*SPLEEN VENT WARNING--YOU MIGHT WANT TO REMOVE CHILDREN AND SMALL ANIMALS FROM THE ROOM BEFORE READING FURTHER*
________________________________________________________
No doubt you’ve heard the same disgusting things I heard about the emergency response to the California wildfires, and how it differed from the response to Hurricane Katrina—particularly when the discussion turned to race.
I have to ask, “Oh really?” Funny how Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson never appeared in any of the coverage to denounce the lack of federal presence or even a FEMA representative on site.
The news crowd shots showed people of all races and ethnicities doing what they were supposed to be doing, and that is helping themselves—something you didn’t see much of in New Orleans until AFTER the water got to its highest point. People in the wildfire region evacuated when told to (sometimes beforehand), brought what they could in the way of emergency supplies (or at least their families), and even got the pets they owned to safe shelter away from the house. Not much of the same can be said for New Orleans.
Yes, political alignments have been brought up time and time again—Louisiana is a red state with a Republican leadership tier, while California is a blue state with a Republican governor and Democrat leadership tier. Political representation has nothing to do with it, unless you factored in priorities, and the degree of corruption that goes along with it.
Louisiana has been corrupt ever since we bought it from the French, and now we have a better understanding of why they sold it in the first place. California is much less corrupt, or at least Aaahnold has a better understanding of what needs to be done in emergency situations. Besides, he married into the Kennedy clan, so he doesn’t need any more money. Louisiana has a senator stashing money in his freezer—money that could’ve gone to helping build a reverse-911 system, build some sort of emergency communication system for fire fighters, police, and the governor, reinforcing levies, or maybe firming up an evacuation plan for the elderly, disabled, and those without a car.
You ask me, I say that race had absolutely nothing to do with the stark contrast in disaster outcomes, even though some news pundits would have you think otherwise. My opinion is that these particular people who quickly whip out the race card at any given moment are professional victimizers, hell-bent on ensuring they have a personal cause to champion as long as they have a job in front of the camera.
Natural disasters know no color, and an emergency response is a response to whoever needs it—regardless of color, income, or intent. Illegal aliens were receiving help at the Qualcomm Stadium and other shelters right along with everyone else who showed up. To single out a disastrous disaster response and accuse people of shortchanging blacks solely because of color and income level is ludicrous and laughable at best.
If you pundits out there waving the race card for ratings want someone to blame, look in the mirror. The so-called “forgotten” residents of New Orleans have learned their lesson with blood, sweat, and tears—they cannot and must not rely on anyone but themselves to get through an emergency. California residents live with emergencies all the time—little ones like earthquakes, and big ones like whole freeway overpasses going into flames and collapsing—and thus are ready to leave when word is given. Nobody there is waiting for anyone to rescue them, because they know nobody is coming.
Precisely because they know nobody is coming, they made all kinds of plans—plans for evacuation, plans for pets, and plans for rebuilding with some sort of insurance settlement. Some have already put their past plans into action by building their homes out of concrete and stucco—non-flammable materials. Those homes survived intact.
What did stranded New Orleans residents do? They started off by re-electing the same corrupt politicians who diverted compassion and funds to other projects (like a freezer). Then they relied on FEMA and Uncle Sam to make them whole again (always a bad move). Along the way, they looted stores and stole bread, along with other things.
While Katrina victims stole bread, the wildfire victims at Qualcomm Stadium were having cake and eating it too—the frosting being free massages, yoga sessions, a makeshift daycare center, clowns for the kids, and any other service that other evacuees could provide while they themselves waited for news of their house status. There was no murdering, no stampeding, no destruction of the stadium in which they were at, and above all, no panic.
One other thing I noticed was the stark contrast in health—the wildfire victims seemed healthier and younger than the New Orleans crowd. I realize health has to do directly with income, but it also seems to me that the better health one is in, the better response to crises one has. Adding this up, I get a better sense of why the Qualcommers had and made use of yoga, massage, and so forth. I also get a better sense of why the New Orlineans couldn’t seem to get out of their own way—they were behind the eight ball BEFORE the levy even broke! Topping that off, they only did for themselves, while the Qualcommers did for each other. Attitude is important--instead of getting free massages and daycare, they got stuck waiting for a bus to somewhere in front of a needlessly-destroyed stadium. These are two completely different versions of something for nothing--cooperative vs. opportunistic.
Rest assured that skin color had nothing whatsoever to do with the differences in response to this disaster—it was very much a game of preparedness. California just has more practice, and chose to adequately fund all the emergency response mechanisms it needs and has in place. New Orleans chose to look the other way while certain politicians’ pockets and freezers were lined, as well as remain silent while the boulevards and town squares were dotted with various monuments in tribute to people loosely tied to the sugar racket. A huge and obvious waste of money right there in plain sight!
Priorities, people…priorities! Unfortunately, those won’t garner network ratings for the ever-struggling pundits. The race card should have sharper edges, so the wielder gets cut every time he/she uses it attempting to go for our emotional jugular—maybe then they’ll know what real suffering’s all about.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Turning White Elephants into Work Horses
Long ago, a fellow blogger had a photo of a rather odd piece of furniture on the front page of her blog, and she was asking what it was, and for suggestions on how to reuse it, dismantle it and turn it into something else, or how to get rid of it. She is a very conscientious frugalite, and didn’t just want to heave it to the curb.
Well, the standard raft of answers about CraigsList, freecycle, and classified ads showed up, but I had another answer. First, a question.
“Where did this thing come from—where did it originate?”
She didn’t know. She bought it at a yard sale, thinking it was a low shelving unit with two small doors in it.
I correctly identified it to her as the hutch piece of a dresser/hutch or desk/hutch combination. This is the piece that sits atop a dresser or desk for additional storage on top.
She laughed and responded, “Oh—no wonder it sat so low!”
I continued to instruct her on ways of looking at this piece from fresh perspectives instead of just off-the-cuff, rushing to get rid of something before actually giving it a hard thought and a second look.
• Turn it on its side, step back from it, and look at it. Does this position reveal any new uses or places to you?
• Turn it completely upside down and do the same thing.
• Elevate it, or imagine it elevated on a wall, dresser, or desk, or even with legs under it. Got any ideas yet?
• Try laying it flat, and imaging it as the base for a big square coffee table—covering the front completely changes the look.
• Maybe the color is what’s so objectionable now—try painting it as well as repurposing it. Some new hardware might do more wonders.
I’m glad to report that the formerly-unusable low bookcase got turned into a shoe shelf/key caddy in her mud room. The unit now sits upside-down, and keys and other paraphernalia we all dump right after coming in now go into the little door compartments (now at the top of the unit), where they’re out of sight. Boots, out-of-season shoes, and garden sneakers go in the shelves. Needless to say, she was very happy about keeping this piece out of a landfill and off the curb—it’s now the first thing she sees coming in.
Well, the standard raft of answers about CraigsList, freecycle, and classified ads showed up, but I had another answer. First, a question.
“Where did this thing come from—where did it originate?”
She didn’t know. She bought it at a yard sale, thinking it was a low shelving unit with two small doors in it.
I correctly identified it to her as the hutch piece of a dresser/hutch or desk/hutch combination. This is the piece that sits atop a dresser or desk for additional storage on top.
She laughed and responded, “Oh—no wonder it sat so low!”
I continued to instruct her on ways of looking at this piece from fresh perspectives instead of just off-the-cuff, rushing to get rid of something before actually giving it a hard thought and a second look.
• Turn it on its side, step back from it, and look at it. Does this position reveal any new uses or places to you?
• Turn it completely upside down and do the same thing.
• Elevate it, or imagine it elevated on a wall, dresser, or desk, or even with legs under it. Got any ideas yet?
• Try laying it flat, and imaging it as the base for a big square coffee table—covering the front completely changes the look.
• Maybe the color is what’s so objectionable now—try painting it as well as repurposing it. Some new hardware might do more wonders.
I’m glad to report that the formerly-unusable low bookcase got turned into a shoe shelf/key caddy in her mud room. The unit now sits upside-down, and keys and other paraphernalia we all dump right after coming in now go into the little door compartments (now at the top of the unit), where they’re out of sight. Boots, out-of-season shoes, and garden sneakers go in the shelves. Needless to say, she was very happy about keeping this piece out of a landfill and off the curb—it’s now the first thing she sees coming in.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
An Investment in Life and the Family Orchard
Now that we know the root cause of chronic illness, and we know that a government-sponsored health care bailout plan isn’t going to help in any way, shape, or form (let alone a private plan), let’s set out to make a plan for our own long-term recovery and health insurance (or rather, ensurance).
Let’s call it a health problem retirement plan, only it doesn’t have an IRA component. This is how to make it work for you:
Step 1: Gather all the health information you can about your relatives at least three generations back. Find out who is allergic to what, who has what disease, who has what deformity, and find out where THEIR problems came from.
Step 2: Find out who lived when, what their life was like, and any particular hardships they endured (Depression, WWI or II, Dust Bowl, etc). Things like famine and rationing lead directly to things like diabetes and obesity susceptibility in future generations. Stress is also encoded into DNA, and can explain things like OCD, nervousness, and/or hypertension.
Step 3: Now that you have all pertinent information about the preceding generations, you can go online and find out how we take care of these issues today, because chances are very good you will experience some sort of effect from their genetic coding (if you aren’t already). At the very least, you can consider yourself forewarned, and begin planning to make adjustments in your eating and lifestyle to combat the onset.
Step 4: DON’T BE STINGY WITH THIS INFORMATION—let your kids and grandkids know what’s coming down the pike, and how to avoid it or offset it without resorting to expensive and sometimes hard-to-get health insurance (by the time they grow up, this will certainly be a reality). The more they know about their past family health history, the easier it will be to avoid, offset, or decipher symptoms and treat with eating or lifestyle changes. Assemble a health scrapbook or CD-ROM if you have to, so it can be handed down for future generations to add their own health information to it.
Step 5: Be sure you and your future generation know about the epigenome and how it works—this is VITAL information that concerns them and their future offspring. Changes in eating and living NOW, and continuous modeling and maintenance of those changes throughout the generations, will have considerably positive outcome decades from now. There’s nothing like paying it forward, is there?
Step 6: Like regular investments, put your health problem retirement plan on auto-pilot, and encourage the rest of the family to do the same—this will mitigate any backsliding and make the process of changing easier. Then you and future generations get to sit back and be Armchair Health Millionaires, reaping tons of dividends for all eternity.
This is what I will call an investment in life. The Family Orchard is when the family tree sprouts more trees—nice, strong, healthy, and vibrant trees that will make the need for Medicare, SCHIP, health insurance, and large hospitals obsolete. All it takes is a little knowledge, information assembly, and appropriate changes to combat the pests that may live within your family tree now. Like retirement or college saving, this is a long-term plan (whose results you likely won’t be around to see), but the long-lasting benefits will be shared by your grandchildren’s grandchildren and their grandchildren, and that’s a much better legacy to leave them than money or property any day. Best of all, we can do this ourselves starting TODAY.
As a species, we’ve allowed ourselves to get messed up at the DNA level with short-term behavior patterns, and it’s time to clean up. Science and technology have given us the way to do the most effective job with little comparative effort and cost—we’d be absolute fools not to take advantage of this opportunity.
The phrase “garbage in, garbage out” never had truer meaning than when applied to familial health, DNA, and the epigenome. Remember this next time you take a breath, a pill, a bite, a drink, or a hit of something.
Let’s call it a health problem retirement plan, only it doesn’t have an IRA component. This is how to make it work for you:
Step 1: Gather all the health information you can about your relatives at least three generations back. Find out who is allergic to what, who has what disease, who has what deformity, and find out where THEIR problems came from.
Step 2: Find out who lived when, what their life was like, and any particular hardships they endured (Depression, WWI or II, Dust Bowl, etc). Things like famine and rationing lead directly to things like diabetes and obesity susceptibility in future generations. Stress is also encoded into DNA, and can explain things like OCD, nervousness, and/or hypertension.
Step 3: Now that you have all pertinent information about the preceding generations, you can go online and find out how we take care of these issues today, because chances are very good you will experience some sort of effect from their genetic coding (if you aren’t already). At the very least, you can consider yourself forewarned, and begin planning to make adjustments in your eating and lifestyle to combat the onset.
Step 4: DON’T BE STINGY WITH THIS INFORMATION—let your kids and grandkids know what’s coming down the pike, and how to avoid it or offset it without resorting to expensive and sometimes hard-to-get health insurance (by the time they grow up, this will certainly be a reality). The more they know about their past family health history, the easier it will be to avoid, offset, or decipher symptoms and treat with eating or lifestyle changes. Assemble a health scrapbook or CD-ROM if you have to, so it can be handed down for future generations to add their own health information to it.
Step 5: Be sure you and your future generation know about the epigenome and how it works—this is VITAL information that concerns them and their future offspring. Changes in eating and living NOW, and continuous modeling and maintenance of those changes throughout the generations, will have considerably positive outcome decades from now. There’s nothing like paying it forward, is there?
Step 6: Like regular investments, put your health problem retirement plan on auto-pilot, and encourage the rest of the family to do the same—this will mitigate any backsliding and make the process of changing easier. Then you and future generations get to sit back and be Armchair Health Millionaires, reaping tons of dividends for all eternity.
This is what I will call an investment in life. The Family Orchard is when the family tree sprouts more trees—nice, strong, healthy, and vibrant trees that will make the need for Medicare, SCHIP, health insurance, and large hospitals obsolete. All it takes is a little knowledge, information assembly, and appropriate changes to combat the pests that may live within your family tree now. Like retirement or college saving, this is a long-term plan (whose results you likely won’t be around to see), but the long-lasting benefits will be shared by your grandchildren’s grandchildren and their grandchildren, and that’s a much better legacy to leave them than money or property any day. Best of all, we can do this ourselves starting TODAY.
As a species, we’ve allowed ourselves to get messed up at the DNA level with short-term behavior patterns, and it’s time to clean up. Science and technology have given us the way to do the most effective job with little comparative effort and cost—we’d be absolute fools not to take advantage of this opportunity.
The phrase “garbage in, garbage out” never had truer meaning than when applied to familial health, DNA, and the epigenome. Remember this next time you take a breath, a pill, a bite, a drink, or a hit of something.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
"Epi" update
If you'd like to see the PBS/Nova program about the epigenome for yourself, go to this page, enter your zip code, then enter "Ghost in Your Genes" as the program to search for. Chances are good it's coming back to your area sometime Sunday evening. This show is a Wenchypoo MUST WATCH.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Meet “Epi”—the Ghost in Your Genes
This particular ghost can be a friend or foe, and can swing to the formidable fringes of each extreme. I’m writing about Epi, or better known as epigenome.
Remember the Human Genome Project? Well, that’s nothing—the genome can’t operate without an instruction manual, and that’s what the epigenome does. As well as providing instructions, the epigenome also regulates what the genome does.
Here’s how Epi can become your friend or foe: everything you eat, everything you’re exposed to, and every response and reaction to certain stimuli gets encoded into your eggs or sperm. Then, this information gets transmitted to the next two generations. The information gets expressed in different rates for each gender—males express their “negative information” in late childhood while women begin expressing theirs in the womb. We are all essentially the genomic and epigenomic expressions of our grandparents--their lives, their diet, and their experiences.
This is why you must eat cleanly, live cleanly, and have largely positive outcomes when it comes to relationships, responses, and reactions—you’re setting code for your kids and grandkids.
I learned this very interesting and absorbing material from a PBS/Nova Science show last night called The Ghost in Your Genes. It was so interesting that it dragged me away from The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert.
If you’d like more information about Epi, PBS provided this link. Another helpful article is here.
Sad to say, it’s already too late for the kids you have, as well as the grandkids (born or unborn)—you’ve already laid your mark upon them. All you can do now is pass on this information and hope future generations take it to heart and begin cleaning up the family’s DNA. This is going to be the key to affordable health care down the road—eliminating and avoiding disease simply by virtue of eating right and living right.
This is what led us down the path of disease and defect in the first place, and no government-sponsored program is going to get us out of it—we did this to ourselves, and continue to do it with every cigarette we light up, every drink of alcohol we take, every bite of non-nutritious, pesticide-laden food we eat, every drug (legal or no) we ingest, every emotional shock we experience, and every day we continue to carry out these very injurious actions. Now we also know the EXTENT of the damage we’re causing to ourselves and our family line, and how we can stop it.
We must think and act long-term, and remember that we're all living for three (instead of the old adage of mothers eating for two) each and every day.
UPDATE: Apparently now Australia has come around to epigenome eating with this article: You Are What Your Mother Eats.
Remember the Human Genome Project? Well, that’s nothing—the genome can’t operate without an instruction manual, and that’s what the epigenome does. As well as providing instructions, the epigenome also regulates what the genome does.
Here’s how Epi can become your friend or foe: everything you eat, everything you’re exposed to, and every response and reaction to certain stimuli gets encoded into your eggs or sperm. Then, this information gets transmitted to the next two generations. The information gets expressed in different rates for each gender—males express their “negative information” in late childhood while women begin expressing theirs in the womb. We are all essentially the genomic and epigenomic expressions of our grandparents--their lives, their diet, and their experiences.
This is why you must eat cleanly, live cleanly, and have largely positive outcomes when it comes to relationships, responses, and reactions—you’re setting code for your kids and grandkids.
I learned this very interesting and absorbing material from a PBS/Nova Science show last night called The Ghost in Your Genes. It was so interesting that it dragged me away from The Daily Show and Stephen Colbert.
If you’d like more information about Epi, PBS provided this link. Another helpful article is here.
Sad to say, it’s already too late for the kids you have, as well as the grandkids (born or unborn)—you’ve already laid your mark upon them. All you can do now is pass on this information and hope future generations take it to heart and begin cleaning up the family’s DNA. This is going to be the key to affordable health care down the road—eliminating and avoiding disease simply by virtue of eating right and living right.
This is what led us down the path of disease and defect in the first place, and no government-sponsored program is going to get us out of it—we did this to ourselves, and continue to do it with every cigarette we light up, every drink of alcohol we take, every bite of non-nutritious, pesticide-laden food we eat, every drug (legal or no) we ingest, every emotional shock we experience, and every day we continue to carry out these very injurious actions. Now we also know the EXTENT of the damage we’re causing to ourselves and our family line, and how we can stop it.
We must think and act long-term, and remember that we're all living for three (instead of the old adage of mothers eating for two) each and every day.
UPDATE: Apparently now Australia has come around to epigenome eating with this article: You Are What Your Mother Eats.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Holiday Dinner Rip-offs
This article was originally written back in 2005, and I rerun it every year when the holiday turkey ads start coming out—it’s as relevant today as it was back then.
_______________________________________________________
Madison Avenue has done it again…at least in MY neck of the woods.
After receiving my weekly Tuesday Junk Mail batch, courtesy of the U.S. Postal System (which nobody can opt out of), I scanned the latest offerings of a local grocery store. Their idea of promoting Thanksgiving “bargains” goes like this (directly from the ad itself, complete with bullet points):
• Sept. 21st-Nov. 15th
• Shop 6 of 8 weeks
• Present your Thanksgiving Dinner Card, MVP card, and spend $45 per visit
• Collect 6 different weekly tickets
• Redeem your 6 tickets for your *$20 Gift Certificate
*See official rules at store office for details. Redeem tickets by 11/22/05
UPDATE--2007’s rules go like this:
• Sept. 26th-Nov.20th
• Shop 6 of 8 weeks
• Present your cards (see above) and spend $45 per visit
• Collect 6 different weekly tickets
• Redeem them for a $20 coupon
• Redeem tickets by 11/27/07
~~The rules haven’t changed, but the lesson remains the same~~
Now sitting here in the comfort of my own home, not having looked at the official store rules, I can tell you that this is a very complicated and very expensive “bargain.”
First of all, the ad doesn’t even state (not even in 2007) what this “dinner” consists of—just the turkey, or some sort of fixings to go along with it. This store usually wants you to jump through flaming hoops just for the turkey each year.
Next, they want you to cut out these “tickets” which look like manufacturer coupons from their weekly ads for up to 8 weeks, PLUS spend at least $45 per visit—this means store receipts and verification, so more paperwork keeping on our part.
Lastly, by obeying their own rules as stated and doing some math, 6 visits at $45 each comes to $240 minimum just for a $20 gift certificate toward a turkey dinner! This is the saddest and sorriest excuse for a holiday dinner “sale” ad I’ve ever seen. I wonder if a $240 turkey dinner tastes any better than a bargain-bought one!
The really sad part of this is that lots of neighborhood residents will take this grocery store up on the holiday dinner offer. This store’s ad agency is preying on the ignorance and/or complacency of the clientèle. All it does for me is show the degree of desperation the store is in for making any money at all this holiday. I can hardly wait to see what they dream up for Christmas dinner advertising (and I’m sure 2007 will be a real lulu of an offer).
I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, apply the lesson above to any holiday dinner advertising you may receive in the mail or newspaper.
Wench's note: If you take advantage of sales that includes the items you usually serve at holidays, chances are very good you can have that feast for $20 total or less, depending on turkey size. Why go through all this complication?
_______________________________________________________
Madison Avenue has done it again…at least in MY neck of the woods.
After receiving my weekly Tuesday Junk Mail batch, courtesy of the U.S. Postal System (which nobody can opt out of), I scanned the latest offerings of a local grocery store. Their idea of promoting Thanksgiving “bargains” goes like this (directly from the ad itself, complete with bullet points):
• Sept. 21st-Nov. 15th
• Shop 6 of 8 weeks
• Present your Thanksgiving Dinner Card, MVP card, and spend $45 per visit
• Collect 6 different weekly tickets
• Redeem your 6 tickets for your *$20 Gift Certificate
*See official rules at store office for details. Redeem tickets by 11/22/05
UPDATE--2007’s rules go like this:
• Sept. 26th-Nov.20th
• Shop 6 of 8 weeks
• Present your cards (see above) and spend $45 per visit
• Collect 6 different weekly tickets
• Redeem them for a $20 coupon
• Redeem tickets by 11/27/07
~~The rules haven’t changed, but the lesson remains the same~~
Now sitting here in the comfort of my own home, not having looked at the official store rules, I can tell you that this is a very complicated and very expensive “bargain.”
First of all, the ad doesn’t even state (not even in 2007) what this “dinner” consists of—just the turkey, or some sort of fixings to go along with it. This store usually wants you to jump through flaming hoops just for the turkey each year.
Next, they want you to cut out these “tickets” which look like manufacturer coupons from their weekly ads for up to 8 weeks, PLUS spend at least $45 per visit—this means store receipts and verification, so more paperwork keeping on our part.
Lastly, by obeying their own rules as stated and doing some math, 6 visits at $45 each comes to $240 minimum just for a $20 gift certificate toward a turkey dinner! This is the saddest and sorriest excuse for a holiday dinner “sale” ad I’ve ever seen. I wonder if a $240 turkey dinner tastes any better than a bargain-bought one!
The really sad part of this is that lots of neighborhood residents will take this grocery store up on the holiday dinner offer. This store’s ad agency is preying on the ignorance and/or complacency of the clientèle. All it does for me is show the degree of desperation the store is in for making any money at all this holiday. I can hardly wait to see what they dream up for Christmas dinner advertising (and I’m sure 2007 will be a real lulu of an offer).
I’ll keep you posted. Meanwhile, apply the lesson above to any holiday dinner advertising you may receive in the mail or newspaper.
Wench's note: If you take advantage of sales that includes the items you usually serve at holidays, chances are very good you can have that feast for $20 total or less, depending on turkey size. Why go through all this complication?
Friday, October 05, 2007
Interview with a Car Thief
In this month’s GEICO insurance newsletter, there’s a rather interesting article about an interview with a convicted car thief who stole more than 100 vehicles.
I’ll summarize the high points here:
• Don’t leave anything in your car a thief might consider a bonus when stealing your car—if he can’t take the car, he can still take your belongings (and you’d be surprised how many women leave purses in the car). Even a trunk is no longer “safe territory” once a thief gets access to the cabin, because of the trunk button inside.
• Don’t park far away from stores, in dark places, or in deserted places—the absence of light makes for easy pickings (literally).
• Don’t own or drive one of the “popular” cars for thieves—Honda, Acura, and Toyota pickups. The reason why these parts are so popular: interchangeable parts for Hondas, and ease of access for Acuras and Toyotas—just about any key works on them. The older the vehicle, the less discriminating it is for keys.
• A car thief’s favorite tool is a “jiggler” or reconfigured key. This is why having an older Acura in a dark parking spot is a double-play for them—with a reconfigured key, it just looks like some guy trying to get into his own car instead of stealing one.
• Car thief recommendations for making your car less likely of a target: lock your doors, roll up your windows, park close to buildings and/or under lights, and keep your belongings with you or at home. The object is to make the car next to you look more enticing to a car thief than your own.
A list of the current Top 10 cat theft targets: 2004 Dodge Ram pickup, 1997 Ford P-150 series, 1995 Honda Civic, 1994 Dodge Caravan, 1994 Nissan Sentra, 1993 Saturn SL, 1991 Honda Accord, 1990 Acura Integra, 1989 Toyota Camry, and 1986 Toyota pickup.
Some of these cars are either stolen for their parts, or because they have high demand outside the country. The rest are just easy-open cars. GEICO always recommends Buicks for their low-to-no theft targeting, and that's what we drive--so far, our only problem is getting the neighborhood kids to quit leaning all over them (along with everyone else's cars).
I wish I could provide a link to the original article, but neither GEICO nor Google prove to be fruitful on this one.
I’ll summarize the high points here:
• Don’t leave anything in your car a thief might consider a bonus when stealing your car—if he can’t take the car, he can still take your belongings (and you’d be surprised how many women leave purses in the car). Even a trunk is no longer “safe territory” once a thief gets access to the cabin, because of the trunk button inside.
• Don’t park far away from stores, in dark places, or in deserted places—the absence of light makes for easy pickings (literally).
• Don’t own or drive one of the “popular” cars for thieves—Honda, Acura, and Toyota pickups. The reason why these parts are so popular: interchangeable parts for Hondas, and ease of access for Acuras and Toyotas—just about any key works on them. The older the vehicle, the less discriminating it is for keys.
• A car thief’s favorite tool is a “jiggler” or reconfigured key. This is why having an older Acura in a dark parking spot is a double-play for them—with a reconfigured key, it just looks like some guy trying to get into his own car instead of stealing one.
• Car thief recommendations for making your car less likely of a target: lock your doors, roll up your windows, park close to buildings and/or under lights, and keep your belongings with you or at home. The object is to make the car next to you look more enticing to a car thief than your own.
A list of the current Top 10 cat theft targets: 2004 Dodge Ram pickup, 1997 Ford P-150 series, 1995 Honda Civic, 1994 Dodge Caravan, 1994 Nissan Sentra, 1993 Saturn SL, 1991 Honda Accord, 1990 Acura Integra, 1989 Toyota Camry, and 1986 Toyota pickup.
Some of these cars are either stolen for their parts, or because they have high demand outside the country. The rest are just easy-open cars. GEICO always recommends Buicks for their low-to-no theft targeting, and that's what we drive--so far, our only problem is getting the neighborhood kids to quit leaning all over them (along with everyone else's cars).
I wish I could provide a link to the original article, but neither GEICO nor Google prove to be fruitful on this one.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Economic Sanctions for Us Instead of Them?
I may be completely off base here, and I hope I am, but it seems we are experiencing economic sanctions of our very own lately. Not exactly the kind we place on other nations, but close.
I see signs of “reverse sanctions”, or other countries imposing sanctions on us, such as:
• China no longer buying our bonds and notes.
• OPEC and their member nations refusing to loosen quotas on oil exports, and some members demanding a switch from dollars to Euros for payment.
• Global slowdown in purchases from the U.S., forcing our big businesses to move into other countries to continue operating—particularly defense contractors and large industrial machinery manufacturers. With more countries exporting food and able to provide for themselves, I expect food purchases will be next.
This might be nothing more than a giant tit-for-tat game, but why am I the only one seeing it?
We impose sanctions on North Korea, Iran, Syria, and many other countries in the form of denied or restricted things—food shipments, money shipments and exchanges, travel, and “contraband” items like alcohol, luxury goods, and drugs—so I guess turnabout is fair play. I don’t think Congress or the Fed has taken a look at the possibility of the rest of the world imposing sanctions on us in return, in whatever way they can.
I just find it strange that countries that we consider “enemies” have managed to hit us right where it counts: the national wallet. With nobody buying our debt in large quantities any more, OPEC no longer willing to cut us slack with oil quotas/shipments, and large equipment purchases (Caterpillar, Boeing, etc.) going to European companies instead of us, we’re slowly and almost imperceptibly being bled dry, heading for a sure recession followed by an almost certain depression.
To survive this downward spiral, we’re going to have to go back to basics—business is going to have to downsize and change to attract new customers right here at home, and families are going to have to make adjustments that have been unheard of in the last two generations (in expectations as well as aspirations). Neither the money nor the energy that propelled us for the last 50 years is going to exist in the near future, so we’re just going to have to make due with what we have as a nation to endure the “sanctions” being placed upon us now.
Many other nations see our policies and sanction power as punishing, and have finally figured out how to spank us back—right where it hurts. If you haven’t stockpiled your own personal supply of “morphine”, do so now, because I have the feeling it’s going to get ugly.
I see signs of “reverse sanctions”, or other countries imposing sanctions on us, such as:
• China no longer buying our bonds and notes.
• OPEC and their member nations refusing to loosen quotas on oil exports, and some members demanding a switch from dollars to Euros for payment.
• Global slowdown in purchases from the U.S., forcing our big businesses to move into other countries to continue operating—particularly defense contractors and large industrial machinery manufacturers. With more countries exporting food and able to provide for themselves, I expect food purchases will be next.
This might be nothing more than a giant tit-for-tat game, but why am I the only one seeing it?
We impose sanctions on North Korea, Iran, Syria, and many other countries in the form of denied or restricted things—food shipments, money shipments and exchanges, travel, and “contraband” items like alcohol, luxury goods, and drugs—so I guess turnabout is fair play. I don’t think Congress or the Fed has taken a look at the possibility of the rest of the world imposing sanctions on us in return, in whatever way they can.
I just find it strange that countries that we consider “enemies” have managed to hit us right where it counts: the national wallet. With nobody buying our debt in large quantities any more, OPEC no longer willing to cut us slack with oil quotas/shipments, and large equipment purchases (Caterpillar, Boeing, etc.) going to European companies instead of us, we’re slowly and almost imperceptibly being bled dry, heading for a sure recession followed by an almost certain depression.
To survive this downward spiral, we’re going to have to go back to basics—business is going to have to downsize and change to attract new customers right here at home, and families are going to have to make adjustments that have been unheard of in the last two generations (in expectations as well as aspirations). Neither the money nor the energy that propelled us for the last 50 years is going to exist in the near future, so we’re just going to have to make due with what we have as a nation to endure the “sanctions” being placed upon us now.
Many other nations see our policies and sanction power as punishing, and have finally figured out how to spank us back—right where it hurts. If you haven’t stockpiled your own personal supply of “morphine”, do so now, because I have the feeling it’s going to get ugly.
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