Thursday, August 20, 2009

Say Anything

President Barack Obama is now in the “Say Anything” mode. It’s like he’s been caught with his uptown girl friend by his high school sweet heart baby momma. He loves his baby momma, but he knows he needs his up town girl, and so now he’s in the position of saying anything it takes to keep them both happy. The problem (of course) is the internet and cable news. He can’t whisper sweet assurances in either ear without it being overheard by the other. Now he must know what it’s like to be on with Jerry Springer, caught on stage there with his two girl friends, loving one, but only using the other. And all the time the audience shouting encouragement to the uptown girl, and jeering the baby momma. What’s a poor President to do?

And that’s what an average guy thinks.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

I Want My Adjectives Back

Specifically I want the word “gay” returned. It was stolen from us and I want it back. The word was snatched by the homosexual community and changed into a noun …. Or something else just as queer.

Now when I was a young guy…. when I was a boy, there was queer…… which was just as an egregious wordnapping as the heinous abduction of “gay”. I didn’t really know what queer was, nor did I care. And I swear that’s the way it should have been….. and should still be. Queer was something that you were if you wore a pink shirt, or walked through the middle door at school, or wore pink and green on Thursday. We were a sophisticated lot. There was this knowledge that queer referred to homosexuality but what was that? Really? Blow jobs? Fudge pack’n? We really had no clue. And then it happened…… homosexuals started to take offence at being called homosexuals. And I guess they really didn’t like “homo” the short form, even though it conveys perfectly the situation.

But what if it had been “gleeful” instead of “gay”? We now would be saying something like….. “he’s gleeful” or he’s glee….. that’s SO glee, or he’s a member of the gleeful lesbian task force. We’d be talking about “glees” in the military. Or what about “happy go lucky”? We could call them HGLs. The HGL task force. Stupid you say? Well all right then…….

SAY IT!!!!!!!!!!! HOMO SEXUAL

The word is accurate. It’s precise and it takes away the need to discriminate between males and females. When they give me my adjectives back, there will be no more lesbians. This may happen anyway, because there’s a group of people on the Greek island of Lesbos that are suing the “Greek Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece” because currently they are unable to identify themselves with their home island. 90,000 TRUE Lesbians who can not identify themselves as such. What do they say when asked where they’re from? So, Zorba…. Where you from? I’m a Lesbian. Yeah right, where you from? No really, I’m a Lesbian. It’s even worse for little Aalexis. How’s she EVER going to get a date?

So. All you HOMOs out there…… get over it, stop tap dancing (sorry) around it and give me my God damned adjectives back.

And that’s what an average guy thinks.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Pulling The Plug On Grandma

I wish that Sarah Palin hadn’t used the term “Death Panels”. It’s got a nice loud attention getting ring to it, but it’s hard to back up. No one has written “death panel” into a health reform bill. Part of the problem as I see it is that no one knows WHAT the heck is in there. It’s a thousand pages that reads like stereo instructions. The bill as it came out of the House of Representatives wasn’t written by our representatives, but by their “advisors”, and it appears as though no single person has complete knowledge of the whole thing.

The “devil is in the details” we have all heard said, and since we can’t know the details of the 1000 + page monstrosity, let’s take a look at the circumstances. H. R. 3200, as it is known, was reported out of committee on July 30, just one week before the House of Representatives was to adjourn for the summer break. The intention of the majority party had been to have it approved, voted on, and signed into law before the summer recess. Thank goodness that didn’t happen, but what was the rush? It was said that it was “critical” to the economic recovery that the bill be passed. This was the same technique used for the $800 Billion stimulus package that has only been 10% spent at this writing. The economy shows signs of recovery, so why not take back about 75% of the total. That would save us $600 Billion right there. I know the real reason that there was such a rush to pass the legislation and so does everyone else who has raised kids through their teen years, or been a teen ager themselves. The reason is that the more the parents or the people with the money or the responsibility know about a request the less likely they are to agree to it. The President’s chief of staff, Rham Emanuel, has said that “you should never let a crisis go to waste”. That during a crisis “you can do things that you never thought you could do”. And so, during difficult times it behooves those in power to either generate a crisis, similar to the way Hugo Chavez does when he warns the people of Venezuela of an impending attack by U. S. forces, or you just shout “FIRE” at the top of your lungs and expect people to give you whatever you need to fight the “fire”.

What’s in a 1000 page bill? Most of us can’t know. We trust our legislators to know, but now it’s become evident that they don’t know, and that some if not many of them don’t care. We can know that they (the administration) have tried to rush this legislation through before it could be analyzed and we can know the philosophy of the President and his advisors. This we can know from their previous words. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother to the President’s chief of staff Rham Emanuel and a healthcare advisor to the President wrote in an article published in the Hastings Center Report, “Conversely, services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed.” Not guaranteed. Health services. So. Here are Sarah Palin’s “Death Panels”. Who decides what prevents an individual from “being or becoming participating citizens”. Who decides who lives or dies if it isn’t a “death panel”?

That’s just what an average guy thinks.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Single Payer System

Lets us stipulate a couple of things up front: A) Even though it’s not perfect by a long shot, the health care system in the U. S. is perhaps the best in the world, attracting high profile cancer and cardiac patients from around the world. B) The health insurance sector needs some work.

All of this hubbub about health care is causing me a great deal of angst. Not because of the health part, or the insurance reform, but because of what’s being referred to as the “public option”. It should be referred to as the “government option”, because that’s what it is.

To start with, the administration led off with a huge economic stimulus package. It was CRITICAL that we act immediately to save ourselves from sliding into a DEPRESSION. Now about 10% of that $800B dollars has been spent and the economy (according to administration sources) has begun to show signs of recovery, but I don’t hear anyone saying that since the recovery has begun perhaps we should return 90% of the stimulus for a credit on our national credit card. Instead, we are being told that even though the recovery has begun, it is once again critical to the recovery that we adopt a sweeping overhaul of the entire health care system. Well, it’s critical alright, but only to the administration and its plans to socialize the health care system. I hate to use that word (socialize) but what else is it?

The President has said (in speeches over the last 5 or 6 years) that he favors what is called the “single payer system” “the public option’. That single payer is the federal government. He’s said it again and again, noting that it may not be wholly achievable at first, but incrementally over 10, 15, or 20 years. Top Democrat legislators seem to share his views. And the public option will mean “No Option At All”.

The President and his advisors are all adherents to Rham Emanuel’s edict of “Never Let a Good Crisis Go To Waste”. The economy’s in the toilet? Ram through a HUGE stimulus package that funds every pet project of every majority legislator, is only partially needed and may or may not do any good. Who’s going to oppose it? The economy’s still in the toilet? QUICK! Ram through a health care revolution before anyone has a chance to read it or even know what’s in it.

If this nonsense doesn’t stop, this is what will happen: The federal government will establish a program similar to Medicare or Medicaid…… Call it ObamaCare just for fun. It will be set up to provide “competition” to private insurance companies and to provide coverage for those that don’t have any. There’s argument about how many “AMERICANS” that actually is, but for sure it will be all of the 12 to 15 million aliens who are residing here illegally now. They can’t work here legally, penalties for companies and persons who aid them are high, but under ObamaCare they will receive the best that the rest of us taxpayers can offer. This is a subject for another time.

Initially, this won’t be that big a deal, but the feds have real deep pockets (as we know) and as time goes by, private companies won’t be able to compete. Take me as an example….. I’m in the job market, and I have to have $20/hr just to make ends meet. But old John across the street has a rich uncle (we can call him Sam) that makes his house payment for him and he only has to have $16/hr. Who’re they gonna hire? Forget that I’m better looking and better at what I do. They can get John for 25% less that what I need to survive…… John’s gett’n the gig and I’m gonna have to ….. go for retraining I guess, or put my house in foreclosure. And so the ObamaCare program will grow and grow and efforts to control it will be more useless every year because the voter base that’s enrolled in it will get bigger and bigger.

Eventually there won’t be any private health insurance and there will be a “single payer” system. When this happens only the very wealthy (self insured) will have access to the system that most of us take for granted now.

And that’s what an average guy thinks.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Cash For Clunkers (I Don't Think So)

Cash for Clunkers? aka CARS, aka Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save. I don’t think so. I know. I know. “It’s a done deal, so what’s your beef ?” you’re asking. Well, the reason I’m spouting off is just to make a point that I think needs to be made, and that point is: WE’RE SPENDING TOO MUCH MONEY FOR THINGS WE DON’T NEED AND CAN’T AFFORD !

As a matter of full disclosure, I must say that I have long held the belief that the smartest thing the public could do in regard to saving tax dollars would be to just send the Congress home when they show up in the fall. Not just this year, but EVERY year. We already have enough laws and we don’t HAVE any money to spend, so just meet them at the capitol steps, shake their hands, congratulate them on a great campaign, hand them the pay check and send them back to the various states. That would solve a lot if not all of our money problems.

Back to Cash for Clunkers: The original purpose of the legislation was simply to provide a stimulus for automobile dealers. (undoubtedly the authors have some acquaintances in their home districts) Only later were benefit to the economy and the environment mentioned. The House of Representatives approved $4 BILLION (that’s a 4 with nine zeroes behind it) and the Senate cut it down to $1 BILLION. The program went into effect in late July, and by early August was in danger of running out of money. BUT….. at the last minute, the Senate approved additional funding in the amount of $2 BILLION. For a total of THREE BILLION dollars.

This program has been touted as both an enormous success, and a huge boondoggle. Let’s just us take a look at the numbers. To start with, it’s a temporary program…. Or that’s how it seems….. I mean they only appropriated a limited amount of money. And now they think the funding will last through Labor Day. So to start things off they had to develop the computer software and hire staff to process 750,000 applications in a period of five weeks where none existed before. Okay. No problem. There’s a common belief that federal employees just sit on their fanny’s with not much productive work to do most of the time anyway. But what will these employees be doing in September after the funding for the program runs out? After tens of MILLIONS of dollars have been spent building the infrastructure to administer this program, what will become of it? It’s a valid
question.

August car sales in 2007 were about 1.48M. Sales in 2008 were down to 1.25M. It’s reasonable to expect that due to the state of the economy in general, August 2009 sales would have dipped below 1M units. It will be interesting to see where the numbers turn up. Indications are that sales are a way up. Many dealers have been caught flat footed and don’t have the inventory of qualifying vehicles to meet the demand.

And, here it is the end of the model year. Many buyers wait till this time of year to buy a new care so they can take advantage of dealers wanting to clear “last years” inventory to make room for the new models (which ironically won’t be offered in this program). Car manufacturers know that this is a “one shot” deal, and so they may shuffle units around, but the program will have zero effect on production. Not one unit will be produced in response to this program.

Now let’s touch on the environmental aspects of the program. Some will say (half heartedly) that removing the gas guzzlers from the roads reduces pollution. And it’s hard to argue with that however, it’s a matter of degree. There are an estimated 250 Million cars on American highways. If 750,000 cars are sold under the Cash For Clunkers program, it will result in a replacement of 3/10ths of 1 percent (0.003) of the vehicles on the road which will result in an incalculably small reduction in any type of pollution you care to be concerned about. However, the new, fuel efficient car will have to be produced and THAT will “cost” more energy than keeping and using the old one.

To summarize: A lot (perhaps most) of the participants in the CARS program were going to buy a vehicle anyway. They got a $4,000 windfall. Those that were lured in by the promise of “free money”….. got a payment book. We constantly hear that Americans have overextended themselves. We’re living beyond our means. That we consume more than our share, more than we need….. and now the federal government is promoting a program that encourages families to borrow money to buy something that they really don’t need. So consumers don’t benefit (they had transportation before, but now they have transportation AND a payment) and the environment doesn’t benefit because the program is so miniscule, and manufacturing doesn’t benefit because the program only eats up existing inventory. The only beneficiaries are the car dealers….. which was the author’s original intention.

Let’s call it what it is. Some congressmen introduced some legislation to help their rich friends and it worked. Now we’ve paid 10s of BILLIONS of dollars to bail out the car manufactures, and now we’re paying BILLIONS more to bail out the car dealers.

And that’s what an average guy thinks.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Who's Your Daddy ?


I think it’s time for all us rational human beings to sit down and take stock of how we name ourselves, and this idiotic bow to post modern gender sensitivity that is going to make it nearly impossible for genealogists in the future to trace family origins. I’m speaking of course of what I see as the ridiculous tendency of marrying couples to hyphenate their names. Actually, it isn’t the hyphenated couples themselves that present the problem it’s their little hyphenated spawn that I have a problem with.


Seems to me that John Lennon started all this nonsense when, in an act of contrition for being a man, and in so being having made woman “the nigger of the world” (which of course was a Lennon/Ono song before it was illegal to use the “N” word), he agreed to take Ono’s name when they married. Or maybe they were going to swap names. I can’t remember. Doesn’t matter. But what happened is that it set off (along with the women’s liberation movement) a discussion about how unfair it is that a woman should take her husbands name when marrying. I mean after all, it’s a partnership right? Who can argue with that? Certainly not me. I couldn’t care less what a couple wants to call themselves. They can follow whatever tradition they like: matriarchal, patriarchal…. they can swap names, they can hyphenate, or they can be creative and make up new name for themselves. I don’t care. But what do you name the children?


Just for arguments sake, lets say that Man A marries Woman B and that she decides to hyphenate her name converting her to Woman A-B. Man A will keep his name because it’s already on his business cards and the title to his Trans Am. Now, when Man A hugs Woman A-B in special way, he’s overcome with a powerful feeling and ……. well, you know the rest. Next there’s a child who they call Child A-B.


As luck for Child A-B would have it, at about the same time Man C and Woman D meet on FaceBook, marry, hyphenate and procreate with the result being Child C-D. As a point of clarification, Child A-B is male (straight) and Child C-D is female (not sure).


They also meet on FaceBook, marry, hyphenate and procreate. Woman C-D converts to Woman A-B-C-D. And again, Man A-B retains his name because of the business cards and the car title. The resulting offspring is Child A-B-C-D. The next generation will be A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H, and the next A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P. The next generation will be out of alphabet and will start having to use subscripts.


You might say this is ridiculous, but this is exactly where it’s going and no one in our post modern touchy feely society has thought of it.


My position is that children should, for practical reasons, carry the name of their father. Actually, I don’t think I’d mind if it were their mother, if that’s the way everyone else did it. Libbers will claim that there have been and maybe ARE matriarchal societies and I would say, “fine, where are they”. They must not have been too damned successful, or that’s the way we’d be doing it. It’s hard to argue with five million years of evolution.


I can, with a few mouse clicks trace my father’s family to the Kingdom of Hanover in Germany, and my mothers to a 1647 landing at Plymouth. This, all because of Bill Gates and a unified system of genealogical identification.


Please America. Think twice before you saddle your children with a hyphen which could eventually do them more harm than that recessive gene for one blue eye and one brown that you’re carrying.


That’s what an average guy thinks.