Reinke Faces Life

I wanted to reformat LUGGABLE’s drive to reinstall and get rid of the winrot that’s been plaguing me. Argh! So I ordered a DELL XPS drive and the external enclosure. (DELL didn’t meet my dates, expectations, or such but that’s another story.) So, last night, I got around to trying it.

Guess what?

The drive is too big for the enclosure.

Argh!

I pinged for an “return”. How much fun is that going to be.

I may never buy anything online again! Certainly not from DELL.

http://www.nj.com/columns/ledger/mulshine/index.ssf?/
base/columns-0/1174541432174490.xml&coll=1

http://tinyurl.com/3avu3n

Founders would applaud pistol-packing mama
Thursday, March 22, 2007
by Paul Mushine

*** begin quote ***

These days, the cops take sides. They don’t enforce the laws against tailgating, but let a little lady even the odds a bit, and all of a sudden the cops pull out the cuffs.

*** end quote ***

“An armed society is a polite society.” Very polite!

http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski178.html

Getting Screwed
by Karen Kwiatkowski

*** begin quote ***

If serving in a forward combat role in Iraq (and also Afghanistan), you are likely to be male. You are also lacking one or more of the following: a clear mission, quality leadership, the proper equipment, armor, and training, a functional and wise set of standard operating procedures for suppressing a hostile local populace that does not speak your language nor share your customs. When you make a mistake or crack under pressure, you will be thrown to the legal wolves. Unless, of course, you are a senior officer, in which case you have an excellent chance of being quickly promoted out of harm’s way.

If you are injured in combat, you will be rushed into the vast system of hospitals, where you will vie for the attention of an overworked, very frustrated, and yet anonymous and unaccountable set of health care professionals who are increasingly overburdened.

If you are female in uniform, and deployed to Iraq, you face all of the above plus a few more. Sexual harassment, pressure for sex from peers and superiors, abuse, rape and even the chance of dying because you cannot safely hydrate yourself for fear of being raped in the night on your way to the latrine – these additive challenges face our female volunteers.

And that’s all before they come home to Walter Reed or Smallville, USA.

*** end quote ***

I think that Americans should be universally ashamed. The treatment of their soldiers is inexcusable. I don’t think our soldiers should ever be deployed outside of the country. But, for the politicians, who profess to “support” our troops, this shows them for the liars that they are.

If I was congress critter, then I’d call every one of “my” wounded every week. Too many for me to personally call, now I’ll understand the problem. Just as I would insist on my attendance at every funeral. Too many, now I understand the problem.

Argh!

A widow maker.

When I was on the First Aid Squad, that’s what we call a snowstorm that was heavy and hard to shovel.

Today we have an inch or two that’s frozen solid.

I did about 6 feet and now I’m resting.

Argh!

NJ has the Turnpike Authority, the Garden State Parkway Authority, the Atlantic City Expressway Authority, the Delaware Bridge Commission, and the DOT.

If I was King of NJ, then I’d nuke ’em all.

Do we think that roads and bridges can only be done by the gooferment?

Even if it was true, why can’t we have just one DOT?

This years NCAA was interesting in that all the big leagues had extra teams become eligible. That sopped up the selection committee’s optional choices. Is it me or this is all a scam to extract money from a gullible public?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0%2C2933%2C258301%2C00.html

Michigan State Lawmaker Wants to Legalize NCAA Basketball Office Pools
Monday, March 12, 2007

*** begin quote ***

LANSING, Mich. — Filling out your NCAA basketball brackets?

If there’s cash involved, technically you’re breaking the law in Michigan.

*** end quote ***

Where’s the victim? Where’s the coercion? Where’s the harm?

Yup, the gooferment didn’t get it’s cut! That’s why it’s illegal.

Gambling is immoral except when the gooferment gets a cut.

The lottery is called a tax on stupidity because the biggest winner is the gooferment.

Argh!

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/
news-11/117350711362280.xml&coll=1

http://tinyurl.com/ywmghx

AG has less objectionable plan for drunken-driving test
Saturday, March 10, 2007
BY ROBERT SCHWANEBERG
Star-Ledger Staff

*** begin quote ***

Attorney General to drunken-driving patrols: never mind.

In a quick about-face, the Attorney General’s Office issued revised procedures yesterday for police administering the Alcotest 7110 to suspected drunken drivers after 2 a.m. tomorrow , when daylight-saving time arrives three weeks earlier than in the past.

*** end quote ***

Oh I see, falsifying the “evidence” is not acceptable … ever.

Your gooferment in action!

Last couple of days 1015 has been properly dogging the Guv about his gift to his squeez. She “bought” a condo with his money supposedly. What is of “interest” it that she’s the head of a big state union. And, he “negotiated” with her “something”. He blocked pension and benefit reform by the legislature. And, she got a condo.

Now, he’s stonewalling with the “it’s a private matter”.

Sorry guv. It stinks.

Plus, what about a gift tax return? If it was a “loan” (with privileges), even if it was without interest, where’s the IRS?

It just shows that the political class places themselves above the law.

Argh!

I’m stuck with LUGGABLE that fails a lot with winrot. My “fixit” plan is stalled waiting for DELL to deliver the replacement drive. Argh! When I ordered it was supposed to ship, express, Friday 02MAR07. When I looked for the tracking number on Monday 05MAR07, the ship date was now Wednesday 07MAR07. When I checked today it’s now 12MAR07. Argh! Never buy another DELL?

Update thursday 08 Mar 07: DELL emailed me to say it’s delivered. Hmmm, and I’m supposed to be happy?

Today on 1015, they reported that red light cameras are the latest revenue raising idea in trenton.

Argh!

Despite the fact that I was just in an accident caused by an illeagal left turn, I am still opposed to the automatic ticketing.

I’m less concerned about the camera. I am concerned about the gang in trenton finding a new way to rob us. I’m sure that they wouldn’t shorten the yellow to raise money.

We can have cameras on the roads, just as soon as they put them in the politician’s offices, homes, and hangouts.

Argh!

http://alternet.org/waroniraq/48788/

60,000 Marriages Broken by Iraq, Including Mine
By Stacy Bannerman, The Progressive
Posted March 5, 2007.

*** begin quote ***

Congress has abandoned the troops for nearly four years. It is the soldiers, their families, and the people of Iraq that pay the human costs. The tab so far: more than 3,000 dead U.S. troops, tens of thousands of wounded, over half a million Iraqi casualties, roughly 250,000 American servicemen and women struggling with PTSD, and almost 60,000 military marriages that have been broken by this war. Including mine.

*** end quote ***

This an inexcusable abuse of our people in uniform. The costs of this “war”, (undeclared by Congress), like those of many others, is just conveniently “overlooked” by the political class.

http://www.digg.com/political_opinion/
Rep_Ron_Paul_Blasts_Big_Business_Media_Congress

http://www.ericbarger.com/paulblasts.htm

The dole, eddycation, and honest money are still my top three.

[http://centernjlife.blogspot.com/]

>At least they’re trying

That might be one description of what they are doing. I describe it as using the guns of government to steal value from the casinos and put themselves more firmly in control.

>close the loophole which allows smoking in casinos

Since the casino is presumably private property, why does the gooferment presume to tell them what they can and can not do

>This loophole should never have been there in the first place

Please this is the “boiling a frog” strategy. They are just turning up the temperature.

>no employees will have to be exposed to the smoke

You make it sound like the poor employees are too stupid to seek work that suits them elsewhere.

>I almost feel sorry for the casinos here

But, not enough to leave them alone in peace to make people happy.

>they gave a fig about their employees

Hard to run a casino without employees. If the employees were as upset as you are, they’d seek other employment. This would force the casinos to compete for labor and offer more and better.

>maybe we could feel bad for them.

I feel bad for us. When the thugs in Trenton get tired of the casinos, or when the casinos go broke, (the silver city casino in lv went smokeless in an attempt to compete and closed when it went broke), then they will have to raise money from somewhere. Guess who? And, if they can tell the casinos “no smoking”, then why not your house? And, if they can legislate their morality about smoking, then why not fast foods, or slow foods, or what you watch on TV, or anything.

No, feel bad for us. Those thugs are robbing us blind, imprisoning us, and enforcing their will on us.

It’s immoral.

There’s a saying that goes something like “The hallmark of a bad ideas is when you have to force people to conform. Good ideas are adopted willingly. Bad ideas are circumvented.”

—
Posted By Libertarian at 08824 to One Libertarian in 08824 at 3/03/2007 01:47:00 AM

http://nbs.gmnews.com/news/2007/0301/Front_page/002.html

http://tinyurl.com/2tnxlt

S.B.’s SMART idea to alleviate traffic
Twp. in final stages of plans to operate own bus system
BY CHRIS GAETANO
Staff Writer

*** begin quote ***

In an effort to alleviate a growing concern about traffic in South Brunswick, local and state officials are busy hashing out the final details of a commuter bus service that would run throughout the township.

The system, according to Mayor Frank Gambatese, is going to be called SMART, which stands for South Brunswick Municipal Area Residential Transit. This name won out over other prospective titles such as the SBUS and the INTS. According to Gambatese, the township will receive nine buses for this program.

*** end quote ***

This will bear watching. The gooferment gets into the bus business?

The new budget raids the surplus. But that’s not a one shot gimmick that the guv, when he was a candidate, campaigned against. The difference is NOW it HIS surplus to do with what he wants. Argh!

And, Jim G on 1015 was pretty funny today when he was pointing out the money spend on “bear education” to teach us people not to feed the bears.

The sad part is that someone is gonna get hurt with this non-sense. They don’t call it “wild life” because of the parties that are held. These things are dangerous. And, I wouldn’t want to face one without a rifle! But, I would bet that the 45 would make an impression on the bear.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/
20070226/D8NHEJI00.html

http://tinyurl.com/yq3xll

*** begin quote ***

“If you want to get educated or want to succeed, the welfare office don’t care,” Foster said. “I don’t think they really care what you do once the benefits are gone.”

*** end quote ***

Isn’t that the essence of gooferment? They don’t really really care. True charity requires that personal commitment to the goal. That’s why I like Homefront, spear headed by dedicated troops. They really care and so they are effective.

I was in a minor fender bender yesterday. Argh! Some bozo with NYC plates made an illegal left. I couldn’t stop. And, hit the car in front of me. And, of course, he proceeded along on his merry way. Argh! I hope there’s a special place in hell for him. I’m watching for him. Any way, first accident in decades. Now I have all sorts of hassles with the insurance. Rate will go up. And, I just on tilt. Like the pros on the poker shows, it was just a bad break. Argh! That still doesn’t make it any less aggravating to me.

1015 reported this morning that the NJ MVC was going to not fail cars for minor windshield cracks (gotten while on their crappy roads?), watery headlights, and other such items.

Argh!

Why is the State gooferment inspecting cars?

Well they have DO something to justify the money they waste. Can NOT tell you home many cars I see that are rolling with smoke coming out or been followed by out of alignment headlights. And the trucks.

Clearly, they have been failing cars for these “trivial reasons” up to now. What changed?

And, they will warn you that you can be stopped and ticketed for these violations. Could it be revenue raising?

Or, what?

Clearly, the condition of your vehicle is between you and your insurance company.

The state has no role in it. And, even if they did, they are the Gooferment.

I find it hard to get excited about men’s college basketball because of the student athlete issue. You know “graduates who can’t read” or “four year starters leaving without a diploma”.

The NCAA is nothing more than a government sponsored monopoly.

Argh! UofM, Rutgers, and all the other gooferment schools taking my tax money by force to play a game? RU just bought Sciano the fball coach a new house. Arghh!

The “schools” make grazillions out of the labors of unpaid athletes. And, when their time is up, they get hurt, or “offend”, over the side they go.

It’s a new form of slavery.

Don’t find it just a little ironic when a lilly white student body of a “prestigious” school are cheering for their non-white “warriors” in a meaningless “game”.

I wonder what MLK would have said?

I admire their skill, their training, and their spirit. I just don’t think they are getting a fair shake. Just as I admire a marathoner from Kenya, a Russian chess grandmaster, or anyone who can do anything I can’t.

I just think a “little” reform is in order.

At least with the Jasper basketball players of Manhattan College, I know that brother President personally reviews their academics. I’ve talked to many of the graduates and I’d hire them tomorrow.

Now if all college presidents were as honest!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article
/2007/02/17/AR2007021701172.html

http://tinyurl.com/32sfbd

Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration At Army’s Top Medical Facility

By Dana Priest and Anne Hull
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 18, 2007; Page A01

Five and a half years of sustained combat have transformed the venerable 113-acre Walter Reed Army Medical Center into a holding ground for physically and psychologically damaged outpatients.

*** begin quote ***

Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan’s room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.

This is the world of Building 18, not the kind of place where Duncan expected to recover when he was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Center from Iraq last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, nearly dead from blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of the hospital and five miles up the road from the White House, has housed hundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The common perception of Walter Reed is of a surgical hospital that shines as the crown jewel of military medicine. But 5 1/2 years of sustained combat have transformed the venerable 113-acre institution into something else entirely — a holding ground for physically and psychologically damaged outpatients. Almost 700 of them — the majority soldiers, with some Marines — have been released from hospital beds but still need treatment or are awaiting bureaucratic decisions before being discharged or returned to active duty.

*** end quote ***

This is inexcusable. And, people think the gooferment “cares”! It cares about itself. Not it’s “castaways”. I’d house the President here for the remainder of his term. And, I’d put the next one there to! Think it’d get fixed? If it didn’t then I’d really wonder what the gooferment could do about anything,

*** begin NEWSVINE citation ***

Here’s my note on Newsvine. Please highlight the story by voting it up.

http://reinkefj.newsvine.com/_news/2007/02/18/574593-soldiers-face-neglect-
frustration-at-armys-top-medical-facility-washingtonpostcom?threadId=77695&cmt=539327

http://tinyurl.com/2hhl96

*** end NEWSVINE citation ***

Maybe the story can get some action if it gets some traction. I’m sure the politicians of both ilks will just wish it away. No votes to be had solving it. No big campaign contributions from these vets or their families. No good can come out of it for them. Maybe it can be voted up into the conscience of America. It we still have one?

In a recent hospital visit, I only got stuck for two bucks for parking.

Arghh, taxes.

It’s a tax because it is an unavoidable fee imposed by an agent of the government!

;-)

Sigh!

OK, follow the logic.

The hospital is in bed with the federal, state, and local governments. Their finances are intimately involved with gooferment at all levels.

Unlike a private business, which only pays extortion money to the gooferment to be left alone.

The hospital is a quasi-government entity, sort of like an NGO.

They charge a parking fee.

The use the power of local gooferment to have no parking zones all around the hospital. With special (tax) stickers for local voters to exempt them. It forces you to park in their garage. Taking advantage of sick people.

So when an agency of the gooferment imposes an unavoidable fee …

… yes, it’s a TAX!

Think about it. Do you know any private business that charges you, or even your guests, to park? Think hotel? Thinks shopping mall?

Class dismissed!

http://reinkefj.newsvine.com/_news/2007/02/15/
569762-bbc-news-health-doctors-deny-elderly-treatments
?threadId=76838&cmt=533262

http://tinyurl.com/2xm4sg

BBC NEWS | Health | Doctors ‘deny elderly treatments’
News Type: Event — Seeded on Thu Feb 15, 2007 5:18 AM EST
Read ArticleArticle Source: BBC News
health, money, health-care, libertarians, socialized-medicine
Seeded by reinkefj

Doctors deny older people treatments they would offer younger patients, according to a study.

In the “health care” debate, with the socialists in both major parties advocating mandatory insurance, “single payer”, and all sorts of gooferment involvement, we need to keep focusing on the “working laboratories” of results reported from Canada and England. Personally, I think we started down a dangerous path to socialism when “benefits”, medical insurance, and Medicare / Medicaid were introduced. Maybe I’ll blog about the details (http://www.reinkefaceslife.com), but when you remove the dynamic of the “individual paying for their own healthcare” then all sorts of bad “unintended consequences” sneak in. Here’s one of them socialized medicine kills old people. Not necessarily unproductive old people, not demented suffering old people, and not necessarily those at the end of their lives. If fact, the way I read the article, it’s all about hustling the old of life.

Thu Feb 15, 2007 5:25 AM EST

===

England and Canada offer us a “laboratory” on socialized medicine. Not that I think the USA system is great. I’m just not sure that what the politicians propose is any better. In fact, if I know gooferment, it will make it worse. The “laboratories” are useful in the debate because we can see the impact of socialized medicine on people over there and extended it to what will happen here. Our politicians are no better than theirs. Our doctors are no less or no more than theirs. Socialized medicine sets up perverse incentives. And, we need to the “laboratory” lessons to heart. There’s a reason that Canadians come to the USA for MRIs. There’s a reason that elderly English dialysis patients migrate to other countries. There’s a reason why Californians are getting hips replaced in India. And, we have to hold our politicians accountable for those answers BEFORE we let them do anything.

The wage price controls of WW2 started the current “benefits” fiasco. Business seeking to retain their good people, faced with a wage cap, came up with paid medical insurance as a way around the limitation. From whence, we got wage slaves who had to keep their job to keep their benefits. Having purchased medical insurance on my own as a consultant, it not cheap but not impossible. We need to take it out of the company’s benefit package and put it back in people’s hands. At the very least, if I buy medical insurance it should be tax deductible to me. We need to jigger the scales. Remove the business from the “benefits” business by removing the tax deductibility. Let people be in total control of their own money.

Where stuff gets tricky is when it ceases to be catastrophic insurance and a prepayment plan for routine stuff. I like to use the car metaphor to understand it. Car insurance is for accidents; not oil changes or fender benders. Why send money to a third party, with all the shipping and handling, to pay for routine or small stuff. What’s next insurance for gasoline consumption. No medical care is more like the car than anything else. Medical Savings Accounts with high deductible catastrophic coverage is the way to go. Change people’s economic behavior and you’ll solve the problem.

Medicare / Medicaid and all gooferment regulation of medicine must end. Period. It has totally screwed up the marketplace.

Argh!

(ain’t insomnia productive?)

Today’s news on 1015 quoted Corzine as considering 4 measure to “increase revenue to close the budget gap”. I translate that to mean “steal more money at gun point form the unsuspecting”. Notice how lowering spending is never an option. How about: (1) eliminating state pensions by creating 401ks; (2) eliminate spending by an across the board cut; (3) nuke all the earmarks and other pork; and (4) roll back the tax increase represented by the 1% sales tax. That’s without getting on the big ticket items: (1) the dole and (2) the gubamint reeducation camps!

Today on 1015, the news reported that NJ wants to take DNA from those arrested (yes, arrested not convicted), for submission to the Feds.

Argh!

(1) Arrested, not convicted.

(2) It’s their body. It violates the most basic of human rights. Everyone owns their own bodies.

(3) This is the use of aggressive force.

(4) And the FED, STATES, and gooferment are so good at securing stuff.

(5) Do we really trust the gooferment with the essence of who we are?

(6) That essence will be sold to the drug companies and everyone who will fork over a few bucks.

(7) Slippery slope. Take it from babies. Match with the SSN. Now they can be “tracked”. “Vere isss yur paaapers?”

(8) Sure we “matched” your dna! We know that you killed Jack Kennedy from dna taken on the grassy knoll. Trust us, were the gooferment.

And, the prosecutor’s quote about making their job easier? Get a real job. You’re job is supposed to be difficult. You’re supposed to prove something.

And, did you believe the Barbara striesand about how they use dna to clear people. Right. Those prisons are just full of people proven innocent.

Sheesh, how dumb do you think we are? Pretty dumb.

JimG on 1015 was on the bandwagon this morning saying that there were three state senators that deserved kudos for their actions in this joke in trenton.

I prefer to judge the entire corpus on what it produces … nothing, nada, nyet.

An unconstitutional income test on property tax relief.

Even over and above that it is unconstitutional, it’s more progressive socialism right out of the Communist manifesto.

The same day the news broke that state worker benefits cost 2 billion this year and are unfunded by 80 billion over some time period.

If I was in Trenton, then I say “Sorry, we can’t afford to pay benefits. Sorry, we can’t afford pensions. Sorry we can’t afford this nonsensical public government education. Sorry, we can’t afford the dole.”

Dual office holding would end, tomorrow. Pick your favorite job and that’s it. Freeze retirements. Age becomes 65! Pensions, no. 401k, yes. Benefits, phase out.

It’s my way or the highway.

Oh, and can that feather brained scheme. Selling the highway to give the politicians more money to blow. “I”, the New Jersey Taxpayer paid to build it. Why sell it? So, I can pay more for it again. Are you idiots out of your collective minds?