Robin Williams and a Movie You Didn't See and Stuff

My favorite comedian that was also an actor is Don Rickles. In all my years as a stage manager the only person I knew willing to deliver standup was me and I am far from great at it, I just like talking before crowds. Comedy is hard and standup is the hardest. You have to believe in every joke and when one fails you fear they all will fail. At least when I am preaching I don't have to worry if the joke fails as the point is always more important.

When I am preaching, the humor is meant to expose a truth. The Jews asked for rules and God them the ten commandments. They did not go into exile for having gays, they stoned them to death. They went into exile and lost everything because they violated the ten commandments. Jesus reinforced this thought in that when they asked him which was the most important commandment he told them it was to love God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. When I preach I have told gay people that they didn't even make the top ten of sins and Jesus never bothered mentioning them. That "top ten" reference is done in the form of a joke to highlight a point.

Our biggest problem is not that their are homosexuals in America or that if the government approves them being together they can get a tax break and inherit from one another. Our biggest problem is that we have ignored the top ten and the one that Jesus chose. What if we stopped killing one another or stealing from one another (that is aimed at JP Morgan, our financial system and a government that supports the financial system stealing from us) and cheating on one another, breaking our agreements which is lying. It was the institutional (society wide and accepting corruption) that destroyed Israel, not homosexuals.

The effective use of humor is to make a point that people will remember. Often comedy comes from pain. One of my best jokes was told during my colonoscopy with a camera 6 feet up my 5 foot, 8 inch frame. The best story teller with a point was probably George Carlin or for those of you in England, a Texan named Bill Hicks. They told stories and tried to help us see how silly this world is organized.

Robin Williams did improv and was great at it; but, he was even better when he was making a point in a movie, it gave him a point to steer towards. He got a number of awards for his acting and one of the films he made was called "The Best of Times". It is supposedly a comedy; but, is really a film about mistakes, regret and redemption. I am providing you a link to Hulu of the movie.

Hulu - The Best of Times

Now a couple of strange news items.

Yahoo - Why more U.S. companies will flee to Canada. Not complicated, they are moving to Canada to avoid paying taxes. At the same time they want to claim that their jobs are in America. In fact, Burger King is one of the ones that wants to move to Canada and recently supported a change in the rules that now claims that assembling a hamburger should be treated as a manufacturing job. You can write your own joke; but, I assure you, the joke is on us.

Companies in America have asked to be treated as people. I actually believe in that; but, they must then be treated equally as people and pay taxes the same as other residents. In Canada the average person has a higher tax rate than their billion and multi-billion dollar fellow Canadians. The Canadians pay for universal healthcare and America does not. Yet did not Burger King complain about "Obamacare"? The minimum wage is higher in Canada; but, didn't the fast food companies complain about raising the minimum wage? Maybe these companies just love more social programs and don't feel the US is prepared to provide them. Maybe that's why we sent all of our manufacturing jobs to Communist China. I don't think so. The rise of Globalism and the fact that our political class sold us out to the special interests (wealthy that could promise them a return on their vote) means that we do need to reconsider how income tax is calculated.

I would recommend that income tax only be charged by the federal government. I would also eliminate all deductions and have a simple flat tax. For people that make below the poverty line, I would charge not income tax. It makes no sense to tax people on welfare when we pay for that. Lets say everyone, including companies were charged a flat 15% on all profits, inheritance and any manner of income.

Now some might want to ask about bank bailouts or corporate bailouts. As people, I would give them the same benefits as other people on welfare or disability. $300 a month in food subsidies and another $300 in expenses. I don't know what we gave JP Morgan or GM; but, I think it was a lot more, maybe billions. Think about that.

During the 80s and 90s "corporate raiders" bought stock in American companies and then sold the assets off to China. Keep that in mind. You see the companies were worth more for their parts than their regular income, even though they made a regular income. People stopped buying stock for the annual return (dividend or participation in the profit) and more for the stock value (short term valuations).

Educating Humanity - FBI Interrogates NBC Cameraman For Filming UFO - NBC News Report. I don't really care about the post by the blogger. I have no idea what was going on, I am much more interested in why the FBI interrogated a cameraman over what he filmed. Lets say it wasn't a UFO, okay, then what are they afraid it was that was captured on film and why give him a lie detector test? What did he film and more importantly, why give him a lie detector test?

Have a great week.

Getting Better

I did not get up till like 3 today and every muscle hurt; but, the fever has broken and that is valuable. I will continue to rest tomorrow and hopefully will be fully functional by Wednesday, or at least as functional as I usually am.

I am happy to report that four people have in fact met the ALS challenge that I made. I will not be posting all of the videos as this blog is still anonymous and I respect that. This blog is about 7 years old and I have never made a dime from it, requested a dime or given away peoples identities.

I Have the Flu and it Sucks

A couple of days ago my daughter got the flu, I gave her medicine and avoided direct contact. It didn't work and now I have the flu and a fever. I don't like the fever part and can feel how it is effecting my thinking. Fortunately I have my favorite soup, I hope I can keep it down. Heck, I hope I can get it in me. When I get the flu I often lose my sense of taste.

I feel cold and am sweating, I go from cold to hot and back again. It is quite interesting how a fever effects us and our level of concentration. Don't expect any news from me tonight. Be well.

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

Hello all,

The Pimpernel contributes to many charities and has housed the homeless for around five years in his own home. I have also made substantial contributions to food banks (one of which I helped start). Since I was in elementary school I have worked and contributed to MDA and UNICEF. THE ALSA foundation supports people and research into Lou Gehrig's disease, a disease that slowly destroys people. There is a challenge going around to either contribute $100 or dunk your head in ice water buckets. People with integrity have done both, I have not been given the challenge; but, will be contributing $400 to charity with the first $100 going to ALSA. The other $300 will be going to MDA (Muscular Dystrophy), a food bank and homelessness.

Once one has taken the challenge, they are entitled to challenge others and I have already begun that process. As this blog is anonymous I will not be posting videos nor calling people out by name on this site. In fact, I have been making personal calls to the people I am challenging. One of them is the president of a substantial company and another is the head of another organization. I am not challenging them for $100, I am challenging them to give $100 to ALSA and $300 to any charities of their choice.

For 7 years I have been writing this blog and it has over 60,000 hits. I have never asked for a dime and do not advertise, this site is not and never will be monetized. I don't roll that way. It will also always be anonymous unless people choose to post identifying information. That is how I roll. Having said that, I want to know if any of you will bother to contribute, if you do let us know and you don't have to identify yourself or prove it to me. It is a moral question. Do you care about others, do they matter? I think we all matter.

One of my best friends died from a similar disease. I watched this lovely man slowly lose everything, his body, his mind and his awareness. It was horrifying; but, he did it with integrity. This is for you Bill, I miss you and love you.

Robbie, you are being called out to take the challenge and challenge everyone on the website that I used to be a member of and let them know that this is from me, if any remember me on it and even if they do not.

If the truth is inside you then I hope your truth is that others matter and that you are willing to help others. Lets have some fun while giving to help others. Peace.

Pimpernel

Let's take out the garbage/

There is a lot of rubbish going around that needs to be discarded.

BBC - Richard Dawkins: 'Immoral' not to abort Down's foetuses.

How does one believe in bringing back a Cromagnon; but  also believe we should kill off people who are not perfect? We all matter. Why does he believe that the existence of people less capable then himself means their lives are not worth living? If most people believe that joy is what we should seek in life and a person with Down's feels more joy than him, then why should the kid with Down's die?

Mr. Dawkins is a swine and proves it everytime he talks.

Mail Online - Are we becoming more STUPID? IQ scores are decreasing - and some experts argue it's because humans have reached their intellectual peak. The article claims that IQs went up because of better nutrition and education. It then proceeds to claim that the decrease in IQ is the result of humans reaching their intellectual top. They never asked the question if nutrition and education have devolved since the 60s,they have. They also ignored the fact that as new skills are more beneficial than others, the SAT and IQ tests have not evolved to track what people bother learning. If the test includes questions about how to start a fire with two twigs, does it even bother testing for what people bother learning? People are not getting dumber.

Why does the world want to convince you that you do not matter? It is never for your benefit that another would tell you that you do not matter and you do, that is what the world hates, it hates that you matter.

Why Do People Have Near Death Experiences?

I read this article today and it made me think about something.

LSJ - Near-death experience was life-changing for Howard Storm.

A lot of people have died and come back. The vast majority did not have what is termed a Near Death Experience. I have read that it is about 1 in 10. An NDE is a "spiritual" experience. It is the experience that some have of seeing the other side and is generally characterized as a feeling of love and acceptance shared with at least one other sentient being. Now, some people before they die "imagine" talking to love ones who have passed and are waiting for them. While that experience is equally important, it is not characterized as an NDE as those people haven't physically died.

I cannot prove my experience was "triggered" by my first heart attack; but, they did occur at the same time. As I have read about NDEs in the last few years, it also caused me to read about spiritual experiences unrelated to death. The Kundalini experience is very similar to a NDE and the Shamans that used certain drugs described their experiences in similar terms. The experiences are described as more real than real and the reality that the person is aware of is mental rather than true physical.

The man in the article was an atheist and the experience made him a believer in God. I was already a believer in God when I started this blog and prior to my heart attack. My understanding of him and the afterlife was different than it is now; but, the experience didn't cause me to redefine me. I was quite happy being me before and my still am, that did not change for me.

Very few people write about these experiences and it is usually the one's whose lives totally changed because they changed and redefined themselves and their purpose. I believe it is very possible that most who have had an NDE don't talk about it much. Certainly few of us bother to write a book. I don't even bother reading books about other people's NDEs. Been there, done that and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

I remember when my doctor told me that I had a heart attack just from looking at my EKG. LOL. What he didn't know was why it wasn't in my folder. I didn't tell anyone at the time and didn't see a doctor for three years or so. I didn't think it mattered as I did not believe I would be alive for more than a year. Funny, my doctor recently told me that when he met me, he didn't think I would live out the year. Now he says I am fine, that must be bad. LOL.

Anyways, as I read the article I began thinking about the purpose of having an NDE when many of us do not come away redefining ourselves. Perhaps the experience has more than one purpose and that the purpose is unique to each one who experiences it. Not everyone has an NDE; but enough do that we may be able to determine some patters and they would be reflective of the effects they had which would tell us about the varying purposes.

If you read about NDEs then consider that the people that write about theirs are a small minority of people who had them. It is (falsely) claimed that the average serial killer is white (that is because other countries catch fewer, report it less and haven't bothered profiling them by country, race or religion. Try catching a serial killer in remote Africa or Polynesia, you have no CSI labs. You may not even have a local police. We don't know what the average serial killer is like, we only know about the ones we caught in America and a couple of one's from other countries. NDEs are the same way, the average person, if he knows about them, only knows about the people who ended up writing books about it and they are an incredibly small minority of us.

As I considered all of this it made me wonder why have the experience if you don't end up redefining yourself? What purpose did it serve for me or others like me? It didn't change me, I knew it was real and learned some things; but, it didn't change me and I did not need reassurance as to who I am or why I am me. I am me and that has never been on the table. I felt the love on the other side and would have stayed; but, I had to be me, I couldn't become addicted to the ultimate love if it meant losing me. I have to be me, it is the only thing I have fought for during my whole life. The right to be me while accepting the responsibility for all my actions as the price tag. That is the burden and freedom that comes with free will. My NDE did not do a darn thing to change that except maybe make me even more determined to be me, the person I choose to be.

Many people come out of their NDEs feeling a need to redeem themselves. I didn't, I came out feeling a need to forgive myself. I did not come out of it with a "mission" or message for anyone other than me. I do preach; but, that was because I was asked to by another person who had an NDE or two. LOL. He had at least two, I had two heart attacks; but, the second one did not result in an NDE that I know of. I believed in God already and I chose my path and career when I was 4 and my brother and sister know that for a fact.

God gives us all gifts and challenges, we define ourselves by determining what we will do with them. Success is not about achieving your goals, it is about becoming you, defining you. That is called free will and is it's purpose.

Mathmatical Proof For a God.

What is your definition of God? What if it is the greatest intelligence in the universe? Now, we cannot prove that the universe exists, that is the problem in quantum physics. Heck, they can only prove that nothing is solid. They have no accepted answer for why or why everything is connected when it is not in any way connected in a manner we can understand or measure. God is therefore the greatest awareness in the universe. If nothing exists but you, then you are God. If there is a being with a greater knowledge then he is God. Spiritually it is believed that God is the being from which all other awareness came.

Now I will show you why mathematics proves there is a God. There cannot be an absolute zero. It cannot exist as you exist and that disproves an absolute zero philosophical argument. It violates the scientific method as the method could not exist if there wasn't anyone to think of it. It is impossible for there to be an absolute zero. Zero as a concept can only exist if things, sets of things exist. You have ten apples and you give all ten to me, how many apples do you have? The answer is zero; but, the question presupposes that something called an apple exists. It presupposes existence. Let me give you this, how would you represent God mathematically? The answer is one not zero, lol.

Philosophically one must begin with existence as the answer, mathematically this translates to the number one. That is the reason that everything we see at a physical level is different on a quantum level and the reason that mathematicians cannot understand religion. They assume there can be an absolute zero, nothingness. For me to even think this or write this means that there must be a one in all theories, that a one is what is assured.

Let's assume for the moment that we are a dream then someone is still dreaming us, that means there is still a one. To presume that when we die we cease to exist at all is to presume that we never did, that there can be an absolute zero, this is why Einstein said that matter could neither be created or destroyed. He was right, awareness is. All awareness always was because it's existence cannot be destroyed. Awareness wasn't created, it just was and cannot be destroyed, as Einstein said, it can only change form. That explanation is the heart of the scientific method.

If the answer is that there must be a one then shouldn't the questions evolve around what that one is and what it is like? Shouldn't the question be what is the nature of existence and not whether or not it exists? If there can be a concept we call math then there cannot be an absolute zero. How can nothing have a concept and zero is a concept.