Opinions of an old fart

The Learning Channel - really?

2011-12-13T09:12:00.003-05:00

I saw on the news yesterday where Lowe's pulled their ads from the TLC show "All-American Muslim" after pressure from a Florida-based evangelical Christian association. I don't know what irritates me more - pulling the ad because a fringe hate group signed petitions or that the show exists to begin with. TLC used to mean The Learning Channel but it should be renamed "WTF Channel". If you look at their past and current show lineup, you have to wonder what they are trying to teach us. They are the ones who brought us "Jon and Kate plus 8" and "19 Kids and Counting". These are two of the most dysfunctional families ever. Throw in the extreme stuff like hoarding, tattoos, couponing, and food addictions and you have something a little more than legitimate learning. TLC seems to focus on every different, oddball, or downright freaky human condition. If you want to learn about dwarfism, being pregnant while not knowing it for the whole 9 months, or how not to dress shitty, this channel is for you. I, for one, have never met a pregnant woman who didn't know she was pregnant. I have to admit that I have been sucked into a few of these shows. It's like slowing down and gawking at a car wreck. It's the morbid curiosity we are wired with. All of the "human interest" channels like A&E and The History Channel have more informative shows than TLC, although a few weirdos do sneak in like "Lady Hoggers", "Billy the Exterminator", or the biggest freak of them all, "Dog the Bounty Hunter". I wish someone would beat the crap out of him! One good thing about all of these cable channels is that it gives us something else to watch instead of the network garbage about dancing with stars, singing with criminals, dancing with criminals, or break-dancing on national TV with your drinking beer in the garage buddies.

Why I disagree with CUEE

2011-10-18T15:28:00.005-04:00

As anyone from Valdosta and Lowndes County already knows, the CUEE is an organization started by the local Chamber of Commerce and various interested parties to get a referendum on the November 8, 2011 ballot to consolidate the city and county school systems. They claim that, by combining the school systems, that the new school system will produce smarter students more prepared "to compete on a global level to achieve success". Basically what they are looking for is a smarter student for their minimum wage jobs. They don't have any specific details on exactly how to produce smarter students. Their plan is to force everyone together to come up with a better plan than what there is now. There are numerous reasons why this stinks like dead fish.

First, the underlying motive is as I said. The CUEE isn't necessarily looking to increase test scores and graduation rates. They want a more highly educated worker bee. They say they want to be able to attract more higher paying jobs to the area. The problem is two-fold. Jobs have come to the area. Unfortunately, most of them are low paying warehouse jobs. These companies relocated to Valdosta because of the ability to pay lower wages. There also is no guarantee that our students would get those jobs. Valdosta is a Metropolitan Statistical Area. That means that the labor pool around here consists of several cities and counties. That gives us less control over the education of our worker bees. Some of the board members of the CUEE don't even have kids in public schools. Several of them are retired and don't work anyway. One even sold his company, subsequently putting his former employees out of work. How's that for loyalty?

Second, what the CUEE is proposing is basically to force the city and county together as one school system. Simply put, the city school system would disappear and be absorbed into the county school system. Now, the city schools are against it. The county schools are against it. The mayor and city council are against it. As a matter of fact, I haven't talked to anyone who is for it. I can't figure out where they got 7,100 signatures on a petition. That's roughly 25% of the registered voters. One would think that 25% of the time, I would bump into a consolidation supporter. But I haven't. Consolidation would not save any money. You can't cut duplicate positions because you are doubling the total number of students. Classes are already at very high per capita levels, thanks to budget cuts. It would take years to sort out the confusion over who was in charge of what. Don't think for a minute that it would be all warm and fuzzy. When HB 489 required the city and county to combine their Parks and Recreation departments, it took a state mandated mediator to force them to come to a consensus! This is way bigger than that. What do you suppose the more than 17,000 students are going to do while the fight rages on? Consolidation will affect them the most, with the confusion over which teaching methods are best and who is in charge. These kids do good to get along at the annual football clash. Not that they're bad. but this rivalry has been around for 45 years. The inevitable desire by some city dwellers to get their kids into predominantly white schools will create a nightmare in paperwork. There is this misconception that that city schools are bad because they are predominantly black. That's not necessarily true. It's just a stigma. An interesting note is that while Lowndes schools have a higher graduation percent, they also have a higher dropout rate. What really pisses me off is that recently the CUEE decided to make it a racial issue. Their claim now is a vote against consolidation is a vote for segregation. That crap stopped in the 1960's. Quit trying to make it a race thing.

I think, if you want to fix the schools, Get rid of No Child Left Behind! NCLB has teachers teaching for CRCT testing and not for the 3 R's. I know that the learning atmosphere is different now but 2 plus 2 still equals 4. Unfortunately, the attention deficit disorder brought on by video games and cartoons has caused teachers to need to come up with alternate methods of teaching to capture that fleeting attention span. Some teachers are successful, some aren't.

By the way, I registered to vote just to be able to vote against consolidation.

Immigration in Georgia

2011-06-15T09:51:00.001-04:00

I think our new governor is a complete idiot! Pushing through an immigration law that mimics several others that have been blocked by federal judges is stupid. Shooting yourself in the foot is one thing, but he is shooting all of us in the foot, too. Between the farm workers and the construction crews, Nathan Deal has managed to force 60% of them to flee the state. Yes, there is still some construction going on, but this law will more than double framing costs, which is opposite of what the construction industry needs. I do need to point out that the construction industry is a victim of the recession, not an instigator. You can blame the big mortgage companies. On the farm front, between ripe produce rotting in the field and the drought, farmers are getting a double kick in the nuts. The survey being done by the Georgia Department of Agriculture has found that there are about 11,000 positions that need to be filled. Nathan Deal's solution? Georgia has 100,000 people on probation. 8000 of them live in farm country. 2000 of them are unemployed. Let them work the fields! Now, I don't know about you but, usually those who are on probation and unemployed are typically not motivated too much to work anywhere, much less a tomato field in 115° heat. How about homeless people? Are they next? There are over 20,000 homeless in Georgia. Maybe Deal will round them up to go work the fields! Some of them would make more money sitting on a street corner holding a cardboard sign. I know we need to come up with a solution to the immigration issue, but the patchwork approach by our state and federal government isn't working. The first line of defense is at those states bordering Mexico. That's where the federal focus should be. Maybe we could get out of Afghanistan and Iraq, where we accomplished our main goals, and start taking out the Mexican cartels, which are basically taking over Mexico.

Extreme couponing is nuts!!

2011-04-22T08:43:00.001-04:00

I've been sucked into watching the "Extreme Couponing" show a few times which, by the way, usually is on before or after one of those hoarding shows. Most of the people featured started couponing after some sort of financial distress (Thank you, recession!). They go buy hundreds of dollars worth of groceries and pay eight bucks for it. After seeing a few of these shows, all sorts of questions pop in my head. Usually, they have a basement or garage full of these groceries and some have shelf units scattered throughout the house in every available spot. It kind of looks like the hoarding shows, only neater and cleaner. Why would you need 123 bottles of mustard? The first indicator of erratic behavior is the lengths they go to in getting the coupons. Sitting around the table clipping coupons is one thing, but digging through dumpsters or getting the leftover Sunday paper inserts from the newspaper office is extreme. Some actually pay to have boxes of coupons shipped to them from companies who specialize in collecting them. It seems that the average time spent each week accumulating these coupons is 35 to 40 hours. Maybe having a job would be better use of their time. 400 bottles of Wisk in your closet won't pay the electric bill unless you sell them on Craigslist! Couponers take advantage of stores doubling and tripling coupons to get the item cost down to near nothing. What irritates me is that they will clear a shelf of an item on sale whether they need it or not because it works out to being free. I guess it's just too bad for someone else who wanted to buy the sale item. Some of the stuff the cameras show in their houses have expiration dates. How will you eat 100 boxes of cereal before they go bad? One or two of the people featured did take their excess and donate it to food banks. One guy bought a whole pallet of Total cereal on sale. I don't know how he got the store to order it ahead of time. Usually the sale is for whatever they have in stock and when it's gone, that's it. He kept a few boxes and gave the rest to the food bank, but he was one of the few. Most of them keep all they get. The show doesn't really explain whether or not they continue buying a particular item after they just bought 100 of them but that's TV for you. Kind of like Yahoo! news articles. Let's leave out part of the story. Anyway, there has to be an underlying psychological problem driving this. It's more than the thrill of the chase. Since there are hoarding shows adjacent to these shows, when you watch one, you can see the similarities of dysfunction.

Watching HGTV

2011-03-28T11:42:00.003-04:00

We like watching HGTV just so we can sit there criticizing other people's behavior, opinion, and sense of style. Some of them crack me up. They will walk through a bedroom and comment on how small it is when it is already bigger than what they currently live in. Another sticking point is the whole "2 sinks in the bathroom" deal. I don't think I have ever lived in a house with 2 sinks in 1 bathroom. Whirlpool bathtubs or "spa tubs" as they are called, apparently are another big wish list item. Never had one. I would think it would take forever to fill up and just be a big waste. The last one I saw was being used to store excess clothing! People complain about traffic noise, wallpaper, size of yard, and amount of renovation needed all the time. The one that gets me the most is the guy having to fix or renovate something and complaining about it. Now, in all fairness, I think remodeling is a hobby. I don't know what these guys would be doing if they didn't have to paint, replace, or otherwise change something in the house. What would you do? Watch TV? Play golf? Xbox? I guess everyone has their own take on this.

We watched a "House Hunters" episode last night where the couple was downsizing because the guy had lost his job in banking. Judging by some of his comments, he must have been in construction at some time because he was always commenting on how he would have to re-do something. They had 4 kids. They were looking for a 5 bedroom house with a budget of $400k. That doesn't sound much like downsizing to me! They were looking at 4000 sq ft houses with granite counter tops and all the bells and whistles. I did find out that they were moving out of a 7500 sq ft house so I guess you could call it downsizing.

The House Hunter Internationals shows are even more irritating. It amazes me how someone would want to buy a house 6000 miles away that you would have to fly to in order to get there. How much does it cost to fly 4 people from Dublin, Ireland to Rio once a month? I can't believe how small some of the houses and apartments are in Europe. No wonder they are always sitting outside a cafe somewhere! They can't fit in the house. We apparently have it made in the US with big rooms and actual yards. (disclaimer: I never lived in a densely populated urban area - you know - like big cities)

I think HGTV played a large role in the housing crash. They had all these shows about flipping houses and appraising houses to see how much equity one could borrow against for renovations, additions, or new boats. Even after the crash, they still have people buying houses with no money down. The ones that piss me off the most are those who consistently low-ball houses and then can't understand why they didn't get the house. I had someone low-ball me once and I told my realtor that the guy could kiss my ass and that I wouldn't sell him the house, no matter what. Since selling the house was in my realtor's best interest, he smoothed things over and I did sell the guy the house but he was still an asshole!

As seen on TV ....

2011-03-08T15:34:00.003-05:00

Shake weights are weird. I wonder if the inventor is laughing his ass off when watching the commercials. It's an odd motion unless you spank the monkey regularly. Saturday Night Live has spoofed it but if you want to know the real reason for Shake Weights, watch the Southpark episode about them.

Charlie Sheen has finally gone officially crazy! I guess years of alcohol and hooker/strippers will do that to you. His rants on various talk shows have revealed just how crazy he is. He is so delusional about his importance and I get the impression that he actually believes all the bullshit he spouts. The talk shows are just having him on as a guest to see if he steps in more crap. I can't believe there are college students wanting him to do their graduation speech. Doesn't say much for college, does it? I'm glad to see that Warner fired him, although it sure took them about a week longer than it would have taken me!

Gas prices are starting to piss me off. The current runup in prices is being blamed on Libya. The rumors of $4 gas by Memorial Day are circulating. The news media seems to forget that, about a month ago, there was a report of $4 gas because the Saudi oil production volume had peaked and would continually go down as they deplete their resources. Our government is debating on releasing some of the Strategic Oil Reserve product to stabilize prices. The numbers I saw were that we have about 730 million barrels in reserve, but we use 20 million barrels a day. Our whole reserve would only last 36 days or so. That wouldn't do much good and we would just have to replace it with higher priced oil, which would bite us on the ass at a later date. Too bad we as consumers can't add a fuel surcharge like everyone else does!

Who wants to keep their job?

2011-03-01T18:24:00.003-05:00

I was going to write a blog about employment opportunities ( or the lack thereof) last year, but decided not to at the time. Recent events and news have changed my mind for me. I read an article yesterday dealing with the fact that our wages have actually gone down in the past 20 years when you factor in inflation and loss of benefits and job security. Employers are in the catbird seat when it comes to hiring decisions and payroll amounts. It seems their whole attitude is one of " be glad you have a job and oh yeah, let me shit on you some more". Unless you have some serious parchment on the wall and the skills most sought after in a particular business, you are shit out of luck. There is always someone younger and hungrier than you these days. In my case, with no college and only 30 years experience in my field, it is tough to find anything better because employers know that I know more than they do so they wouldn't be able to bullshit me like a more inexperienced younger person. Also, with so much reliance on computers to solve their business problems, experience and intuition are not as important anymore. That's a scary thought in the years to come! Maybe nothing will fall down! I watched the recent events in Wisconsin, which amounts to union-busting and at first, I thought "Who needs unions now?" I have since realized that maybe we still need them since employers seem to be hell-bent on taking away most worker rights in the name of budget cutting. Of course, that only pertains to the jobs they are keeping in the US, not those going to India. A little more than 2 years ago, I took a big cut in pay and hours. Things continue to get worse. In the name of "tightening the proverbial belt", my sidekick worked his last day today. Now, I have to do his job and mine for the same pay. As slow as it is, it isn't a problem yet, but any bump in orders will change that. I will be curious to see how well this works out as there is no more room to cut. A one employee company doesn't have many options. It's interesting that production is up, even though the working population is down. Apparently, everyone is working harder for less, just to keep from being replaced by the burgeoning unemployed. I hope that things turn around to the point that we as employees can, at some point, do our own arm-twisting!

Why Georgia Power is our friend, NOT!

2011-02-11T19:17:00.006-05:00

I was sitting in my van today, waiting to pick up my granddaughter from school and got bored. I started reading the insert in my Georgia Power bill envelope. They were letting me know that they were increasing rates by 10% in order to pursue greener technology, improve delivery, and blah, blah, blah. They went on to say that, even with the rate increase, their rates were still below the national average so it was ok. Guess what? Our salaries here in South Georgia are also below the national average, so it does impact our budgets negatively. We aren't getting 10% raises anytime soon, either. They are an industry pretty much unaffected by the recession and their employees make good money with plenty of benefits, too. Further down in the article, they go on to say they are also adding an average 3.5% to pay for construction costs related to 2 nuclear power plants they are building for the next 4 years. So, we basically are getting a 13.5% increase in our bill. Another item in the newsletter was a program they started to help us get rid of our old refrigerators and freezers sitting in our garages and basements. Their theory is that each one uses about $100 per year. They will pick up the old fridge and pay $35 to boot! They are partnered with an appliance recycler who does the actual pickup. I have several problems with this. First, if I have an extra fridge in the garage, it's holding beer or fish bait or something. It's not empty. If it was, it would be for sale on Craigslist! Second, Georgia Power stated they don't pickup non-working appliances. If the recycler is only picking up working appliances, they aren't tearing them apart. They're selling them to the budget used appliance stores for resale. Sounds like a hell of a racket to me. How stupid do they think we are?

Odd thoughts

2011-02-04T08:46:00.004-05:00

Well, not really odd thoughts. Just a collection of unrelated stuff thrown together.

When money gets tight, the term "tighten our belts" is used. I just realized where that came from. I bought a belt the other day. I haven't worn a belt in 30 years, but in the last 2 years, I've lost about 15 pounds. Not that I needed to but that's the recession for you. I decided it's cheaper to buy an $8 belt than $100 for new pants.

I was riding down the road the other day and was behind a car with a GPS stuck to the windshield. It was obviously a local car. I was thinking that, in Atlanta or Tampa, it might make sense to have one if you went to different unknown places. In a town of 40,000 people, unless you have a really bad memory, why would you need one? Especially if you are just driving to work. I guess it's the "gadget factor" striking again.

I had to replace the fuel tank straps on my van last week. It lived in Delaware for 12 years before moving south and has a lot of undercarriage rust. I don't know why undercoating isn't an automatic thing up north. No one had them in stock, so I called the 4 main parts stores to find out who could get them the quickest. Note that there is only one company making them so everyone had to get them from the same place. Here are my results. I stopped by NAPA first. They said all they had was a universal kit that you just cut off what you need. I told them that their website listed the correct parts but they weren't interested in trying to look them up. I called Advance Auto Parts. Note that it's Friday. They said they could have them by the following Wednesday. I called O'reillys and they said they would have to email the warehouse to find out when they could get them. They said to call back between 4 and 6 pm. Autozone was my last call. They said if I order them before 1 pm, they would have them the next day (Saturday!) It's pretty bad to have one part with 4 different answers. Needless to say, Autozone got my order.

It begins with gun control

2011-01-20T17:50:00.005-05:00

I saw a comedian the other day who brought up gun control. He was making the point that, when our forefathers wrote the Constitution and included the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, the current firearms were all black powder guns. That means it took a few minutes to load each shot. They never imagined we would have guns that fire off 100 rounds or more a minute. The comedian's conclusion was that we could all keep guns but they all had to be muskets. Interesting when you think of it that way. What was going on 200 years ago when they wrote the Constitution was a lot different than now but they covered the basics. I'm all for some sort of gun control, but we should all be permitted to have at least as much firepower as our government (or more if I listen to some of my more radical Republican friends - you know who you are!). What it boils down to is that we have free will to do some things that appear stupid to others and the government and/or society wants to limit a lot of it. Some will argue with me but some things that appear innocuous on the surface have underlying implications or open the door for more "official" control. Helmets for motorcycle riders is one. They aren't much protection against a 2 ton Buick and if the rider doesn't mind cracking his head open, it's his choice. Helmets, elbow pads, and knee pads on kids riding bicycles is another. We managed fine for 80 years without them and it should be a parent's decision, not the government's. We have way more limitations on what we can and can't do now in the name of civilization and society than we used to. Some are good and some are bad. My thing is that, if God gave us free will, then why are we trying to suppress it at every turn. He surely knows what He is doing more than we do.

My New year's Day Post

2011-01-01T09:02:00.003-05:00

Another one of those binary days! Well, when I checked my Mega Millions ticket numbers, I realized that it being 2011 didn't change my Lotto luck. Who needs $242 million anyway? After a time, I would run out of crap to buy. If you bought Aaron Spelling's house, you would still have enough to buy 54 Bugatti Veyrons at $1.7 mil each. My granddaughter was trying to wrap her head around the vastness of the sum. I explained that she could buy an ice cream from school every second of every day for 7 years and 8 months. I'm glad to see 2010 go. It was just an extension of 2009. I'm hoping things start really turning around since the experts declared the recession over last year and the government claims that the economy is improving. You know those guys are always right! I think it will be different. The economy can't stagnant for too much longer. It is shit or get off the pot time for our government. Speaking of governments, the increasingly common practice of party jumping after an election is bullcrap.For someone voting along party lines, it's like stealing a vote. If you get elected on a particular platform, you are there because the majority of voters agreed with you. To jump ship because the nerds became the cool kids shows a lack of real commitment to your beliefs. Y'all have a happy New Year ;)

Political correctness at Christmas

2010-12-06T13:05:00.001-05:00

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

2010-10-28T11:09:00.003-04:00

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?

2010-10-18T09:23:00.004-04:00

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

2010-10-15T10:01:00.005-04:00

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

2010-10-02T10:03:00.001-04:00

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!!

2010-09-23T17:58:00.003-04:00

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

2010-08-26T11:32:00.002-04:00

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?

2010-08-17T08:29:00.004-04:00

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

2010-08-12T08:43:00.003-04:00

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

2010-08-09T14:26:00.004-04:00

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

2010-07-22T09:51:00.003-04:00

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?

2010-07-18T10:17:00.002-04:00

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

2010-06-30T19:23:00.002-04:00

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?

2010-06-25T09:27:00.003-04:00

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

2010-06-22T08:18:00.002-04:00

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

2010-06-10T09:24:00.004-04:00

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

2010-06-09T08:42:00.003-04:00

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?

2010-05-27T10:23:00.004-04:00

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

2010-05-17T08:59:00.003-04:00

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!

2010-05-13T14:01:00.004-04:00

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!

2010-05-07T09:01:00.004-04:00

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?

2010-04-28T10:58:00.007-04:00

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?

2010-04-22T08:51:00.003-04:00

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?

2010-04-20T11:58:00.005-04:00

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

2010-04-13T09:37:00.003-04:00

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

2010-04-01T09:03:00.003-04:00

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!

2010-03-22T08:35:00.003-04:00

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

2010-03-17T08:56:00.003-04:00

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

2010-03-11T09:04:00.003-05:00

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...

2010-03-01T08:37:00.003-05:00

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

2010-02-16T08:44:00.004-05:00

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

2010-02-11T08:41:00.003-05:00

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

2010-02-08T11:11:00.003-05:00

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!!

2010-01-22T10:35:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-19T08:35:00.004-05:00

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?

2010-01-15T09:14:00.003-05:00

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

2010-01-15T08:30:00.004-05:00

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

2010-01-11T13:25:00.005-05:00

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

2010-01-01T17:23:00.003-05:00

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.

Miscellaneous thoughts

2009-12-21T16:44:00.004-05:00

My wife and I have recently joined Facebook and it has been an interesting experience. It's amazing how intertwined everyone becomes being friends of friends. It would make a good example of how STD's spread! We have resorted to dragging out the old school yearbooks to put faces to names. What I realized today that we are all old as hell!

The other day, I went outside to take out the trash and have a smoke. I was carrying one of those BBQ/candle lighters in my left hand and a bag of trash with my right hand. Apparently, these lighters are made for right-handed people, because I couldn't light the damn thing without switching hands. Left-handers, my thoughts are with you.

Ol' Bill Gates has really been pushing Windows 7 on us. Last year, I jumped from W2K Pro straight to Vista, bypassing XP altogether. 8 months later, here comes 7. Between the ads from Micro$oft about how great and error-free it is and Apple's ads about how they have always been great and error-free, I wonder why we should pay for an upgrade to 7 anyway. If the previous versions of Windows were so crappy, we should all get free upgrades! At the risk of pissing off my Mac-using friends and relatives, it hasn't always been the answer either. It's expensive owning a Mac. I guess it's like shopping at a mall store instead of Walmart. Mr. Gates has made a shitload of money by selling us a mediocre product and no amount of well-publicized do-gooding will gloss that over.

Tiger in the tank

2009-12-04T09:02:00.003-05:00

After nearly a week of listening to the media bullshit about Tiger Woods and his accident, I feel like I might as well put in my 12 cents (2 cents in 1929 dollars). First of all, anyone in the media who apologizes for reporting this story (like Richelle Carey and Christi Paul of HLN), you're full of crap! It looks like the media is out to completely destroy Tiger's reputation. I guess there is nothing else happening in the world this week. Even Nancy Grace (who I can't stand) is bumping her gums about it. In her usual hypocritical way, she has veered from being the "champion of the little people" to her version of Jane Velez Mitchell (who is also a loudmouth).
I know Tiger is and has been the darling of the sports world due to his clean rep and incredible golf skills. To say that he should be held to a higher standard because he is the top guy in his game is silly. He is a human just like the rest of us except for the piles of cash and low golf score. Look at the top performers in any sport. While there are a lot of sports figures with clean values and good intentions, there are also a bunch of arrogant assholes out there. Most of the time, when one excels at their sport for any length of time, they get way too full of themselves. Look at Tebow. I'm surprised his teammates don't beat the crap out of him for grandstanding.
It is reported that many children look up to Tiger Woods and that this is one of the reasons why he shouldn't drag his family problems into the public eye. He's not the one who did it! The media did. Speaking of role models, I know people who still swear OJ didn't do it! There are kids out there who follow all of the wrestling teams. Now, there's a role model! Some guy with shaggy, sweaty hair and a big tat on his face, yelling into the camera.
My point is that some of us put way too much faith in our fellow humans. We are all fallible. That's the way God made us. Tiger's marital problems are between him and his wife and/or lawyer and are none of our business, no matter how famous he is. The media should be following news that really affects us like what Congress is doing or not doing.
BTW, I actually saw an article about "green" living where there are people who refuse to use leather restraints (wink,wink,nudge,nudge) made from slaughtered cattle. What do they use, road kill?

What could have been ...

2009-11-30T10:52:00.003-05:00

I know I start out referencing something I saw on TV in most of my stuff but, hey, I watch a lot of TV! Saw a commercial last night on Discovery about an upcoming show on dinosaurs and how they interacted. My mind wandered a bit to the scenario of us co-existing with dinosaurs in today's world. Could you imagine what it would be like? Damn, here comes that herd/pack/gaggle of T-Rexes again! Can't keep a straight fence in my yard. The damn things just stomp all over it and they just ate another cat! They would have a field day at the football stadium. It would be like a Golden Corral buffet. You know, we can generally tolerate hurricanes, earthquakes, and blizzards but a T-Rex or some raptors like on Jurassic Park would be like tornadoes. You kinda know they are out there but they show up unexpectedly and tear up a lot of stuff. I'm sure at some point we could kill and eat them all (tastes like chicken!)

Dubai - the richest little city in debt

2009-11-28T10:07:00.003-05:00

I was surprised to read the news story about Dubai being in financial trouble. They want to postpone interest payments on $60 billion in debt. The first thing is that I thought Dubai was a country with lots of oil. Shows you how much I look at a map! It's about the size and population of the Tampa Bay area, only hotter and drier. I thought, that with all of the palm islands and indoor ski slopes, they were rolling in cash. Apparently, only 6% of their revenue comes from oil. The wars in the gulf have given them a business opportunity in real estate and shipping. They must have bought into the same bullshit that the US real estate market did! Larger and more elaborate projects are running them into bankruptcy. Obviously, some things are just plain stupid. Who builds a ski slope in a city/country with an average temperature of 104 degrees? At some point, I would expect the sea to eventually take back the palm islands. Here's something to think about. Remember the controversy when it looked like Dubai World was going to control 6 of the US's major seaports? The concern over national security was legitimate. What if the port takeover had happened? Certainly, one of Dubai's creditors might be able to influence them in a way that was not beneficial to us. Of course, Bush was all for it. Another one of his stupid ideas! Thank God someone in Congress said "Whoa!!"

Manufactured fame

2009-11-19T08:25:00.003-05:00

The news is all about Sarah Palin's new book these days. It got me thinking about how someone can become famous so quickly. As you know, Palin rose from obscurity to a household name almost overnight. She just happened to be who the GOP picked to use up in the last presidential election. How she achieved cult status is beyond me. I don't know what her platform was when she ran for governor of Alaska but it looks like the people were fed up with the typical good ol' boys option and she was the alternative. Kinda sounds like the last prez election, doesn't it! I suppose she appeals to a slice of America that enjoys that idea that a woman can shoot a rifle and dress a moose and then dress for a party and do shots. Just because she ran as a vice presidential candidate doesn't mean that she has the depth of experience to be our next president. The talk of her being the GOP's choice in the next election is probably because they assume that running against Obama will be an uphill battle and they don't want to burn a good candidate (if there is one).
Speaking of Obama, where did he come from? He was a virtual unknown until the Dems started a buzz. Next thing you know, he's the next Martin Luther King and saviour of our world. The whole time he was running for president, I was reminded of the Chris Rock movie "Head of State". I believe his platform was "It jus ain't right!" Obama popped up out of the super-corrupt Chicago political machine as the (apparently) only clean one of the bunch. It's kinda hard to think that there are no ties to that machine although so far he seems to be genuinely concerned with changing the way the country is heading. I do think he is trying to do too much too fast for too much money. The decision makers of America are the same ones who put us in the economic predicament we are in now. I can't help but think of how long we will be paying for his reforms.

Fun with UPS

2009-11-16T15:26:00.003-05:00

Let me tell you about my encounter with UPS today. On Thursday, I sent a next day air package to Colorado. I didn't want to just mail it because I wanted a tracking number and going to the post office is a pain in the arse. The recipient had failed to give me a suite number, so when I checked the tracking today, there was a delivery exception. It said there was no apartment or suite number on the package so they couldn't deliver it. The message said that they would send the recipient a postcard with instructions to pick up the package at the local customer service center. Now, if they couldn't deliver the package, how the hell is a postcard going to get there? I decided to call UPS, after calling the recipient to get the suite number, to let UPS know the suite number for re-delivery. Here's my call:
UPS: Welcome to United Parcel Service (or something like that). Please say one of the following options:
Tracking a package
Shipping a package
Order supplies
(Now, I hate voice menus. I would much rather press a number.)
Me: tracking a package.
UPS: Please say the tracking number.
Me: 1Z3Eblah,blah,blah
UPS: I'm sorry. There is no information on this tracking number. Please check back later for updated information.
(returns to the original menu)
I press 0.
UPS: Welcome to United Parcel Service (or something like that). Please say one of the following options:
Tracking a package
Shipping a package
Order supplies
Me: Order supplies.
UPS: Press 1 to have an order form faxed to your location. Or stay on the line for an agent.
I wait. I get a real human.
UPS: Hi, my name is whatever. How can I help you?
Me: I was tracking my package and saw the delivery exception because of a missing suite number. I called the recipient and got the suite number. Now I want to give it to you so the package can be delivered.
UPS: What is the tracking number?
Me: 1Z3Eblah,blah,blah
UPS: Oh, there's a delivery exception on that package because of missing address information.
Me: That's why I called.
UPS: Well, we can't add the suite number and redeliver it. You need to come down to the customer service center and pick it up.
Me: I'm in Georgia. I'm the sender. Not the recipient.
UPS: Can you call them and tell them to pick up the package.
Me: No, it's a big office with hundreds of people. They're not going to run down to the customer service center to pick it up.
UPS: Well, I'm sorry but there aren't any other options.
Me: Well just shred it then.
UPS: We can't do that. After 14 days, we can send it back to you.
Me: Is it going to cost me another $35?
UPS: No.
I hung up. Now, I don't know about other cities, but in my town the UPS guys know more gossip than any beauty shop and they know where everyone is. I had a UPS guy leave my package at a local market once because he knew I would eventually show up there. One time I got a package at my office in a different town because they knew where I worked and it was closer than going to my house. The office building in Colorado is one of those small 4 story buildings in a nicely manicured office park and I know the recipient's company probably took up a whole floor. I know damn well the UPS guy knew where this office was. I guess now I have to mail it.

Dontcha love social networking!

2009-11-06T08:55:00.003-05:00

I wasn't planning on writing this for a few days but Facebook pissed me off by not letting me write what's on my mind so here it is. In the last 10 months or so, I have managed to wind up on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as well as writing a blog. I noticed on LinkedIn that a lot of people started last fall and winter. Although the recession started around January of '08, it took until fall for the shit to hit the unemployment fan. All sorts of advice columns popped up on how to keep or find a job. One suggestion was "networking" with friends and colleagues for potential employment. I'm not sure how everyone is doing with that because most of the people I found as colleagues apparently set up their accounts and never looked again. I run across a fair amount of Twitter accounts like that too. I think most were set up when Ashton Kutcher and CNN were competing to get to 1 million followers never to tweet again. A large part of the rapid increase in social networking activity is from folks like me sitting in an office with nothing else to do. Thank God we have internet! As frustrating as Facebook is, it is pretty cool being able to see friends and relatives and know what they are doing day to day. That being said, I can't seem to share what I write in the "on my mind" box so here is what I'm trying to write:
Yesterday I was standing in line at a government office and noticed a sign nearby explaining the upcoming days that the office would be closed. It listed Nov. 11 (Veterans Day) and went on to list Nov. 25 and Dec. 31 as Furlough Days. (Yes, they were capitalized) The woman in front of me turned and asked me what Furlough Day was. I explained that the state was initiated budget cuts and every state employee had to take 2 unpaid days off. She then asked who Furlough was! I told her that Furlough wasn't a who, that it was a what. She was completely serious!

Bend over, America! Citibank has a plan for you!

2009-11-03T08:27:00.004-05:00

I read a new article on The Red Tape Chronicles yesterday about credit cards. The woman in the article had her Citibank card rate going from 12% to 30%. According to the article, she had a perfect pay history and a credit score in the high 700's. Her two choices were to pay the higher rate or to close the account. In today's kooky financial reasoning, closing the account would negatively affect her credit score. What I can't figure out is why not having a credit card lowers your credit score. If you do enough reading you will notice that, no matter how you handle your credit card, it negatively affects your FICO score. There are so many opinions that they eventually contradict each other. I am amazed at how much power the credit bureaus have. It has gotten to the point that banks and mortgage companies don't look at anything other than your score when making a decision. It also doesn't make sense that, the lower your score, the higher your interest rate. People who need the break with lower payments get the opposite.
Here is an example: two people go the the Chevy dealership to buy a car. One is a doctor. The other is a stock clerk at Walmart. They both need a car. The stock clerk is obviously tight on money since he works at Walmart. Doctors are not generally tight on money. The doctor has a 790 FICO and the clerk has a 620 FICO. The doctor will get 0% financing because he can afford a higher payment with a shorter term. The clerk will pay 15% because he needs 72 month financing. Another thing that doesn't make sense is, the longer the term, the higher the rate. If the clerk had a lower rate, he could more easily make the payment, improving his FICO score.
Getting back to the credit cards, the current shenanigans of the credit card industry are in retaliation to the latest round of regulations imposed by Congress. They are always going to screw us over as long as we as a nation think we have to have the cards. I think it's cool that they can't mess with our debit cards yet but I'm sure it's coming. While there are some logical reasons for using a credit card, most of the time they are used for buying stuff that we could do without for a while. It's that whole "instant gratification syndrome" we are all going through.

Quote from a blog

2009-10-27T09:52:00.002-04:00

I just read a blog comment on someone else's blog that just screams "show this to others". Enjoy!

I love to cook for my best friend but she went and decided my most difficult recipe is her fave so sometimes I have to make it. Today I decided to make it for her since we haven't eaten this since August, but then I decided that maybe it's time she learned to make it so I suggested she could make it and I could supervise. She didn't like the idea so I told her I think the Bible says that if you give a man a fish he eats for a day but if you teach him how to fish he eats for life. Something like that. Then we started bickering and when I left to go to the store my friend was yelling after me "I ALREADY KNOW HOW TO FISH!" I pointed out how we were recently talking about how disgusting the holy rollers are when they pick and choose things from the Bible to interpret literally. So I called her a literalist and she told me that she is not a literalist because this particular recipe doesn't even have fish in it. Is she right? I say she's a literalist.

It's all in the numbers

2009-10-27T08:23:00.005-04:00

I find numbers and their relationships to be intriguing. I use numbers every day in my work (not accounting, thank goodness!) but the numbers thrown around in the news every day are mind boggling. My mind tends to wander at times and I start thinking about some random fact. Automatically, I start relating numbers.
Take the numbers thrown around for the uninsured in the US. It runs around 45 million people. This was before the current recession/depression. Now, the unemployment rate is roughly 10% nationally. Would that mean 35 million more are uninsured now? Has there been an overlap in these numbers? I would venture to guess that some of the 45 million uninsured are that way due to unemployment.
How about the healthcare cost number being tossed around? I think the current 10 year cost of the proposed healthcare bill is around $900 billion. That roughly breaks down to $3000 per person per year (unless I counted zeros erroneously). A family of four would be $12000. I can already buy insurance cheaper than that!
Global warming is another area where big numbers live. The argument over whether the earth is warming or cooling rages on. Scientists are measuring the "warmest year on record" or the "coldest year on record". Records started being kept in the 1880's. About 130 years ago! According to this website, the earth is about 4.5 billion years old. Basing any assumption of global warming or cooling on 130 years of measuring is like watching the Dow for one second and deciding what the yearly performance is!
On an ending note, I think we should devalue numbers. They are getting too big and they don't fit most calculators. When I get an answer like 2.8888888888888888888888888888889e-8, I don't know what the hell it is!

Ripped off by Chinese products once again

2009-10-16T18:13:00.003-04:00

I read today that folks are getting screwed by the use of imported Chinese drywall. I guess the building boom a few years ago created a shortage of drywall so building materials suppliers imported as much as 500 million pounds from China. From what I understand, there are sulfur compounds and organic stuff that make it stink and corrode plumbing. Some people are claiming it makes them sick, although these are probably the same ones that got sick from the formaldehyde a few years back. The bad thing is that these folks are filing claims on their homeowners insurance (which wouldn't cover it anyway) and the insurance company is dropping them altogether. That is typical of insurance companies. Any loophole to get out of paying a claim! Now, anyone with Chinese drywall in their houses runs the risk of losing their coverage even if they didn't know they had it. They can't even sue the manufacturers because they are in China. I'm sure that there is something that can be done to hold the manufacturers liable considering the amount of products imported from there.
This is just one example of how the Chinese don't give a crap about the quality of their products, even the ones they make for themselves. It's scary to think that they are considering importing cars from there. I know we have standards to adhere to but obviously that doesn't necessarily happen. I know a Chinese guy who owns a few restaurants and some real estate. All of my dealings with him on various construction projects have involved me trying to get him to not cut corners. I will not eat at his restaurants either. You know, most Chinese food looks like leftovers thrown in with some noodles and cooked in a wok. Put soy sauce and ginger on anything and it taste better! It's kind of like seafood. Roll it in Zatarain's and deep fry it. Even a boot tastes good!

Stupid human tricks

2009-10-08T09:27:00.002-04:00

I read about some Somali pirates trying to hijack what they thought was a cargo ship. Turns out it was a French navy vessel. You gotta wonder what they thought the instant they realized their mistake. It reminds me of some documentary I saw on Discovery last week about some natives in the rain forests of Brazil. This naked guy climbed up a tree so he could poke a stick in a beehive in an adjacent tree to get the honey out. What is he going to do when bees come after him 30' up a tree? Luckily, there were no bees. Unfortunately, there was no honey either.

Oh, by the way, I didn't realize that there is a waiter/patron privilege similar to the doctor/patient one. It's bad when you can't bitch about tips anymore.

Mean Aunt Judy

2009-10-01T14:09:00.002-04:00

My "Mean Aunt Judy" passed away yesterday. While we are all sad to see this happen, it gave me the opportunity to reflect on my memories of her. Since I am 50, the really young stuff is completely gone, and the more recent gets fuzzier every day. Besides chatting with her on the phone occasionally, there are two things that stick in my mind. One was the time I was in Atlanta on business. I went out to eat with her and Doug at a place I think was called the Savoy. They knew everyone there and it apparently was a dance club they frequented. We had a blast. The other times I remember were when all of the Bubb sisters would get together at Callaway for a weekend retreat. Since I would usually ride Mom up there to drop her off, I had time to visit. I don't know how many people have aunts that you can hang out with and drink beer, but if you don't, you're missing out on the fun. We miss you, Mean Aunt Judy, and will always love you.

Get health insurance or pay the fine !!

2009-09-20T22:07:00.002-04:00

Obama is saying that his insurance plan has a provision that will force us to get health insurance or face financial penalties. He says that requiring everyone to "share" the financial burden is the fair way and that now some people carry the "burdens" of other people. Well, ain't that the American way? We pay other peoples' burdens all the time! Anytime one person gets something for free that other people normally pay for, someone has carried that person's burden. He also claims that nearly every person is required to have auto insurance so this wouldn't be much different. Bullshit !! Everyone is not required to own a car. There are a lot of people out there who don't have to buy car insurance. In my case, if health insurance was the same $100 per month as my car insurance or the $80 per month of my homeowners insurance, I would buy it. The last time I priced insurance it was about $600 per month. That's a friggin' paycheck! I haven't been to a doctor in 2 years (thank you, God). I'd be out $14000! The talk now is that the "uninsured younger generation" is filling our emergency rooms, costing us money and driving up health costs. They don't have insurance because, when you are 23, you are immortal. Look around an emergency room. The ones there are generally people who either can't afford to go to a doctor (who wants $125 up front) or they get Medicare or Medicaid and act like it is a blank check to go there for every little ache and pain. The way to reduce premiums is to allow us to choose a la carte services and jack up doctor copays. Every time you pay a $30 copay, the insurance company pays the other $70 to $100. Where does that come from? Your premiums (or mine!). Bump the copay to $75. It will make people think a bit before going to the doctor. Now I know most folks have a legitimate reason for going to the doctor but there are just as many who are hypochondriacs who go at every twinge of pain. Stop the doctors from running stupid, useless tests. My last blood work included a blood sugar test. There is not a diabetic within 4 generations of me. That's a waste of the 50 or 60 bucks it cost me. One way to save on costs is to study up a little on your medical background so you can speak intelligently with your doctor or take someone with you who can. Let's hope someone with some common sense can prevail so we won't all end up with a burning sensation in our hind parts.

Capitalism's chokehold on our country

2009-09-16T08:30:00.004-04:00

I watched Jay Leno last night and his guest was Michael Moore. Moore was pitching his new movie about capitalism. It got me to thinking. Although I think Moore sometimes puts things in a simplistic light and may not substantiate some facts, he made some interesting points. How about the fact that the top 1% of the population based on assets have more than the bottom 95% combined. He referred to capitalism as legalized greed. He's not pushing for socialism but some moderation in capitalism would be nice. This all goes back to some of my prior posts about the disappearance of corporate ethics. He also mentioned how 80% of the people were against the $750 billion bailout but it happened anyway. This also is a point I have made in the past. Instead of our representatives ignoring us, they should be voting our way. Our Congress was originally intended to give us representation in Washington. Nowadays, the only ones with representation are the lobbyists and political action committees. We need to reform the way business is done in DC. The first thing to do is stop all political contributions by anyone other than private individuals. Get rid of all of the special interest groups dumping millions of dollars into our senators pockets. Right now, our congressmen are just doing what the highest bidders want. Put the big stuff to a vote. Let us vote on the major things like healthcare reform and industry bailouts. How hard can it be? We don't have to go through a bunch of crap setting up for special elections and funding overtime for local election boards. We could vote like we do for American Idol or via Twitter polls. It is said that 90% of the US has internet access. That's more than the 33% who voted in the last election. There were about 115 million Idol votes the week of May 20, 2003. In comparison, 122 million voted in the last presidential election! Surely in our modern age, we can take more control of our government and our economic destiny. I guess our representatives in DC think we're just a mass of uneducated dummies who can't think for ourselves.

Why health insurance costs so much

2009-09-14T08:30:00.003-04:00

When I was watching Obama's healthcare speech last week, he mentioned something about insurance companies having near-monopolies in various states and that this caused rates in those states to be higher than surrounding states. I did some digging online and found some interesting info. It looks like a lot of money has changed hands to get states to add obscure procedures and unneeded drugs to their lists of requirements. Every state is allowed to have its own set of health regulations, which has resulted in a patchwork of varying coverage. Perhaps there needs to be a federal set of regulations to make it consistent across the nation although that may not be a good thing (like Bush's No Child Left Behind). On the flip side, there are opinions that the health insurance industry should be deregulated. Judging by the premiums and spotty coverage, it doesn't look too regulated now. As in other industries of late, the insurance industry is doing the typical merger and acquisition dance. Their record profits are being used to buy up the competition and improve their bottom line instead of reducing premiums and increasing coverage. When you have a 90% monopoly in a particular area, you can pretty much charge what you want. If the public option plan did nothing other than cause premiums from private insurers to go down, it would be achieving its goal. The cable company in our city has a similar monopoly. When the city discussed getting in the cable business, the cable company lowered its rates. Fast forward 3 years and rates are back up because the city never actually got in the cable business. This shows us that just threatening to have a public option isn't enough.
Here's a couple of links that offer causes and opinions:
http://tinyurl.com/oaktzz
http://tinyurl.com/ms972j

5 reasons why living in your car is a good thing

2009-09-14T08:08:00.002-04:00

1. If you get tired of the view, you can move without losing your deposit.
2. No property taxes.
3. You don't have to get up to get anything (unless it's in your trunk/storage room).
4. You won't be late for work if you park it at work.
5. Bill collectors can't find you.

5 reasons why living in your car is a bad thing

1. Bringing home a date is embarrassing.
2. Thanksgiving at your house is out of the question.
3. If the dog shits in the floor, it stinks up the whole house.
4. You can't get "out of the house" because you have to drive it to get there.
5. It doesn't build equity.

Remembering 9/11

2009-09-11T08:09:00.002-04:00

8 years ago a group of cowards started a chain of events that reshaped the American psyche. 8 years later, Osama and his hairy band of goat masturbaters are sitting in a cave somewhere, waiting for the missile that will eventually find them. Osama, may the STDS of a thousand prostitutes forever infest your genitals.

The New Age of Walmart

2009-09-10T08:41:00.004-04:00

Let me preface this by noting that I hate going to Walmart and only go to the pharmacy if at all possible. That being said, the arrogance of Walmart as reported by this article http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090909/us_time/08599192069800 is amazing. Although it's wonderful that a business could actually do well during this recession/depression, going that extra mile to grind the rest of your competitors into bankruptcy reinforces my earlier opinion that business ethics disappeared a long time ago. Since Walmart stock isn't performing at 1990's levels (no stocks are!), the shareholders are whining. Whining shareholders are why we are in the economic dump now! When every aspect of a business revolves around the bottom line, 2 things suffer: employees and ethics. How can Walmart pat themselves on the back for all their charity work when they have succeeded in driving out all competition and causing thousands of people to lose their jobs?
The article states that Walmart is cleaning up their act in regards to crowded aisles and friendly employees. They have a long way to go. Good luck finding an employee or "associate" as they call them. If you find one, they either don't know the answer to your question, or they don't give a shit. They all walk around like they would rather be anywhere but Walmart (just like me!) Just to be fair, our Walmart pharmacy does have knowledgeable and helpful employees. It just sucks to stand in a line of 30 people waiting to pick up medicine. Ol' Sam started out pushing "Made in USA" products only. He apparently realized he could make more money by selling the cheaper shitty products produced by countries that don't have oversight on workplace conditions or product safety. How many times have there been product recalls where the major player is Walmart because the product is some off brand that they paid to have made cheaper somewhere besides the US? How many times have you bought something that either didn't work to begin with or lasted just long enough to be out of warranty?
Here's an example of the typical Walmart experience. My wife bought some groceries one day at Walmart last year. When she was checking out, the cashier noticed that one of the packs of ground beef was missing a label or the barcode was illegible. The cashier told my wife she could go back and get another pack of meat. She wouldn't call for a price check. My wife wasn't going 2 miles back to the meat department for more meat so she said she didn't want it. The front end manager was also involved in this whole discussion. The meat was subsequently tossed in one of those buggies you see by the checkout that have all the stuff people didn't buy. It was sitting in there with toilet paper, T shirts, shoes, etc. How long do you think it sat there before it was relabeled and replaced in the cooler? That's why I hate Walmart. Check out this link for more reasons not to go to Walmart. http://peopleofwalmart.com

Insert name here: Anonymous

2009-09-09T08:31:00.002-04:00

Whenever I read comments on various topics, I see that most respondents are anonymous. I then noticed that most of these anonymous comments aren't something that would be said face to face. The web makes it easy for cowards to hide behind this anonymity and spout out bullshit that their momma never taught them. I'm all for freedom of speech and, if your manners and upbringing cause you to come off as an ignorant dumbass, that's your problem. Here's my opinion: If you aren't willing to back up your comment with some sort of identification, then keep your mouth shut. Here's a case in point. Liskula Cohen, the model in New York disfigured in a bar brawl, has won her case against an anonymous blogger who talked trash about her. The courts forced Google to identify the blogger. From what I gather, the blogger overstepped the line on what is opinion and what is defamation. Now, if the blogger had a name to start with, it would not have gotten as far as it did. Now the blogger is suing Google for "breach of a fiduciary duty to protect her privacy". Huh? Obviously some law was bent or broken for it to get to the Manhattan Supreme Court. Commenting anonymously on any topic reminds me of the hyenas slinking around the lion while he eats whatever. They aren't willing to go face to face with the lion because they might get their ass kicked. By the way, Ms Cohen's lawyer says the upcoming defamation suit against the now known blogger is not about the money but because "something was done that was wrong". Yeah, right!

Re: Murder in Brunswick Ga

2009-09-08T09:59:00.002-04:00

Gotta follow up on my previous article about this. As you know, the guy named Guy was arrested for murder. While this may be an opposite outcome to my previous opinion, 2 facts still remain. He couldn't have done it by himself and our current economic situation has a lot to do with this.

Stay in school, kids!

2009-09-08T08:42:00.004-04:00

What the hell is wrong with people today? For 2 or 3 days now, I have been watching people protest Obama's speech to the school children of America. One lady on CNN was actually crying! One would have thought that the devil himself was going to eat her kid at the end of the speech. Did I miss something? We weren't taken over by the rebels or the Commies! This is our duly elected president. Has patriotism died out or is this a result of the "me, me, me" society we're living in? We have 3 basic types of parents. There is the satellite parent who watches or is involved in every breath of their child. There is the parent who thinks school is the best way to get their child out of the house and doesn't get involved in any aspect of their education. Then there's the rest of us who struggle with making sure our kids are fed, clothed, and educated while trying to understand the sometimes interminable study programs our kids are in. But that's another article subject.
It is being said that this school speech is just a platform to push "Obama Socialism" on us. Go here to read the speech: http://tinyurl.com/mqw42h Nowhere in this speech does it mention anything about any of the current or past agendas of Obama like health care reform, global warming, etc. You get the drift. This speech is about staying in school and doing your best to make yourself into a contributing member of our society. He's not preaching " sit on your ass and sell dope all day" or "see how many indigent care programs you can enroll in". He is preaching social and community responsibility. He is preaching that you can't get rich quick, but you can get rich if you work at it. This is how our country was built. This speech doesn't have Republican or Democrat overtones but is a commonsense approach to making good decisions about how you want to turn out when you become an adult.
As a side note, Obama is relating to his upbringing in his speech. The same can't be said for the Bushies who, belonging to the silver spoon crowd, were able to skate along on social positioning. You can't learn anything real that way, as evidenced by our past 8 years.

Murder in Brunswick Ga

2009-09-02T08:34:00.002-04:00

I'm sure anyone who watches CNN saw this story. 9 or 10 adults living in a single-wide mobile home because of job loss makes you want to say "Gee, thanks" to the greedy assholes who started this recession. (Yes, the recession isn't accidental) What irritates me is that the guy (named Guy!) who found the victims obviously realized that the cops would find his pot stash so he moved it. Now, this is pure conjecture and not based on anything other than reading the story from the AP. This guy got arrested for possession, tampering with evidence, and lying to a police officer. As a side note, isn't it odd that they can lie to you? They have a much larger crime to deal with than a lowly pot smoker. Thinking that this guy could possibly be a suspect is a stretch too. How can 1 man beat 8 adults to death? Let's hope that the cops stop with the shotgun approach and actually solve this thing.

10 things that piss me off!

2009-08-25T16:04:00.002-04:00

Here are 10 things that piss me off. They aren't in any particular order and I'm certain that there are more.
1. Left turn arrows that don't last long enough.
2. Those crappy napkins they give you at a drive-thru.
3. A hiccup in my checking account on a Friday afternoon.
4. Gas prices in general. What makes them go up and down daily?
5. Warm or out of date sodas at the convenience store.
6. Watching 525 elected congressmen ignore the opinions of the 300 million people that elected them.
7. Seeing someone throw a Burger King bag full of trash out the car window.
8. Having to jump through 3 flaming hoops to buy medicine from a foreign country when Walmart does it all the time.
9. Seeing a dog in the back of a pickup truck. He should get to ride in the A/C like everyone else.
10. Driving behind someone going 10 mph under the speed limit while talking on a cell phone or writing down ideas for his next blog article.

Who came up with our education funding?

2009-08-24T08:42:00.002-04:00

I just read where school systems are cutting back on bus services to any student living within 2 miles of their school due to budget cuts. The local school systems bear the brunt of the expenses anyway, but now even more so. In today's world, there is no way I would let my kids walk to school. Just the fact that the state can't keep up with where all the sex offenders live is reason enough. What gets me is, when the schools are cutting back on teacher pay and supplies for the daily running of schools, that they are also building multi-million dollar schools. Our local university has jacked any fee possible and added others. Tuition has been increased as it is every year. They are in the process of building a new 120,000 square foot student union complete with ballroom and theatre. They have renovated or replaced 3 residence halls. There has been over $100 million spent within the last 5 years. While this is good for the contractor doing the job, you have to wonder where the money is coming from. Is this part of the new "pay it forward" plan (spend it now, let somebody else figure out how to pay for it later)? Local option sales taxes pay for our public school construction. The taxes can't be used to make up for salary or supply budget cuts. I'll bet the teacher with the reduced paycheck feels pretty good about at least being in a new building!

Hillary Clinton, Krazy Glue, and CARS

2009-08-13T08:20:00.003-04:00

Did anyone see Hillary's meltdown on the news the other day? Even if she misunderstood the question, she shouldn't come off as a super bitch in public. She should know better than anyone that, as an emissary of the US, she has to maintain some sense of decorum. She knew how it was going to be coming in to her current political status. With Willie Bill in the wings, some of us wonder if maybe he is the real power behind her. He obviously is proving that he still has quite a bit of influence and I appreciate the fact that he is keeping involved in the political arena. Thank God Bush is not!
Change the channel. How about the 4 women being charged with super gluing that guy's wee willie winkie to his stomach. I thought that was funny as hell! Serves his ass right. You've got to wonder why they were so bent out of shape though. 3 of the 4 were sleeping with him. Some of them were married. The guy is married. He's not the only guilty one. He should be glad they didn't pull a Lorena Bobbitt on him.
I had an idea the other day about the CARS thing. Why not make the rebate only good for 1 year old used cars that meet the mileage requirements? Since all new cars have a built-in price cushion and are only worth about 80% of the sticker price, the $4500 rebate is just being absorbed by the 20% fluff. Check out this link http://tinyurl.com/rch7l9 You end up paying the real price for the car and the taxpayer pays for the profit. Since cars lose up to 20% of their value the minute you drive it off the lot, the 1 year old used car becomes a more legitimate value. If you'll notice, the manufacturer rebates have gotten a lot smaller, averaging about $500.

CARS (Corporate Automotive Reward System)

2009-07-31T08:22:00.008-04:00

My commentary on the CARS initiative may be a moot point as, at this time, the govt is rethinking its financial position on it. This is just a method to give the automotive sector even more money from the stimulus package. How does it help the average American? It doesn't put a dime in our pockets. As a matter of fact, it will cost each of us $3.26 (based on 307 million of us). I guarantee you that the dealers will figure out a way to screw you. I have never left a dealership without a painful burning sensation in my backside. What is even more bizarre is that the car you trade in cannot be resold at all. The dealers are supposed to render the engine and transmission useless. If the engine goes in your '96 Chevy Impala, you may be out of luck buying a recycled one from the salvage yard for $700. You will be forced to spend 2 grand or more on a newer crate engine. If there is one at the salvage yard, I'm sure supply and demand will come into play on the pricing. This goes against the American spirit of reusing what you have instead of just throwing it away. The only people who will truly get a deal are those driving a true piece of shit that is paid for except for the fact that they will wind up with a car payment and higher insurance costs. The program does not have enough limitations either. I went on GM's website http://tinyurl.com/ncqfjm to see just how stupid of a deal they could come up with. You can trade in a 2008 Ford Crown Victoria (at least 50% of all cop cars) on a Chevy Aveo and get $4500. Then the dealer will take the Ford (which would have about 15,000 miles on it) and crush it. How the hell does that make sense? Why don't they just grab the first piece of crap '83 Pontiac they see and give the owner the newer car? Then they would really be getting the clunkers off the road.

Who's that in my house? Oh, it's me!

2009-07-30T15:03:00.002-04:00

You gotta love the buzz about Obama, Prof. Gates, and the cops. This whole thing would have never been news if everyone had not over-reacted from the start. The cop did it first. Then Gates did it. Then the media did it. Then Obama offered an opinion that never should have been offered in a public forum like a national news conference. I feel sorry for the neighbor who called 911 in the beginning. All of the self-righteous minority coalitions are calling her a racist. The 911 call indicates that she said that one of the people "might" have been Hispanic. The cop says she said they were black. Of course, he's covering his ass. Gates carried it even further by playing the "black" victim. He looked like he was shooting off his mouth to the point that the cop had enough. I don't care if you are in your own house, the prudent thing to do is maintain civility and work through it. He's lucky they didn't tase him! Lastly, all this BS about having a beer at the White House and the ensuing speculation of what kind of beer it will be is worse than the frenzy created by Michael Jackson's untimely demise.

America's 2nd favorite drug

2009-07-20T08:52:00.002-04:00

I read the other day that some of California's lawmakers want to introduce a bill that would legalize and tax (of course!) weed. They say it would bring $1.4 billion in tax revenue. I have to say that it's about time someone used their gray matter. Lumping pot in with cocaine and heroin is like saying a badminton racket is as dangerous as an AK47. By the way, I didn't know badminton had that first 'n' in it. I always heard that it was Alfred DuPont who was behind the criminalization of marijuana. He invented nylon, which was in direct competition with hemp. Since he was well-placed in high society, he was able to use his influence to aid the ban. (That never happens, right?) It is interesting to note that hemp grown for paper and rope is not the same variety as what is generally smoked for a high. Did you know that the first paper mill in the US, started by Ben Franklin, used hemp exclusively? According to USDA bulletin 404, 1 acre of hemp will produce fiber for paper equal to 4.1 acres of trees. The processing to create paper is also much cleaner than our current production from wood fiber.
Back to getting high on weed. We already have alcohol to get high on. It is fairly apparent that the alcohol industry has a pretty good chokehold on our government when it comes to regulation. Just look at the stats for drunk driving deaths and the number of domestic problems caused by alcoholics. You ever heard of a pothead going on a rampage, beating and killing his or her family? Look at all of the ads on TV! Hell, alcohol doesn't even have any medicinal use other than pouring it on your leg to sterilize it after being shot at the OK Corral. Pot, on the other hand, would not only increase revenue for the government but also revitalize the snack food industry. It would bring a new meaning the the "fourthmeal" at Taco Bell. Just imagine how much money the government would save by not having to chase pot farmers and destroy illegal crops. You ever wonder why they burn the pot instead of burying it at the landfill? I'll bet they all stand downwind of the fire. The bureaucracy involved in pot prosecution could be trimmed back, saving millions in tax dollars. Going back to hemp would also cut down on our oil consumption. It worked fine as rope for hundreds of years. This is one example of technology not necessarily being better.
Healthwise, I assume that there are certain risks to smoking pot similar to tobacco. One of the biggest problems with tobacco is the additional chemicals added during curing and processing. I do think that the number of tobacco related deaths is overstated to give credence to the current legislation hammering tobacco companies. If we keep pot in its pure form, some of these health risks go away. Also, I can't imagine anyone smoking 2 packs of pot a day. You would be a houseplant, just sitting there gathering dust and soaking up sunshine! Here is another odd fact. According to the 2006 World Drug Report, 12.5% of America uses pot but only 1.3% of Mexico uses pot. That might be caused by the fact that 40% of Mexico's population is in the US.

Who has the real money?

2009-07-08T08:57:00.003-04:00

I read in the news yesterday that Azharuddin Ismail, child star of Slumdog Millionaire, and his mother have moved into a new home. They are very happy that there are 4 walls, a toilet, and a locking door. These things should remind us that we don't have it so bad after all. The other child star, Rubina Ali, is also going to be in a new home. These homes are apparently being provided by the Mumbai housing authority, who I guess sells them for £30,000 ($48,000) to whoever. A trust fund has been set up to provide for both children for education and living expenses. The producers are also suppose to set up a £500,000 ($800,000) donation to a local development charity to improve slum children's lives.
The point I'm trying to make here is that the movie grossed $360,000,000! Granted, there are expenses involved as well as the theaters' operating costs, but how much did it cost to actually make this movie? The average household income in India is $1600 per year. (I don't know if this includes the ones we all get stuck with on customer support.) I can't imagine that it cost very much to hire the extras shown in the movie. One woman said her kids were in the movie and they weren't paid at all. Of the 5 million people living in Mumbai, 2.5 million of them live in the slums. Assuming a breakdown of Mom, Dad, and 3 kids, I come up with 1.5 million children living in these slums. That's about 50 cents for each kid from the $800,000 donation mentioned above. Doesn't that make you wonder who made the real money?

Ugliest Dog Contest

2009-07-01T08:38:00.005-04:00

Let me preface this by saying that it's about time something besides a Chinese Crested won this contest. Has anybody seen the latest winner of the Sonoma-Marin Fair ugly dog contest? http://tinyurl.com/mhyy8 That's a face only a mother could love. It's curious that the dog known as Pabst (cool name!) is tagged as a "boxer mix". Looks like a red-nosed pit mix to me. I think they classify shelter dogs with anything but a pit or bulldog reference because of the misinformed public panic about these dogs. Our adopted shelter dog was labeled a "dalmatian-hound mix". When we went to meet him and adopt him, I noticed some bulldog features. After we adopted him and took him home, I looked through the paperwork we got from the animal hospital and noted that he was in fact a dalmatian-bulldog mix.
It's a shame that there is such negativity about bulldog breeds. They get so much bad press that it has stirred people into a frenzy that is resulting in the breed actually being banned in some communities. I've had 2 and neither one was more aggressive than any other breed. Most of the stories you read about these dogs killing or mauling someone are a result of poor training and/or environment. Dogs are like people in that how you are raised defines your eventual behavior. Most of these dogs were either abused or raised by gang bangers and meth cookers with the occasional white supremacist thrown in. Most were trained to be mean. The 2 meanest dog breeds I have seen are dachshunds and Jack Russell terriers. The crazy thing is that Jack Russells appear to have become the family dog of choice since thay are smaller than Labs and "fiercely loyal". The "fiercely" is what you have to look out for!

Hi, Billy Mays here!

2009-06-29T08:17:00.004-04:00

This has been a rough time for celebrities. It started with Ed McMahon. If you've never heard "Here's Johnny!" , then you must not have ever watched a TV. Then there was Farrah Fawcett. Her story had been known for a while as she battled cancer. It's a shame that her death was overshadowed by Michael Jackson's sudden demise and subsequent channel-clogging news frenzy. Interesting that we as humans tend to glorify the positive and overlook the negative when someone dies. The shocker was Billy Mays. At least in the US, he was as well known as Jackson and even more so, depending on how old you are and how much TV you watch. You didn't have to see the TV to recognize the voice. I got the impression, after watching his show "Pitchmen", that he genuinely tried to help people get their inventions and products marketed. What was cool was that he pitched life insurance just like he pitched OxyClean! That's a true pitchman. We're going to miss you, Billy Mays.

And another one bites the dust!

2009-06-25T08:48:00.002-04:00

What is it about political office that makes a guy like Gov. Mark Sanford do something as stupid as having an affair with someone in Argentina? I don't know which is worse; the affair or the fact that she's in South America. It's not like you can run down to the Walmart parking lot. You have to pretend you went hiking for a long time. My favorite prez had it goin' on. Willie Bill just did it at his office!
One has to wonder what kind of people we are electing into office. I don't know if politicians err at the same percentage rate as the rest of us or if aberrant behavior is a political prerequisite. You have governors with prostitutes. You have governors having affairs. You have senators playing footsie in public restrooms. I think these are all distractions so that we don't notice the other back room deals going one that cost us money and freedom. Politics on the state level invariably involve some sort of deal that benefits the governor's wallet, family, or area he is from. It's almost like a rite of passage. Some states are worst than others. Please note that I haven't done any research on this so I'm going off of memory. Louisiana has a terrible record of state officials screwing the public over. New York has its share of idiots. You see what came out of Texas. Their current governor has commented on secession. We all know what happened the last time! Come to think of it, South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union, thus starting the Civil War.

Jon & Kate + 8 + TV = Divorce?

2009-06-23T11:04:00.002-04:00

Who knew this would happen? I don't think having 20 cameras following a family around is a good idea and it certainly isn't good parenting. What will the kids think about their parents in 10 or 12 years when they see reruns of their upbringing? It's a shame that Jon and Kate would put their own need for fame and money above the proper raising of their children. I wondered what their decision would be when it popped up in the news a few weeks ago. I was hoping that they would kick out the cameras and try to salvage their relationship and normalize their family life. Apparently their egos got in the way. I'm surprised that they are going to continue the show. Are we going to have the "Jon visits the kids on his weekend" show or the "Kate goes after more child support" show? This kind of crap also reduces TLC's legitimacy as a true learning channel. All I learned was not to put your family on TV!

Obama and PETA sittin' in a tree ...

2009-06-18T14:35:00.002-04:00

What is with PETA these days? I guess they would be happy if we were all just germs living in a mud puddle. A natural reaction by anyone bugged by a bug is to smash its little guts out. A fly has no "redeeming social value" except to let you know what restaurant not to eat at! I'm curious to see how big the scandal over the fly's demise gets. From what I can tell, when Obama killed the fly, the news folks called PETA to get their opinion. Sounds like the news channels are trying to drum up a controversy. I did hear one news chick say that there are over 175 million bugs for every human on Earth. I wonder what PETA's opinion is of all the bugs that get eaten in southeast Asia?

I've been healthcare jacked!

2009-06-13T09:40:00.003-04:00

The proposals and plans being passed around Washington that deal with our healthcare crisis read like a crazy man dreamed them up. Obama claimed in his campaign that he wanted to reform our healthcare industry. What a wonderful idea! I just don't know who is really adding up the money. The assumption is that saving a trillion dollars over the next ten years would pay for insurance for the currently uninsured. Obama asserts that $106 billion could be cut from government healthcare payments to hospitals because there would not be any uninsured people showing up at hospitals. The theory behind this is that these people would have insurance either through Medicaid or because Ted Kennedy's proposed health insurance plan would hold a gun to their heads to ensure that they buy insurance. If you are paying the hospital either way, how is that saving? That is just the tip of the iceberg. Obama claims that he can reduce by $110 billion the payments to hospitals and other providers (but not doctors), because the system is becoming more efficient. When was the last time he sat in the outpatient surgery area for 3 hours waiting for a procedure? Not too much efficiency there! The additional claim is that Medicare drug payments will reduce by $75 billion. Does that mean that Grandma will now have a co-pay? The price of some drugs is ridiculous. The drug companies claim that they have to charge those high prices because of the cost of R&D and liability insurance. Have you seen foreign drug prices? You can buy Plavix for $47 from Europe instead of the $135 in the states. Why is that? Because the drug companies' arm is way up the FDA's ass! The FDA is like their puppet. It got that way because of the powerful drug company lobbyists. They have made sure that legislation keeps us from buying foreign drugs. Lobbyists are named thusly because, back in the old days, the type of business they conducted in Washington was not acceptable for the Oval Office. They were forced to do their business in the lobby! What I don't understand is that apparently medical providers across the healthcare spectrum say that there is as much as $2 trillion in waste that could be cut. Why do they have to wait on the government to force them to stop the waste? Why not start now?
This whole idea of making me buy health insurance is bullshit! What am I supposed to buy it with? I work for a company that will not provide insurance either due to its prohibitive cost (as a percentage of total business costs) or because they are cheap (probably the real reason). The last time I checked on insurance, the premium was around $650 a month. That's $7800 per year. If I got sick, I would spend that $7800 plus the $2000 deductible just to get to the part where the insurance company then pays 80%. How is that in any way fair? The blame is laid on the people who show up at emergency rooms with no money. I don't go to the doctor. Apparently, I have been blessed with relatively good health. Most of the people I see going to the emergency room for non-life threatening ailments are on Medicare or Medicaid. They are the "entitled" ones. I guess they think that since everything is covered, they can go there for every stupid little twinge or tingle. That is one of the areas where waste is obvious. Are these the people the reason Ted Kennedy is going to force me to buy insurance? There is a fairly large group of Americans who fall through the fiscal cracks when it comes to who pays for what. These are the people who make too much for any public assistance, but not enough to afford health insurance. How will the government force them to buy insurance? What will they do if I don't buy it? One part of the proposal is that they will take my tax refund or maybe even increase my withholding (like a garnishment). Part of Obama's proposal to pay for "healthcare for everyone" is to increase taxes on the healthcare industry. How does that work? All it does is hurt the public in the long run. It is like buying ice cream. The industry has reduced the size of the carton to 1.5 or 1.75 quarts. Oh yeah, they also jacked the price $3. This ice cream math is already at work and has been for years. All the current healthcare reform proposals will do is extend this formula.

GOP rabblerousers

2009-06-09T13:53:00.002-04:00

What in the world is wrong with the GOP these days? Ol' Newt is out there criticizing Obama for failing at his attempt to stimulate the economy. Although I'm a bit nervous about the amount of promised spending, I don't see anyone jumping in with a better idea. The only real way to stimulate the economy is to increase consumer confidence which is getting harder to do with the consumer bearing the brunt of the effects of the failing economy. I can't stand the "pass it down" attitude of the business leaders at the top levels of companies. They are ultimately responsible for our current situation. They are just passing on the cost of their losses by laying off employees and cutting benefits. All of this economic crap happened on the GOP's watch! How can they be a credible alternative to Obama? This is what happens when a Texas oilman and his cronies are allowed to run the country for 8 years. One other thing. Who cares what Dick Cheney has to say anymore? At least Bush is laying low. Cheney is still running his mouth like he has influence. Maybe someone should take him bird hunting!

Credit Cards

2009-06-03T10:56:00.003-04:00

It's nice to see somebody going after the credit card companies and their questionable business practices. Some are worse than others but they all need some sort of reforming. They will give a $300 card to anyone with a Social Security number and a pulse. In 2005, the credit card companies lobbied the government to revise the bankruptcy laws to give them a better position financially. They felt like they were getting screwed when people could just walk away from their credit card debt. Isn't that what unsecured credit is? There is a certain amount of risk involved in marketing your cards to a bunch of people who can't afford them anyway. Now they have government backing to support their predatory lending practices. Then there is the high interest rate and exorbitant fees. Let's use the $300 card as an example. Say you go over your credit limit and then pay late. Not only do you owe the minimum $15 payment, you also owe up to $80 in fees. This $95 is almost 33% of your balance. If you continue not paying, you wind up being charged this 33% every month. This amounts to 396% interest the way I figure it.
Another interesting thing about credit cards is the way they affect your credit score. If you have them maxed out but pay on time every month, you look pretty good as long as your credit card balances aren't a large percentage of your income. If you have cards that all have zero balances, it will negatively affect your credit score because of the potential to run them all up at the same time. People who pay off their cards every month don't make the credit card companies any money so the companies will eventually close their accounts. Credit card companies like it when you carry a balance because they are making anywhere from 6 to 21% interest on their investment. It seems backward to reward those with debt and penalize those who pay off their cards every month.
The latest legislation appears to give the consumer a better position to be treated fairly. The credit card companies have had free rein to act like loan sharks with their business practices and it is about time we kick their legs out from under them. I can't believe that some of the companies are receiving federal bailout money while charging the above-mentioned 396%. Of course, this isn't any different than Chrysler receiving bailout money and then closing a U.S. plant and shifting the jobs to Mexico but that's another blog topic.

The Carbon Chronicle

2009-05-15T09:33:00.004-04:00

What do we have against carbon? It is part of almost everything living or dead. I saw a Domino sugar ad the other night on TV touting their "Carbon Free" brand of sugar. They claim that production of this sugar has a net zero carbon footprint. I don't think "Carbon Free" is the correct name. Sugar is 25% carbon, 50% hydrogen, and 25% oxygen! How stupid do they think we are? Granted, Domino is using good manufacturing processes for production like a biomass energy plant that recycles all of the plant waste, but look where they have their plant. I'm sure a lot of people would rather have the Everglades in its natural state than the cane fields and water canals scattered throughout South Florida. All of this "green" technology drives me nuts. It lets us feel good about destroying our natural habitat while making some folks lots of money. That's why they call it "green"! "Green" products typically cost more than their non-green counterparts as do the organic foods at the grocery store. There is not a lot of difference in taste and quality but non-green stuff generally lasts longer. Do you ever wonder if we are living longer today because of all the preservatives? ;)
Another carbon-related issue is the whole global warming scheme and the blame laid on carbon dioxide. Let me first say that I don't think global warming is as much the emergency some scientists claim it to be but just a naturally occurring cycle that we have not seen before (unless you lived in the Ice Age). As everyone knows, we emit CO2 but plant life absorbs it. Maybe there are too many mammals or not enough plant life. Maybe it is just our need to reorganize our surrounding to our liking. I think one way to combat greenhouse gases is to PLANT MORE STUFF! Stop the idiots from cutting down the rain forests. While bamboo makes a good flooring option, wiping out natural rain forests in South America to plant Brazilian eucalyptus for exotic flooring is plain stupid. Our quest for over-the-top kitchens is one of the causes of greenhouse gases. Issuing carbon credits is another dumb ass way of making ourselves feel good about destroying our environment. Our guvmint has come up with a way for the rich and powerful to make even more money horse-trading these credits. These credits are just like the wetlands mitigation credits. It is ok to destroy 100 acres of natural wetlands as long as you recreate 100 acres somewhere else. It doesn't matter that you wiped out all of the wildlife on that 100 acres and that it will take 10-15 years for that same wildlife to reappear on the "new" wetlands.
Back to CO2! Some knucklehead has come up with an idea to store CO2 in underground caverns that will be sealed up forever. How do you think we are going to coax the CO2 in our atmosphere to go in a cave and stay there? What would happen if a big cloud escaped all at once? Check out this link: http://volcanoes.suite101.com/article.cfm/1986_limnic_eruption_of_lake_nyos
A gas bubble of CO2 erupted from a lake in Cameroon in 1986 and killed over 1700 people. Over 3000 livestock were also killed. I don't think I want that kind of stuff happening around me. We are mighty bold to think we can re-shape how nature handles itself.
By the way, check out this sugar link. I don't know how legit the info is but it is interesting. http://www.alternativescentral.com/sugar-sweetpoison.htm

Obama's public works initiative

2009-05-11T09:03:00.002-04:00

It is being reported that a lot of the stimulus money earmarked for road and bridge projects is not going to the counties hardest hit by rising unemployment. Apparently the roads and bridges needing repair or replacement are not in these depressed areas. I know I'm just armchair quarterbacking here but I'm not so sure this is going to do much to stimulate the overall economy. Our society today is not like it was when FDR created the Civilian Conservation Corps. The guy who just got laid off from his 60k job running a computer-driven production machine will not be able to get a job pushing a shovel on the Interstate. The construction companies already have their employees in place and will not expand to fill the need. They will just push out deadlines for years. Any project not already designed and funded will take 4-5 years to get off the ground. In my area, there has been a railroad overpass project in the works for 25 years! The land has been surveyed twice, the last being 3 years ago. I suppose the theory behind the public works program is the same trickle-down idea that Reagan had. I don't know about you but I don't have 4 years to wait on my job to come back!

Experience is the best teacher

2009-05-06T16:06:00.002-04:00

Bristol Palin has been catching crap on the news today for promoting abstinence among teens. A fair amount of people have labeled her a hypocrite. I think what she is doing is a good thing. It can't hurt. The way I see it, if it doesn't sink in by reading the directions, it will damn sure sink in when you smash your hand in whatever machine you are using!

Yo,Boss! MySpace ain't your space!

2009-05-06T14:40:00.002-04:00

If I want to talk smack about my boss or workplace on a supposedly private password protected area of a website on my own pc in my own house, I think that I have that right without fear of legal repercussion. Now, if I am doing something illegal, that's different. There are certain instances where material is protected by copyright or contract but that still does not give employers the right to invade one's privacy at home. The manager at the Houston's restaurant in New Jersey where the 2 employees were fired for dissin' the boss was way out of line by using someone else's (an ass kisser no doubt) password to gain access to the private MySpace page. Isn't that some sort of illegal act? That's like my boss walking in my yard, looking thru my window, and seeing me doing, watching, or reading something he doesn't agree with, and then firing me over it. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in court. Trespassing is defined as unlawful entry onto one's real property. Invasion of privacy is defined as intruding into the personal life of another. Is your MySpace page real property? Is it your personal life (assuming you have a private MySpace page)? What are we going to do when someone invents a mind reader app or contraption? Dogs and cats are mind readers, but don't speak human which is probably a good thing! Could you imagine if everyone's thoughts were just flying around like radio waves? We would all go nuts from the noise. Well, I kinda slipped off the rail there, so I reckon I'll stop now.

Perception and its effect on decision making

2009-05-05T08:34:00.002-04:00

We typically make decisions based on either our own experiences or the advice of others. Of course, these are almost always subjective. When this is done on a global scale, it becomes really apparent how subjective it is. The recent swine flu outbreak is one of these. Currently, there are about 1200 cases worldwide with about 27 deaths. A normal flu season kills anywhere from 20000 to 40000 people. Why the big panic? The WHO keeps jacking up the threat level and by the time the media gets through with it, schools are closed and everyone is scrambling around looking for Tamiflu and wearing masks which, according to some news sources, don't stop the germ. There was not a world panic in 1984 and 1985 when the AIDS epidemic started. It has however snowballed into a huge problem with many deaths and no real end in sight. Was this because the group of people first affected were gay men or drug users? Are they not as important as everyone else? Deaths from AIDS is declining in the more settled areas of the world but it is wide open in Africa. Perhaps if the world's leading nations focused on this issue instead of some of the stupid shit they talk about now, the epidemic in Africa would lessen.
The war in Iraq is another example of subjective decision making. The US jumps in there with guns blazing using the excuse of WMD, religious extremists, and human rights violations and starts an expensive war. No WMDs but I guess the populace is happier now even though half their stuff is blown up. Somalia, however, is another story. With the multiple coups and civil wars, tens of thousands have been killed. There is virtually no government so it is like the Hatfields and McCoys all over the country. Pirates are openly operating in international waters. But hey, guess what? There's no oil production in Somalia!
I ran across a cool link while fact-checking for those who get off on statistics. Check it out if you get a chance. http://www.indexmundi.com/

We have a Baby Shaker app for that!

2009-04-23T11:07:00.003-04:00

Go to twtpoll.com/d72r6a and check out some of the comments about this story. I'm not surprised, given the anonymity allowed. I can't believe that some people would condone this type of behavior. I understand that there is a fuzzy line between what is acceptable and what is not which moves depending on one's upbringing and environment, but some things transcend all of that. Thick skin or not, we as a society should not allow certain types of behavior. To justify this app as ok just because it is a game and not real life is bullshit. I don't think you should leave a comment that you are not willing to stand up in front of 100 people and tell them. How can these cowards think this app is even remotely funny is beyond me.
That being said, I wonder who the idiot at Apple Inc. was that approved this app. Just the fact that they released this during National Child Abuse Prevention Month is bad. Do they not even look at the apps before releasing them? Or does the dollar drive their decision exclusively? Many of our economic problems are directly attributed to companies like Apple who appear to run their companies purely for the bottom line without regard for any social or environmental impacts.

Miss California

2009-04-21T09:30:00.002-04:00

The uproar over Miss California's answer to Perez Hilton's question is not unexpected, given the venue. After looking at the comments on Hilton's website, there seems to be a 3 way split on the issue. 1/3 are for gay marriage, 1/3 are against, and 1/3 think she is stupid. What I noticed the most was that over half of them can't spell! The pageant is not the place to ask a controversial question like that if you don't get an honest answer or if the honest answer causes you to lose the contest. This wasn't a political race where the winner has actual power over us. It's a damn beauty contest! Should she have lied just to win? We as a country need to stop the subservient ass kissing and vote our convictions, right or wrong. We are where we are now because we are just told what we want to hear and not always the truth. Do you think we would be in Iraq if Bush had said "I want to start a war with a country that I have no real proof of wrongdoing and oh yeah it will last 8-10 yrs and cost us billions"? I would hope someone would have popped up and said "bitch pleeeeze!" instead of kissing his ass and going along with it for the sake of not creating controversy.

Summit of the Americas

2009-04-21T09:07:00.002-04:00

It's no wonder the GOP is bitching about Obama shaking hands with Chavez. They have pushed the Cold War agenda for decades. It is all part of their warmongering. I agree that Chavez is just a little butthole trying to get world attention by running his mouth, but the GOP gives him way too much credit. The whole Cuba thing is crazy. We should have lifted the restrictions and embargoes long ago and made Cuba a vacation destination. It's obvious all the restrictions have done is drive down the standard of living there. There has been a double standard about Cuba for a while. We actually have a trade imbalance with the largest communist country in the world! We have been trading with China for a long time so why not Cuba too? We can close Gitmo while we're at it. Cuba is just about close enough to toss a grenade at so why have a whole base there? Just think, Cuba could double its GNP just in pre 1960's cars!

Scary economic stuff

2009-04-17T11:09:00.003-04:00

The current ease at which Obama seems to push spending bills thru Congress scares the crap out of me. I guess our representatives are so enamored with our "golden child" that they are willing to follow any path he chooses like a bunch of lemmings. Although he has had some good ideas, the current method seems to be cramming a bunch of unrelated spending increases and new spending programs into the mix. It reminds me of Bush when he was constantly introducing new ways to restrict our freedom in the name of national security. Our leaders need to concentrate on fixing our current economic situation. Creating new revenue sources for programs not directly affecting the banking and manufacturing crisis by raising taxes is not good fiscal responsibility. I know the healthcare system should be revamped, but that issue is not high on the list of things the average American is worrying about right now. Folks are worrying about their jobs and the unending list of responsibilities that are affected by a job loss or cutback. Unemployment doesn't pay the rent or the house payment.

More about Rushbo and the pirates

2009-04-14T13:31:00.002-04:00

I didn't plan on this blog being a Rush basher but every time he opens his mouth, a turd falls out. The Somali pirates were killed because they were criminals! No one asked what their age, race, or religious affiliation was. The US must be an equal opportunity enforcer. Rush is making this out to be Muslim persecution and that the pirates were innocent bystanders defending their territorial waters. He is a big part of the "drive-by" media that he says is to blame for the biased news reporting that goes on. He gave me the impression that if Bush had ordered the action, there would be a large outcry of protest. What the hell has Bush been doing for 8 years in Iraq? This is the kind of bull we have to put up with from the media in general. Too many talking heads offering "expert" opinions.

Obama's dog

2009-04-14T10:29:00.002-04:00

I can't believe the complaints about the dog the presidential family got. There is way too much press on the day to day workings of the Obama family. I think they can choose whichever dog suits their family. To say that they should have gotten a shelter dog to set a good example is crap. That would be like buying the store brand of mac and cheese instead of a national brand to promote fiscal responsibility. I do have an adopted dog after looking at bred dogs, but chose him because of his looks and personality, not where he came from.

Rushbo and the pirates

2009-04-14T09:43:00.003-04:00

I was trying to find something to listen to on the radio and came across Rush The Idiot bumping his gums about the pirates. (I heard this on the radio so there is no verification). Apparently some knucklehead from Ohio decided that pirating would be a good field to enter since he was "without a job". He bought uniforms and was going to hijack boats in the Gulf of Mexico! After the Navy rescued the Maersk captain, this dude decided pirating was not such a good idea. Rush Limbaugh is blaming Obama for this guy's inability to be a pirate entrepreneur.