Abstract: the Blog so far

Here's an abstract of what you will find in this blog. I'll try to update it with each new post. The latest (at the bottom of this page) is Nov. 8, 2020.

In progress: the story of how our "court system" facilitated the theft of the home I built from a kit in Chester County, PA and lived in for 35 years, how it almost dissolved our marriage and still keeps us (physically) separated, and how I expect to eventually recover the value of the house (and then some).

May '19— Intro: "I was right. Everything I knew was wrong." Covers the primary reason I revived the blog, "a scam of historic and global scale, affecting everyone on the planet," a brief description of same, and how the scam will be ended. As an example, a presentation of the documents I filed (in both text and image formats), declaring my actual political status (and probably, yours): "American State National" (not "US Citizen," a status actually held by less than 20% of us). There is now a single form available which can replace all these documents going forward.

July '19: "Hello, Reddit (and Team Human)." My inspiration for this blog's title, and a very-condensed and oversimplified list of 8 things I was once convinced, or assumed, were correct. (Oy, was I wrong.)

Oct. '19: "My recent court appearance, and what it means for you." Stopped (for a legal but minor reason, "changing lanes without signalling"), by a township patrolman, I was issued a ticket: $180. The officer told me the judge might show lenience if I went to court, and only owe court costs of about $30. I thanked him for the "tip," and took it. The full post reveals how the case was dismissed (without a trial), owing $0. I believe the reason for that result can be found in the first (May'19) post. This should work for you, if you file the paperwork and assert your rights, unless your court case involves actual harm to another living being. 

Dec. '19: "Anna, Steele and Trump (Part 1)." Three current actors on the stage of life, and how I regard them. It seems clay will be found when examining the feet of mortals, whether they present as heroes or villains. (Part 2 was posted on 2/22/20.) See also the first July 3 '20 post.

Feb. 18, 2020: "My Cancer, Part 1." Parts 2 and 3 were posted on Feb. 23 and March 5, followed by "...where did it come from? How about yours?" This last part is the one most important for the general reader worried about their own health. Here, I suggest (although based on a group study of one) that the general US population is at risk of non-Hodgkins lymphoma from 50 years of cumulative environmental contamination by Monsanto's Roundup herbicide.

July 3: "Do you believe the Earth is flat? (Here's why I don't.)" A reasoned rebuttal to "flat earth theory," presented only because of the phenomena of otherwise-sane, intelligent and even admirable people who have fallen prey to this error, written without the expectation of changing anyone's mind. As Sam Clemens once wrote, “you can’t reason someone out of a belief that they weren’t reasoned into.”

Sept. 28: "Einstein and GPS: Relativity in our everyday lives." At last, something non-controversial (except to the diehard Newtonians).

Oct. 9: "Not everything I knew was wrong." In four bullet points, with commentary.

Also Oct. 9: "Politics? What politics?" Why I find that most of what's written about, and thought of as, "politics" is as relevant to our daily lives, and the future of our country, as discussions about the bad behavior and intrigues among the characters in Soap Operas. Theatre is not reality. Follow the money, and watch the puppeteers, not the puppets.

Nov. 2: "Finding the truth (in an election year)." An extension of the post above, but more current.

Nov. 6: "On growing old, growing up and being "State-Farmed." Something completely different: on aging, road safety, technology, "freedom" vs. control, testosterone, common sense, Nixon (!),  Barbara Walters, and Star Trek.

Nov. 8: "On ADD, OSA, and the current state of American medicine." Two widespread medical conditions which share identical symptoms—and might be largely one and the same. Seeking how best to spread the word, so others don't suffer. Suggestions are solicited on how to get this message to a wider audience.

 

On ADD, OSA, and the current state of American medicine

I recently shared some of my personal medical history here (see the “My cancer” series), not because my case is special or more important than that of anyone else, but because it could benefit millions of others. Here’s another, earlier personal-health story I’ve shared widely, for the same reason (and especially when my audience includes medical and educational professionals). It concerns two diagnoses, the first of which was made when I was 42, after my wife Debbie heard a show on our local NPR station (WHYY, Philadelphia), an episode of Dr. Dan Gottlieb’s “Voices in the Family,” about children and adults diagnosed with “Attention-Deficit Disorder,” and its hyperactive cousin, ADHD. She said to herself, “Hmmm...they could be talking about my husband.” I was persuaded to get a diagnosis, done at the VA hospital in Coatesville, PA.

Like most maladies which present in the behavioral sphere, the diagnoses are based on collections of symptoms rather than any physical problems, although there are potential physical problems which must be ruled out in the process of diagnosis. The VA was thorough in ruling out any such problems (except for one: that was to be the second diagnosis, two decades later).

I took the usual medicines for ADD (Ritalin, and Prozac for the depression which usually dogs those with ADD), for 20 years, before I got a second diagnosis, again spurred by Debbie, who complained about my snoring. The VA tested me for OSA (Obstructive Sleep Apnea), and gave me a CPAP machine (an acronym for Constant Positive Airway Pressure), with instructions to use it for a month and report back.

When the month was up, I decided to try stopping the ADD medication, to see what differences it might make to my cognition, behavior, and overall well-being. I could tell no differences, and never again took those medicines. Today, thirteen years later, I feel that I’m doing better than I have at any other time of my life.

At no time during my educational “career” was I diagnosed, or treated, for this or any other condition that might have caused my behavior and performance (or lack of it) in school. I must confess to my Swarthmore High School classmates that if I were to represent myself as a “graduate of SHS,” I would be exhibiting as much mendacity as "45," aka "Agent Orange," did when he called himself a “stable genius.”

I did progressively worse between 9th and 10th grades, and finally flunked eleventh grade, primarily from an inability to complete homework and reading assignments (from an inability to focus and concentrate). I repeated the eleventh grade, but failed a second time. I then spent part of the next year getting a GED from a now-defunct Philadelphia diploma mill, Lincoln Prep, after the rest of you graduated. I had the good fortune to have a father who owned a business (John Spencer, Inc., commercial printers in Chester, PA.) who provided me with gainful employment. I had already learned all the mechanical skills of the trade during the summers between the misery of going to school.

This “disorder” had a different name when I was at Swarthmore Elementary, “Minimal Brain Damage.” (A full timeline is at https://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/history.) Since then, a syndrome (collection of symptoms) has been labelled as ADD and/or ADHD. There are health professionals who have built careers on diagnosing, treating and providing talk therapy for those given this diagnosis. Many books have been written on ADHD-related topics, magazines founded, self-help groups established, and even tests devised to produce CT and PET scans to show physical differences between the brains of “normal” and afflicted individuals. 

These scans have been cited as proving the reality of the “disease” as a real physical phenomena, rather than a “mere collection of symptoms.” However, other studies have shown that behavioral change resulting from any cause, physical or not, will show up as brain changes in scans. Billions of dollars have been made by the pharmaceutical industry to treat the symptoms, with no one claiming a cure.

Meanwhile, medical specialists in pulmonary health have settled on a universal cure—the CPAP machine (although there are alternative approaches, usually involving surgery, to keep the airway open during sleep).

I was astonished to learn what few are aware of: the symptoms of ADD and OSA are virtually identical. What happens to those with untreated OSA? Each night, usually while sleeping on their backs, the musculature and tissues at the back of the throat totally relax, blocking off the airway. Breathing, and blood oxygenation, stops; CO2 builds up in the lungs, which triggers the autonomic system to release adrenalin—enough to make the person roll to one side and reopen the airway, but not enough to awaken the OSA victim. The two main consequences of this cycle, which can recur a hundred times per night or more, are the loss of enough quality sleep to restore normal brain function, where short-term memory is processed to sort wheat from chaff and establish long-term memories, while the subconscious can process experience into organized concepts essential for problem-solving. The other main consequence of OSA is the cumulative negative effects of perhaps a hundred surges per night of adrenalin. Those experiencing substantial OSA can get eight hours of sleep without the restorative benefits that “normal” people get, always feeling tired, falling asleep on their feet, unable to concentrate on tasks—in short, all the usual symptoms of ADD. Those with ADHD compensate by daytime adrenalin surges, with accompanying negative consequences.

Unfortunately, the medical professionals in each specialty are “siloed” and seldom recognize that they are each treating people with the same sets of symptoms. When I’ve had the opportunity to tell my story to these professionals, they’re almost always surprised to hear it. My strong belief is that many, if not most, people diagnosed with ADD/ADHD actually suffer from OSA. 

So far, my efforts to get the attention of these siloed professionals have fallen on deaf ears. Few studies have been done to determine the extent of this symptom-overlap and fewer still done to determine the extent of misdiagnosis. One reason for the opacity of the silos is the financial and psychological disincentives to even recognize the problem, let alone fix it. Few want to admit to an error on which their whole career has been based, or kill the golden goose of their profession, just as most politicians don’t support getting money out of politics.

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, my high school class reunion was held via Zoom meetings, where I saw a presentation by a classmate, Bill Ryerson, who has made a career of advancing global human welfare, focusing on women’s rights and population control. His most successful venue to pursue these goals? Entertainment. If you watched any of “East Los High” on Hulu, a top-rated, award-winning show, you’ve seen the fruits of some of his best work. Please visit https://www.populationmedia.org/projects/east-los-high/ to see it (and the rest of the work of the organization he founded, the Population Media Center). 

I welcome any suggestions you may have, dear reader, on how to get my ADD/OSA story out to a wider audience. Professional groups (medical and educational) remain siloed. Hulu? TedX? A YouTube channel?

On growing old, growing up and being "State-Farmed."

The young tend to love the adrenalin rush of risk-taking, whether skydiving, bungee-jumping, schussbooming, or driving fast machines. I once ran a motorcycle flat-out, to "see its actual top speed," on an interstate in California (a mere 105; it was a 1976 2-speed Hondamatic 750). 

"We are young, wandering the face of the Earth, wondering what our dreams might be worth, learning that we're only immortal for a limited time..." (from the lyrics of Rush's Dreamline).

I remember when our then-President Nixon, responding to the "oil crisis," instituted a national speed limit of 55. Like most drivers, I ignored it when I thought I could get away with it. Over the years, that limit gradually got inflated by state regulations (on major highways), likely from popular demand.

When the Atlantic City Expressway was built, its posted limit was 70. Typical traffic flow was closer to 80. Now it's 65, and many drivers still cruise it at 80. 

My driving style has always been "typical American," mostly following the rules, but also setting my speed (when safe) by the general flow of traffic, typically 5-10 MPH over the posted limits. By contrast,, there was the "Cannonball Run," a real event later popularized by a Burt Reynolds movie. I have never been tempted to participate in such an event, but there are still those who are (and succumb to the temptation).

Recently, because I became a "ride-share driver" (both Uber and Lyft), I was forced to change my car insurance to a carrier offering a policy rider to cover the "gray area" (the time between accepting a ride and arriving at the pickup location). The driver's own (compulsory) insurance covers the "empty" time, and Uber/Lyft cover the time when a passenger is on board. I chose State Farm, which does have such a rider (my then-insurer, Progressive, does not).

Along with the new policy came a new device to stick on the windshield, next to my EZ-Pass gizmo. It comes with an App, "Drive Safe and Save (TM)," an electronic "Big Brother" that tracks you with GPS and communicates with your phone. Stay within their tolerance for automotive misfeasance, by never speeding, suddenly braking, accelerating or cornering too fast , and you earn a discount on your policy. Currently, it's $87.72 for the six-month billing period. Wow! That's almost $15 a month!

So far, I'm playing along, using my speed control, watching roadside limit-signs along with GPS-posted limits on my dash (which sometimes conflict). I've observed that most vehicles of al sorts whiz by at a good clip (as expected). Surprisingly, few tailgate me when I can't pull over for them or when they can't pass. I get where I'm going in about the same time as before, my driving is more relaxed, and my mileage has gone from around 19 to around 23. After a few months of being "State-Farmed," I've become well-adjusted to the new driving style. No paranoid glances in the rear-view mirror, no scanning ahead for the hiding places of state and local revenue-collectors, and no regrets. I'm actually grateful to State Farm for giving me an incentive to drive in a safer, more relaxing and more economical manner. 

To those (like the "anti-maskers") who might tell me that I am "giving up freedoms," I would just say, "grow up." Consideration of the safety of others (and perhaps saving lives) is always a good idea; getting "paid" to do so is a bonus. Driving within these parameters is definitely safer, and the requirement to avoid "too-rapid" braking forces me to do what I was already doing: avoiding the common, and by far the most dangerous, habit of far too many drivers: following too closely. The rule I learned in high school is still an excellent rule of thumb: maintain one car length behind the car ahead of you for each 10 MPH of your speed. Anything less, and you run the risk of back-ending that car if they stop quickly. I too often see accidents waiting to happen when a car going 65 or more is only one car length away from the next car. The laws of physics (and reaction time) guarantee a wreck in the case of sudden braking by that car. There have been many "pile-ups" of cars involving 70-100 cars, without adverse weather involved.

Many new cars now come equipped with radar distance-sensors and automatic braking systems which could make this kind of disaster a thing of the past. By percentage, they add little to a car's cost and might even be paid for by reductions in insurance premiums. Statistics would show whether the technology or human drivers were better at accident-avoidance.

If I join Barbara Walters in living to 120 or so, I expect to see technology like self-driving cars and pilotless air taxis become commonplace, then made obsolete by vehicles which use gravity/inertial control, perhaps enabling retail space travel and making Star Trek technology as common as smartphones.

Finding the truth (in an election year)

This year in "American Politics" can only be understood by rational folks as what it actually is, political theater. Nothing is as it appears to be in our corporate media; a group of international conglomerates (now reduced from six to five) control 90% of what we see, hear and read. Many Americans are unaware of "Operation Mockingbird," a program of the OSS (now CIA) instituted to "support the war effort" in WWII and extended into "peacetime" (the "cold war" era). (Note: Wikipedia terms this program "alleged." Of course they do.) All five "news" conglomerates have their CIA handlers censoring or spinning news stories to protect "our National Security" (actually the security of our "permanent government," aka the "Deep State." The late George Herbert Walker Bush, who began his government career in the CIA before the killing of JFK, acknowledged this program, but sought to soft-pedal it by pointing out that the CIA handlers were no longer paid by the CIA, but by the media conglomerates themselves, as though that changed the nature of the control.

That was then (President #41), this is now (#45). According to 45, the only news that's not fake is his own tweets. Others differ; the current number of his lies, per day, as reported by that radical left-wing rag Forbes Magazine, is averaging at about 23.8 (since the onset of the Covid-19 "Chinese hoax"). The US has become the world champ in total number of Covid-19 cases and deaths. 45 is a recent victim (he's "fine," though), and continues his campaign to deny any responsibility for over 220,000 dead Americans, a number which is predicted to double by the end of the year.

Is there any objective means to separate facts from fiction, truth from lies? Of course. Problem: many self-interested groups and their agents spend inordinate amounts of money and time promoting self-serving fictions, and many Americans (and others) accept these fictions uncritically as truth, for reasons having no connection to reason and logic (while sometimes producing rationalizations of them as "cover"). 45 is a master of brazen emotional manipulations of his "base." What amazes me is reading such rationalizations (and acceptance of fiction as fact) echoed by otherwise-rational people I respect (when they are in their "normal," rational states). See this post, for example.

Today, I listened to an episode of an excellent podcast series ("Hidden Brain"), "The Logic of Rage," which examined the way the human brain can and does "switch gears" from the rational mode to an emotional mode, which is (to use a phrase from Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers) "unencumbered by the thought process." This mode short-circuits our otherwise-logical behavior into fight-or-flight mode, a mode made necessary in our evolutionary development to ensure our survival, but deadly for the long-term survival of any civilization. This podcast episode is a good example of how logic and reason can go out the window in circumstances such as we currently face.

Up until now (in this post), I have not mentioned the "new paradigm" under which I now operate, which requires an entirely new attitude towards, and view of, American elections as presently constituted. I covered this new paradigm here, so I won't repeat myself. The focus of this post is intended to be "how to determine the truth;" to be rigorous, one must first define "truth." Is it relative, subjective, absolute? Sometimes one, sometimes another? Do the dictates of (actual) National Security ever require that our employees in the civil service, elected officials, or even judges on the bench, lie to us as a matter of policy? Here is a mostly-excellent essay on the topic of truth in politics.

In summary: the worst decision you can make, in determining how you will vote, is to allow externalities (like the views and interests of the "tribes" to which we all belong), opinions of "thought leaders" in media, or anything but your own well-considered judgments, based on your own unbiased research, enlightened self-interest and the general welfare of our nation, determine your choice. Think for yourself, while also considering others. My choice was based on these factors, in the context of what can be accomplished by our body politic before November 3. My actions in the four years to follow will be focused on the new paradigm.

When looking at that new paradigm, bear in mind that the main author and advocate of that paradigm (Anna von Reitz, annavonreitz.com) is not infallible, and has posted many articles which are of questionable provenance and feature flawed logic or just plain incorrect information. That said, I judge the core of her program (the unfinished job of "post-Civil-War Reconstruction" of our actual government, as distinguished from the government-services corporations which the Founders established and which have since usurped that actual, sovereign government) to be sound and essential to complete—if you agree with me that self-government by We the People, each of whom enjoys the status of a sovereign-without-subjects, a status the Founders established when we rejected the foreign rule of King George III, is preferable to the defacto status we now suffer as a people controlled, through fraud and semantic deceit, by our employees, in a system of corporate feudalism. 

(I tried to write this last paragraph in rigorous prose for clarity, because the subject demands rigorous treatment. After all, I'm advocating a new paradigm here, and no common assumptions can be made. I wish to avoid any attempt to restate or condense the valid and essential information Anna has provided to support the New Paradigm; she has done a good job in this endeavor. However, reading over this last paragraph, it's neither accessible nor entertaining. Anna has, if anything, erred on the side of being very accessible in many of her posts; for example, this one. It's an accessible allegory of the process our government-services employees have used for over a century to rob us blind. Maybe I'll post a list of more of her posts of this nature, the gist of which I agree with. Anna has written in many formats and styles, for different audiences: the highbrow, the lowbrow, the religious, the agnostic, the thoughtful, the tribal ideologues, even specifically for Trump, who is unlikely to read much of anything. Perhaps she should commission a pretty, faux blonde Fox News anchor to produce special shows just for The Donald, to deliver appropriate parables. Sadly, expecting to influence 45's thought process, let alone his behavior, seems—to any rational observer—an exercise in futility.)

Determining "the truth" in our current pre-election environment is frustratingly complex. No single source of information can be trusted without rigorous examination. With 45 (or, adopting Greg Palast's appellation, "Agent Orange"), "truth" is whatever he says it is; anyone or anything disagreeing with his assertions is, by definition, "fake news." Unfortunately, "real news" is exceedingly difficult to discern. Operation Mockingbird is still very much with us, and is not under the control of the current administration. As noted above, our "mass media" is owned by only five multinational conglomerates, and the "news" divisions of these huge corporate enterprises have been neglected as their profitability pales beside their sister divisions in entertainment. In fact, "Fox News" is not even officially recognized by many nations (outside the US) as a "news organization;" it's considered to be either entertainment, government propaganda, or some combination of the two. Even a reporter for "The Gray Lady" (the NYT) was caught fabricating stories. So, when passengers on the "Trump Train"hear their hero decry "fake news," they could claim they had actual reasons to believe him (other than tribal loyalty), although they would be unlikely to look for actual reasons; their loyalty implies faith, but does not demand reason (or reasons).

If the "mainstream media" is unreliable as a source of truth and verifiable facts, where is there left to look? I recommend finding sources independent of that media, and checking them against each other. (Greg Palast, a real investigative reporter at a time when that category is nearly extinct, is a great example—and he's entertaining, as well.) Other examples: Seymour Hersh, Bob Woodward, Glenn Greenwald... a search for "contemporary investigative reporters" just now yielded these links: the UK-based, worldwide "Positive News" where you will find the London-based media organization The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Follow these links to Forensic News, Global Witness, The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, The Intercept, Tomgram, and Fighting back against fake news: meet the factcheckers. Also of note, from Northeastern University, in Boston, MA, this article on journalism. Try your own search and see what you find. (Unfortunately, you may find pyrite along with the gold, like "Snopes," a site which reliably "debunks" any source not approved by the corporate and government establishments. Buyer beware.)

These are extraordinary times. Today is Nov.2, 2020, and tomorrow national elections are held. As of last May, according to Forbes, the incumbent President has averaged over twenty lies per day. That number now stands at 50, according to an October 22nd Washington Post article: "As President Trump entered the final stretch of the election season, he began making more than 50 false or misleading claims a day. It’s only gotten worse — so much so that the Fact Checker team cannot keep up."

In light of these numbers, it seems unwise to take any White House statements at face value. Trump has endlessly repeated unsubstantiated or false statements about "election fraud" in an apparent attempt to invalidate the results if he loses. Voting by mail has long been a tradition in many states, the only means in some states; a trend that's been accelerated by the pandemic crisis. (New Jersey last month sent every registered voter a mail-in ballot.) Over half of all votes may have already been cast through early voting and mail-in ballots; "conservative" Breitbart reports, "A majority of Joe Biden (D) supporters say they have already cast their ballots, while just a quarter of President Trump supporters have done the same, a Change Research/CNBC Poll released this week found."

The Trump team saw this trend coming, and recognized it as a threat. As the demographics of mail-in voters tend to favor Democrats, efforts to sabotage mail-in voting have included crippling the Post Office by removing sorting machines, prohibiting overtime, sending mail trucks out "on schedule" but empty, and more. On Greg Palast's site, you'll find a plethora of means by which Republicans have, for years, tipped the scales in their favor through fraudulent means, including purging voter rolls with "Operation Crosscheck" and making voting more difficult for the Democrat demographic, like limiting ballot drop boxes to one per county in states like Texas where counties are huge. With publicity about these issues, and courts striking down various vote-suppression schemes, the Trump Team is near panic as poll numbers run against them. For weeks, Trump has been claiming that voting must stop on election day and, if he is ahead, he must be declared the winner, setting up a rationale for claiming that if he's ahead on election day, and subsequent votes swing the count to Biden (as may happen, since early and mail-in ballots take longer to count), this will "prove" election fraud by Democrats. Only rabid Trump partisans are likely to believe this, and they've been urged to participate in "poll watching" while armed. Nothing good can come of this. 

I hope tomorrow's contest will be decided in the weeks to come, without violence. (The chance of the incumbent conceding tomorrow, if he loses, is small but not vanishingly so, if there's a landslide or a number of "battleground" states where the count is overwhelmingly for Biden.) However, "the truth about politics" can't be found by looking at the current contest. As I laid out in a previous post, that's a new paradigm, folks. Looking for the truth in politics by analyzing current political theater makes as much sense as trying to gauge reality by analyzing the actions of characters in a daytime soap opera. We will fix nothing by getting better writers for the opera: we need to recognize the nature of our reality and replace the current fantasy world with the new reality that we deserve. We start that recognition, and work to replace fantasy with that new reality, at The American States Assembly.

Politics? What politics?

As I write, the "Big Contest" between Trump and Biden is less than a month away, and has seized The National Attention (along with the Covid-19 pandemic, which has sadly become a political issue).

Emotions run high: hyper-partisans on "each side" proclaim that if the "other one" wins, it will mean The End of America As We Know It.

In 2016, I participated in this madness in my usual iconoclastic manner, before I revived this blog (in May of 2019). I tried to be "realistic," and chose a candidate in the primary who was both a member of a "major party" and reasonably close to my own views (Bernie Sanders). After he won (by all rights) the Democratic nomination and then had it stolen from him by the DNC, I switched to a candidate whose views were even closer to mine, Dr. Jill Stein (Green Party). Most Americans believe that any "third party" choice is worse than futile, it is "a vote for (the worse of the 'two candidates')". I was not, and am not, convinced that this view is correct, given the facts that "third parties" (a peculiar term when there are a total of eight) usually get, combined, no more than two or three percent of the vote, and that about 47% of eligible voters don't vote at all. I adopted an unrealistic expectation that Jill could actually win, on the basis of two unlikely scenarios: getting potential voters to look at the website "isidewith.com" where, instead of preselecting the R or the D candidate, you enter your preferences and views without reference to any candidate, and the website matches those preferences with the one candidate who most closely represents your views.

While using isidewith.com to choose which candidate to vote for might be ideal, the dominant paradigm lurks deep inside us all: that there are really only two "viable parties" in this country, and that choosing a candidate from a "third" party constitutes "throwing away your vote" at best and "helping the wrong candidate win" at worst. This view is reinforced by both the "duopoly parties" and the educational and media establishments ever since before Lincoln was elected.

Other countries have other systems, and one radical change in our system might completely eliminate the fear engendered by our established "2-party duopoly:" a system (with several variations) called "ranked-choice voting." It's actually been adopted by in a few states for state elections. Every voter ranks all the candidates by number, their most-to least preferred, freeing them to vote for the candidate closest to their views without the fear that such a vote will "not count." When the votes are counted, the "losing" candidates are eliminated and those votes are transferred (for each voter) to their next-lowest-ranked choice until only two are left. Since no voter can read the minds of all the other voters, they have no way to assume that others don't also share their number-one choice, putting all the candidates on an even, fear-free playing field. No one's vote will be "thrown away" or "undercut" the votes for duopoly (R/B) candidates. Naturally, the duopoly will fight efforts to enact rank-choice voting tooth-and-nail.

On the basis of what could happen, given that four parties were on the ballot in almost every state (R, D, Green and Libertarian), I cast my ballot for the Green candidate, Jill Stein (isidewith gave me a 95% match with my views). After my electoral-system experience in 2016, despite all the rationality I demonstrated in "voting my conscience," I decided to "hold my nose" and support a duopoly candidate, fully recognizing that this approach is not a long-term solution to the "political problem" in a country which has no politics, only political theater. (Hint: it's the "challenger.") On the surface, it should be obvious to any American that "the will of the voters" has almost zero influence on what happens in Washington, or anywhere else in America. It's official: "...two professors from Northwestern University took data from nearly 2000 public opinion surveys and compared it to the policies that ended up becoming law. In other words, they compared what the public wanted to what the government actually did. What they found was extremely unsettling: The opinions of 90% of Americans have essentially no impact at all" (Source: https://act.represent.us/sign/the-problem).

Even if there was a strong correlation between public opinion and legislation (and the behavior of politicians), there's the matter of electoral fraud (not "voting fraud," which statistically is almost non-existent). The best, scariest and most entertaining documentation of such fraud can be found at https://www.gregpalast.com. This fraud is a symptom of the desperate and corrupt grip of the kleptocrat .01% on our "politics." Unless you're a member of their club, it's "heads they win, tails you lose."

From my experience as a voter in 2016 and my expectations of what will happen this year, you might think I'm in despair about the future of (real) politics in this country. You are mistaken.

My tale of woe above dates back to 2016, but since then, I've come to see a bigger picture, thanks to the work of a grandmother in Alaska and the team she has put together to fix our broken system. (Please refer to my previous post, "Not everything I knew was wrong" and the links near the end of that post.)

The bigger picture includes my fairly-recent realizations that not only is our "politics" not politics, our "money" is not money, but our "government" is not our government. Discovering what is false and what is real can truly set us free. While I believe that the worst American crises in recent history can be partially alleviated by removing President #45 from office, his inevitable replacement will not prove to be much of an improvement (compared to what could happen if the program outlined here is implemented). Please, if you have not already done so, go there and judge for yourself. This new paradigm will take time and effort to absorb and accept, but the rewards for doing so are immense.

The electoral reforms I wished for in 2016 (like ranked-choice voting and using a website like isidewith.com) are still good ideas, but the new paradigm presents a whole new ball game. The only way to win a rigged game is not to play. Time for a new "game." Discover what this new "game" is all about at theamericanstatesassembly.net.

Not everything I knew was wrong.

The title of this blog is an homage to the Firesign Theater, the "Beatles of Comedy," and their album (originally only available as a vinyl LP—remember those?), "Everything You know Is Wrong!" (now on YouTube (https://youtu.be/YKZtt2yEwfs and https://youtu.be/thVDjdSR7SA).  At the end of the record, the narrator (Happy Harry Cox) states, after he discovers that one of his "revealed truths" is wrong, declares "I was right! Everything I knew was wrong!

It recently occurred to me that I should make explicit the implied contradiction in my blog's title, in light of the contemporary insanity I see all around me on the net (and in "real life," whatever that is).

Let me reiterate: not everything I knew was wrong. What did I get right in, say my first 45 years?

The short list of what I got right, in bullet points:

• The scientific method is a reliable way to accumulate accurate information and trustworthy theories, but relying on the "establishment" to provide those things is not. 
• Mere input from the five senses is not, by itself, "reliable information."
• There will never be an end to scientific discoveries or the expansion of human knowledge.
• We are not the only intelligent life in the universe, and (on a trivial level) "UFOs are real."
• "Conventional wisdom" is an oxymoron and most people carry a huge burden of falsehoods.

Regarding the first two bullets, I have commented on the phenomenon of the lack of consideration of scale (relative size) on the part of the more intelligent and less-gullible believers in the "Flat Earth Theory" (and there are a few) as partial explanation for their misperceptions. (See https://everythingiknewwaswrong.blogspot.com/2020/07/do-you-believe-earth-is-flat-heres-why.html) Sadly, in an era when over 90% of this planet's knowledge is at the fingertips of everyone with a smartphone, many folks (including most of the flat-earthers) get their talking points by siding with their preferred "tribe," who deride anyone who disagrees with them as "one of the sheeple," making the error of assuming that, because many establishment "authorities" habitually bombard us with self-serving lies, that everything coming from an "establishment" source must be a lie. It's futile to dissuade these folk from their new, adopted "truths," since their beliefs are unencumbered by the thought process. As Sam Clemens once wrote, "you can't reason someone out of a belief which they weren't reasoned into." I wrote the post linked above for those few people who have fallen into the twin traps of disbelieving everything "establishment" and believing in the unanalyzed evidence of their five senses. Neither can be taken at face value, but must be analyzed properly according to current knowledge and the scientific method.

The "wrong" parts:

Here are a few things I thought I "knew" which proved to be among those self-serving establishment lies (followed by brief summaries of why they were wrong):

• America is an "exceptional" nation, so different in its national character that it stands alone above "lesser" nations, "number one" in its championing of "democracy, freedom and social justice." 

This paradigm died a gruesome death on November 22, 1963. Before the Warren Commission had delivered its verdict, it was obvious to me (among many others) that the official story, with more holes than Swiss cheese (which the Commission was tasked to reinforce), was designed by what became known later as the "National Security State" to deflect attention from the real perpetrators inside "our government." Later, RFK and MLK, Jr. (and others) would be taken out by members of the same teams. I was a personal witness to the intense propaganda campaign designed to brainwash the American people into accepting the Commission's verdict, or (if that campaign failed to convince everyone) agreeing to pretend that "the unthinkable" (assassins within the government) could never be spoken aloud, lest "we" lose our standing as "leaders of the free world." Saying such things aloud, it was said by our "loyal" press, was tantamount to putting the truth above "national security." Anyone daring to question the Commission's official story was branded a "conspiracy theorist," subject to social sanctions, putting their jobs and perhaps their lives and the lives of their families at risk. (One member of Washington's inner circle, jaded by the CIA's series of liquidations of troublesome leaders abroad, on hearing of the assassination, instantly reacted with the unguarded exclamation, "What have we become, a banana republic?") As a skeptic, I felt the personal sting of such "conspiracy theorist" accusations, and (at age 17) wondered: if the President of the United States was not safe from an official bullet, how safe was I? Much to my shame later in life, I stopped speaking out against that Military-Industrial Complex that Ike warned us about. It's been said that JFK was the last US President who believed he was the president, and all presidents who came after him were made aware of the limitations imposed on their authority by that Complex.

Regarding those "Banana Republics;" as a teenager, my take on that characterization was that these poor countries were poor because they were under-industrialized and the victims of their own corrupt leaders. Now that I've read several editions of the book "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," I see the situation differently. Their current states are largely creations of our own "governments."

• The "Conservative" worldviews, such as that our nation has limited resources, taxes fund government expenditures (which must be minimized with "balanced budgets"), that safety nets must not be too generous lest they promote lazy and immoral behavior, and that the "national debt" must eventually be paid down, among other "common-sense" things that "everyone knows" (and that "liberals" seem to ignore). Some of this "knowledge" of mine persisted into the 1980s.

• The beliefs and policies of contemporary "liberals" are built on a foundation of sand, since they eventually (as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were fond of saying) "run out of other people's money."

• American politics functions under a "two-party system," where Democrats (mostly on the "left") and Republicans (mostly on the "right") govern the nation. Persistence: into the '90s.

The dissolution of these three bits of "knowledge" can be discussed together. As for "conservatism:" taxes do not fund our "governments." All discussions about money, taxes, our "national debt" and budgets are fantasies based on "facts" which are demonstrably complete fictions. Since at least 1918, when the "Federal Reserve System" was created, we stopped using money. Since then, our "monetary" system has been a system of credit and debt, double-entry bookkeeping, where every debt is balanced by an equal credit. Quantitatively, since the Reagan era, all federal income tax goes to pay the interest on the debt. "Government" is financed entirely by borrowing, through a complex process where funds are created from thin air (ie, borrowed into existence); the Fed (a consortium of private banks) prints our "money" as IOUs called "Federal Reserve Notes," backed by nothing but "the full faith and credit of the US government." (Not quite an accurate description, covered later in "Who Owns The Credit.") The Fed then sells the money they print (or simply create as "money of account" as bookkeeping entries in a computer) to the "government." (I'll later explain why I persist in putting quotes around that word.)

Back to the three bullet-points above: "limited resources" are not so much a fact of nature as they are a way of reinforcing the ideology of scarcity, supported by most Western churches, economists, and "governments." We are ingrained by our societies to think of macroeconomics as if they were fully analogous to household budgets, where a finite income must be managed to provide for that family's needs and support (ideally) some savings. Macroeconomics is an entirely different paradigm.

The "conservative" views about economics are at variance with reality; in addition to a misunderstanding (real or purported) of our actual economic system, conservatives blame economic hardship on the victims of this system, claiming that if these victims would just work harder (and longer), and live within their means, they'd be fine. Observe that it's literally impossible for one to pull oneself up by one's own bootstraps. The "liberals," as viewed by the "conservatives" (in the parody-cliches above), are focused on using "government" as a tool to level a playing field so tilted by the kleptocrats that the "money" rolls downhill, into fat-cat pockets. The actual liberals (actually neoliberals) focus on alleviating the misery of the poor by using government funding (without ever challenging our wonderful "capitalist" system). Because liberals accept (and thereby reinforce) the fiction that taxes provide this funding, they fight a losing battle. The real (as it functions) economic system bears no resemblance to this model.

As I write this, we are about 50 days out from the next presidential election. Let's peek at that third bullet point: our "2-party system," where Democrats and Republicans (apparently) compete to control our national and local politics. Problem: there is no such system. We have no real "politics." 

What we have instead is political theater, an intramural game where two teams (the Rs and the Ds), both privately-owned corporations, function as lobbyists (paid largely by the same set of kleptocrats). Two wings, one bird, one pile of guano (with slightly different flavors). Note that when the Berniecrats sued the DNC for the primary-election fraud of 2016, the DNC's legal team's defense was that, as a privately-held corporation, they had no obligation to follow their own rules and could nominate whoever they wanted, regardless of the wishes of the elected delegates. (This is on the public record, folks.) That's why Bernie's team lost. 

(Fun research: look up the corporate status of our "two political parties" in Dun & Bradstreet. Also see The Problem | RepresentUs, where you will find this: "The preferences of the average American appear to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy. One thing that does have an influence? Money. While the opinions of the bottom 90% of income earners in America have a “statistically non-significant impact,” economic elites, business interests, and people who can afford lobbyists still carry major influence.")

"American politics" (as well as most politics worldwide) is usually framed in terms of "left versus right," or "liberals versus conservatives" (or, if you're an ideologue, "communists versus fascists"). In light of who is really in charge of "politics," the kleptocrat class, I propose another paradigm: this club of the .01% manages our political theater by the classic method of molding these purported ideologies so as to control the dialogue, as the apparently-different sides "battle" each other, to achieve the desired outcomes: keep the two teams in a showman-like pitched battle against each other, expending the energy and wealth of their supporters, while keeping themselves, the kleptocrat fight managers, out of sight, out of mind and out of danger. If I was in that club, that's what I would do. Why leave such a high-stakes game to chance? We're talking Quadrillions here. (Inflation, you know.)

Regarding what's real and what's not: I already touched on the peculiar fact that what we regard as "money" is actually nothing of the sort; it's been replaced by a system of credit and debt. We are trained to believe that all the debt is on our shoulders, and the credit is somehow owned by the banks. In reality, the exact opposite is true. In our current system, we use Federal Reserve Notes, or their equivalent in checkbook accounts (computer ledger entries), in place of real money. A Note is actually a certificate of debt, that is, an IOU, a promise to pay in the future. What difference does it make, if our "money" is actually IOUs, if everyone accepts it as money? We shall shortly see.

"Government."

I was in my 60s when I first heard the assertion that what we thought of as "our Federal government" was actually a corporation. I scoffed. Then I gradually started doing my own research. Funny thing, when I looked in the Dun & Bradstreet listings of corporations, there they were. Corporations cannot be sovereign governments, and sovereign governments cannot be corporations.

Holy ****!

However, sovereign governments can, and do, create corporations and delegate specific functions of specific kinds to those corporations. Our Founding Fathers did this. They knew what they were doing; it's unfortunate that we forgot this fact. 

I am indebted to a grandmother in Alaska who goes by the pen name of Anna von Reitz (and who also uses "Anna Reitzinger"). She has several books out, a Facebook page, and several websites. The primary link for the body of her work is annavonreitz.com. While I don't endorse everything she writes or share all her opinions, I believe that the core of her most important work is right on the money. (See this link for my caveats.) She recently established a new website to concentrate on the primary solution to restoring our actual government (as opposed to the corporate impostors which now pretend to be our sovereign governments), theamericanstatesassembly.net. Don't take my word for it, you must look at the evidence and decide for yourself if her analysis is correct. My confidence in that analysis was bolstered recently by my experience in court.

Rather than try to condense her work into a few bite-size pieces, I encourage you to visit the websites above, and make your own evaluations. I'm working on another post, a cautionary tale of how dangerous it is to depend on the opinions and advice of "thought leaders," without keeping a constant eye on their feet (which are invariably caked with, if not made of, clay, my own included). "Let the buyer beware." Topical (as we are approaching the 2020 general election), its working title is "Politics? What politics?"

Einstein and GPS: relativity in our everyday lives

The conventional wisdom (my favorite oxymoron) about Einstein’s theories is that, in our everyday lives, Newtonian physics is sufficient, without resorting to theories of relativity or quantum mechanics. If you ever use GPS to navigate on our roads (or streets or forests), however, this is no longer true. The current accuracy of our global GPS system is dependent on the practical application of Einstein's relativity theories. Of course, you can use GPS (or drop an apple on someone’s head) without knowing about either Einstein or Newton, but without Relativity Theory, that accuracy would not be possible. At Matt Parker’s YouTube channel, he reports the existence of an altitude at which positive and negative time distortions on a satellite cancel each other out. Parker made up a definition for this term, the "Time Dilatopause,” in an episode of his podcast here. My summary:

On satellites, time “runs faster” relative to earth time because of the lower gravity at that satellite's mean altitude from Earth. Simultaneously, time “runs slower” due to the satellite’s speed relative to objects at rest on Earth’s surface. In the case of geostationary satellites like those used in the global GPS system, the “slowdown” due to relative speed is 7.2 microseconds per day. The “speedup” due to the lower gravity is 38.4 microseconds per day. The “slowdown” is calculated with the formulas of Special Relativity; the overall correction is calculated with the formulas of General Relativity (which takes gravity into account while including the formulas of SR). 38.4 microseconds per day is the net speedup, which would be 45.6 were it not for the need to subtract the “Special Relativity slowdown” of 7.2 microseconds per day. It is thus the formulas of General relativity, used to adjust the speed of the clocks on the satellites, which gives GPS calculations their current accuracy. On your next GPS-guided journey, thank Einstein for making this accuracy possible.

It was Kevin Brown (see his free book, “Reflections on Relativity,” at https://www.mathpages.com/rr/rrtoc.htm) who worked out the altitude of the “Time Dilatopause” at about 1.5 times the Earth’s radius, lower than GPS satellites, which orbit at about 3,000 km. (Note that it would not be useful to orbit GPS satellites so close to Earth, as they would not be geosynchronous there.) 

A native Australian comedian and nerd, who describes himself as a “stand-up mathematician,” Matt Parker’s website is standupmaths.com, where you’ll find a plethora of goodies. He’s the author of “Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World.”

His podcast, “A Podcast of Unnecessary Detail,” is at http://festivalofthespokennerd.com/podcast.

Happy learning. Grow and have fun!