We are at a resort at the base of Mt. Arenal, an active volcano. It is quite lovely here. Our friends are birders and are being treated to birds never seen before, and the pools are a choice of very warm to modestly cool, all flowing from a hot springs.

We we traveled through high country today as our guide talked about Costa Rica education, customs, taxes. I noticed that houses had no numbers or mailboxes. He said that there is no postal service here, that everyone pays bills on line or at the grocery store, and that houses are identified by directions from known landmarks, like centuries and museums. So if you call 911 (they have an active service), you tell the operator, for instance, to go three blocks south of the cemetery, turn left at a mango tree, and go to the third house on the right.

It works, he said. Prior to the Internet everything was handled via a central office in their towns where people paid their bills through a local official.

Internet very busy here at our resort, cannot upload photos of this beautiful spot.

We are finally leave San Jose today, though we are on a bus tour and so will be kept to main sites, a Potemkin Village tour. Today it is a volcano, a coffee plantation, butterflies, a city tour (again) and home.

We like to lay low when we travel, or as one travel agent advised us years ago, “try not to be Americans.” We should be polite, reserved, respectful and low key, show interest in their customs, and avoid the main tourist sites if possible, and yet not be intrusive and trample on private areas. On a bus tour, however, we will only deal with other Americans and the tourist interface. Our traveling companions are indeed an aging set, so there’ll be nothing athletic going on beyond getting on and off the bus.

A commenter noted in the post below that even though Costa Rica does not have a military, it did accommodate the CIA’s secret army during the Central American wars of the Reagan era, allowing its land to be used for running drugs and weapons in and out of the country. That is the Faustian deal any colonial state must strike to survive. On the Columbian portion of our city tour two days ago, I asked the guide if the President of Costa Rica had been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for attempting to broker a deal as the US attacked Nicaragua from the surrounding  countries. Yes indeed, he said, though his memory was not fresh in the matter.

This shows the bankruptcy of the Nobel Peace Prize, never to attain anything higher, and sinking to historical low when awarded to a certain Mr. Obama for having done nothing while planning yet more war.

Internet is crappy here today, cannot insert photos. The hotel is full, so the strain on the system is showing. Might not be able to even publish this.

I write about this often. It is unimaginable to people that fraud is so widespread as it is, that elections, all of them, are either rigged or riggable. People cannot fathom such a thing. This is America. We send observers to backward countries to watch their elections when they should be sent here instead. We are backwards.

I could not help but notice in last night’s voting that Bernie Sanders won every caucus state, while Hillary Clinton won every electronic state except one.

It reminded me of 2012 where Ron Paul won every caucus state.

Caucuses, with their paper ballots, can be rigged too, just as elections prior to electric machines could be rigged (Truman in 1948 and JFK in 1960, for instance). But it is much harder than with an electronic counting machine. There is a higher likelihood of a clean count when there are auditable paper ballots backing up the tally.

Do I think the vote outcomes were rigged last night? Of course! As a CPA I know that where there is an opening for fraud, there is fraud. If we have no eyes on the ball, and we do not, it is even easier. I would venture that Sanders actually won every state last night except South Carolina, and that the machines gave them to Clinton. It is easy to do and therefore, is done.

Yes, it is that bad, we are that corrupt. Until you come to grips with it, it makes no difference who you support, who you vote for. It is out of your hands. Like everything else in a fake republic, voting is just for show.

We are in Costa Rica and will be for the coming ten days or so, the next two days on our own in San Jose. We are here with two Montana friends and will stay in the city for two days, and then join a bus tour that will have forty-four others. Most likely we’ll be seniors, though I don’t know where from. I imagine there will be walkers and canes, bladder and hearing issues, and that the bus will travel down the highway with its left blinker going.

I actually saw a sign in Florida a couple of years ago that said “Turn your blinker off.”