A Tribute to the Nation's Warriors

My heartfelt thanks to all of the nation's fighting men and women. I deeply appreciate your dedication to the safety of this country and our allies around the world.

John Stuart Mills once wrote "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

You, the Warrior class, are the "better men" Mills describes. I pray that you will forget that tiny minority who fail to value your sacrifice and remember only that "We the People" are in your court.

If You Don't Like The Weather...

I left work this evening a little before 6. The truck's thermometer usually reads a couple of degrees high after sitting in the parking lot all day and the 108 on the display was obviously a little above ambient. It was probably about 104.

I turned out onto Parmer Lane and could see more of the northeast hemisphere where the intensely sunny skies transitioned to dense, dark storm clouds. Within three minutes I had traveled no more than two miles from the office and the outside temperature had plummeted to 84 degrees and rain was breaking over the hood in waves. Two miles later the thermometer read 78 degrees and the now-waterlogged rush hour was down to a crawl.

By the time I covered the 7 miles to I-35 the storm had passed and only the lightest of sprinkles still reached the truck. Another 6 or 7 miles and I turned the corner onto our county road and turned the truck headlights off because no one in the area suspected there were storms in the vicinity. I noticed the thermometer was back up to 98 degrees.

So a 25 or 30 minute commute took me from an exaggerated 108 degrees to a stormy 78, back to a hot, sunny 98.

Yes, I survived an ancient weather cliche this evening, one of those timeless cliches based on real-life experience.

It was vewy, vewy quiet this morning

Our modern world has a ton of background noise, even in the wee hours at the beginning of the day, and I woke up to dead silence this morning. The alarm clock was blank, my first official notice something was amiss. My reliable and battery-backed-up watch said it was 5:39 AM.

"No problem, the electricity is never off very long, it'll be back in a few seconds." I stayed put, watching the ceiling fan do nothing while a random synapse misfire in the back of my mind wondered if June 17th was a special day to some goofy terrorist organization. A few seconds of introspection sped by until reality kicked back in and I realized that the ceiling fan was still not moving so it would soon be getting HOT! I know, it's only June 17th, but this is central Texas, we often start summer in April.

The next thing I noticed was a lack of beeping or other electronic alarms. Such noise is common around our abode when the uninterruptable power supplies lose their feeds. Nothing but silence, so the power had been off for quite a while.

I put on some clothes and walked out onto the driveway. The new subdivision across the street had working streetlights, but the church next door had no lights on their sign. No lights on the school to the northeast and nothing down the street to the south. Two doors down Jim's big American flag was hanging proudly, a pleasant sight as the sun came up but the lights around it were not lit. Another synapse misfire: "Does that change them into darks?"

Coffee is always nice when waking earlier than normal, but the pot's electric and finding the propane camp stove or firing up the motor home's generator is out of the question. Seriously, there's a McDonalds 2.5 miles away, I could have a cup on my table in 8 minutes without using my own hydrocarbons for direct electricity generation.

Real life must go on, might as well get ready for work

It's a good thing the master bath has a window. It's an especially good thing for me and my cube neighbors at work that my last water heater replacement was a 50 gallon model not a tankless. For the non-techies in the audience, this means I had hot water for my shower. A tankless requires electricity to heat the water as it is used, my old fashioned tanked model keeps a quantity of water hot at all times. This makes them somewhat less efficient than tankless, but the water remains hot for a while when the electricity is off. No wind so turbines would not have been a solution. The sun was just coming up so even a huge solar array would not have heated the water for a shower. Score one for inefficiency!

I would have gotten online or on the TV to see how widespread the electric outage was, but alas, no electron flow means no electron to photon conversion, and no information superhighway data to display. So much for maintaining a normal morning routine.

Another strange thought: I really hope that was toothpaste.

And where's the cat, did the 15 or 20 minutes of UPS beeping drive him underground?

I was dressed and all ready for work at about 6:30. My wife was already taking the day off but I thought I'd wake her as I left in case her morning plans involved electricity. I was literally reaching towards her shoulder when the LED on the front of the computer flickered then stayed on. The power was back, ceiling fans running, computers booting, life would soon be back to normal!

I say all of this to make the point that there is a reason electricity is also referred to as "power". It can do great things when working properly even if we treat it as nothing but a commodity and take it for granted. But when it's out, it suddenly becomes very, very important.

In some odd way, the lack of electricity was more noticeable that its presence, for no reason other than it has been present every morning of my life. That, more than the repair of this morning's outage, is a far more important accomplishment. Is this a great country or what!?!

It Takes a Village

As First Lady, Hillary Clinton was way ahead of her time in a number of ways. Mostly comedic and occasionally evil, but let's take a look back anyway.

In pushing for health care reform, or "Hillary Care" as many knew it, she once made the comment that "All children have the right to be born healthy". Why is this funny? Simple, she didn't believe children had the right to be born at all, so by adding the "healthy" qualifier she merely pointed out the hypocrisy of the pro-abortion, pro-healthcare-reform political left.

She also famously said that it takes a village to raise a child, irritating many with her anti-parent bias in context. I only bring this up now because of a cartoon I saw earlier.

The gators' image struck a nerve while another blog on tax rates was percolating. See, my wife and I both work to support our household. Our combined total income is well under the $250,000 limit the President campaigned on as a limit below which no taxes would be increased, but we have been very, very blessed with good jobs allowing us to fulfill our goal to pay for the kids' college education.

But, now that the President has recommended a 20% VAT, directed that the Bush tax cuts be allowed to expire, and suggested raising many other taxes (crude oil production, cigarettes, luxuries like new cars, electricity production, food costs, etc) it has become pretty obvious that the campaign promise was nothing but hot air, and that the goal of left wing politicos may actually be to destroy the productive middle class of this nation.

If the direct taxes (VAT, oil, income) are increased or newly created, and the cost-increases-by-decree ("green" power, more expensive cars, expensive food requirements) continue to escalate without limit, more and more of the working middle class will become unable to take care of their own financial needs. If my wife and I can't handle those needs through hard work and cutting expenses, either our standards will have to drop or someone else (namely the government) will need to fill in the gap. Perhaps this is the "it takes a village" mentality Hillary had in mind almost 20 years ago. What a poor excuse for leadership, both then and now.

I believe in the greatness of this Nation. With the euro circling the drain because of the European continent's tendency towards socialism, the United States is truly the world's last, best hope.

November can't get here soon enough!!!

"Here ya go" is not a replacement for "Thank You"

One recent Saturday my wife and I were running errands. Our mission was to pick up a few necessities and a few luxury items along the way. The first stop was a frustrating 1 for 3 event at Sears where the lawn department staff had nothing to offer close to my "line trimmer" specs, and the sporting goods staffer went into excruciating, patronizing detail to tell us how to break down the online drawings to find the part number.

These stops were frustrating because I've used a weed eater for decades and know how to use them. I know what I need, and it's really not the tiller attachment or high-priced quick-change line spools. Frustrating also because the first thing we presented to the sporting goods clerk was the exact part number he spent 4 or 5 minutes showing us how to find.

Seriously, listen to your customer first then find an accurate solution. It's a weed eater not rocket science, and we had already done the part number research for you!

And then while paying way too much for a refrigerator water filter the guy I gave my hard earned money to handed me the receipt and said "here ya go."

Not the normal "Thank you" or "We appreciate your business", or even "Please come back soon"

"Here ya go."

Strange.

Anyway, we scooted down the road to the camera shop to check out a graduated neutral density filter. After a few minutes being introduced to a new model, I made the purchase and the guy handed me the receipt and credit card with today's key phrase "Here ya go".

To paraphrase Yogi Berra, it was Deja vu all over again.

Sure, that's why I shop there, so you can personally hand me the receipt. "Here ya go".

Knock, knock, it's 2010. The real unemployment rate is over 20%. Stores are going out of business literally all the time. And rather than thanking me for delivering them the means to stay in business and remain employed, two consecutive salesman handed me the receipt and said "Here ya go".

And since both purchases were entirely optional, non-emergency and really no more than commodities, next time I'll save the gasoline and not be swayed by the easy instant gratification, and I'll just order them online. Seriously, if you can't distinguish yourself from true commodity service with the slightest awareness of your customers, then what is the value you add to the transaction relationship?

"Here ya go" right back at ya!

How it's worded, versus how it's received

"My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government." Barack Hussein Obama, the next former President quoted at breitart.com

I understand now.

He was talking about an unprecedented LOW level of openness.

Yes, we all assumed the best, so it really is our fault for interpreting it the wrong way.

This is the problem of modern politics, a speaker delivers a carefully worded statement, say from a teleprompter, and each member of the audience interprets the words through his or her own filtering mechanism. In the example above, most listeners probably assumed he meant that the openness would improve from our perspective, causing a better view of what happens within government. Only the most cynical would have predicted the change to an almost totally "behind closed doors" mode so publicly despised by the current practitioners.

The same people said we would have a minimum of 5 days to review legislation before it was signed (although that's far too late for any kind of change), but none of the major bills have had anywhere near that time. Most recently we only had 36 hours for the health care reform bill.

According to dictionary.com, reform really only means change, the direction of change has not yet been defined. Apparently to those in favor of owning "health care reform", reform means they get to own it, the quality of service is irrelevant.

Likewise, health insurance is not the same as health care, even when some choose to use the words interchangeably.

Matthew 7:15-20 tells us to pay attention, more words to live by.

Peeling the Onion of the Deceit

Another glimpse into their mindset arrived last week as San Fran Nan was begging for support. Her excuse for her behavior paints her as totally out of touch with her constituents: "We have to pass this so you can see what's in it!".

Isn't it a major component of our representative form of government for the elected (that's Pelosi and company) to represent the electorate (that's us)?

So how in the world does she expect us (the electorate) to tell the elected (Pelosi and company) how to represent us if we can't provide feedback? And how can we provide feedback if we don't know what they're doing until they're finished?

Surely they aren't so simple that they think they can do anything they want after their election, are they?

Her remark is right in line with Obama's (now-voided) promise to let us review all major legislation before he signs it. By the time it gets to the President's desk it's too late for the people to have any influence on it.

Was this campaign promise merely a distraction to pacify his unthinking supporters?

Or do they really believe that the people should not be able to influence the work of our representatives?