National Anthem in Spanish???

Recently a recording of our National Anthem was done in Spanish to bring light to the issue of immigration here in the US. There is a huge outcry saying it is unpatriotic, un-American, disrespectful, dishonorable and just plain wrong. That the song should only be sung in English and everyone should speak English. GWB even said exactly that.

Well, I have to agree that everyone in the US should learn English. In Europe it is common for people to speak several languages and here in the US we think everyone should speak our language. I do think anyone interested in living, working or becoming a citizen of the US should learn the language like I would learn French if I moved to France.

However, I don’t think singing the National Anthem in a foreign language is wrong. I actually like it. I think it should be sung in all languages. Do each verse in a different language. I believe it exposes people to the beauty of our country and exemplifies one of the main principal of which this nation was founded and man and women are dying for right now, FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

Record gas prices

Oil has closed at record highs for 3 days in a row. If you think gas prices are high now, wait. We are wondering why this is happening, are you kidding? We have an oil-man in the Whitehouse, is it really any surprise? Republicans are rubbing their hands together in glee as oil companies make record profits because they either are owners or own shares in them. Do you really think they are going to do anything about it? What is interesting about this blog and my site is that I hear from people from all over the globe. What I have heard a lot recently is that paying $3.00 a gallon for gas isn't a big deal everywhere else. I find it humorous that GWB is saying in his speeches that Americans are too dependent on oil and we need to find alternative resources. Ummmmm are we not the country that in basically 10 years went to the moon? You're telling me that we couldn't institute some new fuel source in the matter of a few years? Look at ethanol. Now I hold a degree in natural sciences with an emphasis in chemistry. So this blathering that the right does about the difficulties are over dramatized to keep things going as they are so they can get richer. Seriously, consider ethanol. It is a fuel source made from grains, primarily corn. Ummmm, seems to me that farms have been lost in record numbers. Gee, let me think about this for a minute. We have a WAR because the country that it is in is the richest oil reserve in the world. (Are we invading all the oil less nations in Africa where genocide is taking place? No, because they don't have oil) Our country is the most oil dependent in the world soon to be over taken by China which is going to raise competition for oil which will make it more costly. Oil pollutes more and is finite.

Uhmmmmm. Don't cha think that we should be moving to ethanol for now and be researching new and completely different methods of energy sources and ways to deal with waste and recycling? I mean we all know the damage we have done AND CONTINUE TO DO. So why are we still doing it like that?

Moving to ethanol would put a lot of farmers back in business and reduce emissions. So why aren't we going there? Because the establishment does not want to upset the status quo. If they did processing ethanol is a bit different than oil. All of the existing infrastructure would have to be augmented. Meaning money would have to be spent. IT also means that the source for the fuel would be disbursed all over the country. That means that a small operator could build an ethanol production plant near the source and distribute it locally and keep the price down. Gutting the strangle hold the big oil companies have.

Immigrants in the US

There has been a recent huge awareness brought about by the government working to do something about illegal immigrants in this country. There is this claim that we need illegal immigrants because they do the work that "white" people don't want to do.

Being one of the "white" people I feel qualified to comment. The idea that "white" people don't want these jobs is ludicrous. White people don't want to do these jobs for $6 - $8 an hour because you can't support yourself and certainly not a family on about $300 a week. Wanting or not wanting to work isn't the issue. These jobs were here and done by white people long before Latin Americans were a major part of this country. IT is the employers that want to maximize profits as opposed to pay a decent wage.

Some of you may not know but this show is associated with Access TV so that means that I have to pay to do this not get paid. That being the case I have to maintain a second job. Some times it is doing web sites and other times computer related stuff but about 3 days a week I work construction. And I'm not talking finish work, I do concrete and mason work. The dirtiest, nastiest job on a construction site. But I do it for more than $8 an hour.

The real issue - the real issue isn't that people are needed or not needed for jobs, the real issue is being ILLEGAL. I am not a Native American so my relatives came over. My maternal grand parents were from Holland and Slovenia, and my Paternal were from Italy and Hungary. But they were all legal.

It is like a party, there are finite resources for the party, only so much to drink so much to eat. You can't invite everyone. If we do then why not just make the whole world the United States? There are laws established to be followed. We need to put in some checks to see that they are.

My experience with Vonage

Hello everyone, I wanted to realte to you my experience with Vonage internet phone service. I had it for about a year and I had more problems with it than it was worth and I have since gotten rid of it. In my opinion one of the major problems is that they are using persons from India or another foriegn country for their customer service. As hard as these people try there is a language barrier that makes getting problems solved very difficult.

The concept of having unlimited phone service for less than $30 was attractive. I even had a toll free number so it was even more attractive but as poor as the service and customer service was it just wasn't worth it.

I have one of the telephones that logs the time of the calls. In the year that I had it I made over 50 calls to customer service and spent over 47 hours on hold. Luckily I had my phone a speaker phone and was working on my computer during these times because If I just had to sit there and lose that time I would have been really mad.

THe problems I experienced were that my phone service was a lot like a cell phone in a poor service area. The calls would have gaps and drops all the time. I called customer service who wanted me to replace the modem so they sent out a new one, that was bad. SO I sent it back and they never logged it and and charged $99 to my bank account that of course caused an overdraft. I had to fight to get them to get me the $99 back and never saw the $28.

They were supposed to send out another new unit. Never got it so I caled 3 times to finally get another BAD unit sent. I tried to get an RMA but it was such a cluster *#$% by this time I just cancelled the service.

I went back to my local carrier who had a plan for $49 a month unlimited calls and it works fine and I have no porblems.

Lesson - you get what you pay for everywhere in life.