Some Things That Don't Matter Never Change

But The Stuff That Does Matter Always Does


If you haven't heard me say it here on the blog, let me let you in on a little secret.

I could pretty much care less about the "Olympics."

I'm not quite sure when it happened, but I guess it was around Carter's 1980 "boycott" of that year's games because of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan that my personal relationship with the Olympics and Olympic TV coverage started its steady down hill movement.

Heck, the world came to my doorstep and brought the Olympics to Atlanta in 1996 and I only manage to watch a little piece of the proceedings on TV.

I was working in an engineering office in downtown Atlanta the day in 1989 when the city was officially awarded the games and I celebrated in Underground Atlanta with my boss at the time and with throngs of my fellow Georgians with delight over the prospect, but by the time I had lived with the politics, infighting, and official ticket scalping which ensued in actually bringing the Olympics to a successful completion I made what I still believe today to be a rational decision.

I actually left town for most of the duration of the 1996 Summer Olympics in order to avoid what was projected to be giant traffic jams and congestion. I was, however, scheduled to be in Centennial Olympic Park the evening when the infamous Richard Jewell explosive backpack went off.

Fortunately, a couple of three too many Margaritas at a local Mexican restaurant caused me to stay home in Smyrna that evening so my own personal brush with that disaster was averted.

Any way, writing about the Olympics has been an annual topic here on my blog, and the following posting was first delivered on August 14th, 2004 (back before I knew how to convert html links into plain text):


As Television became a part of most every family's life in the 1960's, so were the political realities of issues like race relations and international politics brought home to our living rooms each and every evening.

Where in the 1940's and 1950's you had to read the newspaper or go to the local movie house to see news reels before each film or during intermission, the Network evening news and cable/satellite television now brings the gory details of worldwide tragedy's into your personal space in suburbia for your individual enjoyment or horror.

With the opening of the $7.34 billion edition of the modern Olympic Games, the current terror threat level and the multi-billion dollar security (that's Billion with a B) reminds me of some historical lessons that we could all probably learn from:

For instance, Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) wins the gold medal in the 1964 Olympics, refuses to be drafted and go to Vietnam, and changes his name to that of a member of that peaceful religion called Islam:

http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Ali_Muhammad.html

Then Palestinian Arab "Terrorists" (lead by a young, future Nobel Peace Prize winner--Yasser Arafat) slip into the 1972 Munich Olympic Village and hold hostage and massacre Israeli athletes:

http://www.wftv.com/news/3643877/detail.html

Another future Nobel Peace Prize winner--one term President Jimmy (smile when you say that) Carter boycotts the 1980 Olympic games because the Soviets invaded Afghanistan...say what???

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/20/spotlight/

Then Richard Jewell took the initial heat for the bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta:

http://www.cnn.com/US/9701/03/olympic.bombing/

So what spine tingling excitement will the current events in Athens (Greece, thank God, not Athens, Georgia...home of UGA) hold for us over the next few weeks???

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=597&u=/nm/20040812/tv_nm/olympics_dc_37&printer=1

We're flying back from Chicago to the Georgia coast for the arrival of Hurricane Charley tomorrow--wish us luck.

Keep watching, listening, and learning, Ya'll...

Missy The Turbo Pup's Back On Our Little Island

And Coincidentally...My Name's Back In The Newspaper Here


I'm quite pleased to report that with the expenditure of eight hours of moderate effort tendered mostly on the national Interstate Highways, and in spite of government proclaimed excessive energy costs, we've managed to make it back to our real "home" here again from the temporary quarters situated on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River to spend four glorious nights on St. Simons Island, Georgia.

The hotel is within a half mile of our last abode on Alabama street and three miles from the Sea Palms condo in which we resided for over four years, and mother nature managed to hold off the thunder storms for the duration of our southeastward bound sojourn--reserving the obligatory task of blasting us out of our socks with lightening bolts until we were through happy hour and on our way to dinner in an adjacent restaurant and back into our beds for the evening.

Today is my official "Redneck Real Estate" meeting Day with contractors of various specialties and descriptions showing up to finalize ways for me to inject some more of my overtaxed hard earned dollars into my own personal real estate "Tipping" (as opposed to "Flipping") schemes.

When we walked into the building over on the Marsh for a much anticipated reunion with a number of our local friends we learned that a letter that I had hastily blasted off to the Editor of the local newspaper on Thursday morning had been to published in Friday's edition.

I guess that I'm now obligated to buy a large brass or bronze "trolley bell" and hang myself from the lighthouse or a local church steeple--dedicating the balance of my time spent on this lovely but highly troubled planet ringing it on the command of the local county government (capitalization intentionally omitted on the words "county government")

Give me a chance to get some work done this morning and catch my breath and I'll copy the text of my latest "readers newspaper commentary" here for your enjoyment and get on with my fourth anniversary blog birthday blogging.

Regards...y'all...

Posting Number 1901

Help Me...I Can't Stop Writing...

This attempt at humor was originally delivered on August 12th, 2004, was titled "NASCAR Hype," and if you ever watch Racin' you might understand where I'm coming from here:


I enjoy watching an occasional NASCAR race. I’ve followed the sport of stock car racin' since I was a kid in the 1960’s, when it was still in its infancy (by today’s standards,) and guys like Bobby Allison and Richard Petty drove cars that were actually built on the same assembly line beside the ones that parked in your neighbors’ driveway.

The race cars also actually looked like the vehicles in the dealers’ showrooms—except for the 600 horsepower engine under the real steel hood, the roll bars, the lack of a back seat, the STP & Hooker header stickers on the fenders, and the big numbers plastered on the doors and the roof. Come to think of it some of our neighbors in south Alabama had all the stickers and the roll bars and no back seat. I guess you had to be there to understand.

There was little TV exposure in those days except regionally for the really big races like Daytona and Talladega—the Indy 500 was the only race of any kind regularly televised nationally back then. If you got north of or west of Tennessee and hooted and hollered and yelled the number “Three” in public, no one knew what on earth you were talking about let alone would be willing to fight you over whether Dale Earnhart or one of the Allisons was the better driver.

Today things are quite different. Total strangers will beat your Grandma if she happens to ‘dis their driver in public. From New Hampshire to California, from Michigan to Homestead Florida, people are fighting in traffic and willingly paying seventy five or more dollars to attend NASCAR races--events that represent probably the most commercialized 6 hours they will endure in a lifetime, with the singular possible exception of Christmas each year.

What really gets me is the TV interviews they do with the drivers and pit crewmembers. The interviewee is always forced to use the name of sponsors, car owners and other suppliers as every other word in each sentence. “Thanks Bill, I couldn’t have driven this Ronnie’s Pulpwood Bubba’s Garage Dodge Charger all 500 laps here at the Trojan Condoms Raceway without the help of them super Goodyear tires while quenching my thirst drinking some of that good ‘ole Gatorade sports refresher.”

After each race, the driver finally gets to Victory Lane after tearing up almost all of the grass in sight doing donuts and burn-outs and when he exits the car, having pulled off a logo adorned helmet the size of a beach ball, he then is forced to put on a baseball cap with some other logo on it. Then they line up soft drink and sports drink bottles and other consumer products on the roof of the car behind his head and body-less hands and arms appear in the TV picture to force feed him various drinks from prominently labeled bottles to the point he can barely answer the questions being offered by the TV reporter.

Imagine if the early explorers like Columbus, Cook, or Byrd were forced to submit to this kind of TV coverage and did interviews and had product sponsors like NASCAR has today. I know there was no TV back then, but just imagine if there was. Columbus’ return from the new world could have gone something like this:

Headphone-Clad Announcer: “So tell the viewers, Chris, are you glad to be back here in civilization?”

Columbus: “ Well I’ll tell you, Vito, we definitely wouldn’t be here in first today at the Pope Pius IX Marina if it weren’t for the performance of our fine vessils--the Guido's Shipyard Queen Isabella Ragu Spaghetti Beteroulli Olive Oil Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. They just sailed so smoothly. Of course, we did loose the Pinta about half way home due to engine failure.

Announcer: Engine Failure?

Columbus: Yeah, the sails, they blew right off her in a storm, they did…it was really something to see!

Announcer: “What about that incident at the midpoint of the trip with the native’s canoe outside the Virgin Islands—are you going to hold a grudge with him on the next excursion to the New World?”

Columbus: “No, I don’t think so, we just love sailing, and things happen when you are going eight or ten knots. This Guido’s Custom Shipyard built fleet of ships just ran right over those itty-bitty dugout canoes—I think that Indian is still swimming home right now. He won’t be no trouble in a year or so when we’re over that way again.”

Announcer: “Did you ever think that you and your crew wouldn’t make it back here to Europe?”

Columbus: “No, not at all. We all had every confidence that these Queen Isabella Guido's Shipyard Italian Solid Oak ships and Mercury Vesevius outboard sails had the muscle to keep us in the lead most of the trip and bring us on home safely…but, by the way, there was that one incident when the Indian Chief caught me with his youngest daughter…boy was she ever a hotsie-totsie…

Announcer: A Hotsie-totsie?

Columbus: Yes, boy or boy, breasts out to here and legs down to there. Whew wee, I didn’t know if I was going to make it back with my skin intact let alone off that island that night…er, um, never mind…forget what I just said… sorry honey, I'll be right home.”

Announcer: Where do you see yourself and your crew going from here, Mr. Columbus?

Columbus: You see that there moon up there in the sky?

Announcer: The Moon?

Columbus: Yes, well, we’re working with this guy named daVinci, you may have heard of him, on this new kind of ship and boy I tell you, she beats the heck out of the speed and power of these babies we just got off of. We ask the fans to just watch the news in a few hundred years and see what we’re doing. It will definitely make your head spin, it will indeed.

Announcer: Well, ladies and gentlemen, you heard it here first…now back to you in the studio in Madrid, Mr. Jennings…

The Means To Be (Less) Than Average

More Government Statistical Mumbo Jumbo...


I don't know exactly what set this rant off this morning.

The thought process went something like this:

A. Start thinking how stupid it is for the Imperial Federal Government of the By-God United States to pass laws so some local guy building a country club can't harvest some coal on his giant property by strip mining the ore and selling it rather than just mindlessly bulldozing the mineral into the low spots on his land.

B. Next start ranting in your head about all of the other things that the government has screwed up over the years in the name of looking out "for our own good" while soaking the people that are successful to pay for the ineptitude of what turns out to be a relatively small part of the population.

The break down in the process comes when the government, in their effort to prove that there is a "problem" or a "need" in the first place, has to massage the numbers--often outright lying and cheating--in order to prove that they are mandated to sign a new "entitlement program" into law because "the Majority of Americans" support the process.

That said, I'd like to get into to my initial topic this morning, the difference between the mathematical term "AVERAGE" and "MEDIAN." After all, when you think about it clearly, there is a significant difference between the two words.

An AVERAGE, simply put, is the sum of a group of numbers (grades, temperatures, or in the government's war on poverty...income) divided by the number of numbers you added together to get the total.

Is your head hurting yet?

Stay with me here...I'll try to be clear and relatively brief.

The MEDIAN, on the other hand, is the number in that same group of numbers that falls in the position where HALF the amounts are higher and Half are lower.

Let's look at a few practical examples:

Let's say that you start your own country and you have a total of fifteen citizens with income that looks like the following table (subsitute the word Median for the word Mean as I've been corrected in the comments):

Holy Toledo...notice that the Average income is over ten times the Median Income?

That's because if you look at the list carefully you'll see that SEVEN taxpayers make more than $66,000 and another SEVEN make less than $66,000.

Now suppose that being a Government, just for fun you start meddling with the tax roles, giving deductions to some people based on income because you know that you can still run the government by paying for the "deductions" and "earned income" credits with money from your taxpayers making greater than the "median" income. Something like this:



Notice what happened to the Average and Median numbers? The Median is exactly the same, while the average income only fell by about $10,500.

See, everything is fine when it comes to funding the government through taxes, while at the same time you've removed one third of your population from the burden of paying taxes. In fact, those same five people are not only still making their original average of about $27,000 per year--

BUT they're also getting the "earned income" credits (unearned tax refunds) so their earnings actually went UP by allowing the government to transfer money from the top two thirds into their pockets at government gunpoint.

OK, maybe the government isn't really all that bad you say, so now lets suppose that you come to your senses and mostly leave the income numbers alone for the lower income earners, but you still play games with the upper income brackets by doing your math in a screwy manner--saying that if you don't have "wages, salary, or tips" then you have no income.

This is actually how the government calculates the number of people "living in POVERTY."

Under that scenario, this is what your income numbers would look like with the exact same original population if the upper earners didn't work every day but instead earned their income through INVESTMENTS and SAVINGS and owned their Home(s) free and clear:

How about them apples?

The Median income fell by 93%, and the Average income is down by 80%.

All I'm saying here is that the next time you hear some Morning News "Anchor" lamenting the 40 plus million Americans (including illegals) living without health insurance (but not health CARE) or the number of Children living in poverty, remember this little math lesson I delivered this morning when you feel the government reaching into your wallet.

It's not that I don't care, it's just that I would like to decide who gets how much of my money instead of letting a bunch of mathematically inept liars do it for me.

The rest is up to you...

(embarrassed blogger note...I mixed the terms "Mean" and "Median" indiscriminately in the original version of this writing as reader T.K. pointed out in the comments. All I can blame it on is poor editing and the early morning hour in which I was writing, but the balance of my points remain the same regardless of the name change...)

I Bet They're Not From "Around Here"

Natural Selection...


Care to take a guess where the people in this news story were born (and where they were going)?

FLORENCE, Ariz. (AP) - An official with Arizona's Department of Public Safety says at least 9 people are dead after a sport utility vehicle rolled over on a rural highway southwest of Phoenix.

Officer Carmen Figueroa (fig-er-OH'-uh) says in a statement that 18 people were in the SUV that rolled on State Route 79, about 80 miles southeast of Phoenix, Thursday morning. The other nine occupants were injured.

Images from a television helicopter show a crumpled white SUV alongside the road and what appears to be a row of bodies covered with tarps.

Figueroa says only one vehicle was involved. The roadway is expected to be closed for several hours.

Yeah...I thought so...

(isn't it interesting the the ASSociated press didn't bother to tell you the nationality of the "victims"?)

Public Laundering Of Your Private Posessions

Another Golden Oldie...

Continuing on the fourth birthday blog theme here at "What I'd Liked To Have Said," this morning I'm re-publishing the second essay I wrote for public consumption which first appeared here on August 10, 2004.

Looking ahead to the next few days, I think that it's more than a little ironic that you'll be seeing re-published writing about the 2004 Summer Olympics and Hurricanes among other topics which end up being quite current even four years after the fact.

Since we'll be traveling on Friday back to St. Simons Island for a five day working vacation (working on the investment property) , I think that this morning's essay is particularly topical for me personally.

Enjoy...what was originally titled:

Washing Your Underwear In Public


Spending ten continuous days living out of suitcases in a hotel room brings me back to a reality that I have spent very little time with since college—the Public Laundry. That’s what the sign on the door says here at the Holiday Inn Hotel and Suites in Elgin, IL.

Laundromat, Wash-O-Matic, Rinse-and-Wring, call it what you may, each and every visit provides a wealth of entertainment opportunities and interesting insights into human nature, and invariably brings you into contact with persons and situations with which you could otherwise do without.

Of course I have had, through the years, intermittent opportunities to further develop and maintain my college developed skills in the public cleansing of my most personal clothing items. The issue of boxers or briefs become quite evident unless you properly sort, handle, and maintain control of your clothing items before and during your visit to the local “Palace of Clean Clothing” (POCC for short.)

For instance, there was that time when I ran away from home, after separating from my ex-wife, and I was forced to give her the old Kenmore washer and worse, the old Kenmore dryer I had recently, lovingly, totally rebuilt for a cost of a hundred thirty six dollars and fifty-five cents (or something like that.) The personal cost of a weekend of cursing and scraped knuckles was extra. I later learned that she promptly discarded both the washer and dryer in favor of brand new equipment once the divorce was final—she just didn’t want me to have them. She tried the same thing with the 30-year-old Snapper self-propelled mower I had also rebuilt, but you know how it is with a man and his lawnmower. I think that lawn mower cost me about five thousand dollars in the final settlement, but it was worth every damn penny.

Any way, back to the local POCC. I rode the elevator down to the second floor about one o’clock this afternoon, carrying our white clothes and my four-dollar mini-box of detergent, purchased from Rashee, the friendly Indian proprietor of the lobby gift shop. Somehow, I avoided buying a genuine imitation Rolex watch or a cigarette lighter that looks like a pistol (against FAA regulations, you know)--but I was awfully tempted.

Upon arrival in the POCC, I found one of the two washers filled with someone’s unwashed blue jeans and one of the two dryers in mid cycle. Undaunted, my heart full of hope, I launched the load of white clothes with $1.00 worth of quarters, $1.50 worth of detergent, and planned my return 20 minutes later with the colored clothes. Wrong you stupid, white, redneck man.

Upon my return twenty minutes later I found BOTH dryers in operation and the load of blue jeans mysteriously in mid-wash cycle. This was war. What (or whom) was in that second dryer? I again left the POCC briefly, planning to catch the one dryer at the end of its cycle and then load MY own second load into MY washer. Again, wrong, you paleface redneck. Another ten minutes and another three floor round trip on the elevator found me and a four foot tall middle eastern woman glancing furtively at each other as she partially unloaded both dryers and fumbled with clothing of all sizes from 6x to Jolly Green Giant. Was this woman running a laundry service out of the Holiday Inn POCC? Could be…

Another elevator trip up three floors, another ten minutes writing this story, and back to the POCC where I found both washers empty, one dryer available, and the little woman with the red dot on her forehead nowhere to be seen. I sprang into action, untieing the sleeves of my dress shirts from the knot they invariably form in the rinse cycle and gleefully launching another $2.50 worth of quarters and detergent into action. An additional dollar bought me the services of the available dryer. I was turning the corner, in the home stretch now, ladies and gentlemen.

Three floors down, and three floors back, and my heart is still singing the pleasures of clean, although slightly damp and wrinkled clothing. The aforementioned mysterious load of blue jeans was doing nicely in the dryer also.

Got to run, now…I have a dollar date with a lovely, appliance-white-colored clothes dryer. She’s mine, Mine, MINE I said, ALL MINE, get away, dammit… I THINK I NEED A DRINK.

Speaking For The President

Greatest Hits Ancient History Revisited


It just occurred to me again that this blog has a birthday coming up this month.

Four years, and If I write an essay a day between now and then the total would be 1900 essays in 1460 days.

Not bad for a guy that hated English class and most people that taught English for the first 30 years of my life. Writing was a nuisance back then. Certainly not a hobby or even a potential profession like it is today in our little world here in my home on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.

Since I'm extremely busy at work during the day and even in the evening now preparing for a working vacation back to our Little Island on the Georgia coast, I thought that instead of writing new material for the rest of this week leading up to August 10th that I'd republish the first five postings I made as the "Coastal Companion" Blog got off the ground back in 2004.

Here's my first rant, published online August 10th, 2004:


I sent this E-mail to the Neal Boortz show this morning:

Mr. Boortz,

How about looking at this story linked from Drudge Report:

http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/381249top08-09-2004::17:46reuters.html

In summary, after Candidate John sKerry admitted that he would have gone to war with or without the presence of weapons of mass destruction, he then goes insane again with this gem: "Kerry challenged Bush to answer some questions of his own -- why he rushed to war without a plan for the peace, why he used faulty intelligence, why he misled Americans about how he would go to war and why he had not brought other countries to the table."

Here are my answers if I were President Bush:

President Bush- Question 1: "Here John, take a load off and have a Wendy's burger on me ( I know how much you and the missus love them) and listen for a moment so we can straighten out you and the rest of the Democratic Party.

First of all, I'm not aware of a single war fought in US history in which the plan for peace didn't involve first bringing our foe to their knees and, after thoroughly kicking their ass(es), spending a few years overseeing restoration of order and a functioning government on an organized basis according to OUR RULES. In addition, we generally pay for the repairs and restoration of the country involved (even if we didn't cause the damage or deficiency) out of US taxpayer funds.

And by the way, ask the French, Spanish, Russians, Germans, or Hannibal about their diplomatic policy in the 1500's to 1700's for alternate policies. We've voluntarily omitted the raping and pillaging (but we do put panties on the heads of prisoners occasionally.)

President Bush- Question 2: "Yes, some of the intelligence that the Congress, the office of the President of the United States, and our Allies used to make the decision to go to war has since proved to be flawed...but, it's not like we started out on a 1000 mile airplane trip with a wing or propeller blade missing off of the airframe. The flaws were subtle, John, and only proven years after the fact. Hell, we still took off, made altitude, and landed at our destination with fuel to spare. Most of the American people think that the general outcome was worthwhile in the end. Get over it.

President Bush - Question 3: "Now Mr. sKerry, how did I mislead Americans about how I would go to war? Were not the numerous UN resolutions, the obvious danger to the rest of the free world, and America attacked on our own soil not enough?

What part of this equation do you and Mr. Edwards think that Americans didn't understand?

Were people confused about which end of the gun would be pointed at Iraq, who made the bullets, or how effective our state-of-the-art military would be at reducing the Iraqi Military to "resistance status?" Call them bands of street thugs, call them insurgents, they are anything but an organized army/fighting force once we got through with them. Let the liberal press use their code words, the problems in Iraq today are caused by TERRORISTS, not freedom-fighters.

President Bush - Question 4: "John, John, John, why do you and the liberal media insist on stating that the US has prosecuted a unilateral attack on Iraq when British, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Australian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Japanese, Thai, Danish and other forces have been involved in concert with our efforts for over a year? Why, I've heard that even the Spanish continued to send Sherry, Port wine and Tappas snacks after they pulled out their troops this spring. Why do you insist that because France, Germany, and Russia are not supportive that somehow our efforts are less effective or illegitimate?

For the record, since 1947, any UN effort that has actually seen real combat and security threats involved primarily US troops, US designed/built ordinance, and US lead command and communication structure. Excuse me if I just cut to the chase and got the job done. By the way, I'm not one bit sorry that we have been so effective to date."

"Now excuse me, Mr. sKerry--I have a country (and unfortunately--a campaign) to run."
See You in November.....

Why can't Mr Bush and the Republican Party just come out and tell it like it is???

The Emperor's New Clothes

I Want A Jacket Made By These Guys...


Check out the Knoxville tailoring establishment, John H. Daniel, where FOX News Bill O'Reilly buys his clothes.

I just found out that we have such places nearby here on the banks of the mighty Tennessee River, and I'm severely tempted to at least look at what they do there...

(somebody slap me...I clearly have some form of a Capitalistic disease and need to be vaccinated)

Smelly Hippies Take Charge Of Your Trash

Dude...That Odor Aroma Isn't Patchouli, It's Methane Gas...


Picture me with my ever greying, ever balding head tilted back toward the heavens laughing hysterically at the ironic twist of things out there in the so-called Governments operating on the left coast in California these days.

According to this news article, people in the bastion of the sensitive, liberal, politically correct world of San Francisco are putting their recyclables where their mouths and ideals should be---in the regular trash receptacles.

Apparently people out there are too busy these days singing "Kumbaya" and burning incense out in 'Frisco' to take the time to separate their left over bean Kurd and tofu from their cardboard and cellophane...

Garbage collectors would inspect San Francisco residents' trash to make sure pizza crusts aren't mixed in with chip bags or wine bottles under a proposal by Mayor Gavin Newsom.

And if residents or businesses don't separate the coffee grounds from the newspapers, they would face fines of up to $1,000 and eventually could have their garbage service stopped.

The plan to require proper sorting of refuse would be the nation's first mandatory recycling and composting law. It would direct garbage collectors to inspect the trash to make sure it is put into the right blue, black or green bin, according to a draft of the legislation prepared by the city's Department of the Environment.

The program is designed to limit the amount of food and foliage that goes into the city-contracted landfill in Alameda County, where the refuse takes up costly space and decomposes to form methane, one of the most potent of greenhouse gases. It will also help San Francisco, which city officials say currently diverts 70 percent of its waste from landfills, achieve a goal set by the Board of Supervisors to divert 75 percent by 2010 and have zero waste by 2020.

Does anyone but me see the stupidity or at least some less than small bit of irony in this story?

First of all, let me say this and get my daily dose of profanity out of my system...

In my considered Redneck opinion, this idiot named Gavin Newsom, the current Mayor of San Francisco, apparently has "shit for brains", so anything coming out of his mouth or any other bodily orifice is likely to contain the very methane gas he's complaining about.

Now, as to the substance of Mayor Newsom's proposal...the dreaded punitive $1000 "fines" he's proposing for breaking the San Francisco's garbage police's rules will, as I've said all along, make matters worse, not better.

While it is true that as long as you can throw away anything you want to for $30 per month people are going to do it...at least at the same time you can control what honest GOD fearing people do with their trash and refuse by providing the service at a reasonable cost.

Cheep, affordable garbage service virtually guarantees at least some minimal level of compliance, while expensive fees, time consuming rules, and giant fines only guarantee that the roadside and adjacent vacant properties will become impromptu landfills and garbage heaps.

Get it?

Further, I have some personal experience with this subject while living on the Georgia coast--where both the city and later the county attempted to eliminate dumping by imposing mandatory garbage collection fees.

The county did it through the addition of the garbage collection fee in land owners' property taxes, while the city simply added the fee to your monthly water/sewer bill. I guess that the theory was that if you didn't pay the trash bill inclued in your tax bill or water bill, the government would take your house or turn off your water as a result... but can you guess what actually happened?

First of all, the trash service we received across the board was ABYSMAL because the customer had no choice in contractors (there was no competition) AND, virtually no one recycled because the government contracted collection companies and government provided collection personnel made it impossible to understand their ever changing rules about how and what you could recycle, and when and where you had to put things out on the curb for collection.

Further, just like Mayor Newsom's apartment dwellers in the news story, there is a whole culture of citizens--some call them the homeless (urban outdoorsmen) or the "working poor" who don't pay rent and don't own real property.

They do, however, own a number of old refrigerators, sofas, flourescent light bulbs, single tennis shoes, and they all eat a good deal of McDonalds cheeseburgers packaged in foam, cardboard, plastic, and paper.

Guess how much the waste disposal fees collected on property tax and water bills influenced their trash disposal practices.

Can you say ZERO?

In fact, I believe that it actually made things worse in Glynn County Georgia because outside of our singular exception of our little island, there was garbage EVERYWHERE... strewn up and down along the streets, and laying in piles on the sidewalk and on every out of the way place.

To make matters worse, the city trash collectors and the county trash contractors would not pick up anything if the pile was mixed refuse.

If you legally put out a pile of leaves and branches for collection on Thursday and some moron came by and tossed a load of household garbage or an old toilet into your pile without your permission, the City workers or the county's anointed contractor would simply drive past and ignore it.

Meanwhile, as the days and weeks went by the pile would grow bigger and Bigger and BIGGER until three times in five years I had to call the City and beg them to bring a CREW OF MEN, a FRONT END LOADER and A DUMP TRUCK to the alley behind my rental property and remove sofas, the guts of a PIANO, and tons of other stuff that total strangers piled on my property.

To add insult to injury, the city told me that unless I put up a fence across the back of my property, at MY EXPENSE, that they would charge me the next time the lovely residents of the city and county chose to use my property as a landfill rather than following the law and using the taxpayer financed waste disposal system they had so carefully engineered.

Government in action...ya got to love it...

Now as to Mayor Newsom's genius ideas and proclamations.

IF SOMEONE DOESN'T HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO PAY FOR TRASH SERVICE, THEY PROBABLY ALSO DON'T CARE ABOUT PAYING YOUR $1000 FINE WHEN THEY'RE CAUGHT MIXING THEIR DIGITAL CAMERA BATTERIES WITH THEIR TAMPONS AND LEFT OVER FRENCH FRIES.

Further, if you cancel their trash service, do you think that they're actually going to stop eating and buying cigarettes and beer at the grocery store and suddenly produce ZERO refuse...just because you command that they do so?

You, Mayor Newsom, are an idiot, elected in a land of full of blithering blooming idiots, and you're lucky that people don't treat you like they did Governor George Wallace and Presidents Lincoln, Ford, and Reagan.

If I were you, Mr. Newsom, I'd be out picking out a new Tux to wear to your next public appearance, and it'd weigh significantly more the the twenty outfits you already have hanging in your closet right now (can you say BODY ARMOR?)

That will be all...for now...

Fine Dining In The South

Here's The Final Tabulation of Expenses...




In the event that I just used a little bit of something, I only included the approximate cost of the product used, not the cost of the ENTIRE JAR of whatever. Also, the meat pricing is actually for one giant sandwich made on one giant loaf of Italian bread, so at lunch today there will be more MEAT and more BREAD involved in the proceedings and the cost climbs even further.

I also left out the cost of the spices and herbs, fresh and dried...

But of course, as is usual in my cooking adventures, COST is never an issue, it's the QUALITY that counts around here else you might as well go eat at Bennigans or McDonalds...GOD FORBID.

OK, It's Really A TEN DOLLAR Sandwich

Making Up The Profit In Volume...

Well, I'm quite pleased to report that my earlier recipe ended up producing enough olive salad to make a LEAST three of these "sandwiches." Here's a look at my first effort last evening for dinner:










Here's what it looked like on the plate...

The Twenty Six Dollar Sandwich

In New Orleans They Call It A Muffuletta...


Monday I'm sort of responsible for lunch at my office. They came to me and asked for "ideas" for a quarterly employee luncheon, and I took matters to task and came up with my own signature solution.

Fourteen people (not including the two on vacation) will starve if I screw up.

We have a kitchen which has everything but an oven, so all of the cooking has to be done before hand or avoided all together. Since I can't make a dishwasher cook pasta I'm cooking a little here at home today in preparation for the event.

In addition to the basic ingredients for boring old sandwiches with meat and cheese on a slice of bread, if you're adventurous I'm providing the ingredients for Greek Gyros featuring my own home made lamb loaf filling and tzatziki (yogurt cucumber) sauce and we're also putting together a couple of giant Muffulettas for the event.

I actually started my work late yesterday with these ingredients for the olive salad on the Muffulettas:

1 medium can Sliced Black olives
pint of Green Salad Olives
pint of Whole Goya olives
1/2 cup Cocktail Onions
1/4 cup Capers
2 Carrots, sliced fine
1 stalk Celery
3/4 cup Pepperroncini
1 cup Pickled Cauliflower
1/4 cup Capers

1/4 cup celery seeds
1/4 oregano
1 head garlic, diced fine
1 table spoon black pepper

1/2 cup of olive oil

A Loaf of Fat Round Bread

Sliced Genoa Salami
Sliced Sopressata Salami
Sliced Ham (preferably Serrano but I settled for Virginia baked)

Sliced Manchego Cheese

You put everything but the bread, meat, and cheese into a food processor and pulse it until you have a coarse mixture.

Add the olive oil.

Refrigerate it over night.

Now slice the loaf of bread in half horizontally, tear out a few chunks of the insides to make room, and smear some more olive oil on the insides of the bread. Layer your olive salad, meats, and cheese alternating the layers until you run out of ingredients or get tired (or think you've got a big enough sandwich.)

Wrap the whole thing up tightly in Saran Wrap and let it sit for a while (or in the fridge over night), then slice it up and EAT that sucker.

Call me about 6 PM today and I'll tell you how my test Muffuletta tasted (half the fun of cooking is doing the research .)

5 AM Cigar

Simple Pleasures...


There's something to be said for the hours between sunset and sunrise--and not all sinister and bad I would like to add.

Over the past ten or fifteen years I've learned to enjoy the evening hours in a manner different from the times when I was locked into a "normal" 24 hour ritual involving work and play and sleep on a regimented schedule.

Today I still find myself living basically two days for every one rotation of the Earth.

Further, I find that if you put yourself into the correct state of mind and the right geographic location that you can gain a great deal of satisfaction from the hours when most of the people on the planet huddle inside their homes in their pajamas.

Of course you don't want to be found wandering the streets of Atlanta or LA at 3 AM unless you are a frivolous drunken club patron, a thief, or some form of Vampire, but I know about a few places which are quite nice at that hour.

Blackwater Sound off Key Largo and a couple of little bays near Upper Matecombe Key in Florida come to mind if you have access to the appropriate boat and don't mind enduring the onslaught of mosquitoes which attack every living thing at sunset each evening.

Then there is the coral beach on the northeast shore of Walker's Cay in the Bahama's which provides a landscape at low tide which is almost Lunar in appearance as the sun rises each morning.

The numerous little un-inhabited islands in the Philippines, viewed from the aircraft elevator portal of a Carrier as they slide by in the twilight manage to get the attention of even the most inattentive young midshipman (that would be me...)

The view over the Marsh looking east from St. Simons Island toward the lights of Sea Island provide an excellent venue for forming early morning thoughts and cogitations.

Then there is the near perfect silence (except for the bugs) found on our front porch here on the banks of the mighty Tennessee River--which is were I'm headed this morning with a book and cigar in hand to contemplate my existence and solve a few world problems.

Wish me luck...if you will...

Things That Make You Go "AaaarrrrrRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH$%#@*&$%$#!%#$%!!!

As For Me...I'm In Microsoft & HP Home Computer Hell


It all started about 4:30 Friday afternoon.

I had come home from my office with a song on my lips and in my heart...looking forward to a peaceful weekend without any major home improvement tasks demanding my attention and celebrating my portion of the multi million dollar quench tower design having survived the second client review in two weeks.

Then I made the mistake of attempting to fire up my HP notebook which had set idle for most of the week in my office as I pounded some sense into massaged the HP server and installed new Norton security software and cleaned up the file backup strategy.

All my HP would do is flash the initial boot up screen and then sit there with a black screen staring at me.

"Steady big fellow...just turn it back off and back on...it'll be OK..."

Off

On

Off

On

OFF

ON

OFF

ON

OFF

ON (dammit...by the way)

Profanity never helps...it just makes you feel better or foolish depending on who's listening.

Now a quick rummage through the filing cabinet looking for of all things...computer manuals and most of all...

RECOVERY DISKS...

Please, please, please let the brain in my ever greying, ever balding head remember correctly and find that I had made recovery disks when I bought that computer.

NO Recovery DisksssssssSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

AhhhhhhHHHHHHHHHHH!!!




But wait...




There's not one but TWO hard disks in that machine...120 GB EACH!

And there's a recovery partition on the second DRIVVVVVVEEEEEEEE!

Praise the Lord...

Cancel that Ammunition Order...

To make a long story even longer, now, almost TWELVE HOURS later, my beloved HP laptop has moved past the stages of drooling on itself and needing diapers, and is basically the same machine I turned off for the last time on Monday or Tuesday...

EXCEPT...

Some of the software like my NORTON ANTIBOT and other SECURITY SOFTWARE still has to be re-downloaded and re-installed.

And God knows what else I'll find when I take the piece of crap machine with me on our long weekend trip back to our little island this coming weekend.

I guess that this is what I get for ignoring the little bugger (the computer) all week for the first time in two years in favor of the new Server and threatening to put it into the shop to have the AC power jack replaced after tripping over the power cord twenty seven times and making it act all squirrely if you don't wiggle the power cord right when you plug it in.

Now, just when I think that I'm out of trouble, I discover that for some reason THIS BLOG cannot be accessed by MS Internet Explorer from either the Server or my laptop.

WTF?

I just updated my Mozilla Firefox Web Browser to the latest 3.0 version and the blog loads fine.

Imagine that?

Could it be that my recent politically incorrect postings using the N-word or my Nancy Pelosi photo montage earned me some kind of Blogger or Microsoft curse keeping YOU, my dear regular readers (all twelve of you scattered between Louisiana, through Florida and Alabama, the Carolina's, up to Connecticut) from reading my rantings?

I certainly hope not, but we'll see.

Y'all have yourselves a nice weekend...If you will...

4AM UPDATE

My head's starting to move at orbital rotational velocity...

I can't get my cooking blog The Redneck Gourmet nor any of my fellow politically incorrect southern conservative bloggers like Blond Sagicity, the angry Cuban over at Babalu Blog, nor
Roger's site at "Curmudgeonly & Skeptical" to load on either of my PC's using Microsoft Internet Explorer, and the Server didn't crash yesterday and I haven't screwed around with my software on that machine either.

What's going on here...Ladies & Gentlemen?

E-mail me at vrrogers3d@yahoo.com if you can't get this site to load in Internet Explorer so I can attempt to get to the bottom of the problem before I disappear down the crapper into ancient Internet history.

(I guess if it won't load you won't know about the problem either...)

Work...

Work, Work, WORK


Talk about using profanity in my writing...

WORK (there's that word again)

Today's Best O' The Web

Swallow Your Coffee And Finish Your Breakfast Before Viewing...


In her mind, she looks like this:

But at best, She looks like this:



Then she gets all sporty and looks like this:






And she likes the clothes so much she has an official picture taken in them that looks like this:

But here on the internet things are a little different...doing a little Googling you can find things like this:

But that doesn't matter, because in the the end she's still in charge...

And most of us that get things done and pay the bills for her stupid pandering socialistic BS programs just have to grin and bear it...

That will be all...for now...

'Nother Day

"Nother Dollar...


OK Folks, I hate to admit it, but I guess that I've officially arrived back smack dab in the middle of American culture and society, both geographically and mentally.

My participation does have it's limits though, in spite of having attended a wedding reception at a really upscale country club this past weekend requiring an expensive trip to Joseph A. Bank to further expand the portion of my wardrobe which doesn't go with Docksiders or flip flops.

(What's up with people building multi-million dollar houses on lots the size of a postage stamp?)

The good news is that I've been able to maintain some semblance of non-conformity it the process...in as much as I still keep weird hours, I haven't cut my hair, and in my mind I'm still living on a boat in the Keys or a cottage in earshot of the ocean surf for at least a few hours each day.

Take tonight's dinner menu, for example.

We're having the neighbors over for a nice low country boil featuring shrimp, crawfish, corn on the cob, and red potatoes--all simmered up in a big pot of seasoned water. Fortunately we have a place down the "Pike" here which imports fresh unfrozen seafood so I'll be disappointed if I don't get my usual quality results.

Meanwhile, in the professional gainful employment department, I'm sorta stuck in a holding pattern as the client delays making critical decisions and tendering design data. If you think that a week and one half of front end data delays would amount to a week and one half extension on the project deadline you'd clearly be living in some alternate universe or fantasy land.

Time to do my hair, toss on the stuffy business attire, and head on over to the office for another eight or ten hours worth of whatever you prefer to call what I'm doing.

Y'all have a nice day...If you will...

Bias...What Bias???

Insidious Influence Or Telling Facts?


Check out This Story:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/07/big_media_puts_its_money_where.html

That analysis provides some surprising results. Individuals who reported being employed by major media organizations made the following contributions:

NBC, NBC Universal: $104,184 to Democrats / $3,150 to Republicans

CBS: $45,508 to Dems / $966 to Republicans

ABC: $17,320 / $4,717

Turner Broadcasting, TBS: $30,161 / $3,950

Fox: $40,573 / $0

Fox News/Fox News Channel: $1,280 / $0

MSNBC: $210 / $282

CNN: $2,286 / $1,250

Associated Press: $2,550 / $545

Reuters: $10,745 / $3,450

Washington Post, Newsweek: $4,268 / $0

New York Times, NYT Co: $8,143 / $0

Time, Inc: $40,988 / $4,850 ($2,300 to Republicans was from someone identified as a jeweler,
so the total may actually be $2,550)

Time Magazine: $1,250 / $0

USA Today: $6,067 / $0

Totals for the above:

$315,533 to Democrats ; $22,656 to Republicans

Also note that it is "officially" against the rules in most news organizations for news room employees to contribute to campaigns.

I don't care what they tell us, they're in the tank for Obama and the Democrats.

AMEN...Brother Voight

And A Hearty Ditto While I'm At It...


The Democratic Party, in its quest for power, has managed a propaganda campaign with subliminal messages, creating a God-like figure in a man who falls short in every way. It seems to me that if Mr. Obama wins the presidential election, then Messrs. Farrakhan, Wright, Ayers and Pfleger will gain power for their need to demoralize this country and help create a socialist America.

...

If Mr. Obama had his way, he would have pulled our troops from Iraq years ago and initiated an unprecedented bloodbath, turning over that country to the barbarianism of our enemies. With what he has openly stated about his plans for our military, and his lack of understanding about the true nature of our enemies, there's not a cell in my body that can accept the idea that Mr. Obama can keep us safe from the terrorists around the world, and from Iran, which is making great strides toward getting the atomic bomb. And while a misleading portrait of Mr. Obama is being perpetrated by a media controlled by the Democrats, the Obama camp has sent out people to attack the greatness of Sen. John McCain, whose suffering and courage in a Hanoi prison camp is an American legend.

Read the entire Op ED piece by Academy Award winning Actor Jon Voight in it's entirety here:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/28/voight/

Fat Wallets Cause Butt Cancer

Cell Phones Cook Your KID'S Head and YOUR Ass


For years and years now I've lamented that I believe that men found sitting daily on a giant overstuffed leather wallet are not only subjecting themselves to unnecessary discomfort in the car and Church Pew, but are also risking developing a form of butt cancer which originates on the skin on the outside of their calloused bottoms rather than arising from the tangled mass of their polyp laden colons (which, by the way, after the age of fifty must be "scoped" by their physicians on an annual basis.)

What I want to know is who designed this equipment anyway?

As if your butt, with which you are born, isn't more and more trouble the older you get, but (excuse the pun) our society has the foresight to come up with the wallet because men are apparently more dignified than women and can't be burdened with keeping up with a purse as we wander about our lives in our daily rituals.

Of course if you are the domestic type you could get married or get an understanding girlfriend, buy her a giant purse, and make her carry your wallet so you won't have to deal with having a giant lump on your butt in the pocket of your seersucker shorts as you cavort about the national parks and outlet malls on your summer vacation.

Come to think of it, since men tend to lose their athletic butts as they age, perhaps the solution is to buy not one but TWO wallets and carry them at the same time, thereby producing a more pronounced buttocks area for female viewing.

Maybe not...

Then there is something called the "fanny pack"...

I have one. A nice leather one.

I keep my digital camera and accessories in it.

Sometimes I even wear it, but most of the time it's just an expensive tiny leather purse which I drag around with me and my computer case.

Let's face it Guys...If we would just go through our wallets and clean out all of the old restaurant receipts and un-needed business cards from insurance agents and nice looking female professionals we've met in the process of conducting our lives we could reduce the pain and discomfort of carrying a wallet in our pants by at least half.

Putting my money where my mouth is, I intend to run out this week and buy myself a new wallet, and I'm promising myself that it will be a thin little slab of leather that WILL NOT ALLOW ME TO CARRY MORE THAN TWO CREDIT CARDS, ID, AND ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS CASH MONEY (IN TWENTIES.)

Talk about personal improvement...

Then there's the new hysteria about Cell Phones.

I've had a Cell Phone forever since 1990, long before many of today's cell phone abusers Cell Phone patrons were even born.

I've had a $500 cell phone bill before there was anything called "text messaging" and I'm proud to report that I don't "Text Message" today.

If I want to talk to you I'll call you.

If you want to talk to me you'll answer my call, or at least call me back when it's convenient.

If I want to send you a text message I'll write you a letter.

On the computer.

It might take the form of an E-mail, or I might print it out and send it to you in a stamped envelope.

If there is a stamp involved, one of us might be dead before you receive it, but I guess that it was the thought that counted in the first place.

Any WHoooooooooo.

Once again there's another news article out there causing a big flap about the potential for excessive cell phone use causing brain cancer.

Read along with me as my eyes roll back into my ever greying, ever balding skull...

When Amy Morris' twin boys, then 11, went on an academic trip to Washington last year, she agreed to give them cell phones at the program's request. But this summer she was dismayed to learn that girls at her 8-year-old daughter's day camp were using cell phones they'd taken along in their backpacks.

"We were outraged," says the Connecticut mother, who adds that the camp didn't know. "These girls think it's a cute game. But it's inappropriate, and it's unnecessary."

...

Now, there's further ammunition for Morris and other reluctant parents like her to stand firm: The warning last week by the head of a prominent cancer research institute to his faculty and staff. Limit cell phone use, he said, because of the possible cancer risk — especially when it comes to children, whose brains are still developing.

The warning from Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, was based on early, unpublished data and came despite numerous studies that haven't found a link between increased tumors and cell phone use. But it's struck a nerve among parents who already have other reasons to resist their children's entreaties.

I've said all along that I was afraid of being forced to hold a device emitting electromagnetic energy against my head in order to make a phone call.

I've lamented the loss of the old 3 watt "bag phones" of yesteryear. A phone with a display and buttons large enough to be seen with failing middle aged eyes and operated by pudgy middle aged fingers.

But NOOOooooooo, the cell phone "providers" insist that I need to be forced to place phone calls on something the size of a potato chip with buttons the size of a Chicklet, and that I must be forced to hold a .6 watt transmitter within 3 inches of my Hypothalamus gland in the process.

Meanwhile, so-called PARENTS are agonizing over decisions about CHILDREN operating high tech communication devices simply because all of the other children have them and besides...It's easier to keep up with their offspring if they arm them with cell phones?

When I was a kid, before the age when I could legally operate an automobile and further, had reason to be out of sight of my parents, if my Mother and/or Father could not walk outside of the front or back door of our house and holler or whistle and make me come running home, something was seriously wrong.

The police were likely to be involved, else some form of corporal punishment was soon to ensue.

Somehow my parents managed to keep tabs on my where abouts, in spite of my best efforts, for the majority of the minutes in the years between 1959 and 1977...

WITHOUT CELL PHONES.

In fact, the only phones we had in those days were firmly bolted to the wall in the basement den and on the kitchen wall. They did have six foot cords making their use somewhat portable, but the hours of use were limited to something between 7 AM and 9 PM, and you had to dial the phone rather than punching buttons if you expected to actually talk to someone.

If in fact the cell phone induced cancer risk is real, I would like to suggest a positive use for their power and medical capabilities.

Force these men and women who don't understand how to raise children to carry their cell phones adjacent to their private parts in the crotch of their underwear.

In my mind, it would represent a poetic form of "killing two birds with one stone"...

Survival of the fittest, and and effective means of BIRTH CONTROL, all wrapped up in one little 10 ounce, 0.6 watt package.

AM I NOT A GENIUS...OR WHAT???

MIssing Money

Windfall Ahead...


I just love listening to Consumer Advise Nerd Clark Howard who is home based on Atlanta's WSB NewsTalk AM 750 Radio station.

Clark and I go back about 18 years, and I've even called in to his show and been on the air a couple of times back in the mid and late 1990's.

I was poking around on the Internet today, looking for a way to find out about some stocks which I bought back before the house fire destroyed all of my financial records, and Clark's Website was a huge assistance in beginning my search.

One might wonder..."why would someone wait over seven years to start worrying about the whereabouts and value of stock in a portfolio?"

BECAUSE THE STOCK WAS WORTH ABOUT $0.05 A SHARE LAST TIME I PAYED ANY ATTENTION.

(That's five cents a share for those of you which fall into the mathematically impaired portion of the population.)

The thing is, the stock (I forget the name) was in companies drilling for OIL in the far East (Malaysia) and south America, and I bought it at a time when people were using crude oil as cleaning solution and gas prices were falling from $1.25 down to $0.89 per gallon.

Any wayyyy, I haven't had any luck finding out the disposition of my stock, but Mr. Howard's website did point me toward a FREE SITE called Missingmoney.com that provides a search engine for most of the states.

I was surprised to find a refund from Florida Power with my name on it left over from my Jimmy Buffet period in Mexico Beach, FL, and I vaguely remember a Property Insurance Refund check that was bouncing around a few years ago and never got cashed in Georgia.

In the end, it was nearly three hundred dollars worth in total.

Imagine that?

Why don't you guys stop by http://www.missingmoney.com/ and try to find some loose change to pay for YOUR dinner tonight

Quote O' The Day

Genius Thought From A Certified Genius...


"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one."

"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."

"To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself."

"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions."


Albert Einstein US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)


(Yes, I too had to look the word up:

equanimity Pronunciation: \ˌē-kwə-ˈni-mə-tē, ˌe-kwə-\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s):
plural equa·nim·i·ties
Etymology:
Latin aequanimitas, from aequo animo with even mind
Date: circa 1616
1 : evenness of mind especially under stress 2 : right disposition : balance )

Obamarama

Another Whopper...


Take a look at the names of the people on the Senate Banking Committee as shown on the US Senate Website:

Notice any names ending in Obama?

Then why did Candidate Obama have this to say on Wednesday:

“Just this past week, we passed out of the out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee - which is my committee - a bill to call for divestment from Iran as way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don’t obtain a nuclear weapon,”

Yeah...I thought so...

Expensive TV With Battery Back-Up

Technology Continues To Take Over My House Balm My Ego...


Well, the good news is that I can finally spend the evening in my office at home working and watching FOX News on TV at the same time.

The bad news is that it cost me an extra $130 for the TV receiver card and a fancy gold colored RG-6 splitter for the cable signal.

After two hours spent cracking open the CPU cabinet and fooling around getting Vista and the new software to cooperate with each other, I gave up and let Windows Media Center handle things.

Now I have a 22" color TV (with remote) which cost me nearly $1,500 if you include the computer, monitor, UPS, and other goodies.

I'm a certified Genius, aren't I?

Careful... I said Genius, not accountant.

More "Inconvenient Truth"

Read It And Weep...Owl Gore...


Another Global Warming alarmist crosses over from the dark side, this time a famous Australian Scientist.


David Evans July 18, 2008

I DEVOTED six years to carbon accounting, building models for the Australian Greenhouse Office. I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia's compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.

FullCAM models carbon flows in plants, mulch, debris, soils and agricultural products, using inputs such as climate data, plant physiology and satellite data. I've been following the global warming debate closely for years.

When I started that job in 1999 the evidence that carbon emissions caused global warming seemed pretty good: CO2 is a greenhouse gas, the old ice core data, no other suspects.

The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.

But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"


All I have to add is these words:

"HAH, Told you so...."

"Wherefore By Their Fruits Ye Shall Know Them"

Why I haven't Been To A Movie Theater In Over Six Years...


Apparently that British dude who appears in the new Batman movie is in deep doodoo for pushing his family around in a swank London Hotel.

Go figure.

More Crap That Pisses Me Off

Simple Things That Annoy Me...


Ever get tired having to get up off the toilet and walk across the room with your underwear around your ankles to get to the toilet paper roller mounted on the wall 5' away from you?

What about having to reach BEHIND you to reach it?

I know it's (the toilet paper) is ultimately going to end up performing it's purpose behind you, but please...

How about having to sit leaning sideways or rotated 45 degrees because some rocket scientist mounted the toilet paper roller 9" away on the wall, right beside the toilet which is also located crammed up against a wall with a 3 foot gap between it and the sink or tub?

Is it just me?

And another thing...changing the subject entirely...

Anyone but me hate being required to scroll down to the "U" in the alphabetical listing of "countries" when filling out a form to order something from an AMERICAN COMPANY on the Internet? Why should I have to watch Armenia, Afghanistan, Germany, and Tunisia scroll past looking for United States when making my E-Bay or Amazon purchase.

Finally, have you caught the latest BS up at the NY Times...publishing Obama's OP Ed while telling John McCain to "try again" when he submitted his own opinion piece.

Just like in 2004 with John sKerry, just watch as the media does their best to drag Obama across the finish line in the November election. They's be good for at least 5 points in the election, and then you'll be sorry when they tax your ass off and destroy our health care system with a liberal dose of socialism.

As for me...I'm looking at Costa Rica and Belize for an very extended vacation.

You Can Take The Hillbilly Out Of The Coal Mine

But You Can't Take The Coal Mine Out Of The Hillbilly...


It continues to amaze me how life turns back on itself.

Some call it fate.

I refuse to give it a name--positive or negative--but I do see the convolutions and permutations of the order and disorder none the less.

Take my Father's family as an example.

Everyone I know in that side of my gene pool alive before 1950 was in some way involved in the coal mining business in West Virginia and/or southeastern Ohio.

Truck drivers, mechanics, or just plain pick and chisel men (Grandpa was Electrical Superintendent of the Red Parrot Coal Mine in Prenter, West Virginia), I've seen the results of making a living under ground ingrained on the faces of distant relatives whose memories are relegated to ragged black and white photos today.

My dad, at my Grandfather's insistence, escaped the ravages and calluses of the coal mines via his matriculation at the University of Kentucky in the early 1950's in pursuit of a degree in Electrical Engineering, and later as a pilot with the US Army's Signal Corps.

That said, I still find it more than a little bit amazing that at 9:30 AM this morning I'm walking into a meeting to coordinate beginning the structural design work on a project that will ultimately handle millions of tons of...

COAL?

This after spending over 25 years designing equipment which much of the time used...

COAL as the fuel for the fire.

I, personally, am quite pleased to be on the design end of the energy extraction process rather than on the MINING end of the mineral extraction process--something that historically has shortened the lives of my kin by somewhere between ten and twenty years as I understand things.

I hope I'm up to the process, having had almost three months to sweep the dust off the 'ol brain cells and come back up to speed with the latest software.

Wish me luck...If you will...

Testing...testing..IS THIS THING ON???

Please Excuse The Silence of the Lambs My Keyboard


Sorry for my silence over the past couple of days. It's just that I can see the dust cloud on the horizon which represents the flurry of new work that's coming my way next week.

There's a scene in one of my favorite movies... "Cat Ballou", which depicts a young "Pre-Hanoi" Jane Fonda running up against a middlin' aged Lee Marvin, trying to save Miss Fonda's Bacon or a ranch or something I'm too tired to Google this morning to qualify.

My point is that I feel today much like Lee Marvin's Character..."Kid Shelleen" did in that movie, a has been gunfighter turned bar-room drunk who/whom is brought out of retirement as the plot develops to fight the battle between good and evil..

Even his horse sleeps standing up with Marvin on his back when not asked to move or accomplish anything. I guess that my 3/4 ton 4 WD 2500 series gas sucking Suburban could qualify to play the part of the Kid's horse, as I attempt to steel myself to do battle with a few hundred man-hours of Coke Plant Quench Tower and Water Clarifying basins which enter my life on Monday morning.

Hurry, hurry, step right UP, I got your steel...I got your concrete, what else could you possibly need?