The Other View

How many ways can we be fleeced....??

Have you ever thought of an obituary to be classified as an advertisement ? .....  Growing up I always read an obit and considered it to be news and a small tribute to ones life here on earth ...... Well these days the "" (Community)"" newspapers seem to look at it to be an inconvienience and if you want any more than a name and time of service posted in the paper you are going to have to pay a hefty sum....... The Journal has just jumped on to this trend and will charge you $ 150 to print an obit..... I was told the Post charges as much as $ 500 if you want a photo included ...... I wonder if they will follow suit and start charging for other community services that are supposed to be free such as wedding announcements and birth announcements..... Will blood drives have to go under paid advertisements ......  If you go to the papers web site and look up an obit on line you will still find it under the news tab ..... Should it not be under classifieds ...... If you are wondering what the bottom of your pockets look like all you have to do is give them a little time and you'll find out ....... The world needs some new ideas........... What should they start charging for next......??

Some things you can't live without....!!

Today has proved to be one of the most educational days I have ever lived..... As most know I have dealt with chest pain and numbness in my arm and neck for some time now.....  Today I went in to have a Cardio  Cath test performed......  It is the test of all tests when it comes to the heart..... It is a scarry procedure but not too bad as far as pain..... It takes a camera through the groin and into the main blood stream inside your heart and closely examines all of the bloodlines.. The only real discomfort is when they shoot the dye inside your heart....It makes your ears very hot...  I am happy to report that I have no blockage and the doctor said that my heart is beating strong..... The fellow that was in the  room before me was not as lucky..... He was taken off the table and sent straight to surgery for open heart surgery..... But God was actually smiling on him today for this saved his life since the ticking time bomb was detected in time..... Then after my procedure  in recovery  I recieved a call that a friend that I had just sat and talked to yesterday while enjoying a glass of wine was found dead this morning in his garden..... I am assuming that he had a heart attack...... Then I started to wonder if this test might have saved his life...... Had he  any symptons that he may have ignored ?.... There are so many walking around that are getting warnings and are in denial...... The heart is something that needs to be checked if there is any doubt...... The life you save will be your own........

Have you had a good checkup lately......??

Be careful on any machine....!!

My heart and prayers goes out to the family that lost the precious little girl in the accident on the ATV.... This occurence is more common than most would think..... I have lost a couple of friends to this vehicle..... If you own one be careful and respect its dangers..... Below is a partial list of some of the stats of accidents on this bike..... For the full list go to this link......

http://www.atvsafety.gov/stats.html

As part of its statutory mandate to disseminate data and information relating to the causes and prevention of death and injury
associated with consumer products, the CPSC is offering this online repository of all-terrain vehicle (ATV) related safety information.

(ATVs with 3, 4 or Unknown Number of Wheels) Year Reported Deaths¹ Estimated Deaths Estimated Number of Emergency-Room Treated Injuries

2006.............555

2005............666

2004...........745

2003..........654

2002.........548

Kids Safety Bulletin - Swimming Pools

Today as we ate lunch by the pool at the hotel  I couldn't help but notice that we could see less than 6 inches into the water  and there was no life guard..... The water actually had a touch of a green tint to it and it was very cloudy..... I couldn't help but think of all the times I've heard or read of children being found on the bottom and nobody knowing they were even in there because of the foggy water..... Then I began to wonder why the health department who is supposed to make frequent inspections would allow this pool to stay open when it is this dirty.....  I wonder how many dirty pools there are on one given day and how many go without lifeguards..... Parents should never allow children to swim alone but I see it go on a lot more than I would like..... These are old safety tips but they can never be put in writing enough.......

Pools prove to be deadly for American kids each year.  Consider the following statistics reported by the Mayo Clinic:

·        Approximately 300 children under the age of 5 drown in backyard swimming pools nationwide each year. 

·        Nearly 70% of the children who drown were not expected to be near the pool when they were found in the water.

·        In the remaining 30% of cases, most children were being supervised by one or both parents, proving that it only takes a few moments for a child to slip under the surface and drown.  

Using the following tips to ensure fun and safety for your kids in and around the pool 

1. Install pool alarms – floating pool alarms alert you that something or someone is in the water (like a toddler who accidentally falls in)
2. Fence it in – Make sure access to your pool is blocked.  Fences and walls should be taller than a child and completely surround the pool.  All gates or doors leading to the pool should be self-latching and impossible for a child to open. 
3. Cover it up – A motor-powered safety cover can provide a barrier over the water when the pool is not in use. 
4. Maintain proper chemical mixture – improper chemicals can cause cloudy water that can mask dangers at the bottom or make it difficult to see children under water. 
5. Remove toys – Don’t leave pool toys in the water.  Children may try to retrieve a toy they wish to play with and fall in. 
6. Learn CPR and rescue techniques
7. Stock first aid equipment – First Aid should always be within close proximity of the pool because of the high risk for injury.
8. Monitor your kids at all times while they swim – Never leave a child unsupervised near a pool.  During social gatherings near pools, designate an adult to watch the water.  

Would you swim  if you couldn't see the bottom...??

This could save a lot of fingers.....!! 

My hat goes off to whoever invented this saw..... I sat and visited with a gentleman today that has lost all of his fingers on one hand to a saw..... My father is missing two of his fingers due to a table saw..... Many kids get hurt in shop class every year by saws and other equipment.....  OSHA has made things better but there are still a lot of improvements that we could accomplish in the blue collar industry.... Watch the neat video below......

Is your place of work as safe as it can be....??

Crops are horrible this year...!!!

Bee Decline Threatens Production of Numerous Crops that Rely on Bees for Pollination

Honeybees, Gone With the Wind, Leave Crops and Keepers in Peril
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO;
New York Times, February 27, 2007

Summary - Honeybees are flying off and disappearing in mystery that has flummoxed researchers and threatens production of numerous crops that rely on bee pollination; researchers call syndrome colony collapse disorder and say bees are presumably dying in fields from exhaustion or becoming disoriented and dying from cold; one study says that honeybees annually pollinate more than $14 billion worth of seeds and crops in US, mostly fruits, vegetables and nuts; investigators are exploring range of theories about disappearing bees, including viruses, fungus, poor bee nutrition, pesticides, bee stress; beekeepers earn much more renting their bees out to pollinate crops than in producing honey, and researchers are concerned that trucking colonies around country to pollinate crops could add to bees' stress and help spread viruses and mites of crops that rely on pollination

For Full Story:
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?r
es=F10B1FF8355A0C748EDDAB0894DF404482

There is also the possibilities of the cell phone theory that the towers are making it impossible for the bees to navigate...... Einstein stated once that without the bees the world would die in four years.... I just don't see that many bees anymore......

Has anybody else noticed them missing...??

Do Mouse Repellants Really Work.....??

While Mating Season is nearly over for the birds, it marks the beginning for many other animals.... Mice on the other hand seem to want to mate year round and always look to take their act indoors for the fall and winter.....  So with the commercial that is on the tube now one has to wonder if these electronic repellants really work..... I have always been fascinated by how something as small as a mouse will scare the #@%^ out of a grown man or a woman...... Our house has been mouse free for 8 years now, but  I have to rid my shed of them every year...... As the days get shorter mice will begin to be on the move looking for that fall and winter home..... My next door neighbor trapped one in her house the other day... So be prepared for the fall stampede..... What are some of your methods to keep mice away..??

Do the electronic repellants really work...??

If it seems too good to be true it probably is....!!

As homes foreclose in U.S. squatters move in !

By Jason Szep

BROCKTON, Massachusetts (Reuters) - They enter through a broken first-floor window each night to sleep on a moldy bed in the abandoned four-family house at 827 Main Street, part of a new generation of squatters emboldened by America's housing foreclosure crisis.

"For squatters, foreclosed homes like this are like a camp-ground with free camping," says real-estate broker Marc Charney, a foreclosure specialist, as he enters the home in Brockton, Massachusetts, and shines a flash-light at a mattress where homeless people have been sleeping each night.

Squatting is on the rise across the United States as foreclosures surge, eviction notices mount and homes go unsold for months, complicating the worst U.S. housing slump in a quarter century and forcing real-estate brokers to enlist the help of law enforcement and courts to sell empty houses.

In some regions, squatting is taking on new twists to include real-estate scams in which thieves "rent out" abandoned homes they don't own. Others involve "professional squatters" who move from one abandoned home to another posing as tenants who seek cash from banks as a condition to leave the premises -- a process known by real-estate brokers as "cash for key."

"There are people who move in and know exactly who to contact and say 'If you want this house, why don't you come out here and offer me cash,'" said Detective Erin Camphouse of the Los Angeles Police Department's Real Estate Fraud Unit.

"It's just cheaper for the banks to do that rather than going into the courts," she said. "The squatters are getting sophisticated and turning it on these banks who own the properties."

She cited another case in which a Los Angeles man recently "leased" three abandoned homes to unsuspecting renters through Craig's List, the online classified advertising company. The renters paid first and last month deposits, moved their belongings in and lived in the homes for several months.

"In one case, there were loose ends of rehab on the house that needed to be done and the crook wasn't coming through or wasn't completing it. So they offered to do it instead of paying rent. They put down tiles and carpet and all that kind of stuff. And it wasn't until the sheriff put the lockout notice on the door that they realized something was wrong."

POSING AS TENANTS

New Jersey real-estate broker Bill Flagg is in a different type of legal tussle with occupants of a foreclosed home who refuse to leave in Plainfield, a city of 47,829 people.

"We know the people are squatters. But we have had the cops there. We had the electricity shut off and the cops wouldn't put the people out. We have to go to court to get them out. They claim to be tenants," Flagg said.

Such cases of squatters posing as tenants are on the rise, said Bill Collins, president of the New Jersey chapter of the National Association of Real Estate Brokers.

"These people claim that they have a lease but they can't find it. And the property owner has been removed from the property or been foreclosed on, so they have no interest in confirming if this person is a valid tenant," he said.

"So now you have squatters who are assuming that they are tenants and have rights to some degree to stay in the property until we can go through the court system to get them out.

"And they have caught wind that what most of these banks are doing is giving cash for keys, so cash for eviction -- anywhere from $1,000 to $1,500. So here you have a squatter who goes into a property, takes up residence, tells you that he is a tenant, goes to court and says that he is a tenant.

"Who can prove otherwise?"

California real-estate broker Steve Smallson said he finds about three squatting cases a month, compared to none last year, in his region of Woodland Hills, a middle-class district of Los Angeles. That includes a case in April involving a foreclosed home worth $1 million where police were called after neighbors reported squatters filming pornography in the house.

The problem is compounded in some states by the weakening economy and its effects on America's homeless, who number about 744,000 each night according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, an advocacy organization in Washington.

"The rise of squatting is a natural consequence of these properties sitting there empty caused by the whole foreclosure crisis," said Steve Berg, a vice president at the alliance.

(Reporting by Jason Szep; Editing by Eddie Evans)

Fires, drugs, crimes, loss of value, and now the con game.. Nothing good can possibly come out of the foreclosure crisis .....  

But they tell us the economy is not that bad.....

What goes up must come down.....!!

All the years that planes have traveled the sky it has been basically safe for all of the population that has walked under the sky around the world..... When you look up to the sky it is so beautiful and so harmless looking..... Yesterday's mishap with the plane part falling from the air was just a subtle reminder that there is always a danger lurking from above...... One might be struck by lightning, swallowed up by a tornado, hit by a falling obect from an aircraft or a big rock from all the junk floating in outer space..... I have always been fascinated by  space......  When I look up at the stars my mind  travels millions of light years wondering what exists in all the other galaxys..... Our lives are nothing but a speck in time...... I am thankful to have had the opportunity to see a comet with the naked eye...... When I look at the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper I sense that there is a meaning there that nobody understands.....There is an interesting article about the number of times that we have actually been hit by meteors..... Too long to post on the front page but here is the link for an interesting read........

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200806/asteroids>

If a big rock came today,  could we stop it....??

Are we that hooked on our gadgets...??

How long could you go without your cell phone ?...... It totally amazes me that people would stand in line for days to get a new one..... I own a cell but to me it is just a phone...... I can dial out on it and if it rings I can answer it..... I can also leave it in the car or  forget it at home and not turn around and drive back to get it.......  We  never have to look too far to see someone talking on a cell..... Yesterday at the gym I observed a lady on the treadmill working out and talking on the cell phone....... Then at the pool one in three had their cells near and handy...... I know of a 16 year old girl that takes her phone in the shower with her in fear of missing a call..... How long could you go without yours ?......  If you were told to turn it off for a week would you go through withdrawals ?......  Do you panic if you have a low battery ? ..... If it rang during a movie would you answer it.....??

How bad are we hooked on our gadgets....??

For a day I'm happy with Blunt....!!

New Missouri Law Goes After Illegal Immigrants Last Edited: Monday, 07 Jul 2008, 6:14 PM CDT Created: Monday, 07 Jul 2008, 2:16 PM CDT

Gov. Matt Blunt was signing legislation Monday that creates new restrictions on illegal immigrants and new requirements for businesses that employ them.
  
The governor was scheduled to make stops in Joplin and Kansas City to publicize the legislation. Lawmakers passed the bill on the final day of their annual session under a threat from Blunt that he would call a special session if no bill were passed.
  
Under the immigration legislation, applicants for food stamps, housing and other public benefits will need to prove they are U.S. citizens or are legally in the country; the Highway Patrol will need to seek special federal immigration training; commercial driver's license tests will be given in English with no translation assistance; and cities would risk some state aid and grants if community leaders adopt policies to not cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

The Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center estimates from U.S. census data that 35,000 to 65,000 illegal immigrants live in Missouri -- roughly the equivalent of the populations of Cape Girardeau or St. Charles. Missouri is projected to have less than 1 percent of the 12 million people estimated to be in the United States illegally.

The immigration bill passed the Legislature with wide majorities. Only Democrats living in and around Kansas City and St. Louis voted against the bill.

But the thorniest provision left Republican lawmakers and Missouri's business community arguing over how to address what bill supporters called "the magnet" attracting illegal immigrants to Missouri -- the prospect of a job from an employer who does not care whether the applicant is legally in the country.

Under the legislation, all public employers, including state and local governments, will need to use a federal database that searches records from the Social Security Administration and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to determine whether someone is authorized to work in the country.

So will businesses that have a government contract worth more than $5,000 or that receive state loans or tax breaks. But private employers won't have to use the E-Verify system unless they are caught hiring an illegal immigrant.

Lawmakers initially sought to require everyone to use E-Verify, but business leaders balked, pointing to database errors and uncertainty about the system's future. They accused lawmakers of trying to turn the state's employers into immigration agents.
  
About a dozen states require that some employers use E-Verify, with Arizona and Mississippi going the furthest in mandating it for all. Illinois has gone the opposite direction, limiting how E-Verify can be used until database errors can be corrected.
  
The E-Verify system was created in 1996 to give employers an electronic way to determine whether employees can work in the United States. But misspelled names, last names entered as middle names and outdated information have led to mistakes.

The Government Accountability Office reported to Congress last month that about 92 percent of all E-Verify checks are confirmed within seconds. About 7 percent cannot be immediately confirmed by the Social Security databases and about 1 percent can't be confirmed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

As of April 2008, 61,000 employers nationwide were registered for E-Verify, with the roughly 28,000 active users making more than 2 million queries from October 2007 to April 2008. The GAO reported it would cost more than $1 billion to update the system for the estimated 63 million annual queries that would come from making E-Verify mandatory nationwide.
  
Besides deciding whether to require employers to use the federal database, Missouri lawmakers also battled over whether to punish employers who misclassify their workers as contractors. For contractors, employers don't have to pay withholding taxes, provide other benefits or take responsibility if the worker is an illegal immigrant.
  
The immigration bill allows fines of up to $50,000, for businesses that misclassify workers and have at least five employees performing public works.

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Now if we'd just start putting a tariff on imports..!!

Who do you really blame...??

The financial geniuses who run Cerberus Capital Management and its Chrysler LLC unit have utterly failed thousands of St. Louis families who depend on Chrysler's Fenton plants for their livelihood.

They have failed the city of Fenton and the state of Missouri, which three years ago, in return for the promise of new investment, offered millions in tax incentives to keep the plants open.

They have failed the United Auto Workers, which only last year ended a seven-hour strike to accept a new contract — billed as a "partnership" — to help bail out Chrysler's wreckless and shortsighted management team.

Many people are going to suffer because of Chrysler's decision, announced Monday, that by Halloween it will permanently close the Fenton South plant where 1,500 workers build Chrysler minivans. Another 900 workers will be laid off Sept. 2 when Chrysler ends the second shift at the Fenton North plant, where its employees make Dodge Ram pickup trucks.

Economists figure each job in the auto manufacturing industry helps support anywhere from 4.8 to 7.2 additional jobs. Most of the pain will be in St. Louis, although parts suppliers, dealers and vendors around the country and the world also will feel the impact. The Fenton plants' UAW workers will suffer less than others; because of their union contract, most of the workers have long-term layoff guarantees to cushion the blow.

One place the pain will not be felt is Cerberus' Park Avenue headquarters in New York City. Cerberus is a private equity firm owned by rich investors and investment managers. Its president is a reclusive financier named Stephen A. Feinberg. Its chairman is John W. Snow, a former U.S. Treasury secretary. Chrysler LLC has a chairman and chief executive officer, Robert Nardelli, who was paid $210 million to leave Home Depot, and two presidents, Tom LaSorda and James Press.

It takes a lot of executive talent to drive a company in a ditch.

This is nothing new for Chrysler, which has been badly run for decades. It's just that there's no margin for error any more. The seeds for Monday's disaster were planted long ago.

Chrysler built terrible cars for decades until Lee Iaccoca and a federal bailout turned the company around in the 1980s. When Mr. Iacocca left in 1992, Chrysler's managers reverted to form, consistently failing to anticipate the market.

The 1998 "merger of equals" with Germany's Daimler Benz was a disaster, both economically (Daimler paid $36 billion and last year sold 81 percent to Cerberus for $7.8 billion) and managerially. Daimler ran Chrysler with its left hand. Chrysler became overly dependent on high-profit light trucks — gas-sucking pickups — Jeeps and other SUVs and minivans; today 72 percent of Chrysler's sales are light trucks.

And today gasoline is $4 a gallon and oil is $140 a barrel. Chrysler has no new models planned for the 2009 or 2010 production years. Its only true compact offering, the Dodge Caliber, is a better product than the Neon it replaced, but no real competition to Japanese and Korean imports. And Jeeps recently finished dead last in the J.D. Power initial customer satisfaction index. Dodge- and Chrysler-badged cars weren't far behind.

To blame Monday's news on high gasoline prices is to underestimate the historic failures of Chrysler's leadership. Besides, Chrysler is offering to underwrite gasoline at $2.99-a-gallon for three years to anyone who'll take one of its cars off its hands. And over the long term, the price of oil has nowhere to go but up.

Good managers would have realized that. Good managers would have innovated. Good managers would have created a different product mix, instead of milking trucks for short-term profits. Good managers would have done research and development, instead of focusing on short-term profits. Good managers would have pushed to out-perform congressionally mandated mileage standards, instead of fighting every higher standard. Good managers build; they don't strip and plunder.

The geniuses at Chrysler did none of these things, and Cerberus' chief interest is making profits, not cars. Blaming Monday's bad news on Cerberus would seem too harsh but for the fact that Cerberus' own corporate "commitment statement" reads: "We succeed when our companies succeed, to the benefit of our portfolio companies' employees, customers, suppliers and the communities in which they operate."

Nice words. Empty promises.

I recieved this in an e-mail and it pretty much sums up the fiasco in Fenton..... It's gonna get a lot worse in this country before it gets better......!!

Is there any hope for us.....??

Another Product Hurting Our Children....!!

Need I say any more.....??

No not Woody too.....!!

Saturday, June 21, 2008 4:08 PM EDT
The Associated Press


 

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Woody Harrelson has been sued for $2.5 million by a paparazzo who accused the actor of assaulting him and breaking his video camera two years ago.

According to a lawsuit filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Josh Levine was filming Harrelson in Hollywood late one night in June 2006. He alleges the Academy Award-nominated actor choked him, broke his video camera and ordered his bodyguard to attack him.

Levine's suit says he still has mental, physical and emotional pain from the encounter. He is also suing the unidentified bodyguard.

Harrelson's publicist could not immediately be reached for comment...........

Is he not the nice farm boy he sold to America.....??

Why  is the personal lives of the stars worth so much money..... Is our lives so pathetic that we pay money to see  pictures of theirs ?..... I just don't get it..... Who cares to see a video of Harrelson coming out of a bar...... I could care less if Brittany shaves her head......

I just don't understand it..... Do You...??

Should we not learn from history...??

The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in United States history.

The flood began when heavy rains pounded the central basin of the Mississippi in the summer of 1926. By September, the Mississippi's tributaries in Kansas and Iowa were swollen to capacity. On New Year's Day of 1927, the Cumberland River at Nashville topped levees at 56.2 feet (17 m).

The Mississippi River broke out of its levee system in 145 places and flooded 27,000 square miles or about 16,570,627 acres (70,000 km²). The area was inundated up to a depth of 30 feet (10 m). The flood caused over $400 million in damages and killed 246 people in seven states.

The flood affected Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee. Arkansas was hardest hit, with 14% of its territory covered by floodwaters. By May 1927, the Mississippi River below Memphis, Tennessee reached a width of 100 km (60 mi).

As the flood approached New Orleans, Louisiana, about 30 tons of dynamite were set off on the levee at Caernarvon, Louisiana and sent 7,000 m³/s (250,000 ft³/s) of water pouring through. This prevented New Orleans from experiencing serious damage, but flooded much of St. Bernard Parish and all of Plaquemines Parish's east bank. As it turned out, the destruction of the Caernarvon levee was unnecessary; several major levee breaks well upstream of New Orleans, including one the day after the demolitions, made it impossible for flood waters to seriously threaten the city. There is some belief by some[specify] that the purpose of the levee explosion was to save the wealthier parts of the city by directing the flow of water to the more rural, less developed communities in order to minimize financial losses.

By August 1927, the flood subsided. During the disaster, 700,000 people were displaced, including 330,000 African-Americans who were moved to 154 relief camps. Over 13,000 evacuees near Greenville, Mississippi were gathered from area farms and evacuated to the crest of an unbroken levee, and stranded there for days without food or clean water, while boats arrived to evacuate white women and children. Many blacks were detained and forced to labor at gunpoint during flood relief efforts. Population was not recognized as requiring relief aid.

Do you think we might need more Levees.??