2 Cups dried navy beans
1 Cup Ketchup
1 Cup Water
1 Med. Onion, chopped
1/4 Cup Dark Molasses
2 tsp dried Mustard
4 Slices Bacon
2/3 Cup Brown Sugar
1 tsp baking soda

Put beans in a quart of water plus 1 tsp baking soda and soak overnight
Drain and strain beans, rinse with plain water
Add other ingredients
Cook in a crock pot for several hours until done.

YUM!

Cook until done in slow cooker

Lets examine some of the unfairness.

He has more stuff than I do…. that’s not fair. Bull, did you ever stop to think that maybe he worked for more stuff than you did? If you want more stuff, then work towards having more stuff. Don’t expect someone else to give it to you because you think its not fair.

He has a better job than I do…. that’s not fair. Well, did you work as hard as he did? Did you educate yourself as well as he did? Are you as smart and creative as he is? Probably not.

He makes more money than I do… that’s not fair. I work just as hard as he does. Well, your value to society is not entirely determined by how hard you work. It is also determined by how creative and knowledgeable you are. People get paid either for their physical labor, their specialized knowledge, or their creativity. Labor has been rapidly been replaced by technological advances, so labor is not worth what it once was. Creativity and knowledge rules.

In short, get over it.

Well, I was working on this computer the other day, with my iPhone sitting beside my mouse pad. Inadvertently, I grabbed the iPhone instead of the mouse and tried to drive the mouse cursor. What! My mouse isn’t working!. Oh, that’s not my mouse, that’s my iPhone.

So, I decided that the next new iPhone feature could be an optical mouse. Perhaps the backside camera could be used. The iPhone already has a blue-tooth system, as does many computers.

Now, I really don’t need a mouse in my phone, but then I don’t need or use many of the iPhone features. Maybe someone else would.

So — You heard it here first The iPhone5 with built in iMouse. Apple are you listening?

When the salesman demoed the car to us, he showed us the hands-free telephone features built into the radio. By pushing the telephone button the steering wheel, the radio would display a set of telephone menus. These menus allowed us to dial a number from the radio screen, pair our phones, look at our contacts list from our cell phones, answer a call, etc. It was a very nice system.

Fast forward a couple weeks, and these bluetooth phone menu features have all disappeared from the radio. It was simply not possible to bring up the phone menus again. The bluetooth still worked using the voice commands, but no other bluetooth functions worked. It wasn’t even possible to hang up a call, as the steering wheel button no longer had any functionality.

I called up the dealer’s service department and made an appointment to have the radio fixed. After examining the radio, the dealer informed me that my car never had those features and that I must have dreamed it up. In essence, he called me a liar, and said he could do nothing.

The owners manual for my car says it has the phone features. The owners manual supplements for my car says it has the features. I saw the features. But I feel that I am screwed on this situation. Its like buying a car with air conditioning, having it work for a couple weeks, then fail; and then having the dealer tell you the car never had air conditioning!

I know I wasn’t dreaming, and neither was my wife who was watching the whole demo. I suggested to the dealer that he talk to the salesman who sold us the car, but I was told that he no longer worked there. Apparently the dealer does not want to talk to the ex-salesman.

At this point, I have no options as to how to proceed. The dealer told me that these features cannot even be added to my car, that my radio cannot be upgraded or swapped for a higher end unit.

I think this is my first and last VW.

*) 4″ by 7″ Touch screen radio

Well, I have had my Clarion NX501 for a couple of months now, and thought I would update my review. The software in the unit has been updated to the latest version, so theoretically there should be no bugs, and it should work perfectly.  However, theory and practice sometimes just don’t match up.  I wish I could say that I’ve come to love the unit, but in truth, it is still not worth the price I paid for it, and I feel I should take away the 1/2 star I gave it.

The problem of updating the maps is still not resolved, and the local shop I bought it from told me that the best thing I can do is not attempt to update the maps.  Of course, that makes the unit pretty useless since the 911 address changes mandated by the federal government.

But there are other problems with the unit that I need to address.

First, is visibility.  On bright days, the sun shines on the screen, and completely washes out the display.  Looking at the screen straight on, it looks ok, but that is really hard to do while driving.  My wife has a touchscreen radio in her VW Jetta, which does not have this problem, so it is entirely possible to make a display that is visible under harsh conditions.  My solution was to reinstall my Tom Tom, which has great visibility, and can be aimed at the driver.  So the navigation unit works great at night, and when the sun does not shine directly on it through the windshield, but I cannot rely on it.

Secondly, there is a startup issue with the satellite receiver.  If the car is shutdown with the NX501 in FM receiver mode, the satellite receiver does not come up reliably when the car is restarted.  The display says “Loading…” forever.  To get the satellite radio to function again, I have to power off the radio while the satellite is trying to load, and then power it back on.  I’m sure this is a software problem with the NX501.

Third, there seems to be a problem with the touch screen.  Often, when touching the screen to perform some function, like choosing a preset, or selecting something from the screen; the NX501 beeps to acknowledge the action, but it doesn’t actually perform the action you tried to do. It just does nothing, until the action is repeated several times. Again, this is poor programming, and is totally unacceptable.

Fourth, the touchscreen layout is not conducive to operation while driving.  The buttons are too small, and the displays are too crowded.  It really requires a stylus to operate well, but who carries a stylus in their car, or can find it just to change the radio station.  Again, not good programming practice.

Fifth, the media player (USB flash drive) interface does not work correctly.   The player only works if the USB flash drive is inserted AFTER the radio is turned on.  If the flash drive is connected when the NX501 is powered up, it never finds the flash drive.  This is again a software issue, and is another reason NOT to get this unit.  If it worked properly, the USB cable with the flash drive could remain in the glove box, and be selected at any time.  As is, the user must pull out the flash drive and then reinstall it after the car is started and the Nx501 turned on.

Of course, nothing is all bad (well ok, some things are) and I find that the best part of the NX501 is the bluetooth.  This unit connects flawlessly to a smart phone, and the hands free is perfect.  It also plays music very well through the BT.  I have tested it with an iPod Touch, and an iPhone 4.

So that is my analysis after using the NX501 for a while.  I am really sorry I bought this unit, and hope that my findings help others in making their choice.  Doing it over, I would opt for a Kenwood or a Sony.

The first nail in our coffin was the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) in 1913 with the cooperation of Woodrow Wilson. The Federal Reserve Bank is neither federal, nor a reserve. It is a privately held bank¹, owned by a handful of families². With the Fed’s birth, congress abnegated their constitutional duties to “coin money and regulate the value thereof”³. Decisions made by the FRB are not required to be ratified by any branch of the US Government. Essentially, the FRB has free reign over our money supply, a responsibility constitutionally assigned to the House of Representatives. The only involvement by the US Government in the FRB is in choosing its chairman of the board. However, the chairman of the board hold no legal responsibility to the government, and therefore to this country.

Once that happened, America began paying interest to the FRB for money it borrowed. This interest now amounts to an astounding figure. Think of 5% of trillions of dollars every year. Every year, we are paying 5% of this countries wealth to a few private individuals. Remember the golden rule: “He who has the gold makes the rules”.

A word about currency is in order for those readers who have never thought about it. A Federal Reserve Note is not wealth, it is an IOU. It even says that it is a ‘note’, which is a document that acknowledges debt, not a payment. The IOU is against the citizens of the US which means YOU. When we purchase goods with US dollars, we have not paid the debt, we have merely issued an IOU, or a promise that the holder will be able to collect or exchange that IOU for something of real value on demand. Originally, paper money was a receipt issued by a bank for silver or gold deposited with it. Whoever held the receipt could go to the bank, present the receipt and obtain the amount of silver which was represented by the receipt. (Yes, the British Pound was a Troy pound of silver at one time!). There is a world of difference between having a pound of silver, and an IOU.

For years, we have been buying cheap goods from China, Japan, Mexico, etc with IOU’s against the citizenry. This would not be so bad if we actually created anything useful those countries could trade our IOU’s for, but we do not. The IOU’s are accumulating, and we have nothing real to pay the debt with. At some point (actually now), the foreign countries like China are wising up to the fact that our IOU’s are no good, and that will eventually (soon, very soon) mean that they will stop supplying the essentials of life and leisure which Americans can no longer produce within our borders by our own people.

There are several economic fallacies which the American people have fallen for over the years. Some are obvious, and some require some thought.

#1: Money is wealth. No, paper money itself is not wealth but can be traded for wealth. People can have little money but a lot of wealth, a lot of money but little wealth, etc. Wealth is goods and services. Money is an IOU.

#2: Businesses pay taxes, so let them pay more. No, every penny of tax a business pays comes from its customers. That’s you. So when the populace wants to tax businesses more, they are really volunteering to pay more taxes themselves.

#3: Public servants pay taxes. No, like businesses, every cent a government worker, school teacher, or other public servant pays came from a taxpayer in the private sector. The worker employed in the private sector pays all of the taxes in America.

#4: Government or unions can mandate a persons worth to society by decree or by threat of violence. No, a person’s worth is determined by what he does for society, and what society deems his services to be worth. This is why minimum wages ultimately fail. It is why we buy so many things from foreign countries instead of making them ourselves. It is also why unionism ultimately weakens the economy and the country.

#5: Money in a savings account, certificate of deposit, or other interest bearing investment makes a person richer. No again. Banks always pay less than the inflation rate which means that even though you are gaining money, you will lose wealth. Banks would lose money if they didn’t charge more in interest than the real inflation rate. As long as the government insists on creating inflation, you will lose.

#6: People are entitled to health care, housing, food, etc. No indeed, for one person to be entitled to the services of another, another person must be forced to provide those services. This leads to either slavery or the inability to provide the entitlements. People are entitled only to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. No one is automatically entitled to health, wealth and happiness. These things must be worked for. Our founding fathers knew this to be true, and it is still true today. People cannot be free and be ‘entitled’ to anything that requires the wealth and services of others. Entitlements only lead to loss of freedom, and ultimately a loss of wealth.

#7: Poor people pay no taxes. No, anyone who buys anything is paying taxes that are hidden in the price of the item. This includes property taxes, excise taxes, fuel taxes, phone taxes, etc. A significant portion of every purchase is tax above and beyond any sales taxes levied on the item, and since even poor people buy things, they are still paying taxes; just not income tax

#8: Rich people do not pay taxes. Of course they do. The top 5% of wage earners pay 57% of the personal income tax collected in America. The bottom 50% of wage earners pay less than 3%. This does not even include all the hidden taxes on goods and services that they buy. This is according to data from the IRS.

These seeds were planted right out in the open, and few people noticed, or cared. They have been carefully nurtured though, and now the American public is reaping their harvest.

The lack of knowledge about economics, and the belief fostered by government that people are entitled to things they did not work for are literally destroying the fabric of this country. I doubt it is possible to repair, and the end result will be total collapse, both economically and politically for the United States of America.

———————
1) The Federal Reserve Bank is a corporation, with all of its stock held by member banks. The US Government holds no stock in the FRB.
2) See Who Owns The Fed for a detailed analysis.
3) Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 5 of the US Constitution.

Based on the advertised feature set, I chose the Clarion NX501.  To the base unit, I also added a satellite receiver, and a steering wheel control module, since my steering wheel already had the switches.  The NX501 also has inputs for a backup camera system, and HD radio which I did not purchase.

The main screen allows selection between the Navigation unit, Satellite Radio, AM/FM Radio, Bluetooth Phone, CD player, and Bluetooth Audio devices.

There are several other inputs, but these are the ones I use, so I put their icons on the first of three source screens. The icons can be moved the same way icons can be moved on an iPhone of iPod touch; by touching them until they start to shimmer, then dragging them to a new position.

The installer did a very good job with the installation, and the unit looks like it came from the factory.  The replacement dash facade is an exact match with a perfect fit. However, the unit itself had quite a few operational ‘issues’.

The first issue was that the steering wheel controls would quit working after a while.  They always worked when I first started the car, but after a couple of minutes they refused to do anything.  This issue was fixed by cutting the wires from the car’s CAN bus to the steering wheel module.  Apparently, the amount of message traffic on my car’s bus overwhelmed the module.  Cutting the CAN bus connection solved that problem. This was probably an issue because my Escape is a hybrid, and has more message traffic from the hybrid parts than a normal car would have.

The second issue is by far more important, and not completely resolved.

The NX501′s navigation unit contains a Micro SD memory card which contains the maps and software the navigation unit uses.  For all intents and purposes, this chip is the navigation unit.  When the radio boots up, it refers the user to a website to get map updates, clarion.naviextras.com where I had to create an account and download Clarion’s software tools.

The software tool is described as:

Naviextras Toolbox is a Windows utility designed to connect your navigation device or GPS-capable PDA with your PC. It enables you to see all available updates, download the necessary files from the internet and upload updates and new content to your navigation device.

It can also be used to create and restore backups, and to move or copy contents between the PC and the navigation device.

This Clarion Toolbox programs requires that the memory card from the radio be inserted into the PC before the program will work.

That sounds good, right?  The software license that comes with the radio says that the owner is allowed to make a backup.  So the first thing I did was to download and install the Toolbox on my PC.  I removed the SD chip from my radio, and inserted it into my SD card reader, and ran the Clarion Toolbox backup utility on it.  Next, I downloaded the free map updates and installed them onto the chip. Big mistake!.  When I reinstalled the chip into the radio, the NX501 Nav unit would not boot up.  It was essentially a brick.

No problem, I said to myself.  I have a backup.  So I restored the chip from the backup I had just made and reinstalled it into the radio.  Silly me for expecting a backup to work.  The Nav was still dead as a door mouse.  At that point, I had no options except to return to the dealer.

My dealer called Clarion tech support and was informed that any operation which wrote to the SD chip would forever render it useless!  Nowhere in the documentation or the Clarion software does it state such.  If it is that important, it would be a simple matter for the Clarion Toolbox software to identify the chip from a serial number, or the files it contained and refuse to write on it, or at least put up a big warning in bright red letters.  This is software engineering 101, but Clarion didn’t bother.  Shame on them.

And I have to wonder, whats the point of providing a backup tool if the matching restore tool does not work?  Again, this is a simple software engineering oversight, and the Clarion programmers responsible should be fired.

One more problem I have experienced is that the satellite receiver sometimes fails to load, and the only way to fix it is to turn the radio off, then back on again.  The problem with turning it off is that it causes the Nav unit to lose track of the trip data.

Would I recommend this unit to anyone else?  Not on your life.  Although the feature set is very nice, the implementation is poor, and the reliability suffers from poor software engineering.  On top of that, the customer service is very poor.  Clarion knows or should know they have a problem with the unit regarding updating the maps and the dangers of their system, and their attitude is that anything that happens is the customer’s fault.   It took a very strongly worded letter from my dealer to make them replace and reprogram a $10 memory SD chip.  This is just unacceptable.

I think that since I cannot update the maps without risk of turning the unit into a paperweight again, I will resinstall my TomTom. At least I can update the maps in it without fear of destroying it.

I give it ONE HALF star, and at that I am being generous.

Link to review update

Photo by Walter Siegmund

For weeks now, one particular crow has been coming to our deck and waiting on the railing for me to come out and feed him/her (how do you tell anyway?) I know it is always the same crow because it has a ruffled feather. This particular crow has 3 others which follow it and try to get food from it. Feeding the crow gives me the opportunity to observe it closely, as it allows me within a few feet.

What amazes me about the crow is its level of intelligence. I have watched it examine food situations and figure out the best way to fly with his catch. I was totally astounded though when I gave this crow a frozen quarter pound hamburger patty and watched it fly away with it as if it were nothing. Once, I gave this crow the fat trimmed from a New York strip steak, in the form of one long ribbon of fat. The crow looked at it for a second, then methodically folded it into thirds and flew away with it. It seems to know me, and comes when I call it if its in the area. When its hungry, it lands on my deck railing and calls me. This bird has a brain and knows how to use it.

The crow has definite food likes and dislikes. It prefers meat, but will also eat cheese. Its favorite food seems to be dog kibble, probably because it is the perfect size to pick up and carry off to feed the hungry offspring.

Crows are among the smartest known animals in the world, close behind the chimpanzee. They are capable of problem solving, and making and using tools. Some have even learned to talk, much like parrots.

Over the years, you guys have even called me up every couple of months. I have no idea how you got my phone number, but you seem very good at finding people. Even when I moved 4 times, you still found me. The U.S. of A. government should have had you find Bin Laden!. Anyway, every time you called I asked to be removed from your mailing list. I can’t imagine how any legitimate, caring organization could fail to honor someone’s request like that, but guess what! I am still receiving fire starter materials. Maybe your investigative skills include determining that I need more fuel to heat my home. After more requests to be removed than I can count on my fingers and toes, what to my non-surprise came in the mail today? Why more of your useless cult crap of course.

Do you really think that filling people’s mailboxes with spam mail when they have requested over and over to be off your mailing list is going to win you any converts? If you do, you are dumber than dog shit.

Luckily, I still have a fireplace.

In America, every public program that the government comes up with at any level of government is paid for solely by private workers. Don’t believe it? Lets examine taxes and do a short thought experiment.

First though, by public worker, I mean someone who is paid from some sort of tax revenue. This may be an office clerk at the township office, a school teacher, a private contractor doing work for a government agency, etc. It doesn’t matter who writes the paycheck, it only matters where the money came from. This is not the normal definition of public vs private worker, but it should be. I have at one time or another been a public worker by this definition.

If I tell a public worker that he/she actually pays no taxes, it usually unleashes a maelstrom. After all, public workers fill out tax forms and send in money do they not? However, ask yourself where that money came from.

If I took on a job for the XYZ company and they agreed to pay me $100,000 a year, but they demanded that I pay $30,000 of it back; how much did they actually pay me? I think we can agree that $70,000 is the correct answer. Now apply that reasoning to public workers, their taxes are actually a give back to their employer. So where does that $70,000 come from that the public worker did not give back. It obviously doesn’t come from other public workers paying taxes, so it must come from the private sector, IE: those who do not receive a paycheck from public funds; OR, it was borrowed money which will have to be paid back by the only other source of funds: the private worker.

If we as a society were honest about it, we would simply exempt public employees from taxes, and pay them the equivalent, but that would be very difficult to do because of all the hidden taxes each of us remit each day without even knowing about it. For example, every tax a business pays comes from the sales revenues it gets from its customers. (This is why taxing businesses is a farce, and really amounts to another tax on individuals.)

This reasoning holds true for not only income taxes, but taxes of any sort. Yes, a school teacher sends in a check for school taxes each year, but they are paying the tax with tax money. Any of the myriad taxes that a public worker pays comes from a private workers taxes, or from borrowed money.

Now here is the problem: As the size of the public sector grows, the size of the private sector shrinks. This means that there are fewer and fewer people who are the source of all public revenues, except that which is borrowed, and we all know that borrowing cannot continue forever. Sooner or later it must be paid back if we are to live in peace with our lenders.

So, I cringe every time I hear about the government creating jobs, because I know that it is on the back of the private worker. Private workers work for private companies, and the governments are working overtime to kill them with more taxes. At some point, it simply does not pay to work. At some point there are not enough workers to support the huge public welfare systems, the exorbitant school systems, and the 700 military bases we support around the world. At a time when we should be building up the private sector, we are killing it, and all hopes of a future strong America.

Welcome to the Great Depression 2.0