How 7-11 Gets Gas

We have a deserted Citgo gas station on a local corner in my town. It has been there for years and was driven out of business by a BP (this is British Petroleum who are trying to change the fact that they are foreign owned in a similar way the Kentucky Fried Chicken tried hide the fact that their food was fried with KFC) and brand new Sterling station. The competition was too much for them and they closed up shop. The closing of the gas station happened in the late spring or early summer so it was not a product of last weeks United Nations lambasting of President Bush by the dictator from Venezuela, Hugo Chavez.

Chavez, a devout communist and close friend of Fidel Castro, came to the United Nations and addressed the members of that distinguished body. (I think I am going to be sick.) He started out by insulting our President, who had spoken earlier and then called him Satan and a drunk. You know that when someone cannot find any way to disagree with what you say, they revert to name calling. I stopped that when I was 10 but I guess that they must mature more slowly closer to the equator. I am amazed by the absurd things that people say when you give them a world wide platform. That people listened past the first few words is astounding but then again, there are plenty of Americans and other world citizens with righteous socialist leanings.

One thing that Hugo Chavez and his nation of Venezuela have is a vast reserve of crude oil. He has gotten very wealthy of late with the oil prices as high as they are. He has a US outlet for the gasoline that he is currently selling in our country; Citgo. There have been numerous discussions lately of boycotting Citgo gasoline stations. The institution of convenience stores, 7-11, who had a 20 year contract with Citgo has decided to change to domestic providers once their contract is up in the next several weeks. They have discovered that when piss ant dictators of third world slums try to dictate to the US how we run our country, it does not set well with Americans. Again, we vote with our pocketbooks. Americans sure know what they like.

Icool

Cobb

Absolving Personal Responsibility II

I realized that I had more to say about personal responsibility so here is another blurb. The last entry was a rant against liberals and their confused idea that only the rich are responsible for things that happen to them. If you have money or are connected to the ability to get to money, you become a target. It is almost as confused as the conspiracy theories the crackpots keep coming up with about everything from global warming to moon landings to Presidents planning terrorist bombings. What it boils down to is some people continuously delude themselves that anything bad that happens to them is the result of someone else’s actions. How did we create a group of people that so effectively lie to themselves? I think the solution is obvious. It started out with the best of intentions and was latched as a way to foster paternalism. I am talking about the government interfering in our every day affairs.

We seemed to be a nation of people who made things happen up until the Great Depression. Sure we had some government interference like income tax and prohibition but those do not create a class of people expecting hand outs. It causes people to look for ways around the system which is human nature. Who does not want to hold on to as much of their hard earned wages? When the government got into the business of providing jobs to people through the public works projects, it provided millions of Americans the pride of contributing to themselves and their families. It also started our nation down that rocky slope of interfering in our every day lives. Next came the old age pension or social security. Now the government has committed itself to taking care of us in our old age. What can go wrong there? It is a way of ensuring that no one has to suffer in their retirement.

Both of these programs have provided the government with more opportunity to come in and take care of us. If they had been left alone and stood as they were, it would have been fine. Unfortunately, politicians used it as a way to curry favor with their parties by expanding it to welfare, Medicare, expanded social security. All of these programs remove the responsibility for personal responsibility. I can sit at home and get a check. I can have my rent subsidized forever. There are any number of approaches that those who prefer the public dole to take. By providing continuous assistance, it teaches that you do not have to be responsible for you actions. Someone will take care of you. Now don’t think that I am heartless. Some people use these programs to get back on their feet. Congratulations, you are to be commended. They were designed to be a safety net, not a way of life, if you can call living a lie living.

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Cobb

How To Clean A Pigeon Coop

My high school career contains large blank spots in my mind for four years. There are bit and pieces floating around but mostly it is a blur that I am either still trying to forget or remember. One of the things that I have retained was my 11th and 12th grade English teacher. Those were the years when you learned how to write and I was fortunate enough to break in a brand new teacher for those two years. We had to write varying styles of papers like narrative or how to papers. The papers had to be a certain length and putting filler or BS as it was called was not acceptable.

A good friend of mine wrote his how to paper on “How To Make A Short Story Long.” He took the very subject that the teacher hated and used it to demonstrate how you could create a full length paper out increasing the number of adjectives or naming multiple things in a sequence. I thought it was rather creative. The teacher was not so amused but he passed. I on the other hand did not have the clever streak. I played it safe and wrote probably the only paper he ever received on the chore of scraping pigeon crap off the floor.

Not a very glamorous topic. Most people think of pigeons as little more than flying rats. I used to raise them and was part of a pigeon racing club. We did not put saddles on their backs and tape mice to the saddles. It was a flight timed distance race from predetermined points. Since the pigeons are cooped up at night, they have a tremendous amount of droppings. About once every two weeks, you would have to scrape the floor and dump the waste. Fortunately my father raised dogs and we had an area behind the dog pen that was used for their dog logs. I do not remember what I got on the paper but I do remember giving a step by step instruction on how to clean a pigeon coop. The excitement never ends.

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Cobb

Top 400

Forbes has come out with their 400 richest Americans. This year’s list has achieved a milestone; all of them are billionaires. Topping the list is everyone’s favorite, Bill Gates. We all know that Americans are greedy, ruthless, back stabbing, weasels that have stolen their wealth from the backs of third world laborers. Except Bill Gates; he sells software and intellectual property. Gee, the richest man in the world got that way by using his brains and not stealing exploiting the 3rd world. Something has gone horribly wrong with the way things are run. Americans cannot be hated unless we are stealing candy from malnourished infants. Maybe the Forbes group can take Bill aside and have a talk with him about how things are done.

The number two guy is Warren Buffet who manages a portfolio of businesses. He buys and holds and makes money. When he sees a new opportunity, he sells what he doesn’t need and buys something else. Of course you have to have money to start something like that but what a few million between friends. Warren Buffet has managed to parlay the art of waiting into being the 2nd richest American.

If you look at these two men, you will notice that each one has used own method for creating wealth. Bill Gates used his mind to create a product that was not mass produced in a third world factory. It was a creation that required logical thinking and the ability to understand the technical side of where the world was heading. It was also lucky that IBM used his operating system instead of someone else. Still he managed to use that start to become the powerhouse of world software. Warren Buffet’s skill is the little used art of patience. Americans today need it now and are not willing to wait. They do not look much further than next week for what they are going to do and spend tomorrow’s dollar today. If people took as much time worrying about next month’s Visa payment as they do about their future, they wouldn’t have to worry about next month’s Visa payment. Planning, vision and a little luck have helped both of these men stay at the top of the 400.

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Cobb

Absolving Personal Responsibility

As I see it, one of the primary differences between liberals and conservatives is that a liberal will take every opportunity to shift the blame for their woes from themselves to someone, anyone else. They look around for someone with deep pockets, the evil rich, and see who they can connect, even by the slimmest thread, to their issue. Now, don’t get me wrong on the subject of responsibility. Some businesses and groups have acted in very negligent manners over the years and caused grave harm. Look at the Bhopal Union Carbide incident that killed innocent people or the terrorists that flew planes into buildings killing Americans. It is impossible (although the liberals have tried with the terrorists) to shift the blame to another group.

So I am reading the internet news and what headline do I come across, “California Sues Carmakers.” Well, being in the automobile industry, this peaks my interest. As it turns out, the state of California is suing GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda and Nissan for being responsible for global warming. So here is a US state that is taking legal action against the automobile makers of the world for an imaginary issue that is not caused by them. As I have stated before, man causing global warming is like urinating in the ocean causes global flooding. The claim that we are increasing greenhouse gasses is absurd when you realize that water the largest component of the greenhouse gas composition by an exponential factor. The sun drives that bus as it is responsible for heating and cooling the Earth.

So let’s back up. California is suing the top six global automakers for being responsible for global warming. They make the cars and sell them. I do not see them twisting anyone’s arm to drive them. Well, maybe not the Japanese car makers because they do not have to use incentives to get their cars off the lots. If they made them and no one bought them, there would be no cars on the road and no emissions from those cars. It is the people driving the cars that burn the fuel that the environmentalist whackos claim is melting ice caps and causing hurricanes. So the state of California has once again jumped the shark. I guess they do it so much it is normal for them. The state has become so liberal that they have absolved anyone of being responsible for any act done by them. Just look at OJ Simpson. He is still out looking for the killer of his ex-wife. Since he has not grown a beard, I would think that he sees him in the mirror at least once a day.

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Cobb

Jurassic Park and Thomas

I have heard the phrase doubting Thomas all of my life but did not know the history behind it until recently. Thomas was an apostle of Christ who doubted the resurrection until he could actually feel the wounds. After seeing Jesus and touching his wounds, he professed his belief in Christ and the promise of His salvation. Thomas did not have the faith required to trust what Jesus had professed although he had seen Jesus perform miracle after miracle. The phrase doubting Thomas has come to mean the ultimate skeptic. He is a lot like Dr. Ian Malcolm from the movie Jurassic Park.

For those few people who have not seen Jurassic Park, it is about creating a family theme park using live dinosaurs. Where did they get live dinosaurs? They were cloned using the DNA extracted from insects trapped in amber. Amber is the hardened sap of a tree that the insect became stuck in after biting the dinosaurs more than 65 million years ago. The dinosaurs included the T-Rex, Brachiosaurus, Triceratops, a host of other less known dinosaurs, and the villain of the show, the Velociraptor. The owner of the park must get three experts to agree that the park is ready to go before they will approve the opening. Once the experts get to the park, everything starts to go wrong and chaos ensure. The dinosaurs get loose and the “raptors” start hunting down the humans. All through the film, Ian Malcolm expresses his doubts about the viability of the park. He becomes the self fulfilling prophet that watches everything he is thinking become reality. The rest of the cast is so amazed at the technology that they cannot see beyond the wonders of living dinosaurs. Dr. Malcolm says something like, “Just because you can do something does not mean that you should do something.” There in lies the crux of the biscuit.

The human race is at a cross roads where we are slowly gaining the technological know how to alter the course of our future. Test tube babies were the start of creating families for people that were not capable of making them the old fashion way. Nothing too out of the ordinary other than man is stepping in to assist in God’s miracle. It happens every day. Now we have cracked the genetic code and are producing plants with specific characteristics. Again, where is the harm in producing plants that are more weed resistant, drought resistant, grow quicker, have more nutrients, or any other characteristic that provides a positive for humanity. But what is to prevent man from tinkering with himself. Do we want a boy or a girl? What physical characteristics do we want? Intelligence? Athletic prowess? Musical ability? Where would it stop? The ability to manipulate genes holds great potential to cure disease and improve the lives of millions of people. Like Dr. Malcolm, I question the need to go full speed ahead into the unproven technology no matter how promising. I do not think that it should remain unexplored. I do not see the impending doom that Dr. Malcolm predicted. I just feel that when you deal with life, when you can play with the building blocks of life, you need to ensure that you consider the consequences of your actions before act. I don’t need to see the holes I the body to know that miracles are possible.

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Cobb

Garden of Neglect

I used to look forward to getting my Burpees catalog every winter. I would pour over the vegetable seeds for several weeks. Every different plant was looked at in the decision on what to plant in the garden. I knew that I would have the standards. There were always tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, green beans, and yellow squash and zucchini. As I became more adept at gardening, I added sweet corn, kohlrabi, carrots, potatoes and winter squash. When we lived in Michigan, I had the rotor-tiller and had set up a 40 by 40 patch of yard with all the vegetables we could want. For an amateur gardener, it was heaven.

When we moved back to Ohio, it was city living and the garden shrunk to the suburban size. There were none of the fancy vegetables, just the basics. After three years of gardening in the big city, I have yet to get a crop of green beans. It is rabbits, too much rain or not enough. My children have been using the garden plot as a place to dump their pumpkins after Halloween and I had vines take over the garden this summer. I was very devout at weeding but missed some nights due to ball games and the next time I looked out, I couldn’t see the plants. It was a complete disaster this year. I got a few summer squash and zucchini, a few tomatoes, a few green peppers and a lot of small pumpkins that are fit for decoration but not carving.

I am thinking about giving up gardening for a few years. I know that my major problem is time. My children are into everything. Between sports, music, school, and their extra curricular activities, it is a rush to get somewhere every night. I have no time of my own. It is frustrating but also satisfying. I know what it is like to crave that kind of attention and not get it. I do not sit at my children’s practices like some parents do but I ensure that they get there on time and I am usually early to pick them up so I can watch how they are doing. So, as some of the things I enjoy doing take a hiatus, other more important things take precedence. I can always go to Meijer and get cucumbers but you only get one shot to participate in the lives of your children. At church on Sunday, the sermon talked about how you need to participate fully in life, that this is not practice. I guess you can look at parenting that way. I can always take up gardening again but my children will only grow up once.

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Cobb

Capable of Anything

I spent many hours of my time at Fort Sill Oklahoma at the post library. It was free entertainment and they kept the shelves stocked with a nice array of both old and new material. One of the highlights was an almost complete collection of Agatha Christie murder mysteries in hard back. I had read a few of her books prior to this discovery but not the gold mine that was awaiting me there.

For those who are not familiar with Agatha Christie, she has two main mystery solvers. One is an elderly lady who is extremely observant and always seems to be where the murder takes place. Her name is Miss Marple. The other is a short, rotund, Belgian detective named Hercule Poirot. He is renowned for his mustache, his love of chocolate drinks, and his uncanny ability to piece together clues to solve the mystery. There were some other minor mystery solvers but these were her two workhorses during her prolific writing career.

I recently purchased the last two books published by her. They are the last official cases of both characters. I just finished Curtain, the Poirot book and although I remember reading it in the Army and knew that the great detective murdered the murderer before he died of a heart ailment, I had forgotten how Agatha Christie presented her view of the world. Through Hercule Poirot, she says that anyone can be a murderer. At certain times in each person’s life, they have the capacity to take someone’s life or commit some other heinous crime. I must say, after reading Curtain, it is hard to disagree with that theory. It is so easy to focus on what someone is doing wrong that when they do something right, it is missed. As a parent, it is imperative that when behavior is bad, it is addressed swiftly and dropped. Rehashing bad behavior makes for sour feelings. When behavior is good, it is praised and becomes a topic of further discussion. Of course, that goes for everyday relationships also. It is just much easier with children. After all, they are you’re captive audience.

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Cobb

The End Of The Era

How times flies when you’re making money. This same story echoes through out the industrialized world. From the birth of the industrial revolution in Great Britain to the rise of America as the pre-eminent manufacturer and innovator, to the Asian tigers, the phases of growth and decline are replayed again and again. Industry is driven by cycles of boom and bust and in that game there are always winners and losers. It has been lamented in music with Pink Floyd on The Final Cut in The Post War Dream writing about British ship building:

If it wasn't for the nips
Being so good at building ships
The yards would still be open on the Clyde.

To Billy Joel on The Nylon Curtain in Allentown who wrote about the demise of the US steel industry.


Well we're living here in Allentown
And they're closing all the factories down
Out in Bethlehem they're killing time
Filling out forms
Standing in line

There is always someone that can make something better, cheaper, more efficiently. As the technological innovation continues and people’s sense of style changes, industries must either adapt or lose. America finds that its automobile industry is in the throws of fighting for their existence. It is not a pretty sight.

Ford Motor announced that they are increasing the amount of shrinkage they are planning. Between the hourly and salaried layoffs, the plant closings and the shrinking vehicle sales, there is not much they are doing right at this time. One of the biggest targets of blame in the automotive industry is the United Auto Workers union. The hourly wages and benefits they have negotiated for their members and the retirees are amazing. Their tactics have been ruthless over the years but it is about getting what you can for your union brothers. I do not hold them responsible in any way for the current state of the automobile industry. The contract is a two way street. In order for the unions to get that level of benefits, GM, Ford and Chrysler had to agree. As managers and stewards of the business, they made some awful decisions about what the hourly workers should be allowed to have. It is like your children asking for ice cream and candy bars. You can cave every time they ask and end up with overweight and spoiled children or you can say no and deal with the short term complaining. It sounds like the manager’s method of dealing with the union demands was to delay the pain. Well, now the situation has become life threatening and if not addressed immediately, may result in complete systems shutdown.

It amazes me the number of times that the automotive industry has been through this. Every time there is a slow down in business, they go through the cost cutting exercise, hacking off chunks of healthy tissue but leaving the source of the malady attached to the body. Now they have a situation where there is little healthy tissue to hack off and the source of their troubles (it includes poor design, bad product mix, high gas prices, lethal legacy costs, and down right years of poor management) are all left to deal with. They are now forced to reconcile the years of short term neglect. All of that sugar has turned into fat and diet and exercise won’t work fast enough. Ford has just called in a high priced surgeon to perform the delicate maneuvers required to save the patient. Henry Ford must be spinning in his grave. We may see the once mighty Ford Motor Company settle up as an acquisition to another car company or watch them fade into the fabric as a remembrance of the once dominant titans of American culture.

Whew!


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Cobb

Dysfunction What?

There is a group of people out there who believe that e-mailing cryptic pharmaceutical ads about male erectile dysfunction and other sexual maladies is something I want. As someone that is highly suggestible and easily swayed by complete strangers, this makes perfect sense to me. Yea right. Sending wave upon wave of e-mails to people that delete them en mass instead of opening them seems like a perfect marketing idea to me. But there is some twisted logic to the endless stream of e-mails although I am frustrated by the inability to control the volume of the bombardment.

If you look at the cost of sending first class mail, it is $0.39 per envelope. If you mail something to someone’s house on a fishing expedition, you are very likely not going to get any response. I know that most “junk” mail gets ripped in half and pitched. If the cover is hand written, I will usually open it to see if it is from someone I know. Mostly, it makes for filling that empty slot in the circular (or rather rectangular) file. Now, if you send out e-mail, you get $0 in cost, other than the computer. So a 1000 person mailing would be $390 on if you got 0.5% response, it would be 5 people. If one of those actually purchases something, it had better be more than $390 plus the envelopes, plus the stationary, plus the time to compose, fold, seal, and take to the post office. With e-mail you have $0 expense no matter how many you send and if 1 person responds, all you have put into it is the time to send the e-mail.

Economically it makes perfect sense. To those consumers that have to wade through the garbage day in and day out it is an annoyance. Now, if the product is one that I have requested information on, it is mighty helpful. Coupons, cruise specials, free dog food, updates on upcoming book publications and wine tasting dates are all perfectly acceptable for incoming e-mail but I have requested those. If I want to be treated for erectile dysfunction (not something I need yet), I will go see my doctor. After all, you cannot spit without seeing a commercial for that medication on the TV. If I am going to use a prescription, it will certainly not come from an internet add.

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Cobb

Hydrogen

The most basic of atoms, that building block of the universe is once again taking the center stage in our modern industrial era. When the universe was young, hydrogen played the key role of burning in fusion reactions to create the heavier elements that allowed for the creation of life. Now it is the new leading player in our quest to burn a cleaner, more abundant fuel source in powering our vehicles. Yes, the hydrogen fuel cell is making it to the forefront in our automotive driven culture.

BMW has announced that they will begin offering hydrogen powered cars starting next year. They will start with very high end vehicles that can only be leased. The cars will run on both gasoline and hydrogen due to a lack of infrastructure for fuel availability for the new technology. This offers a new and inexhaustible fuel source to power our world into the next generation of technological advances. Since the hydrogen to power the vehicles will be derived from water and the by product of the combustion of hydrogen is water, it is a never ending source of fuel All you need is a power source to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen and you get a power source. We have another hydrogen power source, the sun, to assist with that conversion.

I know that many US companies are building ethanol plants to provide an additive to gasoline. These ethanol plants use primarily corn to create the ethanol and create a significant amount of waste. They also require a large water supply to keep the process going. The use of corn has the opportunity to create higher prices for a US grown commodity which is great for farmers. The unfortunate side affect of that is higher price will also translate into higher food costs as products like high fructose corn syrup (component of any sweetened beverage), corn flakes, grain fed beef, and other corn by-products. Ethanol appears to be a short term solution to our energy needs. In the long term, a cheap renewable source like hydrogen will be the obvious answer.

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Cobb

Sports Overdose

We have an interesting dilemma at our house for the next 5 Sundays. My oldest daughter is playing fall softball and my son is playing pee-wee football. We signed up for the softball about 6 weeks ago and have been trying to find out when the games are ever since. It took about a weeks worth of calling to find the correct person and because they were swamped, about three days to get back to us. We found out just in time to make the first game, which is an every Sunday double header. There are no practices and you play the position(s) that you indicated on your information form. It was an interesting day.

On the other side of the coin, we have known about my son’s football game for 6 weeks. He has practiced every week and is working hard to play the game. The bad thing is that both games are at the same time. Softball is from 1:00 - 4:30 on Sunday and football will be at either noon, 2:00, or 4:00. Since we cannot be in two places at once, we will have to split our viewing time and miss someone’s game. Now we became very good at that during the spring when all three kids played on the diamonds. It is just one of those rights of passage for a parent constantly chasing your kids around while trying to maintain some semblance of life for yourself.

So, it is September and I am watching softball and football on the weekends. Since I do not watch any sporting activity on television or attend high school football games (yet), it makes for a full day. Now, since it is my children playing, I thoroughly enjoy watching the games. There is no greater thrill for a parent than to watch their child make a great hit, throw, save, run, tackle or other sporting activity. As long as the kids are having fun, it is fun for the parents. You do not mind the driving, sitting on cold benches, the drizzle, the chilling wind, or the lack of weekend because these are the memories of life. These are the things that make each individual life worth living. So although it was an overload on sports last Sunday, it was the kind of overload that you stash away as memories.

Icool

Cobb

Feminists Get Species Conversion

In an amazing turn of events, male fish in the Potomac River are exhibiting the characteristics of the females of their species. Scientists are speculating that it is caused by chromosomal altering chemicals that are dumped into the river. Possible sources of those chemicals have been identified as run off from farms, water processing plants, industrial waste, and storm sewers. The farms have pesticides, herbicides, hormones in the animal waste and fertilizers as their possible contributors. Water processing plant possibilities are hormones from birth control, animal growth hormone in the foods we eat and household chemicals. Industrial waste is one of those evil by-products that the rich just dump into the rivers to save money so we can easily identify that one. Storm sewers are the catchall from everyone’s yard and the petroleum by-products of our industrial age. Wow what a list of culprits.

What the article did not say is that the militant feminist movement, with the exception of the Hollywood elite, no longer has a listening audience. And where is this miracle of fish emasculation taking place? You guessed it, right there along the river that runs through our nation’s capital. Since they could not get the men of America to listen to their solid stream of verbal sewage, they have been dumping it in the Potomac River and it has through osmosis altered the fish. Since it must be so concentrated, it is not only changing their thinking, it is altering their physical characteristics. With their level on the food chain, they never had a chance. Fortunately, their life span is not that large so they can at least die soon.

Seriously, these changes are real and the source does need to be identified. Pollution, as experienced by the Love Canal and other major industrial contamination sites, presents a clear and present danger to all living organisms. In America, we take clean drinking water as a given. We have all heard of Montezuma’s revenge which is the result of a parasite in drinking water. That only makes you deathly sick. Imagine a water source that causes you to change sex. That may be fine if you live on the coast but us Midwesterners kind of like things the way they are.

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Cobb

Not Paying Attention

I am writing this on 9/11. As usual I am behind the 8 ball and not paying attention to the conventional thing to write about today. The internet news is awash with solemn ceremonies commemorating the murder of innocent Americans by the barbarian Islamic terrorists. Since I have already covered the ignorance of the select few of our Islamic brothers, I will not regale you with a rant about how they should all be put through a meat slicer using the fine setting, feet first while watching rerun episodes of Will and Grace. That should be a given. I want to talk about not paying attention to all of the ceremonies surrounding that horrid day.

I never watched the coverage of 9/11 on television. I have seen pictures of the planes flying at one of the towers but I have not watched what happens next. I know there were two planes but only because I have been told and read about it. Once the news was broadcast, I decided that the event was horrible enough without the media re-spinning it umpteen ways to Sunday. I don’t need to see the people jumping out of shattered windows to their deaths, because it was that or burning to death, to hear their screams as they fall. I don’t need to see the structures crumble and fall as the damage becomes too great to hear the crash as the glass, concrete and steel succumbs to the will of gravity. I can see by the New York skyline that our country is forever changed by the cowardly act of pirating aircraft and intentionally flying them into buildings. It not only changed the skyline, it altered the way we live and think; and not for the better.

It has been five years since our nation was attacked. We have had five years of perspective on the event to help understand why it happened and ensure it never happens again. Yet there are Americans who have failed to grasp the event once the emotion was gone. There are Americans who have not grasped that this is an ideological fight just like WWI, WWII, and the Cold War. We are trying to bring freedom to an entire planet. Freedom to live your life as you see fit and not how some dictator or theocracy commands. That is what the big wars were about, not about land or resources or wealth. Those were the icing on the cake but the spread of a narrowly defined, self imposed truth were at the heart of those conflicts. When it mattered, America won. We need to continue to spread our beacon of freedom to the world and hope that the 9/11 wake up call does not catch us asleep at the wheel again. “Those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it,” so pay attention.

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Cobb

Dinosaurs Invent Sauna

In an amazing news article last week, it was announced that temperatures may reach levels not seem since dinosaurs roamed the Earth, 65,000,000 ago. Wow. Just think of how great that will be not to depend on Florida for you winter vacations. But that wasn’t all the article had to say. It implied that since the flora and fauna will be in peril since the higher temperatures have not been seen in their species life time. This in itself makes me suspicious of the article. I know that the temperature was in the mid-50’s this morning when I woke up and it is in the mid-80’s this afternoon. Temperatures fluctuate on a daily basis and I do not see whole segments of the animal population galloping toward extinction. Of course they may mean over a larger period of time then just 24 hours.

That would be maybe a year. Let’s just think about the temperature variations in a year. Hum, anywhere from -10 degrees to 100 degrees would be an accurate range for northwest Ohio. I guess the disappearance of a large segment of the plant and animal life for a portion of the year would technically be considered extinction. But then spring comes and they all come back. I again am searching for the connection between temperature variations and our vanishing wildlife. Maybe my time frame is still too small. Let’s look at the last ice age and see what changes have happened in say the last 10,000 years.

Well, the last ice age ended about 9000 years ago. This would mean that it has gotten warmer which is indicated by the absence of glaciers in my neighborhood. I have not seen any saber tooth tigers, giant ground sloths, or wooly mammoths running around. I guess you could say that a change from an ice covered landscape to one with forests and meadows has caused a mass extinction of animal life. I do not see the extinction of all plant and animal life in the last 10000 years. I see a change in the size and make up of the species. Mammoths depended on the cold to survive. Saber tooth tigers need large prey on which to feed. As the large animal species died off, so did the tiger. Sloths, well they just died of laziness I guess. But all three species survive in a smaller version that is better suited to their current surroundings. So as you interpret the data presented by these illustrious men of science, remember that Velociraptors hold the original patent on Swedish saunas. It was a product of their environment. Too bad they let the patent expire.

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Cobb

Waking Up

For many people, morning is like swimming in a vat of warm Log Cabin maple syrup. Everything is in slow motion, nothing seems to work right, it would just be easier to roll over and close your eyes. The desire to sleep just a few more minutes has made the snooze on the alarm clock the object of a love – hate relationship. The satisfaction of smacking that button to silence the voice, buzz, or song is one that is savored every morning. The knowledge that it will only last for a few minutes makes the smacker hate the button for not imposing a more permanent solution to the problem of morning. Why do so many people hate the morning?

I think it is that we are a nation of sleep deprived people. We have trained ourselves to run and keep running until the candle is burned completely down. Then we allow ourselves a few hours to recharge and start it all over again. Unfortunately, the candle we pick up the next day is shorter and has a faster burning wick. So the next day we burn up quicker and by Friday, we are little more than a puddle of warm wax. If you are smart, you spend some time rejuvenating on the weekend. If not, you suffer through the week until it is time for another rest period. For those who refuse to slow down, the crash eventually comes and it is either a weekend sleepathon or a week of doctor imposed bed rest. The body will take its pound of flesh.

Hopefully as you get older, you realize that moderation is more affective than burning out. Eating right and getting at least 7 hours sleep every night makes things run more smoothly. Getting a little exercise is even better but who has time. Now, I am one of those people who have no problem getting up in the morning. I have not used a snooze alarm since 1984 when my uncle(s) in the big green family kicked the first galvanized trash down the barracks hall. You’re in the Army now and since then I have been an early morning person. Carpe diem.

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Cobb

More Worse

It amazes me that people have not mastered the art of speaking. I was sitting in my morning production meeting and one of the managers uttered the words, more worse. What the hell is more worse? Is it like worser? Why do you need a descriptive for the word worse? If something is getting worse, it can degrade to worst which is the bottom of that rung. Worse is not a word that requires someone to interject additional description. I know, I am over reacting but when people that should know better cannot seem to speak in public in a manner unbefitting their position, it irks the daylights out of me.

My wife has a pet peeve with the word stupider. When we were going to school, it was not a word. You use the word dumber or just stupid. Adding the “er” on the end makes it a non-word. I was forced to endure a waitress this weekend that must have been asleep through most of her high school English classes. Her speech was atrocious and she was a friendly talker. To boot, this was a buffet restaurant and when the bill came, there was an 18% gratuity tacked onto the bill. We had to wait almost 25 minutes for our drinks and most of the party served themselves. Not only did we have to endure unintelligible speech but we paid through the nose for pathetic service. At least the company was great.

I realize that there is little I can do to prevent the use of poor grammar. Correcting people just makes them angry and no matter how much you use the correct phraseology, people will talk the way they learned (or didn’t learn) it. Short of intense electroshock therapy for a sizable percentage of the population, I will be forced to continue to hear such wonderful phrases as ain’t not got and more worse. And so that I can continue to perpetuate that trend….

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Cobb

A Dark Future

As an avid science fiction fan, I have read about many different possible futures. Some of them seem more plausible then others and some are about as absurd as you can get. I love that most of the fiction written in the 50’s was about how man will conquer everything and live a peaceful and tranquil co-existence with whatever we find out there. In the 60’s, it was about how we were destroying the world and the consequences of dealing with the nuclear devastation, environmental deterioration, or gulag style rule by an all seeing government. It is that dark period that most interests me.

I had a chance to think about Soylent Green over the weekend. That is an excellent example of how to combine two of the three 60’s futures together. You have a world that has polluted itself into massive environmental destruction. The land is sterile, the oceans are dead, and man has begun restricting freedom to maintain some semblance of order. You end up with a government that has been reduced to cannibalism to feed the starving masses. “Soylent green is people,” and nobody cared. Another Charlton Heston great is the Omega Man in which we release a plague that kills everyone. Or Planet of the Apes in which we cause our own destruction by replacing our pets with apes and then through some freak of evolution, allows them to become our masters (a little far fetched).



With the release of Star Wars, the science fiction world changed from thinking about the future to role playing. We had Hans Solo to win the girl, the battle and the day. Science fiction changed from its role as predicting the future to being little more than space westerns. The entire genre switched from being about what may happen to wizards and demons, or divergent history, or just Star Wars or Star Trek sequels. There has been very little original science fiction written in the last 20 years. What is there has been sporadic and mostly disappointing. A few bright spots like John Varley have limited their releases and disappointed through their scarcity. With the masters, Herbert, Heinlein, and Asimov all long gone, we are awaiting the next trio of artistic thinkers to rise up and challenge our view of the future. That is true science fiction.

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Cobb

Planning For The End

The average American does not wake up in the morning and say, “I am planning on dying today.” Most of us face each new day with its promise and opportunity and go to bed each night thinking about the future. There is a small percentage of the population that has an illness that either makes them wish for the end or relish every day they have left. It is really an all or nothing scenario. If you are in the healthy group, you probably have family or loved ones that depend on you for support, both emotional and financial. If you happen to lose the race with destiny and have an unfortunate accident or it is just your time, you will no longer be around to provide that support. There are things that can be done to help reduce the stress caused by that loss.

The issue that has the longest reaching effects is the financial loss. When the primary bread winner is gone, there is a huge void in meeting the monthly expenses. If there is no life insurance or not enough, it will create hardships that create very stressful times. Life styles change, savings dry up, and you can begin to lose things like cars and even your house. If you have children of school age, it may hamper their ability to go to school or participate in those activities that youth are prone to do; sports, camps and the other teenage rites of passage. Making sure that you create a path for financial security is a very important part of planning for life. If you pay all of that money to an insurance company and never use your policy, at least it will be with the knowledge that your loved ones would not have to worry about money. If you die, you have planned for the success of the ones left behind. Both create a less stressful environment to live in.

The issue with shorter range effects is the loss of the one you loved. They are a part of your life and will live in your memory until you join them. That is what makes the physical loss less of a stressful event. I know that I will see the ones I love again. The added bonus is that God gives us the chance to love again. We are able to seek and find love and be loved by another. That is a great gift. Even though the loss of a loved one has a huge immediate emotional impact, it is the long term financial struggles that should be a priority to those you leave behind.

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Cobb

Meeting Of The Minds

"Great minds think alike"

I cannot find who quoted it first but it is a great statement. There is a certian feeling of superiority in saying it. It provides that protection of the herd and the ability to be included in a group without much contribution. I have come to discover that it may also apply to minds that are not so great. One has only to look at the mass finger point that goes on every day to determine where these great minds focus their great thinking power.

I had a breakfast discussion this weekend and the topic of Bill Clinton came up. We had 6 at the table and all but one of us thinks that Bill Clinton was of little benefit to America. Other than corrupting our morals, lying to Americans, letting foreign policy become a joke, humiliating our military and letting terrorists think they had a chance, there was not much that he did. Oh wait, he put welfare reform in place and kept his hands off of Ronald Reagan fiscal policies. He at least did that. The 6th person at the table started out attacking our current President. Now I know that George Bush has made mistakes but he is no Bill Clinton. Our 6th person started talking about the deficit and how much is being spent on wasteful things. Like George Bush controls either of those things. He does not spend the money, that is the job for Congress.

George Bush has his own issues that I do not think are sound. His immigration reform, his senior citizen drug policy, and not trumpeting his victories. None of these create the joke that was our former President but our country of great minds still see Bill Clinton as a great man. His PR machine sure did one on the citizens of our country. Of course that is the ego of the man. If I cannot do anything to create a legacy, I will have the press do it for me. That is the mark of a true leader. So great minds do think alike. Just ask them.

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Cobb

Sorry Jerry

For the last 15 years, I have been participating in a Labor Day Weekend golf outing that is put on by my oldest friend, Mel. I have missed a few of the weekends for various reasons but have continued to demonstrate that even poor golfers can look good occasionally. This golf outing is primarily made up of friends and family of Mel. They come from all over the country. Mel lived in Atlanta for a while and several people come from there. There are friends from New Jersey and Alabama coming up this year also. He started including the families about 8 years ago, I am sure at the insistance of the wives and this year we are staying at the Kalahari Resort in Sandusky. It has turned into an annual event that my whole family looks forward to.

Of course it started out as a guys event. The actual golf outing still is but there is a pre-golf outing on Friday afternoon that the ladies are now invited to. It is really a chance to start the party early but keep it tame while the ladies are present. I have been to a few of the Friday excursions and will be playing in about 6 hours.

Now, since this event started taking place, I have had to change my Labor Day lifestyle. I grew up watching the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Muscular Dystrophy Telethon. There was always the cavalcade of stars, all giving their time for that great cause. Since I have been attending the golf outing, I do not think I have watched the telethon. The telethon gets bigger every year and Mel's outing continues to grow as he adds more friends to his roster and families grow up. So, sorry Jerry, maybe next year.

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Cobb