Put it There

Put it there if it weigh a ton
is what a father said to his young son
I don't care if it weighs a tin
as long as you and I are here, put it there
long as you and I are here, put it there

Hey there Dad what would you say to a not so young son?

I'll be listening...

Hey Rebecca, Adam and Jeremy... Put it there, I don't care if it weighs a ton.

Adam's Saga

If you start out like this...


You might end up with this...



Then you will be forced to dress like this...



So I imagine there is a moral to this story, but I can't think of it right now. The truth that jumps out at right now is that it is foolish to harass your ride (and Father) when he can get to a computer before you get out of surgery!

Love ya Adam

Dad

Stupid Criminals

Stupid Crimes
By: Freeman Klopott and Scott McCabe
Examiner Staff Writers
04/23/09 6:30 PM



The love that binds
A Florida man tied himself up and lied to police as part of an elaborate way to woo his girlfriend back.
Investigators found Derick Culberson sitting next to his truck in Palm City with his ankles and wrists bound with plastic “zip ties.” Culberson said he’d been robbed by two gunmen and gave descriptions of the suspects and their car. Police started a search but soon found inconsistencies in his story. They also found in Culberson’s truck zip ties of the same type used to bind him.
Culberson eventually admitted to tying his own hands and feet, and inventing the entire tale to make his girlfriend feel bad for leaving him, police said.
Culberson apologized for wasting law enforcement officers’ time. He was arrested on charges of filing a false report.

You know times are hard when ...
A 52-year-old Ohio woman who took a job as an exotic dancer to help make ends meet was attacked on her first day by a jealous co-worker.
Police said the victim needed extra money because of the hard economic times. As she walked into the dressing room, the other girls started yelling, “We don’t need any more dancers around here,” police told the Akron Beacon Journal. One of them attacked her with a high-heeled shoe, striking her in the face.

Hot pants
A bank robber in Houston was hospitalized after the loot he stole exploded in his pants.
The teller gave the robber some cash bundles with exploding dye packs in them. The suspect stuffed the money down his pants and ran out of the bank.
Police arrested Daniel Duran a short time later, after the dye packs exploded while still down his pants. Duran was taken to a hospital with second-degree burns to his genital area.

Thank you ma’am, may I have another?
Police in Lincoln, Neb., are investigating a series of hazing incidents, including one accusation that a stripper used a sex toy to abuse a fraternity pledge.
The University of Nebraska Sigma Chi fraternity pledge went to police after he said the hazing had taken a toll on his well-being, according to documents unsealed this week.
Pledges were forced to drink Tabasco sauce and vodka until they vomited, the pledge said. In another instance, he said he was handcuffed, blindfolded and assaulted with a sex toy by a stripper even though he told the stripper to stop.

Sticky notes
There’s got to be a better way to track thousands of stolen documents.
A former state tax worker who stole the identity of thousands of New Yorkers and racked up more than $200,000 in bogus credit card charges kept his records on thousands of Post-it notes around his home.
Prosecutors said Walter Healey, 63, opened up accounts using the Social Security numbers of his victims, including a 4-year-old boy.
A search of Healey’s home found copies of more than 700 tax forms, more than 1,000 Social Security cards and 2,000 Post-it notes with Social Security numbers on them. The notes had comments such as “good prospect” or “had money” written on them.

The Greening of the Old Man...

Today is Earth Day 2009.

I never been known as the "Green Guy", in fact I've been a little antagonistic. A year ago I joined Adam in cleaning up and planting a portion of the shoreline along the Duwamish River. It was miserable weather, wet and cool. I helped remove weeds and sticker bushes. It reminded me why I was renting and not pulling weeds and mowing grass (tired and lazy).

During the last 12 months I've confered to my son's regular encouragement (nag) to act green. So here are a few of the changes I've enacted this past year.

1. Change my car garbage bag from paper to cloth.

2. Add a recycle bag in my car, also cloth.

3. Moved to Shoreline where they provide cans to separate garbage and recycle, both Sharon and me have gotten in the habit of separaating stuff.

4. Made a real mental effort to reduce the number of work trips, and when I had
to go, and to combine as many chores/meetings into one trip with a thoughtful
plan to reduce the number of miles traveled.

5. With the destruction of my Camry by a Dump Truck, I puchased (with God's provision) a brand new 2008 Chrylser PT Cruiser. It has a standard transmission so I'm able to coast and save gas. Although I really wanted a SUV I didn't (mostly because I'm getting to be really cheap). I don't drive it in a fashion that would burn extra gas like the guy below. Although it looks like fun!

I'm sure there have been other areas where I have made little changes. Probably the biggest change has been my thinking. I now consider my impact where I rarely did in the past.

Although it may be a slow road (too slow for some) I confident that I will continue down this path. Progress, not perfection...

Deja vue: Morgenthau was right.

"On May 9, 1939, Henry Morgenthau Jr., the Secretary of the Treasury and one of the most powerful men in America, had a startling confession to make. He made this remarkable admission before the influential Democrats who ran the House Ways and Means Committee.

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I'm wrong...somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises...I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started...And an enormous debt to boot!" Taken from "New Deal or Raw Deal" Burton W. Folsom Jr. Pages 1&2.

"The New Deal, especially in the arena of finance, was rarely the result of consistent planning. As Roosevelt conceded,"We seldom know, six weeks in advance, what we are going to do."" Taken from "New Deal or Raw Deal" Burton W. Folsom Jr. Page 103

What is the old adage "those who don't learn from history are destined to repeat it". Well it seems that the leadership of our country hasn't learned our history. My fear is that they will make some of the same mistakes but on a much grander scale and therefor cause much greater damage.

God help us if it takes a World War III to bring us out of this mess.

Coward

"First, we're a nation of whiners; now, we're a nation of cowards. He went on to say "Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial."

The coward comment comes from none other than President Obama's newly minted attorney general, Eric Holder.

The remarks were part of a speech Holder delivered for Black History Month. Yet, even in that context, the words came across as arrogant, condescending and not at all becoming a statesman. (Quoted from By Tara Wall CNN Contributor)

A quick look at Mr. Holder's entry on Wikipedia shows that the Attorney General and I have at least (1) thing in common. We both have (3) children. I must say I found his comment insulting, to say the least. His marital status indicates he's married so I'm assuming never been a single father (doesn't indicate any divorce). How dare he call me a coward? I raised (3) kids largely on my own for about 8 years. Not only did I do that I didn't teach them to hate. I did not teach them to speak out in insulting and cruel ways.

I understand that Mr. Holder is an important man but why must I be put down for one of the few things I feel I was doing God's work? I would never speak publicly about him in an insulting or ignorant way why me he?

President Obama,

I find the comments for your Attorney General as offensive as a racial slur. Please be the leader you have promised you will be and either take this man to the "wood shed" or "show him the door". You promised a new way of governing, I trust that doesn't mean that because I'm a middle aged white guy that I'm the new punching bag.

Looking for hope,

Randy
Single Father of (3) great kids

The Chicago Tea Party

I'm bummed, I can't make it to Chicago for the Party. Happening to soon for me to get there.

Santelli's criticism of the mortgage bailout plan is dead on: The plan treats borrowers who sacrificed to pay their mortgages on time the same as those who used their equity for a boat and stopped paying their loans. This moral hazard sends a clear message to our children that they can avoid the consequences of their actions. But this is only one reason the plan is bad policy. Others include:

The plan's mortgage cram down provision would only worsen the housing crisis in two ways: First it would increase the risk to lenders and lead to higher interest rates for people trying to buy homes today. Second, the policy would open the door to achieving mortgage reductions for tens of millions of homeowners who can afford their mortgage pay­ments and whose homes are not at risk.

The plan will fail because too few people will qualify and many of those that do will default anyway. The housing bubble was caused in large part by speculators who bought homes planning to flip them for quick profit and other who out-right lied on their loan applications. The mortgage bailout will do nothing to stop these foreclosures. Furthermore, the re-default rates for people that have already participated in mortgage modifications show that as many as 50% of them go on to default again.

The plan risks another $275 billion in taxpayer funds. The Obama Administration claims their plan will only cost $75 billion, but that is only true if it works out perfectly. If the plan fails to stem the inevitable correction in housing prices taxpayers will lose a full $275 billion.

Closing his interview with National Review, Santelli also connected the mortgage bailout to the Obama Administration's stimulus plan:

Here's a little commentary from The Heritage Foundation.

At the end of the day, it’s simple. A lot of the president’s advisers are saying that there’s a multiplier effect to the government money, and it’s over one. Now if that’s true, then the government should spend non-stop for the rest of our lives, because we’ll get a positive return. And it makes no sense. ... I guess in the end, I believe in the founding fathers, and I believe that in America... the pursuit of happiness and to work hard and keep the fruits of your labor is something I believe in. And I’m not saying we should forget people who need help. But at the end of the day, Americans are strong and they’re charitable. I think what they have a problem with is that it’s force-fed via the government.

In the words of CSN, won't you all come to Chicaog, we can change the world...

Dear Mr. President

I’m going to be honest right up front. I didn’t vote for you, but you are my President none the less. Like anyone running for office you made many promises. The one that I’m currently confused over is the promise that your Presidency will be transparent. I see the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 being raced through the Congress at speeds unheard of and I wonder if everything about this bill is out in the open. Then I hear different things that are in the bill being removed when the public is outraged. Ok, I get that the country is in a dangerous economic time. My business is in the construction field and I started to experience the recession within in a month of its inception (Recession starts in December 2007 and I spent the first half of January 2008 with NO work). I want the system fixed but I don’t want it destroyed in the process. Then this bill comes out of conference and is rushed to the floor for a vote less than 24 hours after its text is released to the members of Congress and the public (me). I hear that it has over 1,000 pages and realize that that would take me around 3 weeks to read (I average around 40 books per year) and I’m wondering how this would qualify as transparent. I can’t imagine having 1,000 page plus bill that no one who voted for it had read it. That makes me think that our Congress is acting like lemmings. My Senators and Congress members are responsible to me and my fellow’s here in Washington State to act with their hearts and their minds. They can’t possibly think intelligently about a bill they haven’t read.
Please require them to read and consider this bill closely and thoughtfully. Be the leader who acts different. Be the change we/I want. Please speak the truth about this process and use your position to bring change that comes with thought and reason.

Respectfully

Randy