My Desultory Blog

Posted By RichC on September 24, 2010

Although I may offend some of my hardcore conservative Tea Party friends, I’m in agreement with Charles Krauthammer and enjoy his his columns and commentary (“offend” – in reference to his comments regarding Tea Party favorite Christine O’Donnell) 

I appreciate his bright and intelligent arguments … from a conservative point of view … and was in complete agreement with his thoughts pertaining to congress and how they are, or are not, handling the expiration of the 10 year tax cuts. The comments he makes only reinforced my post a couple weeks ago.

Here’s what he said Friday evening while talking on Special Report with Brett Baier:

Category: Politics, Video-TV | No Comments »
Tags: congress, foxnews, krauthammer, mp4, News, taxes

Posted By RichC on September 24, 2010

I was somewhat irritated to hear that comedian Steven Colbert was invited to speak to a congressional subcommittee… in character… about illegal aliens living, working, committing crimes and and basically leeching off US citizens. It did sound like a ridiculous way to spend taxpayer dollars (estimated at $125,000/hr), but in retrospect might be an effective way to get congress to focus on their job of securing our borders? If Washington makes progress in this area and deals with the over 10 million who have illegally immigrated to the United States, it may not have been the worst idea they have wasted time on this year.

EDIT: Replaced video clip, with full CSPAN archived video clip below:

Category: Humor, Politics, Video-TV | 4 Comments »
Tags: colbert, comedy, congress, illegal, immigration, Washington DC

Posted By RichC on September 23, 2010

Nothing like a union lunch break – see video below.

Let me get this straight — American automakers were bailed out by taxpayers and President Obama endorsed the workers at this Chrysler plant … yet the still overpaid union American workers aren’t appreciative enough to put in a decent day’s work?

Instead according to this undercover video some workers day after day they head to a park for some drinking and smoking toking … over lunch! I don’t know about you, but I’m not these guys inspire me to buy a “proudly built in America” UAW union built car. (if it were up to me, they would be fired without unemployment eligibility or any benefits)

If you see/hear a follow up on what Chrysler management and the UAW says and does about this … comment below.

EDIT: Original video was removed from YouTube, but an updated story link with Chrysler and UAW response along with video is at Detroit’s Channel 2 News.
 

Category: Automotive, Business, Financial, Politics, Video-TV | 4 Comments »
Tags: chrysler, uaw, unions

Posted By RichC on September 23, 2010

There comes a time when many of us are faced with the decision of whether to pull the plug on one’s … [pause] CAR. (admit it, you were thinking ‘spouse’)

Brenda and I have been struggling over this issue for some time now and have nursed a beloved first generation 1998 Toyota Rav4 for over 220,000 miles. I recently replace the brakes and rotors, but besides the normal rattles, shakes and questionable ride comfort associated with our well used diminutive SUV, this has been a solid and dependable vehicle. Unfortunately in recent months (years really) ours has been leaking oil at the rate of about one quart every 2 weeks with little sign of stopping, unless I quit adding oil. We no longer carry a spare quart of oil in the back of the car, but a spare 5 quart jug! Its to the point that cardboard needs to be put under the vehicle no matter where one parks … and the dripping of oil onto the hot exhaust manifold has had more than one bystander ponder getting a fire extinguisher. Don’t tell Al Gore, but I think Brenda parks over a storm drain at work so there isn’t a noticeable oil leak on the parking lot.

So last week after degreasing the mess under the hood, we had a trusted mechanic, Mr. Godwrench, look at the leak. Brenda and I picked a “go, no-go” number to make the decision easier prior to receiving the repair quote. After sharpening his pencil, Tim Ellison said he could replace the suspected seals for $640 … about $150 under our predetermined limit. After disassembly the number proved to be low as there were additional issues including a waterpump drip. Faced with the waterpump replacement and the fact that a timing belt was also overdue, we decided the time to do this was when it was apart. Great [sarcasm] … we’re now at $1000.

Finally earlier this week, the little beast was reassembled and low and behold … we still had an oil leak, but this time coming from the top. After disassembly, the camshaft had a groove worn into it and another new camshaft seal would not stop the leak. One again, more parts, a few more days and a couple hundred more dollars.

Final bill: $1194.95. We should have brought in an outside “death panel.”

Category: Automotive | 2 Comments »
Tags: Rav4, toyota

Posted By RichC on September 22, 2010

Category: Automotive, Diesel, Volkswagen | 2 Comments »
Tags:

Posted By RichC on September 22, 2010

Having worked with ink and paper for most of my working life, I pay attention to counterfeiting with a bit more interest than most. An article in the local Pulse Journal reported on businesses finding “washed” small denomination bills being counterfeited and passed as larger bills. These fake bills are often used in drug deals according to police, but some have recently been showing up at local businesses. The current fakes are said to be older $5 bills reprinted as 100 dollar bills. According to the article, the counterfeiter bleaches $1 and $5 bills until they are substantially faded, and then reprints the image of Benjamin Franklin and $100 on them. Since the paper is real, the commonly used counterfeit detection pens do not detect them as fakes. For these kinds of counterfeit bills, the solution is check well worn bills carefully and to look for the Franklin watermark.

According to the article, “Hamilton Detective Steve Rogers said in the past 10 days he has received four reports of counterfeit $100 bills passed at city businesses.” Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones indicated that he and the Hamilton police chief have contacted and are working with the U.S. Secret Service and that for now local businesses need to pay careful attention to the currency they handle.

Additional information on how to identify U.S. currency may be found at www.secretservice.gov.

Category: Financial, Local | No Comments »
Tags: butler, counterfeit, county, hamilton, money

Posted By RichC on September 21, 2010

I’ve added a new WordPress plug in  call Live Blogging in order to have the ability to archive an event in real time.  I’m not planning for anything in the immediate future, but I did want to understand how it works.

[liveblog]

Category: LiveBlog | 3 Comments »
Tags: liveblog

Posted By RichC on September 20, 2010

During a football follow-up discussion this morning, a client and I debated a call that penalized the Baltimore Ravens during Cincinnati’s 15-10 win yesterday. As a Bengals fan wanting to keep quarterback Carson Palmer healthy, I’m sensitive as to how aggressively he is driven to the ground, but can also sympathize with those believing Sunday’s 4th quarter tackle by Terrell Suggs  was legitimate.

In the play in question, the Cincinnati Bengals gained a first down after Terrell Suggs ‘looked’ to the referee on the field to have lifted Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer before driving him on his back to the turf. The Cincinnati first down enabled them to score and with time running out hold the lead to win the game. In hindsight, the call could have gone either way.

Perhaps more interesting to me was the reaction of Raven’s head coach John Harbaugh – his sideline reaction has me wondering just when it is appropriate to make contact with an official? (see snippet below)

Category: Sports, Video | No Comments »
Tags: baltimore, bengals, cincinnati, football, nfl, ravens

Posted By RichC on September 19, 2010

The last weekend of summer was a little muscle taxing as Brenda and I worked around the house on a few overdue yard and home projects. Along with the yard work, we also pick up a few new perennial plants that were marked down as well as a new tree.  This year’s tree is a Bald Cypress which required some chiseling into soil; the ground did not yield easily, to even my sharpest shovel.

Besides the yard work I also tackle my long overdue dripping shower. I thought it was going to be simple to replace the worn rubber seals, but the lime build-up and corrosion turn this 45 minute project into something three times as long … of course this could have been partially due due to watching football on Sunday afternoon? The Bengals did beat the Ravens bring their record to 1-1 for the 2010 season, so all is good. I also refrained from wearing my old Houzmanzada Bengals jersey since TJ is now a Raven – too bad Cincinnati couldn’t get him back?

As Hurricane IGOR approaches Bermuda over night, I’ll be watching the news having recently visited. (Vacation posts: One, Two, Three, Four and Five)

Sunday night photo of St George near Customs Building as surge flows ashore.

Category: Personal, Photos, Sports, Weather | No Comments »
Tags: bengals, home, hurricane, trees

Posted By RichC on September 18, 2010

Although I can’t admit to being a political supporter of Mike Huckabee last go around, I do enjoy his commentary and occasionally his television program – Huckabee. In a recent email he shared his frustration with our out of control bureaucracy — he writes that it “made my blood boil.” (and it does the same for me)

“At a time when workers’ pay and benefits have stagnated,” reported USA Today, “federal employees’ average compensation has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn.”

Did you get that? More than double. To be exact, federal employees now average $123,049 in pay and benefits, while private-sector employees make $61,051 in total compensation, according to the government’s own Bureau of Economic Analysis.

That’s a pay gap of $61,998 — up from $30,415 in 2000.

And that’s not even counting the absurdly generous retirement benefits that allow many federal employees to retire with lifetime pensions and health insurance after little more than two decades on the job.

Time was, government work involved a tradeoff between job security and pay — you got more of the former and less of the latter than in the private sector. Not anymore. Now, you get the best of everything — inflated pay, gold-plated benefits, total job security, and a cushy taxpayer-funded retirement starting as early as your mid-40s.

This is beyond scandalous. This is plunder, pure and simple. Washington is siphoning off the wealth of millions of private citizens and businesses to support a vast and growing government leisure class whose only concern, it seems, is to further augment their perks and privileges at taxpayer expense.

What can we do as citizens? Vote the bums out, for starters — beginning with the Democratic Congress in November, followed by President Obama in 2012. But we can’t stop there. We have to demand that whoever takes their place — whether it’s Republicans or third-partiers — don’t go back to big-spending politics as usual.

Category: Politics | No Comments »
Tags: huckabee