What Goes Around...

"What goes around comes around," is an aphorism off of the River River of Oklahoma. Since 1968 , ninety eight percent of Americans have lost spendable income to the top two percent.
Our spouses had to go to work to keep up and we have had to submit ourselves to the probing indignities, explotations, and whims of credit card company Banks. Forty years, and now the worm turns. Enjoy:

No Comment

Whatever Happen to "Self Contained"?

Cox Cable wants me to store my PC back up and photos and stuff outside my computer on a "memory" somewhere in India or Sri Lanka. Dell Computer is trying to send my PC back-up to Hong Kong. Kodak/Sony/etc want me to save my photos with them somewhere off shore. "Off Shore" sounds like a greasy rusted old oil tanker somewhere anchored on a reef full of old computer tape machines with my data on them.

Now comes "On Star". On Star was given to me "Free" for one year with my basic super cheap Chevy Pickup Truck. The locks on my truck push down to lock and pull up to unlock. My windows crank down with a handle. My heater or air condition have a nob that turns to get more or less. I have cloth seats, vinyl floor mats, and no thing that is extra. Except ON STAR!. (and XM/Sirius but that's another rant).

So I get this email from On Star on my PC that tells me that I have 400 miles on my three month old truck, my oil life is 87%, and my tire pressure on all of my four tires is low.

Holy Mother OF God and Madre Mater of Man! Mind you I can't tell if my basic ole truck has low tire pressure while I am in the truck (basic trucks don't have that display). I would have to get the air gauge left over from my 83 truck and get out and stick in on the tire pressure valve. OR go in to my PC and access the On Star Computer (located in Thailand?).

What ever happened to autonomy? Why are we(my truck) not self contained? Why is my data, photographs, emails, personal credit history, bank accounts, and truck tire pressure spread all over the damn world?

I have a in-law that speaks as though he could survive if all of the modern systems failed. Not quite a survivalist he does think of himself as self contained and self sufficient. I think we have passed a tipping point on that score. If you want to see what happens to "Self Made Men" when all those off shore/on shore etcetera systems stumble, just watch an hour of the Angst and Fear and Madness on CNBC any week day while the stock market s are open.

OK, I surrender. I'm going to drive down to the local 7-11 and air up all four of my tires and then drive back home to my PC and see if they now have the right amount of air in them. Of course if I had a Blackberry I could just look it up on that. Say if I push that little On Star button on the mirror would some little gal in Singapore tell me if I got my tire pressure right? Maybe I could get her on the "mirror" while I'm airing up my tires and turn the radio up real loud and when the pressure was just right she could holler at me from Bangladesh, "STOP".

Tire Pressure! We are screwed.

http://www.onstar.com/us_english/jsp/ovd/index.jsp

Governor Palin Slept Well Last Night!

Last night in the Republican response to the President's first speech to the joint Senate and House, Governor Bobby Jindal got his chance to crawl forward to the national level of leadership in the Republican Party. Rest assured Gov. Palin you have not been successfully challenged.

Let us take just one paragraph from the Jindal diatribe of ignorance. Just one paragraph annotated with facts.

"But Democratic leaders in Congress -- they rejected this approach. Instead of trusting us to make wise decisions with our own money, they passed the largest government spending bill in history, with a price tag of more than $1 trillion with interest. While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government, $8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a "magnetic levitation" line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, and $140 million for something called "volcano monitoring." Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C."

The bad things:

1."...includes $300 million to buy new cars for the government,..."

So why is it bad to stimulate the failing auto makers by buying their cars rather than giving them money? And these are touted to be "GREEN" cars, probably to run on Natural Gas that Boone Pickens recommends, thus they would help the cost of the auto makers to retool to sell such cars.

This is "LARD"?

See: http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2007-05-08-natural-gas-usat_N.htm

2."$8 billion for high-speed rail projects, such as a "magnetic levitation" line from Las Vegas to Disneyland, "

Wow, talk about bullshit by the bucket. First there is no maglev (magnetic levitation) money in the bill. It is money for high speed railroads. Not only does maglev not run on rails it is not a viable technology for the 500 mile test railroad that they want to build. Secondly there are 12 high speed rail corridors developed and under consideration for the project. Los Angeles to Las Vegas is only one of them. Oh yes and Disneyland in not in Los Angeles it is down in Orange County at Anaheim. My bet would be on the Boston to Washington corridor to be selected.

See:http://www.fra.dot.gov/us/content/203

3. "... $140 million for something called "volcano monitoring." Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C."

Dear God what a narrow minded ignorant dumb ass. That's like saying we waist or money on flood control studies. Not only have we had a volcano erupt in Alaska within this year and threaten international air traffic, does Bobby not remember Mt. Saint Helens? Does Bobby not know that 3 million Americans live under threat of a volcano eruption from Mt. Rainier in the Seattle/Tacoma area alone? Bobby want to be President of the U.S.A.. Does he want to be the President to let 200,000 tourist die because there was no warning that the Yellowstone volcanic cauldron was going to erupt?

See:http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/monitor/

Ignorant, just plain ignorant, just a talking point dumb ass. After this he will be lucky to be able to show his face even in Louisiana.

Sarah darling your leadership position is intact.

Why So Many Books

Went to the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Library Book Sale this week end. Perhaps 350,000 books there maybe more. No shit, that many. I know guys from Blue Stem Books in Lincoln, Nebraska who come to buy books at the sale. Some years I have seen Larry McMurtry there hauling off boxes and boxes of books. Used book dealers come, bibliophiles come, entrepreneurs looking for dollar text books that can be sold to university books stores for much more come. People consulting their Blackberries, scanning ISBN codes with a hand held scanner that flashed either a red NO or a Green Buy. Some were looking at typed list. Some were calling others to see if they wanted a book they had found. Shoulder to shoulder thousands of people, sweat, dust, book musk, and other odors. They leave with 50, 100, 200 books. A madhouse, yes a mad house.


Every year I learn something new at the book sale. This year after I had my fill and killed my quota, I settled in near the eight long folding tables with sign RELIGION over them. I watched. This area was one of the most visited of subject tables. But where other subject were, those books were leaving the tables and from the boxes under the tables by the dozens at a time. In Religion though they picked over them and they left most untouched carrying off just a few per person if any.
I bought the best seller from 1923 "The Man No One Knows" and a weird paperback about the life of Mary written by an Italian Nun who received the details of Mary's life in ecstatic revelations. But like the others I passed up most of the titles there. So I just watched. Most of the books on Religion stayed on the table.

Three days later at the end of the sale, when the prices go way down and they bring the left over collectors books into the general area and sell them cheap, I went back. After making my finds, I went back to the Religion tables and watched. About half of the books were gone. That's not all that good, because 80% of all the other books were gone, even the Readers Digest Condensed books. I perused the titles. They were 99% Christian oriented books. Of the ten I picked up none had a bibliography or footnotes.

It got me to thinking. What are these books anyway? Who are they for. Who are they by? Who buys them? Why are there so many here, donated to this book sale. Many of the titles were recent books, and on the third day of the sale they were still on the table.

Tonight as I thought about this, I decide to see just how many books like this there are available today. So I went to amazon.com and check out the volume. Here is what I found.

I typed in Religion:
843,877 titles came up.
These subcategories came up.
Religion & Spirituality (382,182)
Nonfiction (238,176)
History (108,078)
Children's Books (31,873)
Science (47,625)
Reference (45,667)
Teens (9,833)
Health, Mind & Body (57,501)
Parenting & Families (16,816)
Home & Garden (7,473)
Biographies & Memoirs (45,184)
Entertainment (26,239)
Literature & Fiction (103,318)
Arts & Photography (20,988)
Law (14,451)
Professional & Technical (74,617)
Medicine (17,922)
Business & Investing (35,413)
Outdoors & Nature (8,027)
Gay & Lesbian (6,149)
Computers & Internet (5,948)
Travel (13,636)
Sports (5,984)
Mystery & Thrillers (11,317)
Science Fiction & Fantasy (7,959)
Cooking, Food & Wine (2,553)
Comics & Graphic Novels (1,028)
Romance (5,267)

So I typed in Christian:
356,326 titles came up in these categories.
Arts & Photography (9,151)
Religion & Spirituality (193,077)
Nonfiction (91,425)
History (58,316)
Children's Books (14,107)
Entertainment (10,235)
Teens (3,706)
Literature & Fiction (39,155)
Biographies & Memoirs (21,352)
Science (17,326)
Health, Mind & Body (21,710)
Reference (18,433)
Professional & Technical (23,131)
Law (4,522)
Business & Investing (10,045)
Gay & Lesbian (3,005)
Outdoors & Nature (3,169)
Parenting & Families (6,852)
Travel (7,282)
Home & Garden (2,723)
Medicine (4,866)
Sports (1,784)
Science Fiction & Fantasy (2,087)
Mystery & Thrillers (2,656)
Computers & Internet (1,143)
Cooking, Food & Wine (883)
Romance (1,275)
Comics & Graphic Novels (260)

So I typed in Christian Bible.
I got 28,361 hits.
Bibles
Formats (2,571)
Greek (71)
New Testament (12,010)
Other (1,431)
Specific Types (5,770)
Translations (7,100)

Jesus got 345,963 titles, Christ got 373,433, Allah got 45,702, Moses got 182,013.

Of course if you type in History or Math or English you will get a couple million hits, uh not Math it seems only about 300,000 there.

The Erudite Redneck once asked on his blog what religious books should he read to give him some seminary sense. Well it kind of looks like he needs to read about 844 thousand books to get it all in, and of course that doesn't take into account all those books that will be written while he is reading the others.

So how does a Christian know which books he/she should read? Divine guidance is about all I can come up with, or apply for the job of librarian in Heaven.

The Unforgivable Debt

As of 2008 the cumulative student loan debt for Americans was $85,000,000,000.


College Student Loan Debt :
"A recent study by the National Center for Education Statistics (1) shows that about 50% of recent (undergraduate) college graduate have student loans, with an average student loan debt of $10,000. The average cost of college increases at twice the rate of inflation; the College Board (2) estimates that public school costs an average of about $13,000 a year and private schools costs $28,000. "


Graduate Students:
The average student loan debt of students attending:
– Public 4-year = $26,119
– Private 4-year = $29,000
Source: American Council on Education

"This debt-for-diploma system is strangling our young people right when they're starting out in life," says Tamara Draut, author of Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30- Somethings Can't Get Ahead. "It's creating a sense of futility that no matter what they do, they're not going to be able to get ahead. It's a sense of hopelessness."
source: USA Today

"The high level of student-loan debt is "on the brink of becoming an unacceptable social issue,"
"It's the single greatest problem facing this generation."

All of these statistics and statements were before the economic depression we are in.
Student loans can not be ignored, written off, or forgiven under bankruptcy.

Our higher education system has been greedy. I suspect that within the next five to ten years it will lose about 35% to 45% of its size and assets and almost all of its respect. Expect a back to basic degrees movement and a vast reduction in fees and tuition. We simply can't afford the luxury of a nonproductive American higher education system any longer.

God have mercy on the high school class of 2009.

America: A Nation Of Cowards or Just Ignorant?

Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday, ""Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards....we, as average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race."

"If we're going to ever make progress, we're going to have to have the guts, we have to have the determination, to be honest with each other. It also means we have to be able to accept criticism where that is justified," Holder told reporters after the speech.

The speech was to Justice Department employees which included the Office for Civil Rights the major arm of the Federal Government for the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws.

To say the least the radical right went ballistic.
----Once again the Left was calling our brave men and women in uniforms cowards.....
----Holder is a racist for his tolerance speech.....
----by most Americans of course he meant whitey....
----Holder. A racially motivated politician and citizen...
----Not worth the salt you'd toss to ward off bad luck....
----Holder is bemoaning the lack of mixed-race marriages, I suppose...
----Holder should stick to being the chief law-enforcement officer of the United States. If it isn’t a crime, he shouldn't’t concern himself with it.


Exactly!
Did you notice the part about the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) being in his domain?
The Clinton administration emasculated OCR.
The Bush administration turned it into quadriplegic bureaucracy.
The OCR hasn't done its job since 1990. The laws are on the books, no not"Affirmative Action", and have not been enforced. Don't think this speech was about have an inter-racial beer bust over the weekend. It wasn't. Nor was it about everybody doing bad stuff to blacks. It wasn't about whites needing to feel bad either.

It was about enforcing the law and understanding why it will be enforced.

He was putting the old black power structure on notice as well. Notice their reluctance to comment much about it?
They got it.

In my work over the past three plus decades I've had the damnedest education on separatism, neo-apartheid, racial hubris, and plain damn race stupidity. Nobody has clean hands in any of this. Self Righteousness is the rule of the day.

Holder won't be a perfect AG, but he does intend to be the AG for the people, and that will be one really big change.

So how am I wrong?
Come on, tell me about Race.

For Real, Channeling Lincoln a Bit Too Much?

Lincoln 1864

"Obama" 2009?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/18/new-york-post-chimp-carto_n_167841.html

Might it be a Federal criminal offense to suggest that the President was acting like a rampaging Chimp when he got the Stimulus Bill passed and had to be shot? This really does seem to be a direct advocacy of violence against the President because of the Stimulus Bill, whether in parody or not. Perhaps Rupert Murdock and the cartoonist should at least talk to Congress about this. What say you?

Who Watches the Watchmen? Coming March 6th to a Theater Near You

I have always wanted to be a Hero. Yep, sure have. Jet Jackson comes to mind. A Little before most peoples time I guess. Gene Autry, Johnny Mac Brown, Lash La Rue, they would be in line as Hero's too.

So when I started reading an illustrated novel that my son gave me for Christmas I was intrigued when one of the masked hero's confided his childhood wishes about wanting to be a hero too.

The book was "Watchman" because the blue guy in the picture about used to make watches.

OK, maybe not because of that. Written the mid 1980's the novel has an alternate history where we won the Vietnam war , but we are about to blow ourselfselves up in a war with the Soviets.

Nixon is still President and he is carrying around a device shaped like a football handcuffed to his wrist. We are at DEFCON 2. So the book of course is about a serial killer murdering masked heroes.

It seems that the 23 year old graphic novel has now made it to the big screen. The Movie Watchmen.

Take your pick from the videos : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZCLmckLxKM

Sex, good looking women, extradimensional monsters, local monster, Vietnam War, Henry K. , it's got it all.

See this guy he is the one who thought this up, uh, yes.

Yes there is a "cult" of Watchmen fans and followers, so this should be a big deal in comiconland.

I do recommend the book.

Lincoln, Tolerant of His Tools

Today is the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln.
There are all sorts of things that will be brought up about Lincoln today:
His racism, His evolution into a President, His greatness, His weakness, His foolishness, etc.

And of course he will be compared with Obama, or rather Obama will be compared to him.

People in America simply can't figure out what the heck Obama is doing with this non-partisan thing, nor why he won't attack the old Bush administration, some on the right are beginning to see him as weak. He is black after all and their old ways are hard to control.

But what we need to remember is that he has studied the master manipulator of the country's entire history, Abraham Lincoln. Many of Lincoln's contemporaries thought Lincoln was a weak, not very bright, fool. They treated him as such, as well.

Lincoln's Cabinet of equals had a lot of contempt for the man.
The commander of all of the Union Armies General McClellan, as a prime example, called Lincoln a fool in public many times.

"McClellan's arrogance exceeded his manners. Count Adam Gurowski recorded an entry in November 1861: "Officers of McClellan's staff tell that Mr. Lincoln almost daily comes into McClellan's library, and sits there rather unnoticed. On several occasions McClellan let the President wait in the room, together with other common mortals." Julia Taft recalled an occasion when President Lincoln, his son Willie and Julia's brother Bud had been at McClellan's headquarters waiting for the general. When McClellan arrived, an orderly said: "The President is in the parlor waiting for you, general." Instead of entering the parlor, McClellan marched upstairs, took off his boots and laid down on his bed. After waiting for McClellan to come back downstairs, the President announced, "Come, boys, let us go home."

http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/inside.asp?ID=123&subjectID=4
Primary sources: Adam Gurowski, Diary of Adam Gurowski, p. 123, and Julia Taft Bayne, Tad Lincoln's Father, p. 87-88

Asked about McClellan's arrogance and snubs Lincoln said, "We fight with the tools we have."

The current Republican leadership and the party's fellow travelers best read about their own honoured Republican President. Lincoln would do anything to save the Union. Obama has taken him as his mentor.

Steroids: What Did George W. Know and When Did He Know It?

I am not a sports guy.
I don't pay attention to such things actually.
So if even I recognize that the ball players at the center of a bunch of these steroid use stories came out of the Texas Ranger baseball team, then why isn't this a subject of interest.



According to what I read on the inter-net, "In April 1989, a time believed to be the onset of steroid use in baseball, Bush bought the Texas Rangers and served as managing general partner for five years. He actively led the team’s projects and by the time he sold his shares in the Rangers in 1998 he was able to turn a profit of $15 million from his initial $800,000 investment. Clearly he had benefited from the success of the now flourishing game in what was then deemed the juiced-ball area. What we later came to find out was it wasn’t the ball that was juiced."

picture and quote from :http://highbridnation.com/2009/02/10/why-george-w-bush-is-responsible-for-steroids-in-baseball/

OK, now here is the question. What did George W. Bush know about steroid use on his team and when did he know it? Seems a fair question. I mean if a guy can authorized torture of prisoners, why couldn't he have juiced up his players to make the team more valuable. Wouldn't "Baseball" like to understand this period of its history?

Bye, Bye, N3794N

I was was fourteen. I was attending junior high school at little town in SW Oklahoma called Tipton. At lunch in the Cafeteria some of the girls were huddle together at a table crying.

Buddy Holly had died.

My first question was Buddy who?

OK, so I was a farm boy that lived w-a-y out in the boondocks.

So I only knew indirectly who Holly and Valens were but I did know and like the Big Bopper's songs. Rather one song, Chantilly lace.

Chantilly lace and a pretty face

And a pony tail hanging down

That wiggle in the walk and giggle in the talk

Lord makes world go 'round

Her name was Patsy and she fit the bill, so that was the song you see that ...well.. that's why I knew it.

But by the end of the day and going home on the school bus I got a full education about who Buddy Holly was and why I was such an ignorant dolt. Of course I had heard his songs, mainly on TV.

Now as for Ritchie Valens. La Bamba was playing all over the place then as well.

The next week Patsy had a "fan magazine" with pictures of the trio and of the plane crash.

I was appropriately sorrowed in her presence.

That was 50 years ago this week. I've kept my truck radio tuned to KOMA-FM all week in honor of the landmark date. I have had Clear Lake, Iowa on my agenda for a destination for years, but never stopped there. Clear Lake is where they piled up the plane in a frozen corn field.

In this last 50 years all of these people, their songs, their stories, and everything around them has become almost mythical. There was a railroad underpass between Snyder and Frederick Oklahoma for example that had in bold black letters BUDDY HOLLY LIVES! It was painted over by the highway department several times over the years, but it was soon repainted the same as before BUDDY HOLLY LIVES! Due to a highway realignment the underpass is way out in a field now. But I'll bet that Holly graffiti is still painted on it.

Don McLean started his song American Pie with the death of Buddy holly and the Bopper, and Valens. Legend has become that the plane that they died in was named the American Pie. That would nice, creates a really good symmetry. But actually it wasn't. It was named, or rather numbered, N3794N. But dang that song is good. Although most of the lyrics are probable not about Holly and the guys I like to think they are.

A long, long time ago...I can still remember

How that music used to make me smile.

And I knew if I had my chance

That I could make those people dance

And, maybe, they'd be happy for a while.

But february made me shiver

With every paper I'd deliver.

Bad news on the doorstep;

I couldn't take one more step.

I can't remember if I cried

When I read about his widowed bride,

But something touched me deep inside

The day the music died.

So bye-bye, miss american pie.

Drove my chevy to the levee,

But the levee was dry.

And them good old boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye

Singin', "this'll be the day that I die."

"this will be the day that I die."

Thank You Buddy Holly for getting this stuff started.

Thanks a bunch.

Senate Republicans: Screw Higher Education

Anti-intellectualism seems to be the order of the day among both Senate and House Republicans. It seems that shovel ready work , or work study, or research jobs, or even adding teachers at Higher Education Institutions are not worthy stimulus activities. Academicians are simply not important to the Republican legislators, perhaps because they point out too often that their ideologies are a fallacy of false premises. So just cut them out, they don't matter.

The Stimulus and Higher Education as seen in the House and Senate Bills today.

(Funds supposedly over and above normal Federal budget expenditures)

Aid for Students

Pell Grants:
House: $15.6 billion to increase maximum grant by $500 and eliminate shortfall
Senate: $13.9 billion to increase maximum grant and close shortfall
(there are more people eligible under Federal rules for the grants than the Feds have funded for several years)

College Work Study
House: $490 million
Senate: Not included
(these are not jobs?)

Perkins Loans
House: Not included
Senate: $61 million for capital contributions
(to banks again?)

Loan Limits
House: Increase limit on unsubsidized loans by $2,000
Senate: Not included

Higher Education Tax Credit
House: Temporarily replace Hope tax credit with $2,500 credit available for four years of college. Credit phases out for individuals with income of $80,000, $160,000 for couples. Credit is 40 percent refundable. Cost: $13.7 billion over 10 years
Senate: Temporarily replace Hope tax credit with $2,500 credit available for four years of college. Credit phases out for individuals with income of $80,000, $160,000 for couples. Credit is 30 percent refundable. Cost: $12.9 billion over 10 years

529 savings plans
House: Not included
Senate: Allow computers to count as qualified expenses under 529 savings plans

Education Aid for States
House: $39 billion for school districts and public colleges, distributed through existing formulas
Senate: $26.7 billion for school districts and public colleges, distributed through existing formulas

House: $25 billion to states for “high priority” needs, “which may include education”
Senate: $9.5 billion to states for “high priority” needs, “which may include education”

Infrastructure

House: College/School Facilities (through Education Department)
$6 billion for “higher education modernization, renovation, repair"; $1.5 billion for grants and loans to colleges, schools, and local governments for energy efficiency
Senate: None (eliminated $3.5 billion to improve technology infrastructure of higher education facilities)

National Institute of Standards and Technology
House: $300 million to construct research buildings at colleges
Senate: Not included

Agricultural Research Service
House: $209 million for facilities
Senate: N/A

Computer centers (at public libraries and community colleges)
House: Not included
Senate: $200 million

Energy Department
House: Not included
Senate: $330 million for laboratory infrastructure

Scientific Research

National Science Foundation
House: $2 billion for research grants, $900 million for equipment and facilities, and $100 million for science education
Senate: $1 billion for research grants (was $1.2 billion), $150 million for infrastructure, $50 million for education

NASA
House: $600 million for climate change and other research
Senate: $450 million for science, specifically earth science missions

National Institutes of Health
House: $1.5 billion for biomedical research, $2 billion for facilities renovation and capacity building
Senate: $100 million (?) for biomedical research (was originally $2.7 billion); $300 million for shared equipment

Energy Department
House: $2 billion for energy efficiency research; $2 billion for basic physical science research
Senate: $100 million for advanced computer R&D

Homeland Security
House: Not included
Senate: $14 million for cybersecurity research

National Institute of Standards and Technology
House: Not included
Senate: $168 million for external grants (was $218 million)

Job Training
House: $4 billion
Senate: $3.4 billion

Preparing health care workers
House: $600 million for training primary care doctors, dentists and nurses
Senate: Not included

Student Aid Administration
House: $50 million to help Education Department administer student aid in changing student loan environment
Senate: Not included
(Hire back all those people needed to make things work who were laid off by Bush)

Help for Lenders
House: $10 million for larger subsidies for lenders
Senate: Not included
(this would be more money directly to Banks)

Arts
House: $50 million for National Endowment for the Arts
Senate: Not included
(I guess them artist don't need jobs)

Source: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/02/07/stimulus

You see if you wanted the stimulus money spent fast, I know for a fact that higher education institutions can spend money faster than damn near any other sector in America.

America's in the ICU and Being Attended by Dr. No

Dear Senator Dr. Tom Coburn,

Honorable Sir:
Is it possible that you don't know that America is in the ICU?

How many of your patients have you counseled to refuse 40% of the ICU care because it would put their children in debt? None and never I would guess.

Who cares how much ICU cost when they are in there?



So when American is failing fast and we don't quite know why or what's happening, we are putting her in the ICU and attempting to keep her vitals up until we can find and directly treat the underlying problem.

You would never put together a deliberative committee to meet next week to decide whether to put a patient in the ICU. Why are we treating America any different?



The only reason I can come to, is that you don't believe America is that sick.

Can we have a second opinion?



You, your Republican Party, your ideology, won't mean nothing, if America dies or comes out of this feeble.

Toyota Tumbles, America is in the ICU, Screw the Kum Ba Ya

Mr President, cut out this nice guy shit!

What gives with the dumb shits on Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
Wall Street is into science fiction.
Penn Ave. is into ideological suicide.
Jobs are disappearing like sand bars in a hurricane.
The Big Three American car companies can't sell a free car.
The Stock Market has found its "Bottom" every day since October but it still continues to fall.
The Republicans are saying if we are going down, then the whole country is going with us.
The Democrats in their true split personality are playing "these are our marbles" and "can't we all get along" at the same time.
The Department of Agriculture wants to kill milk cows in Wisconsin so milk cost more in Watts.
We have Senators who can't understand that artist need work as much as plumbers.
Oh yes, Joe the Plumber is advising Congress.
Rush Limbaugh is contesting for control of the Whigs with Sarah Palin.
20 to 60 million Americans are about to lose access to their TV programs in a week.
Housing mortgages are two years from their bottom, so credit can't come back till after that.
Cute little girls and ugly old men on the Financial Cable Channels argue with Noble Prize winning Economist and are blowing more gas through their ass than is under Saudi Arabia.

Americans are losing their homes, jobs, food, and self respect.
So what is so surprising that Populism is making a come back?

Now, today, the number one car company in the world takes a tumble and most of our leaders can't stop playing business as usual. It is over, you dumb shits. Time for triage and first aid. Save what can be saved. What is so hard about that?

Mr. President, stop trying to fix Washington, save us. President Obama, please screw them all! Screw the Republicans. Screw the pseudo Democratic leadership. Screw the banks. We have five to ten more years of this.

It is time for ruthlessness.

Double the number of prosecutors at Justice and open barbed wire camps for the white collar and government thieves, and spend spend spend until the vital signs stabilize. Then and only then worry about the cost of keeping America in the ICU until it could live on its own.

It is time for ruthlessness. That is why we elected you.

Should We Send Missionaries

Years and years ago I was intrigued by Carl Sagan's Cosmos series and with the possible number of inhabited planets. Now with a better idea of how many planets can be around a star a better postulate of how many inhabited planets there might be has been formed.

BBC

Number of alien worlds quantified

Intelligent civilisations are out there and there could be thousands of them, according to an Edinburgh scientist.
The discovery of more than 330 planets outside our solar system in recent years has helped refine the number of life forms that are likely to exist.
The current research estimates that there are at least 361 intelligent civilisations in our Galaxy and possibly as many as 38,000.
The work is reported in the International Journal of Astrobiology.

Read about it at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7870562.stm

Elsewhere on the web I keep having conversations about whether or not the historical Jesus is the only way to "Salvation". Throughout Earth's history every-time a new portion of the globe was discovered the pro-Jesus groups sent missionaries to win the native populations there-in to Jesus and to the religion they had founded on his teachings and their Faith in his Godhood. Now I'm asking shall we send missionaries to these planets in the same way? Is there a religious imperative to press forward to find them and find ways to get to them? Or, do we think that each planet would have it own Jesus? So maybe there should be a religious imperative not to go there and intervene in God's ordained events in their history.

Is Jesus by any other name on any other planet in any other time, still Jesus?
A silly question? Maybe not. Still, what do you think?

Global Warming Is a Democrat Lie or Beware of Kudzu in Alaska

Humans are ready stupid animals.
We have spent three to four hundred years screwing up the climate and now many of us actually think it is an elitist plot or political ploy.

What a sorry state of affairs. So because Al Gore adopted it as his project we will turn a blind eye and wait til it is too late to effectively do anything about it?

As a Geographer I can guarantee we and our children will pay for this stupidity big time. Al Gore is a piker when it comes to telling what might happen.

Here is a very moderate list of what will occur in the near future from National Geographic Magazine: I say moderate in that they are trying not to be alarmist.

What's Going to Happen?

A follow-up report by the IPCC released in April 2007 warned that global warming could lead to large-scale food and water shortages and have catastrophic effects on wildlife.
• Sea level could rise between 7 and 23 inches (18 to 59 centimeters) by century's end, the IPCC's February 2007 report projects. Rises of just 4 inches (10 centimeters) could flood many South Seas islands and swamp large parts of Southeast Asia (Bangladesh for example).

• Some hundred million people live within 3 feet (1 meter) of mean sea level, and much of the world's population is concentrated in vulnerable coastal cities. In the U.S., Louisiana and Florida are especially at risk. (I'm going to laugh my ass off when large chunks of Antarctica float off of land and into the sea and New Orleans goes under.)

• Glaciers around the world could melt, causing sea levels to rise while creating water shortages in regions dependent on runoff for fresh water.

• Strong hurricanes, droughts, heat waves, wildfires, and other natural disasters may become commonplace in many parts of the world. The growth of deserts may also cause food shortages in many places. (think Chad and Dar-fur)

• More than a million species face extinction from disappearing habitat, changing ecosystems, and acidifying oceans.

• The ocean's circulation system, known as the ocean conveyor belt, could be permanently altered, causing a mini-ice age in Western Europe and other rapid changes. ( Now this one is the really scary one. If I lived in North Africa I would expect some European immigrants real soon.)

• At some point in the future, warming could become uncontrollable by creating a so-called positive feedback effect. Rising temperatures could release additional greenhouse gases by unlocking methane in permafrost and undersea deposits, freeing carbon trapped in sea ice, and causing increased evaporation of water. (It is most probable that methane release from the shallow shelves of the Arctic Ocean and melting permafrost will get us first).

Source: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/12/1206_041206_global_warming_2.html

My advice is to forget the end of the century shit. Think 10-20-30-40 years instead. For you survivalist in audience, forget it, nowhere will be safe.

Have fun!

My Old Chevy Truck R.I.P.

It is an ill wind....
So as General Motors came to the end of the year, they were giving really big rebates on their old 2008 models. I found one that had been on the lot for 14 months. Ye Ole Basic Truck, roll up windows, manual locks, rubber mats, vinyl seats, and nothing not basic. Well, except that it had XM/SIRUS Satellite Radio and OnStar (you wonder why GMC was going broke). Of course their free trial period will run out soon and then I will have a useless satellite radio and a disconnected OnStar.



Mine old truck was the same make and size as my new truck. It however was a 1983 model that had 220,000 miles on it. When it came time to change over to my new truck it was a sad day. The transmission was dead and the brakes gone on my 83 and so I ended up just giving it away to a friend who was trying to rebuild an 82 model of the same truck. I drove her (very carefully) one last time to my buddy's house and left her there.




One thing about an old truck is that you can stick all sorts of stuff on it and not feel guilty.



Another advantage is that the vagengiest is too tired to give you much trouble when you get a new truck. Oh, yes and you can put all sorts of bobble heads on the dashboard.




Stickers are good too.

And the wife doesn't care how messy it is because she is never going to ride in it anyway.

But a new truck, see the red thing on the other side of the cab, a new truck, she says, doesn't need the bobble heads, or the stickers, or the Indian blanket to sit on, or the milk carton case to hold the brake fluid and oil. A new truck, well she might even drive it, says she.

Great.