Try and come up with 42 reasons to keep a towel with you today!
This next week I will be starting the computer desk idea I had a year ago. I have a stereo cabinet that I am hauling up to my porch over the weekend so I can get started on the gutting. I will take some pictures and post them as I start the project.
I can’t believe that in this day and age that we even have debates about torture! We solved this problem many years ago with the Geneva Conventions! How would you like a family member of yours to be interrogated with “enhanced” means by another country before they are shipped home as a POW. This is serious stuff folks. We should NOT and can NOT treat people this way. I understand war is hell, but so is after war when we have to clean up and start acting normal again. The people who run these wars never seem to think about the after war policies or obligations. This discussion wages on even though the military interrogators have now admitted they did not use torture or “enhanced interrogation tactics” to find out where Bin Laden was. Now that we got him, and more AL Qaeda leaders are turning themselves in, do we really need to debate torture at all. Also while we are talking about it, why not bring home the troops, or at least most of them. If ever there was going to be a defining moment of us winning the war, it is right now. This country cannot afford to prolong this war, we got him, and others are turning themselves in, now lets come home and stop borrowing more money that we can’t pay back. I am not trying to say that the war was unnecessary or that anything our troops have done was bad, quite the contrary I admire them and congratulate them on finishing an impossible task and the military having the decency to not leak the pictures and show some class in tough and troubled time. They are truly heroes. We need now to be their heroes and demand that they get the much needed break from fighting and bring them home to their families.
Before I post the link I need to remind everyone that this is NOT a bill just research for now. There is a new tax being looked into, you can read the original post here. Please take a couple of minutes to read through the article and the comments after. Ok, did you read it? Good! Now, can anyone please tell me what the real problem is with something like this because no one seems to get it, at least not in the comments, nor in the original post. SO if you didn’t read it, it is basically a tax on how many miles a vehicle accumulates in a year. Specifically fossil fuel vehicles. While I am all for being more efficient, and being a good steward of the planet. I cannot be even remotely excited about another tax, gas is already taxed for this purpose and is already too expensive to go driving around frivolously. A Sunday drive is becoming a thing of the past, but I am getting off topic. The real reason this is a bad idea is because it is completely illegal. The Constitution specifically says, that we have the right to freedom of movement or travel within and between the states. A tax on mileage is a direct attack on that freedom. This is why we have a gas tax it is not a direct attack on that freedom. I am sure the founding fathers did not foresee having problems with fossil fuels, however they did understand that in order for us to flourish as a country and individuals we have to have this right. Instead of this tax they should have made it a condition of bailout money to have more efficient gas engines and hybrids and new technologies come out. The auto industry is one of the few that has NOT kept up with technology on the side of innovation on the gasoline engine. Computers, health care, agriculture, etc. have all made leaps and bounds in technology over the past 100 years yet the gasoline engine has made baby steps and since ( and I really hate to say this) Jimmy Carter tried to make cars more efficient, they have kinda taken a step backwards until recently. A mileage tax while simple sounding, is way too expensive to implement and enforce. The auto industry instead should be given incentives to innovate and make our dependency on oil become a thing of the past. I would love to see at the very least a hybrid Mustang in the next year or two, or a truck that has the power to tow another vehicle and runs on some other form of energy, or at least gets 75 miles to the gallon. Why aren’t these things here already? What can we do? Well stop buying gas, I know it sounds like some revolutionary idea and how could we possibly do it? Consider this, within the past week I have made at least two specific decisions NOT to go somewhere because of the price of gas, just on price alone. Not even considering the environment or anything else. I know for a fact that a family in my community has stopped driving except in emergencies because they cannot afford it. This must be happening everywhere. The sudden slowing of people using gas might finally be interpreted as a need or demand for newer tech in the auto industry, if not then at the very least maybe gas priced will drop for a bit . One can only hope going forward, we do not need new laws, or taxes, we need people to innovate and not be afraid of the established norm and to challenge it and make it change for the better.
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin.
Well I am coming up with my new brew schedule for this year. I am just about out of beer. I am thinking for this spring and early summer, I will make an Irish Red Ale, a Scotch Ale, a Blue Moon CLone, and not sure what I am gonna do for my wild card yet. I was thinking maybe a Spruce Ale.
Had a great time tonight with one of my oldest friends, Makkaio. Its funny cause we didn’t do anything special, we just hung out and talked , drank a little of my home-brewed beer, and just got to plain visit. We never seem to have enough time anymore to visit with our friends, which made tonight even better. Thanks Makkaio, for the good times. Hope you can visit again soon.
I haven’t been on here as much as I’d like to. Truth is I have kinda been hiding out, and recuperating. Last year was a very long and hard year for me, up until about a month ago or so. I am not saying that things are all peachy keen all of a sudden but, over all they could be worse so in the grand scheme of things, I am pretty okay with everything right now. So now for what I have been up to. I am just about to start a new project, actually one I posted about earlier this year with that old stereo cabinet. I am also brewing beer, and am gonna start some wine soon. I went to the brewfest in Buffalo recently and met Drew Cerza, the Wing King. He has asked me to come up with a beer recipe to match his sauces. I have some ideas and have emailed him on what they are and am now waiting to hear back from him. I have also been working on my house, and spending more time with my family. I should be posting a little more frequently as I finally get an office set up and have a little more time to myself up there.
I know it’s been a bit but had a wonderful vacation and had to get back to getting stuff done so haven’t had much time to post. I have a bunch of new photos coming. …..
Finally gonna take a much needed vacation. Not sure where we are going but wherever it is it will be NOT HERE… LOL. Hopefully some nice pictures to follow.
