Obama TV Special

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Frankly I was a little worried about him buying 30 minutes of time on three networks. I was concerned. I don’t know why, but I was fretful.

I didn’t need to worry. Goodness. I can’t say enough good things about the TV special and about him as a human being.

This guy would be so much better at the job of president than John McCain. I sure hope Obama wins.
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General Motors

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For many years American automakers in Detroit have intentionally not followed the desires of the market or their customers. They were well aware of this, but the big SUVs and pickup trucks were just so profitable that their greed overcame their (somewhat limited) wisdom.

General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler all made a lot of money peddling gigantic, low fuel economy vehicles to the American consumer. They were indeed successful in convincing most people that it was cool and sexy to drive a big piece of crap that got 10 miles to the gallon on a good day.

The consumer was culpable too. No question about it. Many people took on more and more debt, even took the equity out of their houses through second mortgages and ran up massive amounts of credit card debt. Everyone knew that the good times couldn’t possibly last forever, but it was like there was a collective insanity going on. It was like everyone was drunk or stoned or both.

For forty years it has been obvious that the worldwide population is continuing to grow (especially in China and India) but that the supplies of easily recoverable fossil fuels are not. Comfortable, safe cars which get 40 miles per gallon were available back in the 1960’s. But the common person in America fell hook, line, and sinker for the lie that driving an SUV or a really big wasteful pickup truck somehow made one more desirable and attractive.

This was all going on while the people driving these wasteful vehicles were not getting any exercise at all and were eating like compulsive hogs. So now we have a country full of fat slobs with diabetes who can’t afford to drive their big pig American cars. Revolting. REALLY!

Now these same creeps who run the car companies in Detroit want the United States Government to bail them out for their years of bad decisions. These crooks want the government to give them billions of dollars to help them develop vehicles which get good fuel economy. Well just look around: Toyota, Honda, Nissan, VW, Fiat, and almost all the other car makers around the world already make high quality, safe, good fuel economy vehicles.

If the American government gives these jerks in Detroit one penny this is just another example of welfare for the rich and for corporations, while 50 million Americans do not have health insurance.
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Craig Ferguson

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I am reading Craig Ferguson's book called Between The Bridge And The River.
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The is an absolutely incredible book. I had no idea he was so intelligent!
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Here is a quote:
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He said business had been very bad since the whole jihad thing and that he thought that fundamentalism was the scourge of decent people who were trying to live a good life and make an honest living. Fraser was surprised to find that Davy saw no difference between Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism except that the Christians seemed to be rather more effective at killing large groups of people.
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This book is incredibly wonderful. I agree with Mitch Albom who says that "Craig Ferguson is not a talk-show host moonlightling as an author - it might be the other way around."
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Old Passports

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I was putting some papers away in one of my filing cabinets a few days ago and came across my file of old expired passports.

Old passports are so wonderful. Currently American passports expire after ten years. The stamps in the passports reminds one of the various trips one has taken over the years. And the evolution of the passport portraits really tells a story of how one has changed over the course of a lifetime.

Going through the old passports I see that I got my first passport in 1972. This one was issued while I was in the Army and was living in Frankfurt Am Main, West Germany. It was only good for five years. This first passport has stamps in it from Egypt, Lebanon, Israel, Greece, Cyprus, Denmark, Germany, Mexico, Switzerland, and England. I was 22 when I got this passport.

I remember that trip to England in February 1974. We flew over “space available” for free on an Air Force cargo plane. It was the first time I had ever been to London. I was 25 years old at the time.

I got my next passport in 1989. I took my son to see London in June of 1989. We happened to be in London when the Chinese government killed all those folks in Tiananmen Square. My boy was 13 at the time. We took the tube over to the Chinese Embassy and participated in a demonstration supporting human rights. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of_1989

This passport shows our trip to Cozumel, Mexico in June 1990 to go scuba diving, and also when I moved to the Netherlands in March 1993 to become the General Manager of the European Division of the company I was working for. It did that job for more than a decade.

This passport shows many trips to the United Kingdom going through the channel tunnel, and ones arriving in Manchester, Stansted, Edinburgh, Gatwick, Birmingham, and Southampton.

My next passport was issued in December 1998 by the U.S. Consulate General in Amsterdam. This passport has a great many trips to the UK, some by air, and others through the channel tunnel. Included are entries in Newcastle, Bristol, Prestwick, Edinburgh, and a trip I took to Dublin, Ireland in April 2003.
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Altogether my old passports show 29 times that I have gone to the United Kingdom. I remember one trip very well right after the Schingen Treaty was signed. Supposedly one no longer needed a passport to travel within Europe. The UK soon dropped out of this provision, but just to try it out I used my Dutch alien identity card to enter the UK. It worked.
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So all together this comes out to 30 times I have visited the British Isles. Virtually all were as a tourist. I guess two or three times technically I went on business, but even then I took the time to see lots of eye candy. I could visit Great Britain two or three times per year for the rest of my life and never get tired of it. It is such an amazing place!
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Obama

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I have really enjoyed wearing a different Obama campaign button every day!

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Deregulation

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Vindication. That is what it feels like.
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Alan Greenspan today said that he was wrong in thinking that the markets could self-regulate. In comments to congress he is now calling for more regulation. The radical ideas of brutal Market Fundamentalism and deregulation have been shown to be totally bankrupt.
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It is about time these dumbasses recognized it.
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LINK: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102300193.html?nav=rss_email/components
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McCain - Not Who You Think He Is

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The McCain campaign is distributing a mail piece that says "Terrorists" on the front and opens to a big picture of Barack Obama saying "Not Who You Think He Is."

John McCain -- who promised to run a respectful campaign -- said that he was "absolutely" proud of it.

I used to like John McCain. I thought he was an honest, polite man. More recently my opinion of him evolved to thinking that he was impetuous, and frequently made “gut” decisions like Bush. But that basically down deep he was still an honest, polite man (of course one who has a long history of screwing around on his wives).

No more. Now he reminds me of Gollum lusting after the power of the ring in Tolkien’s Trilogy. I now see clearly that John McCain craves the power and the glory of being President of The United States. He will say or do anything to deceive the people of America into voting for him. This is disgusting and sick. Revolting.

Not to mention that he is 72 years old and currently in remission from cancer. And the bimbo he chose as his running mate clearly is unprepared to lead, much less lead “all the people.”
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Anti-Obama e-mails

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Several times per week I receive racist and degrading e-mails forwarded from friends claiming to tell things about Obama's past.
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Demagoguery of the most pernicious time. Many of these e-mails have come from college educated white friends who pretend to be liberal. Clearly they are carrying a heavy load of racist baggage. Poor sick bastards.
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Health Insurance In America

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The Los Angeles Times has an article today on the health care system in America.
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The way that health care is handled in the United States of America is a disgrace. 50 million people in America are uninsured, and those who do have health insurance often find that despite thinking that their insurance would cover certain expenses, in the final analysis they have to pay these expenses.
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Unfortunately this is just another example of how far America has fallen. No other advanced Western democracy in the entire world has such a shabby health care system which excludes so many people. The infant mortality rates and average age of death in the U.S.A. confirm that the American health care system has declined to what one would expect in a second rate country.
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Just like the problems with the financial markets, this decline in the American health care system can primarily be attributable to greed, lack of government regulation, and a breakdown of democracy.
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I am 59 years old, and for 20 years of my adult life I lived and worked first in Germany and later in the Netherlands. In both countries physicians do not live in gigantic palaces and drive Porsches. Honest. And the people living in both countries live longer than Americans. The death rate for young children is lower in both countries than in the U.S.A.
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It really makes me be kind of ashamed to be an American. Shocking.
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LINK: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fi-insure21-2008oct21,0,7460918.story
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Alternative Energy

The board of directors of the electric power utility providing electricity service to Austin, Texas (the state capitol) has approved a resolution saying that 30 percent of its power should come from renewable sources, such as wind and solar by 2020.
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El Paso Electric should follow their example. In fact, the new presidential administration, whether it is Obama or McCain should make this be a goal for all electric power utilities in America. Maybe more than a goal. There should be incentives (carrots or sticks) making this option be the most attractive one.


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LINK: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/10/21/1021pec.html


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I Voted!

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Early voting is soooo nice! I voted today.

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It is a tradition to not have to tell who you voted for. But I will give you a hint: He is not old as the hills, he is in good health, and his running mate is intelligent and experienced.

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Sweden

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The Dutch press today reports that Sweden is in trouble financially:


* Sweden presents financial bailout plan

The Swedish government today presented a series of financial measures to help its banking sector if the country's banks come under more pressure from the global credit crisis. Sweden's finance minister says the measures provide the government with the means to solve liquidity shortages or potential solvency problems in the future. Stockholm's 152.2 billion euros plan allows banks and financial institutions with liquidity problems to apply from loans from the 'guarantee programme'. The loans are tied to specific conditions, including a restriction on management bonuses, raises and golden handshakes. In addition, Stockholm also set up a 1.5 billion euro stability fund to help banks facing insolvency. Sweden is the latest European country to unveil a financial bailout package.
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The Swedish are known among their Nordic neighbors as being extremely conceited and over confident. Having know many Swedes while I was living in Europe I would say that in general this is an accurate characterization.
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Couldn’t happen to nicer people. Arrogant bastards.
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The Netherlands

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I lived in The Netherlands for 15 years. It is a nice, clean, well organized little country. It is a bit larger than some counties in West Texas. To Americans their policies seem a bit strange, but honestly it works.

Except for major high voltage cross country power lines, the entire electricity grid in the country is buried. This makes it substantially more reliable.

Drug abuse is much less of a problem than in America. Honest. This is counter intuitive because you can go down to your neighborhood coffee shop and the waiter will give you a menu of all the kinds of grass and hash that you can legally buy and smoke on the premises. And then when you are ready to leave it is like a Chinese take-out. You can buy some to take home too.

People who are addicted to hard drugs can get clean needles free from the government. The government even drives big vans like portable libraries around to the neighborhoods to make distribution of these needles easy for the drug addicts.

Prostitution is legal. In fact, the whores are unionized so that their employers (pimps) have to exercise fair workplace practices. The rate of AIDS and of teenage pregnancy is far lower in the Netherlands than in America.

For 25 years I was a top manager of companies producing foods for human consumption. Half was in America and ½ of the time was in the Netherlands. So I know the arrogant little Gestapo types who work for the FDA, IRS, and OSHA very well. In America their job advancement and promotions are actually based upon how many companies they bust!

In the Netherlands the Government regulatory officials know that for the country to prosper that people have to have good, stable jobs. This means that businesses have to do well. So the Dutch government regulators really work hard trying to get companies into compliance, rather than fining companies or punishing managers.

If you listen to Bush II and his fellow travellers the American government is pro-business. But this is just so much idle talk. The Dutch government really is pro-people at the same time that it is pro-business.

The Dutch government even recognizes that the tourists who come to the country to smoke marijuana bring in a lot of money. They think this is good for the country.

This article came out today from the Dutch Government sponsored news agency:

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* Dutch run booming soft drugs trade
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In an interview with Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, police commissioner Max Daniel has said that the export of soft drugs from the Netherlands generates two billion euros a year. According to Mr Daniel, 80 percent or some 500 tons of the drugs grown in the Netherlands, is destined for the export market, particularly England, Germany, France and the Scandinavian countries. The demand for home grown cannabis has also increased substantially in the Baltic States. In the Netherlands, some 400,000 people use soft drugs like hashish, marijuana or cannabis on a regular basis.
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David Letterman

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From my DVR (like a Tivo but you don’t have to pay a monthly fee) I just watched the David Letterman interview of Senator John McCain last night.

It was a whole lot of fun. Moral Of The Story: Don’t screw with Dave!

The Craig Ferguson show followed it. It was also good. And I learned that Craig Ferguson has a book. So I just ordered it from Amazon.com
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Indiana Jones

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The new (and final) Indiana Jones movie is now out on DVD. I watched it today.

Back when the movie was in theaters I heard all sorts of criticism. Well, these people are just plain full of it.

I have watched the original three Indiana Jones movies recently, and The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull fits right in with the tone, the theme, and the mood of the others.

This movie is absolutely wonderful!
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Leukemia Journey

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Six years ago I was diagnosed with an incurable form of leukemia called CLL (chronic lymphocytic leukemia). At the time I was living in Europe, and I was extremely fortunate that Dr. Terry Hamblin was willing to take me on as a patient. He was one of the world's top researchers in the field of CLL. He lived and worked in the South of England.
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Now at age 59-3/4 I have decided to write down the symptoms and progression of the disease.
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HEALTH SYMPTOMS: ------------------------------------------------------------ October 2008

1. It is not uncommon to have to wake up 5 or 6 times during the night to pee. One would assume that this is a prostrate matter and is largely unrelated to the leukemia. Symptoms are advancing rapidly. Perhaps a secondary cancer? Since I am one of the 50 million uninsured in America no one will ever know.

2. Constant uncontrollable sweating day and night. One needs to drink large amounts of water to keep from getting dehydrated. One side effect of this constant sweating is uncontrollable fungus or mold in the groin area. Despite impeccable personal hygiene, the jock itch gets so bad that in appearance it resembles bed sores in old people. Baby powder, changing one’s underwear several times each day, standing in front of a fan to dry off the groin area several times each day. The body not being able to fight off these invaders and cure itself is due to the continued gradual reduction in the proper functioning of the body’s immune system. A side effect of being dehydrated is night time leg cramps. Drinking plenty of water stops these cramps.

3. The night sweats are getting difficult again. At the start of this leukemia journey six years ago the night sweats were extreme, they decreased for a while, and now they are getting quite noticeable again. Bed sheets and pillow drenched every night. In the morning using the ceiling fan for an hour or more before making the bed, so as to dry everything out.

4. Another result of the continued diminution in the effectiveness of the immune system is loss of the body’s ability to arrest tooth decay. Brushing several times each day, constant flossing. Several months ago I fully 100% stopped all consumption of refined sugars/corn syrup/honey, etc. This has helped somewhat, but has not fully resolved the continued problem with tooth decay.

5. The lymphomas or bumps are readily apparent on my neck and under my arms. I am getting more and more of these bumps. These surface-visible lymphomas are disconcerting, but the more worrying ones are those inside the body which press against various important organs, sometimes impeding their proper functioning.

6. When I first moved back to the dry climate of the Chihuahuan Desert the COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), i.e. lung problems, got better. A lot better. Running a HEPA air filter day and night in the bedroom also was helpful. But now once again I am aware of a continued and significant reduction in the proper functioning of the lungs. Laying in bed at night sometimes it is difficult to get enough oxygen. I lay there gasping to try and get enough air.

7. Diagnosis of the CLL took place coincidentally because I went to the hospital with an extreme infection inside of my lungs (pneumonia). These lung infections keep coming back. The antibiotic Avelox still manages to knock it back, but with each outbreak the antibiotics have to be continued for longer and longer times. Certainly this ongoing bacterial battle is related to the body’s improperly functioning immune system.
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The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society

Yesterday evening I attended a fund raiser for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society called Light The Night Walk. A large group of people walked around Ascarate Lake in El Paso, Texas. It took us about 45 minutes to walk all the way around the lake.

Supporters carried red balloons which contained a small LED flashlight and cancer patients (they call them survivors) carried white balloons which also had a LED flashlight in them. For a donation of $25- you received a free T-shirt.

Ascarate Lake is most famous for a huge Navy P5M seaplane having landed in this small man made lake in the middle of the Chihuahuan desert in April 1960. Although the body of water was large enough to land in, it was not nearly big enough for a large seaplane to take off. So after many months the military finally attached JATO rockets to the airplane to give it added thrust. It then took off safely, never to return.

It is always interesting to hang out with other cancer patients. Some are full of self pity, while others show great dignity. There is sometimes a lot of forced frivolity and humor.

This evening I gained a bit of insight. If you do not have a spouse or close friend, try not to die inside your own house. If your rotting corpse remains in the house for a week or so it will severely damage the resale value of the house, thus financially harming one’s survivors. Really good advice!

The other insight I received regarding incurable malignant cancer was: If you finally reach the point where the suffering is intolerable and you make a conscious decision to end the suffering - go out into the desert or to the middle of the forest to do it. Let the animals and nature take the appropriate actions with your remains. Another piece of really good advice!

LINK: http://www.lightthenight.org/site/c.itJZJ7MOIwE/b.730971/

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Regarding the seaplane landing at Asacarte Lake 50 years ago, the El Paso Times had this to say about it on 8 May 2009:

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"On April 10, 1960, a U.S. Navy P5M Martin Marlin seaplane was made an emergency landing on the 3,000-foot long Ascarate Lake.

The pilot, Lt. M.T. Burke, said he made the decision to land in the "pond" when the starboard engine began cutting out every few minutes.

"The trouble started around Yuma," Burke told the El Paso Times at the time. "But it didn't get serious until we were 50 or 60 miles out of El Paso." The officer decided to come to El Paso rather than try for Elephant Butte Lake.

Before landing, much of the fuel was dumped from the seaplane, which the El Paso Times article also referred to as a "flying boat."

Burke and his crew had left San Diego en route to Baltimore, via Pensacola, Fla. The seven people on the flight were members of a ferrying group that transported planes across the nation.

The plane landed from south to north, then was towed with the assistance of a Sheriff's Department boat piloted by Deputy Charlie Barker, and a County Recreation Department boat, handled by Earl Thurston, to the north end of the lake.

Additional personnel, tools and spare parts were flown in to help get the flying boat ready for takeoff while Burke held an "open house" so that Mayor Raymond Telles, County Judge Woodrow Bean and other City and County officials could inspect the seaplane -- "a rarity in El Paso."

The landing, however, wasn't as complicated as the takeoff later.

Four rockets were added to the seaplane, it was stripped of all unnecessary equipment, and it carried a minimum load of fuel to make it as light as possible. The trees at the south end of the lake were soaked overnight and pushed over with bulldozers.

In the early morning of April 23, an Air Force helicopter hovered overhead and emergency crash trucks stood ready in case of trouble.

Capt. Ted Vogel of the El Paso Police Department and two members of the Sheriff's Department Boat Patrol were also on watch, and Mexican police had an ambulance and fire truck ready on the Mexican side.

At 6:13 a.m., the 77,000-pound flying boat, using its extra jets and aided by small motorboats kicking up waves, took off successfully from Ascarate Lake.

The pilot was Lieut. Commander William L. Schad, and his co-pilot was Lieut. Gordon R. Williams. They flew from El Paso to Corpus Christi and then on to Baltimore, Md."

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In Place Out Of Time

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About a year and a half ago I met an interesting old man up in Hillsboro, New Mexico. A guy by the name of Embree “Sonny” Hale.

In his early 70’s he lives dirt poor. His main focus in life is photographing Indian rock art. When I met him I heard that a documentary was being filmed of him.

It has now come out. Erin Hudson did an excellent job. The documentary is called In Place Out Of Time.
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Links:
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http://hpgarland.blogspot.com/2007/05/embree-hale.html
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http://www.lcsun-news.com/sunlife/ci_10623575
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Tree Hugging Liberals

I received this today by e-mail from a friend:
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Joe Six Pack gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

With his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance -- now Joe gets it, too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards.

Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union. If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

Its noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, liberal idiot fought for these rights to provide for himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.

Joe Six Pack agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."
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Hurricane Norbert

------------------------------------- CLICK ON THE PICTURE AND IT WILL ENLARGE

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The American government's weather service, NOAA, says that Hurricane Norbert might reach El Paso by Sunday morning around 11 a.m.

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After travelling so far inland it will certainly not cause any damage due to high wind veolcity, but it might depsoit some badly needed rain in the Chihuahuan desert.

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