New Grill

After going over a year with no outdoor cooking appliance, I broke down and got a charcoal grill. I was looking at the Big Green Egg, but my goodness they are expensive!!

I ended up getting the Akorn Kamado grill. I've used it 3 times so far and I'm pleased. Very little lump charcoal heats up to over 400 degrees in about 15 mins.

Shameful. He's on MSNBC. What a surprise.

Chris Hayes, journalist and talking head on MSNBC, recently said that he is "uncomfortable" calling our fallen men and women of the military "Heroes." I guess his liberal friends on the upper east side would snicker at him at the next cocktail party if he were to utter such words. Even CNN mentioned this guy's cowardice.

I guess the pressure finally got to him, and he issued a 3 paragraph apology; the text of the apology seemed kind of slimy to me (throwing in a dig on people who support the military but never enlisted).

I wonder if he had Keith Olbermann proofread the apology, first?

The Avengers rocked!

Joss Whedon knocked it out of the park with this Avengers movie. Just plain fun from start to finish. The acting was very good, the writing was great and the special effects were incredible! And, in my opinion, Mark Ruffalo is the best Bruce Banner of the 3 actors who've played the part.

If you haven't seen it, go. Perfect big screen movie! Plus, be sure to stay for the end of the credits!

Nice day today

Despite being mostly cloudy, it was quite a nice day. No rain. Temp in the 70's with a slight breeze. New puppy learning to poo outside, not in the kitchen. New iPad working smooth as silk. Hope yours was good, too.

Composite girlfriends

Apparently president Obama made up parts of his autobiography. The part about taking his white girlfriend to a play written by a black playwright never happened. That girl never existed. She was a " composite" of several different girls he dated, and he was just trying to comment on the racial tensions that existed at the time.

Wonder how many other parts of his "autobiography" are made of compost as well.?.?

Super moon

Had a great view of the "super moon" tonight. Clear skies. Even with just binoculars, the detail of the moon surface was incredible! Just wish my camera would pick up the detail.

Apple TV

As if I haven't spent enough money at my nearest Apple retail store, I also broke down and bought an Apple TV.

Another Apple product that I just love! My local Internet provider sells me 10 meg download speed, which is more than fast enough to stream Netflix. I do hate that almost nothing "new" is available for streaming; however most of my Netflix viewing is tv shows, of which there are plenty to choose from. And streaming on the Apple TV is nearly perfect.

Also, with iTunes match and iPhoto AirPlay, I can listen to my personal music collection while the tv screen is cascading my pictures.

Finally, you haven't played Angry Birds until you can play it on your flat screen tv.

Sable

Blogger app

This is my first attempt to blog using an app. The only one I could find was "Blogger" & it's really only available for the iPhone. Anyone know any good apps I can use with this blog site that work with the iPad?

The newest iPad is awesome

I bought my wife the first generation iPad a couple of years ago. She loved it. I stuck with my iPhone. After hearing so much about the newest iPad, I broke down and got two. One for me, one for my wife and gave the old one to my son. So far it has lived up to the hype. The retina display is amazing for photos and the 1080p video is great!

When I got my first gen kindle, I remember feeling like I was on the starship Enterprise when I used it. Well, the iPad is even better! I can see Captain Picard walking thru the halls, reading his latest briefings on the iPad.

It's great for games. I love using twitter on it. I've discovered apps like Flipboard, which for a news junkie like me is just plain awesome! I've converted over half of my magazines over to the newsstand app. The ones I haven't are just because they aren't available yet. I'm disappointed that the Wall Street Journal isn't newsstand compatible; but it's own app works great.

I'm still not sold on iBooks though. I just like the look of e-ink better, and I prefer the feel of my 3rd gen kindle while reading for a long period of time.

Overall I give the new iPad 5 stars, and recommend you get the best one you can afford.

New addition to the family

We've recently been blessed with a new member of the family. One day, while watching the show "Too Cute" on Animal Planet we saw a dog breed we'd never even heard of, but immediately fell in love with: the Havanese. After doing some research, we decided to get one. She's a beautiful 2 pound, eight week old dynamo. She's fit right in already and seems smart as a whip. We look forward to watching her grow.

Part of the official definition of the breed mentions that their expressions are "mischievous rather than cute.". Nothing could be more true.

Low carb update

I've lost close to 40 pounds since Jan 2! My LDL ( bad cholesterol) has gone from 170 to 86 and my triglycerides went from 201 to 120! Blood pressure stays below 110/80! My acid reflux is completely gone. Without medication.

Everybody needs to read Gary Taubes book "Why we get fat." It's an eye opener.

Low carb dieting

I'm starting a low carb diet for my new years resolution. I'm using the Atkins book as a guide. If you've never actually tried it, I would encourage you to actually read his book. I have found that, without exception, people who criticize the diet have never actually read the book. It's not all bacon and eggs (although that is one of the best parts...I LOVE bacon). Tons of vegetables and protein on the diet.

He has a pretty convincing argument that our modern lifestyle of over-abundant, highly-refined, low-nutrient high-carb lifestyle is killing us. People are eating a low fat, high carb diet in record numbers, yet America is getting fatter and fatter. We just weren't designed to eat foods that nearly instantly turn to sugar in our bodies.

4 days into the diet, and I am having absolutely no acid reflux (I've completely stopped my heartburn meds). I have no headaches. Have already lost some weight (which Dr Atkins freely admits is initially partly water weight). But for the first time in years, I was able to pass up the donuts at work this morning without even a second thought.

Again, let me stress that you should read the book before you criticize him. Even if you don't start his eating plan, you'll learn a lot about nutrition.

Things we should all agree on

1. Mapquest direction should begin on step #4. I'm pretty sure I already know how to get out of my own neighborhood.

2. Everyone should boycott movie & television technology beyond Blueray. I'm sick and tired of having to purchase all my movies again and again.

3. US citizens should adopt the afternoon siesta.

4. Don't tell your doctor that you have a "high pain tolerance." We all automatically know you are a wuss at that point.

5. When asking your doctor for pain meds, don't request them by their street names (i.e. "hydros")

6. Texting while driving should be a capital offense. Or at least life imprisonment spent breaking big boulders into pea gravel.

7. Dogs are man's best friend. Cats would be happy to claw out your eyes.

8. MTV should be required to show at least 3 music videos a day.

9. Opinions are not like a$$holes or belly buttons. I've seen people who don't have a navel or an anus.

10. Broadcasting fishing or bowling on TV should be limited to prison televisions.

This day in history

On January 4, 1903, Thomas Edison electrocuted Topsy the elephant, in an attempt to demonstrate how AC current was too dangerous to use for our country's power grid. It was actually caught on film.

Despite this gruesome display, Edison's Direct Current electricity grid just didn't have the oomph to power our growing country. Tesla's AC system won out in the end. Edison was a genius, for sure; but this example of poor judgement shows he was all to human as well.

Health care rationing

As Thomas Sowell has eloquently put it, general economics is not a zero sum game. Just because person X makes more money, that doesn't mean person Y has to lose a proportionate amount.

However, government controlled health care will indeed be zero-sum. Since it's actually impossible for government to create wealth, and their only way to actually get more money is to raise taxes, there is only a finite amount of money that can be budgeted towards health care. So they will soon have to make decisions for the "public good." This will mean that once you reach the end of your usefulness to the government, they will no longer provide access to medical care.

In other words, your elderly grandmother will be denied dialysis based on government actuary tables.

It's the only way they can control costs. Which, lets be honest, is the only reason big government Looters want socialized medicine. They don't care if you live longer & healthier. They certainly don't care if a physician practice is more efficient. In fact, the earlier you die, the less you cost. Can you say "Logan's Run?" Or "Soylent Green is people!!!?

Fall is here!

It finally seems that fall is here! High temps in the 70s, lows in the 50's. For a few weeks, the weather will be perfect! And miracles of miracles, the Detroit Lions are 3-0!

Kelo vs city of New London, update

Remember the Supreme Court case, Kelo v the City of New London? Where the Supreme Court ruled that it was legal for the government to steal your private property if they thought they might get to make money off of it?

Well, 6 years have gone by, and Ms Kelo's house is now officially the city dump. Seems that the government's greedy plans fell through, and Pfizer never built their mega-complex; thus no windfall tax profits for the Looters of New London. BUT, Ms Kelo still lost her private property. Private property is essentially what the Revolutionary War was about.

I hope that the ACLU would support a new case. Kelo v Supreme Court. Maybe Kelo v New London & Pfizer, as well. Seems she deserves some restitution, no?

The soul of a man

"The soul of a man, left to it's own natural level, is a potentially lucid crystal left in darkness. It is perfect in its own nature, but it lacks something that it can only receive from outside and above itself. But when the light shines on it, it becomes in a manner transformed into light and seems to lose its nature in the splendor of a higher nature, the nature of the light that is in it."-- Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

The Future of America

This was emailed to me. No author was given. Welcome to...the Twilight Zone

Thanksgiving 2022

"Winston, come into the dining room, it's time to eat," Julia yelled to her husband.



"In a minute, honey, it's a tie score," he answered.


Actually Winston wasn't very interested in the traditional holiday football game between Detroit and Washington.



Ever since the government passed the Civility in Sports Statute of 2017, outlawing tackle football for its "unseemly violence" and the "bad example it sets for the rest of the world", Winston was far less of a football fan than he used to be.

Two-hand touch wasn't nearly as exciting.Yet it wasn't the game that Winston was uninterested in.



It was more the thought of eating another Tofu Turkey. Even though it was the best type of VeggieMeat available after the government revised the American Anti-Obesity Act of 2018, adding fowl to the list of federally-forbidden foods, (which already included potatoes, cranberry sauce, and mincemeat pie), it wasn't anything like real turkey.

And ever since the government officially changed the name of "Thanksgiving Day" to "A National Day of Atonement" in 2020, to officially acknowledge the Pilgrims' historically brutal treatment of Native Americans, the holiday had lost a lot of its luster.

Eating in the dining room was also a bit daunting. The unearthly gleam of government-mandated CFL light bulbs made the Tofu Turkey look even weirder than it actually was, and the room was always cold.

Ever since Congress passed the Power Conservation Act of 2016, mandating all thermostats - which were monitored and controlled by the electric company - be kept at 68 degrees, every room on the north side of the house was barely tolerable throughout the entire winter.

Still, it was good getting together with family. Or at least most of the family.

Winston missed his mother, who passed on in October, when she had used up her legal allotment of life-saving medical treatment.

He had had many heated conversations with the
Regional Health Consortium, spawned when the private insurance market finally went bankrupt, and everyone was forced into the government health care program.

And though he demanded she be kept on her treatment, it was a futile effort.

"The RHC's resources are limited", explained the
government bureaucrat Winston spoke with on the phone. "Your mother received all the benefits to which she was entitled. I'm sorry for your loss."

Ed couldn't make it either. He had forgotten to plug in his electric car last night, the only kind available after the Anti-Fossil Fuel Bill of 2021 outlawed the use of the combustion engines - for everyone but government officials.

The fifty mile round trip was about ten miles too far, and Ed didn't want to spend a frosty night on the road somewhere between here and there.

Thankfully, Winston's brother, John, and his wife were flying in.

Winston made sure that the dining room chairs had extra cushions for the occasion.

No one complained more than John about the pain of sitting down so soon after the government-mandated cavity searches at airports, which severely aggravated his hemorrhoids.

Ever since a terrorist successfully smuggled a cavity bomb onto a jetliner, the TSA told Americans the added "inconvenience" was an "absolute necessity" in order to stay "one step ahead of the terrorists."

Winston's own body had grown accustomed to such probing ever since the government expanded their scope to just about anywhere a crowd gathered, via Anti-Profiling Act of 2022.

That law made it a crime to single out any group or individual for "unequal scrutiny," even when probable cause was involved.

Thus, cavity searches at malls, train stations, bus depots, etc., etc., had become almost routine.



Almost.

The Supreme Court is reviewing the statute, but most Americans expect a Court composed of six progressives and three conservatives to leave the law intact.

"A living Constitution is extremely flexible", said the Court's eldest member, Elena Kagan. "Europe has had laws like this one for years. We should learn from their example", she added.

Winston's thoughts turned to his own children.
He got along fairly well with his 12-year-old daughter, Brittany, mostly because she ignored him. Winston had long ago surrendered to the idea that she could text anyone at any time, even during Atonement Dinner.

Their only real confrontation had occurred when he limited her to 50,000 texts a month, explaining that was all he could afford.

She whined for a week, but got over it.

His 16-year-old son, Jason, was another matter altogether. Perhaps it was the constant bombarding he got in public school that global warming, the bird flu, terrorism, or any of a number of other calamities were "just around the corner", but Jason had developed a kind of nihilistic attitude that ranged between simmering surliness and outright hostility.

It didn't help that Jason had reported his father to the police for smoking a cigarette in the house, an act made criminal by the Smoking Control Statute of 2018, which outlawed smoking anywhere within 500 feet of another human being.

Winston paid the $5,000 fine, which might have been considered excessive before the American dollar became virtually worthless as a result of QE13.

The latest round of quantitative easing the federal government initiated was, once again, to "spur economic growth."

This time, they promised to push unemployment below its years-long rate of 18%, but Winston was not particularly hopeful.

Yet the family had a lot for which to be thankful, Winston thought, before remembering it was a Day of Atonement.

At least, he had his memories.

He felt a twinge of sadness when he realized his children would never know what life was like in the Good Old Days, long before government promises to make life "fair for everyone" realized their full potential.

Winston, like so many of his fellow Americans, never realized how much things could change when they didn't happen all at once, but little by little, so people could get used to them.

He wondered what might have happened if the public had stood up while there was still time, maybe back around 2011, when all the real nonsense began.

"Maybe we wouldn't be where we are today if we'd just said 'enough is enough' when we had the chance," he thought.





Maybe so, Winston. Maybe so.