Depressed Yet?

I'm back! This new night work stuff sure cuts into my blog writing time. I'm sure my editor doesn't mind though.


What a day Monday turned out to be, don't you think?

Stocks Plunge After Bailout Bill Fails

The Dow Jones Industrials suffered their biggest one-day point loss ever.

Oh what the heck, this economy is like a runaway train that no one knows how to jump on and set the brakes.

We will soon be in a depression the likes of which will make 1929 look tame.

When the market crashes and when China and others demand payment of the notes they hold against our government, our government will be a thing of the past as well.

But look at the bright side, all of the politicians will be out of work as well.

Being in Nevada, my only hope is that Harry Reid is not standing next to me in the bread line. I hope he is at the back of the line.

The other scary thing is the bread that we get in the bread line will probably be from China and laced with melamine.


Speaking of the great depression, the people in the following stories were raised from parents that experienced it, so when someone tried to steal from them this was the result.

Elderly Md. woman fends off burglar with reacher

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -Police said an elderly woman fended off a man who broke into her Annapolis-area home using a reacher device used to grasp objects.

Police say two elderly women were in their home on Cedar Lane in the Hillsmere community when the man kicked in the door. He demanded money, but they said they had none.

Police said after the man started going through a purse, one of the women grabbed the reacher and used it to repel him. Police said the man fled with the purse.


Woman, 85, foils robbery attempt at her Ore. home

TIGARD, Ore. -A robber with a ski mask tried to rob an 85-year-old woman at her Tigard-area home but fled with only $6. The woman opened her door to find someone standing there in a ski mask.

She couldn't tell whether it was a man or woman but whoever it was pointed something at her from under a shirt and demanded money.

She grabbed the shirt and wrestled with the intruder, who threatened to shoot her but never showed a gun.

The robber demanded all of her money and she gave him the $6. He fled and the woman called police.


The moral of the story is don't mess with an old woman and her money!!!

Well there you go for this Tuesday.

I am busy with a 7 a.m. to midnight schedule Tuesday, so there will be no post on Wednesday.

Day Off

Well this has been a long weekend so there will be no post today.

Good To Know

If the rich could hire other people to die for them, the poor could make a wonderful living. Yiddish Proverb

-The wise man, even when he holds his tongue, says more than the fool when he speaks. Yiddish Proverb

-What you don't see with your eyes, don't invent with your mouth. Yiddish proverb

-A hero is someone who can keep his mouth shut when he is right. Yiddish Proverb

-One old friend is better than two new ones. Yiddish Proverb

-One of life's greatest mysteries is how the boy who wasn't good enough to marry your daughter can be the father of the smartest grandchild in the world. Jewish Proverb

-Old friends, like old wines, don't lose their flavor. Jewish Proverb

-A wise man hears one word and understands two. Yiddish Proverb

-Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein

-Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving. Albert Einstein

-When his wife asked him to change clothes to meet the German Ambassador, he said 'If they want to see me, here I am. If they want to see my clothes, open my closet and show them my suits.' Albert Einstein

-Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them. Albert Einstein

-The hardest thing in the world to understand is income tax. Albert Einstein

-You can't control the wind, but you can adjust your sails. Yiddish proverb

-I don't want to become immortal through my work. I want to become immortal through not dying. Woody Allen

-I'm not afraid of dying - I just don't want to be there when it happens! Woody Allen

-Imagination is more important than knowledge. Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton .

-Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. Albert Einstein

-We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. Albert Einstein

-Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school. Albert Einstein

-Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. Albert Einstein

Short Quiz;

1 - How many cigarettes are in a package of cigarettes?

2 - How many packages of cigarettes in a carton?

3 - How many matches are there in a standard book?

4 - Which way does a no smoking sign's slash run?

5 - Which way does water go down the drain? clockwise or counter clockwise?

6 - Do books have the even numbered pages on the left or the right side?


Answers;
1 - 20
2 - 10
3 - 20
4 - Towards bottom right.
5 - Clockwise (north of the equator)
6 - Left.

Busy Day

Yesterday kind of slipped away as did the time so I have no great wisdom to share with you today.

Hey Buddy Got Any Spare Change?

Saturn's Rings Might Be Older, Bigger

Saturn's rings may be much older and more massive than previously thought, according to a new study.

The study's computer simulation showed how the planet's rings could date back billions of years ago to the early ages of the solar system, rather than only 100 million years ago (during Earth's Age of Dinosaurs), as previous observations suggested.

Well, I can once again sleep at night. I have been wondering about this all my life.

This seems like one of those silly spending tax money in grants useless information highways.


Speaking of spending tax money:

I am tired of foreign aid when we need homeland aid.

I'm also tired of every time there is a disaster in another country our planes and ships are sent full steam ahead to get supplies to them.

In addition, we also can't transfer money into their bank accounts.

We just had a disaster called "Ike," but I have not seen pictures or news accounts about any foreign planes or ships off loading supplies in Texas.

Funny how taxes work. I have a small business that pays taxes for income, then I am taxed again when I pay myself with that income. Double tax!!

Then that money is given away to others by our government.


Now that I am penniless, they come out with new pennies.

New Pennies Will Honor Honest Abe

NEW YORK - For the first time in 50 years, the penny is getting redesigned, with four versions coming next year to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, the U.S. Mint announced Monday.

While the coin will continue to depict Lincoln's likeness on the front, the reverse side will bear one of four new designs, the Mint said.

The designs show milestones in the life of the 16th president: the Kentucky log cabin of his birth, his youth working as an Indiana rail splitter, his service at the State Capitol in Illinois, and his effort to preserve the union during the Civil War as depicted by a half-finished image of the U.S. Capitol dome.

Ridiculous Stuff

This is what our friends in China have done lately:

In an indication of Beijing's determination to improve product safety, the government in July 2007 executed the disgraced chief of China's food and drug agency, who was convicted of accepting bribes in exchange for letting fake medicine into the domestic market.

A string of recalls involving tainted toothpaste, faulty tires, contaminated seafood and in March 2007, pet food containing melamine that was blamed for the deaths of dogs and cats in the United States.

And now this:

Nearly 53,000 Children Sickened by Milk

BEIJING - The head of China's food safety watchdog resigned Monday for failing to stop the widespread contamination of baby formula as the number of children sickened in the scandal soared to nearly 53,000, including four infants who died.

The shake-up came as investigators revealed that China's biggest producer of powdered milk, Sanlu Group Co., had received complaints as early as December 2007 linking its infant formula to illnesses in babies.

Months later, tests revealed the milk was tainted with the industrial chemical melamine, which causes kidney stones and can lead to kidney failure.

Can someone out there please tell me why we don't ban all imports from China?

Oh but by their account, the important thing to remember is what a success the Beijing Olympics were and that makes it all OK.



Space shuttle moved to launch pad as rescue ship

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -In an unprecedented step, a space shuttle was moved to the launch pad Friday for a trip NASA hopes it will never make — a rescue mission.

The shuttle Endeavour is on standby in case the seven astronauts who go up on Atlantis next month need a safer ride home.

Atlantis and its crew are headed into space for one last repair job on the 18-year-old Hubble Space Telescope.

It's a venture that was canceled when first proposed a few years ago because it was considered too dangerous.

A new NASA regime reversed that decision, once space shuttles were flying safely again and repair methods became available to orbiting astronauts.

The risk is this: If Atlantis suffers serious damage during launch or in flight, the astronauts will not be at the international space station, where they could take refuge for weeks while awaiting a ride home.

They would be stranded on their spacecraft at the Hubble, where NASA estimates they could stay alive for 25 days. Air would be the first to go.

The rescue craft would fly to Atlantis and use a 50-foot robot arm to grab the damaged shuttle.

The Atlantis astronauts would put on spacesuits and float, a few at a time, to Endeavour over the course of three spacewalks. Endeavour would return home with all 11 astronauts.

First off, the Hubble has been up 18 years and if in that 18 years we have not received all the information we wanted then the mission is a failure anyway.

Second, if NASA insists on sending a craft to the Hubble and they know there could be issues, why not give them more air and supplies to last longer in case the rescue craft has problems with launch?

Third, it is time to end our space program as it has become a bottomless money pit.

Unless we are putting up the star wars space and missile defense program, the rest of the space program has had ample time to see if bugs will live in a weightless atmosphere.

How responsible is the program anyway since they lost the moon rocks brought back from Nevada, I mean the moon.

Monday Quiz

Stretch your brain

This is not a test - just a phenomenon. All readings are explained.
Read out loud the text inside the triangle below.

More than likely you said, 'A bird in the bush,' and if this IS what YOU said,
then you failed to see that the word THE is repeated twice!

Sorry, look again.

Next, let's play with some words.

What do you see?

In black you can read the word GOOD, in white the word EVIL (inside each black letter is a white letter).

It's all very physiological too, because it visualizes the concept that good can't exist without evil (or the absence of good is evil) Now, what do you see?

You may not see it at first, but the white spaces read the word optical, the blue landscape reads the word illusion.

Look again! Can you see why this painting is called an optical illusion?
What do you see here?

This one is quite tricky!
The word TEACH reflects as LEARN.
Last one.
What do you see?



You probably read the word ME in brown, but.......
when you look through ME you will see YOU!
Do you need to look again?

Test Your Brain

This is really cool.
ALZHEIMERS' EYE TEST

Count every ' F ' in the following text:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC
STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS...

(SEE BELOW)

HOW MANY ?

WRONG, THERE ARE 6 -- no joke. READ IT AGAIN!

Really, go Back and Try to find the 6 F's before you scroll down.

The reasoning behind is.

The brain cannot process 'OF'.

Incredible or what? Go back and look again!!
Anyone who counts all 6 'F's' on the first go is a genius.

Three is normal, four is quite rare.

I need my brain washed!!!

Friday Chit Chat

I just had a conversation at the park last night about how no one knows how to do anything anymore and also they don't care that they don't know.

ATF Lost Guns, Computers

Over a five-year period, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives lost dozens of weapons and hundreds of laptops that contained sensitive information, according to a scathing report issued yesterday by the Justice Department.

From 2002 to 2007, ATF lost 418 laptop computers and 76 weapons, according to the report.

Two weapons were subsequently used to commit crimes. In one incident, a gun stolen from the home of a special agent was fired through the window of another home.

Ten firearms were "left in a public place." One of them was left on an airplane, three in bathrooms, one in a shopping cart and two on the top of cars as ATF employees drove away.

A laptop also fell off the top of a car as an agent drove off. Another weapon "fell into the water while an agent was fishing," according to the report.

How sad is that? Guns left in shopping carts, clean up on aisle 16.




Nickles

A truck carrying millions of nickels crashed into another truck on Interstate 95 in Florida, spilling about $185,000 in change onto the highway.

Investigators from the Florida Highway Patrol said one semi-truck rear-ended another, causing about 3 million nickels to pour onto the road.

The accident shut down I-95 for hours this morning, as crews worked to clear the highway and waited for the Secret Service to come and collect the money.

With today's economy, the nickles were being rushed from the U.S. mint which has been working overtime to produce enough nickles to give every citizen so they will have two nickles to rub together.

Speaking of the economy, the price of gas has gotten so high that gangs have started doing walk-by shootings.


You know the economy is bad when this happens:

99 Cents Only to close all 48 Texas stores

CITY OF COMMERCE, Calif. - Discount retailer 99 Cents Only Stores says it will leave the Texas market, closing 48 stores because operations are unprofitable.

If people are having trouble buying at the 99 cent store then you know we have issues.


Speaking of saving money:

If you are watching how you spend your money on food there are things you need to watch for.

Skippy peanut butter for starters.



While the Skippy jar remains the same height and diameter as it did when it contained a full 18 ounces of peanut butter, a deeper indentation on the bottom accounts for the loss of 1.7 ounces.

Meanwhile, the most significant change Jif has made to its packaging is on the label, where large type alerts consumers to the fact that this jar is still 18 ounces strong.

There is more you may have not noticed. Other slimmed-down packages include:

A box of Kellogg's Apple Jacks, down from 11 to 8.7 oz.

A can of Starkist tuna, shrunk from 6 to 5 oz.

A bottle of Tropicana orange juice, which sports a new snap cap that's supposed to make up for the fact that you're getting 7 oz. less liquid.

A "half-gallon" container of Breyers Ice Cream, which now holds 48 oz. instead of 64.

Time to check out all the labels.

That's a wrap for this week. Have a great weekend.

Splish Splash

All of the news the last couple of days has been depressing.

Today I have decided to post something that makes me smile and I hope it makes you smile as well.

Zoe' is the smaller one with longer hair and Chloe is the larger one with shorter hair.


Now that's the happy life.

Wacky World We Live In

Man who wanted picture gets 'train rash'

FARGO, N.D. -Police say a man who wanted his picture taken next to a moving train suffered "train rash" but no serious injuries when he got too close to the train.

Police Sgt. Jeff Skuza said the 34-year-old man and two friends were in Fargo for a conference. He said they went around the security gates at a train crossing so he could have his picture taken.

Skuza said the man thought the picture would be better if he got closer to the train.

But he stumbled and the train caught his back, ripping his shirt and pants. Skuza called it "a bad case of train rash." He also said alcohol was a factor.

The cameraman said just one more step back, ha ha.

Now that had to be one heck of a picture. Ripped his clothes off just as the camera snapped.


Smoke smoke smoke that cigarette

Man clipped by train after lighting cigarette

BENTON, Ill. -A southern Illinois man will probably pay more attention the next time he lights a cigarette near railroad tracks.

Authorities said 25-year-old Brandon Robles escaped serious injury early Sunday when he was clipped by a passing Union Pacific train when he stopped near the tracks for a smoke.

Workers on the train told authorities they thought they'd hit a man, launching a search that included dogs. But nobody was found.

Robles had managed to walk home, only to call emergency dispatchers hours later to report that he couldn't get out of bed. He was treated at a hospital.

Robles told investigators he'd been drinking heavily and saw the train approaching when he stopped at the tracks for a cigarette.

Now I'm a feller with a heart of gold
And the ways of a gentleman I've been told
The kind of guy that wouldn't even harm a flea
But if me and a certain character met
The guy that invented the cigarette
I'd murder that son-of-a-gun in the first degree

It ain't cuz I don't smoke myself
And I don't reckon that it'll harm your health
Smoked all my life and I ain't dead yet

But nicotine slaves are all the same
At a pettin' party or a poker game
Everything gotta stop while they have a cigarette

Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette
Puff, puff, puff and if you smoke yourself to death
Tell St. Peter at the Golden Gate
That you hate to make him wait
But you just gotta have another cigarette


Time for paper plates:

Woman faces charge after dishwashing dispute

FORT WORTH, Texas -Police say a 20-year-old woman faces an aggravated assault charge after she bit her boyfriend, broke a picture frame across his face and swung at him with a sword during an argument about him not doing the dishes.

The 21-year-old man told police that he became involved in an argument because the woman was upset that the dishes were not clean.

Police Lt. Paul Henderson said the woman told the man to leave the apartment, but he refused.

The woman then tried to physically remove the man. During the ensuing struggle, the woman bit the man's right shoulder and broke a picture frame across his face, causing visible cuts.

The woman then grabbed an approximately 2-foot sword and swung it at him, but missed.

The woman was released from a Mansfield jail after posting a $10,000 bond, jail officials said.

Maybe they should work out an exchange with some college students.

Trading sex for adventure, tickets and housework

A recent survey of students at the University of Michigan found that 27% of men and 14% of women had offered services or items in exchange for sex.

Now that's a heck of a deal.


Kentucky woman turns tricks to fill her gas tank!

The devil OPEC made her do it.


Some times I dress up like a gas station attendant and ask my wife if she wants regular mid grade or high octane.

Let Me Say This

Are you depressed?

Massive Meltdown On Wall Street

Stocks Plunge on Wall Street Shift

Billionaire Fears 1,000 Banks Will Close

The country is past the recession and is rapidly entering a depression.

Watch for the suicide rates to jump.

Through early morning fog I see

visions of the things to be

the pains that are withheld for me

I realize and I can see...


that suicide is painless

It brings on many changes

and I can take or leave it if I please.

I try to find a way to make

all our little joys relate

without that ever-present hate

but now I know that it's too late, and...


The game of life is hard to play

I'm gonna lose it anyway

The losing card I'll someday lay

so this is all I have to say.


The only way to win is cheat

And lay it down before I'm beat

and to another give my seat

for that's the only painless feat.


The sword of time will pierce our skins

It doesn't hurt when it begins

But as it works its way on in

The pain grows stronger...watch it grin, but...


A brave man once requested me

to answer questions that are key

is it to be or not to be

and I replied 'oh why ask me?'


'Cause suicide is painless

it brings on many changes

and I can take or leave it if I please.

...and you can do the same thing if you please.





Cell phones and driving are bad but not as bad as cell phones when driving a train:

Was Engineer in Crash Text Messaging?

Federal investigators are looking into whether an engineer blamed for a Los Angeles train collision that killed 25 people last week was text messaging at the time.

Officials say the commuter rail engineer ran a stop signal before the crash.

There is a long distance to see the red signal prior to running the switch onto the wrong rails. Even while texting one would think he was looking up then back to the phone so he should have seen the red signal.

I don't know how it is now but with the old rail switches if the switch was open when you hit it the trains would jump the track and the train would derail.

I will be curious to see how the train was able to switch tracks without incident.



Wag's Editorial;

Ike is another storm that has brought flooding to several states not just Texas. This is in addition to other storms that have flooded the Midwest. What to do with all the water?

The West has shortages of water and the East and Midwest have an abundance.

For those that are not aware of it, the states are connected to a power grid so power can be distributed from one state to another when there is a need based on heavier needs depending on cost to produce and higher demand due to weather patterns.

I have been saying for years to anyone that will listen we need to do the same with water.

A grid of water lines would not be as difficult as it sounds. For instance a line would not have to be built to every state. An example would be running a pipe line to Colorado then dump it into the Colorado river and Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada and California would have the much needed water.

The route of the pipeline could be for the most part in the center median of the current freeways thus having little or no impact on surrounding land.

When other states are inundated with rain and the rivers overflowing, the pumps could be pumping water out west and all points in between.

All of the current lakes could be filled to capacity and if need be more lakes or reservoirs built for additional storage.

That to me would be a win-win situation for everyone who has too much or too little water.

Blow Hard

Well, the vacation from the blog is over for now.

Let's see what wisdom I can share today.

By now, unless you have been in a cave somewhere, you have heard about Hurricane Ike and the damage it brought along with it.

My first problem is the name. I suspect many think of President Eisenhower, Dwight David, 1890–1969, American general and 34th President of the United States, b. Denison, Tex. His nickname was Ike.

I think out of respect the storm should have had a different name.

I guess a case could be made that it was named after Ike Turner (formerly of Ike & Tina Turner). I understand he did a lot of "blow" so maybe that is the connection.

The second thing that bugs me is the mandatory evacuation that was ordered.

Mandatory
Function: adjective

Text: forcing one's compliance or participation by or as if by law

Synonyms: compulsory, forced, imperative, incumbent, involuntary, necessary, nonelective, obligatory, peremptory, required.

Many people ignored the mandatory evacuation order and stayed and now expect someone to come rescue them.

Authorities Save Nearly 2,000 Residents Who Ignored Evacuation Orders.

Those people should be ignored and no effort should be made to help them.

That's called thinning the herd. We need to let nature eliminate a lot of human morons.

At the very least, if the law happens on some fool that chose to ignore a mandatory order to evacuate, then they should be sent to a shelter called the nearest jail.

They committed a crime and now they deserve to do time.

The next thing that I have issue with is telling everyone to evacuate and then letting the news media like Geraldo stay and broadcast. To me, that is an oxymoron.

Speaking of morons I did find it quite amusing to see the news people holding their little hand held Wind Anemometers.

The funniest though had to be Geraldo getting blown over into the water. That should be a You Tube gem for years to come.

My last comment today about Ike, as well as Hanna, is the fact that according to the weather experts they were supposed to be category 4 or 5 storms when they hit.

Neither were, so a lot of people that made popcorn and sat down in front of their TVs to watch were disappointed.

More has to be done to ensure the accuracy of these reports.


Speaking of jail time for people involved with Ike or any storm:

Ike skews gas; some stations ask $5 a gallon

HOUSTON -Pump prices jumped above $5 per gallon in some parts of the country Sunday as Hurricane Ike, which caused less destruction than feared, left refineries and pipelines idled and destroyed at least 10 offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

Far beyond areas struck directly by high winds and flooding, Ike left behind it a bizarre pattern of prices at gas pumps, with disparities of more than $1 a gallon in some states, and even on some blocks.

"We're on the other side of the looking glass," said Claire Raines, who lives near Knoxville, Tenn. "I just passed three gas stations with prices that ran from about $3.50 to close to $5 within walking distance."

Average prices exceeded $4 per gallon in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, South Carolina, Hawaii and Alaska, according to auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express.

A station in Knoxville, Tenn., was asking $5.19 for a gallon of regular gas. In Nashville, about 180 miles away, gas was going for $3.50.

Something like this should be punished as well, but it won't be.

That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

Vacation

I have a lot going on this week so I am putting the blog on vacation for the rest of the week.

I'm Lazy Again

I think I will take the day off from the blog again.

Read A Great Story

I have said many times that I only have a high school education which means my mind is not as smart as I wish.

I am not proud nor ashamed that I am not smarter than I am, I just wish my mind was full of endless information.

I have also pointed out that I am not a reader as well, which is really unfortunate because that is one way to gain knowledge.

I will bet though, when I say I have read Hemingway, that will raise some eyebrows.

For those that might not remember Hemingway let me refresh your memories.

Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on 21 July 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.

Here is a list of his works.

Novels

(1926) The Torrents of Spring
(1926) The Sun Also Rises
(1929) A Farewell to Arms
(1937) To Have and Have Not
(1940) For Whom the Bell Tolls
(1950) Across the River and Into the Trees
(1952) The Old Man and the Sea
(1970) Islands in the Stream
(1986) The Garden of Eden
(1999) True at First Light

Collections

(1923) Three Stories and Ten Poems
(1925) In Our Time
(1927) Men Without Women
(1933) Winner Take Nothing
(1936) The Snows of Kilimanjaro
(1938) The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories
(1969) The Fifth Column and Four Stories of the Spanish Civil War
(1972) The Nick Adams Stories
(1987) The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway
(1995) Everyman's Library: The Collected Stories

Anthologies - edited by Hemingway

Men at War

Nonfiction

(1932) Death in the Afternoon
(1935) Green Hills of Africa
(1962) Hemingway, The Wild Years
(1964) A Moveable Feast
(1967) By-Line: Ernest Hemingway
(1970) Ernest Hemingway: Cub Reporter
(1981) Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters
(1985) The Dangerous Summer
(1985) Dateline: Toronto
(1999) Hemingway on Writing
(2000) Hemingway on Fishing
(2003) Hemingway on Hunting
(2003) Hemingway on War
(2005) Under Kilimanjaro
(2008) Hemingway on Paris

Stage Plays

(1961) A Short Happy Life
(1967) The Hemingway Hero (working title was: Of Love and Death)

I know you are all wondering what Hemingway work I read.

Well, surprise, it is not listed above.

The story I read was the original short short story.

It is a complete story in just six words.

For those of you that have not had the opportunity to read the complete story here it is in its entirety:

"For sale baby shoes never used."

Now that my friends is deep!!!

On the morning of July 2, 1961, some three weeks short of his 62nd birthday, he died at his home in Ketchum, Idaho, the result of a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head.

Hemingway is believed to have purchased the Boss & Co. shotgun he used to commit suicide through Abercrombie & Fitch, which was then an elite excursion goods retailer and firearm supplier. In a particularly gruesome suicide, he rested the gun butt of the double-barreled shotgun on the floor of a hallway in his home, leaned over it to put the twin muzzles to his forehead just above the eyes, and pulled both triggers.

Import / Export

The United States dollar, as you all know, has gone down in value and one of the major reasons is imports and exports.

One could only wish that we would export but stop all imports into the United States.

It has gotten so bad we are building a memorial site on the grounds of the World Trade Center and we are buying the steel from a Luxembourg mill.

You may have heard of Luxembourg. It is not located in the United States.

The Voyage from Europe to America

Four different ships made the trans-Atlantic voyages to deliver the columns, measuring 22.5 inches high by 18 inches wide, to two port cities, Portsmouth, VA, and Camden, NJ.

Initially, the steel was transported by train from the Arcelor mill in Differdange, Luxembourg, where it was produced, before being loaded onto ships bound for America at the port of Antwerp, Belgium.

Steel Is First of 50,000 Tons Required to Build Freedom Tower

I guess there are no steel mills left in the United States.


How shameful is it we use the steel from the destroyed twin towers in a ship and then build a monument to the horrific events of 9-11 using imported steel?

Do we export anything? Import, import - that seems to be all we do.


I have an export suggestion which will make New York rich enough to buy American steel.

This could be the largest export in the history of the United States.



What's cooking in Cambodia? A dish of spicy field rat is on the menu for more and more families.

The price of rat meat in the country has risen sharply as inflation has put other meat beyond the reach of poor people.

With consumer price inflation at 37 percent according to the latest central bank estimate, demand has pushed a kilogram of rat meat up to around 5,000 riel ($1.28) from 1,200 riel last year.

Spicy field rat dishes with garlic thrown in have become particularly popular at a time when beef costs 20,000 riel a kg.

That will fix the trade deficit.

Big Bang You're Dead

I wonder how many of you have heard of the Large Hadron Collider. This is a groundbreaking particle accelerator that has been built in a 17-mile circular tunnel at the CERN laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland.

The $3.8 billion machine will collide two beams of protons moving at close to the speed of light so scientists can see what particles appear in the resulting debris.

It is a particle accelerator used by physicists to study the smallest known particles – the fundamental building blocks of all things. It will revolutionize our understanding, from the minuscule world deep within atoms to the vastness of the Universe.


Two beams of subatomic particles called 'hadrons' – either protons or lead ions – will travel in opposite directions inside the circular accelerator, gaining energy with every lap.

Physicists will use the LHC to recreate the conditions just after the Big Bang, by colliding the two beams head-on at very high energy.

Teams of physicists from around the world will analyze the particles created in the collisions using special detectors in a number of experiments dedicated to the LHC.

Concerns have been raised about the safety of the LHC on the grounds that high-energy particle collisions performed in the collider might cause disastrous events, including the production of stable micro black holes (mBHs) and strangelets.

Several CERN-commissioned reportsand subsequently published research papers have corroborated the safety of the LHC particle collisions.

One research paper reaches the opposite conclusion, stating that "at the present stage of knowledge there is a definite risk from mBHs production at colliders." The validity of this safety assessment has been disputed.

High tech stuff that high-energy particle physics, I could go on and explain all this to you from what I learned at a Holiday Inn Express but I have a better way.

Click here to check out "The Large Hadron Rap."

Performed by Kate McAlpine, a 23-year-old Michigan State University graduate and science writer,a rising star on YouTube thanks to her rap performance — about high-energy particle physics.

Her performance has drawn a half-million views so far on YouTube. McAlpine raps that when the collider goes into operation on Sept. 10, "the things that it discovers will rock you in the head."

Another Day Vacation

Hello. I hope your weekend was a good one. I have decided I better add one more day off from the blog. Thank you for dropping by and please check back.