OK, I'm back but I don't know for how long.

I got to thinking about global warming. IF you're the type who believes in global warming and IF you're convinced that it's the human race who is the main culprit, has it ever occurred to you that perhaps there is something we have done which we can reverse to help solve the problem.

For example do you remember all those years ago (if you're not that old, read a history book), when most of our major cities were filthy, smoky, can hardly breathe, cesspools of polution. Do you remember what was done to our industry, to our automobiles to eliminate that problem?

We installed catalytic converters everywhere. Do you know how the catalytic converter works? What it "converts"? And what it "converts" it into? Here the details on the chemical activities:

1. Reduction of nitrogen oxides to nitrogen and oxygen: 2NO_x → xO₂ + N₂
2. Oxidation of carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide: 2CO + O₂ → 2CO₂
3. Oxidation of unburnt hydrocarbons (HC) to carbon dioxide and water: C_xH_2x+2 + 2xO₂ → xCO₂ + 2xH₂O

Hey, #1 isn't bad, we get some oxygen and some nitrogen. But #2 and #3 BOTH produce carbon dioxide (CO2).

Now I understand they're worried about your "carbon footprint". So, is it carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that we all heard about, that's the problem or is it carbon? One of the reasons our cities used to be so dirty was all that carbon falling out of the atmosphere. It doesn't seem to be that bad nowadays.

I suppose what they want to do is get that carbon to combine with oxygen so it comes out a clear, pure, clean carbon dioxide. What do you think? Maybe we should just pull all the catalytic converters off of everything and see what happens. Shouldn't be any worse that it was 40 years ago, right?

Well, today's election day. By being away for the last few years I've managed to avoid arguing with the liberals which frequent Mindsay.

Generally, I try not to argue politics, especially during election years. Reason seems to flee from most people as their minds attempt to fend off any alternate reality trying to filter its way in. Can't say that I'm any different, but I try to keep it civil and non-personal. Others don't.

I have figured out in my 66 years on this earth that a lot of folks vote with their own welfare in mind. Can't really blame them, of course, but it's not necessarily the best in the long run. But then, the poor and the young don't think much about the long run, many of them are just trying to exist from day to day.

And of course the world that liberals would like to live in (as opposed to the one they got born into) does sound nice. As a preacher I used to know would say, "sounds good, preaches good" At my age, the one I got born into seems better than the one I have now, so I understand.

Unfortunately, it isn't within man's grasp to attain the world they seek. As I noted before, everybody want the world to change so people are better but none of us feel that we're the ones who need to change. Many a mother in the ghetto complains about the drug dealers selling to their children when it's their children who are the drug dealers.

A man said once to God, "Why do you allow such misery to exist on earth?" God replied, "Why do you?"

Well, it's been two-and-a-half years since I was forced to retire and I'm finally beginning to realize just how much better it is not having to work. Oh, an occasional feeling of guilt filters its way through, but it quickly goes away.

It hasn't been easy. We had figured on 3 more years of salary, at least some of which was supposed to make it into our IRA. But it didn't happen. Two months without any money coming in at all did. That chewed up a bit of cash.

But we survived, I got my social security started early and we managed to scrape by (paying full price for individual health insurance for two people in their 60's is the pits). Ended up having to pull 11,000 out of our IRA, but we got through.

Then last year I got on medicare and my wife started her social security early. Which is all good, because all our saving were pretty well used up.

Then in April of this year I closed out our IRA completely (only 15,000 - did I mention 3 years of saving that we didn't do?) and put it into CD's. Which was good since the stock market fell apart in September.

We have about 3,000 coming from our tax return next year (they hold out 20% of a withdrawal just to make sure you don't cheat the government out of some taxes), so that'll cover my wife's medical deductible and we'll use a little of one of our CD's to make it through that year. No worry for another 14 months. :)

So, if Obama gets in and sends us the tax rebate he's promising everybody (even those who don't pay any tax), we'll have enough to eat out a few times. And if McCann gets in then we'll at least have the satisfaction that our country is in good hands.

I just thought of something. If I had stayed working for those three years, I might have saved more money but it wouldn't be worth as much as it'd still be sitting in an IRA invested in the stock market.

So, the way it went, I had almost 3 more years of retirement. If it had went the way I wanted it to go, I probably couldn't have afforded to retire at all. God is good.

Peeves in movies:

Japanese horror movie American remakes. Seems like Japanese horror comes in two brands - Godzilla and ghosts. Nothing wrong with either, but culturally their stories just don't translate. And leave it up to American filmmakers to pretend that these remakes are something that they're not.

Blair Witch movie techniques. It wasn't effective in the original, it isn't effective in the reuses. The only thing that goes through one's mind when watching is how contrived the amateur filmmaking looks and how much more entertaining it would have been shot as a "real" movie.

Movies that go out of their way to emphasize how disfunctional and depressing family dynamics can be. A prime example is "Brothers Three", but there are countless others. I suppose it's a way to try and make what is otherwise ordinary filmmaking of ordinary people "interesting".

Movies that show children as heroes, saving either the world or family relationships. Inevitably, parents and/or grown-ups of all ilks are shown as dolts, slow-witted, with anger as their only emotion. Children are NOT intellectual, intuitional, emotionally stable, and far-sighted individuals. They are selfish, controlling, impulsive entities that need adults to learn how to be human. That goes double for teen-agers.

Any movie which aims at an intelligence level of a ten-year-old boy, but uses emotionally-stunted adults (almost always male). And then to call them comedies. Those emphasizing potty humor, dumber than dumber humor, American Pie humor, etc.

Really haven't had much going on lately to report on. Or rather, plenty going on, nothing interesting to report on. Either way, there won't be much here either.

Let's see, what have I been watching from my myriads of recorded TV series I have on DVD's?

In the morning, before my wife gets up I'm about halfway through the second year of the series "Millennium". Probably the series which most changed directions and styles of all series with the possible exception of "Lost". Or perhaps I should say "The X-Files" since it's made by the same guy as "Millennium".

At night, after I go to bed, before I go to sleep (well, usually), I've started re-watching "Carnivale". Goofy story about good and evil, except who is good and who is evil? Does it depend on the predefined roles or should it depend on the final outcome of the individuals' actions?

We were watching "The Amazing Race" during dinner (to avoid having to watch "Raymond" for the hundredth time), was just starting the 2nd season when the new shows started in September and now we seem to be catching up on the ones we miss the night before.

Watched "Resident Evil - Extinction" today. Not a bad copy, but not good enough to keep. Which is about the same description I'd give the movie itself. They seem to have lost the concept of the evil they were intending to portray and it's just a caricature, highlighing the girl in the red dress.

Watched "War" this afternoon. Excellent copy, good story but an almost laughable twist at the end. Talk about confusion about good guy-bad guy.

Yes, I know, I watch too much TV. On the other hand, none of that TV centers around sports, so that's good. Right?

See you later.

Well, another holiday weekend is gone.

Not that it meant much to me. Being retired means never having to note holidays. 3-day weekend? 4-day? Mine are all 7-day. :)

The only effect holiday weekends have for me is to screw up the TV schedule I'm used to. Is it that they figure that some many more people are watching that they need something special? Or that so few regular people are watching that they can put on just any old crap?

I do have one question about holiday weekends, however. Who, in their infinite wisdom, decides that because we have an extra day home that we want to have a marathon of an old out-of-date TV series? And who decides which series? And why?

Anyway, back to normal today.

More later.

Philosophical time.

Each of us has our own individual "world view". This view ranges from the macro to the micro. We have opinions concerning everything from communism vs. capitalism to whether men can wear pink without being considered feminine.

It occurred to me the other day that this world view that we have can be shaken rather severely, turned upside-down or sideways. And that this usually occurs because of a single incident, a moment of clarity, a random thought that blossoms into a new philosophy. At least, it CAN happen that way.

There was a time when I have my hopes, dreams, ambitions. In my early forties I came to the realization that these were not to be. I also realized that it was necessary to do more than just have these hopes, dreams, ambitions. You have to take actions to make them happen. And that they each have a cost. A cost I hadn't been willing to pay.

It was a moment of clarity. And it took quite a while to integrate this new view of the world (or at least one small part of my share of the world) into my philosophy. To come to grips with the fact that you can be anything you want to be, if only you're willing to pay the price. And that I wasn't.

Other changes have occurred to my "world view". As a matter of fact, I realized that they come all the time. But as one gets older they come less often, with more difficulty. And I suppose that's what they mean when they say that older people are "set in their ways."

What set all this reflection off was watching the end of the third year of the TV series "The Wire". I came to realize a number of things. One, that whether you taling about a gang selling drugs, a developer created a new community, or the election of a mayor, that the same principles are being exercised.

There are ways of doing business and inevitably they include "dark" elements. Elements like betrayal, revenge, con-games, manipulation, etc. All human activities involve both the "enlightened" element AND the "dark" ones.

Two, that one can work as hard as one wishes in achieving an end and still have it pulled out of one's grasp with little fanfare. It might be lost by the machinations of another individual or by pure chance. Either way, all that work was for nothing.

And third, that there are many "problems" that can never be "solved". That they are not so much problems as aspects of human nature, perhaps of nature itself. The drug war cannot be won because there is no finite enemy to defeat. The same with the war on Terrorism.

Prostitution will always exist because sex will always exist. Drugs, of one form or another, will always be around as long as there's a person seeking escape and a profit to be made from supplying it. The items and activities we use in our "sins" will continue no matter how many "sin taxes" or "sin laws" we pass.

For we are sinful creatures. Sin is our animal instinct. Given all this, I realized that we can make changes in the way in which we handle such "problems", with varying degrees of change in some aspects of the business. But to attack the "problem" completely, we must go against our basic nature. Which seldom happens.

I gotten to the point in my life where I'm going to leave the crusades against or for whatever might be popular to be for or against to the younger people. I'm just don't have the physical or mental energy anymore.

So my latest change in "world view" is to realize that it doesn't matter that I don't really have the control over much in this world, that it's all the same regardless of what we talking about, that changes have good and bad elements, that much that needs change is just human nature.

And my big conclusion? That this is all OK. That all I can do is what I can do.

See you another time.