Be INFORMED

Saturday, September 04, 2010

Dems Messing Up Chances In November…

…which is not anything surprising, is it? I think that those idiots up in Washington,D.C. have been shooting themselves in the foot from day one. President Obama has no control over his group and he has not attempted to reign his troops in, which is not good. The Democrats, I think, are going to eat the dust come November and they have no-one to blame but themselves.

    At stake nationally is the balance of power in Washington, the tone for the remainder of Obama's first term and his likely 2012 re-election bid. All 435 House seats as well as 37 Senate seats are on the ballot. The country also will elect 37 governors in races that will determine who oversees the once-a-decade redrawing of political districts.

    Republicans are hoping to capitalize on voters' economic disillusionment, frustration with Obama and tea party-generated enthusiasm.

   Democrats are relying on a financial advantage, a robust get-out-the-vote operation and, mostly, the ghost of George W. Bush to curb an expected Nov. 2 shellacking.   Source

Thursday, September 02, 2010

Are The Power Companies Ripping You Off?

   Of course they are, you and I both know that. My problem is not with what I am paying for the power usage, but with the other “ add-ons “ tacked to the bill.

    We here in Tampa are serviced by only one power company and that would be TECO (Tampa Electric). Guess that it is pretty nice to be a monopoly here in this area.

   In the bill which arrived in the mail today was one of those forgettable little pamphlets that outfits are always throwing in with the bill itself. Usually, I toss the thing into the trash,but I decided to take a look at it this time around. Surprise! $104.90  power bill. No big deal there right? I think that that is pretty cheap for this time of year. My attention was directed to the extra fees and such.

  Gross Receipts Tax: $1.78

  Franchise Fee: $3.52

Those are nothing to be concerned with, but, this one got me!

   Customer Charge: $10.50

   Just what is this charge? According to this little pamphlet:

      “ The monthly customer charge covers the cost of maintaining your electric meter and the wires that bring electrical service to your home or business. “

    It also covers their cost to send someone out to read my meter,and maintain my customer records.

    So, in a nutshell, I am paying them an extra $10.50 for services that should be coming out of my power bill itself. Are they now charging me extra for their costs of doing business?

   I’ll have more on this after I get a chance to speak with someone at the company.

 

 

Wednesday, September 01, 2010

A Little Bit Of Polling

   Well now, to give you just a little bit of what the country thinks of President Obama, I went to one of my favorite polling sites, Rasmussen to check out their latest info.

    The latest polling index shows that only 29% of the countries voters Strongly Approve of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as president. Those who Strongly  make up some 41%. Those are not good numbers by any means,

    While we are at it, you should know that 75% of those polled think that our Congress should cut their own pay until the budget gets balanced. Don’t hold your breath waiting for that one to happen.

Overall, 48% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's performance. Fifty-one percent (51%) disapprove.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Glenn Beck and The Christian Right

“Something beyond imagination is happening. America today begins to turn back to God.”        Glenn Beck

 

    That was FoxNews Channel's own pundit Glenn Beck while he was speaking at a rally up in Washington,D.C. on this past Saturday in which 10,000’s of thousands (100’s if you ask Beck) of people attended.  Just what you and I need, another Republican rally, which is exactly what this event was.

   It was not to long ago that the Republican diehards where out touting about how godly they were and that the GOP would be turning America back towards God and that this country would once again become a great nation.

   The Republicans might have actually pulled it off if it wasn’t for all of that greed,graft,and criminal activity that they perpetrated getting in the way of things.

    Of course, the Obama administration has not been all that great either. They haven’t gotten to the corruption and crime part yet. Not that we know of yet. Give it time, the game isn’t over.

   The Democrats cannot seem to get anything accomplished in the Senate or the House for that matter. Nobody likes anyone else's idea’s because they didn’t think of it. Then of course, those darned Republicans keep sticking nails in any idea from the Liberal side of the isle. Lest you forget, there are many Republican politicians whose sole purpose is to see to it that President Obama goes down hard with as many other Democrats as possible.

   The Republicans are winning this war against you and I. Mr. Beck does his best to disparage the President at every chance that he gets.

    Sara Palin also got her shot at running her mouth at this gathering.

    When Sarah Palin, the Republican populist and former vice presidential candidate, launches into her speech, the crowd chants “USA, USA, USA.” “We must restore America and restore her honor,” demands Palin. She addresses the people as “patriots.” In recent months, Palin has emerged as the leader of the “tea party” movement and is mentioned as a possible 2012 presidential candidate. But she says she is speaking in front of the Lincoln Memorial not as a politician, but rather as the mother of a soldier. For this, too, there is warm applause.

   This is the stuff that the GOP has always been great at and I see no reason for that group to fail this time around either.

   The Dems are in deep shit and they are going down a little bit deeper if they do not get it together.

   Then there is also the influence of the Tea Party movement, another group supporting the Republicans. Easy to do since they are mostly GOPer’s in the first place.

Windows Live Writer Beta 2011…

    … is on my list of blogging software as a must have.

    Over the past few days I’ve been having problems with getting “Live writer” to work properly on my computer. I did uninstall and reinstall it at least 5 times. After the last take out, the

Windows Live Essentials installer kept telling me that I already had “Live writer” installed, which was not correct. Hell! I deleted all of the files that had anything to do with the program and still I could not install another one.

   At my wits end, I went  and Goggled the “Live Essentials'” and I was led to the newer 2011 version. Got a new “live writer” and it looks pretty darned sleek!

    I posted this in order to see how it works.