Cliffs Riffs - Stuph n Nonsense

I posted this money making opportunity on CraigsList today under the heading: Get Paid For Breathing - even just a little. Forget making phone calls. Forget networking with all your pals at church or in the Rotary. Say good-bye to all those MLM schemes that clog the internet. New company will pay you for breathing. Yes; you read it correctly Mister, Miss, Missus, and Ms. America (which is not to forget our transgendered and non-gender specific brethren and cistern or any combo of the aforementioned) YOU can collect (up to)thousands of dollars every week by simply existing. No more late nights. No selling. No need to take pictures of the trashy crap in your garage or basement and try to sell it to other people by misrepresenting it as something that really works. No more dealing with emails offering you MORE than your asking price. Absolutely no hassles or regrets. Sound too good to be true? Read these testimonies: "I done it." from Steve in CO. "Works for me and my son....

In the last couple of weeks I am seeing a yard sign with a message I like: Support Our Troops / End The War. I like the message on both levels - it says, our troops are worthy of our support and prayers AND it still sends a message that we need to end the war. Also it suggests to me that the best way to support our troops IS to end the war. Bravo to whomever came up with this.

Let me tell you about a really cool guy I know. His name is Mark Fisher. First met Mark a couple of years ago when he was taking his first adaptive water skiing lesson after almost losing his life when he suffered an aneurism and a stroke after being in the hospital for a bacterial infection that spread through his body and went to his heart. In the picture above you can see Mark being visited by his sister in the ICU. He was there for 4 weeks and was not expected to live. Is it any wonder his mom calls him a miracle? This is a picture I took of Mark zipping behind a boat at about 20 mph two days ago. The changes in his mobility, flexibility and even speech in the two years since I last saw him were incredible. He works his butt off - he swims, goes to the gym, works with speech therapists two days a week, and generally does not sit still very much. Mark inspires me. He is upbeat and always ready to smile and laugh. We need to think about Mark when some minor hassle comes our way and...

Paul Newman is outstanding IMHO. Very good actor, stuck in it for the long haul. Husband and father - stuck in it for the long haul. Philanthropist of the first water. It seems every couple of weeks or so I read something about Mr. Newman donating a nice sum of money to some worthy cause or another. What a legacy. Fantastic. Creates a line of top notch, organic dressings and sauces and what not and gives the profits away. Don't recall reading any scandals about his life, I am sure he does not walk on water, but he is certainly a top flight example for other actors to follow. Bravo. God bless you and yours Paul Newman.

I was going to write about the fact that I think it would be wise to find someone other than Al Gore to be the poster child for the Global Warming message since he uses something like 20 times the utilities that his neighbors do, but something I read today changed my mind. I was going to suggest that Mr Gore get his house in order before he presumes to tell me what to do with mine, but now......all that has changed. Al and the Gores do practice what they preach. Al's son was arrested with some drugs and marijuana in his car this morning. He was zooming down some California highway at 100 mph or so when cops pulled him over. But wait - it's okay - he was driving a hybrid car.

Wow. Have you checked out ticket prices for some of the major acts on the road this summer? Give me a break. My wife was interested in seeing Steely Dan in Chicago - $220 to $370 per seat. Bite me boys. While I am not stupid enoough to expect to see Genesis for $7 (my friends and I were fortunate enough to see Peter Gabriel and the lads do the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway show. We were absolutely blown away.) like I did when I was in high school, I am sure not going to shell out $150 plus per chair to take in their re-union tour. Speaking of seeing The Lamb show, within two days of the concert all 4 of us who attended went out and bought the double album the show was promoting. We also bought albums from their catalogue and new ones as they came out. That was how things used to run I think. If you liked the band/artist, then you went out and bought the music. Maybe the outrageous ticket prices have something to do with the fact that CD sales are waaay down and everybody and their mother ...

Wow. A political leader of a huge metropolis that is getting things done. Just read that Mayor Bloomberg is going to have NYC full of hybrid taxis in the next few years. Good on him and good for New York. I have also read that the general health of his constituants is getting better every year. (Our country's awareness of trans fats got a huge boost from the actions taken in New York.) Consider this: "As Mayor, Michael Bloomberg has implemented a comprehensive citywide public health policy known as Take Care New York, a program of 10 preventive health steps that every person can follow to significantly improve his or her health. Since being introduced in 2003, Take Care New York has successfully increased New Yorkers' access to health care, reduced smoking rates, increased HIV testing and colon cancer screening, and further reduced childhood lead poisoning and infant mortality rates to historic lows. For the first time since World War II, life expectancy for the average Ne...