History Channel or not...

I was just reading where the History Channel is dumping a project which is being called a controversial miniseries on the Kennedy family. It's being pulled basically because the Hollywood left doesn't like the portrayal of the Kennedy boys in the miniseries. History channel says it's pulling the plug on the project because "it does not fit the History brand", now this I find a joke!

The History channel stopped airing historical programs long ago when they decided to have programs like UFO's, Ancient Aliens, Pawn Star, Top Gear, Ax Men, and my favorite American Pickers! No the History channel is now just another commercialized branch of NBC, A&E, Walt Disney and the rest of the bunch. Where the hell is the ACLU on this one, can you say censorship? It seems odd that it's perfectly fine to show some of the one side crap put out by Oliver Stone or Michael Moore and their view of history but not when it comes to the Kennedy clan. Looks like Saints John, Bobby and Teddy have their way once more thanks to the Liberal media and the Ultra liberals in Hollywood.

I read through 141 comments on this article about the network pulling the plug on the Kennedy project, 141 comments from folks that read Yahoo news and I must say it seems to be in excess of 90% feel the same way about not airing the miniseries. Comments similar to mine above and others just saying things like "the truth hurts" to it's "un American not to air it" to Archie Bunker type editorials.

My main beef is the excuse, "it's not or doesn't fit the History brand"............Let's go pick'n for Aliens in our Hot Rods!

Not your Dad's Left...............

Let me begin by saying today's Left is not the Left of Joe Lieberman or of 1995, no today's Left is far too radical and falling off the left edge.

I'm sure, no I'm positive I have friends and family that wonder why I have moved to the Right or Right of center in my political standing and all you have to do is look at our country today. Even the George Soros financially backed (literally millions) NPR, National Public Radio recently fired Juan Williams a liberal progressive for not being liberal enough and now NPR has since fired a few more sympathizers.

The radical spending of the Left, the wanting of government control of more and more of our lives is and has gotten out of control. From the results of last Novembers elections to now more and more Americans are realizing this and moving towards the center which in turn is moving towards more of a chance for prosperity. You may call them or us tea-baggers or whatever but the fact is and remains it's just Americans wanting their country back. Yes those far Leftest think wanting to stick to the Constitution and those ideals our fore fathers set forth for this Nation are getting old and need to be changed, why all of a sudden? I for one feel things have worked out pretty good for our country the past 230 some years so why all of a sudden to we need more government control and debt ceiling to keep being increase to accommodate this uncontrolled spending by the Liberals. Why do we feel no one should make a profit, why do we feel if one person betters him or herself they should share with those that really just want a handout or free ride? In one breath our anointed leaders says those making over $250K are rich and should spread their wealth around, but yesterday when speaking of his press secretary that is quitting to make more cash as a consultant for hire only made in his (Obama's) words a "modest income" at $172,000.00! When the average income in the United States is $55K our leader now calls $172K "modest"...............would anyone like to be of "modest means" today?

There was a time not too long ago this family was of modest means and even rich for a while but our government with all it meddling took care of that in short order. We love Barney, and Freddie, and Fanny for all their help in our financial life and matters and for that we're no longer "modest" or rich but still happy. You ride the ride for as long as you can and live life to the fullest right? Been there done that!

But getting back on track here, like I was saying the Left is not our or your Daddy's Left and I even think my kids or at least one of them is kind of understanding that now. We need the 30 somethings to wake up and want more for themselves and less government control of their lives, to be able to pursue dreams of lives like their parents and/or better and be able to achieve those lives. I spent my entire life almost as a democrat but more of a center left democrat and there are those that can't understand my moving to the right to the point of conservatism, well just look around at our country and where it's gone and who's running it or should I say running it into the ground. No the Constitution means too much to me and the history of our great land means too much to me and I don't need George Soros and his band of henchmen and puppets trying to convert my country to socialism or communism anytime soon!

Wake up my friends and take a look around you, this is not your Daddy's country but it should be again and will be if we move back towards the middle. Here's hoping this new congress can get us back on track a bit and start steering this ship into the winds of prosperity. In this day of wanting to take down the bullies, it's not our children that are being bullied by other children it's us being bullied by our government! We need to stop worrying about bullies in our schools and with our kids and grand kids, that's part of life and growing up..............no our government is the one doing the bullying and that's who we need to put the reins on. Leave our kids alone to grow up the way we did, don't over kill this bully crap with our kids and start cracking down on the real bullies in our government.

New Years Day........

I grew up with New Years Day being a day of football, bowl games, and needing more than one TV if you wanted to see more than one game and a big party at someones home. The food spread was fantastic and for the adults the after New Years Eve hangover drinks flowed.........hair of the dog right! Boy have things and times changed and right now sitting in our suite at the Luxor in Las Vegas I'm watching the Capital One bowl...............who? Back in the day, we had the Sugar Bowl, the Cotton Bowl, the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl and today we have 34 bowls games stretching from mid December until January 9th and the mystique around the bowl games is gone as far as I'm concerned.

Did you see what I said, Cotton Bowl (2 words) Rose Bowl (2 words) etc. and now some of the bowls of today you'd need one or more sheets of paper to write down the name or title of these bowls. Commercialism has taken over the bowls and their names. We got things like the Pinstripe Bowl what the hell is that all about, the Music City bowl....is that Detroit? Outback, Sun, Capital One, Alamo yes I guess is would be hard to come up with a name when your trying to come up with 34 bowl games and names. I'm bored with it and maybe it's my age but can anyone really keep up with all these bowls? I mentioned being in Las Vegas and they like it here that's for sure, betting on football is BIG, very BIG and parlay sheets are flowing all over town.

One thing in it's favor I guess is the revenue generated for the schools by all these bowls, yes revenue to build bigger and better stadiums and training facilities and salaries for the coaches and staff and bigger salaries than you can even imagine! Too bad it for the most part doesn't go to or for education, is college still a place for higher education or just a place to fill the needs and members of pro sports, a minor league if you will.

No it's not special for me anymore, New Years Day is just not the same but I guess if this is all you know and what you grew up with (3 weeks of bowls rather than a couple of days) your in hog heaven..............does anyone watch the parades anymore? Hangover or not we'd watch the parades very, very early and football into the evening it was a big day and day is singular!

Christmas Songs...........

We have a station here in Phoenix, KEZ 99.9 that is most folks home during the Christmas holiday season for listening to Christmas music. I know the day after Thanksgiving I tune my car radio to 99.9 for that reason and as with many it gets me in the holiday mood and spirit and I'm reminded each time I/we get into the car.

Now I don't know and I Googled Christmas song among other things to try and find some kind of an answer to the question: How many Christmas songs are there? I seen answers anywhere from 20,000,000 to something in the 100's and really don't know for sure but would bet it's at least in the 100's and multiple 100's at that. So why then does a station like KEZ 99.9 or any other station that plays Christmas songs during this time of the year insist on playing the same 12 songs over and over and over again and again once more?

There are for sure more that 12 Christmas songs so why must I hear Burl Ives, John Lennon, and someone got run over by a reindeer after Little drummer boy and Feliz Navidad each and every hour of the day? I know Nat King Cole, Perry Como, Bing Crosby and 50% of all country singers out there sing Christmas songs and have Christmas albums, hell Elvis has Christmas albums 50% of the Rock world too so why can't we get more of a variety? I would hate to think this too has something to do with "Christ" in Christmas and a station being politically correct, if your a atheist tune to a different station for a couple of weeks and if your a station owner...GET SOME BALLS if that's the case!

OK, all you tree hungers, progressives, socialist and politically correct folks out there that want Christ out of your Christmas I hear you...I need to put in a CD if I don't like the same 12 songs over and over again! Wait, that is a CD, the same handful of songs over and over so I need to buy more CD's if I'm doing more that just running up to the store!

The point is KEZ and other stations like that tell us that during the holidays their going to play nothing up Christmas songs and then they play the same handful over and over and not just each day but each 1/2 hour we get a repeat of the last 1/2 hour and that gets old. I'm sure some of you know exactly what I'm talking about and yes, I already wrote my e-mail to KEZ and made mention of it on their website................hey you know me!

Has anyone heard the marking dogs lately? arf arf arf, arf arf arf.............................

Is it just me or...........................

I was reading a magazine the other day and on the cover was Opie Taylor from Mayberry, you know Ron Howard. Anyway while looking at his mug on the cover and reading all his many accomplishments and he has many, the kid done well from the days of Opie. What I notice first was his strangely bread with hair going every which way and in no particular order or length, and no really what you called by any means a "full beard"! Then it struck me, the dude is bald, bald as bald can be and really he has been for a long, long, time and he's had this funky red beard if that's what you'd call it for a long time also. But in looking at Opie and his bald head I thought to myself, you know there seems to be a whole lot more bald guys it seems than ever and most of them or at least quite a few of them have some sort of facial hair. I'd venture to say the majority of bald dudes had some kind of facial hair, percentage wise I'd be willing to bet that more bald guys have facial hair than those with full heads of hair, nice comb-able hair.

So I guess the bottom line is I have a blog with a question: Do bald guys grow hair on their faces because they can't grow it on top? Is it to try and put out there............hey I can grow hair, just not on the top of my head! I can't say what I'd do if I was to go bald all of a sudden, but I don't think I'd try and make up for the lack of hair on my head and grow a scraggly beard like the one Ron Howard supports. Opie, get your beard trimmed if you must wear one.

My answer, bald guys want us all to know they can grow hair somewhere, just not were the rest of us comb ours!

Geminids meteor shower

Last night and early this morning the 14th of December 2010 I again witnessed the Geminids meteor shower from the deck behind the pool in my back yard. The Geminids meteor shower is so named because it originates from the constellation of Gemini and is one of the most consistent and active of the meteor showers. The shower consist of particles of a meteor usually about the size of a grain of sand or smaller and burning up when hitting the earths atmosphere. One of the main reasons this shower is so consistent to view is the fact that the particles travel at approximately 22 miles/second which makes them easy to spot. Whats amazing is how a particle the size of a grain of sand can glow so bright so as to be seen by the naked eye these oh so many miles away! I'm only guessing but those I seen that last the longest just might have been closer to the size of a pea or most likely a piece of minus granite.

Now most news reports and weather men I heard were telling viewers to look towards the east, but we found looking towards the big dipper which from our vantage point is in the north east was the best. Using good peripheral vision while looking toward the north-northeast I seen shooting and falling stars as we call them anywhere from my far left (NNW) to my far right which was ESE. I went out about 10:15 pm and didn't see much so went to bed and got up at 1:00 am and ended up sitting until 2:20 or so and in that little more than an hour I seen between 30 and 40 meteorites. I would say the biggest and longest were in the north and were more falling stars than shooting and those seemed to last the longest, although I did see one from NE to the West shooting across like a rocket..............very cool. There was a point when looking due north I spotted one falling and within less that 10 seconds saw four more right in the same area one right after the other, and I think that is what most folks think their going to see when looking for the first time. The key like with most things in life is patience, just being patient and relaxing and in no hurry.

I would say living here in the west and the desert of Arizona we have a great advantage in viewing these sorts of things. Like I said earlier our desert nights are dark, pitch black as they would say and that makes for easy viewing. Another big factor is the weather, I'm out there tonight sitting in a lounge chair with my bath robe on and a pair of socks! Now I'm sure if my friends and family back in the Midwest tried that tonight they might be out long enough to maybe see one falling meteorite, and that's a maybe. Yep it makes a difference if the temperature is 60 degrees at 1:00 am here in Phoenix or -2 degrees like it was in Davenport, Iowa about the same time, or Des Monies at 5 degrees or Boston at 16 degrees!
Since moving out to the far north end of Phoenix, 20 miles from the city lights the viewing of things like this have been amazing. We're in an area with minimal lighting on streets and in yards and it can be very dark and black at night here in the north Phoenix desert, just perfect for this sort of activity. I do seem to remember last year I needed a coat and blanket, this year we're a bit warmer than normal so far, usually we'd be in the upper 40's or lower 50's this time of year.

From what I've read these showers are pretty much a fall and winter occurrence so we have a bit of a wait for the next viewing, and remember the Geminids comes each year so mark your calendars for 2011................you know I was so busy watching all these shooting and falling stars from here and there that I forgot to make a wish, think I'll go back out and see if I can see one more. And maybe I'll put a telescope on my wish list for next year.

True Worth or is it Werth?

I just read where a baseball player by the name of Jason Werth who in 8 years played for 3 or 4 different teams last being the Phillie's has signed a 7 year $126 Million contract with the Washington Nationals of the American League. Good for Jason I guess, but this is one of the reasons as time goes on I'm not watching as much sports as I used to. Our Nations economy is in the tank and folks all over are loosing their homes, can't find jobs, paying higher taxes and struggling to put food on the table. In the mean time sports teams and owners are paying huge sums of cash to almost everyone and anyone who puts on a uniform and then they rip us off with the product most teams put on the field of play.

Jason Werth, it's not his fault because I'm relatively sure when he woke up yesterday he never dreamed of anything like this either. Agents taking their 10% or whatever keep this shit going and owner's can't stop it for fear of Unions and government yelling collusion! No we now have an 8 year veteran with a career batting average of .272 with 120 HR's and 727 K's making $126,000,000.00 or $18,000,000.00 a year. You can't spend that kind of money, just think the first year you go out and buy everything and anything you want and for your friends and family and now you all have everything.................oh wait, we get this again next year and for the next 7 years! He plays a game called baseball, plays a game he most likely loves or at one time did and now just try's to hang on to any team that will have him.

Don't get me wrong I say again, good for Jason and his family.................if he's married and has kids they will never have to work or want for anything ever again! He'll have the best agents, lawyers and accountants to make sure he pays as little as possible in the way of taxes so the rest of us poor saps can keep this country a float and running.

OK, I may be a little bitter sounding but I played ball as a kid and was pretty good too, but we didn't pursue it the way they do now...................hell I could go into the bread business (route salesman for a bakery) and make more money than most major leaguer's so why bother, can't say that today! Moral of this story, teach your kid to play catcher or pitch left handed and if your at all good you'll make millions someday!