Illegal Aliens

Every where I turn lately, I hear or see some one complaining about illegal aliens. I guess I am kind of thick, but I really don't see a lot of problem around here. Granted, they may have some problems out in Arizona and I believe they need to do what they have to do to address their problems, but I don't see much of a problem here in central Alabama. I have challenged a few people about what the problem is and I usually hear one of two things. They are taking our jobs, or we can't afford to pay them welfare and food stamps to live here.

Well, if you see someone that you are pretty certain is an illegal alien and you want the job that he or she is doing, go to their employer and tell them you want that job. When the employer tells you it is filled, go to the suspected illegal alien and tell them you are gonna report them to the INS. If they pull out a green card or a proof of citizenship, apologize and move on. If they turn tail and run, go back to the employer and sign up. Then enjoy your $5 hour weed eating job. Problem one solved.

As far as the welfare and food stamps business goes, it is not the fault of the illegal alien for taking the government subsidies, it is the fault of the government for paying them to begin with. If you don't like that an illegal alien is getting government benefits then complain to your man or woman in Montgomery. If they stop it fine, if they don't vote them out and vote someone in that will. Problem two solved.

If there are other problems that I am unaware of feel free to bring them to my attention.

Weak Points

My daddy, who was a mechanic all his life, used to say that every vehicle ever made had a weak point. Some part or system that did not perform as well or last as long as the rest of the vehicle. One of his stories revolved around a situation that came up because of such a weak point.

Back in 1959, he was running a little garage in Stewartville. A young man of the community came to him and told him that he was going to build up a hot rod and wanted to know if my dad had a good V8 engine that he would sell him cheap. My dad told him that he did in fact have an V8 engine from a 1955 Buick that he would let him have for $50. Now this was when Coca Colas were still 5 cents so $50 was not a small amount of money, but it was much less than what the young man expected to pay. He asked my dad what was wrong with it? Nothing, there is just not any demand for them. The boy was skeptical and did not buy the engine. My dad said that the reason there was no demand for them was that they would run forever. Unfortunately they were coupled to Dyna-Flo transmissions which were not so robust. The transmission was the weak point on the 55 Buick and a good transmission was what everyone was searching for, they already had a good engine. My Dad always finished the story by saying that if he had asked $200 for the engine, the boy would have bought it.

As I have gotten older, I have decided that cars are an appropriate metaphor for all things in the universe, including people. We all have our weak points. Fortunately in most cases, the weak points offset each other. I may be good in math, you may be good in the arts, someone else has a talent for cooking. It all kind of works out most of the time.

However, there is one weak point that seems to afflict a majority of our species. It is the desire for complexity. Look around you. Everywhere you look you will see people dedicating their lives to making things increasingly complex. Ultimately all things touched by human hands reach a level of complexity that is unworkable, unsustainable and they ultimately collapse. In some cases the collapse comes quickly. VCRs for instance had already become completely impossible to program before DVD players came along and put them out of their misery. In other instances the rigging and iterations drag on for centuries. Most governments and many religions fall into that category.

Don't despair though, just as the DVD replaced the unprogramable VCR, so to will other devices and systems replace all the current ones that are becoming overly complicated. Of course as soon as these new simple systems arrive on the scene, the majority will set about to complicate them as quickly and completely as is possible. Such seems to be our nature.

Most People Don't Read

I went to Mule Day in Winfield this weekend. I set up there each year and sell surplus camo pants and shirts and various other items I have accumulated over the years. Northwest Alabama seems to have been hit by hard times long before the bust of 2008. Every year I hear of new plant closings in NE Ala. At one time, it was typical for me to take in enough money at Mule Day to cover my expenses for several weeks. One year I even had enough to go a long way toward buying Christmas. Now, things are not as good. I am lucky if I make my space rent and gas money. If I did not already have my inventory paid for, I could not afford to go. A good business man probably wouldn't go anyway, but I've never been accused of being a good business man.

This year I decided I was gonna try something radical. I was going to sell every item I had for $5.00 each. Mind you some of this stuff cost me more than $5.00 but I wanted to generate some business. Besides, it isn't doing me any good sitting in storage collecting dust. Better $5.00 in my pocket than a dust catcher on a rack. This was a radical departure from what I have done in the past. One or two years I had put individual price tags on all items, that was a nightmare. Most years I have had a price list for the various sizes like $9.00 for smalls, $12.00 for mediums and $15.00 for larges.

I knew going in that people were not going to be ready for one price fits all, but it works for the dollar store, why not for me? I created six signs. Two of them said "All items on Hangers $5.00", three had "$5" covering the entire sign and one said "Pants $5.00, Shirts $5.00, Tees $5.00, Coats $5.00". In spite of having these six signs placed strategically around the booth, about half the folks came up to me and said something like "how much for your pants?"

One guy stopped in front of my "Pants $5.00, Shirts $5.00, Tees $5.00, Coats $5.00" sign, read it out loud, looked at me and grinned and said wouldn't it just be easier to say everything $5. I pointed him to the two signs that said just that and laughed. Then I told him that even with all those signs I still get folks asking how much for a certain item. Maybe I am wrong, maybe people do read, they just don't believe what they are reading.

As for the results of my new sales tactic, I did take in more money this year than I did in 2009 but after I cover my space rent and gas, I won't be taking any Caribbean cruises with what is left.

College Football

Ecclesiastes 3:1 (King James Version) says "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:" To my way of thinking, the time for the purpose of playing college football is 1:30 PM on a Saturday afternoon in the Fall of the year.

When I was growing up I was told that "there is a time and place for everything." We've already covered the time for playing college football, as to the place, it should be a field of grass with surrounding seating to accommodate the spectators.

Hopefully the day will be bright and clear with a slight bit of a nip in the air and a few leaves falling in the road as you drive to the game. However, that is not a requirement. It can also be hot or cloudy or rainy or cold enough for hog killin'. All are permissible, just not desirable.

As a point of personal preference, I think the absolute best place for a college football game is located at 32.602256, -85.489138. There is the slight possibility that some others might feel differently.

My Home Phone Number

When I moved to Pelham in 1978, I got a new phone number. I say new, in fact it was new to me but it was the same number that the previous resident had. I never did understand that, as I thought that the phone company always held those numbers back for six months. Anyway, for years after I first moved here, I got calls intended for the Rev. Williams that had lived here. Eventually I guess the word got around and I stopped receiving his calls.

Time past, things changed and before you know it cell phones came on the scene. I was on my third or fourth cell phone with about as many carriers when I decided that I no longer needed a home phone. Sources smarter than I am insisted that it would be a shame for me to give up my home phone number that I had for so many years. I compromised and rolled it out to a VOIP carrier. After a couple of years, the carrier folded and I rolled it to another VOIP carrier. This summer I got an email from that second carrier saying that they too were going out of business.

Over the years, fewer and fewer of my friends and relatives call me on my home phone. In fact, fewer and fewer of them call me at all, but that is another matter that primarily revolves around the grim reaper. So, when this latest VOIP carrier folded, it would have been an opportune time to let the old phone number go. I was about ready to do just that when I remembered that I had a Pageplus prepaid phone that I use in areas where my regular cell phone carrier does not work. Why not just roll the old home number to the prepaid cell. Yeah, that's the ticket. So, that is what I did.

The VOIP phone usually went directly to voice mail but the prepaid cell is set up to ring 4 or 5 times and then go to voice mail. It sits here on my desk and when it rings, I see the caller id. I had been aware that I got a lot of telemarketer calls from looking at the VOIP log, but now that the number is right here before me, I have started checking the calls as they come in and actually programming a name into the cell to associate with these calls. So now when I get a call I look down and see, Scam, GiftCard Scam, Telemarketer, Security Sys, etc.

One of these days, when I am sufficiently satisfied that no one that I know is ever going to call me on the old number, I'll let it go. In the meantime it is interesting to see the diversity of scammers and telemarketers that are in operation. It almost reminds me of the good old days of identifying DX stations on a shortwave radio.

Tax Cuts

I never saw a tax cut I did not like. I don't care it if only affects the richest 1 percent of the population, I'm for it. Why? Because any tax dollar that is not collected is a tax dollar that some shithead bureaucrat can't use to make life worse for us citizens. Every time I make a statement like that I always encounter someone who says something like, "oh, we have to collect taxes so we can have roads, schools, health care, head start , medicare, an army, navy, police, firemen, etc, etc, etc."

I for one think that very little of what the government does could not be done better by someone else, but I'll play the silly game. Ok, we got to have some tax money for a few pet projects. Why not use the approach of the former president of the company where I worked. The story goes that he was telling some of his subordinates that there had to be a reduction of personnel. They were pissing and moaning about how they could not do the job with less people and service would be affected. He is supposed to have said, ok, lay off people until the lights blink (it was an electrical utility) and then hire that last person you laid off back.

Why don't we do that with taxes. Start reducing and keep reducing until something important suffers. I don't mean until we have to cut funding for the arts so some guy can't get his funds to make a statue covered in urine. I mean cut taxes and spending until something really important is affected, then raise them back enough to cover that project.

And, don't let the bureaucrats do the cutting. They always pick out things like parks, libraries, other stuff that people actually get some good out of and close them to increase the pain level and make people want to put things back like they were. No, put together a citizens oversight committee and let them determine what government programs to de-fund and the order for cutting them off. One other stipulation, no one that is receiving money from the government could serve on the committee.

Bank Signs

I was riding down Hwy 31 this morning and noticed that there was a sign crew changing the sign in front of the Wachovia bank to a Wells Fargo sign. Seems like it was only a couple of years ago that the same sign was a Southtrust sign and they were changing it to a Wachovia sign. Maybe that is because it really was only a couple of years ago.

Back in the late 1940's or early 1950's, my parents went over to Alexander City and opened an account with the Alexander City Bank. At the time, Rockford did not have a bank. The two that were there before the depression, folded during the depression and no one bothered to open a new one after the depression ended. Even when a new bank opened in Rockford in the late 1960's my folks kept their account with the Alexander City Bank. By that time they had a really good working relationship with the Alexander City Bank folks and saw no reason to change. Some time in the 1990's, I think, bank deregulation came along an big banks started buying little banks. Southtrust bought the Alexander City Bank and made it a Southtrust branch. Along with the change came a big new expensive looking sign. Then a few years back, Southtrust went toes up and Wachovia took them over compliments of the FDIC or some such. Voilà, up pops a new expensive looking sign with Wachovia's name on it. Now all the Wachovias are becoming Wells Fargos with more new expensive looking signs.

I've got an idea. I know that banks are kinda stretched for funds right now so maybe rather that spending all that money for fancy new signs, maybe they should just get one of those rent-a-signs. You know the kind, arrow across the top with flashing lights, white plastic panels with black moveable letters. I am sure that the monthly rental on one of those would be a lot cheaper than these fancy new signs they are putting in place. Especially here in central Alabama where there used to be a beaucoup of them until the law closed all the bingo parlors down. Those signs are probably languishing in someones storage yard and they would likely rent them real cheap. Who knows, the banks might even be able to come up with enough money to buy them outright.

Yep, put up the portable sign, then, in six months when Citi or Bank of America or whoever the hell else it is that buys them out or takes over their failed assests comes along, all they will have to do is re-arrange the black plastic letters to the new banks name. Save themselves and their investors a lot of money. I realize that it will hurt the sign companies a little bit, but there are enough other businesses failing and new ones taking their place that I think the sign companies will have enough business to get by.

Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure

I could not remember whether or not I had written about this before so I did a search of this blog and did not come up with anything so...

I don't know about you but during my life time, I have been tormented by leaks. The house at Pentonville has a roof leak in one of the back bedrooms that defies all attempts at repair. My folks house at Slickhill had its share of leaks and I have had them here and also in the GMC motorhome that I used to own. I've caulked, tarred, siliconed and who know what all else with limited success.

When I bought my current truck camper, the guy that I got it from said that one of the things he did every year was to recaulk the seams. I got some 3M 5200 and used it on three or four places and it worked great but I still had one leak on the dinette seat that I could not stop. Water was seeping in where it attached to the wall. I worked and worked with it to no avail. I finally decided that the window was to blame. I resealed around the gasket with black silicone and it helped but I still had a leak. Then one day I was reading on one of the RV forums and someone mentioned Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure. At first I though it was some kind of joke but someone else responded that they too had used it to stop a troublesome leak. I did some googling and found that it did exist. It is an english product that was originally developed to seal hairline cracks in sailboats. It is pricey at $19.00 for 8 ounces, but I had spent a lot more than that in total with marginal results so I ordered a bottle.

It smells like latex paint and looks like skim milk. You pour it on in a fine bead. In the places where it disappears capillary action has drawn it in to the leak. You just keep applying it every 30 minutes of so until none is drawn in. I did that on my camper window and it worked like a charm. It has been several months and numerous hard rains since I first used it and the camper has not leaked a drop. This stuff is great and I don't intend to ever be without a bottle of it again. If you have a troublesome leak and everything else has failed, try Captain Tolley's Creeping Crack Cure. It sure worked for me.

Fire Ants

I think I wrote a while back about how this year has been different with the blueberries ripening at a later date than usual. Something else hit me yesterday that I really had not thought about until now. There are no fire ants in my yard this year. For the first time that I can recall, and I have lived here for about 32 years, there is not a single fire ant mound in my yard. That is very unusual. I have always been plagued with fire ants. One year I counted 120 mounds in just the mowed portion of my 2 acres. This year there are no mounds and as best I can determine, no fire ants either. This is not the result of anything I have done. I quit putting out fire ant poison several years ago since it did not appear to do any good. Maybe they are just taking a year off and resting underground but they certainly aren't running around my yard like they have in the past.

Comida Típica

A while back I was reading a blog or a travel log where someone had traveled in Mexico and Central America and he or she was talking about eating comida típica. I am a threat to try exotic foods so I googled comida típica to see what it was. I discovered that it just meant typical food or food commonly served. In the region in question, that turned out to be rice, beans, salsa, tortillas and maybe some pork or chicken. Kind of like a #3 at your local Mexican restaurant.

I had not though of comida típica for awhile until last night. I was eating supper over at Lindas and we were having chicken, mac and cheese, peas, sliced tomatoes and onion. It dawned on me that for the time of year and place we were, that we were having comida típica for supper.

The Blueberries Were Late This Year

Back when my parents were still alive, they planted several blueberry bushes around their home in Coosa County. Mama and Daddy are gone, but their blueberry bushes continue to bear fruit. Every year in late June and early July, the berries start to ripen. Some years there is a big crop, some years not so many. Regardless of the crop size, for every year since the bushes originally started bearing, the berries have always seemed to ripen on the same schedule. First the big bush up near the house by the chinaberry would start to ripen. Then the bushes at the edge of the front yard and by the garage and finally the ones in the back near the green house. Most years by my birthday on July 11th they were about gone. As soon as the last of the crop ripens, the song birds, crows and turkeys move in and pretty well clean the bushes up.

Yesterday, July 16th I went down there with my daughter and my oldest grandson to pick berries. There were still plenty of ripe berries and a few pink ones. From the looks of it, there will be some berries for at least another week. It seems to me that the entire season has shifted forward this year by 10 to 14 days. Maybe not, maybe I am just getting old and have started remembering things differently but my sister insists that all the berries were gone last year by the weekend following the 4th. Maybe she is getting old too.

Zoning

When I worked at the power company, I had a supervisor that was also an attorney. Nice guy and very intelligent. I always liked him alot and agreed with him on most everything. One thing we did disagree on was zoning. I am totally and absolutely against zoning. I feel that if a person owns a piece of property, they should be allowed to do with it as they please. Of course there are some things that would not be allowed because they are against the law, like running a cathouse, or making moonshine whiskey, but if it ain't illegal, then it should be allowed. He always countered my argument that owners need protection. One time I remember him offering up the example of what if someone built a nice home and then someone moved in next door and built a hog farm. At the time, I did not have a good answer, now many years later I realize that the answer to that is if you fear what your neighbor might do, move into a subdivision that has suitable covenants and restrictions and a HOA that will enforce them. Or, if you really want to be safe, buy enough property so that your nearest neighbor will be so far away that they could crap in their front yard and you still would not care.

Most folks would agree with my former supervisor. They say what can it hurt to have a zoning board to look out for the interests of the people. If you agree, take a look at this article from al.com . That is what happens when you have a zoning board. You give some people a little power and they go batshit crazing if anyone challenges it. Over the years I have had some friends in Gardendale but I don't know anybody that lives there now. If I did, I would ask them if all of the city's business was taken care of in such good shape that they had the spare money laying around to pay the legal fees required to fight a zoning battle all the way to the Alabama Supreme Court. All of this over 21 inches in variances and on top of all that they lost. Nope, my old supervisors argument may sound good, but in the real world, zoning equals trouble.

Emotional Topics

Every body knows that there are certain topics that should be avoided when you are talking to a diverse group of people. They are politics, religion, sex, abortion and guns. There are probably others but those 5 are the ones that I have been taught to avoid like the plague. The reason of course is that these are emotional topics. You can almost never have a reasonable conversation with someone of an opposing view point on an emotional topic. You both have a strong opinion and react emotionally when ever you sense that it is being challenged. For that reason, when you are talking to or with a large , diverse group, you avoid those topics.

The internet is a diverse group. In fact it may comprise the single largest diverse group in the entire world. Even it's small subgroups and forums can be large and diverse. I am a member of one yahoo group that claims it has over 6000 members. Only about 2 dozen people post to it regularly but there are apparently a lot of us lurkers out there. Because these groups are so large and diverse, most of them have a ground rule that prohibits discussions that involve the aforementioned emotional topics. The obvious exceptions are groups where one or more of the emotional topics are the stated subject of interest of the group itself.

Lately, I have noticed that there is a new subject that is being discussed more and more and every time it comes up, it is just like a discussion of one of the 5 emotional topics I mentioned previously. That topic is anthropogenic global warming (AGW). You would think that something with roots in data that can be observed scientifically like AGW could be discussed logically without emotion to a point where some general concensus could be reached, but believe me, it ain't happening. If you dare to question any of the claims made by Mr Gore in his book, you will be swarmed on like someone who kicked a yellowjacket nest. After seeing this happen repeatedly, I thought about suggesting to group moderators to include AGW as a 6th emotional topic to be prohibited, but the more that I think about it, I don't think we need to add a 6th topic. We just need to realize that for some people, AGW has become a religion and as such is already prohibited from discussion.

Apple's New iPhone

At the risk of sounding judgmental, I have to admit that the whole time I was reading this article and watching the included video, the expression "shitforbrains" kept popping into my head. I suspect that if the people involved knew me and knew much about me, they would be thinking the same of me for a whole different set of reasons.

Lightning

Back when I worked for the local electric utility company, there was a lot of talk about lightning. There were even people whose job it was to use a computer program to keep a data base on lightning strikes. Lightning is a definite concern for electric utilities in the southeastern USA.

Recently, it became a definite concern for me as well. On Saturday April 24th, about mid morning, a single stroke of lightning burned out my desktop computer, cable modem, wireless router, magicjack and digital TV converter. There had been a moderate thunderstorm earlier in the morning and I had turned off and unplugged the computer while it was going on. I did that because in 2009 I had lost three desktop computers during a thunderstorm. Anyway, the thunderstorm on the 24th had passed, I thought, and I had hooked the computer back up and was reading some emails when there was a bright flash, a wisp of smoke from the computer and a deafening clap of thunder all simultaneously.

It has taken me until this week to get everything back working. I've got my fingers crossed but I have also been shopping for some surge protection.

If you know a little science

If you know a little science, you already knew the two key points that this guy is making. Unfortunately, most Americans don't know a little science.




Also unfortunately, I see that YouTube has chosen to delete the video. It has been awhile since I saw the video and don't recall the second point but I am fairly sure that the first point was that water vapor is the primary greenhouse gas. Everything else is relatively inconsequential.

I suppose it is still too early to point out the falacies in man made global warming and not be censored.

Hubris

Wikipedia says that Hubris "means extreme haughtiness or arrogance. Hubris often indicates being out of touch with reality and overestimating one's own competence or capabilities, especially for people in positions of power."

Ford Motor Company used to have a slogan, "Quality is Job One." I think that based on the definition above, we could easily paraphrase Ford and adopt "Hubris is Job One" as our national slogan.

Constitutionality

The system we have in this country where the Supreme Court decides the constitutionality of laws makes about as much sense as you having an agreement with a friend that if you and he get into a disagreement, y'all will let his older brother decided which of you is right.

A Beater With A Heater

Back in 2004 I went up to Pittsburg (PA not TN) and bought a 1979 Mercedes 300D. I got it cheap because it was what they call up there "a beater". I didn't want a real nice car because I was going to experiment with running cooking oil in it and I didn't want to spend big bucks on something I might screw up. Until my trip up north, I don't recall ever hearing the expression beater.

Best I could tell, a beater is a cheap car that is used as transportation in the winter time when there is salt on the roads. Down here, we have cheap cars but the folks that have them drive them year round.

Back in the summer of 2008 I made a trip to Alaska. I feel in love with the place and have been working on a way to get back up there ever since. Ultimately, I would like to relocate there for at least part of the year. In my spare time I read forums that discuss life in Alaska. Many of them have a mix of people like me that are wannabes and resident Alaskans. This past week I read a thread and someone mentioned having a "beater with a heater". Just for the hell of it, I Googled "beater with a heater 'site:craigslist.org'" and found that it is not just an Alaskan expression. In fact one of the ads was for Gulfport. Must have been written by a relocated yankee. From the number of ads nationwide, beaters with heaters must be fairly popular. Considering that my yard in full of what could be loosely classifed as beaters, I think maybe I need to get an Automobile Dealers License and open up Beater Motor Company LLC. Who knows, if it was profitable enough, it might help me finance my move to Alaska.

The Census

I got my census form 2 or 3 weeks ago. I looked at it, decided it did not ask any questions that I had a problem answering and laid it aside. Why did I lay it aside. Because it said that they wanted to count where people were on April 1. Thats today. I had every intention of waiting until today to fill it out. Last week I got a little post card reminding me that they had not received my response yet and by law I had to submit my census form. Well, I had every intention of submitting it but I was gonna wait until today because that is when they said the count was for. I went ahead and filled it out when I got the little card and sent it in. Nothing has changed since I filled it out so the info they got is correct but why tell people you want to know what their status is on April 1 and then get upset because they are waiting until April 1 to respond. I've seen several media articles lamenting the poor response to the census. I suspect part of that is because people are following the instructions they were given. I hope the government is gonna run the new healthcare system better than they have this census but I doubt it.

Get Out While The Getting Is Good

Have you noticed how many career politicians are giving up their jobs and not running for re-election lately? Did you ask yourself why someone would give up a high paying job with virtually certain employment (over 90% of incumbents are re-elected.)? I've got an idea and it revolves around the subject phrase, "get out while the getting is good." Politicians are not stupid. They are probably corrupt and maybe inept, but not stupid. They have spend a lifetime suckling at the teat of the government cow, but they know that the cow is fixing to go dry. They, better than most of us, know how the system works and they recognize when the scam is about to play out. Like rats deserting a sinking ship, they are headed over the side. Better to be out in open water swimming than to be sucked down with the ship.

Most of the US citizens alive today were born and have lived in relatively prosperous, peaceful times. Sure, there have been a lot of wars and police actions, but they have been somewhere else. And sure, we have sent many of our brightest and best to fight and die in these places, but most folks did not have to go and were affected indirectly at most. No, its been guns and butter through out most of our lives and people tend to think that how it has been is how it's gonna be. Unfortunately for all of us, actions have consequences. As a nation, we have done a lot of imprudent things. We have told ourselves that we were doing the right things, but calling a pig's ear a silk purse does not make it so.

The politicians know this and they are taking their lifetime pensions with their superior health care plans and heading off into sunset. Best to be long gone when the shit hits the fan. Many folks I am sure doubt this, after all, things have been good for so long, and our intentions are good, but you can't spend more than you make, kill anyone that disagrees with you and expect it to go on forever. Sooner or later the cows come home and unfortunately, I fear our herd is quickly becoming dry.

One of these days ...

One of these days I am gonna drop dead. When I do, some of my friends and family will no doubt say they knew I should have been going to the doctor. If I had, they (the doctors) would have caught that and treated it. Well, they will probably be right, but it won't make me any difference because I will be dead.

So far in my life I have been blessed with very good health. Since I have not been sick a lot, I have not had to go to the doctor much. Sometimes I think that I have not been sick a lot because I don't go to the doctor much. It's funny about people and doctors. Who do you know that takes his car into his mechanic every year and asks him to check and see if there is something that needs fixing? Sure, people have their cars oil changed and they put additives in their gas tank, but that is just routine maintenance like taking vitamins and supplements would be for a person. And people check their coolant and oil levels and look out for their check engine light on their cars, much like getting a blood pressure cuff and regularly checking blood pressure would be to an individual, but who among us would ever consider driving up to a dealership and asking them to see if they could find something on their car that needed replacing?

But that is exactly what well care is all about. When you feel fine and you go to a doctor, he or she is going to find something that needs treating. Its what they do. They have a hammer in their hand; you are the nail. And what does all that treatment accomplish? Mostly it winds up putting you on prescription drugs that may mitigate the symptoms of one thing and create or exacerbate the symptoms of half a dozen others. In a recent article, Bill Sardi made this statement, "The only three proven medical technologies are (a) mending broken bones; (b) replacing cloudy cataracts; (c) repairing decayed teeth. The rest are questionable." When I first read this, I was a little taken aback, but then I remembered where I had read recently that it had never been statistically proven that anyone had lived longer because of heart surgery. How much of what passes for medicine today is really just "busy work"?

Now obviously there are people who suffer from conditions that need medicine and treatment. Insulin dependent diabetics are the first ones that pop to my mind. I am sure that you can think of dozens if not hundreds of other conditions, but these are people who are sick. And also keep in mind that insulin does not cure diabetes, it just enables the diabetic to live longer with the ailment. Clearly, I am not encouraging anyone to go against their own judgment. If you feel a need to go to a doctor, even though you fell fine, by all means go, but when you hear about me dying, don't despair. I may not have lived every minute possible, but I did enjoy some extra time along the way that others lost sitting in waiting rooms.

I lied

In my previous post I said that I was not gonna address the Okaloosa County Florida Sheriff's deputies arresting a 11 year old girl for throwing a plastic pistol at her father. I lied. I just can't let this go. I am gonna stay away for the obvious question of how in the hell did they find out about it. We all know that a lot of folks in this country should not have kids in the first place, but stupid people do procreate. Nope, I am not gonna get into that. What I am gonna say is that if Okaloosa County Florida has enough deputies on the force that they have time to go out and arrest 11 year old girls for throwing toy pistols, maybe they should look at their law enforcement budget. All I hear lately from bureaucrats and politicians all over the country is how they don't have enough money and they are going to have to figure out a way to raise fees or taxes and increase their revenue so they don't have to cut back services. Seems to me that arresting 11 year old girls for throwing toy guns is a service that folks could do without at least until times got better. I wonder how many other public "services" could be scaled back in these tight times.

There is so much wrong and ....

Back when I was younger, I used to hear older folks (people who were younger then than I am now) talking about how bad it had gotten and they just didn't know what was gonna become of all of us. I always promised myself that I would not ever get like that and I've tried my damnest to follow through on that promise.

I've always said "there is so much wrong and we are gonna have to do a lot to straighten it out." At least that is what I have said up until today. Then I read this news article." In case the link is dead when you read this, the article is about a 11 year old girl that was arrested by Okaloosa County Sheriff’s deputies for domestic battery. What did she do? She threw a plastic pistol at her father because he put her in time out. The plastic pistol cut his scalp. This is so wrong on so many levels that I am not gonna even start addressing all of them. You can figure it out for yourself. But this incident is the straw that broke the camels back. From now on, I am gonna say, there is so much wrong and there is no way in hell we are gonna straighten it out. As the mogambo guru is always saying, "We are freakin doomed."

They Got A Problem

I was just reading about some of the backlash by people upset with the recent passage of the health care bill. It reminded me of something I have read many times. To paraphrase, No government exists except by consent of the governed. On the surface, that might seem untrue. Many people will point to brutal dictatorships that exist currently or have existed in the past and say they exist through the use of force and not because of consent. But do they? Certainly they use force, but can force alone subdue all of the people all of the time? I think not. So long as enough people are reasonably satisfied with their circumstances, even the most brutal governments can hold on, but there comes a time when enough people are unhappy and they will demand and bring a change. If the people have confidence in the process, the change can be peaceful. Unfortunately for the powers that be, times are sort of rough for a lot of people right now. Couple that with the government passing laws that are unpopular with a significant portion if not a majority of the people and it creates a dangerous situation. Our government officials may not be in eminent danger of being voted out of office or worse yet being lynched, but I think they got a problem.

AL.com Comments

I know, I've bitched about them before, but I can't help it. I just finished reading some articles on AL.com and for some masochistic reason, I read the comments. My experience frustrated me so much that I just have to vent.

I have lived in Alabama all my life and have traveled in the United States a bit. I have met people in lots of places and for the most part, I found them all to be very similar. I don't think that the folks in other places are that much smarter or more impressive than the folks I have known in Alabama. But, when I read the comments on AL.com, I wonder who in the hell are the people that are writing them? I'm not talking about spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalization or anything like that. After all, its the internet, those things don't count for as much and we all take short cuts. Nope, I am talking about stupid, stupid, stupid remarks. Who are these idiots that perpetrate this madness?

I could give you examples, but it pains me too much to recount what I have read. Better I just rant here to blow off a little steam. If you doubt me, go to AL.com and click on an article, any article and read the comments and then see if I am wrong.

The Problem

"It’s not what people don’t know that’s the problem, but what they think they know that just ain’t so." - Will Rogers

Spyder Solitaire

Well I have found a new distraction to eat up my time. The other day Linda told me that she had a game called Spyder Solitaire on her computer and that she had been playing it and loved it. She told me to check mine and see if I had it. I assured her I did not as I don't play games on the computer and never install them. Opps, turns out SS comes with Windows XP. I have only recently started using XP. I bought a refurbrished Dell on eBay and it had XP installed. Before that, I had used an older Dell with W2K. The old machine did everything I needed but an early morning thunderstorm took it out along with my phone server and my Ubuntu linux machine.

Anyway, I do have Spyder Solitaire and it is kind of addictive. I think I like it better than regular solitaire, and I love to play the regular version. For now, I am limiting myself to about a half dozen games at a sitting and no more than 3 or 4 sittings per day. Since the weather has been cold, I have been staying kind of cabin bound anyway, but when warm weather gets here, I may have to relegate myself to only late night games just before bedtime. To explain how bad this is, I've even located a linux version and loaded it on to my eee PC so I can play when I travel. I guess its just another life lost to addiction.

TSA Anal Cavity Searches

Not yet, but give it time. I just read this article on CNN about the TSA reaction to the attempted Christmas flight bombing. It's just a matter of time until some wacko sticks a homemade explosive device up his poop shoot and tries to detonate it while the plane is in the air. As soon as he does, the TSA will start immediately having passengers strip, (what difference does it make, their machine already lets them see you naked) bend over and be probed anally.

As for me, I would not currently get on a plane for any reason short of saving my life or the life of a close loved one.

Taking A Chance

Funny how when you get to thinking about one thing, it leads you to another, and then another and finally you are thinking about something far removed from where you started. All the current news about the "Bingo Raids" got me to thinking about gambling in general. Gambling, like drinking, religion, abortion and politics, is a hot button topic. Hot button topics are apt to stir up controversy whenever they enter a conversation. I'm not gonna discuss any of them here today but I am gonna recount a story that this topic brought to mind.

Years ago, at the company where I worked, we played a game called check poker. I'm sure it, or a variant of it was played through out the country. We got paid every other Friday and our company was big enough that all the checks had 5 or 6 digit sequence numbers in the upper right hand corner. Before the checks were handed out, a group of us, usually the same suspects, would put $1 each in a pool. Then when we got our checks, we would compare the check numbers as if they were poker hands, 1 of a kind, a pair, 3 of a kind , 4 of a kind, full house and straight were all possible. The person with the best hand took the pot.

Not everyone played. I suspect that some were too tight and afraid they might loose a dollar. Some didn't want to be seen as associating with "our" kind, except as work forced it. Others maintained that it was gambling and was immoral. When any one brought up the moral argument, there was a guy, whose name happened to be "Guy" who loved to tell the story of an old switchboard wireman that was in his crew when he worked in the field. The old wireman was named Tony. By all accounts, Tony was a good man and a hard worker. I met him myself and remember him to be rather loud, funny and good natured. He was of Italian decent and I suspect he was a good Catholic. I did not know him that well but Guy said that Tony was hard against any form of gambling. It may have been from a personal experience or from something that happened in his family, I don't know, but it is said that he hated any form of gambling. But Tony always participated in check poker. The more sensitive portion of our population would let something like that slid, but the folks in Tony's crew, in fact the folks in all of our field crews were not the kind of folks to let anything slide. They were the in your face types. If they sensed hypocrisy or inconsistency they would confront you immediately. When payday rolled around and check poker was being played, someone new to the crew or someone that had recently discovered Tony's hatred for gambling, would challenge him about the paradox of him playing check poker when he hated gambling. Tony's answer was that check poker was not gambling, it was just "taking a chance."

Often I tell stories because they reinforce some point I want to make but not this time. I told you this story because I like it. Of course it probably does not mean as much to you if you can't put faces with these names, but I can and as I said, I like it.

Good Guys and Bad Guys

Next Tuesday the final season of the TV series "Lost" begins. Last night, I watched last season's final episode on Hulu. Not to give away any spoiler info but in it Ben does what I would call a bad thing. Through out the entire series, Ben has been heard to tell people, "we are the good guys."

It is said, and I believe, that your brain works on problems while you sleep. Apparently, last night, my brain worked on the problem of Ben, a self proclaimed good guy, doing a bad thing. This morning I woke up thinking of this famous quote by Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson:

There is so much good in the worst of us, an so much bad in the best of us, that it behooves all of us not to talk about the rest of us.

I have to admit that it has crossed my mind that an alternate solution might be that Ben is lying about being a good guy.

I Do Too!

Maybe Bigger Is Better

I originally wrote this back in January 2010 but somehow it got saved as a draft and never was published. I was doing some house keeping in my blog files tonight (8 July 2010) and ran across it. I read it and still feel about the same way so here it is:

I was born and raised in Alabama and have spent most of my life here. It has always been my home. I have traveled often but usually in the SE US. I have made one trip to England, a couple of trips to Canada and 3 or 4 out west. After traveling, I have always returned and in my mind I've thought, there really is no place like home. But that has changed in the last few years. A few years ago, my daughters family moved to Texas. I've been out there to visit several times and I have to say that I really like Texas. Then in 2008, I drove up to Alaska. It was great. If I could get used to the cold in the winter, I believe I could live my life out in Alaska. I'm temped to say that bigger is better and that the big states have something the others don't. Then I remember that I was very impressed with South Dakota and figure It might be a good place to live as well.

Alabama is not the worse place in the world and I am pretty happy here but I definitely have found some other places that seem like they would be a good replacement.

Back From Texas

We got back from Texas this week. We had been out there for the birth of my second grandson. Ford Miller Jones. He is a sweetie, just like his older brother Gantt. Since he was born in Texas, he is a native texan. I guess one of these days he will be driving a car with two stickers on the bumper. One, with the Texas single star that says "Native Texan" and another on the other side that says "Don't mess with Texas."

Three Old Dogs Minus One

We buried Corky yesterday, he died just after noon in his sleep. Corky was an old schnauzer dog, how old, no one really knows. Our estimate was 16 but that could have been off by as much as two or three years. The first thing that any of us know about Corky was that he showed up at Mrs. Taylor's house in the Memphis TN. area. He was already a grown dog at that time. No owners ever came to claim him so Mrs. Taylor took him in. Mrs. Taylor was a customer of my uncle who was a veterinarian in the Memphis area at that time. When she got too old to care for Corky, she asked my uncle to find him a home. My folks had recently lost their schnauzer dog Buck to cancer so my uncle offered them Corky. At first my dad was reluctant but my mom said they would take him and she would take care of him. My dad had loved Buck and I think he did not feel like another dog could ever take his place. Soon, Corky had won him over. I'm am pretty sure that he loved Corky as much as Buck and quite possibly more. One of his favorite expression when he was talking about Corky was "That little boy, he's a little man."

My dad had a stroke in 2001 followed by several other strokes that eventually left him bed ridden. He passed away in July of 2002. By that time, my mom had taken over as Corky's caretaker. She had an accident in November of 2002 and died, and Corky came to stay with me. He was still young enough when he came to live with me that he could do all the things dogs do. He barked, jumped on the furniture and played with toys. The subsequent years since 2002 had taken their toll. By the time he passed away yesterday, he was blind, deaf, stiff with arthritis and slept most of the time. I know some folks would have had him put to sleep a long time ago but with all his problems, he never gave any indications that he was suffering. Up until the last month, he had maintained a fairly steady routine of eating and sleeping and he would still nozzle up to you when you rubbed him between his ears. On his last vet checkup in November, his doctor was concerned with his weight loss. I tried changing his diet and feeding him more but he just didn't seem to have a good appetite. Also over the years he had developed several food allergies and was limited in what kinds of food he could eat. I did manage to get him to gain back a couple of pounds but after that he just went down hill. He had a good day Monday, the best day he had had in the last six months but then Tuesday morning, he just wanted to sleep. I got him up and he drank some water and then went right back to sleep. His breathing was shallow and slow. Just after noon he stopped breathing completely. Linda and I took him down to Slickhill and buried him with the other dogs and cats. He will be missed.

35 Inconvenient Truths

If you are like me and have always found man-made climate change a bit implausible then you should find the paper 35 Inconvenient Truths by Lord Christopher Monckton very interesting.

Or if you are someone who has been convinced that man-made climate change is real, you should find 35 Inconvenient Truths very enlightening.

And finally, if you are among that group of people who see man-made climate change as the basis of a new age religion then don't waste your time reading 35 Inconvenient Truths . You will just think it blasphemous.

Is Nullification Our Last Best Hope?

In this article Michael Boldin talks about various states using nullification to fight over reaching federal laws. Has our societal pendulum finally begun to swing back in the direction of sanity?

Telling It Like It Is

This lady tells it like it is:

Alabama Poutine

Last year, when I drove the Alaska Highway to Alaska and back, I spent several days in Canada. I had been to Canada one other time in my life in 1962, but that was just to Kenora, Ontario and I didn't remember all that much about it, besides, a lot has changed everywhere since 1962 so I really did not know what to expect.

I found that Canada is an interesting country with interesting people. They may share a continent with us, but they certainly have their own culture. Virtually everywhere I went, the people were very nice and fairly laid back. In a lot of ways, they reminded me of folks from the southeastern USA.

Every since I got back from my trip, I have been kind of keeping up with Canada. I've been watching CBC newscasts via internet, reading articles about Canada and things Canadian in the Wikipedia and this year I even listened to the Grey Cup. I have learned alot and come across some interesting things. Recently I discovered a uniquely Canadian food, poutine. For those of you that are like I was and have never heard of poutine, it is a dish that was developed in the province of Quebec and seems to have spread throughout Canada. Basically it is fried potatoes sprinkled with fresh cheese curd and topped with gravy.

Now no one likes fried potatoes any better than I do and gravy is a staple in my household, but cheese curd? If anybody makes cheese in Alabama, I don't know about it. Fortunately my daughter is a cheese guru so I called her up out in Texas and asked her where I might get some fresh cheese curd. She said that the closest place that she knew of to me was Sweetwater Tennessee but that I could probably get the same general effect from fresh mozzarella and that I should be able to find that at the Publix down the street. Sure enough I went to Publix and there was the fresh mozzarella, See, I told you she was a cheese guru.

Anyway, I brought the mozzarella home and diced up some of it to about the size of the cheese curd that I had seen in a picture of poutine on a web page. I put some frozen french fries in the oven to cook and set about to make some gravy. Now you probably noticed the title is "Alabama Poutine." There is a reason for that. In addition to using mozzarella instead of cheese curd, I intended to use gravy of my own design. Many of the webpages that discuss poutine mention using canned gravy. I had a different idea. I was gonna use home made tomato gravy. So I put a tablespoon of butter and a tablespoon of flour in my little cast iron skillet and started to stir. Fifteen minutes later I had a fine little roux. To that I added about 2/3 cup of beef broth and 2 tablespoons of chipped up tomatoes. I let the gravy simmer while I retrieved the french fries from the oven and sprinkled them with the chopped up mozzarella. Next I spooned some of the tomato gravy over them. Voilà, Alabama Poutine. Not a bad dish. I went back for a second helping.

Sending A Message

I like to think of myself as a fairly easy going guy. I am sure that there are those that would disagree with me being easy going, especially if they knew me several years ago and have not been around me lately. As I get older, things that used to wind me up tight not longer have the same affect. There are a lot of things in this country that I find distasteful and many that I find troubling but I try to remain philosophical and if it does not affect me directly, I attempt to let it slide.

But, there is one thing that will put my piss in a boil faster than a match will light a open container of gasoline. I hate, loath and despise the expression "sending a message." Everywhere you turn, there is some jackass talking about doing something to "send a message" or not doing something because it "sends the wrong message." What the hell does that mean anyway, send a message? What do I care what message something sends. We need to make decisions in this country on the basis of right or wrong, not what kind of damn message it sends. Of course, therein lies part of the problem. We long ago got away from considering what is right and wrong. Now we worry about what is legal and what is illegal. Well I can tell you one thing; right trumps legal every time. If what you are doing is wrong, but legal, sooner or later its gonna come back to bite you in the ass regardless of the message you are sending.

This really is incredible

I know that this woman is very well organized and obviously she spends a lot of preparation time, but her results really do knock my socks off

Mrs. Head's English Class

When I was in high school, we had an English teacher named Mrs Head. Her husband was my eighth grade math teacher and later on the High School Principal. They were great folks.

Earlier today I read this article on CBS.com about a screw up the Texas Legislature made back in 2005. Seems that in an effort to make gay marriages illegal, they enacted a law that contained the following wording: "This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."

If the Legislators in Texas had been in Mrs Head's English class, they would have realized that dog won't hunt. Every one has their pet peeves and Mrs Head's was statements that said things like "There is no Candy Bar like a Milky Way." When she heard something like that she would say, NO! There is no OTHER candy bar like a Milky way. To say that there is no candy bar like a Milky Way means that a Milky Way is not a candy bar, if it was, then there would be a candy bar like a Milky Way. Since marriage is a legal status that is identical to marriage, the ole boys in Texas done outlawed marriage, which come to think of it might be a problem solver in itself.

A Sick Parody of A Real Country

I know that there is a lot of good left in this country, in spite of what you see on reality tv and read in the papers and in the online press. I do my best to avoid all that crap and to keep a positive outlook, but then something like this pops up and I just throw up my hands and say enough.

In case the link is broken when you read this, it points to a story on CBSnew.com. The bottom line is that a mother in a "small Arkansas town" could not get her 10 year old daughter to take a shower so she called the cops. The cop tried to get the girl to settle down and she kicked the cop in the nuts so he tasered her. The whole story is soooo wrong on soooo many levels that I feel dirty just repeating it. (1) What kind of mother can't make a 10 year old kid take a shower? (2) What kind of dumbass calls the cops to make a kid take a shower? (3) What kind of cop can't control a 10 year old girl without tasering her? I hope that we find out later on that this is some kind of sick ass hoax. If not, and if this kind of stuff is going on, we have devolved into a sick parody of a real country.

Bingo

Back when I was an elementary school student (1953 - 1958) we used to have a Halloween Party at my school. Back then, you could still have Halloween parties, you did not have to call them Fall Festivals and everyone could go, even the kids that went to the local Baptist church. About the same time every year, if I remember correctly it was usually after Halloween but before Thanksgiving, we had a Bingo party. Everyone could play. I remember the excitement I experienced the first time I bingoed. I won a Lane cake, a real Lane cake made with real Bourbon whiskey. I know it was because I still remember the lady that made it coming up and telling my mama how much she used. Fast forward to today and show me the elementary school in Central Alabama where you can go and play bingo and win a real Lane cake, especially if you are a student at that school.

What got me to thinking about all this was this article I just read on Al.com. There has been a whole lot of talk lately about Bingo in the state of Alabama, accusations made and countered, court cases, news broadcasts, media articles, etc. I have to ask myself, is Bingo or any other kind of gambling really the biggest problem this state has? Does it really deserve the attention it is getting?

I pretty much keep to myself. I don't belong to any local organizations, don't go to any of the churches and my child is long since grown so I don't have any reason to hang around schools, but I do read the occasional paper, overhear conversations in the grocery store or Walmart and sometimes I will talk to folks I'm standing in line with at a fast food restaurant. Based on what I am seeing and hearing, we have a lot of folks in Alabama that are hurting. Times are rough, people are out of work, more adults and children are going hungry. In my humble opinion, the self righteous hypocrites in this state who are so concerned about whether or not someone is going to a Halloween party or playing Bingo on a machine some where could better spend their time addressing the real needs of the state and its people.

Instant Replay

I watch a little Major League Baseball and College Football on TV and listen to a lot of both of them on the radio. I grew up listening to Auburn Football on the radio back when the NCAA or someone limited the number of games a team could appear on TV. Back then I was too young and too poor to go to all the games and the only other option for keeping up with the Tigers was radio. I never was a big MLB fan. I watched some KC Royals games when Bo Jackson played for them but not much else. When I met Linda, she got me hooked on the Atlanta Braves so now I enjoy watching them, but I can still equally enjoy listening to them on the radio. Many folks don't understand how I could enjoy and maybe even prefer radio to TV, but some folks don't understand how I can "stand" those old black and white movies either. When challenged about liking sports on the radio I simply answer that it is a "theater of the mind" thing and move on. I'm telling you this so you will realize that my perspective on TV sports is probably different from yours and maybe from most folks.

So here is my take on Instant Replay. "It sucks, do away with it." The little good that it does when it occasionally gives the officials a chance to "lick the calf over" is more than off set by the problem of a break in the flow of the game. I'm speaking here of football. Games were much more exciting when the teams ran a play and if intervention by the officials was necessary, the call was made, and everyone moved on. Sure a coach or player might voice their disagreement and "lobby" for further consideration later on, but the current play was over and done with. The ruling on the field always stood. Now, with the review process, the flow of the game is disrupted, the veracity of the officiating is immediately called into question and thousands of folks wait while some replay official does his best to try to see what really happened. It gives a herky jerky tone to the games that they did not have in the days before instant review. College football was much better without the Instant Replay and without overtime tie breaking, but don't let me get started on that horror story.

Everything Nice Stove

I follow Greentrust on twitter and the other day he had a link to a Worldstove.com video in one of his tweets. I watched the video demo of the Lucia Stove and was impressed. I went to Worldstove.com's site and quickly saw that the Lucia Stove, even a back pack model, was rather pricely but they had free plans for what they called an EverythingNice stove.

I looked at the plans and decided that it was something I could do. It took me a couple of days to find the right cans and to fit them together but late last week, I had my version of the Everything Nice ready to try. It is not as impressive as the Lucia, but it works very well and cost virtually nothing to make. I used cans I had on hand and my only expense was for a 1/2 counter sink and a 3 inch hole saw to help me in the construction. The stove I made is about 7 1/2 inches tall and approximately 6 3/8 inches in diameter.

This past weekend, I did some experimenting with various fuels that I had available. I was very pleased with how the stove worked. My best results to date has been with the inner can filled to the fill line with shredded papers soaked in about 1/2 cup of used cooking oil. This resulted in a 42 minute burn. The burn was virtually free of visible smoke.

I crafted a ring to allow me to put a pot on top of the stove without extinguishing the fire and this morning I made my first pot of coffee on the stove. It worked great. I think that this Everything Nice stove is going to prove to be an excellent camping companion.

Tilapia

Late last week I watched a video on YouTube of some guy cutting filets off a tilapia. It looked like something I could do so Sunday I went by the local Food$mart and got a couple of whole tilapia. One was 560 grams the other was 428 grams. I fileted the first one Sunday. I battered the filets in cornmeal, salt and black pepper and fried them in olive oil. One thing I didn't do that the guy in the video did was to remove the skin. The fried tilapia filets with skin on had a taste that reminded me of bream.

Today I fileted the smaller tilapia. Again I left the skin on. I blackened these. During the blackening, the skin turned loose. I was able to pull it back with a fork with no damage to the filets. The blackened tilapia filets were very tasty. Maybe not quite so much of a fish taste with the skin removed.

I am sure I will be preparing tilapia both ways in the future, but when I intend to blacken them, I will go ahead and remove the skin to simplify things.

Onion Humor

I love The Onion , they rate right up there with The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and South Park as being the most politically incorrect media entities. I just finished reading this onion article and I was laughing my ass off until I remembered some of the things I had read in the comments section on AL.com recently. I reflected for a minute and decided that if the entire country is as overrun with dumb asses as the AL.com forums appear to be, this Onion article could actually happen in the near future.

Smart Folks

I just finished reading this New York Times opinion article. It reminded me of something I heard from an instructor when I was at Auburn.

It was my second time to take Differential Equations (I took several courses twice) and my instructor was a graduate student. He was, by his own account, somewhat lazy. I don't recall him ever giving a real lecture. He preferred instead to assign homework and then have selected students go to the board the next day and work the problems. Since I had taken DE before and had kept copious notes, I had the solution to many if not most of the homework problems. The solutions were easy to copy to the board and we got credit for "working a problem at the board." Often, when students were at the board "working" problems the instructor would broach off on to a non mathematical subject. On one occasion, I remember he was talking about the government. I don't remember the details of what he was saying but I do recall that someone suggested that since he had all the answers, maybe he should be president. His response was that he was an intellectual and that intellectuals should never be president because they would be so certain of the right way to do things that they would be contemptuous of the people and would become dictators.

Seems like the NYT article sort of supports that theory. Although the smart people didn't get to the top of Wall Street, they did get high enough to reek havoc. Maybe we should IQ test everyone and prohibit people above a certain IQ from holding positions of authority or influence in companies or in the government. This would accomplish two things. First, smart, conniving, people would not be allowed into positions where they could disrupt the lives of others. Second, everyone would know that Presidents, Vice Presidents, Managers, Supervisors, etc were kinda slow and they would not pay them too much attention. The world might be a better place.

What Happened to Global Warming?

The BBC asks the question What happened to Global Warming?

Seeing What We Want To See

Last year before the election I was talking to one of my engineer buddies that works at the electrical utility where I used to work. We were talking about the upcoming presidential election and he was telling me that most of the folks in his church were excited to have a black candidate running for president. That may seem strange to you since we are in Alabama, but my buddy is black. Anyway, he is like me, never thinks the same as everyone else thinks and never misses a opportunity to say what he thinks. He told his fellow church members that when he looked at Mr. Obama, he did not see a black man, he saw a politician. I agreed with him at the time and I still do.

A couple of days ago I was talking to someone from North Alabama and the person told me that many of their friends and acquaintances over the age of 65 were up in arms over the governments recommendation that people over 65 be the last to get the H1N1 flu shot. The north Alabama oldies have come to the conclusion that this is the Obama administration's way to kill them off. While it wasn't stated, I suspect that the majority of them are white and republican. My advice to them would be to be glad if the government was trying to kill them. Our government is so inept at everything it does that if it tries to kill you, you may get into the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest living person.

So the black church members in Birmingham looked at Obama and saw the great black hope. The old white republicans in north Alabama look at him and see someone planning eldercide. As I said before, I am like my engineer friend, I look at Obama and see a politician and if I don't listen to what he says, but watch what he does, he is pretty much like the politician that held that office before him.

AL.COM

A couple of times every day, I pull up AL.COM to see if anything interesting is happening around me. If I find an article that interests me, I read it. Then, I usually check out the comments that accompany it. I was born in Alabama and have lived here all my life. I know that some of the best, most polite and smartest people in the world live here, but apparently none of them make comments on AL.COM. For every half way intelligent comment, there are at least ten that are asinine and the flaming that goes on is heart breaking.

I've given it some thought and I believe that the problem is the anonymity in posting. If everyone had to include in their posts their real name and the city where they lived, I expect that a lot of the crap that is posted now wouldn't be.

Time for Plan "B"

According to LEAP (Law Enforcement Against Prohibition), an estimated 1.3 percent of the US population were drug addicts in 1913 before the Harrison Anti Drug Act was passed. The Harrison Act made drugs like cocaine and marijuana illegal. In 1970, just before President Nixon declared the "War on Drugs" an estimated 1.3 percent of the US population were drug addicts. Today, after fighting the "War on Drugs" for nearly 40 years and spending approximately 1 trillion dollars, approximately 1.3 percent of the US population are drug addicts. I think it is time for Plan "B".

Corky's New Rag Rug

Chickenlittleism

Don't believe it when someone tells you the United States is a Christian nation, or a Capitalist nation or even that it has become a Socialist nation. Nope, we are a nation of Chickenlittleists. Our nation practices Chickenlittleism. If you don't believe me, read this link.

In an article on Yahoo about this same incident, I read where the shots mentioned were actually someone saying bang, bang, bang over the radio to simulate shots being fired. Only Chickenlittlelists would mistake someone saying bang, bang, bang for real gun fire.

This is not a isolated instance. Remember the advertising campaign in Boston several months back when the city was paralyzed because of some electronic alien signs that some idiot misidentified as being explosive devices? And how many times have you heard of some airport being shut down for hours because someone walked off and forgot to take a parcel they had with them?

I realize that the world is not a safe place. It never has been, it never will be, but all these Chickenlittlelists are not helping anything. My advice to the Chickenlittlelists, grow a set and get on with your life and quit disrupting everyone elses.

Swine Flu Shot?

I don't think so. Read this and decide for yourself.

Man Made Global Warming Is A Crock

So says MIT Professor Richard Lindzen. This article gives the details.

Health Care Reform

I have been withholding judgement on health care reform up until now. First, because it will have a limited effect on me. I have good insurance right now and I will be 65 in 3 years and forced into a government run system whether I like it or not. Second, because while I know that the present system sucks, I don't trust the government to make anything better. Truth is, the system we have now is as screwed up as it is because of previous government intervention. And third, I did not feel like I had enough information to make a valid judgement.

That all changed a few minutes ago. I read this article that says the current plan being talked about would use the IRS as the primary tool to assure that our national insurance situation improved. Of all the people, places, and things in this world that I could imagine turning responsibility for my health care over to, the very last one that I would ever consider would be the IRS. If this is the best that congress can do, they need to close up shop and come home.

Chrome

I have been using Firefox almost exclusively for quite some time. Occasionally I will use IE but not very often. I had read some interesting things about Chrome but was unable to try it as it requires at least Win XP and my main computer was still running W2K. All that changed a few weeks ago. Lightning took out my W2K box along with the old Dell Optiplex that was running Ubuntu and an emachine that I used for software testing.

I used my Dell laptop docked for awhile and then I came upon a nice Dell GX280 on ebay at a great price. It came with Win XP installed. After getting it set up with the things I needed, I added Chrome. Chrome is fast and according to the Windows Task Manager is relatively light on memory usage. Granted, I have only been using it for a couple of day but so far I think it is the best browser I have seen. I can't wait for them to come out with the Linux version so I can try it on my eeePC 900.

Solution to the Jefferson County Problem.

In the 1860's in central Alabama, portions of Montgomery, Autauga, Coosa, and Tallapoosa counties were taken and formed into a new county that bore the name Elmore. In Virginia, cities exist separate from the surrounding counties. If I am not mistaken, Richmond VA in not in a county but is a separate entity from its adjacent counties.

If counties can cede portions of themselves to form new counties, then it would seem that existing counties could be split up and ceded to the counties that surrounding them. If cities can exist outside of counties in Virginia then it would seem that cities could exist outside counties in Alabama.

My solution to the current Jefferson County mess is to let the city of Birmingham and any of its adjacent municipalities that chose to join it form a Birmingham City that is not located in any county. Then take whats left of Jefferson county and annex it on to the various counties that currently surround Jefferson county. Give the city of Birmingham representation in the legislature similar to what a county would have. Then the state of Alabama would have 66 counties, 1 autonomous city and the corrupt, inept, embarrassing mess that is currently Jefferson county would cease to exist.

Nativity and Naivety

For no other reason than it is Sunday afternoon and I don't have much going on, I decided to look up the words nativity and naivety online. Here are the the definitions I found, or at least my interpretation of their definitions:

Nativity - Birth, especially the place, condition and circumstances of being born.

Naivety - The belief that there are substantive differences between Democrats and Republicans.

Graduated From Auburn University with the Lowest Grade Point Ever

During most of my high school years, it was my intent upon graduation to go to Auburn University and study engineering. Sometime in my senior year of high school, I decided to go my first two years to Alex City State Junior College instead. I don't remember the exact details of that decision but I think it had to do with living at home for two more years which would definitely be cheaper. Anyway, I did go to ACJC for two years and during that time, I burned up virtually all of my electives. When I got to Auburn as a Junior, there was not much left except engineering courses. There were a few math and physics courses, but they offered no respite from the grueling engineering curriculum. Enough, excuses. Bottom line is I failed early and I failed often. I had a pretty good gpa at ACJC, but my Auburn gpa stunk.

Back then Auburn was on a 3 point system. The minimum grade point average required for graduation was 1.0. My Auburn gpa entering my last quarter was 0.98. If you calculated my overall gpa for college it was about 1.40. Problem was that Auburn at that time counted all your transfer work at 1.0 until after you graduated, so my overall grade point pregraduation was about 0.99. On the appointed day, I went to the registrar's office to petition for graduation at the end of the quarter. The lady looked at my transcript, looked at my current grades and said you don't have a 1.0 overall. I said yes mam, does that mean I am not gonna graduate? She said "not necessarily." You have a 1.40 with your transfer work. I said yes mam, does that mean I am gonna graduate? She said "not necessarily." You see you don't get full credit for your transfer work until after you have graduated. I said yes mam, does that mean I am not gonna graduate? She said "not necessarily." I think there were two or three more exchanges to which she replied "not necessarily" but time has erased them from my memory. Or maybe I can't remember them because they say you can't remember pain. Anyway, I finally got the courage and asked "Mam, am I gonna graduate?" Her response was "I think so."

I held my breath up to graduation day. I stood as still as possible in line on graduation day so as not to call any attention to myself. Finally my moment came, I crossed the stage, took the diploma and shook someones hand and the deal was done. I had a 1.40, but a few seconds earlier I had a 0.99 so to this day, I believe that I graduated from Auburn University with the lowest grade point ever.

What Is Really Important In America

This article talks a little bit about the single most important problem facing America today. Most of what you see on TV or read online or in the newspaper is just sensational fluff. The incidents described in the linked article are exhibitions of a legal system that looks like something designed in an insane asylum. Until we put a stop to this craziness, nothing else matters, not terrorism, not abortion, not gun control or the lack of it, not taxes, not health care, not drugs, not racism, nothing. Because when you live in a country where some bureaucrat can get it in for you and have you incarcerated for "something that no reasonable person would ever think was a crime", then changing that system back to to something that is sane is the only thing that is really important.

Freedom

I just finished reading this interesting Backwoods Home article by Claire Wolfe. Claire Wolfe is one of my favorite writers and Backwoods Home is my favorite magazine so it is kind of ironic that I found the article following a link on the internet. It is a very informative and thought provoking article, and yes, I do own a copy of "How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World", by Harry Browne.

That Good Inshowance

Backed when I worked for the local electric utility company we had a president that used to like to tell us about what good inshowance we had. He was a highly intelligent man but he talked a lot like I do and he never said insurance, he called it inshowance.

I have never been a big fan of insurance. When he would mention our good inshowance, I would aways wonder to myself, is it really as good as he thinks it is? That is a question that has troubled me all my life. Every time I review my expenditures and see how much I am paying for the various types of insurance I ask myself, am I getting my money's worth? If I ever have a claim will they actually pay off? This morning I read this article. After I finished it, I thought to myself, just how good is my insurance? I suspect that I am better off not knowing the answer.

How Fast We (USA) Spend Our Money

If this doesn't scare the $h1t out of you, you are brain dead.

Social Security

This morning I got an email about Social Security from a friend. The email said that the US Senate had recently voted to extend Social Security benefits to illegal aliens. It contained a petition directed at the Whitehouse urging the president to veto this legislation should it become law. The email prompted me to blog a bit about Social Security.

I have spent most of my adult life thinking and saying that the Social Security system was going to go broke and that I would never live to see a penny of that money which I had paid in over the years. I now believe that I was wrong. Don't misunderstand me. I still think that Social Security is a very bad idea. I've been in enough Multi-Level Marketing plans over the years to know that Social Security is going to end badly. What I was wrong about is how it is going to end. I recently read an article where the author was describing his take on what the future held. One of the things he mentioned was the effect that the boomers were going to have on Social Security. He did not think that Social Security was going to go bankrupt. In fact he maintained that they would pay out every dollar they promised. The only change he predicted for Social Security was the phasing out of the Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA).

He predicted that the government will continue to create ever increasing amounts of money just as they are doing now to "fight the current economic crisis." Social Security payments will be one of the things that will be paid with this new money. The introduction of all this new money into the system will ultimately lead to price inflation. So, rest assured, you are going to get your $1500 a month or whatever the SSA is promising you, but you probably won't be able to buy too much with it.

Canadian Corned Beef Hash?

Last summer I drove up to Alaska. I drove because I had always wanted to drive the AlCan and anyway I am not a big fan of flying. We picked up Linda in Anchorage but for most of the way up and all the way back it was just me and the dogs. My camper has a refrigerator but I don't use it unless I am parked. Driving to Alaska and back there is a lot more non parking than there is parking. Since the refrigerator was not on that much, we relied a lot on non perishable foods. The dogs of course had their dry dog food but they both, and Dixie especially, like to have a little something mixed in with it for variety.

One of the things that all three of us like is corned beef hash. At home, I will often open up a can in the morning and heat up some of it to eat with my eggs. I mix a couple of tablespoons in with the dogs dry food. They love it. My camper is small so I try not to load it down with a lot of things that I can get along the way. When I left Pelham last year, I think I had 2 or 3 cans of corned beef hash loaded in the camper. On the first leg of the trip, Regan and Gantt were with us and we didn't eat any of the corned beef hash. We dropped Regan and Gantt off in Grapevine and headed up through the heartland to Montana and crossed over into Canada. We were well into Alberta before we consumed the last of our corned beef hash. At my next grocery stop I checked but did not see any corned beef hash in that store. I continued looking for it through northern British Columbia and all of the Yukon. I didn't find any more corned beef hash until I got to Alaska.

Do Canadian's eat corned beef hash? I know they have corned beef, I saw it in the stores. They also have potatoes. Do they just cut out the middle man and prepare their own at home? If you know the facts on this, let me know. If you are a Canadian and haven't tried corned beef hash, give it a try. If you can't find it, and want to try it, be on the lookout for a gray dodge pickup with a white camper and Alabama plates. The next time I pass through I intend to have a stock of it.

Audit the FED

Any organization with the sort of power the Federal Reserve has needs to be audited periodically. This article talks about a proposal to enable such an audit to be carried out.

The Canadian Health Care System

In this article from the Denver Post, a Canadian citizen who has lived in the US for 17 years compares the US Health Care System to the Canadian Health Care System. I found what she had to say very interesting.

Some Real Science

Real science from a team of MIT researchers.

Finally, Some Light At The End Of The Tunnel

This article from the Wall Street Journal gives some hope that finally people are beginning to question this climate change BS.

Eat Soup and Loose Weight

This article on BBC News says it is all about the hormone called ghrelin.

Adios GMC

Sold my 1976 GMC motorhome yesterday. I originally bought it in 2003. Actually I bought it on the last day of 2002 and picked it up the day after new years. No tax consideration, that was just the way it worked out.

They say the two happiest days in the life of a boat owner are the day he buys his boat and the day he sells it. Having been a boat owner myself, I can pretty well substantiate that. The GMC was different. I had been looking for one for quite a while before I located mine on a car lot here in Pelham. As with all the TZE's, it had a story with it. Also, as with all of the TZE's and most other motorhomes, as best I can determine, it required a good bit of tinkering. Over the 6 years and 5 months that I owned it, I replaced and/or repaired quite a few items.

But the repairs are not what I will remember about the GMC. It went with me on some great trips. Like the time me and the puppies took it to the Kendall Campground in Kentucky for the World's Longest Yard Sale. And the trip to Gulf Shores to watch Ted play baseball. There were several trips to Auburn Football games and best of all the two weeks at Anastasia State Park in Jacksonville waiting on GE to be born.

If you look at what I paid for it, add in the upkeep and fuel costs and then see what I got for it, you would say damn, that was a poor investment. But if you factor in the worth of the good times it enabled, it was the best money I ever spent. I hope it serves it's new owner as well.

A Chance For TBS To Make Amends

I have been PO'd at TBS ever since they dropped the Braves. This morning I read this article that says they may be interested in picking up the production of "My Name Is Earl". If they do that, they will definitely be out of my dog house.

Dick Cheney

I've been seeing a lot of articles lately about things that the former VP has to say. I'm not like Connie Darville, I don't have a gambling problem. But, I will wager at times and I'd bet you a gold ring against a doughnut hole that when ole Dick gets to his final reward, Saddam Hussein will be his room mate or at the very least his suite mate.

Another Milestone

Several years ago the company that I worked for lowered their early retirement age from 55 to 50. At that time, I was still in my forties. In July of 1997, I reached a milestone. I turned 50. From then on, I knew things would be different because I could retire if I had to. It did not mean a whole lot, just a little added sense of security.

Earlier this month I reached another milestone. The Social Security Administration lets you go ahead and sign up 90 days before you are eligible to receive your first check. I suppose that gives them 90 days to handle the paperwork. Since I will be 62 in July, I will be eligible to receive my first check August 1. So on May 1, I was able to sign up to draw Social Security and I did just that. Some folks have asked me "why don't you wait for a while so your check will be more?" The best way I can respond is to tell something I learned while I worked for my father at Miller's Garage.

My father ran his business before credit cards became so ubiquitous. Never the less, there were people who needed credit. Then as now for most folks in this part of the world, an automobile was essential for getting to and from work. If your vehicle feel into disrepair and could not be used, you probably would not be able to work and could easily loose your job. So people would bring in their vehicles for my father to work on and, paraphrasing Whimpy, tell him I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for car repair today.

In his office, my father kept a stack of plain receipt books like you could buy in the dime store. He would write the name of the customer along the top line, the nature of the repair on the lines on the left side , dollar amounts in the right hand column and total it up at the bottom. There would be an original and a carbon. The carbon he kept for his records, the original he gave to the customer when they paid up. (Here is where we come to the part that relates to the SSA.) Some of his credit customers would come in and pay with cash but quite a few of them would write him a check. Most of the checks he would take home to mama and she would gather several of them together, fill out a deposit slip and mail them off to the Alexander City Bank. Occasionally someone would come in and write my father a check and after they left, he would go to town to their bank and cash their check. He said that, in their case, he needed to get up there and get his money while they still had some in the bank. I have sized up SSA to be that sort of check writer and that is the reason I signed up to receive my first social security check on August 1.

The RV World of 1937

According to this inflation calculator the 1937 dollar mentioned in this video would be worth about $15.00 today. Still a great bargain for a weeks rent.

Core Values Of Survival

Lew Rockwell had a link to these 10 Core values of Survival on his web page a couple of days ago. They make sense. Nothing I haven't heard before but it is nice to see it concisely stated in one place.

Why I Welcome Global Warming.

Every time I turn around, someone is bemoaning the fact that we are experiencing global warming. To tell you the truth, when I look at this past winter's heating bills I have a hard time believing that we are truly experiencing global warming, man-made or not. But if we are, I welcome it.

You see, I am retired, fixed income and all that. It doesn't take a Harvard economist to see that this country, in fact the whole world, is inflating the money supply. For folks like me, that means that in the future my fixed income will buy less and less. If the climate warms up, I will have to buy less fuel for heat. Also, increased CO2 will make plants grow better. That is going to be important because what little money I have will no doubt have to go to pay my taxes and I will have to grow what I eat. More CO2 will help the little plants feed me.

So when I hear someone talking about global warming, I say bring it. I would rather be laying around under a shade tree with a full stomach trying to keep cool than to be freezing to death and starving. Think about it!

Interesting Technology

While I don't think much of man made global warming, I do think that anything that will increase our sources of available energy or that will help us better utilize what we have is worth while. When I read about this technology that converts waste CO2 to methane, I found it very interesting. You can check it out for yourself here.

Marijuana Debate on Larry King Show

Linda saw this discussion on "Larry King" and she said that it was a good one. Today, I saw a link to it on the blog at Lewrockwell.com. I watched it and I agree it makes a lot of sense.

Old Glory Insurance

Still one of my favorites. You will have to watch a commercial first.

"What If...?"