I'm generous

Too much knowledge prevents from displaying that to most people.

I just returned from the grocery store somebody accosted me in the parking lot saying, "Could you spare a dollar ..."

I said, "Not today".

I turned 80 my last birthday, I was at the grocery store to get Lay's potato chips to which I'm addicted, I went early when I thought fewer shoppers,   I'd hate see normal, if that was fewer.

I don't contribute any veterans affairs because I decide during the "W" administration that we would get in endless wars unless the cost of providing for our veterans AT  THE LEVEL THE DESERVED, was HUGE.

The Trump economy was not a surprise to me.

The recovery started during the Obama/Biden administration.

I read at the right time and right environment Jay W. Forrester, "Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems", Technology Review, Vol. 73, No. 3, Jan. 1971, pp. 52-68.

Politicization of Intelligence

POTUS43 misused intelligence to get us into Iraq.  At least his director of the CIA looked like a crook.

POTUS43 switched from counter-insurgency to counter-terrorism.  W went after terrorists (and countries that host them) almost everywhere.

“In the days after Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked and crashed four commercial jetliners on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush ordered the National Security Agency to eavesdrop, without warrants, on American citizens and foreign nationals within the United States. His action represented the biggest shift in U.S. intelligence gathering in American history. But the true architect of that secret program, code-named Stellarwind, was a former Air Force intelligence officer who’d been picked to run the NSA two years earlier: General Michael Vincent Hayden. What a long way from Pittsburgh, where Hayden was born in 1945. His youth was western Pennsylvania through and through: Dad was a welder, and the family lived for Sundays, when they would attend mass and Steelers games. In college at Duquesne University, Hayden even worked at the Steelers’ summer training camp to help pay his tuition. He studied history, joined ROTC and started active duty in the Air Force in 1969.

“A registered Independent with no political background, Hayden came up through the ranks of Air Force intelligence, and in 1999 President Bill Clinton selected him to run that secretive organization nicknamed No Such Agency. When Hayden arrived, he found the NSA struggling to keep up with the technological tide. Two years later, 9/11 jolted him into unprecedented action, and he implemented rapid, transformational measures. Hayden’s Stellarwind program circumvented the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and even went beyond the authority of the Patriot Act passed by Congress.

“After The New York Times exposed the operation in 2005, Hayden still moved forward—but another, more damaging exposure lay ahead. Bush made him principal deputy director of National Intelligence and then promoted him to director of the Central Intelligence Agency in 2006. Hayden’s new position as top spy coincided with another CIA hire: Edward Snowden. The then 23-year-old computer tech later went to work for two NSA contractors, and in 2013 Snowden released confidential information on the spy program established by Hayden. The resulting firestorm implicated both the Bush and Obama administrations.”

http://www.playboy.com/articles/playboy-interview-michael-hayden

Would POTUS44 spy on candidates to be POTUS45?

Veterans Affairs

On December 8, 2008, U.S. President Barack Obama announced he would nominate retired U.S. Army general, Eric Shinseki, to be the 7th Secretary of Veterans Affairs. He was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on January 20, 2009.  General Shinseki resigned as Secretary of Veterans Affairs on May 30, 2014, making deputy secretary Sloan Gibson the acting secretary. On June 29, 2014, President Obama nominated Robert A. McDonald to serve as VA secretary. The United States Senate confirmed McDonald on July 29, 2014.

How does Eric Shinseki differ from Barack Obama?  Eric K. Shinseki was born on Nov. 28, 1942, in Lihue, which is located on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

WASHINGTON, March 4, 2015 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was honored tonight with the Veterans of Foreign Wars prestigious Congressional Award.

At a ceremony in the Senate’s Kennedy Caucus Room, Sanders said he was “extremely honored” by the award presented for his eight years of service on the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, including his time as the panel’s chairman during the last session of Congress. He remains a senior member of the committee.

VFW National Commander John Stroud noted that Sanders played a leading role in winning passage last year of major legislation to improve health care services at the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

The nation’s largest service organization of combat veterans said Sanders “has been a commanding voice”  fighting to preserve benefits for disabled veterans, for the proper care and treatment of women veterans, homeless veterans, for better employment opportunities and improved access to mental health programs. The VFW also lauded Sanders for increased congressional oversight that resulted in improved claims processing by the VA. 

“It is no understatement to say that Sen. Sanders has taken care of wounded, ill and injured veterans and their surviving family members,” said the VFW’s Stroud. “When the VA imploded last year, he was the lead negotiator for the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act, which the president signed into law last summer,” he added.

“The VA still has an uphill climb to fix what’s broken, to hold employees appropriately accountable, and to restore the faith of veterans in their VA, but veterans everywhere should be proud and comforted to know that this United States senator has their back in Congress.”

http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-military-and-veterans/

Lewis William Walt where are you when we need you?

http://www.quantico.marines.mil/Portals/147/Docs/MCIOC/IORecruiting/GenLewWaltBiography.pdf

No Fault -- No Alimony

Florida became a "no fault" state in Dissolution of Marriage proceedings in 1971.

A truly no fault dissolution of marriage should only address a  Fair and Equitable distribution of assets (and liabilities).

I am a victim of Domestic Abuse and Elder Abuse.

My partner made unilateral decisions concerning the religiously oriented activities our two daughters should receive.  That is classic Male Privilege.

My partner has Master's Degree from an out-of-state private university.  Her three skills that I have observed are:

1.  She is good at obtaining volunteers
2.  She's very generous with someone else's money
3.  She is good at church history.

These are appropriate skills for a Director of Christian Education (DCE).

Women are no longer limited to a DCE role; they can now compete in and for the pulpits.

Following advice that she later regretted, my partner filed for divorce in April 2009.  The matter has not been settled.

I have seen and been victimized by the best divorce lawyer in Brevard County, Diane Baccus-Horsley.  She President Obama look like a truth teller.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott Vetoes Family Law Reform

I watched the hearings for SB 718 and the companion bill in the Florida House.  There was very moving testimony about how a mother had achieved independence.

Government Rick Scott needs to be more pro-Family and less pro-Florida Family Law Bar Section.

(DR)2H

Florida Legal Profession Condones Lying

“Lying on Paragraph 6. THIS PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE SHOULD BE GRANTED BECAUSE:, of FLORIDA SUPREME COURT APPROVED FAMILY LAW FORM 12.901(b)(2), PETITION FOR DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE WITH PROPERTY BUT NO DEPENDENT OR MINOR CHILD(REN)(05/12) does not violate The Rules of Professional Conduct or any of the rules adopted by the Supreme Court of Florida which govern attorney discipline,” per Maura Canter, Bar Counsel.

 

Back to Basics

In the midst of cultural conflict, it seems logical that it would be good to go “back to basics” periodically.

I associate “back to basics” with the attitude often attributed to Vince Lombardi while he was the head coach of the Green Bay Packers and the approach used by physicists to derive results from “first principles.”

During my “mid-life crisis,” I decided that my core values were:   Liberty, Justice, and Compassion.  I did not develop a definition for each term.  Liberty was what our Founders Fought for.  My Justice was not blind.  My Justice was, like God, all seeing.  My Compassion was compassionate.  It should be obvious that these values are frequently in conflict.  For years, I considered “conflict” to be bad and we should try to avoid it.

An article on the back page of an old physics newsletter about Quakers and conflict was enlightening.  I’ve forgotten how Quakers address conflict but they sort of consider it good.

Arithmetic is not an Opinion

Facts are not opinions.  Assertions have to do with what is.  Assessments have to do with what is possible.  Does CNN present both sides when discussing “two plus two equals four”?

The fact that scientists have not proven an assertion to be incorrect does not warrant the assessment that it (the assertion) is possible/true.

Florida is currently “in the News” because of the Trayvon Martin homicide.  Several members of the national media are “searching for the truth.”

I began my search for the truth about 1957.  A couple of young-looking Chinese Americans were pictured on the front of Parade Magazine.  T. D. Lee and C. N. Yang had been awarded the Nobel Prize for predicting non-conservation of Parity.   See http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1957/.

I learned quickly that chemistry was not my path to the truth.   In the calculation of pH (a measure of the acidity/alkalinity of a solution), a term of the order of 10**(-14) was ignored in the denominator.  The other term was 10**0 (which is 1).  It was clear that the social sciences were not my path to the truth.

Pure mathematics was my favorite area but it was divorced from the Real World.  My search for the truth (and funding) led me into Physics.   Although I was searching for the truth, there was no question about the criterion for truth.  It had to be reasonable, self-consistent, and coherent.  To be “reasonable,” it had to be consistent with all the facts.  In 1957, I did not have any questions about what is a fact.  I had no conscious awareness of truth needing any criteria.

About 1970, I bought two paperback books by W. S. Sahakian and M.L.  Sahakian.  One described 17 theories/conceptions of Truth.  Authority, revelation, intuition, correspondence, coherence, and pragmatism are the ones I can recall.

A few years ago, I discovered the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  I learned that Realism is controversial. [ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/realism/]  Neophytes should start with  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realism.  [As of April 2, 2012, the Wikipedia entry is short, informative, and, probably, accurate.  It would be helpful if it addressed whether “common sense” is related to Thomas Reid.]

If Realism is controversial, does that imply that Arithmetic IS an Opinion?

I am involved in a domestic dispute in Florida.  The facts can be rather accurately described in numbers.  A Motion for Rehearing has been granted.  There is reason to believe that Justice will prevail.  However, the current Final Judgment of the Court is incredulous to those of us who know the truth.

I, a male who was removed from the State of Florida by concerned relatives, have been Profiled as a Male who left the State, abused his wife, and made Big Bucks at Harris.   The case is backwards.  My wife engaged in occasional Male Perogative, she was never a stay-at-home wife; she always did whatever she wanted to within the limits imposed upon her by others.  She did not get a job appropriate for her.  She took the best job she could get and went back to school nights and weekends to get a second Master’s degree.  She completed residency requirements in minimal time (making it impossible to be at home).  In March of 2007, my wife and I had a difference of opinion about taxes.  The State of Florida diverted me into a Domestic Violence Program.  The only support for my wife was from a Domestic Violence Victims support group.

My wife’s first master’s degree qualified her to be a Director of Christian Education (DCE) in the United Methodist Church.  A skill/talent for recruiting unpaid volunteers is appropriate for that type of work.  I began to see my wife as abusing that talent/skill as we moved into the era of Knowledge Worker as an occupation.  My former wife got a church member to set up a budget for her and “process” her data for her tax input.  She had 11 bank accounts, most of them with Bank of America.

Because my former wife received help from people knowledgeable with Domestic Violence and Florida Family Law, I “have a history of Domestic Violence.”  There are no forms identifying the person/persons who helped her prepare her reports.  I do not deserve a history of Domestic Violence.  My former wife does not have a history of Contempt of Court.  She deserves such a history.

In a reasonable world, women would ostracize my former wife for her abuse of the system they worked to establish.  In this world, I have to acknowledge that whatever the male says, “May be true.”

Proverbs makes various statements about the value of a reputation.  If Arithmetic is an Opinion, how much should one spend on an Appeal?