The POTUS That Cried Wolf?

When I was young, we were often told the story of "the boy that cried wolf". I'm not sure but I think it is was one of Aesop's fables. Anyway, I am certain that most of you my age or older know the story. For other's, basically the little boy was a shepard who figured out that if he cried wolf really loud, the townspeople would rush to his assistance. He did that several times when there really was no wolf just for the excitment. Then when a wolf did come along and the little boy cried wolf the townspeople thought he was still pranking and did not come to help. The wolf ate up all the sheep.

Now what we have with the POTUS and the UAE controlling some US ports is similiar, but we haven't reached the moral of the story yet. Sure POTUS has been "crying wolf" about arab terrorist ever since 9/11/2001. Unfortunately for him, the American people are still rushing to kill every wolf. In the case of the UAE, POTUS tells us that this is a friendly wolf, and he didn't cry wolf, some alarmist did, but all this "wolf crying" has kinda conditioned us to be a national of people that jump up with pitch forks in hand at any wolf, no matter who is doing the crying.

I'm sure that eventually we as a nation will figure out the moral of the story, if you cry wolf when there is no wolf, don't expect much help when there actually is a wolf but in the mean time it is gonna be difficult for any wolves to operate ports in the USofA.

Brad Edmonds Tells It Like It Is

In his article, 'Government Makes Things Worse' , Brad Edmonds tells it like it is. Unfortunately, it seems that the majority of Americans do not understand what Brad is saying. When Harry Browne was running for president in 2000, he asked people to name their favorite government program. I saw a video of him asking people and virtually none of them could name one government program that they liked. I know that the tape was edited and while Harry admitted as much, he insisted that the tapes content was representative of what he found everywhere he went. Think of it, the government takes around one half of every dollar you make, when the total up all the different taxes and fees, and they can't come up with even one program that people can say is their favorite or even one that people like. Maybe you are different, maybe you have a favorite government program. If you do, I would certainly like to hear about it.

Acres Of Diamonds

Years ago, when I was in Amway, I was introduced to Russell H Conwell's speech, Acres of Diamonds . Today, I was reading an article by Gary North and he had a link to Temple University's website that has the speech. I read it again and throughly enjoyed it. If you have never read it, do it now. If you are like me and it has been a while since you read it, read it again now and enjoy it again.

Rising Health Care Costs

I read and hear a lot about rising health care costs. Everyone says we have to do something to help people pay for their health care. I understand that the president covered it in his SOTU address a few days ago. He wants to come up with medical savings plans or something like that. I've got a better idea. Make all medical expenses a tax credit. Lower everyones federal and state income tax by $1 for every $1 they spend on doctors, medicine, and even health care insurance premiums. In fact, why not do the same thing for food and nutrition costs. After all, there is nothing that the federal or state government does for us that is as important to us as our own health. Better that we take the money we are paying in as income tax and pay for things that will keep us healthy or cover the cost of treatment when we get sick.

Some folks are so poor that they currently can't afford to pay for health care. They should not be paying any income tax already. If they are, give it all back to them. If that isn't enough, then they should qualify for the earned income credit.

I know that this plan would take a bite out of what the government(s), federal and state are collecting in income tax revenue, but as I said before, nothing that the government(s) do for us is as important to us as our own health.

Fried Catfish Nuggets

Last night for supper we had fried catfish nuggets. Earlier in the day I had gone to the store to get some paper towels and a few other items. When I went by the meat counter, I noticed that they had a package of catfish nuggets. Sometimes they have them, sometimes they don't. For those of you who don't know what a catfish nuggets is, basically it is a random piece of catfish left over from when the fish was dressed. Some of these were no bigger than your thumb. Some were well over 100 grams or around 4 ounces.

Now I have been catching, cleaning, cooking and eating fish all my life, but I decided to do a little checking on the internet to see if I could pick up any tips. Combining my own experience with what I found on the internet, I came up with the following.

I made up a mixture of about 2 parts yellow corn meal to 1 part bisquick. To that I added some salt, pepper and magic dust, which is a rub made from a recipe I found on the internet last year. I made up enough of this coating mixture to throughly coat the nuggets I had. I put the coating mix and the nuggets in a ziploc bag, shook it good and placed it in the refrigerator. When it got time to cook the nuggets, I put about 1 qt of cooking oil in a 4 qt pan, heated it to 350 degrees F and dropped in a few nuggets. It took them about 4 minutes to reach a golden brown. I cooked a few at a time so as not to cool the cooking oil down too much. We ate them with french fries and slaw and if I do say so myself, they were pretty good.

Nay Sayers

I was just out on www.al.com reading the messages in their gasoline prices forum. One particular thread caught my eye as it had to do with using acetone as a fuel additive. Some of the veggie oil groups that I subscribe to have had similiar threads recently, so I was interested to see what the locals had to say. When I started reading the thread, I was immediately surprised at the negativity expressed by the individuals that responed to the initial posting.

The original poster, screen name wileykoyote, reported that he had been adding " 1 ounce of acetone to every 3 gallons of gas. On average, I get about 18% better gas mileage using acetone." He also included a link to the website that got him started.

http://www.lubedev.com/articles/additive.htm

One of the nay sayers responded with "All I know for sure is that truck drivers use acetone to clean the tar and road film off their trucks. It is a very strong chemical that could damage someones engine."

Another said "Unless I had a cheap car to try this on, I'd err on the side of safety. I get a good 35-50mpg highway anyways, so the couple of cents I save by putting acetone in my engine would not be worth the repair if it ate through the gaskets or something along those lines."

I'm not sure where the couple of cents figure comes in. If you figure an 18% increase, at 50 mpg and $2.13 per gallon, which is what I paid locally last week, then 100 miles would cost $4.26 to drive without acetone as an additive and would cost $3.61 with acetone as an additive. That would be considerably more than a couple of cents for just 100 miles of driving. Now I am not saying that wileykoyote's results are typical, or even accurate, but it really disheartens me that someone would offer up a possible suggestion for improving fuel economy in a forum that should attract persons interested in just that sort of thing and all he gets is ridicule.

I'm not sure when or why it has happened, but somewhere along the way, the American people have traded in their can do spirit for a defeatist mindset. If some government official, lawyer , doctor or MIT professor doesn't say its alright to do something, they immediately raise a red flag. I fear that with that kind of mindset, we were as good as we will ever be, yesterday, and that tomorrow we will be worse than we are today.

Another Miller's Garage Alumni is gone.

Got a call yesterday from a friend who told me that Wally Burks had died. He was 68 years old. The friend didn't know the cause of death, but speculated it might have been a heart attack.

The first year the garage was open, in the metal building up the hill, Wally started hanging around, helping out when he was needed. At that time, he was roofing houses, but the work was sporadic. It was 1959 and the country was in the grip of a recession. Gradually he did more and more mechanic work and less and less roofing until he was mechanicing full time. I have often heard my father say that he couldn't fire Wally cause he never did hire him. Wally just started working and Daddy started paying him.

I had not seen Wally in over 30 years but he is one of the people in my life who I will not ever forget.

Let Me Sleep On It.

Have you ever said that? Told a real estate agent or a car salesman that you would like to sleep on it, ie. wait overnight to make a decision? Have you ever gone to bed pondering a problem and woke up the next morning with the answer? I know I have. Seems some investigators have discovered that this is actually a good ideal and yields positive results.

Global Warming

Global Warming predictions are based on COMPUTER MODELS. Weather predictions are based on COMPUTER MODELS. The folks that predict the weather are lucky if they can get tomorrows weather correct. What makes you think that someone has a COMPUTER MODEL that can predict anything that is gonna happen next year or 5 years from now. This article seems to indicate that hard historical evidence casts doubt on some of the existing predictions.

Driver's License For Illegal Aliens

I just finished reading this article and it caused me to ask myself a question, "what difference does it make if an illegal alien has a drivers license?" If they don't have one, does that stop them from driving? If they do have one, aren't they still an illegal alien? I'm always reading about illegals getting detained and released without deportation. By all accounts, the borders of the United States are like a sieve. Will these be any less of a problem if it gets harder for an illegal to get a driver's license? Why then is it so damn important to try to keep illegals from getting drivers license? What good does it do to deny them a drivers license? Is this whole thing a strawman?

It seems to me that the people that we have elected to run this country ask all the wrong questions, come up with the wrong answers to those questions and then implement flawed strategies to work their incorrect solutions. If they manage to do something correctly, its appears to be mostly by accident. I've said it before and I will say it again. I would not let the folks in government operate the basement apartment of an outdoor toliet for me.

Greenies Into The Trash

I have bought some Greenies for our dogs in the past. In fact there is one in my kitchen right now. However, after reading this article on CNN's website, I am gonna throw it in the trash. Why take the chance?

How to Handle the Lobbyist Problem

The Abramoff scandal has focused the nations attention on the problem of lobbyist running all over Washington, spreading money around and getting legislation and loopholes that favor their particular special interest group. Senator John McCain and others want to come up with new legislation that will supposedly correct this problem. Good luck to them, but I have an alternate solution. Federal deregulation. That's right, eliminate federal regulations on most everything and turn law making back to the states. That way these lobbyist will have to cover 50 state legislatures instead of one congress and 50 governers offices instead of one White House. What money they have to spend will be split 50 different ways and probably won't do as much damage. Much of their time will be spent travelling instead of greasing politicians. I know; it sounds to simple to work, but often times the simplest solution is the best.

The Damnedest Thing

I have been driving since I was 12 years old. I have owned dozens of different types of automobiles, and driven many others that belonged to friends, relatives, companys I worked for or customers of Millers Garage. During that 47 years I have driven nearly 2 million miles by my estimate. Since a great deal of that involved trips of less than 50 miles, I think it safe to say that I have started a vehicle tens if not hundreds of thousands of times in my life. But yesterday afternoon I experienced something I had never experienced before while starting a vehicle.

I was on my way to Columbiana in my white ford van and I stopped by the local Raceway to get some gas. When I had finished getting the gas, I got back into the van and turned the key to start it. It started immediately, but the starter did not disengage from the flywheel and while the engine was running, the starter was still turning. Now that has happened to me before so I immediately switched off the key. Then the damnedest thing happened. The engine died, but the starter kept right on turning. Apparently the starter solenoid had stuck in an actuated position. I rasied the hood and located the starter solenoid on the inner fender well next to the battery. Then I went around to the back of the van, located a jack handle went back to the front of the van. All the while, the starter was grinding away. I gave the starter solenoid a good whack with the jack handle and the starter stopped. I got back into the van, turned the key to start it. It started right up normally and I went on to Columbiana. Don't know what caused the starter solenoid to stick like that but I can assure you that it is a very unnerving experience.

Investment Advice

I have been interested in stocks and investing since my uncle gave me a stock certificate, one share of Libby McNiel and Libby, back in the early sixties. I don't remember what happened to that share I doubt that I sold it.The commission would have cost more than the stock brought. Anyway, after I started work in 1970, some of the folks I worked with were buying stocks. That was before the advent of the 401k. I took most of the little bit of money I had saved and bought 20 shares of Southern Company. Later on, after I was married, I bought 20 more shares. A few years later, around 1980 I got a divorce and sold my Southern Company stock and several other things. That pretty much put an end to my stock trading. Then, sometime in the late 90's, one of the guys I worked with opened an eTrade account. He convinced me that it was lots of fun and a good way to make a little extra money. Buy low, sell high. You know the story. Anyway, I took $3000 out of my meager saving and opened an eTrade account. Through careful study, judicious trading and my usual luck, I managed to turn that $3000 into $1600 in less than a years time. So much for stock trading. It was along about that time that another of my co-workers and my boss made me an offer, jokingly, I think. They offered me $50 to tell them before I bought a stock. They were going to short it before I bought. Since everything I bought went down, they figured to make a killing. Sure thing, can't miss. Unfortnately for them I lost interest in turning dollars into half-dollars, so we never did strike a deal.

Fast forward to last week. I have been reading a lot about gold. Last week I decided to test the waters so I bought a little bit of gold. That was the day before the biggest single drop in the gold price in years. I wonder if those guys still want to buy my investment advice, I need to recoup some losses. ;>)

Mini Coopers

About the time I was graduating from High School and starting to college, the SCCA was still having races on city streets. Not too long after that, they moved onto offroad courses. I never knew why, I heard it had to do with insurance considerations. My family attended one of the last city street races down in Montgomery. It was run on streets located near the western bypass.

My father and I really enjoyed it, not sure how my sister and mother felt about it. One of the memorable sites from that race was that of the little Minis taking the corner located near where we sat. At that time, around the mid '60s, front wheel drive cars just did not exist in central Alabama. To watch the little Minis speeding through that corner with their left rear wheels hiking in the air as they made the apex of the turn was fascinating. Over the years, I have owned my share of British cars, mostly MGBs, but never a Mini. When BMW revived the Mini, I have to admit I felt a little tingle, but I was not moved enough to purchase one. Last week, I saw a 1967 Mini on the Atlanta Craiglist. I was really tempted but I currently have my quota of vehicles and I think my next vehicle I trade for will definitely be diesel powered, but my heart still skips a beat when I see a Mini on the street.

Everyone Has A List

It seems to me that the way the world around me now operates is by the dictum "I believe that _____ is wrong and should be against the law and that the powers that be must enforce that law." Pretty simple on the face of it. The problems start to crop up when people compile their lists and fill in that blank. Some things are virtually uniformly agreed upon, murder, robbery, arson, rape. Other things seem to appear on lots of lists, but not all, prostitution, smoking marijuana, sex with animals, downloading copyrighted materials off the internet. Others items have an asterisk beside them on some lists indicating that they are ok if the powers that be run them, gambling is one that pops to mind.

But there are some real differences between lists that have folks scratching their heads trying to reconcile them. One list will have abortion on it and another will have interfering with a woman's right to choose what happens to her body. Or one list will have possession of a firearm and another will have interfering with an individuals second amendment right. Some lists have prayer in schools while others site interfering with freedom of expression. It gets real contentious very quickly.

I think that maybe the solution lies not in reconciling the lists but by adding a second dictum. We need one like, "I believe that _________ is wrong therefore I choose not to do it." Use the first one for the universally agreed upon items, or at least items where over 90% of the lists agree. Then use the second one for other list items. Now that would simplify thinks greatly. Who knows, if we add and start using this second dictum for contentious list items, we might actually be able to satisfy Rodney King and all learn to just get along.

Inquisitive?

I don't get a lot of comments on posts on my blog. I figure that is because (A) not many people read them and (B) those that do don't see anything worthy of comment. It doesn't really bother me. I think of the blog more as an outlet for me, than as reading material for others.

What I do find interesting, is that of the three people who have commented so far, two have used the word inqusitive to describe my blog. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what inquisitive means, but I looked it up anyway. Sure enough it means just about what I thought it meant. It's a good word, but not one I use everyday. Also both the people that used it were directing me to their blog. I went to the first one, read it, sent the guy and email and he never responded. Tried to go to the second one and it does not seem to exist. My question is this. Is there some kind of blog promotion software or web site that is the source of these nearly identical comments? Or, is inquisitive in fact the universally recognized best word to describe my puny little blog?

Can the President legally have Ted Kennedy Killed?

Does this mean that the president can legally have Ted Kennedy killed? After all Ted is or was on that TSA no-fly list with 80,000 other American citizens who are suspected terrorist. What about the 4 year old boy that is on the list, can he be ordered killed also? What about the other 79,998 people on that list? Can the president order them killed as well? Someone wrote the other day that the list had about 30,000 names on it a year or so ago. Now there are 80,000. That would seem to indicate that the list is gonna grow. Can the people who are added in the future be legally ordered killed as well? Can I be ordered killed for asking these questions? Can you be ordered killed for reading them? I don't know the answer, do you?