Blowing Up Onion Sacks!

Number 1 Cause of Death in the US

2012-02-04T17:10:00.001-05:00

Abortion is the murder of a child, and there is nothing funny about it. 1.3 million children are murdered annually by Americans who didn’t want their lifestyles inconvenienced by a baby. Saying that a woman has a right to choose whether the child lives or is murdered is lunacy. If a mother decided to slice up her 4 year old, the public would demand swift justice. But if a doctor slices up a 4 week old, it’s considered a woman’s choice and a women’s health issue.

Many of the would be moms are now among the “walking wounded”; suffering from the regret of their decision. Suicide rates are 10 times higher for young women who have had abortions. America’s greatness has been stained by the blood of children sliced up in abortions. The loss of morality in our nation will make it difficult to end the slaughter of children, but it’s past time for us to speak out against the holocaust occurring in our own nation. Defend our helpless children; end the practice of abortion.

The GOP Leadership

2012-01-25T12:50:00.000-05:00

This sums up the last year or two pretty well for me. I am still waiting for an actual leader with actual principles and actual intelligence to step up to the plate in Washington DC. In the meantime, we'll continue to suffer at the likes of Obama and Boehner who appear to have neither intelligence nor principles.

Lost Mt Rainier Showshoer Burned Money for Warmth

2012-01-19T07:30:00.001-05:00

Great story! The will to survive is more important than anything you can take into the outdoors. However, this is a good lesson to be prepared for unexpected circumstances when straying off the beaten path.

Published January 17, 2012 | Associated Press

A snowshoer who was lost in a blizzard for two days on Washington state's Mount Rainier said he stayed alive by digging out a snow tunnel and burning his paper money for warmth.

Yong Chun Kim, 66, of Tacoma, told KOMO-TV of Seattle that he had fire starters with him and first burned some leaves. Then he started burning personal items: his socks and then $1 and $5 bills from his wallet.

Kim also said he marched in place to keep warm and took cover in a tree well --the hole in the snow under a tree. He fought off sleep but dreamed of his wife and a nice hot sauna.

"I found a big tree and got inside" the well, he said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "I'm worried. It's cold, so I want to move around."

He initially made a shelter near a big rock and tried to stay warm. He tried to keep walking, but at times "the snow was so deep, I couldn't breathe."

He made a fire, drank hot water and ate rice.

The first night was bad, said Kim's stepson, Malcolm An. "He could have died. He was walking around, struggling to find a place, literally not knowing where to go.

"He burned everything he had," An said. "He burned his toothpaste, Band-Aids, extra socks. He burned whatever he could."

Kim was leading 16 members of a hiking and climbing club from Tacoma on Saturday when he slid down a slope and became separated. He thought he would meet up with the group farther down the trail but became disoriented and went the wrong way.

(read the rest of the article here: FoxNews Story)

Captain Jack

2011-12-13T18:02:00.000-05:00

Captain Jack was found in the woods as a pup, hung up in some brush and probably would have become coyote food if I hadn't carried him a couple of miles out of the woods with me. We nursed him back to health and planned to find a home for him, but we ended up keeping him. Now he's a 90 pound baby who will climb up in your lap if you aren't paying attention. He obviously has some German Shepherd in him and he has some smarts.

Captain Jack, like his owner, is not a tarheel fan.

Wildlife in the Woods

2011-12-11T08:11:00.000-05:00

Recently, while working in the woods, I heard a strange noise coming from the direction of an old stump. It sounded like scratching and digging and was coming from inside this six foot stump.

I am always curious and started to walk over and investigate, but I started wondering if there was a skunk digging around in there. I had to clean up my dogs after one of their skunk encounters and I will never forget the odor. It stayed on them for several weeks, even after the tomato juice and peroxide shampoo. So I used the camera to light up the crack in the stump with the flash and see if I could tell more about what was inside. This is what the camera revealed:

Hmmm... definitely not a skunk. Having a pretty good idea about what might be in the stump, I decided to go for the video. Of course, I was a little apprehensive about placing my hand over my head and into a stump where an animal with razor sharp claws and beak had easy access, but I took a chance anyway and captured this:

It took me two tries to capture a video of this barred owl trying to hide from me. He never came out, even after I sat still and quiet behind his temporary refuge for 10 minutes. Eventually, I had to move on. The owl had endured the only creature likely to discover its hiding spot and won.

Surrounded by Idiots part 2

2011-12-03T20:24:00.000-05:00

If you are employed by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and tasked with keeping passengers safe on airplanes, which of the following should be stopped for enhanced screening (ie: strip searched):

Suspect A: the 9 year old

Suspect B: the 85 year old granny

Suspect C: an actual muslim

If you guessed A and B, then congratulations, not only are you an idiot, but you are well qualified to work for the TSA. And yes, those are the individuals that the TSA will search, remove their clothes, and pat down. Just ask the grandma, who was injured in the process.

At some point, Congress is going to have to step in and end the TSA, or at least instruct them to screen out actual terrorists instead of the elderly and children. One of these days, a father will end the life of a TSA agent that tries to strip search his 6 year old child. Put me on that jury and I will acquit him.

Wake up America; you voted in a communist and now we are beginning to creep towards dictatorship.

Surrounded by Idiots

2011-10-28T08:07:00.000-04:00

It’s been my opinion for some time that the values of education and knowledge are lost on a significant portion of the US population. Many of these same people are also barren when it comes to morality and integrity. I have been hoping that I am mistaken when it comes to the poverty of perception in America, but alas, the Occupy Movement has convinced me that ignorance may be the status quo for an alarming number of adults and youth.

Ignorance may be too kind for the likes that make up the Occupy Movement. The level of hate and violence for these supposedly peace-loving liberals is not safe for family viewing on the 6:00 o’clock news. The profanity laced signs, along with the anti-Semitism on display, comes across more as an anarchist mob. Over 2,000 people have been arrested now, some of them for rape and theft.

Anytime you see groups marching with “socialism now” and “spread the wealth” signs, you know you are dealing with the intellectually bankrupt. It’s amusing to me that these people think taking action means camping in city parks for days on end. This is somewhat akin to senators thinking that they are working by passing legislation.

The childish demands of the Occupy Movement and their inability to explain the relevancy of these demands speaks volumes for the impoverished state of our education system. Most of these Occupiers are supposedly college educated, but it’s hard to tell with their incoherent interviews and demands such as:

A living wage of $20 per hour, regardless of employment; I guess picking tomatoes is on par with designing radiation hardened electronics for nuclear power plants in their mind.

Free college education; hey you get what you pay for and I think this is the value of the education that most Occupiers received. Remember, “Free” means “Tax”

Obamacare, or single payer, which means higher taxes until the money runs out. And yes, for those of us who actually read the bill, the death panel is in there.

End fossil fuel use and transition to alternative energy; too bad solar and wind are too inefficient and expensive for the mainstream. By the way, solar power means battery power. If you don’t understand the ramifications of that, you better go back to school before you invest in solar as a “green” technology.

1 Trillion in infrastructure spending; (yawn) another bail out that will add to our recession until it’s paid for.

1 Trillion in ecological spending; (yawn) another bail out… oh never mind.

Across the board debt forgiveness; err what?

There are more demands across the country, but like I said, it’s a bunch of spoiled and ignorant children saying: “Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie.” These are probably the same idiots who wear Che shirts, sport Coexist bumper stickers, and think Mao saved China.

The true culture of the liberal left has been exposed for the world to see and it would be funny if it were not so vile. Ironically, the issues they have with Wall Street and Big Banks are policies that were mandated by democrats and then put on steroids by President Obama. Many of these Occupiers have been organized by Acorn and SEIU, which explains why most of them are “mad as hell” but can’t explain why once the camera is pointed at them.

Ultimately, as long as we pretend these 20, 30 and 40 year old adolescents have relevancy and reason, we are the idiots.

Loft Bed

2011-10-25T08:11:00.000-04:00

Anything that I build myself is better in both design and materials than anything I can buy. No particle board for me; and you can keep your bamboo, jatoba, ipe, sapele, and all that other tropical stuff. Good old American hardwoods; oak, maple, cherry; are my materials of preference. I prefer real joinery and construction techniques that you simply cannot find in furniture from Ashley, IKEA, or anything imported from China (which these days is just about everything).

The latest project I finished is a loft bed. The retail prices for this bed were in the $1700 range. I am in the $300 to 400 range for building it myself. And that includes a lighting system for the desk. I have looked at these beds in furniture stores and they are more flimsy than I am comfortable with.

The legs are made out of plywood. I glued up four pieces per leg and used a hand planer to shape it up. I used a trick I have heard of but never tried; auto bondo to fill in gaps, cracks, and wood grain. It made a perfectly smooth edge that is difficult to achieve with just sanding.

For the side rails, I tried using FAS dimension lumber, but it ended up twisting just enough that I was not satisfied with it. Back to the plywood; I glued up my own framing stock by gluing two pieces together and using bondo to fill the edges.

The shelves are made with plywood and dado joinery and pine for the face and trim. The desk is made from plywood and is bolted to the shelves so that it stands on its own. For good measure, one of the shelves is attached to the 4 x 5 legs. The desktop and large end-shelf were supposed to line up, but I forgot about that when I was building the shelf for the second time. The first shelf was too tall, as were the legs. Adjusting the height on the legs was easily accomplished with a circle saw. For the shelf, it was a do-over.

The pieces separate so they can be put to other uses should the loft bed be no longer desired. They will probably make good furniture for a college apartment some day. The only thing I am not satisfied with is the white paint. I cannot seem to apply paint without leaving brush marks. I think it is a problem that can only be solved with a 20 gallon air compressor. Most men’s problems can usually be solved with a power tool of some sort.

Unlike what you can buy in a store, most of the hardware is hidden or designed out of this bed. That made it more difficult to design and build, but overall, I am happy with how it looks. The only thing I would change with some of the parts is to cut more weight out wherever possible.

Overall, I am pleased with how it turned out. Now I've got to finish that plywood skeleton before the trick or treaters get here.

How to Spot Problem Legislation

2011-09-09T09:01:00.000-04:00

Congress has a chronic legislation problem. They suffer from the belief that they are performing work or helping constituents when they are drafting legislation. Personally, I would like to see thousands of pages of legislation repealed. I think we should only have 300 pages of laws. That way, most people could read, understand, and therefore comply with the law. That being said, I put together a list that I believe can help everyone, including congress, identify bad legislation before it becomes law, and therefore improve the efforts from Washington DC.

Was it written by special interests or for special interests?
If the answer is “yes”, then it is probably bad legislation. Special interests rarely benefit the public at large, and most special interests groups would wither away were it not for the public teat that they so vigorously suck at to stay alive. Legislation funding special interests in any way should not become law.

Does it exempt certain groups of citizens?
ObamaCare is a great example of really bad legislation. It fails each one of the tests described in this list. But there is now a long list of states, unions, and groups of citizens that have been officially exempted from this law. Why? Laws should benefit all of the citizens, not just a few. If you have a law that will benefit 51 percent of our nation, then you need to start over.

Is congress exempted from the law?
I do not understand why people are not outraged when congress passes a turd of a law, and then exempts themselves from it. Congress has their own social security, health care, and retirement. They made special Cadillac programs for their exclusive benefit at the expense of Americans. It is unconstitutional, which means against the law since many Americans have trouble understanding what constitutional means.

Does it have a sunset provision?
A sunset provision means that congress was unable to do its job. They were afraid of the consequences of the law they passed. A good law does not need a sunset provision. If you know it needs to be re-evaluated down the road, then it is not a good law.

Does it have automatic annual budget increases?
Welcome to the corrupt and insane world of baseline budgeting. If your budget increases by 10 million and you only spend 5 million more than the previous year, you can claim to have cut 5 million out of your budget; even though you increased it!

Is it over 10 pages?
A copy of the US Constitution is only 10 pages. If the entire country could be outlined and managed with a 10 page document, why do we have laws today that are measured in thousands of pages? The answer: bad legislation. It is unreasonable to expect Americans to be familiar with thousands of pages of laws, and even our so-called representatives in congress are unable to read the bills before they pass them.

Is it an enumerated power in the US Constitution? Does it take power or oversight away from the states?
Good bye: Dept of Education, Dept of Labor, Dept of Housing and Urban Development, Dept of Health and Human Services, Dept of Energy, etc. These are just the bigger unconstitutional departments. The actual list of bureaus, offices, departments and agencies are several pages long. Abolishing them overnight would immediately end the current recession and begin to restore freedoms that have been stolen from Americans.

Did it originate as part of the “New Deal?”
The “New Deal”, just like Obama’s “Fundamental Transformation” of America is code word for imposing Communist/Marxist policies on Americans. Communism has starved or killed more people around the globe than all natural disasters or plagues combined. Beware of federal legislation that seizes control of, or legislates: education, health, labor, or the economy.

By now, you are thinking that most of the legislation of the last 70 years is unconstitutional, and you would be correct. The best way to save America and help Americans is not to pass more legislation. We need to demand that congress repeal legislation and remove government agencies. As for me, they want to call the Republican party the “Party of No.” As a Conservative, however, I’ll be the party of “HELL NO!”

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

2011-08-16T08:32:00.000-04:00

President Obama:
“You can’t just make money on SUVs and trucks,” Obama said during a town hall forum in Cannon Falls, Minn. “There is a place for SUVs and trucks, but as gas prices keep on going up, you have got to understand the market. People are going to try to save money.”

President Obama:
“If you’re complaining about the price of gas and you’re only getting 8 miles a gallon, you know,” Obama said laughingly. “You might want to think about a trade-in.”

Once again, it's ok for the President to live one way, and the people are the ones required to make sacrifices. A standard motor home might get 5 or 6 miles per gallon. An armored one will be lucky to achieve 2 miles per gallon. Same thing for the President's suburban, the biggest SUV you can buy; it will get way less than 20 mpg.

I've tried not to post too much regarding our communist president and the people that blindly voted for him; but sometimes it's good to laugh in spite of everything.

Homemade Bread

2011-08-10T21:34:00.000-04:00

Some years ago, we got a bread machine and a recipe book on how to make various breads. If you have never had homemade bread, go out today and by a bread machine; you will not regret it. You should also map out a 2 mile route close to your home and start jogging it each day so you can enjoy homemade bread and keep your current waist line.

We have made several different types of bread; Italian, sour dough, cinnamon, ciabatta, etc. But everyone’s favorite is known as potato bread. This recipe is nearly fool proof and often disappears right out of the oven, along with half a stick of butter.

One of the drawbacks to using a bread machine is that the mixing paddle gets baked into the bread and leaves a hole in the bottom when the bread is removed. One day I timed what the bread machine was doing and figured out how to make it by hand. So here is a fool proof recipe for bread and the steps to make it. I recommend that you make two loaves at the same time and give one to a friend. Enjoy!

Recipe for 1 ½ pound loaf

1 ¼ cups warm water
3 tbs butter melted
2 ½ tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbs potato flakes
3 cups bread flour
1 ½ tsp quick yeast

Mix everything together in the order listed, and then:

Knead for 5 minutes (min)
Rest for 5 min
Knead for 20 min
Rest for 30 min (keep dough slightly warm)
Knead for 2 min
Put bread in bread tin, lightly oiled with cooking spray
Allow to rise for 1 hour
Bake at 350 for 35 minutes

Allow to cool for 5 to 10 minutes, remove from the tin, and lightly butter the entire loaf. Best eaten while it’s hot!

Camping

2011-07-28T20:19:00.000-04:00

It's been warm, but I have managed to go camping anyway. I much prefer cool nights where you actually need a sleeping bag, but just getting away from everyday normal is worth it. North Carolina was our destination this time. Here is a scene from the Blue Ridge Parkway:

I like just driving along the Parkway, and of couse stopping at every overlook, whether you can see anything or not. I have yet to drive along the section that starts in Cherokee, near the Great Smokies. I hope to make that journey this year, but once summer ends, schedules become pretty tight on the weekends.

While camping along the Parkway, we were lucky enough to have a Park Ranger host a program about skunks. I really got into the program... as you can see below...

I learned that peroxide and soap will neutralize skunk odor in about a week. I also learned that these guys will eat just about anything and are absolutely not afraid of anything. Interesting and fun little creature!

On this same camping trip we made it to Mount Mitchell. I will leave you with a photo from the summit.

Flown the coop

2011-07-26T18:19:00.000-04:00

It is summer time and I have found myself too busy to take the time and write to the blog. I really do not know how some people write daily, or even several times a day. Summer means hiking, biking, camping, and canoeing. I sit behind a computer enough at work as it is.

Time to catch up. I never finished posting about the owls that nested in our back yard. About a week or two after the first post, they flew from the nest. Here is a picture of one of the babies on its first night out.

He was in a tree about 4 feet of the ground. I walked up to it and stared him right in the eye while he stood stone still. For the next few days, they lived in the woods just on the edge of my yard. I learned to call like the mother owl and the babies always called back to me. It made it easy to locate them. Here is a picture of them sleeping during the day, about 20 feet up in the trees.

The baby is hiding behind the large branch. The mother had three babies, of which two survived. I found the one who didn't make it and could not find any thing broken about it. I can only assume it fell from the nest and was injured internally.

We enjoyed watching them eat and hoot at night and I hope that we'll see them again next spring.

Owls in the Owl Box!

2011-06-14T21:28:00.000-04:00

Several years ago, I built a screech owl box, using these plans (click here). I installed it about 30 feet up in an ash tree. Since then, I have seen squirrels examine it out of curiosity, but not much else. Until this year. This year, a pair of screech owls have decided to take up residence and they have a couple of babies.

She feeds them each evening starting around 8:30 pm. Her pattern is to fly to a nearby branch and call to them. They squeal back, and then she flies up and feeds them bugs. Apparently, she is quite skilled at catching them because she flies back to the nest about every minute. Here she is in action; the best I could do considering it was after dark.

I also learned that owls make a warning sound when you get too close, a sharp snapping of the beak. She has flown just overhead snapping her beak at me a couple of times while I have been taking pictures. I read that owls will sometimes rap a human on the head if they get cranky enough and if a person gets too close. We sit back a little farther now and use the binoculars to watch her feed. It's a great show at sunset!

Here are the babies making their sounds... you'll have to excuse the loud whistling at the end; it's me:

We enjoying watching them in the evenings. I hope they will make it on their own and we'll get to hear them at night making their high pitched calls. If I get any better pictures or video, I'll post it.

Honor

2011-05-22T17:10:00.000-04:00

I don't know where to credit this photo... it is found all over the net. But it reminds me that actions always speak louder than words. And while I'm at it, kudos to the men and women in uniform. Where ever there is a dirtbag that needs tossed overboard, or a nation that needs a chance to be rebuilt, the US is there to try and make it happen. Our soldiers are buried all around the world for their efforts to bring freedom to the people. God bless the USA!

Times Square, New York at night

2011-05-14T18:43:00.001-04:00

I had an opportunity this week to travel to New York city for a couple of days and take in the sights and sounds. We had a gruelling schedule of landmarks and activities to try and take in while taking a bite out of the big apple. I have to admit that I missed the culture and buzz when I returned to my quite home in the mountains. Of course, culture and buzz have quite the premium these days, so I am thankful that the company I work for covered the costs.

We took in the subway, rode a taxi with a driver hell bent on qualifying for the Daytona 500, and saw the New York skyline from the Staten Island ferry. Of course we took in some Broadway shows, explored international cuisine, and managed to do some shopping as well. We also took a stroll through Central Park, which I have never done before. I managed to literally walk into Sigourney Weaver, but that's a story for another time. Overall, I give New York a thumbs up as a vacation destination if you've never visited before. Just do your homework and find a hotel you can afford near a subway station.

I'll leave you with this video of Times Square at around 11 pm at night. You can't really tell it's night unless you look between the skyscrapers!

Obama, Gas Nazi

2011-05-05T21:27:00.000-04:00

(A letter to my Representative)

To date, Obama has lived up to his campaign promise to raise the cost of energy and radically transform America. If our founding fathers could see us today, they would call the patriots to arms.

Oil is so plentiful around the world that it literally oozes to the surface and puddles on land, and constantly leaks into the ocean. It is entirely a "man-made disaster" that gas prices are over a buck-fifty at the pump. Regulating the drilling and refining industry has brought us to this point. As Milton Friedman famously quoted: "If you put the government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in a few years, there would be a shortage of sand." The Obama administration is working diligently to turn off the gas for America. They refused to allow Shell to drill in Alaska, which sends a message to other companies that there is too much risk to invest in Alaska. They refuse to lift the moratorium in the Gulf, even though federal judges have twice judged this to be an illegal maneuver by the president. And there is still talk at the EPA of finding a way to enact Cap and Trade, and they are trying to shut down the oil fields in Texas by listing the Dunes Sagebrush lizard as endangered.

The president further dropped his drawers and shall we say "rained down" on Americans when he went to Brazil and gave them our money to drill in the Gulf for oil. To say I am disgusted with the president and congress' actions (over the last 15 years) would be quite the understatement. If anyone in congress is serious about restoring energy independence in America, all you simply have to do is turn the tap back on. In other words, you have to repeal laws and remove regulation. Take these steps:

1. Allow drilling in the Gulf. Issue the permits and get out of our way.
2. Allow drilling in Alaska. Again, just stay out of the way.
3. Put a leash on the EPA. They have become the legislative and regulatory arm of the radical environmental movement.
   3a. Drop any threats to America in the form of cap and trade forever.
   3b. Do not list the Dunes Sagebrush lizard as threatened or endangered.
   3c. Stop tightening up the clean air and water standards. We cannot afford the standards we have now.
   3d. Fast track any plans for expansion of oil refineries and remove epa restrictions on refineries
4. If you are serious about investing in energy dependence, incentivize new oil refineries
5. Stop distracting people with talk of alternative energy. Stop subsidizing windmills with taxpayer money so real solutions can get attention and funding.
6. Cut spending and balance the budget. Since no one can agree how, the best solution would be a 30 percent across the board cut for every budget item, starting in 2012.

Regulations, legislation, fancy legal maneuvers, and bureaucrats cut the supply of oil and gas here in America. Undoing their malicious endeavors will not only turn the tap back on, but the economy and jobs are sure to follow suit.

Blue Ridge Mountains

2011-04-25T20:58:00.000-04:00

These are the Blue Ridge Mountains as seen from I-26 in North Carolina. A photo from the front seat of the pickup hardly does it justice, but it was too scenic to pass up. I never get tired of seeing these mountains. This morning they are dressed in the heavy clouds of an approaching spring rain.

Measure twice, cut once

2011-04-20T21:08:00.001-04:00

Sooner or later, every woodworker who blogs posts their lamentations over some project that went south due to a mistake made while holding a measuring tape. This is that post for me, although I have to admit that on more than one occasion I have had to re-cut a piece of plywood. I figure with my tools and a pencil, the best that I can do is 1/64 inch accuracy. If something is 1/32 inch off, I can usually see it with my eye. So imagine my surprise when I made shelves that were 1/16 of an inch too wide.

That doesn’t sound like much, but this bookshelf has to fit inside the 3 by 4 inch legs of the headboard of a loft bed. The legs are joined with a mortise and tenon joint and it is not going to move 1/16 of an inch. So I had the joy of removing that much material from the side of my bookshelf.

I decided the punishment for the crime would be to use a hand planer to correct the situation. That decision has the added bonus of sharpening my planer after running it through the glue used to hold plywood together. Anyway, by the time I could go rent a power planer and take it back, I could finish the job by hand. Smoothing, filling, and repainting my small mistake will set me back about three hours, plus an hour to sharpen my planer.

No real need to worry about the moral of the story here. In the end, I am still making chips and dust and doing something that I enjoy. Although doing something twice does tarnish the joy a little bit, it still beats spending time at work by a good margin. I have to admit that sharpening a planer is not much of a punishment either. Since I need to touch this one up, I might as well sharpen the others while I have my water stones out.

Third Day

2011-04-04T07:48:00.002-04:00

Third Day is one of my favorite bands. They lean a lot towards southern rock and their lead singer sounds like Travis Tritt. I got to see them in concert, along with 10^th Avenue North and Trevor Morgan. If you get a chance to see them on tour, the tickets are worth it. The concert was nearly 3 hours and Third Day played for over an hour and a half. The crowd stayed on its feet for much of the event and I left with sore hands from so much clapping.

Christian music has finally gone main stream, and bands like Third Day and 10th Avenue North are the ones who helped put it there. Maybe you are lucky enough to live where there are contemporary christian radio stations. Almost a given if you live in the south; another reason for southerners to count your blessings!

Trevor Morgan starts things off right!

10th Avenue North was the next to take the stage.

Third Day rocks the house and never looks back!

You can log onto Third Day's website here and listen to streaming audio of the actual concert. Just click on the boom box on the right. It changes periodically. I'll leave you with a video someone posted on youtube of one of their latest songs: Gone!

Bed Cover

2011-03-15T12:56:00.000-04:00

They say that necessity is the mother of invention, but I’ll bet that thriftiness can give necessity a run for its money. Not that I am a cheapskate, but sometimes I have to solve my own problems when there are no other ready-made solutions.

I needed a bed cover for my pickup, but I couldn’t find anything on the market that would work. I wanted to keep my toolbox, create lockable storage, and be able to stack items on top of the bed cover. And I thought it would be great if I could keep this project under $100.

My pickup comes with a cargo system in the bed. After a little thought, I came up with angle iron brackets held in place with threaded 1 inch blocks.

I used ¾ inch plywood and painted it black to match the trim on the rest of the truck. I also designed the brackets to mount the cover below the top of the bed. I do not like how bed covers go over the bed, even though that is probably the only way to make them water proof. In general, you cannot tie objects down on top of the fiberglass or plastic bed covers without damaging them. Using painted plywood, I simply repaint as needed when bicycles and coolers scuff it up.

I used eyebolts to attach the plywood, which allows me to tie things down to the bed cover, such as coolers, luggage, or kayaks. The tailgate locks, so I can lock things out of site in the bed. I was unable to make it water tight, but a few $10 totes allow me to carry luggage and other items without fear of rain. I also use the totes without the bed cover in place.

As long as the load is evenly distributed, it will hold 400 pounds. I have jumped on it (180 pounds) without breaking the brackets or plywood. I built this 3 years ago now and it has more than lived up to my expectations. The only improvement I could make to this design would be to hinge it so that I can lift the end.

I'll leave you with a picture of the pickup in serious "vacation mode." Believe it or not, tents, sleeping bags, coolers, and firewood are stuffed under the bed cover!

Sarah Palin

2011-02-21T08:20:00.005-05:00

If you want a litmus test for intelligence and independent thinking in America, look no further than how people react to Sarah Palin. Those with a liberal bent continue to scream her stupidity so loud, that even those who would otherwise be reasonable are starting to echo the same sentiments. But have you really stopped to think about how dopey it is to claim that Sarah Palin is dumb?

The Katie Couric interview is the original source of the claim that Sarah is dumb. Could she have answered the questions better? Maybe, but for all of you convinced that this woman is dumb, stop and think for a moment: can you go on live national television, one on one with someone who hates you and hates what you stand for, and answer questions regarding foreign policy? Before you answer that, think about the current debacle with President Obama and Egypt and how poorly that has been handled by the entire administration. Foreign policy is too much for one person to handle and neither Obama nor Bush did any better in the court of public opinion. Actually, I don’t recall Obama being asked questions that were as difficult as those that Sarah Palin had to face.

Her governorship has also been attacked. The key strategy seems to be to attack the state itself as small and meaningless, and unimportant in context with the rest of the states. Anyone that really believes this, I challenge you: go pick out any state in the union, and YOU become the governor. Let’s see you stand out, run a successful campaign, and actually win the election. Most of you couldn’t win a seat on your homeowners association or the local school board, much less that of governor.

Sarah resigned as governor, and she has taken flak for that as well. Her family was under attack from a hateful media. Her office was being attacked by every sleazy trick that lawyers could think of, costing the office of governor money and time that taxpayers foot the bill for. One reporter actually bought a house nearby so he could photograph and assault the family paparazzi style. In the end, she felt it was better for her family and her state to resign, and we can second guess that decision all we want, but we can’t say she was stupid for her decision. At worst, we could call it wrong.

Lastly, for those of you who still think she is not a smart woman, she commands $50,000 dollars to speak in public venues. Her book “Going Rogue” sold over 2 million copies – in hardback. Nearly 70 percent of the candidates that she campaigned for won in 2010. She has her own television show that promotes lifestyles in her state. She is considered a potential presidential candidate for 2012. Do you have any of these qualifications on your resume? I didn’t think so.

What Governor Palin does do well is stand on moral convictions, something that seems to be getting as rare as gold. You can debate her qualifications for office and disagree with her personal convictions, but simply calling her stupid is childish at best. Those who resort to name calling have either lost the debate or know they cannot win the public sentiment. Those of you intent to jump on the latest political bandwagon would be wise to stop being stupid and think for yourself for a change.

Christian Acroyms

2011-02-13T07:16:00.002-05:00

I guess all of us have seen the WWJD bracelets that have been popular over the last few years. Of course, if we knew or really cared about what Jesus would do, the world would be transformed into something that looks nothing like what we see today.

Around the world, and even here in the US, there is a hatred for Christians that I could not imagine 20 years ago. The bible predicted that the earth would come to hate Christians, and I have lived long enough to see that prediction come true. The freedom that is preached in the bible is apparently too much for the dictators and communists around the world.

Anyway, at the risk of inciting fresh hatred for freedom loving and Jesus worshiping Christians around the world, I am listing a few acronyms that are helpful in bringing about the right attitude for getting along with people:

THINK (before you speak, is what you are going to say:)
Truthful? Helpful? Inspirational? Necessary? Kind?
If the answer to one of these is "no", then don't say it.

JOY
Jesus first, Others second, You last

GRACE
God's Riches At Christ's Expense

PUSH
Pray Until Something Happens

BIBLE
Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth

There are lots more out there; here's a list I found recently. I thought I would post this while it was still legal to do so!

Back in the workshop

2011-01-14T17:27:00.003-05:00

Well, actually it is a stretch to call the tool shed a workshop, but that is what I have to work with. I power the “workshop” with an extension cord from the house. You have to make sure to only use one tool at a time, or you have to go back to the house and reset the breaker. I’ll have to post a picture someday of the cramped space I refer to as the workshop.

We decided to make some cutting boards for the mothers in our lives for Christmas. I had some red maple on hand and bought some purpleheart to add color and character to the project. The maple had some curl in it, so there was real potential to make something that actually looked nice and could be used in the kitchen.

I have worked with maple for a number of years, so I know my tool’s limitations when it comes to this hard hardwood. Purpleheart was a new species for me. It is naturally purple to burgundy in color, and the pieces I bought had a lot of curly grain. Forget running a planer across this species. I used a bench sander to remove excess trim and smooth up the finished piece. The curly figure readily splintered and I had to be careful cutting and gluing the small pieces. The wood is beautiful though, and it’s worth the trouble to incorporate such color into a wood project.

Here is how they turned out…

I made the circle cutting boards on my table saw using a trick demonstrated in this video:

Make a circle on a table saw

The first one I cut out has a small hole in it, but the next two I figured out you barely need a nail holding it and the hole is barely visible as a dimple in the wood. Since these are intended for use with food, I applied mineral oil to them to protect the wood. It darkened the purpleheart, but they turned out really nice.

I tend to play it safe with oak and maple most of the time, but another woodworker told me last year that if I was going to take the time to do something, I might as well do it with wood that is beautiful or exotic in some way. Sound advice.

Rules kids won't learn in school

2010-04-21T13:20:00.001-04:00

This list is the work of Charles J. Sykes, author of the 1996 book “Dumbing down our kids: Why American children feel good about themselves but can’t read, write, or add” and “50 rules kids won’t learn in school: real world antidotes to feel-good education.”

Rule No. 1: Life is not fair. Get used to it.

Rule No. 2: The real world doesn’t care about your self-esteem. It'll expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself. This may come as a shock. Usually, when inflated self-esteem meets reality, people complain that it's not fair. (See Rule No. 1)

Rule No. 3: You won't make $60,000 a year right out of high school. And you won't be a vice president or have a car phone either. You may even have to wear a uniform that doesn't have a Gap label.

Rule No. 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait 'til you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure, so he tends to be a bit edgier. When you screw up, he's not going to ask you how you feel about it.

Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents called it “opportunity.” They weren't embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have been embarrassed to sit around talking about Miley Cyrus all weekend.

Rule No. 6: It's not your parents' fault. If you screw up, you are responsible. This is the flip side of "It's my life," and "You're not the boss of me," and other eloquent proclamations of your generation. When you turn 18, it's on your dime. Don't whine about it, or you'll sound like a baby boomer.

Rule No. 7: Before you were born your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning up your room and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. And by the way, before you save the rain forest, try cleaning the closet in your bedroom.

Rule No. 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers. Life hasn't. In some schools, you get several tries to get the right answer. Failing grades have been abolished and class valedictorians scrapped, lest anyone's feelings be hurt. Effort is as important as results. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.

Rule No. 9: Life is not divided into semesters, and you don't get summers off. They expect you to show up every day. For eight hours. While we're at it, very few jobs are interested in fostering your self-expression or helping you find yourself.

Rule No. 10: Television is not real life. Your life is not a sitcom. Your problems will not all be solved in 30 minutes, minus time for commercials. In real life, people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to work.

Quotes from Socrates

2010-04-08T16:15:00.005-04:00

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

All men's souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.

An honest man is always a child.

As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.

As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.

Be as you wish to seem.

Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.

By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.

He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.

If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.

If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

It is not living that matters, but living rightly.

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.

Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.

The end of life is to be like God, and the soul following God will be like Him.

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

Wisdom begins in wonder.

Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.

Miter Saw Table

2010-03-25T22:48:00.004-04:00

In an effort to focus on something positive, I am going to add a woodworking category to this blog. Building furniture and projects is one of the ways that I keep my sanity. Although the extent that it saves mine may be the same amount that it frays my wife’s nerves. Hopefully we are achieving a workable balance.

Last year, I bought a miter saw to cut sugar maple molding for an entertainment center. I wanted something accurate to cut molding that cost $3 per foot. Of course, the saw is not much use without some way to hold the molding.

So like anything else I need help with, I went off to the internet. I found several designs for free plans and chose this design from Woodsmith.com. It is made from plywood and put together using dados. It’s about as simple as you can get for a project.

Here is a picture of the dado joinery, just like the plans show.

And here is a picture of the finished table.

I gave it a coat of Minwax stain for protection and have been using it ever since. I had this built in one afternoon and it has been getting more and more use. The back support may be too high, but so far it works and I can cut the back shorter if I need to. By the way, I did finish the entertainment center. The miter saw was quite handy when it came time to building the cabinet doors too.

Strive to be an Optimist

2010-03-22T19:21:00.002-04:00

The pessimist finds fault;
The optimist discovers a remedy.

The pessimist seeks sympathy;
The optimist spreads cheer.

The pessimist criticizes circumstances;
The optimist changes conditions.

The pessimist complains about the apple seeds;
The optimist plants them.

The pessimist imagines impending peril;
The optimist sees signs of prosperity.

The pessimist disparages;
The optimist encourages.

The pessimist creates loneliness;
The optimist finds friends.

The pessimist nibbles at the negative;
The optimist is nourished by the positive.

The pessimist builds barriers;
The optimist removes roadblocks.

The pessimist invents trouble;
The optimist enriches the environment.

~ William Arthur Ward (1921-1994)

Found on Beliefnet. A little something for everyone, I guess.

Insanity

2010-03-17T19:41:00.000-04:00

Pass the health care bill and fix it later? That has got to be one of the most ignorant and poorly thought out plans I have ever heard, second only to the morons who would contemplate such a thing. Here’s a crazy idea: draft a law this is worth passing in the first place. If you remove all of the earmarks, buy outs, new taxes, and special interests paybacks from the current health care bill, you can get it down to a few hundred pages. Even then, there is not much about health care in the health care bill.

Social welfare programs were abhorred by our founding fathers and they placed specific language in the Constitution to prevent it from occurring. It was one of their greatest fears that the public would find ways to vote themselves money from public funds in welfare schemes. That is why the federal government only has enumerated powers and all other authority belongs to the states. Today’s politicians and corrupt judges love to slap Americans in the face with the “welfare clause” and the “commerce clause” as if the mere incantation of the phrase invokes unrestrained domination and government expansion.

In a nutshell, the general welfare clause was meant to apply to the entire “union” and not to individuals or groups. Providing social security only to people above 65 is unconstitutional for this reason. The intent of the founding fathers is not hard to understand, although judges have been muddying the waters for years. Creating federal health care is unconstitutional because it is not one of the enumerated powers. Congress does not have the authority to create this legislation and make it law. Ironically, individual states can.

Back to the insanity known as the health care bill. Our current crop of politicians think that we are so dumb, they can vote on a procedure bill to pass health care, without voting on the health care bill itself. For most of us, a yes either way is a yes to health care. Again, the constitution states that there must be a vote on the bill and congress cannot bypass their responsibility. At least they realize that they are not representing the will of the people by continuing to ram this down our throats.

They took a whole year to make a bill worth passing and failed. They don’t care about health care; that’s why their plan calls for taxes for four years before paying any benefits. It’s about taking power and money from hard working Americans and throwing it away on politicians and ne’er do wells. The democrats really laid a turd with this bill and it will stink at the polls for anyone who votes to make it a law.

The Root of the Problem

2010-03-08T19:45:00.003-05:00

This is a quote from the Boortz website. At this time, no one knows the author, but he hit the nail on the head as far as I am concerned. This post won't win me any friends I suppose, but it captures my sentiments exactly.

"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the presidency. It will be easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to an electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails us. Blaming the prince of fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The public can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president."

All you need to know about carbon dioxide

2010-02-26T16:54:00.004-05:00

Study the picture below…

This picture represents the volume of earth’s atmosphere. The last square on the lower right represents the volume of all the green house gases in earth’s atmosphere. The yellow section represents all of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The red dot shows how much carbon dioxide humans are responsible for.

Since carbon dioxide is a trace gas measured in part per million, it’s hard to notice it on an actual scale. Here is a blowup of the green house gas percentage so you can see how insignificant it is:

Look at that red dot and think about all the lies you have heard about the climate. Increasing carbon dioxide causes global warming - LIE. Increasing carbon dioxide causes more severe weather such as tornados, floods, droughts, and hurricanes - LIE. Increasing temperatures will cause famines and global catastrophe – LIE. Global warming may go down as the greatest hoax that was ever perpetrated on earth. The lies are unraveling so fast around the world that it is hard to keep up with who is involved and what deception they spread. The liars are running away from climate change so fast they are leaving whirlwinds in their paths.

Here is a list of what has come to light in the last couple of months:

-The Russian Institute of Economic Analysis asserted that the British Meteorological Office only used data from 25 percent of meteorological stations; the stations with the warmest data.

-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration monitored around 5,000 climate stations around the world until 1990. After 1990, NOAA eliminated the data from over 3,000 of these stations, eliminating stations at higher latitudes and altitudes; in other words, the cooler stations.

-IPCC lied about the link between increased natural disasters and global warming (there is no link) using papers that were flawed and not peer reviewed.

-IPCC lied about Himalayan glaciers melting going so far as to admit this year that they thought the false data would encourage policy makers to take action.

-IPCC lied about Amazon Rainforest decline based on flawed and non-peer reviewed papers.

-NASA claimed that 1998 was the warmest year on record, then changed it to 1934 after facing scrutiny over their data. They then made the claim that 1998 and 2006 were the warmest years on record. So far, NASA has refused all Freedom of Information requests to see the data.

-Phil Jones, head of the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia, the main source of data for the IPCC reports and the primary source of climate hysteria, admitted last week that there has been no climate warming for the last 15 years.

-Phil Jones and the staff at CRU claim that they have lost or been careless with the data that they used for the IPCC reports; preventing other scientists from validating their work.

-Phil Jones, Keith Briffa, and Michael Mann, all leading instigators in the global warming hoax, were revealed to be destroying and hiding data to cover their lies when the Climate Gate Emails came to light.

The bottom line is that anyone with a basic understanding of the scientific process and statistics could have looked at the two pictures above and understood immediately that global warming could not be caused by emissions from cars and factories. The general public bought into the ideas of man-caused climate change hook, line, and sinker. Now, billions of dollars have been thrown away on the fear of climate change and kids are being taught the same lies as part of their education.

Even as the walls of climate change hype are falling down all around them, the EPA is continuing its foolish stance on regulating carbon dioxide, and senators are still moving forward with the cap and trade tax. The president maintains that the science of man-made climate change is sound; even though the data is suspect, the process has been shown to be flawed, and a conspiracy to manipulate the science has been revealed. The president, the EPA, and everyone who wants to believe in man-made climate change are the real deniers now.

Mushrooms

2010-02-24T22:23:00.004-05:00

I have the unique opportunity of teaching workshops for continuing education credits as part of my job. While they are usually related to forestry, once in a while I do something out of the box just for something different. I gave our staff survival skills training on one occasion. This time we are going to learn everything we need to grow shiitake mushrooms in the woods.

I already enjoy cooking and eating fresh mushrooms, mostly the boring button mushrooms readily found at the grocery store. Although I have been eating morels from the woods for the last several years. Here’s a great picture of one. I find that morels taste best dipped in corn meal and fried in light oil.

While researching for this staff training, I learned that mushrooms are fungi. We get some of our best food with the help of fungi. Blue cheese and brie are flavored from fungi. Cacao beans must be fermented with fungi to destroy the bitter flavor they have naturally before being processed into chocolate. Yeasts used in beer and bread are a type of fungi. By the way, the alcohol in beer is made from microbial pee. The yeast eats the sugar and pees out alcohol. The holes and texture in bread are made from microbial farts! That is how yeast causes bread to rise.

Getting back to shiitake mushrooms, they are nutty and garlicky and really meaty compared to white mushrooms. You can order the spawn in the form of wooden dowel rods and drive them into holes drilled into an oak log. Corn and beans come from seeds, mushrooms come from spawn or spores. Six months to a year later, you have mushrooms. And a 3 or 4 foot log can produce mushrooms for several years in the right growing conditions.

I am planning on trying to grow some myself, so I’ll post again at some point with pictures and advice. You can read up in the meantime at UK Extension here.

Congress Still in the Dark

2010-02-08T19:23:00.001-05:00

Congress is out of control, and I am not certain that anything short of a revolution by the citizens will restore law and order. But first, the citizens have to take responsibility for removing these hacks out of office and at the very least, get angry about what they are doing. It also requires that the citizens read our Constitution, which is only a few pages, and demand that our arrogant representatives start following the law.

That congress is recommending spending at all shows how out of touch and stupid they are. Obama’s budget request is the mother of all ignorance. I am at a loss as to why people keep saying that Obama is some kind of genius. Getting back to the budget, take your gross salary and multiply it by 30. Imagine that you have 10 years to pay that amount off and you have an illustration of the state of affairs of the United States. Congress should gut the budget and all of their earmark spending of our money.

More and more people are sounding the alarm and getting angry… so maybe there is hope yet. Here is a great article from Real Clear Markets (click here for the link) outlining the perils of this congress’ spending.

A Federal Budget That Insults All Budgets

By Bill Flax

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." Alexis de Tocqueville

Condolences. If your faith in politicians as stewards of tax dollars isn't yet dead, it should be. Washington's conduct ridicules anyone who trusted that the stimulus bills and other "temporary" spending increases were designed for economic recovery. Washington's record breaking outlays have had far more to do with rewarding interest groups that contributed to victory in the prior election.

Now that the 2011 budget has arrived in mockery of the word ‘budget', it is clear Washington's addiction to spending is unremitting. Even though the president assumes robust growth, projected spending grows faster still. In 2011, he forecasts outlays of $3.834 trillion. Even if the promised growth arrives, the deficit will total almost $1.3 trillion.

If the economy is fully recovered we no longer need stimulus even according to the denizens of stimuli. But politicians love to spend. It's not their money so quite frankly, they don't care. They have one overriding purpose: getting re-elected. Given our crushing debt burden, dilapidated dollar and surging entitlement disaster, discretionary spending of $1.4 trillion defies reason. That's a lot of vote-buying even by debauched Washington standards.

The projected spending levels conjure frequent analogies to WWII, but spending in wartime was a matter of survival and had a finite horizon. Now politicians spend taxpayers' money to bribe a complicit electorate too shortsighted to comprehend it's their own property being wasted. And this horizon is infinite under the current political arrangement. It's not just the programmatic increases incident to Social Security, Medicare et al. The whole fiscal culture has been corrupted.

The last time federal spending actually lessened year over year was a slight $300 million decline in 1965. This includes every available combination of presidents and congresses, although the slowest growth generally occurs during periods of gridlock. Political paralysis is a blessed thing.

Politicians used to be hamstrung by the rule of law, but our Constitution has been consistently ignored for most of the last century. Now it serves but a quaint remainder from where the fortunes we now waste sprang. We've endured these trends for decades thanks to the colossal accumulation of capital bequeathed to us by more prudent ancestors.

Since LBJ declared War on Poverty to no apparent benefit to the poor, expenditures have risen annually. Now Washington doles out more than $2 trillion on entitlements alone. Soaring healthcare costs, the destruction of the family in poor areas, crime, drug epidemics, etc. are all exacerbated by the Welfare State. Social problems grow in proportion to the funding we exhaust chasing them. This then prompts "caring" politicians to dispense even more resources sustaining the unproductive.

The government has no resources. Everything it spends was created by private individuals and still belongs to taxpayers. All government can do is take from the industrious, the inventive, the hard-working and the frugal to dispense on the inefficient, the lazy, or the irresponsible. Government spending bites the very hand that feeds it.

And these resources no longer exist. We're now over $12 trillion in debt. Including future unfunded liabilities and those Washington assumed as a result of assorted bailouts and other mischief, the average family owes $471K and counting courtesy of government. The resources are gone.

Democrats wasted them on silly, self-defeating welfare programs and Republicans wasted them on silly, self-defeating foreign policies. Sometimes in fits of bipartisanship, they combined to waste them on even greater concepts. Government has no remaining resources, but to our peril it does have a printing press.

No matter what grandiose terms our elected leaders couch it under, there are only three ways to pay for this largesse. Certainly they can deprive productive enterprise of the resources necessary to generate economic growth via confiscatory taxes. But the disincentives ensconced in progressive taxation render it self-defeating. Washington can borrow, thus diverting capital from those endeavors actually prospering society. Another economic retardant. Or, they can inflate their way out of the mess by debasing our currency.

Bet on the latter. Fiat currency has proven throughout history to be as pernicious as any evil yet devised in its consequences for free society. Inflation is how they steal from us. Taxes take your money. Inflation leaves the money, but takes its value.

None of these options are economically sound. Each aggrandizes government at the expense of the free market. The more control we retain over our time, resources and abilities the more closely our efforts will be aligned to beneficial economic activity. The more dominion we yield to Washington, the more our efforts degenerate into politically charged madness.

Complementing government expansion, other corollary trends have developed. More people economically dependant on the political establishment and fewer still paying income taxes. At all levels, government now employs over 20 million workers. We have tens of millions more dependent on entitlements, subsidies and other property redistribution. Meanwhile, almost half of us pay no income taxes.

A society where one group can vote the belongings of another into its coffers is unsustainable. Plurality doesn't convey license to override property rights, but the polity has devolved into demagoguery. The obvious solution, to cut spending and wean people off the public dole is not politically tenable. We all have relatives nearing retirement and no one wants to tell grandma to get back to work.

The two political parties birthed in arrogance play a game of chicken. Neither will risk political suicide to undertake the necessary hard choices. As long as politicians can buy votes with your money they will and they'll win.

Camp Calomine

2010-02-02T12:24:00.002-05:00

Here is a cartoon that I really enjoy. I have never seen it in print, but I appreciate the conservative tone and the camp setting. You can view more at the Camp Calomine website here. Below are a few of my favorites. Click on each one for a larger image.

Wood Is Green

2010-02-01T13:13:00.004-05:00

I have been amazed at the number of people who call themselves environmentalists and know nearly nothing about the environment itself. Their gullible nature, when it comes to nature, leaves them vulnerable to the whims and lies spread by supposed environmental groups who are always on the prowl for tragedies to profit from.

Environmental groups have spread the message that wood is not good, that wood products are not sustainable, that somehow using them kills forests and ruins livelihoods in tropical countries. They have attacked tree farms as a wicked and destructive pastime, and referred to pine plantations as biological deserts. Yet, these same groups have never attacked landowners of cornfields, wheat fields, or strawberry farms, or apple orchards. These “biological deserts” as environmental groups would refer to them, cover millions of acres.

I suppose the need for food has prevented them from profiting by attacking farms and produce. But environmental groups have profited enormously by attacking people who grow trees instead of corn. These same groups have even convinced the public that concrete, steel, and glass are more environmentally sustainable than growing trees. I like many products that are made from concrete and steel, but I have to draw the line when outrageous claims are made about their “green” superiority. It takes a lot of electricity, and therefore a lot of coal, to recycle glass and aluminum and to process iron ore for steel. Using guidelines set by environmentalists themselves, glass, steel, and aluminum are not green, especially if recycled. Here is what “green” looks like if you want to promote glass, aluminum and steel:

Contrast the picture above with this “biological desert” below:

Once something is mined, it is gone and that is why they call it non-renewable. Trees and plants are renewable resources. You can grow them again and again, just like corn. While you are waiting for your tree crop to mature, you can hunt, hike, and enjoy all the benefits that forests bring to life. Trees help clean the air and water, provide habitat for animals and recreation for humans. They can then be harvested and turned into useful things for people (see what trees provide here) and then you can plan another forest, or let nature do it for you in the case of hardwoods.

Fortunately, there are groups who know better and can see through this madness. Wood has a great story to tell and the folks at Wood Is Green are trying to get that message out. If you are not building with wood, you are not being green. Check out their website and help get the message out. They are just getting started, but something tells me this message will resonate loud and clear all around the planet.

Quotes from Billy Graham

2010-01-15T17:21:00.005-05:00

I admit that I have gotten slack about posting to this blog. I wanted to average one post each week and 51 posts was close enough. Let's start 2010 with some advice in quotes from Billy Graham:

Read the Bible. Work hard and honestly. And don't complain.

Comfort and prosperity have never enriched the world as much as adversity has.

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.

Give me five minutes with a person's checkbook, and I will tell you where their heart is.

A child who is allowed to be disrespectful to his parents will not have true respect for anyone.

A real Christian is a person who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip.

Being a Christian is more than just an instantaneous conversion - it is a daily process whereby you grow to be more and more like Christ.

Believers, look up - take courage. The angels are nearer than you think.

God has given us two hands, one to receive with and the other to give with.

God is more interested in your future and your relationships than you are.

I've read the last page of the Bible. It's all going to turn out all right.

If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area in his life.

If we had more hell in the pulpit, we would have less hell in the pew.

It is not the body's posture, but the heart's attitude that counts when we pray.

Man has two great spiritual needs. One is for forgiveness. The other is for goodness.

Nothing can bring a real sense of security into the home except true love.

Prayer is simply a two-way conversation between you and God.

Tears shed for self are tears of weakness, but tears shed for others are a sign of strength.

The framers of our Constitution meant we were to have freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

The highest form of worship is the worship of unselfish Christian service. The greatest form of praise is the sound of consecrated feet seeking out the lost and helpless.

The men who followed Him were unique in their generation. They turned the world upside down because their hearts had been turned right side up. The world has never been the same.

The most eloquent prayer is the prayer through hands that heal and bless.

The word 'romance,' according to the dictionary, means excitement, adventure, and something extremely real.

Romance should last a lifetime.

There is nothing wrong with men possessing riches. The wrong comes when riches possess men.

We are not cisterns made for hoarding, we are channels made for sharing.

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.

You're born. You suffer. You die. Fortunately, there's a loophole.

There is nothing wrong with noticing an attractive woman. The problem occurs when you turn around for a second look.

The only time my prayers are never answered is on the golf course.

We are not cisterns made for hoarding, we are channels made for sharing.

Only those who want everything done for them are bored.

My home is in Heaven. I`m just traveling through this world.

Latest letter to my congressmen

2009-11-02T20:35:00.002-05:00

Dear Sir,

I am writing to convey my disgust with those in Congress who are determined to take away my freedom and raise taxes on my family in the guise of health care.

I do not want a single payer or government option. I do not want anything even close to what Canada has or Europe. We should not model anything remotely similar to the care rationing and death that have become trademarks of a single payer or government option in Canada. People also die in England as a result of bureaucratic care rationing thanks to their socialized medicine. The US hands down has the best health care in the world. Congress is threatening to destroy health care by raising the cost, lowering the standards, and removing incentives for people to become nurses and doctors through promised wage and service cuts.

Why do members of Congress think that they should take over health care and further regulate it? Congress’ regulations have made insurance expensive and bloated with “red tape” in the first place. Congress regulations created the housing debacle and Congress’ ineptness brought us the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (Stimulus Plan). Congress’ regulations have made it expensive to use our own energy supplies and forced us to buy from OPEC. Americans are fed up and do not want to see that kind of recklessness destroy our health care.

I DO NOT want Congress to create anything. I want Congress to repeal laws and deregulate and remove Congress and the government out of health care as much as possible. The last thing we need for Congress to do is pass more laws. We need regulation repealed so that our economy is not strangled by bureaucracy. Start by repealing the stimulus package.

Furthermore, Congress should adhere to the Constitution in passing legislation. There is no authorization in the Constitution for Congress to be arranging for our health care. As Jefferson wisely quoted: “Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.” This means that our welfare programs are unconstitutional, seeing that they are not “enumerated” in the Constitution, but I want to stay focused on health care in this letter.

The best thing for health care is to remove regulations that got us here in the first place.

Start with no more regulation. NO single payer, or government option, or any other name that that idiot Nancy Pelosi decides to call it. A government option is isolated from market price and quality controls and both are guaranteed to move in the wrong direction at the federal level. Also, I fear that allowing states to “opt out” will come with strings attached, such as no highway or school funding for that state.
Allow insurance companies to charge more for high risk lifestyles such as smoking, obesity, and activities that increase STD exposure. Apparently Congress already thinks this is a good idea because of the tax increases promoted for beer and cigarettes.
We should pay directly for health care costs. Insurance should not pay the hospitals directly because it isolates the consumer from the costs of health care. If you are using insurance, you should know the costs up front and how much your insurance will pay. Insurance should only be used for expensive procedures such as surgery, not occasional checkups.
People should be able to buy their own insurance and get the same tax advantages as businesses. If you can get insurance and health care that you prefer outside of work and PPO’s, you should not be penalized. Why did Congress make it difficult for the consumer to purchase insurance outside of company plans with the current tax incentives? Congress derailed free market competition by preventing insurance companies from competing across state lines. Regulations such as this should be repealed.
We need to devise a way to protect hospitals and insurance companies from frivolous lawsuits. These multi-million dollar lawsuits are basically paid for by Americans through increased costs of health care. Businesses pass on all their costs to consumers: legal fees, taxes, and costs of complying with government regulation.
NO mandates from Congress. You are our representatives. You do not know what is best for us. It is unconstitutional to force people to buy insurance.
Do not spend any more money or increase our taxes. There is no money left. You spent it all already, before the Stimulus, which we cannot afford either. In the real world, outside of the so-called Washington Beltway, if we lack the cash to buy it, we can’t have it. Health care is the same way. You need to find ways to make the process efficient and reduce the costs without subsidizing anything with our money.

These ideas do not solve the problems we have with health care, or the looming insolvency of social security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and similar programs. I am suggesting that we focus on reducing costs and bureaucracy, and fixing what we have without adding more cost or complexity to the system. Those with actual skin in the game have incentives to find workable solutions to the problems at hand. That means we must work towards a free market solution and remove the government footprint from our health care. Washington is too far removed to provide meaningful solutions and Congress remarkably has its own health care. Americans want the best and most affordable health care, and that can only happen if it is left to the states and to the people and you remove Congress’ heavy hand.

Congress continues their march towards Fascism

2009-10-30T17:13:00.002-04:00

Democrats' Healthcare Scheme Is Pure Insanity

By Kyle-Anne Shiver (Link here)

Whole industries and banks are biting the dust; unemployment lingers close to double-digits; government deficits rise like a mountain of nuclear waste; the communist Chinese are buying up our debt in anticipation of God knows what kind of future demands; and more soldiers die needlessly while the President dithers with his golf game. Purely mad social engineers -- Obama, Pelosi, & Reid -- are on a determined march toward nationalizing one sixth of the entire American economy. Their scheme will have far-reaching effects on one hundred percent of the men, women and children in this country. The whole idea is patently ridiculous, especially in light of the host of other impending disasters.

But the fact that these Democrat power-mongers are attempting to foist upon us a system already tried-and-failed so many times in so many places pushes the current national healthcare debate into the realm of pure lunacy.

As one of Einstein's most oft-quoted bits of genius reminds us, doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results, is insanity.

In his determined efforts to persuade a resistant public, President Obama has offered exaggerated horror stories about our own healthcare system. He has cited phantom doctors amputating healthy limbs for profit, doctors unnecessarily removing children's tonsils, as well as a few sordid stories about the failure of health insurance companies to deliver on their promises. But turning doctors into greedy villains and insurance companies into monsters has proved a bit difficult, since more than 80% of Americans consistently report satisfaction with both.

It's much easier to find horror stories from the medical delivery systems being touted by Democrats as the far warmer and fuzzier "options." These oft-cited models include Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Japan, and New Zealand. Amy Ridenour and Ryan Balis of the National Center for Public Policy Research highlighted one hundred individual nightmares rendered by these failing healthcare systems in their book, Shattered Lives.

Babies born at home, in hospital linen closets, and in parking lots without medical assistance due to bed shortages occurs in the highly touted British system. A full six percent of Britons have engaged in do-it-yourself dentistry, including tooth extractions, due to the dentist shortage. A 54-year-old smoker was refused surgery for accidental multiple fractures to his ankle because doctors said he wouldn't have as high a recovery rate as a non-smoker. British citizens are routinely denied expensive cancer-fighting drugs because they're the wrong age or live in the wrong district. As if these horrors weren't bad enough, the medical care denials are dictated by a sort of "death panel" coined by Orwellian bureaucrats to spell NICE (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence).

The elephant in the room with these touted healthcare models, of course, is the size of population served. None of the countries studied by Ridenour and Balis comes even close to America's 300-million-plus population. The largest of these national healthcare systems is the United Kingdom, with a little less than 62 million people served. This is the rough equivalent of the combined population of California and Texas alone. Canada has just under 34 million citizens, which is nearly 3 million less than the single state of California.

Democrats tout Medicare as the test model, but Medicare is on a financial collision course with reality. The Massachusetts model, used by Mitt Romney to boost his presidential bid, is taking the state under water so fast that the Red Cross should send the citizenry life preservers. The Democrats are trying to take an already failing business model from mom-and-pop-small-town-corner-size to national mega-franchise overnight, and they seem not to even see the nitwit nature of that.

If anything positive can be said about the countries now experiencing the disasters and "shattered lives" rendered by full-tilt, single-payer healthcare delivery models, it is that they didn't know any better when they started down this road. There weren't clear failures marking every turn.

But the United States has no such excuse. Democrats are on a hell-bent tear to take American taxpayers straight off the proverbial cliff in their purely insane insistence to follow a path strewn with catastrophe. Why on earth would they expect a better result, especially when they have hundreds of millions more people to please?

Insanity. It's just pure insanity.

Perhaps instead of sending all those don't-do-it petitions to the folks in charge up there in D.C., we ought to try shipping them straitjackets and Valium. That might help them get a better handle on what we think of their national healthcare schemes.

Want a real fix? Two things in less than fifty pages: tort reform and a national competitive market for insurers. I think I'll run for President.

They say you never forget how to ride a bike...

2009-10-24T19:59:00.002-04:00

I am not sure that anything I add here can do this video justice. I thought we were pretty radical when I was a kid when we made jump ramps out of firewood and old lumber. I always had a need for speed on my 10-speeds (remember those?) so I would have missed the bus for this style anyway.

Compost

2009-10-18T07:44:00.006-04:00

If you have ever watched a home and garden show, or spent much time reading magazines about growing flowers, you have probably heard about composting. It is all the rage on the green websites too. Several years ago, I thought I would try my hand at composting. I was a little skeptical as I began building the first bin, but it would not take long for our family to be impressed.

Composting is nothing more than managing biomass at home and turning it into soil for gardens and landscape plants. As organic matter decomposes, it turns into some of the best soil you could ever hope to grow a tomato plant in. Composting eliminated one, maybe two bags of trash each week at our house. You never know if recycling glass or plastic really saves money and resources, but there’s little doubt about compost. You can watch the process right before your eyes in just a few weeks.

Some of the things we compost:

dryer lint, old bread, leaves, paper

spoiled fruit, vegetable peelings, plants

cereal crumbs, coffee grinds, coffee filters

leftovers, grass, egg shells

chip crumbs, rabbit pellets, gerbil bedding

To get started, you need to build something to hold your compost material. You can see some good ideas here. Ideally, you need three bins to separate the materials through the decomposition process. The first bin has new material and you continually add to it. The second bin has mostly broken down material and could be used as a soil amendment (fertilizer). The third bin is material that is completely broken down. I have been able to make it work with two bins; it just takes a little longer.

The next thing you need to know is layering and aeration. Layering can be broken down into two words: brown and green. I have read that a 3 to 1 brown to green ratio works best, but I have used a 1 to 1 ration and have not had any problems with odor or decomposition; it just breaks down slower. Brown items are old leaves, dead plants, animal bedding, and paper. Everything else is green. Mainly, moist items, or things that contain water are green.

It is important to mix up the contents about once each week to ensure that air is mixed in and reaching all the material in the compost. Exposure to air increases the decomposition rate. This is the reason that materials in landfills do not break down; modern landfills are air tight. I have found it’s easiest to empty the compost from the bin, mix it, and shovel it back in.

One of the ways to be certain that your process is working correctly is that it will make tremendous heat. Often, it gets hot enough that it is uncomfortable to keep your hand against it. Layering correctly helps to breakdown materials quicker. Also, you should have a lid on your composter to help control moisture. Too much rain will definitely slow things down.

Composting may not save the world, but it does reduce material to the landfill. It saves me money because I buy less topsoil each year. This is also where most of our paper junk mail goes. And there is a ready supply of big juicy worms at the composter when it’s time to head to the lake and fish!