BellGab.com Archive

I noticed that deleting accounts is not possible. A ny special reason for that?

I think this might have been on Free Republic (before Free Republic became so depraved  I wouldn't go on it) but somebody started a thread on the most enjoyable concerts you've ever seen. I've seen everybody from Springsteen and the Rolling Stones to Holly Near and Long John Baldry and find that some of my happiest memories are of great concerts. So let's revive this thread. Also so.e of the .ost interesting game back stories concerning the people you went with, etc. The other night I was thinking about the Bluegrass breakfast festival at the Harry Adams fieldhouse in Missoula in 1975. The headliners were Doug Kershaw, Vassar Clements and some others. Years later I realized that the couple who invited me were probably trying g to discreetly fix me up with another friend they invited. Welk, that didn't take--this guy ignored me, but it was,a great show. It was a nice evening. Jeannie and Roger--you were great friends and I think of you often, wherever you are.

Do you think Ted Cruz has a good chance of getting re-elected next year, or is it too soon to tell?

Actually, I think its pretty much just Alex Jones. But a couple of callers on Medved's conspiracy show today were convinced of it, one.because of the type of weapon Lanza was using. Evidently this show was a rerun, but not from too long ago.

Like Medved says, to believe in a theory like t his, you have to believe  that hundreds, probably thousands of people, would be complicit. Same is true for the moon landing conspiracy theory. I would also note that a lot of these people have professional licenses, would have taken oaths, have codes of ethics, etc. I realize that people like this do commit crimes, lie and do bad things, but his point is that you would have to have a lot of them in one place, at one time lying about the same thing.

Pardon me if there is a thread on this already. Apparently this show still exists. Does anybody know if it's heard in the Seattle market?

So lately everybody claims that left leaning demonstrations are funded by George Soros, to some degree or another. This may not be true, but it been pretty much accepted by a lot of people like Rush Limbaugh. But now there are theories that some Trump people may have planted agent provocateurs in the Berkeley anti-Milo demonstration, to make trouble, make them look bad, gin up support for clamp-downs, etc. I think this is less credible than t he Soros theory myself. A lot was going on there, and a little if it might have been orchestrated by plants,  but I think that the worst of the vandalism and mayhem was probably done by anarchists from out of town, maybe other west coast cities, and the usual opportunists of the kind that showed up for the WTO protests in Seattle. Since I was not on the ground in Berkeley, it might be better to leave the assessment up to people who were, though.

dailym.al/1LxumDm


This story has been around for awhile, but this is the most detailed account I've heard.


Sorry it didn't come out a hyperlink, but I think typing it into the browser will work.

Today on the Medved show, RINO pinup girl Jen Rubin made the most vehement criticisms of Trump I have heard yet on talk radio. She used the phrases "huckster" and "carnival barker".


I had heard her on Larry Cudlow a few weeks ago being negative about Trump, and at that time tended to agree with her, beliieving that he would draw all the wrong kinds of tabloidish attention to the debates and races, and also drown out out more thoughtful and serious candidates and their ideas.


But after listening to some of his supporters(or at least people who are more positive about him even if they aren't planning to vote for him) on talk radio(particularly Mark Levin) I've decided that it isn't such a bad thing after all having him in the race, for whatever his real reason is. It will steer the debates and discussions toward topics like immigration and free trade that are really on peoples' minds and also frame the conversation in more plain language instead of the politically correct double talk we get so much of.


There is one criticism of Trump that I wish would get aired and I haven't seen it yet.  That may be b ecause when it first happened, it got more coverage form the left. (I first heard of it from Clark Howard.) That's the story about the "Trump University" fraud in late 2013. Trump tried to distance himself from it, and also blamed the guy who went after him, comparing him to Elliott Spitzer, and accusing him of wanting to enhance his own career.  But since they were clearly using Trump's name to market it, he couldn't have it both ways.  I think that Trump supporters would do well to revisit this story and decide if they really want to elect somebody to lead the free world who handles challenges like this.

I've discovered him on the Christian station here.  I had been following him on Twitter and heard him a time or two on Dennis Prager. If you are interested in faith-related subjects, this is a great show. He has good bump and theme music too.

It doesn't look as if anybody else is going to wade into this one, so I guess I will.

I have two basic thoughts about this.  The first one is what is it about the cover-up mentality?  I have been observing this ever since Watergate happened when I was a teeenager.Sometimes the stuff people do in the process of covering up is more evil than whatever the original thing was. Why do they think they will get away with it?  Well, I suppose to be fair, we don't know about the cases in which they do get away with it, because the cover-up has worked.

The second point is a lot more sensitive because nobody wants to look as if they are blaming the victim.  In this case, however, people can't be blamed for having  a few questions. This guy (the first one) must be in his fifties now. Interesting that he must not have realized how traumatized he was until Hastert started making big money as a lobbyist.  Also notice that much like the Chandler family in the Michael Jackson affair, cashing in was more important than being a good citizen, possibly protecting future victims or bringing a wrongdoer to justice.

My apologies if there is already a thread on Dr. Oz.  Has anybody on coast to coast talked about this controversy?  If they have, I haven't heard it. I didn't realize how over-the-top Oz had gotten.

Here's something I have been getting increasingly concerned about over the past few weeks. As most of you know, I am not a huge fan of a lot of alternative medicine.  I don't take the rigid, zero-tolerance approach of say Stephen Barrett on quackwatch and I do try to keep an open mind unless an idea is clearly ridiculous(like the notions being peddled by a lot of coast guests).But I evaluate the ideas based on what I know about the human body and find that most of it doesn't hold up. Since I have a chronic illness myself, I get a lot of well-meaning people taking me aside and telling me that I'd get better if I only gave up eating nightshades or whatever. My favorite is applying WD-40 to your joints.  I'm not kidding--people have recommended that to me. It doesn't help that a lot of alternative medicine proponents and practitioners believe a lot of other silly crap.  Do you really want to take medical advice from somebody who's a birther, a truther, talks about the Bilderbergers and illuminati, etc.?

I listen to Dr. Jerry Mixon on KTTH (Seattle)and KIRO most Saturdays from 8 to 10.  I just happen to be home and awake at that time very often.  I know that it's basically an infomercial and he wants to get people to his seminars and to sign up for auto-shipments of his supplements and stuff.  I don't plan to do that, but I enjoyed the show for some of the general information.  "Longevity medicine" has been his thing.  But now he's talking a lot about senile dementia(not Alzheimers' neccessarily, but the same type of thing.)There aren't too many diseases scarier than cancer, but for people in my age group, this might be it.  He's saying things  like, if you think you have the early signs, you probably have it. He's saying that the early stages can be reversed.  This doesn't sound right to me.  Slowed almost to a stop I could believe, but reversed I have trouble buying. One caller asked about games and puzzles that people do to stay sharp.  He told her that it will only make you really good at those particular games and puzzles and not accomplish anything else. Naturally he was peddling a seminar for $400 and something and of course you know that would only be the beginning.  He doesn't take insurance.

If you google Dr. Jerry Mixon probably within the first five hits will be some of the peccadillos he's been in.  I think illicit use of human growth hormone may have been one, but don't let me spoil it for you, look for yourself. 

So how about you? I think that this has the potential to be one of the big new alternative medicine scares over the next few years, as baby boomers like me become senior citizens.

So how about this deal in Indiana?  Obviously they were trying to avoid cases such as Arlene's Flowers in the tri-cities here in WA, but it went horribly wrong.  The Seattle mayor(first openly gay Seattle mayor, I think) wasted no time in saying that the city of Seattle will be doing NO MORE business with Indiana if they ever have been! This man obviously has his priorities straight(I mean, well, you know)  Have you been to Seattle lately?

Regardless of how you feel about Glenn Beck, I think these allegations about Norquist should concern everybody, especially in view of the Bergdahl affair and some of the other things going on lately.

I thought it was interesting that Jack Abramoff came up.  Abramoff had some ties too people here in the Puget Sound area.

So I listen to a lot of AM and they have a lot of infomercials, especially on the weekends.(KVI calls theirs "Need to Know weekends") Coast used to be on KVI, but has been on KIRO FM for several years now, and there is actually a lot of talk on commercial FM now, as you've probably noticed.

At the beginning of an infomercial there is always a disclaimer telling people that they aren't responsible for content or whatever.  But at a certain point, are they?

I'll give a few examples.  I used to like KLEAN radio, even though it's an informercial, it used to very soft sell and had interesting guests.  Then Pat O'Brien came on board.  I have to admit that I've never had a lot of use for sports journalists, and he comes across as a jerk to me. On Valentines' weekend they spent a half hour on polyamory, I kid you not.  I might as well have been listening to Tom Leykis. First I was going to snail mail or email, then decided to call them out on Twitter.  No reply, but they haven't done anything like that since. They air on KVI by the way, whose slogan is "faith, family, flag and freedom" or some such.

Then there's Dr. Jerry Mixon.  I always knew that he has an agenda, and I knew he had some skeletons in the cupboard as well(sexual contact with a patient--Google it and it will be about the fifth hit) but I still liked his show on KTTH ( and partly on KIRO FM, Noory's station)on Saturday mornings.  I was able to separate out the general information from the agendized stuff meant to sell his goods and services.  But the past couple of shows I've been really concerned about his advice on senile dementia.  I know he's trying to get people into his clinic, but I wonder if he's also giving out misinformation, for example telling people that senile dementia can be reversed in early stages, that if you think you have it you probably do, that there's no DIY at home test, etc.

I notice that he's been in trouble with the law more recently than I realized, too, mostly with the human growth hormone stuff.  So really, I know It's buyer beware, and I know that the easy money in infomercials must be extremely tempting to these stations, but don't they have some responsibility? And that includes Noory, whose show is often one big infomercial.

So I apologize if somebody else has started a thread on this and I missed it.  Maybe MV can merge them.

When I first heard of this deal with these SAE brothers leading a song on a bus that included a word no longer in decent use(unless you'r a rap artist, of course) and a reference to lynching, I was shocked and outraged, like most people. I found it especially curious that everybody else on the bus just went along with it.  It occurred to me it might be a hoax.  It wasn't. I thought that the college president's actions were a little rash, but thought, "well, these private institutions can handle things as they wish--people don't have to have due process as they would in a court of law." I was also concerned about the first amendment implications, but thought that since they mentioned lynching, that overrides free speech concerns.

I concluded that probably the most likely reason nobody on the bus challenged them is that they are the kinds of guys people don't challenge, and also alcohol was probably involved. Everybody went to high school with obnoxious, arrogant people like that.  Usually they outgrow it by college. A lot of times, in small towns especially, their parents are affluent and influential and able to use their influence to keep them out of major trouble, or else they're really good in sports, often both. In a town I lived in in the 80s in Montana, there was a group known as the "Buckhorn Boys" because of the brand of cheap beer they drank. I was out of high school myself by then, but these guys made the news from time to time with their hooliganism. There were allegations that they sexually assaulted a developementally disabled girl.  I don't know what became of that, probably dropped due to lack of evidence.  Law enforcement there weren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, either.  That's why I haven't mentioned the name of the town.

But now everybody's lawyered up and poking around SAE houses on other campuses, even though there evidently black SAE brothers on other campuses who claimed they hadn't seen any racism. So now, in my opinion, we're looking at a months-long witch hunt-fishing expedition, all dealing with speech, not actions and we'll be hearing about it for 20 years.

I've noticed that a lot of people on talk radio aren't touching this, either because its such a hot button issue, or more likely, they'd rather talk about Hillary or Tom Cotton.

I'm trying to stop posting so many things of regional interest, but this one just jumped out at me.  I had to re-read it several times to make sure I read correctly.

heraldnet.com/article/20150307/NEWS01/150309302/Everett-man-who-raped-killed-boy-now-arrested-for-child-porn

Of course if he was out of prison in 1985 and murdered somebody in 1974, do the arithmetic--he did no more than 11 years! There has to be more to this story, though for the life of me, I can't imagine what it might have been.  I didn't live in the area then.  This is a good example of why experts consider pedophiles the worst candidates for rehabilitation. Frankly, I don't know why this guy didn't hang in Walla Walla 40 years ago.

www.heraldnet.com/article/20150227/NEWS03/150229251

Linda Moulton Howe needs to get on this case, unless she already has, and I missed it.

Port Angeles is a one of the parts of WA closest to Vancouver and Victoria, as the crow(or more likely, seagull) flies so in these situations, I tend to just blame the Canadians. Maybe its payback for acid rain.

mynorthwest.com/11/2711981/Hispanic-group-seeks-federal-investigation-of-Pasco-police-shooting

I don't want a federal investigation.  I'm tired of the federal government meddling in WA state law enforcement matters.  Seattle still hasn't recovered from what Eric Holder's DOJ did to them.

I don't think that the police can do no wrong, but I don't think that this merits a federal investigation.

I would be very curious to know how many of these protesters came in from Seattle, Olympia, Eugene, Missoula, etc., too.

Has this been discussed on Coast to Coast, and I missed it?  Is there already a thread on it here?  I don't think so.


I had never heard of this guy, who apparently was working on a film called "Gray State" about conspiracy theories.  He was found dead, along with his wife and young daughter, last month.  It's assumed to be murder-suicide, which certainly seems likely to me, but of course some are saying otherwise.  I first heard of it on the Lars Larson show.  A caller    was pressing the issue.  Lars had heard of the case, but thought it was murder-suicide.   


Here's a little story from HuffPo Crime.
www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/19/david-crowley-murder-suicide-gray-state_n_6500532.html


They play up the gun angle, since that's scary to people who read HuffPo, I guess.                                                                                                                                                           

Since George often mentions morbid,sensational  cases involving children and animals, this one will probably come up tonight.  John Carlson dealt with it this morning. He says, "this is why I don't support legalizing drugs" (Since drugs are almost certainly involved here--it has the hallmarks of meth parenting styles and the mother had been in drug court in 2009).  But meth isn't marijuana, meth is already illegal, so what point is he trying to make?


heraldnet.com/article/20150203/NEWS01/150209646/1172/3-kids-found-in-squalor

As you may remember Karen Kain was interviewed by Lisa Garr in July.  I finally got around to posting my review on bookcrossing.
www.bookcrossing.com/journal/13143820


This isn't the best book review I've ever written, by a long shot.  It was very difficult to write, for reasons I've explained.


Since the anti-vax issue comes up a lot on C to C, and lately, in the news in general, it may be of interest, though.

At least that 's the way I heard the story. I haven't seen it in print yet, only heard it on the radio.


Naturally I'm glad that Mr. Boehner is OK, but shocked that the bartender is reported to have mental issues.  Don't they know that people in the food and beverage industry are paragons of sanity, respectablity, sobriety and clean-living?

This dude is scary even by Everett standards, and he's in Alaska.


www.ktuu.com/news/news/man-with-eyeball-tattoo-pleads-guilty-to-police-shooting/30505530

www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/12/23/pizza-hedgehogs-and-shoes-the-least-pressing-emergency-calls-to-a-british-police-department


I realize that we have equally frivolous 9-1-1 callers  in this country--consumer complaints abput fast food seem to be high on the list, but it struck me funny.  These aren't the same people who braved the Blitz.  I also recently learned the term "bovver boy" in this forum, and it sounds like this guy from Manchester might be an example.

Bad or good?  I tend to be cynical and think that this is not the right tack to take with Cuba, but I know a lot of people think otherwise.  Also, isn't it curious that Elian Gonzalez(remember him?) has grown up to be a big commie?  I wonder if he even remembers the time he spent with his cousins in Miami or the ordeal on the raft with his mother.

So I apologize if there is already a thread on this.  I didn't see it.  Glenn Beck was comparing this to the Weimar republic today and spouting doom, destruction and despair, then a Goldline ad.  So, what does everybody think?  Is this really as serious as he thinks?  People are pretty preoccupied with Cuba and N. Korean Sony hacking right now, not to mention terrorist horrors in Australia and Pakistan and continuing racial unrest here at home.  Beck thinks this is part of the trouble with  a global economy, but isn't a global economy inevitable with modern travel and communication?

Since George digs these macabre stories in his newsbriefs section, I'm sure this was mentioned, but I was so exhausted last night I went to sleep before listening to even a minute of Coast.

This guy killed his girlfriend, seemingly arranged for the body to be found by her 13-year old son, and posted pictures of it on a site called 4chan, which I am proud to say I've never heard of. He surrendered in the Portland OR area after attempted what was evidently suicide by cop.

Suicide of all kinds is out of control in this society, but I am even more disturbed by these toxic narcissists who have to take out others with them.  Suicide by cop?  Do they have any idea what that does to that officer's life if they succeed?

Has anybody in the Puget Sound market noticed that 770 is running Medved reruns,often the same ones over and over, at night, weekends, seemingly all the time, at the expense of Rush or other reruns people might want to hear.  Gone are the days of Bill Handel.  It may(gasp, shudder) even cut into infomercial time.

"Medved in the morning, Medved in the evening, Medved at suppertime..."

At long last.  I am  glad this kid's ordeal is over. I can't remember if there is already a thread on this.

I really identified, because the kind of driver I am, taking a wrong turn at the Mexican border is exactly the kind of thing I would do.