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.