Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
Posted on

Issues and Answers 2.01

Energy policy. No matter how much we work to reform tax policy to get the “feddle gummint” out of savings/investment policy and level the international trade playing field a bit, with the energy lashup that passes for “feddle gummint” policy we now have in place, our economy is hamstrung, our billions are being sent OUT of this country, largely to third world thugs, and we face a future of spiraling inflation.

The answer is complex but can start with one simple thing: learn some commonsense steps we can take NOW… and take them.

See American Solutions for more.

THIS is an open trackbacks post. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂

If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.

Linkfest Haven, the Blogger's Oasis

Posted on

Issues and Answers 1.02

Yesterday, I posted a video intro to The FairTax as an intro to the idea that real tax reform can have the single greatest ameliorative effect on our economic woes by introducing The FairTax. Today, part two:

THIS is an open trackbacks post. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂

If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.

Linkfest Haven, the Blogger's Oasis

Posted on

Issues and Answers 1.01

Of the many issues facing citizens nowadays, it’s easy to say that the answer to “What’s toward the top of your current concerns?” would be “It’s the economy, stupid.”

And, beyond simple concerns about oil/gasoline proices and the closely related rise in costs of concumer goods, that’s a very good answer. But it’s important that we understand that our economic problems go far beyond percieved consumer pain caused by rising costs and relatively stagnant wages. Think of several even more important, deeply embedded issues:

The primary “weapon” with which the U.S. used to bring down the Soviet Union was to sucker the soviets into attempting to compete with our economy. And still today, our best largely unused weapon against enemies such as Islamic terrorism is our economy. That’s something even a noncom fighting in Afganistan recognizes (a long read, and the economic observations are buried well down, but a read wll worth your time. h.t. Rosenary’s Thoughts).

Suffice it to say, every effort made by our politicians *spit* to weaken our economy both in obvious ways and in obscure, structural ways, is working. The dollar is at its weakest in decades; our trade imbalance is growing; our indebtedness as a nation is worsening. What to do?

Let’s start with some common sense steps. Step number 1 (even more important than Drill Here-Drill Now): Embrace the FairTax.

THIS is an open trackbacks post. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂

If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.

Linkfest Haven, the Blogger's Oasis

Posted on

The Ten Commandments

Via email:

T H E 1 0 C O M M A N D M E N T S
The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse is this:

You cannot post ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal,’ ‘Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery,’ and ‘Thou Shall Not Bear False Witness’ in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians, because it creates a hostile work environment.

Yeh, poor babies. Wouldn’t want lawyers, judges and politicians *spit* to feel assaulted by *shudder* moral standards of behavior.

(With apologies to the few honest, decent lawyers, both judges and the politician who do observe decent moral standards. OK, so I’m assuming there’s a politician somewhere who is still a decent person fifteen minutes after becoming a politician. And, actually, there may be more than that, since there are so damned many of the critters–and no, I am not using profanity when I refer to politicians–as a class–as “damned”. Think about it. )

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Pink Flamingo, Leaning Straight Up, , Adam’s Blog, Conservative Cat, and Right Voices, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Posted on

It’s Not THE Answer…

…but it’s a step in the right direction.

Then, of course, nuclear power (I like PBRs), space-based solar, TDP plants and more–all very nearly “off-the-shelf” technologies–to round out an approach to energy independence from Middle Eastern (and other foreign) thugs (yeh, Saudis, I’m talking mainly about YOU).

THIS is an open trackbacks post for June 13, 14 and 15. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂

If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.

Linkfest Haven, the Blogger's Oasis

Posted on

When Will I Learn?

*sigh*

I shoulda taken Rosemary’s advice in comment Monday and had a long hot shower and a nap. Summer cold. Laryngitis. Can’t even speak in “head voice” (as my aeon’s-ago fav voice prof was wont to say, “If you can’t speak/sing in your head voice, just shut up,” or something like that. *heh*)

So, losing another day. Monday to my stupidity in leaving a car window open so rain could short out my horn switch; Tuesday (and at least some of today; we’ll see) to a lack of ability to communicate apart from computer keyboard.

Oh. Well.

Random observations:

To all you ignorant (or stupid; I’m betting many are both) drivers out there trying to save money at the pump: driving slowly does not always equal better gas mileage. Driving slowly in low gears is a real gas waster. Get through the lower gears quickly w/o “jackrabbiting” and up to speed, then drive more conservatively if you wish. Taking 1/2 mile to get from zero to 30mph is just stupid. Especially when you’ve turned on in front of me to drive slowly. Just quit it!

Oh, and unecessarily braking to way, way under the speed limit going DOWN a hill is stupid on more than three accounts. If you can’t figure that one out, return your driver’s license to the Wackers1 where you bought it.

Dumbasses.

(BTW, I average 40mpg combined local-highway driving–in an eleven-year-old car, no less–even when I get behind too many dumbasses forcing me to drive to their stupid criteria. Just think what I’d get if the 80%+ folks who don’t know how to drive at all were taken off the roads. *heh*)

1 Wacker’s Five and Dime was a step down from the old, OLD TG&Y or Woolworth’s dime stores. Think “Dollar Store” only cheap. *heh* I swear they must still be in business given the numbers of drivers who MUST have gotten their driver’s licenses there…
…

Is it just me or do most politicians (including but not limited to presidential candidates) show a complete and utter disconnect from the real world of their constituents? Is it time for a Constitutional amendment providing that NO congresscritter, president or their bureaucratic alter egos have income during their tenure and for 10 years following that in any way (in any combination of incomes, benefits, tetirement, etc.) exceeds the average income of their constituents? (As determined at each official U.S. Census–with no penalties to citizens for low-balling their incomes. *heh*)

I think it’s time for such an amendment.

…

62 degrees fahrenheit in my lil twc central office this a.m. No A/C, just an open window. (Yes, it rained in, but the mini-blinds I had strategically positioned kept in draining OUT, not in or even onto the sill :-)) According to an outside thermometer reading, it’s about 58 degrees fahrenheit outside this a.m. at 8:30 a.m. on a June day in America’s Third World County in the Missouri Ozarks.

Must be that d#$%&* “global warming” eh? As to that…

NOAA reports on our cooler than normal spring

I thought all the “excessive” CO2 humans were emitting/causing to be released had “caused” a disasterous 0.6 degree celsius rise in temperature over the last century, no? Isn’t that one of the tenets of The CHurch of Anthropogenic Global Warming?

Oops.

(Just CLICK on the image to see the full size graphic)

That’s right folks, from January 07 to May 08, the much touted if even true) 0.6C increase over a century was not only wiped out over a 15-month period, the it’s even .175C cooler than the cherry-picked starting point of the global warmists.

Of course, that coincides with low sunspot activity, something The Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming refuses to believe has any significant effect on Earth’s climate.

Dumbasses.

…

Coffee or a nap? Hmmm… that’s a tough one. How about both? Yeh, that’s the ticket!

…

I still haven’t made a good coffee beer. Need to get to work on that one Real Soon Now.

…

Having fun building a “hardened” XP machine for my dad. No, he doesn’t want a Linux machine. Wants one that’ll run some software he’s found that requires XP. Hmmm… must call him (when I get my voice back). Maybe I can get hold of the software he wants to run and test it out under WINE or in a virtual machine running XP under Linux. Or find a Linux-based substitute that’ll do the same. Of course, that’d take me all the way back to the drawing board. Oh! My! Please don’t throw me into that briar patch! *LOL*

…

Data point: I usually see a large number of terrapins crossing the road (or remains of terrapins who were–as all their kind–too slow to avoid drivers of cars who were too “slow” to avoid a turtle on the road) in April and early May. This year, they didn’t start their activity–such as it is, “activity” being their slow migrations across the highways *heh*–until June. Cooler than normal temps?

Hmmm, another data point. I have some daffodils that have in the past bloomed in time for St David’s Day (March 1) but which didn’t even emerge from slumber until the middle of March or bloom until April this year.

…

Well, just about used all my words up. Oh, I have more, but I think this is my “finger quota” for today. Must have another nap, soon.

😉

Posted on

Tell the Saudis to Drink Their Oil

Found via Hotair (via Pursuing Holiness):

Go Here. Now.

While nuclear energy would make a good near-mid term addendum to our energy needs, we have enough oil in our own back yard to be able to stop paying the Saudi (and other Middle Eastern) thugs for our oil. All we lack is congresscritters who aren’t bought and paid for by those whose real desire is to “Sink America First!”

Also via Hotair:

Yep.

THIS is an open trackbacks post. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂

If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.

Linkfest Haven, the Blogger's Oasis

Posted on

Here’s Some Spit in the Global Warmists’ Eyes

Anyone remember the Maunder Minimum? (If so, you’re a bit older than I am, and I know dirt I call “young fella” *heh*)

“Sunspots May Vanish by 2015”

From the first link above,

The Maunder minimum is the name given to a period of extreme solar inactivity that occurred between 1645 and 1710. Of particular interest is that this period of inactivity corresponds closely to one of the coldest periods of the so-called “Little Ice Age” in Europe, a time of long, cold winters that caused severe hardships in the pre-industrial revolution world. This has led scientists to extensively study the possible influences of solar activity on terrestrial climate, as well as examine other stars for evidence of activity cycle behavior similar to the Sun’s.

If, as the paper noted at the second link suggests, we are entering another period of relatively major solar inactivity, all the resources being wasted on The Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming’s assault upon civilization (assault upon reason, even) will be hard cheese indeed to our progeny.

After all, the nut of

Examinations of the solar activity cycle and the unusually cold weather of the Maunder minimum period have spurred significant controversy among astronomers, atmospheric scientists, and climatologists. The period from about 1300-1715 is known as the “Little Ice Age” in Europe, a period characterized by unusually long and cold winters. This period coincides closely with the time during which the Sun is known to have had time of inactivity, with some of the worst weather occurring squarely during the Maunder minimum.

…is that it led to widespread famine, disease and widespread depopulation. Oh, wait. Those are all goals embraced by the looniest of The Church of Anthropogenic Global Warming and their co-religionists in the “Bow Down and Worship Gaia” crowd of even loonier eco-freaks who view mankind as a disease.

Trackposted to Faultline USA, Right Truth, The World According to Carl, DragonLady’s World, The Pink Flamingo, Cao’s Blog, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, Democrat=Socialist, , Right Voices, and Stageleft, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Posted on

Monday, Monday… and Monday

Arose this A.M. to the sounds of more rain. OK, I like rain, but really. We’ve had enough, thank you. I see the animals are lining up two-by-two…(At least it’s cooler than normal.)

OK, so it’s raining. And… left my driver’s side window down last night. *sigh* So I get wet as I drive this A.M. So?

So… I go out to roll window up anyway and… the horn on my car’s blowing and will NOT shut off. *sigh* Pull battery cable, cos can’t find fuse puller and fingers too fat to pull fuse.

Drop cable nut.

It’s one of those days already.

Need. More. Coffee.

*heh*

[UPDATE: Of course, once I had early A.M. out of the way and could get back to third world county central, I was able to a.) Locate the cable nut, b.) determine that it was actually the switch in the steering column–shorted out from rain– and c.) detach the horn from the circuit then d.) connect the charger to the battery *sigh*, all in the continuing rain, of course. Car now starts and horn doesn’t “blow (although the tinny thing always did “blow”–*heh*), but now I need to get a hair dryer on my steering column to see if I can effect a “repair” that way, cos I really, really do NOT want to have to disassemble the steering column… All’s well, though. Lotsa stuff canceled cos I didn’t know how long the horn “repair” would take, so… twc central projects and “remote support” the rest of today.]

THIS is an open trackbacks post. Link to THIS post and track back. 🙂

If you have a linkfest/open trackback post to promote OR if you simply want to promote a post via the linkfests/open trackback posts others are offering, GO TO LINKFEST HAVEN DELUXE! Just CLICK the link above or the graphic immediately below.

Linkfest Haven, the Blogger's Oasis