Speed limit signs are confusing to some and a form of entrapment for others.
I would like to see a change to these signs and here is why.
Traveling down most highways where small towns are concerned, we see things like 75mph and a few miles later 45mph than 35 mph and in some towns it even gets slower.
Here is what I would like to see. I would like to see incorporated in that signage “for the next 15 miles or 1000 yards” whichever the case may be.
There are simply too many small towns that depend upon traffic tickets for revenue which is bogus at best, and downright dishonest at worst.
While I am a firm proponent of money from tickets going to education or some other account, other than for law enforcement, or pet projects of some city; that is a different cause.
Alerting drivers that the speed will be XX for the next X miles is one way to assist drivers in maintaining the proper speed and not get cited for failure to control vehicle speed. At least they can set the cruise and have an idea that it is not going to 75 and then back to 35, 2 miles later!
Some towns post no warning of lower speed ahead and the police person is sitting right by the sign with the radar waitingfor you to cross some imaginary line. We need consistency with signage and we need to do away with the profit motive for towns with speed traps.
Since I live in Texas, I would first address this to Governor Abbott.
I will go to change.org and formerly draft something for them and I would appreciate each of you to go and sign the petition.
If this catches on in Texas, possibly we can make it catch on in other states.
Facebook, where the ideas coalesce, and intelligent folks discover just how stupid some are.
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”
“Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue.”
The great common denominator of the day is social media. It levels the field as it were and if you are of a mind to “let it all hang out” here is your soapbox!
Blogs are another good place to be shown as a fool, if you are indeed one.
Today one of my friends posted on Facebook this “Occupy Democrats” post regarding Denmark and how wonderful it is.
Without further investigation one would happily share this and ask, what the hell, why cant we do that?
Free University
Free Childcare
Free Healthcare
First off my friends, there are no free lunches. Just like lunches; there are no free Universities, or childcare, or healthcare. Someone pays for it! They have to! So who and how is the question.
Denmark enjoys a tax rate of 55.4% at the low end up to 65.9%..
Denmark also has a VAT or Value Added Tax of 25%
All of this free stuff is broken out into different sections of their overall tax structure, much like the USA except ours is like 39%
So for you who did not pay attention in school when we talked about such things as math, lets do a little exercise should we?
That highly skilled Burger flipper is getting $20 and hour. Immediately 55.4% goes to taxes so he or she is in effect making $8.92an hour.
The VAT is pretty flat at 25% on frivolity such as that burger (prepared food vs. grocery store food,) so that burger if this is correct is $5.60 plus $1.40 VAT making that burger $7.00. That is not the drink or fries, just the burger.
Folks, that $18.000.000.000in debt that This President has put us in with Obama care and all of his entitlements will force the next president to institute a VAT or some other form of taxation to pay for this. If not that than most likely there will be a worldwide economic collapse as the countries monetizing their debt (printing money buying our own debt with faux money) with their house of cards, will come crashing down.
Liberal thinking must be a mental disease. Only an insane person would walk a country down the road to its destruction, like we have done during the last 6 plus years!
The Danes have the free universities to encourage people to take advantage of it for higher paying jobs and to be globally competitive. Obama wants the tax payers to foot the bill for higher education for certain people to be more competitive but, his agenda is social justice, not world competitiveness.
The Danes can hire and fire at will as they are not constrained by the laws that we have in this country so I look for business owners here to be under attack as well.
The work week in Denmark is about 35 hours a week for the women and 41 hours a week for the men.
Denmark tries to keep their commuting time down to a minimum which is in stark contrast to the US where we have “downtown” as the place to work, forcing people to sit in long lines of traffic burning fossil fuels, and wasting hours and hours a week sitting, breathing carbon monoxide, and other noxious fumes.
The Danes on average live longer than Americans and I would have to think that their commute plays a role in the equation.
If the US had the brains of the Danes, they would think outside the box and Decentralize business’s as to cut down on congestion on the freeways.
A couple of other differences between them and the US is the amount of people and types of government.
I noticed that I have some readers in Denmark, if I have something wrong, or you would like to contribute please do.
My facts come from hours of research and I am certain that I don’t fully appreciate the eccentricities of your government and its taxation schedules and lets face it, the facts that I have found could be in error.
Either way; it appears to those of us that know how to use a calculator that when it all boils down to the nuts and bolts, our burger flippers are making about the same as your burger flippers, ours are simply having to pay extra for the things that your high taxes are paying for currently.
My heart goes out to the people in Charleston. The senseless violence in this country seems to be more and more frequent. While the left will tell you it is the lack of gun control, and use this and every occurrence of gun violence they can to push an agenda; they are dead wrong.
Going after the law abiding citizens’ guns is like going after silverware because there are so many fat people around. Yes, it really is that ludicrous!
While the country is grieving for these folks; we have idiotic politicians out there using this as a bully pulpit to push a very liberal agenda which also happens to be a dangerous one.
In my business it is necessary to do something called a “root cause analysis.” Simply stated, what happened, how did it happen, and how can we prevent it from happening again.
It is more than putting magnetometers at the entrances of all public buildings with security guards.
Do we attend church via skype, and turn Xenophobic?
Do we use this as an excuse to not attend church?
Do we listen to it on the TV or Radio and think that is good enough?
Maybe we use this as an excuse to qualify the absolute lack of a god as a good “god” would not allow this to happen.
The problem is much deeper than this and I am glad that this kid is still alive so we can learn from him, what set him off.
Instinct tells me that when investigated, you will find that he spent untold hours playing violent video games with other on-line people, and simply took it to the next level. These games are so realistic that I fear that after enough of it, the lines between reality and fiction become so blurred that killing for real is simply a “level up” for him.
Since he gave up so easily, my guess is that he is a coward, and picked a soft-target like a church where the odds of him getting hurt were minimal. Being a black church, there may have been an element of racism involved, which made the target more palatable. His racism again would be interesting to study as how and why? Was he picked on or bullied by blacks as a school child?
With the uproar in Baltimore and Ferguson, who knows if that pushed him in that direction?
We cannot afford to ignore these “simulators for killing” any longer. Mental health needs to be a priority for this, and all future administrations as technology pervades our lives and these “kids” who have so much time on their hands and play these games for hours and hours on end.
Cars kill, knives kill, baseball bats kill, just about anything can be used as a weapon!
The common denominator is people. People kill, and the motives need to be looked at. Go, look for yourself at some of these games and the realities of them. Go to your local game store and look at demos of them, watch these kids as they play these games.
They are dropped into a war-time situation where killing with realistic effects are over the top. I would not be surprised to find that this creep that killed those folks suffers from some sort of PTSD from video games!
That question sounds so innocuous, and so simple that some may feel that this is a waste of time to read, much less to write about it.
With recent events around the globe, and here in the US, I am beginning to think that many simply have no clue.
Admittedly, it was a different age when I became an adult. Drinking age was 18 and so was the age for the draft. It seems incongruent with today’s understanding of things that drinking age is 21, and while there is no draft; you can still enlist and still die for your country at 18.
Draft Card
The economy has been an excuse far too long regarding jobs. I think that people have found other ways to survive whether that be living in the bedroom that you grew up in or, making money off of the radar, so you can get government funding to make up the difference.
Drug Deal
The truth is that one set of circumstances will begat the second which in some cases could lead to activities which are less than conventional.
While the Socialist among you believe that this is ok, trust me; you are stealing from those of us who don’t and, you are taking away opportunity and resources from those who truly need it. If that seems harsh, sorry but, you really need to hear the truth. If you think that you somehow are “entitled” to it you are most probably wrong.
Think of it this way: You pull up into a parking lot and the only close up spots are handicapped; you park there anyway as you are every bit as good as someone with one of those plastic mirror hangers that they keep in the glove box for when they too don’t want to park at a distance. I see you do it, others see you do it; have we become so callused, so bereft of what it means to be a loving caring human being that we rationalize that this behavior is somehow ok? Someone that truly can’t walk is going to need that parking place, just like the young single mother is going to need that “assistance” with her bills, and you will have taken it from them because, you somehow feel entitled.
portable handicapped permit
Obama Care has “stuffed up the process” here in the states as many, (too many) companies have gone to part-time and contract employees to avoid paying for health care, thus putting the problem square on the back of tax payers.
Corporate lawyers have figured out all of the ins and outs of the 2000 plus pages of the bill that congress could not be bothered to read before they passed it so, who gets screwed?
Over 50 million folks are on food stamps or some form of government assistance. That number is staggering and bespeaks of a problem that politicians have dealt with by throwing money at it. It is foolishness of epic proportions and because of politics, it has become a pawn or “football” if you will, that is used as a “distraction,” among other things.
This “football” was used during the last presidential campaign. You remember, Romney and Ryan were throwing grandma off of the cliff. Total Bullshit but many bought it because many have stopped thinking. Truth be told, to quote Jack Nicholson, “you can’t handle the truth!”
Smear Add of Romney Throwing Grandma off the cliff
If you watch John Stewart and think that is news, you can’t handle the truth.
If you watch MSNBC and think that blather is the news, you can’t handle the truth.
If you hear only what you want to hear, you can’t handle the truth.
If this describes you, don’t vote. Most probably you are too damned lazy to vote anyway so do the rest of the civilized world a favor and stay home, smoke some more pot and enjoy the mellow tunes from the music coming from the radio upstairs, from your mom’s radio.
This is a pretty pathetic depiction of youth in not just this country, but many others. While “we” learned to seize the day, you learned, let someone else do it. Where did that come from? This victim mentality that exist with you; where did that come from?
I heard of a “professor” who teaches in some college up north telling her students that young white men were the problem with the world? That is the most racist thing that I have heard and this is coming from some “young black women.” Take your white privilege bullshit and smoke it too! If you and the likes of you are preaching this victim mentality; you are injuring your students. In effect you are excusing their poor behavior and or giving them “rational” for future bad behavior. Instead of following in the footsteps of MLK you are following in the footsteps of Satan!
Kathy Bates
Sixty years ago before MLK you might have had some sort of argument, but not today! That excuse is gone and those that hold on to it are simply ignorant; or wish to be so. It was more than just black people and white women that elected Americas first Black President, White guys did as well!
The sky is the limit; not just for white folks but for anyone in this country that has a dream. If you can’t teach that, you should not be teaching.
Some of us with younger people still at home ignore the problem and just think that it will fix-it-self.
As I watched “Failure to Launch” a few years ago, parts of the theme resonated with me as I had kids working for me that lived at home and were clearly making enough money to have their own place. Why?
That movie was over simplistic in that money was not an issue, he was simply too comfortable.
I wonder how many kids that still live at home are simply “too-comfortable.”
Truth be told many have this mentality where they want it now. Instead of getting out of moms house and renting an apartment or buying a starter home they buy a new car, not just new car but a fancy ass new car, and a motorcycle, and of course all of the latest electronic gadgetry of the day. They do this while living in the basement, eating moms cooking and having her do their laundry.
Mom fucked up! She may as well pull a Kathy Bates and take a Louisville Slugger to their knees, it is equally destructive to them as human beings.
Socialism does not work, it may appear to work for a while but at some point in time the money machine will have to stop printing money. When the value of the dollar falls low enough that all of the countries which are currently devaluing their dollar as well will cause an economic destruction in other parts of the world like we saw in Greece last year, the World Bank and others who are playing Monopoly or Alchemy 101 with the world’s finances will find that unlike the big-bang, “You can’t get something from nothing!”
There is this thing called “Macro Economics” but I guess they don’t teach that anymore either.
My guess is that the uber rich are buying something that is “not tied to paper money” of any country. When the feces hits the rotating oscillator and a new world currency is created replacing the dollar the euro etc, they will have enough of whatever it is, to be rich again with the new currency and thus in control. If I had to guess I would say something to do with energy, uranium or even coal perhaps.
The governments, for whatever nefarious reasons that they have contrived are compelled to ruin the world’s economy by printing money, monetizing the debt and it cannot last forever. Maybe this is part of a grand scheme to have a one world government controlled by the uber-rich Gorge Soros’s of the world.
Maybe it is simply short-sighted megalomaniacs playing god while they can, and “fuck the insects” (you and I)!”
I think it is more than likely the latter, if you keep up with the dynasties that we have created over the years and how they came into power you can see that they don’t give up power too easily. The truth is no longer a concept that they subscribe to. Much like Martha Stewart actually spending time in a federal prison for insider trading, the politicians of today need that reality check. Had she been a politician, nothing would have ever been said of it. When a recent Dallas city councilman was caught taking kickbacks his honest to god response was “everybody does it!” That was his total defense and I will be damned if they did not find some judge in another state to let him off. How did they get the venue moved out of state to begin with? What judge could say what he did was ok? Karma is a bitch however; he died.
May all who practice such folly meet their maker in such a fashion!
So what is the lesson, if you want to be a crook, become a politician; and you start that process by becoming a lawyer.
This is what BS looks like in a suit
So, adults, what is it to be an adult?
With power comes responsibility!
As you learn to drive you are “responsible” for what you do with that car. We have laws that you must adhere to if you want to stay out of the “steel bar hotel.” Simply stated, there is accountability for your actions.
As you age and you feel the need (desire) to have sex, much like the car, there are responsibilities that go along with that behavior /action as well. By diminishing “God” we have cheapened life to the point where millions of babies are aborted yearly. So we are dealing with that responsibility “accountability” by murder, legal murder of a baby where it should in fact be the safest, in its mother’s womb.
Obama himself when promoting the “war on women” stated that he “did not want his daughters to be punished by having kids for having sex!” slightly paraphrased but that is what he meant! Have you ever heard a sitting president make such an outrageous statement with absolutely no backlash from the complicit media!?
His answer and the answer of so many today is, “remove accountability!” Baltimore has the same dumbass lame bunch of absolute bullshit reasoning and that is why Baltimore is in the shape that it is. Oh wait, I forgot to tell you that there was some truth coming…. Stop voting for stupid people!
Sure, those six officers are going to get a fair trial right before the hanging!
We deal with adult situations in other ways as well with the casual cheap hotel visit as most “parents” are not too keen on having more people living with them that they can no longer deduct from their taxes, but still have to feed, house, buy clothes for, put gas in their car that they end up paying for, and of course provide high speed internet and endless cable channels because “kids” today merit it!
Hot Pillow motel rented by the hour…
We kid ourselves that they will figure it out, as they are still in bed past the lunch hour because they stayed up all night playing online games with their peers.
More truth be forewarned: When you are old enough to think with your genitalia and act upon it, you are responsible for any and all outcomes and….You should be doing it under a roof that you pay for!
Again we have no accountability for the sperm donors out there, and parents of same; “you fucked up, fix it!”
While the government is seriously doing damage to these folks who feel entitled to handouts and getting them in exchange for their vote, parents are spending their retirements on keeping their kids in the bedroom that they grew up in, or they subsidize them in some way that they should not be doing.
Is there some magic age that you become and adult?
No, it is not a physical age but a level of maturity and character that you develop, if your parents did a good job. Sometimes in spite of the parents people turn out all right and I attribute that to books. Some would say the “grace of god” and that may be true but; just maybe reading is the key to much of what is wrong with the world today.
I would argue that there are some 16 year olds that have more maturity and character than some 30 somethings out there still living at home and playing the role of victim.
Character is doing the right thing when no one is around to see you do it.
Years from now we can look back at how internet pornography effected Gen X.
My gut feeling is that many young men will retard their natural instincts to procreate by taking the safe way out of “dating” by substituting it with self-gratification with internet porn and or Cyber-Sex instead of dealing with the real world of relationships. With this retardation of natural sexual proclivities, I think we will see more young men living in their mother’s basement, living in virtual worlds of video games and other unnatural social settings through the internet. Their social skills will undoubtedly suffer and their marketability will also suffer relegating them to either be a cyber-criminal, programmer or ditch digger. When you exchange your social skills for the virtual world of the matrix, you are screwing yourself!
While this might cut down on the abortion rate, I think it will also affect the age at which kids become adults. I perceive that there will be more mental issues to deal with, because of this unnatural upbringing. We are meant to be social creatures. One way people are tortured is by placing them in solitary confinement. Many people rather be in their own little world today and that really says something about how far we have strayed from who and what we are.
Our social mores of today may change, much like “OMG and pokes” have been substituted for the casual visit, phone call and sincere salutation accompanied by a hand shake, warm embrace and a“how have you been.”
Speaking of abortion…
I have always had a hard-line against it… I do not think murder is a right that anyone should possess. You can dehumanize the baby by calling it other names and rationalize all you want but at the end of the day, it is murder…. And worse than that, it is premeditated.
So, is there ever a time when it should be allowed?
Sadly, I would have to say yes….
If the mother becomes pregnant unwillingly, “rape” than she should not have to bring a child into the world under those circumstances. Make no mistake, the pregnancy should be termed ASAP, not after the child is a living entity. A baby has its own unique blood type and heart beat after 15 days, so before that!
If the mother’s health is compromised to the point of possible death, than that should be “her choice.”
If the parents, either have done drugs or are doing drugs than by all means, terminate the life before it becomes a viable life form. In plain language, drugs-fuck-up-your-DNA “which are the instructions of how to put a life together.” Both the Dad and Mom should be free of drugs before making a baby.
It would be interesting to know how long one has to be free of drugs before the genetic instructions “DNA” are reliable, if ever.
To summarize: take responsibility for your actions. It’s not the government’s job, nor my job, nor your mother’s job! Once you leave school. It is your job. Get a good education. I really don’t want to hear that damned sorry ass excuse about bad schools or what have you. There is the Khan academy online for free that teaches every subject that you could just about think of. FREE! Take some damned initiative!
If you have a lousy teacher take the initiative to get some help from this and other sources online. Instead of gaming or surfing porn, try learning something that you can use.
One of the skills that my employees seems to lack is time management. It is my belief that one could go far by simply understanding the principles of time management and practicing them.
This victim mentality will be your demise and it must stop! You can never truly be an adult if you blame others for your situation. You, you are in control of you. You control your destiny!
I asked myself, why anyone would put this kind of hatred in a public space and on display for the secular and non-secular world to witness. I am of course talking about new signs popping up touting the killing of Jews as worship.
If you want to conquer a country you must first divide it. It would be much easier to conquer a country divided and fighting itself.
You take control of the media so you can keep control of the narrative.
You divide the folks through propaganda, provided by the media and other outlets like sitcoms and movies that attack conservative values from notable people who we see in movies and sitcoms.
You keep the people distracted through sports venues, 100’s of TV channels and other internet distractions which disseminate a narrative that is in line with an agenda.
Silence dissenting views through arms of the government and you distract with issues which demand your attention through outrageous acts of barbarism.
You pull out a page from a “magician’s handbook” by causing the world to look at the other hand and not the one containing the next “trick.”
You allow or instigate actions which are so heinous that the government is forced by its citizen’s to call out to its government to come in and revise those rights that we hold dear to protect us from the bad people in the world and finally we disarm the citizen’s making them helpless and unable to care for themselves both with armory and even through the control of their ability to fend for themselves if the infrastructure were to break down.
You destroy any candidate from either party that might actually do something to stop this train wreck from happening. Make no mistakes, there are people on both sides that want this country to change and fall in line with the rest of the world.
Let’s see, we have this imaginary war on women, we have racial strife, and we have a division between the law and the people. Now all cops are painted with the same broad brush that a few power hungry cops have used, overstepping their boundaries. We have millions of illegals in the country that the tax payer is supporting through taxes that are burdensome and unfair to say the least.
We have a media that is complicit to the left (far left) calling any kind of criticism of the current regime or the far left established empire of the Clinton’s just foolish talk. We have smoke and fire and a lot of the dots depicting these folks as a dynasty who clearly thinks of themselves as Gods and the rest as insects; being protected by the far left media.
You enlist Hollywood to get familiar faces to speak to its base and against those who see the Wizard of OZ for who he /she really is, just a power hungry money grubbing entity whose agenda is gaining more money and more power, damned the consequences. Even if that means giving control of our Uranium to Russia, though backdoor deals!
The little people, you and I are kept in the dark by this media and when we listen to or hear talk that is of a nature that is diametrically opposite of the far left they we are painted as Tea Baggers and far right loons.
“BTW a Tea Bagger is a very offensive term which means one who puts their “balls” in someone’s mouth during sexual acts, which many find offensive but yet the left really does not care if they are offensive.”
Most of the people have little time to study current events so many don’t spend their precious TV time watching the news. The newspaper is mostly liberal so if they read it they get the progressive point of view. Objectivity does not sell papers or subscriptions and let’s face it, they are left leaning. To further that, a majority of people only care what is going on in the world if they are directly affected. If someone comes to their house and demands their guns or else, they might care then, of course by then it would be too late.
Silencing the opposition through coercion, corruption, bribes and or by destroying their credibility by having people of distinction publically attack them in malicious manners, much like Harry Read lying about Romney not paying taxes to dissuade voters from voting for him. I find it interesting that he had no remorse for his lies and felt that the ends justified the means.
And finally through free speech you allow hate mongers and or other groups to sew seeds of discontent that are so malevolent the people rise up and demand that it be stopped which the government then has a free pass to modify your rights in such a way that you give them up.
That is how we got the patriot act, porn scanners, groping of grandma and children and strip searching of anyone that they like, and the government’s ability to spy on you without a warrant. Do you feel safer now?
The hateful speech in question would require a change in the 1rst amendment which conversely would affect all law abiding citizen’s ability to speak out against those things which they found offensive. By pushing the envelope by allowing these Jihad signs in New York; they are hoping to get enough people to cry out to their government to do something about it.
Top Down, Bottom up, inside out!
Do you really want to forfeit more of your rights, to stop those with hateful rhetoric from offending you?
“A word regarding the second amendment.”
We as people are lulled into a false sense of security. We have the NRA lobbying for the legal gun owner of this country to keep and bear arms. If it came down to a firefight between you and a criminal the odds are good that the criminal would already out gun you as they might have Russian made automatic weapons or even American made automatic weapons as they are not restricted by laws.
If it came down to fighting our government “you know the real reason that there is a second amendment” to stave off a tyrannical government, I know for a fact that drone strikes would not be off the table, much like we are seeing in Syria today where the government uses poison gas on its people.
So, if you are under the illusion that owning a handgun gives you some modicum of protection from anyone other than the common thug, you are dreaming.
If the NRA wants to ramp up the conversation, how about my ability to own an RPG or two?
The bottom line is to vote intelligently and get your news from something other than the liberal left or the loonies out in Hollywood who have some lollipop idea that the world would be great if we all fell in line like the rest of the countries who limit your speech, force PC speech and oh yes, limit your rights to guns or religion and keep you all working for the “common good” thus destroying capitalism.
The only wealthy people are the Gods, and the rest are insects! The insects work for the Gods; or they are exterminated, which one are you?
You don’t need the government to stop idiots. You just need yourself and a few friends who also think outside the box.
Here in the good ole USA we have something in our Bill of Rights called the first amendment.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
This is important enough to be the “First Amendment!”
Recently a Vet tried to take away a flag from some protestors on some college. The protestors were desecrating the flag to make a point and the veteran was having no part of that.
There most certainly must be a better way for the protestors to get their point across, rather than desecrating that which most of us hold dear, it is their right to do so!
Trampling on a flag is a form of speech according to the law so I have another form of speech that is being abridged and we are doing nothing about it.
She denies doing this for publicity… You be the judge.Being arrested for stopping some students from trampling on the American Flag.
If I am traveling down the road and see some cop lurking in the woods waiting for some speeder; and I flash my lights to warn fellow travelers I can get ticketed.
Folks that is wrong on so many levels and nothing is being done about it. Some days don’t you just feel like a sheep with the cops and other bureaucrats as the big bad wolf?
Flashing my lights is my right under the first amendment. Just as it is my right to flip on the CB or other communication device and warn people.
I have tried this with some success. It is better if you have a passenger so you don’t have to fool with something while driving.Hard to love this…From about the same time as Smokey and the Bandit.One of the best on the market.
The problems are twofold.
First and foremost traffic tickets have been a source of revenue generation and that is wrong as it removes objectivity from the equation. In many cases it turns traffic enforcement into a game and guess what it does for public relations between citizen’s and the police?
Secondly what is flashing my lights? It is a code. What is a code? It is a form of speech, my speech!
This is actually a case for the ACLU… My free speech is being abridged here!
Not only I am well within my rights to flash my lights, I am doing a public service in that I am actually slowing traffic back to whatever the legal limit is; which is the sole purpose of the traffic cop in the first place.
This needs to be a change.org thing.
This will probably be better suited for the states to deal with rather than trying to get those inside the beltway to do anything. They have to take a poll to figure out if they should go to the bathroom much less actually vote on something that matters.
As always, I welcome your input, thoughts and enlightened conversation about this or any of my other blogs.
It was interesting to learn that Willie Nelson is going after his own brand of “weed.”
Just this afternoon there was another story about a couple trying to make a “weed empire.”
I use the word “weed” interchangeably with marihuana because, marihuana is just too hard to spell! I am kidding of course but, if I were stoned; it may very well be too hard to spell.
We live in an escapist society.
There are 150 some odd cable channels. There is Netflix, Amazon, Redbox, other venues of streaming media via Roku, Google, YouTube, Hulu, Apple TV and the list just goes on. If you have the internet; you can distract yourself indefinitely.
There is some year-round sporting activity of some sort whether it be Baseball or some other sport with “ball” somewhere in the name.
There is music of just about any Genre so if you want to just “veg out” and listen to, or play music there is that.
Some people escape into other, darker areas of the internet like online video games, chat rooms, and even pornography. As the matter of fact if it was not for online porn, I doubt that the internet would have ever taken off. I know that Al Gore did not invent the internet but he was trying to get some Chakra’s released with female masseuse which made the news a few years ago so maybe, we could gift him with the title of creating internet porn… ?! Ok, maybe not.
Some of us are news junkies, we can’t get enough and of course we believe everything that we read because it is right there on the screen, it must be true!
Some of us reject the modern day trappings and escape into the Bible or some other Religious quest thinking it a nobler thing to do.
Some escape into books, science, physics, astronomy and snob ourselves out, thinking we are above the fray.
Life is messy
If you want to live in this world you have to get your hands dirty. You have to deal with drama. You have to submit to a government, and all of their bureaucracy.
To survive you have to find a way to earn money and that, in and of itself, has its own sets of drama.
Sitting at a restaurant listening carefully you will hear many different conversations, most of them will center on what someone did at work or what his or her boss expects or how crappy an employee is etc. Drama!
Politics takes on the look and feel of a sports team as people tend to vote for one team or another, damned the facts. The media makes it “easier” by siding with one team or another. They point out all of the bad things that the other team has done, even if it is not true. Hollywood takes a part in that too as they too have a favorite, even though their favorite is most notably the group that ruined every country that its philosophy was ever tried in. That philosophy allows a select few to be at the top and actually has them in the role of parasites living on the sweat and toil of the people who were either foolish enough to vote for them, or those that were not in the majority and suffer from the results of the actions of those that have not the intellect to vote responsibly.
Today some celebrated 4/20 a pot holiday of sorts for Colorado. I am not sure what percentage of people in Colorado actually take part in this “event” but suffice it to say making pot legal has done nothing to raise the IQ of the good folks of Colorado.
We could get into this huge debate about pot use and intelligence as we have done previously with booze use. In the end we would collectively agree that using such substances kills brain cells and then we must ask “how many can you afford to kill before you become a blithering idiot?
I really think that those that partake in such recreational exercises should remove themselves from the voting public. As the matter of fact, they should probably remove themselves from any situation where their opinion matters!
How harsh is that?!
Twenty two odd years ago I was almost killed by a drunk driver. This person not only was drunk, he was taking medications that should not have been taken with alcohol. His powers of making decisions were questionable at best.
When you alter your reality through artificial means it does not take too long before you perception of what “is” matches up with a straight persons idea of what “is, is.”
If we looked at it on a Venn diagram, we may see some areas that are in common but, the odds are great that your perception of reality would not match up with “normal folks”
perception of reality.
If one can no longer relate to the masses, voting would be futile, and could damage the collective.
Common Core and dumbing down our country
I am not certain where common core started and I have to tell you that it is nothing short of a disaster. When rational people who give a damn look at it they ask, “and rightfully so” “what is this shit!?”
Between dumbing down our kids and making things like Marihuana legal, I can’t help but wonder what is going to happen to this country.
The next thing you know instead of the LGBT community rattling sabers because they think that they were not given “more equal treatment” than straight people you will see the stoners marching on DC “if they can find it,” looking to change laws forcing companies to do away with drug test and provide high wages even though their vernacular will consist of words like “cool, and far out!”
Is that why we are forcing companies to pay $15 an hour for people to flip burgers because in their stoned out state, that is all that they are able to do? Are we going to force them to allow being stoned at work?
We are going the wrong way.
I cannot speak from experience as I have never tried anything like this. I do know that recreational chemistry is a gateway to harder stuff, much like beer to whisky. Some can handle it and not become addicted and then there are those that cannot. Once you open Pandora’s box; you really have no idea how you will react and you have no clue what changes will occur.
If this country is going to survive these progressive idiots currently ignoring history, or hoping that you are ignoring it or never learned history, the country is going to need smart people with critical thinking skills. You cannot be your “best” if you are stoned.
Back in the days of slavery it was illegal for blacks to learn to read. The people in control knew that knowledge was power and if these folks ever figured out just how ignorant that they were, and that they were being kept that way to be controlled; that it would be impossible to keep them in bondage.
By dumbing down our kids and by killing brain cells, we are putting yourselves and our kids in the next position to become slaves.
By taking our collective eyes off of the Ball, people like Hillary can spin any yarn that they like. Enough people will vote for her because she is a women, or because they are emotionally drawn to her for one lie or another. She stands a good chance of becoming “madam president” even though she far from an ideal candidate.
If the progressive’s stay in the white house, we may all “need the weed,” just to be able to not give a shit!
Now that the kitty is out of the valise, (pot is legal) we may be looking at the beginning of that transformational change that our current leader talked about 7 years ago. Many, too many Americans are already slaves and are too dumb to realize it. The only difference is that they are comfortable in their indentured servitude. As long as they have the “rights” to the distractions (internet, cable TV, porn…) they don’t care. That is a sad commentary on society.
We can fix things but it is going to take a change from what we are doing. Firstly, we have to get someone in there who knows what to do. There are very few current candidates that I feel are actually in this to “help the country” but rather in it to go sit in that Ivory Tower.
The allure of power must be an incredible aphrodisiac! To have that much power in one’s phone and pen must be incredible! Every decision that one in that position makes has to be perfect! There is no room for error!
No matter what he or she does the opposing side will defame them and call them stupid and of course arm chair quarterback because “they magically know!”
Can you imagine sitting in the oval office or west wing or wherever he or she would make such decisions lamenting over dropping a bomb on someone, or turning the military loose to do what they do?
How many nights do you think that they get a good night’s sleep? The weight of the world is on their shoulder and then there is the first lady or dude that influences them.
When he or she takes time away to play golf or just get out of DC they are excoriated by the press. As a business man I can tell you that more business is done on the golf course than in the office. If I need time to think I go play golf. Usually somewhere between 1 and the 19th hole I have come up with a solution to whatever it was I was working on.
Right now my money is on Scott Walker.
I will really be interested to see who he picks for a running mate. If the Dems had a brain in their collective heads, they would come up with someone to run against Hillary. Her history is going to catch up with her and there are only so many times you can ask “it depends on what the definition of is is?”
If you find my blog harsh, it is really meant to be blunt but not offensive. I have no desire to offend but we do need to wake up! We need to wake up and if we are afraid to talk about things that might offend others we are shooting ourselves in the foot. We must discuss things that are sensitive topics so we have a dialogue vs someone calling the PC police.
Political Correctness is a cancer eating at the fabric of our society, it is time that we kill the cancer.
Political correctness is another progressive idea that is stupid, and past it usefulness.
If you disagree, drop me a line. If you agree let me know. I value your opinion. We as a country must have this dialogue if we are going to fix the things that are wrong.
I have spoken about this bulb before and how we as Americans have been duped into paying for expensive bulbs to replace the .25bulb with one that cost several dollars. Today I had one of these bulbs fail and it was not a normal failure.
Seated inside base of the CFL bulb is this circuit board with a couple of dozen components on it. Fluorescent bulbs work by ionizing the gas inside the tube where it interacts with the phosphor coating the inside of the tube making light.
Let me stop here for a moment and say that I am a large fan of folks who think outside the box. Huge fan! I like it when people don’t accept status quo and look for a better way to do something. The fluorescent bulb is one such invention. LED bulbs are another. I think we can do better and we should.
Having said that I have issues with the government forcing it down our throats by doing away with the incandescent bulb forcing us to adapt “pay for “much more expensive technology.
These CFL bulbs have mercury in them which is bad. These bulbs if broken have special cleanup procedures that just about require a hazmat suite.
CFL bulbs are expensive. Researching the issue I think that they have finally come out with models that work in dimmers but that was not the case with my failure, it was a simple on-off lamp.
The pluses are that these things are supposed to last much longer than a normal incandescent bulb.
They uses about a 4th the wattage of an incandescent.
When an incandescent bulb goes out there is typically a flash associated with the energizing current hitting the filament and poof, you are groping around in the dark looking for a flashlight or other lamp to find a new bulb and replace it.
CFL bulbs start out much dimmer than a normal bulb and while they may get to a brightness that is acceptable, most need that brightness when they flip the switch, not 10 minutes later after it warms up.
CFL bulbs should never be used in places where the light needed is just for a few moments i.e. closets or bathrooms. CFL bulbs should not be turned off before they are allowed to reach operating temperature as doing so shortens their life.
LED bulbs start out bright and as they age lose their intensity or luminance as they age so, a bright bulb will eventually turn into a very dim bulb.
The prices of the alternatives are still higher than they need to be to rationalize an ROI on the product. The average house does not use enough electricity on bulbs to generate an ROI to justify using expensive bulbs. Stores and office building do but, the average home does not.
Typical government thinking is that one house, no, two houses no, a neighborhood full of houses all using $6 bulbs vs .25 bulbs, and you save some energy and the bulb companies make a hell of a lot more money than on a few $0.25 bulbs.
The energy company then has to raise their rates to make up the difference in the losses of lower usage, so everybody wins! Everybody except you the consumer.
Because larger incandescent bulbs are being removed from the market, we are forced to buy an alternative whether we want to or not.
When a CFL bulb just stops working instead of dimly glowing or flickering before its time, why? What happens to it if it simply stops!
The circuit board which I alluded to earlier produces the voltages necessary to make the bulb work. As I have done with the Wall wart in an earlier post, I have also done with the bulb. In my job, I have to determine the “root cause analysis!” What failed and why. In this case it is a design flaw.
Scott’s Bulb Look at the dark area on the board you can see where it has gotten plenty hot!I am not sure if you can tell but, the solder joints that hold on that three legged component which I think is an SCR of some sort (guess) has become much too hot and actually melted the solder away from the pins. This part should have a heat-sink on it. Using the rule of thumb method of engineering. If you cant put your thumb on it because of the heat, better re-engineer it. This is the 100 watt model of the CFL which uses 23 watts.
Here you will see the circuit board and its associated components. You can see where the board has gotten hot, so hot in fact that the solder connection to this part have come loose causing the failure of the bulb.
Failed bulb found on the internet. There are many such stories out there but I am trying to determine why.
One cannot help but wonder how much of a fire hazard that these bulbs are.
I would not leave my house with these things on, as I don’t think that they are that trustworthy.
I would certainly make sure that my smoke detectors had good batteries as well.
Today I swung my front door wide open and placed my Remington 30.06 right in the doorway. I left 6 cartridges beside it, then left it alone and went about my business.
While I was gone, the mailman delivered my mail, the neighbor boy across the street mowed the yard, a girl walked her dog down the street, and quite a few cars stopped at the stop sign near the front of my house.
After about an hour, I checked on the gun. It was still sitting there, right where I had left it. It hadn’t moved itself outside. It certainly hadn’t killed anyone, even with the numerous opportunities it had presented to do so.
In fact, it hadn’t even loaded itself. Well you can imagine my surprise, with all the hype by the Media about how dangerous guns are and how they kill people.
Either the media is wrong or I’m in possession of the laziest gun in the world.
The United States is 3rd in Murders throughout the World. But if you take out just 4 cities: Chicago, Detroit, Washington, DC and New Orleans, the United States is 4th from the bottom, in the entire world, for Murders.
These 4 Cities also have the toughest Gun Control Laws in the U.S.
It would be absurd to draw any conclusions from this data – right?
Well, I’m off to check on my spoons. I hear they’re making people fat.
This is a map of the locations of Casinos near Texas draining revenue from this state and what are we doing about it? The larger question is why?
With the huge influx of aliens from Mexico and beyond, we clearly could use the revenue so again I ask; why are there no casinos in Texas?
Why should Texas Dollars end up in BFE Oklahoma or Shreveport or even Vegas?
We have the lottery; so it really can’t be religious objections. You could blame them if you want but, I for one would not believe you.
Why not Casinos with places that can host Vegas style entertainment as well as produce revenue from those with a penchant for gambling?
We have horse races for Pete Sake, why not Galloping Dominoes?
Why are we letting all of that revenue go north, or east, or to Nevada? If it is an Indian thing, we have Texas Indians too. I know this for a fact so, why? Why does it have to be an Indian thing?
I would bet that the good folks at Winstar or Choctaw or even Shreveport or possibly some of the folks in Vegas who manage an Oasis in a desert, would love to open up a casino here.
After you have scurried around trying to come up with an answer I have a bigger question than that, Why the hell doesn’t California have Casinos? They are billions in debt, why not bring some dollars to their state via Casinos. With competition everybody wins!
After asking yourself this question and going through all of the possible machinations of why, we can take it one step forward and probably answer the question.
What would happen if Texas and California allowed it, along with the other states?
What would happen to Vegas?
What would happen to Winstar, or Shreveport, or even Chocktaw, if they suddenly had competition?
And the multi-million dollar question is, why do we care?
In 2011 a town in northwest Arkansas which had been dry for ever, wanted to sell alcohol. It was put on the ballot and by a margin passed.
Previously just outside the city limits were several “boozatoriums” which were set up to sell to that city along with other surrounding cities just outside their borders.
It turns out that the people who owned those or who had interest in them, alerted the various churches that this town wanted to go wet and got the people all up in arms. The churches were the pawns for the owners of the existing stores which would lose business if the local Walmart could sell booze.
Never mind the fact that people would go out of their way to buy beer at the towns edges and start drinking it on the way home, on mountainous roads! Those folks who owned the “joints” didn’t care if people got drunk on the way home and drove off a cliff! There was the bottom line and after all, what else is there?
A dichotomy existed between those that wanted to buy booze and those that thought it was the work of Satan, the latter being stirred up by the folks who owned the existing stores on the periphery of the city. Huge vinyl yard signs were created and distributed to the town’s people both for and against; in the end Walmart and others who actually had businesses in the town won. Tax dollars for Booze now went into the city, which hosted the stores and had to provide the infrastructure for its people.
Who is pulling our chains?
People with an interest in gambling will go to where it is legal, much like those with a desire to smoke pot; they will either simply do it, damned the consequences; or they will go to where it is legal.
Instead of making all of these toll roads in Texas, which is nothing more than a hidden tax on the people, let’s use funds from gambling to build our infrastructure and stop charging the people for services that you should already be providing! Since our population is increasing from external sources who will all need medical and scholastic services, let’s find the funding for it from those that already spend the money elsewhere.
I welcome dissenting opinions and arguments, as I love good debate.
I certainly don’t have all of the answers but, if there is dialogue then maybe we can learn to at least ask why, and think outside the box!
The answers are out there, we just need to ask the questions and not be satisfied with “because,” or “that is just the way it is,” or “it’s the law.” If it’s the law and it is stupid, let’s change it, or change the people who made it!
People need to rise up and question the status quo, if the status quo does not make sense!
You must be logged in to post a comment.