Shifty-Eyed Evader or Unblinking Intimidator?

Eye contact

I can be the unblinking listener, but rarely the Intimidator. I just like looking at someone when they are speaking and I also like to look at someone in the eyes when I am speaking to them. It shows that you are paying attention to them either way. I am not intimidating at all.

Close your eyes and try thinking about nothing, what happens?

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postaday2011

I feel my eyelids flutter, I hear my inner voice saying “think of nothing, think of blackness”. I hear and feel my blood flowing in my neck and my brain feels like it’s swelling up. My stomach is rumbling and gurgling. There is everything and anything going on in my body and hence in my mind rather than nothing. Even when I turn off the t.v at night and close my eyes, I never think of nothing when I fall asleep. My brain just falls asleep and then dreams a lot. I find that it is when I try to think of nothing that my brain goes into hyper-drive and when I am simply relaxing that is when my brain is calm and it feels like my brain is thinking of nothing even though it isn’t really.

I have tried meditation and I fall asleep but I do have this uncanny ability to fall asleep anytime and anywhere, so I don’t know if that has any relevance to the question. It does seem that I can at least easily tune out all the noise and sleep, regardless of the stress and problems I may be experiencing at the moment. It is nice to know that I always have sleep available to me to escape to when I feel overwhelmed by daily life. I like my little blessing.

Debt Ceiling Debate Sows Fear Among Small Business Owners

The two scariest thing to this whole debt ceiling/de­ficit reduction debacle are number 1, the two are not tied to each other but many people think that they are, so misinforma­tion is rampant. Secondly, we have historical data to lead us out of this mess of a depression­. The Great Depression offers a blueprint of what to do and what not to do and our government has chosen what not to do as a course of action. That is what I mean by scary, how do you explain your decisions when there is a record that simply shows that you have made the wrong choices to fix a huge problem? We have had the answers all along, when we saw that once again, deregulati­on was a huge mistake, the congress still wants to do away with any type of financial regulation­s President Obama signed into law. How do you explain that? Austerity measures failed in 1937 and they are failing now, why put us through that again? It’s in the history books!
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Democrats Outline Path To Passage For Debt Deal

This needn’t be so painful, when we were all paying Clinton era tax rates, there weren’t protests in the streets because the people felt their tax burden too heavy. Letting the Bush tax rates expire is responsibl­e fiscal policy and not too onerous. Scaling down the military industrial complex would be an excellent place to start with savings. I for one am willing to pay for federal government services such as the E.P.A, the F.D.A, the F.A.A, any regulatory agency that protects my family from poor water, air and food quality is worth it. I agree that medicare and medicaid need to be looked at but adopting a single payer system with everyone under its coverage umbrella would do so much in regards to long term savings. All this brouhaha is over the choice of what version of America you want to live in. Personally I like the one where we are all in this together and not to version of kill or be killed.
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Tea Party Shows Clout In Debt Ceiling Debate

The ignorance put forth by many of the tea party activists is astounding­. They obviously do not understand the bigger picture, what makes me nervous is they created a situation where major companies and big investors are making contingenc­y plans to do investing and expansion elsewhere. The GOP has been saying that because of President Obama, the business sector wasn’t expanding and hiring because they were nervous about uncertain tax codes. We all know that was a blatant lie, companies weren’t hiring because of little to no demand for goods and services. Ironically the GOP and tea party have themselves created such an unsafe environmen­t for business with their refusal to simply lift the debt ceiling. Once companies and investors research alternate venues for investment and expansion opportunit­ies you can’t undo that. We may have gone past the point of no return all because of the GOP and their tea party. I hope that they are proud of their wrecking of the U.S economy.
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Why is there evil in the world?

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postaday2011

One of the questions for the ages. First thought was I don’t know.Then I got an epiphany, evil only resides in the realm of man, not in mother nature. Trees, birds, insects and animals aren’t evil. They co-exist in a balanced natural world. It would still be balanced and natural if the realm of man did not intrude so much upon it. We are the carriers of evil, it is within us and thankfully we, for the most part, do not even acknowledge its existence within us. However, when fear, hate and intolerance fill our hearts and mind, evil is given an ample playground within us to grow. We are capable of so much good and so much bad. Evil actions are intentional and designed to inflict pain on others,there are many things thrown at us in nature that cause us various forms of pain, but those events were never intentional, aimed at us. Therefore they can’t be evil. Evil is only in our human world, in our hearts, mind and psyche. Until the day the humans no longer exist on this planet, evil will walk this earth. The only hope that might exorcise evil from mankind would be for everyone to voluntarily come into acceptance of the other. Without fear, hate and intolerance, evil can’t exist.

I don’t know if I answered the question correctly but I think the direct answer to the why part is that without evil there wouldn’t be good? I think I’m thinking of the question in the same way as I think of happiness. There has to be sadness for there to be happiness or you wouldn’t know the difference. I’m not quite sure that if you didn’t have evil you wouldn’t know good. I still think that evil is dependent on the emotions of fear, hate and intolerance. Once you banish those emotions, evil hasn’t a leg to stand on.

The Most Impulsive Thing I've Ever Done

New York City Cops IMG_2912

There are a few, okay, I've picked one. when I was in high school in Queens New York in the mid1980's, a lot of girls hitched rides home from school. One day I was running for the Q26 bus when I just put out my thumb crossing the street that led to the on ramp to the L.I.E and a car stopped. I asked if he was going to Astoria, he said yes, hop in. As we are driving on the L.I.E he is asking me questions and then I ask him what he does for a living and he answers, I'm an undercover police officer and shows me his badge. I almost threw up in a panic, and I got the lecture of all lectures. One of the guys from my block was police officer in his precinct and he was going to tell him and bring me home to my parents. I swore up and down that I would never, ever hitch a ride again. One of the biggest lessons I learned in my life.

Why Democracy Is Public: The American Dream Beats the Nightmare

Thank you, these concepts seem to have faded into the background and they need to be part of the national discussion­. President Obama would do us all a service if he could use his exceptiona­l talent for speaking and remind us of why we are such a strong and blessed nation. We have national riches, we have an exceptiona­l resource, us, and we have freedoms that many in the rest of the world dream about. We need to remind ourselves that the government is us, the people. Ronald Reagan was absolutely wrong when he said that government was the problem, government can only be the problem if we make it so. Such as corporatio­ns are beholden to and driven by the shareholde­rs, so too is the government­, beholden to and driven by the people. I would rather our country be defined by a vision where government is an extension of us not some evil entity driven to take away from us. I think that is a part of what we are fighting about, our separate visions of what our country is really all about.
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John Boehner’s Debt Ceiling Bill Stalls In House

This is all deceit and knowing manipulati­on on D.C’s part. Why are they bothering to advance budgets first of all that are tied to a vote on the debt ceiling? The two have nothing to do with each other, by doing so, the GOP and the tea party are saying explicitly that unless they get their way and do away with any and all social safety programs they will tank the country for everyone. Secondly, the budget plans themselves are a joke, they all need to lift the debt ceiling anyway and budgets are theoretica­lly voted on yearly, these plans say they will cut spending 10 years down the road, so what is up with that. The President won’t be in office 10 years from now and hopefully these yahoo’s won’t either. Who knows what calamity will befall us 10 years from now? Are they going to strip away our potential to deal with any future trouble? All because of the GOP and the fanatical tea party. Just lovely.
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Hoyer Backs Obama Using 14th Amendment To Resolve Debt Crisis

I really believe that President Obama is looking at the bigger picture and wants a big bargain but he has to finally admit to himself that he is not even close to dealing with what he was used to in Chicago. The tea party is so far right that they inhabit another plane of existence. The President needs to take an extraordin­ary measure at this time because he is dealing with an extraordin­ary situation, a congress that cannot fulfill their obligation to finance our country. The debt ceiling was put in place in 1917, it can be taken away in the future. I am sure that the idea is now ingrained in many profession­al politician­s because it has become a toxic instrument and used carelessly by fanatics, the tea party. This has gotten very ridiculous and I fully blame the GOP and the tea party.
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