Scammers Are Out Cruising Huntington Beach

I had to post about this because this happens to me at least a couple times a year and it happened again yesterday. Have you ever been at the gas station filling up or in a parking lot somewhere and a white minivan pulls up with the driver trying to get your attention? He claims that he has some speakers for sale that were "excess inventory" or some other shady explanation of how he obtained them. After a high pressure sales pitch, he tries to get you to go to your ATM and get cash to buy them(if you don't have any money). I've had them offered to me for anywhere from $100 to $300. If you google "white minivan speaker scam", you come up with all kinds of good info on these scammers. Bottomline with these guys...just say no.

My How Times Have Changed

I was watching some old footage last night of President Ford testifying about his pardon of Richard Nixon in front of a House Judiciary Subcommittee on C-SPAN. One of the first thing I noticed were people sitting behind the President choking down some heaters(cigarette) and another dude smoking a pipe in the committee room! It was hilarious. I guess that's where the phrase "smoke filled rooms" comes from. I wonder what the percentage of people that smoked back then is compared with todays percentage. My guess is that fewer people smoke today. It just struck me that here was a President testifying before Congress for the first time ever and almost everyone behind him was smoking. The times have changed.

Merry Christmas To All

I just wanted to take a moment and wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas.

Health Care For Everyone....Courtesy of Arnold Schwarzenegger

You really gotta hand it to Arnold. He hasn't even been sworn into his new term yet and already he is waxing poetic about giving/mandating health care to/for every Californian. Isn't that special. How do you think he's going to get that done? There's no other way to except to raise taxes like he specifically promised not to do. SUCKERS! All you fellow Republicans that voted for him....how does that taste? It's not like we don't already have a magnet for illegal aliens here in California. Let's just add more fuel to the fire. Hell, this may attract riff raff from all over the country. Nothing like giving away free stuff to attract the moocher class.

Random Tuesday Thoughts

I lost my Yahoo Fantasy Football Playoff Game. Damn! Oh well, there's always next year. I like playing in fantasy football leagues because it gives you a whole different way of watching the games every week. You end up rooting for individual players instead of teams. Usually if the team does well, your player does well, but not always.

It's not even Christmas yet and I'm feeling already Christmas'd out. I've been out for Christmas parties four out of the last five nights! It's killing my diet(or lack thereof). I've just resigned myself to the fact that you can't fight the holidays when you're trying to watch what you eat. You just go with it and deal with the consequences(thicker waistline) after the new year. Last Thursday was my company holiday party at Maggianos South Coast Plaza. Friday was Lynn's company party down at Joe's Crab Shack in Newport, complete I might add with boat parade viewing and waiters/servers dancing to disco tunes every hour in the restaurant. It was fun. Saturday I was up in Seal Beach at O'Malleys & Henneseys getting together with some buddies for our annual Christmas bachnalia. Finally last night we had a dinner get together for our IRC executive members at Macaroni Grill in Tustin Market Place.

Friday is my birthday and I feel like just resting at home!

More Thoughts On The Raids Yesterday

This is the story that keeps on giving. It reminds me of the movie Born in East LA when Rudy(Cheech Marin) is handing out fake IDs to illegals waiting to cross the border saying to them..."congratulations, you are now Fernando Valenzuela. You won 20 games with the Dodgers last year!" It's a damn funny movie about art imitating real life. What's not very funny are all the people that have been victimized by these illegal's complete lack of respect for our laws. It boggled my mind reading some quotes from some of the illegal alien sympathizers...

"ICE's tactics were so heavy handed"..."the kids won't have their dads at Christmas"

I guess they shouldn't have broken the laws then.

Let me get this straight. There haven't been hardly any workplace enforcement actions in the country by ICE over the past few years, but when there actually is one, it is heavy-handed. Got it.

Raid On Illegals

...reads the headline up on Drudge right now. It's about freakin' time. My cynical side though thinks this is just a ploy to generate some "see we're doing our jobs" from ICE. Ultimately this is probably just fodder to grease the skids for an amnesty when the new Congress convenes. They didn't even bust the Swift Co(employer). Instead they busted the illegals for identity theft. In a situation like this you can take your pick from a law enforcement perspective...you know, in the country illegally, social security fraud, tresspassing, identity theft, etc. They must have just spun the unlucky "Illegal Alien Wheel of Misfortune" and or the famous "Illegal Immigration Magic 8 Ball". Here's the AP story

I also love the quote from one of the local illegal alien sympathizer Sheriffs...

"They've got three buses, a bunch of transport vans, a lot of cars and 150 or so agents," chief Cache County deputy David Bennett said.

Bennett said ICE officials didn't notify the sheriff's department about the raid. "They didn't ask for our help," he said. "We were lucky to find out."

At Grand Island, Police Chief Steve Lamken said he refused to let his officers take part in the raid.

"When this is all over, we're still here taking care of our community and if I have a significant part of my population that's fearful and won't call us then that's not good for our community," he said.

You are sworn to enforce all the laws Sheriff. If you won't do that then you need to be relieved of duty.

Quote Of The Day

This is one of my all time favorite quotes from Thomas Jefferson. I find it quite appropriate for today's monetary environment.

Everything predicted by the enemies of banks, in the beginning, is now coming to pass. We are to be ruined now by a deluge of bank paper, as we were formerly by the old Continental paper. It is cruel that such revolutions in private fortunes should be at the mercy of avaricious adventurers, who instead of employing their capital, if any they have, in manufactures commerce, and other useful pursuits, make it an instrument to burden all the interchanges of property with their swindling profits, profits which are the price of no useful industry of theirs. Prudent men must be on their guard in this game of Robin's alive, and take care that the spark does not extinguish in their hands. I am an enemy to all banks discounting bills or notes for anything but coin. But our whole country is so fascinated by this Jack o' lantern wealth, that they will not stop short of its total and fatal explosion." Thomas Jefferson

Our day of reckoning with our fiat currency system is fast approaching. The value of the dollar is down another 10% the past few months. The Fed has a huge problem on their hands right now. Do they keep raising interest rates to try to tame the inflation beast that they've created or do they cut rates like a lot of economists & people want...to continue the cheap money supply and thereby depressing even further the value of the greenback? They're in a no win situation right now.

Democrats To Get Rid Of Pork Spending???

I just read this article about how Democrats are going to get rid of "earmarks" and/or "pork barrel" spending. No really I'm not joking. Here it is. It has brought me out of hibernation to comment. The classic quotes were from the KKK Grand Wizard himself Robert Byrd...

"There will be no congressional earmarks," the Senator from West Virginia said

Robert Byrd saying he's quitting earmarks is like a crack whore saying they're quitting drugs or an alcoholic saying they're going on the wagon. It just isn't going to happen. It will be business as usual from the get go next year you watch. The only difference is that this time it will be the Democrats getting all the credit for overspending our money. We(Republicans) got so good at it that we wanted to take a break and give the other side a chance to prove that they haven't missed a beat since they controlled everything.

Back From A Road Trip To Vegas

What a great weekend! Lynn and I just got home last night from a weekend in Vegas to celebrate our 5th anniversary. Before I talk about our weekend, I want to first congratulate my Bruins for playing their asses off and defeating the Trojans. What a great victory. I honestly have to say that I didn't have high hopes for this game. I even bet money on USC while I was out in Vegas(I figured if I bet on USC, I would change up my teams luck and I was rewarded in spades!). It was a classic performance by my "gutty little Bruins" and this game will go down in history as one of the best ever of the cross town rivalry. I had tears of joy when the clock read 0:00. That deer in the headlights look of Pete Carroll at the end of the game was one I will not soon forget. It feels nice to shut up all the SC mafia here in OC for at least one year. I guess USC has basketball to look forward to...oh wait...UCLA is number one in basketball right now too.

So back to our road trip. We stayed at the venerable Las Vegas Hilton. Memo to Las Vegas Hilton owners: you might want to update the property and join us in the new millenium. Those acoustic ceilings and old school beds in the rooms don't cut it. As far as the weekend though, it was great. We ate at Smith & Wolinsky's Steak House on the strip Saturday night. We visited Hoover Dam before the big game on Saturday. That was impressive. I want to do a separate post about that side trip. Thursday night I hung out with my cousins. Ryan turned 21 last week so we had to baptise him with a Vegas party. We went up to the Ghostbar at The Palms Casino. It has an awesome view of the strip from the club.

We drove home yesterday and took the side rout down to Laughlin. To get to Laughlin from Vegas you have to drive through Searchlight, Nevada. For those who don't know, Searchlight is the home of US Senator Harry Reid. It's a tiny town. As far as I remember, they didn't even have a stoplight in town. It's amazing that someone can come from such a small town like that and become Majority Leader of the US Senate.