the tall trees...

God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.- John Muir

tall #1...the first cut is the deepest
I need to praise Matt Bloise of the News-Press.. his front page story about the East Valley eucalyptus trees was good...however, it's a little late and he needs to explore the connection with the Montecito Fire District Chief Kevin Wallace and why, out of the blue, Wallace recommended these trees be cut down..did he get a little sugar from the homeowners?? and what is the Montecito Journal's connection? The ultra conservative editor James Buckley wants to remove these trees..his excuse is the danger posed by the giant eucs... it's true a few have been removed over the years but now there's a frenzy among a few homeowners to cut them down...the News-Press reports that the property owners did it to improve their mountain views...they used the old myths about eucalyptus being fire hazards, safety hazards, non native and a bunch of other bullshit reasons which have been debunked by scientists...the city needs a Heritage Tree Ordinance that protects these eucalyptus trees....and we need to be careful when Caltrans says they want to help..just look at the Highway 101 corridor and all the trees they've cut down with my tax money for non-native reasons! Caltrans does not like trees!!
　
tall #2..Meg's bad boy Tony....
State Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks, has agreed to pay a $3,000 fine for violating state law in 2008 by sending out a mass mailing that did not disclose it came from his campaign.
vcstar

　
tall #3.. Ambots..the Christian cult of free enterprise
I get the feeling that I'm being followed by big goofy hillbillies who are trying to sell me Amway Products...in reality, it's the Republican candidates that are giving me the heebeejeebees.. I swear to God this is true...these guys are like robots, nothing in their eyes except SELL SELL SELL...you know the story of Amway..the pyramid scheme from Christians to sell products via multi-level marketing..tall tales of riches if you just follow their plan: Former Amway insider, Eric Scheibeler, has written a must read new book called "Merchants of Deception." This one time member of the Amway motivational cult has turned whistleblower and FBI witness and boy does he have some tales to tell.
In the book, Scheibeler exposes an Enron sized fraud with the Amway and Quixtar scam raking In billions of dollars annually, and the billionaire founding families being the largest soft money contributors to the GOP, with funds that have been generated from what may turn out to be one of the largest consumer fraud scandals in history, perpetrated by the world's largest multi-level marketing company (MLM).
Merchants of Deception exposes the company's deceptive marketing of phony business opportunities and other secret scams by Amway's top promoters to sell so-called success tools to unsuspecting recruits all over the world. It also contains first hand accounts of the Kingpin's fraudulent recruitment practices that have led to an endless stream of lawsuits.
sounds like all the GOP folks running against Lois Capps!!

strange brew....

Tea Party protest rally turns into a big dud...

I heard that the Teabaggers were descending on Santa Barbara like a plague of locusts to protest against Obama's healthcare for Americans..they will march from De La Guerra Plaza and end up at the Courthouse..so I'm told. Ok, I'll check it out, give up a few hours on a beautiful Saturday afternoon...so I go into Paradise Found and get some hippie incense and smudge sticks, then I go to the library and get a brand new library card for a buck and check out a book called "the Life of William James"..it might help me understand the Teabaggers better beecuz he's a modernist philosopher....so I go sit in front of the County Engineering Blgd with a couple of lizards to keep me company..I wait..and wait... hey, there's a few old broads with kill the bill signs who obviously haven't had a good fuck ever..this is a fact..the Tea Party movement is 55% women who haven't been properly fucked ever in their lives and now it's too late: they are fat and dumpy looking..wow..that is a sad stat!
...it's still Saturday and 3:10 pm and there's more American Flags out front than people..gee all you need is one..the one that flies high above the Courthouse....show some respect! Hey! there's a teabagger driving a beat up old Toyota! TRAITOR!!!
so I wait some more..I see Chris Mitchum, idiot son of the great actor Robert Mitchum...Cape Fear and Heaven Knows Mr. Allison were two good ones...so it's 3:30pm and only about 15 people are there so I left...I head to the beach and that's where everyone is..the essence of southern California living is hanging out at the beach on a warm Saturday afternoon...and the Tea Party decides to hold a protest rally!! get a clue!! I did make a friend with a cute little dog who was owned by a nice Mexican lady..they had nothing to do with tea!
the event at the Courthouse was supposed to start at 3:00 pm according to the sponsor, the Tea Party and Culpepper Society...I'm tellin' ya I don't know where these people have been hiding but it is getting weirder in that trailer park!!
eat me Ann....
so then we got Ann Coulter poster girl for Republicanas with eating disorders on the front page of the News-Press. Annie gave a talk at, where else, Wendy McCuckoo's Reagan Ranch Center..Ann spends most of her time trying to shock people with offensive terms that were used years ago by George Carlin and Lenny Bruce..this is obviously new territory for neocons..it makes them feel less dorky, I think... as for Ann, I wouldn't go near that dried out pussy without a fire hose!!
Jesus Loves Clark!
then we got Clark Vandeventer shlepping and praising Jesus at the Yacht Club trying to get more money from old white and dead people..this guy makes a living keeping Reagan alive! Follow the money and we see that Ann Coulter wouldn't have a career doing nothing without Rupert Murdoch's help and Clark wouldn't have a career without help from his pastor daddy and rich conservatives...
Crosby Stills and Palin??
Sarah Palin and friends will descend on Vegas to protest Harry Reid..Sarah dubbs this event a "conservative Woodstock"...well, ok..Harry's kind of a dweeb so who cares if he loses the election...Sarah is taking a page from Cindy Sheehan's book of traveling around and camping in your political enemy's front yard...I think it's kinda cool! one point for Sarah!
　
but... while the rest of America works for a living and plays on the weekends, these folks are caravaning around, raising money to "repeal the healthcare bill" which won't happen, and generally showing America how stupid they are, especially in large numbers! and they need to read section 8 of the Constitution..all of it, not just one sentence!! the Powers of Congress are vast!!
Gee folks, if you're gonna protest or run for office, you need to get a little better at communicating, plan a little better...take it to the streets instead of the Reagan Ranch Center and sponsorships by the Hope Ranch/ Montecito Republicans....methinks thou doth not know how to protest worth a proper fuck...

Pelosi and Anthony emasculate GOP...

the leaders of the GOP have been reduced to eunuchs..shhh..don't tell the Pope!
so after the Healthcare vote, I watched the GOP, the Grand Obsolete Party, try to bone up to Nancy Pelosi and all I saw was effeminate men, who use lots and lots of hair dye, scream hysterically into the FOX News cameras..guys like John Boehner, Eric Canter, and Michael Steele, who as leader of the RNC, has been sticking needles into Nancy Pelosi dolls as a campaign strategy. What a shame..from day one these guys should have been rooting out the nutjobs from the party. Instead, they are embracing them..they are cheering on guys like Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma bomber, as heroes! Doughboys posing as American Men...this is an affront to any real Republicans who now are an endangered species....
　
Susan B Anthony..I was watching Christian babe Colleen Carrol Campbell who intrigues me to no end. I could staighten her out and then I'd have found the perfect woman..but as she is now, well, pretty and real rightwing..I find that irresistable...anyway, she was interviewing another whack Christian lady from the Susan B Anthony List pro-lifers cult..President Marjorie Dannenfelser was falling all over herself about electing pro-lifers and cited the Pope as an inspiration and hero. The Pope is now under investigation for knowing about and covering for a pedophile priest in Wisconsin... I mean these people are such phonies it makes me look like a saint. Now, no one denies abortion is bad and as a birth control method should not be allowed, but other medical situations may indicate it is needed...that's life. Where were these ladies when we were bunker bombing the Shit out of Iraq and killing kids as collateral damage? Don't they have a right to life, too? All those dead kids?? The pro-lifers have no credibility at all..it's a political stunt of the lowest hypocrisy... these girls are using the Susan B Anthony name because of her pro-life stance. In reality, Anthony would not approve of these church ladies hijacking her name:
She was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States.
In Rochester, she attended the local Unitarian Church and began to distance herself from the Quakers, in part because she had frequently witnessed instances of hypocritical behavior such as the use of alcohol amongst Quaker preachers. As she got older, Anthony continued to move further away from organized religion in general, and she was later chastised by various Christian religious groups for displaying irreligious tendencies.
In The Revolution, Anthony wrote in 1869 about the subject, arguing that instead of merely attempting to pass a law against abortion, the root cause must also be addressed. Simply passing an anti-abortion law would, she wrote, "be only mowing off the top of the noxious weed, while the root remains." Anthony continued: "Guilty? Yes, no matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh! thrice guilty is he who, for selfish gratification, heedless of her prayers, indifferent to her fate, drove her to the desperation which impelled her to the crime."
eight ball in the side pocket....

inagaddadavita

a fantasy world of Disney girls....
so after the Trader Joe's dream, I had to go for real and check...all is normal..on my way I saw a black Mitsubishi Montero with "Stoker" painted all over it...it was parked outside Fess Parker's Hotel by the beach (RIP Fess and thanks for turning SB into Disneyland!!) and inside the SUV was Mike Stoker, dressed in black, looking like a revivalist preacher! Damn I wish I brought my camera..
Meg "do as I say not as I do" Whitman is coming to town again on the heels of Stoker..what is this, the "Deep South Bible Belt Holy Rollers" tour?? Meg was too busy to vote until she was about 46 years old and now she wants your vote so she can be governor...I'd rather have Stoker for governor than she or Poizner...damn straight!
and Dr. Dan Secord is running, actually at 74 he is shuffling, against Janet Wolf...Dr. Dan is a twit and a dabbler and a re-run..that's what a lot of these Repub guys are, re-runs! and how many times during their campaigns will they invoke the name Reagan?
Some guy in Summerland is running against Capps..he's a fearful conservative with Tea Party support!
News-Press Girlie Man of the Day!
well, you got Nipper and Scott but Gabe Saglie wins..Gabe writes the wine tasting fluff in the Food section.. how do you taste wine: open bottle and drink but Gabe has an obsessive compulsive giddiness about it..apparently, if you chew gum, it will ruin your wine tasting experience and one night Gabe forgot to spit out his gum. Then he tells us " it's safe to say that chewing strong mint gum is one of my favorite pastimes."...so I guess he..I think he..I... I... aarrgghhh!!!!
lastly, I refuse to give anybody any advice unless you pay me $100 and call me Dr!

hell and back...

what is the color when black is burned...
I went into SB ..the Sansum Clinic for a check on a possible bone spur..."wear better boots" says the doc! ok so I'll get a pair of Vasque hikers for $199 instead of these Big -5 $19 foot-killers..anyway, I felt like I was in a foreign country when I arrived..it was hot..real hot in the afternoon..this area is at the bottom of the Chumash Highway and people are speeding around or driving like they are on smack...geez, make up your minds or get outta my way..the intersection at Pesetas and Calle Real is a dead zone..people wait and wait and wait when they should be aggressive and GO GO GO! FIX this area...people are in a hurry to get up to the Casino and half of them are drunk...so I go into the clinic and it's nice and cool with a bunch of broken people limping and wandering around and a few babes in tank tops and shorts and sandals..finger lickin' good! I know I should have been a gynocologist..damn..
So I'm a little early and start walking around and I look at the mountains...they look sickly, too..a weird artificial green color in patches across the range throughout the burn areas...the hydromulch or astroturf...looks bad...it's getting hotter..I'm sweating... and I think about the casino which is probably at least 115 degrees in Santa Ynez..whew, why would anyone want to go there in this heat unless they are lizards...hey, let's all go to the casino, get over-heated, get drunk, and lose a lot of money... and die behind the wheel!
this place is starting to creep me out so after the doc visit I get in the truck and haul ass out of the parking lot and onto the highway, whick looks like hell's little brother...bumper to bumper until Montecito then it thins out by Summerland..then we hit the cool ocean and the greenbelt of Carpinteria..I slow down to look at Caltrans massacre of the highway plants, then take the frontage road home..I wish people would realize how good they have it and just leave things alone sometimes...

looking out for number one...me!

as capitalism and conservatism fail, wingnuts look to blame someone for that black man socialist in the White House...

well, who's to blame for the state of America today? the boomers? Woodstock hippies? the greatest generation? the generation x or conservatives? I say conservatives, conservatism has put America perilously close to being made in China...The wingnuts are getting all worked up over the boomers and why they are responsible for the ills of the world, chiefly because the Woodstock generation was all about me, me, me. Well, who else should I being looking out for, you? No way Jose! The reality is growing up in California in the 60s was a dream, but a very violent time in America, and not at all a drugged out party all the time..that's just the myth and rightwingers alcoholic perception of the times...now let's look at some history and see who and what is really trying to kill America and who's trying to save her. Drugs: America's love of alcohol has clouded her thinking even today... the prohibition, if enforced, could have saved millions from a wasted life of feeding on the bottom. The Greatest Generation: during the war, this generation let illegal alien Mexicans across the border to help us at home with agriculture and general production, probably some of those wetbacks took care of some lonely wives too eh amigos? Now look at the problems we got!! boomers: music, rebellion and working class..moved us into the digital age and made my old guitars worth a fortune..THANK YOU DUDES!!!
generation x: slackers and musicians and Rastafarians! coool! under 30 group..the loveliest generation and smart, too. gov't worker: smartest workers who worked long careers and watched the fort while others partied..they prepared for their futures!
The angry white male generation/ private sector/leftovers from the Nixon/J. Edgar Hoover era..BINGO!! these are the ones from all generations causing all the trouble..crying all the time, (most recently when male model Scott Brown voted for a jobs bill), blowing up gov't buildings, flying planes in the IRS, shooting people, spreading propaganda and molesting children..they are mostly white and mostly conservative. These are they guys who robbed the American people and gamed the system until the house of cards fell...Madoff, Enron, AIG, Wall Street stock manipulators, big oil, insurance and drug companies...and no regulation of these capitalism enterprises slowly killed the golden goose..capitalism can't survive under this model so naturally they are scared...and they will be the minority soon.. and that's far out!!

a few bad men...

News-Press, nonprofit Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association Slam Military!
geez, talk about a one trick pony...every time Lanny Ebenstein, president of a shady nonprofit taxpayers association, writes a News-Press editorial, he must think he's writing another chapter about his nutjob hero Milton Friedman's economic ramblings, or trying to exhume Reaganomics, or just do what he does best: continue to ignore reality, to repeat rightwing slogans, to pander to fear, and stand up for wealthy special interests, hence his little gig with the News-Press! "And let's be clear, the Bush tax cuts didn't just produce fewer jobs than advertised. They didn't produce any private sector jobs at all. The whole experiment in handing over money to the wealthiest people in America so they could use it to benefit the rest of us was a colossal - empirically verifiable - failure." Robert Creamer
Now, the latest editorial slams government people for having pensions..again..this is a favorite News-Press theme.
Imagine working 25 or 30 years in a gov't job and when you retire someone says...nope, you can't retire because you saved too much money, invested wisely, and had a career serving your country..well, that's exactly what the News-Press and Lanny have been advocating for years and begrudging our military people their work benefits.. and Travis and Lanny must have shared editorial duties, I'm convinced, due to the similarities in content...They go on to claim that these gov't workers have created a new class of citizen....then Lanny, in rambling form, tries to explain this with some Marxist reference to communism! Is he saying our military personnel are commies?? Whoa Lanny..you stepped in it this time jackass! says Lanny: pensions are out of control and are costing the taxpayer too much, just what David Stockman, a Reagan appointee, said in 1985..it's the same old conservative song! March 19, 1985 MILITARY PENSIONS HOW SCANDALOUS ...In a moment of well-publicized exasperation, Budget Director David Stockman declared that military pensions are scandalous. The remark triggered a barrage of attacks on Stockman by some of the biggest guns in the U.S. military, active and retired. Stockman, indeed, might not have been judicious in his choice of language, but it appears that he is on target if what he means is that U.S. military pensions are out of control and are costing the taxpayer too much. Military retirement costs have climbed more than sixfold in 'the last 15 years. The Pentagon will spend $18.3 billion next year to provide military pensions that are at least twice as generous as the best private sector retirement plans. On March 26, 2007, federal prosecutors in Manhattan indicted Stockman in "a scheme ... to defraud [Collins & Aikman]'s investors, banks and creditors by manipulating C&A's reported revenues and earnings."
　
Now when Lanny/News-Press keeps complaining about gov't employees, he makes no distinction, therefore I conclude he's talking about the miltary too..shame on you Lanny...these people are fighting for the freedom that allows you to say stupid things..they fight for pussies like you and you think they make too much money??
these are benefits that I proudly support...
Military Retirement Overview
The military retirement system is arguably the best retirement deal around. Unlike most retirement plans, the Armed Forces offer a pension, with benefits, that starts the day you retire, no matter how old you are. That means you could start collecting a regular retirement pension as early as 37 years old. What's more, that pension check will grow with a cost of living adjustment each year.
military

Lanny and Nipper, you glamboys need to spend a year in boot camp...that'll whip you into shape...and give you some appreciation for the fine men and women who serve in our military and government...