my rants and rves

Personal Rants...take them or leave them.

1. Every home being built should have a solar panel roof. When I was in High School in the early 70's, I had done a crappy book report on the feasability of solar energy. At that time they were comparing the efficiency to a barrel of oil and had said it would not be worthwhile, until oil went to more than $30 a barrel. Now you would think with more than 30 years of technological improvements in solar technology (some are now 50% effective up from about 15% way back than), the renewability of solar energy, and higher prices of oil it would make a large dent in our energy /oil consumption, as well as lack of additional pollution. While we are at it how about using panels along every major rail road track in the nation. People are always complaining about the intrusion of new technology into their living space. By utilizing the train track corridors you can protect train lines from the elements in certain routes . . .  and use hundred of thousands of miles of space for a renewable energy source. There is no doubt that if all the homes in the USA had a solar panel system the energy costs and pollution issues would both be greatly minimized. And here is one more thing...how about doing a WPA-STYLED project and rehiring all the out of work GM people and placing them on this “national energy project.” We went to the moon because we had a National Goal and a future looking long term plan of action. Anyone see any long term plans in effect here besides higher corporate profits on obviously dwindling finite resources?

2. New Orleans . . .  zero homes should be rebuilt until we can guarantee the city will not flood again so easily. Our government should not spend a penny on any rebuilding there until we can solve the flooding issues. I give you Holland as an example. With thousands of people living in reclaimed land from the North Sea, they built the worlds largest and safest damns to keep back the North Sea. They have succeeded in reclaiming thousands of acres of lands, and keeping their citizens safe. We should do no less here. If not the “New” in New Orleans should indicate a new location more inland to prevent this from happening again - ever! . By the way if you know a hurricane is bearing down on you and you have three days to evacuate you should leave! If by going two hours (not two days)  inland you could live you should. They were warned, they were told to evacuate and thousands choose to stay, they ignored the forecast, why is this all “our” fault. Next time (history proves there will another such event somewhere) bring in the National Guard BEFORE, add busses and work 24 -7 to get as many people out as possible. Hey folks we at least tried, might be a nice epitaph.

3.If the American car companies were not bright enough to continue to evolve in a positive way perhaps someone should have said in a meeting “lets just emulate what Toyota and Lexus are doing.” At a certain point if you are losing your clients to foreign makers why not see what they are doing right and better and try to move your company in that direction? It is a shame they can not do it on their own but to continue to make cars that do not compete has proven to be a big mistake. Remember when we made 100% of the worlds cars that people actually wanted. My last Buick did not even have courtesy lights that stayed on once the door was closed, no alarms if the back two doors were ajar with my kids sitting there, and a front vent to clear the large window in the middle of the huge dash of frost and ice only 6" x 8" wide. When I wrote them a letter guess what, they changed these things in the next model line! I figured out how to improve their mistakes and they listened to me, what idiots that they can not do this with all of their engineers. Cars should not be getting worse gas mileage now than under the government requirements put in-place by Ronald Reagan. Cars should be made to go safely under much lower  =  safer speeds, get better gas mileage and be much safer. When a teenager gets in a car there is a computer program safety system that prevents them from going, say 120mph in six seconds. Perhaps this can be triggered by a special key they use. Maybe a computer card chip would not allow a teen driver to go more than 70 after 11:00p.m. or turn at 70 m.p.h.’s too quickly . . .  you get the idea. I am certain a program and matched senors could be made that would do this.  Make a computer key card that limits horse power depending on a drivers age/ ability. If Lexus can park a car automatically, we can save lives too. I know kids, you will not like this,  I am not sorry. Trust me on this one when you are say in your 40's, or (dare I say it) have your own kids you will get it.
Do people realize that the thousands of  deaths in car crashes are equivalent to one jet crashing and killing all on board each day of every year. We would not allow that, why than do we allow cars to be so unsafe."Motor vehicle crashes in the United States result in more than 40,000 deaths per year," says the Institute in the journal Injury Prevention. That is, on each of the 6,209 consecutive days included in this study, an equivalent of a plane load or more of people died on the roads."  There are many new cars with multiple side impact curtains and such, this is a great step in the right direction and every car should have them as of, tomorrow.

4. All elected officials should be taken off of their special pensions immediately and placed on social security like the rest of us poor slobs. My guess is that they will fix the problems in about a minute. However if they have no (zero) vested interest in the problem due to their special perks (when did we allow them to become Kings and Queens with royal privileges?) They will not address the problems. Ditto for health care and insurance. Also every politician that has a child of eligible age for the military must enlist their children to serve on the FRONT LINES of any military operation they approve of, including our Presidents kids. When our elected officials go to visit their kids on the front lines, they too should ride in under armored vehicles like our brave military does.

5. Being a true super power means we have solved most of our major domestic issues here first. Why else would we impose our will around the globe. If people liked us, they would want to emulate (not eliminate) us, willingly.  So when we have no kids starving, no people sick  without medical care, all children well educated into and past high school (do you know that England gives all who want to go to college the money for a college education, pay it back if you can but if not they at least tried to better their society), poverty taken care off (anyone remember those pictures of the New Orleans poor) people with disabilities are properly  provided for, a lower national debt, energy solutions done.. etc . . . than, and only than we can do more around the world telling them what to do. Let’s get our house in order first and set a shining example that people around the world will truly want to emulate, because we are such a wonderful example. Democracy at the end of a gun just does not feel right. The childhood game of follow the leader is based in the concept that you want to follow a leader because he is actually leading you somewhere you want to go. Still, not such a bad concept. Check out where we are on the listing in the world of literacy, healthy child births, education, health care, national debt ( we owe Mexico money folks) we are no where near the top on many of the most important issues facing us.
6. How about next time we want to invade a country we have a exit plan as well. Who thinks that we needed to allocate over 50 million dollars for zip codes (even I can not make that up) in Iraq? Has the world embraced us for our efforts or are they embarrassed by us. Who feels safer, who feels that things are improving here for us and our children? Who feels we are truly moving forward in a positive way towards a moral and quality future? Do you know  we were so desperate for soldiers we called up (from the reserve’s) a Husband and Wife that just had a baby. The child  was two months old!  We were so desperate for soldiers we could not allow one of them to stay home with their newborn with some type of duty rotation so one parent could provide for their newborn.  Booyah! Further do you think that every person there who has now lost a loved one is turning to their friends and family and saying “See we warned you that the Americans would kills us!” The recruitment of new haters of America has got to be at all time high. We have fulfilled their nightmares and given them a real cause to rally around for generations yet to come. The instability created will haunt us for years. In the end I predict a total, humiliating withdrawal as the region deteriorates into total chaos and civil war. By the way if I am sitting on vast oil reserves do I want unrest to drive up prices, you bet your ass I do. How long will it be (if it is not already happening) that terrorists will buy a commodity the day of a planned attack so they can make a few more millions on it? I wonder if there is some system in place to prevent this from happening?

7. Wind power, there are thousands of large metal energy towers across our nation. Instead of large windmill farms why not add smaller wind turbines into the metal frames of those thousands of  towers and convert the wind energy right back into the existing system. My guess is that if every tower had a wind turbine the energy would add up to real savings of non polluting power. A wind turbine for your home can be bought for under $10,000 right now. I wonder if this was made into say a national program what effect it could have right now across the country.  Again not a 100% solution but it might make a real tangible dent in our electric supply.

8. E-mail, someone has to fix this. There is no reason we should be getting spammed, slimed, phised and dreked on every day. I hate opening my e-mail, I should love it. If we can prevent these type of calls on the phone with national legislation why does this not apply to our own
e-mail address? My penis is large and hard enough thank you. And Dr. Obzwerzka from whatever nation that stole your 35 million, sorry I just can not help you.

9. All medical pills should have the name of the medicine printed clearly on them. Not weird numbers with dashes, the name of the actual  medicine so there is no doubt about what we are ingesting. They can and do this on pistachio nuts and M&M’s, you can pay to imprint anything you think of on them, gee what is more important reading a corporate message on a nut or on my medicine?

10. All computers should have an add on or built in smoke/fire detection system. This would alert the proper authorities if a fire is detected wherever a computer is. It would beep loudly as well as dial the fire department, your cell phone and neighbors, alert the proper authorities where the fire is too.  Imagine if your kids or home or office had this simple, efficient system add on and a true life saver for thousands of people.

11. Buttons on machines should be clearly marked on/ off/ forward/ reverse etc.. I still have little idea what the various and constantly changing symbols mean since most items use them in a different way. The following symbols appear on various machines I own, I have no idea what they do   ^  <    >    ? My owners manual on my new digital camera is over 250 pages long, something is very wrong here people. When did my remote become the enemy? Why can’t they make my t.v.  DVD- player and stereo work together easily in a way my wife and I can use.

12. Before any cell phone manufacturers add on one more feature to a phone, mp3s or photos or videos or music or t.v. shows how about making sure my phone works more than 70% of the time. I am so tired of lost calls, a cell phone that never works in my home or office, a message received even though my phone was on and did not ring. I often get a message hours or sometimes days after it was placed. Also when I go to retrieve a message I do not need a 30 second computer voice prompt each time, just play back my damn messages. I do not need a 40 second message on how to leave a message either, if you do not know by now how to leave a voice message go back to your cave. All of you with phone ear head sets, you are not on the spaceship Enterprise (it looked queer even on Uhura) and rarely do you need this device sticking out from your head in a restaurant next to us when we are eating. If you can not eat  without having this device sticking out of your head and blabbing about nothing anyone around you
cares to listen to just go away from everyone else, PLEASE. Also while you are at the grocery store walking around the isles talking with your spouse about what type of cereal to buy slap yourself  now and save us the trouble.

13. In South America they grow excess sugar crops and convert them into ethanol. Their price of gas is cut in half, they are beholding to no-one and have a renewable fuel source that is less polluting. Profits are actually going back INTO their society as well. GM and Ford make the engines work there for them.  Hmm instead of oh let’s say,  tobacco, we can grow a renewable source of fuel for our country? You think Phillip Morris would be growing tobacco if there was a profit in ethanol? Hello is anyone listening. They have recently announced they are 100% self fuel efficient with lower gas pump prices as well. They now have so much extra ethanol they can ship it to us. The oil companies do not like this and they have convinced Washington to impose a high tax on this low cost fuel. Maybe if they wore a turban on their heads we could import it and save some money at the pumps!

14. Computers. Between viruses, hackers, crashes, up-grades that do not, and more things than I can list here..what a pain in the ass. If they were cars no one would drive them. E-mail is now spam mail, why do we allow this crap to ruin our lives. Can you imagine what life might be like if these things worked? How about if more products actually worked together. I probably have ten different chargers currently, none works with more than one product. Now when I travel I have to take four or five with, I know there are single styled charger systems but you have to buy a different adapter tip for every product and by the time you a re done you have spent over $200 dollars and still have to keep track of it all, and guess what there is always one product you own they do have the adapter tip for.

15.  A NATIONAL UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CARD. Sign me up, do your background check on me (with my permission) and issue me and everyone else who wants one a Government issued card that gets me to the front of the lines. I have chosen this and want such a card, everyone else who has one does not have to wait hours or more to board a plane, or enter and leave our country.  Make it like a passport and driver licence on steroids, add my fingerprint to it and scan it each time. It just might be time to have two class of US Citizens those who are on the A list and those on the B list, your choice kids. Eventfully it does and will come down to control, I know I hate it, it smacks of all kinds of cliches and can lead to abuse of power.
However either we trust our government or we do not. If we don’t let’s change it so we do. It is a shame it is something we have to still  fight for but it is was worth it when the original framers designed our little country and it is still something worth striving for and achieving. I know call me crazy! Among all democracies world wide we have the lowest voting % of citizens. If we are so worried about voting in Iraq where are our voters? More people voted for the last American Idol than any election in U.S. History. Perhaps we should have a further incentive to motivate our lazy asses, like each state has a lucky winner like a lottery for voting, or a tax incentive.

16. On the other hand remember once you close all borders and keep yourself in too tight you have lost what a lot of this is supposed to be about, freedom. If you build the best castle in the world but can not leave it you have lost.

17. Do you feel better (or raped) that the LARGEST CORPORATE PROFITS IN HISTORY are being rung up each and every current quarter by the “energy” companies. I just can not figure where the outrage I feel is. ANYONE?  anyone.... anyone...guess I am alone on this one. Oh wait, you too are pissed, so why is no one doing anything about it? Anyone notice that when we have high price gas prices we have no shortages, go figure. Why should one hiccup at one refinery cause gas prices to go up 20%? Why when the price of a barrel goes up so do the prices immediately, but not correspondingly down?

18. Buy a  I-Pod.        
                                                
19. I am tired of going to various events and searching for anyone in charge. Let’s start a worldwide trend, if you are working any event anywhere you must wear a bright orange/yellow badge or hat. That way no matter where in the world you travel you know  who is charge at various venues. If they institute this and some idiot shows up wearing the orange/yellow tag as a gag,  you can shoot  him.                       

20.  Cable/satellite t.v. Give me the channels I want, not the 100 I never watch, and by the way if a movie is lets say more than five years old, no matter what channel it is on I should be able to view it. Caddy Shack does not need to be blocked out any longer.

21. Buy yourself and everyone else in your family a foldable into itself ( most fold into a pocket) 100% water proof (NOT water resistant) jacket with a hood and pants set. Better yet buy them made of Gore-Tex, because this stuff works as advertised all the time. Next time you are watching t.v. and you see thousands of people at a ball game with no rain gear on, when for under $100 they can be DRY remember this. If you keep a set in your car all the time, and bring them with you whenever you travel you too can be dry. I have been wet and I like be being dry much better. Buy them big enough to go over whatever you are wearing too.
22. There are many “emerging nations,” like China and India for instance that are now buying cars and using more energy. Buick is a very popular American vehicle in China for some reason. Keep this in mind in future references to gasoline consumption/& prices... the environment ( a billion more cars will not be good news for global warming, probably our BIGGEST THREAT)  ...food supplies...the deficit...you can see where this is going, why can’t our government?

23. Go to http://nationalpriorities.org to see how much the war has cost us and where the money could have been spent. That sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach is our future.

24. When you call ANY  MAJOR COMPANY for service they should all have the ‘O” OPERATOR BUTTON ON YOUR PHONE REACH A REAL LIVE OPERATOR. Call me crazy but after five minutes of pushing buttons they win, I hang up in disgust.

25. When I go the Weather Channel on my cable system I expect to get weather not weather stories, if I want to watch another tornado destroying a trailer park five years ago I can go to HBO. I would also like to get a accurate report more than 50% of the time. How many blizzards we expected last winter that never dropped an inch of snow are we supposed to put up with. Anyone realize the lives this really effects.
 
26. Five (5) million of our older Americans have not signed up yet for their Medicare, Part D, drug plan--they are old and confused. We are not going to grant them an extension. However, 12 million illegal aliens are in our country and we are going to allow them to stay, protest, procreate, receive support monies, attend schools, avoid paying income taxes, have our teachers take 300 hours of  E.S.O.L. (English as a second language) training at our expense, etc. Something just doesn't make sense here.  When are we going to wake up and  demand some common sense from the people on Capital Hill?
 
27. 50% of the people in the world have never dialed a telephone. Think about it for a moment.
 
28. Voting Machines seem to have a few problems, go figure...computers & 2006; who would have thunk it. Why not have a photo of the candidate next to their name, it would help. Also each person who voted should receive a personal I.D. # that they could use to confirm their vote counted anytime on line, as well as a printed grocery style receipt...” just in case.”

29. Guess what if you actually have weapons of mass destruction like North Korea we do nothing to you. If you have perceived weapons of mass destruction we invade you. Hmm so if I really want the U.S. to stay out I should really have a nuke or two. Nice.

30. I have a hard time understanding why Illegal Immigrants aren’t illegal? What part of Illegal am I missing here. I do believe that honest people who want to immigrate to the U.S. should be encouraged to do so legally. Why not make Mexico our next state?

31. I have a daughter with disabilities. She is in a group home and I see how society treats people who truly need our help. We should be judged more as a society and culture on how we take care of those who really can not take care of themself. I can not tell you how often when I hear the words budget cuts the next sentence is funding has to be cut off for those with disabilities. We need to do a lot more not less for those in need.

32. For centuries the Muslims have been afraid of what the west might do. They are afraid of us invading them, trying to change their society and way of life. Now we have fulfilled their fears. I can only imagine the teachers and parents and clerics preaching to their followers and saying. We warned you the infidels would come and kill your families and friends.” We have unfortunately fulfilled all their prophecies and than some. Finding the next generation of suicide bombers and western haters has never been easier. I wonder what would have happened if we spent billions on sending over doctors and teachers and Peace Corps helpers instead. Building bridges and making friends instead of sending soldiers and more bombs? Could it have been any worse? I have to wonder. With Hussein we at least knew which hand held the knife (not the weapons of mass destruction). We had inspectors on the ground who found nothing ever. Now years later we have been at war longer than World War II, you remember the big one. We go about our daily lives with little true engagement with soldier’s dying daily. I heard a general say that”A society that sends its young to die with little real care about them is a true sign of a morally decrepit and failed society.” On average over 100 people die every day due to suicide bombers and explosions and it is a blurb on the news after the box office results for Spider Man. It truly sickens me and there should more outrage...but there is none.

33. If you truly believe that the state has the right to prevent and control abortions you must contribute an extra 5% of your income for life to help raise those children born mostly in one parent poverty stricken homes.

Lastly the first person I e-mailed this to called me and said he could not open it, because he does not have the right software. This person has been into computers professionally since the 1970's.

These are little more than my personal feelings and current thoughts. Let me know what you think too.

Uncle Louie