There's a fun poll that just came out that basically breaks down the demographics on happiness. It's kinda fun to click on the links at the right hand side to see how different demographics break down. Read what you will into it, I won't try to decipher it. I will say that you shouldn't solely read into it as a cause and effect relationship - it could well be the reverse.

Here's your link: Pew Research Center

p.s. I be verry happy

at least according to...

Chip #1:
one of our black neighbors. Honda Accord comes screaming around the corner inside our subdivision and in front or our house. Our kids and others (there are a lot in our 55 home neighborhood) are playing in the front yard and the street - common practice in our subdivision. We YELL at him to slow his ass down. At the time, we didn't know if he was a neighbor or someone cruising through our subdivision - which only has one way inout. We certainly didn't have time to see what race the driver was, but when he heard us he already knew that we were racists. He got out of the car YELLING at us that we would NEVER have yelled at him if he was white! Uh huh. Well, the good news is we seem to have straightened this one out. His wife, the more social one, we already knew and she is very nice. He and his wife showed up at a recent neighborhood party and we all made nice. He's a nice guy, but he seems very quiet (not talkative), somewhat intense and doesn't smile much - but not a bad guy.

Chip #2:
one of our white neighbors. I wrote a simple, factual, innocuous post to our neighborhood web site. Basically, someone from our community was complaining to the mayor about how the local public elementary school is driving our home prices down. This was NOT true: prices are not going down (although they may not be going up as fast as some other areas) and even if diversity is the cause of the price stagnation, the school has NOTHING to do with the diversity of our community (rather, it reflects that diversity). I posted about the complaint and basically summarized as well as copies some key facts from a letter written by the mayor to the community after she had discussions with the school principal and local community leaders. I did NOT include any of my personal thoughts on the matter other than that I thought I posed it in such a way as to dispel any negative concerns about the increasing diversity of our community. Well, it wasn't long before I got a reply (REPLY ALL, no less) from a "concerned" neighbor calling me out as a racist. I re-read my email to see what I missed and then politely replied to her (not REPLY ALL) that she should read the post again including the link I included. Another prompt REPLY ALL letting me know that she re-read it again (and again) and read the link and called the mayor and blah, blah, blah AND "I didn't call you a racist, I said your comments were". Well, I'm not sure I get that nuance! So this time I hit REPLY ALL and explained in quite a detailed fashion exactly what the email meant and that frankly if she still didn't get it that she could find a quarter and call someone else 'cuz I've had enough of this crap. It didn't take long for several neighbors to call or email me. It made me feel better that they were not able to figure out where our neighbor got the idea that the post was in any way racist. Whew! I was beginning to think I was nuts.

Chip #3:
Some Democrats say that to be Republican is to be racist. Since I vote mostly Republican, I guess I must be a racist. I do not get why Republicans get a bad name here. Is being against affirmative action racist? I think being for government sponsored race preferences is worse. Is not raising the minimum wage racist? Is a slow response to Katrina racist? Is welfare reform racist? If you answer yes to any of these, then I should introduce you to my friends chip #1 and chip #2. If the qualification for racist means that a policy affects more of one race than another, then all policies are by definition racist. Give me a break. I'm not saying all republicans are NOT racist - you've got those wack job neo-nazi freaks of course - but suggesting that the party is itself racist is a little silly. Of course, that doesn't stop leftist organizations like the NAACP and others from saying it over and over again.

Oh, I forgot a good one regarding "racist" policies - racial profiling. I'll have some insensitive comments on that one later.

Chip #4:
OK, this one doesn't include me directly, but this fellow is a former business partner of mine. He is Arab, but grew up in North America. He is still my friend, I like him and overall he is a good guy, but he takes any negative situation and calls it racism. He was in store the other day when the clerk, young black man, asked to see his ID even though his picture is on the back of his credit card. Well, my friend starts to get a little upset wondering why this "a-hole" is treating him like he's gonna blow something up. He explains to the manager the racist incident. He is very mad at the racism he has just endured. This is not an isolated incident. When he gets pulled over for speeding, the cop is racist. His in-laws like the other grandkids better, because they are racist. He hates his neighborhood, bunch of racists. I could go on. Fact of the matter is, this kind of thinking can make you bitter and it borders on the delusional. And he is not alone (take chip #1 for instance).

Speaking of that, if you haven't seen the movie Crash, you really ought to. Very good. Scary. Sad. Joyous.

It's official! Bicycling magazine has rated Atlanta the WORST city for cyclists. Of course, I already knew that based on my experience riding 13 miles to work two days a week.

The GREAT NEWS is that a local bike shop owner and cycling activist has organized a "GEORGIA RIDES TO THE CAPITOL" ride scheduled for Tuesday March 7. The entire cycling community is abuzz over this. It is well organized and the Governor of Georgia, Sonny Perdue, the mayor of Atlanta, Shirley Franklin, as well as other local politicians will participate.

This is huge and will go a long way towards making Atlanta more ride friendly. A big source of friction between motorists and cyclists is that the roads are not setup to accomodate cyclists making it difficult and sometimes dangerous to "share the road." This effort along with the license plate intiative to SHARE THE ROAD are hopefully starting to make a dent.

I'll report back with more news on this awesome event!

Ride on!

My wife and I are sitting around looking at pictures on the computer and just thought that we should share a picture of my birthday cake from last year.

It was truly an amazing and beautifully done cake. Done in the likeness of my wife (uhhh, unfortunately not). Ha Ha.We took a few "R-rated" pictures. Eating it was quite a hoot - everyone taking a shot. My wife is now very worried about the cake she might get. hee hee.

So says a Yahoo headline this morning. This is just so wrong on so many levels:

• this is based entirely on the erroneous assumption that the economy and demographics do not change at all over time.
• If you own a store that sells only beer, 1 brand that no one else in the world sells, in six packs and you drop the price 10%, will your revenues go up or down? Will your profits go up or down? If you can't think of at least 10 different "it depends on...", then you fail, please leave this post immediately.
• When Ford and GM announce layoffs and plant closings, why don't the headlines scream "Auto Industry Saves Billions!" ?
• "Costs" who? If it costs the government billions that means the American people are keeping billions of dollars more of their own money. Is it really wrong to let free people determine how best to spend the money they earned? Who says the government can do it better?

I just don't get how the press worries that the government is not raising enough money. The headline could just as easily have read:

• "American to keep billions more of their hard earned money."
• "Government may have to cut more waste to cover revenue shortfalls."
• "Tax collections expected to increase as tax cuts spur economy."

as opposed to "Government to miss out on taking more of your money if congress won't raise taxes."

************ UPDATE *******************
2.8.6

I feel compelled to update this post given a good comment from my "friend" Moody (sorry to put "friend" in quotes, but it feels weird to call someone a friend when I know nothing about them). Moody writes his own blog - Jerk Store - great writer and entertaining, and I love the blog name! Anyway, he makes a good point that the National Debt is out of control (see his comment on this post for some REAL numbers). I agree 200% percent. I have a few reasons for why I think a tax rate increase is still a bad idea, but here is my MAJOR reason to not support it...

The government is like empty space, no matter how much of it you have, you will fill it. My wife and I are in our third house, each one bigger than the last. Filled to the gills! The same is true of most peoples' standard of living with increasing wages. While I live in many ways better than I did when I was 20, I still live paycheck to paycheck. Giving the government more money will not result in paying down the debt. It will not mean balancing the budget either. It WILL mean increasing spending faster. The more money the government has to "play" with, the more powerful and intrusive it will be. Starving the beast is the only way to limit that growth.

If taxes were raised 10% and the debt still gets to 10 trillion, would we raise taxes another 10%? What about the next $10 trillion (there is no doubt in my mind that the debt will reach $20T before I die regardless of who is in office). Income taxes have gone from 0% in the early 1900s to on average about 10 to 15% of our income on average (this doesn't include SS and all of the other taxes we are burdened with). What's happened since then? We went from $257B debt in 1950 to $8 Trillion. Not one year since 1950 has the debt gone down (almost did in 2000, why? you can give Clinton credit if you want, but it was mostly due to the economy and the amazing rate of investment - not because tax rates were high and not because spending was low). We are not just keeping pace with the growing demographics of this country, we are spending TWICE as much per household (adjusted for inflation) today than 50 years ago. What problems has the government solved with all of that increased spending?

In my view the only way to solve the problem of the debt is to make government smaller and free up the economy from unnecessary (not all) regulation and burdensome taxes so that the economy can do its work. The Fair Tax (bill HR #25) is one potential way to do this, but government will NOT let that happen - it takes too much power away from the politicians and puts it into the hands of every day ordinary citizens.

While I'd like to say that the good news is that both liberals and conservatives generally agree that the deficit is too high, not nearly enough people care and thus it will not change. And for the record, if there's one thing that MOST conservatives do hate about BUSH is that he has done NOTHING to change the government's spending ways.