| You Should Be Allowed to Vote |
 Generally speaking, you're very well informed. If you vote this election, you'll know exactly who (and what) you'll be voting for. You're likely to have strong opinions, and you have the facts to back them up. |
I was grinding through my e-mail, because I've been away for a couple of months, and found that Brigid, of Mausers and Muffins fame has granted me an award.
The much coveted "Duck Tape" award.
I guess it's because I "fix" nuclear power plants, as well as everthing else that gets dropped in my lap.
I feel,,,,, different,,,,,special,,,,,
ducky!
We finally got in Monday evening. We left Ct. in 25 F or so and arrived home in the 60 F range. I don't mind saying it was good to come home.
Actually it was wonderful.
Then life set in.
I thought the drivers in Ct. were bad, while I was there. I am now convinced the drivers here can give lessons in stupid.
On a brighter note, the grand babies were actually glad to see me. The oldest who currently has some issue with personal contact generally, and males particularly, never even turned a hair. She walked in the door, took one look and came over and gave me a wonderful hug. That doesn't sound too strange, except she has never seen me with a beard. Think bear.
Today is Thanksgiving, a day that is seldom remembered as a religious holiday. Mostly it's the day before Black Friday. The most horrendous shopping day of the year. I am sure we will hear about the retailers going under because everyone is sitting on their money, as we have for the last twenty years.
Historically this occasion was a day set aside for giving thanks to, dare I say it, God for his blessings, and the survival for one more year.
Everyone, should, in the depths of their heart, thank what ever they believe guides them, for the past year. You have no guarantee of another day.
At my housse today, we will eat too much, and be grateful too little, we will welcome someone who can't get home to their family, and my mother in law who can't get back from where she has gone.
I will eat left overs for ever, and be grateful.
May each and everyone be healthy, happy, and avoid your just desserts, for one more year.
Brass Dragon out.
Last night it got down to 16 deg F, it's colder in some places, but it's enough for now. The ponds froze over, and at 1100 hrs, it's only 31deg F. I have some work to do outside, but I'm going to wait until it's above freezing before I go out and wallow on the ground.
The sky is clear and blue, and cold. As long as the wind stays down it may be ok.
Well, so much for that hope. The pine tree next door is dancing, gonna be chilly.
More than 90 ships have been hijacked by pirates this year off the Horn of Africa. Since it arrived in the Gulf of Aden this month, the Tabar has escorted about 35 ships through the "pirate-infested" waterway, the Indian government said.
The piracy epidemic has captured the imagination of a public enamored with the romantic image of swashbuckling seamen of yore, engaged in swordplay and barking out orders to fellow buccaneers. But experts say today's pirates are tough young criminals armed with AK-47s and dressed in camouflage.
It's romantic until you have the gun in your face, then, not so much.
Seems the Marines fixed this little problem once before, time for a reduex.
Lay off tomorrow,,,,,,WHOOOOO!!!! HOOOOO!!!!
Most of my life I've dreaded a lay off. Now it's a normal part of the job, and welcome.
The LOML is flying up so we can do tourist things, amongst other important activities! :>)
Almost two months of six night weeks, ready for a break I am!
The proposed rule would prohibit recipients of federal money from discriminating against doctors, nurses and other health care workers who refuse to perform or to assist in the performance of abortions or sterilization procedures because of their "religious beliefs or moral convictions."
It would also prevent hospitals, clinics, doctors' offices and drugstores from requiring employees with religious or moral objections to "assist in the performance of any part of a health service program or research activity" financed by the Department of Health and Human Services.
But three officials from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, including its legal counsel, whom President George W. Bush appointed, said the proposal would overturn 40 years of civil rights law prohibiting job discrimination based on religion.
The counsel, Reed Russell, and two Democratic members of the commission, Stuart Ishimaru and Christine Griffin, also said that the rule was unnecessary for the protection of employees and potentially confusing to employers.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 already prohibits employment discrimination based on religion, Russell said, and the courts have defined "religion" broadly to include "moral or ethical beliefs as to what is right and wrong, which are sincerely held with the strength of traditional religious views."
Obama has said the proposal will raise new hurdles to women seeking reproductive health services, like abortion and some contraceptives. Michael Leavitt, the health and human services secretary, said that was not the purpose.
This piece comes from a subsidiary of the New York Times, and if you can believe it, is critical of a rule issued by President Bush. (Quick put on your shocked face!) The substance of the rule as I read it, States “you can’t force anyone to participate in activities they actually believe are wrong.”
The Civil rights act says, “you can’t refuse to employ a person because of race, religion or sexual orientation”, nowhere does it infer that after you have hired a person, and they refuse to perform their job for moral, ethical or religious reasons, that they can’t be terminated for non performance. If an employee won’t work, then they don’t have to be paid.
Consider the quandary of a health care worker who was hired under a job description that did not include abortion, and as an expansion in the business plan, is now required to assist or perform abortions.
Most of us would quit and be dammed to the consequences. Would anyone try to convince me that people wouldn’t be forced out of their jobs, because “we can’t lose the federal money”? Those people who can offer care, with the exception of abortion, have as much right to a job as anyone else.
This rule doesn’t say “You can use religion to avoid hiring someone.” It says ”You can’t fire me because I can’t do this due to my beliefs.”
As to Obama’s statement, I fail to see the right to an abortion as “reproductive health services”. If you consider the statements of women who have had abortions, it could be quite the contrary.
Once again the Obamasiah shoots from the hip with out thinking through the issue. I have heard more times than I can count, every one deserves a job. Why not people who don’t want to kill the unborn?
Why should those workers be discriminated against because they just can’t kill a baby?
emphasis mine
At o330 I am sitting in Connecticut, listening to guys from Alabama, Arkansas, New Hampshire, make fun of the accent of a farmer from Maine.
It's OK, he took his turn laughing at a guy from Rhode Island.
I guess they can't hear them selves.
Big Potential Seen in Miniature
Nuclear Plants
In an editorial, Investor's Business Daily (11/11) writes that former vice
president Al Gore, in his call for the US to produce all of its electricity
"from carbon-free sources within 10 years," "does not mention nuclear
power, a source from which we already get 20% of our electricity and from
which we could get more, thanks in part to the development of a new
type of power plant that compares roughly to the evolution from the
room-size vacuum-tube computers of the 1950s to today's laptops. Using
technology developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and licensed
from the U.S. government, New Mexico-based Hyperion Power Generation
Inc., has taken its first orders for miniature nuclear power plants that
could literally fit in your backyard. The module produces about 70
megawatts of thermal energy or 27 megawatts of electricity via steam
turbine, enough to power about 20,000 American-style houses." IBD adds,
"Other companies are working on similar nuclear projects, large and
small."
Now we can only hope they don't try to make them fool proof, it'll never happen because fools are so ingenious. It just makes them bigger.
This circus is winding down, thank God. I am only working seventy five hours a week, why would that tire anyone out?
I brought the bike to ride for economic reasons, and discovered that there are …other things to consider.
When riding in 20 degree weather, a sneeze inside a full face helmet becomes a white out. When it’s cold enough, and you have to keep the face plate open because of the former situation, your eyes will water and you get an ice cream headache, and....
snotcicles.
I got into the supervisor position, sort of as a default candidate. However, I have done well enough to rate the same position at the next job and probably some after that. I am basically a glorified tool runner and facilitator. I get calls from folks who don’t want to make a decision. I have no problems there, give me the info and I can make a decision.
I will be going to Minnesota in March or before, a lot like Siberia, I’m told. This will be over for me by next Friday, I expect. The love of my life is going to fly up and we will do some sight seeing before we drive back. I'll need to take some pictures to put on this site, it’s really pretty up here. The drive to work and back is along the Niantic River. The boats anchored out and the water front homes make some classic pictures.
