Ukraine's Samyilo Adamovich

Since being let out from underneath the Iron Fist of the Soviet Union, Ukranian historians have been digging deep into their history, an endeavor that was virtually impossible under communist Soviet rule.

According to the Ukranian press, Ukranian historians have uncovered evidence that a man by the name of Samyilo Adamovich moved to London shortly after the Russian-Swedish war in 1708.

Once in London, Samyilo changed his name to Sam Adams, and eventually moved from London to the American colonies, where is son, Sam Adams, was born and later became the Sam Adams that we know today.

Ukranian historians also claim to have found a 1712 draft of a constitution strikingly similar to ours.

No Protection For Owners

When a reserve soldier is called up to active duty, there are laws and regulations that protect that soldier’s job while he or she is away on active duty.

What most people are not aware of, however, is that there are little to no regulations, laws, or protections for the small business owner who is also a reservist.

I recently read an article about small business owners and how their newly activated reserve status is affecting them and their businesses and felt compelled to share with my readers the facts.

As an employer, you can fill the job of a reservist, but it must be waiting for that reservist when they return from active duty, but, what about the employer him- or herself? There are no safeguards to assist the small business owner when his or her unit is called up to active duty.

There are no government subsidies that provide for lost income, provide for lost revenue, or damage to the business while the business’s owner is overseas on deployment.

I, for one, would like to see this change, but I think we all know how likely it is that this will change any time soon. For now, we need to be aware of this pitfall in our nation’s reserve policy and demand changes from our elected officials.

Keep Your Plutonium...

You’ve heard of the police stings where they send notices to people with arrest warrants that say they have won a car or a boat, then when the unsuspecting criminal shows up to claim their prize, they get handcuffed instead...You’ve also heard of programs where law enforcement officials buy back weapons, right?

Well, frighteningly enough, there is enough unaccounted-for nuclear material in Russia that they are combining the sting and the buyback and have offered to buy nuclear material at $8.25 per milligram, then are arresting the people that bring in large quantities of material.

The program has yielded an arrest of a former government enrichment plant worker. The man, Leonid Grigorow, received word from the Russian government that they were closing his plant in 1992, but when Leonid’s requests for disposal of the plant’s weapons-grade plutonium went completely unanswered by the Russian government, he simply put all 400 grams of the plant’s plutonium in a lead case, took it home, and put it in his garage, where it has been since 1992.

Upon hearing about the buyback program, Leonid did the math and realized that 400 grams at $8.25 per milligram would yield him $3.3 million, but when he went to turn in the plutonium, Leonid was arrested.

Let’s all thank the Russian government for teaching everyone that turning in plutonium to the proper officials will result in an arrest, while selling it to terrorists will actually probably get you the $3.3 million.

The Most Beautiful Benz Is The One That Saves Your Life...

Imagine that you are loyal to a car company with every purchase you have made for the past decade...then imagine that one of those cars saves the life of one of your loved ones.

There is not a single year of my life that has not been spent as a resident of Orange County, and as such, when I say that this winter’s rainy season was the worst I’d ever seen, even beating out 1993, which seemed impossible, I know what I’m talking about.

The worst day this winter for us came on December 28, 2004 when I was awoken by a call from my wonderful girlfriend of 7 years, Teresa, while on her way to work, telling me that she had been involved in a car accident.

If you’ve ever received one of those "accident" calls, you know the feelings I was experiencing at the time.

That morning, as I was driving down the 73 to get to where Teresa was, I was driving through, literally, one of the worst rain storms I have ever seen in my life.

Now, I figured that if Teresa had been able to call me to tell me she’d been in an accident, that was the most promising sign that she was, in fact, all right. The fact that she had been able to tell me that she had not hit any other cars and describe what had happened as she slid off the road was also reassuring, but I must admit that as I arrived to where the car had slid off the road, literally bent the guard rail into a "U" and was sitting in six-inch deep mud, I became very worried.

Then, when I saw the car, I became extremely worried...but, as I got to Teresa, she looked a little shaken up, but seemed totally fine. The OC Fire Authority was there and I can’t thank them enough for the job they did caring for Teresa that morning.

Teresa was taken by ambulance to Hoag and was given a clean bill of health. Though she had a bit of soreness in her neck for a couple days, otherwise, Teresa came out of the accident completely unharmed.

That morning, Teresa’s 1998 Mercedes-Benz C230 did exactly what we had bought it to do...save her life.

When something in the road blew out the car’s right front tire and the mass of water in the road from the downpour sent the car veering off the road uncontrollably, it wasn’t the "luxury" part of the car that saved Teresa that morning, it was the century of unparalleled safety engineering.

Later in the morning, when we went to the towing yard to get Teresa’s things out of the car, the workers there commented about how they hoped whoever was driving the car, described by them as in the worst condition of any car they’d seen in a long while, was making it through okay, and I amazed them by telling them that she was right there, walking next to me.

A Mercedes-Benz looks beautiful sitting, shiny and new on the car lot and looks and feels beautiful as it performs out on the road, but you’ll come to find that the most beautiful Mercedes-Benz that you will ever see is the one that saves your life.