Super Bowl Year

As a native of Cleveland, Ohio I have to jump on the opportunity when it comes.  The first exhibition game of the season was played the past weekend and the Browns won.  They defeated the 2010 Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers so this looks like the year they repeat their 1964 Championship Season.  OK, last year they defeated the 2009 champion New Orleans Saints and didn’t make the playoffs but that is history, 2011 will be different.

Bob Feller

Bob Feller is my favorite professional athlete of all time.  When LeBron James left the Cavaliers (the team that made him a multi-millionaire, covered his weaknesses, offered him the maximum salary, gave him approval of team members and coaches)   some people defended him I reminded everyone about Rapid Robert. 

When it was apparent Feller would be a great pitcher Mountain Landis, the head of baseball, ruled his contract illegal and claimed teams could bid on him (New York had the most money and the inside track).  Feller and his Dad told Landis that Cleveland made a respectable offer, they had agreed to it, and a man is no better than his word.  Oh, they also told Landis that they were about to file suit against him, the American League, and Major League Baseball.  Landis ended the bidding and awarded the contract for Feller to Cleveland.

You have to remember that Landis was the bigot who would not allow African Americans to play in the major leagues and not one owner stood-up to publicly stop him. 

He also enlisted in the Navy on December 9, 1941 (Pearl Harbor was December 7^th), the first member of baseball to do so.  He had a deferment as the sole support for his Father and Mother and the ability to be named an officer and do his service in public relations.  Instead he served on the USS Alabama in the North Atlantic and Pacific, and worked his way up to Chief Petty Officer.

The story here is "HAVE FUN"

This is the Magnum at Cedar Point.  One of the best roller coasters in the world.  If you can, go and try it.

2011 NBA Championship

You see Miami, LeBron has more talent than anyone in Basketball but his heart ranks around 999^th.  Let me tell you a little story from back in 2008.  Barack Obama was elected the 44^th President on November 4^th.  The next morning James said he would score 44 points that night in honor of the new President.  He scored 41.  Yes, he came up SHORT just as he did in every playoff he has been in. 

Hells Angels of the Palmetto Assisted Care Facility

According to NBC News in Miami on May 6, 2011 some woman got mad at a group of 4 deaf people who were celebrating a birthday at the Ocean’s Eleven Sports Lounge and Grill.  Apparently Barbara Lee, a 45 year old Darwin Award possibility saw the group “signing” and automatically jumped to the conclusion that they were giving gang signs to each other and at her.  This was Florida where Sponge Bob Square Pants and Mickey Mouse live with retirees from Canada and New York.  What gang did she think they were from, the Hells Angels of the Palmetto Assisted Care Facility?  Anyway she confronted the partiers but they didn’t say anything (Maybe BECAUSE THEY ARE DEAF).

When they motioned for her to leave she went and got some brain dead 19 year old who followed her back to the bar (can you guess why?  Try cougar hunting).  He reportedly pulled a knife, stabbed the birthday group and hit the bouncer with a bottle.  Apparently someone at the grill had a cell phone and called the Police.  The woman and youth were both arrested and charged with attempted murder.

While these two are really stupid and poster children for better funding of public education, there is something to learn here.  Based on her own experiences and sense of hate Ms. Lee assumed that any “signing” was gang related and consequently people who “sign” are gang members.  Just how many people do the same thing today?  Is there a real difference between this and anti-Semitism, bigotry, genocide, the way people think of others because of their nationality, religion, pigmentation, age, hair length, political affiliation, sex, sexual orientation, or any other difference?  Not really.

If you find that someone is different from you, look into it and learn.  Remember that people who think they are superior see many things backwards.

Are You Kidding Me?

I was watching some TV and one of those dating ads came on.  Of course they all claim to bring more people together and imply that you are looking to get married and most of their couples do just that but this one was a little different.  It was for “Christians”.  Now I have no problem with that.  If you are a business then it is good to target a specific audience and go after them.  Unfortunately this one talks about how you have been unsuccessful and should now leave it in Gods hands.  I didn’t know that things were so bad that God had now started a dating service.

First, God isn’t Christian.  That would mean that anyone who isn’t Christian does not believe in God and the list would include Abraham, Moses, Adam, and many more.

Second, do you really believe that God makes all your decisions including who to date?  As a believer, and I am, I think God puts the puzzle parts in front of us and gives us the intelligence to assemble them.  Hence, free will.  When we do something right, we have made the right decision.  When we do something wrong it is our own fault.

Third, why should I believe that God works through some profitable web site?  Do you?  Do you really think that by signing up for this web page that purports to be doing the will of God that you will find the path that the creator has laid out for you?  I wish I could believe in such a simplistic idea.

Fourth, if they said that they would link “Christians” up, then fine.  Just don’t try to pass yourself off as being God on earth.

The Government Should Do Something About It

How many times have you heard someone say that the Government should do something about some ill?  You listen to the news and find out that restaurants are passing Tilapia off as a more expensive fish.  Why doesn’t the government do something about it?  You fill your tank up with gasoline at $4 a gallon and say why doesn’t the government do something about the price.  BP spills billions of gallons of unrefined oil into the Gulf of Mexico because of a flaw in their drilling mechanism and people yell that the government should have prevented it.  You can’t swim in the lake because it is polluted and you want to know why the government doesn’t clean it up.

How about some idiot who just wants your vote screaming that Social Security is under funded and taxes are too high so the budget must be drastically cut?  And then someone comes around saying they are not part of the Democratic or Republican Party but subscribe to the more populist Libertarian Party.  What a bunch of Bull.

Lets take these in reverse order to demonstrate how all of them are taking us as fools.  The basis of the Libertarian Party is to let businesses run everything.  They use phrases such as Free Market but they don’t want our consumerism to make the rules, they want unregulated businesses to decide what is best.  Take away all the regulations and regulators with cute ads about letting us choose what we eat but that is hiding the elephant behind a toothpick.  Oil companies set the drilling rules in the Gulf and that caused the BP spill.  No government inspector got the captain of the Valdese drunk off the shore of Alaska.  It was government regulators who stopped Thalidomide from being sold in the U.S. even though it was available in Europe.  Unregulated dumping of human and chemical waste into the Great Lakes limits swimming, boating, and fishing. You want the government to “do something about it” then you need regulations and inspectors.

Now cutting the budget is a good idea but cutting fat, not inspections and regulations.  That is what is being eliminated under the new budget proposals.  Large political contributors want to get rid of costly regulations to increase their profits and politicians who advocate the elimination of trillions of dollars in spending are looking out for them, not us.

Will our prices come down? NO.  We are the market and if we are willing to spend $5 on a gallon of gasoline then the price is set regardless of how much it costs to produce.  If we are not willing, then the price will lower.  If the United States invests in other forms of energy then our prices will come down. 

Small computers cost $20,000 in the 70’s and programs were little better than word processors, spread sheets, and Pong.  We refused to spend that much and 30 years later they cost $2,000 with a multitude of programs and the internet.  Phones had Party lines to lower the cost and today families have a land line and multiple cell phones.  We are the Market, not multi national corporations.

Grossly cutting the federal budget is not the answer.  There are places where it can be fixed but to slice trillions of dollars will only increase our costs.