Rest in Peace

It is with great sorrow that I pass along this report of the slow, agonizing death of a dear friend. I received it a while ago in my e-mail and today, I finally decided to spread the word. Many of you may have already heard of this, or suspected it was happening. I count myself as one of the lucky ones to have known him for all these years. He will be missed but probably never fully replaced.

'Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

Knowing when to come in out of the rain; why the early bird gets the worm; Life isn't always fair; and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an Aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim.

Not many attended his funeral, because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.'

It really is a shame that "common sense" is so uncommon. It seems to get rarer and rarer with every passing year. I wonder if it's just here in America, or is this a worldwide epidemic?

NOBAMA does Baghdad

Well, he finally did it. NOBAMA, after 925 days 1 hour and 7 minutes, actually visited Baghdad! In a round-about-way he even finally HAD to, but, begrudgingly admit that the surge has worked.

From the NYTimes on 7/22/08:

After meeting with Mr. Maliki, Mr. Obama met with Mr. Hashimi in his spacious, ornate house in the Green Zone for about 45 minutes. Beforehand, Mr. Obama said he was “pleased with the progress taking place” in Iraq and said that it was his impression that among Iraqis there was “more optimism about what is happening.”

“You see the activity taking place, the people in the shops, the traffic on the streets, clearly there’s been an enormous improvement,” he said.

We've all heard by now that Al Maliki "endorses" NOBAMA's time table for withdrawal. Well, that's not quite the whole truth. He actually agrees with U.S. military leaders and President Bush about setting an exact date. I happen to consider 16 months to be close to a POTENTIALLY CORRECT estimate as to when the combat forces might not be needed in Iraq. We have the surge to thank for that!!!!

Here's NOBAMA stumbling around trying to put a positive spin on his "cut and run" plan for Iraq.

From ABCNews on 7/22/08:

Obama told ABC News that military leaders have "deep concerns" about a timetable that does not account for changing conditions.

"I don't think that there are deep concerns about the notion of a pullout per se," he said in the television interview. "There are deep concerns about, from their perspective, of a timetable that doesn't take into account what they anticipate might be some sort of change in conditions."

All in all this was nothing more than another photo op for the messiah. ALL the Majors were there covering that piece of shit!! John McCain goes over there and hardly even gets a mention somewhere in the middle of the paper. I think it's about time the American people boycott the liberalism of today's news media. It's no wonder that the American populace has turned into such a large group of SHEEPLE! I guess to most, if you read it enough times, it must be true.

Well, I guess I'll cut this post here and get rid of the "days since he went to Iraq" widget.

Al Gore's energy policy??

What a nerve! Al Gore is trying to steal The Average American's energy policy! He can't even get that right. He says America should make ALL of our electricity without carbon fuel---ie---no coal. He further wants to see this transition in 10 years instead of my 12 years. Other than those two things, he is basically plagerizing my post from July 5th! Here is a piece of the article from CNN:

"The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk," Gore said.

In a speech at Washington's Constitution Hall, Gore touched on an array of the nation's current woes, saying the economic, environmental and national security crises are all related.

"I don't remember a time in our country when so many things seemed to be going so wrong simultaneously," Gore said.

To begin to fix all the problems, Gore said, "the answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels." Watch more on Gore's answer to energy crisis »

Gore called on the country to produce all of its electricity from renewable and carbon-free sources in 10 years, a goal he compared to President Kennedy's challenge for the country to put a man on the moon in the 1960s.

Gore chastised those who have proposed opening new areas for oil drilling as a solution to U.S. energy problems.

If you really want to read the rest of his bull, you can access the full article here.

All this from a man who probably accounts for more oil usage than 100 Average Americans! I still say "Keep burning coal"! Why put thousands of miners out of work just because "Mr.Green" says so? At least it all comes from America.

Here's another article you might be interested in. It is a brief discription of his highness's energy usage, not counting the auto and plane trips, etc.

I guess I have to excuse him for screwing up MY IDEAS on energy, after all, he did invent the internet so I can blog about him.

Meet Misty

Meet Misty, my best friend. I just wish she didn't always plunk herself down in my favorite chair.

America's Energy Policy

Picture by R.J.Matson

Does America even HAVE an energy policy?? I don't think we do, but we sure ought to! Oh sure, we hear a lot about weaning ourselves off foreign oil, but I don't see that happening--now or in my lifetime. There's a big fight about drilling in new places and plenty of discussion about making gas out of corn, but there is no clear cut path and no concrete energy policy. Well, after a little thought, I've decided to lay out my own energy policy, THE AVERAGE AMERICAN Energy Policy!

First, the production of electricity should not use any fossil fuel except coal. Save the oil, gas, propane, natural gas, etc for other purposes. I'm not talking today, but as soon as possible. The absolute best practices for producing electricity is to use non-fuel methods. Hydro power, wind power, solar power, and geothermal power all need NO fuel! They give off NO carbon gas emmissions! They are the absolute cleanest ways to create electricity. I really don't care if canoeists and kayakers have to make more portages between shorter stretches of river. That's a small price to pay for the energy being wasted with all that free running water. I'd love to see hundreds or thousands of wind generators on the mountain tops. I don't see them as ugly, on the contrary, they are the look of money! Solar panels all over the place, GREAT! Tap into "Old Faithful" and any other place we can get some megawatts out of the earth's free geothermal energy.

Other acceptable ways to generate electricity use fuel. Renewable fuel is the prefered fuel. Biomass is way underutilized. I'm sure we can spare a lot more trees, at least in some parts of the country. So what if we all have to settle for artificial x-mas trees? There's a LOT of methane gas being emitted from our landfills. Is your community capturing that free fuel? If not, WHY NOT? Nuclear power has come a long way, but we hardly remember how to build them any more. The technology is far advanced since we last built a plant. Many other countries have surpassed us in this arena. Let's get the lead out of our asses and start building them! We have a s###load of coal. Find a way to burn it cleaner and use it! I'm sure you can come up with even more ways to produce electricity without using oil, gas etc. List them in the comments section please. Oh, here's one. We need to find a way to capture the hot air being emitted every day by our politicians, of both parties! Talk about a waste of energy!

Surprisingly, a large portion of our petroleum useage goes to produce plastics and other items not usually associated with oil. There are things we can do to cut down on this problem. Stop asking for plastic bags at the store under the misguided idea that this is best for the environment. It isn't! Screw the tree-huggers, ask for paper! Do you really need more than one credit card? You're less likely to get in financial trouble with just one! I'll bet your kids would do just fine with about 1/4 of the plastic toys they have. Quit buying so much junk from China! Hey, the bottom line is that plastic sucks. Make stuff to last like in the "old days"!

This post is longer than I first anticipated, so I guess I'll cut it off here and cover the heat and vehicle energy needs later.

One last thing before I go. The picture at the top of this post is just exactly how a lot of the world's people see us. No wonder they hate us! It was meant as humor, but it really isn't! We should be ashamed of this whole ethanol scam. It costs more to produce then it saves!

Picture by Steve Breen.