Fredd

Something rotten in Fishtown...

2012-02-08T11:40:00.000-08:00

After the beating Charles Murray took by critics of his book 'The Bell Curve,' in which he cited racial differences in IQ, he took a different tack this time around in looking just at the culture differences in white America over the last 50 years.

Denounced as racists over the controversial findings in 'The Bell Curve,' Dr. Murray and his co-author the late Richard Herrnstein cited massive amounts of data that decidedly proved their thesis, to the outrage of the left. In his new book 'Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010', Murray now points out the polarization of white classes over a 50 year span that is widening: the rich white folk living in 'Belmont' (Dr. Murray's rich enclave) have virtually nothing left in common with the poor folks living in Fishtown (Dr. Murray's ghetto for the white trash). He leaves out of the discussion any minority populations, and therefore avoids the cacophonous cries of 'racist' from the left this time around.

The disparate upper and lower class white cultures, Murray points out, have so drifted apart from their common roots in the Eisenhower era that the American way of life is coming apart as a result of this drift. Before this happened, all whites valued marriage, religion and voter participation, and now only the rich white folks in Belmont still value this, but keep these values to themselves.

He points out that the Belmont folks get married just like everyone used to in polite society, but not so in Fishtown, where illegitimacy is rampant. White folks in Belmont stay out of trouble, go to college and have jobs, while white Fishtowners end up in prison way too often, and subsist on food stamps and welfare. The reason he cites is that the American industrial base has virtually collapsed, leaving Fishtown high and dry, while those in Belmont figured out a way to thrive despite all of our manufacturing jobs leaving the country.

The conclusion Murray draws is one of dire consequences, should this rift continue to widen, but his remedy is that the Belmont rich folk need to reach out to the Fishtown downtrodden and show them the way.

Huh?

My conclusion is somewhat different than Murrays, although the facts he presents are pretty solid: indeed Fishtown and Belmont don't see eye to eye these days. However, nobody in Belmont is going to reach out and help anyone in Fishtown, lest they receive a beating or worse. This reaching out recommended by Dr. Murray is ludicrous, and the only obvious way that the downtrodden white folk are ever going to get out of Fishtown is for the government to stop subsidizing their existence there.

The folks in Belmont are living in Belmont for good reasons. They are self motivated to do the right things, to get an education and to earn an honest living. Many of them are prior Fishtown residents, but got some gumption to make things better for themselves. And staying in Fishtown was not in the plans. The government has thrown money at the Fishtowners to alleviate their existential problems, but has not required anything from them in return for public largess. Accordingly, these down and out folks simply stay down and out.

Once the government turns off the public trough spigot, I think things will turn around in Fishtown, Dr. Murray. A little tough love is in order, and not an outreach program from the producers in Belmont.

'Idiocracy' in the here and now

2012-02-06T07:58:00.000-08:00

Many of the 14 people who actually watched the movie 'Idiocracy', the flop released in 2006, recall the plot: a dullard is given a top secret hibernation treatment, and things go awry and he wakes up 500 years into the future, where he is the smartest person on earth. Seemingly, in those 500 years, people just got dumber and dumber, and in the fullness of time everybody on earth became idiots.

I find that plot entirely plausible in the here and now. We just got Bureau of Labor Statistics figures putting the U.S. unemployment rate at 8.3% in January, 2012, down a fraction from December's reported 8.5% (also a dubious figure) despite the economy dropping around 2.5 million jobs from December to January. The BLS cites 'seasonal adjustments' as the reason that this lower number makes any sense.

Sure, it makes sense to idiots. No matter how you do the math, that kind of unemployment rate is simply nonsense. But, fortunately for President Obama, the majority of voters in the U.S. seem satisfied with this number, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average shot up 150 points on this 'great' news. I am surrounded by morons, cretins, neanderthals, idiots, simpletons and fools.

I must be the smartest person in the U.S. right now. I must be living a real live 'Idiocracy' in the here and now.

Just on its surface, that BLS figure of 8.3% is ludicrous. Just look around you. Step outside your own front door and take a look left, and then right: how many of your neighbors are unemployed? How many 'For Sale' signs are there in the yards to the left and right of you? A lot, I would wager. And of those houses for sale in your neighborhood, how many of those are the result of foreclosures, owing to the previous owners' losing their jobs, and were subsequently no longer able to service their mortgages? More than you might think, I would also wager.

Take a trip to your local mall. Take a look around at how many vacancies there are in that mall. A bunch, I would bet. Does it feel like we are in a roaring recovery? It sure doesn't to me.

But then again, since I am the smartest person in the U.S., I am out of touch with how things appear to the run of the mill idiot that believes the BLS figures, or anything President Obama says on anything.

Newt Gingrich: book smart, but a social retard

2012-01-30T07:12:00.000-08:00

If we've heard it once, we've heard it a million times: Newt Gingrich is one smart honcho. Smartest guy in the room. Brilliant, a genius. The guy's brain is huge. Yeah, yeah. We've heard all of that. Lots of times.

And he's got the resume to prove it, too. He's got a PhD in modern European history from Tulane, and good ol' Newt can really mop the floor with anyone in a political debate. He's quick, and can really turn a phrase to get the crowd on it's feet. Yup, ol' Newt's one sharp fella.

But not so fast...

How smart does one have to be to know that cheating on your spouse (not once, not twice but many, MANY times) will ultimately stain your integrity? Most dunces know this, but apparently Newt is clueless as to how this works in the fullness of time. And how intelligent do you have to be to know that there are some things better left unsaid? Most of us seem to get this, but not Newt, oh no.

It seems that no thought swirling around Newt Gingrich's huge brain goes unsaid. An idea a minute, and some are great, some not so great. How about his latest great idea; let's start a colony on the moon. Sounds good. Well, maybe not.

Almost ALL of Newt's peers back in the heady days of the Republican Revolution in 1994 agree that Newt was a terrible leader. As Speaker of the House, he would call meetings nearly every day, and have a new agenda for each meeting. No follow up on anything discussed in the past, but always something new and fresh at the meetings. Nobody could keep track of all of Newt's initiatives, and his freshly won majority soon descended into chaos.

Socially, Newt Gingrich is at best a retard. He's the guy who, after not seeing a female colleague for a few years and notices that the woman has put on a few pounds, will point this out to her right away. And I think we all know how much we love to hear from people we know tell us all about our weight gain. We just love that, don't we?

Newt thinks so, apparently. The guy can't maintain relationships. Not with his spouses, nor with members of Congress, and particularly with those in leadership positions. Dr. Tom Coburn, who was swept into office during the Republican Revolution, was part of that freshman class and recalls Newt's modus operandi back then. And he in no way supports Newt's presidential aspirations.

When asked why, Dr. Coburn tacitly defers from getting into detail about Newt, but simply reading between the lines suggests that Newt Gingrich as a leader has much to be desired, and seemingly stepped on so many toes, that not a single congressional toe went unstepped on. Accordingly, not one - NOT ONE - former or current member of congress who served under Newt when he was Speaker of the House is willing to come out in support of Newt today.

He may be the smartest guy in the room, but I would posit that he is arguably the dumbest politician to come down the pike in some time when it comes to maintaining personal relationships with anyone outside his family (not including people to whom he was married).

Newt may be book smart, but the guy's a social retard.

Wake up and smell the oil, Americans

2012-01-28T07:37:00.000-08:00

Spain, a cash strapped socialist country on the verge of bankruptcy, just announced that they are discontinuing the government subsidies to green energy concerns: they just don't have the money anymore to chase this Utopian idiocy.

Spain has for the past fifteen years spent an enormous amount of money trying to encourage its citizens to buy green, think green, spend green and breathe green. And now they are completely broke, after chasing this stupid dream for so long. They had to give up and smell the coffee - there is no economically feasible alternative to coal, petroleum, natural gas and nuclear energy. None. And it only took them fifteen years.

What lessons have we Americans learned from Spain's misery? We haven't learned bumpkus. Jack squat, zilch, nada, zippo. We as a nation still subsidize corn energy (ethanol), solar energy (the Solyndra's of the world), wind power, just to name a few of the offending dream energy sources.

And by subsidizing these Utopian dream sources of energy, we are spending TRILLIONS that we don't have on this futile effort. Like the Spaniards, we are told that we need to think green, to recycle our milk cartons, juice boxes, newspaper and the like. If you give this idiocy even a moment's thought, you will realize that all of this recycling we are doing is accomplishing two things: 1) giving the dolts who buy into the failed concept a feeling that they are doing their part in saving the planet, and 2) employing a guy (or two guys) for driving around all day wasting money and spending tax payer dollars doing it. That's it. That's all we get for our green effort, and it's not even arguable.

How much do you think it costs to have a guy (or two guys) driving a great big diesel powered recycling truck around picking up in your recycling bins what amounts to simple garbage? And maintaining that truck, and insuring that truck, and providing that guy (or two guys) a pension in their old age? Hmmmmm? And what do they produce for all of this? Recycled materials such as bags, floor mats and an endless parade of 'green recycled' products? How much would these green products cost to produce them the good old fashioned way? You know, buying raw materials and manufacturing the stuff. I would hazard a guess that it costs HALF as much as those recycled chatchkies that the greenies want to foist on us.

The chasing of green energy is simply a make-work program paid for by us taxpayers, and it's time we stopped flushing money down the drain chasing these simpleton, ineffective Utopian programs. Americans, it's time to wake up and smell the oil.

WAKE UP!!

Why indeed ARE Obama critics so dumb?

2012-01-18T07:11:00.000-08:00

Andrew Sullivan's latest Newsweek article 'Why are Obama critics so dumb?' will certainly sell some magazines with a title like that. And there's no doubt that Newsweek needs to do something to sell its products, as it has become a mere shadow of its former self, and sold for $1.00 not so long ago. And that was the price for the entire MAGAZINE and it assets (and debts), not just a single copy of this fish wrap of a publication.

I'm not sure if Mr. Sullivan is serious about that question, or if he is so blinded by leftist ideology that he can't fathom why a failing president as judged on almost every criteria mentioned would be questioned by his opponents.

But for the sake of argument, let's just go with Andy's premise: conservatives are dumb. We're all just dumber than a bag of hammers. Fine.

I would like to start at the beginning of Obama's record that is being called into question by us dummies. He walked into office in January, 2009 with a bag load of promises to fix an economy that was faltering, and an unemployment rate of around 6.5%. And of course, this ailing economy was all George W. Bush's fault, any dummy would agree with that.

We dummies would point out that the housing bubble that burst was all based on liberal policies, under the watchful eyes of Bill Clinton, Janet Reno, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, which essentially gave houses to poor people, never expecting them to pay for them.

Once this bubble burst, down went Lehman Brothers and the economy with it. Most of us invested in our retirement accounts saw our portfolios dip by as much as 50%. Trillions and trillions of dollars of asset valuation vanished in 6 months, and us dummies don't get it that it was the Republicans who caused all of this. Despite George W. Bush wanting to reign in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae from manipulating their nefarious real estate Ponzi scheme.

But we are too dang dumb to understand that it wasn't liberal policies that caused all of this mess, it was Republicans, you see. And Obama marches into the White House with a pretty bad economy, and what has he done to fix this, with promises of cutting the debt in half in two years, with promises of the unemployment rate never exceeding 8%?

Us stupid morons who criticize Obama's failures see a national debt spiral out of control in three years to the tune of $15.3 TRILLION dollars, up from what Obama called 'an unpatriotic' 9 trillion' dollar deficit left to him under the Bush administration.

And we morons on the right have no legs to stand on when we criticize Obama for failing to deliver on virtually any of his campaign promises, and watch while our credit rating on U.S. government bonds is degraded for the first time in over a century.

Yes, we are indeed the dumbest of the dumb, Andy.

'Conservatives' who attack from the Left: stupid or slimy?

2012-01-12T14:56:00.000-08:00

Got to be one or the other. Which ever way it turns out, this form of campaigning should eliminate the attackers from the race, as the GOP does not have the luxury this time around of putting an idiot or a slimeball into the White House.

Both Rick Perry, who is tossing around the term 'vulture capitalist' like rice at a wedding, and Newt Gingrich are both calling into question Mitt Romney's role as the CEO of Bain Capital, and accusing Mitt of bad deeds.

If stupidity is the reason for these attacks, I find that awfully hard to swallow. Both of these guys are 'big picture' conservatives, and know that venture capitalists are necessary in our economy; without them, things would grind to a halt in short order. These are the guys who have the money to invest in enterprises, to include start ups, existing thriving companies and struggling companies. And once they are owners, they want to put their money to work which maximizes their shareholders interests and the interests of the companies they now run.

And in this free market economy, sometimes it makes sense to shut some operations down that are a drag on the bottom line and redirect those assets elsewhere where they will better serve all concerned. And of course that means that people get laid off from their unprofitable jobs. This is how capitalism works.

This is America, remember. Nobody has the right to remain on a job that loses money for the boss in perpetuity. For Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry to cherry pick a few companies that were downsized by Bain Capital, and to ignore the positives that were ultimately gained from reassigning assets is either slimy or just ignorant. They know that a job that is created by this process does not really lend itself to a news crew and camera ready to film some news. No, newly created jobs do not make news.

What makes the news is the sad sack that was making typewriters who got bought out by some venture capitalist who closed the typewriter plant and started a computer chip plant with the proceeds. That sad sack typewriter assembler lost his job, knows nothing of computer chips, and now is unemployed and is sobbing into the camera about what rotten mean sumbitches those guys who closed the plant are. Cherry picking sob stories is what Democrats do. This is a page right out of the Democrat Party playbook. And these guys want to be the GOP nominee?

"Creative destruction," and without it, we would still be subsidizing buggy whip factories and typewriter factories and washboard factories.

I think Newt and Rick Perry know this. And accordingly, are not ignorant as to how these things work. They are just not getting any traction with the voters, are getting desperate, and are now cherry picking any and all sad sack sob stories from laid off buggy whip factory workers.

And this is just plain slimy. Neither of these guys is presidential material.

Liberals to Americans: 'Only 8.5% unemployment. Let there be dancing in the streets!'

2012-01-08T07:35:00.000-08:00

When Barack Obama was elected in November, 2008, the unemployment rate was around 6.5% and rising, and one could assign this stat to the spectre of a Marxist taking over the Oval Office, and the business community was preparing for the long cold 4-year winter. In a few months into the Obama administration, unemployment hit 10.1%, and hovered there for quite a while. The causes of this downturn can be debated at another time, but the reality was that President Barack Obama promised that things would be all honey and roses if he were given the keys to the car.

President Bush drove the car into the ditch, they said. Unemployment was at an unacceptable 6.5%, and Barack Obama now has the keys. Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics put the unemployed figure at 8.5%, and we are all told that things have turned around. Let there be dancing in the streets!

Am I the only guy in this country that remembers that Democrats were bashing the Bush administration for the horrible numbers that reflected how desperate things were in America, and the worst numbers he ever chalked up during nearly all of his adminsistration until the last few months were well below 6%? And we are now told that things are looking up: "ONLY 8.5% unemployment, Obama is now a shoo-in for re-election with numbers like this."

That is much like the following analogy: once upon a time, a village historically held a celebration at harvest time, and 10 pigs were roasted, 100 chickens were put to the spit, and yet the elderly village chief was cursed by many because there were not 20 pigs roasted, and 200 chickens for everyone. Then the elderly chief died, and a much more free wheeling, generous chief was hailed as the successor. Of course, as the generous guy the new chief was, throughout the years going forward, he slaughtered most of the village pigs and chickens and passed them out to the neediest of the villagers, without thought as to how anyone would replace them. In subsequent years, due to scarcity of pigs and chickens because of the new generous chief's profligate slaughter of the village animals, the annual celebration served up fewer and fewer pigs and chickens, and the last few years had to borrow pigs and chickens from other nearby villages to feed the villagers during the celebration. Last year, only 2 pigs and 20 chickens were served at the 'feast.'

Time then came for a referendum on the new generous chief's leadership, and prior to this judgement by the villagers, the chief borrowed twice as many pigs and chickens for the celebration, and that year 4 pigs and 40 chickens were devoured by the hungry villagers. Then, after the meager celebration was over, the chief declared 'let there be dancing in the streets, we have doubled our feasting from last year. Happy days are here again!' And the news was spread throughout the village that there should be dancing in the streets, the generous new chief had come through. Let us keep him in control of the pigs and chickens for years to come! Debt owed to the nearby villages was actually causing some serious PR problems with these other villages, but that information was not actively distributed to the local villagers, as that can could be kicked down the road, to be dealt with by some future chief.

And all the while, the generous chief and his managers simply assume that nobody remembers the days when the elderly and now departed old chief insured that the feast served up 10 pigs and 100 chickens.

Yes, the analogy is too long, but the point is this: liberals will have us all believe, contrary to our recent memories, that 8.5% unemployment is a really good thing, and that this good news is owing to our brilliant president's policies. Once Barack Obama raises the debt ceiling by another 1.2 TRILLION dollars, we as a nation will be in debt over 16 TRILLION DOLLARS, and George Orwell could not have written this scenario with any more incredulity than is being spouted by liberals and the Democratic National Committee.

"Let there be dancing in the streets," the liberals cry. And let the debt and looming crisis be dealt with by a future administration, one that is responsible. Or so that message seems to me.

Fredd's so evil, he wants old people to die...

2012-01-02T08:29:00.000-08:00

Yep, that's me. Can't stand old people. They should all just die. And don't make me come by and pick up the bodies, as that is simply a bother I can't stand to contemplate, as I have many evil doings in the works that I have to attend to, and don't need such distractions.

Of course, this is nonsense. All of this is the spin that most liberals would have everyone believe, when I suggest that the enormous transfer of wealth from the young to the old via the brute force of a huge and malevolent government is unsustainable. When I merely suggest this disastrous national policy needs change if we are to survive in the long run as founded, then the liberal long knives are flailing away at evil ol' Fredd. What a monster I am.

One liberal moonbat referred to a piece I wrote last September titled 'We all know old people are parasites, but what about teachers?' (http://freddsez.blogspot.com/2011/09/we-all-know-old-people-are-parasites.html). Of course the title is controversial on its face, and subsequently the moonbat takes that one sentence and runs with it, without reading a single word of the piece. Based on that one title, this numb nutted idiot declares me a 'sick (f-word)' and accordingly discredits any opinion coming from my evil keyboard as thoroughly wicked, insidious and malicious.

Old people and teachers are very well aware that they are the beneficiaries of a public largess over the last 75 years that is boundless, or at least if they are being honest with themselves. For me to suggest that this largess simply must end if we are to sustain our way of life as founded by the Constitution is not evil or uncaring. It is an inarguable fact. We can't continue to confiscate huge amounts of money from productive people and give it to unproductive people in perpetuity, especially when faced with a $15 TRILLION DOLLAR NATIONAL DEBT. To continue this transfer, we must borrow 40 cents of every dollar spent to keep it up.

We can't keep it up. It's impossible.

And of course saying this makes me an evil monster, according to any liberal asshat you talk to. And I am not the only one saying this. Take Governor Scott Walker (R-WI): he ran on the very campaign that I am pointing out, and won the governor's seat. He enacted tough austerity measures (which were actually quite mild, if the truth be known), and the entrenched liberal 'takers' went nuts. Absolute nuts. They tried to stack the Wisconsin Supreme Court with some of their fellow judiciary moonbats to block his legislation. That didn't work. They tried to overturn the Nov. 2010 election results with recall election after recall election of Republican victors: that didn't work. Now they are canvasing the state with petitions (signed repeatedly by Mickey Mouse, Al Capone and Michael Jackson) to force a recall election on Gov. Walker.

This will not succeed, either. When you take away the money from these slacking non-producers that was confiscated initially from the producers, there will be hell to pay in all manner of skullduggery and thugishness on the part of the left.

But I am the bad guy, you see. I point out the cold, hard reality of this unsustainable transfer of wealth from the haves to the have-nots and I am labeled as the devil incarnate, me and Governor Walker.

See how this works?

Best Christmas songs ever

2011-12-21T10:36:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas.

Most of the Christmas songs playing now have been written very recently, say in the last 25 years. The really good ones, though, are old. And the best one is REALLY old. These are my favorites at this time of year:

5.  Jingle Bell Rock. This little ditty was pumped out around the infancy of rock and roll by a guy named Bobby Helm in 1957. It's a catchy tune, and was very popular in its day, and you can't go very long at this time of year without hearing it played. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itcMLwMEeMQ)

4.  Rockin Around The Christmas Tree. Brenda Lee was only 14 when she recorded this favorite in 1958. Again, this tune has legs and has been one of the more popular Christmas songs for over 50 years and running. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6xNuUEnh2g)

3.    Breath of Heaven (Mary's Song). Amy Grant has a number of outstanding Christmas songs under her belt, but this one is a jem of jems in the jewelry box of outstanding tunes. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPbV_HTpyx0)

2. It's The Most Wonderful Time of The Year. Andy Williams really hit it out of the park with this one in 1963, although Amy Grant's rendition years later is also a real toe tapper.( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2urlriwjcg)

1. Messiah by George Frideric Handel, composed over 250 years ago, in 1741. This one is my favorites owing to a performance I witnessed many years ago on a Christmas Eve, in a little Lutheran church in Manassas, Virginia. The congregation at the time was perhaps 150, and the choir consisted of a gifted music director with perhaps 15 singers. When they were done with their performance of Messiah, those perhaps 80 worshippers burst into applause, and there simply wasn't a dry eye in the church, it was done so beautifully. I've never heard it done as well before or since, not even by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in the link below. It was the closest thing to a miracle I've ever witnessed in my life. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_VARtvgGBY&feature=related)

Obama's Ministry of Truth puts out 'The Big Lie'

2011-12-15T09:03:00.000-08:00

We've seen it before. Historically, the manipulation of information by the government for political purposes was wildly successful for several years just last century in keeping a corrupt and evil regime in power for a decade plus. All of this misinformation and distortion of statistics and economic reports issued by the Obama administration for the purposes of his re-election, this has been done before to fool the public. This administration didn't invent this tactic.

The National Socialists, or more popularly referred to back in the day as the 'Nazis,' under the leadership of Adolph Hitler, were able to fool much of the German public through brazen lies and fabrications provided by Reich Minister of Propaganda Josef Goebbels. It was ol' Josef Goebbels who orchestrated the huge parades and spectacular settings for the soaring speeches of Hitler, and of convincing the German population that white was black, that up was down, that wrong was right. And most infamously, Goebbels was able to convince the German public that Jews were responsible for everything bad in their lives. Goebbels was the mastermind behind the 'Krystal Nacht' in 1938. Goebbels was the master of 'The Big Lie:' tell the people something so outrageously incredible, tell them the same thing over and over and over, and in time the lie becomes true, because how could it not be? Who would have the brazen audacity to concoct something so universally broadcast to be true out of a falsehood? Nobody would ever do this, so the 'Big Lie' (whatever it is) simply must be true. At least, it becomes true in the minds of the masses, but the reality never changes. Obama must have read Hitler's tome 'Mein Kampf' and underscored the 'Big Lie' and its constructs.

They say that once you mention Hitler's name in any issue, you lose the argument. Well, maybe so. The similarities between these two governments are just too eerily close not to bring this up. The unemployment statistics issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are one such "Big Lie." According to most economists (those who participate in the 'dismal science'), the concept of 'full employment' in an economy is one that for everyone who is willing and able to work, employment is available to them. The statistic for 'full employment' is roughly 4.5%, give or take, and those 4.5% 'unemployed' folks are simply in between jobs, and that they fully expect to find employment within a month or so. This was the rate of unemployment or close to it during much of the Reagan, Clinton and Bush administrations.

Owing to the current 'Frank/Dodd/Obama Recession', this number has crept over 10% at one point, and has hovered in the 9's for most of President Obama's first (and hopefully only) term. Now the administration puts out the newest unemployment rate: 8.6%.   Oh great! Things are getting better, way to go, President Obama! Woo hoo!

Not so fast, there, Joe Sixpack (Joe is the average run of the mill American, who doesn't pay much attention to what's going on the in country). This rate doesn't include those Americans who have been unemployed for so long, that they just gave up looking for work. And who are now no longer counted as unemployed. They just disappeared from the books. And this number of Americans last month who disappeared from the unemployment rolls was around 315,000 people. The rate can be reported to shrink, but that is because the total labor force has declined (a very bad thing). That's why we call these bad times a 'recession.' Things recede in a recession. Am I being redundant here? Good. And when things recede economically, that's really bad news. We are living and breathing in a real, live recession that continues to eat at all of us.

The Ministry of Truth would have us all believe that things are getting better, 8.6%, we should all be dancing in the streets with that kind of prosperity going on out there. Just like Josef Goebbels, the Obama administration is blowing the horns heralding our great recovery, and assuming we believe them when they tell is that up is down, that night is day, and that wrong is right. All we have to do is look around.

That's right. Get up and go to the mall of your choice. Count the number of empty stores in that mall. Subtract that number from the total stores in the mall, and then look at the ratio of the existing leased businesses vs the total available. This is what they call the occupancy rate. When we have full employment, most established malls have occupancy rates that are the inverse of the full employment rate: 100%-4.5%, or 95.5% occupancy. That's in good times.

Occupancy rates these days are 70% in way too many malls across the country right now. Or worse.  And you can see this with your own eyes. Things are really, really bad out there right now.

Get up and take a walk around your block. How many houses are for sale?  Quite a few, I would bet. Way more than you remember at any one point in time in the good ol' days. And how long have they been on the market? Quite a while, I would bet. And how many of those houses for sale are for sale because of a foreclosure? Quite a few, I would bet. And that's really bad.

And how many of your neighbors have lost their jobs? Well, those still able to pay mortgage or rent payments and are still your neighbors, probably more than anyone would care to admit.   And that's really bad.

Things are really, really bad out here. Just open your eyes and take a look around.

And then go back and look at what the Ministry of Truth is putting out: we're on the road to recovery! Things are rocking and rolling, 8.6% unemployment! Let's not change horses in the middle of the stream, re-elect President Barack Obama!

Don't fall for 'The Big Lie.'

No sympathy for 'street people'

2011-12-11T07:35:00.000-08:00

I can hardly stand to read the Chicago Tribune anymore. What they call 'news' is simply nothing more than article after article with some liberal spin on the passing scene. This morning, I picked up the paper from my driveway, thinking that I should really cancel this damn liberal rag, but started to read it anyway.

And in the editorial section called 'Perspective,' the headline is When you recognize the homeless . The author and his wife were out Christmas shopping and were approached on the street by a homeless girl whom they knew from their New Jersey neighborhood. And the author gushed on as to his discomfort and sympathy towards her and gave her all the money in his wallet to alleviate his guilt about her situation, and promised her that he would say 'hi' to her mom.

Give me a break. In the piece, the details are very clear as to how this woman ended up on the street: she was irresponsible, had children out of wedlock as a teenager, and had hysterical outbursts that required police intervention, and the courts took her children away from her, and slapped a restraining order on her seeing them. I suspect left out of the author's piece were drugs, alcohol, and varied and sordid other details that land people in the gutter.

While the author had enormous sympathy for this loser, I couldn't help but think that her newly found identity as a 'street person' was a choice she actively made. People don't wind up on the mean streets of this country because they had a string of bad luck, or that everyone was out to get them (in other words, the fault of everybody else except themselves).

This is the reality of life in America: homelessness is a choice. Nobody has to live on the streets if they don't want to. There are too many alternatives that can divert this eventuality, most involving family solutions, some run by the state, and many run by charities and churches. Homelessness has many causes to include but not limited to: drug additions, alcohol abuse, criminal behavior, profound irresponsibility, inability to plan, inability to respect authority, and often a conscious choice to shun polite society and a deliberate choice to live life on the streets.

When approached by a homeless person, I avoid eye contact, never give them any money, but do not feel sorry for them; that is one of their tools of their trade - sympathy. People live life on the streets because they choose this way of life, not because 'the man' is out to get them. They are on the streets because they like it. And don't let them tell you they don't because they lie like shamelss dogs: to you, to me and to themselves. If they didn't like it, they could easily do something about it.

Like take responsibility for their lives, recognize and respect authority and ask for forgiveness from your estranged family. In other words, choose not to be homeless.

What's fair, and what isn't fair

2011-12-08T07:01:00.000-08:00

Last time around, Barack Obama ran his successful presidential campaign on the mantra of 'hope and change.' It worked very well, as we all know. Now, three years into Obama's abysmal administration, those two words are no longer uttered by anyone associated with the White House. And for good reason: things in this country have gone downhill since he took office. I could go into the metrics of exactly what parts of our country, to include social, political, and economic components are worse off today than in January, 2009, but I think most of us know all about it.

But this is all in the past, and our failed president is mustering his forces for a second term. This time around, hope and change are not on the menu. No, this time it's 'what's fair.' Obama throws this word around like rice at a wedding. Everyone should do 'their fair share,' 'millionaires and billionaires should pay their fair share,' and on and on. Things should be 'fair.'

To the dumbest among us, this sounds right. Things shouldn't be unfair. That's just not right. And here's a guy saying he will stand up and make things fair, if re-elected.

To those of us who are of at least average intelligence, we all know through living life that things just are not fair, in general, and that John F. Kennedy said it best: 'Loif. Loif's not fayuh.' And for those of us outside of Massachusetts, this better translates to 'Life. Life's not fair.' And we all know this to be true.

It isn't fair that a graduate of Columbia school of journalism, with honors, interviews for a news reporting position with Fox News, and is told that while their resume is outstanding, they went with another candidate who was a better fit to the position. The Columbia summa cum laude candidate was average looking, and the successful candidate graduated in the middle of her class at Boise State, but was also 2009 Miss Idaho. How fair does that sound?

But this happens all the time. All the time, and everybody knows this to be true. While this example is a stark one, Obama will resort more toward a class warfare point of view, and point out that the working people in this country seem to have all the money, and are greedy because they won't give any of their hard earned money to those less fortunate, and work less. Or don't work at all. Is that fair that these greedy working people keep all of the money to themselves, Obama asks? All people need money in this great country, Obama states. And it isn't fair that only the most industrious among us have all the money. Not fair at all.

Obama wants to end all of this unfairness using the hamfisted power of the government. If re-elected, he will re-double his efforts to legally transfer the wealth of those who work in this country to those who don't work in the name of fairness.

And those dumb non-working morons will certainly vote for that, as it really sounds fair. Why should these working people have all the money? We non-working parasites need money, too!

Vote Obama, 2012. It's the fair thing to do.

What happened to American Airlines will happen to America

2011-11-30T15:13:00.000-08:00

It took a while, but it finally happened. American Airlines, with its crushing cost structure, finally declared bankruptcy. Driving this decision was the inflexibility of its greedy unions and their crazy wages and benefits that have saddled American Airlines with unsustainable debt.

Pensions take the lion's share of the blame, and then comes out of control union wages and benefits. Pensions are in the red to the tune of about $8 Billion dollars in unfunded checks to geezers who no longer load a single bag, check a single ticket or replace a single rivet on a single plane. In the long run, the pensions that were coerced out of American Airlines have run the ship into the reef. In reality now, American Airlines is paying three baggage handlers for every one that actually handles baggage. The other two are retired and collecting pensions. No business can run like this indefinitely, and American Airlines finally has hit bottom.

They can thank their greedy, selfish unions for wrecking their company. When you pay a baggage handler, who flunked out of high school, a wage that is wildly beyond the actual value of his service (such is the nature of unions), in time the costs of doing business will disadvantage that company in the market place to such an extent that in the long run, the chickens will come home to roost. The company simply cannot compete against leaner, meaner competitors. And in the long run they go broke, just like American Airlines. And United Airlines before them. And TWA before them, and Pan AM before them, and on and on.

The United States of America is heading down this exact same path: paying three teachers for every one teacher that stands in front of students: one teaches, and two more are retired, but the school district is on the hook for all of the teachers salary, and the pensioners pensions. Ditto policemen: for every one cop on the beat, there are two more drawing pensions. And ditto for firemen: for every firefighter fighting fires, there are two more watching the Bears game in their Lay-Z-Boy, sucking down Molsons and collecting pensions.

All on the county, state and federal dime. We are not so unlike American Airlines, the U.S. as a whole. When only 47% of Americans pay federal taxes, where are we headed in the long run? Into bankruptcy, just like American Airlines.

We better wake up and smell the coffee before it's too late.

We'll miss Barney Frank.....or maybe not.

2011-11-30T06:50:00.000-08:00

If you recall, prior to his scandalous sexually deviant behavior a few months ago that forced his ouster from congress, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) was the voice of the vicious far left, to whom all of the cameras and mainstream news reporters went for juicy soundbites that put Republicans in as bad a light as was possible. And Rep. Weiner was also great to have as a guest on the Sunday shows and could always be counted on to shout down any opposition to the views and policies of his radical Left buddies on Capitol Hill.

Barney Frank (D-NY) was also one of the go-to guys on the left, and the venomous bile and invective Rep. Frank spewed to any microphone he saw was always greedily gobbled up by the mainstream media and put out as valid political expression. Of course, Barney was a favorite on the Sunday political shows as well, shouting down and railing against any opposition to anything liberal he and his Marxist pals foisted on us.

Now Barney is hitting the road, no longer interested in re-election to his House seat, presumably to spend time with his children and grandchildren in his Golden Years. Oh, that's right. Barney's gay, and has not produced any progeny. Thank God.

Much like his scandalous partner in New York congressional crime, Anthony Weiner, Rep. Barney Frank has also had his share of scandalous sexual deviancy associated with his lifestyle, if we all recall. Remember way back when , Barney's 'partner' was running a homosexual house of prostitution out of Barney's residence. New York voters didn't seem to mind all that much, and re-elected Barney about 12 times since then, so it can't be any big deal.

And of course who could forget Barney's blockage of any reform attempts by the Bush administration to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, categorically stating on the floor of the House of Representatives that both of these institutions were fundamentally sound, and that there was no need to make any changes to these solid mortgage lending programs.

That was before the 2008 financial meltdown, caused by mandated federal requirements against 'red lining' and forcing banks to give home loans to bums and scalawags who never intended to pay the loans back. Barney made sure that Fannie and Freddie would make the banks whole by insuring that those two crooked institutions bought up the paper on those loans, and he personally nearly brought down the global economy when the sheer weight of these criminal loans crashed and burned in front of Barney's eyes. As he looked the other way, of course, and blamed Republicans. And fat cat bankers. And everybody except himself.

We'll miss Barney's sound bites, and blatant lies and distortions. And with any luck, his seat will be filled by a Republican, just like the deviant Anthony Weiner's seat was.

American 'culture' today, such as it is....

2011-11-27T07:28:00.000-08:00

When I was looking at a recent article about the 'Most Admired American Women' list, I couldn't help but gape in disbelief as Lady Gaga made the list. The article did not say where she was on the list, but she did not appear in the Top Ten.

However, the fact that Lady Gaga made the list AT ALL was stunning to me.

Most of my flabbergasted disbelief stemmed from the fact that Lady Gaga's entire professional persona is that of a pornographic slut. And she is admired for this by more than a few idiots among the 1019 Americans chosen by Gallup to partake in this foolish telephone poll in March of 2011. Some might say that Lady Gaga's persona is just that, an onstage act that has no bearing or resemblance to her personal life, and that she is actually chaste and pure, much like her button-down, 'church lady' mother who appears from time to time with her trollop, hussy looking daughter.

Lady Gaga can certainly claim that this is true, but in the real world perception is reality. And her onstage presence is one of a shameless, scantily dressed strumpet. Who gets mention on the Most Admired U.S. Women List. What has become of us, and Western culture in general, when we adore pornographic personas such as this brazen harlot?

Now Oprah and Laura Bush have legitimate standing on this list, as both are accomplished Americans, Oprah in the entertainment business, and Laura Bush as the wife of an ex-president and a supporter of many charities and foundations too numerous to mention. Hillary Clinton and Angelina Jolie also made the Top Ten, although I might note that Angelina Jolie is closer in public persona to Lady Gaga than to Laura Bush, although not to Lady Gaga's extremes.

At times, I know why Osama bin Laden hated the West. And, sad but true, these are the times that I agree with Osama.

Our culture is at times one that lauds decadence and debauchery.

'Green Energy': this era's 'Alchemy'

2011-11-17T21:56:00.000-08:00

These days, we all hear a cacophonous harping from liberals that we need to focus on exchanging our energy sources away from the evil polluting carbon based 'fossil fuels' and into earth and Gaia friendly renewable green sources of energy. You know, the stuff of liberal dreams: wave power, switch grass, solar, wind, and the great achievement of the Left: vegetable oil powered VW microbuses.

The left wants no part of that vile, evil carbon based fossil energy anymore. They say it produces greenhouse gases that are killing us all.

The Obama administration is acutely bent on chasing this ridiculous premise, and has squandered billions and billions of taxpayer dollars towards the promotion of these hopelessly futile green energy projects. Solyndra is only the poster child of this stupid and foolish chase of these dumb progressives of an elusive Utopian dream: an energy source that is 100% pollution free.

Physics doesn't work that way. God doesn't work that way. We can't pave a path from here to utopia that is downhill both ways. We can't eliminate the up hill side of physics, namely that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Liberals wish it weren't so, but the laws of God and physics simply can't be undone, or worse yet ignored, not even by the president of the U.S.

Oil, coal, natural gas, uranium, plutonium, and good old fashioned wood: all of them great sources of energy. To harvest the energy from these materials, we have to light them on fire or otherwise raise their temperatures. Accordingly, the bi products of these chemical reactions are various pollutants in the form of hydrocarbons or radiation. We need the energy it produces, but we don't like the 'smoke.' Duh. And we should be more concerned about limiting the pollutants generated by fossil and nuclear fuels with research, without limiting the necessary production of needed power. A burgeoning economy needs to accommodate an acceptable yet limited amount of pollution: this is basic economics. To seek 'zero pollution' from energy production is a fools game, and is simply not physically possible.

There is no smokeless fire. There is no radiation free nuclear energy. There is no free lunch, as the late great Milton Friedman constantly reminded us. There is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. There ain't no such thing as cold fusion, and never will be. I will be the first to admit that I am no nuclear scientist. But a basic understanding of chemistry necessitates that separating the two hydrogen atoms from the bonded oxygen atom in a single molecule of fresh water requires enormous amounts of energy: heat. And producing such heat will generate some kind of 'smoke,' or pollutant in one form or another. Chasing this dream of hydrogen power without pollutants of some kind just will not happen under any circumstances. In other words, the liberal Utopian dream of filling our fuel tanks on our 'green cars' with simple water and getting a few thousand miles per gallon from this 'pixie dust' is never, ever going to happen.

But liberals insist that we can produce energy without the equal and opposite effect of an undesirable and offsetting bi product. These liberal idiots of today are chasing dreams. Utopian ideals that will never come to pass. Much like the alchemists of a thousand years ago, trying to turn lead into gold. And ignorant governments of many nations of long ago pursued this stupid and elusive goal of chasing an unachievable alchemy dream for generation after generation: all with no success whatsoever even to this very day.

We will never see any viable 'green energy' that will lift a Boeing 777 even so much as an inch off the ground. That feat requires oil. Or perhaps uranium. You know, a real live existing source of proven energy in the real world of today. To think that we can generate our nation's power with only the wind, the sun, the ocean waves, or vegetable oil is the dream of naive children.

Science says it can't be done.

God says it can't be done.

But this still wont' stop today's stupid liberals from commandeering our tax dollars in their fool's errand of this modern day alchemy: chasing viable green energy that will completely replace fossil fuels is no different than trying to turn lead into gold.

Joe Paterno deserves scorn, not sympathy

2011-11-13T12:12:00.000-08:00

With the way the media are covering Joe Paterno's disgraceful exit from the Penn State coaching ranks, you would think the guy was next in line for sainthood. They depict a tearful son Jay wishing his dad were here, and posters hanging everywhere in the football stadium of loving farewells to good ol' JoePa.

The evidence of what Joe Paterno's legacy will be is in front of everyone's nose: this is the guy who put football money and power above the protection of the innocent. Estimates are around $50,000,000 per year in 2011 dollars of Penn State's football program revenue, and these are the dollars Joe Paterno chose to protect, not the children victims who may number in the hundreds by the time this investigation into the pedophile Jerry Sandusky and his crimes committed while associated with the Penn State football program are completed. Joe chose the approximate $500 Million dollars over the children, when he made his decision to leave the police out of this situation. And I suspect, but can't verify that Joe didn't make this decision by himself, either. He had the ear of the athletic director and the university president at the time, and I suspect also that the revenue that might be adversely affected should this story come to light was discussed at length. And then jointly, the whole scummy lot of Penn State athletic poobahs decided to keep all of this hush hush.

And Joe Paterno knew of this reprobate's activities for years, and chose to turn a blind eye to the irreparable damage that he was inflicting on untold numbers of children. What kind of monster does this? And this scumbag Jerry Sandusky was still held in high esteem by Joe Paterno until just the last few weeks when the story broke.

Don't feel sorry for poor ol' Joe Paterno, getting fired after years of his basking in everyone's perceived love and adoration. He is just as much a scum sucking dog of a man as is his defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky. And now we hear Joe has lawyered up, pending the civil and possible criminal proceedings that may come his way.

He is the scum of the earth, and not the hero we all thought him to be.

A pox on Joe Paterno's legacy.

Top Ten Most Worthless College Degrees

2011-11-02T15:19:00.000-07:00

We all know one of these guys. You know, the professional college student who is constantly changing his course of studies, and spends about 9 years and untold thousands of dollars in finally obtaining a bachelors degree in fine arts. Or film studies. Or sociology.

And we all know where to find this guy: playing video games in the basement of his parent's house, where he has lived for the last nine years since enrolling in college. This guy can wipe out hundreds of bad guys in Call to Duty XXI, but couldn't talk his way into a real life job interview to save his soul. Accordingly, he will be a burden on his aging parents until they finally work up the backbone to kick him out. And then and only then will he actually start to look for a job. And very, VERY likely, it will be one flipping burgers, if he's extremely lucky.

There are millions of guys like this out there. Millions and millions of 'em. Some of them are camped out on the sidewalk in Manhattan these days, but most are still in their parent's basement. And nearly all were ill served by their choice of studies in school. Some of them have degrees that are pertinent to some employers, but most simply chose worthless degrees, and the Top Ten Most Worthless are:

1. Fine Arts. This degree has virtually no bearing on life, and particularly is irrelevant when it comes to an employer. Just how does one transfer the skill of making paper mache figures into being part of a productive business enterprise? That would be a tough one to explain. Sure, a few fashion houses here and there will specify this degree, but those jobs are as plentiful as chicken lips. Meaning: not very plentiful at all.

2. Art History. Another degree that is high on the scale of worthlessness.  Just how many employers are interested in your knowledge of the impressionist era, or of art deco? I know the answer to that one: approximately ZERO, give or take zero.

3. Women's Studies. Sure, there are employers everywhere falling all over themselves to throw money at women's studies graduates, since they are in such high demand. Actually, I am dripping with sarcasm as I wrote that first sentence. In the real world, there are NO employers who would touch a women's studies diploma holder with a ten foot pole. They are perceived as walking, talking sexual harassment lawsuits, waiting to descend with a God awful vengeance on whatever hapless employer stupidly hires them.

4. Marine Biology.  Of course, every kid who ever had a pet turtle or goldfish, or ever watched an episode of Jacques Cousteau tells their parents that when they grow up, they want to become a marine biologist. Just like we all wanted to be ballet dancers as girls, or train engineers as boys. Eventually, though, we grow up and know that those professions, while they exist, are few and far between and we get real jobs. But not real, live marine biology graduates. The only jobs for those guys are teaching other guys to be marine biology graduates, and even those are tough gigs to land. Question: what is the most common question asked by a marine biology graduate these days? Answer: 'would you like fries with that?'

5. Archaeology. Just like all kids who want to be marine biologists, when we started learning about dinosaurs, the first thing we did when we came home from school is tell mom and dad, 'when I grow up, I want to become an archaeologist.' Sigh. Ask all of those fifty three genuinely employed archaeologists, out on a dig in the middle of Montana, what they get paid for digging through a few tons of dirt with a toothbrush. When they tell you $7/hour, don't visibly gasp, as it might hurt their feelings. On the bright side, at least those 53 archaeologists are working. The other 5 million archaeologist degree holders are still living in their parent's basement, playing Mortal Combat.

6. Law. These are some of the saddest cases, these new law school grads, and especially the ones who passed their state's bar exam, and find that for every scummy little paralegal job opening that pays $20,000 a year, there are about a million unemployed new lawyers standing in line to get an application. That, after they just coughed up about $150 Grand worth of expenses getting this jewel of a degree. They should have taken note of all of those lawyer jokes they heard growing up. Turns out, those jokes are not jokes. They are all true.

7. Sociology. Social work. That is a magnet for all of the do-gooders in high school, who 'just want to help people.' Oh, boy. Where to start, where to start....first of all, these dreamers have to know that all jobs in social work pay almost nothing. And some pay exactly that: nothing. If you really want to help, your employer says, you will voluntarily do this for nothing and that will really, REALLY help (unsaid, it will mostly help keep the boss' payroll down). Eventually, these dopes wise up and go get real jobs flipping burgers.

8.  Journalism. It could be said that dumb ol' Fredd here is a journalist (although I was not dumb enough to get a degree in this stuff).  Sitting here, writing an article that is published on the World Wide Web. And what kind of dough does Fredd pull down in payment for the crap, er I mean, material he publishes?  That's right: ZERO dollars. And in the communications age, transfer of information is virtually free. Accordingly, we all see print media struggling, newspapers going belly up, and what do these numbnuts do when considering a degree? Journalism. Doh!!

9. Fashion Design. For all of the girls in high school who were called 'clothes horses,' this is the degree for them as they know when they graduate, they will quickly develop a line of clothing named after them, such as Vera Wang, Johnnie Versaci, Calvin Klein and that gang. With 500,000 fashion design degrees pumped out each year, and about 7 fashion design slots available, the simple math here suggests that the only fashion designing decisions these dumb degree holders will be doing is deciding which color of McDonald's name tag they will wear that day: Red, Yellow or Black.   Question: typically what material is the hat made of that a fashion design degree holder wears? Answer: paper.

10. Performing Arts. Or acting, as it used to be called. Question: what is the main activity engaged in by those holders of a performing arts degree? Answer: busing tables. I lived in North Hollywood for a year or two way back when, and everybody I met had a script in their pocket: they either wrote it, or were studying lines in it, but everybody had a script. In their back pocket, of course, because they needed their hands free to wipe down counters, bus tables, flip burgers and wash shot glasses as they tended bar. But they were all actors. And they all had performing arts degrees. As do most mimes, by the way...

Borrowing a fortune to buy a useless college degree

2011-10-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

What do you call someone who borrows a virtual fortune to finance a college degree that isn't worth the paper that the diploma is printed on? A college graduate? An up and coming titan of industry? A future pillar of the community?

Nope, none of the above. At least, that's not what I would call these folks. I would appropriately label these guys and gals as stupid morons. You know, those college brainiacs who majored in any liberal arts degree such as journalism, film, photography, sociology, psychology, English, art history or a litany of other completely irrelevant and useless program that no reasonable profitable business owner has any use for whatsoever.

And to top off the bad choices that these morons (or, college graduates as some would call them) make is that they went into hock to the tune of upwards of $30,000 or even more to call themselves a college graduate. It's one thing when Daddy and Mommy fork out the dough for little Sally to spend four years studying fashion design, and then end up working at Chick-fil-A for $7/hour. But when little Sally obtains four or five student loans that hang around her neck for most of the rest of her life like golden chains around Mr. T's neck, that truly is a magnificent example of an absolutely horrific and terrible life choice.

This may be news to many college students: a college degree does not guarantee you a huge salary and cushy job for life. It never was any kind of guaranty at any point in history. Granted, in the past employers found that college graduates in business, engineering, science and other solid pursuits made excellent employees in the long run, and those who actually studied the Three R's (readin' ritin, and 'rithmatic) had a leg up over those dimmer grads who chose to take pictures, study pictures and critique pictures while they piled up student debt up to their eyeballs.

And now we see a swarm of unemployable fine arts and journalism graduates down on Wall Street demanding that their student loans be forgiven, while carrying signs that blame their woes on all of those fat cat bankers. Yes, you know those evil guys and gals in the suits, the guys and gals who studied business and finance in college rather than film. Those guys. They are the ones responsible for liberal arts major Sally's troubles, and why life has passed her by, or at least according to little brainiac Sally.

This is so wrong on so many levels.

You know what I call a liberal arts degree holder who can't even get a job at McDonalds in order to start repayment of their $30,000 student loans? A college graduate, you say? No. I call them a burden on society, a moron and a hopeless idiot.

Obama is right, for once: 'Republicans want dirtier air and dirtier water.'

2011-10-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

President Obama is correct: the GOP condones more economic activity, during which the process of this activity marginally increases pollutants that are an external cost and are unavoidable consequences of all productive human efforts. As considered from an economic point of view, both Republicans AND Democrats should want dirtier air and dirtier water. Well, perhaps minuscule increases in air and water pollution, but it is inarguable: more economic activity produces more pollutants. And as a nation, we all accept certain levels of pollution as the cost of a prospering and growing population.

Of course, as an economic ignoramus, Barack Obama has no clue that there are certain unavoidable externalities that must ensue given increased economic activity. No clue at all. Taken to an extreme, Obama's position would be that Democrats are against emitting one single additional molecule of pollution into the country's air or water. The only way that this position is achievable is if we stop any and all additional efforts to increase production of any product whatsoever. This position of Obama's also assumes that the existing production of energy and goods is OK, that the pollution from our current levels of production are perfectly fine, and that cutting back on production would be even more acceptable. In other words, Democrats support stagnation or atrophy as it pertains to the GNP of the U.S. economy.

Of course this position is ludicrous on its face. But the dimwits who listen to Obama and Democrats eat this up, and in particular the tree hugging environmental movement types, who ultimately would be perfectly happy if a diminished number of cave dwellers simply lived like we did in the good ol' days, in our cold, damp caves with no cars, no washing machines and no electricity. And that would entail that of the 300 plus million Americans currently residing within the boundaries of the U.S., perhaps 90% of them need to go away, leaving presumably the 10% of the remaining population (the 'good' percentage) to inhabit the country and live off the land, free from pollution and filth. Sounds like paradise on earth to me.

And of course, that eventuality is a non-starter as well, but it epitomizes the Left's world view to a large extent: seeking a non-existent utopia that dwells in unison with Mother Earth, or Gaia, with no wants, needs or fears, and one that provides only peace and love for everybody. Everybody, that is, except the other 90% of us who 'went away,' and the tree huggers choose not to explain what would need to happen to that 90% 'extra population' that Gaia could not support. To these arrogant extremist environmentalists, all that matters is that most of us (especially conservatives and Republicans) simply 'go away,' and leave the country to them and their vegan and pure ways.

You bet the Republicans want dirtier air and dirtier water: a certain degree of pollution is unavoidable and indeed acceptable in a thriving, growing economy. I would vote for dirtier air and dirtier water every time it comes up on the ballot.

And it will be coming up on the ballot in November, 2012. Vote for dirtier air and dirtier water.

It's the 'Right' thing to do.

The "Occupy" mobs nothing more than a 'Cargo Cult.'

2011-10-20T06:38:00.000-07:00

This unorganized rabble we all see yelling into bullhorns about the evils of capitalism, the banking industry, and western civilization in general can be categorized as a cult. More specifically, a ‘cargo cult.’ They have seen the success of the hated Tea Party, whose efforts have changed the political landscape and swung the pendulum of popular sentiment significantly to the right of center.

These mobs want to effect the same degree of change that they all saw the Tea Party achieve, although in the opposite direction, and ignorantly assume that if enough people show up and make noise, their cause will be served. Their largest shortcoming is their complete and utter lack of understanding of how the Tea Party got the victories they did. They are clueless, but perservere in their mimicking of Tea Party rallies, when in reality they are stupidly stumbling around aping Tea Party tactics with no real understanding of how to effectively forward their agenda, which is to bring chaos to the existing system that has left them behind.

If you are not familiar with the term 'cargo cult,' it refers to the primitive native peoples in the Pacific Islands and remote areas whose territories were pressed into service during WWII to service the U.S. Pacific Fleet, in addition to the Japanese Imperial Navy. These native people would watch as these foreigners (both Japanese and American troops) moved in, and subsequently build landing strips and control towers. Then as if by magic, planes would appear from the heavens and land on these strips full of food, water, supplies, gasoline, clothing, etc. Much of it would be distributed to the indigenous populations in addition to serving the war effort.

After the war ended, these foreigners left, and so did all of their goodies. Not wanting to interrupt this gravy train, the natives would ape the behaviors of those foreigners in hopes of making the magic planes arrive again. They would build bamboo 'control towers,' clear rudimentary, crude 'landing strips' out of the jungle, and talk into crude 'microphones', hoping that this behavior would entice the goodies to reappear, but in reality they had absolutely no understanding of the actual nature of where all these goodies came from. They had to assume it came from out of the sky, (presumably from the 'gods' ). These cults persisted in mimicking these behaviors for years and in some cases decades after the shipments ended.

And the ‘Occupy’ fools are stupidly doing the exact same thing as these ignorant Pacific island natives: they are completely devoid of any understanding of how the Tea Party resonated with voters. Specifically, the Occupy mobs are unaware that the Tea Party had rock solid principles that it rallied around: less government spending, less confiscatory taxation, smaller government and adherence to the Constitution of the United States.

The occupy mobs have only their ‘rock solid’ principles of: lay in bed until noon, smoke marijuana until their throats are sore, and demand that money be provided to them in perpetuity to further their slovenly lifestyles. These are principles that are held by only a small handful of stupid hippies, of whom all pay homage to their spiritual leaders Cheech and Chong, and this worst type of sloth will never, ever gain any support from the voting public whatsoever.

And yet these idiots continue to ape the Tea Party, and expect the same manner of change, but it will never come. Just like those cargo cult Pacific Islanders continue to wait by their crude landing strips and man their bamboo control towers, hoping that their efforts will entice the goodies from the skies to appear again, as it did in the good old days.

Filthy, pathetic hippies infest Wall Street

2011-10-03T06:40:00.000-07:00

This mob of hippies' petulant infestation of Wall Street may make for great photo ops, sound bites and generate some media interest, but it will mostly generate garbage like their fore bearers always did at these protests, and garner resentment and ill-will from most of the public.

The garbled message that we get from this leaderless rabble seems to be 'these fat cats Wall Street bastards have money, and we don't. Give it to us.'

Or at least that seems to be the message I am getting from this mob. They have been raised by their irresponsible Gen-X parents to value self esteem over accomplishment, and they are demanding that the responsible people working in the corporate environs hand them over cold hard cash, simply because they are alive and breathing in the U.S. of A.

Sorry, hippies. Ain't gonna happen.

Sooner or later you all will grow up, and find out that if you want some of that money that these Wall Streeter's have, you'll have to shave, shower and cover up your tattoos, remove your earrings and get hair cuts. Additionally, you'll actually need some sort of resume that an employer might be interested in, with actual accomplishments: like holding a minimum wage job for more than a week.

I know, I know: your self esteem will suffer. Having to flip burgers and be nice to customers. Yes, I know this is too degrading to even consider.

Well, welcome to the NFL. Life is tough, and nobody owes you a living. Despite what your useless parents told you.

Get a job, you smelly stupid hippies. Nothing you do on Wall Street in the next week, or month, or year will make any difference in your life. You are not standing up for right versus wrong, for good versus evil. You just want to steal the goodies from those so-called fat cats up in those office buildings. Those people up there are the responsible ones. The ones who shower, dress neatly, keep their noses to the grindstone and respect authority. In other words, they play by the rules. And you don't.

Just get a job, take a shower and shut up.

You useless human debris.

Liberals pursue development of the best non-fossil fuel ever: Pixie Dust!!

2011-09-28T06:02:00.000-07:00

The Obama administration just threw $535,000,000.00 of our taxpayer money at a non-proven energy company, Solyndra, and watched this investment in the future go up in smoke.

He wants Americans to use something else besides fossil fuels and nuclear energy, even though nothing else we know of can replace them. And why? Because this is the agenda of the crazy, far left tree hugger hippies and they happen to be a Democrat constituency group whose votes he covets.

We all know that Obama does not like nuclear energy, coal energy, natural gas energy, and in particular he absolutely LOATHES petroleum, that evil energy source that evil conservatives call the life blood of capitalism. More accurately, I should say his constituency group of tree hugging hippies loathes all of those energy sources. All of these evil, antiquated energy sources give Obama the heebie jeebies: if he promotes them, then 'POOF!' There goes the support of the tree huggers. Accordingly, he's convinced that all of these are dangerous and harmful to the planet. None of this stuff is any good, Obama obediently states.

What does he like? Well, with Solyndra for example, he thinks that solar energy is the way to go, and that we as a nation should subsidize this form of renewable energy to the hilt. And he did. And we can all see what happened. It kinda fizzled. Because in reality, rather than in the nebulous child-like world of Utopian dreamers where this foolish dream energy can power the airline industry, this technology is in Realville, USA nowhere near becoming a reality.

He also likes wind power. Ditto his administration's subsidization of all things wind driven, and the results are similar to that of solar energy: jack squat. The technology just isn't there yet. But that doesn't stop this administration from funneling a gazillion or two of tax payer dollars into its further development. We'll all be standing by to reap the rewards of this investment. That is, if the wind continues to blow all the time. Which it doesn't.

I have noticed that we have as a nation been ignoring a major source of energy that is not particularly new, but nevertheless efficient and exciting: Pixie Dust! It has many names, such as Fairy Dust, Magic Dust and others, but the technology is the same: sprinkle it on something, and it flies, or turns into something spectacular. Simple technology, really, but it has been overlooked for decades in favor of fossil fuels, which tend to pollute. No polution has been detected with the use of Fairy Dust in any application we've seen so far.

Witness Dionne Sanders hawk DirectTV services while sporting fairy wings and throwing gobs of the sparkly stuff at a TV screen using cable programming, and VOILA: Green Bay Packer games shown in Miami, Florida! Shazzam! Magic!! Need I say more to convince even the most rigid sceptic that this is the energy source of the future?

I think not.

We need to harness this exciting form of energy. And we as a nation need to man up and acquire the national gumption to fund wide scale development of Pixie Dust. Imagine the benefits all Americans could enjoy with a never ending supply of Pixie Dust. We have seen Peter Pan, Wendy, Tinker Bell and all of their friends fly around and do magical things under power of Pixie Dust. We have seen Mary Poppins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Herbie the Volkswagen do amazing things under the power of Pixie Dust.

With some well funded national resolve, we can now channel our national resources to obtain a never ending supply of Pixie Dust, if only we could fully fund its discovery and exploration. And that does not come cheaply, fellow Americans. We must muster some resolve, verve and moxie to dig deep into our pockets to harness this newest form of non-fossil fuel that is so promising.

Wind power cannot lift a Boeing 747 (Air Force One) off the ground even 1 inch. Neither can solar power, wave power, switch grass or any other tree hugger hippie juice. But Pixie Dust can!

What are we waiting for? Let's go for it, and soon we will bear the fruits of this endeavor together, and we can drive Pixie Dust cars, power Pixie Dust aircraft carriers and bring to bear against our enemies Pixie Dust fueled tanks and fighter jets.

All that is standing in the way of this Utopian dream is a few trillion dollars or so. Let's get on with it!

Fair, Schmair: Obama spews class warfare disguised as 'fairness.'

2011-09-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

The latest speech from our president, one which echoes the same theme we have heard from liberals since the dawn of time, hammers home to his political base the false concept of 'fairness' in managing our shared national resources and responsibilities.

'It's only fair,' Obama blithely mouths as he reads his ubiquitous Tele-Prompter. I would love to hear what his definition of fairness actual is, and how it relates to our national affairs.

He is obviously speaking only to the 'do-not's' in the crowd (as opposed to 'have-nots, a topic for another time). His base, whom he wants to rally into a frenzied hate-filled froth, consists of those who have at least $1.00 less than the other guy standing next to them. The 'do-not's' envy the opposition consisting of 'do'ers' and want to punish those who got that extra buck in an unfair manner.

Obama's version of what is fair and what is unfair is simple: if one guy has a lot of money, and the other guy has less than that, essential unfairness is at hand. In Obama's mind, everyone should have an equal share of everything. And this is the problem with all liberal thinking, which is based on Karl Marx's 19th century publication 'Das Kapital,' the I-Ching of liberalism. 'From those, according to their ability. To those, according to their need.' That's the bedrock of liberalism, and the basis of what is in the liberal mind fair, and what is unfair.

This half-baked and completely debunked theory of Marx leaves out a vital part of the equation, and liberals just love to rant and rave about millionaires and billionaires not paying their 'fair share,' all the while ignoring just how those millionaires and billionaires got to be millionaires and billionaires in the first place. Most of them worked their butts off, sacrificed enormous amounts of time, energy and money, and took risks with their assets that many of the rest of us would think insane. And they were rewarded for all of this with millions and billions of dollars.

And what about the 'do-not's' who did not? Who drank themselves into the gutter, who alienated their family and friends with their nasty, self destructive behavior? Why don't they have millions and billions of dollars? Liberals would argue that the system is simply unfair, and that these losers are losers simply because they got a crummy lot in life, unlike those lucky rich bastards who got their fortunes through sheer luck.

Obama and his 'fairness' argument is only for those of his base who can't think for themselves, and believe their liberal leaders who tell them that anyone who has more money came about it through nefarious means, and that with their vote they can take away much of those ill-gotten gains and pass it around to the 'do-not's', who did nothing to earn anything, and that is how 'fairness' works.

Fairness, schmairness. Rather than hating rich people (also known as class warfare), how about just putting your nose to the grindstone and forget about what others have and worry only about you and what you can do to improve your lot in life? Instead, if you are a mindless liberal I suspect you will ignore any suggestion of taking responsibility for yourself, and rather try and steal what you want and need from your neighbor who actually earned what he has gotten in life.

Believe it or not, there are more voters in this country that believe what I have to say about fairness, than what Obama has to say about fairness. And it's going to show itself in November of 2012.

You can take that to the bank.

We all know old people are parasites, but what about teachers?

2011-09-13T07:24:00.000-07:00

I have been blasting our elderly population as of late for being the primary reason our society is going to hell in a hand basket. You know, sucking up Social Security payments, Medicare, Medicade, prescription drugs and in Chicago until lately, free bus rides: all simply because of how long they have been around, and no other productive reason. A recent statistic came to light to prove this point: several decades ago, the percentage of our older population living under the poverty line ( in 1949, I believe, or close to then) was 39%. As of 2009, that percentage has dropped to 8%. This statistic clearly indicates that we are simply transferring the wealth of our nation to oldsters for no other reason than their age.
This is unsustainable. I have been saying that old poeple are killing us with this transfer, and that nearly 6 out of everey 10 dollars coming out of the U.S. Treasury in the form of entitlement payments are for old people (Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are the biggies). They are public enemy #1.

But who's #2? Public school teachers, of course. Yes, those folks who have custody of our children for six to eight hours daily, Monday through Friday. And they are not doing the job that their predecessors did, either: check out the questions that were on an 8th grade math test in 1895:

1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.

2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cts. per bu, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $.20 per inch?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.

Our 8th graders today can barely read, much less answer a single question above, thanks to our current crop of parasitic public school teachers. These public teachers, all members of teachers unions, incidentally, work for 30 years, and retire in their early 50's at 75% or so of their salaries for the rest of their lives. And they receive other benefits during this idle time as well. And who pays for these parasites to retire in luxury in their Boca Raton condos?

WE DO!

Us private sector schmucks, who work our entire lives until we drop dead (or retire on our hard earned portfolios), and we are paying these blood sucking teachers to lay around in their hammocks on the beach, sipping their Mai Tais for up to 30 years or more on OUR DIME!

When I went to my elementary public school in the early 1960's, the entire school of 200 kids, K through 6th grade, was taught, managed and maintained by a staff of around 16 people:

The principal
Two administrators
School nurse
10 teachers
1 janitor
1 general maintenance employee

Now a similar school in 2011 will have the following:

1 Principal
2 Vice Principals
10 or more administrators
30 teachers (to include gym teachers, art teachers, music teachers, choir teachers, etc)
2 school nurses
a nurse's aide
10 cafeteria workers
4 janitors
4 lawn mowing people
5 general maintenance crew workers

I think you get the point: these public union teachers have feather bedded each and every single school in each and every single school district in the entire country with superfluous and unnecessary employees to the point that they are sucking the very life blood out of their communities, and then they ALL retire in their 50's, requiring another 20-something year old new teacher or administrator to replace them since they are no longer working (but getting paid by the district). And in the event that the 52 year old retired slacker public teacher or administrator lives until 82, that 22-year old replacement will then be 52 and THEY WILL RETIRE AS WELL! Subsequently, for that single teacher or admin slot, the community will be paying THREE people to teach or 'administer': the 82 year old slug, the newly retired 52 year old mooch, and the new 22-year old to replace TWO people already sucking from the public payroll for one teaching and/or administrative slot.

It's an unsustainable racket, I say. Simply unsustainable. But old people are still #1 (in terms of public enemies, that is...).

Sorry, old folks and public union teachers. I call 'em as I see em. And don't forget this: these public teachers get the summer off, with pay.

John Edwards is right: there are two Americas...

2011-08-27T20:14:00.000-07:00

...but just not the two Americas that John Edwards believes exist in his crooked, slimy liberal heart. The disgraced former VP candidate made his claim to fame with his 'Two Americas' speech during the 2008 campaign depicting one America consisting of fat cat 'haves,' and the other of deprived 'have nots' (or as Karl Marx would call them, the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat, basically the same concept).

Nope. Indeed, there are two Americas, but the distinction is not of haves and have nots, but of producers and non-producers. Of go getters, and of slackers. Of people in the wagon, and of those pulling the wagon. However you want to characterize this divide, these two Americas are coming to blows, and there will be some fallout in the coming years as to who defines what the ultimate one prevailing America shall be.

Witness the Wisconsin state battle of these two Americas: on the one side, you have the tax paying public getting gouged, hammered and skewered by enormous property, sales, and other taxes to support an unsustainable population of Americans on the dole from the state and the federal government that produce nothing, but suck the living breath out of the local economy, and demand ever more every year. And the courageous Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker (R) fulfilling his promise to reign in the abuses of that parasitic other America that simply wants to lay sideways in the public trough and provide nothing for the common good.

These are the two Americas that are at loggerheads: one of them will win, the other will lose. In Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida and Indiana to date, the moocher Americans have been dealt a series of blows, and their slovenly way of life is at risk. In response, since these slovenly slobs know no other way of life other than to suck the food of of others' tables, their panicked reaction is expected: the end of the world is near, and life as they know it will come crashing down upon their slacker heads.

The Two Americas theme that John Edwards rode to national prominence is a reality. And we are seeing the beginnings of the battle between these two Americas. The America I live in is one where each individual has personal responsibility to maintain a lifestyle that not only benefits them and their family, but also benefits society as a whole. The America that my enemy dwells in is one that lives off of the table of their fellow American, and not only are they ungracious at the largess extended them, but actually seem to angrily demand more from that table, arguing that taking the food off of their neighbors' table is a right.

Let this fight rage on in earnest. I think I know how this will play out in the long run, and once the responsible America defeats the slovenly America, the two Americas will finally return to the one America: the one that promises life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to any who want to put forth an effort to achieve the American dream.

John Edwards was right. Just not in characterizing the sides that are vying for prominence in the 21st century.

Old people should die in their kid's spare bedroom

2011-08-15T08:22:00.000-07:00

...and not in their luxury condos in Boca Raton, Florida.

In the good old days, before American taxpayers went broke supporting old people in luxury for the last 25 or 30 years of their lives, Americans used to live together as extended families, where grandma and grandpa lived upstairs, in the spare bedroom of their daughter in law or son in law's house.

Accordingly, grandma and grandpa would come down every evening to the supper table, grandpa would say Grace, and their sons, daughters, grandsons and granddaughters would enjoy a meal together with their family.

And back in those good old days, grandma and grampa understood that they were eating the food put on the table by the daughter or daughter in law, as provided for by the son or son in law, and they would not gripe and whine about their progeny's life decisions, or how bad the food was: they held their tongues, lest discord fester within the household.

Not anymore.

Now that the government has mandated that we all cough up our hard earned tax dollars in order that we provide all senior citizens over the age of 62 a luxury retirement, free from want or need. Their condos in Florida are paid for courtesy of their Social Security monthly stipends, their medicine and health care needs taken care of by Medicare and Medicaid, in addition to virtually free medicine via government provided pharmaceutical and prescription plans. These outlays used to be borne by the oldster's progeny, but not anymore. The government is now the supporter of our oldest citizens, not the sons and daughters.

As such, these oldsters live the remainder of their golden years in luxury, removed from the extended family where they are free to bad mouth their progeny at length for every grievance, real or imagined, and not have to endure the scorn heaped upon them should they have remained within the extended family under one roof and continued to bad mouth the daughter in law.

And now they are living out their golden years at all of our expense: and our economy is collapsing because of them. Old people now die within the confines of their luxury suites in Miami, and the U.S. taxpayer pays all the bills.

And old people are perfectly OK with this arrangement. They are a shame to our country. When the country is better off when you die (as SSN payments stop, Medicare and Medicaid end, in addition to all of the other goodies oldsters get), you should perhaps reflect on your parasitic ways.

But these geezers won't give it a second thought, as they wreck our economy and take another sip off of their government provided Mai Tai as they lounge by their government provided poolside in their government provided condo in Boca Raton.

Shame on all of you geezers.

Who gets the blame for this debt mess? Old people.

2011-08-02T07:01:00.000-07:00

They have many names: geezers, codgers, old timers, gummers, old farts, elders, seniors, battle axes and baby boomers. Regardless of what you call them, these folk over the age of 60 (born 1951 and earlier) are the primary cause of this country's debt problems. There is really no argument against this undeniable truth: old people are wrecking our country.

Of the $2.3 TRILLION dollars that come into the treasury every year, 6 out of 10 of those dollars are doled back out to old people, mostly in the form of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and medical prescription benefits. If you round up, that's almost two out of every three dollars taken from tax payers are given to these oldsters. And why? Because they vote on legislation making this theft legal. And they vote religiously and regularly in huge blocks.

Sure, some of the bucks paid into the treasury are taken out in the form of FICA taxes over the years, and are then paid back in montly stipends to the geezer, but it is rare if never that a living SSN recipient ever pays more into the system than they take out. Only in the case where the recipient dies prematurely will that be the case. And we are not talking about dead people at the moment, only old people, and accordingly those dead guys are excluded from blame.

Even though most (but not all) geezers know that this system is unsustainable, they don't care. They care not a whit that money paid to them to allow them their retirements in luxury is costing their grand kids and great grand kids a life of posterity. They only want what they want, and they want it right now, regardless of the chaos it is causing. Geezers who think this way (and there are millions and millions of them) are greedy, selfish pigs. The lot of them

In fairness, not entirely ALL of the blame for our debt crisis can be laid at the gummer's feet. The gutless politicians (mostly Democrats) who promised these geezers all of this cash in exchange for votes can also share the blame, but it is the geezers who demand the lion's share of the treasury's intake, despite the damage to the long term economy, these old timers are the ones to blame at the moment, and not the dead gutless politicians who made them those unkeepable promises lo these many years ago.

When you walk down the street and see an old, crippled geezer ambling down to the super market, Social Security check in hand, just know that they are the enemy of us all. They are killing our country.

And they know it, but don't care.

Democrat president gives up on pursuing greatness

2011-07-21T06:41:00.000-07:00

This is just another typical example of Democratic presidents giving away the American store. NASA ended its manned space program today, with nothing on the drawing board to get us back into space.

President Obama's view as to America's place in the world seems to mirror the same philosophy as that of past recent Democrats in the White House. He believes that the U.S. should not lead the world in anything: he is presiding over the collapse of the greatest economy on the planet, and happily so. In his heart of heart, he doesn't believe in American greatness and thinks we are just part of the global crowd. Let someone else lead, he suggests.

We are now second or even third in the world in space technology, behind Russia and Japan. Who would have thought this a mere decade ago?

But this slacker president is nothing new in Democrat circles. Recall Bill Clinton authorizing Loral to sell our missile guidance technology to the Chinese. It's only fair, he suggests, to have a 'partner' in technological innovation. Unbelievable, simply incredible the way Democrats think.

Recall Jimmy Carter giving away the Panama Canal, a U.S. possession that was the greatest engineering feat ever accomplished by man. Now in the possession of a banana republic that is not exactly America's best ally, thanks to this incompetent dreamer, who cared not a whit about the greatness of America.

And what engineering achievement eclipsed that of the building of the Panama Canal? Reaching the moon, of course. And now that achievement has been diminished greatly by this current cowardly administration suggesting that the money we no longer spend on NASA can be better put to use by transferring it to crack addicts in ghettos, encouraging them to proliferate.

All at the expense of American greatness. When will the voters of this country learn that when we elect Democrats to the presidency, we suffer as a nation?

The way things were 'back in MY day.'

2011-07-15T06:33:00.000-07:00

I was recently shopping around for a suitable replacement for my aging Ford F150 4X4 pickup truck (13 years old, and starting to cost a fortune to keep in reliable shape). While kicking the tires on a Chevy 2500, I asked the sales guy 'says here 6.0 liter engine, what's that in cubic inches?'

The sales guy looked at me like I had three heads. He then replied, 'you should probably know that one, that's the way they USED to measure displacement way back in YOUR day.' At 56 1/2 years old, I started thinking he was right. I SHOULD have known that little tidbit. Turns out that a 6.0L engine is 377 cubic inches, but that is not the only thing that is now different in today's world from 'back in MY day.' I just stopped paying attention and never noticed that engine displacement terminology switched to the metric system.

As a 5 year old in the summer of 1960, I vaguely remember waiting for the 'iceman' to show up in the projects down the street from me, where me and other kids would hang around hoping he would have a few shards of ice for us that had broken off the blocks of ice he delivered to folks too poor to afford those new fangled 'refrigerators,' and still depended on ice boxes to keep their cold cuts cold.

I was in junior high school when the milkman still delivered milk to our front door, and retrieved our empty quart bottles that we set out for him the night before. When did that stop? That service was kinda handy, as I recall. Now, you have to drive to the Piggly Wiggly, schlep a gallon of the stuff from the Piggly Wiggly shelf to your car (or in my case, truck), and then from your car to your new fangled refrigerator.

And as a grade school kid during the summer, my mom would kick me out of the house with instructions to go play and not come back until dinner time. With my Murray-brand knock-off 'Sting Ray' bike with ape hanger handlebars and banana seat (my folks were too cheap to buy me the real deal, a Schwinn Sting Ray), we had parental authorization to ride as far away from home as our little legs could pedal, and nobody gave that a second thought. Just as long as we made it back home in time for dinner.

Now a little 8 year old boy cannot walk 6 blocks home from summer camp without getting abducted, murdered and dismembered by a sick, evil weirdo in Brooklyn, New York. Things ain't the way they used to be back in MY day, no siree Bob.

Yup, things were a whole lot different, way back in MY day.

Public sector workers continue to 'phone it in.'

2011-07-09T09:49:00.000-07:00

For all of you who receive money from the public as your sole source of earned income, I have a question for you: exactly how much of your daily efforts actually benefit the public?

We, the public, want to know. Since you are on our payroll, we expect results for our hard earned dollars that you are collecting. And if you are a member of a public sector union, this question is manifestly important. Your union organizers have a plan each and every year during contract negotiations with us, the public, to decrease your workload, increase your benefits and bullet proof your exposure to any pain during economic recessions. This bullet-proofing includes no lay-off provisions in addition to any salary, wage or benefit reductions for any reason.

Once your union has come away with guaranteed comfort for you in your working life, as well as your retirement (starting at age 52, perhaps), most of you public employees are feeling pretty good about life: guaranteed jobs for life, and no accountability for your job performance, since lay-offs are no longer on the table. Accordingly, why work very hard? There’s really no point to it, since it is irrelevant as to whether you perform well or not. If you excel at your job, there is no additional compensation to reward your efforts, since your union bosses have already carved in stone your wages, regardless of your performance, based on how long you’ve been sitting in your chair, merit be damned. There’s really no accounting for your performance, so why not just ‘phone it in,’ once you have secured your public service gig?

Public sector jobs are now the only available gig in the country that never have to cut back in hard times or do without when the economy turns south and in general share the pain of the rest of the population during hard times. You are exempt from all of that. And you never have to perform at even a modicum of decent output on the job.

In the private sector, the question is always on the table (whether it’s stated or implied): “just what have you done for us lately?” To sit on one’s laurels and coast works great in the short term, but once the boss walks in and asks this question, there better be some production in the ol’ hopper or you’ll be sacked like a bag of dirt quicker than you can say ‘where’s the unemployment office?’ Every successful sales person who works in the private sector knows this. It doesn’t matter that they were ‘salesperson of the year’ last year, and got huge commissions to go along with their great sales production. The next year, they start out with zilch, zero nada on the books and have to produce, just like the next schmoe regardless of how great things went for them in the past.

But not public sector folks, no siree Bob. Once they get their foot in that door, it’s Fat City from that point on. Especially if they are a member of a union. Phoning it in is the way it’s done. No negative consequences for bad performance or even no performance. Just keep cashing those paychecks, courtesy of the tax money collected from us producers out here in the public.

And you would think that these folks on the public payrolls would be grateful. Nope, they are angry that they are now coming under scrutiny and demand that the rest of us just shut up and keep our wallets at the ready. See this for yourselves as those ingrates form mobs to yell down the legislators who want to change this unsustainable system in Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, Ohio and Indiana.

We’ll see if this scrutiny as to exactly what we get from these parasitic public employees will change any behavior on the part of these blood suckers. I suspect not, not until we eliminate their unions and demand that these ingrates start to perform, with accountability for under performance, as well as rewarding superior performance.

Until that happens, these public sector slackers will continue to ‘phone it in.’

Would America be better off...WITHOUT YOU?

2011-07-04T09:35:00.000-07:00

Did you ever consider asking yourself this question: is my existence a net gain or a net loss to my country? Since you have never considered outright asking yourself this question, you probably have not thought of how you fit in to our society. If you are a titan/captain of industry, a small or medium business owner and entrepreneur, you know the answer to this. You are a big, meaty net gain on our our country's profit and loss statement (or more commonly known as a 'P&L' to you liberals out there) and are the cornerstone of our economy.

If you have never worked a day in your life, and are on public assistance, food stamps, welfare and think government cheese is like manna from heaven, you also know the answer to this: you think you are ENTITLED to every measly scrap of government largess you can lay your sponging hands on. And think you should get MORE. And you think you are the reason that America exists, and of course your value to society cannot even be measured, it's so huge. In other words, you are clueless.

This question doesn't take a lot of soul searching or staring at navels to obtain an easily objective answer. Pull out your calculator, and start punching buttons:

If you have a public sector job, subtract $100,000.00
If you have a public sector job and are a member of a public sector union, subtract an additional $100,000.00
If you are retired from a public sector job and retired in your 50's, subtract $750,000.00
If you are retired from a public sector job, and retired in your 60's, subtract $500,000.00
If you are retired from a public sector job, and retired in your 70's, subtract $100,000.00
If you are retired military, but have a private sector job currently, add $100,000.00
If you are retired military, and are 'double dipping' (have another government job), subtract $200,000.00
If you are retired military, and have retired from your second government job, and are now collecting two government pensions and SSN (triple dipping), subtract $500,000.00
If you have a private sector job, and have a 401(k),and don't plan on retiring until your 70's, add $1,000,000.00
If you have a private sector job, retired and now have your savings and SSN: add $250,000
If you have a private sector job, retired and are collecting a pension with SSN: add $100,000
If you never really had a job, have always been broke and collect SSN, Medicaid and other public assistance, subtract $500,000.00
If you are retired profession politician and have never worked a day in the private sector, subtract $1,000,000,000.00 (1 Billion).

Now look at the number in the calculator's register: if it is negative, you are a drain on society. If it is positive, you are benefiting society. Pretty easy stuff to cypher.

There are lots and lots more scenarios, but I think most of you except liberals and professional moochers (and I am being redundant, liberals are by definition professional moochers) get the picture.

If you contribute more to society than you take, you are a net gain to our country, and we salute you. If you take more than you contribute to our country and society as a whole, you are a net drain and subsequently a detriment to your country. And you teachers, firemen, policemen, military and other public sector employees of this nature, feel free to calculate your benefit to society over your working years by the number of lives you have saved, lives you have effected positively and dedication to public service that you have rendered. Only YOU know the answer to this and assign the value it deserves.

In that case, after punching the buttons on your calculator and you find that you suck more out of our economy than you put in, do your patriotic duty: do your country a favor and drop dead now.

I mean it.

If you vote Democrat, you're a moron or a loser

2011-07-02T06:47:00.000-07:00

Which is it? Voting for anyone with a "D" behind their name is detrimental to everyone who is not a moron or a loser, and in most cases, even detrimental to them as well, although they are too stupid to realize it.

Democrats are the ones who believe that all resources, both public and private, should best be doled out by the government, using 'fairness' as the criteria for determining who gets what. And of course, the Democrats themselves should determine what is fair and what isn't fair, because they deem themselves smarter, more moral and superior than the rest of us Great Unwashed.

Accordingly, since rich guys have the most money, it only goes to reason that Democrats should tax the bejeezus out of them and give it to the poor guys. It's only fair, right? But since there are only a relative handful of rich guys in the country, and hordes of poor guys, the booty that is swiped from the rich guys can only stretch so far: each of the millions of poor guys will vote for the Democrat who promises to soak those rich bastards and give a sliver of that money to each and every poor guy who votes for them.

If you buy into that, you have to be either a moron, or a loser. Either way, losers are happy living a life of scarcity, hopelessness and poverty. And morons just don't know any better, and they will also live the same lives as losers.

Democratic politicians will call 'trickle down economics' a way that Republicans reward their rich, fat cat buddies by giving them tax loopholes, and allowing them to keep all of the public money for themselves, allowing only a small trickle to flow to the morons and losers. Accordingly, they will forever demonize what is in reality 'capitalism', and not 'trickle down economics' and only morons and losers buy into this foolishness.

Everybody with half a brain knows that poor people do not hire anyone, do not buy capital equipment, do not risk their assets in search of providing a product or service people want or need. This is really common knowledge, but not to Democratic politicians.

And they will preach their class warfare message to those out their too stupid to understand how the country really works, or to their base, the losers who are OK living on the edge, with the government giving them a pathetic little slice of the money stolen from those who make the country work in the first place.

Thanks to all of you morons and losers out there, we are now living through the worst economic situation that we have seen in our lifetimes, unless you are old enough to remember the Great Depression.

So, if you are either a moron or a loser, it really doesn't matter. You will keep voting for your Democrats, and keep our country in a perpetual depression.

Thanks a lot, morons and losers.

The Meaning of Life

2011-06-23T08:17:00.000-07:00

The answer to the age old philosophical question, 'what is the meaning of life' is actually pretty simple, and you need not scale a Himalayan peak and ask a hermit guru to find this answer.

The answer? Don't be an asshole.

We were put here on this earth along with every other living creature for reasons known only to God. But while we're here, it was clearly not God's intention for us to use our lives in ways that are detrimental in the fullness of time to our environs, including our fellow creatures (human creatures included). God also put us at the top of the food chain, and the pursuit of nourishment is not detrimental to God's wishes, so you vegans can just save your breath on this last part, OK?

Assholes are a detriment to society, and in general come in varying degrees of assholiness. The low level asshole is the guy who flips a burning cigarette butt out of a moving car window. The high level assholes are sociopaths who care only of their hedonistic pursuits oblivious to the care or concerns of anyone else. These of course include (but are not limited to) murderers, rapists, arsonists, robbers, thieves and all other manner of felons.

And low level assholes can become high level assholes at random moments: the low level asshole who carelessly tossed the burning cigarette butt out of the car window becomes a high level asshole when that burning cigarette butt catches a dry countryside on fire, and subsequently burns out a community and perhaps in the end kills people.

The meaning of life comes into play when we all do our best to try and avoid being assholes. This entails doing the right thing when nobody is watching. Like the low level asshole drinking directly from the carton of milk after a few glances around to make sure the ol' ball and chain isn't watching. Can you imagine Pope John Paul II reaching into the refrigerator, taking a few looks left and right, and then chugging right from the carton? Nope, never happened. Not that the Pope ever had an 'ol' ball 'n' chain,' but I digress.

That's because Pope John Paul II knew that the meaning of life is to not be an asshole. Additionally, as a trained and professional theologian, the Pope also knew that this unwritten law is enforced in the end. When we all leave this earth, and stand before St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, there is nothing we have ever done that escapes St. Peter's clipboard, the one with our name and photo ID at the top.

Everything we do, every act we commit whether it be low level asshole actions or worse, they all end up on St. Peters clipboard. In essence, nobody can do anything without someone watching.

Accordingly, the meaning of life should be abundantly clear: do the right thing, because someone is ALWAYS watching.

That was an easy question.

'Uglo-Americans': it's OK to discriminate against these folks

2011-06-15T08:57:00.000-07:00

As a numbnuts uninformed cretin would say, 'can we be real here?' This, in response to dreamy ol' Fredd pining away that in Utopia, people would be judged not by the 'arrangement of their skin, but by the content of their character.' (apologies to Martin Luther King for butchering his phrase in his 'I have a Dream' speech).

I just thought I would wander off the conservative reservation for a bit, and point out that the pretty people in this world get a leg up in almost every endeavor, while the less than pretty folk get the shaft when trying to compete for a share of life's goodies against these hunks and babes.

Kim Kardashian is rich and famous for one thing only: her looks. She is as dumb as a bag of hammers (my apologies to all of those bags of hammers out there, you are WAY smarter than Kim), she dropped out of third grade, and treats everyone around her like a bag of dirt. But none of that matters. She's a looker, and as such is entitled to her fame and riches. Life is like that, you know, according to this aforementioned idiot. 'Get over it,' he would advise us all.

There has actually been legislation passed prohibiting discrimination in hiring by race, sex, age, color, creed, religion and sexual orientation. You will note, however, that general appearance does not make the list. But, as the moron mentioned above, being the wet blanket that he can sometimes be, will jerk us back into reality by pointing out that this is the way things are: that the ugly amoung us should not even bother to apply, and maybe even do us all a favor and just drop dead.

After all, let's get real, shall we?

And the idiot above indeed has an irrefutable point. We all prefer watching pretty people read the news, rather than a wart covered. wrinkly obese slob, right? It's not even arguable. We all discriminate against fat, zit faced, ugly old people. We do it every day. Virtually all of us.

But is it right? Is this the way things SHOULD be?

In Fredd's Dreamland Utopia (where most liberals always hang out), we would ideally be judged by our credentials, attitude, love of life, respect for others, tolerance, people skills, gumption and verve, period. Looks? Not applicable.

But then, the imbecile above will remind us all with his cold bucket of water that we don't dwell in Dreamland Utopia. Let's get real. The Uglo-American segment of society can just forget about getting ahead in life based on their credentials, etc.

And they can certainly forget about sitting behind the newsdesk, for the ugly need not apply. Indeed, they should do us all a favor and drop dead. Or, if they choose to keep on living for reasons unknown to us all, at least they should wear paper bags over their heads.

But life is like this, and we all know it. But it still ain't right....

We need uglier Fox News reporters

2011-06-12T19:34:00.000-07:00

Look at the line up every morning at Fox News: this morning, I wake up to see a beauty queen looking Ainsley Earhardt in a clingy, green, low cut, sleeveless number spouting deficit numbers. She was sitting in for Allision Camerota, who also wears that slinky stuff, and is not hard on the eye, either. Are their audiences that pathetic and shallow, that they will abandon Fox News should they actually air some tubby, old, bald fat guys? Or maybe some frumpy, dowdy middle age babes with 'big bone' issues?

Yes, apparently. Fox and Friends during the week features former Miss America Gretchen Carlson, who is now getting on in years, and I suspect that Roger Ailes will sooner rather than later sack her in favor of some twenty-someting hotty who can read a teleprompter without stuttering too badly.

If Fox News is really honest about reporting the news, 'fair and balanced,' then they should practice what they preach and deliver this fair and balanced stuff with folks who actually represent America: tubby, old, bald, fat guys with several chins, liver spots, eye ticks and other blights that represent most of us who dwell within the Fruited Plains.

But will we ever see an old, bald, liver spotted fat guy reading the teleprompter?

No.

But why? Because the audience will not tolerate anyone who is less than movie star, soap opera perfect, and that is really a shame. Is it only possible that good looking folks can read a teleprompter, or forecast the weather?

According to Roger Ailes (a really ugly guy, truth be told), the ugly need not apply.

The ugly should be sheltered away, never to be seen or heard. Not on his airwaves, anyway.

Oh well. Good thing I have a day job.

Suze Orman: if you take her advice, you're an idiot

2011-05-29T10:31:00.000-07:00

There are so many financial gurus out there these days, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting one of them. Suze Orman has been making the rounds of late on the various liberal talk shows telling everyone who will listen to never own a house, just rent one.

And of course, this is a complete one hundred and eighty degree about face from what she was telling those dopes who listened to her in the past: she touted home ownership, and said that renting a home was throwing away your money: buy the biggest house that you can qualify for, she said.

Which Suze are you to believe? The Suze Orman of two or three years ago? Or the Suze Orman of today who is telling you the exact opposite advice she spewed earlier? The truth is that Suze is just another popular financial 'expert' who will gladly tell you how to manage your money, as long as she makes a buck or two doing it. Never mind that you may have taken her advice a few years ago, and invested heavily into real estate and now have lost the shirt off of your back.

Oops (which she never said). Oh well. Now believe her when she tells you the best way to achieving financial independence is to (fill in the blank, it's all garbage anyway). At one point in her career, I recall her telling people that it makes sense to run up a big credit card balance, and that way you can improve your FICO score. With advice like that, anyone who listens to this cretin Suze Orman now are themselves dumber than a bag of hammers.

Suze Orman, of course, is a classically trained financial genius, with a bachelors degree from the U. of Illinois in..... wait for it.....SOCIAL WORK!. She's studied vigorously as to how to help people fill out food stamp applications, where to go to find welfare sign up sheets, etc., but has never once sat in a college lecture about economics, money or finance. Yeah, listen to Suze talk about money. To your peril...

My advice? Save your money for a rainy day, don't live beyond your means and manage your financial affairs yourself. Why pay these parasitic financial advisers a nickel when they have no better clue as to what the future holds than you do.

Especially Suze Orman. She's got to be the dumbest financial 'expert' that ever came down the pike.

Mideast peace: a fairy tale that will never come true

2011-05-21T06:41:00.000-07:00

Or how about that dreamy insipid wish of every imbecilic beauty queen, when asked what would she wish for to come to pass, dim wittingly claiming to want 'world peace?' Obama's proposal of a solution to the ills that have been festering between the Palestinians and the Israeli's ever since their inception in 1948 is just too ludicrous to ponder.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is right in dismissing this stupid proposal without further consideration. The Palestinians want only one thing: for Israel to go away. To vacate their country. Every last one of them. Nothing less will do. Every Palestinian leader has openly said so, from Arafat to those dogs that lead Hamas and Hezbollah today. To suggest as Obama did in his pathetic speech that borders be imposed between these two enemies will solve anything is ridiculous.

There can be no peace when the only acceptable solution to the Palestinians is the demise of Israel. There can only be peace between these irreconcilable positions if one side completely and utterly defeats and destroys the other. Then and only then can there be peace.

And Obama is just too stupid, arrogant, foolish and removed from reality to accept this as the ultimate truth, when he proposes child-like fairy tales as serious solutions to a situation that requires armed conflict to resolve.

Pakistan: the root of all evil in the world today

2011-05-18T08:29:00.000-07:00

Does any sane person in the Western World today still believe that Pakistan is an ally of the United States? Does anyone truly, from within their heart of hearts, believe that Pakistan is a force for good in the world? These rhetorical questions have an answer that is clearly obvious to any reasonable person: a rock solid 'NO' to both, and the proof is absolutely crystal clear to anyone who has eyes.

Pakistan was harboring Osama bin Laden for six years, despite lying to the entire civilized world in categorically denying he was anywhere within their borders. The U.S. had to surreptitiously cross into this festering pus hole of a country and kill the slimy vermin without the help of Pakistan. Had we requested their help in this mission, there is nobody who believes that bin Laden would not have been given a heads up by these lying sacks of garbage (also known as Pakistanis) and split the scene.

And the Pakistani government is peeved that we unilaterally killed bin Laden ourselves? And violated their sovereignty? If you recall the Bush Doctrine (which is still in effect, to the best of my knowledge), we are within our national interests go after terrorists wherever they are, and consider them an enemy of the U.S. and to make no distinction between a terrorist and 'THOSE WHO HARBOR THEM.' Pakistani sovereignty is meaningless now. At least to the U.S.

They are an enemy state, a state that harbors, trains, supports and defends our enemies. Accordingly, they are a defacto enemy of the United States, when trained terrorists emerge from their soil and stage attacks on innocents here and abroad, then retreat back to the welcoming and nurturing Pakistani arms. They truly deserve a counter offensive strike.

And now they openly fire on their supposed allies.

And continue to harbor Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader. India (one of our true allies) has known the truth about Pakistan for decades and decades. It is time we woke up to that same reality. It's time we replaced Iraq with Pakistan as the third leg of the Axis of Evil: Iran, South Korea and PAKISTAN.

Royal family is Britains' version of Disneyland

2011-05-09T07:07:00.000-07:00

Now that all of the hooplah of that damn royal wedding is thankfully receding into history, I would like to point out that this whole monarachy thing, which we Yanks tossed into the trashbin of history in 1776, still clings to the British population like a nasty fart hangs around a beer guzzling sot, but sucks a great deal of time and energy out of the average Limey's day.

The royal family really has no power in international affairs (the Prime Minister makes the calls here), and no say in internal British matters either (again, the Prime Minister who controls the House of Commons calls the shots here as well). Essentially, the royal family (the House of Windsor) has much in common with our version of fairy tale princesses: Disney Land and Disney World. People flock to see the Queen at Buckingham Palace in the same manner that all sorts of folks pay big bucks to gawk at Mickey Mouse and Goofy in Disney World.

Yes, the royals hold an enormous amount of real estate inherited through the ages as it was passed down from the old kings and queens throughout British history, and lately through the House of Hannover and on to the existing royals, the House of Windsor. Most of the profits generated by these holdings are channeled back into the government's coffers and so in reality, the royals really don't cost the country anything, but more accurately generate a modicum of profit (but nothing close to Disney World). One can only speculate as to what kind of ROI those holdings would generate were they removed from royal hands, but I suspect that the Brits want to leave well enough alone.

Should the royals decide to keep these real estate profits, and to cash in on some of their holdings, and all bets are off: a revolution would surely ensue, and this is a revolution that the royals have postponed slowly over the generations by gradually ceding power back to the people, in exchange for keeping their royal heads attached to their royal necks.

And the Brits love these guys, for reasons I can't really fathom since I am a Yank, but to see the hullabaloo about these useless Dukes, Duchessses, Earls, Lords and Viscounts gallavanting around in their phony uniforms while all marrying their first cousins is a bit much for me. But hey, whatever floats the Limey boat.

God save the Queen. And keep that 'British Disney Land' revenue flowing.

Unrelated Note: notice how King George III and Mickey are striking the same pose.

Pakistan harbored Osama bin Laden for 6 years

2011-05-02T13:20:00.000-07:00

Now that the news of Osama bin Laden's death is starting to get stale, it will certainly be fascinating in the next week or two to watch how the Pakistani government squirms out of this one: it is apparent to absolutely anyone with half a brain that the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan where Osama bin Laden lived since it was constructed in 2005 was at least in part built, funded, maintained and secured by the Pakistani government.

No other conclusion can be drawn.

This facility was within 100 yards of Pakistan's version of West Point. It was ten times the size of all of the other structures within this community, and had the security of Fort Knox. Most of the neighbors were aware that a person of significant stature lived within these 18 foot walls for the past six years, and to think that the Pakistani government was completely unaware of its inhabitant's identification really stretches their credibility when they deny knowledge of the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.

If you recall, the Bush Doctrine defined our enemies after 9/11 as those who committed the atrocities of that terrible day, and that we would not distinguish between these foul enemies and those who harbored them. The Pakistani government, to include former president Perves Musharref, and current president Asif Ali Zardari were complicit in the harboring of Osama bin Laden for six long years.

Now we know on which side of the fence Pakistan's loyalty lies: with the terrorists. Pakistan should now be cut off immediately from U.S. foreign aid, no trade between the U.S. and Pakistan should be allowed, and no travel by U.S. citizens to this enemy state should be authorized by the Department of State. This is the law of the land, and President Obama should follow through with this logical process.

Pakistan is a nuclear armed rogue state, and the danger it poses to the U.S. and its interests as well as world stability are enormous. The proof of this is sitting right in front of all of our noses: Pakistan is not our friend.

Fredd's Top 5 Republican Candidates in 2012

2011-04-19T21:21:00.000-07:00

With Barack Obama's popularity plummeting, his confidence polls tanking, his foreign policy acumen doubted by the entire planet, and his general incompetence in full view for all to see, the GOP could literally field the Howdy Doody/Bozo the Clown ticket and win in a landslide in 2012. We'll see.

Since the bar is now set so low, let's handicap the front running contenders for the Republican nod, shall we?

1. Donald Trump: 2 to 1 odds that he's our guy at the end of the nomination process. 'The Donald' seems to have a leg up at this moment in time, and for good reason: he's an extremely deep pocketed populist, who will say anything that gets him noticed. Like getting tough with China. Or OPEC. And I like this one: just take $1.5 Trillion dollars worth of oil from Iraq to cover our costs of emancipating them from the hated Saddam Hussein. Just take it. And when I say extremely deep pocketed, I mean that The Donald makes a filthy rich Ross Perot look like a hot dog stand vendor in downtown Manhattan (and those guys make 6-figures-trust me on that one). With the big, greasy gobs of money he has at his disposal to throw into his campaign, he should be an exceptionally formidable candidate, and all of that tsunami of money will be spent to muddy and obscure his squishy, wishy-washy ever changing social positions that will curdle any social conservative voter's views of him.

2. Sara Palin: Give Sara about 3 to 1 odds to head up the ticket. On the positive side, Sara Palin has all of the red meat issues down with her conservative base: pro-life, pro-business, pro-capitalism, pro-religion, etc. She's got all the bases covered, and preaches them from the confines of principled core values that are unshakable. With Sara, you get what you see. On the negative side, her voice is an octave or two too high (shrill, some say) and she without a doubt has got to be the most hated, despised and loathed figure that the left has ever witnessed, even more hated than Nixon, Bush 43 or Reagan, and I didn't think that was even possible. Again, to the positive: all three guys, Nixon, Bush and Reagan were two term presidents. Despite the hate and loathing from the left.

3. Chris Christie. What's not to like about this guy? Well, if you are a conservative, that is. Like Palin, he is an unapologetic conservative to the bone, and is chalking up a great track record in New Jersey in standing up to big government lefties, teachers unions and other socialist interests. He swears he is not running, but don't they all. Give the Big Guy about 4 to 1 odds of grabbing the nod.

4. Mike Huckabee. Like 'The Donald,' Huckabee loves to present his politics via populism. And it works, to a point. He has a bit of baggage to shake off, namely pardoning that murderer who ultimately walked into a coffee shop in Seattle and executed several off-duty policemen and women. That, and his tax record as governor gives some fiscal conservatives the heebie jeebies. Other than that, Mike is a solid, God fearing capitalist who could go all the way. Give him 5 to 1 odds to be the last man standing at the GOP convention.

5. Mitt Romney. Mitt has got lots going for him: the chiseled features, the Hollywood hair, the smooth and confident manner and a great political pedigree. All of that counts, but as we all recall in 2008, he didn't exactly put the Mormon haters out to pasture like he could have. And his biggest challenge: he has to explain away his mini-Obamacare health care plan enacted under his tenure as Massachusetts governor, and which is now floundering in red ink. Six to 1 odds to prevail at the convention, at best for Mitt.

OUT OF THE RUNNING:

6. Newt Gingrich. Ah, Newt, Newt, Newt. The smartest guy in the room. The guy with all the answers. The architect of the 1994 Republican Revolution. All of that said, what has he done for us lately? Write about 10 or 20 books about principled reform of an out of control socialist government, and then immediately throw his support behind Dede Scazofavva in New York (a documented liberal). Marry and discard two or three wives, give or take a few, and irritate the social conservatives to no end. Newt is also a populist, who is right up there with Reagan, Dubya, Nixon and Sara Palin as the most loathed and despised by the left. In any event, Newt has virtually no chance. Almost none whatsoever. Give him 100 to 1, since I am inclined to hedge my bets on his spirit of competition: he is still the fiery back bencher that he always was.

7. Tim Pawlenty. Enough said. A million to one odds, and I am being generous here.

8. Pat Paulsen. Even though he's dead, Tim Pawlenty and perennial presidential candidate Pat Paulsen have the exact same odds of getting the GOP nomination. Don't make me do the math, here....

9, 10 and on and on.... The rest of the gang, I won't bother mentioning their names, none of them have a chance. A gazillion to one chance for any of the rest.

Bets, anyone?

Compromising with today's Democrats is like...

2011-04-15T15:05:00.000-07:00

1. ....haggling with the Taliban. Here is how that would go:

Mustaffa: 'All infidels must be beheaded. Allah has commanded us to do this.'
John Boehner: 'We appreciate that you are negotiating from a principled position, Mustaffa, however we feel that beheading ALL infidels is not something my caucus will support. How about we agree that we only behead HALF of all infidels? Would that be acceptable to your people?'

2. ....discussions between 18th century doctors on how to treat a urinary tract infection:

Doctor Smythe: 'It is clear to all of the medical profession that this ailing patient needs massive blood letting, at least two litres need to be removed immediately. His blood is toxic, and we need to eliminate as much of his poisonous blood as possible, so that he might recover.'
Doctor Boehner: Yes, we both agree that this patient has too much poisonous blood coarsing through his veins. I would suggest that we only bleed him one litre, observe him for a few weeks, and then bleed him the other litre if his condition does not improve, how does that sound, Dr. Smythe?'

3....negotiating with the Wolfman:

Wolfman: 'Grrrrrrowwwwlllll, Snnnnnarrrrlllll!!' (translation: 'I'm going to rip your throat out, eviscerate you and devour your liver, but not necessarily in that order.')
Victim Boehner: 'Yes, I understand your hunger, Mr. Wolfman. Your plans for my body parts are understandable, given your current state, however I would propose that you only chew off my left leg, as Mrs. Boehner would not go for your initial proposal...'

I believe my analogies are wildly exaggerated, however not wildly inaccurate. The GOP has been haggling with Democrats over what turns out to be $350 Million dollars of cuts to the 2011 budget, while the U.S. has been borrowing approximately $3.5 BILLION dollars every day to cover our deficit spending. This haggling has been going on for a month, you do the math...

The GOP's ultimate duty, as demanded by the voters last November, is to reduce the size of government and slashing the humongous debt that socialist Democrats have hung around the necks of every American, born and unborn for as far into the future as the eye can see. . To get this done, compromise with Democrats is not the way to go. The Democratic party's ultimate goal is to turn our country into a European socialist quasi-democracy, where everyone who can contribute is bled dry, and everyone who wants to lay sideways in the public trough can do so without lifting a finger towards the common good.

These two positions are polar opposite, they are incompatible, and there is absolutely no middle ground. Compromise is not possible, and the only resolution to these differences is to achieve unconditional victory over the other side. Which side will in the end come up on top?

So far, it looks like the socialists have a full head of steam....

Congress will raise the debt ceiling (again...)

2011-04-12T06:28:00.000-07:00

Don't these guys get it? What is not to understand about the November 2010 election results? Americans want our debt brought under control by responsible adults, and they elected people to get the job done. And the math is not hard, either. There is one and only one way to turn around the direction of our skyrocketing debt: stop spending money we don't have. And now what are we to expect this week? Another step towards bankruptcy, courtesy of the 112th Congress, when they vote to raise the debt ceiling yet again. This new GOP controlled House bunch thinks that the only way to get things done is to compromise with the scoundrels who got us into this mess in the first place. That is so wrong on so many levels. Compromising with these guys is like compromising with the Taliban: 'so, Mahmoud, you insist we cut off the heads of infidels who reject the teachings of the Prophet. How about this, Mahmoud: we only cut off the arm of an infidel, would that make you happy? Let me know about my proposal, I gotta take something back to my people...' Raising the debt ceiling (again, for the 11th time in the last 10 years) is simply giving in to the wild spending Democrat socialists who think money grows on trees. These Republicans better get with the program and stop the spending, address the outrageous entitlements and the bloated federal government that have been established by our socialist counterparts over the last 75 years. Just like we asked them to do last November.

Top Ten Best 'Bad Guys' on the Big Screen ever

2011-03-29T06:16:00.000-07:00

Back in the good ol' days of cinema, you could always tell the good guys from the bad guys: the good guys wore white hats, and rode white horses, while the bad guys wore black hats and rode black horses. You could spot winners and losers simply with your peripheral vision, easy as falling off a log. Not anymore. Bad guys can wear whatever they want, and ride whatever they want. It's tough, but the discerning movie goer can still pick out the villain without even breathing hard. Some actors pull off villany better than others, and here is the definitive list of 'best' of the bad:

10. Steve Buschemi: Easily recognizable as the slimy, shifty ne-er-do-well in many films today, and is a favorite scuzz ball to Joel and Ethan Cohen. His slimiest role ever had to be his portrayal of dirtbag Carl Showalter in 'Fargo', and eventually he gets his as a co-consipirator feeds him into a wood chipper.

9. Peter Boyle. This excellent bad guy may surprise most of you by making this list, since his hit TV show "Everybody Loves Raymond" had him playing the loveable slob father in law that we all enjoyed so much. However, Peter Boyle gave one of the most impressive portrayals of evil as 'Sheppard,' the general manager of a space station on a moon of Jupiter, Io in the 1981 movie 'Outland.' Sean Connery eventually does him in, but Peter Boyle gets in his licks, and is completely hatable in this excellent flick.

8. Frank Langella. This most excellent bad guy came to my attention as the evil 'Skeletor' in the 1987 sci fi flick 'Masters of the Universe.' Langella was also most evilly excellent as the manipulative chief of staff Robert Alexander to imposter U.S. president 'Dave,' a 1993 feel good movie also starring Sigourney Weaver as the fist lady. Frank Langella's scheming Bob Alexander in 'Dave,' of course gets screwed in the end, and that's the way we like our villains to end up: screwed.

7. Ronny Cox. No credible 'Top Ten' list can ever be complete without a mention of the 1987 'Robocop' flick and its great cast of characters, both good (Peter Weller, Nancy Allen) and bad (Ronny Cox). Cox plays VP Dick Jones, who on the surface is a respected businessman working for a law enforcement vendor to the City of Detroit, but underneath it all he is a slimy, filthy pus bag who mingles with the local underworld criminals as easily as Jay Leno works a cocktail party. In the end, Robocop guns down the evil Dick Jones, who falls through the window of a skyscraper to his death, assuming the hail of Robocop bullets didn't kill him first. Either way, a satisfying end to a truly hateable bad guy.

6. Bruce Dern. Bruce can sneer into the camera better than virtually any other Hollywood heavy. When Bruce gets his three-day stubble going, musses his hair up some, and cranks out that nasty sneer of his, let the hissing and booing begin...a truly detestable bad guy, Bruce Dern. Best bad guy role: Joe Danby, one of the ne-er-do-well Danby clan in James Garner's great flick, 'Support Your Local Sheriff.'

5. Arnold Schwartzenegger. Even though he comes off as a good cyborg in the latter two 'Terminator' movies, he pulls off one most excellent heavy as the first 'Terminator' out of the future to snuff out Sara Connor, mother of the leader of the human resistance in the future. Best line: 'I'll be back....' And of course, Arnie gets his in the end, but it sure did take lots of effort to put him down. This role may have not been the 'best' bad guy ever, but he certainly was the toughest bad guy ever. Hands down.

4. Mr. T. Although his most memorable line is mistakenly quoted from his series 'The A Team,' ('I pity the foo'), this phrase was first uttered by Mr. T at the age of 29 during his role as Rocky's nemesis Clubber Lang in 1983's 'Rocky III.' Rude, menacing and obnoxious, Clubber is truly hatable. Just what we all want in a bad guy. Best line: 'I don't want no has-been messin' in my corner.' (this to former champ Apollo Creed, Rocky's trainer at the time).

3. Anthony Hopkins. In his role as the cannibal Hannibal Lecter, Hopkins truly captures the spirit of evil in the sequel to "Silence of the Lambs" when he removes the top of a victim's cranium, slices a piece of brain out, grills it and serves it hot to the still living victim. Ugh.

2. Gene Hackman. Hackman is another one of those actors who gets great good guy parts, but has the breadth of talent to really belt out a nasty bad guy performance. His role as the bully sheriff of old western town of Big Whiskey is one for the ages. Hackman truly shines as rotten 'Little Bill' in Clint Eastwood's Oscar winning film 'Unforgiven.' Best exchange: Hackman to Clint: 'you just shot an unarmed man!' Clint: 'well, he shoulda armed himself.' Classic.

1. Alan Rickman. Completely unlike Gene Hackman, Alan Rickman is a bad guy's bad guy. He has NEVER played a good guy in his entire film career for good reason: he's evil personified. It's hard to choose which was his best bad guy role, whether it is Alan Gruber as the terrorist in Bruce Willis' 1988 flick 'Die Hard,' as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Kevin Costner's 1991 film 'Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,' or (one of my favorites) as Elliot Marsdon in Tom Selleck's 1991 classic 'Quigley Down Under.' Lately he has been up to his evil ways as Severus Snipe in the Harry Potter films. An all around evil guy, Alan Rickman rules as the heaviest of heavies.

Dumbest Commander in Chief Ever

2011-03-25T13:09:00.000-07:00

Who is the dumbest Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces ever? If you said Jimmy Carter, you would be close. Carter's clumsy efforts at looking like he knew what he was doing during the Iran hostage crisis ranks him right up there (or down there, depending on your point of view). Carter was God awful as a military leader. Just pathetic.

But he is not the worst. Now that Barack Obama has had to make some tough calls militarily, he has botched every single one of them. He has to be considered the dumbest CIC ever. He vowed to close Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, blustering on the campaign trail that this torture chamber was giving a black eye to the U.S. and was a recruiting tool for al Qaeda. Turns out, Obama had to eat every one of these stupid remarks. Gitmo will remain open for the foreseeable future. Duh. Where else are you going to detain unlawful combatants, picked up on the battlefield, with no uniforms, shooting at Americans while hiding behind women and children? If justice were served, each and every one of them would be lined up against a wall and shot at dawn, but that's a topic for a different time and place. For now, Gitmo is perfectly suited for detaining these animals. And it only took Obama three years to figure that one out, and you just can't get any dumber than this guy.

We're talking about the dumbest CIC ever. Barack Obama was told by his generals that an additional 80,000 boots on the ground were needed in Afghanistan or the U.S. would start to suffer casualties from lack of ground strength (and for dumb ol' Barry, that means 40,000 troops wearing a pair of boots each, as I am sure math was never his forte at Harvard). It took him months and months to do something, and he came up with a measly 25,000 troops. After 4 months of dithering.

And now Libya. This situation is simply delicious for all of those 'I told you so' types (like me) that foresaw this very situation. When Barack was faced with a military crisis, we all knew he would fold like a cheap deck chair: look at his performance to date with all of the turmoil in the Middle East. I would give him an F. He has not had one single action that anybody would call decisive, much less effective. He has voted 'present' on all of his calls as Commander in Chief. That may have worked in his South side Chicago district, but we can all see that this tactic of punting on hard decisions does not work at all in the Oval Office.

And Libya is great to point this out. It has virtually no impact on American security, and its oil production is a puny 2% of the world's total supply, and watching these tribal savages kill each other is irrelevant to American security. Let them destroy each other, it is no skin off of any U.S. nose. But watching Obama flounder around like a child playing 'army:' priceless.

He has set the bar very, VERY low for future Commander in Chief's, and I just can't see America voting in anyone with credentials approaching Obama's in the future. We see what we get when we elect a coward who votes 'present' when tough choices are called for.

The dumbest CIC ever. Barack Hussein Obama.

What do you call 'conservatives' who hate Sara Palin?

2011-03-16T08:06:00.000-07:00

That's an easy one. These days, every talking head, every conservative wonk, all of those 'in-the-know' pundits shout to the roof tops one cacophonous message: 'Sara Palin is an idiot.' What do we call these guys, these conservative Sara Palin haters? Blue Bloods. Snobs. Elitists.

Those conservative voices in and around the GOP who detest Sara Palin have lately been described as members of the "Ruling Class." You know them, they have the social pedigrees from old monied families, went to private schools, the folks who were born on third base and truly think they hit triples. And Sara is simply not one of 'us,' they say. More accurately, she is not one of 'them.'

Sara Palin graduated with a communications degree from the University of Idaho (the Vandals), a public school. Oh, the shame. She says 'you betcha.' How uncouth. She can gut a moose. Blue bloods can't even imagine such horror. Accordingly, she is unfit to lead, and more likely an idiot. Charles Krauthammer suggests she is a populist, and George Will opines that in the big picture she isn't an idea candidate.

Not an idea candidate? She coined the phrase 'drill, baby, drill.' I like that idea. A lot. And so do most Americans. She believes in life, and not killing innocent unborn children. Another idea I am fond of. She believes in living within our means, and putting the kaibash to all the untold ridiculous 'bridge to nowhere' spending. Another new idea that has legs.

No ideas? Who are these guys? These blue blood conservatives are simply jealous of Sara Palin's popularity, and are threatened by her potential. How will they look to their Ruling Class counterparts on the left at the inside-the-beltway cocktail party? With a President Palin in the Oval Office, how exactly would that conversation go: 'say, Charles, I hear your girl Palin has opened up ANWR to drilling. You must be so proud.' And of course Charles, who's face has just turned to crimson with shame, simply turns to the servant and barks 'more chardonnay, you, and make it quick. And while you're at it, see if you can dig up some brie, too.'

William F. Buckley, Jr. once quipped "I'd rather be governed by the first 100 names listed in the Boston phone book than by the entire Harvard faculty." I think William F. Buckley, Jr. would be perfectly at ease with the prospect of a President Palin.

She is clearly preferable to another blue blood in the Oval Office. But just not to the blue blooded, snobby brie-eaters among us.

Newt Gingrich: no chance for the GOP nod

2011-03-10T08:33:00.000-08:00

Don't get me wrong, I really loved the job Newt Gingrich did back in the good ol' days, navigating the Republican way to a majority in the House for the first time in 40 years way back in 1994.

Those were glorious days indeed. We had the gavel in GOP hands, and got down to work: we of course agreed to vote on all of the bills within the Contract with America in the first 100 days. We got that done (not all of them passed, and sadly term limits was among those that went down to defeat), but Newt and the boys were off and running.

Then things started to go awry for the former fiery back bencher and now Speaker of The House of Representatives, and just like the 111th Congress that followed in Newt's footsteps (only under the leadership of the hated Nancy Pelosi), he over-reached and soon got clobbered on too many issues (like the 'wither on the vine' thing, and wanting school children to starve, and the 'Gingrich who Stole Christmas'), and he resigned as Speaker in disgrace only four years later. I would like to add that none of those issues had any validity, but it didn't matter. Newt Gingrich was politically radioactive.

During that time, Newt packed the baggage into his resume, walking out on his cancer stricken first wife, dumping her overboard for a newer model (Marianne), then when Marianne gets diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, unceremoniously dumps Mrs. Gingrich #2 and hooks up with some new arm candy twenty-something years his junior, an office staffer (Callista Blizek) with whom he was having an affair, and who subsequently became Mrs. Gingrich #3. Then he made a second career out of becoming a lightening rod character in politics for the next decade or so.

And now he wants to run for president?

Can anyone seriously believe that Newt Gingrich has a snowball's chance in hell to get the nomination? With his baggage? Newt is arguably the smartest guy in the room, and that pertains to any room he walks into. He has a great idea every two or three days, and writes a book to promote those great ideas perhaps every six months or so, like clockwork. Although I am primarily an economic conservative, Newt's social life is just a bit much for even me, and I am not even close to being considered by anyone as 'St. Fredd The Pious. '

Newt Gingrich has become a political train wreck. And if you think none of this tawdry, salacious stuff will get brought up in the ensuing campaign of 2012 by St. Barack The Pious' campaign, I have some Mississippi delta property I would like you to consider. Prime riverfront property, mind you....well, today at least. Tomorrow it may be in the middle of the river, but that's why it's selling at a bargain price today. For you only.

But as a viable GOP candidate, Newt's got no chance. Not with the Tea Party zeitgeist, anyway. Recall, it was both Newt and former GOP Chairman Michael Steele who threw their support behind Dede Scozzafava ('R'-NY) in that New York house race for District 23, rather than the true conservative in the primary, Doug Hoffman. Turns out, Dede was a dues paying, card carrying RINO, who always brought the three bean salad to the summer RINO picnics (and more than a few Democrat picnics), and who eventually threw her support behind the eventual contest winner, Democrat Bill Owens. Everybody knew Dede Scozzafava was a raging liberal, even Newt, but none of the Old Guard GOP aparatchiks cared a whit. Doesn't anyone remember that but me?

The Tea Party will remember that, and you can take that to the bank. Newt Gingrich is a staunch defender of the GOP 'Old Guard' who is at odds with the American People as is expressed within the Tea Party sentiment of no more business as usual.

When Newt threw his support to Dede the RINO, he effectively ended any political chances at the Oval Office that he ever had. And even those former odds were slim. Now they are none, since Slim has been sighted working the one-arm bandits in Laughlin, Nevada.

Newt's got no chance for the GOP nod. ZIP, zero, nada.

Democrat party losing legitamacy by throwing temper tantrums

2011-03-03T13:37:00.000-08:00

Legitimacy as a political party is slipping away from the Democrats, bit by bit. You can see it on the news, with their bus loads of union Democrat thugs screaming 'Fox Lies!!' over and over. Like that is going to win the argument.

'But that's all they got. They ain't got nothin', as those who hang around union halls and job banks might put it. When public opinion comes solidly down on the opposite side of them, as is the case in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and South Carolina, they reach for some more arrows in their quiver to allay the threat of the gravy train drying up. But this time, all the arrows are spent. They truly got nothin.' Nothing but screaming, pouting and throwing temper tantrums all in vain at keeping their ill gotten taxpayer money flowing into the union and Democrat party coffers.

These Wisconsin state senators are looking like complete fools and morons, hiding out in Rockford, Illinois. They are like petulant pre-teens, running away from home because mom said they couldn't go to the junior prom after trashing mom and dad's house by holding a party when the folks were out of town. And they run away to their best friend's house, and everybody knows where they are.

I am not sure that running away from home to the next door neighbor's house ever worked in getting a spoiled brat's way, and it's not going to work this time. Democrats are screwed and they know it. Their gig is over, the light is shining on their skulduggery in bilking taxpayers out of lucrative pensions, Cadillac health plans and living retirement in the lap of luxury for life.

We taxpayers have had enough of that! When we have to scrimp and save in down times, during rainy days putting off our vacations and new cars until better times return. But not public union employees, oh no. They truly believe in their heart of hearts that they are exempt from downturns in the economy. Well wake up, you ne-er-do-wells!

People are not going to put up with this nonsense. Not any more. Now you layabouts will see how the other half lives. You know, the folks who pay your way.

Mooching, freeloading layabouts vs America

2011-02-21T20:38:00.000-08:00

You see the mobs, protesting the evil, mean spirited governor of Wisconsin on TV every night. You see the signs, comparing Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wi) to Hitler. He must be evil. He must want babies to die, old people to starve and the working people of Wisconsin to languish in the gutters and perish. That surely must be his intention.

Wrong. Gov. Walker was elected to set the out of control state of Wisconsin's budget right. And that is what he is going to do, regardless of President Obama's best efforts to stymie Gov. Walker's proposals to bring the Wisconsin state budget into balance.

This stand off between layabout, shiftless union thug teachers and the public who pays their salaries is glorious to watch. There is only one of two ways this will end: the union thugs get their way, and the State of Wisconsin continues its drunken sailor wild spending on public union thug pensions and benefits, or the people who pay for them will prevail in cutting them back to sensible levels.

Which will it be? The 'flee-bagger' Democrat state legislators who fled into the bankrupt state of Illinois to stall a vote on this issue think they can force Gov. Walker off his position are simply dead wrong. The governor has stated that he will not budge from the position he has taken as a pledge to the voters of the State of Wisconsin to reign in profligate state spending.

You go, Governor Walker. We are behind you. This showdown is a plebiscite on the state of American politics: do we want unions to shove their desires down our throats, or do we tell them to back off?

I stand with Governor Walker. And most of Americans do, too.

What do you do now, Egyptians?

2011-02-12T12:59:00.000-08:00

OK, Mubarak the Ogre is gone. Celebrate today, Egyptians, as this greedy tyrant has been siphoning off Egypt's lifeblood for his own enrichment for 30 years now. Living on $2 a day for the average Egyptian had to be getting old, and new days are ahead now that the main impediment to Egypt's economic development has fled the country.

Now what? Instant wealth for everyone? Sorry, Egyptians, that's not how it works. Some inner soul searching is now called for, in light of the new day.

The majority of Egyptians still have Islamic cultural leanings that will hinder any progress that is possible under a free market system. Most Egyptians believe that cutting off a hand for a minor transgression is justice. Most Egyptians believe that women should be covered and in the presence of male family members when they are in public. Most Egyptians believe that women should not drive, or vote, or have any say at all in the public discussion as to how best to allocate scare national resources.

With these widespread beliefs held by most Egyptians, no possible gains can be made in their economy. A vibrant economy is only possible under a government that enforces contracts and holds property rights sacred. A free market economic system also requires freedom of speech and the freedom for each of its citizens, including women, to pursue basic human rights such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

There can be no such freedoms when half the population (women) is considered mere chattel and treated like slaves.

Where Egypt will go from this point forward is hard to predict. But it is not difficult to see what will happen to Egypt's future if they continue to cling to these brutal and inhumane cultural choices that have shown over the centuries to give rise to dictators.

Much like the one they just booted out of the country.

Dubya was right all along...

2011-02-05T06:30:00.000-08:00

Remember when George W. Bush authorized the U.S. lead invasion into Iraq back in March of 2003? His goal was to rid the world of a menacing tyrant who was directly responsible for a great deal of the instability of the region. In doing so he stated that an emancipated, democratic Iraq would serve as a beacon of hope in the region for others who yearn for freedom, and that it was the human condition to seek liberty and freedom. . He was lambasted as an idiot pie-in-the-sky dreamer, a fool, a dope. Remember all of that? I do. . Now look at what is happening in the Middle East. Iraq is indeed the model that these other countries are now seeking to emulate. Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Yemen and most notably Egypt; all citizens of these countries are acutely aware of the freedoms now enjoyed by a relatively stable Iraqi population, and they understandably want some of that for themselves. . Of course, their tyrannical governments want absolutely NONE of that, obviously. . To bow to their citizens and allow free elections and the introduction of capitalism, that would be the end of the dictator's palaces, torture chambers, secret police, and all of the trappings of power that they have enjoyed since the Brits, French and other imperialist 19th century countries were ousted from the region over the last one hundred years or so. . And these tyrants can't have that. . But I suspect that the tyrants currently in power in the Middle East are living their last days in the opulence supported by their looting of their population's resources. Twitter, Face Book, YouTube - tyrants have met their match in restricting the flow of information. The cat is out of the bag, and their populations have seen how others in their region are enjoying liberty and freedom. . It is indeed the human condition that fosters the hunger and yearning for freedom. George W. Bush saw this coming back in 2003 as a sure thing. And now just turn on the TV and check it out. The pursuit of freedom is bursting out all over the place in the Middle East. . Dubya was right.

Obama treats supporters like a cad treats women

2011-01-28T09:21:00.001-08:00

Call them heels. Call them cads. Call them low down, dirty dogs. Men who habitually cheat on women are called many things, these terms among them. And Barack Obama has the same regard for his supporters as a cad does for his steady (or so it seems) love interest: tell them lies as to where you were, who you were with, what you were doing,....and on and on. And of course, he will promise the earth, moon and stars to any naive young thing that pines to believe such a cad. And these promises never come to pass, but the naive young thing will stay with the cad, hoping he will change.

Heels will lie, cheat and manipulate any and all things pertaining to their indiscretions. They will enlist the help of collateral parties to provide cover. They will swear to God in Heaven with their hands on the Holy Bible that they were not doing what we all know what they indeed were doing: cheating.

And heels don't just get caught up in the heady emotions of any single tryst: they do this over and over and over again. And even when they are caught red handed, they will lie like dogs, and suggest that you not believe your own lying eyes.

And such is the track record of Barack Obama. He promises anything to anybody stupid enough to believe him, and subsequently vote for him. Once he has their vote in his back pocket, on to the next stump to lie and over-promise to the next batch of stupid idiots who yearn for his soaring, yet hollow rhetoric on how he can deliver Heaven on earth, and have it paid for by everybody else except the crowd he is in front of at the moment.

Once Barack is safely seated in office, those promises and lies are forgotten, much like the heel totally blows off any expectations of fidelity from a committed relationship. Cads and heels do what they do without any regrets, shame or hesitation. Most of the women that are involved with cads still remain with them even in the face of blatant infidelity, and sincerely expect the cad to change his ways, as he always promises to.

It doesn't say much about the intellectual make up of the love interest of a cad to continually take this kind of emotional abuse, does it? And analogously speaking, it doesn't say much about the intelligence of a Barack Obama supporter, either.

Obama's State of the Union speech

2011-01-25T07:56:00.000-08:00

Even though I have not been provided with a transcript of the speech, I don't need one to know what President Barack Obama is going to say: 'the state of the union is sound. The economy is coming around. My focus will be the economy and jobs going forward....etc. etc.'

And none of what he says will mean anything. He still remains a socialist, whose main goal is to redistribute wealth from those who have it to those who don't. Those who don't have any money got that way because those 'fat cat bankers on Wall Street' stole it all. And need to be gotten even with.

He will stress the many divisions in the country currently need to lessen. 'We must all get along, and tone down the rhetoric,' he will plead. And this is the guy who says he will bring a gun to a knife fight, and will punish his enemies, and wants us all to get in his opponents faces...yeah, that guy is saying we need a new tone.

And any inclinations to say he is moving to the center politically is simply disingenuous. He can say it all he wants, but to this point in his administration he has governed from the far, far left fringe of the political spectrum. To say he is moving to the center is one thing. To actually do it is entirely another.

Let's just watch what he does, and don't even bother to listen to what he says anymore.

It'll save everybody a lot of time.

'New tone' does not let liberal philosphy off the hook

2011-01-14T06:35:00.000-08:00

Now that the liberal leftists have successfully used a mass murderer's actions to ease the pressure that has come to bear on their socialist philosophy as of late, they now are scheming to continue full steam ahead with their destruction of the American way of life and its underpinning Golden Goose: Capitalism. . The election of November 2nd, 2010 was a landslide plebiscite against what liberalism and socialism have done to the American economy when left unchecked for years on end. The voices raised against liberalism in general were so great and so convincing over the last two years, even the liberal mainstream media was unable to silence or otherwise muddy its message: liberalism is destructive. . What a lucky break for liberals: point fingers at this conservative hostility towards their destructive philosophy as the proximate cause of the murders in Tuscon, Arizona. And once the conservatives righteously raise indignant voices in opposition to being called complicit in these murders, the left then calls for a 'new tone.' Let's all just get along, and let the vitriolic and venomous attacks and counterattacks subside. Let's just all hold hands and sing Kumbaya. Dammit. And once we all agree to disagree without being disagreeable, they will then continue their destructive policies and follow their destructive agenda without having to deal with a contradictory point of view. If conservatives dare to raise their voices against this continued march into Marxism, they cry 'foul, what about the new tone?' . Lucky them. . And for the record, I am tired of hearing this mass murder called a 'tragedy,' it is nothing close to a tragedy. It was a massacre by an insane mass murdering murderer. Let's not set aside our indignation as to the left's insidious march into socialism. We must continue to make our voices heard as to our support of smaller government, less taxes and more liberty. To let this massacre derail our opposition to the destruction of our American way of life as created by the Founders is to cede the battle to the left. . We can't let them off the hook.

Illinois Democrat voters: dumbest of the dumb

2011-01-09T07:14:00.000-08:00

Question: who is dumber than an Illinois Democrat voter?

Answer: Nobody.

Illinois politics have been dominated by tax and spend Democrats for nearly a century, the Illinois budget deficit is currently $18 BILLION dollars, and climbing. What are the Democrats in charge planning on doing about this looming bankruptcy of the Land of Lincoln?

Raise taxes, of course.

Current Democrat Gov. Pat Quinn (who was Rod Blagojevich's Lieutenant Governor for 6 years), has proposed raising the Illinois state income tax rate by 75%: from its current rate of 3.0% to 5.25%, and he promises that this rate will only be in force for 4 years, and then it will go down to 3.75%. In the meantime, everything will be set right, the deficit will disappear, and everyone will be fat, dumb and happy.

During the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, Republican candidate Bill Brady warned that this was going to happen, and had budget tax cuts on the drawing board to address the deficit concerns in our bankrupt state. Democrat voters, which outnumber Republican voters in this state by nearly 2 to 1, gave the nod to this known tax and spend Democrat in a close race, but nevertheless elected yet another tax and spend liberal to head up the state.

And now that this proposal has been announced, nearly all of these Democrat voters are howling in protest at the tax hikes. How stupid can anybody get? They voted for this, and now they got what they voted for. And yet the stupid Democrat voters are indignant?

Illinois Democrat politicians spend money on social programs and lucrative, opulent public union benefits and retirements, and simply tax the rest of the state into oblivion to pay for it all. Bankruptcy looms, and businesses are fleeing in droves. And Democrats decide to raise taxes, again. Much like the old practice of bleeding patients to cure their ailments, the more the patient ailed, the more the doctor's bled them.

Illinois has had these political doctors bleeding the taxpayer for nearly a century, and we are now so anemic and pale, what do these political bleeders do? Bleed us some more.

And Democrat Illinois voters did this to themselves. Nobody could be dumber than an Illinois Democrat voter. Absolutely nobody.

Except maybe a California Democrat voter. But that would be too close to call.

The 'Chicago Way' clears way for newest thug

2011-01-05T08:14:00.000-08:00

When Rahm Emanuel's residency was challenged, did anyone seriously think that things would not go his way in the decision as to whether he lived in Chicago one year prior to filing his intention to run for mayor? If you thought that Rahm Emanuel had to follow the law just like everyone else, you just don't get it. That's not the 'Chicago Way.'

Even though everyone in the country knows Rahm Emanuel lived in the Washington D.C. area for two years as Obama's chief of staff, and rented out his house here in Chicago, and we have tax documents, rental agreements and video tape to prove it, none of that matters. None of it whatsoever. The laws do not apply to Rahm Emanuel, or anyone on the inside of Chicago political Democrat thuggery. They just do what they want, and know they will get away with murder. It's just the 'Chicago Way.'

The law clearly intended to specify that any candidate for mayor of Chicago 'shall have lived within the city of Chicago for one year prior to filing.' The intent of this law was that any serious candidate should be up to speed on the current political climate, issues and concerns of the day in order to properly govern on matters of current interest to the citizens of Chicago.

A judge now has ruled on the matter, stating that Rahm Emanuel never intended to renounce his residency, and that the residency law doesn't prohibit his running for mayor. This is how it's done in Chicago. The Democrat Party has run this city for nearly a century, with no input from Republicans whatsoever. The 'Chicago Way' was created, mastered, tweaked and perfected by Democrats in its entirety. To think that justice, or the rule of law would interfere with the 'Chicago Way' runs counter to the thug politics that the nation now sees clearly.

Obama was a product of the 'Chicago Way.' His political pedigree is clear in every single action of his administration, starting even during the campaign (recall Obama swearing to accept public money and its limitations for his campaign, and then blowing that promise off once he saw his war chest grow to self sufficiency). As one of the club, Rahm Emanuel, he of the famous 'never let a crisis go to waste' fame, does not have to abide by the laws the rest of us are burdened by, not one bit.

And why does Rahm want to run for mayor? He cares about Chicago, and wants to change things. Once Rahm is in (and we all know he is the next mayor), what is going to change? The city's profligate spending on social programs, and its crushing city sales tax (highest in the nation), property tax(one of the highest in the nation), tobacco tax (one of the highest in the nation), gasoline tax (one of the highest in the nation), this tax, that tax, etc. etc. etc, all of this will remain intact. Rahm is still a Democrat, and that' s what Democrats do: tax, tax and tax. Then take the tax money and spread it around to favored constituencies, and fatten the wallets of their thug buddies, and further entrench the 'Chicago Way.'

The only thing that will change for Chicago is the signs at O'Hare Airport welcoming visitors to Thug Town: instead of 'Mayor Richard M. Daley Welcomes You to Chicago,' cross out Daley's name and stencil in Rahm's. That, and that alone are the only changes Rahm will make. And maybe a new tax here or there, you know Democrats.

That's what they do. It's the 'Chicago Way.'

Re-Post Cretins

2010-12-23T11:09:00.000-08:00

Are you a 're-post' cretin? You know who you are, those of you who read something and think that you are doing the blogosphere a favor by cutting and pasting that insightful article on your blog, mentioning the by-line and thinking of yourself as a bold and brave editor: much like Superman, you believe you are bringing truth, justice and the American Way to us dunderheads who would otherwise miss getting this information.

This activity of re-posting unoriginal material, or information that was compiled by others on personal blogs is what we used to call in the good old days 'plagiarism.' Or, back in the good old days of email, you are the one who forwards the lame jokes to everyone in your address book, and we used to call this 'spam.' Oh sure, mentioning the by-line of the piece gets the reposting cretin off the hook for such accusations of plagiarism, but the fact remains that the reposting cretin truly and incredulously believes that he or she has found crucially important and vital news that a free thinking American public desperately needs to have brought out into public awareness, and nobody else has read it or heard of it. What arrogance. Or stupidity, and more likely, both.

This reposted material is available for any and all to read. Those of us with even a modicum of spunk, get up and go, verve or gumption can Google every bit of this stuff, or otherwise read it on our own merits, without the re-post cretin assuming we are as dumb as he or she is and couldn't find our own butt with two hands, much less find the original material that the repost cretin reposts on their repost cretin blog.

Re-posting is the action taken by people who have no original thoughts of their own. You knew them in high school, the side kick who chimed in 'yeah, what he said,' when their leader or other chump to whom they clung like a parasitic lamprey spewed something that seemed clever or important at the time (and most likely, the spewage was neither clever nor important).

If you would like a premier example of a re-post cretin, check out Boris Tiraspolski's material on http://americanideologicalsociety.com/ais/. Boris heads up this God awful mess of a re-post site (The American Ideological Society), and has yet to pen a single original thought of his own. Just years and years of the material of others, and he righteously believes he is spreading the truth around that everybody should be up to speed on. I have tried to get Boris to utter something original, but I don't believe he has it in him. When you check out 're-posting cretin' in the dictionary, a picture of Boris Tiraspolski appears. Boris is fixated on the threat of terrorism to society as a whole, and has blinders on as to any other issue out there, so if you are like minded, perhaps you might even like Boris' compilation of the work of others.

But in general, my advice to you re-posting cretins out there: stop it. Don't be like Boris Tiraspolski, post something original.

Are you pulling the wagon, or are you in the wagon?

2010-12-15T07:58:00.000-08:00

You can't be both. Either you, as an American citizen or other human who is breathing American air and treading on American soil, are a net positive to the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), or you are a negative to GDP. That math is easy. (Yes, to quibble, you can net out at zero, but that category of folk are statistically insignificant, and accordingly irrelevant to the discussion).

The private sector is where all wealth in the U.S. is generated. All of it. The money that the public sector takes for its unending public 'needs' must come from the private sector through taxes. That's just how it works. Lately, our public sector spending has risen to the top of the kitchen table topics in America, as it has burgeoned to levels beyond anyone's wildest imagination. This spending has got to stop, and to remain a viable world power, this crazy spending has got to be rolled back. And rolled back by a whole lot.

Of course, this involves pain; pain suffered by those who depend on public money. This public money (call it entitlements, welfare, pensions, Medicare, Social Security, unemployment benefits, ad infinitem...) was promised to the recipients. And all of these promises were made by politicians at all levels to their short term political gain, but to our long term damage as a nation.

So, where do we cut?

In other words, whose ox shall we gore first?

In my last post, I was accused of being insulting and inflammatory because one of those 'in the wagon' wanted an exemption for being in the wagon. He was entitled to be taking money out of the private sector because he was a veteran. He took part in defending and securing our nation as an active duty military guy a decade, or perhaps two decades or more ago. But my only argument is that regardless of what any American did in the past, when we cash a government check today, and provide nothing for it today, this individual is a net negative on GDP. Or, in other 'inflammatory and insulting' words, this individual is 'in the wagon.'

'But Fredd, but Fredd, these military veterans deserve their pensions, they made it possible for you to type away on your blog with the freedom they provided decades ago.' OK, okay, fine. Military veteran pensions are off the table.

Then I had a retired policeman get all hot and bothered when I wrote that he, too, was 'in the wagon,' while the rest of us pulled the wagon he was in. He protested, saying 'I chased thugs, criminals and ne-er-do-wells during my prime, I still have the injuries incurred from that career, I protected your life and property, I deserve to sit in this wagon, Fredd, you are a jerk for calling me a parasite.' (I paraphrase here). OK, okay, fine. Retired policemen are off the table, and they can remain in the wagon that I am pulling.

But where does this thinking stop? We in the private sector are now pulling a wagon that is just too damn heavy, and we will, like John Galt in Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged,' just eventually disappear, leaving the wagon to sit there motionless. Then where will all of those entitled, righteous wagon sitters be? The gravy train is ending, everyone can see this is true, but nobody wants the finger pointed at them, because they have a righteous claim on private sector money in the here and now, many of them for services provided decades prior.

Where does it end? The retired fireman will layment that he, too, can lay sideways in that wagon because he, years ago, prevented whole neighborhoods from burning to the ground, back in his younger days. He is now entitled to a big hefty retirement check for the remainder of his ever extended life. Ok, okay, firemen are exempt from pulling the wagon.

But the librarian pipes up, hey, without my past services, the public would be ignorant and illiterate, I deserve an exemption. Ok, fine. Librarians are exempt. But what about retired city hall administrators? Without them, nobody would have gotten their tax levies in the mail, nobody would have known when they should show up for jury duty, society would have collapsed. OK, fine. These guys are exempt, too.

Doesn't anyone out there get dumb ol' Fredd's point? When we pay people not to work, we slowly go broke. We are now broke. The public (and some private) pension systems (that defer wages onto future generations that should have been paid when the services were consumed) that were the rage 100 years ago clearly and demonstrably don't work for the benefit of society now. They patently and obviously do not work. Eventually the chickens come home to roost, and the checks start to bounce. Nobody will be exempt when that day comes. And that day is indeed coming. Hell, that day is almost here.

And once that day comes, there will be blood in the streets. The people riding in the wagon will jump out and grab pitch forks, demanding that the checks start flowing again (just look at the riots in Greece and those U.K. students, to list just a few examples). And the private sector folks who stopped pulling the wagon will grab their pitch forks, telling the wagon riders to take a hike.

These retired pensioners, while they ostensibly agree with my conservative take on things for the most part, have taken their first step towards grabbing pitch forks, demanding that I shut up and just write the damn check. In the chaos that follows the ultimate collapse of our economy owing to irresponsible, wild public spending, these guys will be on the opposite side of the battle lines, and we both will be armed with pitch forks.

Inflammatory and insulting remarks aside, which side will you be on, and who will you be waving your pitch fork at when Armageddon arrives?

Next post: 'The Fix.'

What's it feel like to be a parasite, Americans?

2010-12-10T12:23:00.000-08:00

You know who you are. As much as 50% of working age and retired U.S. citizens are moochers, in addition to untold millions of illegal aliens. Since you know who you are, I am talking to you, dead beats.

Yes you, who expect for some unknown other person to pay for your health care when you casually walk into the emergency room with a runny nose, and suck up the system's time and energy, and then walk out without paying a dime. Or worse yet, when you carry no medical insurance, and develop an existing condition, then expect someone else to treat you? The latest horrible law that has come down the pike (Obama Care) mandates that insurance companies issue you a policy despite your existing condition. This is not insurance, it's welfare, and you are the recipient. Or, in other words, free loading off of the rest of us.

You, who are here illegally and send your illegal kids to public schools, towards which you have contributed nothing, and suck up other public goodies towards which you gave squat.

And what about you old mooching geezers, who suck up all kinds of medicine and pay precious little for it, if anything, simply because you are old and the government gives you a Medicare card. And you bitch and whine about your lousy, feeble little co-pay when it occurs.

And speaking of mooching old geezers, I am speaking of parasites like you who cash your lucrative, opulent social security check each and every month, and yet you know in your heart of hearts that you never, ever contributed anything close to what you have taken out, and what you expect to take out for the undetermined future. And be honest (if that is even possible), you are not even close in your lifetime contributions to what you are cashing and expect to cash.

What is life like for you, you parasites? Don't you ever wonder where this money comes from to support you in your cozy, comfy lifestyle which you don't pay for? Do you think that the Money Fairy just flies in to Washington and dumps truckloads of cash into the U.S. Treasury? Do you even care where the money comes from? Probably not.

And if you don't care, that makes you one of two things: 1) stupid, or 2) evil. Which do you prefer? It is an amoral being who consciously takes from others without giving back any effort for what they take, and that would be defined as evil. Or if you just don't bother to think that your lifestyle is supported by others, then you are just a garden variety idiot. Which is it, mooch?

And you biggest moochers of all: public employee union retirees (this includes public school teachers, firemen, police, librarians, utility companies, and on and on and on and on...): you gutless parasites retire at age 50 or 55, and live the life of Reilly on the public dime for the rest of your free loading life, while the municipality that you used to work at gets the bill for your pension each month, in addition to having to replace your dead beat body with another younger working mooch to back fill what you should be doing until age 65, if there were justice in the world. Do you really think you earned your pension? Not even close, you slacking dead beats. You are killing our society, and you don't even care.

You know the country would be better off without you.

You know that, don't you?

Econ 101 for Dummies (a.k.a. Econ 101 for liberals)

2010-12-06T07:15:00.000-08:00

There is virtually no disagreement that liberal leftists simply do not understand basic economics, and if they do, their understanding is based on feelings rather than logic. Because leftists constantly seem to get themselves elected to public office and accordingly are afforded voting rights on how best to allocate public resources, they vote with their feelings instead of with any knowledge of basic economics. This is very damaging to the country, and we need to bring these simpletons up to speed in how the economy works. Perhaps a lesson in economics, and specifically taxation policy, expressed in terms of feelings and emotions rather than in cold, hard difficult to understand charts and graphs, you know, those constructs that leftists eschew, would be more helpful. Let’s start with a basic premise that all of us would agree upon: if you had $100 in your pocket, and a stranger came up to you, reached into your pocket and took $40 and told you ‘I need this money to help someone else, because they don’t have any,’ you would feel bad, wouldn’t you? That wouldn’t seem fair, would it? Of course not. But when the local, state and federal governments do exactly this to American populations, leftists see absolutely nothing wrong with this. Those of us on the right have a huge problem with the government doing this, so liberals and conservatives see the issue of confiscatory taxation from two different points of view. Which of them is right? Well, if you agreed with the basic premise above that taking money from one American and arbitrarily giving it to another is wrong and hurtful, then the conservative argument would be more likely to prevail. Let’s expand the basic premise somewhat, shall we? Let’s say that this stranger, whose hand is currently inside your pocket snatching that $40 of your $100, tells you ‘this $40 will be better spent on stuff by people that have no money than what you would have done with it, anyway.’ How would you feel about this statement? Would you dare to ask the stranger why he thinks this, and by what basis he came to that conclusion? Would you feel bad if the stranger just ignored your protests, and just took your money anyway? Of course you would. You would probably even get angry. Of course you would get angry. But when state, local and federal legislators get together and vote on budgets, projects and expenditures, they calculate exactly how much and how deep to reach into our pockets to fund these at times foolish, arbitrary and wasteful programs. All that is needed are simple majorities in the various legislative bodies to empower spending of our money in this manner, and leftist, liberal Democrats (and RINO's; Republicans in Name Only, also known as liberals) are usually the legislators who propose such spending, not conservative legislators. Who is right and who is wrong about this process? The liberal leftists are wrong, if you agree with the expanded premise above that these liberal legislators do not know how to spend your money any better than you do. And finally, let’s take that premise to its full reality. Let’s say that this stranger, whose hand is now into your pocket up to his elbow, greedily grabbing $50 now, not the $40 he told you when he first reached into you pocket, tells you ‘I’m taking this money to spend as I see fit, because you don’t need this much money, anyway. You have too much.’ How would you feel then? Angry? Insulted? How does this stranger know what is ‘too much,’ anyway? Does he know you or your circumstances? Does he know that you have four children who would like to go to college but have inadequate college funds? Does he bother to think that you would like to leave some of your money to your children when you die? No, this stranger doesn’t take any of that into consideration. That’s not right, is it? And that makes you mad, doesn’t it? This concludes our emotion, feelings based discussion on taxation policy as is promoted by leftist liberals in our local, state and federal legislative bodies. Based on our discussion, how do you feel about how our tax policy is working out? If it makes you angry, frustrated and insulted, perhaps you would be better served voting for conservatives next election. You’ll feel better.

Obama: our weakest president ever?

2010-12-01T07:31:00.000-08:00

In the good ol' days, when an enemy declared war on the U.S. or in any way threatened our national interests, whether it was the Barbary Pirates during the Jefferson administration, Spain during the McKinley administration, or Germany and Japan, during FDR's administration, whoever was in charge at the time (the President) would take care of business.

In the good ol' days, when some foreign power(s) got uppity and took actions contrary to American interests, the president at the time, whether Democrat, Whig, Republican, whatever, mustered the troops and got the job done to ensure whatever uppity enemy stopped doing whatever they were doing that we didn't like.

Not so, with this administration, or lesser to the point, with the last three Democratic administrations. Recall Jimmy Carter dithering and wringing his hands when Islamic revolutionaries overthrew the Shah of Iran (owing to Jimmy politically throwing the Shah under the bus beforehand) but doing absolutely nothing against the Iranian revolutionary thugs when they took over our embassy in Tehran for over a year.

Recall the next Democrat to take up the oval office: Bill Clinton watched with little or no interest as Islamic terrorists blew up U.S. interest after U.S. interest as he sat on his hands. Well, he did launch a missile at an aspirin factory in Sudan, and we all saw the impact of this bold move: bumpkus.

And now we have Julian Assange, the pusillanimous weenie who has declared himself an enemy of the U.S., dumping massive amounts of stolen classified documents onto the Internet via his Wikileaks site and Barack Obama has his lawyers write some harshly worded dispatch requesting that this enemy cease and desist.

In the good ol' days, America took care of threats with bombs, missiles, tanks, machine guns and battleships. Now, we respond to threats to our country from abroad with harshly worded letters from really mean lawyers. I'm confident that Julian Assange is quaking in his boots with the prospect of facing another volley of harhsly worded letters from Obama's pit bull attorneys.

How pathetic America looks to the world right now. How utterly helpless and feckless we appear on the national stage as this man-child president pleads for this criminal to go away. Fat chance, with this administration and its total weakness of policy and lack of political will to do something about this menace.

In the good ol' days, all of the past presidents (excepting all Democrat presidents from Jimmy Carter forward) would have made a pipsqueak threat like Assange disappear with little fanfare. His atoms would be dispersed to the four corners of the earth, never to materialize in this life again.

But with this weakling in office? Nope, Barack Obama is arguably the weakest president that Americans have ever put into the Oval Office.

Perhaps a constitutional amendment barring Democrats from holding the presidency would be in order. We should never be put in this weak position again.

Ever.

Barbara Bush: elite, Ruling Class snob

2010-11-22T05:58:00.000-08:00

On the conservative side, we have red, white and blue patriotic Americans who believe, much like Superman, in truth, justice and the 'American Way.' Lately, the conservatives have been split along two main fractures: the common conservative and the elite conservative.

Elite conservatives have been calling the shots in the Republican Party since the departure of Ronald Reagan. Namely, these elite conservatives consist primarily of the Bush dynasty, an aristocratic bunch that has been residing at the top of the Ruling Class GOP elite for the past two decades. This bunch is directly responsible for the rise of the Democratic Marxist majority we have seen in Congress over the last four years, the one which now has been repudiated at the ballot box on November 2, 2010.

The main push in ousting these Marxists was the leaderless 'Tea Party' movement, and its revolt against Big Government, Big Debt and Big Intrusion into our lives. And Sarah Palin has been a proponent of these ideals from the beginning, along with the rest of us Great Unwashed in Fly Over Country. Now, Barbara Bush, former First Lady and wife of George H.W. Bush, has been quoted on Larry King's show: Sarah Palin 'seems happy in Alaska, and I hope she stays there.'

Of course she does.

Sarah is not one of 'them,' you see. Oh no. She came from lowly, commoner stock. The Bushs all come from high pedigrees and look down on the rest of us. Bab's late father-in-law, Preston Bush, was a U.S. Senator. Her hubby, of course, was the 41st president. One of her sons was the 43rd president, another the governor of Florida. All are Yale and Harvard grads, Blue Bloods to a man.

Lowly Sarah is a University of Idaho graduate (ugh!). She knows how to track, shoot and gut a moose. Sarah Palin would not be caught dead with a glass of chardonnay and a hunk of brie in her hands, and accordingly is simply unsuitable to govern according to the Bush family.

It's time we put the Bushes out to pasture. Their time has come and gone. These ruling elitists have wreaked havoc on the GOP for two decades now, and we cannot listen to their opinions any longer, lest we continue down that losing path. Recall, George H.W. Bush calling supply side economics 'voodoo economics' when he was opposing Ronald Reagan in the 1980 campaigns. We all know that philosophy under another term: free market capitalism. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree when the first thing George W. Bush did upon assuming the presidency was to slap tariffs on foreign steel, shunning those 'voodoo economics' that Dad hated so much.

Not to mention Dubya's involvement in the GM and Chrysler bailouts, the TARP boondoggle and other Big Government fiascoes (No Child Left Behind, and the Medicare Part B prescription entitlement to name but a few). Dubya hated 'voodoo economics' as much as Daddy did, and his stand on eliminating the southern border and encouraging mass illegal invasion is itself bordering on treason. Remember, Dubya says 'compassion doesn't stop at the Rio Grande.' Yes it does, Dubya. It most certainly does as far as our president's duty to the Constitution and our tax money is concerned.

Babs Bush is getting on in years, and with most of us who are up there in age, we start to lose our filter on who we are as presented to the masses. The cat is out of the bag now: Babs is an arrogant, elite snob and so is her brood.

Al Gore had it right (for once): 'it's time for them to go!'

We're all just stupid rubes and hayseeds, you see

2010-11-13T10:56:00.000-08:00

Obama blames his party's drubbing on his failure to adequately communicate to us dumb hicks out in the sticks (a.k.a. 'Fly Over Country') just exactly how excellently he was managing the country.

"My bad," he says. He tells us that rather than simply keeping his nose to the grindstone and destroying our economy and signaling profound military weakness to our enemies in Iran, North Korea and elsewhere, he should have been taking the time from his destructive schedule, and have been dumbing down his actions, explaining in simple terms to us morons how great his performance was.

We are just too dang stupid to understand how great this man is, you see. We all just fell off of our turnip trucks yesterday, and are just plain dumber than a bag of hammers. 13 Trillion dollars of debt and an unemployment rate that will remain around 10% as far as the eye can see is apparently a rousing, laudable success, according to Barack Obama.

I just can't believe the arrogance of Barack Obama, when he takes a pummeling in the mid term elections the likes of which few of us have ever seen in our lifetimes, and tries to tell us that we all just don't understand.

We understand perfectly what this guy is doing to our country, and we don't like it. Not one bit. We aren't a socialist country now, never have been, nor ever will be. He has it exactly bass ackwards: we are perfectly aware of his damaging, foolish policies and we told him so at the ballot box but he is the one too stupid to see the writing on the wall.

This last election was a referendum on Obama and his policies, pure and simple. No amount of explaining will change that. Obama can explain to us until the cows come home that redistribution of wealth from do'ers to non-doer's is good for everybody, and apparently owes his lack of persuasion that we will never accept that as good policy to the fact that we are all stupid morons.

Wrong. We all most definitely did NOT just fall off the turnip truck. This guy's policies stink, and everyone knows it.

Barack Obama and Michael Jackson: identical twins

2010-11-08T12:34:00.000-08:00

Both of these guys are so similar in their histories, it's bordering on weird: they could have been identical twins separated at birth. .

True, Barack Obama is in his forty's, and Michael Jackson died in his early 50's, but that's a minor detail. The rise (and fall) of both of them follow virtually identical paths. I would cite the following facts for your perusal:

THE RISE:

* Barack Obama and Michael Jackson both considered the Chicagoland area their home towns. Barack hung around Chicago, and Michael hailed from Gary, Indiana.

* Barack Obama and Michael Jackson both downplayed their race once they achieved widespread popularity. They sought to appeal to a cross section of America and did not want to associate themselves with blacks, despite both being genetically black. Michael's music appealed to a universal audience, and Barack initially appealed to a majority of voters, regardless of race.

WHILE ON TOP:

* Both Barack Obama and Michael Jackson completely insulated themselves from the public, in as much as neither of them drove anywhere (they were driven), neither of them ever bought anything such as groceries or American Girl dolls for their daughters (others did this for them). Both have lost complete touch with reality and the American people, and have had body guards protect them from even the most remote possible threat from us, The Great Unwashed.

THE FALL:

* Barack Obama and Michael Jackson both surrounded themselves with 'yes men,' and strongly rejected suggestions from those to whom they were close that a more prudent public behavior be undertaken to avoid damage to their public images. In Michael Jackson's case, his erratic public behavior included dangling his infant son over a five story high guard rail in his residence, or showing up for a court date in pajamas were just a few of his odd episodes. Efforts to curtail his mounting drug consumption by his family and friends elicited temper tantrums of epic proportions from The Gloved One. Accordingly, no amount of cajoling from his inner circle could temper Michael Jackson's appetites for self destructive behaviors, leading ultimately to his early death.

* With Barack Obama, his chosen cabinet members, czars and advisers all (well, not all, but many) have on occasion suggested that Barack temper his Marxist inclinations and work at least in small part with legislators of different points of view, all to no avail. Barack's intemperance regarding differing points of view, and his bull in a china shop implemented liberal agenda that he clumsily forced down the American people's throats despite cacophonous roars of disapproval from the public has led to his Democrat party's massive losses, and the largest mid term election landslide in 80 years.

* Both Barack Obama and Michael Jackson were at one point in their careers on top of the world. Michael, after his release of his album 'Thriller' in 1982, was more popular world wide than even Elvis Presley was in his hey day. Barack Obama was thought to be a messiah prior to his election and into his first few days of office. Towards the end of his days, Michael Jackson was mostly regarded as a weirdo, or even worse, a pedophile, quite a slide from his lofty popularity a mere twenty years earlier, while Barack Obama's numbers have slid about as much in just under two years in office.

Barack Obama and Michael Jackson: two peas in a pod.

What's up with the #1 Oregon Ducks?

2010-11-02T08:41:00.000-07:00

The Oregon Ducks football team is going to win the national championship this year. For the first time. . Even though it's best to never mention the no-hitter while it's in progress, I am not entirely convinced that it applies to the Ducks football program this year. I don't see any team coming within 20 points of them. Am I confident? Yup. Over confident? Depends on one's perspective and insight into what sets the Ducks apart this year. . Of course, Fredd is a fiercely loyal Duck fan and alumnus who is optimistic about his teams' chances this year, but that doesn't necessarily diminish what the Ducks are doing differently than every other team in the NCAA the last few years. . And yes: the Ducks are doing something differently than the rest of the college ranks. What's that, Fredd, you say. Well, I'll be glad to tell you. Read on, please...... . Many chalk the relatively recent success to their skills at implementing the 'West Coast no huddle Offense.' While this is certainly a big factor in their hugely productive offense, this is not the sole, nor even primary reason why they win football games by large margins. Lots of teams are using the West coast offense. Most of the Pac 10, frankly, so what is different about the Ducks? . In the past, the paradigm of recruiting has changed a few times. In the olden days, it was seen that physical size vs fitness and/or athletic ability on the offensive and defensive line was paramount, and was much more effective in using very large men, often of dubious physical conditioning. Great big fat guys on both sides of the line won the day against smaller but more athletic and well conditioned athletes. This was the case up until perhaps the mid 1950's, when a different type of athlete was seen: Ed "Big Daddy" Lipscomb of the LA Rams was not only a huge man physically, at 6'4" and 220, but he was exceptionally quick, and would blow by the slightly larger but much slower and fatter offensive linemen of the day. . Then began the era of ever increasing size and more importantly, speed of linemen, both offense and defense. Mark Gastineau of the Jets and Reggie White of the Packers epitomized the evolution of this strategy in winning football games: get great big fast guys, don't worry about their conditioning a great deal, as long as they can go at it for 4 seconds out of every 35. . While offensively, this strategy is still sound, as the defensive tackle or end must spend much more energy each play to prevail. Accordingly, size , a modicum of speed, but not necessarily conditioning, is still the formula for success on offense. This is no longer the case on defense. Smaller, faster and better conditioning on defense is what we see today. . But wait.....the Oregon Ducks have taken yet another step in recruiting defensive athletes. Up until the last few years, collegiate recruiting focused on talent emanating from high school football programs. While this is still a lucrative pool, Oregon recruiters are focusing on elite track and field athletes, many of whom have never set foot on a gridiron. Speed is what wins the day. Speed and size. The Ducks look for world class sprinters in superb physical condition first, size second and football moves and savvy last. This is new and effective: they sign Olympic class sprinters, keep their conditioning regimens in place, and start to teach them the subtleties of playing defense. . And where do these Oregon recruiters find these elite athletes? They simply need only to walk out of their office doors and see them everywhere: Eugene, Oregon is also called 'Track Town, U.S.A.': this campus is where the Olympic tryouts for track and field are held every four years, and where some of the world's elite athletes train. This is where Phil Knight invented his track shoe with a waffle iron (which later became 'Nike', perhaps you've heard of them). These football coaches have long been wondering what it would be like to have a safety with the kind of speed that they see at lunch working out at Heyward Field. Well, now they know. . Speed and conditioning, when added with a modicum of size, is winning the day now. While during their redshirt year, these elite athletes are easily fooled by simple misdirection plays that most high school football players are wise to, but they learn quickly and are relatively up to speed when it comes time for them to start at the red-shirt freshman varsity level. They will make more mistakes than typical of freshmen who have been playing football since Pop Warner days, but will have the blinding speed to often overcome them, and given their second and third years, become fearsome defenders. . Speed, speed speed. The Oregon Ducks, man for man, have the fastest - by far - and best conditioned defense in college football. They are not necessarily the smallest by any means, but are smaller than any of the elite teams in the Top 25 today. . The Ducks are the only team in Division One NCAA football who have perfected this concept. And it is paying off. In the first half of any football game, they give up yards and points to physically larger but slower teams, but in the second half, those larger legs are tired, where the speedy, Olympic class smaller athletes are still fresh, and have the stamina, strength and most importantly, blazing speed to stymie even the most experienced, talented offense in the third and especially the fourth quarter of play. . The Ducks did not invent this method of recruiting. The Dallas Cowboys toyed with this concept in the mid1960s, but abandoned it after awhile by signing Olympic Gold medal winning sprinter Bob Hayes, who although played back up half back on his high school football team, never really had a basis in football. Bob Hayes was successful with the Cowboys because of his blazing speed, but was often criticized for consistently dropping easy passes while wide open. This strategy has not been pursued with vigor by any organization since....except the Oregon Ducks. . So we have a new paradigm: rather than recruit talented football players from high school and start building them up in the gym, recruit elite sprinters and teach them the game of football, while keeping them in the gym. Nobody is doing that except the Ducks. But the cat is now out of the bag, teams will start doing this in full force in the next few years, after the Ducks win a national championship or two in the meantime. . Go Ducks.

Joy Behar blasts Sharron Angle as 'evil,' 'moron' and 'bitch.'

2010-10-27T07:38:00.000-07:00

Whoever said 'we can disagree without being disagreeable?' Regardless of who said it originally, apparently Joy Behar of ABC's 'The View' never heard about it. In her left wing world, it's OK to call anyone who disagrees with her world view nasty names, and think nothing of it. . Apparently, Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle (R-NV) fits into this category with Joy Behar. Behar called Angle 'evil,' 'moron' and 'bitch' all within about 5 seconds on 'The View' yesterday. And this is not really anything new. The Left, of which Joy Behar knows the secret Lefty handshake, attends all the Lefty meetings, pays all the Lefty dues and brings three bean salads to all the Lefty picnics, has no qualms about being as disagreeable as possible when it comes to debating the issues with those whom she vehemently disagrees. . And with center-right cable news guy Bill O'Reilly, Joy Behar and her leftie comrade-in-arms Whoopie Goldberg got into a major league snit and stormed out of the studio when O'Reilly made the obvious statement that Muslims killed Americans on 9/11 last week. Keep in mind that Bill O'Reilly is no card carrying Republican conservative by any means. He most certainly does NOT know the Republican secret handshake, does NOT pay the dues, and most assuredly does NOT bring three bean salads to the Republican picnics. And Joy lumps this guy in with the rest of that evil, Republican crowd. . Anyone who is slightly to the right of Karl Marx is an enemy to Joy Behar, and as such are fair game for calling them names such as evil, moronic bitches. . For the record, it's not just Joy Behar that's disagreeable. It's most of the Left. Gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman (R-CA) has been called a liar, a Nazi and a whore by supporters of (and the wife of) former governor Jerry Brown (D-CA), and this is all taken in stride by the Leftist mainstream media. Just another day at the office, another evil moronic Republican bitch to disparage. Even writing about this is a story similar to 'dog bites man,' and as such is simply nothing new. . But now this disagreeable act from the Left is getting awfully old with the American public. . These Leftists are in for some refreshing 'come-uppance' in a few days, when the voting public shows what they think of our current Leftist environment and it's disagreeableness.

Americans didn't vote for socialism

2010-10-24T08:08:00.000-07:00

Just 21 short months ago, Americans elected the first black president; an astonishing, historic moment in a nation that just three or four generations ago still saw blacks drinking from separate water fountains from whites, and eating at separate lunch counters from whites. . Barack Obama was supposedly the politician that would bring America together, and that his message of 'hope and change' would transform all Americans' lives for the better. He would lower the seas (he said that during the campaign), and nobody making more than $250,000 would see a dime of increased taxes. . Remember his speech a few years ago that promised a nation coming together as one, not red and blue, but purple. His administration would be transparent, and that all bills pending before the congress would be published on the Internet 72 hours before they were voted on, so that the public could see what the legislation contained. No special interests or lobbyists would be part of his administration. . Remember all of that? It wasn't long ago at all. . Barack Obama has not kept one lousy promise he made during his campaign. Not one. He instead has spent all of his efforts in jamming socialism down our throats, and taking over banks and car companies and student loans and socializing medical care, and on and on.... . And in 21 short, brief months since his inauguration, all of his popularity, his coat tails and his promises of 'hope and change' are completely gone. Vanished. And why? Because this is not the guy whom all of those bamboozled voters voted for. This guy is a brazen, shameless Marxist socialist, and Americans want no part of that, and never did. . With the general elections coming up in just days, not even Democrats want to be seen with this guy. His appearance on the stump for any Democrat running for any office at all is the kiss of death and they are running away from him in droves if they even hear he is headed their way. He has demolished his own party by implementing his Marxist ideology, and by doing so has thrown hundreds of Democrats under the bus. Even rock solid seats such as Barney Frank (D-Ma), Russ Feingold (D-Wi) and Babs Boxer (D-Ca) are now toss ups to retain their offices. . What a turn around. It's astonishing, actually, to see the complete reversal of fortunes based on this ideologues' tin ear as to what governing is all about. He will watch as his party goes down the toilet the week after next, and he will probably blame us, the American people, for not having the brains to understand how much he has done for us. . Everyone entering that voting booth on November 2nd, 2010 knows full well what Barack Obama has done for us: 10% unemployment, and trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. He is the mastermind of one of the largest landslide reversals of congressional power in our life times. And he accomplished this in just 21 short, brief months. Incredible. . Barack Obama has done nothing FOR us, but has done an enormous amount of damage TO us. Make no mistake: this upcoming election is an unmitigated, unmistakable referendum on this president. Americans want nothing to do with socialism, and this election will point that out with gusto.

What has America done for me lately?

2010-10-18T08:58:00.000-07:00

I really want to know, exactly what HAS this country done for me lately? Has it put a new Lexus in my driveway? NO. Has it funded a beach front condo for me and my progeny to retire in? NO. And what about my kitchen, huh? It has needed new cabinets, floor covering and appliances since the Clinton administration. Where is my country when I need it?

I'll tell you where. Giving tax breaks and corporate welfare to all of those capitalist pig fat cats, instead of giving it to me. Sure, they provide me with food stamps, free prescription medicine and affordable housing for which I never have to service any of the loan (all stuff that should be a God Given RIGHT if you ask me), but I want MORE! Just living welfare check to welfare check keeps the wolves from the door, but when's the last time I had a 7-day eastern Caribbean cruise, huh? You know, where the destinations include St. Thomas and St. Maartin? NEVER, and is that fair? NO, I say!

All I can swing on my welfare/unemployment payments are those lousy three day cruises out of Galveston, Texas, and they only go to Cancun. And now those rotten Republican bastards want to limit where I can use my unemployment debit card? Who are they to tell me I can't use it in the Luxor in Las Vegas, or on my lousy, three day western Caribbean cruise? Those fat cat Wall street types have lost touch with the people.

Life is tough being me, let me tell you.

With all of these Tea Parties going on, declaring war on taxpayer funded entitlement programs, you'd think they want me to starve and die in the gutter. We all know this is what they want, and this is why we all need to re-elect every sitting Democrat, and every Democrat challenger to any sitting, fat cat Republican up for re-election.

Just say NO to these fat cat Republicans giving OUR money to their fat cat Wall Street buddies that can better be spent on improving OUR standard of living. All we got are these lousy 32" Sony LCD flat screens, when those fat cats are watching their football games on 50" LCD flat screens. Is that fair? NO, I say again!

Vote Democrat this November, and save our cruises, our free housing and provide everyone with a God given right of a 50" LCD flat screen TV! This is what America should be doing for me, lately.

(PS: if you believe any of this gibberish, you and all of us would be better off if you just stayed home on November 2nd, 2010 and let the grown ups decide who should hold public office during the 112th Congress).

Slacking, mooching Social Security geezers

2010-10-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

There's a political ad running in Illinois right now depicting old, decrepit angry geezers admonishing a young conservative politician to keep his hands off of their 'so-security.' These whiny, pathetic geezers were lambasting the conservative politician because he dared suggest that perhaps we should consider raising the retirement age for 'so-security' in the face of an imminent collapse of this ill-conceived FDR-era Ponzi scheme.

One of the characters in the ad sniffed that 'we've paid our whole lives...' I would just bet that this ol' biddy paid perhaps a total of $30,000 into the system over her lifetime, and has now taken out over $150,000 (and counting....), and yet demands that we keep our hands off of 'her so-security.'

Just how do these geezers sleep at night, knowing that their social security checks are paid for by directly taking out funds from younger worker paychecks, and also knowing that the checks many geezers are cashing every month are well above and beyond what they ever put into the system in the first place? They must surely know that the checks they are cashing are not the funds that they contributed, and that were stored safely away in the So'-Security Lock Box. Are these old geezers that stupid?.

Apparently so.

But to get downright indignant that a politician suggest that we do something to stop the unfair and unsustainable transfer payments from the young to the undeserving old is just plain un-American.

Most of these old codgers know full well that they have taken way more out of the system than they EVER paid into it, and that they are eating off of their fellow American's tables directly and unashamedly. Have they no shame? Have they no honor, no integrity, no sense of self sufficiency? Simply look at their paychecks over their working lives, and calculate their contributions, and they must surely know that they are now pure and simply sticking their old, wrinkly liver spotted hands directly into younger American pockets, and stealing THESE YOUNGSTER'S money, and beggaring the generations that are following them! .

This is the "Greatest Generation" that I am talking about. They were the ones that were directly responsible for ensuring that Hitler and Tojo were defeated, and that we continued to teach our children (me and my fellow Baby Boomers) English, and not Japanese or German. Remember those honorable folks, the folks who suffered, sacrificed, fought and died during World War II for the American way of life? Those guys? What happened to them?

And yet they have the unmitigated gall, the nerve, the temerity to scold a young politician who sees this unsustainable Ponzi scheme of Social Security for what it is: a complete transfer of wealth from young Americans to old Americans. This is not the America they fought for and won great victories in World War II.

Social Security was never intended as a retirement account. It was only set up to assist the poorest among us in making ends meet, and not to finance a lifestyle of meeting every want and need of the geezers from every walk of life, from the age of 62 until they die at age 85! Do the math, geezers! You already have drawn out your contributions, probably DECADES ago!

And you excoriate anyone who wants to try and fix this nasty, Socialist mess?

Shame on you, America's slacking, mooching Social Security geezers.

Upcoming 'Lame Duck' session and the political carnage in store for us

2010-10-10T08:40:00.000-07:00

The control of both houses of Congress will change on January 4th, 2011. Although we all can argue today about our guesses as to the peripheral details of the composition of the 112th Congress which will be decided on November 2nd, 2010, I am confident that regardless of the size of the GOP majority, the Republicans will have control of both houses next year.

Unfortunately, that leaves the outgoing Democrat majority in control from November 3rd, 2010 through January 3rd, 2011: sixty one days of terror during which Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama will wreak legislative havoc on our country, regardless of the political consequences for years if not decades to come.

They have already announced that they plan to introduce, debate, gain cloture and pass around 20 pieces of odious, destruction liberal bills such as card check, cap and trade and comprehensive immigration reform (also known as amnesty), to name a few of the horribly damaging bills among many others nearly as damaging to our economy, our Constitution and our way of life in America.

In the U.S. Senate, Harry Reid will have 57 reliable Democrat votes, two reliable Independent Democrat votes (Bernie Sanders and Joe Lieberman), plus a few reliable Republican votes they can pick off, namely Olympia Snow, Susan Collins, John McCain and a few other RINO's from time to time to pass these God awful bills into law. Obama will sign them as fast as they show up on his desk, and repealing, slowing down, defunding or otherwise thwarting this crazy lurch leftward will be an extremely tough row to hoe. In the House, Nancy Pelosi can count on 255 reliable Democrat votes to a measly 177 Republican votes to usher in their madness in these 61 days of legislative carnage.

And do these outgoing liberals know that they will enrage the American people to the point that they may not win another national elective majority for years to come? Yes, of course they know this. And they also know that once an entitlement is enacted, it never goes away. Ever. And they know that they will, in the fullness of time, get the gavels of power back, and when they do, look at the bureaucracy that will have been in place for them to saunter right back in, and have their 'rightful' seat at the table of power of the socialist nation they had created back in 2010 - 2011.

'Fredd,' you say, 'no reasonable political party would ever do that to themselves in the short run, by throwing their entire party onto their own sword.' Oh yeah? Who ever said that this particular party, in this particular day and age, was ever reasonable?

The Democrat's exit from power in January, 2011 will much resemble the political version of Saddam Hussein's retreating Iraqi Republican Guard Army, leaving Kuwait at the end of the First Gulf War: they will set the whole country on fire, and then gleefully admire the carnage they wrought in their rear view mirrors.

Boy, do I hope I am very wrong about this eventuality. I really, really do.

European-style Socialism sucks: trust me, I've lived through it

2010-09-30T07:40:00.000-07:00

The mental image that many Americans have when someone brings up the 'European lifestyle' is of relaxed Continental, metro-sexual types sipping espresso on a Tuesday morning in Paris, while soaking up the glorious morning sun at a sidewalk bistro on the Champs de Elysee.

That image is as accurate as that of the typical European, who is asked to describe their mental image of the typical 'American lifestyle:' a cowboy decked out in spurs, chaps and cowboy hat, up on their horse out on the trail, lassoing stray cattle on the cattle drive, all the while blasting away with his six shooter at marauding Indians. .

Having lived in Europe for 6 long years during two tours of duty in the U.S. Army, I have considerable insight into how the typical, real life European lives on a day to day basis, and I am here to tell you, those folks lounging about sipping their espressos on the Champs de Elysee are far, far, FAR from typical. .

Western Europe has embraced gigantic taxes to finance their socialist way of life since World War II. Not burdened by having to pay for battleships, aircraft carriers and tanks (the United States pays for all of that, you see), they are free to use that tax money to provide free health care, finance 35 hour work weeks, month long vacations in August, lucrative and opulent pensions beginning at 55 for life, and on, and on, and on..........

But what are the costs for all of this socialism? Nearly all European countries, and most noticeably Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain (P.I.I.G.S.), are floundering in crippling debt and bankruptcy. England is not far behind, nor is Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and many other socialist countries in Western Europe.

And the reason these countries are bankrupt are not that they all live in 4,000 square foot mansions, sip Dom Perignon champagne morning, noon and night and race off to fabulous parties in Monte Carlo in their Lamborghinis: the lifestyle of the typical European is as opposite of that as day is to night.

Quite the opposite, in fact: the average European family (4 members and shrinking) lives in a small, dingy apartment of perhaps 700 square feet. This average family has no car, but rather has to depend on the public transportation system, which is enormously expensive and inefficient. If a family does buy a car, it is not a Lamborghini, but rather a Citroen 'Duck,' a chintzy cheap piece of sh*t that gets around 40 mph, has a top speed of 60 mph (100 kph), and they fill the tank with $8.00/gas (benzine). Parking is another enormous expense, and accordingly, most European families do without these luxuries. Yes, cars are luxuries in Europe, whereas they are necessities in the U.S.

The average size refrigerator is smaller in the typical European household than you would see in any typical college dorm room in the U.S. Accordingly, Europeans don't have much room for food storage, and must make daily trips (within walking distance) to the local grocery store to buy the daily meals. Savings available to U.S. citizens via mega-stores like Safeway, Piggly Wiggly, Super Walmarts and so-on are non-existent. Europeans pay full blown retail for their food, as deep freezers are completely alien to most Europeans.

Taxes: All Europeans pay at least half if not more of their incomes in taxes. Income, sales, excise, property and value added: all of these are piled onto everything Europeans buy. In Germany, if a family has a TV, a tax is levied on the TV annually. Just like the Beatles song goes, if you take a walk, they tax your feet. Taxes are cripplingly high in Europe, and they still can't make ends meet, even though they scarcely contribute a dime for their national defense (the U.S. picks up the tab here). Paying these taxes assumes that the European is employed, which would be a spotty assumption: the European unemployment rate has hovered around 11% for most of my adult life, and they consider that 'normal levels.'

Life is cramped, Spartan and at times downright mean in Europe. Socialism is expensive, unsustainable, and living in a socialist system downright sucks. Trust me, I've been there and done that.

And we are heading in that direction.

Teacher's unions will be the death of us all

2010-09-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

'Waiting for Superman' is a film highly critical of our educational system, and particularly the public teacher's unions who hold our children's futures hostage for their own pathetic benefit. There is no greater evil present among the civilized than those who use children as pawns, whether hiding behind them as Islamic terrorists do to avoid being shot at and bombed, or these public teachers unions who through the tenure system deny our children a decent education because they are more concerned about their lucrative and indecent public pensions than they are about the quality of children's education and their future.

This film was not directed and co-written by a radical, right wing conservative: Davis Guggenheim also produced Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth' which leans decidedly left in its views on the man made global warming hoax.

Public teachers unions are killing our education system as well as killing our global competitive position in the marketplace because they value teacher tenure over teacher accomplishment. Public teachers are not promoted and retained because of core competencies at their specific topic of education. Not at all. The teachers union retain and promote teachers solely on how long they have been paying their union dues, i.e. tenure. A public teacher in many of our districts gains tenure after a measly three years in the classroom, and accordingly a secure job for their lifetime regardless of how they perform in that classroom.

All labor unions, regardless of the business they are involved in, strive to achieve one and only one goal for their members: more guaranteed pay for less work. That immutable fact is simply not arguable whatsoever. Teachers unions are no different: rather than work until age 65 at their trade and then retire, these insidious public teacher unions have bullied and threatened via strike tactics to reduce the length of time their members work until retirement (age 52 in many public school districts, or 30 years of teaching), and have also reduced the time required to reach tenure to as little as three years on the job (the point at which the member achieves lifetime union benefits).

After three years, there is no point in getting better at teaching, no point at all. Their job is secure, and many public union teachers simply phone it in from there over the remainder of their career. Once they hit 30 years, 27 of those years mediocre at best performance wise, they can retire with 75% of their full time income for the remainder of their lives, along with 3 or 4% cost of living adjustments annually.

How is this system possibly sustainable? To have a 52 year old retired teacher, living large on the public dime for the rest of their lives while the district they left has to hire yet another teacher to replace the able bodied slug that cashed in? The math is simple: the teacher that cashed in at age 52 earned perhaps $70,000 after 30 years in the typical school district. They will retire with full health care costs paid for and $52,500 annually for another 28 years or so on average. The district will replace that teacher with a rookie public teacher union employee, and pay that teacher (with full health care benefits) $40K to start.

The community in which their union operates accordingly is paying the $52,500 for the non-working teacher (the retired union teacher), along with $40K annually for the young replacement union teacher, and full health care benefits for both. That may be $125,000 and rising each year - PER TEACHING SLOT!! And this is probably a wild underestimation as to the actual costs per district per teaching slot. If the rookie teacher puts in their 30 and retires at age 52 and a new 'rookie-rookie replacement must be hired, and the long ago retired slug lives beyond age 82, then (in current dollars), the district is footing the bill for not only the $40K for a new rookie, but $52,500 for the old rookie newly retired, and $52,500 plus all of those cost of living hikes, perhaps another $35,000, for the 82 year old retiree's pension, PLUS ALL THE HEALTH CARE, and the math starts looking just awful - PER TEACHING SLOT: $200,000 ANNUALLY? $250,000 EACH YEAR, MAYBE? PROBABLY HIGHER THAN THAT AND INCREASING EVERY DAY!!!

Unsustainable. Simply unsustainable. And we haven't even discussed how badly these slacking, unmotivated tenured union teachers are phoning in their work to our children. And we haven't even scratched the surface as to how many teacher's union administrators have been provided with feather bed jobs that are redundant, unnecessary and useless. And of course, we haven't discussed the retirement benefits, health care benefits , etc. of all of these unnecessary and superfluous administrators who also retire at age 52.

And what do we hear, year after year from these unions? We need MORE MONEY!! IT'S FOR THE CHILDREN!! Hogwash and balderdash. Our public school system is awash in taxpayer money, and all of it goes to the union featherbedding of its members for life, all the while their tax base supports these slackers in perpetuity, immune from downturns in the economy, immune from responsibility and accountability.

The educational system as we know it now has to de-certify each and every public union, including teacher's unions, immediately if not sooner. The costs of this unsustainable system will be the death of us all in the long run.

We are already starting to wither and die in the short and medium run. Everyone with eyes can see this as the truth. And this commentary on the sad shape of public education, 'Waiting for Superman' exposes these greedy unions as for what they are: leeches, and parasites on our society.

You just might be a Democrat if.....

2010-09-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

1) ....if you think that the United States owes you a living simply because you were born here, and that your every want and need should be provided to you at no cost, you are probably a Democrat. That, or a Northeastern Republican (same thing).

2) You just might be a Democrat if....you belong to a public employee union, and firmly and truly believe that you should make $120,000 annually until you reach age 51, all the while each and every dime you make comes from the pockets of the taxpayers of your municipality. You also believe down to the marrow in your bones that you should retire comfortably at age 51 on around $90K annually to a beach house in Coral Gables, Florida while the municipality you worked for goes broke paying for your and the rest of your union's unbridled greed and sloth for the rest of your slovenly life, well then you just might be a Democrat. .

3) You just might be a Democrat if....you continue electing Democrat after Democrat to represent you in Congress and they in turn spend the Treasury's (read: 'the taxpayer's) money like drunken sailors on projects and payoffs that the Constitution never, ever intended, well then you just might be a Democrat.

4) You just might be a Democrat if....you truly believe that all women's bodies are theirs to do with as they wish, to include murder innocent lives within them for convenience sake by having abortions on demand for any reason whatsoever. You just might be a Democrat if you believe this, that or a Northeastern Republican (same thing).

5). You just might be a Democrat if....you think that living off the sweat, blood and tears of another without any input from you is nothing to be ashamed of, that eating the bread off of another American's table without any effort on your part is perfectly acceptable, and even 'a right.' If you think that sucking off the public dime is the American way; well then you just might be a Democrat. .

6) You just might be a Democrat if...firmly and truly believe, from the bottom of your heart, that you should pay no federal taxes, while people making more than you should pay all of the federal taxes, if you think that is the way America should be, well then you most certainly must be a Democrat.

That, or a Northeastern Republican (same thing).

ABC News thinks all money belongs to government

2010-09-14T14:32:00.000-07:00

ABC World News, with Dan Harris sitting in for the lovely and gracious (but liberal) Diane Sawyer, just doesn't get it, nor does anyone at ABC. And likely they never will. There was a segment that aired on ABC yesterday with Dan Harris speaking on a segment of 'Taxing the Rich."

Dan Harris reported on Monday's nightly news broadcast that (and I am paraphrasing here) 'the controversial Bush tax cuts are set to expire, but until they do, this gives $700 Billion dollars to mostly millionaires, and even billionaires, who don't need it.'

He went on to say that should the tax cuts be extended, this would 'cost the government $3.7 Trillion dollars over the next 10 years.'

Where do I start on this blithering idiot's broadcast? Let me just start by saying in all caps, "IT'S NOT THE GOVERNMENT'S MONEY, IT'S OURS!!' Just where does Dan Harris get off by saying that money that was not confiscated by the IRS and never gets to Washington DC in the first place will 'cost the government?' How stupid can these Marxist's be? Well, they are Marxists at their core, and probably truly believe that all money in our economy belongs to the government, because it says 'United States of America' on each and every bill, which is printed by the U.S. Treasury, so who else would it belong to?

'Controversial Bush tax cuts?' Yeah, controversial to liberals, who never met a tax hike they didn't like. But 'controversial?' The Bush tax cuts were only controversial to numbnut liberals like Dan Harris, and his bosses at ABC. To the rest of us, they were badly needed, and still ARE badly needed.

And just who in hell are these guys at ABC to determine who 'needs' tax breaks, and who doesn't? We ALL need tax breaks. Dan Harris and his cronies all believe down to the marrow that a tax cut will hurt government in its ability to help us stupid, ignorant citizens, who have no idea on how to manage our own affairs. We're stupid cretins who just fell off the onion truck, as far as they are concerned. The Great Unwashed. And we stink up the place when we visit Washington D.C. in the summer as well, just ask Sen. Harry Reid, he as much as said this very thing last year.

There is absolutely no use in arguing that lowering taxes increases private sector investment and activity, and has been proven time and again. You know, the Laffer Curve. But trying to explain the Laffer Curve to a liberal is like showing Dracula a crucifix: they cower and shrink away from it, and howl in pain at viewing it. What's the use?

I just can't wait until November, and watch the electoral bloodbath that will befall these clueless liberals. Remember Peter Jennings saying that the 1994 Republican victories were just a result of 'angry white guys.' And that America was 'throwing a temper tantrum.'

. I wonder how ABC will cover this one? It's going to be twice as bad, or worse (for them).

You just might be one of the 'Great Unwashed.'

2010-09-07T10:09:00.001-07:00

How does one know if they qualify to be a member of 'The Great Unwashed?' You know, those folks whose malodorous presence within smelling distance of our Ruling Class draws a wrinkled nose from the inconvenienced Elite who has the misfortune of sniffing the stench of such a lowly person.

Still confused as to who those Great Unwashed are? Or, heaven forbid, if you ARE one of the Great Unwashed? You know, the stinky folks who visit Washington and offend Sen. Harry Reid's nasal passages (remember, he literally said as much last year).

Well, don't you worry your pretty little (yet stinky) heads any further. Good ol' Fredd is here to help (it's just the kind of guy I am). Allow me to provide some criteria below that can be attributed to us Great Unwashed and assist you in determining your station in life (yes, 'us Great Unwashed,' as good ol' Fredd is a proud member of the "Great Unwashed,' and is even more proud of his malodorous, fetid stench in the presence of his 'betters.')

DO YOU OWN A SMALL BUSINESS? Welcome to the Great Unwashed. You smelly folks are the backbone of the greatest economy on earth, and as such are held in complete and utter contempt by 'your betters.' You know, the Ruling Elites, who think of all money in the American economy as theirs, and since they are so much smarter (and better smelling), they know that doling out 'their' money to us Unwashed folk as they see fit is much better than allowing us to botch things up left to our own stinky devices. Just watch the video on Christophers' "Conservative Perspective" of a former small business owner ("Its-not-fair") Ken George explain how the Elites in our government suck away much of small business earnings in taxes, and your Great Unwashed and stinking blood will boil. Mine did.

DID YOU GRADUATE FROM A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY? Like Sarah Palin, with her stinky B.S. from the University of Idaho. Oh, you smelly, lowly one. Don't you know that to be considered one of the Ruling Class, or part of Polite Society, you must hail from haloed institutions such as Bryn Mawr, Sarah Lawrence, or an Ivy League institution. The only use 'our betters' have for a diploma issued from the University of Oregon, or Arizona State is for wiping their Elite butts, and nothing more.

DO YOU LIVE IN A RED STATE? You know, like Wyoming, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Montana, or (GOD FORBID!) ....Texas!!? Well, then you most assuredly are a filthy, disgusting, stinking member of the Great Unwashed, and accordingly your fetid stench can be detected from as far away as Washington D.C., since your particularly offensive, foul, malodorous stink can waft for thousands of miles and still be detected by 'Your Betters' in the classier neighborhoods. Your ilk is particularly offensive to the Ruling Class, since you constantly return (shudder)...'Republicans' to office, although the Ruling Elites can often brainwash even the dirtiest, stinkiest of the malodorous GOP members into acquiescing to their thinking on the ways of the better smelling world of the Elites. While a RINO still stinks in the presence of our 'betters,' their stench is slightly less offensive when they vote for pork packages, ever increasing spending, etc. along with those who know better than us Great Unwashed dolts and idiots.

Hopefully you are no longer confused as to your station in life. And please feel free to deposit any contraband bars of soap or bottles of shampoo at the door, and we will not ask any questions as to their origin: welcome to The Great Unwashed, c'mon in and set a spell....

No need to take your shoes off.....

So Lefties are suddenly all for religous freedom?

2010-08-29T12:26:00.000-07:00

Why all of a sudden do we hear a cacophonous clamour from the Left for religious tolerance regarding the hated proposed Ground Zero mosque? They are now calling all of those who oppose this ill advised project 'intolerant.' When did this happen? It came straight out of the blue: the Left is now all in favor of freedom of religion? It seems to me that the Left has for most if not all of my life (and I'm OLD) have made fun of Christians, Jews and about every other form of religion out there. Lefties and pinkos of every shape and size were particularly and rabidly fond of bashing Catholicism, and more currently Mormonism. Recall their adulation and adoration of that crucifix sealed in a jar of the 'artist's' urine, a proud result of the program that is called the National Endowment for the Arts. As I recall the 'artist' who created that slap in the face to all Christians named this loathsome piece 'The Piss Christ.' These pinkos, who have sought to remove God from every public square for generations now, suddenly have been 'tetched by the Spirit?' Now, and only now, do they see the light? 'Let Muslims worship whenever and wherever they wish,' these newly enlightened Lefties proclaim, 'it is intolerant to think otherwise.' We have news for you Lefties: for all of you Marxists, Socialists, Communists, Statists, Anarchists and Democrats, speaking for the majority of the people in this country who oppose building this victory mosque as a slap in the face for those who perished on 9/11, we want you to know that we all did not just fall off of the turnip truck yesterday. We are aware that you don't give a lick about religious freedom. You just want to cheer those who hate America the way it was founded, just like you all hate America. These Muslims want to build this mosque as a victory memorial for their triumph on 9/11. In time, they want to establish sharia law over the land, and for most of you lefties, you are OK with sharia law; it has much in common with your values. Sharia severely restricts freedoms just like you lefties like to restrict freedom. Where do you Lefties get off calling the rest of us 'intolerant?' That is like Rosie O'Donnell telling fashion model Kate Moss to 'lose some weight, tubby.'

'Moderate Muslims' and other ficticious characters

2010-08-25T14:07:00.001-07:00

The now somewhat dated joke goes like this: The Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, an al-Qaeda terrorist and a Moderate Muslim were all seated at a poker table, and were betting like dutch uncles on what turned out to be identical hands: Royal Flushes. The Easter Bunny had a Royal Flush in spades (Ace, King, Queen, Jack and Ten), the Tooth Fairy had the same hand, but in hearts, the al-Qaeda terrorist had a royal flush in clubs, and the Moderate Muslim had his royal flush in diamonds. Who raked in the huge pot? The al-Qaeda terrorist, of course. The other three are just fictional characters. Essentially, there is no such thing as a 'moderate Muslim.' Historically speaking, from a non-theologian's perspective, the story of Islam started with the prophet Mohammad receiving the verses of what became the Koran directly from Allah, beginning in 610 A.D. Within these verses, directly from Allah, are instructions for all obedient loyal followers to convert the rest of the world to Islam, and if conversion does not take place, then enslave or kill non-believers ('infidels'). Many Muslims today look the other way when this fact is presented to them. According to the Koran, these Muslims are not true believers, and are not adhering to the words of the Prophet and the wishes of Allah. Perhaps this is just a technicality, and many religious scholars would argue that the ancient verses were figurative, and not literal. Still, they are there in the Koran to this day for anyone to see. And these words are not ambiguous. Calling Islam a religion of peace is just not what Mohammad and Allah had in mind for Muslims. The cartoon above more accurately portrays the views of 'moderate Muslims:' they will watch as the fanatic beheads an infidel, but will rarely (if ever) condemn the fanatic for his actions. After all, this is specifically and literally called for in the Koran, the book by which ALL Muslims live, not just some Muslims. Imam Rauf, the spokeman for the proposed Ground Zero mosque, is reported to be just such a 'moderate Muslim.' When he speaks to Arab speaking listeners, his message is very different than that he tells his English speaking audience. Imam Rauf is not a 'moderate Muslim.' He is a Muslim, period. Accordingly, a 'moderate Muslim' belongs at that poker table every bit as much as the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa: there ain't no such thing.

Pakistan: when you bite that hand that feeds you

2010-08-16T20:16:00.000-07:00

Perhaps as many (or more) than twenty million (that's 20,000,000) Pakistanis are now homeless and destitute owing to the annual flooding that occurs at this time every year. This year, the flooding is greater than normal, and estimates place about 20% of the country under water.

So far, no significant global effort is underway to help these suffering multitudes, other than a pitiful (yet typcial) effort on the part of the United Nations. Yes, some mention of their plight has made the news, but the focus on this naturual disaster is nowhere near other recent disasters such as has befallen the earthquake victims of Haiti, or the sunami victims of Thailand a few years ago.

Former U.S. presidents (Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush) have teamed up to spearhead relief efforts on behalf of both of those stricken populations. Why the indifference to the suffering multitudes in Pakistan? Are these unfortunate souls in Pakistan less deserving of a global response than others whom have suffered catastrophies meted out by Mother Nature recently?

Arguably, the affects of this flooding have devastated the lives of many times the population of other disasters that have made the news of late. Maybe the population of Pakistan is less sympathetic than others of similar fates. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. by Islamic fanatics, we all watched scenes of Pakistanis and Palestinians dancing in the streets in celebration of the nearly 3,000 dead Americans. Recall recent polls of Pakistanis recording their overwhelming hatred of the West and the U.S. in particular lately. Pakistan is the home of countless terrorists and their support groups. Pakistan is reportedly the current refuge of Osama bin Laden, the world's most dispicable, hated and notorious terrorist.

Pakistan is one of the most unliked and unsympathetic countries in the world today. They are the recipients of countless millions/billions in foreign aid (one of their primary sources of GDP), and yet they hate everyone and harbor terrorists who plot death and destruction for Western and Indian targets even as I write this. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. This failed nation and society is a blight on civilization.

Pakistan should not count on Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush putting together an aid package for them. This country has always been a disaster, is currently a disaster, and always will be a disaster.

There is no hope for a prosperous Pakistan in the future. There never will be.

May God have mercy on Pakistan. But, alas, I suspect that Pakistan is God forsaken.

Poll indicates most Americans think securing the border impossible

2010-08-15T07:23:00.000-07:00

A recent poll indicated that 61% of those polled thought that securing the southern U.S. border was impossible.

Unbelievable.

The current border is simply a dotted line drawn on a map. Less than 2% of the border has fencing or other physical barriers that prevent illegal entry from Mexico. It is true that all an intruder must do to enter the United States currently is to walk across an unprotected area in any of the border states (California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas). No need to buy and airline ticket, or board a boat or submarine. Just walk across. That's it.

The same is true in China. Just walk across. There's no fence there, either. But there is one big, BIG difference: in the People's Republic of China, it is a crime to enter their country, and those who do so without permission from the Chinese government do so at great risk to their lives, if not their freedom.

China has borders between themselves and Russia, North Korea, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma, Laos and Vietnam. Thousands and thousands of miles. Thousands and thousands. And along those thousands of miles of border there is not a foot of fencing, zilch, zero, nothing to prevent anyone from walking right into China. Nothing except the fear of breaking Chinese law, and ending up disappearing without a trace, or winding up in a Chinese prison for years if not decades (if not life).

Nobody enters China. Nobody. Or at least nobody enters China without permission. And if they do, they pay dearly.

What's the difference? China enforces its borders with stiff penalties, including death. The U.S. lays down the welcome mat, and provides all comers (read: invaders) with social security benefits, health care benefits, free public education, access to public transportation systems, public parks, and free public (enter the freebie of your choice here).

And we think its impossible to secure our borders? Nothing to it. Position a few machine gun turrets here and there, detect an invader or two and gun them down, and eliminate their threat to our border security. It wouldn't be long before our border is rock, solid secure. Without fences.

Piece o' cake. Works like a charm in China. It would work here, too.

Our culture is in trouble if we have to advertise values

2010-08-12T10:44:00.000-07:00

I am confident you have seen many of the commercials that are being produced these days by 'The Foundation for a Better Life.' This one below, the young guy giving the older lady his seat on the bus, is typical. Each time I see these, I am amazed at how low our culture has sunk: we no longer as a nation teach our children respect for their elders, or anything else anymore.

Many more of these clips are put out by this group, encouraging us to not be jerks and assholes. Apparently, unless we see an ad on TV (over and over and over and over.....), we will behave in ways that are completely outrageous, antisocial and rude. The clips that The Foundation for a Better Life are currently running incessantly on nearly every channel around the clock (even Food Network) include:

1) a Downs Syndrome girl getting picked as Home Coming Queen at a high school prom.

2) after a new high school girl gets the cold shoulder in the cafeteria from the popular girls, a considerate girl comes over and has lunch with the jilted gal.

3) the newly wed guy sits down in a bar after a squabble with the missus, and the barkeep bolsters his spirits as to the 'good stuff' of life.

4) the jerk in high school knock the books out of the nerd's hands onto the floor, and the jock comes over and helps the nerd pick them up.

And on and on and on.....

Most of these ads target young people, in their teens and twenty's. I guess that is why I am amazed at the lengths and enormous advertising cost that this group goes through to convey the basic message: don't be an asshole. The parents of these high schoolers depicted in these ads must be in their early 40's, and accordingly are Generation X'ers. I, being a Baby Boomer, seem to have missed how poorly they must have raised their Generation Y kids, so that these antisocial miscreants crap on all of our notions of polite society. These Gen X parents completely fell down on the job of socializing their children, and now its up to the Foundation For A Better Life to pick up the slack. Or, perhaps worse yet, it's the Boomer's fault for raising such derelict kids that grew up to allow their children to behave like animals.

In my day ('by crackee'), if some jerk knocks the books out of somebody's grasp in high in front of the jocks in my early 1970's high school hallway, the jerk would have his face imprinted onto a locker door by the nearest jock faster than a case of 12-year old Scotch would disappear on the Kennedy compound (and believe me, that's fast). Of course, I was raised by 'The Greatest Generation' parents, and garbage like that shown in those commercials would simply not get tolerated for even a second.

Now we have to advertise on television to make our kids aware that it is not OK to be an asshole?

If we keep on this current generational path of ambivalence towards our children's socialization, in a few generations we will turn into savages and cannibals, eating each other willy nilly since nobody taught us any better. And I am guessing that is the conclusion that the folks at The Foundation for a Better Life came to as well, and are doing their best to change the direction of things to come.

Still, it's pathetic that we have to shape good values by advertising them on TV. I have to wonder if these ads are having a positive effect.

Time will tell.

'American Independents:' Dumbest of the Dumb

2010-08-06T06:23:00.000-07:00

And we all thought Republicans are pretty dumb. Well, they are. But at the top of the heap of stupid citizens, one would have to put the American Independent as the dumbest of the dumb. .

When Independents are tracked down and asked about an issue, any issue at all, they will tell whoever asks that they have yet to make a decision because all the facts are not in, or that they will make up their minds on election day. They must weigh all sides of the issue equally, you see, and then come to an informed and wise decision on the matter. They are moderate and tempered, you see, unlike radical conservatives and left wingers whose extreme views are unacceptable.

That's just all garbage and hooey. Gobbledygook. Bunk. It's just not true that Independents weigh any facts, seek clarification or are indecisive because of incomplete information. The truth about Independents is that they are just plain idiots. Stupid cretins. Dolts. The dumbest of the dumb in American politics. And they lie about why they call themselves Independents: they tell you that they are 'middle of the road,' or 'moderate,' or better yet 'don't believe any one side.'

Don't believe any of that . They are simply lazy, stupid slugs. The most common answer a moron Independent comes up with in response to any political poll or question the vast majority of the time is 'duh, I dunno.'

They will not raise a finger to think about an issue, when the battle lines of conservative versus liberal policy views are right in front of their lazy eyes. 'Too much work,' they say to themselves. 'Tax and spend Socialist liberals?' 'Racist and mean spirited Republicans?' Ah, nuts to all of that work it takes to think about this stuff, they tell themselves. The Independent lazily believes that the truth must lie somewhere in the middle of all of this political blather in the ubiquitous commercials that they see on TV prior to elections. And of course they resent all of these commercials that interrupt 'American Idol' and 'Wipeout.' Can't these politicians understand that they have priorities in life? Enough with the commercials about taxes, immigration reform, national defense, blah blah blah. Just let us Independents get back to 'Jersey Shore,' and tell us how hammered Snooki got last night, and where she puked...this time.

They are simply totally uninformed, and do not want to take the time to educate themselves on the issues. When (and if) they go to the polls to vote, they do not have the slightest clue as to whom to vote for. They will often pick the first name on the ballot. Or, more likely, they will pick the more attractive of the candidates; women Independents most often choose candidates in this manner. They will pick the candidate with better hair, the taller candidate, or the cute candidate with the cleft in his chin.

And the Democrats know this. They understand the Independent. They actively market to the stupid, the dummies, the morons among us. That is why we consistently are ruled by Democrats year in and year out: they get it. Republicans don't. Republicans believe that people vote in elections after careful research into the positions and come to wise, balanced decisions.

Republicans better get with the program and call a spade a spade: Independents are dumber than a bag of hammers, and yet hold the keys to most elections. 40% of all American voters polled claim to be Independent or Independent-leaning. That's a huge percentage, and the Democrats know how to communicate with these dunderheads.

Suggestion: The GOP should start marketing to this stupid crowd effectively, using methods that resonate with the dumb: perhaps campaign literature written in crayon, and yard signs using finger paint; dumb things down to the Independent level. The Democrats already do this. The Republicans should take notes if they want to win the day in November.

Are Democrats smarter than Republicans?

2010-08-02T15:29:00.001-07:00

I would argue that, given the political landscape and its makeup over the last 50 years or so, Democrats are indeed smarter than Republicans. Look around: polls indicate that around 40% of all voters consider themselves conservative or conservative leaning. 20% call themselves Progressives (liberals) or progressive leaning. That leaves the remaining 40% of squishy independent or independent leaning fence sitters.

All Republicans have to do to win an election is convince a measly 26% of the independents to join them at the ballot box, and the election is in the bag. Democrats, on the other hand, have to convince 76% of those squishy folks to vote their way each and every election, and yet election after election these days we see Democrats win the day.

How is this possible? The media, of course, is on their side, and that helps lots. In addition, the Democrats have inroads into academia and unionized activities, also helpful. Plus, all ACORN fraud and the dead folk vote pad the Democrat ballot.

Republicans have lots to learn from Democrats, but they resist getting down and dirty. Republicans are playing by Marquis of Queensbury rules, while Democrats are swinging two-by-fours and chairs in the fight over control of public resources. If a Democrat is charged with an ethics violation, they drag the proceedings out for a few years (Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters come to mind currently), all the while keeping them around and count on their liberal votes each and every issue. Republicans, when a minor amount of dirt is charged against one of their own, immediately throw the wayward GOP scalawag under the bus. No ifs, ands or buts - they are gone.

Who's smarter, politically speaking? Democrats, hands down. I wonder when Republicans are going to wise up?

I am not holding my breath.

'Don't Feed The Bums'

2010-07-26T09:18:00.000-07:00

Many of you are familiar with our national park system, and the many signs always posted in Yellowstone, Yosemite and Grand Teton national parks “Do not feed the bears.” What happens when tourists hand out to mooching bears handfuls of goodies in their picnic baskets? You get more and more mooching bears. Bears are not stupid, and neither are professional bums, for the most part. And when I say 'professional bums,' you know who I mean; the scuzzy moochers who beg for money on every major metropolitan street corner as a way of life. Both of these populations - bears and bums - exhibit predictable behaviors: give them freebies, and the word spreads that freebies are afoot. Pretty soon, the place is crawling with moochers - both bums and bears. Speaking of begging, this phenomenon begs the question: just how do we as a nation go about dealing with our ‘professional bum infestation' in the United States these days? What should we do with them? Scoop them up and hose them off? Put them to work…? How about we just stop as a nation supporting the ‘bumly’ way of life? Like all living creatures, bears will choose the easiest way to survive, and not waste any unnecessary energy in inefficient ways. Scrounging for low caloric foods such as nuts, berries and grubs is highly inefficient when they have access to an alternative unending stream of tourists who toss them fat and sugar laden high caloric yummies such as turkey drumsticks, slices of cherry pie and Hostess Twinkies. With such feasts laid out in the parking lot for the taking, only the dumbest of bears are still out foraging for berries and grubs. The bears with any brains whatsoever are hanging out in parking lots and other places where tourists feed them like kings. When tourists feed bears at our national parks, these bears no longer forage for natural sources of food, but rather congregate in great numbers near their human benefactors, where they become at best a nuisance, or at worst dangerous. So it is with bums, and there is no perceptible difference between the behaviors of these two species of mammals. Like any other mammal, they will flourish in environments where the pickings are easy. And our professional bums are doing just that. They typically hang out where they are most visible, likely in urban settings, and beg for money from passers by. They are sure to make themselves look as pathetic as possible, and have their sad sack, down on their luck stories polished to a highly toned presentation. What happened to all of those bears that were congregating in the parking lots of our national parks? Once the park service started cracking down on bear feeding by clueless tourists, did we see bears dropping dead by the hundreds of starvation, clogging the parking lots with their dead corpses? Did the park service personnel have to stack up dead bear bodies like cord wood? Of course not. These bears, once the food supply dried up, simply moved on in search of better and more reliable fare. Governor Tommy Thompson (R-WI) started several programs such as these in Wisconsin several years ago, and once they were originally proposed, liberal bleeding heart opponents wailed and gnashed their teeth at the cruelty of such draconian measures, predicting that the homeless and forlorn would die in the streets in great numbers. Remember that prediction? They said that if these mean spirited measures were enacted, the loss of lives and mass starvation would be shocking.

What happened?

Bums no longer got hand outs from the state, but were required to start working instead. The bums in Wisconsin just started working, or moved out of state to where the pickin’s were easier. Governor Thompson just “stopped feeding the bums.” And we never saw any bum bodies stacked up like cord wood in alley ways, as they dropped dead from hunger. As usual, the liberal pinkos that predicted doom and gloom, death and woe for their homeless constituents were dead wrong. 'Don't Feed The Bums.' It’s as simple as that. We need more welfare to work programs, and a bit more ‘tough love’ with these moochers. When populations (bear or otherwise) are forced to mend their ways, they do so every time. But how do we change the climate here in the U.S. that has become used to feeding and tolerating “the homeless,” the “unsheltered” and those “displaced populations?” Like all liberal programs and ideologies, they were not embedded into our national consciousness over night. They were purposely and insidiously fed to us in bits and bites, incrementally increasing our tolerance of the bums in our midst to their current unacceptable levels over years and decades. We will just have to start to reverse the trend with public service announcements such as “Please Do Not Feed The Homeless.” Then in time work on placing more derision on these moochers among us as time progresses. We have to make the ‘bumly’ way of life an embarrassment like it used to be in the good ol’ days. Sure, there will always be bums, but just not so many of them. Our goal is to attach some shame to begging and mooching, rather than tolerate these moocher’s bumly way of life as an acceptable profession.

Once begging for a living no longer works, these bums will move on to other more productive behaviors, just like the bears did.

So just remember, 'don't feed the bums.'

Remember when they used to be called 'bums?'

2010-07-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

They used to be called “bums.” The thesaurus also lists quite a few terms to describe what we used to call a “bum:” drifter, beggar, derelict, dodger, malingerer, shirker, slacker, gamine, ragamuffin, urchin, or waif. I’m sure that there are more names for these shiftless folks than Carter has pills, but the main topic of this post is a frank discussion of America’s losers who for whatever reason ended up in the American gutter after they were booted out of their last known domicile for a myriad of reasons. My working definition of a “bum” within the confines of this post is as follows: one who has no established residence and wanders idly from place to place without lawful or visible means of support. But they are not, according to politically correct folk (a.k.a. liberals), to be referred to with these pejorative, colorful and truthful terms anymore. No, they are the “homeless” or “unsheltered.” Or better yet, they are simply “displaced populations.” Do you know why the thesaurus didn’t spit out any of these helpful descriptions when I entered the term “vagrant” into the search? The thesaurus search did not display any of these new terms because they are in no way accurate in describing the losers who fit this definition. The people who came up with these new terms for America’s losers will have none of this “bum” business going forward. The word “bum” implies that the entire fault regarding the circumstances that led to the homeless person’s plight resulted from self destructive behavior on the part of the bum. This is not what these people believe. The liberal do-gooders and homeless advocates firmly believe that “there but for the grace of God go I.” Well, except that they don’t believe so much in God’s grace and all of that, these compassionate liberals and do-gooders think that each and every one of us could end up on the mean streets of America through sheer happenstance. These foolish do-gooders truly believe that many of us are just one paycheck away from losing our homes. They think that each and every one of those wretched homeless people you see huddled over hot air grates on the cold, New York sidewalks are good, hardworking souls who just fell through the cracks in the American dream. That these homeless souls are on the streets through no fault of their own, but rather are in their unpleasant situation because of circumstances beyond their control, and that the system didn’t cut them any slack. That kind of thinking is just so wrong in so many different ways. Bums become bums not because there are external and uncontrollable forces at work actively trying to take away the roofs over their heads, but more accurately because these bums had an active and conscious role in making their own roof over their head disappear. The true reasons for homelessness are many and varied, to include drug addiction, mental illness, alcoholism, extremely poor life decisions, just plain bad luck on rare occasion, and at times even willful and calculated preference to life on the streets. Allow me to sum up in one word the basic and primary cause of homelessness: irresponsibility. . But to think that the homeless people wandering the American streets contributed little or nothing to their current circumstance is just foolish. There are losers everywhere in the world. And there are factors completely within their control that are the proximate cause to the straights these losers find themselves in. To remove blame and scorn when discussing “homeless” people is to ignore reality. I still call them bums because that's what they are; irresponsible bums.

Fredd's Top Ten Sci Fi Flicks

2010-07-09T06:10:00.000-07:00

Science fiction movies have come a long, long way since 'Godzilla' terrorized Tokyo way back in 1955. People walking around in big rubber suits knocking over cardboard buildings just don't cut it with the movie going crowd these days. With advances in cinematography and computer animation, Hollywood is able to bring snarling, hideous lethal aliens right into your living room....in 3 dimensional high definition terror.

Here are the best of the best Sci Fi flicks:

1. Robocop. By far the best all around entertaining version of what Detroit will look like in the early 21st century. In a future Detroit ruled by criminals, a metropolitan cop gets killed in action and his dead body is put to use in combination with a cyborg frame, and then armed to the teeth with automatic weapons. Cool, as my 9 year old daughter would exclaim. Cool, indeed.

2. A Clockwork Orange. Stanley Kubrick's demented version of the future has Alex and his droogs (buddies) looking for folks to pound in a post apocalyptic setting. Lots of senseless violence, and great camera work.

3. 2001: A Space Odyssey. HAL the computer runs amok and has to be put down in deep space. This dated yet awesome Stanley Kubrick flick has some outstanding special effects, considering it was filmed in 1968.

4. Alien. A seriously buffed Sigourney Weaver kicks some serious alien butt with the help of a futuristic fork lift. These aliens are virtually invincible, and when by sheer luck Weaver takes a piece out of them, they bleed sulfuric acid. Truly a bad to the bone monster in this one, and the sequels are pretty good, too.

5. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Ricardo Montalban plays a most thoroughly excellent bad guy, and the effects are great. Almost makes you want to root for Khan vs most of the original cast of the 60's TV series.

6. Contact. Nerd scientists monitor the radio spectrum for decades, seeking proof of intelligent life somewhere out there. Then they find it. Jodie Foster and Tom Skerritt are excellent in this one, and it almost makes you want to believe...

7. The Terminator. A killer cyborg (Arnie Schwartzenegger) travels back through time to kill the future leader of the human resistance to a machine controlled future world. I've never been much of a time travel premise believing guy, but this one works out much like 'Back to The Future.' Best line, delivered in Arnie's thick German accent: 'I want your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle.'

8. Star Wars. Fantastic story of the future, governed by a malevolent galactic fiend who controls 'the Dark Side' of 'The Force.' The good guys, using 'The Force' for good (of course), eventually prevail by blowing up the bad guy's mothership, and the evil Empire falls apart. It's all good, and the hero gets the girl.

9. Predator. A squad of elite commandos effect a rescue mission in the Central American jungles only to get picked off one by one themselves by an extraterrestrial human hunter, known to the locals as 'The Devil Who Makes Trophies of Men.' Best line, delivered by future Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura: 'I don't have time to bleed.' Also starring another future California governor, Arnie Schwarzenegger, as the cigar chomping, super buffed 'Dutch.' Casting includes another super buffed Carl Weathers (who played Apollo Creed in 'Rocky').

10. Jurassic Park. Highly entertaining Michael Crighton novel is brought to the big screen as rampaging Tyrannosaurus Rex's and velociraptors gobble down people left and right. Great, great special effects, and the premise is not all that unbelievable.

MSM uses good ol' 'Baghdad Bob's playbook

2010-07-04T09:45:00.000-07:00

We can all recall the comedic reports from good ol' "Baghdad Bob" (a.k.a. Muhammad Saeed al-Sahhaf) towards the end of the second Gulf War. Ol' Baghdad Bob would put a happy face on every defeat and military blow that Saddam Hussein's crumbling forces received at the hands of a vastly superior U.S. military. His official title was Iraq Information Minister, and the 'information' he routinely put out there was anything but. More accurately, rather than information, ol' Bob would come up with misinformation, bald faces lies, propaganda, and if he were feeling somewhat truthful at the odd moment, perhaps spew some exaggerated spin on an event that did not go Saddam's way. One of his last broadcasts had him denying that U.S. tanks were entering Baghdad, and had Bob reporting that this armored U.S. force had been met at the border and were soundly defeated by the brave Republic Guard, who were in active pursuit of the fleeing and routed enemy, Allah be praised. And most famously quoted, good ol' Baghdad Bob predicted that those defeated U.S. soldier's 'stomachs were roasting in hell,' even as the unmistakeable roar of U.S. M1A1 Abrahams tank turbo diesel engines just outside his surrounded compound were almost drowning out his words at that very moment. Just like Baghdad Bob, our media refuses to report the truth as it bludgeons them upside their obtuse heads. Our economy is headed for the cliff, and yet they report a glorious 'recovery.' This recovery of the MSM consists almost entirely of government job growth, government spending, and government borrowing. All of which will kill any kind of 'recovery' if ever one shows up during this God awful administration ('regime'). New housing starts: down. Way down. New unemployment weekly claims: consistently in the 400 thousands, week after week after week after week after week after week after week after week.....you get the point. Consumer confidence: at all time lows. GDP growth for the 2nd quarter: ??? I am confident that the MSM will report a huge leap, when in fact it will likely be quite anemic or negative. There is no recovery going on. None whatsoever. There are more unemployed people in the United States right now than ever in our history. Yet the "Baghdad Bob" MSM will continue to report that the wolves at our doors have in fact been slain at the borders, and their 'stomachs are roasting in hell.' And yet in the backgound of their rosy red reports of beds of roses thanks to Obama's wise policies, we hear the howling of the wolves at the door nearly drowning out their gibberish.

Nobody in the military respects Obama

2010-06-23T08:54:00.000-07:00

Gen. Stanley McCrystal has been placed in a position in which a precious few high ranking military leaders have had to endure: taking orders from a man-child like Barack Obama. This particular man-child does not like having to deal with anything of military concern, and in fact does not believe that the military is a necessary tool in dealing with matters of foreign policy. Obama is still of the mindset, much like Chancellor Neville Chamberlain seven decades earlier, that he can talk hostile foreign powers out of their aggressive plans against sovereign nations. His intellect will rule the day, his words and words alone will prevail upon all parties at odds, and all will be right with the world.

Accordingly, the decisions that are necessary in waging a war are incomplete, contradictory and delayed. Managing a conflict like the Afghanistan campaign under these conditions will of course generate some disgruntled comments, and not just from the command. Every boot on the ground knows that Barack Obama is possibly the worst commander in chief in our history. And the Obama jokes abound within the rank and file, from the general officers down to the lowliest slick sleeve private (E-1, for you those of you like Barack Obama, who do not know how to pronounce the word 'corps').

Having served under three commanders in chief (Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan), this author has also been privy to the disgruntled comments and jokes about the former top military guy, Jimmy Carter, during the Iran Hostage crisis in which Carter was completely ineffective and pathetic in his job as commander in chief. He must now be very happy to know that his legacy has moved up a notch, and is now only the second worst commander in chief ever. Barack Obama reigns supreme in that category, and will likely retain that honor (or more accurately, shame) in perpetuity.

The only mistake that Gen. McChrystal made in this sad affair was allowing a nefarious publication like Rolling Stone to get anywhere near the command structure for comments. Dissatisfaction with incompetent leadership has always been around, from the Roman Caesars to the current general grade officers in the military today.

The only situation in the past that even comes close to the disrespect among the entire military establishment of Obama today is when Nero was crowned emperor of Rome at age 16, and would immediately start lecturing the great Roman general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo on how the military worked. This great general simply listened to this man-child rant and rave, responded 'Hail Caesar,' and marched on. But I'm sure the snarky jokes and disrespectful comments abounded in the rank and file, even way back when.

When Obama fires McChrystal, it will not change the military's disrespect for him. It will only replace him with another general officer who holds identical opinions as Gen. McChrystal, but who presumably will keep Rolling Stone reporters away from the officer's club.

'You is who you is, and you ain't who you ain't'

2010-06-20T08:37:00.000-07:00

No truer words were ever spoken, although these words as spoken sound like fingernails on a chalkboard to English teachers. Regardless, the late Dizzy Gillespie, great musician that he was, is dead spot on when he uttered this sentiment. (and no, Louis Jordan did not pen these words, he's the one who did that catchy little ditty back in 1944 'Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby').

And I wonder I just wonder what Diz would say about our president?

Is he who he is, or ain't he who he ain't? Barack Obama ran his presidential campaign as a vessel of 'hope and change.' We have all seen the changes that have come out of his 'new and improved' vision for the future of the United States. Is this the kind of change everyone who voted for Obama wanted? If the Zeitgeist were to answer this one right now, the answer would be a resounding, deafening, bold and capitalized "NO!" Note the author has also added an exclamation point, in addition to jacking up the font a smidge. I'm sure the Zeitgeist won't mind.

For those Obama voters who may be reading this by mistake, if they can read at all, the term "Zeitgeist" is simply the German word for 'spirit of the times.' More literally, it translates to "Time Ghost", but I'm sure you Obama voters have already lost interest in this and have moved on at this point.

I'm not inclined to go into the meat of what all Obama has done to our country so far, we all know and feel it, and most of us don't like it. I would rather point out the poignancy of Dizzy's words uttered so long ago, and yet ring so true today.

We all would love to believe that we can do anything we set our minds to. Our parents, teachers and mentors have always said so. Or at least recently it seems to be the mantra of the day. If one listened to all of this and took it to heart, then the following thumb nails would certainly provide an interesting take on that view of the future.

Yoshi (his friends call him 'Tiny') has dreamed of riding like the wind, his long hair trailing back as he streaks to the finish line aboard a thoroughbred such as Smarty Jones in the Kentucky Derby. He has set his mind to achieve this dream, and all he has to do is just do it, right? After all, everyone has told him that's all there is to it. First, of course, he has to tell his trainer that he no longer wishes to compete in the upcoming Sumo wrestling tournament, and would rather pursue his dream of being a competitive jockey. His trainer moans, wails and gnashes his teeth at this news, asking Yoshi, 'where am I going to find another 490 pound Sumo wrestler to replace you on the spur of the moment?' Yoshi tells the trainer that this is no longer his problem, and lumbers (or more accurately, waddles) off into the sunset, destined to achieve his dreams...

Or perhaps we should examine Ernie's aspirations and desires (Ernie's friends call him 'pencil neck'). Ernie has a burning desire to start at center for the New York Knicks. He can just see himself blocking Shaq's slam dunk, and feel the crowd roaring its approval. Yes, he can picture it all now, the cachophonous chant from the adoring crowd at the arena: 'Ernie! Ernie! Ernie!....' Well, Ernie has always been told that he can do anything, once he sets his mind to it. So Ernie rises out of his chair, stretching to his full height of 5 feet 6 and one half inches, heads towards the boss's office to give his notice and reach for that brass NBA ring.....

Not so fast, Yoshi and Ernie. Just remember: 'you is who you is, and you ain't who you ain't.' Or as Clint Eastwood said in the film "The Unforgiven,": 'a man's gotta know his limitations.' Before anyone ups and quits their day job, a firm reality check must be done. Life is, as most conservatives but few if any liberals are aware of, most definitely and assuredly not fair.

Is it fair that homely, big-boned gals with complexion issues never seem to win the Miss America crown? Is it fair that old, bald, fat guys never seem to anchor the network news? Does it seem fair to you that all of this is the harsh reality of the world, despite some of these homely gals and a few of these old, bald fat guys still dream of achieving a beauty pageant crown and anchorman chair, respectively?

Listen to Diz, and trust that his words are golden: "you is who you is, and you ain't who you ain't." Take these words to heart, and you will live a much happier life.

The newly elected Republican majority has its work cut out for them

2010-06-15T11:23:00.000-07:00

For Republican candidates looking to cash in on the dissatisfaction of the American public with the Obama administration and its disastrous policies on November 2nd, 2010, they should know that their work is cut out for them once they are sworn in next January, and that they should put off measuring the windows for new drapes; they have urgent business to attend to immediately.

Not only do these newly elected Republican majorities in both the House and Senate need to jump immediately on getting Obamacare repealed, they also need to attend to rolling back many of Obama's disastrous decisions:

1. The 112th Congress needs to immediately reinstall the Bush tax cuts to their 2010 levels. Without doing so as their first order of business, the economy will most certainly tank in 2011. And this would not be just another run of the mill downturn, the term 'collapse' would more likely be the case. This is not speculation by general curmudgeons and malcontents, but by Arthur Laffer (you know him, he's the guy that invented that curve of his) in an op ed piece in the Wall Street journal last week. And when Arthur speaks, people listen.

2. Capital gains taxes, dividend taxes, death taxes, all going up enormously. The newly elected conservative majority needs to nip that in the bud right away. Unless these new guys get on the stick and halt these increases, doing nothing will cause an immediate economic collapse like long term (12 months or more in which an asset is held) capital gains rate going from its current 15% to 20%, and an estate tax rate going from 0% to 55%.

3. End this idiocy of that moratorium on off shore drilling. We need that oil, and we need it bad. 'Drill baby, drill' should be brought back to the forefront. Just hang this spill on Obama, whether he deserves it or not (hey, politics ain't beanbag, as Tip O'Neill once noted), and get back to finding that Texas Tea and getting it to market.

4. Decertify all national, state and local public unions. Do this immediately on Constitutional grounds that public employees unions do not have the right to hold the public hostage by threats of strikes, and these unions do not have a constitutional right to bankrupt the U.S. with their unfunded public pension obligations. Once decertified, eliminate all these onerous public pension obligations as unconstitutional as well. These organizations are bankrupting America and everyone knows it. Decertify them immediately, and deal with the fall out later. Yes, this one will be tough, much like #5 below.

5. Privatize social security immediately. This Ponzi scheme has gone on long enough. Everyone knows it's broke, and its time to fix it, Third Rail be damned.

Yes, this new bunch on Capitol Hill has its work cut out for them. If they don't get it done, they will get all of the blame for the depression that hits in 2011.