ache's and pains

For some reason my right knee has started hurting.  Its actually below the knee in the medial colletral ligaments.  Logic states it is due to my biking to and from work.

More in depth I am not fond of travelling to and fro.  I would rather be there, I am the  person patiently waiting for teleportation.  

So here is the breakdown.  I want to include about 450 calories burned a day doing exercise.  This is about and hours worth of walking at a brisk pace.  My house is just under a mile away and it takes me approx. 13 minutes to traverse one direction.  If I jog parts I can cut three minutes off that time and get to my destination faster.

I  know in the back of my mind that I could run the whole thing and make it there in under six minutes.  Of course this desire to get there pushes me to go that much faster and probably why my knee hurts now and why my foot got injured.  

Leave it to me to be impatient about getting someplace.

Connor's School

We found out Connor was student of the month at his elementry school.  Tina and I both got the time available to be at the school assembly.   When his name was called, he looked suprised and headed up with the other kids.  A very 'normal' moment for him.  When he got to the area with the other recognized kids, they congradulated him by name gently touching him on his arm or shoulder.  There was genuine affection, it was touching.

We stuggled keeping him in a classroom setting.  Trying to convince academic minded people that socalizing for Connor is more important.   I want his peers to know who Connor is, what he is like, and how he works.  These kids are going to be the ones around him as he grows older.  Assuming our plans to stay here in Roseburg hold.

AC story I recalled.

The first massive online game I got involved in was Asherons Call.  It was truely an immersive environment. While I enjoy the World of Warcraft, AC holds  a special place in my heart.

I was reminded of a funny story involving my blog link mate, Shoo, though it needs a little background info first...

The fantastic world of Dereth was populated with three races, Aluvians, Gharu'ndim, and Sho.  As a player you choose one of the three human races to being your epic.

There were many different skills and pretty much everyone used magic.  The items or gear aquired would greatly enhance you gameplay.  One of the sources for the better gear was chests deep inside dangerous dungeions. 

It was not unusual for an adventurer to fight his way down to the deepest recesses of some dark tomb and wait for the chest to re-appear over and over again, waiting for that one item that would make a difference.

Anyways, Shoo was a member of the same guild I was, The Silver Citadel.  We had a website and forums to ask and bestow interesting bits of knowledge upon.  One day Shoo posted a query: "Who has the better chest, Aluvians, Gharu'ndim, or Sho?"

As we had a number of actual female players the answer came back much different then intended.  One posted that Sho women have fine supple chests, not like the disproportionate Aluvians. and so on.

I could only imagine Shoo's confused face for that microsecond prior to the understanding grin.

Obama Helping loose 16,000 jobs a day!

Since the Obama Stimulus bill we have lost 16,000 jobs a day!  Does anyone have any confidence left  in this administration?

source GOP.gov

Exercising diminishing returns.

So person A walks distance C five days a week.  They walk at a brisk pace and burn approx. 500 calories.

Person B starts riding a bike distance D five days a week.  He rides at a decent pace and burns approx. 500 calories.

Person A has developed a certain amount of muscle mass to allow this activity.  

Person B is going to experience muscle change, glycogen stores will increase,  the muscle will respond to the additional work load being called upon.

At some point you get an equilibrium, the muscles are going to maintain instead of build.  So my question is this, do you burn less calories as your muscles become more efficent?  

If you are exercising, in part, to eliminate excess fat from your system, by creating a calorie deficit, are you becomming counter productive?

When I walk to and from work, I keep a steady pace.  There are two hills that I climb on the way home. One that I climb over to work.  I figure these about 70 foot.  Getting to the top became easier at a brisk pace over time.  I was at a point were the only way to increase my speed was to jog.  On a bike, I have considerable more options to increase the speed.  The gears alone increase the load on my legs or decrease.  My mindset is to such that I want to get to work and home in the shortest time possible.  So on a bike I continually try to push myself to be a litte faster, keep in a higher gear etc.

Weighty Questions

Someone recently inquired in regards to how much better I feel having lost some weight (I tipped the scales at 285, currently I am 220ish).  My recent loss of 40 pounds should have some positive effects right?

Do I feel any different?  Not really...

Do I have more energy?  Not that I have noticed, seems about the same.

Am I sleeping better?  Maybe, my wife says my snoring has stopped.  Then again, I have never needed oodles of sleep.  As it is, I still wake up around 5:00 AM and lay around until I either sleep or 6:15 rolls around.  

What have I noticed?  At the upper ends of weight sitting in a chair and tie my shoes would require me holding my breath as I tied.  My belt appears to be getting longer.  My pants are more likely to creep downwards.  I was able to get up and over Douglas hill on my bike after two days .vs. the week it took last time. 

When I look in the mirror I do not notice any change either.  In fairness this is a smaller rectangle mirror that is to my left side in the bathroom.  I generally do not look at any other reflections.  My blood work was good, per my doctor.  

I was expecting Doc Rose, to comment on my weight loss (245 down to 228).  He was reading and asking me some questions about my current state.  I decided to point out the loss.  He corrected that my weight was written as 240.  A trip back to the scale told the tale.  All my blood work is great and even my insulin intolerance (read Type II diabetes) is trending downwards.  Good BP and pulse as well.

My next goal is to get in the 2 hundred 'teens'.   After that it is to drop down to the 190's

I have been doing the royal court of exercised (three body weight).  I wish I could be more diligent but I cannot seem to do it that way.  So it has been hit and miss.  Due to an injury on the arch of my right foot I have gone from walking to biking to work.  So I had to modify my route to try to keep the same calorie burn.

Currently I am averaging around 1450 calories a day. According to my RMR that puts me at a 6000 calorie per week deficit.   This is week four of a ten weeks (Ends July 18th).

I guess I should be feeling "better"  maybe there are more positives I would be noticing however things like our country going down the toilet under the current administration, no jobs, massive government growth and spending is kinda stressful.

Memorial Day, formerly Decoration Day.

"Freedom is Never more than one generation away from extinction.  We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream.  It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."  -- President Ronald Reagan.

One political tid bit here.

"And I can make a firm pledge: under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase - not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes." -- B. Obama

FAIL!

Being told what to do.

Universal Truth #4557:  People do not like being told what to do.  

There are negative terms for this, badgering, harping, demanding etc. Which further confirms the above truth.  There is a relationship between Age, Relationship, Knowledge and Tone that varies the response to being told what to do.

Example: 

The "teller" is young and the relationship to the "tasked" is a child.  

The "tasked" person is older and relationship to the "teller" is parent.

The level of knowledge of the "teller" is "average child"

Level of knowledge of the "tasked" is "adult insightful"

The tone of the "being told" is harsh.

The actual demand is: "I want ice cream now!"

The resulting action has a wide range.  None of which is a gracious dallop of icecream for the "teller".  In fact this may trigger some form of retribution.

At the other side:

The teller is a skilled rescue worker, the tasked is an injured person who is aware of the given situation and recognises the teller for what he\she is.

In this situation there is NO chance of resistance from the tasked. Who may be grateful to have someone telling them what to do.  They would still not be happy that they are now in this position.

Comedy

I married one of the best audience members that a comic could ever hope for.  Tina appreciates a funny joke or story.  Add to that her laugh is health and fun to hear, one of those kinds of laughs you cannot help but smile or laugh along yourself.

I myself enjoy humor, irony, sarcasm, schadenfreude and anecdote's with the best of them. I am more likely to smile at these then laugh.  On rare occasions when I find myself laughing really hard, people who know me are shocked at the sight.  My mother and father-in-law once came downstairs to see who was making that sound.

When it comes to humor I find myself at odds with obscene use of language.  The use of the colorful metaphor can shut down the humor centers of my brain, this is not always the case though.

For instance Robin Williams, when he is on stage and spews the stuff out I see it taking from the performance.  Kevin Smith it enhances his stories.  The clean comics, Seinfeld, Foxworthy and Jim Gaffigan can bring tears of laughter and still be family viewing.    Bringing a 10 year old to a Dane Cook show, would probably get a parent squirming.

It is a gift to have a wide range of appeal.

It takes 40 pounds.

With the strong butt kick from Jack K. I embarked on loosing weight.

I am around 40 pounds down from were I started a good 10 weeks ago.  Today, for the first time someone at my place of work actually commented I had lost weight.  

My thinking is either I just carried the 40 pounds well, or the day to day loss was not enough to notice, or most people do not give a rats ass about their fellow worker. 

At any rate, it was very nice to have someone who I spend 40 hours a week around actually could tell I was smaller.

Now to get rid of the credit cards, or stop being a good customer.

Music Video WoW (explained!)

This Machinima  was created by Cranius and Legs.  They are notable for creativity in the genre. Taking the limited motions, doing creative 'camera' work along with visuals that impress and actually coincide with the lyrics takes time, talent and patient.  The song kicks as well...

The story, such as it is: Boy and a Girl drawn together by circumstance find their seperate worlds comming between them.   Yup, think Romeo and Juliette.  Our Romeo (the Blood Elf guy, Crainius) is into Player .vs. Player.  While our Juliette (the Troll Girl, sung by Summergale), likes Player .vs. Environment.

As with any genre specific song there are a few WoW gamer terms tossed in: 

I ain't got no epics    Epics are pieces of armor that enhance your abilities
I ain't got no achievements 'cause I ain't first rate   Achievements are in game awards
I can't even clear Naxxramas  Naxxaramas is one of the lower level quest areas of the new Lich King expansion
But you know Ima be your favorite group mate
Invite me girl

Baby it's alright, now
You don't have to PUG around me  PUG is slang for Pick Up Group, where a random group forms
Everything's farmed, Maly, Naxx and Sarth 3D Farm is to get all the good stuff by going someplace over and over.
The raids are boring, I don't wanna PvP Player .vs. Player
Wipe the raid 'til we get it right  Large groups 25 to 40 are called Raids.  The funnest parts of the game require raids.

Nothin' left to do, let's do something new
So come meet me at Ulduar  Ulduar is the highest level Raid dungeon in game.
Nothin' left to do, waitin' in the queue  The queue is a virtual line for the PVP battle grounds.  Special in game games.
But I don't want any Ulduar
I don't need achievements or buffs please  Buffs are enhancements to skills that other players can bestow
I'm so ready now for Ulduar
Nothin' left to do, we need something new
'Cause I want ...

I ain't got no titles
I ain't got no fancy-schmancy epic mount  Epic mounts are in game transportation like Motorbikes, elephants. 
We can't go nowhere heroic  Heroic is a setting you can use to make quest dungeons much harder
It don't matter 'cause there is really nothin' left
Where we goin' girl?

Baby it's alright, now
You don't have to pug 'round me
Everything's farmed, Maly, Naxx and Sarth 3D
The raids are boring, I don't wanna PvP
Wipe the raid 'til we get it right

Nothin' left to do, let's do something new
So come meet me at Ulduar
Nothin' left to do, waitin' in the queue
But I don't want any Ulduar
I don't need achievements or buffs please
I'm so ready now for Ulduar
Nothin' left to do, we need something new
Cause I want (to go to/no part of) Ulduar

Summergale
I don't got heroic raids
I do alliance raids  Alliance raids is were a group of PVP go into the other sides city and take out the leaders.
Listen Summergale,
Hop on my mechano-hog, and we'll never log
So listen Summergale
Once you PvP with me
We're gonna pwn, you see
So listen Summergale
When you're gankin' you won't go back,  Ganking is the time honor tradition of taking out an opponent by ambush.
You won't go back, yeah 

more then you wanted to know right?  

Magical Glowing Box

I was saddened at the eminent cancellation of Chuck and Dollhouse.  These are two shows of a dwinding list I find consistently entertaining.  

Dollhouse is the weaker of the two, but this is Joss Wheadon.  I am glad he is getting the chance that they never gave FireFly.  The series did start out slow, but built up considerably over the season.  There were creative differences with Joss and the suits, which made for rewrites and a confusing direction.  The last two episodes really made a solid storyline that I am hoping to see go forward.

Chuck had a wonderful season finale.  The last few shows really change a lot of dynamics. Timming would be perfect to Jettison the elements that were becomming drab and avoid the "Not this again"

Both budgets were cut to ensure a next season.  This could be a good thing, if you have read The Trouble with Tribbles, by David Gerrold.  You get a really good feel for what writers go through.  With the belt tightening on sets  and extra's ands stunts, you have to focus on the writing and dialog.  Both of these shows excel in this.

(Burn Notice starts up in June!)

A backwards poet writes inverse.

So there is this guy at work.  He likes to talk about other peoples bad choices and how they ignore his sage advice, which if followed, would result in a much better world.

It is amusing because of his own inability to follow advice he agrees he should follow.  Having been on both sides of the advice business, I realize that situations often do not conform to advice.  Someone touting what you should and why you should, does not have the entire complexity of an issue in view.

There is this strong desire in us to resolve issues, this is particularly true with men.  

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. [1855 H. G. Bohn Hand-Book of Proverbs 514]

On going fixing of the abuse

My Planet now hugs me with a mere 225 pounds of force.  This is due to my eating less and exercising more.

Exercize is problematic.  It is something I require of myself, yet finding the motivation to crank out 50 Hindu pushups and Squats daunts me.

So far doing them throught the day in smaller sets, has worked somewhat.  I am not happy with the progression.

In the past I have found my preferred method was doing something that obliquely exercised.  Such as playing roller hockey.

The rink is now used for basketball by the Boys and Girls club with the boards half removed.  Most of the players have moved on to other places.

Aside from building an ice rink, I am pretty sure getting another hockey venue together would complicate things much more then I want, need or require.  

So I am considering bicycling and rollerblading.  I have a nice mountain bike that is in need of some basic maintenance.  We have some pretty nice stretches of road that I could tour as well.

Roller Blading is something I would need to look into more.  I would need to invest in a pair of skates, as my hockey skates are NOT designed for any kind of long distance skating, add to that the asphalt needs bigger wheels then my frames will allow. 

Running is something I can do with minimum of equipment. However, I am looking out for my knees.  

So what is your exercise methodology?

Stupid people

I fall on the optimistic side that a majority of people are intelligent, reasonable,  well meaning and helpful.  Further these people believe in freedom, low or no taxes, self defence, national pride, personal responsibility, morality and dignity.

Every so often you will run into someone who has become so narrow in their viewpoint that any ambiguity brings out their animus.  Such hateful venom gets spewed out that your average person feels they may have some responsibility for said reaction.

The fact is your dealing with someone lacking in intellectual faculties, you would be best served by backing away and hoping they do not break whatever tether keeps them from you.  A true Pandora's box.  Adding to the frustration is the information super highway, that allows pervasiveness that makes avoidance all but impossible.

As I believe that life is about choices, and living with your decisions.  You have to also consider that the mental minority will blame you(or someone) for their druthers.   I am left with the sad conclusion that you can only ignore stupid people and hope they "go away"

Punitive Benifits

So due to a cut in the budget, we were all informed that our hours are going to be cut for the next fiscal year.  Not sure how we are going to weather that.  Belts are pretty tight now.  I will be looking for other employment opportunities.  The fact where we live is at 20% unemployment and the current administration seems to be doing everything in its power to raise that number is not helping.

Now I find out I am going to be dinged even more.  When you work full time for the County you must have health insurance.  I actually fought this, as I have full coverage under my wives job.  There is no way to opt out of coverage, so I picked up the plan that took zero out of my pay.

It is a low tier coverage with a high deductible.  With my hours reduced I will now be charged for this coverage.  Until the next enrollment period in November.  It seems like I am being forced to take health insurance that I do not want, need nor require.  

Our HR department is working on something and the ask for time.  But, the clock is ticking.

My mind is trying to figure out what other alternatives I have.  One is to put in my two weeks notice then get rehired as part time, so I can opt out of the insurance.  Of course then I loose my accrued vacation and sick leave.  While I would be able to cash out of vacation time, I prefer to actually have the days.  I can live with that though.

Or I could ask payroll to stop deducting the payment to the insurance company from my paycheck and thereby be cancelled.  Which could carry some kind of negative forward.  

Add to that the fact the School District is in a bind and they may be cutting positions, including my wife's.  More and more it is looking like a great time to win the lottery.  Wheee.

Mothers day meal time

In Eugene Oregon there is a restaurant called The Oregon Electric Station.  Inside you have train cars converted into dinning rooms.  It has a great atmosphere and Connor enjoyed looking out the window at the other customers... *ahem* and saying train related things to them...

Tina had been here a couple of times, she had attempted to go the previous weekend but it was closed.  Being mothers day and being in Eugene I made reservations to dine.  

I had always wanted to go there and it seemed like a good fit. The interior was fine the waitress was prompt, but not in a great mood apparently.  Still she was professional.  The starters arrived in good time and tasted good.  The bread was fresh and hot and delicious as well (even if they were hot due to the microwave).  The salad was bagged greens with some rather dried out cucumber.  However the blue-cheese dressing was excellent, almost a stark contrast.

Then came the main meal, I had vegetable ravioli.  I am not sure if it was good or not, it had been smothered in a red sauce that was not lacking in garlic.  The people from Gilroy CA would complain about the amount.  It totally overpowered the ravioli, which is a shame, as they looked like they could have been delicious with a more lighter treatment.   Diana had the Alfredo which was a very bland sauce with overcooked noodles.  I suspect the sauce was not made fresh.

My dessert was exceptional though, I got an apple pie, it was just the right amount of sweet and the apples a smack of tart.  Diana got a cheese cake, which tasted like it had been dried out in the fridge a day too long.  Tina had a frozen mocha cake that was equal to my apple pie.

Lots of lazy cooking for a "fine dining" restaurant with that high of prices.  I probably will not be back.

Enough for now

I was looking at my postings from the start of this blog.  I like them more then the last years.  With being unemployed and getting into a presidential race, I feel I have strayed too much into the political spectrum.

Obama has an extreme liberal agenda.  Without any opposition he is going to get it all passed.  The USA is going to go through a lot of hard times, for the next two years.  The Media is now an Obama Propaganda machine.

If your a liberal (progressive) you are, no doubt, thrilled by all the deficit spending and huge government programs.  The high unemployment is just dandy and the projections that it is going to get worse makes you giddy beyond belief!  This is what you wanted! This is Change you can believe in!

I for one am going to set my soap box in the corner and focus my blog thoughts on other things. Important things.

California .vs. Obama Depression.

California has the economy of a country.  They are facing some major hurdles, namely a 21.3 billion dollar shortfall.  Long ago their Spectorish Republican Governor gave up fighting the spending.

Now it is in the hands (and wallets) of the people.  If the people do not bend over and take the budget related ballot measures then something draconian will have to be done.

Two budgets are supposed to hit on the 14th, one if the people say yes, another if they say no.

The Obama Depression machine has already done more to redistribute money and loose wealth with no sign of stopping this year.  I am personally wondering if this is not his goal?  

So in its dire straights with a huge pork stimulus bill, what would Obama do to help out California?  Why threaten to pull stimulus if his beloved unions are cut. Ouch!  What was it Clinton said?  Oh yeah, Illinois thug tactics.

During this Obama economic depression all the companies are downsizing to survive, they are also afraid of what the government might decide to do to them.  Central control is a scary thing.  Oh one sector is hiring, the government, they are adding more and more positions as they print more and more money to pay for these "needed" services.  Think about this, every government job has to be paid for with public taxed funds.  That means anyone who DOESNT work for the government pays for those who DO.

Again, let your congressmen know that spending more money then you have is a bad idea.  

OMG Obama, Stop the Maddness!

A quick googling shows that family insurance coverage costs, on average, $10,728.  

Someone explain how this makes any sense to anyone other then or government?

"$59 billion in changes to the tax code that would help pay for the cost of efforts to cover the more than 40 million Americans without health insurance, including a substantial tightening of estate and gift tax rules.

Other new revenue raisers would affect life insurance products, limit certain accounting methods, and bar the paper industry from reaping a tax credit for a recycled fuel known as "black liquor."

Budget documents released Monday reiterate President Barack Obama's plans to create a $630 billion "health reform reserve fund" to help pay for the health-care efforts, which are expected to cost at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years. Tax provisions in the plan should cover $325.6 billion of the reserve fund, with the rest coming from savings to the federal government's health-related costs."

$59 billion to cover 40 million Americans... 

Obama buying crap with our money.

The Air Force estimated the photo shoot cost taxpayers $328,835. Yes, I know that all the presidents have spent good money on bad stuff. How many scared the holy crap out of NYC while spending it though?


And for what? I mean seriously look at this picture. I'm no Ansel adams but its a poor composition.


Freedom Eden discribed it as: "it looks like the plane is about to drop a bomb on it (The Statue of Liberty). If the plane is viewed as a symbol of the presidency and the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of our freedoms, it makes the president seem like an oppressor, a powerful force intimidating and assaulting liberty. "


So here I am sitting in a county with 20% unemployment. The US lost another 500,000 jobs this month.


However we did get a fairly bad picture of Air Force One. Even though we have plenty. All for the wages of four familes for a year.


um... yeah...

Back to "cuts" not being cuts?

President Obama today released a list of 121 proposed program terminations and reductions at a savings of $17 billion.  This is a good thing, a nice first step towards some fiscal responsibility at the fed level.  

A couple of problems: Every Dollar we "save" is going into new spending. Congress already said yes to $1,086 billion on regular discretionary spending in FY 2010.  even if the entire $12.5 billion in discretionary spending cuts are enacted, the savings would automatically be plowed into other programs to maintain discretionary spending at that level. So its just moving money around and touting that as "savings".

Add to that the fact that $17 billion is 1/2 of 1% of the total FY 2010 budget. It is pretty much equal to the interest paid on the $787 Pork laden stimulus bill.

If Obama was serious about streamlining he would mandate that savings go towards Deficit reduction.  Next keep going through and cutting.  Unless of course  1/2 of 1% is the sum total of wasted government spending... (I don't think it is)

The next time someone spouts off that Obama "Inherited" the economy, kindly remind them that is Bullshit.  He RAN for president, so he had a choice.

Specter ripping Jefferods about moving to Democratic party

Irony abounds!

Gotta love pop-culture Easter Eggs

WoW is pervasive.  We have seen references on various Television shows and some fun commercials etc.

In German with Smudo Schurke Thomas D. Sprinter

Mr. T talking smack to the director.

Southpark featured an entire episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft" (It won an Emmy)

The TV show Leverage had a Warcraft "For the Horde!" sequence.

It was the "question" on Jeopardy.

Willy Toledo is a Paladin (spanish)

Jean Claude Van Damme plays a mage (It's either French or Dutch)

And one of the best Truck Commercials ever! 

Even How I Met your Mother.

The latest is a reference in the Wolverine game.  You see the Lich Kings sword, Frostmorne and an NPC quest giver (with !) laying on the ground!

Finally, my all time favorite William Shatners Shaman!

So Whats YOUR game?

weighting loss

I actually have an irrational fear.  I have a fear of starving.  Not just starving but having hunger pangs, eating something, it being enough calorie wise but still being hungry.  I never really knew this until I got serious about my weight and health. 

When your counting calories you get to a point where your done for the day.  If you hit that and still feel hungry it really sux.  The way around this is eating high bulk low calorie foods.  You can eat a lot of carrots for the same calories as a brownie (still the brownie will be more decadent fun to eat).

Baby Seals

Seals aren't endangered; they're a menace to fish stocks--Daniel Hannan

This blindsided me, made me realize that I bought into a media hart tugging fantasy that really makes no sense.  Then again, should that matter?

Paraphrased text Follows: What is it about baby seals? Why do they excite our sympathy in a way that seagulls or scorpions or slugs do not? After all, they're hardly an endangered species: on the contrary, there are many millions of them, and they are extremely efficient hooverers up of fish. Canadian seals chomp their way through 1.5 million tons of cod every year. They have played a cameo role in the collapse of the Labrador and Newfoundland trawling industry. So what makes us go all gooey about them?

The answer is obvious. They are mammals. They are anthropomorphic. Their faces have deceptively human characteristics: they seem soulful, innocent, child-like. Evolutionary biologists would explain that the desire to protect babies is so deep in our DNA that it predisposes us to empathy with other species which happen to have baby-like features, such as big eyes, small noses, or a cute way of toddling trustingly towards waiting clubs.

In other words, our objection to Canadian seal-clubbing is aesthetic rather than ethical. I am not talking here to those vegans who object evenly to the slaughter of all animals: their position is consistent. I am addressing those who call for bans on seal products while happily tucking into eggs or veal produced in conditions of unimaginable horror (yes, unimaginable: try holding in your mind the image of a battery farm the next time the yolk spills across your spoon).

Then again, since when did emotion invalidate the democratic process? People have just as much right to object to something on irrational as on rational grounds. To take a recent example, the campaign to admit former Gurkha soldiers to Britain, in plain defiance of what they had clearly understood when they joined up, was not strictly logical. But it represented a sincere and generous national instinct and that, in a democracy, should be the trump argument.

So with the cute baby seals. Who am I to say that the voters are wrong? In a democracy, the voters are never wrong. They may be inconsistent, sentimental, mercurial; but not wrong. If I were to say: "People are being sappy about seals", I would be in the same category as those (politicians) who say "People are being emotional when they vote against the (topic here), and we who understand their true interests should therefore disregard their stated views".  As John Milton argued, when superior authorities make such decisions on an individual's behalf, they rob him of the capacity for virtue. 

Government Budgets

Working at a County Library and seeing first hands the wheels of Government at work is a fascinating study of cogs with no concept of the machine.

To start with, no one knows the required operational cash for a year.  That is to say the Library has no budget for being run.  Instead whatever the budget handed down is your bottom line.  Also, monies are very specific.  You can buy books, books and books and yet you cannot pay someone to catalog the books, or source purchasing the books.  So a library can have millions of dollars waiting for someone to buy books and be unable to pay its utility bill.

And this is a microcosm's for the Federal way of doing things as well. 

Under My Bus!

Truely funny political humor!  GO ZO!

Welcome Back [GM] Dave!

[GM] Dave was linked on my blog for quite some time.  Then he stopped creating new posts.  Time passed and I forgot about him.  Well, the other day I remembered and googled him and guess what!  He has been back for some time.

In the world of massivly online gaming, if you need help you call for a Game Master (GM).  Dave works as a GM for Final Fantasy online MMORPG.  He dosen't like people. This, of course, means that he had to take a job in customer service. 

Witness his awesomeness:

[GM]Dave>> He couldn't just be better than you?

Player>> He went to every point I went to.

[GM]Dave>> Okay, funny question...

[GM]Dave>> Wouldn't that mean you're a bot?

Player>> Of course not.

Player>> Would a bot make a GM call?

[GM]Dave>> Well, those botting programs can be really sophisticated.

Player>> I'm not a bot!

[GM]Dave>> I assume that's what they'd program a bot to say.

[GM]Dave>> Who'd make a bot that says "I'm totally a bot"? That would be stupid.

Player>> THIS IS RIDICULOUS!

[GM]Dave>> Calm down, calm down. You'll blow a chip or something.

Player>> I'M NOT A BOT!

[GM]Dave>> Do not worry.

[GM]Dave>> We have a simple test to determine if you are a bot.

Player>> Thank God! For a second there, I thought you were going...

*warp*

Area: Mordion Gaol.

Player>> Oh no...

Jormungand hits Player for 16,709 points of damage.

Player was defeated by Jormungand.

[GM]Dave>> Good news.

[GM]Dave>> He says you're too squishy to be a bot.

----------------------------

Note Jormungand is a big nasty evil Dragon. GM teleported the hapless player (bot?) 

Stuck in my head

It happens to all of us at one time or another.  That one song and your grey matter will NOT let go.

Sometimes its just you humming, or it rumbles in the background.  Other times it echo's and threatens your sanity.  Hearing the song will sometimes help.  Singing the song usually helps.

Some are not too bad others are nightmarish.  XTC's "The Mayor of Simpleton" rocked my cortex the other day.  Worse was the replaying of ABBA's "Mama Mia" a while ago.  The Toy Dolls "Nellie the Elephant" worked its way from Temporal to Frontal lobe.  The Cures "Friday I'm in love" has made an apperance as well.

The worse one ever was Blondies "One way or another" which took a week to drive out of my skull.

(Links provided for attempted Occiptial reconciliation).  

Anyone care to share?

100 days of this!

Looks like WaPo has something:

He is spending more then anyone has ever. Plans on spending even more.  And its not his money...

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has pwnd him. Fidel Castro, just called him superficial. 

Originally he said, "We can't keep looking to the past. We've got to look to the future here. So I don't think it would serve any purpose to prosecute or investigate former administration officials on these interrogations the CIA did." All of a sudden he changes his mind! 

Obama doesn't know what he's doing, he has no clue what's going on in his own administration. Janet Napolitano said the 9/11 hijackers actually got into our country through Canada. The National Post in Canada has a piece asking how did this woman get her job? She says it's not a crime to illegally enter the country, she is in charge of Homeland Security! 

If Eric Holder or Conyers does investigations of former Bush administration officials, It will be about destroying and criminalizing policy circumstances with which you disagree. Nancy Pelosi signed off on all of this in 2002. When they were explained waterboarding and all this, nobody in Congress objected. So if Holder proceeds, he's going to have to send out subpoenas not just to the executive branch, he's going to have to send out subpoenas to the lawyers, the White House counsel and anybody else who had anything to do with this!

 Nobody's going to go work for the executive branch ever again.

During a photo-op with King Abdullah, he says, "I'm going to let Holder go ahead and do what he wants to do. If he wants to investigate these people in the Bush administration, fine.” (paraphrased) 

The White House press office was just blindsided by this. The director of communications in the White House, she quit. She resigned the White House! 

It's embarrassing incompetence and inexperience. 

Admiral Blair admitting the CIA received high value, lifesaving information from terrorists, while President Obama is condemning the same interrogations as immoral and counterproductive. 

President Obama is throwing grand White House parties with Kobe beef, a hundred bucks a pound, while telling the nation to cut back in order to survive the greatest economic downturn supposedly since the Great Depression.

Bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia!

Listening patiently and respectfully while Daniel Ortega talks for 50 minutes about the “criminal country” he leads, Obama does not stand up for his country at one point during the Summit of the Americas. 

He has run around the world and apologized for the greatest, most compassionate, most innovative and freedom-loving country in the world.

Then we have the nominations of five tax cheats to his cabinet, including the man who oversees the IRS. 
We have Obama's press spokesman, who makes a complete idiot of himself daily. 

He sends back a symbol of freedom, that bust of Sir Winston Churchill to Great Britain just after moving into the White House. 

He insulted the prime minister of England, the queen of England, with embarrassing, thoughtless gifts. 

We have the French president Sarkozy ridiculing Obama's messianic complex, inviting him to walk on water at Normandy beach. 

We have Iran taking a hostage, an American journalist, as Obama promises better relations. 

We have North Korea humiliating Obama with their missile launch. 

We have Obama putting the country in debt for generations to come while promising fiscal responsibility, offering up laughable budget cuts, 

Banning lobbyists from his administration, while appointing them left and right. 

Lying that Caterpillar would hire more with the stimulus bill, then watching while that company lay’s off thousands after the bill passes. 

He pledges to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. But then he keeps it open with no plan for its future. 
Proclaiming total transparency, while keeping secret who got the TARP funds, when, where, why. 

He is incapable of communicating without a teleprompter. 

He attacks a private citizen broadcaster from the White House. 

He makes a ham-handed attempt to nationalize the banks preventing financial institutions from paying back TARP money they don't need or want. 

He has made bad situations worse with car manufacturers, and the worst is yet to come. 

He has sparked hundreds of protests involving hundreds of thousands of Americans at tea parties regarding irresponsible government spending.

His Homeland Security chief labels peacefully demonstrating Americans and veterans as security risks. 
Moved the census over to the Commerce department to politicize that.

This was orignally my Rant on the Wizars blog.

UK Political humor.

The year is 1945 Clemente Attlee is prime minister. One day he is relieving himself in the restroom at the House of Commons. The door swings open; it’s the leader of the opposition, Sir Winston Churchill.   Churchill spy’s the Prime Minister at the urinal and he strides purposefully to the furthest end.  “Feeling a bit stand-offish today are we, Winston?”  Asked Attlee.

“No” said Churchill majestically unbuttoning his fly. “But, whenever you see anything big, Clemente, you nationalize it.”

Notation: PM Attlee was Labour (Progressive party).  Churchill was, of course Tory (Conservative)

The story thus far

I have been working on loosing mass for some time now.  Recently an old childhood friend helped with a battle plan that I could really wrap my head around.

so thats were I am at currently.  I have a ways to go, but I am doing okay so far!

I guess you have to play wow to get this...

This is dedicated to Boans:

Druid to mage: Rez me please.

Mage: Crap it failed, wait a few seconds and I'll try again.
Druid: Okay
<1>
Druid: Fail again? Want me to run back?
Mage: No...no. I'll get it. It just that my heals aren't very good at healing people.

Dat's spicy!

I enjoy hotter foods.  That is to say spicy hot foods.  If it makes your forehead sweat and lips burn, that is good stuff!  I was blessed with a family of culinary wimps, so I have to doctor up my own dishes, which is fine.

Of the five of us, I have the highest... er... tolerance;  second in line would be daughter Diana, with a two way tie between Trevor and Tina.

As I have been carefully watching my caloric intake, I try to get a lot of flavor in my dishes.  So vinegars, dried chili's, hot sauces, BBQ sauces, Salsa etc. are added to the veggies in liberal amounts.  I have come to find that many of the products labeled "Hot" do not live up to the hype.

This could be regional...  Last August while in California we stopped at a Taco Bell.  I grabbed the Fire Sauce Packet and noticed it actually had some lingering burn!  The same packet we get in Oregon cannot do much in that regaurd, unless you let the content of four packets sit in your mouth for a couple of minutes.

Trampoleaning

With Summer, the tramp-o-lene Connor was gifted from a group of family friends is getting more use.

This means we each take turns jumping around with Connor who can almost do a front flip...

Jumping is quite a bit of physical activity and you quickly find your heart rate going up along with your breathing.  Having recently dropped some weight makes it much easier on my knee's.  Yet, they still let me know how unhappy they are with jumping.

Still if you get enough height going and land in a small enough package you can impact on the ground below.  This not only is a rude thing for the Earth to do, your innards will let you know how little they liked the impact for the next day or so.

Obama's massive budget cut in Pictures.

Happy Birthday Tina!

It's my BFF\wifes birthday today.  Her blog is linked over on the right as 'Tina'. 

I got her a gift cert. for a massage.   

How to make your bank profitable

First of all, get rid of that silly notion that you need to generate more revenue.  Comon, that is Old fashion Free Market kind of stupidity that has never worked in the last 300 years.  Right???

If your Goldman Sachs, you change your reporting calendar, effectively erasing the impact of a $1.5 billion loss in December.

Or like Bank of America sell your shares in China Construction Bank to book a big one-time profit! you could also book a $2.2 billion gain by increasing the value of Merrill Lynch assets higher than Merrill kept them.

Ugh...

Some day, some year in June

I really will have to head out to Minnisota.  

Should we learn from history?

We have found that President FDR maintained the great Depression by a good seven years with his administrations policy until World War II got us back on track.

What about other countries and recession?  This is from Historian Paul Johnson:

"In 1931 the prospective national deficit was a mere £170 million, less than is now spent on freebies for New Labour parliamentarians. But in those careful days it was regarded as catastrophic. Urgent action was required, and it was taken. Snowden, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the National Government, raised income tax to five shillings in the pound (about half what it is now). Even more shocking, everyone in the state sector, from cabinet ministers to the unemployed, had to take a cut of from 10 to 20 per cent. The only exception was the police, who took a cut of only 5 per cent. This was because Samuel, the home secretary, told the House it would be that figure, then said he had to 'honour my mistake'. In fact it may have been deliberate, to keep the police loyal to the regime. All those affected (including the teachers who were cut by 15 per cent) accepted the cuts loyally. The one exception was the judges. They claimed the reduction was an attack on judicial independence, and unlawful as contrary to the Act of Settlement. As judges they were among the highest-paid people on the state pay roll, £5,000 a year, and therefore cut by 20 per cent, £1,000 a year. This still left them with 20 times the average wage. But they whined and howled and threatened. Lord Sankey, the Lord Chancellor, wrote a memo to the Prime Minister (15 January 1932, reproduced in Heuston's Lives of the Lord Chancellors, 1885-1940, pp.513-15), saying they were in a 'mutinous mood'. The controversy subsided into a morass of incomprehensible legal argument, leaving the country with the impression that judges were the most selfish group of people in the country."

Out spending the cuts and engaging the enemy.

“The administration’s new talk of trimming a meager .0025 percent from the $4 trillion federal budget just doesn’t square with its reckless record on borrowing and spending,”  “Washington Democrats have spent the past three months doling out more taxpayer dollars than every previous president combined, and the administration is clearly feeling the heat.”  --House Minority Leader John Boehner.

“More money has gone to Rep. John Murtha’s pet airport in Pennsylvania than the federal government will save over the next 90 days under President Obama,” --Eric Cantor

Thus Republicans point out the lack of spending control and propagandising of a trivial cut.  As we all know the Republican party knows all about lack of fiscal control.  Let's hope this is the start of actual commitment, for when they win back the Senate in 2010

Still in all, 100 million trimmed is $ 100 million.  If this is the start of going line by line, great!

Also, Obama meeting with all these Anti-American "leaders."  Most of these guys make me feel sick.  The approach President Obama is using makes me uncomfortable.  Yet, there is value in talking .vs. not talking. 

Like the Heritage Foundation, as it continues to put a Latin American team in place, the Administration needs to concentrate on four basic challenges

1. Exercise Caution on Cuba. President Obama must now give his new policy time to work and discourage Congress from seeking to unilaterally lift restrictions on U.S. tourism and end the embargo. He should continue to press for reform, drawing high-level attention to Cuba's human rights situation and emphasizing the need for a democratic transition on the island.
   
   
2. Keep Mexico on the Front Burner. Mexico is by far the most pressing regional challenge, one that requires the steady application of the Oval Office's influence. The Administration needs to focus on the delivery of promised anti-drug assistance. It can help by using the President to deliver a powerful message against drug abuse in the U.S. as a first step toward demand reduction.
   
   
3. Complete Free Trade Deals. The Administration should avoid shadowy rhetoric about "partnerships" and "a new era in the hemisphere" and seal the deal by working with Congress to deliver approval of free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama.
   
   
4. Tough Love for Chávez, Morales, and Ortega. Latin America's populist-authoritarian left says it wants good relations and its own "restart button." The Obama Administration must develop a results-oriented, "show-me" policy in response. Security concerns, economic policy issues, and the loss of democratic freedoms are challenges that must be addressed if there is hope for genuinely constructive relationships to develop between the U.S. and nations governed by the Latin American left. Photo-ops and populist dramatics make good media story, but they accomplish littl
   

If you pay people to be poor, you'll never run out of poor people

Taken from that spended conservative MP from the UK, Daniel Hannan.

"For most of my life, the question of how to relieve poverty has been owned by socialists. You might vote Conservative because you believed in low taxes, strong defence, controlled immigration, free enterprise or school discipline. But if you were chiefly interested in how to improve the condition of the indigent, you'd almost certainly end up voting Labour (read: Progressive)."

"Poverty is not simply an absence of money. Rather, it is bound up with a whole set of other circumstances: lack of qualifications, demoralisation, family break-up, substance abuse, fatherlessness. It follows that you do not end poverty by giving money to the poor: a theory that British welfarism has amply demonstrated over 60 years. Only when you tackle poverty holistically will you facilitate meaningful improvement."

"Conservatives naturally grasp the connection between living in an independent state and living independently of the state. IDS has done the poor the greatest service anyone could do them: he has ensured that they will no longer be left to the Left."

What would you think of this man???

Who did more to free the women of Afghanistan from oppression, then anyone?

Who established the first functioning democracy in Islam?

Who contributed more to the fight against AIDS than all of Europe put together?

 (Thus is responsible for the saving of millions of lives in Africa). 

You would equate him with Nazism, call for his demise, refer to him in derogitory fashion at every oppertunity...

The most noxious and rabid smear campaign I've ever witnessed has been against this president.

Obama against?

This was said yesterday and it struck a solemn chord.

"President appears to be against three things, Life, our Liberties and the pursuit of happiness."

It was said in humor, I almost laughed.  Then the truth of it struck me.

The Holiday Conundrum

 Holiday time comes with the inevitable claiming that commercialization has ruined the celebration.  Sometimes this comment is greeted with a chorus of agreements and nods.  One has to ponder why someone would decry yet participate in such a decision.

Keeping the holiday spirit is an internal endeavor. By celebrating in tradition and holding it within oneself you transcend the materialistic.

The next time there is a distressing cry about the holidays, I hope to hear a voice state, that they choose not to participate with the commercialization.  With luck that voice will not be mine alone.

Graham Norton Show

As stated before, I am loving BBC America.  One of the surprise  shows was Graham Norton.  This is a sit down interview show two celebrities and a musical guest.  Very informal and very funny.  There are lots of interactions with the audience and some of the funniest impromptu sketch work.  

How can you tell???

Q: How can you tell when a politician is lying?

A: His lips move.

Old joke, has that ring of truth that makes it funny.  Campaign promises are made and broken depending on what side of the aisle your on you either, acquiesce, point your finger or just go about your life.

When it becomes pathological, you start wondering what is going on with this elected official.

Little Green Footballs has a good read on our Vice President.  As does The Gay Patriot, who goes after the MSM for its lack of integrity.

Even a bastion of liberal pontification like the Slate has some articles on Joe Biden's colorful past  exaggerations (plagiarism).  It makes me feel uncomfortable when I consider the human Gaffe machine representing the USA in the world.

Charles Krauthammer, telling it like it is. Taking it to the "Man"

Charles Krauthammer, columnest for The Washington Post, has done an excellent job eliminating bias and spin from the above linked artical.

While the rest of the MSM spouts and spins off propaganda on how wildly sucessful or most beloved, hallowed, President Obamas triumph in Europe has been, Mr. Krauthammer has gone right down the middle.

It has been up to Radio and the New media to fill in the information void the MSM is creating, seemingly deliberately, around, beloved, hallowed, President Obama. 

We the people should NOT have to work so hard just to get the basics, but like it or not, it's the reality.

No Healthcare left behind.

77% of Americans feel the quality of their own health care is good. The 'wrong' bit is access and increasing costs.  The solution that President Obama touts will jettison the good stuff.

The Health Policy Consensus Group in a joint statement on Health Reform six seriously flawed heathcare ideas for change:

• A new government health insurance plan.
  
• An employer “play-or-pay” mandate.
  
• A uniform, government-defined package of benefits.
  
• A mandate that individuals must purchase insurance.
  
• A National Health Insurance Exchange extending federal regulatory powers over private insurance.
  
• Federal interference in the practice of medicine through a federal health board, comparative effectiveness review, and other government intrusions into medical decision-making.
  

Pres. Obama included $1.1 billion for comparative effectiveness research. This means  “those that are found to be less effective and in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed."  The decision is taken out of the hands of Doctors and Patients.  

This mirrors the UK system, which  produces some of the worst health outcomes in the industrialised world.  Where thousands of people are killed in hospitals for reasons unrelated to their original condition. 

The establishment of a “single payer” health care system would  lower payments for physician and health care providers. This would be lower incomes for physicians and reduce the supply of active physicians, impairing access to health care for all patients. 

More government might seem like a good solution to health care.  Unfortunatly, the government is horrid at running things.  We have to preserve what is good about our healthcare:

Fact No. 1: Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the U.K. and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.

Fact No. 2: Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality is 9 percent higher, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher and colon cancer mortality among men is about 10 percent higher than in the United States.

Fact No. 3: Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit are taking statins, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons and 17 percent of Italians receive them.

Fact No. 4: Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians. Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate and colon cancer:

• Nine of 10 middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to less than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).
  
• Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a pap smear, compared to less than 90 percent of Canadians.
  
• More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a PSA test, compared to less than 1 in 6 Canadians (16 percent).
  
• Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with less than 1 in 20 Canadians (5 percent).
  

Fact No. 5: Lower income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report “excellent” health compared to Canadian seniors (11.7 percent versus 5.8 percent). Conversely, white Canadian young adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower income Americans to describe their health as “fair or poor.”

Fact No. 6: Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the U.K. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long - sometimes more than a year - to see a specialist, to have elective surgery like hip replacements or to get radiation treatment for cancer. All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada. In England, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.

Fact No. 7: People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed. More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and British adults say their health system needs either “fundamental change” or “complete rebuilding.”

Fact No. 8: Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. When asked about their own health care instead of the “health care system,” more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared to only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).

Fact No. 9: Americans have much better access to important new technologies like medical imaging than patients in Canada or the U.K. Maligned as a waste by economists and policymakers naïve to actual medical practice, an overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identified computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade. The United States has 34 CT scanners per million Americans, compared to 12 in Canada and eight in Britain. The United States has nearly 27 MRI machines per million compared to about 6 per million in Canada and Britain.

Fact No. 10: Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations. The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other single developed country. Since the mid-1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to American residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined. In only five of the past 34 years did a scientist living in America not win or share in the prize. Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States.

Imagine that we had created a Government Food Service. We make it "fair" and not on ability to pay, so foodstuffs would be rationed by the Feds. Each American had been allocated one butcher, one baker, one resturant etc. 

What would happen? Huge bureaucracy, duplication of effort, too much of this and not enough of that, the rise of a black market, and people going hungery. In other words, Government at its finest.

USA looses at the G20 .

Our Rookie President did not work for the USA's best interests at the G20.  Europeans did the best Chinese did the worst.  The G20 has agreed to increase the resources of the International Monetary Fund to $750 billion, to fund $100 billion for multilateral development banks, and to increase trade finance to poorer countries. 

The G20 claims this will grow to $5 trillion by the end of the year, raise output by 4 percent, and accelerate the change to a green economy.

If only we could learn from history, THIS DOES NOT WORK!   Development aid has been tried repeatedly since the 1940s: it has failed so many time that there is no reason to believe that it will work now. And claims that any of this spending will bring a ‘green economy’ into being ignore the  economic fallacies of the concept.

So the Europeans get regulations, Americans get a watered-down endorsement of stimulus spending, the Chinese get a bigger role in international financial institutions, and the developing nations get more politically corrupting development aid. 

So we got took.

Anti-Market and Anti-Consumer, 2009 Energy Bill

American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES). Has a taxpayer funded mandate for unproven energy sources jacks up taxes on current energy sources. So you will get hit twice for unproven, unsuccessful, technology that has to get government subsiding to compete.

Title 1 of ACES also includes incentives to facilitate the transition to a smart grid.  While upgrading the nation's electric grid has merit, such a project should not be approached bureaucratically. More efficient grid technology should be an investment made by the private sector, and if upgrading the grid will save consumers money—as Congress purports it will—consumers will respond to price signals and buy it.

A new grid could help store large amounts of electricity for the first time, which would benefit unreliable sources such as wind and solar power. 

Any federal policy should focus on removing regulatory barriers to upgrading the grid to allow for more consumer choice and protect private property rights.

Spritual beings having a human experience

In my previous posting Shoo put together a splended answer (which I prarphrased in the title).

I know we have are spritual beings, I know God,  I also know that there is the prospect of eternal life through God. I know this cannot be "proven".  As someone posting on man made global warming said, wouldnt you want to err on the side of caution?

Enter Entertainer Penn Jillet.  He profoundly put on video something I was struggling to put on my blog(NSFW for language):

Latest Global Temperatures.

Since 1979, NOAA satellites have been carrying instruments which measure the natural microwave thermal emissions from oxygen in the atmosphere. The signals that these microwave radiometers measure at different microwave frequencies are directly proportional to the temperature of different, deep layers of the atmosphere. Every month, John Christy and DR. Roy Spenser update the global temperature data sets that represent the piecing together of the temperature data from a total of eleven instruments flying on eleven different satellites over the years. As of 2008, the most stable instrument for this monitoring is the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU-A) flying on NASA’s Aqua satellite.

The graph above represents the latest update; updates are usually made within the first week of every month. The smooth curve in the graph is a fourth-order polynomial fit to the data, which smooths out the large amount of monthly variability in the data and helps reveal the underlying ‘trends’. (There is no claim that this curve has any predictive power for the coming months or years.)

(Directly taken from Dr. Roy Spenser's excellent blog)

Reliable Resources.

The best news is from an earnest reporter who has multiple sources who independently confirm the information.   Over time this reporter would gain a reputation for providing unassailable information.  

There are obviously tainted organizations, which internally can have some good reporting.  Seperating the wheat from chaffe is where the work begins.

As the Devils Dictionary defines: REPORTER, n. A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words.

Value in meaning

 On the very basic level, humans tend to look for meaning in existence. This is not something quantifiable. Philosophy, is that attempt to make sense of existence, truth, beauty or the search for wisdom.

Philosophical pursuit is done via a well reasoned argument. Every culture that advanced beyond the stone age has had theories of philosophy. These have been expounded upon by individuals and countered by other individuals. There has never been a consensus of thought for the reasons behind existence. I highly doubt there ever will be.

In reading about all the "isms" Rationalism, Empiricism, Skepticism, Idealism, Pragmatism and Existentialism. You realize this is all a spiritual pursuit. There are profound implications for how we could and should conduct ourselves, how we view and treat others. This enterprise can become quite absorbing.

It is a deeply rooted portion of our very nature. Why, do you suppose, we have such a deeply embedded need

Learning from History on Recession Fix

This is a very straight forward explination of why government bailouts and stimulus has never worked.

I am not sure if you have seen this excellent chastising of the British PM by Daniel Hannan.  It is very significant to the situation the USA is heading.  Further it shows a lack of strong conservative voices currently in our representatives. 

Imagine if...

It is very evident that the MSM treated Ashley Biden much better and very differently then Bristol Palin.

In a perusing of the top right blogs and a few fringe ones, the right is not eager to pounce.

Following Shoo's lead on ODS

If you cannot honor the man, then honor the office. If you cannot honor the office, then one more patriotic bond has been severed.

The office of the president has meaning and importance that transcend the views of its current occupant. Though elected by a part of America, the president becomes a symbol of its whole. The respect we accord him does not imply agreement or endorsement. It reflects our appreciation for constitutional processes. So a presidential visit is always an honor. The televised arrival of Air Force One, the motorcade, the playing of "Hail to the Chief," the audience standing as the president enters -- all these express a proper respect for presidential legitimacy.

special thanks to Mr. Gerson

Welcome to the First of April

Google has it's usual, unusual treat for us: Meet CADIE