President Bush With Some Great Quotes

At a press conference on Monday, President Bush got a couple of really stupid questions from reporters but in turn gave great answers to them.

I saw film of these answers, and what does not show up in the transcripts I'll print below, was that President Bush visibly surprised that these dumb questions were asked in the first place.

Mark Smith from AP Radio: "Why have you not, sir, called on Americans to drive less and turn down the thermostat?"

President Bush: They're smart enough to figure out whether they're going to drive less or not. The consumer is plenty bright, Mark. The marketplace works. People can figure out whether they need to drive more or less. They can balance their own checkbooks. I think people ought to conserve and be wise about how they use gasoline and energy, absolutely. But my point to you, Mark, is that, you know, it's a little presumptuous on my part to dictate to consumers how they live their lives. The American people are plenty capable and plenty smart people and they'll make adjustments to their own pocketbooks. That's why I was so much in favor of letting them keep more of their own money, you know? It's a philosophical difference: Should the government spend their money or should they spend their own money? And I've got faith in the American people.

And then he was asked...

Unidentified Reporter: "Mr. President, do you think the oil companies are investing capital to find more reserves with the price at $140 a barrel?"

President Bush: Absolutely. Take an offshore exploration company. First of all costs a lot of money to buy the lease. They tie up capital. Secondly, it takes a lot of money to, you know, do the geophysics to determine what the structure may or may not look like. That ties up capital. Then they put the rig out there. Now, first of all, in a federal offshore lease if you're not exploring during a set period of time you lose your bonus. You lose the amount of money that you paid to get the lease in the first place. And once you explore, do your first exploratory, if you happen to find oil or gas you'll find yourself in a position where a lot of capital is tied up, and it becomes -- and your interests, your economic interests will continue to explore so as to reduce the capital costs of the project on a per barrel basis. So I think they're exploring.

President Bush having to hand out Capitalism 101 lessons to the journalism graduates.

Did you notice in that first question that the reporter assumed that Americans are so stupid that they need the President to order them to do sensible things?

Signs of the Apocalypse

I'm 45. I have grown up in the rock 'n roll era.

So, I can't help it, I love rock 'n roll music.

The harder, louder, and more screaming electric guitars, the better I like it.

But here's where it starts to get weird, as a Christian, I do NOT like to hear most of what many modern rock and heavy metal bands sing or scream about.

So I gravitate towards bands that are either Christian rock bands, or rock bands that have Christians in the band, and their lyrics tend to be uplifting and yet have the heavy music that I love.

For example. I have two cds by the band All That Remains, This Darkened Heart and The Fall of Ideals and both of these cds are simply amazing. Absolutely some of THE best musicianship and good lyrics I have ever had the pleasure of happening upon.

Their two guitar attack in their music almost makes my head spin with just how incredibly fast, precise, and melodic guitar playing can get. I can honestly say that I've never heard better guitar playing than are on those two All That Remains cds.

These days I don't listen to the radio much, even the rock on rock stations turns me off. I end up finding stuff on my own.

But years ago, I did listen to the radio a lot. There was lots of rock music that I liked.

One of the rock bands from the 80s that I liked was Def Leppard.

Now regardless whether you love or hate them, Def Leppard has been together now almost 30 years, and have toured and put out cds of the music that they love to play. That's gotta count for something.

I've always liked Phil Collen, their lead guitar player. He's a great lead player, and he happens to look a lot like my younger brother, so I like him and his playing a lot.

Plus Def Leppard has always been content to do their own thing, hard rock without trying to sound like anyone else, or to try to change to fit their music to whatever style is most popular today.

This past Friday night/early Saturday, I was hurting something fierce (my back) and went to get into my recliner for a while.

I turned the TV onto VH1 Classics channel and they were playing what they call, Classic/Current videos. This is where they'll play a classic old music video of a band, and the next video will be a new video by the same band.

As I watched, they played an old video by Def Leppard, and then played a new video by them of a song called "Nine Lives."

The song was pretty good, and standard fare for Def Leppard. Just a good solid Def Leppard song with a nifty guitar lead by Phil Collen.

But John, why did you title this post as Signs of the Apocalypse?

Because the new Def Leppard video for their song Nine Lives had country crooner Tim Mcgraw in it. In fact, Tim McGraw cowrote the song with the band.

Now I don't dislike Tim McGraw, heck he's from the same part of Louisiana I'm from, but I don't like country music. At all. (Tim McGraw seems like a swell guy)

Tim McGraw or no Tim McGraw, the Nine Lives tune sounds pure Def Leppard, and is pretty darn good.

But c'mon! Tim McGraw in a Def Leppard song and video?

Jesus has GOT to be comin' back soon.

Pathetic

Not too long ago, on a TV show we were watching, in preparation for a wedding, the groom jokingly said he wanted an ATM machine at the reception.

The wedding planner dude thought he was serious and got him one.

I thought it was kinda funny.

But today on the radio I heard that in Israel having an ATM machine at the wedding reception is a growing trend.

The machine conveniently produces a slip of paper showing who gave money via the machine and how much, so the newly flush with cash bride and groom can later thank them properly.

I knew that America was quickly heading for aych-eee-double-hockey-sticks in a hand basket, but it now appears that the whole world is headed there as well.

I can't think of anything tacky-er than this off the top of my head.

Quote of the Day

"If they're driving slower than me, they're a moron. If they're driving faster than me, they're a maniac."

I heard someone say this on the radio and thought that pretty much sums up how I feel when driving around Brevard County Florida.

I Keep Waiting

I keep waiting for something profound to pop into my head and then I'd type it all out and post it here and then bask in the glory of the comments from all the changed lives.

But really, I've got thuthin'.

Lovely Wife was nice enough to prepare a whole bunch of stuff for July 4, and then I crawled out of bed at 4pm and trotted out on the field and threw the game winning touchdown, er, grilled a bunch of hamburgers and hot dogs.

Same old whiny story, except my back was hurting even more than usual, and me and my buddies, Lortab and Skelaxin got the grillin' done and then we all ate like animals.

Years ago when I worked for Delta Air Lines, I got a recipe from a coworker for fruit pizza.

Fruit pizza is a dessert that is made with sugar cookie as "crust" and cream cheese and I forget what else as the "sauce" and then you chop up a bunch of fruits like kiwi, strawberries, bananas, pineapple, mandarin oranges and so forth as the "toppings" and finally a sugary-fruity glaze is drizzled all over the top.

She bought enough stuff to make two fruit pizzas, and of course the first one was demolished that night of the 4th. Then she made another one on the 5th, and we ate on it for a couple more days.

That's easily the best desert I've ever tasted, and we hadn't made it in years, so it was even better after so long.

I love to read, so I've still been on my almost-year-long science fiction kick, and when my back wakes me up and keeps me from sleeping, I go read for a while, and I'll tell you, some science fiction writers have THE most amazing imaginations.

But it's a very rare science fiction writer that has that super imagination AND is able to write really well.

My favorite science fiction writer so far, and by far, is Jack McDevitt. He's the only author so far that has me wanting to go and buy copies of every one of his books, because I know I'll want to read them all over again in a few years. He's a great writer for pulling you into the story so that you feel like you've gone along on his adventures.

Some of the books I've checked out are so bizarre that I had no idea what the author was talking about, so I just read for a while and then finally have to put those away.

I also read all four of the Space Odyssey books by Arthur Clarke, 2001, 2010, 2060, and 3001. The first two were really good, while 2060 was mediocre and 3001 wasn't very good at all.

Mr. Clarke definitely phoned in 3001. It was as if he wrote a list of everything he thought was wrong in present day earth and showed how all of those "problems" were done away with in the next thousand years. Books where an author injects all of his or her likes and dislikes into book form, with a thin coating of fictional story on top, sounds really preachy and I found myself talking back at Mr. Clarke and rolling my eyes with 3001.

At any rate, my recent foray into reading lots of science fiction has been fun, but I find that I have to bring home at least two books from the library for every one I want to read. In other words, if I want 3 or 4 books to last me a couple of weeks, I need to check out at least 6 or 8, because I end up putting half of them down.

So, between hurting, working, and reading, I haven't done much worth blogging about.

I wanted to get out and take some photographs this past weekend, but it has been raining on and off most every day, so when I get up and feel like going, it's usually raining.

That leaves reading.

I could write about politics again, but I need to keep my blood pressure in check, so I'm laying off that for a while.

Take care folks, and I'll be around when I can.

July 4, 2008 Help Wanted: Visionaries and Statesmen

I was trying to think of something to say that was moving and profound but flat-out drew a blank.

So I went back through my digital image archives and found some photos that I like that have American flags in them and worked on them a little in Photoshop Elements.


When those men signed the American Declaration of Independence, they were committing treason and by placing their names on the document, essentially signed a death warrant on themselves.

These days in America it has become popular to denigrate our country's founding fathers, some even calling them evil for owning slaves.

All I can say is America's founding fathers were entirely human, yet they were used by God to create an incredibly strong, free country in which, eventually, ALL men and women could be free.

These flawed men were still great men. There aren't really any great men on the national scene in America right now.

We sure could use a couple more visionaries of the stature of Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin today.


Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama even come close.

Bumper Sticker Humor

Yeah, I keep up with the news and what is going on in the world and, possibly most damaging, the current US presidential race, so that has a tendency to have me in a negative frame of mind.

Keeping up with world events and news is not a recipe for happiness.

But yesterday I got a small reminder that my sense of humor still functions.

I was about to turn north on to the death trap that is Interstate Highway 95, and I was behind a pickup truck with the following lone bumper sticker:

Women Love Me and
Fish Fear Me

I know I looked like a dummy sitting there laughing while driving along, but that snapped me out of a foul mood.

Well, I thought it was funny.

Several years ago I saw a man in his truck with a bumper sticker that said: Fish Tremble At The Sound Of My Name and I laughed at that one too, because I mentally pictured fish trembling.

But for my life lately, I've been more like the unfunny bumper sticker I saw one time that said: Losing My Faith In Humanity, One Person At A Time. That one is sorta funny, but mostly sad and depressing, but it pretty much is how I feel after keeping up with current news and world events.

Maybe I need to stop caring about so much that I cannot possibly change,and just learn to live in a personal life bubble as small as I can possibly get by with.

I'll probably be much happier that way.

Here's a purdy picture.