August 2017 – Page 2 – Really Right

My Review of Patterns of Evidence: Exodus

IMDB Patterns of Evidence: Exodus (2014)

I watched this movie on Netflix the other night. Its narrative style reminded me of Jesse Winton’s Targeted although this movie was made prior. It begins with a question, some people are talked to and then more questions are asked followed by more interviews. A small portion of the film is narrated by actor Kevin Sorbo.

The movie was well done and sounded really familiar to me. The basic question was, is there evidence that the Exodus is an historical fact or just a biblical myth? The groundwork was laid steadily until they got to one of their most important points. (Please note that the discussion which follows will include spoilers to plot points in the film.) What was made clear is that many modern archeologists give an unequivocal “NO” answer to the question; however, the film posits an alternative.

The party line in the archeological community is that Rameses II was the pharaoh of the Exodus. While this does agree with Cecil B DeMille, it is clearly at odds with the biblical narrative.

Secular historians assume the modern construction of the Egyptian timeline is correct which is not true. I recalled reading many years ago about this in a book by Gary North.

Readers are also not informed of the fact that virtually all chronologies of the ancient Near East and pre-classical Greece are constructed on the assumption that the conventional chronology of Egypt is the legitimate standard. What modern scholars believe is the proper chronology of Egypt is then imposed on the chonologies of all other civilizations of the ancient Near East, including the biblical chronology of the Hebrews. Thus, when the Bible says explicitly that the Exodus took place 480 years before Solomon began to construct the temple (I Kings 6:1), historians interpret this information within the framework of the hypothetical Egyptian chronological scheme.

When they even admit that the pharaohs of the supposed dynastic era of the fifteenth century before Christ were extremely powerful kings-men like Thutmose III-whose mummies still exist, they are tempted to ignore these difficulties, or even to ignore the clear teaching of the Bible. Many of them date the Exodus much later. They allow a hypothetical chronology of Egypt to dictate their interpretation of Scripture. This is not the way that Christian scholarship is supposed to be conducted.

Moses and Pharaoh pages 7 & 8 (1985)

I have three criticisms of the film for points that they didn’t make.

Point One: The easiest way to prove that Ramses II is not the pharaoh of the Exodus is that we know where he was buried. He died of old age not by drowning in the Red Sea. In fact his body is on display in a museum.

Ramesses II originally was buried in the tomb KV7 in the Valley of the Kings, but because of looting, priests later transferred the body to a holding area, re-wrapped it, and placed it inside the tomb of queen Inhapy. Seventy-two hours later it was again moved, to the tomb of the high priest Pinudjem II. All of this is recorded in hieroglyphics on the linen covering the body. His mummy is today in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum.
Link” Wikipedia Ramsses II

Point Two: It is clear from watching the film that the archeological community demands that members of its community follow the party line. The tyrant of academia is never directly mentioned, but it is clearly understood that their orthodoxy must be followed if you want to get funding and work in the field. Anyone who has watched Ben Stein’s Expelled will have “the eyes to see” this construct in action.

Point Three: this one is more subtle but my impression from watching the film is that Egypt loves the archeology and tourism but they have no interest in validating any claims that might bolster the Jewish faith. The Muslim folks don’t seem to allow you access to their historic sights if you rock their boat by dissing their ancestors.

On the whole, it’s well worth your time to watch, especially if you have children in the audience. It starts slow but builds to a satisfying conclusion “for the hope that is within you”.

Elon Musk Innovator or Crony Capitalist?

By now you should know X always has his smoking gun aimed at someone. I’ve even been made abreast of the fact that some citizens of this republic are sleeping with both eyes open instead of just one. If you need another reason to be vigilant and join their ranks ponder this next…

I want to train my fire on one Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla. Turn on a finance show, read a paper, or just listen to small talk and you hear people placing this guy in the same category as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett and Larry Ellison. I have never really understood it, Gates, Buffett, Ellison, Jobs were all great innovators and leaders of companies that essentially print money to this day. Hence as William laid out in a different post they are all quite wealthy. Musk on the other hand runs a company (Tesla) that is basically doing what Amazon.com does; they are selling what is essentially their take on the future.

Tesla—if you’re wondering—is behind the electric cars that you see every once in a blue moon on the road. Also they own a network of charging stations, mostly in California. However, Tesla has never managed to be profitable, yet their stock has surged over the last few years. I wondered aloud, why is this?

I must say I am fascinated by Musk in the same way other people are. He speaks eloquently and always talks like a slick sales man selling a promise of prosperity just beyond the horizon. He has some very innovative ideas like trying to make an all-electric car go mainstream. He wants to take cars to space through his SpaceX program, and bought SolarCity—who is the largest solar panel provider in the USA.

Here is where the fascination stops and reality sets in. Musk fancies himself as an Amazon.com style disruptor, truth be told he is anything but. SolarCity is run by his cousins, both of whom just left the company I may add. Also in 10 years of operations, despite being the #1 rooftop solar company, they have yet to turn a profit. Tesla is simply promising a future that is unrealistic at best and the next Enron/Solyndra/Fisker at worst. In a daring and in my mind foolish gambit, Musk rolled all the SolarCity debt into Tesla just to keep his empire afloat.

Allow me to explain my thesis. Musk and his corporations are fully subsidized by you and I; Joe Taxpayer. Why do cities and states keep sending money to Musk, especially since it’s a failing enterprise? Easy answer, Musk is very good at playing the game! He is very close to the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. This relationship paid off handsomely; the state gave SolarCity $750 million to build a large factory and only charges SolarCity $1 a year for rent. Seems pretty lucrative for a company that still cannot post a profit. SolarCity and Tesla don’t just play in New York, they have been very active in California, Arizona, and a handful of northwest states. (Of course California is fertile ground with funding sources like AB-32—thanks Arnold) Reno built a battery facility for his Tesla subsidiary that I am sure was at a cost very little to Musk.

In total, Musk and his cronies have received north of 5 billion in subsidies and tax breaks over the past decade, a total that interestingly enough amounts to about half of Musk’s net worth. However that’s not even the most brazen thing Musk has done.

Danny DeVito in poster for 80’s movie Other People’s Money

Now Musk is playing in the political game. He donated over 3 million into a race for public utility commissioner in Arizona. He was the only donor. I’m sure he is getting his people on the commission to advance his SolarCity subsidiary. He can’t afford another fiasco for SolarCity like Nevada. Source: Nevada solar power collapse

My issue: he is doing this lobbying with money taken from the taxpayers. Musk is enriching himself while making the public responsible if he fails. Great gig, where do I sign up?

So why does the stock of Tesla keep going up if it is a Ponzi scheme? Easy answer, right now the words “disrupter” and “green” are buzzwords that are dominating the political and financial scene. Musk as I mentioned earlier is very gifted at promising investors and politicians that success is literally just beyond that corner or just over that horizon. Most all of these political and consultant types eat this stuff up; hence Musk is able to get a factory in Buffalo, New York for free, or a battery plant for next to nothing in Reno. Musk is the current poster child for the Liberal belief that government creates jobs.

Wait until Gavin Newsome gets elected in California, the money spigot may not shut off for 8 years! Chiefly my concern is this, while electric cars may be the rage and solar may be good for the environment, why are we continuing to allow the government pick and choose what type of business succeeds in this country? This is because the liberals are able to successfully convince other politicos in the room to vote their way every so often. The Left in this country have a vision; Obama tried it with Solyndra and Fisker. Liberals would love to see everyone driving a Tesla Model S and have rooftop solar everywhere thus eliminating utilities and pollution emissions. As long as Musk is able to continue buying himself more time and earning more subsidies he will eventually become too big to fail, think that is his end game?

When Enron, MCI, and World Com failed, investors and those affected said they wish they would have known sooner. This was their warning then and mine now, I personally would not touch this company with a 100 foot pole. If you need more proof go to your local Home Depot, watch the SolarCity rep chase customers around the store in a desperate attempt to sign-up new clients. Oh, and if you do sign on the dotted line, don’t forget, Musk gets all those government tax rebates for “going solar”, you just get a bill for the next 30 years to pay your solar lease because he owns the equipment on your roof. It may not save the planet, but it allows Musk to live another day off of taxpayers like you and me.

I’ll be back with another hit piece soon,

As In the Days of Noah

If you want to get a feel for how Noah felt while building the Ark, try being a Conservative in California.

The financial reality is that your unborn grandchildren are broke and this generation does not care.
As of a few years ago, the combined debt of California government (state, county, and local) was 1.4 trillion dollars. I think it’s really more but that number is what state officials will publicly admit.

Eleven California counties have more registered voters than voting age people and this generation does not care.

The letter noted that 11 California counties have more registered voters than voting-age citizens: Imperial (102%), Lassen (102%), Los Angeles (112%), Monterey (104%), San Diego (138%), San Francisco (114%), San Mateo (111%), Santa Cruz (109%), Solano (111%), Stanislaus (102%), and Yolo (110%). The letter also noted that Los Angeles County officials “informed us that the total number of registered voters now stands at a number that is a whopping 144% of the total number of resident citizens of voting age.”
Link to source

Second Amendment groups have issued a travel advisory to California because of the crazy laws here designed to deny people the right to self-defense. Bringing a weapon from outside the state is a felony in many instances.

Small businesses know better than to relocate to this State due to taxes and regulations.

Churches, private schools, and other religiously oriented groups are on the endangered species list here if they wish to adhere to biblically based values.

I could go on but… I think you can add many other things to my list which is fine but my point is this, nobody here cares. I try talking to people at work about various issues as they appear in the news and absolutely nothing penetrates. As long as their daily life goes on, it doesn’t matter. Talk about living in darkness.

God closed to door of the Ark seven days before it started raining. There is no record of anybody knocking on the door to see why or asking to be let in. Contrary to the recent Hollywood movie, I think the Bible is silent on this because that is exactly how it happened. Nobody cared until the rain fell on them. This is the sad future that you will live to see.

Back to Lumia 950 XL

My son wanted to get a Samsung fitness band like his mother has so this necessitated getting him an Android phone. Samsung doesn’t have PC software for their products so syncing with his computer was not an option. We looked at new phones but I finally decided that he could have my ASUS phone.

I really like the security of the finger print reader on the phone but since there is no NFC feature in the phone, there’s not much need for a locked phone other than “butt dialing” random apps while the phone is in my pocket—which happened anyway.

Also, I had read that Microsoft had finally started fixing the issues with Bluetooth and Garmin that had prevented my band from talking to the phone. My son and I gathered up the phones and headed to our local Cricket store to move the phone numbers around. By the way, Cricket is great, five lines for $120. The short version is that Cricket just swapped sim cards between phones and that is how we learned that the sim cards are really what is active and not the phone…imagine that.

On the Android phone, we didn’t have to do a factory reset to give the phone to my son. We added his Google account and removed mine. This allowed him to keep the apps that I purchased (one game) and all the configuration changes. Thus my fingerprint will still access the phone even though he changed the numeric password. Also, I had to delete my Outlook accounts and add his. The whole process was simple.

Now I found myself back on the Windows 10 Mobile platform. I guess if you’ve read this far thru my article you are wondering if I miss Android. No. Most of the apps in Android are nonsense. Every fast food place you go into has a sign to get our app. Well I got several of your apps. Universally, they want you to order food on the Internet and buy gift cards so they can be prepaid for the food that you buy.

I’m so glad to have Cortana back in all her glory and not the crippled version offered to Android. Now I can have text messages read to me and reply via voice while driving my car. I have Earthquake Watch and live tiles. It’s glorious.

Lastly, Dave Ramsey would be proud of me for not buying myself a new phone but sticking with what I already had. I’m glad to keep chipping away at those baby steps to financial freedom.

Who are the Rich?

Class warfare is a staple of the Democrat Party. They are constantly berating Republicans for being rich and claiming they are for the little guy. In my previous article I showed extensively the comments of a coworker that leans Left. He blames Republicans for being rich, greedy, and screwing the little guy. In his mind that is their only reason for existence. For people like him, “the rich” are often defined as anyone making a dollar more than you do. Envy and jealousy are biblical names for this particular sin.

After reading my blog post (08-02-2017) to my wife last night, she challenged me to research the rich and try to refute my coworker with facts.

My first thought is that followers of the Democrat Party are not persuaded by facts only emotions. However, I’m up to a challenge so I took a look at the subject.

As with everything else in our society, everything I found in my research was highly politicized to try to prove either that most rich are Republicans or most rich are Democrats. My first observations were these:
• Many “rich” play both sides of the political divide but typically lean heavily one way or another.
• The one figure that is cast in both camps depending on who you read is Oracle owner Larry Ellison.

Second, there are actually two types of “rich” in our society. In times past they were called the wealthy and the nouveau riche. For those from Rio Linda, perhaps a definition is in order before proceeding.

Nouveau riche (French: ‘new rich’) is a term, usually derogatory, to describe those whose wealth has been acquired within their own generation, rather than by familial inheritance.
Link: Definition Nouveau Riche

Before going further, let’s talk about wealth. Most people think in terms of payroll because that is how they get paid. They are more than happy to vote to tax the rich—especially here in California—but they are dupes. Yeah, they will be able to get taxes from some middle manager in Silicon Valley or aspiring actress in Hollywood but the CEO types? Never! You see, after a certain level, wealthy folks don’t get large paychecks. As a result, a 13 percent state income tax in California or a 39 percent federal income tax rate (combined tax rate of 52 %) don’t bother them. Wealthy folks have trusts, derivatives, municipal bonds, and other financial vehicles that aren’t available to folks like you or me. That’s why Warren Buffett can say that his secretary pays more in taxes than he does and get a standing ovation from the Democrat National Committee for making the comment. You see, his wealth isn’t from a payroll check—he is beyond the likes of such inefficient stuff. However, he is perfectly fine pitting the poor and middle classes against the nouveau riche ‘cause it’s no skin off his nose.

When you hear about the Forbes lists of wealth people, rest assured that you have left the lifestyle of the nouveau riche far behind. The top of the 2017 list by Forbes is dominated by Democrats even when you put Larry Ellison into R bucket. Guiding these folks are literally the best lawyers and accounting firms that money can buy.

Link: Usual suspects at the top of Forbes list of world’s richest billionaires

Beyond the Forbes list, I began to take a look at the broader group of wealthy and their political contributions and the subject was permeated with so much partisanship that it was impossible to make sense of the information. I found one list that said by grouping the rich by families that 75 percent were Republican and another list that claimed 75 percent were Democrat. Hard money, soft money, 527’s, surrogates, etc. it’s simply impossible to track it all down. Maybe the Sith Lord has time to try but the rest of us are too busy. Direct contributions are easy to identify—to a point—but after that the trail gets cold rapidly. Anybody that claims to be in full possession of the facts is blowing smoke. What you can say is that some folks on each side are more public than others about giving in certain areas be it politics or charities. We all know there are other ways of giving that keep your fingerprints off the contributions.

Additionally, since the days of Bill Clinton, money from other countries has been flowing into US politics but those receiving it find excuses not to keep track of it. We may have some idea of how much but not from where. The bottom line is if you have a will to give, there is a way that you can do so—the variable is the paper trail that you are willing to leave behind.

Clearly, Buffett and the Tech Kings are on top of the hill in terms of assets. They openly favor the Democrat brand and many of us on the Conservative side expect them to remake the party of Clinton and Obama in their image sooner rather than later. Maybe starting in 2020, stay tuned.

Talking Obamacare at Work

When you work for a government agency, you expect to find many folks on the payroll that lean to the Left. But silly me, when I saw this article on the KOVR-TV website yesterday, I thought I had found a teachable moment. Consider the following:

Anthem Blue Cross Ends Health Care Exchange Coverage in Most of California

Monthly premiums for California health insurance plans sold under Obama’s Affordable Care Act will rise by an average of 12.5 percent next year.

The 12.5 percent average increase is slightly lower than last year, when premiums rose by more than 13 percent.

OK, so that’s a 25.5 percent increase in the last two years. With a rate of inflation at or below three percent annually, such increases in healthcare are astronomical. But there’s more:

About 10 percent of people enrolled through Covered California will also be forced to look for a new plan, as Anthem Blue Cross plans to end the coverage in most of the state. State officials say Anthem will continue providing coverage only in Santa Clara County and parts of Northern California and the Central Valley.

So, in the same story, Anthem Blue Cross is exiting most of California except Santa Clara County—can you say Google, Apple, and Facebook—while the rest of the customers can look elsewhere. So 10 percent of those on Obamacare (Arnoldcare on steroids) in California just got the boot. Only those in the heart of Silicon Valley will continue to be served by Blue Cross.

The same story on the KCRA-TV website has additional details worth considering:

Consumers could lower their increase to about 3 percent if they switch to the lowest-priced plans, officials said, though that could require them to change doctors.

More proof Obama lied. Low premiums and you get to keep your doctor, yeah, right!

The article states that Covered California sells insurance to 1.4 million folks in California.

Peter Lee, executive director of Covered California, said the state shows that insurance markets are not failing. “We in California … are not just stable, but stable in a way that is truly working for consumers,” Lee said.

Talk about lipstick on a pig, this program is a mess and don’t forget that California is the most vibrant and successful of the healthcare exchanges in any state with a large population. Elsewhere premiums next year are going up by 30 percent—if any insurer even offers coverage in your area.

Top health insurance companies in numerous states are looking to hike premiums by double-digits – some by roughly 30 percent or more – for ObamaCare plans in 2018…

Insurers seeking huge premium hikes on ObamaCare plans

However, all the above is only half the equation because you still need to find a doctor willing to accept your insurance and nobody is talking about that particular problem right now. The pool of folks willing to accept the Obamacare insurance is shrinking also.

Given all this, how does a certified Liberal read these disturbing trends? Well the universe next door sees the world quite differently.

Reacting to the news of the rate hike, my Liberal coworker writes, “Great, the rich keep robbing and stealing from the poor.”

My response was:

What do “the rich” have to do with this?

Who is stealing?

These rates are with government subsidies that are supposed to make healthcare more affordable.

Also, rate increases have to be approved by Dept of Insurance which isn’t run by anybody that I voted for.

His reply:
“All of this extra money generated won’t be going to any poor people it will all be going to the rich people. The rich are stealing, when we pay more they pay less.“

My next response:

If what you say is true then how can the rich steal from poor if they aren’t engaged in commerce with them?

Trust me, if there was money to be made then Blue Cross would be insuring more folks not pulling out of markets.

You seem to think that for one guy to get rich that he must steal from someone else. This assumes that the economic pie is only so big and can never grow. This was basis of Keynesian Economics which was popular in the early part of the last century. Reality has proven that this is a defective way to view economics but it remains popular in some circles.

Wealth can in fact be created without screwing someone else. The economy can expand or contract over time, it is not static.

My friend’s next response was like an editorial from CNN:
“Insurance companies are owed and run by Billionaires and Millionaires. Yes, money is very finite….to poor people. Rich people can always get more. Yes sometimes wealth can be made without screwing people, sometimes. The AFA is a 95% Republican bill including the tax penalty which is 100% Republican idea. Of course no rich person ever paid the penalty. The Penalty was put in under the guise of if the poor people are taxed more then we (R) will support the AFC. Of course that was never the plan, no R voted for it, but the Republican penalty stayed in the bill to assure poor people pay more so the rich won’t have to.”

In my response I tried to break the above into pieces and respond. My comments were these:

• Insurance companies are also owned by retirement plans and retired people. Part of your pension is invested in such companies by CalPERS.
• All I can add is that most Wall Street traders are Democrats—look at the New York vote for Clinton and the market reaction to Trump winning. After hours trading on election night was down over 750 points on the news. Lastly, by a large majority, millionaires in Congress are members of the Democrat Party.
• No, Republicans did offer amendments, most were described as technical. It’s not their bill.

If you recall, the House Speaker told Republicans that it must be passed to know what was in it. They did try to soften some of the edges of the bill which they knew they could not kill but the bill was never fully vetted thru the committee process in Congress. However, by offering amendments, as the minority party at the time, it does allow the bill to be called bipartisan in a narrowly defined way.
• The penalty was put in to encourage young people to get coverage. It is programmed to increase each year until it gets to the point that insurance is cheaper than continuing to pay the penalty. Trump reportedly has suspended the collection of this penalty by the IRS. The whole thing is wrong so I don’t particularly care what Party you want to blame. Using the power of the State in this way is wrong regardless of who is doing it.

The bottom line is this, logic and facts don’t work with Liberals. As a group, they are economic illiterates that hang their hats on disproven ideas just because they hear something in the idea that they like regardless of how much evidence to the contrary that you can muster. In reality they are the bitter clingers to such dumb and outmoded ideas as Keynesian Economics. Many truly believe that the economy is static and the only way to get wealthy is on the backs of others. Ironically, the people like Buffett and Musk that are in their Party really behave that way so some examples can be sighted but they are the exceptions. They also believe that government creates jobs and other nonsense.

I just need to remember that their blindness is primarily spiritual and their dependence on government to solve their problems is idolatry—a worship of a false god.

My RA is Dead and the CRA says and Knows Nothing

You may remember President Obama—who if you are a CRA member you still approve more so than Donald Trump—loved big government solutions. One of his signature programs was called MyRA. The program was based on the theory that if someone didn’t have access to a private sector retirement account or 401k they could invest through the Treasury Department into MyRA. Contributions were limited so when your balance grew to $15,000 you were forced to move it over to a new investment vehicle outside of the Federal Government like maybe Wells Fargo.

In theory this wasn’t a horrible idea, most Americans have no retirement and this would have given people the ability to save small amounts of money in a safe haven investment. The problem is that not very many people ever opened accounts, just a paltry 20 thousand. Worse yet, only 10 thousand had any money deposited into them! While the ten thousand active accounts did have an average balance of about $1700, the expenses of the program were massive—almost 70 million from its creation in 2014! The total amount of money ever deposited into MyRA accounts is a hotly disputed 34 million. So in typical government fashion, the product was grossly overpriced and we lost millions in taxpayer dollars, let alone new government bureaucrats and the pensions that come with them.

This is why I was glad to vote for Donald Trump! This is exactly what he promised. Trump took a large government bureaucracy laden with waste and outright eliminated it. The CRA didn’t endorse Trump and most likely didn’t vote for him. That’s okay, as I’m sure Hillary Clinton probably would have expanded the program into the government run Ponzi-scheme that would have made the Social Security Administration jealous! The program was set up to help Americans save for retirement, and obviously the better majority had no interest. President Trump acted swiftly to eliminate the program.

Here’s the bottom line, Donald Trump if given time and some bi-partisan support, (since the CRA and Tea Party endorsed Republicans aren’t helping!) he will drastically and dramatically reshape our government for generations. Therein lies the problem, the CRA and other organizations have befriended establishment Republicans and Democrats and have teamed up to stop Trump every single step of the way. Remember I was called out by 2 South Sacramento CRA members demanding my identity and saying I was breaking stories that were not true. As a result the Blog Father and I are offering this space to CRA members wishing to refute anything in the above article.

Oh BTW, while the CRA may call this a federal issue, remember my article from earlier speaking about California’s plan to make a state run retirement program for its citizens? Why is it something tells me it will have the same results, but won’t get the plug pulled like MyRA?

Til next time,

PS nice find Blog Father on Rich Uncle Pennybags Buffett, from my research, his investment vehicle Berkshire Hathaway holds over 500 million shares of Wells Fargo Bank. Truth be told though, he was required by the Fed to divest about 8 million shares. Not because of anything illegal but new rules state no single entity can control more than 10% of the outstanding stock. The reason: so one person cannot have too much influence over the corporation. Swell, maybe Buffett could have called the Board of Directors and said “Stop Ripping off the American People.” But no, I’m sure Mr. Buffett happily collects his dividend check and looks the other way.