Just A Silly Question

Banks and other financial institutions have been foreclosing on homes and repossessing vehicles at a rate that I don't think this nation has seen since the 1930's.

The silly question? What do they plan on doing with these? They obviously have to get rid of all that real estate by selling it off, but who's buying? Who will be eligible to buy? Are you going to have $200,000 in the bank to get a $150,000 mortgage?

And if the bank gets taken over by the FDIC, you lose everything in that institution over $100,000 in a heartbeat. And if you don't have a fixed mortgage, you'd better get out the KY Jelly and grab your ankles.

S&G - It's Been a Zoo

First, my daughter is recovering slowly - much more slowly than I would have thought. The thing is, after the surgery the doc's basically said "See ya later" - no exercises, no physical therapy - nothing. Last night she went back home so she could sleep in her own bed. I'm a bit worried about her being there but us and her brother are only about 2 minutes away.

Something serious for Veterans - if the VA is giving you a run-around and rejecting your claim, you MUST get an Advocate to assist you. The VFW, American Legion, Order of the Purple Heart, Disabled Veterans of America and others will do this for you for no fee. And if you go through the C&P process (Compensation & Pension) and feel that you have been ill treated or they have decided your level of disability is much lower than you believe, have your advocate help you file an appeal. It took about 4 years before the VA finally admitted I'm 100% disabled.

Now for the fun -

Have any of you seen an ad from an outfit called Cash Call? I caught the fine print at the end of the ad. On an average loan of $2,600 paid over 42 months, the APR is 99.25%. People with a gun don't do that well!

And some doctor is selling advanced versions of Snake Oil. Just spray it in your mouth and it cures everything from hang nails to rheumatism. Or get the pet version, spray it in their water and it will cure them of everything!

One thing I haven't figured out are the ads that state that a woman shouldn't even handle the medication if they're nursing, pregnant or may become pregnant. I guess you need a hysterectomy or menopause.

And they'res a new funny noney ad - this time for a $20 Liberian certificate that they claim is made from .999 silver leaf. Sorry, but if it's stamped from silver leaf, there's no way you can have different designs on the front and back. And they claim they're selling it at face value - $20.00. I checked, and the exchange rate, and 0ne U.S. dollar is worth about $60 Liberian ones. Therefore, the face value would be about 33 cents, right?

Breakfast just arrived, so I'll be back one day.

She's Home

Baby Girl came home from the hospital yesterday. She'll be staying at our place, as She Who Must Be Obeyed took the week off and, with her husband on the road most of the time, she'd have been home by herself - not a good thing.

Right now she's having a really hard time dealing with the bone pain - both in her back and her leg where they took some bone marrow. I'm about the only one who knows exactly what she's going thru, since I had a fusion where they took a chunk out of my hip.

Bone pain is a real bitch, and if you haven't been there you can have no idea what it's like. And no, broken bones don't count - that's nothing like this.

Lots of pain leads to lots of depression and can lead to a downward spiral if it's not intercepted. But I'm goofy enough that I can usually get a laugh if I can come up with something dumb enough!

Here's Hoping

Well, my baby girl, Attitude With Legs, is now in recovery. This morning she went under the knife because her discs at L4-L5 and L5-S1 were ratshit. They put in a couple of rods and six screws and cleaned out the dead discs.

If all goes well, and the surgeon said it went perfectly, she should be home by Friday. She's 31 years old - WAY too young to have to have gone thru what she's suffered over the last couple of years, especially with a 7 year old and an 11 year old to look after. Thankfully my Sidekick - the 11 year old - was able to pick up most of the slack. At least this should make a huge difference in pain reduction and freedom of movement.

I know from personal experience what she'll go thru with bone pain, but she's a strong-willed and stubborn SOB, so I know that with a lot of TLC she'll make it.

Nothing But Nuts

I don't know if you've seen the ad where some idiot is dressed up as a mosquito and harasses everyone in his office. It's for a program called Nothing But Nets, and apparently they have raised over 20 million dollars so far. Each net for a child in Africa costs $10.00.

I can see a couple of problems with this program. Just about all of southern Asia, from Pakistan to Vietnam also have high rates of malaria - no help for them?

And a mosquito net is lovely for the limited amount of time a child spends in bed. The rest of the time the net isn't worth squat.

The sentiment is laudable and has managed to separate kids from their money for the cause, but wouldn't spraying insecticide on stagnant pools, inside old tires, etc, do a much better job of keeping the children safe?

Oh, right - that's not politically acceptable.

The Most Important Words

This historic document has been the basis for the French Revolution and many others over the years. Yet people, in my humble opinion, have always focused on the wrong words:

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776,

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united STATES of AMERICA,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained, and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:For quartering large bodies of armed troops amoung us:For protecting them by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare. That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.


People have always focused on these words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

Lovely words, but abstract ideas that had no basis in fact and, other than the Civil Rights Act, have never enforceable.

But the most important words are the last sentence. Pledging their Lives, their Fortunes and their Sacred Honor were not just abstract ideals. The 56 men who put their names on this document were signing their own death warrant if they were caught, yet they had the courage of their convictions to do so in order to lay the foundations for the great nation that was to come.

How many people today would have the sheer balls to do the same?

And notice that this was done relying on the Creator and Divine Providence - will that be removed from this under the guise of separation of Church and State?

Obituary for Common Sense

I got this in an email today, and since it fits in beautifully with my own feelings I had to share it:

'Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

Knowing when to come in out of the rain; why the early bird gets the worm; Life isn't always fair; and maybe it was my fault. Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouth wash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an Aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, his wife, Discretion, his daughter, Responsibility,and his son, Reason, He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim."