Sunday, July 26, 2009

Frog Guarding Geocache

Before a meeting on Saturday I took the opportunity to pick up a few geocaches on Russellville's Bona Dea Trails. What a beautiful spot and the trails are absolutely wonderful. I definitely need to come back. On one of the caches I found a frog guarding it. The frog was extremely accommodating while I retrieve the log. It happily sat on my shoulder until I put it back on the cache. It sure was nice to find a frog instead of the usual spiders and bugs guarding a cache.

Rep John Boozman, NW Arkansas This Weekend

Rep Boozman spent this weekend speaking in NW Arkansas. He was the guest speaker at the GOP 3rd district committee meeting on Saturday. He also spoke at the Benton/Washington County Ice Cream Social on Sunday. While he made a few comments on current legislation most of his time was spent answering questions from the audience. Regarding the current bills going through Congress he said that the strategy was to 1) delay the bills. The Democrats are rushing through the bills because they don't want people to know what's in them. Which is why 2) people need to be educated about the bills. The Democrats are already censoring efforts to educate the public. Hopefully, Rep Boozman said we will 3) ultimately defeat the bills.



Regarding a question about Rep. Mike Ross, Rep. Boozman said that we needed to contact him and thank him for holding up the Health Bill. I'm sure Rep Ross is going to appreciate a bunch of Republicans thanking him for opposing Pres. Obama. I like Rep Boozman's explanation of the difference between the TARP bill and the Stimulus Bill. TARP he said was focused on failing banks and the ability to get credit. Banks are required to pay back TARP money. The Stimulus bill goes to program spending not to infrastructure. The Stimulus bill doesn't create anything.
One of the audience members spoke on her and her family's experience with Great Britain's medicine. The way she describe their doctor visits reminded me of the medical clinics in Mexico. Imagine, the Democrats are trying to force the nation with the best medical care in the world to one that mirrors a third world nation. Oh yes! Rep Boozman said that he hasn't read the whole Health bill, but is having staff review it and is working with the Republican Study Committee.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Fayetteville, When is Weed Not a Weed?

Mayor Jordan got the authority to grant exceptions to Fayetteville citizens who opt to have the their lawns deemed as "naturalistic landscapes." It's all part of the sustainability fad that many residents of Fayetteville are following. While there may be a few who seriously cultivate their yard to be "natural" I fear most residents see this as way to skip the upkeep of a yard. Tired of cleaning out the weeds, mowing and trimming the lawn? Get the city to designate your yard as natural. VoilĂ , no more work! I really hope the City designates those yards that are real true "naturalistic landscapes". These yards do take some work to upkeep and while they don't have the same look as regular lawns they do maintain some order.

The Arkansas Lottery, Disappointment?

I must admit that I am not happy about the salary Ernie Passailaigue is receiving but I am not surprised that the Lottery Commission would pay it. I also not surprised the Gov. Beebe and House Speaker Robbie Wills are a bit late in speaking out about it. Gov Beebe and Rep Willis were the ones to appoint the members of the Lottery Commission. Let's just say that there are going to be millions of dollars floating around and some legislators and business' are going to get their cut. Passalaigue is quite sure that Arkansans are dumb hicks and expect legislators to deal with them.

"You cannot go back and talk to the average person about this because they will not understand it," Passailaigue told lawmakers. "Hopefully, they've got enough faith and trust and confidence in your abilities because you're elected and you'll come up here and listen to all of this."

Ha! Yeah, like I really trust Gov Beebe and his friends wheeling and dealing in the Capital. This is just the start of the unethical behavior coming from the Lottery Commission. These lotteries are always bedrocks of corruption. I fully expect years of scandals from the lottery. You invite the serpent into the garden, expect to get bitten.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Cap and Tax Funny

I saw this while I was getting dinner at Sonic. This guy must either be utterly and completely ignorant or he is a total moron. Dude, didn't you get Pres Obama's memo? Coal is bad. Coal is evil. Coal must not be used. The coal industry must be taxed into poverty. Cast out the demon Coal.

Saturday, July 04, 2009

TEA Party, Fayetteville, Arkansas


Hundreds (possible 1,000) showed up at the Washington County Fairgrounds. It was cloudy so it wasn't hot and if you brought a chair you could sit and enjoy yourself. Unfortunately, just before noon, the clouds turned into a thunderstorm and many left, while those who stayed squeezed into a covered shed.

The focus of this rally was more towards getting involved. People were encouraged to sign-up for different organizations. Copies of the Constitution were handed out and there were volunteers on hand to register people to vote. Organizations represented were the Americans for Prosperity, Arkansas Independence Caucus,Secure Arkansas, American Majority and Arkansas Unite.


The key note speaker, Tom Ziglar, admitted that he's never done a political event before. I guess that's why the closest he got to being political was a story about "The wisdom of the Ages" which being summed up in one sentence is "There ain't no free lunch." Ultimately, who is going to be paying for all the stuff the government is going to hand out.

Lepaine Sharp McHenry gave the crowd the red meat. Passionately she spoke about the concerns we have about the programs and taxes Congress and the President are forcing us into. She warned the legislators that if they didn't start listening to the people and stop treating us like we were stupid they would soon be out of a job.

Rep. John Boozman was praised for his vote on Cap and Trade while Rep. Vic Snyder is going to face opposition. Sen. Blanche Lincoln was warned to pay attention the desires of hard working Arkansans.



Rebecca Wales, Smart Girl Politics, was great speaking about the government health care plan Congress and the Pres. has for us. She noted that the government already supplies the health care for our service men/women and veterans. Do we really want that type of health care?

Another TEA Party is being planned for Sept. 12th, to remember 9/11. Considering how fast Congress and the Pres. are sinking the nation I'm sure there will be plenty to protest.

Geocaching.com Web Site Back Up!

Hooray! Caching tomorrow! Thanks to the guys at Geocaching.com for working hard overnight to bring the site back up. The site is running on generators and it may be awhile before the Fisher building gets back power. Later today I'll write down the names of the caches I going for so that I'll use my Palm instead of my iPhone just in case the site goes down again.

UPDATE:
Jeremy explains.

Friday, July 03, 2009

TEA Party, Fayetteville, Washington County

I'll be at the TEA Party tomorrow and will be posting stuff from the event(if Blogger doesn't block me again). Tom Ziglar, I've never heard him speak so this should be interesting. There are plenty of activities planned so you do have to stand around for hours listening to speakers.

Event Information

Geocaching.com Web Site Down

I had planned to spend most of today geocaching but I was unable to get on to the server. After several hours of trying to get on I searched and found that the site had gone down because of a fire. The small fire at Fisher Plaza in Seattle disrupted services to thousands of business worldwide.
A fire at a Seattle building disrupted a server farm that provides service to multiple Web sites - including one that facilitates electronic transactions for tens of thousands of businesses and Microsoft's new search site.

Jeremy Irish has kept cachers posted and they are working hard to restore the web site.

Fortunately, no one was hurt and a whole bunch of tech guys are working to get all the web sites up and going.

So, change of plans, I spent the day looking at sofas. Mine is faded, losing it shape and the cats has shredded the ends. I wasn't very successful. They are making sofas skinner and the ones that were larger were expensive. ($$$$) Also, the colors stink! They mostly dark brown, black or red. Ewww, depressing! I think I may have my old one reupholstered. I'm seriously thinking about doing it myself. Definitely a winter project.