What's the Harm

I've heard of this website before but just had the opportunity to explore it.  What's the Harm www.whatstheharm.net publishes articles about people who have been harmed or died as a result of believing in Religion, Life after Death, Pseudoscience, and any unproven faith based organizations.

 

It's well worth the read especially if you have someone trying to convince you that they got a new cure all for Happiness.

 

 

John Stewart Killed it

I hope all of you had an opportunity to watch the slaughter of CNBC and it's Mad Money host Jim Cramer last night.  John Stewart the self proclaimed "Clown of the Media Industry" exposed Jim and the majority of the CNBC pundits for their own rape of the American Investor.

 

John focused on the fact that "Experts" and the depth's of financial knowledge not only should have known that these junk investments were crap but should have investigated the companies that sold them.  Their duty as "Journalists" were to expose the companies that were out to defraud the investors, but instead continued to sell the Buy and Hold philosophy at the expense of the average American's 401k.

 

When Jim tried to defend himself as a consumer advocate only trying to make "Good Calls" John brought forth a homemade interview where Jim was touting the very practices of shorting and market manipulation that he was so vigorously condemning now.  Video after video 'Outed' Cramer showing that CNBC is no better than crooked politications lobbied by Corportate Donors just change the name of lobbiest to Advertisers, you don't even have to change the name of the Corporations, they are all the same crooks.

 

Catlina trip rocked

Pics to come:

 

I wanted to have more to write about this trip but all good sailing stories require bad weather to have a punch, unfortunately for this blog but fortunate for this weekend the weather was great for an end of winter weekend.  Even though things went smoothly we did have a few interesting things that came up.

 

On Friday March six we met early and took one car down to the boat, I had decied that I would take care of all food and expenses and the other guys, Edgar, Mark and Eric would just have to bring their drink of choice, clothes, sleeping bag, and toiletries.  This worked great and I immediately noticed that the threat they would have to sleep in their berth with whatever they brought with them kept the size of their bags small.

 

I can't remember the last time I went on an all guys trip, maybe boyscouts, don't know but what was most noticable right from the beginning is how quickly and easily everyone worked toward accomplishing any task.  Instructions were followed easily and quickly and most things needed no instruction at all, it was simply done, in no time the 150 lbs of food, booze, beer and necessities were loaded and stowed aboard and we shoved off out of the slip.

 

The weather had a small craft warning due to uncertain weather south of Long Beach, even though the WS only predicted 10 to 15 with gusts of 20 it was the short swells that keyed off the warning.  Due to this and a slightly unusual wind angle I decided to take a little extra time to tack up to San Pedro.  On the way we practiced a few man overboard drills that didn't make me feel entirely confident but enough to allow Eric to take the tiller for most of the time.  On one of the last tacks in strong wind I instructed Eric and Mark to grind in the Genoa tight to get it as flat as possible and before it even reached the spreaders it gave away and split in two pieces.  It was a great drill in being calm and making decisions while giving clear instructions, we made short work of getting the roller furling mechanism down and a new jib up and sheets run.  It all went down with the tall ship Irvin Johnson watching as we had just made a tack past them, they even hailed us on the radio to make sure everyone was ok.

 

The swells were running at 2 to 5 secons and 2.5 feet, short and steep but Knotabus handled them well and Eric did a fine job at the tiller. Edgar did not and we didn't notice him turning white until the 2nd accidental man overboard drill when a hat went over and he got jolted up from where he laid, the next stop for him was the head, I told him next time over the side.  After about 4 hours we reached Catalina about central Island and tacked up to get to the Isthimus, with wind and sun leaving us I gave in and fired up the motor to get us into harbor.

 

After scurrying around for a mooring and paying the fees we broke out the first meal, pork steaks, baked potatoes, and carrots.  The new Magma BBQ worked good and my Mother In Law's suggestion of using a dutch oven to warm the potatoes and carrots on the stove was perfet and fast.  We followed dinner with a few rounds of Mexican Train Dominoes but tired after a long day of sailing eating and drinking we all turned in pretty early.

 

Saturday morning after everyone woke we got the raft inflated with the power pump on the boat, as it was finished a guy from a neighboring boat in a Sevlor inflatabl kayak offered to give anyone a ride in that wanted to go to shore first.  I opted for the ride to check out the area and take the proverbial 'dump' on shore as to not fill up and stink up the boat.  After getting back made Chorizo and Egg burritos, again cooking and cleaning went smoothly with everyone's participation or simply staying out of the way.

 

We filled the day with exploring the Island, Hiking, putting down the beers, and an afternoon nap as I attempted to fish.  Mark attempted a swim but was back out of the water within a minute complaining of the cold inspite of his shorty wetsuit.  Dinner we had at the bar on the island and I'm pretty sure I had the best Hamburger ever, and it was only $9.00.  Couple of drinks and pool and headed back for Dominoes, another early night after a long day.

 

I didn't even get a bite.  The next day we left while cooking Braughtworst on the Magma hanging off the aft life rails, and I dragging two lines trying to get a bite near Bird Island.  The wind was dead and clouds to the east, clear skys to to the west indicated we were running along a front of conflicting systems destroying any chance of decent wind.  The motor ran too long on the way home and when it didn't the pace was slow and I found time to do some maintenance and even make some 'how to' videos for the famundo where the partners on the boat communicate. 

 

Getting home took longer because we stopped up in Cabrillo marina to fill the tank before heading the last 8 miles back down to Long Beach, this little excursion added 2.5 hours to the trip so getting to dock took almost 7 hours.  The last short leg we tried to race a 40 footer downsind, and lost.  We got the boat ready to be put away and all our stuff together before getting into harbor so within a few minutes of getting in we had the boat closed up and washed down so we could load the car.

 

At the end of the weekend my biggest epiphany, Men work much better together than I've seen women, but there's one thing a group of women do better than men.....  Be naked together!

 

 

The Crash

Today in our turbulent Economic times many are searching for the bottom of the never-ending slide of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.  Some are comparing our current economic problems to the great depression, most still believe that our government has the ability to prevent a repeat of those times.  Mostly I think people mistake the 'Crash' of the stock market of 1929 as a Single event that decimated the marketplace, this notion is not only entirely untrue it's dangerous to use as a gauge in our current situation.

 

In August 1929 the Stock Market hit it's peak, it wasn't until July 1932 that the stock market found it's footing and grabbed hold.  Matter of fact the fall was slow and painful with many rallies and market corrections along the way.  The reason this is dangerous is that those same market corrections and opportunities to re-enter the market persist today as investors attempt to find the bottom. 

 

Today the market fell to less than 47% of it's highest value on October 2007 14 months earlier, this percentage of overall decrease has not been seen since December 1930 when the Dow retraced from it's hi at 47% 14 months from it's high.  The Dow continued it's decent into oblivion until the before mentioned July 1932 when it reached just 12% of it's previous value, banks and manufacturing jobs were lost, consumers retracted their spending, and the few companies left raised prices in a less competitive landscape to make a profit and stay in business.  Rampant inflation took hold and what people did spend was reduced to the absolute necessities further debilitating the economy.  All this and we didn't even have a war machine going on to hold up the economy.

 

Be wary friends we could have a long way to go.