Addled Angle Angles Askew in latest Commercial

“Government is the problem. People are the solution, “so Sharron Angle claims in her latest commercial. This is the all-too-familiar refrain first foisted upon us by Ronald Reagan, the Hollywood actor cum president. The statement in Angle’s commercial makes little sense; it is illogical. I wonder if she has even bothered to read the Constitution, the venerated document that both sides of the political debate exploit . “Government is the problem. People are the solution.” How does that work exactly, I wonder.

One could assert that that is precisely what our founding fathers did—they created a solution. The people created a government to, among other things, resolve problems. Isn’t that what the Declaration of Independence was all about? Didn’t the people define a problem (tyranny from King George) and offer a resolution by getting on with the business of creating republic democracy?
The people formed our current government as a solution, so what is she talking about? For example here’s the first paragraph or Preamble of the Constitution (note the people part):

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America

The government is the solution and yet she wants to end it, I suppose. That part is not all that clear to me. It is all the rage from the GOP to mindlessly assert that the government is the problem, until, of course, there’s a big problem and we need to government to resolve it. Take for example BP. Do you really think that a gaggle of regular citizens sitting on the Gulf beach could honestly resolve the environmental crisis BP has created? What would these people do without the support of the government? What could they do? Nothing.

“Government is the problem. People are the solution.” This profoundly illogical statement abuts against her own career ambitions. Why does she want to be “part of the problem” by becoming Sin City’s senator? According to her own logic, she has everything she needs to resolve problems—she is a person. She needs one more person to create “people” and then she can get on with the business of….well, that I am not sure of, but I assume it has everything to do with creating a hostile environment for the poor and working class and extending benefits to the wealthiest among us. After all, those of you on unemployment are simply too lazy to find a job, the pension-receiving Angle thinks. Interesting Christian-values there. Didn’t Jesus chill with the poor and wretched among us? God apparently told Angle to “fuck the poor.”
If, as the GOP and in this case Angle, really believe their own logic here, government is bad, why do republicans want to be part of it? To kill it, I guess, much like a parasite kills its host. Honestly, if the government is so broken and evil, do something else? Be the people and solve the problem so you can quit ducking questions and interviews.

Sorry Angle, while at times cumbersome and frustrating bureaucratic, the government is the people and often the solution—there are thousands of examples to list. It derives its power from the people, you see. Hence the voting thing. It is called an indirect democracy and the people elected are supposed to represent the people, (not corporate America) because it would be nearly impossible for a direct democracy given the 350,000,000 or so people living in the US. The government is the people and thus the solution. You and your ilk should read the Constitution and particularly its Preamble a little more carefully. There are six reasons listed in the Preamble for creating the Constitution. See above paragraph. “Promote the general welfare” is one of the reasons listed for the purpose of the Constitution, and if you believe that people are responsible for that and not the government, please do us a favor and drop out. Perhaps, God will call on you to do that. Explain how you plan to “Promote the general welfare,” Angle and don’t offer illogical and lame refrains about how “government is bad” and “people are good.” Government is in the business of promoting the welfare of its citizens, so says the founding fathers. So government is the solution and some people, Angle, Tea Partiers, etc., are really the problem.

Frack You!

A new documentary called Gasland continues in heavy rotation on HBO. It is another clear indictment, a thesis that I have maintained for over 15 years, that big business will end humanity. Of course, that seems like hyperbola. The evidence that big corporations destroy and take the lives of humans is readily available and evident. That is hardly a debate. Further, it has been this way for a long time—one needs to look at Nader’s seminal work “Unsafe At Any Speed” written all the way back in 1965 for validation. Well, one could even go further to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle . Throughout the years, big business routinely has dumped chemicals into our water and food supply. It has financially destroyed many a family. It has even forced people off their land—which seems fitting given how this land, the US, was “cultivated.”

However, while GM killed only a relative few people with their engineering flaws, big business is improving its work to end humanity—or at least severely cripple its population. This has been pointed out long ago too. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring released in 1962, sounds the alarm bells regarding using chemicals for industrial farming. It’s a chilling discussion. One written over 40 years ago. Even back then, the outlook was dire and grim and hopelessly sad. And what do we have now?

BP is in the process of destroying the Gulf; although to be fair, big business has been destroying the Gulf for a long, long time—not just BP. And BP has or will dramatically impact the lives of millions of people along the coast and folks who enjoy seafood, shell fish particularly. But the gulf coast is not all of humanity, Ron, so I am not following your non sequitur. Fair point.

The new documentary Gasland, however, makes my case. If you have time, watch it. I might suggest watching even if you don’t have time. The movie illustrates just how insidious, immoral and wrong big business can be. Essentially, our government exempts these natural-gas-producing companies from the “Clean Water Act.” (I mean, why would we want clean water? That’s soo stupid on the face of it. Why require big business to protect the water we drink? All we need to do is go to Sam’s Club to buy it—that’s what it is coming to.)

So companies are extracting natural gas from the earth and in the process forcing so many toxic chemicals into the earth that it is almost hard to comprehend. The documentary outlines in great detail the process called “fracking.” For more information, here’s the website: http://gaslandthemovie.com/whats-fracking.

For each “well” a company will use between 60-300 tons of chemicals and between 1-8 million gallons of water; a well may be “fracked” up to 18 times. All this, mind you kids, for one well. Nice. There are tens of thousands of wells in the good old US of A. Note that the next time you see a fucking commercial lauding “natural gas” as America’s energy solution.

Many people near these wells have experience problems with their water—no kidding. If you think that your water is safe because you don’t live near a well, and thus prefer to bury your heard in the sand—my first response is “you’re a fucking asshole and I hope you and your progeny die soon” and next is “water is inter-connected, numb nuts.” Take a course in geology. (Of course, these folks probably don’t believe in “science” or intellectual thought, but that’s conservatism for you.) Here in Vegas, for example, there are no wells, but the water Las Vegans drink comes from the snow fall in the Rocky Mountains. In Colorado there are hundreds of wells. So LA and Phoenix, do you like some toxic substances such as diesel fuel, which contains benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene, xylene, naphthalene and other chemicals; polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons; methanol; formaldehyde; ethylene glycol; glycol ethers; hydrochloric acid; and sodium hydroxide in your drinking water? According to earthworks.com very small quantities of chemicals such as benzene, which causes cancer, are capable of contaminating millions of gallons of water. I heart big business!

We need to water to survive. Beside oxygen, water is the single most important nutrient. According to the experts, (I believe in experts, by the way) people can survive without water for 2-3 days max. Now that we are allowing big business to contaminate our water supply, can the end be that far off? Of course, if we drink contaminated water, we will live longer, but in a far more agonizing fashion: cancer, excruciating pain, miserable existence kind-of-life.

While there are people fighting this, does it not depress you that our elected officials specifically allowed these companies to do this to us by exempting them from any type of meaningful oversight? Myopia for greed, I suppose.

Perhaps, it is not big business then that will destroy us—I guess it is us. How can we allow this to happen? Greed is good and so what if your water has a little benzene in it—the CEOs and stockholders are rich. Oh yeah, plus a couple thousand people are employed, too. I think we should force them and their families to use the same water that they have contaminated.

Repulicans Hate The Poor People

It should be clear to all who pay attention that the Republicans truly hate poor people and revere the wealthy. The Bush tax breaks are no stronger indication than that basic reality. Of course, when you combine that with their sudden resistance for allowing unemployment benefits to move ahead, they logic presents itself in cystal-clear HD.

To continue the tax breaks on the richest assholes in this country--yes, assholes--will increase the deficit. Their own logic--the defict is too big--should clearly demonstrate the need for letting them expire. Instead of demanding that the rich pay their fare share, the GOP party elites instead prefer to stick it to folks already struggling to make ends meet. Amazing. Consider that for a second. The fucking GOP aristocracy prefers to force the poor and struggling into more financial difficulties largely created be their mega rich-friendly policies and claim that we need to allow the tax breaks on the mega rich to continue?

The GOP hates the poor and wants to destroy them by forcing them into financial ruin. It is not any more clear. Slap the next one who argues for continuing the rich tax breaks. Slap hard, too.

God's Conseravtive Mouth Pieces

Glen Beck may go blind he told a crowd over the weekend. Rush Limbaugh is going deaf, we discovred several years ago. This is truly good news. The only thing better would be that they both go mute as well. Deaf, blind and dumb--yes, God loves the con--artists, it seems. But maybe Beck can cry his way to salvation, since he constantly tears up like a little child.

Binon’s 2 pm $100 buy-in.

A minor discovery for the low-limit-but-serious poker player: Binion’s 2 PM tournament. In Vegas, it is not hard to find good tournaments for 250 and higher range. Below that price, the tournaments generally suck. The problems with the lower level tournaments are two-fold: 1) poor starting chip stack—typically around 3,000-4,000 (some offer 6,000-7,000 which is better, but not ideal); and 2) fast moving blind structures. These factors combined make the tournaments much more a crap shot, to use a gambling analogy.

If the a player starts a tournament with 4,000 and the blinds increase every 20 minutes, after the first hour, the blinds are usually 100/200. After two hours, the blinds are 800/1,200. Some places don’t double every twenty minutes, but still the blinds move up quickly. This accelerated rate and poor stating chip stack does not allow any play. It requires players to push all-in early in the tournament and hope to get lucky.

It was exciting that the Golden Nugget held its Grand Series to pull in some players from the WSOP. While, many of its tournaments were in the mid-range, it still had several lower limit tournaments—I wrote about one. Too bad this does not happen all year. However, I believe I have found a minor discovery which offer lower limit players an opportunity to play in good poker tournaments. Of course, there is always an element of luck in poker, but this tournament allows for some actual poker playing.

I played in the 2 PM tournament yesterday and found it very good. First, the $100 buy-in makes sense. Making the buy-in an even number seems obvious, but casinos rarely do this. The buy-in is never an even number. For example, one might offer a $45 buy-with a $10 dollar add-on and one $20 re-buy. Why not dispense with all the extras and make the buy-in one simple fee? Binions seems to understand that basic concept. I like the clarity of thinking there.

Next the starting chip count is 10,000 chips—a very strong starting chip stack. This chip stack allows some play. It provides enough of a cushion to play some hands and mix it up with the players. If you have a short chip stack, you can’t afford to see flops without committing too many chips. So the chip stack is terrific. The next factor centers on the blind intervals.

Although the blind structures start at 20 minutes, they de-accelerate to 30 minutes after the 1st hour. Not too bad, but it would be better if they were 30 minutes throughout. Even with this structure, it requires some 7 hours to grind it to the final table. And the antes, (not a plus in my book, but it does force one to get involved) begin after the 6 level—so two hours in.

Additionally, the tournament had 154 players, so it was big but not too big. The Grand Series tournament had twice as many players and after my 7 hours of play, it was nowhere near the money, let alone the final table. While the amount of players can’t be determined, a couple of regulars indicated to me that the tournament usually generates around 80-100 players.

So finally, I found a decent tournament and even better did not get unlucky and in fact, got pretty lucky a couple of times. Luck is part of every tournament and some went my way. I must say thought that I did take down several pots with rags. You can’t do that all the time, but maybe I should try. The grind to the final table took about 7 hours and the table stacks were mostly equal with the exception of one person—a very attractive female. She had everyone dominate. I did not play with her, so I had no idea how she generated her massive chip stack. But she was an easy favorite.

Because of the chips stacks being relatively equal (a rarity in my experience), it was going to take several more hours to winnow the field down. At this point, all the players were in the money, but still the players all had chip stacks that require respect. So someone offered a chop with the chip leader getting 2nd place money. She accepted, amazingly to me, since it would have taken several bad beats for her to be in any danger whatsoever. But I was happy to take the chop.
Here is a list of key hands that helped me to the final:

Early in the tournament: I had A,10 and raised. One player called—the big, I think. The flop was J,10,3. He bet and pushed all-in. At this point, things were not going well and I decided to force the action hoping for a fold. He had Q,J and was way ahead—80/20 ahead. Things looked bleak, but then a 10 on the flop. Lucky!

Mid-tournament I called an all-in and although it would not have busted me, it would have taken half my chip stack. I had K,Q and I called the all-in with A,Q 75/25 dog. Blanks all the way to the river, where I was behind 85/15. River was a king. Of course, the pot odds made the call correct, but still I was lucky.

I won several races: pockets fours against big aces. I won those races at least three times. So not lucky, but no unlucky either. I won a coin flip, three times.
With the final table in sight, I got dealt aces. I was the big, and there were two all-ins before me. This is perhaps the best scenario—two all-ins and you look down at the best hand, A,A. And, miracles, upon miracles, they held up against kings and J,7. The J.7 was on tilt and short stacked. That was the tournament in a nut shell—plus several steals.

Perhaps the steals really made the tournament a success. When one is late in the tournament and each hand deposits an ante, stealing is key. I did this several times. Blinds against blinds steals. It was almost too easy. If there were no calls and the action came to me, I raised my blind—be it small or big, almost every time and it worked. One hand stands out, as I was in the small and pushed all-in against the big, who was short stacked. I thought I mis-stepped because he was short stacked and seemed like he had to call. In fact as he looked at his hand, he held his cards high so that I could see his cards: Q, 10 he had. I thought, shit. My hand was 10,2. I was just pushing heads up to steal. He folded. As I said, I did this several times and it really paid off. Glad I was against players who did not understand heads up play.

So Binions has a terrific tournament for the “small people.” Play it if you can.

No Title For the King

Here's a scenario that I hope comes true: LeBron never wins a championship. I assert this without prejudice. For instance, I have no rooting interest in any of the teams involved or even in the NBA, generally. The NBA generates hype but little else. We do live in the world of hype over substance, so he simply follows along, I suppose.

The irony would too delicious if LeBron, after all the look-at-me- and I-am-the-most-important-human-on-the-planet media attention, simply played in every All-Star game, but fails to win a championship. If after all the lame and vacuous ESPN media attention, he bricks the final shot in a game-clinching game, justice would be served. In fact, if there is such a thing as karma and I know many believe that to be the case, this is exactly what should happen. Let me explain.

The hype and absurd attention provided to his "decision" moves well beyond reasonable and interested to the theater of the absurd. Indeed, Harold Pinter may write a play about the entire it eoiside. For starters, why does he generate this attention? After all, the only time he made it to the finals, he sucked. His team could not even win a game. And did you see his amazing play in this year's series against the Celtics? He sucked balls instead of scoring them. So why are folks concomitantly apoplectic and disconsolate? He is not a difference maker; at least not as the championship is concerned. Second, other NBA players were able to make their free agent decision without a stupid special. Just announce it. Why all the hype? Oh, that's right, I forgot, we are all-hype-and-no-substance society. I hate that, but I am one of the few.

BTW: he did not look comfortable or even excited during the "announcement." It was entirely ridiculous as he sat there and regurgitated whatever "canned" responses he and his team rehearsed. Clinched teeth, a nervous smile, and the decision came. A bit anti-climatic. The whole interview/special dripped with tension and nervousness. like a thief in a prep line-up. It made for terrible TV.

A person, who, for most of his life, been given everything with bells and whistles on it, I think it's right, cosmically, that he never win. He is rich and "loved," or at least admired by millions, I suppose. So his life is not terrible. The only thing he deserves, frankly, is the hype he with alacrity generates and uncomfortably participates in.