The World has gone Mad

A federal law that will soon go into effect could have some startling consequences, including the possible banning of children from libraries unless certain books are pulled from the shelves.Under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act books for children will have to be tested for lead. The law is called the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act and it is designed to protect children all over the country from the dangers of lead.  Experts said there could be trace amounts of lead in books because of the ink. That’s why the government wants all books, old and new, tested for lead.

Young Men Vanish into Somalia

Anguished Minnesota families say a group of seven youths who vanished on Nov. 4 may have gone to join an Islamist militia. They aren’t the first to leave.

By Bob Drogin
January 18, 2009

Reporting from Minneapolis — Tall and lean, with a wispy mustache and shy smile, 17-year-old Burhan Hassan chalked up A’s last fall as a senior at Roosevelt High School, vowing to become a doctor or lawyer.

After school and on weekends, he studied Islam at the nearby Abubakar As-Saddique mosque. He joined its youth group.

“He wanted to go to Harvard,” said his uncle Osman Ahmed. “That was his dream.”

Instead Hassan has gone to Somalia, the anarchic East African nation that his family fled when he was a toddler.  For the rest of the story http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-missing18-2009jan18,0,5896865.story?track=ntothtml

Pokagon

Fred, Karen, Sharon & I went to Pokagon for dinner.  We all had a good time.  After dinner we walked up to the end of the toboggan and then drove up to the starting point.  Fred was not really dressed for the outside occasion so we vowed to return in the future to make the run down to the lodge.

What is a trillion dollars?

A trillion dollars is what the USA will be in deficit spending for the next several years and maybe a decade.  Can you visualize a trillion dollars?  As an engineer I deal with numbers that are very large and very small.  I really have trouble understanding what a trillion $ really means.  Here are some examples:

A trillion dollars = $1,000,000,000,000.

That’s 12 zeroes to the left of the decimal point. A trillion is a million million dollars.

The U.S. government spends more than the entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Australia, China and Spain combined. If you laid one dollar bills end to end, you could make a chain that stretches from earth to the moon and back again 200 times before you ran out of dollar bills!

One trillion dollars would stretch nearly from the earth to the sun. It would take a military jet flying at the speed of sound, reeling out a roll of dollar bills behind it, 14 years before it reeled out one trillion dollar bills.

American workers now net almost 30 percent less in real wages than they did in 1973. After taxes, two paychecks in a family barely equal the relative purchasing power one had thirty years ago.

How will the government pay for this deficit spending?  They will have to print money.  What happens to money that is printed and not supported by real productivity or physical goods?  It dilutes the existing money that is in circulation.  This means that it will take more money to purchase the substantial items that really do exist at that time:  Another word for this is called Inflation.

Now what happens when an economic situation in which inflation and economic stagnation occur simultaneously and remain unchecked for a period of time?  It is a term called Stagflation.  This type of stagflation presents a policy dilemma because most actions to assist with fighting inflation worsen economic stagnation and vice versa. Second, both stagnation and inflation can result from inappropriate macroeconomic policies.   People, it is a very thin and light weight tight rope we are walking so prepare for the worst and start stocking up food and seed stock for gardening.  You will probably need them to weather this storm that is upon us.

World Record Rattlesnake

Wow!  This is really big.  The ones I have seen are half this size.

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Very Cold

It is 0617 hrs at the outside temperature is -1.7 degrees F by the electronic gauge.  The KANQ Angola airport ASOS (668-5630) says -2.8 degrees and KGWB DeKalb airport is at -6 degrees.  As usual I expect the temperature to drop a couple of degrees at first light.  There is an occluded front over the US & Canadian Rockies with a high pressure in eastern Neb.  The clockwise airflow off of the high is bringing the cold temperatures from the Canadian Plains.  There is lake effect snow hitting us and I have been cleaning the driveway of 1″ or  2″ every day for the past 4 days.  The total on the ground is approaching 12″.  At least the winds are calm – no Alberta Clipper.

My Man Mitch: State of the State

State of the State Address

Governor Mitchell E. Daniels Jr.

Fellow public servants and fellow citizens.  Together again! Thank you as always for the privilege of this assignment, and of this podium. 

We gather annually to review the state of our state, but rarely at a time of such national and even international alarm.  For Indiana, tonight is of course a night for facing difficulties, but doing so with confidence, and even pride.

I awake every day glad for many reasons that I am a Hoosier.  And though we meet tonight in an hour of great stress, we have cause if not for gladness then at least for relief, that it is in Indiana we are meeting……….(for more click the hyperlink below).

Hyperlink

Week 2: Real Cold!

Statistics: FL Trip

Below are slideshow pictures at St. Petersburg Beach and our hostess.  The slideshow rate is rather slow so you will have to wait a bit.

I had too much time on my hands so I decided to calculate the trip stats.  The vehicle was a 2008 Honda Civic and we were traveling at 73+ mph but not exceeding 5+ over the speed limit.  Not bad stats!

Avg MPG = 35.61       Cost = $119.74        

Total Miles=2514       Total Gallons=70.59

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Skydiving Wing Suits

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N9t5qOSzCU