Headlines?

We’re all for walks down memory lane, but in this post we’re looking into the future. Here’s our take on what it might be like in 2018.

If they passed the bailout as is the headlines might look like this-

 Lawmakers justify the new $20 a gallon gasoline tax by saying people aren’t buying it.

 Congress had declared they won’t rest until they pass a $17 trillion bailout of the government run mortage industry. Leaders say the fault lies with ungrateful mortage holders.

 Citizens can no longer get home insurance because of fires started by candles used to heat their homes in winter. Congress is funding a study on the energy crisis.

 China demands New York City as partial payment on money owed them by government.

If, as some suggested, they passed a modified bailout that gave $500,000 to every citizen the headlines might look like this-

 Congress working on a bailout for the 75 million Americans who have declared bankruptcy.

 Lawmakers shocked after five year study shows some citizens spent their bailout money on drugs, alcohol and/or hookers.

 Congress to investigate several million people who saved their money, and will prosecute them accordingly.

 Businesses complain they can’t find anyone to work. The President vows to have Congress look into why.

If Congress did away with the capitol gains tax and went with a 12% flat tax and less government headlines might read-

 Congress announces another crisis because the citizens have too much money.

 Congress working on proposal to raise flat tax to forty percent for our own good.

 Citizen’s upset over rasie in gas prices to $2.05 a gallon.

 Russia asks America for loan.

And some just general headlines that might happen-

 Entire population of Michigan’s Upper Penninsula eaten by wolves on endangered species list.

 Al Gore claims recent frigid weather in Florida is proof of global warming.

 Cancer rates are up due to exposure to electric powered cars.

 Rowboats are illegal to use on all lakes so as not to disturb the algae.

 An armed unit of civilian militia storms Congress. Three Congressmen faint, six wet their pants, eighteen deny prior knowledge, and one said he voted for it before he voted against it.

 That’s our look into the future. Feel free to comment on this or just about anything else.

A new school prayer

 The following is an email Dale Gilmour sent us. We didn’t check it with Snopes, or any similar site, because we like it. We think it speaks of where we’re headed.

WRITTEN  BY A 15 yr. old SCHOOL KID IN ARIZONA
New  Pledge of Allegiance 
Since  the Pledge of Allegiance and The Lord’s Prayer are not allowed  in most public schools anymore because the word ‘God’ is  mentioned….  A kid in Arizona  wrote the attached 

 NEW  School prayer : 

Now  I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this  great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd. 

If  Scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights. 
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now. 
 
Our  hair can be purple, orange or green,
That’s no offense; it’s a freedom  scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken  aloud are a serious vice. 

For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all. 
In silence alone we must meditate,
God’s name is prohibited by the  state. 

We’re  allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues  and cheeks.
They’ve outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote  the Good Book makes me liable.

We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen, 
And the ‘unwed daddy,’ our Senior King.
It’s ‘inappropriate’ to  teach right from wrong,
We’re taught that such ‘judgments’ do not  belong. 
 
We  can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and  totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of  God must reach this crowd. 

It’s  scary here I must confess, When chaos reigns the school’s a mess. 
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul  please take!
Amen 

 Comments are always welcome.

A little bit different

We recently came accross a story about a restaurant in Colorado Springs, Colorado that’s different from most restaurants. The place is about four miles from the airport on North Newport Road next to a hotel. What sets this restaurant apart from others is it has a C-97 airplane with one wing actually going through the restaurant. It’s said the plane is complete and the wing and two engines are inside. If you get one of the window tables you can see the landing gear.

The C-97 is the military version of the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser with four 3,500 hp Pratt and Whitney engines. It wights 82,500 pounds empty with a wingspan of 141 feet 3 inches, a length of 110 feet 4 inches, and a height of 38 feet 3 inches.

The plane’s interior has been retrofitted and now serves as a dining area also. The restaurant owner is a pilot and thought it would be a great idea to use the plane to increase business. They even have the radio traffic from the control tower of the airport piped in over their P.A. system.

The large aerial refueling tanker sat for 30 years at a Naval Air Station in Fort Worth, Texas, and after the purchase was dismantled into 8 pieces and trucked to Colorado Springs.The mating of the building and the aircraft began in December of of 2001, and the restaurant reopened in May, 2002.

This place serves the usual airport eatery items like burgers and sandwiches, but also has several unique choices. If you’re not driving or flying, they do have a bar. Inside there are hundreds of plane photographs, and several model planes, including one eight foot model of a B-17.

So if you’re in the area, check out Solo’s Restaurant, 1665 North Newport Road, Colorado Springs, Colorado. It’s next to the Raddison Hotel.

That’s our nickel tour of a unique place to eat if you happen that way. Comments on this or any other subject are welcome.

Some crime updates

There’s been a few crime stories going around, so here they are. Some you may have heard of, some not. We just found them interesting, and the last one humorous.

Twenty-six members of La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) have been charged in an indictment filed June 23, 2,008. The charges were filed in North Carolina and prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against one member. Charges include; conspiracy to commit violent crimes in aid of racketeering resulting in murder, use and carrying a firearm, murder in aid of racketeering, accessory after the fact to murder, felon in possession of a firearm, illegal alien in possession of a firearm, and possession of pot among others. If you want to know more go to
the indictment.

Then there’s Tony Alamo, recently arrested on Federal charges of knowingly transporting a minor (under 18) accross state lines with the intent to engage in sexual activity. Mr. Alamo is the leader of a religious group and believes the age of consent for females is puberty. He also claims 12 and 13 year old girls should marry. We very strongly dissagree.

There’s a similar case in Kansas, same charges, but a 41 year old man used the internet to lure a 15 year old boy into sex. At least the jerk pled guilty and is facing up to 15 years in prison and a hefty fine.

If you want to see the list of the DEA captured fugitives for 2,008, you can go here.

And in the really weird crimes department is a story from South Charleston, W. Va. Seems Jose A Cruz, 34, was stopped for driving without headlights at night. The arresting officer smelled alcohol and Mr. Cruz failed three sobriety test before being arrested. At the Police Station he was being prepared for a breathalyzer test when Mr. Cruz lifted one leg and “passed gas loudly”. He then fanned the offending odor towards a police officer. According an officer, “the gas was very odorous and created contact of an insulting or provoking nature with Patrolman Parsons”. Mr. Cruz denied being drunk and was charged with battery on a police officer in the incident.

That’s an update on the crime news, comments are always welcome.

Sometimes we wonder

How long does it take to get a sinkhole repaired in a Davenport city street? Noobody knows! We can say it’s at least 10 months. The barricade in the 700 block of West 14th has been up for all these months, the flooded parks have been fixed, a pedestrian bridge planned, but the sinkhole is still there. Some people don’t like Keith Meyer, but he’s been asking our City Leaders to do something about the sinkhole to no avail.

In his most recent request, he asked his former opponent Alderman Boom if something could be done about it. He was told Alderman Boom would get back to him with the schedule of the repair. Say what? Ten months of asking for a sinkhole repair with no action? In that time the City Council has managed to discourage most of the public from attending the Council meetings, and pretty much done away with the public comments. They’ve invested millions in parks and planned libraries, but they can’t fix a sinkhole? Are they planning decorative crosswalks in the area and planning to do both jobs at once?

The time for excuses is long past. Now on top of being worried about getting shot by a stray bullet going home, we also have to avoid a cross street so we don’t lose our car in a sink hole.
Let’s get it done before winter weather becomes another excuse for a delay.

That’s our thoughts on the subjects, comments are welcome.

Dangerous Doctors?

Doc sent us another email we felt we had to share with you. The statistics are downright scary. We never did like being in a hospital, but didn’t realized Doctors were so dangerous. If you scare easy you shouldn’t read the following-

Doctors vs Gun owners

Doctors

(A)The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.

(B) Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000.

(C) Accidental deaths per physician are 0.171.

Statistics courtesy of U.S. Dept of Health Human Services.

Now think about this:

Guns

(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000. (Yes, that’s 80 million)

(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.

(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .000188.

Statistics courtesy of FBI

So, statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.

Remember, ‘Guns don’t kill people, doctors do.’

FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.

Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ‘ban’ doctors before this gets completely out of hand!!!!!

Out of concern for the public at large, I withheld the statistics on lawyers for fear the shock would cause people to panic and seek medical attention!

Comments are alway welcome.

Events and we lost another one

Once again we’ll list some things going on this weekend and beyond. This isn’t meant to be a list of everything going on everywhere, just a few events we thought sounded interesting.

Starting today, the Oktober Fest of Drag Racing runs through Sunday at Cordova Dragway Park. Cost is $15 for one night, $25 for two nights, and $30 for all three nights.

Tomorrow is the Southpark Mall Cruise-in hosted by the Quad Cities Cruisers. It runs from 6-9:30 pm, and will feature Ben Jones, who played Cooter on the Dukes of Hazzard. It’s also free.

The Governor’s Cup WDRL Races will be held at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds track October 3rd and 4th. Fridays events will run from 6:30-10 pm, and the cost is $15 for adults. Saturday’s races will we be 1-10 pm and is $25 for adults.

Also on October 4th is the Northpark Mall ‘Toys for Tots’ cruise. It runs 6-10 pm, and is hosted by the River Valley Classics.

October 4th and 5th is the Swap Meet at Hawkeye Downs in Cedar Rapids.

October 5th is the Blast from the Past Car Show in Illini State Park, Marseilles, Ill. It runs from 8 am to 3 pm.

October 11th is last Southpark Mall Cruise-in of the year. Hosted by the Quad Cities Cruisers it runs 6-9:30 pm.

October 11th and 12th Oktoberfest in Village of East Davenport.

October 12th is the Apple Fest at the Welcome Center in LeClaire, Ia. It involves all things apples, and a car display by the Quad Cities Antique Ford Club.

On a sad note, Don Sparbel passed away yesterday at Genesis East. He was 71. He was a real car guy and one of those who would help in any way he could, and was a member of the Cruisamatics Car Club.We liked his little metalflake Plymouth with ghost flames, and the newer Ford he replaced it with. Our condelences to his family.

Comments are always welcome.

————-Addendum————————-
Doc sent us a news release about this years Polar Bear Regatta. The race times Saturday are 10 am, 1 pm, and 3 pm. Son Sunday there will be races at 9:30 am and 10:45 am. If you like to watch sailboats on the river, this may be for you.

Something to think about

Since we have an election coming up, we’d like to ask you to think before you vote. Once again we working stiffs who pay our bills are being asked to pay for another bailout. Since this practice has been going on for more than 30 years, we hope you don’t think this is a new concept.

In 1975 it was New York City that needed a bailout. Then of course we can’t forget the 1980’s and the Chrysler bailout. In the 1990’s it was the Asian and Mexican financial crisis and the IMF bailouts.

We can look at the bright side, after the bailouts of Mexico, Thailand, South Korea, and Indonesia the value of their money dropped. This allowed big corporations here to move there for cheaper labor. It also dropped our labor rates.

And now the house has passed a $630 billion bailout package and sent it to Congress. Naturally the bill includes 2,322 pet projects. And once again we’re asked to tighten our belts for the good of our country.

On the up side, they lifted the ban on offshore drilling. That would be good news, except for the fact that the oil companies don’t trust the government. The ban is lifted for 50 miles offshore or more. Not a problem you say? Wrong. They need to lift the entire ban for a few reasons. If they lift the ban on drilling within 50 miles of shore, things look better. There are two capped wells on opposite sides of the country that could be sending crude to the refineries within a few months because the infrastructure is already in place.

If the oil companies were actually free to drill, it would also create more jobs, lower the price of crude when speculators see the country is actually doing something useful, and some states would see more money from royalties. Yeah, we see why some people would have a problem with that.

Back to the election, please take a little time and look into how the candidates voted, if indeed they did vote. While not everyone believes as we do; we check and vote for the person we feel will do the best job. We have never voted a straight ticket. If what these people have been doing for the last 30 years doesn’t bother you, your a lot richer than we are.

Comments on this or just about anything else are welcome.

All over rant

There’s been so much going on lately it’s hard to choose which subject to post about. We’ll touch on a few that got our interest, and if we forgot yours, feel free to add it.

The bail-out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is in the news. Rumors now include bail-out of everything from just the two entities to credit card debt, car loans, and perhaps even student loans. Who knows how it will end up. The best thing to do would be to not bail anyone out. We say this because in the time the government wants to see this pass, nobody can check the businesses involved, and the money isn’t there. If Fannie and Freddie leadership did tweak the books to make them look better, they should be prosecuted not compensated.

We have to go with the no bail-out crowd. The economy could be better served by opening up drilling everywhere, and suspending capital gains taxes of large corporations. Why push alternative energy and employ 5 scientists in a lab, when allowing oil companies to drill would create a lot more jobs.

The very legislators pointing fingers are the ones who caused this mess in the first place. Get government out of business and big oil. They should also start passing meaningful legislation rather than taking the easy way out.

Caylee Anthony has been missing for around 14 weeks now, and the case is no closer to being resolved. With the release of 600 pages of testimony from the police, it is cerainly a well documented case. To read more about this, or see the documents go here. At the bottom of this page is a link to the information released. If Casey Anthony didn’t kill her daughter, she has sure milked her 15 minutes of fame.

Locally we have the pedestrian/bicycle bridge to Credit Island, and the Davenport Promise. After reading the paper about the bridge from Credit Island to South Concord Street, we were left with a few questions. We have to wonder the reason for such a bridge to be 32 feet wide in the center. With such a remote location, are there going to be security cameras aimed at the bridge? What if taggers get busy on the structure? How about the bangers? Are police going to patrol the bridge? What happens when it floods?

And the Davenport Promise. We have to wonder how they came up with an increase of 3,900 crimes if the Promise doesn’t come. That number also is the number of residents we’d lose without the program. Now the City can do without $8 million in it’s budget to fund this? Why does Davenport keep losing population? If there isn’t enough support for this program for private funding, how will it work with public funding? Wouldn’t a study on why people leave be more cost effective. Do the study, find out why people leave, then fix the problem. We don’t believe in these either/or programs. There would have to be more options.

That’s our rant, your comments are always welcome.

Rambling mind

It’s been another one of those weeks. We had some random thoughts on various subjects, so we’ll list some here.

We went for a walk today, nothing different there, but we noticed a few things. Saw a guy filling his bird feeder so it seemed like an opportunity for an inquiring mind. I asked him why they call it bird seed if it doesn’t get planted, won’t grow birds, and is used for feed? He politely told me to move on.

And if walking can add minutes to your life, does that enable you at 89 years old to spend an additional 5 months in a nursing home at $7000 per month.

A lot of people say we’ll feel better if we excercise more; I feel I’ve gotten enough excercise lately just getting over the hill.

If you teach a child to be polite and courteous; when he grows up, he’ll never be able to merge his car onto the freeway or drive in a big city.

And why is it that lately we’ve been junk mail telling us we’ve won a free gift? Aren’t all gifts free?

If protons have mass, does that make them Catholic?

Walking past a gas station got us to wondering; do you remember full service, getting your windshield cleaned and tires and oil checked? If you remember that, you’d have to remember Green Stamps.

Remember when the 57′ Chevy was just about everybody’s dream car to cruise in, peel out, or watch the submarine races?

And we remember Drive-In movies,Drive-In Restaurants, going steady, getting your bumper height checked by the police, and cruisin’ the ones.

We know a mind is a terrible thing to waste, but we couldn’t help ourselves. The world was getting too serious. Comments on just about anything are welcome.