Legalize marijuana or not legalize marijuana. That is the question. We have heard this argument for many years. Does it really matter? I must admit I have never tried it so maybe I fail to see the advantage, or disadvantage here. From what I understand drugs like marijuana have been used in many different rites during the course of our history. The American Indian supposedly used this or a similar drug in some of their ceremonial rites. The tribes of Africa used similar drugs for the same reason. For all I know our forefathers may have participated in this type of rites, or maybe even recreational purposes. Perhaps the medicinal uses were known way back when. I remember hearing of our ancestors, and even royalty abroad having snuff boxes. (And it wasn’t for tobacco snuff). No! I don’t know the answer. What I do know is this. If it is legalized, our Government will be able to get a piece of the action, (money) . The cost will most likely go down. Thus crime created by trying to get marijuana should go down. I suppose these would all be pluses, and I can’t really think of any minuses; other than there will always be those who have no legal claim to buy marijuana. Also if it is legalized, will growers be monitored like the existing drug companies, like Eli-Lily. If it is legalized will insurance companies pay for it. How much more will this cost us, the consumer in increased insurance premiums. And how will it affect hiring practices of business. There is mass impacts involved here. I’m sure more than I can foresee. Finally let me insert my personal observation. People already take legal drugs, illegally. I know of one young lady who stole a doctors prescription pad, and wrote her own prescriptions. This was many years ago, and the doctors signature would be impressed on the sheets below it. Do doctors now take measures to prevent this? I also know of people who will steal a relatives much needed medication out of their medicine cabinet. Without regard to the relatives health. I also know peoples homes are broken into for the purpose of finding legal drugs. Legal or not people will get their hands on them and use them illegally. MOOT POINT. Does it really matter if it is or is not legal. The government will benefit by getting a portion of the proceeds. That Is How I See It. more than involved Views: 210
Category: Economy
What Is The Scoop
We stopped at Steak ‘n’ Shake the other day for a bowl of Chili. Which by the way is much, much better than Wendy’s. I like to go to Steak ‘n’ Shake, even though their quality has lapsed since I used to go as a kid. There are two things I can not understand. 1) To me and my contemporaries, a milk shake is something you drink. I remember at the baseball games, whether it was a pee wee game or a high school game, if you hit a Home Run, some one from town would treat you to a 25 cent milk shake. That was a treat for me, although I only hit one home run in my life, you consider my allowance for doing my chores all week was 10 cents. The local drug store was the best place to get a shake. The restaurants weren’t bad, don’t get me wrong, it was just something extra about the drug store milk shake. My favorite was, and is Chocolate Ice Cream, Chocolate Milk, and Chocolate syrup. They were drinks, you sucked them up through a straw. No whipped cream and cherry on top. Steak ‘n’ Shake somehow got confused and think they are like a Sundae. Ever try to suck a Steak ‘n’ Shake shake up a straw. You have to use a spoon just like with a Sundae. Then they top it off with whipped cream and a cherry. Do they think only women buy milk shakes dressing them up like that. I always have to find someplace to put this dressing so I can get my spoon in. I usually tell them I want a drinking milk shake not an eating milk shake, with no dressing. My local Steak ‘n’ Shake now knows what I mean. I guess they figure they make more money by not blending the ice cream and by charging extra for the dressing up. 20The other thing I don’t understand. Why in the heck did they buy Scoop Shovels for you to eat your soup with. The thing is too big for me to get in my mouth. I always have to ask for a spoon. Why did they waste their money buying these unnecessary utensils. Are they making so much they are looking at ways to waste money? That Is How I See It. high school other thing find find find Views: 538
Penny Auctions
Is this worth the price. This will be a very short blog. As I haven’t bid on anything. Nor do I know anyone who has. You see the advertisements. I won such and such for only $5. I may be wrong. So check it out yourself, Let me know if you see this the same way I do. This is how I understand it works. 1) Items you bid on will only go up 1 penny from bid to bid. 2) You have to pay for the right to place a bid. I think it amounts to something like 50 cents a bid 3) If you win an item you remit that amount. You will receive your won item in X days. To put this on a local level we are more familiar with. Say you go to your local auction house. When you sign in and get your bid card, you will be asked how many times do you want to bid tonight? I don’t know. It depends on the item. Then you are told it will cost you 50 cents every time your bid is accepted. And we will proceed in 1 penny increments. So you buy 20 bids for $10. Now let’s say you open the bid for 1 penny. The auction house has just made 50 cents on an item. The item is probably worth, say $30. If it is like most local auction houses there will be at least (for demonstration purposes) 5 bidders. Yippee You Won it for only $20 dollars, but you used all your 20 bids. Guess what you just paid $30 for it. But in penny increments, I think (Mind you I’m no Mathematician, so I could have my figures wrong), about 2000 bids. It appears the to me the auction made about $1000.oo on that $20 dollar item. One Item I looked was a $100.oo gift card. The item was paused. For reasons unknown to me. But $4.66 for $100.oo gift card is a great deal. However the Auction company has made $233.00. So even if the Auction house paid $100.oo for this gift card they have still made $133.oo gross profit. I don’t know how they secure the items, they sell. But I imagine they sell thousands of items a day, and the winner probably does get a good deal, just like the advertisements say. Provided they are wise enough to figure the timers, and when to bid. Oh yes they have timers. Usually set for 3 minutes. (Anyway that is what I gathered from the site I visited to write this. If no one bids during that 3 minute period the high bidder wins I didn’t understand the PAUSE function though. Any how as long as you understand how it works, go for it. You might get a good deal. That Is How I See It. they have Views: 105
End of Smartphones?
With the announcement by Verizon of the end of the unlimited data plans, on the heels of AT&T and T-mobile’s announcement of the same. This leaves Sprint as the lone major carrier still offering unlimited data. The big draw of the SMART PHONE, is the unlimited data plan. Instead of unlimited they propose you pay by the GIGABYTE. I suppose most of you know exactly how many gigabytes you and your family will use each month. I’m not that smart. It is sort of like when you go to a pre-pay gas station for a fill up. You have to guess how much your tank will hold. I can’t guess that close. So I don’t buy my gas there. For me it will be the same if I have to make a guess of how many gigabytes my family and I will use during any given month. We rely on this plan for a lot of things. But do we use 2 gigabyte. or 10 gigabyte a month. Like I said in an earlier post “I HATE CHANGE”. This move only complicates my life. If it comes down to having to guess how many gigiabytes I use I will just go back to using my cell phone for phone calls. I did that for many years, and I can do it again. Of course it will be harder on the teenagers, on my plan. But think of the money I’ll save. At least $1200.oo a year. So shall we lay to rest our smart phones? YES!!!! I will. I don’t need my life anymore complicated. As for those of you who are so addicted to your phone, may your wallets get deeper so you can pay the higher cost involved. But you can fight this by doing what I will do and “Just say no!” To a pre-pay per gigabyte plan. If everyone does this. Guess what the companies will most likely do. That Is How I See It. Views: 412
NBA Lockout
Here we go again. Multimillionaire vs Multimillionaires, (or billionaires), who knows, who cares. The NBA claims the league lost $300 million this past season. The league will tell you it is the players fault. The players will say it’s the owners fault. I’ll take the blame. I haven’t been to a professional game in years, therefore it must be my fault because I didn’t pay to watch a bunch of overpaid people play a game I would play for free. No! I don’t take advantage of watching them on TV. Will they never learn? We had the NBA lockout in what (1998), then to get people back they created “SUPER STARS’, By allowing certain players to not follow the rules, and blasting their names on anything, and everything. These were decent players before, (Let me explain. I look at the overall skills of a player to rate them. If a player scores 30 points a game but puts up 60 shots; does this mean he is a great player. If a player is allowed to go from one end of the floor to the other with only 3 dribbles, is he a good ball handler. The answer in my opinion is NO!) The fact that professional basketball is not real BASKETBALL, but comparative to professional wrestling. They give what the so-called fans want. That’s OK it is merely a business, BIG BUSINESS, but business. In the NBA’s greed, they started raising ticket, and licensing fees. Then the players said Hey I want some of that. And I have no quarrel here. What we have here is: The NBA owns the company. The players contract with different teams for the most money they can get. It is just business. Who cares? Will we not be able to feed our kids if the two can’t reach agreement. Probably we would have more money in our pockets. I suggest if you want to see exciting BASKETBALL take in a grade school, (or as some of the upper class prefer elementary school), games, Jr high or middle school, or high school. Or a nearby division 2 or 3 College game. It won’t cost you nearly as much, and you will most likely see a more competitive game than the NBA will offer. And I’m sure your school and community could use the money. That Is How I See It. high school merely Views: 716
I Hate Change
Have you ever noticed when you have a good computer program, the publisher will try to make it better, but it doesn’t work as well. I have had that experience many times. The first one that jumps to my mind is PRINT ARTIST. Print Artist was an affordable program which let you make greeting cards, business cards, stationary, letterhead, etc, etc. I used it a lot. I had flower shops, and small retail businesses who would call me when one of their customers wanted a personalized birthday card, or anniversary car, or get well card, in return they would put my little sign up which included other things like website building, etc. This was before all the cookie cutter sites went up. When companies thought a thousand dollars for a website was a bargain. Then one day the publisher decided to make it better (?). All they accomplished was making it more difficult to use. There was nothing more you could do with it than you could with the original. Oh, yes it cost a little more too. I had friends who upgraded a couple of times. The eventually migrated to another program too. When I was in high school our class had about 21 students, and then there was me, But we learned more than the kids at the big school in the county which had about 150 students in a class. Then they came up with school consolidation. What a big mistake. Oh yes you had a better offering of classes, and a couple of sports more to participate in. I visited one school when my sons were wrestling, I was told the freshman class that year had 1,000 students. That is just too ridiculous. With the small schools you knew everyone in your school. You generally played your sports together since you were small. At our county’s big school with 150 kids in the class they didn’t know all their classmates. I got around the classes not offered at my school by going to big school for summer classes. As an example let us look at basketball in our county. At one time we had 10 schools scattered throughout the count. We had an “A” team, and a “B’ team. Each team consisted of 12 players. (subs included). Usually 4 cheerleaders, and a couple of “student managers” who kept statistics, tended to injuries, kept the uniforms in shape, and swept the gym floor. That makes what 30 students involved with basketball, per school. Take that times the 10 schools, we had 300 kids playing basketball. Then came CONSOLIDATION. Our 10 schools became 3. With the same number (30) per school participating in basketball, we were left with 210 kids with nothing to do but get in trouble. (Then our leaders wanted to know why we had more kids in trouble). With the small schools we had age old rivalries, not only the county schools but other nearby schools. The bigger schools developed rivalries, but nothing like with the small schools. They were a sense of pride for the towns. Everyone attended a basketball, football, or baseball game. After consolidation. The pride was lost. As if this was not bad enough. Someone about 12 years ago came up with the idea of CLASS sports, (Aren’t we supposedly a classless country?) Which killed all rivalries, a decreased interest in sports, lower attendance, and now at our larger schools the coaches practically have to go around and ask students to participate. Parents have to insure the younger athletes have a way to travel the 20-25 or more miles to practice. And of course with the CLASS system travel to games is outlandish. One instance that come to mind is Football sectionals. The farthest we would travel for a sectional football game was about 2o miles. Now the first game you play may be a hundred miles away. I missed one because I got off work at 6 pm the game started at 8 pm. (not a problem if you only have to go 25 miles, but if you have a 2+ hour drive to the game. you have to eat while driving. The game gets over around 10 pm another 2+ hours to get home, and I had to be at work at 6 am. Oh yes I had to wait for the team bus to arrive at our school. The kids always stopped at at McDonald’s or somewhere to eat after the game. Of course this takes time for them to give all their orders, and preparation of the orders, eat, and rehash the game. then get back on the bus, to continue the trip home. The bus got home around 1:45 am. Remember I had to be at work at 6 am for another 12 hour day. I could go on and on (and I have made this too long already and only covered 3 subjects), so I’ll get off my soap box for now. Just so you know I really am not a fan of most change. That Is How I See It. high school became involved Views: 235
Cost Of Entertainment On Rise
I just read where Disney World is increasing the price of a day pass. Admittedly it may not be a big increase. I really don’t know. I once won a 3 day stay there, which included flying down, and back, with a room and continental breakfast. I told them to give it to someone who would go. It would take about a $million to get to Florida. Well I might go for $100,000.oo. I was there once. Drove 18 hours to get there, After reaching our destination, I stayed 5 hours and came back home. Worst place I have ever been. Exception might have been Camp Eagle. But that is another story. It may just be in my blood. My Dad went there to visit my Uncles who moved down there. He hated it too. My son went to college there one year. He is a little more lenient than my Dad or me. He will go there for a day or two to visit friends. But back to the rise in costs for Disney World. Now it isn’t just Disney World, it seems most amusement parks are raising their prices. We all know sometimes a price increase has to come along. As employee’s need raises, and employee benefit cost raise. So I’m not really knocking them for the price increase. However, when you think about the overall cost for someone like me to go as a family of four, it really is quite pricey. Assume it is still the 1800 miles I traveled the last time. (There wasn’t Interstates all the way, so went by U.S. Highways), I think a good estimate for cars now is 26 mpg average. So round trip of 3600 miles, figure gas cost now about $3.50 a gallon, equals about $485.oo. Entry at $80.oo time 4 equals $320.oo. Now we are at $805.oo. Even for me 1800 miles is too much for a one day trip. Figure, driving the interstates, it is at least a 2 day drive. Thus we end up with at least 10 meals each for the round trip. Even eating at Burger King, we are looking at $200.oo for food, and that is not counting any drinks or snacks you have while on the road. Two overnight stays at a motel, (one going, and one coming home), that’s at least another $300.oo. I don’t know if Disney World charges to park there, I have been to some Amusement parks that do. But most don’t. So I’ll assume Disney doesn’t. Now we are at $1300.oo and just getting in the gate. Assuming, (again), you and your children spend what we spent the last time I took my family, which was several years ago, on drinks and food and souvenirs we’ll ad another $100.oo. Up to $1400.00 now. And let’s face it how much are you really going to get to see or do in one day? I know most of you are probably thinking WOW! that’s not bad. I suppose not but after driving 12 hours a day, for 2 days to get there, and 12 hours, a day for 2 days to come home. (Let’s not forgetting listening to the children and wife all that time while trying to keep your mind on driving), is it really worth it? Again probably yes, just to see the kid’s having fun. But for me that is more than I make each month. AND I still have my house payment, utilities, food, auto expenses, etc. But don’t worry, even if I could afford it I wouldn’t go. Disneyland in California would be another thing. That Is How I See It. have been just getting Views: 126
Oil Company Subsidies
Obama wants to end oil company subsidies. This sort of makes sense, as these subsidies are meant to promote domestic drilling and exploration. Which we know they don’t do, at least not aggressively. These subsidies amount to billions of dollars. But, what happens if they do remove the subsidy. The greedy oil companies will just raise our cost at the pump to make up for loss. Is there any way for the consumer to win. I don’t see any, and keep it a free enterprise. We can’t cut back on our use, because they will raise the price to maintain their profits, which would be lost because of less sales. We can’t use more, because they will raise their prices due to demand. I guess they just have us all “over the OIL barrel”. That Is How I See It. Views: 407
GM CEO Asks For $1 Gas Tax Hike
You may recall an article I wrote about how people in our area who drive GM products do not seem to be in touch with rules of the road, WELL how about this. General Motors CEO Dan Akerson said he would favor a $1 dollar hike in gasoline tax, including a 50 cent immediate hike… are you ready for this “To take advantage of the recent DECLINE in gas prices.” Did I miss this DECLINE?? According to Akerson this would put people in the position of buying more fuel efficient cars and lessen the burden on the auto industry to meet future mileage goals. I know I can’t afford a new car period let alone one of those HIGH-Priced hybrids and the like. I’m sure I’m not alone here. Heck it’s getting to the point I could not afford a USED car as those prices have gone up so much. A friend who sells used cars told me used cars are getting harder to buy. New car dealers who once brought the cars to auction are now selling them on their lots. I once had a New car dealer tell me he would not keep a car on the lot if it had 50,00o miles or more on it. Now I see he has cars with 150,000 miles with a price of $5,000,oo (or more). A friend traded off his 2000 Oldsmobile for a new car and was only offered $1000.00 trade in. Later the dealer had it on his lot with a $5,900.oo price tag. There is gold in them thar used cars. Now, I know the CEO of GM can afford the tax increase. Heck, he probably doesn’t even buy gas, as evidenced in his statement about the decline in gas prices. I’m sure he doesn’t buy his cars as they are most likely part of his compensation package. In other words he isn’t among the core people of our country. He hasn’t a clue about what he is saying. He is only looking at saving his company money so he can get a bigger bonus. Before I close this entry. Greg Martin, Gm’s Washington spokesperson confirmed Akerson’s statement reflects Gm’s VIEW. But GM will not actively pursue the passage of such a tax, as it would be very difficult to get enacted. I suppose that is how GM drivers feel too. After all they are supporting the company by buying GM products. That Is How I See It. Views: 189
Drivers Beware In Gary Indiana
We all have believed Cops have had quotas for traffic stops. After all they have to bring some money in to help pay their salaries. Finally a City which is not ashamed to admit their police officers, have quotas. they have not stated what the consequence is if you don’t meet the quota. ” What is the quota?” you ask. The quota is at least one “1” traffic arrest an hour. Gary’s Traffic Commander, mothy Tatum said this quota will remain in effect as long as he is “COMMANDER” . His actual edict says 10 traffic arrests per officer assigned to his traffic division per shift per day. Good Luck holding your job Timothy. I understand the prosecutors are already protesting your quota. They can always decide to NOT PROSECUTE. The voters probably will not appreciate your move. I’m not sure one cop can write 1o citations a day. I’m thinking what you are creating is an aura of “I have to meet my quota, so I’ll write up this poor guy driving the old car. He can’t afford to protest the stop, and pursue it in court”. Or “I’ll stop this guy, he’s from out of our area, and will just pay the fine.” Then, of course, there is the wealthy who will pay just because it is such a trifling amount it is not worth the time to go to court. Kind of sounds like everyone could be a victim of this QUOTA. I hope the traffic officers have enough pride in themselves to not make up violations to meet their quota. Or that an unreasonable stop does not end with injury to the cop or citizen. I know I will do my best to avoid Gary Indiana, and there goes my money I may have spent there. After all I’m sure they don’t need my money in this haven of high employment, and economy. It seems to me the “Quota” would be a valid defense, in court. But I’m not a Lawyer, or Judge. Hats off to Gary for admitting they have a traffic citation quota. Most places would not. That Is How I See It. UPDATE: UPDATE: Just in. Gary Mayor Rudy Clay Says Quota’s are over. Police Administration says never existed. Don’t know if Gary’s Traffic Commander, Timothy Tatum, is still Commander they have Views: 103
