duckorgethit

Duck or Get Hit

Blog Warning: Flavored ‘Meth’ on the Market
J E Wilson

I was a teacher in South Florida for 12-years and worked 14-years at summer camps across the US. Even 6-years after leaving teaching I still get emails and phone calls from past students. As an Assistant Dean of Students I battled the drug problem that infects almost all schools and I have a concern for all students. This is no joke or myth; instead it is ‘meth,’ crystal meth to be exact.
Drug dealers have put a dangerous spin on this drug to attract or fool students worldwide. The new spin on crystal meth is the addition of strawberry flavoring, which turns the drug pink in color and resembles the popular ‘Pop-Rock candies.’ This drug can also come in the flavors of chocolate, orange, grape, cherry, cola, and peanut butter. The photograph of what was sent to me shows a clear plastic bag with a circular logo with a picture of grapes on it. The will be hundreds of variations, so if there is no company info or trademarks on the bag be weary. The flavored crystal meth looks like candy. If I did not know about it and a friend asked me to try it, I might have.
Here is a scenario for you: A teenager or stranger offers your middle or high school child a bag of free candy to share with his friends at school. The next day he offers your child a different flavor and again the third day he offers another flavor. On the fourth day this person tells your child he needs to pay for it and his or her lunch money is gone. Within a few weeks or months your child is stealing from you or neighbors, school grades drop, and eventually your child is gone; ran away or dead.
I do a lot of research on most of what I write and this warning was no different. Various things are being said about this drug. Many people say it is just a myth about flavored meth being on the market, but my information came from a fellow teacher who has seen this trendy drug. I passed this email onto other teachers nationwide that I know and my father did the same. I had good feedback from other teachers who have crossed this drug in their school and others who had never heard about it and thanked me for the heads up.
Today’s “Duck or Get Hit” blog/column is more of a way of informing others and should be passed on to as many people as possible. I could care less if you use this blog or create your own blog or email, just share it and watch for this drug in your own schools.
Drug dealers use the Internet to create new drugs and share ideas for getting around law enforcement. We need to use the Internet to counter the drug dealer’s attempts to infect and addict America’s youth and your children.
Three years ago I returned to Florida for the funeral of one of my own students. This young man played lacrosse for me and surfed with me and other students. He had a supportive family, loving girlfriend, and a brother that I was friends with and hired to work at my school. Please heed this warning. Talking to a headstone is no fun!

Duck or Get Hit

Government Healthcare and Perks
J E Wilson
Most Americans know that the House and Senate officials make about $169,000 per year and The President around $400,000 per year. The United States Government is the largest business in the world and offer the best perks and healthcare packages in the world. What’s wrong with this picture?
I shared my idea about the essentials that should be written into the “bailout” solution in an earlier column. I never took in to consideration how extensive the healthcare of Federal employees and their dependents was or that included Postal employees also. Once I realized this extent of the Federal Government I started researching into their healthcare program and now wonder why politicians cannot create a healthcare package for all citizens.
They could solve the healthcare issues in America or at least I can. Those officials elected to office have packages that would work for almost all Americans. If it works for the Postal employees it should reach across the middle class and even a good percentage of the lower class. I will just touch on a few of the facts of the Fed’s healthcare package.
Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program (FLTCIP) is available to eligible currant and retired Federal and Postal employees and their families. There are 20 million enrolled in this package.
The (FEHB) Federal Employee Health Benefit Program has an estimated 8-million employees and dependents receiving this package. Those who are eligible: employees, dependents, former spouses, retirees, and survivor annuitants. Just a few of the coverage’s of this program include knee/shoulder surgery, cataract repair, catheterization, hysterectomy, hernia repair, and tonsillectomy.
Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAFEDS) allows eligible employees to pay for various medial and dependent care expenses with pre-tax dollars.
The (FEGLI) Federal Employee Group Life Insurance Program, largest group life insurance program in the world, covers 4-million employees, retirees, and their family members.
An example of the vision and dental coverage’s might outrage the general public. The vision plan for one employee (self) costs $2.94 bi-weekly and for self and family the plans cost $8.56 bi-weekly. Dental on a bi-weekly 100% prevention plan costs self and family $38.55 with no deductibles.
There are many perks that added on top of this Federal healthcare package that might make one think that the Federal Government is reaping rewards similar to the CEO’s that have and are running under their golden umbrellas from their failing companies. The Federal employees have their own golden umbrellas that come in the form of the Civil Service Retirement System and with this system the Congress avoids paying the Social Security tax that may not even be around when many of us retire.
Do not forget the politicians free car services, billions spent overseas, grand dinner parties, and those elected jet setting around the globe on the taxpayer’s dollar.
Whose investments are our tax dollars really going to save or bailout? Why is there still no national healthcare program when one already exists for a select few? Hit!
Source: US Office of Personnel Management

Duck or Get Hit

Even if I wanted Paul Newman to “Get Hit” I couldn’t
J E Wilson

At forty something I have loved the classic movies and have my own favorite actors and actresses and Paul Newman was one of them. The movie “Hatari” (1962) and “Donovan’s Reef” (1963) with John Wayne are my favorites with “Cool Hand Luke” (1967), “Catch 22” (1970), and the original “Mash” (1970) movie all in second.
I do not shine off any movies and even have a few more modern favorites. “The Goonies” (1985), “Harry Potter” (2001), and “Indiana Jones” (1981) movies are among movies that I have watched over and over. Some people may call my choices weird or me weird for watching such movies, but these are all classics and you can’t tell me that when your flipping through the channels for something to watch that “The Goonies” does not catch you eye or curiosity.
Paul Newman is at the top of my list of brilliant actors. A  list that includes Robert Redford, Clint Eastwood, Jack Lemmon, Walter Mathau, Eli Martini, Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Sally Kellerman, Alan Arkin, John Wayne, Jack Warden, Lee Marvin, and of course Emma Watson as Hermione Granger in the “Harry Potter” movie series.
To sit on top a list of actors and actresses so great says a lot about Newman and his career on and off the silver screen. Newman boasts movies from his debut in “The Silver Chalice” in 1954 to “Hud” in 1963 to “The Verdict” in 1982 and finished with he “Road to Perdition” in 2002.
The scene from “Cool Hand Luke” where Newman eats 50 hardboiled eggs is one of his most memorable scenes. “The Hustler”(1961) is as classic now as his recreation of the movie “The Color of Money” in 1986.
Newman seemingly had his own way of living and his 50-year second marriage to actress Joanne Woodward was a rarity for the Hollywood community. In the 1950’s to the celebrity community of 2008 divorce seems to be a regular and almost expected activity among the stars.
From salad dressing to popcorn and racecars Newman has jumped in with both feet and seems to always land firm on the ground. This blue eyed wonder was meant to be an actor from the start. He went from Yale in 1952 to the stage in his role as a attractive drifter in the Broadway play “Picnic.”
I can’t find a fact that would sway me the Newman getting “hit,” so he ducked. He has a career that is probably one of, if not the most, the greatest acting careers to date. On and off stage he has wowed America. Paul Newman will be missed, but never forgotten as arguably the best actor Hollywood has seen.
Mr. Paul Newman died September 27, 2008 in his home in Westport, Conn. at the age of 83 from lung cancer.
Below are some other movies and plays he played.
“The Death of Billy the Kid” (TV series), “The Battler” (1955), “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (1958), “Paris Blues”(1961), “The Outrage” (1964) “The Sting” (1973), “The Towering Inferno” (1974), “Exodus” (1960), “Torn Curtain” (1966), “Harper” (1966), and “Of Mice and Men” (2003).

Duck or Get Hit

It’s broke and this is how I would fix it
J. E. Wilson

What was this emergency meeting at the White House all about? President Bush pleads for $700 billion then waltzes out of the meeting that seemed to last only two hours. McCain was grinning ear to ear for cameras, but why was he smiling during this crisis?
There was more at hand for this emergency meeting than we are being told. Senator McCain has been campaigning on the road for months while the nation crumbles around his feet. Why now does he drop his campaigning and return to save this nation? He came back to Washington D C to take a class called Economics 101
President Bush calling this emergency meeting was the only bailout the American’s will see anytime soon and Senator McCain is the only one who benefits from it. Here are my ideas for the bailout, yet the rich, CEO’s, and Republicans probably won’t like it. This is “The Wilson Plan” to save a nation.
All stock options and monies that fall under the CEO golden umbrella’s would be placed back into the respective institutes. And here are some more ideas in my plan
1.    Any money loaned to the US Government and paid to the various failed or failing companies will be paid back by those who receive the loans.
2.    No taxes or taxpayer dollars will be used in any bailout or loan pay off.
3.    If there is a lack or less money loaned for a bailout then money will be diverted from Government officials and employees healthcare coverage and other perks.
4.    All interest on Government loans made will be used to create a national healthcare program for the lower and middle class and improve a failing education system in lower income neighborhoods.
5.    A charge will be place on all officials using a car service and this fee will be transferred to the infrastructure of American bridges and highways.
6.    All companies that lobby any government agencies will be required to purchase a lobby license for $10,000 per person, per year.
7.    The President, Senate, Congress, and appointed officials at the state and federal levels will be required to take a 10% pay cut until the financial crisis is solved.
8.    A salary cap of $2 million dollars in monetary or options will be placed on all CEO’s from companies that go bankrupt or search for assistance from the government. This salary cap will follow a CEO from job to job until loans are paid off.
9.     All institutions that hold mortgages on homes and receive bailout money will be subjected to drop all loans or loaned money to house buyers to a 3.3% interest rate until the government loan is paid in full.
10.    There is be a 5% import tax placed on all companies that outsourced jobs overseas which will be used solely to advance the unemployment payouts to the lower and middle classes.
11.    75% of all state lottery money will go directly to individual schools by a random drawing based on need each week and regulated by independent firms on a monthly basis.

Duck or Get Hit

Bush, McCain, and Oil Companies
J. E. Wilson

The two most powerful men in America are scared and frantically attempting to save their, well you know what they are trying to save. Both Bush and McCain are trying to save different things and that’s why they are hypocrites.
Lets start with the number one who has stepped in number two long ago. President Bush must be making a killing on the high oil prices, but where has he hid his earnings? President Bush has only now realized that the stuff on his heels has been tracked back to the White House. Georgie Boy’s days are numbered and his investments are an issue, especially since he might be an American losing money like the rest of us.
President Bush is looking out for President Bush and this means that he will send billions into Iraq and then plead for funds to bailout or save his retirement. Bush is looking for taxpayer dollars to save his investments. Yet the American public has been looking for help for months. Why now as President Bush, who soon will be out of office, pleads to Congress for this bailout? The answer is that his own investments are swinging in the wind and some of his branches are about to break. He is trying to save his own butt.
McCain is walking away from a debate that might place Obama in the winner’s circle. McCain is just a carbon copy of President Bush and neither can fix an economy that they broke without raising taxes again. McCain is scrambling to avoid the questions he will be asked in a debate with Obama. Is 700 billion dollars a cure or quick fix for the upper class to re-invest abroad?
With all that is going on with bailout pleas from big business and the working class scrambling to find shelter and a promising future amid the kayos oil companies are inserting a creative plan to open environmental areas to drilling.
Oil companies are playing a game with the media and Americans by holding back supplies. This is a trick to get media and national support to open drilling in protected parks in Alaska and other states. They are playing a game with oil and gas prices. The higher gas prices go and the less gas available the more the average American will voice a need to open environmental areas to drilling.
Just remember gas prices may steady, but will never go down to 2006 prices. Our wallet will get hit hard, oil companies will make billions more, and a walk in the woods will be lost FOREVER!

Duck or Get Hit

MOOOO!
J E Wilson

What is PETA all about? They must have lost their minds with their latest suggestion to spare cows from being milked. As I sit here writing my second novel for children CNN reports the most off-the-wall PETA suggestion ever.
I heard this report and gagged then puked at the idea that PETA wants to substitute women’s breast milk. Next I wiped my breakfast from my lips and leaned back in my chair and thought hard about this reported news. My first thoughts were that it had to be a joke then I remembered the days when PETA supporters stalked celebrities who wore fur and covered them in blood red paint. Fanatics do crazy things. Greenpeace took on whaling ships in rubber boats.
PETA is or can be considered a fanatical fraction of society even though they are not bombing abortion clinics or challenging the government with violence. Asking Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream to put the milk cows out to pasture preeminently when all the cow’s want is to live in California with all the other happy cows is a little much. Then again I have to question if all the California cows are really happy. There might be a few disgruntle cows working for the California cheese companies yet I am sure the cows would rather be milked than be dinner.
I live in one of New York’s largest milk producing counties and the farms are consolidating and growing. Many farms boast thousands of milking cows. Unemployment is also higher here than in most of the nation. The cheapest activities are drinking, drugs, and sex so we might be able to support PETA and the idea of milking women instead of cows. Psychedelic milk might have its own specialty market.
This idea might be a win, win for all involved. We can free the cows, open a new employment niche for the female population, and shut up PETA until they call for something else to be stopped or changed. This may be a great opportunity for the women’s movement!
All that really needs to be asked from those females lactating is that they eat, fart, and get milked twice a day. If this is a serious suggestion from PETA and has made national headlines then the women of PETA should offer up the first nipples.
Sadly, it may take three or four women to one cow to keep production up. I salute PETA for saving the cow and offer up the female race in the cows replace. Nip Nip Hooray!!

Duck or Get Hit

Money really does not grow on trees
J. E. Wilson

The United States Government, and I mean every part of the government, lives in a fantasyland where they truly believe money grows on trees. Congress is picking bushels of it and munching away at the taxpayer’s pockets. The harder our citizens’ work the more the officials spend.
President Bush views this nation as his own personal orchard and is reaping the rewards of its growth at the expense of all us. Congress has picked from these same trees and what have they done? They addressed the steroids used by multi-million dollar baseball players. Congress and others in office are to blatantly stupid to create a national healthcare system or stop funneling billions into a war that cannot be won on either of the two fronts we are battling now.
All we need to do is pick up a newspaper to see that those we, supposedly, elected have our best interests in mind. They have their interests in mind and want our tax dollars to make them reality.
Somewhere, USA uses pork-belly dollars to build a two million dollar water fountain, while the county has 70% unemployment. Another town builds a new courthouse and a local government office building, but did not fund programs to help educate and support one of the poorest counties in New York State. One single trial happening today in Nevada has cost the taxpayer $2 million dollars already and it’s a second go at this man.
This is suppose to be a nation of freedom, justice, and equality yet those who make laws, taxes, and control our freedoms see only one thing. They are smiling and waiting for their trees to prosper and then pick us clean.
The working class is simply a money tree growing for the government to pick at on a whim. Americans are a source for causes in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the political water fountains across America.
We have been tossed out of our homes, 401k’s chopped down, and government still wants to crush us with bailouts that save the rich and their own investments. This nation has been picked dry and we are on the verge of being cut down one final time.

Duck or Get Hit

Stroked by the government
J. E. Wilson

That is right I said it and it is happening. Our elected officials are stroking our tool and we will end up paying for services we did not ask for. Banking, investment firms, and the insurance industry will have a chance at another wet dream and the average hard working class will foot the bill in the way of higher taxes in the end. Stroked is a nice way of putting what our elected officials are doing to us, but screwed is the best way of describing it.
Millions of dollars a week go for a war started on false pretenses and the taxpayer pays the bill. Some CEO gets paid millions of dollars a month then they run our life savings into debt and we pay for it. We pay billions of dollars for insurance every year and the insurance industry goes belly-up and again we as taxpayer will pay for their incompetence.
If something is broke do not mend it, but fix it and the government just cannot figure this out. We as Americans know who really runs the government and it is not the elected officials. We also are not blind when government bails out these huge companies. Our present Vice President and President have vested interests in various companies that will keep them wealthy and Gov. Palin as these similar interests.
Simply put, our government places their well-being before that of those who cheer them on at a convention, shake their hand at a rally, and kiss babies. McCain, Bush, Palin, and maybe Obama will kiss ass, lie at every turn, and fool the little man whenever possible, yet the end result is that they are greedy, looking for power over those they believe to be beneath them, and are stealing from this world all that should be sacred
Politicians will pet our pussy and kiss our baby, but kick our dog when they are behind the barn. The best example of what I am trying to share is that those we have elected into office have better healthcare than healthcare can provide and we are paying for their healthcare. We are paying higher taxes each year to keep the wealthy lawyers and politician healthy, so that they can promote bills for the working public that will keep them or make them healthier and wealthier.
I call this a “double negative,” we have elected a person into political office that most likely is wealthy. She or he has great healthcare and can afford to pay millions of dollars to get elected yet once in office this person will be paid, get an awesome healthcare package for their family, and have more perks all on our tax dollar.
Look at the facts and all the government does and realize that this nation is not a democracy, but a true oligarchy. Without a civil unrest or war we as workers in America are not stroked, but screwed. Politicians are tearing the Constitution to its knees and taking its citizens with it. Public office is not a title where one makes money instead it should be a place where we make freedom, fairness, and a healthy life for all.

Duck or Get Hit

Double Whammy

The Federal Reserve loan to AIG may have crossed into a gray area for bailouts and American taxpayers. The Fed calls it a loan, but will the taxpayers be the ones covering this loan?
The taxpayers are living in a scary time and now the government has decided to bailout an insurance company. This has to stop before taxes kill the work force, homeowners, and public in general. Does a bailout come with a guarantee? What happens when the next hurricane devastates another US shoreline? $85 million dollars is a drop in the bucket when it comes to the war in Iraq, previous bailouts, and other spending. Who is going to pay off this nation’s debt? The taxpayer will and the $85 million bailout of AIG is just a temporary fix until another natural disaster drowns AIG and others.
I think the taxpayers are wise to who is running this country and they are not in a happy place right now. Insurance companies, the oil industry, and the pharmaceutical companies along with certain investment firms get help or demand help at the taxpayer’s expanse. CEO’s and executives are reaping rewards while this nation slides into the gutter.
The government has not corrected the educational institutions, have not closed the borders, have not brought outsourced jobs home, have not cured the failing housing market, and have let the dollar slip into loose change found in the cushions. Taxpayers will be at some point sporting the bill for the AIG bailout even though this bailout is called a loan.
The insurance industry should be like any other American run business. We don’t see bailouts by the government for local businesses that have died in this economy or offered the taxpayer any sort of real relief.
The only people that make any money today are the politicians, CEO’s, and executives and of course the War in Iraq. Now we have to pay higher insurance rates and then higher taxes that will needed to payoff this supposed loan. We are on the verge of another war, a second Civil War is near.

Duck or Get Hit

A drowning nation

Dark Monday has arrived, yet no investors or brokers are jumping out windows to their death. It is early in the week and we still have time for another investment firm’s fate to be sealed. The failures here are being felt in markets worldwide and a global bear market for stocks may take many countries to the point we are now at. Our 401k’s that we are relying on for retirement are in jeopardy of being lost and there is no light at the end of the tunnel for the American worker.
Across Europe, Japan, and the rest of Asia the markets are almost as bad as ours. Though the root of these low markets can be traced back to America and our failing government. Massive wasteful spending and continuously bad decision making of our politicians is the main reason for this nations collapse. The bailout of Fannie-Freddie will add an additional $5 trillion debt to an already out of control debt. This debt added to by President Bush and Senator McCain’s war and that must come out of the taxpayer’s pockets.
Our weaken dollar and the decisions, bad decisions, the Fed has been making are taking inflation towards other galaxies. The Lehman Bros. bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch sale will only add to a market spiraling downwards.
Many of the experts are saying invest abroad, but the RBS is also down 40+%. If you are lucky enough to still have a job start cashing your paychecks and investing in your mattress. This country is on the brink of a meltdown worse than that of any ever felt.
The US has outsourced itself and our future. They have bailed out their concerns and not the taxpayer’s concerns, and are going to now take other nations with them. We have already seen our favorite stores and morning cafes slowly disappear. If this is not a sign of what is to come then I don’t know what is.
In the next ten-years expect unemployment to skyrocket, outrageously high taxes, massive loss of retirement monies, and no social security. Remember this, the government and banks will toss you to the corner when property and school taxes have gone so high that you can’t afford them.
America is now home of the indebt and the land of bankruptcy!