ratman.com

really, kittens. michele missed having more to do around the house, so we now have 2 kittens. magnum and raven. brother and sister. they’re kind of cute, except for their claws. my legs are suffering those consequences.

pictures should arrive shortly. they aren’t in one place long enough to get them right now!

peace…

out to the lake for memorial day weekend! back home last night. all set for work today!

last night, the hawks – the mighty blackhawks took a 2-0 lead in the stanley cup! woohoo!!! not that i am a hockey fan, cause i’m not. but i am a chicago fan. hell, i even rooted for the sox a couple years ago. continue onward and upward!

finals for jon tomorrow. then it’s a summer of drivers education. what fun it will be!!!

michele’s almost done with school. if you know of a teaching position, please forward whoever to this website… mlratcliffe.net. her work samples and resume can be found there! can’t hurt!

awful accident at the close of the indy on sunday. from a safety standpoint, how far we have come.

there was an f1 debacle on sunday as well. teams should play nice within their little group. i would be willing to bet that there was an immense amount of being talked to for the rest of sunday. would not have wanted to be either of those drivers.

that’s it. off to work! it’s a brand new day!

i felt sorry for the president as well as those that expected him to speak today in elmwood, il. the weather in illinois changes every 10 minutes, so to some extent it must have been expected.

i hope that everyone had thoughts of the men and women that protect us 24x7x365. i know that i did. i thought back to the people that i was able to meet over the years that did serve. the friends that i met that weren’t able to have some of their friends return to the states with them. my thoughts are with you all.

president obama. i know that the problems in the middle east are going to be pressing at you, but please, please work out the problems in the gulf. the loss of income for the state of louisiana and the devastation to the area around the gulf is just too important to america. it’s time to take over and get this thing stopped. right now, fault should be the last thing on anyone’s mind. it should be only to stop what is happening. take control. find some way to stop the leak. please.

sucks. illinois approved a rate hike that started at the first of the year for home owners insurance, as well as others.

i have had a home, and therefore, insurance for 15 years. in that time, i have never had a claim. i have certainly had the opportunity too, with a couple floods and the like, but they were always below the deductible.

so. it was with great disappointment that i opened the renewal of my insurance bill, to find a 20% increase. i called them. nothing changed. everything stayed the same. all my scores were the same. everything was as it was. yet the insurance went up 20%. just because.

guess i’ll be shopping… again… thank you illinois. you’re the best…

hi. been a while huh? there just isn’t enough time in the day.

so. i listened to some, but not (as yet) all of the health care summit today. i was quite taken with the passion that the president and the rest of the democrats during what i heard. i was, as usual, not impressed with the republicans. why? because they brought nothing new to the party. nothing. same props. same tired lines. they say they want to do a do-over. because, they say, that the american people want a do over. so. i was trying to figure out, in my mind, what was meant by saying that the american people want a do-over. they base it on polls, so i went to the net to try to determine just what the numbers really mean. here is my best shot. please feel free to tear it apart.

let me first say that i made a ton of assumptions here. but hey. everyone does when speaking of polls.

so here goes. using the 2000 us census, the united states consisted of 281,421,000 persons. in ranges, they broke it out as follows:

i would suggest right mouse clicking on the picture, and then opening in a new window or tab, so that you can follow along with my logic… or else not.

essentially, gallup polled 1009 people. i divided that by 50 states, and rounded to 20 total, because even though i believe that rush or glen are only part human, you just can’t use a piece of anyone really.

take the total population, and figure out what age groups could be represented in numbers. again. i took some liberty here as well, because i am unsure of the quantity of young adults in the 15-24 range. so i simply divided it by 10 and took the number from 18-24. then i figured out the quantity based on my unscientific count of the population per state. then. using my numbers for all including a forecast of the split of ages, i had at it.

bottom line. of the 281 million people that were available in 2000, assuming that this was really the count for today, .00581443% of the population want this health care bill to fail. that is the tiniest of numbers. it is based on a poll of 1000 people. and though none of this is scientific or even near factual, in my humble opinion, i just am unable to see where anyone can say that based on the poll numbers, the population of the united states isn’t for health care. it’s just not possible.

ok. so that was me taking a look at the whole population and basing things on the numbers en mass.

but. here is the real deal. the following is based on gallup. look how far out you have to go to get the percentage to even begin to register?

i’m supposed to believe that the .0000234 blah blah blah figure means that the people of the united states don’t want health care? no fuching way.

my bottom line? fuch the polls. they don’t mean anything. they might be able to produce a temperature, but even then, they are highly suspect. ever had a friend say… hey. when you get the questionnaire from my company, please make it the best ever? and when you did, did you really tell the truth? if not, then you also could have been one of the people polled and said what you thought they wanted to hear instead of how you really felt. i can guarantee you that i could go out, right now, and find 100 people for and against the health care bill. and. i also bet that those people would be able to recite the talking points verbatim, but not be able to deliver any facts that back the points up, at all.

so. forget what the polls say. read and listen to some neutral media. there is some out there. but for petes sake, make up your own mind. don’t be swayed by either side.

if you are against what you consider socialist health care, then simply deny getting into any of the government run options that will be available in your older years. pay the cash out of pocket on what ails you. go ahead. you can’t take it with you anyway. might as well just spend it so that others get rich.

yep.

that’s the ticket!

last week at work, as happens to us all, i had to make a trip to the washroom.

on the wall. apparently someone had a sneeze and left a ‘present’ on the wall above the urinal. later. someone spent the time to create and tape up a ‘wtf’ note right next to it.

now. that wouldn’t be so bad except that on the list of ‘wtf’ moments, that would be a low priority moment for me.

a much higher priority would be that it also seems that our office has a number of blind people that use the urinals. seriously. there are times where i swear that a small lake has been formed. for me, that is a much more important ‘wtf’ moment. i mean. geez.

and then there are the people that grab a towel or two, and at the same time let one of two hit the floor. how can you not take a moment and pick up your mistake? it just takes a sec. why not spend a sec? why?

i can only imagine what the bathrooms of these people look like at home.