falls 50% from 100 to 50 now has to go up 100% to get back to 'even'.

10. Buying Cheap Stocks - many think they can buy a penny stock that goes to a dollar and they make several thousand percent on this trade, which will pay for many losers. This is their confidence game, the lure of 'lottery winners', but it's a losers' game. Over a decade, 80% of all public stocks will go bankrupt, and guess where the majority are in price? Yep, under a dollar, which is where they have to fall before going to zero. Cheap does not often mean 'bargain' in the stock market.

There are probably hundreds of other valid tips available for both investors or traders, and I'll include more here. The important factor for all is preservation of capital, or you won't have anything to invest, so keep your losses minimal and you're on the way to stock market profits.

"Return of principal is more important than return on principal." - Will Rogers

How to Make Non-Blogger Templates Work

2009-03-07T16:36:00.000-08:00

We now have a blog that shows various templates: Template Demos

It’s very easy to change from a Google template to another and have everything work; simply go to “Customize”, and select “Choose New Template” and Blogger offers you “one of 30 professionally designed templates”, only what you really get is about 12 basic designs and 2-3 color variations on those. Take the Minima template, which has a white background: Minima Dark is the same with a black background, while Minima Blue is again the same but with a dark blue background. This hardly qualifies as three different templates since a blogger can change the background to one of basically 30 colors that each work, and has an infinite variety of text, header, and title font colors. Would be then say you can created a million templates from Minima? No, one template with customizable colors, that's all you have.

However, there are many well-designed and “more professional looking” templates out there, very tempting to the everyday blogger to import. Most of these are tested for blogger and work fine, but Google has made the importation of these a buggy and more tedious process than it used to be. There are simple steps to make these other templates work.

1. To change to a new template, you must first have the new one downloaded onto your local computer, and it will normally be in .XML format, but sometimes is simply in a TXT file.

2. Inside of Blogger, “Customize” your blog.

3. First backup the existing template: select “Edit HTML” and “Download Template”. Change the name to something you recognize, like “Temp-MyBlog-030509”, then save it. This takes a few seconds, the file will be small, usually 50-100k.

4. Then backup your posts. Select “Settings”, and under Basic, “Export Blog”. This exports the posts themselves. Again save the file as something you remember, like “Exp-MyBlog-030509”. You won't have to reload these, but it’s a good idea to back up your posts periodically anyway, especially when making major changes.

5. You need to copy each of your widgets HTML code, and unfortunately, copy and paste is the only option here, one at a time. Make sure you use a text editor like Notepad. I put them all in one file with labels for each and a seperator line, which makes it easy to copy them back into the new template in order, if desired.

6. Now you’re ready for the new template. Return to “Edit HTML”, and select “Browse” to find the new template on your computer. When you select it, hit “Ok”, then when back in Blogger, select “Upload”. The new template will be transferred to Blogger.

7. You will see a list of “widgets” that will be deleted, such as “html1” and “blog1”. If you proceed from here, you will likely get the infamous “Bk-#” error screen with an error code. You must first debug the new template.

8. Use “ctrl-F” to find, and search for “widget id”.

9. When you find one, edit the result you see by incrementing the number, as in “html1” should become “html2” and “text1” becomes “text2” and so on. Sometimes there may be two or more of each of these, change them all. Don’t miss changing “blog1” to “blog2”, this seems to always be present.

10. When you’ve edited them all (and be careful to NOT cycle through them twice), click “Save Template”. After the screen refreshes, you have a new list of “widgets” that will be deleted, but now it’s OK.

11. Click “Confirm and Save”. This should work without errors now, and you can either “Preview” or “View Blog” and see the results.

12. You can now copy your widgets back (one at a time) that were deleted during the importation process. Even if you have many, it should take less than an hour.

Since you’ve properly backed up the previous template, if there’s a problem with the new one or you don’t like it, you can change back to the original by using the “Upload” process again, and select the original template backup name. You will have to copy back the widgets again, but at least you won’t lose anything.

If you want to see some good alternate ones at working blogs:
National Rage uses ProBlogger
World's Best Books uses Brooklyn
1000 Great Films uses Cellar Heat (dark version)
Stem Cell Stock Informer uses Froggy

This blog is also using the Brooklyn template, see the footer for links to the creators, Our Blog Templates.

So, don’t be afraid to try a new interface and refresh your blog!

Right Wing Won't Leave Obama Alone

2009-03-03T21:33:00.000-08:00

I can't believe the right-wing media. Now they're blaming all the stock market drop since the inauguration on Obama, as if the financial situation just happened when he took office. ..and the whining about more taxes for the rich, give it up already - it's not enough extra to worry about in the light of everything else going on, or "no one cares about the tax problems of the wealthy anymore (if we ever did)."

First of all, any new remedies take time - he's been there, what, 45 days?

Second: the stock market and its prices are manipulated daily by collusion and hardly represents any kind of reality. It's the reality created by hedge and mutual fund managers and day traders. They think they can affect economic policy with daily market gyrations.

Third: we just gave these clowns a chance and look what happened. Unregulated capitalism = volunteered slavery. We may as well just send corporations our paychecks and let them volunteer how much taxes they'll allow the feds to have, they run things anyway - and once again: look at the result.

They wave the S word (socialism) like a new scarlet letter (see Hawthorne, you illiterates!) when the new bad one should be the C word. Something must be better than this, look at Denmark: 60% taxes, but then the feds provide everything expensive and even pay for social clubs, so 80% of the population are members, the same percentage that goes to church. Apparently 20% of the population are hermits (likely writers and artists) off alone somewhere. And they were found the be the "happiest country" after a 10 yr study. Need a heart transplant? It's free..

This certainly isn't Obama's creation, and the falling market isn't either; it had already been destroyed and will take a minor miracle to reverse at this point. The traders will stop whining, forget about 10% more taxes on what's basically free money anyway (well, you pay in stress) and realize there's more room on the upside at this point. It's just a manipulated numbers game anyway, not connected to any reality but its own.

See the real way the market works in the "Buying stocks doesn't drive the price up" post, based on a 10-yr study of the 1987 crash.

"Don't you be calling me the C word!"

How Low Can the Market Really Go?

2009-03-02T16:57:00.000-08:00

Here's a really good analysis at Business Insider using Robert Shiller's PE methods on the SP500, and a look at recent bubbles and troughs in the market:
How Low Can the Market Go?

We're now at 700 on the S&P as of today - Shiller projects the potential lows at 35% from here if it falls to the last low's peak (S&P 450 range), but down 55% if it falls to the last low's bottom (S&P 300 range).

Good site, good analysis.

Buying of Stocks Does Not Send the Price Up

2009-03-01T18:25:00.000-08:00

The Nightly Business Report on PBS commissioned a study on the 1987 crash that took ten years to complete. They determined that there was net buying of stocks during the more than 30% decline in the Dow and S&P500. Therefore, stocks fell by one-third while there was more buying than selling.

Most people think that 'for every buyer there's a seller', which is not true. There's a portion of every company's stock that is unowned, called the 'public float' - technically not owned by the company or any individuals. The market-makers (called 'specialists' on the New York Stock Exchange) can buy or sell from this float, from their own inventories (and therefore move the price up if they want to sell their own, down if they want to buy more), or can simply match a buy order with a sell order of the same price, called crossing the trade. Ironically, these crossed trades do not have to be included in the daily trading volume reports, it's up to the mm's discretion. So if a big fund wants to sell 10 million shares of GE, and someone else wants to buy them, the shares may get reported in the volume or not; I'm not sure the rationale behind this, seems like even a big transfer of 500 million shares should be reported to the public.

Volume issues aside, the NBR study proved that the price tail wags the volume dog, or they create trading volume by changing the prices a lot. They raise the price a lot, it will generate selling (greed wants the profit), they lower the price a lot, it will generate buying (bargain hunters see a temporary sale). So the mm's can get the public and many others to sell by lowering prices, those who want a bargain will now buy, and can continue buying as long as we're selling - they have more money than we do. Conversely, when they want to sell to us, what better way than raising prices, getting us to buy something rising in value, while they sell the shares they bought when everyone was selling. Remember, these are big, multi-billion dollar firms, and old adage is "Wall St can stay solvent longer than any of us", or they can ride out a downturn while collecting stock at cheap prices, and we can't; we'll sell out for a loss and wait until prices are rising again before buying.

This is how the market works. There are some good films that show you the harshness of the insiders, how little they care for the public:
Wall Street - based on the story of Ivan Boesky, a takeover artist
Boiler Room - the story of a brokerage that pushes worthless stock to unsuspecting public customers
Rogue Trader - the story of the Barclay's Bank trader who lost that firm billions, and bankrupted one of the biggest banks in the world

The important thing to remember is that even in a bull market, over 60% of all stocks still go down, and that statistics show that about 80% of all stocks (most are very small) will go bankrupt over 10 years. The S&P500, though representing most of the capital in the market, is only 500 of over 9000 publicly traded stocks, half of which are worth less than 100 million each.

The market insiders also use the averages to send a message to influence policy: if a President says something they don't like, down it goes; he announces a policy favorable to the market or big companies, it'll likely go up. This is hardly economic or politicaly reality, it's basically manipulation by those in collusion to invoke their own policies by manipulating our wealth.

Never risk money you can't afford to lose, be skeptical of all you hear, for the insiders are selling stock to us for a reason, else they would keep it all themselves.

Oswald Did Not Kill John Kennedy

2009-02-22T16:18:00.001-08:00

[Source: Plausible Denial by Mark Lane]

We all remember the day in 1963 and the scamful Warren Commission later with bogus evidence and suspicous witnesses (two of whom could barely see 10 feet but made ID's of Oswald in a distant window), but no one even noticed when the CIA admitted contracting the Mafia for the hit during an 80’s trial, “Howard Hunt vs. Liberty Magazine”. Liberty-owned Spy Magazine implicated Nixon "plumber" Howard Hunt in the assassination using photos of him in the crowd there; Hunt's own family suspected him and said he was not in Washington at all that week. They were goading Hunt into a libel suit so they could, as defendant, subpoena CIA witnesses.

Eight former CIA heads testified, including one George Bush, and the same one who signed for and collected the physical evidence for the CIA in Dallas later censored and funneled in part to the Warren Commission, who admitted “the CIA has a policy to take out tyrannical leaders worldwide, including here, and that we had decided that John Kennedy had become such a tyrant”. Robert Kennedy had laid off 90% of the CIA personnel, vowing to "crush the power of the secret intelligence community." The CIA, fearful of losing the cold war, decided if JFK went, so would Robert (the dog wags the tail), and contracted the Mafia for the job, who hired hitmen from Europe (see below) in case they were caught there would be no obvious connection to anyone in the U.S.

There were three shooters as everyone suspected, and none was Oswald; he was eating lunch during the entire incident, as many co-workers testified. It's unlikely he knew anything in advance, being just a former military 'grunt' and errand boy for the CIA, who uses lots of soldiers as paid operatives for small jobs, usually privates in case they disappear, no one of 'importance' is lost, and no one with any real info to give up either - good policy (One of these ops once told me that they also use priests and medical workers who are usually 'above suspicion' and allowed free access, hence their value for small operations, usually information recon and nothing dangerous).

The shooters were all from Marseilles, France, according to A&E's documentary "The Men Who Murdered JFK": one is now dead, another in prison, the third is unknown. The one in prison would testify if the third would also, be he remains anonymous and free.

Even more interesting to me is that Oliver Stone's film "JFK" came out after this trial, yet none of it was included in his film, as if that film was a diversionary cover-up of the real trial involving Hunt and the CIA. Did Stone perhaps put out disinformation for the CIA to help confuse the real information being released in the trial? The alternative is that he was that poorly informed about the very subject of his major film.

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2009-01-01T02:19:00.000-08:00

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