Starting tomorrow we will finally be on the road again. These last six months seemed longer than most. Cabin fever was really getting me down.  I know several of you really enjoy my “On the road reports”. I thought about not doing them this time and instead taking a hiatus from blogging but I realized that I really do enjoy writing the reports. They allow me to sit back and think about how my day was and to record things in a “Travels with Charley” format similar to what John Steinbeck did about fifty years ago. So my daily posts … Continue reading On The Road Again….

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. Mahatma Gandhi For here we are not afraid to follow the truth wherever it may lead… Thomas Jefferson Remember, we learn nothing by speaking. St. Francis of Asissi I thought I would pull up three inspirational quotes from some of my heroes for this inspiration Sunday. Gandhi was a man of simplicity. He lived his life with very few luxuries. But his words were full of riches. We can’t just complain about something in life. Doing only that is a worthless task. Instead of complaining work to find … Continue reading We Learn Nothing By Speaking…..

I have been thinking about all the partisanship and our legislative process lately.  We seem to be in a gridlocked pattern that is almost impossible to break. Washington is completely out of step with the rest of the country.  Poll after pole tells us that we the people want them to get off their butts and do something. Doing nothing in the U.S. Senate feeds the cynicism in the country which enhances the Republican view that government can’t do anything right. The filibuster is the latest major tool used  to accomplish that task. All it takes now it for the … Continue reading Feeding the Cynicism….

Source: Are you getting overcharged by your hospital? Time to become a Smart patient | VentureBeat. If you’re a patient represented by Medicare or Medicaid, you’re well served because these programs have significant market muscle: They negotiate prices below what it costs to treat patients. …..With few exceptions, private insurers tend to be relatively weak when bargaining with hospitals, so that hospitals can extract from them prices substantially in excess of the full cost of treating privately insured patients, with profit margins sometimes in excess of 20 percent. Finally, uninsured patients — also called “self-pay” patients — have effectively no market power at … Continue reading Overcharged By Your Hospital?

Source: Republicans Win Congress as Democrats Get Most Votes – Bloomberg. The 2010 elections, in which Republicans won the House majority and gained more than 700 state legislative seats across the nation, gave the party the upper-hand in the process of redistricting, the once-a-decade redrawing of congressional seats. The advantage helped them design safer partisan districts and maintain their House majority in 2012 — even as they lost the presidential race by about 5 million votes. Also nationwide, Democratic House candidates combined to win about 1.4 million more votes than Republicans, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News. Gerrymandering which is … Continue reading About Gerrymandering….

In the decades since a jury convicted him of murder, nearly every piece of evidence in this case has fallen away. A key witness told The New York Times that a detective instructed him to select Mr. Ranta in the lineup. A convicted rapist told the district attorney that he falsely implicated Mr. Ranta in hopes of cutting a deal for himself. A woman has signed an affidavit saying she too lied about Mr. Ranta’s involvement. Detective Scarcella and his partner, Stephen Chmil, according to investigators and legal documents, broke rule after rule. They kept few written records, coached a … Continue reading Wrongly Convicted….

  Source:  Thinking outside the box – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Thinking outside the box (also thinking out of the box or thinking beyond the box) is a metaphor that means to think differently, unconventionally, or from a new perspective. This phrase often refers to novel or creative thinking. The term is thought to derive from management consultants in the 1970s and 1980s challenging their clients to solve the “nine dots” puzzle, whose solution requires some lateral thinking. Ironically, telling people to “think outside the box” does not help them think outside the box, at least not with the 9-dot … Continue reading Thinking outside the box….

Source: China’s real estate bubble – CBS News. China has been nothing short of a financial miracle. In just 30 years, this state-controlled economy became the world’s second largest, deftly managed by government policies and decrees. One sector the authorities concentrated on was real estate and construction. But that may have created the largest housing bubble in human history. If you go to China, it’s easy to see why there’s all the talk of a bubble. We discovered that the most populated nation on earth is building houses, districts and cities with no one in them. This article got my attention … Continue reading China’s real estate bubble

Victor said she was “shocked” when she heard what Scalia said about the Voting Rights Act during the Supreme Court’s oral arguments on a key provision of the law last month. “I thought you must not know what’s happening in this country,” Victor wrote. “After learning more this year from the civil rights group, Advancement Project, I know that just as there were for me, there are barriers to voting for many people – especially people who are black or brown.” Obama pointed to Victor, who waited in line for hours to vote at a polling place in Miami, as … Continue reading Equal Voice At The Ballot Box….

  There is only one battle worth fighting: spend every second of your life searching for the spark that makes you feel alive. There’s no other fight quite like it. You fail, and it doesn’t matter. The entire world thinks you’re pathologically unstable, and it doesn’t matter. You receive 200 rejection letters from agents, you keep on writing. Reach for the stars and don’t whine when you fall on your ass. Source: Success. Fear. And stuff. « Cristian Mihai. I certainly enjoy reading posts of my fellow bloggers. As I have said before most of what I read comes from other … Continue reading Success. Fear. And stuff…..

  Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate less, love more; and all good things are yours. -Swedish proverb I don’t know many Swedes I guess so I don’t know if any of them actually live by this proverb. I briefly had a Norwegian roommate in college and he definitely liked to party with his friends.  I can’t imagine another proverb that has so many lessons of life in it.  I wonder where it came from. Of course all of us Christians know about the Book of Proverbs in the … Continue reading Whine Less, Breathe More…….

April 2011 – Since I just got done with a series of posts about Jefferson I thought I would put a picture of his life size bronze from Monticello here. Continue reading Tom Jefferson…

It was nice to see that Rand Paul’s standing filibuster bringing additional attention to the military drone issue in this country. Our country is based on check and balances and the current drone program has neither of those characteristics. The possibility of serious abuse scares me and should scare all of us. But, that is not what this post is going to be about. Instead it is about our pledge of allegiance and our national anthem. I think it is time to replace both of these “sacred documents” to align us with twenty-first century thinking.  We need to get away … Continue reading The Pledge….

I want to do a followup of this morning post with a little more whimsical frame of mind.  As I see it we are looking at two different world views when it come to our energy needs. One of our political parties theme seems to be “Drill Baby, Drill”. They want to extract absolutely every drop of oil out of our planet. They adamantly insist on building the Keystone pipeline so that we can take the dirtiest oil around and send it off to countries with little or no environmental regulations. They want to send our kids over to foreign … Continue reading Two Scenarios….

  Source: Obama’s $2 billion plan to wean US off foreign oil (+video) – CSMonitor.com. If the Obama administration has its way, $2 billion in new revenue from offshore oil drilling will fund research into how to wean American drivers off imported oil… “The reason so many different people – from the private sector, the public sector, our military – support this idea is because it’s not just about saving money, it’s also about saving the environment. But it’s also about our national security,” Obama said. “This is not a Democratic idea or a Republican idea; this is just a smart … Continue reading Putting a Man On The Moon And….

  Dear R J, The Keystone XL pipeline is a giant straw that spews out some of the dirtiest oil on earth. Christians have advocated tirelessly to stop the pipeline. Despite this opposition, the State Department recently released a report that claims the pipeline is “unlikely to have a substantial impact.” Where did they get their data? The oil and gas industry. [1] Tell the State Department to take a second look at the damage the Keystone XL pipeline would do to God’s creation.  Oil from tar sands releases significantly more carbon pollution than any other energy source we import, and … Continue reading Keystone Pipeline Opposition Explained….

I didn’t consider this for many years. I actually thought my experiences rare. I was one of the chosen. I was special. Now I know the truth. God whispers his love in every ear. He isn’t interested in declaring his love to a select few. He doesn’t limit his presence to Vatican City, to the halls of seminaries, to the offices of preachers, or to church altars. God doesn’t restrict his communication to the Bible. He doesn’t confine his presence to any single denomination or religion. God speaks to all people, even when they’re not inclined to listen. Fortunately, God … Continue reading If grace is true, it is true for everyone. – Part 4 If Grace Is True….

  No slick lawyers, or income tax experts can get you out of a national sales tax. It’s so much on the dollar on every luxury you buy. Then, if you like to live in luxury, the poor fellow knows you are paying for it and he will even encourage you to buy more so it will help out the government.  November 2, 1924  Will Rogers This morning’s post was about closing tax loopholes so I thought I would continue with that thread this afternoon.  I am one that believe that a significant amount of our taxes should be raised … Continue reading About Those Taxes…..

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. -Albert Einstein When I came across this Einstein quote it almost made me shudder. Even though I have heard it before it struck me this time.  We are advancing technologically at an astounding pace in recent years.  Integrated circuits are in just about every device we now buy. Artificial intelligence is being used for so many things today.  Unfortunately because the Pentagon budgets take the biggest bite out of our discretionary spend technology is at the forefront … Continue reading World War IV…..

I wish I knew who originally penned these words. They are inspiring indeed.     Continue reading Definite Words Of Wisdom….

Sept 2010 – Mackinac Island Continue reading Mackinac Island…

Why does the U.S. have the biggest percentage of our population in prison?  When I first heard this it somewhat surprised me. I thought surely those countries led by dictators would be higher.  Given the reputation of the Gulags in Russia why are they not higher than us? I did a little digging and it seems the answer is really not clear. But there seems to be at least a few pointers that might be part of the cause: Drug Offenses Incarceration for drug offenses has increased 12-fold from 40,000 in 1981 to nearly 500,000 by 2010, accounting for two-thirds … Continue reading The Highest Incarceration Rate… Part 2