New Art Lasered To The Living Room Wall...
I'm trying to not admit to myself that I've caught some kind of creeping crud, but regardless the form of the malady I managed to sleep in until after 10 AM this morning for the first time in months, and that was after not sitting up all night writing or drawing or generally screwing around on the internet.
In the middle of the night I did finally subscumb to a shivering fit of mechanical repair work after tiring of listening to the toilet in the guest bath leak for the past three weeks.
The initial quick fix was to just turn the supply valve off between uses, and in a bout of slovenly thought I was considering just building an outhouse on the patio and being done with things for good.
Then I realized that we'd never possibly use that much compost in a Condo, and the Condo Nazis would complain if I used the wrong color paint or shingles, so I reluctantly fell back to Plan B.
I had two kind of repair kits on hand--one that included just the flapper valve and a second one that included almost everything but the tank and bowl.
After fiddling around with the mechanisms a little more I realized that I could probably just get away with the flapper valve replacement. That made me feel a little silly for having waited so long, but hey--I have to spend a certain amount of time goofing off every day--it's in my contract with God when he made me.
Any way, the good news is that my efforts worked in solving the intial problem.
The leakage stopped with the new flapper and with a little further adjustment of the fill valve settings.
But then Murphy's Law took over with the secondary failure of the lever arm inside the tank that pulls the little chain thingy.
I guess another trip to Ace hardware to spend a few more dollars will have things squared away by sometime tonight.
On the other end of the home improvement spectrum, this afternoon I finally got a couple of wall sconces and a big 4' x 3' framed piece of my pen & ink artwork that had been laying around gathering dust for a month mounted on a bare section of wall in our living room.
The star of that exercise was my new laser level. It is an amazing convenience, and it's going to make a great deal of time saving difference when I start hanging kitchen cabinets and building soffits & fascias over in Brunswick.
Now I have to think about what to do for dinner tonight. I'm still guiltily staring at leftover pork & chicken that's been sitting covered in the fridge since Monday night. I hate wasting food, but I just haven't been able to get fired up to start cooking four or five nights a week again yet.
I guess that I'll see if I can talk Pat and the little hound into taking me over to somewhere that has a pet friendly patio, then come home and beat on the toilet tank some more.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
My Toilet's Still Broken
Construction Related Delays...
Well, I've been back in town for a couple of weeks now, and I still find myself constantly looking at a festering list of things which I haven't had the time and/or the energy to accomplish thus far.
Perhaps the most annoying task is the one involving the replacement of the guts of the toilet in our guest bathroom with new cheep plastic components which I purchased in one of my earlier expeditions to Home Depot.
I'll readily admit that I will do almost anything to avoid screwing around working on old plumbing fixtures. That's why plumbers get away charging $100 an hour, I think.
I don't mind turning off the water supply and unbolting some well worn old porcelain device in order to toss it into the trash, but having to reach my arms and face down inside the bowels of an old sink or toilet's tank just isn't my idea of a fun way to spend an afternoon.
That's exactly the kind of work I'm looking at here in the next couple of days, and the ever mounting costs of excess water consumption is ultimately going to embarrass me into breaking out my monkey wrench and channel-lock pliers and ending our suffering.
That said, I'm sitting here procrastinating again this morning, anticipating hauling my butt over the bridges to Brunswick after rush hour in order to do some more smashing and crashing around under the roof of the old Duplex building.
Adding to my current state of fear is the fact that over on the mainland I have not one but two hideous old toilets lurking in the recesses of the building, taunting me each and every time I walk past the doors of the restrooms.
At least one of them has the water supply attached and turned on, so I guess that I will have to don my rubber gloves and splash a few gallons of Clorox around inside and over the surfaces of everything so I'll have somewhere relatively safe to sit when the time comes.
Assuming that nothing falls over on my head, I'll be back at the keyboard again this evening and maybe then I'll have something interesting to write about (other than toilets.)
Well, I've been back in town for a couple of weeks now, and I still find myself constantly looking at a festering list of things which I haven't had the time and/or the energy to accomplish thus far.
Perhaps the most annoying task is the one involving the replacement of the guts of the toilet in our guest bathroom with new cheep plastic components which I purchased in one of my earlier expeditions to Home Depot.
I'll readily admit that I will do almost anything to avoid screwing around working on old plumbing fixtures. That's why plumbers get away charging $100 an hour, I think.
I don't mind turning off the water supply and unbolting some well worn old porcelain device in order to toss it into the trash, but having to reach my arms and face down inside the bowels of an old sink or toilet's tank just isn't my idea of a fun way to spend an afternoon.
That's exactly the kind of work I'm looking at here in the next couple of days, and the ever mounting costs of excess water consumption is ultimately going to embarrass me into breaking out my monkey wrench and channel-lock pliers and ending our suffering.
That said, I'm sitting here procrastinating again this morning, anticipating hauling my butt over the bridges to Brunswick after rush hour in order to do some more smashing and crashing around under the roof of the old Duplex building.
Adding to my current state of fear is the fact that over on the mainland I have not one but two hideous old toilets lurking in the recesses of the building, taunting me each and every time I walk past the doors of the restrooms.
At least one of them has the water supply attached and turned on, so I guess that I will have to don my rubber gloves and splash a few gallons of Clorox around inside and over the surfaces of everything so I'll have somewhere relatively safe to sit when the time comes.
Assuming that nothing falls over on my head, I'll be back at the keyboard again this evening and maybe then I'll have something interesting to write about (other than toilets.)
This Just In...
Whhhhaaattttt? and Possibly Whhhhhyyyyyyyyyy?
Here I was, doing my normal Redneck Goober thing, trying to mind my own business this evening, wandering around on the Internet, doing a little comment editing and some other technical cleanup here behind the scenes on the blog, when I found this gem of a comment lurking in the unpublished comments folder:
"I am just wondering since when US became anyone's... I am just wondering since when US became anyone's land other than the native indians? Excuse me if i am being rude here but that is a fact and let us face it. The citizenship of this country is only deserved by those who contribute to the country regardless of what ever ethnic background they belong to and Somalis my friend are taxi payers and a law abiding taxi payer deserves his/her rights be given wether you like it or not. Also if someone chooses to to flush his/her earnings down the toilet that is their business and by the way cushites dont have nabby hair get back to antrho 101 you probably got f on it...."
I promise to rummage around and see if I can find what commentary I made which incited this blast, and if it's worthy of a response I'll be back with my reply.
Here I was, doing my normal Redneck Goober thing, trying to mind my own business this evening, wandering around on the Internet, doing a little comment editing and some other technical cleanup here behind the scenes on the blog, when I found this gem of a comment lurking in the unpublished comments folder:
"I am just wondering since when US became anyone's
I promise to rummage around and see if I can find what commentary I made which incited this blast, and if it's worthy of a response I'll be back with my reply.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Back To Reality -- My Goose Butt Was Cooked
For Everyone But Me, That Is...
Well, I found our parking lot to be strangely quiet early this morning after almost a week of supporting the increased activity associated with the Memorial Day Holiday.
I'm happy to report that we managed to survive the proceedings here in our little island home, without substantial sunburn, and likewise I trust that you and your families had a good time and avoided having your name placed on one of the lists of statistics which the TV and newspapers love to focus on every two or three months.
Oops...hold on...wait a minute... I have a News FLASH--with gas over $3 a gallon, St. Simons Island was still packed. In spite of OPEC and the damn Arabs and Venezuelans and mean old President Bush, Karl Rove, and Dick Cheaney, people were still waiting in a long line of automobiles to park over at the East Beach Coast Guard Station lot.
I was personally amused to watch our hired Mexicans raise heck most of the day yesterday working on the lawns outside my front door, finishing up the tasks that should have been completed weeks ago in anticipation of hosting the invasion of owners and guests for the extended holiday celebration.
I thought that the ill conceived last minute efforts at sprucing things up was pretty stupid--but then again it was also to be easily expected considering the mentality of the people in charge around here these days.
In my opinion, since our homeowners' association is too cheep to actually hire a competent management company, and since virtually all of the real estate "professionals" here on the island are drunks or idiots or suffer from some combination of both afflictions, only the most obvious maintenance tasks get priority, and only then after something caves in or falls off the roof striking someone on their toe.
Yesterday the Condo Nazis had their second annual "free cokes and beer feast" poolside, at about the same time that I was over at Bruce and Ski's house chasing my roasted pork butt around a cutting board and slicing up limes, lemons, and oranges for garnish.
My long time readers may recall that I've tried to liven things up by doing my own Memorial Day weekend Bar-B-Que for three years in a row here poolside, but last year when the "officials" decided to finally start hosting an "approved" event (after years of neglect and high browed dis-interest), that they also chose Memorial Day for the date of their extravaganza and strangely enough I wasn't included in the planning or operations stage of their process.
That's OK, I can take a hint, even if it's not a very a subtle one...
I just went ahead and brined my butt, roasted my butt, then packed my butt up and took it over where my butt would be appreciated.
This afternoon I'm dicing up what is left of my butt and making more tamales.
We're having drinks at 5 PM, and dinner will be about 6:30, so stop on by if you're in the area.
Well, I found our parking lot to be strangely quiet early this morning after almost a week of supporting the increased activity associated with the Memorial Day Holiday.
I'm happy to report that we managed to survive the proceedings here in our little island home, without substantial sunburn, and likewise I trust that you and your families had a good time and avoided having your name placed on one of the lists of statistics which the TV and newspapers love to focus on every two or three months.
Oops...hold on...wait a minute... I have a News FLASH--with gas over $3 a gallon, St. Simons Island was still packed. In spite of OPEC and the damn Arabs and Venezuelans and mean old President Bush, Karl Rove, and Dick Cheaney, people were still waiting in a long line of automobiles to park over at the East Beach Coast Guard Station lot.
I was personally amused to watch our hired Mexicans raise heck most of the day yesterday working on the lawns outside my front door, finishing up the tasks that should have been completed weeks ago in anticipation of hosting the invasion of owners and guests for the extended holiday celebration.
I thought that the ill conceived last minute efforts at sprucing things up was pretty stupid--but then again it was also to be easily expected considering the mentality of the people in charge around here these days.
In my opinion, since our homeowners' association is too cheep to actually hire a competent management company, and since virtually all of the real estate "professionals" here on the island are drunks or idiots or suffer from some combination of both afflictions, only the most obvious maintenance tasks get priority, and only then after something caves in or falls off the roof striking someone on their toe.
Yesterday the Condo Nazis had their second annual "free cokes and beer feast" poolside, at about the same time that I was over at Bruce and Ski's house chasing my roasted pork butt around a cutting board and slicing up limes, lemons, and oranges for garnish.
My long time readers may recall that I've tried to liven things up by doing my own Memorial Day weekend Bar-B-Que for three years in a row here poolside, but last year when the "officials" decided to finally start hosting an "approved" event (after years of neglect and high browed dis-interest), that they also chose Memorial Day for the date of their extravaganza and strangely enough I wasn't included in the planning or operations stage of their process.
That's OK, I can take a hint, even if it's not a very a subtle one...
I just went ahead and brined my butt, roasted my butt, then packed my butt up and took it over where my butt would be appreciated.
This afternoon I'm dicing up what is left of my butt and making more tamales.
We're having drinks at 5 PM, and dinner will be about 6:30, so stop on by if you're in the area.
Monday, May 28, 2007
My Lack Of Progress Is Really Not My Own Fault
Who Makes This Stuff ... Any Way?
So here I am, at 4 AM, furiously thrashing around in my attempt at chasing about ten pounds of uncooked meat into some edible form to serve for dinner this afternoon.
Pork...Chicken...AND some soon to be tasty grilled fish fillets, along with a few pounds of vegetables that need grinding or shredding or other abuse--it's all laying around in one form or the other waiting for my attention.
It's hard handling that much meat in our little "galley" style kitchen, and storing same in our relatively small condo sized double door fridge takes some organization and planning (where's a nice 48" SubZero Fridge when you need one?)
On a positive note, I've just finished rinsing off a few things that haven't been used since last January--stuff like my food processor, and in the effort I've discovered that Pat, in what I am certain was a well intended fit of local urban renewal in support of a neighbor's yard sale, removed all of my old dishtowels from our kitchen and replaced them with lovely new decorative models.
The only problem is...
for some reason these towels, like many of our pretty "fruu fruu" bath towels, must have been treated with "scotchguard" or some other water repellent compound that absolutely refuses to take on any water...something that I find to be high on the list of things anything with the phrase "towel" in it's name should be quite adept at doing.
Seriously, I've got a couple of bath towels that I think must actually add water to your body when you wipe them across your flesh after bathing. Without getting into any gross details, let me just say that I'm a sort of harry kind of guy and I appreciate a nice fluffy ABSORBENT bath towel just like my dishes need some good competent terrycloth at the end of their trip through the kitchen sink.
This dishtowel realization follows closely on the heels of the knowledge that the old, worn out beach towels also recently went to the yard sale. When I asked what I should do about garage, shop, and construction clean up, all I was told that I could buy whatever I needed.
That's right, we GAVE away towels to sell at a yard sale, so that I could BUY towels to wipe my dirty face, hands, and puddles of oil off the floor when the time comes.
I'm laughing as I say this but...
W H Y?
So here I am, at 4 AM, furiously thrashing around in my attempt at chasing about ten pounds of uncooked meat into some edible form to serve for dinner this afternoon.
Pork...Chicken...AND some soon to be tasty grilled fish fillets, along with a few pounds of vegetables that need grinding or shredding or other abuse--it's all laying around in one form or the other waiting for my attention.
It's hard handling that much meat in our little "galley" style kitchen, and storing same in our relatively small condo sized double door fridge takes some organization and planning (where's a nice 48" SubZero Fridge when you need one?)
On a positive note, I've just finished rinsing off a few things that haven't been used since last January--stuff like my food processor, and in the effort I've discovered that Pat, in what I am certain was a well intended fit of local urban renewal in support of a neighbor's yard sale, removed all of my old dishtowels from our kitchen and replaced them with lovely new decorative models.
The only problem is...
for some reason these towels, like many of our pretty "fruu fruu" bath towels, must have been treated with "scotchguard" or some other water repellent compound that absolutely refuses to take on any water...something that I find to be high on the list of things anything with the phrase "towel" in it's name should be quite adept at doing.
Seriously, I've got a couple of bath towels that I think must actually add water to your body when you wipe them across your flesh after bathing. Without getting into any gross details, let me just say that I'm a sort of harry kind of guy and I appreciate a nice fluffy ABSORBENT bath towel just like my dishes need some good competent terrycloth at the end of their trip through the kitchen sink.
This dishtowel realization follows closely on the heels of the knowledge that the old, worn out beach towels also recently went to the yard sale. When I asked what I should do about garage, shop, and construction clean up, all I was told that I could buy whatever I needed.
That's right, we GAVE away towels to sell at a yard sale, so that I could BUY towels to wipe my dirty face, hands, and puddles of oil off the floor when the time comes.
I'm laughing as I say this but...
W H Y?
Saturday, May 26, 2007
sO mUCH tO dO
So Little Time In Which To Do It...
Why is it that while practically everyone else in the US is taking life easy this weekend--acting like they're on vacation or something--that I find myself rousting my dog and girlfriend out of bed before 8 AM on a Saturday morning to drive around on the mainland like some wild-eyed maniac worrying about my construction projects and waiting for stores to open so that I can go shopping?
Does anybody want to offer an answer as to the reason for my self imposed hardship?
Someone?
Anyone?
I'm waiting...
Well, regardless of the underlying cause, today we managed to go by the post office, the mall, stopped by my rental property to make sure that the natives hadn'tstolen all of my tools & materials hauled off everything that wasn't bolted down, verified that Georgia Power still hadn't turned on the electricity, went to two grocery stores and the beach, all before 1 PM.
I'm proud to report that Missy, our new little "turbo-pup" miniature Dachshund, is well on her way to becoming a professional beach bum just likeher dad I've become over the past few decades.
She even managed to spend a few hours at the pool standing guard this afternoon while I napped and contemplated brining about seven pounds of Boston Butt Pork shoulder roast to slow cook during the day on Monday.
Like me, she's probably also worrying about making a big batch of my "Fancy Asian Cold Slaw" and the Tilatpia soft tacos that are as yet to be put together to help feed close to a dozen guests at dinner Monday evening.
Please excuse me now while I go get started brining my butt...
Why is it that while practically everyone else in the US is taking life easy this weekend--acting like they're on vacation or something--that I find myself rousting my dog and girlfriend out of bed before 8 AM on a Saturday morning to drive around on the mainland like some wild-eyed maniac worrying about my construction projects and waiting for stores to open so that I can go shopping?
Does anybody want to offer an answer as to the reason for my self imposed hardship?
Someone?
Anyone?
I'm waiting...
Well, regardless of the underlying cause, today we managed to go by the post office, the mall, stopped by my rental property to make sure that the natives hadn't
I'm proud to report that Missy, our new little "turbo-pup" miniature Dachshund, is well on her way to becoming a professional beach bum just like
She even managed to spend a few hours at the pool standing guard this afternoon while I napped and contemplated brining about seven pounds of Boston Butt Pork shoulder roast to slow cook during the day on Monday.
Like me, she's probably also worrying about making a big batch of my "Fancy Asian Cold Slaw" and the Tilatpia soft tacos that are as yet to be put together to help feed close to a dozen guests at dinner Monday evening.
Please excuse me now while I go get started brining my butt...
Will Everyone Please Go Back Home...ASAP?
Angry Ranting From Paradise
Well, with the Memorial Day holiday weekend upon us, I guess that it's time.
After all, every year about now I tend to break out and dust off what I call my "spoiled white guy living on an island" rhetoric.
You know, those well worn complaints I like to make for the past few years about tourists and "seasonal residents" cluttering up our roadways, restaurants, and grocery stores over the winter and summer and "holiday weekends."
We were out for drinks and dinner with some friends last evening, celebrating a birthday, and the density of humans per square centimeter of floor-space was noticeably higher than is usual most of the year around here.
Oh well, on second thought, go ahead and have fun if you can.
With my sincere blessing.
Since I spend most of my time being useless and taking time off, I guess that I'll be OK just laying low and hiding at home for the next few days, waiting for the dust to settle while everyone enjoys a few days away from their jobs and regular routines (and burning a few tanks full of $3 a gallon gasoline between their hotels and homes.)
Don't forget to drive safely...
Well, with the Memorial Day holiday weekend upon us, I guess that it's time.
After all, every year about now I tend to break out and dust off what I call my "spoiled white guy living on an island" rhetoric.
You know, those well worn complaints I like to make for the past few years about tourists and "seasonal residents" cluttering up our roadways, restaurants, and grocery stores over the winter and summer and "holiday weekends."
We were out for drinks and dinner with some friends last evening, celebrating a birthday, and the density of humans per square centimeter of floor-space was noticeably higher than is usual most of the year around here.
Oh well, on second thought, go ahead and have fun if you can.
With my sincere blessing.
Since I spend most of my time being useless and taking time off, I guess that I'll be OK just laying low and hiding at home for the next few days, waiting for the dust to settle while everyone enjoys a few days away from their jobs and regular routines (and burning a few tanks full of $3 a gallon gasoline between their hotels and homes.)
Don't forget to drive safely...
Friday, May 25, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Paralyzed With Indecision
Deadlines Take The Fun Out Of Everything...
OK, it's like this.
I'm PISSED OFF.
Why, you might ask?
Because I've just spent the past week and a half waiting on Georgia Power to turn on the electricity to a duplex property I own over in Brunswick.
Actually, only the power service to half the property was required, because I was going to install a new breaker panel and do a bunch of other electrical work on one half, then connect the new panel to Ga Power's slightly overpriced smog producing killowatts and finish up the project.
I even used the internet to schedule the work like a goodcomputer nerd monkey boy power consumer.
So after logging into their system, setting up a user name and password, selecting a service connection date and getting a confirmation e-mail and "service connect number" from someone called "online customer care", this week I had to resort to picking up the telephone to find out that they had scheduled my connection date to be JUNE 16th, not MAY 16th!
To add insult to injury, the phone system makes you sit through some blurbs in Spanish first in order to get to the english language menu, not the other way around.
In America.
In Georgia.
In Glynn county, of all places...
I'm forced to wait on thelephone for the "Espanole" message to play first, so that they can finally tell me in English, seven days late, that I have to call the city building department and have an inspector approve my electrical service...the same electrical service that was working just fine when my last tennant skipped out in the middle of the night--oweing me about three months of past due rent money.
Nothing's changed on the building, I'm not even going to be using the bigger wiring on loads like the oven and waterheater, but Georgia Power's website doesn't know how to tell me that there's gonna be a delay.
Why did they even bother to allow me to schedule the service connection on the internet if they weren't going to allow me to also check on the order's progress afterwards and let me know that there was a problem?
I had to call twice, and listen to Spanish babble before I learned that our local monopoly power company was thumbing their nose at taking my money.
Good God, you gotta love "Customer no-Service" departments...
OK, it's like this.
I'm PISSED OFF.
Why, you might ask?
Because I've just spent the past week and a half waiting on Georgia Power to turn on the electricity to a duplex property I own over in Brunswick.
Actually, only the power service to half the property was required, because I was going to install a new breaker panel and do a bunch of other electrical work on one half, then connect the new panel to Ga Power's slightly overpriced smog producing killowatts and finish up the project.
I even used the internet to schedule the work like a good
So after logging into their system, setting up a user name and password, selecting a service connection date and getting a confirmation e-mail and "service connect number" from someone called "online customer care", this week I had to resort to picking up the telephone to find out that they had scheduled my connection date to be JUNE 16th, not MAY 16th!
To add insult to injury, the phone system makes you sit through some blurbs in Spanish first in order to get to the english language menu, not the other way around.
In America.
In Georgia.
In Glynn county, of all places...
I'm forced to wait on thelephone for the "Espanole" message to play first, so that they can finally tell me in English, seven days late, that I have to call the city building department and have an inspector approve my electrical service...the same electrical service that was working just fine when my last tennant skipped out in the middle of the night--oweing me about three months of past due rent money.
Nothing's changed on the building, I'm not even going to be using the bigger wiring on loads like the oven and waterheater, but Georgia Power's website doesn't know how to tell me that there's gonna be a delay.
Why did they even bother to allow me to schedule the service connection on the internet if they weren't going to allow me to also check on the order's progress afterwards and let me know that there was a problem?
I had to call twice, and listen to Spanish babble before I learned that our local monopoly power company was thumbing their nose at taking my money.
Good God, you gotta love "Customer no-Service" departments...
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Words To Live By
Good Old Ron Reagan Strikes Again
I was just watching on FOX News a re-run of Greta "van damn" Sustren's visit to the Reagan Presidential library out in California, and in the reproduction of the Oval office they showed a Placard that the president actually had on his desk.
It read: "There is no limit on what a man can do, if he doesn't mind who gets the credit."
I must adnit that I've had to learn that lesson many times in the past, and I hope to remember it every day in the future.
I was just watching on FOX News a re-run of Greta "van damn" Sustren's visit to the Reagan Presidential library out in California, and in the reproduction of the Oval office they showed a Placard that the president actually had on his desk.
It read: "There is no limit on what a man can do, if he doesn't mind who gets the credit."
I must adnit that I've had to learn that lesson many times in the past, and I hope to remember it every day in the future.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
I Think That I've Found The Solution To Most Of Our Problems
It Was Right Here Under My Nose All The While...
Simple solutions, that's my idea of the way most things SHOULD end up.
Take a look at this story about a rare prehistoric fish that keeps popping up alive in modern times.
"MANADO, Indonesia (Reuters) - An Indonesian fisherman has caught a coelacanth, an ancient fish once thought to have become extinct at the time of the dinosaurs, a fishery expert said on Monday...
That catch came 60 years after a member of the species was rediscovered on the east coast of South Africa.
Coelacanths are known from the fossil records dating back more than 360 million years, according to the Australian Museum Fish Web site.
Before 1938 they were believed to have become extinct approximately 80 million years ago, when they disappeared from the fossil record, it said.
Coelacanths are the only living animals to have a fully functional intercranial joint, which is a division separating the ear and brain from the nasal organs and eye. "
What's that?
A "joint" that separates the ear and brain from the nose and eyes?
Say WwwwwHhhhhaaaaaatttttT?
Well, if that's true, I say that we should immediately start pumping a few gazillion bucks into some research. Let's see if we can figure out how to make congress and most of our voters learn how to start correlating their hearing and brain functions with what they smell and see.
Wouldn't the world would be a MUCH better place as a result?
.
Simple solutions, that's my idea of the way most things SHOULD end up.
Take a look at this story about a rare prehistoric fish that keeps popping up alive in modern times.
"MANADO, Indonesia (Reuters) - An Indonesian fisherman has caught a coelacanth, an ancient fish once thought to have become extinct at the time of the dinosaurs, a fishery expert said on Monday...
That catch came 60 years after a member of the species was rediscovered on the east coast of South Africa.
Coelacanths are known from the fossil records dating back more than 360 million years, according to the Australian Museum Fish Web site.
Before 1938 they were believed to have become extinct approximately 80 million years ago, when they disappeared from the fossil record, it said.
Coelacanths are the only living animals to have a fully functional intercranial joint, which is a division separating the ear and brain from the nasal organs and eye. "
What's that?
A "joint" that separates the ear and brain from the nose and eyes?
Say WwwwwHhhhhaaaaaatttttT?
Well, if that's true, I say that we should immediately start pumping a few gazillion bucks into some research. Let's see if we can figure out how to make congress and most of our voters learn how to start correlating their hearing and brain functions with what they smell and see.
Wouldn't the world would be a MUCH better place as a result?
.
Forget About Sipping Fuel...
I'm A Proud Gas Guzzler
I almost forgot to mention this milestone, but then I heard a blurb on the local TV news referencing the US Senate's continued pandering to the lowest common denominator of Human mentality, this time considering a bill addressing something they call...
"Gas Price Gouging."
Let me say THIS about THAT.
I could care less, OK?
On Saturday and Sunday I filled up both of our vehicles--over $170 total--including over $120 worth in my old Suburbia's giant 42 gallon tank.
The only time in my life that I've ever pumped more gas in such a short period of time was back when I had a 32' SeaRay boat that held 120 gallons--a little over $300 worth in 2002 dollars. By the way, I really feel sorry for the guys driving the Shrimp Boats around Brunswick and Darien this season, looking at fiberglass and wooden hulls that require thousands of gallons to move them out to sea and home again.
I'm just happy to have the ability to own not one, but two vehicles, and in spite of the cost, the fuel that makes them more than a lawn ornament is an important part of the overall picture.
Just ask the Germans what it was like during WWII if you think an internal combustion engine is an asset without fuel to power it.
I almost forgot to mention this milestone, but then I heard a blurb on the local TV news referencing the US Senate's continued pandering to the lowest common denominator of Human mentality, this time considering a bill addressing something they call...
"Gas Price Gouging."
Let me say THIS about THAT.
I could care less, OK?
On Saturday and Sunday I filled up both of our vehicles--over $170 total--including over $120 worth in my old Suburbia's giant 42 gallon tank.
The only time in my life that I've ever pumped more gas in such a short period of time was back when I had a 32' SeaRay boat that held 120 gallons--a little over $300 worth in 2002 dollars. By the way, I really feel sorry for the guys driving the Shrimp Boats around Brunswick and Darien this season, looking at fiberglass and wooden hulls that require thousands of gallons to move them out to sea and home again.
I'm just happy to have the ability to own not one, but two vehicles, and in spite of the cost, the fuel that makes them more than a lawn ornament is an important part of the overall picture.
Just ask the Germans what it was like during WWII if you think an internal combustion engine is an asset without fuel to power it.
The White Man's Come-Uppance
...And The Red Man's Revenge
Sitting here watching TV and wincing at the mindless, emotional debate currently swirling over and around the Senate circus called "immigration reform legislation," I just can't help but be reminded of the few tidbits of information I learned thirty odd years ago in history class about the similar negotiations between the US Government and theIndians Native Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth century.
Back then (in the 1700's and 1800's) popular (and politically incorrect) thought allowed self assured polite White citizens and their corrupt elected officials alike to deal with the owners of the lands soon to be referred to as "North America" as "Savages" and "Red Devils" and "heathens"--popular caricatures continuing to be promoted until well into the the mid-20th century in afternoon theater matinees.
General Custer and our Congress put various degrees of thought and bloodshed to the idea that the latest treaty and legislation represented the end of the negotiations, until the pressures brought on by the ongoing flow of "immigrants" flooding through Ellis Island needed a few extra thousand hectares to farm and play an occasional game of baseball on.
Today, ignoring history after we've all been forced by popular liberal opinion or dumbed down by a couple hundred years of government schooling, I watch in awe as we are asked to make a 180 degree swing in our legislative mindset, guiltily welcoming lawbreaking "guest workers" into our ill-gotten homeland, consciences assuaged with promises that if we will just accept the latest 12 million or 20 million (or gazillion or whatever) landscapers and parents and hand wringing honest potential citizens, that everyone else poised outside our boarders, ready to swim or walk or crawl into the good old US of A will stay home and we can all get on with worrying about the outcome of the NHL and NBA finals.
And faint mumblings about President Reagan's 1986 amnesty program and the State Department and Congress' subsequent refusal to enforce those eerily familiar rules are met with shallow pledges that "this time we really, Really, REALLY MEAN IT...", tendered for the appeasement of the unwashed, ignorant, often non-voting yet highly vocal masses.
You're a complete and total dumbass if you buy into this "immigration reform" bullshit, but then again that's just one man's opinion, and who am I to tell you how to waste your life and ruin your childrens' future? After all, I think that this battle is already over--and has been since about thirty or forty years ago when we were all still fumbling around worring about Russia and the KKK.
As for me, I'm quite content to be ever greying, ever balding at my present ripe old age of 47 years rather than 27 or 17 years of age--having not reproduced--because I believe that if you are younger than me that I can pretty well guaran-damn-tee you that you are going to regret the results of the partisan bullshit that's going on in the marble buildings in Washington DC right now.
Sorry, you can just call me a mean old white bigot, I guess...but also be assured that theIndians Native Americans on "Reservations" everywhere are laughing their collective asses off at YOU and Me right now.
Some of them might even be considering getting out of the Casino business, running out and buying a few lawnmowers so they can start a few lawn maintenance companies.
As I see it, someone has to get busy mowing some grass around here, and once the Amigos all retire at age 35 on government disibility or welfare, ourblack brothers African American citizens and all of us pansy assed, limp wristed White boys sure won't be up to the task, in my considered Redneck opinion.
Now put that into your pipe and smoke it, if you will, because I've got CAD drawings to go do right now...
.
Sitting here watching TV and wincing at the mindless, emotional debate currently swirling over and around the Senate circus called "immigration reform legislation," I just can't help but be reminded of the few tidbits of information I learned thirty odd years ago in history class about the similar negotiations between the US Government and the
Back then (in the 1700's and 1800's) popular (and politically incorrect) thought allowed self assured polite White citizens and their corrupt elected officials alike to deal with the owners of the lands soon to be referred to as "North America" as "Savages" and "Red Devils" and "heathens"--popular caricatures continuing to be promoted until well into the the mid-20th century in afternoon theater matinees.
General Custer and our Congress put various degrees of thought and bloodshed to the idea that the latest treaty and legislation represented the end of the negotiations, until the pressures brought on by the ongoing flow of "immigrants" flooding through Ellis Island needed a few extra thousand hectares to farm and play an occasional game of baseball on.
Today, ignoring history after we've all been forced by popular liberal opinion or dumbed down by a couple hundred years of government schooling, I watch in awe as we are asked to make a 180 degree swing in our legislative mindset, guiltily welcoming lawbreaking "guest workers" into our ill-gotten homeland, consciences assuaged with promises that if we will just accept the latest 12 million or 20 million (or gazillion or whatever) landscapers and parents and hand wringing honest potential citizens, that everyone else poised outside our boarders, ready to swim or walk or crawl into the good old US of A will stay home and we can all get on with worrying about the outcome of the NHL and NBA finals.
And faint mumblings about President Reagan's 1986 amnesty program and the State Department and Congress' subsequent refusal to enforce those eerily familiar rules are met with shallow pledges that "this time we really, Really, REALLY MEAN IT...", tendered for the appeasement of the unwashed, ignorant, often non-voting yet highly vocal masses.
You're a complete and total dumbass if you buy into this "immigration reform" bullshit, but then again that's just one man's opinion, and who am I to tell you how to waste your life and ruin your childrens' future? After all, I think that this battle is already over--and has been since about thirty or forty years ago when we were all still fumbling around worring about Russia and the KKK.
As for me, I'm quite content to be ever greying, ever balding at my present ripe old age of 47 years rather than 27 or 17 years of age--having not reproduced--because I believe that if you are younger than me that I can pretty well guaran-damn-tee you that you are going to regret the results of the partisan bullshit that's going on in the marble buildings in Washington DC right now.
Sorry, you can just call me a mean old white bigot, I guess...but also be assured that the
Some of them might even be considering getting out of the Casino business, running out and buying a few lawnmowers so they can start a few lawn maintenance companies.
As I see it, someone has to get busy mowing some grass around here, and once the Amigos all retire at age 35 on government disibility or welfare, our
Now put that into your pipe and smoke it, if you will, because I've got CAD drawings to go do right now...
.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Recapturing Lost Brain Cells
Am I Suffering From Dementia, Or Just A Substance Dependency?
I've spent the past couple of days wrestling with myself in a series of attempts at trying to recapture a skill that I openly claimed to have possessed since somewhere about 1982.
You see, there was a time in my life when I thought that I was a proficient AutoCAD operator. If you wanted drawings, I could give you drawings, in ink and in vivid color on your computer monitor, for somewhere between $20 and $50 per hour.
Not any more...
Apparently, now I'm just a guy with a couple of fumbling fingers and thumbs, willing to peck away at a computer keyboard when the aforementioned fingers and thumbs aren't spending time stuck in some body orifice (you know...places like the openings to my nose or...er...um...that other place...)
Never mind...
Back to my point...I've just had the grim realization that somewhere between the late 1990's and last Thursday I managed to lose or significantly auction off my hard earned ability to draw a straight line on a computer screen.
I hope that plumb and square can be replaced with big and tall or other specifications else otherwise I'm in BIG trouble.
I've spent the past couple of days wrestling with myself in a series of attempts at trying to recapture a skill that I openly claimed to have possessed since somewhere about 1982.
You see, there was a time in my life when I thought that I was a proficient AutoCAD operator. If you wanted drawings, I could give you drawings, in ink and in vivid color on your computer monitor, for somewhere between $20 and $50 per hour.
Not any more...
Apparently, now I'm just a guy with a couple of fumbling fingers and thumbs, willing to peck away at a computer keyboard when the aforementioned fingers and thumbs aren't spending time stuck in some body orifice (you know...places like the openings to my nose or...er...um...that other place...)
Never mind...
Back to my point...I've just had the grim realization that somewhere between the late 1990's and last Thursday I managed to lose or significantly auction off my hard earned ability to draw a straight line on a computer screen.
I hope that plumb and square can be replaced with big and tall or other specifications else otherwise I'm in BIG trouble.
Friday, May 18, 2007
I've Got Dog Barf On My Kitchen Floor
And Squirrel Pee On My Patio
And Mt. St. Helen's blew up on this day a few dozen years ago.
I hope that your day is just as fine as mine will certainly be...
And Mt. St. Helen's blew up on this day a few dozen years ago.
I hope that your day is just as fine as mine will certainly be...
Thursday, May 17, 2007
You Have The Right To Remain Stupid...
But Anything That You Say Can And Will Be Used Against You In The Court Law (Life)
OK, I guess that I owe everyone an apology. (Those of you that don't want one or otherwise don't feel that you deserve one...feel free to file your nails or your IRS paperwork or have another cup of coffee.)
At least that's the way it seems this morning as I attempt to step away from things to look at the goings on in the world and what is happening around here on SSI.
Recently my attitudes and opinions seem to be a bit skewed out of their normal eclectic kilter, overtly controlled by some previously hidden Capitalistic Chromosomes which have arisen and kicked into action--driving me into a new found violent state of vibrating productive frenzy.
Also as a result, I feel compelled to give everyone a license to go out and just be really stupid if you want to.
Knock yourselves out, so to speak...on a collective basis.
Just don't come crying to me when you do something that's gonna leave a scar...
Here's some of my own suggestions:
Go ahead and believe that Iran has your best interest in mind as they develop cheep nuclear energy while sitting on top of a sea of oil.
Go ahead and join the "liberal progressives" as they celebrate the death of Jerry Faldwell. (Yes he said some dumb things sometime, but in my opinion he was basically a well intended guy.)
Go ahead and indulge your socialistic instincts. Run out today to yell and scream and hyperventilate because business owners here in the United States of By-God America still only pay employees when they actually work for a living rather than paying wild eyed militant Muslims and various ne'er-do wells to sit on their collective asses for weeks if not months out of the year like the French and most of the other European governments do.
"Relying on businesses to voluntarily provide paid leave just hasn't worked," he added. "It's a national embarrassment that 28 million Americans don't get any paid vacation or paid holidays."
Just think, with a little more government intervention, we too can have 20% unemployment and an extra extra, Extra, EXTRA "gross" domestic product... just like Finland and the Prague...
As for me, personally, I have work to do for a change, before I go back on vacation myself--without government intervention.
After all, it's tough being me...and I intend to keep it that way for the foreseeable future...Global Warming be damned...
OK, I guess that I owe everyone an apology. (Those of you that don't want one or otherwise don't feel that you deserve one...feel free to file your nails or your IRS paperwork or have another cup of coffee.)
At least that's the way it seems this morning as I attempt to step away from things to look at the goings on in the world and what is happening around here on SSI.
Recently my attitudes and opinions seem to be a bit skewed out of their normal eclectic kilter, overtly controlled by some previously hidden Capitalistic Chromosomes which have arisen and kicked into action--driving me into a new found violent state of vibrating productive frenzy.
Also as a result, I feel compelled to give everyone a license to go out and just be really stupid if you want to.
Knock yourselves out, so to speak...on a collective basis.
Just don't come crying to me when you do something that's gonna leave a scar...
Here's some of my own suggestions:
Go ahead and believe that Iran has your best interest in mind as they develop cheep nuclear energy while sitting on top of a sea of oil.
Go ahead and join the "liberal progressives" as they celebrate the death of Jerry Faldwell. (Yes he said some dumb things sometime, but in my opinion he was basically a well intended guy.)
Go ahead and indulge your socialistic instincts. Run out today to yell and scream and hyperventilate because business owners here in the United States of By-God America still only pay employees when they actually work for a living rather than paying wild eyed militant Muslims and various ne'er-do wells to sit on their collective asses for weeks if not months out of the year like the French and most of the other European governments do.
"Relying on businesses to voluntarily provide paid leave just hasn't worked," he added. "It's a national embarrassment that 28 million Americans don't get any paid vacation or paid holidays."
Just think, with a little more government intervention, we too can have 20% unemployment and an extra extra, Extra, EXTRA "gross" domestic product... just like Finland and the Prague...
As for me, personally, I have work to do for a change, before I go back on vacation myself--without government intervention.
After all, it's tough being me...and I intend to keep it that way for the foreseeable future...Global Warming be damned...
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
If All You Have Is A Hammer
Everything Looks Like A Nail…
Well, I’m off to Brunswick later this morning, escorted by a few hundred pounds of my latest acquired tools and supplies, intent on making my own personal dust storm bysometime around noon.
I use the term “dust storm” because today I’ll be doing the easiest form of construction work…
D E M O L I T I O N.
I have to remove the cabinets, appliances, and fixtures from two kitchens and one bathroom over the next few days. I actually hope to finish in one day, but with my luck the previous owners/builder used super glue or atomic powered nails or something else incredibly strong to mount the hideous looking dirty monstrosities to the walls, ceiling, and floors.
Any way, if you have the time take a look at the latest satellite photos on the internet later today--I’ll be the guy in the dirty white tee-shirt standing there under the little poof of clouds seen hovering over the New Town area of Downtown Brunswick.
I’m also undertaking the tedious task of meeting representatives from the local utilities so that I’ll have lights over my head and water (hopefully not under my feet) through the renovation process. Since I have firm appointments for “sometime today,” I’m fairly certain to have a working light bulb by sometime next week if I‘m lucky.
Wish me luck...
Well, I’m off to Brunswick later this morning, escorted by a few hundred pounds of my latest acquired tools and supplies, intent on making my own personal dust storm bysometime around noon.
I use the term “dust storm” because today I’ll be doing the easiest form of construction work…
D E M O L I T I O N.
I have to remove the cabinets, appliances, and fixtures from two kitchens and one bathroom over the next few days. I actually hope to finish in one day, but with my luck the previous owners/builder used super glue or atomic powered nails or something else incredibly strong to mount the hideous looking dirty monstrosities to the walls, ceiling, and floors.
Any way, if you have the time take a look at the latest satellite photos on the internet later today--I’ll be the guy in the dirty white tee-shirt standing there under the little poof of clouds seen hovering over the New Town area of Downtown Brunswick.
I’m also undertaking the tedious task of meeting representatives from the local utilities so that I’ll have lights over my head and water (hopefully not under my feet) through the renovation process. Since I have firm appointments for “sometime today,” I’m fairly certain to have a working light bulb by sometime next week if I‘m lucky.
Wish me luck...
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
I Bought Myself A Laser
I'm Gonna Level Everything In Sight...
Probably the neatest thing about doing construction and/or home renovation has to be getting to buy new tools.
That, and going to Home Depot just to LOOK at new tools and have mental fantasies.
In my ever advancing age, I find a trip to Home Depot to be more exciting than going to a Nudie Bar.
"...whooooo MAN...look at that Makita 12" compound miter saw...WITH the slide feature...hootie hooooooooooooooo....oh BABY...shake that beautiful hardware...Yeahhhhh"
OK, forget that last comment, but while I'm on the subject, what about those Home Depot print ads and flyers delivered to your door in the mail or as inserts in newspapers? (did I say "insert?")
THOSE are much BETTER than the Frederic's ofHooterville Hollywood Catalogues these days. Who needs Viagra or Cialis when you have Home Depot and possibly Ace Hardware, right Guys?
Getting back to my point, Yesterday I got to make a $500 trip to Home Depot to buy a few little things that I needed for my upcoming sawdust making sessions over at my properties in Brunswick.
I use the word "little" in regard to my purchases because no lumber was involved in the experience. In fact, everything fit in one shopping cart when the dust finally settled.
Well, everything, that is, except my new 50' "ultra flexible" garden hose that ended up riding in Pat's cart along with her flowers and flower pots (concessions to the Queen to balm her agony from having waited while my "quick" trip expanded to over an hour of grinning like a mule eating briars.)
You know your shopping expedition is a success when you have to start buying new toolboxes to hold your purchases.
Mine did...
My favorite new acquisition is my Stanley 77-153 CL2 Fatmax Self Leveling Cross Line Laser Level.
I spent a few minutes after I returned home yesterday installing the batteries and setting it up on my camera tripod, and it's still sitting there doing a "laser light show" on my wall as I write this morning.
I'll never hang a crooked picture on the wall ever again.
You'll have to excuse me now, because my first task is to roam around through the Condo realigning the existing wall hangings, then I think that I'll move it outside and straighten up the trees and the cars in the parking lot.
Well, maybe not...
.
Probably the neatest thing about doing construction and/or home renovation has to be getting to buy new tools.
That, and going to Home Depot just to LOOK at new tools and have mental fantasies.
In my ever advancing age, I find a trip to Home Depot to be more exciting than going to a Nudie Bar.
"...whooooo MAN...look at that Makita 12" compound miter saw...WITH the slide feature...hootie hooooooooooooooo....oh BABY...shake that beautiful hardware...Yeahhhhh"
OK, forget that last comment, but while I'm on the subject, what about those Home Depot print ads and flyers delivered to your door in the mail or as inserts in newspapers? (did I say "insert?")
THOSE are much BETTER than the Frederic's of
Getting back to my point, Yesterday I got to make a $500 trip to Home Depot to buy a few little things that I needed for my upcoming sawdust making sessions over at my properties in Brunswick.
I use the word "little" in regard to my purchases because no lumber was involved in the experience. In fact, everything fit in one shopping cart when the dust finally settled.
Well, everything, that is, except my new 50' "ultra flexible" garden hose that ended up riding in Pat's cart along with her flowers and flower pots (concessions to the Queen to balm her agony from having waited while my "quick" trip expanded to over an hour of grinning like a mule eating briars.)
You know your shopping expedition is a success when you have to start buying new toolboxes to hold your purchases.
Mine did...
My favorite new acquisition is my Stanley 77-153 CL2 Fatmax Self Leveling Cross Line Laser Level.
I spent a few minutes after I returned home yesterday installing the batteries and setting it up on my camera tripod, and it's still sitting there doing a "laser light show" on my wall as I write this morning.
I'll never hang a crooked picture on the wall ever again.
You'll have to excuse me now, because my first task is to roam around through the Condo realigning the existing wall hangings, then I think that I'll move it outside and straighten up the trees and the cars in the parking lot.
Well, maybe not...
.
Monday, May 14, 2007
We've Been Invaded
Nothing's Safe Now From My Knees Down...
Whew...I'm tired.
Yesterday evening I arrived back home to my beloved St. Simons Island having endured a self-imposed extended absence that included surviving a little over three months of fairly interesting existence outside the boundaries of my normal mode of living.
Yesterday's grand finale of my adventure included a three hour stint spent driving back from southern Alabama through the edges of the smoke plume generated by the wildfires currently assaulting south Georgia and northeast Florida.
Various details are bound to leak out here over the next few weeks, but the only things I can tell you right now (without having to kill you) are:
A) Partially as a result of my efforts, almost everyone in central Alaska and the Tar-Sand areas of southern Alberta, Canada now know everything there is to know about the dangers of a phenomena called "waterhammer" (A.K.A. transients in hydronic systems.)
B) I'm in the middle of designing two 115' tall stacks for a customer in California, actually making a little extra cash using a skill I spent much of the 1980's and 1990's perfecting and had walked away from in the year 2000.
C) I start meeting contractors this week while making application for building permits in order to begin major rennovations on my duplex rental property and to begin construction of three new spec houses over on the mainland.
Meanwhile, I'm spending what extra time I have left over trying to not step on or otherwise offend this small yet deadly animal:
Whew...I'm tired.
Yesterday evening I arrived back home to my beloved St. Simons Island having endured a self-imposed extended absence that included surviving a little over three months of fairly interesting existence outside the boundaries of my normal mode of living.
Yesterday's grand finale of my adventure included a three hour stint spent driving back from southern Alabama through the edges of the smoke plume generated by the wildfires currently assaulting south Georgia and northeast Florida.
Various details are bound to leak out here over the next few weeks, but the only things I can tell you right now (without having to kill you) are:
A) Partially as a result of my efforts, almost everyone in central Alaska and the Tar-Sand areas of southern Alberta, Canada now know everything there is to know about the dangers of a phenomena called "waterhammer" (A.K.A. transients in hydronic systems.)
B) I'm in the middle of designing two 115' tall stacks for a customer in California, actually making a little extra cash using a skill I spent much of the 1980's and 1990's perfecting and had walked away from in the year 2000.
C) I start meeting contractors this week while making application for building permits in order to begin major rennovations on my duplex rental property and to begin construction of three new spec houses over on the mainland.
Meanwhile, I'm spending what extra time I have left over trying to not step on or otherwise offend this small yet deadly animal:
That black and tan thing in the middle of the photo is a one pound head and mouth attached to a one pound body a lovely little minature long haired dachshund puppy (photo taken back in March.)
Here's one of her beauty pagent proofs:
And finally, here's what she looked like (all five pounds worth) lounging by the pool at my mom's house this past weekend.
I have to go now and bow down to her majesty's latest whim...I think I hear her squeeking...
Monday, May 07, 2007
Friday, February 02, 2007
I Want One
But I'm A Little Short On Cash...
It's a $400,000 Lamborghini, and the news story which I copied the picture from is HERE...
.
It's a $400,000 Lamborghini, and the news story which I copied the picture from is HERE...
.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
The Frito Bandito Strikes Again
Ayyy, Yeiyyyy, Yeiy Yeiyyyyyyyyyy...
Mexico City (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through Mexico's capital on Wednesday night to protest a surge in tortilla prices that has put President Felipe Calderon under intense pressure.
Soaring U.S. demand for ethanol has sent corn prices to their highest level in a decade, pulling up prices of Mexico's national food staple.
Protesters held up ears of corn and complained that Calderon, a conservative accused by leftists of stealing the July 2006 presidential election, was failing to protect them against foreign market forces.
Wait a minute...FOREIGN MARKET FORCES?
FOREIGN MARKET FORCES?
See Ladies & Gentlemen, no matter what you do, and how much you give, what you put up with, and what your intentions are...SOMEBODY'S got a problem with it...
.
Mexico City (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through Mexico's capital on Wednesday night to protest a surge in tortilla prices that has put President Felipe Calderon under intense pressure.
Soaring U.S. demand for ethanol has sent corn prices to their highest level in a decade, pulling up prices of Mexico's national food staple.
Protesters held up ears of corn and complained that Calderon, a conservative accused by leftists of stealing the July 2006 presidential election, was failing to protect them against foreign market forces.
Wait a minute...FOREIGN MARKET FORCES?
FOREIGN MARKET FORCES?
See Ladies & Gentlemen, no matter what you do, and how much you give, what you put up with, and what your intentions are...SOMEBODY'S got a problem with it...
.
News Flash
This Just In...
Somebody important said that there's actually a "clean" black guy running for President.
The media has freaked out, along withall of the usual suspects many "Racial Leaders."
[pause...big breath...]
Dammit, People get over this Political Correctness Shit.
OK?
Oh Kay?
Slap me if I'm wrong...and I'll shut up...
Somebody important said that there's actually a "clean" black guy running for President.
The media has freaked out, along with
[pause...big breath...]
Dammit, People get over this Political Correctness Shit.
OK?
Oh Kay?
Slap me if I'm wrong...and I'll shut up...
Lazy Observations
I've Taken The Evening Off...
I don't know what to say right now, because nothing much interesting is going on in my life and watching the news makes my head hurt.
Let's see what develops here as I write, but I'm not making you any promises on quality...
Those that know me or which stop by here regularly to read my rantings and ravings know that I read and watch a LOT of news on TV and on the Internet.
The only thing I've seen so far this morning that struck my mind as being worth mentioning and which I could write something glib or funny or even infuriating about was this story about US Representative Loretta Sanchez quitting something called "The Congressional Hispanic Caucus" over supposedly being called a "Whore" by the group's leader.
Rep. Loretta Sanchez has quit the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, accusing the chairman, Rep. Joe Baca, of telling people she's a "whore."
Baca denied the charge.
In an interview with The Politico Wednesday, Sanchez, a California Democrat as is Baca, also cited concerns about whether Baca was properly elected Hispanic Caucus chairman in November and about his general attitude toward female lawmakers. The caucus represents 21 Hispanic Democrats in Congress.
"I'm not going to be a part of the CHC as long as Mr. Baca illegally holds the chair … I told them no. There's a big rift here," Sanchez said. "You treat the women like shit. I have no use for him."
My kneejerk reaction, after thinking "dammmmmmmmmmmnnnnnn", was to ask why we even need groups like "The Congressional Hispanic Caucus"?
After all, aren't we supposed to be "equal" here in our new colorblind world?
Then I remembered that there was another recent story (I'm too lazy to do a Google search) and some commentary about "The congressional Black Caucus" and the idea of eliminating it on the basis of political correctness terms.
I say not.
I say everyone should enjoy the right to free association and to form groups among like-mined and ethnic individuals. (Let's at the same time leave Augusta National Golf club alone this spring instead of seeing it assaulted by a bunch of slogan chanting harry legged lesbians before their annual Masters' Golf Tournament.)
Then, just to be fair, and as an example forall of the unwashed masses average citizens, let's go a step further and make ALL of the members of the US House and Senate join a "Caucus."
If I were in Congress, I'd be the leader of the "Redneck Rocket Scientist Caucus."
If Cynthia McKinney were to ever get re-elected, she could lead the "Stupid Loud-Mouthed- Moonbat-Police-Punching-Black-Bitch Caucus."
How about the "I Can't Make A Real Living So I Ran For Public Office Because My Last Name Is Kennedy Caucus"?
And finally, there could be the "My Husband Was A Worthless Womanizer So I Moved To New York And Ran For The Senate Caucus.?
That's hilarious...
Sometimes I crack my own self up...
I don't know what to say right now, because nothing much interesting is going on in my life and watching the news makes my head hurt.
Let's see what develops here as I write, but I'm not making you any promises on quality...
Those that know me or which stop by here regularly to read my rantings and ravings know that I read and watch a LOT of news on TV and on the Internet.
The only thing I've seen so far this morning that struck my mind as being worth mentioning and which I could write something glib or funny or even infuriating about was this story about US Representative Loretta Sanchez quitting something called "The Congressional Hispanic Caucus" over supposedly being called a "Whore" by the group's leader.
Rep. Loretta Sanchez has quit the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, accusing the chairman, Rep. Joe Baca, of telling people she's a "whore."
Baca denied the charge.
In an interview with The Politico Wednesday, Sanchez, a California Democrat as is Baca, also cited concerns about whether Baca was properly elected Hispanic Caucus chairman in November and about his general attitude toward female lawmakers. The caucus represents 21 Hispanic Democrats in Congress.
"I'm not going to be a part of the CHC as long as Mr. Baca illegally holds the chair … I told them no. There's a big rift here," Sanchez said. "You treat the women like shit. I have no use for him."
My kneejerk reaction, after thinking "dammmmmmmmmmmnnnnnn", was to ask why we even need groups like "The Congressional Hispanic Caucus"?
After all, aren't we supposed to be "equal" here in our new colorblind world?
Then I remembered that there was another recent story (I'm too lazy to do a Google search) and some commentary about "The congressional Black Caucus" and the idea of eliminating it on the basis of political correctness terms.
I say not.
I say everyone should enjoy the right to free association and to form groups among like-mined and ethnic individuals. (Let's at the same time leave Augusta National Golf club alone this spring instead of seeing it assaulted by a bunch of slogan chanting harry legged lesbians before their annual Masters' Golf Tournament.)
Then, just to be fair, and as an example for
If I were in Congress, I'd be the leader of the "Redneck Rocket Scientist Caucus."
If Cynthia McKinney were to ever get re-elected, she could lead the "Stupid Loud-Mouthed- Moonbat-Police-Punching-Black-Bitch Caucus."
How about the "I Can't Make A Real Living So I Ran For Public Office Because My Last Name Is Kennedy Caucus"?
And finally, there could be the "My Husband Was A Worthless Womanizer So I Moved To New York And Ran For The Senate Caucus.?
That's hilarious...
Sometimes I crack my own self up...
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Auto Mechanics
I Say That They’re The Reason Shotguns Were Invented
Have I mentioned that I can fix almost anything, IF you give me a manual and the proper tools?
Well…I can…
Fix almost anything, that is.
The only problem is that if I anticipate only having to do a given procedure once in a lifetime, I realize that it would sometimes be wise to hire a professional to handle the task and bloody their knuckles and curse their way through the process.
Disk Brake pads?
No problem.
Drum brake pads?
I’ll think about it.
Radiators and water pumps and power steering pumps are another matter, however, although I have successfully done a complete engine and a couple of transmission/clutch jobs in my younger years.
I can replace an alternator in the parking lot outside the auto parts store in about fifteen minutes.
Want to bet me?
That said, right now I have a couple of things that are in need of a good fixing on my old 1995 Chevrolet Suburban that are not included on my list of specialties, and dang it if the local Dealer (I won’t name names here because they haven’t actually caused me harm or otherwise done anything wrong and don‘t have the opportunity to rebut what I‘m writing about them) hasn’t reignited the fire in my soul against auto dealers and, more specifically, Auto Dealer MECHANICS
Then there is also the unique species of subhuman called SERVICE WRITERS, that many times work in concert with the Mechanics (I'm not talking about everyone in the business, just many or most…so don’t start e-mailing me and bitching and complaining because your father or brother-in-law is a mechanic or service writer.)
It’s just that, in my experience, almost anyone with the label of “Service Writer” on them is immediately suspect to living right down there under a rock with the snails and slugs and people like bookies and loan sharks that take advantage of people and generally stink up the environment.
Where do they go to learn to be so crooked?
I almost committed mass murder and burned a Pontiac Dealership down back in the 1980’s over a new car that they sold me and couldn’t ever manage to fix, no matter how much money I paid them.
I swear that I couldn't drive to my mailbox at the end of my driveway without it breaking down.
This all happened back before Georgia passed their Auto "Lemon Laws", and the “Service Writer” actually looked at his watch one morning and told me that they didn’t open for business for another fifteen minutes, and then while smirking at me he added “If it weren’t for cars like YOURS, I wouldn’t have a job.”
My response was “ if it weren’t for fists like mine, his mouth would have a few more teeth.”
The so-called “Service Manager” handled our account from that point to the day we sold the vehicle. I ended up hating virtually everyone that worked at that dealership...but...
Any wayyy…
Yesterday I received TWO QUOTES to do some work on my aforementioned vehicle, and the one from the local Chevy Dealer was more than double the independent mechanic’s price and further, the guy would not guarantee that the number couldn’t or wouldn’t escalate once they had the bowels of my beloved truck spilled out on their dirty concrete shop floor.
I’ve got a third quote coming today, then I hope to make a decision and spend a few days being a one car family while I get my beloved Suburban back into cross country interstate shape.
After all, it only has about 183,000 miles on it…I see another ten years of gas guzzling fun on the horizon with a little investment of time and money.
Have I mentioned that I can fix almost anything, IF you give me a manual and the proper tools?
Well…I can…
Fix almost anything, that is.
The only problem is that if I anticipate only having to do a given procedure once in a lifetime, I realize that it would sometimes be wise to hire a professional to handle the task and bloody their knuckles and curse their way through the process.
Disk Brake pads?
No problem.
Drum brake pads?
I’ll think about it.
Radiators and water pumps and power steering pumps are another matter, however, although I have successfully done a complete engine and a couple of transmission/clutch jobs in my younger years.
I can replace an alternator in the parking lot outside the auto parts store in about fifteen minutes.
Want to bet me?
That said, right now I have a couple of things that are in need of a good fixing on my old 1995 Chevrolet Suburban that are not included on my list of specialties, and dang it if the local Dealer (I won’t name names here because they haven’t actually caused me harm or otherwise done anything wrong and don‘t have the opportunity to rebut what I‘m writing about them) hasn’t reignited the fire in my soul against auto dealers and, more specifically, Auto Dealer MECHANICS
Then there is also the unique species of subhuman called SERVICE WRITERS, that many times work in concert with the Mechanics (I'm not talking about everyone in the business, just many or most…so don’t start e-mailing me and bitching and complaining because your father or brother-in-law is a mechanic or service writer.)
It’s just that, in my experience, almost anyone with the label of “Service Writer” on them is immediately suspect to living right down there under a rock with the snails and slugs and people like bookies and loan sharks that take advantage of people and generally stink up the environment.
Where do they go to learn to be so crooked?
I almost committed mass murder and burned a Pontiac Dealership down back in the 1980’s over a new car that they sold me and couldn’t ever manage to fix, no matter how much money I paid them.
I swear that I couldn't drive to my mailbox at the end of my driveway without it breaking down.
This all happened back before Georgia passed their Auto "Lemon Laws", and the “Service Writer” actually looked at his watch one morning and told me that they didn’t open for business for another fifteen minutes, and then while smirking at me he added “If it weren’t for cars like YOURS, I wouldn’t have a job.”
My response was “ if it weren’t for fists like mine, his mouth would have a few more teeth.”
The so-called “Service Manager” handled our account from that point to the day we sold the vehicle. I ended up hating virtually everyone that worked at that dealership...but...
Any wayyy…
Yesterday I received TWO QUOTES to do some work on my aforementioned vehicle, and the one from the local Chevy Dealer was more than double the independent mechanic’s price and further, the guy would not guarantee that the number couldn’t or wouldn’t escalate once they had the bowels of my beloved truck spilled out on their dirty concrete shop floor.
I’ve got a third quote coming today, then I hope to make a decision and spend a few days being a one car family while I get my beloved Suburban back into cross country interstate shape.
After all, it only has about 183,000 miles on it…I see another ten years of gas guzzling fun on the horizon with a little investment of time and money.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
More Stupid Crap I Shouldn't Have To Worry About
Human Nature
Way back in early 1995 I was running a fairly successful Engineering company and had what I considered to be a pretty decent cash flow, and as a result I eventually felt like going out and splurging some of my hard earned cash on a "Home Entertainment System."
I ended up with a Bose surround sound speaker system, attached to a 100 disk CD changer and a Panasonic 110 Watt amp. I also had a (woo hoo) 32" flat screen Sony Television that had to weigh at least 150 pounds, and once I got the miles of giant "Monster" cables installed and connected to the components, I was in Heaven.
My stereo/Video system ROCKED...until my house burned down and cooked it (the stereo) into ashes.
In fact, the Sheriff's office and the insurance company inspectors agreed that it was probably my stereo that caused the fire--AFTER they got through with the arson investigation.
Don't even get me started talking about what it feels like to be accused of buring your own house down after your house burns down.
I've almost gotten over that experience, but not quite.
Any wayyy...
Just now FOX News was reporting on a story with a prediction that 2.5 Million people are going to run out and buy large format flat screen TV's this week, just to watch the Super Bowl.
I hope they have the same realization now that I had that year when I bought my TV...
"Pre-Super Bowl Return and Exchange Limits"
Whaaaaaaattttt?
Wait a minute here, everybody.
When I go to the store, I generally know the shape and size of what I'm looking for, and most of the time I already know exactly the brand and model which I'm going to buy when I get there. Further, in the past ten years I've also had cash money (read that US currency) in my pocket to pay for it most of the time.
Then when I get to the TV department or the cash register, I find that I have to put up with somemoron sales weasel store associate yammering away while making me read the fine print on the back of the sales receipt pointing out that since I'm buying a TV the week before a bunch of giant, smelly, sweaty, 300 pound men attempt to bang their heads into each other while a bunch of 150 pound little fleas run circles around them, that instantly my return and exchange priveleges are curtailed.
It was a surprise to me at first, but I learned that for years now people have attempted to not buy but "borrow" large screen TV's simply to watch for one evening...
Super Bowl Evening.
So what's up wit' that?
Is it just me or what?
I'm thinking that I might be confused or something, because...
When and IF I get through with dealing with driving through traffic, enduring the sales pitch of some pimple faced teen nerd, and dragging home a giant cardboard box full of styrofoam and plastic, I AIN'T TAKING ANYTHING BACK.
If it breaks, and if it weighs over 25 pounds, and if it is under warranty, then YOU ARE COMING TO PICK IT UP AND BRING ME A NEW ONE.
AT YOUR EXPENSE.
NOW...
Regardless of the day of the week or the time of the year, make me happy else I'm coming to visit you with my little friend, Mr. Smith & Wesson.
OK, not really.
I guess I'll just stay home this week so I don't have to stomp any sports fans to death with my only good foot.
Way back in early 1995 I was running a fairly successful Engineering company and had what I considered to be a pretty decent cash flow, and as a result I eventually felt like going out and splurging some of my hard earned cash on a "Home Entertainment System."
I ended up with a Bose surround sound speaker system, attached to a 100 disk CD changer and a Panasonic 110 Watt amp. I also had a (woo hoo) 32" flat screen Sony Television that had to weigh at least 150 pounds, and once I got the miles of giant "Monster" cables installed and connected to the components, I was in Heaven.
My stereo/Video system ROCKED...until my house burned down and cooked it (the stereo) into ashes.
In fact, the Sheriff's office and the insurance company inspectors agreed that it was probably my stereo that caused the fire--AFTER they got through with the arson investigation.
Don't even get me started talking about what it feels like to be accused of buring your own house down after your house burns down.
I've almost gotten over that experience, but not quite.
Any wayyy...
Just now FOX News was reporting on a story with a prediction that 2.5 Million people are going to run out and buy large format flat screen TV's this week, just to watch the Super Bowl.
I hope they have the same realization now that I had that year when I bought my TV...
"Pre-Super Bowl Return and Exchange Limits"
Whaaaaaaattttt?
Wait a minute here, everybody.
When I go to the store, I generally know the shape and size of what I'm looking for, and most of the time I already know exactly the brand and model which I'm going to buy when I get there. Further, in the past ten years I've also had cash money (read that US currency) in my pocket to pay for it most of the time.
Then when I get to the TV department or the cash register, I find that I have to put up with some
It was a surprise to me at first, but I learned that for years now people have attempted to not buy but "borrow" large screen TV's simply to watch for one evening...
Super Bowl Evening.
So what's up wit' that?
Is it just me or what?
I'm thinking that I might be confused or something, because...
When and IF I get through with dealing with driving through traffic, enduring the sales pitch of some pimple faced teen nerd, and dragging home a giant cardboard box full of styrofoam and plastic, I AIN'T TAKING ANYTHING BACK.
If it breaks, and if it weighs over 25 pounds, and if it is under warranty, then YOU ARE COMING TO PICK IT UP AND BRING ME A NEW ONE.
AT YOUR EXPENSE.
NOW...
Regardless of the day of the week or the time of the year, make me happy else I'm coming to visit you with my little friend, Mr. Smith & Wesson.
OK, not really.
I guess I'll just stay home this week so I don't have to stomp any sports fans to death with my only good foot.
Monday, January 29, 2007
No Child's Behind Left Child left Behind
Reruns...Reruns...Reruns...
Here's what I had to say back in October 2004 (slightly modified):
Just in case you haven't noticed, I’ve had a love hate relationship with formal education—both the mandatory 12 years of primary/secondary school and my dual experiences as an undergraduate Mechanical Engineering student.
You see, I consider myself to be smart, and I was a good student in school, and maybe I'm just biased as a result.
I just disliked many of my (government) school teachers and many of my (government) school teachers barely tolerated me.
I say many because there were actually a few instructors that liked my work and I liked them, but these were the exceptions rather than the rule. I had a problem with the educational process in that I found it to be tedious and overly bureaucratic.
I guess that my mind didn’t fit the model of the student that they were trained to teach.
My primary failure seemed to be my belief that I was actually there to learn something and that there was too much crap and politics that had to be dealt with in order to get your daily dose of readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmatic.
In post World War II America, the government has bought (or possibly sold ) the general public’s simplistic belief that a high school diploma automatically guarantees quality employment and economic success.
To this end, the public (government) school system has made every effort to hand a high school diploma to every person (read that so-called student) that can show up in a classroom for some minimum number of days over a twelve year period.
Rather (but not Dan Rather) than supporting and maintaining the quality while increasing access to a primary and secondary education, the end result has been the degradation of standards and the output of basically the same number of qualified graduates as were produced before government intervention.
The key word is qualified.
You heard me right, everyone is required to go, but the number of successful high school students is quantitatively the same.
It’s a matter of supply and demand.
In spite of this increased availability of educational programs here in Georgia, today over 40% of high school students drop out before graduation.
Do you get this?
They are virtually giving away high school diplomas based on attendance and still nearly half of the students don’t have enough sense and discipline to hang around long enough to get one.
And the sad reality is that the diploma has no real market value in its current form.
I say that that's because a diploma has become basically a certificate of (non)attendance.
You see, the Imperial Federal Government of the By God United Damn States of America made their first foray into higher education with the passage of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (all 499 pages in PDF format if you want to read it,) and back then the next target of the Federal Government’s newly formed Department of Education was a college diploma.
Since the high school diplomas weren’t getting enough people a country club membership and a new Caddy Seville every three years, the belief was that adding four more years of education with the obligatory government meddling would certainly do the trick.
Of course the Ivy League schools like Harvard and Yale wouldn’t in theory have to participate, but the state colleges and Universities were in for an onslaught of ill prepared “High School” graduates with government backing.
Lewis Grizzard, one of my personal idols and a famous southern humorist, newspaper columnist, and staunch University of Georgia alumni was once quoted as saying (paraphrasing): “they say if you drive through the UGA campus, they will throw a diploma through your open car window…taint true…you got to stop your car.”
How true that has become, Lewis.
The State of Georgia went as far as to use education as a basis for implementing a state lottery, the result being the HOPE Scholarship program and state funded pre-K and Kindergarten programs that were heralded as the end-all save-all solution for Georgia students.
The jury is still officially out, but after ten years the initial results are that the HOPE program has done very little to improve education in Georgia. The few good high school teachers that were out there have suffered under pressure to inflate grades to make students have the necessary “B” average to qualify for a Hope scholarship.
The few good college professors are now pressured to hand out A’s and B’s in order to allow students to maintain HOPE Scholarship eligibility. And the reality is that a large percentage of the students entering college with Hope Scholarships are not really qualified and as a result, many have to take remedial classes in English (their native language) and math before they can even enter the normal curriculum.
As is usual with found money, the state government has had a spending spree of using HOPE funds to pay for non-scholarship expenses like computer technology that no one on the educational staff can fathom and for building new facilities all over the state that either aren't needed or are under-utilized.
In the ensuing financial crunch caused by low qualification standards, the state legislature has had to wrestle every year with potential changes to program requirements. The problems are not unique to HOPE, they are just amplified by the availability of public money.
Racial leaders and activists claim that “rich people’s” kids get a disproportionate share of HOPE money—they want income limits on recipients. Inner city school proponents refuse to acknowledge the academic deficiencies of the current standards and oppose the use of SAT scores as part of the qualification process.
As a result, the college remedial programs continue to bulge at seams.
Again, at the heart of the issue is the concept of supply and demand.
Here is my simple (but accurate) Redneck analysis for your enjoyment (and liberal disdain.)
Suppose that by some miracle we actually managed to make the following changes in our society:
1. Every child was a willing and able student.
2. Every household provided a nourishing academic environment.
3. Every school has qualified teachers, useable facilities, and adequate funding.
Given these improvements and assuming that the academic standards were ethically maintained, I guarantee you that the socialists and utopians would still be unhappy.
Why?
Because there would still be students with B, C, and even failing grade averages.
All students are not in fact created equal.
Everyone can't be Valedictorian.
Further, even if you could get every high school student up to a B performance level and handed them a HOPE scholarship, there are not enough seats in college classrooms to park their butts in every day for two to four years.
If you were to somehow carry this concept through to the college level and actually get every student a college sheepskin, then you will find that there are not enough jobs that require a college degree (even a degree in "Underwater Basket Weaving" or god forbid—"Education") to use all of the applicants which they receive.
Only the top students would get the best jobs and attain the highest levels of success in the workplace.
As I like to say, “everyone can’t be a rocket scientist.”
Well, actually, you can be a “rocket scientist,” but you might be an unemployed rocket scientist unless you want to start your own company and work for yourself. (Kudos to Dick Rutan.)
So back to my original point...
“No Child left Behind?”
Baah, Humbug...I say kick them (and their parents) in their behinds until the child has no behind left if they aren't interested in getting a REAL education.
Here's what I had to say back in October 2004 (slightly modified):
Just in case you haven't noticed, I’ve had a love hate relationship with formal education—both the mandatory 12 years of primary/secondary school and my dual experiences as an undergraduate Mechanical Engineering student.
You see, I consider myself to be smart, and I was a good student in school, and maybe I'm just biased as a result.
I just disliked many of my (government) school teachers and many of my (government) school teachers barely tolerated me.
I say many because there were actually a few instructors that liked my work and I liked them, but these were the exceptions rather than the rule. I had a problem with the educational process in that I found it to be tedious and overly bureaucratic.
I guess that my mind didn’t fit the model of the student that they were trained to teach.
My primary failure seemed to be my belief that I was actually there to learn something and that there was too much crap and politics that had to be dealt with in order to get your daily dose of readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmatic.
In post World War II America, the government has bought (or possibly sold ) the general public’s simplistic belief that a high school diploma automatically guarantees quality employment and economic success.
To this end, the public (government) school system has made every effort to hand a high school diploma to every person (read that so-called student) that can show up in a classroom for some minimum number of days over a twelve year period.
Rather (but not Dan Rather) than supporting and maintaining the quality while increasing access to a primary and secondary education, the end result has been the degradation of standards and the output of basically the same number of qualified graduates as were produced before government intervention.
The key word is qualified.
You heard me right, everyone is required to go, but the number of successful high school students is quantitatively the same.
It’s a matter of supply and demand.
In spite of this increased availability of educational programs here in Georgia, today over 40% of high school students drop out before graduation.
Do you get this?
They are virtually giving away high school diplomas based on attendance and still nearly half of the students don’t have enough sense and discipline to hang around long enough to get one.
And the sad reality is that the diploma has no real market value in its current form.
I say that that's because a diploma has become basically a certificate of (non)attendance.
You see, the Imperial Federal Government of the By God United Damn States of America made their first foray into higher education with the passage of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (all 499 pages in PDF format if you want to read it,) and back then the next target of the Federal Government’s newly formed Department of Education was a college diploma.
Since the high school diplomas weren’t getting enough people a country club membership and a new Caddy Seville every three years, the belief was that adding four more years of education with the obligatory government meddling would certainly do the trick.
Of course the Ivy League schools like Harvard and Yale wouldn’t in theory have to participate, but the state colleges and Universities were in for an onslaught of ill prepared “High School” graduates with government backing.
Lewis Grizzard, one of my personal idols and a famous southern humorist, newspaper columnist, and staunch University of Georgia alumni was once quoted as saying (paraphrasing): “they say if you drive through the UGA campus, they will throw a diploma through your open car window…taint true…you got to stop your car.”
How true that has become, Lewis.
The State of Georgia went as far as to use education as a basis for implementing a state lottery, the result being the HOPE Scholarship program and state funded pre-K and Kindergarten programs that were heralded as the end-all save-all solution for Georgia students.
The jury is still officially out, but after ten years the initial results are that the HOPE program has done very little to improve education in Georgia. The few good high school teachers that were out there have suffered under pressure to inflate grades to make students have the necessary “B” average to qualify for a Hope scholarship.
The few good college professors are now pressured to hand out A’s and B’s in order to allow students to maintain HOPE Scholarship eligibility. And the reality is that a large percentage of the students entering college with Hope Scholarships are not really qualified and as a result, many have to take remedial classes in English (their native language) and math before they can even enter the normal curriculum.
As is usual with found money, the state government has had a spending spree of using HOPE funds to pay for non-scholarship expenses like computer technology that no one on the educational staff can fathom and for building new facilities all over the state that either aren't needed or are under-utilized.
In the ensuing financial crunch caused by low qualification standards, the state legislature has had to wrestle every year with potential changes to program requirements. The problems are not unique to HOPE, they are just amplified by the availability of public money.
Racial leaders and activists claim that “rich people’s” kids get a disproportionate share of HOPE money—they want income limits on recipients. Inner city school proponents refuse to acknowledge the academic deficiencies of the current standards and oppose the use of SAT scores as part of the qualification process.
As a result, the college remedial programs continue to bulge at seams.
Again, at the heart of the issue is the concept of supply and demand.
Here is my simple (but accurate) Redneck analysis for your enjoyment (and liberal disdain.)
Suppose that by some miracle we actually managed to make the following changes in our society:
1. Every child was a willing and able student.
2. Every household provided a nourishing academic environment.
3. Every school has qualified teachers, useable facilities, and adequate funding.
Given these improvements and assuming that the academic standards were ethically maintained, I guarantee you that the socialists and utopians would still be unhappy.
Why?
Because there would still be students with B, C, and even failing grade averages.
All students are not in fact created equal.
Everyone can't be Valedictorian.
Further, even if you could get every high school student up to a B performance level and handed them a HOPE scholarship, there are not enough seats in college classrooms to park their butts in every day for two to four years.
If you were to somehow carry this concept through to the college level and actually get every student a college sheepskin, then you will find that there are not enough jobs that require a college degree (even a degree in "Underwater Basket Weaving" or god forbid—"Education") to use all of the applicants which they receive.
Only the top students would get the best jobs and attain the highest levels of success in the workplace.
As I like to say, “everyone can’t be a rocket scientist.”
Well, actually, you can be a “rocket scientist,” but you might be an unemployed rocket scientist unless you want to start your own company and work for yourself. (Kudos to Dick Rutan.)
So back to my original point...
“No Child left Behind?”
Baah, Humbug...I say kick them (and their parents) in their behinds until the child has no behind left if they aren't interested in getting a REAL education.
Sunday, January 28, 2007
New Winter Art
Now I'm Building Things Larger Than Life...
Well, the bad news is that apparently winter has officially arrived here in the Golden Isles.
The good news is that it took until late January to do so. As Exhibit A I offer a couple of photos of what we faced yesterday morning...I actually had to put on a shirt and wear a jacket when I went outside.
Well, the bad news is that apparently winter has officially arrived here in the Golden Isles.
The good news is that it took until late January to do so. As Exhibit A I offer a couple of photos of what we faced yesterday morning...I actually had to put on a shirt and wear a jacket when I went outside.
Yes, that is FROST on the roof of our Condo building, and a nice heavy coat of bumpy ice on Pat's Mustang which I absentmindedly left outside instead of using the carport with full knowledge our bout with this blast of winter was coming.
I probably missed some "cool" (please excuse the intended pun) photo opportunities somewhere out there on the marsh, but I was too lazy to get up and out before 8 AM and actually scrape ice off the windshield in order to go see what I could find.
So any way, once we managed to get out of bed, get dressed, and make our monthly run over to Walmart and the computer store to buy printer ink, on a whim we also stopped by Tuesday Morning where I found this (the big thing...not the little thing)...
The little thing is a standard corkscrew I put in the photo for the purpose of giving you some scale and perspective of what I'm up to.
The large thing is a "spike" designed to place in the ground in your yard to chain your dog to...that's right, it's a '"dog spike"...but I have another idea for its use.
Remember my giant clay olive sculpture that I did recently?
Well, I'm going to do a little modification and convert it (my "dog spike," not the olive) into a giant Corkscrew, and then I'm going to make myself a giant wine bottle cork out of some clay to go with it.
I figure that the cork will end up being about the size of a 2 liter soda bottle.
The Olive has been a great success with the employees and patrons over at our local wine shop, so I think that I will continue along on my journey turning the store into my own private art gallery.
It's really tough being me...
.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
I Stand Corrected
It's Amazing Who Reads What I Write...
I have ranted and raved about a bunch of stuff over the past few years, never expecting to really influence any person's opinion of me or my topic...I'm really just blowing off steam to keep my own internal boiler from blowing the top of my head off.
Yet...
This morning I received this E-Mail fromThe Annie E. Casie Foundation :
Hello: Per you most recent blog, please note this correction:
The Annie E. Casey Foundation was founded by Jim Casey and his siblings in 1948 and named after their mother, not Jim Casey’s wife.
Thank you.
Sue Lin Chong
Sue Lin Chong
Public Affairs Manager
The Annie E. Casey Foundation
701 St. Paul Street
Baltimore, MD 21202
(410) 223-2836 - voice
(410 223-3714 - fax
schong@aecf.org
Thank you Miss Chong for pointing out that I incorrectly stated that the foundation was named for Jim Casey' wife, not his mother.
His mom was the intended benefactor
I offer my sincerest apology for my error, and I gladly publish this correction at the top of my blog.
See, I'm really trying to be accurate in this process...
I have ranted and raved about a bunch of stuff over the past few years, never expecting to really influence any person's opinion of me or my topic...I'm really just blowing off steam to keep my own internal boiler from blowing the top of my head off.
Yet...
This morning I received this E-Mail from
Hello: Per you most recent blog, please note this correction:
The Annie E. Casey Foundation was founded by Jim Casey and his siblings in 1948 and named after their mother, not Jim Casey’s wife.
Thank you.
Sue Lin Chong
Sue Lin Chong
Public Affairs Manager
The Annie E. Casey Foundation
701 St. Paul Street
Baltimore, MD 21202
(410) 223-2836 - voice
(410 223-3714 - fax
schong@aecf.org
Thank you Miss Chong for pointing out that I incorrectly stated that the foundation was named for Jim Casey' wife, not his mother.
His mom was the intended benefactor
I offer my sincerest apology for my error, and I gladly publish this correction at the top of my blog.
See, I'm really trying to be accurate in this process...
Continuing My Re-Runs
I'm Lazy, LAzy, LAZy, LAZY...
OK, continuing in the tradition of my recent blogging reruns, this little missive was written way back in October 2004:
The Working Poor Families Project just released a series of reports on the condition of “working families” in America.
The report is funded by the Anne E. Casey Foundation (AECF), the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation—all well financed “do-gooder” organizations.
Jim Casey, one of the founders of United Parcel Service, started the Anne E Casey Foundation in memory of hiswife mother in 1948. A good example of a liberal putting his money where his mouth is.
In their opening statement of the Executive Summary, they offer the following passage:
"The United States of America is often called the “Land of Opportunity,” a place where hard work and sacrifice lead to economic success. Across generations, countless families have been able to live out that promise. However, more than one out of four American working families now earn wages so low that they have difficulty surviving financially.
These are families with responsible, hard-working breadwinners who want to get ahead but hold down low-paying jobs with inadequate benefits and little hope for advancement. Many lack the skills and education they need to move into jobs that pay better, even while the economy demands more highly trained employees.
And while our economy relies on the service jobs these low-paid workers fill—such as cashiers, janitors, security guards and home health aids—our society has not taken adequate steps to ensure that these workers can make ends meet and build a future for their families, no matter how determined they are to be self-sufficient."
First let ME (your lovely and talented blogger) say "What compassionate, sensitive, sincere words—on the surface."
BUTT...
Only when you look deeper into these utterances do you see the true meaning that lies (no pun intended) within.
Once again, here we find a reference to “working families.”
Working Families...working families, working families...
I demand to know what the term “working family” means.
Can any one tell me? (See Living Wages)
I believe that the term is intended to refer to a person with a spouse and kids to support who is trying to live on the wages earned working every day for most of their lifetime in a near minimum wage (what I call entry level) job.
What are they thinking?
Sure they may be “responsible and hard-working” but the best paid sanitation engineer (garbage man) still earns garbage man’s pay.
At least the report seems to acknowledge that the economy has good jobs available, but unfortunately there aren’t many employment want-ads for buggy whip makers and blacksmiths in The Atlanta Journal/Constitution newspaper today.
Times are a changin’, and we have to change also if we are to survive.
Where I come from, the incentive of “hav(ing) difficulty surviving financially" was both an everyday reality and acted as a powerful incentive to get off of your ass and make some serious changes.
I think that you would agree that most Americans have considered themselves to be squeezed financially for part of their working career, so what is so evil with this situation that government intervention should be mandated?
“Many lack,” they say, “the skills and education they need to move into jobs that pay better…”
Well boo hoo hoo, did they have to quit school before graduation to go to work to support themselves and their family like both of my Grandfathers did in pre-depression era America?
Probably not.
Most likely they slept through and played hooky through twelve years of free government education because they either didn’t care or didn't know any better.
The girls likely were certain that they were going to get married to a rich man and the boys were sure that they were going “Pro” in the NFL or the NBA.
Once they hit the big time they figured that they could pay someone else to do their ‘ritin, readin’, and ‘rithmatic.
“Let me ax you, do you know a good accountant? “
Rigghhhtttt...
And then we are admonished that in fact our “society has not taken adequate steps to ensure that these workers can make ends meet.”
Upon utterance of this statement, my head starts violently spinning around uncontrollably.
How about asking these workers to take some steps on their own to ensure that they can make ends meet?
What else should we be required to continue to pay for without seeing some tangible improvement and/or actual results? I mean, after providing twelve years of free education and handing out additional financial support in the form of welfare and public housing, haven’t we done about enough?
No, they say.
Now WE need to somehow do whatever it takes to ensure these miserable, underprivileged souls move out of the ghetto and enjoy a lifetime of success. And God forbid that we attempt to tell our benefactors how to lead their lives in areas that are highly predictive of future outcome.
We can’t, for instance, criticize their lifestyle decisions like the company they keep, the way they speak, the way they dress, or their propensity to adopt expensive, self-destructive habits like alcohol and drug abuse.
No way, Jose.
And we can’t intervene in areas of intimate personal behavior like sex which inevitably have expensive side affects like producing unwanted/un-afforded children and/or the acquisition of sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS.
We are, as a society, supposed to close our eyes, toss our money at the problem, and hope for the best outcome.
Ab-rah Kadab-rah, poof.....success!
In looking into the AEC Foundation, I found this statement from the current president, Doug Nelson:
“Applying Lessons Learned. The generation of American children born in the last two decades of the 20th century has been blessed by a period of unprecedented national prosperity. For most of these children and their families, this has been among the best of times.
Yet for fully one-fifth of this nation's kids, the economic boom has quite simply passed them by.
In small towns, many suburbs, and especially in large cities, millions of children remain largely untouched by the good times, with little prospect for connecting with the benefits of a soaring economy. Our most recent KIDS COUNT data report a significant increase since 1990 in the number of children—5.6 million—in families of the working poor.
In all, more than 14 million, or 21 percent of all kids under 18, still live in poverty-a higher proportion than in 1975.“ IF the data supporting these statistics are accurate, we are as a society guilty of a great failure.
But I say that the government hasn’t failed; the recipiants have—in spite of a large amount of public financial support. Remember that President Johnson’s series of economic initiatives announced in his 1964 Presidential campaign, called “The Great Society,” was largely implemented by the “Fabulous Eight-Ninth” congress.
Among their mandates were:
1. Achieved the goals of the Fair Deal.
2. Achieved the goals of the New Frontier.
3. Introduced Medicare programs.
4. Passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
5. Legislated a Housing and Urban Development program.
6. Ratified the highway beautification act, a pet project of Lady Bird Johnson, the First Lady.
7. Installed clean air and water regulations.
8. Ended the immigration quota system of the 1920s.
9. Set forth new city planning programs.
"New Deal," "Fair Frontier," "Education", "Housing," "Environment," "Healthcare"—don't these topics sound a bit familiar?
Same old same old...
Just throw some more money at the perceived problems and implement government mandated solutions and everything will be ok, right?
That’s what they say.
“To do that (improve the chances for all to advance,) we must effectively invest our public resources so that low-income working families have far better access to education, training, healthcare, parental leave, and other benefits.
People earning higher salaries typically have access to those things; those who are paid less need the same…In the long run we will maintain stable communities and keep our businesses competitive.”
Let me dissect this paragraph for you.
“We must invest our public resources”…that’s government terminology for spending other people’s tax money.
Our “investment” will give low-income “working families” all the things (education, training, healthcare, parental leave, and other benefits) that my parents and I have already paid dearly for in time and money in order for me to be able to work somewhere other than the McDonalds’ drive through window.
And this parental leave thing—where do they get off telling a business owner that when he hires a walking set of ovaries or testicles with no restraint that he has to hand out unlimited (or at least ridiculous) amounts of “parental leave” in order to take care of five or six children that were neither planned for nor can be afforded financially?
Then they actually have the guts to come out and say that, regardless of your personal effort or commitment to your education and employment efforts, you “need” (and by default and government mandate you deserve) the same compensation rewards provided to better educated and more productive employees.
Well, I NEED a vacation home on a Caribbean island, a 100 foot motoryacht, and a Lear Jet to get there—can someone in Washington help me please?
“In the long run we will maintain stable communities and keep our businesses competitive.”
Is this a threat that if we don’t hand over funding, anarchy will result and the stock market will crash?
Me and my Smith and Wesson Revolver don't think so...
I have every compassion for the children identified to be in these situations living in poverty. It’s not their fault, but the problem I have is that the government doesn’t cut checks to minor children. They do cut checks to adults who consciously make crappy life decisions, reproduce without conscience and V-O-T-E.
For forty years “Great Society” politics has yielded little improvement and constant demands for increased funding.
Enough is Enough...but then again I guess that you can just call me insensitive.
UPDATE October 14, 2004 5:30AM
The implied solution to the problems of the "working poor" is to raise the minimum wage.
You might ask, who is actually paid minimum wage?
This link gives the answer better than I ever could.
.
OK, continuing in the tradition of my recent blogging reruns, this little missive was written way back in October 2004:
The Working Poor Families Project just released a series of reports on the condition of “working families” in America.
The report is funded by the Anne E. Casey Foundation (AECF), the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation—all well financed “do-gooder” organizations.
Jim Casey, one of the founders of United Parcel Service, started the Anne E Casey Foundation in memory of his
In their opening statement of the Executive Summary, they offer the following passage:
"The United States of America is often called the “Land of Opportunity,” a place where hard work and sacrifice lead to economic success. Across generations, countless families have been able to live out that promise. However, more than one out of four American working families now earn wages so low that they have difficulty surviving financially.
These are families with responsible, hard-working breadwinners who want to get ahead but hold down low-paying jobs with inadequate benefits and little hope for advancement. Many lack the skills and education they need to move into jobs that pay better, even while the economy demands more highly trained employees.
And while our economy relies on the service jobs these low-paid workers fill—such as cashiers, janitors, security guards and home health aids—our society has not taken adequate steps to ensure that these workers can make ends meet and build a future for their families, no matter how determined they are to be self-sufficient."
First let ME (your lovely and talented blogger) say "What compassionate, sensitive, sincere words—on the surface."
BUTT...
Only when you look deeper into these utterances do you see the true meaning that lies (no pun intended) within.
Once again, here we find a reference to “working families.”
Working Families...working families, working families...
I demand to know what the term “working family” means.
Can any one tell me? (See Living Wages)
I believe that the term is intended to refer to a person with a spouse and kids to support who is trying to live on the wages earned working every day for most of their lifetime in a near minimum wage (what I call entry level) job.
What are they thinking?
Sure they may be “responsible and hard-working” but the best paid sanitation engineer (garbage man) still earns garbage man’s pay.
At least the report seems to acknowledge that the economy has good jobs available, but unfortunately there aren’t many employment want-ads for buggy whip makers and blacksmiths in The Atlanta Journal/Constitution newspaper today.
Times are a changin’, and we have to change also if we are to survive.
Where I come from, the incentive of “hav(ing) difficulty surviving financially" was both an everyday reality and acted as a powerful incentive to get off of your ass and make some serious changes.
I think that you would agree that most Americans have considered themselves to be squeezed financially for part of their working career, so what is so evil with this situation that government intervention should be mandated?
“Many lack,” they say, “the skills and education they need to move into jobs that pay better…”
Well boo hoo hoo, did they have to quit school before graduation to go to work to support themselves and their family like both of my Grandfathers did in pre-depression era America?
Probably not.
Most likely they slept through and played hooky through twelve years of free government education because they either didn’t care or didn't know any better.
The girls likely were certain that they were going to get married to a rich man and the boys were sure that they were going “Pro” in the NFL or the NBA.
Once they hit the big time they figured that they could pay someone else to do their ‘ritin, readin’, and ‘rithmatic.
“Let me ax you, do you know a good accountant? “
Rigghhhtttt...
And then we are admonished that in fact our “society has not taken adequate steps to ensure that these workers can make ends meet.”
Upon utterance of this statement, my head starts violently spinning around uncontrollably.
How about asking these workers to take some steps on their own to ensure that they can make ends meet?
What else should we be required to continue to pay for without seeing some tangible improvement and/or actual results? I mean, after providing twelve years of free education and handing out additional financial support in the form of welfare and public housing, haven’t we done about enough?
No, they say.
Now WE need to somehow do whatever it takes to ensure these miserable, underprivileged souls move out of the ghetto and enjoy a lifetime of success. And God forbid that we attempt to tell our benefactors how to lead their lives in areas that are highly predictive of future outcome.
We can’t, for instance, criticize their lifestyle decisions like the company they keep, the way they speak, the way they dress, or their propensity to adopt expensive, self-destructive habits like alcohol and drug abuse.
No way, Jose.
And we can’t intervene in areas of intimate personal behavior like sex which inevitably have expensive side affects like producing unwanted/un-afforded children and/or the acquisition of sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS.
We are, as a society, supposed to close our eyes, toss our money at the problem, and hope for the best outcome.
Ab-rah Kadab-rah, poof.....success!
In looking into the AEC Foundation, I found this statement from the current president, Doug Nelson:
“Applying Lessons Learned. The generation of American children born in the last two decades of the 20th century has been blessed by a period of unprecedented national prosperity. For most of these children and their families, this has been among the best of times.
Yet for fully one-fifth of this nation's kids, the economic boom has quite simply passed them by.
In small towns, many suburbs, and especially in large cities, millions of children remain largely untouched by the good times, with little prospect for connecting with the benefits of a soaring economy. Our most recent KIDS COUNT data report a significant increase since 1990 in the number of children—5.6 million—in families of the working poor.
In all, more than 14 million, or 21 percent of all kids under 18, still live in poverty-a higher proportion than in 1975.“ IF the data supporting these statistics are accurate, we are as a society guilty of a great failure.
But I say that the government hasn’t failed; the recipiants have—in spite of a large amount of public financial support. Remember that President Johnson’s series of economic initiatives announced in his 1964 Presidential campaign, called “The Great Society,” was largely implemented by the “Fabulous Eight-Ninth” congress.
Among their mandates were:
1. Achieved the goals of the Fair Deal.
2. Achieved the goals of the New Frontier.
3. Introduced Medicare programs.
4. Passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
5. Legislated a Housing and Urban Development program.
6. Ratified the highway beautification act, a pet project of Lady Bird Johnson, the First Lady.
7. Installed clean air and water regulations.
8. Ended the immigration quota system of the 1920s.
9. Set forth new city planning programs.
"New Deal," "Fair Frontier," "Education", "Housing," "Environment," "Healthcare"—don't these topics sound a bit familiar?
Same old same old...
Just throw some more money at the perceived problems and implement government mandated solutions and everything will be ok, right?
That’s what they say.
“To do that (improve the chances for all to advance,) we must effectively invest our public resources so that low-income working families have far better access to education, training, healthcare, parental leave, and other benefits.
People earning higher salaries typically have access to those things; those who are paid less need the same…In the long run we will maintain stable communities and keep our businesses competitive.”
Let me dissect this paragraph for you.
“We must invest our public resources”…that’s government terminology for spending other people’s tax money.
Our “investment” will give low-income “working families” all the things (education, training, healthcare, parental leave, and other benefits) that my parents and I have already paid dearly for in time and money in order for me to be able to work somewhere other than the McDonalds’ drive through window.
And this parental leave thing—where do they get off telling a business owner that when he hires a walking set of ovaries or testicles with no restraint that he has to hand out unlimited (or at least ridiculous) amounts of “parental leave” in order to take care of five or six children that were neither planned for nor can be afforded financially?
Then they actually have the guts to come out and say that, regardless of your personal effort or commitment to your education and employment efforts, you “need” (and by default and government mandate you deserve) the same compensation rewards provided to better educated and more productive employees.
Well, I NEED a vacation home on a Caribbean island, a 100 foot motoryacht, and a Lear Jet to get there—can someone in Washington help me please?
“In the long run we will maintain stable communities and keep our businesses competitive.”
Is this a threat that if we don’t hand over funding, anarchy will result and the stock market will crash?
Me and my Smith and Wesson Revolver don't think so...
I have every compassion for the children identified to be in these situations living in poverty. It’s not their fault, but the problem I have is that the government doesn’t cut checks to minor children. They do cut checks to adults who consciously make crappy life decisions, reproduce without conscience and V-O-T-E.
For forty years “Great Society” politics has yielded little improvement and constant demands for increased funding.
Enough is Enough...but then again I guess that you can just call me insensitive.
UPDATE October 14, 2004 5:30AM
The implied solution to the problems of the "working poor" is to raise the minimum wage.
You might ask, who is actually paid minimum wage?
This link gives the answer better than I ever could.
.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
They Say It's Going Down To 31 Degrees Here Thursday Night
I ask My Northern Friends To Pray...
And I guess I should check my antifreeze in the Suburban and the Mustang.
Dang thisGlobal Warming Winter weather...
.
And I guess I should check my antifreeze in the Suburban and the Mustang.
Dang this
.
Even More Ancient Reruns
Here..Look at this good rant called "Living Wages" which I wrote back in October 2004 (slightly modified)...
"A Living wage.”
Exactly what does that statement mean?
Is a “living wage” something for which you build a little house in your back yard and put out a bowl of food and water to nourish and feed?
Activists and politicians love to talk about a “living wage,” and it always makes for good newspaper headlines.
The concept seems to basically involve the government telling the owner of a business how much to pay his employees, rather than letting the free market make that determination.
Well isn’t that special, I know all of those business owners will appreciate the assistance…
I, personally, got a little confused in the process when I started thinking about it, so now I invite you to follow along with me and let's see if I really have this thing straight in my mind.
For instance, suppose that I go out and borrow $200,000 from the bank, put up $100,000 of MY own money, rent a building on a small parcel of land, buy equipment, raw materials, and hire 20 employees (sales, administrative, and manufacturing) in order to produce and sell my own brand of "widgets."
Let's call my enterprise "Rogers' Widget Company, LLC."
(I build a really good Widget, by the way, and my Mother and my Girlfriend would probably be so proud...)
Happily, sales are booming, and now I need a vacation after working my rear end off over the past five years building the business.
But then along comes the government, with a gun and arrest powers, and they have some different ideas about how I should spend my time and what I should do with MY money.
I already have to handle the withholding of payroll taxes (income, FICA, FUTA, social security) from my employees, and collect sales taxes for my state and local governments. To do all of the resulting financial paperwork, I have to hire an accounting firm and a couple of bookkeepers and pay at least fifty or sixty thousand dollars annually for their services.
Then, if I actually have money left over after paying for the building, my employees, raw materials, and my accountants, then I have to pony up between 20% and 36% of the company’s net profit in the form of taxes to the federal and state government to pay “my fair share.”
Boy, am I and all of my employees here at "Rogers' Widget Company" glad that that whole situation is taken care of because apparently we couldn't be expected to accurately estimate on our own what we really owed society in return for our investments and physical/mental efforts...the Government Expertly wants to help us.
Annnnndddddd, by the way, we didn’t mention the cost of group health insurance yet, did we?
But wait a minute, there is another problem that the government is going to have to step in and help me fix.
Now I need help paying a "Living Wage."
I guess that my employees are all too stupid to negotiate one for themselves.
Turns out that it seems that I don’t pay enough in wages to some of my twenty employees I hired after spending three weeks interviewing the 150 applicants I got from the $100 newspaper ad I ran in the local paper.
So now the government will ride to the rescue and tell me how much I need to pay.
Boy, am I ever relieved.
The media loves to report stories about how it is impossible to support a family of three or four on one 40 hour a week job paying minimum wage, which happens to be $5.15 per hour in most states.
As a result, we are told, people are unfairly forced to work more than forty hours or worse, forced to work more than one job in order to “make ends meet.”
Where is my box of tissues…sob, sob.
What is not reported is the FACT that most if not all of the jobs paying minimum wage are ENTRY LEVEL.
Who in their right mind expects to work to retirement age in a position paying minimum wage?
Most of the people working in these jobs are teenagers or twenty something’s that spend a few months or at most a year at that compensation level on their way up the job ladder.
If they don’t move up, something is seriously wrong with the employee and/or their education. Of course there are always the obvious sob stories about the high school drop-out, single mother of three who can't afford daycare and can't afford the time to go back to school while working two minimum wage jobs.
What was she thinking to get herself and her family in that situation?
That's the problem, she and thousands like her aren't thinking--and now they want the government to solve their problem by artificailly forcing wages upward.
A total of twelve states have already taken it upon themselves to force employers to pay minimum wages in exess of the federal rate. For instance, the State of California has imposed a $6.75 minimum, with a special rate of $8.50 for the City of San Francisco, with sometimes devastating results.
Within months of this wage minimum being imposed, San Francisco based Chevy’s, the company that owned the Tex/Mex restaurant chain Rio Bravo that operated here in Georgia, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed all 26 Rio Bravo Restaurants. It’s sort of hard to profitably run a restaurant paying $8.50 an hour when your competitors are paying $3.25 plus tips.
It seems that California tries to force firms based in their state to pay the mandated minimum wage on all jobs regardless of where the employee is located. The long arm of the law just keeps getting longer.
In my opinion, what is at the heart of the “living wage” controversy and resulting higher minimum wage push is an obvious culprit.
Let me point it out to you if you haven't already been notified.
One word...
UNIONS
OK two words...
LABOR UNIONS
You see, while it is usually disguised as a humanitarian effort, the reality is that union pay scales are directly tied to the local minimum wage, something that the labor unions and the Democrats don’t want you to know about.
If the minimum wage goes up, union labor rates automatically go up across the board, without having to re-negotiate the existing labor contract!
How about them apples?????
.
"A Living wage.”
Exactly what does that statement mean?
Is a “living wage” something for which you build a little house in your back yard and put out a bowl of food and water to nourish and feed?
Activists and politicians love to talk about a “living wage,” and it always makes for good newspaper headlines.
The concept seems to basically involve the government telling the owner of a business how much to pay his employees, rather than letting the free market make that determination.
Well isn’t that special, I know all of those business owners will appreciate the assistance…
I, personally, got a little confused in the process when I started thinking about it, so now I invite you to follow along with me and let's see if I really have this thing straight in my mind.
For instance, suppose that I go out and borrow $200,000 from the bank, put up $100,000 of MY own money, rent a building on a small parcel of land, buy equipment, raw materials, and hire 20 employees (sales, administrative, and manufacturing) in order to produce and sell my own brand of "widgets."
Let's call my enterprise "Rogers' Widget Company, LLC."
(I build a really good Widget, by the way, and my Mother and my Girlfriend would probably be so proud...)
Happily, sales are booming, and now I need a vacation after working my rear end off over the past five years building the business.
But then along comes the government, with a gun and arrest powers, and they have some different ideas about how I should spend my time and what I should do with MY money.
I already have to handle the withholding of payroll taxes (income, FICA, FUTA, social security) from my employees, and collect sales taxes for my state and local governments. To do all of the resulting financial paperwork, I have to hire an accounting firm and a couple of bookkeepers and pay at least fifty or sixty thousand dollars annually for their services.
Then, if I actually have money left over after paying for the building, my employees, raw materials, and my accountants, then I have to pony up between 20% and 36% of the company’s net profit in the form of taxes to the federal and state government to pay “my fair share.”
Boy, am I and all of my employees here at "Rogers' Widget Company" glad that that whole situation is taken care of because apparently we couldn't be expected to accurately estimate on our own what we really owed society in return for our investments and physical/mental efforts...the Government Expertly wants to help us.
Annnnndddddd, by the way, we didn’t mention the cost of group health insurance yet, did we?
But wait a minute, there is another problem that the government is going to have to step in and help me fix.
Now I need help paying a "Living Wage."
I guess that my employees are all too stupid to negotiate one for themselves.
Turns out that it seems that I don’t pay enough in wages to some of my twenty employees I hired after spending three weeks interviewing the 150 applicants I got from the $100 newspaper ad I ran in the local paper.
So now the government will ride to the rescue and tell me how much I need to pay.
Boy, am I ever relieved.
The media loves to report stories about how it is impossible to support a family of three or four on one 40 hour a week job paying minimum wage, which happens to be $5.15 per hour in most states.
As a result, we are told, people are unfairly forced to work more than forty hours or worse, forced to work more than one job in order to “make ends meet.”
Where is my box of tissues…sob, sob.
What is not reported is the FACT that most if not all of the jobs paying minimum wage are ENTRY LEVEL.
Who in their right mind expects to work to retirement age in a position paying minimum wage?
Most of the people working in these jobs are teenagers or twenty something’s that spend a few months or at most a year at that compensation level on their way up the job ladder.
If they don’t move up, something is seriously wrong with the employee and/or their education. Of course there are always the obvious sob stories about the high school drop-out, single mother of three who can't afford daycare and can't afford the time to go back to school while working two minimum wage jobs.
What was she thinking to get herself and her family in that situation?
That's the problem, she and thousands like her aren't thinking--and now they want the government to solve their problem by artificailly forcing wages upward.
A total of twelve states have already taken it upon themselves to force employers to pay minimum wages in exess of the federal rate. For instance, the State of California has imposed a $6.75 minimum, with a special rate of $8.50 for the City of San Francisco, with sometimes devastating results.
Within months of this wage minimum being imposed, San Francisco based Chevy’s, the company that owned the Tex/Mex restaurant chain Rio Bravo that operated here in Georgia, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed all 26 Rio Bravo Restaurants. It’s sort of hard to profitably run a restaurant paying $8.50 an hour when your competitors are paying $3.25 plus tips.
It seems that California tries to force firms based in their state to pay the mandated minimum wage on all jobs regardless of where the employee is located. The long arm of the law just keeps getting longer.
In my opinion, what is at the heart of the “living wage” controversy and resulting higher minimum wage push is an obvious culprit.
Let me point it out to you if you haven't already been notified.
One word...
UNIONS
OK two words...
LABOR UNIONS
You see, while it is usually disguised as a humanitarian effort, the reality is that union pay scales are directly tied to the local minimum wage, something that the labor unions and the Democrats don’t want you to know about.
If the minimum wage goes up, union labor rates automatically go up across the board, without having to re-negotiate the existing labor contract!
How about them apples?????
.
Blaa, Blaa, Blaa
Random Thoughs On The State Of The Union Address...
1. Is Dick Cheney's head really twice a large as Nancy Pelosi's?
2. Is Dikembe Mutombo twice as tall as Laura Bush and the little oriential chick standing next to him?
3. Was that a flask I saw Ted Kennedy holding in his hand so he couldn't clap during the standing ovations?
Other than that, I think I've heard it all before.
Media synopsis...Democrats Good...Republicans Bad.
Any other questions?
1. Is Dick Cheney's head really twice a large as Nancy Pelosi's?
2. Is Dikembe Mutombo twice as tall as Laura Bush and the little oriential chick standing next to him?
3. Was that a flask I saw Ted Kennedy holding in his hand so he couldn't clap during the standing ovations?
Other than that, I think I've heard it all before.
Media synopsis...Democrats Good...Republicans Bad.
Any other questions?
