IN MEMORIAM WENDY RICHARD 1943 - 2009

She has gone.

She portrayed "Pauline" on the British Soap Opera EastEnders for more than twenty years. She was so tough politically that she refused to read an EastEnders script that required Pauline to give a speech critical of Margaret Thatcher. She left EastEnders in 2006 when the producers thought it would be a good idea to remarry Pauline after her first husband's death. Apparently not. Once, we hear, that the director handed her a broom to sweep the street in front of a background shot, and she refused to sweep.

"Pauline" would have had a better life if she had not been a character in British Soap Opera. The writers had to keep their audience, who were British after all, coming back, so Pauline endured the heart aches of three or four regular persons. Her first husband had an affair: Pauline beaned him with a frying pan; he went to jail; he died -- probably grateful to be out of reach of that frying pan. A son died of AIDS. She died in the snow of a heart attack. Some friends died in various heartbreaking ways, including one who died at her birthday celebration.

I first encountered her when the BBC sitcom Are You Being Served? (1972 - 1984) appeared on public TV channel 7 KUED in Salt Lake City. She portrayed "Miss Shirley Brahms" an assistant shop girl on the Ladies Undies counter in Grace Brothers, a mythological London department store. One writer / producer of that classic of British low humor once described the show as self-cleaning pornography. The writers fill its scripts with comparison contrast word choices and puns.

She once did, as part of a Being Served episode, a radio play in the which she portrayed "Busty Sa,l" a country barmaid. A man asks for a drink; the sound effects guy pours a drink that sounds like a minute-long urination after a hard day's work in the steel mill, and she says without missing a beat, "My! You needed that didn't you?"

A Flaming Swoosh of a workmate came in on roller skates and announced about his experience on the road to work, "I was bent over adjusting my nuts when . . ."

"Mrs. Betty hair never the same color twice Slocombe," who served as Miss Brahms' senior on the counter, would make comments about her feline pet along the lines of "Will this meeting take long? If I don't exercise my pussy exactly at 6:30, it tears up the parlor."

Shirley had an east-end London accent as thick as (to borrow a line from Blackadder, another British sitcom) a whale blubber omelet. In that memorable 1977 episode when the Windsors announced a Royal Jubilee Walkabout Visit to Grace Brothers, she observed optimistically in high cockney, "Royals have married commoners,"

"Yes," Mrs. Slocombe replied as politely as possible, "but not DEAD common."

She reprised in 1992 her "Shirley Brahms" in an Are You Being Served? sequel entitled in the United Kingdom Grace and Favour and in America Are You Being Served? Again! The gimmick in this series involved some of the department store characters inheriting a country house bed and breakfast called MillStone Manner. MillStone in the Biblical around your neck sense.

By this time, she had superstared on EastEnders for eight seasons, so she could demand that they sophisticated Shirley. Well, at least Shirley thought she had more sophisticated which made it even more funny. She finds herself giving testimony in a country court room which according to the British Custom featured several judges. She tried to flirt on the stand with a male judge and instead caught the eye of an admiring female judge.

When she earned a lifetime achievement award for her career in British Television, she thanked the public for loving "Pauline" and thanked producer Jeremy Lloyd for casting her as "Shirley Brahms. "

She endured two bouts of breast cancer that her treatments successfully knocked back. However in October last, her doctors discovered the cancer had returned and spread all over into her spine. She married her long time companion and lived out her remaining days in quiet dignity, though she did tell a newspaper reporter that this cancer made her SO mad. I do not blame her.

I liked Wendy Richard OBE a lot in Are You Being Served. We who watched her programs will miss her talent.

THE NEW DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, THE NEW STATE OF POTOMAC

ITEM CULLED FROM THE HEADLINES:

Senate approves new seats for D.C., Utah

Preserved from the Deseret News

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,705287562,00.html

By Lee Davidson Deseret News

electronic scrapbook entry Published: February 26, 2009

The Senate voted 61-37 Thursday to give, at long last, the heavily Democratic District of Columbia a U.S. House member with full voting rights — to end "taxation without representation" there. At the same time, the bill would give heavily Republican Utah a fourth House seat as a political counterweight.

"It's a significant, historic step forward to realize the best principles of this great republic," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., the main sponsor of the bill. "600,000 of our fellow Americans (in D.C.) get taxed, get called to war … and yet have no say here by a vote by a representative," which the bill would change.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, voted for it and was a key co-sponsor of the bill. Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, voted against it, even though he had supported it in previous years. He said he became convinced it is unconstitutional. He faces reelection next year, and had been attacked by some conservatives for his earlier support of the bill.

The House is expected to vote on the bill next week.

The legislation would permanently expand the number of U.S. House members from 435 to 437 for the 2010 election. One seat would go to D.C., and the other temporarily would go (until after the 2010 Census) to Utah. The Beehive State had been in line for the next available House seat after the 2000 Census, missing one by just 80 people.

"The Senate today is moving to right a centuries-old wrong. It's inexcusable and indefensible that nearly 600,000 people who live in the District of Columbia don't enjoy a voice like other American citizens," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

He added, "We're the only democracy in the world that denies citizens of its capital … the right to vote in national legislation. Citizens of Washington, D.C. pay taxes, they sit on juries, they serve bravely in the armed services, yet they are permitted only a delegate in Congress who is not permitted to vote."

The bill is controversial and likely will be challenged in court — and provisions in the bill call for expedited review by federal courts if that happens.

Critics say the Constitution clearly allows House seats only for states, and D.C. is not a state. Supporters, including Hatch, note that the Constitution also allows federal taxation only for residents of states, the right to jury trial for residents of states and regulation of interstate commerce for states — but courts ruled such language also applies to D.C.

Hatch also said in debate that Congress allowed D.C. residents from 1790 to 1800 to vote for senators and representatives in Maryland and Virginia, from which D.C. had been extracted. He said if Congress could allow D.C. residents to vote for members of Congress then, it can do it now, too.

On Thursday, the Senate rejected an amendment that would have transferred all non-federal land in D.C. back to Maryland so residents could vote for senators and House members there as an alternative to giving DC and Utah new House seats.

The Senate bill has some differences with the House version. The most significant is that the Senate version would require Utah to draw boundaries for four new districts. The House version instead calls for the new Utah seat to be an at-large statewide seat.

Hatch said that at-large seat would be unconstitutional, and allow Utahns to vote for two House members instead of one. The member with the at-large district would also represent three times more constituents than the other three House members in Utah.

However, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., told a House committee this week that an at-large seat would prevent the possibility of the Utah Legislature trying to gain two Republican seats instead of one by making districts even less Democratic-friendly than they now are, possibly ousting current Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah.

Nadler also said the at-large seat is part of a years-old political compromise seeking to ensure One GOP and one Democratic seat would likely be created.

© 2009 Deseret News Publishing Company | All rights reserved

RIGHT ASCENSION COMMENTARY

Let me publicly praise Senator Bennett for not voting for the District of Columbia Representation Bill. I don't know what Senator Hatch is thinking, but he is not reading the Constitution.

Modern telecommunications and the Internet make it possible to, in a Constitutional Amendment, redefine the District of Columbia as all federal work buildings in northeast Virginia, western Maryland and in the current D.C.

Then the Virginia counties across the river from D.C. and the Maryland counties surrounding D.C. and residential D.C. could form a new state {The State of Columbia? The State of Potomac?) with two senators and 7?? representatives.


THE CALL TO ACTION

The federal government needs a redefined District of Columbia to put all the federal work places in northeast Virginia, west Maryland and Washington into one governmental umbrella entity.

The people in and around Washington need a new state with 2 senators and at least 7 representatives.

OPEN LETTER TO UTAH LEGISLATURE -- REAL FAMILY PROTECTIONS

I suppose Senator Buttars has a right to speak out, of course -- but the audience, not he, decides whether he spoke unwisely.

I have been a member of the Republican Party since 1974. Even by the exalted standards of Utah Republican cynicism, the Legislature’s insults against same gender couples seem unusually cynical as a strategy of preserving family life and marriage.


QUOTATIONS FROM A RECENT SALT LAKE TRIBUNE ARTICLE AND MY COMMENTS:

ARTICLE: “In rejecting the latest measures, opponents painted being gay as a "choice" rather than an innate characteristic -- contrary to a broad consensus among psychological and medical experts.

ARTICLE: "Adoption is not a right, it's a privilege. Those who choose alternative lifestyles suffer the consequences because they can't naturally produce between them," said Representative Stephen Sandstrom, R-Orem, who joined a 5-1 vote to defeat HB288. "Heterosexual couples who cohabit also face consequences because they choose not to marry."

MY COMMENTS: Representative Sandstrom’s logic is bogus. First, Common Law gives rights to cohabiting heterosexual couples. Second, some courts have assigned children in adoption to cohabiting couples.

ARTICLE: “And on the antidiscrimination bill, Eagle Forum President Gayle Ruzicka made a similar case against adding sexual orientation to existing fair housing and employment laws.

"What we're talking about is choice -- someone's sexual choice," she told a House panel. "Why would we put into law someone's sexual choice? … This is not the right thing to do."

MY COMMENTS: plenty of heterosexual choices do get protection in the laws.

I would like to see Gayle Ruzicka say this five times fast without laughing: “I choose to engage in opposite-Gender attraction sexual activity.”

As if that is just another element we choose in life like the toppings on an ice cream sundae. I wonder how many heterosexuals — oops! excuse me — how many people in my families who engage in opposite-gender attraction made careful, studied, conscious decisions after studying the possibilities about the nature of their first experiences in the back seat of a Toyota.

In my family, the same gender couples proved less of a threat to marriage and family life than did some of my heterosexual relatives who had multiple partners, who had multiple drug addiction problems, who had violent urges.

Heterosexuals have done the most damage to American culture in general and marriage and family life in particular. Heterosexuals promoted vagueness and laxity in adoption laws, easy divorce, multiple sex partners, polygamy.


THE CALL TO ACTION

If Utah's legislature really wants to improve preserve marriage and family life, then it should

■ strengthen antidiscrimination laws in housing and employment

■ promote universal health care.

■ require insurance companies to cover all sorts of treatments for both physical and mental illness.

■ discourage consumption of things that disrupt families like tobacco, illicit drugs, alcohol.

■ legislate to increase salaries of workers and decrease CEO salaries / bonuses.

To Xe or not to Xe

Editorial culled from the news

Blackwater's Noble Gas

Preserved from Yahoo! News
The Nation
electronic scrapbook entry for Fri Feb 20 2009, 11:09 am ET

The Nation -- The name search took a year, while the company became persona non grata in Iraq, but now it's a reality. The notorious Blackwater Worldwide has officially rebranded itself Xe. According to a company memo, "Xe will be a one-stop shopping source for world class services in the fields of security, stability, aviation, training and logistics."

It's pronounced "Zee," by the way, and it's also, oddly enough, the symbol for Xenon, a colorless, odorless noble gas found in trace amounts in the Earth's atmosphere. If only Blackwater and its ilk in the hire-a-gun private security business were found, under whatever names, in mere trace amounts in American foreign and military policy. But no such luck.

In the last eight years, many of the tasks formerly associated with the U.S. military have been privatized and outsourced in a wholesale way -- from guard duty for U.S. diplomats to peeling potatoes and delivering the mail, not to speak of building and maintaining the U.S. bases that now dot the Middle East and Afghanistan. Without its private crony corporations, the Pentagon might, in fact, be on something like life support.

Maybe, in the end, Blackwater, under pressure from the Iraqi government, can be separated from U.S. operations in Iraq, but -- it's a guarantee -- some similarly outfitted private contractor will simply fill in. This is one of the more entrenched legacies Barack Obama has inherited from the Bush years. It doesn't matter whether you're talking about those security firms or KBR, the former Halliburton subsidiary that does just about everything the U.S. military needs to survive but actually fight, separating them from the Pentagon would involve an almost inconceivable set of operations at this point.

No one has done more striking work on this question than the managing editor of the website Corpwatch, Pratap Chatterjee, who has traveled the world, visiting U.S. bases and spending time with KBR's employees, mainly Asian migrant workers who make up a hidden "U.S. Army" in Iraq and Afghanistan, just to see how the largest of these crony corporations actually functions. Now he's written a remarkable new book, Halliburton's Army: How A Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War, on just how it all works, up close and personal.

If only his book were history. Unfortunately, it's evidently going to be our military future, as well as our past, as long as the American "mission" in the world isn't downsized. As Chatterjee sums the situation up in his latest piece, "The Military's Expanding Waistline":

"Obama needs to ask his Pentagon commanders this: Can the U.S. military he has now inherited do anything without KBR? And the answer will certainly be a resounding no."

As Kurt Vonnegut might once have written, so it goes.

Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.


RIGHT ASCENSION COMMENTARY:

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE did in fact complain about and decry the British use of foreign mercenaries in the Revolutionary War. Nowadays, we call foreign mercenaries "independence military contractors" or "independent security contractors." So far, their "work" falls outside military regulations and military law. Someone makes handsome profits off of them.

We would like to believe that America’s foreign mercenaries will be always remain loyal to American values, but the fact remains: foreign mercenaries fight for the people who hire them.

The following questions do not advocate these scenarios. I do not advocate these scenarios by asking these questions. However, we need to consider implications of the Shape of Things That Might Come.

If Mexico falls into civil war between what’s left of its government and the various highly organized wealthy drug cartels and that war spills over into the USA ==

If the USA should ever suffer another break up and civil war ===

Who will Xe fight for?

Who will Xe fight against?

Will Xe fight against US?


THE CALL TO ACTION

The Military should be a public institution, not private groups. Congress and the Obama Administration should end Xe and all the rest of them.

Death of LARRY MILLER generates reflection on End of Life costs

Here are four paragraphs of an interesting article published in the Deseret News on 14 February 2009, nearly a week before the death of Larry Miller on 20 February 2009.

“Members of the Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee have been getting deeper into the bang-for-the buck minutia than any previous oversight panel. In committee and in the Capitol hallways, talk sways toward the financial well-being of the entire system and big picture questions:

“Why does 33 cents of every medical care dollar go for end-of-life interventions that usually just prolong imminent death?

“Should Utah adopt the Oregon health care system model and prioritize procedures the state will and won't pay for and stick to it?

“Care providers have told committee members that doctors are borderline miraculous at extending existence, but that doing so is often tantamount to holding a soap bubble on a grappling hook. "My brother tells of elderly folks during his residency of being kept on life support for months and months because their children felt it was their moral duty to keep them alive," he said, noting that there is compelling duty as well to at least consider the expense of that kind of care.”
End of quotations


RIGHT ASCENSION OBSERVATIONS:

The Miller family owns auto dealerships and a professional basketball team, which means that it has increased costs and reduced revenues during the great 2008 - 2009 economic depression.

A few days after these words appeared, Larry Miller died after months of bad health evolving into failing health. It would be darned interesting to see know much the Millers and their insurance organizations paid for his long and unsuccessful siege of end-of-life care. Of course, the Millers have the money to spend, which means few are loath to discuss the ethical and / or economic issues involved in this particular end-of-life situation.

Why is it that we make these economic distinctions only with middle class or poor old patients? We should not.

REPUBLICANS BORN AGAIN, DEMOCRATS IN DENIAL

The Republicans now have a lot to say about the Stimulus Bill.

We hear revisionist history from Republicans in Congress stating that the New Deal legislation did not work. The real indication of whether New Deal legislation worked is the fact that the voters reelected Roosevelt by even bigger numbers in 1936 than he received in 1932.

We hear this same sort of revisionist history from Republicans and Democrats who state that prohibition did not work. Prohibition did reduce alcohol consumption, but it did not address the issue of overcoming addictions. Nor did it end the huge profits people could sop up from alcohol production and sales. Addiction and greed had their way: history has to follow the leader.

I do not know why we should even consult the Republicans these days. Their ideas, their mismanagement, their lack of oversight, that got us into this economic mess. A mess this bad did not happen by accident: it took Republican teamwork in the Congress and in the White House.

Representative Zack Wamp of Tennessee said this during the Stimulus Bill debate on Friday afternoon 13 February 2009:

“Just because Republicans spent too much money after Sept 11 and lost our way on financial matters does not mean we should allow the Democratic party to wreck our ship of state.”

I for one cannot take their change of heart and repentance seriously.

If these guys had been aboard the Titanic, they would have told us — as water sloshed around our knees — that twenty lifeboats are enough, that the problem is not the fault of the crew or the iceberg, and that it is the fault of other ships that they are not around to pick up the survivors. They would complain that the lifeboats cost too much.

Where were these Republicans when we needed them to

oppose President Bush’s tax cuts that had a way of concentrating power?

Oppose President Bush’s expensive war in Iraq that had nothing to do with the details of 9/11?

Oppose President Bush when he spent billions on the illusion of security and to reduce our personal rights?


THE CALL TO ACTION

I hear some criticize the Republicans for placing abstract principle over basic safety, which is bad policy to say nothing of bad politics. Well, there is nothing wrong with upholding abstract principles in principle. When they are stupid abstract principles, it is quite another thing.

2008 and 2009 will prove conclusively that the free market is a myth if not an outright crock.

The Democrats are not heroes in this mess, either. They have to date exhibited complete denial about the toxic assets. The government cannot avoid this issue. It must assess the bigness and badness of toxic assets in detail, and then eat them.

The government failed in its duties to regulate and stop laws and programs that promoted excessive exuberant greed. It now must take its punishment to save the nation and its economy.

CALIFORNIA: UNGOVERNABLE? OR PART OF A BIGGER PROBLEM?

TOPIC CULLED FROM THE HEADLINES

With no budget, California to cut 20,000 state jobs

Preserved from Yahoo! News
Reuters
electronic scrapbook entry for Mon Feb 16 2009, 11:32 pm ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – California, which is on the brink of running out of cash, will notify 20,000 state workers on Tuesday their jobs may be eliminated, a spokesman for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said on Monday.

The announcement came a day after California lawmakers narrowly failed to pass a $40 billion budget that would have plugged the state's deficit with a mix of tax hikes and spending cuts.

"In the absence of a budget, the governor has a responsibility to realize state savings any way he can," said Aaron McLear, a spokesman for the Republican governor. "This is unfortunately a necessary decision."

The layoff notices will affect about 20 percent of state workers, McLear said, adding the cuts would extend to every part of state government.

The positions would be eliminated in June in preparation for California's next fiscal year, which starts in July.

California, America's most populous state and the world's eighth biggest economy, has experienced a dramatic fall in revenues because of the housing downturn, rising unemployment and a sharp pullback in consumer spending.

To conserve cash, the state has stopped public works projects, furloughed state employees for two days a month and postponed sending out tax refunds.

(Reporting by Nichola Groom; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Copyright © 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.

Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.


NEW RIGHT ASCENSION COMMENTARY:

It has been obvious for years. Now we can assert it with factual evidence. California is officially ungovernable.

Well, that may be a bit of an overstatement. Let’s try this: the superstructure of California’s government is unsupportable.

If California were a country, it could borrow money with impunity — like a certain other debt-ridden government in the news of late.

The hypothetical Republic of California would have several big states ready for action.

Los Angeles County has 10,500,000 residents. This means only seven states have more people than Los Angeles County. Los Angeles has no senators in the U.S. Congress.

Metropolitan San Francisco has 4,200,000 residents. That is about the same population as the State of Louisiana. Both of California’s two United States senators live in that area.

Metro San Jose has 7,300,000 residents. That is roughly the same population of The Commonwealth of Virginia. Virginia has two senators in the U.S. Congress. San Jose has no senators in the U.S. Congress.

San Diego County and Orange County together have 6,000,000 residents, give or take. That is roughly the same population as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Massachusetts has two senators, one functioning currently. Neither San Diego County nor Orange County have a senator in the U.S. Congress functioning at all.


THESE FACTS LEAD TO THE FIRST CALL FOR ACTION.

It is time to rethink how states raise revenues and if we should allow states to borrow money. If unmanageable debt is good enough to sustain the unsustainable government of Uncle Sam, it should be good enough for the governments of the sovereign states.


CALIFORNIA SHOULD SPLIT INTO SEVERAL MORE GOVERNABLE GOLDEN STATES.

Obviously Los Angeles County could become two states of five million residents apiece. Metro San Jose and Metro San Francisco could become individual states as well, populations 7 million and 4.2 million respectively. San Diego and Orange Counties could become one (or two?) states. Together these state could have as many as 12 senators in the U.S. Congress.

The western counties of Oregon and Washington states should combine into one blue state, capitol Olympia.

The counties of Northern California, eastern Oregon, eastern Washington, and western Idaho should combine into one red state, capitol either Boise or Salem. Those two states would have a total of four senators in the U.S. Congress.

Rural and Wilderness California should be its own state as well. It would have two senators in the U.S. Congress.


THE PROBLEM OF OUTDATED STATE BOUNDARIES IS NOT – STRICTLY SPEAKING – A CALIFORNIA PROBLEM.

If any of these states found themselves in California, they would be counties with smallish populations, at least by the standards of Los Angeles or Orange or San Diego Counties.

44. Montana 944,632
45. Delaware 853,476
46. South Dakota 781,919
47. Alaska 670,053
48. North Dakota 635,867
49. Vermont 623,908
50. Wyoming 515,004


THESE HAVE A TOTAL OF ABOUT 5, 250,000 PEOPLE AND 14 SENATORS. NOTICE: THAT IS ROUGHLY THE SAME POPULATION AS MINNESOTA, WHICH WOULD HAVE TWO SENATORS IF THE POLITICIANS COULD AGREE ON A SENATORIAL ELECTION WINNER.

We should by constitutional amendment reconstitute The District of Columbia as all federal government work places in the current District of Columbia and the surrounding counties of Virginia and Maryland. No one – except maybe the President and his family – should actually sleep in the District of Columbia.

The residential areas of the District of Columbia, and the surrounding counties of Virginia and Maryland could become The State of Columbia. Or The State of Potomac.

Delaware is at best a county. Historic, yes. Pretty, yes. Really a county, yes. Delaware and that county of Virginia below Delaware should all be Maryland.

New York City should be a city state. So should Cook County, Illinois.

Texas should really comprise five states of five million residents apiece. They would have a total of ten senators living in all regions of Texas instead of two senators living in Metro Dallas.

Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Long Island should be one state. The configuration is not ideal; yet the people in these areas have more things in common with each other than all the people of New York State — which never had an ideal configuration either.

Upstate New York should be an independent state.

A proposed state of Dakota comprising the current states of Nebraska, Wyoming, North and South Dakota, and Montana would have an estimated population of 4, 647,000. That means it would have roughly the same population as both the states of Alabama or Colorado. They would all have two senators in each state.

Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine should be one state.


IT IS TIME IN 2009 FOR THE UNITED STATES TO HAVE AN AMERICAN EQUIVALENT OF THE UNITED KINGDOM’S GREAT REFORM ACT OF 1832.

Too many places that are now too small physically or that did not quite live up to their nineteenth-century potential have too much representation in the twenty-first century Senate.

The United States now has a population of more than 300,000,000 million.

One hundred senators for 300,000,000 people are rather too few.

The United States had 92,000,000 citizens when the U.S. House of Representatives set its membership at 435. One thousand representatives would not be excessive for 300,000,000 people.


THE CALL TO ACTION

California’s problem is only part of two bigger problems that Senators and Representatives need to address. One problem is state boundaries. The other is state sources of revenues.

MY TWO CENTS WORTH: AN EDITORIAL ABOUT THE MINT'S TRADITION OF RUNNING A COIN DESIGN INTO THE GROUND

Memo from The Mint of the United States: 2009 is the 100th anniversary of the Lincoln Cent.

In the whole history of American circulation coins, no other coin observe has endured so long a history. This, I suppose, is a nice way of saying that the United States Mint is in a design rut.

That history of design rut has a long tradition.

The Indian Head Penny lasted fifty years – 1859 to 1909.

The Jefferson five cent piece design has lasted over 70 years.

The Washington Quarter design, which has featured various state commemorative reverses since 1999, has an obverse that dates to 1932.

This year, the Roosevelt dime design marks its sixty third year of circulation, which happens to be as long as Franklin D. Roosevelt was alive.

The dime had roughly the same design from 1837 to 1916. That is a short time only in comparison to the penny design.

Next year, the Kennedy half dollar design will have been in circulation for 46 years, which happens to be how long President Kennedy lived.

The Lincoln Penny obverse has lasted for 100 years, which means entire generations of old people lived and died knowing exactly one penny obverse design. '

In 1943, the mint produced pennies of steel because copper had to be rationed for war uses.

In 1944 - 1945, the mint produced pennies of some sort of brass composition.

The obverse dies had to be reengraved at the 60 year mark.

The penny bore a wheat ears reverse from 1909-1958, a landmark in the history of modern coinage.

The penny bore the Lincoln Memorial Reverse from 1959 to 2008, which sounded like a better idea than what it actually accomplished. The Lincoln Memorial is rather too big to be reproduced on a space the size of a penny back. It looked more like a trolley than a temple.

In 1982, the composition of the penny changed from copper to copper-plated zinc. Apparently by that time, copper pennies were worth more than a cent. Today, a mere 27 years later, the zinc penny is worth more than a cent.

The Mint this week prepares to release the first of four reverses designed to memorialize the 200th birth anniversary of Lincoln:

In a few days, the mint will release the first reverse known as the Kentucky Reverse and will remember Lincoln’s birth in that state.

In three months, the Mint will release the Indiana reverse which will memorialize his youth in the Hoosier Territory.

In six months, the mint will release the Illinois reverse, which will memorialize Lincoln's career as an adult.

In 9 months, the Mint releases the Washington D.C. reverse, which will commemorate his presidency.

In 2010, the Mint will start producing a penny with a new reverse. The official Mint line states that the new reverse will commemorate Lincoln's preservation of the Union, which certainly is a tall order for a piece of art on the back of a cent.

The Mints in Denver and Philadelphia make literally billion$ of the circulating pennies a year. They make the concept of correct change for cash or correct change for purchases in cash possible. They make profit margins possible down to the penny.


THE CALL TO ACTION

No matter how a big a number whether a debt or a profit, it builds one cent at a time. Eventually debit cards may make it obsolete, but for next year, the Congress should authorize a completely new 21st century cent.

OPEN LETTER TO THE LEGISLATURE -- RESTRICT ALCOHOL

Dr. Andrew Weil once wrote in Natural Health Natural Medicine that

“Alcohol is the strongest and most toxic of the common psychoactive substances. It is a hard drug, harder than heroin, cocaine, LSD and all the other illegal drugs in its impact on the body and on behavior. Our culture promotes and encourages the use of alcohol and gives the false impression that it is not as dangerous as the disapproved drugs.”

May I interrupt with these comments?

A few years ago on KUER-FM 90's morning talk show, host Doug Fabrizio interviewed David Gilmour. At one point, Gilmour, in discussing what he taught his son about drugs noted that he forbid him to use the illicit drugs, but encouraged him to learn how to use beer responsibly. Many exhibit this double standard of an attitude. My view is he should have discouraged recreational drug use of all types and that includes alcohol, which is a dangerous misused recreational drug. The alcohol in beer is a drug. Therefore, beer drinking is recreational drug misuse, as much as misusing marijuana or cocaine or methamphetamine.

Some make some sort of distinction between the alcohol in beer, versus wine, versus spirits. However, the alcohol is the same --- no matter the dose. Alcohol is a system-wide depressant in beer, wine and spirits.

Dr. Weil continues in his warning:

"Periodically, some research group will report that moderate use of alcohol improves health. Often this research is biased, either consciously or unconsciously. . . . Researchers . . . like most people in our culture, are likely to be alcohol users. Users have an unconscious need to legitimize the drugs they choose to take.”

Or less diplomatically put, they have a need to legitimize the drugs to which they are addicted.

If humans had not discovered alcohol thousands of years ago, but instead Bayer researchers had discovered it last week, the Food and Drug administration would eventually require a prescription to use it and would list a long list of warnings and side effects.

Law enforcement lobbies members of Congress and state legislators coast-to-coast for more funds to finance the War Against Illicit Drugs. Meanwhile, Utah’s Legislature considers liberalizing Utah’s liquor laws.

As leaders obsess over how governments will help pay for the costs of medical treatment, Utah’s Legislature is considering liberalizing Utah’s liquor laws.

Someone should teach Utah’s legislators that alcohol is the world's most abused drug.

Pretend for a minute that humankind had not discovered alcohol until Drexel distilled it in 2000. After years of testing, the Federal Drug Administration probably would not allow it to be sold as a drink At best, the FDA would place it under a restrictive prescription schedule, complete with a list of warnings against the side effects and addiction potential.

Studies that tout alcohol’s benefit on heart health illustrate that some “scientific” testing is actually designed to justify our habits. If Drexel had discovered alcohol and tried to market it as a heart medication, the FDA would have denied the proposal because of its dangerous and addictive side effects.

Ancient beers and wines had minor food value and low alcohol contents. In specific times and places, they were safer to drink than the waters. Through the ages, humans experimented with beers, wines, and spirits, not to improve their food value, but to increase their alcohol jolt.

The snobbishness surrounding wine collection and consumption should not mislead the wary. Vintners can be just as obsessive about high alcohol contents as are the distillers of whiskey.

Alcohol, with tobacco and marijuana are the big-three hypocrisies in the American War on Drugs. Proponents of these substances would have us believe they are really good for us because they are (in the popular cliche) “natural.”

I find this logic laughable. I hope you do too. Mankind has so hybridized the plants involved in wine and the various types of tobacco and marijuana cigarettes that nothing is “natural” about any of the products.

For example, mankind has so throughly hybridized marijuana in the past fifty years that the original plant probably does not exist anywhere on earth anymore. People tinkered with it – especially since the late 1970s – to increase the psychoactive buzz, not its dubious medical properties.

Neither the War on Drugs nor the Medical Crisis can be taken seriously when billion$ are squandered to treat conditions and illnesses caused by culturally accepted drug abuse. When we are really serious about decreasing medical costs and drug abuse, we will end recreational consumption of alcohol, tobacco and marijuana.


WHAT IS THE GOVERNOR THINKING?

This is why I read with horror that Governor Huntsman approves of proposals to liberalize the alcohol laws in Utah, making alcohol easier to get, purchase and consume because well – we have to be like everywhere else.

As MisteRogers would say, “Can you say Cultural Peer Pressure?”

Government should use its influence to educate the public, to reduce — if not end — alcohol consumption. It should not look to exploit people’s alcohol addictions as a way of increasing revenues. This hypocrisy should be too obvious to require me to condemn it, but apparently this hypocrisy is not obvious to the Utah governor. Government should be using its influence to reduce people’s addictions to harmful substances. Utah should not be increasing them or liberalizing them for the sake of increased revenues.


AN ALLEGORY SORT OF

If I made conditions in my house conducive for my addict friends to take cocaine or marijuana or heroin, the authorities would rightly label me an enabler. These proposals to change the Utah liquor laws basically will make Utah an alcohol enabler for the sake of increased revenues. Just because other states encourage the use of this depressive drug is not a particularly good reason for Utah to do so.

This observation may seem like an aside, but it is not. We should not tolerate high food prices when people tie up so much valuable land in landscape that we cannot eat and in unhealthy crops that feed people’s addictions. Who wants to tell the starving poor that agribusiness wants higher prices for growing marijuana, opiates, coca and the ingredients for alcohol?

Alcohol is a depressant drug, one of the strongest and most addictive available. It is not primarily a drink; it is first and foremost a drug. When doctors prescribe it, if at all, they prescribe it in small doses. When chefs put alcohol in food, typically they put in small dabs.

We should not drink alcohol in big doses for recreation.

Alcohol and barbiturates — barbs, bluebirds, blues, downers, goofballs, tooties and yellow jackets — can both addict users. Both have bad side effects on users. We exhibit hypocrisy of the first order if we think we should restrict and outlaw one and encourage the other.


THE BOTTOM LINE RECOMMENDATION

The state should not use increased tax revenues as a rationalization to encourage alcohol consumption. Greater profits for merchants is a flimsy rationalization as well. We could use such flimsy logic to legalize marijuana use, cocaine use, crack cocaine use and the use of other dangerous illicit substances and then levy taxes on it.

The stuff is harmful to us. The state must discourage alcohol’s use at all levels as a matter of public health.

SORRY BECAUSE HE GOT CAUGHT

NEWS ITEM CULLED FROM THE HEADLINES

Daschle withdraws as Obama's healthcare nominee

Preserved from Yahoo! News
Reuters
3 February 2009, noon MST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination as President Barack Obama's health secretary on Tuesday, saying he did not want to be a distraction after tax errors forced him to pay $140,000 in back taxes.

"This morning, Tom Daschle asked me to withdraw his nomination for secretary of health and human services," Obama said in a statement. "I accept his decision with sadness and regret."

Daschle also will not be taking the White House job he was slated to hold concurrently to spearhead a major reform of the costly U.S. healthcare system.

Daschle said in a statement he was withdrawing because he did not want to be a distraction.

"This work will require a leader who can operate with the full faith of Congress and the American people, and without distraction," Daschle said in a statement released by the White House.

"Right now, I am not that leader and will not be a distraction," he said.

(Reporting by David Alexander and Jeff Mason; Editing by David Wiessler.)

Copyright © 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.

Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.



RIGHT ASCENSION LEADS THE HUZZAHS AS DASCHLE GOES BACK TO THE WOODWORK

I should hope that Tom Daschle withdrew his nomination. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner should have withdrawn his nomination as well. Especially Timothy Geithner, since he will oversee taxes in the Obama Administration.

Governments require us to pay taxes. Governments should write the tax laws in such ways that the people can read the codes and understand them in a couple of short sittings.

Instead we have a tax code written in the most abominably complex, unclear, and vague varieties of English available. Tax codes represent both the language of entrapping the unaware and the language of hidden benefits for the knowledgeable special interests.

If authorities and reporters had not caught Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner or Tom Daschle in the act of tax fraud, would they have apologized? Would they have expressed feeling public guilt? Would they have paid the back taxes? Of course not. Tax Fiddling remains One of Americans’ favorite economic pastimes. When Americans get away with it, we think we have won the game.

THE CALL TO ACTION

The tax code reforms we need are too obvious for RightAscension to belabor. The question is — will we ever get leaders with enough integrity and courage to make the reforms.