Here is the big red pipe. I know little about hydraulics but there must be a reason for two of everything. Quick, how many bolts do you see? This is near the library in Ft. Lauderdale, where I was reaffirming that agony and robots go together. What did I learn? Mainly that I had my open-loop and closed-loop coding applied wrongly. My robot motors are open-loop, it is the distance measuring sensor that is closed-loop. It is all so clear now, famous last words.
I’m still reading a little history of modern Panama. It seems when the canal zone was turned over, it was shortly after their government began to default on foreign loans. Clearly, the US could have asserted military control over the canal, which was American-owned anyway. The annual tolls were $100 million plus. The conclusion is that DC saw no threat and the giving the tolls to Panama for nothing would enable their country to pay back borrowed Yankee dollars. Wrong, within a few months, Panama used the extra income plunge more than a billion dollars further into debt, landing them right back where they were—unable to pay up.Let’s play “what if”. You and I are Chinese politicians, “The foreign devils are threatening our trade routes.” If we knock out that canal, it isolates half their navy into the Atlantic Ocean, which can be bottlenecked south of the Capes. To hit that canal establish the blockade, we require either airplanes that can fly across the Pacific, or a means to bring existing airplanes within range. A classic military dilemma. We need us a couple of them there American-style “peace-keeping” aircraft carriers.
This is for the record so it may seem out of place. Today I received a reply from the Office of the Attorney General who agrees that I was the victim of interference last February. This does not look good for the party that did the interfering. However, I cannot serve papers unless that party is found to be physically in Florida. I’ve left word with the neighbors to call me as soon as they see anything.
Guess what? The “making work pay” credit applies to 2010. This time it is called Schedule M, it is just as confusing as ever. I read the fine print six or seven times, and I quality. Confusing, yes, but the way it works is the employer takes around $8 less off your weekly paycheck during. You are supposed to go out and stimulate the economy on that. Over a year, this amounts to $400. But at tax time if you don’t complete Schedule M, you have to pay it back. The point is, the credit applies even to those, like myself, who had no deductions. Of course, 99% who had no deductions (like myself) will mistakenly think they don’t get the credit and I just might make New Orleans this year yet.
Have you seen that Scientific American article that claims variations in human intelligence are due to infectious disease? That magazine has really gone downhill. If you want your opinion respected, maybe a little less trying to find excuses why half the population are ignoramuses would be a good start. My explanation is far more accurate—being ignorant is one hell of a lot easier than learning anything and most people are plain lazy. It is 8:34 AM; I’ve got a TV remote and a computer book both right beside me. Which I reach for is a conscious choice, not some brain infection.
(And that’s ignoramuses, not ignoramii, because the word is not a noun, but rather a Latin verb meaning “we do not know”. Everybody in the world including myself has had the flu, an infectious disease. So that is no explanation for stupidity at all. I rested in bed, drank plenty of fluids, AND read a good book. Duh, okay. It is now 8:37 AM.)
Listening to the audio portion of Monday’s jam, I must give credit where due. Ray-B has really knuckled down and learned excellent rhythm guitar. He’s been saying for a few years that rhythm is more important than lead, but has also done the homework where the rest of the pack only do the talking. There are tiny but definitive aspects to playing rhythm that are present in what he was playing that others leave out and I notice right away. Ray-B has done it and that puts him in a league of his own in this town.
Much later in the day, I stopped in at Mickey Byrne’s Irish Pub on the boulevard. It is about as Irish as Tijuana. Well appointed, but not a shadow to the old Kelly’s. And at those prices, it will never have the same steady clientele, either. I hope they do a booming weekend business. To make up for me being the only person in the place at mid-evening on a weekday.
