| 9/18/2009 Border Fence I’ve heard that the border fence is taking a long time to build and funding for it has be gutted by the administration. I have a simple solution. Get sponsors for the fence. You can sell ad space on both sides of the fence. This piece of the fence is brought to you by www.hotsurprise.com, or sell bricks where people can pay for the fence and have a family members name on it. Check out the Border Fence Project |
| 9/8/2009 Back from Vacation Back from vacation and family sucks. Not my wife and child that part of my family is great. No this is my step Mother and Dad; they suck. My grandma who let me live with her during high school is dying. She is lying in a bed in an old folk’s home with a daughter that has been using her credit cards and debit cards like they are magic. Grandma so kind she doesn’t want to spend the money she saved up for her own health care. She wants to leave it to her daughter as an inheritance. And the daughter/ aka step Mom feels the same way. She wants the money and wants someone else to pay for the care of her mother. So tonight my wife and I tried to get a better idea of what was Grandma’s wishes, and what was BS. So far step Mom and Dad seem to be playing the stupid card real well. So I’m chalking round one up to them for now. I know they are both master manipulators and are skilled in getting money out of little old ladies. I probably just need a little legal advice to see how I disrupt their plan. I’ll try to keep you posted on the progression of this story. |
| 9/2/2009 How a simple little comment kicked of the great health debate email string. From: L.G. It’s not that I am too busy. It’s that I only have a ½ hour for lunch. Not that I expect you guys to keep track of my reasons… But just for the record, I’d way rather be eating chipotle with you guys than be sitting at this freaking desk. From: Me I thought OBAMA made it a law that every company is mandated to give at least 1 hour lunch. Isn’t that the type of change people voted for? From: J.M. Funny guy. I'm just looking for a better Health Insurance system. There's all this fighting... I don't care who creates the best plan.....just get one out there. Any of you could end up broke. My wife and I are just 1 major medical problem away from it. What if we had a major problem, it would not be covered since we both got layed off and now are buying private insurance. If we had a major problem it could have eaten up everything we have. And we did everything right, living below our means and saving money. IT COULD HAPPEN TO ANY OF YOU. Not to support either Rep or Dem plan.....just any plan that protects us. It's not just the lazy and under privileged that find themselves screwed. I'm done....Sorry.....peace out. From: D Get 'em, Jay! Don't apologize for standing up for the first president to pass universal health care. (Because something will pass, believe it.) BTW, this is a problem that ALL of his predecessors failed to address... Any system will have flaws. At least this guy has the audacity to get something in place... From: L.G. Just hoping they don’t flex plans to pay for it. I’d like to keep my job. From: Me You go girl. Bill and Hillary tried to address this and they got shout down. So he is not the first to address this and I’m sure he will not be the last. From: L.G. That’s right, Scotty - they did. And they also tried to eliminate flex plans completely, in a tiny little paragraph at the very end of the huge healthcare bill. >From: D Scotty, READ my email. I said he will be the first to PASS legislation. Ain't nobody stoppin' bruhman, not even you crazy conservatives! :-P From: L.G. His ratings are dropping pretty quick, Dave! From: J.M. The only thing dropping faster is the rating of Congress...BOTH Rep and Dem. Everyone is mad at the entire group. Of course his ratings are down. From: D We all want someone to blame. Anyone but ourselves. The truth is the citizens put this country in danger. Those greedy bankers - they're our neighbors. People who went out and bought way too much house - they're our neighbors (or were!). We can't expect our government to do something so many of us (including myself) aren't willing to do - spend less, save more, and realize that despite our problems, we are, by far, the wealthiest nation in the world... But we can't keep going at this rate. From: ME The government needs to spend less. Save money maybe not but spend less yes. There is so much waste you know those porky amendments that someone said we did not care about. I care about them. The bridge to no-where was a project that needed to be cut and it was. The MO. Senator Clare M. said that of the $787 billion dollar stimulus package 5% will probably be misused. I’m sorry isn’t 5% of $787 almost $40 Billion dollars. That is a little bit excessive to me. If they had that extra $40 billion they could probably pay for better health care for everyone. Germany and France are both supposed to have better health care than us. But they pay like somewhere around 50% in taxes. So if everyone pays 50% in taxes the poor person making minimum wage now has less money to take home. So do we then raise minimum wage to help increase the persons take home pay. If so then the business will have to raise the costs of goods and we are just making one big crazy circle and no one is going to be better off. From: D Again, we can't ask the government to do something we're individually unwilling to do. If you think there is a way we can spend less but keep our on-the-ropes economy from crashing, I'd love to hear it. Or maybe you can ask Glenn Beck his ideas... From: Me So do you think the $40 billion in wasted spending is helping the economy or maybe help “Contributors”? If the government did not waste so much money it would be easier. OK maybe not easier to swallow but it might not hurt as bad. I’m not a big Glenn Beck fan but Dr. Michael Savage on the other had. He is the man. He is on 710 AM from 5:05 PM till 8 PM. You should check him out he has some pretty good ideas. I’m just glad we can still be friends even though we don’t see eye to eye on this. At least we still have running. The link you sent was interesting but I’ve been told to be leery of the government saying I’m here to help. From: D Of course we'll be friends, Scotty - you don't even have to say that. I love you even when you're wrong... From: Me Wrong or not if this passes and Private insurance goes broke. Then we have many more thousands of people to and to the almost 10% unemployment and one of them could be LG. LG I could use a nanny. I have a spare bedroom with its own bath. It would be pretty simple job feeding and bathing a 38 year old man. From: J.M. Scotty, We aren't always as far off as you might think. I too am completely fed up with wasted spending. Everyone is, except our government. My issue is when a Rep tries to claim only Dems add wasted spending. (yes, Dems say the same thing the other way; I don't like that either). ALL politicians are keeping this system going. Don't use it against each other instead of discussing resolving issues. As to your 50% tax scenerio and the poor. I know you don't agree, but things would be much better if the uber rich paid more taxes and the poor didn't pay as much. By the way ALL of us on this thread are considered low enough not to get a tax increase in my opinion. But the fat cats can afford it. They need the poor and "middle class" to spend $$ on the products that make them so much $$. From: L.G. I disagree that the ultra wealthy should have higher taxes, percentage wise, than everyone else. Unfair. “they can afford it” is relative. I can afford to eat out each weekend – does that mean I should give that money to the poor so they can go out to eat instead? From: J.M. You do not fall in the category of those that should pay more. Not even close. And yes, it is fair. If I made $200,000 a year I would gladly pay more % than the poor or even you to make this a better country to live in. (Let alone the people that make 7 figures plus). Contrary to Scott's belief, we are all in this together and the poor are our problem; or will certainly become our problem if we keep down this road of separating the poor and wealthy farther and farther apart. From: L.G. I know that I don’t fall into the ultra wealthy, but the analogy does call for exact numbers. I think that the poor are our problem as well, but should be helped through the church. Not through govt - mandated giving. From: J.M. Because the church is doing such a good job of taking care of them now? I go to church and I wouldn't trust them. They've proven that already. The problem is too big for the church and many in the church are as greedy as corporate America. From: L.G. Why don’t you start your own nonprofit and take donations from people who know you and want to give - and give the $ fairly to the deserving? That way you don’t’ have to “trust” the church? Get a staff of volunteers to help you. Think you could make fair and just decisions everytime on who gets what? I’m enjoying this debate. From: Me This is fun. I like Dave driving a BMW M3 around and having more. Which means someone else like Mark and Scott have less driving older cars but you do admit that you “haven't mustered the courage to act” yet. This is the kind of debate the country needs. From: L.G. I think Dave should drive us all around in the M3 and let us know what it’s like to have his life for just a minute. ; ) From: D Don't believe the hype. My M3 is worth a quarter AT MOST of any one of your houses. Having less is more means ALL assets, not just the ride. Though it is pretty pimpin'... Believe it or not, I have always felt this was my first calling. My father was a huge proponent of a limit to assets. He thought any healthy economy should have one. I expanded that to say no one can intake more than a million dollars in any given year. Anything you accumulate more than that automatically gets taxed back into the system. This balances free market with socialism. It PREVENTS an imbalance in rich versus poor. But, people trip when you suggest a system like this... From: J.M. Blasphemy Dave!!! You Socialist commy. From: D See! Plus, I decided I wanted a long life and making myself an enemy of the rich was just not reconcilable with long life... From: J.M. Just makin' fun of ya D. Don't think I'm for something that drastic though. Let's not all forget, in todays world this actually goes beyone the US. Don't think the poor in other parts of the World don't effect us. Adding that to the equation REALLY makes it difficult. We definately have thousands of more years of evolution to ever hope to have a World of equality ( or something relatively close ). From: D I know you were - I was joking. And your world view is EXACTLY the scope I'm thinking with. We are the Roman Empire of our time. All you have to do is watch 60 Minutes to see the effects of our materialism on others. They just did an expose on what happens with our electronic (devices) waste. Guess where that old computer monitor we threw away goes. We all know it isn't in this country. Thinking only of our borders is simply inexcusable today. The world is getting smaller... From: J.M. We'll probably ruin it someday. Have to leave like that show A.E something? From: Me You guys are crazy. If we throw away a monitor and it goes to Guam. It is kind of like the carbon tax thing. We use a lot of carbon and you do not so we will pay you to keep from using the carbon. That keeps the other country down. If they want to keep receiving our money they will not industrialize. It’s a win win. I think. From: D Sorry, Scott - that made absolutely no sense to me. You're saying that we pay them to pollute their country with our waste and that is a win-win situation? From: Me We win by not polluting our country and they win because they get paid for it. I was being a little bit sarcastic, because I’m not for the Carbon Credit market either. |
| 9/1/2009 Consulting firms are just out to get more business. A good consulting firm tries their best to stretch out the problem as long as they can without really coming up with a true solution. Example I was in a 4 hour meeting today to discuss the revamping of our intranet. This meeting was doomed from the start because it had too many people involved. Three from my department alone then you have a project manager and some upper management then the consultants. The first 25 minutes were people bragging about their titles. Big deal let’s just get to the meeting. Oh now we had a 20 page presentation that we had to go over line by line and page by page. Now if I was presenting this to a company I would probably asked about the current environment before I even arrived so I would have something to tell them about their setup and some examples to show them of what we can do. Not this guy. He starts out by telling us how horrible the site is and that we not only have a bad website but a communications problem also. The good thing is he knows how to solve it. You see your ecosystem needs to be cross pollinated his words not mine. The website has no soul. Communication is change and change is communication. He also said there was no branding on the site. It's a damn intranet. What do you need to brand an intranet for? Do people not know where they work? This guy through around catch phrases like no one I’d ever heard before. “Your company relies on email to much you need a cultural shift, you need a communications constitution, you need to pump the nucleolus.” Pump the nucleolus? What the hell! And the people were hanging on his every word. Then one of the big shots spoke up he does not like the current site. OK. He would like the new site to have some kind of “SURPRISE” you know something that changes and makes him want to come back to it more often. Yes this genius makes more money than me. We set everyone’s home page to the intranet so coming back to it is not a big deal. Making the site more functional sounds like it would be a good goal. On page 19 of a 20 page document they asked about our current environment. And we skipped that page because we wanted to wrap up the meeting. Oh yea the guy used the word “governance” at least six times in one meeting. What a tool. OK so my opinion is, if you are having a meeting and you have more than 4 people in it the meeting better be about making a profit. Not about something that has no chance to make a profit. At one point in the meeting one of the big shots asked the consultant about ROI. Wow it was like a bomb went off in the room for a moment. Then the consult said “It is hard to judge ROI on an intranet site.” And the subject was dropped just as fast as it came up. So after 4 hours of meeting the consulting firm thinks they have enough information to go back to their office and create some examples of websites and we will have another meeting to discuss what they figured out in a week. That was a total waste of 4 hours I will never get back. And a complete money looser for the company, since it took up about 40 people hours and probably everyone of them makes at least the same amount of money as me. |
| 8/29/2009 OK I’m not 100% heartless. Some of the comments I’ve received are what about the old people or the handicapped people they need insurance. I get that I’m thinking right now the average life span for me in the US is 78. So let’s change the Social Security age for me to 70 year and tier it like they do now. So if you draw on it at 70 you get less per month then you do if you draw it at 71 or 72. Women live slightly longer so you change the scale, although women in my family have always out lived the men by a substantial number of years. If a child is born ill, I think the child should be insured so the parents don’t have any more stress than they already have. But then I think of the Shiners’ Hospital where it is funded by charity. So I think we could take care of the children with minor changes to the current system. Now for lazy people that just want to draw Medicaid we have a panel; like a death panel but modified. You want Medicaid stand up or roll up here and let us talk to you. OK you were in an accident and you lost part of your foot. So you can no longer do your job as a foot model you don’t get Medicaid. You get to go to trade school and learn different carrier like a hand model. I know what you are thinking who is going to pay for the trade school and how… RAISE TAXES. That would not be my answer. We could figure out how much money the government would save from having this person on disability and take a portion of that money to educate him or her. Then make the person pay it back with little or no interest. There is so much fraud in Medicare and Medicaid the government should clean it up before taking on more duties. |
| 8/27/2009 I heard the Democrats want to name the National Health Care bill Kennedy Care. Go for it you do-gooders. You just don't seem to understand that the American people that work don't want to pay for Americans or "undocumented" citizens insurance. The government has a hard time running Medicare and Medicaid lets add more people to the problem. Unemployment is almost to 10% what do you plan to do with the insurance industry employees make the government employees? That would be perfect then you could give them all raises and just charge it to the tax payers. I feel that a lot of the time the government wants to do something to help the people but then never think about the un-intended consequences until it is too late. I’m not sure who first said this but I liked it so here is the quote “Sometimes doing nothing is doing something.” |
| 8/26/2009 What sets me apart from the Republicans is most of them are sell outs. I'm for protecting the borders. Notice how I said borders pleural because I want to protect both the north and south borders. This does not make me a raciest. I think the Republicans like the cheap labor. And they also don’t want to close the borders because they think that by keeping them open they have a chance of getting the Mexican vote. Even though the Mexican people are Catholic and mostly prolife that is not going to get them to vote Republican. Reasons to close the borders: If the Republicans want to outsource jobs I think we should outsource our Prisons. Currently we spend something like $50,000 per year to house prisoners. That is crazy. I bet we could ship them down to Mexico for about a third the price. |
| 8/26/2009 My opinions are conservative not Republican conservative but conservative none the less. I'm for first and second amendments as you will soon see. I was thinking about making this part of the site a blog but I don't know if I will be able to keep the content fresh. |