PROOF THAT THEIR IS NO LONGER A FUNCTIOING REPUBLICAN PARTY

The Republican party is fill of displacements.  If you listen to their quarrels with everyone, it is usually a reflection of their own problems being spoken of as belonging to others.  CPAC is as much of a demonstration of their lack of leadership if you didn't convince yourself that was true when you watched their convention.

One of the most tasteless and tactless displays was Clint Eastwood at the convention speaking to the empty chair fantasy-filled by President Barack Obama.  Fortunately, no thanks to the Republicans who backed them, Todd Aiken and Richard Mourdoch were not chosen by the electorate.  Now we see very little being shown as talent for 2016.

We are being talked at by Donald Trump, who started to run for President but withdrew after he had succeeded in convincing many that the President was illegally in office because he wasn't born in the US (tho9ugh his official birth certificate was in full view on the Internet.)  Rick Santorum, a primary loser , as well as a loser in general for his rigid positions so out of touch with the populace.  Not re-elected Allen West should never be allowed to represent

CPAC sticks to a platform that, if the Republicans had learned anything for their Presidential loss, would have made them behave differently. For a group that claims to want government out of their lives, they certainly are sating their thirst for security, medical care and money  from it and their salaries and perks.

I can only keep repeating that each party must devise a checklists of knowledge that must be met by candidates before they are allowed to represent their party.  The house of representatives is currently being run as effectively as most Middle Schools whose population is immature, does not understand why they have to be there, and has not yet tuned into life's realities, remaining unwilling to follow or accept authority.  Wouldn't it be nice to have some 'normal' people in the party who will take over a leadership role to have the House work for the country and not the individuals in it who do nothing but spend all efforts trying to get re-elected.

I would rather pay a few dollars to the government for overseeing campaign contributions,   These funds should be balanced for all, given out only when the candidate has past criteria for the job.

SENATOR TED CRUZ: KEEPS UP TH WAR ON WOMEN

Ted Cruz is a graduate of the Harvard Law School but you really wouldn't know it by what he talk about with great arrogance.  His lies to not enhance the vie of Harvard Law School he puts forth.  Read more about him here.  Instead, he seems more the reason  for so many distasteful 'lawyer' jokes.  His arrogance in picking to lie and behave pompously in the Senate while Diane Feinstein was on the committee discussing gun control.  Hos poor information and manipulative argument would have lost him a debate in grade school.  Watch this exchange here.

It seems as though his promise to the 'powers' behind the Republican party of today have convinced him they will continue to support him (meaning they will keep the campaign coffers full) as long as he spits out their lies and malignant goals.  There are admirers who voted him in and his family may have warm feelings, but as a Senator for short a time, he has not made an impression that he understand what the Senate is supposed to be doing...or he is incompetent to figure out what is best for the country.  He may be a Texas 'Star' but he is not one in the Senate.  Let's hope before his term is up he will begin to better understand why he was voted into office.

Le us maintain hope for the future of our Democracy which is close to being terminally ill at the moment.

THEY HOPED FOR A POPE IS OVER...WE NON CATHOLICS CAN GET REAL NEWS AGAIN

If the Catholics of the world are happy, that's good.  They are running the church like a business.  There was a lot of talk about moving away from Europe and pleased that the new Pope Francis can speech Spanish.  Apparently Catholicism is growing rapidly in Africa, Asia and South America.

Rachel Donado, writing from the Vatican, said:  "The new pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio (pronounced Ber-GOAL-io), will be called Francis, the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. He is also the first non-European pope in more than 1,200 years and the first member of the Jesuit order to lead the church.

      In choosing Francis, 76, who had been the archbishop of Buenos Aires, the cardinals sent a powerful message that the future of the church lies in the global south, home to the bulk of the world’s Catholics. 

     It is a business, run like a business, and good business rests with convincing the customers that the product being purchased is something they need.  Since the interest in the United States has waned, the church moves to greener pastures..Africa, South America and Asia.

     Toe see the distribution of Catholics in the world, click here.  Note that North America is weighted heavily south of the border and Central America.

     Those of us who don't believe that buying and lighting a candle will save our soul when we are quite comfortable our soul doesn't need saving.  Now that the commercial is over; back to the news!

CHANGING COMPUTER PLATFORMS IS EXERCISE IN AGING

Every time I changed ISPs I had to change my email address, so I got my own domain, thought I would have less work with mail in the future.  Not to be so.  When I switched to an iMAC after my PC died, my mail server had to be connected to it and a new mail configuration created.  First, I appealed to a MAC user who was kind enough to find the tutorial for doing just that

The tutorial, frustratingly, told me to click on things that weren't where she said they would be.  A lovely lady's voice told me to go to File and click on Add Account.  There was no such action listed on file.  Then I noticed email page location and, voila, a new menu appeared with Add Account.  None of that happened quickly and nothing let me know that it was no my attempt but the server was not working properly.  One must understand that things happen on many levels in many places.  Is the problem at the source, your ISP receiving the mail first?  Next, if that is working it gets sent to your domain server.  Today a problem originated there but not until frustration drove a call to the server help line was that evident.

After working for a couple of hours, starting over and over again because the page is the wrong one right or somehow the page being worked on suddenly disappears.  Either Murphy was vacationing or Mercury in retrograde decided to make my life miserable because 'anything that could go wrong, did'.  Avery kind friend managed to get back my ability to send email, having been lost for several days, but, exhausted after a busy day, we decided to try again tomorrow when the full moon is over.

We live with information overload.  It would make life better if the information was based on reality and truth.  People say how quickly children learn things.  I'm convinced because they repeat what they learn quickly and really don't even know why something works, only that it does.  I can learn things but, if I don't use that which I have learned for a few weeks, I have to learn it all over again.  Writing everything down is useful if you remember where you put the note.  The alternative to learning is to be helpless and it is as unappealing as the alternative to life.

SCOTT BROWN IS THROUGH AND NOW A LOBBIST AND CONTRIBUTOR TO FOX CABLE NEWS

It does not make me at all unhappy to hear that Scott Brown will not run for office and apparently decided he is not meant for the work.  Instead, he will become a lobbyist which means, essentially, he will never be fit for running for office again.  His service as Senator for a term did not do the country any good but it was a wonderful free schooling while being paid a grand salary and perks to make more money for him, at our expense.

Do I sound jaundiced about his brief political career?  I guess I am. I am pleased that we will not be represented in our state by this by this egotistical, self-serving man.

Now there are a few more battles to watch.  I would like to see McConnell displaced.  He has single-handedly done more damage to the people of this country than almost anyone other the Boehner.

When will this country get back to sanity?  Whatever is the evil behind our do-nothing but obstruct Congress, we may never know but they are intelligent men and women who have made unintelligent decisions unless they can convince me in the logic of accepting office, pretending to be full of integrity, yet causing so much pain to so many. The other Republicans who want us to believe they are fiscally responsible are on a disconnect when it comes to spending money for their own pork projects and the wars they supported so needlessly.

DO GUN AND DRUG LAWS HELP?

When manufacturers stopped making machine guns for private citizen use, there have been no deaths written about by machine guns.  If the manufacturers of AKs can be limited to selling them only to the American Armed Services we may see fewer massacres by them.  There is no way people will stop killing others since the Bible even directs certain behaviors punishable by death.  The unfortunate part was the world was small then and lived by regional law    We can no longer do that since Moslems will go anywhere in the world to kill anyone who has insulted their God in their view.

Researchers find data, though limited, that supports that gun control lessens the number of deaths.  Read the article in the Christian Science Monitor.  Click here.  However, we can count on the NRA to ignore any findings.  The leaders seem to want the money from manufacturers more than protecting lives of innocent.

Most of the arguments in favor either banning some guns or lifting bans on drugs are 'slippery slope' arguments and are not accurate predictors of what might actually happen.  There are too many 'chicken little's' in our society.  As we learn more about marijuana use, we have less to go on about research demonstrating ill effects in moderate use.  The UN believes we are violating a treaty.  Perhaps the treaty should be rethought as it was made so many year ago.  We listened to the arguments about the evil of alcohol abuse.  People were correct  Many people do abuse it  They also illegally continued the manufacture and sale of it, making criminals wealthy, and solving no problem as it was readily available to those who abused it.  It also kept the country from tax revenue.  The country learned nothing from the of prohibition of alcohol era.

For those who seek to explain all behaviors in terms of good and evil, it is too narro a gauge for a reasonable result in addressing all the major factors.  I have never smoked cigarettes or marijuana but also have never made the assumption that what is good enough for me should be the rule for all!  For the argument by the UN against making marijuana legal, click here.

The government loses tax revenue and spends far more in attempt to control the uncontrollable.

WHEB NATURE PLAYS TRICKS

On September 12, 2012 I was given part of a Streptocarpus leaf  (click here for description) with instructions for propagation by using part of a leaf  to make a new plant.  I dutifully followed instructions and nothing seemed to happen week after week for more than three months.  Not being a paragon of patience I had to rely on trust that I was told it might take a long time (it was, after all, winter when things are not expected to grow rapidly) and the donor leaf looked quite healthy.  I kept it covered with a plastic bonnet and waited, and waited, and waited. NA

In February I noticed a slight change. It appeared some growth was turning the slight green into something looking like tiny leaves.  I continued to leave it under its plastic tent and watered it along with my other plants.  In the daytime I took it off the rack when the lights were turned off and put it on a windowsill to catch the daylight. 

By mid-February the donor leaf was looking hardy. Then my worst nightmare happened.  I had watered the plants on the rack and realized I couldn’t remember last seeing the Streptocarpus.  For one week I struggled, looking everywhere I might have (knowing I hadn’t) moved the tiny plant.  With s glorious ‘aha!’ moment, I looked more closely at a little plant that turned into a miniature bush and wondered what it was.  If I had the sense to look at the obscured label I would have had my answer but easy solutions rarely come to me.  The leaves, though small, had a definite Streptocarpus look…about an elongated inch and a half and with a slightly hairy matte appearance.

Enraptured with my find, I grabbed a small Oyama, planted and marked the date, labeling the pot.

Moral: an old dog CAN learn new tricks!