In light of today’s primary activity – Ron Paul’s son is running in the GOP primary for Senate in Kentucky, so watch for that one – I’ve just taken 20 minutes of my life to laugh my head off at The Official Tea Party ‘Contract FROM America’.  They’re so clever! Sigh.  I’ve highlighted the especially awesomely hilarious parts.

We, the undersigned, call upon those seeking to represent us in public office to sign the Contract from America and by doing so commit to support each of its agenda items, work to bring each agenda item to a vote during the first year, and pledge to advocate on behalf of individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.

Individual Liberty
Our moral, political, and economic liberties are inherent, not granted by our government. It is essential to the practice of these liberties that we be free from restriction over our peaceful political expression and free from excessive control over our economic choices.  Inherent is an adjective, it needs to modify a noun. You can’t just tack it on at the end of a clause. I know, I know, grammar is overrated.

Limited Government
The purpose of our government is to exercise only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising inside or outside our country’s sovereign borders. When our government ventures beyond these functions and attempts to increase its power over the marketplace and the economic decisions of individuals, our liberties are diminished and the probability of corruption, internal strife, economic depression, and poverty increases. I think this was written by either Sarah Palin or Oswald Bates?  I can’t make sense of it.

Economic Freedom
The most powerful, proven instrument of material and social progress is the free market. The market economy, driven by the accumulated expressions of individual economic choices, is the only economic system that preserves and enhances individual liberty. Any other economic system, regardless of its intended pragmatic benefits, undermines our fundamental rights as free people.

1. Protect the Constitution
Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. Ok, well there’s 17 other powers listed just in Article I alone, but I this pretty much sums it up: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.

2. Reject Cap & Trade
Stop costly new regulations that would increase unemployment, raise consumer prices, and weaken the nation’s global competitiveness with virtually no impact on global temperatures. Yeah! And global warming is a hoax!

3. Demand a Balanced Budget
Begin the Constitutional amendment process to require a balanced budget with a two-thirds majority needed for any tax hike. 2/3 majority of what? Congress? The states? A national vote?  A small detail, I guess.

4. Enact Fundamental Tax Reform
Adopt a simple and fair single-rate tax system by scrapping the internal revenue code and replacing it with one that is no longer than 4,543 words—the length of the original Constitution. Obsessed with the Constitution like it’s a woman’s uterus!! The Constitution is MAGIC! If we limit government documents to the number of words in it, poof, real Amuricah takes over!

5. Restore Fiscal Responsibility & Constitutionally Limited Government in Washington
Create a Blue Ribbon taskforce that engages in a complete audit of federal agencies and programs, assessing their Constitutionality, and identifying duplication, waste, ineffectiveness, and agencies and programs better left for the states or local authorities, or ripe for wholesale reform or elimination due to our efforts to restore limited government consistent with the US Constitution’s meaning. Because *taskforces* have historically been a GREAT way to solve problems? It already exists – the GAO and the Inspectors General. Headdesk.

6. End Runaway Government Spending
Impose a statutory cap limiting the annual growth in total federal spending to the sum of the inflation rate plus the percentage of population growth. But do we count them there illegals as population growth?? Carry the four…account for runaway inflation caused by the Fair Tax you folks would implement….government spending can officially be even more than it is now!  Good for you.

7. Defund, Repeal, & Replace Government-run Health Care
Defund, repeal and replace the recently passed government-run health care with a system that actually makes health care and insurance more affordable by enabling a competitive, open, and transparent free-market health care and health insurance system that isn’t restricted by state boundaries. Um, do we really need to do all three of those things?  I think if you do one, it’s pretty much taken care of.  Except we’ll be replacing a system utilizing private insurers with a system that uses….private insurers? Oh except if we allow sales across state lines then Georgia will corner the market for policies nationwide and our lifetime maximum benefit will be $500 and we’ll all be dead by the end of the first year anyway.  Whew.

8. Pass an ‘All-of-the-Above” Energy Policy
Authorize the exploration of proven energy reserves to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources from unstable countries and reduce regulatory barriers to all other forms of energy creation, lowering prices and creating competition and jobs. Like burning the Tar balls now washing ashore on Key West! http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/18/AR2010051801676.html?hpid=topnews

9. Stop the Pork
Place a moratorium on all earmarks until the budget is balanced, and then require a 2/3 majority to pass any earmark. OMG cutting what amounts to less than 1% of the federal budget is totally going to ROCK! You saved us, Tea Partiers!

10. Stop the Tax Hikes
Permanently repeal all tax hikes, including those to the income, capital gains, and death taxes, currently scheduled to begin in 2011. I think this is my favorite.  They’re talking about the Bush tax cuts.  Which Bush and the Republicans purposely had sunset in 2010 because they’re OBSCENELY EXPENSIVE and even the GOP couldn’t get that kind of a deficit explosion past their base.  So they did the pandering, blatantly calculating thing – they handed out tax cut candy for immediate electoral gain, and then put an expiration date on it for after Bush would be out of office, so it was out of his hands as to whether they were extended.  Claiming that this is *tax hike* is akin to Parker insisting she’s hungry because she didn’t get dessert.  It’s EXTRA GOODIES, NOT SUSTENANCE. Tax cuts and jello, God Bless Amuricah.

Not that it matters, as I’m soon to form my own company, but out of town recruiters have gotten a tad smarter. They’re at least using VOIP based local numbers to call from now. Before, I could easily weed them out by local or non-local numbers. But the same goons are calling from the same companies that are out of town and have no relationship with local clients.

I’ve been bad about posting lately, but as the company formation comes along, I’ll post progress on it as a “how to” for others.

I AM a misanthrope.

From Wikipedia:

While misanthropes express a general dislike for humanity on the whole, they generally have normal relationships with specific individuals. Misanthropy may be motivated by feelings of isolation or social alienation, or simply contempt for the prevailing characteristics of humanity.

I clearly have contempt for the prevailing characteristics of humanity at this point in time. Can we save ourselves from ourselves? I don’t know. When teenage girls start showing up to church looking like strippers and with mother stripper look-alike bringing her, it’s hard to think that we can. Somehow, over the past 10-15 years, the me-ism and selfishness of the 80s has resurfaced, and I don’t like it one bit. I just hope that we can raise our daughter to be more conscious of her surroundings than most people are today.

Our Dog, Pearl, got her head stuck in the fence yesterday. Motivated, but not smart. She was in the back yard, and I was in the front mowing. Sarah comes around and motions to me to stop the mower. She then says, “your dog has her head stuck in the fence. She looks all sad like she’s in the stocks in colonial America.” Sure enough, Pearl had her head stuck between the pickets at the bottom, and presumably was just hanging out until someone freed her. She’s smart when she wants to be, but her smarts are sometimes overridden by her love for us- she just wanted to be in the front with me.

The other funny thing was that as Sarah was clearing the back yard of sticks, she was throwing them up into the leaves. Unfortunately, Pearl was bringing them back as fast as Sarah could throw them. Frustrating for Sarah, but all kinds of fun for me to watch.

After we moved, the old CharBroil that we won in a raffle at the gym gave up the ghost. Wouldn’t light and couldn’t even hear gas coming out of the burners. Upon inspection, the burners were rusted out as all crap. So, I researched new burners for it, and it was cost prohibitive. The grill was free to us, and was on the very low end of their range. Crappy grill that lasted for 5 years, so I don’t feel badly about replacing it.

The new place has a natural gas hookup on the patio, so naturally, I thought we should buy a natural gas grill. I settled on a Weber and have pretty much decided that it should be the last grill that we buy – or at least that it should last 15-20 years. The only problem is that they are incredibly hard to find. Home Depot wanted $85 to have it shipped to my house, and that was on the low end of what most retailers wanted for shipping. Average was $130.

I was in Home Depot yesterday for a few other things, and went to look at the grill again. They had two that were on hold for someone else. The sales guy checked the system, and couldn’t find where one was listed  under anyone, so he let me have it. Hooray. Got it home with no problems. It was just a bit frustrating that HD didn’t list any in store on the web site just to be able to walk in and get one if your timing was right. But, we got the one we wanted with no inconvenience other than continually checking stock.

Now, just have to try my hand at some real deal brisket – Texas style, of course. None of the inferior pig that’s so prevalent in the southeast.

OK, so I ran out of humidor solution a few nights ago. Essentially, the stuff is propylene glycol and distilled water in a 50% solution. Not tough. However, prepackaged solution retails for about a buck an ounce. Ridiculous. So, I decided to go out and look for the pure stuff. Shipped direct to my door, it’s $38 for a gallon of the stuff. That’s 2 gallons of solution. At retail, that would be $128. Suckers.

So, I’ve finally decided to tell Gillette “Up Yours”. I’m sick and blessed tired of paying an arm and a leg for razor cartridges that give an inferior shave. Now, I don’t have a think burly beard, but you can tell it’s the end of the day by looking at me. Mach 4 razors are about $2.50/cartridge. At one per week x 52 = $130 a year just on razors alone. And a crappy shave to boot. I get maybe 2-3 shaves before I start getting razor burn on my neck.The thing is with 4 blades on a head, how good can they be? How soon do they warp? I know how fast they dull – fast.

So, based on a recommendation in Kevin Kelly’s Cool Tools, I bought a Merkur DE safety razor. (Plug- leesrazors.com) I used to have a cheap plastic handle one when I lived in DC, but it didn’t make it through the 4 moves since I lived on Nelson. I had totally forgotten how good of a shave you get with a good razor. It’s awesome. one swipe, and it’s baby smooth. You have to retrain yourself not to press down when you shave and let the razor do the work. The razor is pretty heavy, and I’m almost certain that I’ll never have to buy another. The blades are ballpark $.5o each, and will easily get you 6 shaves. So, blade cost is cut down to $26/year. The razor was $41, but that cost is recovered in 5 months.

Next, maybe need to look at brush and mug for shaving cream once my current nutrogena runs out. No sense in throwing it out when I’m getting a perfectly good shave from it now.

Cooked up a bag of it last weekend when the inlaws were in town. Not terribly happy with it. The flavor is good, but not enough fat in it. I used center cut pork chops to make it (as that was MUCH cheaper than butt when bought at costco). I’d say it’s maybe 97% lean, and a tad dry. Either need to get used to a healthier snaus, or find a way to add moisture back. Maybe add some apple juice to the pan as they’re cooking? Wrap them in bacon? Nah. neither of those will probably work. Just need to consider it a lesson learned for next time. Either use butt or add fatback.

So, I changed my # over to a local Atlanta number. It was an ordeal. Took an hour on the phone with 2 different Sprint reps. The first told me that I couldn’t keep my SERO plan if I changed my number. That was after she asked me what the area code and exchange of my new number should be. Shouldn’t she have known that? So, she changed my number without telling me. I had to call back and got another rep that walked me through the final steps to change the number, with no problems, and no change to my account.

Well, the new problem is the previous owner of my number, a Lynn Rush, still has people calling it. I need to begin making up fabulous lies aout her. “Nope, she joined the peace corps” or “She’s taking some time off to explore a career in erotic dancing.” Nah, not her fault that they’re calling her old number – for now. Ask me in a few months if I’m still getting calls and what I’m saying then.

The same thing happened when I was issued a phone for work when I was at Heritage Health Systems. Apparently, the Nextel number on my phone was previously assigned to one Mr. Curtis Spears – who was/is a deadbeat. I got no less than 4 collection calls per day on that phone for months – enough to make it worthless for communicating. Eventually, I just began to answer the calls and tell them it wasn’t his number any longer. It was especially choice when someone from the video store called asking about a late return. I told them that if they see Curtis, tell them to pay his bills and stop giving out his old cell number.

I guess it’s more of a commentary on the ever-shrinking pool of available phone numbers. Cell usage just keeps going up, and with no decrease in land lines, fax, etc. we’re rapidly approaching an PIv6 dilemma with phone numbers. Maybe one day, dialing balogs.net will ring the house first, then roll to both our cell phones, then send text messages and e-mail? Who knows.

So, little one was bitten on the face yesterday at school. Really sad, because she didn’t do anything to provoke it. Some other little girl just walked up and honked her on the nose and upper cheek. Apparently, the biter is having issues as a second child and has been acting out by biting. Little one is OK. I just hope that the other kid’s parents can get it under control for her sake and theirs.