From the East Wing, with Pup Baby Turning the Page, The Cat & The Polls, Newton’s Fig, Wayne & Apple, Eggs with a B, Sophia’s “F” Word, Idiot of The W

Greetings to all, and welcome new friends to the East Wing.

Seems Sophia’s taken a page from the President himself, Just after he spoke the other night on national TV ‘bout the war in Iraq, the Pup Baby started to tell me her side of the story as to things that went wrong while I was away.

Mustina hadn't much more than started when Sophia interrupted and grabbed a line direct from the President when he was describing President Bush’s contribution to the war effort in Iraq, the President said “Enough said, it time to turn the page” Sophia in her most authoritative voice interrupted the Pup Baby said “Enough sid, it’s time to turn the page”. And Mustina said, “NO! it’s my turn to tell all the bad stuff ya did while he's away”.

Sophia was so dumbfounded to think Mustina wouldn’t “turn the page”. She proposed to clear the air amongst the East Wing family by using a third party arbiter to settle all disputes, now and forever in the future. Where upon the 2girldogs agreed. Sophia proposed a disinterested third party to be the arbiter, a disinterested third party person who could bring unencumbered partiality to the process. The Pup Baby jumped on it and said “that’s what we need, fairness”.

And when Sophia proposed Sara Palin be the arbiter, Did ya ever see 2girldogs gone wild? Ya think there’s problems in other parts of the world, try dealing with Sophia the Republican Calico Cat, 2girldogs gone wild, and then throw in Spike.

The next day after the arbiter deal is soundly rejected, Sophia’s in high cotton, it seems the political winds are blowing toward a likely republican land slide come November. She stuck that in our face for three days in a row. But Mustina, being the faithful democrat, said “ya can’t believe the polls” as Sophia smiled.

Did ya ever notice how when polling data is in opposition to your personal point of view, ya tend to downgrade the validity of the poll. I remember having a class over at The Ohio State University, that’s a little school ‘bout in the middle of Ohio that plays football from time to time when the weather cools off toward the fall time of the year.

When they do play football it’s in a little stadium shaped like a horseshoe and guess what, it’s called the Horseshoe. Yah, the Horseshoe, and sometimes over 100,000 people come to that little Horseshoe to watch ‘em play football. Call themselves Buckeyes, can ya imagine that, calling themselves Buckeyes, it just don’t seem right, calling yourself Buckeyes and all, and playing not even in a real stadium, playing in a Horseshoe, but they do win from time to time, those Buckeyes in that Horseshoe, over there in the middle of Ohio.

The class was called Statists. We learned how to analyze polling data, but just as importantly, we learned how to construct the polls to achieve a desired outcome.

To have faith in poll data ya gotta know a lot more than just the end result. At the very least ya gotta know the actual wording of the question and the total number of people answering the question. A simple example being, if ya asked a yes or no only question to 3 people and a majority said yes. You can make an absolutely truthful statement that 67% of those responding supported the position. Ya can’t look at the results, ya gotta see the guts of the poll construction. Most polls are constructed in such a way to achieve the desired outcome before the first question is ever asked.

The polling of political opinions have become quite accurate over the years, that combined with exit polling on election days tend to take some of the excitement away from the end of election day. I like to watch national election coverage on TV after the vote. What I don’t like is when the network calls an election 2 minutes after the election both closes. I hate when that happens.

Does the name Stephen Hawking ring a bell, if not it will pretty soon. Stephen Hawking is a British physicist and mathematician who until his retirement last year held the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge University for ‘bout 30 years. The Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge University is generally considered the single most important Chair of Mathematics in all the academic world. After all, this position was once held by Isaacs Newton, himself.

Now if the name Isaacs Newton doesn’t sound familiar, well he has a few things going for him. Like he invented the Fig Newton for one, and he’s related to Wayne for two. Also one day Isaacs saw an apple falling from a tree, and from that simple sighting developed a basic law of physics which pretty much says “don’t stand under the apple tree if ya don’t want to be hit on the head with falling apples.”

‘Course I’m paraphrasing the physical law Newton stated a bit in order not to get deep into scientific terminology, but ya get the jest of that apple deal. Isaacs Newton was, and still is considered to be one of the greatest scientific minds ever to walk this earth. His contribution to mankind's knowledge is immeasurable. I think ya can now buy Apple Newton’s too. Isaacs Newton contributed a lot.

But getting back to Stephen Hawking, in a book he has written and soon to be published, he said that the universe did not need God as the creator. That the laws of physics will justify the existence of the universe without any God being around to kick start the process.

I’m a little surprised that such an uproar over Hawking’s position, ‘cause over much of his writings throughout his lifetime one can only get the impression that he’s never had faith in God, has had faith only in the mind of Stephen Hawking. Yet I’m sure this new book will create a great public debate on the issue. Sure seems to me a great way to sell more books, it’s like plugging the watermelon, take a look inside before ya open the prize. If its red (read) ya can hardly wait to get inside. Oh sure, you’ll pay.

Have ya noticed how the corn in the fields appears ready to harvest? I happened to notice that right at the end of August, thinking that’s an example of genetic engineering at work if there ever was one. We talk ‘bout cloning people as being an infringement on God’s handy work.

DUH! What ‘bout the plant world, we’ve altered the genetic makeup of damn near everything on this planet in one way or the other. We either changed the genes or sprayed enough chemicals that the plant was forced to change it’s self. For sure most all the things we eat or things we make other animals eat has been changed to suite our lifestyle and convenience.

Gotta stop saying stuff like the above paragraph, else people will think I a tree hugger or something like that, or even worse, I'm not, just think it interesting to look at all the artificial changes we’ve effected in nature. Then along comes Salmonella in eggs, 1200 people get sick in the whole nation of some 320 million people, and we throw away a half billion eggs. Ya know how much a half billion of any thing is? Me neither, so I decided to do the math. It’s a lot.

A half billion is written as 500,000,000.00 One thousand is written as 1,000.00 In this country we use 90,000,000,000.00 eggs per year, that’s 90 billion eggs. Another way to look at that many eggs, well it’s 7,500,000,000.00 dozen eggs. I’m sure ya can visualize that many dozen eggs much better than just plain 90 billion eggs. Yah right, just close your eyes and ya can see all those little white egg cartons, all stacked up all 7,500,000,000.00 of ‘em. I don’t care who ya are, that's a lot of eggs cartons.

There’s always such interesting ways to illustrate large numbers of anything, like the eggs above, in those little white cartons, laid end to end, them eggs, they’d go from New York to California over 475 times. If ya wanted to stretch those little white boxes of eggs to the moon, why they’d go there over 5 ½ times. Lots of eggs boxes there.

If we took those same 90,000,000,000.00 eggs and turned 'em into dollars and applied those dollars toward the National Debt, it wouldn’t start to make a dent in the debt. We accumulate National Debt much, much faster than we accumulate eggs. Too bad we can’t pay off our National Debt in eggs.

Did ya know that China holds more of the US Treasury Notes than anybody else in the whole world? Even more than US citizens. Kinda scary if ya ask me. Whatta we gona do if they want their money back? I say give 'em eggs. It’d be our luck that if we paid ‘em in eggs they’d turn right ‘round and raise the price of egg drop soup. With our own eggs even! Damn Chinese Republicans!

Sophia sure is pleased with the outpouring of love and affection she received from her support base after last week’s attack from the 2girldogs and Spike. Seems Sophia somehow feels that I sited with her position on the whole issue of her behavior while I was away. The fact that she had to apologize to the 2girldogs and Spike didn’t seem to phase her, when asked why not, said she’d crossed her paws so it didn’t even count, and besides they are still picking or her anyway.

I'll mention here that Sophia told me the only “F” word she knows is Fur. And that she doesn’t ever answer any email that contain “F” words other than Fur. I’ll give the cat credit, a mean political point of view when it comes to some topics, from time to time, but she's never fallen into the trap of expressing her opinion with words any stronger than what my mama will accept. Sophia's always aware that no matter what she says, Grandma Ruth is gona read it, and nobody says bad words ‘round Grandma Ruth and lives to tell ‘bout it. Mainly ‘cause mama’s a democrat and we democrats don't say dirty words, 'cept Damn Republican Cat.

My mama was, and still is the biggest of Bill Clinton fans in all of Indiana. One time a few years ago, mama said “ One of the only sad things in my life is not being able to vote for Bill Clinton again to be my President.” I said, “Mamma what did Bill Clinton ever do for ya”. Mama said “Everything”. My mama likes President Clinton. Mama has expressed some concerns ‘bout President Obama and his ability to do his job, while she still longs for Bill Clinton. My Mama's a Clinton girl forever.

Did ya remember that September 9th is Rosh Hashanah? it was the beginning of the Jewish New Year and the beginning of ten Days of Penitence. Rosh Hashanah is a celebration of the creation of the world in the Jewish tradition. Calah dipped in honey brings a new year of sweetness according to the Jewish tradition. Never cared too much for Jewish food, too Kosher for me.

Now if ya wanta get some dope 'bout that Kosher stuff then ya need to read the Bible, more specifically the Book Leviticus in the Old Testament. Leviticus is kinda like God is working out the details of how things are gona work out between him and the Israelites. It's sort of laying out the detail for all that stuff earlier in the Bible, that Genesis and Exodus stuff.

My impression of Leviticus is lots or rules, rules on most everything. Rules for social relationships, behavior, community activity. I think Leviticus is the chapter in the Bible that requires a special type surgical procedure on new born baby boys. OUCH! I'm sure glad hillbillies aren't Levites.

There are lots of other stuff in Leviticus, good stuff like the Great Commandment of "Love one's neighbor as oneself". But there's a whole lot 'bout abominations there in Leviticus, them abominations, there're mostly 'bout food and sexual restrictions. Maybe that's why some still debate the number one and number two rankings. The good thing 'bout all that stuff in Leviticus is it's directed almost exclusively to the Israelites. I suppose that's why some of us Catholics think, glad it's their problem and not mine. While us hillbillies just thank God very day we weren’t born an Isreaelite.

Ya just gota think it's important, 'cause Leviticus shows up in both the Hebrew Bible and it makes the third of five books of the Torah.

Yesterday September 11th , such a sad day. Then some idiot in Florida wants to burn the holy book of the nuts of the world, and everybody gets more and more, just more and more polarized. I firmly believe the only thing that needs to be polarized in this life is bears.

From the East Wing, with Pup Baby Turning the Page, The Cat & The Polls, Newton’s Fig, Wayne & Apple, Eggs with a B, Sophia’s “F” Word, Idiot of The World, Polarized Bears.
I wish you well,
BobbyRay