Here we go

They are in session at the House on the Hill. It seems that since the Baucus bill is the only one without the public option some want to change it. The rumors are flowing fast so who knows what to believe but I find it humorous that those running the show have claimed they would look at all options. That is now out the window and its public option or nothing? It could get interesting.

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I am not an Obama fan. But so far I’ve seen nothing that would change my mind to believe he is a leader. His rants are either that it’s not about him or a claim of racism. He has an illusion of grandeur and he seems to think he can stop thousands of years of fighting by simply talking to the opposing sides. It is an interesting time to be alive.
Comments are always welcome.

Weekend wrap up

What a weekend. It started out on a sad note when I was notified my uncle died. We didn’t see each other often as he lived in Seattle and I don’t, but we got along when we did get together. In his younger days he was a bit of local legend when the local newspaper would do a story on him. Of course the paper was printed in a little town up the road because the hometown was too small for a paper. Our little home town could hardly be called a town because the business district was two buildings, the gas station and a grain co-op.
Just lately there has been a population explosion and the population has swelled to over 100.

Saturday I went and met a friend I had known for sometime online but had never met. He gave me a car generator of unknown origin and we had a nice chat. We remembered when a barn was right accross the street from his house. A lot of us older folks can remember corn fields north of Kimberly Road also. Thank you for the generator, I’ll put it to good use.

He also mentioned plans to put a roundabout at the intersection of 46th street and Jersey Ridge Road. I don’t see anything wrong with just making it a four way stop. It would have to be cheaper to add two stop signs that to engineer and erect a roundabout.

There’s also been talk of turning some one way streets downtown to two way. I’d like to see how that works out when beer deliveries are made on both sides of 3rd street. Everything seems to be aimed at slowing down traffic and helping pedestrians get around. I don’t care for the idea but it will most likely happen anyway.

Then we went and repaired a storm door that someone had kicked, broke, and distorted beyond recognition. It doesn’t look like a new one now but it is a whole lot better than we first laid eyes on it.

The Polar Bear Regatta is going on if you like to watch sailboats on the river. That could be a relaxing way to spend part of the day.
Comments are always welcome

A simple mini-rant

Below are a few mini-rants that I found interesting. Since
money is no object for this administration we’ll start with
a couple of rants about where our money is going.

As part of the stimulus package green energy projects have been
given billions of dollars in federal grants. Now that doesn’t sound so bad does it? It puts our citizens to work and allows American Companies to make money also.

Pyron Wind Farm recieved a grant of $121.9 million this month.
How much will that help the economy? Hard to tell since the
registered owner of said windfarm is a German ulility company.
Barton Wind Farm, Farmers City Wind Farm, Barton Chapel Wind
Farm, and Bull Creek Wind recieved a combined total of $332.32
million in federal grants. They are owned by a Portuguese cleantech
spin off called Iberdrola Renovables.

Congressman John Boozeman of Arkansas provided proof that ACORN
has recieved over $53 million in funding since 1994. His proof
comes from the
Office of the Minority Leader and analysis done there. The Wall
Street Journal claimed that one third of the 1.3 million voter
regirstration cards turned in by ACORN in the 2008 election
were invalid.

What is going on with TV news lately? Besides falling all over
themselves to get their daily dose of Obamaisms the Today Show got
really weird today. I honestly don’t care if Mackenzie Phillips
had sex with her father or not but the Today show spent way too
much time on the subject for my liking. If this is news then
I don’t think I’ll be watching much.
Comments are always welcome.

Just two things

The 50th Annual Polar Bear Regatta Sailboat Races on the Mississippi River at Lake Davenport Sailing Club, located on the river at the bottom of Bridge Ave and Oneida Street; look for signs at Oneida St. and River Dr.

This weekend, Sept. 26th and 27th, Skippers of the Class MC Scow 16 footers and Skippers of the Class C-Scow 20 footers will be vying for trophies during the 5 races taking place Saturday and Sunday. Trophies will be presented after the last race on Sunday.
Welcoming committee Friday: 5:30pm thru midnight and onward.
Race Times are: Saturday 10 am and 1 & 3 pm; Sunday: 9:30 & 10:45 am.

For more info on sailing, visit our website; phone Doc at 563-650-5645.

If you have something on your mind let us know. There are a lot
of things going on with health care, the flu shots, parking, crime,
and a bunch more.
Your comments are always welcome.

Flu or hype?

Doc sent me a Natural Health newsletter so I took a look. I’m
not sure what to think but if some of things in this newsletter are
true something is wrong. The edition he sent was titled “What to
so If You Are Forced To Take Swine Flu Shot”. It was written by a
Dr. Mercola and he makes some pretty amazing claimes.

One such claim is what is actually in the shot. According to Dr.
Mercola a flu shot contains egg proteins, geletin, Polysorbate 80,
formaldehyde, Triton X100, sucrose, resin gentamycin, and Thimerosal.
If this is true it sounds pretty scary to me.

The newsletter also says that the H1N1 outbreak is a non-issue and
won’t be nearly as bad as some are saying. Some observations include
that doctor visits for the flu are down, hospitalization for the flu
are average or below, death rate is unchanged, 2 states have wide-
spread infections; Georgia and Alaska, there is no evidence that
the virus has mutated, the virus can be treated with Tamiflu, there
have only been 43,771 cases reported in the United States, many who
got infected didn’t feel sick enough to see a doctor, and of all
cases 5,011 were hospitalized and 302 died.

The percentage of hospitalized patients who died of H1N1 is 6 percent, but in the general population the death rate is 0.03 percent. There are also figures on death rates by age, hospitalization rates, and others.

Here is a link to the newsletter. I don’t know this doctor but his newsletter is impressive looking. So is the pandemic a reality or hype? Since I’ve never gotten a flu shot before this isn’t enough to get me in line now.
Comments are always welcome.

A thought

I have managed to miss the Obamathon over the weekend. It just
seems to me that when the going gets tough, this guy starts talking.
Is he trying to bore his opponents into submission? Here is somethng
I’ve noticed.

The health care debate is still being waged and one of the tactics
is the claim that socialized medicine wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
President Obama himself cited the Post Office as a form of socialism
that works. Others have mentioned Medicare, schools, social security,
and our police and fire departments.

I’d like to give my opinion on this arguement. The post office is
a bad choice to prove competency. An agency that has been around
for over 200 years, constantly raises prices faster and higher than
the public sector, loses money, and can’t compete with UPS or FedEx.

Social Security has been around for almost 75 years and the government keeps raising the retirement age because it’s going bankrupt.

Medicare and Medicade have been around since the mid ’60s. Both are in peril of going broke and according to our President, Medicare has hundreds of billions of dollars of waste per year that can be cut to
fund his new plan. And the President says doing this won’t affect
services.

I put schools, the police departments and fire departments in a
separate category. My main reason for this is because the local
government usually governs them. Police and Fire departments are
necessities to any safe community just as the military is needed
to keep the country safe. I have no problem there.

Schools are also needed but our current system bleeds money and is
inefficient. We have the highest schooling costs in the world and
we have kids graduating high school who can’t read well, need prep
classes to attend college, drop out, or otherwise fall through the
cracks. Granted there are a lot of graduates who don’t have these
problems, but too many do.

If our government wants to push tort reform, make prescriptions more
affordable, and tweak the system I’m all for it. But with all the
pandering to special interest I don’t believe this bill will help
with health care costs and may actually raise them.
Comments are always welcome.

A little update

I failed to mention a few things that were mentioned at the Ward meeting so here goes. It seems that the sprayground may not become a reality now after all. Some at City Hall are having second thoughts about a project that costs $2.6 million dollars and could only be used about four months out of the year. Concern was also raised about a free admission water attraction competing with the swimming pools.

Alderman Lynn also mentioned that if anybody sees a pair of tennis shoes hanging from power lines, phone lines, or cable lines to call him.
This is supposed to be a signal that a drug dealer is in the area.

This weekend is going to be a first in my memory. President Obama
is going to be on TV more than Regis Philbin. If you are a fan I’m
sure you’ll pop popcorn, as for myself I’m going to get busy being
busy. There is not much anyone could say to convince me that
healthcare reform will be nothing more than a bandaid on a broken
leg.

Being politically correct now appears more important than just
being correct. If you catch someone in a lie it is now not
popular to call them on it. Liar does seem like a harsh word
though so perhaps it should be changed. If anyone is taking a
poll on what to replace “liar” with, I nominate reality challenged.

And lastly we, the American citizens, are responsible for our
problems just because we’ve put up with the nonsense. We listen
to all the lies the government throws at us, put up with their
endless spending on frivilous pet projects, and keep silent
while we re-elect them to pick our pockets for another four
years.
Comments are always welcome.

Story and ward meeting

A story that made both the QC Times and the Dispatch/Argus is proof positive that fact is stranger than fiction. The original story was that a good samaritan saved an 11 year old girl from a pervert. Now that the facts are out it seems both of the guys are going to be doing time.

The “good samaritan” who is 40 years old now appears to be a con man. He is now accused of using the 11 year old to rob the 60 year old who was trolling for hookers. The girl made up the abduction story so as not to get into trouble. Hopefully the little girl has a learned a
lesson on who to associate with and both men are in jail.

At the 5th Ward meeting last night several subjects were touched on
so I thought I’d mention a few while they are still in my head. The
mobile police trailer is around 12th and Perry streets to help clean
up the area. We were also told that one of the collages is going to
build a 74 unit building in that area to rent to students.

A lot of talk centered around sewer laterals and a plan to have the
city do the repairs at a cost of $1 a month to property owners. There
were several people there who already had this problem of a collapsed
sewer line and nobody spoke up against the idea. When Alderman Lynn
brought the subject up he told us the City Council wasn’t for a fee
hike during an election year. Even though we just had this problem
we’d be all for this if it were passed.

The Davenport NOW and NEW programs were discussed and both were reported to be doing well. There are a lot of grants and tax breaks for those who want or need to have work done.

Another thing mentioned was the need of people to call 911 when
there is a problem in their neighborhood. This really helps if a
nuisance abatement is needed. Calling 911 also leaves a record of
complaints and that doesn’t hurt.

More issues were discussed but since I haven’t had a gallon of
coffee yet I don’t remember them. I also left before the meeting
was over as I had other commitments.
Comments are always welcome.

Head scratching

I’ve noticed a few things lately that have me scratching my head
and wondering whats going on. The Acorn tapes have been shown
and some people have seen them but what do they mean? Now
the videos seem almost like the movie “Friday the 13th”. How many
sequels do we need?

Congress seems to have its priorities screwed up. Representative
Wilson shouted “you lie” to the President during a speech, appoligizes
twice, and they waste time to slap his wrist. With everything some
of his fellow lawmakers are getting away with this seems petty.

Then there is the healthcare bill. This thing is laughable. Only this
group could take a good idea with good intentions and totally turn it
into gibberish. How can these people be so clueless when some of them claim they’ve wanted this healthcare bill for 40 years?

I don’t care for the part that makes it mandatory and if you don’t
have insurance you get a heavy fine. Well, if you can’t afford the
insurance how can you afford the fine?

Once again I wonder where the leaders are. This administration has
proven it can spend money and talk, now lets see some action.
Comments are always welcome.

Dangerous cities

Recently I did a post on a site that listed the 100 most dangerous
U.S. cities. At the time of the post I stated that the figures weren’t
mine and I didn’t know if they were true or not. On the site,
Neighborhood Scout,
it stated that the town of Edinburg, Texas was number one. Here are
the numbers for that city (figure are for 2008)-

population- 71,734
285 violent crimes
3 murders
21 forcible rapes
69 robberies
192 aggravated assaults
4,306 property crimes
846 burglaries
3,082 larceny thefts
378 motor vehicle thefts
27 arsons

According to the site Council Bluffs, Iowa was number 35. Here are
the numbers for Council Bluffs-

population 60,108.
415 violent crimes
3 murders
68 forcible rapes
66 robberies
278 aggravated assaults
4,237 property crimes
866 burglaries
2,957 larceny thefts
414 motor vehicle thefts
54 arsons

Davenport, Iowa was listed at number 89 and here are those numbers

population 99,070.
794 violent crimes
6 murders and nonnegligent manslaughters
46 forcible rapes
199 robberies
543 aggravated assaults
5,747 property crimes
1,283 burglaries
4,153 larceny thefts
311 motor vehicle thefts
33 arsons

Some questioned why New Orleans, Chicago, Newark, Cleveland,
East St. Louis and Washington, DC weren’t on the list. I don’t
know because I didn’t make the list. I do know I could find
no data for East St. Louis. I will list the other cites here-

Chicago population was 2,829,304
violent crime data was not available
510 murders
forcible rape was not available
16,653 robberies
17,032 aggravated assaults
131,053 property crimes
26,041 burglaries
86,043 larceny thefts
18,969 motor vehicle thefts
637 arsons

Cleveland population was 433,452
6,193 violent crimes
102 murders
423 forcible rapes
3,804 robberies
1,864 aggravated assaults
25,071 property crimes
9,102 burglaries
10,686 larceny thefts
5,283 motor vehiclt thefts
532 arsons

New Orleans population was 281,440
2,869 violent crimes
179 murders
65 forcible rapes
1,085 robberies
1,540 aggravated assaults
14,880 property crimes
4,591 burglaries
7,081 larceny thefts
3,208 motor vehicle thefts
no data available for arsons

Newark, NJ population was 279,778
2,660 violent crimes
67 murders
51 forcible rapes
1,387 robberies
1,155 aggravated assaults
9,750 property crimes
2,000 burglaries
3,996 larceny thefts
3,750 motor vehicle thefts
no data available for arsons

Washington, D.C. population was 591,833
8,135 violent crimes
186 murders
186 forcible rapes
4,154 robberies
3,609 aggravated assaults
28,759 property crimes
3,781 burglaries
18,787 larceny thefts
6.191 vehicle thefts
no data available for arsons

There is no data for East St. Louis.

The numbers here came from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for
2008. To find these cities, or others in any state click here.

I find it interesting that these numbers don’t agree with the list.

Comments are always welcome.