Piney Woods Rooter

Loss of a loved one

2010-01-07T18:49:00.002-05:00

Never in my wildest dreams could I imagine the pain of losing someone with whom you have lived for almost 50.

Over the years I have seen a lot of death - some were close relations like a father or mother. Others were people I saw every day and was friendly too. I had more than my share of death in Vietnam.

None of those experiencies could prepare me for the loss of my Wife. I feel like I have been eviserated.I literally feel like all the organs in my left torso are gone.

I'll get over the intense pain in a week or so.

Chuck

Congressional Elections

2008-09-21T16:14:00.002-04:00

I had hoped that McCain's selection of Sarah Palin would put him ahead of Obama once and for all. Her selection was in my opinion one of the great political strategy moves of all time. It caught Obama flat footed, galvanized the conservative base, brought more women into Republican side and laid the groundwork for a new generation of Republican conservatives.

I wanted McCain to get ahead so we could put more emphasis on the congressional elections. Republicans really need to recapture congress now more than ever before. The financial mess that just exploded onto the scene demands a lot of attention and we can't trust Democrats to do what is needed.

What is just as important as the financial meltdown is the energy problem. Democrats have already demonstrated that they will no allow expanded exploration and drilling for oil in American waters or other likely areas onshore. What is just as important as drilling for new sources is to build new refineries in areas outside the hurricane zone. Ike proved that a hurricane in the Gulf has an immediate negative impact on oil prices and availability. We have all our eggs in ine basket and desperately need to start locating refineries in other regions.

Probably the biggest thing we need to do and what the Democrats will block if they stay in power is to capitalize on our abundant natural gas reserves. We not only need to drill for more natural gas, we need to build more pipelines to make natural gas available to over 90% of homes and to natural gas fueling stations for cars.

In my opinion, we desperately need to oust the democrats from their majorities in congress. If we don't, we are going to have energy shortages on a massive scale and we will be even more dependent on oil from the middle east. Democrats simply will not address those issues and they will put this country on a path to ruin.

Chuck

Second Childhood

2008-09-03T17:40:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I wonder what made me do something like I did today. I bought a Triumph motorcycle.

I have had the itch to do a restoration on an old Triumph for a good while and finally I bit the bullet and bought a 1972 Bonneville. I would have preferred to do a 1968 but all of them that I found were either choppers or priced a lot higher than I was willing to pay. The 1972 is the same style so it really doesn't matter all that much.

I really enjoy bringing an old car or motorcycle back to a like new condition. I have 2 Chevelles, 1966 and 1967 that I restored and the experience was very satisfying.

The good part of this Triumph is that it has a clear title, the bike hasn't been butchered by making it a chopper or bobber. It has all the elements to be better than new when I finish it.

I guess us old retired old men have to do something to keep us out of trouble.

Chuck

Why I Dislike Obama

2008-08-30T16:52:00.003-04:00

I finally figured out why I dislike Obama so much. It isn't that he is an inexperienced, liberal democrat who will promise anything and deliver nothing. It isn't that he has abandoned everyone close to him that became an inconvenience. It isn't even his defeatist stance on the war in Iraq. None of those things bother me all that much. What really bothers me is his SMUGNESS.

When he speaks, Obama affects poses he thinks portrays him as a great thinker, and uses voice inflections reminiscent of MLK. Watching Obama is almost like looking at a hologram, all visual and no substance.

I can just imagine how Putin would react to Obama putting on one of his holier than thou acts at a conference table. He would peel the hide off him and walk out of the room. Conference over, Obama lost everything.

I hope people get over this infatuation with Obama before the election. We are facing some of the most dangerous times we have ever faced and Obama hasn't a clue.

Chuck

Obama the Weenie

2008-08-18T17:16:00.002-04:00

I have never been one to make excuses or to blame someone or something for my failings. God only knows I have had enough of them but I always owned up to them.

This business I've been seeing about McCain cheating in the Evangelical Forum Saturday night just cements my opinion that Obama is a cry baby and that he would fall apart like a cheap suit in any confrontational situation. I can just imagine him sitting across the table from Putin trying to reach an agreement on anything. Putin would walk away with all the marbles and Obama would be sitting there with his face hanging out.

We don't need a milquetoast for president. We need someone with principles and convictions who will go to the mats defending them. Obama has neither and he wouldn't go to the mats to protect his own family.

Chuck

Fight Fair- My Wrinkeled Old Ass

2008-08-15T15:55:00.003-04:00

When I was in 4th or 5th grade, there were 5 cousins from my neighborhood who decided it would be fun to hassel me while we were waiting for school to open for the day. We were all within a year or 2 in age so we were always in fairly close proximity.

They started the hasseling by hiding my books so I would be late to class so I started keeping my books with me. Then they started pushing me around. They would get in a circle around me and push me back and forth between them. So I started staying in a group where it wasn't easy to single me out. Then they started hasseling me at recess. They would throw the softball at me rather than to the baseman or they would slide into a base and deliberately kick me or whatever.

My Mother was a member of the PTA and came to the school one morning while they were hasseling me. She had always told me not to get into fights at school and to be "nice". When she told my Dad about the Nease boys pushing me around we were at the dinner table. My Dad didn't say anything during dinner but afterward he took me out to the porch and gave me some of the best advice of my life.

My Dad told me to never be a bully and try to look tough and to never start a fight. He went on to say that if the Nease boys continued to hassel me I should defend myself and that if I couldn't avoid a fight then I should win. He made it very clear that the only way to stop a bully is to whip his ass and that that was what he expected me to do- win.

My situation was that I was being bullied by 5 boys who were about my age and size. My Dad made it clear that there is no such thing as a fair fight. If I had to defend myself the aggressor deserved what he got and that that I should pound him so bad that he would never even consider messing with me again.

I took my Dad's advice to heart. I was in the bathroom when one of the Nease boys came in alone and called me chicken shit. I didn't say a word to him I just kicked him in the nuts as hard as I could. Needless to say he wasn't able to put up much of a fight after that and I shoved his face into the urinal.

After school that day the word had gotten around about what I had done and the Nease boys were going to get even. I was scared but for some reason I looked forward to the confrontation. I walked out onto the playground and sure enough here came all 5 of the Nease boys. When they got close to me the other kids on the playground gathered around to watch me get pounded. What no one knew was that I had slipped out of the building earlier and put a broken off broom handle where I could easily get to it.

As the Nease boys got closer, I pulled the broom handle from it's hiding place and started wailing away on them . I beat the living shit out of them while they were yelling "fight fair" and while I was beating hell out of them the other kids started cheering me on. I was elated that I had support and when I finished cleaning the Nease boy's clocks I told them that I would fight all of them in a "fair fight" one at a time.

While the other kids kept the other Nease boys from jumping in I fought Ronnie. He was the ringleader and I have to say it felt good to whip his ass with my bare hands. I never had a problem with the Nease boys after that but the advice my Dad gave me has stuck with me all of my life.

I can honestly say I have never started a fight in my life but on those occassions when I couldn't avoid one "fighting fair" never occured to me. I have bitten, kicked, gouged, scratched, pulled and pushed my way through a lot of fights in my life and I don't believe I ever lost one.

The point of all this personal history is that we are seeing Russia becoming a bully again. We need to make sure that Russia knows that we won't "fight fair" if they try to bully us. If we don't stand up to Russia and kick them in the nuts they will just keep on bullying and then we will have to pull out the broom handle. Now is the time to stop the Russian bully before he thinks he can just push his neighbors around without paying the consequences.

Chuck

Quit Running and Fight

2008-08-13T14:54:00.003-04:00

I saw at Flopping Aces that a Russian had said the Georgian Army must have been trained by Americans since they ran at the first confrontation. I hate that this is the way the world sees us today but to be honest about it there is some validity to the statement.

I have no idea what caused our politicians to believe that quitting a war is the best way to go but if one considers that starting with Korea all of our conflicts have ended with less than total victory. We had kicked the North Korean's asses all the way up to the Yalu river when the Chinese swarmed across the border and initially kick our asses. That was a relatively short lived setback and we recovered to push them back to whence they came. But what did we do once we had the situation under control and signed a truce that gave North Korea all of it's lost territory back and left Korea a divided nation.

The end result of the Korean War, they called it a Police Action during the war, is that we are now worried that North Korea is developing a nuclear weapon and the means of delivering it to our shores. So much for a negotiated peace. As soon as we turn our back we get stabbed.

Vietnam was much the same as Korea but we went one better and put rules of engagement in place that cost us thousands of lives and allowed North Vietnam to recover from every major defeat we handed them and to infiltrate their Army into South Vietnam through neighboring countries. We didn't lose the war in Vietnam, we gave it away.

In the Gulf War in 1991, we beat hell out of the Iraqis and could have easily taken the entire country but what did we do? We handed Saddam his country back and let him murder thousands of his citizens. We did this because we virtually destroyed his army on the highway of death and we were concerned that the rest of the world would think we were mean for wiping out an army that was running away.

We cut and ran in Somalia and Lebanon because the Somalis dragged our dead troops through the streets and we left Lebanon because a suicide bomber blew up the Marine barracks. Both of these retreats were shameful and should not have happened. But look at what we have now. Somalia is a chaotic mess that harbors terrorists and lets pirates prey on ships that come close. Lebanon is in the hands of Hezbolla and foments terror attacks on Israel fot Iran.

At some point we need to change the way we deal with military situations. I would like to see us return to a philosophy of total victory and accept nothing less than unconditional surrender fro our adversaries. We should make it clear to every country in the world that any attack on a US citizen, military installation, ship or plane will be met with the full force of our military up to and including a nuclear attack.

We need to tell Pakistan that we are going to destroy the safe haven that Bin Laden is enjoying unless Pakistan does it themselves. They should be told that we don't want to violate their borders but we will in necessary and they had best not try to do anything about it.

The US should pull out of the UN and form an organization of democracies. Those democracies should have a full committment to each other much like NATO used to have. We shoul also break away from NATO and align ourselves with countries who still have the guts to fight when necessary. France, Germany and most of the EU countries need not apply. They have depended on the US to do the heavy lifting long enough. Look at the "help" NATO is giving us in Afghanistan. It is a joke.

I am sick of fair weather friends who willingly take our money, let our military protect them and rely on us for technological advances while they stab us in the back in the UN and bad mouth us on everything.

It is time to elect some politicians who have guts and who are not afraid of confrontation. Obama is not one of these and 99% of our Senators and Congresspersos don't fill the bill either.

Chuck

Obama and the Economy

2008-08-04T14:45:00.002-04:00

I watched most of Obama's speech today in Michigan and finally had to turn it off because with every word he demonstrated just how unaware of how the economy and the rules of supply and demand work. He held out a fig leaf to the Michigan audience by promising that he is going to make the auto manufacturers start producing energy efficient cars and how that will create more "good union jobs" in Michigan.

Obama doesn't seem to comprehend that he can't make the auto makers do anything unless he declares a national emergency and puts industry on a wartime footing. He also doesn't seem to understand that the Detroit automakers are rapidly going bankrupt because of the "good union jobs".

Any move by automakers toward alternative fuel powered cars will probably be by manufacturers located outside Detroit and they will probably be made in new manufacturing facilities located in states that are business friendly. Low state tax rates, right to work laws, work forces that actually want to work and functioning local governments will attract the new plants and Detroit will continue to slide downhill.

Obama promised to give everyone a $1000.00 rebate to help offset the high cost of gasoline which he intends to fund with windfall taxes on the oil companies "obscene" profits. Obama doesn't seem to understand the difference in gross profits and profit margins. If he imposes windfall taxes on gross profits, the oil companies will go broke in a hurry. Then where will we be?

When Obama speaks about the economy, its almost like John Edwards wrote the speech. Big oil, big pharma, big this, big that they are all evil and must be taxed to death. Where does Obama think the money for the research and development that gives the US the lead in developing new drugs or the money to develop new forms of energy will come from. Does he expect it to come from the government? That would require higher taxes than Obama has already proposed.

I think Obama is finally on the verge of putting himself in a corner he won't be able to talk his way out of. He is making promises that the public knows he can't keep. Most people have a better understanding of economics than Obama is giving them credit for. People don't like to be played for fools and Obama is about to step over that line.

Look for Obama to start sliding in the polls soon.

Chuck

The Worm Turns

2008-08-03T11:21:00.004-04:00

The GOP revolt in Congress might at last be an indicator that the Republicans have learned a lesson. When the Democrats left Washington for their 5 week break (vacation) they left the door open for the Republicans to do to them what the Democrats have been doing for years- stab them in the back.

Democrats have been unrelenting in berating President Bush and the Republicans for years and the Republican response has been luke warm at best . Now, finally, the Republicans have awakened and have an issue that if they press forward with it can lead to a November surprise for the Democrats.

That issue is energy, more specifically gas prices. This issue alone can, if the Republicans constantly and relentlessly push it can oust the Democrat majority. It won't be easy but it can be done. The Democrats are handing the Republicans all the ammunition they need to put Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid out of business.

Reid and Pelosi have taken the wrong side on a major bread and butter issue. They are showing collossal insensivity to the plight of Americans who have to use gasoline in their daily lives. The high cost of gasoline has made it necessary for many Americans to made choices between buying gas or buying a pair of shoes or eating hot dogs instead of steak. The American people won't stand for this for long and will rebel against those who are making them to feel the pinch.

So far, it is the Democrats who are blocking new oil exploration, new drilling and new refineries. They are doing it under the label of "I'm trying to save the planet" or it will take 10 years before new drilling will have any impact on prices. The American public knows these excuses are untrue. They are well aware that if the moritoriums on new exploration, drilling and refineries we will see almost immediate results and that within 2 years we will be pumping gas into our cars that came from American wells was refined in American refineries and that new exploration will find new sources of oil in places we never expected.

I just hope the Republicans will continue on the attack. We can't afford a continuation of Reid and Pelosi and most of all we can't afford Barrack Obama.

Chuck

Obama's News Farce

2008-07-22T10:38:00.003-04:00

I'm watching a news conference with Obama in Jordan. He is without a doubt the slipperiest politician I have ever seen. He has given at least different positions on Iraq so far and hasn't given a straight answer.

This news conference has gone on and on for at least 30 minutes and the reporters are acting like lap dogs. Obama gets unfettered news coverage while the NYT refuses to publish an op ed by McCain. Why are we, the public, allowing the news media to blatently support Obama's campaign? Obama raised $52 million last month and given the free coverage he is getting I wonder how much of it is actually going into his campaign. Follow the money! I'll bet he is socking away millions offshore or in another of shadey deals.

I hope people wake up and see that we are being flim flammed and that Obama is not only a charletin but also a crook.

Chuck

The Media's Candidate

2008-07-19T18:51:00.002-04:00

I can't say how others feel about it but I think the way the media is fawning over Obama is disgusting. Here is a man who has virtually no accomplishments that qualify him to be President, a job that requires at least some experience in dealing with problems, and the media is treating like God incarnate.

Obama has shown no ability to think on his feet or to deal with adversity. Without a telepromter he gets muddeled and makes statements that are disconnected and impeteous. He blurted out in a debate that he would meet with the world's worst dictators with no preconditions and has spent months trying to moderate that position. As a result he comes across as being wishey washey, a condition we certainly don't need in a position of leadership.

Obama has issued several statements claiming he had "passed" laws as a state senator and he has tried to claim credit for laws that have passed in the US Senate when he wasn't even present for the votes. To me that is being a liar of the first magnitude.

Obama has had so many positions on the Iraq war that it is almost impossible to keep track of them without a scorecard.

Obama sends his wife out to campaigne for him yet he finds it "infuriating" when she is taken to task for her statements. Obama wants total immunity from all responsibility for what he or his wife says yet he quick to criticize Bush, McCain and Hillary. Obama reminds me of the tattletale kid we all knew in grammer school. He is quick to tattle but slow the own up to it.

I can't think of anything worse than having a lying, weakling like Obama for president. He can't be trusted and he doesn't have the balls to stand up and be counted. In short, Obama will be a total disaster if he is elected.

Why the media is so enamoured with Obama I have not idea but they are determined to get him elected.

Personally I wouldn't trust Obama in a shit house with a muzzle on.

Chuck

Republican Lethargy

2008-07-09T18:55:00.002-04:00

I don't know what is wrong with the Republicans. The Democrats are virtually holding the keys to the White House and the Congress out for the Republicans to take but for some reason they are not capitalizing on the opportunity.

Right now the big issue is the cost of fuel. This is an issue the Republicans could use to beat the Democrats to death but their approach to it has been luke warm at best and non existant at worst.

If I were President Bush, I would have my staff draw up a chronology of the Energy Policy proposals made by Republicans and blocked by thje Democrats in the past 8 years. Every proposal made by the Administration or Congressional Republicans have been killed by the Democrats. It isn't as if there were no record of the Democrats obstruction. I'm sure there is plenty of ammunition to use against the Democrats. They have, with some Republican help blocked drilling in the outer continental shelf and in ANWR. President Bush is responsible for preventing drilling in the Eastern Gulf, a stupid move if ever I saw one. The Democrats have blocked mining oil shale and oil sands.

Once I had the Chronological Report, I would address the nation and spell out exactly why fuel prices are so high. With his approval rating, a lot of what he should say would fall on deaf ears but there is a huge number of people who, once the problem was explained to them would see the proverbial light.

The cost of fuel is going to be the over riding issue in this election and the Republicans are just standing there letting the Democrats blame them. Its time for Bush and the Republican Party to grow some balls and take the fight to the Democrats.

Chuck

Ingratitude

2008-07-08T15:04:00.003-04:00

One of the things I dispise in people is ingratitude. I don't expect people to bow and scrape at the feet of someone who has done something for them but I do expect a little loyalty.

I saw today that Hispanics favor Obama 59% to 26% over McCain. This is the thanks McCain gets after he stuck his neck out on the "Comprehensive Immigration Bill". McCain made major sacrifices in his run for President by supporting that bill. Conservatives like me really disliked the bill and I rejoiced when it went down in flames. I still question McCain's conservatism because of the Immigration Bill and because of McCain- Feingold .

I have no idea why Hispanics are supporting Obama in such numbers but based on my experience in dealing with both ethnic groups, the only people blacks hate worse than whites are Hispanics. From my experience, the feeling is mutual. I have had both ethnic groups working for me at various times and it was like trying to mix oil and water.

McCain is still trying to deal with the immigration problem "humainly" meaning he isn't out to deport all of the illegals and yet they are supporting Obama. If I were McCain, I would make a speech saying "I was wrong to try to pass the Comprehensive Immigration Bill, if I'm elected President I will do everything in my power to round up the illegals and ship them out".

I can't abide an ingrate and the Hispanics have shown that is what they are.

Wesley Clark- Asshat or Brasshat?

2008-06-30T17:56:00.004-04:00

Wesley Clark found it necessary to pronounce John McCain is "untried and untested" in an inteview on Face The Nation. This about as ignorant a statement as one could make about McCain in my opinion.

Surviving five years in a North Vietnamese prison and being tortured for most of that time is about as much testing as one could expect from a candidate for President of The USA.

Pretty Boy or Perfumed Prince, just a couple of his many nicknames, Clark wouldn't last 10 minutes under the torture that the Vietnamese inflicted on McCain yet he feels qualified to question McCain's metal. Clark is known as a prima dona who, when he was on active duty, had a super large staff catering to his outlandish demands.

Wesley Clark was fired from his post of Nato Supreme Commander because of character and intergrity issues. I take that to mean he is untrustworthy, arrogant and incompetent. British General Sir Mike Jackson refused to obey an order from Clark to send assault troops to prevent Russian troops from taking over the airfield of Kosovo's provincial capital stating" I am not going to start the third world war for you".

When Clark was running for President, General Shelton and General Schwartzkopf both commented on his lack of qualifications and stated they would not vote for him. I can certainly see why. Clark got to be a 4 star general through brown nosing and backstabbing. For his length of service and rank, he served a very short time in combat. He only served several months in a combat unit in Vietnam and was then assigned to staff jobs and to West Point.

Clark is probably the least liked or respected General in the uS Army since General McClellan in the Civil War. Yet he thinks he is qualified to judge John McCain. What a joke!

Chuck

McCain Needs To Get On The Ball

2008-06-28T16:57:00.004-04:00

I am beginning to get really concerned that Obama will get elected in November. He has everything going for him and unless something drastic and unexpected comes up I would say he has about a 95% chance of winning.

Obama has the Press in his pocket. They will do almost anything to help him get elected. They downplayed the Preacher and Priest mess and have said virtually nothing about Obamas connection to the Weatherman Bomber. Of course, the cable networks made some hay out of those issues but newspapers and the legacy networks barely mentioned them.

Another thing that is helping Obama is the price of Gas. It is incredible to me that the price of gas has sucessfuly been laid at President Bush's doorstep. The Democrats have blocked every attempt by the White House and the few remaining Republican Congresspersons to develop a realistic energy policy. What is so maddening about this is that the way it gets played by the media is that the Republicans are trying to line the pockets of their oil tycoon buddies. The Democrats come off looking like they stopped a looting and the Republicans just stand there with their faces hanging out.

George Bush needs to call press conferences and make use of his position to announce to the world that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are responsible for high gas prices. He needs to hammer away at it with the same determination the Democrats have shown in trying, and suceeding, to wreck his Presidency.

President Bush, Dick Cheney and every other Administration offical need to put on a full court press to hang the energy problem around the Democrats neck

Short of another 911 type attack on us, the energy mess is about the only thing that is going to pull McCain's fat out of the fire. He certainly isn't getting his message out on his own.

McCain needs to hammer the energy problem in tandem with the Administration. He needs to show some of the grit that got him through his stay at the Hanoi Hilton. So far, McCain has let Obama just say anything about him that pops into his head. McCain needs to show some of his famous temper. I think people would respect him if he did. Nobody respects someone who is big enough to stand up to a bully but won't. The only way to deal with a bully is to whip his ass.

McCain. if you read this, take it to heart. Otherwise you are going to lose.

Chuck

Clinton and Obama

2008-06-07T09:30:00.002-04:00

I find all the speculation about whether Obama will choose Hillary to be his running mate very amusing. In my opinion, that would be like French kissing a rattlesnake.

I don't give Obama much credit in the intelligence department but I don't think he is stupid enough to put Hillary and Bill in a position to ensure that he would be a one term president. From day one they would begin undermining him and there would be virtually nothing he could do about it. He couldn't fire her/them. They would be free to sabotage everything he tried to do. They have many more connections in the right places in Washington than he does and many of them wanted her for President in the first place.

Obama winning the nomination was a strategic mistake on Hillary's part. She let him get a head start just like the Rabboit did with the Hare. When you give up that much ground at the beginning, it is almost impossible th regain it at the end.

I hope Obama doesn't get elected, but if he does I hope he will do it without Hillary. We don't need the kind of skullduggery that the Clintons will do if she is Vice President.

Chuck

D-Day

2008-06-07T09:09:00.003-04:00

Based on the amount of coverage it received yesterday, one would not know that one of the most important days in history happened on that day. The invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944 was an effort of epic proportions. The largest naval fleet ever assembled transported and landed the largest amphibious invasion of a hostile shore in history.

D-Day marked the beginning of the end of the Nazi stranglehold on Europe. It allowed the allied forces of the allies to virtually surround Germany. With the Russians advancing on Germany from the East and the US and it's allies advancing from the West there was no place for the Germans to go but back to Germany. The Normandy invasion set the stage for the freedom of all of western Europe and the ultimate collapse of the most heinous regime ever to exist on this Earth.

Most of the men and women involved in the Normandy invasion are dead not but those few who remain deserve a more fitting tribute than they received Friday. I, for one, revere them and thank them for the sacrifices they made for the generations that followed them. They were great people who saw a wrong and set it right.

Chuck

Rambling On

2008-05-28T12:21:00.002-04:00

I haven't been blogging much mostly because so much of what is in the news is so depressing that I haven't been keeping up with it. Between gas prices, housing foreclosures, the democratic primaries, the midwest tornadoes and our incompetent congress there isn't much sunshine in the country today.

Gas prices are my main hot button right now. I graduated college in 1965 and had a Professor who had written his Doctoral Thesis on the dwindling supply of oil and predicted that by the end of the 20th century we would need to develop alternate energy sources and to start manufacturing more energy efficient cars, appliances and energy delivery systems. Needless to say, I thought he was blowing smoke and so did his Doctoral Review Board . Since his thesis was based on a mathimatical model he had created, the board thought the facts were questionable. Well, that shows how ignorant we can be. If we had started being concerned about energy sources when Dr. Jamison raised the red flag, we would probable be driving hydrogen or methane powerd cars, wind power would be fully developed and appliances would be running on Puron rather than Freon. It really is a shame that people who are ahead of their time get such shabbey treatment.

Congress is my next hot button. I know that much of politics is convincing the electorate that you are the right person for the job and that every you do is done in the best interest of your constituents and the country as a whole. The big problem with that is that it makes politicians lie and do things for a small segment of society that are an overall detriment to the rest of society.

I'm thinking primarily of the impact Environmentalists are having on our need to find and refine oil. Even though we will run out of recoverable oil supplies at some point in the future we still are totally reliant on it for the foreseeable future. It will take time to develop and perfect alternate fuels and to establish an infrastructure to distribute them. We can't just change over like turning off a light switch. It will take years to remove all the gas burners from the highways. Think about it. There are probably 200 - 250 million automobiles in the US that will need to be replaced with new ones. That is a mammouth undertaking in itself.

We need a weaning period to get ourselves off of gasoline but our congress seems to think that by not allowing new drilling, new refineries and exploration they can force energy users to use alternatives. The problem with that is, there are no available alternatives. What is even worse is that congress has failed to pass an Energy Policy.

Without an energy policy, it will be impossible to put a new fuel and the infrastrucure for it in place. A fuel needs to be identified as the one that will be our primary source. It could be hydrogen, methane, hydrogen sulfide or any number of elements but whatever it is will require a transition period.

To be honest about it, it isn't just the congress who is holding back alternative fuel. Ever administration in the past 50 years has failed to propose a workable plan for future energy needs. The haven't tried to re establish nuclear energy as a cheap source of electricity, they have taken untold millions of barrels of oil out of the picture by declaring areas of the Atlantic seaboard, the Gulf Of Mexico, Utah, Colorado, and other off limits to exploration and drilling.

It looks like politicians, be thay Democrat or Republican are doing everthing they can to make America even more dependant upon foriegn oil. The don't seem to care that despots, zealots and dictators have us by the balls and will not hesitate to squeeze when the notion hits them.

Chuck

The Ethanol Boondoggle

2008-04-20T20:04:00.004-04:00

I.ve commented several times at Kuru Lounge and other blogs on the stupidity of using food crops to make ethanol for fuel. Now I see that the rising cost of staple foods as well as meats, poultry and dairy products has gotten the attention of the UN and EU.

I never did see how anyone could be stupid enough to think that ethanol made from grains or soybeans could possibly be a candidate for a renewable fuel. The world's population is growing and all of those new people are going to want food. The biggest population growth is happening in countries that already have problems feeding their existing population. We already have famine in parts of Africa, India isn't exactly a land of plenty and China is converting vast quantities of it's farm land to industrial use.

How anyone could, even in their wildest dreams, think ethanol would be a viable alternative to oil is beyond comprehension. To make a gallon of ethanol using current processes requires the energy equivalent of two gallons of oil. Not a very good return on investment in my book. Yet Al Gore is out there preaching the glories of ethanol and our government has mandated that ethanol will constitute 20% of our fuel for vehicles by 2015, maybe it's 2020, but the mandate is there.

Methanol, on the other hand, is areadily availabe. All we have to do is trap it pressurize it and burn it. Or, we can liquify it for the convienence of pumping it into our gas tanks. Methane naturally occurs with decomposition of organic matter such as garbage, sewage, etc. These are sources of methane that we have in abundance and will have even more of as the population increases.

As the population grows, more cattle will have to be raised, more pigs will be grown and they will create an abundant supply of methane with their waste. Livestock produces huge quantities of methane just with their farts but the mother lode (or should that be mother load- pun intended) is their fecal material. If you have ever been close to a pig farm or a cattle feeding lot, that awful stench you will encounter could very well power your car in the future.

If we want to be really efficient, we can collent methane from the sewage processing plants that treat human excrement. That horrible odor all of us have encountered at some time is a beautiful energy plum just waiting to be plucked. Just think about it the more you eat, the further you can drive.

The beautiful part of methane is: it comes from stuff we want to dispose of, it is usable as a vapor or liquid, capturing it at it's sources would remove most of the stench associated with landfills, feed lots and pig farms. You can make it yourself, hell, you are already making it. I'll bet that at least 97& of the world's humans will produce some methane in the next hour.

Methane is a pretty powerful gas. Top Fuel Dragsters use Nitromethane to achieve speeds over 300 miles per hour in under 5 seconds. If you have ever burned a fart at a party you know it is highly combustible and a good one can shoot flame about 2 feet.

Our Government keeps going round and round on an energy policy and we keep on getting more dependent on oil. If I were in a position to dictate an energy policy, it would be that we will capture every bit of methane from sewage treatment plants, underground sewers, land fills, feeder lots, etc. The captured metane would be processrd for use in cars and trucks and ever person would be given a fart bottle to capture his methane production.

What would result from my plan would be a sweeter smelling world, there would be no worries about fuel prices, less land would be spoiled with landfills and Al Gore would be stuck with a gazillion carbon credits.

Chuck

Bitter Small Towners

2008-04-13T08:27:00.003-04:00

It is almost unbelievable how the media is rolling over for Barrack Obama. He makes stupid statements that would put any other politician in the grave and the press simply glosses over them.

His latest pearl of stupidity is his comment about small town Pennsylvanians being bitter about the way the economy is going in their areas and their "clinging" to guns and religeon to achieve a measure of comfort. A dumber statement would be hard to make.

What his statement shows is that he says what he thinks an audience wants to hear. He was speaking in San Fransisco to a gathering of well heeled donors and felt it was imperative to differentiate the ignorant, gun loving, religeous, unwashed small towners from the enlightened, gun control, agnostic city dwellers.

Obama gave to thought to the fact that what he said to his enlightened audience was a slap in the face of a huge segment of society that is actually is the group who butters his bread.

Another thing I found interesting is that apparently pollsters and party leaders consider any city with a population under 200,000 people to be small towns. That is a very interesting demographic since by that definition, the majority of Americans live in small towns.

So, with his ignorant statement, Obama has managed to insult about 65% of the American public and the media just glosses over it. No wonder our government isn't working properly and we get politicians who have no clue about the real world.

Chuck

The Democrats

2008-02-27T08:53:00.002-05:00

I haven't really paid a lot of attention to the Democrats debates because I don't believe socialism is a good formula for America. Hillary as much as quoted Karl Marx in a speech, or maybe it was in a debate, when she stated that her her health plan would be paid for on the basis of an individual's abilty to pay. That is pretty c;ose to Marx's "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

I am curious as to whom will determine my needs. Will it be Hillary or some buracracy of clerks with high school educations evaluating my abilities and needs. I prefer determining those things for myself.

I did watch last night's debate all the way through and my opinions about both candidates being socialists were reinforced. Both of them want to turn us upside down and dump the cash from our pockets so they can redistribute our money according to someone else's needs. I suppose their next move will be to nationalize agriculture, medicine and business.

What really struck me most about the debate was the impact it had on Hillary. She started out aggressive and comative and as the debate went forward you could actually see the color draining from her face. Toward the end she looked drawn, pallid and beaten. Hillary knows she is beaten. In my opinion, by the end of next week she will withdraw from the race.

When she does withdraw, it will not be gracious and I think any support she MIGHT give Obama will be extremely weak. Hillary is a very vindictive person and even if she does say she supports Obama, she will stick a knife in his back at every opportunity.

I am glad to see all of this playing out the way it is because I think it will help Republicans and will put McCain in the White House. In my opinion, the Democrats are about to implode and Obama is the fuse.

Chuck

Big Surprise

2008-02-23T10:00:00.003-05:00

For the past couple of years been working on my family tree. I have found several ancestors who served in the American Revolution, One who was in the War of 1812, several who were in The Civil War , my Grandfather served in Cuba during the Spanish - American War, several ancestors were in the 1st World War and the 2nd World War none that I can find were in Korea and I was in Vietnam.

As I have been digging through family documents I have found several things that support the findings of my ancestry. One document was my Fathers membership in the Sons of the American Revolution, another was a Revolutionary War Veteran land grant to my 4th Great Grandfather, another was a pension granted to my Great Grandfather for service in the Confererate Army. I didn't even know that Confederate soldiers were eligible for pensions but they were.

Yesterday, I found documentation that my 4th Great Grandfather, Hugh Nelson, was the brother of Thomas Nelson, Jr. a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Hugh's father, William Nelson, was at one time acting governor of the Province of Virginia.

My mother had often claimed to be desended from Lord Nelson but no one took her seriously. It was this connection I was looking for when I found these other notables. It seems oral family history is pretty accurate at times so I will follow up on some of the stories my Grandparents
told me as a child.

Chuck

Hillary's New Idea

2008-02-03T16:06:00.000-05:00

I saw today the Hillary said she would consider garnishing the wages of people who didn't voluntarily take out health insurance. No that is just what we need. It fits into the same catagory as the law some legislators are trying to pass in Mississippi to require fast food establishments to refuse service to obese people.

What the hell ever happened to personal responsibility? At the rate we are going we will be limited by law on everything from what we can eat to how many sheets of toilet paper we can use to clean up from eating. Between the tree huggers (Al Gore) and the other liderals, we are at risk of losing any sembelence of self determination.

In my opinion, if a person doesn't have health insurance and needs the services of a health care provider, he should be given the service needed. He should then be billed for for the services rendered. If he doesn't pay he should be turned over to a collection agency and if still refuses to pay, garnisment is in order.

We have to many politicians and public servants who think people are too stupid to run their own lives. They believe that they know best and are willing to use laws to impose their will on the people. We have enough laws regulating our lives. Probably tucked away in some law already on the books is a legality that already allows the government to garnish one's wages to pay for health care. Social Security comes to mind but I'll bet there are others.

What we need is a review of all the Local, State and Federal laws already on the books and redundant laws should be purged. Additionally, all of the laws should be catigorized into tax laws, criminal laws, civil laws etc and be put into the hopper for renewal or to be rescinded.
The goal of this exercise should be to remove all arcaine, redundant and ineffective laws. This would not only clean up the ledger, it hopefully would put about 50% of the lawyers out of business.

I'm glad I am old and won't live long enough to see the country go all the way down the tubes but while I am here I am going to do everything I can to prevent people like Hillay for taking over my life.

Chuck

We Need More Pragmatism

2008-02-01T12:46:00.000-05:00

I am so tired of the constant claims of "I'm more conservative tham you" currently infecting the Republican campaign I could puke. Positions or imagined positions on SCOTUS nominations, gun control, immigration, taxes, fees, the Surge, and national security really don't matter much if a candidate gets elected and can't deliver on his/her promises. Look at what happened when the Democrats won the 2006 elections on the promise they would immediately end the war. They are currently enjoying the lowest approval ratings in history.

I consider myself to be very conservative but I also consider myself to be realistic. None of the candidates of either party is going to get anything through congress without some degree of compromise. It just ain't going to happen.

Take the issue of illegal immigrants. There is no way in hell that a law is going to pass requiring the roundup and deportation of 12 + million people. If such a law were passed, it is not feasible to enforce it. The best we can hope for is getting a law passed that requires the deportation of criminals and that border security be made air tight so they can't return. But it isn't just the southern border. The northern border as well as all ports of entry need to be air tight.

We need to tighten up on the issusnce of visas and other permissions that allow people from nations in other hemispheres to come here. That requires a major change in the State Department. They are the ones who hand out those passes nilly willy to just about anyone. The State Department sees itself as an entity unto itself answerable to no one, That has got to change.

I had hoped Condie Rice would whip the State Department into shape but instead she has pulled her over to her side. What is needed is a bloodletting at State where many of the top people are given their walking papers. Recently a Mexican delegation came to complain about too many of their citizens returning to Mexico. We need people in the State Department who would look them in the eye and tell them to go piss up a rope.

Chuck

The African-American Vote

2008-01-27T08:43:00.000-05:00

The South Carolina presidential primary has come and gone with Obama winning over Clinton by 27%. Most Afro-Americans voted for Obama after Bill Clinton turned the primary into a race issue. In my opinion, the geni is out of the bottle now and we are going to see a racially charged Democratic primary. In fact, I think we are seeing the beginning of the end of the Afro-American block vote for democrats.

I have often wondered how the Democrats got the African-American block to begin with. It was a Republican who emancipated the slaves, and it was Dwight Eisenhower who integrated the Little Rock, Arkansas schools in the late 1950s. True, Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights act but he did it by steamrolling over the congressional democrats. This is not to say Republican hands were perfectly clean but the were a hell of a lot cleaner than the Democrats.

After Johnson signed the Civil Rights act, the Democrats somehow convinced Afro-Americans that they were the downtrodden masses and promised to fix their situation with the "Great Society". Afro-Americans bought into this en masse and billions of tax dollars were poured into welfare programs that kept Afro-Americans at the very margins of society. Dependent upon a welfare system that instead of lifting them out of poverty as promised only served to make them even more dependent on the welfare system. Afro-Americans migrated to the Democratic Party which has promised them everything but delivered little more than maintaining them at the poverty level.

The "Great Society" welfare system set up rules that encouraged people to not get a job because they would lose the welefare benifits. It also made it more financially attractive to have more children so more welfare money would be given to support the child. The "Great Society" even made it finacially better to be a single parent than a two parent household with it's aid to dependent children program.

The Democratic party, in my opinion, did more harm to African-Americans than anything other than slavery. They made them virtual slaves to the Democratic party.

I think we will see a huge change in the party affiliations of African-Americans. Maybe not immediately, but within the next 3 election cycles. In short, Bill and Hilliary have crapped in the Democrtatic Party's hat.

Chuck

The New Hampshire Primary

2008-01-09T15:44:00.000-05:00

The New Hamphire primary has come and gone with Hillary and John McCain both getting a new lease on life. I guess Hillary's is most dramatic since the pundits were already talking about he pulling out of the race, which I wish she would. I was glad to see McCain get a shot in the arm from his win an I hope he will be able to get enough money to keep him viable.

Just for the record, I can't stand Hillary and I like Bill even less. I would be content if they were abducted by aliens and whisked away to the nether regions of the universe but since that isn't going to happen, I will do everything in my power to keep them out of the White House. I think the only reason they want to go back is that there is some very nice furniture they missed on their way out in 2000.

McCain on the other hand is an enigma for me. I like his staraight talk, his fearlessness and his "I am my own man" attitude but there are several things I disagree with him on.

I don't like McCain's stance on illegal immigration. I agree that we can't just round up 12 million people and deport them but I do think that when they are found they should be deported. I think we should build the border fence and patrole it relentlessly to keep new illegals out. I also think that if the fence doesn't work, we should mine the border with some kind of non lethal mine aor we should put up a second fence that is electrified. We have got to get control of our border, especially the southern one, by any means necessary.

I can't fault McCain for voting against Bush's tax reduction. He was right to want offsets in spending reductions. He stood his ground and now he is being hammered for it.

The McCain/ Feingold bill sticks in my craw more than anything else McCain has done and I can't forgive him for that. I can't see how he signed on to that piece of legislation but he did.

Of all the candidates running, McCain is the one I trust most. I don't like some of what he has done but taken in the grand scheme of things he could be a lot worse.

Chuck

Hardball

2007-12-05T19:20:00.000-05:00

This evening as I was flipping through the channels, I lingered for a moment on Chris Matthews. He was interviewing a guy about the NIE that said Iran had stopped it's nuclear weapons program in 2003. Matthews was trying to get the guy to say that Bush had deliberately supressed the NIE so he could make a case for going to war with Iran.

Well, the guy, I think he was an ex Under Secretary of State, didn't bite. He told Matthews he thought the NIE and the assertion that Bush was up to no good was "silly". Needless to say Chris was not pleased to hear this and up popped the "Breaking News" sign and they cut away to the shootings in Omaha. Funny thing is the "breaking news" had already broken several hours earlier and had already been hashed over numerous times.

I have never liked Matthews and now I like him even less. His holier than thou attitude and constant denigration of Bush and Cheney speaks volumes about his character and his political bias. I don't begrudge him his opinion but to voice it disguised as news is a travesty. If he wants to voice his opinion, let him be a commentator (of which I have very few on this blog).

I knew people like Matthews when I was in middle and high school and most of them grew out of their nah-nah-nah in your face BS. Those that didn't got it beaten out of them. That is what I would like to Matthews. Beat that snotty attitude out of him and make him grow up.

Chuck

Whats New

2007-12-01T16:32:00.000-05:00

I finally finished restoring the Mustang GT and turned it over to my daughter on her birthday. It was 30 years to the day since I gave her a Pinto for her 16th birthday. She really liked the way the Mustang came out and so did I considering I had never done a convertible or a Ford before. There are huge differences in working of a Ford vs a Chevrolet. The Chevrolet is constructed logically while everything on the Mustang seemed to be an after thought. Oh well, its done and I was glad to see it leave.

In one of my earlier posts I said that a number of people had asked me to run for election to the Board of Directors of my community. Well, I am on the ballot and the election takes place Dec. 8th. The old guard that has controlled the community sice day one are beside themselves because they might lose control. Well, its about time for some new blood and fresh ideas. They called an emergency meeting today and were roundly chastised by the current board for being obstructionists and that they might as well get used to the fact that as the community grows they will fall further by the wayside.

I don't know if I will be elected but if I am, I intend to bring some fiscal responsibility to the board and install better project management. The gate that was installed this year has cost double what was budgeted and has only worked one month this year. It is time for a change.

Chuck

2007-11-04T07:28:00.000-05:00

I haven't had much to say lately because I am totally disgusted with politics and I have been very busy with other things.

It wasn't enough that we had the presidential campaign inflicted upon us a year early, we have also had to listen to the blatherings of the worst candidates I have ever seen. Democrats and Republicans have really scraped the bottom of the barrel this time.

Every one of the candidates are mouthing platitudes that they think the voting public will fall for in droves and they seem totally oblivious to the fact that their contradictory statements will follow them around. The best example I can think of is Hillary's statement on drivers liscences in New York but she isn't the only one. They all are lying about one thing or another and the lies are catching up to them faster than ever before.

The Republicans candidates are competing with each other about who is the most conservative and the Democrats are beating each other over the head about who voted how on the Iraq war.
Neither group is addressing the real issues that lie over the horizon. They are concentrating on NOW issues that probably shouldn't even be an issue.

I want to know what the candidates are going to do about illegal immigration, what energy policies they will adopt, how they will address terrorism, what economic policies they will adopt to balance the trade deficit, how they will deal with the UN, what will they do about Iran and the list goes on. The candidates have only talked in very broad generalities on these subjects so far but I have no confidence they have any specific ideas or approaches to them.

I wish some Dark Horse would come along who has a real agenda and who has the ability to put it together in a honest, straightforward way. The current candidates are all over the place with their promises and none of them really believe what they are saying.

Chuck

HDTV

2007-09-03T20:39:00.000-04:00

Today my wife and I went to Circuit City so I could buy a new flash drive and while we were there she looked at the HDTVs. We had talked about buying one at some point but it was the last thing on my mind when we went in the store. Well, on the way home she said she would like to go ahead and buy one so I measured the opening in our built in entertainment center and we trucked on back to Circuit City.

We bought a 32" Sony because it will fit in the cabinet and made arrangements for their Firedog team to come to the house to survey it for installing a surround sound system. I don't know how many times I have installed entertainment systems in our houses but this time I refused to do it. I'm old and don't want to crawl around in the attic routing wires and what not. I'll bet dollars to donuts that I will wind up doing the installation though because the Firedog guys are going to take one look at our house and present some jack leg proposal that will leave holes in our walls or moulding.

I sure hope the new TV and surround sound system turns out good because this is the first time in 41 years she decided to do something like this and I don't want her disappointed.

Chuck

Health Care

2007-08-14T09:19:00.000-04:00

One of the things I don't like about getting older is that everybody I know is more than willing to share their health problems with the world. I am including myself in this category because I have posted about the health issues my wife and I are encountering as we age. I don't generally bring our health issues up in everyday conversations but it is almost impossible not to get drawn into the subject of health and health care when more than 3 people over 50 years of age are conversing.

The primary subject I talk about in discussions about health and related issues has to do with the health care system and how I think we have an excellent system in this country. Having worked as an executive in the pharmaceutical industery and having worked for several foriegn owned companies, I had the opportunity to see the inside of several European health care systems. England, Germany and Italy are the countries I had the best opportunities to see and compared to our system, they ain't pretty.

Yesterday I went to a urologist because I am a kidney stone manufacturing factory. I almost always have one in progress and have passed as many as one a week on occassion. Fortunately, I have developed a high resistance to pain and have been able to live a normal life. But let me tell you a fact. No matter how many kidney stones you pass, the pain is always excruiating. That is why I went to the uroligist.

The urologist sent me straight to radiology for diagnostic x rays at the local hospital where I had a wait of about 1 hour. The x rays took about 45 minutes to shoot and be reviewed by a Radiologist. The pictires were put in an envelope and I took them to the Doctor who reviewed them with me and we decided to crusd the large one (9mm X 11mm) located in the left uterer. Even I can't pass a stone that large.

I spent about 10 minutes getting information from the Doctor's assistant who scheduled me for the procedure 0n Friday the 17th. She sent me directly to the Hospital Registration where I got pre registered in about 15 minutes and went home.

The reason I am writing about this is that I believe Medi Care and Health Insurance companies are getting a bad rap. If I had been in Germany, England or Italy, it would have taken at least a month to get an appointment with a urologist. It would have taken him at least 3 weeks to get me X Rayed. It would have taken at least a week to have the x rays developed, reviewed and ready for the Doctor. It would have taken at least a month for the Urologist to see me again and decide to crush the stone. Once the decision was made, it would take as much as 8 months to get scheduled for the procedure. In other words, I would have to suffer the pain for neigh onto a year before I could get relief.

In Germany, Italy and England, it would take a year as compared to a week in the US. I simply don't understand why so many Americans think our Health Care system is sub par. There is no doubt our system can be improved and there are the enevitable horror stories you hear on the news about a screw up in a hospital or by a doctor. These things happen in Europe too.

The biggest problem with our health care system is that doctors have been forced to practice defensive medicine. Lawyers and their lawsuits against doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies have driven the cost of health care to astronomical levels. If people want a better health care system, they should demand tort reform and trim the lawyers sails.

Chuck

2007-07-26T17:14:00.000-04:00

It appeasr that having a lot of money and being adored by pappirazzi and fans takes the thought process out of celebrities heads. I hate the term celebrity, it implies that their lives are cause for jubilation and that those around them are being graceds with their presence. I don't mind Star as the entertainers of yore were called I don't even mind famous. Celebrity makes my stomache turn.

I have known a lot of people over they years that I loved being around and I listened attentivly when they spoke. I felt I was lucky to know them . Some of them were very well known in scientific circles, some were heads of very large corporations a few were in the arts as actors or painters, or writers and a couple were sports stars. In fact, I was taught to drive by a man who was a legend in stock car racing. He was known as Fireball Roberts, but I called him Glenn. All of these people had one thing in common. They didn't see themselves as the end all be all in their field and they all were courteous, low key, kind and understanding.

When I see the antics if Brittany Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, Tom Cruise, Nick Nolte and many other "celebrities" I wonder what happend to them? Certainly they had parents, teachers, pastors and friends who tried to show them right from wrong. It seems that the more famous they get the more selfdestructive they get. Look at Miclael Vick. He makes obscene amounts of mony for playing a game. Its true he is extremely good at playing football but it is still a game.

I don't know Michael Vick and I won't pass judgement on him but I question his motivation and intelligence for putting himself in a position where he can not only lose his huge salary he can get up to 6 years in prison. If he did in fact run a dog fighting arena he is sick and needs psychiatric help. Why would anyone want to watch 2 dogs rip each other apart? Is it transference? Is it what they would like to do to someone but the price is to high to actually do it?

I sincerely hope Michael Vick is found innocent of the dog fighting allegatios, not in the way OJ was but that is innocent without equivication. I have been a Falcons fan for years and I would hate to see them have a lousey season, they have enough already, because of Vick.

Chuck

Trials and Tribulations

2007-07-24T18:14:00.000-04:00

Today I fought a titanic battle with the Mustang. I put the dash back in. This might seem like a simple thing to do but it isn't. First of all there are agazillion wires that have go to different places in the dash and the wiring harness isn't designed so that you simply start at one side and work you way to the other. Another thing is that the connectors (plugs) may have wires of one color in the female connector and a different set of colors on the male connector. The wires are color coded but in some cases the connectors are transitions to an accessory which has it's own color code. Fortunately the connectors are made so they only match their mates but sometimes when an accessory is involved the connector may be duplicated someplace else in the harness.

Well, after struggling with the wiring and the dash I finally got it in and boy, did it look good. Then I noticed it. A wire unconnected to anything dangling from under the dash. Sometimes the manufacturers will terminate a wire in the harness if the accessory it is supposed to service is not installed.

Anyway, I now know the best way to re install the dash so I will take it back out, find the mate to the phantom wire and re re install the dash. I think the car will look very good when I finish and my Daughter will have her first cool car.

Chuck

Worst President Ever

2007-07-24T07:49:00.000-04:00

Last night I saw a news bite where Harry Reid declared without equivication that "George Bush is the worst president in history". What rock was this clown hiding under when Jimmy Carter was president?

Carter managed in his 4 years in office to bestow upon the American people the worst inflation ever, allowed the Shah of Iran to be overthrown and replaced by Muslim zealots, allowed those same Muslim zealots to storm our embassy and hold our diplomatic mission hostage for over a year, and then he had the temerity to declare that we were in a national malaise and that we needed to learn to live with declining prosperity.

Carter was without doubt the worst president ever. Second place has to go to Lyndon Johnson.

Johnson did get the Civil Rights act passed which elevates him above Carter but his handling of the Vietnam War has to be one of the worst blunders in American history. He totally disregarded the advice if his military commanders and allowed an accountant, Robert McNamara, to micromanage the war. He allowed General Westmorland to stay in command of all forces in Vietnam even though it was obvious that the man was totally incompetent. Then the coup de gras was the Great Society, a policy that cost billions and instead of elevating the poor, it dragged a sizable portion of what was the middle class down. I won't even go into what became entitlements under the Great Society because they are so stupid .

Carter not only enbraced the Great Society, he actually believed it was working, something Johnson never did. To Johnson the Great Society was strictly a political expedient intended to assure his re election but Carter actually thought it was a good thing. Fortunately Johnson's handling of the Vietnam War took him out before he could do any more damage. Johnson at least had the good grace to fade away and die in relative obscurity.

Carter turned out to be the Gift that keeps on Giving after he was beaten by Reagan. He has set himself up as the world expert on electorial processes around the world, has meddeled in foriegn affairs policies of sitting presidents, has embraced every despot on the planet and has done everything he can to undermine the security of Israel.

Yep! Harry Reid was wrong. Jimmy Carter is the worst president ever while Harry Reid is well on the way to being the worst Senate Majority Leader ever.

Chuck

2007-07-22T16:33:00.000-04:00

I saw where Russ Feingold is planning to introduce a measure to censure President Bush. What does he think that will do? Bush could part the seas, cure all ills, make everybody rich, bring peace to the world and walk on water and the democrats & MSM would still criticize him. An official, honest to goodness censure would have about as much effect as shoveling shit against the tide.
Feingold is an arrogant ass who will do anything to get publicity. I believe he would give a blow job on the Capital steps if he could get his face on the front page. Needless to say I don't think very highly of Feingold. I rank him just a notch above Schumer who has to be the sleaziest human being ever to walk God's green earth. Where do these scumbags come from. Are they jacked off on a rock and hatched by the sun?
I wish, before I die, that we will manage to expell the current crop of butt wipes we have in congress and elect a new crop with the intrest of the US at the top of their priorities. It probably won't happen but I can hope.

Chuck

The Marvels of Medicine

2007-07-18T18:58:00.000-04:00

Yesterday my wife was operated on for her eye cancer. The operation took about 45 minutes and she was not put to sleep. After the operation, she was taken directly to her room where she will be semi isolated until Friday when they will remove the radioactive plaque they placed on the tumor. Then she will be observed overnight and she will be released Saturday morning.

Prior to the advent of the procedure that they performed yesterday, the only treatment for this type of cancer was to remove the eye. Of course that procedure resulted in total blindness in that eye. With this procedure, her vision should be about 90% and will gradually get worse until in about 10 years that eye's vision will be reduced to about 60% of normal. I'd say that is pretty damned good considering the alternative.

In the past 1 1/2 years I have gained a new respect for health care in this country. My wife had lung cancer and had to have the bottom lobe of her right lung removed in May of 2006. She was initially diagnosed as a result of a very astute family doctor noticing a odd sound in her breathing during an annual physical. The cancer was confirmed by a PET scan and they immediately scheduled her for surgery. The PET scan is an amazing, relatively new diagnostic procedure that can supposedly detect a single cancer cell. I don't know if it really is that good or not but if it is it should be made a part of routine examinations. Just think of the number of cancer victims who could be given a much better chance of survival . The PET scan is fairly expensive but I think the cost would be offset by reducing the costs of treatment for advanced cancer cases.

In December of 2006, my wife broke her hip and they did a partial hip replacement. They replaced the femural stem and she was in rehab in 3 days. Unfortunately the new hip slipped out of the socket twice and caused her a great deal of pain but finally the muscles got strong enough to hold the hip joint together. Now she walks without a limp and can do most anything she wishes with little discomfort.

Finally, and I do hope finally, the eye cancer. Amy has had a lot of serious illness in a short period of time and hope that she will catch a break now. She surely deserves one. Through it all she has maintained a positive attitude and done very little complaining.

I marvel at the progress made in medicine during my lifetime. When I was a child a broken hip in older people was pretty much a kiss of death. A diagnosis of lung cancer was definitely a death warrant. Now survival rates for all of those old maladies is pretty good. I wish more progress had been made for breast cancer but it too will improve. Even chemotherapy has improved and isn't as debilitating as it once was.

When I first started making chemotherapy agents about 20 years ago, some of the raw materials we used were so toxic that we had to wear moon suits to protect ourselves during production and all of the equipment we used had to be either disposed of or quarantined for future use on that product only.

If the progress in medicine continues at the pace it has during my career, cures for the most horrible diseases such as Ebola should be right around the corner. Of course we need to make the same kind of progress in the field of mental health that we have in physical health before we can breath a sigh of relief. Treatment ofAlzhiemers and other mental ilnesses have seen little progress over the years and it seems that the Psychiatry has gone backward.

For those who think health care in America is substandard, you are wrong. We have a great healthcare system, we are just impatient and have come to expect instant cures. I, for one would rather get sick now in America than I would at any other time in any other country.

Chuck

Mustang Update

2007-07-14T12:58:00.000-04:00

Sometimes it is better to just let a sleeping dog lie. Because the Mustang I'm restoring is for my Daughter, I am trying to make it as perfect as I can. I managed to get a good paint job on it and I got all the interior components in good shape. The engine runs well and the drive train works as it is supposed to.

When I put the fenders and grill back on the car I tested the horn, lights and wipers. The Parking lights and side marker lights wouldn't work so I started investigating. While rummaging around under the dash, I noticed some frayed wires and some areas that looked like they had been burned. Being a devoted father and not wanting to turn a potentially dangerous car over to my Daughter, I removed the dash and went through the wiring with a fine toothed comb. There were in fact several wires that had burned so I repaired them and rewrapped the harness. Has anyone ever tried to stuff a wiring harness for a car with all the options back into it's original location. Don't bother, it won't fit. There ar at least 100 wires in the harness and I think they must have swollen over time.

I will eventually get it back together but it is frustrating that all the stuff that came out so easy won't go back just as easily. The whole thing reminds me of the proverbial blivet. Five pounds of crap packed in a 2 poung bag.

Chuck

Musings

2007-07-13T13:16:00.000-04:00

Sunday I have to take my wife back to Miami where she will undergo treatment for the cancer on her eye. We will be driving since airports are such a hassel and airline service is terrible. The last time we flew was to visit our daughter in Albany, NY. Our luggage got lost and we didin't receive it until we about to leave for home. I remember the good old days when flying anywhere was an event where you dressed up, and the whole family came to the airport to see you off.

The first time I ever flew was on a Pan American Clipper. It was actually a flying boat which made a lot of sense then because airports were few and far between. Taking off and landing on water is quite an experience. Flying at that time was an adventure.

As I look back at how things have changed in my lifetime, I think the 2 areas that have had the most impact on society are transportation and information technology. When I was young, it took about 14 hours to fly cross country now it takes about 4 hours. There was no such thing as a non stop flight across the US. The planes couldn't carry enough gas. I think that is why Kansas City, Dallas, Denver and several cities became large airline stops. They were strategically located to allow refueling stops. Even though I have flown all over the US, Europe and parts of Asia, I continue to be amazed at how easy it is to get from one place to another. One trip I took to Germany was routed directly over the North Pole. Think of how many people died trying to get there and what a big deal was made of it when Admiral Byrd did it.

Anyone who has given any thought to how we live today has to realize that for better or worse, the explosion in information technology made it possible. I well remember the party lines of yore and how there was always someone who tied the line up for hours on end. Now you don't even need a telephone line. Mobile phones are rapidly making land line phones obsolete. You can take your phone almost anywhereand make calls with very little impediment. If you want to be able to make a call from even the most isolated place, you can get a satillite phone. Just look at all you can do on a wireless telephone that were not even dreamt about when I was young. Text messaging, streaming video, internet connections, GPS tracking and the list goes on. Remember Dick Tracy and his 2 way wrist radio? That was unbelievable at the time but now with a device not much larger than a watch you can communicate worldwide.

All of these developments are not without cost. The calculator has changed how math is taught and how it is understood. Before the calculator, you had to know step by step how to solve an equation. Now you punch in some numbers and hit the function butto and there is the answer. How many people today understand how the answer to a math problem is determined?

I guess that the evoultion of the Internet has changed society more than any other bit of technology. Banking/ financial enterprises can now move funds around without the actual money ever moving. Where would we be if transactions still had to be conducted by mail? You could lose your entire fortune while waiting for a check to clear.

I can't help but wonder what the world will be like when my grandchildren are my age. Will people still have to work or will they haveelectronic devices to work for them? Will people still use a pen and paper, will people know how to spell or will a computer program do it for them.

A lot has changed in my 66 years and I think mostly for good. I will probably live to see some more life changing developements but at the rate things are changing now, in another 66 years the social structure will probably be unrecognizable to me.

Professional Commentators- bleeeech

2007-07-08T18:36:00.000-04:00

I don't normally watch Sunday talk shows because most of the content is so inane as to be childish. Today is one of those days when I did watch and on Fox there was a segment on the internet. The general premise was that the internet is making people stupid because it provides a conduit for ordinary people to express their views through blogs and sites like my space and U Tube. The bottom line was that professionsl reporters and commentators opinions are valid while the opinions of people like me and other bloggers are totally wrong and make people stupid.

Needless to say I disagree. I think my opinions are just as valid as any of the talking heads. They are my opinions and anyone who disagrees can do so which is not the case with the "professionals". My opinions are based on my life experiences which include serving in combat, raising a family, dealing with illnesses and deaths of family and friends, rising to upper management positions in the pharmaceutical industry, participating in competetive sports, and a miriade of other things that have shaped my opinions. I have been to all 50 states, lived in 15 states, and Puerto Rico, traveled in Europe and Asia and was one of very few Americans who went into China in 1968. I would hazzard a guess that the person who was postulating that bloggers opinions are stupid has done very few of the things I have done.

I really don't care what a blogger puts up on his/her site. If I disagree with what they post, I can comment, or if I find that I have no common ground with a blogger, I don't bother going to his/her site. Show me any "professional" commentator or reporter who has the courage to open him/herself up to anonymous commentors. The simply don't do it. They hide behind subscriptions or screens to protect themselves from the possible negative comments from the unwashed masses.

I, for one am sick of the talking heads who represent themselves as experts on everything. In the end the opinions of the "professionals" are no better than mine and in most instances the "professional" cannot draw on the 66 years of experience I have.

So. there, Mr. "Professional" commentator/editorialist/ reporter, blow it out your butt. Your high and mighty opinions are no more valid than anyone elses. Opinions are like ass holes. everybody has one.

Chuck

From a Diamond to a Lump of Coal

2007-07-06T07:16:00.000-04:00

I haven't been to Miami in quite a few years so when I went there to take my wife to a hospital specializing in eye care I was expecting to see at least a little of what it had been in my previous visits. Boy, was I surprised.

We stayed at the Radisson Hotel on Biscayne Blvd.. an area that used to be a "go to" place. Although the area still has a lot of the better hotels, they are completely surrounded by very seedy shops and very run down buildings. The streets are full of panhandlers, gang bangers and human flotsam. Every building has storm shutters that are pulled down during non business hours, not to protect them against storms, but to protect them against smash and grab robbers.

I needed to get gas so I went to the first gas station I could find, which was about 2 blocks from the hotel, and found that the gas transactions were conducted through a window made of thick bullet resistant glass or plastic. The area around the pumps was filled with men hanging around waiting for a gas customer to pull up and they would practically grab the gas nozzle out of your hand to pump your gas and then receive a tip. The smell of cheap booze and beer breath was palitable and overpowered the normal smell of gasoline. Naturally you had to pay before pumping but the attendant was so cowed by the vagrants he wouldn't even come to the window to make the transaction. Naturally there was no pay at the pump capability so you had to navigate your way through the derelicts to go to the window.

Fortunately I am a fairly large person who looks stronger than I really am so I was not hasseled by the very unhealthy looking gas pump hijackers. My wife was extremely apprehensive of me even getting out of the car and was p[robably was concerned about her own safety as well.

When it became apparent the station attendant was not going to conduct the transaction, I walked back to the car where one of the pump hijackers was holding the gas nozzle. I took the nozzle out of his hand, put it back on the pump and proceeded to get in the car. The hijacker said "hey man, don't you want gas?" . His breath would have killed the canary.

In the time we were in Miami, the only person I met who spoke unbroken english was the doctor. Everyone else spoke Spanish or Hatian French.

Next time I go to take my wife to the hospital, I will stay well north of Miami and make the drive into town in the traffic that closely resembles the chaos of Mexico City.

We should erect a fence 20 miles out from the Miami city limits and turn Miami over to Cuba. The Cubans own it anyway so it would be no loss to us.

I'm sure Cuba wouldn't welcome the gift of Miam since it is largely populated by people Castro shipped here from his prisons and asylums during the Mariel Boat Lift in the 70s while Jimmy Carter sat in the White House picking his nose.

Yes. I blame Jimmy Carter for the sad state of decay that is now Miami. Carter managed to take a diamond and turn it to a lump of coal.

Chuck

Balls at Last, Balls at Last! Great God Almighty Balls at last

2007-07-03T20:23:00.000-04:00

I was gratified that after President Bush read my previous post he immediately grew a set of big brass balls and commuted "Scooter's 2 1/2 year jail time.

He commuted the jail portion of Libby's sentence because he believes the sentence is excessive. How true! Fitzgerald should be the one with the jail sentence along with being disbarred for conspiring to create a criminal case where none existed He should lose his protection against being sued and Libby should sue him into bankruptsey. After suing Fitzgerald. Libby should turn his lawyers loose on Plame/Wilson and soak them for everthing they are worth or will ever be worth.

I heard thatin exchange for getting his sentence commuted, Libby has to change his name from Scooter to something more appropriate for a man of his age. When he called me and asked my opinion, I suggested TRUCK. It is much more grown up than Scooter,

Chuck

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose

2007-07-02T17:38:00.000-04:00

In general I don't get worked up over politicians and political staff people getting into trouble and having to serve time. I think Randy Cunningham got what he deserved and probably should have gotten a longer sentence than he did but at least he was punished for selling his political influence and general corruption. The Florida congressman who wrote E Mails to pages was at least disgraced and lost his Congressional seat for his actions. Richard Nixon had to live with his disgrace until he died. These are instances where the high and mighty get their comeuppance for their transgressions.

Today "Scooter" Libby was denied his freedom while his case is appealed. In my opinion this a grave injustice when one compares his his "crime" to that of Sandy Berger. Berger stole classified documents from the National Archives during the hearings of the 911 Commission where he was a witness. Not only did he steal the documents, he was caught doing it and after giving several lame excuses such as (I was pulling up my socks and the papers just jumped in) or (I had a hole in my pants and used the paper to keep my butt from showing). Obviously the scenarions I cited here are ficticious but his excuses were every bit as far fetched. Then on top of stealing Classified documents he hid them under a construction trailer.

Compare Berger's crimes to Libby's saying he didn't remember who told what to whom or when regarding the "outing" of Valarie Plame and in my opinion the punishment doesn't fit the crime. Libby gets a prison sentence and Berger gets a fine and some civic service.

On top of all of the above, the Special Prosecutor knew from the beginning who really "outed" Valarie Plame but chose to seat a grand jury at great expense to the government and then proceeded to conduct a witch hunt. There are several things about this case that leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.
1) Valarie Plame was not undercover as defined in CIA procedures and practices when she was "outed". By definition you can't "out" someone who is already "out".
2) As soon as Fitzgerald learnd who had actually "outed" Plame, the stated reason for his appointment was null.
3) Joe Wilson used the whole sordid affair to promote his own personal intrests and to make a great deal of money accusing the Administration of conspiring to "out" Plame for revenge.
4) Plame and Wilson scooped up a book deal about the whole "non- crime" and stand to make a lot of money.
5) Not only did Libby get a jail term and a large fine, his career is ruined.

Meanwhile back at the ranch. Berger voluntarily relinquishes his law liscense in order to avoid testifying in follow on investigations regarding the way the Clinton administration dealt with terrorist threats.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't have a great deal of regard for Libby. For that matter, I have little use for any 40- 50 year old man who allows himself to be called Scooter or Billy or Jimmy or any childhood name. I also don't care much for sycophants who hang around the fringes of power.

What irks me about this whole thing is the double standard. Berger in effect commits burgularly(sp) and gets a mild tap on the wrist and Libby forgets some unimportant detail about a non crime and gets hammered.

The whole double standard thing really gets my shorts in a wad. Clinton fires all of the Federal Prosecutors and not a word is said, Bush fires 8 or 9 and the entire Democratic party has conniptions. Go figure.

Chuck

A Very Strong Woman

2007-06-24T17:04:00.000-04:00

I've always heard that bad things happen in threes. I hope that is true since my wife is now on her third catastrophe. She has a malignent tumor on her eye. First she had lung cancer, then she broke her hip and had many complications with that now the eye. I really don't know how she deals with it.

Amy, my wife, is one of those people who never seems to be down. When she had lung cancer she went about her life as if nothing was wrong. When she broke her hip, other than showing a little pain, she went on like nothing had happened. Now, she has the eye cancer and she remains steadfast and committed to beating it too.

I wish I were more like her. I get a kidney stone and grimace every time I move. I admire her for her fortitude and ability to see the bright side of every thing that happens to her. She is the kind of person who would make a great President or Captain of industry. She addresses a problem with an intensity and grace I wish Bush and our Congress would exhibit. The country would be a much better place if we had more people like Amy.

Chuck

Illegal Immigration

2007-06-17T09:42:00.000-04:00

The more I see and read about the "Comprehensive Immigration Bill" the more I realize that our politicians of both parties are totally out of touch with their constituancies. They seem to be oblivious to the overwhelming desire of the general public for secure borders, both northern and southern.

I think most people realize that it would be virtually impossible to deport all the illegals who are already here. I also think most people would not have a problem with a program to assimilate the current illegals over a period of time. The big issue is stopping more illegals from coming in.

In my opinion, we should do whatever is necessary to make our borders air tight. How we accomplish it is immaterial to me. If it requires laying mine fields 6 miles deep or if it can be done with high tech systems it is ok with me. What I want is NO additional illegal immigration.

The current proposals for high tech observation of the border means that we will be able to watch illegals as they cross into the country and then after they are in we will try to capture them. That is a joke. Once they are in, there is no way we will be able to catch all of them.

We need to jump on our politicians and let them know that we demand border security that prevents illegals from getting in, not a half assed program that requires us to expend huge amounts of money trying to catch them. Mine fields, death rays, poison gas , gun ships, plague or any other means is fair game to me. We have to stop this invasion in it's tracks and we need to force our politicians to put a program in place that accomplishes it.

Once the borders are secure, then we can address the issues of the illegals who are already here.

Chuck

2007-05-15T17:54:00.000-04:00

In my previous post I discussed the hide bound members of the Board of Directors for the Property Owners Association where I live and the ineptitude of the Chairman of our Security Committee. Well, I wrote a letter to the Board and to the Chairman in which I pointed out the numerous problems with the gate and security system. In the letter I suggested that the Chairman resign or that the Board remove him. To date I have received no response from either.

Word got around the community about the letter and I have received numerous phone calls of support and requests for me to persue the matter further.

I am considering starting a Recall Petition to remove the Chairman of the Board and Chaiman of the non existant Security Committee from office. I really do think this is appropriate but a number of the people who have encouraged me want me to run for the Board. I don't want to be on the Board for several reasons but the paramount one is that I am not a diplomat. I call things the way I see them and don't worry too much about stepping on people's toes.

With my management background and engineering abilities I would make a good advisor to the Board but my direct approach to things I think I could soon alienate my neighbors. On the other hand, people already know what I am like and they are still asking me to run.

I am not sure if I should allow myself to be nominated but I am certain I could do a better job than the current crew. I'm glad I never tried to be a politician.

Chuck

Adapt or Perish

2007-05-13T18:06:00.000-04:00

I live in a gated community in coastal Georgia where the early residents have formed a clique so the can reign supreme over the Property Owners Association. I have to admit that due to their efforts in the early years our community is far superior to other like communities but the old timers are hide bound and resistant to change.

Some of them have started to see the offices they hold as a devine right to do whatever they want without regard for the opinions of others.

I moved here full time in September 2006 and was immediately asked to serve on the Security Committee. Having worked in the pharmaceutical industry I have a lot of experience in setting up air tight security systems as required by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Well. to make a long story short, the Chairman of the committee had no concept of modern security systems and especially did not appreciate that the best security system is one that is not obvious.

We installed new gates and purchased top of the line electronics and camera systems but the comittee chairman insisted on installing the most garish lighting you can imagine. His approach was to light up the gate like a WalMart parking lot. This caused several of the committee members to quit because it made the entranct gates look like hell.

Needless to say that modern security cameras, as any optical device does, likes white light more than the yellow light put out by soduim vapor lights. The result was the cameras are blinded by the bright lights in front of the lens and we are only able to capture the shapes of vehicles.

The chairman wouldn't listen to suggestions for lights that are more subdued and we had an incident where one of the gates was damaged. Our cameras caught a fuzzy shape that can't be identified and the license plate is unreadable.

The point of all this is that what we are experiencing in my community is exactly what is wrong in Washington. The Senators and Congressmen keep returning and through seniority gain positions of power the are unable to manage. They become hide bound and resistant to change which puts on the backside of the effectiveness curve.

If we don't start creating some turnover in Washington and keep up with the times, we are going to fossilize just like the dinosaurs did.
Chuck

HELP

2007-04-26T18:18:00.000-04:00

In my last post I lamented the mess I had made of the trunk lid on the 84 Mustang I am restoring. Well, after countless hours of sanding, hammering and filling I finally got it straight and today I painted it. IT IS BEAUTIFUL if I do say so myself.

Being a perfectionist is a character flaw I,ve always had and it has alienated some people that I look back and regret losing as friends. I have no idea why it is that anything I try to do has to be perfect when other people's poor, in my opinion, craftsmanship doesen't really bother me, unless of course he is doing it for me.

When I mow my lawn, which is large, I mow it twice. I mow in one direction the first time and the second time I mow perpendicular to the first. Not a blade of grass gets missed and the pattern mowin leaves must be 90 degrees. I go to all this trouble with my lawn but since I retired I only shave every 3 days.

If anyone has an explanation for my quirk I would appreciate hearing from you. I'm to anal , didn't have bad potty training and had a loving family so those are not the reasons.

Chuck

What Have I Done!!!

2007-04-17T19:02:00.000-04:00

I wrote in a previous post about restoring a 1984 Mustang convertible my Son in Law got for my Daughter. I have completed the engine, interior and wiring and now I'm doing the body work.

I have created a mess I'm not sure I can fix. My Son in Law removed the luggage rack that he thought was not original to the car and threw it away. Well, it turns out the rack was original on the GT models so dumping it was a big mistake. It was mounted on the trunk lid and there were screw holes left when he took it off. So, no luggage rack and a bunch of holes in the trunk lid. What did I, in one of my more brilliant moments do? I asked a neighbor to weld up the holes. The guy welds for a living so I assumed he knew what he was doing. Wrong!! Automotive sheetmetal is thin and my welder friend is used to welding pipe so he overheated the metal and warped it 6 ways from Sunday.

I have spent a week trying to smooth it out and it still looks like hell. I would buy a new one but they are as scarce as hen's teeth. I have no option but to fix it. I'm thinking about taking it to a body shop but I'm sure they would take one look at it and tell me to take a flying leap. Besides, I'm humiliated at the mess and don't have anyone to blame it on.

One way or another I am going to get it smooth but I have learned a couple of lessons from the experience. 1) Never throw away anything you take off an old car, you will need it as soon as the dumpster is picked up and 2) never ask a friend to do something he doesn't ordinarily do. He will screw it up every time.

Chuck

Political Duplicity and Greed

2007-03-21T06:09:00.000-04:00

I have been catching snippets of Charles Schumer and Patrick Leahy expressing their holier than thou outrage at the firing of the 8 US Attorneys and the word hypocracy falls short of describing their comments. Where were these clowns when Clinton wiped out the entire slate of US Attorneys? Why is it a travesty when Bush fires 8 and OK when Clinton fires 91?

Politics at the Federal level in this country is doing what no outside enemy has ever done. It is destroying the fabric of the Republic.

If ever there was a good reason for term limits, the current politics above all else mentality in Washington is it. Our Senators and Congresspersons will do anything to maintain themselves in office and continue to feed at the public trough. They will lie, cheat, commit treason and kiss the asses of anyone in order to stay in their cushey jobs where they all seem to live far beyond the means of their public salaries.

How is it that quite a few of our elected officials go to Washington without a pot to piss in and retire very wealthy? Lyndon Johnson comes to mind as one who had nothing when he was first elected and became a multi millionaire while in office. There have been many others but Johnson stands out as one of the most obvious.

I have come to the conclusion that politicians see their election to office as a licsence to steal and the most greedy are the ones who make the most noise while in office.

Term limits would be a great start in correcting the mess in Washington but even more effective would be a strict accounting of politicians monetary gains while in office. I mean FULL DISCLOSURE of ALL financial gains. That would cause a lot of them to see the need to get a real job.

Chuck

False Start

2007-03-10T07:12:00.000-05:00

I have been watching the wannabe presidential candidates in their bids for the nomination and I think some of them have already begun to falme out.

Biden never had a chance to begin with so he doesn't count, Hagle is dead meat, Macaine lost his chance with his mealy mouthed illegal immigration stance and Hillary really blew it with her fake southern accent.

Its' obvious that Obama is taking the Democratic party by storm so far but it remains to be seen what will happen as he moves through the campaign. I think his shallowness will catch up with him in the next few months and he will start losing ground very fast.

Where does that leave the Democrats? I think they will probably ressurect Al Gore in desperation. Not a pretty sight but the Democrats are not a pretty party.

On the Republican side I think the dark horse is Newt Gingrich. He is playing it smart by letting the other wannabe's burn down before the real campaign really gets started. I look for Gingrich to get the Presidential nomination and for Romney to get the nod for VP.

Given the performance of the Democrats in the Senate and House so far, I think the public will decide they are a party of losers and will dump many of them in '08 so I think the end result will be a basket turnover in the congress and Gingrichand Romney in the top spots.

I hope I am right.
Chuck

Wonders of the Internet

2007-02-08T13:15:00.000-05:00

The wonders of the Internet are amazing. I remember when my Father was trying to put together the family tree and how he had to rely on family bibles, public archives and chatting with other family members. He put a lot of effort into the tree and I have a copy of his work.He only traced or tried to trace the ancestry on his side of the family so nothing was done on my Mother's family.

I got interested in trying to put together a complete Family tree and started researching on the internet. I am amazed at the amount of information accessable if one has the patience to look for it.

So far I have found two GGGGGrandfathers who fought in the American Revolution and as I dug deeper I found that my Father was a member of the Sons of the Revolution. I had no inkling he was a member but lo and behold there it was in black and white along with the proof that he was a direct descendent of a Revolutionay War soldier. Needless to say I was pleased to find this information since it qualifies my Granddaughter for financial assistance from the Daughters of The Revolution when she goes to college.

On my Mothers side of the family, I found that my GGGGGrandfather was killed in a battle in Burke County, Ga. in the last year of the Revolution. He is buried within a 2 hour drive of where I now live and I didn't know it. I plan to go to his grave site soon and pay my respects.

As I continued poking around in my families past, I found my Great Grandfathers pension application for Confederate Soldiers. I had no idea that Confederate Soldiers could get a pension for their service in the Civil War. The application had been approved by the state of Florida thereby confirming that he had served. The Sons of the Confederacy also provides financial assistance to direct descendents of Confederate Veterans.

All is not roses in my ancestry searches though. I have found some outlaws, cattle rustlers, a pirate and some low lifes as well. I guess every family has some skeletons in the closet.

Tracing my ancestry has been enlightning and interesting. Now I have to find a way to put it all down on a chart. It is amazing how many branches a family tree as in just a couple of generations.

Chuck

Panama City, Florida

2007-02-06T16:17:00.000-05:00

I saw on my site meter that I had a couple of visits from Panama City. I was born in PC in 1940 and spent summers there until 1958. My grandparents lived in Millville and I used to ride the bus into town for movies and such.

While I was growning up Panama City Beach and Long Beach were great places. Sugar white sand, clear green water and out of town girls up the gazoo. There was a place at Long Beach called the HangOut right on the beach where the music never stopped and we danced until we had blisters on our bare feet. In those days beer was the big thing for teens and because the Bay County Sheriff was a close friend of my family I could buy it fairly easily as long as I didn't do anything stupid. Needless to say I made friends fast.

I used to hang around the Indian Motorcycle Dealership in Millville that also sold English Bikes. The owner was a guy named Oolie Coker. He was rough as a cob but was always looked after me. He let me ride a Vincent Black Shadow when I was 13 years old. That Black Shadow is now a collector item that sells for around $200k. Oolie had no compunction about letting me take off on whatever he had in the shop whenever I wanted.

I had a really great childhood in PC and have many fond memories of it. It isn't the same now but when I was young it was a great place.

Thanks for visiting my site.

Chuck

Joe Biden

2007-02-03T20:38:00.000-05:00

The first day of Senator Biden's foray into Presidential politics reminds me of an old joke that I still find funny.

The owner of a down at the heels race horse stable traded one of his nags for a healthy, well muscled stallion and found that the horse could run the mile in record times. The problem with the horse was that his attention span was Zero.

The stable owner, needing money badly, decided to enter his new stallion in an upcoming race that had a large purse. He didn't have a regular jockey so he got some silks for the stable boy and sent him and the horse to the race. The stable owner didn't have the money to go so he told the stable boy to send him a telegram with the results of the race as soon as the race was over.

The day of the race came and since it wasn't brodcast the stable owner sat at the Western Union office all day waiting for the telegram. It finally came and the message read "SSFF". The stable owner jumped with glee and told everybody in town that his horse had won.

The next day the train arrived and the stable boy and the horse disembarked. The stable owner ran over and hugged the stable boy and danced around like crazy. Finally the stable boy asked " why are you so happy"? The owner said the message the boy had sent read "started slow, finished fast" meaning they had won.

The stable boy looked down at the ground and shuffeled around some then he said " No sir boss, the message said "started, stumbled, farted, fell". Meaning they came in dead last.

I think Joe Biden might have started, stumbled, farted and fell too.

Chuck

2008 Campaign Already?

2007-01-31T21:32:00.000-05:00

I think I will be totally insane and locked in a rubber room by the time the 2008 presidential election. We are barely into 2007 and we have every nut who can write his name running. I'm not real sure Joe Biden can spell his name unless he plagarizes it from another candidaye. ( I had that happen in college. A student copied everything on my test paper, including my name.) I don't think his name was Joe Biden though.

Just look at what is slithering from under the rocks to announce his bid for the presidency: Chuck Hagel- freelance asshole, Hillary Clinton with her legs the size of tree trunks, Joe Biden- court jester, Governor Richardson (NM)- the highest ranking wetback in the country, Barrak Obama- colors within the lines and only cries when other children ask if he is white.

On the Republican side we have John McCain- a very brave patriot who sometimes gets confused as to which party he is in, Rudy Guiliani- schleping about 4,000 pounds of liberal stuff he has done to a relatively conservative convention. He might as well take a knife to a gun fight. Rudy is dead meat for the top spot but could make an excellent Vice Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney-died in the starting gate. His mandatory health insurance plan killed him. Ther are a few others who think they have the right stuff but the don't so I won't mention them.

The 2,000 pound gorilla lurking out there keeping a low profile and quietly making deals with the right people is: TA DA- Newt Ginghich. He is smarter and smoother than any of the others I named above and he isn't afraid of the opposition. Given the funding. Newt will be the next President.

Chuck

The Newt Factor

2007-01-30T10:18:00.000-05:00

I've said in the past that Newt Gingrich is the smartest politican around and he is proving my point every day. Newt is working the edges of the Republican party, talking with leaders in every state apparatus and getting the lay of the land.

There is a lot of dissatisfaction in the Republican party with the front runners for the Presidency. McCain has managed to piss off just about every Conservative with his illegal immigration stand and with the McCain/ Feingold campaign restrictions, Guiliani is carrying too much liberal baggage and Mitt Romney is a non starter.

Newt is laying back while the other contenders knock each other off in the run up to the primaries. In the end I think Newt will charge to the front.
Chuck

Jane is at it again

2007-01-29T20:53:00.000-05:00

It looks like Jane Fonda is getting that old stirring feeling deep in her nether places. She has decided to be an anti war activist again. Maybe this time she will actually be charged for treason due to some infantile protest she is bound to make.

The only thing Ms. Fonda has going for her is her physical beauty and that is fading faster than a 2 dollar shirt in a Chinese laundry. Jane isn't an intellect at any level. She has probably never produced an original thought and if she did it would probably be about where she could take a dump. The woman is vapid.

Why would anyone listen to a woman who has never done an honest day's work, has tons of money from acting and from marrying that doofus Ted Turner. I have to give Jane some credit for staying with Ted as long as she did. It couldn't have been easy to live with someone who farts in the bathtub and bites the bubbles.

At any rate Jane Fonda is up to her old tricks again and there are a lot of fools who will idolize her for it. I hope she decides to go to Iraq and the cut her head off for not wearing a burkka. It would serve her right.

Chuck

Hillary Will Lose

2007-01-22T08:34:00.000-05:00

Hillary has finally made it official: She is in the 2008 Presidential race. I wonder what moron thought she wasn't. She started angling for the Presidency the day Bill announced he was running and when he won, what a horrible day for America, she immediately saw an opportunity for a tag team Presidency.

Now the question becomes will she win? I think not. She and much of the media think Bill's coat tails will make her a shoo in first for the nomination and then for the Brass Ring. They are taking a lot for granted. Hillary and the media tend to rely on the mindset of the liberal northeast and inside the beltway for their polling numbers and that is what will be her demise.

The demographics of the US have changed drastically in the past 20 years. The South and West are now the powerhouses of national politics and for the most part they are much more conservative than the Northeast and the West Coast. Population shifts are continuing at a rapid pace and some of the lideral north states such as Mass. are actually in danger of losing seats in Congress due to the population shift.

Hillary Clinton will never carry the South and that is key to her winning. Other than along the west coast she will never carry the west either and therefore she is a dead duck right out of the box. I would go even a bit further and say that even though she may get a lot of verbal support from liberals, she will only pull in about 60% of their vote. So where does that leave Hillary? She will lose on an order that closely resembles McGoverns loss.

Chuck

Obamma YO MaMa

2007-01-17T21:21:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I wonder just why a person just pops up from nowhere and becomes a media darling. Of course I am talking about Barrak Obama. Here he is making the rounds of the week end talking head shows and being treated like the Messiah when in reality he has done almost nothing in the Senate and has virtually no experience in governance or foriegn policy.

The infatuation can't be because he is black. There are plenty of black people. Could it be that he is black and has charisma? There are plenty of black people with more charisma. Is it because he is smart, has charisma and is black? There are plenty of smart, charismatic blacks. I can't see why he is being played up by the media as a strong contender for the presidency.

Another thing that puzzles me is why he is referred to as black. He had a black father and a white mother so why is he black and not white? If he had a white father and a black mother would he still be black? No. He chooses to identify himself as black because it gives him an edge. The media will bite their tongues before the will ask him hard questions. He will never have to account for his votes in the Senate because he is black. No one will attack him the way they attacked GW Bush for fear of being branded a bigot.

I think Obama is a flash in the pan who has absolutly no chance of being elected President of the United States. People will gush over him and go on and on about his charm and honesty but the wll not vote for him. People would vote for Condi Rice but not Obamma. Why? Because they can see that Obamma is only a black skin hanging on some bones with no substance to fill the skin. We have all heard of the empty suit. Obamma is an empty skin.
Chuck

Ramblin' On

2007-01-15T15:47:00.000-05:00

I was drafted onto the Security Committee for the community where I live and although I want to be a good citizen and neighbor it is really getting to be a drag.

Because of my experience in the pharmaceutical industry making controlled substances, I am pretty knowledgable about access control, alarm, surveilance systems. These are the systems we are installing for our new gate, the dock and the clubhouse. The change requires not only the physical installation of the hardware but the whole system has to be programmed into the primary computer and into the door, gate and boat hoist on the dock.

To make a long story short, the job and the system was contracted to a local security company long before I moved here full time. The company is providing top of the line equipment and software but they never show up when the say they will.

I am a very punctual person and it pisses me off to be kept waiting. Before I retired that was one thing my employees knew they wouldn't get away with and I never kept them waiting either.

I was raised to believe that keeping someone waiting is a huge insult but it seems that ethic has gone by the wayside. I don't want to blow the contractor out of the water because that could impact the quality of his work but it is getting harder to bite my tongue.

I guess I will give him another week and if things don't get better then I will let him know he's not meeting expectations.

2007-01-14T12:24:00.000-05:00

I saw on the news today that the president of Iran (I can't spell his name and it isn't worth trying) was visiting Hugo Chavez and has started a fund to bring down America. It sure would be a shame if his plane mysteriously crashed on the way back to Iran.

Barbara Boxer seems to have fouled her little nest with her catty remarks to Condi Rice. Then I have never seen anything she has done or said that makes me think there is anything other than a vacuum between her ears.

I almost had a heart attack when I found myself agreeing with Charley Rangle. He seems to have made it clear to Nancy Pelosi that he is in charge of tax policy and that if she wants to make new tax laws she has to go through him. I'll be surprised if Pelosi remains Speaker for the full term. She seems to think the sun rises from her mouth and sets in her ass.

I have to say I wasn't very impressed with GWB's speech on Iraq. I have supported him all the way through his presidency and I still do but the surge he is contemplating is like shoveling shit against the tide. If he really wants to win in Iraq, he needs to have a massive surge and put the entire country under marshall law. Otherwise the terrorists ( insurgents if you like) will only lay low and wait out the clamp down only to spring up again at another time and place. These are lessons the Generals should have learned from Vietnam.

Fighting insurgents is like trying to grasp smoke and the only way to win is control the environment the operate in. General Whats His Name's manual of fighting an insurgency is crap. You don't win by kissing their asses and winning their hearts and souls. You win by beating the crap out of them and making them fear your shadow.
Chuck

Security Leaks- Not Ours This Time

2007-01-07T20:23:00.000-05:00

I don't know why I should be shocked but I am to some degree over the News story in England that Israel is planning and training for a "low yield" nuclear attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
First, I am shocked that the story got out in Israel whether it is true or not. The Israelies have always been pretty good about keeping state secrets and something like this would have to come from the deepest cover agencies. It could, however be a complete hoax dreamed up by some dim wit reporter who thinks he's not getting enough ink.Another alternative is that the Israelis are blatantly flexing their muscles in hope of the UN finally doing something

If the Israelis do in fact attack Iran's nuclear facilities they should not, that is NOT, use low yield devices. Instead they should use the biggest monster they can hang on a plane and totally obliterate the facilities, support buildings and as many of the technicians and Scientists as possible. This roll of the dice is for all of the chips and if Israel slacks off the slieghtest bit they will have handed the other Arab nations a cause. If on the other hand they go in and turn half of Iran to glass littered with bleached bones, the other Arab nations will step back and say" Don't pull on Supermans cape, don't spit into the wind."

If it were my choice to make, a lot more than the nuclear facilities would vanish.
Chuck

The Saga Continues

2007-01-04T08:58:00.000-05:00

I know you won't believe this but I swear it is true. Yesterday my wife was released from the hospital and I was driving her home. We got exactly 3 blocks away from the hospital and a guy rearended us. Fortunately no one was injured and my wife's hip was not damaged. I really hope this is not indicative of what 2007 has in store for us.

The finally got Jerry Ford in the ground. That poor guy has been dragged all over the country and his family has been in the limelight for over a week. I hope no one comes up with another idea for paying last respects to him, they might just dig him up and put him on display again. Poor guy, he just wanted a simple funeral and he got a huge send off. If I hear the Nixon pardon mentioned one more time I think I will puke. The guy did what was needed at the time.

Don't let anyone tell you MediCare doesn't work or that MediCare patients get poor treatment. My wife got excellent care, which is continuing as I write this. We have had nothing but the best treatment for her and virtually everything was covered. The only cash outlay we have had was to purchase shower stool and our co- pay for her prescriptions. The stool was $40.00 and the co- pay was $304.00. Retail for the prescriptions was $1800.00. MediCare may not be perfect but based on all the political brouha about it I am amazed at the effectiveness and efficiency.

Chuck

The Good Old Days- My Ass

2006-12-28T16:11:00.000-05:00

In 1972, I broke my left femur while motocrossing. I was way the hell and gone in the woods of central Georgia so it took about 2 hours to get me to an emergency room. Once at the hospital all the ER personnel could do was to take X rays and send me on to Macon, Ga for treatment.

The accident happened on Labor Day so there was a lot of traffic and naturally there had been a huge wreck so the ER was full. I laid on a gurney for about 4 hours before a doctor could see me and give me something for pain. Don't ever let anyone tell you that the pain of a broken femur isn't intense.

Finally an Orthopaedic surgeon became availabe and immediately drilled a hole through my knee to attach a rope to apply traction. Once the traction was applied I was taken to a ward and positioned next to the door. In about an hour they were bringing another patient into the ward and as they rolled him by by bed, my traction weights got entangled in his bed. They didn't notice until I let out a howl and at about that time the weights came loose and snapped back like a rubber band. The yell I let out could wake the dead.

The next day I was able to produce my insurance card and was moved to a semi private room. Some friends came to see me and I got them to get me a quart of Kaopectate which I drank so I wouldn't have to use a bed pan. After about 4 days of no bowel movements the nurses became concerned, probably because my skin had turned yellow and my stomach was grotesqly swollen. They gave me the strongest laxitive I have ever heard of and about an hour later I had to have the bed pan. The orderly, not knowing the circumstances, only brought one. Four days of built up crap was waiting to get out and one bed pan wasn't about to hold it all. Needless to say the orderly and I didn't become close friends.

After lying in traction for 2 weeks I started to go a little bonkers so the doctors decided to operate and insert a pin from my hip to my knee. After the surgery, I stayed in the hospital for 3 more days. I got no physical therapy, no rehabilitation,no precautions no nothing. They rolled me out to the car, an MG sports car, handed me a pair of crutches and bid me a fond farwell, all except the aforementioned orderly who was busy putting grease on the tips of my crutches.

Through trial and pain I learned how to navigate on crutches and went back to work.

My wife, by contrast, broke her hip Friday night but didn't go to the hospital until Saturday. She had a hip replacement Sunday and on Monday physical therapists were working on her. On Tuesday she was transferred to a Rehabilitation Institute in Savannah. On Wednesday they had her up and moving around with a walker. Today she was able to take a shower and the doctor told her she should be able to go home next Wednesdsy.

The point of this epistle is that no matter what anyone thinks of our healthcare in the US, it is actually pretty damned good. My wife is on Medicare and we haven't been asked for money, supplemental insurance or had to sign our home away for her to get the excellent care she has gotten.

As for the story about my broken femur, it is all true except the part about the orderly putting grease on the tips of my crutches.
Chuck

Count Your Blessings

2006-12-25T20:35:00.000-05:00

I can truthfuly say this Christmas sets the record for things going bad for the glorious holiday. While loading an air compressor into my pickup I pulled a little too much and stsrterd a kidney stone on it's trip tp the outside. My wife tripped Friday night anf broke her hip. They did a hip implant Sunday so she won't be home for a while. My Grand Daughter came down with strain B influenza so she has felt poorly.

This is really the way I like to spend Christmas and it could be a real downer if didn't take the time to recognize how much worse it could be. Those of us who were fortunate enough to have been born in the USA have life as good as it gets. But for the luck of the draw, anyone of us could have been born a Palestinian, an Afghani, an Iraqi or a black African anywhere in Africa. Compared to them we are blessed beyond understanding.

Maybe we should set a little time aside each week to count our blessings. We have many.
Chuck

Christmas is Here

2006-12-21T10:59:00.000-05:00

Well, it is almost Christmas and it appears the political correctness group is succeeding in taking the Christ out of it.

I don't have a problem with non Christians celebrating their holy days so why do they get bent out of shape about mine. Just look around at the absence of Nativity displays, the lack of carolers,the lack of Merry Christmas signs in malls and you would think Christmas has become a vanilla holiday.

I'm not especially demonstrative about my religeon and I avoid conversations about religeon but I can't fathom why Christianity has become such a bug up people's asses.
Chuck

Extreme Sports

2006-12-18T12:17:00.000-05:00

I sympathize with the families of the climbers on Mt. Hood. No family should have to undergo the agony of wondering is a loved one is dead or alive.

The climbers knew the chance they were taking when they set out on their climb and they chose to take their chances. I'm sure none of them even considered the fact that they could be lost on the mountain or the pain that would cause their families. That is just the way we are.

Since Extreme Sports have become so popular as a result of TV shows we are seeing an increase in severe injuries and deaths happening to new Risk Takers. Look at the number of people who have died on Mt. Everest, who by tradition are left where they died, and the horrendous injuries resulting from malfunctioning parachutes, etc.

It is human nature to push the envelope and to take chances but the public should not have to pay for their mistakes. I have no idea how much the rescue efforts for the Mt. Hood climbers is costing but I am sure it is a bunch. What bothers me more is that it could have been avoided or at least minimized.

I think anyone who is going to use National Parks for mountain climbing, wilderness hikes ar descents into canyons should be required to have a homing device on his person. In a group, every person should have to wear one. Homing devices may not be a panacea but they would definetly reduce the number of incidents like the current Mt. Hood tragedy.

Chuck

2006-12-15T14:41:00.000-05:00

I have been kind of watching the Duke lacross team rape case out of the corner of my eye. From waht I have seen and heard, I think the District Attorney has really fouled his nest. He has, according to reports, withheld DNA reports from the defence, held back medical reports and in general done just about everything he can to railroad the 3 guys he indicted.

If the reports are true, Mr. Nifong should be charged with every charge possible and he should be stripped of his protection from being sued. His malfeasence has ruined opportunities for the 3 guys and has cost their families wads of money.

Not being a lawyer I don't know the legalities of the case but I do know right from wrong and I think the 3 students should have recourse against the DA, Durham, North Carolina and Duke. They have allowed and even abetted the unjustified pursuit of this case in spite of conflicting stories from the accuser, the medical examiner and the star witness.

It will be interesting to see the outcome and if the 3 students are exonerated I hope Nifong loses his carrer, his savings, his home and goes to jail.
Chuck

Just Thinking

2006-12-14T14:12:00.000-05:00

I started this blog so I would have a place to just say what I want to say and if someone reads it fine if not that is fine too. Little did I know that the world is not waiting with bated breath for my next pontification.

I regularly read Chad's posts at Kuru Lounge and Chris's posts at Edit Copy find it interesting how their divergent views compliment each other. Chad, like me, is pretty conservative and Chris is pretty liberal. It would seem that mix would result in some nasty exchanges but I have seen none so far. In fact, I think that if the two were to sit down and have a conversation the result would be what we shold have in our government. Honest discourse, an ability to see the other side and a willingness to compromise. I wish there was more of that, maybe we would have a better government and country.
Chuck

2006-11-29T12:30:00.000-05:00

I have been busy repainting my 1966 Chevelle. It was originally painted in 1988 after I had completed restoring it mechanically to original condition.

This experience has made me have a greater appreciation for the cost of a paint job. I have sanded, sprayed and rubbed this car until it is almost perfect. The watch word in the previous sentence is "almost". Try as I might, I have not been able to get it perfect.

The attached picture was taken in 1998 but the color is correct. The background houses are the neighborhood I lived in in New Jersey.
Chuck

Ho Hum

2006-11-15T14:56:00.000-05:00

Well, I've been retired for almost 2 months and I'm having a hard time getting used to not living to a schedule. I was never a procastinator but with as much time as I have now I find myself saying "it can wait until tomorrow". I don't want to get into this mode of living so I tell myself "you might be dead tomorrow" and that helps motivate me to go ahead and do things I would rather postpone.

One of the things I've been doing is working on the family tree. Talk about grinding boredom. I guess Ancestry.Com is one of the better services for finding relatives who are long dead, I traced my Mother's family on her father's side all the way back to the year 1532. On her Mother's side I have hit a blank wall. I can't find any of them any further back than her Grandparents. I am beginning to think that part of the family just crawled out of the primordial ooze.

The landscaping I thought would take a couple of years is complete. Funny how when you have time to do the things you really wanted to do, they get done faster than you imagined.

Since the elections are over it seems most of the bloggers I like to follow have slacked off. I suppose it will pick up again when the Democrats actually become the majority in January. The seem to be having a bit of a problem sorting out who will be the number 2 in the House. If they actually do put Murtha in that slot it will tell us a lot about what the future holds. I think having the Democrats in charge is going to suck. I hope all those disenchanted Conservatives and Republicans who wanted to teach the Republicans a lesson get a lesson themselves.
Chuck

What Now?

2006-11-12T16:23:00.000-05:00

Well, here it is 5 days after the election and I am sick of all the analysis and pondering of why the Republicans lost. The Republicans lost the election for no other reason than stupidity. They thought incumbancy would insulate them from the dissatisfaction among conservatives and they would just slide through the elections.

When the Republicans who were up for re election started feeling some heat from their opponents they fell apart like a cheap suit. They didn't know how to deal with it so they pulled away from Bush like they had touched a lot stove. That put them in the position of having to say the same things the Democrats had been saying.

The old sayings "don't change horses in mid stream" and "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" are trueisms they should have heeded. They were the cut and runners now and the Democrats played them like a violin. All the Democrats had to do was to sit back and let them self destruct, which they did in a spectacular fashion.

At any rate, now we have got to hear the pundits, talking heads and mavens potificate about what the Democrats will do now that they have the majority. I think the answer to that is that the Democrats are going to make life miserable for Bush and the new minority Republicans. The Republicans won't be able to take a crap without the Democrats shoving it back in.

I'm a conservative Republican and I regret that the Democrats won the election. I hope the RNC has learned a lesson from this fiasco. I hope every potential Republican who wants to be a candidate will be subjected to a background check and be thoroughly vetted before getting the support of the RNC. Something has got to be done to screen out the perverts, crooks and shadey dealers so we don't wind up with another scandal ridden House or Senate. Let the Democrats have those honors, Republicans should demand a higher standard.
Chuck

Pinch Me- I Might be Dreaming

2006-11-06T16:00:00.000-05:00

As a Republican Conservative, I look at the current Republican election problems and ask myself, Where is Newt? Newt, in my opinion is one of the smartest politicians there ever was. He deserves most of the credit for engineering the Republican Revolution in 1994 and got more done in his tenure as Speaker than any previous Speaker ever did in the same amount of time.

Unfortunately Newt got hounded out of the Speaker position because he took a large advance on a book he was going to write. Others had done it before (and I might add, since) but for some reason Newt taking an advance violated House Ethics rules, as if they really exist, while the other Congresspersons' advances did not. Newt left Congress and for a while blended into the woodwork. He did the occasional talk show appearance and wrote his book.

Newt is a fairly frequent commentator on Fox News and seems to be somewhat of an elder statesman. He has made a few appearances to support Republican candidates in this election and draws a crowd where ever he goes.

The answer to my question "Where is Newt" is: He is laying the groundwork for a run at the presidency in 2008. Newt doesn't sniff the political winds daintely the way Hillary, or Bill or Kerry does. Newt is breathing in the political wind in deep gulps and he smells the Oval Office. He is going to run, and I think he will win.
Chuck

CNN Again

2006-10-27T18:14:00.000-04:00

As I said in my previous post I rarely watch CNN but I did watch Wolf Blitzer's interview with Lynn Cheney.

Typical of Blitzer, he got Lynn Cheney on his show to talk about a childrens book she has written about the 50 ststes. The interview starts with about 30 seconds about the book and then he immediately starts in on VP Cheney and a comment he made that some took to mean he favors torture.

Ms. Cheney was ready for maggot face and made it clear CNN is biased and is serving as a propaganda outlet for terrorists. She brought up the sniper story and let the world know CNN was wrong to air it. She also brought up the Broken Government series and how the title alone is biased.

Frankly, I wish she had slapped the shit out of him but I guess that is too big a dream to come true. Wolf Blitzer is scum and I would give anything to be locked in a room with him for 5 minutes. He definitely would not walk out when the door was unlocked. I guess that is too much to dream about too.
Chuck

CNN the Propaganda Network

2006-10-27T09:53:00.000-04:00

I rarely watch CNN because I generally don't like their anchors. Wolf Blitzer can irritate me by just breathing and Lou Dobbs is just devoid of personality.

I turned to CNN and they were doing their series of Broken this or Broken that. The totles themselves speak volumes about what CNN is trying to do. The whole series is designed to blame Bush and the GOP for every ill we are facing. They try to make it look like terrorism started when Bush took office and won't end until he leaves.

The segment on Broken Borders paints a picture of Republicans practically leading illegal immigrants across the desert so they can capitalize on the cheap labor. If were not for greedy Republicans and a corrupt administration there would be no illegal immigration.

I was totally unaware that we never had a border problem or an illegal immigration problem until the Republicans took over. I have to thank CNN for enlightening me on that matter. According to CNN Bill Clinton had the border under control and the only way Hispanic immigrants got into this country under Clinton was through legitemate means.

Of course in the Broken Government segment the Republicans are the obstructionists and are the ones who won't cooperate on such things as fixing Social Security. The Republicans are the corrupt ones and people like Harry Reid, William Jefferson and Nancy Pelosi are the Knights in Shining Armor fighting to cure the ills of the House and Senate. The Republicans are the only ones who have homosexuals or people who take advantage of unsuspecting Pages or Aides.

Good old CNN. They will put us on the right path if we will just listen to them.
Chuck

Border Fence

2006-10-26T14:06:00.000-04:00

I see that President Bush has signed the border fence bill. I'm glad he finally did, I was beginning to think he was going to pocket veto it.

I'm not sure which portions of the border are going to be fenced but I hope that while they are at it they go ahead and electrify it. That may sound cruel to some but it is going to take more than a fence to keep the illegals out. The term illegals here includes not only immigrants but drug smugglers and terrorists.

If I were in charge of securing the border, I wouldn't bother with a fence. I would mine the border 100 yards on our side and clear all brush and other cover for 500 yards. To prevent tunneling I would place sensors every 200 feet along the border and when they pick up the sounds of someone digging a tunnel I would drill a hole, pack it with dynamite and blast it. Tough shit if the digger happens to get blown away.

We are never going to stop illegal immigration as long as people hire them. We should make hiring an illegal a felony with a minimum of 1 year in jail. Maybe that would help.
Chuck

Call Me Pollyanna

2006-10-23T07:33:00.000-04:00

It could be that I am in a state of denial or it could be just wishful thinking but I don't think the democrats are going to take over the House or the Senate.

Democrats that I know cringe at the idea of Nancy Pelosi becoming Speaker and at Harry Reid becoming Majority Leader. If the Republicans do hold the majorities, we have these two people to thank. Their perpetual negativity and mean spiritedness have turned off a lot of Democrats who otherwise would run to the polls and pull the levers for Democrats.

As a lifelong Republican I am sorely disappointed in the performance of our Congresspersons and Senators and think that if we do lose it is because our elected representatives threw the election away. If we win and hold the majorities it will be because people will have made a choice between the bad and worse.

I hope Republicans will learn a lesson from the upcoming election and will realize that the public actually wants them to do something other than politic every issue. They need to take advantage of being in the majority and act on Social Security, Immigration, Health Care, Terrorism, Intelligence Gathering and most of all they need to recognize thet we are engaged in a war (not Iraq) against terrorism. Iraq is only a sideshow in the Global War on Terror and it is time for our elected officials to acknowledge it.
Chuck

Kim is Sorry

2006-10-20T10:15:00.000-04:00

Kim Jong Il reportedly apologized to the Chinese for conducting his nuclear test. If the Chinese buy it they are insane.

I'll bet the Korean scientists working on the nuclear bomb told Kim the first test yielded enough information for them to make adjustments to improve the weapon. They probably told him that additional tests are not necessary right now but when they have made the modifications a new test will be needed.

I predict that the North Koreans will go back to the lab, refine the triggering mechanism, conduct some tests using conventional explosives and when they think they have a viable weapon will inform Kim they need a test. Kim will do something outrageous and get the US, Japan, Australia and a few others stirred up again and use it as an excuse to conduct the test.

Mark my words this is going to happen.
Chuck

2006-10-16T16:53:00.000-04:00

I ran into a guy who was my best friend from first grade up to my departure for the Navy in 1966. I am struck by how we change with time.

From first grade on James and I were inseperable. One of us was at the other's house all the time. We double dated, built cars together and just generally were comfortable in each others company.

James hasn't changed much appearance wise and we recognized each other immediately. What has changed is all mental.

After high school I went to college and James didn't, but during vacations we picked up right where we left off and hung around together like we always had. I got married while in college and James married his high school girlfriend. When I finished college I went to Pensacola, Fl for Naval flight training and James took over his father's drug store.

I dropped out of the Naval flight training program because I could see that I was going to kill myself and went to Vietnam in 1968 where I spent most of the year in the Bassac River. At least I didn't get killed but I formed some very strong opinions about how to fight a war.

When I returned from Vietnam, I was due for shore duty which I thought I would spend in San Diego. Wrong. My detailer, thats the guy in Washington who assignes officers to their next job/ duty, wanted me to do my shore duty in Vietnam. I immediately told him he was crazy since I had only returned 2 months ago. Well, he rummaged around in the billet pot and came up with wintering over in Antartica testing cold weather clothing. Again I said no thanks since I had a wife and 2 kids I wanted to be with.

I got out of the Navy in 1969 and went to work for Johnson & Johnson in Sherman, Texas which started me out on a career manufacturing pharmaceuticals. Over the next 37 years I was relocated 29 times by various pharmaceutical companies. I lived in North Carolina (8 seperate times),Georgia, Kansas, New York, Puerto Rico (twice), Arizona, Illinois, California (twice),New Jersey, Maryland, Italy, and South Carolina. I know that doesn't add up to 29 but some moves were duplicates. I have furniture that made all of those moves and still looks like new. You learn after a couple of moves to watch the packers.

During all those years, James never moved more than 20 miles from where he grew up. He didn't go to Vietnam. He took a trip to Europe once and went to the Carribian a couple of times. He has never widened his circle of close friends beyond the ones he had when we were growing up.

When I saw James I thought, Great we'll have some fun like old times. Wrong. After about 30 minutes of talking we had nothing in common. We both started squirming like we were sitting on a hot rock. The proverbial pregnant pause hung over us like a cloud and we finally said our goodbyes.

As I was driving home I thought how was it that just yesterday ( it does feel like only yesterday) we could talk and laugh for hours and feel totally relaxed with each other? What changed? The answer is simple: We changed. I hope for the better.
Chuck

Speculation

2006-10-14T08:42:00.000-04:00

There has been a lot of speculation over whether the North Korean nuclear test actually occured or if it was a hoax. In my opinion, it doesn't matter either way. What does matter is that North Korea says it has a nuclear weapon and that it works.

I think a threat should always be taken seriously and North Korea has issued a threat. Whether they can follow through on their threat or not is their problem. Our response to it should be that any missile launched from North Korea in our direction will be assumed to be carrying a nuclear warhead and will be shot down or failing that will result in a nuclear strike on North Korea.

I think North Korea did in fact conduct a nuclear weapons test. The magnitude of the explosion is questionable but it was still a nuclear weapon. The detection or not of radiation from the NK test is not a good indicator of the success of their test. We tend to think of nuclear test in terms of the ones we have conducted which were devices of many mega tons.

The depth of the test and the magnitude of the explosion will play a major role in the amount of radiation in the atmosphere. A relatively small explosion very deep under ground may not release any radiation at all.

Bottom line. We have to assume the North Koreans do have a nuclear weapon and that they are willing to use it.
Chuck

First Attempt

2006-10-13T13:43:00.000-04:00

I've never posted pictures to the internet before so I thought I would give it a try.
Since I've mentioned working on my house in previous posts, I will try posting a picture of the house. If I am successful, I will have learned something. If I'm not sucessful, so what, I will go back to the drawing board.
Chuck

What A Great Day

2006-10-11T18:00:00.000-04:00

Today started out kind of overcast and I felt kind of down in the dumps. I am a sunshine person who only likes clouds when it is actually raining. I do like for it to rain though because otherwise I have to water my yard, and I learned when I lived in Phoenix that sunshine every day can get old. When I lived in Albany, NY it was cloudy every day and that sucks.

Anyway, at about 10 am the sun started peeking through the clouds with a beautiful sunburst. After the Northern Lights, Sunbursts and and Sun Dogs are my favorite atmospheric phenomena. I drove to Alaska in 1961 on the old ALCAN highway camping on the side of the road along the way and the Northern Lights were fantastic. I must have been very lucky on that trip since I cooked out and had food all around. Its a wonder I wasn't done in by a Grizzley. I guess God really does look after fools and children.

When I worked on a ranch in Montana, Sun Dogs ocurred fairly often and I was always mesmerized by them. I think I will drive up to Montana this spring and refamiliarize myself with the beauty of it. Eastern Montana isn't what I would call beautiful but western Montana is about as close to heaven as you can get without actually dying.

All things considered, where I live now is my favorite. I live on a tidal island between Savannah, Ga and Brunswick, Ga. We are back from the coast far enough to be protected by the barrier island, St. Catheines and Sapelo Island. The Georgia coast is a great place to live if you like seafood, sunshine and a leisurely pace. I catch my own shrimp occasionaly. I don't enjoy fishing but there are plenty of places that you can get fresh caught flounder, grouper, tuna etc. at very reasonable prices.

Well, I said in my profile that I would sometimes post random thoughts and my thought for today is: Life Is Great- I wish more people would enjoy it as much as I do.
Chuck

OOPs, It Didn't Work

2006-10-11T11:40:00.000-04:00

The more I read and hear about the North Korean nuclear device the more I think of our own Manhattan Project in the 40s. We knew the physics, had the best scientists, had the budget and the scientists were dedicated to developing an "Atom Bomb". What caused the most consternation was how to set it off.

The North Koreans probably did put a nuclear device in a shaft and did try to detonate it but I think they haven't figured out how to reliably trigger the device. This is the most complex aspect of a nuclear device unless you use an apparatuus like a gun to fire one fissionable material into another which will give a lower yield reaction.

What is puzzeling about the North Korean device is the 4.2 seismographic readings. It would take a hell of a lot of conventional explosives to cause that kind of tremor and the shaft would have to be huge.

I think what happened is the North Koreans did in fact have a nuclear explosion but because of a defective or poorly engineered triggering device only got a partial yield.

They will learn from this test, after all thats what testing is for, and will work the kinks out of their trigger. I look for a full sucessful test in the near future but in the meantime we have a nuclear North Korea on our hands and they now know they can make a nuclear bomb. Now it is a matter of refining their technology and they will be a nuclear threat.

In my opinion, now is the time to stop them from becoming a true nuclear power. Whether by military means, assination or coup Kim Jong Il has got to be elimentated.
Chuck

Now We're Not So Sure

2006-10-10T12:03:00.000-04:00

I saw where some in the intelligence community are saying they aren't sure North Korea actually exploded a nuclear device. Well, they said they did and I think we should take their word for it and respond accordingly. If someone walks up behind you and sticks a hard object against your back and says its a gun you would believe that wouldn't you?

Whether North Korea is running a bluff or not is immaterial. If we call them on it and they are bluffing, great. They lose credibility with their own people and with other nations. If we don't call them on it and they aren't bluffing, then we lose and the whole world is endangered.

Kim Jong Il is a nut case who I think actually would launch a nuclear strike. I don't want to take a chance on his being lucid enough to think the consequences through. This man needs to be elimenated. This will be no easy task given the police state he and his father have created but it can and should be done.

If I were President, I would have no compunctions about having him greased.
Chuck

Atomic Test

2006-10-09T03:17:00.000-04:00

I see North Korea claims and seismographic readings of 4.2, confirm they conducted a sucessful nuclear test. The test occurred Monday morning.

This really changes the complexion of things in the Far East. Japan and South Korea are really on the hot seat now. Japan will probably begin a new approach to their military stance. Since WW2, Japan has maintained a relatively small self defence force and we have provided the bulk of their defence.

South Korea will probably ask for a larger US presence there after years of anti US protests and we will probably accomedate them.

Politically here at home, I think this helps the Republicans. It was, after all, the Clinton administration that took their eye off the ball while North Korea cranked up their nuclear program.

North Korea's nuclear test will probably have a major impact on the Iranian situation. I think it will cause a much more concentrated effort by us and the EU to stop them from developing a nuclear capability.

Its a whole new ballgame in world politics. A nutcase now has the bomb and he can't be allowed to expand his capabilities.
Chuck

I Might Have To Unretire

2006-10-06T18:01:00.000-04:00

I retired Sept. 27 and since then I have worked harder than I ever did while employed. My ass is dragging. In addition to all the painting and sprucing up I have done to the house, today I had to work on the roof.

I said in one of my previous posts that my first job was working on a bridge over the Savannah River. It was 118 feet above the water so one would think working on a roof that at it's peak is 54 feet would be a piece of cake. Wrong. My pucker factor was so high you couldn't have driven a needle up my ass with a sledge hammer. That coupled with the heat just about did me in.

I see the Foley thing is still going strong and the pundits are saying the GOP is up the creek in a screen wire canoe. I think something is going to come out soon that will drag the Democrats into the mire. As much dirt as there is in the Washington scene, some democrat is going to find himself spalshed all over the media.

I saw where Nancy Pelosi said one of the first things the democrats will do is raise the taxes of anyone making more than $250k. Watch what will happen to the economy if they do. The stock market will drop like a turd from a tall cow. I don't know what it is about democrats, they just don't understand that people spend more if they have more money. One year after the democrats take over, if they do, and we will be in a recession.
Chuck

Life Is Good - Most Of The Time

2006-10-04T19:29:00.000-04:00

I'm one of those people who thinks the worst day in my life was wonderful and the rest are even better. Today was only wonderful.

I woke up with an excruciating pain in my right side. Right away I knew it was a kidney stone since I average 2-3 per month but this one is not one of my ordinary ones. It has to be a chip off the Rock of Gibralter. It really hurts but there isn't much that can be done other than wait for it to pass. I could go to the Doctor and let him ultra sound it but that just makes a whole lot of smaller ones that still have to be passed and the last time I had it done it cost $12,000.00. As the saying goes, This too will pass.

Not being one who lays up because of a little pain, I painted the bannisters on my front porch. This being Coastal Georgia the trim on the house has to be painted about every 3 years. This gave me a chance to try out my new Wagner Professional spray gun. The painting took about 3 hours and the cleanup took an equal amount of time. Spray painting with latex paint is expensive. It takes about 3 times as much paint to cover an area than if you painted with a brush or roller.

After I finished the bannisters I decided to paint the porch floor. I had been planning to do this anyway and already had the paint so I lit into it using a brush because I didn't want to cleanr the spray gun again. Being a perfectionist, not in spelling and composition, I can't tolerate overlap so I masked around the columns with the new super duper, blue, easy release, masking tape that sells for an arm and a leg. The new super duper, blue, masking tape will not tear straight no matter what you do so I got my sissors and cut it. It would have been easier not to mask and to go back and touch up any overlaps.

At this point in my wonderful day, not ecstatic but wonderful, my wife brought in the mail. We had a letter from the IRS telling us we owed $10,630.00 from 2004.

I'm glad it was only a wonderful day, I don't think I could have survived an ecstatic one.

I have been trying to figure out how to put a blogroll on my blog. I signed up with Blogrolling. com and tried to follow the directions but to be honest I am so computer illiterate I haven't been able to get it to work. I will get it done some way but I have to figure it out a little at a time. Sixty- six year old gray matter doesn't function as well as it did a few years ago.

Well, there is always tomorrow. Maybe it will be an ecstatic day.
Chuck

Lame Excuses 101

2006-10-03T20:30:00.000-04:00

With each passing hour the plot thickens in the Foley scandle and his attempts to rationalize his behavior get more lame.

The first thing out of the box was a drinking problem so he checks into a rehabilitation center.
Now I see that he was abused as a child by a clergyman.

I suppose next he will claim he was kidnapped by aliens and they altered his brain to make him a pedophile.

Why can't people just 'fess up when they are caught redhanded? I would look a lot more favorably on someone who said "I'm caught, I'm a pervert and I know it. I will seek psychiatric help."

Does Foley really think people are going to feel sorry for him? He had the world by the tail and he couldn't control himself.

My Dad, fount of all wisdom. told me long ago when I first started in management to "keep your pecker out of the payroll". Sound advice.
Chuck

Political Weasels

2006-10-02T11:58:00.000-04:00

The democrats are jumping on the Foley bandwagon like white on rice. To hear them howling you would think Gary Condit,Barney Franks and Bill Clinton were pillars of virtue. The whole thing is about as hypocritical as you can get.

I think Foley should be drawn and quartered but I don't think his perversion is any worse than that of Franks or Clinton. To the best of my knowlegde his indescretions didn't kill anybody as did Ted Kennedy's. The house and senate are full of creeps who should not be there but they are dispite their creepyness.

I have reached the point where I have no respect for congressmen or senators. They live like leeches off the public payroll and give virtually nothing in return except a lot of hot air. We, the public, need to start insisting on term limits and on accountability. If we don't we will continue getting piss poor representation.
Chuck

Red Letter Day

2006-09-28T06:35:00.000-04:00

September 27 was a milestone in my life. I retired. I started my first job in 1956 working construction on a bridge over the Savannah River at the princely rate of $1.25 per hour. For this rate, I scrambled around on 8 inch wide I beams 118 feet above the river. In those days there was no OSHA and safety was in your hands. No one tied off as is now required and the rule was "one hand for me, the other for the man".

At 16 years old the $50.00 per week seemed like a million. I bought a 1951 Ford Victoria, shaved the hood and trunk lid, put in rolled and pleated naugahyde seat covers and installed a center mounted rear antenna for the AM radio. I was in hog heaven. For $4.60 I could fill the gas tank and since there were no Interstates the gas would last all week. I loved that car. In due course, I put a Chrysler 300 Hemi engine in it and the added horsepower promptly destroyed the sickly 3 speed Ford standard transmission so I put in a 1948 Packard 3 speed with overdrive.

In those days we didn't have car parts stores on every corner and you had to make your own adapter plates, motor mounts and do your own wiring. If you wanted a cool car, you had to learn to be a mechanic, to weld, and to fabricate. There were no computer chips that controlled the ignition timing and no fuel injection so you had to learn how to do a tune up.

I feel sorry for the kids today. They can't go to a junkyard and browse around looking for something they can use. They can't adjust the timing by the way the engine feels or adjust a carburetor like we did. Cars aren't all metal anymore and dents are repaired with Bondo not lead. They can't pull up behind a friend and give him a push when his battery is dead, the bumpers on today's cars are made of plastic.

today's kids have different interests than we did. They have computers, video games, cell phones and a whole plethora of high tech gadgets that didn't exist when I was a kid. But, I don't think they have the fun we had and that is a shame.
Chuck

Clinton's Tirade

2006-09-25T14:11:00.000-04:00

Yesterday on Fox, Chris Wallace was on the receiving end of an outburst of anger from Bill Clinton. Wallace asked Clinton if he could have done more to stop Bin Laden. Clinton went ballistic. I won't go into what he said because he was running his comments together and was almost incoherent.

What made Clinton blow up? I think it because of a huge infereority complex. Clinton knows he is weak and a coward and he feels inferior because of it. He is one of those people we have all known who will taunt someone as long as he has a teacher, or parent or his buddies close by and the other person is alone but when he is alone with someone he is meek as a lamb.

I've always disliked a blowhard and have on many occasions called their bluffs. I wish Chris Wallace had done that yesterday but he let Clinton babble. In the long run Wallace's way is probably better than mine because the whole TV viewing world got to see Clinton make an ass of himself.

I think Clinton actually hurt his hopes of being remembered as a statesman and at the same time caused a great deal of harm to Democratic candidates. Clinton's outburst refocused the public's attention of what he didn't do while in office and it showed that he could not control his cabinet. It revealed how the directors of the FBI and CIA ignored his direction to get Bin Laden and it showed he had no control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It revealed a totally disfunctional administration.

I think after the dust settles you will see Democratic candidates putting some distance between Clinton and themselves. No politician wants to be associated with a loser. In the long term, Hillary will be the biggest loser.

Lets see how it all plays out. I should be interesting.
Chuck

Venezuelan Foriegn Minister Detained

2006-09-24T08:43:00.000-04:00

Jeez: How could we be so callous? Detaining the Venezuelan Foriegn Minister at the airport because he showed up for his flight home late and without a ticket. This slight oversight on his part seems to have caused airport security to become suspicious and they apparently wanted to strip search him. What a travesty.

What would happen if any of us had shown up at the airport under the same circumstances? Of course, we would have breezed right through security and even without a ticket or boarding pass been allowed to board the flight. Fat chance.

This imbicile is now complaining that racism was why he was stopped and plans to have the UN investigate. What is worse is that our State Department apologized for his being detained for 90 minutes. Can anyone believe that? We apologize because a idiot from Venezuela, a country whose president had just called our president el diablo tries to board a plane with no ticket?

Airport security should have ripped his clothes off, searched him, tied a pink ribbon around his pee- pee, strapped him into a seat next to Chavez and sent him on his merry way.

Chuck

Bin Laden Dead- So What?

2006-09-23T12:03:00.000-04:00

I just read at Kuru Lounge there was a report in France that Bin Laden has died of a water borne disease. Considering the area he is supposed to be in that isn't surprising.

For the past 3- 4 years, Bin Laden has only a symbolic figure. People he trained an Afghanistan, Sudan and Iraq have been carrying the load while Bin Laden has had to lay low in the mountains. His occasional videos were more for boosting jihadist moral than anything else. I don't really care if he is dead or not.

If Bin Laden is in fact dead, my regret is that he cheated us of the satisfaction of capturing or killing him. The islamofascists will continue their killing spree, Muslims around the world will continue pushing non Muslims as far as they can, the UN will continue turning a blind eye to terrorism and our politicians will continue treating terrorism as a political football. In other words, nothing will change.
Chuck

2006-09-21T21:20:00.000-04:00

I find it amazing that we can communicate to millions of peoplewith nothing more than a computer and I find it even more amazing how many people are willing to read what someone they don't even know writes.

I was born in 1940 and our means of communication was primative. No we didn't beat drums or send smoke signals but we weren't much better. We had the party line which consisted of 6 families sharing one common phone line. Each household had a special ring that told the others on the line that the call was for Ms. Jones. Naturally everyone on the party line picked up and listened to Ms. Jones converation.

Party lines still exist in some of the sparsely populated areas and they still listen to their neighbor's conversations. I wonder why our Senators and Congresspersons aren't outraged at this illegal wiretapping. Many times in the really small telephone exchanges there is a operator in the loop listening to a private conversation.

What I learnrd as a young boy first beginning to use the phone (our number was 39178) not to say anything on the phone that could get you in hot water with an eavesdropping neighbor. To this day, I am very careful of what I say on the phone and so far have never had an embarrassing moment about something I said.

That might change with this blog. I will be writing stuff on various subjects and a reader (if I attract any) might get upset and start blasting me. Thats OK, if it makes you feel better cut loose. There is nothing any of you can say that I haven't heard before in several languages.

My name is Chuck and I think I have some interesting thoughts. Try me out it doesn't cost a thing.

2006-09-21T06:01:00.000-04:00

I've had a couple of people ask me "what is a Piney Woods Rooter and why did you pick that name"?

A Piney Woods Rooter is a wild hog that inhabits the coastal pine scrublands of the southeasten US. It is a very sinewey animal that adapts easily to harsh environments. The Piney Woods Rooter is a survivor that when backed into a corner will fight visciously and has been known to defeat Black Bears twice their size. Because of their diet which consists of almost anything includung pine roots and bark they sometimes have a flavor somewhat like turpentine and therefore aren't a choice meal.

What I like about the Piney Woods Rooter is that it quietly goes about, minding it's own business, generally not bothering those around him, but woe unto he who threatens him or his family. He lives as I think most people should live, serene, quiet and ready for anything.
Chuck

Our Politicians Have Gone Nuts

2006-09-20T20:07:00.000-04:00

I've been keeping an eye on the issue of defining what techniques can be used in questioning captured terrorists and terror suspects. I am flabergasted that things like belly slapping and sleep deprivation are even being discussed. We got much worse than that when I went through Escape and Evasion training in the Navy.

To me, torture is pulling out finger nails, gouging eyes, cutting off fingers one joint at a time. None of this namby pamby stuff.

I don't condone the use of those techniques I named but in this terrorism environment a situation could arise that would justify their use. I wouldn't hesitate for a nanosecond to detach a finger joint if I was sure it would get information that would stop a terrorist attack.

Chuck