Congress And The Pig Party

Make no mistake. Both parties are charter members of the Pig Party, which entitles them to vote for their own salaries, benefits including health care insurance better than citizens can get, and retirement for life at a high rate of pay for any service at all in Congress.

Why did we ever think that Congress should set its own benefits? Why did we ever think that the Pig Party members should be allowed totally free access to the feeding trough without any limits or supervision?

It seems to me a simple enough proposition: All benefits, pay, retirement and the like, should be voted on by the entire populace during Presidential elections. We're paying these Pigs, and we should be the ones who decide how much they should be paid.

And the second thing that needs to be corrected IMMEDIATELY is to stop allowing unrelated "riders" and "amendments" to bills. This obviously allows Pig Party members to attach unacceptable bills to bills that are important and necessary, and hold important up bills indefinitely in order to arrange greater access to the Pig Trough.

And the third thing we need are (is?) term limits. Although I suspect if we made the above changes they would be willing to get out faster.

And the fourth thing we need is public and LIMITED funding for advertising, tv and the like for applicants for public office. National funding for presidential elections keeps the Presidency from being sold to the candidate with the greatest access to private funds. Local funding should help keep Congressional seats from being sold to the fattest Pig. But the funding has to be limited so that the richest Piggy candidate doesn't get any advantage.

I feel better now. Thanks for listening.

Another Presidential Magic Trick

It should be obvious that the President has relatively little to do with the tax structure and government expenditures/debts. Yet debts and taxes are talked about as if the President were responsible, when in fact, and by Consititutional law, the Congress is solely responsible for all these items. The President cannot make a new law. He can only act on the laws passed by Congress.

In many ways the President is a figurehead and a whipping boy, serving to take the blame for the sins of Congress. The media focuses on the election of the President as if it really mattered, when what the American people should be paying attention to are who we elect and re-elect to Congress. We are encouraged to focus on the Presidential election, just as the stage magician urges us to look at the wrong hand. This simple trick serves to keep us functionally almost impotent.

Instead of the Presidential election occupying our attention, we should be looking at the voting records of those who represent us in Congress. We should be looking at how they voted on the bank bail-out, and how they monitored the expenditure of the billions spent and where that money went. We should be looking at how they vote on tax structures, public health and welfare, Social Security. They should not be allowed to continue cheating the American voters and blaming it on the sacrificial lamb, the President.

I am in favor of voting them out.

Is there a universe in which supernatural events can occur?

I had a dream last night that clarified for me a “thought problem” I have been considering. First, the dream: I am in Heaven as The Official who must ask each person who has left the earth for an accounting of what they have done. I am calm, dispassionate, unmoveable by threat or promise. God appears in the chair beside me. I feel a mild surprise, but after all, He has now left the earth and no longer has a part in human affairs. Thus it falls to me to question Him.
He sits facing another direction, smoking a cigar, looking bored. I ask “Will You answer my questions?”

He replies “I am God. Who are you to ask Me?”

With no hesitation nor emotion I say “You made the Rules. Will You abide by them or not?”

The dream ends, but the question remains.

Now the “thought problem” I have been considering. In the multiverse, in which all the “constants” that can vary may vary, each universe will be different. If the degree of attraction between opposite charges varies, chemical combinations may or may not form, or form in unimaginable ways. If gravity varies, planets and stars may form in some but not others. Perhaps even the speed of light or the rate of the passage of time can be different.
Each universe unfolds as it must. But what is the “must”?

Within our universe there are some laws that cannot vary, as well as many that can. The constant of gravity may change, but the acceleration of matter in a gravity field will occur, even if the rate of acceleration differs. Even if time runs “backwards” in any given universe, within that frame causes precede events. Entropy occurs on whatever time scale we consider. With a change in the speed of light in a vacuum, the relationship between mass and energy may change. “Constants” may vary, but the laws describing the relationship between constants cannot.

It’s interesting to consider what may change from universe to universe, as well as what cannot change. One thing that must be invariant is that within each universe everything is bound by the laws of that universe. There cannot be a universe among all the infinite universes in which events occur that are outside the bounds of the laws of that universe. Thus the existence of “supernatural” events is simply not possible either in our universe nor in any other.

The question as to whether God has to follow his own rules remains unanswered.