New Guitar #1

My Ministar Rokstar showed up Tuesday.
Nice and compact in a reasonably-sized zippered nylon bag.
I pulled it out and tuned it up. A few things struck me:
1) The tuning machines feel solid and precise.
2) If the true test of a guitar is how it sounds unplugged, then Ministar is on to something. They claim that since [...]

How Do People Do It?

I’m unhappy.
There are reasons, of course.  If you go back and read some of the entries on my old blog, you’ll get a good idea of some of the stresses I’ve been through over the last few years.
I’m not going to go into details, but my stress scores have been well above 200 for the last seven [...]

There’s got to be a joke in this somewhere:

Quoting myself on another website:
Democrats/Liberals may spread their socialist ideology through their domination of schools, but they truly educate the populace about the efficacy of socialism every time they control 2 of the 3 branches of government.

It Begins

I didn’t think it would happen so fast, but there is a real, undeniable logic to the rehabilitation of President George W. Bush’s legacy.
He was a great President.  It may take decades before most people realize it, but he was a great President.

A Polite Society

So for my Masters Degree, I’m taking a class on Interagency Operations.  Despite the title, it seems to be less about government agencies and more about how humans interact in groups.  I learned quite a bit from “Bureaucracy” by James Q. Wilson.  I’m learning a little less from “Bowling Alone” by Putnam, but the basic [...]

I Agree, Sort of: You (unspecified) Don’t Deserve to be Rich

So says Matt Miller of the Daily Beast.
American capitalism is a meritocracy, they’ve always been told, a place where people basically end up economically where they deserve to. Yet you can’t open the paper nowadays without seeing screaming evidence that this notion is a fraud. Does former CEO Kerry Killinger deserve to retire to an [...]

Now is the Time on Sprockets Where We Ask Non-Politically Correct Questions…

On the previous piece about Octomom, a comment was left:
I blame Oprah for running shows on mothers who have 6+ kids in one go and receive public sponsorship from companies wanting to appear sympathetic. Clearly, octo-mom watched these shows and thought to herself how much free money and publicity she could receive if she topped [...]

Octomom: A Sign of Liberal or Conservative Illness?

I expected that she would incur the wrath of liberals who would lump her in with Gov. Palin and other Red-Staters who “have too many kids.”
I was all set to point out: she did it: a) without a father, b) with lots and lots and lots of liberal “Great Society” financial support.
But then it turns [...]

Moral Decline = Integrity Deficit…Maybe

Lots of people are upset about the housing market situation, and Obama’s bail-out of the irresponsible.
One such reaction, including my somewhat crotchety response to it, is here.
Here’s another round-up of thoughts, published by Jonah Goldberg, and all are in response to his post that owing more on a house than it is worth isn’t really [...]

Blogging in a Nutshell (Figuratively)

I get these little flashes of opinion/reaction at times, and I develop my reaction in writing on this blog.  I don’t always reach a final conclusion, and I rarely write well, and once I reach a final conclusion, I am usually too bored with the topic to continue writing about it.  Along the way, I [...]