Free Republic

We had a cat that occupied our garage for several years. He was a neighborhood stray that sneaked in one day when one of us left the door open, and while I tried to chase him out with a water pistol, that just made him cantankerous. He never let any of us get close enough to touch him, so we just put up with the snarls and hissing, provided dry food and water and a litter box and let him be.

He never wanted in the house and seldom ventured outside, and NEVER let any of us get close enough to touch him. I thought about trapping him for a trip to the vet for shots, but decided that it would be traumatic for both of us.

He lived about 5 years, and then one day the food and water were untouched and the litter box clean for several days. My search finally located him - deceased - in a cardboard box behind a workbench.

What kind of a life was that? It was what he chose and maintained, so I suppose it was the best we could do for him.

We have had cats for many years, and really enjoy observing the way they interact with each other and with us. the aphorism, “Dogs have families - Cats have staff.” is certainly more than just words.

Today we have two cats - Snowball, a white long-haired male, is 18 and far from the oldest we have had. And several years later Precious, a neighborhood female adopted and named by a family down the street and then abandoned when they moved away. Both would share the garage with the invader, but Snowball will not allow Precious to enter the hallway or bedroom areas of our house. He hangs out in the hallway, clearly to keep her out.

Let’s convert our entire carbon-based political leadership into pure carbon!

Once a month I meet several people who are frequent traders in stocks, commodities, options, and other financial instruments. At the meeting yesterday there was a lot of discussion about the state of various markets, the distorting effects of government meddling, and speculation about whether (and when) normalcy would return to the marketplace.

My definition - The day that Big Ben (Bernanke) and Little Timmy (Geithner) are led out of their respective offices in shackles!

I just called Hatch’s office. I commended his commitment to vote “NO”, but added that a NO vote is not enough under current circumstances. His disapproval MANDATES that he work for her defeat by FILIBUSTER, and he owes his constituents not merely a vote to support a filibuster but to actively organize and maintain it. Anything less is mere hypocrisy.

I just wish it were true, but I still see many more Obama bumper stickers at the Jewish Community Center than any other kind.

I got my lesson on Democrat Senatorial ethics and morality from John Glenn, years ago. He sold out his integrity for another rocket ride so fast it broke the sound barrier.

20 years ago I had been working for IBM as a Program Support Rep (system software maintenance) after many years repairing hardware. I had dropped out of MIT 30 years earlier, and did not have a Bachelor’s.

In my new position I was communicating with program analysts and application programmers instead of operators. I needed to know more about their world, so I had taken several business courses at a local college. The college had recently decided to start a graduate level program, beginning with a lockstep 46-hour MS in “Telecommunications and Information Systems Management” - and they asked me to apply for admission.

Several months earlier I had applied for admission to their undergrad business program, but was rejected due to my 101 hours at MIT with a 1.61 GPA. However, I earned an “A” in all six of the courses at this school, so when the new program started the director made the offer. IBM agreed to pay for it, as well as to allow me the days off necessary to get the work done.

I was too late for the first year but was admitted to the second, as one of two without a Bachelor’s. With that disadvantage, I really went to work - and came out on top of the class. And the courses were quite valuable to me at work, particularly after the PSR position was merged into Systems Engineering.

I credit this 1990 degree, and the MBA that followed in 1992, with keeping me at IBM through 1994 and full retirement. These degrees also greatly facilitated the very remunerative consulting and contracting work I did for the next 9 years.

When that slowed down, I also had an opportunity to teach Managerial Economics - one of the key courses for MBA and similar programs - for 5 semesters for Webster University, as part of their on-base “Navy College.”

That really piqued my interest in the general subject of economics, which has led directly to my level of fear, disgust, and anger at Obama and his mismanagement.

I was an election official this past Tuesday for the local election primary. I was (again) assigned to a precinct in a mostly black church in South Memphis, and my task was to check ID’s and issue the ballot application forms and encoded voting machine cards.

Since this was a primary, everyone had to declare a party - 3 republicans and 88 democrats. My previous poll duties required virtually constant effort for several hours; this turn required about the same 14 1/2 hours, but we had only 91 voters during the 12 hours we were open for voting - or about 7.5 per hour. Rules require that we post a list of all early (87) and absentee ballot (3) voters from the precinct, since they are ineligible to vote on election day.

EVERY race was contested, and this precinct had about 750 eligible voters, so democrat turnout was very low. I learned from conversations with a couple of counterparts in republican precincts that their turnouts were much higher, so I believe that this is a positive indication for November.

Meanwhile, a little over 200 miles away in West Tennessee, the town of Millington - now the home of a Navy Administrative center, but for many years the home of Naval Air training - has suffered a similar level of flooding. The Navy Base is temporarily shut down, which has frozen ALL navy and marine officer and senior enlisted promotions until it re-opens.

And the town itself has suffered equally. A personal friend of mine moved there in 2005 from New Orleans, as a refugee from Katrina. He came home from a weekend trip to learn that his apartment - in a large apartment complex - had been flooded a little over a foot deep. And the old car he had been restoring in the parking lot had been completely submerged.

At least he will be thinking more about the actual PROBLEM, instead of how to use the problem to advance an agenda!

==> “But you DO need power and an office from which to exercise it.” <==

That is OUR JOB!

Did your candidate APPEAR at the Tea Party Rally? Did his opponents appear? And what did they all have to say?

The Peak Oil” concept was NEVER just a resource problem - and it might not even be a resource problem at all!

First of all, in terms of current oil exploration technology, it might very well be just a resource problem. To the best of my knowledge - and correct me if I am PROVABLY wrong - all of the oil that we have extracted, from all of the oil deposits we have ever found, is “Kerogen” based, and isotopic analysis of MANY samples indicates that it was formed by subterranean heat and pressure from buried, prehistoric algae beds right here on the very young Earth.

But we have also heard about “Abiotic Oil”, which various theories have suggested as either a continuous process in/on the Earth or residue of a primordial source. Supporting the latter is the astronomical evidence of Carbon Monoxide, Methane, and other non-organic carbon compounds throughout the universe. These were certainly present when the Sun and the Earth formed, and might still be rising from the core and mantle to form new hydrocarbon compounds - possibly, to collect within the drained kerogen deposit sites of depleted oil fields.

Another conundrum is the massive amount of hydrocarbons on Saturn’s largest moon. Titan is DRENCHED in hydrocarbon compounds - probably amounting to more than ALL of the hydrocarbons on Earth! And these were NOT biologic in origin, at least not within this solar system.

The other failure of Peak Oil Theory is that it generally ignores economics, which plays at least an equal role in determining access to the resource. Oil exploration technology is constantly improving, and every improvement reduces the cost of reaching and extracting the source. This, in turn, makes smaller, more difficult oil pockets economically viable, thus increasing total reserves.

But we also need to find new ways to locate any abiotic oil - if it exists, and if it does not just rise up to refill depleted pools we already know about.

And finally, since we already know so much about kerogen oil, we need to be harnessing that knowledge - and much more research - to determine the natural processes that created kerogen oil, and learn to shortcut that process.

All of the big oil companies (each of which is MINISCULE compared to the dozen or so big oil COUNTRIES) are spending major dollars studying Algae. And why not? It worked before!

I believe that Algae farming to produce hydrocarbon fuel feedstocks will eventually replace oil exploration as our refined petroleum source, but many questions remain.

Natural, selected, or bioengineered algae?

Target product is Hydrocarbon, Ethanol, or more exotic, such as Butanol?

Natural sunlight, supplemented sunlight using solar cells, batteries, and nighttime light sources, or completely artificlal light, perhaps with optimized wavelengths.

Open or covered ponds, sealed bioreactors, tube circulators, or some other physical environment?

Continuous production (probably requires bioengineering) or batch drying and fermentation?

Co-siting with CO2 producers? With refineries?

Any way, we need to get off the Ethanol Myth, as well as the myth that we can just live smaller, meaner lives with our smaller carbon footprint.

Al Gore needs a GIGANTIC carbon footprint on his thieving black (whatever!)

Generally, water-soluble vitamins are non-toxic, even at “megadose” levels - the excess is just eliminated by the kidneys. Vitamin “C” is the classic example. I suppose some variants might have a toxic effect on the kidneys, but I am not aware of any such thing.

Vitamins B6 (pyridoxine) and B1 (Thiamine) are both water soluble, and in their common forms are harmless in large doses.

The common B6 supplements might contain as much as 50 times the MDR as the hydrocloride. The hydrocloride must be converted by the liver into pyridoxal 5’-phosphate, which is the active form. This is also available as a supplement.

The most common B1 supplement is Thiamine Hydrocloride, which is generally non-toxic at 30+ times the MDR. But it is absorbed slowly from the gut, and cleared from the blood in just a few hours, so it does not maintain continuous increased B1 levels.

This was my problem with diabetic (T2) neuropathy. My B1 level was just below the minimum, although I was taking both a multivitamin containing B1 and an additional “B-complex” supplement, 12 hours apart.

Then I learned about a supplement called “Benfotiamine” from someone on the FR Diabetes ping list. My neurologist had never heard of it, but a little research answered my questions (and his) about it, and I decided to try it, at 150mg twice a day. I kept taking the multivitamin, but dropped the separate B-complex.

Benfotiamine was invented in Japan as a treatment for alcoholic B1 deficiency, and it IS effective at raising and maintaining B1 blood level. I know this because my neurologist tested my B1 level twice more while I was taking it.

After 90 days, the test showed that my B1 was about 50% ABOVE the top of the recommended range, so I dropped the second dose. The next test, 6 months later, showed it to be just below the top of the normal range.

I have been taking this for about 2 years now, but neuropathy consists of damaged nerves, so full recovery - if it EVER happens, and many say it CANNOT - is likely years away. Meanwhile, I celebrate the occasional odd sensation in my feet, hoping that it is a precursor of things to come. But at age 70, I wish things would hurry up!

I checked “Other” and wrote in “American.”

If I take that to “The Olive Garden” restaurant, do I get a discount?

I’m willing to give them a pass on that - the value of taking that PARTICULAR senate seat FAR exceeded the cost!

==>”Yes, They MUST HAVE GAINED CONTROL OF THE FORCES OF THE UNIVERSE! THEY REPEALED THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS!..........”<==

They must have had a democrat super-majority. Makes about as much sense as anything else dems do...

Romney “bought” almost every vote that he received at SRLC. He is by FAR the wealthiest potential candidate, and his minions were profligate with those funds. No, they did not just hand out greenbacks. But they did GENEROUSLY provide for transportation, attendance, and organization. And they gave away tons of campaign stuff, such as pins, T-shirts, books, and piggy banks. They plastered the place with pictures, cutouts, signage, banners, etc. and they packed the rooms with their own supporters as much as possible.

Ron Paul supporters could not match the spending, but they showed up in droves - particularly the young new voters, to whom the inconsistencies are not visible.

My wife and I, along with two friends, arrived Thursday afternoon. We saw a few of the political operatives but not the stars, who came out on Friday. Our friends, who had been active in Republican circles in AR, MS, and TN for decades, were fairly well known to a number of the people there from AR and MS, who arrived somewhat favoring Huckabee.

The next day we were a little late, but did manage to snag seats in the main hall instead of the overflow rooms. We missed Liz Cheney’s speech, and a little of J.C. Watts, but were there for all of Gingrich and Palin.

Sarah Palin’s speech wowed us all. One of our friends wrote “VOTE FOR SARAH” on his palm, and the rest of us followed suit as soon as he showed it to us. We “flashed” our one-handed message to anyone who would look until we left Saturday afternoon, and drew dozens of smiles, along with quite a few high-5’s!

One other truly impressive speaker on Saturday was Herman Cain, who preceded Michael Steele. Too bad, Michael!

==>”He has no idea what to do and if he did do something, it would be wrong and on the side of the muslims.”<==

This is the most believable and frightening part. Israel would certainly need to commit virtually every air asset to such a raid, leaving itself defenseless DURING the raid. And American intelligence assets would certainly know within minutes if such a raid were launched - and the phone call from the White House to Iran would almost certainly follow within an even shorter time.

With advance warning, Iran would destroy the IAF, leaving permanently defenseless, with the US able to demand virtually ANY concessions to establish the Obama version of “Middle-East Peace In Our Time.”

Now convince me that I am wrong... PLEASE!