The way it is supposed to work is the customers get something of value ( the product or service) and the company gets money that helps them stay in business, keep people employed and reward the owner and employees for taking a risk and servicing a niche.

The way it is NOT supposed to work is;

 1.) for a small company to enter into a market on a shoestring budget …

2.) work for years in a basement …

3.) end up employing 7 people (pretty good accomplishment in this economy since Obama’s so-called “stimulus” isn’t producing many jobs) …

4.) provide a product that make people happy

5.) and then have some billion dollar company ( that does not make the same product) come in to try to get them to cease and desist their operations because at some point in time that Billion dollar company may want to delve into the same niche.

 You, my dear reader may be wondering what the hell I’m talking about. 

I’m talking about a small start-up company in Vermont called Rock Art Brewery. This company has defied the odds over the last few years and picked up market share with its beer that it calls the Vermonster. Even better, the beer has sold so well that the company has increased the number of people it employs.

So in walks Monster Energy Drink.

These fuckers want Rock Art Brewery to stop calling their beer the Vermonster. Apparently, the Monster Energy Drink company is looking to expand into the beer business in the future and doesn’t want to have to compete with the Vermonster for name recognition and market share. So what do they do? The trot out their lawyers who then seek to bully the little guy into giving up their rights.

WRONG ANSWER MONSTER!!!

ROCK ART BREWERY WAS THERE FIRST. IF YOU WANT TO COMPETE IN THE BEER MARKET IN VERMONT AND WANT TO TAKE ON LITTLE ’OLE ROCK ART BREWERY. EITHER GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR AND DO IT OR FIND SOME BIGGER PANTS TO MAKE ROOM FOR YOUR HUGE VAGINAS!! 

STOP TRYING TO SCREW OVER THE LITTLE GUY. IF YOU FUCKERS WITH YOUR BILLION DOLLARS CANNOT COMPETE AGAINST A GUY IN HIS BASEMENT, YOU NEED TO FIND ANOTHER FUCKING LINE OF WORK!!

To this end, I’m asking anyone who reads this to contact Monster Energy Drink and tell them that unless THEY cease and desist their campaign against Rock Art Brewery, you will not only refrain from buying their product, you will actually buy their competitor’s product and will have your friends spread the word to do the same.

I first heard about this when reading how Allyn Hane hates Monster Energy Drinks

Here is the video laying it all out;

Monster vs. Rock Art Brewery

And here is the number for Monster Fucking Energy Drink –> 1-800-426-7367

Tell them to go fuck themselves.

Site build It is a service that is offered to internet marketing novices and it should be avoided.

Why Should Site Build It Be Avoided?

Site Build It should be avoided because it costs you $300 and does nothing for you except give you a website and show you some very basic information, most of it worthless, about building a website

Anyone, and I do mean anyone, can go to blogger.com right now and create a blog and get the free information out there on the web. The sources are endless but some of the best sources for this are Grizz who teaches people to make money online and Vic who also teaches people to make money online. Follow these guys and you will not fail to make money online. They teach you everything you need to know and it costs you nothing.

But don’t just take my word for it concerning Site Build It. “Lissie” has provided a Site Build It Review at her site. She has gone into quite some detail as to why it is a scam. I think that paying $300 for stuff you can do for yourself and find information for yourself is a bad investment. Stay as far away from Site Build It as possible.

NOTE: If you still have the urge to throw away $300 after reading Lissie’s review, send me an email and I’ll tell you where you can send the $300 to me instead!!

But what of those signatories who pledged … “our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor…”?

Fortunately, Rush Limbaugh has a piece up with the text of the speech his father used to give each July 4th.

It chronicles what many of the signatories went through as a result of their decision to stand up to King George.

Here are a few excerpts;

What kind of men were the 56 signers who adopted the Declaration of Independence and who, by their signing, committed an act of treason against the crown? To each of you, the names Franklin, Adams, Hancock and Jefferson are almost as familiar as household words. Most of us, however, know nothing of the other signers. Who were they? What happened to them?

I imagine that many of you are somewhat surprised at the names not there: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Patrick Henry. All were elsewhere.

Ben Franklin was the only really old man. Eighteen were under 40; three were in their 20s. Of the 56 almost half – 24 – were judges and lawyers. Eleven were merchants, nine were landowners and farmers, and the remaining 12 were doctors, ministers, and politicians.

What happened to them as a result of their signing the Declaration Of Independence?

Of those 56 who signed the Declaration of Independence, nine died of wounds or hardships during the war. Five were captured and imprisoned, in each case with brutal treatment. Several lost wives, sons or entire families. One lost his 13 children. Two wives were brutally treated. All were at one time or another the victims of manhunts and driven from their homes. Twelve signers had their homes completely burned. Seventeen lost everything they owned. Yet not one defected or went back on his pledged word. Their honor, and the nation they sacrificed so much to create is still intact.

Francis Lewis, New York delegate saw his home plundered — and his estates in what is now Harlem — completely destroyed by British Soldiers. Mrs. Lewis was captured and treated with great brutality. Though she was later exchanged for two British prisoners through the efforts of Congress, she died from the effects of her abuse.

John Hart of Trenton, New Jersey, risked his life to return home to see his dying wife. Hessian soldiers rode after him, and he escaped in the woods. While his wife lay on her deathbed, the soldiers ruined his farm and wrecked his homestead. Hart, 65, slept in caves and woods as he was hunted across the countryside. When at long last, emaciated by hardship, he was able to sneak home, he found his wife had already been buried, and his 13 children taken away. He never saw them again. He died a broken man in 1779, without ever finding his family.

And, finally, there is the New Jersey signer, Abraham Clark.He gave two sons to the officer corps in the Revolutionary Army. They were captured and sent to that infamous British prison hulk afloat in New York Harbor known as the hell ship Jersey, where 11,000 American captives were to die. The younger Clarks were treated with a special brutality because of their father. One was put in solitary and given no food. With the end almost in sight, with the war almost won, no one could have blamed Abraham Clark for acceding to the British request when they offered him his sons’ lives if he would recant and come out for the King and Parliament. The utter despair in this man’s heart, the anguish in his very soul, must reach out to each one of us down through 200 years with his answer: “No.”

Please remember what the 4th of July means to all of us. It is much more than baseball games, backyard barbeque and beer. It is immortal in the annals of Man.

-Thai

Here it is…

The culprit??

Global Climate Change !!!

That’s right. Jupiter is in the throes of climate change in which it is apparently warming up by anywhere between 15 and 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

We’ve been told by the “green lobby” for years , that humans are the cause of the warming of the Earth. Now, Jupiter is warming too.

Which naturally begs the question…

How many dangerous, global-warming-causing, SUV’s are up on Jupiter anyway?

Thai’s Take?

Global Warming is a natural occurance. Trying to stop it is akin to trying to stop the ocean waves from rolling into shore by standing on the beach yelling “Stop!”

Fortunately, National Geographic is suddenly coming around now that the Mars ice-cap is also melting.

We truly are a remarkable species to be able to affect not only our planet but MArs and Jupiter with the CO2 we emit into our atmosphere.

It truly is breathtaking the hubris the “greens” have isn’t it?

You cannot embrace an Obama-like use of words which signify nothing and expect the public to buy what you’re shoveling!

Her most recent comments regarding Iran, our troops and our policy in Iraq have shown her to be completely out-of-touch with reality.

She was speaking with the San Francisco Chronicle and said the following;

Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space. A time for political change to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military and the progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal.  And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians. They decided in Basra when the fighting would end. They negotiated the cessation of hostilities…the Iranians 

Excuse me Madame Speaker…but you’re lying!!

Iraq’s Prime Minister has shown great courage in going after the Sadrists and clearing out Basra. The Sadrists had to sue for a cease fire, which was not offered nor given, and have been routed from many of the areas where they used to operate. This show of force allowed the Sunni blocs to re-enter the government and reunify with their Iraqi brethren.

Iraq has in short order;

• Gone after the Sadr militias
• Enacted oil legislation with equitable distribution of oil revenues
• Passed a budget
• Cleared the way for provincial elections this Fall

Want to know how I know this??

Because Nancy Pelosi, herself, said these very things to Prime Minister Maliki when she visited him earlier this month.

She welcomed Iraq’s progress in passing a budget as well as oil legislation and a bill paving the way for provincial elections in the fall that are expected to more equitably redistribute power among local officials.

So, with the violence going down and Al-Qaeda now admitting defeat in Iraq, how is that not achieving our goals Madame Speaker??

It is statements like these that make the Iraqis either ignore you or hate you Madame Speaker.

The lack of popularity of Pelosi’s views was evident in the fact that her first day on the ground Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki did not make an effort to see her. Maliki is currently in the northern city of Mosul overseeing a crackdown on insurgent networks there. But the city has been largely quiet in recent days, and there was no obvious pressing reason for the Prime Minister to skip Pelosi’s arrival.

Pelosi may not get much more warmth from the American military leaders she plans to meet either. Pelosi argued against sending additional surge forces to Iraq, a plan overseen by Gen. David Petraeus that is now widely credited with reducing the levels of violence in Iraq.

Goodwill Of The Iranians??

Is she serious? Or has she caught a case of whopper-itis from Bill Clinton ?? The U.S and Iraqi forces dominated the Sadrists in Basra. As for the “goodwill” of Iranians, would this be the same goodwill that kills over 10% of our troops in Iraq?

Steve Schippert has a great piece about this interview here.

Steve excoriates her for much of the same reasons I do but then goes further about her shedding crocodile tears over our troops;

She went to Iraq last week to visit the troops “in preparation for Memorial Day.” How does that work, exactly? How does visiting Iraq prepare one for Memorial Day? Forgetting the ‘how’ for a moment, perhaps it should be asked ‘why.’ Speaker Pelosi answers that question unequivocally, after a very flat and tellingly unarticulated “they’re so great” reference to the troops, as she immediately spells out casualty figures of dead and wounded. Of course, she didn’t meet any of the dead honored by the nation, but somehow her trip was “in preparation for Memorial Day.”

And, just as she offered that the troops in Iraq are “so great” without articulating how they are so, she says, “We’ve lost, what’s it – 4,075 – something like that now, every one of them precious to us.” This is immediately followed by an uneasy silence, seemingly struggling for words and incapable of expounding on just why they are so precious to us. Not a word of what they have done. They’re just dead. And I am just disgusted.

Unable to articulate, she breaks the pause by immediately reminding of the over 10,000 wounded. And, without pause, of course informs also that she has just been to the hospital and is in fact going right back yet again to the local VA hospital in San Francisco just as soon as her media brief at the Chronicle is over

Thai’s Take

She was going back to the hospital to visit with troops? Ugh!

Please … Madame Speaker… please don’t subject our troops to more punishment by having to be in the same room with you again!!

I can assure you that they will smile and comport with all the “niceities” that your position requires, but they would much rather being undergoing rectal surgery than having to spend time talking with you.

Does anyone remember when Valdimir Lenin coined a phrase when called the Soviet sympathizers who lived in the West,  “useful idiots”?

That is exactly how Nancy is acting vis-a-vis Iran! She is a puppet that lends significance and credence to terror-sponsoring nations (and therefore terrorists) around the world. It would merely be a sad story about some deranged American woman, if not for the fact that she is 3rd in line to be President!

I’ll leave you with a second quote from Steve’s article where he explains the “goodwill” of the Iranians and exposes Pelosi’s usefulness to their cause.

Perhaps it has not occurred to Speaker Pelosi that so profound is “the goodwill of the Iranians” that over 10% of the 4,075 dead American military men and women she speaks of were felled by the hands of the same. In fact, 18% of US combat deaths in the last quarter of 2006 came at the hands of the EFP, an Iranian “goodwill” gesture to their proxy Iraqi militias. If we’re going to have a discussion of casualties and “the goodwill of the Iranians,” Madame Speaker, let’s please do. But let’s first get the context properly framed.

Amen Steve !!

Japan is recognizing that with oil prices as high as $135 a barrel that suddenly, alternative forms of energy are now becoming more attractive options.

But after decades of seemingly terminal decline, Japan’s coal country is stirring again. With energy prices reaching record highs — oil settled above $135 a barrel on Thursday — Japan’s high-cost mines are suddenly competitive again, and demand for their coal is booming. Production has jumped to its highest in nearly four decades, creating a sensation rarely felt in these mining communities: hope.

“We are seeing a flicker of light after long darkness,” said Michio Sakurai, the mayor of Bibai, on Japan’s northernmost island of Hokkaido. “We never imagined coal would actually make a comeback.”

Soaring commodity prices have had distorting effects across the global economy, driving up food prices and prompting fears of future energy shortages. But they have been an unanticipated boon to the coal producing regions of countries like Japan that had written off coal mining as a relic of the Industrial Revolution.

This is basic economics. As a commodity goes up in price, seemingly expensive options suddenly become cost-effective to use.

Remember, we’ve also had the technological ability to turn coal into a synthetic oil so that it can be refined to use in our automobiles. When did we have this technology?  The 1920’s – when German scientists developed it!

So why haven’t we gone and done this? Well the plain answer is economics. In the 1920’s you could literally stick a pole in the ground and strike oil in many places around the world. Oil was therefore easier and cheaper to extract than the process of turning coal into oil.

Now that oil is so expensive, alternative methods of obtaining energy are being explored (along with drilling in places where it used to be “expensive” to drill).

Thai’s Take

Its a win-win (or lose-lose) depending upon where you stand.

We can mitigate the price of oil by building more refineries in the U.S. We haven’t built a new one in the last 30 years and the ones we have are already running at their peak. But for now, the high price of oil is allowing the oil companies to drill in areas that used to be too costly to develop. It is allowing us to look at a technology that is almost 90 years old (but never widely used). It is also allowing us to start looking at renewable sources of energy (solar, wind, hydro, etc…) and to develop these into viable solutions. However, it is driving up prices of everything and making people go crazy about bio-fuels (using corn, sugar, etc…) to make ethanol. All this does is drive up the price of food and makes it that much more difficult for poor and starving people to eat.

Make no mistake, someday we will need to get off the “oil-standard”, but that day ain’t coming anytime soon so we need to find ways of increasing our oil production to alleviate the price at the pump. This means allowing states to drill off their coastlines and allowing Alaska to drill in ANWR. It also means building more refineries and more nuclear power plants. We also need the price to come down so that the price of food will also come down ( the ”greens” pushing for biofuel have blood on their hands as far as I’m concerned). And in the meantime, the high price at the pump is making it so we can develop alternative means and renewable sources of energy.

So – try to lobby your Congressman or Senator to have them allow for more drilling and add more refineries and nuclear power plants. And in the meantime, realize that economics will ensure that while oil is high, it will begin to lose its prominence enough to allow some enterprising people to make enough breakthroughs to replace it. 

Last Saturday was the 134th running of the Kentucky Derby which was won by Big Brown.

Eight Belles, a filly, was running in the race and finished second behind Big Brown.

Immediately after the race finished, disaster struck.

Eight Belles was galloping for another quarter mile past the finish when she broke both of her front ankles.

She was euthanized on the spot.

Now PETA has issued their familiar calls to ban the jockey, riding crops and to prevent the racing of horses under the age of 3. I don’t think any of the above (except increasing the age of the horses who are able to race) is the proper way to go. The jockey did everything right and his use of the crop avoided an in-race disaster that could’ve incorporated other riders and horses. Waiting to race horses until they are a bit stronger is the best solution PETA has proposed so-far.

The Humane Society has also weighed-in by claiming that the way horses are being bred is leading to a dangerous situation because they are being bred for speed and not durability.

“There are problems coming to light more than ever — problems related to breeding,” said Wayne Pacelle, Humane Society president. “Breeding too many horses, and waiting for someone else to clean up the problem. And breeding them for body characteristics that make these animals vulnerable to breakdowns, especially those spindly legs on top of these stout torsos.”

Dr. Larry Bramlage ( the on-call veterinarian at Churchill Downs) seems to agree with the Humane Societies assessment; 

“The value of a horse is no longer related to how much he can win on the racetrack,” Bramlage said. “It’s related to how likely he can get you to one of those events. The breed creeps toward a faster and faster individual, but that individual may be brilliant because they have a lighter skeleton. We’re inadvertently selecting for the wrong thing.”

Thai’s Take?

I agree with both the Humane Society and Dr. Bramlage. The sport of Horse Racing needs to change the way they breed their horses.

I love Horse Racing but I love horses even more. No other animal has the same quiet grace and nobleness of our equine companions. I grew up around horses so its no surprise that I feel this special bond with them.

I’m not asking for the sport to be banned or anything crazy like that. I am merely asking that the breeders start looking at things a different way and trying to prevent as much as possible these senseless injuries.

As you are no doubt aware the challenge was between 15 overweight guys to see who could lose the biggest % of their weight between January and April 19th.

Just a few weeks ago I was roughly in 3rd place (top 4 finishers finish “in the money”).

As of April 1, I had lost 29 pounds, down to 216lbs (for a total of 11.8% lost).

The final weigh-in was a few weekends ago and here’s how I did…

The Biggest Loser Results

I finished in 5th place at 221.5lbs for a loss of 9.6% (4th place had a loss of 9.7%)

What is funny is that I had top weigh in 2 days earlier due to the trip to New York that my wife and I had planned for the 18th and 19th.

So that Thursday morning (the 17th) I weighed myself at 7am and I was at 218.

“Not bad”, I thought… “27 pounds is pretty good and I should at least finish in the money”

Well I couldn’t weigh myself in until that evening (9pm) and I guess the absorption of water, etc… during the day, weighed me down by an additional 3.5lbs for 23.5lb total weight loss.

What is funny is that had I weighed in at 218 I would’ve taken 3rd place and have received $200 as the prize money. Had I weighed in at my lightest during the competition (215lbs) I would’ve placed 2nd.

The competition was THAT close.

Oh…the winner? He lost 13% of his weight.

I feel I still “won” so-to-speak. It motivated me to get off my butt and do cardio.

I “feel lighter” and have more energy and my joints don’t ache anymore when I go up and down stairs. I’ve continued to eat right and exercise these past two weeks…with one notable exception.

I have enjoyed the warm embrace of beer. The one thing I swore I wouldn’t touch in the competition was alcohol and to that I was true. The past few weekends I have enjoyed a few beers (especially during the NFL draft, more on that in a later post) and relaxed a bit.

My wife is happy in that she says;

“I’ve seen muscles I haven’t seen in quite some time”.

Do you need to lose 10, 20, 30lbs? Try doing this competition with friends.

 Have you lost that amount?

 I’d be interested in hearing about how you did it.

-Thai

Barack was in San Francisco, speaking to donors, and was trying to tell them what he is trying to overcome and “fix” in order to win the election.

The result was a particularly odious, condescending, monologue exposing Barack as just another limousine liberal who looks down his nose at “Middle America”.

Barack said;

Obama Is Wrong

Lets review his statements;

 Remember – Obama Is Never Wrong – You Are

Barack first tried to deny that there was nothing wrong with what he said.

Especially Bill.

It seems he has been so used to the media covering up for him, that he doesn’t realize that we are in the YouTube Age where you can’t say anything you want to local media without it going national and global within a heartbeat.

Case in point is his recent whopper this week.

Bill Continues The Bosnia Sniper Lie

Yesterday, Bill was in Indiana stumping for his wife. He issued the usual lies and fabrications about his record, her record, their finances, etc…

But then he couldn’t stop himself from uttering the following;

“And, you know. I got tickled the other day. A lot of the way this whole campaign has been covered has amused me. But there was a lot of fulminating because Hillary, one time late at night when she was exhausted, misstated and immediately apologized for it, what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995. Did y’all see all that? Oh, they blew it up.

“Let me just tell you. The president of Bosnia and General Wesley Clark — who was there making peace where we’d lost three peacekeepers who had to ride on a dangerous mountain road because it was too dangerous to go the regular, safe way — both defended her because they pointed out that when her plane landed in Bosnia, she had to go up to the bulletproof part of the plane, in the front. Everybody else had to put their flak jackets underneath the seat in case they got shot at. And everywhere they went they were covered by Apache helicopters. So they just abbreviated the arrival ceremony.

“Now I say that because, what really has mattered is that even then she was interested in our troops. And I think she was the first first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to go into a combat zone. And you woulda thought, you know, that she’d robbed a bank the way they carried on about this. And some of them when they’re 60 they’ll forget something when they’re tired at 11 at night, too.

“But I say this because you need to know this. Hillary is not only on the armed Services Committee, but when she was in the White House, she asked to be our point person to make sure that Vietnam veterans exposed to the hazards of Agent Orange were taken care of….”

Thai’s Take?

[blink, blink, blink]

Huh?? Did he just try to spin something the whole world knows now to be false?

I wrote, back in March, how Hillary and Chelsea lied about dodging sniper fire. The lies were caught and exposed by the media (who seem to be fully in the tank for Obama as evidence by the fact that they didn’t cover this lie up).

Ben Smith at Politico has the following;

For those who forgot about the Tuzla rabbit hole, the speech where she got in trouble for “misspeaking” about arriving under sniper fire was in the morning, she told the story more than once, she didn’t acknowledge that she misspoke until more than a week after giving the speech  (and long after the comedian Sinbad had disputed her recollections of the Bosnia trip)

 Oh yeah…it seems that both Bill and Hillary forget that Pat Nixon visited Vietnam in 1969.

So other than that…they’re a veritable vat of veracity (alliteration aside)

- Thai