I had a real kooky idea as I was driving back from Office Depot today, why don't we bring all of our troops home from every place we have them stationed overseas, I mean everywhere. I see no point that in having our troops stationed all over the world. We are not the world police force and we shouldn't have troops deployed all over the place.

What would that do for us? Well for one thing we wouldn't be flushing all of our tax dollars down the toilet by having these troops stationed in places like well Iraq of course but also Germany, Italy, England, Greece, Japan, I mean every friggen place. Now let me tell you this: I spent 5 years of my life stationed in Germany and I have been all over the place while I was in the service. I was in the Philippines when Marcos was ousted. It costs a fortune to have troops all over the world. We don't have a big Soviet Union to worry about any more! And for China, well they make every friggen thing we buy why would they want to attack us?

Maybe I have had too many beers tonight but I'm telling you that we need to bring the troops home from every place, there is simply no reason for having them over seas, but I must admit I had some mighty fine schnitzel in Germany.

What a wonderful beautiful day it is here in Eugene. The temperature is 80 degrees the backyard chickens are happy and the kids are entertaining themselves, what more could a guy ask for. We had friends stop by that we hadn't seen in over a year; they had come down to attend the Oregon country fair then they are traveling down to the redwoods in Northern California for a few days.

I think I will take the bike out for a nice ride; I have been trying to get riding in every couple of days. I'm trying to get into some kind of shape, when you get into you 40s you start to realize that you might want to live a bit longer and your not going to get there is you are a couch potato, not that I was before but I was feeling like I needed to get into some sort of shape. I usually take a good hard 1 hour trip and get good a sweaty. They have some wonderful bike paths here and it's a real treat to get out and see the sites. The bike path follows the Willamette river and there are gardens and wildlife to see along the way. If you have never seen a Nutria begging for bread crumbs next to the geese you are really missing out There are also families, bicycle pants wanna be racers, and homeless folks too.

No rants today, time to go enjoy the day!

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saturday that the Iraqi army and police are capable of keeping security in the country when American troops leave "any time they want,".

With the Iraqi police firing at American troops and leaving the door open for insurgents to attack American troops I would say it is a pretty good time to leave.

In other news the Eugene Oregon Register Guard stated the US Air Force has built up air support with F16s, A10s, and B1B bombers. The civilian body count keeps going up on account of this. Well lets see, some Iraqi with a grudge informs on his neighbour he doesn't like and says they are building bombs. A B1B wipes out the neighborhood killing everyone. Boy isn't that a way to make the Iraqi people just loves us.

Bush is a fricken mad man who needs to be sent to jail for life along with all of his stooges. I just can't say this enough.

Am I just a big trouble maker?

My point of the Wendy's post and of the field burning post is that in order to make our representatives or the CEO of some corporation wake up from their sleep is to slap them in the face with some reality. I think that they as with most people are just living in their own reality and need to have an outside perspective hit them with some different reality. Reality can be an elusive thing and we all can use an outside perspective from time to time. It is I think a rare thing to be able to step back and look at something from the outside.

I think that most people are trying to do the right thing even if they are screwing up the entire world as idiot George W. Bush is doing. It is very hard for me to fathom what is going on in his head. I suspect there is a squirrel on a treadmill chasing a nut. But of course it could be a small monkey banging cymbals together, or a fly sucking on a little turd. :)

I sent this to Wendy's restaurant today, I just thought I would share:

"I would first like to say that i have been a Wendy's restaurant customer for the past 15 years. The first Wendy's I can remember going to was in Grand Forks North Dakota when I was stationed there in the Air Force when I worked on our fleet of B-52 bombers that was protecting us from the threat from the USSR at the time. Wendy's has always been my first choice of hamburger restaurants until today. i will no longer purchase anything from any of your restaurants. And I will be letting the world know why on my blog.

Today, I was out on a bike ride with my 7 year old son when we decided that we could use a snack and some refreshments. We pulled up into the drive through on our bikes at the Wendy's restaurant on Franklin Blvd. in Eugene Oregon and waited our turn. When we got up to order we were told that we would not be served and that we would have to go inside to be served. Well the last time I looked a bicycle is a vehicle by state of Oregon law. I told them that they had lost my business and I received no response. I rode with my son 2 blocks to a Dutch brother's coffee hut and was gladly served snacks and refreshments at the drive through.

Maybe they didn't like the tie die shirt I was wearing I don't know but you no longer are getting any of my business and I will be posting this letter for the world to see.

Oh and by the way you can't leave feedback on your web site so I tracked down your email addresses to contact your management team directly."

I found the email addresses to the who Wendy's management team and sent a copy to each of them.

Well here is today's rant:

Here is the Willamette valley we have the largest concentration of grass seed farmers in the world. Driving down the freeway and you see what looks like huge lawns. When the grass goes to seed the seeds are harvested, packaged, and shipped around the world for lawns. That is all good and find except for a small percentage of grass seed farmers insist on burning the grass stubble every year after harvesting. Grass seed farmers are actually paid by the government large sums of money to not burn and to take care of the stubble in a different way. Most of the farmers do this but there are a few backward stubborn farmers who insist on burning their field as they did today. Huge clouds of smoke came rolling into my home town today causing problems for the elderly, very young, and people with respiratory problems like asthma. It was 100 degrees and the air was foul. These people are selfish and stupid and hire lobbyists to keep the practice legal. All I can say is shame on you oh stupid and selfish ones. I wrote an email to our Governor today and left a message on his answering machine complaining and I complained to my state Representatives as well. There were over 100 complaints about the smoke today to the Lane regional air quality protection agency. (our county air quality department) and it was covered on the news. I hope that some sort of common sense will kick in and maybe my state Representatives will get an ethical backbone and actually do something about this problem to help the common good and stop supporting stupid, stubborn people who have lobbyists with briefcases full of cash.

Is government bad?

I hear from some that government is bad and that having more government is bad for the people. Well I would have to say that our government is bad and that it is bad for the people because our government has become the government for big business or for whomever has a lot of money. Abraham Lincoln said at the Gettysburg address "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." the problem is that we don't have a government like this. We have a government made up of self serving loosers that are out to profit by sitting in Washington. The head looser being George Bush and his puppeteer DICK Cheney. I'm not saying that all of our representative are like this but a lot of them are. Our system puts all of them on the take because of the way lobbyist contribute to their re-election campaigns. What can you do to change this? What are we going to do to change this? Any ideas?

I contacted my Congressman (Peter Defazio) with an email message, and received back a form letter from his staff. I contacted one of my Senators (Gordon Smith) via email and got no response at all. I guess the form letter was better than than nothing at all. I actually like Peter and I think he is doing a good job, but what I have a problem with is the access that some get to our representatives while the rest of us are just static. The people who are getting exclusive access are lobbyist, and use money to get their agendas pushed onto the rest of us.

Our elected officials are representatives of the people, what I want to know is who came up with the idea that you could show up at their doors with a briefcase full of money and get personal attention. This happens every day, the lobbyists show up in Washington with all sorts of cash , make a donation to a representatives' re-election fund and expects to get special consideration for legislation, and they get it. This is what I call bribery, and corruption, and it's legal. It's amazing isn't it how if you have a briefcase full of cash you can push through legislation that is BAD for the rest of us. Again I implore anyone reading this to stand up to this practice and let everyone know that it will no longer be tolerated. The government is ours and should not be sold to the highest bidder!

Lobbyist suck and should be put out of business, convicted of bribery and sent to jail!!!

Go and see Sicko!

I would have to say that is the most important film I have ever seen. I was laid off a few months ago and was told that my health insurance would run out the next day. i could choose to opt for Cobra but it would have cost me over $1,000 a month. We really deserve universal health care that they have in other countries. instead of companies flushing all of their money into paying for group plans and the employee paying hundreds of dollars a month for their part (if it is even offered) then you could be putting you money in the way of a tax into a system that would cover you no matter what. that is what they have in every other country like ours. We sped twice as much money as Canada and get the run around trying to get what we need. In England the doctors get incentives when you are healthy. Unlike here where the insurance people make a bonuses for denying your care even if you are entitled. Go see the movie you will be shocked at how we are getting screwed.

Our representatives that we sent to Washington have been bribed by lobbyists who give money to their campaigns, it is time for us to stand up to them and demand that we change our system. We will probably have to wait until the evil George W Bush and his moronic lackeys are out of office but now is the time to start hitting up our representatives. Pick up the phone, write an email, show up at their office, march and march some more and demand we be treated with respect.

Whomever came up with the idea of making a PG13 movie out of a children's toy that is sold to 5 year olds is a total jerk. I saw the trailers for the movie and it looks fun but why does it have to be a film that is recommended for 13 year old supervised by their parents. The toys, action figures, sheets, jammies, and movies should all be appropriate for the same age group. If you are going to capitalize on one forms creativity and it is geared toward kids then keep it age appropriate. If Spiderman was never supposed to be appropriate for 5 year olds then don't make the jammies. Anyway they were selling transformers to 5 year olds WAY before they ever decided to make this movie.

Welcome to my blog Crazy Man Talking.

I was inspired with the name by an old friend that would always tell me "that's crazy talk" when I would express some of my opinions on various subjects that made way too much sense. I decided to start this blog to express and share some of that "crazy talk" with the rest of the world or at least to anyone who is interested in listening.