Bump's Stump

The Kiwanis Club of Santa Ana has an outstanding monthly bulletin. It's full of news, projects, planning, and sometimes even a column by Amazing Clint.  Because it is such a good communicator I want to use it to start a converstation about membership.  Churches, Service Clubs and other Non-profit charitible organizations have experienced membership problems recently. Their influence has gradually eroded and for some the result is not good. The reasons why this is happening are not crystal clear but there is one characteristic that appears common to the problem:  A DECLINE IN RELEVANCE. Such organizations usually have  dwindling but committed core of ageing members. As they get older they find it increasingly difficult to participate and contribute, and  realize that their organization is not attracting new and younger members, and at some point they find themselves with a serious membership...

Acceleration Explained This was sent to me as an email, not sure on the total truth to it all, but interesting any way.  Even if you're not a motor head, this is impressive. * One Top Fuel dragster outfitted with a 500 cubic-inch replica Dodge (actually Keith Black, etc) Hemi engine makes more horsepower (8,000 HP) than the first 4 rows at NASCAR's Daytona 500. * Under full throttle, a dragster engine will consume 11.2 gallons of nitro methane per second; a fully loaded Boeing 747 consumes jet fuel at the same rate but with 25% less energy being produced. * A stock Dodge Hemi V8 engine cannot produce enough power to merely drive the dragster's supercharger. * With 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into a near-solid form before ignition. Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lockup at full throttle. * At the stoichio metric 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture for nitro methane the flame front temperature measure...

THE U.S. POSTAL SERVICE SCAM Most Conservatives and Libertarians point at the U.S. Post Office as an example of big-government's inability to run a business. Are they right?   Yeah, they're right but in this case they are more than right. The U.S. Post Office has become one of the Federal Government's largest and most damaging scams. It's a racket like no other. The Post Office employs 712,000 people - and the total average annual compensation is now $83,000 each. Does that surprise anyone? How about this one: The Post Office is expected to lose over $238,000,000,000 during the next decade. It's a regular "black hole" to drop YOUR money in. They (the Government Accountability Office) estimates that the Post Office will lose $550,000,000,000 between 2010 and 2030. Did any of you know that the American Postal Workers Union had to postpone their annual election of officers this month . . . because so many of the ballots were lost in the mail? With such ...

A TRIBUTE TO THE MEN WHO FLEW P-51 MUSTANGS IN WORLD WAR II When I was a kid World War II began. My pals and I played war games with a battered old officer's hat and sticks for rifles. There was no television or other instant communications with the war. Information was filtered and then passed to us by radio and the newspapers.  We tracked the war with Edward R. Murrow, Ernie Pyle, Bill Mauldin, Life Magazine, and the Movietone News. You know, the film strip that showed just after the serial and before the movie. Then one of the gang was given a silver First Lieutenant's bar and we thereafter always had a Colonel and a 1st Looie. A couple of years in, probably 1940 or 41, most of the guys graduated to Red Ryder's Daisy BB guns. We set up targets. We drew pictures of the nation's enemies and then we shot'em to pieces. The air war particularly excited all of us. The heroic planes and pilots were idolized. In school, most of the guys sp...

This video had me laughing so much I fell off the chair. I just had to give it home, so here 'tis on my blog: Bump

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary. What a wonderful attitude. What a great outlook. This is wisdom from the top of the mountain and deserves a blog on it's own. Ben's confession: I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees... I don't feel threatened.. I don't feel discriminated against.. That's what they are, Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu .. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as...

When a person slows down enough to look around everything he sees are the  negative TV news of the depressing headlines of the morning newspaper.  A drink of coffee might help absorb the latest disasters, murders, bloody accidents, and earthquakes, but probably not. It's simply not a cheerful picture. Our world is going to hell faster and faster.  Somebody, I think the Heritage Foundation, estimated that only about 2% of the world's Muslims were dangerous fanatics. That sounded pretty good until I realized the 2% of 1.6 billion is 32,000,000. Now that is a hell of a lot of people that want the rest of us infidels in pine boxes six feet under. Are you smiling yet? We presently have ourselves tied in a knot over the middle east.  Two things drew us in to this mess;   oil and Israel.  President Bush was advised that Iraq was a danger to both. It wasn't. His intelligence was dead wrong and...