It’s bad enough we send soldiers all over the world to put their lives on the line under questionable circumstances.  But, now they have to worry about their safety on American soil?  On a military base?  Apparently, one person can make some horrific decisions and a multitude of people nearby will pay the price.

An Army shrink who didn’t want to get deployed overseas pulled out some pistols and started shooting up Ft. Hood.  At least if these soldiers were deployed somewhere, they would have been wearing their gear and carrying weapons.  They would have had a chance of defending themselves.  Plus, I’d be willing to bet not a one of them expected they might get shot at while attending a ceremony on base.

First off, if you objected to the war, why would you shoot at other soldiers who are simply doing their jobs?  Second, how cowardly is it to shoot at a bunch of unarmed people who have not wronged you in any way?  Lastly, the shrink needed a shrink and from the sounds of it, might have seen one previously.  If the feds were concerned about the guy, wouldn’t you inform his superiors before they decide to deploy him overseas?  There a lot of questions that need some answering over the next few days with this one.

Leave it to Seth Godin to put it succinctly and make it easy to understand.  Where I live, I get Time Warner for my cable provider and the cable news networks are all in the 40’s range of channels (or 1040’s for HD).  I often skip over them completely.  Why?  Because it doesn’t matter whether its CNN, MSNBC or FoxNews.  They all consist of sensationalizing non-news and spewing incendiary crap to try to further their owners political agenda, be it left or right, blue or red, liberal or conservative – pick your label.  Meanwhile, what is actually important is completely missed.

The shows consist of blathering morons who look better than their talk radio counterparts, screaming their opinions as fact and shouting down anyone else.  Thereby making it whoever can shout louder wins the argument rather than whoever has the better, more thought out argument.  But, the arguments have already been decided by the “panel” they’ve assembled.  It consists of the show’s host, 3 yes men cohorts, and 1 lonely dissenter.  There’s no way they can out yell the other four, so they give up before the segment is over.

The problem with all of this is: We, the average American, take what these nimrods say as gospel.  Quick, how many of the cable news shows gave you any kind of inkling that the economic collapse could happen?  Even the channels that specialize in covering the markets?  I thought so.  And how many of the rest of these so-called experts have had any kind of real impact on the world other than to polarize further?  Have they really enlightened anyone?  Or is it simply a matter that they’ve convinced people to drink their falvor of Kool-Aid?

I saw this on the news last night and got the following email this morning:

“In the unlikely event that you haven’t already heard, a bill has been introduced in the Wisconsin Legislature to increase the fermented malt beverages tax by 400%, from $2/barrel to $10/barrel.  Granted, all of the (craft) breweries you probably enjoy pay a lower rate because they produce much less than 300,000 barrels per year.  Their effective tax (for the first 50,000 barrels of production), is half that, but a 400% increase is a 400% increase.

 Such a tax increase may not make a lot of difference in cost to you in the short run as a consumer (but also don’t believe the misleading couple pennies a bottle assertion made by tax advocates, because costs are multiplied as they go through the three-tier distribution system.  Also don’t forget that beer–unlike just about any other food product–is already taxed three times, at the federal level, with the tax at issue here, and then the state and county sales tax on top of all that!  (Imagine the uproar if we taxed milk that way.)  But a tax increase could mean a huge difference for the survival of some of our state’s great small craft brewers who are already operating on the financial margins as they put pride in quality beer above financial profit.  They can’t absorb a tax increase as easily as the macrobrewers, and as they pass along the resulting cost increases to the consumer–and with those increases multiplied through the distribution chain–even a relatively small price increase of $2/case, particularly in this economy, might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and some consumers may be encouraged to “trade down” to craft beer look-alikes from the out-of-state macrobrewers.  That’s bad for Wisconsin craft brewers and their employees.  And craft brewers going out of business ultimately means less selection for you and less great craft beer for which Wisconsin has been a national leader. “

Here is the actual bill, if you’re interested.  Makes me glad Im a homebrewer, since they’re taxing the barrel of finished product rather than the ingredients that go into the product.

BTW – Sorry the blog’s been empty for so long.  I’ve been playing around with Facebook and LinkedIn and toying with the idea of Twitter.  But, what Facebook has shown me is that I don’t have enough different things happening in my life to update a Facebook status regularly, let alone a Twitter feed.

Well, we’re finally back from our annual trek to the North woods.  This year we were at a new place for us, Fawn Lake’s Timber Lodge Resort.  I gotta tell ya’, the place is outstanding.  The cottages have all been remodeled, we watched the sun set over the lake from our deck and the kids had a blast using the boats and the playground equipment.

We took one of their fishing boats around all 10 lakes of the Manitowish Waters chain.  We had lunch on the boat while my daughter was learning how to fish.  She wanted us to fish with her, but since I had neglected to buy a fishing license I was reluctant to put a line in the water.  My wife and I would help her cast out occasionally, and my wife caught a 8″ black crappie on one such cast.  After getting it off the hook, we promptly put it back in the water to be caught another day by someone else.  I suppose we could’ve claimed it was my daughter’s and kept it, but we’re trying to teach our almost 6 year old the importance of telling the truth and I hate hypocrisy.  So, back went the fish.  Just wish I took a picture first ‘cuz it was a nice crappie.

When we weren’t fishing, we were pulling the boat up on the shores of Little Star Lake’s public beachfront.  For my money, there is no cleaner lake with sandy beaches than Little Star Lake.  That lake is awesome.  Always was.  For years we stayed at the Northwoods Resort on that lake until the owners decided to turn it into condos.  Watching the kids spend an entire day playing in the sand was quite a treat.  Plus, they never once fought about anything while they were on the beach.  It was fitting that on Friday afternoon — our last swimming excursion of the week was made via automobile — that a storm rolled in as we exited the lake.  The bolt of lightning that came down in the middle of the lake looked very cool.  Had it hit 10 minutes earlier when we were packing up, it wouldn’t have been so cool.  But, from the confines of the car it was a sight to see.

The kids loved all of the eagles and the otter that swam up to our boat on Wednesday.  They thought the snapping turtle was cool but couldn’t figure out why daddy told them to stay away from it.  While we have your traditional gray squirrels around here, the black squirrels up north did through the kids for a bit of a loop as well.  But, most of all, I think the kids loved, Greta — the resort owners’ 11 1/2 year old Doberman Pinscher.  She was big enough to look our 2 year old right in the eye, but she was a very sweet and docile dog.  They got excited every time they saw her out and about the resort grounds.  And I think she got excited because she knew they’d scratch her right behind the ears.

We finished off the vacation with sitting on the hot asphalt of Michigan Avenue for 3 hours waiting for the Great Circus parade to come by.  Why people camped out for the whole weekend is beyond me.  Yes it was crowded, but we managed to find front row seats the morning of the parade.  My daughter loved it, but my little guy didn’t quite make it through the whole parade as he fell asleep just past the halfway point.  He woke up again just in time to catch the elephants at the end.

In all, I don’t think I could have planned or scripted a better vacation.  If you haven’t taken one in a while, I highly recommend them.  You won’t regret it.

My brother sent this link to me about one of the latest obesity studies.

Wow.  The best state out there has a ratio of 1 in every 5 adults being overweight.  Think about that.  1 in every 5 is the best we can do.  And if you look at kids, the numbers are even uglier.

So, my question for you is this: What does this mean to our trillion dollar health care reform initiatives?  It means that as everyone gets older — especially all those baby boomers that are starting to retire — it’s going to cost a lot more than that.  And if it costs more than that, it’s going to fail.  Of course, I’m making a big assumption that it would succeed in the first place.  Comparing the costs to the taxpayer, obesity makes smoking look like pocket change.  Can’t wait until the government decides to levy 25% tax rates on bacon and butter only to find out soy is worse for you.  Then they’ll offer tax breaks to folks who buy new fitness related items only to realize that Americans already spend more money on fitness than anyone else but I digress.

It means that until this country gets up off our asses and stops shoveling crap into our pie holes insurance premiums will be so high that no one will have any health care coverage.  And before you get all up in arms, I put myself in there as well.  I lost 20 pounds 10 years ago and since then have put it all back on plus an extra 5.

Which brings me to my training update.  Since starting 5 weeks ago now, I’m down a measly 4 pounds.  On top of that, I failed to listen to my body and pushed harder to try to lose more weight.  The results?  Running too far, too fast has led me to cramping calf muscles and signs of developing shin splints.  So, now I’m using the exercise bike instead.

Why no real success yet?  I failed to accomplish my number 1 goal.  Do you remember what it was?  The one thing I said would prevent any of the other life changes from being successful.  I was going to get more sleep.  On top of that, I really haven’t watched my eating because when I’m tired and wore down I lack the wherewithall to say no to bad food that tastes really good.  So, I pushed the training harder and harder and now have to dial it way back.  So, my personal health care reform plan seems to have hit some snags as well.

Yet, I’m still hopeful.  Why is that you ask?  You were asking that weren’t you?  Anyway, I’m on vacation next week.  So, I should get caught up on some much needed rest.  I also tend to eat worse the more stressed I get.  Less stress should mean less eating.  And I’ll have plenty of time for exercise.  With some planning and maybe a little luck, I’m hoping to replace some bad habits with a few good ones and they will hopefully carry on after my time under the stars in the northwoods.

That was quite a rambling post.  I must really need that vacation so my brain starts working again.  Thanks for reading to the end.

Why is it, whenever you see someone in politics these days standing at a podium offering and apology to their family for certain “indescretions”, they always seem to be members of the party that promotes family values and is backed by the “moral majority”?  I know that’s not true.  Their are plenty of Democrats running around behind their spouses backs (i.e. John Edwards) and the Libertarians advocate legalizing drugs and treating marriage like a business partnership.  Those are hardly things people who buy into the family values mantra would think of as a proper.  But it sure seems like the majority of these guys are Republicans (Ensign, Swaggert, Gingrich, Limbaugh, etc.).  Plus, the Democrats and Libertarians have not put a stake in the ground claiming “family values” and “morality” are the sole property of their party.  If you’re going to cast scorn on everyone else and be so high and mighty, then you might want to try to act the part.

Or perhaps it’s just your definition of family values and morality.  Since morals and values are a rather personal thing, perhaps their values and morals permit that sort of behavior.  That’s not what I get from them before they’re caught screwing up, but maybe I misunderstood.  All I know is that next time I screw up — being human, I’m pretty sure there will be a next time — I better not have to turn on the TV and listen to some reactionary right wing nut job, blathering on about how superior they are over everyone else.  Just remember — unless you’ve recently mastered walking on water, your day is coming.

Just for the record – I don’t want to turn on the TV and listen to some revolutionary left wing nut job, balthering on about how their going to make the world a more fair and homogenized version of itself that everyone will want to play nice-nice in while the government does everything for them either.

What a lovely sound — the beeping of your emergency backup sump pump telling you it had been activated.  Unfortunately, I had been so tired as the thunder and lightning made it difficult enough to sleep earlier in the night.  I went downstairs and was trying to reconstruct what happened.  You see, we hadn’t lost power, so why did the emergency pump kick in?  I was also dissappointed to see that some water had made it’s way out of the sump crock to meander it’s way to the floor drain on the other end of the basement.  There were no high water marksand most of the basement floor was dry, so things never actually flooded.  The extra scrap pieces of carpeting that I slip under my wieght bench were soaked, but they were also in between the sump crock and the floor drain.

So, I cranked up both of our dehumidifiers (during last year’s flooding we had bought an extra to dry things out) and went upstairs trying to figure out why the emergency pump had even run.  Then I looked out my front window.  Our neighbors are getting their drive way re-paved and yesterday the asphalt company had removed the old driveway and placed a new gravel bed and steel culvert in place for the paving they were going to do today.  I say going to do because the steel culvert was halfway down the block and the compacted gravel was washed down the street.

My yard has a hill down to the street, so our house sits about 12′ in elevation higher than the road.  You would think flooding shouldn’t ever be a problem for us.  At least that’s what I thought but Mother Nature has proven she can pretty much do whatever she wants whenever she wants.  The high water mark — as evidenced by every last piece of my neighbors’ mulch making a line across my yard — was about 1/4 of the way up my driveway.  So, at some point in the night, my street was really more of a river.  I turned on the news to find out that Captial Drive, Greenfield Drive, Miller Park Way and many more streets were also flooded.  Video of stranded cars with water rushing haflway up their windshields.  That video was followed by live shots taken a mere hour later of the no longer flooded street and a tow truck taking away the same car.

So, my latest hypothesis is that the regular pump couldn’t keep up with the amount of water rushing into the drainage tiles.  The emergency pump kicked in as the water level rose.  Since some of the water still found its way out of the crock, that wasn’t quite enough.  Given that amount of water that was rushing outside the house, things worked out pretty well.  I highly recommend the emergency battery backup pump.  But, I might go to one of the big box stores and buy the biggest damn sump pump they sell in hopes that I don’t have problems with the pump keeping up in the future.

A friend of mine set me this link to a New York Times story on the Dutch social welfare system, including health care.  It’s a very interesting read (it might take you a little bit of time), and it makes you wonder if we truly could meld public good with free enterprise.

The idea of having the state provide for all of those things that fall through the cracks in the U.S.A sounds kind of nice.  Everyone gets access to housing, health care, vacations, etc.  People work when it’s time to work and the pager rarely goes off when you’re not working.  Why?  No one else is working either.  Who wouldn’t want such a paradise?

The problem, as I see it and as the author illudes to at the end of the article, is the American culture itself.  Americans pride themselves on individuality and the entrapaneural spirit.  The idea of upward mobility is the most American of notions.  We are pioneers settling the wild West.  That rides smack into the face of the social welfare state of things where conformity is prized and individuality a no-no.  The idea of being a lemming is one most Americans bristle at.

But, wait, isn’t that what the Moral Majority and evangelical right wing conservatives actually want?  They want you to behave within a set of parameters they’ve prescribed when it comes to personal behavior.  Yet those same folks begin wailing when you suggest anything in the economic realm that differs from Adam Smith’s view of the world.  They’re already trying to create a strange dichotomy that contradicts itself, aren’t they?  Or how about the left wing liberals who want to help out those less fortunate and are okay with taxing you to do it, yet scream bloody murder if your personal freedoms are impeeded upon to to make sure everyone stays honest.

We seem to be a nation of contradiction.  Why is it that the party that is against abortion is for the death penalty and vice versa?  Who knows, maybe the Dutch are onto something.  Maybe we wouldn’t really be giving up much more of our freedoms than our ruling parties want us to.  Just trading them for different ones.  On the other hand, our government seems to have a nasty habit of taking new things away without ever giving back the things they’ve already taken.  We may just end up with the worst of both worlds.  Maybe that’s not such a good idea.

I must have some kind of new powerful mojo that I was unaware of.

First, I call out the Brewers hitters for not doing their jobs.  Since that posting the Brewers have been 5-1 and outscored opponents by a margin of 15.  Next, I concede that the Ted Thompson probably won’t listen to me and take Raji and it wouldn’t surprise me that he takes someone else or trades down.  And what does he do?  He not only takes Raji, but trades up to take Matthews. 

Hmm, I must remember this.  These powers need to only be used for the power of good.  Or at least, improving sports in SE Wisconsin.  Now let’s see…what can we do about the Bucks…

Who knew my nephew was such a political activist?  Well, that may be going a bit too far, but he made the local newscast in Minneapolis speaking against a proposed sales tax on digital downloads.  You can watch the video here.

Note – They got the caption wrong, as my nephew is not the balding state congressmen, but rather the college student with the iPod and the hoodie.

BTW – I tend to agree with him.  The makers of the product (the studios, muscians, etc.) are getting paid for their work.  But, because the states have mismanaged their money they’re  going to tax something they haven’t yet to make their budgets balance.  Good ol’ government asking you to bend over again.  Unfortunately, in my home state of  Wisconsin (also known as the biggest tax hell this side of New York), they’ve already started taxing such things.

Fight the power Paul!  ‘Cuz when you come home in the summer, you’ll be paying those taxes.