What makes me think.

What makes me think.: Obama Speech

2015-12-06T10:53:00.001-08:00

Obama Speech

2015-12-06T10:39:00.001-08:00

I'm still trying to figure out why president Obama is bothering to give a speech tonight. We already know that the San Bernardino terrorists attacks are somehow going to be the fault of the American people. We know that he will try to blame it on work place violence and call the attack anything but what it really is. We know that he will talk about gun control. I guess he feels it is better for Americans to be blown up, rather than shot.

This president is in a land all his own. Reality has no place in his world. His followers freely attack Christianity and make racist comments about whites. Call for the murder of police officers. This president has brought us closer to WW3 than any other. While at the same time bringing our nation to the brink of Civil War. Anything that he says tonight will be meaningless unless he gives his immediate resignation.

We've lost our ability to lose.

2015-08-16T07:36:00.001-07:00

We now live in a world with no winners, no losers. We live in a world that teaches children that if you do not win, then there is a problem with the game or the rules, the refs, the system, ect...... Losing is one of the greatest teachers in life. Losing is many times more important than winning. Learning how to deal with losing, how to go back to the drawing board, how to get back on that horse. How to come back stronger and better than ever. We lose that when we lose the ability to lose in life. When everyone gets a trophy. When others are to blame for our failiors, we lose our chance to better ourselves.

Is it any wonder that socialism is so popular today? If everyone is held back, it appears to the weak and simple minded that we all have won. When in fact we have all just admitted defeat. We've admitted that the real world is to difficult. We must teach our children how to lose and how to overcome before it's to late.

Heroin

2015-04-03T16:15:00.001-07:00

I guess I can tie in some of the personal events with current events facing the nation today. When I last posted on my blog I was happily married, 4 children, two of which were mine. I still love them all as they are mine. A home that was paid for, all the nice new toys and gadgets and appliances. Two nice vehicles. Life was good.

Around the time of my last post in Feb 2013. I noticed things changing at home. Money was getting tight, things were dissapearing right and left. Alot of arguing going on. Never being around drugs in my life I didn't recognize the signs. It soon came out that my wife was addicted to Vicoden. By this point we had already split up. I moved in with my parents, hoping to reconcile things at home. Took her to get help numerous times. After I left and money got tighter for her, she turned to Heroin, this made things so much worse. I watched as our house was emptied little by little. First the washer and dryer were sold, the tv's. Even the stove and fridge. I finally lost all hope and filed for divorce and full custody of my boys.

As I read and talk to others, I have found that my situation is not so unusual. It's happening around the country and no one seems to be immune. As we debate and argue over things like pizza companies in Indiana I can't help but wonder, is any of that important when so many lives are being destroyed by drugs in this country? Shouldn't a plan of action on Heroin outweigh such petty things? How much money does this nation lose every day to drugs? How many lives torn apart and ended? I would like to personally call on all politicians at all levels of government to make more of an effort.

Life

2015-04-03T15:28:00.001-07:00

Wow, I didn't realize how long it has been since I've posted. Life has certainly changed alot since my last post. I'm now a single parent trying to figure out how to raise two boys on my own which has presented problems that I never expected. Could probably start a whole new blog, dedicated to just that.

I will keep this as primarily a news and current events page and most likely political ramblings. Lol

2013 Daytona 500

2013-02-24T14:12:00.000-08:00

Well the first points race of the 2013 season is in the books. What did everyone think of the new gen 6 cars? I liked the way they looked but there's still some work to be done in order to get these cars capable of putting on a good super speedway race. In fact I thought the race was pretty boring. They're gonna have to figure out how to get the cars capable of passing. Some of it may just be the teams and drivers havn't figured it out yet and so some of the problems may work themselves out. If Talladega doesn't go any better I think Nascar is going to have to make some changes. Congrats. To Jimmy Johnson on winning his second Daytona 500.

U.S. Sues Lance Armstrong

2013-02-24T07:33:00.000-08:00

The United States is suing Lance Armstrong for submitting false claims in order to obtain government funds. Basically they said that they were not taking drugs and the United States Postal service paid them $31 million dollars between 1996 and 2004 in order to sponsor there mens cycling team.

I hope they win. These guys were making tons of money for lying. Not to mention they were making the money at tax payer expense. They were taking race wins away from other honest teams. It was just a really bad situation all the way around. In my opinion he needs to do some jail time. Not only did he hurt his sport. He hurt our countries reputation. Which, ok wasn't all that great in the world to begin with. Still everyone and primarily the people who have a chance to have world wide attn. Should do all that they can to try to help improve our country and its reputation. Not drag it down for personal gain.

Fans hurt at Daytona.

2013-02-23T23:55:00.000-08:00

Today in the Nascar Nationwide series race at Daytona International speedway fans were injured after a last lap crash. You can see more details of the accident in CNN's article. Nascar and Indy car have done a fantastic job in recent years of making the cars safer for the drivers. Everything from head and neck restraints to safer barriers and a lot of other things. I congratulate them on there advances, but I believe it's past the time for more effort to be put into spectator safety.

I have personally been sitting in the second row of turn one with an Indy car flying through the air towards me and I can tell you that it is a little scary. Besides tethers to hold the wheels and hoods in place, there hasn't really been any advancements in the safety of fans in recent years. I hope that Nascar and Indy car will look at this as a wake up call to find ways of keeping the fans just as safe as the drivers are in a crash.

Gun Control

2013-01-12T22:27:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been quite a while since I've posted. I didn't realize just how long it had been until I opened up the blog and read my last post. That's ok no one reads my posts anyway. I've been see'ing and reading alot about this gun control issue. I really don't understand how any laws could prevent any of the terrible things that have happened in the last few years. People say, "If we could just get these guns off the street.". The U.S. doesn't have a good track record of getting anything off the street. How many millions have been spent fighting drugs? I think we need to live in the real world and not in a fairy tale. Number one I believe that we need to look at what is our nations real issue. Are the guns themselves getting up walking out the door and killing people? Of course not. So it can't be the guns fault. Taking the gun out of the equation does not solve the problem.

I think we need to look at our society and find out what it is that makes someone do something like this. With religion being taken out of everyday life in so many ways, it has also taken away a value system with it. I'm not going to go into what's right or wrong about religion only that when it was more prevalent in American's daily lives there was more of a sense of right and wrong. People seemed to have more feelings of hope. Faith and hope can be very powerful things for many people struggling in tough situations.

We also need to look at how our society has become so desensitized to death. We've all know the usual TV shows and video games. And yes those things I believe do play a huge role. Honestly though I believe that the news media may have more to do with it. Most people and even children understand the difference between a video game or TV show and real life. When you watch a news cast and hear about this and that person getting shot every single day. It desensitizes you to real life, death and murder. I live in a medium size metropolitan area and hear about a new murder on the news almost daily. There comes a point when it's just not news anymore. It's not something that I honestly need to be informed of to that level of detail. The occasional "There were 10 murders last month in the Dayton area." Ok, but seeing the details of each one every night. Way to much. For some reason most humans strive to be normal. When killing people seems normal, bad things happen.

I think we also need to invest more in to gun owner education. Many times the guns used not only in mass shootings but also the large number of other crimes across the nation, are stolen. Either by a child or family member. I believe that we need to keep guns locked up better than they have been. Owning a firearm is a responsibility. Gun owners need to treat it as one. In my opinion, if you leave a gun unlocked and someone takes it and uses it to harm someone else. You share the responsibility for what happened.

When we as a nation can improve how our society views one another and handles stresses and setbacks. When we can instill in our children the difference between right and wrong. Then and only then will we start to see real difference.

AJ Foyt To Drive Pace Car For Indianapolis 500

2011-05-09T11:25:00.000-07:00

Indianapolis Motor Speedway officials announced that AJ Foyt will replace Donald Trump as the pace car driver for this years Indianapolis 500. Donald Trump believes that he will not have time to perform his pace car duties due to his possible presidential run.

I've got to say one thing for Donald Trump, atleast he's not afraid of failing. In fact sometimes it seems as though he thrives on it. I think the Indianapolis Motor Speedway certainly got a better deal in the end. AJ Foyt is a four time winner of the Indianapolis 500 and is truly a legend in racing. There is no one better to take the field to the green flag for the 100th Indianapolis 500 in my opinion.

This years Indianapolis 500 is the 100th running and will be Sunday, May 29th at 12:00 noon EST. The Indianapolis 500 is the worlds largest single day sporting event bringing in a crowd of around 300,000 people.

Ohio Public Smoking Ban

2011-05-08T11:19:00.000-07:00

It's been 5 years since the special interest groups from out of our state came in and told us that it was no longer legal to smoke in public places. While most of us felt the law was way to far fetched to ever pass we failed to get out and vote. I must include myself in this group that sat on the sidelines, allowed yet another piece of our freedom to be taken away. For that I apologize to my fellow Ohio residents.

I read on one of the smoking ban supporters websites that they do not understand why there is still so much opposition to the law in Ohio after 5 years. Stating that other states have taken to the ban without much fuss. I replied to them stating the obvious "because we do not want it here" You can't shove something down someone's throat and then expect them to like it. Certainly not when it involves taking away one of our rights and hurting our business.

They don't seem to understand that in a capitalist society where individuals have the freedom to choose which establishments they do or do not frequent. The public has a vote every single day and when the public decides it does not want to be around smoke in an establishment they will stop going. That establishment will then stop allowing individuals to smoke. That is capitalism, that is freedom and that is what letting the people decide is all about.

These people do not care about our freedom though. They care about promoting there cause at all costs.

Al-Qaeda Threat.

2011-05-06T20:15:00.000-07:00

Well we've killed Bin Ladin and now the reality seems to be setting in that there is still a threat to the United States. It's nothing that we didn't realize before, but for a few brief moments after we found out about Bin Ladins death it was almost as if we were able to forget. And then the reports started coming out about planned attacks on our railways and I'm sure that is just the start. We have no way of knowing for sure if a plan is already in place for something else.

One thing that really worries me is that the American people will start to feel safe again. I know that sounds strange to worry about something that our nation is fighting so hard for, but I also know that the people of this nation have a way of forgetting our history. In the midst of a budget crisis, actions to hunt down terrorists could start to seem wasteful by some. And that my friend is when we will once again leave our door open.

Albinos Cure For Aids?

2011-05-05T12:44:00.000-07:00

I've seen in a few different news media's today that in Tanzania there is an issue with Albino people being raped and killed because it is believed that having relations with a female albino will cure aids. Many albino's are killed for there body parts that are sold to witch doctors to make all sorts of potions and snake oils. Apparently there are still quite a few people there who believe in all that.

Although for some reason this is making quite a few headlines today I found an article from a UK news site telling of these atrocities back in 2009. 2009 News Report. Although it appears that the government in Tanzania is trying to deal with the issue, obviously it hasn't had much of an effect. It's sad that there are still people on this earth that this ignorant.

Moderate Quakes Hit Alaska,Mexico, and Japan

2011-05-05T11:44:00.000-07:00

Today has been an active day for mother nature so far. A 5.8 quake in Guerrero, Mexico. A 6.1 quake off the coast of Japan. And then there is Alaska. 5.4, 5.8, 5.4 and then a 5.9 all are around the peninsula. So far nothing major but these quakes are larger than normal and for Alaska to have 4 in such a concentrated area it is possible that these could be foreshocks to a larger quake.

Alaska has a history of very large earthquakes. March 27th, 1964 a 9.2 earthquake and it's resulting tsunamis were responsible for 131 deaths. The 1964 quake was the most powerful quake in United States history.

I will continue to keep an eye on this and keep this updated as new events happen.

Osama Bin Ladin Pictures

2011-05-04T19:34:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of talk lately about the White House releasing the pictures of Osama. The Administrations reasoning for not releasing the pictures of Bin Ladin are because they do not want to further anger the people who follow him. This after we shoot him in the head, send him into the sea where fish had there way with him and he was probably finally eaten by a giant octopus or something. So I wonder exactly at what point did we start to give a rats rear end about his followers feelings? Osama Bin Ladin was a evil man who was responsible for the deaths of thousands. Now we are worried about offending his friends? If it were up to me I would have put him in a dress and paraded him through the streets.

In all reality the pictures will not matter because his friends will figure out that he's really dead when the next guy steps up and takes charge. Or someone will find the magical shark turd that contains his tooth or something. Things have a way of working themselves out. But I would still like to see the pics.

Deadly Tornado Outbreak in Southern U.S.

2011-04-28T06:49:00.000-07:00

National Weather Service workers hadn't even had time to get out in the field to survey the damage from the previous days reported tornado's before another round of storms hit the southern U.S. Weds. had one of the largest tornado outbreaks in U.S. recorded history and could possibly surpass the 1974 tornado outbreak.

Usually I'm not exactly an avid Weather Channel follower but I must admit that I did tune in yesterday and what I saw was incredible. I watched as a tornado moved through northern Birmingham,Al. The storm was 17 miles away and already debris was falling out of the sky in Birmingham. I'm an avid Tornado Chasers watcher and had never saw anything like that before on there. I'm not saying it wasn't on there before, I just never saw it. And watching as the storm came through, although my heart went out to the people who were going through that, It was just awesome to watch. It really reminds us that no matter what we seem to be able to accomplish as human beings, mother nature has a way of putting us back in our place.

It certainly wasn't just Birmingham, Al that was affected by the tornado outbreak in all 3 states declared states of emergency, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. With a death toll of at least 173 according CNN.com and that number will be sure to rise.

Al-Qaeda Impotent

2011-04-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

This one was just to good to pass up. According to the documents that were recently released about the prisoners at Gitmo. The Al-Qaeda operative that was behind the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole says that he took injections to make himself impotent to avoid the distractions of women and spend more time on the Jihad, there imaginary holy war. I don't know about that dude but I'm telling you that if I were impotent that would be much more of a distraction to me than women. I mean come on if a guy gets in the mood he can call up his wife or girlfriend or who ever and solve his issue. Then get back to fighting. If I couldn't get it up, I wouldn't feel like fighting anyone.

Florida Teen Booted From Class For Wearing High Heels

2011-04-26T03:38:00.000-07:00

So here's this high school kid who wakes up one day and says to himself. "Hmmmmmmm mom's shoe's look really pretty." So he puts on the high heels and heads out for a great day of learning and education. The problem starts when he gets to class and well his buddies aren't so impressed. The kids are laughing and saying things and well it becomes a classroom disruption. The teacher notifies the principal who removes the kid from class and convinces him to take them off for his own safety. According to the report I saw from Fox the principal admitted that the student was not in violation of any dress code but was disturbing the class and putting himself in harms way.

Ok so here's my main issue with all this. People are upset because they feel that the kids rights were infringed upon. That's my issue right there. His rights were not infringed upon in anyway, his right not to have his butt kicked in class was protected. Believe it or not school is not a place to go express yourself. It is a place to learn. In my opinion you can express yourself on your own time. And that in and of itself is a learning experience. There's a time and a place for everything.

Ninja Breaking Into Cars

2011-04-26T03:03:00.000-07:00

In Pennsylvania a man dressed as a ninja was out breaking into cars police report. According to reports the ninja broke into quite a few cars before being seen by a resident who was checking out his car after hearing glass break and car alarms. The resident tried to confront the Ninja but apparently it's a bad idea to confront a man in his pajama's at 1 am who happens to be carrying a sword. The ninja jabbed at him through his car window and cut his hand. Reports say that police are still looking for the ninja.

I saw one report that stated that police found a bottle of alcohol at the scene. I'm sure alcohol wouldn't make a man dress like a ninja and do something stupid like this. No No No it must be something else. So what would make a ninja snap? Ok it was the booze. Sad part is that if he does not get caught, he's going to have one of the best drinking stories of all time, but who's going to believe him in 10 or 15 years?

Man fires on LAPD chopper.

2011-04-24T20:37:00.000-07:00

Easter morning in LA, nothing else like it. Kids waking up to see what the easter bunny brought them, getting ready to go to church, and watching 18 year old Danny Lopez shoot down a police helicopter. According to reports Danny was upset over the loss of a friend, so he like any other person, did the reasonable thing. He grabbed his high powered riffle and opened fire on a LAPD Chopper. Eventually the man was subdued by members of his family which then allowed police to arrest him without further incident. The LAPD chopper safely made an emergency landing despite being hit and losing power. Police plan to load the chopper onto a flatbed and take it to a facility in downtown LA for investigation and repairs.

Ohio Man Arrested for Barking at a Police Dog.

2011-04-22T21:47:00.000-07:00

It happened in Mason, Ohio. It was there that one of the smartest men in history stumbled out of a pub. Drunk, but yet so full of wisdom. 25 year old Ryan Stephens comes out of the pub and spots a Police dog inside of a police cruiser while the officer is investigating a traffic accident. Ryan tries to strike up a conversation with the pooch, but at some point they have a disagreement and begin to argue. The dog is barking, Ryan's barking and hissing at the dog. Ok guys seriously this really did happen. I swear I don't make this stuff up. He ended up getting arrested for violating an Ohio law that makes it illegal to taunt a police dog. It gets better. The ACLU is representing him in court saying that the law violates his freedom of speech and afterward Ryan states that "THE DOG STARTED IT" Wow just wow. What more can you say?

Texas governor urges citizens to pray for rain.

2011-04-22T15:56:00.000-07:00

West Texas typically get's around 15 inches of rain per year but so far in the last 6 months they have only had 13 hundredths of an inch. That has resulted in numerous wild fires which have destroyed over 1.4 million acres in the state. Texas governor Rick Perry has called for Texans to pray for rain over the next 3 days. While I certainly cannot and will not argue with the power of prayer, It really caught my attn. My first thought was "Wow you really know that you're screwed when the governors best plan is ,PRAY!!!" While slightly humorous it is quite a serious situation in Texas and the governors call for prayer is brilliant in my opinion. I think it reminds people that with all of our technology and everything we are capable of doing there are still many things that are outside of our control. It pulls people togeather and brings attn to the situation that Texas is currently in. Let me know what you think about Governor Perry's call for prayer.

BP to cut it's U.S. tax bill.

2011-04-22T14:03:00.000-07:00

After the expenses of cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, BP America is claiming $41 billion in loses for the 2010 tax year. Which results in the company paying no federal income taxes for the 2010 tax year. It equals out to about a $13 billion dollar savings for the company which has many people outraged. They say it puts the burden of clean-up on the American tax payer. They say it shows preferential treatment to big business, but honestly let's look at this for a minute.

The company is simply claiming it's losses. No different than any other company in the United States would do. They didn't find some loophole to get out of paying income taxes. The laws on the books have been in place long before most of us were born. My advice to people who are whining about this is to look at themselves. Have they ever been sick and called off work? Did they go ahead and pay taxes on the money that they would have made if they had just sucked it up and went in anyway? Heck no! They only claimed what they actually made for the year not what they could have made if things had went differently. So when the guy down the street calls off work that costs the U.S. government money and puts more of a burden on those people who went to work that day. Sounds kind of crazy when you put it that way, doesn't it? It's the same way of thinking just on a more personal level. So unless we're going to make every American start paying taxes on money that they did not make, shut up about about BP not paying taxes on money they did not make.

Serpent Mound

2011-04-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

As I pulled up information about Serpent Mound to show my son not to long ago, I was very surprised to learn a lot myself. Some of what I learned in school has been shown to be false and I also discovered that the mound is inside an impact crater which I do not remember being taught.

For those of you who do not know Serpent Mound is located in Adams County Ohio. The mound is 1,300 feet long and approximately 3 feet high. No one is 100% sure which culture built the mound but most believe that it was built by either the Adena or the Fort Ancient Indians. Although Iroquois Indian legend suggests that it was built by a culture known as the Allegheny.

Serpent mound was not a burial mound it is what is known as an effigy mound. Many believe that it had a religious purpose while many feel that it had more of an astrological purpose. The mound is located on a plateau of a 5 mile crater known as the Serpent Mound crater. It is believed that although the indians probably did not realize that they were in a crater that the unusual rock formations certainly would have caught there attention and possibly been taken as a sign or sacred place.

Until recently we were not sure if the crater was created by a meteor hitting the earth or possibly a very large ancient volcano. But now it seems to be agreed that the crater was created by a meteor hitting the earth at some point in time. If you Google Serpent mound or Serpent crater you can find a ton of information and even a few myths. I found one site which told of crop circles across the street. My next project is to learn how to make crop circles in my own backyard. Once I figure out how, I will write an instructional How-To for anyone who needs crop circles in there yard.

Potty Break results in Colorado Elementary School Evacuation

2011-04-21T18:17:00.000-07:00

A man in Littleton, Co ran into an elementary school to use the potty which surprised some people and ended up with the evacuation of the school. The rest of the schools in the county also went on lock down until the situation was sorted out.

There were reports that he had left a backpack and that he had rushed past school officials. Police later said that was not the case and that the man had checked out ok and had committed no crime. But it's obvious that he used poor judgment.

Wow, That will be a story he can tell the grandkids about. Could you imagine? I mean we've all cleared out a room or area of the house but come on an entire school? How bad would you have to go in order to run into a school? I wonder if he has a wife? Could you imagine telling your wife? "How was your day honey?" "Wellllllllllllllll I went to the store picked up a few things, washed the car,mowed the yard, pooped at the school and talked to the police. How was your day?"