Keep The City Out Of The Country

I grew up on the farm. I can remember when I was about 7 years old, for years before and a few years after for that matter, you could go several hours and not see another car on the country road between my parents house and the actual farm itself. Slowly, inexoriably, that changed as time went by, to present day, when you see a car on average about every 5 minutes or so. That probably wouldn't be so bad, except that most of these vehicles belong to people moving from the city out into the country, and rather than drive around at a reasonable 40 to 50 mph, these freaks decide that the best course of action is a wreckless endangering 60 to 70 mph.

There is an old saying that goes as such: "you are either born on the country road, or you aren't". This means that either you grew up on country roads, and learned first to drive on gravel and then on the highway, or you learned to drive on paved roads and will forever be behind on the learning curve as far as driving in the country is concerned. Now, I know what people will say when they read this, about how "I've lived in the country now for the last 10 years and I know how to drive on country roads now." Well, I have seen people that moved out to the country even longer than 10 years and they still drive stupidly. Here are some of the more common errors city drivers make in the country...

1) Cresting the top of a hill directly in the middle of the road. About as stupid as a person can be as far as country driving goes. Proper technique for cresting a hill on a country road? Move as far to the right as you possibly can and expect a car from the other direction, even if you are sure there isn't one.

2) Not scooting over or slowing down when you meet another car on the road. Again, how stupid can you be??? Contrary to what you may think, the other car isn't scooting over and decreasing speed so you can remain in the center of the road at full speed. Why is this a big deal? Not only is it really rude, a fast moving car throws rocks onto the other car, an offense that will have me slashing your tires in the middle of the night. (I'm a farm boy, my night vision is better than yours : ) heh heh).

3) Driving 65 mph on gravel. This sort of ties in with number two, and also with your own safety. I myself have done a 720 in my car on gravel, and been lucky to have remained on the road. That's my car spinning twice around, and scary as hell. On pavement, rubber tires are great, they stick to the road nicely. On gravel, you are basically floating on the road because there is actually no real contact, the gravel works like mishapen ball bearings, and the faster you go, the more chance you have of becoming one with the ditch. Also, the faster you go, the more chance you have of throwing rocks onto my car coming from the opposite direction, and *shocked gasp* more chance of your tires being slashed by some "unknown bastard" in the middle of the night.

4) Expecting farm implements to stop so that you can go past If this is your idea of proper road practice? If so, i have three words for you, GO TO HELL!!! YOU are in the smaller vehicle, so guess what? You can either scoot over and slow down or you are going to meet my 20 ton tractor head on, and guess who wins that battle? Not you, bud. Actually, nothing makes me smile with more satisfaction than being passed by a rude bastard in a big old SUV waving around the one finger at me as he passes me or when he/she is forced to slow down as I drive normally in a tractor or combine or whatever. There is no reason to get all upset about this either, because there is something you need to realize... shoulders on country roads are very soft, and when you move a heavy piece of machinery onto the shoulder, there is a strong chance it will slide off into the ditch, a way higher chance than a lighter car or SUV will, so be sensible. If you see a tractor, slow your ass down and scoot on over.

Those are the most common ones I can think of at this time. It's more than just the way transplanted city people drive that is irritating though. It's this ignorant idea that you can have the wonderful country life and take out what you don't like about it. "Oh, the cows are so beautiful" the silly city person says, immediately followed by "What the hell is that ungodly smell???". That is the smell of money, actually, the smell of enterprise, the smell of milk production, beef or poultry or pork production too. it's the smell of how things have been done for 150 years or more, and just because you move here don't expect that to change. You are going to find that smell in the air from time to time, you are going to see shit on the roads too, you are going to have to slow your vehicle down when you see farm implements, etc, etc. It's amazing how much nicer the city person with the SUV is when their SUV is in the ditch on a really wintery icy day and you are driving by with a tractor that just happens to have a chain on it, because, invariably, a farmer is going to pull you out of the ditch, that's just the way farmers are. You have to take the bad with the good when you move into the country.

I haven't ever actually slashed anyone's tires, though so help me god, the thought has occured to me on occasion. That, or emptying all the oil out of someone's engine in the middle of the night and filling it back up with maple syrup. Your car never smelled so delicious as the engine seizing and being ruined in a sugary nightmare!!!

Poor Squirrel, Stupid Bird

I don't care much for hitting animals with my car, as I've already mentioned, I have developed an intimate hatred for deer, but even running over the smallest of animals makes me feel bad, just for the idea that, whether they be trying to commit suicide or perhaps join an elusive 'survived the highway crossing' club with their fellow animals, they don't have a Twix bar on Rosie Odonnell's desk chance of surviving when a car hits them. Just the other night I tagged a rabbit with my car because it ran out directly in front of me before I could react, and I do try to avoid hitting them if I can.

But birds, well, it's hard for me to have any feelings of remorse about an animal that can fly well above a car to cross the road, but is so dumb as to test fate by crossing at about 2 to 3 feet off the ground. It's bewildering as I pluck the carcass of a sparrow from the grill of my car, as to why birds even attempt something as stupid as that when they could easily avoid being hit by just gaining altitude. Other animals are nearly always hit at night, with good reason. Take the sinister evil deer for instance: the deer tries to cross the road, suicidally and stupidly albeit, at night, and sees it's shadow, and tries to run from it's shadow. What direction does the animal run? Right at the car, into the headlights, because the shadow is all the deer sees. This goes for most other animals also, but not birds. There aren't a whole lot of birds that fly at night, a bird's sense of sight is it's strength, so daytime flying is a must (except for owls and a few others). So usually we hit birds with our cars during the day. For having such good eyesight, birds are certainly moronic for even getting hit, if it were at night perhaps I could understand it.

I am sitting here now trying to think of the total of animals I have hit over the past several years, and it's surprising me to be quite truthful. 3 deer, a cow, a dog, a raccoon, a squirrel, numerous dumb birds, a couple rabbits, a 40ish year old hitchhiker, oh, and a pheasant. I suppose I could just include the pheasant in the 'dumb birds' category, but for the fact that it's the closest I ever got to actually losing control of a vehicle because of hitting an animal. Even when I'd hit deer it wasn't this bad.

I was driving my 1984 Dodge D-50 pickup, a mitsubishi built little truck with a 4 cylinder motor. I was rounding a giant curve around Fremont, Nebraska, when out of nowhere a pheasant blasted the windshield of my truck right in front of my face. It scared the crap out of me so badly that I drove about halfway into the ditch and nearly lost control of my truck, I don't know how the windshield didn't get cracked. I can remember laughing about it but my heart was racing so hard it took me probably a half hour to calm down.

Most often when I hit an animal it is at night, perhaps I need to quit driving once it's dark out, perhaps animals are ganging up on me Kamikaze style to try and take me out, I mean, who knows? What if there is a rhinoceros or hippo out there just waiting to charge out in front of my car? I can't be too sure that someone who is trying to take me out hasn't put rhino or hippo whistles on my car, backwards... perhaps I will look over my car thoroughly tomorrow.

Oh, and I never really hit a hitchhiker, someone else had already run over him before I ever did, I swear...

I Defend Your Right To Be An Ignorant Moron

Part of what makes our country a wonderful place to be is the ability to express yourself freely, without fear of governmental reprisal, for most any opinion you may have. This certainly comes into play with Toni Smith, a subpar women's basketball player from tiny Manhattanville College, a tiny school of about 1400 students from the town of Purchase, New York.

READ FULL STORY HERE

Smith, a senior forward on the college basketball team, turns away and looks at the floor during the playing of the national anthem before every game. This has drawn outrageous criticism from all over the nation. Something to remember though is that, just as she has every right to express herself by turning away, she nor her supporters have any grounds to be upset if other people 'boo' her while she is on the court or wave flags and what not whenever she is around, for that is also their right to free speech. As a member of the military, I will fight vehemently to defend anyone's right to free speech and freedom of expression, regardless of how blatantly stupid they may be in expressing themselves.

But understand that I totally disagree with what she is doing. It makes sense though, Smith is a mediocre at best basketball player, averaging a pathetic 5 points a game, and yet somehow has a token title of 'team captain', despite making next to no contribution to the team's performance whatsoever. Smith is a sociology major, but obviously not a very intelligent one. In a statement she made reference to her disagreements with the war in Iraq, yet by turning her back on the flag it's more about turning her back on her entire nation of birth than any single political statement. Also interesting is the fact that she is turning her back on the symbol of freedom that allows her, by our flag's own representation of rights, to turn her back and express herself so stupidly.

What Toni Smith actually deserves is to be ignored, to be left out of the press, and to be left out of any sort of meaningful conversation at all, be it media or interpersonal. Obviously she was looking for attention when she did this, and that is what she got. Hopefully the media will show some sort of intelligence and just ignore Smith and see her for what she is: a half-assed dork making an ignorant political statement by blatantly displaying her own stupidity.

Kennedy's: America's Camelot???

I'm amazed at the media's constant affection for the Kennedy family, continually portraying them as though they are royalty, referring to them as America's version of the royal family on many occasions. I get pretty irate when I hear that, but then I sit back and look at things, and you know what? That isn't too far from the truth. The royal family in Britain certainly doesn't have anything resembling real jobs, and wow, neither do any of the Kennedy family. Even worse, as a nation it's as though we are expected to join in as a whole in grief and sorrow at the tragic circumstances that continually assail the Kennedy's, when the way of their tragedy always seems to involve alcoholism, addiction, risk-taking, self-destruction and other preventable actions resulting in early death.

Certainly the assassinations of JFK and Bobby Kennedy were tragic, but since then the Kennedy tragedies became tawdrier: drunken driving, heroin, a skiing death caused by high-speed games of downhill football, sex with babysitters, allegations of rape. Even John F. Jr's plane crash came in careless circumstances when he was told not to fly his plane at night because of inadequate experience at nighttime aviation. Yet despite nearly every aspect of what goes on within the Kennedy family happening as a result of, at best, poor judgement, we are supposed to sit back in grief or worse admire this family of drunken fools?

Let's look at the life of one of the more... admired... members of the Kennedy family, Senator Edward Kennedy (I say this with tongue in cheek, but he must be admired by a bunch of Bostonian morons because they keep electing this alcoholic sleazebag into congress). Ted Kennedy, despite terrible grades in prep school, was admitted to Harvard as a "legacy". As a sophomore he is expelled from Harvard for cheating, paying a friend to take a spanish test for him. Upon expusion from Harvard, he joins the army, signing up for a four year stint. Ted's father finds out his son joined for 4 years, and is able to get ahold of his enlistment papers, and somehow, able to shorten his enlistment to 2 years, something no average recruit can ever do. Furthermore, although joining during the Korean War, somehow Ted is sent along on easy street to serve his country for two years in Europe, not Korea. He never manages to get above the rank of private, and is discharged from military service in 1952.

Ted was allowed back into Harvard in 1953, and played on the college rugby team. During one match he was involved in three fistfights, and finally thrown out of the game. The referee stated that it was the only time in 30 years of officiating that he had ever tossed someone out of a game. He somehow graduated from Harvard, and in 1957 entered law school. While there, his tendency for reckless driving earned him the nickname "Cadillac Eddie". He was cited four times for wreckless driving, including running red lights and driving more than 100 mph in a suburban neighborhood. For whatever reason, his license was never suspended. At the age of 30 he took over the senate seat of president elect JFK, a position he still holds to this day.

Then, Chappaquiddick, where Ted Kennedy drove his car off a bridge and after he escaped the submurged car, leaving his female companion to drown while he ran away from the scene of the accident. Kennedy was driving on an expired license and was alleged to have been drunk at the time. He plead guilty to the crime of leaving the scene of an accident where personal injury had occured. Despite the fact that this crime has a mandatory 20 day jail sentence, and that the injury was actually manslaughter, he was given a suspended sentence. This tied in with the mysterious fact that his previous driving record was somehow covered up, the judge being told that he had no prior convictions involved with operating a motor vehicle. The court proceedings at his sentencing took a mere 7 minutes, a suspended sentence being quite the small price to pay for taking a human life.

Despite all of this, the people of Massachussets continually vote this man into office. In fact, a rundown of the entire Kennedy family will find few, if any, of them that hold jobs that they have actually earned by any degree other than having the Kennedy name. And this is supposed to be the idea of American royalty. Must be, because even those who are third cousins to Kennedy's twice removed or whatever always make sure to tell everyone things like "Yah, I'm a Kennedy, my mother's ex-husband is the third cousin of Robert Kennedy Jr.'s wife". I for one will never have any respect for this family and it amazes me that anyone with any knowledge of them could respect them.

The War On Drugs, Is It Worth It?

I wonder how much money the United States has spent fighting the war on drugs over, well, let's say the last 30 years. Experts figure that the cost runs into the area of 50 billion dollars a year trying to stop the drug traffic, and 100 billion per year when you factor in the cost of putting drug offenders thru the court system. The monetary reason alone of course is not the only reason that drugs should be legalized, there are many other reasons why the war on drugs is not worth the time, money, and effort that is spent on it.

Legalizing drugs would free up police and other law enforcement resources to be used in other areas, fighting non drug related crimes. Statistics show that 1/3 to 1/2 of law enforcement is used in the drug prevention and interaction support. This money could be served much better by going after offenders involved in rape, murder, robbery, and other violent crimes. Also, many violent crimes are committed as a result of the criminal trying to support the drug habit, because the cost of drugs is so highly inflated by the illegality of the drugs themselves. Let's say a kilo of cocaine costs $8000 in Columbia, it would sell wholesale for $75,000, and go for $750,000 on the streets of the United States. The more expensive the habit, the more difficult it is to obtain that 'fix' that a drug user wants, this results in more crime to obtain ways of getting the drug.

Prisons within the United States are horribly overcrowded, and the single largest category of prisoner is the drug user, in most cases a non violent crime, such as possession of a controlled substance. Legalizing drugs would free up much of this prison space, in turn costing the tax payers less money. Money would also be saved in the judicial system, because not only would it eliminate petty drug court cases, but also a lot of violent crime related to getting the drug, making our streets safer also. Burglaries and theft to support habits would decrease by at least 50% if drugs were legalized because the price of the drugs would go down so much. Gang crime related to drugs would become nearly non existent, because the money would no longer be there for gangs to collect. How often do you see street gangs in a rival war over cigarettes? You don't, because as a legal commodity, cigarettes do not carry near the market value to entice black market interest. This in turn would cripple organized crime, which relies heavily on the street value of illegal drugs to market it's operations.

I'm not for capitalism or free trade of drugs though, I believe the government would be the only entity given the right to sell drugs, and we all know the government is unable to make money at anything, so God knows no one will be able to undersell them. As the price of drugs goes down, crime will also go down, and no one can compete with the government to try and make money off of drugs if they are priced around the same as cigarettes. Even if drugs were prices a mere 5 times what cigarettes are priced, that is still 20 times cheaper than black market prices for illegal drugs now, and would still be so cheap that organized crime would be unable to compete, how can you compete with the government? Our government has a long and proud tradition of losing tons of money, nothing is going to change now!!!

Those who buy drugs from the government would have a profile for their drug use and be required to attend intervention classes and discussion meetings with others who use drugs in order to help those addicted to drugs, rather than just tossing them in prison with very little intervention. I suppose you could say this isn't really "legalizing" drugs, more like subsidizing drugs to the public, but it's for damn sure better than what we have going on now. People who are in these programs would have to show some sort of progress to get over their need for drugs, through a lot of therapy, one on one and group. Oh, you might say, what about the cost of all of this on the taxpayer? Well, it's unlikely that the amount of money we spend as taxpayers on programs such as this would come even close to the amount of money spent the way things are going right now, I doubt even 1/10th of the money we spend now would be needed. Plus money collected from the sale of drugs would be used to fund the programs too.

But what about the movie stars and other people who are well known who use drugs, they will refuse to enter programs for interdiction? These people aren't normally the people you see car jacking and robbing others to support their habits, the low chance that you will see someone with money committing violent crimes would supersede a huge need for them to enter programs to help them with their drug addictions.

I am not advocating drug use by any means, and I think it's sad that people have to resort to the use of illicit drugs rather than finding responsible, natural highs to make life enjoyable. This is probably my most controversial post to date, but as I look in the paper and on TV every day and see all the bad things that happen as a result of illegal drug use, and all the money that is dumped into fighting illegal drugs, I realize that our nation has really done nothing to actually curtail either the flow of illegal drugs into the United States, nor the use of the drugs by the American public, so something different has to happen.

Sports Rock, Wear Your Jock!!!

Actually though, I haven't worn a jock strap since the 8th grade, and that was the only time I ever wore one. I played football that year, I just had to try it once. 45 of us went out for football, and they had only 15 of these coveted practice jerseys, and I won the last one, that was my moment of fame in football.

But anyways, I figured since I tend to spend a considerable amount of time checking out sports, be it watching ESPN on television, reading about things in the Omaha World Herald sports section, or browsing espn.com online, I should maybe put up a fun little post about a few things in sports. I'm certain that I could probably go on and on for about 10 pages of text here but I'll try somehow to shorten what I've got here.

My favorite sport is college football. Yah, you NFL junkies can say what you want about 'level of competition' and all that jazz, and I do like the San Fransisco 49ers in the NFL (even though they hired a complete moron as head coach in Dennis Ericksen), but college football is awesome, EVERY game means EVERYTHING in college football, there are few sports you can say that about. This is because college football has no real playoff format, at the end of the season, whoever the pollsters deem to be number one and number two, they go at it in the title game, a 'bowl game' with all the marbles at stake. A loss during the season can be the end to any team's hopes of winning the national title. In the NFL, a team can lose 5, 6, even 7 games and still get into the playoffs, still having a shot at winning the Super Bowl, and although I do enjoy watching the NFL, the emotion levels in college ball are so much higher.

In the NBA I like the Charlotte Hornets, woops, I mean, the New Orleans Hornets. Forgot momentarily that they moved a couple years back. Oh my, but wait, now Charlotte has a group together and they are going to have the next NBA team, so who in the hell am I supposed to root for now??? Oh the confusion, I think I'm going to wet my pants!!! But honestly, do I stick with the city, the team, the players, the team colors??? The colors haven't changed for the Hornets, but the players change all the time, the city has changed, all this is perplexing, first off, why did Charlotte ever allow the Hornets to leave in the first place if they are going to get another team in right away?? Secondly, interestingly enough, New Orleans had a team once, it was called the Jazz, now of course they are the "Utah Jazz", a name that is hilarious if you think about it, why don't they change the stinking team name to something more appropriate, like the Utah Latter Day Saint Ballers, or the Utah Basketballigamists? (sorry, had to poke a little fun at the Mormons heh). Well, when it costs about 100 bucks for two tickets to a game, I guess I have to realize that what the fans want is usually the last thing on anyones minds in management, be it the team management or NBA management overall.

In major league baseball, I like the Oakland A's. But there are some truly screwy things in baseball. This sport has the most ludicrous sense of what a salary cap is for, I have tried to understand it, I cannot. If there is a salary cap of some kind, obviously the Yankees have found some way to circumvent and weasel their way around the cap. They outbid every other team to steal away every big name player you can think of, and then thier fans wonder why people HATE the Yankees with such vehemency, well DUH, doesn't really take a genius to see why, what the Yankees and that jackass owner of their's Steinbrenner do is cheating, legal or not. It's so fun to watch them lose, and I think that they will be doing a lot of losing, perhaps not during the season, but certainly in the post season, because a team with that many big name stars on it cannot gel with any reasonable amount of cohesion, where as teams like the A's, the Angels, and even the fun loving Twins, can gel because there aren't a bunch of big names in the clubhouse that don't get along with one another. It's sort of like why you don't want a bunch of roosters at one time in your hen house.

For the record, I like the Pittsburgh Penguins in the National Hockey League, but I don't know jack about hockey so I don't follow them too closely. In NASCAR I tend to follow the Dodge cars, because I'm a Dodge man, although... each time I see the Subaru WRX I sort of get all excited and nearly need a cold shower, but that's another story altogether.

Ahh, I love sports, and it's so fun to bitch about sports too haha.

Deer = Menace To Society

Oh, how I remember during my early teenage years, living on our farm, how I hoped that people who would ask to hunt on our land wouldn't be killing deer, because deer were so precious looking, so innocent, God forbid someone try and hurt little Bambi.

Now I would readily pay people to hunt them outright. There are now more deer on the planet, by far, then there ever have been in the history of the planet. They are a vermin scum of the earth. Having hit three of them with two different cars, you could say that my attitudes about deer have changed. Today there are more than 27 million deer roaming around our nation. There are more than 1.5 million deer/vehicle collisions annually, resulting in well over a billion dollars in damages and injuries, and that doesn't even take into account the death tolls. In 1994, 211 people died in deer/vehicle collisions.

In October of 2001, I was driving my Chrysler Lebaron convertible along, when BOOM, a deer was in front of me and I struck it. I never even had time to touch my brakes before the impact, the airbag in my car deployed, giving me a bloody nose and ripping my chin open (I advocate the use of airbags though, they are important safety devices). The first thought that went thru my head was: "how the hell did that bastard get INTO my car to kick me???". This was before I realized it was the airbag that blasted me.

The car I drive presently is a 1991 Dodge Shelby Daytona IROC. Purchased at a police auction for a mere 190 dollars, I spent more than 3000 in time and money putting the car back together. Then in December of 2001, I was driving along highway 66 again, and there were deer in both lanes as I crested a hill, and I glanced one of them off the side of my driver's front fender. This was extremely irritating. Then in September of 2002, I hit one again, on the SAME HIGHWAY, so hard off the passenger side that it ripped the headlight cover clean off and bent the hood in, along with pushing the fender back so I could not open the passenger door.

I have also hit a dog with my Daytona, and a cow with my Turbo Sundance, but those are other stories. As you can see, my dislike for deer was developed by a series of mishaps with them, leading me to wonder: Why are deer so incredibly suicidal? And also, why do they choose my car to end thier lives against? Of course, my friend Travis has a better idea as to what is going on.

Travis asked me one day if I had the deer whistles on my car. I laughed, because I have read several times that they don't do any good at all (independent studies done have shown negligible differences between having the whistles and not having them.) Travis said that I most likely have them on backwards, to which everyone present laughed, myself included. The thought of deer, merrily going about thier business in a corn field, suddenly hearing my car, and running as fast as they can because they are attracted to the noise, and throwing themselves into the path of my vehicle, well, that was good for a pretty decent chuckle.

Laws on deer hunting were brought about to protect deer around the turn of the century when thier numbers had dwindled to about 300,000. Now they have obviously made more than a comeback. They no longer have much if any of natural enemies, grizzly bears numbers are way down, mountain lions are rarely ever seen in most areas east of the Rockies. Overpopulation of deer destroy even thier own habitat, not allowing the natural progression of forestry to occur, this in turn significantly reduces the numbers of rare songbirds and other animals who depend on woodland areas to live.

It's really high time that deer are hunted year round, any weapons, no limit to how many a hunter can bag. The bleeding heart animal rights activists should all be forced to drive Geo Metros and have collisions at 55 mph with deer until they realize that, yes, my goodness, there truly is a problem that needs to be addressed.

A Humorous Quote For Today

I saw this a couple days ago, unfortunately I can't remember who it was who said it, I read it in the newspaper.

"I was a liberal for years, then I got a real job."

Made me laugh when I saw it.

Beef, Satan's Meat

I was recently doing one of those online tests. You know the ones I'm talking about, that can tell you everything from what actor you were in another life to what bird best represents you. Anyways, this one had to do with my health. Supposedly, this test was going to tell me my 'actual age' compared to my real age. So I was bee-bopping along, doing the questions, telling them how I exercise, how my family has a history of this or that, that my blood pressure is low compared to the average, when I came across this question. "How often do you eat red meat?"

Now, the question itself wasn't offensive in nature, it was the choice of answers that totally blew my mind. "(a) once a week, (b) once every two weeks, (c) once a month,
(d) fewer than once a month." What sort of idiot, tree eating moron comes up with a question like this? I eat red meat at least 4 times a week, usually in a moderate helpings. So does nearly everyone else I know. Are we in the midwest insane? Are our eating habits that of the extinct caveman, with all of us ready to follow him into the never to be seen again cave of doom? I can only imagine what sort of atrocious damage these so called 'experts' attribute to red meat and the horrific danger of eating it. I also exercise regularly, I do not smoke, and I don't drink all that often. I would say that my driving would be more dangerous to my health than my eating of red meat would ever be.

At least the authors of this particular test didn't attack beef outright like some people have done. Take Howard Lyman, director of the Humane Society's "Eating With Conscience" campaign. Lyman appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show in 1998 and attacked beef, making the most outrageous claims you could imagine about how bad eating beef is. Winfrey asked Lyman: "You say this disease could make AIDS look like the common cold?" "Absolutely," Lyman answered. Ms. Winfrey herself had sworn off eating both chicken and beef. "It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger," she said. How interesting, because time has told the truth, considering that to date, there have been 2 cases, count 'em, two cases of the so called "Mad Cow Disease" within the United States.

As far as "Mad Cow Disease" goes, the best that any expert was ever able to do was to link the use of dead animals in the feed of cattle to the disease itself. United States beef producers have not used dead animals in cattle feed since the 1960's. There is still a critical lack of hard evidence to suggest that Mad Cow was ever even a credible disease to begin with. Even in Great Britain, where the "epidemic" started, the death toll was around 110, far below what many scientists had estimated, some of the more insane estimates were nearing 150,000 deaths. Oprah Winfrey can quit eating burgers, that's fine with me, that just means more for me to eat. And as far as her eating habits, seems to me Winfrey has a lot more to worry about than simply cutting back on the red meat.

I have watched my father yo-yo up and down with his weight for as long as I can remember. He has gone from 170 lbs (looking gaunt and deathly, with horrible breath because his body wasn't getting what it needed nutrition wise) to 320 lbs, which obviously was not good at all. His unhealthy eating lifestyle had way more to do with his ridiculous intake of carbohydrates than it had anything to do with red meat. Of course, I'm not trying to say that no one should ever eat pasta or bread. The point I'd really like to get across is this: eating just about anything to excess is not good for you. But putting a huge bulk of the unhealthy American lifestyle on red meat is completely unfair. The simplest way to be healthy is to maintain a reasonable weight by 1) decreasing caloric intake, and 2) increasing your cardiovascular exercise. Less food,more activity, basically, in simplest terms.

I will be starting a "Plant Lover's United" organization to attack vegetarians around the world for killing and eating off our beloved green species, our oxygenating friends, being ingested for the pleasure of vegetarians everywhere. Sounds pretty ridiculous, far fetched? Well, that's how I consider anyone trying to take a flame broiled cheeseburger out of my hands to be too.

Roll The Dice

Council Bluffs, Iowa is just on the opposite side of the river from Omaha, Nebraska. Awhile back, I won’t speculate on how far back it was, because I’m not sure, but awhile back, Iowa legalized gambling, so the intelligent folks in Council Bluffs put their casinos right on the river, so that it would be very convenient for the half a million or so good people of Omaha to cross over and drop their dollars into the till in Iowa.

Now, Nebraska’s bible beaters work feverishly to keep gambling out of Nebraska, each time there is a vote to allow gambling within the state, it seems that they are out in force, screaming about all hell and damnation and how gambling leads to divorce and sodomy and cake and who the hell knows what else? But for crying out loud, if people are just going to cross the border and gamble anyway, it’s probably a damn good idea to keep that money within the state by offering Nebraskan’s casinos to gamble at.

Life itself is a gamble. Each day we get inside our cars and drive down the road, there is a chance we get broadsided by a cement truck, there is even the slightest chance a burning meteorite comes in from the sky and smashes the car to bits, killing everyone inside. Farmers gamble when they plant their crops, what sorts of insecticide to use, short term or long term corn and beans, that sort of thing. Everything we do is a gamble of some sort, but for some reason, when the gambling involves outright laying our money on the table for a chance to get more money, oh god no, we can’t be doing that at all!!!

There is one form of gambling allowed in Nebraska, horse racing and betting on simulcasting of horse races around the nation. I guess that is because betting on horses is usually a rich man’s folly and to take that away would be to take away something from the power elite within the state, something that certainly wouldn’t ever be allowed.

I myself don’t really care for gambling, I would never work in a casino after seeing the heartbroken people sitting on benches outside the buildings with their heads in their hands. But I have to face reality and the facts, and the big fact that all that money is rolling into Iowa instead of staying here in Nebraska is what makes me feel that it’s time to change the laws here and allow gambling within Nebraska. Not only that, but Iowa pays for gambling treatment for their residents who end up with addictions to gambling, but Nebraska is stuck footing the bill for our own residents, without a casino to even help pay for the treatment, and that is ludicrous.

The best way to look at casinos is to treat them like a movie, or a dinner, or both together. Think of it this way, “I am going to take 25 dollars to the casino tonite to spend, and if I win with it, so be it, but if I lose all 25 bucks, then I’m done. I’ll go to the buffet or catch a washed up country singer who is singing in the lounge, but I won’t EVEN try and convince myself that I will actually win big bucks and go on easy street.” That is the best attitude to have about gambling.

No Parallel

The NASA Space Shuttle program has been around since spring of 1981 when Columbia went into orbit, inspiring a new age of space travel. As Saturday morning rolled around, there had been more than 100 shuttle missions, with one previously ending in disaster. But even with the Challenger tragedy, the rewards of space travel far outweigh the risks.

The Columbia, the oldest of the shuttles in current service, disintegrated during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere Saturday morning, and with this, the hardly noticed missions that the space shuttle routinely performs without a hitch, this mission is given the attention, the admiration, and the sorrow of an entire nation, and in many respects, the world.

Of course, the media goes to 24 hour coverage of this event with speculation and guesses as to what happened. What was known that the shuttle was traveling at mach 15, at 200,000 feet in the air, at more than 3000 degrees Fahrenheit, when suddenly the vessel came apart.

Certainly most of what I’m saying you already know, unless you spend a lot of time living in a cave. What gets me about all of this is how the media starts making correlations to this disaster and the tragic events of 9/11/01. Ignorance on the part of our news media brings about ignorant statements such as this.

First off, what happened on 9/11 was a horrible disaster that killed thousands of innocent people who died for nothing more than going to work, making a better life for themselves, doing things that should have never had a risk of death to begin with.

NASA astronauts accept a huge responsibility based on the type of job they are performing. Space travel pushes the envelope of human technology to the limit, the risks are astronomical. The very fact that we are able to perform space travel with so few problems in most cases is amazing. Astronauts know this, they accept the risks for the idea of what they are doing, pushing man’s limits further, expanding our horizons. The costs, even with tragedy like this, are far outweighed by the benefits.

Do we mourn the loss of the Columbia, the seven lives cut short by what happened on February 1st? Most certainly we do. However, it is important to remember that astronauts choose their destiny, to do what they love. For every astronaut inducted into the NASA space program, there are dozens, maybe even hundreds who are turned away. This is unlikely to change.

I guess what I’m getting at with this, is that it’s appalling to make a parallel between a tragedy that occurs from something with such expected risk, and another such as 9/11 that occurred for something of an entirely different reason, and I would hope that no one else would make such a correlation.

I also hope that whatever happened Saturday to be corrected within short order, because I believe in the validity of the space program and what it does not only for our country, but for all of humanity.

JESUS JESUS JESUS!!!

I have to wonder, does everyone have a goofy relative, who is ridiculously religious and judgemental, between the ages of 50 and 80? A few days ago I picked up the phone at my parents house, something I rarely do now because my friends all call my cell phone, and I guess I haven't learned my lesson that answering my parents phone just ends up getting me into conversations with people I really would rather not be talking to.

"HI THERE" came the voice that made me cringe... my great aunt, my grandfather's sister. Aunt Bernice calling to talk to my mom about something that I'm sure even my mother would rather not talk about based on the stern condemning look she gives me when I tell Bernie that 'yes, mom is home'. But of course, it's never quite that simple for me to just hand the phone off to my mother, I have to put up with the third degree and the intrusive questions designed to pick apart my life in such a way to make me realize the 'error of my ways' and how I should be 'doing more good deeds in the eyes of God' or some such useless crap.

Oh, sure, it starts out nicely enough. "So, have you been helping out at the farm?" and of course I say yes, even though I do mostly my own thing there with my cars I work on, her reply, almost always, nearly verbatim, goes like this: "that's so wonderful, you know God loves hard work and when you help your family at the farm bla bla bla". Everything revolves around religion with her, absolutely everything. Notice carefully, that I said "RELIGION" and not spirituality, and if you do not follow what I mean when I say that, refer to my 1/23/03 Post "Spirituality v.s. Religious.

She claims christianity, but continually falls into her Catholic upbringing, like some sort of hellish trap that drags her down every time. Christianity believes in accepting Jesus into your heart, and that is the way into heaven according to them. Good deeds and all of that is just Roman Catholic rhetorich, is it a bad thing? Not usually, except when someone uses said language to condemn other persons.

Inevitably, if she is telling a story, it HAS to have some reference to how Jesus pointed her in the right direction, or how in the most ridiculous instances, He saved her life. One day she was going on and on about how she was driving down the icy road and suddenly she lost control, and she yelled out "JESUS JESUS JESUS" and her car magically started going straight, as though the 'hand of God' saved her life. I really had to bite my tongue to keep from going off on her about this statement. First off, she never drives more than about 30 miles an hour anyway, so even if she spun into the ditch, she would have had no chance of dying anyway, or even getting hurt. Secondly, by her reasoning, I suppose if I was driving down the road and I announced, "SATAN SATAN SATAN" my car would spin out of control while exploding into a massive fireball and off a cliff.

Her 'goodbye' on the phone is always "Jesus loves you and I love you." Someday perhaps I will beat her to the punch with a really deep voice "SATAN IS WATCHING YOU" and laugh hysterically before hanging up. I'm certain this will bring about 500 hail marys and who knows how much time in church praying for my soul.

I am a christian, in case any of you don't know me well. But condescending conversations such as those I have with my great aunt always bring out the worst thoughts in me, is it because the devil has control of my soul? Nah, it just means that I have very little room for people who are judgemental using religion as a basis for thier scales of right and wrong.

UPDATE ABOUT TERRORISM

Shoe Bomber Sentenced, Judge Makes Strong Points

This is a must read, first seeing what Richard Reid says is truly chilling and astounding as to how ignorant terrorists truly are. He states that the United States has killed "2 million children in Iraq", he says this repeatedly, yet, when did this happen? Where is this evidence of mass youth genocide committed by America?

Secondly, the judge refuting everything the man says and explaining full and well to Reid what the sentencing was about, and what Reid truly is... you have to read it, it's amazing.

Birds Of Prey!!!

I have always been partial to birds of prey, a great deal of admiration when I see them flying above or setting on a lonely telephone pole overlooking thier area. There is something majestic and free about them, they are basically atop thier food chain, other than man that is, but man does not eat birds of prey. Sadly enough, for a long time 'chicken hawks' (what farmers even to this day call falcons of any type) were shot on site because they would prey on chickens and other fowl that farmers would be raising.

When I was about 12 years old, my sister found a baby sparrow hawk on our driveway in the early spring, hardly any feathers, it was difficult to tell that it was a falcon of any type, except when you looked at it's eyes and beak, it had those incredible piercing eyes and the tell tale curved down pointy beak that birds of prey have. I raised the bird for the next 6 months or so in our little wooden shed beside our house, on raw hamburger. I put a small two way mirror over a hole in the wall so I could watch him/her, because if you would go inside it would sit there and just stare at you. One day though I went in and found the hawk taking a bath in it's water dish, it was so cute, but it immediately jumped up and shook the water off and took it's normal defensive pose staring at me.

After a point I realized the falcon was large enough to be on it's own and that I was going to be unable to raise him/her much further, so I opened the door one day and watched the bird fly out, and up up up. I left the door open and figured that he would come back but he never did... that surprised me. I thought about him probably every day for a couple weeks and then every time I would see a small falcon around I would wonder if it was him, for a couple years after that. I really enjoyed raising him up, I just hope he learned a way to feed himself, I couldn't simulate that at all.

We have bald eagles in Nebraska, along certain rivers, and it's an awesome site to see them flying around, they are truly a majestic bird, when you see one at rest, overlooking it's domain, without fear of anything, it's breathtaking. Other birds give me a little of that same feeling, but not on such a grand scale. I guess I could really sit and watch birds of prey for hours and hours, just going about, doing what they do to survive, there is this trance like state I go into while watching something like that, it's very hard to take myself away at that point.

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Mary Kate And Ashley Jock Strap

Just a short post about something odd. I was walking into Walmart one day and I saw a sign up above the optometry shop, that said "Mary Kate and Ashley Designer Frames" and it had a big smiling picture of the twins cheek to cheek (face cheeks, you crazy perverts).

Now, normally this wouldn't probably get much attention at all, but for one thing... they don't wear glasses!!! How ignorant is that? I understand that Walmart is probably paying each of the girls 5 million or so to use thier likeness on shirts, pants, lunch boxes, and what not, but for crying out loud, where does it end? Will there be Mary Kate and Ashley crossbows at Walmart? Mary Kate and Ashley snow tires? And before you count this all out, let me tell you one thing. About a month later a friend of mine told me that she had seen Mary Kate and Ashley boxer shorts. Hmm, I guess penises pop up in all sorts of wierd places nowadays.

No Comprende?

English needs to be the national language of the United States.

I read recently that certain counties in Florida have voted to make thier 'official language' spanish, a concept that just makes my stomach turn. Now, I'm not racist against hispanics or thier culture and I'm not trying to oppress them by any means, but I feel if you are in this country than by God you better damn well learn to speak English, or you can leave. I don't mind if you speak whatever language you want at home, or teach your kids any language at all you want them to learn, but they need to learn English for a good reason.

This particular topic became apparent to me about 10 years ago or so. I was a young army private, on a bus in Colorado Springs, we were on our way to Ft. Carson, Colorado, and the bus was running on fumes, just about out of gas. So luckily we found a Texaco station, at that time one of a few that we knew accepted government credit cards for refueling. But when we went inside to get that all worked out, the guy at the counter couldn't understand english worth a shit and we spent close to 10 minutes trying to explain where you put the mileage and where you sign the receipt and such before we gave up and took off. We were very lucky to have found another gas station before we ran out of gas, but this incident perfectly illustrates the problems that arise when you don't come up with an official national language, mainly that communication becomes a tricky situation in some instances.

Let's say I was to ask you this question: What is required for anyone to get along with someone else, what is the number one most important necessity to reaching mutual understandings with someone you don't know? Communication, that's what. Certainly I'm a typical American, I never learned another language, it wasn't that I am egotistical or that I hate other cultures, it was just one of those things, for me, in which I always figured I'd have time to learn one later on. Actually I wanted to learn German, I know a little, das blogger ist gut??? Ja? Heh. But I never got around to learning one, something I'm sure I'll regret. As far as why it should be English as our national language, majority rules, when 95% or better of the United States speaks it, that should be enough to see why.

One of the biggest reasons for major areas in our biggest cities that gain the name "China Town" or "Little Havana" etc, is because a lot of the people there have no ability to survive outside of that niche, mainly because they cannot communicate the language. With that you get mistreatment of those people on a grand scale. Who can they complain to if a landlord is ripping them off, or not repairing the property at all? How are they to know what is legal or illegal when they cannot read or understand what they hear on television or the radio? Just for the sake of fairness and equality, requiring citizens to speak English is the best thing to do. And where would you draw the line if individual counties in states were allowed to pick thier own 'official language'? Would we have Dutch speaking areas, German speaking areas, Japanese speaking areas? All official, and all building unseen walls between each other based on the complete inability to communicate with one another, a disaster in the making.

But if everyone speaks English, then you wouldn't have a lot of those problems, and next time, our bus would be able to refuel with relative ease. OH THE JOY!!!

Misled Rodents Is All They Are

Throughout history man has used God as an excuse to exercise oppression on others, justifying the pillaging, raping, burning, and murder of fellow man on the basis of 'fighting wickedness, pushing the will of God!!!'. Whether it be the Christian Crusades of the middle ages or present day Islamic fundamentalists, whenever man turns to God as an excuse to wage war on others, man has lost sight of what is right and just and has fallen deep into a self made illusion to hide his blatant disregard for morality. The saddest part is that those who actually take sword in hand, who commit suicide to kill others, actually believe they are getting to heaven, when all they are really doing is signing a one way ticket to hell.

It would be nice to think that humanity has learned from it's mistakes, that in present day times we realize that God does not condone the act of war against innocence, but in view of the actions of present day Islamic fundamentalists, sadly, that is not the case. What's worse is that people like Osama Bin Laden know very well that they are not doing the will of God. Bin Laden's actual agenda and situation is fairly easy to see.

In the 1980's, the United States trained rebels like Bin Laden and gave them weapons to fight against the invading Soviet Union army. For nearly 10 years they battled, Bin Laden at the time was young, but he had enthusiasm, talent, leadership skills, and money. He became a valuable leader for the rebel forces of Afghanistan, and helped to push the Soviets out of the country. But then he turned his back on his own country, supporting the overthrow of the Afghan government by a group of young radically backwards Islamics called the Taliban. The main core of the Taliban was not even from the country, they were Pakistani refugees, not even wanted in thier own country due to thier outlandish religious and political views.

All Bin Laden knows is fighting and war, he's been at it for more than 20 years. It's not about religion or spirituality or protecting Islam, it's about power and greed. All he knows is fighting, he had the Soviets as enemies, then he had the Afghani warlords as enemies, and when that was all gone, he still HAD to wage war, and what better enemy than the "Great Satan", the United States. It was easy for him to promote this new enemy, given the backwards nature of the Afghan government and the rise in hatred for Israel that coerlates with the more radical and strict the Islamic belief is. So under this fallacy of religion, he was able to brainwash a small army of followers into believing that they were doing the will of God, that it was time for a "Holy War" against the United States.

The learned believers of the Muslim faith know that there is no "Holy War", they know that not by any stretch of the very definition could it be made to justify what happened on 9-11 nor could it be used to excuse those who suicide bomb civilians. In the Quoran it plainly states that armed conflict defending Allah that results in the death of innocents such as women and children shall result in the offender(s) "dying the same death as those they killed a thousand times over in hell." Hmm, someone forgot to tell an awful lot of fundamentalist Islamics this. That is what makes it so sad, they die actually believing they are doing the will of God, when in fact they are doing nothing more than mass murder on the most heinous scale, furthering along the agenda of madmen who have no use for faith or Allah, only for themselves, and the name recognition that goes along with it.

And this is the huge problem, that many people who follow the Islamic faith don't know nearly enough about the faith they follow, so they fall under the spell of a murdering child rapist like Bin Laden. (oh, I forgot to mention that Bin Laden has 6 wives, one is 12 years old, that's child rape folks.) These misled people believe that they must do whatever it takes to 'save Islam from oppression' when in fact they are actually doing the exact opposite, they are furthering along the will of a political and greed driven agenda, to take out every other religion or belief that isn't Islamic, to make Islam the one and only belief on the face of the planet and force everyone to believe in it, and kill off anyone who dare disagrees with them. Why is it that you don't see Osama himself strapped with explosives, if he really believes this so much? That's an easy one, because he knows damn well that his actions aren't based on anything religious, that's why, so killing himself wouldn't be in the name of Allah at all, it would be in the name of greed, and why commit suicide when others will do it for you?

Then you have the media telling which group claims responsibility for bombings and shootings, etc, and always using the Islamic or Muslim reference in doing so. It's time we stop doing that, it's time that they start calling them what they really are. When a suicide bomber blows himself up, tell it like it is. "Today a lunatic strapped explosives to himself and killed himself and murdered three others when he insanely blew himself up near a crowded market." These groups want that 'name recognition', they want to hear that it was the 'islamic jihad' so that others will be stupid enough to start following them. Tell it like that, because that is what it is, it's not based in religion at all, it's based on trying to oppress others, to use fear and hate to force others to succumb to your beliefs, to fall in line with your so called "Holy War".

The sad fact is that there is no holy war at all, just little men like Bin Laden, a man without a country, an unstable lunatic who feeds on the chaos that ensues from misleading others, a child molesting murderer doing anything BUT the will of Allah.

The 3500 Pound Jigsaw Puzzle

A lot of people really enjoy working on jigsaw puzzles, sitting at the table and moving the little tiny cardboard pieces around and making the border and then working thru the middle and finally it's done and 'wow' and then they get to put it back into the box, probably to never be done again.

Then you have Legos, where people usually start out by building the item you see on the front of the box, then inevitably pieces get lost, so people just start building whatever they can with what is left over, sort of a children's Frankensteinian fantasy. Construx and Erector sets are the same way. Interestingly enough, men seem to have more of a fascination with these sorts of toys when they are little than women do.

I guess that is why later on, men enjoy working on cars so much. A car is a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. You take a ton of pieces apart, there is something wrong, you have to find out what it is, oh god, can you do it? You hope so!!! Then when you have found the problem, you fix it, or so you hope, perhaps the problem is not fixed, then the puzzle is harder, you have to replace something else, oh the frustration!!! Oh the joy when you find the actual broken part and repair it. Oh my can you remember how to put your puzzle back together again???

I have a minivan sitting in our shed right now and I'm done with it, for the most part. When we bought it a week before last Saturday, the head was removed from the engine and the block was destroyed by a disintegrated piston. So I removed the block also and dropped another engine in. Now I have it running, and the heater doesn't work!!! OH GOODNESS!!! More puzzle for me!!! (interestingly enough, my reaction to things such as this usually involve a lot more swearing and loud yelling).

So tomorrow, I continue working on my puzzle. People can have thier legos, thier jigsaw puzzles, and what not, I have something much better, when I get done I don't just put it all back in a box, I drive it around and run over elderly women with it!!! (okay, perhaps not, well, maybe the occasional squirrel.)

Hello, Can I Interest You In Some Siding?

Telemarketers have to be some of the most annoying bastards on the face of the planet. Calling at all hours of the day to offer you crap you don't want and only taking no for an answer if you say NO like 5 times (they would call at night too but for the federal communications act that does not allow calls after 9 p.m. local time).

Now, I don't have too bad a problem with the people who call and ask for "Mr. (last name withheld for security purposes)" and mispronounce my last name atrociously *almost no one gets it right the first time*. That way I know immediately to tell them that no, he is not around. What gets me is when they ask for me by my first name, and I think it's actually someone I might give two shits about, and say, 'yah, it's me' and end up dealing with a stupid sales pitch that would get more of my foot in thier ass than thier hands in my wallet.

Now if you think the 'cold sales' type of calls are bad (calls where they are trying to sell you something), the collection type of calls are 10 times worse. To them, there is no such word as 'ethical' and anything they can do, legal or illegal, to try and get to the person they are owed money by, is deemed appropriate and justified, to them of course. If you tell them that the person they are looking for isn't around, they ask when they can talk to them, if you say you don't know, they call back like every 15 freaking minutes looking, until you either blow up at them, which you find doesn't stop them from calling, or you unplug your phone.

Now, i have found a few sure fired ways to end calls like this...

1) Ask them for thier home phone number so you can call them back later on at your 'own convenience'. This will illicite strange replies, especially from the cold callers, usually starting with confused silence... then, when they tell you that it wouldn't be appropriate for you to call them at home, tell them 'NOW YOU KNOW HOW I FEEL' and hang up abruptly. I actually got this one from Seinfeld, but it's quite useful really.

2) Answer the phone, and when they ask for the person, tell them just a moment, set the phone down, and walk away. By rule, in most telemarketing places, they are unable to hang up on someone until a prescribed amount of time has gone by, and in most cases, the person working has never had this happen before so they aren't sure about when they can hang up. It's really quite funny, I've gone back 20 minutes later to find the person still waiting on the line, and I'll say "hi, you still there?" to which they will reply with some sort of common courtesy thinly veiling thier annoyance, then tell them to wait again and repeat. I've never had anyone actually wait another 20 minutes though. If that happens I'm probably going to laugh hysterically at them. It's hard enough not to laugh the first time.

3) Strike up a conversation with the person that has nothing to do whatsoever with thier call. They want to sell you accidental life insurance. Ask them where they last went on vacation, take the phone call into really strange and suspect topic areas. "Have you ever dreamed of living under the ocean?" and so on. If this doesn't seem to work, start getting into risky topics. "I sometimes have sex for money" seems to get people off the phone pretty quick. If it doesn't, then you should probably hang up immediately and NOT answer if they call back.

4) Be totally thrilled about what they are selling, get them totally excited, you are going to buy everything and then some!!! But wait, now start asking really idiotic questions about features that the product in question would never have. I had a guy trying to sell me electric drills one time. I got really excited, he told me all the features and what not, then I started asking about features I wanted. I felt that the drills should have a digital clock and timer, so I could tell what time it is and how quick my holes are being drilled. He would tell me how "that would be an excellent feature, but I'd like to point out that our drills are the most powerful on the market". So I asked if they were available in 'hot pink' color. Of course they were not. After asking about half a dozen or so features that are completely insane and of course not available, I finally tell them I'm not interested and hang up, satisfied in my ability to have broken them down.

5) When you realize it's a telemarketer that has called you, respond with "Oh, I'm sorry, Mr so and so is not in the office today". They should respond with "oh, is this a place of business?" and you answer yes, because telemarketers (well, those who are at least trying to resemble with some itsy bitsy bit of ethics) will respond with "I'm sorry, we didn't realize this was a place of business, we won't be calling back".

6) The ultimate response, to be saved for real emergency situations, is to tell them that 'oh, i'm sorry, mr so and so died', to which you will get a stuttering apology and that they will remove you from all lists they have. Now, a little problem with this one I found out about, if your credit card, telephone carrier, etc, think that you are dead, it is likely you are going to have service/cards/connections cancelled in short order, so you must be most careful with this one.

Hopefully though, with the right combination of the above strategies, you will be able to conquer at least to some extent the vermin that rings thru your phone attempting to get you into the book of the month club. Best of luck!!!

80% Chance Of Your Ass Freezing And Falling Off

7 and 2, small numbers to be sure. High temp today and low temp today. Add windchill, stir vigorously, and watch your ass fall off, that's winter here in Nebraska. There really hasn't been a lot of difference between Nebraska and the North Pole the last week except that we have barbed wire fences. I have been working a lot in this weather, we have a propane fueled blower type heater, uses electricity to turn the blower and propane to heat, but it's tempermental, and won't run all the time, that's fun... turn the heat on and start working on something then 2 minutes later the heat goes out and you have a fan blowing cold air on you haha, FANtastic!!

With the blower working though it's an uneven temperature and it's almost worse sometimes. What I have discovered though is that if I leave the fan off and just start working away in our shed, that I become acclimated to the temperature and I don't really even notice it, that is, until later that night when I come into the house and get into the shower and my feet feel like they are being stung by 40,000 fire ants. I would rather be too hot than too cold, I've never cared for being cold but I have always been able to handle the heat better than 90 percent of people. This cold has been a real drain the past week especially.

There is an old saying however, that states simply, if you don't like the weather here, wait 15 minutes for it to change, and that is very true. About two weeks ago we had a 40 degree shift in temperature over the course of about 4 hours, went from 65 to 25 degrees. But right now I'd take 25. Hell, it was 30 yesterday and that felt downright balmy compared to this 'wait for your words to unfreeze in the spring' weather that we are having now. I went out back today and peed behind the shed, and I had to keep breaking the stream away as it froze to the end of my handy hiking tool!! (Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, it froze into an upside down icicle.)

There is about a 2 to 3 week stretch each winter where we have weather that is this cold. Then usually during the summer we have a two to three week stretch where it is above 90 degrees, too. And this isn't dry heat mind you, this is stifling 90 percent humidity, clothes melting on your back, sweat rolling down your ass crack heat. But even with that intensity of heat, I'll take that before I'll take 40 degree weather, I am just more into summer temperatures.

To break all this down, the coldest day in winter is usually about 15 below, real air temperature, where as the hottest day in summer is 105 or so. This translates to a difference of 120 degrees (wow, I'm a math wiz, I know, please, no accolades to my geniusness). There aren't a whole lot of places on earth that have this sort of ability, to be the North Pole at one time of year and Death Valley at another time, but interestingly enough I do love it here. I guess when it gets to this time of year, when the days end so early and the landscape is a bleak snow covered black and white sort of picture, I look forward to getting back to the hot days of summer, bike rides, long walks in the early hours of evening, swimming, girls in cute clothes (hey, I'm a guy who will admit certain truths you know hee hee!!).

Will I always be in Nebraska? I gave this a lot of thought the other night, just about staying here, and I realized that by staying it would mean I would never truly experience life anywhere else. Sure, I live life in other places 2 weeks at a time with the Army National Guard, but it's truly not the same. I haven't had to find all new places to eat, to take my clothes for tailoring, to go to movies, to get groceries, etc, etc. I really don't want to be 80 years old and suddenly realize, "GAL DARN MARGE, WE AIN'T NEVER MOVED NOWHERES OUR WHOLE LIVES!!" I don't know where I will go, don't know when, but I am going to be thinking about it. Perhaps I'll put up an entire map of the United States, get drunk, spin around 20 times and throw a dart into the map, and just go there.

But it sure as hell better not be Arkansas, I do not want to live in a place where I go to the dentist and I have twice as many teeth as he does.

Oh, wind is out of the south right now, and temperatures should be in the 40's for tomorrow and the next day. I better get out my swimsuit!!

My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student

My dad used to comment on how he should have had that as a bumper sticker on his car. Honestly though that would have been more in tune with my little brother than myself, although he never started fights, Paul would finish them with a vengeance, every so often taking on more than one and kicking a lot of ass in the process. I may have been able to do that too but I never really got the opportunity, I was more of a 'flee' type of person, that is probably how I became such a good runner in track and cross country.

But even so I got picked on a lot, especially before I got into high school. I can remember times when riding the school bus as a 4th grader, two 8th graders would sit behind me and punch me in the back of the head so hard that I would have welts on my head later on that night when I would run my fingers over where they had been hitting me. And they thought it was so funny to do. This sort of thing can really get to a person. There were times when I would get off the bus crying at night after the bus route. Complaining to the bus driver did nothing, either I would be told to sit down or it would be even worse because they would see me complain, but she never did anything to stop them. If anything, that was even more encouraging to them because they never felt the need to hide it any longer and it got even worse.

I would have to say that those two, along with probably half a dozen other kids I went to school with, would fall into a small category of "People I'd Like To Get In A Small Room With A Locked Door Today". Me as an 8th grader = 5'3, 110 lbs. Me now = 6' tall, 185 lbs. Don't think though that I sit here and constantly dream of beating the crap out of people like Shane White or fat Corey Parriot, I could care less about them really. But one time a friend of mine at a guard drill asked me a poignant question about whether or not I had anyone that I would flat out haymaker punch to the face if I saw them today, without a word being spoken, and to that I answered an honest yes, but with some thought after that, I think I would probably antagonize the person in question to try and hit me first, then put them down and wail on them.

If you sit there shocked that I would even think that way, consider being me my 8th grade year, being chased as I would try and get to the cafeteria to simply eat lunch, so they could beat on me, or having a milk shake dumped on my head while I sat in the cafeteria, or being depantsed in front of the entire 7th and 8th grade volleyball teams (although this was actually funny later on, because the guy that did that was actually a pretty decent guy later on). After awhile, the idea of beating the crap out of them becomes really secondary to some very dark and horrible dreams of what I'd really like to do to them.

This is why I see things like Columbine and I shake my head, and I cannot entirely fault the two boys who did the crimes. WHAT??? you may say, and be horribly shocked that I would even think this way, but honestly, if I would have had a gun in my hand at times during junior high, I would have shot the people that made my life a living hell for YEARS and not even blinked. I would not targeted innocent people based on groups though, as the Columbine duo did, but God help me, after torture and torment day after day after week after month, without any help from anyone to stop it from happening, something starts to snap in your mind. I wouldn't have ever gone home and taken a gun to school however, so don't think that I was actually ever planning something like that, I just merely want to state that I cannot sit back and blame events that occur entirely on kids like those two from Columbine, because I think your bullying jocks and preppies and others have to take a large chunk of responsibility for thier actions when it comes to teasing and beating on someone incessantly to the point where something snaps and they go crazy like that.

Then when these things do happen, you see the media all over it, with every channel talking about the kids doing the shooting, it's the biggest attention rush ever, this is the other reason kids do something like this, for the attention, that is why I don't think the media should cover it at all, they shouldn't ever use the kids name, and never ever do this day after day live continual coverage like Columbine, that is why we have copy cat style school shootings, kids who crave attention know they are going to get a nationwide hit of it if they start shooting at school.

Back to the bullying part, I guess you have to ask how you would stop something like that from happening? For my part, I just wish I would have had a teacher or someone who would have recommended that I kick one of them in the balls or just punch them as hard as I could, just once, because looking back, that would have been the best thing, in fact, that's what I recommended my brother do, and he did, and that got him a long ways. Don't sit there shocked at that attitude, if I could change one thing it would be to have fought back, at every opportunity, when someone was going overboard and beating on me, because all I ever got for advice from teachers and administrators was to ignore it, and pretend it doesn't happen. Hmm, that's pretty interesting, that's what they did, and it seemed to work out for them just fine, unfortunately, it never worked out so fine for me.

Did it affect me now, yes, in a good way actually, because I will never EVER let my kids treat anyone with the blatant disrespect that a lot of those jackasses treated me with, and I will also instill within them to not only fight back for themselves, but also to fight back if they see someone else being mistreated also. Pretending things arent' happening doesn't make them go away, no matter how many times some fat useless school administrator tells you that.

If The Aliens Say It, It Must Be True!!!

I guess today's post is going to tie in with my spirituality post from yesterday. The Baptist church I belonged to all thru junior high and high school would send young couples overseas or to central america to third world countries in order to 'spread the gospel' to those who had 'no opportunity to see the light'. Missionary work seems to be a big part of a lot of churches, trying hard to spread the word to as many people as possible about thier religion, hoping to convert them, to 'save' them.

There is a real serious problem with missionary work, however. Let's say you get up in the morning, walk out your front door, and suddenly there is a UFO landing in your yard, and these beings that look human get out, and they start talking to you, and you can see that they are obviously more advanced in culture and technology than you are, they have incredible gadgets and devices that you can only guess as to what they are for. After awhile these beings start talking to you about a religion, a religion that is the real way to get to heaven, and you think to yourself, "wow, you know, these people are dressed so futuristic, they have so much technology, they must know more than I do, I have to follow thier religion, it has to be the right way!"

This is basically the situation you have with missionary work. People go into these tribes or villages where the people have nothing, sometimes showing up by airplane, other times by boat, always dressed differently, with cell phones and lap tops and what not, and the people they are preaching to many times aren't converting based on the religion itself, more so they convert based on the look of those who are doing the converting, and this is why I can't support missionary work at all.

Now, if people wanted to show up wearing the same clothing as those in the tribe they are trying to preach to, with the same way of life and eating and what not, I might not have such a problem with this. Of course this brings to mind some very funny thoughts, of the bare breasted missionary woman and her spear chucking husband, but non the less, I think you see my point. I realize that a lot of time missionaries are also bringing valuable information about medicine, agriculture, etc, into these remote locations, but I still can't subscribe to the notion that it's a fair way of converting new believers. Heck, even the medicine and agriculture advances are a hinderance when it comes to impartial teachings of a religion because those advances show a superiority of those doing the teaching, and it's hard to separate that from the idea of the religion itself.

I wanted to get into a little side note here, because it's not actually missionary work, but those people who picket abortion clinics really irritate the hell out of me. You have young women making the hardest decision of thier lives, and these people are in thier face, calling them 'murderer' and 'you are going to hell for this you baby killing bastard', they are in the girl's face, spittle flying they are so ademant and insanely driven to try and stop what they see as the worst thing ever.

Yes, I'm against abortion, but like I said before, who without sin among you is there, to cast that stone? The worst I have heard about was a few weeks back where there was an antiabortion group taking pictures of young women entering an abortion clinic and they were posting the pictures on a website, a horrible breach of privacy, it's unconceivable that anyone could find anything righteous about doing something like that.

Then I watch the media paint these anti abortionists as 'typical conservative christians' and I want to toss a hammer into my television, they are anything BUT typical, they are extremists, and they are no better than left wing liberals like the National Organization for Women, they do things that are just as ridiculous, just a diffferent agenda. Most conservative christians have a great deal of moderation within themselves and aren't going to be on the roadside showing pictures of mutilated babies and what not, but those that do certainly make the rest of us look horrible.

Spirituality v.s. Religious

I'm a christian. I say this without fear of reprisal or being eaten by lions in some roman era death game, but I imagine still that it comes as a shock to some. I have some views that certainly would conflict with the widely recognized idea of what christians think, that is true. I am a non practicing Southern Baptist, but in reality I probably most closely fall into a more moderate Protestent church than the Southern Baptists. But deep inside I am a deeply spiritual person. I am NOT, however, religious, for in my mind there is a massive difference between being spiritual and being religious.

Religion twists spirituality around to seek out the most basic greedy principles, no different than the ethics of major companies you see nowadays, except that the church hides it behind supposedly spiritual ideals. The Roman Catholic religion is the worst at this. Now, before the outcry begins, before someone says "what right do you have to chastise a religion you know nothing about???" let me tell you, I was Catholic for the first 12 years of my life. I even attended a Catholic school from kindgarten to the 5th grade, a school with nuns!!! NUNS I SAY!!! (I was even spanked by the nuns for not getting my math homework done, slapped on another occasion for supposedly lying to my teacher when it was Roger Reichart who did what I got slapped for, someday I'll get him back for that) I went thru all the fun rituals that Catholic children go thru, 1st communion, all that, but I was never an alter boy, and given the current situation of the Catholic church, maybe that part isn't something so bad to miss out on, eh?

The Catholic church wants thier members to have large families. Why? Because more family members means more people in the church, this translates to more money, more money means more power, now that is hardly spiritual now is it? More like greedy and power hungry. I am flabbergasted when I see the pope come into this country and he is revered and people run up and kiss his feet and he sits up there on his throne like a representation of God himself, a description that some people have actually had the audacity to state, in the order of "a man closer to God than anyone". Bullshit, total and complete bullshit, no man is closer to God than any other man, it all depends on your personal relationship with Him, not how you can get closer to the Lord thru priests and other wacked out wierdos dressed in white. Sometimes I can't for the life of me see much difference between a group of catholic bishops and a bunch of KKK members. Well, as far as looks go. Yes, I know, they are very different in many ways and I shouldn't make that analogy, but by looks alone there is quite a similarity.

Another ridiculous idea the Catholic church started and continues to this day is 'confession'. Now tell me, why is it that you have to go before a priest to confess your sins, so that he can chastise you soundly and give you 50 hail marys? If you are really seeking forgiveness for wrongdoings, go and make whatever you did wrong RIGHT, and ask the Lord for forgiveness yourself, there is no reason to get someone else involved in your dirty laundry, other than the person(s) you hurt to begin with. What's worse is the idea that a person goes to a Catholic confessional and leaves feeling guilt free without having taken care of the problem, 'oh, I confessed my sins so I am all better.' Yah, nice try. Skip the priest and ask the person you wronged for forgiveness. Sure, it's a lot harder to do but you will have a REAL feeling of accomplishment and a truly free concience.

The hail mary is another strange concept. Let's take a look at what the first commandment states, the very first, numero uno commandmento: Thou shalt hold no false gods before God. There are other versions but basically what that is saying is that you shall not worship anyone other than the Lord himself, be that thru Him or in a christian's case, his son Jesus Christ. So what exactly are people doing when they are worshipping a human, a woman who was not free from sin (despite what some people think, she was human and made human mistakes just like we all do). I had one Catholic tell me that "praying to Mary is to ask for divine intervention'. Okay, lets break that down for a moment, divine intervention. Divine = Godly, Intervention = To come between, now, basically what that is saying is that you are asking for something to get between you and God, what sort of nonsense is this? I'm sure there are other arguments to why people pray to Mary, if you have better ones, go ahead and click on YOUR RESPONSES to the left of this post.

I am letting myself get away from the basic idea of this post. My beliefs are simple, I believe that Jesus is the way into heaven, that by allowing him into my heart I can achieve eternal life. This, however, is only part of the spirituality sense that I subscribe to, a big part to be sure, but only a part. I believe that you live your life in such a way that you do not do things that harm others. Yah, I swear, I touch myself innapropriately, I have bad thoughts from time to time when I see a hot brunette walking along in the mall while I'm shopping for who knows what, but I try and live in such a way that nothing bad that I do will have an affect on anyone else. Yes, from time to time things I have done have hurt others, and I have to try hard to make amends for those things that I do and that I will do, I am not perfect, but I do try to live my life in such a way as to not harm others.

Another part of the 'religious' aspect of things that I can't really get into is the whole idea that you get all dolled up and drive the fanciest clean car you can to church, and then everyone sits around and watches everyone else come into the parking lot, then come into church, whispering about what so and so is wearing, or why so and so didn't show up to church, and how terrible that is, oh goodness what a bad thing to miss a church service!!! Yah bite me, you should be able to come to church in work clothes wearing cowboy boots covered in dirt. It's not about what is on the outside, it's about what is on the inside, this is just another reason why I cannot STAND going to organized religious gatherings, this better than thou attitude that seems to just ooze from the masses inside of a lot of churches, inside of basically every church I've tried to be a part of. I feel bad from time to time for missing so much church, but to be quite honest I don't feel like I'm condemned to hell by any means, in fact, I feel quite the opposite.

If you sit and read what I've written here and you have a big problem with my idea of not going to church, or anything else I've said, then maybe you should be taking a closer look at yourself and quit judging me. I will be putting up a post about that at a later time actually, but always remember, he who is without sin may cast the first stone, and always remember that I'm liable to catch that rock and throw it right back at you...

Our Judicial System Blows

I saw today that a federal judge threw out the case against McDonalds for causing obesity in children. I took this directly from Yahoo news: "In the widely-publicised and debated case, four overweight teenage girls from New York's Bronx district last autumn accused the world's biggest hamburger chain of being responsible for their obesity and health problems."

Does anyone honestly go into McDonalds or Burger King and think they are getting a healthy meal? Hell no they don't, the very idea that a Big Mac, fries, and a coke would be healthy is ludicrous. Hey, if you really believe that, why not get EXTRA healthy and supersize the whole thing?? Another example of this: Tobacco... now, I do not like the tobacco companies at all, but come on, if you are sucking smoke into your body at the rate of 2 packs a day for 40 years, how can you even sit there with a straight face and try and say "Oh, but I didn't know it was unsafe for me!!" Okay, if that is the case, why didn't you just back your car up to your front door and run a hose from the tailpipe directly into your bedroom at night? It would have about the same result, only work a lot quicker.

Now, like myself, I know a lot of you have relatives who have smoked, and that it's so horribly addictive that they weren't able to quit. But remember who picked up that cigarette years and years ago and started puffing on it. So who convinces people that thier actions are the fault of others, who is it that lays blame on others for what a person should take responsibility for themselves, and not just laying the blame on others, but to be sure, others who have money, and lots of it. Lawyers, by the thousands. I wouldn't have a problem with this if the lawyers were making what they deserve to make, that is, 10 bucks an hour or less. But instead, they rake in millions of dollars off of huge companies in some of the most insane judgements you can imagine.

A few cases in point. A man cuts off his hand with a Craftsman lawnmower while using it to trim his hedges and wins a judgement against Sears because "there was no warning against it on the mower." Well, goodness, so why didn't you use your lawnmower to trim your nails too, and how about a nice polished haircut to boot? Another man was attempting to break into a school and fell thru the skylight and broke his back, and he won a judgement against the school. And I think we all know about the old lady who burned herself at McDonalds when she spilled hot coffee in her lap. Throw all common sense out the window when it comes to the judicial system, because if you try and make some sort of sense of it, you won't be able to. (such as, the case of Orinthal James Simpson the murdering ex-football player)

There is little that trial lawyers do that contributes to building up anything in today's society. Most all of thier actions are aimed at destroying and taking things apart. Now, there are many cases that called for legal action, but even in most of them the lawyers always made such a ridiculous amount of money from the judgements. And don't expect anything to change. The judicial system is set up so nicely for lawyers. Judges who sit in charge of the court are all ex-lawyers themselves, so why would you bite the hand that fed you for years? An incredibly scary thought about all of this is this fact: right now, and at any given point, there are more students in law school then there are lawyers in the world, doesn't that make your skin totally crawl???

So the fast food case was thrown out of court. I am certain though that this is not the end of this, the lawyers responsible for this insanity are most certainly working frantically to make sure that they can take this back to court again, one good judge won't stop them, and at some point they will find some idiot who lets the case go forward. The fast food industry makes BILLIONS of dollars, and lawyers are lining up by the thousands, salivating at the prospect of cashing in on a massive judgement against Pizza Hut or Taco Bell or Wendys, or even better, getting one of the companies to settle out of court to avoid a drawn out and expensive court case.

I pray no company ever settles, that they fight these bastards continuously. But even then you have to realize that truth is so rarely on your side. The rule to remember about todays judicial system is that truth doesn't matter, there is no longer any reason to take responsibility for your own actions, as long as you have some shady scum sucking pig of a lawyer who can convince a courtroom that you got went to Burger King every day and didn't realize it would make you fat, or that you didn't know a chainsaw wasn't to be used to circumsize yourself, you are set to make millions of dollars (after the scum pig lawyer takes his 40% share of course). So sit back, be stupid, do idiotic things, end up hurt but be sure that whatever hurts you was built or sold by a company with a lot of money. That way you and your liar, woops, did I say that? I meant LAWYER, can get rich in a hurry.

I better get this posted, I can already smell the sharks in suits circling me getting ready to sue me!!! HAHAHAH, I have no money you blood sucking bastards!!!

Conservative But Not Republican

As we get grow out of our teenage years into adulthood, it seems that all of us develop a sense of ethics and beliefs that guide us not only in day to day life but also in political motivations. What issues move our emotions, who and what do we vote for, so on and so forth. I grew up in a very conservative household, hence the beliefs I uphold mostly even to this day are in line with most conservative issues. Yes, this is probably surprising to some of you who would question my personality at times, but believe me, I'm a conservative at heart.

Now, during my late teenage years and even as I first went away to college I called myself not only a conservative, but also a republican, believing that the republican party represented my views 100 percent. Slowly but surely reality chipped away at this faux belief. I realized that there is a big difference between what I believe and what republican politicians believe. Oh, they may say one thing, but you damn well better believe they are up to something else behind the scenes. I guess a lot had to do with my introduction to people who had different upbringings, beliefs, sexual orientations, you name it, from my college years and even as I first began working.

Take for instance abortion, I'm staunchly anti-abortion, however, I realize that many children would probably be born into situations that are so atrocious, many of them addicted to God knows what, or raised in poverty with very little supervision, that perhaps it's a blessing they are not brought into the world. My parents, grandparents, and most likely 99 percent of everyone in even my extended family would blow a gasket with my view on this, but I have to be realistic about the world nowadays. Now, if it came to a vote, I'm likely to vote against abortion, that's my belief, that's my right. But I know that even if abortion is ever deemed illegal again, which I don't think it will be, there will be those who attempt to have an abortion by any means necessary, including the "back alley doctor" and his rusty coat hanger, a dangerous procedure to be sure.

(an interesting side note to all of this: nearly all people against abortion are for the death penalty, and conversely nearly all people who are for abortion are against the death penalty, if you really think about this it should illicit a chuckle, because of the sheer stupidity of both sides)

There aren't a whole lot of Republicans if any, in Washington D.C. who would profess to feel the same way I do about this. The retard republicans are all so busy bickering with the dipshit democrats that they don't have a lot of time to really let anyone know thier true beliefs anyway. Listening to a politician speak is like trying to have a conversation with your own butthole after eating taco bell. First off, nothing you hear sounds remotely understandable, and damn, even so it smells awfully funny. I guess I really gave up completely on them all when, after 9/11 of 2001, they didn't wait but about 20 days to start pointing fingers at one another, with the democrats blaming the white house and the FBI for what happened, and republicans saying it was Clinton's fault, yadda yadda yadda.

Just how the hell can you sit and place blame for what happened when the rules and laws that were set in place would allow it to have happened a hundred times over, and not just that, but it can happen in a variety of ways. Who's fault is it going to be if some lunatic dressed in a C-4 explosive vest runs onboard a loaded schoolbus in the midwest and blows away 40 kids? I can't wait to see both the demoshits and the repubicocksuckers chomping at the bit (microphone) for a pot shot at the other party to place blame for something that blame has no place for in such a setting. A complete lack of tact and respect is what they continously do, and it breeds itself continuously to be just that, with career politicians doing thier best impression of court jester with the hope of making someone else look bad, when all they do is give thier entire 'race' a bad name.

I think it's time for politicians to be something we might see at a zoo. It would be nice to go in there with a handful of pennies and nickels and watch these fat old grey haired men, most of whom were lawyers at one time (I'll tell you all how I feel about lawyers at a later date), all behind bars in ratty suits and ties fighting with each other over the loose change. That would be WONDERFUL to see. And maybe then in Washington we could have REAL people there, farmers, businessmen, soccer moms, etc, people who have built themselves up and won't put up with this nonsense any longer.

Wow, I got away from my topic I know, but I think you can see why I call myself conservative but have dropped the Republican tag. Don't think for even a split second that I would call myself a Democrat, I would sooner take a blowtorch to my own nutsack then EVER call myself either a Democrat OR a liberal. But to be quite honest, there isn't much of a difference ethically between the Donkey and the Elephant.