Oct 30th and all is NOT well

Well at work anyway.

My group of 6 workers and 1 manager has seen two people let go in the last month and tomorrow another worker is leaving. So we are down to 3 workers and 1 manager. None of the positions will be back filled. So a little busy here.

On the plus side, this weekend will see the marriage of a very good friend and I will be heading up North to witness the happy event. I've known Kalvin since UCLA, good grief that was like 18 years ago and am very happy for him and Karen.

In the news:

Zero Tolerance is something that sounds good in theory but doesn't seem to work in practice (kind of like communism). If ZT was around when I was in school, I would have been expelled and arrested for all the war pictures I drew on paper in school.

Saddam built a dam, he had it built on gypsum, the dam is now in danger of collapse, the price to fix $10 billion. The loss of life if the dam collapse 500,000. What will the US do? Fix the dam. The cost of the war in Iraq just went up because of course we (US Taxpayer) will pay for it. Hat tip Hugh Hewitt.

Torre to the RedSoxYankee!Dodgers

Broken by Peter Abraham, of The Journal News.

Good news for the Blue Crew and I wonder if Grady doesn't feel a little stung, like the Yankees have been shadowing him all his life. Still, it doesn't solve the problem that we need some veteran talent. And no, Jeff Kent doesn't count. I wonder if A-Rod is in tow...

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What a weekend

Spouse and I went to Catalina this weekend to celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary. We stayed at the Zane Gray Hotel. If you read western novels or watch western movies, you most likely have seen his work. The hotel was originally his house, built in the 1920s. Its biggest selling point, no phones or TV's in the rooms. No Internet access on site and each room is named after one of his books. The hotel only has about 12 rooms and he wrote about 70 or more books.

We stayed in a room with an ocean view and was incredible to see Avalon Harbor at night.

While there is one 20 inch TV and VCR player in the lounge, we didn't watch any. Instead, we played the game Settlers. We first played it a week ago at a friends house and then played it Friday, Saturday and Sunday of this weekend. The game is a lot of fun and even better, can be packed in one l gallon zip lock bag so easy to carry around as well.

We had a blast on Catalina and were sorry to have to come home and back to work. But such is life.

Don't Mess With California

Sure, most of the time California could care less about the rest of the country, but if you start burning down our houses or are suspected of burning down our houses, you're likely to pay the ultimate price.

The chase started after campus security officers at California State University, San Bernardino, found [the suspect] inside a car in a brushy area near campus. Police say the officers were concerned and wanted to make sure he wasn't trying to start a fire. When they approached, he drove off.

And then they shot him.

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Door to Door Meat

So, I just finished putting off a couple of salesmen trying to sell flash frozen beef, chicken, and seafood door-to-door. They actually got inside the door with their wares. Although this didn't seem to be as much of a scam as selling magazines door-to-door, there was still a sense of uncertainty as to the protein's provenance. In asking a couple of questions about other door-to-door meat sales teams, they listed off quite a litany ofoutfits.

I didn't know that this was such a business!

Anybody else out there have experience with door-to-door protein?

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What is important?

Well the news continues to roll in, problems with Iran, strife in Iraq, California burning and the housing industry in the US crashing.

Well, being in Los Angeles, I am getting lots of information on the fires, fortunately my home is not near any of them. The smoke has been an irritant but compared to those in San Diego and other places who have lost homes and loved ones, I have nothing to complain about.

Lots of stories comparing the situation at the stadium in San Diego where fire evacuees went to the stadium in New Orleans were hurricane evacuees went. It basically boils down to leadership. The local leaders in San Diego have done things correctly.

And finally today is a special day for me because 9 years ago today I married the most wonderful woman in the world. Were going to Catalina this weekend to celebrate. Can't believe how fast time has gone by. Looking forward to the future with my wonderful wife.

So what is important? Linking to news stories you have already read or telling you about my wonderful wife? Well for today, telling you about my wonderful wife is more important then linking to news stories.

Its FRIDAY!!!!!!

Well the boss has departed from his old job and will be starting the new world of telecommuting next week, after taking today off.

What happened at Haditha. Will those who slandered the troops apologize now? I won't be holding my breath.

70 year old steals gasoline to resale. I know Social Security won't make one rich, but this is nuts.

Its sooo brave of code pink to demonstrate in this country. If they tried it in any of the countries they appear to support, they would face jail or death. Here they have police protection and a mostly friendly press. And they claim they are brave in daring to protest.

Another European country is getting nervous about immigration.

Bush's tax cut has increased tax revenue by $785 billion, the Iraq war has cost $460 billion, so the war is paid for maybe we should be cutting other spending to bring the budget into balance? Just an idea.

That's why we don't have any traffic

Our blog doesn't use the word sex very often. Google released the stats on which country uses which word most for search purposes.

Internet users in Egypt, India and Turkey are the world's most frequent
searchers for Websites using the keyword “sex” on Google search engines,
according to statistics just provided by Google Inc.

So all we have to do is change the format of this blog and we will get lots of visitors from around the world. I figure that will happen about 10 minutes after we get a foot of snow in South Bay (cold for us is 60 degrees F, so ain't going to happen).

Save the world, end cremation and feed the dead to a tree. Well that is what one environmentalist is saying we should do.

But is Global Warming all bad? Depends on where you live. Greenland seems to like the idea, they may be able to have the land they did back in the 1200s, the last time the place was warm enough to live on.

Two new tax bills being introduced. If you make more then minimum wage, hang on to your wallet. Oh, the price tag on his bills??? $1 Trillion, with a T.

Christine Lagarde France’s finance minister has a radical idea. Workers in France should work more then 35 hours a week to help grow the economy which will reduce the high unemployment there.

Today is the boss' last day at his current employer, soon to join the world of telecommuting, doing his part to save the world.

Have a good day.

That darn Murphy . . . . .

McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act has unintended consequences. Good or bad, the jury is still out.

Person enters the police station, stabs two officers with a knife and is killed by the police. The local community riots because the police killed the attacker and because they feel they are being stigmatized by society because the bad guy came from their community. Sound ridiculous? Well it happened in the Netherlands. If the community wants to be something other then Dutch, they should go home.

Britain is a place with a lot of drinkers. And this is news because???

Liberals in New York can't believe Rudy Giuliani is doing so well in the Republican primary according to polls so far. Reminds me of reading about liberals who couldn't believe Nixon won in 1972 with over 60% of the vote "because no one I knew voted for him". Giuliani isn't perfect, no one is but Republicans and conservatives are looking for the best of the group. We will see over the next few months if Giuliani is the person or not.

NO KOBE! Say it ain't so...

Through this entire sordid <a href=http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3065296>episode with the Lakers</a> I have come to realize one thing: <b>I'm more of a Kobe fan than a Laker fan</b> right now. Despite Kobe's inability to get along with a lot of his team mates, I still would rather watch him play than any other in the NBA right now, including <b>D-Wade</b> and <b>King James</b>. Sadly, it seems that soon is the time when I will no longer be able to watch him on the local broadcasts. Alas, sad will be that day.

It may be a while before I can watch the Lakers again if they do trade Kobe, quite a while. <b>I blame the owner, Jerry Buss,</b> for this situation and I'm not blindly loyal to a team. Granted, it's his right to run the team as he sees fit, but <b>don't expect me to partake of the resulting product if I don't like it</b>. I drink Coke only; you can't make me drink another brand.

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Monday Roundup

This is in the LA Times. How did it get through the censors there? The article is nice to Clarence Thomas.

Be careful what you put your name too, it could come back to haunt you. Rush Limbaugh is having the last laugh on the letter of censure signed by 41 Senators and the proceeds go to a good cause.

If you can't win on the issues try another route. I thought politics was supposed to end at the waters edge, especially during war time. I'm sooo proud of the Representatives from California (sarcasm big time)

News Roundup

Demographic time bomb in Europe. They appear to be committing voluntary suicide as a society.

Even the liberal city of San Francisco is having trouble with homeless people. Amazing when it becomes a quality of life issue, liberals are not that different from conservatives.

Let's cut trash pick up from once a week to once every two weeks, that will reduce rubbish. Oh, people are now dumping their trash along the road, lets give police the power to search and seize cars that are carrying trash. Hmm, another feel good law leads to less freedom in the UK.

Volunteer fire fighters are opposed by the fire fighters union and want to shut them down.

Happy Columbus Day

Yes today is Christopher Columbus's birthday. The Italian mariner who convinced the Spanish Crown to finance his expeditions to find a shorter route to India and China. Unfortunately, the America's got in the way so he never found the route to Asia. Of course now, many people say Columbus was a bad person because his finding of the America's extended slavery and lead to the downfall of earlier immigrants to the America's. These folks used to be called Indians and now called Native Americans but they only arrived earlier from Asia and were no more native to America then the Europeans are. So government workers and some school kids get the day off but the traffic was just as bad as always so guess not too many private sector people get it off.

Good news from Iraq? Will the Iraqi government be able to act on it? Time will tell.

Some interesting reasons on what makes a country and society rich, and its not just natural resources. The comments are also worth reading.

Jeff Flake is still leading his crusade against earmarks. Its a lonely battle but many good things start off as lonely crusades while the public is educated on why the change is needed. Keep fighting the good fight Congressman Flake.

Who was the richest man in British history? Well the nephew of William the Conqueror who was given land and villages to rule in the North of Britain. When he died, he was worth 11,000 British Pounds which today equals about 81 billion pounds, he was dealing with a devastated land. Because of the pacification policy of William, the land was abandoned so he would have to invest a lot of money to bring improvements and people to make the land productive.

Have a good day.

A Good Friday to You

I thought about sending this to people, but didn't want to lose all my friends so post it here. Work safe and funny . . . . well the first time.

Will the folks in SF put their money where their mouths are? Trying to get a 10 cent surcharge on gasoline to pay for global warming. As a resident of LA I say why stop at 10 cents, SF should make the extra tax $5 a gallon if they want to do something. This is only for the SF area which is why I support it.

Not sure how I feel about this one. On one hand I see the point of the organization they have the right to fly the PRC flag. On the other hand I see the protesters point that the flag represents a State that killed millions of its own citizens and thousands of Americans directly or indirectly (Korea and Vietnam).

A few days ago on Jeopardy, there was a question on Presidential succession. I got it wrong so looked at the Constitution and then had to look at the Presidential Secession Act of 1947. I'm so glad the web makes finding even information like this easy to get too. It also helps to remind us how close we are to President Pelosi.

Another example for those who stay at home on election day void their right to complain about the government.

Finally, space and last 50 years.

Have a good weekend.

BMD and Ford

In 1983 Ronald Regan gave his SDI speech where he said the goal was to make ICMB's "impotent and obsolete". Ted Kennedy dubbed the speech "Star Wars" and said it was impossible. Today SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) is an operational BMD (Ballistic Missile Defense) system.

No, the system will not stop a full scale nuclear attack launched by the old USSR, or even Russia's current nuclear forces. It will give the US protection against North Korea or China's nuclear weapons. It will also insure any country trying to launch a single rocket to take out Los Angeles, New York or Washington DC, is likely to fail and we can give them a choice, surrender or be bombed back to the stone age.

The BMD system will not protect us from all attacks, but it will ensure that any country thinking of trying to blackmail the US by threatening to take out one of our cities (Iran, North Korea) or saying if we help an ally, we will lose Los Angeles (PRC general has already said the US will not defends Taiwan because we will not be willing to sacrifice Los Angeles for Taipei) will have to have enough force to penetrate our BMD system and then they would be open to massive retaliation of our nuclear forces. The system will make others think before attacking and that is the true worth of the system. Like nuclear weapons, if they ever have to be launched in anger, their primary function of deterrence has failed. Hopefully these missiles will never need to be used and can be dismantled at the end of the service lives.

Ford Motor Company is having even more problems. Poorly selling vehicles, declining sales, massive debt and no agreement with the UAW yet. Can it be turned around? If it makes a successful come back, it will be a source of business case studies for years to come, how they got into trouble and how they got out of it. Of course that is in the future and at the moment, it is not clear they can or will be turned around.

Rocket Powered X-Wing

21 foot long scale model of an X-Wing, rocket powered and ready for flight, October 10th. Gallery of pictures after the jump to Gizmodo.

Holy cow!