OFF TOPIC blog

Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. All you need is money.

Used to be you could buy a sixpack for $1.30, but that was back in the 60s. Now it is more like $6.50 for a sixpack. Oh well, everything else is higher too. Everything except the income.

Back in the 60s I drank beer every chance I got, which was not all that often. Back then, when asked, we told people we drank beer because we liked the taste; wink, wink. The real reason was because it contained alcohol and got us high. What a deception at such an early age. It was only by the grace of God that we did not all turn out to be politicians! Or alcoholics. Or, God forbid, alcoholic politicians!!

Back then it did not matter what brand. The cheaper, the better. They all contained alcohol and after the third can it did not matter if it was a premium brew or the cheapest panther piss we could find. It was all good.

How times have changed. Today the panther is still pissing beer but the price is up close to $20 bucks a case. For two dollars more I can get REAL beer!

I first tried Shiner. I like their family reunion assortment. The following month I decide to try the Samuel Adams assortment. WoW! I like the boston lager the best.

For the first time in my life I am proud to say I really do like the taste and no; wink, wink, about that!

Compressed Natural Gas. This stuff has been around as long as gasoline. We are told it is 40 percent cheaper than gasoline. So how come hardly anyone uses it? Is the conversion to CNG expensive? Is it as safe as gasoline? Wasn’t there a town on the east coast that got blown away when a tanker carrying CNG blew up? Since there is no refining involved, how come it is only 40 percent cheaper? Will it still be 40 percent cheaper after everyone has been converted to use CNG?

Maybe that 40 percent is because it is not taxed as heavily. I understand that gasoline carries about 80 cents per gallon state and federal tax. No point in taxing CNG because hardly anyone uses it.

Hey, here is an idea; we will put masts and sails on our cars and let the wind push us around. Make that Pickens guy proud.

When are people who go through life with broken moral compasses, going to realize that the rest of us simply ignore them when they speak of things which they consider inappropriate.

When you have nothing to tell you what is appropriate, you have no chance at all of guessing what might be inappropriate.

As always it becomes a matter of the black pot calling the black kettle black.

I am no longer really bothered by spam. I have upgraded to an email client that is smart enough to recognize spam and keep it out of my in-box. Sometimes it filters out messages that are not spam but those messages I want come from people that know how to get them to me. Those who don’t, really do not matter anyway.

Okay, so now I have a special ’spam’ area which fills up with crap on a regular basis. Perhaps up to 100 messages per day. I do not have worry with them because they are not costing me anything. I do not have to read them. Just ignore them and they will go away. Quite literally, they are deleted on a regular basis automatically.

Still, I would like nothing better than to do as much damage as possible to folk that feel a need to send spam. So here is an idea that I am sure is not entirely new.

Spam is illegal. There are laws against sending spam. Some of these laws may have their own special definition for spam, but there are governmental enforcement activities designed to target spam, spammers, and fraud. How about we help them do their job!

If my email client is smart enough to filter out spam, it should be a trivial task to program the client to dispose of spam in a more creative way. Like forward it to enforcement agencies tasked with fighting spam and doing so automatically without need for user intervention. I do not need to be fighting spam when my computer can do it for me. After all, spammers use computers to do their dirty work, what better way to fight them than to use their own tactics.

So, spammers beware! You are being watched. Best of all, I don’t have to do anything special to make that happen! Your spam is automatically sent to the enforcement agency. It is like you are directly sending this crap to the feds and begging them to come get you for being a spammer!

Woke up this morning about 7:30 thinking I had plenty of time. Woke up again around 8 and realized it was really 9. I did get to talk to my normal 9am sched on 75 meters. They are fine and say hello.

We talked about what we would do with all the daylight we were saving. We finally decide the best thing to do was to turn off the lights and go back to bed. Made more sense to save electricity than daylight

Had a dream that I was attending a McCain rally. I could tell it was a McCain rally because it was raining and everyone was crying. Even McCain was crying. The entire crowd was circled around a hole in the ground. At the bottom of the hole lay a coffin that had a ‘Free Speech’ banner pasted across it.

After I woke up I began to wonder what an Obama rally would look like. Lots of happy, delerious folk talking about how they were changed. Everyone was 29 years old or younger. Some felt so good about it they passed out unconcious (drugs?). Used to be they had money. Now all that was changed and everyone was dirt poor. No more crime and envy. With everyone poor there was no need to be unhappy about someone having more than you. You gave all your money to Obama and he provided change. Glorious change! There was not a wet diaper to be found on anyone anywhere.

Then I thought about a Hillary rally. She was surrounded by deleriously happy people too. They were all happy because they had free health insurance. No health care just insurance, but you didn’t need health care because no one got sick anymore. They all had health insurance that modified their behavior so they did not get sick. Those that did not feel well did not feel well for long. Without health care they died. Everyone was dirt poor too because they had to pay up front for the free, mandatory, health insurance.

Still working on a Bush rally. With his superior view of reality, economic genious, and military strategery its going to take some particularly creative writing to pin him down.

And now for something completely different. Welcome to the tower of babble. Or is it the babbling tower of power?

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Or just press 1 for Mexican and 2 for English.

Never knew that ‘Auto’ was a language. Don’t recall pulling that one out of my rear. Perhaps it fell out on its own.

While visiting my daughter and her husband this last week I began go to question the need for a normal telephone. A landline as we used to call it.

My daughter and her husband have been in the process of moving to a new house. New to them anyway. The new house does not have normal telephone service. Yet both of them do not seem to have any trouble ’staying in touch’ on their cell phones.

I do not have a cell phone and they assure me that soon they will have normal phone service so I can use the ‘landline’.

I am beginning to think that instead of opting for ‘landline’ service, it may be time for me to get a cell phone too. It is fairly obvious that a normal telephone connection is redundant when you have a cell phone.

Some years ago I came across a copy of the ‘Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy’. One of the topics it addressed was a search for the meaning of life.

On a planet far, far away, the scientists created a computer that ended up being the largest computer in the galaxy. It was networked to all the countries on that planet and consumed nearly 50 percent of the energy resources of that planet. Realizing that they had something very special, the scientists proposed the question to the mega computer. ‘What is the meaning of life?’.

The computer was staffed by an enormous number of attendants who were dedicated to keep it working on the solution over the centuries. These attendants achieved the distinction of becoming priests with time and the entire population of the planet was conscripted to help maintain the computer. After five hundred centuries the project took on the status of a religious endeavor and three years later it finally found the answer to the question.

The answer to the meaning of life was seven.

Are you searching for the meaning of life? Perhaps you might be better off searching for things that give your life meaning.

We often hear candidates for political office claim that leadership is important and they can provide all the leadership anyone could want.

Look out Nelly! Any time a politician uses the leadership card you can bet that he is up to no good.

Leadership is a commodity that gets in the way of good representation. Not only that, but most leaders are convinced that they alone have the answers. Their answers are not open to debate. They are compelled to carry out their agenda and the activities that follow may be hazardous to ordinary normal people. It is not at all unusual for such persons to belong to organizations that also think they are the answer to all of humanities woes. The one true belief. The only path to salvation. The biggest lie ever swallowed.

History is full of leaders. David Coresh was a leader. Jim Jones was a leader. There were leaders demonstrating how to deal with heretics during the Spanish inquisition. Stalin was a leader. Hitler was a leader. All of these people were leaders by the simple fact that they had a following.

No, not all leaders are evil, but why take a chance? In a representative democracy we need representatives, not leaders. Since our political representatives do not have to be leaders why take a chance at attracting someone that has a personal agenda of evil.

Facts, just the facts. Find out what the candidate claims to do if elected. Research to see if he kept his promises in the past. See if he has changed his positions on issues near and dear to your own. Has he engaged in negative ads? Is he claiming to be a leader?

If a candidate cannot be trusted, is wishy washy on the issues, attacks his opponents instead of the issues, makes unsubstantiated claims of leadership, such a person is not fit for political office.

Of course we are all aware of those factors. Some of us may not be aware of how senseless claims of leadership really are. Strong leadership qualities benefit despots and dictators. Leadership qualities are not desired or useful in a democratic environment because they have potential to endanger the freedoms we hold dear.

Look at the most recent history. The history after WWII. Nearly all of the politicians who claimed to be leaders, lead us into adversity and harm. These so called leaders have grown government beyond all reason. It has become a nanny to the people. An nagging spiteful entity that is more interested in dictating every detail of our lives than helping us live in the freedom we desire. Expecting us to serve it instead of the other way round. As old offices of this dysfunctional governing body fail, they linger on and on, sucking up tax dollars while new offices are created to take care of the failures of the old. Yet only seem to promise even greater failures in the future.

We do not need leaders. We need representatives who can be trusted.

So when you hear some politician claiming to be a leader, show him how much you understand and appreciate his foolishness by voting for someone else.

Unfortunately it is becoming more and more clear that there may not be anyone else. At least no one who qualifies to past standards that seem to have disappeared overnight.

Once again I hear the grass roots grubs complaining. We don’t have an energy policy. Huh!? Just because you don’t know what it is does not mean it does not exist.

The fact is that the United States has always had an energy policy. In fact it has had the same exact energy policy every year for decades. We import what we use.

We have gotten so good at importing fuel that now it is the preferred method of providing energy of all kinds in all places under all conditions.

Why? Because it is cheap, easy, and profitable. Where else can an enterprise find lower overhead, less need for investment, quicker turn around, and greater profits for such little effort.

Why, even the tankers that bring the fuel to our shores are handled by foreign interests. Even refineries are off shore because now we are importing gasoline too. All flavors. You could say that the friendly folk off shore are more than willing to do the jobs that Americans do not want to do.

The oil companies life has been simplified to filling tanks from ships the same way that we fill automobile tanks from pumps at filling stations. All the hard work along with the expense has been outsourced. The only thing that has been kept are the profits. No need to drill. No need to pump. No need to refine. No need to invest in infrastructure. Even much of those nasty, smelly refineries are being moved off shore where they do not offend the aristocratic noses of the well healed as they enjoy profits galore from ever increasingly smaller efforts.

If the imports demand higher prices, we just pass the favor along to the consumer. What option do they have but pay the higher rates.

If the oil companies are called for their lack of foresight and wisdom, they just blame all those government regulations that are making it so difficult to build new refineries, explore for new oil reserves, and become energy independent.

Meanwhile the government is off the hook too because it can blame the kooky envrionmentalists who are more concerned with environmental issues that economic health.

God forbid that we should ever be forced to drill for our own domestic oil. That would merely increase the supply which would drop the price which would eliminate the profits oil companies now enjoy. No, we need to limit supply and keep the price up. Isn’t it great that in order to accomplish that all we have to do is sit on our increasingly fat asses and do absolutely nothing to enjoy the clear conscience of the blameless victims we have become.

We must make sure that any research into alternate energy sources is not only active but also focused on schemes that are sure to fail. Like promising to find that magic pill that can turn a gallon of water into a gallon of fuel. Or exploring all the wonders of geothermally produced electricity that is sure to cost ten times what conventional fuels would require.

Such efforts will show the public that we care. It will ensure that we do not alienate our customers but it will also ensure our energy monopoly remains intact.

Who could possibly ask for more. I guess we could, but since we already have it all chances of getting more are not good. We will just have to raise the price.

The price always goes up when the demand goes up and the supply goes down. Lets work the media to stir up a crisis. We can call it an energy crisis. Then, lets find some really incompetent boobs to do (or not do) the maintenance on our domestic production plants. One nice explosion in even one refinery will shut it down. That will put the screws to supply and price will go even higher. We win at both ends. Incompetent workers are a dime a dozen so we save there and higher prices result in direct and immediate higher profits.

And you say we don’t have an energy policy. Shame on you for spreading lies.

It is official now. Spring is here. Even though it is unseasonably cool the arrival of storms from the west signal the arrival of spring.

Last night we had some excitement lasting almost two hours. We have been here, in the same place, since 1979 and it has always been the same drill.

Cold fronts come in from the north and west, make their way across Texas, and sometimes bring rain to our area.

Last night a supper dupper weather cell came in from the west and made a bee line for our house. We got ready to take cover with portable radios, valuables, flashlights, and such but it was over even before it had begun.

Concerned by reports of golf ball sized hail that later was updated to baseball sized hail which finally became tea cup sized hail, we anxiously watched the sky and listened to the TV weatherman. (I refuse to call them meteorologists. First they need to prove they know something about weather).

Turned out that the sky really was not falling. We did not experience any tea cups or even mad hatters falling from the sky. We amused ourselves by watching the weatherman take an unscheduled opportunity to hold an instructional presentation on cloud rotation and if it should be clockwise or counterclockwise.

Meanwhile the emergency ham radio net RACES was reporting electrical flashes on the ground in Fort Worth in the vicinity of Beach street. Five minutes later Mr. Meteorologist was reporting a possible tornado on the ground in Fort Worth. I guess the TV station monitors the RACES net too. Not sure what took them so long to get the information out.

Half an hour later that cell was directly above us. The sky was very dark but had not acquired that monster greenish tinge that usually accompanies a tornado.

The sound of sirens all around and for the first time in a long time the sound was not coming from the TV speakers.

The wind picked up. It picked up a couple of loose leaves in the back yard but did not seem threatening. Gusts to 30 mph at best and big rain drops all over. Nice downpour but the light was getting worse since the sun had set and it was difficult to see much.

That lasted about 15 minutes. The sky got a little darker, then much lighter very suddenly. RACES reports of a possible tornado in east Garland. So the storm had passed and not so much as a twig had been removed from the trees in the heavily wooded area that marks our neighborhood.

Good. Our luck held out just as it has since 1979. Sure happy about the rain. We certainly needed that.

I understand there may be another super dupper cell arrive around the end of this weekend and another later next week. Yup, spring has arrived just like it always does.

Say, you suppose that later this week the weather guy has figured out which way the clouds should be rotating. Not sure we could survive without knowing that!

Well, it is official now. I never thought I would see this day. For some reason a 20 year period in the 60’s seems to be much longer than the same period in todays time. I am not sure why the long, dim, past appears expanded while the more recent past seems compressed, but I do know where that old people smell is coming from now. It is coming from me.

Funny, seems only yesterday it was coming from the old folks we used to visit. You don’t suppose it was something we caught from them??!!

I have never given much thought to the phrase ‘fair and balance’. I just accepted the term but lately it has begun to annoy me because it has no definite meaning when used to qualify a news program. Fair to whom? What about balanced, does that mean there are as many facts as fantasies in the reports? Or does it refer to an even mix of bad and good?

The term ‘fair and balanced news’ means that someone’s definition of fair and balanced has been applied before the story is told. Or, put another way, the story had been doctored and they want you to believe that it is okay because the doctorer is fair and balanced.

Any doctoring of a news story is done to be unfair to someone or something and people engaged in that action are anything but balanced. It takes a completely unbalanced person to think that such action will be accepted by any educated audience.

I am fresh out of patience with news that is made up, doctored, or non-factual. For a news program to make claims that their stories are more than just the facts, condemns them to be considered as part of an ever increasing group of silly propagandists.

The facts mam, just the facts. If you are not sure as to what happened, I am not interested in your version of what you think might have happened, or should have happened, or would have happened if you ruled the world.

With email, instant messaging, and blog traffic, the telephone is quickly becoming a less desirable means of staying in touch. At least that is the case in this household.

Even though we have opted to stop telemarketers we still get calls from people asking for money. People we don’t even know. They claim to be collecting for charity which is still allowed by law, but I consider that telemarketing even though they are not selling anything.

I consider it the ultimate insult to have a stranger call me on my phone trying to scam me out of my money, and I usually respond accordingly. Once I asked a telemarketer, ‘If it is such a good deal why do you have to bother people at home to sell it?’ The line went silent for many moments as they searched for a comeback.

Anymore we do not respond at all. If a call comes in, we let the answering machine take it. All callers to the machine are politely asked to leave a message. Some do. Some don’t. We do not care. We enjoy a quiet evening of reflection with the ringer turned off.

Least you think us callous, we do not have to care. It is just the two of us. The kids have grown up and moved out long ago. Most of our relatives live in other cities. The most economical means of communication is email for those who have computers.

I think we would be able to return more calls if we suggested they leave a message that would make us want to call them back.

A message like ‘This is (someone I have never heard of), please return my call. My number is (blah, blah, and more blah)’, is certain to get erased.

We do not return calls to people we do not know unless they give us good reason to do so. Even then we are reluctant to return such calls unless they have stated the nature of their call.

Generally, if it is a message from someone we do not know, we don’t call back. We do not conduct business on the phone anymore. It is far too easy for an unknown caller to pretend to be something they are not. Especially when they initiate the call. That is something we are keenly aware of particularly when they start asking for personal information.

Calls from unknown people are always unwanted. They are the equivalent of spam in email and have no business being answered.
The people who make such calls are abusing an otherwise useful service.

I can understand someone in sales prospecting for customers by calling commercial phone numbers of prospective companies. There is never an excuse to call a private phone number of a person you do not know assuming he wants to talk to an intrusive nobody.

Chances, odds, probabilities, all the same thing. What are the chances of such-and-such happening? A question often asked of a countless variety of such-and-suches. Many times the answer is a billion in one, or some other very large number, and we rejoice reasoning that the particular bad such-and-such could not possibly happen to us in our lifetime.

Clearly, we do not understand how probablity works. Say the odds of something happening are 100 to 1. Assuming it is something we can control, we figure we can do whatever it is 100 times before the undesirable (or desirable) result occurs. That is a bad assumption even if we knew when the last occurance was. Something having one chance in 100 of occuring does not necessarily mean that there will be a neat 99 non occurances between occurances.

The event could occur at any one of 100 opportunities between the first and the last.

So the next time you hear someone giving you a million to one odds on something happening, that particular something could still happen tomorrow. Or even later this afternoon.

Ever wonder how we can prove that what we are doing is preventing something that did not happen?

Once upon a time there was a red neck named Bubba. Bubba was not an ordinary red neck. His IQ was higher than the number to which he could count. Bubba was smart. So smart that he took pre-emptive caution whenever he could, even though he lived in a very safe part of Kansas.

One of his pre-emptive measures was the wearing of an unusual pendant. Not only was it unusual it was also large and never failed to elicit comment. When asked what it was for, Bubba would claim that it kept the wild stampeding elephants away.

“But there are no wild stampeding elephants in Kansas,” the curious would reply.

“See, it works real good, don’t it”, would be Bubba’s reply.

Are there wild stampeding elephants in your neighborhood? Maybe you need a pendant like Bubba’s.

It is better to be safe than sorry. I wonder, can you be safe and sorry at the same time?

‘Forgive and forget’. I have heard that expression more than once in my life but have never give it much thought. Now that I have thought about it, it does not make much sense. Shouldnt it be ‘forget and forgive’? Dont you have to forget the wrong before you can forgive the wrongdoer? Forgetting first would certainly make it easier to forgive.

Still,’forgive and forget’ is the phrase that is more generally accepted and I think I know why. When people say they forgive, they are really only saying that they will refrain from seeking revenge. They wont try to get even, but they fully intend to learn a valuable lesson from the experience. This taints the quality of forgiveness given. Such forgiveness is not unconditional and free because it results in the wrongdoer being treated differently than he was before his transgression. True forgiveness restores the wrongdoer to the same stature and privledges he had before his transgression. There is no one keeping an eye on him making sure he cannot harm a second time.

Doesnt it seem logical that unconditional forgiveness would have a better chance of getting the transgressor to repent and change his ways? Maybe, but how many of us would risk our welfare on such a chance?