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.