THE REAL PROBLEM WITH OUR GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM

The folks who are getting free stuff, don’t like the folks who are paying for the free stuff. Because the folks who are paying for the free stuff, can no longer afford to pay for both the free stuff and their own stuff.

And, the folks who are paying for the free stuff, want the free stuff to stop. And the folks who are getting the free stuff, want even MORE free stuff on top of the free stuff they’re getting already.

Now, the people who are forcing people to PAY for the free stuff, have told the people who are RECEIVING the free stuff, that the people who are PAYING for the free stuff, are being mean, prejudiced and racist.

So, the people who are GETTING the free stuff, have been convinced they need to HATE the people who are PAYING for the free stuff because they are selfish. And they are promised more free stuff if they will vote for the people who force the people who pay for the free stuff to give them even more free stuff.

And — when the free stuff stops , the folks receiving the free stuff will riot, burn, steal and commit mayhem. For the “rich” owe them! It is
happening in England and coming here soon.

And that’s the Straight Stuff!

Good friend recommended the Cuisinart DCC-1200 12 cup maker, which had very positive reviews but I looked a little more and found a 14 cup model that looked like it had a nicer looking design. I ended up buying a ‘refurbished’ one from Abe’s of Maine for just $59.95 + shipping. Shipping was pricey at $12.19 but I still saved nearly $30. It came quickly and looked just like new. Note: It did say refurbished by Cuisinart themselves and that the warranty is 90 days. Perhaps a non-refurbished one has a longer warranty.
So how is it so far?

Great! The top opens from front to back (back hinges) which is more convenient than my old Mr. Coffee one but the place to pour the water is somewhat small in the back right, but it’s ok. The controls are simple enough and I like that the warmer temp can be set (L, M, H) so coffee doesn’t get burned. I’d personally rather re-heat cold coffee in a microwave than taste coffee that’s sat on a hot plate for an hour!
It came with a gold permanent filter as well as a few paper ones which was nice. It even incorporates a small charcoal filter cartridge (replaceable) so your water is purified automatically!
The 14 cup carafe is large, but light and EASY to put in and take out of the maker. The manual says if you brew a batch the coffee at the ‘top’ might be weaker than the bottom so giving it a stir before pouring isn’t a bad idea. Seems like a bother, but the first batch did seem a bit weak on first cup, and on the second batch I a) added a bit more coffee, and b) gave it a stir before pouring and the results were better, but I’m not sure if it was more coffee or stirring that did the trick!
Anyway, I like this coffee maker.
If I have one complaint it’s that the clock is tiny and digital and NOT backlit, which means if your kitchen lighting is often not that bright you might have trouble reading the clock.
Programming the maker to make coffee at a given time is simple enough.
Recommended!!

Loved this. Thanks Joe and his Stranded Starfish blog, and thanks to the authors of the book “The Art Of Possibility”

As the old man walked down a Spanish beach at dawn, he saw ahead of him what he thought to be a dancer. The young man was running across the sand, rhythmically bending down to pick up a stranded starfish and throw it far into the sea.

The old man gazed in wonder as the young soul again and again threw the small starfish from the sand into the water. The old man approached him and asked why he spent so much energy doing what seemed a waste of time. The young man explained that the stranded starfish would die if left until the morning sun.

“But there are thousands of miles of beach, and miles and miles of starfish. How can your effort make any difference?”

The young man looked down at the small starfish in his hand, and as he threw it to safety in the sea, said, “It makes a difference to this one!”

Anonymous

The description is as follows:

How many times have you been embarrassed by giving the wrong gifts? Or the wrong size? Or the wrong color? The new QuickGifter iPhone app takes all the worry out of gift giving by keeping a well-organized gift database of any and all important wish list information that you may need while shopping . Best of all, if you have a spouse, partner, relative, or friend that is shopping and needs the same info, you can easily email them QuickGifter wish list details for any person in your QuickGifter library.

Check it out at quickgifter.com or watch the video:

Watch the video:

zachfightsback.com

Facebook

Thank you.

In the case of web development as with many things, some people who use web sites, think they know how easy/hard it is to build them. (Hint: they don’t)

Check out this person who needs to hire a programmer yet they already ‘know’ how ‘hard’ the task is and how long it will take.  link.

• He’s fighting to restructure healthcare in the country while the economy collapses.
• He’s had a string of tax cheating nominees and appointments to his cabinet.
• He’s reneged on his commitment to get out of Iraq, taking longer to end ‘combat’ than he promised, and he’ll leave 50,000 troops there after.
• He campaigned to veto all earmarks and yet is ok with a budget containing thousands.
• His trillion dollar ‘stimulus’ program does not seem to have impressed anyone, except politicians bringing useless pork-barrel projects to their districts.
• After just 5 weeks, he plans to balloon the deficit to exceed the total of all deficits during the 8 years of the Bush (II) administration.
• He is planning to end tax breaks for sizable charitable donations by the wealthy which will really hurt charities AND small businesses.
• His vice-president has made gaffe after gaffe after gaffe.
• His vice-president met, just today, in a SECRET meeting with AFL-CIO at their swanky conference in Miami. The Obama administration plans to end privacy for union votes.
• Instead of trying to inspire a nation, his speeches have been consistently negative, talking of crisis and catastrophe. He pathetically said this week maybe it’s time for people to put money in the stock market. The market plunged right after.
• He keeps the White House heated like an oven, is doing massive and expensive renovations, yet wants everyone else to conserve.
• He’s talking about ‘green jobs’, but there’s no energy policy.
• He still hasn’t filled his cabinet.
• He has waged a PR war with a radio blow hard (Rush Limbaugh) which is completely irrelevant, and just a distraction.
• His treasury secretary (Geithner) has no lieutenants and so the senate banking committee got no treasury representative to attend their inquiry into AIG bailout because Geithner was being grilled in the House on another matter.
• One day the President declared Geithner would speak with details the next day on the banking and other plans, and the next day Geithner gave no details, and weeks later, still has no details or plan.
• Perhaps this is Obama’s actual plan – to drive the economy into the dirt, so he can then establish some ‘emergency powers’ or something, and turn the U.S. into the socialist economy he wants.
• I do believe he LOATHES small business because everything so far has been aimed AGAINST that. Why? Because small businesses are hard to control. Europe began a war on small business decades ago and killed most of them. European governments prefer big companies with back room ‘deals’ because they can keep an eye on them and control them better.
• I think it’s fair to say he’s off to a horrible start. Wall St. has ZERO confidence in what they’ve done and what they haven’t done.
• I believe we are witnessing the END of America and any American dream as we have understood it. Thanks a lot Obama.

If you voted for him, shame on you. Fooled you good.

Get involved!

At this past week’s tournament however, where he played excellent golf but was just outdone by a bad shot on the last hole and a surging Phil Mickelson, I heard about Fred Couples the person, with real life challenges. His wife with whom he was long since separated and working toward a divorce, had died of cancer at the home they once shared in California. A tragedy indeed, but he has said he remains devoted to her children, his step-children.  Sounds noble. I decided to read up a bit on that history, and wait, there’s more. Much more.

This was his second marriage.  His first marriage ended in the 90s in what appears to have been an ugly and expensive divorce in Florida.  His first wife later committed suicide in 2001.

Fred Couples is also known for his really major back pain problems.  No doubt made worse by a game of unnatural contortions and a unique swing that probably puts more stress on him than other golfers with theirs.  This back pain limits the tournaments he can play.  It limits his practice.  It has basically hindered the last 15 years of his career in a major way.

At 49 though, he’s still out there, and in many ways he seems more determined than ever.  Maybe his shattered personal life and failing body increases his determination to overcome these major challenges.

Regardless, he is still a joy to watch, a class act on the golf course, and I for one want to say “thanks Freddie” for all the joy you’ve brought me over the years, and I hope only the best for you going forward.

And I won’t miss any coverage of you at the Masters in a few weeks.

References:

1993 NY Times

2003 Sunday Herald

2009 (this week) Golf Digest

When i was a kid in England, my Dad got a sail boat (or yacht as the English say for anything with a sail) – I think he was given it by a wealthier friend – we certainly couldn’t have afforded it. It was nothing huge, and it certainly wasn’t new. It was 22 ft with a small engine that was noisy and stinky, and a typical mast, jib and main sail. It had a raisable keel which my Dad thought was cool, but and it did mean we didn’t worry as much about running aground in the tidal waters around Portsmouth.

To GET to the ‘yacht’ we had to use this small fiberglass dinghy with an outboard motor. I’m talking 6 foot long boat with noisy stinky 50cc (maybe?) outboard (Yamaha?).

So my Dad would drive us to the dinghy place (maybe 60 miles which in England is a LONG drive) early in the morning, get in the stinky cramped dinghy and go at about 2mph I’d guess for about 1/2 mi. ? to where the boat was moored. With bags and crap in the dinghy it was about 3-4″ out of the water at the back and more at the front of course especially when moving, but it was creepy to me seeing the dark water so close. and of course it was often cold out, or rainy, or foggy, or all of those.

We’d get to the boat, clamber on, detatch from mooring bouy, attach dinghy to mooring bouy quickly before we drifted away, and then “head out” wherever into the harbor from the small waterway (solent?) where the boat was moored.

Then my dad would attempt to sail at some point, which was a pretty hit and miss thing. Too slow and we didn’t get anywhere. Too fast and it was pretty scary as the boat leaned, or rocked, or hit waves, just right was hit maybe twice for a minute or two in all the times I went on the boat.

My dad would criticize almost everything I did on the boat (too slow, too fast, not done right, too lazy, get out of the way) – oh it was so much fun.

One time, I was told to hold a rope by the mast which held the boom up (for those that don’t know that’s the horizontal piece connected to the mast and the main sail connects to both). Anyway, he had to duck under the boom to get to the other side I think and of course I somehow got distracted and let go of the rope and the boom fell on his head. He wasn’t injured and I can laugh now, but boy was he pissed off and was i scared. Nowhere to go, him ticked. Ah, good times.

On a more positive note, the wealthier friend of my Dad’s (well compared to us when i was growing up – the friend who gave my Dad that boat i think) – well he had a 36′ yacht and we went on that ONCE out into the English channel to fish. We fished for hours in roiling seas and caught a FEW mackerel, each probably 8-12″ long. I of course got sea sick for a while and the adults all laughed telling me it was good I was getting my “sea legs”. They cleaned and cooked the fish and we ate it on board, and in a massive group delusion we all claimed it was excellent. That was the BEST experience i ever had on a sailboat.

To say i loathe sailing would be an understatement.

http://passionateaboutpizzabook.com/

Like many who love NASA and all it has accomplished, I was horrified to learn the Challenger space shuttle blew up a couple of minutes after launch as it rocketed into space.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4JOjcDFtBE

Later that day, President Ronald Reagan gave a speech to the nation, that was brilliantly written by Peggy Noonan, and brilliantly delivered. He talked to the astronauts loved ones, to all adults, to children, about loss, taking chances and bravery, why life isn’t for the ‘faint hearted’ and added a poetic line at the end that still gives me goosebumps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JKIZ7j20EA

Anyway, it can capture video, which is pretty cool.  So I grabbed a few tiny videos and wanted to see if I could transfer, edit, and publish on youtube.

Took two tiny videos, transferred them, imported to Windows Movie Maker (free), trimmed the videos, added titles, credits, transitions, and music, in, oh, 15 minutes?!

Here it is.  Not Oscar-worthy, but hey, it’s my first.

My predictions:

Presidency: Obama by 100 electoral votes.

Senate: Dems gain 6

House: Dems gain 25

Pretty much just guesses…

9/11/01 showed the world the worst and the best in humanity.

RIP to the victims and heroes who didn’t survive.

Thank you to everyone who has worked to heal the physical and mental scars, and to get those who share an ideology with those who committed the acts.

We didn’t capture Bin Laden ‘dead or alive’, but I still think he’s dead.  Good.

I finished the mowing I had started earlier, showered, ate, had a swim, ate dinner, and the power washer was still on my mind.  I decided to look at the wand again to see if I could figure it out. I thought maybe a rubber seal ring had somehow become dislodged or something. I decided to look carefully at the area where the spray tip landed in the grass and voila, I found a rubber o-ring! Took me half an hour to figure out how to install it (goes completely inside the wand coupling) but I knew I had it. Put the tip back on (SECURELY!), fired it up —– YAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!

Another maintenance mystery solved. I was so pleased I didn’t have to buy parts or deal with warranty or get someone to fix it that I power washed her horse’s stall.  Just another of life’s ups and downs on the farm.

To me it contains parts of many science fiction books and movies, including 2001: A Space Odyssey, all of Isaac Asimov’s amazing robot books, even Rendezvous With Rama, my favorite book by Arthur C. Clarke.

The movie’s web site is also amazing.  Here’s a free embed they provide:

He goes on to say that efforts to save arctic ice will likely save 1 polar bear a year, a popular cause among environmentalists.  He said humans SHOOT 400 polar bears a year, so maybe stopping that would be more effective!

His new book “Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming” will be available in August, and I’ve pre-ordered it.  Finally a cool head on a hot subject!

Loads of good sounding info, but I decided to go to the budget, as that’s where things usually reveal themselves (follow the money…).

I had no idea how much money the DoE spends, but for ’09 they’ve requested $25 BILLION. Now I’m sure govt lovers and Bush haters will come right out and say “that’s cheaper than Iraq in a week” or whatever, but ignoring that bogus comparison, how much is $25 BILLION?

Well if there’s 300 million men, women, and children in this country, that equates to about $83 EACH, a year.

So, are you happy, that you, your relatives, friends, children, everyone, is paying $83 a year for this fine organization?

Their budget “highlights” document is 113 pages. Yikes.

It says they need that money to “address the growing demand for affordable, clean and reliable energy; preserve our national security; and enable scientific breakthroughs that could have significant impacts on our quality of life and the health of the American people.” Yeah, right. But what do they actually DO?

This is their mission/strategy page: http://www.doe.gov/about/index.htm

On their strategic plan page it says:

By implementing DOE’s Strategic Plan, we are enhancing America’s energy security and sustaining our economic vitality.

EPIC FAIL! Oil is what, $139 today????

So I looked under achievements and awards to see what we might all be getting for $83 a year.

What’s this? Part of their funding went to the human genome project. What has that got to do with energy?

So then I find that their ‘researchers’ helped with research on Climate Change that lead to the IPCC winning the ’07 Nobel Peace Prize. And this is about energy and not weather HOW? This research was done at Oak Ridge National Labs in Tennessee which has 4200 people and is entirely funded by DoE. Facts about ORNL.

Your tax dollars at work folks.

U.S. gas prices have doubled and more in the past couple of years.  It must be hurting millions of people directly (getting to and from work or school for example), and hurting many businesses too, which must deliver things and have things delivered to them and so they must raise prices on everything in turn to make up for it.  It seems the U.S. government has totally distorted how it reports inflation because gasoline and food prices alone are skyrocketing.  Maybe the drop in house prices is counteracting that some!

The politicians are arguing over causes and remedies, but while they do NOTHING, quietly, millions of people are driving a little less, maybe trading in the old clunker or big SUV for something much more efficient, sales of hybrids have skyrocketed, and the American people are being very sensible about all this.

We’ve all heard it’s ‘greedy oil companies’ that are the cause but that really isn’t the case – they process crude oil and refine it, etc., and pass along the costs they must pay.  Now global demand for oil and gasoline has been climbing and is projected to climb a great deal more as prosperity increases in China and India in particular, as they hold almost half the world’s population!  U.S. gasoline consumption has not increased significantly in decades.  Increasing overall demand puts upward pressure on prices if supply is not increased.

With producers (particularly OPEC) choosing not to dramatically increase supply, and with constant worries of wars in risky parts of the world, those who actually BUY crude oil and related products in huge quantities for their customers (refiners, power companies, plastics companies, airlines, etc.) have been bidding up the price of future oil purchases, trying to lock in prices, but there’s also some hyping as well, all causing crude oil prices to jump in the last year in particular (to now over $130 a barrel).

But there’s another, bigger, underlying reason oil and gasoline prices are climbing fast: environmentalists.  For decades they have rabidly pushed an agenda to stop any and all efficient energy production, claiming initially it might poison us all or pollute everything, but now, in a much bigger campaign, they have convinced millions that energy production, particularly oil and gasoline will actually destroy the whole planet.  Al Gore declared the oil product powered automobile to be the greatest threat to the planet.

Al Gore is clueless.  Perhaps because the most ‘dire’ climate models predict the planet only warming by about 1 degree Celsius this century, the ’cause’ was renamed ‘climate change’ from ‘global warming’.  Well newsflash: the climate has ALWAYS and will ALWAYS be changing.  Ice ages and HOT spells predate human existence.  There’s many underlying causes, including varying solar activity which even Al Gore has no control over.

So the U.S. has banned itself from developing known vast oil reserves in the so-called ‘continental shelf’ and many other areas.  This ‘policy’ is finally coming back to bite the U.S.  I have no problem with developing ‘alternative fuels’ but to not seek additional oil sources in one’s back yard, and instead rely on oil from tyrants and Kings in unstable regions is madness.

With still no coherent and viable energy plan, the U.S. economy is being seriously hampered by increasing oil prices.  There is no end in sight.

You can see his last lecture here: google video or visit his web site at the above link for this and other videos and information.

So a friend came by this morning and I felt pretty good – I’d tidied my office (although some was cheating – took notes and papers spread across the desk and stacked them in one ‘neat’ pile) and the infamous ‘staging area’ kitchen table. Also felt good because I got the pool paver power washing and clean-up done a week or two ago (tedious and time-consuming job, but looks great!) and all the grass is cut!

A temporary victory in the race against entropy.

Complaining is expressing grief, pain, or discontent. It’s a complaint if you express how you feel something shouldn’t be the way it is, and usually you don’t offer a solution as to how it could be the way you want it.

We all complain, but does it do any good? No! Not only doesn’t it help, in fact it often just makes us feel worse about things and not just emotionally, but physically. We seem to think it will help ‘get it off our chest’ or maybe subconsciously we justify some perception of superiority by complaining about other things and people, but overall there’s NO benefit to it, to ANYONE, including the complainer.

Will Bowen, a reverend serving at a church in Kansas, talked about this in a sermon on finding prosperity, and this lead to him giving out little purple bracelets to his congregation and he told them to be ‘complaint free’ for 21 days, and if someone with a bracelet complained, to put the bracelet on the other arm to consciously remind them what they’ve done. Well, this has become HUGE. 5 millions bracelets and a book later, it’s still going.

Links:

• The bracelet web site and further information
• FAQ (frequently asked questions about how it got started, where the money goes, etc.)

Answering the question “how do we find happiness?” the Dalai Lama answered something like “stop doing all the things that make you unhappy.”

Complaining less is probably a good start.