Belmont Learning Center Opens

And it came in at of cost of just $400 million.

When it was slated to be opened back in 1998 it was the most expensive HS ever built. However, the LAUSD and certain political activists, decided that being there was oil nearby and earthquake faults, the complex shouldn't be allowed to open.

I worked that oil field for twenty years, and it wasn't a gas producing field...there was NO methane problem. The problem they will now face is that being the field is no longer reducing the pressure that these wells were relieving (and there were over 1300 holes punched into this field that where just "kinda" abandoned) in about 5 to 10 years the city will see gas build-up and oil seeps so that the Temple-Beaudry district will resemble the La Brea Tar Pits.

As far as earthquake faults... well we live in So Cal, if you don't live on one, you live close enough to it that it's probably going to fuck up your day.

Reading The Constitution

It's something I now realize I should have done years ago. Oh, of course we read it High School, but at the time it was just another assignment to get through, and the classroom discussion was minimal.

I bought the Heritage Guide to the Constitution almost two years ago, I started to read it once and got sidetracked, but about two months ago I was desperate for something to read and I picked it up again.

This is an excellent reference book. It takes each Article,Section and Clause and cites debates of the Founders on the issue and interpretations and rulings from the three branches of gov't (where applicable).

I decided to read no more that one clause a day, I'm up to "Presentment of Resolutions"(Article 1, Section 7, Clause 3). This has given me time to actually try to digest the thoughts and arguments and internalize them.

The men were giants. There were the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists who came up with a document that the states could agree on, balancing the power of the National Gov't with the power of the the individual States and restricting the power of each branch of the gov't so that no one branch could control the process.

I'm still dealing with Congress and have the President, Judiciary, Military, Treasury to go, not to metions getting to the Amendments.

I also have a copy of "The Federalist" that I bought at the same time, and only got through about 1/2 of the "Editors Introduction" (it's 84 pages). I'm now really looking forward to getting back to it so I can compare my approvals and misgivings about this document.

Now I could use recommendations of books similar to "The Federalist" that covers "The Bill of Rights".

I couldn't come up with a heading for this entry because I really don't know how I feel. I'm 54 today, and I'm torn between the joy of having lived this long with all the idiot decisions I've made over all those years, and the realization that because of those decisions I'm not where I thought I should be.

My major joy is my son. He has grown up into a compassionate and moral man. At 19, he doesn't really have a pointed goal of what he wants to do, but he's not accusing anyone or anything of stopping him from achieving it, and I would do all in my ability to help him achieve is goals.

I"m very conflicted on this anniversary. I feel I've done good in my life, but feel that there is so much more that should have been done.

Saving My Past - Part II

A long long time ago
I can still remember how that music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while.

(Don Mclean , American Pie)

A long, long time ago I got a turntable that plugged into my computer. I was so excited that I was now able to save all my albums that I ran out and bought a 100 gig drive that would store nothing but music. Over a year, and I hadn't even filled 8% of that drive.

I got off work early today by swapping a couple hours with my relief that he needed yesterday (by the way Dennis you owe me $1 due to shift differential), and I got an urge to listen to stuff I hadn't heard in forever, so I figured if I was going to listen, might as well record.

I started out just flipping through my collection, but that only lasted for the first two albums, now I'm looking for specific LP's and being I've had cats for many, many years, the bastards liked to sharpen their claws on that nice wall of cardboard. That means that half the ends of the record sleeves are unreadable and I found out that my kid liked to listen to the records, just wasn't to meticulous about filing them back where he got them.

It seems that whatever particular album I'm looking for isn't where it should be, that means flipping through everything and that leads to "OH WOW" I haven't heard that in ages so I'll pull it out and get to it after these others.

So far today I've listened to Bowie, ELP, King Crimson, Lee Michaels, Zappa, Stevie Wonder and have The Tubes, Springsteen, Iron Butterfly, Doors and Led Zeppelin sitting at my feet ready to go.

One thing that has amazed me is the condition of my records, for being anywhere up to 40 years old is that a majority of them are without major clicks, pops or scratches, not perfect, but as close as a normal person could keep them while enjoying them.

I've always loved my music and have always tried to take care of the discs. No multi-platter disc dropping turntables, dust them off before playing and put them away in the dust sleeve and jacket when done.

Another album is coming to a close, so gotta go.

Drugs!!!

Had to go yesterday to get my "random" drug test. Outside of the fact that I had to drive 16 miles to a site right next to the entrance to LAX, it really wasn't a big thing. I haven't done drugs in a long, long time, hell, I'll try to tough out a headache before I'll take an aspirin. With my consumption of beer at times...well I feel sometimes you just have to pay the piper to play.

The reason for the snide quotes around "random" is due to a mid-life crisis, or some other reason like I just felt like it, but for the last 7 to 8 months, I've let my hair and beard grow. I now have a full beard and a really cute ponytail.

I'll post pics sometime before I mow it all down because I'm thinking it will most likely be clean shaven and 1/2"(max)on the hair.

I did this as an experiment to determine if the hair growth of hippies caused any of the brain defects that seem to crop up with the look. It doesn't seem to have any effect on my generally pissed off view of the world in the sense that I despise Commies, Socialists and all the posers that believe that "Big gov't is stealing our freedoms...but, if elected, I will make sure gov't cures your ills if you pass this law".

I really believe that I got called in to "piss in a cup"...again, is that my foreman seems to think I'm a threat to his job. I DO NOT want his job. The foreman doesn't do much except dump the blame on the Operators for things not working right, so I just sit back and wonder how long the owner can delude himself that there are 7 people that don't know their ass from a hot rock and maybe, just maybe, someone needs to come up with an actual business plan.

My job this weekend was suppose to paint a tank, but I pointed out (on Thursday)that we had no rollers to complete the job. I was told there had to be rollers out there as he had just bought some (4, about a month ago and used). The foreman didn't come in on Friday, so I now get to assign jobs to myself (no problem), but on Monday, I'll get bitched at for not doing the job HE wanted done.

I've managed a small oil company...when we were getting around $6.00 a barrel way back in the '90's...we'd lose money in the short run, but with 4 generations of experience, knew that it would cycle and eventually come out ahead.

If there is a plan for Monday, outside of complaining about the tanks not getting painted, I'd like to see or hear about it

Maybe I should start using drug again, that would give me a reason for MY failure to get the job done.

Nope, I think I'll fight it out to the end.

O.K., It's Just Hot!!

Over the last three days it's gone from 72 to 92 degrees. I know I live in what is really a desert and I expect high temps, but this 20 degree jump in two days just doesn't give you much of a chance to adjust.

Thursday, I was doing some labor intensive work, and it was pleasant, I didn't mined much at all. Today I was just washing down an area with a high pressure hose and was sweating so much that after about 15 minutes I couldn't see through my glasses so much perspiration had dripped and dried on the lenses.

Maybe there is something to thing Global Wormering thing...or it could be that being the last few summers have been fairly mild, we're due for a real bastard of a heat wave this year.

No Taxation Without Representation

Wow! Here it is April 10th and I have a feeling something is hanging over my head that needs to be done. Oh, yeah...I'm right on it, it'll be done tomorrow, if I can figure out where I filed my W-2.

I was watching Glenn Beck tonight and saw where the top 10% earners pay 70% of taxes and the top 1% pay 40% of that. Sounds fair to me.

My boy, who is trying to figure out what he wants to do with himself, is working a crappy job. I did his taxes a while ago and along with getting the 300 some-odd dollars they took away in taxes, he is entitled to another 300 dollars.

How did our tax code get so screwed up that when you pay taxes, you can get it back, PLUS, you get back more? I can understand when someone is hovering around minimum wage getting back what they paid in, but to say they get back what they paid, and then Double it is insane socialism.

Now, on top of that, he will get another 600 dollars back as an "Economic Stimulus Payment".

Someone who paid around $340 in taxes, gets a return of $1250, and we wonder why the country runs a deficit.

L.A.'s Moratorium On Vilolence

From the L.A. Times April 4, 2008

You'd better not kill anybody after 6:01 p.m. today, or you'll really rile the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. It has passed a resolution declaring a 40-hour moratorium on violence, starting at a time that marks to the minute the 40th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr..

How'd it go? 3 dead and 18 wounded.

Pretty typical numbers for Los Angeles, guess the gangbangers didn't get the word.

I'm Trying

I came by here today, like I do every day, but I haven't listened to the news or had a chance to cruise the web in the last couple of days, sometimes life just gets busy and you have to deal with it.

I'm just feeling lazy and I used up so much energy writing this post over at the Rott. I just decided to copy and paste it here. I don't think the Emperor has a copyright clause that anything posted there belongs to him.

Santa Ana teacher arrested after students find gun in her class

HT: LC Intellectual Conservative

A Santa Ana elementary school teacher was arrested after students found a handgun and ammunition in the drawer of a supply cabinet of her classroom, officials said Thursday.

Jayne DeArmond, 51, a third-grade teacher at Diamond Elementary School, was arrested on charges of felony possession of a firearm on a campus and misdemeanor child endangerment after students discovered the unloaded handgun and ammunition about 11:15 a.m. Wednesday,

Perhaps this particular person should be charged...third grade...unloaded handgun and ammunition, any 8 year old can figure out how the two go together...not to mention, an unloaded handgun is not going to do any good in a crisis. If she really needed the gun, it needs to be loaded and in her immediate control.

Students were moved to another classroom after the gun and ammunition were found.

Good thing, you never know when those cartridges will jump out of the box, into the mag, and chamber themselves to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting populous.

"It's dangerous not only for the school, but for the whole community here,"

Yeah right, after spontaneously loading itself, the gun could run through the neighborhood wasting all who cross it's path...or the third grader likes the way people fall down when he says bang.

Counseling has been made available to students and staff,

And the school district social workers are able to justify their jobs for another year by convincing these children that they were traumatized by the thought that they were near a firearm.

Students had access to the cabinet where the gun was kept,

This was STOOPID, and the teacher should be hed accountable for this breach of common sense.

The students who found the gun told an instructional aide, who told Pelasky. She notified school police, who confiscated the weapon within minutes,

Sounds like the rugrats actually do listen to grownups sometimes. They did what was right. I wonder if they've ever had an assembly by Eddie Eagle?

After conducting interviews, police took DeArmond into custody. Authorities said they also searched DeArmond's car.

G-d, if she had one gun, she must have an arsenal stored close by.

DeArmond was released late Wednesday on her own promise to appear in court. She could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Guess not.

School police will be conducting an initial internal investigation of the incident, which will be followed by an administrative investigation into how the gun arrived on campus.

My guess...the teacher brought it.

In a letter sent to homes Thursday afternoon, Pelasky reassured parents that "our school is a safe haven for our students."

Except for the facts that...if anything happens...you get to wait 5 to 20 minutes for the police to arrive and set up a perimeter, then try to figure out what's going on in the building, then execute a plan...or, if the teacher felt the need for a gun close at hand, it should have been in her possession, loaded and out of "little prying eyes".

Damn...I Think I'm Getting Old

It's April again. I've almost completed one more cycle around the sun in a couple of weeks and I'm staring to think that gravity has gotten the upper hand on me. I'm not just grunting when I stand up, I groan when I sit down.

It's not just the pains that I expected at this point from growing up...motorcycle "accidents"...Cadillac v 450 Honda, dirt bike riding (I can make that jump), hiking (I can make that jump), all the way back to jumping off the roof of a house onto a concrete patio (I was 8 and only minor damage ensued), because I knew I was invincible.

Well, maybe I am invincible, but I ache.

At the moment it seems I'm either trying to stretch out some bastard knotty muscle, or trying to find the back-scratcher so I can get to that fraking iItch in the middle of my back.

I figured it out today, I really do walk at minimum 5 miles a day at work. During these miles, I have to bend waaay over and around to reach valves, tighten leaky things and read gauges somewhat accurately that can be anywhere from mid-calf level to 8 feet in the air.

My company is on the verge of making a comeback, and I'm trying to use all my abilities to get us over the edge, but I get no respect from my "foreman" and two of the guys (out of four) don't give a shit about anything but having the "job" to come to.

The other guy seems to think that (even though he's been there a decade) that things will change and we'll get the basic tools and supplies we need.

Mwhaahaaahaa!!

I do know that the company has massive debts (due to lack of maintenance), but at $104 a barrel, when the industry ideal was $30, I think there may be money to mitigate some of our dilemma, or at least correct existing problems to stave off future disasters.

I wonder how many of my aches are because of my age, or how much I hate my job?

It's Friday!!

I know it's really Thursday. I'm not that tired, but it is my Friday. I'm off work until next Tuesday at 1:00 PM. I didn't get a heck of a lot of sleep yesterday (my own fault), but work was fairly quiet, so I'll probably just relax and nap today and try to skew my sleep cycle back to nighttime.

What I saw last night:

No paper trail on Obama: Judicial Watch
Via HotAir

The president of a prominent watchdog group said Wednesday that he believes Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) “intended to leave no paper trail” during his time in the Illinois Senate. …

In a statement, Fitton noted that his group has sought access to Obama’s records as a state senator and questioned whether the presidential candidate has been forthcoming with regard to what happened to those documents.

However, he said that “nobody knows where they are, if they exist at all” and claimed that “Obama’s story keeps changing.”

Isn't that just grand? I'm split on whether the records are missingdestroyed, or this man running for POTUS didn't do a damn thing during his 8 years in the Illinois Senate. Either way, it ain't pretty.
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Hot Air TV: Mattera stumps Winter Soldier II tale-tellers

Did he really expect these guys to swear that the tales they're telling are true. Of course not, but it was fun watching them squirm a bit.
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Pennsylvania's Superdelegates Measure Clinton, Obama (Update1)

While the New York senator is leading in polls, some undecided superdelegates -- elected officials who get an automatic vote on the party presidential nomination regardless of the primary's outcome -- say they are concerned that her nomination would motivate greater numbers of Republicans to turn out in November to vote against her, and other Democrats too.

Damned if they do....This is getting to be just to much fun. It seems like every day the Dems come to a fork in the road and neither choice is going to get them to where they want to go.
________________________________

This ties in with the above:

Sen. Nelson Wants To Revamp Voting, Scrap Electoral College

Nelson plans to be in Tallahassee this morning to deliver an address from the state Senate floor to propose a major election process overhaul - including the politically improbable notion of dumping the Electoral College in favor of a national popular vote.

"The time for reform is now," Nelson said in an advance copy of the Democratic senator's speech sent out by his staff Wednesday.

We've seen what a fine job the Dems have done with their Primaries, so lets allow them to rewrite the Constitution and we can have this much chaos going on right up to the inauguration.

Nelson, whose own state has been in the center of a series of recent election controversies, has called for electoral changes before.

Now, the senior Florida senator is seizing on the latest controversy - the battle over Florida's Democratic delegates - to renew that effort..

The Democratic National Committee stripped Florida of its delegates to the party's nominating convention because the state moved its primary to Jan. 29, when party rules held that only four other states could hold their contests before Feb. 5.

Now I've heard that Florida is a Republican controlled state and it's the evil GOP that forced the DNC to not recognize the results....but:

From Wikipedia

In May 2007, the Florida Legislature passed House Bill 537, in response to public support for Florida to return to a "paper trail" for elections. During the legislative process, a number of amendments were added, one of which moved the date of the state's primary to January 29, 2008, setting up a confrontation with the DNC.[54] The vote passed with bipartisan support: 118 to 0 in the House, 37 to 2 in the Senate.

[emp-mine]

Sounds like there weren't to many Dems thinking about rules they knew about (passed only 2 years prior) or like typical Libs, they figured that that was what they wanted to do and they could get away with it...because that's what we want.

Effin' children.

Up until this year when we moved our Primary up from November to February (inside the rules)I was always pissed me off that the state with the largest population had no say in our parties candidate. That even then I had to go for my second choice, and lose, was a disappointment, but that's life. That only 20% of the people bothered to vote shouldn't bother me, but maybe that's the number of legal citizens left here.

"In December, I lost that court fight," Nelson said in the early version of his speech. "But I have continued to push for my party to find a way to seat a delegation from Florida, while giving Floridians a meaningful voice in the selection of their party's nominee."

Nelson said."If nothing else, this election has provided further evidence that our system is broken,"

As a result, Nelson is expected to spell out details of a "broader-based" election-reform package that he plans to introduce.

[emp-mine]

Sippy Cup banging of the highest order. "I want!, I want!!, I waaaant!!!!"
And because you went against known rules, you are now ready to throw them all out and make sure they get rewritten in the way you require...until the next time you want to change them.

By far, the most controversial among the list of reforms could be Nelson's call for a resolution for a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College and allow direct election of a president by popular vote.

"If the principle of one-person, one-vote is to mean anything, the candidate who wins a majority of the votes should win the presidency," Nelson said in his prepared speech. "This country cannot afford to wait that long, before we fix the flaws we still see in our election system."

I'm in the process of reading "The Heritage Guide To the Constitution" right now, but I'm only up to "Qualifications for the Senate" (pg 65) and will have to skip ahead to "Electoral College" (pg 186) to really understand how this mechanism works. I did skim over, the related "Electors for the District of Columbia" (pg 426) which only covers giving D.C. representation just to make sure, but for over 200 years this system seems to have worked overall, and from my experience, anytime Congress tries to improve something, it gets worse.

Even if this amendment gets though Congress, I can't see 3/4 of the states ratifying it, it would put to much power in the large population states.

I do have some funny stuff, but I think I'll post it later.

Zzzzzzz...

Woke the boy up yesterday to do his brakes, but he hadn't picked up the parts yet and then I couldn't get to sleep. Not usually a problem with me. If I can lean against something and close my eyes, I can nod off if I want.

Back in the days when I worked a normal schedule, I would watch the end of 11 o'clock news, slide down in bed and be asleep before the "Tonight Show" theme would play.

I use to have a Boss/friend that would suffer from insomnia, but I believe his problem was when he couldn't fall off, he would seriously worry about not falling asleep, thus sending himself into one of those vicious cycles that feeds off itself.

I never really worried, figuring that when I get tired enough, I'll fall asleep.

In 50+ years, I can only think of, maybe, 5 or 6 times I really couldn't sleep for more than one or twos days.

I did get to sleep for about 3 1/2 hours, but as I said yesterday, today was a nonRelief Day (12 hour shift) and I have one more night to go.

I did luck out. When the foreman moseyed in around 8 this morning, he laid out all the big projects he had planned. I just said "Bob will be very excited about getting these things done when he come in at 9, I've got to go do my final rounds and oil up the equipment".


I did get a chance to cruise the web last night, but to tell the truth, I can't remember a whole lot of what I read.

If I can't sleep today, it'll most likely be one of those times tomorrow that I'll get home and sleep for 18 to 24 hours straight.

The only problem when this happens is 1) I lose a whole day of the five I have off, and 2) when I wake up, I am STARVING and either will find that everything in the house must be eaten now, or just the idea of eating anything makes me want to puke.

Thank G-d for beer, "liquid bread" it always seems to fit the bill, however, drink one or two beers on an empty stomach and you want to go back to sleep.

Ahh well, I've managed to survive five years on this schedule, I guess I make make a few more.

Another calm work night, which is a good thing. As soon as the sun and son are up, we get to do the front brakes on the boys car. So today will be a long day, and tomorrow will be long, as it's nonrelief day. It's suppose to be a day where the foreman covers a gap in the shift rotation, but he won't, so the graveyard and afternoon guys have to work extra hours.

On one side, I don't mind the OT, but then the office bitches about how much OT we're getting. Eff'em.

What I perused in the news:

Why do people keep insisting that the BBC is the best news source available? They've been busted as much or more as any other MSM outlet for doctoring their stories. Well here's another.

Pali Home Demolition That Wasn't

“The BBC regrets” (via Malkin)

Which contained two links to fable about the destruction of the families house that belonged to the matyr asshole Ala Abu Dheim, the terrorist who murdered eight students and wounded nine others in the Mercaz Harav Yeshiva (Rabbinical Seminary).

Via Camera:

Against footage of a bulldozer destroying a burning home, BBC reporter Nick Miles was heard in voiceover proclaiming:

In the hours after the attack, Israeli bulldozers destroyed his [the terrorist’s] family home. Later, his mourners set up Hamas and Islamic Jihad banners nearby.

Only one small problem...it's not true.

In fact, the film clip selected by BBC staff could not possibly have been of the terrorist’s family home, as it is still standing (as of March 12) and, together with the nearby public mourning tent erected by the family, serves as a shrine dedicated to the "martyred" terrorist. That such a shrine is still allowed to remain in place has, in fact, prompted public outrage among Israelis and members of Knesset across the political spectrum. On Monday, March 10 – three days after the report aired – Knesset speaker Dalia Itzik (Labor) petitioned the Attorney General to order the demolition of the public tent and the terrorist’s family home.

Not only does the house still stand, but there is a public mourning tent for this murderer, but why would the BBC do this?

BBC's rush to judgement is consistent with its pattern of minimizing Israeli suffering while emphasizing Palestinian victimhood. After all, the BBC – far from being the impartial news organization it claims to be – is well-known for its biased coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict. (See CAMERA critiques of the BBC.) This time, however, the BBC has gone a step further by offering false evidence of Abu Dheim's home demolition that had not even taken place.

On March 13th,seven days after their initial report (and after floggings by numerous blogs) the BBC issued this:

Now, we would like to clarify a report we heard at this hour last Friday about the attack by a Palestinian gunman on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem. In the report, the day after the attack, BBC World said that the gunman's home in east Jerusalem had been demolished by the Israeli authorities. That was not correct, and the images broadcast were of another demolition.

[Emp-mine]


But a week has past, and who even remembers that there was another terrorist attack. (see "General Info" on right sidebar)
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Diversity for Diversities Sake

Via NRO

What Price ‘Diversity’?
The assault on standards in the LAPD.

By Jack Dunphy

The last true meritocracy in the Los Angeles Police Department, perhaps one of the last to be found anywhere in America outside the military, is about to pass into memory. The LAPD’s Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team, which since its inception in 1971 has confronted and captured thousands of murderers, robbers, kidnappers, and every other type of crazed thug imaginable, will soon be crushed under the accumulating weight of a foe it is ill-equipped to oppose and can but hope to vanquish: misguided but nonetheless inexorably advancing notions of political correctness and social engineering. And what a shame this is.

Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Robert C. J. Parry, a former Army National Guard infantry officer who served in Iraq, exposed the LAPD’s plan to lower the standards for applicants to the department’s SWAT team, this with the transparent aim of placing the first female police officer in its ranks. The Times followed up with added details in this front-page, above-the-fold story last Tuesday, a story for which neither LAPD William Bratton nor anyone else in the LAPD hierarchy would comment. It appears that Bratton, who at every opportunity has proclaimed his commitment to openness and “transparency” within the department, has been caught in his own web of duplicity.

Changes to the long-established SWAT selection process have been instituted without publicity (at least until now), and without the approval or even the knowledge of the civilian Police Commission, ostensibly the policymaking board that oversees the LAPD. The changes were based on a report by a panel convened by Bratton himself and charged with, we were told at the time, investigating a 2005 incident in which a 19-month-old girl, Suzie Peña, was killed by police gunfire. The girl’s father was using her as a shield as he fired at the officers who were trying to rescue her, and she was tragically shot and killed when the officers returned fire. Remarkably, this was the only incident in the unit’s history that resulted in the death of a hostage.

While an examination of this incident was the stated purpose for Bratton’s convening of a “Board of Inquiry,” it is now clear that Suzie Peña’s death was merely a pretext, one that provided cover for Bratton to institute changes to the SWAT team based on the report of a supposedly objective panel of experts. But, as Mr. Parry pointed out in his piece, the board did not interview even a single officer involved in the Peña incident. Moreover, it is now clear that many of the board’s members were selected neither for their objectivity nor their expertise, but rather for their willingness to produce a report that supported the changes Bratton already sought to implement. Only one member of the board had SWAT experience (and what a lonely ordeal it must have been for him), while the others were either police executives or lawyers. None of the members were LAPD officers.

Gotdamn politicians, and this includes "Chief" Bratton, to convene a board for the stated guise of looking into one thing and not even touching on that issue, but to go off on a tangent, and outside of Department input or oversight, decide to rewrite policy and rules.

The selection process for a new group of SWAT officers is currently underway, but it is radically different from the one used in 2006, when the last group of officers was added to the team. What had been a five-day series of evaluations designed to test not only a candidate’s skills but also his dedication and leadership abilities has now been watered down to a four-part process consisting of a physical fitness test, an obstacle course (one that is not all that challenging), an interview, and a background check. Any candidate who passes all four phases will be sent to SWAT school, and all who complete SWAT school will be placed on an eligibility list and selected for SWAT as vacancies occur. Two female officers are among the current applicants, and at least one of them will surely make it through to the SWAT team, even if only because Chief Bratton wishes it so.

I'm not against a female on SWAT, but I am against changing the goalposts, just to get a woman in there. If a woman can pass muster under the old rules, she has my whole hearted backing of her appointment, but if she gets in due to "revised" standards, do you really feel she deserves to be there, or that the ones that work with her are going to trust her to do the job?

I know that women in the military have proven that they can do the job given the chance, but even the LAPD SWAT is a small group. They were formed to respond to extraordinary situations and require extraordinary abilities.

Ahh for the days of Chief Parker and Chief Gates, the men who developed the idea of SWAT. They took a corrupt and demoralized police force and, for a period, made it the hallmark of policing.
_______________________

Fun Stuff

How People Count Cash?

I never thought about it before, but I have run into some of these styles and wondered "WTF?". Some of these techniques look like they'd lead to some nasty paper cuts.


How People Count Cash? - The most amazing bloopers are here

One more. If you've been paying attentio to the Shrillary/Tuzla debacle:

Life is better today. Everything is basically the same, it's just my attitude has changed. Work is OK. I'm on graveyard so I don't see anyone and most of the equipment is behaving. It's been busy enough that the night passes quickly, but I'm not having to constantly circle the site looking for what crapped out in the 30 minutes since I checked last.

I'm getting interested in politics again which has probably helped my mood. Watching Shrillary and Obama self destruct while trying to destroy each other has amused me quit a bit.

Yesterday I got to teach my boy how to jack up his car and check his brakes. He needs new pads in the front, so tomorrow I get to show him how to replace them. It's one of those Father/Son moments that are getting too infrequent these days.

Read a few news items last night that I'd like to pass on.

Climate facts to warm to

Anyone in public life who takes a position on the greenhouse gas hypothesis will ignore it at their peril.

Duffy asked Marohasy: "Is the Earth stillwarming?"

She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years."

Duffy: "Is this a matter of any controversy?"

Marohasy: "Actually, no. The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued ...

Jeez...You mean the debate isn't over?

Duffy: "Can you tell us about NASA's Aqua satellite, because I understand some of the data we're now getting is quite important in our understanding of how climate works?"

Marohasy: "That's right. The satellite was only launched in 2002 and it enabled the collection of data, not just on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapour. What all the climate models suggest is that, when you've got warming from additional carbon dioxide, this will result in increased water vapour, so you're going to get a positive feedback. That's what the models have been indicating. What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite ... (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they're actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you're getting a negative rather than a positive feedback."

[Emp-Mine]

In other words, the models that the Global Wormering proponents have been using to predict them imminent demise of life on Earth do not work in the real world.

I'm not against cleaning up our mess on the planet, but it seems we may have a little time to correct our mistakes without shutting down our economy.
_________________________

This is out of Britain, but I think it is relevant to the U.S.

Meet the families where no one's worked for THREE generations - and they don't care

Known as the "Shameless" family among horrified neighbours, the McFaddens "boast" three generations of adults who are not working.

All ten members of the clan share a council house and live off benefits amounting to around £32,000 a year. And very happy they are, too.

Matriarch is grandmother Sue McFadden, 54. "Our neighbours are so snobby - they call us the "Shameless" family and say that we ought to go out to work. But how can we work when we have all these children to look after?

"The only problem is," she says without a hint of irony, "that we're living in a three-bedroom council house, which is ridiculous.

"I'm asking the council for a ten-bedroom home for all of us. We need more space. It's awful sometimes when all the children are squabbling. Still, we do have a big TV with Sky, but we need some relaxation."

My G-d, they don't work, get a gov't subsidized house and an income and it's not enough...they need a bigger house. I wanted to have a second kid, but the money we made at the time just wasn't enough, so we made a choice.

... Grandmother Sue is divorced and has three daughters, Theresa, 34, Debbie, 32, and Tammy, 24. None of the adults living in the house in Ellesmere Port, near Chester, has a job, and there are also six grandchildren living at home - Kyle, 18, Clayton , 12, Tyler, nine, Courtney, eight, Jodie, seven, and Lucas, six.

I guess if you don't have a job to go to you have to find something to do with all those hours. Notice there are only women and children living here, no "Dads"

The one thing that kept coming up in the article on the families covered in this acticle that really struck me was:

"It's my right to claim benefits. We're all entitled to do what we want in life".

"I don't like the idea of having to be bossed around at work and I don't want to go to college or anything because I like to stay in bed in the morning. In the meantime, it's my right to claim benefits. One day I'd like a council flat."

[emp-mine]

It's their right? They contribute nothing towards their welfare or the welfare of their children, but they have the right to expect to be fed, housed and clothed because they just don't like to work.

This is a good time to take a good look at what we consider "rights" and set some hard rules as to what they are.
__________________________

I wanted to close this on a light note so I'll pick B# above middle C.

Blame My Kid (UPDATED)

Shortly after my last post where I promised (again) I was going to start posting, my boy walked in with a copy of DOOM 3 he found in a bargain bin. I hadn't gamed in quite a while and got hooked. It was more fun to shoot demons than think about politics and try to write something.

I've started cruising around my regular blog sights the last few days and trying to stop in and say hello to my old friends.

I was at Hot Air last night and saw some stuff to pass on:

Does Hillary attend her committee meetings?

One has to wonder after reading this quote from her husband:

He continued to highlight the military issue later in Cary, accentuating his wife’s gender to emphasize his point that more generals have endorsed Clinton than both Obama and Republican candidate John McCain.

“You might wonder why that’s so: Why did they endorse the girl for president? All these generals?” Clinton said.

He said that’s partially because she’s the only member of the Armed Services Committee in the race and also because of her support for wounded veterans.

[em-mine]

Methinks that Bill actually did inhale and never exhaled being:

At the top of the column of Republicans sits John McCain, ranking member on the Committee. According to Wikipedia, he’s been there since 1987, or about four times as long as Hillary, who joined the committee in 2003.

Do these people really believe that they can make up facts and rewrite history and nobody is going to notice? I'm thinking about starting a pool on when Bill gets banished from the campaign. How many times will Shrillary let him spout something stupid off the top of his head and throw her rapidly sinking run off track?

Hosting company pulls the plug on Geert Wilders’s anti-Islam movie?

Well, there they go again. No one has seen the film yet, but the mooselimbs are howling that it's racist/unfair/etc.

Luckily the shift I'm working now allowed me to get home and go to the U.K. web site and find this:

NO FITNA The Movie



It should be fairly obvious by now that there is no "Fitna" movie. No movie to insult Islam or Muslims or anyone else for that matter. The month of April is upon us, we all know the month of April starts with the 1st April and that day is famous for (practical) jokes.

Holland might not be considered as a country with a great sense of humour but ever once in awhile even in Holland they crack a joke. So, bottom line; if you are here to find the Famous Fitna movie I guess you have been had !!!

On the other hand, if you are worried about how much unrest the rumour of a 15 minute movie about Islam can create, maybe it is time to identify and deal with the issues at hand.

When points of view are miles apart, the truth can usually be found near the middle.


ps

Surely this site will soon be hacked and diverted to some muslim site, some people just don't have a sense of humour.


Happy Easter !!!

Months of bitching, moaning and threats over a completely imagined slight. I like the Dutch sense of humor!

UPDATE: Turns out the UK site I went to was a hoax site from the beginning. The movie does exist, it just hasn't been determined by the spineless weasels at the host server whether we will be allowed to see it

Finally just a bit of fun:

Video: Can robots ever really have too much power?

Total Burnout!

I needed a break...badly.

Work, home life, politics, I just reached one of those points where I felt like I was being overwhelmed on all sides and I had no control over any of them. No matter what I tried to do, the problems didn't seem to get any better...if they didn't seem to get worse.

I'm much better now.

Things really haven't improved, but I decided to take a bit of time off, roll with the punches and catch my breath, "Rope-A-Dope" it until I felt like fighting back again.

I could have returned a week ago, but chose to wait it out a little longer and make sure I'd rebuilt my reserves so I wouldn't rant for a week or so and fade off again. Like when you tell yourself that that strained muscle is mostly healed and you can go back to working full-out...if you're just careful. I've had so much wisdom and insight to dispense, but deep inside I knew I wasn't ready.

To all my friends, I apologize for not dropping by, hell the only reason I would keep up with The Rott was because that's my homepage. I'll be by shortly, I've missed you all.

To show I'm in a much better mood, I'm posting my favorite "Far Side" cartoon (click to bigify):

Let Them East Dirt

I dropped by Hot Air and was just clicking on the headlines to see what was going on. I usually run over the list and open whatever seems like it might be interesting in a new tab. I'll get 4 to 10 tabs open, then I start opening tabs and reading the story. Not interested, close the tab and go to the next one.

Often (usually) after the second article, I have no idea what's coming up, so I have no idea what lead me to pick a particular article. (I had to go back and look)

The lead to this one was "Haiti: It's come to this". I dove in figuring it was just going to be something else, don't know what, but not what I ran into.

Poor Haitians Resort to Eating Dirt

Rising Food Costs Force Haiti's Poor to Resort to Eating Dirt

Right then I had a very good idea of what the story was about.

[all emphisis mine]

It was lunchtime in one of Haiti's worst slums, and Charlene Dumas was eating mud. With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice, and some take desperate measures to fill their bellies. Charlene, 16 with a 1-month-old son, has come to rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt from the country's central plateau.

I've heard of people who eat dirt all over the world, but it's usually for some benefit, real or perceived, in addition to their regular diet, like:

The mud has long been prized by pregnant women and children here as an antacid and source of calcium.

However:

But in places like Cite Soleil, the oceanside slum where Charlene shares a two-room house with her baby, five siblings and two unemployed parents, cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal.

How can it be that those basic staples of nutrition, corn, rice and wheat are in short supply? When all else failed these commodities have always been the fall back to save people.

Food prices around the world have spiked because of higher oil prices, needed for fertilizer, irrigation and transportation. Prices for basic ingredients such as corn and wheat are also up sharply, and the increasing global demand for biofuels is pressuring food markets as well.

First, the price of oil.

I'm sure if you've had to sign invoices for a business or flown on a plane lately you've notice that surcharge on the bill for fuel. That's a companies way of saying "If it weren't for the cost of gas, you could reduce the cost of this item/delivery by this amount".

There is only so much oil available in the world at any one time (a post on this sometime in the future). With limited availability some countries get what they want, and some get shortchanged. If this were a Marxist world, then the "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!" would be a consideration, but the real world works on capitalism. The person who is willing to pay the most, gets the goods. So the price goes up by who's willing to pay what in order to insure they get what they need.

Right now the big demands for oil come from China, the U.S.A. and India. The problem that comes from this is that the Kyoto Accords put restrictions on ONLY the United States ability to produce goods, while allowing the other two countries to do whatever they want. Yeah, they'll have to comply sometime in the future...sometime...to be negotiated later.

While the U.S. is not a signatory to the protocol, we have taken steps toward trying to comply...without just turning the power off. Americans do like clean air and water, and if you've live through the massive improvements that I've seen over my lifetime, you'd know that we've accomplished incredible feats of cleaning up past mistakes and oversites and making sure they don't occur again. Then restricting ourselves from taking a lessoned learned and applying it to future development (ANWR, Gulf Coast, Kalifornia Offshore).

Hope you were able to bear with me through that part, because now I'll deal with the highlighted part of the quote: Prices for basic ingredients such as corn and wheat are also up sharply, and the increasing global demand for biofuels is pressuring food markets as well.

As much as the Global Wormering crowd wants to believe that government intervention will cure the wrongs in the world, this is what happens when somebody who has little knowledge of how the world works writes a regulation to correct a problem.

The U.S. (and Brazil) have grabbed onto the biofuel gambit. The government is now subsidizing farmers to produce corn for biofuel and now there isn't enough corn production to feed everyone cheaply.

Why don't we " the Breadbasket of the World" just shuffle the corn from biofuel to food....they're different strains of corn! The corn we grow for food is different from the corn for biofuels, a cow wouldn't eat biofuel corn.

Back to the original story.

The global price hikes, together with floods and crop damage from the 2007 hurricane season, prompted the U.N. Food and Agriculture Agency to declare states of emergency in Haiti and several other Caribbean countries. Caribbean leaders held an emergency summit in December to discuss cutting food taxes and creating large regional farms to reduce dependence on imports.

Now, by trying to do our best to reduce pollution (or doing nothing if you're a real leftie) who do you think the Useless Nitwits are going to call on to provide the food needed to correct this problem...3...2...1.

At the market in the La Saline slum, two cups of rice now sell for 60 cents, up 10 cents from December and 50 percent from a year ago. Beans, condensed milk and fruit have gone up at a similar rate, and even the price of the edible clay has risen over the past year by almost $1.50. Dirt to make 100 cookies now costs $5, the cookie makers say.

Still, at about 5 cents apiece, the cookies are a bargain compared to food staples. About 80 percent of people in Haiti live on less than $2 a day and a tiny elite controls the economy.

Well I guess there is a good side to this. A dirt cookie only cost 5 cents. Me, I wouldn't pay more than...5 cents, just so I could taste one...

A reporter sampling a cookie found that it had a smooth consistency and sucked all the moisture out of the mouth as soon as it touched the tongue. For hours, an unpleasant taste of dirt lingered.

Okay, maybe not.

Assessments of the health effects are mixed. Dirt can contain deadly parasites or toxins, but can also strengthen the immunity of fetuses in the womb to certain diseases, said Gerald N. Callahan, an immunology professor at Colorado State University who has studied geophagy, the scientific name for dirt-eating.

Haitian doctors say depending on the cookies for sustenance risks malnutrition.

"Trust me, if I see someone eating those cookies, I will discourage it," said Dr. Gabriel Thimothee, executive director of Haiti's health ministry.

I would think the major factor here is if you're eating it as addition to a normal diet, or eating it to survive.

Marie Noel, 40, sells the cookies in a market to provide for her seven children. Her family also eats them.

"I'm hoping one day I'll have enough food to eat, so I can stop eating these," she said. "I know it's not good for me."

I'm not going to make a judgment on Marie. I can feel for these people and she's just selling what their tradition has taught them to do in hard times, but I can make a judgment on the agencies whose major concern two decades ago was famine, and cannot look far enough ahead to see that as the population of the planet grows you cannot remove the sources of food from the equation.

You Say Your Taxes Aren't High Enough?

I proposed this same idea in a post long ago, but it was before I could label them. I looked, but couldn't find it so you'll just have to take my word.

If you feel you aren't paying enough in taxes, you are free to write a check to the IRS for any additional amount you feel you owe over what's calculated on your 1040 form.



Huckabee even set up a "Tax Me More Fund" in Arkansas. How'd that work you ask?

From "States Ask For 'Volunteer' Taxes"

...a fund established by Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee in November 2001.

Huckabee's "Tax Me More Fund" was a response to legislators who insisted that tax increases or other measures were needed to offset $142 million in budget cuts. To date, it has taken in between $2,000 and $3,000, according to his spokesman, Jim Harris. [emphasis mine]

Holy cow!!! Do you realize that over 15 months (the article was written in April 2003)that works out to a whopping $200.00 a month in extra revenue for the state. Wonder what they did with this windfall?

From Newsmax.com

"Either put up the money, write the check and let us see you're serious, or quit telling me Arkansans want their taxes raised," Huckabee said. "Because, I'm convinced that Arkansans would say today, 'My taxes are high enough.'"

Maybe people really feel they are being taxed enough, or at least they are, just maybe you aren't.

Finally! A Slow Dry Night

After putting up with constant rain, cold and equipment not behaving for the last few nights, it's been real quiet. I got to read the blogs and news sites and got bored. So I started casting around and found an old forgotten link to the "testing" site OkCupid.

Here's a couple of tests I took:

On Personal Freedom

Your Score: Let freedom ring!

You scored

You feel that "only i know what is best for me", or you feel that people should be limited in rare situations but generally free to do whatever they want, so long as it will not hurt other people or affect others personal freedom. Laws and regulations should only be used on people who want to limit others personal freedom.

Am I a Cowboy, Ninja, Pirate or Knight

Your Score: a Cowboy

You scored 6 Honor, 6 Justice, 9 Adventure, and 2 Individuality!

Well pardner, the thing that drives you is a sense of adventure. You're willing to play by the rules, but only so long as you've got open territory to cover and new frontiers to explore. You don't need much and you don't ask much.

Strap on your six gun and wear your Stetson proud. I think you'll do just fine

I tried to be honest with my answers, but these tests are user written and just for fun. It was something to keep me awake besides playing Spider Solitaire.

Of Course It'll Never Happen Here

You want Government controlled "Free" Health Care? Let's take a gander across the pond and see what the British are doing to keep costs down.

Don't treat the old and unhealthy, say doctors

By Laura Donnelly, Health Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:09am GMT 28/01/2008

Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives.

Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.

Doing something the government doesn't approve of like be overweight, or G-d forbid, get old, don't bother going to the hospital, cause your on their no fly list.

About one in 10 hospitals already deny some surgery to obese patients and smokers, with restrictions most common in hospitals battling debt.

How can they be in debt? Isn't this health care FREE? Silly me, I always thought that free meant there was no cost involved...BUT...you have to remember that the British citizen pays incredibly steep taxes, so now the gov't has taken your money and turned around and decided that they just aren't going to spend your money on you.

They are are free to pay to have the operation...BUT...they've already paid for the operation once through their taxes and now they get to pay for it again.

Among the survey of 870 family and hospital doctors, almost 60 per cent said the NHS could not provide full healthcare to everyone and that some individuals should pay for services. [emphasis- mine]

Maybe this is part of their problem. Doctors, who should be fairly highly educated, believe that the care is given for free. Where the hell do they think the money for their salaries, supplies and equipment come from? Bloody idiots!

Gordon Brown promised this month that a new NHS constitution would set out people's "responsibilities" as well as their rights, a move interpreted as meaning restric­tions on patients who bring health problems on themselves. The only sanction threatened so far, however, is to send patients to the bottom of the waiting list if they miss appointments.

The survey found that medical professionals wanted to go much further in denying care to patients who do not look after their bodies.

I know, right now they are talking about smoking, drinking, obesity...and getting old, but what happens when they start deciding your diet may have led in part to your problem. Maybe you were 5 miles/hour (8.046 719 999 995 kilometer/hour)when you had the accident with that lorry. If you hadn't been speeding, perhaps you wouldn't have crashed, you're responsible, we're short of funds this month..."No health care for you!!" /Soup Nazi

Responding to the survey's findings on the treatment of the elderly, Dr Calland, of the BMA, said: "If a patient of 90 needs a hip operation they should get one. Yes, they might peg out any time, but it's not our job to play God."

There is some sanity remaining there, but remember, in the end, the government controls the purse strings.

As a bonus feture today, I will include a couple of stories from our cousins in the Great White North:



And because I'm in a generous mood, another article on British Health care:
British Flee Socialized Health Care To Get Good Care Elsewhere

Military = Porn

Yes, I am going to question their patriotism!

Berkeley wants to treat military recruitment offices like porn shops

What is it about this place? The only country in the world that will put up with their shit...only because our MILITARY stands tall to protect their right to pull off this kind of anti-American BS, and let the city still stand.

I'll tell you what, L.A. can give up some of it's import/export shipping to San Fransisco and Oakland, we'll expand our Navy facilities. Then you won't have to be offended by their presence.

Just don't be surprised when all gov't assistance for natural or "other" occurrences has to be routed through Hawaii...if that socialist hellhole hasn't closed Pearl.

The S. Carolina Primary

Gotta love it.

Obama 55%

Clinton 27%

Oh yeah, that other guy 18%

Bet there were some ashtrays flying around Shillary's HQ last night and Bill's hied is butt down to Floriduh pronto to do some campaigning fund raising and get out of range.

Bill's contribution to the The Great Cankled Ones ® race has backfired on them time and again. Not only has his hits on Obama been seen as what they are, racist, but he comes out diminished. He is an ex-president and suppose to be an elder statesman and only tangentially involved in the election. For him to come out and heap glowing praise on his wife would be understandable, but for him to be the attack dog, dropping little innuendos, not to mention outright lies about their opponent makes him look like the political hack I've known him to be since he took office.

That the PC crap has jumped up and bit the Dems in the butt is giving me unfathomable pleasure. If Shillery attacks Obama, it's racist, if Obama attacks Shillery, he's picking on a girl. Mwahahah!!!

The Clintoon camp is scared. They're scrambling for any delegate they can get, hence: Clintons try to change delegate rules; lefties outraged.
Via Michelle Malkin

Having “won” a considerable number of delegates solely because no one else contested the races, all of a sudden she is struck by the manifest unfairness of not seating the delegates — and just in time for a) a bounce in the Florida poll for sticking up for them, and b) Obama to have no chance to contest the Florida race!

Not to mention, but I will: Is the right right on the Clintons?
From the L.A. Slimes

But the conservatives might have had a point about the Clintons' character. Bill's affair with Monica Lewinsky jeopardized the whole progressive project for momentary pleasure. The Clintons gleefully triangulated the Democrats in Congress to boost his approval rating. They do seem to have a feeling of entitlement to power.

[emphasis mine]


This could be fun going into Super Tuesday.
Are the two camps gooing to play nice, or pull out the knives?

Sign Of Things To Come?

Now that there's just funny!
Found at Michelle Malkin's site.

Is Fred Dead?

Most likely.

It all seems to have gone so wrong at every step. I understood his waiting to announce, but then he did...and nothing. It was around a month later that anything about his campaign started to leak out, even I was starting to wonder if he was really running.

I knew his positions and was ready to jump on, but word never got out. Combination of him not pushing hard enough at the git go, the MSM ignoring him...both...we'll never know.

He would make a great Veep, the guy that can go out as the surrogate for the President and state clearly what our positions are and I believe whoever he was giving the message to would believe what he was being told.

However, word is he's not interested in being VP.

He may run for Governor of Tennessee in 2010. Their gain, our loss.

Depending on how the outlook here in Kalifornia shapes up over the next 10 days for the GOP, if someone I can live with has a huge lead, I may still vote for Fred (he's on the ballot) just to point out my disappointment with the ones left in the race.

If it's close between Romney and McCain, I'll vote Romney. If either of them have a certifiably safe margin, I'll stick in my protest vote.

If McCain could convince Thompson to be VP, I think I could vote for that, it would be a sign that McCain has a clue, and I have my doubts that McCain could physically run for a second term and if things started to get back in order, we could have another 8 years with Fred.

But I dream.

It Never Rains Here

Great Googilly Moogilly, it is raining like a mutha out here. I can't remember the last time it rained this hard for this long. Normally I don't mind driving in the rain, but coming home this morning was the second most scariest drive I've had in the last twenty years.

The scariest was driving from Flagstaff Az. to Phoenix in a monsoon where it was like someone had aimed a fire hose at my windshield and you have to guess whether to keep your speed and pray the car (somewhere)in front of you keeps their speed, or slow down and pray the car (somewhere)behind you slows down too.

This morning was the second, only because I got off at 5 A.M. and traffic was really light. Hitting that lake on the freeway in the dark didn't help. I drive a F-150 Supercab long bed P/U, a vehicle that is not known for it's ability to handle hydroplaning with ease. As those of you who have driven P/U's know, with the lack of weight over the rear end, anything that happens usually will cause your ass end to try to get in front. I had the same problem with my '65 Mustang (the lift kit didn't help). Luckily I was only going 55 and no one was close so I just let the truck coast through it without major corrections and she stayed pretty straight, so it just had a pucker factor of 6 out of 10.

The rest of the drive home was low speed and only minor harrowing, although the wife started calling my cell to have me pick up something on the way home. On a good day with no traffic and on cruise control I may answer the phone, today I took the phone as tossed it in the passenger seat so the vibrate wouldn't distract me.

Surprisingly, work wasn't bad. Even though it rained hard most of the night, the site was able to keep up with the extra water, so I was wet and cold most of the shift, at least I wasn't having to come up with "innovative" ways to dispose of the rain water.

Our satellite dish was another matter. Every time the rain would start pouring, I lost the damn signal. I missed the end of two programs due to losing contact with the satellite. I wouldn't mind if it happened during the middle of the program, as I miss a lot of those normally on a shift. With TV now-a-days, if you get the beginning a bit of the middle and the end, you can fill in the pieces, but to see most of an hour program and miss the last ten minutes...you've missed the whole program.

Luckily I've got cable at home, so as I write, I can watch the program again and get the answer to why all that crap happened.

I ain't leaving the house till this quits or I have to go back to work tonight.

Just Got Back From OZ

I haven't been around a while, not that too many are going to notice. I'm on day shift and that is backwards from what I'm comfortable with, so I've been cranky and tired. I did write a looong post a few days ago and I was in a really foul mood about work and life. I was about 7/8ths of the way through a total pityfest, when I got on the phone with my Mom and brother, who I hadn't talked to in three weeks.

Seems my Mom decided to sign up with Vonage for the phone, but being she's not the most techno savvy person, didn't realize you have to have a broadband line (or any computer line) to get the service. Vonage transfered her phone number to their service, so they had no phone at all.

When I got off the phone with them, my anger at life had dissipated, so that post is sitting in drafts, probably never to be published.

The reference to OZ in today's title goes back to about four days ago, the Santa Ana (actually Santana or devil)winds came blowing through my valley. Gust of 60 to 70+ mph, enough that even though I've have pretty good weather striping on my front door, it whistles like crazy. I was lucky this year, it usually peels the rolled roofing off the flat part of my garage during one of these wind storms, to bad my neighbors down the street weren't so lucky.



Typically, these people had just gutted, renovated and added to their house less than 2 years ago. It was an almost two year project.

HT to my boy for letting me borrow his digital camera for the pic.

Outside The Box

I know it's an overused expression, but this is taking one unrelated thing and applying the principle to something else. To go from the Tacoma Narrows bridge disaster to thinking how to harness that energy and produce inexpensive power is mind boggling.

Third World Power: First Look

Aeroelastic Flutter, the power source of the near future? No blades to take out migrating birds like the current wind generators. Looks like you could stack a few, so a small footprint. Simple design, so basic maintenance could be done easily.

If I had any money, I'd find out what company is working to develope this and invest.

Open Primaries

This is why I am vehemently opposed to Open Primaries:

Kos advocates election mischief in Michigan
By Michelle Malkin • January 11, 2008 12:08 PM

Markos Moulitsas, mainstream Newsweek columnist, tells his minions at the Daily Kos to muck up the Michigan primary: “Let’s have some fun in Michigan.”

...we want Romney in, because the more Republican candidates we have fighting it out, trashing each other with negative ads and spending tons of money, the better it is for us. We want Mitt to stay in the race, and to do that, we need him to win in Michigan.

They tried to foist Open Primaries on the people her in Kalifornia back in '96. Thankfully the U.S. Supreme Court shot it down because it violated a political party's First Amendment right of association.

We're still stuck with a "Modified Closed Primary System" where if you are registered as unaffiliated ("decline to state") you can request a party ballot, otherwise you get a nonpartisan ballot, containing only the names of all candidates for nonpartisan offices and measures to be voted upon at the primary election.

Living on the LEFT coast, I saw nothing but disaster with an Open Primary. The Dems have to much of a lock here, so for them to cross over and vote for the worst Republican candidate wouldn't be to much of a gamble. All they do is dilute my vote.

If you want to vote for a Republican candidate, re-register, it isn't hard. If you like someone so much to vote against your party, maybe you're in the wrong party.

Thursday?

Damn, where'd the days go?

Since before Christmas most of my work days have been 12 hours +, and I'm just tired. Get off work, go home, eat something, go to bed, get up and go back to work. The damn dogs have starting to bark at me when I come home and I have to convince them I really do live here.

Two guys used vacation time back-to-back and then, when I thought life would return to normal, our Foreman decided to show us he can still do the work and slips and wrenches his knee. Now, he'll be off for over a week.

When I managed my old company I use to do 16 hour days, seven days a week and didn't think much about it (for the first two years). Same problem now, the boss(es) shuffled any of our positive income into some other part of the company and then when things go wrong with us, there's no money to fix our problem. Back then it was a challenge because I believed if I worked harder and longer, I could pull us through. I was younger then.

Now...I'm just an Operator, I want the company to make money, but I keep getting more responsibility dumped on me to fix problems, jury rig this, scavenge that...just don't spend any money...especially on what needs to be dealt with.

Some who know me, know my home life is not ideal right now, so with work, I'm living 24 hours of hell, but enough of this pity post!

I think my next post will be the promised follow up on one of my pets. I know you'll love to hear how I got my cat Tessa.

Good Times

Aah, the Sixties. I know that it's one of those times that people really love or hate. Myself, I have to love it. Being the Sixties really didn't start till about half way through the decade and kinda bleed into the first few years of the '70's, these were my Jr. and Sr. High School years.

I was never a hippie, hell my hairs longer now than at any time during that period. I grew up just on the tail end of what was happening, always a year or two behind the curve. This put me in a position to see what was going on, but I never got caught up in any of it. I got to hear the ideals of my generation, which sounded great, but I also got to see what happened when these ideals were put into practice. Human nature and reality have this nasty habit of getting in the way of Utopia.

I watched a lot of people screw up their lives pretty bad back then. Some recovered, some didn't, and some are still going along.

Why this nostalgia? I'm off work (long change)and it's raining like hell, so I'm not going outside. That's left a lot of time to sleep, which I did, and I found myself wide awake at 3:30 this morning. There wasn't much on TV until a Paul McCartney concert came on. Every song brought back a memory, most of them pretty good. It made me think back to my first concert, 1968, Hollywood Bowl. It wasn't the Beatles, they'd quit touring by then, but I had worked my Aunt and Uncle's little truck farm up outside of Eureka over the summer and had earned a little cash, so I bought a really cool fringed leather vest, a shocking pink striped shirt, yellow bell bottoms and had enough left over for the $5.50 ticket to see Iron Butterfly.

This is the line up I got to see (in order of there appearance):
John Mayall, I knew of him, but wasn't really into his music at the time.



Lee Michaels, I knew nothing of him before the concert, but I think this was actually my favorite part. This was real Power Rock, just a Hammond B3 organ and a drummer...really loud. Because it was so new, unexpected and overpowering it really hit me.



Then the headliner: Iron Butterfly. Of course I love them. The video here is a Top 40's version of In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (if it's over 2 1/2 minutes, no radio play)and the Iron Butterfly Theme.



Would I want to go back? No. There were plenty of rough and scary things happening then, and I remember them as well as the good times. They were what they were and the 60's came and went as all periods do.

2008

No...That's not me. I had a very sedate New Years. I was up and actually saw the second hand sweep across midnight, but I was at work. I spent the moment inside the office (with a metal roof) so as to avoid any idiot firing his gun in celebration and starting my year off badly.

For the fifth year I've had to cover Christmas Day (12 hour shift this year)and graveyard shift for New Years. Christmas sucks, but New Years I don't mind. Prior to this job, I don't think I stayed up for midnight for over 5 years.

New Years, an arbitrary point in time that designates another cycle around the sun and means that in another few months I'm designated another year older. It seems there are too many of these points going by and at too fast of a rate now-a-days.

To all my friends here I wish you a Happy New Year. May this year be one you will look back on fondly.