Creative Endeavors

WordPress.Com didn’t see fit to publish this anywhere yesterday, so I am going to keep posting it until it finally goes somewhere.  If you happened on this site yesterday and found it here (the “ONLY” place it was published) skip it and go onto to something else.

Thank you so very much LDS

The wife likes to eat at this International House Of Pancakes, they have this deal, “BOGO” (buy one and get one) after three PM for Seniors.  Not a bad deal.  Used to be Buy One and the second one is free, and then it went to Buy One and the second one is 50% off, now it is Buy One and get your butt outta here!  No, I jest.  It is usually a percentage price of the first one.

For Sale --- Dirt Cheap

John McCain and Barack Obama both have vowed to reform the nation’s defense procurement if elected president, yet each is unwilling to take a firm stand against the skyrocketing cost of a plum White House perk: the new Marine One helicopter

Originally carrying a hefty price tag at $6.1 billion, the fleet of 28 helicopters being built to fly the next president is now projected to cost $11.2 billion.  If that doesn’t get your hackles up, maybe you might want to know, the helicopters are “not American” helicopters, but rather foreign made birds.

At $400 million apiece, the helicopters far exceed a prime example McCain uses on the campaign trail to rail against congressional pork-barrel spending, a $230 million “bridge to nowhere” in Alaska. (This could be an error, I understand that the bridge was recently canceled, but the State of Alaska decided to “keep the money” and didn’t tell anyone how they expected to spend it.)  This whole election seems to be a pathway to nowhere anyway, so it appears the point is now moot.

Back to the helicopters.

The British have bought the same base model helicopter for

$57 million each.

Wasn’t it T. Barnum Bailey who said … “There is a sucker born every minute?”

000

July 7^th, 1931 …  The Standard Oil company of New Jersey has reduced the price of diesel fuel oil 10 cents a barrel to $1.40 at gulf coast ports.

July 2^nd, 1982 …  French consumption of diesel exceeded for the first time in 1991 demand for other fuels.  All fuels sold in France, the pre-tax price of diesel is by far, the cheapest in Europe, on account of strong completion on the national market.

July 17^th, 2004 …  The government will continue to cap the retail price of diesel fuel at its current level until the end of the year, even thought the actual price has reached historical local highs.

July 27^th …  With demand growing and supplies limited, the nationwide average for on-highway diesel fuel is about $1.75 per gallon, not far from the $1.77 record set in March 2003.

And today the “official explanation is:”

These tectonic shifts are driven in large part by the surging development of China and its 1.3 billion people. While the demand for oil in most western countries has flat-lined or even declined over the past 12 months as economic conditions have worsened, in China it is powering away. This demand, and for other commodities, is driving up prices - but also spurring investment in technologies that might unlock a new era of clean, affordable energy.

It prompts several questions: Are consumers finally beginning to change their habits? Will alternative energy sources become economically competitive? And could China’s thirst for oil in fact save the planet?

And the official reply is: 

“There aint no answer.  There aint gonna be any answer.  There never has been an answer.  That’s the answer.”

000

Barack’s House

(Parody of Brick House by The Commodores)

Ow! It’s The White House
We finally might be
Just letting a bro hang out
Obama’s White House
He might paint it black
Put a hoop out back
Rush Limbaugh has a heart attack

Ow! Barack’s House
Well come November everybody knows
This is how the story goes

Obama beats John McCain
Then he rolls on up the moving van
Yeah, Yeah! How can he lose
To some old white dude
50 states
November 4 2008 he’s a winning man

His crib’s The White House
Yeah! Thanks to Oprah Winfrey
He’s been letting his soul hang out
It’ll be Barack’s house
First Lady’s got back
That’s a fact
You better not talk no smack Yow

Chick a change chick a chane change
Beat McCain with a cane now
Getting down getting down now
Getting down

Ow! Barack in The House
Yeah! Not just for whitey
We’re letting the bro hang out
Barack’s house
Yeah! He’s the one
The chosen one
We’ll move him into Washington

Thanks to KZOK 102.5 FM Seattle.

“A man who represents himself in a court, has a fool for an attorney.” Some guy recently busted for urinating in public did this very thing. Representing himself at trial, Mr. Huppe fired a colorful line of questions at the officer including, “Did you see me take my thing out and urinate?” and “Did you test DNA to see if it was my urine?”

Here is the part I like … Mr. Huppe shouted at the officer during the June 24 trial, “Swear on a Bible and say it was Mr. Huppe’s urine!” The officer testified he did not test DNA from the urine puddle. Then the judge ordered Mr. Huppe to “take a deep breath” and promised the verdict would be forthcoming.

My kind of guy.

BOULDER - A 25-year-old Boulder, Colorado man is in jail after police discovered he had been living on the roof of a T-Mobile store since December. Police say Luke Barrett pleaded guilty to trespassing and obstructing an officer after his arrest Friday. Barrett told officers that he was homeless and started living on the top of the building in December.

According to the T-Mobile store, employees had a suspicion that someone was living on the roof. Cleaning employees and maintenance crews said on two occasions they found and removed cushions, garbage and a sleeping bag from the roof. Now think about this. You are living on the top of a building in Colorado in the dead of winter?

It’s a wonder the guy doesn’t have frostbite.

Priceless … 6 year old Bennett Christiansen of Illinois was approved for a credit card with a $600 limit. The boy had accurately filled in an application, listing his birth date as 2002 and his income of $0. We had “plastic surgery here about five years ago” and that was the best thing that ever happened to us. No more credit cards, which in our case was a good thing. You know how to tell if you are over your limit, when you are standing in the line and the girl swipes your card, all the lights in the building kind of dim for a moment.

You are over your limit.

An Australian bridegroom was horrified to learn after he had walked down the aisle that he was already married — after a drunken holiday romance he could barely remember. The husband has had to confess in the Family Court that he spent 28 days partying and drinking in Arizona in 1978 on leave from his job as a cook on the oil rigs.

He can remember the “nice” blond American woman he met through a pen pal newspaper advertisement — but little more. “He has no recollection of going through any form of ceremony of marriage with her, or of discussing marriage, or of anything referable to marriage,” said Justice Sally Brown, who annulled the marriage last month.

Not only that, but the man, who describes himself as an old-fashioned romantic, was already married at the time — to his wife of 14 years. Yesterday the 67-year-old, who cannot be identified, told The Daily Telegraph “the sky fell in” when he was shown the Arizona marriage license. He married his Hawaiian girlfriend in 2006 and applied to live in Hawaii with her that U.S. immigration authorities broke the bad news.

A drilling rig in Arizona, C’mon? This has to be Media Fatigue, made up crap.

B’sides everyone knows, if you get drunk for 28 days in a row, you have to file a special permit with the EPA so they can tell you where to bury your liver!

This has got to be bogus; we need to get back to the “real news” in America.

The upcoming presidential election which will determine who voters hate more: Successful, attractive African-Americans or good ol boy mossbacks that smell like Old Spice and pancakes. Who gave the government “the right” to tell us what kind of light bulbs to buy. Why Al Gore still consumes 50% more electricity than the average American after extensive renovations to his Tennessee home.

Important stuff like that.

000

I got this Email yesterday that states, “matter of facilely” that Obammer is the Anti-Christ! I will spare you all the gory details, but here is a quote from it:

“According to The Book of Revelation the anti-Christ will be a man, in his 40s, of MUSLIM descent, who will deceive the nations with persuasive language, and have a MASSIVE Christ-like appeal….the prophecy says that people will flock to him and he will promise false hope and world peace, and when he is in power, will destroy everything .”

Maybe it is me, having read the Bible on occasion, I don’t remember any mention of “Muslim” (descent) in there at all … The word Islam cannot be found in the bible and certainly not the word “Anti Christ.”  I don’t think I have seen anything in the book that is in all CAP’S either.

Someone needs to help me out on this one, I must be reading the wrong bible.

Kind of similar to “locking the barn door after the horse has got out.” This guy is already here; he’s in office right now, all of it except that “Muslim” part that is. You figure it out. We will give your three guesses and the first two, don’t even count. If you are a regular reader of this page, then you know how I feel. If you are not, then most likely, as you have astutely gathered I am not a big Obammer fan, but I don’t believe he is getting a fair shake on this one at all.

Now I did some research on it and this is what I found.

Illinoisans (that is one of them there fancy words for people who live outside of Chicago) were less likely to interpret the Bible literally. While 33 percent of all respondents said the Scriptures were the “word of God, literally true word for word,” only 27 percent of those in Illinois agreed.

Illinoisans (those folks who live outside of Chicago) were also more likely to agree that “there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of my religion” and that “many religions can lead to eternal life.” And while Illinoisans (people who moved there from Dearborn Michigan, after GM shut down) pray as frequently as the rest of the country, they were less likely to report receiving answers to those prayers.

Now that has to be “true” ‘cause I read it on the Internet.

Meanwhile back at the Eastern Ponderosa …. The Senate was expected to approve possibly sometime this week, the biggest government program yet to tackle a deep housing market slump feared to be dragging the economy into recession. The legislation would create a $300 billion fund to help up to 400,000 troubled homeowners refinance costly, exotic mortgages into more affordable, government-backed loans.

It easily cleared a Senate test vote by an 83-9 vote on Tuesday. It was rumored that even Hillary was there for this one, but I am not sure.

“The most significant concern that we have with the bill is that it would provide for $4 billion to states to purchase already foreclosed homes,” Bush administration spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters. “And our concern is that that just helps the banks, that it doesn’t help the consumers.”

So if you are some poor slob in Omaha, up to your rear in debt with a traditional mortgage and just trying to put some groceries on the table, this isn’t going to help you at all.

It is another perk for the rich. Biz as usual.

000

The U.S. Supreme Court just ruled that it’s unconstitutional for Louisiana to impose the death penalty on prisoners who have been convicted of raping children. What is this all about? I guess this is the last domino in the chain to fall; now even children are not held in high regards by the courts in this country.

Which might be why I don’t personally hold judges of any type in high regard either.

Just this week in Los Angeles, California, a porn case was dismissed because the presiding judge was found to have porn on his personal website. Tucked away in a folder, accessible to the public, containing images of masturbation, public sex, and other graphic sexual acts. The judge said that he thought the folder was shielded from public view by a password.

It was …. “Don’t touch my Pee-pee … Vote For Me”

It appears that those “who sit in judgment on us, are basically just as nasty as the rest of us.” Which in some legal circles can be translated to: “I just read it for the articles.” Where is Denny Crane when you really need him?

Washington, D.C. — A report by U.S. intelligence agencies warns about the national security implications of global warming. The report says climate change is likely to increase illegal immigration, create humanitarian disasters and destabilize precarious governments in political hot spots, all of which could affect U.S. national security.

Now it might pay to remember that this report was generated by these very same people that said that there were WMD’s in Iraq. Those people who I now understand are now working as 7-11 clerks deep in Southern Texas.

Today Oil reached a peak of $5,500 a barrel, and our current president, a three-year old mixed-breed German Shepherd announced that cats will now be allowed to vote …… See how easy it is, anyone can do it.

The United Nations is now saying that “because of U.S. Corn production being converted over to Ethanol production that we are now responsible for the world food shortage and high food prices.” Not exactly true. Production was shifted in 2007, but it only amounted to 20% of the total corn crop and the U.S. Government paid out subsidies to farmers in the amount of some $3 billion dollars.

If you took every morsel, every kernel, each and every ear of corn produced in this country and devoted it specifically to ethanol production it would only meet 11% of the energy needs of this country. I am getting tired of everyone taking a cheap shot at this country.

America is like a big dog in a small room, every time the dog turns around, it is knocking over a table or some piece of furniture. We are dammed if we do and dammed if we don’t.

And when we do help out, those countries on the receiving end walk on the tab, no one ever pays us back, no one ever has a nice thing to say about us. When some inventive American comes up with a genuine plan or scientific process to distillate gasoline from weeds, we will be attacked for pulling all the weeds in the world.

There is so much good in the worst of us

And so much bad in the best of us

That it hardly becomes any of us

To talk about the rest of us

The United Nations ought to go back to minding its own business, which is essentially, doing nothing.

And the beat goes on …

000

The wind is out of the south, like a blast furnace has suddenly fired up on the north side of Dallas and it has all blown an ill wind to my side of town. Hot here, and it is heating up as summer approaches. It was so hot here today, I saw a dog chasing a cat, and they both were walking.

Which just reminded me, only a few days and it will be July. The wheat is in, time to kick back, a holiday. Watermelon, potato salad, fried dead cluckers, and the Fourth of July, an American tradition.

Unfortunately it also brings another year of Oklahoma idiot news reports of dumb-bells blowing up tomato’s and assorted large items of fruit to point out the dangers of fireworks. Mini-documentary Videos of Okies buying the stuff, and then having the Oklahoma City Fire Marshall confiscate it when they cross the county line, happens every year. So you tell me, has there ever been documented proof of anyone “actually eating a sparkler?”

Give me a break.

A 21 year old tanning salon operator in Connecticut has been arrested and given two years probation for taking photo’s of teenagers in a tanning salon thru a ceiling tile in the roof. He did this with a cellphone (reach out, reach out, and bug somebody!), he told the judge that he was up there crawling in the overhead, using his cellphone as a light, to inspect wiring. (Yeah I know, and they walk amongst us, and they also procreate.)

Checking the wiring? Uh huh, sure. That is like, “in case of a water landing, your seat cushion will become a floatation device.” I believed that one too.

In case you’re interested, there is a way where you can figure out if you are living next to one of these perverts. You just go to Felonspy.com . After you type in your address, it pinpoints all the people close to your home that have been convicted of ANY felonies. Then you just click on the red pins/balloons on the map and it gives you the offenders name, age, and felony offense.

And don’t go typing my address in there that is not funny, and yes, the “pictures at the Post Office” have come down.

Trucking companies in Arizona are saying that thieves are stealing diesel fuel out of the trucks while the drivers are sleeping with “high volume pump devices.” This was formerly known as a garden hose back in the old days, now as we are in the 21^st Century this has been changed to “high volume devices.” Here is a novel idea, buy some locking gas caps. Yawn.

My Daddy used to say on the annual trek back to Oklahoma in the 50’s and 60’s. He said he could always tell when he was getting close to Oklahoma. The wife would get bitchy, the kids started fighting in the car, and he had the urge to siphon some gas.

Back in the good ol’ days, eh?

Truckers and fisherman in the E.U. are up in arms and protesting the rising costs of fuel oil, organizing protests and objecting vocally to rising inflation. American’s are doing what they are best at, which is sitting back and complaining, mostly to each other.

Obammers’ wife (Michelle) was on the view and she said that “our souls are broken and we have become a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it each day.” A pretty bleak, not very optimistic picture of the country. This is from a woman who has a successful career in law, hospital management, and along with her husbands’ income, pulls down roughly a cool half a million a year.

As Joey on Friends would say ……. “How U doin’?”

I would like to have a shot at a yearly income like that. Just one year. But she can still find time to complain about piano lessons, summer camp for her kids and paying off her student loans. Now that takes talent, being able to portray yourself as an elitist and a victim at the same time, but she pulled it off.

81.5% of the people you ask will tell you “We are on the wrong track, and things is bad man, really bad.” The public mood in this country is like a carton of eight day old milk left out on the kitchen counter, kind of sour right now. With the high price of gasoline, this debacle in Iraq, people are not all that upbeat. I believe the exact quote I heard last was something about “going to hell in a hand-basket?”

Unemployment isn’t all that bad, 5.5% that isn’t terrible, not good, but not terrible. Living standards from a historical viewpoint are the best they have been in recent years, things are, believe it or not, pretty good. But when you turn on the television, “the sky is falling … the sky is falling” and the mood is mostly somber.

I have been kind of concerned about it myself Michelle. (Some guy just the other day sent me an email that said, I sure wish you would stop whining about all this ______ .)

There is truly going to be a void in America (finally). With Bush departing, who am I going to blame for Global Warming (he pulled us out of the Kyoto Treaty) then there is the terrorism thing (that mostly did not happen), instability in the oil producing countries, oops, excuse me, “the middle east.” This invasion thing, supporting Israel, and/or pillaging the resources of the planet on an untold scale.

What I am going to do, with Bush gone, where will be my simplistic worldview of things and the good ol boy foolish smirk, who am I going to blame all of this on after he loads up and heads for Texas.

Luckily for me, the Obammer star is on the horizon and it is shining down on me.

000

Howard has a problem, his company that he has worked for all his life, has been purchased by the CCA, a multi-megabucks corporation, called the Communications Corporation of America. Because Howards’ network is posting a loss each quarter, CCA has determined that he is no longer useful or productive. That he has no worth, and they are forcing him to retire much earlier than he wants to. In other words, the corporation is putting Howard out to pasture.

Any of this sound familiar?

Howard gets so disgusted with his job and life in general; he threatens to blow his brains out on the national news broadcast one night. Just matter of factually states this during a routine news show, catching everyone by surprise, says that “I am going to blow my brains out on this show next Tuesday.”

What I am talking about is the movie, Network, the movie. It is an old movie, been out for quite sometime now. You can find it in just about any video shop or order it on line. It stars Faye Dunway, the late Bill Holden and Robert Duvall, as the head honcho of the CCA group.

The movie has it all, power plays in the board room, heads fly, and budgets are slashed to the bone in the name of profit, cut throat power plays within the ranks as people jostle and position for control. Pretty good flick, be forewarned there is some nudity, profanity also, so you might want to put the “food thieves to bed early” before you watch it.

Getting back to Howard.

Howard like I said, “has a problem.” He has goals, an identity, worth as a human being, and feels as if he is still productive. Howard resents being pushed out of the CCA Mega Corporation very much. Howard states, “I want to tell people the truth. But the people don’t want to hear the truth.” So each time Howard gets on the air he rambles on and on, about things like value, worth, self preservation. He speaks of a vision, or how bad his job has gotten, how thing in life are changing, makes a valiant plea with the general theme of “I am a man worth saving.”

But alas, everyone thinks Howard is slowly but surely, going crazy and they want to take him off the air. CCA the Mega Corporations states: “We have to get rid of Howard, we need to get him off the air.”

Finally, the appointed Tuesday arrives.

Howard Beale builds to the peak of all these days of rambling and he says, “I want you (the viewing audience at home) to get mad. I want you to open that window, and stick your head outside and yell … “I am mad as hell and I am not going to take this any more!” Then he again goes off on his own personal tangent and repeats the phrase, “I am mad as hell and I am not going to take this anymore!”

Then a funny thing happens.

All across the country, people rush to their windows, not just where Howard happens to be, but across the width and breadth of America. People get up out of their chairs and they walk over to the window and they yell “I am mad as hell, and I am not taking this anymore! … I am mad as hell, and I am not taking this anymore!”

The rest of the movie is just as good and entertaining. We all understand that this is just fiction and that it never really happened. This is not the real world, but a lot of it is similar to our everyday lives. We all work for a Mega Corporation believe it or not. The name of this Mega Big Buck Corporation is:

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Like it or not, we are being put out to pasture sort of speaking, our opinions, our needs, our goals, are no longer relevant in this modern world we live in. Although we have self worth, we have value, time honored traditions, we are not being attended to nor being heard on most issues. Our core values are steadily being eroded and washed away by a legion of incompetent fools in Washington DC. Elected to do a job, they fritter away each day and chip away at the very essence of American Life.

Just this week, in a much bally-hoo’ed team work session they threw the 4^th Amendment of the Constitution out the window, by voting to give the government of the United States even more power to spy on you, your lifestyle and your home.  One more step in the Patriot Act pathway to oblivion.

We have seen our budgets slashed in the name of Democracy, wholesale plundering of the economy in the name of corporate profit, entire states and communities turned literally upside down in the name of political correctness, restructuring of the whole country and our national defenses.

All of it built on a platform of broken promises and outright lies.

Perhaps it is time to walk to the window, or pick up a telephone, make a call and tell them that “We are mad as hell, and we are not taking this anymore.” Instead of just sitting idly by, and doing nothing. If none of this has inspired you at this time, then walk over here and see what Lee Iacocca has to say about it.

We are fresh out of heroes in this country and we need to find someone that can fit the bill.

Related:

• Lee Iaococca
• Constitutional Spying
• Irregular Times

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There is an old saying in business, “Let’s form a committee and pool our ignorance.”  Often that is exactly what happens when a group of diverse individuals get together, instead of radical change, you get the exact opposite, a monumental step backwards. 

The Senate of the United States this week started debates on a new bill aimed at Global Warming, which is being touted as the most comprehensive bill of this nature to ever reach the floor of either house of government.

The measure aims to cut carbon-dioxide emissions to 66 percent of current levels by the year 2050.  It proposes to do this by setting up a system of pollution permits to U.S. Business and by encouraging an auction system on those permits at the same time.  In other words, you are allowed so many pollution permits per year for your polluting of the environment and if you need more, then you can “buy or purchase permits from your buddies who are not as big a polluter as you are.” 

Everyone wins … Everyone that is except the planet.

Now here is the bonus, the real incentive in the proposed program, this could possibly raise as much as $3.3 trillion by the very same year with some of the money used for alternative-energy research.  The bill is not expected to pass in its current form, it still has to be tweaked a little and milked for everything it is worth. 

Personally, I don’t see this reducing pollution levels at all, this is just “another tax on virtually every aspect of our economy” and nothing more.

This so-called anti pollution measure would usher in nothing less that “the largest income redistribution scheme since income tax.”  The auction of emission permits would produce a gigantic revenue windfall for “Congress.” And nothing more.  This would be but one more attempt or vehicle to the members of this club of elite spendthrifts dedicated to the preservation of their system. 

If you think earmarks (special appropriations) are bad now, wait until this goes into effect.  This is just a totally new system of a private economy available to a community of elected, select few.  This is but another pay-as-you-go scheme to rape the planet and pickup a good chunk of pocket change at the same time. 

Only a politician could come up with a gambit as foolhardy such as this.

Something must be done to stop the erosion of America’s economy, something must be done to address the problems of global warming, but this is not the panacea we are looking for.  Legislation like this is repressive and far from the progressive law making that is required to turn all of this around.  This will in the end, send even more American companies rushing across the border or to third world countries, to beat the restrictions in place put here by our insatiable money hungry Congressional leadership.

Why stay here and contribute even more to the tax-trough, when you can go somewhere else where anti-pollution laws are basically non existent.

One more Win-Win deal from our ship of fools.  Everyone wins … Everyone that is except the planet.  If this planet were an apartment, we would not be getting our deposit back at all.

You can debate it until the cows come home as they say in my part of the country, but it isn’t going to do the job.  All this will do is accelerate environmental damage to the planet and in the end, make the world a much poorer place to live.  

000

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• Japan CO2 
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