Tobacco Money

I was over at Linda's this morning and she had the TV on CNN. A couple of guys were talking about how the states had spent their "Tobacco Money", that is the money they got from suing the tobacco companies. They were extolling the fact that all the public service ads had reduced the amount of smoking but now that the money had run out, smoking among teens was on the rise.

Hindsight being 20/20, I thought about it a bit and figured out what would have been a better use for the tobacco money. What if, instead of running ads to stop people from smoking, they had used that money to run ads to keep people from going into politics? After all, smoking only shortens life; politics makes a life worthless. What if people like George Bush and Hillary Clinton had seen public service ads in their youth that steered them away from politics? What if George had chosen a career in stand up comedy? He can be really funny, if you doubt that, watch Late Night with David Letterman sometime. The Great Presidential Speeches segment is hilarious. And what about Hillary, don't you think that she would have made a fairly good 5th grade social studies teacher? I'm pretty sure that if neither of these people had entered politics, the world would be a better place.

Sure, the anti-tobacco ads have added a few years to the end of some lives, but which is worse, to live 5 years less than you could have, or to waste your entire life in politics?

Using Digg to Pass the Read The Bills Act (RTBA) in 3 Easy Steps.

No group is better positioned to place the right kind of pressure on our representatives than Diggers. It's our destiny to start making a difference in the way things are run, and I propose we get the ball rolling.



read more | digg story

You can be a Christian or an Environmentalist but not both

Read this article by John M. Ostrowski and you will see what I mean.

Kinda Reminds Me Of Nixon

Doesn't

[DEAD LINK]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070321/ap_on_go_pr_wh/fired_prosecutors_85
this remind you of what Nixon said when the Watergate tapes were subpoenaed?

The Law

As I have said before, the idea of a "law abiding citizen" in today's United States is a myth. Our legal system, our laws, bureaucratic regulations, etc. have become so complex ,and even contradictory in some cases, that it is virtually impossible to be completely law abiding. However, even though it is impossible to obey the laws of the land, no one is above the law. No one, including the President of the United States, can place his or her self above the laws of the land. If a law is bad, and many of them are, they need to be amended or repealed, but so long as they are on the books, they are the law. For the President to say that he does not have to obey the law because he is acting for the greater good of the American people just doesn't cut it. His number one job as head of the executive branch of government is to uphold the laws. If he does not understand that, he does not deserve to have the job of President.

Sal Hepatica Cures Blindness

When I was about 10 years old, my father owned a Plymouth Business Coupe. I am not sure what year model his was. I do know that it was an older car and was not our primary vehicle at that time. It did not have a backseat, only an area behind the front seat where you could store things. There was room back there for kids to ride squatted down, which I did on occasion.

One Saturday, my father and I took our 22 rifles and went down to my grandfather's house in the business coupe. I don't think we were going hunting per se, but we were going to go walking in the woods and took the rifles "just in case." When we got down to my grandfather's and picked him up, he sat in the passenger seat, my father drove and I stood on the running board since the guns occupied the space behind the seat. He drove us the couple of miles on to the location where we were going to walk in the woods. After some walking around we headed back to my grandfather's house, again with me standing on the running board. As we drove up into my grandfather's yard, I put my foot down to step off the running board a little before the car came to a complete stop. That was a big mistake. My foot caught and I was flipped heels over head onto the side of the drive and landed on the back of my head in between two big outcroppings of flint rock. I was knocked unconscious but I was not out. Instead, I jumped up and started running around unaware and dazed. I don't remember any of the running but was told of it later. When I regained consciousness, I was sitting in my grandfather’s bedroom in front of the fireplace and my father, grandfather and grandmother were all talking to me. I was totally blind.

After some discussion, they determined that I should be taken home and watched to see what happened. Later, I recall sitting at my place at our kitchen table. Somehow my parents had decided that what I needed was a dose of Sal Hepatica. They mixed it up and put it in front of me to drink. I did not like the taste and resisted drinking it but they insisted. Finally I was able to choke it down. Over the next couple of hours, I gradually began to be able to discern light and shadow and by later that evening my sight had completely returned. After that I have always said that Sal Hepatica cures blindness. Some folks say it doesn't but all I know is I was blind, I took Sal Hepatica, then I could see.

For years, I thought that Sal Hepatica was like Alka Seltzer and that my parents were giving it to me for my headache. Recently I discovered that it was in fact a laxative. Maybe they thought that all that was wrong with me was I was full of crap. From what I have heard from many of my acquaintances over the years, there have been several other times when a dose of Sal Hepatica might have been in order for what was wrong with me.

How to End the War Tomorrow

I know how we can end our part of the war in Iraq tomorrow, maybe even before 5:00 this afternoon. All we have to do is put the nation on a war footing. (1) Immediately begin rationing Gasoline, Diesel and other petroleum products. (2) Suspend all amateur and professional athletic competitions until after the war is ended. That would include NCAA, NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL and NASCAR. (3) Redirect all alcohol for war energy use. No beer, wine or whiskey for sale to the public. (4) Ration meat, sugar, and chocolate. (5) Limit the amount of electricity that can be used for TV, video games, and computers to one hour per person per day.

I guarantee that if we do these 5 things, the US participation in Iraq will come to a screeching halt.

GEICO

I have GEICO car insurance. I have for years, but if I didn't, I would switch to it simply because of these caveman commercials. I love these things. This one is the best yet"

A Word Of Advice

A word of advice to all you global warming alarmist out there. Put off your marches and demonstrations until mid July. You will come off looking a lot better than you do in the picture included in this article. It is not too effect to be harping about global warming when you are dressed up like a native Alaskan and standing in snow.

I've Never Been A Big Fan

I've never been a big fan of Donald Trump, but its hard not to like someone who gigs Rosie O'Donnell and tells it like it is about the folks in power.

The Emporer Has No Clothes

I just watched an interview of Rocky Anderson, Mayor of Salt Lake City, on a news network. I won't say which network because they seem to have figured out a way to make it impossible to link to their videos so I won't give them any advertising. I will say that Wolf Blitzer conducted the interview so I know you know where to go look.

Mr Anderson, who is an outspoken critic of President Bush, made a call for Mr. Bush's impeachment at a antiwar rally broadcast on C-span last Saturday. Wolf started out his interview of Mr. Anderson by reading him what the constitution says about impeachment. Then he asked Anderson what he thought Bush had done that justified impeachment based on that criteria. To me it seemed like asking which hair around a dog's ass is the longest? Who cares, it all has dog crap on it. Mr. Anderson settled on the use of the aluminum tube, yellow cake information to justify invading Iraq. He said that the State Department said the information was wrong and the CIA said it was correct and that should have been enough to raise a question. Apparently Mr. Anderson was starting to make a point because the (insert name of unmentionable network here) cut him off in mid sentence.

It never ceases to amaze me what the politicans and news media can come up with in this country to distract the population from the real questions at hand. I am relatively certain that Bill Clinton was guilty of numerous impeachable offences and yet the dumbass Republicans choose to go after him for getting a hummer from a intern. Bush has raped the constitution and the bill of rights and Wolf Blitzer has the cajones to ask the mayor of Salt Lake City what he thinks the president has done that could justify impeaching him.

This Kid Pissed Off Everybody

But his
[DEAD LINK]
"http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070319/pl_nm/usa_students_rights_dc_3

case has made it to the Supreme Court. Obviously the liberals are mad because he used the name of Jesus and the conservatives are mad because he made a reference to smoking marijuana. We'll see what the Supreme Court has to say about it sometime between now and the end of June.

The truth of the matter is that in this country now days, the majority of people are not in favor of free speech. What they are in favor of is the right of people to speak freely about the things that they, the listener, think is proper. Since the country is pretty well divided between folks who think of themselves as liberals and folks who think of themselves as conservatives, no one is free to say what they think without offending someone.

We will only have free speech when anyone is free to say what ever they want and the people who object to what they are saying have the right to not listen.

If You Are In The Stock Market

If you have some of your assests or retirement funds invested in the stock market, you might want to checkout

[DEAD LINK]
http://biz.yahoo.com/seekingalpha/070319/29922_id.html?.v=1

this article. If it is correct, now might be a good time to shift out of the market. Personally, I have had my puny little IRA rolled over into a money market fund for several months. If you are interested in shorting the market, there are some exchange traded funds that do that. You can google "ETF short index" and come up with some ideas. One that I have added to my sharebuilder account is DOG. It shorts the Dow Jones 30 Industrial Average.

A Good Bible Search Engine

I've found what I believe is a very good bible search engine at biblegateway.com . It has 21 different English translations and many others in different languages. I know that somewhere out there some critic of mine is asking the question, "What do you need a bible search engine for , you don't believe in the bible?" Well, you are wrong. I never said I don't believe in the bible. I said that I don't believe that the bible is the inerrant word of God. There is a difference. I won't get into the discussion of that difference here, but suffice it to say, believing that way makes the availability of a good bible search engine even more worthwhile.

WWJD

A few years back, I started seeing bumper stickers with WWJD on them. Here in the Birmingham area we have or at least had a radio station whose call letters were WJLD. At first I mistook the stickers for those of the radio station. Then, when I got some new glasses, I realized that the letters were WWJD instead of WJLD. Being somewhat naive, I still though this was a bumper sticker for a radio station. Then I found out that the letters stood for "What would Jesus Do?" Sort of a guideline for Christians. When presented with a situation, just ask yourself, what would Jesus do?

I have some friends that apparently still think that George W. Bush hung the moon. A couple of weeks ago I got an email from one of them that described something that Bush had done as being "Christ-like." I know that George W. Bush says he is a Christian and I will take his word for it, but I don't think that he asks himself WWJD very often. When I read this article I asked myself WWJD. I did not come up with the same answer that it appears that Mr Bush and Mr Cheney did.

Our Tax Dollars At Work

[DEAD LINK]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070316/ap_on_re_us/passport_problems_1

All of this because some idiot in the government says that having everyone show a passport is going to cut down on terrorist entering the country. What about all those illegals coming across the Rio Grande? Are they showing a passport? If you were a terrorist would needing a passport stop you? You would probably either (A) come across the Rio Grande without a passport, (B) Buy an excellent forgery, which for a price is probably available in days not weeks, or (C) get some pickpocket in London to sell you a legit one from a tourist that matches your description.

Of course, the jackasses that came up with this know all that. Again its not about safety, or terrorism. Its about control. Back when they were called public servants, it was "we are from the government and we are here to help." Now it is "we are agents of the government. Do as we say or you can expect to spend years in prison."

Jim Rogers' U.S. Property Prediction

Noted investor, Jim Rogers says "You can't believe how bad it's going to get before it gets any better." He also said, "When you have a financial crisis, it reverberates in other financial markets, especially in those with speculative excess." Seems like he thinks that the busting real estate bubble is gonna take a lot of other things down with it. Maybe its time to look at DOG, SH and PSQ.

The Walking Trees

In my younger days, I used to tell a story, usually when I had been drinking. I don't know the exact origin of the story. May have been something I read or maybe it was just the result of alcohol delusion. The one thing I do remember was that it always pissed my wife off when I started to tell it. The story went like this:

Once, many years ago, there were no people, only trees. Back then trees were not rooted in the ground. They walked around as people do today. Gradually there became more trees and more trees until finally there was no room for the trees to walk around. They put down roots and stayed in one place. Now there are people. At first there were not many people but gradually there are more people and more people.

That is where the story always ended. I can't remember for sure if that was because there was no more to it, or if that is when my wife would say "would you stop telling that stupid story."

What my story represented was a saturation point. A point where a process can no longer go in the direction that it has been going. This morning I have read some articles that go me to thinking about that story. First I read Dr Donald Miller's story about global warming and then I read an article about proposed congressional legislation to outlaw incandescent light bulbs. Both of these stores brought to mind the need for additional bureaucracy to administer the changes they call for. We already have no dearth of bureaucracies in this world so it would seem that a couple of more would probably go unnoticed. But, like the trees in my story, they reach a saturation point. With bureaucracies, its not a question of not being able to move around, but more a question of where does the money come from to pay for them?

Our county has been and is loosing jobs and industry. I read the other day that 40% of all income in the United States is from the government. Either direct government jobs or indirectly from contractors to the government. Since the government produces no money of its own, that means that the 60% of the workers that are productive are having to cover their own costs and also pay the cost of the other 40% paid by the government. When you add a couple of more bureaucracies to handle ration cards and light bulbs, and loose a couple of more manufacturing plants to Mexico and China, the percentages slip somemore. Pretty soon 50% of the people will be paying for themselves and also paying for the other 50% working for the government, then 40% will be paying for themselves and also paying for the other 60%... etc. etc. etc.

It has taken this country 231 years to get to this point although most of this has happened in the last 94 years (since 1913). I suspect that the process is speeding up, like a snowball rolling down hill. How much longer do we have before 100% of the people are dependent upon the government for all their income and where will that money come from?

Its not about the Environment, Its about Control and Money

When you read this article by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD pay particular attention to the sixth paragraph from the bottom. For you mathmatically challenged types, I have quoted it below:

Gore barely mentions the Kyoto Protocol in his film and says nothing about what sacrifices people will have to make in order to reduce CO2 emissions. He does say, however, that combating CO2-induced global warming will take a commitment similar to what the country had to make to win World War II. At some point in this climate war the government will ration CO2 and issue "carbon credits" – CO2 ration cards. In World War II Americans had to have the appropriate ration card to purchase gasoline, tires, coffee, sugar, meat, and shoes; a certificate to purchase a stove; and an authorization for vacation travel. At the height of the War on CO2 global governance, which only a socialist state can provide, will be required to rein in CO2 emissions, with international inspectors at one’s doorstep prosecuting and confiscating property of people and industries that make "greedy [CO2-producing] choices," like using an air-conditioner and driving a SUV.

If you read the entire article, you will see that (1) global warming and cooling has virtually nothing to do with anything man is doing. (2) Gore and his crowd stand to make a lot of money off "controlling global warming." (3) Since we are in a warming cycle that is probably due to last until the year 2250 or maybe even 2400, the steps that the "global warming fighters" propose will continue to become ever increasingly draconian.

The Next President

I have been saying this for a while. Looks like someone else believes the same thing.

This News Report Reminds Me Of A Story

When I read the last line of

[DEAD LINK]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070312/ap_on_sc/polar_trek

this news article I was reminded of a story one of my supervisors once told me.

It seems that there was once a man who insisted that he was dead. His family argued with him but to no avail. Finally, being very concerned with his mental state, they insisted that he go see a doctor. He agreed to their requests. The doctor tried to reason with the man that he was not dead, but the man continued to insist that he was dead. Finally, the doctor asked the man, "Do dead men bleed?" The man said no, dead men don't bleed. With that, the doctor took a pin and pricked the mans finger and a drop of blood appeared. The man looked at the doctor and said, I was wrong, dead men do bleed.

It also reminds me of a plaque which that same supervisor had on his desk. It said "My mind is made up, don't try to confuse me with facts."

Political Correctness

I just read this definition of Political Correctness in a newsletter from "The Mogambo Guru." He attributes it to one of his readers, Phil S.

"Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end”.

Now why can't I come up with great stuff like that?

Homonyms

Homonyms aggravate the crap out of me. I'm always using the wrong one in the wrong place. One particularly troublesome set is (their, there, they're). I find that when I am proof reading anything I've written (yes, I do actually proof read, bet you never guessed it) that over half of the "theirs" should be "theres" and vis versa.

Well I've come up with a solution. From now on, I think I will use "thr" in place of (their, there, they're). Mostly in place of the first two; I really don't use the contraction "they're" that much in writing.

So from now on, thr are gonna be a lot of people reading thr emails from me and wondering if thr actually seeing what they think thr seeing.

ALDI

Several years ago, I became aware of a no frills grocery chain named ALDI. If you go to their website, you will see that they are a worldwide store. They do several things to cut costs.

For one thing, they rent shopping carts, although rent is not actually the correct term. Its more like a deposit system. All of their shopping carts are chained together in front of the store. Each chain device has a slot that releases the chain when you insert a quarter. When you are finished with the cart, you return it to the front of the store, reinsert the chain and get your quarter back. This keeps them from having to have someone clear the parking lot of carts.

Another thing is they don't provide bags. They have bags for sale if you need them, but they encourage customers to bring their own bags. They have counters where people can go and bag their groceries, but I choose to take the cart to the car, bag the groceries at the car and then return the cart.

Their last cost cutting measure that I will mention is their use of store brands. They do have some nationally advertised brands, but most of their merchandise consists of store brands. They maintain that the quality is as good as highly advertised national brands, but they are able to sell for less due to not having the advertising costs.

When I first became aware of ALDI, there was not one in Alabama. There were a couple in Kentucky along the route of the World's Longest Yard Sale. I stopped in an shopped at them. Since I was away from home, there was a limit to what I could buy and utilize. A couple of weeks ago, I discovered that ALDI now has two store in Alabama. One is in Gadsden, the other in Bessemer. Last Monday, I went an bought groceries at the one in Bessemer. I was pleased with the items I bought. Yesterday (Monday) I went back for a second trip. I restocked on some of the items I had bought previously and liked. I also extended my range of items by getting a few more things to try.

Its not for everyone. The store itself is small, more like some of the grocery stores of my youth. They only have one checkout line in operation and you can be certain of having to stand in line, but you can also be assured that the line moves fast. I have read that they only take cash, however I think that at the one in Bessemer they must take something else, like debit cards, because the checker always asks if this is a cash sale.

I have not done an extensive cost comparison, and people who live any distance away would have to make allowances for fuel costs, but so far, it seems to me that I get a great deal more for my money at ALDI than I do at other grocery stores.

Question Authority

I got an email this morning from a friend entitled, "What Kind Of Man Would Do Such A Thing." It describes an incident told in a story by "Sergeant Major of the Army Jack Tilley." You can read the story from the message at snopes.com .

Kind of uplifting, especially if you are a George Bush fan, unfortuantely it is an embelishment of what really happened. Of course readers of this blog, all 4 of you, know that I don't particularly approve of Mr. Bush, but even if I did, I always question this sort of story. The first thing I do when I read something like this is to check snopes.com. It's not because I don't like Mr. Bush. It is because he is in a position of authority and I know that people with authority must be watched, questioned and held accountable. That is true for all people with authority. When Lord Acton said, "Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely", he hit the nail on the head. I don't care who you are talking about, whether it is the president of a county, the governor of a state, the probate judge or commissioner of a county, the mayor of a town or the president of your local little league association, you need to watch them. If they do something that does not seem right, it probably isn't.

Some of my friends call me a cynic. They say I don't believe in anything. Well, they are wrong, I do believe that mankind in general is good. I believe that the average joe walking down the street is a good person, but give him a little authority and the worst that is in him will pop to the surface. For my friends who love to quote the bible, remember the bible says that God created man in his own image. "In his own image"... all that means is that mankind is created to look like God. If you take a turd and shape it to look like a fudge brownie, it is still a turd. Maybe I am a cynic?

I Have Been Wrong

For years I have been saying that we did not accomplish anything in Vietnam. That is wrong. What I should say is that we did not accomplish anything positive in Vietnam. Obviously we did accomplish some things. For one, we ruined Billy Walkabout's life.

How many Billy Walkabouts are in Iraq right now?

E911 in Coosa County

For several months now Coosa County has been working on implementing an enhanced 911 system. It would appear from the articles and letters in the March 9th issue of the Coosa County News that they may be the first location in the country where implementation of E911 takes lives instead of saving them. I say that because the headline of the paper was "Sparks fly over E911 Issues". Seems they had a heated meeting that turned into a full scale argument about implementation. If that wasn't enough, another article reports that one of the county commissioners had been arrested for assault. Seems he and the Kellyton Fire Cheif got in fist fight over, you guessed it, E911. In the letters to the editor section of the paper, there was a letter of apology from the County E911 chairman for loosing control of the March 1st meeting and for loosing his temper.

I think maybe Coosa County ought to give up on this E911 thing before someone gets hurt.

Environmentalism

President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic says that

[DEAD LINK]
http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/czech_pres_environmentalism_is_a_religion/20070309-060020-3030r/

environmentalism is a religion. I have been saying that same thing for years. Back when I was growing up we had conservation. That was a good thing. Conservation tried to protect the natural environment. Environmentalism is more concerned with a political adgenda than with helping mother nature.

Low Ratings

Could it be that this program did not attract any viewers because people intuitively know that global warming and global cooling have been going on since time started. All this talk about masses of concerned citizens is probably a bunch of propganda just like the talk of a scientific concensus.

The propagandist hope to talk about this subject long enough so they can get people to believe that there is actually something to it. So far, I don't think it is working, in spite of what the talking heads say.

Upgrading To Vista?

I guess it will be awhile before I upgrade to Vista. In fact it will probably be awhile before I upgrade to XP. Right now I am using a W98se machine. To be perfectly honest, I currently have it booted up with a live-cd version of PCLinuxOS. I can do virtually everything I need to do with the old PII W98se machine. I do have a newer, faster, P4 machine that I bought used with W2K installed. I have it hooked up and running beside the W98se machine. I currently use a KVM switch so I can toggle back and forth between the two. I am gradually moving my data and favorite applications to the P4 machine. You might say that I am highly into "mature" technologies.

Buying An Automobile

My father, who was a mechanic for over 40 years, used to say that you should never buy the cheapest model of any car. They don't hold their value as well as the slightly more upscale models. He also said to not get a lot of extra stuff on a car because eventually it is gonna go wrong and be an expensive pain in the ass to repair. I certainly think that this qualifies as one of those things he was warning against:

Legislature Pay Raise

Well this takes a load off my mind. I certainly wouldn't want our fine bunch of legislators to do without money?! Sixty Percent , where I come from we would call that a pretty good raise. Of couse we would like to pay them what they are really worth, but no one has invented negative value money yet.

Will History Repeat Itself

In 1972, Gerald Ford was not someone who looked like he would be the next President of the United States. Then Spiro Agnew was forced to resign as Vice President and President Nixon nominated Ford who was approved by the congress. As everyone knows, when Nixon resigned, Ford became president. Now, it appears possible that health concerns might force

[THIS LINK NO LONGER POINTS TO THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE]
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cm/content/view/155/162/

Vice President Cheney to consider resigning or the stress of the office could "resign" for him.

Should that happen, who would Bush nominate for the office of Vice President? At least two articles that I have read say Condi Rice. I have thought that the one thing standing between "W" and impeachment is the fact that Dick Cheney would become president. If he steps down or succombs to his health problems, could Condi Rice be the next Gerald Ford? It would be a real touch of irony if the first President of the United States from the State of Alabama was a black woman.

Optomists or Idiots?

We Americans are either the most optomistic bunch of people in the history of the world or the biggest idiots. How else can you explain the results of this CBS News Poll?

Actually I am not referring so much to the poll itself as I am the statement in the last paragraph. That being "Most Americans believe government can play a role in fixing the health care system." Why would they think that the government could fix anything? This is like a man who starts new businesses for a living. Everytime he starts one and gets it running, he turns it over to his idiot cousin who immediately ruins it. Government is that idiot cousin. Everything they try to run gets screwed up.

Now I admit that we have some health care and insurance issues in this country, but who in their right mind would think that the government could straighten it out. If the whole truth was known, government meddling is the primary cause of most of the health care problems we have today. Back when the late Harry Browne was running for President, he said that the figures indicate that elderly Americans spent a smaller percentage of their overall income for healthcare before Medicare was started, and had better care. I did not take the time to check the figures for myself but I believe that Harry Browne was an honest man and I think that he spoke the truth.

Based on what I know, if we expect the government to cure our healthcare problems, we have to be optomists or idiots, you can decide for yourself which we are.

Dodge Automatic Transmission

Last year I came to the realization that it was time for me to buy a new (as in new to me, not brand new) vehicle. The Nissan pickup that I was driving as my primary vehicle was accumulating a lot of miles. Plus, with the birth of my grandson, I needed something with a backseat so I could have a place for his carseat. Being a pickup man at heart and having had good luck with my Nissan pickup, I first started looking for a late model used Nissan Frontier 4 door Crew Cab. Soon I discovered that all of them are equiped with the V-6 engine which has a timing belt. I have owned a couple of cars with timing belts, but I don't like it. Give me a good old chain, not as much chance of breaking.

With the Nissan out of the picture, my next choice was a pickup with a compression ignition engine (what we all call a diesel.) I did some research and quickly discovered that the Dodge 2500 with a Cummins diesel was right up my alley. The one cavet seemed to be the automatic transmission. The internet is littered with horror stories about the Dodge automatic transmission. Not only the diesel model, but the gasoline model as well. So my first choice became a Dodge 2500 with Cummins diesel and manual transmission. After doing a lot of searching, I found three vehicles in my general price range. Unfortunately, all three of them were automatic transmission. Back to the internet. I found an article by a guy who seemed to know what he was talking about. He said it was not a matter of if a Dodge automatic transmisson went out but more a question of when. I thought about it, did a little research on the costs of repair versus the cost of the manual equipped vehicle and decided to take my chances.

The first vehicle I checkout was in Florida, near where my daughter, son-in-law and grandson live. It was a nice vehicle but I told the guy I still wanted to check out the other two before I jumped. The second vehicle was in Wetumpka, only about 75 miles from me. I had misread the price on the internet. It was a nice truck but a little out of my price range. The third truck was in Franklin TN. I drove up there in a Volvo that I intended to trade. Sure enough, it was just what I wanted so I bought it. The drive home was uneventful as were the next couple of months of driving.

Then one morning, I started out of my driveway, which in sort of steep and about 1/2 way up the drive the transmission seemed to jump out of gear. I had a Ford van one time that was bad to leak transmisson fluild, when it would get low, it acted just like the Dodge was acting. Unfortunately, I had already checked the transmission fluid and it was right up on the full mark. I discovered that if I let the transmission warm up a little and started off with the lever in first gear it did better. This went on for a few weeks and then one day as I was taking a sharp corner a little faster than usual, the tranmission seemed to slip and then catch back up, just like it was low of fluid.

I became reconciled that my little truck was soon to need a rebuilt transmission. I went back to the internet and started searching in earnest for stories of successful Dodge transmission repair. I found some, but mostly what I found were horror stories of multiple transmission failures and replacements. I was beginning to question my original decision. Then I happened on to a site where someone was discussing a problem exactly like mine. One of the answerers said that when the Dodge with an automatic transmission sits for a while, the torque converter drains back into the pan. The pump that fills the torque converter in the Dodge automatic transmission does not run when the transmission is in park. He said that the individual needed to shift the transmission into neutral and let the engine run for a couple of minutes before attempting to drive away, especially in cold weather. A light went off in my head. I knew to check my transmission fluid with the engine running, but was not aware that the Dodge automatic transmission had to be in neutral instead of park. I went out, set the parking brake, started the engine and checked the transmission fuild. The tip of the stick was barely touching the fluid. I had to put 2 quarts of AFT+4 in the transmission to bring it up to the proper level.

I suspect that there are a lot more folks out there that are just like I was. They thought they had their Dodge automatic transmisson full when they didn't. I would not be a bit surprised if that is not the source of some of the Dodge automatic transmisson failures. So, if you are driving a Dodge with a automatic transmission, be sure and have the transmission shifted to neutral when you check the transmission fluid. By the way, it plainly says on the transmission stick to check the fluid level with the transmission in "neutral."

New TV Reality Show?

The ABC network has a show called Boston Legal. Based on recent activities in Boston , someone should come up with a reality show and name it Boston Paranoia. Just in case the link to the recent activities does not load, it shows a Boston bomb squad blowing up a traffic counter that the street department had installed to count the number of cars passing that location.

Global Warming On Mars

This article on Space.com and this one on Nationalgeographic.com suggest that Mars is also experiencing global warming. Must be from that rover we sent up there!?

Cairo is kind of like Pelham

This video kind of reminds me of Pelham, except we don't have a river.

From the Golden Child

One of my favorite parts of the Eddie Murphy Movie, The Golden Child, is when the old monk tells him, "You have to know when to break the rules." Knowing when to break the rules is definitely a lesson

[DEAD LINK]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070301/od_nm/germany_exam_toilet_dc;_ylt=AiEGhPKn8JdrHEn5kS7M5d0uQE4F

these German exam supervisors have not yet learned.

An Open Letter To My Republican Friends

Back in my younger days, I had the pleasure of working with a man named Jay Johnson. Jay, who was about the same age as my father, was a fine man. He and I saw many things the same way but one area where we disagreed was on football. Jay was an Alabama fan; I am an Auburn fan. This was during a time when Alabama's football fortunes were particularly high. In the years when Alabama was doing real well, Jay would tell me that I should be pulling for Alabama to beat Auburn, as Alabama had a chance at a national championship. If they won a national championship, it would reflect well on the state. That went on for several years. Then one year, Auburn had some success and Alabama had an off year. Around Mid November, it was obvious that Auburn had a chance to contend nationally, while Alabama would not be in the hunt for the national championship that year. I went into Jay's office and pretty well parroted back to him the speech he had given to me so often over the years, except I switched Auburn and Alabama. He grimaced and shook his head. He would not pull for Auburn.

During my lifetime I have been fortunate to have many friends and friendly acquaintances. Many of them were and are Republicans. Every time there was an election, at least one of them would chastise me telling me that I was wasting my vote by voting for a libertarian, who had no chance to win. After all, "America has a two party system, third parties never win." I would point out to them that the libertarian candidate had views that much more closely represented their own, but they insisted on holding their nose and voting for the lesser of two evils.

In politics, just as in football, fortunes turn. This year, there is a major party candidate that would make any libertarian proud. He is Congressman Ron Paul of Texas. To my Republican friends, I offer this challenge. Read what Ron Paul has to say. Listen to his speeches. See if you don't agree that he is the person that you should support for president. Or, you can grimace, shake your head, hold your nose and vote for a better-known candidate with more money and name recognition who might have a better chance of winning.

Keene Free Press - A Tale Of Two Campaigns

Here is a report from Keene, NH on some early presidental campaign speechs. Specifically, the author goes to see Hillary Clinton and Ron Paul and discusses his impressions. I found it interesting.

Alabama Needs To Do This

I just read this article which says that Wyoming has eliminated the sales tax on food. The State of Alabama really needs to do this also.

Former Wyoming State Rep. Ann Robinson said "Food is the most basic need of the people of Wyoming and it is not a place for collecting taxes." She is exactly right and the same is true for Alabama. A sales tax on food is one of the most regressive taxes in existence. Only a tax on air or water could be more onerous. In some municipalities in Alabama, the sales tax is currently 10 percent. In those areas, poor people are paying 10% more for food than they have to. What about it Alabama Legislature, Do you have it in you to eliminate the sales tax on food?

A Scary Look To The Future

In this article, Jim Amrhein gives us a scary look into what direction we seem to be heading. What makes this even more scary is that Linda and I were having a conversation just a few days ago about this same sort of thing. When everyday people like us can see this coming, it must be fairly obvious. Why are people not raising hell about this? Probably because the intelligentsia and the news media keep their minds occupied with junk science stuff like the alarmist predictions for global warming.

Something That Every State Should Do

[DEAD LINK]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070301/ap_on_re_us/elderly_shootout_1

This article says that "A group of (Georgia) lawmakers wants to make it harder for police to use "no-knock" warrants in the wake of a shootout that left an elderly woman dead after plainclothes officers stormed her home unannounced in a search for drugs."

This is something that all states should consider and pass. Previously I have linked to a map that showed the occurances of deaths due to "no-knock" warrants. Entirely too many police and civilians have been killed or wounded because of "no-knock" warrants.

In a different article, I have read that Mrs. Johnston, who was 92 year old, was fearful of home invasion. What she did is what most any law abiding citizen would do if three unknown men in street clothes kicked down their front door. I know that if someone kicks in my front door, they can expect that kind of response. I have nothing to hide, just as subsequent police investigations proved that Mrs. Johnston had nothing to hide. I am sure that if the police had knocked on her door, identified themselves as police and showed her a search warrant, she would have welcomed them.

"No-knock" warrants are a failed product of the failed war on drugs. How many innocent people must die before we correct this failure?

My Father's Birthday

Today is my father's birthday. He would have been 86 years old. During the last years of his life, he had a little schaunzer dog named Corky. He loved that little dog. Often when he would be talking about Corky, he would say "That little boy, he's a little man."

When I received the following picture of my grandson, I was immediately reminded of what my father used to say about his little dog. I suspect that if my father were still alive, he would be saying that same thing about his greatgrandson.

Word Verification

Well tonight I tried to make a post about Backwoods Home Magazine and when I went to post, the verification word was blank. This prompted me to look around and try to figure out how to cut word verification off. Of course you have to type the verification word to cut word verification off. Catch 22.

Finally I tried a different browser and the verification word displayed and I was able to make my post. Then I went back to the word verification page and discovered that the reason word verification is turned on is that blogger thinks I might be a spam blog. Apparently what constitues a spam blog is a lot of links with non-sense text. I guess that pretty much describes my Blog ;>)

Backwoods Home Magazine

Several years ago, I had a subscription to Backwoods Home Magazine. I really liked it but during one of my economizing efforts, I let my subscription expire. I did not have a subscription for quite a while, then a few months back, I was reading Claire Wolfes blog and came across a mention of Backwoods Home Magazine. I checked out their website and ended up subscribing again. It is an excellent self reliance / self sufficiency magazine.

I'm Not A Homophobe

Before any of you read my last post and think I am a homophobe, let me assure you that I am not. As a libertarian, I really don't care, nor do I think it is any of my business, what consenting adults do sexually. I am for equal rights for everyone and that is an all inclusive everyone. What I don't like is this never ending process of identifying "minority groups" and setting them and their feelings above everyone else. Sure, I think it is insensitive and vulgar to make fun of someone else because of their race, or religion or sexual orientation, or anything else that makes them different. I also suspect that occasionally all of us have been insensitive and vulgar during our lifetime. If everyone does it, then how can you expect to police it? When I was growing up in Coosa County, we used to have an expression for someone who was being obnoxious. We told them "rave on catshit, someone will cover you up." Unless the thought police and PC police in California are willing to cover every pile, they should just back off and let school yard squabbles work themselves out. Sooner or later every pile will get covered.

Looks Hypocritical To Me

So in California, it is alright to mock someones religion, but using the word

[DEAD LINK]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070228/ap_on_re_us/so_gay_1

'Gay' is hate speech? If God does not send down fire and brimstone on California pretty soon, he is gonna owe Sodom and Gomorrah an apology.

I Find This Interesting

I find the last sentence

[DEAD LINK]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070228/ap_on_re_us/padilla_terror_charges_6

of this article interesting. I originally thought that this was the guy that tried to light his shoe on fire, but according to this article, he is being charged with "being part of a North American terror support cell that provided money, recruits and supplies to Islamic extremist groups." Islamic extremist groups? For my part, I differentiate between extremist groups and terror groups. I know people that think that Jerry Falwell is a Christian extremist. Does that mean I can be charged with a crime if I provide support for Rev. Falwell? Or, is the article wrong and Padilla is actually being charged with providing support to Islamic terrorist groups? Inquiring minds want to know.

For Every Customer That Complains...

I was once told that retailers estimate that for every customer that complains, there are thirty more that are unsatisfied, but don't complain, they just take their business somewhere else. That says alot about how people react to bad situations. I suspect that for every soldier that signs this petition there are thirty more that know this war is beyond hope, but will bite their tounge and keep on keeping on.

I don't blame them for not speaking up. They should not have to. That is our job as citizens. Its time that people get their head out of their ass and tell their congressman enough is enough. Hardly a week goes by that I don't write my congressman Spencer Bachus and tell him that we need to bring our men and women home. His office writes me back some of the "W" claptrap about staying the course, accomplishing the mission, etc. In the mean time, our troops are being blown up for hauling "school supplies and soccer balls and crayons and notebooks and coloring books."

If you really love your country and want to support the troops, write your Representative and tell him or her to get our men and women out of that Godforsaken shithole.

Redneck Economic Indicators

Thanks to the internet, I can read about a lot of things that I really don't understand. One of these things is what is called "the inverted yield curve." Seems it is a fairly accurate predicter of a recession. For those of you who are like me and don't know a lot about such things, we have an inverted yield curve when the interest rate paid on 30 year government bonds is lower than the interest rate paid on 90 day government bonds, or is it 1 year government bonds? Anyway you get the picture. Short term bonds paying a higher rate than long term bonds.

I don't know much about government bonds. Until I was middle aged, the only bond I knew anything about was what my parents called "war bonds." Needless to say, the inverted yield curve is a somewhat abstract indicator where I come from.

Don't worry about us Rednecks though. We have our own set of indicators. My personal ones are pickup trucks and travel trailers. I can drive up and down US Hwy 31, 231 and 280 and get a pretty good idea of how the economy is doing. How you say? By observing the number of pickup trucks and travel trailers that are sitting on the side of the road with for sale signs on them. The more of them that are for sale, the worse the economy is. Of course, in the case of the travel trailers you have to do a little seasonal adjusting cause there are always more of them for sale in the offseason.

I don't know exactly why it works but I have a theory. It has to do with who the recession affects the most. It does not drastically change the life style of the poor people. They already have it tough and anyway they can't afford travel trailers. It does not dramatically affect the rich people, they just use their class A motor home less frequently. Nope, it affects the middle class. The folks who have pickup trucks as their second vehicle, unless they are like me and have a pickup truck as their primary and second vehicle. They are the ones who opt for travel trailers instead of motor homes cause travel trailers are cheaper and can be pulled by one of their other vehicles, usually their pickup truck. They are the ones that feel the affects of the recession first. They have to cut back so they sell their travel trailer and may have to sell their second vehicle, the pickup truck. It cuts back on tag, insurance and fuel expense and generates some much needed temporary cash flow.

As a point of information, the last time I checked, the yield curve was inverted and there are a lot more pickups and travel trailers for sale than there were this time last year.

If You Have Nothing To Hide...

One of the least compelling arguments that can be made for a warrantless intrution is the phrase, "if you have nothing to hide, you should not mind us taking a look around." The sister argument that I often hear about new laws that invade our privacy is, "if you have done nothing wrong, it won't affect you." Both of these statements imply a naiveness on the part of the speaker.

First of all, everyone has something to hide. It may not be illegal or immoral, it may just be embarrassing, like a sink full of dirty dishes or a soiled pair of underwear on top of the clothes hamper. The founding fathers recognized that fact and included the fourth amendment to the constitution in the bill of rights. I like to think of it as the sink full of dirty dishes amendment. If authorities suspect that you have something illegal on your property, they can go before a judge and get a search warrant. If they just don't like you because your son beat their son out for a position on the basketball team, they can keep their ass off your property.

As for the argument that innocent people have nothing to fear from the law, that is just not true. With troubling frequency, I see news reports of someone who has been wrongly accused and convicted of a crime and is being released. Often the release is due to DNA evidence, but many times it is due to the uncovering of procecutoral misconduct. Police under pressure to clear cases and government procecutors hoping for promotion bend the rules to get convictions.

Several years ago, when I worked at a local public utility, I often told my coworkers that it was preferable for ten guilty persons to go free rather than one innocent person be convicted and imprisoned. Many of my coworkers disagreed with me. Some characterized my statement as being leftist, socialist, communist and even athiest. I suspect that if they were wrongly convicted of a crime and sentenced to prison, they would quickly recognize the truth in my statement.

Congressman Ron Paul

Congressman Ron Paul has a video on YouTube explaining why he is considering a run for the Presidency.

A FoxNews.Com Article about Congressman Ron Paul

You won't see me linking to Fox News very often, but it seems to me that this article does a pretty fair job of describing Congressman Ron Paul and his candidacy for President.

The Overall Tax Rate

A while back, I did some rough calculations and determined the average overall tax rate (ie. total taxes paid divided by total income recieved) for an average American is about 50%. This weekend I read an article where the author was comparing overall tax rates in various countries throughout the world. He used 50% as the overall tax rate in the USA. Unless he and I made the same mistakes, I guess my estimate was fairly accurate. Half of all the money we make goes to taxes. That includes income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, excise taxes and all the other open or hidden taxes.50%, half, we keep half and the various government agencies take the other half.

Along about the same time that I did my calculation, I read an article that was discussing the plight of one town in Ohio. They had a Ford plant that was closing and when it did, the tax revenues that were collected in the town were going to go down. The city government said that in order to "maintain city services", they were going to have to come up with a way to offset the decrease in tax revenue. To do that, they proposed to raise the local sales tax by one and one half percent.

This past weekend, I read an article that said that the decrease in sales of tobacco products, brought about by the tax supported campaign to get people to stop using tobacco, was resulting in a decrease in tobacco tax revenue. The article pointed out that something had to be done to offset the lost revenue. While no specific solution was offered, the implication seemed to be that other tax revenue sources would have to be found to offset the loss.

Similarly, I have recently read at least two articles that discussed that higher fuel cost would result in people buying less fuel. Lower fuel sales would result in less fuel tax revenue. Governmemt agencies that would be affected were said to be scrambling to figure out a way to offset the loss in tax revenue.

Back in 1980, I went throught a divorce. Suddenly, I had less income and about the same number of bills. I did try to increase my income, but mostly, I had to immediately reduce my spending. No where in any of the articles about loss of tax revenues did I see anyone talk about reducing spending. Apparently, reduction of government tax funded spending is unthinkable.

When the sales tax is raised in that Ohio town, the effective tax rate on those people will become 1.5 percent higher. If the tax on tobacco is shifted off onto some other "vice" like fast food, the tax rate on all those non-smoking McDonald's customers will be increased. When the government figures out how to tax fuel by the mile instead of the gallon, many of those people who have opted for fuel efficient vehicles will have their tax rate increased.

With overall taxes currently at 50%, and the trend in government spending increasing and tax rates increasing, where does it all end? Will we eventually get to a tax rate of 100%? Will every penny you earn go to pay some government tax and you will have nothing left to buy food, pay your mortgage, or go to the movies? Obviously not. But where is the break point? How much is too much? Where between 50% and 100% is the proverbal straw that broke the camel's back?

The Sunshine Vitamin

This article by Bill Sardi says that Vitamin D is much more important than we have been told previously.

I remember that when I was very young my mama used to give us Cod Liver Oil. Our family doctor had recommended it. I've always been reasonably healthy, I wonder if that extra Vitamin D in the Cod Liver Oil had anything to do with that?

Fight Them Over There

One of the mantras of the supporters of the Iraq war is "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here". Sounds good in theory, but in practice, fighting them over there is

[DEAD LINK]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070219/ap_on_re_us/iraq_small_town_burden_1

hurting some folks just as much as if we were fighting them over here.

End Hammer Violence Now!

When will Chicago realize that enough is enough and move to put a stop to

[DEAD LINK]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070218/ap_on_re_us/chicago_slayings_1

this hammer violence? I know, the capenter's unions will say when hammers are outlawed, only outlaws will have hammers but is the City of Chicago going to cave to a special interest group and allow this senseless violence to contine?

I have heard that anyone can go into a home improvement store in Chicago and buy a hammer without producing any ID. Apparently there is no hammer licenseing either. It is time for Chicago's mayor and city government to stop hammer violence.

The Wonders Of Direct Deposit?

Ok, I'm guessing that

[DEAD LINK]
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/17/death.television.reut/index.html

this man was drawing social security and it was directly deposited to his bank and that his electric company was set up to debit his bank account for his electric bill.

Bugatti Veyron

All I can say is DAMN!

Bugatti Veyron at top speed
Uploaded by Flabber

An Honest Politician

There is one man in Washington, D.C. that tells the truth. He is Congressman Ron Paul of Texas. Yesterday he made a speech before the House of Representatvies, during the debate on the Iraq War Resolution. You owe it to yourself to take time right now to read that speech . After you do, ask yourself, "What part of Congressman Paul's speech do I disagree with and why?"

I agree with him completely. You may not, but it is time that we all ask ourselves, Why? Why do we believe what we believe? Is it because of what we were taught in school? Is it because of what our parents taught us? Or is it because of listening to CNN and Fox News, et.al.? The time for rote is over. We all need to begin to question what is going on around us. We need to look for real causes and real answers and not just babble back sound bite answers like a bunch of trained parrots.

God Works In Mysterious Ways

Is this his way of telling us to get our head out of our ass?

The Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality hearing scheduled for Wednesday, February 14, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. in room 2123 Rayburn House Office Building has been postponed due to inclement weather. The hearing is entitled “Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Human Activities Contributing to a Warming of the Planet?”

The hearing will be rescheduled to a date and time to be announced later.

Could just be a coincidence, but you gotta wonder ;>)

The Next President

Those of you who know me best (by the way, y'all are the only ones that read this blog, I don't even read it myself) know that one of my pet theories is the 'Presidental Deterioration Theory' or PDT. Stated simply, it says that since the early 20th century, each President of the United States has been worse than his predecessor. Maybe wrong, maybe right, its just a theory I have based on my observations.

Given that the politicing for the next presidental race is heavily underway, I decided to apply my theory and see if I could predict who the next president will be. Notice I didn't say who the winner will be. Believe me, if the PDT holds up, the next one definitely won't be a 'winner'.

First of all, I double checked to make sure that Hitler, Stalin and Chairman Mao were all still dead. Next I checked to assure myself that Charlie Manson was still in prison. With those tasks out of the way, I surveyed the field and I can report that we have a definite front runner. If the PDT continues to hold up, Hillary Clinton will be the next President of the United States. She is the only one of the existing candidates that can possibly be worse than Bush.

One cavet, if the decider, who by his own proclamations is above the law, decides that the 22th amendment to the constitution does not apply to him and decides to succeed himself, then he would be the next President. In that case, the PDT would definitely be working cause I am sure that a third term would be worse than the second.

Does NASCAR thinks its the NCAA

Tonight I was reading the news online and I came across this article. I don't follow NASCAR and I don't have the slightest idea what is going on with these crew chiefs and drivers but when I read where NASCAR Chairman Brian France had said "It's obvious that we've ramped up our penalties, and we're going to get people's attention and slow this down," I was immediately reminded of the NCAA. As I have said before, I think the NCAA is an organization that has outlived it usefulness. Instead of regulating college athletics, it has become an organization that appears to think that college athletics exists to give it a reason for being. Is NASCAR headed in the same direction?

Does NASCAR have a problem with rules being broken, or is the problem that NASCAR just has too many rules? It has been my experience that all organizations, governing bodies, and bureaucracies that exercise control over others continue to become increasingly restrictive and their rules escalate in complexity until they destroy the very entity they were set up to regulate. Is that what is happening here with NASCAR? I don't know but knowing what I do about such organizations, I would bet that it is.

Bankruptcy

Who? The US Government. When? Soon. Doubt it, then read this quote from David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, The Washington Post, 24 December 2006.

The largest employer in the world announced on Dec. 15 that it lost about $450 billion in fiscal 2006. Its auditor found that its financial statements were unreliable and that its controls were inadequate for the 10th straight year. On top of that, the entity’s total liabilities and unfunded commitments rose to about $50 trillion, up from $20 trillion in just six years. If this announcement related to a private company, the news would have been on the front page of major newspapers. Unfortunately, such was not the case – even though the entity is the U.S. Government.

To put the figures in perspective, $50 trillion is $440,000 per American household and is more than nine times as much as the median household income. The only way elected officials will be able to make the tough choices necessary to put our nation on a more prudent and sustainable long-term fiscal path is if opinion leaders state the facts and speak the truth to the American people … We hope the media and other opinion leaders do their part to save the future for our children and grandchildren.

~ David M. Walker
Comptroller General of the United States
"America’s Red Ink" (The Washington Post, 24 December 2006)

Still skeptical? Check out this article by Chris Leithner. Its very long but contains a lot of valuable information.

Hubris

Hubris is defined as exaggerated self pride or self-confidence. When I look around me today I can't help but think that it is the one word that most throughly describes us. We are a nation of hubris. Don't misunderstand me. I still love this country and would not consider living anywhere else. We, for the time being at least, still enjoy several of the original rights described in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We still have plenty to eat. But, we are not the same great nation we once were.

My love for this country now is much like the love you would have for a wayward adult son or daughter. One who had become a drunkard or dope addict. One who worked, but spent much more than they earned and who was constantly bulling or threatening those around them. One who engaged in all sorts of questionable acts, but who went to church on Sunday and then pointed their finger at others as being "sinners." Yes, you would still love them, but definitely not their acts.

Of course the question comes to mind, if this is true, what can we do about it. As individuals, not much. Unfortunately, we still have too many folks running around thinking and saying "we're number one." At one time, John Dillinger was public enemy number one, so being number one is not necessarily a good thing. I suppose we can recognize our own short comings as individuals. We can try to make ourselves better and serve as an example to others. And most of all we can pray for a restoration of the humility and compassion that once made this such a great nation.

Charley Reese on the Muslim Peril

Charley Reese talks about the Muslim Peril or more correctly the lack of it. As I read this article, I once again asked myself, why is it that we cannot catch Osama Bin Ladin? Could it be that he is more useful to the powers that be if he is running around stirring up things?

Still More On Global Warming

This is another thought provoking blog entry that talks about global warming.

More On Global Warming

I have heard it said that if you tell a lie long enough, you begin to believe it yourself. I think this article indirectly addresses how that phenomenon has affected the debate on global warming. It also details some interesting observations made by Henrik Svensmark.

Our Troops

Everyone is always writing and talking about our troops. I admit I am as guilty as anyone else. With all this "troop" talk, did you ever stop to think about who these troops really are? [THIS LINK NO LONGER POINTS TO THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE] http://www.capitolhillblue.com/wp/2007/02/09/2043 This article provides some insight into the answer to that question.

Goodwater and Rockford

I subscribe to the Coosa County News to make sure that I know what is going on in Coosa County. Since I am in Shelby County more than I am in Coosa, it helps me to keep up. A few days ago when I drove by the Eagle, a local convenience store in Rockford, I noticed that it had closed. In the January 26th issue of the Coosa County News, the managing editor of the paper had a editorial where she mentioned the closing of the Eagle. In that same paper, there was a article about the Wachovia Bank closing in Goodwater. Some of the folks in Rockford were upset about the Eagle's closing and many people in Goodwater were concerned about losing their only bank. I symphatize with both towns, but I don't think that either one of these closings portend a death knoll for these two communities. No, rather I think that the closings are just signs of a downturn in our economy. When the economy is booming, businesses expand. When things tighten up, businesses often feel the need to streamline or in some cases cease operation. Having lived through a few downturns, my observation is that This Too Shall Pass .

Don't Feed The Homeless

When I read
[DEAD LINK]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070203/ap_on_re_us/do_not_feed_the_homeless_2

this article somehow I was reminded of John Stienbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath." Could be because I just watched it this morning over at Linda's, but I think I would have thought of it anyway. I generally do think of "The Grapes of Wrath" when I hear of someone or some group coming down hard on folks who are down on their luck.

Now, before you say it, I know that some of the homeless are mentally ill or sick with some addiction, but I also know that many of them are just folks that have fallen on hard times. As the article pointed out, an increasing number of the homeless are children. Jim Cramer, the host of CNBC's "Mad Money" talks about the time he had to live in his car, that is very close to being homeless. The recent movie "The Pursuit of Happyness" was about a homeless man, who went on to make good. I realize that there are two sides to every story and I probably would not be excited if a bunch of Orlando's homeless moved into the vacant woods next to my house, but still, there seems to be something hard and cold hearted about an ordinance that denys charities the right to give food to homeless people.

The One Thing I have Learned About Baghdad.

There is one thing that I have definitely learned about Baghdad. Don't go to the

[DEAD LINK]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070203/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_070203195544
Market! Seems like everyday I read where someone has blown up a market and killed a lot of people. So, if you find yourself in Baghdad, Don't go to a Market!

Learning Curve

Well one of the previous strikes turns out to be a foul tip. I discovered that by selecting "Edit Html" instead of "Compose" I could indeed paste text. Good thing too, because I realized that often the links that I use are so long that typing them in and getting them correct with my typing skills would be nearly impossible.

All just part of the Learning Curve. If there is one thing that I have learned about software improvements, they are usually "not" improvements, just changes and there is always a Learning Curve. Oh, well, it keeps a lot of IT people employed. I suppose that helps the overall economy.

Two Complaints

Well I have only made a couple of posts with the New version of blogger and already I have complaints. First of all, they have apparently disabled paste in their editor. I often compose my posts offline in word or some other editor, then cut and paste them into the blogger editor. A few minutes ago I tried to paste the correct spelling of a word intothe blogger editor and it would not let me. I can't figure a reason for that unless they think it will cut down on copyright infringements.

The second complaint is with that stupid word verification. I went to publish a few minutes ago and while the word verification box was there, the picture with the word to be typed was not. That is three strikes. If this were baseball, that would be out number one. Two more to go.

Where We Are Headed

Well, I found it. I knew it existed, I just did not know where. What you ask, why our game plan, our goal, our target. A few minutes ago I was reading a newsletter and I came across a statement and immediately I realized that I had discovered the guiding principle for our nation. The one statement that sums up where we are headed.

It is, "That which is not forbidden is compulsory." It obviously sums up what we are trying to achieve. When we, as a nation can say, "That which is not forbidden is compulsory", we will have reached the pinnacle. We will be where most of our elected officials and apparently a majority of our citizens want us to be.

Forced Upgrade

Well Blogger has forced me to update to their new version. I don't have any reason to believe that it will be better than their old version, just different. Since I waited until they forced me, maybe they have gotten out the initial bugs. I notice that they are still using that insipid word verification. That is one strike against the new version. I will pass along any others as I discover them.

The Bible isn't a Screen Play

Often I get to wondering what is going on with the folks in DC. This is especially true of the President and the Vice-President. Much of what they do, particularly in the middle east, just does not make sense. Last week I read an article that said that they (Bush and Cheney) act as they do because they are Dispensationalists and they are "acting" out their parts in history as they see them. Now I am not too knowledgeable about religious things so I went and looked up Dispensationalist and Dispensationalism. I've read about it, I can't say that I understand it, but at least I have a better understanding than I did.

My daddy always told me that his daddy told him, don't make fun of anybody else's religion, it might just be better than yours. Therefore, I am not gonna pass judgement on what Dispensationalists think. And I am not going to accuse Mr Bush and Mr Cheney of being Dispensationalist. I will say this. The bible makes it pretty plain in a couple of places, [In Matt 24:36, 42, 44 , "No one knows about the day and hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father . . . because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him," and Acts 1:7, "It is not for you to know the dates or times which the Father has set by his own authority."] that no one knows when the end times will be. That would seem to indicate that no one should be "acting" out their end time roles. In fact it would seem to me that if you are sure that it is the end times, then it is not. Also, since the bible is not a screen play, a little less "acting" and a lot more living seems to be in order.

Support Our Troops

The very best way to do that is to bring them home NOW!

Hysteria!

That is really all you can call it. Hysteria. The people of the USA have become a bunch of hysterical chicken littles. When an ad campaign can shut a city down, something is wrong. The article quoted the Massachusetts Governer as follows:

Gov. Deval Patrick praised the response of law enforcement and said that he was "dismayed to learn that many of the devices are a part of a marketing campaign by Turner Broadcasting."

"This stunt has caused considerable disruption and anxiety in our community. I understand that Turner Broadcasting has purported to apologize for this. I intend nonetheless to consult with the attorney general and other advisors about what recourse we may have," Patrick said.

I have a suggestion. Tell the folks in Boston to get their head out of their ass. Wake up, Nobody makes bombs with LED figures on them. They use explosives. Have we become such a nation of dumbasses that we piss in our pants everytime we see something that we have not seen before.

Does
[DEAD LINK ] http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20070201/capt.ny20402010027.suspicious_devices_ny204.jpg?x=380&y=285&sig=K0jt.lBZEjEgL21qAJmvKw-- this look like a bomb to you?

Gary North's Tips For Saving Money On College

I subscribe to Gary North's Free Email Newsletter. He offers some good advice on handling your money. This morning, he had a link to a video that he has posted on YouTube telling folks how to save money on college. Looks like good advice to me.

More Saber Rattling

[DEAD LINK] http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070129/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iran_3

Here is some more Saber Rattling from the Decider-in-Chief. I wonder if the evidence of involvement of Iran in Iraq came from the same sources as the evidence of WMDs in Iraq.

Axis of Evil Member Number 2

Here are some pictures from Axis of Evil Member Number 2. The one that the president and vice-president are laying the ground work for attacking.

Believing What We Choose To Believe

Last week, Linda and I were watching the local news. They were running a piece on a recent court decision in the western section of Jefferson County. The judge had ruled that some previously excluded gaming machines were in fact gambling devices and had to be shut down and removed by the end of February. After talking about the ruling, the reporter then interviewed two ladies individually. She asked the first lady if she agreed with the ruling and if she did why? The lady responded that she did agree and that she was against any kind of gambling because she was a Christian. They edited out the question on the second lady and took up her response in mid sentence as she was explaining that she was a Christian and that she thought games of chance were ok.

For some reason, this news piece reminded me of a guy I once worked with. He said that he believed that the Bible was the indisputable, inerrant word of God. He belonged to a denomination that believed that the drinking of alcohol was a sin. I asked him how he could feel that way about alcohol when Jesus himself had turned water into wine and that wine was mentioned repeatedly in the Bible. He told me that it was not wine they were talking about, it was grape juice and they were just calling it wine. I wonder if fornication was actually soccer and they were just calling it fornication???

Too Many Gates

Ok, one of them has got to go. I keep reading these headlines like: Gates says more troops needed in Iraq, and I think, what does Bill Gates and Microsoft have to do with Iraq. Then I remember that the new Secretary of Defense is Robert Gates. That is ok for awhile until I forget again. Just a few minutes ago I saw where Gates says Internet will change TV. Immediately I wondered, what is the Secretary of Defense doing talking about TV and the Internet. One of these Gates is gonna have to give it up and drop out of the public spotlight, or maybe the news reports could do like the Atlanta Braves do with Chipper and Andrew, put their first initial on their jersey. Yeah. That would work. B.Gates talks about the Internet and R.Gates tells us about the armed forces.

Now if someone would just do something about Conde Nast and Condi Rice.

Petition On Iran

I think it is probably time to stop worrying about Iraq and start worrying about Iran. It appears to me that President Bush and Vice-President Cheney are laying the ground work to attack Iran. Now I know that Iran has one dumb SOB for a president, but I believe that the Iranians will throw Ahmadinejad out in due time. In the mean time, the last thing America needs is another war in the middle east.

I have found a website that contains the following petition:

To: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
cc: Chairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House Committee on International Relations


We, the undersigned, vehemently oppose any U.S. military action against Iran. Such military action would inevitably kill large numbers of innocent people, foster even more hatred and international condemnation of the U.S., and dramatically increase the instability of the region. Our own intelligence agencies have concluded the Iraq war has worsened the terrorist threat, and a war against Iran would add immeasurably more fuel to the fire.

Even if Iran decided to build a nuclear weapon, experts agree that it would take several years. There is no crisis, and our government should not create one with inflammatory rhetoric or military threats. The U.S. has both the time and obligation to work with the international community to fashion a diplomatic resolution to the situation, and the current refusal of U.S. officials to talk directly with Iranian officials cannot possibly help resolve the nuclear standoff, nor contribute to peace in Iraq and the Middle East.

Therefore, we urge you to take all steps necessary to reach a peaceful resolution to the current situation, including direct negotiations without pre-conditions. This is the only way to prevent yet another war, one that would be a calamity of truly global proportions.

If you feel as I do, that it would be a grave error for the USA to attack Iran, then I encourage you to go to this website and sign the petition. I have. In case you want to check, I am #33502 on 27-Jan-2007.

Sometimes

Sometimes my tongue is in my cheek, but most times it just sits there behind my teeth.

On To Plan B

Well it should be obvious to everyone by now that my plan to solve the problems in the middle east with barbeque did not work.I still think that some Dreamland Ribs would smooth everything over but, alas that will never be. Not being one to be stopped by a singular failure, I am moving on to Plan B.

I asked myself, what would stop those folks from fighting? Well, what started them to fighting? The first thing that came to my mind was that God made dirt and soon after that everyone in the middle east started fighting, but in more recent times, it looks like the creation of the modern State of Israel may have had a lot to do with it. Now it is obvious that the Israelis deserve a country. I don't think that even the Arabs would deny that. They just don't want it located in their neighboorhood. So I ask myself, what is so special about the Holy Land. I know, a lot went on there, but isn't God everywhere? Would he not be with is people if their country was somewhere else? But where? Well I think I have the answer. South Florida. The nation of Israel is about 8000 square miles in area. The five southern most counties in Florida (Palm Beach, Broward, Dade, Monroe and Collier) are about 8400 square miles in area. I know, its a little more, but after all the everglades are in there and they are really not too hospitable of a habitat.

There are already a lot of Jewish people down there, they would probably want to just stay. Now that Castro is fixing to croak, most of the Cubans will probably want to be moving back to Cuba. I know that some of the Israelis living in the middle east might want to stay there. I don't guess that would be too much of a problem, I understand that Muslims, Christians and Jews lived side by side fairly peaceably in the old state of Palestine before the new nation of Israel was created. They probably could again. As for the state of Florida, they have plenty of land. If it seems like too much of an inconvience to give up 8400 sq mi, I am sure that my state of Alabama and the good folks in Georgia could spare them a strip of land along our southern border to help offset the loss.

I know, some of you are gonna find fault with my plan, so if you have a better idea, lets hear it.

Three Cheers For Maine

Just read where the

[DEAD LINK] http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070126/pl_nm/usa_idcard_dc_1

Maine Legislature has called for the repeal of the Real ID Act. I say "three cheers for Maine!"

Hosford, Florida

This morning I read

[DEAD LINK]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070125/ts_nm/globalwarming_dc_1

an article on Yahoo News that said that "World sea levels will keep rising for more than 1,000 years even if governments manage to slow a projected surge in temperatures." This is according to a study done by or for the United Nations. So, looks like the old lets stop global warming to avert a catastrophe is like closing the barn door after the mule has got out. Nope, the thing to do now is not to worry about stopping it, but figure out how to live with it. It immediately came to my mind that one of the more valuable things around today is ocean front real estate. I remember reading somewhere a prediction that oceans levels are gonna be raising about 100 feet due to global warming. What that means to me is that the current shore line is gonna be 100 feet under water and anything that is now at 100 elevation is gonna be beach front. I went to Worldatlas.com and found little Hosford, Florida. It is currently 125 ft above sea level. That means when the oceans rise 100 ft, Hosford is gonna be beach front with 25 feet to spare. Got to get down there and buy me up some of that future beach front. I doubt that I will live to see it, but one of these days my great great grand children will probably be selling off chunks of beach front to developers who want to build condos.

Forwarding Emails

Every day, I get several emails that urge me to send a copy on to all of my friends. Before I do, I first read the email to make sure I agree with what it is saying, next I consider the ultimate good or harm that sending it on will do and finally, I look it up on Snopes . After I do these three things, I hardly ever have to forward an email.

This morning I got an email from a friend titled " Traitor to be Honored! Do you agree?". I thought that title sounded familiar and when I opened it, I knew that I had seen it before. It involves an award that was given to Jane Fonda in 1999. Thats right, 1999. This email is trying to prevent something from happening that happened in 1999. You can read about it here if you like. Now don't get me wrong, I am no big Jane Fonda fan, a lot of what she did was wrong, but as you will see if you read the article, some of the worst of what she is accused of she did not do. Also, what she did was a long time ago. Today we have a lot more important things to worry about than what Jane Fonda did in the early 1970's.

The next time you get an email that urges you to forward it as quicky as possible to all your friends, stop and do what I do. It can save a lot of bandwidth and might keep your friends from thinking you are one of those things that David Hannum said is born every minute.

Hallothankmaster

The other day Linda and I got to talking about the holidays. The holidays are actually kind of a Reader's Digest version of life. They contain joy, sadness, aggravation and exhilaration, just like real life, only packed into a shorter period of time. Seems like this year there was a whole lot more of the first one and the last one and not so much of the two in the middle. Anyway our discussion got around to Hallothankmas, the holiday that starts on the day after Labor Day and Ends with the Super Bowl. Somehow something just did not seem right about that. Maybe it was because the holidays had been nicer this year, or maybe neither one of us thought that NFL football provided an appropriate climax. I remembered some suggestions that my niece Katherine had once made about alternate endings to the Hallothankmas holiday. After some deliberation and minimal soul searching, Linda and I decided that the Hallothankmas season should hince forth be extended until Easter Sunday and renamed Hallothankmaster. Not to be confused with the Stairmaster or the Thighmaster which have similar names. It's Hallo-thankmas-ter, not Hallo-thank-master.

I know some of you are already jumping ahead and saying why not go ahead and extend it to the day before memorial day and name it NotSummer. That does have a certain elegant directness to it, but some how just does not seem festive enough for the extended holiday season, so for now, it is Hallothankmaster.

The World Just Keeps Getting Stranger

There are some people with some

[DEAD LINK]
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/parenting/01/18/designerd.disability.ap/index.html

weird ideas in this world.

I noticed with interest the comment of Cara Reynolds of Collingswood, New Jersey. " 'You cannot tell me that I cannot have a child who's going to look like me,' Reynolds said. 'It's just unbelievably presumptuous and they're playing God.' "

Got me to thinking about the phrase 'playing God.' When I look at the mess this world has become just in my short lifetime, I think that playing must have been what God was doing when he created us. Surely no omnipotent being would create a screwed up mess like this on purpose. I think that he was just playing around and this is what resulted.

My Daddy Always Said ...

My daddy always said don't be talking about what you are not gonna do cause that will probably be one of the very next things you find yourself doing.

Well I've done a lot of talking about not voting. I have been especially vocal about not voting for Democrats or Republicans. Now I learn that Congressman Ron Paul of Texas is considering running for President. If he runs, he will be running as a Republican. So now it looks like I will not only be voting for a Republican, Congressman Ron Paul, but I will probably be campaigning for him as well.

Congressman Ron Paul For President

Read the article here or listen to it here.

A Gloomy Prediction From The Pentagon

This prediction from the Pentagon is depressing.

Scary Stuff

When I read this a cold chill went down my spine.

A Major Party Candidate I Can Vote For

I don't vote for many Democrats or Republicans, but
[DEAD LINK] http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/16438882.htm
Congressman Ron Paul of Texas is definitely one I can support.

Attention to Detail

A few days ago I blogged about people signing up for things and giving the wrong email address. Since then I have run into a instance that really confounds me. A gentleman in Texas has gone onto three websites and posted his resume in search of a job. When he registered on the sites, he gave them my email address instead of his own. Granted, our email addresses are very similar, only one character difference, but... How does he expect anyone to contact him?

Another thing that bugs me is people who have old dates on their computer. This morning my online inbox showed 6 unread messages, 5 were in plain site. I had to go back to 2004 messages to find the 6th. I know, if I did not leave so many messages in my inbox, that would not be a problem, but I do and it is. Not as much of a problem as the guy having all of his prospective employers contact me, but still aggravating.