I'm Running Out Of Energy To Post This

By now most people are aware of the most recent transparently political posturing of obama and his administration.

High gasoline prices prompt Justice Department to eye energy industry

Prodded by growing public frustration over sharply rising gasoline prices, the Justice Department on Thursday announced the formation of a team -- the "Oil and Gas Price Fraud Working Group -- tasked with the goal of ensuring consumers are not victims of price gouging.

Attorney General Eric Holder made no secret the move is a direct response to public angst, not to current evidence of any illegal conduct.

While promising official vigilance, the attorney general acknowledged regional differences in gasoline prices, and said, "It is also clear that there are lawful reasons for increases in gas prices, given supply and demand."

"(No) evidence of any illegal misconduct."

"It is also clear that there are lawful reasons for increases in gas prices, given supply and demand."

So why are Holder and his stooges investigating gas prices? "(In) direct response to public angst."

Perhaps they should instead focus on the "lawful reasons for increases in gas prices, given supply and demand."

There are the obvious reasons, such as the obama-mandated moratorium on resuming drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Not only has this contributed to rising gas prices, it has cost jobs, bankrupted businesses, and reduced government revenue. Another unreported consequence of the obama-ban is that it "affects only American businesses, as other nations such as Brazil and China are still drilling in the Gulf." (Source)

And of course there's the billions of barrels of oil sitting untapped in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), a 19 million acre region roughly equivalent in size to South Carolina. Opening a single site of around 2000 acres would produce approximately one million barrels of oil daily. That's the same amount we import from Saudi Arabia (Source). It would keep that revenue stream in the U.S., generate government income in the form of taxes, and create jobs.

So why don't we drill baby drill? The only reason I can think of is that obama and the rest of his commie pinko posse want to see America reduced to a socialist Euro-state. And what's the role of the so-called main-stream media in reporting all this?

 

A major, and often overlooked, factor in the supply side of the equation is getting the oil from the source to market. The U.S. currently does not have enough pipelines to move existing supplies of oil, much less any new supply. That's another reason the cost of gasoline is skyrocketing.

Why gas is so expensive, when oil isn't

Gasoline prices have been rising for months and are within striking distance of their 2008 all-time high of $4.11 a gallon. But while oil prices are above $100 a barrel, they're still 24% below their 2008 all-time high.

So why is gasoline so expensive, when oil is so far off its record price?

The answer is that the price of oil Americans see every day has little to do with the price of gasoline at the pump.

Those prices are for a particular type of oil -- West Texas Intermediate (WTI) -- that's stored in Cushing, Okla.

Prices for most other types of oil, which make up the vast majority of oil that refiners use in U.S. gasoline, are much higher than West Texas Intermediate. London's Brent crude, for example, was closer to $124 a barrel on Wednesday.

"It's really a broken benchmark," Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, said of the West Texas price.

The gasoline Americans buy is made not just with U.S. supplies but mainly with oil from around the globe, and that fuel is surging in price.

In the Northeast, a gallon of gas may not contain a single drop of WTI oil.

 Adding to the confusion, in Cushing there's currently an oversupply of crude.

Oil production from Canada's oil sands and North Dakota's Bakken shale formations has surged. Most of this oil is sent to Cushing.

But pipelines out of Cushing to refineries along the Gulf Coast can't handle all the excess oil.

"What is needed is a way to get oil out," Adam Sieminski, chief energy economist at Deutsche Bank, wrote in a recent research note.

Adding to the glut, refineries in the area have been down for maintenance, and the cheap price is giving traders an incentive to store even more oil in Cushing, hoping prices will rise and they can sell it at a profit in the future.

This is speculation, which is the bedrock of the commodities market. It is also practiced with other commodities such as wheat, cotton, sugar, and that all-time favorite, frozen concentrated orange juice. Speculation is not manipulation, despite what obama and his cronies might think. It is not illegal or unethical. It's been around for centuries. 

And finally we come to the profit margin. If gas prices are so high, oil companies must be raking in a fortune, right? At least that's what the lefties would have us believe. Their mind is made up - to hell with the facts.

The difference between what refiners pay for a gallon of oil now and how much a gallon of gas sells for -- excluding taxes -- is about 78 cents, said Rayola Dougher, a senior economic advisor for the American Petroleum Institute.

That's slightly higher than normal, but not terribly so, said Dougher.

So when can we expect to see obama open up drilling in the Gulf and ANWR, and encourage the construction of new pipelines?

The answer to that question is painfully obvious...

Our Little Boy Is Growing Up

Last night our 16-year-old son got his first grounding.

It's a natural progression, a rite of passage, if you will. It's not that he did anything really bad. It was more an unthinking stretching of the boundaries.

His crime? He went down to the river with some friends and spent the day swimming, tubing, playing frisbee, and just in general hanging out. No problem there - he had permission, and we knew where he was, who he was with, and in general what he was doing. The problem started when it got dark and he went over to his buddy's house without checking in - and turned his cell phone off. That's the kind of reasoning our Labrador used to do when she would run off and refuse to look at us when we called her. She figured if she didn't see us she didn't have to come. He figured if we couldn't contact him he didn't have to come home.

So along about 8:00 last night his mother started to get worried. By 9:00 she was convinced he was lying in a ditch somewhere hurt and bloody, if not dead. I figured he was just being an irresponsible teenager, and would show up sooner or later.

It was later - around 10:00.

I was just going to give him the "where have you been - you scared your mother half to death" lecture, but I never got a chance. As soon as he walked in the door his mother laid into him, demanded the car keys, and informed him he was grounded for the rest of the weekend.

To his credit, he knew he done wrong, and took it like a man. I later explained to him that her reaction was so strong because she was so worried. Today she'll make it up to him by fixing him a big breakfast (well, more like brunch) and his favorite desert.

Makes me wonder if maybe he's smarter than we give him credit for, and planned the whole thing...

UPDATE: As Harper has pointed out (see the comments below), mom guilt is a powerful force. My wife cooked 2 1/2 ponds of bacon this morning, and is currently bustling around the kitchen making brownies and a key lime pie. Not that I'm complaining...

Friday Follies Happy Hour 2011.04.22

A special contribution for Easter weekend from the one, the only Kinky Friedman.

Don't watch this if you are easily offended...

It Figures

The government has decided to stop doing one of the few things it does that is of value to us common folk. And of course they did it with little or no fanfare.

Social Security statements halted

One of the most valuable pieces of mail from the federal government every year won't be coming anymore.

It may not rank with an income-tax refund check, but the annual Social Security Statement arriving about three months before workers' birthdays each year was a fabulous service. The statement was probably the single most important financial planning document most people ever received.

The Social Security Administration started mailing the statements in 1999 to everyone over the age of 25. The service was only 12 years old when the agency decided to cut costs by ending the automatic statements. As they say, the good die young.

The mailings stopped without advance notice almost two weeks ago. People with July birthdays and later won't receive one this year. The agency stopped the statements despite not having them available online. It hopes to do so by the end of the year.

Don't hold your breath.

The Social Security Administration says that stopping the four-page statements will save the agency about $30 million in the current fiscal year and $60 million in 2012. Last year, the agency mailed statements to 152 million people. The mailed statements had been available by request since 1988, but the agency no longer takes requests.

$60 million is not even a drop in the bucket of the looming social security shortfall. It's more like a molecule in a drop. Yes, I know that every little bit helps, and we have to start somewhere, and if you save $60M here and $60M there pretty soon it adds up to real money, but still ... this was something useful.

The value of the statements to individuals goes beyond deciding whether to retire with early, full or delayed benefits. By seeing benefit amounts, individuals were reminded they will need other income sources in retirement. The statements were helpful nudges toward starting an individual retirement account or signing up for an employer-sponsored plan, such as a 401(k).

They were valuable for precisely that reason. At a time when it is becoming painfully obvious that social security cannot survive in it's current form, the statements would help make any changes to the program up close and personal. In theory, this would serve to help people prepare for their own retirement, rather than depending on an unsustainable government program that has as its primary objective redistributing wealth from worker ants to fiddling grasshoppers. 

I can dream, can't I...

Things Could Be Worse

This morning I posted some woe-is-me comments about a few problems I've had this week. Then I went into a series of meetings this afternoon that were complete and utter wastes of time. i came out of the last on with steam boiling from my ears. I sat down in front of the PC and started a new post:

I work with idiots.

No, scratch that. It's unfair to idiots everywhere. I work with FRIGGIN' MORONS!!!

But I reconsidered and deleted the post.  :-)

A few minutes ago I came across something that cooled me off big time and made me realize how petty my problems truly are.

One of the things we as faculty do is evaluate applications for admission into our graduate programs. I was going through a stack of applications and came across the following, written as part of a letter of reference for an individual from south of the border who is applying to our university. It was written in part to explain why this person wanted to attend our school.

Last year, criminals assaulted his home while he and his wife were at work. If it had not been for the quick thinking housekeeper stating that the boy was her child, they would have probably kidnapped his son. Housekeepers do not have a lot of money to pay ransom so they didn't bother.

That really put things in perspective. No matter how bad my problems are, at least I don't live in a place where I have to worry about criminal gangs engaging in organized kidnapping rings. Yes, this country has issues, and we need to take action to fix a lot of things, but it's still the best place to live on this earth.

Let's do what we can to keep it that way...

The Comeback

Today, 21 April 2011, is the 175th anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto, in which Sam Houston and a ragtag Texas army kicked the collective asses of Santa Ana and the Mexican Army.



Nine years later they blew it by joining the Union...

The Week That Was

Our 16-year-old son was asked by a girl to be her escort to her quinceañera last Saturday. A quinceañera is the Hispanic version of a sweet 16 party, but much more complex and ritualistic. It's a very big deal in the Hispanic culture, and it was an honor for him to be invited, especially as the escort of the honoree. However...

Being the escort requires wearing a tux. But not just any tux. The poor boy had to go shopping with the girl and her mother as they searched for a suitable dress. His presence was necessary so that after they picked out the dress they could go straight to the formalwear rental shop and make sure they got a tux to match. Of course, mom and daughter needed multiple trips to find just the right dress, so the boy got to spend a couple of days tagging along with two women looking for something he had absolutely no interest in. Welcome to my world, kid.

Anyway, the big event went well. A good time was had by all, and there were no unfortunate incidents. The tux rental place is located near downtown San Antonio. We live about 40 miles northwest of there, but I drive past it on my way from home to the South Texas city where I work several days a week. Being a dutiful husband, I volunteered to return the tux so my wife wouldn't have to drive all the way there and back. I mapquested the address and figured out how to get there. As I was leaving the house I mentioned the exit I planned to take to my wife. She told me that was wrong, and preceded to give me very detailed and explicit directions to the store. After a couple of rounds of "Are you sure?" "Yes I'm positive" I decided to follow her directions because she was so damned sure of herself.

You can guess where this is going, right?

Of course, when I got to where my wife told me to go there was no sign of a formalwear store. I called her and we played the "Where is it? "It should be right there" game for a while, until I asked her what should have been my first question.

"When's the last time you were here?"

Turns out she had never been there, but one of her friends had told her where it was.

Sigh...

So I went to where I should have gone in the first place. Lo and behold, there it was. Normally I don't sweat the small stuff like this but that part of San Antonio has some really twisted streets and awkward exits and entrances to the freeway. Plus it's just got to have the largest concentration of idiot drivers in the entire county.

To top things off some bozo driving one of those 'I wanna be an offroad ranger' pickups parked next to me as I was in the store. The damn thing had tires about as tall as I am, a brushguard and extended rear bumper that made it about 25 feet long, and was parked so close to me that I couldn't get in through the driver's door. I had to go around to the passenger's side and crawl over to the driver's seat.

The whole process delayed me enough on my trip down south that I didn't get there until after 5:00. That's significant because the manager's office in my apartment complex closes at 5:00. Usually not a big deal, but the air conditioner in my apartment picked that day to quit working. The temperature down here on Mon. was 100, on Tues. it reached 104, and Wed. it topped out at 106. Thankfully the A/C was fixed yesterday afternoon, but it's been like living in a sauna. I've spent as much time in my office as I dare, but this time of year the students are swarming the halls seeking extensions to projects that they should have completed by now. The little darlings have no concept of time management or deadlines. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.

Tomorrow I have a whole slew of waste-of-time admin meetings and busywork, followed by class and the long drive home. Friday I get to take my truck into the shop and go to the dentist. Sunday the entire clan comes over for Easter dinner.

Thank God the semester ends in three weeks...

D'oh

I was channel surfing last night and clicked into the middle of a Simpson's episode. I'm not sure what the story line was, but some therapist was trying to build up Homer's ego. I was just in time to hear the therapist say:

"Homer, you have the same qualities that made America great. You have no understanding of the limitations of your power, and you have a complete lack of concern for what other people think about you."

When you stop and think about it, there's a lot of wisdom in that quote. We need to get back to acting like the biggest baddest SOB on the block and not giving a crap about what anyone else thinks.

Step one is to boot that oxygen-wasting loser in the White House out on his worthless ass...

FID 2011.04.20

Barack Obama dies and somehow ends up in heaven. (I know, I know - the idea of obama going to Heaven is far fetched, but work with me on this...)

At the Gates of Heaven, he meets a man with a beard.

'Are you Mohammed?' Obama asks.

'No my son, I am St. Peter. Mohammed is higher up.' Peter then points to a ladder that rises into the clouds.

Delighted that Mohammed should be higher than St. Peter, Obama climbs the ladder up through the clouds and comes into a room where he sees another bearded man. He asks again, 'Are you Mohammed?'

'Why no,' the man answers, 'I am Moses. Mohammed is higher still.'

Exhausted, but with a heart full of joy Obama climbs the ladder yet again. He discovers a much larger room where he meets an angelic looking man with a beard. Full of hope, he asks again, 'Are you Mohammed?'

'No, I am Jesus, the Christ. You will find Mohammed higher up.'

Mohammed - higher than Jesus!  Man, oh man!  Obama can hardly contain his delight and climbs and climbs ever higher. Once again, he reaches an even larger room where he meets this truly magnificent looking man with a silver white beard and once again repeats his question. 'Are you Mohammed?' he gasps, as he is by now totally out of breath from all his climbing.

'No, my son.... I am Almighty God, the Alpha and the Omega. But you look exhausted. Would you like a cup of coffee?'

Obama says, “Yes please.'

God looks over his shoulder, claps his hands, and yells out, "Hey Mohammed - two coffees!"

We're Creating A World Of Wimps

What is this - the crazy season? In the past week we've seen school districts ban chocolate milk and lunches from home, a city ban sodas, another city propose to ban Happy Meals, and now this. (Link courtesy of JammieWearingFool)

(New York) State bureaucrats have identified a potentially deadly hazard facing our children this summer - freeze tag.

That's right, officials have decided the age-old street game - along with Wiffle Ball, kickball and dodgeball - poses a "significant risk of injury."

And classics like Capture the Flag, Steal the Bacon and Red Rover are also deemed dangerous in new state regulations for day camps.

The Health Department created a list of supposedly risky recreational activities - which also includes more perilous pursuits like archery, scuba and horseback riding - in response to a state law passed in 2009.

Holy Crap. I spent most of my summers doing some or all of the above, plus more. BB guns, .22s, and fireworks come to mind, along with bike rides along ravines and swimming in rivers, lakes, and canals. Oh yeah, there were also dirt clod fights and King of the Hill sessions. Some of this took place in camps, but most of it was unsupervised. We all picked up some bumps and bruises, along with a few stitches, but no one was seriously injured. And we didn't spend all summer sitting around watching TV, playing video games, and getting fat.

Readers will be relieved to know that the NY nanny nazis deemed Frisbee, tug of war and sack races as safe.

Insanity. Plain old friggin' insanity. Why don't we just wrap all the precious little darlin's up in bubble wrap and be done with it?

Oh, wait...

This Is A Surprise?

Anyone who's been paying attention and that knows how to balance a checkbook just can't be surprised by the news that Standard & Poors, one of the world's top credit rating firms, downgraded its rating of US sovereign debt from "stable" to "negative."

A blunt warning Monday from a credit rating firm about the U.S. government's mounting debt pushed stock markets lower and intensified political divisions in Washington about how best to tackle growing deficits.

The S&P report questioned whether the White House and Republicans would be able to reach an agreement before the 2012 presidential elections on a plan to rein in deficits. "The sign of political gridlock was a key determinant in our outlook change," said John Chambers, chairman of the sovereign ratings committee at Standard & Poor's Ratings Services.

This year's budget deficit is projected to rise to between $1.5 trillion and $1.65 trillion, equal to roughly 10% of America's gross domestic product, or total economic output.

 

This is one category in which we do not want to be leading the free world. The last time the deficit was this large on a percentage basis was in 1945, when we were at the tail end of underwriting WWII.

The CBO projects total government spending to be more than $5 trillion dollars in 2020. That's 26% of projected GDP. "There is simply no realistic way the federal government will be able to raise that kind of revenue. Since 1950 the government has collected revenue above 20 percent of GDP exactly once. That was in 2000 and the percentage was 20.6." (Source.)

The obvious solution when expenses exceed income, as most of us who manage a household budget know, is to reduce expenses. I'm at a loss to understand how that simple truth eludes our congresscritters.

And then there's our national debt, which is basically the accumulation of the annual deficits.

The U.S. debt now stands at $14.219 trillion—just shy of the $14.294 trillion cap—and is expected to balloon in part because of rising costs for health care, retirement and other so-called entitlement programs, and the interest on existing debt.

While there has been a lot of focus on the so-called 'mandatory' spending portion of the budget (the entitlement programs - social security, medicare, and medicaid), an often-overlooked driver of the deficit and debt growth is interest costs for our national debt—"the bar tab for our binge."

The CBO projects that in the next 70 years, public money spent on interest will grow from 1.4 percent of GDP (or $204 billion in 2010 dollars) to almost 41.4 percent of GDP (or $27.2 trillion in 2010 dollars). In the short term, the cost of our debt will reach 3.8 percent of GDP by 2020 and 7 percent of GDP by 2030. Today spending on interest represents about a third of the cost of Social Security; in 20 years it is expected to exceed the cost of that program.

Think of it as paying interest on your credit card balance. Once that interest payment becomes unsustainable, any rational person would do whatever was necessary to pay off the balance. Of course, "rational person" leaves out the politicians and special interest groups currently fattening themselves at our expense.

To summarize: the cut in our national debt rating from "stable" to "negative"means S&P believes there is a one-in-three chance that Treasury bonds could be downgraded from their AAA rating. The consequences of that would, at a bare minimum, mean an increase in the interest rate the US would have to pay to borrow money via Treasury instruments. That in turn would increase the spending on the debt, quite possibly triggering another downgrade and locking the US government into a death spiral. 

So what can we do about all this? Stay tuned for some suggestions tomorrow...

We Have A New Contender

I used to think Sheila Jackson Lee was the dumbest empty suit named jackson that is wasting oxygen in congress. But after reading the following, I may have to reconsider.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D, IL) recently took the floor of Congress  to complain about what he perceived as inaction to create jobs for millions of unemployed Americans. Bizarrely, he took aim at Apple’s iPad, claiming the device as “probably responsible for eliminating thousands of American jobs.”

...Jackson went on to explain that the iPad is manufactured in China, and that Chinese workers are therefore take advantage of “our First Amendment value, that is to provide freedom of speech through the iPad to the American people.”

Jackson's point is that the digital revolution has changed the publishing business, resulting in some job loss as people use iPods and similar devices to access their reading material. There is some validity to that, but it is a small and limited perspective. To wit:

Apple has paid over $2 billion to software developers of iOS devices. That doesn’t account for the millions in revenue generated by the sales of iPad accessories - cases, screen covers, cables, and so on. Or for the bucks raked in by retailers - big box stores, Apple retail stores, mail-order companies and independent retailers alike - who sell the iPad.

In short, ... the iPad has created - and will continue to create - a lot more jobs than can be directly or indirectly related to its release.

A video clip of Jackson demonstrating his foolishness is below. Watch it at your own risk...

FOD 2011.04.18

Like I said yesterday, I'm tired. So I'm going to piggyback off a posting from curmudgeonly and skeptical.

Take a look at the picture below and see if you can identify which future president he is. Then go to this link for more child pix of our prezzies. Make absolutely positively sure you scroll down to the last picture...

Tired

It's been a long couple of months. I'm not much of a golfer, or a scuba diver, but the past several weekends have consisted of plenty of both.

Feb. 5 Golf Tournament (not much golf, but lots of 'socializing')

Feb. 12-13: Golf Tournament (two days of golf, plus lots of 'socializing.')

Hell, why deny it. 'Socializing' = drinking.

Feb. 18 - 20: Out of town (Houston) Golf Tournament, plus 'socializing.'

Feb. 26-27: scuba pool training (plus Feb. 27 was my birthday, which meant more 'socializing.')

Mar. 5 - 6: scuba open water training (minimal 'socializing.')

Mar. 12 - 17: Spring Break in Cancun, involving travel, diving, and 'socializing.'

Mar. 26 - 27: Golf Tournament and 'socializing.'

April 1 - 4: Extended weekend in Wyoming, with - you guessed it - more 'socializing.'

April 9 - 10: Normal weekend (minimal 'socializing.')

April 15 - 17: Extended weekend out of town golf tournament (Austin). Mucho 'socializing.'

Throw in doing our taxes, and it's been a tough two months (we're in the 50% part of the population that pays taxes to support the other 50% that doesn't, so I don't feel a damn bit guilty about spending my weekends enjoying myself.)

Like I said, I'm not much of a golfer. I've played more golf the last two months than I have the 12 months before them. But these were "special occasion" outings - charities, reunions, etc. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that I've spent most of my last dozen or so weekends either traveling, playing golf, or both - plus a heavy dose of 'socializing.' I'm flat tuckered out.

Thankfully, there's only one more golf outing scheduled for the near term (May 14 - 15). My wife will be along for that one, so the 'socializing' should be kept to a minimum.

That's good, because at this point I'm very, very tired...

Sunday Funnies 2011.04.17

Income Tax Weekend ... 'nuf said

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

It's tax time. I know this because I'm staring at documents that make no sense to me, no matter how many beers I drink.
-- Dave Barry

How is a mugger different from the Internal Revenue Service? Both take your money, but the mugger doesn't make you fill out forms.
-- Jacob Sullum in Reason

If obama and an IRS agent were both drowning, and you could only save one of them, would you go to lunch or read the paper?

Friday Follies Happy Hour 2011.04.15

We all know what today is. April 15 - Income Tax Day. After mailing your return and then visiting the nearest bar to intake enough beer to keep your head from exploding, check out the following videos. They may help.

Since it's Happy Hour, you get two-for-one...

It Is Said That A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words

I'd like to hear the words - and it'll probably take more than 1000 - that explain this picture.

 

There's got to be a great story behind it...

Mary Poppins Would Be Proud

There's been a spate of nanny-state related stories lately (schools banning kids from bringing their own lunches, schools banning chocolate milk, Boston banning sodas on city property ... the list goes on).

Well, our friends across the pond  - home to the world's best known nanny, Mary Poppins - have done us one better. A town in England has banned fire extinguishers because they are a safety hazard.

Fire extinguishers could be removed from communal areas in flats (apartments) throughout the country because they are a safety hazard...

The life-saving devices encourage untrained people to fight a fire rather than leave the building, risk assessors in Bournemouth decided.

Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle. Is there no limit to the ridiculous steps that people will take in making decisions for others because "I/we/the government knows best?"

What part of "leave me and my family the fuck alone" don't these meddlesome nitwits understand?

I am now officially in the market for my own private island - as soon as I win the lottery...

Must Be Something In The Milk

Posted with minimal comment, mainly because such foolishness deserves little response. (H/T to Peter for the original link.)

These are tough times for Minnesota schools.

In Lakeville, for example, the school board recently announced wrenching cuts of almost $7 million. Ninety-four teachers will lose their jobs, arts programs will suffer and a school will be closed.

There was wailing and gnashing of teeth, but the board set its jaw: There's not a dime for anything extra.

Unless you've got an ax to grind with white folks. Then the money spigots open.

The Lakeville schools are sending a delegation of teachers to the 12th annual "White Privilege Conference" at the Bloomington Sheraton from April 13-16. The district is shelling out $160 a pop -- plus $125 a day for teacher subs -- for this "white guilt" festival.

Let me get this straight. The school district is closing schools, laying off teachers, and cutting back programs due to a shortage of funds, but can still come up with the money to send employees to a conference "built on the premise that the U.S. was started by white people, for white people," with a stated mission of getting participants to confront their biases in a "journey in understanding white supremacy, whiteness, privilege, power and oppression..."

And what do the school district's taxpayers get in exchange for subsidizing this conference?

Teachers can attend workshops where they will "discuss how white privilege, white supremacy, and oppression affects daily life." Another workshop instructs attendees how to "rapidly release and overcome stress, trauma, drama and toxic beliefs."

I "release and overcome stress" with a bottle of wine and a roll in the hay. It's less expensive, doesn't take four days, and is a lot more fun. 

Participants will also have their worldview expanded, and presumably will pass these insights along to their students, as exemplified by selected quotes from the conference's website and assorted speakers:

"(Americans) are completely dependent on U.S. imperialism and war to sustain our daily lives."

"Our school system has been set up ... to perpetuate white supremacy and white privilege." Poor and minority students "do not drop out -- they are pushed out."

Christianity "has played a key role in developing and justifying sources of oppression" such as "violence and genocide" and is "the beginning of modern or biological racism."

The solution to 'white privilege' is to look beyond our "declining empire" to "exciting progressive developments" in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela -- among them, "land reform and redistribution of wealth, neighborhood committees, recognition of women's unpaid labor, end of spanking."

Ah, yes. If we end spanking then all our problems will be over.

If only it were that simple.

Yesterday's post highlighted a Chicago school's plan to prohibit students from bringing their own lunch to school. Also yesterday, Harper commented on a controversy over serving chocolate milk in public schools (now that I think about it, that should be a topic for the White Privilege Conference - after all, no one's talking about banning white milk). Now we have schools ignoring the budget crisis and blowing taxpayer dollars on obviously biased, one-sided, ideologically-driven brainwashing sessions. Whatever happened to teaching reading, writing, and 'rithmatic?

I wonder how much money these school districts receive from the Department of Education?

Where Are You Now, Ross, When We Need You

JammieWearingFool has recently posted a compilation of Ross Perot's commercials from his presidential run in 1992.

I worked with Perot's company (EDS) back in the 1980's and was extremely impressed with the competency and professionalism of his firm and its employees. I also watched with interest the interaction between EDS and GM during their 'merger' (GM saw it as an acquisition. So did EDS, although the two firms vehemently disagreed on who was acquiring who (whom?) )  Perot was so obviously on the side of the blue-collar working guy, without going overboard into liberal-land, that it was hard not to be on his side.

I figured anyone who could build a world-class company like that from the ground up would be a huge upgrade from the career politicians then running our government. And he had such a firm grasp on macroeconomics. He was, IMO, without a doubt the right person at the right time.

Unfortunately, Perot didn't win. Furthermore, he drew enough votes to swing the election from Bush the Elder to Bill Clinton. While I'm not a big Clinton fan, I will reluctantly agree that he didn't screw things up as bad as he could have (with the exception of Monica, but that's beside the point).

The reason I bring this up now is that Donald Trump is making noises about running for president. In my world he gets points for being a successful businessman, and for not being a professional politician/ Washington insider. However, he loses points for his prickly personality (look how he responded to criticism from Bill Cosby) and what, IMO, is his propensity to demand everything be his way or the highway.  

FWIW, I agree with Trump that obama owes the nation a resolution to the birther debate. (I'm not a birther, but I am starting to wonder - "methinks he doth protest too much.") However, I'd hate to see a rerun of the 1992 election in which Trump siphons off enough votes to let obama be reelected.

We as a country could survive eight years of Bill Clinton. There is no way on God's green earth that we could survive eight years of obama.

Everything You Need To Know About Obama's Budget Speech

Even his VP couldn't stay wake as obama babbled on in what was billed as a major policy speech aimed at reducing the deficit, but instead was a mishmash of recycled campaign slogans, ideological catchphrases, misleading statements, and outright lies.

"Hey, look, Biden is sleeping while the president drones on about an almost incomprehensible amount of money."

(ABC News video below - we'll see how long it takes them to pull it once it hits the blogosphere.)

Yep, Biden sure looks like he was asleep. Here's the ABC news video, screenshot above, of the Vice President nodding off for a solid 30 seconds (when the clip ends). As the network noted, the woman behind him looks a little bit drowsy also:

Biden would not be the first member of the Obama Administration to nod off while their boss talked. In 2009, his then chief economics advisor was snapped by a Getty Images photographer apparently napping during a meeting about the economic crisis.

Of course, if the camera was on me during the speech you would have seen images of me puking...

From The Mouths Of Commie Pinko Idiots

We are all sadly aware of Nancy Pelosi's famous "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it" quote. Now, in a recent speech, she has topped that one in absurdity.

"...the fact is that elections shouldn't matter as much as they do."

Unfortunately for the rest of us, elections do matter, especially when they result in the continued election of commie pinko whack jobs like her...

FID 2011.04.13

The big news in Europe is the French banning the burqa (or burka, or however that face-covering rag is spelled). For once, I'm proud of the French. They actually showed some couilles (that's French slang for testicles).

Vive La France!

Women are fighting in the streets of Paris. Alas, they are not fighting against Islamic gender apartheid—they are not protesting arranged marriage or honor killings. Instead, they are fighting for the right to veil their faces (*end sarcasm*).

It is important to note that France has not banned the headscarf (hijab) and that the French ban is not specific to Islam. The French law is ethnicity- and religion-neutral and refers only to a generic “face-covering.”

In other words, ski masks and cowboy-style bandannas are also banned, but I don't see Jean-Claude Killy or Roy Rogers protesting.

Increasingly hostile and anti-assimilationist Muslim immigrants (have) poured into France ... Why leave Mecca or Kandahar if you want France to resemble it in every way? 

... the burqa is not religiously mandated by Islam. It is a political and jihadic statement. There is a long, long history of Muslim-majority countries allowing women to shed the face veil and burqa (Egypt, Turkey, Algeria, Lebanon, and Iran to name a few). Only recently has one Muslim country after another returned to this misogynist custom, and with a vengeance.

Keep in mind that comment about "the burqa is not religiously mandated by Islam." Below is a similar commentary by Dr Taj Hargey, who is Imam of the Oxford Islamic Congregation and Chairman of the Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford. He makes the same point.

The burka is an alien, cultural monstrosity

The decision by the French government to outlaw all forms of public face-masking, including the burka and niqab, is welcomed by all thinking Muslims around the world.

All the Koran requires is that both genders dress modestly...

Face-masking is a pre-Islamic Byzantine and Persian practice and is non-existent in the Koran. Indeed, since Muslim women are banned from hiding their faces while praying or when they perform the pilgrimage, why do they need to do so in the public realm?

So what's all the fuss about? IMO it's best explained by a quote from the first article:

"The burqa is not a dress, it’s a message, one that clearly communicates the subjugation, the subservience, the crushing and the defeat of women..."

Where's NOW when we need them...?

We Know Better Than You What Is Good For You

Paul beat me to the punch on this one. His prose is admirably succinct and has a wonderful clarity. There is no doubt where he stands on this topic. However, being a college professor compels me to use many, many words when few will do. It's an occupational hazard.

Chicago school bans lunches brought from home

Fernando Dominguez cut the figure of a young revolutionary leader during a recent lunch period at his elementary school.

"Who thinks the lunch is not good enough?" the seventh-grader shouted to his lunch mates in Spanish and English.

Dozens of hands flew in the air and fellow students shouted along: "We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch!"

Fernando waved his hand over the crowd and asked a visiting reporter: "Do you see the situation?"

At his public school, Little Village Academy on Chicago's West Side, students are not allowed to pack lunches from home. Unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria.

Principal Elsa Carmona said her intention is to protect students from their own unhealthful food choices.

Oh yes, by all means please protect us from ourselves. You and the rest of the nanny state demo-libs know so much more about what is good for us than we do. Thank you for your all-encompassing knowledge and compassion.

Any school that bans homemade lunches also puts more money in the pockets of the district's food provider, Chartwells-Thompson. The federal government pays the district for each free or reduced-price lunch taken, and the caterer receives a set fee from the district per lunch.

Oh my - you mean there's a financial incentive for the school district to ban brought-from-home lunches? Who would have thought?

At Little Village, most students must take the meals served in the cafeteria or go hungry or both. During a recent visit to the school, dozens of students took the lunch but threw most of it in the garbage uneaten. Though CPS has improved the nutritional quality of its meals this year, it also has seen a drop-off in meal participation among students, many of whom say the food tastes bad.

What's that? A government program that is less effective and less popular than letting people make their own choices. I'm shocked! And what if a home-packed lunch might might be healthier than those offered to crammed down the throats of the students?

"This is such a fundamental infringement on parental responsibility," said J. Justin Wilson, a senior researcher at the Washington-based Center for Consumer Freedom, which is partially funded by the food industry.

"Would the school balk if the parent wanted to prepare a healthier meal?" Wilson said. "This is the perfect illustration of how the government's one-size-fits-all mandate on nutrition fails time and time again. Some parents may want to pack a gluten-free meal for a child, and others may have no problem with a child enjoying soda."

Then there's the cost aspect.

For many CPS parents, the idea of forbidding home-packed lunches would be unthinkable. If their children do not qualify for free or reduced-price meals, such a policy would require them to pay $2.25 a day for food they don't necessarily like.

"We don't spend anywhere close to that on my son's daily intake of a sandwich, Goldfish crackers and milk," education policy professor Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach wrote in an email. Her son attends Nettelhorst Elementary School in Lakeview. "Not only would mandatory school lunches worsen the dietary quality of most kids' lunches at Nettelhorst, but it would also cost more out of pocket to most parents!

Finally, what about teaching the kids to make sound decisions?

Many Little Village students claim that, given the opportunity, they would make sound choices.

"They're afraid that we'll all bring in greasy food instead of healthy food and it won't be as good as what they give us at school," said student Yesenia Gutierrez. "It's really lame. If we could bring in our own lunches, everyone knows what they'd bring. For example, the vegetarians could bring in their own veggie food."

"I would bring a sandwich or a Subway and maybe a juice," said seventh-grader Ashley Valdez.

Second-grader Gerardo Ramos said, "I would bring a banana, orange and some grapes."

"I would bring a juice and like a sandwich," said fourth-grader Eric Sanchez.

Like so many other things, including most of what the dingbats in congress waste time and money debating, little children make more sense than the so-called adults in charge.

In a similar vein, we have the mayor of Boston deciding what drinks can and cannot be sold 'for the good of the people.'

Boston Mayor KOs Soda, OKs Alcohol

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has banned soda, sports drinks and sweetened ice teas from city property...

In an attempt to reduce the city’s rising obesity rates, Menino has banned all sugary drinks from city vending machines, cafeterias and concession stands, just one day after reaching an agreement with the Boston Red Sox that allows the team to sell mixed drinks at its ballpark.

“I want to create a civic environment that makes the healthier choice the easier choice in people’s lives, whether it’s schools, work sites, or other places in the community," said Menino...

Meanwhile, Menino has signed off on a proposal that will allow Fenway Park to sell mixed drinks during baseball games...

Allowing the selling mixed drinks - or even just beer - at a ballgame gives the lie to Menino's efforts to get Bostonians to slim down. A 12 oz Budweiser has 145 calories while 12 oz of Coke has 142. A Rum and Coke has a whopping 314 calories while a Scotch and Soda has 135.

But try and take a beer away from a Red Sox fan and you would probably lose the next election.

Gee, could the possibility of losing votes influence the mayor to expand the not-good-for-you drink choices of baseball fans while narrowing the drink choices of everyone else "based on the idea that (he) knows what's best?" Naw, that couldn't happen - could it...? 

Our last point comes from the story of a 16 year old who only wanted to help a local elementary school's students celebrate a  - well, read the story for yourself.

'Easter eggs' renamed 'spring spheres' at Seattle public school

The educrats strike again, and make themselves look ridiculous again, according to a 16 year old student identified only as Jessica, who volunteered to do a project at a local elementary school, supplying plastic eggs filled with jellybeans. 

"I went to the teacher to get her approval and she wanted to ask the administration to see if it was okay," Jessica explained. "She said that I could do it as long as I called this treat 'spring spheres.' I couldn't call them Easter eggs."

Rather than question the decision, Jessica opted to "roll with it." But the third graders had other ideas.

"When I took them out of the bag, the teacher said, 'Oh look, spring spheres' and all the kids were like 'Wow, Easter eggs.' So they knew," Jessica said.

I'm not much of a Bible guy, but my parents, God bless 'em, did their best to churchify me. I seem to recall a quote from Isaiah: "... and a little child shall lead them."

Too bad no one else seems to remember that one...

No End In Sight

I've about given up beating this particular dead horse, but every time I think I'm beyond being shocked, the animals that make up the Mexican drug cartels outdo themselves.

Mexican drug cartels targeting and killing children

SAN LUIS POTOSI, Mexico — On a sunny afternoon last week, when the streets of this mountain mining city were filled with schoolchildren and parents hurrying home from work, gunmen entered a tiny apartment and started firing methodically.

The assassins killed everyone: the family matriarch and her adult son; her daughter and son-in-law, and finally, her 22-month-old granddaughter.

The child was not killed by mistake. Preliminary forensics indicate that the gunmen, unchallenged, pointed a pistol at Scarlett Ramirez and fired.

What kind of sick twisted fuck kills a 22-month-old baby in cold blood? If there is a Hell I hope this bastard and every other one like him has a reserved seat by the fire.

In Mexico’s brutal drug war, children are increasingly victims, innocents caught in the crossfire, shot dead alongside their parents — and intentionally targeted.

According to U.S. and Mexican experts, competing criminal groups appear to be killing children to terrorize the population or prove to rivals that their savagery is boundless...

Sick sick, sick...

Recent killings of children — shot in a car seat, dumped in a field with a bullet in the head, killed as their grandmothers cradled them — have shocked Mexicans and shaken their faith that family is sacred, even to the criminal gangs.

“Before, they went after their enemy. Now, they go after every member of the family, indiscriminately,” said Martin Garcia Aviles, a federal congressman from the Party of the Democratic Revolution from the state of Michoacan.

A Chihuahua state police commander was attacked as she carried her 5-year-old daughter to school two weeks ago. Both died of multiple gunshot wounds.

In February, assassins went hunting for a Ciudad Juarez man, but the intended target wasn’t home, so they killed his three daughters instead, ages 12, 14 and 15.

In March, a young woman was bound and gagged, shot and left in a car in Acapulco. Her 4-year-old daughter lay slumped beside her, killed with a single bullet to her chest. She was the fifth child killed in drug violence in the resort city in one bloody week.

“They kill children on purpose,” said Marcela Turati, author of “Crossfire,” a new book on the killings of civilians in Mexico’s drug war. “In Juarez, they told a 7-year-old boy to run, and shot his father. Then they shot the little boy.”

Words fail me.

Unfortunately, there's more.

Clutching a manila folder with photos of her missing son, Eloísa Camacho followed Hazmat-clad investigators into a room at a state morgue to give a blood sample Saturday, hoping all the while her DNA would not match any of the dozens of bodies that have been found buried in mass graves in northern Mexico.

She emerged a few minutes later, retching at the heavy odor of decomposing bodies — an unmistakable stench that saturated the air outside the building every 90 minutes or so, when investigators opened the back of the refrigerated trailer to transfer yet another body into the morgue.

As of Saturday, the bodies of 72 men had been pulled from pit graves in the Zeta drug cartel-controlled desert near San Fernando, about 85 miles south of Brownsville.

Rumors swirled that more will be found, and those with missing family have begun showing up at the morgue, trying to find some kind of resolution yet all the while praying for none.

The bodies were found beginning April 1 at 10 sites, in the same area of northern Mexico where 72 Central American migrants were found murdered last August.

Authorities blame the Zetas, a ruthless offshoot of the Gulf Cartel. Survivors said the Zetas were trying to build their ranks and killed those who refused.

And then we have the Stew Maker.

Investigators have unearthed human bones and teeth from pits used by a man known as the "Stew-maker," who confessed to dissolving 300 bodies of drug cartel victims, prosecutors said Friday.

Miguel Angel Guerrero, head of the Baja California state prosecutors' office on disappearances, said about 30 bone fragments and 15 tooth fragments were dug up Monday at a ranch in eastern Tijuana that was once occupied by Santiago "El Pozolero" Meza Lopez.

Pozole is a form of hominy stew, made with corn processed with caustic soda. Meza purportedly used a similar process to dissolve his victims.

We won't be able to ignore this much longer. There are indications that the violence is spreading northward across the border. 

The United States Consulates General in Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo and Nuevo León said Friday night that the U.S. government has received uncorroborated information that Mexican criminal gangs may intend to attack U.S. law enforcement officers or U.S. citizens in the near future in Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon and San Luis Potosi.

The information is being distributed to all U.S. government employees in the three states. No other information was available at press-time.

I live and work several days each week within spitting distance of the Texas-Mexico border. Since the federal government has been completely, totally, and 100% negligent in securing the border, I'm pinning my hopes on Texas Senate Bill 354, which would allow concealed-handgun licensees to carry their weapons on college campuses. Unfortunately, it seems to have stalled in committee.

So I, and others like me, are faced with two choices. Either continue to obey the law and go around unarmed and unprotected while praying that nothing happens to us and our students, or break the law and carry a weapon that is legal everywhere else except our place of employment.

Meanwhile, our elected representatives cower in safety in places like Austin and Washington D.C., protected by distance and armed guards, neither of which are available to us.

Cowards ...

FOD 2011.04.11

This is not the typical FOD post. Obama is but a symptom of a much more serious malady, as noted by Lauri Regan in The American Thinker.

"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency...Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president."

Take a look at the tag line at the top of this blog: "We have met the enemy, and he is us." Truer words were ne'er spoke, at least in the context of electing an unqualified arrogant elitist marxist asshole. As Ms. Regan goes on to state:

When Obama won in 2008, I wrote an article for American Thinker in which I analyzed the various reasons that people had for voting for a person who was clearly incompetent, unprepared, unpatriotic, and basically void of any substance other than his own ego and disdain for American exceptionalism. The five categories of Obama voters included (i) individuals suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome, (ii) followers with a mob mentality of assuming that if everyone liked the guy, he must be wonderful, (iii) socialists, (iv) people with racial guilt looking for a post-racial America, and (v) those suffering from simple ignorance due to a lack of intellectual curiosity to understand the man who would be king.

Now, with over half of Obama's term complete, the only relevant categories of Obama supporters are those falling under items (iii) and (v) -- Americans who reside on the far left of the political spectrum and those who remain completely ignorant about world affairs, economics, and the person who is the current leader of the free world. The far left will continue to support and vote for Obama no matter how many flip flops he makes on closing Gitmo, military trials for terrorists, intervention in Mideast revolutions, and other policies that raise their ire.

However, in the face of a dishonest and complicit mainstream media, it is up to all thinking Americans to make efforts to educate themselves, their neighbors, friends, colleagues, and family as to the dangers of four more years of Obama as President. For while the world can withstand four years of incompetence in the White House, eight years will likely result in a world forever changed, with America reduced to mediocrity and powerlessness, Islamic fundamentalism on an unimpeded rise to triumph over the West, and liberty and freedom replaced in many more parts of the world by tyranny and human rights abuses.

While many Americans who voted for Obama in 2008 have woken up to the fact that it was a colossal mistake, there remain too many Americans who simply do not understand just how incompetent and ideologically driven his administration is. There are too many people who would rather watch Joy Behar's ineffectual interview with Helen Thomas, who continue to watch MSNBC's idiotic news programs hosted by the likes of Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow, or who consider Jon Stewart and Bill Maher reliable sources of news. There are also those who read The New York Times without any critical analysis of its editorial board's disconnect from reality and publisher's extreme bias resulting in disingenuous reporting.

I am taking it as a personal challenge and goal to open the eyes of as many people as possible to the terrible, but so far not irreversible, damage that obama and his ilk have done to our country. It was my position last election that while McCain may not have been the ideal candidate, he was by far preferable to obama. I will take the same position in 2012. No matter what uninspiring insipid political hack that wins the republican nomination, he or she will be infinitely better than four more years of this commie pinko foreign-born intellectually-challenged terrorist-loving prince of fools who is currently befouling the Oval Office by his mere odious presence.

obama has already started his reelection campaign. It's time for us to start ours...

Sunday Funnies 2011.04.10

Today's topic is the recent federal budget fiasco.

 

The jerks in congress are elected to (supposedly) conduct the business of the American people. In other words, they are there to do a job. If you or I did our jobs as poorly as they do theirs we'd be fired inside of a week.

It's not exactly rocket science.

For God's sake, even late night TV comics have got it figured out.

"We're heading for a government shutdown. This is serious. Without the government who will fail to inspect our airplanes? Who will fail to secure our borders? Who will put us 14 trillion dollars in debt?" –Jay Leno

"The White House may have to lay off all nonessential workers if the government shuts down. You know: interns, pages, Biden..." – Jimmy Fallon

"The most embarrassing part is that by the weekend, our government could be shut down, but Moammar Gadhafi's government could still be working." –Jay Leno

And my personal favorite:

"Members of Congress will still get paid if there's a shutdown. So it will be just like it is now. We'll be paying them to do nothing." –Jay Leno

Sadly, like the old saying, I laugh to keep from crying...

Photojournalism

From my recent Wyoming trip:

This is the view approaching the mountains. You can see some lingering snow from winter. The dip in the middle is Wolf Creek Pass - my destination.

It started snowing that night. Here's my cabin while it was coming down...

... and after it stopped.

The temperature got down into the low 20's at night and hovered around the high 30s - low 40s during the day. Perfect for leaving my beer on the porch.

* * * * * * * * * *

I mentioned previously about the cell phone tower going up practically in our back yard. Here's what it looks like.

It's amazing how quickly it went up. On Day One just the base was peeking over the hill. By the end of Day Two it was fully erect (insert your own joke here). The power line pole to the bottom left of the tower was likewise not there before. They had to run electricity to the tower, so now we also have a series of power line pole tops strung along the ridge.

The only way this will be worthwhile is if it leads to people carrying their cell phones like the person below.

We can only hope...

Another One Bites The Dust

We have a large covered back porch. We also have a large picture window that looks out on the back yard through the porch. We've planted vegetation to provide food and cover for birds, and we've hung several bird feeders of varying types that attract an assortment of our fine feathered friends. We get hummingbirds, cardinals (bright fiery red this time of the year), goldfinches, painted and indigo buntings, bluebirds and the occasional blue jay, robins, purple martins, and a whole host of less-colorful birds such as wrens and sparrows. Once in a while a hawk or two will hang around, hoping for an easy meal, but they usually go away empty handed (empty taloned?).

We also have a large flock of doves that visit us twice daily - morning and evening - to dine. Their cooing offers a nice counterpoint to the songs of the other birds. They gorge themselves on the bird seed, getting nice and plump. Every once in a while one will get disoriented and fly into our picture window. I think the covered porch eliminates any reflection, preventing the birds from seeing the window. As a matter of fact, one did so last night, prompting this post.

When one of those nice plump dove hit the window it rattles the glass and makes a big loud "thud," scaring the pants off anyone in the house. The unfortunate bird usually breaks its neck and dies instantly, saddening my wife and kids. However, the country boy in me looks on the dove carcass and thinks "barbecue."

When a kamikaze dove meets its end on our back porch I rush out and grab it before the dogs can get to it. I breast it out, rinse it off, and put it in the freezer. When I have enough I thaw 'em out and fire up the grill.

• Start with a pile of dove. Breast 'em out and soak the breasts in milk while you do the following.

• Open a Shiner.

• Get enough fresh jalapeño peppers so you have half as many jalapeños as you do dove breasts (in other words, one jalapeño for every two dove breasts). Slice the jalapeños in half and clean them of seeds and membranes. (DO NOT touch your eyes or other sensitive tissue with your hands after cleaning the jalapeños.)

• Put one jalapeño slice inside each breast. Wrap it in a slice of bacon (I prefer thick slab smoked bacon). Use a couple of toothpicks to hold the whole thing together.

• By now you should have finished the first Shiner. Open another one. Repeat as necessary.

• Grill over medium heat for about 20 minutes, turning as needed. 

 

Some folks put a little cheese in with the jalapeños. If you go this route try cream cheese. It's a good compliment to the peppers.

Quick, simple, and free. Hard to beat...

Friday Follies Happy Hour 2011.04.08

A little funk for your Friday.



Dedicated to obama, reid, pelosi, and all the other thieves in congress who want to steal our hard-earned money and blow it, waste it, give it away to crooks, wastrels, and parasites...

As American As Apple Pie

There's been a lot of Strum und Drang lately regarding the 2010 budget. (Strum und Drang literally means Storm and Stress, which is an excellent phrase for the nonsense emanating from D.C.) While I don't necessarily want to add more manure to the pile of dung that's already been deposited by our elected 'leaders' (*snort*), I think the pie charts below do an admirable job of summarizing the problem and providing a few clues about how to solve it.

The one above has been floating around the Internet for a while. It points out the absurdity of the partisan squabbling over a few crumbs ($61B vs. $33B) while we're facing a deficit orders of magnitude larger.

The $61B vs. $33B debate is not the problem, but rather a symptom. The problem is the massive amount of mandatory spending - approximately 60% of the $3.85T (yes, that's T as in Trillion) annual budget, as shown below.

Wasting time on the current budget cuts is, to borrow a trite phrase, akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. As the above chart clearly shows, we simply must get the 'mandatory' spending under control. That entails meaningful reforms to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Stop the bleeding first, then worry about the bruises.

Finally, we have one more chart that shows where the government's money comes from, and where it goes.

(Please keep in mind that it's not really the government's money - it's OUR money, taken from us at the point of a gun.)

Spending cuts are one side of the equation. Revenue is the other. I'm a firm believer in the Laffer Curve, which, in a nutshell, argues that if tax rates rise beyond a certain level they discourage economic growth, thereby reducing government revenue. So IMO the solution to our current economic woes is to get spending under control. If we do that the revenue side should take care of itself.

For you policy wonks, an excellent video explaining the Laffer Curve is posted below. An equally excellent article illustrating the Laffer Curve in action at the state level may be found here.

Now if only the yammering idiots in congress would listen to me...

The Next Republican President

Republican, hell. I'd vote for this guy regardless of whether he was running as a R, D, Libertarian, Independent, or whatever.

He's my kind of guy...

(Thanks, Bots.)

Be Careful What You Wish For

We live in the Texas Hill Country. It's a rural area, about 30 miles from a big city (San Antonio) and around 15 miles from a small town (Boerne). We love everything about our location, with two exceptions. One, both urban and small town sprawl are encroaching on our rural buffer zone, and two, the cell phone reception is lousy out here. There's not much we can do about One, but we have been steadily wishing that Two would improve.

Well, cell phone reception improvement is on the horizon - literally.

Our property slopes from front to back. Our rear property line is pretty close to being aligned with one edge of a flood plain. On the other side of the property line the flood plain stretches about 50 to 100 yards across a dry creek bottom, then the land begins to slope upwards. It continues up to form a ridge that is a few hundred feet in elevation above us. The ridge falls off on the other side into a small valley, and then the topography on the other side of the valley rises some more.

Think of it like an elongated W. We're the leftmost downward sloping leg. The middle peak is the ridge behind us, and the rightmost upward sloping leg is the land on the other side of the ridge.

The property behind us is a working ranch of several hundred acres. It's owned by a nice enough guy who, to his credit, is resisting the pressure to sell off the place to developers. However, in order to meet the rising property taxes he needs more and more cash. One of the ways he's found to raise some $$$ is to allow a cell phone tower to be built on his land

By now you can see where this is going. The tower is rising right behind our back porch, a couple of hundred yards away. It sits smack dab in what used to be a wonderful view of nothing but Hill Country landscape.

It could be worse, I guess. There could be a bunch of starter homes all crowded together sprouting on the adjacent hillside. Still, it's sad to see the loss of another small piece of God's country out here.

The ironic thing is that we were just considering putting a cellphone antenna and signal booster on our roof. Now we're getting our own personal cell phone tower.

Progress...

FID 2011.04.06

Peace-loving Muslims Object to Koran-burning

No, wait ... that's not quite right.

Beserk Muslims Run Amuck, Massacre More Than 20

Yeah, that's better.

... Afghan rioters angered by reports of the sacrilege sacked the United Nations compound in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, killing seven foreigners, and went on a lethal rampage in the southern city of Kandahar, waving Taliban flags.

In fresh Kandahar protests on Sunday, two Afghans, including a child, were killed and 40 were wounded, according to provincial officials.

Granted, the whack job in Florida who burned the damn thing is an idiot, but the muslim reaction is WAY out of proportion to the stimulus. Since when does burning a book give a mob license to riot, destroy, and kill innocent people, including women, children, and UN workers there to help the local savages attain some vestige of civilization?

And then we have an idiot senator (redundant, I know) who thinks we should restrict free speech to avoid offending muslims.

South Carolina U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham signaled support for restricting the First Amendment Sunday, just days after a pastor burned a Quran.

Let me get this straight. They can burn the Bible and U.S. flags, stone and lash women, murder children, but we can't do anything that might offend them? At what point do we quit bending over backwards to placate these narrow-minded religious bigots and just say "enough is enough?"

I'd say right about now...

Mild Is When It Happens To Someone Else

After my little mix-up between eye and ear drops, I went to the ophthalmologist today for a follow-up exam. The diagnosis is a 'mild' chemical burn, just about fully healed with no after effects. It damn sure didn't feel 'mild.' It felt like my eyeball was on fire. But all's well that ends well.

It looks and feels much better today. At its worst it reminded me of a line from the old Asleep at the Wheel song Bloodshot Eyes: "Your eyes look like two tomatoes in a glass of buttermilk." But today it's back to its normal appearance - a deep limpid pool of blue that women lose themselves in.

The ER treatment for chemicals in the eye is pretty cool. They put in some numbing drops to kill the pain and deaden the eye, then they insert something like a contact lens that is perforated and connected to a reservoir of saline solution. The patient is placed on a table which is then tilted so the feet are higher than the head, and the saline is pumped through the perforated contact lens for about 10 minutes. This 'pressure-washes' the irritant out of the eye. Quick, thorough, and effective.

Other notes from the trip:

When I left Wyoming it was 19 degrees and snowing. When I got to Laredo it was 94 degrees and sunny. My body is very confused.

When I left Texas last Friday gas was $3.44 per gallon. Today it's $3.59. A 15 cent increase in four days? WTF?

I went four days with no TV, no talk radio, no newspapers, and no email or Internet. It was very calming and relaxing. Sometimes I think the constant bombardment of news and opinion we're subjected to is not good for us.

Ouch!

I strongly suggest that you do not confuse the little bottle containing ear drops for swimmer's ear with the little bottle containing eye drops. It's unfortunately easy to do in the morning when you're not fully awake.

The eye drops are basically a sterile saline solution. The ear drops are 95% alcohol.

Saline in the ear - no problem. Alcohol in the eye - BIG problem. Especially when you're in the Wyoming mountains and the nearest emergency room is a long way off.

The patch comes off tomorrow...

Friday Follies Happy Hour 2011.04.01

Off to Wyo for an extended weekend (seriously - this is not an April Fools Day joke). No Internet in the mountains, so blogging will be sporadic until early next week.

Rather then the predictable but still enjoyable Willie doing "On the Road Again," I thought I'd post an old video of Canned Heat doing the "On the Road Again Boogie."

Enjoy...