It looks like our Saturday pool day is a bit of a bust this afternoon. Things might improve later, but the weather isn't keeping me from making my weekly contribution to Global Warming by burning massive quantities of charcoal and hickory chips on my Webber Kettle Grill.
Ironically, we have a rule about practically everything you can think of here in our Condo Association, but for some reason they allow gas and charcoal grills on the second floor balconys.
That's a good thing...
Several of my old fart neighbors have commented on my grill sitting by the side door--there might be a new rule in the works as a result of my efforts. Some people just can't stand watching others have a good time with a cocktail in one hand and a pair of tongs (that's TONGS, not thongs--come on, get your minds out of the gutter) in the other.
Just to make you jealous, let me tell you what is on the menu today. We had left over Grilled Stuffed Bell Peppers that I cooked Friday night and I have a rack of Baby Back Pork Ribs that just landed on the grill, with indirect heat, over a pan of water.
The ribs spent 24 hours in a brine, then I gave them good rub down with my home made BBQ rub. They'll cook about three hours at 220 degreees F, then I give them a good basting with my home made Kansas City Style BBQ sauce, then every body look out 'cause there is going to be some serious chowing down going on about 5 pM.
The next sound you hear will be the sound of lips and teeth on pork rib bones...
Saturday, June 18, 2005
X-Ray Vision—Part II
Turban Durbin opens mouth, inserts foot…
I’ve briefly commented on the current attacks on the War on Terror by Congressional Democrats, offered in disguise as hand wringing and apologies for imagined “atrocities” committed by US soldiers and purported to be approved at the highest levels of the Bush administration.
Minority whip Dick “Turban” Durbin issued this little treasonistic bashing on the Senate floor on Tuesday this week:
“The Senate's No. 2 Democrat has compared the U.S. military's treatment of a suspected al Qaeda terrorist at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay with the regimes of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot, three of history's most heinous dictators, whose regimes killed millions.
In a speech on the Senate floor late Tuesday, Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, castigated the American military's actions by reading an e-mail from an FBI agent.
The agent complained to higher-ups that one al Qaeda suspect was chained to the floor, kept in an extremely cold air-conditioned cell and forced to hear loud rap music. The Justice Department is investigating.”
The proverbial shit hit the fan on a low level, mainly on FOX News and within republican circles, but it reached a crescendo on Friday, forcing Turban Durbin to offer the following non-apology apology:
“Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Friday that he regretted any misunderstandings caused by his comments earlier this week comparing American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis. The White House, Senate Republicans and others had called for an apology after Durbin's comments Tuesday...
On Friday, Durbin tried to clarify the issue. "My statement in the Senate was critical of the policies of this Administration, which add to the risk our soldiers face," he said in a statement released Friday afternoon.
"I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings: Our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support."
To quote one of my Blog Idols, Captain Ed, over at Captains Quarters, Turban Durbin’s statement mounts essentially to saying “I'm sorry you were too stupid to understand me.”
The mainstream media and the Democrats clearly have tilted off of their respective rockers by supporting Turban Durbin’s comparison of US actions to past atrocities:
“About 9 million persons, including 6 million Jews, died in Hitler's death camps, 2.7 million persons died in Stalin's gulags and 1.7 million Cambodians died in Pol Pot's scourge of his country.
No prisoners have died at Guantanamo, and the Pentagon has acknowledged five instances of abuse or irreverent handling of the Koran, the holy book of Muslims...
Mr. Durbin also likened the treatment of terror suspects at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's decision to authorize the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
It took us almost 40 years for us to acknowledge that we were wrong, to admit that these people should never have been imprisoned. It was a shameful period in American history," Mr. Durbin said. "I believe the torture techniques that have been used at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and other places fall into that same category."
So Turban Durban thinks that capturing and interrogating enemy combatants on the battlefield is equivalent to interring Japanese civilians?
I say that Turban Durban is a $%#& Moron, and here is the thing that bothers me the most.
All of this public discourse and dissent isn't happening in a vacuum, it's hapening on world wide cable networks. Further, as a result of Turban Durbin's partisan stupidity, our enemies see all Americans as stupid and soft and easy to defeat philisophically, because there is a stupid, soft, defeatist minority that gets all of the press and is allowed to apparently speak for all Americans.
Is this what you want your elected officials saying to the world on your behalf?
If not, and if you live in a state like Turban Durbin’s Illinois or any state supporting a US Representative or Senator making these treasonous public statements, I challenge you to contact their office, in writing or by telephone, and tell them what you think about this situation.
My Senator Saxby Chambliss will be hearing from me, and he is just an innocent bystander in the process.
How can you sit idly by while things like this are going on?
I’ve briefly commented on the current attacks on the War on Terror by Congressional Democrats, offered in disguise as hand wringing and apologies for imagined “atrocities” committed by US soldiers and purported to be approved at the highest levels of the Bush administration.
Minority whip Dick “Turban” Durbin issued this little treasonistic bashing on the Senate floor on Tuesday this week:
“The Senate's No. 2 Democrat has compared the U.S. military's treatment of a suspected al Qaeda terrorist at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay with the regimes of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot, three of history's most heinous dictators, whose regimes killed millions.
In a speech on the Senate floor late Tuesday, Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, castigated the American military's actions by reading an e-mail from an FBI agent.
The agent complained to higher-ups that one al Qaeda suspect was chained to the floor, kept in an extremely cold air-conditioned cell and forced to hear loud rap music. The Justice Department is investigating.”
The proverbial shit hit the fan on a low level, mainly on FOX News and within republican circles, but it reached a crescendo on Friday, forcing Turban Durbin to offer the following non-apology apology:
“Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Friday that he regretted any misunderstandings caused by his comments earlier this week comparing American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis. The White House, Senate Republicans and others had called for an apology after Durbin's comments Tuesday...
On Friday, Durbin tried to clarify the issue. "My statement in the Senate was critical of the policies of this Administration, which add to the risk our soldiers face," he said in a statement released Friday afternoon.
"I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings: Our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support."
To quote one of my Blog Idols, Captain Ed, over at Captains Quarters, Turban Durbin’s statement mounts essentially to saying “I'm sorry you were too stupid to understand me.”
The mainstream media and the Democrats clearly have tilted off of their respective rockers by supporting Turban Durbin’s comparison of US actions to past atrocities:
“About 9 million persons, including 6 million Jews, died in Hitler's death camps, 2.7 million persons died in Stalin's gulags and 1.7 million Cambodians died in Pol Pot's scourge of his country.
No prisoners have died at Guantanamo, and the Pentagon has acknowledged five instances of abuse or irreverent handling of the Koran, the holy book of Muslims...
Mr. Durbin also likened the treatment of terror suspects at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's decision to authorize the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
It took us almost 40 years for us to acknowledge that we were wrong, to admit that these people should never have been imprisoned. It was a shameful period in American history," Mr. Durbin said. "I believe the torture techniques that have been used at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and other places fall into that same category."
So Turban Durban thinks that capturing and interrogating enemy combatants on the battlefield is equivalent to interring Japanese civilians?
I say that Turban Durban is a $%#& Moron, and here is the thing that bothers me the most.
All of this public discourse and dissent isn't happening in a vacuum, it's hapening on world wide cable networks. Further, as a result of Turban Durbin's partisan stupidity, our enemies see all Americans as stupid and soft and easy to defeat philisophically, because there is a stupid, soft, defeatist minority that gets all of the press and is allowed to apparently speak for all Americans.
Is this what you want your elected officials saying to the world on your behalf?
If not, and if you live in a state like Turban Durbin’s Illinois or any state supporting a US Representative or Senator making these treasonous public statements, I challenge you to contact their office, in writing or by telephone, and tell them what you think about this situation.
My Senator Saxby Chambliss will be hearing from me, and he is just an innocent bystander in the process.
How can you sit idly by while things like this are going on?
Post Vacation Blues
The Blues can be a good thing--I love listening to the Blues.
Blues can also be a bad thing--like the blues I've got when it comes to writing right now. I guess spending nine days traveling has got me out of my routine for some reason--that, and the computer problems we've had since returning home Monday night are serving to reduce the number of words that seem worth writing.
Back to the topic of Blues music, I don't think that I've made much mention of the fact that I'm an aspiring harmonica player. I played the harmonica with a band in Atlanta in 1999-2000 that played fairly frequently in public before girlfriend problems caused our ultimate breakup. It's funny how girls love you and will do practically anything to go out with you when you're in a band, and then end up being jealous of and hating the band when all things are said and done. The fact is that performing in a band professionally takes time, and some women just don't understand that concept.
I also formed a duo with Guitar Dave while living in Mexico Beach Florida that played on Sunday nights in this wonderful little dive called "The Lookout Lounge" that had been in business since the 1920's. We had a little PA system, a couple of old Yamaha tube amps and we developed 50 or so songs we could play and sing through using crib sheets instead of memory to support the vocals. We never had more than twenty-five or thirty people in the room, but then—if you saw the size of the room—twenty-five people was a full house.
The other thing I do to put myself at risk in public is sing Karaoke. Karaoke is a strange social phenomena. Ordinary people will get up in front of a room full of strangers and risk making complete and total fools of themselves. Some even manage to surprise themselves and do a good job with a song. I can tell you from personal experience that it helps to really know the words to the song and practice it at home before you jump up in front of everyone and start belting out the chorus.
There are a couple of songs that I think should forever be banished from Karaoke disks everywhere. Songs that last longer than three minutes like Don McClain’s “American Pie” come to mind, because the people that choose these songs inevitably cannot carry a tune in a bucket using both hands and no matter how polite the crowd tries to be, no one should be subjected to that level of pain and musically induced suffering for that long.
We live within a mile of a place called Ziggie’s that has live music three nights a week, as well as Karaoke on Wednesday nights. It’s a pleasure to sing at Ziggie’s, but it is also a bit intimidating because the regulars include some really good singers. “Hot Tub” Bob and George and Mike are tough acts to follow, but the crowd appreciates the overall quality and as a result we get a good number of spectators that aren’t there to sing—just listen. Pat and I got out there this past Wednesday night and I ran out of songs that I knew because it was the “Virgil and George show” for the first hour. Things don’t get going good until 10:30 PM.
I guess it’s time to work up a few new songs, anyone up for some James Taylor or Jimmy Buffett?
Blues can also be a bad thing--like the blues I've got when it comes to writing right now. I guess spending nine days traveling has got me out of my routine for some reason--that, and the computer problems we've had since returning home Monday night are serving to reduce the number of words that seem worth writing.
Back to the topic of Blues music, I don't think that I've made much mention of the fact that I'm an aspiring harmonica player. I played the harmonica with a band in Atlanta in 1999-2000 that played fairly frequently in public before girlfriend problems caused our ultimate breakup. It's funny how girls love you and will do practically anything to go out with you when you're in a band, and then end up being jealous of and hating the band when all things are said and done. The fact is that performing in a band professionally takes time, and some women just don't understand that concept.
I also formed a duo with Guitar Dave while living in Mexico Beach Florida that played on Sunday nights in this wonderful little dive called "The Lookout Lounge" that had been in business since the 1920's. We had a little PA system, a couple of old Yamaha tube amps and we developed 50 or so songs we could play and sing through using crib sheets instead of memory to support the vocals. We never had more than twenty-five or thirty people in the room, but then—if you saw the size of the room—twenty-five people was a full house.
The other thing I do to put myself at risk in public is sing Karaoke. Karaoke is a strange social phenomena. Ordinary people will get up in front of a room full of strangers and risk making complete and total fools of themselves. Some even manage to surprise themselves and do a good job with a song. I can tell you from personal experience that it helps to really know the words to the song and practice it at home before you jump up in front of everyone and start belting out the chorus.
There are a couple of songs that I think should forever be banished from Karaoke disks everywhere. Songs that last longer than three minutes like Don McClain’s “American Pie” come to mind, because the people that choose these songs inevitably cannot carry a tune in a bucket using both hands and no matter how polite the crowd tries to be, no one should be subjected to that level of pain and musically induced suffering for that long.
We live within a mile of a place called Ziggie’s that has live music three nights a week, as well as Karaoke on Wednesday nights. It’s a pleasure to sing at Ziggie’s, but it is also a bit intimidating because the regulars include some really good singers. “Hot Tub” Bob and George and Mike are tough acts to follow, but the crowd appreciates the overall quality and as a result we get a good number of spectators that aren’t there to sing—just listen. Pat and I got out there this past Wednesday night and I ran out of songs that I knew because it was the “Virgil and George show” for the first hour. Things don’t get going good until 10:30 PM.
I guess it’s time to work up a few new songs, anyone up for some James Taylor or Jimmy Buffett?
Friday, June 17, 2005
High Tech Hyperventilating
Why is it that trouble always comes in twos or threes?
We’ve been suffering from computer problems, network problems, and our condo AC has been half way screwed up since we returned from vacation. The good news is that I think we have two out of three problems solved—we’ll see later this morning.
We’re waiting with pregnant anticipation for the return of Pat’s notebook from its field trip to the Corporate IT Spa in the Atlanta suburbs. I wrapped it up in about ten layers of bubble wrap and slapped it in a Fed EX overnight box on Wednesday afternoon, they gave it a good working over on Thursday, and it’s on its way back here to St. Simons via Fed EX, scheduled to arrive before noon today. The maddening thing is that they couldn’t find anything wrong with the computer. No unusual adware/spybotts and no viruses.
I spent most of yesterday as a computer-less pedestrian since the wireless network is still spazzing out and Pat was using my notebook in the absence of her machine. She had to use our back up dial up connection because our wireless connection through the cable modem is still crawling. To complicate matters, we had to minimize our phone use because we were waiting for a stupid HVAC technician to call for directions.
Is it a genetic defect caused by owing a van or pickup truck full of tools, or is there some kind of special school that you go to that eliminates the part of the brain that causes you to keep appointments? I picked a name at random out of the phone book on Wednesday afternoon after determining that the condo AC was indeed ailing. I avoided the AAAAA listings and went straight to the middle of the category, hoping to find someone interested in actually fixing my AC in a competent and timely manner.
Not wanting to appear impatient, I ended up waiting poolside until 3 PM Thursday afternoon, and then I finally broke down, came dripping back to the condo, and called the guy again. He gave me the obligatory life story of an excuse, and then admitted that he had forgot about our appointment, and promised that he would be by within the hour.
I wandered back over to the swimming pool. Pat called me on my cell phone a half hour later to tell me that the guy had in fact showed up. The bastard didn’t even come inside. By the time I could dry off, toss on my shoes, and saunter the hundred-yard distance from the pool to my home, he was unhooking a bottle of Freon from the condensing unit, grabbing a check from Pat’s hand, and running to his van. Talk about expedient service…$70 worth.
What bothers me is that he did no diagnostic work. I told him on the telephone that the filters were clean, the evaporator fan and condenser fan were working, and that I suspected that we were a little low on Freon. I guess that he took my word for it. I just hope that whatever leak we have is a really slow one so we’re not coughing up another $70 next week.
So anyway, one computer, one AC, now I have to figure out what is going on with the wireless network. What is weird is that when I open the wireless connection window, it shows us running at 58G, but I swear that web pages load slower than the dial up connection at 52K. I can’t get my yahoo mail server to load at all. I’ve heard of an obscure virus that you can get in your wireless router memory and I’m wondering if we don’t have something like that going on here.
Needless to say my Blogging is going to suffer until I have the hardware problems worked out. See you guys later.
We’ve been suffering from computer problems, network problems, and our condo AC has been half way screwed up since we returned from vacation. The good news is that I think we have two out of three problems solved—we’ll see later this morning.
We’re waiting with pregnant anticipation for the return of Pat’s notebook from its field trip to the Corporate IT Spa in the Atlanta suburbs. I wrapped it up in about ten layers of bubble wrap and slapped it in a Fed EX overnight box on Wednesday afternoon, they gave it a good working over on Thursday, and it’s on its way back here to St. Simons via Fed EX, scheduled to arrive before noon today. The maddening thing is that they couldn’t find anything wrong with the computer. No unusual adware/spybotts and no viruses.
I spent most of yesterday as a computer-less pedestrian since the wireless network is still spazzing out and Pat was using my notebook in the absence of her machine. She had to use our back up dial up connection because our wireless connection through the cable modem is still crawling. To complicate matters, we had to minimize our phone use because we were waiting for a stupid HVAC technician to call for directions.
Is it a genetic defect caused by owing a van or pickup truck full of tools, or is there some kind of special school that you go to that eliminates the part of the brain that causes you to keep appointments? I picked a name at random out of the phone book on Wednesday afternoon after determining that the condo AC was indeed ailing. I avoided the AAAAA listings and went straight to the middle of the category, hoping to find someone interested in actually fixing my AC in a competent and timely manner.
Not wanting to appear impatient, I ended up waiting poolside until 3 PM Thursday afternoon, and then I finally broke down, came dripping back to the condo, and called the guy again. He gave me the obligatory life story of an excuse, and then admitted that he had forgot about our appointment, and promised that he would be by within the hour.
I wandered back over to the swimming pool. Pat called me on my cell phone a half hour later to tell me that the guy had in fact showed up. The bastard didn’t even come inside. By the time I could dry off, toss on my shoes, and saunter the hundred-yard distance from the pool to my home, he was unhooking a bottle of Freon from the condensing unit, grabbing a check from Pat’s hand, and running to his van. Talk about expedient service…$70 worth.
What bothers me is that he did no diagnostic work. I told him on the telephone that the filters were clean, the evaporator fan and condenser fan were working, and that I suspected that we were a little low on Freon. I guess that he took my word for it. I just hope that whatever leak we have is a really slow one so we’re not coughing up another $70 next week.
So anyway, one computer, one AC, now I have to figure out what is going on with the wireless network. What is weird is that when I open the wireless connection window, it shows us running at 58G, but I swear that web pages load slower than the dial up connection at 52K. I can’t get my yahoo mail server to load at all. I’ve heard of an obscure virus that you can get in your wireless router memory and I’m wondering if we don’t have something like that going on here.
Needless to say my Blogging is going to suffer until I have the hardware problems worked out. See you guys later.
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
X-Ray Vision
In case you haven’t heard, the media and a bunch of Senate weasels are publicly clamoring for the closure of prison camp X-Ray at US Naval Station Guantanamo Bay Cuba.
“Over the weekend, Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) said Bush should consider closing the Guantanamo Bay base, and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) cited controversy at the prison as one reason the United States is "losing the image war around the world." Democrats and some human rights groups have offered harsher assessments. The Guantanamo Bay prison, along with last year's Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, "is a national disgrace, an international embarrassment to us and our ideals, and a festering threat to our security," Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said in a floor speech yesterday.”
I just have one question for Messeurs Martinez, Hagel, and Leahy:
WHAT THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THE TERRORISTS, INSURGENTS, AND ARMED COMBATANTS (you pick your own term) CURRENTLY HELD AT GITMO?
Hey Mel, how about us closing Abu Grab-ass in Iraq and Gitmo in Cuba and building a new prison in the location of the critics’ choosing. It will have free camel parking, satellite TV, a health club, hot and cold running Korans, Arab Virgins on five foot centers, and no one will have to do anything they don’t want to do—ever—for the rest of their miserable Arab Jihadist lives.
We’ll conduct interrogations using words like “pretty please” and “mother may I” and we’ll patiently wait until our swarthy middle-eastern guests feel compelled to talk and potentially give us information critical to our national defense. Most of all, we will sweat and fret and wring our hands, having conniption fits of worry over our image with the socialists and communists in France, Germany, and Italy.
Then, will the media, the pacifists, and Senators Martinez, Hagel, and Leahy be happy?
No?
Of course not, because they will just start criticizing the next facility because they really aren’t against prison abuse, they are against the WAR ON TERROR.
Senators Martinez, Hagel, and Leahy are pompous, arrogant, useless, vote whores that don’t have enough spine to finish anything that they start. They couldn’t care less about the ramifications of their criticisms, they are just trying to get “ahead of the curve” by predicting the failure of US intelligence efforts.
If they are so concerned about the well being of these "detainees" why don't they each move couple of "insurgents" into their home and buy them a case of box cutters..see how innocent they really are.
Morons...
“Over the weekend, Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) said Bush should consider closing the Guantanamo Bay base, and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) cited controversy at the prison as one reason the United States is "losing the image war around the world." Democrats and some human rights groups have offered harsher assessments. The Guantanamo Bay prison, along with last year's Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq, "is a national disgrace, an international embarrassment to us and our ideals, and a festering threat to our security," Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said in a floor speech yesterday.”
I just have one question for Messeurs Martinez, Hagel, and Leahy:
WHAT THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THE TERRORISTS, INSURGENTS, AND ARMED COMBATANTS (you pick your own term) CURRENTLY HELD AT GITMO?
Hey Mel, how about us closing Abu Grab-ass in Iraq and Gitmo in Cuba and building a new prison in the location of the critics’ choosing. It will have free camel parking, satellite TV, a health club, hot and cold running Korans, Arab Virgins on five foot centers, and no one will have to do anything they don’t want to do—ever—for the rest of their miserable Arab Jihadist lives.
We’ll conduct interrogations using words like “pretty please” and “mother may I” and we’ll patiently wait until our swarthy middle-eastern guests feel compelled to talk and potentially give us information critical to our national defense. Most of all, we will sweat and fret and wring our hands, having conniption fits of worry over our image with the socialists and communists in France, Germany, and Italy.
Then, will the media, the pacifists, and Senators Martinez, Hagel, and Leahy be happy?
No?
Of course not, because they will just start criticizing the next facility because they really aren’t against prison abuse, they are against the WAR ON TERROR.
Senators Martinez, Hagel, and Leahy are pompous, arrogant, useless, vote whores that don’t have enough spine to finish anything that they start. They couldn’t care less about the ramifications of their criticisms, they are just trying to get “ahead of the curve” by predicting the failure of US intelligence efforts.
If they are so concerned about the well being of these "detainees" why don't they each move couple of "insurgents" into their home and buy them a case of box cutters..see how innocent they really are.
Morons...
Computer Induced Insanity
Picture me with my head spinning around like a character in a cheep horror film. That is the way I have felt most of the past 24 hours.
It all started Monday night in the Atlanta airport when I tried to connect Pat’s laptop to their wireless network. I connected to SOMETHING wireless, but I’m still not convinced that it was the airport’s wireless system because I got a peer-to-peer connection and never was able to check e-mail or connect to any websites. I might have been connected to a teenaged hacker sitting nearby—who knows?
I got nervous about the situation and quickly disconnected. Everything seemed ok after we returned home about midnight and as of 2:00 AM Tuesday morning as I was able to surf websites and check my E-mail. Pat’s company E-mail server was down.
I collapsed on the sofa to sleep and awoke early and attempted to again connect to Pat’s companies’ E-mail server through Microsoft Outlook to begin downloading 10 days worth of E-mail for her.
The server was apparently down—AGAIN. Arghhhh!
By that time I was for some reason also having trouble connecting to Yahoo and Google. The pages were loading slower than a dial-up connection, and I was using the wireless connection to the cable modem.
As I absent mindedly closed a couple of browser windows I noticed a “Public Dialer” program being downloaded in the background. What the heck is a Public Dialer?
AHHHH, I was being Spybotted.
I quickly disconnected from the Internet and shut the computer down. This was about 6:30 AM. I spent the next two hours doing a virus check and a spybot sweep and when Pat awoke I sheepishly told her about the problem. I though that it was my fault that we had caught something in the Atlanta Airport.
By 9:30 AM we decided to contact Pat’s company’s IT support hotline. A nice young man named Nathan spent THREE HOURS on the telephone with me trying to dissect the problem to no avail. We couldn’t figure out why the computer was so slow.
Finally I got the bright idea to try using my computer on the wireless network and guess what? It was slow as Christmas also.
Pat then called Adelphia and learned that THE NETWORK SERVERS HAD A VIRUS AND THEY WERE WORKING ON IT.
As of 3:00 AM we are still forced to use our dial up back up service. Why is it that trouble always comes in twos or threes? We still have a spyware problem on Pat’s computer, but the Adelphia network problem served to disguise and exasperate the problem and delay our solution. We can’t get to the approved spyware removal program using a slow dial up connection, so Pat is paralyzed until Adelphia gets their act together.
I finally got the time to post “You have to Stand for Something” in the last hour. I wrote it about 7:30 AM Tuesday morning. I’ll see what else I can come up with to write, but I’m afraid that today is going to be spent dealing with network issues and getting Pat back online so she can work from the Condo.
Wish me luck…
It all started Monday night in the Atlanta airport when I tried to connect Pat’s laptop to their wireless network. I connected to SOMETHING wireless, but I’m still not convinced that it was the airport’s wireless system because I got a peer-to-peer connection and never was able to check e-mail or connect to any websites. I might have been connected to a teenaged hacker sitting nearby—who knows?
I got nervous about the situation and quickly disconnected. Everything seemed ok after we returned home about midnight and as of 2:00 AM Tuesday morning as I was able to surf websites and check my E-mail. Pat’s company E-mail server was down.
I collapsed on the sofa to sleep and awoke early and attempted to again connect to Pat’s companies’ E-mail server through Microsoft Outlook to begin downloading 10 days worth of E-mail for her.
The server was apparently down—AGAIN. Arghhhh!
By that time I was for some reason also having trouble connecting to Yahoo and Google. The pages were loading slower than a dial-up connection, and I was using the wireless connection to the cable modem.
As I absent mindedly closed a couple of browser windows I noticed a “Public Dialer” program being downloaded in the background. What the heck is a Public Dialer?
AHHHH, I was being Spybotted.
I quickly disconnected from the Internet and shut the computer down. This was about 6:30 AM. I spent the next two hours doing a virus check and a spybot sweep and when Pat awoke I sheepishly told her about the problem. I though that it was my fault that we had caught something in the Atlanta Airport.
By 9:30 AM we decided to contact Pat’s company’s IT support hotline. A nice young man named Nathan spent THREE HOURS on the telephone with me trying to dissect the problem to no avail. We couldn’t figure out why the computer was so slow.
Finally I got the bright idea to try using my computer on the wireless network and guess what? It was slow as Christmas also.
Pat then called Adelphia and learned that THE NETWORK SERVERS HAD A VIRUS AND THEY WERE WORKING ON IT.
As of 3:00 AM we are still forced to use our dial up back up service. Why is it that trouble always comes in twos or threes? We still have a spyware problem on Pat’s computer, but the Adelphia network problem served to disguise and exasperate the problem and delay our solution. We can’t get to the approved spyware removal program using a slow dial up connection, so Pat is paralyzed until Adelphia gets their act together.
I finally got the time to post “You have to Stand for Something” in the last hour. I wrote it about 7:30 AM Tuesday morning. I’ll see what else I can come up with to write, but I’m afraid that today is going to be spent dealing with network issues and getting Pat back online so she can work from the Condo.
Wish me luck…
You Have To Stand For Something...
Or You’ll Fall For Anything
This morning I watched country music star Aaron Tippin sing his patriotic song “You have to stand for something” on Fox News “Fox and Friends” morning show. Aaron is a big advocate of supporting our military troops, even if you disagree politically with the Iraq war effort.
Having grown up in military family, living outside a military base, I guess that I might be considered biased—but I have to admit that I feel as Aaron does.
Coincidentally, there were two solders on our flight from Pittsburgh to Atlanta on Monday that were on their way to serve in Iraq. One of the flight attendants made an announcement over the intercom while we were taxiing to the gate in Atlanta telling the passengers of their (the solders) presence on our flight. Spontaneous applause broke out in the cabin.
What burned my ass was…SOME PEOPLE DID NOT CLAP AND JUST SAT THERE WITH THEIR HANDS IN THEIR LAP.
I was personally offended by this gesture (or lack thereof) but I held my tongue and controlled my attitude because, ironically, the solders are fighting for these idiots’ freedom to disagree with our country’s foreign policy. It’s just unfortunate that 20 year old men have to get caught up in the middle of such misdirected political speech.
This situation occurred just hours after we learned that Michael Jackson was acquitted on all ten felony charges against him. I don’t agree with the hype surrounding the trial, but I’m not really in a position to comment on the verdict because I wasn’t on the jury.
It might surprise you to hear this, but I believe in the idea that we are a country OF LAWS, not men and women acting on the basis of mob rule. We are a Representative Republic, not a Democracy, and we elect our leaders and legislature, they write the laws with our approval and then, like it or not, we have to live with the outcome—good or bad.
So, as a result, I had to sit on an airplane with a few ungrateful ingrates that insist on prosecuting their political agenda even if it insults young men that could be dead within weeks if not days defending their rights to be MORONS, and I have to watch a grown man that likes to sleep with prepubescent boys walk out of a courthouse a free man.
It’s too late to change those situations, but I shall continue to absorb as much information as I can about local and national issues and I will intelligently cast my vote in each and every election in the future.
Then, if I don’t like the outcome of a celebrity trial or I find events that occur around me to be objectionable, at least I know that I have done all that I can do.
How about you?
This morning I watched country music star Aaron Tippin sing his patriotic song “You have to stand for something” on Fox News “Fox and Friends” morning show. Aaron is a big advocate of supporting our military troops, even if you disagree politically with the Iraq war effort.
Having grown up in military family, living outside a military base, I guess that I might be considered biased—but I have to admit that I feel as Aaron does.
Coincidentally, there were two solders on our flight from Pittsburgh to Atlanta on Monday that were on their way to serve in Iraq. One of the flight attendants made an announcement over the intercom while we were taxiing to the gate in Atlanta telling the passengers of their (the solders) presence on our flight. Spontaneous applause broke out in the cabin.
What burned my ass was…SOME PEOPLE DID NOT CLAP AND JUST SAT THERE WITH THEIR HANDS IN THEIR LAP.
I was personally offended by this gesture (or lack thereof) but I held my tongue and controlled my attitude because, ironically, the solders are fighting for these idiots’ freedom to disagree with our country’s foreign policy. It’s just unfortunate that 20 year old men have to get caught up in the middle of such misdirected political speech.
This situation occurred just hours after we learned that Michael Jackson was acquitted on all ten felony charges against him. I don’t agree with the hype surrounding the trial, but I’m not really in a position to comment on the verdict because I wasn’t on the jury.
It might surprise you to hear this, but I believe in the idea that we are a country OF LAWS, not men and women acting on the basis of mob rule. We are a Representative Republic, not a Democracy, and we elect our leaders and legislature, they write the laws with our approval and then, like it or not, we have to live with the outcome—good or bad.
So, as a result, I had to sit on an airplane with a few ungrateful ingrates that insist on prosecuting their political agenda even if it insults young men that could be dead within weeks if not days defending their rights to be MORONS, and I have to watch a grown man that likes to sleep with prepubescent boys walk out of a courthouse a free man.
It’s too late to change those situations, but I shall continue to absorb as much information as I can about local and national issues and I will intelligently cast my vote in each and every election in the future.
Then, if I don’t like the outcome of a celebrity trial or I find events that occur around me to be objectionable, at least I know that I have done all that I can do.
How about you?
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Monday, June 13, 2005
Michael Jackson's Innocent
And I'm coming home...
We were relieved to watch the end of the Michael Jackson fiasco this afternoon from a restaurant in the Pittsburgh airport. I hope that this story goes away as soon as is possible, but I'm sure that it will be good for hashing and rehashing for at least another week or so.
The weather has been kind to us and I'm getting to use the wireless card here at gate D80 as we look at them tossing baggage onto the airplane. I think that I just saw my bag go bouncing down the conveyor.
Assuming that the weather holds in St. Simons, with any luck I'll be blogging from my own sofa by 11:30 tonight.
Wish us luck..
We were relieved to watch the end of the Michael Jackson fiasco this afternoon from a restaurant in the Pittsburgh airport. I hope that this story goes away as soon as is possible, but I'm sure that it will be good for hashing and rehashing for at least another week or so.
The weather has been kind to us and I'm getting to use the wireless card here at gate D80 as we look at them tossing baggage onto the airplane. I think that I just saw my bag go bouncing down the conveyor.
Assuming that the weather holds in St. Simons, with any luck I'll be blogging from my own sofa by 11:30 tonight.
Wish us luck..
I Need To Start A New Blog
I was up early this morning, getting mentally prepared to spend all day in an automobile, airports, and airplanes. At least there are no stage coaches and steam ships on our itinerary.
Our plan is to drive from Charleston, WV heading north on I-79 toward the Pittsburgh International Airport at noon today, catching a 6:30 PM flight to Atlanta, then on to Brunswick, Georgia arriving back at home about 11:30 tonight.
I qualify this schedule as a "plan" because the evening weather may delay our departure from PIT or ATL--we're carrying on some back-up personal items just in case we are forced to spend another night in a hotel.
I was reading the AM news on the Internet and couldn't resist checking out the NY Times, having just completed my dissection of Paul Krugman's last editorial and guess what?
Paul Krugman is at it...AGAIN.
This time his topic is...drum roll please...UNIVERSAL HEALTH INSURANCE.
Paul, Paul, Paul...what am I going to do with your miserable, bearded, scowling face?
I know, rather than kill "What I'd Liked To Have Said" with endless technical ranting and raving about the shortcomings and partisan inaccuracies of Mr. Krugman's writing, I'm starting a new blog, JUST FOR YOU, PAUL.
Check back here when I get settled in at home and I'll provide the link. That way, if you don't give a darn about Paul Krugman you can still read the rest of my insanities.
Our plan is to drive from Charleston, WV heading north on I-79 toward the Pittsburgh International Airport at noon today, catching a 6:30 PM flight to Atlanta, then on to Brunswick, Georgia arriving back at home about 11:30 tonight.
I qualify this schedule as a "plan" because the evening weather may delay our departure from PIT or ATL--we're carrying on some back-up personal items just in case we are forced to spend another night in a hotel.
I was reading the AM news on the Internet and couldn't resist checking out the NY Times, having just completed my dissection of Paul Krugman's last editorial and guess what?
Paul Krugman is at it...AGAIN.
This time his topic is...drum roll please...UNIVERSAL HEALTH INSURANCE.
Paul, Paul, Paul...what am I going to do with your miserable, bearded, scowling face?
I know, rather than kill "What I'd Liked To Have Said" with endless technical ranting and raving about the shortcomings and partisan inaccuracies of Mr. Krugman's writing, I'm starting a new blog, JUST FOR YOU, PAUL.
Check back here when I get settled in at home and I'll provide the link. That way, if you don't give a darn about Paul Krugman you can still read the rest of my insanities.
Sunday, June 12, 2005
“Losing Our Country”—Part III
(To Idiots Like This…)
My answer to Paul Krugman’s June 10th NY Times editorial has been grinding around in the back of my brain and on the computer keyboard for a couple days while visiting with family and traveling from city to city.
I’m now ready to do some final editing and spit this thing out for your consumption and enjoyment. You might want to wear goggles or safety glasses because the spit will be flying I’m afraid.
First things first—Paul Krugman is well known to love to embellish his scholarly editorial commentary with large numbers of important sounding figures and statistics, but, as his recently retired managing editor Daniel Okrent so eloquently said:
“Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults.”
Did you hear me? This statement was from Mr. Krugman’s own managing editor!
I’m not inclined to be quite so kind because I feel that Krugman’s “nuanced” use of facts and statistics does two critical things--it renders the facts useless and the statistics moot.
In this most recent piece “Losing Our Country,” Krugman’s thesis starts out weak—
“Baby boomers like me grew up in a relatively equal society. In the 1960’s America was a place in which very few people were extremely wealthy, many blue-collar workers earned wages that placed them comfortably in the middle class, and working families could expect steadily rising living standards and a reasonable degree of economic security”
—and quickly dies on the operating table, unable to be resuscitated by even an expert economist because his statement is wrong Wrong WRONG.
I’m sorry Paul old buddy, but I too grew up in the same America that your did in the 1960’s and 1970’s (he’s three years older than me) and I can assure you that America then (like America now) was not in fact equal in any shape, in any form, nor in any fashion imaginable.
Further, our Founding Fathers (George, Ben, Thomas, Jefferson, et al) never intended for our society to be equal. The OPPORTUNITY for ACHIEVEMENT was the only thing that was supposed to be EQUAL—you #@*&% MORON!
In the rural Alabama that I knew in the 1960’s, where George Wallace ruled as Governor, whites and blacks still had separate drinking fountians, separate schools, and Miss Ozark and Miss Bronze beauty pageants were held separately each year.
The wealthy citizens lived on Squirrel Drive and on Broad Street, were members of the country club, and the ex-military new arrivals like us built their modest split level and ranch houses on Dellwood lane and on Brookwood circle and politely declined the country club membership offers because we had little in common with “those people” socially and besides, we needed to save the money to pay for college. We also didn’t expect “those people” to pay for our groceries, send us on vacation, and pay our doctor bills—we could do that quite well ourselves—thank you very much.
Next Krugman breaks out the “W” word I hate so much—he laments the fate of…get ready…here it comes…
“The Working Families.”
He says:
“Working families have seen little if any progress over the past 30 years. Adjusted for inflation, the income of the median family doubled between 1947 and 1973. But it rose only 22 percent from 1973 to 2003, and much of that gain was the result of wives' entering the paid labor force or working longer hours, not rising wages.”
So Paul Krugman, bless his little over educated liberal heart, is worried about “Working Families.” As I wrote back in September in my blog posting “Tax Cuts For Working Families,” I still want to know what the heck IS a “Working Family" anyway?
Do you know?
Please tell me if you do because I must have missed that day of class in school.
Here is part of what I said previously:
“Let me ask the question, exactly what is a "working family?"
Does the term “working family” mean that both parents, all of the children, and the family pets each hold full time or part time jobs?
Does the term “working family” only apply if you make less than $50,000 per year in total income?
Does the term imply that people making over $100,000 don’t work for a living and/or don't have families ?”
Next he (P. Krugman) throws in a subtle caveat—“adjusted for inflation”—in his presentation. The standard he used for “adjusting for inflation” is not mentioned. It could be the Consumer Price Index or it could be the standard annual inflation rate which has been all over the map since 1947. In fact, inflation was at its worst during the presidency of Democrat Jimmy Carter from 1976 to1980 and is probably at least partially responsible for the low level of income gains that Krugman quotes in the 1973-2003 period.
Finally, Krugman breaks out one of my other favorite weasel-words—the word “median.” Do you know what the median (or mean) income is? Do you know what the difference is between the median income and the average income of a group of citizens?
Many if not most of Krugman’s readers probably don’t, and he is counting on this fact to help prop up is poorly supported discussion; else he is ignoring this situation as he develops his argument.
Let me give you a simple example illustrating the difference between average and mean. Here goes…
Say that last year the people on your street have these incomes:
Household A $35,000
Household B $40,000
Household C $55,000
Household D $75,000
Household E $90,000
In this example, the median household income would be $55,000, but the average household income would be $59,000, $4,000 higher.
Stay with me here please, I’m almost done with the math examples…
Now say that some people move in, some people move out, and the next year the people on your street have these incomes:
Household A $38,000
Household B $42,000
Household C $50,000
Household D $75,000
Household E $90,000
Krugman’s lovely, all important median income in this example would be $50,000, but the average income would still be $59,000. Also notice that while two households made more than in the first example, one also made less and two stayed the same, so the average income stayed the same while the median income fell.
If I were Paul Krugman, I could, using the standards he has used in writing the current article, honestly write a headline blaring “MEDIAN INCOMES FALL 9% ON YOUR STREET.”
Would that make you jump off of the sofa and run to the voting booth to institute some change? In my opinion, this exact kind of rhetoric motivates a whole bunch of uninformed people to vote with their wallet rather than with their brains.
Next Comrade Krugman drags out another favorite dead horse—“economic security”—and starts flogging it with a wet noodle:
“Meanwhile, economic security is a thing of the past: year-to-year fluctuations in the incomes of working families are far larger than they were a generation ago. All it takes is a bit of bad luck in employment or health to plunge a family that seems solidly middle-class into poverty.”
He doesn’t bother with supporting this argument with facts and figures, because there are none—economic security is a figment of the imagination of the politicians that want to deliver an ever increasing stream of government supplied benefits and wealth distribution to an ever growing segment of the population. “Don’t worry” they say, vote for us and WE will give you a secure income, and secure health benefits, and secure retirement benefits, all at the expense of those mean old wealthy people living across town.
Krugman then opens the curtain and reveals his, and the Democrats, proposed solution to the purported problems…TAX THE WEALTHY, “THEY ARE DOING BETTER THAN WORKING FAMILIES ARE, AND IT’S JUST NOT FAIR.”
“But the wealthy have done very well indeed. Since 1973 the average income of the top 1 percent of Americans has doubled, and the income of the top 0.1 percent has tripled.
Why is this happening? I'll have more to say on that another day, but for now let me just point out that middle-class America didn't emerge by accident. It was created by what has been called the Great Compression of incomes that took place during World War II, and sustained for a generation by social norms that favored equality, strong labor unions and progressive taxation.
Since the 1970's, all of those sustaining forces have lost their power.
Since 1980 in particular, U.S. government policies have consistently favored the wealthy at the expense of working families - and under the current administration, that favoritism has become extreme and relentless. From tax cuts that favor the rich to bankruptcy "reform" that punishes the unlucky, almost every domestic policy seems intended to accelerate our march back to the robber baron era.”
See, Krugman somehow thinks that it’s the Government's job, not the individual’s job to earn a living and take care of families. Krugman and his ilk’s idea of the means to raise the income of their beloved “working families” is to take the money away from those that EARNED it, in the form of progressive taxation, and give it to those that didn’t EARN IT in the form of rebates and tax credits.
In fact, Krugman comes right out and says it: “social norms that favored equality, strong labor unions, and progressive taxation.”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Paul Krugman is a lying moron, and he believes that YOU can’t take care of your own business, and if you happen to be an achiever that has “won life’s lottery” and earns a good living, he wants the government to bring a gun to your door and take some of your money and spend it as he and his fellow liberal friends see fit.
What total, unmitigated, bigotry—financial bigotry. How much longer are WE going to put up with this way of thinking?
I'll give Paul Krugman one final concession...You're right Paul...we are losing our country...
We're losing our country to Idiots Like you.
Costa Rica here I come...
My answer to Paul Krugman’s June 10th NY Times editorial has been grinding around in the back of my brain and on the computer keyboard for a couple days while visiting with family and traveling from city to city.
I’m now ready to do some final editing and spit this thing out for your consumption and enjoyment. You might want to wear goggles or safety glasses because the spit will be flying I’m afraid.
First things first—Paul Krugman is well known to love to embellish his scholarly editorial commentary with large numbers of important sounding figures and statistics, but, as his recently retired managing editor Daniel Okrent so eloquently said:
“Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults.”
Did you hear me? This statement was from Mr. Krugman’s own managing editor!
I’m not inclined to be quite so kind because I feel that Krugman’s “nuanced” use of facts and statistics does two critical things--it renders the facts useless and the statistics moot.
In this most recent piece “Losing Our Country,” Krugman’s thesis starts out weak—
“Baby boomers like me grew up in a relatively equal society. In the 1960’s America was a place in which very few people were extremely wealthy, many blue-collar workers earned wages that placed them comfortably in the middle class, and working families could expect steadily rising living standards and a reasonable degree of economic security”
—and quickly dies on the operating table, unable to be resuscitated by even an expert economist because his statement is wrong Wrong WRONG.
I’m sorry Paul old buddy, but I too grew up in the same America that your did in the 1960’s and 1970’s (he’s three years older than me) and I can assure you that America then (like America now) was not in fact equal in any shape, in any form, nor in any fashion imaginable.
Further, our Founding Fathers (George, Ben, Thomas, Jefferson, et al) never intended for our society to be equal. The OPPORTUNITY for ACHIEVEMENT was the only thing that was supposed to be EQUAL—you #@*&% MORON!
In the rural Alabama that I knew in the 1960’s, where George Wallace ruled as Governor, whites and blacks still had separate drinking fountians, separate schools, and Miss Ozark and Miss Bronze beauty pageants were held separately each year.
The wealthy citizens lived on Squirrel Drive and on Broad Street, were members of the country club, and the ex-military new arrivals like us built their modest split level and ranch houses on Dellwood lane and on Brookwood circle and politely declined the country club membership offers because we had little in common with “those people” socially and besides, we needed to save the money to pay for college. We also didn’t expect “those people” to pay for our groceries, send us on vacation, and pay our doctor bills—we could do that quite well ourselves—thank you very much.
Next Krugman breaks out the “W” word I hate so much—he laments the fate of…get ready…here it comes…
“The Working Families.”
He says:
“Working families have seen little if any progress over the past 30 years. Adjusted for inflation, the income of the median family doubled between 1947 and 1973. But it rose only 22 percent from 1973 to 2003, and much of that gain was the result of wives' entering the paid labor force or working longer hours, not rising wages.”
So Paul Krugman, bless his little over educated liberal heart, is worried about “Working Families.” As I wrote back in September in my blog posting “Tax Cuts For Working Families,” I still want to know what the heck IS a “Working Family" anyway?
Do you know?
Please tell me if you do because I must have missed that day of class in school.
Here is part of what I said previously:
“Let me ask the question, exactly what is a "working family?"
Does the term “working family” mean that both parents, all of the children, and the family pets each hold full time or part time jobs?
Does the term “working family” only apply if you make less than $50,000 per year in total income?
Does the term imply that people making over $100,000 don’t work for a living and/or don't have families ?”
Next he (P. Krugman) throws in a subtle caveat—“adjusted for inflation”—in his presentation. The standard he used for “adjusting for inflation” is not mentioned. It could be the Consumer Price Index or it could be the standard annual inflation rate which has been all over the map since 1947. In fact, inflation was at its worst during the presidency of Democrat Jimmy Carter from 1976 to1980 and is probably at least partially responsible for the low level of income gains that Krugman quotes in the 1973-2003 period.
Finally, Krugman breaks out one of my other favorite weasel-words—the word “median.” Do you know what the median (or mean) income is? Do you know what the difference is between the median income and the average income of a group of citizens?
Many if not most of Krugman’s readers probably don’t, and he is counting on this fact to help prop up is poorly supported discussion; else he is ignoring this situation as he develops his argument.
Let me give you a simple example illustrating the difference between average and mean. Here goes…
Say that last year the people on your street have these incomes:
Household A $35,000
Household B $40,000
Household C $55,000
Household D $75,000
Household E $90,000
In this example, the median household income would be $55,000, but the average household income would be $59,000, $4,000 higher.
Stay with me here please, I’m almost done with the math examples…
Now say that some people move in, some people move out, and the next year the people on your street have these incomes:
Household A $38,000
Household B $42,000
Household C $50,000
Household D $75,000
Household E $90,000
Krugman’s lovely, all important median income in this example would be $50,000, but the average income would still be $59,000. Also notice that while two households made more than in the first example, one also made less and two stayed the same, so the average income stayed the same while the median income fell.
If I were Paul Krugman, I could, using the standards he has used in writing the current article, honestly write a headline blaring “MEDIAN INCOMES FALL 9% ON YOUR STREET.”
Would that make you jump off of the sofa and run to the voting booth to institute some change? In my opinion, this exact kind of rhetoric motivates a whole bunch of uninformed people to vote with their wallet rather than with their brains.
Next Comrade Krugman drags out another favorite dead horse—“economic security”—and starts flogging it with a wet noodle:
“Meanwhile, economic security is a thing of the past: year-to-year fluctuations in the incomes of working families are far larger than they were a generation ago. All it takes is a bit of bad luck in employment or health to plunge a family that seems solidly middle-class into poverty.”
He doesn’t bother with supporting this argument with facts and figures, because there are none—economic security is a figment of the imagination of the politicians that want to deliver an ever increasing stream of government supplied benefits and wealth distribution to an ever growing segment of the population. “Don’t worry” they say, vote for us and WE will give you a secure income, and secure health benefits, and secure retirement benefits, all at the expense of those mean old wealthy people living across town.
Krugman then opens the curtain and reveals his, and the Democrats, proposed solution to the purported problems…TAX THE WEALTHY, “THEY ARE DOING BETTER THAN WORKING FAMILIES ARE, AND IT’S JUST NOT FAIR.”
“But the wealthy have done very well indeed. Since 1973 the average income of the top 1 percent of Americans has doubled, and the income of the top 0.1 percent has tripled.
Why is this happening? I'll have more to say on that another day, but for now let me just point out that middle-class America didn't emerge by accident. It was created by what has been called the Great Compression of incomes that took place during World War II, and sustained for a generation by social norms that favored equality, strong labor unions and progressive taxation.
Since the 1970's, all of those sustaining forces have lost their power.
Since 1980 in particular, U.S. government policies have consistently favored the wealthy at the expense of working families - and under the current administration, that favoritism has become extreme and relentless. From tax cuts that favor the rich to bankruptcy "reform" that punishes the unlucky, almost every domestic policy seems intended to accelerate our march back to the robber baron era.”
See, Krugman somehow thinks that it’s the Government's job, not the individual’s job to earn a living and take care of families. Krugman and his ilk’s idea of the means to raise the income of their beloved “working families” is to take the money away from those that EARNED it, in the form of progressive taxation, and give it to those that didn’t EARN IT in the form of rebates and tax credits.
In fact, Krugman comes right out and says it: “social norms that favored equality, strong labor unions, and progressive taxation.”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Paul Krugman is a lying moron, and he believes that YOU can’t take care of your own business, and if you happen to be an achiever that has “won life’s lottery” and earns a good living, he wants the government to bring a gun to your door and take some of your money and spend it as he and his fellow liberal friends see fit.
What total, unmitigated, bigotry—financial bigotry. How much longer are WE going to put up with this way of thinking?
I'll give Paul Krugman one final concession...You're right Paul...we are losing our country...
We're losing our country to Idiots Like you.
Costa Rica here I come...
Yet More “Zero Tolerance” Insanity
Anyone that has read this blog for more than a few weeks knows that I am NOT a fan of our country’s so called “Zero Tolerance” laws when it comes to public (government) schools.
There is hardly a day that goes by where a local news story doesn’t outline some horrific example of an innocent (by any intelligent, reasonable standard) student being expelled or otherwise disciplined for being accused of some ridiculous infraction.
There is even a Website dedicated to consolidating and publishing Zero Tolerance horror stories called ztnightmares.com.
Well, I just so happened to have tripped over a couple of my own fresh “Zero Tolerance” news stories and I decided to comment again this morning.
First, let me say that I think that the best way to describe “Zero Tolerance” is to evoke the words of “Captain” (the warden character played by Strother Martin in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke featuring Paul Newman)…
“What we have heeaaah……is a failure……..to communicate…”
Actually, I guess that this first story about a student being refused his diploma for wearing a Bolo tie to graduation could more accurately be placed under the title of “school administration stupidity” rather than “Zero Tolerance Insanity,” but the concept is still the same.
“Pomfret, MD-- School officials are withholding a 17-year-old boy's diploma for wearing a bolo tie under his graduation gown.
The student, Thomas Benya, said he prefers the string bolo ties over traditional knotted ties to reflect his American Indian heritage.
But officials from Maurice J. McDonough High School in suburban Washington said they warned him beforehand that a bolo violated the dress code for the event, held for about 250 students.
Katie O'Malley-Simpson said there are "many opportunities throughout the year to express cultural heritage. But we don't do that at graduation."
So this kid did all of the academic work, but showed up wearing a skinny Bolo tie under his graduation gown and the so called “SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS,” also the likely products of Government Schools, chose to make an example of him and not award his diploma.
What complete and total crappola. These so-called administrators evidently shouldn’t be allowed to pick out their own clothes and dress themselves in the morning. The government should go to their homes and confiscate all of the sharp objects so they won’t hurt themselves when they don’t have real adult supervision.
Suppose that Mr. Benya followed their rules and wore a nice navy blue tie—with an airbrushed painting of a voluptuous nude woman on the area hidden under his graduation gown, and didn’t show anyone the painting. Suppose that he wrote nasty, suggestive epithets with a magic marker all over his abdomen and ass describing his vivid sexual fantasies with the gym teacher, and didn’t show anyone?
Would that meet the graduation dress code standards of the Maurice J. McDonough High School?
I suspect that it would, because what any school administrator armed with their “Zero Tolerance” armor doesn’t see or otherwise know about obviously won’t hurt them.
IDIOTS!
This next story is a classic example of what I fondly call a “Zero Tolerance” hysterical hyperventilating conniption fit. Here's the link to a story about two 8th graders doing a science project on the danger of BB guns.
Amherst, Mass.--Two eighth-graders who spent months working on a science project to prove how dangerous BB guns can be were disqualified from the state middle school science fair. The reason for the dismissal: BB guns are too dangerous.
Nathan C. Woodard and Nathaniel A. Gorlin-Crenshaw spent seven months researching and testing their hypothesis that BB guns can be deadly and should not be used by children.
The students spent about $200 on ballistics gelatin, which has the same density and consistency as human flesh, to use during their tests.
Nancy G. Degon, vice president of Massachusetts State Science Fair Inc. and co-chair of the middle-school fair, said fair rules prohibit hazardous substances and devices.
"The scientific review committee does not consider science projects involving firearms to be safe for middle school students," Degon said.
The boys were invited to present their findings to some judges and receive a certificate of accomplishment, but they rejected the offer because they were not allowed to compete.
"I was really disappointed," Woodard said. "We had a good point to prove."
See, these liberal government school “do-gooders” are even willing to eat their own species (as opposed to eating their own feces—the jury is still out on that issue.)
The kids used the BB guns at home, didn’t they? Nowhere in the story did they indicate that the kids were going to bring the guns to the science fair and shoot anything. I’m certain that what they were going to do was to bring the standard display board filled with charts and graphs and at no time were they going to violate Ms. Degon’s rule “prohibit(ing) hazardous substances and devices.”
These kids were doing a project to show how dangerous BB guns are to children—a project that supports the gun control and zero tolerance agenda—and the “ZERO TOLERANCE” crown can’t even hold still long enough to let the kids generate some actual data on the topic.
Data??? What is data, they ask?
You see, most of the intellectually dishonest crowd out there screaming about global warming, demanding gun control, and lamenting the dangers of gas hogging SUV’s can’t be bothered with the unbiased scientific process and don’t need boring things like data and details to support their arguments and public campaigns.
All liberals need is their bleeding hearts and a pant load of emotion—it’s what they feel that matters—thinking about and looking at the actual facts is an unnecessary encumbrance in the process of implementing change.
OHHH OHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
CLUNK…(sound of me falling off of my chair)
There is hardly a day that goes by where a local news story doesn’t outline some horrific example of an innocent (by any intelligent, reasonable standard) student being expelled or otherwise disciplined for being accused of some ridiculous infraction.
There is even a Website dedicated to consolidating and publishing Zero Tolerance horror stories called ztnightmares.com.
Well, I just so happened to have tripped over a couple of my own fresh “Zero Tolerance” news stories and I decided to comment again this morning.
First, let me say that I think that the best way to describe “Zero Tolerance” is to evoke the words of “Captain” (the warden character played by Strother Martin in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke featuring Paul Newman)…
“What we have heeaaah……is a failure……..to communicate…”
Actually, I guess that this first story about a student being refused his diploma for wearing a Bolo tie to graduation could more accurately be placed under the title of “school administration stupidity” rather than “Zero Tolerance Insanity,” but the concept is still the same.
“Pomfret, MD-- School officials are withholding a 17-year-old boy's diploma for wearing a bolo tie under his graduation gown.
The student, Thomas Benya, said he prefers the string bolo ties over traditional knotted ties to reflect his American Indian heritage.
But officials from Maurice J. McDonough High School in suburban Washington said they warned him beforehand that a bolo violated the dress code for the event, held for about 250 students.
Katie O'Malley-Simpson said there are "many opportunities throughout the year to express cultural heritage. But we don't do that at graduation."
So this kid did all of the academic work, but showed up wearing a skinny Bolo tie under his graduation gown and the so called “SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS,” also the likely products of Government Schools, chose to make an example of him and not award his diploma.
What complete and total crappola. These so-called administrators evidently shouldn’t be allowed to pick out their own clothes and dress themselves in the morning. The government should go to their homes and confiscate all of the sharp objects so they won’t hurt themselves when they don’t have real adult supervision.
Suppose that Mr. Benya followed their rules and wore a nice navy blue tie—with an airbrushed painting of a voluptuous nude woman on the area hidden under his graduation gown, and didn’t show anyone the painting. Suppose that he wrote nasty, suggestive epithets with a magic marker all over his abdomen and ass describing his vivid sexual fantasies with the gym teacher, and didn’t show anyone?
Would that meet the graduation dress code standards of the Maurice J. McDonough High School?
I suspect that it would, because what any school administrator armed with their “Zero Tolerance” armor doesn’t see or otherwise know about obviously won’t hurt them.
IDIOTS!
This next story is a classic example of what I fondly call a “Zero Tolerance” hysterical hyperventilating conniption fit. Here's the link to a story about two 8th graders doing a science project on the danger of BB guns.
Amherst, Mass.--Two eighth-graders who spent months working on a science project to prove how dangerous BB guns can be were disqualified from the state middle school science fair. The reason for the dismissal: BB guns are too dangerous.
Nathan C. Woodard and Nathaniel A. Gorlin-Crenshaw spent seven months researching and testing their hypothesis that BB guns can be deadly and should not be used by children.
The students spent about $200 on ballistics gelatin, which has the same density and consistency as human flesh, to use during their tests.
Nancy G. Degon, vice president of Massachusetts State Science Fair Inc. and co-chair of the middle-school fair, said fair rules prohibit hazardous substances and devices.
"The scientific review committee does not consider science projects involving firearms to be safe for middle school students," Degon said.
The boys were invited to present their findings to some judges and receive a certificate of accomplishment, but they rejected the offer because they were not allowed to compete.
"I was really disappointed," Woodard said. "We had a good point to prove."
See, these liberal government school “do-gooders” are even willing to eat their own species (as opposed to eating their own feces—the jury is still out on that issue.)
The kids used the BB guns at home, didn’t they? Nowhere in the story did they indicate that the kids were going to bring the guns to the science fair and shoot anything. I’m certain that what they were going to do was to bring the standard display board filled with charts and graphs and at no time were they going to violate Ms. Degon’s rule “prohibit(ing) hazardous substances and devices.”
These kids were doing a project to show how dangerous BB guns are to children—a project that supports the gun control and zero tolerance agenda—and the “ZERO TOLERANCE” crown can’t even hold still long enough to let the kids generate some actual data on the topic.
Data??? What is data, they ask?
You see, most of the intellectually dishonest crowd out there screaming about global warming, demanding gun control, and lamenting the dangers of gas hogging SUV’s can’t be bothered with the unbiased scientific process and don’t need boring things like data and details to support their arguments and public campaigns.
All liberals need is their bleeding hearts and a pant load of emotion—it’s what they feel that matters—thinking about and looking at the actual facts is an unnecessary encumbrance in the process of implementing change.
OHHH OHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
CLUNK…(sound of me falling off of my chair)
