Presidents Day – Let’s Not Forget to Honor the Big Three

ce was never meant to be at odds with congress or even juxtaposed with it. But Presidents Day, it seems, like other special holidays has gone the way of all flesh. Even as a boy I remember questioning how the Birth of a Savior could be overtaken by the notion of a fat little benevolent man who comes bearing gifts. How did the celebration of a risen Savior get replaced with a candy egg bearing bunny? How are the hopes of a new year brought in by ending the old one in a drunken stupor? These questions don’t need to be answered as much as pondered. The answers are largely understood, knowing how to back out of our clearly cuckoo behavior is not. Would George Washington be glad to know that we have found a way to honor his work in the founding of this country by making deals on an invention he could not have imagined in his own time? Perhaps he might be let down by the fact that Lincoln at least got a car named after him. But where is the new Dodge George Washington four wheel drive SUV? Lincoln was known for many things but not one of them could be remotely connected to the sales of automobiles. How is it that automobiles got connected to him? Hasn’t anyone noticed that a fleet of Lincoln Continentals cannot compare even marginally to the great character and legacy that Lincoln left to us all? Lincoln said “Intelligence, patriotism Christianity and a firm reliance are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.” Was he remiss or did he forget to add the part about a good deal on a car? It was said that Lincoln was more like a spirit than a man. He was the only president who not only was unafraid to use God in his speeches but he actually referred to Jesus Christ as well. He was well known for the many failures in his life. They all seemed to prepare him for the one great success which was even more than his presidency but the preservation of the union itself. Well known was Lincoln’s ability to defuse a hot situation and bring peace and harmony where there was discord. His more down home quality may have been the ability to split logs to make rail fences and he was very good at that it is said. One lesser known talent was banjo picking and singing old folk ditties. Even these proclivities can’t be thought of as anything resembling barking for the sale of a people moving buggy. In my grammar school days we were told the story of how Lincoln walked five miles back to the merchant who gave him too much change. He returned a penny. Judging from the pennies I see on supermarket floors and parking lots, I’d say people wouldn’t even bother to bend over to pick up a penny today. Some say this story may not be true at all. I say that if anyone might have done it that way it was probably Abraham Lincoln. Being a good student is scoffed at in today’s schools. Trying to be kind is thought of as weakness in the land of extreme sports and blood fights. And renowned men of old whose character and deeds are legendary are insulted by our indifference. Is the final insult to replace or supplant all repose to them in any fashion with the super sale of the latest stuff out of Detroit? By our indifference to the presidents both in practice and in the halls of academia perhaps we should heed the warnings of Lincoln who said “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”

Nascar Races: Hot Tips to Car Racing

What to Look For While Betting on NASCAR

Auto racing such as Formula One and other races such as the Indy 2000 are big hits internationally. Millions of fans crowd stadiums to watch the different cars race by. The screech of burning tires as they spin by you is an experience that very few forget.

NASCAR is one of the largest racing organizations in the USA. With millions of fans around the country, and some of the most expensive race cars and teams put together you can see how NASCAR and betting go together like peas in a pod. But today we are going to talk about the teams crews.

The great thing about NASCAR is that it is an individual sport and a team sport at the same time. So when we start talking about sports betting, or race betting, the options that we have are spread out and full of potential, although we are going to focus on the teams part today.

Now on any given day a NASCAR driver can come back from last place and win a long and tough race. Certain things must happen for a gambler to win his bet just like certain things must happen for a circumstance like this to take place. This is where the team comes into play.

Sports betting and betting on NASCAR is and around the clock job; the teams mechanics are working on the cars days in a row to get ready for the start time, changing fuel capacities, and tuning up the engines due to weather conditions as well as fitting the correct tires to the surface. A teams crew can make all the difference on race day whether that driver will win or lose. If the car is not running at full capacity due to some over looked object that needed tweaking, the driver may lose serious horsepower from his engine and lose valuable seconds here and there on the track.

Now again in NASCAR there is so much telemetry and science that go into these cars; that the teams will drive a car all the way to the finish line burning off fumes to maybe win the race, or have the race blown because the car ran out of fuel after the last turn. The amount of gas they carry in the car determines weight, how fast the car will move under certain conditions and for how long the car will travel without needing to refuel.

This is what can make betting on NASCAR races so interesting is the amount of variables and how they change minutely due to a change in air temperature or how the sun is beating down upon the asphalt or what wind speeds from which direction.

I hope that this article helps you understand better the ins and outs of car racing in general and NASCAR races in particular. If you are not a fan, try and visit one of the tracks while a race is in progress. It will astound you. If you wish to learn more about auto racing or about the NASCAR race circuit visit http://www.gambling-portal.com/auto-racing.html and have a ball.

Power Cells As Alternative To Oil

As oil and gasoline prices rise, much hay is being made regarding the possibilities of power cells as a solution to our oil addictions. Here’s a basic primer on power cells.

Power Cells As Alternative To Oil

More than a few politicians have argued that power cells have the potential to cure all our energy problems. They argue power cells offer clean, efficient alternatives to the gasoline and oil burning combustion engine we all use in our vehicles. They also argue that switching to power cells will go a long way to dealing with global warming issues since this form of power does not produce the greenhouse gases seen with oil products. Instead, they produce water and heat. For once, the politicians may just be right for once.

Power cells use hydrogen or hydrogen derived sources to create electricity. Much like a single solar cell is not particularly good at producing power, a single power cell produces a fraction of the energy required to power most things of consequence. Like solar, the cell must be combined with others to get the necessary production. Temperature and the pressure of the hydrogen are also factors. To really make things work, such as a car, most power cells are actually a combination of hundreds or thousands of sub-cells. This, of course, results in problems of storage and stability. The more cells there are, the more space they take up. The more cells there are sitting next to each other, the hotter they get.

The current problems with these hydrogen power cells are numerous. They do not produce power on a cost-effective basis. They have not proven to be particularly durable, which means the need to replace them fairly frequently runs up the cost of owning them. A practical, but significant, problem is how to store and provide the hydrogen to users on a daily basis. Hydrogen can be unstable, which makes for big, pretty and expensive bangs. Most of these problems, however, will be overcome as technology progresses.

Once technology advances, the applications power cells can be used for are nearly endless. They can be used to run your laptop or your car. They can be used to provide electricity and heat in your home as well as your business. In our technology crazed society, they will even power your cell phones. If it can be run on electricity, power cells should be able to make it work.

Power cells aren’t the current answer to our oil problem, but that may change in the relatively short future.