Salty Streets! --- and the Sacrosanct Aquifer?

After all the screaming and bitching about the Sprague gravel pit and how it is going to destroy the Islands aquifer by leaching contaminants into it from just regular old dirt, cement residue, asphalt etc., I was truly amazed to see a huge pile of ROAD SALT stored in the State garage!! How the hell do you justify that, when it seems to be a problem for every other community in this State and others, where roads and highways travel close to their aquifers? 'Splain that to me. I'm very dense! All those people who have condemned the Pit operation for it's NOT VERY LIKELY pollution of the ground water, should be jumping out of their skins in outrage at this total disregard for something that is KNOWN to do damage to a water supply! Where's the outrage here! Could it be that their condemnation of the pit operation is just because of their perceived notion that their property is now worth less than when they bought it? When it was sitting right next to an already operative business? A little bit of selective denigration here if you ask me.

So back too the salt. Ever since there have been motor vehicles on BI, sand has always been the go to device to keep the roads somewhat less slippery and with pretty good effect over that time. I do believe that back in the late fifties,early sixties, salt was tried for a year or two and then was disregarded as a permanent solution for our roads. Somebody back then was pretty smart for whatever reasons.

So come on Town Council, What is the reason behind the use of salt now when sand works nearly as well, and actually, perfectly for this less traveled community? Especially since the advent of the dive in the economy. Shouldn't we be saving as many dollars as possible to spend on really important things like fences and lights for the airport? TIFN

James Suk-a-lot

That is a close approximation of the name of a blood sucker who advertises on the tube relentlessly! I know everyone has seen some of his disgusting ads. The one that drives me up the wall is, "When Doctors make mistakes, I make them pay'! This guy is a true representation of all that is wrong with this countries legal system. Is there some piece of paper that a Doctor gets when he finally finishes all his training that says,"I will not ever, ever, ever, make a mistake on pain of death or worse, legal harassment"? I know of not one person who is totally infallible! ( Sorry all you "O" fans). So people like this just continue to scare young people away from the medical profession. Who would want to go into a job field where there are hundreds of thousands of vultures hanging over your head just waiting in order to pick your bones clean if you happen to incorrectly diagnose even a minor problem? Probably one brought on by your own misguided life style.

It is people like this ambulance chasing bum that are responsible for a lot of the woes of this Republic. Who is it that writes most of the laws of this land? I do believe most of the folks in congress are lawyers of some sort or other.

WSo how do you rectify that little problem? I know! Write a law that prohibits lawyers from becoming Senators or Congress critters! Damn, that isn't going to work, none of them there now has the integrity to vote for such a thing! We're Screwed!! TIFN

Street Lights on BI

Do we really need all the street lights burning away all night long? Most people are home in bed or at least undercover for the most part after midnight. Well, I know there are some night owls who are out roaming all night, but I really don't think we need all the lites going all night!

People back in the days when I was a yo'un managed to get from place to place in the dark without all kinds of lamps to light the way. Granted there were a few lights around, and we usually ran "hell bent for election" from one pool of light to the next! You know, those ghosties and vampires don't like the light so we thought we were safe. It was a long way between most of them though.

In this time of lost jobs and higher prices for virtually everything, it seems to me to be the ultimate folly to be spending $40,000 a year, burning that old fossil fuel, so that the nocturnal roamers, beasties, bugs, and bumbling homo-sapiens can see where they are going. Isn't that what flashlights and headlights are for?

So too the Town Council and Manager I say, "Turn off those lights on the streets and at the town hall, the school, and every other muni building in the town"! And we should also as individuals dump the outside lights on our houses as soon as all are on board for the night! To add insult to injury, they have just finished installing about a dozen huge lights up at the airport which I hope, will NOT be left burning throughout the night waiting to guide some lost wanderer into its luminous arms. It is an unconscionable waste!! And besides, when those street lights are out, I have a much better view of the night sky! Ursa Major is getting unruly! TIFN

Are You All Ready?

Well now is time to stop blaming either GWB or O for the dire straits we now find ourselves in. If I read my history correctly, we started on the slippery slope when we refuted the Bretton accords I believe it was called and went off the gold standard. That was where all nations paid their debts to the others in gold bullion when asked to. Well we can't do that anymore and haven't been able to for decades! We have nothing behind our money anymore but the trees that they, Congress, turns into paper and then keeps on printing worthless money!

The chickens are on their way home to roost and I hope you all are going to be able to feed yourselves in the coming years. Especially after the O man and his minions go on their huge tax and spend bender. They want us to go right back to all the failed, or absymally expensive social programs instituted by their predecessors that have put us where we are now. So when the poo hits the rotating airfoil, don't anybody come to my door looking for a handout 'cause I'll probably be at yours knocking hard.

Love Him or Leave Him, It's Done!!

Well now the real fun begins! Do you think he will have Billy become the new UN ambassador? He could do a lot of "under the table" work up there. He is real good at that. How about Hillary as the US AG? She IS a lawyer right? Impartial and fair minded as King Solomon! Yep thats Hillary. Jesse Jackson would fit right in at the Defense Dept as the Secretary there! He could bullshit all our enemies into "feeling our pain" and backing off on the jihad stuff. Al Sharpton, now he would make the perfect person to run that new government office called, "The Department of Homeland Graft and Disservice"! Billy Ayers, Hmmm what to do with him? I know! they can get Justice Roberts to kill himself like Vince Forster and then make HIM the arbiter of all things concerned with that newest document, the Declaration of Subservience! It was found underneath the other one! Just waiting for the right person to come along and find and implement it!
Katie Couric should become the Treasurer of the US and do it for free! She has been gushing over the omessiah for two years without ever having the thought occur to her that SHE is in the moronic group who her hero is going to gut! Or could it be that ALL THOSE DEMOCRATIC MILLIONAIRES in the congress have already hidden away their money or had those tax lawyers do things with the numbers so they are going to continue to pay 'Their fair share' of the tax burden? Yep, they will be paying that same unholy, heavy, backbreaking, pocket emptying amount they always have, ZILTCH! Oh well, they can only continue to tax my Navy retirement, and social security amount 'cause as of now I quit, again,! I am now going to go out and work the system for all it's worth. If you see me sleeping on one of the benches down town, could you stop by and fill my little tin cup with a few coppers so I can pay the tax man? I am anxiously awaiting my 'reparations' check from the Obermiester 'cause I'm pretty sure that there is at least 2.5% of black blood in me somewhere! Oh Hell, wait a minute, you mean 'Black Irish' doesn't count? Damn, I thought I was set for life, however short it may now be.
Well Kiddies, I'll be seeing you in the welfare lines if there are any! TIFN

Here is the definitive reasons for the mess we are in!!

This was written by an Econimics Prof from the University of Cinn. OH.
And TRY and remember this, The President can PROPOSE all kinds of thing's and crazy acts, but it is all those 535 people with their hands deep into your pockets that do the actual voting and instituting of said proposals!!! He THEN signs his name too the bill, thereby cementing in everyones mind that he did this all by himself! Yeah, gimme a break from all the whining when you get caught with your hand in the till!!

"How can you vote Republican when they so messed up the economy?" a liberal
friend screams at me with such vehemence that I had to put the phone a full
arms length from my ear.

Of course, my friend never heard of the Community Reinvestment Act. He is
one of those mindless liberals who thinks that George Bush and the
Republicans are responsible for everything from Global Warming to Hurricane
Katrina to the attempted genocide of the entire black population of New
Orleans.

He claims to be informed but he doesn't remember those dire warnings going
back nine years ago that the Community Reinvestment Act would eventually
cause a major financial and banking crisis in this country.
The Community Reinvestment Act was pushed hard by Bill Clinton, although it
originated under Jimmy Carter. Asked about it the other day on one of the
morning TV talk shows, Clinton said times back then were different. Fannie
and Freddie had lots of money and he (in his infinite wisdom) decided that
the money should not go to share holders or to executive compensation, but
should be used to put the poor into homes.

As you can imagine, wonderful things happen when the government strong arms
corporations as to how they should spend their money and, better yet, how
they should assess the qualifications of home buyers. So the country's
biggest buyers of mortgages were pressured into lowering the qualifications
of applicants, in order to increase the percentage of poor that got
mortgages. By 2006, 30% of all mortgages went to people who in any other
circumstances wouldn't qualify.

Now the political left would like you to know that the CRA-controlled
institutions did not lend the largest percentage of sub-prime mortgages. But
that's information by deception, because the mortgage business is a
competitive business. If the government strong arms one part of the
business, the other part will respond. And strong arm was what the Clinton
administration did, even using the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
to pressure banks to lend more money to the disadvantaged. Caught in the
act, a spokesman for the office noted that its abuse of power was "for the
best of intentions:" the same inclination used to pave the road to hell.
In the short run, all sorts of money was to be made by lowering standards
and processing sub-prime loans for the poor. The Wall Street Journal raised
concerns about Fannie's and Freddie's capital requirements. Senator Phil
Gramm (R, TX) raised issues about community pressure groups, such as Barack
Obama's ACORN, extorting money from banks by holding their feet to the CRA
fire, and threatening to militate against mergers and acquisitions unless
the banks entered into preferential agreements with community groups.

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act cut down on CRA reporting requirements and upped
the ante for groups such as ACORN, forcing them to disclose their
relationships with local banks.

Fannie and Freddie became big contributors to the Democratic Party. The
sub-prime business paid off-at least while the bubble was growing. And the
Kerry, Hillary and Obama campaigns have numbered among the leading
recipients of the largess of the two mortgage lenders.
Franklin Raines, the Fannie Mae C.E.O. from 1999 to 2004, had been budget
director in the Clinton administration. The left would not like you to be
reminded that Raines has been a consultant to the Obama campaign, according
to the Washington Post, and that Freddie and Fannie number among the top 5
contributors to Obama's run for the presidency. Raines is being sued for
the recovery of 50 million in compensation acquired by the alleged
manipulation of Fannie's books. Now, that's not change we can believe in.
That's Washington as we have come to know and "love" it.

The Bush administration in 2003 tried to change the system, to no avail.
Congressman Barney Frank, (D, MA ) was in the forefront of stopping the Bush
proposal to take control out of Fannie and Freddie and put it into a third
overseeing organization. Frank too has emerged in the current crisis as one
of the major critics of the administration.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan continued to raise the alarm
over Fannie's and Freddie's weak capitalization. His concerns were ignored.
Former Congressman Michael Oxley (R,OH), then chairman of the House
Financial Services Committee and co-author of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act,
introduced a bill in 2005 in response to the growing problem, but Fannie and
Freddie put their lobbyists to work and the bill died
Democratic Senator Chris Dodd, who is now Chairman of the Banking Committee
and who appears alongside Majority Leader Harry Reid on television to
discuss the current bailout negotiations, has had harsh words for the Bush
administration for its alleged role in the crisis.

But the rest of us should have some harsh words for Senator Dodd. After
all, the Bush administration in 2003 and Senator Phil Gramm even earlier, in
1999, had been working to change the system. Dodd, like Obama, has been a
big recipient of campaign funds from Fannie and Freddie, organizations that
Dodd oversees. Dodd has apparently been more consumed with campaign
contributions from the mortgage giants than the responsibilities of
oversight.

When I point out the long trail of Obama's corruption stretching back to
his days in the Illinois legislature, my liberal friends invoke moral
equivalence, "They're all corrupt."
There is no shame among the left. When they think Bush is responsible for
the collapse of the banking system, they scream at you. When you point out
that the Community Reinvestment Act created a pattern of abuse that now
threatens the entire financial system, without hesitation liberals say,
"They're all corrupt."

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation even has a web site so you could
see how well your bank is meeting its obligations under the CRA. Those of
you who had money in Washington Mutual, which just went belly up, will be
happy to know that WaMu, over the five individual reporting periods, had
almost exemplary ratings on its commitment to CRA. That should give WaMu
depositors great joy, to compensate for the financial mess they may be in.
If WaMu had been less responsive to the CRA and more responsive to the
market, maybe it wouldn't be insolvent.

I am not suggesting that the CRA by itself led to the current crisis, but
the CRA was the first and most important part of the food chain. The CRA
caused the expansion in the number of questionable loans that lending
institutions made, but Wall Street and insurance underwriters were all too
willing to package these loans, enhance their ratings through convenient
exercises in fantasy, sell them, and insure them with reserves that were
more inadequate than the incomes of the people who got the loans in the
first place..

The best thing that can emerge from the current financial crisis is the
realization that the government needs to stop directing economic decision
making. In a sense, the government is putting out a fire it started when it
both created the CRA and assessed lending institutions by how well they were
doing in response to the program. When Clinton decided, in his usual
arrogance, that he knew better than the market how banks should lend money,
the seeds were sown for the current financial disaster.

If you want to blame Bush for the current crisis, it might make you feel
good, reinforce your sense of how the world works, enable you to find a
meeting of the minds when you next engage your liberal friends over wine and
quiche, but like so many things you believe and which make you feel good, it
has no correspondence to reality.

What the Hell is wrong with Obamessiah?

In a time when every single THINKING person is getting very worried about their finances and just where the wall street fiasco is going, along cones "The One" and goes on and on during the debate about INCREASING funding for government funded pre schools! Apparently he also believes that once he gets us out of that foreign war, he'll be able to take that 10 billion per month and pour it back into more of the type of schools, foundations and other way far left Socialistic contrivances like those he and his buddy Bill Ayers used the Annenburg money for! I seem to recall it being about 160 million. This country is going to take a hard left turn next month if this guy gets elected. It may be one that we will never recover from! I am glad that I most probably will not be here to watch my kids and grand kids having to survive under the rule of a truly Socialistic government! Do ANY of these people who are so enamoured of Obama not recall the era after WWII? Are they all so detached from the events of the past that they cannot or will not see what Russia, East Germany, Poland, etc. went through for the last fifty years before Socialism/Communism went bust in those countries? Do they not know of ALL the "personal freedoms" we so enjoy, were unavailable to those millions of people?

Socialism ONLY WORKS for the big dogs on the top of the pile who get there on the backs of all the little people! So go on worshiping this guy and empowering he and his minions, NancyP., Harry R. etc. to slowly take away all the freedoms you enjoy today. Let THEM be the ones who will tell you when and where you can go see a doctor, (you will probably have to be on a 'LIST' to get an appointment, wrong political leanings? no visit for you!), They will tell you where to work, when to eat, WHAT to eat. Why, most probably, even when to go to the bathroom!!

McCain may be old, he may be eccentric, he may not last the full four years if he does get elected, but HE WILL NOT TAKE AWAY ANY OF YOUR FREEDOMS! And if he does croak, what you get next will be a thousand times better than 'Palagarizing Joe Biden, The biggest liar in congress'! And think about this, how about all the previous Govenors of States that became President, and for the most part did pretty well! Maybe strike Billy from that list.

So go vote in November, but just do a little READING in the interim, both sides of the issues, try to weed out the bullshit, tough to do, and then vote for the person who has the tools, HONESTY, integrity, and the VERY BEST INTERESTS of this country in his heart! Not just the desire to get to the top of the heap on your back!! TIFN

A Piece of the pie

As I cannot seem to be able to figure out how to link to another blog, I have COPIED the below text from another bloggers site. It is called, "Home on the range". You can find it, and it is always a wonderful read. The below is an essay she just wrote recently and needs to be read by every single person in this country! Even those rabid Obama supporters. It will show you and them why dividing up the pie without making it bigger ain't going to work. And so:

Yes, I lured you in here thinking you'd see a piece of home made pie, but what I have to write tonight is personal, and it pertains to the election, and the future of our great country. If you've had your fill of political blogs and the news, come back in a day or two for something lighter. But sometimes there are things I have to say, even if only I read it.

"Most Americans don’t want much. They don’t want the whole pie. There are some who do, but most Americans feel blessed just being able to thrive a little bit. But that is becoming even more out of reach. The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more." - Michelle Obama

Let's all work harder to share the wealth with our less able brothers Michelle believes, while wearing a $900 suit. I too ponder on such sentiments, usually when I've re-read Atlas Shrugged, a book perhaps meant to be historical but becoming more prophetic.

The present state of our nation, the political events, and ideals of today are so grotesquely irrational and so disturbingly true to the base points of the book, that it can't be anything else.

If any of you haven't read Atlas Shrugged it is a book written decades ago that shows what happens to the world when the men of the mind - the originators and the innovators in every line of rational endeavor - go on strike and vanish, to protest again an altruist-collectivist Society, what our generation more popularly calls "the nanny state".

There are two key passages in the book that sum it up well. The first is a statement of John Galt:
"There is one kind of man who have never been on strike in human history. Every other kind and class have stopped, when they so wished and have presented demands to the world claiming to be indispensable - except the men who have carried the world on their shoulders, have kept it alive, have endured torture as sole payment, but have never walked out on the human race. Well their turn has come. Let the world discover who they are, what they do, and what happens they they refuse to function. This is the strike of the men of the mind, Miss Tagger. This is the mind on strike."

The second passage, which explains the title of the novel is:

"Mr. Rearden, said Francisco, his voice solemnly calm, "if you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders, what you you tell him to do?"

"I. . . I don't know. what . could he do" What would you tell him?"

"To shrug".

My work has value. My mind has value. I won't do it for free. those that do that, are amateurs (coming from the Latin amator - meaning lover), not professionals. As a professional I expect to be paid. Nor will I do it to pay the rent and gas and food of those who aren't willing to put forth their own effort to the best of their own ability. A hard working person, down on their luck, I will help in many ways. I've added to the tip jar of many a hard working blogger, caught up in exploding cars, dysfunctional pets, and bad experiences with Comcast. I've helped people in my community, neighbors, suddenly and through no fault of their own, out of a job, with food and/or child care while they went to an interview; with assistance with crafting a new resume and getting them some job contacts. Helping those that actively worked to help themselves.

But do not ask me to support, through work or taxes or even my time, which has value of it's own, a class of people who only wish to take, because they feel they are owed it for breathing, for crossing the border illegally, or for being a specific race, creed or religion.

Now Mrs. Obama and her party say that the "rest of us" will have to give up a little more so there can be more for those that "don't have". I was getting a hair cut while out of town and the person cutting said she was voting for Obama because then she'd have "free day car for my kids and free health care for my kids". (she had multiple kids with various fathers I gathered from the pictures and her conversation). I replied "great. . now who is going to PAY for that day care and health care?"

She looked puzzled.

I replied "I AM. So that will mean I won't get a $50 haircut, I'll get a $11 haircut somewhere else, and less often, and forget the highlights and all the rest, I won't be able to afford it any more with the increase in my taxes. So will most of your customers. So you'll make half the money and won't have money for gas to work. But Obama will get you free health care. Good luck on the eating thing"

She failed to note the irony and as she had a pair of shears pointed at my head I felt it prudent not to expound any longer.

As this election looms, we are in a struggle between capitalism and socialism attractively packaged as "change". With someone and their supporting party, talking of controls and "sacrifices", taxes, and coercions they would impose, what arbitrary powers they would enact, what "social remedies" they would hand out, without really telling us, the American people, what groups these gains would be expropriated. What they do imply, though with their vague promises of health care, and free education and free this and free that, is clear. That is, with the help of increased taxes and more from the pockets of the working classes, their power over a nation's economy, any kind or degree of said power, rests on the basic principal of statism, the principal that the working man's life belongs to the state.

Obama talks about Change. Obama talks about freedom. Freedom in the political sense means freedom from government coercion. It does NOT mean freedom from an employer, from a landlord, freedom from the laws of supply and demand, or freedom from the laws of nature. Laws which do not guarantee prosperity to every man.

It means freedom from the coercive power of the state. Freedom to use your abilities the best you can to craft a life for yourself to the best of your ability. It means freedom to protect that which you have earned, from other people, in a manner that's true to the Constitution that founded this country. It means freedom to own a weapon responsibly. Certainly if Obama and Biden have their way, I wouldn't own a gun, making it even easier for someone to take what I have at the point of theirs, be it literal or figuratively.

The American political system was not based on "sharing the pie". It was based on a moral principal that defined what made America great; on the principal of man's inalienable right to his own life - meaning, the principal that man has the right to exist for his own sake. Not sacrificing himself or his or her family to others nor sacrificing others to himself. Social interactions are not done by handouts but by trading, men dealing with others as traders, by voluntary choices to mutual benefit.

The American economy, was not built up by "sharing". What is unique in America is we were the first to use the phrase "to make money", no other language has that phrase used in that manner, in history, men had always thought of riches as a static quality to be seized, begged inherited, shared or looted, or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to truly grasp that wealth has to be created. Created with the efforts of individuals, who improved our world through hard work, and effort and earned money from it as a byproduct.

What this "change" appears to me to be is a social system based on the "nanny state", an altruist society, with it's code of self sacrifice, rather than the building of individual wealth, the antithesis of capitalism. It is socialism, which, in all it's mutated forms, fascism, Nazism, Communism, treats us as a sacrificial animal to be plundered for the benefit of the group, the tribe, the state. The final product of which would be a country in which the best and the brightest put down their thinking caps, and let their talents languish, as they derive no personal benefit from it.

A society in which, after giving and giving, so that all have a "piece of the pie", the best and the brightest, as well as the hardest working, will finally shrug.
Posted by Brigid at 7:11 PM

Now it is me again talking, Everett. I did read Atlas Shrugged when I was 18-19 years old and sitting in a frozen Quonset hut at the bottom of the world for 7 months. At that time in my life I was NOT a very good judge nor participant in life, only a few short years had elapsed. In the intervening 50 years, I had again read the book and it is where I developed my sense of Conservatism as opposed to the Socialistic, Way Left, Nanny state contrivance that professes to be our "government"! We had best look out who we vote for this time around because if it is Obama the only "change" you are going to see besides higher taxes and more give away programs, is the few coins left in your pocket! BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID!!! TIFN

Pictures of East Beach

Well those are the pictures that I couldn't figure out how to get on here, so I just took pictures of the picture an here they are, I hope! Right now I see nothing but a bunch of letters and numbers.
Mr. chicken anonymouse: This is the last anyone will see of your comments. On the good advice of some very smart friends, I refuse to enable you to continue to spew your invective here. If you care to clean up your thought processes, and post as someone with a real name, even if it is phony, you will be able to as long as you can be civil to all concerned. These pictures were taken back in the late 1930's and early forties,easily discernible by the cars up on the road. Nothing here is "photo shopped" or touched up in anyway as I don't have the technical smarts or the equipment or the desire to try and fool a fool!
Well here goes nothing! Hope they appear!TIFN

 

 

 

 

These were supposed to come through with the others, but didn't!
I had put captions on each picture but they didn't come through either. As you can see, there is a hell of a lot more beach in these pictures than there is down there right now. In the one looking north down the Neck Road, you can see the old original beach house that got taken out by Hurricane Carol in 1954. And a hell of a lot more dune and beach grass than there is at present.
"Two or three more paths"? Pull your head out of your ass next ime you go down there and count them. Or is that the problem? Can't count any higher than 3?
The ones with the horse and cart show that the beach extended way out there, or else that horse is a "Jesus" horse and is able to walk on water! And tow a cart full of seaweed at the same time!
So enjoy the pictures anyone who cares to! TIFN

Beach/Road Redux --- Again!

Well I'm sure this post will drag that guy who knows all about the beaches here on BI out of the woodwork to vilify and castigate me on my poor memory! Oh well, here goes.

Have you all perchance been down the Neck Road anytime in the last month or so? Have you happened to notice that the road to the north of the Trustum Dodge monument is now located practically ON the beach? I'm not talking about the beach right in front of the monument, but too the left when viewed from the road. If you stop and get out of your car to look, you will see the the minuscule bit of beach that used to be there is now gone! Imagine that! I wonder where it went? At anytime except dead low tide, the water is right up there next to the road! Got any predictions as to what is going to happen when the next good Nor'easter hit us?

And while you are there go slowly down the Neck Road and count all the NEW little paths that have been opened up this summer by the visiting populace! They climb over the dunes in new places while no more than ten steps away is one of the older more established paths!

I would like to know why NO TOWN COUNCIL in the last twenty years has taken it on themselves to DO something about the problem of people on the dunes!! The problem is NOT GOING TO STOP until drastic measures are taken to stop it and a FEW designated spots are maintained for access to the beach. If you can't see that there is a problem now, then your head is located in a place where the sun never shines and it smells really bad!

So Mr and Mrs Council Person, if you can't figure out what to do all on your own, send a letter or an email, or better yet, an emissary to one of the other beach front communities in RI or even on over to Nantucket or Martha's Vine Yard to see how they deal with the problem!

With all the fiscal woes of this State, when the inevitable comes to pass and the road is washed out just like Spring Street was in 1991 I believe it was, They will probably tell us to go "pound sand" as it were, because there is no money to fix that road. Has anybody down there in the town hall ever heard the term, "proactive" as opposed to "reactive"? I know I am pissing up a stump and NOTHING WILL BE DONE, but I feel better now! TIFN

Guns for kids!

Well my brandy new Sig Sauer Mosquito .22 cal arrived today and what a sweet little piece it is. It is threaded on the front end of the barrel. Gee, I wonder whatever that is for:)? It was bought along with a couple thousand rounds of ammo to begin teaching my three preteen granddaughters and two grandsons how to use a handgun properly. Granddaughter number 4 will have to wait a few years, she is only 18 monnth's old.

After a little "classroom indoctrination" in the cellar, at the reloading bench, into the finer points of gun handling and where and how to point it, and most importantly, why and when to point it, we will then move on to how to disassemble, clean, and reassemble the weapon. If you can't do those simple tasks,safely and efficiently, you have no reason to be handling and shooting these things. As we all know, there are too many incidents of accidental shootings because of unfamiliarity with any weapon, be it pistol, shotgun, rifle or even a six inch blade!

Then when they are comfortable with these rote actions we will move on to the actual shooting of the piece. We have no shooting range out here on the Island, so we have to resort to using the bottom of a sand pit with a nice soft hill side to absorb the hot lead. Also being down there in the bottom, hopefully any errant shot that might hit a bigger piece of rock will be deflected into the side gravel banks. Hopefully after a few boxes of rounds they will be on the road to proficiency with this weapon. Then we will move on up to his, Mosquitos, big brother, Mr. Sig Model 1911 S/S .45 cal.!

I can hear the comments pouring in now, and most of them in the negative vein. Like why would you want those kids to know how to shoot a gun? What if they hurt someone with it? Oh God, are they going to bring it too school? Girls don't NEED to know how to use a gun! Oh yeah? They need to know how to use one a lot more than the boys! How many stories do you see on the TV or the radio every day about someone abducting a young girl or teenager? How many of them are ever found alive and unharmed? Other than Elizabeth Smart, not to many of them. So don't be so damned fearful of every person who has a gun on their person. If he/she is a law abiding person, you'll never know they had it. If it is criminal with one, every one will know he has it after he uses it to gain whatever had taken his fancy at the moment! Maybe your life! A lot of the kooks have absolutely no regard for any human life much less yours! So maybe that good guy over in the corner watching this unfold will take action with his concealed weapon and save yours, as well as other lives!

So I am going to give my girls and boys the mental tools as well as the physical ones needed to protect themselves and their loved ones when it comes right down to it. For all you know, I could have a concealed carry weapon stuck in the back of my pants and you'd never know it. But it would be there if the time ever came when it needed to be deployed. The right to own, use, and carry a weapon isn't worth a rats ass if it is locked up in a gun safe at home with a cable through the trigger guard and the ammo in the basement in another locked box! It has to be where it is going to be accessible when the pooh hits the rotating airfoil! That old robber dude isn't going to wait for you to run and get your piece and get it loaded so you can scare him off before he blows your ass away! And don't be too complacent just because of where we live. All kinds of weird folks come visiting out here. Just look at all the NY license plates!TIC!!! TIFN

Education In America!

I am sitting here reading some of my favorite blogs, and in the background my wife has the TV going and is watching the program, "Are you smarter than a Fifth Grader?". The contestant is a High School Biology teacher who had been recently voted as the, "Teacher of the Year" in his State. Sitting in the audience with his parents, is the Principal of the school where he teaches. He appeared to be "thirty something" in age. The Principal looked to be in her early fifties. He is going for a $175,000.00 dollar question. And that Question was: "Canberra is the Capitol of what Country"?

Well after he hemmed and hawed for a few minutes he came up with the answer of, Uzbekistan! Now I'm screaming at the TV and calling this guy every derogatory name I can think of! And he goes with that answer. Then they turn to the kid who has written an answer down in secret and ask her, a fifth grader the same question. She wrote the correct answer of Australia, but they haven't revealed to all of us whether the guy is right or if she is. They they turn to the Principal sitting there and ask her if Australia is the right answer. To my complete amazement and total chagrin, she looks at the camera and says, "No, it sure isn't Australia"!

After I pried myself off the ceiling and wiped all the spit off my face and chest, I sat here in total denial that two people from the same school system could be that stupid! Or maybe not! Could it be that it is the fault of the good ole system of education in this country has been going down the tubes for the last 50 years, and that this is one instance of the culmination of the process? After years of teaching kids to have self esteem, and to be politically correct, don't touch the girls in your class, don't you dare to bring a pocket knife to school little boy, don't spit on the sidewalk, that they have completely forgotten to teach the kids anything of any real value in their 13 years in school?

It is high time for this country to get back to the basics of education FIRST, and then move on to all that esoteric bullshit when they are old enough to understand what it is all about.

Update: Latest contestant has a "[{Masters degree In Education}]" and he DID NOT KNOW that Juneau Alaska was the furthest north state capital! He picked Bangor Maine!Duh! Isn't it Augusta? And the last question this genius blew was, "Who was the first person in 1953 to climb to the top of Mt Everest"? If any younger person than 35 doesn't know, it was Sir Edmund Hillary. I am just beside myself with despair!!! TIFN

NOT EXACTLY!

Hi All. This time out, I am going to put up a post I have copied from another, "nationally read" blog. It is kind of lengthy, but you NEED to read the whole thing and then randomly pick out a couple to verify them. BTW, I HAVE GOTTEN written permission from the author of the piece to post it on this blog! So here it is. Read and be as amazed as I was by the blatant falsehoods, (LIES), that this man has foist on the oh so gullible American public! The far lefties think they have the reincarnation of JFK here, but what they really have is a common, run of the mill, low life, I'll sell my soul to the highest bidder if you can make me President, Chicago politician, who changes his views and positions as fast as the wind changes direction in that windy city!

Posted by Old NFO at 1:32 PM 5 comments
Sunday, July 13, 2008

Obama's not exactly...

A few 'minor' corrections to Obama's pronouncements... All verifiable via the net. Please feel free to add any that I missed, as I'm SURE this is not anywhere near a complete list!

1.) Selma Got Me Born - NOT EXACTLY, your parents felt safe enough to have you in 1961. Selma had no effect on your birth, as Selma was in 1965. (Google 'Obama Selma' for his full March 4, 2007 speech and articles about its various untruths.)

2.) Father Was A Goat Herder - NOT EXACTLY, he was a privileged, well educated youth, who went on to work with the Kenyan Government.

3.) Father Was A Proud Freedom Fighter - NOT EXACTLY, he was part of one of the most corrupt and violent governments Kenya has ever had.

4) My Family Has Strong Ties To African Freedom - NOT EXACTLY, your cousin Raila Odinga has created mass violence in attempting to overturn a legitimate election in 2007, in Kenya . It is the first widespread violence in decades. The current government is pro-American but Odinga wants to overthrow it and establish Muslim Sharia law. Your half-brother, Abongo Obama, is Odinga's follower. You interrupted your New Hampshire campaigning to speak to Odinga on the phone. Check out the following link for verification of that....and for more.Obama's cousin Odinga in Kenya ran for president and tried to get Sharia muslim law in place there. When Odinga lost the elections, his followers burned Christians' homes and then burned men, women and children alive in a Christian church where they took shelter. Obama SUPPORTED his cousin before the election process here started. Google Obama and Odinga and see what you get.

5.) My Grandmother Has Always Been A Christian - NOT EXACTLY, she does her daily Salat prayers at 5am according to her own interviews. Not to Mention that no Christian religion would allow her to have been one of 14 wives to 1 man, except Mormons.

6.) My Name is African Swahili - NOT EXACTLY, your name is Arabic and 'Baraka' (from which Barack came) means 'blessed' in that language. Hussein is also Arabic and so is Obama.Barack Hussein. Obama is not half black. If elected, Obama would be the first Arab-American President, not the first black President. Barack Hussein Obama is 50% Caucasian from his mother's side and 43.75% Arabic and 6.25% African Negro from his father's side. While Barack Hussein Obama's father was from Kenya , his father's family was mainly Arabs. Barack Hussein Obama's father was only 12.5% African Negro and 87.5% Arab (his father's birth certificate even states he's Arab, not African Negro).

7.) I Never Practiced Islam - NOT EXACTLY, you practiced it daily at school, where you were registered as a Muslim and kept that faith for 31 years, until your wife made you change, so you could run for office. 4-3-08 Article 'Obama was 'quite religious.'

8.) My School In Indonesia Was Christian - NOT EXACTLY, you were registered as Muslim there and got in trouble in Koranic Studies for making faces (check your own book). February 28, 2008. Kristoff from the New York Times a year ago: Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it'll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as 'one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.' This is just one example of what Pamela is talking about when she says 'Obama's narrative is being altered, enhanced and manipulated to whitewash troubling facts.

9.) I Was Fluent In Indonesian - NOT EXACTLY, not one teacher says you could speak the language.

10.) Because I Lived In Indonesia , I Have More Foreign Experience - NOT EXACTLY, you were there from the ages of 6 to 10, and couldn't even speak the language. What did you learn, how to study the Koran and watch cartoons.

11.) I'm Stronger On Foreign Affairs - NOT EXACTLY, except for Africa (surprise) and the Middle East (bigger surprise), you have never been anywhere else on the planet and thus have NO experience with our closest allies.

12.) I Blame My Early Drug Use On Ethnic Confusion - NOT EXACTLY, you were quite content in high school to be Barry Obama, no mention of Kenya and no mention of struggle to identify - your classmates said you were just fine.

13.) An Ebony Article Moved Me To Run For Office - NOT EXACTLY, Ebony has yet to find the article you mention in your book. It doesn't, and never did, exist.

14.) A Life Magazine Article Changed My Outlook On Life - NOT EXACTLY, Life has yet to find the article you mention in your book. It doesn't, and never did, exist.

15.) I Won't Run On A National Ticket In '08 - NOT EXACTLY, here you are. Despite saying live on TV, that you would not have enough experience by then, and you are all about having experience first.

16.) Voting 'Present' is Common In Illinois Senate - NOT EXACTLY, they are common for YOU, but not many others have 130 NO VOTES.

17.) Oops, I Misvoted - NOT EXACTLY, only when caught by church groups and Democrats, did you beg to change your misvote.

18.) I Was A Professor Of Law - NOT EXACTLY, you were a senior lecturer ON LEAVE.

19.) I Was A Constitutional Lawyer - NOT EXACTLY, you were a senior lecturer ON LEAVE.

20.) Without Me, There Would Be No Ethics Bill - NOT EXACTLY, you didn't write it, introduce it, change it, or create it.

21.) The Ethics Bill Was Hard To Pass - NOT EXACTLY, it took just 14 days from start to finish.

22.) I Wrote A Tough Nuclear Bill - NOT EXACTLY, your bill was rejected by your own party for its pandering and lack of all regulation - mainly because of your Nuclear donor, Exelon, from which David Axelrod came.

23.) I Have Released My State Records - NOT EXACTLY, as of March, 2008, state bills you sponsored or voted for have yet to be released, exposing all the special interests pork hidden within.

24.) I Took On The Asbestos Altgeld Gardens Mess - NOT EXACTLY, you were part of a large group of people who remedied Altgeld Gardens . You failed to mention anyone else but yourself, in your books.

25.) My Economics Bill Will Help America - NOT EXACTLY, your 111 economic policies were just combined into a proposal which lost 99-0, and even YOU voted against your own bill.

26.) I Have Been A Bold Leader In Illinois - NOT EXACTLY, even your own supporters claim to have not seen BOLD action on your part.

27.) We passed 26 Of My Own Bills In One Year - NOT EXACTLY, they were not YOUR bills, but rather handed to you, after their creation by a fellow Senator, to assist you in a future bid for higher office.

28.) No One on my campaign contacted Canada about NAFTA - NOT EXACTLY, the Canadian Government issued the names and a memo of the conversation your campaign had with them.

29.) I Am Tough On Terrorism - NOT EXACTLY, you missed the Iran Resolution vote on terrorism and your good friend Ali Abunimah supports the destruction of Israel .

30.) I Want All Votes To Count - NOT EXACTLY, you said let the delegates decide.

31.) I Want Americans To Decide - NOT EXACTLY, you prefer caucuses that limit the vote, confuse the voters, force a public vote, and only operate during small windows of time.

32.) I passed 900 Bills in the State Senate - NOT EXACTLY, you passed 26, most of which you didn't write yourself.

33.) I Believe In Fairness, Not Tactics - NOT EXACTLY, you used mafia-like tactics to eliminate Alice Palmer from running against you.

34.) I Don't Take PAC Money - NOT EXACTLY, you take loads of it.

35.) I don't Have Lobbyists - NOT EXACTLY, you have over 47 lobbyists, and counting.
36.) My Campaign Had Nothing To Do With The 1984 Ad - NOT EXACTLY, your own campaign worker made the ad on his Apple in one afternoon.

37.) I Have Always Been Against Iraq - NOT EXACTLY, you weren't in office to vote against it AND you have voted to fund it every single time.

38.) I Have Always Supported Universal Health Care - NOT EXACTLY, your Plan leaves the rest of us to pay for the 15,000,000 who won't have to buy it.

So there you have it folks! Make up your mind and vote your conscience in the fall! Would you rather have an old guy on his last legs, hopefully for at least four years, who is basically honest and trustworthy, or that lying piece of nitrogeneous waste manner named in the above post? TIFN

The Main Stream Media strikes again!!

Does anybody out there except the rabid lefty loonies really believe ANYTHING the MSM professes to be true anymore? The following is a copy of a letter from a retired Major General of the Army to a local newspaper. I didn't see anything about copyrights or restrictions about passing this on, so will all you folks who can't wait to castigate me for my copy right infringements just hold your criticisms for a bit.
This was forwarded to me by a past, long time, (35 years) home owner on the Island. He is a very intelligent person and vets all things he passes to me if possible. So I do believe it, and post it herewith for your perusal! This just goes to show you how far they will go to get their messiah elected this fall.

And some still doubt there is flagrant bias afoot in the media...?.

This story is not so much about inaccuracy as it is about what Catholic
schoolboys used to whimsically refer to as “Jesuit half-truths”, i.e.,
withholding essential bits of information to induce gullible listeners or
readers to form wrong opinions….. or at best…..endorse slightly distorted
viewpoints.

Providing facts to allow the public to form objective opinions is what some
of us like to believe reporting should be about. But that’s naive if we
don’t happen to own TV/Radio stations or newspapers.

ABC staffers chose to follow the lead of their owners.

Note: . According to SNOPES.COM this cannot be verified and is
undetermined.......however, statistically this [story] is probably true as
the odds are small that McCain would receive only 1 out of 6 votes.(cf
Snopes)




-------------------------------------------------------------
This from Major General (ret) Buckman


****************************************************************************
*****************


My niece, Katelyn, stationed at Baluud , Iraq was assigned, with others of
her detachment, to be escort/guard/ watcher for Martha Raddatz of ABC News
as she covered John McCain's recent trip to Iraq . Katelyn and her Captain
stood directly behind Raddatz as she queried GI's walking past. They kept
count of the GI's and you should remember these numbers. She asked 60 GI's
who they planned to vote for in November. 54 said John McCain, 4 for Obama
and 2 for Hillary. Katelyn called home and told her Mom and Dad to watch
ABC news the next night because she was standing directly behind Raddatz and
maybe they'd see her on TV. Mom and Dad of course, called and emailed all
the kinfolk to watch the newscast and maybe see Katelyn. Well, of course, we
all watched and what we saw wasn't a glimpse of Katelyn, but got a hell' uva
view of skewed news. After a dissertation on McCain's trip and speech, ABC
showed 5 GI's being asked by Raddatz how they were going to vote in
November; 3 for Obama and 2 for Clinton . No mention of the 54 for McCain.

_____

Bottle bill

No, this isn't about that old guy who used to live around here and sucked on a bottle, make that a flask, of kick-a-poo joy juice all day.

When I was a kid around here many thousands of days ago, about the only way to make a few cents for spending money was to go digging around in the local trash heaps of which there were quite a few, for discarded bottles! As I recall there were only a few that were redeemable at the Seaside Market. All of the large ones, about a quart and a half that said Coca Cola, Clicquot Club, Spur, an a couple others were worth 5 cents each! In todays money that would be like getting about three or four bucks back for a bottle. The small coke bottles were worth 2 cents each!

As tight as money was around here back then, you DID NOT see too many of these little gems lying around on the side of the road! And if you did, you just considered yourself one lucky SOB for that day!

So here is the chance for the State of RI to finally get it right. Someone has again introduced a bottle bill in the legislature. Does it have a chance of passing? Who knows. Who actually knows why all the previous ones were shot down in flames. It is probably because one or more of our, "elected officials" has friends or family in the plastic bottle fabrication business and they don't want any competition from already made containers.

But just think of the benefits of a bottle bill. All the poor, indigent, laborers could go out and get rich and live the American dream! The sides of the roads would be forever free of this type of trash! And after two or three years, the landfill at Johnston would be reduced to a tiny mole hill of inconspicuious height after they had picked it clean of those returnable bottles! No more worries about that,"plastic bottle that will be in the landfill for CENTURIES"!

So we give kudos too the person who introd'ed the bill, and can only hope that our fearless leaders will see fit to join with them in bringing our deficient state from the backwaters of time and place, into the reality of today! Besides being good for the visual aspect of it all, after Obama gets in, we are all going to need a little extra income to get those two elusive ends to meet! TIFN

Obomanomics

There is a word you are going to be hearing a lot about in the next five months! I was, oh what the hell, AM going to go off on a rant about how some people can be so oblivious to his coming policies if he gets elected, just because he is a black man! I guess they think that if he gets elected we, whitey, will be absolved of all our past transgressions against the black people. Is not going to happen folks. If he gets elected the first thing he is going to do is shove his hands so deep in your pockets you won't get him out for four years or more! All you old folks depending on SS? Stand by for cuts there. Bush's tax cuts? They will be gone in '10. Foreign Aid? He says he IS GOING to DOUBLE it!! Bet most of it goes to NK in the form of "food"!

Just where the hell does he think he is going to 'get' all this free money from? Think the twelve owners of the FED will print him up some more unbacked $$$? Bet your ass seeing as they are the ones who put him where he is!
This guy is so far out in left field, he is outside the foul pole! He is not even playing on the same field as the rest of us! Take a real good deep, in depth look at where he came from as a politician, and how he came to be where he is now. He is the end product of the Illinois good old boy political network. Greased every palm and dealt with every sleazy person in the network to arrive at his present station. Look at some of the people he is using for adviser's! Most of the are from the Slick Willie era, and a few were involved with mighty shady too black dealings,(murder-Vince Foster-remember him?) back then. This guy is a wolf, dressed in sheep's clothing, made solely out of charisma, rhetoric, and "baffle 'em with bull shit" talk, and he is going to eat us alive while turning this country into a second rate shithole!

I know that McCain is an old man by some people's standards, and if he dies in office, hopefully his VP will be someone who can carry on in his general vein. If BO gets in and has Hillary for a VP, and he was to bite the bullet, then we'd have her, and after her, Nancy Pelosi! What a god awful frightening thought to contemplate!

So get your money out of the banks if you have any in there, close out your IRA's and take the tax beating now. It will be less than when BO is on board. Start hoarding whatever you think you will need in the next four years, 'cause it is only going to get more expensive. Don't even think of doing anything that would involve capital gains as the rate for that little endeavor will also double from 7 to 14%. He has already guaranteed that! This guy is one of those who will not learn from past mistakes and history. He is going to take us right back to all the failed policies of the 60's and 70's! Super high taxation and more and bigger government, and look where we are now! School systems suck, colleges and universities are infested with all the Left leaning, no, BENT OVER to the ground, socialist professors who infect our kids with their outdated and outmoded brand of politics. "And the beat goes on" so Cher would say.

I guess that's enough for this time. Okay all, time to 'debunk' all the myths I have put forward up there. TIFN

More on Kilowatts

After reading all the story and the comments in the BIT on Friday about the cost of electricity here on BI, I just had to drop in with this short observation.
The last time we had a full blown "energy crisis" here in the US, back in the 70's, we, Verna and I, decided after a lot of digging and homework to put up the WECS that still stands in our yard. Over the intervening 27 years this thing, and it's previous incarnation, the Jacobs windmill, has provided this house with a few HUNDRED THOUSAND kilowatts of energy! I have managed to actually lose the book that I recorded weekly totals in for 19 of those years, so I have no written records to fall back on, but the above estimate is a pretty fair one.

Just since the new inverter with all sorts of new innovations was installed in the winter, we have produced over 1800 KW's! For the month just past the total was 501 kws! That was enough to TOTALLY cover our usage from BIPCO if it had all been directly applied to our appliances. But as we are not a "stand alone" system, some of it goes back to the power company, and some we use directly.

Now the investment 27 years ago was a lot less than it would be now, but wind energy IS NOW AND ALWAYS WILL BE, a viable adjunct to power generation and usage here on BI. I don't give a rats ass what all the EXPERTS say, it is a workable technology! I think 27 years of daily contact with the technology should lend SOME credence to that statement.

So somewhere down the line, and in the not to distant future, a lot of people are going to have to give up their tightly held views of "view sheds" in order to be able to,"view-their-sheds" in the dark of night! I thought the comment by Kay Lewis was a very telling one. They are the people who would have an unrestricted view of those proposed WECS were they to become reality. They, apparently, unlike most of us, have open minds able to assess the future and its needs, and don't let personal feelings cloud and distort those ideas.

But while waiting for those gigantic ones to appear and a cable from them to be diverted to BI, (Yeah, RIGHT!!), what to do? If I was just coming to the realization that I needed to do SOMETHING, I would get in contact with the Bergy company out in Norman Oklahoma and see what models of WECS they have for sale. Then I would "hie me hence" to the Town Council and work on them to lift the STUPID RESTRICTIONS that were put in place by a previous council! Even "they" had to know that this day was coming, and here it is! Without much doubt in this feeble mind, I believe this little imbroglio is going to last a lot longer than the last one!

So in order to relieve the burden on your pocket book, don't be waiting for some pie in the sky innovation like wave generation and BIG MILLS to appear and save us all from 'Those Arabic Devils', take some of those pennies and cover the roof of your house with the new generation of solar panels and get ANY SIZED wind generator you can afford and start doing something with some sort of reality attached to it! TIFN

Immigration

Well this one is sure to piss off a few people, but I'm going to tell it like I see it. The Governor of RI has begun a process that just MAY spread all across this country! But not if the ACLU and all the rest of very liberal and vociferous lefties have their way.

What I'm talking about is Governor Carceri's (sp)executive order telling all employers in the State to check the citizenship status of all their employees. If they are not ALL here legally, "they are going to be deported back to where they came from"! And it is about time someone started to show some guts and take some action! The federal government doesn't seem to really do anything about the problem except mouth platitudes and pander to the lobby groups while filling everyone full of crap!

So right off the bat, the leader of the Hispanic republicans in RI quit his post in protest! Well good for him! Go and get another real job and pay some taxes if you have been or are an ILLEGAL ALIEN!

Just exactly why is it that people can just come and sneak into this country, and then take advantage of all of our social services, fill up the hospitals and schools with more illegal kids, get free medical care, food stamps, pay no taxes, and send a lot of the money back home,and when someone protests, use their NON EXISTENT, so called "rights" under OUR constitution to claim that all these things are theirs and that they are "entitled to them" just by the fact that they are here? The fact of the matter is, THEY HAVE NO LEGAL RIGHTS! In most other countries of the world, they would get kicked right out on their asses with a big boot to the aforementioned anatomical location!

I am NOT focused on just Mexican, Guatemalan, or other Central American natives. If you don't have a problem with American Indian descendants, then you shouldn't have a problem with these people either. I say that because if they are not pure blooded N/C/S Americans, they have mixed blood, and those "donors" came from Spain, Portugal, Italy and other countries in Europe that were mostly white last time I looked.

I just say to send them ALL back to their point of origin and let them do it the legal way! If it is going to take them 10 to 15 years to do it, and they don't like the waiting period, gang together in your OWN COUNTRY, and get it straightened out instead of running away! Although I guess that's what most of us did way back in the beginning! I think one of my ancestors was trying to prove he didn't kill and eat one of the Kings deer when he decided to emigrate back in the very early 1600's!

So come on Governor, don't back down from all these loud mouths who talk a good game, but when it comes time to put up (THEIR money) or shut up, they seem to fade into the woodwork! And the next time that guy from the ACLU starts running his mouth, remind him of what the 4 letters of his organisation mean, AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union!! NOT ILLEGAL Alien Civil Liberties Union! Then kick his turncoat ass out the door to!! TIFN Okay Cyber man, it's your turn. I promise I'll leave your post up!

One (1) example of why Medicare and the SSA is going down the tubes!

When I retired from active military service after 20 years and came back to the Island to live, I bought a very small, about 200-250 customer LPG business from my cousin who wanted to quit. So for about $10K we began. One of the benefits of serving for 20 years in the military was the ability to get free medical care for me and my family for life. Kids only until they were 18. Being located where we were, made it very inconvenient to run to Newport every time you got a cut or one of the kids got sick, so we decided to invest in some sort of medical care that would take care of us very locally. So we joined the RI Blue Cross program and paid to it, for 33 years, some pretty damned huge fees to get this convenience to us. Over the last 33 years, the total has finally tripped over $1.12M. Why so high? because we chose to go with the very best program they had, that we could afford, in order to cover all possible illness's.

So there we were cruising along and only had to use the coverage a few times. One hysterectomy, not mine, a couple of heart stent implants, and numerous minor accidents, broken bones, sniffles etc.

Then one day not so long ago, I managed to reach the ripe old age of 65 and another check arrived from the government, telling me that I was to receive this money for having paid into the system since 1956 the money called, Social Security taxes! Wonderful says I to myself, "found money"! I thought it was long gone! But I thought at the time that I really didn't need it, at least not yet, as we had put away some money, had a good sized 401K and my military pay that would continue until I croaked. Plus I was doing that socially accepted practice of doing "consulting" for my former business and was receiving a small monthly stipend for that service. Oh yeah, I had to fill lots of 20 pound LPG gas grill bottles also on a daily basis, but I do digress.

In the middle of the page with the notification of the largess I was to receive from our rich Uncle Sam, was a sentence that said I was to have $98 a month deducted from my check in order to pay the fees for Medicare! I was to be AUTOMATICALLY enrolled, I wasn't asked, I was told I was enrolled, thanks to the foresight and promises of past politicians who thought that every person in the US regardless of wealth or lack thereof should be accommodated at the slop trough of public money! Screw the thought of where the money was to come from in the future to pay for their largess, just promise the folks back home unlimited access to the national treasury and let the chips fall where they may. Anything to enable themselves to stay there at the trough with their snouts shoved in so deeply they could hardly breath! Oops! digressing again!

Now this $98 a month was going to replace that approximately $2600 a month that had been the private cost to us before hand. See where this is going? So now I have my "Uncle" vying with RI BC/BS to see just who will "NOT HAVE TO PAY" for any medical bills I might incur! That's what happened! BC/BS knew damned well when I had crossed that 65 yr. threshold and still they greedily collected that annual fee from us, for FIVE years, knowing full well that they weren't going to be the primary payer as I had also joined in at the national slop though! So finally after 33 years they ejected us from the best program and put us in some other one that picks up only PART of any fees that medicare won't pay! And as yet they have felt no need to refund any portion of those fees collected from us for the past 5 years. No wonder half the "Wheels" up there are under indictment for one thing or another!

So I came across this news clip of the Administrator of the GAO, Government Accounting Office, (who is the fiscal watchdog for the "Entitlement give away boys club" e'er, that would be Congress in case you didn't know,) who has given up trying to talk to those boys about rectifying their ways, and is going directly to the public in the form of business owners, large and small, and just generally, US. He has been telling it like it really is, and what it "is", is that if they don't do some fixing starting right now, the economic future of this country as a viable entity is in absolute jeopardy of ceasing to exist!! Right now, my grandchildren have one for sure thing to look forward to for the next 75 years, and that is, that they are going to have to pay for all the entitlements handed out so zealously by the previous, present, and future STUPID, and GREEDY politicians we continue to elect. Mr. B Hussein Obama, and Shrillary will do NOTHING but continue to contribute to this slide into fiscal death! I do NOT exclude Mr. McCain from this group either. The only person I see who is trying to get handle on things locally is Our Governor Mr. Carceri (sp)!

It is Saturday morning about 5 am when I started this rant. I think I'll put a full bottle of Baileys in my coffee and start the day off right! TIFN!

More Sand Dunes!!

Went out for a Sunday afternoon drive yesterday to continue to do my part in wasting some of our precious natural resources. Coming out of the Neck I looked over at the dunes and there perched on the very top of one of the bigger ones was a group of people numbering about eight. There they were, waving their arms about and taking in the view. And I'm sure loosening up a few more roots of the dune grass. Moving along the road, I come to a big white van parked there with this name emblazoned on the side; "Northeastern University, Department of Environmental Sciences". So it just made me wonder which department it was that goes around contributing to the distruction of dunes! And did we invite them? Or did they just show up of their own accord? Wind, waves, and our own home grown vandals do enough to them without importing them from wherever! TIFN

Big Hole in the Road

Well I see Lisa Sprague's cry for fiscal responsibility fell on deaf ears as usual. I guess those "upstate" folks just had to spend all that money to fix something that was not broken. True, it will be nice for the front street all the way to the BIG to have nice sidewalks on both sides of the road, but all that dough spent on the Bridgegate Square renovation could have better spent by finishing out the sidewalk from in front of the City Drug down to the Old Harbor dock. Now there is a section that is in terrible shape! While out riding around on my "ped" and sticking my nose in other peoples business, I have seen three people take a dive to the ground between Ernies and the next building up the street. Can't remember what it is called this week.

The rains last night, and the ones to come later this week have already worked its relentless, continuing havoc on more of the Neck Road right beside the Trustum Dodge monument. Well I guess we have to wait for the waves to actually begin to break over the road before anyone will behoove themselves to get moving on some sort of preservation of what is left of the dunes there.

Actually, the dunes that used to be there are long gone!! Go down there at low tide and sit on the one remaining seat. As you look out to sea, you will see three large rocks sticking up from the seabed. They are almost in a straight line from the beach outward. See that one the furthest out? When I was between 1 year old and 10-11 yrs. old, that was where the edge of the water was located! My Mom had a big-assed old Packard touring car, about 20 years old at the time, that she used to park right where the monument is now. It would sit there pulled well off the road and perpendicular to it! That thing was about 24 feet long! We would gather up all the beach paraphenalia and make a mad dash to climb over two dunes of black sand, and then three lesser ones made up of white and black sand before even reaching the beach proper! Then it was another few yards the waters edge. Now in my lifetime, I'm now tripping over 70, the beach has totally disappeared. How much longer do you think it will be before those destructive waves will be crashing on the road ?

An alternative to building up next too the road would be to put a nice big long new breakwater from the Old Harbor all the way to Mansion Beach or further. That would stop the big waves, and make one hell of a nice protected harbor for all those yachtsmen who spend no money , TIC, to drop anchor! Wha chu 'tink?? TIFN

Pennies from heaven

Some of you folks who live here on the Island year round may have noticed that my WECS, Wind Energy Conversion System, otherwise known as a windmill has been in the "Bent" position for the last two and a half months. Most of the time it had been inactive was spent waiting for the Manufacturers rep to come and see what the matter was. Well they finally showed up one day in early January and took the guts out of the inverter and sent them to Norman OK to be repaired. We decided at that time to put out the money for a brand new inverter that is supposed to be about ten times more efficient than the old one which is 15 years old. So the new one arrived about three weeks ago and was finally installed yesterday, and the switch was flipped to commence those above mentioned "pennies from heaven" raining down into my oh so empty coffers! It was started at 1700 and as of today at the same time, it has made ALL the juice needed by this house for about two and one half days!! The meter reads a nice satisfying 52 KwH's produced in 24 hours! Hot Damn, those electrons are pouring into the basement in torrents! Just have to remember to go down there with rubber boots on in case there are any stray ones oozing around on the floor! TIFN

Rogers Ramblings

Did anyone else happen to see Roger Clements little appearance at a congressional hearing a couple days ago? Just what the hell was he doing there? What in hell ever motivated those idiots to call him there in the first place? Are they in some way trying to "protect our youth" from the evils of steroid use? It didn't work the last time they tried it, so other than getting themselves a lot more face time, I wonder just what it is that makes them tick?

The part that really frost's my butt is that they are spending all this money and time on something they have no business sticking their collective noses in! Is not 'Major League Baseball" a private enterprise? They have hundreds of rules about how to play the game and what you can and cannot do as a member of these teams. So if one of their players wants to stick needles in his ass to grow bigger muscles, just how does that come under the pervue of the US congress? It is up to the owners of these teams to discipline their transgressors.

If it was up to me, they would sign a contract when they first begin their careers that says,"if you use illegal stuff ONE (1) time, you will be fired and can never play again in this league". Do you suppose something like that will ever happen? Nah! Not in my lifetime, or yours. TIFN

And THIS MINORITY is selecting the next Dem POTUS candidate?

I hope the rest of the people in the US have at least a chance of voicing their own views at the ballot box this fall, and NOT a rabid few in the hinterlands!

Here are some interesting numbers from the Iowa Caucuses:

If you listened to the Main Stream Media, there was a TERRIFIC TURNOUT for
Democrats at the Iowa Caucuses AND MAJOR CHANGE is in the wind.

All FOUR of the TOP Republican Candidates EACH exceeded the TOTAL NUMBER OF
VOTES CAST for ALL Democrats.

In fact, it appears that NO Democrats even bothered to show up in Nine of
the 1781 Iowa Precincts. All 1781 Precincts reported Republican votes.

THERE WERE ALMOST 9 TIMES THE NUMBER OF VOTES CAST IN THE REPUBLICAN
CAUCUSES VERSES THE DEMOCRAT CAUCUSES.


Democrats Republicans

Obama4688 Huckabee40841

Edwards4194 Romney29949

Clinton4089 Thompson15904

Richardson298 McCain15559

Biden147 Paul11817

Dodd4 Guiliani4097

Kucinich0 Hunter524

Gravel0 Tancredo5

Total Votes:
13420 118696


WHY DIDN'T THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA REPORT THESE NUMBERS? THEY WOULDN'T BE
BIASED WOULD THEY? THEY WOULDN'T BE AFRAID THIS WOULD MAKE DEMOCRATS LOOK
BAD WOULD THEY?

Looks like it is time to change a popular phrase.

New version: "There are Lies, Damn Lies, and Main Steam Media Reports."
TIFN, The above was sent too me as an email. I didn't just dream it up on my own! Didn't have to!! The big long answer below wasn't authored by me either!! It came from an article on Pajamas Media and was posted by them from an author at The New Republic magazine. Don't know his name and cannot find the post on PJM anymore!

Beating a dead horse

I know I'm beating this dead horse and probably will continue to whip him but, here is one more reason to continue. Although I now see why my idea of not re-electing any incumbent will not work 'till everyone has an epifiny (sp)!

Once again, the power of pork to sustain incumbents gets its best demonstration in the person of John Murtha (D-PA). The acknowledged king of earmarks in the House gains the attention of the New York Times editorial board today, which notes the cozy and lucrative relationship between more than two dozen contractors in Murtha's district and the hundreds of millions of dollars in pork he provided them. It also highlights what roughly amounts to a commission on the sale of Murtha's power as an appropriator:

Mr. Murtha led all House members this year, securing $162 million in district favors, according to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. ... In 1991, Mr. Murtha used a $5 million earmark to create the National Defense Center for Environmental Excellence in Johnstown to develop anti-pollution technology for the military. Since then, it has garnered more than $670 million in contracts and earmarks. Meanwhile it is managed by another contractor Mr. Murtha helped create, Concurrent Technologies, a research operation that somehow was allowed to be set up as a tax-exempt charity, according to The Washington Post. Thanks to Mr. Murtha, Concurrent has boomed; the annual salary for its top three executives averages $462,000.

There’s been no report of Mr. Murtha’s profiting personally. “This is about jobs,” the congressman insists. But the Murtha operation — which has become a model for other entrepreneurial lawmakers — is a gross example of quid pro quo Washington. Every one of the 26 beneficiaries of Mr. Murtha’s earmarks in last year’s defense budget made contributions to his campaign kitty, a total of $413,250, according to the newspaper Roll Call.

I've written several times about Murtha's connections to Concurrent and other contractors, but Concurrent really exemplifies the way in which earmarks not only distort federal power, but also works to maintain incumbencies. Murtha created Concurrent as a vehicle for his pork power to reach back into his district. Setting it up as a tax-exempt charity allowed its revenues to remain in the district, rather than contributing to the same federal revenue that Murtha regularly raids. Its top execs make over $400,000 per year, a strange level for a "charity", and all of it coming from federal contracting where full multibid competiton comprised only 5.5% of their work in 2007.

In return for shoveling hundreds of millions of dollars into his district with no opportunity for other companies to compete for the work, he gives a market advantage to his favorites -- and they return the favor. Knowing that Murtha is the only person who keeps them in business, and in Concurrent's case the reason for their existence at all, they churn out campaign funds in huge numbers for their pork king. Do you wonder why incumbents have a re-election rate of over 90%? This is the reason; people like Murtha get legal kickbacks in order to remain entrenched in power.

In any other context, Murtha would lose his job. If a businessman in the private sector received gifts like this from vendors, his company would kick him to the curb. Not so in Congress; on Capitol Hill, Murtha's colleagues on both sides of the aisle aspire to such low ethical behavior and compete to gain access to the federal treasury for their own political ambitions. And their constituencies reward them for bringing home pork and keep the vicious cycle in motion.

It will not stop until the constituents make it clear that they want Representatives and Senators who won't be bought or even rented. When people like John Kline and Jeff Flake stop being a small minority and gain access to the levers of power because the American electorate has sickened of the corruption and elected like-minded politicians, then the Congress may actually start accomplishing the people's business rather than existing as a sinecure for the compromised and incoherent.

The Sounds of Silence-Deafening isn't it?

- Ms. P, It has been well over 100 days now, and oil is now, $100 a barrel! What ever happened to our independence from foreign oil that YOU were going to deliver too us? Can't you get off your ass and motivate some of your cohorts into doing some "mandating" that would make all vehicles in the US flex fuel compatible by 20xx? Then maybe some of the small farmers in this country might have a chance to actually run in the black for a change! Oh Yeah, there will probably be some sort of rider attached to that bill that says only Archer-McDaniels can grow corn anymore!

- How is your program of ethics reform moving along? Dead in the water last I heard! Too many crooks who won't vote for it I guess huh? You could start with a "sign" program. You know like in kindergarten, plaster the halls of congress with big gaudy signs, in small words and big letters, describing what ethics are and how to introduce them into your daily lives. Oh damn, I forgot, most of you idiots can't read or by now you might have read the OTHER, "writing on the wall"!

- BTW, why don't you take Harry Reid and Richard Byrd into the cloak closet and give them a good talking to on the excess use of earmarks in their home states? I remember you made lots of grandiose statements about how you were going to fix that little problem also. Senile-ator Byrd just went over the 3 billion mark with his latest $36 million grab! How come no progress there? Oh yeah I see it now, you've got your hand deep in the jar and got such a big handful of bucks for your husbands projects that you can't get it out huh? Just like a monkey and the cookie jar!

- We are not exempt here in RI either. Sen. Jack Reed just got a quarter mil to restore the "John Brown House" Wasn't he the founder of Brown U.? Don't they own the house? How the hell come the taxpayer gets to foot the bill for the face lift?

- Why don't you in your capacity as speaker, try doing something about the the bloated and totally out of control "foreign aid" package? Why do we continually give money to countries that are actively plotting the downfall of the US? How can you people, in any semblance of rationality, continue to pour money down these rat holes? You say you do it to promote the good will of these people? You say you do it to get food aid to these poor people? You say you do it to stop genocide in these poor countries? etc. etc. etc.? Well let me tell you folks, IT AIN'T WORKING!!! The top dogs skim most of it right off the top and into bank accounts in Switzerland! And if you can't see that, it is because your head is shoved so far up your, err, dark smelly places, you will never see the light of day again! Just think what we could do with all that money if it stayed home! The first thing we could do with some of it, is to remove Joe Kennedy from the TV where he continues to blatantly shill for Hugo Chavez, Mr. CITGO himself!

-Time too quit. I have to go take a blood pressure pill before I pop a gasket. But in the meantime Ms P, hie thee hence in your Armani clad body, and your dhimmi covered head, and your wrinkle covered face, and connect with that other harridan Shrillary, and try to get at least one meaningful piece of work done in your, "House of Ill Repute" before you all go on summer hiatus. Yeah, good luck to us!! TIFN