I have heard about and seen several news articles about recent home break-ins.  So I started looking at more articles to see what the trend is.  Most of the time, it has been kids under 18 who have been doing this.  In some of the articles, adults accompanied the kids who broke into people’s houses. And needless to say, some of the adults and/or children have been shot and some died.  Just as some of the residents in the homes being broken into have been shot or stabbed to death. Some while they were sleeping.

Okay, if you want to break into my house, and I happen to be there, guess what? I am going to defend my house, and I am going to use all available means necessary to do that. I do not know, beforehand, if you have a weapon such as a gun and I do not know beforehand if you intend on shooting everyone in the house you find. I might give you a break and let you run out the door, but this old man does not intend on getting shot because you are an uneducated child and have no sense of right or wrong.

So if you break in, be prepared to accept the consequences of your actions.  If you are 10 or 40, you should already know that it is wrong to break in anywhere. If you don’t know this is wrong, you might get educated very quickly. Let me give you some advice. If you break into the wrong house, you may just get shot and then someone might ask questions afterwards.

Of course, you would expect parents to at least tell their children what is right and what is wrong. If not, then the parents have to accept some of the responsibility for not teaching their children basic things.  Unlike the parent, who, sorry to say had a child killed in a break-in, said, “I don’t think there is any reason he should have been killed over breaking in that house.” The child was a minor, accompanied by 2 other minors and an adult. Another person was sitting in the getaway car.  A planned break-in and one had a gun.

So, are there rules as to when you can shoot someone who is trying to break in? Several rules of gun ownership are: 1) Make sure you see what it is you are shooting at, and 2) don’t point a gun at someone unless you intend on shooting. Oh yeah, another rule is, don’t keep talking to the person you plan on shooting because they might shoot you, just like in most movies where the bad guy gets it in the end because they kept talking to the good guy who manages to take care of the bad guy.

Now don’t get me wrong. I do not like guns because I have seen what they can do. And I am truly sorry that people die from the use of guns.  But anyone will tell you that if you come across someone in your house that isn’t supposed to be there, you have little time to react to that situation knowing that person is not supposed to be there. You really do not have a lot of time to think about it, check an ID for age, etc.

And I like my house and what I have worked all my life for. So I am going to protect it, and even if I am stupid enough to think about breaking into someone else’s house, I am smart enough to know I might get hurt.

It is high time that people realized they are responsible for their own actions and that there are consequences to those actions, whether you see them immediately or not. But that is another blog….

Just remember would-be thieves, I am not as young as I once was, so I don’t have the luxury of quick thinking anymore. And I don’t have the gumption to decide whether or not you are friendly or foe.  Or if you are just too stupid to know you might get hurt.

And I do not rely on my dog for protection. All he does is sleep.  So I use him as a decoy. Long enough to get my bat, or whatever I can grab….

Yesterday was my last Sunday school class until the fall.  I’ll miss my 4th graders, that’s for sure!  As usual, I was running late, made a mad dash for the church, arrived (somewhat breathlessly) on time, and had a wonderful last class.

Unfortunately, afterwards, I had to get gas for the car — $57.63 worth of it.  Here’s what the sign should have said:

Well, I’m certainly not the only one feeling the pinch at the pump.   This being election season, our politicians (who apparently haven’t got a clue about economics), have decided to meddle.

John McCain wants to suspend the federal gas tax this summer, an idea that would take billions from the treasury meant for highway construction and mass transit.

If you’re interested in lowering the price of gas in the long term, this is a horrible idea (aside from depleting the federal highway fund, which doles out money for road projects nationwide).   High prices means we try to conserve as much as possible — remove the incentive, and we won’t be as inclined to conserve, which means that gas prices will continue to rise, and at a faster rate than they would without the tax “holiday.” And when the “holiday” invariably ends, motorists will be slammed with a sudden 20 cent jump in prices.  In that case, I figure we’ll see gas at close to $5 a gallon come fall.

Obama and Clinton are equally clueless. 

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama favor investigations into allegations of price fixing and promise to raise taxes on oil companies, and all three candidates want to stop adding oil to the country’s petroleum reserve.

Both democratic presidential candidates want to lower gas prices. At the same time, both want to heavily tax gas to raise money for social programs.  (Whereupon the gas companies will simply pass the cost on to us, the consumer.)  Can you say contradiction?  Apparently not if you’re a Democrat running for president.

On the other hand, maybe high gas prices are a good thing. I’ve always believed we are total idiots for buying oil from people who are trying to kill us. Maybe this will spark a crash program to get us off oil.  Prices in the $5 - $6 range should provoke some serious market demand…

I have been reading various articles about the price of oil and the effects on the economy. I can attest to some of the effects first-hand. All I have to do is look at my monthly utility bills. Alleged experts are now saying the price of oil could ”spike” to $200 per barrel.

Various corporations are complaining about the high cost of oil and that is why they are raising prices on everything.  Well, prices ARE rising, but I’m not so sure that oil is the entire reason for it.

You might notice I have previously talked about prices in relation to some “stimulus” occurring in our economy, like the minimum wage increase.  Increase wages in any manner and all of a sudden, prices for stuff like food, water, gas, etc., increases virtually overnight.  All you have to do is talk about it or read about the suggestion in the newspapers.

The way I see gouging is charging customers higher prices for needed items, knowing the customer has no control over the pricing, only for the purpose of high profit.  (I see other examples of gouging but that is another blog.). For an example, you have to buy diapers. And the food store chains know you have to buy diapers, because you have to have them. So they raise the price of the diapers. And price it so they can get a greatly enlarged and easy profit on the diapers.  They know you have no choice.  And profit is profit, right?

Now, I help run a business with the direction of my wife, of course, so I understand profit. It is something everyone wants or you can’t stay in business.  But when is the amount of profit equal to price gouging?  In my opinion, it is when the profit exceeds the actual cost of the product by more than 20%.  If it cost you $100 to produce a product, including overhead and all, and you charge $150 for the product, you just made $50 profit. Let’s see, that would be a 50% profit? (50/100). No, corporations say that is 33%. (50/150). Depends on the math you use and everyone knows you can use percentages in any fashion, just like I did.  Basic premise, but you get the idea.

Is this starting to sound familiar? Over the last 3 years, prices have been steadily going up for food and gas. Commentaries by various news agencies say that the percentage of increase in food prices has doubled in just the last 6 months compared to the annual increases over the last 20 years. Why?

I think it is another way for corporations to attempt to please their investors and Wall Street by showing that they are doing a great job making these wonderful profits, and therefore justify the huge wages they give their CEOs, etc.

In the meantime, the tax stimulus money is going out next week. If anyone thinks that everyone is going to go out and buy a bunch of stuff, and not use it to pay bills, raise your hands.  When my monthly utility bills exceeds my monthly mortgage payment, something is seriously wrong, so guess what? I’m am using the money to make sure I still have lights and have food in the fridge when the dust settles.

That is provided no one raises prices on everything again between now and Monday.  Yeah, right!

And I’ll hold my breath to see when they start dropping food and gas prices when oil prices goes down. Have never seen it happen, and probably never will.  I challenge any corporation to do that.

Personally, I think it is time someone challenged them…..

Gobelki Tepe is a hilltop sanctuary built on mountain ridge not far from the town of Sanlurfa in southeast Turkey, near the Syrian border.  Klaus Schmidt, a German archaeologist, found something astonishing: a temple complex almost twice as old as anything comparable on the planet.  

Compared with Stonehenge, they are humble affairs. None of the circles that have been excavated, four out of an estimated 20, is more than 100 feet across. Two of the slender, T-shaped pillars tower at least three feet above their peers.

What makes them remarkable are the carved reliefs of boars, foxes, lions, birds, snakes and scorpions that cover them, and their age. Dated at about 9500 B.C., these stones are 5,500 years older than the first cities of Mesopotamia and 7,000 years older than Stonehenge.

Nevermind wheels or writing, the people who erected them did not even have pottery or domesticated wheat. They lived in villages, but were hunters, not farmers.

One of the more fascinating developments in archaeology is the serious study of ancient ceremonial life.   Previously, “ceremonial objects” were the bits and pieces left over after archaeologists had identified arrowheads, cooking pots, etc.   Sometimes, these leftovers were exceptionally beautiful works of art, but it was considered unscientific to attempt to reconstruct the beliefs behind their creation and use.

Now, however, it’s generally recognized that ceremonial objects and structures can provide key insights into many facets of ancient cultures. In fact, some archaeologists think ceremony was the key to the origins of civilization.

To find such a large ceremonial center at such an early time period suggests that it was the need for communal rituals that first brought people together. Agriculture, pottery, domesticated animals and cities all came later.  Perhaps it was religion — mankind’s yearning for the transcendental, for Ultimate Truth, Beauty, Justice, Peace, Home, in other words, for God — and not technology that  led to the rise of civilization.

(hat tip: Archaeoblog)

Now, I feel like I have at least some reasonable intelligence.  Not brilliant, like a scientist, and I can count from one to ten, but even-so.

I have seen a lot of articles about global warming, and how the icebergs are falling apart, the world’s temperature is getting warmer, etc.

But you could have fooled me. This is Monday. We just finished a weekend that had snow, sleet, hail, sunshine, rain, freezing rain, and that was all on Saturday. And this is near the end of April. And that happened over and over all weekend, not necessarily in that order either.

So, what happened to the alleged global warming part? I know, the icebergs again. Well, being a sensible man who drinks a lot of iced tea, I know what happens to the ice cubes. They melt. Seems that is what happens anytime you have ice in water.

Now, as I said, I think I have a reasonable amount of intelligence, so here what I think.

As long as the common man sees snow in April, May, September, October, etc., the warming part does not seem to make much sense.  You will not be able to convince anyone that it is getting warmer as long as it gets cold, or colder.

After all, it doesn’t snow when it is warm, does it?  And I am still freezing….

When it comes to music or painting or writing, I know what I like.   But the whole concept of “art” has often left me frustrated. I’m not quite sure how to define what makes good art.  But there is a universal line in the sand between “true art” and “crap that is called art.”  True art, art that seeks a connection of souls, makes it harder to devalue and dehumanize one another. It reminds us what it means to be human.

And then there’s crap, so-called “art” that has no beauty, no connection between souls, nothing besides shock value.  A crucifix in a jar of urine, an elephant dung smeared icon of the Virgin Mary, a porcelain urinal.  That trend, unfortunately, continues.  There have been a rash of such stories this week.

An education major at the University of Maine at Farmington placed 5 large American flags on the floor and filmed people as they walked either on or around the flags.  How exactly is this art?  This is a political statement, not art.

Then there’s the Yale senior art student who told classmates that she had herself artificially inseminated as often as possible, then took legal, herbal abortifacient drugs and filmed herself in her bathtub cramping and bleeding from the miscarriages and used the blood for her senior art project.  (After a huge public outcry, Yale officials Yale issued a press release claiming that the student told the officials that she was actually a performance artist whose piece was nothing more than “a creative fiction” though she says otherwise.)   This is repulsive, not art.

And then there’s the photographer who has gained “notoriety worldwide for photographing thousands of people in the nude. Now he’s planning to pack a Vienna soccer stadium with 2,008 naked fans in the run-up to the Euro 2008 tournament.”  (Pssst, dude, just because it’s naked doesn’t mean it’s art.)

Let’s face it, “shock art” isn’t art.  It’s the crap you do when you don’t have talent.  When you don’t want to put effort into the finished product.  When all you want is to get your name in the news.  Or as Lynne Munson put it so brilliantly, “shock art is the safest kind of art that an artist can go into the business of making today. The real mavericks of our time have been working quietly and carefully for years in their studios producing wonderful work few people have seen.”

The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal awarded a former McDonalds employee $55,000 after she was laid off because she developed a skin condition from the frequent hand washing. To her credit, Ms. Beena Datt made three attempts to come back to work rather than collect unemployment and/or disability. However, after the third try, her doctor stated that she was unable to work in the restaurant industry, and McDonalds fired her.

One of my first jobs was working at McDonalds. Unless things have changed radically, there’s no position at McDonald’s that doesn’t involve food handling, at least to some degree. Except maybe the dishwasher and janitor, but Ms. Datt couldn’t do that kind of work (too much detergent and water). There are no hostess positions at McDonalds, and the drive-through window folks handle food too, though to a limited degree.

The really jaw-dropping part of the ruling however, is that the Tribunal found that “there was no evidence of the relationship between food contamination and hand-washing“! No relationship between hand washing and food contamination??? You’ve got to be kidding.  Where did these folks go to school?  They certainly must have all failed health class.  Or attended it before the 1840s.  Or do they think the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is full of baloney when it states that “It is well-documented that the most important measure for preventing the spread of of pathogens is effective handwashing.”

(And had Ms. Datt gone back to work at McDonalds without a requirement to wash her hands then this decision would serve as devastating evidence in a civil suit should anyone get food poisoning while she was working.)

I’d love to take the whole BC Human Rights Tribunal out for lunch prepared by people who don’t wash their hands. Wonder how many of them would take me up on that. Here’s a dare to the Tribunal — next time one of you visit your doctor, I’d like you to test the theory that there’s no relation between contamination and hand washing.

Sorry my Canadian friends, but I’m not eating at any BC restaurants. The people are wonderful, the scenery is spectacularly beautiful — but next time I visit, I’ll pack my own lunch, thank you.

But not Tax Freedom Day…  If you’re writing out your check to Uncle Sam, ponder this chart:

Hey Mr./Ms. Politicians (especially McCain/Obama/Clinton), here’s an idea for you. If you want to avoid the recession everyone keeps saying is coming, maybe you ought to cut tax rates for all Americans. It’s not rocket science. If I didn’t have to pay more in taxes than I do for housing, food and clothing COMBINED, than maybe I’d a have a bit more $$ to spend.

In 2008, Americans will work 74 days to afford their federal taxes and 39 more days to pay state and local taxes. Meanwhile, buying food requires 35 days of work, clothing 13 days, and housing 60 days. Other major categories are health and medical care (50 days), transportation (29 days), and recreation (21 days).

Frankly, I’d rather that the government had a little recession — you know, cut the pork, the entitlement programs, tighten their belts.  I’d rather pay for MY lifestyle, not THEIRS.

Or better yet, move Election Day to the Tuesday before April 15, just so we can remember, as we’re writing out our checks to the various taxing agencies, who we have to blame for it.  Or as Dave Barry explains it, “the Catfish Genome Project is crucial to achieving a vital national goal that we all share: reelecting the Alabama congresspersons who stuck it in the federal budget.”

At times, I get a kick out of the “paranormal” type goofy TV shows and supermarket checkout magazines.  I roll my eyes when people start seriously discussing Area 51 (unless, of course, they’re referring to centerfield when Ichiro is playing).   Big Foot, the Loch Ness monster, alien abductions, and Elvis sightings, are a hoot.  Yet sometimes you have to wonder. There’s this guy in Bosnia that has had his house hit by meteors. Yes, plural, as in more than one.  Five, to be precise:

The first meteorite fell on his house in November last year and since then a further four have smashed into his home. The strikes always happen when it is raining heavily, never when there are clear skies.

He said: “I did not know what the strange-looking stones were at first but I have since had them all confirmed as meteorites by experts at Belgrade University.

The University confirmed the tests to Annanova: they were meteorites. His conclusion?

“I am being targeted by aliens. They are playing games with me. I don’t know why they are doing this. When it rains I can’t sleep for worrying about another strike.”

Two, three times, I’d laugh but five? Hmm…

I admit it, I am a fan of American Idol. Not the beginning episodes, where we’re “treated” to one horrible singer with delusions of grandeur after another. I start watching when it gets down to the top 12. Time permitting of course. When time doesn’t permit, there’s YouTube.

Scoff if you will, but AI has given pop (whether pop, pop-rock, or pop-country), some great talents (Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and Chris Daughtry). Some good (Clay Aitken, Bucky Covington, Jennifer Hudson). Some mediocre (Kelly Pickler, Ruben Studdard, Taylor Hicks). And some bad (Blake Lewis — sorry, even if he grew up in my part of the state).

This week the show is down to the remaining eight contestants: David Archuleta and seven inevitable runners-up that are not named David Archuleta. See for yourself.