It's only torture if it's not legal and there's a law.

Very interesting the way people pose "Water Boarding." The people in the field doing it say it's controlled drowning. While others say is simulated drowning. If it's not stopped then the person will drown so it sounds like the person being water boarded is getting drowned to me. Saying it's not torture because there isn't a law and if there was a law saying it was legal then it's not torture. The the Attorney General was asked if he had it done to him was it torture, he said yes. I think before the pass a law that any law maker need to have to have been water boarded to see if it's torture or only simulated drowning. After all this was a technique use in the Spanish Inquisition and that where the church was doing some rather nasty stuff. So I guess next they will be passing laws on "The Rack" saying it's simulated stretching. That "The Iron Madden" is simulated punctures.

What gets me is that if another country used that on our citizen or military it's illegal and it has been for many-many years. It's on the books that way but now it seems that you could be in "That Group," "Those People" who are out to get us. After all it's us or "Them, right?

Then again you could be labeled one of those without a trial and be held without a trail in some jail in another country where no one even know where you are. So I guess you need to watch out what you say and to whom you say it. Never check out a library book, read it there. Because "They" are watching.

Social Security, One way to save it or witl help it.

You've got to read this all the way through to the bottom.

I HEREWITH FIRMLY STATE THAT I WILL NOT VOTE FOR ANY POLITICIAN, REGARDLESS OF THE OTHER ISSUES, IF HE DOES NOT SPONSOR AND SUPPORT THE FOLLOWING LEGISLATION. THAT INCLUDES EVERYONE STANDING FOR ELECTION IN 2008.
LET US SHOW OUR LEADERS IN WASHINGTON "PEOPLE POWER" AND THE POWER OF THE INTERNET. LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE WITH ME ON THIS BY FORWARDING TO EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK.

IT DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU ARE REPUBLICAN OR DEMOCRAT!

KEEP IT GOING!!!!
2008 Election Issue !!

GET A BILL STARTED TO PLACE ALL POLITICIANS ON SOC. SEC.

This must be an issue in "2008" Please! Keep it going.

----------------------------------

SOCIAL SECURITY:

(This is worth reading. It is short and to the point.)

Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years.

Our Senators and Congresswomen do not pay into Social Security and, of course, they do not collect from it.

You see, Social Security benefits were not suitable for persons of their rare elevation in society. They felt they should have a special plan for themselves. So, many years ago they voted in their own benefit plan.

In more recent years, no congressperson has felt the need to change it. After all, it is a great plan.

For all practical purposes their plan works like this:

When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die.

Except it may increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments..

For example, Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000.00 (that's Seven Million, Eight-Hundred Thousand Dollars), with their wives drawing $275, 000.00 during the last years of their lives.

This is calculated on an average life span for each of those two Dignitaries.

Younger Dignitaries who retire at an early age, will receive much more during the rest of their lives.

Their cost for this excellent plan is $0.00. NADA..! ZILCH...

This little perk they voted for themselves is free to them. You and I pick up the tab for this plan . The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Funds;

" OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK "!

From our own Social Security Plan, which you and I pay (or have paid) into, every payday until we retire (which amount is matched by our employer). We can expect to get an average of $1,000 per month after retirement.

Or, in other words, we would have to collect our average of $1,000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one (1) month to equal Senator! Bill Bradley's benefits!

Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made.
That change would be to:

Jerk the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under the Senators and Congressmen. Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us

Then sit back.....

And see how fast they would fix it.
If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe good changes will evolve.
How many people CAN you send this to?
Better yet......
How many people WILL you send this to?

Snow Day

No day here all day. Finally snow and moisture but my creek that used to run all years still hasn't started running. Other changes that I've noticed, it's snowing and I have mosquitoes and pigeons which in the past only came in summer. Last year I had coastal bird here for the winter which is 150 miles away and 50 miles north. I don't leave that to misguided birds but a change in the weather patterns. There are also several type of sage starting to show up in the last few years.
I'm so amazed at the little birds and how they can tolerate the weather here. Under normal conditions this place without a house would have been a harsh place to live. It wouldn't have been a normal place to travel because of the rocky hills, dense brush and rapidly changing weather. In the summer it's too hot and the winter it's too cold. Still the wild life lives as long as they have enough space left to live. looking at the country side with Google Earth and World Wind a great NASA program you can see the land looks like it has a infection or rash with blotches of cleared land. Fences are another problem for wild life preventing there travel for food. If it wasn't for the gold rush this place would sill be a undeveloped. Now it's taken on a new roll where people come to retire from the bay area. A lot of old hippies that wanted to be with nature moved here. Then there are the rich who can buy large plots of cheap land and build their Mc Mansions. This is a place where the animals need the space to travel because there isn't that much natural food and humans are bringing in plants that don't belong here and they use lots more water then indigenous plants. Again I bring up the people of Easter Island and how they perished. This is a same type of ecosystem that will have the same outcome for animals and humans. With the clearing of the lands the water shed is being removed causing water to run off the mountain and foot hills rather then soaking in to the ground, that's why my creek isn't running all year round these days like it used to.

"The Speech" keep on doing the same

Nothing new just took an hour of my time. It's full speed the same. More war spending. He did say he would start funding the vets after cutting their budget for that past 7 years. He still wants to privatize Social Security saying that something bad will happen in the future if we don't do something now. Well, if you didn't spend the 75 trillion dollars that were suppose to be set aside then it would still be there.

Bush is still the axes of evil and it radiates out to his friends and families. Big money talks and the rest of us just have to eat crap.

If you think your rich, rich starts at about 800 million dollars. The rest of the people are the lower class unless your giving a donation to the campaign then they have their hand out and smile and promise you the moon. After they are elected they wouldn't piss on you is you were on fire.

The Future of North America

A couple interesting links I became aware of. I'd say they are a bit disturbing as far as the future of the country and our liberties. It's one step towards a one world totalitarian government or corporation.

The secrete law that was past to take over the country and provide the president king like powers over our system of government without any checks and balances. If this is enacted the president could wage war with any country without the approval of congress.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/20070509-12.html

A few ideas about the North American Union and the future of what big business has in store for the people of North America along with the change in our money.
http://www.youtube.com/v/vuBo4E77ZXo&rel=1

As far as global warming goes, it seems that big business hears the peoples concerns but plans to do nothing about it but fill the TV screens with dancing elephants and tell us how good they are and the coal and oil are clean fuels. Trucks driving down the road with rainbows which mean nothing because the diesel engine is the dirtiest engine and produces a substance that if you smell it and your breathing that smell it's like breathing asbestos. Something that the trucking industry has been covering up for 70 years. Misinformation will be the way of the future along with fear. Fighting the ultimate war a enemy that you can't see or find. It's a new world order where the government reads your mail, your email, listens to your phone call and tracks your every move.

Sounds of Silence

The storm has past. The winds are down to nothing but a calm nothing. A light dusting of snow is on the branches and everything not in contact with the wet ground. Last night was a different story with the wind whipping and rain falling along with branches. Things were hitting the house but I didn't go out to find out what the noises were, it was safer and warmer inside. I heard the UPS units trip and alarms go off, that's when I turned the computer off. I didn't even notice the lights dim or flicker but wasn't going to take any chances. The security light was turning on due to the movement outside. There was nothing there but wind and rain. The little birds are out looking for seeds to eat silently. A squirrel is here eating sun flower seeds that I throw out along with some cracked corn for them. Life's hard for the little creatures of the forest. They don't get a break if the weathers bad out, they need to eat no matter what. I saw a raccoon on the porch as I was getting ready for bed, it was all wet with it's hair sticking together. It didn't mind me looking out the door because food was the only thing on her mind. It was a hash night for them all but now it's calm like an empty room. The ground is moving with the little bodies of the Juncos, sparrows, doves and the one squirrel. There's seeds under the snow on the picnic table and the birds are getting them out by flapping there wings to blow the snow away. I wouldn't say I was scared last night but it was an ere feeling Time to make a cup of coffee and watch the little birds with wonder.

In Memory of Lttle Guy

"Little Guy" crossed "The Great River" this morning at 5:56 am.

What about that melting ice?

As I remember from geology. There has been several ice ages. After the last one melted back the great lakes were formed. As the ice retreated towards the North pole area the land which was once covered lost a lot of weight. As I remember the land raised up to balance out from the loss of 1 mile of ice on it. Just wonder what's going to happen when the ice melts at Greenland, will the whole land mass lift up, will other areas sink? It's all floating on the earths mantel and that's all in balance. Just a thought, if Greenland goes up then some other areas will go down. Of course there must be some earthquake associated with that too. The crust which behaves like a plastic still will get cracks. Just wonder what areas that will effect.

Evangelical, the idiot vote

Evangelical the idiot vote because they haven't learned in seven years that some one that says they are church going evangelical are not moral and don't have ethics. They want another four years of a Bush like look a like. You have to remember evangelicals do not believe in science but myths. When it comes to picking a person with morals, republicans have no morals and support big business and will be shipping your jobs over seas. Then again you have to think about those inbred red states, you never hear someone say, "I'm moving to Cow-sniffer, Texas because it more moral" or that it has better job opportunities. No, everyones moving to California because of the morals this state has because it's open minded, it has the best high tech jobs. Not to mention that the weather is better then getting flooded out every year or ice storms. The red states still have their heads in the sand following the leaders of their churches because they don't have minds of their own. They almost finished high school and don't need to learn anything more because they know it all. As far as saying those red states have morals then why is the divorce rate higher in red states then the blue states. When it comes to hate crime you only have to look and say it's a red state, that's what they do there, too much inbreeding. Now there's the people shooting up places, again red states, church goers. Reverent Ted the gay meth smoking preacher who didn't have sex with a man in Denver but a suburb of Denver, so he was telling the truth he didn't have sex with a man in Denver. Now he's cured of his gayness but he still can fart normal. Wonder if his wife is a back door person.

To hear those evangelicals say they are picking out a moral candidate, well we saw how they pick out a moral president last time, must be that short term memory loss because of smoking meth and they forgot what happened seven years ago. They forgot that this so called compassionate president started a war and has not only been blowing up unborn children but the mothers too. Mean while they still want to save embryos that a destine for the trash and prevent cell research thinking that scientist are going to make a Frankenstein human. Those same church goers still believe that Iraq had something to do with 9/11. They believe that weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. If any state needed a literacy test it would be the red states. Set a standard, you didn't get through high school you can't vote until you do. Let not forget the ranch hands that think being gay is wrong but love those sheep in a carnal way and think nothing of it.

DTV convertion for next year. Where's the Box?

After reading and searching thought page after page of text I found that the converter boxes that the government will give low income people won't start until January 1, 2009. They are allocating a set amount of money for coupons for this program but it seems too little for me. You house hold income can't be more then $19k which sounds like the majority of people out there before the price of flat screen TV's come down in price.

Looking up the prices of converter boxes that are on the market right now they range from $350 dollars and up. The government believes that they will come out with cheaper one that are about $50 dollars. They have a list on places that sell them but again the price is $350 dollars and up. One was over $2,000 so there must be some sort of program to get them cheaper. I see it as a big money making program for manufactures and people that sell them.

I looked into the chip that does the decoding of the digital signal and it's cost is around $13 dollars. How they are going to make a box that's in the $50 dollar range is going to be a good trick. You have to think some one has to make circuit boards. The price of all the chips that go on the circuit boards because it's not a one chip operation, just look at what it takes to decode satellite information. There also is the hardware to assemble the box such as screws, nuts and bolts. Since it works at such high frequencies there is going to be needed shielding to keep the noise in the box so it doesn't interfere with other electronic devices in your home.

From working in manufacturing and knowing how things are priced and marked up, the boxes have to be sold from the manufactures to the stores for about $25 dollars. The manufactures cost marks it up about 10 times the cost that they sell it for so that means the cost to the manufacture has to be around $2.50 dollars. That include labor and all the costs of all the parts. I don't know how they are going to bring the cost of the digital decoding chip at it's current cost.

What got me out of all this searching yesterday was how much reading I had to do searching for the coupon program only to find out it won't start until next year. Seems like there's going to be a big rush all at once next year to get boxes and what I can see is a lot of people are going to be left out. You'll have to look into some of the sites like I did. See how complex the laws are and how complex it is to figure out if you can get a coupon to buy a box. The TV ad that's on TV right now tells you about the switch and the web site to go to but going there doesn't tell you anything except how to hook it up, that there is a coupon program, why they are switching over but not the full store about that. You need to go to the government site to find out more and that's where it gets fun. Spend a day trying to figure out if you qualify for a coupon. Then try to find out if you can even find a box out there to buy because when you start looking the boxes on the market now are all discontinued.

A Special Morning, Cold and Crisp

A special morning for me here, different and unique, as I walked outside to see what was in the sky, I noticed it was one degree below freezing. I could see sparkling ice crystals covering everything. The moon was up and Venus was bright and in the trees making me wonder what it was. Had to check one of my astronomy programs to be sure. As I walked to the west side of the house the security light came on. I could see a skunk wandering around. He came up the steps following a scent he laid down like a dog does. He cut through the shrubs and came walking back towards me, sniffing the ground. When he got to me he smelled my slippers and kept walking. I stood there motionless not to startle him and have him run off before he had something to eat. I went in through the back door and walked over to the front door to see where he was. At first I didn't see him but soon he came walking up eating sunflower seeds left out for the birds and squirrels. The sky is starting to get light, sunrise will be in about an hour. Time for another cup off coffee. Now that it's getting light the skunk will go to bed and hide in the dark until tonight. They aren't as active as they were in the summer month. I don't know if it's the cold or longer night or if I just see them less then I did in the summer. That's when I saw them traveling as a family mom dad and the kids out foraging. They are more interested in exploring as they are in eating. You have to think of them as the cleaners that work at night to leave a fresh forest for the day. Out of all the wild life the skunks have been the most interesting and unique.

EPA says tail pipe gases are good for you

EPA sucking the tail pipes of big American car makers votes against California's law to reduce tail pipe emissions. Well there's a way around that, ban the American auto makers from coming into the state because they pollute to much. Well you had to expect this since it's Bush's buddy's in the EPA who are none scientist making policies. Since foreign car makers can make these standards it's time to send a message to Washington and Detroit. No more new American cars in California will fix the problem. If you want to play by Bush's rules then you need to take harsher measures. When a American car gets a smog check here and fails because it's not meeting the new California green house emission laws and you can't register the car but have to take it out of state and sell the cars.

George W. Bush, "Milk Toast of the Year"

Toast of the Year and George won again. Listening to the press conference I was wondering why the reported don't ask and good question. I forgot, these press conferences are scripted and Bush knows the questions before he starts. Bush needs a writer to talk and they are out of strike. Shooting from the hip Bush sounds like a country bumpkin that's drunk. After being a drunk for so many years he's still coming out of that wet brain state. His disjointed statement are examples that a substandard student can grow up to be president as long as you have a big business force behind him. Use Daddy's friends because when you were drunk you alienated all the people you once knew.

What I don't understand is why impeachment proceedings haven't started yet. If any people needed to be removed from office it's Bush and Chaney. With the lies told in the lead up to the Iraq ear, people, mostly shallow minded Evangelicals believe Bush has found WMD in Iraq. They also believe from all the lies that Al Quieda was involved in Iraq.

Why don't the reported ask Bush why he invaded Iraq. Why does he keep pushing the privatizing of the Iraqi oil fields. When does he project when the troops will be coming home, like in what day or year. That crap he give, "We will stand down when the Iraqis stand up. There are more mercenaries in Iraq then there are standard troop shooting up the place. So as I count there's over 500,000 troops able to fight there while the freedom fighters and people the they tortured are still fighting. The one independent poll on how many Iraqis have died since the start of the war is over 600,000. No mention on how many women barring unborn children have died but that doesn't matter because they didn't have an abortion but a bomb that killed them so that's okay.

He gave his "The economy is just fine" quote. What planet does he live on. Well the economy is going good for the real rich and the government is bailing out the investors of the sub prime mess. Funny how the rich never loss because they are connected and people pull strings for them. Mean while people can't go into bankruptcy because of the new laws. Even if you loose you house you still have to pay off that investor so he won't loose.

Bush was asked about the destruction of the torture tapes, (which America doesn't do.) He's claiming ignorance on this one which isn't so hard for him, or until they all get the story straight. It's not a couple tapes like I first thought but 200 to 300 hours of tapes. That's a truck load of tapes. Maybe that's what was burning in Chaney's office yesterday along with all the other secret papers that if gotten out would make this administration look worse then they already do.

Don't you wish Windows XP worked every time.

Still dealing with the Win32 error problem. So nice looking up on Microsoft's search engine and find out you have to buy a product not made by Microsoft to fix the problem. Be nice if XP worked without giving you an error message and tells you to restart the machine. Be even nicer if it would tell you what is going wrong. So I have a Win32 error and part of the problem is the SVCHOST.EXE problem. I know I can't get online to send the an error report because it says my modem is already being used. I downloaded the patch from Microsoft which is suppose to fix the problem but after restarting the machine for over an hour it finally works. What a great product. This first started after updating to Internet Explorer 7.0 and after that the rest is history, the Win32 error. I've been putting my computer into hibernate rather then turning it off so I won't have to deal with this problem since Microsoft hasn't figured it out yet. Looking up the problem on MSN's web site they have page after page of fixes and reasons for the error. I've noticed that Apple has a page for this problem for the people running Windows on their Apples. Nice to hear that Windows runs faster on a Mac also. Now Microsoft has come out with a new operating system, full of problems. People are buying new computers and taking off the new operating system. I just love getting something that doesn't work out of the box and where you need to spend days installing patches to fix the broken product.

Top it off, Microsoft has geared up with Ford to have crap in cars. I'm wondering how many updates and patches your going to need before it works. How many versions of the same product are you going to have to install.

I've been trying to install Windows Live for the past 9 hours. The program just stops. It thinks it working but then after stopping the program it comes up with the error, "Program stopped responding." Don't give up you just need to strat it over and over until it goes all in.

Frosty wet morning

It looked like the little birds could use some seeds. So I slipped on my fuzzy slipper and ventured out with a pound of seeds in a coffee can. I could see why the birds were having a hard time finding something to eat, the ground is covered with frost along with being wet from the rain from that past couple days. Still the birds need energy so they are out every day no matter what the weathers like. Rays of sun light is coming through the trees. Where it hits the cold frozen ground it's turning into a fog and steaming off. The sun on the wet leaves looks like a icy reflective surface. Still in the shade the ice crystals sparkle as I move by and the light refracts of them.

The hummingbird is getting breakfast and I think I need to fill the feeder up for the little bird. Some times when I'm outside the humming bird will fly right up to my face to check me out. See who is the nice guy putting food out for them. As soon as my eyes focus on how close the bird is to my face they fly away.

The little Oregon Junco's are back zipping around eating seeds. Suddenly they fly into the trees and shrubs as if danger was around. A silence is in my forest but soon broken and the birds are flying once again.

Yes it's a cold fall morning in paradise. Time to enjoy life with a cup of French Roast coffee and be amazed at the forest as it comes alive.

Wolf, Wolf, Wolf

"Don't believe those truth tellers," Bush said today. "Dick and I want to get that oil for our friends and Iran has lots of that." "So, I'm going to keep preaching fear until we start the next war. You know they have terrorist there?" "I still think they are working on a WMD and we're getten' the mind police on them."

"I want congress to give me money unconditionally so I can fund my Black Water friends." Do my pet projects. Buy oil and put it in the reserve driving up the price of oil for my friends. We got a deal you all know." Support our troops." "9/11" "Terrorist"

Twisted Religions

Just amazed me the stink that Muslims are making over the Teddy Bear name, wanting to put to death a teacher after the kids in the class named him Mohammad. What about the parents that name their kids Mohammad, should they be put to death too. Seems with the age of communication as it is these days where people can hear most story instantaneously but still there is that passing of a message from one person to another error. It's not just Muslims that have twisted views of the world but all fundamentalist seem to have a real twisted view of religion. If you look at the origins of religion first there was the Jewish religion, then the Christians which took about four hundred years to get organized, then came the Muslims religion picking what it wanted from the other two and leaving out what it thought was bad. Mainly religions have always been about controlling people. The Kings and Church used religion to conquer lands in the name of religion taking the wealth or gold in the name of their God's. That promise of life after death was adopted and the followers flocked to the churches or mosques. You pretty much could do anything if it was in the name of God. To think you would put all your trust in just one book and reject the other books of the world seems rather shallow, how can you be a whole man or person by only reading one book. Some people forget that the bible isn't one book but a series of stories bound into one book and it was rewrote to sound better by the Puritans the people the Pilgrims wanted to get away from, now they are here in many names but you couldn't tell them that because they don't read history books.

XMAS report or stock market report

I've been hearing the last few days the XMAS reports and it sound like a stock market report. Be interesting if we went back to the old way of a religious holiday but then again what would the economy do. Myself I'm burned out already with all the ads. I can't stand going into a store and seeing all the "XMAS" junk and it is junk. So many people are buying useless junk that they will never use. The TV ads just get me, "Buy this car and tell her you love her" like that a measure of love. You have to wonder what people are thinking when they make these ads. What kind of person they are. You might compare them to snake oil sales men with very low morals.

What else gets me is there's a couple wars going on and it seems the Christmas hasn't been effected at all from the people selling good. No sacrifices from anyone here in this country. Bush's ideas of sacrifice is to go shopping, that's going to help fight terrorism.

What I don't get is those evangelicals who scream about values are silent. I guess the values they have aren't that great. The bar is rather low for them. Meanwhile they keep thinking that gay marriage and abortion will save the country from terrorist at least that's how they vote.

Christmas is for children but it's been bastardized by the corporate world taking the value right out of this holiday.

Rove on Charley Rose

Karl Rove was on Charley Rose last night. I always knew Karl was a good lier. Karl said, "This administration did not want to go to war with Iraq." I must have been on the wrong plane or something but my recall of events have a completely different take of events. Then he was pulling clips from obscure news papers quoting how good the war is going. Charley totally had to question Karl about that and what the real solution is, a political one like everyone else is saying. This war is still a money pit in the pursuit of oil for Bush and Chaney's friends. Propaganda isn't going to change that. We haven't heard anything about WMD in years. Bush stopped talking his "Church slang." How many times has Bush changed his turn about why we are at war, about as many times as you change your sock, hopefully every day. Well history well tell in time that Bush was the worst president and drove this country into near bankruptcy but the story isn't finished for another year so he can do more damage like start a war with Iran.

Why American children are stupid, Dover School Board

Watching the PBS NOVA series about the Dover School Board and teaching or trying to teach kids about "intelligent design" a weak attempt at bringing the bible into the class room. Thank God they lost the court case other wise we would be going even farther behind the rest of the world. It too bad that there are those people that can't see the truth in science. For me that's why I stopped going to church because of the lies they were teaching and I have to say, religion has the biggest holes ever. How anyone could take that as fact is beyond me. The bible, it's not science it's theology. Albert has a theory but you can't test it because you can't go faster then light just yet. DNA is a real good way of proving Darwin. Carbon and atomic dating isn't other tool in the box of knowledge. No wonder the red states don't have any technical industry they don't have the staff to maned them. Then again anyone smart born in a red state moves to a blue state with the rest of the other smart people.