Yep, I'm up for more moderates in this country.

There are extremists in every culture, extremists in both directions, extremely nice, extremely impolite, extremely sharp, extremely dull, extremely socialist, extremely conservative. On every form of measure of human opinion and action you can find extremists of both sides.

There are also those in the middle of the road, the average folks.I'm not talking about those on the fence, but those with average opinions, pretty nice people with open minds who care about fairness but maybe are not perfect, generally with a tilt towards ethics and an intelligent manner of dealing with others.

Now in the world there are countries where the average people are running the show. In my opinion the United states is one of these. Lots of people would want to point to Bush and shout extremist, but I caution you to remember that the President does not run this country on his own and you run the risk of being an extremist yourself if you refuse to see that.

Many countries now have people in control who are extremists. many countries have had this in the past but do not now. I don't want to start going down the list of past extremists and you will undoubtedly know some of the examples, Lenin, Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Napoleon. Currently some of those I consider extremists are Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jung Il. There are others, but none who gain so much attention lately.

Of these three, two have come to power by some populist takeover, with questionable support, and the other was handed down power from a previous despotic regime.

Interestingly these three have also created the largest amount of strife in the international politics over the last few years. I would suggest that the world would be a lot more manageable if the leaders of these countries were more middle of the roaders. I do not propose to suggest how this might be brought about. I am just reminding you that the majority of the people in all of these countries are likely more moderate and that moderation in governmental relations would be helpful.

I have the opinion that the extremists were helped to power because they were expected to benefit certain other groups or governments. This falls under the category of covert operations by governments or other entities.

In our country we more and more want our country to not participate in any covert activities, and the politically correct position is that we should not do so. But when I see that it is possible for covert activities by other countries to bring about extremist control of centers of huge natural resources and geographical influence, I get the opinion that some of the restrictions on such activities should be carefully considered.

I particularly feel that using influence to overcome underground activities to place extremists in position should be considered. It is in the interest of the United States, and the interest of the world to have moderates in positions of government helping to manage fair trade and peace.

Well, its not exactly a joke, which is usually posted here. There is the title of funny story though so I thought maybe it qualified under that definition.

That invisible stage only works if you put a dab of vodka over your eyelids. You have to be careful about taking your clothes off though thinking that you are invisible, because the vodka keeps evaporating. It could be very embarrassing.

a couple weeks back I went hiking on the Red River. Took my daughter along. Its about 10 hours drive from here so it was quite a drive. While we were there we collected some rocks from the river area and tossed them in the back of the truck. On the way back we were stopping here and there for food and we were talking about how we should offer to trade some of the rocks from the Red River for hamburgers or things like that. We thought it was funny because the idea of trading a rock for a meal just seemed silly, but we talked it up as if it was possible, after all they were from the Red River. How many of you have rocks from the Red River after all. On the way back I got a chip in the windshield. Too many rocks on the Texas highways I suppose. This week I decided to have a windshield guy do his best to patch up the chip in my windshield for 25 bucks. I was telling him about the trip to the Red River and I showed him the rocks in the back of the truck. He said "Hey, maybe I should trade you this windshield work for one of those rocks from the Red River". I told my kid about it later and we were laughing for 5 minutes.

Well the style doesn't seem to be working so far, but you never know, the gals could be sending him letters on the back channel. I'm thinking if I should revise my tactics. So girls keep the irony out of here and just say what you really think. Should the rest of us guys follow this example or not?

Does that cool suave approach ever actually work?

I should really proof my typing.

I was thinking more of a diversionary tactic rather than a lie. I figure if someone wants to know if I'm married they can ask or simply get to know me well enough to someone mention it. As for messing up the potential perfect match, its been years and its not happening that way. Strangers don't meet accidentally in public life at my age. I'm certainly not walking up to a woman in a grocery store or gas station and asking for her number. No real danger there.

Women for the most part do not approach strange men in public either, so same thing, no worry about missing something there. I figure if I'm really going to meet someone it will probably be an introduction by somebody or something like that. Unfortunately most of my friends are as single as I am and any of them would try to meet someone for themselves first.

I'm just thinking of separating the quest for a spouse from my daily life, and maybe complicating things for myself whenever I want to do something really foolish like ask a woman for a date in the checkout line.

After being single for so many years a guy like me might have a tendency to make stupid decisions where finding a new girlfriend is concerned. Most girls don't pay me a lot of mind these days, but usually I get the attention from the outrageous sort, the ones who want free drinks, or waitresses who want bigger tips. If I meet women while working they tend to want special deals. I know you wouldn't think that with the industrial equipment I build, but it is true.

So anyway I'm thinking of cutting a lot of this out by finding myself a nice wedding band and wearing it most of the time. I hardly think this is going to stop me from getting some unexpected surprise since I never really had that kind of trouble, and it might just save me some annoyance and keep me from looking neglected and pitiful. Besides that it takes the pressure off the single women I meet and saves me from financial predators who just want to borrow a hundred dollars so they can pay their car note which they have almost enough money for if I would just help them a little this one time and they will pay me back real soon and get a notarized document with a payment schedule and,,, give me a break.

Any thoughts on this?

I've never actually seen a beaver.

Don't everyone speak at once.

Not intimidated by successful women, but I have heard that some guys are. Usually I hear it from women who consider themselves beautiful and successful. I would venture a guess that successful women do not make themselves available on a wholesale basis, just because of their personality types. If a woman is successful and that stems from focus and concentrated effort in her business life, which to some degree it ordinarily does, then it would follow that she is not spending her time in the bars being approached by assorted men. This could sway the perception and lead them to believe that because they are seldom approached, that men are intimidated by then, when in fact they are simply not available.

My mom doesn't bite sticks with pointy teeth.

Ok I have a story for you. I had a friend, nice fellow, maybe a little dull and not too good looking, worked for me some years back. One day I had been away from the office and when I came back he said that some girl had come by selling cellular phone service. He said this girl was really nice looking and he'd like it if he could see this gal again. Now this friend of mine was not good looking, what do I know, I'm a guy after all, but generally a little misshapen in the face, not quite proportional, and he did not have the look of a sharp spark. I don't mean to be unkind here, and he was a friend after all, bust not Adonis by any means. Well anyway I decided since he had made me curious I could do something to give the fellow a little help there. So I took the card she had left and give her a call to see if she would stop by and give us another shot at buying the cell phone service, giving my friend to warning so if he would be there he could see her again. Well. When the girl got there I was surprised and not surprised for the most peculiar reason. This girl looked so much like my friend that she could have been his sister. Same misshapen appearance and slightly off proportions. I was not the least bit interested in this girl, but to my friend, she was the bomb. So basically, different strokes for different folks. Oddly enough, she was not interested in my friend. Just one more thing to ponder. As for her phone service, unfortunately her plan was really quite bad and I would have spent a lot of money to convert. I'm ok for supporting small business and local sales, but that was just a little out of my reach.

This post seemed to be pretty independent to me.

Perhaps God could sue the government to force them to change.

This has mainly been a Democrat initiative to reinstate the draft. Surprised to see Fanta raising it. 19% of people currently approve of the Democrat led congress.

Ok so here goes. Everybody likes to be sooooo high in the equanimity quotient. They like to say, all that stuff doesn't matter. You can be tall, short, fat, thin, rich, poor, beautiful, plain, smart, dull, smelly, sweet, whatever. None of that matters so long as you have the right heart. Its the inside that matters. But if that were entirely true people would marry the first person they met who had a good personality, which pretty much never happens. So whenever I hear this stuff I have to think that someone is being at least a little bit disingenuous.

Almost nobody has no concern for any of these things related to a person's appearance. I am going easy here because the topic is so complex, but generally I would say that people like to appear as if they treat everyone equally where mate selection is concerned, but the reality is different.

Do I get the raspberry here or is anybody else giving this a real consideration?

energetic