sheepdog

We can say that in this day and age, it is money. However, even before actual money was invented, there has always been something to stand in it's place. It may of been cows, or land or the size of your castle, but wealth of some sort has always been the driving factor in most peoples ambitions. So it's more of an attitude than actual money.What about this 2% of the people though. Are those people evil? Is the disasterous condition of the world their fault directly? Even if they gave away all their wealth, would the world suddenly turn into a utopia of peace and harmony? Not likely. Some others would just gather up the wealth and start over again.

Awhile back I bought one of those pasta makers at the swap meet. Didn't get any books or anthing with it. Last night I dug it out from under the car seat where it had been for months since we got it, at the swap meet actually last summer and washed it up and tried to use it. I can figure out how it works, but unfortunatly there must be some trick to preparing the noodle dough I am missing out on. All I got was a mess of goo when the noodle didn't come apart and or all wadded up and stuck together. They were too thin to take apart by hand, and too doughy to handle without them tearing all up or just getting all stuck together.No I don't actually have a reciepe for noodles, I just break some eggs in a bowl and add flour until I have a very dry dough. This is what I tried to run threw the machine. I'm pretty sure my dough just wasn't right, but I don't know any other way to make it. Any tips?

Another California town is at it again. They want to make it illegal for you to smoke a cigarette IN YOUR OWN BACK YARD!!! OK, it's a bad habit. I get that. But crying out loud, we are talking about what you do on your very own property that you not only pay for but pay taxes on to own as your own. Enough is enough people. This is just way over the top. With all the polution from cars, pot smokers, BBQ grills and liberal big mouths, how can a little cigarette smoke possibly be a health hazzard to someone nex door? Here's a link to the story if you don't believe me. I don't blame you if you didn't believe me, this is so far fetched. http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2012/02/24/rocklin-considering-banning-smokers-from-smoking-outside-their-own-homes/

Oh I couldn't agree with you more Nanna! I am amazed at what kids are getting today! I remember having to get permission to even talk on the telephone, can't even dream of owning my own phone as a child! My mom was a clean freak, I remember having to dust the furnature every day of my life threw my entire childhood, and dry the dishes and put them away after supper. (I have to say, to this day I now air dry my dish and put them away after they air dry, I'm perfectly fine with letting them sit in the sink in the dish drainer until they are dry thank you!) But what really blows my mind today is the fact that you are actually seeing commercials on television telling kids to go outside and play??/!!!!! That's just insane to me. When we were kids it was impossible to keep us in the house, me especially! Couldn't wait to get out the door. I find it rather frightening that kids are so hooked on computers and computer games that they don't want to be outside.

Interesting. Thanks for posting. So I gather what you are saying is that there is actually honour killing going on in the United States, but our politically correct media reports it as just murder or domestic violence as opposed to recognising the fact that is was actually an act of religion run amuk. It is true, we in this country to to some rather extreme lengths not to offend people of different beliefs, and possibly I can see some point to it in this case, as bad as I hate the political correct trend we have here, it is after all, murder plain and simple. I do think however that if it was reported as honour killing, perhaps the more inflamed the population was about his disgusting practise the more presure would come to bear against it. Then perhaps something would be done. Though you are right, passing laws against such things never really works anyway. We already have laws on the books to prevent murder, smoking pot, driving over 70 miles per hour, and bank robbery. However, those laws do not stop those crimes from happening. As long as those crimes are based into religious beliefs, it will be virtually impossible to irradicate them, sad to say.

Well, first of all, you have to consider the type of friends you want to meet. Sunday services at a local church might work better for some folks than a strip club. Really! I'm serious! Not all the humans on earth are warped and perverted sex fiends or alcholics. Most of them yes, but not all. :)Pick up a copy of the local news paper. (I think they still print those don't they? Or is everything online?) See if there are any group meetings for organizations you might have an interest in. Check to see if your new community has any new civic improvement projects going on, like trying to get a new playground built for the local children, or a beautify the community group that goes around planting flowers and trees and that sort of stuff. Nearly every community has something like that going on, even our own little town here is trying to build a new playground for kids. If that's not your cup of tea, maybe a group of cyclers that are having a ride a thon for charity. Just anything that will get you out in the public. You can also keep an eye on community bulletin boards, you can usually find these in grocery stores, and also, laundry mats. Laundry mats also by the way, are not a bad place to meet people. Check your local chamber of commerce. They could also tell you about groups in the area. Or check with whoever you got your propery from, landlord or whoever.

I would like to say that space is so vast a few burnt up thrusters and some junk satalites are not serious cause for concern and in the vast cosmos not a really large amount of trash when you consider how much room is out there. Of course, I'm sure the humans on this planet over 100 years ago probably said the same thing about the earth itself. None of the junk that is out there floating around is large enough to cause the destruction of the earth if and when it falls back down. Now granted, I wouldn't want it to land on my head, but as far as massive destruction to the planet, that's not going to happen. Most of it will burn up in the atmosphere as it comes back down anyway. I don't think the original aim of science and technoligy was ever the aim to help humanity to inhabit this planet more comfortably. It had nothing to do with saving the planet. It has always been about making things easier for humans, no more lofty goals than that. Other than of course, the limited reasearch that has been done strictly for inviormmental purposes. There has been in recent years a fair amount of that going on, but it was not the original intent of the scientific community. Science has been pretty busy making smaller computers and cell phones, more crops growing on less land, drugs for illness, that sort of thing.Now personally, I would think that as much as it costs to get that junk up there, if they were smart they'd gather it all up and use it for spare parts at the space station, since it's already up there. Might even come in handy. They need a big recycling bin floating near the space station. Of course, you would need a shuttle or some type of space craft to gather it all up and since the USA has retired all it's shuttles, there aren't as many ways to get around in outerspace. I suspect your right about one thing, we have so many problems here on earth nobody's really concerned about space junk these days. Ad I think it would probably be prudent to take care of the problems here before tackling the space polution thing.

Oh, I agree completely. If business is allowed to do business, everyone benifits, as you explained so well. More jobs, less crime, more taxes to the government, everyone benifits. But the big problem today is keeping government out of business enough so that the business can actually run itself and make a profit. Unfortunatly, it's our government that hampers business with riduclulous regulations that place an unfair cost of doing business to struggling companies.

Yes, it certainly would have to be well designed in order to be effecient and something that would actually work and save time and effort on the employees. The system would be limited as you say buy the need for easy flow of the canisters transporting the materials. You couldn't likely have one to just drop down on your desk. But I'm sure there are plenty of aplications where this could be a real work saver.

I really like your post, it's quite brilliant! You've done a wonderful job of explaining one of the major problems facing our society. Granted, children have always been disrespectful to their parents, but in small ways, just little things, nothing like the rantings of todays teenagers. Part of that results from growing up and finding and molding our own personalities. It is a normal part of growing up. I think all kids go threw that phase of developing independance where they think they are smarter than their parents. But if the parents are allowed to give the child a firm background in what is right and wrong, most children eventually grow up and learn to accept the responsibilites of life. But in our current situation, parents have less and less recourse for raising their children. Liberal attitudes are forced down the throats of any parents who are trying their best to raise their children in a way that teaches them respect and responsibility. I greatly fear the day that will come when this generation comes of age. They will have grown up having their own way and will have no respect for anyone or any consideration of what their responsibilities are. They will lay the blame for anything that happens to them on someone or something else. It can't possibly be their fault now can it? How will these children of today even hold down a job? If their bosses give them an unpleasant task that they don't want to do, they will simply refuse, or quit the job. How will things ever get done? I see this happening already. When was the last time you were in a restuarant or some other customer service industry and were treated respectuflly by the employees? It would probably be easier to remember the last time you were forced to endure the surly, unfriendly attitude of a teenage that was completly unhelpful and acted like they were doing you a favor by allowing you to come into their place of business. Since you didn't see the video, I can tell you that the girl was extremely nasty to her parents. She cursed them venomently. She was upset because they expected her to do some chores around the house. Simple stuff, make her bed, unload the dish washer, wipe off the kitchen counters, take out the trash. Her attitude was typical of todays modern teenager. They expect parent to do everything for them and don't think they should have to do a single thing to contribute. They don't seem to realize it's the work of the parents that puts food on the table and keeps a roof over their heads. Not to mention their very own laptop computer!

I love it when I get calls or emails from my customers bragging on their new puppies. I got a great call the other day, thought I’d share it with you. I always tell people how smart Standard Schnauzers are, but I’m sure many people really don’t understand when I say that they can be so smart it’s almost scary. I suppose they just think I’m pitching them a line of BS to sell them a puppy. But then along comes a brilliant little dog to make a believer out of them. Such is the case of one of my recent puppy sales. The brilliance this young 3 month old pup showed is pretty amazing, even to me. For the sake of privacy, I’ll change the names of the person and puppy involved. We will call the customer Bill and the female Standard Schnauzer puppy Willa. Bill and Willa got off to a bit of a rough start. She bit him when she first arrived when he was trying to get her out of her shipping crate. Standards are smart, but they are also not very trusting of strangers. She spent a few hours sitting in the middle of his yard glaring at him and refused to come to him or let him catch her. Eventually she decided that he probably wasn’t a puppy-eating Ogre and made up with him. Over the next several days she bonded very closely with him and became his constant shadow. Her general training and house breaking went exceptionally well, when he called he informed me that she as yet had not even had an accident in the house.The day before he called me, Bill got Willa a tennis ball to play with. She really like this new toy, and played with it with a sincere passion. She would drop it, bounce it, and chase it and just had a great time with it. During the course of the playing with the tennis ball, it rolled under Bills couch. He told me the couch sat very low to the floor, and he really didn’t think she could get it back out. Apparently it wasn’t easy to do, Willa worked at it for quite awhile, but finally she flattened herself on the floor and twisted around to where she could finally reach her ball and got it out. She went back to playing with her toy for a while, when as you might guess, it rolled back under the couch. This time Bill felt sorry for her, so to save her all that squirming and struggling, he went to the closet and got a broom out, and used the broom handle to reach under the couch and knock the ball out for her. She happily went back to playing with her ball, until, yes, you guessed it, it rolled back under the couch one more time. But Willa was no fool. This time she went straight to Bill, sat down in front of him, looked him right in the eye, and barked one time, and then ran straight to the closet where the broom was! Now who says dogs can’t communicate with humans? After only one time of seeing Bill get the ball out for her with the broom, she knew just exactly how to show him what she wanted him to do. I suppose it does make you wonder just exactly who is training who in this situation. That is sure one smart little dog! I’m sure proud of her. And, more importantly, Bill is too. I’m sure glad I could be a part of something that could bring so much joy to another person.

"What has happened to real justice?"Now that is certainly a good question! It is cases just like this that make me a firm believer in death sentences. Nobody this foul should be allowed to exist on this planet, let alone be catered to like this scum. He is a total waste of the oxeygen he is breathing, let alone the food he eats. I can certainly understand why you think sometimes the criminals are better off and that the old adage of crime doesn't pay isn't true anymore. Especially when you see all the criminals out there that don't even get caught, but live free to enjoy their illgotten gains. Makes you want to reconsider being a decent upright citizen. (but only consider, I don't think I could bring myself to a life of crime, I do after all, have to live with myself) Somebody needs to dust his chicken and fish in rat poison.

Yes, do ask your mom about this one! Aren't parents wonderful, at least when you yourself get old enough to appreciate them? Ok, I'll admit it, I have on occasion sifted out some weevily flour, so no, I don't find that overly gross. When your making something and already have most of the ingredients in the bowl, you really don't have a lot of other options except letting it all go to waste, so what else can you do? You have confirmed my suspicions however, that a lot of the flower and stuff we buy is already contaminated when we buy it. Hummm...I just had a thought. I wonder if microwaving would kill eggs or the bugs if they were already in the flour when you bought it? Of course, I also wonder if a sack of flour would explode if you microwaved it? Boy wouldn't that make a mess! Anyone brave enough to pop a bag of flour in the microwave for this experiment? I'm not. I hate house cleaning.

Oh I like that one! I'm surprised I hadn't already seen that on here. It's always good to start the day with a good laugh, thanks for bringing the story back up so I got to read it too.

Welcome Ronnie! Glad you are here and I do hope you will post and get involved with our little group here. We can really use some new blood as they say. Why don't you tell us a little more about yourself, I mean you don't have to give out any personal information, just your likes, dislikes, what you do for a living, the general part of the world you live in, that sort of thing.

Bummer! I was rooting for Ford, since they didn't take any of the government bail out money!I find it rather sad that the government gets involved with private enterprise and then the company the government supports seems to get an unfair advantage over the privately owned company. It's a real kick in the head to the free enterprise system if you ask me.

Well hello there Velma, glad to see you checking in. We appreciate your doing so, and even if I am computer illerate enough to not have even the slightest idea of what you are talking about running script, it's good to know you are here and working on the problems. Thanks for explaining things at any rate. I think I can safely say, we are all rooting for you and KS! I've been here a couple years myself, and overall have been pretty happy with it. Sure is nice to not have another bill to pay every month.(web hosting) We would just like to see things run smoothly. I don't know about the rest of the gang here, but I have enough anxiety in my life without things going wrong here and having to worry about my web site hosting. Thanks again Velma. Don't take our outbursts personally, I'm sure your doing your dead level best to keep things running smoothly here. Hang in there!

What a great story, thanks for posting. It's wonderful to know there are still some people in the world who will stand up for their rights and take on the big guys. Took a lot of bravery for those folks to do what they did. Too bad the court system wouldn't help them, but that is usually the case, the big guys with the most $$$ win, it's not really so much a city verses village thing. Though that could play into it somewhat. Wonder why city people all over the planet seem to think people in the country are "bumpkins?" Personally, I think people that live in the cities are the one's that aren't real bright, or as they say, "the sharpest knife in the drawer." City people shold show a lot more respect for country people. They are after all, the ones that feed them. Do keep us posted as to how this event unfolds, it's quite an interesting story. Have they been scientifically able to prove the waste dumping causes the illness in the village? Though I suppose that would be a difficult thing to prove one way or the other. Would the dump be less of a health hazzard, or overall problem if it was properly managed?

Sorry no one has gotten back to you. I really don't know they answer, I thought you could ad one when you got signed up. However, since the last upgrade to the forum, I've never even figured out how to add one. Maybe someone can enlighten both of us.

Has anyone grown Psycho, the white blooming variety of Cosmos? I would dearly love to have some seed, but I hate the thought of paying a couple dollars for the seed, and then $4-5 dollars just to have it mailed to me. I'd happily send someone a stamped self addressed envalope if they had some spare seed. Would also like to know more about the plant too, how tall it grows, etc. I've been collecting different colors of Cosmos for a few years now. I got some of the reds and oranges a few years ago, and I was a bit dissapointed in that the folage of the plant is a great deal different than the pretty, delicate folage of the regular cosmos. I was curous at to what the folage of this variety of white is like. I have tried for several years now to also increase my regular white cosmos, I carefully save the seed from the white blooms, but every year it seems many of those seeds still produce the various shades of purple instead of white. I'm wondering if it cross pollinates, or just doesn't breed true.

Has anybody got any good tricks for keeping weevils out of flour that you keep in storage? It seems the only thing that works here is keeping it stored in the freezer, but most of the time we are really short on freezer space, so that isn't a practical solution. The nasty little bugs seem to get into every sack of flour or corn meal or pancake mix we get. I do like to keep a far amount of the basics on hand, stocked up in case of hard times if you will. I've even tried storing it in glass jars with tight lids and sometimes they still get into it. I swear sometimes I have to throw out more flour than we use. The also invade any cake or brownie mixes we buy, and they are hell on Ramen Noodles too. About the only thing they don't invade is sugar and salt. (Humm, think bugs may be more health concious than us people?) I remember my mom putting bay leaves in her flour jars, but not sure if that was for bugs or what she did it for. Don't know if it worked or not. My mom did a lot more cooking than I do, I suspect she would use up flour faster than the bugs could get to it, so I really don't know if the bay leaves did any good or not. If that was even what they were for.

I just checked my mycents, it seems to have gone up $1, but I used to get a notice in my email that I had made $1 and didn't this time. I don't mind not getting the emails, but at least that way I knew I was getting paid without have to go and check. I'm not wondering about just Velma, I'm wondering where everybody has gone! I've always been at a disadvantage here when trying to make posts since I am not a computer geek, and now with it slower than molassas in January, I'm having a terrible time making any posts. I am sure glad your here!

Welcome Leass.Ok, I know what bilingual is, but when you put that together as bilingual-humanistic you've lost me. Anyway, your in a great place if your into computers and blogs and all that fun stuff. Welcome aboard! Hope you can start up some neat new topics. Not like I can talk computers with you, so hey, do you have a dog???

I see this thread was started back in 2007. Shame we have to keep harping on 5 year old posts, but hey, what else is there to post about? And some things have changed since way back then. For starters, recent studies show that more accidents are caused by idiots talking on cell phones than drunk drivers. Imagine that! So adding the massive expence of a breahalizer starter for cars isn't going to help much anymore. And it's a stupid waste of time and money for the millions of people that are not stupid enough to drink and drive. Why should the actions of a few make it rough for everybody else? Although this does seem to be the case most of the time. The big problem with accidents is just plain and simple PEOPLE DO NOT PAY ATTENTION when they are driving. They don't concentrate on the road, they fiddle with cell phones, putting on make up, and day dream or what ever. I was driving one day and passed a woman on the freeway with a book laying over the steering wheel, I watched her for several minutes, the dumb witch never even looked up! Some how, some way, you just need to impress upon people that when driving, you DRIVE. You concentrate on driving. You don't do anything else. You want to talk on the phone? Pull over. Park. Or wait till you get where you are going. Is that call or text from your buddy that says nothing more than how R U worth dying or killing someone over?

I actually saw it on national news, probably Fox, so it wasn't just a wild or fabricated facebook or U Tube video, like a lot of stuff that goes around online. Now, here's something that might shock you. I went to public school. We had no computers. And guess what? I still got an education! Granted, I don't spell the best in the world, but that's just because I'm always in too big a hurry to run spell checker, or pick up the dictionary. The point is, I do know how to use a dictionary should I want to. We had these things called libraries where if we wanted to know something we went there and looked it up. My point to all this is that you don't need a computer for school. A computer is a privledge and a tool. If you abuse your tools and privledges, you loose them. Obviously, if she was using the computer to trash her parents, she wasn't using it for her education now was she? Or, maybe she was. She sure did learn one lesson, which would be don't trash your parents on face book! Yes, they could of given away her computer. But that wouldn't of made quite the impression shooting the dang thing did now would it? Sometimes you just have to make a point, even if that in this case may seem a bit extreme, it did no doubt make the point in a plain and unmistakeable mannor. One even the most dense teenager could understand, I would think.