Ralph Nader ,,,and the 3 recently boring Democrats who could only say "change"

It is too bad all 3 leading Democrats bored us to tears for a couple weeks with that "change, for it" b.s. the media lapped up. Count on it, Ralph is not going to waste your time with more of that nonsense !!

It is almost Springtime and time to clean those difficult outside windows,,,with Windex Outdoor Cleaner!!

We use to pay a knock-at-your-door migrant worker $50 to do a spotty ,hit or miss job of cleaning all the windows on the outside of the house. Now, we can just hook up the container to a hose, rinse and soap and rinse the windows, and be done in less than an hour easily. Highly recommend the green plastic container by S.C.Johnson Windex Outdoor.

Try the Three Sisters Cafe if you are passing Oakhurst on 41 to Yosemite

It is an outstanding restaurant and very reasonable prices, beautiful decor, friendly waitstaff.

"Deregulation" has cost the USA Billions if not Trillions, just in this recent ban-credit-ARM fiasco

All this Presidential and politician talk about the 1980s and 1990s rush to the 'benefits' of deregulation have resulted in another foreseeable financial fiasco !! As if the infamous ripoff of the Savings and Loan Disaster were not bad enough for the image of the less regulation please American banking industry, now we have fraudulent and illegal credit card scams and a real Credit Crisis !!

I do not believe that someone as smart as Alan Greenspan did not see the pure financial folly of the 1995-2000 Dot Com Boom and Bust, nor the overheated USA real estate market, nor the U.S. Congress-bought unfair edge of the American banks. Smart ,ivy league university educated bankers must have seen this coming from miles away, and if they claim they did not, then they should be held fully and completely liable without any taxpayer bailout of their greedy risky behavior.

Lord knows after ripping the public off for decades they can certainly afford to pay for the entire mess !!

"1-800- dental tech",,,How do you find a good teeth cleaner??

I so seldom see the dentist, as it usually means it is x-ray time again, or i have an expensive cavity to fill. Ouch.

But it is the dental tech that i see 3xs, now going to change to 4xs, a year. And this one is fabulous!!

In Silicon Valley, call up Dr. Brown and ask for Mrs. Barbara. Their office is close to 280 x 85. Super careful around sensitive gums. And the dentist is a good guy ,too.

Feb. 2008,,,Don't buy an Acura for technical high performance quality and durability

Have a 2000 Acura Integra Type-R and the mechanic just found out the harmonic stabilizer/whatchamacallit attached to the end of the crank shaft ,,,has frozen. Bummer, in only 7-8 years. It is a few hundred $$$ dollars to fix !! Also beware that if the rubber timing belt breaks inside the engine, it will cause the engine to destroy itself, unlike some Toyotas like my old regular gas MR-2 that was SOOO FUN TO DRIVE,,,that keep the valves and pistons in synchrony until the engine stops. That's $$$$$ thousands in expensive bad design and poor product !! The mechanic says he sees frozen units on Acuras often. I have also replaced the oxygen sensors/ fuel mix sensors on the bottom of the car --2 at $250 each-- twice, which is too many times in my book. The mechanic suggests that the CPU controlling the gas and air mixture may be at fault. And that computer chip is like $800 buckeroos, suckers !!

Santa Cruz's famous restaurant "Tacos Morenos" keeps declining in value

I have been going to Tacos Morenos for years,,,and am sad to say that the quality may still be there , but after a visit in Feb. 2008, the burritos are much much smaller. And they have been giving us less and less over the years, in spite of their big success. Maybe that is the problem, too much success taken for granted, and as is usual with some businesses, the customer is taken for granted too. Sad that is time to find another good-great value quality Mexican taco and burrito restaurant in the Santa Cruz area.

Lincoln towncars are likely to scratch those fancy dress shoes

As a limo driver for years, i have to be very careful getting in and out of Lincoln town cars,,,and even check the occasional Cadillac from Hertz,,,for sharp edges just above the brake pedal on the automatics that will tear up those expensive dress shoes. You would think Ford would have fixed this years/decades ago, wouldn't one?

Ford USA will not long stock parts after 14 years, so AVOID BUYING A FORD !!

We have a 1994 Ford Taurus Station wagon that surprisingly has required very little maintenance over the years since we bought it used from Hertz in 1995. But every now and then you need to fix something a shopping cart breaks in a parking lot or that breaks like the door panel screws due to heavy use. It has only been 14 years,,,and we had this problem at only 12 years too,,,does Ford expect us to buy a new car when the old one still works?! Ford's yellow pages motto of "built to last" is hollow if you can not buy small replacement parts !! After just 10-12 years , you call a Ford dealership parts department and ask for a part and you are like to hear the same thing ,over and over, "That part is OBSOLETE."

Well, if the Ford family is rich enough to buy back all the stock and take it private, maybe that is what they should do, as you would think an American car company would stock parts for at least 15-20 years. We can not get a turn signal lens, nor a rear hatch latch. And you know they are fuzzy accounting making tons of money profit!!

So forget Ford !! They own Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda, Volvo, Jaguar,and Land Rover, too, remember.

Mea Culpa: my blog is for blowing off steam,,,

so if you don't like it, don't read it.

U.S. Rep. of Cal. Tom Lantos, deceased, was not so good a Representative of all his constituents

I have been a resident of Burlingame for about 20 years and a long time frustrated constituent of U.S. Representative to Congress Tom Lantos. At first when i knew no better i voted for him. Then when i noted his office's lack of respect for the resident voters in his district and his spineless go-with-the-flow record, i started voting for any and all of his opponents. Let us not get carried away with a elder politician who had tons of seniority but did little to stand up or in opposition to the massive corruption in the state capital of Sacramento or the same vote-buying slime behavior in the nation's capital.

For instance, California is now in terrible ,desperate financial straights maybe for 50-100 years because Governor Arnold will not raise taxes on those that can very well afford it,,, because the old and only Governor ,tidal wave kicked out of office, Grey Davis and the bulk of the state legislature lied to us repeatedly saying that the deregulation of energy, both electricity and natural gas, would result in much lower prices,,,when, in obvious fact, the prices skyrocketed more than 4Xs especially with the fraud added by many energy and finance/banking companies in cahoots with Enron. Where was Tom Lantos and the wisdom and outrage of such massive repeated government bungling and boldface lies ? Not even a blip on the public radar or media about him taking the honest ethical and brave proper stand.

Again, when Governor Reagan was ultimately responsible for the closing of the state mental hospitals, like the huge Agnews in the south S.F. bay area and the large Sonoma mental hospital in Sonoma, starting the huge expansion in our homeless statewide problem, where was Tom Lantos in the early 1970s to stand up for the mentally ill who the rich state of California at that time could well afford? Quietly, neglecting the power and privileges of his public responsibility? He had a moral responsibility to speak up for all those unfortunate insane people who could not speak up or pay up for themselves.

Again, when Governor ,,,ugh,,,Grey Davis used a back room committee to take away even more of our state's weak blue collar overtime coverage and enforcement, where was the ineffectual Tom Lantos ???

On the nation front, did he loudly oppose U.S. Govt torture of our enemies, by either the military or other branch? Like senior senator Diane Feinstein, "where is the beef?!" We see all the constant coddling of the super rich people and super profitable corporations, all the truly ugly highrises in San Francisco from her mayorship,,,but no bold moral do-the-right-thing vocal leadership.

Where was Tom Lantos in opposing the supreme folly of the Bushes and both their ruinously expensive and terrorist encouraging middle east wars? Did he get the countries over there who said they would pay for it to do so? Did he make any difference at all ?

Even on such a small matter as making sure a California employer who was paying by check ,,,was also doing the legal and correct thing of paying payroll taxes, Tom Lantos and his staff lost the IRS permission letter not once, but twice,,, and don't we have ENOUGH ! corporate corruption in California? San Francisco Bay is very polluted, so where was Tom Lantos' big effort to make it better? We are short what 20,000 nurses in California and there are so few openings at the state's community and state colleges,,,hells bells, Tom !!

Legacy of HUGE disappointment. Go big, or go home.

The Democrats can still EASILY lose the 2008 Presidential Election

Hillary will be an ugly race/contest if she is chosen by the semi-educated forgetful American electorate. The media would just love such an ugly mudslinging day after day circus ,to sell more newspapers and magazines and tv advertising. The media keeps talking about all of Hillary's friends, but look and all her ENEMIES, numerous and Strong !!

First, the Republicans are just itching to get her in the ring with her long suspect history. Ask any Rep-robate how long they have been getting hate mail predicting only Hillary will be chosen by 'those terrible liberals'. Then ask your self how many of the less than overwelming majority Democrats are going to vote for Hillary and let Bill back in the White House, OUR White House again!! Then think of all the environmentalists--yes i know that is another Republican smear dirty word--that remember Bill and Hillary championing overtly all the benefits to the good old USA of NAFTA,,, NAFTA passes,,, and a trade deal trumps local state and national environmental and health regs and laws so that we now not only have lost tens of thousands of higher paying jobs but we have encouraged massive pollution on the Mex. border by the factories/maquilladoros and we have widespread ground water pollution by previously known cancer causing MTBE, courtesy of our former good friends in Canada.

Remember that old saying "strong fences make good neighbors" ,well, we are about to have our living standard and health standard lowered to Mexico and India or the lowest corporate common denominator ,,,and that should be super scary to all but the super selfish super rich,,, ok, even they will not be able to buy there way out or away or separate from contaminated food, water, air, soil and ocean. Then there are those of us that remember -just like yesterday- when Bill Clinton shook his finger at us all in the USA about how , like Kennedy, he was not cheating on his wife IN OUR White House almost daily/weekly for years. Never again.

How did we go so against Darwinism and survival of the fittest in electing since the beginning such a decline in human character and personal quality of our American Presidents ?!

Do NOT buy Sunbeam electric blankets, especially N31-G2-S model, DEFECTIVE and Sunbeam will not stand behind their products !!

It was at least 20 years since the family got new electric blankets so i went shopping on Amazon and Ebay etc. and found a fair price for 3 new Sunbeam brand ones. It was spring or summer so we only used the low setting but now that it is winter and freezing cold, ice forming on the bird bath out here in coastal central California , we tried the medium and higher settings and they do not work !! At any setting we only get low warmth.

So i contacted Sunbeam's agent at esecurecare.net and they recommended a repair company i could send them too, versus full credit for replacements which would have been the right and honorable thing for any company to do. Recommend you avoid Sunbeam as there are other electric bedding manufacturers out there.