Brads Blog

I read an article written by Howard Dean today, where he goes on about how the Democrats will retake control of the House and Senate in 2006. Is this typical rhetoric? Possibly, but he may be on to something. What do you think?

I learned about the foXpose on Lifehacker Blog. It seems like a really cool extension for Firefox. It basically lets you see several browser windows open at a time, by using an icon in your status bar or shortcut keys control/shift/X.

I had to install the latest version of Firefox(1.5)and then intalled the plugin. The problem that I have, is that it doesn’t seem to work. It went through the motions like it installed, and I see the icon in the status bar like I should, but can’t get the panes to come up.

You might have heard about the expensive bridges Senator Ted Stevens wanted to build in Alaska that cost over 220 million bucks. By the way, this is not the first time I have blogged about this guy and his shady pork diet.

Well, enough people got word of it and here’s the story:

CAGW Reacts to Axing of Alaska Bridges

(Washington, D.C.) – Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today cautiously applauded news that earmarks for two bridges in Alaska could be removed from the conference version of the fiscal 2006 transportation appropriations bill. Though the final conference report has not been finalized, Sen. Ted Stevens’ (R-Alaska) office has told the Associated Press of a tentative agreement that will eliminate the mandates that $229 million be spent on “Don Young’s Way” and $223 million be spent on the “Bridge to Nowhere” linking Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents. Alaska will still get the money as part of its allotment under the federal highway formula, but the projects will have to compete with the state’s other transportation priorities.

“Congress should eliminate all the earmarks and cut the bloated highway bill by 10 percent or more,” CAGW Vice President David Williams said. “Projects should receive funding only through a competitive process, not based on the whims of narcissistic members of Congress.”

Signed into law in August, the Transportation Equity Act (H.R. 3) authorizes spending $286.4 billion over the next six years. The bill includes $24 billion for 6,500 pork-barrel projects, amounting to 9 percent of total spending. In place of spending $223 million on the “Bridge to Nowhere,” the federal government could buy every resident of Gravina Island a Lear jet. Other projects in the highway bill include: $16 million for the Briggs-Delaine-Pearson Connector (also referred to as a “Bridge to Nowhere”), connecting two rural counties in South Carolina despite the fact that another bridge already exists 10 miles down the river; $2.75 million for the National Packard Museum in Warren, Ohio; $2 million for construction of a parking lot at the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas; $1.6 million for completion of the American Tobacco Trail in North Carolina; $600,000 for horse trails in Scott County, Va.

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) has introduced legislation (H.R. 4071) that would allow states to disregard earmark instructions and spend federal transportation funds as they see fit. It would also rescind 10 percent of funding in the bill for deficit reduction and to offset hurricane recovery spending. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) proposed two amendments to eliminate highway pork. The first amendment would have rescinded funding for the two Alaska bridges and redirected $125 million of the savings to hurricane recovery in the Gulf Coast. The second amendment targeted $950,000 for a parking facility for a private museum in Omaha, Nebraska, $500,000 for a sculpture park in Seattle, Washington, and $200,000 for an animal facility in Westerly, Rhode Island. The Senate rejected both amendments to the Transportation, Treasury, HUD, Judiciary, and District of Columbia Appropriations Act (H.R. 3058) by votes of 18 to 82 and 13 to 86. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) threatened to resign from the Senate and declared that he would “be taken out of here on a stretcher” if the amendment passed.

“The elimination of the Alaska bridge earmarks is a small victory for every taxpayer who protested this ridiculous waste of their hard-earned money. Now if Sen. Stevens would only follow through on his threat, Christmas will come early for taxpayers,” Williams concluded.

Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, mismanagement, and abuse in government.

I saw the infomercial on tv the other day, and although I have no interest in purchasing this flashlight, I though I would do a little research on it and find out the real deal on it. I will spell out the pro’s and cons that I came up with.

In all fairness, I do not normally think too highly of “As seen on TV” products, as they are normally junk. However, I will try to be fair in this review.

First of all, they claim you do not need batteries. Well, from what I found, there are batteries in it, but not the kind you change out like in regular flashlights.

Pros-
1. This flashlight would be handy to have around but not for general use. This would not be the flashlight to use when working on a car or other work where you really need clarity on the subject.

2. You don’t need to buy batteries to put in it.

3. They seem to be built tough and shouldn’t break when dropped.

4. They are waterproof

Cons-
1. Shaking this thing for 30 seconds will give you about 5 minutes of light. Reviews I read on this are mixed. Some say the light is bright, but most say the light is very focused and fades rather quickly.

2. There is a large magnet in there, so you need to keep it away from anything that will be affected by the magnetic field.(tapes, electronics, etc.)

3. I’ve read several reviews where customers were double billed, or experienced poor customer service.

$20 for a flashlight like this seems a bit much. I’d rather have a high quality flashlight that runs on batteries.

Tucked away on the third page of the Sunday Paper, was an article about how congress is very close to finalizing a new welfare overhaul.
There are several things the government could do that would clamp down on abuse of the system, and save billions in the process.

I think it is too convenient for people to be on welfare. Do you even have to leave your house anymore? If you ask me, the welfare program has become too user friendly and politically correct.

When I’m at the grocery store, I see the neat little food stamp machines that accept food stamp credit cards (for lack of knowing what they’re actually called). Who pays for these, and are they there to make things a little bit easier for the food stamp user? Why not eliminate these terminals and go back to the old fashioned food stamps. If you’re going to be on food stamps, you should have to go pick them up somewhere.

The biggest idea that I had that would never make it. It should be mandatory that before you pick up your government check, you should be required to provide a urine sample for a drug test. If you test positive for any illegal drug, no check for you. I can hear it already. “That’s discrimination!” But is it? If you can’t afford supporting life and need government assistance, how can you afford drugs?

Why I’m on the subject, how many people would you think use a portion of their welfare check to buy alcohol or tobacco? I would guess it’s a lot.

I realize there are a lot of people out there that have genuine reasons to be on government assistance, but there are also a lot that abuse the system. I don’t want to see a bunch of elderly citizens hauled into the welfare office to pee in a cup. On the other hand, the woman that’s been sitting around making babies one after the other should.

I was reminded last night why I quit watching Bill O’Reilly. He claims to be a center of the road guy, and that may be the case. The problem I have with him is he blows things so far out of proportion, it’s not even funny. He’ll get all fired up, scream at people, and it seems so fake to me. Maybe they should call him “Hollywood” Bill O’Reilly.

Aside from all that, I could probably tolerate him a lot more if he wouldn’t go on for ten minutes talking about his books, websites, premium memberships and bloviating. It just gets on my nerves.

I guess I should bring you up to speed on my “diet” I’ve been on. I started 15 months ago. After watching the movie “Super Size Me!”, I became disgusted with fast food, and made the decision to lose some weight.

At that time, I weighed 208 pounds and was sporting Levi jeans size 38 (or a tight 36). I thought I would try the WebMD Weight Loss Clinic. It is an online program, and focuses on portion control. Initially, you fill out an online questionnaire, and answer questions about what kind of foods you prefer to eat. They take those inputs, and provide you with a weekly menu. The biggest part of this diet is documenting everything you eat, as well as any exercise you might do. For a while, I was gung ho about it. Even on my family vacation, I held strong. I was able to bring my laptop along with me so I could update my online journal.

Eventually, I grew tired of journaling my eating. So, after about a month of the WebMD Weight Loss Clinic, I gave it up. However, I stayed on the general eating schedule. I would eat loads of green vegetables, and began watching calories, fats, carbohydrates and proteins. Chicken and Turkey are essential parts of my program, but admit I still have an occasional ice cream binge. I have become accustomed to this new way of life, and prefer not to call it a “diet”. I have taught myself that this is merely the way I eat. I can eat what I want. I found it is also very important to drink lots of liquids.

I brought up a good point at Thanksgiving Dinner last week, when there were a couple of family members who couldn’t eat pumpkin pie because they were on a diet. I told them that you don’t get fat from pigging out at Thanksgiving dinner and eating pie afterwards. You get fat by eating like it was Thanksgiving feast all the time.

Back to my update- About a month ago, I started an exercise regiment. I do strength training on a Bowflex system every other day. Twice a week I run for 30 minutes on a treadmill. I have noticed increased strength, and feel better than I ever have. This week, I weighed in at 175.4 pounds. My Levi’s size 34 fit good, and I think I might even be able to get into some 32’s, but I’m not ready for that quite yet.

Some people ask me what my goal is. I don’t have a goal. If I had a goal, what do I do when I reach it? Should I pig out like there’s no tomorrow? Get fat again then start all over again? No. Not me. I’m just going to eat the way I know is right. My goal is not to lose a certain amount of weight, but to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The weight will take care of itself.

If you didn’t listen to Michael Savage last night, you missed a good one. He flew off the deep end talking about Google Earth. He went on about how it should be shut down because of the security threat. I really don’t see what he’s talking about. Sure, Google Earth can zoom in on an address and give you exact latitude and longitude, but this is not new technology. The same result can be achieved with an $80 GPS device sold at any sporting goods store. I think he was just looking for something to get fired up about.

I thought this was interesting, here is Cindy Sheehan sitting with all the people who purchased her book,”Not One More Mother’s Child”. When I first saw this picture, I figured it was taken out of context and that maybe this picture was taken before the doors were open, but after doing a little research I found that that was not the case. This picture was taken during the mad rush.

You might remember seeing an email circulating around about the little girl that was found after the tsunami last year and didn’t remember who she was. I read on stuff that she had been identified.