Mild Rants

There are a few things that most cultures feel are unconditionally wrong, to wit, Child Molestation and Violent Rape. I just read a blast from the past that comes to us from August of 2003 in Ohio. A couple managed to fake that their daughter had leukemia in order to illicit charitable donations and government assistance. The seven year old girl was completely healthy, but they shaved her head and treated her inhumanely in order to make her look the part. Robert Milbrandt and his wife never declared their guilt while conceding there was enough evidence to convict them of felony theft. No mention was made of whether their young daughter recovered from this travesty and evil of parenthood to lead a balanced and stable life. Do you think we can add an abominable action like this to our short list of items that are unconditionally wrong?                Urbana, Ohio -- A man accused of helping his wife fake leukemia in             their 7-year-old daughter to obtain thousands of

Cheer-leading is by its very nature a risky activity. Cheer-leading is invariably sponsored by some individuals or group in a middle school, high school, or college.  However sponsorship and supervision are two very different endeavors. Please keep the distinction between these two terms in mind as you read a distraught father's account of how his daughter was paralyzed from the neck down during a cheer-leading practice that happened way back in January of 2004             The parents of a Prairie View A&M University cheerleader paralyzed             last week during practice are questioning whether the students were             properly supervised.             "I am furious. Something went terribly wrong with my daughter,"             Bobby Norwood said Monday night in a telephone interview from             Houston's Memorial Hermann Hospital, where Bethany Leona Norwood is             in recovery after surgery this weekend.             Bobby

Chis Rock made some sort of comment on Jimmy Fallon's show recently indicating his extreme lack of interest in international football. The past his prime comedian could only declare that the host country Brazil is more well known for their women's ass than for soccer. Fallon, uncharateristically, had nothing to say about Rock's vulgarity. Maybe he should have remarked that soccer is much like extended foreplay with a goal being comparable to climax/orgasm. I heard that close to 30 million Americans watched the draw with Portugal which indicates interest is much higher than in the 90s when I still did not understand the offside rule. I believe the officiating in Soccer is much more objective and neutral/fair than NBA,NFL, or MLB which many believe is sometimes corrupted by big bucks. I personally know that Brazlian arse after a soccer game is explosively sexual especially after a low scoring game!

Robert Booth's article which charges FaceBook with manipulating the mental state and emotions of its users should not surprise anybody. If one is feeble-minded enough to to be manipulated and exploited by such profit seeking attempts, then too bad.  There is nothing unethical about trying to induce the masses to buy your stuff. How do you think people become rich? Also, perhaps FB users should figure out a way to elevate their self-esteem and make friends in real life rather than hiding behind a computer screen and stressing out when they are unfriended at FB.   I was reading about how a student believes that one of his teachers gave her a low grade in sociology class because of some perceived slight at FaceBook! That is pathetic whether it is true or false. The mere fact that FB can replace physical interaction is not healthy and folks need to get out of their house and rub elbows like in the good old days.  The Californian internet giant has published details of a massi

Dr Thomas Ramage of Roswell,NM reluctantly announces his retirement partially due to restrictions on his clinical autonomy imposed by the administration of our 44th president. The good doctor claims he had to lay off two employees due to the effects of big government which in this case are the deleterious effects of the ACA on his medical practice. One might question the necessity of the doctor being "forced to lay off two medical professionals". Perhaps he could have kept them on board at the cost of a reduction in his personal compensation? What I mean is that Ramage stated it had been a privilege to serve the community for 37 years. Why not give it a little more time? Ramage, in his farewell letter you see below, also gave spiritual advice to his patients. Much of his letter published in the RDR listed esteemed colleagues like Bob Rader, Charlie Trimble, Pete Rosario, Jerry Dominic, Fred French. He also mentions he can no longer run his business when Medicare,Medicaid, and

Humans, more than other organisms, are aware of the extreme cost and burden of procreation. Once you have a kid, they compete for your time and money. Romance with your wife tends to suffer and you are on a financial treadmill. Justin Harris should have been more aware of this life changing burden before having a baby.  I think the state of Texas will let you drop off your baby at a fire station or a post office no questions asked. This is a law there because of all the babies they were finding in trash dumpsters or otherwise abandoned. Harris, of Alabama, fabricated a lame story where he told police he had conducted the Internet research because he was afraid his son might die in an overheated vehicle(He did the internet search before he left his 20 month old kid in car inferno at Home Depot Corporate where he is a computer programmer). Somebody who is ignorant enough to think anybody would believe that should be locked up for stupidity alone! Right Justin, just wanted to see if j

I don't remember where I read or heard that the woman hating video produced by Elliot Rodger has been viewed by 86% of Americans and close to that percentage worldwide. For those of you who did not view video where Eliot decided he needed to kill some the women who would not give him any pussy, please watch it to understand the torment and misery of a 22 year old malcontent who could not get laid and reacted with a vengeance. My rant is with his father, an assistant director on the set of The Hunger Games, who is now trying to monetize the suicide of his son. You can read the details below, but I am guessing Peter Rodger has visions of big time cinematic payday based on the sexual tension induced shooting spree of his tightly wound, homicidal male progeny.  Father even volunteered to take his horny, virgin offspring to Sin City to pay for a much needed release, but Elliot preferred stewing, ruminating, and murder to a fling in Las Vegas. His Dad should not earn a single penny

The supreme court justices once again proved how out of touch they are with the every day operation of an abortion clinic when they ruled against the so called "buffer zones". The justices in their usual detached, unaware manner ruled based on their perception of a concept versus considering what the doctors and the women seeking abortions have to deal with! They called the 35-foot buffer zones imposed at Massachusetts abortion clinics a violation of free speech! How about the violations of the rights of women who have the choice on whether they should give birth or not? The protesters at these clinics are rarely practicing only their right to free speech. These loud-mouthed moral idealists often use not so subtle scare tactics and bullying to prevent women and physicians from doing their job. Calling that free speech is akin to calling spitting in someone's face the right to irrigate one's mouth! What many of the abortion clinic protesters are doing constitut

This is a rant combined with the marvel of the potential of unmanned drones. As with all new inventions and technology, the potential for abuse and criminal intent is possible. The picture you see is of a 4 prop helicopter drone capable of video and still shot surveillance. This device certainly could be used by law enforcement  to monitor and record crime scenes in progress without the necessity of police officers putting their lives at risk or at least to be aware of the specific details of the crime scene. Can you imagine the deterrent effect these drones would have on would be criminals knowing that their every move was being filmed along with the route of their getaway car? The clamoring privacy advocates certainly have a different point of view. A couple in California believes a drone owner in their neighborhood filmed the couple having rough sex in their backyard. The manner in which the wife discovered this was beyond shocking. She was, apparently, surfing adult web sit

I think most substance abusers have to be aware at some level that what they are doing is bad for themselves and the people who love them. However, the following pic attached to a tweet is alarming on many levels. It states "I'm not an alcoholic, alcoholics go to meetings. I'm a drunk, we go to parties".  So not only is this drunk not acknowledging responsibility for their addiction, they are making fun of the life saving organization called Alcoholics Anonymous. How many parties have you been to where some drunk is either getting into a fight or being disruptive in some other fashion? While quite humorous, the flippancy of this quote that downplays the severity of addiction is strong proof some alcoholics don't give a damn about the time, concern, and money that is being wasted on them!

David Correia, assistant professor at University of New Mexico, apparently believes his charges of alleged police violence carry more significance than the functions of our legal system. Perhaps the self promoting history professor should travel to Central America to see why so many young people are fleeing drug violence and an ineffective police force. The good professor should spend a month in Honduras where inadequate law enforcement leads to many sleepless nights and mothers fearing for the well being of their families. As you can see in the newspaper picture, one of his followers in the street protest he organized actually has a sign that states Abolish Police . The people who were shot by the Albuquerque Police Department were threats to the safety of the city. They all had records and previous run ins with law enforcement. One was a suicide by cop. The homeless guy in the foothills had previously assaulted a police officer . Ask David Coreia why he uses the UNM web si

What you see below is a picture of the rules and regulations for Free Summer Movies in Roswell, NM. MainStreet Roswell sponsors this highly attended Saturday night entertainment. The rules include the standard no smoking, no pets, no alcohol, talking on cell phone or texting, and cleaning up your trash. There is an additional rule listed on the sign that is needed in a region with a high concentration of Mexicans/Hispanics which states Do not let your children run around excessively. Mexicans are bad about letting their niños run around in public distracting and irritating those who are trying to enjoy the show in peace and quiet. I have a number of good Mexican friends who make their kids behave and discipline them if they run around screaming their heads off in public. It's the lower income Hispanic families with around eight kiddos that misbehave the most in grocery stores, movie theaters, restaurants, bowling alleys, malls, miniature golf courses, church, etc.

The New York Times headline reads  U.S. Plans to Step Up Detention and Deportation of Migrants.  It is about time we, as a nation, discern the difference in meaning between the terms immigrant and migrant. In fact, the aforementioned headline could well have immigrants substituted for migrants in various local newspapers around the United States. Migrants, from Central America, unfamiliar with the American Legal system have been interpreting a notice to appear in court as a permit to stay in the United States! (Yeah right!) The migrants, primarily women with children, have been sending word back to Central America that they received a “permiso” to remain here, inducing more to travel across Mexico to the unmanageably large American border. More alarming is the trend of young Central Americans to risk life and limb to walk across parched Mexico just to have the opportunity to live in the safer, comparatively speaking, United States. These 16 to 25 year olds are  fleeing the in

 Remember the name of the 69 year old Injun(I  mean native American)Suzan Harjo. She, along with other plaintiffs, were responsible for the following action by the U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office: The U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office cancelled the federal trademarks for the Washington Redskins after ruling that the name was "disparaging to Native Americans." While no court has ruled that the Washington REDSKINS have to change their name, Daniel Snyder the team owner will be under extreme financial pressure to rename his team in a fashion that does not offend the "sensibilities" of Suzan Harjo.  To give one more insight into Harjo's notion of injustice, she was involved in the banning of the University of Oklahoma mascot Little Red. Read her description of the Redskin football game she attended in 1974. She never really coherently described what her grievances were and why she finds the name Redskin offensive. It may be as simple as she is still pi

Vinod Khosla is being attacked for managing his personal property in a fashion completely consistent with the law of the land. Khosla, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, paid $37.5 million in 2008 for a 53-acre tract of ocean land that includes the beach and the road. He then chose to close the beach gate, posting armed guards and signaling that he was prepared to spend what is required to keep the public off of his private land. We all know that much of the American public litters and and makes messes they do not clean up on private property all the time, but this does not stop the poor hippies with no personal initiative to scream that their rights are being trampled on by preventing their access to what they perceive to be their beach. Maybe if you long haired, dope smoking, counterculture types had expanded your vocabulary beyond cool and far out man , you could have afforded to purchase that beach property yourself. Personal property is the way the world turns. Live with

We have a friend who has been through multiple pregnancies some of which were abortions when she was younger. I am happy to able to write about this while preserving her privacy because I really have something I am sure she would want to share if it were not for the very private and sensitive nature of her concerns. I am not certain of the medical terminology associated with her problems, but it dealt with some of her gut organs like the kidney, bladder, and the liver I think.These organs were not being properly supported by her weakened vaginal wall which happens to be a strong muscle when healthy. However, her high number of pregnancies had weakened this important muscle compromising the support of those crucial abdomen organs. She consulted with 2 or 3 doctors before being convinced to have a vagina strengthening operation where the surgeon would place some type of mesh to reinforce her important organ supporting muscles. Not to sound insensitive, but this mesh is a lot like

Clayton Lockett was convicted of first-degree murder, rape, kidnapping and robbery back in 1999. He shot teenager Stephanie Nieman and buried her alive in a shallow grave, where she eventually died. What kind of punishment does a guy like this deserve? The victim's family and loved ones probably have a very strong opinion on the manner in which he departed his earthly existence. Is he deserving of due process and even a humane painless death? I don't think so. His allegedly botched lethal injection death penalty where he squirmed in agony for 30 minutes before yielding to a heart attack was good news for many. At least one lowlife killer got what he deserved. Aren't we all tired of these cases where the rights of the murderers carry more weight and significance than the people who were slaughtered? Obama's White House denounced the execution as being beyond human standards. OH MY GOD! What about the humanity of Stephanie Nieman being raped and buried alive?

Fathers who sherk their responsibility to pay their court ordered child support payments out of spite for their ex wife should be punished in some fashion that will force them to resume the monthly payments that will help take care of their biological kids. Just got through listening to Stuart Dyson of KOB excoriate, in his typical melodramatic overacting style, four deadbeat fathers. The Albuquerque TV reporter chose to flash up the locations on a map of four men who each owe their progeny over $150000. Joe Ben Jr. owes one third of one million dollars in child support. You can see the "top four" deadbeat dads in the great state of New Mexico in the picture below. Keep in mind that all you see in the picture are the amounts owed. There certainly may be extenuating circumstances like an uncooperative ex wife who is making it difficult on the father. Also think about it guys. How would you feel if part of your child support check was being used by your ex wife to

I read an article recently about a young lady in a Walmart parking lot who overdosed on heroin. She has been addicted for around 4 years. A police officer was the first responder and was carrying a small kit of naloxone, an anti-overdose medication which he had only recently been trained to use in such circumstances. He prepared the dose, placed the atomizer in her nostril and sprayed. The young heroin junkie was revived. This is good news on the surface. Anytime a life is saved should't the all of humanity jump for joy? Maybe the proper outcome would be to let people who frequently take too much heroin pass away. That sounds callous, but if they don't care about their lives why should police officers be trained to keep them alive when there are so many other important functions for our nation's finest. Incorrigible addicts are a drain on their family and the community. I bet half of the heroin addicts who overdosed and then were revived by naloxone end up shooting up

Below is a screenshot of a social security statement which I finally got in PDF form from their website. I guess you all know that the Social Security Administration does not send out paper statements anymore in their paper-saving, insecure snail-mail movement. We were essentially forced to get an online account at the SS website to facilitate being able to download the PDF statement that you see below. We had to make a physical appearance at the SSA office to verify our identity since I have a credit freeze at Experian. Actually you just see our estimated benefits. If I keep earning money at my current salary level, then I will get circa $1050 per month at age 62. If I can wait till age 66, then my monthly retirement compensation will be close to $1600 per month. I've contributed long enough to get around $1400 per month if I become disabled. You can file for disability online avoiding that dignity draining trip to your local SSA office. You might have to go in face to face fo

Ask Sergio Rodriguez, 26, of Clovis,CA, if pointing a laser at a Fresno police helicopter was a good idea. Rodriguez knew that shining a laser in the direction of an aircraft that is taking off or trying to land could cause a fatal crash, but committed the "prank" anyway. He and his girlfriend Jennifer Coleman get to think about the error in their ways for the next 14 years in a prison cell as they were both convicted by a federal jury after a three–day trial in December. To all you parents with mischievous kiddos, the FBI is offering $10,000 rewards that would be payable by the parents of children who intentionally or inadvertently point a laser at a plane. If fatalities or injuries are a result of your children's actions, then you and Sergio Rodriguez could end up having more in common than ownership of laser pointer. This could mushroom into the same debate about limiting gun sales. Plane loads of people do not want to worry about being taken down by a kid with

It is pretty clear that Ann Coulter does not understand evolution well enough to excoriate it as she does in her magnum opus titled The Church of Liberalism  subtitled Godless. Coulter, sporting an exceptional vocabulary and enormous intellect, makes some fantastic arguments against abortion and how "politically neutral aliens" visiting our planet would construe liberalism as the most influential and powerful religion on our planet! However, she should be charged with amphiboly and equivocation on some of the clever, intended high impact phrases she turns. Ann would predictably counter that this is exactly what liberals do to advance their distorted views. She is right, but she less frequently does the same thing. OK, it is for example time. As you can see from the pic of page 225 in Godless, she writes "Your parents are slugs and then suddenly--but totally at random--you evolve into a gecko and your brother evolves into a shark blah, blah. A few sentences d

Teresa Watanabe of the Los Angeles Times just wrote an informative and much needed "expose an injustice" type of article that details the plight of young men falsely accused of rape. A snippet from her "on the cusp of investigative reporting article" reveals the life shattering accounts of three young men who were charged with sexual assault by university officials. These accusations led to expulsion and/or suspension from the college. I do not mean to make light of actual rapes, but I do have a serious bone to pick with women who scream rape because they are just pissed at the guy they had consensual sex with. Each of the alleged sexual assaults were consequent to one night stands likely originating at a bar near the college campus. Young women who show up to these places are usually looking for the the same thing as the young men. That would be casual, no strings attached sex. If you are looking for a lasting relationship, try a church or the sons of one of your

We received this Chase Slate balance transfer checks offer from Florian Egg-Krings who is the general manager of the slate portfolio. Florian was refreshingly honest and straightforward about the fees and interest you would be charged if you did not pay off all new purchase and transferred balances in full each month. Actually, this is not much of a rant, but I want to make sure you understood what Florian is saying. Let's say that you have a balance transfer of $3000 in the month of January along with $400 in new purchases. You will get charged interest and fees immediately on the $400 worth of new purchases unless you pay the entire $3400 balance in full on your billing cycle due date!! I learned this the hard way with our power rewards Bank America Visa Card. The only way to win with balance transfer cards is to use the card for ONLY THAT! Chop up the card and pay it off the day the 0% APR promotional rate switches to 11.99% or whatever it is for your particular deal!

We have a 2003 Toyota Corolla with a potentially defective passenger side airbag based on notice we received in the mail. However, the wording of the notice is ambiguous if not just wrong, to wit: The front passenger airbag is not designed to deploy unless there is an occupant in the front passenger seat (some objects could also cause it to be in a status ready for deployment). Therefore the risks associated with this condition do not exist if the seat is empty. Whoa!.... Hold your horses, didn't it state that non-human objects in passenger seat could possibly lead to inadvertent deployment of air bags? And didn't it follow by declaring the risks do not exist if seat is empty? Which is it already!??  One does not have to be a logician to notice the inconsistency of the two statements. Seems to me that if you have a heavy object in passenger seat, you have something to worry about.

This is for all you couples who have, of your own volition, NOT had children. How often have your friends with kids stopped just short of begging you to have kids? Having children and raising them properly is perhaps the most challenging task on the face of the planet. Kids compete for your time and your money. Parents have to deal with rebellious adolescents, whether or not to support their gay progeny,other jealous parents, ineffective teachers, how to handle bullies, and a depressing list of other irritants. Life as childless couples know it ends after procreation. I am certainly happy my parents committed the selfless act of having me and raising me, but I am not up to the task of dealing with the problems they went through raising a family of five. I was not surprised to read that Alexander Imich, a Polish-born psychic researcher who was certified the oldest man on earth, was never a father. Imich died recently in Manhattan at the age of 111 placing him in the class of super

Don't you just have contempt for people who like to cling to the coat tails of somebody who made it big from their home town? The kind of story I am talking about is the one where somebody writes about an acquaintance of theirs in High School who became famous. The true motivation of  their writing is jealously and disappointment for not having made their mark on this world, so they try to get a piece of the fame, after the fact, by writing disparaging commentary. Such is the case with an unidentified author contributing to the Daily Kos who pens the following sad tripe about how he knew Ann Coulter in High School and how she was a rich kid whose political views were distorted by the opulence of her upbringing. Please read the following snippet written by somebody with the screen name of blueinsight writing for Daily Kos: Ann Coulter garners more attention than she deserves( you bet man....we know you get more attention hiding behind some pseudonym writing for an average blog )

The Phillips 66 gas pump that you see in the picture has a gasoline leak on the hose close to where the hose is attached to  gas pump. If you can not see the leak, just expand the picture with your fingers and you can see leak near the top of hose. The pumps are located at the Allsups on 2nd and Sycamore in Roswell, NM. I had stopped to fill up before driving to Ruidoso and did not even notice the leak until the friendly cowboy, who happened to be be performing at Fiddle and Griddle, in the next bay alerted me. I immediately told the Allsups attendant and she appeared concerned and eager to fix it. If you look closely at the picture of the leaking hose, you will notice electrical tape being used to wrap up the gasoline hose at the location of the hose. I would think that Phillips 66 would be solely responsible for the maintenance and safety of their gasoline dispensers. The electrical tape looks like some half ass, southern engineering effort of an Allsup's employee. I

The picture you see of the huge envelope occupying our mail box today had all the markings of a bona fide overnight Express document. It was labeled open immediately, contents are extremely urgent,rush to addressee, and contents are extremely important. As a jaded curmudgeon, I knew this was nothing to get too excited about even though Roswell,NM Nissan enclosed a check for $1588 which was to be applied to the cost of a Maxima or Altima. Notice that the return address is Program Headquarters, 2111 W. Second Street, Roswell,NM. They made sure not to put Nissan anywhere on the surface of the duplicitous sales missive, otherwise even fewer prospective dupes would be inclined to open it. Please leave comment if you are pissed off enough to consider legal action to stop this unwanted mailbox cluttering tripe. The unsolicited letter from Nissan is about four times the size of a normal snail mail envelope.

The following New York Times Article written by Julie Cresswell, et.al. is quite alarming on many fronts. It describes the billing practices for a hospital in Florida. Patients admitted in 2011 for severe irregular heartbeat were charged $25,000. A year later they were charged $54,000! The most plausible explanation for this unfair and exorbitant medical procedure price increase is the game hospitals and doctors play with insurance companies. It is well known that they both over bill  insurance companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield. They take whatever the insurance companies give them and then write off the rest of it for tax purposes. Another point of concern is that insurance companies will suddenly decide that they are going to pay more for various surgeries and procedures. Guess what happens then? That's right.... a spike in those very medical procedures and surgeries occur! But not because more people urgently need them, but because its a bigger pay day for the surgeons.

I want you to read a verbatim refutation of why trying to place more restrictions own gun ownership is egregiously unfair to all but a vanishing small percentage of the population. It comes to us from Larry Bell writing for Forbes . As much as gun control advocates might wish otherwise, their attacks are running out of ammo. With private firearm ownership at an all-time high and violent crime rates plunging, none of the scary scenarios they advanced have materialized. Abuse of responsibility by armed citizens is rare, while successful defensive interventions against assaults on their lives and property are relatively commonplace. Please allow me a more long winded paraphrasing of Mr. Bell's incisively penned paragraph: There is a very strong direct correlation between private firearm ownership and a reduction in criminal action or crime rates. Citizens who legally apply for gun ownership and are granted ownership rarely if ever show up at schools or theaters and start slaughter

Just watched a television commercial where a woman named Dale Allen and a stately looking gentleman named Bill Hennessey assured elderly America that reverse mortgages are an excellent option if you are fighting to pay your monthly bills while living on a fixed income. As you can see in the below screenshot, a reverse mortgage promises you NO FINANCIAL WORRIES. Whoa!....easy now....how many discerning, intelligent folks would believe an advertisement that promised a life without financial worries? Sounds like it is time to do a little research. The first thing around 15 minutes worth of research reveals is that a reverse mortgage is an inoffensive substitute for the word LOAN. A reverse mortgage is a loan backed by the equity you have in your home. Sort of like a line of credit in the form of monthly payments guaranteed by your home equity. The second thing that Bill Hennessey and Dale Allen did NOT mention is that the origination fees for the loans average around 3%.

Nearly one in three doctors reports withholding information from patients about useful medical services that aren't covered by their health insurance companies, and the number may be on the rise, a study reports. Doesn't  that sound like the beginning sentence in an article about the failing health care system in the United States today? You bet it does. However, it was the opening sentence of a CNN article titled  Is your doctor holding out on you? written in 2003! Many of our doctors and insurance companies could not be trusted 11 years ago and there has been little to no improvement in that same 11 year time interval. Patients were not getting the whole story from their physician back then and it is even worse today with confusing medical bills and one's health care being dictated by insurance companies.  Our last appointment with a  General Practitioner was a travesty. He was rushed to the point of being unprofessional, rude, and curt. His medical explanatio

Seems like everybody is scared senseless these days about getting sick and not being able get the health care they need due to the extremely unfair health care system in the United States. I hope you all get a chance to read the Al Lewis column on an elementary school friend who worked as a heavy-equipment mechanic and was stricken with cancer. The chemotherapy treatments eroded his families savings to the point their home was foreclosed upon and they would soon be served an eviction notice. His wife and middle school aged children would be forced to move out of their lifelong home despite the fact they had faithfully paid medical insurance premiums on time their entire life. Friends and family lent them money and did fundraisers for around $50,000 which put only a very small dent in their medical bills! Are you as pissed off as me about this?!! Do you know who is complicit in this crime against hard working American citizens? Doctors. Yes Doctors are aware of the unfair and expl

I am no technologist, but occasionally a new idea comes long that makes one wonder why it did NOT make its appearance much sooner. Not being connected to the internet has so many disadvantages that I won't bore you with even a short list of them. There are areas of our world that have no internet access and Google just announced a plant to deploy a one billion dollar satellite network to essentially get the entire planet online. The network will be comprised of 180 low altitude satellites.  As humanitarian as this all sounds and as Adam Smith's invisible hand predicted, Google also wins by expanding its advertising network. You see it is not really the benevolence of the baker or brewer that is at work here, but that is another article. The following is a snippet of a Market Watch article by Andy Pasztor and Alistair(Alastair misspelled at MW) Barr that has some fascinating commentary about satellite antennas that have no moving parts which have obvious favorable implication

The father of one of the victims in the Santa Barbara shootings emotionally and vehemently begged law makers to radically change existing gun laws because his son was senselessly slaughtered. As much sympathy as I have for this grieving father, we can NOT make gun laws stricter because of the actions of a small percent of ONE percent. Please carefully read the following words of Jonah Goldberg that more lucidly and convincingly supports the above assertion:  Why not instead focus on the source of the problem: the very small minority of mentally ill people who pose a danger to themselves and others. And, yes, guns need to be part of that equation. But blanket efforts to ban guns seem like an analogous effort to ban dangerous speech or art. About a third of U.S. households own a gun, according to surveys, but the number may be higher than that. Getting rid of guns will infringe on the rights of tens of millions of sane, law-abiding citizens in order to tackle a problem posed by dozens

Just read a typically very helpful article by Natasha Burton, Daily Worth. I am not ranting negatively against what she wrote because I think she is just reporting common practices by American Consumers.  She writes about that moment when your are shopping online at check out time when you realize you need to spend $25 more to waive your shipping costs. So you purchase $25 more than than originally planned just to save around 5 dollars on shipping.  What many folks do according to Burton, since most online retailer offers free return shipping, is they pay the extra $25 on additional items to get the free shipping.....then return the items via free return shipping! A 2011 study reveals that 40% of clothing purchases made online are indeed returned which supports Burton's claim.  Now for the rant. This practice I just described is stealing. It is not the same as shoplifting an item directly off the store shelf, but it is a form of theft nonetheless! Some friends of ours who go

Everybody that has rented their domicile knows that the potential for a dispute with their landlord is quite high. A landlord wants you to make your monthly payment on time and does not really want to hassle with maintenance or repair requests. It is two forces acting in opposite directions. Your landlord wants to collect the rent without incurring additional costs and you want them to replace an air conditioning unit that has not been working properly for the last 6 months, fix dripping faucets, warn your next door neighbor for being too loud, fix or replace washing machines and dryers, etc.  These inevitable clashes often result in lawsuits where the tenant quickly discovers are time consuming, expensive, and a big hassle. Retaining an attorney is always stressful. Have you noticed that clients often end up suing their own attorney for inadequate representation, etc nowadays? What many irate tenants have been doing to circumvent the necessity of retaining an expensive attorney is