The Rusted Musket

Well I think that this blog needs a facelift. I had only intended on using this theme for a short period of time.. But its been a long time and I am planning on redoing it from scratch. Should be interesting…      So keep an eye out for some new features.

The Old Testament tells a story of a man named Job whose three friends mourned with him after a string of crushing tragedies. When Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar (Job’s friends) saw with their own eyes the gravity of Job’s situation they tore their robes and collapsed in the dirt next to him; no one would say a word for the next seven days. If at the end of that seventh day Job’s friends had just left, content with their solidarity and support through grief filled silence, they would’ve gone down in history as some of the most compassionate friends ever. As it was, they did not, they had to open their months and give Job their advice and judgment.

The scriptures say we are to “ Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” If you can help it, I guess I write this as an encouragement to keep your comments to a minimum if you ever find yourself in a situation like Job’s friends did, because folks mostly don’t need your words, they need your presence in time of tragedy…

This story is frankly rather frustrating. The gist of it is two Wisconsin men decided, 28 years after the fact, that PepsiCo illegitimately acquired their idea for bottled water (Pepsi’s Aquafina). The lawsuit stinks because of the numbers. First off this is 28 years after the fact, so IF Pepsi did steal the ideas why did these people not sue sooner? Also Pepsi had a bit of a mixup and missed the court appearance and a more than $1billion dollar judgment was made against them. That is a absolutely absurd amount of money in the first place. Thankfully Pepsi will be able to appeal the process and if they have to pay it’ll most likely be a lot less. Larger companies are willing to make a few million dollar payments in cases like these just to settle the thing…

The other rather stupid aspect of this is that there is a lawsuit such as this in the first place. It is these types of things that are clogging are courts instead of legitimate concerns we have money hungry people grubbing for cash. Its a waste of time and money.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words…

I can’t help but poke fun at this article because the university system costs so much and its funny how expensive school is and how little we students seem to get. I mean they are getting these millions and millions of dollars and school is costing students 10k+, 15k, 20k, a year and many classes have 200 students which are essentially being taught by a TA. Yeah right that sounds like a great school! Where is all the money going then? Why do they *need* this money to “save” jobs in the first place?

Anyway, back to my original idea. College jobs are important, they can help to instruct people and ease them into the working world. However, State University jobs do not create jobs, where as that amount of money as grants or loans to small businesses would most likely create many more jobs. Why is that? Because a business, wants to and need to grow, to increase revenues and to eventually hire more employees. A College isn’t in the same class, the can become a money sink and don’t generally return a profit, or much of a revenue increase.

Its funny how, with all this stimulus, little of it found its way into small businesses’ hands. My wife and I wanted to get a small business loan and it was a royal pain to even apply and there is a very limited amount of funds available. And these are loans too, not grants or anything. It seems to me that the government needs to re prioritize.

I’m still not getting the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Obama thing? He hasn’t even built a school in Africa, unlike Oprah…

Image Credit: psychologytoday.com

All I can say about this is wow… It just makes me see how little the Peace Prize means. Huh, lets just give the prize out to someone who hasn’t done much of anything yet, our reason will be that he has good intentions… Thankfully the story points out that the committee for decided the award is decidedly leftist so it shouldn’t come as a surprise…

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against Obama getting a award of this sort, but shouldn’t he have to prove himself first? And…. Its not like Bush was a warmonger, he started two legitimate battles to help keep the USA and the World safe from terrorists. Obviously a lot of people don’t see it that way, but thats it, black and white.