A Little Fact Check

Let’s see if I’ve got this straight. Of all the people McCain could have picked, he chose
- a former beauty queen
- a former sportscaster
- the former mayor of a town with fewer people in it than your average movie theater
-a two-year Governor of a state with fewer people in it than your average football stadium.
Neat little resumé, huh? Oh sure, she’s got solid conservative values but……uh, well, I guess that’s it! Probably the least qualified person on the planet to take over for a 72 year old 4 time cancer victim.
BRING ON THE BLUE TEAM!!!

Hot Air Express on the Roll

Cruising through the cable news networks this morning it was plain to see that the pro McCain windbags are already preaching the virtues of Palin-one of which is that she cleaned up Alaskan politics. What exactly does that mean? Does she vacuum the place every night? Just kidding. They keep mentioning how she killed the infamous 'bridge to nowhere'. Of course they neglect to tell us that she once supported it until it became politically convenient to change her mind. Ahhhh....another flip-flopper. Must be why McCain chose her. But a word to the wise, kids. Coordinate your flips and flops or it might get awkward. This is getting interesting, folks. The Dems have an opportunity here to make the Republican Party look even more inept and out of touch than ever before. Hope they don't blow it!

Sarah Palin (Who's THAT????)

Sarah Palin (Reminds me of Sarah, Plain and Tall) Republican Vice Presidential nominee. That means if McCain's elected & he falls over in his soup some day, the next President of the United States will be the former 2 yr governor of Alaska and before that mayor of some town (city? Do they have cities in Alaska?). And before that......
You've gotta hand it to McCain. It was a pretty gutsy move. If you support him, it's the shrewdest move in American politics. If you like Obama, it was the dumbest thing since McGovern picked Eagleton. However you may choose to view it, one thing's for sure. The GOP has some nerve ragging on Obama for his lack of experience. I'll bet Biden can't wait for that first debate on foreign policy. Of course it may not matter. There are some Americans who think Alaska is a foreign country! �

Sleepy Teens!

On my way to Norwalk to have my car serviced this morning I saw a familiar sight. At least it was familiar if you’re out and about at 6:45 A.M during the school year. It was middle & high school students waiting for the bus. It wasn’t that dark yet but pretty soon, as the year goes on, they will be standing in the dark. Needless to say, they looked less than enthusiastic about their day ahead-only the second day of school. In fact they looked more like zombies rather than bright eyed kids who in a few minutes would be learning how to conjugate a French or Spanish verb or how to solve a differential equation-which leads to the issue of appropriate school start times for teenagers. About 6 years ago or so there was a very active and vocal group of parents and teachers who petitioned the Board of Education to move the start time of high school up about one and a half hours. They argued that a teenager’s biological rhythm was such that early mornings were just about the worst time of day for quality learning to occur. They presented a ton of research to support their position. The idea started to take hold until the transportation department got into it. It was pointed out that in order to get all those kids to 6 (now 7) different schools on time would cost a whole ton of money. That’s all the Board needed to hear. Conclusion? Suck it up, kiddos. Wake up and learn. But to me the issue hasn’t changed. Just looking at those kids at that hour was depressing. With the Internet being such a presence in everyone's lives, it seems to me there could be some sort of distance-learning program in place that could address part of this problem. Maybe I'll approach the Board with this idea, package it and sell it to other school districts around the country. I'll finally be rich-or not!

More on Obama vs McCain

It's been pointed out ad nauseum that Obama has very little leadership experience. It's further been pointed out that he's a lib-er-alllll who believes government can indeed play a role in our lives. And if that isn't enough it's been mentioned here and there that he's a man of color-as it were. So why then isn't McCain 50 points ahead of him in the poles? Well, my misguided friends, it's very simple. Because the American people are a lot smarter than we often give them credit for. Quite simply, McCain is a trigger happy hothead. It's as simple as that. The American people put lives above money. Period. The strange thing about all of this is that with McCain's experience in a POW camp, why doesn't he have a problem with his very own position that 'another 100 years in Iraq isn't out of the question." One can only conclude that in spite of his obvious heroism, he's deranged!! But of course the Dems aren't going to go out on a limb with THAT. They'd be crazy to suggest he's a little off his rocker. So here we are. A dead heat. Wait for the debates to separate the men from the 'boy(s)!

McCain & AARP

The latest issue of AARP magazine (September/October 2008) has a ‘Voters’ Guide’ section. The magazine posed a series of multiple choice questions to each of the candidates. The issues were health care (Medicare, Insurance) & finances (Social Security, Investment Portfolios). There were about a dozen items to choose from. For each item AARP also took a position. Without going into detail, 11 out of 12 times Obama chose the same responses as did AARP. He declined to respond to 1 item. McCain declined to respond to all 11 items! So much for the ‘straight talk express’. How about the ‘no talk’ or better yet ‘double-talk express’.

Obama/Biden

What a coincidence! Way back in the day when umpteen democrats were vying for the nomination, I was routing for Joe Biden. Throughout all of his years in the senate he struck me as one of the few politicians who made sense and had the guts to say it. His expertise in foreign policy is unquestioned by both sides of the aisle & his life experiences rival McCain's. He does tend to take a tad too long to make his point but I suspect someone somewhere is going to be working with him on that. Obama made a perfect choice to balance the ticket and counter his weaknesses. Now we wait for McCain’s choice-someone young, sensible, firm on the issues, cool under fire, not afraid to offend the Christian or Conservative Right. Hmmmm...Lots of luck!

URGENT REQUEST!!

This is an urgent request for someone out there to create a website called something like "Simple Answers to Your Questions". In all of my roaming around the internet, I have yet to find one that meets the above need.
Here's what prompted this request. A couple of days ago I got this huge catalog in the mail that has all kinds of equipment. Lord only knows how I got on that mailing list but the point is it had among other things a whole bunch of generators: gas, diesel, porpane, multifuel, etc. They ranged in price from about $500 to over $20,000. Fortunately, we haven't lost power for a particularly long time here within the past few years but I do recall a time when we were out for several days during the winter. Fortunately, I have a wood burning stove so we could stay home but not having running water was a major pain. So I thought maybe now was the time to get a generator. The problem is they all state how many kilowatts they produce but I wasn't sure how to translate that into practical terms so I commenced a research project. Hence the problem. There were indeed plenty of sites that attempted to explain the relationship between watts, amps and volts (and Coulombs and Joules and Ohms). But they were mostly written by well-meaning college professors who were trying to make PHD Electrical Engineers out of the likes of poor dumb me!! So I went to a long time friend of mine who has become my go-to guy in such matters. So thanks to good old email, I quickly had a simple, completely sensible explanation (volts X Amps = Watts, i.e. 110 volt toaster oven operating at 13 amps = 1430 watts) I quickly realized that the great deal on a 6500 watt propane Honda generator wouldn't even run my water pump! So now back to the urgent request. Why couldn't I have found that out with the click of a computer key. That's why someone out there needs to pick up the ball here. You can link off my website or create your own. Come on, go for it. What else are you doing????

Two Questions

Two quick questions:
What prompts a young woman to wake up some morning and decide "By golly, I'm going to be a shot-put or, better yet, discus-throwing Olympiad?"

Do the Chinese seriously expect the world to believe that all of their 'women' athletes are at least 16? If you wanted to drive one of them anywhere in the US in your car, you'd have to put her in a child's car seat.

Just curious.

Back from Vacation

The ideal vacation to me is the one we just completed: One week at a house on the beach with the entire family. With the exception of some drizzly mornings and occasional thunderstorms, the weather was great. And even when it did rain or thunder, there was always enough to do inside. When the weather was bad the children tended to be in charge. Here are some of the activities engaged in by all of us at one time or another until the weather cleared:
1. Put make-up and finger nail polish on Grandpa & Nana who was visiting for the day.
2. Watch Olympics
3. Play school or doctor
4. Color & Paint
5. Read books and watch Elmo or Barney movies
6. Crawl around the room exploring everything (almost 1 year old Cole)
7. Play with puzzles & games
Otherwise, it was off to the beach! For the evening hours after the kids were in bed the guys took on the ladies in setback. By the way the men were 9 for 10-but who’s keeping track!

And what was going on in the world while we were away?? Well, the Olympics of course. And McCain and Obama continued to snipe at each other. And Russia invaded Georgia (One report has it that Cheney quickly ran into the oval office and explained to Junior that he could relax. It wasn’t THAT Georgia!). The war in Iraq continues to chug along. Also, judging by the number of email forwards on my computer, the lunatic fringe continues to be hard at work slandering, lying and demonstrating their inability to think rationally (did you see the one about Sambo, Rambo & Bimbo; or “eyes your new president”?) And finally back home the grass continues to grow. So it’s back to the yard and the rest of the routine.

What's that sound I hear?

Why, I believe it's the sound of a fish on the bottom of a boat flip-flopping around. Actually it's McCain changing his position yet again on pro choice vs. anti choice. He's allowed as how it might be OK for his running mate to be pro choice. A position he once held, then he reversed himself in order to pander to the conservative right and now he's back to square one again. On another front we hear the swift boat veterans are planning an attack on Obama. An attack clearly approved by McCain & his campaign managers. And finally, his comment that, well, maybe it might be OK if we had a time table of sorts for our eventual departure from the soil of another country!
All of this is the mark of a desperate man. Do we really know where John McCain stands on anything? The answer is no. When we ask him about the economy he refers us to his lead adviser who in turn tells us to stop whining!!! The choice in November is clear and guess what? It sure as hell ain't the big Mac!!!!!

Here We Go Again

Item 1: KM3 recently posted a piece on his blog (blogspot:georgeswebpage.com) that expresses his outrage with the current congress. For what it’s worth I agree-but not for the reasons he stated. I really don’t much care that they haven’t been passing much legislation. I’m beginning to agree with Calvin Coolidge who once said “that government that governs least governs best.” My outrage with this congress is spineless resistance to the Bush/Cheney mess. In 2006 the American people sent many republicans packing because they were sick of this administration’s leadership. They correctly recognized Bush & Cheney for what they were, i.e. the two people who have caused more harm to this nation than any other pair of elected officials in history. What has this congress done to correct that? Nothing!

Item 2: Here we go again with the off-shore drilling thing. They (McCain, Republicans and to some extent Obama) can’t get it through their thick heads that drilling the earth full of holes is NOT the answer. We need to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels-not find ways to use more. So, here’s what I would do if I were Dictator of the United States:

-subsidize companies to build nuclear power plants, wind power and solar power. Eventually put the entire nation on an electrical grid that would provide heat and energy for all homes, businesses, schools, hospitals, etc. That would save untold quantities of coal, oil and natural gas.

-next, with the coal that is saved from electrical generation, convert it to diesel fuel. The technology is there. It can be done. This nation has about a century’s worth of coal in the ground. Use it to power all diesel vehicles.

-next, impose heavy penalties on anyone using a gasoline powered vehicle that is not a hybrid. Eventually all gas powered motor vehicles would be hybrids getting around 40-50 mpg.

If all this were done, we could produce enough oil domestically to fill our needs until hydrogen fuel came into its own at which time we’re completely off fossil fuels!

That’s what I would do if I were the Dictator of the United States of America!