One of our toilets developed a habit of leaking all of the time. I tried to fix it many times. No luck. A plumber came and charged a hundred bucks. It still leaked. Finally, in despair, I hied myself to Lowes and inspected the vast array of multicolored, shiny new comodes, priced from ninety nine bucks to over 1000. I selected a modest 250 dollar model on sale and got an additional 10% off due to my long ago military service. 8% sales tax and seventy five dollars installation and now we have a gleaming white one piece throne. Unbeknownse to me this is a modern toilet which flushes using almost no water. The government's intention in forcing us to put in these water saving devices was to save water and indeed they do.
Much criticesm about toilets that don't flush has proven to be untrue. Mine never fails. It was made in Mexico by American Standard
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
ENERGY
Our wonderful government seems indifferent or ignorant of the crisis facing the US. This need not have developed into a nearly insoluble situation. Basically, there are only a few players in the energy field: Coal, petroleum, natural gas, water power (Dams),nuclear, and to a lesser extent, wind and solar.
The environment lobby has a stranglehold on most of these .Coal, our principal source of energy is dirty. They don't like petroleum either.
Drilling is forbidden in most places Natural gas is being obtained by a process called fracting and now they are trying to tell us that it is ruining our ground water. Dams have already been placed everywhere so no ability to expand this. Nuclear looks to be our main hope and, to give credit to Obama, he is favoring this and already several plants are being constructed. The Japanese disaster has given the environmentalists more ammunition to try to put a stop to this.
I wonder where we go from here. It takes time to develop the petroleum and nuclear, assuming that we start working on this at once.
The environment lobby has a stranglehold on most of these .Coal, our principal source of energy is dirty. They don't like petroleum either.
Drilling is forbidden in most places Natural gas is being obtained by a process called fracting and now they are trying to tell us that it is ruining our ground water. Dams have already been placed everywhere so no ability to expand this. Nuclear looks to be our main hope and, to give credit to Obama, he is favoring this and already several plants are being constructed. The Japanese disaster has given the environmentalists more ammunition to try to put a stop to this.
I wonder where we go from here. It takes time to develop the petroleum and nuclear, assuming that we start working on this at once.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
SINGULARITY
We received a Time magazine article from an anonymous source ( she surely wishes to remain unknown. We will just call her Julia. How embarrassing to have it known that one still reads The Lying Rag. That's my pet name for Time which I have not read in the last forty years )
Considering the source ( the magazine, not Julia ) it is a remarkable article which could well have appeared in a learned scientific journal. It's thesis is the rapidly advancing world of technology. From a relatively slow start many years ago it seems to be advancing exponentially, so much so that within a short time we can hardly imagine where this may take us.
It seems likely that computers will be able to pick our brains and perhaps even take them over and give them input. Diseases will become a thing of the past and old age will become a distant memory. Space travel will become commonplace. No problems will remain unsolved.
Try to imagine some point where there can be no more progress. Everything will be done. I don't know if the singularity people have gone that far.
Considering the source ( the magazine, not Julia ) it is a remarkable article which could well have appeared in a learned scientific journal. It's thesis is the rapidly advancing world of technology. From a relatively slow start many years ago it seems to be advancing exponentially, so much so that within a short time we can hardly imagine where this may take us.
It seems likely that computers will be able to pick our brains and perhaps even take them over and give them input. Diseases will become a thing of the past and old age will become a distant memory. Space travel will become commonplace. No problems will remain unsolved.
Try to imagine some point where there can be no more progress. Everything will be done. I don't know if the singularity people have gone that far.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
FREEMASONRY-SHRINERS
I know very little about the Masons and the Shriners but I love discussions and controversy and so express my thoughts. My Catholic upbringing causes me to be suspicious. The church does not allow it's members to belong to this secret organization and we must wonder why.
Most Masons are fine people. I have know a number of them. I believe that most of them do not have a clue as to why they are looked on with askance. They do charitable work, build nice children's hospitals and are just a jolly bunch, not unlike the Elks. Sure they stand together and favor each other whenever possible. Nothing wrong with that.
The Shriners have 193 temples in the US. It sounds a little like a religion. They wear ceremonial red fezzes with black tassels and on this headgear are mysterious Islamic symbols. The full title of the organization is ANCIENT ARABIC ORDER OF THE MYSTIC SHRINE.
Is there a secret agenda ? I think so and present the following shocking evidence. Did you know that all US presidents were or are Masons ?( Possible exception, JFK )
This goes way beyond the possibility of coincidence ! How extraordinary! How could this be ? They seem to have their hands on the levers of power. I do not know why .Do you find this spooky ? I do.
As an afterthought, Mexican presidents are also largely Masons. I have no data on other world leaders. I suspect that many of them belong.
Just another afterthought. This is a sexist group. No women allowed
Most Masons are fine people. I have know a number of them. I believe that most of them do not have a clue as to why they are looked on with askance. They do charitable work, build nice children's hospitals and are just a jolly bunch, not unlike the Elks. Sure they stand together and favor each other whenever possible. Nothing wrong with that.
The Shriners have 193 temples in the US. It sounds a little like a religion. They wear ceremonial red fezzes with black tassels and on this headgear are mysterious Islamic symbols. The full title of the organization is ANCIENT ARABIC ORDER OF THE MYSTIC SHRINE.
Is there a secret agenda ? I think so and present the following shocking evidence. Did you know that all US presidents were or are Masons ?( Possible exception, JFK )
This goes way beyond the possibility of coincidence ! How extraordinary! How could this be ? They seem to have their hands on the levers of power. I do not know why .Do you find this spooky ? I do.
As an afterthought, Mexican presidents are also largely Masons. I have no data on other world leaders. I suspect that many of them belong.
Just another afterthought. This is a sexist group. No women allowed
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
NOT SO GOOD ( conclusion )
I hearken back some 40 or more years ago to life in Mexico City. From time to time we would purchase roast chickens from any one of the rotisseries which dotted the city. They were small birds, almost skinny. One bird would make a moderate meal for two. How great they tasted, from the delicious crispy skin to the tiny wings, legs, thighs, and breasts.
Fast forward to the present: We purchase a rotisserie chicken from the local grocery store. This is one big bird, almost the size of a small turkey. Four people would be hard pressed to consume it. The slimy skin we discard at once. The enormous parts of the fowl are encrusted with globules of fat. I say, thank you very much but no thank you.
In conclusion, those of you who may have had the pleasure of eating carnitas in Mexico may look in vain for the equivalent in the US. If we can put a man on the moon, why can we not make good carnitas ?
Fast forward to the present: We purchase a rotisserie chicken from the local grocery store. This is one big bird, almost the size of a small turkey. Four people would be hard pressed to consume it. The slimy skin we discard at once. The enormous parts of the fowl are encrusted with globules of fat. I say, thank you very much but no thank you.
In conclusion, those of you who may have had the pleasure of eating carnitas in Mexico may look in vain for the equivalent in the US. If we can put a man on the moon, why can we not make good carnitas ?
Saturday, February 5, 2011
NOT SO GOOD
Another negative blog ! This is in reference to American meat products, especially sus scrofula, more popularly know as pork. As a youngster in Mexico I ate no pork since my parents felt that it was unsafe. It was not until I was 16 or so that I first experienced pork. How delicious ! I could not get enough of it. Even when Jan and I moved back to the US 35 years ago all the pig products were still great. About 20 or 25 years ago something happened. Porcine products were no longer so good. I can only think of a few reasons:1) Farmers were breeding swine with less fat; 2)Pigs varied diet was suspended and they were fed almost exclusively corn; 3) Perhaps my aging taste buds are not as good as they once were. I hope I never see another pork chop.They are generally tough and tasteless.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
More about blog
As previously mentioned, I recieved my beatifully bound and printed blog from blog2print. Yesterday I spent a pleasanr hour or two reading all my posting since 2007. A few comments on that: There were about 140 real blogs ( 20 false starts ). Many of the posting were brilliant or near brilliant but some were really lousy. I also noticed that recently I have been blogging only once in a while and I intend to do more of this in the future.
I have a blog all hand written and ready to go but discovered that much of it has already been covered over the years, This unposted blog was to be about our stupid government and I listed 14 stupidities. When trying to figure out how to write such a blog without going into too much detail, I found that I was not able to read my writing on 4 of them. It was to become 1o stupidities. I found that most of the ten were enacted with the best of intentions and every one of them backfired. Herewith are the ten listed without comment:
Earned income credit
Minimum wage
Food stamps
Unemployment payments
Cost of living adjustments
Peace corp and Americorp
Bailouts
Payments for puchases of autos and other items
Earmarks and other porkers
Foreign aid
I have a blog all hand written and ready to go but discovered that much of it has already been covered over the years, This unposted blog was to be about our stupid government and I listed 14 stupidities. When trying to figure out how to write such a blog without going into too much detail, I found that I was not able to read my writing on 4 of them. It was to become 1o stupidities. I found that most of the ten were enacted with the best of intentions and every one of them backfired. Herewith are the ten listed without comment:
Earned income credit
Minimum wage
Food stamps
Unemployment payments
Cost of living adjustments
Peace corp and Americorp
Bailouts
Payments for puchases of autos and other items
Earmarks and other porkers
Foreign aid
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