AUTHOR: Drew Bryden DATE: 5/31/2003 03:50:17 PM ----- BODY: Okay folks, it is time to wake up and smell the coffee. Media coverage of the President's recent tax relief package claims that those who really need this benefit are being left behind. The low-income families that these media outlets would lead us to believe are being neglected by this package are not paying taxes to begin with! How do you give a "tax cut" to those who are not making enough to pay into the system to begin with? Many of these "low-income" folks drive newer cars, wear more expensive clothes, have more TVs, DVD players, computers, and game consoles than many working families that work their tails off 5-6 days a week. These working families work over-time to pay the benefits these "poor" folk receive.

Call me insensitive to the plight of the poor, but I feel that the majority of these people choose to be "poor." Bring me a low-income family that will not benefit from this package, and nine times out of ten I can show you a family that abuses the system, and has many of the abilities and opportunities that you or I have to better their situation. These poor people subscribe to the lifestyle they are living and the perks that come with it. These are not the working poor we are talking about... these are leeches "working" the system. -------- AUTHOR: Drew Bryden DATE: 5/30/2003 02:04:39 PM ----- BODY: Not a huge fan of reality T.V. (although I must admit a history of watching Survivor), I sat down after a family dinner and watched the first episode of the Amazing Race on CBS last night. One of the so called "married" couples happened to be a pair of males. I have had friends who were lesbian... I am not sure why, but they never bothered me a bit. However, the in-your-face, huggy, kissy "married" couple was a bit much for my liking (and my mother's). Four thumbs down to CBS and their "real-life men."
See CBS television thrusting 'married gays' on public -------- AUTHOR: Drew Bryden DATE: 5/29/2003 10:11:47 PM ----- BODY: Dead vehicle update: What was originally thought to be a faulty fuel pump, turned out to be a defective electronic control module in the trusty heap. These things happen, but NOT UNTIL I AM ON VACATION!

The bicycle got me around well enough today...

Maybe I don't need the old beast and she knows it. This might be her way of protesting being left in the driveway so often. I will have to take her out for a spin now and then to make her feel needed again. -------- AUTHOR: Drew Bryden DATE: 5/29/2003 02:37:18 PM ----- BODY: France protests what it calls a smear campaign by U.S. officials.
This may be old news, but I still think it worth purchasing a T-Shirt to show the French how we feel about the issue.
View T-Shirts -------- AUTHOR: Drew Bryden DATE: 5/28/2003 10:11:41 PM ----- BODY: Anyone watch the Red Sox get robbed in New York tonight? Was the umpire a major league baseball employee or a New York Yankee fan? Maybe umpiring has become a game of numbers. What a let down after watching the fight that the Red Sox put up to come back in the ninth. Was loading the bases intentionally the right move? Had the umpiring been different it may have been. Another Red Sox tragedy... -------- AUTHOR: Drew Bryden DATE: 5/28/2003 08:20:31 PM ----- BODY: Today did not turn out half bad. As usual, the local weather forecast was way off the mark. Buckets of sunshine to be had by all this afternoon. This has been said plenty of times before, but can you imagine getting paid to predict what most people can forecast by walking out their front doors. If our local sports casters predicted that the Red Sox would go to the world series they would be laughed out of their jobs. Yet the weather man predicts rain... we get an entire afternoon of sunshine, and nobody says a word?!?!

Weather people argue that, when it comes to the atmosphere, Chaos theory reins supreme. This theory states that if a butterfly flaps its wings in Japan it can have an effect on our weather on Cape Cod. Forecasting the weather is all about probability. Mathematical models may possibly someday be combined with weather models to predict our weather more accurately. Too bad forecasting the Red Sox isn't based on the same principles. -------- AUTHOR: Drew Bryden DATE: 5/28/2003 03:38:31 PM ----- BODY: A public school has been shut down and 6,500 people have been quarantined in Toronto. With the deadly SARS virus resurfacing, perhaps the Red Sox won't have to face the red-hot Toronto Blue Jays after all. Things can't be all bad for the Red Sox. We have to look for the good news in all of this negativity... -------- AUTHOR: Drew Bryden DATE: 5/28/2003 03:03:37 PM ----- BODY: At the risk of sounding like a negative whiner, I will keep this brief. Why does something bad happen to me every time I take a vacation? The last couple of vacations, I became ill the day my vacation started and did not recover until it was almost time to return to work. This vacation week has been punctuated by foul weather, and yesterday my prized clunker of a vehicle died in the driveway. Having a disabled vehicle puts even more of a "damper" on my vacation plans.

Perhaps everything in my life (both internal and external) is just held together by the thinnest of threads. During my normal work schedule, I am in perpetual motion and everyhing is held together by the pull of my forward movement. It is not until I have time to slow down a bit that the thread unravels and it all falls apart? Either that, or I am not meant to travel beyond my normal range. I am reminded of the film, "The Truman Show," with Jim Carey. Had I not travelled earlier in my life, I might wonder if this were not a conspiracy.

Life goes on. My vacation continues, and I remain a prisoner of everyone elses' vacation destination. Maybe I should be grateful that a vacationland is right outside my front door.

There is always my September vacation. I will secretly plot my escape now, instead of leaving things open and flexible. I knew there was a reason for my obsession with my bicycles; they may be my only means off of this island! -------- AUTHOR: Drew Bryden DATE: 5/27/2003 01:37:41 PM ----- BODY: The Cape Wind Farm opponents are at it again. Today, the local rag (Cape Cod Times) took the Audubon Society's position statement on the proposed Nantucket Sound wind farm and twisted it to suit their own agenda. See "Birds vs. windmills," 27 May 2003. "The Audubon Society supports the ""responsible planning and development"" of offshore renewable energy resources." Yet, the Cape Cod Times manages to twist this position into the Audubon Society being against the Cape Wind project.

In the wake of the recent spill of over 100,000 gallons of oil here in Buzzards Bay, I do not see how any sane person can deny the importance of finding alternative energy resources. Although it is true that the Cape Wind project would not eliminate the Mirant corporation's Canal Electric power plant (to which the spilled oil was being shipped), it is one step in the direction of reducing our reliance on these dirty, fossil-fuel burning energy sources.

By 2020, wind could provide up to six percent of the United States' energy needs according to the American Wind Energy Association. That is nothing to sneer at.

For more on the Audubon Society and alternative energy sources see: Beyond Oil -------- AUTHOR: Drew Bryden DATE: 5/26/2003 08:12:16 PM ----- BODY: Am I the only one who is irritated by baseball announcers' increasing use of the word "scuffling" to descibe players and teams who are "struggling" to perform well? See: scuffle -------- AUTHOR: Drew Bryden DATE: 5/26/2003 02:35:20 PM ----- BODY: My first vacation of the year begins as a rainout... with more predicted for the rest of the week. The original plan was to do come cycle touring - either close to home on Cape Cod, or up in Maine. Yet, with fall-like temperatures and nasty weather in the forecast I am not really motivated to pursue either option. I don't want to waste away the vacation, but the outdoors does not seem all that attractive right now.

Perhaps I will take some day trips to some local museums or travel to Boston. Vacation should be stress free, so I will take each day as it comes.

I am glad that I did not commit myself to any travel plans, as they would have been a washout anywhere here in New England. -------- AUTHOR: Drew Bryden DATE: 5/26/2003 12:05:19 PM ----- BODY: Life by the Drop has its beginnings on Memorial day 2003.
I am new to this whole blogging concept, so bear with me as I become accustomed to it.

I look forward to any tips or links that you are kind enough to share.
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