Where Is This Man When We Could Use Him...
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
Sir Winston Churchill
British politician (1874 - 1965)
Friday, September 12, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Booger's Blogger's Losing My It's Mind
Confusing Confusion...
Just in case you've noticed an excess of various typo's and mis-spellings in my writing over the past week or so, be advised that something screwy is going on either locally on the server PC else over at the Blogger site.
I write things, proof them, but then if I publish them with an un-noticed error or want to otherwise make changes the software takes my submission and apparently stores it on Uranus or on the dark side of the Moon or something.
Then if I don't copy the changes to the clipboard before I hit the save button and I do end up losing the revision most of the time if it was long winded I just settle for the shortage of words and reason and live with the elementary school spelling.
Just thought you'd like to know that I'm not the best writer or speller or "phraseologist" but the free software isn't making things any easier.
Just in case you've noticed an excess of various typo's and mis-spellings in my writing over the past week or so, be advised that something screwy is going on either locally on the server PC else over at the Blogger site.
I write things, proof them, but then if I publish them with an un-noticed error or want to otherwise make changes the software takes my submission and apparently stores it on Uranus or on the dark side of the Moon or something.
Then if I don't copy the changes to the clipboard before I hit the save button and I do end up losing the revision most of the time if it was long winded I just settle for the shortage of words and reason and live with the elementary school spelling.
Just thought you'd like to know that I'm not the best writer or speller or "phraseologist" but the free software isn't making things any easier.
9/11
Three Devastating Fires In One Calendar Year...
About 9 Am on a Tuesday morning seven years ago I awoke with the anticipation of placingall ten of the balance of my worldly possessions into my old Chevy Suburban and making the six hour journey across country to Florida's "Forgotten Coast.
I was finally getting to go to live on the beach--specifically the hamlet of Mexico Beach, Florida.
"THE" house fire earlier on April 5th of that same year had reduced my inventory of "personal stuff" to a manageable size better transported on a few hangers, in a couple of suitcases, and stuffed into a few boxes in my vehicle rather than a U-haul or Atlas moving van.
As I turned on the TV and flipped through the Atlanta cable channels I quickly realized that something was amiss in the Big Apple.
Smoke was pouring out of the south tower and the commentary was that an airliner had accidentally crashed into the building on approach or departure from JFK, Newark, or La Guardia.
Before I could finish digesting the implications of an aviation "accident" involving a modern jetliner and one of the World Trade Center towers, the live TV images of yet another airplane striking the second tower proceeded to change my life in the short term and open a new chapter in international conflict between religion and ideologies rather than just countries and governments.
I actually delayed my cross country journey by a day because part of the route involved the interstate highway system and required that I drive through the entire length of Tyndal Air Force Base (home of the new F-22 fighters.) Since they were closing down all air travel, I was afraid that they could do the same with the interstates and I didn't want to spend a couple of expensive nights in a Holiday Inn in Lagrange, GA or Tuskeegee, AL.
That said, I knew in my mind that people should finally get it. The cold war and other silly battles we fight each day might be over, but a new chapter in an ancient religious conflict that had swept through Europe and Asia a thousand years ago was just then beginning on this continent.
No longer was it Auburn against Alabama...Georgia against Florida or Georgia Tech...or even your home town high school football team against the next town.
No longer was it George Wallace Democrats against Richard Nixon's big-city party.
No longer was it black against white or white against black.
It wasn't Crips versus Bloods (militant Muslim jihadists would cut the head off of a bad assed gang member just as quickly as they'd sever my cerebral cortex and skull from my Redneck spinal column and vertebrae C2 or C3.)
It wasn't even Protestant against Catholic since Ireland and the IRA had settled their religious/territorial differences.
I say that what we were seeing then and continue to see today was/is the public emergence on the world stage of the power and influence of money earned over only the past SEVENTY years since oil was discovered and commercially developed by US and European interests in the middle east.
Their "religious" hatred (and envy or our way of life) had been there all along, but the financial means and logistical infrastructure needed to carry out their brand of prosthletizing and "witnessing" had only come to fruition as our leaders and many of my ignorant fellow citizens ignored distant prophetical events like various embassy bombings, the killing of Israeli Olympic athletes, the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut, the USS Cole, and even the first attack on the World Trade Center under President Clinton's auspices
In spite of what YOU think or choose to believe, they're still out there waiting for the next opportunity--for us through apathy and a short political memory to become distracted from the fight by worries of tax cuts and fears of being perceived as "the bad guys" by the pacifists in Europe and the rest of the world.
As president Ronald Reagan said back in 1984 (that would be TWENTY FOUR YEARS AGO...AND see my previous posting for more of his words):
"History teaches that wars begin when governments [or terorists] believe the price of aggression is cheap."
About 9 Am on a Tuesday morning seven years ago I awoke with the anticipation of placing
I was finally getting to go to live on the beach--specifically the hamlet of Mexico Beach, Florida.
"THE" house fire earlier on April 5th of that same year had reduced my inventory of "personal stuff" to a manageable size better transported on a few hangers, in a couple of suitcases, and stuffed into a few boxes in my vehicle rather than a U-haul or Atlas moving van.
As I turned on the TV and flipped through the Atlanta cable channels I quickly realized that something was amiss in the Big Apple.
Smoke was pouring out of the south tower and the commentary was that an airliner had accidentally crashed into the building on approach or departure from JFK, Newark, or La Guardia.
Before I could finish digesting the implications of an aviation "accident" involving a modern jetliner and one of the World Trade Center towers, the live TV images of yet another airplane striking the second tower proceeded to change my life in the short term and open a new chapter in international conflict between religion and ideologies rather than just countries and governments.
I actually delayed my cross country journey by a day because part of the route involved the interstate highway system and required that I drive through the entire length of Tyndal Air Force Base (home of the new F-22 fighters.) Since they were closing down all air travel, I was afraid that they could do the same with the interstates and I didn't want to spend a couple of expensive nights in a Holiday Inn in Lagrange, GA or Tuskeegee, AL.
That said, I knew in my mind that people should finally get it. The cold war and other silly battles we fight each day might be over, but a new chapter in an ancient religious conflict that had swept through Europe and Asia a thousand years ago was just then beginning on this continent.
No longer was it Auburn against Alabama...Georgia against Florida or Georgia Tech...or even your home town high school football team against the next town.
No longer was it George Wallace Democrats against Richard Nixon's big-city party.
No longer was it black against white or white against black.
It wasn't Crips versus Bloods (militant Muslim jihadists would cut the head off of a bad assed gang member just as quickly as they'd sever my cerebral cortex and skull from my Redneck spinal column and vertebrae C2 or C3.)
It wasn't even Protestant against Catholic since Ireland and the IRA had settled their religious/territorial differences.
I say that what we were seeing then and continue to see today was/is the public emergence on the world stage of the power and influence of money earned over only the past SEVENTY years since oil was discovered and commercially developed by US and European interests in the middle east.
Their "religious" hatred (and envy or our way of life) had been there all along, but the financial means and logistical infrastructure needed to carry out their brand of prosthletizing and "witnessing" had only come to fruition as our leaders and many of my ignorant fellow citizens ignored distant prophetical events like various embassy bombings, the killing of Israeli Olympic athletes, the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut, the USS Cole, and even the first attack on the World Trade Center under President Clinton's auspices
In spite of what YOU think or choose to believe, they're still out there waiting for the next opportunity--for us through apathy and a short political memory to become distracted from the fight by worries of tax cuts and fears of being perceived as "the bad guys" by the pacifists in Europe and the rest of the world.
As president Ronald Reagan said back in 1984 (that would be TWENTY FOUR YEARS AGO...AND see my previous posting for more of his words):
"History teaches that wars begin when governments [or terorists] believe the price of aggression is cheap."
Quote O' The Day
From One Of My Heros...
"The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
"To sit back hoping that someday, someway, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last--but eat you he will."
"History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap."
Ronald Reagan
40th president of US (1911 - 2004)
"The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
"To sit back hoping that someday, someway, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last--but eat you he will."
"History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap."
Ronald Reagan
40th president of US (1911 - 2004)
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Wonder Woman
Vice-Presidential Candidate Seen Exiting Alaskan Phone Booth
While rummaging through my Photo Shop files this evening I found this strange image:
(Yeah...the colors didn't match between the face and body, but I converted it to monochrome and published it any way.)
While rummaging through my Photo Shop files this evening I found this strange image:
(Yeah...the colors didn't match between the face and body, but I converted it to monochrome and published it any way.)
Monday, September 08, 2008
"Neighborliness" (Government Sponsored Or Otherwise)
Obama Speaks to O'Reilly...
After coming home from dinner with the gang last evening I stumbled across the middle of the second part of Bill O'Reilly's FOX News interview with Candidate Obama.
I almost fell out of my chair when he (Candiate Obama) had the audacity to utter these words when talking about increasing taxes on higher earning Americans (that would be ME):
"If I am sitting pretty [Obama gesturing to himself]...and you got a waitress making minimum wage plus tips...and I can afford it [taxes] and she can't...what's the big deal for me to say 'I'm gonna pay a little bit more'...[O'Reilly interrupts stuttering...]
...that is neighborliness"
No Senator Obama..."neighborliness" involves me voluntarily giving my neighbors some tomatoes out of my garden.
Neighborliness is when you offer to take your elderly neighbor to a doctors appointment or pick up their mail while they are out of town visiting their kids.
Neighborliness consists of cutting your neighbor's or fellow church member's grass when they are sick or their lawn mower is broken.
Neighborliness is when you catch your neighbor's dog walking down the road a mile from their house and pick him/her up and return it to their back yard...closing the open gate in the process.
These things are done by millions of individuals--both blue collar and white collar--every day in this country IN SPITE OF THE GOVERNMENT...not BECAUSE of the government or on BEHALF of the government.
NEIGHBORLINESS is NOT having the government in the form of the IRS coming to my office with a gun and powers of arrest and demanding that my employer "WITHHOLD" 39 percent of the money I EARNED expending my time and energy so you can give it to someone who's life choices place them in a position where they are compensated at the level of "minimum wage plus tips."
NEIGHBORLINESS is NOT taking the 39% of the financial bounty of my efforts gained after struggling my way through engineering college and working hard (on and off for the past 30 years), or taking 30% of the profit I earn by carefully investing the money I have left over after your 39% income taxes into real estate in the form of capital gains taxes.
NEIGHBORLINESS is NOT making me pay FICA/FUTA/Social Security witholdings (another 15%+) on all of my income, while at the same time looking me in the eye and telling me that all I can get back in return is a measly $25,000 per year if that when I retire because by then I'll have already managed to invest enough of the money I still have left over into some other form of retirement that pays me TEN TIMES as much as the government pays me on their so called "INVESTMENT."
No Candidate Obama, if you want to solve this country's problems, get out of my wallet, stop throwing my money at people that didn't earn it--encouraging them to be lazy and stupid and to have kids they can't afford and aren't intelligent enough to raise in the first place, return our school systems back to the parents and local administrators, close the borders to stop the flood of illegals, and then let ME AND PEOPLE LIKE ME earn our livings and decide for ourselves the meaning of ...
NEIGHBORLINESS.
In the end, I think that you'll find that our country will be a much better place as a result.
Any questions?
That will be all...for now...
After coming home from dinner with the gang last evening I stumbled across the middle of the second part of Bill O'Reilly's FOX News interview with Candidate Obama.
I almost fell out of my chair when he (Candiate Obama) had the audacity to utter these words when talking about increasing taxes on higher earning Americans (that would be ME):
"If I am sitting pretty [Obama gesturing to himself]...and you got a waitress making minimum wage plus tips...and I can afford it [taxes] and she can't...what's the big deal for me to say 'I'm gonna pay a little bit more'...[O'Reilly interrupts stuttering...]
...that is neighborliness"
No Senator Obama..."neighborliness" involves me voluntarily giving my neighbors some tomatoes out of my garden.
Neighborliness is when you offer to take your elderly neighbor to a doctors appointment or pick up their mail while they are out of town visiting their kids.
Neighborliness consists of cutting your neighbor's or fellow church member's grass when they are sick or their lawn mower is broken.
Neighborliness is when you catch your neighbor's dog walking down the road a mile from their house and pick him/her up and return it to their back yard...closing the open gate in the process.
These things are done by millions of individuals--both blue collar and white collar--every day in this country IN SPITE OF THE GOVERNMENT...not BECAUSE of the government or on BEHALF of the government.
NEIGHBORLINESS is NOT having the government in the form of the IRS coming to my office with a gun and powers of arrest and demanding that my employer "WITHHOLD" 39 percent of the money I EARNED expending my time and energy so you can give it to someone who's life choices place them in a position where they are compensated at the level of "minimum wage plus tips."
NEIGHBORLINESS is NOT taking the 39% of the financial bounty of my efforts gained after struggling my way through engineering college and working hard (on and off for the past 30 years), or taking 30% of the profit I earn by carefully investing the money I have left over after your 39% income taxes into real estate in the form of capital gains taxes.
NEIGHBORLINESS is NOT making me pay FICA/FUTA/Social Security witholdings (another 15%+) on all of my income, while at the same time looking me in the eye and telling me that all I can get back in return is a measly $25,000 per year if that when I retire because by then I'll have already managed to invest enough of the money I still have left over into some other form of retirement that pays me TEN TIMES as much as the government pays me on their so called "INVESTMENT."
No Candidate Obama, if you want to solve this country's problems, get out of my wallet, stop throwing my money at people that didn't earn it--encouraging them to be lazy and stupid and to have kids they can't afford and aren't intelligent enough to raise in the first place, return our school systems back to the parents and local administrators, close the borders to stop the flood of illegals, and then let ME AND PEOPLE LIKE ME earn our livings and decide for ourselves the meaning of ...
NEIGHBORLINESS.
In the end, I think that you'll find that our country will be a much better place as a result.
Any questions?
That will be all...for now...
Ho Huuuuummmmmmmm
Nice Weather We're Havin'....
So I spent the weekend entertaining some of Pat's family in town from Friday until tomorrow morning.
The guests included a five week old baby. Having not reproduced myself, needless to say that I haven't and don't spend much time around humans this young with the bar code and price tag still on their feet.
She's a cute little thing, and Missy the Turbo Pup's finally figured out that we're not auditioning for her replacement (the government would get mad if I fed a baby pizza out of a bowl on a place mat in the floor adjacent to the dinner table I guess.)
No, babies need lukewarm fluids delivered in containers with nipples, about every two hours as far as I can tell. And you can't put a rope around a baby's neck and drag them out into the yard to do their "business."
As we all know, Baby's do their "business" while you're holding them eating dinner, and then entertain you as you view the results of their efforts presented in/on a "no-drip" disposable canvas.
I've had an Idea...
Maybe someone could invent a spray or "atomic neutralizing agent" new parents could purchase in a can which could be applied to the final finished "poo art" and then after an appropriateneutralization/sterilization period curing time frame and mount the finished artistic masterpiece on the wall of their office or the front of the refrigerator with magnets.
See...I may just have discovered an entire new style of " child baby friendly" artwork to go along side "finger painting" and the paper mache monstrosities masterpieces already on exhibit in the abodes of those blessed with the ability to...
R E P R O D U C E.
As for me, your lovely, talented, ever greying, ever balding blogger...I'm just gonna settle at my age with reproducing things including the "spittin' images" of myself with a digital camera or a color copier.
I hope you all understand...
So I spent the weekend entertaining some of Pat's family in town from Friday until tomorrow morning.
The guests included a five week old baby. Having not reproduced myself, needless to say that I haven't and don't spend much time around humans this young with the bar code and price tag still on their feet.
She's a cute little thing, and Missy the Turbo Pup's finally figured out that we're not auditioning for her replacement (the government would get mad if I fed a baby pizza out of a bowl on a place mat in the floor adjacent to the dinner table I guess.)
No, babies need lukewarm fluids delivered in containers with nipples, about every two hours as far as I can tell. And you can't put a rope around a baby's neck and drag them out into the yard to do their "business."
As we all know, Baby's do their "business" while you're holding them eating dinner, and then entertain you as you view the results of their efforts presented in/on a "no-drip" disposable canvas.
I've had an Idea...
Maybe someone could invent a spray or "atomic neutralizing agent" new parents could purchase in a can which could be applied to the final finished "poo art" and then after an appropriate
See...I may just have discovered an entire new style of "
R E P R O D U C E.
As for me, your lovely, talented, ever greying, ever balding blogger...I'm just gonna settle at my age with reproducing things including the "spittin' images" of myself with a digital camera or a color copier.
I hope you all understand...
