Portrait of Congress & Private Entrprise

A portrait of the government (L) and private enterprise (R) working hand in hand.  

There Are Reasons For Separation of Church And State

Labor in the Park

If you look at the above picture with one eye you will see Senator Clay pounding that light pole deeper into the ground. Did the city downsize the parks department's maintainance personnel again?

This Day in History, Dec the 16th:

1773 Boston Tea Party. Now the Tea Party has a completely different meaning.

1915 Albert Einstein publishes his "General Theory of Relativity"

1976 Andrew Young named Ambassador & Chief US Delegate to UN.

1978 Ronald Reagan denounced President Jimmy Carter's recognition of China People's Republic. Now they own us.

Top Education Dogs Get Fat Raises!

A portion of a news story from the AJC.com this morning:

"Despite budget cuts, three college presidents get salary boostShareThisPrint E-mail .By Laura Diamond


The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

University of Georgia President Michael Adams and two other college presidents are getting raises at a time when the University System of Georgia is dealing with about $300 million in state budget cuts."

How will the state pay for the raises since they are going through some serious budget slashed?

No problem at all. Just add some more furlough days to regular teachers and increase tuition at colleges.

Tax Laws of the Jungle

c\Click on the above to enlarge to read.

The above Dilbert cartoon, by Scott Adams, yesterday’s comic strip, Dogbert talks about using the “Dutch Sandwich” system of companies avoiding paying taxes. He added, “I’m not even making that up.”

I Googled Dutch Sandwich to see if Dogbert made it up or not and found that the Dutch Sandwich is indeed real. It is a complicated tax law loophole used widely by big corporations to get out of paying their fair share of taxes and of course that gives the little man their tax bourdon.

Here are some thoughts:.

I wonder what the “Fair Tax” people have to say about this.

I also wonder what the Tea Partiers have to say about the Dutch Sandwich loophole. Being big companies, you know they will have lobbyist to talk to the lawmakers in more convincing and personal ways than you or I could do. With the Dutch Sandwich, it is: Representation Without Taxation.

There Are No Problems, Just Solutions!

I remember once hearing a manager wannabe say, "There are no problems, just solutions!"

Now it seems, that any big company that many people depend on – either by employment or by contracts, or use it for a lending base, if the money goes sour, the domino effect is feared, causing a wide spread money black-hole.

Which then, it is felt, that to prevent an economic chaos, the government needs to jump in and bail them out.

So, if the government puts up the money to bail them out, then, I think technically, the government becomes one of the major stock stockholders of the company. I would think that is what is called socialism with the disguise of capitalism.

The rate things are going now the government could be the principal stockholder of many large corporations.

Where is the money coming from to save all these corporations? The government (which is owned by “We the People”) has already spent itself almost out on recent wars. Of course the first thought is raise the taxes but raising taxes has already been deemed too liberal and morally wrong – even though we do owe the money.

I doubt if anyone wants to pass down our debts for our children and grandchildren to pay – if that isn’t a no-no it should be. If we just ignore the problem,then it may happen by default.

Another way for the government to come up with the money is to sell bonds to big money countries such as China, Japan, and Germany. Then, possibly in the long run, they might own the U.S. and all its companies it just acquired.

I know! We will cut benefits for the poor and the elderly.

See? There are no problems! Just a wide choice of solutions!

Income Tax Birthday

Yesterday I forgot to tear off the page of the History Channel Page-A-Day. If I had, I would have told you that July 1st was the anniversary of the Federal Income Tax.

On July the 1st, 1862, Congress established a system of collecting taxes. Why? Because they had a war to pay for. After the Civil War, they stopped enforcing the new tax laws.

The IRS was not established until the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913.

Now, again, we have a war to pay for. Every politician knows it is the kiss of death to vote for higher taxes to pay for that war. Don’t worry, our descendants will pay for it.

Drought Report in Georgia

One thing about it. The Drought does not see class, gender, money, or color. The Drought effects everybody in this area. Everybody is asked to sacrifice.

For instance, in a previous blog, I told of getting a form letter from the water department saying we were consuming about 15,000 gallons more than my neighbors were averaging.

I found that strange, because for months we have not watered our grass or washed our car, and there are only two of us that live here, compared to our neighbors who wash their cars, water their lawns, and most have more than two people dwelling in their house.

I checked the water meter and it was covered with months and months of spider webs and caked with dust and dirt. I called the water department and said I believed that their private contractor who is supposed to have read the meters have been estimating.

They sent a man out and looked at my meter and assured me that they have been checking it but told me not to worry about it. Then my water bill fell from $35 a month to $15 a month. Yep, they were estimating the numbers, without even coming near.

Now, I heard on the news that a house on Thunderbird Drive in Marietta, it was leaked (get it?) to the news that the house was using enough water for 60 houses (on the average).

Thunderbird Drive is in one of the most expensive areas of Cobb County. A view from a news helicopter of the house showed a very big house with fountains and I thought I saw a manmade waterfall.

They interviewed the Chairman of the Commission board and he said the man who owned the house said he didn’t realize there was a water shortage and he will try to cut down.

I think what he probably said was that he didn’t think water restrictions applied to the wealthy. By the way, he did cut down.

Yes sir! All they had to do was talk to him and he cut down on his water usage. Good for him! And this is the truth: He cut his water usage from the amount for 60 houses to the amount for 9 houses. If that isn’t sacrificing, I don’t know what is.

That is what America is about! All of us doing our part, rich or poor! – right?

Johnny May Starve! You Can Save Him!

You can help!

Johnny is a policeman for the Griffin, Georgia, Police Department. A memo has surfaced from the head of their police force saying that each patrolman is expected to write at least 20 tickets a day.

Wow! That could be dangerous. Lets say there are 20 patrolmen around the clock on the Griffin Police Force. It is not a real big town, but not a small town either. They probably have more than 20 patrolmen around the clock, but lets use 20 for the sake of calculating.

Twenty patrolmen and times 20 traffic violations = 400 tickets.

Now that this memo is now public knowledge, we can assume most people will obey the traffic rules. So, there may not 400 traffic violations in a 24 hour period.

This may lead to some traffic cops to be creative with their ticket books.

And Johnny, a honest cop, may go to bed hungry. You can help! All those people who live within 20 or 30 miles of Griffin can cruise through town, run a few lights, break a few speed limits, and do anything else you want. It might mean you are saving Johnny’s job.

Help! Burglar!

It seems about everyday I hear on the news of some elderly woman, man, or couple being fleeced by a flim-flam artist. Elderly people a lot of the time are easy targets for the con-man… they are sometimes gullible and many times sitting on their life savings.

I heard on the news the other day of a local government has found another way of fleecing the elderly. Yep, the Marietta Police will be fleecing the elderly, I have no doubt, unless things change.

Here is how and events leading up: A very high number of home security systems’ electronically notified the local law enforcement of something was wrong… security was broken.. and the law rushed out to the house calling only to find the family sitting down to dinner, or reading the paper, or watching TV – more times than not.

Marietta has decided that it is too expensive to send the cops to all these homes giving false alarms – or crying wolf. The authorities have decided to impose a fine on the homes that give false alarms… a stiff fine, up in the hundreds of dollars. I think I heard you are allowed 2 or 3 “Opps!”

Now, what group do you think are most paranoid about home invaders and let some fast talking salesman talk them into a complicated expensive alarm system? I would say the people over 70 or 75.

And which group do you think is mostly user unfriendly to user-friendly electronics? I think the same elderly group.

Now, the fleecing will begin. I wonder how long that is going to last before people realize it is the elderly being stripped of their savings?

Bumper Sticker

Amount of Freedom equals the Distance Between Church and State

Conserving Water

As I have mentioned, this area is in a drought condition. Watering restrictions exist. Heavy fines are imposed on those that water outside other than their three designated days each week.

The Cobb County Water Authority has sent suspected water abusers letters. They can tell by the water meter readings whether they are probably using more water than they should or not.

We got a letter a couple of months ago.

It told us how much water we used in the past three months. Then it told us how much water, on the average, was consumed by our neighbors. It did not name names. But it did say, over a two month period we used about 40,000 gallons of water more than our average neighbor used during the same time period.

Huh?

There are only two of us that live at this address, well, three now, if you count the dog.. Joe was always washing his new truck or having a water hose fight with his mother or mate. Other neighbors water their lawns, we didn’t. Our grass was the brownest in the neighborhood.

I am proud of brown grass as a symbol of doing my civic duty.

We wondered what we could do to conserve water. Our commodes are not the newest type. The tank in the back hold more water. That could explain why we consumed more water than our neighbor.

We called our handyman, Mr. Mathews to come out and put new innards in the commodes so that it can be used to adjust to use less water. Which he did.

Mr. Mathews came in and went straight to work, talking very little.

When he finished we sat down at the table and he told me how much and I wrote him a check. He looked at the pie-safe we have and it reminded him of his antique pie-safe. He told me the life story of his pie-safe, of the dentist who owned it before him, and the man who owned it before him…. Which included in the story was the only other kind of pie-safe like it, as far as he knew, was in the log cabin museum that Abe Lincoln was born in, in Kentucky.

Everything he told me he told me on a previous handy-man job visit. I hated to hurt his feeling or embarrass him by telling him I already heard the story, and it hadn’t changed a bit since the last time he told me.

He also told me he acquired a Governor Winthrop desk and the story behind that – he told me that story twice also.

He suggested that we should shut off all water values and go up in the front of the yard where the water meter is and see if any dials are moving. They shouldn’t be.

He and I both forgot after his stories of acquiring antique furniture. He left.

I decided I would do it myself. I told my neighbor Kathleen what I was going to do and she said I was picking a good day, because the meter man came by and read the meter no long ago.

I went up, pried opened the cover of the water meter to read. I couldn’t read it. There is a thick moisture of water and mildew. It looked like it had been that way a long time. Not only could I not read it but there is no way the meter man could have read it.

The rascal has been guesstimating my meter reading each month. And he is guessing much more than we are using and the county is warning us that we are using too much water.

The water meter readers, by the way, are not county employees, it is done by a contracted out company.

As it looks now, I plan to calmly call the water department Monday and pitch a screaming shit fit.

Water and Good Parking Spaces

This morning was beautiful spring morning. There were no pollen scattered all over creation showing a strange orange-green glow. Maybe it was an radioactive pollen. Mother Nature huff and puffed and scattered the pollen all over for life to continue its sequence, but where the some of the pollen were program to land, planned millions years ago, there are parking lots and buildings. What now? Do the master planers go back and reprogram the pollen flow?

Yesterday was nice too. I went for a bike ride.

This morning I went for a walk and a run. My cardiologist told me I need to exercise strenuous enough to get my pulse between about 100 and 128 and keep it in that range for 30 minutes. So, that is what I do. I walk for about 30 minutes and run for 30 minutes.

If you could see me run, when I say “run” you might have to look the other way or scratch your nose or excuse yourself and leave quickly to cover up your smirk. Some people walk faster than I run.

I sort of sludge alone. My sludgging does the trick. I kept my heart rate up between 110 and 120 and worked up a good sweat.

Before I took off into my run about 2 blocks away a fire truck was by a fireplug and two firemen had a fireplug unplugged and water was come out at great force, disrupting a man’s yard work, sending loose debris into the gully by the street, then flowing on away.

A neighbor friend Omar was watching them. He told me there was a water main broken one block up the other way. He noticed it at 5am and called the water department. It was then 8:00 and no one from the water department has shown up yet. I don’t know how the fire department got involved in this.

One of the firemen said he was going home and water his yard and the water department better not say anything.

We are in a draught condition and there is a partial band on watering lawns. If your house had a odd number you can water certain days, and even number, the other days. The water department is authorized to issue citations for people who abuse the rules.

A few more blocks up and out of a subdivision and onto the main road that has a sidewalk I started running. On the sidewalk I plowed right through a sprinkler system and got wet – not too wet. A new two-building office park has a little bit of a lawn and they were watering it and the water was overlapping the edge of the newly planted grass and onto the pavement. They should be fine for watering the pavement!

Also it is an even day and they have an odd number, but I think with newly planted grass the rules are that rules don’t apply to you, and even if they did, being a business, of course the rules don’t apply to you.

I ran on up the street a half mile of or so and cut through a Baptist church parking lot. I noticed the handicapped spaces were the closet to the entrance doors. The next best parking places were the visitors. About 5 or 6 places were marked off for The Visitors. “Well, how nice” I thought, they give the visitors a red carpet treatment.

Wait! That is not it at all. That way, they can see what can of car they drive. If they come in a old heap with stickers all over it and a donut tire you can bet they won’t have anybody from church paying them a visit…… however, if they have a new shiny hog, the preacher himself might pay them a visit.

It was a good morning to exercise.

Income Tax Day

This morning I walked to the Post Office that has my PO box to get my mail, which is 1.25 miles or six Cobb County blocks away.

I thought instead of exercising today, it is such a beautiful day a walk would be nice, but the main reason is that I did not want to fool with the parking situation with the procrastinators on the final day the income taxes are due this year.

Aren’t you glad you have the privilege to help finance the government operations for another year?

Within a week ago I heard that several airplane mishaps were blamed on overworked Air-Traffic Controllers. They said they were working long hours, sometimes taking off only 8 hours before starting back, they were near exhaustion. With a tight budget the bosses after to have the controllers burn the candle at both ends, and well, you get plane wrecks. That what happens when you cut expense across the board without looking at the details.
And, if they had more tax dollars to run things, then more people would be alive to pay more taxes, so it is a win win situation.

I told my elderly neighbor lady I was going to walk to get the mail and she told me to be careful and not let any Mexicans run over me. I asked her was it okay to let a Caucasian run over me?

The walk was nice and with a pleasant breeze was puffing easily by.

In the post office lobby where the mailboxes are located an ex-coworker, Joanie had a chair and table to greet customers and maybe eliminate standing in line, thus no long line. If they just needed their tax envelopes stamped with today’s date, she could help them with that… if they wanted forms, she could swivel around and reach for the well sorted out forms, swivel again with the forms and hand them to them. If they wanted to know the latest post office gossip or the local north east Cobb gossip she could tell them that too, which that was the reason I stood in her short line, to hear the latest inside news.

By craft Joanie is a rural route carrier. She hurt her back a few years ago and is on the light duty list. She mostly answers the telephone, other than today. One time when Joanie was a carrier she reached into a mailbox because the flag was up and found herself holding a pipe bomb. I think she just about had a hissy-fit, but she did what she was suppose to do, get the hell a safe distance away and call the law. And of course the law called the media and it was on the news.

Joanie has a laid back attitude that she appears that nothing upsets her (except pipe bombs). As she sit at that table today in her slow laid back, slow southern drawl away, I think some of the young aggressive east Cobb yuppies will think “typical Postal employee!” They won’t know about her one time looking at pipe bomb she one time picked up or hurting her back lifting too much weight, and most of all, she probably could buy and sell them if she wanted. She inherited a huge section of land from her grandfather and sold it to a developer that developed a mall complex.

There wasn’t as much people are cars as I thought would be. I think many people thought Friday or Saturday would be the last day they could mail their taxes and not know about the April the 17th extension.

It was a nice walk anyway.

The Right To Bear Arms

Guns don't kill people. Nuts do.
Now, how to we prevent the nuts from shooting people? Duh!!!

Seriously Folks - the Local News...

This is just a few random rambling thoughts. If you are looking for on-line coupons you won't find them here, but I suggest you run a search on “coupons”. Huh? You did and that is why you are here?
Yesterday, in Carroll County, Georgia, a Waffle House manager was arrested for planting little spy video cameras in the women’s restroom of the restaurant he was the manager of. Not only that, but he planted them into all the neighboring restaurants. The little cameras transmitted what they recorded into his hard drive at home. The man’s ex-wife was at his apartment doing something on his computer came across the pictures and notified the police. I think some of the shots would probably be something that could be played on America’s Funniest Videos. I wonder how he managed to get the little cameras into the ladies rooms of neighboring restaurants? Dress like a woman?
A police spokesman said that when they look at the video’s he really will be in big trouble if there are any children on it. I thought it was funny the way the policeman worded it, it reminded me of what we said in the 3rd grade – “really big trouble”.
And what kind of policeman will view the videos? Will there be more than one to volunteer for the job?
And I think it would be funny, after it is all over with, the ex-Waffle House manage pays his debt to society and gets back into the mainstream of professional managerism. Then one day his ex-wife is using the john in the privacy of her own bathroom and she does not notice the tiny little lens hidden by an air vent looking at her.

Here in Cobb County an alternate grand juror has been charged with murder. The Cobb County District Attorney said it shouldn’t interfere with the man being an alternate Grand Juror. Wait! Being an alternate means if enough jurors don’t show up to get the required forum amount someone is drawn from the alternate list. I have been a grand juror before and the main thing we did were hear the D.A. present possible crimes that was committed and why a certain person is a suspect and we as jurors would vote “no bill” or “yes (bill)” for an indictment. We also had plenty of coffee and donuts. And, I remember one morning we met at the County Prison Farm and had a big breakfast made by the inmates and we toured the compound and made recommendations.
What if this accused murderer is pulled from the alternate pool and gets to sit in? Will he be in a orange suit with chains? That means his chain will rattle when he lift his hands and arms to eat a donut or drink from the cup. And, if they meet at the County Prison for a tour and breakfast will he say, “I’ll meet you there!” And I'm sure he will have plenty of recommendations to make the county prison a more fun place to be.

Geogia Election Run-Offs Today

Good Morning!

Today is run-off election day. We will not vote today. We should have taken a closer look at who is running and toss in our 2 cents, but didn’t. So, I guess we deserve what we get.

One race I find interesting is not taking place in our district anyway. But if it was I would be voting against Cynthia McKinney by voting for Hank Johnson.

Isn’t that a shame? That we find ourselves voting against a person instead of voting for a person? That's politics!

So, now I have to decide whom I am going to vote against in November.

The Georgia State Capital from the Coke Museum

This is the picture I took from the top floor of the Coke Museum.

By the way, that gold dome is really gold, mined from the the hills of north Georgia.

Georgia State Capital

This was on a birthday card I received a few days ago. It is from our state representative (Republican). He probably wants a list of the free-loaders which includes people on Medicare.

As soon as I saw the card made me remember that you cannot take a good picture of the Georgia Capital without taking pictures of the trees. That is good too. Trees are good. But, one day I wanted to take a picture of the Capital without all the trees. I walked around the block several times and could not come up with the right angle to miss the trees and get all of the building.

However, when Bluto visited (see previous blog entries) from the top floor of the Coke Museum in the staircase well I found is a good place to take a picture of the Capital without the trees - or the trees are still there, but in a lower position so the Capital can stand out.

If you are ever in Atlanta and have the time you would probably enjoy visiting the Capital. We did. A museum of history and Georgia's natural resources. is in the open lobby of both levels. There are all kinds of paintings and statues of famous Georgians.