I was recently replying to a fellow Christian who is happy about the new healthcare law.  I thought I would share that reply with everyone: While the sound of healthcare for everyone may appear like such a blessing for those that cannot afford it, there is a dark side to it. Some people may not quite understand all that is wrapped up in this, it is not just that everyone will have health coverage. If you do not mind, here is a just a few: First, our government was not formed to take care of us,...

I am not one for legal battles, but some companies need to bring legal actions against eBay for their blatant disregard for copyrights.  Every day there are hundreds of listings on eBay with pirated, demo promo or “Not for resale” software.  Even when you report it, days later the listings are still going and more and more of this junk is sold. Here are a couple examples: (1) Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Standard (New Sealed) for and SQL Server 2008 Developer only $99 The Standard version by itself is around $250.  So how is this...

I have been a registered Republican since I was about 19 or 20 years old and am going to be 48.  Over those years there have been some bad choices out there, but this last election year was the biggest joke of them all, putting old man McCain against Obama who had the youth vote.  Not only was age and perception against the election, McCain is no Republican, at least not in the real world.  I know, they were hoping to move a little to the left, but the sold out and lost the election with a landslide! Okay,...

I am beginning to think the terms “Stimulus” and “bail out” will soon be those on most people’s banned word list.  There was a cartoon in our local paper a while back that had a sea of people as far as you could see surrounding the Capital with a guy standing with a megaphone asking the question “Is there anyone here NOT looking for a bail out?”.  That is about what has happened, it is a new gold rush, but on government money which we do not have.  Do you think we have reached a level of stupidity greater than...

I know many see a financial crises here in the USA, and there are different answers, but have they chose the correct ones? First, I believe most of our current issues would have been solved but our government place a rate limit on any loans of 7%-9% nation wide.  This would have made it possible for those with buying homes who have been hit by high interest rates to continue to pay off those loans and not lose their homes.  This would have been at zero cost to the tax payer.  That was not government's solution… The...

More and more bailouts!  Does this stupidity every stop?  Someone, quick, pinch me, this really is not happening right?  Come on, this has to be a nightmare!  The word of the day kids is “Trillion”, that is “$1,000,000,000,000”.  Yep, we are quickly heading to reach eleven of those in debt.  That is more than $33,000 per living USA citizen.  If you are a family of five, your household debt run up by the government will soon be, over $166,000!  Makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over right?  NOT! Since we have a GDP of about $14,000,000,000,000 (14 trillion),...

Today, I spotted an article that gives a clue of who really wants Obama for our president: http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=17419 Yep, Hamas Palestinians are making calls for Obama to help get him elected… Add to this France’s Sarkozy’s comments on Obama: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1031943.html Then there is the supporters of Obama such as Jesse Jackson in this post on Jewish Chronicle: http://www.jewishchronicle.org/article.php?article_id=10765 The article quoting Jackson as saying : “Decades of putting Israel’s interests first would end,” he said. “Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades would lose a great deal of...

As probably the last post I will make on this election, it looks like another fun filled election with the only resort to vote for Mr. "None of the above".  I personally do not feel either candidate listed is responsible nor worth to run this country.  Yes, I will give that McCain did an awesome job for his nation in his military service, but the job he did on his first wife, the job he did in the Keaton Five and the job he does in flip-flopping (sometimes within minutes) is a disservice to this country. Anyone who...

GM is planning on producing the Chevy Volt in late 2010 (if they can stay in business until then).  The car is a electric/gas hybrid, but will come with a household plug to be able to charge the battery.  By charging the battery, you are supposed to achieve up to 40 miles before the gas motor engages to charge the batteries to power the vehicle.  The thought is that many people will travel less than 40 miles per day, thus allowing for zero gas usage. For more information see: http://wot.motortrend.com/ 6285981/green/volt-watch-gm-gives-details-on-plug-in-hybrids-battery There are some interesting posts...

I sure get tired of these games.  Here oil prices have been dropping like like a rock as far as barrel prices are concerned, but what about the pump?  Just tonight, I looked again and the price per gallon is $3.30.  This is pure rip off, but hey, that is nothing new! So, lets go back in history a bit and take a look.  Here is an article from 2005 when prices had climbed to near $60 per barrel (yes, I know ours is around $70, but that should not make this much of a difference): http://www.sptimes.com/2005/06/21/ Business/Price_of_oil_nears_60.shtml...

Browsing around yesterday, I came across this article on CNN about the Joe the Plumber junk, I mean the guy turned out not to even have a license and still all this talk.  http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/ 10/16/joe.plumber/index.html It really all comes down to raising taxes.  Yes, I have heard the dribble about 95% of the people getting a tax break not a tax raise, but you want to know a secret?  It is a JOKE!  Yep, a joke and it is on the poorer people of the nation.  It ALWAYS is on the poorer people and not the rich. ...

As the flag to the right appears to be a bit tattered and torn, slowly falling apart at the seams, so to our wonderful USA has become tattered and torn, and we also appear to be falling apart at the seams.  Why does this happen, what is the cause? Perhaps it is out of neglect, those that we have appointed to watch over our treasured land have fallen to sleep and no longer pay attention to the signs of stress or the needs to be repaired to weather what we must go through over the years ahead to provide a...

It is really getting insane around this country lately.  Now there is the battle over the bag!  With all the woes that our nation is undergoing, is it really the time to FORCE everyone away from plastic grocery bags? When the plastic bag came along, I thought it was great.  Here we have a device that can hold more than my old paper bags without ripping along with the added bonus that if something spills in the bag, it would stay in the bag, cool!  Yes, there is an issue that the bags do not stand up like paper...

There are a number of elected government officials that seem to care more about their pockets and those of their friends than the good of our nation.  This trend appears to have been going for many years now.  Government officials and large corporations seem to be running everything, at the cost of our nation they claim to support. Let is take a snapshot of our country at the moment.  Once we were a nation of producers and now we have become a nation of consumers.  In the past we actually had a manufacturing sector and now we have an Import sector...

On of our biggest problems is not that there is a fuel shortage but rather that almost all vehicles on our roads require fossil fuels.  We cannot use other forms of energy such as hydro, wind, solar or nuclear as our vehicles only run on fossil fuels. The answer is to grow the number of electric/hydrogen vehicles on the roads.  This will allow us to use electricity generated from various sources, even fossil fuels if needed.  We would no longer be at the hands of groups who want to control a given form of energy, as long as we can generate...

Over the next couple of years, computer interfaces will drastically change from our current model of a monitor and keyboard.  Some might think we will always have the keyboard, but that may not be the case.  Already, in Windows Vista, dictation is quite usable.  Add to this, the new forms of multi-touch graphic user interfaces and things will be finally moving ahead.  Following the link below, you will see lower in the article, a video of coming attractions which will be included in the next version of Windows.  Pretty cool stuff if you have a compatible screen.  I...

I received this in email today and thought I would share.  Some might have already received  an email, but for all of you who have not:     House #1 A 20 room mansion ( not including 8 bathrooms ) heated by natural gas. Add on a pool ( and a pool house) and a separate guest house, all heated by gas. In one month this residence consumes more energy than the average American household does in a year. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over $2400. In natural gas alone, this property consumes more tha n 20 times...

I had a video sent to me in email and tracked down the source of it.  The video was about handling an oil fire on the cook stove.  While I could not find the exact video at the site they do have some interesting ones.   First,  word about what to do with an pan of oil on fire.  Do not throw water on it.  Do not use a fire extinguisher either.  Wet a towel and ring it out then cover the pan and let it cool down.  Do not try to move the pan. Here is...

To be taken seriously, Huckabee needs to come out and announce that he is not seeking a VP slot and that he will not take one if offered.  That would stop the talking heads for continuing to rip him up as only seeking the VP position. Additionally, he really needs to make it clear he is targeting a Brokered Convention so that they get off the spin that he cannot 'win" the delegates. These two things would help defuse most of the negative press that has gone on the last week or so. Probably too late for...

Everywhere you look, you hear about Ronald Reagan and not just the Republican party, but everywhere.  Yes, he accomplished much and set the bar high.  This campaign you hear people comparing the Republican candidates to Reagan.  What I put forth is something where many might not agree, but I feel this year we might have a "Greater than Reagan" running for office.  Yes, I think Huckabee could be a "greater than Reagan" over the long haul, if he is given the chance.  At every turn this man has been torn down and ripped up.  By the Democrats?  No,...

This election season opened my eyes to many facts.  One of the most saddening is there is no on running that believes in protection for our nation of the working class.  Yes, I used the word "protection" and that is a word that should ring throughout every hall of our government! People treat Protectionism as a plague, they run for the hills chanting their mantra  "Global Economy, Global Economy, that is the answer".  They have been drinking the Kool-Aid of globalism again.  The have been deceived into believing with our capitalistic structure that globalism is the answer and it...

Today, I sent an email to a legitimate email address in a reply to the message they sent me.  For some reason my utility called HotMail Popper (smtp/pop3 connector to Hotmail accounts), did not want to send the message, so I sent it using another email account of mine that uses me Mail Enabled mail server.  When the message was sent I received back a message from my Mail Enabled server software saying that the message had been delayed 30 hours and could not deliver the message at this time because "mailwash10.pair.com" could not be contacted at this...

I find it hard to believe adults running for office cannot even keep to their share of time in debates.  While some find it interesting when people overtalk the clock and attack others, I feel it is more of a waste of time and makes them appear like a spoiled child.  It would be wonderful to see a debate where their audio is shot off when the clock runs out.  It would not take long for them to catch on and make sure they can finish in time.  Another issue I have in debates is attack comments.  Romney this year has been...

Yep, I am a Huckamaniac and have been for some time!  From all that I have heard from him, there is only one choice at this point. I keep up with what is going on in the camp every day.  There have been some attacks, but as popular as he is getting that should be expected. To me, Huckabee is the only one running that acts real.  The rest seem to have that old politics face on and really spend a lot of words saying very little.  For Huckabee though, he seems more down to earth and maybe at times a ltitle...

Our health care system in this country is just plain corrupt.  Some would try to tell you that everyone in the USA needs goverment sponsored health care.  This would be one of the biggest mistakes this country has ever made.  Why? The current health care system has no sense of reality.  Most medical providers have overcharged for so long they do not have a concept of cost.  We have all heard of the horror stories related to inflated medical costs.  They still continue! In our local newspaper this week, a person wrote into the "letters to the editor" section about a recent...

Today I was checking out a few numbers and thought I would look up GDP and our population.  The GDP is estimated at $13 Trillion (for those that do not think in large numbers it is $13,000,000,000,000.  There are supposed to be around 111,000 households in the USA.  Doing simple math it would break down to over $117,000 per year per household! I know that the GDP cannot be viewed as simple income, but what kind of ballpark are we looking at when the wealth of the USA is broken down and divided up by household?  It appears many people live far...

While I have been busy the last week or so and have not had a lot of time to write a post, I just got so fed up, that I thought I was going to explode, so I will do it here . Just a few weeks ago, Bush came under fire for commuting the sentence of Libby, and Hillary made remarks about this (even though her unfaithful husband, who was the first President to perjure himself and nothing happened, no jail time or anything), had a Party giving out pardons. Today, Democrats are upset because they think the Republican Senator...

There is an indirect friend of mine that has battling for years just keeping his daughter alive through medical problems.  I ask you to visit his site and share it with others you know.  It is important, or I would not be making posts about it! http://www.readytogiveup.com/  

Okay, if you have read this blog before you know I am overly opinionated.  But to use a term from Glenn Beck (CNN), “I am a thinker”.  To me it seems obvious how to solve many issues we see in our nation today.  Simple logic answers most issues.  Here is a bit of a recap of what floats around in my mind when I hear any of these topics come up in the world today.  Covered here is Energy (in different forms), health care, the economy, minimum wage, educational systems and welfare.  While this is a large amount of topics,...

The two main topics on my mind today was the troops in Iraq (covered in the previous posts) and the new trade issues with China.  That latter stirred back up nagging issues that have bothered me for ages, the main point, do we really need trade? I know it is hard to imagine the USA without any trade (import/exports), after all there has been trade since the beginning.  But what really does the USA need from outside our borders that we cannot provide from within?  No, I really do not know for sure, but I have an idea a large portion...

Right up front, I do not believe in war which I will try to post more about in the future in my ChristianLife blog.  That said though, I think it is far worse to keep going the ways things are currently going.  We are stuck in the muck over there and it has become all politics. What is the solution?  To start with, at the first sign of issues we should have moved with large numbers so that the threat would have been brought out to justice instead of keeping troop levels low and allowing for so many to die.  They...

In our country today, the healthcare costs are insane.   For many people without insurance, they end up depending on the emergency room for their medical needs, which can cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars each time.  The last time I was uninsured and had to visit the ER due to a lung infection that caused me to pass out from coughing, the physician charged over $300 for the two to three minutes he took to prescribe a $70+ bottle of cough syrup that did not even work.  That one trip cost me over $1,200 to sit on a gurney...

In our local newspaper, they had a question to “Word on the Street“ column where they stop and ask a few people what they think about different issues.  The follow is a recent question and what reply I sent into the paper.  For some time now I have been meaning to post about this but have just been too busy! How can Americans become less dependent on foreign fuel? I agree with others that we need to move to resources such as bio-fuels, geothermal, solar and wind energy, but these all long term solutions.  For the short term, I would suggest determining...

Our local newspaper had an article this last week, about a man in the area who some call “Doctor Diesel”.  He wants to share information on how easy it is to run biodiesel along with other alternatives.  While I found the article interesting, I was surprised to hear algae may be a possible replacement to fossil fuels.  We have a large lake here in Klamath Falls Oregon that is full of algae and it has been more of a burden than a blessing.  Even though the type of algae they are researching to use for energy is not the same...

Yet again today, I noticed a vehicle in front of me with a big "support our troops" sign along with flags including a good-sized one attached to the passenger windows, a "Real" patriot, perhaps?  Not in my books, it was nothing more than lip service to me as they were driving a late model foreign built vehicle.  Yes, I am dead set against buying foreign products when we have similar products manufactured here in the USA.  Every dollar spent on foreign products weakens our own country and our sovereignty.  You might be asking how this affects our sovereignty.  When we...

What do you think, do you plan to purchase a hybrid or electic vehicle in the future? Vote: http://myquickpoll.com/?P=Vote&ID=219   

Today, I was informed about a story on 20/20 about Costco company.  With a quick visit to the 20/20 website, I find the video to watch online and you might want to check it out (or at least the text article): http://abcnews.go.com/2020/ http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Business/story?id=1362779 It was an interesting interview with Costco CEO, Jim Sinegal.  What a pleasure to hear about a company that believes in paying there workers a wage they can live on (unlike Wal-Mart) along with many other positives.  Ones that topped my list: Wage around $17 per hour (triple minimum wage in many parts of the USA) Full medical, dental, vision, life and Rx plans for even...

Recently a letter appeared in the "letters to the editor" section of our local newspaper about an issue I have strongly feelings (one of many issues, I guess you can say I have "issues" :) ).  The letter addressed the lack of products made in the USA in today's world and the fact that we have made our country one of a consumer and not a producer.  I could not agree more! I remember back in the 70's when inexpensive products made in Japan decimated our manufacturing sector. The experts told us, we were moving into a "service" industry age and...

Hurricane Katrina is all over the news every day.  During the first few weeks, there was a common thread that appeared as people tired to locate or receive information about friends or loved ones.  You would see people on the news trying to get the spotlight in hopes of locating others.  The terror that runs through a person's mind when they do not know where their loved one are at or if they are even alive. The thought that comes to my mind is that there needs to be a national system setup that will be a virtual posting wall to...

If you are a conservative and stand for Christian values, you might feel at times that your locked into a single party to vote for on election day as the democratic party seems to stand for values such as abortion and the removal of all references of God in government and public places.  There is another option however… This last election, I noticed the "Constitution Party" (which is actually how I voted on several local and national offices).  Reading through what they stand for, I seem to agree with most things.  While there are a few things I do not agree...

Today I was reading the following blog post: http://thewideawakes.org/archives/2005/03/06/cracker/ I tried to post this message to the blog, but it kept generating a PHP error.  Anyway, I thought it would make for a post on my blog at least. Since my post was typically a bit long, I moved it to the articles section.  You can find it here: http://ReflectedThought.com/articles/195.aspx

 I recently read a rumor that Google is attempting to track people and link all their search queries along with other information, which they supposedly retain forever (or at least until some time in the future).  The site http://www.google-watch.org/gcook.html) has many different thoughts about Google and their practices along with other entities.  While I do not agree with the notion implied that the Internet was degraded by commercialism (as I see it, the commercialism of the Internet is what pays for interesting things to be online), I am concerned about the possible Google tracking, if it is true. Google is unlike...