Qoute of the Day

"We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look." -- Ronald Reagan

It finally happened

Well, it finally happened. I was involved in an accident yesterday because someone got in too big of a hurry. As some of you may know, I drive a semi-truck for a living. I was making a TIGHT right hand turn into one of my customers parking lot. Because it was such a narrow turn, my trailer had to leave the right hand lane to make it. As I was getting ready to turn I turned on my signal showing which way I needed to turn. I then blocked BOTH north bound lanes so people behind me could see my intentions. I also almost came to a complete stop. During my turn even though my trailer left the right hand lane my tractor was in the right hand lane. The person that was in too big of a hurry tried to pass on the right hand side of me. WHICH IS WRONG TO BEGIN WITH! Left side = passing side Right side= suicide. Come on people, use some GOD GIVEN COMMON SENSE! (wait. I forgot. Some don't have any common sense.)
Anyway, maybe this post is just to get some road rage off my chest before I use road rage on the roads and some one gets hurt or worse. The good news is that no-one was hurt. Just some damage to vehicle. People PLEASE give trucks plenty of room. I know there truckers out there that shouldn't be driving because they are way too aggressive. Thanks for letting me vent.

Abridgement of Freedom

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." -- James Madison

Food for thought.

Time Erodes All

I took this photo of an old 1947 Cadillac and post processed it trying to give it an infrared (or at least near infrared) look. I really like how it made the rust spots and sun-faded paint come alive to give this relic of an bygone era a touch of extra character.

Morgellons Disease

There's an interesting article on Morgellons disease, the condition that isn't recognized as being real by many doctors and scientists, even though the physical symptoms seem to be quite noticeable. Read about it on NewsOK.com.

I've heard of this disease before, and it seems most common in Florida and Texas, though there seem to be cases popping up all over the country. It'll be interesting to see where the research leads to with this one.

I'm generally skeptical about things like these, but for some reason my gut instinct is telling me there's something very real and extremely serious with this... whatever it is.

Freedom

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free." -- Ronald Reagan

Mail Delivery: Senseo Coffee Machine

The USPS pulled up and delivered a package for me about half an hour ago. Inside the box was a free Senseo coffee machine that I got directly from Philips. I figured since they were kind enough to send it to me with a package full of the little coffee pods that I'd go ahead and give it a try. It's quite a bit bigger than I imagined it would be, since I've never seen one before at the store.

They sent the medium roast coffee pods, and using a large mug (to fill it I either had to press the double cup button once and the single cup button once; or the single cup button 3 times) it made a pretty decent cup of coffee that's just a tad on the weak side. A single medium-roast pod using the double-cup button makes it just about the right strength, though I would prefer a darker roast, which will be what I buy at the store.

I figured it'll cost a tad more per cup than bulk drip coffee and filters, about 2.5 to 3 cents per cup depending on where you buy the pods, whereas regular drip coffee and filters equals out to around 7 cents for a whole pot. Still a heck of a lot cheaper than a buck for a cup of truck-stop coffee at the Flying-J, or that pseudo-hippie left-wing nuevo-riche Starpukes joint where you pay about 7 bucks for two swallows of hot water that tastes like they might have dragged a coffee bean through it.

Anyways, the Senseo critter seems like a good idea for the time being. Single servings of fresh-brewed coffee on demand, hardly any waiting. Auto-shutoff so you don't burn down your house. But not sure I'd be willing to pay retail for the machine itself, I'm a bit of a cheapskate and $60 to $75 retail for one of those critters seems kind of steep to me, especially when I can get drip machine at Big-Lots for about $10+tax.

Plecia Nearctica: Love Bugs

Plecia nearctica, they're everywhere. Once again it's their season. They're out in force and mating like crazy. They're nasty too, the 28 mile round trip to town and back left the front of the truck covered in them. One trip like that smears up the windshield so bad that it has to be washed after every trip. They are a major pain in the butt, and what makes it worse is the stuff in their little carcasses rapidly eats the paint of any vehicle. They have to be kept washed off and the paint waxed at least weekly during this time of year, to keep visible damage from occurring. What makes it worse is they are attracted to vehicle exhaust, so they cloud the roadways and swarm you when you're stopped. Heck, they were so thick in the air when I was mowing the lawn yesterday I just about had to wear a respirator to keep from inhaling any.

At least the local plethora of tree-frogs and skinks are eating well.

Website Text & Backgrounds

Fox News changed the format of their website http://www.foxnews.com, and quite frankly I liked it the old way better. The format change prompted me to rant a little bit. Their new format is too bright. I hate text on a white background on the internet. It's fine for paper, but it sucks when reading on a monitor.

Here's the deal, and more and more people are starting to say the same. Staring at a screen that is mostly white is about as bad as staring directly at a soft-white lightbulb. It begins to hurt your eyes after a short while. A lot of people are finding that a slightly darker background or a dark background with light text is far easier on the eyes, since a monitor is backlit. In essence, a monitor really is like a big lightbulb with text, colors, and pictures.

Of course there are the funky colored text on colored backgrounds can get pretty awful too. Ever try to read a site with red letters against a funky brown background or lime green letters against blue? Okay, those are the exceptions, but they are out there and I generally click away from them as soon as they load.

Anyways, I haven't yet had any complaints about my format yet, though I'm sure they will come. I tried to get a mix of background shading that doesn't hurt the eyes, isn't too bright or too dark, which lets the black text show with plenty of contrast. For me, it's easy to read, easy to see, doesn't give me headache looking at it. But then again, I went through any number of variations until I hit on something that (at least to me) didn't look awful.

Bona Fide Nutjob Blogger

Normally I don't go around insulting other people's blogs, but I'm going to make an exception in this case. As I was browsing through the various blogs on the internet, I stumbled across this guy's blog, who calls himself "James F. Marino" and named his blog "9-11 The Mother Of All Black Operations".

This guy is so far out in left field he's not even in the park. He claims he's the subject of government mind control techniques, but truth be told, I think he's more like the subject of controlled substance abuse. Now I thought maybe this dude was just doing some short rants for amusement, but his posts go on and on and on, and it's in every post of his, which seems to be pretty darn regular. This guy has some serious problems if he really believes the B.S. he's spouting off about, and frankly, he probably belongs in a room with padded walls and floors.

Since he deletes all comments that disagree with his, I'm posting about it here where he can't delete anything, nor do jack about it.

He's being stalked and harassed by the U.S. Government -- Sure, after all the government has nothing better to do with it's time. Dude, if the government had a problem with you, they'd either kill you or lock you away somewhere for the rest of your life.

He's a subject of government mind control -- James, if that really is your name, if the government really was controlling your mind, don't you think they'd keep you from publishing this so-called secret information you have on them?

The government is paying street gangs to harass him in his neighborhood -- Yep, live in a bad area and act like a nut-case and the gangs are gonna pick on you. It doesn't mean the government is paying them, it means you need to quit doing things to attract their attention. Quit playing neighborhood spy for instance.

The government has secret agents renting a house just down the street from him -- Dude, every neighborhood has some excessively private people with odd schedules. Get over it, they aren't out to get you. If they were, you'd already have been "gotten" by now.

The guy thinks that President Bush is Adolf Hitler -- That's really original, blame the President on all your woes, typical liberal bullshit blaming the President on your own failings in life. If I remember right, Hitler tried to exterminate an entire race of people based on their religion. I haven't yet seen any reports of Bush trying to do that, if anything he's trying to stop the nutjob terrorists who try and kill others based on their religious beliefs.

The government's constant harassing of him has caused his wife to leave him -- Hey, umm, James, hate to break it to you, but it was more likely your paranoid delusions that made her feel unsafe around you, thereby causing her to flee for her life in fear of you.

I could go on and on, but I've had enough fun at this guy's expense. The sad thing is, there are actually people out there who believe the kind of nonsense he's spouting off about.

First Amendment Rights

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.


First off let me tell you that if this makes you mad, oh well. Because I WILL NOT apologize for what I believe. Nor will I hold it against someone for having a different belief than myself. I REFUSE TO BE POLITICALLY CORRECT!!! Political correctness is for wimps.
Now with that being said I want to go over the third part of the first amendment. "or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press". If you have a blog, like this one, where you put down your thoughts, (whether right or wrong, and I can be wrong a lot) you are using FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND POSSIBLY PRESS. I get tired of hearing someone on the radio say, " I have to be careful here as not to offend somebody". Why can't more people be like some of these people:
Andrew Wilkow, Mike McCarville, Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, G. Gordon Liddy, and Cam Edwards. You may or may not like or agree with one or more of these people, but as long as I have listened to most of them, I believe I can say that I have disagreed at one time or another with at least most of them at least once. But, they have always TOLD IT THE WAY THEY SEE IT! They are not afraid to say what they feel. They also research quite a bit more than I do on any given subject. That does not say that they are always right. Just that they say what they believe. The main reason I believe more about what they say than anyone else is because they don't sugar coat anything. They tell it like it is. I may disagree through ignorance, but can people just agree to disagree? No one is above anyone else. I get tired of the bitching and complaining about "somebody offended me." Everyone is offended by something. If you are offended you can always, 1. Quit listening 2. Quit reading 3. Change the channel. JUST QUIT YOUR BITCHING! IT OFFENDS ME. I don't think that your suing for political correctness will change anything. You need to either shut your trap, or change. (Now I could be very wrong about this next statement) I think that a lot of the rage in the world today whether be it road rage or any other type of rage stems from people having to be politically correct all the time. We need to make a stand to get rid of all of the political correctness. It seems to me that the same people that are screaming for political correctness are the same ones that trying to take away all our rights. Like the right to bear arms. They are the ones that took prayer out of schools. ( Or so they tried, as long as there tests in school there will be prayer whether they like it or not.) All these people that are trying to take away our rights need to be taken out of office. We have been fighting overseas for our freedom. Let's bring the fight home for our freedoms. Let's be free the way our forefathers intended us to be. Let's " petition the government for a redress of OUR grievances", let's fight to maintain our freedoms before they are all taken away.

Drivers Who Carry Guns & Roadrage

Taken from Popular Science article "Science Confirms the Obvious!":

"2. Gun-Toting Drivers are More Prone to Road Rage The Study: Is an armed society a polite society? Guns and road rage, Accident Analysis and Prevention, Jan. 2006

The Findings: After cold-calling 2,459 American adults with an anonymous questionnaire, researchers from the Harvard Injury Control Research Center discovered that directing indecent gestures at other motorists was significantly more common among suburbanites, binge drinkers, Northeasterners, those who think most people can't be trusted and, yes, those who admitted that they keep guns in their vehicles.

Why Bother? The paper says it best:If someone is giving you the finger, it may be useful to have some sense of whether or not they have a gun. Co-author Mary Vriniotis adds that states have recently loosened laws allowing motorists to drive while packing heat. The implication is that if lethal weapons are more readily accessible, hostile driving incidents could turn ugly more often. Knowing which populations are prone to road rage could help policymakers devise awareness campaigns or other strategies to help curb its frequency."

Let me put it like this: Horseshit, pure and simple.

1. If it were true, where are all the highway motorist-to-motorist shootings taking place that I never hear about in the news?

2. 2,459 persons out of a population of how many millions (estimate 296 Million +/- a few) of people in the U.S. is not a fair representation on any level of what might statistically be an accurate representation.

3. I've found when carrying a firearm in a vehicle I tend to become more polite and less aggressiveressive towards others, for the simple reason that I know the importance and responsibility of carrying a firearm in public.

4. So far every gun owner I've ever talked to about this subject has acknowledged having the same state of mind as I stated in #3.

5. Open carry of a firearm can help prevent road rage and aggressiveness of driving of other motorists toward you. When Johnny Speedracer sees a rifle or shotgun in the back glass gunrack of a pickup-truck, chances are he doesn't want to anger occupants of said vehicle. I've never been cut off, flipped off, or whatever when a gun is visible, only when not. Hmmm. Guns can help prevent roadrage and aggressive-driver caused accidents. See, guns actually make the roads a safer place.

6. It simply looks to me like they used this article as a means of doing another plug for the anti-gunners.

Neanderthal News

Read it on FOX News.

"Neanderthals might have held out in isolated refuges for thousands of years longer than previously thought, a team of scientists reported in the Web site of the journal Nature on Wednesday."

I've got news for them,they're still alive and well, holding out in isolated refuges just fine, and I happen to know this because I know some living breathing persons in the mountains of North Carolina who fit the description perfectly. See, you don't have spend thousands and thousands of dollars on scientific pooh-pah, all you have to do is just get out of your happy zone and go door to door in the backwoods of the Apalachians.

Crab Grass

Crab Grass, originally uploaded by Western Wisdom.

This was one mean blue crab. I guess you could say it was in a crabby mood. I suppose you'd be pretty irate too, if you were about to be dunked in a pot of boiling water.