I am sure that you have heard of the current oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.  If you haven’t, here is a link – please come back after you have caught up with current events.

I am just aghast at how stupid these companies are. Current reports are that they didn’t install an “acoustic switch” on the well. From NewsInferno:

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded last week was not outfitted with a safety device that might have prevented the massive oil spill now nearing the U.S. Gulf Coast. The device, known as an acoustic switch, is a last-resort protection against underwater spills, and is required by regulators in Norway and Brazil. Unfortunately, the U.S. has no such regulation for oil wells operating off of its shores.  

Click here to read the rest of this article... (328 words, 2 images, estimated 1:19 mins reading time)

With the current scare regarding Swine Flu (more appropriately called H1N1 flu), I want to remind my readers to not drink from hotel glasses unless you are VERY confident that they use appropriate cleaning measures to clean their cups and glasses.  It does no good to ask at the front desk when you check in, of course they are going to say that they are following laws. If you aren’t sure, ask the front desk for paper cups to take your morning vitamins.

My rule of thumb is simple.  I look for a maid cart.  If I see a cart and it has DIRTY glasses that the maid has been collecting to take downstairs to be cleaned, I assume proper techniques are being used.  If I can’t find a cart or if that cart has not collected dirty glasses, then I assume the maid is cleaning the glasses in the toilet.  

Click here to read the rest of this article... (176 words, 1 image, estimated 42 secs reading time)

8 years ago today, nearly 3,000 innocent civilians were murdered by terrorists. These people were chosen only because they were on American soil. They did nothing wrong. The world changed a great deal on that day. Many of us will never forget that horrible day.

Twitter This

User: Password:

Bill Maher is a relatively famous television personality. Of course, he got this position by correctly realizing that he wasn’t a very good standup comedian and his real talent was getting famous people on TV and then making fun of them or using them as foils to make a political point.  He has bounced around a couple of different venues and has currently landed at HBO.  His show is called “Real Time with Bill Maher”.  He has used this notoriety and fame to also publish some of his remarks and is a frequent contributor to Huffington Post.  His latest article is the subject of this post.

Originally, I only wanted to reply to Bill Maher in his comments section.  However, Huffington Post limits comments to a small number of words so I am forced to make further comments here.  You can read my original thoughts at this link as there are currently over 2500 comments on this article and it would be difficult to find mine.  You may also want to read Bill’s original article before you read my comments.  

Click here to read the rest of this article... (1456 words, 1 image, estimated 5:49 mins reading time)

The current President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, has had a very troubled start to his Presidency.  Not only did he inherit a mess in the economy, but he has had multiple mis-steps in his selection of his cabinet and advisors.  While the tax problems with Daschle and others have plagued the first few nominations, now there is even some concern about his most important advisor, his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.  There has also been some criticism for his first international discussions, the first phone call he made to a foreign power was to President Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority.  

Click here to read the rest of this article... (865 words, 1 image, estimated 3:28 mins reading time)

It wasn’t that long ago that the politicians were going to deliver a huge windfall tax on the oil companies.  Now that the new guys are in charge, all of that talk has suddenly stopped.

Of course now that BP has just announced that it will be in the red for the quarter, maybe all of the talk of excessively taxing risky commodities based businesses when they actually do well will go away.

Tell the government to leave us alone and stop screwing it up.

For the last three posts we have been exploring the claim that George W. Bush is the worst President of the United States ever.  Some say that he is the worst, some say he is in the middle of the pack but just about everyone agrees he is not the best ever.  This post continues the job of grading W on the various issues that he faced in his two terms of office.  See the previous posts to get the background for where we are now.

Iraq occupation – D – same as Afghanistan.  A lot of good but the job is not done so W can’t get better grade until the job is done.  He can’t get better than a C ever since he messed up so bad by putting Bremer in place – Bremer’s decisions really messed up the nation for several years.  I think that history will eventually say that the US did better in Iraq than just about any other takeover of a foreign nation (Ukraine, Yugoslavia, Georgia, Poland, etc) although that is a terrible standard to compare us to.  

Click here to read the rest of this article... (1533 words, 1 image, estimated 6:08 mins reading time)

Newt Gingrich wrote a great editorial in the Wall Street Journal recently that includes 7 “achievements” that he thinks should be offered as prizes similar to the X Prize Foundation’s prizes.  Personally, I think the idea of prizes to drive innovation is great and wish that the government would do this on a regular basis.  Newt’s list is a great first start and there are probably others but if we have too many it would dilute the importance of the targeted list.

I do question Mr. Gingrich’s 7th item.  While certainly noble in intent, it doesn’t appear that it is measurable enough to warrant a big prize.  Perhaps a prize for the public school system that gets 99% of their non-special needs kids to some extremely high level of attainment on a standardized test.  If we use the SAT as an example, the school system that can get 99% of their kids to over 600 on the SAT test (the average is 515 out of a possible 700 and that was for college bound seniors – the challenge would be for ALL students in a public school organization).  

Click here to read the rest of this article... (516 words, 1 image, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

In my opinion the best way to quickly drop the price of crude oil is to announce that the US is going to build 30 nuclear reactors in the next decade.

This would send a strong message to the world community that we are serious about energy independence. One of the big perils with electric cars is the lack of availability of infrastructure to charge them.

We need to stabilize the world energy market and this would show everyone that we see serious about getting our house in order.

I know that John McCain has advocated a similar suggestion but I haven’t heard anything of this from Obama.

Twitter This

User: Password: