According To Brian

Will the President Defend the Constitution?

2008-01-07T18:54:00.001-08:00

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." That's the oath of office for the President of the United States. Preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So how come the presidential candidates don't discuss the Constitution more? Their job is to protect and preserve the Constitution. Towards that end, they are assigned the position of Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, they have the power to make treaties (with Senatorial approval) with foreign entities, appoint ambassadors to represent the United States, and appoint Supreme Court Justices.

Essentially, the scope of the office of President of the United States is to ensure that the Constitution is upheld and not infringed upon. Do the candidates even know this? Most of them talk about all the things that they are going to do and how they are going to make the country better for everyone. They talk about health care, immigration, war, and what they are going to do about these things, but that's not their job! Legislation is the job of Congress. The Presidents job is to make certain that laws passed by Congress are properly executed. They are empowered to appoint officials to aid in this. They also have to sign and authorize the laws that Congress passes. That allows them to review the laws and make sure that they do nothing to endanger the Constitution.

Shouldn't the candidates be spending their campaigns enlightening us as to their knowledge of and dedication to the Constitution? Shouldn't they be offering their interpretation of every article and amendment to the Constitution? Should we not choose a President whose position on the articles and amendments most closely matches our own? Are the candidates afraid to tell us their positions? Do they even have positions? What do our candidates even know about the Constitution?

The article of the Constitution establishing the office of President does contain the following clause: “He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient” and it seems that this minor allowance is what all of the candidates have gravitated towards. The President is allowed to make suggestions to Congress about things they should consider “from time to time”. Presumably, these suggestions would be in the specific interest of defending the Constitution and would be matters that Congress was not already considering. It seems unlikely to me that in this day and age, there are many things that have escaped our legislators notice, so these suggestions shouldn't occur too often should they?

I'm tired of the rhetoric and the fluff. The things I'd like to know about each candidate are how they interpret each article and amendment of the Constitution, how they are qualified to lead the military, how they intend to treat with foreign powers, and what if any measures not already under consideration by Congress they feel need to be addressed in an expedient manner. The should also inform us of any Constitutional Amendments that they support. Everything else can be left to the Senatorial and Congressional candidates.

We continue to elect presidents who fail to deliver on their promises and many of us continue to be disappointed in them. The reason is simple: they're making promises of things outside the scope of their job responsibilities. It's like the pizza delivery driver promising to put more cheese on the pizza next time. The driver may want more cheese and they may recommend it to those who make the pizza, but ultimately it's not in their power to make it happen. If the candidates want to make laws and enact changes, they should run for Congress, if they want to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution then they should start telling us how they'll do it.

Our Dog Bear Died: Dog Food -- A must for Dog owners

2007-08-26T08:31:00.000-07:00

I'm a somewhat skeptical person by nature, so much so that I'm often accused of being cynical and negative about things. I'm really not all that cynical and I'm not really negative, but try to keep a healthy amount of skepticism in my thinking. Yet, in spite of this I continue to be surprised by the things I believed and the groups and organizations that I've trusted. The most recent splash of caustic reality I've had to endure relates to dog food.

We recently had a dog die of bloat which is something that I had never heard of even though it is a very common and very lethal condition that afflicts large breed dogs. You can read more about bloat here: http://freezone.ssan.com/Pet_Care/Bloat_in_Dogs/index.html During my investigation of bloat and it's causes, I learned that diet can have an impact on it. Since we still have 2 large breed dogs and 1 medium breed dog, I began investigating dog food and what I learned was shocking.

First off, please keep in mind that there is a lot of contradictory information about dog nutrition available on the Internet. Also, every brand of dog food devotes several web pages to explaining why their food is the best food available on the market. Even the people who talk strictly about dog's nutritional needs often disagree with each other and push their own feeding plan. What I've done in the past week is read a lot about dog nutrition and dog food and I've made some of my own conclusions about the subject. I've decided which arguments to believe and which to ignore. I think that I've struck a pretty fair balance and I think I've made some sound decisions. Here are the conclusions I've drawn:

Dogs are carnivores by nature. As such, their food should be meat based. All dry dog food will have some type of grain or cereal filler in it, but you need to limit the type and amount. Corn and wheat should be avoided as much as possible as they can not be digested by dogs and thus provide no value. They can also actually cause problems in many dogs. Soy products and brewers rice should also be avoided. Many people will tell you that dogs need to eat a diet containing 30% protein and 18% crude fat minimum. While that may be true to a certain extent, I think that the actual ingredients in the food are far more important that the final percentages. A very good food that is 24% / 14% is going to be better for your dog than a 30% / 20% food full of corn, wheat, and soy. A lot of people also tell you to avoid meat ingredients called "meal" and to avoid the meat "by products" as well since they are generally scraps and you don't know everything that's in them. I don't really agree with that so much. Sure, whole, human grade meat is better but come on, so what if there's some feathers and beaks. It's been cooked and it's better than another grain in the food. Besides, my dog would eat all of the feathers if it found a dead chicken and so would yours.

So the quest begins to find a meat based dog food with no corn or wheat fillers, no soy, and preferably no brewers rice. Keep in mind that when reading the ingredient list on a bag of dog food that they are listed in descending order by weight. In other words, the main ingredient is first. If you focus on the top five or six ingredients, you get a pretty good picture of what the food is made of.

I chose the food that I've been feeding the dogs for the past 11 years based on what the professional breeder I bought my first dog from was feeding all his dogs. I assumed that it was good food and it certainly cost more than most of the other foods . Where was that skepticism when I needed it? It turns out the food I've been feeding the dogs was horrible and next to worthless nutritionally speaking. In fact, I've learned that almost all commercially available dog food is seriously lacking in one way or another. I have been feeding my dogs Pedigree. It turns out that it's main ingredient and 2 of it's top three is corn! Pedigree is in fact no better than Alpo or Old Roy, although it is significantly more expensive.

The next shocking thing I discovered was that the "Veterinarian recommended" brands, Science Diet, Iams, and Eukanuba are also a bunch of garbage. They are only marginally better than generic store brands and even that is debatable. In fact some formulations of Wal-Mart's high end store brand, "Maxximum" are probably a little better than the three veterinarian brands. I really feel sorry for anyone who's been paying the exorbitant prices for those dog foods. Here's the first 6 ingredients in Science Diet: Chicken, Ground Whole Grain Corn, Ground Whole Grain Sorghum, Ground Whole Grain Wheat, Chicken By-Product Meal, Soybean Meal. Did I mention that soy is one of the worst things that you can feed a dog? I'll give Science Diet some credit for using whole grains, but this is still a grain based food and corn, wheat, sorghum, and soybeans are not things that a dog needs.

So now I've told you that you can't buy good dog food at the grocery store and you can't buy good dog food at the vet's office. So now what? Well, if you listen to certain folks on the internet, you might start tossing raw chicken breasts to your dogs and maybe an egg or two now and then. I must admit that I was tempted to give it a try, but that seems a little extreme. I'm sure there are a lot of dog owners out there doing quite a good job feeding their dogs a raw food diet, but I don't think that's for me. There's got to be something wrong with a meal plan referred to as BARF (Bones And Raw Food).

So I began searching for dog food recommendations. Recommendations are few and far between for dog food and if you just read the ingredients you'll understand why. I found a lot of recommendations for off brands like Eagle Pak and Bil Jacs, but when I checked their ingredients they weren't much better than Maxximum. Also, home delivery of those foods was extremely expensive and let's be realistic. Money is going to play a factor. Another food that is often recommended is Innova and initially, I thought I'd found the answer. Innova's top six ingredients are turkey, chicken, chicken meal, barley, brown rice, and potatoes. That's pretty good! The first three ingredients are meat and while there are 3 grains, none of them seem like really bad ones. However, when I look at the "Large Breed" formulation of Innova, I notice that it contains citric acid. Citric acid has been linked to bloating in large breed dogs. So Innova is putting one of the worst ingredients for a large dog in their large breed formulation!

That's another thing to keep in mind. Just because one variety of a company's dog food is pretty good, that doesn't mean another will. In fact there are often incredibly wild variations in ingredients from one formulation to another. Just one more thing to confuse you.

So I still haven't found anything that's any better than Maxximum which is about as good as Eukanuba: Chicken, Corn Meal, Ground Whole Grain Sorghum, Ground Whole Grain Barley, Chicken By-Product Meal, Fish Meal.

Enter the feed store. Despite many Internet warnings to never buy dog food from a feed store, I decided to ask a co-worker who also owns a feed store what types of dog food she had. Amongst the medium grade foods and a couple really bad foods, I found that she sold a real gem: "Chicken Soup for the Dog Lover's Soul". Yeah, I agree it's a really lame name, but the ingredients are: Chicken, turkey, chicken meal, ocean fish meal, cracked pearled barley, whole grain brown rice. That's pretty good! It also has some probiotics added as well. (That's hippie-talk for good digestive bacteria).

I'll be getting my first bag of the Chicken Soup on Monday and I'll be transitioning the dogs to it over the next week or two. It's a little more expensive ($25 for 35 lbs versus $18 for 40 lbs), but being better food, the dogs don't actually have to eat as much of it, so I don't think I'll see much of a difference. Also, that's still a lot cheaper than the vet brands and the stuff you'll find at a pet store.

I'm sure that there's a lot of other good dog foods out there. In fact Innova's regular adult formulation is pretty good, just stay away from the Large breed variety. We'll see how the dog's do on the new food. If you're currently feeding your dog a store variety of food, I would certainly recommend that you at least check the ingredients. If you have any questions, I'll be happy to help. There's a lot more stuff I learned in the past week that I haven't gotten around to sharing, but this blog's getting long enough as it is.

Stay tuned for my cat food evaluation in the next couple weeks.

Making the Streets Safer

2007-03-31T11:20:00.000-07:00

Would you like to make the streets safer? Would you like to instill a little bit of drive and ambition into today’s youth? Perhaps you’d just like them to have a healthy respect for what they already have and everything they have to look forward to. Or maybe you’d just like to see young people today act like adults and accept some responsibility for a change. If any of those things appeal to you, then here’s a solution that would solve all those problems and more:

Mandatory Military service for all people between the ages of 18 and 24 who aren’t enrolled full time in high school or college. You read it right, mandatory military service. Not only does that keep the young people off the street, it all but eliminates the need for the military to recruit anyone but commissioned officers.

Think about it. Instead of young adults roaming the streets, working two bit jobs, and trying to “find themselves”, they’re either attending college full time or they’re off living in a structured environment and providing a valuable service to this country. What’s even better, when the college student’s graduate usually around the age of 21 or 22, they’ll have to either continue with their education or join the military for a couple years. In any case, no one is really set loose into the general population until they are beyond the age of 24.

Most people over the age of 30 can reflect back on their life and recognize that they weren’t really fully grown up, responsible adults until their mid 20’s. Furthermore, they probably tell you that most of the stupid, dangerous, and illegal things they’ve done, they did before they turned 24.

Of course you’d still have college students doing stupid things and soldiers on leave are capable of causing all sorts of trouble, but overall I think you’d see a dramatic decrease in crimes and commotion caused by bored youth with nothing else to do. Plus the military will forcibly instill a sense of responsibility and an appreciation of consequences into their charges. By the time they got out, they’d be better equipped to be productive members of society.

Maybe this idea won’t solve all of the world’s problems, but it sure would make the streets a little more peaceful.

No Apologies

2007-03-06T17:31:00.001-08:00

The Bill of Rights does not contain any guarantees that we will be free from being offended. In fact by the presence of Freedoms of Speech, Religion, and Press, we are almost guaranteed to be offended at some point in our lives. So why is everyone so upset with Ann Coulter this week? She made a bad joke, that’s all. By bad joke, I mean that it wasn’t all that funny. At best it was mediocre and certainly not up to her usual standards, but that’s all it was: a joke. If you happened to be offended by her choice of words then you probably don’t listen to Ms. Coulter or read her columns very often. If you do, then you probably get offended quite frequently.

For all the people calling for Ann’s head, you would think she had committed a crime rather than just exercised her freedom of speech. You have to wonder what the ultimate goal of these people really is. Do they really want to limit speech to such an extent that no one is ever offended? There’s nothing wrong with being offended. Being offended simply means that you strongly disagree with someone else’s point of view and that’s something that will eventually happen so long as you have an opinion on something. Everyone can’t share the same opinion, so you should expect to be offended at some point. The trick is deciding just how offended you should be by something that’s not directed at you and essentially amounts to a poor choice of words by someone.

In the case of Ann Coulter insulting John Edwards, it seems that many people are overreacting and many more people who probably weren’t offended are acting as though they’ve been personally insulted. John Edwards should feel insulted and maybe a little bit offended, but that’s about it. Ms. Coulter wasn’t trying to disparage anyone but him. She could have perhaps chosen a different phrase to use, but that wouldn’t have fit with her style. If you didn’t know, Ann Coulter makes a living by being a very sharp witted, often insulting, conservative writer and public speaker with a no-holds-barred approach. Her comments about Mr. Edwards were fairly typical of what she has to say about Democrats.

So what’s the big deal? If you didn’t like what you heard, don’t buy her books, and don’t read her columns. If enough people do the same, you’ll stop hearing from her. That’s how it works. In the meantime if things are offending you, be happy. That means we still have some of our Bill of Rights guarantees! Ann Coulter need not apologize for that.

It’s All Just Crazy Talk

2007-02-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

Well, we’re more than a year and a half away from the next Presidential election, but the preposterous claims from the candidates have already begun. You know what I’m talking about, all the stuff that the candidates tell us they’re going to accomplish on our behalf once they’re in office. Never mind the fact that politicians really never actually do stuff on our behalf. They do stuff for themselves and their parties, but not for us. Sometimes the things they do for themselves and their controllers just happen to benefit us too.

Anyway, if you watch the news at all, you’ve probably come to the conclusion that there are only 3 people running for President this time around and they’re all Democrats: Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama. So far Mr. Obama hasn’t offered any real specifics on what he’ll do if and when he’s elected. Some people say that’s because he doesn’t know, but I think he’s still trying to figure out what impact his middle name might have on his campaign. He may also be trying to figure out how to stop Hillary’s people from starting more “Barack is a terrorist” e-mail chains.

Meanwhile John and Hillary have begun the ridiculous claim game. Last week John Edwards proclaimed that when he is elected, he would create a national healthcare system that will insure our entire population. He also mentioned that we would all have to pay for it and our taxes would go up. Mr. Edwards may be the first politician of this century to admit to planning to raise taxes. He’ll have to stop that if he really wants to get elected. As for national healthcare, why would we really want that? Sure, it sounds nice at first until you start examining things. First of all 85% of the U.S. population already has health insurance. Is it really worth raising taxes and thus hurting the economy for the last 15%? 100% probably isn’t attainable anyway. In fact no matter what’s done, it’s unlikely that we’d ever get much beyond the current 85%. Secondly, do we really want our government in charge of healthcare? Take a look at the things the government currently runs and ask yourself that question. How about NASA? Or better yet, take a look at how well we’ve run the Iraq war and keep in mind that we’re actually really good at war! War is one of the things our government is an expert at. National Healthcare gets a bit scary when you consider that.

Ms. Clinton’s big plans for the days after her inauguration include evacuating Iraq. This past week, Hillary announced that if we were still there when she gets elected, she’d order an immediate withdrawal of our troops. What a silly thing to say. Of course we will still be in Iraq in 2009. We’re not going to leave. The Middle East is too important to global economy and worldwide stability for us to abandon our position there. World War II ended over 60 years ago and we’re still in Germany. Get used to Iraq folks, because we’re there for good. Of course Hillary was probably referring to our current troop levels in Iraq more than our presence, but it’s still a ridiculous statement. We will keep large numbers of troops in Iraq until things are stable enough for us to send our Guardsmen and Reservists home and just keep a few training bases open like we do in Germany and Korea. That’s the plan regardless of who’s sitting in the Oval Office.

So stay tuned to your favorite news network for more crazy talk and outright lies from the candidates in the months to come. The claims will probably become even more outrageous as we get closer to 2008. Who knows, maybe we’ll even find out that there are more than just 3 candidates for President.

Tasering Grandma

2007-01-28T09:39:00.000-08:00

It seems as though the world somehow got a little stranger this weekend. In case you haven’t heard, a Washington man was recently arrested for using a taser on his wife’s 79-year-old grandmother. The woman wouldn’t leave his house after an argument so Aaron de Bruyn got his taser out and gave grandma a zap to get her moving. Apparently uninjured but significantly irritated, Grandma called the police and had Aaron arrested for domestic abuse. Aaron’s wife supported the tasering and is no longer speaking with her grandmother.

What has happened to the good old days when people would just call the police on their elderly, infirm family members? Wouldn’t that have made a fine episode of Cops? Can you picture a couple uniformed policemen dragging a 79-year-old woman from a house and hauling her off to jail?

This story is wrong on so many levels; I just don’t know what to say about it. There would have been a time, not so long ago, that we would all have been shocked at the thought of a family dispute going half so far as this one went. Now, this story doesn’t shock so much as amuse us. Sure it’s a bit excessive, but we saw it coming didn’t we? Families have been going on television talk shows and fighting for our pleasure for years now. It was only a matter of time until they started tasering each other. What happened to respecting your elders? For that matter, what happened to common sense and personal dignity?

I for one would be appalled to let a family argument escalate to the point where the police needed to be called, much less to where assault was warranted. On top of that, I can’t imagine having to use a taser or any weapon to remove a 79 year old woman from my house. Unfortunately that’s our society these days and there’s probably worse to come.
The argument was over child rearing and I don’t know if Great-Grandma was right or wrong. We’ll probably never know. One thing is certain though; this child is being raised by parents who think it’s appropriate to use tasers on their grandparents. Someday we may be hearing about another de Bruyn.

Telling Time

2007-01-21T09:28:00.000-08:00

The Democrats recently completed their much-publicized first 100 hours in office. After the first 87 working hours they passed the final piece of legislation that they had planned. I applaud them for their efforts. It always impresses me when politicians actually keep their word and their promises, regardless of whether or not I actually agree with them. Of course, not even all the Democrats thought they could actually manage it.

Apparently House leader Nancy Pelosi was less than confident in her and her fellow Democrats abilities. Ms. Pelosi kept a “game clock” of the official first 100 hours and her clock read 42 when it was all done. So what happened to the other 45 hours? I guess politicians don’t tell time the way the rest of us do. Or maybe they just work less than half the time. The latter is probably the most likely case, but even so 100 hours spent at work is 100 hours no matter what. Even if they weren’t working it should still count.

I guess it’s really a moot point though. The House accomplished what it wanted and they did it in less than 100 hours regardless of whose clock they used. I guess the questions we should be asking now are: What are they going to do for the remaining 1900 hours of the year? And what about the remaining 58 hours on Nancy’s clock?

By the Speaker’s time-keeping method, the Democrats have about another 3 weeks left to their 100 hours. How do you think they will use it? Will there be an additional flurry of work on behalf of the American public or will they sit around and pat each other on the back for the next 3 weeks? Will the public be kept up to date with the time remaining on the “game clock”, or have we heard the last of it?

Chances are, we’ve heard the last of Pelosi’s clock and the Democrats are done with their 100 hours. They’ll rest on their laurels and coast for the rest of the years and perhaps even the rest of their terms. Then, when election time rolls around again, we’ll all be reminded of everything they did in their first 100. Countless commercials will laud their accomplishments in those first few weeks and everything they’ve done for us.

Just remember, for everything they may have been done, it’s not even February yet. It’s what they do for the rest of their terms that will determine whether or not they are worthy of re-election. The energy they’ve expended for the first 3 weeks is what we should expect from our representatives for the next 49, but we’re not likely to see it. What they do the rest of the year is really more important than what they’ve done so far.

Pesos for Pizza

2007-01-12T17:16:00.000-08:00

So Pizza Patron is accepting Mexican currency as legal tender for its products. What’s the big deal? It seems like good business sense to me: sell the pizza for money. You can take pesos to the bank just like pennies. Depending on the exchange rate, it might even be more profitable to be paid in pesos. What’s with the uproar anyway? The Texas-based pizza chain saw an opportunity and took advantage of it. Apparently, someone realized that there were a lot of folks running around with foreign currency that they weren’t exchanging, so they offered to relieve those folks of their unwanted change. The theory was that people would buy more pizza than normal just to get rid of the money. Time will tell if they were correct.

Pizza Patron has been getting tons of complaints and even death threats ever since the promotion began and their promotion and its associated problems have been broadcast on all the major news networks. People seem to think that Pizza Patron is somehow supporting illegal immigration by accepting pesos. People have also been quoted as saying this is not Mexico, so they shouldn’t accept pesos. These statements and opinions are just ridiculous! Taking pesos is just good business sense and it doesn’t support illegal immigration in any way.

First of all, do you really think illegal immigrants sneak across the border to buy pizza? Come on, somebody who just snuck across the border to find a menial labor job with no benefits has got more on their mind than spending $20 on pizza. If they’re crossing the border for work, they probably don’t even have any pesos and after they work here, they’ll have dollars. I doubt that there’re very many illegal aliens spending their few remaining pesos at Pizza Patron, but even if they are, why is that a problem?

We should encourage everyone to spend his or her pesos! It’s good for the economy. If they don’t use them to buy pizza and don’t exchange them, then people will just end up taking them back to Mexico and spending them there. That would help the Mexican economy. If they are spent here, it helps our economy. It really is that simple, spend pesos, and improve the economy. People have pesos in the U.S. because they haven’t bothered to exchange them for some reason or another. Note: exchange services and banks don’t ask for proof of citizenship before exchanging currency so illegal immigrants aren’t hoarding pesos out of fear. If people don’t have somewhere to spend pesos, then that money can’t help the economy grow.

Finally, this isn’t anything new. Pizza Patron is hardly the first company to accept foreign currency. Growing up in a northern state, I worked in a gas station that accepted Canadian currency. We offered an exchange rate that was in our favor and happily accepted anyone’s money. Pizza Patron is not even the first company to accept pesos. Most companies in Border States accept foreign currency, Pizza Patron just happened to start their promotion at an inopportune time. Of course, given all the free publicity they’ve received, maybe this was the perfect time.

Trans Banning

2007-01-03T19:48:00.000-08:00

Welcome to 2007 and goodbye to trans fat. At least that’s what the people in New York City are saying this year. In July, New York City will become the first U.S. city to prohibit the use of trans fats in restaurants. Essentially New York restaurants will no longer be able to use partially hydrogenated vegetable oil and will have the next six months to find a suitable substitute.

It’s wonderful that New York is looking out for the health of its residents and for the life of me I can’t come up with a compelling reason why anyone would actually want to consume trans fats given a suitable alternative. Nevertheless, the trans fat ban is a bad idea. Don’t get the wrong idea; I don’t think anyone should consume trans fats. I am not in favor of them, and everyone should limit them as much as possible. I believe in good food labeling and I think nutritional information should be available in restaurants to anyone who would like to see it. However, banning food ingredients just stinks of excessive regulation. We need less regulation in this country, not more.

In essence, we now have a local government dictating how its citizens will be allowed to live or at least what they can and cannot eat. Sure, it seems innocent enough right now, but it sets a precedent for future regulations. Today they ban processed vegetable oils, can a complete ban on tobacco or alcohol be far behind? What about veal and fur coats? Someday soon you may not even be able to eat red meat. It’s not as far-fetched as it seems. Taking away or regulating even a small liberty like this makes the next one that much easier. Once people get used to their choices being eliminated they stop objecting as strongly.

Of course people will argue that the current ban only applies to restaurants and people are still free to create their own heart-stopping trans-fat oil concoctions in the privacy of their own home. That’s true right now, but that’s the obvious next step in the regulation of personal freedom. Trans fats will be banned from grocery stores next and a whole generation of people will have to learn how to cook without partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

Ultimately you’ll be healthier and you will live longer, but you’ll have to do it just the way they want you to.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

2006-12-10T10:30:00.000-08:00

Somebody help me out here. What do you do about a person who can’t decide whether to leave or stay? You know the type. You may even be the type. They say goodbye and start to leave, but as soon as they’ve got the door open they stop, turn around, and strike up a brand new conversation with you. The conversation is fine, but they’re standing there holding the door wide open. They won’t come back in. They won’t finish leaving. They just stand there talking. Have these people never had to pay a utility bill before? Shut the door! Either come back inside and talk to me some more or shut up and go home!

So what’s the proper etiquette in a situation like this? I’ve resisted the urge to shove them on out the door and slam it in their face. Surely that would be rude. It’s also somewhat rude to let them show themselves out. Plus, you’ll inevitably discover that they failed to properly secure the door when they left. If you gently force them out the door and follow them to continue the conversation you’ll get the door shut, but then you’re outside in the weather. This can be a problem at certain times of the year when your guest is dressed for the weather and you are not. How many of you have been stuck standing on the front porch in a t-shirt and shorts talking to someone who won’t leave for 15 minutes?

I’ve resorted to inviting them back inside before and that usually works. Unfortunately, you end up going through the same process all over again when they finish the conversation and once again decide to leave. What is it about these people that cause them to come up with something new to say when they’re halfway out the door? If they’d stayed inside for another 10 minutes they wouldn’t utter a word, but get them halfway out the door and they can’t stop talking.

What I’d really like to do is go visit these people’s home and open all of their windows, but they probably wouldn’t get the point. I’ve thought about holding their door open in retribution, but it’s not in my nature. Once I’m done talking, I’m done talking. There’s nothing magical about crossing the threshold of the door for me. There is no sudden conversational spark that ignites in my mind. I could stop in their doorway and allow their heat to escape into the night, but I wouldn’t have anything to say.

I just don’t know what to do about these people but here’s a suggestion for them: When a new topic springs to mind, just hold on to it until your next visit. I really don’t want to discuss it in my doorway.

Minimum Rage

2006-11-23T13:20:00.000-08:00

Don’t get me wrong. Don’t misinterpret what I’m going to say. I have absolutely no problem with raising the Federal Minimum Wage, but I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. I don’t understand why it was such and issue in the recent elections, and I don’t know why people would cast a vote based on that. It’s not like there are really very many voting age people who would be affected by this and there are even fewer registered voters who would be affected.

The rallying cry has been that no one can support a family on minimum wage and you’ll get no argument from me. People probably can’t even support themselves very well on minimum wage. Fortunately, there aren’t very many people trying. Don’t believe me? Well take this test:

First of all, go find a full-time job that actually pays the Federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour. You’ll quickly discover that there aren’t really that many full-time jobs that pay minimum wage. The vast majority of minimum wage jobs are part-time positions and if you’re only looking for a part-time position, then you aren’t trying very hard to support yourself. Next, once you’ve found your full-time minimum wage job, look around at the other jobs that are available and ask yourself, “Why would I take this job in the first place?” Looking at the job market, you’ll probably discover another job opening that will pay more than minimum wage. The final thing to do is to investigate the pay-scale progression of the company that pays minimum wage. What you’ll find is that after 3 to 6 months of employment, the employee will receive a raise and will no longer be earning minimum wage.

So what does all of this tell you about the people to earn minimum wage? Well, it tells you that they are either working part-time, or they haven’t been working at their job for very long. So what will happen if the Federal minimum wage is raised? The initial starting pay for employees of companies who pay minimum wage will go up. That’s it. The few people who go to work for minimum wage will earn a little more for a few months. No one else’s pay will go up. There won’t be any benefit to anyone who has been working full-time for more than 6 months. In the end, the price of a burger at McDonalds or Burger King may go up a few pennies, but not much more will happen.

It’s hard for people to get by on a working class wage these days. There is no denying it, but raising the minimum wage isn’t going to change that.

Election Week

2006-11-06T18:46:00.000-08:00

Well election week is finally here. Depending on when you read this, you’re either getting ready to vote, have already voted, or didn’t bother to vote. At this point, if you’re planning to vote you probably know whom you’re going to vote for and how you’re going to vote on the issues. There’s nothing new that’s likely to sway you or changed your mind at this point. However, once you’ve exited the polling station and over the next couple days as the results are announced, it’s time to start taking a close, hard look at how you voted.

The first questions you should ask yourself are about the candidates themselves. Does the person I voted for really represent me? Does this person share the vast majority of my opinions? Would this person make the same decisions as me? Do I believe in the character of this person? Would I leave this person alone with my children or perhaps my wallet? If you can’t answer “yes” to all of these questions, there’s only three possible reasons: you voted for the wrong candidate, you voted against another candidate, or you didn’t know enough about the race or the candidates to answer all of those questions.

If you couldn’t answer all of the questions, then you should resolve to challenge yourself to become more informed before the next elections. Chances are most people will encounter candidates in small local races that they are unaware of. Often these people are even running uncontested. It’s hard to choose the right candidate if there are no options! Or maybe it’s easier that way!

If you can answer all of the questions, but they’re not all “yes”, then you voted for the wrong candidate for one reason or another. Regardless of whether or not you did it on purpose you voted for a person who does not represent you. A lot of people do this in every election. Many of you will vote for the Republican or the Democrat simply because you don’t like or don’t agree with the other party. Even worse, you’ll vote for one or the other party because you dislike something that the other party stands for, and like more of what your party of choice stands for. If any of this applies, then you are not voting for someone who represents you and that is something that deserves some thought.

The Democratic and Republican parties have been around for a long time and they have their own agenda. They have far reaching plans for future elections and they are in their own right large extensive organizations that deal with significant sums of money. The candidates they support are members of the organization working towards its goals and attempting to improve their own station within it. If a candidate wants to continue his or her support, they must subscribe to the party’s objectives and actively work toward reaching them. It’s no wonder that these people don’t represent you. They represent multi-billion dollar organizations that are trying to gain an edge on one another!

Ultimately, you need to ask yourself if you’re truly happy with how you voted. Are the people you helped elect or tried to elect, really the kind of people you want in office? The two-party system that we have today has taken the choice of proper representation away from a lot of people. Perhaps it’s time to start looking at some of those other parties. Maybe it’s time to start encouraging the independents. If there’s a candidate you believe in, maybe it’s time to start voting for them even if they can’t win.

Forget About the Issues, Vote for the Nice One

2006-11-02T22:50:00.000-08:00

I’m not sure what’s become of the issues in politics these days. It seems as though a candidate’s position on an issue is now taking a back seat to everything else. Commercials for the elected-officials-to-be don’t reveal a whole lot either. They’re mostly flowing praises for the candidate or insults hurled at the opposition. Where a candidate stands on something is anyone’s guess.

I often listen to an out-of-state radio station and I’ve been hearing a campaign advertisement lately about a race that I don’t know anything about. I still don’t know anything about this race in a neighboring state, but I thought the commercial was a great example of how ridiculous political campaigning has become. It goes something like this:

“If you listen to the radio regularly, you’ve probably heard all the horrible things candidate 2 has been saying about candidate 1.”

Actually, I hadn’t heard any such thing.

“Candidate 2 has called Candidate 1 a liar and said that candidate 1 will do or say anything to win election!”

Okay, so candidate 1 is a politician and politicians lie. Does anyone disagree with that?

“How could anyone vote for someone who would say such horrible things about their opposition?”

Wow! What could be worse than being called a liar? Oh, wait a sec, that’s really not so bad is it?

“It’s time we had a friend in office! It’s time for us to clean up that mess in Washington! Vote for candidate 1!”

Just exactly what mess are they talking about anyway? I’d really like to get some specifics. Apparently candidate 1’s platform consists of being nicer than candidate 2 and maybe being handy with a broom.

Fortunately I won’t have to make a decision in that race. Here in my state, the candidates are a lot more expressive regarding their positions on the issues. For example, I just got a flier in the mail from one of the candidates for State Senate. His top priority if elected will be to reduce our State’s dependence on foreign oil. That’s a good thing because I’m tired of having to drive across the state line to save 10¢ per gallon. We need to stop getting so much of our State’s oil from Texas. Oh, the prospective Senator also two sons along with a wife according to the flier.

So, do you know whom you are voting for this fall?

Date Added: 24-10-2006

Do They Really Want an Answer?

2006-11-02T22:49:00.001-08:00

Someone asked me the other day what I thought of the war in Iraq. People that ask questions like these already think they know the answer and they are expecting you to confirm their belief in the what the media has told them. So it’s really amusing to see them stand there with a dumbstruck look on their face when you tell them without hesitation that you’re in favor of it. Why wouldn’t anyone be in favor of it? It was the right thing to do when we started and it’s still the right thing to do.

Sure there’s some doubt as to whether or not we’ve done the best job of managing the war, but then you can cast doubt upon the way just about anything has been managed. Sure, the media likes to shout about the lack of WMD’s, but then it was really more about Saddam Hussein than his weapons anyway. I haven’t heard about any “Free Saddam” rallies lately and I don’t see a lot of high profile lawyers volunteering to work on his defense team either. I haven’t heard of a lot of people who are sorry to see Saddam out of office.

Invading Iraq was the right thing to do simply because it was in our best interests and it’s still in our best interests to be there. Saddam Hussein and Iraq were a destabilizing presence in the Middle East and events there had to be brought under our control. Now we need to stick around until a stable, pro-American government has a firm grip on the country. Anything less than that would be seen as giving up and that would only encourage terrorists and the fringe groups in their efforts to cause us harm. Maybe we’re sticking our nose into things and perhaps the rest of the world hates us for it, but who cares? I say that if it’s good for us, well then it’s good for us!

Of course the next thing the media teaches the liberals to scream is, “what about the troops? Our soldiers shouldn’t be over there away from their families!”

Now that argument is simply ridiculous. What do these people think the Army is for? This is what they get paid to do. It’s their job. It’s what they do. Do they think we should just pay them to sit around and do nothing? That’s welfare! If it weren’t for the war, we’d all be hearing about projected base closings and personnel reductions for the military. In other words there would just be more unemployment in this country. The war is a good thing.

Once all of the bewilderment has finally passed, the liberal questioner will most likely follow up with a sarcastic, “I suppose you think we she go to war with North Korea now too, don’t you?”

Well, of course I do. We’re long overdue on that one. However, I favor a slightly different course of action on the Korean peninsula. Instead of invading, I think widespread carpet-bombing is in order along with strong Naval warship support. The Air Force hasn’t gotten a whole lot of practice lately. The Army and Marines have been getting all the work

Date Added: 17-10-2006

Check My Facts Please

2006-11-02T22:49:00.000-08:00

What ever happened to proofreading, editing, and fact checking? They don’t seem to exist in any way, shape, or form in today’s media. These days, the mainstream media simply prints or announces whatever garbage their writers submit. I use the term “writers” very loosely when referring to those who report for the newspapers.

On any given day, you can skim through a half dozen articles from the AP and find grammatical errors, repeated sentences, and even spelling mistakes. Do AP writers computers not come with spellchecker? I really don’t understand. Half of the time you can’t even make sense of what the article is about. Didn’t these people have to write essays in High School? Don’t they even remember the basic structure of an essay? You know, the introductory paragraph, the body of the essay, which contains multiple paragraphs, and finally, the concluding paragraph. That’s pretty basic and simple. The simple choice is often the best choice.

Poor spelling and poor grammar prove to me that there are no more actual editors in the industry. After all, that much garbage couldn’t get out to the public if they still existed could they? The repeated sentences and words, which occur far more frequently than you would think possible, make it quite obvious that the writers themselves don’t even proofread their work. Didn’t they have any English classes in High School? Isn’t that the first thing they teach you about writing? Proofread what you wrote.

All of that is bad enough, but what really gets to me is the lack of fact checking. I can accept poor spelling and bad grammar. It just makes the author appear ridiculous or ignorant. What I can’t stand is misinformation and negligence. The media is often unwittingly feeding us garbage and we don’t even know about it. I know this to be true because of how often I discover incorrect information. How often do they tell me lies about things I don’t know about? They lead us to believe that we are learning things, but in reality we aren’t learning anything. Last week I was reading a local newspaper serving an area with a population of about 250,000 people. In the outdoors section there was a large color picture of a turtle sunning itself on a log in a body of water. It was a common Painted Turtle, which is perhaps the most prevalent type of water dwelling reptile in the Midwest. Painted Turtles can be found in just about every spot of water within 200 miles of the area this newspaper serves. The caption under the picture identified it as a Box Turtle. That’s when I threw the newspaper away.

They’re telling us lies and we don’t know it. We know they’re doing it, but we just don’t know when. Responsible, reliable, articulate journalism is long gone. Now we have to suffer through whatever garbage they want to print. We don’t have to like it, though.

Date Added: 26-09-2006

Fewer Shooting and More Bombing

2006-11-02T22:48:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you really have to wonder how people can make such bad decisions. The week before the start of the NFL season, San Diego linebacker Steve Foley was shot 3 times by an off-duty police officer that suspected him of driving under the influence. Apparently Foley’s vehicle was observed weaving in and out of traffic at high speed by the officer who proceeded to follow it and tried to get Foley to pull over. When Foley finally did pull over near his house, the officer shot him.

So why is an off-duty police officer trying to arrest someone? What was this guy thinking? In this day and age who is going to pull over for someone dressed in everyday clothes just because he claims to be a police officer? The officer should have called the vehicle license plate in and ended his involvement at that point. Real life isn’t a movie. Cops aren’t on duty 24 / 7 and this one had no more responsibility in the matter than you or I. Now he’s suspended and Foley is out of work for the year.

Today reports “leaked” out that the U.S. military passed up an opportunity to blow up more than 100 Taliban fighters because they were at a funeral and bombing a cemetery would violate the rules of engagement. It seems like there are all sorts of bad decisions being made here. The first error in judgment seems to be on the part of the Taliban mourners. Funeral or no funeral, congregating out in the open in such large numbers does not indicate a very high group intelligence if you ask me. Now that the photograph has been released and publicized you can bet they won’t be doing that again, which leads to the next poor decision. Who’s the moron who gave the picture to a journalist? What good could possibly come from that? Gee, let’s show the world that we can take pictures of the Taliban fighters any time they come out of their caves. That won’t cause them to change their tactics and become more difficult to exterminate will it?

The final poor decision was the decision by the military not to bomb the gathering. I understand wanting to be sensitive to those who are grieving for the loss of friends and comrades in arms, but these people are the enemy. They are not a military organization that follows the Geneva Convention. They are guerrilla fighters employing tactics that standard armies including our own are ill equipped to deal with. An opportunity like this one should never have been passed up. If our military was worried about bad press if they bombed the bad guys, then they could have just kept quiet about it. It’s simple, blow up the bad guys at the funeral and just don’t tell anyone. It’s kind of like the Army’s policy about homosexuals, don’t ask, and don’t tell. Don’t ask for permission to blow up the bad guys at a cemetery and don’t tell anyone they were at a funeral.

Everyone makes bad decisions from time to time, but when your job requires a significant degree of judgment, you should be able to manage a little common sense. Picking the Packers over the Bears last weekend was a bad decision. Having to shoot someone because you thought they should take your word for it when you claimed to be a police officer is grossly negligent. Letting a hundred terrorists walk back to their caves and continue plotting our demise is suicidal.

Date Added: 13-09-2006

What Were They Thinking?

2006-11-02T22:47:00.000-08:00

On the latest season of Survivor, CBS will divide the contestants up by race into four tribes. The tribes will be categorized as white, black, Hispanic, and Asian in what has been described by some as “Survivor: Race Wars”. Now what I would like to know is how on Earth did CBS decide that this could possibly be a good idea and have a positive outcome? What good could possibly come from purposely inciting racial conflicts on a reality TV show?

Oh sure, I understand the producers rational. They felt that they weren’t getting enough minority applicants for their show and felt that this would generate more interest among minorities. I also understand their position that they are not in fact promoting racial conflict, but are merely dividing (segregating?) the contestants in a new way. Unfortunately, neither of those arguments really applies to reality in what is supposed to be reality television. If there weren’t enough qualified minority applicants to begin with, where did they get the contestants for this show? Are they unqualified to compete on Survivor? Do they lack the skills and abilities necessary to survive? If so, has CBS set all the minority tribes up to lose? It doesn’t seem like that would be a positive thing to do. That would certainly open up a whole new can of worms. If the contestants are all qualified, then apparently there were plenty of minority candidates and Survivor could have chosen them at any time it wanted for any of the Survivor episodes. If they were only able to get the contestants because they knew that they’d be segregated, what does that say about the nature of those selected?

As for their position that it’s not about racial supremacy, but simple survival like all of the other shows, well it is of course true when you look strictly at the rules of the game. However, the way everyone including the contestants will see it is black versus white versus Hispanic versus Asian. There are four sides to the contest and it’s a battle to see which race will survive. When people discuss the show, they will refer to the contestants based on the color of their skin and they will identify the struggle in terms of race. Any team or individual achievements will be attributed to a race. Any failures will also be laid on a race of people regardless of their nature.

The show may or may not be a success in the ratings. The decision to divide the contestants by race will probably not spell the end of the show, nor will it doom CBS. Regardless of the final outcome, it will however serve to reinforce racial stereotypes and heighten racial tensions in one way or another. If the show ends up being a success, you have to wonder what they’ll do next. Will we see “Survivor: Jews versus Muslims”, or perhaps white supremacists versus black gang members, maybe criminals versus police? If the show is a commercial success, we will be bound to see a progression of more and more offensive and divisive follow-ups.

I am generally not in favor of ordinances, regulations, and censorship. Therefore I believe that CBS and the producers of Survivor have every right to conduct this show in any way they see fit. However, I do believe that everyone should exercise some level of social responsibility and a fair amount of common sense in both their personal and their professional lives. CBS and the producers of Survivor have failed in both regards.

Date Added: 29-08-2006

Overreaction

2006-11-02T22:46:00.001-08:00

It seems like our society overreacts to everything these days. We can’t just calmly evaluate a situation and take appropriate action anymore. No, we must immediately perform a knee-jerk worthy of an NFL kicker. It’s not just an American thing either. It’s all of western civilization. We’ve forgotten how to take rational action in response to accidents, issues, and threats.

This morning I heard a news report that British officials had broken up a suspected terrorist ring that was planning to blow up airplanes. Tied into that report was the report that we can no longer take toothpaste or hair gel on commercial airplanes. That was the point at which I turned the TV off in disgust. I’m not even sure if the ban was for U.S. planes or British planes, but it doesn’t really matter. I didn’t hear the rationality behind this new rule, but I can probably guess it: A terrorist could make explosive material look like toothpaste and hair gel. Then he’d be able to detonate it while he’s on the airplane. Okay, I get it. I’ve watched enough Hollywood movies to understand the threat. I know the terrorists are bound to have thoroughly studied McGyver footage too. There is a potential for a security breach there, but do we really want to live out our lives in fear of everything? Taking fingernail clippers away from little old ladies and making children throw their toothpaste in the trash isn’t going to make things safer.

There’s no new threat. Nothing has changed other than our approach to things. The terrorists are getting what they want: we’re becoming terrified of everything. If someone were determined enough to blow up a plane with explosives hidden in a toothpaste tube, then they will just find some other way if they can’t bring toothpaste. We’ve got to stop being terrified of possibilities and get on with things. Search suspicious looking people and arm the pilots. Don’t worry about hurting anyone’s feelings and don’t be concerned about racial profiling. Search all the people who appear to be of Middle Eastern descent and anyone acting nervously. Then, if you think that there is something wrong with their Colgate throw it out, but don’t make everyone quit brushing their teeth just because of possibilities.

In Chicago they’ve outlawed the possession of BB guns that look like real guns in another fine example of overreaction. The reasoning is that the replica guns look so much like real guns that they can scare people and cause the police to mistakenly shoot children who are playing with them. I’ve got a better solution: Teach children not to point BB guns at people. It seems like that would be the very first thing to do. BB guns can be dangerous and you shouldn’t be pointing them at anybody. It’s pretty simple. Just make parents responsible for raising their kids properly. If the children know not to point guns at people, then the police (and everyone else) can feel free to shoot anyone who points a gun at them.

We’ve become afraid that people will say that we didn’t do enough or that we could have foreseen this event and that event so we overreact and over-legislate everything. We need to realize that the world is not a safe place and there is nothing we can do to change that. We need to stop performing ridiculous acts in the name of public good. We need to start making sense instead of headlines.

Date Added: 11-08-2006

Nix the Six

2006-11-02T22:46:00.000-08:00

Last week the Democratic Party unveiled its campaign plan for this year’s election. There’s nothing like a little foresight and planning, but no one’s going to accuse the Democrats of looking too far into the future. One would think that they could have come up with a plan before now. There are only four months left until the November elections, you know. As for the plan itself, it goes something like this:

National Security
Jobs and Wages
Energy independence
Affordable healthcare
Retirement security
College access for all

Actually, that’s it. That’s the entire plan. There’s nothing more and there’s no explanation other than this is their campaign plan. It doesn’t seem like a whole lot to unveil this close to election time especially when I can’t even tell what it actually means. They don’t actually make any kind of statement about what they plan to do about any of these subjects. In fact they don’t even state what needs to be done. We, the voters are just left with the vague sense that something must be wrong and the Democratic Party plans to do something about it. Just don’t ask them what exactly they plan to do.

We can make a few assumptions about several of the six items. For example, we can be pretty sure that energy independence means not purchasing oil from foreign countries and that affordable healthcare means cheaper prices. Of course how those things will actually be accomplished is still a mystery. The rest of the items are a bit harder to decipher; just what exactly does the phrase “national security” really mean as a campaign plan? Do they want to increase it, decrease it, change it, or perhaps re-name it? We could just continue to assume, presume, and theorize, but that wouldn’t really tell us anything about what the Democrats are planning. It would only tell us what we think the issues at hand might be.

Ultimately, there are no details, no answers, and no real purpose behind the list other than make us think there might be answers. If there really were a workable plan, they would have told us already. Actually, if there were really a workable plan for any of these things, they would probably have already been implemented. The key word in all of this is “workable”. If the plan is not workable then it’s not much of a plan, and there’s nothing workable about the statement “retirement security”.

So what do we have in this plan that has been unveiled? Well, we’ve got a list of abstract thoughts with no substance or significance behind them. What we have is nothing more than a list of thoughts designed to make people think that the Democrats actually have a plan when in fact they have nothing new to share.

They’re going to have to work a little harder to get my vote. They could start by coming up with a plan.

Date Added: 31-07-2006

Vacation Time

2006-11-02T22:45:00.000-08:00

No sooner had I commended the Administration for charging a moderate fee to those people being transported out of Lebanon than they did an about face and decided to do it all for free. So every U.S. citizen living or visiting Beirut now gets a free ticket home to the United States. Well, I suppose that’s all well and good. After all, it’s not like I have to pay for it. Oh wait a minute; I guess I do have to pay for it, don’t I? You do too, huh? I guess it’s all right; maybe they’ll get jobs and pay taxes once they get settled in here. If not, they can always draw unemployment or welfare. It’s all a part of what you’re entitled to as an American citizen.

Speaking of what every citizen is entitled to, it seems that the government has set a new precedent. U.S. citizens are now entitled to a free trip home from overseas. This morning I did a little checking and I discovered that a one-way ticket from Cyprus to my local airport is worth about $1500. So it appears that I am entitled to a $1500 airline voucher from the government. That’s a pretty good deal, isn’t it?

Now I’m not too interested in international travel to war-torn countries at the moment so the Middle East and certain parts of the African continent are really out of the question. After careful consideration, I’ve decided that I would like to trade my one-way Cyprus to the U.S. ticket in for a round-trip ticket to Hawaii. Doing so would not only enable me to save money on travel expenses to reach my destination, but it would save the government quite a bit of money as well. A round trip ticket to Honolulu from my local airport is only about $900, so I’m saving the administration $600! I really doubt that they’ll find a better deal and most people wouldn’t even give them that big of a break. I’m also willing to sign a contract stating that if I am ever in a foreign country, I will provide for my own transportation home or failing that, I will reimburse the Federal government for its expenses to bring me home.

So there you have it. This crisis between Israel and Lebanon is going to work out well for everybody. It’s summertime, it’s vacation time, and I’m glad I didn’t have to waste my tickets on a one-way trip from Cyprus. If anybody knows whom to contact at the State Department about claiming my travel voucher, please let me know. Now about that two-night cruise to Cyprus…

Date Added: 23-07-2006

No Free Cruises

2006-11-02T22:43:00.000-08:00

The United States has sent a cruise ship to Lebanon in order to evacuate citizens who wish to leave the war torn country. The left-wing media is outraged! What they’re outraged at is that we have the audacity to charge the passengers for the trip. Just what exactly is the problem with that? It’s not like we sent these people to Beirut. They went there of their own volition and through their own efforts so why shouldn’t they pay a heavily discounted cruise fee? If they can afford to get there in the first place, they should be able to afford the tickets back. Besides, it’s not like anybody’s standing there at the dock demanding cash. All that’s required is that they sign an agreement to pay; and something tells me we’re not going to be garnishing anyone’s future wages over a few hundred dollars.

These aren’t poor, poverty-stricken refugees fleeing the ravaged countryside with nothing but the clothes on their back either. No, these are people who are in Beirut on vacation or have chosen to abandon the United States and take up residence abroad. As for the vacationers, maybe they’ll think about their vacation destination a little harder in the future. Let this serve as a lesson to them. As for those who have abandoned their country, perhaps we should charge them double. If they don’t want to live here, I certainly don’t want them back. If it were up to me, I sure wouldn’t be sending a ship to rescue them. They should be extremely grateful for any and all of the help they get regardless of the price.

No, I really don’t understand what the media is upset about. We can’t keep Israel from bombing Lebanon. We can’t stop Hezbollah from kidnapping Israeli soldiers, and nobody is in favor of us invading another country right now. So sending a cruise ship and charging passage seems like one of the best ideas anyone could have come up with at the moment. If the media wants to complain about something, perhaps they should check into just what purchasing a ticket on this ship entitles a passenger to. Do they get the all you can eat buffet all day long? Are drinks included in the fare? What about the ports of call? Are there opportunities to get off the ship and enjoy the local culture? How long is the trip and what are the general amenities on board the ship? Perhaps the media can find something to complain about in the answers to those questions, but there’s no reason to complain about the price.

Date Added: 18-07-2006

You Call That Research?

2006-11-02T22:42:00.001-08:00

Once upon a time it took a lot to be a science professor. Long, long ago scientists were hard working lab rats and theorists who made great discoveries and helped to advance human kind. They earned our respect, they deserved our admiration, and they were considered geniuses, once upon a time.

That really does sound like a fairy tale, doesn’t it? The days of Albert Einstein are long forgotten. NASA can’t keep the space shuttles flying and the most adventurous space explorers are simply trying to sell low-orbit flight tickets to the wealthy masses. Isaac Newton is just an answer on a history test and Marie Curie is just half an hour of a forgotten classroom lecture now.

Science has become big business and research has been taken over by mediocre people of very average intellect trying to push garbage to public in order to say they’ve been “published”. It’s “publish or perish” in the scientific world where quality and content no longer matter.

In one of the latest examples of how far Science has fallen, a group of researchers last week concluded that things burn better when it’s hot and dry. Dan Cayan, the director of the climate research division at Scripps Institution of Oceanography along with his co-authors published a report linking the increase in temperature and drought conditions over the past 20 years with an increase in the frequency and severity of wildfires. Wow, now that’s really a breakthrough! The drier things are, the better they’ll burn and the longer things stay dry, the more fires will break out. I’m simply overwhelmed by this incredible scientific discovery!

Seriously, there probably are some third graders out there that haven’t already made this connection so perhaps the paper is aimed at them. As for the research itself, which was essentially data collected from public records; well I wouldn’t expect better from anyone less than 11 years old. This paper was nothing more than a piece of garbage thrown together in order to gain publication, but it would certainly be worthy of a B+ in most eighth-grade classes. Unfortunately, you can’t have co-authors in eighth grade. You have to do your own work there.

Ultimately, it’s sad state of affairs that this is what passes for research these days. Of course it’s perhaps even sadder that the paper is actually being published at all. But then, what can you really expect when one of the many authors is the director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Tree ring research in the middle of the desert being funded by the taxpayers of Arizona is a topic for a different day.

Date Added: 09-07-2006

Farming For Publicity

2006-11-02T22:42:00.000-08:00

Actress Darryl Hannah was arrested in a walnut tree last week. She was evidently protesting the planned development of a 14-acre plot of land in Los Angeles. Local area residents have used the property in question as a garden for the past 10 to 15 years, but the property owner has decided to sell it. The thought of someone actually selling their own personal property so incensed the freeloaders who were gardening on the plot that the owner had to obtain a court order just to exercise his legal property rights.

Now I can’t really blame the local gardeners for being upset about the eviction, after all they’re getting to use someone else’s personal property and they don’t have to pay the property tax. However, this is not public property and the people who have been using it have absolutely no right to it. They have been using it by the good grace of the owner and nothing more. You can bet that most people wouldn’t have been as generous as he has been. The owner is perfectly within his rights to sell it, and those who are losing their gardens should be happy that they got to use it for as long as they did. The fact that this whole fiasco required legal action is appalling.

Personally, I think that a community garden is more appealing and attractive than a warehouse, a parking lot, or a 7-Eleven is, but my opinion doesn’t matter in a case like this. It’s private property and the owner can do what he wants with it. Private ownership of land is one of the things that are great about this country. Your opinion of what someone else should do with their property is worth about as much as a cup of sand in the desert.

So what does all of this have to do with Ms. Hannah anyway? Was she one of the local residents who were planting gardens on the property? No. Is she really in favor of putting an end to personal property rights in this country? Perhaps, but I doubt it. Her protest was nothing more than a publicity stunt. She doesn’t want Hollywood to forget about her. When was the last time Darryl Hannah had a lead role in a movie that anyone actually watched? The best way to be popular in Hollywood is to be seen as a champion of environmental or human rights and Hannah was able to hit the double whammy with this arrest! Hannah went after and received the publicity she needed. I didn’t hear anything about her trying to actually help the gardeners buy the land. They had the opportunity and were able to raise $10 million of the $16 million asking price. Don’t you think Hannah and her friends could come up with $6 million if they really cared? I didn’t hear Hannah invite all the local residents out to her Colorado ranch to continue gardening on her property either.

In the end it worked out for everybody. Darryl Hannah got her name in the paper and she’ll be at the top of everyone’s list in Hollywood again. The property owner finally gets to exercise his rights of ownership and the local residents get something too. The City of Los Angeles is giving them an 8-acre handout on the taxpayer’s dime! It’s a great day for everyone; except perhaps for the taxpayers in Los Angeles.

Date Added: 18-06-2006

What Are They Looking For?

2006-11-02T22:41:00.000-08:00

Do you ever wonder about the people who get abducted by aliens? I’m not talking about illegal Mexican farm workers. I’m talking about the type of aliens that fly around in UFO’s and presumably come from some other planet. What exactly are they looking for? They don’t seem to be abducting a very large cross-section of our culture. In fact, the abductions don’t seem to be happening in other countries either. So they can’t be doing any sort of cultural or biological study of humanity. They’re being way too selective for that. The aliens have to be looking for something very specific, because they seem to keep abducting the same types of people.

The vast majority of the people who are abducted by aliens are infrequently employed, lower income Caucasians living in rural areas or small towns. I’ve never heard of an African-American being abducted. I haven’t heard of any Hispanics, alien or otherwise, being abducted either. The abductions themselves seem to follow a general pattern as well.

A standard abduction scenario goes something like this: The subject is driving his or her pick-up truck down a deserted gravel road about 1:00 A.M. when all of a sudden there’s a bright light and the truck stops running. The subject is frozen in place and some supernatural force lifts them into the air and on into the spacecraft where they are poked and prodded for a while. The subject is then returned to their truck and hours or days have elapsed even though they have very little memory of the event.

Alternately, you can substitute the truck and gravel road with walking through the town park, or sitting at home watching television. One things for sure though, all the abductions happen in the middle of the night when the subjects are alone.

So what are the aliens looking for? Why do they keep abducting the same people over and over for years? Why aren’t the abducting businessmen and women? Why aren’t they abducting Hollywood actors and actresses? I think I’ve figured it out. The aliens are looking for beer.

Since they don’t have any money or I.D. they can’t buy the beer for themselves, so they have to find it some other way. They’re abducting people with beer! Just think about the circumstances surrounding the abductions. The people who’ve been abducted never mention that they’ve been drinking and they never say that their beer is missing when they are returned, but they don’t have to. They’re driving down a deserted gravel road in a pick-up truck in the middle of the night. To go a step further, it’s often a Friday or Saturday night. You know they’ve got beer. They’ve got a 12-pack in the cooler in the back of the truck or they’ve got a 6-pack sitting next to them in the cab. You know its true.

The aliens don’t want people; they want beer. They’ve figured out that poor white people driving alone in pick-up trucks on gravel roads in the middle of the night are probably going to have beer with them. That’s why they don’t abduct anyone else; they’re just playing the percentages. The odds of getting beer are just better than if they grab lawyers in Mercedes at 2:00 P.M. and there are too many witnesses if they show up at Sunday afternoon barbeques.

Date Added: 11-06-2006

Is it Getting Warm in Here, or is it Just Me?

2006-11-02T22:40:00.000-08:00

So what’s with all the fuss over global warming these days? It seems like it has become a major political issue of the past several years. The liberal politicians will tell you that it’s the greatest problem to ever face humanity and the conservatives tell you that it doesn’t even exist. Why has it even become such an issue?

The fact is that the general consensus among scientists is that the world has warmed a measurable amount in the past 100 years. That’s the basic, over-simplified bottom line. The world is warmer on average now than it was in the past. Most scientists who study the climate and climate changes will also tell you that it appears as though the world will continue to get generally warmer for the foreseeable future. A couple degrees on average in the next 100 years is even possible.

So why is there all this controversy? The data I’ve seen seems pretty solid. In fact it even seems to me that winter was longer and colder twenty years ago than it is now. Of course the scientists could be wrong, there’s always that possibility, but I don’t think that they are. So apparently the world is warming up. What’s the problem? Why are some politicians so adamant that it’s not happening? It’s probably because their counterparts are so certain that it’s a bad thing.

The liberal Politicians would have you believe that global warming is the worst catastrophe to ever face humanity. They would also have you believe that humans are the sole cause of it and that we must act immediately to stop it. They’re employing basic scare tactics, but what’s the point? I mean even if we could stop global warming, and the odds are that all we could possibly and practically do is slow down the inevitable, why would we want to? Think about it. Shorter winters, lower heating costs, longer growing seasons for farmers, and new lands open to agriculture and settlement.

Global warming is only bad if you live in Florida or along the Gulf Coast. For the rest of the country, it’s a bit of a blessing. Of course the skiing season might be a bit shorter, but we’ll adjust.

Even if we knew that Al Gore’s worst fears were absolute certainty, could we really do anything to stop it? We can’t control the whole world and there’s not likely to be a worldwide agreement on the subject. If we could shut down all of the factories in this country and park every vehicle would that even be enough to reverse global warming? I doubt it. Would you want to live without electricity and automobiles?

If the world really is warming up, we’re not going to be able to stop it. So maybe we should just focus on being prepared for it. Now might not be the time to buy that condo in Florida, but farms in Alaska may be the future.

Date Added: 01-06-2006