Pi's Law

Every thing man-made increases in complexity with each new design and model until it eventually becomes useless.

The Three Old Dogs ...

The three old dogs, Corky, Dixie and Kenneth, spent the whole month of July traveling to, within, and from Alaska. We made the trip in our Dodge Pickup with the truck camper (see below). It was a long trip and it has taken a couple of weeks to partially recover. In the near future, I hope to be able to post a few pictures and some observations.

I Love The Onion

U.S. Finally Gets Around To Closing Last WWII Internment Camp

It Don't Really Matter

After you read this article you will see that it really does not matter who you vote for in the next election. As the Mogambo Guru is always saying "We're freaking doomed!"

The Lesser of Two Evils

Recently I have been getting quite a few emails from friends, acquaintances, and strangers regarding the upcoming presidential election. Most have been telling me how bad Obama is. A few have pointed out some shortcomings of McCain. So far, no one that I know has sent me an email telling me why I should vote for either one of these bozos. Every one describes why I should vote against either John or Barack. Well, I can tell you this. I quit voting for the lesser of two evils a long time ago. Voting for the lesser of two evils is like committing the lesser sin or killing the ugliest baby or taking the less addictive drug. If you can look at these two men and with a clear conscience say, yes, this man deserves to be President of the United States and deserves my vote, then by all means vote for him.

I, on the other hand, see little merit in either of these guys. I would not hire either one of them to run the basement apartment in an outdoor shithouse and I surely won't vote for them to be President of the United States. So, to all my friends, acquaintances and all you motivated strangers that have my email address, don't bother sending me any emails telling me how lousy either one of these candidates is, I already understand. And to any of you who are thinking about writing me to solicit support for either one of them, don't waste the bandwidth.

Since neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have nominated a worthy candidate for President and since third party candidates have no chance of winning, I fully intend to save some gasoline on election day and sit my butt at home.

Be Careful What You Ask For

Last week I read an article that said that Ford was opening a big new manufacturing plant in Mexico. Lots of places in the US wanted it, but Ford chose Mexico for economic reasons I suspect. Yesterday morning I was driving down the Pelham parkway past one of the local stores. There is a grassy area near the store parking lot and several trees on little islands out in the parking lot. A crew of what appeared to be Mexican workers was cutting the grass and tending the trees. At that moment, it struck me. We are on the way to getting what we asked for. One day soon those guys will be moving back to Mexico to work in a Ford motor plant. Then they won't be "taking" our jobs. We will again be free to wheel around big box store parking lots on lawn mowers and pull up weeds for minimum wage.

Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road

During the last couple of days I've received a two part email from Joke of the Day with explanations for why the chicken crossed the road. I can't figure out how to link to the information so I am re-posting it here. If you are the copyright holder and object, let me know and I will delete this post. Otherwise, enjoy.
------------------------------------------------------
Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road - Part One...

BARACK OBAMA:
The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a CHANGE! The chicken wanted CHANGE!

JOHN MC CAIN:
My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON:
When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure -- right from Day One! -- that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn't about me.......

DR. PHIL:
The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on 'THIS' side of the road before it goes after the problem on the 'OTHER SIDE' of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his 'CURRENT' problems before adding 'NEW' problems.

OPRAH:
Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

GEORGE W. BUSH:
We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

COLIN POWELL:
Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road...

ANDERSON COOPER - CNN:
We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

JOHN KERRY:
Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken's intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

NANCY GRACE:
That chicken crossed the road because he's GUILTY! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN:
To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road - Part Two...

PAT BUCHANAN:
To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART:
No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer's Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY:
To die in the rain. Alone.

JERRY FALWELL:
Because the chicken was gay! Can't you people see the plain truth?' That's why they call it the 'other side.' Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media white washes with seemingly harmless phrases like 'the other side. That chicken should not be crossing the road. It's as plain and as simple as that.

GRANDPA:
In my day we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS:
Isn't that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its life long dream of crossing the road.

JOHN LENNON:
Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

BILL GATES:
I have just released e-Chicken2007< /B>(c), which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your check book. Internet Explorer is an integral part of the Chicken. This new platform is much more stable and will never cra...#@&&^(C% ...reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN:
Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

BILL CLINTON:
I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of chicken?

AL GORE:
I invented the chicken!

COLONEL SANDERS:
Did I miss one?

AL SHARPTON:
Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickens
------------------------------------------------------

I noticed for some reason, the PAT BUCHANAN joke got posted in both emails, maybe they like him more :>)

In case you are not signed up for Joke of the Day, you can do so here. They will spam you a little, but some of the jokes are really funny and it often helps to brighten up my day so I suppose it is worth it.

Be Of Good Cheer ...

While we probably will never see gasoline under $2.00 again, this article from telegraph.co.uk indicates that things may be getting a little better before too long.

Walter Williams on Environmental Predictions

This article by Walter Williams looks at some of the environmental predictions of the past century. In the last paragraph he mentions that the greenhouse gases are 95% water vapor.

Stands to reason since 70% of the earths surface is covered by water. If we completely eliminate all the auto exhaust and cow farts, we would still have significant and very important greenhouse gases. If we double our output of manmade gases they will still be puny when compared to the total.

As a man thinketh, so is he

Once again, it is as if Charley Reese had climbed into my head, extracted exactly how I feel and eloquently put it into words.

It is official, I am not cheap!

Linda recently called it to my attention that some of my friends say I am cheap. She did not agree with them, but none the less, they say I am cheap. Tonight I found this test online and took it. I scored 22. By that standard, not only am I not cheap, I am not even frugal, just careful with my spending habits. So take that friends :>)

And, in case you are wondering, I answered all of the questions truthfully.

What I Believe and What I Know

I believe that I am Right.

I Know that I could be Wrong.

Pogo again proven right

Or at least that is what Charley Reese appears to be saying.

An Armed Society ...

Is a polite society.

The Secret To Happiness?

This is what the Wall Street Journal says about at least one aspect of happiness. Works for me.

The Odds of Dying

A picture from Pixdaus:

No Drinkee, No Shootee

I see that the drinking age limit is making news again. The folks in favor of lowering the drinking age say it is a unfair for 18 years old to fight and die in Iraq but to be unable to drink a beer in the USA. I agree. The other side says that raising the drinking age to 21 lowered drunk driving deaths. They have statistics they say proves this. The argument is that people under the age of 21 are not mature enough to make appropriate choices when it comes to drinking. Ok, I will play along with that but my question is this. If a person under the age of 21 is too immature to make a decision about drinking alcohol, then are they not also too immature to make a decision about joining the military and killing people? You can not have it both ways. If the minimum drinking age stays 21 then the minimum age to join the military should be raised to 21 as well.

What The Hell Happened?

If you are around my age, I'm 60, do you ever look back over the last 35 years and ask yourself, "What the hell happened?" Take a look at this video and it may answer some of your questions.

Jack LaLanne on Being Happy

Pi

An interesting article about Pi.

Inflation

We all talk a lot about inflation. It seems to be particularly bad right now, but did you ever stop to think about the cumulative effect? I mean we really complain when it is real high but even when it is moderate it is chipping away at our resources. What brought this to my mind was an article I was reading today by Byron King of "Whiskey and Gunpowder." In the article, he said that Henry Ford paid his workers $5.00 per day. Doesn't sound like much does it? Well Byron said that adjusted for inflation, it is the same as $225 per day today. $225 per day, 5 days per week, 52 weeks per year. That is over $58,000 per year. That fact tells me two things. Henry Ford was paying a pretty good wage to his employees and inflation is a bitch.

OCD

POSSESSED from Martin Hampton on Vimeo.

Dyslexic Schizophrenic Insomniac Atheist

A Dyslexic Schizophrenic Insomniac Atheist lies awake at night arguing with the voices in his head about whether or not there is a Dog.

CNN talks to John Williams about the Economy

See it here.

Delusion

Look up 'delusion' in wikipedia and read what it says. Then go read this and you will understand the definition you just read.

PSWSIPs

It used to be that you would see articles that talked about WASPs (white anglo saxon protestants). I have not seen that term mentioned lately but I suspect it is still in use out there somewhere. I may have, in time, identified with that group, since my ancestors were white and protestant. However, as I have gotten older, I have come to realize that I'm no WASP and my ancestors weren't either. My ancestors were, for the most part, PSWSIP (poor southern white scots irish protestants). To the average layman, the difference may not be apparent, but to some of us, WASPs and PSWSIPs are as different as night and day. To fully understand PSWSIPs, you need to learn about our history. Senator Jim Webb of Virginia has written what I think is a great book, "Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America", that gives tremendous insight into what makes PSWSIPs tick. Of course, he dosen't mention PSWSIPs directly as he is talking about the Scots Irish in general. Still understanding the Scots Irish will give you a great start on understanding the PSWSIPs.

An Interview with Naomi Wolf

The CBS Video that WHNT Blacked Out

Click on this link.

The Status Quo

I read a lot of letters and articles on line, view videos on YouTube and check posts on Digg.com and Reddit.com. From all of this, I had gotten the impression that a majority of Americans feel like Howard Beale from Network, i.e. "I'm as mad as Hell and I am not gonna take this anymore!"

At the beginning of the nominating process, there were four candidates that actually represented a change from the old way of doing things. I know, nearly all candidates talk about change, but look at their platform and you will see which ones are really interested in change and which ones are gonna promote the status quo. The four who actually represented change were Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul and Bill Richardson. They certainly had differences in their individual platforms, but based on their positions, I believe that anyone of them would have, if elected, tried to make a change in the way our country is being run. If you total up all of the votes that they have received so far, I think you would find that it amounts to about 10 percent of the total votes cast. That tells me that there are about 1 in 10 of us that share Howard Beale's sentiments and are willing to do something about it. Everyone else, regardless of what they say, are satisfied with the status quo.

Michael Scheuer On Terrorist

In the video clip on this page Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, talks about the front running Presidential candidates and their approach to terrorist. Here is a little hint on what he says: clueless, clueless and clueless.

I Don't Want It, Here You Take It.

Well, I think I have finally figured this 2008 presidential election out. Both of the major political parties know that the country is screwed up. They know because they are the ones that did it. They also see the handwriting on the wall; the excrement is about to hit the fan. Neither party wants to be in control when that happens. Right now the Republicans are winning the race to loose the presidency. While Clinton and Obama are neither one bargains and I would not hire either one of them to run the downstairs apartment of an outdoor toilet, either of them could no doubt beat John McCain. Face it, only 19% of the American public approve of the way that "W" is doing his job and McCain has been described as Bush on steroids. McCain would be lucky to get that 19% to vote for him. Yeah, the Republicans are winning at losing. With a Democratic controlled congress and a Democrat president, they will be able to sit on the side lines and piss and moan about how much better things would be if they were in control. The American public, whose attention span seems to be about as long as my chewed off finger nails, will no doubt agree with them.

The Snake

Ever so often I read or see on TV or hear on the radio, a story about some politician who, according to the storyteller, "has let us down." The most recent case of this is the computer fund stink currently going on in Birmingham. I don't know enough about the Birmingham business to even make an intelligent comment, so I won't. But I would like to address the bigger problem of politicians, "letting us down."

First, let me say that I am talking here about politicians and not statesmen. If you don't know the difference, do some reading and don't rely too much on dictionary definitions. In my mind, politicans lie but statesmen tell the truth, albeit done carefully. Just as a matter of observation, I would estimate that 99 percent of the elected officials in these United States are politicians, with the rest being statesmen.

When I hear someone refer to a politician as having let us down I always think of the Johnny Rivers song "The Snake." If you don't remember the song Click Here and scroll down to the middle of the page to read the lyrics.

You see, politicians are just like the snake in the song. They will tell you what you want to hear to get you to do what they need you to do, then they will do what is their nature and feel contempt for you because you were foolish enough to believe them in the first place. What is the answer to this problem? I say never vote for a politician, always vote for a statesman, and learn to tell the difference.

I Spam Myself

Let me begin by saying that really, I don't approve of using the word Spam as a verb. I grew up occasionally eating, and always liking Spam. Sometimes my mother would slice it into thin slices and fry it until it had a light crust on either side. It was served with whatever vegetables we might be having. At other times, we would open a can and just make sandwiches with bread, mustard and maybe mayonnaise. To me it is an unfortunate twist of the computer age that good ole Spam has become the name for junk email. However, I alway heard that "when in Rome, do as the Romans do", so herein, little 's' spam refers to junk email.

When I say that I spam myself, I am specifically referring to Yahoo's bulk mail folder. I've had a Yahoo web mail account for years. In fact, I am sure I had it prior to opening my eBay account and I did that in 1997. I like Yahoo and I do appreciate the fact that their email filters send a lot of stuff that I am not interested in to the bulk email folder, but occasionally I am puzzled. Like day before yesterday, I sent an email and included a cc: to myself. The copy did not show up. Later on when I went to empty the bulk mail folder, I did a quick scan and sure enough, there was my cc: to myself. I guess I spamed myself?

Its kind of hard for me to figure how yahoo thinks that anything I send to myself is spam. I know about spoofing and I routinely get emails with my email address as the sender when I did not send them, but yahoo has authentication and it would seem that they would know a true khmiller email from a spoof. Maybe email filters work like humans, they sort and sort and sift and sift and every so often they just get fed up and say to hell with it and dump everything into the bulk mail folder. I doubt that is the case, but as we do with animals and other things, we humans love to ascribe our humanness to non-humans, even computers.

A Story Of Two Signs

Read it Here.

Whither the Remnant?

Whither the Remnant? by Butler Shaffer. Read it, if you don't understand it, Read it again. Then, if you want to read Nock's essay about the remnant, you can do that here.

It's All About The Sun

An interesting article from `Investor's Business Daily' about changes in solar activity.

Ron Paul Progress Report

More About Statins

When your doctor prescribes Statins, looks like to me you should follow Nancy Reagan's advice and "Just Say No." Read about them here and see what you think.

Do Wild Bears Crap In The Woods?

I wonder if the idiots that wrote this article ever pause to think where fish and other sea creatures relieve themselves?

The Rest Of The World Is Not Muslim.

I keep hearing folks talking about the Muslim majority and how it is going to take over the world and kill off or forcibly convert all us non-Muslims. Listen up people, the majority of the population of the world is not Muslim. I don't know where this idea that Muslims are a majority comes from. But for people who can read, the CIA has a website that has statistics on things like that. If you look about 1/3 of the way down the page you will find an entry titled "Religions". The first entry is Christians which at the time of this writing make up 33.03% of the world's population. Muslims account for only 20.12% of the world's population. In other words only about 1 in 5 people in the world is Muslim. That ain't very good odds if you are planning world religious domination. God gave us one mouth, two eyes and two ears. Maybe he wanted us to spend 4 times as much time reading and listening as we do talking. If we did, maybe there would not be so many folks spouting off these ignorant pseudo facts. Think about it.

While you are at it, notice that only 0.23% of the world population is Jewish. Less than 1/4 of 1%. All my life I've heard folks harping about the world Jewish conspiracy. World conspiracy with less than 1/4 of 1% of the population? I seriously doubt it. With that kind of numbers, if they were running for office, Fox News probably would not let them be mentioned and they certainly would not allow them in any debates.

Loaf Bread Inflation

When I was growing up, we called it loaf bread. Some folks called it white bread and a few called it light bread, but my family called it loaf bread. I live by myself and don't cook a lot of biscuits or corn bread so now I eat a lot of it and just call it bread.

Back last March 13 I started doing my grocery shopping at ALDI. One of the first things that caught my eye was the price of loaf bread. "Enriched White Bread" was 49 cents per loaf. Later on in the year, the price was raised to 59 cents per loaf. Monday, when I bought groceries, I paid 69 cents per loaf. This morning I was reading an article on Yahoo News about inflation. The article said that "inflation is the worst that it has been in 17 years". "Consumer prices rose by 4.1 percent for all of 2007, up sharply from a 2.5 percent increase in 2006". That got me to thinking about the price increase of bread at ALDI. What was a 49 cent loaf now costs 69 cents, a 20 cent increase. By my calculations, that is 40.8 percent inflation in 10 months. If the trend holds up, it will be an annual rate of about 49%.

Bomb Iran?

Glen Beck Interviews Comptroller General David Walter...

and it ain't pretty!

On Being Too Clean

I was first introduced to this concept several years ago. I read and article that talked about the fact that the polio virus had been around for ages, but the disease never became a dreaded epidemic until the 20th century. The person writing the article said that through out history babies had been exposed to the polio virus very early due to the general lack of sanitary conditions. The young babies still had some immunity that they had acquired from their mothers, who had also been exposed at an early age. This helped to mitigate the effects of the polio. When the sanitation of the early 20th century came along, this cycle was broken. Babies did not contract polio early. Later when they did get it, they had no natural immunity and were affected much more dramatically.

Today I read this article. Intestinal worms beneficial? Maybe we can be too clean.

Don (Big Daddy) Garlits writes about Ron Paul

Read it here.

Why The War On Drugs Failed

This AlterNet article gives the clearest explanation that I have ever seen as to why the war on drugs has been a failure.

Chattanooga

I often find myself passing through Chattanooga. Many times I have spent the night in one of its motels. Years ago my family and I visited Ruby Falls and Rock City. Friends of mine have recommended I visit the aquarium, but I have never gotten around to it. This morning, I found this article about another cultural aspect of Chattanooga of which I was unaware. Slowly I am building a case for going to Chattanooga just to visit Chattanooga.

Another Proud Moment For Alabama

Being a lifelong resident of Alabama, I often get my feathers ruffled when someone from somewhere else makes snide remarks about the "rednecks" in Alabama. Then I come across an article like this and I remember what Pogo said "we have met the enemy and he is us."

Bill Moyers interviews Keith Olbermann

Watch it here.

Paul Potts

Paul Potts

Tucker Carlson Talks About The Ron Paul Movement

An Armed Society...

is a polite society. That has long been my contention, it still is. Every time some whacko with a weapon kills some people as in the Virgina Tech and Omaha Mall incidents, the usual suspects start bemoaning the fact that the USA needs more gun control. It does not work that way. Nut jobs will find a way to kill; take away their guns and they will use box cutters and jet air planes.

This morning I read this article by Jeff Perry about gun accidents. It contains a lot of very enlightening facts that you won't find in the articles by the usual suspects.

But why, you ask, do I think that an armed society is a polite society. Well if you read Jeff Perry's article he attributes it to training and knowledge. He may be right, but here in the south I think it has more to do with something else. I saw it best described a few days ago in an article by Charley Reese. In the article Charley said

"In the South, there is a cultural rule: Never insult a man you are not prepared to fight, and never fight a man you are not prepared to kill."

In an unarmed society, this applies mostly to men big enough and strong enough to fight and possibly kill each other, but as they said in the west, "God created man, Sam Colt made them equal." Put a gun in the pocket or purse of a person of small stature and immediately they become capable of defending themselves. Along with that capability comes the cultural rule that Charley talked about. So I say again, an armed society is a polite society.

Psychology Today's List of Foods Good For Your Brain

Ten Foods that are good for your brain.

Bill Sardi On HealthCare In The Future

In this article, Bill Sardi gives his predictions for what healthcare in the US will be like in the year 2050. As I would be 103 years old in 2050, I don't really expect to see this but I certainly would be happy to know that my grandson would be able to experience it.

Publicans

Thats Publicans as in Matthew 5:44 in the King James Version of the bible. I had never thought much about this word until I was reading an article that linked to Matthew 5:44 in the New International Version of the bible. It substituted "Tax Collector" for the word "Publican." Well I checked wikipedia and sure enough, there it was in black and white. A publican is a tax collector.

Now go back and read what Jesus was saying. Sure he was saying to love your enemies, that is the main message, but he was also saying that when you love those that love you, you are doing something that even a tax collector would do. I think that is called irony. It's like saying even a murderer would do that , or even a child molester would do that or even a rabid dog would do that. Of all of the loathsome, despicable, slimy beings and creatures in the universe, Jesus chose a tax collector for his irony. What does that tell you about tax collectors?

Stephen King Nails It

I read this TIME interview with Stephen King and I have to admit that I pretty much feel the same way he does.

How to make sense of the Ron Paul revolution : Washington Post

What's behind the improbably successful (so far) presidential campaign of a 72-year-old 10-term Republican congressman from Texas who pines for the gold standard while drawing praise from another relic from the hyperinflationary 1970s, punk-rocker Johnny Rotten?.......ronpaulnews.net

read more | digg story

Out with the Old, In with the New

The time has come in America to get rid of our current crop of politicians and officeholders and replace them with a new crop. I say this because I believe that the folks in office are completely out of touch with reality. I am not talking about at the National level, although it is certainly true of the upper levels of government. In fact I am not even talking about State government. What I am referring to is the local politicians. Let me preface this by saying, this may be different where you live, although I doubt it.

Let me offer up a couple of examples of what I am seeing an hearing from local politicians. A few months back, in Ohio I believe, Ford Motor Company closed a local plant. In the article that I read about the closing, one of the officials of the city said that they were going to have to find a way to compensate for the loss of revenue due to the closing of the plant. His proposal was to increase the local sales tax by one and one-half percent. Think about that. People are being thrown out of work. Their incomes are being destroyed or at least greatly reduced and the city wants to raise the amount of tax they pay.

Yesterday, I got a copy of the paper from my old home town. On the front page there was an article telling how the local yarn mill was going to close in January of next year. This will put 100 people out of work. One hundred may not sound like much to you but in a town with a population of less than 500, it is a catastrophe. As sad as this article was, there was an even sadder article over in the right hand column on the bottom half of the front page. It said that the local government officials have determined that now is the time to raise the cost of a business license by 370 percent. I guess that they figure that some of the people thrown out of work by the closing of the mill might decided to open a business of their own and higher license fees would help balance the city's budget.

I know that these are just a couple of isolated instances, but I think that they represent the mentality of the current crop of public office holders in our nation. I say out with the old and in with the new.

When We Pull Out Of Iraq

Want a clue about what will happen when we pull our troops out of Iraq? Then take a look at this article about what happened in Basra when the British pulled their troops out.

A Marine Talks about Iraq.

In this article Marine Matt Howard talks about his experience in Iraq.

Uncle Jay Explains Recess

Actually I am kinda glad that it works this way, think of all the damage they could do if they worked 5 eights 50 weeks a year like average folks do.

Old Glory Insurance

Interesting Observation from CNN

Waterboarding and Tasering

Waterboarding was a war crime when the Japanese did it to American GIs during WWII, enough said.

On to tasering. I've been reading a lot about tasering lately. Seems everytime you pick up a paper or turn on a TV or check a website, a bunch of policemen somewhere have tasered someone. I suspect for every tasering incident we hear about, 20 or 30 occur that no one mentions. Some of these tasering incidents end badly. I think that tasering has become too acceptable, but what to do about it? I have an answer. Equip each taser with a moniter that tells when it was used and for how long. Assign each taser to a specific individual. When the taser is used, subject the person assigned the taser to an equal amount of tasering. That would assure that tasers will only be used when absolutely necessary.

Ron Paul on Jay Leno

A video of Ron Paul on Jay Leno on 30 October 2007.

A Question For All Of Us

The Greatest Generation?

I am a baby boomer, born July 1947. Of course that means that my parents were part of what is called the greatest generation. Every time I hear that title, I turn over in my mind what it means. They survived the great depression, they won WWII, they put a man on the moon. I have to admit that those are great accomplishments. Maybe even great enough to qualify for the title of great generation, but greatest? Greatest implies best ever and to be the best ever, you almost think that they would have few faults and no resounding failures. Well they did not mess up too often, but the one uh oh that comes to mind is a big one. They brought into the world and raised the baby boomers. For that, I am eternally grateful, but lets face it, the fruit of their efforts is pretty pitiful. Sure they did fine on quantity, but look around you, the quality is lacking. The boomers are now running the country and we stink. Nope, the greatest generation came close, but I fear that their child rearing efforts will relegate them to being a great generation instead of the greatest generation.

Watch This

Always Has Been, Always Will Be

This old world has been around for awhile. Even if you are one of those folks who believes that every minute of time since the world began is accounted for in the bible, that is still a long time. I'm not an accomplished student of history or of human nature but I've read enough to realize that ever since the world began, there has always been some one that wanted to tell other people what they should or should not do. I suspect it will always be that way.

In our age, most of those types have managed to get themselves into government. Now there are a lot of them so it takes a lot of government to provide enough places for them. They generally fall into two categories, aggressive or passive aggressive. The aggressive ones get into law enforcement and the military. The passive aggressive ones get elected to county commissions, school boards, zoning boards, state legislatures, congress, etc. All of these passive aggressive types are constantly making new rules. A lot of average people have come to believe all these new rules are some how necessary for us to run the world. They are not.

For example, mother nature took care of things quite nicely before the EPA or ADEM were in existence. A lot of folks will tell you that mother nature worked in the past because we did not have all these man made toxins, radioactivity and the like. Well, I read recently that a new kind of algae or fungus has sprung up in the Chernobyl ruins and that it is eating away at the radioactive waste and should mitigate it's effects sooner than anyone could have predicted. No agency of the former Soviet Union is responsible for that, just mother nature.

Yes, this old earth can pretty well take care of itself. I believe that God designed it that way but if you prefer to think it evolved, no problem, the results at Chernobyl are just some more of that nifty evolution. Either way, things work out.

So, if all these rules and regulations are not necessary to hold terra firma together then what are they for? They are for all these 'bosses' to get off on. The passive aggressive types make and enforce rules for the same reason that dogs mate. It feels good to them. They are biologically driven to it. No dog is thinking of making puppies to further the species when it mates, it just does it cause it likes it. Same with rule makers. The next time the town council of your home town has an open meeting where they are gonna debate and vote on some proposed ordinance, go and watch the process. When you leave, ask yourself if what you saw there reminded you more of what happened in the first two chapters of Genesis or of what you saw those two antelope doing on Animal Planet last week.

Blog Keeping

Kind of like house keeping, but in your blog instead of your house. OK, tonight it came to me that I had a lot of links in many of my blog posts. After all that is one of the great advantages of the internet, right? You find something that interests you, you think it might interest the friends and family (one of each) that frequent (make semi-annual visits to) your blog. So you link to it, but links expire so every so often you verify the links. Being a good cybercitizen, I decided to go back tonight and check all my links to make sure they were still valid. A lot of them were not good. In fact so many so that I did not take time to try to find the old info in a new place, I just marked the bad links and will go back later and fix what I can.

It is obvious to me that some of the old postings will have to be removed as I put very little info in the post, just a link to a now nonexistent article. The worst offender is Yahoo news, apparently they only leave their info up for a few days. I found one link from last month that had already expired. In the future if I find something of interest on Yahoo, I will paraphrase, not link. Kinda takes away the main advantage of the internet doesn't it?

Sometimes I think We Might Be Doomed And Then...

I read an article like this and I know damned well that we are doomed. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if God doesn't kick our ass to the curb pretty soon, he is gonna owe Sodom and Gomorrah an apology.

Stupid In America - A 20/20 Documentary

I don't get network tv so I missed this when it was on, but I watched it today on the internet and felt that I had to link to it. If you have children or grand children that are or are about to be school age, you need to watch this documentary.

Let He Who Is Without Sin...

As I have said before, I live in North Shelby county. To say that North Shelby is Republican would be like saying the Pope is a Catholic. When you live in North Shelby everyone, including the Alabama Republican Committee assumes you are Republican. If you have a zip code that falls in North Shelby, you get the ARC mailings, if you have an email that they can tie to North Shelby, you get their emailings. I admit that quite often I do vote for the Republican candidate, sometimes just like citizens of the old USSR voted for the communist candidate but that is not what is on my mind this morning.

Lately the ARC emails have been making a big todo about double dipping. Seems a lot of, according to the ARC, Alabama Democrats are drawing money from the state from two different sources i.e. double dipping. Can't say I am too surprised. Of course the implication is that double dipping is crooked. What? A politician do something crooked?

I don't correspond with the ARC, they send me emails, some I read, some I delete without reading. If I were going to respond to the ARC emails, I would have to say that to me, double dipping is like double murder. Is murder any less of a sin than double murder? Is stealing any less of a sin than double stealing? If you are a member of an organization that forceably takes money from people, wastes most of it, but splits the remainder up among the members, is your crime any less because you only receive one share instead of two?

Is it just me, or is there something wrong here?

OK, the whitehouse tells us that habeas corpus can't be restored in this country because it would be a threat to national security but we must let blackwater employees commit murder with impunity in Iraq because it is vital for national security.

I'm Gonna Have To Set Up Another Computer System

I already have several working. I've got one that I use as my primary machine, one that I use as a phone server, one that hosts an ipcop firewall, one that runs Ubuntu Linux and a couple of laptops, one of the laptops is for use when I travel and the other one runs an OBII automobile diagnostics programs. Now some of you may be asking yourself what in the hell does he need so many computers for and how could he possibly need another. Well I need them cause I need them, so there. As for needing another, really I don't, but sometimes it seems like pretty soon I might, just to keep up with passwords.

Thats right, passwords. I've got a spreadsheet that grows everyday that does nothing but track passwords. Mind you, I don't enter the exact password, just some mnemonic device or clue to help me remember the real password. It is rapidly becoming too long to print on a single sheet and now many of the websites are throwing additional stuff in there like passphrase, secret question, secret image, pin, secret handshake or crap like that. Used to be things like your mother's maiden name. That won't do any more. Now you have to choose a picture and a phrase and a pin. Or some question like what was the name of your first pet's veterinarian's receptionist?

A while back I tried to get into my account on a site and it asked me where I would like to go on vacation. I answered, it balked, I answered again, it balked again. One more failure and I was dead in the water. I called customer service. The lady asked me for every thing except my underwear size and finally she gave me the correct response to where I wanted to go on vacation. It was neither one of my original answers, I suppose I was in a different mood when I had provided the original answer some time back and optimistically thought I would recall it. On top of that, I had used an abbreviation. Listen, if you tell the computer you want to go to NYC, don't expect it to understand and accept New York City.

Does all this increased security work? I doubt it. Back in September, I was visiting in Florida and I got an email from a credit card company. They had noticed some suspicious activity on my credit card and wanted to know if it was me. Turns out it wasn't. The credit card company in question is one of the ones with the multiple level security to get into their online system. That was no problem for the gang of thieves that was using my card illegally. In fact I'm sure they did not have access to my online account and I know they did not have the card. They just spoofed a number and got it to work. Thank goodness the credit card company had a full time unit looking out for strange activity.Then again, maybe the online security does work. Maybe it made it too hard to get account numbers that way so the crooks found another soft spot. Either way it looks like increased security is the wave of the future. I've not set up a password, passphrase, secret santa sever yet, but I do have an old Dell machine sitting in the corner of my bedroom just in case.

Environmental Effects of Increase CO2

This paper is not a quick read, but if you take the time to read and absorb it, I think you will find it very interesting.

Leftover Grits

Since the later part of last week, I have been pretty sick. Apparently I had the flu because I had most of the classic flu symptoms. Linda's mom asked her about me going to one of the "doc in a box" places. She told her mom that there wasn't much point in asking, that I would not go to a doctor. Of course this is a prevalent misconception shared among my family and friends. It's not that I won't go to a doctor. I will. Its just that I have not been in quite some time. My contention is that you go to the doctor when you are sick. By sick, I don't mean you feel bad. I mean that you have assessed your situation and said to yourself, this has gotten to the point that I need some outside intervention. Fortunately, for most of my life I have been blessed with extremely good health but there have been occasions when I had to have medical attention. There have also been some close calls. This flu episode was not one of them. In fact, by the second full day I had experienced a slight improvement.

Some times when I feel bad, I will push myself a bit to try to get back to a normal life as soon as possible. The flu is an exception. When I have the flu, I try to resume my normal lifestyle with due diligence. I suspect that is because of the stories I was told as a child about my fathers flu experiences. When he has around 12 or 13 years old my father had a case of the flu. The worst seemed to be over after a few days and he was back up running and doing the things that a young boy does. The story was that he got too hot and relapsed. He became gravely ill. So ill that my mother's grandfather took her over "to visit him one more time before he died." Fortunately he did not die, but instead grew up to marry my mother and produce me and my sister.

Since I have been laying low, recovering, I have not made a trip to the grocery store. I usually keep a fair stock of staples on hand and I have not wanted much to eat as my appetite has not exactly been great. Linda has repeatedly offered to bring me anything I needed but I had enough to get by and I did not want to expose her to the flu in case I was still contagious.

The one area where I was a bit short was breakfast food. By yesterday, I was down to my last egg and my last two strips of bacon. Over the years I've gotten into the habit of eating hash browns as I keep potatoes on hand all the time and the skillet is already hot from frying the eggs, bacon, sausage or whatever. Yesterday, I decided that I had time so I would fix myself some grits. I looked high and low in the cabinets, pantry, shelves and refrigerator and all I could come up with was an old bag of real grits from the side shelf of the refrigerator. Most people I know use instant grits. A few hardy souls use "quick grits" which still take about 15 minutes, but no one, I repeat, no one cooks regular grits. I can cook a 5 pound beef roast in a pressure cooker faster than you can cook regular grits. Had I not been staying in recuperating from the flu, I would have either broken down and settled for hash browns or jumped in the pickup and gone and bought a package of instant grits. But I was laid up anyway with plenty of time on my hands so I decided what the heck.

About 45 minutes before I started cooking the egg and bacon, I brought a couple of cups of water to a boil in a pan and then spooned in several tablespoons of the grits. I stired them up good and then turned down the heat for them to simmer. I checked them along and added water as needed. When about 45 minutes had past, I checked the grits, they still needed some time but I figured that when I finished the egg, bacon and toast, the grits would be ready.

You can check package instructions, search the internet, and talk to anyone you like but let me tell you, regardless of what you read, see or hear, there are really three immutable laws of grit preparation: (1) It always takes more water than the recipe states, (2) The amount of grits you put in always produces more finished product than the recipe states and (3) The cooking time required is longer than the recipe says it is.

Needless to say, when the egg, bacon and toast were ready, my real grits were just barely getting there. I severed up a helping, put on some butter and salt and ate breakfast. When I had finished breakfast, I went back to the kitchen to check the grits which were still simmering on the top of the stove. They were in need of water and nearing the point of being completely ready to eat. If this had been some instant grits or even quick grits, I would have probably just dumped the whole mess in the garbage, but when you spend so much time on a dish, you get invested in it. So I added some more water and let them continue to simmer. Later in the morning, I remembered them. They were in significant need of water this time but when I added the water and tasted them, the grits were just right. I allowed them to cool for awhile then put them in a covered bowl and stuck them in the refrigerator.

This morning at breakfast time, I was out of eggs , out of bacon and still laying low from the flu. I examined my choices and decided that a few strips of fried bologna , a piece of cheese toast and the bowl of left over grits warmed in the microwave would serve the purpose. I was right. Leftover grits heated in the microwave and seasoned with the appropriate amount of butter and salt are not bad at all.

The Absent Minded Waiter

This is my all time favorite short film:

Is Alzheimer's disease really Type 3 Diabetes?

This article discusses that possibility.

From a Marine in al Anbar Province

I just read this article written by a Marine currently in al Anbar Province in Iraq. He makes an interesting point.

A Guy Walks Into A Bar ...

I found these jokes on someone else's blog. Some of them were so good that I just had to link to them.

US Political Regions

I found this map of US political regions and the accompanying descriptions very interesting.

Are You a Rifleman or a Victim? What I Did on 9/11

This from Greg Perry:

Tuesday, September 11, 2007, I celebrated freedom in the best way possible. It’s an eroding freedom. It’s freedom in a land where freedoms before 9/11 were dwindling and after 9/11 they began dwindling more rapidly. It’s a freedom where the airports treat you like criminals instead of customers. It’s a freedom where you are considered crazy if you

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We Are Doomed

If, 1 in 3 Americans still thinks that W is doing a good job and about 1 in 4 Americans approves of the job that congress is doing, we are doomed. No country can persist with that many delusional people in its population.

The Importance of Vitamin D

This article by Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD gives many interesting facts about the substance we call Vitamin D.

I remember when my sister and I were young, my mother gave us cod liver oil. Our doctor, Dr. Goff, had instructed her to give it to us, I suppose to reduce the chance of rickets. We have both been blessed with good health all our lives. I suspect that the Vitamin D in the cod liver oil may have given us a good start.

Eat some Fat

According to this Realage article if you eat about 70 calories worth of good fat, ie. walnuts, almonds or peanuts about 20 minutes before your meal, you will eat less and stay satisfied longer. In this article they make a similar case for whole grain bread dipped in olive oil.

Ron Paul In Fort Worth

Gun Control Works

But not in the way it is supposed to. England is finding that out.

The Old Wal-Mart Building in Pelham

Some of you may remember that awhile back I suggested that Pelham, Alabaster and Helena be combined into one town and that the city hall be the old Wal-mart building in Pelham. That's the old Wal-mart not the old, old Wal-mart. The old, old Wal-mart is now a Big Lots. Well no one listened to me. Apparently no one with authority, or at least no one with money liked my idea. Instead, someone has come in and remodeled the old Wal-mart into a building set up for multiple smaller shops. This remodeling work has been completed for awhile but the building(s) are still empty. In this months Pelham Pravda, the mayor had a little blurb where he was bragging about how tasteful the remodeling was and how that was what we could expect in the future now that Pelham has a new set of zoning ordinances. My question is this tasteful building going to continue to sit idle. I would have been more impressed with a little less taste and a little more commerce.

A Fascist Government In America?

[DEAD LINK]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070828/ts_nm/world_firearms_dc

This is the reason that I don't spend too much time worrying about a fascist government in the USA.

Wake Up Boomer!

If you are, like I am, a Baby Boomer, you had better get your head out of your ass and look at this video. After you do, ask yourself "are all these other little piss ant things that I am worrying about more important than this?" If not, you need to get on the phone to your worthless congressman and tell him or her to get to work on fixing this mess!

America To The Rescue

Once again, Jon Stewart and the Daily Show use humor to get at the truth. The bleeps are in place but be forewarned if you can read lips there are some expletives.

26 August 2007. Sorry, YouTube pulled the video. Try Here.

I Don't Microwave My Caribe Cup

I think that I have mentioned before that this years World's Longest Yard Sale was somewhat subdued on Thursday. While still impressive, the crowds were smaller and there were fewer sales. Thursday is the day that I usually take in the Gadsden to Chattanooga leg of the sale. This year I found myself moving along much faster than usual due to the reduced crowds and sales. I was up in Cherokee county and past a county road that had a sign, "community yard sale 2.5 miles -->". Now typically I ignore such signs during the course of the World's Longest Yard Sale since I am a traveler more than a shopper. The people that I call shoppers stop at every sale, look at virtually every item at the sale, then move on to the next. Us travelers ride along until we come to a sale, slow down, size it up and if it looks promising, we stop. Otherwise we move on. Nothing wrong with either strategy, its just a matter of preference. Anyway, a traveler usually does not have the time to go 2.5 miles off down a county road. This year I did have the time so down the road I went. There were several little sales along the road before I got to the community sale. I did not buy anything at the community sale but on the way back, I stopped at each of the little sales. At one, a small coffee cup caught my eye. It was white with a green stripe around the top and a narrower green strip around the middle, it would hold about 4 ounces and had thick sides and a sturdy handle, like the cups you see in resturants. It was marked 25 cents so I decided to buy it. When I took it up to the lady who was running the sale she had me turn it over and looked at the bottom, she said something about Puerto Rico that I did not understand. I gave her a quarter, got back in my truck and drove on. Later on, I looked again at the bottom of the cup. It says Caribe Puerto Rico USA W-4 which means nothing to me. I did not buy the cup because I collect or anything like that. I bought it because I like to drink coffee from small cups.

This particular cup reminds me of a train trip that my grandfather Kelley and I took back in 1962. My uncle was stationed in Chicago and he had invited my grandfather to come up and he would take him to Canada fishing. I was invited as well, probably so my grandfather would not have to make the trip alone. I was about 15 at the time albiet a somewhat immature 15 by todays standards. We boarded the Central of Georgia Seminole in Sylacauga late one afternoon and headed for Chicago. Next morning around breakfast time we were clickity clacking through the corn fields in downstate Illinois. My grandfather and I made our way to the dining car and had a seat. A waiter came by, handed us a check pad like waiters and waitresses take orders on and told us to write down what we wanted. I don't remember what either one of us had except I remember that my grandfather wanted coffee. He could write, but for some reason that I do not now recall, he had me write out his order. On the pad I wrote "cup of coffee" along with whatever else he wanted. When the waiter came back he picked up the pad. He turned to me and said, you can write just the word "coffee", we will bring it to you in a cup and grinned. Sure enough, they brought the coffee in a cup and I am pretty sure that it was a cup very much like my little Caribe cup.

Every few days, I make a full pot of coffee. I hardly ever drink it all. I turn it off before it burns. My father taught me that coffee that has not been left on too long and gotten a burned taste is fine in the afternoon or even the next morning if you microwave it. So I find myself microwaving coffee a lot. I am sure that my little Caribe cup, sturdy as it is, would hold up to a microwave ok, but I am not taking any chances. Some ceramics and the like don't do that well in the microwave. They take up the heat instead of letting their contents warm. I suspect that the life of items like that are shortened considerably by being microwaved. I only have the one little Caribe cup and I don't intend to take any chances with it. For the time being, I will microwave my coffee in a pyrex measuring cup and then pour it into the Caribe cup. Maybe one of these days when I get a backup Caribe cup I will test it in the microwave.

Controlling Blood Sugar

According to this RealAge article a piece of whole grain rye toast is a better snack for controlling blood sugar than an apple. To me, that seemed somewhat counter intuitive. I guess we don't always know what we think we know.

Fox Attacks Iran

The Magic Jack

Now that Sunrocket has gone belly up, I am back in the hunt for a VOIP phone company. Initially I signed up with Teleblend. It was the easiest option as they could use the existing Sunrocket "Gizmo", which is really just a dedicated router. Realizing that Teleblend might only be a temporary option, I started checking the newsgroups to see what the talk was. In one post someone had put just one word, magicjack. I entered magicjack.com in my browser and sure enough, there was a new VOIP option.

Magicjack is still in beta and has some bugs but they appear to be working hard to make it better. It costs about $40 initially and then $20 a year thereafter. You get a phone number for incoming calls and can call the USA and Canada toll free. Setup was simple. Unlike Teleblend, it does require that you have a computer. That computer must be on when calls are made or received. It only works with XP and Vista right now. They are promising Apple and Linux versions later on.

I've made a few calls with it and the voice quality was very good. I'm not ready to make it my full time phone just yet, but if it continues to work well and they get to the point where they can port my existing number, who know?

Propaganda

This article by Bob Wallace on "How Propaganda Works" was interesting to me.

The Secret to a Healthy Body

The secret to a healthy body is simple and actually not too difficult, but all the same it does take daily discipline. In addition, it doesn’t need to cost you a lot of money. There are five areas of focus that will keep your body in shape, healthy, flexible, and strong.

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Two for a Nickel, Three for a Dime

Back in the mid 1960's, country grocery stores had what we called a nickel pack of crackers. It was three or maybe four double saltines in a small box or plastic wrap. It contained about what one person would eat with a small chunk of hoop cheese, a can of sardines, potted meat or vienna sausage. They usually sold for 5 cents, hence the name nickel pack of crackers. One Sunday afternoon, my folks sent me to a little store not far from our house to pick up something, what it was I don't remember. What I do remember is that when I went to pay for my items, there was a produce basket sitting in front of the counter. It was full of nickel packs of crackers. On the side of the basket was a cardboard sign with the following written in black ink: "2 for 5 cents, 3 for 10 cents." When I got home, I told my parents about it and they told me that I had been mistaken, but I knew better. I have never forgotten that sign.

Last week while I was on the WLYS, I came upon a sale in northern Kentucky. They had several boxes of new white vinyl binders. The top box was open. It had a sign, in black ink, that said 10 cents each, $2.00 per box. I picked up a box, walked over to the man that was seated under a canopy and said "$2.00 a box?" He said yes and I handed him $2.00. I figured there must be 2 dozen binders in the box. This morning I was getting some things out of the back of my pickup. The box of binders was still in there. On the end of the box it had some writing and the number 18. I opened the box and counted, sure enough there were 18 binders in it. Looks like I got the "3 for a dime" deal.

WLYS 2007

Last night I returned from this year's World's Longest Yard Sale. As always, it was hot. Some locations had rain showers but overall it was a great trip. There were fewer sales in some places but sales had cropped up in places where I had not seen them in prior years. One lady told me she only has sales every third or fourth year. For the most part, the crowds were smaller, but Saturday was still a big day.

If you like yard sales and traveling the blue highways, you should give it a try.