Seven Spanish Angels

There were seven Spanish Angels
Jumping o’re the fence
They were coming for the food stamps
And welfare to be spent

But Texas went republic
There was thunder from the throne
And seven Spanish Angels
Took their hungry asses home!

You know, I hate to admit it, but every time I see the Muslims tear up Germany, or France, or England I laugh my Texas butt off. That politically incorrect enough for you? That's ok. It's my trade mark. We, in Texas fully understand wetbacks, and folks, that's all these so-called “refugees” are, wetbacks. The liberal persuasion has made its bones subscribing to the spin that a wetback is not a wetback, but a recently showered American to be. When Donald Trump launched his campaign he brought these people up, citing their tendency to be, shall we say, less than country club material, and it was ON! By the time they were done you'd have thought Ben Carson was jumping that fence.

As I have so aptly pointed out previous, back in the day Pablo coming over, picking a few oranges, getting a few dollars, and running back to Mexico was no big deal. There are three cultures down there. Texan, Mexican, and Tex-Mex. This is reflected in the food.  Even though it was basically wrong, it was tolerated because we all like cheap oranges at HEB. That, and if you get lucky you get to meet their seester, she virgin. Then, wetbackery became a political movement. Hey, we got a wetback in the White House, go figure. Then, combine that with the cartels. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Mexicans sell dope. You should've seen what they were selling back when I was in high school, but I digress. Well, in the final analysis, in the words of Old Willie, “The best I can tell the world’s gone to hell, and we’re all gonna miss it a lot.”

Of all the issues raised during this election cycle, I do not understand how Hillary can challenge this with a straight face, but she DID clean up the Oval Office after Bill’s date with Monica. The very idea of a candidate challenging the sovereignty of our nation is beyond fathomable. Her acceptance by any segment of the population shows a gross ignorance of what made this country what is, and what will make the Republic of Texas into what the DIS-United States once was.

One doesn't have to build a wall. All that has to be done is make it dangerous and costly to blatantly ignore the sovereignty of the nation . . . Oh, to hell with that, TEXAS! A chalk line would do if we just enforced the laws already on the books. That would slow or stop a lot of this nonsense, and stem the tide of “immigrants” yearning for their daily bread currently causing a traffic jam down on the Rio Bravo. All but the “seester, I kinda like her.

The Lesser of Two Evils

You're in the confession, and as the confessor to a large parish you often hear the confessions of those whose voice you cannot recognize. “Forgive me father for I have sinned” “How long since your last confession?” “Four years father”. “That is a long time. What was your sin?” “I was forced to blind a little boy.” “ What do you mean you were forced?” “He was witness to a crime committed by my employer and landlord father and it was either kill the boy or blind him to eliminate the possibility of his bearing witness.” “Don't worry too much then my son, Jesus forgives when one must commit to an evil, and it is the faithful servant which commits to the lesser of two.”.

Sound about right? Every four years for most of my life,  people have gone to the polls and committed the lesser of two sins. Like true suckers they do it over and over and over again, each time expecting the best, not the worst, this despite the fact that it is always the worst that results. When you voted for Bush instead of Gore did it help? I’m not saying Gore would have been better, but he could hardly have been worse.

When Jesus encountered the woman at the well he taught all and sundry a lesson about sin; He explained through his invitation to cast the first stone that all sin is... You know, sin. He did not say “Go forth and choose the smaller of proffered sins”, He said “Sin no more”!

Look, I get it that many of you are frustrated beyond telling that your candidates talk long and tough about abortion while giving not a jot or tittle while in office. Democrats have waited outside the locked door impatiently for greater economic freedom for the same time. In both cases the voting public gets punked! I know, it's the whole checks and balances thing right? Wrong! During the Bush administration the Republicans had all three branches of government!!! Instead of an end to the practice of abortion we got two wars and the greatest theft of public moneys since Marc Antony robbed the temple of Jupiter. Then, how about that Obama? He promised explicitly the restoration of restrictions on banking, a cessation of the war on unions, and a lessening of our meddling in the political affairs of other countries. He even punked the Nobel peace committee!!! It seems pretty clear to me that while Romney may not have done any better, he couldn't have done any worse.

Which brings us to the 2016 election, Frankenstein vs Dracula. Or, as I like to refer to it Madame Wannabe vs Little Adolf. Sorry if that offends anyone, but the whole affair offends me beyond description. I'd like to mention a moment in my personal life briefly. My children have approached me individually for advice about the upcoming election. My kids. Attaining maturity and replacing oneself appears to be the only reason we are here when looked at logically. Since replacement implies complete replacement inclusive of training and function checks, I have been happy to hang around making certain that I have not offered the creator an incomplete or lesser version of what I was fortunate enough to be able to make of what was given to me. I have begun of late to believe that my job has been finished, and I may be able to move on to what lies ahead with a clear sense of duty, when to my dismay I heard this: My response to their questions about what seems to many to be a dilemma was the usual. “Hey Dad, what can you tell me about the candidates that would help me choose one?”. I have assiduously concealed my political inclinations from my kids so that they might be free to make their own identities. Me: “What can you tell me? It's a pretty confusing situation.”. Them: “Well, I really don't know, I think I will have to vote for the lesser of the two evils.”. Me: No response due to constricting fear and shame.

Folks, there is no lesser of two evils here. I’m getting drunk on Election Day so that I can at least say I did something constructive with a straight face. Still, for those of you who plan to slink down to the polls and vote for whichever of the two fools you think may be the lesser of two evils, I say the following: You HAVE the government that you deserve already, and for God’s sake dont forget,Ten Our Fathers and Ten Hail Marys!

The Rise of the Algorithm Part 2

The Rise Of The Algorithm Part Two

Advisory: The following article information and logical analysis that may be of little interest or no use to children.


Ok, children go out and play, the grown ups want to talk. As implied by the title I want to talk algorithms, but first, having established a beachhead with the first part of this article I'd like to plant a flag.   This is  my country Jack! I recited the pledge of allegiance at least five thousand times in my life and meant every word. I taught it to my kids, and they taught it to theirs. I worked on community projects, was a Boy Scout, trick or treated for U Thant, volunteered in every community I ever lived in and tithed to every churched I ever belonged to. My country, and I'll be damned if a jumped up ambulance chaser from Arkansas or a home grown Hitler are going to take it from me. It is my hope that through a better understanding of the forces of nature people will come together and WORK to take back what has been stolen. To that end I'd like to look at one of those forces, the algorithm.

Many people either do not know what an algorithm is, or have only a fuzzy notion of the word’s meaning. Most will have no idea what role the algorithm plays in everyday life or the future of our world. No shame in that whatsoever. I shall provide a brief explanation here, and as always I encourage you to open google, make use of their algorithm and start digging.

The dictionary describes an algorithm as a specific set of rules or directions which are to be followed using various statistical data and mathematical equations. In other words in a broad sense an algorithm is a bit like a recipe; but as I said, this is a very bare description and hardly where your understanding should stop.

Let us take a look at the origins of the algorithm. Our history credits an ancient mathematician and philosopher with the first use, and therefore discovery of the algorithm in his search for a reliable method for identifying the greatest common divisor of two numbers by using. a successive set of subtractions using two arbitrary locations in the numbers set (say, A and B) and simply going through the set allowing each b that is greater than a to replace a; once b equals zero, a is reliably the greatest common divisor. Without that, we don't have access to the kinds of shortcuts needed to perform geometric or algebraic equations, and we would still be living in the Bronze Age.If you don't understand it that's ok, I didn't at first, but in time I realized that, like all basic math formulas it represents the basis for logic.

So what's the big deal? Some old dude in history (way, way, way back stuff) invents some boring blah blah blah thing, why should I care? Well that my friend is what the keepers of such.things are counting on you to ask. It's the reason our language is chockablock with phrases like, “it is what it is”, or if it ain't broke don't fix it” or my personal favorite, “keep it simple stupid” (note that simple and stupid are words often used to describe the same person). The fact is, algorithms, while most often associated with computer science (yawn) have been used for centuries and by every science. So what's this “rise” of the algorithm? Simply put, algorithms used to be employed by government agencies NGO’s and all around smart people to create space travel, manage large populations, divert hunger, just about everything needed to make it possible for each successive generation to succeed as well or better than the last. In recent years though the use of algorithmic has been hijacked by means of patents and in large part the transformation of a nation’s educational system from that of number one in the world to one of its least adequate. Instead of developing formulas for insurance companies to determine what the cost of coverage should be, the formulas are now used to determine how to evade payment of benefits, and how best to invest the profits. Those algorithms found that investing that money,  our money, in the countries of our enemies, or rather our frenemies. I heard that in doing so we would make them more like us. Yeah, like Iraq will someday thank us for the war.

Look, I could write s book about it, but I'll settle for this: Algorithms have unlimited potential for our achievement as a species, but only in the hands of leadership that is the most responsive, and responsible to me, that's always been the U.S.. Us, in other words. Or the same. Or whatever. Anyway, we haven't done well in the way of demonstrating that in some time. I give you yet again the 2016 election for president. Two of the most despised people in the country, and they are the only ones who could win. The lesser of two evils? Come on. In the third and last segment of this piece, The Ascension of the Actuary we will shed some light on who, why and how these powerful little formulas have been used to steal not just our children's futures, but ours as well.

Doctor Visit

Doctor Visit
     Twice a year, if I'm sick or not, I have to get a check up. And, this is all well and good. Medical science has progressed, I guess. Usually the waiting room is full, today it was only me, which means that everybody got well, or shit ain't working out for the majority. The wait was the same.

     I hate it when they take my blood pressure. First off I'd like to let you know, doctors, nurses, even VETS scare the piss out of me. My pressure could be perfect, and the minute I'm in a clinic, BAM! There is no doctor now. We have a nurse who runs the show. A young nurse in a short skirt, hormones, who runs the show . That didn't do me any good either. One part of me was scared to death and the other part...well, you know.

     So she takes my blood pressure, bending over to check my pulse, and I entertained her with a 190/90.

     "Uh, you're 190/90."

     "Are you sure about that?"

     "Machine says 190/90."

     "Machine's wrong. Should say 140/70."

     Hard look from the nurse lady.

     Then she pawed all over my back with a stethoscope, which made me glad the blood pressure thing was over. The first time I went to this clinic the doctor came in and announced to me that I had COPD before she even asked my name. Month later my lab came in and she reversed that. I wanted to let her know that I have performed oral sex on my 19 year old girlfriend for over an hour and didn't lose my breath. (She lost hers.)

     One reason I don't like to go to a doctor is once you're over 50 they always want to stick their finger up your ass. I know it's all preventive medicine, and all that crap, but I've just got this thing about some guy's finger up my ass. Made the doctor promise we wouldn't go there but lo and behold, he wanted to stick his finger up my ass! We negotiated. Now, if the nurse with the short skirt had wanted to stick her finger up my ass it might have been a different story.

     "Well, it seems your prostate is fine."

     "Yes, and you've cured my ED, too!"

     The key to good health is happiness. The best health condition you can have is Don't give a shit itus. The way I see it, if I make it another ten years I'll be 73, and if I croak, by then everybody will say, "Well, it's about time!"

Don't Drink Blended Whiskey

My mom died thirty years ago today. Forget all that Dr. Phil crap, I got over it, ok, but I do reflect. Of everything she ever said to me, one thing stands out in my memory. Don't ever drink blended whiskey. In her very old age we went to the Venus Bar and grill, and she ordered drinks for both of us. I asked for coke in  mine, and with a stern look she told me not to act like a queer, and never drink blended whiskey. I've been a Jim Beam man ever since, though I do an occasional martini, stirred, with the vermouth drained before introducing the gin.

There were many things in 1950’s Louisiana that were different from now. Tea, for one. I didn't see a glass of iced tea before coming to Texas when I was around ten or so. In Ma Maw’s Annabellum world tea was “steeped” in a porcelain pot over about an hour. Tea LEAVES, not that bag thing. Then it was strained through a tea strainer, and four ounces poured into this little cup that you'd better not break if you valued your life. It TASTED like tea! It tasted like FLOWERS! Yes, children drank it, and no, it didn't bother anyone.

Orange juice was about the same. There was this glass gadget that looked like a bowel with a knob sticking up in the middle. You'd cut an orange in two, that's TWO, not halves, and press each part down on the knobby thing yielding about one or two sips of orange juice. It was so stout that it would make your teeth “gritty.” Ma Maw also squeezed great fruit, but that never crossed my lips.i never drank buttermilk either, and for the life of me I don't see why anyone would.

Eggs were a treat. My mom and grandmother would use this iron skillet designed for cooking cornbread. It had preformed slices so when you cooked an egg in it the result was a pie slice shaped egg. Dad just scrambled his. Dad was good at cooking chicken. Chicken took forEVER! People gripe about the line at KFC, try two hours. We gave the wings to the dogs because only white trash ate wings. You had to watch dad because he was prone to eating frogs. At the tender age of five I watched him and my uncle eating frog legs while the heads were on the sink blinking at them. Now folks, that's a whole new level of screwed right there. Make a Taliban puke.

My uncle Charlie made ice cream one night. Peach, I still remember it. We never had real ice cream, only something called “melorine,” which was a mixture of lard and a little vanilla, I Crappith Thee NOT, and not having an ice cream scoop, they'd slice it, box and all, and slam it down on a plate. Hey, these people ate FROGS, ok? Anyway, Uncle Charlie cut up, and mixed peaches in it. Real ice cream takes a while, people. First, you churn it. Motorized ice cream maker? Never heard of it. Man power. Beer, churn, whiskey, churn, cigarette, churn. After enough time for Jesus to come back the first part of the ice cream would emerge. Ok, now this stuff never came out of Baskin Robbins. It looked like someone vomited buttermilk with peaches in it, and us kids were foaming at the mouth to dig in. Not yet, and here’s the good part, they put it into a large, square pan, wrapped in newspaper, stuffed it in the freezer, and drank beer for an hour. Now, you're not going to believe this. BLUE BELL! For you Yankee folk out there who don't know what Blue Bell is, I'm not gonna tell you. My God! You've stolen everything else. Anyway, it has been sixty years, and I can still taste that ice cream.

Cokes came in six ounce GLASS bottles, matches struck anywhere, candy bars were a nickel just like the movies. This was my mother’s world. A hamburger at Smith and Malloy’s drug store was fifteen cents, but I never owned one because kids weren't allowed to have fifteen cents. We spent summertime praying for September because in Louisiana that's when you can breathe again. TV was black and white, but so was the society.

I can't really say that scarred me for life. As I drive by Boot Hill in Killeen I wonder what all those old timers would think of us now. Then it hits me. With one foot in the grave, and the other slipping on a banana peel, I am an old timer, so I reach deep into my heart, with over forty years of composition under my belt, and the only thing I can leave the Millenniums  is, “Don't drink blended whiskey.”

What Amazes Me

Do you know what amazes me? What amazes me is people expecting the American government to do anything straight up. All those people in front of the Supreme Court this morning expecting the judges to stand up for American ideals, God, mom and apple pie. After they struck down everything that people traditionally believed in here come the news casters citing polls that most Americans agreed with the concepts put forth. Know what? That ruling didn’t change a thing. Sure, all the gay people can flock down and get married and get a tax credit now. Matter of fact it’s actually funny. They can file married now and give the government LESS money than they did last year.

                Let me ask you a simple question. When Rosa Parks got the right to ride on the front of the bus, did she stop being black? You Christians are wringing your hands out there about gay marriage and Obama just sold out to China. Ya’ll didn’t notice that did you? Them Chinese fellers taking your land away from you is going to upset your day a hell of a lot more than a couple of guys exchanging vows down at a JP’s office. When you can’t buy a gun because you saw a doctor ten years ago when your mother died you’ll forget all ABOUT those two guys on a park bench feeding the pigeons.  When they come and take your paid for house because you didn’t pay tribute two girls kissing won’t mean much. And what was the main topic of discussion this week, while the congress raped and pillaged? A flag that General Lee surrendered one hundred and fifty years ago!

                Something was pointed out to me yesterday by Chip Darby. Remember the Lincoln conspiracy? Well, those guys had a plan. What would have happened if they’d gotten Lincoln, Johnson, and the speaker of the house? The CONGRESS would have to run the country. The same congress Lincoln had been dancing around for four years! Think Obama’s bad? Lincoln wouldn’t have known the constitution if it ran up and peed on his leg! The great emancipator. Give me a break! Yeah, he freed the slaves, and planned to send them all to South America! He didn’t need no stinking slaves, he just stole the whole south!

                If your God doesn’t approve of gay marriage he STILL won’t approve tomorrow morning. And you gays, just as stupid as the rest. You’re dancing in the street because you just got the right to PAY the government to get married! Marriage license? With every other license I ever got I had to at least take a test. All I had to do to get a marriage license was pay twenty five dollars and find some girl stupid enough to say, “I do.” If it were a real license it would have had to be renewed. Boy! Could have used THAT a time or two in my life. Think this can of worms is empty? Ever hear the word, “Polygamy?” Heck, how about “Polygamous Gay Marriage.”

                Americans amaze me. Some kid shoots up a black church and they’re debating all week about if he was racist or not. Then they turn on some flag the Dukes of Hazzard had, and tried to blame that, then they all crowd down at the courthouse cheering because two dudes can now hook up. Meanwhile the Chinese take their land, the IRS takes their money, Obama takes their guns, but they get to fornicate. Gee, wasn’t that pretty much what the masters did in the old south. Who’s the slave now? You Americans lost your country a long time ago. That’s what we Texans have been trying to tell you, but you’re too busy making fun of our accents to listen. You go over to the Middle East, stir up the Arabs, LEAVE, and then stand back in snake amazement when something like ISIS comes slithering out from under a rock. But you believe we have to go there because they have oil. WE have oil right here. The MEXICANS have oil, they just don’t work at selling it because they make too much money selling you dope!

                There’s nothing new under the sun. There was this emperor in Rome. He was not a bad one, not a good one, just kind of a Jimmy Carter kind of emperor. They were just about to assassinate him (that’s how emperors retired back in them days) and he came up with a plan. He told them he was gonna build the gosh darnest football stadium they’d ever seen and everybody was gonna get to party their butts off for a hundred days. Now, even by Hollywood standards that’s quite a shindig. To top it all off he was gonna throw pizza into the stands and more wine than they could imagine, and the Romans could imagine a lot! Died in his own bed. Think things are different? Do you think the human condition has evolved? Do you really believe mankind has risen that far above Cheeta? How’s that Obama Phone working out for you?

 

Simple Ol' Boy From Austin

http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Boy-Austin-Wilbur-Witt/dp/1503179540/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422121598&sr=8-1&keywords=Wilbur+Witt

http://www.thedamgoodtimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=19&Itemid=261

The Rise of the Algorithm

Folks, it's frustrating to us that no one simple explanation exists to explain an adverse condition that affects all but a very few. It becomes worse when we can't even discuss these causes with like minded people, indeed,, right down to family members, because our language, once developed by visionary leaders, has been dismantled by a few people who are smarter than the rest of us (I'm going to call this small bunch linguists) and then disseminated by the smarmiest class of citizens outside politicians; I refer of course, to media figures, particularly those poor wretches in radio and television. I give you the example of that icon of pathos “frenemy”.

Formulated by that tortured soul Frank Luntz, and then launched in a news release by then senator Hillary Clinton, it was a term that was supposed to soothe the troubled waters around our involvement with Pakistan, and draw our attention away from the gigantic boondoggle that our involvement with them represented. Friends and enemies, there just ain't no such thing. The words describe polar opposites: it's like, I don't know, addraction. You know addition and subtraction combined to explain your cable bill.

Further complicating this is the stunning lack of interest that Americans have in learning anything outside whatever range of interests that they have developed early on. This is no personal shame. The whole idea of knowing lots about say orthodontics (if that is your chosen field), and only enough about say, math to operate the parts of your office you don't pay your accountant to handle was somehow successfully promoted by William Bennett during his term as secretary of education. Bennett's idea was that teaching civics (and a slew of other subjects) was a waste of taxpayer money and school children’s time. By the way, just how is that working for you?

One last moving part of this strategy to divide and conquer (after all, the cabal of political villains that created this aren't God, therefore they couldn't do the whole Tower of Babel thing) was the little known telecommunications act of 1996. Folks, no amount of writing here can communicate just how emblematic of the Clinton years this piece of crap is. Just google up “the fallout from the telecommunications act of 1996” and read it yourselves. If you're not under a doctor's care for stroke or the like that is. The almost hidden provision that we’re concerned with here though is the one designating “the news” and “the weather” as entertainment thereby removing all public funding from your sources of vital news. Kind of like up in Flint when the government outsourced the provision of drinking water to the population there. See, water was designated a “commodity” a few years earlier, and private corporations aren't burdened by all those pesky regulations that governmental agencies are. So...your news is just as polluted as the drinking water in Flint,  see? No? Now, who doesn't know that people will only do what they are made to do? Sorry Rush, but people need laws and enforcement to do the right thing' to ensure that things we like remain stable (hint to conservatives). Us folks over 50 know this. We don't remember the terrible wars between labor and the tycoons, but our parents did, and they damn sure made certain to forewarn us too. Mexican, Black or White, our generation was raised with the idea that public service, the act of ploughing and planting for the next generations superseded our own concerns was cultural in nature. If you were a greedy sociopath who gave not one fig for the future of our great country you damn sure kept it to yourself, or you and your efforts would develop a populist resistance of considerable force.

To summarize: We live in a Lewis Carroll­like nightmare (if you are a person who helped make this country great) I will certainly grant you that the preponderance of people in this country, most of whom are under the age of 50 and don't know nor care to know how it became what it is, and many, many of them are our own progeny. These new inhabitants cannot possibly know anything but what they want, because either they came from a country whose rich heritages and traditions don't contain ideas like those (principally due to the historical failures there to succeed at winning a free society for themselves) or, in the case of our kids, the education system and the churches were gutted of programs and traditions of teaching them these things. This robbed them of yet another thing. Pride. Self respect that come from being a carpenter rather than someone who is good at dismantling or destroying.I know the title of this piece pretty much promises a discussion of the preeminence of algorithms, and I wanted to talk about actuaries too, but I guess I'll have to do two more. I promise I'll do them real soon.