Courthouse rampage in Atlanta

The article below talks more about the alleged (and I say that with not a grain but about a pound of salt) killer, but something else I want to discuss first. How do you have a martial arts expert being led to his trail by a lone deputy, a female at that. Don't get too fired up about the deputy being female, same thing might just as easily have happened to a guy. But only having one person guarding him, that just does not make sense. Especially when you consider that they found shanks in his socks a day or two before and the prosecutor had requested extra security. Then to top that off, a camera catches it all but no one is paying attention. These people should not have died.

As far as the article, this guys family says that he is "A good person". Someone is either delusional or spending too much time with the crack pipe. How can you refer to someone that just killed several people as "a good person" How about a homicidial maniac that should get the death penalty? And this is a case where if there ever was a reason for someone to get a beatdown from the police, this scumbag deserved it. But that still does not excuse the breakdowns in the system that allowed this to happen and ulitmately cost several innocent people their lives.

Read it here:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=718&e=10&u=/ap/20050312/ap_on_re_us/courthouse_shootings_suspect

Trade deficit keeps getting better

In the month of January the US had the second highest monthly trade deficit in our history, over $58 billion. I am not surprised, in some ways we are the victim of our own success. As the standard of living rises, it is hard to find people to work the jobs that used to be here in the us so they moved overseas and we now import. And of course many companies have also moved their production overseas to save money and to stay competitive. And with China starting to become something of an industrial powerhouse, we are importing much more from them as well. The trade deficit from 2004 was over $600 billion, up over 20 percent from 03. Not that surprising seeing how the economy was getting better, and of course the cost of oil is also going up.

Part of the deficit has to do with currency valuation, one reason China exports so much.

You can read the story here from AP via Yahoo:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=668&ncid=749&e=6&u=/ap/20050311/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/economy

Maggots as medicine

I have heard of using leeches for medicinal purposes to restore circulation, but not maggots. But as the article on MSNBC.com suggests, they are being used in some cases. They apparently are quite useful at eating dead tissue, such as where someone has contracted the flesh eating disease, or maybe even where gangrene has set in.

Yeah, it does sound gruesome, but they are under a bandage on a wound, its not like they have you immerse yourself in a big tub of maggots.

Read it here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7229059/

Another parent out of touch with reality

Okay, I am not a parent but when I see stuff like this it just pisses me off. Those of you in the Des Moines area probably remember the big brawl that broke out at the Roosevelt Hoover basketball game this past winter. During the melee that insued a female police officer was injured quite seriously by at least one high school girl. The girl in my opinion ought to get about 20 years for that, maybe she will learn something from that. But that part that pisses me off? Her apparently delusional mother saying in the story (at the link below) that her daugther is being "villified" by the media, but just made a mistake and is a good kid. Hey lady, if you think someone that repeatedly punches a cop to the point of the cop needing to be hospitalized is a good kid, you have some issues, get a clue. Looks like she may have set a good example for her daughter huh?

Read it here:
http://www.dmregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050308/NEWS01/503080405/1001/NEWS

New jail for polk county

Polk County is trying to build a new jail again, something they sorely need. You would think that with money from the federal gov't likely coming (as a payment per prisoner for housing federal prisoners) that will pay for a good chunk of this that it would be a sure thing. But you never know for sure.

For some reason, people love for government to be tough on crime, but they don't seem to want to pay for it in terms of more court and prison costs. We have seen that time and time again. What then happens is that prisons get even more crowded and they have to release a rapist or child molester so they can hold Jim Bob who got busted for doing some crank.

You can read the article below about the proposed Polk County jail. Considering how much cash the county is paying out to house prisoners elsewhere (so a new jail would cause the county to pay out less AND take in more, that is a good thing) I would certainly vote for it if I lived there. But opponents will certainly try to shoot it down, after all no one wants to pay more property taxes. It would be better to just let a murderer go free, have him kill someone in your famliy and then you can blame the gov't for letting him out of prison early. That is the American way after all.

Read it here:
http://www.dmregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050312/NEWS01/503120316/1001&lead=1

Judging from Congress lately, did I awaken from a coma and find the country perfect?

Right, I was pretty sure that I did not. Let's review real quick the issues of today (just a few, not intended to be all inclusive):
-social security
-medicare
-rising health care costs
-tort reform
-the economy
-the war in Iraq and "on terror"
-the record budget deficits
-schools that are falling short
-unemployment
-the damn highway bill that they have been working on for over a year (good job guys!)

Okay, so there are obviously some important things that need work. According to what you hear in the news anyway, here is what Congress seems to think are the most important

-steroids in baseball from as far back as five years ago
-the Terry Schiavo fiasco, which correct me if I am wrong, is only about one person

What the hell are these morons doing? I don't know about you, but I didn't elect someone to Washington and pay taxes to support them for them to go on a headline grabbing steroid witch hunt mostly concerning the allegations in Jose (yeah a fly ball actually did bounce off my hollow head and bounce over the wall for a home run) Canseco's book tentaively called "I need money so buy my dumb ass book". Why is congress investigating steroids in baseball from guys that are retired now? I am against steroids in baseball, but that hardly qualifies as an urgent national matter above most other things. What's next, investigating the WWE for steroids and trotting out Superstar Billy Graham on his artifical hip to talk about if they were used in his heyday in the 70's and 80's?

As far as the Schiavo thing goes, that is an act of lunacy. What really pisses me off is that no one seems to care about this poor woman. She is being fought over like a rag doll, her family clinging to the notion that she will be probably the first person in history to actually improve from such a condition. I can understand not wanting to let someone go, but I don't know anyone that would want to be kept alive forever that way. How would you feel if you had a loved one that wanted the plug pulled and you were going to have them do it and then congress stepped in and said no you can't do that? I can't believe that any republican would support such a notion, being that this is more of a government intrustion than most things that they oppose.

Seems like a waste of time and money if you ask me. But apparently since we are worrying about this stuff everything else must be fixed. If you believe that, I need your help! I just won the Nigerian lottery but I need you to send me $10000 to help me claim it and then we will split the prize (one of the most well known internet scams out there, just had to throw that in).

What were this kids parents thinking

Some of you may have already read this (click the link to read it on the Des Moines Register Website). I am not trying to make fun of someone's tragic loss, but in this case there is a burning question. What is an 18 year old kid doing driving a Dodge Viper? A kid that age almost certainly does not have the driving ability to drive a car with that much power and speed, and in this case, it got someone killed. What were his parents thinking? If someone really bought there high school junior a Dodge Viper, that is another PFD in my book. And if you are going to be that damn dumb, get the kid some driving lessons so that he won't kill himself or worse yet (as happened in this case) someone else.

Read it here:
http://www.dmregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050314/NEWS08/503140317/1001/NEWS

I started another blog, check it out.

I just started a new blog a couple of weeks ago called Spinonissues. In this blog I will post considerably less often, but the things I do post will typically be in more detail and will not refer to just one story. There may be several links or none at all. The first couple posts are still fairly short, but I plan to slowly get more in depth as I get more used to doing this blog.

Check it out here:
http://spinonissues.blogspot.com/

Website of the week

This website is great. It is so far out there is makes Micheal Savage's site look liberal. I am not including it because I agree with it, I personally have it filed under crap (actually that is where I file all political based websites from either side of the aisle since that is usually what they are), but it is controversial and with some different viewpoints and thus worth a look.

Check it out here:
http://www.halturnershow.com/

check savage out here, and check him out on the radio if you can, he is a trip. But to his credit, he is outspoken, and he is not the party mule that Limbaugh has become, he even makes fun of rush sometimes.

http://www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/index.html

Minimum wage increase dosen't make it through

This was a couple of weeks ago, but still worth talking about. The dems tried twice to pass one of their favorite priorities, an increase in the national minimum wage, currently at $5.15/hour.
Sen. Kennedy was pushing a version that would raise the minimum wage to $7.25, it failed of course, that was a case I think of just being too greedy. A version pushed by some Republicans with a smaller increase also fell short. You can read about it at the link below from Yahoo. I personally think it should be increased and then indexed to inflation, but realistically from my experience in the retail world is that if you are only paying minimum wage you are going to get only the bottom of the barrel in terms of quality. I cannot remember working at a store in the past 10 years where we paid only the minimum wage. You cannot do that if you want good people.

Here is the story:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2270&ncid=2270&e=1&u=/krwashbureau/20050308/ts_krwashbureau/_bc_minimumwage_wa_1

I'm back!

Sorry that I have not had time to post in awhile, been very busy as of late but I am back now. Stay tuned for more.............