A blog that closely resembles blasting across the alkali flats in a jet-powered, monkey-navigated race-car, during a beer induced adrenaline rush!
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Who would have thought that going Rogue would involve so many lines?
Friday, October 30, 2009
On the Issues in Ohio November 2009 – including casinos!
Issue 1 would authorize the state of Ohio to borrow and spend $200 million to "provide compensation to Ohio veterans of the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq conflicts, and to pay for the administration of the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq Conflicts Compensation Bond Retirement Fund and the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq Conflicts Compensation Fund." Veterans who served in the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan would receive a $100 cash bonus for each month they served, not to exceed a total of $1,000 per veteran.This is simple redistribution of wealth. Compounding this issue is that the state is bankrupt. And we are going to borrow more money? This inevitably results in higher taxes and a further corrosion of the Ohio economy in the long run.
I do support veterans. No price tag can ever be placed on their sacrifice. But it is important to remember that they do what they do in the name of freedom and liberty, not bureaucracy and red tape.
Andy votes NO!
Issue 2: Livestock Care Standards Board
The amendment proposes creating an Ohio Livestock Care Standards Board for the purpose of establishing standards governing the care of livestock and poultry.
Again, why would we create a new bureaucracy of state workers to provide quality assurance for an industry that has not had any substantial quality issues for over 200 years. Where does the money come from to pay for this? I’ll tell you were it’s not coming from: it’s not coming from the people who have already left Ohio’s confiscatory tax structure for more economically free states. That leaves the rest of us to foot the bill on this one.
There is already a system in place to keep Ohio farmers at the top of the food production industry. It’s called the free market. If Farmer Brown’s flock or herd is of poor quality, then the supermarket will purchase food from Farmer Jones. And that system doesn’t cost you anything in higher taxes… if anything it means the best quality food at the lowest prices because both farmers Brown and Jones are competing for the sale to the supermarket.
Andy votes NO!
Issue 3: Casinos (hold tight, this is a big one boys and girls)
Issue 3, if approved, will amend the Ohio Constitution to allow casinos in
Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo.
A majority vote is required for initiative to be approved. A "yes" vote means voters approve of amending the Ohio Constitution to permit one casino each in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, and Toledo.
My first objection to this is of a personal nature, and one of reverence to our system of government. I do not personally believe that amending the state constitution for something as trivial as to allow casino gambling is a valid enough reason to do so. The constitution of the state should only be amended for urgent or big issue items.
The arguments for are the arguments against:
While the Ohio Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) is in support of the casino initiative claiming there will be more jobs in the Buckeye State, their ulterior motive is that there will be a substantial crime increase surrounding the casinos. While profits from the casinos will go to the local government the FOP can request additional funding for police forces. Is creating more crime so that we can afford to further fund our police forces really the best way to provide security for our citizens? In fact that’s probably the worst way to do it. It is probably more proper to just stop funding the PR campaigns like “green” initiatives and “Commit To Be Fit” that in effect take money away from vital programs like police and fire departments and why cities are raising taxes.
Another argument for the casinos is that it keeps money in Ohio. Well, Indiana, Michigan and West Virginia all have casinos that Ohioans supposedly visit. By that logic nobody from those states will ever come to Ohio to gamble. Are there really enough Ohioans fleeing the state to support four casinos in Ohio? I’d like to see the market research numbers on that!
If that is the case then this state needs some serious gambling addiction counseling!
Remember those out-of-state casinos are profitable mostly because they have regional monopolies. Adding casinos in Ohio doesn’t necessarily mean that the same formula for success will happen here, but more likely you’ll just have a lot of less-successful places where gambling is allowed.
But the taxes will provide cities and counties with much needed revenue,right? Sure the casino tax rate will be the fourth highest in the country. THAT’S THE PROBLEM IN OHIO! Ohio is the forth highest taxed state in the country and thus jobs and people are fleeing Ohio for lower taxed states. If you tax the hell out of the casino it could potentially operate at a loss. If the Casino fails then we have more empty buildings in Ohio and none of the jobs that were promised.
There’s a lot of money going into a multimedia ad campaign selling Ohioans on this casino… but what if it doesn’t deliver what it promises? It’s possible. It happened in Pittsburgh which has an economy not unlike that of Cleveland or Cincinnati.
Remember: never trust a pushy salesman. They never really have your interest in mind.
Andy votes NO!
And if I were a member of ACORN I’d vote no six or eight times!
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Breakin' the law: a how to guide for professional athletes
A) financing and taking part in a dog fighting operation
B) drunk driving and killing a pedestrian
C) accidentally shooting yourself in a nightclub
If you answered: A, C, B you are correct. But only in the case of an NFL athlete. If you look at the sentencing and subsequent fallout from each of these crimes then you have the following results:
For financing and taking part in a dog fighting operation you will be fired, spend eighteen months in jail had all your assets go to finance fighting dog rehabilitation and spend eighteen months in jail before having to go on a media tour just to get your job back.
For the heinous crime of being stupid enough to carry a loaded gun into a night club and shooting yourself by accident you would also be fired, and be sentenced up to two years in jail (potentially twenty months for good behavior).
Finally there is the case of the drunk driver who kills a man in Florida. For this you are fortunate enough to settle out of court for a six-figure sum and spend only thirty days in jail. You get unpaid time off of your job for a year, but it's still there for you when you come back. Yet you are the only one of this group to have actually taken another human life.
Michael Vick was essentially ruined, financially and publicly for being a jerk who doesn’t like animals.
Plaxico Burress did not even harm another living being and will be incarcerated for two years.
And Donte Stallworth gets off comparatively easily despite ending someone’s life.
If you've ever wondered why athletes get into trouble, trouble that most of us normal people cannot even consider, maybe it's because they are literally playing by a completely different set of rules.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Anything you can do I can do better -Bill Clinton and a blow to feminism (again?)
She is secretary of state… he gets hostages released.
While Hillary Clinton goes on late-night cable news shows and asks North Korea to “Call me” it is the former first lady’s husband that actually gets the job done.
Two American journalists were imprisoned in the communist quagmire of North Korea for asking questions that one does not ask of a dictator (Kind of like opposing socialized medicine). Their sentence of hard labor was thought inevitable given the appearent ineptitude of the secretary of state and her department.
But in on his white horse comes… a man!
Feminism has been dealt a severe blow. While the second female Secretary of State can’t get hostages delivered her husband (something no REAL feminist needs) gets the job done.
Well if these liberal feminists don’t work out, there’s a real woman who has stood up for her beliefs, and got to where she was not because she was rebelling against her husband but because of his support.
CLINTON DELIVERS!
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Star Trek: validation for George W. Bush?
In JJ Abrams latest movie “Star Trek” Kirk is very much a cowboy. He drinks, womanizes and gets into bar fights. It’s like he’s looking for trouble. He keeps finding it.
President George W. Bush was a known partier in college; he too seemed to find trouble. He’s even been known to pick a fight (with other countries).
Is Kirk based on Bush? It would almost seem so, if the Kirk character was not created in the 60’s. But this latest incarnation has traits that are hard to ignore.
It would almost seem so given the media hype trying to compare current President Obama with the cerebral Mr. Spock. One thing to point out about this comparison as it pertains to the movie: Mr. Spock was wrong!
A key debate in the film involves Kirk and Spock clashing over weather they should rejoin the fleet and seek assistance from the invading enemy, or fight them head-on. Without making too much of a stretch this is exactly the debate Bush had with the democrats in congress and the UN before invading Iraq. Only Kirk truly understood the motives and malicious intent of Nero's threat to Earth, and his solution was to fight.
Bush, after 9/11 knew that stopping terrorism inherently involved stopping the funding of terrorism by anti-American governments. This his validation of the Iraq war.
Opposing Kirk is Spock, who follows regulations to the T. His adherence to Starfleet code is logical except that there is no regard for the rules by the forces of evil in the film.
That being said, terror must be fought with the rules of terror, not by the rules of civilized people. Thus to save Earth, Kirk must take the enterprise to fight the evil Romulins instead of going back for more capable support, and leaving Earth defeseless.
[SPOILER AHEAD ]
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It is not a perfect analogy, but it does work on multiple levels, especially here. When Kirk finally offers to negotiate with Nero, the act of benevolence is not received. Instead Kirk must execute the only option he has left and kill the bad guy.
The analogy ends here. While Kirk is praised for his maverick actions and his cowboy attitude and thusly rewarded. Bush was hated. That is a strong word, but is very accurate. His opponents never come around to his way of thinking the way Star Fleet does in the film. Instead, even as the Bush Administration has come to an end, the attack on now private-citizen George W. Bush is not without pause.
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Wednesday, May 06, 2009
My favorite Moments
While I was less than an occasional watcher of the series in it’s first few years, when the show went into syndication around 2006 I quickly fell in love with it and caught up with the history of the show.
Scrubs follows John “JD” Dorian (Zach Braff), he is a young doctor at Sacred Heart hospital. JD is prone to an inner monologue as well as fanciful daydreams, portrayed as cut-scene flashes on screen. In the first episode of the series JD going into his first day as an intern where he is informed by the chief of medicine that he is “just a large pair of scrubs to me.” Thus naming the show.
Scrubs was highly under-rated. Not only for it’s comedy, but also for being a show that actually openly discussed the issues in modern medicine. Not necessarily from a left or right perspective, but from the perspective of the doctor. It is a comedy in a hospital, but it had a sense of legitimacy.
That being said, here are my ten favorite moments/episodes from the run of the series in no particular order.
My Overkill · Season 2, Episode 1 – Aired: 9/26/2002
This episode features a great opening sequence in JD’s Daydream where he is avoiding Dr. Cox after it is learned he slept with his ex-wife, as well as other strained relationships after the end of the previous season. The avoidance sequence is set to the song “Overkill” by Collin Hay, formerly of Men at Work.
My Lunch · Season 5, Episode 20 – Aired: 4/25/2006
J.D. asks Dr. Cox out for lunch but runs into annoying former patient Jill Tracy, who unexpectedly teaches him something about responsibility. Jill dies and her organs are used to treat three of Dr. Cox’s other patients. Unfortunately the disease that kills Jill is passed on to the organ recipients and Dr. Cox takes it very personally. In the follow-up episode Dr. Cox is in deep depression and drinking heavily. It is up to the rest of the cast to get him back to work.
My Musical · Season 6, Episode 6 – Aired: 1/18/2007
A new patient at the hospital wakes up and sees everything happening around her as a musical. The music is catchy, and the story is a bit silly, but we finally get an explanation of JD and Turk’s relationship in the number “Guy Love”
My Way Home · Season 5, Episode 7 – Aired: 1/24/2006
In a "Wizard of Oz" homage, J.D. is trying to go home, Turk searches for a heart donor and Carla worries that she doesn't have the courage to become a parent. Meanwhile, Elliot doesn't believe that she has the brains to lead a question and answer session. The Janitor is painting color coded lines throughout the hospital for easier navigation. The episode ends with Ted’s band singing a beautiful rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”
My Screw Up · Season 3, Episode 14 – Aired: 2/24/2004
Dr. Cox learns that his brother-in-law Ben (Brenden Frasier) hasn't visited a doctor about his cancer in the two years he has been gone traveling the world. Ben dies after the first commercial, but the episode is set up so that all scenes with Ben are actually a mental breakdown suffered by Dr. Cox. It is not until the final scene that the viewer realizes exactly when Ben died.
My Monster · Season 2, Episode 10 – Aired: 12/12/2002
The episode ends with Elliot and JD hooking up, albeit for the second time. But it is a great sex scene, for a comedy, for TV, with some great music behind it.
My Choosiest Choice of All · Season 3, Episode 19 – Aired: 4/20/2004
Actually not one of the best episodes, but the musical number at the end, "Light & Day" by The Polyphonic Spree, inspired me to use the same song in my own engagement announcement (http://adventuresofandy.blogspot.com/2008/08/great-moments.html)
My Best Friend's Baby's Baby and My Baby's Baby · Season 6, Episode 2 – Aired: 12/7/2006
I love this episode because in one of JD’s daydreams he ends up debating abortion with a statuette of Jesus come to life. The statuette wins!
My Long Goodbye (2) · Season 6, Episode 15 – Aired: 4/5/2007
In an episode that has the emotional depth of a series finale we see Nurse Roberts pass away after a car accident. The rest of the cast must reflect on her influence on them.
My Finale, Part 1/2 · Season 8, Episode 18 – Aired: 5/6/2009
It is rare than any series finale of a long-running show makes the list anyone’s top episodes, but while it was stretched out to a full hour, it was well worth it. Three things make this episode great. First, and most importantly was Dr. Cox giving a touching speech on what JD actually meant to him. Next was the farewell walk of JD as he left Sacred Heart forever. Current and former cast members greeted him, including former patients and deceased characters. Finally as a farewell to the fans Ted’s band (affectionately knows as “The Worthless Peeons”) performs the show’s theme song a capella. Few shows have finales that life up to the reputation that gave them such a long run. For Scrubs this finale surpassed it!
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Can this be filed under “saving the relationship?”
I’ve been at my job for well more than 100 days. Do I get a press conference?
But I did not watch because Krystle came over after her workout with her trainer and as we do on Wednesdays, have dinner and watch Lost. That’s another thing that upset me about this press conference. Sure I’m willing to skip an episode in the final season of Scrubs, only to watch it online later. But do NOT preempt LOST! I swore if I did have to miss Lost I would run against Obama in 2012 on that platform… That and the Fair Tax.
A typical occurrence when Obama is on TV is me sitting there engaged in debate with the president. He seems to ignore my rebuttal but somehow I usually end up ahead on points. Krystle has threatened to make me go downstairs and play Mario Kart on the Wii if I don’t stop. But since the Wii is at her house I decided to just not catch up on some unwatched shows on my DVR.
Tonight’s selection: GI Joe Resolute. This may be the GI Joe cartoon I’ve waited my whole life to see. It is definitely grown up from the 80’s cartoon, which by todays standards may be a little cheesy, so not much of a cheese factor here. But plenty of blood and guts, and even a few good guys not surviving the experience. Basically a globetrotting animated 24 that doesn’t take place in real time. Of course I’m not the first person to compare GI Joe to 24. Wizard Magazine once said “GI Joe makes the spies on 24 look like CIA washouts!”
The action is similar to the comic books, specifically the more recent Devil’s Due Publishing run, though this is an original story. The cast is mostly original. The voice acting was pretty good, but how great would it have been to reassemble the original cast. Yes I know there are cast members who have passed away so that is impossibility.
The animation was updated for the 21st century as well. The character models seem to be built on a hybrid Japanese/American style of animation. It works well.
The story is solid, works in some cool military sci-fi gadgets but does go PC in a couple places. Sure Scarlet, one of the few female Joes comes out of a fight unscathed while her male partner takes a non-lethal bullet. Also the Dialtone character is reprised as a woman. Not a mainstream enough character to be as offensive as Battlestar Galactica’s reprising of Starbuck as a woman, but sill a change nonetheless.
We finished with GI Joe at about 8:53 in time to hear President Obama give the final answer of his press conference. After a couple minutes I asked, “Is he just talking to hear himself talk?” as his words lacked clear cohesion of thought. After the president left the podium ABC’s Charlie Gibson gave a synopsis of the event calling the most interesting question: “What has surprised you the most? Humbled you the most? Enchanted you the most?”
I didn’t know People Magazine covered presidential press conferences. I did learn this morning that question was asked by a New York Times reporter.
Enchanted, really?
If journalism isn’t already dead, it’s on life-support and that reporter just pulled the plug!
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
I’ll take my chances
Wile hundreds of reported cases are confirmed, a representative of the WHO has said that there are only seven confirmed deaths, not the more than 150 figure that was previously thrown around.
I am one person, there are seven reported deaths. There are well more than six billion people on the planet.
That works out to about a one in 857,142,857chance of dying from this “pandemic”. Or as Porky Pig might say:
“One in eight hudre… ba de, eight hundred fifty-seven mil, ba de, one in eight… a really big number.”That makes this about the least likely cause of death in the world right now.
I think I’ll be okay on my own, Mr. President, and I don’t need the government coming in to take over the healthcare industry because of this perceived crisis.
That being said, I suddenly feel better about the bacon I had for breakfast today.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Why my fiancé can now never be Miss USA
Sunday the goal was to be home by 7:00 so Krystle could watch the Miss USA pageant. We got there in the nick of time and as soon as the contestants were introduced Krystle was barking at the girls in their bikinis. “Eat a cheeseburger!” “Look at her walk it’s too stiff” “Tone up your legs!”
This is the same woman who yells at me to go downstairs and play Mario Kart when I start debating with the man giving the State Of The Union Address!
Irony!
Of course, little did we know that politics was about to enter the pageant with the final question for Miss California. She was asked about her views on gay marriage by openly gay celebrity bloger Perez Hilton.
Before I quote her answer a little recent history is called for. This past November when it seemed that left wing radical ideals were all the rage across the country, the blue state of California had a gay marriage proposal on the ballot. That issue went down like a Led Zeppelin. It wasn’t even close! Since then there have been attempts to subvert democracy and institutionalize gay marriage via courts. This is the epitome of what is meant by a vocal minority. And a vocal minority that enforces its values on a silent majority is called fascism.
Now that we have established the views of the minority and majority of Californians on this issue it should come as no surprise that a randomly selected citizen of the golden state would statistically fall in the majority.
So what was Perez Hilton so upset about when his question received the following answer:
“We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite. And youKudos to Miss Carrie Prejean for standing up for what you believe. Double kudos to your parents for raising you right. And a final round of kudos for exposing the Miss USA pageant for what it is: an agenda-driven leftist biased all lefties club where even if you have the best body, best smile, best walk and best answers, if you don’t agree with what the judges personal bias you not only will not win the crown, the judge will lambaste you on his blog.
know what, I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a
marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there,
but that's how I was raised.”
But not this blog; here we like you, Carrie. You may never get that national crown, but you’re a voice for all those tea partiers out there! And yes, my fiancĂ©, who competed for Miss Ohio a year ago, would have given a very similar answer.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Running the numbers
Let’s look at these numbers next to each other
......$100,000,000.00 in cuts from
$3,500,000,000,000.00 federal budget.
Let’s put it this way. If the entire federal budget were one dollar, then you would have to make that cut 350 times before you would have cut one full penny from the budget.
In other words, Obama has successfully called for cutting one thirty-five thousandth of the budget.
And you wonder why people are assembling in masses to protest this reckless spending!
Thursday, February 05, 2009
What kind of job would you do for $500,000?
This is what economists call a price ceiling. What happens when you have a price ceiling is that prices automatically go to that level. So now that all bailed-out banks will have half-millionaire CEO’s what is the incentive to be a bank executive when you could be an executive of a less-regulated industry.
A paycheck is essentially a bribe to get you to do something you would otherwise not do. Most people would rather sleep in, take a relaxing drive to the gym, read a good book, catch up on Lost and eat out at expensive restaurants, rather than sit in a monochrome cubicle for eight hours strait.
By capping executive salaries, or any salaries for that matter, you will have the most talented executives leaving the banking industry for more lucrative careers where earning potential will not be limited.
Inversely when you can only pay an executive a mere 500 large, you get a 500k executive. Okay, let’s put that in some more scaled down terms if you actually think that $500,000 is a lot of money.
If you ran a restaurant and you were only going to pay your cook $1 per hour that he worked how good of a cook do you think you would get? Sure you would get the Wolfgang Puck of most third-world countries for that rate, but for our little example let’s assume your restaurant is somewhere in North America.
The answer is that you would get either no one willing to do the job for that amount or someone so terrible at their job that they are only worth one dollar per hour.
An executive worth only $500,000 in our society is a pretty bad executive. This would lead to a talent vacuum in the financial markets which would put them in further disarray, leading to more government intervention, regulation and socialization of our private sector. Then again, that’s probably just Obama’s master plan.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Please consider the economy before printing THIS blog
Oh, if you haven’t read my previous post it’s right here. No, take your time, I’ll be here when you get back.
Okay now that you’ve gone back and read what I wrote earlier this week we can now move forward.
When I printed that email, which I did so in order to perform a task at my job, I was creating economic growth. By doing my job, my company is able to complete it’s stated mission, by completing their mission they can make a profit. When making a profit the shareholders get a dividend and the stock price goes up and more people are employed, and they print out emails that go on to save the planet.
I just realized that in one run-on-sentence I summed up an entire semester of Environmental Economics.
The point is, the environment and economic prosperity are not mutually exclusive. Sure the environmentalists believe so, but that’s because their real agenda is as much government regulation on business as possible. And it’s impossible for an individual, company or society to grow its way out of heavy restraints, let alone prosper!
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Please consider the environment before printing blog
So I printed it.
And yes I considered the environment. So assuming trees are good for the environment I helped plant a tree today by printing this email.
If I print the email, then my company needs to order more paper. If we order more paper then somebody needs to produce more paper. If the paper company is to produce more paper they need to get more raw materials, i.e. trees. To get more trees they need to call the lumberjack to cut some down. And because the lumberjack doesn’t want to go out of business, he will plant a brand new tree.
I helped the environment by printing out this goofball’s email!
If you are reading this blog, please hold down the “Ctrl” key and then press the “P” key. If you are reading a printout of this blog, please find your nearest copy machine and make a copy.
The environment needs our help. We must all do our part!