Political correctness at Christmas

As I was sitting at my granddaughter's Christmas program at her school yesterday, I realized that public schools don't do stuff like that anymore. When I was growing up, we always had some sort of Christmas play or something to dread being in, unless you were one of the future drama class candidates. They weren't secular, either. There was Mary and Joseph, Baby Jesus, and the 3 Wise Men. We had commercial Christmas songs and religious songs. I guess now one of two things has happened to end public school Christmas programs. Either someone complained about the Christian religious aspect of them or the state Department of Education decided they couldn't please all of the people all of the time. We need to get away from this "everyone is entitled" attitude and realized that somewhere someone is always going to bitch about something. It's just human nature. We've gone from majority rule to minority control. This country was founded by Christians intent on stopping religious persecution and allowing religious freedom for all. This means anyone can practice whatever religion they desire. This doesn't mean they can whine about a Christian-themed traditional school program to the point that it gets canceled.

The Georgia Governor's Race

I will be glad when the midterms are over. I'm so sick of the political ads that try to best each other in the amount of mud they sling. The bad thing about most elections these days is that neither candidate is a good fit for the job. It's just whoever climbed to the top of the pile and got their party's blessing to run. Why not let 2 or 3 candidates from each party run? Why should it boil down to a playoff system? This ain't baseball, it's hiring the people who directly affect our security and general well-being.

That being said, look at the Georgia governor's race. Barnes vs. Deal.

Roy Barnes has already been governor once. His platform is the usual: more funding for education, green technology, and rural economic development. He also wants to bring back the property tax reduction Sonny Perdue got rid of. I'm not sure how this will be paid for but that's a typical Democrat for you. One of his most well-known accomplishments as our former governor was getting the state flag changed. To me, this is the typical way of getting the focus of real problems to move to extraneous stuff that doesn't really change our paychecks. He is also against showing a picture ID when voting. I think that if you have to show an ID to buy beer and cigarettes, why not voting. It's a lot more important than beer and cigarettes!

Nathan Deal got his start as a Democrat senator, switching parties 4 months into his second term. His last re-election was had by winning the race in a time when the people were fed up with Democrats, not by any personal virtue. He got into an ethics scuffle over pushing on some legislation that would directly affect a business he owned. He resigned his seat before the Ethics Committee could fully investigate him. He basically has the same goals as Barnes, but that's all bullcrap anyway. They just say what they think we want to hear. By the way, he voted for Clinton's impeachment, which in itself was set up to be a distraction from the real issues of the day. I'm a bit nervous about him being governor because he sort of resembles Larry Hagman when he played J.R. Ewing on "Dallas".

So, we're down to the lesser of the 2 evils, which is the way it always plays out. It's a shame when the lesser criminal is the one everyone picks (sometimes).

What has Congress done for us lately?

The current sitting Congress is patting itself on the back, claiming to be the most productive session since 1966, and complaining that the voters don't appreciate that fact. 1966 was when Medicare and Medicaid were created. There is a list on Yahoo! outlining their accomplishments that follows. Be aware that I am paraphrasing on the list and some of my opinions may not necessarily be based on actual fact (isn't that how the news works anyway?)
1. Making college loans more affordable
For who? The only way to do this is to come up with a way to get a job after college that pays more than minimum wage so you don't have to live with your parents for 10 years.
2. Cash for clunkers
We as taxpayers had the opportunity to pay $4500 each for 690,000 Ford Explorers that were subsequently crushed.
3. New consumer protections in the credit card industry
They did make some inroads into the screwing over that we put up with on a daily basis by the banks. Unfortunately, the banks seem to be one step ahead of Congress. Oh, the latest round of credit card rules do not apply to business credit cards. Who thought that up?
4. Making it easier for women to challenge pay discrimination
No opinion here. I'm sure somewhere in this country, some guy is making more than some woman doing the same job.
5. Increasing federal regulation of tobacco products
How much more regulating can you do? It's already almost to the point of needing a prescription to buy cigarettes. At that point, we will then need to decide whether we want tobacco or weed!
6. Cracking down on waste in Pentagon weapons acquisition
I busted out laughing when I saw this one. How do you gauge cracking down percentages when waste is over 50%? Weapons spending is one of the biggest pork-barrels in DC.
7. Making attacks based on sexual orientation a federal hate crime
They should have done this years ago but at least it's done now.
8. Giving businesses tax incentives to hire unemployed workers
Too bad there aren't tax incentives for us under-employed workers who took giant pay cuts 2 years ago with no end in sight.
9. Tax credits for first-time homeowners
All this did was continue the process of buying a house without putting any real money into it, which is what caused most of the recession to start with, along with the added benefit of costing taxpayers billions.
Of course, there is the whole healthcare revamp, which I haven't seen any evidence of yet, as well as the stimulus package, which all Republicans are claiming as failed in their election ads. How do they know it failed? What would have happened if there wasn't one?

Spinning the numbers

I watched Clark Howard on HNN the other day and he was reporting about Toys-R-Us opening "popup" stores (in malls, I guess) for the holidays and how they would be hiring 10,000 people to work in these stores. I got to thinking of how our leaders would spin something like that. "Oh, we created 10,000 jobs!" Don't mention that those jobs are only for 2 months. By the way, I think Toys-R-Us sells mostly crap. I tried to return something without the receipt once, and they said they could only give me credit for the lowest advertised price within the last 6 months. Turns out, the product I was trying to return (because it was a piece of crap), was offered free if some other product was purchased. So, it was only worth $0!

Speaking of jobs, when they announce that unemployment numbers went down it might just be because someone's unemployment ran out but they still can't find a job. But hey, Toys-R-Us is hiring! The downside is that if they have a choice between a brand new college degree and an older, more experienced non-grad, they will pick the younger one every time. That's why common sense has disappeared in the marketplace.

Back to numbers. Economists are bitching about the halt in foreclosures by the leading mortgage lenders. Less foreclosures mean less sales as the houses sit in limbo. What is so stupid about the whole thing is that a bank foreclosure counts as a home sale. So, if home sales are up in November, it could be just because foreclosures are up. How does that make any sense? It's just the way our leaders spin the news.

This just in! The courts in Vladivostok, Russia just seized a woman's pig for payment of a debt. She owes a bank $432 and a court survey determined that the piglet was her most valuable possession. I'd hate to see what her house looks like!

Chicken wings and other things

We will occasionally get some chicken wings somewhere, and they will invariably piss me off because of what they call a wing. When you're paying 5 or 6 bucks for 12 wings, getting one of those skinny little middle wing things at 50 cents just doesn't make it worth it. I think the whole wing should be the wing but some bean counter decided that it could be considered 2 separate pieces. KFC does it all the time. They are the only ones I know that get 10 pieces out of one chicken. By the way, 1.5 quart ice cream and 7 lb bags of ice also piss me off.
The other night, I saw a commercial on TV for Lunesta, a sleeping drug. They go through all the bull about side effects and then state the following: "It is not fully understood how Lunesta works". What!?! Millions of dollars spent by egghead doctors and scientists and they don't know how it puts you to sleep? And the FDA approved it? How do you suppose the hearings went to get the drug approved? Did they just stand there and say "Uh, we don't know how it does it but it does" while scratching their heads? No wonder there is a potential 4 hour erection waiting for somene somewhere!

The recession is over!! Woohoo!!

Jay Leno informed me the other night that the recession is over and has been over since June 2009. Holy crap! It ended and I didn't notice! Wow, I've been living like the recession is still going strong. How embarrassing! Everyone is probably laughing at me behind my back for driving a dusty old piece of crap and hanging out at the laundromat. Seriously, a group of egghead bean counting professors from the National Bureau of Economic Research made this claim and based it on a bunch of GDP, GDI, and IIP indexes and reports. I think if they're so damn smart, why aren't they all millionaires? Anybody can sit around and make up bullshit but these guys are supposed to be the experts. One guy who doesn't think the recession has ended is Warren Buffett. Since he is a bazillionaire, I would tend to believe him more than those other guys. I just hope our elected rulers don't use the NBER report to pat themselves on the back although it wouldn't surprise me if they did.

Laying in bed thinking about stuff

I couldn't go to sleep fast enough last night and when that happens, my mind thinks too much. I'm going to write it all down and hopefully remember everything I thought about. I started thinking about US companies moving production lines to other countries and how many products we buy that are made in foreign countries. What drives companies to shut down US operations and move? At face value, it looks like lower wages in other countries. They are so much lower that supposedly products can be made there and shipped back to us cheaper, thus making the company more money. What's odd about that thinking is that many foreign car manufacturers are doing the opposite. They are making their cars in the US. One would think that building a Honda in Japan and shipping it here would be cheaper and would make the price lower but that's not the case. Many times, Hondas were more expensive, as were other foreign makes. Now, they are made in the US, with no affect on the price. Why is that? Unfortunately, the current recession tends to make us look for the best deal, regardless of where it was made. Our stores don't help much either. Most times, there aren't US made alternatives to Chinese products. Look at Walmart. They used to promote the whole "made in USA" thing but good luck trying to find something there that is made in the USA now. You would think the Chinese own Walmart! If only we could get to a position where stuff was made and sold in the US like it used to be. Unemployment would drop and our huge trade imbalance would lessen. It would keep more money in the US where it belongs. Putting people to work would settle the housing market, too. Where did our pride in US manufacturing go? I guess US manufacturers have to move jobs overseas to compete with importers. Why can't we impose more tariffs to level the playing field? Congress isn't much help. They are all so deep in foreign pockets that we can't get any legitimate legislation to settle the trade issues. I wish I could find out what kind of margins the US companies are dealing with. Somebody is making the big bucks and it ain't the peanut farmers.

Would you use a $1 coin?

I run across some oddball stuff occasionally and today it is the Coalition for the $1 Coin. This is a group that is pushing to get rid of paper dollars, replacing them with coins exclusively. The claim is that it would save money and be better for the environment. The group's members include the National Bulk Vendors Association and PMX Industries, who makes the coin blanks. The vendors association would save money by not having to swap out the paper dollars. The vendors also claim that they spend a billion dollars a year just fixing machines with jammed dollar bills in them. How many people would be out of work if they couldn't be repairing vending machines? PMX Industries would have work. Note that PMX is owned by Poongsan, a giant Korean conglomerate supplying copper products around the globe, including ammunition. Just what we need, more of our money going to a foreign company. The General Accounting Office (GAO) claims that the US government would save $522 million a year because the coins are more durable. Their claim is that it cost 3 cents to make a paper bill that lasts 21 months versus 16 cents for a coin that lasts 30 years. They supposedly would have to make 17 paper bills to match the coin's lifespan. Drag out your billfold. Check out the dates on your dollar bills. I did. I had 3 bills, 2 dated 2006 and one dated 2003. That's more than 21 months and they aren't worn out yet. The "green" aspect probably can't be verified. I don't know which is worse on the environment, copper mining or paper production. They are both recyclable. The fact that this idea is being pushed by private industry is no surprise. The government's involvement is tainted by the fact that they allow influence from private business to sway their decisions. Just the physical aspect of a dollar coin is a problem. They weigh more than a paper dollar. Shipping costs would be higher. Americans haven't had to carry yet another coin in their pocket. We already have 4 normally used coins, not counting half dollars which nobody uses. If you ever wandered around with a bunch of pesos in your pocket, you would know what I mean. Dope dealers would have to hire extra help, just to carry their cash around. The US government savings of $522 million works out to about $1.74 to me. I would rather pay that to not have a big fat pocket full of coins.

Banks whining about home equity defaults

I read these financial articles every day and there are always a few that piss me off. Today's article is from the NY Times concerning the high default rate on home equity loans. Unfortunately, the NY Times doesn't allow comments on their site (I guess they don't want other opinions) so here I go! When home equity loans are involved in a family's struggle to recover from this recession, they usually wind up being settled for 10 cents on the dollar or less. There are those quoted in the news article that act as if the homeowner intentionally set out to screw the bank by getting the loan. One real estate lawyer implied that it was "immoral" to bail on the loan. While there are people who should have known better than to over-extend themselves, most were banking on their house continuing to increase in value. The banks they borrowed from were also banking on this. It's obvious now that this was flawed logic. Unfortunately, when the market tanked, the borrower was the one on the hook. Defaulting is simply putting the lender on the hook, too. Since it is the banking industry's lending practices that got us in this mess to start with, they deserve being on the hook. The banks were also fully aware that in a foreclosure, the primary lender comes first, with the second lender getting crumbs at best. As for the homeowner, a bankruptcy screws your credit for 7 years, but if you are in a financial bind to start with, you don't need credit anyway. Cash and a debit card can get you a long way. I just get sick and tired of all of the news articles and stories that trash the borrower. I always root for the underdog! The borrowers don't have a voice at all. Writing your politician of choice does no good at all. They are too busy trying to see whose ass they can kiss or what perk they can get. Read the NY Times article here.

How the super-rich think

I read this news article the other day that discussed a conference call Bill Gates and Warren Buffett had with other billionaires about giving away their wealth. Apparently, Gates and Buffett are saying they will give away at least 1/2 of their money before they die, and they want others to do the same. Why do you suppose they are doing this? Look at Buffett. He's like 80 years old and worth $62 billion net! Now, he decides to give some money away? Why didn't he give some away years ago? For us common folk, $1 million a year would keep us in high cotton. What can you do with $62 billion when you're 80? Not much! Bill Gates is just as obnoxious. He's worth $58 billion. He does do some charity work (all highly publicized), but I'm not sure how much good it does to give hand-cranked netbooks to natives in Rwanda. I heard he gives to American high schools but all I see are a bunch of computers running Windows badly. Multiply the problems you have with Windows Anything by 50 computers in a classroom. I wouldn't want to be that teacher! These guys are scared to give all their money away. That's why they only pledged 1/2 of it. They don't want to end up like the rest of us. When my bank balance drops below $80k, I start sweating! (not really! (alternate comment ) I wish!) My point is, give it all away, or at least 90% of it. They can survive on what's left. New York City Mayor Micheal Bloomberg actually said that it didn't make sense to leave it all to his kids because it might screw their lives up being members of the "lucky sperm club". I know a couple of members of that type of club and know that, if their parents were alive to see how they conduct business and treat people now, they would kick'em square in the ass!

Dealing with today's economy by making the right choices

These days, there are those of us who must make choices based on our current economic status. Sometimes it is just a matter of which oil to put in the car or if the cheaper blue jeans are a better deal. Sometimes it is buying groceries instead of paying the cable bill. I have noticed a couple of people who have made their own economic choices that appear to be pretty darned selfish if you ask me. There is the guy whose kids used to go to private school. Not a snooty private school, just a really good Catholic school. The kids now go to public school. He now drives a Land Rover. Another is the owner of a large commercial construction company. As most people now, this business sector is experiencing 25% unemployment and reductions in sales up to 90%. I am acquainted with an employee (recently let go) who actually worked with this guy's father-in-law in the original company. But, he's getting older, and when cutbacks started, he was on the list. I think the company's employee list was reduced by at least half. The owner of this construction company is going bird hunting in South America.
For these guys, personal priorities override any potential effect on the people around them. Their way of dealing with a sour economy is to screw up other people's lives and livelihoods so that they can maintain their lifestyle.

What do politicians really do?

I've been seeing the political ads for a while now, as mid-term elections approach, and I was wondering how many of the promises made actually get anywhere. The opposing candidates are constantly dissing each other while claiming they can put people to work or solve our economic problems. Roy Barnes is running for governor of Georgia again. He lost his bid for re-election in '02 by pissing off the education sector and the Confederate flag gang. Now, he is claiming that he can reform education again and is sorry that he made the teachers mad. Typical political double-talk. He is also claiming that he will institute procedures to keep Georgians from losing their homes in foreclosure by forcing mortgage companies to exhaust all possibilities or solutions before foreclosing. It's 2010, Roy! Foreclosures have been happening for 2 years. Doing something about foreclosures after November is like closing the barn door after the horse got out! It's already too late. Mortgage companies already don't give a crap or follow the federal guidelines so why would they pay attention to a state mandate? Every candidate running now claims to have the answer for our faltering economy because they are all businessmen. Generally, a businessman's main goal is to improve the bottom line, regardless of what it takes or who it affects besides customers. Businessmen are the reason we have outsourced jobs to other countries. How is it that we can make plastic pellets in the US, ship them to China for manufacture, ship them back to the US, and sell them at Walmart at a profit? There has to be more to it than just the 64 cents an hour Chinese factory workers earn. Some of it has to do with tariffs or the lack thereof. The US will not take on China in a tariff war because China owns us like Bank of America owns my house.
One law that did get passed in Georgia is the texting while driving law. Why it takes a law to stop us from doing what is really stupid to start with puzzles me. Apparently, common sense died out a generation ago. What about reading the newspaper while driving? Until the internet happened, this was a common occurrence. I was beside a car the other day in Tampa at a red light where both occupants were texting. When the turn arrow changed to green and the turning traffic started, they almost drove through the red light! Another strange thing I saw was on Clearwater Beach. Someone was laying on the beach in the dark, texting. The fine in Georgia for TWD is $150 and 1 point on your license. If you are under 18, you can't even talk on a cellphone while driving. They can subpoena your cell phone records (like a drug test) if you are in an accident if they suspect it was a contributing factor. I think the penalty needs one more step. There should be a bumper sticker placed on the offender's car that states: "I'm an ignorant dumbass because I text while driving"!

Notice: New laws start tomorrow

Thought I'd put together a synopsis of some new laws we should really pay attention to.

Alabama has made human trafficking a crime. I guess their unemployment rate will go up now!

Indiana is requiring everyone to show ID when buying alcohol. Gramps will have a fit.

10 year olds can no longer get their genitals pierced in Minnesota.

In Mississippi, you now have to go to the doctor to get a prescription for Sudafed.

You can't buy bongs at Walmart in Florida anymore.

You can't text while driving in Georgia. I can't do that anyway. I can't see the screen without my reading glasses and I can't drive with my reading glasses.

Retirement at 60?

The French are going on strike to protest the push to raise their retirement age from 60 to 62. What a bunch of cheese-eating whiners! The government says it will save $30 billion by doing this and that it will keep their pension fund from going bankrupt. I don't see how anyone could retire at 60 or even 62. What the hell are you going to do all day? Assuming that you can afford to continue paying bills after retiring, there is only so much golf or fishing you can do. Will you wind up being one of the people wandering around Walmart for hours? I could see wanting retirement at 60 if you spent your last 40-45 years digging ditches 6 days a week. I would want to retire, too! I suspect that a fair amount of us can't retire at all. If you were lucky enough to have a government pension or your employer didn't go belly up and screw you on a private plan, you might be ok. Finding retirement money in this Great Recession is tough. My retirement plan is to work until I can't and hope and pray that I can afford to live on Social Security, if it still exists.

Nero fiddled while Rome burned

The media has been full of stories lately about BP chairman Tony Hayward's trip to a yacht race and Obama playing golf instead of being on the job. It seems that the media and everyone who leaves comments on these stories think that they should be "monitoring the situation" 24 hours a day. I guess they can't take a day off! Not to defend BP completely, but trying to cap the largest oil spill in history is a huge challenge. No response plans in place ever considered this big of a spill. The fact that the well is 1 mile underwater doesn't help. What are Hayward and Obama supposed to do? They are CEOs. Their responsibility is to oversee others who hire the required people to get the job done. They are not rig workers or engineers. They don't have a clue about the technical aspects of solving the problem. That's why they are bosses, not workers. There is a saying that if you don't know how to do it, hire someone who does. My personal opinion is that, in order to properly run a company (or country), you must work up through the ranks. You should pretty much know what every job position involves and how it is done. Only then do you have a legitimate opinion. I don't know if the people sitting around in Louisiana because they can't fish or drill or go to strip clubs have the same opinion as the media, who is apparently getting their material from gossips in DC. Their plight isn't much different than the millions who have lost their jobs in this Great Recession, except that they have a potential share of $20 billion dollars.
The decision made by Obama to stop all drilling and permitting of offshore wells because of the oil spill is also a stupid, knee-jerk reaction to the situation. Not only does that decision put even more people out of work, it makes the oil market speculators nervous, which in turn makes gas prices move all over the place. Obviously, this and other actions by government officials, is a reaction to public outcry, not factual evidence. To use this disaster to push alternative energy is not the best use of our government. Half of our government (not verified) has a stake in good performance of oil companies so it isn't in their best interests to kick oil to the curb. Any energy alternative is more expensive, which is not a good thing in our current economic state.

Paying for a political position

I recently read where Meg Whitman (ex-CEO of Ebay) spent $71 million on her campaign for the Republican nomination for governor of California. There is talk of limiting what candidates can spend of their own money to get elected. I say Amen to that! It has gotten to the point that any political position above city councilman requires a fat bank account or friends with fat bank accounts. Gray Davis was earning about $158,000 per year but Arnie has been giving his back (being rich helps!). Why pay $71 million for a chance to be governor? Why would friends pay big bucks for someone to be senator? Back room deals! People aren't just pissing away the money. There are strings attached. Those strings are the reason we have such a screwed up economy. Those strings are why getting Congress to pass any legitimate or intelligent legislation is impossible. We, as a nation, should stop the rich people from running our country. Being rich doesn't make you smarter. There are a lot of people who could do a better job than those in office if they only had the chance to compete. The mainstream media crams rich people down our throats (actually in our eyes and ears, I guess). Look at Donald Trump. Why is that smug asshole on TV? If he acted like that in a Walmart parking lot, someone would kick his ass. The rich politicians get on TV and say how concerned they are that we are hungry or don't have a job. They don't give a shit. It doesn't change their 4 o'clock tee time. It doesn't change their plans for a vacation in the Bahamas. They might moan about losing money in the markets, but they didn't lose so much that they can't pay the power bill!

Mexican teen killed at US border crossing

A 15 year old boy was killed by a Border Patrol officer. US Customs was arresting illegals trying to cross into El Paso and locals on the Mexican side were throwing rocks at them. Kinda dumb, dontcha think? You are sitting there, hanging out by the dried-up Rio Grande, and decide to throw rocks at guys with guns? Of course, on the Mexican side, everybody is blaming the big, bad USA. I guess we are supposed to just let them wander in at their leisure. I'll bet at least half of Mexico is actually run by drug cartels and gangs. They have had corruption for decades. The family of this kid is making out like he is a perfect angel and never gets in trouble but what was he doing there? Now, he may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but after the news I've seen about the El Paso border area, there is no way I would be hanging around there. The Mexican government is bitching about the amount of force the Border Patrol uses and is turning a molehill into a mountain when compared to the impact of years of illegals sneaking into the US. Illegal aliens are the reason we have to press 1 any time we call a business. They dilute pay scales. Framing contractors who were charging anywhere from $4 to $8 per square foot are competing with illegals doing the work for $2 per square foot. Hospitals and medical clinics are being crushed by indigent care costs and US citizens who need the care can't get it because illegal aliens are using up the budget. I don't have a problem with immigrants. This country was created by immigrants. The illegal aliens just need to go through proper channels to get here.

Well qualified buyers?

What is a well qualified buyer? I see these car ads on TV that spout all this bull about 0% financing and huge discounts to "well qualified buyers". How damn arrogant can they get? For the rest of us peasants, car ads are just a nuisance anyway. I don't know anyone who, after watching a car commercial, rushed out and bought a car. I think the people who need the low interest and discounts are the ones who don't have a bunch of cash sitting around. The only people I know who took advantage of 0% are people who could have bought it outright.
The ads are also misleading. They show a car with all of the leather and "must have" gadgets speeding down the street while they tell us that prices start at $21,000. You have to quickly read the fine print to see that the actual car you are watching is $38,999.
We have local mobile home ads that do the old bait and switch. I saw one last night that claimed they could sell someone a 28 x 80 doublewide for $34,999. They don't tell you that they are already figuring in the $8000 tax credit. They also don't tell you that the one they are panning through during the commercial is not the $34,999 one. One other thing to consider is that the mobile home price works out to about $19 per square foot. Current new construction on a reasonable quality house is in the $100 per square foot range. You have to wonder how good the deal really is.

Slice and Dice - the Chinese way

What the hell is going on in China? I have read numerous stories lately about some nutjob slicing and/or stabbing people to death. Most seem to be school kids on campus. Usually the attacker is male. I know, in a country of 1.4 billion people, 7 or 8 attacks like these are probably within a normal range of occurrence but what triggers it? Video games? Kung Pow chicken? Guess what? It is illegal for civilians to own guns in China! All they have left is axes and machetes. That would be a downside for those in the U.S. who think we should ban guns. Everyone would resort to switchblades and samurai swords. Experienced knife-throwers would be the new snipers. 7-11 robberies would be interesting since a ball bat swung by the clerk could be very effective against a knife. Party revelers would probably be less inclined to throw their knives and hatchets in the air, since they would return to earth a lot closer to them than the bullets they were firing before the gun ban.

What Facebook really thinks!

Check out this news article. http://tinyurl.com/37neb8e It sheds some light on Mark Zuckerberg's attitude towards the information we put on Facebook. Real reassuring, considering some of his investors! We really can't bitch, however, because Facebook is free. Facebook can be the biggest pain in the ass for numerous reasons. Slow servers are at the top of my list. If they are going to serve from 230 to 410 million people, depending on which Google search result I click on, they should kick it up a notch or six. Sorting out the display to something I want is a challenge. Finding the right area to change a privacy setting is a bitch. Organizing pictures sucks. Then there is the need to check it 4 or 5 times a day because I might miss something! There is also the psychological side of Facebook. Who do you friend? At some point, you don't know your friend's friend's friends. Do you need to have 2 accounts so your work friends don't co-mingle with your home friends? What if one of your friends is both? Uh-oh, Joe crossed the line. Now everyone at home knows I play online poker! When someone gets un-friended (spellcheck busted me on that!), would they wonder if I hate them? Or I'm just tired of them reposting tons of stuff? If I ignore a friend request, is it because I hate them? Maybe I don't know them. Should I know them? Maybe I don't want them to know that I'm friends with someone they hate. It's enough to send one to the nearest mental health clinic!
Oh, by the way, I posted this on my blog May 13, 2010 at 2:27 pm. Let's see how long it takes for Facebook to get it onto my wall ;)

We like our ozone layer high and tight!

I read this article about the hole in the ozone over the South Pole and how it is lessening. The scientists are patting themselves on the back for that one. Since the ban on ozone-depleting products, the hole stopped growing. The estimate is that the hole will be fully repaired by around 2070. So, we fixed it. Yay! Guess what? There is another one forming at the North Pole. It is being caused by yet unexplained weather phenomena. Huh? Do we really know what we're doing when we try to fix nature? The scientists have also found that closing the ozone hole speeds up the melting of the polar ice caps. That sucks for polar bears! Maybe nature was fixing itself when we came along and interfered.
(Yeah, I know polar bears only live at the North Pole.)

Will the fast food industry be the new healthcare cost scapegoat?

I saw a commercial advertising an egg white muffin sandwich from Subway. They are always pushing their sandwiches as a healthy alternative to their competitors, but when you look at what is not on the sandwich, you realize that it isn't an apples to apples comparison. An egg white muffin would be healthier if it didn't have the cheese and ham on it. You are better off using a whole egg and dropping the ham. McDonald's Egg McMuffin has more fat and sodium using a whole egg but has 1/3 less total calories. The point of all this is that, while the fast food industry acts like it is concerned with our health and the apparent national epidemic of obesity, it continues to pull the old "bait and switch" on its products. I have seen the occasional triple burger with a pound of cheese wrapped in doughnuts and deep-fried but that is usually an oddity. The mainstream industry is pushing larger and more ridiculously unhealthy food on us. Look at KFC. They just introduced a chicken sandwich consisting of 2 fried chicken breasts with cheese and bacon between them and no bun. How friggin' healthy is that? Hardee's has a 2/3 pound Thickburger that has 1320 calories, of which 860 calories are fat calories. This thing has 75% of the daily requirement for sodium! By itself!
Thirty years ago, it was the tobacco industry that was doing the same thing. Everyone was smarter, sexier, and more successful with a cigarette hanging from their mouth. Of course, anyone with common sense already knew that it was bad for you but, hey, it's an addiction. The tobacco industry became the scapegoat for nearly every ailment people had so the government hung them out to dry. They have been blamed for anything tobacco related, including house fires from smokers passing out drunk! There is another thing; alcohol. I'll bet, between fast food and alcohol, they contribute to more death and long-term health problems than tobacco. Especially if you attach the same tenuous threads of cause and effect used for tobacco. Is the government going to hold their feet to the fire? Nope. Way too many politicians in their pockets!
What can we do about all this? Quit letting Big Business feed us bullshit and use some common sense! There is certainly enough information available for us to make good decisions even if we lack common sense.

Muhammad on South Park?

The Muslim crazies are at it again. The creators of South Park have been threatened by a Muslim nut job living in New York City for depicting Muhammad in a bear suit. They don't know that he was actually in the bear suit. It's a cartoon. Anybody who watched the episode knows that Santa Claus was the one in the bear suit! I'm sure everyone has heard that the Muslims believe showing Muhammad's likeness is blasphemous. Their idea of how to handle blasphemy is apparently to kill the offender and anyone else within range of their chicken-shit suicide bombers. Why hasn't Homeland Security picked this guy up? His website, which has been taken down, has openly supported bin Laden and jihad. I'm sick of these nuts holding a collective gun to our heads while they claim to be peace-loving. Now, I'm sure there are a lot of Muslims out there who practice their religion in peace and these people would probably take offense to any label of radicalism. Any religion will have their share of extremists, but Islam's top leaders appear to be the extremists in their religion. How can the average Muslim have any credibility when their version of the Vatican is spouting rhetoric about killing Americans?

Are school lunches a national security threat?

What the hell kind of headline is that? This is the typical sort of dumbass eye-catching rumor starting media crap we are constantly bombarded with. Saying that bad school nutrition causes fat kids who can't serve in the military which, in turn, poses a national security threat is a stretch! That's like saying doing meth or smoking dope is a security threat because we would be too high to get in the Army. Another story like this one is the one that opines that cow farts are destroying the ozone layer!

Illiteracy = No txting

There is a bill working its way through the Georgia Legislature that changes the language status of driver's license tests. Currently, the test can be taken in 13 different languages. Believe it or not, if you are illiterate, they will read it to you aloud and let you say the answer! Opponents of the bill say it discriminates against immigrants and anyone holding temporary visas, like foreign exchange students. I say bullcrap!! We speak English here in the good 'ol USA and should stop pandering to the special interests trying to please everyone. If you move to (insert foreign country here), you will have to learn the language. English has become somewhat of an international language so foreigners traveling to the US should already be learning it. What's going to happened when there is an accident and nobody speaks Sanskrit? It is easy to recognize stop signs and stuff like that but what is the non-English speaking driver going to do in Atlanta when they have to read one of the many portable highway construction signs that are flashing up constantly changing instructions on what's being worked on or what lanes are closed? I guess if there was anything good about an illiterate person having a driver's license, it would be that you probably wouldn't catch him texting while driving!

Tidbits from the business news

Reading through the business news this morning, I ran across a couple of stories that required my opinion (in my opinion!).
Mr. Geithner, fearless leader of our Treasury, has acknowledged that giving banks deemed too big to fail large amounts of our tax money while ignoring our personal economic meltdowns is "deeply unfair". Of course, these banks are now in decent financial shape, making money while the rest of us are still foundering in the recession. Part of our personal financial problems come from the fact that the banks we "rescued" own the credit cards that are jacking interest and fees into the wild blue yonder. Have you ever seen the Chase commercials where you can pick your payment amount and loan duration? Every time I see it, I wonder just how much that flexibility is costing the card holder. Geithner went on to discuss the unemployment numbers. In true government fashion, the numbers don't reflect the number of unemployed workers who, after a year of job seeking, said "Aw fuck it!" and sit home watching Dr. Phil.
Oil prices are on the rise. Again. It would be great if this was a result of a recovering economy but it's not. These greedy assholes are betting that we are in a recovery position and are driving up prices. Demand and inventories are not supporting this position, yet the trading goes on. It pisses me off to have to pay $3 a gallon for gas just because someone is gambling on the market.

The healthcare bill passed!

When I heard that on the news last night, I had the same sick feeling as when Bush bombed Baghdad. Here we go again! We need to come up with something other than a 2 party political system. Throw some moderates in there. This current government hokey-pokey (put your left wing in, pull your left wing out, put your left wing in and you shake it all about) is driving us into national bankruptcy. The government is already spending $600 billion a year on healthcare costs. They just added $90 billion a year to that. Their proposed method of paying for the increase is to tax insurance companies $40 billion a year and cut $50 billion a year in payments to Medicare providers. Do you think the insurance companies are going to sit back and eat $40 billion a year? Hell, no! They are in it to make money for the shareholders, not to be a "good Samaritan". Same goes for the providers. Healthcare costs are just going to go up $90 billion a year. I'm not suggesting that I have a better idea, although there are some areas I have an opinion on. It's just that, every time the government decides to step in and fix something, we get screwed somehow. Look at the last 2 attempts at reining in the credit card companies. All you have to do is read some of the news stories about the end results and you realize that we caught the short end of the deal.
The public option is out. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. On one hand, having some "non-profit" competition might drive costs down, but who ever saw the government run anything efficiently?
Requiring me to buy health insurance is in. I guess they are going to hold a gun to my head to make me buy insurance. I sure hope they have a clue as to where the money is coming from to pay for it. Thanks to the greedy assholes that run our banking system, I'm under-employed. Ultimately, they created the recession. I don't have health insurance. My employer got rid of our health insurance years ago. I guess it ate into his travel budget :( Health insurance other than group insurance is unaffordable. I make too much for Medicaid and I'm too young for Medicare. Look at car insurance and how it is mandatory. I have to pay high premiums because some other asshole doesn't know how to drive?
I suppose there is one thing about the passage of the healthcare bill. Maybe now they will shut the hell up about it and move on to some other fiasco-in-waiting to fiddle with. Just remember, the only way we can punish them for their stupidity is to vote them out of office!

The ghost in the machine

I just read an article on MSN's Red Tape Chronicles here that deals with the recent Toyota computer glitches and the future of increasingly digital control of our cars. As I read the article, it started to scare the crap out of me. Anybody who has tried to work on any newer car after years of fooling with the "old-timey" way of fixing cars is left with a feeling of frustration and anger. I acknowledge that there are benefits to computer control, such as driveability and efficiency, but there should be a limit to how much control we give the computer. The "by-wire" experts claim that our planes are already flying by wire with no glitches. That's reassuring! At least a car is already on the ground when the computer burps. Yeah, I use burp. A hiccup is too innocent! I want a mechanical connection on my steering and brakes. I know they can also fail, but when they fail, it's only after a period when you know that they are beginning to fail. With computers, there is no warning. How many of you have seen the Blue Screen of Death on your desktop? Is that what you want when you're cruising down the Interstate at 80? The article goes on to discuss driver inattention caused by the fact that cars are "driving" themselves. Drivers are too busy Tweeting and texting and the more the car does automatically, the better. I say "Take a freakin' cab if you're too busy to drive"! I don't want to be on the receiving end of shitty driving caused by the fact that someone can't focus on driving instead of their I-phone!

Old People Sex

Boy, that title will do two things; get your attention or piss you off ;) Seriously though, there is a new study out concerning the sexual habits of older people. This study concludes that 67% of men aged 65 to 74 were sexually active compared to 40% of women in the same age group. This obviously includes singles because married couples in the same age group are even on the percentages. Some of this activity is attributed to drugs like Viagra, which supposedly allow men to have sex more often. I wonder how much "E.D." is actually caused by the constant bombardment of sex in the media, which would tend to dull the sexual senses. There are already studies out there that show that constant exposure to violence on TV and in video games leaves our children with a dulled sense of danger and responsibility. I imagine porn would do the same thing. What I think it boils down to is that we are in a new era of awareness that keeps me 30 years old in my head while the rest of me is over 50.

In The News...

The Olympics are over!
Having to choose between old re-runs and Olympic curling competition made it tough to watch TV. I'm not a big fan of figure skating, but after watching a few nights of it, I was pretty impressed. Some of the bad calls sucked. I'm surprised there is not a bounty on Kramer's speed skating coach's head. Lindsay Vonn's wipeout and the subsequent yellow flag which stopped Mancuso screwed Mancuso's chance for a medal. But hey, Go NightTrain!!
Earth 1, Chile 0
Another earthquake and following tidal wave hit Chile. I'm waiting on the doomsday crowd to start pointing fingers. The craziest thing I saw was on the news last night. They were showing the looters, who were saying that they were just taking food, but one guy I saw had a small refrigerator on his shoulder. What the hell is he going to plug it into?
Federal employees on furlough
A pissing match (no surprise!) in Congress stopped a bill extending some transportation construction programs as well as unemployment benefits for 400,000 people. Jim Bunning (R-Ky) says the bill will add to the deficit. What bill doesn't these days? What is so stupid is that, since federal inspectors at jobsites are furloughed, the construction workers can't work either. Won't that just add to the unemployment numbers? Don't you just love the whole R-Ky thing? Sounds like our guvmint at work!

Car Shopping - The Final Chapter

I finally found a car. After a month of online searching and putting up with the fact that 80% of all used car ads are bullshit, one popped up. However, it was not without several days of wild goose chasing!
My final weekend actually started on Friday afternoon when I went to the Toyota dealership to see a car they had listed on AutoTrader. It had been on there for 4 or 5 days. I went inside and asked the guy at the desk (who is in charge of knowing where all the cars are) if I could see it. He gave me one of those huh? looks and said they didn't have a car like that. I told him it had been on AutoTrader for 4 days. Another salesman walked up and they both looked thru the list. The desk guy finally said that the car was a trade-in and the people took it home to clean it out. It was supposed to be returned Friday but hadn't shown up yet. When was the last time you made a deal with a trade and they let you leave with the trade? They don't! The salesman said he would call me when it got there. 4 days later I still haven't heard from him. I think the ad was just a ploy to get people in the door.
I went home and got back on AutoTrader. I found an SUV in a town 60 miles east of us. I called the guy to see if they were open Saturday. He said that they were in and out and to call him when I headed that way and he would meet me there. On Saturday we loaded up the kids and headed east. I called him before I left and said I would be there at 2:15 pm. He said he would see me there. I was pulling into town at 2:10 and the guy called me. He said he wanted to catch me before I got too far to tell me that the SUV had been sold. Note that I had called him an hour before. What the hell did he think I was doing for that hour? I told him I was already in town and all he could say was that he was sorry. We rode by the car lot anyway and it is probably good that he had sold the car already as the lot looked like crap. They must have taken their cars up to the mall to take the pictures they put on AutoTrader. We ate a late lunch at Huddle House and went home.
Jumping back on AutoTrader and Craigslist, I found a minivan on a car lot in a town 80 miles south. I called the guy, Ahmet, to see if he was open on Sunday. He said he was open from 10 to 3. Instead of hauling everyone out at 8:30 Sunday morning, I jumped in the truck and went myself. I figured if I bought something, we could go back to pick it up. I got down there about 10 and there was a 13 to 14 year old kid hosing down the cars. There was a small house at the back of the lot and I guess Ahmet lived there. The kid was his little brother. I told the kid I wanted to look at the minivan and he got me the keys. Once again, pictures on the internet tend to hide small flaws like busted windshields and dirty interiors, of which this minivan had both. I started it and it ran great. A/C was cold too. The back liftgate would not open at all and the passenger side was skinned up but I was still thinking positively since the price was good. I asked Ahmet's little brother if I could take it for a drive. He said an employee of the car lot would have to go with me but he was not on their insurance. He asked me if I wanted him to go wake up Ahmet to go with me. I said no and left.
I got on the phone with my wife and asked her to see if there was anything on Craigslist that I could check out before I left town. She found another minivan and gave me the number. I called it and a lady answered the phone. She said her husband had the van and would get off work at 1:00. It was 10:30. I explained that I was from out of town and heading back home so I couldn't wait until 1:00. Turns out her husband is a cop and they park their cars in a locked area downtown. He was on patrol so he couldn't just meet me over there. It's pretty bad when you have to have a secure parking lot at the police station! I told her I would look elsewhere.
I called my wife to let her know and she told me about a truck in a town 30 miles north of where I was and 50 miles from home. I called the guy and he told me where it was parked and to call him if I wanted to drive it. When I got there, I noticed a couple of guys hanging out at the convenience store adjacent to where the truck was. Now, I have 3 grand cash in my pocket. I'm not getting out of my truck or even stopping. I circled the block and by then, they had left. I stopped and got out to look at the truck. First thing I noticed was a windshield with 2 different cracks. The interior was blue, not the gray on the pictures. The tires had good tread but were dry rotted so this truck had been sitting awhile. I didn't even call the guy for a test drive.
I headed home, 50 miles away. Halfway home, my wife called and said there was an Explorer in the town I had just left. Note that I had already driven 25 miles away from there. It belonged to a little old lady but I would have to talk to her son, who wouldn't be home until 2. It was 11:30. I said nope I'm coming home. I had basically made a looping 160 mile round trip thru the country!
Saturday night, I had emailed a guy about a van for sale. He replied about the time I left the house that morning. I wish I had seen it before I left. I had asked about the interior and he said he could shoot me some pics. I replied at about 12:30 that I would like to see some pics and I left him my phone number. 3 hours later, I finally get the pics. I replied back to tell him I wanted to see the van and to call me or send me his number so I could call him. Finally at 4:30, his wife called me to say that her husband had gotten busy at forgot to call me. I got directions and we all jumped in the car. The directions started from a town 50 miles south of us. The further we went, the skinnier the road got. I told my wife that the road the guy lived on was probably dirt because every time we made deliveries in the area, the roads were always dirt. 70 miles from home, we finally get to his house. The dirt road looked straight out of Deliverance. Cats were running everywhere. We met the guy, drove the van, and bought it. The guy was real nice but a bit eccentric. Sort of an old hippie. He and his wife have been building a house for about 5 years and were close to finishing. My money is helping them along.
End of the story is that I now have a 1997 Dodge full size van thats seats 8 and reminds me of the van I drove in my "formative" teenage driving years. My wife thinks I'm crazy :)

Craigslist Car Shopping Part 2

I went to look at a minivan yesterday. Not exactly my first choice but it's practical and cheap. There were only 2 pics on the ad so I had to go on faith that the guy wasn't lying to me about the interior. The outside looked decent and after a long phone call I decided to drive the 60 miles to see it. As soon as I opened the door, I realized that people have different opinions on what is considered clean. There were supposedly a "few" spots on the carpet that needed cleaning but overall it was supposed to be pretty good. Boy, was he wrong. The back area looked like someone rebuilt a motor in it! The rest of it was also filthy with missing or broken trim everywhere. I would hate to see this guy's house. My wife looked at me like I was crazy when I said to get in so we could test drive it but I'm too polite sometimes and figured that, since I drove 60 miles, I might as well drive it. We fired it up and noticed immediately that it didn't have enough gas to get to a gas station if we bought it. I guess if you keep one on empty, a potential car thief won't get too far. It's a shame that it was so dirty because it actually ran pretty good. We got back to the guy's house and told him it was too small for our needs and got the hell out of there! Well, back to the ads.

Shopping for cars on Craigslist

I have been looking for a car to buy on Craigslist and it has been pretty interesting to see some of the stuff that shows up there. I am amazed at what some people think their car or truck is worth. I love the ones that say that it runs great but needs a starter solenoid. Can't they spend $15 on a solenoid? Or the one that is asking a fair price for one except for the fact that it needs a transmission! There are also the ads that the pictures show a car that obviously has not been driven in a while. It is usually sitting in the back yard in the weeds. How can they say it runs and drives good? Then there are the ads that seem too good to be true. They generally have a real nice car really cheap and just have an email address from gmail or msn. I found that you can cut and paste the ad title on Google and it will show you all the different cities the ad shows up in. What I don't understand is what they have to gain by posting the bogus ad to start with.
I do have some advice for those who want to post a car ad on Craigslist. First, if it doesn't have the mileage and pictures, I'm not looking. Also, this bullshit about putting $1 for the price or advertising the car with the down payment as the price is bogus. Dnt wrt the ad in all txt b/c i dnt no wtf ur saying! k? Standard English is fine. Don't run out of the house at 11 pm and take pictures of your car so you can post it at 11:15 pm. It's hard to tell whether or not it's a piece of shit. Don't post a car as being modified when the modifications are still sitting in your garage on the floor or in the trunk. Last, but not least, to satisfy my OCD, don't have 4 brands of tires, rims, or wheel covers on the car. That just looks stupid.
Happy posting!

Holy gun sights, Batman!!

Have you seen the news story about the gun sights with Bible verses inscribed on them? Trijicon Inc. in Wisconsin is making gun sights for the US military as well as foreign countries. They apparently are engraving references to Bible verses on the gun sights and have been for years. Well, someone noticed them and started a shit storm about the religious reference. Publicly, the US has to act like they are all fired up about this and how the inscriptions shouldn't have been on there and so on. The first thing I wondered was who is supposed to inspect these things for compliance to the contract? You know the government is probably paying 3 prices for them to start with and should at least look at them occasionally. I sure hope they pay better attention to the critical stuff like jets and helicopters! The bigger issue is that these are Christian references in a world of two extremes: one of "bend over backwards" political correctness and one of trying to kill everyone who isn't Muslim. This whole bit about the sights being used in the Middle East and how it contradicts our "religious sensitivities" is bull crap of the highest quality. Those aren't Christians trying to shoot or blow up our troops! We as a country can't run around trying to kiss everyone's ass because, at some point, we will wind up with poo on our face.

One reason why the economy still sucks

I was getting ready for work this morning and saw this CNN crawl: "Banks pull another $1 billion from small business lending". Of course, CNN does not continue on with a 2nd sentence explaining the 1st one. They just throw one unrelated thing after another up on the crawl and expect us to figure it out. So I googled it. As it turns out, most of the "big" banks have in fact continued to reduce the amount of money they loan to small businesses. According to the CNN article, it looks like some of their record profits are being used to increase "compensation expenses". That's bankspeak for bonuses and pay increases. The thing that pisses me off is that most of these banks took TARP funds because they were deemed "too big to fail" and went whining to the government. Most have paid back the TARP funds, which was taxpayer money to start with, but now our leaders are using that paid back money to fund other interests. That's like loaning your brother-in-law $100 you couldn't afford to lend and, when he paid you back, you went and bought a boombox because the money was kinda sorta gone already! This kind of stupid shit is going to come back and smack us in the ass if someone in DC doesn't wake up and rein it in. Here's the link to CNN's article: http://tinyurl.com/ycosbs6

A Chinese Google?

I read today that Google is thinking about pulling their presence from China due to China's unwillingness to stop censuring web searches. Go, Google! It's about time someone told China to kiss their ass. So many nations and businesses are falling all over China's huge population of tech-hungry newcomers to the digital age. Most all are in it for the money. They are willing to overlook the fact that China is COMMUNIST! China's government has not done one thing toward improving their human rights record and suppresses anyone or anything that threatens to expose how stupid it is to let a bunch of old school Commies run their lives. While China is emerging as a key player in the world's economy, it is only because the rest of us are willing, via Walmart and others, to buy the crappy stuff China exports. We don't have a whole lot of choice either. The profit-mongers in our country control what shows up in stores, not the consumer. I am willing to bet that if 51% of the Walmart shareholders showed up at the annual stock meeting and demanded that they get products from somewhere else, those products would come from somewhere else. The dollar talks louder than ethics these days and it's a damn shame.

Crazies in the media

Once again, the crazies have grabbed the attention of the media. This time, it is Rush Limbaugh (no surprise!) and Pat Robertson (also no surprise!). Rush has been giving Obama shit since before the election and now he claims that the current crisis in Haiti is just another opportunity for Obama to push his agenda. Of course, he claims his remarks were taken out of context, which he didn't consider when he was babbling on about Harry Reid's comments about Obama. He's a bigot! Nearly every show he does has some sort of racial spin. I'm amazed that Rush has such a large following except for the fact that they are all Republicans who are still pissed off about the '08 election. Pat Robertson, on the other hand, is pure friggin' nuts. Certified caa-razy! Claiming that Haiti was cursed and made a pact with the devil to get out from under French rule is just another page in his book on how to be a false prophet. The Haitians didn't entirely win the battle. Yellow fever wiped out nearly the whole French army. He also claims that his remarks were taken out of context. What discussion could he be having where they weren't out of context? Who else would say that? While it is obvious that Haiti and the Dominican Republic are as different as night and day, that has more to do with politics than God. Haiti has been typically a paramilitary dictatorship with extreme corruption for decades. The past and current leadership doesn't care about the population any more than the Europeans that ultimately wiped out the indigenous people of the island. Returning to Robertson, this nut job consistently makes claims and prophecies that, when they don't materialize or are proved wrong, says that the prayers of people to God somehow averted whatever disaster he claimed was going to happen. I wonder if Limbaugh and Robertson share the same mailing list?

Update on Obama's public works initiative

There's an AP news article out today http://tinyurl.com/yje9nlf that critiques the government's push to increase road and bridge building to combat the rampant unemployment we face today. The article states that there has been no discernible change in the unemployment rate in areas where these projects have started. I have always felt that the bulk of the money spent on these projects has been for equipment and materials and not labor. Getting these types of projects off the ground is truly like watching our government at work. It all moves at a snail's pace. Check out my blog of 05-11-09. I told you so!! The industry that needs the most help is anything related to wood construction. That whole industry is stagnating. It was a year ago today that my boss/company owner called me into his office and proceeded to cut my income by 50% and subsequently sold the company. He said he didn't want to lose any money :( A year later, I'm still here but not any busier. Every contractor and developer I talk to says that there is no financing available. Putting people back to work is the key to improving our economy. I think the whole "green" deal like solar panels and biofuels is great but most of the proposed projects are bogged down in red tape and, believe or not, waiting on financing approval!

My New Year's Day post

I figured with a date like 01-01-10 that today would be a good day for a post since the date is so binary. We are all a Twitter because someone got up in our Facebook because we are bustin' our Picasa trying to Flickr! There, got that out of the way. I'm glad to see '09 go. It has been a suck year as years go. The economy tanked; ours collectively and mine personally. But, we made it through alive with just a few cuts and bruises. I'm hoping 2010 will be an up year and there are indicators that it will. The news says consumer confidence is rising and unemployment is falling. Let's hope that holds. Oh yeah, Tebow ain't playing for the Gators anymore! We started off with our youngest grandson in the hospital and we weren't sure if he was going to make it. Now, he's 25 pounds of squirming, chattering happiness. If someone doesn't believe in miracles, just look at TJ. Those are my random thoughts for the day. Everyone have a wonderful day hanging out with your faves.