The following story is from This is True dated 17 July 2005. It is
Copyright 2005 Randy Cassingham, all rights reserved, and reprinted here
with
permission:

"Ethical" Defined

After more than 100 dead dogs were dumped in a trash dumpster over
four weeks, police in Ahoskie, N.C., kept an eye on the trash receptacle
behind a supermarket. Sure enough, a van drove up and officers watched
the occupants throw in heavy plastic bags. They detained the two people
in the van and found 18 dead dogs in plastic bags in the dumpster,
including puppies; 13 more dead dogs were still in the van. Police say
the van is registered to the headquarters of People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals, and the two occupants, Andrew B. Cook, 24, and
Adria Joy Hinkle, 27, identified themselves as PETA employees. An autopsy
performed on one of the dogs found it was healthy before it was killed.
Police say PETA has been picking up the animals -- alive -- from North
Carolina animal shelters, promising to find them good homes. Cook and
Hinkle have been charged with 62 felony counts of animal cruelty. In
response to the arrests PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said it's against
the group's policy for employees to dump animals in the trash, but "that
for some animals in North Carolina, there is no kinder option than
euthanasia." (Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald) ...Oops, my mistake: that's
"Playing God" Defined.

In his author's notes section, Cassingham had more to say about this
story:

The more I learn about PETA, the less I think of
them. The story of them killing animals isn't even unusual. According to
PETA's own filings, in 2004 PETA killed 86.3 percent of the
animals entrusted to its care -- a number that's rising, not falling.
Meanwhile, the SPCA in PETA's home town (Norfolk, Va.) was able to find
loving homes for 73 percent of the animals put in its care. A shortage of
funds? Nope: last year PETA took in $29 million in tax-exempt donations.
It simply has other priorities for the funds, like funding terrorism
(yes, really). But don't take my word for it: I got my figures from
http://www.PETAkillsAnimals.com
-- and they have copies of PETA's state and federal filings to back it
up. The bottom line: if you donate money to PETA because you think they
care for and about animals, you need to think some more. PETA literally
yells and screams about how others "kill animals" but this is how
they operate? Pathetic.

And you know what I wonder? PETA's official count of animals
they kill is 86.3 percent. But if they're going around picking up
animals, killing them while they drive around and not even giving them a
chance to be adopted, and then destroying the evidence by dumping
the bodies in the trash, are those deaths being reported? My
guess: no. While 86.3 percent is awful, the actual number is probably
much, much higher. How dare they lecture anyone
about the "ethical" treatment of animals!

(This is True is a weekly column featuring
weird-but-true news
stories from around the world, and has been published since 1994. Click
the link for info about free subscriptions.)

Richard's main page

I've been thinking about having my eyes fixed with lasik for some time now. My eyesight has always been quite bad, and as I've aged it's only gotten worse. I've always been very nearsighted with a lot of astigmatism, too—especially in the left eye. My near vision has always been excellent. It was in fifth grade that I finally discovered that my eyes were not normal and I was thrilled to be able to see well for the first time in my life. I've worn glasses religiously ever since, except for a brief time twenty-five years ago when I wore contacts, but had nothing but trouble with them.

A few years ago, I found that it was necessary to take off my glasses for near work and the last few pairs I've worn have been bi-focal. Unfortunately that only took care of reading and distance. I also had to get a special pair of glasses for computer work. Bi-focals work for reading, but not for other close up work so if I was doing work (like plumbing) in a tight spot I would often take off my glasses since I couldn't get the lower part of the bi-focals in the right place. Finally I'd had enough.

The lasik place suggested mono-vision and to see if I could handle it, they put contact lenses in my eyes, one with the prescription for distance and the other for reading. This wasn't perfect because they didn't correct for the astigmatism, but I was thrilled with how I saw. Even at the computer it worked, since I guess I averaged the two eyes and could still see the screen well enough to work. I was also amazed at how comfortable the contact lenses were. I had almost no problems at all, unlike before. I guess they've come a long way in the last quarter century. I should have stayed with the contacts.

It turns out I am one of the 8% who don't have successful surgery. My left eye, which was supposed to be my reading eye, sees nothing but a blur at any distance. In fact the right eye, the distance eye, sees up close better than the reading eye. Now for distance it's a little better than it used to be, but I've lost the near vision I used to have. So my left eye is worthless. The right eye does see well enough that I can drive—in the daytime—and even watch a little TV, but it's not yet good enough to go without glasses for night driving or serious TV watching. So I had to buy a new pair of bi-focal glasses, since my old ones no longer work, and a new pair of computer glasses. Now if I need to see something up close I can't take off my glasses, because I no longer have uncorrected near vision. What a pain!

The doctor says they can operate again in a few months. Again I have a 94% chance of it working. I worry that since I was in the 8% last time I could be in that 8% this time too. We'll see (pun intended!)

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Since I spent a lot of time redesigning my site, I decided to post here just so I could rewrite the blog to my site. Check out the site at the link below.

Richard's main page

I'm a bit surprised I haven't kept this up for two months!

I've got a new job at Canyon Springs High School for next year, unless I can convince Ms. Davies to hire me at Moapa Valley High, which would be nice since she does have an opening. She has a Spanish position also. My son Rick would like that one.

Last week I was a chaperone on a trip for the newly graduated seniors to visit the church history sites for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We actually did the trip in reverse. We left Las Vegas and flew to Kansas City where we boarded a bus and followed the path of the Saints moving east on the route they used to move west during the early years of the church. We traveled through Missouri; Illinois (see the pictures of my wife, Jane, and youngest son, Charlie, in Nauvoo, ILL. That's the Mississippi behind them.), Ohio, and New York, visiting various historical sites of the early church, and ending at the farm of Joseph Smith where it all started with the first vision.

We did take a few side trips. We visited Hannibal MO where Mark Twain was raised and Niagara Falls. On our last day we took a canoe trip on the old Erie Canal, where we got tipped over and I dunked my digital camera. It's dead, Jim! Oh well, I got an excuse to buy a new one. An Olympus with a 12X optical zoom and 5 mega pixels, sweet!

The kids were great. There were times that some chaperones had to sit out in the hall at the hotels until their charges realized they weren't going to get away with anything. Our kids (including my son) knew that we wouldn’t put up with anything and they didn't give us any problems at all.

It was a great trip and we and the kids learned a lot. There are apparently other youth groups that make this trim, because I ran into my niece who was traveling with another group in two separate states!

It's nice to be back though, since I was averaging about six hours of sleep a night. I'm still catching up on back sleep.

Richard's main page

Another great cartoon from Cox and Forkum 

This thing is not fun anymore! It's become an obligation that I feel guilty about when I don't do it. Except when I do it then it becomes fun... Well actually, what is fun is not doing it, but having done it! Now that probably made no sense!

Okay, I had an interview today. I've got another planned Monday morning, another Monday afternoon, and the last (for now) Tuesday. The goal is to get a position as close to home as possible. I'm still tied up with all the many responsibilities I have, school (as teacher), school (as student), editing the newsletter, and keeping up with chores around the yard. If I can get a position near home next year, I'll have about three more hours of time each day. That would be wonderful!

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I've been extremely busy trying to get my apartment ready for tenants, so I haven't written anything in a while. I've been waiting for two weeks for the carpet morons to finish my carpet in the apartment. They left a section without tack board and did some really horrible seams. After a week I got the boss to come and look and he promised it would be done on Monday, then Tuesday, then Wednesday... Today they wouldn't even answer the phone! I guess I'll tell them I'm not paying the rest of the money and I'll hire someone else to finish the install.

Talk about another run of bad luck! Monday we were rear-ended in North Las Vegas as we were making a right turn. Tuesday, we were rear-ended again a block south of the first accident! Unbelievable!

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When my tenants moved out of the guest house, I went in to fix the flood damage. I ended up tearing out all the cupboards and basically stripping the place down to bare walls. I've been spending all my free time trying to get the place ready for renters again.

Of course every time it starts to dry up a little around here, it rains again and re-wets the mud.

My mother's house is in need of a lot of work too, and I just don’t have time to do it all!

So far we've had two cars damaged by the flood—three if you count Rick and Jessie's car.

Richard's main page

Cox and Forkum have another good cartoon. 

We got flooded again! This was the worst flood we've ever had. Despite sandbagging our guest house still got flooded, and my mother had water seeping into her yard through gopher holes! I don't know what more we could have done. We double sandbagged at her house yet it did no good at all. She had at least eight inches of water in the house. Everytime a firetruck went by, the waves went right over the top of the sandbags. My son parked his car inside her yard so it would hold the gate and sandbags against the force of the water, so his car got filled with water. It runs but he has no instruments, nor seat adjustment (which is electric).

The neighborhood and the LDS church came through again and within a few hours had everything out of her downstairs including the carpet. Below are a couple of pictures from my house and a couple of the cleanup at my mom's.

I'm planning on suing the county, again. They are responsible for flood control and it's been 24 years since the first flood. This is the fourth flood and the third caused by the refusal of the county to clean out the river channel! I guess the last time I sued I didn't get enough money out of them, since they did nothing to fix the problem. This time we go for more! Since they settled the last lawsuit, this one will be even easier.

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Mucking out my Mother's driveway 

My Mother's carpet. 

Looking South from our house 

Looking East from our house 

I've had my house full of kids and grandkids for the last week. It was a wonderful Christmas. My son William has returned from Argentina (with an accent) and it was nice to have him home for Christmas.

I've been trying to figure out a way to do this blog in Dreamweaver, but it's incredibly complicated. Other people I know manage to do it, but I think they do everything by hand, the hard way. I don't have time for that so I'll keep doing it on here.

I procrastinated signing up for my next class and now it's full. I had to pick another class. It doesn't really matter, I had to take it anyway. I'll take it next semester. Just one year away from the Master's degree. A whole year! I'm sick of school!

Richard's main page

We had a good time for Thanksgiving. I fried three turkeys. One we had on Thursday evening and the other two we had in Alamo while we helped Mike and Retta lay the block for the two rooms we're building over my in law's cellar.

I also got to try my new Mantis tiller. That thing works better than I expected. It only weighs 20 pounds but it does a better job than the old one we had that costs three times more.

I'm almost finished with my greenhouse. I was looking for a fan to blow air between the two sheets of plastic and I found the cheapest fans could be purchased by buying one of the blow-up Santas or snowmen that Ace had on sale for $20. I bought one of each. The Santa is set up in the yard; the snowman is taken apart so I can use the fan. I have to replace the plug because anything designed for Christmas use has a fuse built into the plug to protect the companies from lawsuits. The idea is that most people replace lights and such regularly, so when the fuses blow people just replace the lights and don't worry about it too much. For a blower I'll be using more often, I have to get rid of the fuse. It will be on a GFCI circuit anyway, an extra fuse is not necessary.

I discovered the magic of Zantac. I feel so much better now that I'm using that regularly. I had been using Nexium with no results. Now I take the Nexium in the morning and the Zantac at night. The pain is now bearable, and in fact most of the time, I don't notice it at all.

Richard's main page

We know that when President Bush was reelected Afghani's and Iraqi's celebrated. We know that in almost every other country they preferred John effing Kerry. Why? Do the liberal Bush haters ever ask why? Let's look at selfish reasons. The Iraqi's and Afghani's are better off with Bush, so they like him. They don't trust Kerry to continue the fight. They and other nations don't give a rat's behind about quality of life in America. They care about their own lives, thus the support for Bush in those two countries. Other countries have citizens and subjects that are jealous and envious of our prosperity and freedom, so they support leaders that are bad for us. They certainly don't have our best interests in their hearts. So only an idiot would care if they liked us or not. Idiots like those who supported the lying, flip-flopping, war hero (in Vietnam, not here) who committed treason after he returned from Vietnam and who did not receive an honorable discharge for his service until after Jimmy Carter pardoned him.

Interestingly enough, one other country celebrated the reelection of George Bush. The story, in NewsMax tells us of Iranians dancing in the streets with joy. Why? Because they hope they're the next country freed of tyranny by the blood of our soldiers. And our wonderful soldiers are glad to do it. This is the month of Thanksgiving. Be thankful for them, and our strong president. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran are!

Richard's main page

Again a good one from Cox and Forkum 

Latest from Cox and Forkum (coxandforkum.com) 

Robert and family came by this weekend. Robert bought a used shotgun; much like my single shot, but his sometimes doesn't fire. I think he's got a firing pin problem. He's not happy. Then Rick talked Jessie into firing Rob's Makarov. Somehow, when she pushed the safety up it went too far and the gun wouldn't work any more. Now he was really angry and he took it out on Jessie, too much. I managed to get the safety lever out and was able to take the gun apart. The safety popped right back in and the gun works fine. Later Rob was looking in my Guns magazine and found a Makarov article where it talks about the flimsy safety! What a coincidence!

Anyway, we were shooting clay pigeons mostly. Shannon, Jessie, Rick, Rob, Charlie, and I were sharing three guns, Rob's and my 20 gauges and my 12. All of us hit enough targets that we're all happy. Jessie sure grinned when she hit her first pigeon. I was using the 12 gauge to hit the pigeon just before it hit the ground, after the others fired. That was kind of cool. I was hitting a bunch of them.

I started using a new browser yesterday. My professor in my Web page design class has been using Firefox and really recommends it. I found that it is at least as good as IE! I'd tried Opera before and didn't like it. Then I tried Thunderbird to replace Outlook Express. It took me hours to get it working. It turns out that, though Outlook allows me to list my user name as "richard," Thunderbird insists on "richard"at"richardbush.net." Apparently, it actually sees it as, "richard"at"richardbush.net"at"mvdsl.com." I think there is a bug in the way MVDSL handles private domain email addresses. I know with Outlook, when I respond to your emails, it shows my son's address as "william"at"richardbush.net"at"mvdsl.com" and I have to change it before it will send. Thunderbird shows his address correctly. So Outlook fixes one thing and breaks another. Thunderbird breaks one thing and fixes the other.

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