Scoop’s Views

It seems just about half the members of the U.S. House of Representatives have half a brain, or, if not that, then at least the commonsense God gave to individuals fiscally responsible for managing household budgets.

Barack Obama, however, is not among that crowd: he had this strange idea that the very CEOs that got the financial institutions into a mess should receive “reasonable compensation packages.” Those CEOs should be paying compensation to the U.S., to the homeowners they helped defraud by giving mortgages to people who never should have qualified for them in the first place.

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Long before cell phones, MP3 players, CDs and DVDs, laptops, and home theaters, life was simple. There were wax records that were played on record players; notebooks and steno books for taking notes; and black-and-white television and the dear old radio, especially the ever-popular AM stations!

Gone are the days of some of the simple pleasures many of us enjoyed.

Tags: 15 cent burgers, 15 cent hamburgers, 45 RPM record spindles, 5 cent U.S. Postage, Alka-Seltzer, aluminum Christmas trees, AM radio stations, America, American English, Americans, Avon, baseball cards, Beanie and Cecil, black-and-white television sets, Brownie box cameras, Brylcreem, Burma Shave, Camel, Camel ads, Camel cigarettes, car hops, cars, CDs, cell phones, Chatty Cathy, Chef Boy-Ar-Dee, chemistry sets, chewing gum, Chicago Cubs, Christmas, cigarettes, cigarettes for Christmas, Coca-Cola, collective past, cork pop guns, curb service, dashboards, drive-in movies, drive-in restaurants, drive-ins, DVDs, erector sets, Ernie Banks, Falstaff beer, fire escape tubes, five cent Coca-Cola, five cent Cokes, five cent postage stamps, five cent sodas, flash bulbs, floorboards, Franco-America, Fuller Brush Man, girls on skates, gum wrapper chains, hamburgers, high-beams, home theaters, ignition switches, Jiffy Pop popcorn, keys, laptops, Lassie, Lincoln Logs, major league baseball, Marlin Perkins, McDonald's, metal ice cube trays with levers, MP3 players, notebooks, Ol' Yeller, old radio, Old Yella, Old Yeller, old-time radio, one-cent candy, penny candy, Philco, Photos, pop guns, press 1 for English, proud country, public schools, RCA, RCA-Victor, record players, reel-to-reel, ringer washing machings, roller skates, rollerskates, S&H Green Stamps, Santa, schools, simple life, simple pleasures, Sky King, Spaghetti-Os, speak English, Speedy, steering columns, steno books, Studebakers, taking notes, talking dolls, tape recorders, Timmy, Timmy and Lassie, Tinker toys, Topo Gigio, trading cards, triple-dog dare, TV test patterns, TVs, value of a dollar, Victrola, waitresses on skates, Walt Disney, Walt Disney movies, washtub wringers, washtubs, wax records

The U.S. Coast Guard units in and around the Gulf Coast are certainly earning high praise from the news media, from over 40 people who have been rescued this morning, and leaders in various areas impacted by Hurricane Ike.

Now, at 2:32 p.m., with Hurricane Ike at a category 2 with 105 mph winds, many are surprised the Coast Guard is still doing rescues, as a notice, according to some, had been issued earlier saying rescues would end hours ago. They haven’t, and there are at least two people alive — at least — who were rescued in this extended mission.

Tags: Antalina, armed forces, Cyprus-flagged freighter, freighter, freighter Antalina, Hurricane Ike, hurricanes, National Guard troops, Osprey, rescue jumpers, rescue missions, rescues, Reserve forces, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Coast Guard

When Hurricane Katrina was heading toward New Orleans, Louisiana just over three years ago, many residents were shoo’ing off warning to evacuate the city and other areas. In the case of Hurricane Gustav, estimates were for severe flooding and possible levy breaks. In essence, pretty much a repeat of Hurricane Katrina. Fortunately, for taxpayers around country, as well as residents of the areas where the hurricane made landfall, the hurricane didn’t live up to its projections.

With Hurricane Ike bearing down on the South Texas to Louisiana coast, evacuation orders for many towns have been issued, including in Galveston, Texas, which saw 16,000 people die in a hurricane in 1901. Galveston now has 15-foot storm walls to protect the city, which is basically bowl-shaped, but the National Hurricane Center and the National Weather Service are saying storm surges could be as high as 20 feet – five feet over the storm walls.

Tags: BASF, chemical plants, Clear Lake Texas, evacuation orders, evacuations, flood walls, flooding, floods, Freeport, Freeport Texas, Galveston, Galveston Bay, Galveston Texas, Gulf of Mexico, Houston, Houston Texas, Hurricane Ike, Lake Charles, landfall, Louisiana, National Hurricane Center, National Weather Service, oil refineries, Pensacola, personal safety, pets, Port Arthur, refineries, responsibility, sea wall, seawall, storm walls, storms, surges, Texas, transportation, warnings, waves

With 2008 suicide rates expected to exceed last year’s all-time-high rate and threatening to top those in the civilian population, the Army is stepping up efforts to get Soldiers and their leaders to look out for each other’s well-being and to take the stigma out of seeking mental-health help.

Sixty-two active-duty Soldiers, most of them junior enlisted members, committed suicide so far this calendar year, Col. Eddie Stephens, the Army’s deputy director for human resource policy, told reporters today during a Pentagon roundtable. The armed forces medical examiner is investigating another 31 suspected cases to determine if they will be classified as suicides.

Tags: ACE, active duty soldiers, American Forces Press Service, armed forces medical examiner, Army family, Army Reserve units, Ask Care Escort, battle buddies, battlefield, behavioral health care, Brig. Gen. Rhonda Cornum, civilian population, Col. Eddie Stephens, Donna Miles, financial difficulties, intervene, intervention, junior enlisted members, leaders, legal issues, mental health help, National Guard units, National Suicide Prevention Week, occupational and operational issues, Pentagon, problems, relationships, risk factors, Shoulder to Shoulder No Soldier Stands Alone, soldiers, strength, stresses, suicide awareness training, suicide rates, U.S. Army, warning signs, weakness, World Suicide Prevention Day

A Dayton, Ohio jury, though not reaching a consensus, convicted a local woman to life in prison without the chance of parole in the horrific, sense-overwhelming, and logic-defying murder of her daughter.

China Arnold, who decided not to be present in the courtroom when the verdict was read, was sentenced for killing her baby daughter by cooking her in a microwave oven. Of all the horrendous, hideous ways to kill a person, Ms. China Arnold, of Dayton, Ohio, added one more way to kill a person, namely, an infant.

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With all the local, state, and federal resources – money and manpower – that were poured into Louisiana, especially New Orleans, it’s hard to think that anything more than prayer saved the city from being ravaged at least as bad, if not worse, than it was a short three years ago.

Despite all the money pumped into coordinating services and evacuations, an estimated 10,000 residents of New Orleans stayed in town despite the mandatory evacuation orders. It’s hard to imagine these people would test their luck and stay.

Tags: best interests, burglaries, contractors, coordinated plans, coordinating services, devastated, evacuations, Federal Emergency Management Agency, federal government, federal resources, FEMA, heartfelt thanks, holidays, Hurricane Gustav, Hurricane Katrina, hurricanes, looting, Louisiana, luck, maintaining law and order, mandatory evacuation orders, manpower, mayhem, money, New Orleans, prayers, storms, theft, total costs, wasteful spending

Hurricane Gustav is going to hit the United States unless there’s an act of divine intervention. Short of a miracle from Heaven, all computer predictions are showing Hurricane Gustav will hit somewhere along the Gulf Coast, anywhere from Pensacola, Florida on the Eastern side to Houston, Texas on the West.

Unless Hurricane Gustav’s path is suddenly diverted, or unless Hurricane Gustav falls apart and becomes little more than a tropical storm or depression, it’s more than likely at least one of the many oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico will receive some damage, but likely all of the platforms will be closed down in advance of the storm.

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Beloit College’s Class of 2012 Mindset List has been released. It’s a list of things that incoming freshmen – most of whom were born in 1990 – are familiar with, but things they also don’t know or comprehend. For example, Harry Potter could very well be one of their classmates, the Class of 2012 Mindset List notes.

The list was started by Beloit’s Keefer Professor of the Humanities Tom McBride and Public Affairs Director Ron Nief, providing insight into the life and realities — as they exist — for incoming freshmen. It provides cultural touchstones that shape the lives of the incoming students, sometimes making it easier for a professor to understand why some students don’t grasp course content. one such example, for which I must be an exception, is this year’s item #20.

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It’s always nice when someone with means (you know, the people called “the haves”) reaches out and helps others in society with less (those people called “the have-nots”), but sometimes things that are done for supposed “have nots” is ridiculous. A classic example is in the news today.

It seems Donald “The Donald” Trump is doing something with his money to help another American couple deal with their personal woes as a result of defaulting on their mortgage. That’s nice, right?

Tags: ads, broken neck, CNN, combover, commercials, Donald Trump, Ed and Pamela McMahon, Ed McMahon, employment, entertainer, financial irresponsibility, fiscal irresponsibility, fiscal responsibility, frontman, Howard Bragman, Johnny Carson, Larry King, Larry King Show, lawsuits, mold, mold growth, mortgage crisis, mortgages, News, Pamela McMahon, Publishers Clearinghouse, sidekick, Society, televison, The Donald, the have-nots, the haves, The Simpsons Movie, The Tonight Show, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, work

There are at least a handful of people arguing the U.S. government needs to “do more” to regulate online pharmacies. Sure, that may be true, but right now, face the facts: most in Congress are older people who are technologically-challenged. In fact, look at legislation about most any aspect of life and you’ll see most of it is at least 10 or more years behind the times. I won’t even touch on the health care crisis in the U.S.

In a story on CNN.com, one woman cried to the cable news channel that she found her husband on their marriage bed, dead, in a pool of vomit. He allegedly died from what the woman — the widow — declares was an accidental overdose of drugs the now-dead husband received from an online pharmacy.

Tags: American Fork, anonymous, carisoprodol, Carmen Catizone, clinics, CNN.com, dead, death, depression, drugs, Elavil, European Medicines Agency, European Union, fitness, Health, husband, Illegal Drugs, Kareem Tannous, Long Island, Mental Health, Mood Disorders, Nancy Fitzpatrick, National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, online pharmacies, online pharmacy, pharmaceuticals, Prozac, Rusty Payne, Science and Technology, side effects, Soma, Sweden, Technology, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Utah, Valley Stream, Websites

While we aren’t yet using the thumbprint technology in transactions such as buying a home, grocery shopping, or, for that matter, shopping at most any store, it is used for government stuff, as well as used for computing security.

Did Simon Ramo have it all wrong back in November 1964, or was he a little too optimistic for his time? I think it’s the latter. Even in the late 1990s and early this decade, even as late as 2003 or so, I heard people I know dismiss the idea of using debit cards, as well as ATMs, even for cash advances from a credit card. Those same people, though, also were against online shopping.

Tags: 1964, ATMs, automatic money transfers, banking systems, Big Brother, business transactions, buying a home, cash, coinage, computer security, credit cards, currency, debit cards, dollars, electronic debit systems, futurists, Government, identification, identity theft, instant money transfers, monetary symbols, monetary systems, money, November 1964, November 27, online shopping, paper dollars, paper money, payment systems, shopping, Simon Ramo, thumb-prints, thumbprint technology, thumbprints, TIME, Time magazine