FloydFreak's Blog

This is exactly what Barack Obama intends to do if (when?) elected president. He wants to "sit down" with Iminneedofjihad along with leaders of other terrorist states and non-states (i.e., Hamas). "Negotiating" with these entities lends legitimacy to their very existence and further weakens the U.S.'s stance amongst them and other nations in the region.

REFUSING to negotiate lets them know that we mean business. Of course, George Bush is being resoundingly chastised for insinuating that BO plans to play in the sandbox with our enemies; but that is EXACTLY what Obama wants to do.

This is analogous to blogging with certain unnamed bloggers. Refusing to acknowledge them works to "de-legitimize" them. Not that they are legitimate in the first place.

Hi boys and girls: Your old pal FloydFreak here. Since your good friend has decided to invade the relatively tranquil waters of Orlando with his inimitable brand of turbulence, I have decided to come back to my home turf - subject to some rules of my own making:

First off, any of you that know me know to whom I refer. Believe me when I tell you that you all (one individual notwithstanding) are a fine lot indeed. I have enjoyed exchanging thoughts and witticisms with you since 19 July, 2006 - or for those of you in Rio Linda (or Mulberry), nearly two years.

My rules are quite simple actually:

1) This one particular individual will not be permitted to reply to my posts. Yes, call me a blog N@zi but I will NOT carry on any sort of communication with this individual whatsoever. He has, time and again, demonstrated that he cannot disagree in a civil manner - not just with me but with others on these boards. Any comments that he leaves will be summarily deleted. (BTW: Go ahead, pal. Reply tomorrow because I will be at a trade show all day then I will be taking a red-eye back to Florida. But rest assured that you'll be gone by the time that I log on Friday am after I get home).

2) I will not comment on posts by ANYONE if this individual has commented on same.

Pretty simple, huh? Again, I enjoy discourse with all of you - yes, even the sadly misguided amongst you - because everyone here, save for this one individual. conducts themselves with courtesy, decorum, and professionalism.

I shall be looking forward to picking up where we left off.

P.S.: How much is gas in Florida now? Regular seems to be averaging around $3.85 in Seattle. BTW: Cool city even if it is "lib central". I did see a city bus with a banner ad for a local talk radio station advertising "Rush Hour". So there ARE some people with a modicum of intelligence out here.

With the recent FOREST (not "brush") fires that have been plaguing the state, I am reminded of another irritating phrase used (overused) by the media:

"DAMAGED or DESTROYED"

They give damage reports in terms of the number of structures that have been damaged or destroyed. This is akin to saying that xxx number of people have been injured or killed. There is a huge difference between being injured or killed (especially if it happens to YOU).

Likewise, there is a tremendous difference between having your home "damaged" or having it "destroyed".

Here's another irritating phrase: "A resolution to this could come as soon as today."

Well no BLEEP. Of course, it could come as soon as today. ANYTHING - including the end of the world - could come as soon as today. It certainly can't come any SOONER, can it?

Do you care to know why I am as conservative as I am? Well, I'm going to tell you why anyway...

First off, I was raised in a very conservative household. Although my father's father was definitely what you would consider blue collar, my father is conservative (thank God). And he's 91 years old, by the way. My mother's father was an officer in a local steel mill up north. They weren't rich, but he was definitely white collar and conservative all the way.

I grew up in Venice, on the west coast. My American Government teacher in high school was a retired Army colonel and had worked in the State Department as well as serving on the city council. Colonel Walker was a staunch conservative. He loathed the USSR and Red China (as China was known thirty years ago). He taught us that capitalism is the backbone of our economic system and used to call welfare recipients "suckers off the public t*t". Colonel Walker passed away not long ago at age 90, God rest his soul.

What really galvanized conservatism for me was the 2004 hurricane season. Since we moved to Alachua County in 2003, we had been living in a mobile home on five acres in a rural part of the county. Hurricane Jeanne planted a large hickory tree smack dab in the middle of our house. We took our insurance check (insurance??? what's THAT???) and, along with a whopper of a mortgage, built a two-story house on our five acres.

You know what? The government didn't build my house for me. The government didn't give me a $2000 debit card. We did get $400 from FEMA but that didn't even make the security deposit that we had to pay on the apartment that we lived in during the fourteen months that it took to get our house built. FEMA told us that we didn't qualify for more because, get this...WE HAD INSURANCE!

My wife and I have been married for fifteen years. We've never taken a dime (FEMA's $400 notwithstanding) from anyone and, you know what...we wouldn't want to. I just am sick to death of people whining because "the government" hasn't given them this or that.

THAT, my friends, is why I am conservative - and damned proud of it.

My God! For all of the b!tch!ng that people do about the price of gasoline, you sure couldn't tell it by their driving.

Driving from Clermont to Alachua last evening, I set my cruise for 63 MPH (I drive an '05 Civic Hybrid). I believe that over that 110 miles or so I passed TWO vehicles.

I am constantly amazed at the numbers of motorists that are still buzzing along at 75-80 MPH. Until Americans make a concerted effort to REDUCE CONSUMPTION, you will not see prices come down. The experts some months ago had thought that four dollars would do it. But we're almost there and no one's slowing down yet (except for myself and one or two others).

Perhaps FIVE dollars will do it.

Following is the text from a blog that appeared on these boards last week authored by someone whom I shall not mention by name. The Fox 13 blog gods saw fit to delete this post before many of you had had the chance to read this individual's words of wisdom. To those of you that state that the Obama/Wright connection has a great deal to do with the company that one keeps, may I suggest that you likewise may be judged by the company that you keep.

This unnamed blogger also saw fit to launch distasteful personal insults, not just against another blogger, but against the other blogger's spouse.

Please pay particular attention to the portion that comes after, "To the above list I would add:". Tell me that you do not find this twisted and disturbing.

Now, without further adieu, for your reading pleasure:

"As I sit here and post this messege, I can look up at the top of the screen next to the "You Decide 2008" and see that there are 2216 users online logged into the My Fox Tampa Bay. So potentially 2216 people will see my blog, but that is only the number that are signed in...you don't have to be signed in to read the My Fox blogs, so that number could be 100's, 1,000's or even 10,000's times greater than that number.

Here is an excerpt from an article on "Blogging Safely:

---------------------------------------------------

-

"If you blog, there are no guarantees you'll attract a readership of thousands," states the manual. "But at least a few readers will find your blog, and they may be people you'd least want to expect....And there may be consequences."

Below, a few tips from "How to Blog Safely (About Work and Anything Else)":

• A is for Anonymous First, the "no duh" warning: don't post any pictures, reveal your name or even confess you work for, say, an unnamed weekly newspaper in Seattle. "(I)t's clear that you work in one of two places," cautions the guide. Posting using a pseudonym is smart but, if you think using "Leanne" when your name is Annalee is a good idea, think again.
• Technology as Alibi Superficial disguises go only so far when every wannabe pundit also has a unique -- and, unfortunately, traceable -- Internet address. The good news is, there are services like Invisiblog.com, Anonymizer.com and Tor that specialize in helping you keep your address and your identity under wraps.
• Be Exclusive You don't have to let the whole world watch. You can set up a blog that is password-protected. Blogging services such as LiveJournal let you decide who gets to see all or parts of your blog. Turns out, you can also block Google and other major search engines from listing your blog in Internet search results. To do so, you need to create a special file called a "Robots Text File."
• Have a Blog and Keep Your Job Mark Jen, the fired Google worker, isn't the only blogger to land on the unemployment lines. Delta Air Lines, Microsoft and Friendster, the on-line social networking service, have all allegedly canned hired help for blogging. Countless other employers are taking steps to prevent loose-lipped workers from disclosing company information on the Internet.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the First Amendment protects against censorship by the government, not employers or any other private party. In most states, employment is considered "at will," which means that employees can quit and employers can fire anytime and for any reason.

And no states have laws to protect bloggers from job or any other discrimination, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

There is some good news, but not much. Most states specifically protect workers' political activities and opinions. Using a blog as a unionizing tool is also protected.

Workers who blow the whistle on illegal activities by their employers also enjoy certain safeguards, but should "notify somebody in authority about the sludge (their) company is dumping in the wetlands first, then blog about it," the guide states.

And, of course, government workers are free to carp all they want online as long as they don't reveal classified or confidential information.

• The Safest Way of All This isn't in the how-to blog guide, but remember the old days of paper and pen diaries? True, the audience is limited to the authors themselves and maybe a snooping sibling or two. Ones with a lock and key work best.

The link: http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/08/technology/personalt

ech/blogging/index.htm?cnn=yes

------------------------------------------------p>

With advancements in the availablity of information for marketing purposes, as well as indentity theft rings, I do not think the list above goes far enough. Do I really want potentially millions of people knowing personal information about me and my loved ones? No way! Who knows what kind of blog world freaks, psychos, terrorist or perverts are lurking on the website reading these blogs that could use the personal information posted to locate me or my loved ones!

What happens if while hiding behind what I thought was an Anonymous screen name I post something on a blog that pisses off a freak, psycho, terrorist or pervert and they decide to locate me or my family? Do I want to give that individual the information they need to track me or my loved ones down?

To the above list I would add:

• Never reveal your name...not even your first name! If you tell the blog world your first name is Jim, they have half the equation of your indentity solved.
• Never post a picture of yourself. It gives a positive ID if a person should locate an area where you may have inadvertantley told them you hang out. From there they could now follow you and find where you live and work.
• Never reveal where you frequent or hang out, and never agree to meet up with a stranger that you only know from blogging. They could be one of the blog worlds freaks, psychos, terrorists or perverts.
• Never reveal the type of car you drive, especially if it is a rare car. There is marketing data available that gives people information based on the type, year, model and brand of car you drive along with personal information such as where you live and work. If a person knows say, your first name, the year and types of cars you drive, the year you were born, the county or city where you were born, the high school you attended and the county or city you live in, that would be enough information to put the puzzle pieces together and track down who you are.
• Never give out your home address. As a matter of fact, I would refrain from even giving details of the neighborhood I live in. Do I want someone knowing that I reside in Hyde Park in a townhouse on the same street and right down the street from The Rack or in a rural, sparsely populated neighborhood in Pasco County?
• Never reveal when you will be out of town on business or vacation. If someone in the blog world knows who you are already and where you live, they would now know when your house would be empty and you could potentially get robbed.
• Never, and I mean never, tell the blog world when your spouse or children will be home alone. There are too many freaks, psychos, terrorists and perverts out there that can figure out who you are, where you live and you have now potentially put your loved ones in danger by telling the blog world freaks, psychos, terrorists and perverts your wife or children will be home alone. I couldn't imagine telling the blog world personal information about myself that would allow them to locate where I live, and then telling the freaks, psychos, terrorists and perverts my wife or children were home alone every night while I work the third shift or worked out of town. You would have to be a moron to do that.
• Never reveal where you work. Not even the location! While hiding behind what you thought was an anonymous screen name you post something on a blog that pisses off someone and they decide to locate your employer and show them the posts you made while on company time...and if you are stupid enough to post your name, bio or picture of yourself, you will have a hard time denying it.

I think the bottom line is, as our Commander In Chief continues to remind us, we live in a dangerous world and need to take precautions to protect ourselves and our loved ones from freaks, psychos, terrorists and perverts.

Is it worth being a blog world hero pounding your chest of how great you are and how anyone looking like a terrorist should be eliminated, all the while giving out personal information and by doing so you potentially put you and your loved ones personal lives in the spot light of the blog worlds freaks, psychos, terrorists and perverts? I believe if you use common sense while blogging and follow the above simple suggestions, you will sleep better at night knowing you and your loved ones are safe from the blog worlds freaks, psychos, terrorists and perverts!

Think about it...or sleep on it as it is getting late and time to turn in for the night.

Safe blogging!

Here are some more classic examples of the ways that the libs and PC crowd are making inroads into our daily lives.

I just went to purchase airline tickets for an upcoming business trip to the west coast (I'm not going to tell you when or where I'm going because there are sick perverts out there that may know where I live that might try something with my home and family, etc., etc.).

Booking the tickets on cheaptickets.com, after you select your flights, you are presented with options for such things as airport parking, ground transportation, attractions at your destination, etc. One of the options that you can select is a carbon offset donation to carbonfund.com. This "donation" is $5.50 for a domestic flight and $11.00 for an international. Are there REALLY people out there that are STUPID enough to fall for this bullBLEEP??? I clicked on the "learn more" link and carbonfund.org's motto is "Reduce what you can; offset what you can't." I wanted to puke! I'd rather donate $5.50 to Hillary Clinton's campaign. If you want to give money away, why not give it to the Humane Society, MDA, or some other worthwhile charity, for Christ's sake?

THEN - and this is classic - when you go to select your travel preferences (window vs. aisle seat, etc.), you can select meal type. You can choose from low fat, low cholesterol, low sodium, or vegetarian. Another option is Kosher which I don't have a particular problem with (I actually selected that because I've heard that the quality is better. Hey, Hebrew National is great stuff). Anyway, one of the very last selections for meal type is...are you ready for this???...

M-U-S-L-I-M ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Yes, boys and girls, you too can select a Muslim meal for your upcoming air travel. Are you BLEEPing kidding me? What is it? A hermetically sealed container of sand or fricasseed camel? Keep in mind that there were no options for Chinese, Mexican, Bhuddist, Catholic, Hare Krishna, nor any other ethnic/religious options. But MUSLIM!

WHAT is this world coming to? It's GOT to be George Bush's fault, right???

To the moderator(s): This is not inflammatory - it is FACT:

We have basically three different types of bloggers:

(1) We have those on the left (misguided though they may be) that are able to offer meaningful discourse with whom everyone can either agree or agree to disagree. It is actually intellectually stimulating to blog with these individuals (all three of them). They are respectful and intelligent.

(2) We have those on the right who are always right and are respectful of others' opinions even if we do know that they're off-base. These highly intelligent individuals do NOT resort to personal insults unless such barbs are hurled at them first.

(3) Then there are those on the left that, in addition to being off-base, cannot support their point of view with logic. These intellectually-challenged individuals, when backed into a corner, result to silly, childish name-calling and downright revolting (by anyone's standards) innuendo. There are two or three individuals (and countless screen names being used by these individuals) that seem to take great pride in this. The more that they press forward with their feeble attempts at credibility, the sillier they make themselves appear.

Numbers 1 and 2 make this place a good time. Number 3 ruins the fun for everyone.

Please join me again in keeping our good friend, Michelled, in your thoughts and prayers. I will let Michelle tell you personally about her diagnosis.

Suffice it to say that our resident ray of sunshine and presidential candidate has finally learned what has been ailing her for the past couple of months. She has maintained a truly upbeat attitude and for that, she has my utmost respect.

Rest up, Madame President. We can't WAIT to have you back!

Booggymann - write home, please. Mom and Dad are worried about you. Dad offers to send money if needed.

The end of an era...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,353346,00.html

Tune in, turn on, drop out.

Senator Obama has finally gotten his head out of the sand. In my opinion, it's just a little late coming.

Tell me Senator:

We have been watching Wright's rants for six weeks now. Why has it taken so long for you to renounce the thoughts that he espouses?

Hillary and McCain want a federal gas tax "holiday" this summer. For once, I have to salute Osama for not going along with this hare-brained idea. So we reduce the price of gas by eighteen cents. Whoopie-freaking-doo! And this is assuming that the retailers are going to pass along the entire 18 cents and not pocket three or four for themselves.

First off, the news this evening showed Hillary last summer speaking about how we need to invest in our nation's transportation infrastructure (this coming after the I-35 bridge collapse in Minnesota). Now she wants to diminish the source of funding for said improvements.

Hillary wants to impose the ever-popular "windfall profits" tax. Oh boy! That's the ticket - make those evil oil companies PAY, and pay dearly! BullBLEEP! WHERE do you dumbocrats think that windfall profits taxes come from? From the pockets of the CEO's? Don't be a fool and fall for this. It's going to come from you and me - in the form of higher gas prices.

I've been beating this drum for months now but there is one solution (if only a partial solution)...

CUT BACK ON YOUR USE OF PETROLEUM.

I averaged 49.5 miles per gallon on my drive to Pinellas this morning. True, much of my drive on  I-75 was spent at 62-65 miles per hour. But hey - if I can do it, EVERYONE can. Until we CUT BACK, prices are not going down. Get used to that fact.

President Bush (finally) hammered the democrat Congress over their lack of action when it comes to the economy. Well, no sure sh!tlock. All we heard about between November '06 and January '07 was that the democrats had this "mandate" from the American people. Well, what do we have to show for this mandate? Let's see...how about four dollar gas and rampant inflation. Everyone wants to blame the White House but the president cannot be held solely accountable.

The democrat leadership is, of course, firing back at the president claiming that he should be encouraging the oil companies to reduce their prices thereby sacrificing their "evil" profits. Yeah, that's the American way. Why don't we call on Publix to reduce their profit margins and bring down the price of food, too? How about calling on Ford and GM to reduce the cost of their vehicles? Believe me, if the car companies were having trouble selling cars, they BE reducing prices. The same for the oil companies. If you were to artificially suppress the price of gasoline through whatever means, you would end up with widespread shortages.

These dumbocrats are also saying that we should be doing more to encourage "alternative" energy. HOGWASH! We don't need alternative energy now - we need OIL. And lots of it. And we need it NOW. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be exploring alternative energy sources. But THAT should be a profit-driven function of private enterprise - NOT mandated and funded by the government. Get the government involved and you end up with the ethanol debacle. Loosen the restrictive environmental rules and let the oil companies expand their infrastructure. If it was financially feasible, they'd be doing it. But why would anyone want to build a new refinery now given all of the hoops that they're required to jump through? No wonder a new one hasn't been constructed in over thirty years. And, heck, they're selling plenty of gas the way it is.

So, come on, Nancy, Harry, and company. Put your money where your mouths are!

I did not watch the democrat debate the other evening but I heard a number of sound bites on the radio. I understand that MoveOn.org is criticizing ABC News and, specifically, George Stephanopoulos as being "spoon fed" by the right for his questioning Obama regarding the latter's relationship with William Ayers.

Are you KIDDING me??? ABC a part of the vast right-wing conspiracy???

What's next, MoveOn? Is Hillary a John Bircher?

I salute ABC for doing what no one in the media is doing: Asking substantive questions about Obama's associations with persons of questionable character (Ayers, Wright, et al) without being afraid of being branded "racist".

I say, "IT'S ABOUT BLEEPING TIME!"