Ragnar

So beloved leader is starting another Hate America tour, kissing the butts of our enemies and fair weather friends in the middle east while alienating our only true alliance.  great!  meanwhile, have you noticed gas is creeping back up, 2.70 per gallon in town today.  And we have drilled exactly no new oil wells, broke ground on exactly no new refineries, developed exactly no coal shale technology, built exactly no new nuke plants, developed exactly no new natural gas fields, run exactly no new pipelines from Anwar, let’s see – what we have done is spend a butt  ton of money, not sure on what —–   Oh probably our new attack submarine fleet, oh no, maybe new fighter jets?  no we are cutting back on those, probably our new satellite defense system, –  no, well maybe it is on our revitalized space program, well no not that either.  I don’t think we have even built new levies for those leeches in New Orleans who are too stupid to know better than to build their town below sea level!  But we are ok if Iran develops nuclear technology as long as they cross-their-hearts-and-hope-to-die promise no to use it for weapons.  How many Trillions, or Bazillions, (or gaggles or googles or whatever) have we spent?  (no not on date night with Michele but on making America the greatest nation on earth?)  Easy answer – exactly none

With the money we are spending we could build coast to coast high speed railroads, develop a fleet of natural gas cars and trucks, hell we could build a tunnel to Brittan!  A new power transmission grid fed by new advanced nuclear reactors, all dangerous spent nuclear fuel should be safely buried a mile deep in solid bedrock below Nevada at Yucca Mountain.  We should be completely energy independent from the nuts in the Middle East.  Lets revitalize our steel industry.  A nation that doesn’t make its own steel is in decline.  Let’s measure this “great” administration’s success by how much they BUILD (lest Atlas shrugs and all the builders go away).   Crap, I’d settle for a fleet of Zeppelins!

Or, how I became a paranoid who spends his time knocking down walls of his house and collecting assault rifles.

My daughter is 16 and a half.  Yesterday I grudgingly agreed to let her ride in a friend’s car to go to a matinee movie.  The thought scares me to death.  We home school her because I think that the philosophy of our small school is you are either an adored, pampered, athlete, or you are garbage that will probably end up bad and knocked up and on drugs, and a drop out. My daughter is not a jock, but she is damn good kid, she likes computers and anime and video games, and I just don’t want her in an environment that treats her as a second class citizen.  My wife went to a big school with something like a 5000 kid enrollment.  I used to think that would be bad, but I have changed my thinking on this.  The beauty of the big suburban school is that is seems like no matter what a kid is into, there is a peer group and a clique that shares the same interest.

She and her friends think I am an over-protective, paranoid, nut case (they are right – especially when it comes to my daughter.  In fact one could throw the word extremely in front of each of those descriptors without fear of excess)  Although compared to my neighbor I might not be the worst.  My neighbor told me his daughter was out in her boyfriend’s car, in the driveway, “talking” for a little too long after coming home from a date.  He put an end to the “talking” by walking out on his porch with his 12 gauge and letting one bang off up into the air.  Apparently this is an effective way to break up “talking” and send a young suitor packing.  I give it 9.8s for style points.

So I am driving home from a business trip and listening to some classic country music station on AM skip radio, hoping for some Johnny Cash, when a Paul Harvey segment comes on.  Paul Harvey?  I wasn’t sure he was still around.  Maybe he is not because if he is he must be about 150?  It may have been an old recording for all I know, but his story was really cool and got me to thinking.

He talked about a guy named Jim, who was in the middle of the WW2 Allied beachhead landing in Italy, with the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division, during Operation Shingle, at Anzio.

As a kid Iron Man was my favorite comic book (or the Avengers for whom of course Iron Man was a founding member). I liked Iron Man because Tony Stark was just this guy with no super powers or anything. In fact he was very human. He had a bad heart and was kept alive by a pacemaker, and he had a drinking problem. Of course he was also a billionaire, playboy, mechanical engineering genius. And as we all know, he builds this incredible suit of armor that allows him to go toe to toe with the toughest bad guys in the Marvel universe and hold his own with guys like Thor and Hercules. I liked that he was always tinkering with his armor and creating improvements and refinements.

The other day I had what passes for a profound thought in my neck of the woods. Not the more typical kind of thing that usually comes right before statements like, “Hey ya’ll watch this,” or “Here hold my beer a minute.” No, this was actually a little deeper. I was thinking about all the debate on nationalized health care, or socialized medicine. (Sorry but let’s call a duck a duck). Now, I have some doctors in my family, so I may have a slightly different view than most, and I am lucky enough to have employment with pretty good health care coverage. In fact, let’s broaden this even a little more to socialized anything, or just plain ole socialism.