A Tragic Day for California

Our beloved state has a legislature that cares nothing about the welfare of this land. California recalled her governor not long ago in order to begin the reform process. The legislature refused to be reformed, or compromise in any way in order to get our finances back in line. The Governor we soundly elected to bring about this reform, Arnold Schwarzenegger, did exactly what we asked of him, and what he promised to do. He took his reforms to the legislature first, and when they refused he took them to the people.

The people read and believed one sentence fliers rather than try to understand the propositions. For example, Proposition 76 stated that our State legislature cannot spend more money during a fiscal period than it has to spend. Is this a difficult concept? If they tried to spend more money than they had, they would be given a certain amount of time to correct the budget, otherwise the Governor would step in and fix the budget. That sounds like a perfectly reasonable and necessary law. No one should be allowed to spend more than they have, that's basic common sense. That is why our state was $22 billion in the hole. Well, that proposition was defeated by a landslide. And those who voted "no" do not even know why.

A tragic day for California.

Photo Galleries

Well, I've just added almost 300 pictures to the website. They're photos from May 2005 until now. I've also added a Recent Photos page in order to make it easier to see what has been recently added. I'll get some new video up as soon as possible, also.

Congratulations!

To Dan and Dawn Hardey on the birth of their son, Kaden J Hardey. Rumor has it that he came weighing in at an astonishing 9 lbs and 8 oz. We'll be posting pictures as soon as possible!

Trying to find prisoner abuse...

Here's a story by the Prensa Latina that states that "108 people have died, most of them violently as a result of abuse, under US military custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a government report provided to the Associated Press."

The very next sentence states, "roughly a quarter of those deaths have been investigated as possible abuse by U.S. personnel." So the first line tells us that out of all of the prisoners dying while under US custody, most are a result of abuse. Then right after that we find out that only a quarter of the 108 deaths are even being investigated by the military for possible abuse. One quarter is obviously not most.

The ACLU then comes out to say it is appalled that the high ranking military, and the Bush Administration continue to affirm that it is only a few rogue soldiers abusing prisoners. Well, let's do the math. The story states that 65,000 prisoners have been held. 108 have died under US custody, so that's 0.17% of the prisoners. One quarter of those that have died are possibly the result of abuse. So that puts the percentage of abuses resulting in death at a whopping 0.04% of the total number of prisoners. Does that look like a systemic problem?

What is even more outrageous is that if the higher ups were trying to hide all of this and cover themselves, why would they be doing all of this investigating? The U.S. is one of the few military organizations that will investigate itself, and admit when mistakes are made, and hold people accountable.

We've moved in!!

We've finally got a few pictures of our new house up on the site. You can check them out here. Thanks to everyone who helped us out during the move, we love our new home!

Moving Delays

We were very disappointed to find out that escrow did not close in time for us to move this weekend. It looks like we'll be moving during the middle of next week. We'll still get into the house, but it will take a little longer than anticipated. We're having a lot of trouble getting hold of the seller's agent, who seems to have difficulty getting the forms to us that we need. Everything is lined up for the house to close on Monday, so here's to hoping!

Finally Moving!!!

We're scheduled to close on the purchase of our new home this week! Hopefully the timing will be able to work out so that we can move in this weekend. We did our finaly walk through last night, and everything appears to be in good shape. The previous occupants still have many items laying around, but that should all be cleared out shortly.
It's going to be a very busy weekend. We plan on painting and patching the walls on Friday evening, while nailing down the upstairs floor since it's kind of squeaky. Saturday morning the new carpet is scheduled to be installed at the same time we will be moving everything from our condo. It'll be a tight schedule, but it will work. Pictures will be up soon!

Computer Help Section

It appears the section of the website containing step-by-step computer maintenance tutorials has been a little difficult to find. So, in order to make things easier the main navigation bar of Sagelife.net now has a permanent button to get you to the Computer Help section.

The tutorials available deal with the most common problems facing computers connected to the internet. If you follow the steps outline you will learn how to end programs running in the background that shouldn't be there, keep them from starting, remove viruses and spyware, and do other routine maintenance. We hope it's all useful, feel free to ask any questions that come to mind!

Iraq Election a Success!!

We have heard predicted for months that the Iraq elections would be a failure. The terrorists, aka "insurgents," would keep the people from the polls. The violence would be uncontrollable, and the Iraqi people are not capable of democracy anyway. Well, here's a few telling quotes from mainstream media:



"'This is democracy,' said Karfia Abbasi, holding up a thumb stained with purple ink to prove she had voted." - AP News



"At one polling place in Baghdad, soldiers and voters joined hands in a dance, and in Baqouba, voters jumped and clapped to celebrate the historic day. At another, an Iraqi policeman in a black ski mask tucked his assault rifle under one arm and took the hand of an elderly blind woman, guiding her to the polls." - AP News



"'I cannot describe what I am seeing. It is incredible. This is a vote for the future, for the children, for the rule of law, for humanity, for love,' Alaa al-Tamimi told Reuters." - Reuters



Want a great day it is. Congratulations to President Bush for his determination and courage in sticking to his principles. That's what leadership is. There is no question that the world is a safer and better place with a free and democratic Iraq.

Moving...

Well, we've listed our place for sell and are determined to find a house to live in. The real estate market in Southern California has slowed down some, but not that much. Our place went onto the MLS yesterday at 10:00 am and we had three phone calls and two visits in the first three hours. Hopefully it will slow down so we can finish getting the place ready to sell!



Buying a home is going to be the difficult part. The farther away from work you live, the more affordable the house. But traffic increases exponentially, it seems. We need some serious traffic help here in so Cal.