My Hysterical Historical Perspective

I'm Back out of the Fiery Steel Furnace...


Some years ago I read a editorial news story which suggested after WWII GM and the other auto manufacturers paid and lobbied local and national politicians to have the Cities and regions decommission their street cars so more people would have to buy their own cars, and the passenger railroads also saw their own demise begin (in spite of /addition to their own stupidity) at the hands of autos and airlines.

After the streetcars were gone and the auto traffic jams began, then of course the motor companies had the foresight to come back and offer to sell those same cities/politicians fleets of gas and diesel powered buses to drive each day over the same asphalt covered rails which once served to guide the daily journeys of vehicles powered by what???

...ELECTRICITY?

Today it kills me the hysteria over gas prices, and all of the 1970's Carter era rhetoric about Ethanol and "alternative energy" and hybrid electric cars.

Where do these tree hugging booger eating panty waisted Owl Gore/Ralph Nader following morons think that electricity comes from...Mars?

The Internet?

Plllluuuuuueeeeaaaasssseeeeeeee...

All I know today is that I'm back in the Coal fired energy business again after my self imposed hiatus and what amazes me is that we can't find qualified people to take a half dozen six figure jobs in our firm.

There's more grey and bald heads than kids in the building, although age really doesn't matter.

At least three of the recent hires including me came back out of various stages of "retirement" from other places to come to the heart of the Tennessee By God Valley Authority (another post depression era Government funded boondoggle come fairly successful private enterprise) and we feel fortunate to find Knoxville to be a great place to live so far.

So much for the "unemployment crisis" and "age discrimination" while we're at it.

Here's an Idea...

Think about this while you're glancing at the front pages of your local dead tree print edition of the Newspaper this morning and as an exercise try constructing your own Newspaper headline.

Ready???

Imagine how the Buggy Whip and Horse Saddle makers whined in the 1920's and 30's when Henry Ford was in the process of putting a Model T or Model A in every barn and stable in preparation for "transferring our wealth" to the Middle East?

Here's my News Headline Ideas...

Horses Lament Lack of Work!!!

Whip Manufacturers Cracking

Owners Saddled With Rising Debt

And what about the people that were in the "livery stable business"?

Can I run for Congress with that plank in my platform?

See...It's all just a matter of historical perspective, in my Considered Redneck Opinion

Today "forty acres and a mule" would go about as far as a "chicken residing in every pot..."

(come to think of it, over most of the last 60 years everyone has had their chickens--government supplied or otherwise--but today the government doesn't seem to be happy until chicken cost $10 per pound because all of the chicken feed has been converted into gasoline.)

Our Little Island A Long, Long Time Before We Got There...

New Cannon 850 Multi-Function Printer/Copier/Scanner In The House


This evening I scanned this reproduction of an old photo Pat bought when we lived on St. Simons:



And after scanning it and spending a half hour with Photo shop doing some clean up and cropping I had THIS image:



(They're really high resolution copies, so click in the first image and enjoy the scratches and speckles, then look at how much of the "noise" I removed...a new copy of Photo Shop is on the way to my house as I write.)

This just In...

New Cialis Salad Dressing A Success


As I was sitting here doing some work and enjoying FOX News in the background on the computer, a thought came to me regarding a new use for all of the chemicals they're trying to sell me to improve my middle aged performance in areas outside the office, in private, and generally after dark.

You think that anyone would be interested in my new Salad dressing/fertilizer based on the male impotency drug Cialis?

So far it works pretty darn well.

Here, take a look at a photo of the results of some of our early experiments that took less than one day to produce:




(Yes, I made this whole story up all by my wittle self, but I didn't grow the cucumber and I suspect that there's little use for anything that size in real life. The same is true most of the time for other chemically treated things that size found hanging around or pointing at the ceiling for longer than four hours...)

Steel For Sale...

Cheap

I don't actually have the steel, but I have the drawings for a bunch of it haunting me day and night and would be happy to sell them for a good price unfinished.

Then again, I guess that I signed up for this when we left our little island for money--and I've already been paid for most of it so I guess it's time to head back in and play with it some more.

Doesn't The Post Office Foward Mail To The Weather Nerds?

Hey "Fay"...WE'VE MOVED

I came home today having spent ZERO time on the Internet at work, so after checking my E-Mail I dove over to the NOAA Hurricane Web page to see what our girl Fay was doing down in the Florida Straits and found this image:



Then I thought..."Isn't that nice, Fay's coming to visit me..."

Then I remembered..."I don't live on our little island any more..."

I still miss the place, regardless of Owl Gore's warnings.

Deadlines

work, Work, WORK...


Heap Big Pow Wow (Que the tribal drums.)

Injuneers everywhere.

I'm not finished behind paralyzed with the client's ongoing yet normal indecision.

Management kissing posteriors.

Not a pretty sight.

Meeting at 9:30 AM

Painting on make up donning a drop cloth.

Hope I don't get anything on me...

Can Someone Explain THIS To Me

The Lamestream Mainstream Media Continues To Ignore The Issue

As my opening to this commentary, I offer this critical Internet Link to a formerly famous document which some years ago was written as an OUTLINE (not a micromanagement plan) for the conduct of a life here within what ended up to encompass the borders of all lands lying north of Mexico, south of Canada, and east and west of the shores of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

It's usually called the US Constitution (although I'm not quite sure what they're teaching future voters kids today in government public schools, so excuse me if I appear ignorant.)

Here's the words I'm concerned with this morning, Article II, Section 1 of the aforementioned document.

"No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States."

Pretty straight forward stuff.

Any Questions?

Then why does the rest of the planet discuss things like this document and numerous other things that have or haven't been released about Candidate Obamarama (can anyone say John sKerry's discharge papers?):

in news articles like this one:

Jakarta - The "little curly-haired one" is well remembered by his Indonesian teacher Israella Darmawan.

It was in 1968 when Barack Obama joined her class, and she likes the idea that he soon might become the world's most powerful person.

"We hope and pray that he will become the best US president of all time," says Darmawan.

Darmawan was Obama's teacher while he attended the Catholic St Francis of Assisi school in Jakarta's up-scale Menteng district.

Darmawan, 64, who retired last year, now only returns to her former school to tell current pupils about their famous alumnus.

She takes a faded book from a shelf, the school register dating back to 1968.

"Barry Soetoro"

Under registration number 203 it reads in large-lettered handwriting: "Barry Soetoro."

"Barry" used to be Obama's nickname, which he used together with his stepfather's last name.

While you probably haven't heard a single word about the issue of Obamarama's eligibility to even run for president?

Let me offer this candid, insightful question if this is true (that Obamarama wasn't born in the US to parents of US citizenship):

Can we really afford to have an "undocumented worker" hanging around at this "Pay Level"?

(if you didn't watch the "forum" last night you'll miss half of the question...)

Hurricane Predictions "Fay"ding Away

So Go Buy Some Milk, Bread, And Batteries...


As you may recall, I, as a long time self proclaimed "Hurricane Expert," spend a good deal of time watching weather reports and looking at on line computer models of the atmosphere.

Call it a hobby...call it an infection affection, but as I have said many before, knowing what I know today and seeing Jim Cantori's shiny head being paid zillions of dollars by the Weather Channel to stand around in a rain coat telling you to run away or take cover, I sometimes wish I could go back to 1977 and major in Meteorology rather than Injuneering.

Problem was, in those days (the '70's) all you thought of when you thought about weather was the local TV dude on WTVY in Dothan or the weather "bimbo" on the national morning TV shows that waived their hands over a map and reported that today it might rain somewhere and snow somewhere and the rest of us were going to dry up or burn up and blow away courtesy of the Santa Ana or Chinook winds.

Maybe I should call my self a "weather critic" rather than a weather expert. Sort of like a "Wine Critic" or even more accurately, a Movie Critic."

In support of that assertion, I can definitely tell you that a nice bottle of "Mad Dog 20/20" wine has a hard time comparing to a bottle of Fonseca 1977 Vintage Port Wine (which I am currently lovingly harboring in my personal cellar right now) or a 1994 bottle of Stags Leap Cabernet Sauvignon, and I'm also pretty sure that you're wasting your time and money going to see the latest productions by Weird Al Yankovitch or Michael Moore.

Back to my original topics of Hurricanes...I guess what I really do is not predict Tropical Weather.

What I do predict and tell you loudly is about our inability to EXACTLY predict within a WEEK what will happen in the coastal weather department.

Heck, the local weather men can't even tell me for sure if it's going to rain here on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River at noon today.

So when the so-called real "Hurricane Experts" puff up their chests and proclaim an above average hurricane season I have to ask this question...

SO WHAT?

What do you want us to do?

Run Away screaming?

Pee in our Pants?

Move to California and subject ourselves to wild fires and earthquakes?

Move to Iowa and die of boredom?

WHAT?

And think about this for a minute.

Since 2005 when Katrina hit, the following Hurricane seasons (including 2008 to date) have been below average, although every single year the "experts" have predicted an above average season.

That's right, it's not in their best interest financially or ego wise to predict that the waters of the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico will be calm.

It doesn't make news, and it doesn't increase government and private funding for "weather" or "hurricane" research. If something ceases to be a real problem (or an imagined problem like man made global warming) the money goes away along with the news reporters.

So any way...now we have our first real threat of the 2008 season in mid-August and I ask you to sit back and enjoy the upcoming hysteria. I don't want a single roof blow off or anyone to spend a single minute without power/TV/Internet service not to mention being injured or killed, but at the same time ...

GIVE IT A REST.

We know...we know...WE KNOW ALREADY...

Evacuate if we're in the path of the coming storm, else buy 15 loaves of bread, 9 bags of ice, and tons of batteries if we're nearby, and then get on with being bored out of our minds by the upcoming presidential election coverage.

(BTW they just revised the storm path and forecast for FAY and now they're saying that it won't make hurricane strength as it comes ashore somewhere around Port Charlotte or Tampa.)

I Wanna' Talk About Me

Wanna' Talk About I, Wanna' Talk About #1....Oh My Me My...(With Apologies to Mr. Toby Keith)


So here I am, in the middle of the SUMMER, looking around for winter shoes and stuff to service my "Global Warming Induced Climate Accommodation Needs" since moving up here from our little island to the heartland of the US tundra the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River and I found this image (click on the picture and look closely):

The ad stressed the protection it afforded from Lyme Disease and West Nile Virus.

( I put my Lymes in my Tequila on ice and limit my travels to places not further than the East bank of the Nile river so I can rest easy most of the time without netting blocking my vision...)

Any way, it stopped me in my tracks on my keyboard for a few minutes few seconds...then I shook my head and grabbed a bag of tools and went outside to install a new flood light fixture on the corner of the carport.

Meanwhile my brain kept seeing that image of that man standing there clad in a tee shirt and denim shorts, wrapped ENTIRELY in some kind of fancy expensive mesh...

AND HE'S NOT A BEEKEEPER!!!

That's right You're supposed to buy this mesh stuff just to walk outside in the morning or afternoon on vacation.

Or wear it when you're AT WORK.

I'm sorry Ladies & Gentlemen, but I believe that this CRAP is just like the omnipresent Bicycle helmets (when I lived my entire life riding with my ever greying, ever balding head helmet less, with whatever hair was left over flapping in the breeze while on a bike), handrails on everything taller than 12 inches off the ground, and the Chinese/Asian propensity to wear a disposable surgical mask on the subway or in the farmers market at the Gourmet Fried Poodle Counter.

How soon will it be before everyone from the North Slope of Alaska to the thong clad topless nudists on Miami's South Beach are forced by the Fashion Police or some other government entity to wear something like this when outside of their energy efficient, eco-friendly, Lead and Mercury-free government subsidized housing modules?

I don't know about you, but I simply refuse...

(Pass me the "Off" now if you please)