Documenting Instanity

Why I love Sarah

2009-12-10T01:10:00.002-07:00

I am not sure Sarah Palin is my first choice in 2012. There are a bunch of factors that will weigh into that decision for me, many of which we won't have data on for a couple of years. That isn't the issue for this post. She is clearly more qualified for the office than either the current occupant, his gaffe-a-day sidekick or his "leader" of either house .... but so is Mickey Mouse... or for that matter ME! All three of us have actual accomplishments.

The point of this post is to give the dumb-ole-country-boy take on Sarah Palin. How she will or won't stack up against potential, and to date unknown other options, is not the point.

I love Sarah Palin because she reminds me of the women I grew up around that made me a better, albeit imperfect, man. If I were to put a name on her it would be Mrs. Stumler. She was the first woman I knew in our community who took direct charge of part of the family business..... and she made a roaring success of it. At the end of the day Sarah is any of the women in the little farming community I grew up in... but somehow every time I see her face I superimpose Mrs. Stumler's face on her..... and it warms my heart.

I went through 6 years of gradeschool with her son. He was and is a great American and a good man, as were and are his siblings good men and women. She lost her husband, a great man by any measure, way too early in life many years ago. They all continued on the path that great family was destined for with hardly a beat missed. I cannot imagine how they did that..... I would have been devastated. I am still not sure how I will survive the loss of either of my parents. I pray for the strength they showed.

That is what I see in Todd and Sarah Palin and their family. They had real hardship in front of them last year and it did not change them one bit. The then Governor and "first Dude" of Alaska were the same people at the end of national campaign that they were when I first learned of her challenge to the EPA declaration of the endangerment finding of Polar Bears. I hadn't seen a picture, just read her legal challenge, and I immediately loved her as a fellow conservative interested in limited government based in reality. I didn't know about her impressive and storied history of busting balls in the Alaska state government to try to do the right thing... or the fact that most of the balls she busted had an "R" behind their name on the ballot.... all of which increased my appreciation of her.

Don't get me wrong, Sarah is HOT HOT HOT!!!! and on the flip side Mrs. Mailgeek makes it clear that the "first Dude" is HOT HOT HOT!!! That isn't why we love them. They are what they are and to me they are every successful (as in still raising their family) couple in the little farming community I grew up in who raised good kids and never reset their compass to the prevailing social whims. They are my aunts and uncles who are what they are, especially those uncles who helped my aunts to step ahead of society's expectations.

Mrs. Stumler is HOT HOT HOT!!!! and Mr. Stumler was one of the men I looked up to as a boy for a role model. I could replace her name with a dozen others except for the fact that he died way too early and I got to see the family continue down the same path they were on. It is only under times of tragedy that you get to see who is who but I have great confidence that most of the great women I grew up around would be successful beyond my comprehension.

Women who know what they are about and raise great kids are all HOT HOT HOT!!! I don't care what they look like, they are HOT HOT HOT!!! I was lucky enough to have many such role models and Sarah embodies them on a national stage. And Todd, aka "first Dude", embodies their husbands as best I can tell. In truth, as far as I can tell, Todd embodies my Uncle E.J. who was the closest this ole' country boy could have to a second beloved father.... and his wife, my aunt, is one of the many other strong women I could replace for Mrs. Stumler in the story.

I don't know if Sarah still has political ambitions.... I don't think anyone outside their immediate family does. She has been, and IMNSHO continues to be, good for the conservative movement and I pray she stays active for the movement's sake. It is clear to me that she saved Sen. McCain from a truly embarrassing defeat in 2008.... despite his campaign managers' complete ineptitude..... and there is no other rational way to describe their folly.

May G-d bless and keep Sarah and Todd and their family and allow them to help steer the movement and the country..... Amen!

Price Gouging and Windfall Profits

2009-09-01T14:08:00.003-06:00

Every couple of years the crazy lefties pick a new villain and tell the American public that we are being price gouged by said villain. How are they sure that we are being price gouged? We are being price gouged because that industry has just reported "Windfall Profits". Every time I have gone and looked at the real numbers I have discovered that the very same industry charging essentially the very same prices has recently had losses or very small profits for many quarters running. This rarely mentioned fact leads me to believe that the industry isn't price gouging me. A more likely explanation is that the profits in that industry are cyclical, sometimes for reasons obvious to me and sometimes for reasons not so obvious to me.

Who is really price gouging me? To answer that question, consider the following things that we all spend money on.

housing
transportation
energy
food
entertainment
clothing
vacations
furniture

Add up everything that you spend money on that private industry delivers to you. What percentage of your income does the "stuff" you get through voluntary transactions with for profit organizations competing in an open market cost? For me, and I assume for many of you, it's less than half. Notice I didn't ask what percentage of your paycheck but what percentage of your INCOME, you know that number bigger than your paycheck that theoretically exists out in the ether before government takes a big chuck of it leaving you with that smaller number printed on your paycheck.

If you add up all the taxes that you pay (and you should include the money your employer hands over in taxes on your behalf that isn't counted as "income") and you make six figures you probably pay around half of your total income in some form of tax.

Social Security tax
Medicare tax
Federal Income tax
State Income tax
Workers Compensation tax
Capital Gains tax
Property tax (if you rent you pay this indirectly)
Sales tax
Energy tax on your electric bill
Gas tax at the pump
Telephony taxes
Federal Aviation taxes on every airline ticket
Road use fees for license plates

The list goes on and on. You can no longer even die in this country and not be taxed in the transaction. After I pay all my taxes I have less than half my income left so I know everything I spend money on from the free market costs me less than half of what I earn. It's 3rd grade arithmetic. While that point sinks in I also want you to consider that I didn't include all the embedded corporate taxes that we pay when we purchase something at the store. Always remember that corporations don't PAY taxes, they COLLECT them from their customers. Estimates of the amount of what you spend on goods and services that are really embedded taxes are in the 20-30% range.

So whose price gouging me? Government is. I give them more than half of every dollar I earn for which I get the following things:

the US military
associated intelligence agencies and federal police forces
the US Coast Guard
the US border patrol & customs
fire fighters
police
paramedics
roads to drive on
air traffic control
government schools

Sticking out like a sore thumb on that short list are the border patrol and government schools neither of which manages to remotely accomplish their stated objectives, but I digress.

Ah, the savvy lefty politician says, but you are paying largely for the Social Security and Medicare you will get when you are older and retired. HORSE PUCKY! I will never see a Social Security check. I say this with more certainty at 41 than I did at 21. The math simply does not work. By the time I am eligible the program will HAVE to be means tested. At this point I'm not sure I'll even get Medicare. It's almost as flat broke as Social Security thanks to the politicians in Washington robbing both systems blind for forty years.

If I had all the money that the federal government has stolen from me in the form of Social Security and Medicare taxes in the last 20 years I could retire quite comfortably now without needing government assistance ever. Instead I'll be paying ever higher chunks of my earnings in those taxes for many years to come with little hope that I'll see ANY return on that "investment".

So the next time you hear some left wing politician telling you that the oil industry or the health insurance industry or some other industry is price gouging please remember that it is that very politician who is the real price gouger. It is very hard to stay in private business while price gouging. The federal government has been doing it for over a century and I see no end in sight.

How Princess Cruise lines lost all my future business

2009-05-28T19:59:00.003-06:00

Several months ago I booked a balcony cabin on a Princess Cruise Line Alaska cruise for this coming July for myself and my wife. Everyone I know who has done an Alaska cruise has raved about them so we were really looking forward to it. As background it is worth noting that we have been on 9 cruises in the last 12 years so everyone we know who has cruised Alaska is a LOT of people. I am no longer even looking forward to the cruise thanks to what has to be the worst "customer service" department in the cruise line industry.

A few days ago my wife found out that there is a possibility that her father will be going in for surgery around the same time as our cruise, possibly that very week. The odds are pretty good that the medicines they are giving him will make surgery unnecessary, but discretion being the better part of valor I decided to try and make sure that we don't wind up missing our cruise because of it. I'll give everyone the short version and then the details for those of you who care or wish to know how NOT to run a business.

If my father-in-law does have surgery scheduled for the week of our cruise we will get a 100% refund. I am perhaps the most over insured person in America and bought trip insurance for this cruise just like I did on the other 9 we have done. In order to CHANGE the date of our cruise it would cost me roughly $1400. Please bear in mind that the cruise industry is really hurting. Princess has empty balcony cabins on several cruises between now and my scheduled date that I would happily exchange for and give them more time to fill some of those empty cabins. I am not asking for a different cruise or an upgrade or anything that might have a real cost to them. In reality I might be helping them out by taking an earlier cruise. I want to exchange one empty cabin for a different one. I was told by a "customer service" manager today that she was very sorry but this was their policy and they make absolutely no exceptions.

I'll just start with that ridiculous statement. If you make no exceptions in customer service you are an idiot. It is simply not possible to write a policy which covers what is best for both customer and business in every situation. Secondly, it's a lie. We all know it's a lie. If my name was John Stossel or Barbara Walters or Rush Limbaugh they would have happily asked me which date I would like and would I like a free upgrade to go with it since they have some empty suites. You know this, I know this, they know this, and they are doubly idiotic if they don't know that we know this.

The details: I started by calling Princess and explaining the situation. The nice lady who answered the phone informed me that there would be a "sizable" fee because Princess does not move or exchange cruises. They consider this a cancellation of the cruise I had already booked and a new booking of the new cruise. In my opinion that is just plain stupid. I am not trying to cancel anything. I just want to avoid the possibility that I won't get to go on the cruise and they will be out about $3000 by not letting me do the same cruise on the same boat on a different day.

It is worth noting that I have done this in the past with another cruise line for a lot less important reason with very little trouble. I called and told their sales person I had a scheduling conflict come up and it would be terribly nice if I could switch my cruise date to any other sailing. It took 5-10 minutes and cost me some nominal $100-$150 fee which I happily paid. Bear in mind that time wasn't even in the middle of a recession where the cruise boats are half empty. I got one choice where they had an opening on the type of cabin I had booked. What did that get Celebrity cruises? A very happy customer who has used their services many times since. Yes, I do give credit where credit is due. All 9 of our cruises have been on Celebrity or Royal Caribbean which are owned by the same parent company and the service and customer service have always been impeccable.

Moving on, I asked the nice lady at Princess what "sizable" meant and she told me that because I had booked the cruise through a travel agency I would have to discuss that with the travel agent as she was not allowed to quote me any numbers. I asked "How many zeros does sizable have?" She laughed but offered no information. I thanked her and hung up.

I then called my travel agency and told them what was going on. The word sizable came up again: things are not looking good for the home team at this point. I explained which weeks we wanted to avoid and that we wanted the same cruise and cabin type and was informed that she would need to call Princess and get back to me. I gave the number where I was sitting and she assured me she would call me back in a few minutes.

Now I'm getting steamed. Princess can't tell me anything except to call my travel agent who has to call Princess to tell me anything. What kind of a three ring circus are these people running? On top of the fact that I am beginning to believe booking a Princess cruise was a mistake I am now wasting significant amounts of time.

I waited as long as I could but 50 minutes later I had to run to the store because we had guests coming for dinner and I needed a couple of things. I was gone 10-15 minutes and sure enough... missed the call. I called the travel agency back and, you guessed it, the lady whose call I missed has gone home for the day and there are notes "but I can't make anything out of them." Great! The new very young sounding lady informs me she will have to call Princess, what dates do I want or not want, etc. On the upside she puts me on hold while she calls. A few minutes later I have a choice of alternate dates and the $1400 price tag. I ask about the insurance I had purchased. She gives me their number as she cannot discuss that. Of course.

At this point I would like to add that a few weeks ago I got the paperwork for the cruise. Every other cruise I have done included the insurance contract with terms and conditions in the packet. With Princess's paperwork I don't even see where it mentions I bought the insurance. It might be there in their little codes but it isn't obvious to me. Anyway, I go open an 18 year old scotch and try to suppress the rage that is building in my gut and decide to sleep on it before I get unduly unpleasant on the phone.

Early this afternoon I called the insurance people, who are by the way Princess employees. I get a pleasant and eager young man who wants to help. I try to explain that I need to see the details of the policy. He offers to mail me a packet...... Um, no, today if at all possible, could you fax it to me? No, he cannot but he can email it to me. "Great" I say as I try to decide which of the myriad of email addresses I have that I would like to have spammed for the rest of eternity by Princess Cruise Lines. "But" he says, there's always a "but" with these people isn't there? "But since it's so late in the day (it's 2:30 MDT) the email probably wouldn't go out until tomorrow." I am stunned. Are you kidding me? The whole freakin' point of email is that it is nearly instant communication. I can feel my blood pressure rising. "OK, any other possibilities?". The answer I get makes me want to cry "Sure, it's on our web site as a pdf if you know how to do that." Um... yeah, I kinda do, he tells me where and I thank the young man, hang up and go download and read the pdf. I'm screwed! It sorta covers this but not really. Count to 10, slowly.

I decide on my strategy and I call Princess back. A pleasant sounding lady answered the phone and asked what I needed and I told her I would need to speak to a supervisor. She politely informed me that I could but she would need my details and reason for speaking to a supervisor first. Fair enough, I give her my booking number, name... and tell her the story, AGAIN. Really, shouldn't this all be in my customer file by now? Computers are wonderful devices capable of keeping track of vast amounts of information about vast numbers of people and keeping it all squared away. If you don't type the stuff in my file they are useless and I wind up having to repeat myself over and over. This makes me angry which is definitionally BAD customer service.

The nice lady tells me she is going to put me on hold and have a chat with her supervisor. I'm thinking "Great, I'll sit here on hold waiting to tell the same story the fifth time in two days because I didn't hear any key clicks while I was telling it to you." A few minutes later nice lady is back and informs me that her supervisor has instructed her to transfer me to a manager in "customer service." Great, fine, whatever, just get me to someone with a brain and the authority to do the unbelievably obvious. My terrier, Tigger, would have figured this one out by now.

You guessed it, "customer service" lady doesn't have a clue what my problem is and frankly doesn't sound too pleasant. I consider hanging up and calling back a little later in the hopes of getting a different one but decide against it. I tell my story for the fifth time. She tells me Princess considers this a cancellation and it's their policy to ALWAYS charge the fee. I try and politely explain that I am in fact not canceling anything but EXCHANGING it. I will be happy to pay a small exchange fee for their paperwork and other hassles but I am not about to pay them another $1400 to exchange a cabin on one half empty cruise for a cabin on an identical half empty cruise on another date of their liking. It just will not happen. She tells me this is their policy and they make NO exceptions. I don't even call her on the obvious lie, I simply present her with 3 facts.

First, I am 41 years old. If we wind up going on this cruise it will be our 10th in 12 years. I asked if she understood what this meant and she said she did. I continued that if I do not get an exchange option that makes me happy it will be my first and LAST cruise on Princess Cruise Lines.

Second, 20 years ago I had a very similar conversation with the regional service manager for Ford Motor company. Over that 20 year period I have purchased 5 new vehicles but have never stepped onto a Ford dealership.

Third, I know a lot of people who cruise and many many more who would like to some day. I will tell all of them and anyone else who will listen about this stupid and unnecessary lack of customer service.

At this point the woman told me that she was sorry that I felt this way, and she would make a note in my file (now I get a note in my file), but they make no exceptions to their policy which is in all of their brochures. I quietly wonder at this point if she knows I never looked at a brochure? I don't have one and never did. I didn't ask, but do these people not realize that I look for vacations on this wonderful thing called the INTERNET and I have a travel agency if that doesn't get me what I want? Brochures are for people who are all giddy because they are booking their first big vacation. People who travel regularly don't look at them and don't want to. She is clearly one of those people that wastes perfectly good oxygen I might need some day. I conclude by telling her that I hope she enjoys reading about her company online and hang up. I wasn't trying to be rude to her, it clearly isn't her policy, she is a cog in a bad wheel. I HAD to hang up before she responded for fear that she would ask me what "online" meant.

I hope my father-in-law does not need surgery and we go to see Alaska. I have heard good things about Princess cruises themselves. I also look forward to telling this story to every passenger on the boat who will listen. Many people cruise once or twice in a lifetime but the industry makes its money on people like my wife and I who cruise over and over and over. I suspect given the current economic times that a very large percentage of the passengers going to one of the most expensive cruise locations in the world will fit that category.

God willing we will book many many more cruises over the span of the rest of our lives. I will never again consider booking one with Princess Cruise Lines even if the cruise itself is fabulous.

My thoughts on Obama at Notre Dame

2009-05-20T11:34:00.004-06:00

I want to start by saying that the flap, as I see it, isn't about President Obama at all. He was invited as a sitting President to give a commencement speech at a major university. He accepted. He was offered an honorary degree. He accepted. He gave a speech. Period. Did he use that opportunity for political advantage? Sure, he's a politician. Every President or other politician who gives a major speech to young people who are about to embark on the world and become long term voters use these situations, in part, for political gain. Some do it better than others, but all of them do it. Dogs bark. It's a non-story.

So what is the big issue? Why was I so disturbed by this? Why were so many Catholics up in arms and holding prayer vigils? Because the University of Notre Dame is supposed to be a Roman Catholic school that is headed by two Roman Catholic priests and they are required not to make that invitation, and more importantly, to give any honoraria to any figure in leadership who routinely works against their core principles. I have not been a Roman Catholic for a very long time but I was raised one. While I am not a scholar on it I do know the catechism and the core doctrine of the sect. If I am not a Catholic you might ask why I care? I am an orthodox Christian and I am disturbed any time a major sect gives in to populism at the expense of core principle or doctrine. I am especially disturbed when that act is committed as publicly as it was in this case. Our goal of bringing others to God is not made any easier when things this obviously out of line with His teachings is displayed by any Christian leader.

Let me offer a simple explanation/definition to all you non-Catholics. You either are a Catholic or you aren't. There is no such thing as a pro-abortion (or pro-choice for you squishy PC types) Roman Catholic. It is a fraud. If you support or work to further the availability or practice of abortion you have ex-communicated yourself from the body of the church. It is black letter Roman Catholic doctrine. It isn't optional or up for interpretation or discussion. You are required not to take communion until you have resolved your sin and committed not to do it in the future. That was what all the flap about John Kerry publicly getting communion was about in 2004. By doctrine he is not supposed to request communion and if he does priests are advised (if they know who he is and what he stands for) to refuse.

But I thought ex-communication was something that was done TO you? No, it isn't. By your actions you ex-communicate yourself. In daily life most people use ex-communication where they really mean public ex-communication. Public ex-communication is the act of the church hierarchy making a public statement that you are in that state and informing priests not to give you communion and various other rites of the church. Father Jenkins, and others, are in a state of ex-communication today because of what they did. It isn't disputable. They are. The church body is harmed by his action but even more importantly the church body is harmed because it's hierarchy has not made that simple statement. Father Jenkins is in ex-communication. It isn't hard for me because it doesn't cost me anything. Nobody cares if I say it, probably including Father Jenkins. The hierarchy haven't done it and they aren't going to and the body of that very large group of Christians is harmed more every day that does not happen.

Why won't they? In my opinion, and I have held this opinion for decades, the Roman Catholic hierarchy will always choose the almighty dollar over the furtherance of the Almighty. They are by no means alone in that, btw, it is far too common in Christian churches across the board. That said, it is unfortunately just that simple in my mind, and that is sad.

Don't like who your married to anymore? The hot young secretary in the office seems a good choice for wifey number two? Want to marry her in the Roman Catholic Church? No problem, write us a nice big check and we don't really care what happened, your first marriage is annulled and for a few more bucks we'll do your second marriage. If you are not a Roman Catholic and you don't believe that, ask one that you know. It happens every day.

If you think I am being overly simplistic or harsh I give you the case of Cardinal Bernard Law. This man was one of the key offenders in the "hide the pedophile priest" game played for decades in the US. He was indicted by a duly appointed grand jury because it was very clear that he knowingly put thousands of young children in unacceptable danger. Many of them are scarred for life. Do you remember what happened to him?

The Roman Catholic Church defrocked him and turned him over to the authorities, right? WRONG! They hauled him to Vatican City. They did not do so in order to punish him there mind you, which I might have been OK with if they were sufficiently harsh (like public beheading or boiling in oil). No, they hauled him to Vatican City to PROMOTE him. He now oversees one of the five Basilicas in and around Rome. That is one of the most cherished positions in the Roman Catholic Church. It is, for that reason, the only one I have not visited. They refuse to try him, defrock him or allow him to be extradited to the US for trial and the almost certain punishment that would follow said trial. Why? In a word, MONEY. The pedophile scandal cost the church a lot of it both in payouts to victims and in income in the donation basket. The spectacle of a sitting Cardinal on trial for harming children would have cost them a lot more for a lot longer. The Pope and his advisers were and are well aware that Americans have very short memories. Hauling the creep back to Rome was a story for a few days and then the average Catholic went back to church (and donating) and forgot about it.

By its own doctrine the church is required to publicly ex-communicate Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy, etc. etc. Do you know how much money the Kennedys have given to that hierarchy over the years? It's a mind numbing figure I'm sure. It is rumored that the check for Joe Kennedy to get his annulment against the vehement protestations of his wife alone was seven figures. And that was back when even the government considered a million dollars real money. But what's a million bucks to a Kennedy compared to being allowed to continue the charade that you are a nice New England Catholic family worthy of the votes and support of the peasants over which you rule?

Maybe I misread the gospels but I got the distinct impression God doesn't really care as much about money as he does about children. I also get the distinct impression that he cares a lot more about upholding His Law and ideals a LOT more than he cares about money. Any time an institution that claims that its purpose is to uphold Christian doctrine and principle ignores those principles because it's uncomfortable or hard or unpopular or costly - the body of Christ is diminished.

I assert to you that the Roman Catholic hierarchy is ignoring it's own doctrine in this case because around half of all self identified Roman Catholics in the US consider themselves pro-choice. If the bishops did what their doctrine requires a lot of those people would leave the church. That would undoubtedly add up to a lot of money. If they cared about your immortal soul more than money Cardinal Law would be Bernard Law (former Cardinal, current inmate) and Father Jenkins would be former priest and ex-communicated Catholic Jenkins. Clearly, they don't. That is what this is about my friends. It isn't about the President or his policies, it is about the lack of leadership from the leaders of the largest Christian sect in our nation.

I admit this might be overly cynical but I don't see it changing until rank and file believing Roman Catholics stand up and say "not one nickel until it's fixed". It appears to me to be the only message those in charge of your church understand. At the end of the day I suspect your donations dwarf those of the mythical "pro-choice Catholics". At the end of the day that is not my call. I am no longer one of you and have not given a nickel to your church in a very very long time. Good luck to you either way, may God bless.

why bigger government fails

2009-03-13T18:29:00.002-06:00

I want to start this post by saying I am making an economic argument and not a moral one. Whether people who work for the government in some capacity are good people, do good or important work is not the point of this exercise. I am simply looking at the economics and cost.

How many people are paying for how many people? I find it an interesting question and it was not easy to find some of the numbers I found and I had to guess at others because I simply could not find them. So there are approximations made where I could not find the data, but I think we can all agree that this is in the ballpark.

Let's start with who is getting paid by the governments of our country (all levels). This includes the military, fire, police, public teachers, etc. etc. but NOT Postal Workers(we can argue about whether Postal Workers are a drain on the economy later).

19.7 Million people are employed directly by the governments of our nation. I could not find a useful study of the number of people indirectly employed by a government (for instance a company that makes fire trucks or fighter jets). Since the federal government spends 25%-ish percent of GDP I am going to assume that there are at least 20 people in private employment for every 100 government workers who draw their entire salary from taxpayers. That gets us a total 23.64 Million people getting a paycheck from the taxpayers of America.

Next we have to look at people who are drawing a check from the government but it isn't a paycheck. Social Security is paying 2.6 Million retirees and disabled Americans not to work. There are an additional 12.5 Million people getting an unemployment check but only 2.9 Million who are long term unemployed so some of those unemployed will be a net payer of taxes for the year so I'll use the number 6 Million (rather arbitrarily, another chunk of data I could find).

Another piece of data I could not find was the number of people receiving a government pension. For the sake of argument I am going to assume that for every 4 people working in government directly there is 1 getting a pension. That is another roughly 5 million people. I did find the statistic that 3 of every 4 government retirees is eligible for Social Security so the overlap means that we add only another 1.25M government payees to our total.

So far the taxpayer is supporting 23.64M workers, 2.6M social security recipients, 6M unemployment checks, and 1.25M other retirees for a total of 33.49M payees.

Now for the other side of the equation. I am going to count married filing joint taxpayers as 1.5 taxpayers on the assumption that some are 2 income and some are 1 income. That may be somewhat low but probably not by much for actual taxpayers as opposed to tax filers.

There were 135M filings, 21.5% of which were joint and 32% of them did not pay any federal income tax. Of the non-payers 29.8% were joint returns. That leaves us with 91.8M paying filings, of which 16.1M are joint filers, so I will add another 8M to payees for a total of 99.8M payees of federal income tax.

Of the non payers (43.4M) I am going to assume that half of them actually get money back, so that is another 21.7 million people who are a net income tax loss for a new total of 55.19M payees of government.

Now, we have to do one more thing to get the picture clear. Some of those 99.8M people paying federal income taxes are actually government workers of some type (fire fighters pay taxes as does the guy who makes the trucks). They cannot, however, from an economic perspective, be considered payers into the system as they receive more money from the government, however well deserved, then they pay into it. If we assume (another data point I simply could not find) that government employees and civilian employees are non-payers at the same rate (32%) we have to take away 68% of the 23.64M government workers as tax payers for a net loss of 16M.

So what we have is 39.19M people who pay federal income taxes supporting payments (some very small) to 55.19M people. Horrified yet?

To be fair, since we are not counting Social Security taxes in our "net payee" equation I will remove as payees the people receiving Social Security payments (2.6M) and give you that number also. There are approximately 39 Million people who are a net tax plus to the government and 52M people (23M of which are full time paychecks) who are a next tax cost.

If you just consider the full time pay checks we have 39M people paying 23M people.

And the dems want to grow the number of people working for the government?

If you are not scared yet, you aren't very bright.

This is NOT sustainable. The only reason it has been sustainable up to now is that there were many social security tax payers to relatively fewer recipients and the federal government has been spending the surplus like it was income tax receipts. As the baby boomers start retiring at a more and more rapid rate the scale is going to tip.

It simply won't matter who is in Congress or the White House if we don't do 2 things.
1. Shrink the size of government (and I don't mean slow the growth, I mean SHRINK)
2. Grow the economy like mad.

Colorado Ballot Amendments for 2008

2008-11-01T18:27:00.014-06:00

Below is my analysis of the Ballot Initiatives we here in Colorado will vote on in a few days. For your convenience I have also linked the initial source material. To that end, here is the Blue Book in pdf form.

I will go through the Initiatives in the same order the Blue Book does. The Blue Book has summaries, pros and cons, and the actual text of the amendments so it is all most people need to decide how to vote on each of these issues. It has been my experience that the summaries are usually flawed and the pros and cons unnecessarily limited. There are a couple of such cases in this year's Blue Book but thankfully the state also supplies the actual text for your reading pleasure. Most people are not as sick as I am and do not bother to attempt to parse the often lengthy and legalese ridden texts. That being said, be aware that this text is what you are actually voting on. If the summary misleads you there is no legal remedy for voting against what you believe your interests are.

Amendment 46: Discrimination and Preferential Treatment by Governments

For all practical purposes this amendment gets rid of Affirmative Action and set-asides by the state government or any public institution therein. It begins with stating that discrimination against or preferential treatment to anyone based on race/sex/color/ethnicity/origin. It then goes through a list of exceptions like hiring women to search female prisoners and anything that is required to receive federal funding or comply with existing or future court orders. As far as I can tell they have included all the reasonable exceptions including not changing any existing contracts so that the end of discrimination is going forward only. The "con" argument in the Blue Book is that Affirmative Action is inherently good. They also do not point out any reasonable exception which has been left out.

If you believe that Affirmative Action by government is necessary and good, you should vote No.

Ergo: Mailgeek votes YES!

Amendment 47: Prohibition on Mandatory Labor Union Membership and Dues

This is a Right to Work Amendment and it does have some teeth. Since Right to Work is a somewhat contentious issue (although I never understood why), let me say up front that I am totally biased in favor of Right to Work. Most Right to Work clauses are the same in the basic proposition. They prohibit forcing a person to join a union as a condition of employment or continuation of employment. The differences between them are how far reaching they are and do they have any teeth. For those of you who understand how Right to Work statutes differ let me give you the highlights of this one.

Does it extend to private companies and state and local governments? YES, so both public and private employees may choose not to join a union or to break away from their current union without fear of losing their job.

Does it prohibit unions from extracting "negotiation fees" from non-union members? YES, so if you choose not to be a member of the entrenched union at your place of business the union cannot take one dime from you without your express consent.

Does it prohibit an employee from voluntarily joining or helping to form a union and using that union to collective bargain on his behalf? NO, if you want to be in a union and a majority of your coworkers do also this does not change in any way your right to do so.

Can people who attempt to force you to join or fund the union be punished? YES, by the highest level of punishment currently on the books for a misdemeanor, including jail time and fines.

Does it change things for you tomorrow if you are a current union member? NO, I think (I am not a lawyer and don't play one on TV). The way I read it, which may be incorrect, the revocation of "union shop" status, forcing all employees to be a union member as stated in an existing contract would still be in effect until the contract expires or is renegotiated. It prohibits that restriction on any new or updated contract only. As much as I am pro-right-to-work I believe this is the way to put it in place. It will not disrupt current contracts in any way for the employer or the union. It simply makes a restriction with regards to union shop contracts going forward so that issue is off the table for the next round of contracts or the forming of any new union groups.

If you make your living off of forced union payroll deductions, you should vote NO.
Ergo: Mailgeek votes YES!

Amendment 48: Definition of a Person

This is a simple amendment that defines "person" as used in the Colorado Constitution as beginning at the point of conception.

I have to editorialize here...... why do the people who try to put limits on abortion almost always overreach? It is absolutely true that the current abortion guarantees from the currently in force badly decided court cases on abortion hung their hat to some extent on the lack of a definition of "person" in the federal and most state constitutions. The reason a fetus does not have a right to life is that it is not a person, until the courts decide they were just joking about that and come up with some other convolution of the English language to make abortion on demand legal. The big problem with this, IMO, was not even mentioned in the cons (a perfect example of why you should read my blog).

The cons section says you should vote against this because:
1. It outlaws abortion (that isn't what the text says but it is the complaint)
2. It probably outlaws embryonic stem cell research - it does, but big yawn, ESCR is a bust and totally unnecessary in today's medical world.
3. It may change criminal law - in other words, kill a pregnant woman and you will be up on 2 counts of murder......... ok, that's a pro in my book.

What did they miss?
1. There is nothing in this which gives guidelines for some very real medical issues. Termination of pregnancy is sometimes medically required, usually in the first trimester, and this change does nothing whatsoever to balance this legally. While I have confidence that the courts and legislature would eventually work out a reasonable balance where doctors and women would not have fear of lawyers for doing medically necessary abortions... this change would most certainly wind up putting some well meaning and reasonable doctors and women into very expensive contact with lawyers until that happens. Do you want your wife/mother/daughter/neighbor to wind up in an expensive legal battle because she had the misfortune of being in a car accident while pregnant? Do you want your wife/mother/daughter/neighbor's doctor to worry about that potential lawsuit when recommending treatment while her life is on the line?
2. What about fertility clinics? Under this change as proposed many couples will have to go out of Colorado to become pregnant. The reality of in-vitro fertilization is that there are a percentage of fertilized eggs that are never implanted and most of them are eventually destroyed. Under this change those fertilized eggs are "persons" entitled to life and legal protection. This one isn't as big a deal for me as it is for many people, and would not stop me from voting for it, but for some of you it should.

If you believe that a probably ill-fated legal battle to outlaw abortion is worth the possible downside of this amendment you should vote YES.

I, unfortunately cannot, ergo, Mailgeek votes NO.

Amendment 49: Allowable Government Paycheck Deductions

The long and short of this amendment is that it gets rid of the ability for the government unions from automatically deducting their fees from the government employee's paycheck.

There are two potential impacts of this depending on the outcome of Amendment 47. If this passes and 47 does not, it will have the following impact: the government employee who wishes to fully fund his union dues will have the inconvenience of having to make separate arrangements to do so. At the same time, the government employee who MUST be a member of the union but does not wish to fund the union's political activities will be able to hand the union a check and avoid all the hassle that is currently in place to be in the union without funding their political activities.

If this passes and 47 does also....... This means that the union must come hat in hand to every government employee and ask for contributions. If you are anti-union, this is a major win. If you are pro-union, this is still a win. If you can just take my money, even if I don't agree with what you do, are you, the union leader, as likely to do what I want you to do? Not only NO, HELL NO! The big problem, IMO, with unions today is that union leadership is all in for THEMSELVES. Even very pro-union government employees will benefit from this arrangement as the union leadership will be forced to be more responsive to their needs and wants.

As with Amendment 47, if you make your living on forced extraction of union dues, you should probably vote NO.

Ergo, Mailgeek votes YES!

Amendment 50: Limited Gaming in Central City, Black Hawk, and Cripple Creek

This amendment does 4 things:

Allow the 3 towns with legalized gambling to extend the hours of operation if they want.
Puts much of the increase in revenue for passage to community colleges and most of the rest to the communities themselves.
Require statewide voter approval for any increase in gaming taxes.
Exempt the new revenue from passage from state and local revenue and spending limits.

The potential downside is that we could have a couple of mini-Vegas areas in CO which could make it easier for people with gambling problem to get themselves in trouble.

The upsides: We could have a couple of mini-Vegas areas here in CO! As much as I love to play cards and enjoy poker, casinos are just 1 step short of lottery tickets which are well labeled "taxes on the stupid". This will increase revenues to the state and those communities and create good paying jobs for them while only taxing those willing to be taxed.

As much as I am sympathetic to the potential downside and hurt for those who are, or have family members who are, gambling addicts, I cannot see the wisdom in preventing the upside of this idea,

Ergo: Mailgeek votes YES!

Amendment 51: State Sales Tax Increase for Services for People with Developmental Disabilities

Again, I will point out my bias... anything that begins with "tax increase" I start with an assumption of NO! and need to be convinced with overwhelming evidence that it is necessary.

In this case the proposed increase is 0.2% over 2 years so the tax increase is minimal. The proposed cause is also one which I am sympathetic to. That said, what little, and there was a thin trail to follow, I could dig up would indicate that the problem with services for the Developmentally Disabled in the state are largely due to the government having massive inefficiencies and not a lack of funding.

I am torn on this, it almost meets my standards, but Mailgeek must vote NO! Your mileage may vary.

Amendment 52:Use of Severence Tax Revenue for Highways

The long and short of this is to divert some of the revenue that the legislators are pushing to water projects into highway projects.

I admit, I don't have a clue about the details of this, in as much as WHY the legislature is funding one of these more or less than the other. I am sure there is political funding buried in these decisions but the fundamentals of the decision may be sound and the influences we the taxpayers don't like may be marginal. I did some digging and did not come to a definitive conclusion.

The nightmare that was the Highway 25 expansion in south Denver (T-Rex) and the joy that was the E-470 extension should have taught us what we really need to know about highway dollars...... they should be farmed out on real contracts that have monetary consequences for the people who build and or maintain the highways. Whether you are for or against toll roads it has been conclusively proven that when the state puts out real bids for private businesses to do the work we the taxpayers as well as we the driving public win. This amendment has no such provision. I have no desire to put more money in the hands of "employees" who hold up shovels on the road side.

Ergo, Mailgeek votes NO!

Amendment 53: Criminal Accountability of Business Executives

I have no idea who came up with this idea but they should crawl back under their little rock (not that I have a strong opinion on it). While I have no issue with holding executives who are aware of criminal behavior being committed on behalf of their company this amendment is riddled with problems. I will give you the top 3 IMNSHO.

1. They could put executives in jail for misdemeanor offenses for minor violations of EPA, HUD, ABCD or other government entity regulations. While the amendment does include language that the executive in question must be aware of both the offense and the fact that the deed is a violation, it has no exemption for executives who, for instance:

put in place reasonable policies to avoid the offense
became aware of the violation after the fact
made a reasonable attempt to take corrective action for the offense
fired, or otherwise punished, the people responsible for the offense

2. Any executive can avoid criminal prosecution by simply putting in a report to the Attorney General any provable knowledge he may have had of the offense prior to being charged. So the seriously or potentially corrupt business executive will just file box cars of reports to the government on a regular basis which the government will be unable to process in a meaningful time frame in order to avoid prosecution. This is both a "get out of jail free" card AND a "spend tax payer money to sort through meaningless paperwork" card.

3. Not only is this a potential issue for CO based companies, there is no exemption for companies that do business in CO but whose executives are based elsewhere, potentially even companies not based in the US. While we want all companies doing business in CO to follow our law, this is both potentially unenforceable and a really good reason for out of state and international companies from putting an office in our state. It could potentially force the state to attempt to charge executives in another state or country for the actions of a single employee who lives or works in our state. I do not want my employer or yours to allow me to live anywhere "except Colorado".

Mailgeek must vote NO!

Amendment 54: Campaign Contributions from Certain Government Contractors

Wow! This may be the hardest issue to decipher on the ballot this year.

The basic intention is to get rid of pay to play. I think we can all agree this is a very good goal. Goverment corruption is best exemplified in "machine politics" where people get government money in the form of jobs or contracts because they assist politicians in charge to continue getting elected through campaign contributions and other, more indirect, methods.

There is a ton of good stuff in this amendment including:

prohibiting those who receive no-bid contracts from making political contributions to candidates for the duration of the contract + 2 years
prohibiting people who push for a ballot measure from getting contracts based on it for 2 years
punishing bookeepers who knowingly watch their clients violate the act

and some questionable stuff including:

prohibiting the family members of any director of a company who gets a no bid contract from making political contributions without calling into question the language "causing to be made, or inducing by any means, a contribution, directly or indirectly, on behalf of the contract holder or on behalf of his or her immediate family member" which seems a bit broad to me. It isn't clear where the burden of proof here is to me if my uncle gets a no bid contract.
it does not limit contributions to 501s, only to candidates, parties, and in some cases ballot initiatives.... leading, I suspect, to a simple redirection of kickback money
it does not limit the most obvious of all payoffs...... I make a big contribution to candidate X this year, and next year he steers a big contract to me. It does keep me from contributing again for a while, but if a politician is really dealing from the bottom of the deck, is this sufficient?

I love the ideas embodied in this amendment and would ignore the negatives I see in it if the amendment better limited its scope with regards to family members liability. If my brother/mother/father/sister-in-law/adult child/niece/uncle/etc getting a no bid contract did not seem to call into question my ability to make political contributions I would probably vote Yes. But, to me, it seems to.

Ergo, Mailgeek must vote NO! Take this one back to the drawing board and clean it up a little.

Amendment 55: Allowable Reasons for Employee Discharge or Suspension

This amendment would undo the at-will nature of employment in the state. There are up sides and down sides of at-will employment. Personally, I prefer it and believe it increases job creation at the expense of lazy people getting fired. In principle forcing employers to show reason for firing an employee sounds good but the real world result is to make employees spend enormous amounts of money to document and redocument getting rid of employees who don't do their job.

On the good side, this amendment:

exempts private employers with fewer than 20 employees
exempts non-profit employers with fewer than 1000 employees
allows imposition of legal fees for the losing party - thus making employees hesitant to file frivolous claims, although the lawyer isn't liable for said damages

On the bad side, this amendment:

has an automatic right of suit on termination..... meaning there is no hearing process to allow employers to avoid the extreme cost of a trial at a lower cost for frivolous claims
has very troubling language around laying off employees for economic reasons "DISCHARGE OR SUSPENSION DUE TO SPECIFIC ECONOMIC CIRCUMSTANCES THAT DIRECTLY AND ADVERSELY AFFECT THE EMPLOYER AND ARE DOCUMENTED BY THE EMPLOYER, PURSUANT TO SUBSECTION (3) OF THIS SECTION" which leaves open the question of can I fire a carpenter while hiring a sales person or the reverse? Welcome to lifetime employment? Maybe/maybe not.
does not impose the legal fees of losing cases in any way on the filing lawyer who may have knowingly filed a frivolous case on behalf of the proverbial bloodless stone for a few bucks up front

Ergo, Mailgeek must vote NO!

Amendment 56: Employer Responsibility for Health Insurance

This would require all employers with 20 or more employees to not only provide a group plan for insurance but to subsidize it at 80%. It does not exempt non-profit organizations. It does, however, exempt "THE STATE OR ANY POLITICAL SUBDIVISION THEREOF" which is quite troubling. It does not, as is usually done, define an employee as a "full time equivelant/FTE" but any employee or "A RECEIVER OR OTHER PERSON ACTING ON BEHALF OF THE EMPLOYER" (please read contractor).

So the result is that if I have a small business that employees 10 full time people, 8 half time students at 10 hours/week each and 3 contractors to do my landscaping, janitorial services, and book keeping, as I read this, I have to subsidize coverage at 80% for all of them and at 70% for their families.

This is a lousy idea......
Ergo, Mailgeek must vote NO!

Amendment 57: Additional Remedies for Injured Employees

This amendment would require employees to pay costs, including but not limited to, medical costs, funeral expenses and pain and suffering for any injured employees if, and only if, the employer did not "PROVIDE A SAFE AND HEALTHY WORKPLACE".

It does not replace or revoke the current worker's compensation plan that employers already pay into, and pay more if there are repeated injuries at their place of business.

Further, there is no proof of evidence defined for "safe & healthy" leaving it up to a judge to decide if your environment working the high steel or on a comercial farm qualifies.

I would be happy to let a jury decide the questions if we could do away with the worker's compensation program which I believe is a mockery not only in the state of Colorado but in most states that have one. This amendment does not do that.

Ergo: Mailgeek must vote NO!

Amendment 58: Severance Taxes on the Oil and Natural Gas Industry

This act does a few things:

increases the percentage of GROSS, not NET income on the production of gas and oil products in the state to 5% for the largest producers and smaller percentages for smaller producers
removes the tax credit associated with property taxes on the land where the production occurs
puts the new revenue outside of the standard spending percentages in place and defines where the revenue goes (including the state funding of "renewable" energy research as opposed to forcing the companies to invest those funds privately which would be much preferred)

I have a number of fundamental problems with this amendment.

it applies, starting next year, to existing contracts, redefining the contract without negotiation with energy producers with existing leases/contracts. This is anti-American in any industry IMNSHO.
it makes the assumption that we are all morons and believe companies pay taxes.... they don't, they collect taxes from consumers... and taxing energy is a highly regressive tax as the poorest citizens pay the largest portion of their income on energy.
it will make energy companies hesitant to come do business in our state for fear that the people will simply tax them out of their existence in the future regardless of the rules put in place at the time of said investment.
the tax is on GROSS income and then we remove on of the larger fixed cost deductions, the tax on the property in question. We do not allow most businesses to deduct their property taxes from their income taxes, but we tax their NET profit, not their GROSS income. It is unfair to have the companies agree to do business based on such a taxation system and then remove one of the only benefits to that alternate system.

I might vote for this if it applied to new leases or new contracts but it applies to existing contracts also.

Ergo, Mailgeek votes NO!

Amendment 59: Education Funding and TABOR Rebates

Essentially what this amendment does is to eliminate TABOR rebates in years where the tax revenue exceeds the legal spending limits on the state government. It replaces those rebates with a savings fund for years when the tax revenue is short of spending limits. In theory this is a great idea. Again, the devil is in the details:

the legislature can spend the interest on the fund in years without a shortfall rather than allowing that interest to further enhance the fund
there is no restriction on legislature raising fees in good times and putting the money into the fund, the only practical limitation on fee increases in good times being the rebate of those fees back to the taxpayers
it removes the guaranteed increase in spending on education set at inflation per pupil, thus all but gutting TABOR
it would seem to me to remove the percentage limit of spending on education allowing the non-education spending to grow in good years thus preventing the fund from being funded. I am not sure about this piece as the language is a bit confusing

The idea is good, back to the drawing board folks, and please stop trusting the politicians to do the right thing which is the whole point of TABOR.

Ergo, Mailgeek must vote NO!

My thoughts on the bailout and coverage of it

2008-09-30T19:43:00.002-06:00

I am a huge Hugh Hewitt fan. I rarely get to listen to him live because of work but I have his podcast auto-loading into my iPod and I never miss a single hour of his show. Most of the time I agree with him but every once in a while he is totally wrong. As I listened to his show of 9/29 in the evening I sent him the following email in the middle of the night 9/29, I might add prior to a 485 point gain in the Dow 9/30. I believe it sums up my thoughts on the bailout nicely.

Subject: why the bailout is like Harriet Meyers
To: Hugh Hewitt

Hugh,

As a long time listener and one who usually agrees with you I must not only disagree with you today but point out some things you have not mentioned that are quite relevant

Some simple facts:

1. Paulson has been wrong about almost everything to come out of his mouth as Treasury Secretary. He was another terrible appointment by Bush. If he supports it you should be instinctively against it. A stopped clock is right twice a day but the odds of being right at any given moment are poor.

2. There is no - zero - zip - nada reform of the actual base cause of this problem in this bill (enhanced enforcement of the CRA put in place under Clinton). If you do not fix that problem you are simply enabling the finance industry to do 2 things, use Freddy & Fannie to fund Democrats' campaigns and make lots of money for themselves until the next bailout. Anyone who was paying attention when this happened, including myself, predicted something awful like this as a result. I was a computer geek with a business minor 6 years out of college when it happened and I predicted disaster from it then.

3. There is no magic in the $700B number that you and everyone else in a panic is talking about. Nobody, not me, not you, not Paulson, and certainly nobody in Congress has the first clue about the size of the problem or the amount of money required to give the needed liquidity in the market. The hairball that constitutes mortgage backed securities today is such a mess that I don't believe there is a soul alive today who can assess with any accuracy how many of those assets are massively or substantially overvalued. We know the amount of money needed to fix it is "a lot", but is that $100B done smartly (like the government has ever done anything financially smart) or $2T done stupidly (given that the government is in charge the more likely outcome). Nobody knows. That inherent knowledge in the financial institutions is the reason for the uncertainty that is causing the crunch. If THEY knew how under or overvalued the securities were there would be losses written off and the system would march forward. Instead, nobody will buy them at any reasonable price because they have no idea what they are really worth. The improvements the House Republicans drove to get the money put in play in increments requiring approval by congress was a very very good improvement for this reason and I give them great credit for that.

4. The "market" didn't speak today so much as people like you put a lot of people in a panic and they sold off when it made no sense to do so. You, my friend, are in this case, a part of the problem. We do need action but we need well considered action that is smart. The only thing worse than no bill is a bad one. If we don't get CRA reform it is definitionally a bad bill because in the current political climate this is the only chance we get to fix it. Although I will admit today's bill wasn't horrible and would likely have been a short and mid term win, it was a bad bill in the long run.

5. Yes, I lost a little money today, but very little percentage wise. As a person with more than 2/3 of his net worth in the stock market I certainly care about the health of the market. I would like to retire soon and the stock market is my vehicle to do so. That said, any person of 70+ like those you kept referring to today who has a majority of their assets in the market and doesn't have stop losses on it is crazy and should fire their broker. We have stop losses on all of our stocks and we are in our 40s. Exactly 1 stock, Apple, has sold on us through this whole downturn caused by the media, including you, and the politicians telling us that doom is around the corner. Doom is not around the corner. An ever tightening credit problem is upon us and that is a very serious issue but it is not a cliff we are going to fall over tomorrow if people like you would simply take a breath. This is not the viper whose bite kills in seconds, this is the constrictor who slowly crushes. Kill the constrictor at any point in the tightening and you live. Beat on it without killing it and it simply tightens its grip more quickly. The Paulson plan would have been a disaster and while the plan voted down today was a vast improvement to the original we are not dead yet and have a little time to pick the right instrument to kill the snake. Why aren't the people in the finance industry telling you that? Their personal jobs are on the block. Yours isn't and mine isn't so we should be able to step back and be a little more rational than those who rode this problem to their own personal wealth and now see that in jeopardy. I am sure your colleagues who are trial lawyers will balk at the idea of credible reform in their industry too.

6. If you don't believe we have any time then we are dead already. The Treasury has already admitted that it will take at least 2 months to get any substantive action once a bill is signed. This is not oil speculation, this is the credit market. There are quite tight rules around institutional lending that don't include waivers because the investment bank thinks the government is going to inject money 60 days hence. And that 60 is more likely 90 if you talk to people in the investment industry who are not paid to talk to the press, so if we were dead with no bill today we are most certainly dead already and just have not been informed.

There is no doubt that today's bill was a vastly better bill than the original Paulson fiasco. It had some genuine oversight, measured outlay, some reasonable protection for the tax payer in asset guarantees and no additional pork. I expected the bill to pass today and would not have been highly angered if it had. That said, any bill that does not fix the CRA cause is a band-aid. If you want to help, please use your great platform to explain to the politicians you have as guests and those who listen to your show that we appreciate the stripping of the earmarks and other protections put in, however, the single biggest thing any bill taking a crack at fixing the liquidity problem MUST have is a clause to revoke the horror that is the CRA. Putting the normal banking rule restrictions on Freddy & Fannie that the Republicans have proposed twice only to be filibustered by the Democrats would be nice too, but the revocation of the CRA is a must. As one of those taxpayers Nancy Pelosi and Barak Obama intend to soak some more if they have their way I am willing to go along with losing some of my real net worth in the form of the inflation any such bailout will impose once. I am at the same time young enough that I am aware that if the ultimate source of this catastrophe is not stopped I will be asked again my lifetime to bail out the congress' utter stupidity again. Fool me once.....

As a total aside, please continue taking only first time women callers for a while longer. I must totally agree that we are getting a perspective we rarely get that is valuable. It was a brilliant move on your part and one that I personally don't think has finished paying off for your listeners yet. You might even consider keeping a couple of hours a week that way forever.

your loyal listener,
mailgeek

Can we drill our way out?

2008-06-28T12:19:00.011-06:00

There is a lot of talk among pundits (both political and business) that say we have to conserve to get prices down. Others say we have to drill. Others yet that we need to do both. I have heard a lot of people say "We can't drill our way out of this problem!". They say it emphatically and with complete certainty. Others, and these people show an even greater misunderstanding of commodity markets, say the whole problem is future's traders (speculators if you will) and the artificial bubble they have created. Others demand the bulk of the problem is the falling dollar. Oil is traded in dollars, ergo it has to go up. Ask them a question that actually has to do with the answer and they are stumped?

do we have a world surplus or shortage of oil supplies?
how much reserves do we have and how does that compare to the world supply?
how does the future's market work?
is the cost of a barrel of oil going up in Pounds Sterling? Yen?
is US demand rising or falling? quickly or slowly?
if we could make 100mpg cars today how long before we convert the US fleet?
if we could magically move there today would it change the pricing trend?
does ethanol production from corn increase or decrease our oil consumption?

The world oil market is incredibly complex but the basics are simple. Yes, there is an artificial bubble caused by futures trading. Yes, the dollar is falling. Yes, worldwide conservation would help and we are a major consumer so we could help more than most other countries.

But, let us have some fun with math, shall we?

I went and got some data on 2003-2007. I normalized the data for you for graphing purposes and trend analysis so the graphs are not absolute. Absolute numbers are important to detailed analysis but normalized numbers work better for spotting trends. The first graph is hard to make heads or tails of because it is too busy but here you go. Let's compare price, US demand, Chinese demand, World Supply, World Demand, and World Shortage.

Not very interesting, so let's clean it up a bit. If our consumption is the cause, then price should correlate with our consumption. This seems elementary. US demand multiplied by 4 to get the curves in the same data range.

Hmmm. No correlation there. US demand is pretty flat, rising slightly but nowhere near the price. At times our demand was falling while price was rising and vice versa. How about we look at world demand?

That is interesting. Still not an absolute correlation but closer than anything we have seen so far. Since supply is falling in the US and rising only slightly worldwide maybe the cause is purely world demand increase? WARNING: Remember kids, correlation does not necessarily imply causation, we are just looking for correlations here. Then we have to go back and see if there is a causation at work.

Next let's look at worldwide shortage (demand - supply) and compare that to cost. In a purely open market these two things should correlate perfectly. If there is a shortage prices go up and a surplus prices go down.

UGLY! There is a nice correlation in 2007 but not so much for 2003-2006. So, we know we don't have a pure market (those of us with a clue knew that before we saw the graph). What else might be interesting to look at? I know, let's compare price to China's demand.

Well, buckle my britches! How in the world does China's demand correlate so cleanly with price? Is there direct causation there? China consumes less than 10% of the world oil demand. We consume almost 3 times what they do (4th quarter 2007 actuals: China 7.87, US 20.68, total world demand 86.62, all in millions bbl/day).

Answer: China's demand is growing rapidly. So is India's (I would have given you that graph but I couldn't find good raw data). The rest of the world cannot possibly reduce our consumption fast enough to make up the difference so the prediction is that without significant increases in supply the shortage is going to get much worse.

To put a big exclamation point on it for you let's look at 2003 actuals (China 5.58, US 20.03, total 79.61). So in 4 years our demand has increased by a little over half a million bbl/day. In that same time China has increased by over 2 million bbl/day. In that time world demand has increased by 6 million bbl/day. And, by the way, in that same time production has increased by less than 5 million bbl/day. Demand rising faster than supply triggers futures traders to drive up futures prices to stimulate more production. That is how the system is SUPPOSED to work.

The speculators are driving up a bubble. This is true. That bubble is based on a prediction that these trend lines continue. There are a billion Chinese and a billion Indians who are industrializing. I don't think we are going to get their oil consumption to fall. We may not be able "to drill our way out of it" if by "out of it" you mean $1/gal gas ever again. But folks, if we don't start drilling it is going to get much, much, much worse.

As far as we know the US has the largest reserves in the world. Many, like ANWR, the Dakotas and the shale deposits in the Rockies are labeled as "unproven". That is because the government won't let the oil companies go prove them. Turn those three spigots on and the assumption on the futures market would be that the trend line won't continue and price relief will start. Once the oil comes available the price problems would abate.

And yes, the falling dollar is a problem, and yes, we should continue to look for things like hydrogen cars and nuclear power to lower our consumption. All I am saying is that we will not get out of this headlock by conservation in the US or the US and Europe alone. The numbers totally obliterate that assumption. We would be able to greatly ease the problem in short order by starting to Drill Here, Drill Now!

mailgeek

* sources DOE Price and DOE Oil Markets

Hoping you had a Blessed Memorial Day

2008-05-26T19:20:00.002-06:00

Someone asked today a simple question. What does Memorial Day mean to you? I thought about it for a moment and responded as follows. To me Memorial Day is the day to realize that I won the "life lottery" by being lucky enough to have been born in the USA and others paid the price of the ticket. As I said in last year's post I usually have trouble writing anything I consider worthy on Memorial Day. This year I have not had the same problem. While I started this on Friday and am again not getting around to posting it until Monday it is for a different reason.

Unlike last year I can now say that I knew someone who died in a war in a US uniform. I will not say I knew him well, in fact I barely knew him. I must say I very much liked what I did know even before I knew he would die for my freedoms but I barely knew him none-the-less. I hope and pray that the following is a worthy tribute to him and his brothers and sisters well met. I will not use any names in case I fail. I barely knew the young man but he was clearly an extraordinary human being.

Last summer I was doing some business travel through Dallas and happened to walk upon a young soldier in uniform looking somewhat lost. I stopped and asked if I could help and he replied that he was just looking for some place to kill an hour or so before his flight out. "Come with me sir" was my immediate reply to which he looked puzzled so I added "we are going to the Admiral's Club which is by far the best place to be if you have to be stuck in this airport." I am still not sure if he was uncomfortable about my boldness in telling him to come with me or in my calling him "sir" when "he worked for a living" and I was old enough to be his father. I can't help myself in calling anyone in uniform "Sir" or "Mam" until they correct me with "Private" or "Sergeant" or whatever. They serve in my place with honor and are at least as deserving of the appropriate civil designation title as any civilian like me irrespective of their age or rank.

Anyway, apparently nobody had bothered to tell him that American Airlines allows military folks on travel orders to go into the Admiral's Club for free nor that even before this policy all you had to do was stand in uniform in the vicinity of the Club and somebody (like me) with a membership would come along and invite you in.

This all to leads up to how I had the pleasure of chatting with this Army Private for about 40 minutes in the relative quiet of the Admiral's Club. I told him to get whatever he wanted and he responded "I am only 19 so I can't drink". Since it's Memorial Day I will forgo my usual rant on how stupid that policy is and say instead that I replied: "Fine, soda is free but they have other non-alcoholic things and some entirely decent food, have whatever you like on me, it would be my pleasure". He seemed happy enough to sit and chat with me drinking his free soda and free peanuts from the bar.

The young private was 19, had a girlfriend with plans to marry her after his tour of duty and was hoping to have a career after the war as a paramedic. His MOS was a medic something or other (sorry I am a civilian) which he explained was essentially medic assistant and/or medic in training and that after a little more time in the field he would be a Sargent Army medic (this he explained with a large smile). It sounded to me like he was a medic, just not one who had earned the appropriately cool rank patch on his arm but I will leave that to those of you who know something about the military designation. He had spent about 6 months in Iraq and was headed back after a week-ish home for another 6-8. He graduated from high school with honors and immediately signed up because he felt the call to duty. His girlfriend and his parents were sad to see him go away but proud and supportive of his decision to enlist. He expected to be in Iraq between 12 and 14 months and then come home and get married when he initially left for war.

Before I left I handed him my business card and asked him to send me an email with his APO address so I could send he and his buddies a care package. Initially he seemed uncomfortable with this crazy old guy he had just met offering to send him stuff for free. I overcame this objection by pointing out that without people like him going off to war over the last two centuries I wouldn't have the opportunity to have a membership to a nice club like this. That seemed to work and he took my card and promised to send me an email with his APO address once he got "in country" and "settled in". I am not quite sure how one gets "settled in" in a war zone but that was what this young warrior said and I accepted it.

Several months went by and I did not hear from our Private. I had come to the conclusion that, like many others in uniform who I had made similar offers to, he would not be sending me an email with an address to get stuff to him "in country". Finally I got an email with a thanks for inviting him into the Admirals Club and my hospitality. I found this astonishing as he knew full well I hadn't spent a nickel on him other than a tip to the bartender but I simply replied with a request for what they would like. A couple of weeks later I got a reply that whatever I could send that would help to remind them of home would be great. He went on to explain how great the Army was taking care of him and how cool his buddies were and how, in an odd way, it was good to be back with his unit for the remainder of his tour.

I boxed up a bunch of books and ESPN's and gator aid packets and such as well as a hand made card with a note and promptly dropped it off at the Post Office in a flat rate box. The next day I sent him an email telling him that I had sent a package and to please let me know at some point on what date it had arrived to his unit so that I could gauge how long things took to transit the system. I received a response that he would let me know when the package arrived and how proud he was that not a single member of his unit had been so much as seriously injured on his tour in 10 months in Iraq and how high their spirits were. About 3 weeks later I sent him an email asking him if he had received it. A few weeks later I sent another email with no response, and then a third.

A few weeks after the third message I received a response to my email from the young hero's father. It was beyond touching. It brought me to tears. Our young private had received my package just a couple days before he died in an IED explosion. He had sent his father an email saying how astonished he was that a complete stranger sent he and his buddies a care package. His father thanked ME for MY KINDNESS. I found this overwhelming. I spent about $20 including shipping to let the young warriors fighting the fight that our government sent them to fight know that we loved and supported them and wished them well and this man, who had just lost his son, wants to thank ME for what I DID?

It gets worse/better. The man actually apologized to me for "taking so long to get back to me" because it "took him several weeks to get copies of his son's email messages in order to respond to all the people who were sending him well wishes". PLEASE! I began to cry. My wife came into my office and asked me what was wrong. It took me many minutes to get enough composure to read the email I had just received to her. She began to cry which started me up again.

Friends, we are blessed. We are blessed by heroes like this young private I met momentarily who do the right things for the right reasons. We are also blessed by those who can raise such warriors. We are blessed that they volunteer to possibly die young so that we may live to be free, old, fat, dumb and happy. And we are blessed whether we acknowledge it or not. Not only did this young man define America; his father, in a time when he would be totally excused by everyone from doing so, defined America. I very much wish I could have known he and his family better but I couldn't possibly be more proud of them and how they define our country.

On this and all Memorial Days, and each day of the rest of my natural life, I give thanks to the heroes that made our freedoms and liberties and economic possibilities possible and I proudly wear the title at home and abroad "I am an American".

God Bless America, God Bless Her Troops, and God Bless those who have sacrificed their lives, or a part of themselves by sending their loved ones off to battle never to see them again, for liberty and justice no matter what country they served for. But a special thanks to God for giving those of us blessed by "life's lottery" to be born in the USA for the many heroes He has blessed us with on this day that we set aside to honor them.

The great dusk hunt

2008-04-17T21:42:00.012-06:00

I get such enjoyment out of watching the Terrier go on one of his multiple hunts/night I thought I would try to catch some snapshots and share. You must understand that this dog lives to kill rodents.... mice, squirrels, rabbits, whatever. I missed a lot because flashes have such limited range and the little monster is faster than I am.

The exit...... we have a mission

Is there a scent on the walkway? Must find a trail to follow.....

It went this way....

I see nothing in the rose bush..... no leaves to hide behind yet.....

What the hell happened to the hose reel? The wind storms are getting fiercer. Maybe that's why the mice are all hiding.

Anything under the walkway?

I should definitely check the window well... I have no idea what I'll do if there is a mouse down there but it's always good to check.

Time to check under the deck..... being ever so careful not to step on Mom's plants

Something made a noise.... where'd it go

have fun all....... hope you enjoyed

It's not just sex

2008-03-11T23:36:00.002-06:00

I fear that the "it is just sex, it's a private matter" argument is coming again. I hold marriage to be a gift from God. The bond between the a man and woman in love is something incredible. But I don't want to legislate morality to the masses. I really don't care what people other than those in my immediate circle do in their bedroom with other consenting adults. That isn't true, I do care, I just don't want the government to stop them. Where children or animals or those incapable of true consent are concerned I think the government has a place. It has no place with consenting adults.

That said, the reason for ethics clauses in public office and higher security positions isn't about morality. It's about BLACKMAIL. What do you think the Gov. of NY would have done to avoid the information we now have being broadcast to us in every news source in the country? He may or may not hold onto his seat through his term but his long term career aspirations are over. He is from significant inherited wealth. He has immense power. He believed he would, in the future, hold even more power.

I, personally only have to think about what Mrs. Mailgeek would do (which is scary). Trust me, she wouldn't be demurely standing by me at my press conference. While I am sure there are people out there who would like access to private company information I have access to I don't see anybody sleeping with me to get it. But the Gov. of NY is a target, as are Senators and House members and Presidents and CEOs.

One might think that for the outrageous sums the not-so-Honorable Governor paid his discretion was guaranteed. We have example after example showing that this is not true. When public officials do things they don't want the public to know about they become blackmail targets and we, the People, become the victims.

This particular man is an almost guaranteed target given his actions. He made his career prosecuting a case that looks starkly familiar to the one he is embroiled in at the moment. So on top of the general outrage of the public and the susceptibility to blackmail that all politicians face he is a hypocrite with powerful enemies. And just as a bonus he has powerful enemies on both sides of the political isle. And yet we find ourselves tonight wondering if he will resign. If he doesn't resign, will the outspoken Republican leadership in NY succeed in impeaching him?

Folks, this should be a no-brainer. It should not matter what your personal views are on the legality or illegality of prostitution. It should not matter what your politics or party affiliation are. When people with immense power, entrusted to them by the common man, put themselves in positions where they can be blackmailed you should want them stripped of that power. To want anything else is to put all of us at the mercy of organized crime and unscrupulous persons in the "opposition". Once the Gov. is no longer carrying the power of the office his actions in a bedroom or hotel room are between him and his wife and his God. While he carries that power he is a threat to the well being of the common worker he has power over.

Political life should be a great honor sought by great Americans willing to avoid situations where their character can be called into question. Today, that clearly isn't true. In days long gone many of our senior politicians, on both sides of the isle, would have resigned. It wouldn't have been a question. When we fail to hold those in power to a higher standard than a construction worker or hair dresser we risk a level of corruption beyond anything money can do to our political process.

I will pray tonight for the Gov. and his wife and family that they may find peace and strength and love and survive this travesty that he brought upon his family as a stronger family. I will also pray that he steps down and moves us, ever so slightly, to a place where we can begin to trust those in power over our lives. He certainly does not need the job and those he wields power over today need the peaceful sleep at night. He will be replaced by a man who, by all accounts I have read, I disagree with politically even more that I disagree with him. That man, however much I disagree with him, is apparently not one subject to blackmail. He will be free to do what he thinks is best even if I totally disagree with it. And he was elected by the people of NY to do just that.

Kosovo independance & our embassy

2008-02-22T00:00:00.002-07:00

The more I read about the area comprising the former Yugoslovia the more I am convinced that I do not, and probably will not ever, fully understand it. There are Hatfield and McCoy hatreds in that part of the world that go back centuries. I was unsure if our intervention in the 90's was a good idea. Mind you, I was not convinced it was a bad idea, but given the folks in charge then and the fact that I wasn't convinced that it was clearly a good idea.....

That said.... what set of morons had to come together to put us in the situation where a bunch of rioters set fire to our embassy.

1. It may or may not have been a good idea to support the independence declaration but the fact that the proposed "constitution" was clearly written by the UN wonks and not a bunch of devout Muslims should have been a clue to withhold judgment until the dust settled. I am guessing the illustrious State Department was heavily at work here.

2. It should have been clear to everyone that there would be significant opposition in Serbia.

3. If we were going to be "out in front" and ignore #1 above we should have guarded against what should have been an obvious potential for violence against our embassy and put in place appropriate security measures to avoid being overrun by a mob of civilians armed with rocks, sticks and bottles. A couple of squads of marines, for instance, could have avoided our embassy being overrun. This would likely have come at a cost of a couple dozen pissed off civilian Serbian lives but there must be a cost to invading US sovereign territory because you are pissed off. I have been pissed off at Castro and the ChiComs for decades but it never occurred to me that it would be a good idea to try to ransack a Commie embassy in NY because I really don't want to meet my maker quite yet.

On the up side I have seen no reports of any embassy personnel being killed, kidnapped or harmed so maybe we did the non-confrontational thing of bailing out before the violence started. This is a distant second in the reasonable choice category. It really matters not if we should be supporting the Christians or the Muslims in their little Hatfield and McCoy history. We must defend our sovereign territory against invasion. We will have no standing to bring to bear to settle the violence in the eyes of the Serbs or the newly declared Kosovo state if we allow a handful of pissed off Hatfields to overrun our embassy and set it ablaze. Need one be reminded of how quickly Ackmedinawhackjob and crew bailed on their hostage situation in our Iranian embassy as Reagan was taking the oath of office? The people in that part of the world (regardless of religion and ethnic heritage) do not seem to understand compassion and empathy from Goliath but they seem to understand military strength just fine.

Michelle Obama's pride

2008-02-20T16:23:00.002-07:00

From the first report I saw on Michelle Obama's statement that this was the first time in her adult life she was really proud of her country I thought this was much ado about nothing. It was one of those platitudes/overstatements/etc that politicians and their supports say every day that don't mean much when you pull back the covers. I would agree that it was a stupid thing to say only because people (meaning your political opponents) can turn it into whatever they want but it didn't strike me as particularly offensive.

Today Dennis Prager invited black Americans to call in and express their feelings about it. Their take was an eye opener to me. Even one guy who said he wouldn't vote for Obama because he is a conservative said something to the effect that the mere fact that a black person could/might get elected made him feel better about this country even if he lost in the general election. This struck me. Odd.... troubling.... scary?

I have been all over this country and I just don't meet many white people who wouldn't vote for someone because of the color of their skin. There are a few bottom feeding morons in our corner of the human race, I admit, but there aren't many and we tend to marginalize them (read poke fun at them in public and smack them upside the head when nobody's looking). I would say that during this campaign I have heard far more people say they wouldn't ever vote for a Mormon than I would have ever dreamed and not a single person who has said the same thing about Sen. Obama's skin color. I believe that all of my white friends who lean Democrat are voting for Sen. Obama in the primary. I wouldn't swear to that but I am sure it is at least most if not all. We conservatives have known all along that white conservatives would vote for a conservative black person. We cheered at the appointments of Condi Rice and Gen. Powell and especially Justice Thomas. The antique media, the schools, most Democrat politicians and the race baiters constantly tell black Americans that we (white America) hates them and do things every day to inhibit their progress in our society. You'll never have a black president because whitey won't vote for a black. "The man" will always oppress you, unless you vote D that is.

Guess what America, in a 3 way race between a white guy, a white woman and a black guy who hold basically the exact same policy positions on everything Utah gave 57% of its vote to the black guy. I haven't seen a breakdown but I wouldn't be surprised that all 14 black people living in Utah voted for Sen. Obama but the minority vote doesn't get you a plurality in Utah. It might get you South Carolina but, let's face it, if Utah were any whiter it would disappear in the winter. Part of it actually does.

The left has been lying to you/us to keep you (black America) voting 90% Democrat even though a majority of you actually hold personal positions that are totally at odds with the leadership of that party. There is no other explanation I can think of. They have been lying to you and at least some of you were believing them. And yes, it is a lie and not a misunderstanding of the situation. I am a computer guy, not a sociologist, and I knew it. I guess I was shocked today because I thought you knew it too.

White people don't leave the inner city for the suburbs to get away from black people. They leave the inner cities because the inner cities have been in the exclusive hands of Democrats so long that it is a totally crappy place to live. Aside from the fact that I disagree with the Democratic policy positions you have to agree that giving any political machine total control of your city/state/country for decades will lead to big trouble. White people go to the suburbs to get away from crime and drug dealers and high taxes and terrible schools not to get away from a particular ethnic group or to live in an all white neighborhood. Ask any real estate sales person how often they get asked if there are any blacks in the area of the house they are looking at. We will admit there are blacks living in the suburbs won't we. I didn't ask. I don't think any of my neighbors did either. What's the crime rate, how are the schools? Those questions get asked. We asked about schools and we don't have and are not going to have kids. Good schools = good neighbors for the most part.

I will not vote for Barak Obama because I disagree with almost every policy position he has. I will be voting against him (assuming he gets the nomination) for the exact same reason that I would have voted against Billary or the Breck Girl. I am a conservative and I loathe socialist ideas. Give me Michael Steele at the top of a ticket and wild horses couldn't keep me from getting to the polls to vote for him.

Speaking of that, my fellow conservatives, how about we just scrap McCain at the convention and put up a Michael Steele/JC Watts ticket? I would be happier and we would guarantee that a black man becomes the next leader of the free world. We can all have a black man we largely agree with to back. And, finally, we will be able to tell the left to quite lying about this and have a concrete data set to point to: Everybody who voted pulled the lever for a black man for President of the USA. Everybody! Conservatives, liberals, independents, progressives, everybody!

Don't get me wrong, I am glad that there are now, apparently, a lot of black Americans who understand that we whites will, with very few exceptions, vote for a black politician they agree with. These are apparently folks who did not understand this a year ago. This is a very positive thing. I am just shocked that there were, apparently, a lot of Americans of any racial background in this country that did not understand this last year. Welcome to the enlightenment.

Could you now at least consider the proposition that Barak/Billary/Breck will tank our economy, castrate our health care system, feed the teacher's unions at the cost of your kids and possibly get us all killed? :-) I am only partially kidding there. The Dems have been systematically foisting this lie upon the country my whole adult life to get almost all of black America to vote for them like clockwork no matter how sad their candidates are or how good the Republican ones might be. If you don't believe that then check wikipedia for the 1980 election. Only 66% of registered Democrats voted for Carter while 82% of black voters did. That is an astonishing fact. No other group broke 60% and they split things by age, income, gender, religion, political bent, profession and level of education. Jimmy Carter was without question the worst president of the last century. Everybody knew that by 1978. For four years he gave us all stupidly high taxes, high unemployment, outlandish inflation, gas lines, unaffordable interest rates and race riots. And yet after four years of the tragedy that was the Carter administration 82% of the black voters wanted to send him back to the white house. Why? Because Carter was so good for inner city black Americans? Hardly, the economic problems and race riots were the worst in the inner city. Blacks were even more unemployed than whites by a large margin. By the way, Jimmy Carter is a biggot and everybody knew it then so there was no particular reason that blacks had to look kindly at him other than the D behind his name.

My fellow Americans of darker complexion: they don't need to give you anything or do anything for you because they count on your vote irrespective of what they do in office and you give it to them. Please just consider what else they might be lying about before you cast that ballot in November. It is a totally nice place over here with us conservatives. We will welcome you to our table of lower taxes, better national security, more jobs and school choice for your kids. We promise. Just give it a shot, you might like it over here better.

How big should the tent be? (Part 1)

2008-02-14T19:04:00.005-07:00

During recent chat sessions at Heading Right Radio (which you should all be listening to) Jazz Shaw asked an interesting question. I didn't write it down verbatim but it was something to the effect of "If the Republican Party wants to be a big tent, where is the edge of the tent? Which single tenet (or set of tenets) puts one outside the tent?"

It is a good question from the point of view of people who are conservatives in some spaces and more liberal in others. Jazz said he is a fiscal conservative and social liberal, for instance. Since the Democratic party leadership (not necessarily and I think NOT the typical Democrat voter) has been taken over by the far left they have a very, very small tent of folks allowed to run for significant office. For those people who are both principled and informed that means that there are many, many folks like Jazz who (I am guessing) disagree with many if not most of what the Democratic leadership represents. They also happen disagree with many of the ideas of the "movement conservatives".

The Republican party says it has a big tent so they should be peeling off many/most of those folks who would be voting consistently Democrat if that party were run by traditional Liberals (JFK/Scoop Jackson/etc.) instead of the current "Progressives" (read socialists/Marxists). Please bear in mind that I don't consider myself a movement conservative. I am certainly right of center (and by center I mean the real center of America and not the mythical leftist center the antique media portrays) but I have some leanings that vary with the traditional definition of a movement conservative. I am also not a "party Republican". I have voted for Democrats in local and state races because I thought those individuals were a better choice in that place and time. I would do so at the national level if I believed the Dem/other were a better choice or the lesser of two evils. I would call myself an independent conservative, YMMV.

So, how big is the tent or how big should it be? First of all I think there are really two, and maybe three questions there. How big is the net of ideas and inputs the party wishes to entertain? Secondly, how far from the center of the tent will it allow the standard bearer of the party to be? The first question may be further separated into where is the edge for members vs. the edge for state office holders, national office holders, etc. I am not sure that this is a distinction with a difference but it might be.

The first two questions, however, I believe offer a distinction with a difference. I know many people, myself included, that are very upset that John McCain will be the standard bearer of the party that is supposed to represent conservative views. He is, frankly, too far out of the center of the tent to be the standard bearer in the opinion of most conservatives. I only know a couple of folks who believe the party should not accept him as a US Senator and should have actively supported primary opponents. This is not, for instance, true of the former Senator Lincoln Chaffee. He was outside the tent completely while John McCain is just out from the center (IMO). It is acceptable to the vast majority of the movement conservatives that people who are in the tent but out towards the edge hold positions in local, state, and even national offices. The breaking point that peeves them is when the party nominates someone towards the edge of the tent to lead the free world. McCain has the added "benefit" of having poked the movement conservatives in the eye on many occasions which blurs the picture in his case but let us ignore that for now and try and focus on Jazz's, IMO, thought provoking question. I am not sure there is an answer but I think the thought experiment may be enlightening.

Next, in an attempt to come to an understanding of each other I offer a set of definitions. These may be more or less useful than those used by others but at least a defined set will (hopefully) avoid people misunderstanding what I am attempting to say and allow them to disagree in terms that I will not misunderstand.

First, the big categories. I offer a short description of how I use the categories of people on the spectrum. Please note that I am talking about the way people govern/vote/act and not what they feel/believe personally. Many people scoff at the idea of "I personally believe X but I don't want the government imposing X or restricting Not X". I do not. I hold several such views on very important matters. As a matter of political pragmatism I don't care how a politician feels. I care how they will act in their official capacity (vote/veto/appoint/etc).

It is, IMNSHO, frankly un-American to believe that all of one's personal views and choices should be imposed by the government. Our country was founded on "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and our society is defined by the trinity of phrases on our coins. These things are inconsistent with the imposition of any complete set of ethical and social standards on the society by force of the government. We can peacefully argue about where the lines should be drawn but I won't even entertain the argument that it is appropriate or Constitutional for the government to impose a complete set of strict norms, a.k.a. Sharia Law or Jewish Law or Christian Law.

Conservative - those leaning towards historic local/cultural tradition - in the US that means small but effective government doing only those things individuals cannot do well for themselves, preventing those things the populace finds abhorrent or that destabilizes or harms society but otherwise staying out of the way. Can be further broken into today's "movement conservatives", "Rockafeller Republicans", "social conservatives" and "economic conservatives" to name but a few.

Liberal - those attempting to preserve the intent of the framers (JFK/Scoop/etc) for our unique form of government - the framers were radical for their day but by no means socialistic. Where Conservatives are trying to preserve norms and allow experimentation only around the edges, traditional Liberals should be pushing the thought experiments of how to continuously improve society in larger and sometimes radical ways while still avoiding failed experiments like socialism and preserving individual freedoms. A true Liberal would as likely attempt getting the government out of something as getting it in. Today the only real contingent of these on the national level are called "Blue Dog Democrats" and most of those called that are not precisely traditional Liberals. The traditional Liberals now mostly call themselves conservatives but are not "movement conservatives". That said, I think many voters who call themselves Democrats are, in fact, closer to traditional Liberals. This group could also be further split into subsets like the Conservatives.

Progressive - far left socialist types - give the government most of your money and depend on it for everything, i.e. those in control of the Democratic Party now. Social norms are the largest place where government should have little say in your life.

Libertarian - far right with some leftish social positions, tiny government to no government - only enough government to avoid anarchy, get the government out of everything and leave me alone if I am not directly affecting anyone else

Populist - usually big government types but one whose ideas are fluid and whose governance is defined by opinion polls. Most successful populists seem to have a few ideas that are fixed but let the majority be fluid with the polls. I would call Gov. Huckabee, for instance a consistent social conservative but otherwise a populist. I would call former President Bill Clinton a largely social liberal who was mostly a populist. I would lean towards calling the current President Bush a national defense hawk and low tax conservative but otherwise a populist.

You can feel free to argue with these definitions and I welcome corrections that will aid the discussion, but my point is to make sure I am understood and not to get everyone to agree with my definitions.

Part 2 will be a breakdown of the key ideas on the national scale and where the various groups tend to fall in acceptance or rejection of those ideas. Note: not all policy positions tightly fit within or outside of any particular group. There was a time not long ago where it was Conservatives who were isolationist and Liberals who were interventionist and trade expansionist. That said, I will attempt to go through the things being discussed and where the bulk of any one group falls on that issue now. Once I have fleshed through those ideas I am hoping that it will be clearer in my head why there are so many folks who feel unrepresented by either party and so many others who support people who disagree with them on many of the most important issues of our time.

Good News, Bad News, Good News

2008-01-25T22:54:00.000-07:00

The first Presidential election I got to vote in was 1988. Ergo, this November I will vote in my 6th Presidential General election.

Good News:

For the first time I was looking at not 1 but 4 possible candidates that I would actually be happy not only to vote for but to work for. In the first 5 elections I was, like many people, voting for the lesser of two bad choices. I won 3 and lost 2 and constantly regretted not being a little bit older so that I could say that I voted for Ronald Reagan.

Bad News:

Two of the four are now out of the race. I really liked the records and platforms of both Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson. I never really thought that Duncan Hunter would be a viable candidate on the national stage. While I really like the guy he just comes across as a terribly boring bureaucrat. Fred on the other hand is an actor with charisma coming out of his ears. He had the ability to energize the base and independents and maybe (especially given the fact that all of the viable candidates on the Dem side are basically Socialists) center-left Democrats. I was very disappointed that he didn't seem into being President. I can't really blame him. He has a new family and a mother who is apparently in very poor health that he is taking care of. I cannot be upset with him that his heart just wasn't into working his butt off for a job paying less than he was already making that is 25 hours a day in a pressure cooker with where he is in his personal life. Such is life.

Good News:

There are still two excellent candidates left. Both Mitt Romney (my personal favorite for reasons I will get into in another post) and Rudy Giuliani are great candidates who I believe would make a great President. This should have been a Mitt/Rudy race by now. I really think Rudy messed up in being absent for the early primaries and staking all of his hopes on Florida. Only time will tell the answer to that (and if he pulls it off he will go down as a political genius) but either would get my enthusiastic support. Both are natural leaders who are strong on the things I care about for this election.

The other good news is that even the other possible candidates for the Republicans are acceptable (John McCain and Mike Huckabee) and will not make it hard to show up and at least vote for the least poor of the choices in the general election (again, especially since they will be running against a Socialist). Huckabee is weak and would probably get slaughtered by either of the leading Dems while McCain would have a decent shot at the general if he could just stop incessantly poking his finger in the eye of the base. I don't think either would have as much of a chance against either Billary or Obama as Mitt or Rudy but McCain would at least have a shot if he can behave himself.

Should Universities Allow Dictators a Platform?

2007-09-27T16:41:00.000-06:00

I didn't weigh in on the "President" of Iran being invited to speak at Columbia University. I am largely indifferent to anything being done on a US campus that refuses to allow ROTC or US military recruiters on campus. For that matter I am largely indifferent to anything done or said by people who don't grow up because they have lived their whole lives in school. At the end of the day the "You don't understand how propaganda works in dictatorships" crowd seems to have been right.

That said, did anybody notice the irony that while Columbia does not allow the US military on campus because of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy it happily invites a guy who runs a country that denies it has gay people and hangs them when it finds them? The only redeeming part of his visit was when the students laughed at the little midget when he denied they had gay people in his country. Even 20 year old liberal college students with no experience in the real world yet couldn't swallow that one without a chuckle.

I have often said that Columbia doesn't really care about "don't ask, don't tell" or they are morons. There is no other explanation for their "reason" for denying the military on campus. If they cared and had a clue they wouldn't allow US Congressmen on campus. The policy was not implemented by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on their own. It is a law passed by Congress and signed by former President Clinton. Thank you, most highly educated idiots, for proving my point. It is too bad that an insane two bit dictator had to play you like a bongo drum to prove the simple point, but I'll take it as one of the small victories out of your most recent fiasco.

If you are gay, female or Jewish and giving these people money voluntarily I feel for you.

Everybody with a clue and an internet connection or a satellite dish knew ImALittleWhackJob was an insane petty tyrant. Now they know that the Columbia University is a place of abject ignorance and apathy. Oh, yeah, almost forgot, they are led by people who are intellectually dishonest (liars for those of you with low SAT scores).

Reason #842 why I don't want Federal HealthCare

2007-08-13T16:41:00.000-06:00

Through several bloglinks I found this AP story on the Fox News site. It is a long piece full of history of the Mustang Ranch and ownership changes and laws about prostitution but I'll give you the three bits you need to know.

Conforte dealt mostly in cash and kept few records. By 1990, the IRS was fed up with his tax shenanigans and seized the ranch, putting the federal government in the unique position of running a brothel. It failed and the ranch was padlocked for the first time.
...
The IRS got its final say in 1997 when it filed a $16 million tax lien, followed in July 1999 with indictments of Conforte and principals in his shell company on charges including racketeering and money laundering. Millions of dollars allegedly were wired to Conforte in Brazil.
...
Four years later, the brothel's new owner — the federal Bureau of Land Management — put the once infamous painted lady in the desert ignominiously up for grabs on eBay. Lance Gilman snapped it up for $145,100 — adding the $100 in the final seconds of bidding.

So, if I am reading this correctly, this Conforte guy who was so inept he couldn't keep his books straight made so much money running the place that the IRS figured he owed them $16M in back taxes. The government not only couldn't manage to keep it in the black but sold it on EBAY for $145,100. If you can't manage to keep a highly successful business with few costs, a steady supply of experienced workers and a long standing and healthy supply of customers from crashing and burning in a couple years you are unbelievably inept.

You are entirely too inept to be in charge of my health care, which currently consumes almost 15% of the entire GDP. If we put the feds in the mix it'll quickly be double that. Healthcare is not ever going to be free. You have 2 choices before you. You can pay a lot for it in the private sector, select the mix of flexibility and choice to cost, and vote with your dollars when you are unhappy. The alternative is not better care for free. The alternative is that you let the government run it, get terrible services, little innovation, long lines, no choice and let the IRS take another 30-40% of your paycheck.

Yet another case where it is fair to say that our health care system sucks. However, it sucks less than the system in place anywhere else.

Today's "What's wrong with this Picture"

2007-07-24T12:28:00.001-06:00

Subtitled "Proof that John Edwards is being advised by idiots!"

Happy 4th to the Troops

2007-07-04T01:14:00.001-06:00

Happy 4th to all Americans and to the free world. I offer the following as my outlook on this great holiday of our country as I see it on this day. In times of relative peace our celebration of Independence Day is a celebration of the freedoms and liberties this "greatest country on G-d's green earth" affords us. In times of war, with young men and women dying every day to preserve those freedoms for us and for others around the world it should be something different IMHO.

Today I will thank the Lord above for the bravery and sacrifice of all the men and women who came before me and sacrificed their good names, their fortunes and their very lives to give me the freedoms and opportunities I have. This starts, but does not end, with the Founding Fathers of this great nation and their English forbearers who stepped outside of comfort to risk their lives for the concept of "government by the people and for the people". These concepts have been defended by brave warriors for over two centuries and on this day I promise to honor all of those warriors, past and present, who have given me the opportunity to participate in my own governance and to freely express myself on this blog and to participate in a free and open and powerful economy.

Happy Birthday America,
G-d Bless America,
May G-d Save the Queen,
Thank G-d that All Men are Created Equal and in His image,

Personal thanks to all of our Vets and currently serving Armed Forces. May this Birthday find you all well and in good spirits and may our prayers find your families the same.

Let's BBQ :-)

The Unkown Soldier

2007-05-29T10:18:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was Memorial Day in the US where we pay special respect to all those who have given their lives while in military service. I started putting together a post on Saturday, updated it on Sunday and scrapped it Monday, Memorial Day, to start over. I can just never get my thoughts down in a concise and complete way about this holiday. I have no problem on Veterans Day. For many years I have sat down at the keyboard and banged out an email to many of the vets I know thanking them for their service and the sacrifice of those they lost. Late Monday night it has finally occurred to me why Memorial Day is so hard for me to write about.

I don't know a single person who lost their life in uniform. To the best of my knowledge there are no such people in my small family tree within the USA. To my knowledge I don't have any friends or close coworkers who lost an immediate family member while serving. While I love programs on the History Channel and Ollie North's program about the incredible bravery of such people they are still anonymous to me. I suspect I am not alone in this but that fact does not make the awe and respect to which I hold the fallen any easier to deal with.

On Memorial Day I honor not only the Unknown Soldiers under the Tomb in Arlington but all of those who died with them in defense of this country and everything it stands for. We honor them and their wives and children and parents and siblings whose sacrifice is the reason we have what we have. We are humbled by their bravery and renewed in the faith that this country must be special to have produced so many true heroes in its short history. We are grounded in the fact that to keep this country free and special more will have to make that ultimate sacrifice. History tells us this sad fact. But we are also confident that a country that produces so many brave men and women who re-enlist for the purpose of going back to Iraq and Afghanistan to fight and maybe to die and be honored next Memorial day has not yet lost what made her in the first place. Honor.

To all of you out there who are the anonymous-to-me families of the fallen I say this. Thank you for the sacrifice and bravery of your loved one and the personal loss that followed. They are the reason this country is great and are not responsible for the shortcomings of the nation they died to protect. They, and you, are the brave that this nation is home to. May God bless them and you.

To all of you who have family in harms way today I hope they return safe and sound. While I hold the fallen in the highest regard it is a price that no one should have to pay and my undying respect is certainly not worth that ultimate sacrifice. I know they are willing to pay it but I think we have enough dead heroes for now. I am glad the congress finally approved the funding for the new V shaped armor on the vehicles they drive and hope it, and other advancements of technology and tactics, will save the lives of many of our brave fighting force so that next year we honor only those we honored this year. I know that hope is unrealistic but it is my prayer for this Memorial Day.

May all of the Unknown Soldiers rest in peace.

Sick of Tragedy Politics

2007-04-18T03:03:00.000-06:00

There will be time for adjusting policy from what we do or don't learn from the VT murders later. It should wait until the bodies are cold, the families have had their time to grieve and the University and Police have had time to gather the evidence and present it in a meaningful manner.

Yes, there are Second Amendment issues here. Yes, there are necessary questions about the actions of the University and Police. Today and tomorrow there are real people who need the support of the nation in allowing them to grieve. For them this isn't about politics but about a murdered son, daughter, brother, sister, boyfriend, girlfriend or fellow student or teacher. Both sides of the political spectrum seem equally guilty of this callousness and we all need to just step back for a few days and pray for those in grief.

I do understand the urge as I have it myself. As far as I know there is nobody involved with VTU that I know. Ergo, the disbelief and grief phases flew by for me. I moved almost immediately into intense anger. What we all need to do is understand that many of our fellow citizens are still in those two phases and give them a little respect and time before we engage in the inevitable politics this disturbed young man has thrust upon us.

It's Official, the Duke 3 are INNOCENT

2007-04-11T16:43:00.000-06:00

I have been watching this case more closely than most that the antique media cover over an extended period of time. Lashawn Barber has had the best coverage throughout IMHO. It seemed to me early in this case (or non-case) that there was a snake somewhere in the woodpile. I waited for some time before posting anything. My first post was 4/9/2006 2 way rape shield laws. I will quote it here because I still think this is the biggest issue not dealt with.

Great commentary on the Duke rape allegation case at DukeNewSense. (HT: Powerline) It really just isn't at all clear what happened here. What is clear is that the reputations of a bunch of college kids is severely damaged even if it is eventually "proven" that no crime was committed.

I was all in favor of rape shield laws to prevent the press from trying the victims of rape on the evening news. I am becoming more and more convinced that, due to the nature of the crime, those laws should go both ways.

If they did it, publish the names after they are proven guilty, then toss them in jail. If they didn't do it their ID should also be shielded. Even the allegation of rape is a stigma no innocent person should have to carry around.

I would argue that if such a law were in place we wouldn't know these 3 young men's names and the amount of harm done to them would have been mitigated significantly. Also, the advantage to a monster like Nifong in pursuing what he had to have known were probably false and certainly unprovable accusations would have been reduced. If he can't use the names and faces of the "privileged white students" to whip Jesse "hymietown" Jackson and Al "Tawana Brawley" Sharpton into a frenzy to ensure that the vast majority of the local black population votes for him in his election bid, maybe this travesty of justice would have never occurred.

I then point you to my third and final post on this topic until today, 4/29/2006 Duke Rape non-case. I said that far back, 6 months before the election in question, that not only was Nifong's case in serious trouble but that if the case continued down this path he could be disbarred. If it was that obvious that early to a non-lawyer sitting half a continent away that these things were true I have two questions:

1. Why did it take almost a year to get these false and libelous charges dropped?
2. Why is Nifong's disbarment (technically disciplinary but I am optimistic) hearing not for another month and change?

Don't get me wrong, it is more important for justice to be served than swift but this seems insane to me. Hat's off the AG for having the guts to not only drop the case but to say that Nifong was wrong in pursuing it and that it was clear that the players were INNOCENT. (For my fellow non-lawyers who don't follow trials and such as much as I do trust me that this is a big deal. Usually you get "there is insufficient evidence to move forward" not "we are sure they didn't do it".)

That said, the AG got this handed to him months ago. Just the evidence we know about is pretty conclusive. The press have been covering this nationally not to mention the blogs. I would think that given the mess the case turned into that the AG would make getting to the bottom of it a very high priority. These boys were publicly accused over a year ago, denied a speedy trial and looked to all the world INNOCENT. I don't get it.

Final thoughts: I am not a big supporter of civil lawsuits for defamation but it seems to me that this is the case said laws were written for. I hope they sue both the DA's office and the University as well as the lying stripper, Nifong, the cops who conducted the illegal photo array, the idiot university president, the gang of 88 and anybody else they can think of and win at least 8 figures - each. I further hope that since the lacrosse coach had to quit/be fired that there will be 89 faculty openings at Duke real soon now. I know that last part is wishful thinking, but if I had a kid going there or was an alumni I would be very vocal about now.

We should all continue to hold these players and their families in our prayers.

John Wooden hospitalized at 96

2007-04-10T01:06:00.000-06:00

It sounds like he is doing well and will recover. May God be with him and his family. He brought a great deal of wisdom, joy and entertainment to so many.

Now that you are all mushy

2007-03-26T15:38:00.000-06:00

The SisB/LostWarriorPoet exchange wasn't over for me. There are commenters. One asks a question I had to think about for a while. Before reading that comment my position was easy and unchanged.

If you don't support the mission you don't fully support the troops and maybe you shouldn't. I didn't support invading Iraq as the next step in the war against Islamo-fascism. At the time it seemed to me that we should assist the Iranians in overthrowing their despicable government next. With a free (or at least closer to free) and stable Iran in the Middle East all sorts of good things become a lot easier and the cost to us to achieve that would seem to be much smaller. All of that said, once the President decided with the lawful, almost unanimous support of the US Senate and resounding support of the House to lawfully invade a country that had been openly and daily violating their surrender agreements with us.... I support the mission and the troops sent to fight for it.

All this drivel about "Bush lied" and "no WMD, no right for war", etc., etc. is just drivel to me. Two presidents ago Saddam illegally invaded his neighbor. We, along with our allies, kicked his aching butt back over his own border. We probably should have kept going then but the commanders and foreign policy wanks at the time advised the President that if Saddam agreed to certain things it would be better not to continue the war into Baghdad. Saddam agreed and our soldiers came home triumphant. Saddam then almost immediately set out to violate those terms. That is the ONLY reason we needed to legally invade. We had the right to do it initially and we retained the right to do it if he violated the terms of the agreements. Nobody but nobody claims that he didn't violate those terms repeatedly and continuously.

So where does that leave us. One can argue that invading Iraq wasn't the smartest thing to do but one cannot, IMO, argue that doing so as the President did, with the support of Congress, was illegal under US or International Law (if there is such a thing generally). One cannot argue that deposing a terrorist supporting, mass murdering, warmongering, oppressive thug and trying to build a democracy of sorts is immoral. So our troops are engaged in a legal and moral mission. So long as that is true they and their mission have my complete support.

Simple.

Now to the comment that made me step back.

Reasic said...
Sis B,

I respect your decision, however, I think bt brings up a good point. If the mission and the troops are always tied together, in terms of showing support, is there never a mission that is unworthy of support? If that were true, our President could technically invade Mexico and Canada, nuke Cuba, and we'd be left to support it, lest we do not show support to the troops. I think the two must be separate.
...

Leave aside the specific examples. If I thought the troops were, in fact, sent to engage (and I use that phrasing intentionally) in what I truly believed was an immoral war what would I do? I start by assuming that the Congress gave their support to it. They were dumb enough to give us McCain-Feingold and SOX recently so I can believe it would be possible under the right circumstances to get them to vote for an immoral war if there was enough pork spending in the bill.

Now what does your humble blogmaster do? I don't support the troops until they are home. I fight to replace the morons who voted for the immoral war with people possessing enough stones to cut off the funding immediately. I fight to replace the President with someone who will bring the troops home. I pray that as many of our troops as possible will return home safe and unharmed but I don't support their mission. And once we get the troops out of that immoral war I support them with all of my heart and means.

I had to think about this one for quite some time. How can I support the troops if they are engaged in an immoral war? I can't. I can support additional funding for the VA to care for the wounded. I can support additional funding to help their families while they are away in battle. I can love them and hope for their safe return but I cannot support them fully while they are engaged in an immoral war.

I don't think that has been true of any war the US has engaged in and I hope and pray that it never will be. There have been some wars that I thought were stupid and we shouldn't send our warriors. At the end of the day they were moral so I could support the troops in their mission even though I didn't think it was smart to send them in the first place. I would hate to think that I could not always completely support the brave souls who volunteer to fight and possibly die to protect my freedoms. I do, however, believe that scenarios could exist where I would have to refuse my support. I will fight hard to see that those scenarios don't become reality.

One final thought. Maybe it was stupid to invade Iraq. At this point I don't care. We did it. We broke it and now we have to fix it. The only analogy I see between Iraq and Vietnam is what will happen if we again listen to Kennedy and Kerry and quit. Millions of innocent people would die in the aftermath just like Vietnam. Pulling out and letting the chaos that would surely ensue rain down upon the innocent women and children of Iraq when our warriors are telling us they can fix it would be many things: bad foreign policy, unfair to our warriors, selfish, and yes, immoral.

God Bless our Troops.

Making it Real

2007-03-26T15:26:00.000-06:00

Been gone a while because the vitriol in the news and the utter insanity of D.C. has been self explanatory. Today I found something everyone in America needs to read.

Sis B is a military wife whose husband is currently in Iraq. She was one of those who "support the troops but not the mission". It is difficult for me to question that she supports the troops; her husband is one of them. She had enough of people (guilty as charged) making the generic statements that if you don't support the mission the troops are on then you don't support the troops.

What follows are 3 posts. SisB posts her position, her husband posts a reply, and she posts her counter-reply. You must read them all or you will have missed something very important. They aren't very long. This is the most honest and heartfelt and civil discussion of this topic and it almost brought me to tears.

SisB original post.

LostWarriorPoet reply.

SisB response to LostWarriorPoet.

God Speed to you both.

The Not Greatest Generation

2007-01-24T20:49:00.000-07:00

I am a huge fan of many of the Baby Boom Generation. My parents are among their legions. As a generation, and not necessarily individuals, I think they have failed to live up to what their parents passed on to them. I refer specifically to what almost every American generation has passed on to the next.... the desire that their children do better than they do and the opportunity to get there. The Greatest Generation (those who fought WW2) definitely passed on both that desire and opportunity to the Baby Boomers.

The Baby Boomers did accomplish much in the business world after they got over being hippies. That being said, they also failed economically as a group. Far too many Baby Boomers are actually or will actually be dependent on Social Security for their basic needs in retirement. I believe, and if anybody can find the statistics I would like them, that a significantly higher percentage of them will REQUIRE Social Security than their parents or the folks in the middle (does that generation have a cute name?). Many more of them had college degrees and other special training. They had a lot fewer children to care for than their parents. They made a TON more money but they didn't manage to save it. Why?

The Baby Boomers lived life for the moment after their "victory" in getting the government to break their promises to support the South Vietnamese after we pulled our troops. That only cost a few million lives so it seemed worth it so that we could tell some mother her son was the last to die for a war we quit on. They spit on returning vets. Then, as icing on the cake, the Boomers promptly gave us President Jimmy Carter, who promptly pardoned all those who ran away to Canada to avoid serving their country. Oh, yeah, and then he sent the economy into ruins and had the worst foreign policy of the century. But other than that he was a good little anti-Semite so many of them still hold him in at least mediocre regard.

When I look out at all the folks leading the charge (or should I say retreat) to break our promises with the Iraqis I see a pattern. I see a bunch of the same Boomers who thought it would be a good plan to bail out of Vietnam... the people who believed that Walter Cronkite was completely trustworthy. For those who were unfortunate enough to have gotten all their Vietnam news from one of these jaded Boomers there are a few things you may not know that you should. The US Military didn't lose the major battles in Vietnam. They had an enormous kill/loss ratio. Basically, they were kicking butt at every turn. The only reason the North wasn't flattened was politicians and generals at home who were afraid of the political impact of going on the offensive. BTW, you should know that the US kill/loss ratio is highly impressive in Iraq as well, probably at least 10/1. We aren't officially tracking but our boys in uniform have killed at least tens of thousands of bad guys over there.

I, for one, am sick and tired of the Boomers running the government. This is the oldest Senate in history. Outside of Barak Obama, who I couldn't vote for because he is a serious lefty, and John McCain, who I don't want to vote for because of his poor judgement with the gang of 14 and McCain/Feingold and other obvious lapses of good discretion plus the fact that he is approaching the age of senility.... ALL of the large group of people considering '08 are Boomers. How depressing! Can I please have a sensible moderate who:

a) understands that pulling out of Vietnam was a disaster
b) doesn't think back fondly on Walter, Haight Ashbury, free love or VW mini-buses
c) actually succeeded at something in the real business world - you know, the tax engine
d) at the very least greatly respects the military and preferably served voluntarily
e) really believes this is the greatest country ever and wants to make it better

Yep, that seems like a good list. It shouldn't be too much to ask that at least one viable candidate in '08 meets all five. I don't care if your divorced. I don't care what sex, color, religion or even sexual orientation you are. I don't care if you smoked pot in college or even if you went to college. The fact that this short list disqualifies most of the announced candidates we have in both parties is a little depressing. The fact that it disqualifies all of the Democrats is really depressing. Rudy might pass but I wonder about the free love/VW bus part and I suspect he reveres Uncle Walter. That leaves me with one "boy scout" governor who seems to fit the bill. If it weren't for the fact that he is a Boomer I might be able to get excited about his candidacy. He only has two flaws that I can see: he might be too conservative to capture the center and he is a Mormon so he loses some (hopefully small but I don't know) percentage of the vote on religious bigotry.

I'll be an optimist. Maybe the race will get my interest with somebody not being talked about yet. It is still more than a year and a half away. I think our previous governor in Colorado might be available.

Jacula is back!

2007-01-16T13:49:00.000-07:00

I wish I could take credit for that pseudonym for Jack Bauer, but it came from all quips 24, Dave Barry. After how badly my national election predictions went I am going to refrain from predicting that this season is going to be as good as seasons 1 and 2, but will say that the first 4 hours were WAY better than the last couple seasons have been.

If you decided to skip it this year because last year was so lame and knee-cap-shooting free, find somebody who taped it and catch up. Ok, so I am addicted, what do you want from me?

I have no idea....

2007-01-13T23:39:00.000-07:00

About a lot of things. The topic at hand, however, is a seemingly well intended project involving a lovely young lady named Gina. The project is Pinups for Vets. It involves you buying or gifting a modern replication of the old WWII pinup calendars to assist the troops. The calendar is tarty but tasteful, just like the WWII ones of such fame. I immediately had 3 thoughts about it (well 4, but the first one is obvious).

- I somehow doubt that soldiers in Muslim countries can post them in their barracks
- I somehow doubt that soldiers in a VA hospital are allowed to
- I am not clear on how much of the $$ you shell out goes to the charities mentioned

To solve 1 & 2 above maybe we need a calendar with girl next door head shots with big eyes and wide smiles. Or maybe we need to just let our warriors be men?

At any rate, a cute idea even if it doesn't solve all the worlds problems.

Tiger Woods named athlete of the year?

2007-01-13T23:18:00.000-07:00

Warning: Potentially Highly Offensive post ahead.

I will admit that I have no idea who the AP athlete of the year was last year or any year before hand. I will further admit that Tiger is legitimately the most successful individual competitor of the year given his incredible season. I further admit that Tiger seems like a fairly athletic guy (fit, slim, seemingly in great shape). But I have a problem with calling a golfer an athlete. Golf is a competitive game. To play at the professional level it is a very difficult and massively competitive game. So is chess at the professional level and we don't call chess a sport and we don't call chess masters "athletes".

Sports have an offense and defense. There is some other person or group of persons actively working to prevent you from scoring. Sports also require, or are at least highly assisted by, being in superior physical condition. They require running or some equivalent thereof, not driving a golf cart.

By man-rules, I hereby declare that the following are not sports and ergo the participants not athletes.

1. Golf
2. Bowling
3. Skeet
4. Trap
5. Pistol shooting
6. Billiards

I further declare the following athletic competitions are not sports due to the lack of a defender. Good practitioners are definitely athletes but they are not sports in the classic sense.

1. Weight lifting
2. High jump
3. Long jump
4. Shot put
5. All other track and field events which are done 1 competitor at a time
6. High diving
7. Synchronized swimming
8. Almost everything done in the X games except snowboard racing which is a sport and is fun to watch.

Badminton is a sport... a kinda weird sport, but a sport none the less. It requires a level of hand/eye coordination and you have both offensive and defensive components.

There is a real grey area for marathoners, sprinters, swim racers, etc. While there is no true defense there is at least a level of head to head competition in real time. I am happy to have them called sports even though I sucked at all of them.

Everybody clear?

Santa can now go back to driving his bus

2007-01-13T23:15:00.000-07:00

Some whacko in Long Island decided it was inappropriate for Kenneth Mott to wear a Santa hat while driving his school bus during the "holiday" season. After a brief fight, he won the right to wear his hat. Score one for little kids getting a little holiday cheer and harmless fun.

A Soldiers View of Why they fight

2007-01-13T23:14:00.000-07:00

If this post at Slaglerock doesn't bring a tear to your eyes you are either a heartless bastard or a lefty moron.

Silly String for the Troops?

2007-01-13T23:07:00.000-07:00

I would have never thought of this but some aspiring McGuiver in the US military did. It turns out Silly String is useful for detecting booby traps. I am now wondering how many cans of Silly String fit in one of those standard rate USPS boxes. Tammy has the contacts and details for those interested.

My National Predictions

2006-11-07T09:01:00.000-07:00

Karl Rove thinks the GOP will hold both houses of Congress. While admitting he is smarter than I on these matters and that I hope he is correct, here is my detailed prediction. I figure almost all of the pros will be wrong and most won't even be this detailed so I can't be embarrassed. However, if I am really close I look like a genius. All upside!

The House of Representatives will go over to the Dems without a working majority. I predict they take the House by 1 seat.

The Senate will remain in GOP hands with the Dems picking up 3 seats.

Get out and vote if you haven't.

Especially if you agree with my politics :-)

now that's funny

2006-11-01T15:08:00.000-07:00

HT: SondraK

townhall still broken on Mac

2006-11-01T15:06:00.000-07:00

I tried my townhall blog again. Totally doesn't work in Safari and is still very very painful in the latest version of Firefox. I could find no way to post an image and the help show icon buttons that simply aren't there. Ergo, I'll be here for a while longer.

More Voting in Colorado

2006-10-31T12:40:00.000-07:00

On to the Referendums:

Referendum E - extends the existing exemption from home owner occupied property taxes for 100% disabled American vets from any branch of the service. No brainer - YES!

Referendum F - changes some of the timing and rules around recall petitions and recall elections. After reading the referendum itself it is clear that it makes the amount of time to file protests, for the protests to be acknowledged and hearings chaired are now vague rather than explicit in the constitution more than anything else. These timings will now be set by statute rather than be explicit in the constitution. It allow recall elections to be had with a general election which seems fine, but why make the current explicit timings more vague? So I went to who are the sponsors and what was their reasoning. The state legislature is the sponsor which makes me curious. Many if not all referendums are technically started in the legislature but many are done with support or at the urging of some group. Not so here apparently. My general sense from reading several articles is three things. One, this will likely make it harder to get a recall election. Second, it puts more of the rules governing recalling elected officials in the hands of those very elected officials. Third, in the history of the state there has been only one state official (a DA) who was recalled. That said, there have been lots of local recall elections. KRDO has a great table showing the changes graphically but I am still a bit torn as I don't feel I understand the process well enough to judge the value or harm of this one so I am voting NO.

Referendum G - removes obsolete language from the constitution. It looks totally innocent to me and I couldn't find anybody, including the Libertarians, who are against it. I am voting YES on this one.

Referendum H - removes the ability of businesses to claim as expenses payments for labor services to anyone the business knew was an illegal alien at the time the payment was made. This will increase the income tax liability on Colorado businesses who knowingly use illegal aliens for labor. In theory, this sounds like a good plan. I am curious as to the real impact though. Will the state now send around tax agents asking workers for proof of authorization to work? Will this be used to target businesses who give money to a different party or a different cause than senior tax officials like? What will the cost or paperwork overhead be on a typical above board small business? It exempts payments to illegals that were hired prior to the referendum so my guess is that there is going to be some additional hassle or expense to hiring new people if you want to deduct their wages from your costs (DUH!). The referendum reads that businesses are to volunteer that they hired illegals but I am not buying it. I went looking for articles on this one. Go Google it. A lot of people have opinions on this one. The far right thinks it is a paper tiger and we should vote no. The far left thinks it is mean so we should vote no. The center seems split between people who think we should vote yes and accept it as a small move in the correct direction and those who think we should vote no because it just won't do anything useful. My brain hurts, I am voting YES on the theory that it looks to me like a slightly but not grossly flawed implementation of a small step in the correct direction and the business community does not seem to be up in arms about it.

Referendum I - establishes domestic partnerships in Colorado with all the rights and responsibilities of marriage. And when I say all, I mean ALL. I am not a big proponent of domestic partnerships as an idea but given the right construction I could vote for it. This isn't my idea of the right construction. While I think it would be a good idea for the state to make it easier for gay partners to get a document which guarantees things like hospital visitation, certain rights w.r.t. children of their partners, "spousal" privilege, etc, there are a few things which when lumped in with those rights makes me a no vote. Referendum I would give gay couples the same rights to child adoption. I have no issue with, and happen to know a great example of, gay couples lovingly adopting children that no loving, sound, married couple want. Those children are undoubtedly better off than they would have been in an orphanage. That said, infertile couples in this country have a shortage of healthy newborns up for adoption and a kid with a loving mom and dad is better off than the same kid with 2 loving dads or 2 loving moms. Referendum I also gives domestic partners exemption from inheritance tax and rights to pensions, etcetera in kind with married couples. The inheritance tax in particular isn't a big issue for me since I think it should be abolished completely but you should all know that this thing not only gives domestic partners all the rights with regards to each other that it gives to married couples but gives them all the legal rights from the state, the courts (right to sue over loss of a partner) and employers that married couples get and forces the state to treat married couples and domestic partners exactly the same. Even if you think that is a good idea you have to admit that it creates certain legal problems in that other states and the federal government don't recognize all of those rights so we get into "whose rules" problems in the courts which are expensive and divisive. I am a NO on this one.

Referendum J - is a companion to Amendment 39 and is more of an extension than a companion in that it allows the local voters to exempt their own school board from the provision. There are two problems with that. First, local voters have been suckered into stupid ideas by the local school board before. Second, that exemption from the voters is PERMANENT, with no provision to allow those voters to "fix" the exemption if they determine they have been suckered 3 or 5 years later. This is clearly a sneak attack to get a back door from Amendment 39. I might vote for the ability of the local voters to grant a 4 year, renewable by the voters, exemption if we see that the state board/governor's waiver provision in 39 proves to be ineffective in rationally exempting schools because of reasonable circumstances beyond their control. If you support 39 and want it to have teeth, you have to vote against J, so I am a NO on this one. It is solving a problem that I don't think exists.

Referendum K - is authorization for the state of Colorado to sue the federal government over the cost to the state of all the illegal aliens that the federal government has "allowed" to enter the state and not covered the cost of. While I agree that the federal government needs to do a lot more to secure the borders, suing the federal government is a monumental waste of time, effort and tax dollars. All sane citizens should vote NO on this.

Voting in Colorado?

2006-10-27T14:57:00.000-06:00

I am getting ready to go vote. I have been very absent on the blog (work and life stuff) and thought this would be a good topic to come back with. I promised I would blog on the plethora of amendments we are voting on in CO this year and I will do so. While I state my opinions on the amendments I thought I would do something different and also share the resources I found to make my decisions. That should be more important to you than my opinion and I hope it helps you to make your own (especially if you agree with me :-)

To that end..... here is the actual text of the propositions in PDF. Useful.

The Secretary of State's site has the official pointers to all the Amendments and Referendum.

I also like the Project Vote Smart web site for summaries and good pointers.

Amendment 38 deals with changes to the petition process, not the constitutional amendment process. The RMN had a decent article on it and PVS has info and pointers. There is a lot of legalistic text in this one that I am not sure I am parsing the same way the judges will but it all sounds like a good idea to me. I will be voting YES on 38.

Amendment 39 would force the school districts to spend at least 65% of its operational money on classroom instruction. PVS has a good summary. KRDO has a great pointer list of those for it and against it and that is as telling to me as the text of the amendment or the arguments for and against. When I found out that our schools were generally spending much less than 65% of my tax money they get on classroom instruction I was astonished. There must be a definitional problem here, right?

Included in "classroom instruction" is teacher and COACH pay, the cost of books and other materials used, the cost of the stuff needed to run the library, the salary of the library staff, any cost associated with a school field trip. My definition would have been more restrictive and I still figured it would be 70% or more. I wouldn't, for instance, have included paying coaches. I think sports are important and school should have sports available but in my mind that is extra, but just to be clear it is counted here.

Operational costs do not include the cost of building, upgrading or expanding the school or school grounds so that isn't the problem. We pay for all that from a separate pile of tax dollars so why are we below 65% of the rest of the money?

What isn't included in "classroom instruction"? I am sure there are lots of things but the big ones seem to be administrator salaries, nurses on site, site security personnel, janitorial staff, the electric and heat bills and the cost of running the busses.

If I have one objection to this it would be the cost of running the busses. That could be a problem for some of the more rural areas where the busses need to go relatively long distances per student. Busses are not known for being fuel efficient and there is little that a school district can do about the cost of fuel. That said, there is a process in the amendment that a school district can apply to the governors office for a waiver every year based on their exceptional circumstances. Hopefully that would solve this shortcoming.

I will not only be voting YES on this one but highly encourage everybody to do so. If you look at the list of the opponents they are the classic group of constituents who are worried about getting more tax dollars to the "schools" but not at all concerned with getting kids a better education. They oppose school choice and measuring the effectiveness of schools and, God forbid, teachers being forced to pass standardized tests in the subjects they teach.

amendment 40 is term limits on judges. I am for term limits on politicians and against them on judges. I didn't look at extended materials. I will be voting NO on this one.

amendment 41 is a government reform package. Every honest person would support much of what is in it. Wikipedia has a nice list of article links you can use to go see why so many people are against it. As always, I read the text first and my first thought was, this will make the free coffee from the local diner to cops or firemen illegal. I don't like corrupt cops any more than the next guy but can we all agree that this is just a courtesy to men and women who run the risk of getting killed for our safety for not nearly enough pay? What I didn't immediately think of was the big complaint I see in the articles. It makes it illegal for a civil servant's kid to take a private scholarship. I went back and reread the amendment and I have to agree that I read it that way, now that it was pointed out to me. Good idea, bad implementation, I have to vote NO on this one.

Amendment 42 is a state minimum wage amendment. I have to be up front and tell you that I am against the entire idea of a minimum wage. I am unapologetically a market forces kind of guy. That said, even if I liked the idea and thought it would be a good idea to raise the minimum wage in Colorado to $6.85/hour today I would have to vote against this thing any way. It forces an annual adjustment to keep the minimum wage up with inflation and there is NO process for anybody to stop it which means this thing is going on autopilot until another amendment repeals it. Just to put it clearly, if this thing had been in effect during the wonderful 4 years of the Carter administration we would have been increasing the minimum wage by more than 10%/year in the middle of high unemployment. Sound like a good plan? If you are sane you must vote NO on this one.

Amendment 43 is a marriage definition act. It is nice and short and directly to the point. "Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state." That is the entire text. It does not prohibit civil unions or create them, it just locks in the definition of marriage whether performed in this state or any other. I am in the YES column here.

Amendment 44 is making it legal to possess one ounce of marihuana if you are 21 or older. It further makes possession of same by someone under 21 a class 2 petty offense with a fine of not more than $100. For those of you who didn't go to high school, an ounce is quite a bit of weed. This does nothing to change the law on buying, selling, transporting across state lines, etc. It is a stupid idea undoubtedly written up by a pothead. We should either make weed legal or keep it illegal but this whole "it is legal to own but not to grow or buy or sell" is just dumb. It creates a nightmare situation for the cops and I will be a NO vote against the potheads.

I will do the referendums in another post when I have a little time.

September 11, 2001 Remembered

2006-09-12T13:34:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I started writing a post on this topic and it got stupidly long and emotional so I thought I would try again today in a different format.

On "The Path to 9/11" : What were the luny lefties all fired up about? The show clearly made the early Bush administration look as incompetent as the Clinton one. Of all the characters in the film I think Condi Rice was made to look the worst. I am sure there were inaccuracies but the bulk of the docudrama seemed to me to fit the known facts with reasonable accuracy. There was a lot left out but they had to compress 8 years down to less than 5 hours.

To the heroes of 9/11 and the families of those who died saving others: You made our nation proud and showed the world why this country is special. We will never forget.

To our national security leadership, the grunts who work tirelessly under them and the allies who assist them: Thank you for your diligent and successful efforts to prevent further attacks on our cities. May your success over the last 5 years continue ever more.

To our military members and their families and the warriors from other nations who fight beside them: Thank you for your service and sacrifice. May God keep you safe and guide you to quick success in your mission. As always this nation owes you more than words can say for continuing to preserve our safety and liberty.

To the luny lefties in the press and the government who continue to work against rational and legal action of the administration in fighting those who aim to kill us all: There is a special place in Hell awaiting you. I feel confident that God's judgment for needlessly placing innocent lives at risk will not be as kind to you as the New York Times editorial page.

To the fledgling democracies of Afghanistan and Iraq: Starting a civilized and free democracy is not an easy project. Look through history at how long and painful the process has always been. That said, it has been worth the cost for every nation on earth that has succeeded. Good luck to you. We all await the day when we can welcome you into the small family of independent civilized nations.

Finally, to the terrorists: If you still believe that Allah is going to bring you to victory and present another caliphate to you, consider the following. Our God gave us the Unites States Marines. You clearly haven't met any of them yet because you are still alive to read this. May you meet one tomorrow.

I think that sums up my thoughts on the matter.

Crocodile Hunter dies in freak accident

2006-09-05T01:29:00.000-06:00

Today a great man died. He was one of the most, if not the most, successful responsible conservationists to have ever lived. I feel great sorrow at this event. There was a great misunderstanding of this man IMHO. He did not put his child in great danger. He had an understanding of crocodiles that you or I cannot possibly fathom. I have always had a way with dogs. I believe this came from the first dog I had who was "Lassie" in real life who wandered into my parents' yard flea bitten and starving when I was a couple months old. She showed me her world out of a sense of gratitude and loyalty that is uncommon if not unknown in the human world. I am scared to death of crocodiles but I can understand from the experiences I had with wild dogs with my first dog how Steve Erwin could have learned to be safe with an animal set that I don't understand to the point that he did not see his "antics" with his young son as dangerous.

His death appears to be a completely freak accident. My wife and I fed young sting rays in the Caribbean in a tank and I have swum with large adults in the Pacific Ocean. They are very passive animals as a rule. I have taken rides on large manta rays but would have never attempted such an aggressive move with sting rays but more experienced or courageous divers than I do so every day.

I had what I am told is not an unusual mishap on a dive off the coast of California while fishing on scuba. I mistook a spiked fish with a protein based poison for an "indefensible" fish. I won't make that mistake ever again! I was spiked in the hand and the pain for the first few hours was highly unpleasant. The remedy proposed by the dive master on the boat was soaking in very warm water with meat tenderizer in it. The cable news coverage is talking about the warm water part but I personally believe the meat tenderizer which breaks down proteins is a benefit for us schmucks that get hit by protein poisons. Steve Erwin had no ability to recover because of the nature of his freak accident. The barb hit his heart. I got barbed by a smaller but similar animal and missed one dive on a trip through my own stupidity. He got hit by a freak accident and died almost immediately.

My prayers go out to his family and friends but in the same breath I will say that I hope his legacy is that more people with his skill set will step forward and promote responsible ecology protection and an understanding of the wild animals that we as a species must coexist with.

Some things never change

2006-08-17T17:41:00.000-06:00

One of those things is crazy liberals attacking Walmart. We all know that Diane Carman is one such crazy liberal whom the Denver Post sees fit to give a regular platform to. Her latest anti-Walmart piece is typical of the drivel and lack of knowledge of the real world common in inner city liberal establishments.

The piece starts as the standard "back to school" shopping cultural exam. It continues ad naseum for half the piece droning you into a bored lull. And then the first hard punch.....

The folks from the world's largest retailer - the same sanctimonious bunch that refuses to sell Jon Stewart's "America: The Book" and only started selling emergency contraception after legislatures in several states mandated it - stock some of the most tasteless, lewd, offensive back-to-school clothing anywhere.

She is implying (or should I say lying) that Walmart chose not to order Jon Stewart's book because he is a big lib or they don't like the politics in it or some such. The truth, which took me about 10 seconds to find, is that Walmart initially ordered the book (presumably knowing that Stewart is a lib) and then chose not to sell it when they discovered a photoshopped picture of the Supreme Court members nude inside. Walmart has a policy against selling anything that has nudity in it. They don't sell Hustler and they don't sell calendars of "artistic nudes" and if you put a naked person in your book they don't sell it. Walmart didn't CHOOSE not to carry his book, he CHOSE to make sure that his book wouldn't be sold in Walmart. And that isn't censorship, that is the free market.

Second, I absolutely love the attempt to use language to disguise what is being said. She uses the word "emergency contraception" as though Target has a drive through condom dispenser so you don't have to take all that time to go to the back of the store to find them and then wait in line to pay for them when you are all horney. Other libs like the term Plan B. Plan A1 is to take birth control pills for weeks before you start having sex. Plan A2 is to use a condom when you have sex. Plan B is to go ahead and have sex and then run to the store to get a quick fix pill. And before you send me hate mail about how important this is for women who are raped, I believe that emergency rooms should stock such drugs for dispensing to the small, although not small enough, number of such instances. Many do. The majority of "Plan B" is sold to women who were just irresponsible. Some of it is sold to women who used Plan A and it didn't work but that is as small a group as the raped women who need it. What she is really talking about here is making the morning after pills an over the counter medication. I already posted on what I see as the brilliance of Walmart's strategy on this drug here. And I may some day get around to blogging on what a terrible idea it would be to make this drug over the counter.

So what is lewd, outrageous clothing you are asking:

For starters, a vast inventory of beer T-shirts, including Coors, Guinness, Corona and Schlitz (Do they still make Schlitz?) is available at Wal-Mart, as if kids don't get enough beer advertising on TV.

So beer is lewd. I suppose you would rather kids wear T-shirts advertising French Champagne? As an aside, calling a Coors shirt lewd or obscene in Golden, CO is a hanging offense. But Golden is outside of the liberal dominated zone that I am sure Diane lives sheltered inside of so she probably doesn't know that.

And it gets better:

Among the T-shirts on sale for $6.87 are those hustling: "98% naughty, 2% nice" and "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, have no fun."

Many would say that I am an old conservative fuddy duddy. I am shocked and disappointed in what many people in this country allow their children to wear in public. For that matter I am shocked at what some supposed adults wear (or don't wear). If I had a daughter of school age who wanted to wear a shirt like this I would have no issue. It is a clean, mildy funny rebellion of youth. I see no offense here, particularly the latter one. Frankly, I would buy that shirt if they made it in my size for $6.87. I might buy 2 so that I had a backup when I wore out the first one.

And now we get to the punch line.

While these messages are hardly unusual for anybody who has spent even a single lunch hour strolling the 16th Street Mall, one particular item caught my eye as breathtakingly awful.

There in Columbine blue was a T-shirt sporting the words: "Welcome to the gun show."

I think it's supposed to be funny.

First, I can't imagine that Diane Carmen was shopping at Walmart. In fact, if she has any conviction to what she writes she cannot shop at Walmart. I don't carry an American Express card. I mostly stopped shopping at Target, except my phenomenal pharmacist who I just can't give up, after they kicked out the Salvation Army. The Denver area has no shortage of places to shop and if you hold the views she claims to hold about Walmart and still shops there she is a hypocrite. So I have to assume that someone called her attention to this shirt. She may have gone there to see it but she likely wasn't just shopping there.

Second, why would the people at Walmart headquarters (located in a small town in Arkansas for those of you who don't know) have any clue what a high school in Colorado's school colors are? I will grant you that it is possible that the shirt maker knew, but why would you expect Walmart merchandisers to? Or to care? They live a long long way from here Diane. Many of them have never been to Colorado except to ski or to visit Coors. It is also possible that the shirt was blue because blue is a really popular color. I would guess more than half of my T-shirts are either red or blue.

I will also grant you that the local store management in Columbine probably should have not put this shirt in the rack. When confronted the corporate management agreed.

"I don't know how that T-shirt got there," said Gail Lavielle, spokeswoman for Wal-Mart's corporate headquarters, who said that the biggest factor considered when making decisions about what will be stocked at Wal-Mart stores is customer demand - with the notable exception of censored books, music and Plan B.

That is too rich. First of all, nobody is censoring a book. Walmart censors nudity. Most mothers who shop at Walmart with their kids appreciate that I would guess. Second, the biggest argument against stocking "Plan B" is customer demand. It has to be prestocked because women can't wait for it to be delivered to the store and there just isn't that much of it sold, particularly to Walmart shoppers.

But the big lib goes further than that. Remember boys and girls, beer and guns are offensive.

Columbine High School principal Frank DeAngelis said no way would anybody be allowed to wear the gun-show shirt - or one like it - there.

"It would be insensitive to the community," explained Lynn Setzer, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County School District.

No kidding.

But Wal-Mart hardly gets a pass for letting the shirt slip into Colorado inadvertently. Honestly, try to imagine a high school in Michigan, Oregon, New Mexico, Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky, Arkansas - or anyplace in the U.S. - where the message wouldn't be considered cynical and insensitive.

Um, OK. You see, apparently unlike Diane, I have actually been to some of those places. I would start with Indiana, which she didn't mention but is between Michigan and Kentucky, but is where I went to high school. I can tell you that shirt would have been no problem. I highly suspect that is still true. I lived 20 minutes from Louisville Kentucky and saw shirts like that there too. I just polled a friend from Michigan. Ditto. The richest claim is that this shirt would spark outrage in Georgia and Arkansas. Have you ever been to a rural community in the deep south? Guns are part of the social order. Everybody has a gun so people don't shoot other people very often. They sell ammo at the local convenience store. I would be very surprised if a good student were sent home from a rural Arkansas public school for wearing this shirt.

Then she makes a grand statement that is certifiably untrue.

It doesn't exist.

I think what she meant to say is that she wishes it didn't exist. I would bet good money that it does. If it doesn't it is only because the liberal establishment has managed to corrupt the thinking of every community in the country. If you want to stop school shootings you are much better off banning Ridilin than banning shirts glorifying beer and guns.

Update: For a few minutes this post was up with an error that it is RU-486 that Diane is talking about. It is not. After walking downstairs it struck me that I had screwed up and I corrected the post.

Say Cheese

2006-08-17T17:37:00.000-06:00

Stolen from Sondra K.

Dennis Prager on CBS

2006-08-17T16:49:00.000-06:00

Dennis has recently dubbed CBS the "Communications for Barbarians Service" and I have to agree. His article on that topic and Mike Wallace's disgraceful interview with the dictator of Iran is worth a read. He lists a number of the questions that should have been asked and they are quite good.

I have a different take I want to express. There are lots of good questions but we all know that dictators don't answer hard or critical questions. This was an embarrasment for 3 main reasons.

1. Many people are asking what the rules of the interview were. CBS isn't saying. If the questions were prescreened or there were limitations on what could be said or asked CBS should say so. Frankly, if the questions were prescreened they shouldn't have done the interview at all. If there were other conditions that they were comfortable with they should tell us all what those conditions were. If there were no conditions they should tell us that (because most of us don't believe that would be the case) and they should be totally ashamed.

2. How can you give an interview to a foreign leader on a US network that is known to have kidnapped Americans and not ask him about that or put a clip of it in the intro or something? Isn't that little nugget of background important to an American audience?

3. If you have an interview where the interviewee refuses to give a direct answer to any of the "not totally softball questions" that you ask I think you have two choices. You either don't air the interview or you comment on the fact that this anti-semetic little monster wouldn't answer the questions. Airing the interview and pretending that it was something other than a political advertisement isn't a viable option. CBS bothers to inform me that their infomercials in the middle of the night are paid advertisements. This was an unpaid advertisement and should have been appropriately labeled so I didn't have to watch it a second time looking for the "news interview" that I never saw.

If anybody needs the interview and can't find it I digitized the video and have it in full, iPod video and audio formats. Send me an email.

Uncivilized thugs terrorize 2 yuppies in BMW

2006-08-17T16:44:00.000-06:00

Go watch this video. (HT: SondraK) As I was watching these two morons following some yuppie couple in their Beamer convertible seemingly for a very long time I was curious as to why on earth anybody would post this video showing to the world what idiots they are. The ending had me ROTFLMAO. The beginning is slow and uninteresting. Stick with it. Trust me. GO!

Raging Dave finds updated quiz

2006-08-17T16:41:00.000-06:00

And he admits he stole it from Kim du Toit so I am stealing it from him :-) Enjoy. Feel free to steal it from me.

1. In 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by:
(a) A salesman from Utah
(b) An construction worker
(c) A college student on Spring Break
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

2. In 1972, 11 Israeli athletes were killed at the Munich Olympics by:
(a) Your grandmother
(b) A Midwest auto-parts dealer
(c) A mom and her 6-year-old son visiting from Indiana
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

3. In 1979, the U.S. embassy in Iran was taken over by:
(a) A bluegrass band
(b) Dallas Cowboy fans
(c) A tour group of 80-year-old women
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

4. During the 1980’s numerous Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by:
(a) A family on their way to Disney World
(b) Jesse Ventura
(c) A Boy Scout Troop
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

5. In 1983, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by:
(a) A pizza delivery boy
(b) The UPS guy
(c) Geraldo Rivera making up for a slow news day
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

6. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked, and a 70-year-old disabled American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard by:
(a) A girls’ choir
(b) A hardware store owner
(c) A secretary
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

7. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a U.S. Navy diver was murdered by:
(a) A Marine officer with two weeks leave
(b) A plumber going to visit his mom
(c) A Catholic nun
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

8. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by:
(a) A college-bound freshman
(b) A cardiac surgeon on his way to Houston
(c) A waitress
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

9. In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed by:
(a) A starving actress
(b) A mom with a newborn
(c) Twin six-year-old boys
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

10. In 1995, a plot to blow up U.S.-bound international flights over the Pacific was attempted by:
(a) Hawaiian school kids
(b) A decorated Vietnam veteran
(c) Twin sisters on their way to Paducah
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

11. In 1998, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by:
(a) A local TV weatherman
(b) A dad and his two sons on a ski trip
(c) A widower going to visit his grandchildren
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

12. In 2000, 17 sailors died in an attack on the USS Cole (DDG 67) in Yemen by:
(a) A child in a stroller
(b) A high school class on their way to visit Washington, DC
(c) Newlyweds on their way to Miami
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

13. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked—two flown into the World Trade Centers, one into the Pentagon and one into the ground in rural Pennsylvania. They were hijacked by:
(a) A retired police officer on a mission trip to Haiti
(b) A firefighter going to Maryland for training
(c) A paramedic on his way to vacation in Hawaii
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

14. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl and other Westerners were kidnapped and beheaded by:
(a) The Peace Corps
(b) Scottish clansmen
(c) Cuban refugees
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

15. In 2002, more than 330 hostages in Beslan and 130 hostages in Moscow were murdered in sieges by:
(a) American exchange students
(b) The Red Guard
(c) Church planters
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

16. In 2003 the United States liberated Iraq from “The Butcher of Baghdad,” but most American military personnel were killed by:
(a) Iraqi school-girls
(b) Street vegetable vendors
(c) Women without burkas
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

17. In 2004, more than 200 Spanish civilians were murdered on trains by bombs in Madrid, detonated by:
(a) Morning commuters
(b) A three-year-old Chinese girl
(c) Flamenco dancers
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

18. In 2005 more than 50 UK citizens were killed by bombs on trains in London, detonated by:
(a) Rail workers
(b) Those unable to hail taxis
(c) Wheelchair-bound grandmothers
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

19. In 2005, there were hundreds of casualties, men, women and children, killed by bombs in Jerusalem, Riyadh and Amman. These innocent civilians were murdered by:
(a) Construction workers
(b) Farmers
(c) Christian missionaries
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

20. In 2005, the city of Paris, and other European cities experienced an extended period of riots and destruction. The unrest was led by:
(a) “Youth”
(b) Soccer fans
(c) Catholic nuns
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

21. Since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, more than 2,500 Americans have been murdered by terrorists. 35,000 Iraqi men, women and children have also been murdered by terrorists. Most of the combat and civilians casualties were the result of bombs detonated in civilian population centers by:
(a) Portuguese fruit vendors
(b) Disgruntled transit union workers
(c) Nebraska schoolteachers
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

22. In 2006, hundreds of Israeli civilians have been killed by rockets launched by:
(a) the Salvation Army
(b) remnants of the ‘Jackson Five’
(c) the cast of ‘Friends’
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

23. In 2006, a plot to blow up 10 U.S.-bound planes from the U.K. was attempted by:
(a) members of the Royal Family
(b) Japanese tourists
(c) Metallica groupies
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

24. Since 2001, the FBI has reported that there are major terrorist cells still in U.S. urban centers. Several of these cells have been uncovered and cell members arrested. In every case, the terrorists cell members were:
(a) elderly Southern Baptists
(b) Lutheran Youth Groups
(c) Presbyterian ministers
(d) Middle Eastern Islamist males between the ages of 17 and 40.

Jimmy Carter needs a rubber room

2006-08-17T16:11:00.000-06:00

From his European "I hate America too" tour we have this report on the former president (HT:LGF).

I must explain that my heritage is 100% German on one side and around 75% on the other. I therefore have nothing against Germans as a people. I don't have anything in particular against their current government or their army.

That said, Jimmy Carter thinks it would be just peachy to have a large number of German soldiers in uniform on the Lebanon/Israeli border. As you all know I am not particularly politically correct. But you can't tell the Israelis that they have to stop killing the terrorists in Lebanon and retreat back into their own borders because we are going to PROTECT them by putting ARMED GERMAN SOLDIERS on THEIR BORDER.

Apparently the reporter couldn't believe the former President's answer either as he asked a very respectful follow-up to give him the opportunity to "clarify". His response to the follow-up was perhaps even more disturbing than the first lunacy.

SPIEGEL: Should there be an international peacekeeping force along the Lebanese-Israeli border?

Carter: Yes.

SPIEGEL: And can you imagine Germans soldiers taking part?

Carter: Yes, I can imagine Germans taking part.

SPIEGEL: ... even with their history?

Carter: Yes. That would be certainly satisfactory to me personally, and I think most people believe that enough time has passed so that historical facts can be ignored.

Perhaps we now have an explanation for the number of totally idiotic policy moves during those terrible 4 years. If a fact has a few years on it, it can be ignored!

why the anti-torture law was stupid

2006-08-17T14:20:00.000-06:00

There was a big debate not long ago about the legislation eventually passed by the Congress of the US banning the use of torture against anyone by any government employee. It further banned handing our bad guys over to people who have no such qualms. There are/were really two reasons why this legislation was a bad idea. Many people only heard about one of them. I will present the other first and the common one heard on the floor of Congress second.

Reason 1: While it is, and has been for a long time, the explicit policy of the US government not to use torture in interrogation many of the bad guys either

don't know that
don't believe that
believe that the "boots on the ground" ignore the policy and aren't punished

This can be quite useful for an interrogator.

Is the direct or implied threat of torture really torture? It certainly isn't if the bad guy is utterly convinced that the threat isn't real.

Different rational people argue about the usefulness of this tactic or its morality. I think it is impossible today to rationally argue about the second reason this was a bad idea.

Reason 2: There are cases where most sane people believe torture is justified. This is generally referred to as the "ticking bomb" scenario. The left, and I include John McCain in this group, scoffed this argument off as a "theoretical" scenario that they were quite certain had rarely if ever happened in all of human history.

Well, that "very rare if ever" scenario came up last week. From this Guardian article (HT: Powerline):

Reports from Pakistan suggest that much of the intelligence that led to the raids came from that country and that some of it may have been obtained in ways entirely unacceptable here. In particular Rashid Rauf, a British citizen said to be a prime source of information leading to last week's arrests, has been held without access to full consular or legal assistance. Disturbing reports in Pakistani papers that he had "broken" under interrogation have been echoed by local human rights bodies. The Guardian has quoted one, Asma Jehangir, of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, who has no doubt about the meaning of broken. "I don't deduce, I know - torture," she said. "There is simply no doubt about that, no doubt at all."

So, we all now know that there wasn't one ticking bomb but several of them. The claim is that the Pakistani government had a guy they knew, or at least strongly believed, had information that would lead to those bombs and they tortured him to get that information. And it worked! We live in a world where there are bad people intending to do great harm to us.

There will be a next "ticking bomb". What happens if the next time the guy with the information is caught by a New York beat cop instead of a Pakistani soldier? The left in this country refused to put an exemption in our wonderful new law to allow that scumbag to be tortured to get the information that, in this case, would lead to the saving of thousands of innocent lives. So the cop and his superiors have two choices. They can obey the law and let thousands die or they can torture the guy, save lives, then lock themselves in the jail cell next to him.

The same liberals who told us all that this "ticking bomb" scenario would never happen also assured us that if it did the torturer would never be put in jail. If I am not mistaken these are also the same folks that tell us that judges must inform jurors, incorrectly, that they must accept the judges instructions on the law and if the defendant broke the law as it is explained by the judge they must find him guilty. While I truly believe that the US system of justice is at least one of the best in the world, would you want to trust that some liberal DA wouldn't file charges against you and some liberal judge wouldn't allow that DA to stack a jury of Human Rights Commission members against you?

How about a jury stacked with antique media journalists? You don't think the journalists would convict a cop who saved thousands of lives? Read this last part of the same article:

But none of this stops governments acquiescing in torture to acquire information, rather than secure convictions, as British as well as American practice has shown. It has been outsourced to less squeamish countries and denied through redefinition: but it is still torture and still illegal. The former British ambassador to Uzbekistan has provided disturbing evidence of the uneasy boundary between benefiting from torture and encouraging it; so did the Council of Europe's report on rendition in June. The defence, to the extent that anything other than evasion has been offered, is no better than the one provided by Colonel Mathieu in Algiers: it works. But does it? Torture and other illegality can offer authorities a short-term seduction, perhaps even temporary successes. Information provided by torture may have helped foil the alleged airliners plot. But evidence provided uder torture is often unreliable, sometimes disastrously so - and its use always pollutes the broader credentials of torturers and their allies. This battle must be won within the law. Anything else is not just a form of defeat but will in the end fuel the flames of the terror it aims to overcome.

In the liberal mind because torture is generally bad it is always bad. There can be no exemptions or we wind up going down that "slippery slope" that our cops will begin to stretch the interpretation of the "ticking bomb" scenario to the point that they are torturing the neighborhood subway tagger.

I, for one, am glad they caught the bastard in Pakistan instead of New York or London. While I believe that the Pakistanis use torture as a general rule and not an exception, and I find that appauling, these 20+ guys were not deserving of the dignity of humanity and I applaud the use of torture to stop them.

It is a war folks.

War is ugly.

If you don't fight to win you lose.

Welcome back to 1937

2006-08-14T17:32:00.000-06:00

Can somebody explain to me why we allowed this insane UNSC resolution to pass? Has Condi been spending too much time with the pacifists at State or did she forget to pack her brain on her trip to NY? Unless this is a total head fake, which I don't believe but cannot entirely rule out, this is an awful deal for Israel, Lebanon and the western world.

What do I mean by a head fake? What does Israel do if their two soldiers are not returned alive and healthy? What does Israel or the "new and improved" UNIFIL do when the first rocket is launched from UNIFIL/Lebanese army controlled area?

PM Olmert is describing this as a pause between wars. Is that political ploy in the face of the unpopularity amongst Israelis of this result? Or is it a warning that he intends to take the gloves off if the soldiers don't come home followed by the disarmament of Hezbollah?

What the hell can the UNIFIL force do after the next Lebanese election when the terrorists will undoubtedly install a majority government? Southern Lebanon will then be controlled both by the elected leadership of the country AND a terrorist organization all at the same time.

And when is Mike Wallace going over to Syria where Nasrallah has been hiding to do his next "60 Minutes" "interview"? I really need to know how many kids he has and what he does with his spare time.

So it's 1937 all over again except the apologists are on color TV instead of AM radio.

Dry Bones on Lebanese situation

2006-08-11T14:14:00.000-06:00

This would be even more funny if it weren't so true.

Microsoft Security Oopsy.... I lost count

2006-08-11T14:09:00.000-06:00

If you are a techno-geek, go read this one from Computerworld. Then go buy an Intel Mac and Parallels, download Solaris 10 and you are set :-)

No, my employer did not nor did my friends at Apple put me up to that. I am just very happy with my new laptop situation and thought I would share.

For those of you who forgot

2006-08-11T14:03:00.000-06:00

The Facts about Isreal is a great post by Tammy Bruce with some of the pertinant tidbits some people like to ignore. Yes, it is one sided. I happen to be of the opinion that there is a right and a wrong side on this issue. No, I don't want all the Arabs in Gaza or the West Bank summarily executed and I am pretty sure Tammy doesn't either. The world gave the Jews back their homeland and we just want people to let them live there in peace.

Stewart settles

2006-08-11T13:53:00.000-06:00

For all the folks who thought that dear sweet Martha was only persecuted because she was a successful business woman and "THEMAN" was out to get her, consider this.

CEOs worth millions of dollars do not settle for just short of the maximum punishment possible on SEC charges and agree not to be a public officer for 5 years lightly. This is especially true with charges that are actually quite hard to prove. I therefore submit that I conclude that they had her dead to rights.

Technically, this is not an admission of guilt of a crime. Technically, anyway. It is worth noting that the rules of evidence in an SEC trial are substantially different than a traditional criminal trial. Saying that you are not guilty because the rules of evidence in a criminal court are quite restrictive for the prosecutor is a claim that rings hollow in my ears.

Egyptian Students Missing

2006-08-11T13:51:00.000-06:00

Does anybody think that maybe this story is somehow related (directly or indirectly) to the liquid airline bombers?

Joe Lieberman and the fate of the donkey

2006-08-11T13:41:00.000-06:00

I intended to write a big long post on this when I had a few minutes and then I ran across Ann Coulter's piece this week. I can't top it so I'll just point to it. I am quite seriously considering writing Senator Lieberman a check which is sad because I don't agree with him on much and have never lived in Connecticut. That said, Lamont is an anti-semitic empty suit and we have enough utter embarrassments in the US Senate.

There are three paragraphs that just have to be plucked out both for their humor and their pointed truth of the situation. Do yourself a favor and go read the whole thing.

Gandy's support for Lamont must have been a particularly bitter pill for Lieberman to swallow, inasmuch as he has long belonged to the world's smallest organization solely to satisfy bloodthirsty feminists like Gandy's Orthodox Jews for Partial-Birth Abortion. (OJFPBA has just slightly more members than GBRFC, "Gay Black Republicans for Choice.")

.......

By contrast, Democrats were nearly split, with only 46 percent agreeing that America is generally a fair and decent country, and with 37 percent saying America is not a generally fair and decent country. Only 48 percent of Democrats said they thought that the world would be a better place if more countries were like the United States.

Democrats constantly complain that the nation has never been so divided, but consider that half of them think the statement that America is a good country is a divisive remark.

Airline Security Vent, part 27

2006-08-11T13:12:00.000-06:00

As you all know I do a fair bit of domestic flying so I have followed this latest revelation and the various government's responses closely. First I will acknowledge the great work done by the various intelligence and security folks around the world who managed to stop this group of 20+ IslamoNazis from blowing up a bunch of jumbo jets full of people. We now believe that at least part of the information used to track this plan down was the President's "terrorist surveillance program", once again proving that the whole kerfuffle over that program should now be officially over. We know that the Pakistan government helped which shows that they at least want us to think they are our allies. This is all goodness and light.

All of that said, what is airline travel going to look like in September or December? At the moment US airlines are not allowing any liquids on the planes and the Brits are not allowing much beyond your wallet and meds to travel with you on the plane. Yep, that's right, if I do a trip to Heathrow tomorrow for business I will have to put my $500 cell phone, my $400 iPod, and my $3000 laptop in the hands of the ever gentile and trustworthy "luggage gorillas" on the way back. Anybody see a little problem with this as a practical matter?

As another bit of info, consider that I rarely check a bag at all. I don't have official statistics but I would guess that on a Monday morning (the height of domestic travel here) well more than half of the travelers have not checked a bag. Do we believe the TSA can magically double or triple the number of checked bags screened and do it well with no notice? Are you serious?

I am not complaining about the now. The security folks are doing the only things they think they can and in the very short term this will be accepted by the traveling public. We will push off the trips we can and hope it doesn't last long. We will bitch in the Admiral's Club and the hotel bar but we will tolerate it...... for a little while.

Let's now compare a round trip flight to Tel Aviv on the world's most terrorist targeted airline to a country in the middle of a shooting war with a simple NY-London business trip. On my return from the war zone I will be allowed to carry my laptop and cell phone, my water bottle and my shaving kit on the plane with me. Furthermore they will HAND me a large sharp metal serrated steak knife to eat my dinner with.

Why? Any smart street cop will tell you that stuff isn't dangerous. Some people are dangerous and when you take away their guns they resort to knives and garottes and kitchen bombs. After seeing no substantial fall in violent crime after being very diligent about their gun bans England is now banning knives. It is insanity if you ask me. You get rid of crime by getting rid of criminals not by getting rid of stuff.

We have to start figuring out who the bad guys are and keeping them off of the planes and let the rest of us do business and pay taxes. The airlines need to rise up and start a marketing campaign that they be allowed to hire private security firms that will handle airport security with TSA oversight and be allowed to do it right. The frustrating thing about all of this is that it isn't a new, unsolved problem. Israel solved decades ago. We and Europeans are just to politically correct and/or stupid to model our airline security program after one that we know works.

There, I feel better.

Hacking Lebanese TV

2006-08-04T15:10:00.000-06:00

Yoni told Hugh on his show that the IDF had hacked Lebanese TV and was periodically running psyop ads. Powerline found one on YouTube. Go see. It is hysterical.

Happy Birthday Dennis

2006-08-03T10:17:00.000-06:00

I have been a regular listener of Dennis Prager's show for several years. When I say listener, I unfortunately mean that I record it on my computer and listen to it in the evening. My work tends to make it impossible to listen to the radio for any extended period during the work day. If you are in a similar situation then please be aware that both his show and Hugh Hewitt's are iTunes listed these days. I have a sneaky feeling that once they get this working well there will be a small fee for the service which is fine by me.

Anyway, Dennis asked for a Birthday present this year. He asked regular listeners to email him with a short note as to how his show had positively impacted their life. I decided to think about that for a bit, blog it, then send him a link. So here goes.

Dear Dennis,

Happy Birthday and we hope that you have many more years of prosperity and productive public life. In short I would say that your show provides me with a daily "Grandpa" dose. I lost my paternal grandfather when I was a young teenager and the other one just a few years ago in my 30's. I consider myself very lucky to have had 3 living grandparents into my 30s. Good grandparents provide a clarity and wisdom that we generally don't start seeing from our parents until well into adulthood if at all. In part I think this is because of the differences in roles that parents and grandparents play in our lives. Obviously part of it is because of the age and life experience differences.

You have more clarity than any radio host I have ever heard. You can walk someone unfamiliar with a topic through your own thought process with an ease and grace that is truly rare. In clarity there is wisdom. I will give an example that has reappeared recently with the Mel Gibson anti-semitic episode.

As a Christian I watched the kerfuffle over the "obvious anti-semitism" of the then unreleased "The Passion of the Christ" with amusement because of your early explanation. You had the opportunity of seeing an early version of the film before even most of the Christian screeners. I will not be as eloquent as you were in explaining the nuance of this but I will try to summarize the main points.

1. Jews and Christians sitting side by side in the theater will be watching two different films. Christians will be watching the a film of their Savior voluntarily dying on the cross for their sins. Jews will be watching a film of Jews killing Jesus.

2. Neither group is crazy. American Christians as a whole are not anti-semitic and are taught in their churches that the death of Jesus was not the "fault" of the Jews, it was a preordained event that was necessary for the salvation of the world. American Jews know their history well enough to know of the atrocities committed against their ancestors in Europe and the Middle East under the charge of "Christ-killers", particularly following the "Passion Plays" in Europe. They have every reason to be a little paranoid about this topic.

3. American Christians being inherently not anti-semitic would be unlikely to commit bad acts against their Jewish neighbors even if the film were blatantly anti-semitic. Furthermore, if the film were blatantly anti-semitic it would be a box office failure. With the exception of the idiots in the KKK and other radical groups who are already proudly anti-semitic the American Christian teaching is to fight anti-semitism not to be influenced to violence because of it. So even if #1 and #2 aren't true, American Jews have nothing to fear from their Christian neighbors or the film.

4. 1-3 are all about American Christians, not European Christians or Middle East Muslims whose history and teaching are different.

Now, whether you like Mel's movie or you didn't it is very hard to argue with the above. When the film did release I saw it twice and I own a copy. It was a highly emotional roller coaster of a film for me. There were no acts of anti-semitism caused by it in the US. Without your wisdom I would have been at a complete loss to understand why there were Rabbis on my TV telling me that this film was anti-semitic. I have Christian friends who saw the film and did not like it for very different reasons but I have no Christian friends who thought it was anti-semitic in the slightest. My pastor, who also saw the film in pre-release and arranged a showing for our church at a local theater, made the following point before the showing date, again paraphrasing.

"In the film you will see two groups of people. You will see Jews and Romans. Almost all of the Romans are bad guys. Some of the Jews are bad guys. Some of the Jews are good guys. Even excluding Jesus, who was a Jew, the best people in the film are all Jews. Mary, his mother, Mary Magdalene, Paul, John, etc. etc. are all Jews. This film is not about Jews killing Jesus, it is about the sacrifice Jesus made for you and for me."

That's good. That's probably pretty typical of what American Christians heard in churches across the country. It is clear and accurate. You were wise far beyond this simple statement because your clarity and ability to hear clarity allowed you to evaluate based on your own heritage and mine at the same time. Your wisdom then allowed you to articulate both sides clearly. This is a rare talent and you use it well.

I could give several examples like this every week. This one was special because I got to watch the rest of the country thrash about like a fish out of water because they weren't smart enough to listen to the Dennis Prager show every day.

I have tried with some success to apply the clarity you display every day in matters you don't discuss on your show. Every show gives me some little gem that helps me to continue this process of self improvement.

Happy Birthday sir and thank you for everything. May God bless and keep you and your family for many years to come. Your children were lucky. Your grandchildren will be very lucky indeed.

Bernie on Ann

2006-07-28T12:26:00.000-06:00

In this Newsmax column, Bernie Goldberg is quoting as saying many unflattering things about Ann Coulter. Why do people so hate Ann? I don't think Al Franken is either smart or funny but I appreciate that there are people who at least find him entertaining. I don't agree with much that Bill Maher says but I watch his show because I think he is funny. Why such vitriol about these people whose schtick is over the top? You either like them or you don't but if you take them literally you have a problem, not them.

To be fair, Bernie included Al Franken in his "100 People Who are Screwing Up America" and didn't include Ann. But why include either? Al Franken isn't funny IMO and he is a documented fib teller, but the handful of people who do listen to him don't carry any weight and are gonna vote a straight Democrat or Green party ticket whether there is or isn't an Al Franken. How is he possibly Screwing Up America?

I ride the short bus

2006-07-28T12:22:00.000-06:00

I am going to do something I usually don't do, post an entire post from another blog in entirety. I know some of you don't follow links and this was just too funny. The original is here.

Is Marriott a communist organization?

2006-07-20T10:48:00.000-06:00

Rantingprofs has a post railing against Marriott for banning smoking in all of their hotels. The good professor won't stay at another Marriott, ever. I have to both agree and disagree.

First the agreement points:

I don't see why this will "tip" the rest of the industry. Some chain has to want the almost quarter of the population that smokes staying there.

Our money's just as green.

You want to levy heavy fines against jerks who smoke in non-smoking rooms, do it. But this is absurd.

This is a legal activity. At some point this just gets ridiculous.

Now while I suspect that the good Professor smokes and I don't, I agree with all of the above. I don't think it has gotten riculous yet if we ignore the state bans, but in theory it could.

But here is the problem with her implication that this is bad business or imperialism. A very small percentage (more like 5% than 25%) of hotel patrons ask for smoking rooms. People who ask for non-smoking, including me, get pretty mad when we get stuck in a smoking room. People who ask for smoking get pretty mad when they get put in a non-smoking room. Further, the cost of maintaining a smoking room is higher than a non-smoking room and smoking patrons don't want to see a surcharge.

The Professor is correct in saying that as long as their are a bunch of folks out there who want smoking rooms there will be somebody offering it....... unless the government steps in. Her arguments are my problem with government imposed bans like the one recently passed here in Colorado. If we could have gotten some business people to have been smart enough to ban smoking in their restaurants we may never have seen a statewide ban. There are a lot more people who don't smoke and don't go to bars because they don't like the smoke than there are smokers who go to bars. There are a ton more people who are annoyed by smokers 5 feet away while they are eating. I don't want the state to ban a legal act in public, I would have much preferred to be able to vote with my dollars and let the Professor vote with hers.

It isn't imperialism when a business makes a measured business decision. That is an illegitimate charge/implication. There are two legitimate charges to be found though.

1. It may be imperialism when the government enforces social rules rather than letting the free market decide.

2. If you want to smoke in your hotel room, Marriott (and by the way Westin some time ago which is my now-favorite home away from home) have said they don't want your money.

Love you to death Professor, but you aren't really leaving Marriott, they have essentially shunned you. I highly suspect there are chains out there who will happily expand their number of smoking rooms to accommodate you. Marriott and Westin have simply said they think people like me are going to make them more money than people like you so they are catering to me. Holiday Inn or somebody will soon have a "we will guarantee you a smoking room if you want one" add out. This will be aimed at telling us both that they are looking for your business that Marriott has shunned.

Look, I know people who ask for hotels without in room Internet access. We stay in different places :-)

when you ban guns.....

2006-07-19T23:47:00.000-06:00

And murders still continue to happen, you ban knives!

The Brits are clearly one of our best friends in the world. I have a number of personal friends either there or from there. They are very much like us which isn't surprising. And then I read articles like this on and I think "who are these crazy socialist maniacs?".

Have you got the pencil registration system set up yet?

Senator Bayh says middle class leaving dems

2006-07-19T23:40:00.000-06:00

In this article I found on Newsmax, Democratic Senator Evan Bayh says that if he runs for President his centerpiece will be middle class issues. Not a bad strategy given how the Dems have been bleeding votes from this group. It is a good reminder that there are Democrats and then there are Democrats. One state's center left Democrat is another state's right wing Republican. I grew up in Indiana and while I have not lived there for a long time the folks I talk to there generally think this guy is pretty close to the center.

President uses veto pen for the first time

2006-07-19T23:14:00.000-06:00

This utterly blows my mind. The man has been POTUS for 5+ years and the first thing he decides to veto is a bill for federal funding of embryonic stem cell research?

Don't get me wrong. I think this is a monumental waste of my tax dollars. Embryonic stem cells have shown absolutely zero, zip, nada promise in curing anything. Unlike adult stem cell therapies and umbilical cord therapies which are actually curing real people with real medical problems every day there has not been a single person cured of so much as a hang nail with embryonic stem cells. The animal testing isn't even promising. It could turn out that embryonic stem cells will be able to produce cures not possible with adult or umbilical therapies. It could just as easily turn out that either by chance, our inability to understand, or God's design they will never prove useful. At any rate I want my medical research tax dollars to go to research more likely to produce real results than are possible with embryonic stem cells today.

That said, the Congress went to great lengths to ensure that the funding could only go to research on embryos that would be otherwise destroyed. This, in my mind, gets rid of the argument that you are destroying human life. I, personally, believe the embryos are at least potential human life if not actual human life. That said, the embryos in question would be destroyed anyway. I am not a medical ethicist, but how is this different that taking my kidneys, eyes and other useful parts after I am brain dead for use in the living?

So we are left only with the argument that it is a waste of tax dollars. In the grand scheme of the enormous waste the President has chosen not to veto, not to mention some of the stupid legislation that he has signed or allowed to become law..... how in the world does he choose today to finally find a veto pen?

Again, I am personally glad he vetoed it and that the House couldn't override. The problem is that he should have vetoed a lot of things he didn't. I just wonder, why the heck now? If he had been regularly using the veto pen this would be a non-issue. Given his lack of use of the veto pen in the past this is a huge political mistake IMO. The Democrats who were trying very, very hard to discredit themselves are now going to run around the country declaring that the Republicans have been overtaken by lunatic religious fanatics who skipped science class in high school. Never mind that there are no scientific indicators, let alone proof, that this research will lead to anything useful, the average American who does not follow the science will be persuadable.

Let's raise funds for a Howard Dean Network. Howard and Nanci and Cynthia 24x7x365, commercial free.

Yoni live-blogs the war in Isreal

2006-07-19T23:10:00.000-06:00

Yoni is a 20 year vet of the IDF now living in the states. His contacts allow him to bring you information that:

1. Isn't hitting the MSM at all.
2. Is hitting the MSM hours later than he blogs it.

He is an observant Jew so you can skip looking for updates from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown but the other 6 days a week his blog is worth watching when Townhall is up. I am not moving soon, it has what we call in the biz "issues" at the moment.

Dry Bones on serious issues in comic strip

2006-07-17T02:10:00.000-06:00

Today's Dry Bones reflects the almost universal feeling of the Israeli people to the extent that I can guage it.

Middle East Situation

2006-07-17T00:42:00.000-06:00

The situation around Israel continues to get more intense at this hour. The Israeli Prime Minister was almost hit by a missile over the weekend. War can be business for world leaders but when a missile lands close to you it tends to make it much more personal. I have spent a significant amount of time poking around the radio and the Internet. At this time I have the following things to report/ponder.

1. It appears that the 24-hour news cable stations were happy to ignore this story. Fox News seems to have been embarrassed by the blogs and talk radio into an appropriate level of coverage. That said, I have to agree with Rantingprofs that it is hard to take Greta very seriously as an "anchor" on any serious topic. CNN at this hour is covering the conflict but they are harder to take serious than Greta.

2. Thanks to Hugh Hewitt for a special Saturday show packed with knowledgeable guests on the topic and useful pointers to information. My local station that carries his show M-F did not carry the broadcast, much to my dismay. There is good news on that front though, Radioblogger has the entire 3 hours commercial free, which is how I listened to it Sunday.

3. I have to agree with Hugh that the system NZBear has put together to track local area blogs is the best resource on the net on this topic. Congrats to him for both having the idea and the ability to carry it out well.

4. I think back to the two Lebanese Christians I once worked with daily, although at two different times and places. Both lived in Lebanon during the previous occupation of southern Lebanon by Israel. One believed the Israelis, or at least their government, were evil incarnate. The other believed that the Israelis were committing rational acts of self defense that were unfortunately necessary because their country was ruled by lunatic puppets of the Syrian tyrants. I would guess the two who share a genetic heritage, a social heritage, religious beliefs and common experiences see the current conflict as differently as they did the previous one.

5. Let us hope that this ends with a minimum of injury and fatalities to innocent civilians. This is difficult given that IslamoNazis have a habit of hiding amongst innocent women and children and hiding their arms in churches and schools. When I was a young boy we had a very descriptive word for our peers who hid behind women's skirts after hurling invectives and it was not flattering. I, like many who would disagree with my position on this issue, believe that the Israeli response is disproportionate. In order for their response to be proportionate they would need to target innocent civilians which they have not done or Lebanon would not still exist. To the contrary the coverage I can find indicates they are going far out of their way to avoid civilian casualties while still managing to persecute their attack on the IslamoNazis responsible for the attacks on their people. Let us hope they continue to be disproportionate in their response.

6. For those of us Americans who care to be truly informed on world news the last few days have shown us that we were correct in our assessment that the antique media still doesn't get it. Let us hope they get their act together and start to show this major conflict fairly and as completely as rationally responsible.

7. What if oil goes to $150+/barrel? My 'next bench' alarm goes off when I consider this question. I drive much less than most Americans and I make a lot more money than most of them. I think it is an interesting question but I don't feel qualified to answer what that means to the average family in our country, yet alone the rest of the world. As we consider what we think our government ought to do or not do, advise for or against with our friends in the only mature democratic state in the area we must consider the impact on the world economy. If one is a moral person this cannot be the primary consideration but it must be a consideration. Iran appears to be neck deep in this whole thing and they are a major supplier of energy in the world. I believe the speculators have already priced in a significant amount of the impact of some disruption but if this thing continues to escalate we could see more increases at the pumps.

8. In the face of a major conflict precipitated by another group of terrorists having nothing to do with Iraq or US foreign policy why do we not have people in jail over the rash of leaks of classified material related to trying the catch these crazies before they kill more of us? How have we not had hearings in the Senate or House? I am not a lawyer and I don't play one on TV. Ergo, I don't know if we can throw a bunch of loons from the NY Times and other papers in the slammer for the indefinite future. There seems to be reasonable disagreement about that among people who are lawyers in real life. That said, it is infinitely clear that the leaking of these useful secrets from folks who draw a paycheck from my tax dollars is illegal. I want them in jail as soon as possible and for as long as possible. My preference would be to stick them in a cell with a guy who is at least 6'6", was a linebacker for SMU and whose mother was killed in the Twin Towers.

9. Can we allow Iran, who as I said earlier is pretty clearly neck deep in attacking an Israeli ship and long range missile attacks on her citizens, to go nuclear. I heard someone on the radio say something to the effect of "It will take Iran another 8-10 years to be able to produce a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on a missile". I was astonished. Did we use a missile to drop the only 2 nukes ever used in war? Do people really think the Iranian regime would have trouble finding a set of lunatics willing to use a 747 as a delivery mechanism on a suicide mission? Just as I am not a lawyer, I am also not a general. I do not have a good grasp of what the viable military options are. It is pretty clear that diplomatic options are a waste of time with the lunatics running that country. What is not clear to me is whether it makes more sense to help the overwhelmingly rational Persians take their government back into rational hands or to start dropping bombs. To assume we have a lot of time makes no sense at all. We produced the very first nukes in less than 5 years. To assume that after 60 years of technological advances in the world and dozens of nuclear countries, including but not limited to Pakistan whose senior scientist was running around the world selling info, a country with huge amounts of money and loads of educated scientists and scores of IslamoNazi fanatics including the leaders of the government will take twice that long to become a danger to the world is to be naive.

10. If you were the Prime Minister of Israel, what would you do? I considered that question and I didn't like the answer that I came up with. I have no dislike or animosity for the innocent civilians in southern Lebanon, the Gaza strip or the West Bank. My answer was not kind to their fate. I hope Prime Minister Olmert is smarter than I am. Assuming he is and that he succeeds in ridding the world of Hezbollah's ability to threaten it's neighbors, what does the new world look like?

Where the heck has Greg been?

2006-07-13T13:09:00.000-06:00

I had a very rough June. It was the end of our fiscal year and work was a madhouse. To top it off my rental car was busted into on a trip to CA. I lost my laptop, iPod, and a bunch of other stuff some of which I haven't yet gotten replaced. When I have a few more minutes I will post the details. It is a very funny story if it didn't actually happen to you. I am even more behind early this July than in a typical year.

I nabbed documentinginsanity at townhall.com but haven't had a chance to play with it yet. If I post there I will link to the post here. What they claim to be doing seems like a good idea but we will see if the technology is as good.

As I type this there would seem to be a significant likelihood of significant carnage due to the reaction of the Israelis to the rocket fire, border incursions, killings and kidnappings from the IslamoNazis (heard Michael Medved's explanation of that term and why he thinks it is most appropriate and think I will stick to it for a while).

hope all is well, hope you thanked a soldier on the 4th

more soon

Cartoon of the day

2006-05-15T12:22:00.000-06:00

DryBones chooses to poke fun at our latest NSA non-crisis crisis today. Very well done.

In the description he makes the following point.

It will be interesting to see how this Bush administration telephone story develops.

I would have to say that I disagree. I don't think it will be all that interesting. The liberal Bush-derangement-syndrome-infected antique media will continue to try and make this into some sort of illegal privacy crisis (carefully avoiding using the terms Eschelon, Echelon or Carnivore). The adults in this country have already decided that

this is not a big deal
there is no appearance that any laws were broken
the phone companies routinely SELL the very same information to marketers
FISA specifically allows the FBI to ask for this type of data without a warrant and REQUIRES the phone companies to give it to them (albeit it is not clear from FISA if the request must be narrowly tailored)
SCOTUS has ruled on similar issues in the past and found this type of thing to be kosher (word selection just for Yaakov ;-)
what the government, in the form of the IRS, routinely requires me to tell them about my life is FAR more intrusive than who I talk to on the phone
this information was leaked now because of Bush's choice for the next CIA director
attempting to attack the General on this one is going to be amusing to the audience but probably not the attacker
the antique media has yet again aided our enemies with information we would rather they not have just because they can

Humor for Today.....

2006-05-11T11:44:00.000-06:00

SondraK found this "white men can't dance" video at YouTube. I love physical humor and this guy is pretty good. At some point must go sign up and figure out how to splat these things in the middle of my blog rather than pointing.

Back to work.

Enjoy!

US alerting Mexico to Minuteman patrols

2006-05-09T16:26:00.000-06:00

From the "you have got to be $%#^@! kidding me" file, it was confirmed today that the US border patrol is informing the Mexican government of the time and location any time a non-law-enforcement person is involved in any way in the apprehension of illegals.

What moron came up with this idea? Put aside for a moment the fact that we know the corrupt Mexican government will tell their military to steer their potential border crossers elsewhere, this is akin to putting a target on the heads of these folks.

Look, we are all free to agree or disagree with what the MinuteMen are doing. But at the moment, they are American citizens who are on American soil doing absolutely nothing illegal. Are we next going to publish the home addresses of people who surf the net pretending to be kids and turn in potential child molesters? The Mexican military "accidentally" comes onto US soil on a regular basis according to some sheriffs in Texas. We know the drug lords often use the same routes that illegals seeking honest work use.

Do you know what the Mexican drug cartels could easily do with this information? Do you have any serious doubt that if the Mexican government gets this information that the drug cartels don't have it within hours, if not minutes?

If some of these people wind up getting murdered or kidnapped because the border patrol has this asinine policy, who should the family sue?

Some days, it just doesn't pay to read the news. I hope somebody asks Tony Snow about this tomorrow morning. Our beloved President needs to either force the head of the border patrol to change this policy or fire him and hire somebody with a clue.

Congrats go out down under

2006-05-09T10:33:00.000-06:00

The miners trapped in the small mine elevator for two weeks have been rescued.

Brant Webb, 37, and Todd Russell, 34, wearing yellow jackets and mining helmets with their lamps shining brightly, walked confidently to a large board and removed their name cards -- declaring they had ended their shift underground.

The Aussies are a proud and heartly people. Congratulations on the success of your effort and God speed to Brant, Todd, and their families.

Somebody should have told me!

2006-05-08T17:30:00.000-06:00

Apparently, the city of Boulder City, NV has some undeveloped land that it owns, as in 167 square miles of it, really close to Las Vegas. Some daring souls decided to put on the ballot a measure that would sell that land and split the profits among town residents. The land is worth billions of dollars and there are only 15,000 residents in the city. The city officials aren't happy (why, I have no idea). It is too late to move there and become an instant millionaire. Damn!

Economics 101

2006-05-08T17:07:00.000-06:00

First, I want to point you to the ever brilliant Walter Williams' latest article "Minimum wage, maximum folly". If you are too lazy to go read it, here are a couple of highlights:

The U.S. Department of Labor reports: "According to Current Population Survey estimates for 2004, some 73.9 million American workers were paid at hourly rates, representing 59.8 percent of all wage and salary workers. Of those paid by the hour, 520,000 were reported as earning exactly $5.15."

520,000 out of 73.9 million is 0.7% for those of you without a calculator. So .7% of 59.8% of American workers currently work for minimum wage. That is 0.4186 % of the working population. Or to put it in terms that your average house plant could understand, for every 240 workers in the US economy there is one poor soul working for minimum wage.

The U.S. Department of Labor also reports that the "proportion of hourly-paid workers earning the prevailing Federal minimum wage or less has trended downward since 1979."

So the market has naturally lifted once-minimum-wage workers to higher wages over time?

Professor Williams then goes on to make a brilliant point about how South African racists figured out what the effect was of having and moving a minimum wage and wonders how Oprah missed it. It is well worth a read.

Next, Right Wing Wackos found this chart:

If you look closely at the Social Insurance numbers you will see the folly in this idea that "while the economy may be growing, wages are not". Truly "Rich People" don't pay much in the way of Social Insurance taxes. Their money is made off of investments which are classed as "unearned income". You could explain away the Corporate and Individual Income taxes by saying that the upper middle class and "Rich People" are making out like bandits but the little guy is getting hammered. That cannot explain a 7.2% increase in Social Insurance taxes paid. Those are disproportionately paid by lower and middle class workers as a percentage of income. Above the cutoff point in the middle class range the tax falls from ~16% to less than 3%.

Think about this chart the next time someone tells you that people aren't getting raises. I say this as someone who made less last year than a few years ago. Some market trends are too high, some too low, but in terms of general economics you have to look at overall trends.

Eleanor Clift compares Hillary to Reagan

2006-05-08T16:17:00.001-06:00

I am not kidding you! You have got to read this drivel to believe somebody could actually write this with a straight face.

"He was a grade-B movie actor," she said, failing to mention Reagan's two terms as governor of the nation's largest state. "He had orange hair. And a lot of Republicans worried that he couldn't be elected."

"And look what happened," Clift said, referring to Reagan's two electoral landslides

One key difference, she said, would be Bill Clinton.

Another key difference might be that in one case "the party" was worried about whether their candidate, having been a two term Governor of California, would be slaughtered for having once been an actor and being old, particularly among midwestern and southern conservatives. In the other case "the party" is worried whether a candidate who is utterly hated by 40% of the public, all of whom "know" her, can be elected.

In all general elections "the party" worries about how their potential candidate of choice will fare in the general election. I am sure there were people worrying about FDR and his illness. Will some member of the press harp on it and ask the uncomfortable questions? How will middle America react? I wouldn't compare that to either Reagan or Hillary and to compare the two of them to each other is laughable.

I have to renew my appeal to my friends in the Democratic party to send Hillary up as the nominee. It is the greatest gift you could give us, unless you will reconsider Kucinich or Dean or Gore. There is a theme here, don't you think? Carter seems to be a leading "thinker", can we have him as the Democratic nominee?

Have another drink Eleanor, then bum a ride from a Kennedy.

Eleanor Clift compares Hillary to Reagan

2006-05-08T16:17:00.000-06:00

I am not kidding you! You have got to read this drivel to believe somebody could actually write this with a straight face.

"He was a grade-B movie actor," she said, failing to mention Reagan's two terms as governor of the nation's largest state. "He had orange hair. And a lot of Republicans worried that he couldn't be elected."

"And look what happened," Clift said, referring to Reagan's two electoral landslides

One key difference, she said, would be Bill Clinton.

Blazing Saddles Banned at LA High School

2006-05-08T15:55:00.000-06:00

While I agree that many high school students are not prepared to deal with "Blazing Saddles", the solution to that problem must not be to ban it. We have made them so politically correct that they cannot wrap their heads around satire? "Blazing Saddles" is my absolute favorite Mel Brooks movie for two reasons. First, it is amazingly funny. I look down my nose at anyone who doesn't get Mongo (played brilliantly by Alex Karras) jokes and I still don't get why we didn't see Clevon Little in a lot more leading roles.

But more importantly, as Professor Bainbridge aptly points out, the movie isn't racist, it is an anti-racist parody. What makes the movie work is how well it uses racist ideas to poke fun at racists.

What really got me about the story, however, was the reporter's description of Blazing Saddles as a "racist film." Nonsense. While Blazing Saddles pervasively uses ethnic slurs and stereotypes, it does so to lampoon racism. The worst thing you can do to bigots is to laugh at them, which is precisely what Mel Brooks does in this hysterical film.

There is indeed a problem with "Blazing Saddles" being shown in public high schools, but the problem is not with the movie. The problem is with the pitiful education these students have been given.

Robert's Court Brings New Demeanor

2006-05-08T15:48:00.000-06:00

An article in the NYT says that the quickness and frequency of interruption (both of the presenting lawyers and each other) has consistently subsided compared to recent years during oral arguments in the SCOTUS. I had the pleasure of sitting in the galley of SCOTUS for about an hour when I was in high school and even at that young age it struck me that the justices seemed to be making arguments rather than letting the presenters do so. I am not a lawyer, but this change would seem to be a good thing to me. (HT: BenchMemos)

Carter G. Phillips, one of the most active current practitioners, said the change had been so abrupt as to be a trap for an unwary counsel. "You have to be ready now to make some kind of affirmative presentation" in the opening minutes of an argument, he said.

When former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was on the court, he recalled, she asked the first question so quickly and so predictably that there was little point in preparing an elegant opening argument. "Now you might get three or four minutes" without interruption, he said.

Maybe I am missing something but even ideologic lefties would have to agree that this seems like a change for the better even if only in style and not substance. It will take a while to figure out how the substance has changed.

Bilingual Ballots - Bone-Head alert

2006-05-08T14:39:00.000-06:00

A bunch of Republic House members are being bone-heads. They have announced a proposal to ban bilingual ballots. There are two reasons why this is stupid, one of which is political and the other practical.

The political problem is that this will piss off a lot of legitimate US Citizens, some of whom only speak English.

The practical problem is ballot measures and initiatives. To become a naturalized US Citizen you are supposed to speak at least rudimentary English. I believe this is a good thing. But the practical reality is that even educated native English speakers have trouble parsing these things we are asked to vote on. To expect someone who learned English as an adult to be able to understand these things in English is simply not reasonable. I would rather print ballots in Spanish and wind up with more voters having the possibility of being able to express their will than be all nativist and have people voting for things they can't possibly understand.

Build a wall, fine employers, kick out people who rob/steal/rape/murder, figure out some reasonable solution to increasing legal immigration and leave the bilingual ballots alone.

General Hayden is a good pick

2006-05-08T14:03:00.000-06:00

I am not sure if General Hayden is the most qualified guy in the country to run the CIA at this point. I am sure that the reporters, Congresscritters, etc don't know any more about that question than I do. I am also sure that I like the fact that he was chosen.

We get to see the spectacle of moron Senators attacking a 61 year old 4 star while trying to appear properly respectful. This will be televised live for free. I would subscribe to pay-per-view for this one.
There is probably nobody better than the head of the NSA to finally put these stupid attacks about the terrorist surveillance program to bed, making the need to have a separate Senate inquiry moot and showing the detractors of this program look the fools that they are.
The CIA has failed the country more times than we can count over the last few decades. The result of these failures most directly impact the military. Having a 4 star General around to remind them of the consequences of their failed policies and reports must be a good thing.
Coordination between military intelligence and the CIA are reported to be poor. Who better to assist in fixing that problem than one of the military's own, much less a guy who was most recently running the NSA? There is an argument that this will result in the military intelligence guys gaining too much power from the CIA. I can see that argument in peace time, but my feeling is that would be a good thing.
I am not concerned about "undue influence from Rumsfeld". First, both men must follow the lead of the President. Second, what exactly can Rumsfeld do to a 61 year old 4 star? Block his future promotions? This argument seems completely without merit on its face.

Now, can we please have a reasonable proposal on immigration?

False Rape Accusations

2006-05-05T15:24:00.000-06:00

Betsy's Page points to Wendy McElroy asking the question of how common this is. I think it is a good, fair, and reasonably accurate post on the topic. I take minor exception to one bit of information and the way she uses it.

Politically correct feminists claim false rape accusations are rare and account for only 2 percent of all reports. Men's rights sites point to research that places the rate as high as 41 percent. These are wildly disparate figures that cannot be reconciled.

She then goes into a study of the percentage of cases where there is DNA evidence and what percentages of those cases are the accused a match. This is all very interesting and looks very similar to other data I have seen over the years.

There is just one problem. We have to separate what I would refer to as "false accusations" and cases where a woman was raped but she or the cops fingered the wrong man. The majority of rape cases are processed without DNA and at least some percentage of convictions involving DNA evidence are "false accusations", where a woman had consensual sex and then, for whatever reason, claimed rape later.

Statistics on these groupings are VERY difficult to ascertain. What I think we do know is:

a significant, and many people believe it is a majority, of real rape cases never legally file a complaint, yet alone get prosecuted.
some percentage of rape allegations charge the wrong person, mostly without any bad intent, and in such cases DNA can correct that if it is present
some percentage of mugging allegations charge the wrong person too and being mugged is less traumatic than being raped so one would guess that bad IDs are more common with rape than mugging
some percentage of rape allegations are patently false, made up out of whole cloth, usually as an act of revenge

Because of the nature of these things you can find studies putting the percentages of these categories from very high to very low. Ergo, you have to take each case on its own.

DWI without alcohol

2006-05-05T15:12:00.000-06:00

During the discussions everywhere about Congressman Kennedy's little altercation there was a question I had that I did not see answered. It is my understanding that the law about DWI varies greatly from place to place. We had warnings on the radio last summer about the fact that you can get a DWI and lose your license in CO if your allergy medications make you drowsy or otherwise impair your driving. Is that the case in D.C.? Betsy's Page dug up the answer. And the answer is yes. That being the case, if we are going to treat the Congressman like everyone else, he should be very glad that he can afford a chauffeur. He is gonna need one for a while.

I do not want to speculate about the how's and why's until we know more but the man has admitted to being disoriented while driving as a result of taking prescribed meds. With or without alcohol his actions would seem to fit the known side effects of those meds, so while he might not be being totally honest, what he has told us fits what we know for sure. As a result, I think he should be presumed to be being completely honest about it until we know otherwise for sure, his family's penchant for not doing so aside. As they say, one should not visit the sins of the father upon the son.

He has just announced at a press conference that he is going back to rehab. I sincerely hope that goes well for him. He should still lose his license for a while, but I hope he can get control of his addiction problem.

Today's bit of humor

2006-05-02T19:06:00.000-06:00

My phone rang a bit ago and a buddy asked me how I thought "the day without illegals" went. After I said I thought it had backfired and commerce mostly continued untouched, he hit me with the punch line I didn't see coming.

I thought the day without illegals went pretty well. I am trying to enlist support for trying it for a year!

I thought it was funny.

Giving Diane her due

2006-05-02T17:06:00.000-06:00

I have ripped apart a number of columns by Denver post columnist Diane Carmen. In general I find her work to be very poor. Much to my surprise I found a column by her today that is well written and told me about some things I was unaware of before reading the column. If you live in Colorado, go read it and be afraid, be very afraid. It is beginning to look like it might not be safe to turn on a TV here in October.

Assuming all these proposals make the ballot you will all get my take on them (if you care) before election day.

Are we headed to the USSC with NSA program?

2006-04-30T15:51:00.000-06:00

The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a suit against AT&T over a charge that the NSA installed a device in the San Francisco office in 2003 that they claim is illegal. The US government has asked the US District Judge to dismiss the suit to prevent the release of secrets.

In a "Statement of Interest" filed on Friday, the government asked U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to throw out the suit, saying the government "cannot disclose any information that may be at issue in this case."

This is clearly an "NSA international terrorist warrentless wiretap" case. We know all the case law supports the government but we also know that we are in the 9th Circuit. I predict we see this one go all the way up the chain to the USSC. Unfortunately, I don't think the court system moves fast enough to have that happen before the November elections.

Ray Ramirez, thank you for your honesty

2006-04-29T15:18:00.000-06:00

And your service. Mr. Ramirez, a Vietnam Vet, wants the high school students who hung the US flag upside down under the Mexican ones to be expelled. He also wants the district to sanction the administrators who stood by, did nothing to stop it, then slapped the kiddies on the wrist. (HT: SondraK)

Amen! From his lips to God's ears.

Dry Bones on Iran

2006-04-29T15:16:00.000-06:00

This is the funniest and most cynical cartoon of the week, by far. Go see.

You must be joking

2006-04-29T15:13:00.000-06:00

Iran was just put on the UN Disarmament Commission. And their first act was to denouce the fact that Isreal is also on the Commission. The world is upside down. When are we gonna kick that whole corrupt organization off of our prime NY real estate and build something useful, like office buildings and condos?

Duke Rape non-case

2006-04-29T15:07:00.000-06:00

La Shawn Barber has the rundown. It is really looking more and more like we are gonna see some defamation suits out of this one. The sharks are circling and they are not from the DAs office. Those lawyers are in the middle of the private sharks trying to figure out how to get out of the circle.

I feel some sympathy for Nifong. He was a white guy in a very black district that had a black woman come to him claiming to be raped by white guys a month before an election. He was in a very tough spot. If he didn't make this very public and it turned out the charges were valid and provable, he could have been in big trouble at the polls. He made the opposite mistake of making extremely public a very, very bad case and now may face disbarment charges if things keep going the way they have recently.

Is there a history of elected DA's getting disbarred? I would think that would be pretty rare.

Hot Talk on the Pulitzers

2006-04-29T15:02:00.000-06:00

Melanie Morgan hits the nail on the head in "Mary McCarthy's leftist ties", an article on the cabal between lefties in the CIA and the abhorant behaviour of the antique media. Conservative women aren't just more attractive, better wives, mothers and lovers, they are smarter than their lefty counterparts too. Just my $0.02. Go read the whole thing.

We love Ann

2006-04-29T14:59:00.000-06:00

Ann Coulter is a brash pundit but she does her homework. This week's column is the list of all the reasons why we are really having $3 gas and who voted for those poor policies. In her typical flambouyant and funny style she brings home the point that Republicans have not gotten around to pointing out to the short term memory public. It begins:

I would be more interested in what the Democrats had to say about high gas prices if these were not the same people who refused to let us drill for oil in Alaska, imposed massive restrictions on building new refineries, and who shut down the development of nuclear power in this country decades ago.

Go read the whole thing. Then send a pointer to 10 people you know who are pissed off about prices at the pumps.

Susan Estrich on Dem Strategy

2006-04-29T14:43:00.000-06:00

As much as I can't stand Susan Estrich's voice and most of her positions she is one of the few public figures on the Lefty side who has figured out that "the base" can't get you elected on a national scale.

The only problem, of course, which they don’t want to hear, is that Hugh is right about them. If you only needed 40 percent to win elections, it might be fine. But elections require 51 percent, and you can take all the stands you want in favor of hatred, but it doesn’t get you to that magic number.

The people in the middle, the people whose votes take you from the hard core liberal Democrats to a governing majority in this country, are increasingly concerned about the direction this country is going in, but they don’t question George Bush’s motives. They don’t think he lied to them intentionally, and they don’t have much use for people screaming about the fact that he did.

I think her 40 is high. I don't think either extreme base is any higher than 30%. The country is much more centrist than it was years ago and the extremes in the bases (particularly the left base) are more extreme than ever. I don't think there is 1 in 3 Americans who nod in total agreement with Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean. Nor do I think there are 1 in 3 Americans who nod in total agreement with Tom Tancredo or Pat Robertson. The biggest appeal of the Republicans to the center is that you have to go outside the leadership of the party to find extremists. The leadership of the Democratic party are THE EXTREMISTS.

The Republicans, whether you agree with them or not, have put adults in the leadership of their party, and don't invite whacko extremists to the State of the Union address to sit in the Presidential box. If the choice in November is a party I agree with on most things who are putting spoiled kiddies up for national election and a party I disagree with on most things who are putting up somber adults who take the world's problems seriously......

There is a conspiracy!

2006-04-28T11:49:00.000-06:00

To keep me from my morning news.

Both Powerline and Hugh are offline and have been for hours.

Same hosting company?

Denial of Service Attack by Kos Kidz? (Nah, they probably aren't bright enough, the CIA maybe?)

Hopefully, whatever it is it will resolve itself soon.

Update: Apparently there is a DoS going on with Hosting Matters, which hosts both Powerline and CQ (and I am presuming Hugh). LGF posted a handy dandy pointer to the discussion going on with Hosting Matters customers explaining things:

It doesn't really happen more often here than anywhere else, all things considered. I recall one NOC where they had a DOS of the week going on for close to six months. The target of this attack is not a high profile site, is not very well known outside of their own little circle, and otherwise is unremarkable. However, they've managed to irritate someone badly enough to have their site hacked twice and now they've generate this. So, as with anything that negatively affects every other client, we make adjustments. In this case, it means sending them out of the network so as not to impact anyone else.

Regarding the initial question: neither our own authorities (based on our experience with investigations of DOS attacks and other types of attacks) nor those in the country of origination are going to care about this enough to do anything about it. It's a sad fact of life.
__________________
Annette
Hosting Matters, Inc.
Superior service. Sensible price.

So apparently some minor customer of theirs has managed to royally piss off some foreigners. My experience with large ISPs is that there are many governments around the world who refuse to do anything about this sort of nonsense. And before you go jumping to conclusions, they are not all Islamocrazies or Commies. We are talking about Western European nations as well. Sad. Hopefully they will get a handle on it soon.

Update 2: Powerline and Hugh are back up. John claims the source of the DoS was Saudi Arabia. You can bet there will be no crackdown on the guilty party. Sad. Thanks to the folks at Hosting Matters for getting us our news back, I was forced to read the NYT today :-) It still sucks.

California gone nuts

2006-04-25T16:54:00.000-06:00

We are dog people. We spoil our dogs as much as any sane person. But do the people of Santa Clara really need their supervisors adding "guardian" to "pet owner" in their county ordinances? In what strange alternate reality does any rational person think this will change people's behaviors?

And, in another example of California going to the dogs, check out this article on a fight over a group of senior citizens to continue using their clubhouse once a week for a Bible study. I hope to one day have this kind of free time on my hands.

Vox Day on the future of education

2006-04-25T16:36:00.000-06:00

I often disagree with Vox Day, but he almost always lays out an argument for his position that you can follow. He does so on what he sees as the future of college education in this commentary, which I largely agree with. I particularly like the last paragraph:

Technology has an uncanny way of puncturing such structural vacuities. Already universities are flirting with various forms of Internet-based distance education, and once a brand-name university realizes that it is far more profitable to charge $1,000 per class to 10,000 online students than $40,000 in annual tuition to 1,000 on-campus freshmen without harming the brand, the next great revolution in higher education will begin.

Video iPod U! I love it. I especially love it for those of us who might like to take some classes that have crazy work schedules making it impossible to take traditional classroom classes. And I think it is already beginning to happen, although not fast enough for my taste.

Eminent Domain abuse resolution

2006-04-25T16:35:00.000-06:00

We should all do this, in all 50 states, and put an end to the foolishness.

Eliot Cohen on the disgruntled generals

2006-04-25T16:30:00.000-06:00

Eliot Cohen is a pretty well respected commentators on things military. What he has to say about the retired generals who are asking for Rumsfeld to step down in his Opinion Journal article is not kind, but well worth a read, especially for the generals in question themselves, IMHO.

Begin by noting that public denunciation will almost surely fail, because no president who thinks much of his role as commander in chief will throw the top Pentagon civilian overboard to please officers of any kind. If he did, he would establish the precedent that secretaries of defense serve at the pleasure of their subordinates, overturn the most fundamental feature of civilian control of the military, and neuter his own effectiveness in the conduct of national defense.

Even if ineffectual, however, these declarations do great harm. Retired generals never really leave the public service--that's why, after all, we still call them "general." They set examples for those junior to them in rank, and still on active duty. Imagine, for example, the disgruntled major in the Office of the Secretary of Defense deciding to subvert policy with which he disagrees by, say, leaking confidential memoranda to the press. "Not the same thing," one might respond, but remember that angry majors do not, for the most part, make discriminating moral philosophers. The retired generals have, in effect and perhaps unwittingly, made a case for disloyalty. Indeed, their most troubling belief is that an officer's civilian superiors--and the secretary of defense stands in the chain of command just below the president--do not merit the loyalty that they, as military superiors, would deserve and expect.

Go read the whole thing.

How much do you know about the US?

2006-04-25T16:28:00.000-06:00

A quick and cute little test. I got a 25 out of 30, missing mostly amendments questions. Give it a try! (HT: Four Right Wing Wackos)

Paterrico continues on his LA Times hunt

2006-04-25T16:25:00.000-06:00

In a very funny article on the comments on his post about Hiltzik's imaginary friends, Paterrico catches another member of the Times violating their code of ethics. Too much. (HT: LGF)

CIA Officer Fired

2006-04-25T16:21:00.000-06:00

This story broke a few days ago. I have still seen no announcement of an indictment? I hope they get 2, one for the CIA lady, and one for Dana Priest.

Has anybody else noticed that there has been no further proof of the alleged CIA prisons that Dana single sourced for her Pulitzer (spit) Prize winning article? Is it possible that this entire thing was a plant of bad info to track down some of the CIA leakers? Is the CIA really that organized? I would like to think so but somehow doubt it.

Pictures from the past

2006-04-25T16:12:00.000-06:00

SondraK has some old photos of "The Goddess (before SK) Sophia Loren". She continues to be both beautiful and classy. What happened to Hollywood? The rest of the cast of Grumpier Old Men were pretty cool too!

Band of Brothers

2006-04-25T16:09:00.000-06:00

Scott has an excellent post at Powerline that includes a quote from a letter from US Corporal Walter Gordon to the Mayor of Eindhoven, one of the towns that E-Company bled for in WWII.

On September 17, 1944 I participated in the large airborne operation which was conducted to liberate your country. As a member of company E, 506th PIR [parachute infantry regiment], I landed near the small town of Son. The following day we moved south and liberated Eindhoven. While carrying out our assignment, we suffered casualties. That is war talk for bleeding. We occupied various defense positions for over two months. Like animals, we lived in holes, barns, and as best we could. The weather was cold and wet. In spite of the adverse conditions, we held the ground we had fought so hard to capture.

The citizens of Holland at that time did not share your aversion to bloodshed when the blood being shed was that of the German ocupiers of your city. How soon we forget. History has proven more than once that Holland could again be conquered if your neighbor, the Germans, are having a dull weekend and the golf links are crowded.

Please don't allow your country to be swallowed up by Liechtenstein or the Vatican as I don't plan to return. As of now, you are on your own.