Wandering Wonderings & Nonsensical Imaginings

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When the shepherd stops feeding his dogs because he thinks that it cost too much the flock will soon be visited by wolves and the shepherd will grow hungry.

When a farmer burns his crops for fuel in the fall because it is easier than chopping wood
He will both freeze and starve when the winter comes.

If one allows rats to feed and multiply unhindered in the barn his home will soon be infested as well.

If a person allows weeps and grass to grow tall and wild in the yard and against his house then any grass fire will also burn his home

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The choices in the comming election

Obama has written several very interesting and reveling books about himself and his thoughts. There isn't must to know about him politically though because his public life has been almost exclusively been spent running for office. First for a state legislative office then in short order for the US Senate and after one year there he started running for the Presidency. He has never had time to actually do ANYTHING because he is always working toward his next position. Since there is nothing higher than the White House, we will only get to find out who and what he really is and stands for after it will be too late if we don't like him. Right now all there is to know is that he is a great campaigner and delivers a great speech. He is highly intelligent, seems to be charismatic and a generally nice guy...

McCain seems to be a nut, fixated on winning a war we are not fighting (all we are really doing is refereeing the fight and getting hurt trying to get between the real combatants) and unable to face the reality that it is a lost cause. Eventually we will "win" the war like we did in Vietnam. Negotiate a cease fire, collect a Nobel Peace Prize (Like Kissinger did.), declare the war over and RUN...then the real winners will kill their opposition and take power.

The REAL issues facing the next President though will not be foreign policy. We have problems at home that need to be addressed or they are going to crush us. We MUST have fuel or we will die. If we decide not to address this with REAL answers we will be through as international leaders of any kind. When you can't feed and house your own people you tend to stop paying much attention to the troubles of others. Check out Russia if you want to see one of our possible futures. The Democrats don't want us to use coal, oil, natural gas or nuclear power and put up road blocks at every turn. Solar and wind power might work but not in the near future (Maybe in twenty years if we work hard on them). If we don't do something NOW there won't be a far future for our culture.

We need to drill HERE and NOW for more domestic fuels. We need more Nuclear power plants to displace coal, fired generating plants. We need to downsize what the average person believes is necessary for a satisfactory lifestyle. We need to fix and expand our old and dilapidated rail system and then BAN long haul trucking. The pace of American life needs to slow down and streamline. Most of these things will happen whether we want them too or not. the only question is going to be how destructive and painful the process will be. Europe did it through two wars and the total destruction of the existing economic systems. When they rebuilt they changed things. I hope that we don't have to go there in order to make the changes that lie ahead.

By the way, The National average price for gas in the US has dropped below $4.00 a gallon and there is expected to be another 25cent drop before labor day. It seems that things are moving slightly faster than I expected. Oh Well nobody is perfect...

Prognostication via memory

A few predictions…

Gasoline prices will drop after August. By the middle of September they should be down 25 to 50 cents and by the middle of February of next year it will have dropped another 25 to 35 cents per gallon. Here in East Texas I am looking for it to be in the $3.75 range then falling back to about $3.50 or maybe a little less next year.

A lot of what we are seeing right now I have been predicting for 3 years. ANYTIME you have an incumbent Republican President, you can expect a recession in the year of the election. The Democrats and the liberal media will see to it. If you will just keep telling everyone over and over that we are having a recession, they will get nervous and stop spending money. If all you see or hear on the TV and Radio is doom and gloom you will eventually be overcome by it.

The price of gas right now is an artificial situation and has nothing to do with the supply or really totally with the demand. When a government tells the world that we are too good to soil our hands with nasty ole oil wells, you can bet that the nations that produce the oil in our place will stick it to us. This isn’t the first time we have done this and we are so stupid that it will most likely not be the last. Jimmy Carter ran his campaign on a “The sky is falling and there won’t be a drop of oil left by 2000!!!” platform in 1977. The price of gas soared and we even had rationing. I worked in the oil industry at the time and by 1982 you couldn’t give oil away. Oil prices dropped to almost nothing and nearly every place that I had ever worked went out of business because of the oil GLUT that followed. The year 2000 came and there is still plenty of oil…IF we will get off our butts and drill for it! Once the elections are past things will go back to a more normal business as usual sort of status.

If we reduce our usage, as we are doing… If we let it be known that we are going back into production and start tapping the near limitless resources that are in our offshore reserves and in Alaska… If we start seriously looking into alternative fuels…The Arabs will panic and cut their prices to keep this from happening. You have to understand, oil is ALL they have. If the demand falls they will go back to starving to death. What we need to do is NOT do as we did in 1982. We NEED desperately to find alternatives for burning oil and we need to become more self sufficient in fuels. I hope, but don't expect, that this time we will continue to pursue alternatives even after OPEC drops the prices.

Another thing that is going to bring down the prices in the short term is that right now China is buying oil at an unprecedented rate. First the earthquake disaster has increased their demand for diesel by almost 20%. Trucks and bulldozers are guzzlers and they are rebuilding and cleaning up as fast as they can. They are doing this in part so everything will be perfect for the Olympics. They have also increased their reserves by 25% to insure that there will be no shortages during the Olympics. Once the Olympics are going and then done their demand will fall drastically.

I was raised in an oil patch. We had oil wells on the school grounds and in the subdivisions and my Deer Lease was an oil field. Everybody’s Dad worked in the oil industry when I was growing up and nearly every job that I had until 1982 was oil related. A refinery has only one speed…on or off!!! When you needed to work on a unit you went into “shutdown” and everyone worked 12/7 until it was up and running again. While it was down every valve and every heat exchanger, every pipe and tube was checked and rebuilt if it wasn’t in near perfect shape because you can’t just shut a unit down for a “quick” fix. You can’t run a cracking unit at half speed. You can’t leave a unit down for long. Oil comes in one end and the various products come out the other and go into storage tanks until it is sold. When the storage tanks get full you either sell it or burn it!!! This summer people didn’t travel like they normally do and the tanks are still pretty full. Winter is coming…Where do they put the home heating fuel that they are going to need to make if the tanks are full of gasoline?? In 1977 the problem where I live wasn't that there wasn't any oil, it was WHERE TO STORE IT ALL. They parked tankers in port, FULL OF OIL, just because there wasn't any place to put if if it came ashore!!!! The domes were bulging in the tank farms and I know of one place where they were actually pumping oil back into the ground.

All this adds up to almost EXACTLY the same situation that we were lied to about in 1977. Ford was the incumbent Republican President then. Once again the Democratic cry is the same…THE SKY IS FALLING!!!!!!!

Free at Last, Free at last!!!

Well I went to my Ortho/surgeon Doc yesterday. They did x-rays and he cut me loose!! Halleluiah!! I am feeling good but couldn’t progress much further for fear of doing harm to myself. It is hard to strengthen the quads and never flex your hip past 90 degrees. I also couldn’t cross my legs or twist too much for fear of pulling something out of place. No more!! I may hurt but he says that I am past the point of doing actual harm to myself. GREAT!! I am going to finish off the week taking it light then go back to work next week.

Survival food stocks and phylosophy

I was looking through my mail today and found that I had received, along with my new Backwoodsman magazine, a catalog from a survival food supply house. As I scanned it I found that according to them, a year’s supply of food for four would run over $14,000.00. This along with some other things that I have run into in the last few weeks has prompted me to make a few observances and offer, maybe, a somewhat different perspective and a little free advice.(Worth every cent you paid for it too!)

In these uncertain times it would behoove a lot of people to have supplies laid in “just in case.” I find that a lot of people are worried and concerned about the possibility of hard times in our future. The FEMA fiascos in recent years have brought into focus the foolishness of depending of the government for your basic needs. Many fret but most feel that they can’t afford to do much. Soooo…

First off the best way to survive in any situation is to do as little as possible while avoiding confrontations. I remember years ago when my testosterone levels were a lot higher that I walked down that, “Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil…because I’m the baddest dude in the valley.” path. High powered assault and battle rifles and high capacity automatic handguns seemed the way to go along with dehydrated food supplies, MREs and ammo by the truck load.

30 years and a lot of common sense have come and gone since then. K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) works lot better and great magazines like The Backwoodsman help us see this. I feel now that for fewer than 500 bucks I can easily set someone up to do well under most any situation.

The first thing that you need to toss out of your head is any idea that what we consider hunting today is of any use at all. It is actually just a dangerous waste of time and energy where you burn more calories than you usually gain. Sport hunting is to survival food gathering as boxing is to surviving a street fight. They are two totally different things! If I want to feed my family in a survival situation, going out, hiking all over the country and shooting a gun is the last thing I want to do. It attracts too much attention AND is hard work. Cable snares, while far from sporting, work on animals from mice to elk. The only difference between snaring mice and deer is the size of the cable. These simple traps work 24 hours a day for you. With a little practice they will provide you with more meat than you need real quick. You can perfect your technique on mice, tree rats and rabbits and then with little effort convert your knowledge to bigger game if you need to. Without refrigeration, meat is hard to keep in big quantities. It takes a lot of work to properly cure and store. Unless you are trying to feed a tribe or well situated in a simi-permanent redoubt, the bigger mammals are worth more for their hides than their meat during the warm months. During the cool months they are better for several reasons, the ease of keeping the meat is just one.

If you set cable snares with cam locks and deer stops across active game trails you WILL snag animals. You don’t shoot it, you cut it’s throat with a knife tied on a loooong pole. No noise and no one knows that you have meat. Deer and such are good to jerk but for day to day eating smaller prey are better.

The next thing that you need to come to terms with is that food is fuel and not supposed to be “Fun” or entertaining. Your diet needs to be simple and a bunch of number 10 cans is not simple. Cooking a big number of different foods for each meal is hard work when you are cooking on a fire. Most frontier meals were one pot wonders. I have on my wall, my civil war ancestors “mess kit.” It is small 1 ½ quart 3 legged pot. That and a spoon were all he needed to feed himself for as long as necessary. He didn’t need or expect a 5 course meal every time he sat down to eat.

My survival larder is real simple…Red Beans, Rice, Corn, salt and Lard. Deer corn runs under 4 bucks for 50 lbs. You can parch it whole or with a grain mill, grind it coarse for mush, grind it fine for tortillas. You can boil the corn in a lye solution then rinse it 3 or 4 times and you have hominy. Dry and grind the hominy and you have grits. Red Beans and Rice provide a complete protein and between that, the corn which is a great carbohydrate and the lard you are set. Lard is available anyplace that has a Hispanic community. 5 gallons runs about 25 dollars and will season a ton of beans and make a huge pile of tortillas along with providing the fat that you must have to survive. A bunny or squirrel in the pot makes it all the better and local wild greens will fill out a healthy diet. People ate like this for centuries! The salt can be rock salt, it doesn’t have to be table salt. I buy it in 25 lb sacks from water softener companies. I buy pool shock at wally world, it is a chlorinator that is stable and a few pounds of it will make water safe to drink for years. Bleach is NOT stable and will become ineffective over time and boiling water when you are on the move isn’t a viable choice. The powdered pool shock is cheaper anyway. This sort of food is easy to store and cheap to accumulate.

I also keep on hand some of those “just add water” box meals…soups, red beans and rice, gumbo, mashed potatoes in different flavors etc… These provide on the run “poor boy MREs.” They are cheap, low weight and nutritious. I generally avoid canned goods in this area because you are mostly hauling water around. The only exception to this is canned meats.

For food after that first year, you need to plant the above mentioned grains and beans along with potatoes, yams and legumes. You might go ahead and plant some of them now in whatever location you plan to pull back to if your current situation isn’t as rural as you would like.

Most people don’t have a clue what a potato or yam plant look like or even beans until the pods are filling out. They can be put in all over the place and will be there if you need them. Beans and peas are much the same and will grow back year after year if you don’t harvest them. In the time between then and now, I rotate the corn into my deer feeders and that will make harvesting a deer even simpler if I need one. Right now I really prefer just looking at them and eating porterhouse steaks and hamburgers. A good non-hybred seed supply is a must. A lot of the corn and stuff you get these days is hybrid and sterile or poor quality as far as using it for seed. For long term you want the old stuff that is meant to provide its own seed.

I live in East Texas in the woods near but not in the flood plain of a major river. Surviving here is pretty easy. We don’t have snow or harsh winters. There are all sort of eatable critters all around me. I could live on fish alone with little effort. Food fishing is a lot like the hunting thing. I have nets, traps and other knowledge that make it a sure thing and not a sport. For me, food just isn’t an issue.

The big thing is keeping a low profile and stay out of the way of trouble. The easiest way to win a fight is to not get in a fight. If however I have to fight, it will be like my hunting and fishing and not sporting at all.

When it comes to weapons, K.I.S.S. The last thing you want is the attention that cutting loose with a couple of assault rifles will draw. I sold mine for monster profits a few years ago and went simple. I have enough ammo left over from Y2K that if I have too I can live on birds that I shoot with 22s for about a hundred years. 22lr cartridges are good trade stock. Actually that is what my air pistol and rifle are for. A .357mag will kill anything in East Texas when fired from a rifle. A shotgun is better than anything that shoots in the dark and up close. By limiting the number of different type of ammo that you will use it is easier to gather a nice supply. For me it is 22, 38/357 and 12 ga. I have others but those other guns are more specialized. A 38/357 with different loads is good for almost anything. Ranging from shot shells through 38 special wadcutter light target loads to the new ballistic tip 357 mags designed for rifle use you can carry an arsenal of different “guns” in your pocket. A 38cal. Lee Loader allows easy reloading with very little equipment but in the long run you need to shoot as little as possible.

I love the little single shot guns that you can get different barrels for. A single shot encourages marksmanship, stealth and conserves ammo. A gun is a tool and a simple tool will over time provide little worry about failure and is hard to damage. If you are armed with a bunch of complex offensive stuff you have less flexibility, will use more ammo and have more parts to break down. Even more important with all that firepower you will tend to be brave and less likely to just slip away from trouble. My first love in weapons are things that have sharp points and edges anyway.

You don’t have to spend a lot of money to insure your family’s safety. I suspect most people don’t prepare because they are intimidated by the perceived cost and complexity. They think keeping a little backup store involves lots of money and planning. Don’t go for it!! If nothing else, a couple garbage cans for the corn and a few 5 gallon plastic buckets full beans rice and one with lard will get you through any short term problem. Throw in a pot, a grain grinding mill, a 22 Rifle with ammo, some wire cable and a box of matches and you are about set as far as food is concerned.

DanL

No more PT

Well they tossed me out of physical Therapy yesterday. Christine says that I am about as far along as she can get me until my bone has grown more to better support my implant. That takes 4 month not 6 weeks ;-(. The good news is that I am way ahead of the curve as far as my muscular recovery. The bad news is that, with my size, I am at greater risk of doing damage if I over do. People over 6 foot tall place a lot more stress on the hip when they bend over than a shorter person.

Death Penalty misuse

The GRRRRR of the day IS…The death penalty. A man on death row today since 1984 got a stay of his date with the executioner. It seems that there is DNA evidence that the DA wouldn’t run until yesterday a Judge ordered a stay until this is done. WHY did it take a court order to get our judicial system to do what it is supposed to do? Why is it that all death row inmates DNA is not gathered upon their entry. It not only is not gathered but it takes a court order to get it. One “killer” was cleared by DNA evidence that was snuck out in the form of a bloodied “sample” from a dental procedure.

Don’t get me wrong here. I don’t have a problem with the prompt execution of a KNOWN killer. Known means absolute proof and or a confession. It does not mean a nebulous circumstantial case that is made up of nothing more substantial than the wind from a DA’s mouth. The death penalty is not vengeance, it is not punishment. It is society protecting itself from a person that is believed to be an ongoing and continual threat to almost anyone that comes in contact with them. It is NEVER a game that a DA is playing to win irregardless of the guilt or innocence of the accused.

If a DA is caught failing to do their very best to insure the actual guilt of people that they convict then the DA should take that persons place on Death Row. Too often they not only are not searching for the true facts they are covering these facts up. The same DA that will gladly send a man of to be executed on evidence based on DNA will fight tooth and toenail the release of on man cleared by DNA evidence.

If we can’t do it right then we shouldn’t do it. I think that it is long past time to face the fact that innocent people are being murdered by the state. When the DNA thing first came out there were hoards of people freed from death rows all over the country. This MEANS that before this those people would have died. Even ONE innocent man is too many!

I hear people all the time head running that we need to cut off the appeals and execute these people. The man that got this stay has been on Death Row since 1984! If he is cleared by the DNA then we as a people have been saved from another innocents mans blood being on our hands.

Believe me, LIFE in prison without hope of parole is a much better punishment anyway.

Be happy, be YOU

Therapy yesterday went pretty good. I don’t think that I am going to have to go much longer. Actually I am strong enough right now to continue my recovery without supervision. My problem is with my flexibility. I have back problems that are mostly in my right leg as sciatic nerve issues. My left leg was my “Good” leg until the hip went kapooy. Now I am at the point where my legs are about equal but I’m not supposed to bend my left hip past 90%...and my left won’t go that far! Ah well, I don’t hurt much except when I bend over or try to fold up these days…

My GRRRRRR of the day is the Television and the unrealistic view of what pretty/happy people are supposed to look like. Their so called healthy happy people (more especially women) are thin as a rail and sickly, tanned to the point of being skin cancer candidates, and ALWAYS so young looking that they are really just kids. EXCUSE ME!!! The kind of thin that they push is NOT healthy nor very attractive to most men. I have yet to meet a man who prefers flat chested, hollow cheeked (on BOTH ends!) curveless women over a more curvatious woman with a glow of health. The only men that I can think of that prefer this have a little girl fetish. (This does not mean pedophile by the way!)

In my humble opinion, Ha Ha, ALL healthy, happy, reasonably intelligent women are beautiful!! A woman with sparkling eyes and smile is lovely whether she weighs 110 or 210! True beauty is not possible until at the very least age 30 because it takes about that long for a persons true character to make itself seen on our face. A child’s face is a blank slate…like a book without words, it doesn’t speak to you.

In fact, young people are not usually very happy. They are manically trying to FIND happiness; running from party to party searching for something that is missing inside them. They ALL seem to hate the way that they look. They are seldom content with their station in life and most important they don’t KNOW what it is that they really want. THIS is the state of “perfection” that we are supposed to pursue for a life time???? EGAD!

The reason for this unreal portrayal is I suspect, mercenary and financially motivated. First they show you (Ms. and Mr. Average) how inadequate you are and THEN they make a fortune selling advertising services, foods and plans that all assure you that they can fix this…for a price. Have you ever noticed that the commercials seem to swap between pictures of young. “beautiful” people stuffing fattening things into their mouths gleefully and pictures of young “beautiful” people selling you things that will “fix” you after you have finished gorging on the afore advertised goodies!!??

Look at the advertising on the packages and in the ads and see how many foods are touted to be FUN!!!! Food is supposed to TASTE good and be nutritious. It can be satisfying but FUN really isn’t an appropriate adjective! This is especially true of foods targeted at kids and when they say FUN what they really mean is sugar and fat packed empty calories! Fat Kids ensures future Millions FIXING this problem. GRRRRRRRR!

Let me tell you something…When it comes to life, It is QUALLITY, NOT QUANTITY THAT COUNTS!! Eat a healthy diet, don’t worry about your weight too much as long as you are active and healthy and be content with what you ARE rather than trying to conform to someone else’s idea of what you should look like. If you live to 65 gleefully you are WAY better off than the poor sod that fretted, struggled and worried their way to 80! The age that you live to is more in your genes than in your waist line anyway.

The sky is falling...Maybe.

Today Vivianna and I made our first move to insure our continued solvency. As I did during the Y2K worry in 1999, I am beginning to make preparations for a worst case scenario. It isn’t that I am purely a pessimist; I just prefer insurance over an ostrich approach to life.

In 99, the worry was mostly a banking break down and a possible short term adjustment if the computers dumped and there was a temporary break down in our delivery and distribution systems. The possibility of riots and social disturbances guided my preparations. Mostly I actually profited on my preparations even though there wasn’t any problems. I bought Gold coins for 260 dollars and they are selling for 925 now. I bought Silver coins for 8 dollars that are selling for 25 now. I will NEVER have to buy ammo again and have few needs as far as arms. I sold several firearms that I had bought, just in case, for whopping profits. You don’t have to lose money when you plan ahead. If things had gone bad, my insurance preparations would have been PRICELESS!! Instead they were just profitable.

Over the next year I plan to obtain a travel trailer, 2 motor cycles, a year or twos supply of food and a few other less mentionable things. What I am preparing for is the possibility of gas prices in the 7 dollar region. The effects that this will have, coupled with insane denial of the fact that there is a problem by the Democrats will possibly make food prices explode in the big cities. One of the BIG differences between Big City needs and perspective is that ALL of their food, water, energy and supplies are “imported.” Where I live, I could actually live off locally grown foods and locally harvested meats. We in the country will not be hungry. A year supply of food means that I will be fine until I get my garden up and running. I live on a major waterway and can catch more fish than we can eat easily.

The travel trailer is our answer to Vivianna’s 550 miles travel to go to and from work each week. Right NOW we are spending over 300 in gas alone to get her too and from. She/we can live over there in a camp ground for less than 200 a month 5 miles from her work. Ride the bikes to work and we will save untold amounts of gas and MONEY if the price goes sky high. I can hang out my shingle and repair things anywhere. I also do RV repair so I can bring some cash in just hitting the lake area camps along with AC and appliance repair.

In 1982 when the oil industry in Texas went bust after our LAST “the sky is falling and there ain’t no more oil” scare, many of my friends lost their homes. I came out pretty good because I had taken out insurance in the fact that by the time of the collapse, I owed not a dime to anyone and had bought a house that while not as impressive as most of my economic equals was affordable even on a substantially lower income.

I am well into my 5th decade. This isn’t my first rodeo. I have been wrong before BUT I have NEVER been caught with my pants down by an economic bust. They are actually easy to see coming. The problem is that most people fear change so much that they hide from what they see and deny it until it is too late. In 1982 in East Texas, you saw entire families fall from upper middle class to HOMELESS. The road side parks that had bathrooms became villages of families that were living in their cars! I was poor, but my family had a roof over its head and food on the table. In the end we came out the other side WAY better off financially. My marriage was stronger and better than ever because we as a couple, became a TEAM and learned that we could depend on each other when the going gets tough.

Everyone will do as they wish. Most will think me an alarmist but consider yourselves warned. We MAY be in for a rough ride. If you plan ahead it can be turned into an adventure instead of a disaster.

Nice Day & More on Obama

Today was a really nice day. Vivi got off early and we went looking at places to put a travel trailer over on the other side of the lake near where she works. If gas goes to 5 or 6 dollars a gallon we will move over there 4 days a week. We are also looking into a motorcycle. I don’t believe in waiting until bad things land on me to make plans and even some moves. We would enjoy a travel trailer no matter what. I rode a bike for years and 50 to 60 miles per gallon sounds awful good. It is pretty cheap insurance.

HOW MANY OF YOU HAVE SEEN THIS?

According to the Book of Revelations:
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, he will destroy everything.

And Now: For the award winning Act of Stupidity Of all times the People of America want to elect, to the most Powerful position on the face of the Planet --The Presidency of the United states of America… A Muslim Male Extremist Between the ages of 17 and 40.

Now I want you to think about something…The Muslim religion didn’t come into existence until 400 years AFTER the book of Revelations was written. NO place in the Bible is the Muslim religion mentioned because it did NOT exist.

I passed on the quotes from Obama’s book and told you that I had not read it…YET. I am now doing so and already feel safe in saying that all of the statements were almost certainly taken out of context. This book was written before he had EVER held office at a federal level. It is really a rather engaging story of a young mans passage through life. His Father was an “ink blot” black Kenyan and his Mother was a “white as milk” Lady whose family came from Kansas. At the time of their marriage in Hawaii, it was still a FELLONY for a black to marry a while in over half the states of the union. Needless to say, this made his life…”interesting”. The book details his passage to adulthood and guess what? At times he was treated really bad and resented the hell out of it. This was expressed as the feelings he had at the time. I know that I would hate to have to stand beside some of MY attitudes and beliefs that I held when I was less than 25!!!!

We are going to hear lots of propaganda over the coming months. If the stuff is true…hold his feet to the fire BUT; crud like this is a disservice to all of us who hope to make an INFORMED decision. If you hear something and are not SURE of its source, Go to Snopes.com and check it out. If you get it as an email and have never heard it before…it is most likely going to be a lie. The truth will be shouted from the roof tops. An email is just a sneaky way to slander someone without having to face consequences for spreading lies.

I still have some issues with Barack Obama but they are philosophical/political differences based of FACTS.

Grumps, gripes and Hurray for the Supreme Court

Ya know, sometime I think there is a jinx on my going to therapy. Tuesday hail and tornados; today as I was ready to walk out my door I realized that my AC wasn’t working! You can’t live in East Texas in the summer without your AC! So instead of going to exercise under the watchful eye of 3 cute therapists, I called, canceled and went to work on my AC. I had hoped to go back to work after the 4th of July but today busted THAT bubble! First I had to tear down my inside unit and then I got to go out and tear down the outside. The contactor on the condenser outside had fried and that in turn fried my transformer inside. I must have got down on my knees and then got back up a hundred times. Vivi was in my truck so I had to go to town to buy parts that I normally carry and have on hand. Fortunately I had my tools in my shop. By the time that I was done I felt like I had been stomped by a herd of hogs. My hip does not like kneeling and crouching. On the good side, at least I could fix it. With me not working I don’t want to even THINK about a new entire unit. As it was I got out for about 17 dollars and gas money…and a little minor agony.

On a happier note I was pleased today that the Supreme Court finally actually ruled that when the 2nd amendment says that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed it means that people have a right to own arms and defend their homes. DUH!!!! Liberals all over are squalling and bawling. They just can’t seem to understand that if strict and rigid gun control laws would make people safe, DC, LA and NYC would be the three safest cities in the country. Sadly this is so far from the truth that it is frightening that seemingly intelligent people can’t understand that gun control only protects the criminals and makes criminals out of good, honest people.

I received my copy of the Obama book "Dreams of My Father" today and will start reading it tonight.

This is a PS to the preceeding post...

After posting the Obama quotes from his book "Dreams of My Father" I thought about it. I received the quotes from another source and passed them on without having read the book for myself. I ordered the book today and will place it at the top of my reading list as soon as I get it. If I find that the quotations were taken out of context I will immediately let it be known. Unlike most, I have NO set party affiliation and can safely say that I detest the two leading parties with equal fervor. I despise a liar above all else and would rather an honest enemy than a lying ally any day. If those quotes were in reference to how he felt as a young man in contrast to how he feels now, I can understand that well. I also matured and grew as a person and am not the man that I was 30 years ago. I will let y'all know either way after I have read the book.

DanL

Election Fears

I wonder sometime why it is that as we get older we seem to worry more about the future, of which we have little, while when we are young with our whole life ahead of us we worry almost none.

I look at the forthcoming election with great trepidation. Too tell you the truth I don’t hold up much hope or enthusiasm for either of the candidates that we are going to be offered.

On one side we have a man who seems to be trying to right wrongs that he sees in his past. He doesn’t seem to have much concern for the young men and women that are going to die so that he can feel better about what happened in Vietnam and fails to see that he is simply walking down the same path that the leaders that failed him walked. If you aren’t going to fight a war and win…get the hell out!!

In a war you kill or imprison all that oppose you and any that offer them aid or a place to hide. You accept that there will be civilian casualties and get it over as quick as possible. We won WW2 because we did this. We bombed the German and Japanese cities into rubble. We destroyed our enemy’s ability to resist and the war ended.

In Vietnam we never bombed Hanoi and never really tried to win. Our Government just had a big time posturing while 50,000 young men died and unnumbered hundreds of thousands came home only partially. They left parts of their bodies and souls there and never were the same.

In Iraq, all an insurgent has to do is shoot an American, run around the corner, throw down his weapon and blend into the crowd and he is safe. If a soldier drags him out and kills him it is murder. We can NOT win a war that we won’t fight.

On the other hand we have a charismatic young man who looks good and talks great things. I admit that I was also somewhat enamored with him at first. Unfortunately for my peace of mind, I researched him and his past. Sadly if you judge him by his own words and the company that he keeps, he is a bigot. I wouldn’t expect a Black person to vote for someone that attended Klan meetings and whose admitted moral advisers and role models were Klansmen. I might even wonder about their sanity if they did vote for a man like that!! In the case of Barack Hussein Obama if you read his books and check out the Reverend Williams (His MENTOR and moral advisor) and other of Obama’s friends and role models, if you are not Black, you should get extremely nervous.

I offer a few quotes from his book Dreams of My Father…

“I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.”

“I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race.”

“There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.”

“It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.”

“I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa , that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself , the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.”

”I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

Not only a Black racist but a Black Muslim racist!!!

I know that all people have things in their past that they are not proud of. When you put it in a book and publish it though it must mean something special to you.

I am an old Hippie, I liked the Reverend King's thoughts and can’t see why we can’t just all lay this sort of crap aside and understand that we are all brothers and sisters. I detest this sort of bigotry and find it disgusting whether it comes from the White supremacists or the Black. I will never vote for a Klansman and I won’t vote for a Black Muslim Racist.

I’m thinking about voting for Pat Paulson…I know that he is dead but he was a wonderful comedian. Maybe he can get George Carlin to be his running mate now!

DanL

Weather, pain and fishing classes

Egads!!! I went to therapy today and the weather was AWFUL. I went through 50mph crosswinds, hail up to golf ball size, and what I think was a tornado!!! The wind was bad but I don’t think that just wind would pick up a 6 foot diameter corrugated culvert that was 15 feet long from a construction site and stand it on end in the middle of the freeway. When that appeared out of the rain in front of me I nearly freaked.

The bad weather really makes my joints hurt now so on top of everything else I had a rough time in therapy. It seems sometimes like the more that I progress, the more I return to the cycle of pain that I wanted to leave behind. I’m incredibly tired of hurting.

I love little kids. Today at therapy a woman brought her granddaughter. While Granny did her exercises this little girl danced around and played. Such a pleasure…little girls are one of the special pleasures in the world. I remember my daughter at that age…wish I had grandkids. I’m thinking of starting to teach a fishing class out at the state park on a more regular basis. The state sponsored class that I do is only once a month in the spring for 4 months and in the fall for about three months. I think that I might like to do one a couple of times a month, year around.

A little boy about 6 came up to me after the program Saturday and asked if he could give me a hug. He said that this had been the very best day ever. He had caught his first fish. So many of the kiddo’s have absentee Dads or like one that I promised to give a call and take fishing. His Dad works off shore 14 on and 7 off with two of the off days spent traveling. They used to fish but when he lost his job and had to go off shore that stopped. I talked to his Mom and will try to talk to his Dad first. He lives right near one of my favorite fishing holes.

DanL

Acceptable cruelty?

Today was a pretty good day. Went shopping with my Vivianna and had pizza. I am a little stove up still from all the time on my feet yesterday but it isn’t bad. Actually I feel it more went I am getting up and down or in and out of the car than when I am up or down.

My concern/gripe of the day is about the level of cruelty that is considered normal and ACCEPTABLE in our current society…

A human being IS by nature a cruel animal. This is just a fact of life that comes with any predatory carnivore. Over the millennia, mankind has struggled with this and societies are in part a group effort to subdue and control this cruelty. In our current American set up, men in the past had to be somewhat cruel. Boys were taught at a young age to control/deny the softer emotions. When you do this, the harder emotions fill in the spaces. Up until less than a hundred years ago men had to hunt and raise livestock and kill it. Because of our nature, if not taught otherwise, men get pleasure from doing this. A species that didn’t have a sex DRIVE would die out because of indifference. A species of carnivores that didn’t like to hunt and kill would starve to death. The necessary cruelty or maybe indifference to the suffering of our prey was encouraged in boys. I was raised “country” and never thought much of going out, catching and killing supper. In the past, public executions were treated like a fair and people would come from miles around with their entire families to see the spectacle of a human being killed; often most cruelly.

As we have moved away from the necessity of this and became a more urban society, this sort of thing has not only been forgotten, but actively denied. Suddenly, in our kinder, gentler country, any sort of public physical cruelty to animals has become abhorrent! We want to act as if someone acting cruelly is deranged and evil. I read the other day where a couple of Marines have gotten in DEEEEEEEP trouble for throwing a couple of dogs off a cliff in Iraq. [Side note…I am an animal lover. My furry children are as precious to me as my kids were. Like my kiddo, the animals depend on me for love, protection and support. In exchange they offer love, companionship and endless pleasure. I neither condone nor promote cruelty of any kind against those that we should be taking care of.]

All that said; I am not at all surprised or particularly disturbed by this because I understand it. A warrior, MUST, set aside nearly all of his or her social conditioning to become a professional KILLER. Atrocities in wars and times of war are sadly an unavoidable part if this horrible state of affairs. This is the difference between a peace time toy soldier and a combat veteran warrior.

The problem with these two soldiers is not so much in what they have done but in their loss of control. After you have killed a few people and learned to live with it, what is killing a couple of dogs? Anytime someone kills or attacks a person, it is a break down of their social conditioning. It isn’t the least odd that they did it or desired to do it. It is just that normally we control and resist these urges!

FINALLY, I’ll return to my original point. I am disturbed that while we TALK about kindness we are increasingly ACTING cruelly towards each other. We TALK about being gentle but more and more I see us ACTING meaner all the time in wide open ways.

Rudeness is now considered some sort of nationally approved art form! Help and old lady across a street??? She is lucky if someone doesn’t trip her or rob her!!!! TV shows now have made hurting and humiliating people before a national audience a BIG money enterprise. People think that it is FUN to watch someone have their heart broken by a sub-human spouse of partner. It is FUN to watch a person frightened out of their mind in some sadistic fashion…THIS IS ENTERTAINMENT????? At least when I killed a chicken, and laughed because it would run without a head, I did it for a reason! It was for a meal, and not just for sadistic, sick pleasure.

More and more, when someone does some really awful thing, it becomes a political issue and a ton of excuses are made for the monster. I was more bothered by the punk that hit that poor helpless truck driver in the head with a brick while he was on his hands and knees during the LA riots than I am by a Serial Killer. I understand and our society universally condemns what they do as a bad thing. The PUNK tried to kill a helpless innocent man that he didn’t even know…and a large part of our society tried to treat him like some sort of misunderstood hero that didn't deserve to be punished. A Serial killer kills for a reason. It is most likely a sick and twisted reason but a reason nonetheless. The punk didn’t have a reason. He wasn’t mad; he was grinning from ear to ear. He didn’t know the man so how could it have been a personal thing…No he did it because it was great fun!! This is natural, what bothers me isn’t that he did it as much as it is that after he did it, the action was not universally condemned.

The problem that I’m seeing isn’t with the individual. We are the same people we were 70,000 years ago. The problem is that our culture no longer whole heartedly repudiates actions that are cruel, sadistic or dishonorable! We TALK a good show but then when something happens we make excuses for these actions. Reality shows are all about who can be the most dishonest, the most dishonorable, the cruelest. We are training our kids to be and act in ways that no society can tolerate and survive.

Honor has become a word without meaning. At the altar of political correctness, kindness and gentleness have become empty promises. We encourage stupidity and make fun of intelligence. We reward laziness and then punish through back breaking taxes hard work.

I fear that the only hope that we have left is collapse and rebuilding again from the bottom up. Those who wish to be a part of this future need to prepare NOW. I look at it the same way that I look at life insurance. I hope that it doesn’t happen but I have insurance anyway. If you wait until you are on your death bed you can’t buy insurance. If you wait until things get really bad, you will not be able to get what you will need because at that point EVERYBODY will be trying to get the last can of food on the shelf!

DanL

Kiddos, fish and tired feet

I went out today, played with the kids and had a great time. I really enjoy teaching the kids how to cast and fish. There were several really cute little guys today and not a single bad parent. I did pretty well as far as my hip and legs but was totally shot down by the time that it was done. We caught a few fish…7 of them were the first fish that the kiddos had ever caught. They got their picture taken and special certificates. Tomorrow, I WANT TO GO CATCH A FISHY!!! I bet that there hasn’t been a time in the last 30 years when I went 6 weeks without going fishing. Well, I’m tired…gonna crash now..

DanL

Looong Night and Dark Clouds

Last night was a looooong night. I was hurting pretty bad and couldn't sleep at all. I took pain meds, I took sleeping meds, and I didn’t sleep at all. Finally around noon today, I managed to get some sleep. I hope to do better tonight!

I must feel better though, I am Bitchy again. LOL. Tomorrow I am sending this lift chair back. I rented it for a month and am doing well enough that I can get along fine without it.

There are times in life where we are tested and the sort of person or people that we are determines what the outcome will be. People tend to take the path of least resistance. A group of people are even more likely to do this. Only when fate forces us to leave the easy path will we make changes. If the road is straight and smooth, we will seldom turn down a side lane. Even at crossroads we go straight on.

What we tend to think of as bad times are actually times of forced change. When the road FORKS, we have to make a decision. I’m sure that you have all heard the old saying, “Inside every black cloud is a silver lining.” Well, the bigger the black cloud, the bigger the potential silver lining. This is because very few of us actually live and perform up to anything like our actual true potential. What most of us did was find a comfortable niche and stopped there. Only when we are forced by circumstances will most of us move on and seek a better place.

As a country this is just as true, maybe more so, as it is for individuals. The progress in the over all human condition changed little to none for hundreds of years between 1600 and 1900. Then in the 100 years following every thing changed! World wide war made us move forward. Sadly we got comfortable again pretty fast and that is why we went to the moon in the 60s and then stopped trying. That is why in a world of almost endless plenty, millions still live in poverty and hunger still haunts the lives of millions.

In my life, there have been quite a few smaller black clouds. As I look back at them I see that in every case, the end result was that I improved my over all lot in life. Every time that a problem forced me out of my comfy little hole, I became active in guiding my fate and ended up better off. I lost a home in the early 80s when the oil industry went bust because of a surplus of oil. (After the last “the sky is falling” cause we are out of oil panic!) I was out of work for almost a year. I had to leave my boyhood home town to get a job. The end result was a new and way better life somewhere else that I have NO regrets about. Had it not been that I was forced. I would have just sat there, working at a pretty good job, satisfied but never fulfilled. My wife would never have returned to school and she also would have led a much less fulfilling life. It was ROUGH…but it was also a necessary transition if I was ever going to go forward.

We are all pretty nervous right now. The high gas prices and the uncertainties we face are frightening. The good news is that this is the ONLY thing that ever gets people moving. Someday we really will run out of oil. That day is still a long way in the future but we can’t wait until then to make changes. As long as the cheep and easy oil is available we won’t actively pursue the alternatives. Oil is too precious to BURN! It isn’t renewable. It isn’t very clean and is expensive to find process and distribute. In the 70s there were lots of good ideas, sadly as soon as the oil shortage became an oil glut, we laid all of this aside…Maybe this time we will do better.

No matter what, don’t fear the change. We will all come out the other side, both individually and as a people, better for the experience if we will just be proactive and thoughtful in our actions. Don’t get in a rush. Don’t make big changes all at once until you are sure which way the current is flowing. When the time comes to make a move; do it fearlessly with joy. Look at it all as an adventure because when you look back on it, that is exactly what it is.

Ooooooooooohh!!!

HOLY Smoke!! Physical Therapy Reeeeeeeaaaaaly wears me out! It is sorta like the IRON-man Triathlon…In my case, maybe more a melted LEAD-man Triathlon!! Whatever, they run me ragged. You ought to ride a damn Bicycle up hill for 2 miles with a new hip joint!! Then they LET me prance and jog on a fricking little “tramperlene” for a while. (‘Til my tongue is lolled out on the floor!) Once I am warmed up and loose after this, I start to do my exercises!!! When I get home, I do the third leg of the Triathlon…I fall in my pool and try not to drown while I float/paddle around and try to get the cramps out of my legs and back. I’m POOPED!

To tired to even gripe about anything!

DanL

Raising Kids...

Today has been BOOOOORING. I am soooooo ready to go back to work and get going again. I feel fine and am a lot better than I was for the last 9 months before my hip replacement. I am going to tough it out though and not go back to work until after the 4^th of July.

Saturday I will be teaching my casting class at the State Park and that will be fun. I really like messing with the Kiddos. Everyone is amazed that I am going to be there but actually I could have done that 2 or 3 weeks ago as long as I have a helper to do the pick-up for me.

It amazes me these days how many people don’t seem to care much about their kids. Most of the kids are brought by their Cub Scout, School, Church Groups or Grandparents because the parents can’t take the time to spend 4 hours with their kids. You know, our kids are our future. If we don’t have time for them then where in the heck are they supposed to learn the important things in life? It is no wonder that so many kids don’t have manners or morals. Nobody ever took the time to teach them! I know a couple that wouldn’t even teach their kids how to talk. All of their kids entered school without the ability to communicate with other people. It was just easier for them to let the kids make up their own words for things than to teach them the right words or correct them. I’m not joking!! Each kid went straight into speech therapy as soon as they started school but even with this, they would continue to speak their babble talk at home and let their older sibling interpret for them when they just had to be understood.

Why have kids if you don’t want to help them learn how to be functioning members of society. The thing that makes me sick is that in our politically correct kinder gentler society, this is not something that you are allowed to do anything about. When the teachers tried to make these kids function as normal people their parents pulled them out of school because they were being “picked on” by the school and teachers. They were mad because the teachers wouldn’t teach what and how they wanted their kids taught. SO, the people that couldn’t even teach their kids to talk are now home schooling these same poor kids.

I probably wouldn’t be so freaked about this if I knew or thought that this was an isolated or unusual thing. I know personally of two other situations that are about the same. What sort of future is there for a country and people that allow this and even to some extent encourage it? The most important thing anymore is the little egos. In our efforts to encourage a high self-esteem we have set aside competence, education and morals. What we are getting is a bunch of lazy, undisciplined, self-centered, ignorant little monsters that think that they are the GREATEST and are ENTITLED to the best. God help us all!!

Election Year Jitters

Last night was a rough one. I think that I have a 24 hour bug…I HOPE that it is a 24 hour one anyway. I feel better this morning but didn’t go to do my Physical Therapy. Actually yesterday in general was a raunchy day. I was poop magnet and every thing that I touched I messed up. I guess there have to be some days like that to balance out the ones that go right.

This election year is going to be a real bugger. People are scared! For the first time since WW2 our security within our own borders is questionable. 911 still hangs over our heads because we all really know that it can and may happen again in some form. The price of gas threatens us all with financial ruin. Whether we want to admit it or not, the prospect of having our first Black President and one with a middle name of Hussein is a little disturbing. We all hope that he will be a president for all the people and not just a Black president. This isn’t a real worry I don’t think but when you are worried all sort of things come to mind. On the flip side McCain is unrealistic about Iraq and I have lived through one Vietnam and that was plenty. I actually don’t think that John McCain stands a chance. He hasn’t distanced himself from the Bush policies and people are sick and tired of Geedumbaya and his idiocies. Also I am afraid that his mental state is slipping. His control over his mouth is not what it should be. Look for him to develop a severe case of Anthrax (Hoof in Mouth) before the election campaign has gone far.

I expect there to be some real trouble this year. Feelings are running high and people are already beginning to behave irrationally. I honestly don’t think that it matters which one wins in the long run. We are in for some rough waters and the end result, I think, will be the same either way we go. At some point in the near future we are going to have to decide whether we want to survive as a nation or go down in flames. We can’t sit on our resources much longer. The bugs, rabbits and caribou will either have to adapt to us or we will have to accept a 75% reduction in our population and a total restructuring of our society so that we can coexist with them without disturbing them. Without fuel we can’t live as we do now. Only an agricultural society where most people feed themselves from the sweat of their OWN brow can do without the energy that we are using now. The cost of our urbanization in energy is vast and there is NO way to reduce it. The food and ALL of the energy and resources have to be gathered, refined and transported to the people. The waste is terrible. In a rural agrarian setting they are mostly used on site and it takes a tenth of what it does in a commercial farming set up.

We will either make some changes of our one volition or wait and later it will be forced on us in a much less pleasant fashion. Reality is that way you know. It will only let you ignore it so long and then it jumps up and bites you on the arse! I actually pity the winner of this election. Wait and see. It’s gonna be bad!

Gay Rights and Freedom

I saw something on the TV today that bugged me and I need to get it off my chest. Soooo…

California today is allowing same sex weddings. It seems that a lot of people are really bothered about this. I’m not sure that I totally understand why but they have the right to be upset. Just like the Gay couples have the right to be as they are.

Being free is a tough thing sometimes. Our founding Fathers understood this and did their very best to set up guidelines that would help us make it easier. Unfortunately people resist freedom at every turn and try to deny it to anyone that isn’t just like them. In the constitution of our country it clearly says that as far as our freedoms are concerned, ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL. We fought over whether Black men we men. We fought over whether Women were men. At one time it was debatable whether Catholics were men! Let me tell you something. Either ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL or NONE of us are really free. When you deny someone else their rights, you are setting yourself up for someone else to take away YOUR rights. Right now we are fussing over whether Gay people are men. This is such bull puckey!!! If you can say that they aren’t free “men” because their lifestyle is as sin and wrong, then you can say, if you are say a Methodist, that a Baptist or Catholic isn’t a free “man” because they sin by not being just like YOU!

I don’t care whether or not you approve of their lifestyle, all that I am saying is that they have the right to be as they are and the right to be free “men”. Marriage is a religious rite. The Government has no right or ability to control this. Any ordained minister or just plain ordained person can marry you and there isn’t a thing that the government can say about this. What this is all about is the right of Gay people to not be ripped of by the government and their employers. If I work and pay social security and die, my spouse has a right to some of that money if she needs it. THAT IS MY MONEY THAT I WORKED HARD FOR AND MY LOVED ONES DESERVE TO BENEFIT FROM MY HARD WORK!!!!!!!! A Gay person pays but their loved ones get screwed and the government steals their money! The place where my Wife works provides insurance and some benefits to their employees and families. This even includes shack up buddies as long as you will sign a paper that states that you are living as domestic partners…unless you are Gay. This is a part of your WAGE. You earn this by your work. Equal pay for equal work should be the law…It IS the law as long as you are not Gay! If you are Gay then your partner should be covered at least as well as a shack up buddy.

Whether you approve of them or not, Gay people are “men” too or nobody is truly a Free “man.” You may think that you are but you just haven’t been noticed yet. Give it time and they will get around to you too. We as Americans will either stand TOGETHER or we will eventually HANG together form the gibbet of some fascist’s gallows.

Father's Day

Today was a nice day. My girls came out, Vivi made home made tostadas and after lunch we went to the pool. VERY relaxing and pleasurable.

My legs are still hurting a little but by tomorrow I expect to be back to a better place in that area.

I miss my Dad. There are times when I would give anything to just sit down with him again and talk. A man never truly understands what being grown up and alone is until his Father is gone and HE is the old man of the clan. Today he has been in my thoughts a lot more than usual...even for Father's Day. I remember the many things that he told me. Many of then I was sure at the time were wrong and nearly all of them turned out to be right on the money. Time doesn't insure that you will gain wisdom but it sure offers you a perspective that is conducive to a wider and more realistic world view. As you see things come around again and again you finally learn and remember. The next time you see it coming you warn your kids and they think, after it comes to pass, that you are some kind of prophet or something. All you have done is REMEMBER the past, not foresee the future. To kids though, it might as well be the same thing. I suspect that most clairvoyant predictions are more just un-common-common sense. I told people 3 years ago to prepare for a rough year in 08. We were going to be hearing recession and bad economic news almost daily and this if nothing else would ensure that people would get nervous and curtail their spending. I didn't see into the future, I have lived through election years with an incumbent Republican in the White House before. We could be lighting our cigars with hundred dollar bills, using twenties for toilet paper and making money hand over fist but the media and Democrats are going to start screaming that the economy is bad and we are in deep economic trouble...and dummies that we are most people will believe it and stop spending money which will make the economy slow. This happens EVERY time the REPS have an incumbent and it is a presidential election year. If you will try to remember this, in a decade or so YOU too can look like a prophet. My Dad told me a lot of stuff such as this but mostly it ran off me like water off a duck’s back. Now I begin to remember it because I am old enough to see it too and that makes me remember. So sad, when you are young enough to use wisdom you are too young to have it even if it is offered to you. When you begin to get a little of it, your life is drawing down and you have little need for it…so, like your Dad before you, you try and give it away…

Worn out

I mowed today and it is amazing what an hour on a riding lawn mower does to an old man with a brand new hip!!! After mowing we floated in the pool for a while and I thought that I was good to go. WRONG! We went to town and by the time I had walked a little bit I was done in. We ate Mexican and came home. No fun, no goodies, just eat and come home! Yesterday was my one month since my hip rebuild so I guess I am doing pretty good...ah well more later.

DanL

Friday the 13th of June

Today was a good day. I had my left hip replaced on the 13th of May and can't believe the difference that a month has made! I walk without pain and am getting stronger almost hourly! I am SOOOO ready to go back to work. When you are self-employed your costumers are your friends and I miss them. The pool is up and running so the heat isn't a factor now. I hope to get some of the yard work done this weekend.

Cycles of Saddness

One of the saddest days of my life was when I realized that we as Americans no longer were viable or worthy of being free men. Our great experiment in Democracy and freedom has failed. The problem seems to be that without some outside guiding force, we as a people will sink to our lowest common denominator rather than our highest. This country has sank into a sad state of decadent greed and stupidity that in history has always ended in anarchy and collapse.

We are no longer able to do and see the real necessary things; rather we are mired in struggles over the scraps while the true banquet rots on the table. An example of what I mean is the current oil and gas crisis. Without the fuel to run our country, the mega cities that have popped up all over the country will begin to die. The prices climb and the people all scream but instead of intelligent action we settle for insane rhetoric. The price of gas is directly related to the cost of oil!! To me this is simple but to most it seems that this is a complex conundrum. Why is the price of oil so high? Because we refuse to drill for oil in our own country and thanks to the insanity of the government are totally dependant on the foreign oil. Florida FLOATS on a huge reservoir of oil but we can’t drill for it. The Chinese have gone into partnership with Cuba to drill and suck this oil right out from under us. Alaska is oil rich as is California but we can’t drill there either. We are like a starving people who put all our food in a corner and refuse to eat it. Instead we are like beggars asking others to sell us the scraps from their tables. Is it any wonder that they look upon us as fools and rape us with their prices?? When we were developing our own resources we controlled our destiny…and the price of energy. If the Arabs got too crazy all we had to do is cut back our purchases of their oil and the bottom fell out of the market. We did this the last time that they tried this and after a short period of higher prices and some shortages, the price of oil went to under 20 dollars a barrel.

Our solution this time is to blame the AMERICAN oil companies. The Democrats want to tax them out of existence and also mandate restrictions on our use of alternative resources such as natural gas and coal. If we are stupid enough as a people to starve ourselves to death while we sit with food all around us we deserve to die!! The same idiots that don’t want us to use the coal, oil and natural gas also fight against nuclear power. Without power, the Mega cities become uninhabitable. Wind and solar power, the so called “green” energies, won’t even allow these people to drink and flush their toilets!! NYC without a constant influx of food energy, water and goods, becomes a carnal house in less than a week and a ghost town in less than a month. Those people won’t leave, they will DIE there. LA, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, Miami, San Francisco, all will die without their HUGE daily transfusions.

I know, you are sitting out there like the residents of Pompeii thinking that this can’t happen to us. We will do something before it gets that bad. BULL PUCKEY! If you wait until the ash starts to fall, you are doomed. The Arabs don’t care, most of them still live a close hand to mouth existence already while their Sheiks eat off gold plates and wipe their butts with silk. Europe will survive; it went through this very thing less that 75 years ago. China and Russia have lived with the specter of starvation never far from their minds eye. Only here are people so ignorant that they don’t believe that it can happen to them. Only in our freedom to be stupid could a people vote for their demise gleefully. The rich here don’t realize that for one thing, you can’t eat money and secondly, when the dark times come the mobs drag the high down first. Read about the French revolution! The poor lazy leaches think that poverty is not having the newest pair of hundred dollar stylish shoes or having to drive a 5 year old car. Food stamps are WORTHLESS when there is no food on the shelves!

Go to the poles this year my lemming compatriots. Vote for more cake and circuses. I fear not the dark because I see it rather than pretend it isn’t there. When the sun again rises, what people are left will be better for shedding the fleas that were sucking them dry. Whatever rule comes to pass will be no wiser nor longer lasting that that which has past before. Until people change there is little hope for any society that they build. It will grow, bloom, bear fruit in plenty and then the fruit will rot and the plant will die because man is as an annual rather than a perennial flower and must be reborn again and again from the rotted remains of its predecessor.

DanL