Why Israel BENEFITS with Ron Paul, and Why Jews and Minorities Should Embrace Him
Dec 30th
(I have a video on this article below)
I’m not religious, but I do come from a large religious Orthodox Jewish family. I’ve been to enough orthodox temple services to get a good idea of the one main issue that matters to most religious Jews when they vote for a presidential candidate:
Is he a friend of Israel?
I’m a supporter of Israel. Especially after I visited in 2007. I kind of just assumed it was a big desert with a bunch of odd religious fanatics. I was wrong. What a beautiful country. Tel Aviv was such a fun city. The nightlife, the beaches, the ancient castles, the shopping, the people with a lot of attitude. Israel is like a big playground. I was surprised to find that most Israelis are NOT religious, but they do love and respect their country, very much. What these people have built among all their hardship is undeniably inspiring; and it’s just such an enjoyable place to be.
If you walk around Israel and speak with the people about Israeli politics, it’s completely not controversial for everyone to acknowledge that Israel is more or less the puppet of the United States. Many Israelis talked about this with me. Everyone says the same thing. If a European nation or the UN condemns Israel, no one gives a damn. If the US is ever slightly annoyed, Israel jumps to address it. No one I met in Israel had any difficulty articulating that.
No one I met in Israel denied that their nation was under the thumb of the US Government, and yet, and yet every single one of them was grateful for US “support”.
I want to ask all my Jewish friends to think about this next question:
How can we call Israel a Jewish Homeland when it is ultimately controlled by the whims of the voters of the American population?
(pause to let that set in)
We don’t have a homeland yet. Not unless we’re independent to make our own decisions. This aid comes at a heavy price. Our sovereignty and our ability to pursue our best interests should be for sale to no one. Certainly not for $3 Billion.
I organized an event for Peter Schiff at my house, some difficulties ensue… (with Photos and Video!)
Nov 16th
Whoa man, my house has been packed before, but never like this! Last week I held a cocktail party with a short talk from Peter Schiff. About 300 people came over, and most of them piled in my living room all at once to see Peter speak. It was so tight that the photographer actually had a hard time lifting his arms to take pictures. I was honestly terrified by the sheer number of people I knew would show up that I’ll somehow fit in one room; but hey, we made it work! And it was a great time!
Everyone looked amazing. Check out all the pictures below:
(Many more photos below at the end of this article)
As many of you know, I’m a massive fan of Peter Schiff, he’s had a significant impact on my economic understanding, and I watch all of his videos that get posted online. I even named him “Man of the Year” in a previous article. To say the least, I was extremely excited to have him over to speak at my house. I know I was warned a thousand times by many people that he can be difficult to deal with. Still, I was surprised that for a moment even I was pissed with the guy.
Continue Reading >>
Music Pick: The xx – XX
Nov 14th
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Islands Crystalised Shelter VCR Infinity |
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This is one of those albums you’ve got to let grow on you. When I first listened to it I remember thinking that I couldn’t believe I actually listened all the way through that boring piece of shit album. I couldn’t understand what the buzz was about, it didn’t click with me, and I never intended to listen to it again.
This music is sparse. Very minimal electronics over a minimal acoustic sound with a male/female duet that goes for personality over precision. I like simple soft minimal music, I just didn’t like this album.
Some day later I heard the song “Islands” come on the radio again. I was in jammed traffic and frustrated in a hurry. It kind of hit me, whoa, this is really pretty, and it’s so soothing right now. I was kind of pissed that the song ended so soon and some crappy My Chemical Romance song came on and totally ruined the vibe. I gave the album another chance and I couldn’t believe I didn’t first realize how awesome this is. Even almost 2 years later it’s still one of my favorite albums to play in my room while I do whatever various things I do. I literally could listen to this on repeat all day.
The Beatles wrote a lot of very simple and light hearted songs that were surprisingly epic and touching. That’s kind of how I approach XX. Everything is stripped away, the vibe is very easy going and playful, yet the undercurrent is deep and soulful. I love this album. Lower your guard, clear your head, enjoy.
[Video after the break]
Introducing California Common Sense, Cocktail Party at My House Tonight
Sep 14th
Ok guys, tonight September 14th, I’m throwing another cocktail party. It’s an event to present the new California Common Sense organization. I’ll explain below why California Common Sense is such a cool idea, why what they’re accomplishing already is very impressive, and why just about everyone in California is gonna love this. My mind is blown about their possibilities.
The full details are at the Facebook Event Page:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=217273151661724
Confirm there if you’re coming.
So my friend Joe Lonsdale is a guy with big ideas and incredible results. An early executive at Clarium Capital, he worked closely with Peter Thiel, the super famous Billionaire who founded PayPal and funded Facebook into glory. Together they funded and developed some incredible projects, and separately Joe has begun several prominent business ventures and organizations. One of his latest projects is California Common Sense (aka CACS). Information technology is rapidly transforming the world, and Joe wants it to transform our government.
CACS is a nonprofit organization devoted to opening the books of our state government and making all that data easy and fun to play with, so you can easily understand what’s actually going on. The goal of this increased transparency is to increase accountability and reduce the massive waste.
The public interest in withholding these records outweighs the public interest in the disclosure of them.
–Erin Peth, Deputy of Legal Affairs for Governor Jerry Brown
After all, as citizens we’re paying for this (state income tax, property tax, payroll tax, every time we buy something in a store, etc). We are all shareholders in this organization known as the California Government and we should know what’s going on with our money.
Continue Reading >>
Music Pick – Groove Armada: Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub)
Aug 12th
Groove Armada – Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub)
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Suntoucher Drifted Raisin The Stakes Fogma Healing |
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Sticking with Groove Armada, compare the sound of their later albums I’ve reviewed with their earlier sound here on “Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub)”. They used to have this more chilled jazzy house electro soul R&B vibe; yeah just check it out. A masterpiece in its own right, this album flows between intimate and increased energy, fantastic for playing during chill get togethers. I like how each song has a long intro to set the vibe and establish itself as it draws you in. As the band’s name suggest, their grooves always kick ass. For more of Groove Armada’s jazzy chilled house vibe check out their even earlier album that put them on the map: “Vertigo“.
[Video after the break]
Photo Shoots: Ashley, Stefanie, Kristin
May 6th
Everyone’s got hobbies. Some follow sports. Some play video games. Lately mine is photography.
I’m not a photographer. I’m humble here because I have no formal knowledge of the craft at all. It’s just a hobby for fun. I don’t charge anyone, and I don’t intend to. It’s more like I’ve got a toy that I play with a lot and I’m getting better with it. I don’t even know what an F-stop is. I know my photoshop skills are still a bit amateur (I just discovered layers). I do know how to frame a decent shot and snap it. Last year I got a compact SLR (I’ll review later it on this blog) and I’ve been taking it with me everywhere. Now I’m taking more pictures than a Japanese school girl. I love how it’s going so far, and as I get better with photography I’m enjoying it more.
We live the moments of our lives, and then those moments are gone, forever. I’m happy when I can capture one of those moments in a striking and dramatic way. And I’m eternally grateful to the rapidly evolving technology that allows me to do that more easily.
I’ve been getting some good reaction to my photos, and since this blog is my way of sharing, from time to time I’ll start sharing a bit of my latest hobby with you. I’ve already shared a ton of pics from my recent Burning Man trip. Today I’ll share some shots of one of my favorite subjects to shoot, cute girls :)
I don’t know if I can call these “photo shoots” since I was just walking around with a camera in my hand with no setup and often terrible natural lighting. Especially because I’ve never even been to a real photo shoot and have no idea what it’s really like. But anyway yeah, fuck all that, here’s some pics from 2 “shoots” I did. Let me know what you think :)
[Full Gallery after the break]
Music Pick – Groove Armada: Soundboy Rock
May 3rd
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The Things That We Could Share Paris Love Sweet Sound The Girls Say Lightsonic Drop That Thing |
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I love this album, but I was really upset when I first heard it. That’s because I loved Groove Armada’s more intimate jazzy chilled house of their earlier albums, and this clearly was not that. But Soundboy Rock grew on me, to the point that it’s now my favorite Groove Armada album to listen to.
Soundboy Rock sounds like it was created by completely different musicians than their latest Black Light/White Light albums that I previously reviewed. This has an urban soul hip-hop electro beach dance party vibe. Yeah listen to it, you’ll see. Feels like I’m walking down the Venice Beach boardwalk in the 90s, but transported into the future. This is a perfect Summer album.
I immediately hated this album when I first heard the jarring opening song “Get Down”. My mouth dropped. What the fuck is this shit? Sounds like I’m being skinned alive in a Vietnamese prison camp. Fortunately that horror ends there, it’s consistently high quality for the rest of the album.
Highlights:
I always skip that bastardized shit that precedes it and start this cd off with track 3 “The Things That We Could Share”. It’s got a cool urban groove, and sets a cool tone for a great LA pool party.
By far my favorite song here is “Paris”, even though it doesn’t quite fit in. Lush atmospheric electro soul. Holy shit, this is fucking gorgeous! I would love if they came out with a really chilled out album of songs of this type.
I’ve got a secret to tell you, I don’t like rap. Except for a few cases, like here. I just can’t deny that “The Girls Say” is actually a fun, clever, well constructed rap song. Check it out above.
“Love Sweet Sound” is 70s disco soul diva vocals meets electro-house dance party.
“Lightsonic” is reggae vocals meets electro-house dance party.
“Drop That Thing” is not the sort of song I’d normally like, it’s aggressive electro-hip hop about shaking your ass, but the music is really clever and captivating.
“Song For Mutya” is a totally respectable urban pop song with a nod to the early 90s, and probably would have been a massive hit back then.
Groove Armada keeps reinventing themselves while consistently showing us how creative and clever dance music can be. Soundboy Rock is a must have.
[Video after the break]
I’m So Relieved, The Atlas Shrugged Movie is Fantastic
Feb 28th
A couple nights ago, at a private screening for Atlas Shrugged Part 1, I took my seat, closed my eyes, dropped my head, and for the first time in my life, I said a prayer. “Please don’t be cheese ball. Please don’t be cheese ball. Please don’t be cheese ball.” A vision flashed in my mind of John Travolta, on the cover of a Battlefield Earth poster. Petrified, my fingers hardened into a grip around my arm rests. “No!! Please don’t be cheese ball. Please don’t be cheese ball…”
No doubt, the excitement in the room was mixed with fear. The producers of this film had the balls to make a motion picture out of one of the most thought provoking and controversial novels of all time. A Library of Congress reader’s poll ranked Atlas Shrugged as the second most influential book of all time next to the Bible. Other prominent reader polls of Best Novels ever written have listed Atlas Shrugged as #1. It’s a 1000+ page classic epic packed with action, philosophy, adventure, politics, romance, mystery, and a whole lot of attitude. Back in the 1500s, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the door of a prominent Catholic church, sparking The Reformation. Ayn Rand nailed these 1000+ pages on the door of the world’s churches and state capital buildings, sparking what history might record as the beginning of the next renaissance. The next cultural movement to bring a focus on reality and reason and freedom and productivity back to the world.
This novel isn’t about running a railroad. It’s about society crumbling. And what causes that. It is so ambitious and controversial because it dramatizes the different fundamental values of our culture, and how that plays out through people in a society in crisis. When times get tough, more is demanded and taken from the achievers and high earners. So they work harder, they try harder, but the chains pile on, until they strike. Yes, the business leaders strike, not the employees. The title references the Greek god Atlas, who strains to hold the weight of the world over his shoulders. The load gets heavier and he struggles through blood and sweat to keep the world up. Until he changes his mind, shrugs, and drops the world. Let it fall. Let the world burn. Let all the ungrateful leeches and apes have it to themselves and enjoy it. Atlas is done.
Continue Reading >>
Music Pick – Groove Armada: White Light
Feb 10th
Groove Armada – White Light – Black Light
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Warsaw (White Light) Time and Space (White Light) History (White Light) 1980 (White Light) |
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Paper Romance (Black Light) Just For Tonight (Black Light) Shameless (Black Light) |
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If you feel like popular dance music has become a race to the bottom, I’d agree with you. Who can make stupider music than the rest? That race is raging full steam at the dance clubs. Ah, the Dance Club, a magical place where they not only are NOT embarrassed to play the dumbest music you’ve ever heard, but they make sure it’s so loud you can’t hear your friend screaming in your ear. Yeah, the dance floor isn’t a place to hold high level discussions; but when that “Like a G6″ song comes on, does no one snap out of it to look around and wonder what they’re doing surrounded by all these monkeys?
Thank god for Groove Armada. They make great dance music, the difference is it’s consistently interesting and brilliant.
Their new White Light album is incredible. It’s a companion to their Black Light album, but very different. The same songs are on both albums, just completely re-created and re-invented. Black Light is the dark version, White Light is the bright version. These albums have this surreal early 80s glam rock disco vibe, which totally caught me off guard; because it’s such a departure from their more accessible urban house past. This sounds like it’s from completely different musicians. In theory I’d usually be more interested in the darker version; however, except for a couple phenomenal songs, I’m just not so into Black Light, but I LOVE White Light. These songs are powerful, clever, unique, epic, and it’s still fun dance music. I already loved Groove Armada, but they have outdone themselves here.
To hear just how incredible they are at totally reinventing their songs into something else, check out this version of History and compare it against the one above.
History (Love Mix)
[Videos from this album after the break]
How To Handle Lawyers Threatening You
Dec 14th

(No joke. This is actually how I deal with Lawyers. This isn’t just theory, this is my experience.)
Have you ever seen the movie “Monsters Inc.”?
It’s a cute animated Disney film about Big Scary Monsters. All day long they go through magical doors, each leading into a bedroom of a young child sleeping at night, and the monster’s job is to scare the shit out of that kid and extract screams for money.
That’s very much like the life of a lawyer. He goes about his work day, new situations come up, he gets involved and scares some people, he gets paid. The better he is at scaring people, the better paid he is. I’m not attacking lawyers for doing their job, everyone’s got to eat and earn a living. I just want to show you how best to deal with him.
You have to understand this fundamentally: When someone hires a lawyer to threaten you, he’s not hiring someone to figure out the legal matters involved, he’s hiring someone to threaten you. Crushing you and making you bend is the first priority, the law is just a tool.
In earlier times, when a dispute arose you would hire some muscle, or even a hit man to take care of it. In civil society we hire attorneys. They are the modern day muscle men. Unfortunately the law is often unjust or unclear and attorneys are therefore able to exact injustice, sometimes terrible injustice, on behalf of their clients.
“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig likes it.” George Bernard Shaw
THE APPROACH: After a busy day scaring people, when a monster enters your bedroom to scare you, you need to scare HIM. He should open the door, step inside, THEN you close the door, lock it, terrify the living shit out of him until the monster begs you to let him out.
A threatening attorney must be made to realize that his life is much better returned to intimidating average people. He should want nothing to do with you. You are the pig who enjoys getting dirty. When your name is mentioned to him, it should trigger a recurring nightmare and sudden stomach pain.
That’s my approach anyway. And it’s worked well for me.
Back in the glory days of my career as a Commercial Real Estate Broker, I would receive a very threatening attorney letter at least once a month
Continue Reading >>
Music Pick of the Day – Ours/Jimmy Gnecco (part 2 of 2) Mercy
Dec 4th
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Mercy The Worst Thing Beautiful God Only Wants You Live Again Willing |
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Tortured. Glorious. Sad. Aggressive. Beautiful. Powerful. Brilliant. Epic. Jimmy Gnecco’s music is intense. Jimmy Gnecco is Ours (essentially), and I’d say he’s the most talented vocalist in rock music today. His range is incredible and there’s so much feeling in his voice. It’s obvious the late Jeff Buckley is a massive influence, which is a good thing, because Jeff Buckley was the most talented vocalist in rock music ever.
Mercy, Ours’ 3rd album, is a continuation of their debut Distorted Lullabies, but everything is ratcheted up several notches, boundaries pushed and he went even darker; enough that Jimmy Gnecco is no longer a Jeff Buckley clone, but is unmistakably recognized for his own sound.
I waited 6 years for Mercy to finally come out 2008. It kept getting pushed back again and again. I had heard songs from it at live shows back in 2002. It was being recorded with Rick Rubin, a legendary producer; yet I was scared I’d be disappointed. Ours’ second album Precious WAS so disappointing. But Mercy shocked me and blew me away.
The album starts with the title track “Mercy” which is one of my favorite songs ever. Gorgeous, atmospheric, aggressive and intense.
The next song “The Worst Thing Beautiful” is fantastic. If it was recorded by U2 it would be their next big hit blowing up the airwaves. Except it’s a bit more edgy than U2. Still this is the album’s most accessible song, I don’t know why it wasn’t pushed hard enough and turned into a major hit.
“God Only Wants You” is truly haunting. It’s strange to hear the piano over the arpeggio guitar, I loved when he played this song acoustic live back in the day. Anyway whatever, this is such a beautiful song.
“Live Again” is intense! Whoa! Opens with a Marilyn Manson like edge. Gorgeous, deranged and heavy.
“Willing” is cool. Another U2 inspired song that’s accessible enough to have been a radio hit.
Muse is a cool band. Ours is better, and should have had that kind of success. Unfortunately this album didn’t get the backing it deserved. It’s true that this album isn’t 100% consistent. There are some low points that I skip past (Saint), but the high points are epic, original, and lay a path for others to follow.
[Video after the break]
Music Pick of the Day – Ours (part 1 of 2)
Dec 1st
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Fallen Souls Here is the Light Sometimes Medication Dancing Alone |
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I played the shit out of this album when I was about 22. A couple years before, I discovered Jeff Buckley and he quickly became my favorite musician ever, certainly the best rock singer ever. Sad to discover him a couple years after he died, and to know that there will be no new music or concerts to ever look forward to. Enter Jimmy Gnecco, who for all intents and purposes is the band Ours. I’m certain many Jeff Buckley fans look to Jimmy Gnecco as the continuation of Jeff Buckley’s legacy, as if he’s still alive and there’s new quality albums from him coming out. There’s just no denying it, Jimmy Gnecco is channeling Jeff Buckley. And no one is complaining. Sure, Jimmy Gnecco is darker and much more rock focused and he screams a lot more, but It’s scary, he even looks just like Jeff Buckley in the album art.
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| Jimmy Gnecco | Jeff Buckley |
The opening song “Fallen Souls” kicks ass, and I love how despite its aggressive metal energy it pulls you into a beautiful trance. My favorite song is probably “Here Is The Light”, gorgeous, intense and tortured. “Dancing Alone” is so bitter-sweet, should have been a hit single.
I fell in love with this cd when I was younger, and after listening to it again I remember why.
[Video after the break]


















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