Sunday, January 27, 2008

Guiness Records

An interesting and a stupid record

The interesting record is a new pool in Algarrobo, Chile. Guinness World Records named the swimming pool at the Chilean San Alfonso del Mar resort the world's largest on Tuesday. It is 3,323-feet long, holds 250,000 cubic meters of water and covers about 20 acres. It is a saltwater pool that pulls in and cleans water from the ocean.
The next largest pool? 450x300 feet in Morocco.


And now for the stupid record:

Just who enabled this woman? And for how many years have they had to do it? Its one thing to bathe and wipe the butt of a loved one who is sick or old, but this woman is neither (tho maybe a bit sick in the head) She can't cook, she can't clean, she cant drive, she probably cannot work at all, likely needs assistance with getting dressed, and she cant use the bathroom by herself. Definitely stupid.

Friday, January 25, 2008

For You!

You know who you are!






For those not in the know, this is an Indian actor named Surya.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Miscellania

You know it is bad when you don't even bother to check your own blog. I havent had much time to keep up on this lately. Nothing new there tho.

Lets see... Two Sundays ago Lil Bear put on my shoes and start walking around the house. He kept repeating "Wearing daddies shoes, Ha Ha, wearing Daddies shoes, Ha Ha" with the occasional "Harder to walk, harder to walk" thrown in. Very very cute. He is talking, making sentences, singing to quite a few songs, even ones that he hears for the very first time. He got VERY excited about Rich Mullin's One Thing which he loudly sung along to despite the fact we haven't listened to it for quite some time. In fact it was perhaps a month before he even cared about the music. We also have quite the band going on with a kazoo, bongos, a drum, maracas and a harmonica he recently learned how to play.

He'll be two in less than two weeks. My lil boy is growing up! (sniff) He talks about dinosaurs and sharks and how they try to bite your fingers and feet. and when we go to the store he will hop up on the cart to escape from the sharks. But when he isn't dodging sharks he wants to push or pull the cart and I had better not interfere. in fact I had best just step aside. Either that or he wont have anything to do with the cart at all

Some of you people are making me feel inadequate with my posts. Triton and Wes both just put out books. Wes actually put out a trilogy while Triton just put up a single tome. But it doesn't matter. You know why? Darnit, I don't either and I was hoping you might.

Ben Bernanke and all the rest of the Fed are thieving bastards. The deserve to be beaten, tar'ed and feathered. And then strung up by their toes and waterboarded. And when that is done thrown overboard into shark infested waters, and shot just to make sure there is some blood in the water. They have stolen so much from the middle class that if a number could be put on it there would be riots. But before that number is known there is other bad financial news. Seems yesterday is being called "Black Monday" and the US markets were spared only due to the fact that they were closed.

okay, thats it. No more. Come back later. Theres nothing to see here now.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Downfall Of An Empire

The following excerpt is from Pat Buchanan's latest op-ed.
Last week, Moody's warned that if the United States fails to rein in the soaring cost of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the nation's credit rating will be down-graded within a decade.

Our political parties seem oblivious. Republicans, save Ron Paul, are all promising to expand the U.S. military and maintain all of our worldwide commitments to defend and subsidize scores of nations.

Democrats, with entitlement costs drowning the federal budget in red ink, are proposing a new entitlement – universal health coverage for the near 50 million who do not have it – another magnet for illegal aliens. Moody's is telling America it needs a time of austerity, while the U.S. government is behaving like the governments we used to bail out.

This self-indulgent generation has borrowed itself into unpayable debt. Now the folks from whom we borrowed to buy all that oil and all those cars, electronics and clothes are coming to buy the country we inherited. We are prodigal sons, and the day of reckoning approaches.


The same day we have a story of a 2nd state approving an end run around the electoral system which is sure to upset the larger area of the country. This end run will allow just 11 states to control the presidential elections, the will of the other states be damned. And altho the middle of the country is less populated it also produces the majority of the food and ores (and soon the fuel) necessary for the functioning of the country.

This country is rapidly heading for a cliff with the recession that is already upon us, the outrageous Inflation Tax (the core cause of the high oil prices), the collapse of the housing bubble and the corresponding banking crisis, the retirement of the Baby Boomers, an ever expanding so-called "War On Terror" for which we cannot pay and have to borrow to finance leading to ever higher inflation and debt. And to top it off the Citizens are lulled into complacency with their bread and circuses, currently the NFL playoffs, Jamie Lynn Spears shocking pregnancy, Brittney Spears custody issues and Dr. Phil's desperate attempt to help Brittney.

Friday, January 11, 2008

Illegal Aliens

I was watching a news report on the Latino vote (Latino always being perfectly accented of course) and how it will affect the primaries and the election. It seems that for them the talk about illegal aliens or "undocumented workers" is really just "bashing brown people." Even for the Puerto Ricans who are citizens from birth, they see illegal aliens as their "brothers." But this is really a nonsensical position. Talking about the problem with illegal immigration is not bashing Latinos, rather it is recognizing that there are people who are coming into our country illegally and this quite specifically does NOT include Puerto Ricans.

There are currently 12-20 million illegals here in the States. Due to the large amount of illegals in the country and because they are largely uneducated (tho not unskilled) what we have seen is a suppression of wages in all labor markets. Be it factories, construction, slaughterhouses, or janitorial the jobs requiring labor have all seen their wages drop or remain stagnant (which means they drop due to inflation.) These are male dominated industries and therefore affects men more so than women, and has no doubt had a large impact on the black community, which was also pointed out in the report I was watching. Many of the jobs that the Blacks have held they hold no longer as illegals will do the job for much less. Nor do the illegals complain as they quite simply can't complain. Their employer would just fire them and there can be no legal recourse when you aren't here legally to begin with.

It is impossible to say just how many jobs those illegals hold as they are "undocumented" and companies cover them up to stay out of trouble. And some of these jobs cater almost exclusively to the Latino/illegal community, things such as the local carnicerias which don't get much business from the White, Black or Asian communities, so in some aspects some of these jobs are irrelevant when figuring out the economic impact of removing these illegals from the country.

Another point that needs to be considered is just how much money LEAVES the US via these "undocumented workers." Remittances is the 3rd largest source of foreign income for Mexico, just after maquiladora (the assembly-for-export sector) and oil. In 2005 that total was 20.6 billion. But of course it isn't just Mexico. A total of 75 billion (in 2002) leaves our economy every year, Mexico is just the largest single destination. Now when a dollar circulates it is said to circulate a total of seven times, which would give us a total of 450 billion in wealth that isn't happening here in the States. And please don't be fooled into thinking that that money will buy US products because it won't. It will buy local goods or Chinese goods, just like what we buy. That money is forever lost to the US economy, it will never buy goods here, never create jobs here, never sustain jobs here and will never pay taxes here.

There are social issues that need to be considered. The main issue is that we really ARE headed into a recession, and that means that society is going to look for scapegoats. One can argue whether or not it is right, but you might as well argue against the sun rising. Its going to happen. And with the moral structure of this country in such horrendous shape there will be violence, and that violence will beget even more violence. But it can be reduced if we act now in helping the illegals self deport. Some states are already passing and enforcing legislation that is encouraging the illegals to "self deport." Oklahoma, Colorado and Arizona are among the vanguard in that respect. Arizona is particularly strict. If a company knowingly hires and illegal their business license will be suspended for 10 days, while a second violation could mean their business license is revoked entirely.

The effects of these new laws have not yet been seen, nor can it be known where these illegals will go, be it back to their country of origin, or more likely to another State. But what is certain is that the illegal immigration problem will be resolved one way or another. Personally I prefer the most peaceful method possible as it would be both peaceful and most likely it would also be gradual which would allow the economy to adjust to the loss of workers and the reassigning/adjusting of economic priorities that will no doubt take place.

Miscellany

Some updates to the blogroll...
I added MikeT and WonderWoman, both of whom I have been reading for a while but was too lazy to link to. I also updated the links to Birdie and Heidi as they have migrated off of blogger.

I added two new blogs. Bethyada who often writes on biblical topics writes to such a level that I am often in way over my head anymore. I hope that with a return to working days that will stop... Also added the Elusive Wapiti. Good stuff over there as well, Triton I think you will like that blog if you haven't already checked it out.

In other news, Doctors suck! By and large they are a waste of time and money. It took almost a decade to get diagnosed as hypothyroid and add another ten on top of that to figure out that I have a wheat allergy (kinda hard to figure that one out perhaps as it is in darn near everything) but that was figured out with no help from the medical community after my older brother was finally diagnosed with Celiac's, which is perhaps a more advanced form of wheat allergy.

I printed up a 16x20 of one of my photos and I am happy to say that it printed perfectly with no flaws and none of my edits showing. The edits I made we to remove numerous birds from the background that showed up more as specks than anything else, as well as to remove a stick from the water that detracted from the reflection of the hot air balloons. Now I need to find a pic that I am willing to get blown up even larger, possibly in the 30x40 range, but it is going to cost about $50 to do so so I am reluctant to do it. And having printed in glossy I am wondering how the "matte" option would look. Maybe I will print up an 8x10 (cost $5) to see the difference.

Thursday, January 03, 2008

Workin' For A Livin'

Huey Lewis and Garth Brooks:


Man, Huey plays one mean harmonica!

Then there is this guy Buddy Greene who is incredible:

Iowa Caucus prediction

Okay, tonight is the night. We finally get to see where the candidates stand (at least in Iowa 'eh?)

My prediction is for Huckabee, Romney and then Paul taking 3rd place. On the Democrat side I think it is FAR too close to predict anything but I would like to see Edwards pull off a win there. It might not catapult him into the nomination, but it would be great to see the Hillary machine suffer a defeat despite all their money.