cook2712's Blog

UNCLE JAY EXPLAINS THE NEWS 

DOES THE AUTO INDUSTRY NEED A BAILOUT?
[Note: This is a correction to note the proposed amount is $25 BILLION, not million as previously reported. We regret the error and blame it on being Monday.] The big three automakers say they need $25 billion in emergency short-term loans to avoid bankruptcy. Opponents say we shouldn't reward poor management. Some in Congress say if we do provide loans we need to attach conditions such as environmental regulations or management changes. Tell Congress and President George W. Bush what you think.



I Support the $25 Billion Emergency Loans With Conditions
I Support the $25 Billion Emergency Loans Without Conditions
I Oppose the $25 Billion Emergency Loans

 

 

Sears -  

 

Christmas shopping has already started

I know I needed this reminder since Sears isn't always my first choice. Amazing when you think of how long the war has lasted and they haven't withdrawn from their commitment. Could we each buy at least one thing at Sears this year? 

How does Sears treat its employees who are called up for military duty? By law, they are required to hold their jobs open and available, but nothing more. Usually, people take a big pay cut and lose benefits as a result of being called up. 

Sears is voluntarily paying the difference in salaries and maintaining all benefits, including medical insurance and bonus programs, for all called up reservist employees for up to two years. 

I submit that Sears is an exemplary corporate citizen and should be recognized for its contribution. I suggest we all shop at Sears, and be sure to find a manager to tell them why we are there so the company gets the positive reinforcement it well deserves.

Pass it on.

Decided to check this before I sent it forward. So I sent the following e-mail to the Sears Customer Service Department: 

I received this e-mail and I would like to know if it is true. If it is, the Internet may have just become one very good source of advertisement for your company. I know I would go out of my way to buy products from Sears instead of another store for a like item, even if it's cheaper at that store. 

This is their answer to my e-mail:

Dear Customer:

Thank you for contacting Sears.The information is factual. We appreciate your positive feedback.

Sears regards service to our country as one of greatest sacrifices our young men and women can make. We are happy to do our part to lessen the burden they bear at this time. 

Bill Thorn
Sears Customer Care
webcenter@sears.com 
1-800-349-4358 

Please pass this on to all your friends. Sears needs to be recognized for this outstanding contribution and we need to show them as Americans, we do appreciate what they are doing for our military!!! 

It's Verified ! By Snopes.com at: 
     
http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/sears.
asp   (shows the entire article)

Global Warming Data False

Posted: 16 Nov 2008 11:56 AM CST

The NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), which is run by Al Gore's chief scientific ally, Dr James Hansen, and is one of four bodies responsible for monitoring global temperatures, has just taken yet another massive credibility hit.

They announced that last month was the hottest October on record.

The problem and the hit to their credibility is they were not using accurate data and twp blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit discovered the error when they were doing a detailed analysis of the GISS data.

From the Telegraph:

This was startling. Across the world there were reports of unseasonal snow and plummeting temperatures last month, from the American Great Plains to China, and from the Alps to New Zealand. China's official news agency reported that Tibet had suffered its "worst snowstorm ever". In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.

So what explained the anomaly? GISS's computerised temperature maps seemed to show readings across a large part of Russia had been up to 10 degrees higher than normal. But when expert readers of the two leading warming-sceptic blogs, Watts Up With That and Climate Audit, began detailed analysis of the GISS data they made an astonishing discovery. The reason for the freak figures was that scores of temperature records from Russia and elsewhere were not based on October readings at all. Figures from the previous month had simply been carried over and repeated two months running.

After the blogs reported the error, GISS immediately started revising their figures and statistics.

This only made the confusion worse because, to compensate for the lowered temperatures in Russia, GISS claimed to have discovered a new "hotspot" in the Arctic - in a month when satellite images were showing Arctic sea-ice recovering so fast from its summer melt that three weeks ago it was 30 per cent more extensive than at the same time last year.

A GISS spokesman lamely explained that the reason for the error in the Russian figures was that they were obtained from another body, and that GISS did not have resources to exercise proper quality control over the data it was supplied with. This is an astonishing admission: the figures published by Dr Hansen's institute are not only one of the four data sets that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) relies on to promote its case for global warming, but they are the most widely quoted, since they consistently show higher temperatures than the others.

Worse yet, this is not the first time that Hansen’s methodology has been questioned and shown to be wrong after a major announcement.

Yet last week's latest episode is far from the first time Dr Hansen's methodology has been called in question. In 2007 he was forced by Mr Watts and Mr McIntyre to revise his published figures for US surface temperatures, to show that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s, as he had claimed, but the 1930s.

When the world is busy trying to make determinations on what to do about global warming, it is difficult for them to make any informed judgment when the information they are receiving cannot be verified.

Hot Air's Morrissey puts this perfectly:

NASA must investigate this episode at GISS and insist on reliable production of accurate statistics. If they have scientists who can’t tell September from October and can’t recognize a cooling cycle in the Arctic, then they need new leadership at GISS, starting with Hansen. The admission from GISS that they can’t verify their source data when reaching to conclusions should embarrass scientists throughout the profession, as verification of data is absolutely necessary before reaching any conclusions. Without that, GISS may as well be studying the entrails of goats to make predictions about the future climate.

People can scream about global warming all day long, but Earth was here before we were and it will be around after we are all extinct, and cooking the books, producing flawed data to support one position or another will bring nothing at all to the table.

Hansen, Al Gore and GISS have done nothing but float large announcements, based on discredited information that we now see cannot be verified.

UNCLE JAY EXPLAINS THE BAILOUT

Firewood Value and Costs Determining Fair Market Value

By Steve Nix, About.com

See More About:

• firewood
• fuelwood value

Stacked Wood

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Forestry Ads Build a Log Splitter Firewood Fatwood Fire Starter Cord of Wood Kiln Dried Firewood Many people, including me, love buying a rack of firewood, fueling fireplaces with firewood and gladly accept the challenges involved. But fueling a fireplace or firewood burning stove can be a lot of work and cost you way too much if volumes and values are not known.

In many states firewood transaction laws have been enabled to protect the purchaser from being ripped off when purchasing fuel. Most states are concerned that if you buy a "cord" of wood you actually get a cord.

Terms like "rick", "rank", "pickup load", "pile", "face cord", and "fractions" of a cord make determining firewood values a nightmare. Here are a few tips and rules of thumb to help you determine fair market value of a load of wood and get what you pay for:

A cord is a lot of wood - sometimes. It is usually your state's legal unit of measure for wood. You are buying a unit of wood based on 128 cubic feet of condensed, stacked roundwood including bark and some air confined to an area 4 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet. Solid wood with no air or bark has a volume of from 85 to 110 depending on many variables.

Be aware that wood received in 4 or 8 foot lengths will occupy less space when it is cut and split for firewood but the total amount of wood will not change. In other words, a cord of wood split and tightly stacked in 16" lengths contains considerably more energy (less air space) than a cord of wood stacked and racked in eight-foot lengths.

So, if the firewood is cut to fit a stove or fireplace and is split and tightly stacked, the space occupying the wood is reduced. You have less air. If it is haphazardly piled, the air to wood volume ratio is increased and you have less energy per cord. You need to insist on neat and tight stacking.

Tip one: Try to avoid buying firewood that is not sold in cords or fractions of a cord. A cord is a legal unit that a seller can be held to if there is some question.

Tip two: Insist that your wood be cut to burning length, split, uniformly stacked and not randomly scattered in a pile.

Tip three: Be prepared to either haul your own wood or pay extra for handling and delivery. Also, firewood value is totally and completely driven by location and availability. Cordwood prices for mixed hardwood can range from $50 to more than $100 but that may not include transport and handling costs. Getting wood to your fireplace and at the correct size is a major part of the expense of firewood.

REMEMBER: A "truck load" of firewood can mean anything from a loaded light-weight short-bed pickup (1/5 of a cord) to a pulpwood truck (4 cords). You need to determine the hauling capacity in cubic feet of any truck used to hold the wood and insure that the stacking is relatively tight and orderly.

Tip four: Pickup trucks generally hold from a fifth to a half of a cord of tightly spaced and orderly split, stacked wood. That is quite a broad range. You can (and should) actually measure your (or the seller's) transport bed to determine volume.

Tip five: Multiply the bed length X bed width X bed height to get the gross volume in cubic feet; then divide by 128. Take that number (probably a fraction) and multiply it by the price per cord to get your wood's value.

Example: You have a pickup bed that measures 6 feet long, 2 feet deep and 4 feet wide. You multiply 6'x 2'x 4' which equals 48 cubic feet. Convert to cords by dividing 48 cubic feet by 128 cubic feet (one split and neatly stacked standard cord) which equals to .38 cords. If processed firewood is selling for $150 per processed cord, multiply that by .38 cords. You will have a truck bed full of firewood valued at $57.

Nancy Pelosi and the BIG 3 Bailout

 

While Nancy Pelosi pushes for the Bailout of the Big 3, I ask myself what side of her BED OF NAILS she got up on.  Let me explain.  If the Big 3 gets bailed out business will continue same as usual until they need more (and they will need more).

While bankruptcy doesn't mean loss of jobs, it simply lets companies undergo restructuring, trimming fat (overpaid CEO'S, EXCESSIVE BONUSES and the death grip of the UAW) .  This is why the laws of bankruptcy were put in place (to save the jobs).  By going through this process, the Big 3 would be able to put their products out on the market cheaper giving Americans the opportunity to buy AMERICAN MADE AUTOS at competitive pricing.  Isn't that the goal?

Back to Nancy Pelosi.  In Jan 2007 when the minimum wage went from 5.15 to 7.25, Pelosi had American Samoa exempted from the increase so Del Monte would not have to pay the higher wage.  This would make Del Monte products less expensive than their competitor's.  Pelosi's district is San Francisco----StarKist (owned by Del Monte Foods) headquartered in San Francisco-----StarKist is the major employer in American Somoa employing 75% of the Samoa workforce.  Paul Pelosi, Nancy's husband owns $17,000,000 in StarKist stock.  So on one side she wants to shell out Billions of dollars to protect the policies of the UAW and BAD MANAGEMENT of the BIG 3, but on the other side she suppresses wages of workers making minimum wage for her personal gains.  I guess Pelosi's outlook is keep the minimum wage tuna packer with nothing and the UAW and CEO'S of the Big 3 out pricing their own products and employees giving foreign completion more advantages daily.  She is the PERFECT reason wy politicians are viewed as WHORES.  If the people of her district re-elect her another term then I feel that whole district should undergo treatment.   If you'd like to comment, please do so on my Blog:
http://www.BillBalsamico.com/blog

Just click on the order now

 

1.  The later you are, the more excited your dogs are to see you.

 

 

 

 

 2. Dogs don't notice if you call them by another dog's name.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Dogs like it if you leave a lot of things on the floor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. A dog's parents never visit.

 

 

5. Dogs agree that you have to raise your voice to get your point across.

 

 

6. You never have to wait for a dog; they're ready to go 24 hours a day.

 

 

7. Dogs find you amusing when you're drunk.

 

 

8. Dogs like to go hunting and fishing.

 

 

9. A dog will not wake you up at night to ask, 'If I died, would you get another dog?'

 

 

10. If a dog has babies, you can put an ad in the paper and give them away.

 

 

11. A dog will let you put a studded collar on it without calling you a pervert.

 

12. If a dog smells another dog on you, they don't get mad. They just think it's interesting.

 

 

13. Dogs like to ride in the back of a pickup truck.

 

And last, but not least:

 

 

14. If a dog leaves, it won't take half of your stuff.

 

 

 
>        A worried woman went to her gynecologist and
>        said:
>
>         'Doctor, I have a serious problem and desperately need your
>        help! My baby is not even 1 yr. old and I'm
>        pregnant again. I don't want kids so close together.'
>
>        So the doctor said: 'Ok, and what do you want me to do?'
>
>        She said: 'I want you to end my pregnancy, and I'm counting on
>        your help with this.'
>
>        The doctor thought for a little, and after some silence he said
>        to the lady: 'I think I have a better solution for your problem.
>        It's less dangerous for you too.'
>
>        She smiled, thinking that the doctor was going to accept her
>        request.
>
>        Then he continued: 'You see, in order for you not to have to
>        take care of 2 babies at the same time, let's kill the one in
>        your arms. This way, you could rest some before the other one is
>        born. If we're going to kill one of them, it doesn't matter
>        which one it is. There would be no risk for your body if you
>        chose the one in your arms.
>
>        The lady was horrified and said: 'No doctor! How terrible! It's
>        a crime to kill a child!
>
>        'I agree', the doctor replied. 'But you seemed to be ok with it,
>        so I thought maybe that was the best solution.

Michigan Liberal Gay Group Attacks Church During Services

Posted: 11 Nov 2008 10:08 AM CST

Right here in good ole USA.

A group called Bash Back Lansing held a protest outside of Lansing's Mount Hope Church, which according to their own News Letter consisted of "a small group of folks dressed in pink and black, equipped with a megaphone, black flags, picket signs and an upside-down pink cross began demonstrating outside the church. The group was extremely loud and wildly offensive."

Again, according to their own news letter, while the guards were distracted with the protest "over a dozen queers had put on their Sunday-best and infiltrated the church’s congregation. At the signal that the guards had been lured outside, the
infiltrators sprung into action."

A group stood up, declared themselves BLEEP, and began screaming loudly. Upon hearing the loud interruption, other affinity groups went into action. A team that had been hiding under the pews in the closed-off balcony dropped a banner and pulled back the curtains to reveal “IT’S OKAY TO BE GAY! BASH BACK!”. Another group threw over a thousand fliers to the entirety of the congregation. The fire alarm was pulled. Queers began making out in front of the pastor. And within a matter of minutes, everyone had evaded the guards and made their escapes.

Bash Back! operatives, still hidden among the congregation observed a person screaming that Satan had come to Mount Hope, that the end was here, that the queers were everywhere. She then began speaking tongues. The dumbfounded pastor, after regaining his composure, went on to speak of the of decadent, depraved wolves that menace his flock of sheep.

Let it be known: So long as bigots kill us in the streets, this pack of wolves will continue to BASH BACK!

We are everywhere.

Wikipedia describes this group:

Bash Back! is a network of radical, anti-authoritarian queer projects within the United States. Bash Back! seeks to critique the ideology of mainstream GLBTQ movement, which the group sees as dedicated to obtaining straight privilege by assimilation into the dominant institutions of a heteronormative society. Bash Back! chapters employ direct action to confront capitalism and all interrelated forms of oppression, especially focusing on exposing the gay mainstream and the dangers of gay assimilationism and homonormativity. Bash Back! is noticeably influenced by the anarchist movement and other radical queer groups, such as ACT UP and Gay Shame. Many within the group also draw significant inspiration from events like the Stonewall Riots and the White Night Riots

Right Michigan provides background on the church that was attacked as well as an account of how things went down:



They did it with banners, chants, blasphemy, by storming the pulpit, by vandalizing the church facility, by potentially defiling the building with lewd, public, sex acts and by intentionally forcing physical confrontations with worshipers.

[...]

Mount Hope, for the record, is an evangelical, bible believing church whose members provide free 24 hour counseling, prayer lines, catastrophic care for families dealing with medical emergencies, support groups for men, women and children dealing with a wide variety of life's troubles, crisis intervention, marriage ministries, regular, organized volunteer work in and around the city, missions in dozens of countries across the globe, a construction ministry that has built over 100 churches, schools, orphanages and other projects all over the world and an in-depth prison ministry that reaches out, touches and helps the men and women the rest of society fears the most. They also teach respect for all human life and the Biblical sanctity of marriage as an institution between one man and one woman.

Help Fill the Bus

Next weekend Awestruck Church is partnering with Starbucks on Huffman Mill Rd to fill up a school bus with canned foods.  All donations will benefit a local homeless shelter.  You can bring your cans to serivice on Sunday morning or just drop them off at Starbucks.  While you are there you can pick up your favorite drink!  Might I suggest a Large (I can’t remember their fancy word for large) Latte with an extra shot, sweetened with 1/2 Cinnamon and 1/2 Vanilla OR 1/2 Pumpkin Spice and 1/2 White Mocha?  They are both incredible.  (Side Note:  Don’t spend more on your coffee than you do on your canned goods.  That might defeat the purpose?)  Thanks for doing your part to pour out and help these folks.  

 

LINK TO A GREAT VIDEO & SONG

Fellow Bloggers, I have a friend that is and has been providing me with his astonishing knowledge, assessment, and recommendations for my posts as well as my personal being.  He is a far left wing liberal and un-like most of them he is a mental GIANT.  His many contributions are mostly suggestion and opinions on other bloggers that he feels need direction in their mind set and views concerning most everything.  He continues to add his un-matched knowledge on a variety of things that was history, present, and yet to come on mine and other blogs. He has determined that people that copy & paste things that may or could be of interest to other people than himself could be looked upon as racist, bigot, stupid, insane, mentally & physically handicapping people that don't have the intelligence that he possess .   I feel reasonable sure that if all the bloggers will encourage him, he will share some of his vast knowledge on religion, abortion, politics, and in fact there is not a subject that is know to man that he is not all knowing.  So please take advantage of his advice and it will bring about a wonderful CHANGE in your pitiful lives.  Let me thank you in advance for everything I know for sure that he will do for you if you just slightly encourage his out pouring of what will surly be a true educational experience for everyone.  There is not doubt in my little mind that he has the answers and solutions for each and every problem that this country and every American, well actually the entire world has, and will present it if urged to do so.   I know you will be just as elated as I have been when you can absorb some of his brilliance.

LINK TO A GREAT VIDEO & SONG