Are newspapers dead?

For the last three months I have been listing my boat to sale on Craigslist and yesterday it sold. It only took that long because I was only half heartidly trying to sell it. Last week when it was apparent I had found someone who wanted it more than I wanted to keep it I started the search for a replacement boat. I have been pouring over Craigslist, eBay and BoatTrader. All of these are on the internet. I never once even considered picking up a newspaper. One of my boat buddies has been sending me links from Craigslist that he has found. As I think back; I haven’t used a newspaper for news, to find something in the classified or anything else in at least three years now.  All the folks around me have yet to mention a news paper or any other printed adds as a source to find a replacement boat. Wait there is one classified I still covet; I do still look so forward to the weekly Frys classified section in Friday’s paper but even that is from a paper someone else buys only for that ad on Fridays. We get our news from local TV and CNN and the internet feeds. So again, I’m wondering are newspapers the ‘dead man walking’ of this decade?

That Weight Thing Again!

This would be my umpteenth bout with the weight issue. Here it is April; I haplessly stood on the side lines as my body weight  crept back up to 212 pounds! By Thanksgiving last year I had lost from 237 pounds down to 185 pounds and I felt better than I have in years.  I reminisced that 185 pounds was my muster out weight when retiring from the US Navy in 1994. I did great up, through and including Thanksgiving; prudently made good selections and maintained good portion control; however, starting the day after Thanksgiving I fell off the wagon and I have been off the wagon ever since (a more accurate statement: I tried to eat everything on the wagon and have been ever since) . I started losing in April last year also. This unfortunately has been a constant battle since the eighties when I maneuvered  a career change from outside construction to computers and IT work (inside sedimentary environment). I’m not really interested in sports and detest doing exercise just to exercise. I do enjoy walking and bike riding but like ‘exercise’ it is really hard to start these and so easy to miss a day which quietly turns into abandonment.

Three, maybe four years ago I watched a friend go through weight loss surgery and the resulting weight loss, it was an eye opener. Even with the surgery it took my friend a little longer than a year to loose the weight. I have since noticed this when others take advantage of the weight loss surgery. My friend’s surgery was like turning on the lights for me; I realized from watching his progress that it would take me a very long time to loose the weight I needed to loose if I dieted and exercised correctly; day after day, week after week, month after month. And as I witnessed last year from April to almost December about two pounds a week was an average week. There were weeks when I did everything right and lost five to nine pounds in a week but there were also times when I did the diet right but no or almost no exercise and lost  a half to three pounds a week and finally there were weeks when I just could not get it together and wound up gaining. What I did learn was that no matter what I did the week before lose, maintain, or gain; each week I had to put the previous week aside and start the new week all recommitted.

Last week my youngest son orchestrated an eleven mile bike ride with my exuberant yet somewhat guarded participation. As I aired up the tires on my bike I wondered if they would actually last the entire ride since it had been two years since I had last rode it. More importantly I wondered if I could actually stay the course. I am sure he was wondering just how far Dad would last. At about a third we stopped at the community green belt for water and a moment to make sure no major bike parts were falling off.  As we continued I watched his backside profile get smaller and smaller, the hills got longer and harder, the day got warmer but I kept pushing and as landmarks came into site and the miles ticked off I kept pushing till I rolled up at  the end. That event was the beginning of the new weight loss season.

So here I find myself again: Setting the previous year aside and beginning this years journey all over again. The good news is I have 20 pounds less to loose than last year; the bad news is I have 25 pounds to loose to get back to where I was.

Convoy – Anyone?

So maybe it’s time for some simple but effective World War II convoys! As in the past commercial ships would marshall up in a safe  area and proceed as a convoy through the dangerous waters.  An escort of task suited Naval vessels (in this case multi-national, amphibious assault with marines and helicopters, destroyers, patrol boats and special forces ) would escort them through the troubled waters. It’s not a do all, fix all solution; rather an effective use of resources already comitted to the region and it’s problem until or as long as Somolia has no effective government.

Multi-national Naval vessels escorting dozens of commercial ships from a safe marshalling point thru the Gulf of Aden to a safe dispersing point could actually solve several issues. First and foremost the protection of the escorted commercial, tourist, and pleasure crafts from pirates by providing a rapid and timely response to pirates attempting to approach any of the ships within the convoy. Second, it would assure the same Somalian pirates that no ships within the convoys were illegal fishing vessels trying to poach fish off the Somalian coast as often cited as reason to board passing ships. Thirdly, once it was established that attacks on convoyed shipping consistently failed and in some cases ended in the loss or capture of the pirates then the pirates would quickly move to other less dangerous endevors.  

As for the illegal fishing actually being done (a multi-million dollar loss to the country year after year) off the Somolian coast because of the lack of government and thereby lack of law enforcement, lack of navy perhaps the multi-national governments could help Somolia with that and as a by product nab some of the pirate ships and boats claiming to be fishing boats.

A Tough Position for All Involved

First off; my heart and prayers goes out to the captain being held captive by the pirates off the coast of Somolia. It’s rather ironic that his cargo was humanitarian food supplies bound for Africa. I would also mention that there are seventeen other ships and crews being held captive and they even now are getting little or no coverage by the news.

As a retired Navy man I would like nothing better than the Navy boarding, seizing the pirates and returning the captain safely to his ship and escorting it out of harm’s way. While I believe that the French has the appropiate response to piracy I am not on the navy ship or in the area or responsible for making those descisions.

Other than rushing the pirates boat using naval personal armed with small arms there isn’t a whole lot a destroyer can do in this situation. It doesn’t normally carry a navy seal team or a special forces team. It has personal for operating and fighting using the destroyer’s weapons systems and a part of the crew is trained for repelling boarding attacks on the destroyer itself.  The USS Halyburton and USS Boxer will significantly increase the navys capabiities for this situation.

Having said that the pirates still have a hostage at gun point in a lifeboat sealed from the inside.

The French response and tone toward piracy in the Somalia area is stearn, consistent and non-rewarding for the pirates. In the long run if all countries treated piracy in this fashion there would be no incentive for piracy in the first place. It comes at a price: as the recent intervention cost one of the hostages his life.  http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/04/10/somalia.france/index.html

I hope the the current US leadership does show some backbone and actively participate in ending the piracy.

I would question where the United Nations is in this whole mess and why they have put no effort into ending the piracy and lawlessness in Somolia.

bipartism

And I thought this mean everyone gets together; puts their differences aside; finds and agrees on a solution that best serves the people whom they were elected to represent? Please hear me; just like the first 700 billion dollars; which really wasn’t the ‘first’ billions of bailout money given out in 2008, spending 850 billion to a trillion plus is not in the best interest of us – any of us. NOT the president; whom I have high hopes for, NOT the lawmakers, not the taxpayers, maybe it will help the illegal immigrants. If you look back thru other bailouts nothing even comes close to what was handed out in 2008 before the ‘700 billion’. We are borrowing this money, it is money we DO NOT have to give.

The stock market, home prices, and as we watch them plummet most other retail goods were all artificially inflated by the biggest ponzie scheme in world history and I don’t mean Madoff; while his will certainly be recorded in history as the largest ponzie scheme ever, his was second to the lenders, lawmakers, and stock market.

Now the US Presidency and US legislature are about to artifically inflate the economy with borrowed money. No plan as to how to pay it back; in fact, they have openly chosen to ignore paying it back for now, the interest we will be paying until and if we pay it back; does everyone understand that world depression and wars have come from less than this,  

Take the TARP funds and purchase the bankrupt properties at maybe twenty cents on the dollar and bulldoze all the purchased excess. This will decrease the overall inventory and allow lenders some return on the bad paper that they should never have been involved in to start with.

Isn’t it also time to look at the congressional lawmakers saleries and ‘automatic’ raises; isn’t it time they forfeit some of their pay for such a poor job in these hard economic times?

How to make money during the current economic downturn

Earlier this week I was helping my wife put away the weekly groceries and she mentioned Walmart had changed the packaging on it’s ‘Great Value’ brand of frozen fruit. At the time I did not give it any thought. This morning I looked high and low for the frozen raspberry package and until I remembered my wife’s comment I could not find them. Finally, I remembered and there they were; nice attractive, distinctly different package; but wait, same great raspberries from Walmart’s ‘Great Value’ brand, only now twelve ounces instead of the sixteen ounces just a week ago. That’s one quarter the amount less for the same great price! In other words a twenty-five percent increase in cost! We also have the ‘Great Value’ blue berries, ‘Great Value’ strawberries and ‘Great Value’ blackberries and sure enough all have been reduced by four ounces or twenty-five percent and all have the same great price as the old, one pound package. If all the grocery chains take Walmart’s lead and reduce the package weight by twenty-five percent and charge the same great price we will effectively be paying twenty-five percent more for the food to feed our families as the US economy continues it’s slowdown and folks continue to loose jobs across the nation.

Has anyone else seen similar ‘packaging changes’ at Walmart or other grocery chains? I know this is not unique but I find it highly unfair and irregular at a time like this when folks are trying to make their dollars go further and last longer in order to weather the current economic uncertainty.

It would have been far more palitable had Walmart been up front about the increase and just simply raised the price of the items. How many other ‘Great Values’ have shrunk in quantity while maintaining the ’same great price’?

A large coffee, please.

First, let me be clear; I will have no symphony for the establishment that required me to ask for a ‘venti’ when all I wanted was to order a large, strong cup of coffee over the past five years. Did I mention ‘no room for cream’? Second, when Starbucks announced they were going to add 10,000 stores to the 30,000 it already had in October of 2006 I felt it was the beginning of the end. In my area there are two Starbucks within a block of each other and just down the street there are two more within a block of each other. That in itself is kind of maddening. This is where you have to really pay attention. In addition to coffee and whatever other drinks they have the Starbuck’s franchise store generally carries coffee cakes, and other coffee complimenting cakes and pastries, possibly a sandwich. If you go to the Barnes and Noble Starbucks you get the same great coffee ‘if you succumb and ask for a venti’ but your other choices are quite different; Cheesecake Factory cheesecakes, coffee cakes and various other cakes. However, as a Barnes and Noble Starbucks they do not except the Starbucks card; you can however get a discount with your Barnes and Noble card. Then there is the Kroger Starbucks which is located in the deli/bakery area and generally all you can get there is Starbucks coffee and other Starbucks coffee drinks; no pastries, cheesecakes, or sandwiches. jumping over to the Target Starbucks is about the same; next to the bakery/deli and all they serve is coffee and Starbucks drinks.   It took a while to understand why some Starbucks had cheesecake and others didn’t; why some had a large selection of pasteries and others didn’t and why some had sandwiches and others didn’t. They all had the really good, aromac two dollar a cup coffee though. And lastly; I have been caught a few times when the pot has run dry and if I’ll just wait a little there will be a fresh cup or I can have some ‘American’ substitute (watered down expresso, I think) if I don’t want to wait. Overall, I love Starbucks coffee; it could be cheaper but I am sure that will come or they will loose the market to Saxbys or Dunkin Donuts or McDonalds or RaceTrac or Seven-Eleven or possibly all of them.

So, where have all the billions gone?

Seven hundred billion. WOW! It was just a few days ago that a million with a ‘m’ was this incredible amount; nowadays we don’t even mention such a paltry sum! Does anyone know where our 700 billion ($ 700,000,000,000.00) is, who ended up with it, who will repay it (ha! ha!)? I say ‘our’ because as taxpayers you and I will have to ante up all them billions at some point so it would be nice to know where it is going, if it’s doing any intended good, or are the fat cats just getting fatter? Here is a summary of the billions you and I now owe: 1,369.4 billion ran up in 2008! http://www.propublica.org/special/government-bailouts