Freedom

It is easy to stand up for what you believe in, It is much harder and by far more nobel to stand up for the rights of those you do not agree with. At least that is my opinion.

Remember during the Iraq invasion, there were a bunch of people protesting the start of the war and then the was various groups protesting the on going war, blackwater and all kinds of stuff.

To which many on the right called the protesters unamerican or unpatriotic. They should protest our president's decisions and all kinds of crap.

Now the roles are reversed, the tea party is getting slammed by those on the left.

Both of these piss me off, freedom means freedom for those that do not agree with you. It is not unAmerican to protest anything any president does. In fact I would counter that it is largely a uniquely American thing. Most countries do not swing from as far right to as far left as we do. France for example moves from the left towards the middle but never really turns conservative.

As much as I disagree with the teaparty movement I support their right to march protest organize and say what ever they want.

Also I think, the more they say the more likely it is they'll end up serving as a catalyst to help obama win in 2012. If the tea party managers to push the GOP right of Bush, the middle will not go. As much as the left and the right extremists want to claim their way is the best, Americans are largely centrists.

That is all I have. I was listening to the news and they were being condesending to the tea party for being the tea party, that i do not like.

Out of balance

SO I sent, my balance post to the fine folks at Hershey's reformatted as an email, they actually responded.

"Thank you for contacting The Hershey Company.

Your comments about REESE'S Big Cup Peanut Butter Cup Candy are important. Our goal is to develop products, promotions, and advertising with widespread consumer appeal. It is disappointing to learn that your expectations were not met. Comments such as yours are valuable and provide input into future planning.


This email address is restricted for outgoing messages only. For that reason, please do not respond to this email as the inbox is not monitored.

We appreciate your loyalty as a consumer."

Which means well nothing of importance, but it does mean that I am so skilled in shirking my work duties, that I can get people I've never met at companies, I've never been too, to shirk their duties to respond to nonsense emails.

Balance!!!

Life is all about balance. the Yin and Yang, good and evil. that sorta thing, most of the time I don't think about this, but every now and again something reminds you balance is key.

Today I tried a Reese's Big Cup. My review is zero stars, these just suck. They look deceptively similar to regular reese's cups but they're bigger. However they're mostly bigger due to having more peanut butter without a corresponding increase in chocolate.
Thus when you bite into a reese's big cup the ratio peanut butter to chocolate is not the same as when you bite into the perfection of chocolate and peanut butter harmony that is a reese's peanut butter cup.

The 2 great tastes that taste great together, are much better together in the proper ratio!.

reasons I am against health care reform

I suppose I shoudl add the way it is proposed. I mean I am for health care reform, just not the current plan which does nothing but tax the middle class under the guise of health care.

1. I hate government mandates. The only way this plan reduces costs is if everyone buys health insurance. Meaning healthy young people that don't buy it now, are going to be forced to buy. I am not say they shouldn't have health insurance, I seriously do like the government telling them how they can spend the money they don't take from them in taxes.

2. Why would they tax individuals making over 200 and married couples over 250? I know of at least one couple that got divorced solely for tax reasons. This is a potentially huge reason to not get married, if your rich. I would love to have this problem, which I don't. But say I made 500k mostly on interst and dividends and say I can gift an unlimited amount to my wife. right now there is no payroll tax on any of the interest and dividends. But if this law passes, they'll tax 250 of it, but if i give 1/2 of it to the wife, we get divorced, now they'll tax 150 of it, how the hell does that make sense?

3. Since this whole health care debate began when the DEMS won in 2008, Health care stocks have soared. Do you really think this is going to be bad for them?

4. OVer on opensecrets.org, you can see who gives what to congressmen.
My congressman is Ed Perlmutter, the 3 highest industry on his was health professionals and forth was insurance. I am sure he is fighting to reform health care to the detrimint of insurance companies.

5. I don't like that the Dems will not hold a vote in the senate. The rules are teh rules for a reason. I also think, that if the dems do this and lose the congress, if the GOP excludes them from everything, well you get what you deserve.

This is a rather boring post, but I am a liberal guy, who thinks the dems have turned health care reform from a good thing into a way to get more money from insurance companies.

Make Lemonade

So i was eating my lunch and on web, and I saw a link and I clicked on it.  Then I saw a link and I clicked on it.  I ended up at the page of some little Alabama girls CaringBridge site.  To be honest I don't know how I got there.  I certainly didn't mean to end up there, this little girl is neither my friend nor my family, and it felt really really intrusive for me to be there.  I didn't read it, as soon as i realized where i was i left the site, but not before I started thinking.  I hope she is okay!

Again it got me thinking, how good I have it right now.  I mean my little girl is as far as i know healthy.
There is nothing else I can really even hope for without a bit of shame of my greed.  I have a healthy family, what else really matters?  Nothing.

Anyway, this reminded me of the story I had heard a while back about Alexandra Scott.  She was a little girl battling cancer, who started a lemonade stand to raise money for her hospital.   She died at age 8.   Her foundation has raised over 30MM since she started it for cancer research.

The foundation is called Alex's Lemonade Stand.  

I am thankful, I don't have to deal with a sick child, hopeful that I will not have to.  Anyway, This month I made my charitable donation to this foundation.  Like the St. Jude people say "give thanks for the healthy kids in your life and give to those who are not."

Crystal Moon - World of Grayham (Book 1) (Worlds of the Crystal Moon)

I hate bull fighting

So i was watching 60 mintues, but only like 20 mintues of the show over the weekend and I saw a piece on bull fighting.  I am not really sure what it was about, it had 2 brothers that were bull fighters whose father had been killed doing it.  anyway the piece is here.

This is what I learned, I wouldn't watch someone kick a dog until it died.  If i saw a person kicking a dog, for fun, get hit by a bus, I would think, there is some charma.  This is how I view bull fighting.   To take pleasure from toruring the animal is just plain wrong, as far as i am concerned the only good bull fights are the ones where the sick mofos fighting the bulls get gored.

Not sure why i watched this, but it rubbed me the wrong way.

I am one lucky fellow!

I was thinking the other day, I have to good.  I mean I shouldn't be too boastful as the other shoe will likely drop without any warning, but as for now I have it good.

completely unrelated to the prior sentence but the older I get the more I think old men with young girls is just plain creepy.   It may have to do with my having a daughter, but I doubt it, as I had developed this opinion long before the arrivial of my baby girl.  (side note, I need to think of a cool nickname to refer to her as on here).  Anyway, I saw a new story the other day where they were interview a convicted sex offeneder that had raped a 16 year old, or 3 or them or some such detail I didn't need to know and didn't pay that close of attention too.  What I noticed was dude was like 50 or 60.  That is just wrong.  When I was 16 I thought I was all grown up, now when I see high school kids, I think they're just kids.


I am in my thirites, rapidly running out of thirties, but never mind that for now.  I have a sectacularly beautiful wife, that is super hot. In part becuase she is a woman and not a girl.   Over on the magic website, I have lots of friends from high school and college and the likes, and what I have noticed of late is that the girls that I thought were pretty when I was 17 and 20 have become beautiful women.  Not that I want anything from them, and maybe they're all using pictures from glamor shots, but I some people grow into adult hood with grace and dignity, which makes them at least in a photo look like they improved over the last 20  years or so.  I don't know.

I do know that I wish I had improved over the last 20 years, but well, I haven't.  Well unless you stand me next to my family, my wife, daughter and dog are are a photgenic lot and just standing next to them makes it look like I have it going on.   Which is clearly an illusion, however, I have a little over a year to get myself into tip top shape to go to my high school reunion.

Actually that was a joke, that didn'tme across very well.  I need to get into shape for lots of reasons, none of which is to impress people I have not seen since  bon jovi was popular.