A Meaning of Currency

Fox - AP - Latest self-driving Google car heading to public streets. In the article it says that one of Googles cars paused while driving because it saw chairs sitting next to one another. What would be the safest type of road markings (lines and cross walks) for these cars to navigate around? Do you think European style crosswalks (like you see on the cover of Abbey Road) or old style American single line crosswalks would be more effective? What about to protect bicyclists? Wouldn't they need road markings to protect them? Maybe that is why we are seeing these things done in the United States already.

Huffington Post - Raven-Symoné Suggests Rosa Parks, Instead Of Harriet Tubman, Should Be On The $20 Bill. They claim that there is a discussion regarding whether or not a woman should be on the face of the $20 bill and some survey suggested Harriet Tubman (a famous black women who helped hide escaping slaves headed to the north). Ms Raven-Symone disagrees (she is also a black woman), and thinks Rosa Parks should be on the $20. While it is sad that there are no females on any of our bills (Lady Liberty was on many coins over the years), it sort of misses the point of currency design in the United States. We put Presidents on our paper currency or at least Benjamin Franklin who signed the Declaration of Independence. I can think of many famous men who deserve to be on our currency, how about Thomas Edison or Henry Ford or Albert Einstein (hey if any non representative of the government person deserves his own bill he would have to be it).

The images on the front of our money represent not just famous people; but, people who represented our government not society at large. A few people on a talk shows opinion is no more important than anyone else's and a survey doesn't do it. If we are going to let anyone be on our currency then lets vote on each bill. If we are not going to vote on it then we need a guideline and we have one, what guideline would you choose? Heck, I could understand President Obama on the $20 more than Harriet Tubman. He was the first black president after all, doesn't that count for something? What about putting Franklin D Roosevelt on it, is he not deserving, he did have more years in as President than anyone else in history and he has never had his own bill. In the end the question is not whether or not we should have a black person or a woman on our currency, the question is how should we decide what goes on our currency.

Now personally, I don't really care what we put on our currency; but, there should be some rules if we all have to use it or at least one person deciding. It is real expensive to replace currency. Then again the whole argument is pointless as we are headed to all electronic currencies. I should also point out that governments have put their leaders on coins forever, it was to show you who owned you. That is why the Queen of England is on the currency of so many nations that still owe allegiance to England. In the bible Jesus was asked about a government tax, he told his questioners to take out a coin and asked him who's representation was on the coin. The person told Jesus that it was Caesar's and Jesus said to give to Caesar what was Caesars. Even though we use Federal Reserve Notes, in the end it belongs to "The United States of America".

Cashless Societies, Welfare Costs and Public Pensions

The Telegraph - How to end boom and bust: make cash illegal . A proposed new law in Denmark would basically make it impossible to pay in cash and require you to go all electronic with the government being the bank. Now I could talk about how I am for or against this law; but, in the end it doesn't really matter. The world is going cashless. The question is who will keep the tally, who will keep count of how much money you have? Do you trust JP Morgan Chase, they have been caught manipulating markets and stealing your money and even after having paid over $29 Billion in fines are still not done paying fines. Do you trust the Federal Reserve or do you want it to be government?

Business Cheat Sheet - How Much Do Welfare Programs Cost the U.S.? More Than You Ever Thought. Just so you know the number is $158 Billion. Sounds like a lot until you consider that we have spent TRILLIONS fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. An aircraft carrier costs about $13 Billion to build, the planes it carries cost almost as much if not more, the personnel and expenses are also in the hundreds of millions a year. About 75% of the families on welfare have people working; but, the minimum wage is so low that they need government subsidies to survive. Maybe we should be concerned more about taking care of our own people and spend less time killing people in foreign countries, just a thought.

Yahoo - Reuters - San Bernardino bankruptcy plan: bondholders hammered while pensions kept whole. The City of San Bernardino filed for bankruptcy protection. The article claims that the city wants to pay it's pension debt more than it's bondholders. This is insincere. The City of San Bernardino attempted to avoid their pension obligations and Calpers investigated finding that the city was hiding the money that would have allowed them to make their mandatory contributions. Imagine a company telling the Federal Government that they are not going to pay the employees Social Security money that has already been removed from your paycheck in private industry. Same thing.

Now China is Outsourcing to Robots

South China Morning Post - Building work starts on first all-robot manufacturing plant in China’s Dongguan. China relies on manufacturing and has well over a billion people, now they are replacing all those jobs (which were pretty bad to begin with) with robots. What do you do when you have a billion unemployed people? Think about it.

The Autonomous 18 Wheeler and the Economy

Salon - Robert Reich: America’s economy is a nightmare of our own making. A good article about what went wrong with the economy and the lies that we believed.

Yahoo - Business Insider - Here's how much income is taxed around the world. There is a lot of money and time spent trying to convince people to hate income taxes; but, they always end up missing the point and cheating the numbers. Income tax is only one tax, property tax, sales tax, value added taxes (used in Europe). If you lessen one tax, you must make up for it by increasing other taxes. All taxes other than an income tax are harder on people who have less money to begin with. The income tax is the fairest tax because it taxes people based on how much they have benefited from their society and the infrastructure that their society has invested in. I personally believe in a flat income tax, that is a tax where everyone is taxed at the same percentage.

TruckYeah - Freightliner Just Revealed The First Real Road-Legal Autonomous Big Rig. It even has it's own license plate and is legal in Nevada. This is not decades off, it is not years off, it is legal and in effect now.

Yahoo - Business Insider - Aide to California state attorney accused of running an occult police force claiming to be 3,000 years old. The supposed police force was called the Masonic Fraternal Police Department.

I Had a Thought and Read Pastor Daniels Autopsy Again - I Provide No Link

I was feeling bad about something completely unrelated, my divorce, and had a thought about Pastor Daniels. It caused me to check her autopsy again. I found a couple of odd things. Firstly, it said the extremities were bound in paper bags. I never noticed that before, that is strange. It also said that the hands I don't do medical, I don't like medical things and I don't understand them, not one of my fields. Something is wrong in this case, something we have not understood, an answer to a question.

Why were her hands bound in paper, was she still alive? If not, if she were already dead, why bind her hands in paper bags? I cannot figure that out. Why did the autopsy include no information regarding the Pericardium or Peritoneum on page 4 of the autopsy, the easy answer is that they should have said normal. Where the coroner wrote about the Pancreas, he said normal and unremarkable, he commented on all the organs almost. Her autopsy says she was healthy, if overweight. Then I saw the drawing of the cuts. something is wrong. The drawings both showed the thumbs being pointed out. That makes no sense unless both showed where the wounds were to the wrists and the inside of the arms. The second drawing is of the front of the arms from the backside. Their were more cuts to the soft part of the arms than the front of the arms and only one side of the front, of her left arm.

Why didn't she fight back, why did she put her hands in front of her it the defensive position, she knew the killer and the textbook. She didn't want to hurt the killer. The key to this case is whether or not the killer entered through the front door; but, the camera showed nobody entering through the front door. They entered through the back. If they entered through the back then they either surprised her or she saw that they were already there. If she saw that they had already broken in then why not run out unless she already knew them and wanted to help them. Why did nobody hear the screams, was she trying to talk them and why the paper bags tying her hands together. It makes no sense.

Were the "defensive wounds" to the back of her arms made before or after the bags were wrapped around her hands and feet?

Televisions Portrayal of Adultery

I've been watching Netflix, I watched Grey's Anatomy and it's spinoff, Private Practice. Just about every episode involves adultery. The interesting thing to me having had my wife cheat on me with multiple partners, is how little the people seem to be effected by it. On these shows people cheat on you. leave you for another person and after the initial shock go out of their way to help their exes in their new relationships.

You might think I am unforgiving; but, you would be seriously mistaken. The first time I found out that my wife cheated on me was about ten years into our marriage and resulted in her giving me an STD. We tried therapy but she would never talk about herself and left the therapy. The last person that I know of that she cheated on me was her hiking partner and that was the one she left me for. I still tried to get her to come back. Even after that, once we had divorced, she was hit by one of her boyfriends and called me for help and I gave it; but, I will never trust her and certainly don't want to go to dinner with her or even see her. She is a bad person and I try and avoid those in my life. I can be around her and even speak pleasantries; but, I don't trust her.

I don't bring up any of this too bash the ex, she is the mother of my children and I have been over it for quite awhile. This is about the things that change that they don't talk about on televisions shows or at the movies. It is about the mental after effects of infidelity. The person who is cheated on usually feels stupid for not seeing it, unattractive and unlovable and will develop trust issues. The cheater also is effected in a negative way. The new world is never the way they had fantasized.

The reality is that most people that leave their spouse for another person never marry each other. I read one stat that said 2.5%. For those that do marry their adulterous partner, the divorce rate is about 90%. The adulterer has even more trust issues than the partner that they cheated on usually. If you were the cheater and left your spouse what do you tell people when you date? Do you tell them you cheated on your spouse? Do you lie and tell them that your spouse cheated on you and hide the fact of what you did from new partners knowing that you are living a lie? How can you trust anyone after cheating on and leaving your spouse? They don't talk about these things on television.

If you are an adulterer it forever changes the way people look at you even your own family. It says that they cannot trust you. It also can effect you in business. I told a couple of people that I mentored that the first rule was that they could never lie again. The logic was simple, if you lie to your spouse how can I trust you not to lie to me? I forgave my ex years ago; but, I could never trust anything she told me again.

Let me put it this way, if you had a friend who cheated on their spouse and left them, would you be okay with them later dating your brother or sister? They don't talk about the real effects of adultery on television dramas.

I attended a birthday party for my granddaughter and the ex was there with her new boyfriend, not the man she cheated on me with, it was difficult for him and he stayed to himself. I busied myself talking to everyone else at the party and avoiding being alone with my ex. When the presents were opened we all gathered together and I ended up across from my exes new boyfriend. He chose to speak to me, he said he had heard that I was an Engineer. I am not, have not been and never intend to be an Engineer, I used to tell them what to do. She never told him what I did for a living, she never really told him about me, the man she was with for 24 years. I am not surprised that he was curious. I knew about my wife's first husband, the one that cheated on her. I told him that I was not an en gin neer. I had no intention of discussing my marriage or my ex with him. He asked me some construction questions, which I really do understand and the ex came by, sat next to him and glared at me. So, I excused myself and left.

My ex glared at me because she had something to hide from her boyfriend and was afraid I would him the truth. They don't talk about that on tv dramas. Whether my ex regrets what she did or not, what she did will effect relationship that she ever has with a man again. Television doesn't point these things out.

By the way, not all divorces are because of adultery (although that is the only reason the bible allows divorce) and sometimes a one time affair does not lead to divorce or the spouse leaving for another person.

An Autonomus Internet of Everything

I was on a trip last week and attended a jazz concert tonight; however, I did save up articles in the news to post on. I travelled with my sister and we had a wonderful time, one of the best trips of my life. We met many people, enjoyed good food, experienced wonderful service everywhere we went and had a great time just talking. I brought up self-driving cars and she said she didn't think she would see it in her life, she didn't know it is already here. I hope my readers are sharing this information with others.

Yahoo - AP - After Alps crash, some experts ponder flights without pilots. The line that sums this article is, "In my mind, it's a done deal," she says. "The business case is so strong." Let me repeat what I have said since the beginning of this blog. All transportation will be autonomous, you will not own your transportation vehicle and it will determine how you get where you are going.

Yahoo - Colorado Teacher Shares Heartbreaking Notes From Third Graders. Things kids wanted their teacher to know.

thelocal.no - Earthworms rain from sky over Norway. You name it and it has been falling from the sky for thousands of years. There have been documented cases of fish, frogs and all sort of animals falling from the sky.

Reuters - First experiment 'editing' human embryos ignites ethical furor. China is now openly publishing in medical journals that they are experimenting with changing the dna of humans on humans. This, the modification of the human creation is the beginning of the end and I am not overreacting or joking. There is no way to stop this from occurring. Even if it were outlawed, it would go on in the dark.

Fox News - In first, Norway will shut off FM radio in 2017. There are laws that regulate radio; but, many of those protections do not apply to the internet. This is another wave of the future.

CheatSheet - How America’s Middle Class Dug Its Own Grave. Basically the self serving article says that it is the middle classes fault for trusting our government that allowed a few wealthy people to outsource all of our jobs and take away our benefits. We should have know the wealthy would take advantage of us and didn't believe in the United States and community.

ABC News - Study: Self-Driving 'Taxibots' Could Replace 9 in 10 Cars. The rich don't believe people are valuable or necessary. Technology is God if all you care about is your pleasure.

Still here, still paying attention, still wanting you to see more. Peace.