I Did Not Find This Funny At All

It seems that FaceBook has a new toy that calculates ones life expectancy. Not really anything new as I have seen these applications before but this one sends you a headstone with your name on it and a what 'poked' you at death. I take what 'poked' you to be what they expect is going to finally do you in.

My Headstone:

This is not funny and FB needs to have their sense of humor checked!!!

Randy

Easter Eggs And Helicopter Parents

Recently an Easter Egg Hunt in Colorado Springs Bancroft Park was cancelled because of 'agressive behavior' on the part of parents at last years event. It seems that in an effort to make sure their child got an egg parents jumped the boundary markers and rushed out to pick up eggs for their children. This is not a problem specific to Colorado Springs but a manifestation of a phenomenon that has swept the country in recent years.

Parenting observers cite the cancellation as a prime example of so-called "helicopter parents" — those who hover over their children and are involved in every aspect of their children's lives — sports, school, and increasingly work — to ensure that they don't fail, even at an Easter egg hunt.

"That's the perfect metaphor for millennial children. They (parents) can't stay out of their children's lives. They don't give their children enough chances to learn from hard knocks, mistakes."~~P. Solomom Banda (Associated Press)

When I was coaching soccer I saw this situation first hand. Parents would constantly pull me to the side after practice to ask how their child could increase their playing time. My standard answer was to list the skill deficiencies that their child exhibited and to give them a plan to address these deficiencies. That was usually met with strange looks and questions as to easier ways to achieve increased playing time without increased practice.

I realize that no parent wants their children to fail in any way but failing has its place in the personal growth of any child. My father would never have spoken to a coach about my play. He would kick my ass out of the house and make sure I practiced every day and let my playing time be determined by my progress.

I would rather see my child fail at a childhood activity and learn a lesson from that failure than have them fail at something in their adulthood and have no idea how to react to that situation.

My father had a term he used for helicopter type parents--He would say that they are raising 'Mamby Pamby' children. Ones who have to run home to momma because they can not face a situation and solve it without their parents help. Dad hated the Mamby Pambys of the world. I guess it is a generational thing.

It broke my heart when one of my children failed at something but we as parents need to address those failures and use that opportunity to teach skills to address solutions. In the long run we will be doing our children a service toward teaching personal responsibility, problem solving techniques and goal and limitation levels that will serve them well throughout their lives.

Ignore this parental responsibility and at some point you will see your child demonstrating at Zucotti Park and asking for someone else to be responsible for them.

Randy

How Many Hours Are There In God's Day?

How Many Hours Are There In God's Day? When I was young and being systematically brain washed by the Catholic Church this question would have been so trivial it would have never even entered my mind. But many years later and after finding my own way to God this simple question is the basis for being able to reconcile the Religion versus Science controversy.

Religion versus Science ~~Creationism versus Evolution~~ is again in the fore front of the news. Especially with the State of Tennessee trying to legislate us back to the Dark Ages.

The idea that God created man and all that surrounds us is, in my mind, a given. I can not look at the complexity of human beings and think this all happened by chance. I can also not deny scientific evidence of the changes in humans over time.

If Creationism was the only way then how do I reconcile the evidence of Evolutionary change. One way is to stick my head in the sand and deny the change. That is the 'creationists' way but hiding from evidence is not my way.

I could join the creationists in believing every word of the bible but I have problems believing in any book written by man and based on oral history so many generations removed from the days of its happening.

If I was to believe the bible verbatim then I would need to accept that early peoples lived to be 900 years old and had hundreds of children. That is a premise that is a bit hard to swallow. But it does bring into question the concept of 'time frames' and how early peoples perceived time.

Hence my all important question. How many hours are there in God's day?

Creationists would have us believe that in God's 24 hour day and over 7 days HE created all that we see or will ever see. I would postulate that God being God has created everything HE will see or ever see. Not what we will see or ever see.

The hours in God's day are innumerable. God has no calender. No watch. HE is God and time is an unnecessary element for God. Only man needs to quantify life with a length.

'Evolutionary Creationism' is more of what I believe God put into place. He created us as model 1.0 and then devised evolution to allow us to improve over time. A living, breathing and self improving creation allowed to upgrade itself at a pace set by its needs and surroundings.

The beauty of God's creations is that HE allows them to evolve in a free manner. If God had just decided to create us then we would all be stamped out exactly the same mold and would act accordingly. But we are not the same and we certainly act as individuals.

Stamping all things, from the same molds, would have been an easy task for God. But God does not need easy. If I were God I would want to see my creations grow, learn and adapt. We are interactive toys in Gods world not stand in one place 'barbie dolls' waiting for someone to move us.

We move, we learn and we evolve over time. Evolving is what makes us Gods wonderful creations. God created is to evolve.

In my mind there is no real argument between Religion and Science except that which we create ourselves. I believe that a conversation, rooted in fact and not fiction, will bare fruit toward reconciling this 'man made' argument.

A man has no reason to be ashamed of having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I should feel shame in recalling it would rather be a man—a man of restless and versatile intellect—who…plunges into scientific questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions and skilled appeals to religious prejudice.~~Thomas Henry Huxley

Randy

A New Way To Buy Votes

When a generation of Americans are given entitlements, handouts, by the government and one political party is associated with those entitlements, the Democrats, these so called 'entitled Amricans' become votes in the pockets of that party. In essence entitlements buys votes and continued entitlements to generations of Americans kills personal responsibility and work ethic.

We have seen this happen with welfare, food stamps and what, in my area, are called Obama phones(free cell phones to those who claim that they can not afford to purchase their own). The way people keep their entitlements is to keep those who are inclined to give them free stuff in political office.

People are always trying to find new entitlements to keep the dependency in the government fresh and ongoing.

This morning Neal Boortz, on his radio show, jokingly suggested a new entitlement program and liberals ran with it. Never accuse a liberal of passing up any good vote buying scheme.

I can not explain this better than Mr Boortz so I will reprint his short article explaining his plan.
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Yup! Sure do! And I’m willing to give this one to you no charge! You would normally have to pay some consultant big bucks for a wonderful idea like this, or spend tens of thousands on focus groups. But I’m giving it to you for absolutely nothing! Now why would I want to do that? Because I want to show everyone how easy you are, and I want to chalk up another “I told you so” for my incredible record amassed over the past 42 years of talk radio. You see … I’m telling you my motives IN ADVANCE! But it doesn’t matter. The idea is so incredible you will be completely unable to resist.

Here you go … PROGRESSIVE PRICING!

This is perfect! I’m really excited for you. It plays perfectly into your “fairness” mantra. With Obama preaching “fair share” on a daily basis over the past three years, and with the emergence of the word “progressive” to define all that is good, warm and righteous, this can’t miss.

I got the idea listening to some of your fellow proggies complaining about banks charging some customers a fee for their checking accounts if they didn’t use other bank services (such as a credit or debit card) of if their accounts held small balances. Of course it just wasn’t FAIR for these banks to charge customers for the services they provide. But here’s the key: This whining proggies also said that the fees for checking accounts for poorer (she probably meant to say “less fortunate”) customers would consume a greater proportion of their income than it would for more successful (the “more fortunate”) customers.

Ahhhhhhh! The little light bulb (40 watt, in your case) is starting to come on, isn’t it! Right! If it’s wrong for a poorer consumer to pay a higher percentage of their income for checking account fees than wealthier Americans; why, then, isn’t it just as wrong for that poor, poor pitiful poor person to pay a higher percentage for other products or services! Especially things that might be deemed essential!

Why should a poor single mother pay a higher percentage of her income for a gallon of milk for her children than a wealthy suburban married mother?

Why should a poor person have to pay a higher percentage of their income on the three gallons of gas (or more) it takes for them to get back and forth to work every day?

Why should a middle income family have to pay a higher percentage of their disposal income for rent than a higher income family?

You see the greatness of my idea now, don’t you. It’s clearly time for Progressive Pricing! It goes right along with your love for the progressive income tax, which came right out of The Communist Manifesto, by the way. If the rich are required to pay a higher percentage of their income in order to provide the government with revenue to spend propping up the poor, why not require these same evil rich people to pay a higher price for consumer items so that retailers and service-providers can lower the prices for po’ folks? They’re already using a system somewhat like this in some European countries where traffic fines for the same offense go up with a person’s income or net wealth.

No … it really wouldn’t be all that hard to implement. After all, how many EBT cards do state governments issue and oversee?

Here’s just a quick idea on how this tremendous Progressive Pricing idea might work. Buyer’s identification cards would be issued to all residents. These cards would be coded with information relating to the holder’s income level. When a purchase is made the caller would have to swipe that card at the check-out counter, and a computer would decide how much that person will have to pay for that item based on how “fortunate” they are.

Sure .. this will take a while to get going. I would suggest that we start with some basics like rent, transportation and gas and move on from there. Yes; it would be expensive, but no cost is too great when it comes to bringing fairness to your system, right?

You don’t have to give me credit for this idea. Enough people will know where it came from for me to stake my “I told you so” claim; just like I did when we found out recently that ObamaCare would cost twice what your God said it would cost.

Let me know if I can be of any more service.

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It is a perfect plan to extend another entitlement and garner votes from those touched by that entitlement.

An example could be:

Income Level     Price/lb Ground Round      Price you pay   Amount the Govt subsidizes

<$12,000                     $3/lb                                $0.50/lb                       $2.50/lb

12,001 - 20,000           $3/lb                                $1.50/lb                       $1.50/lb

20,001 - 40,000           $3/lb                                $2.50/lb                       $0.50/lb

40,001 -100,000          $3/lb                                $6.00/lb                       $0.00/lb

0ver 100,000               $3/lb                               $10.00/lb                      $0.00/lb

This is so fair. The lower incomes will pay less while the upper incomes pay to subsidize the lower incomes.

This program will also be a 'job creator' as the bureaucracy to maintain it will be tremendous.

In the end votes will be bought, liberals will remain in office and the United States will change forever.

Yes this is an extreme example and I am sure would never be put in place.  But kiddies this is how liberals think. This is the United States that many of them envision.

This is why Obama must be defeated in November. It is time to open your eyes and vote with your brains. The alternative America that Obama is offering is frightening.

Randy

The New Street Currency

I hear advertisements every day heralding the use of gold as an investment. Other advertisements tell us about investing in precious metals, oil and real estate. The Street, not Wall Street, finds ways to level the playing field in ways that amaze me every day.

Americans living along the highways and byways in normal neighborhoods find ways to move the economy along that no legislation or political manipulation could. If we are short on good old United States currency we invent our own.

Police and retailers are pushing back against a report claiming that theft of Tide laundry detergent is on the rise nationwide and that some cities are devising special task forces to crack down on the alleged phenomenon. You heard me right, Tide is being stolen in record amounts.

Lt. Matt Swenke of the West St. Paul Police Department in Minnesota described laundry detergent as a "needed commodity" – much like baby formula and toilet paper – that he said is often a target for shoplifters looking to profit by reselling the items to privately-owned retail stores.

Apparently people are stealing to resell the items to other less professional retail establishments.

Law enforcement officials acknowledge that name-brand goods, like Tide, are easily converted to cash on the black market. A $20 shoplifted bottle of Tide, for instance, could be sold illegally for $10 – more than the sale of a lesser-known, generic brand.

"Tide is highly recognizable," former FBI Special Agent Brad Garrett told ABC's "Good Morning America". "It's very difficult to trace and it's easily resold".

In some areas Tide bottles now have security devices attached even though many retailers say that they are not experiencing an increase in Tide theft.

The world seems to find ways for us to 'adjust' the system so it tilts in our favor. Think about those post apocalyptic movies that Hollywood distributes; the economies portrayed in those movies are not currency based but rather commodity based.

I believe that hard times prepare us for harder times. Learning the fine art of 'bartering' may be the salvation for many of us once everything falls down around us. Knowing the value of one commodity against another may be a way to produce the 'Americam Dream' in a post apocalyptic age.

So much to learn with no idea how much time we have to learn it.

Randy

Pink Slime?

I was cruising along the Internet highway this morning looking for something interesting to write about. The news generally is depressing and I am in need of a lighter subject to lift my spirits. Pink Slime is probably not exactly what I was looking for but as I, and most of you, have been eating it I thought maybe knowing more about it might be a good idea.

Supposedly Pink Slime is meat by products that have been treated with Ammonia Hydroxide that “creates an environment that is unfriendly to pathogenic bacteria” and “provides a significant food safety benefit “, according to MeatMythBusters.com. I always get a little queasy when I hear the words 'by products'.

Pink Slime sort of looks like pink play dough. Kind of looks harmless but do I really want it in my burger?

When I first heard about Pink Slime I pictured my children fighting it like Steve McQueen in the movie The Blob.

More like this:

WOW! A bath and dinner all in one bathtub sitting. Yummy to the max!

What is pink slime? Whenever a cow is butchered there are pieces that are cut off that aren’t considered for human consumption. There is a greater risk for E. coli and other nasty stuff in those parts of the cow. It use to be mainly just for pet food. A dog’s stomach can handle the kind of stuff ours can’t. However now this pink slime is ending up in our foods. Using a centrifuge they can separate the fat from the meat. Once they salvage this meat, there still is the concern of potential illness in humans. So to make sure that won’t be a problem, they pull out a chemical – ammonia. Yes, the meat industry actually uses ammonia to kill anything that might be in the meat and the United States Department of Agriculture is perfectly OK with this. In fact, they are so OK with it that no one has to list on their labels that ammonia was ever used. The meat industry convinced the USDA, that the ammonia is just a “processing agent”. There is some limits put on pink slime. You can’t use more than 15% of it in ground beef. So it’s basically just used as a filler, but the filler saves the meat industry some serious dough.

How Can You Avoid Pink Slime?So how do you avoid this kind of beef? Good news is that McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell have all stopped using pink slime (which means they were using it in the first place). But that doesn’t mean all fast food places stopped using it. You may also encounter it at the grocery store. You should never ever buy ground beef labeled as hamburger. That is almost a guarantee that you will be getting some grounded up pink slime in there. Recently, I have read reports about the USDA purchasing 7 million pounds of pink slime for school lunches.

ABC News did a follow-up report, asking some grocery stores if they use pink slime. According to that report, these stores claimed they do not use pink slime: Publix, Costco, HEB and Whole Foods. I am sure that there are others but you will need to ask them.

One way you can avoid Pink Slime at the grocery store is to purchase beef marked 100% ground chuck or 100% ground sirloin for example. An even better way is to by the meat whole and grind it yourself. Meats marked 'organic' do not contain Pink Slime.

                                     Poor Wimpy never knew what hit him

Randy

PS....Much of this information was gleamed from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.

It Is Time For Us To Come Home

I have supported the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan although my support has been waining lately. Looking at the pictures of the Afghan civilians murdered, there is no other word to describe this act other than murder, is a very hard thing to do. Women, children and men senselessly slaughtered by one United States Soldier. It is an act of a mad man without excuse.

The perpetrator of this crime was on his 4th tour, 3 in Iraq and the present one in Afghanistan. He is married with children of his own. I am also sure that something snapped in him to commit such a horrendous act.

The men and women of our armed services are tired and burned out on war. They need a long rest and need to heal both physically and mentally. But still this is no excuse for what occurred in this case.

The Afghan people deserve better. Our men and women in uniform deserve better.

This year both the allied Afghans and the coalition forces have perpetrated atrocities on each other and no profound excuse is forthcoming.

I believe that Afghanistan does not have the 'national will' to become the country we have envisioned. Actually I will go out on a limb here and predict that once the coalition leaves Afghanistan will return to its old ways. The so called budding democracy will die on the vine and wait to be rekindled when some other western country attempts to plant the seeds.

A sad commentary indeed.

We will all make our apologies and soon after we will go back to killing each other. It seems that has been the course of Afghan history.

Randy