No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for January, 2010

January 21, 2010

All Hands On Deck!

by @ 5:24. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Catch this headline from USAToday:

Soldiers told to stop handing out food

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Food handouts were shut off Tuesday to thousands of people at a tent city here when the main U.S. aid agency said the Army should not be distributing the packages.

It was no known whether the action reflected a high-level policy decision at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) or confusion in a city where dozens of entities are involved in aid efforts.

“We are not supposed to get rations unless approved by AID,” Maj. Larry Jordan said.

Jordan said that approval was revoked; water was not included in the USAID decision, so the troops continued to hand out bottles of water.

It’s hard to put into words just what I want to say about this situation.

Catastrophe, human suffering, starvation, death from dehydration, all of these are realities in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake.  I’ve been involved in natural disasters of a far smaller scale (Florida hurricanes) and I can tell you that even there, the attitude is “help the people!”

We didn’t care about who got recognition for what was being done.  We didn’t care about “following chain of command.”  We didn’t care stop to ask permission when someone needed food.  We didn’t stop to ask for IDs.  We also didn’t stop to fight over “who’s going to pay for this.”

When it comes to a tragedy the scope of which has happened in Haiti, the last thing that will help any of those people is to fight over “who’s in charge!” 

I will echo Rush Limbaugh’s sentiment, for which he was roundly skewered by the left, do NOT send donations to any federal agency to assist Haiti.  They are to focused on covering their butts and using this event as an opportunity to justify their existence and expand their scope and power.

Please do help the Haitians by contributing through Samaritans Purse or and organization which I have done a fair amount of volunteer work with, Feed My Starving Children.

Help the Haitians but do it through groups that are more focused on helping the Haitians than they are in helping their own careers!

January 20, 2010

The Brown-in of Massachusetts – the local GOP take

by @ 10:10. Filed under Politics - National, Politics - Wisconsin.

Editor’s note – Some of these are involved statements; others are quick social-media bites.

Republican Party of Wisconsin chair Reince Priebus (press release):

American voters have made themselves clear. Three months ago, voters in New Jersey and Virginia rejected the Democrats’ tax-and-spend agenda. Now, in the bluest of blue states, the people of Massachusetts sent a message to Democrats across the country: listen or you’ll be next.

From the failed stimulus, to the cap-and-trade national energy tax, to a government takeover of health care attempt shrouded with secrecy, the American people do not approve of the Democrats’ big-government policies that do nothing to create jobs. Voters are connecting with Republican candidates because of our principles of lower-taxes, smaller government, and fiscal responsibility.

Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts should serve as the latest reminder to Wisconsin Democrats that voters are watching. Instead of telling their constituents what is good for them and blindly following their Washington leadership, it’s time for Wisconsin Democrats like Russ Feingold, Steve Kagen, Ron Kind, and Dave Obey to start listening.

Gubernatorial candidate Mark Neumann (campaign blog post):

The election in Massachusetts yesterday should serve as a stunning wake-up call that we the conservatives, the small government folks, are not going to take it anymore.

The politicians in Washington have focused on health care, bailouts, stimulus, tax increases, and all sorts of other plans to expand government. Meanwhile on main streets all across Wisconsin people are struggling to keep their jobs and to keep their businesses afloat in this poor economy.

We must elect people who will get government out of the way so jobs, real long term jobs can be created in the private sector. Government does not create private sector jobs. We do!!! For us business owners to be successful, government must get out of our way and not take what sometimes seems to be more than we make in taxes.

Career politicians do not seem to understand that the vast majority of the money that small business owners make in Wisconsin is immediately reinvested in our businesses. When they take it in the form of higher taxes and fees (as if we don’t get that fees are simply another tax) we cannot grow our businesses and create more jobs. And the career politicians who understand this basic concept have been completely ineffective in doing anything about it! When push comes to shove, career politicians seem to protect their job by growing government instead of protecting the jobs of thousands of Wisconsinites by shrinking government.

Yesterday should serve as a wake-up call to all the big-government politicians. The people in this great nation are not going to take it anymore!!! Start focusing on what you can do in government to get out of the way and to lower our taxes so we can grow our businesses and create jobs.

Gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker (Tweet):

Reason Scott Brown won was positive message about taking back government. We’ll do the same here.

Senate candidate Dave Westlake (Facebook post)

Congratulations Senator-elect Scott Brown! You’ve given the people of Mass. what they need: accountability…and the rest of us something to look foward to: common sense & Constitutionally-based government. We’re proud of you and wish you all the best in representing “The Peoples’ Seat.” Godspeed.

Senate candidate Terrence Wall (Tweet):

Congrats to Scott Brown and his staff on a beautifully run, issues-driven campaign. Their historic victory speaks for itself. Good night.

Shoebox tunes – The Battle of Beantown

by @ 9:41. Filed under Politics - National.

Shoebox is travelling, but he sent the following over to me to commemorate Scott Brown’s epic win in Massachusetts:

This is to be sung to “The Battle of New Orleans” (or if you’re more of a Johnny Cash fan than a Johnny Horton fan, use his version instead)!

In two oh ten just a year into his plan,
We’d had our fill of Barry and his socialism scam.
The hard right and the middles and some even from the left
Worked together to save Beantown from more democratic theft.

We said, “Hell no!”, and the Left they just kept a pushin’
They thought they were anointed, didn’t heed the public’s voice
Until Scott Brown, they thought we were a nuisance.
From now on it should be clear their plans are not the people’s choice!

We said no to health care ’cause it wouldn’t make the grade.
We didn’t want no stimulus, for sure no cap and trade.
The left said, “We don’t care, we know better just you see,”
But now with number forty one they’ll have to try “plan C”.

We said, “Hell no!”, and the Left they just kept a pushin’.
They thought they were anointed, didn’t heed the public’s voice
Until Scott Brown, they thought we were a nuisance.
From now on it should be clear their plans are not the people’s choice!

Barron, WI battle – eagle v crow

by @ 6:49. Filed under Miscellaneous.

I usually don’t pass along these types of e-mails, but I know a few of my readers (Asian Badger chief among them) will appreciate this one picked up from the Harpoon Users League List –

This tale came from a retired jet-jock who runs a 2000 acre corn farm up around Barron, WI , not far from Oshkosh.

He used to fly F-4Es and F-16s for the Air National Guard and participated in the first Gulf War.

It is submitted for your enjoyment, and as a reminder that there are other great, magnificent flyers around besides us.

————————————————-

I went out to plant corn for a bit, to finish a field before tomorrow morning; and witnessed The Great Battle.

A golden eagle – big bastard, with about a six foot wingspan – flew right in front of the tractor. It was being chased by three crows that were continually dive bombing it and pecking at it. The crows do this because the eagles rob their nests when they find them.

At any rate, the eagle banked hard right in one evasive maneuver, then landed in the field about 100 feet from the tractor. This eagle stood about 3 feet tall. The crows all landed too, and took up positions around the eagle at 120 degrees apart, but kept their distance at about 20 feet from the big bird. The eagle would take a couple steps towards one of the crows and they’d hop backwards and forward to keep their distance. Then the reinforcement showed up.

I happened to spot the eagle’s mate hurtling down out of the sky at what appeared to be approximately Mach 1.5. Just before impact the eagle on the ground took flight, (obviously a coordinated tactic; probably pre-briefed) and the three crows which were watching the grounded eagle, also took flight thinking they were going to get in some more pecking on the big bird. The first crow being targeted by the diving eagle never stood a snowball’s chance in hell. There was a mid-air explosion of black feathers and that crow was done. The diving eagle then banked hard left in what had to be a 9G climbing turn, using the energy it had accumulated in the dive, and hit crow #2 less than two seconds later. Another crow dead.

The grounded eagle, which was now airborne and had an altitude advantage on the remaining crow, which was streaking eastward in full burner, made a short dive then banked hard right when the escaping crow tried to evade the hit. It didn’t work – crow #3 bit the dust at about 20 feet AGL.

This aerial battle was better than any air show I’ve been to, including the Warbirds Show at Oshkosh. The two eagles ripped the crows apart and ate them on the ground, and as I got closer and closer working my way across the field, I passed within 20 feet of one of them as it ate its catch. It stopped and looked at me as I went by and you could see in the look of that bird that it knew who’s Boss Of The Sky. What a beautiful bird!

I loved it. Not only did they kill their enemy, they ate them.

There are no noble wars– Only noble warriors

January 19, 2010

Tuesday Hot Read – Nick Schweitzer’s “Government Sponsored Theft”

by @ 16:19. Filed under Politics - Milwaukee.

Nick Schweitzer dug into the forced sale of a pair of Milwaukee parcels formerly owned by Bee Bus Line to the city of Milwaukee for the benefit of neighboring Integrated Mail Industries (emphasis in the original):

Of course, the way the article is written, it seems so wonderful. After all… jobs will be created with this new land! But let’s look at what really happened here. IMI went to Bee and asked to buy the property for a price. Bee said it wanted moren (actually they just wanted at least what they paid for it), and IMI, instead of continuing to negotiate in good faith, went to the city and demand they use eminent domain to take the property at a lower price and resell it to them. This is nothing but government sponsored theft.

If property rights meant anything, then a property owner (Bee Bus Lines) ought to be allowed to ask whatever they wanted for that property. If their price is too high, than no sale will be made and they’ll be stuck. But just because IMI didn’t want to pay a price doesn’t mean that they ought be allowed to go the city to “force a sale”. That is like suggesting that if a woman declines a man at a bar, he ought to be able to go the police and have a cop hold her down while he rapes her… to force the completion of a “transaction” he demanded of her. Having a right to something means nothing if it does not include the right to refuse sale of that item, for whatever reason. This isn’t the God Father… you have the right to refuse an offer.

I’ll force you to go to Nick’s place to catch the bombshell of the poliical leanings and donation patterns of the owners of the AB Dada Group, ISI’s parent company. I’ll just say that Milwaukee’s reputation as a “clean government” took another hit.

The Tipping Point

by @ 15:32. Filed under Miscellaneous.

At the time of this writing it is not yet known whether Republican Scott Brown will pull out a major upset over Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts Senate race. But it is a virtual certainty that he will be close enough to send shock waves through President Obama’s administration, congressional leadership and all Democratic members of Congress who are not in safe seats. How can this be happening? The debate has centered around two possible explanations: the inept Democratic candidate and/or rejection of the Democratic agenda.

But one very important moment in this campaign is not being given enough weight. In a recent debate, moderator David Gergen asked Brown a question about blocking health care while sitting in “Teddy Kennedy’s seat.”  In what should be regarded as a classic debate moment, Brown responded, “Well, with all due respect, it’s not the Kennedys’ seat, and it’s not the Democrats’ seat, it’s the people’s seat.” That, in my view, was the tipping point in this campaign.  From that moment on Martha Coakley couldn’t do anything right, and Scott Brown gained momentum and a flood of cash.

Americans take their voting rights pretty seriously. Gergen’s implication was that it would really take balls to vote in such a way as to offend the late Teddy Kennedy. How dare he offend the senior aristocrat while the aristocracy still stands? That might sell in England, but not here.

Don’t get me wrong. I agree there are many factors that weigh into the outcome of this race, but don’t underestimate the damage done to Martha Coakley by Gergen, who at that moment demonstrated the degree to which Democrats believe they are entitled to hold power.

Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho, What? Wait a Minute!

by @ 13:29. Filed under Free Shoebox, Miscellaneous.

I’ve got to travel by commercial air again this week. I’ve got to be in Louisville tomorrow.

After fuming a couple more days over the “you’re nobody to us, go away” response I got from the TSA, I decided to see if I could get some help from my Congresscritter. I sat down and wrote a detailed, factual account of the travelous interruptus that I have contracted from the TSA. I even remembered an important point that I had previously forgotten.

Remember back after 9/11 when the TSA (or what ever they were called then) had some customer focus and was actually was looking for a way to make the lines quicker? Well, one of the things they trialed was a machine that did a retina and fingerprint match. Because I was traveling about 125K miles per year, I applied for the program. Part of the process for the program was that they had to do a background check on you along with capturing your retina and fingerprint. Guess what, I was accepted. So, at least at that time, I wasn’t a security risk!

I finished my letter, had the letter all printed, stuffed in an envelope, stamped and finished with a return address. And then, something odd happened.

I woke up this morning, less than 24 hours from the departure of my flight. While I was sure I knew what would happen, I went to the NWA web site and attempted to get my boarding pass. To my great surprise, I got a boarding pass. No muss no fuss! So now what? I guess there are now one of a few explanations:

1. NWA hasn’t gotten the TSA’s message.
2. NWA still has my security clearance on file from 8 years ago (I think that previous program was sponsored by the various airlines)
3. Only UAL thinks I’m a security risk
4. Just as magically as I became a security risk, the TSA has decided I’m no longer one.

I don’t know what to make of this. I hope that whatever works today will work again on Friday when I return home. If it does, my answer, short term, is easy; as much as I hate to admit it, I’ll fly NWA

Political catchup – mid-January edition

by @ 13:22. Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

Yes, it is cold outside, and the election is still over 10 months away, but we have some heat going on in Wisconsin:

  • Republican Mark Neumann put over $1 million of his own money into his gubernatorial campaign. That, along with a reported $974,000 cash on hand number, masks the fact that he did not reach $250,000 outside of his own pocket. Meanwhile, Democrat Tom Barrett reported raising $750,000 since he announced and along with $800,000 from his mayoral campaign, $1.5 million cash on hand, and Republican Scott Walker is expected to announce more than $900,000 raised in the second half of 2009 with around $2 million cash on hand.
  • Speaking of fundraising, Senate candidate Dave Westlake has decided to limit his fundraising efforts to sales of blaze-orange campaign shirts and no-pressure donations, prefering to meet everybody he can face-to-face. While it is admirable, it is impossible to meet more than a small portion of the electorate statewide.
  • Staying on the Senate race, Terrence Wall has officially jumped into the race after a couple months of touring the state.
  • Rebecca Kleefisch announced for lieutenant governor today, joining Dave Ross, Brett Davis, and Ben Collins in the GOP half of the race.
  • Despite the only roles of lieutenant governor being serving as a general-election running mate of the governor, being the first in line to fill a gubernatorial vacancy, and having the full authority of governor on any board the governor is entitled to sit that he chooses to fill with the lieutenant, Kleefisch, Ross and Collins have taken more stands on issues on their campaign websites than Barrett. Indeed, Barrett’s website only has donation and volunteer links on it.

January 18, 2010

Health Care and MA Senate Race

by @ 17:18. Filed under Miscellaneous.

I predicted weeks ago that the health care legislation would not pass out of conference committee. I still might end up being wrong. But I am sticking to my original story.

I believe a win by Scott Brown in MA will be the undoing of President Obama’s health care legislation. I know there is talk of various ways in which the House and Senate could come together and send something to the President. But a Brown win makes that politically untenable.

My critics will argue that my forecast turned out to be correct (if it does) because of the Scott Brown win, which nobody could have predicted. But that argument confuses cause and effect. If Brown wins, it will be (at least in large part) because of the voters’ disapproval of Obamacare. My argument all along has been that public disapproval would be the undoing of the health care overhaul. And it just happens that the MA senate race is the venue in which that disapproval will manifest itself.

History tells us that large scale legislative initiatives don’t get passed in this country when the people overwhelmingly disapprove. I still believe this case will be no different.

Monday Hot Read – The WSJ’s “The ‘Responsibility’ Tax”

by @ 7:42. Tags:
Filed under Business, Politics - National.

The folks on The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board fired for effect on the “Subsidize Government Companies” proposal from Barack Obama on Saturday (emphasis in the original):

Mr. Obama’s new “Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee”—please don’t call it a tax—is being sold as a way to cover expected losses in the Troubled Asset Relief Program. That sounds reasonable, except that the banks designated to pay the fee aren’t those responsible for the losses. With the exception of Citigroup, those banks have repaid their TARP money with interest.

The real TARP losers—General Motors, Chrysler and delinquent mortgage borrowers—are exempt from the new tax. Why the auto companies? An Administration official told the Journal that the banks caused the crisis that doomed the auto companies, which apparently were innocent bystanders to their own bankruptcy. The fact that the auto companies remain wards of Washington no doubt has nothing to do with their free tax pass.

Also exempt are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which operate outside of TARP but also surely did more than any other company to cause the housing boom and bust. The key to understanding their free tax pass is that on Christmas Eve Treasury lifted the $400 billion cap on their potential taxpayer losses expressly so they can rewrite more underwater mortgages at a loss.

In other words, the White House wants to tax more capital away from profit-making banks to offset the intentional losses that the politicians have ordered up at Fan and Fred. The bank tax revenue will flow directly into the Treasury to be spent on whatever immediate cause Congress favors. Come the next “systemic risk” bailout, taxpayers will still be on the hook. “Responsibility” is not the word that comes to mind here.

It also notes that the $50 billion in assets floor for this new tax is not exactly a “too big to fail” threshhold.

I Don’t Have The Right Tools

by @ 5:48. Filed under Free Shoebox.

You’ve got to love this opening paragraph:

A big reason why the government is inefficient and ineffective is because Washington has outdated technology, with federal workers having better computers at home than in the office.

The paragraph comes from this articlein which Peter Orszag claims that a significant reason for ineffective and inefficient government services is that their computers aren’t and other technology aren’t up to the latest standards.

You may have heard about my recent challenges with a particularly intrusive government agency.  It turns out they actually have a process for resolving my “problem.”  Step one was to fill out an internet form giving them basic information about myself, information about when and where I ceased to be able to fly freely and a couple of other items.  They then asked for me to send in COPIES of my passport and drivers license.  On their website they tell you VERY clearly that if they don’t receive your copies within 30 days, your file will be dumped and you will have to start the process all over again.

I had send in my documents about 12 days ago.  I had been checking their website daily.  I put in my case number and kept getting a message that they had not yet received my documents.  They also give you the option of emailing your information.  Because I hadn’t heard anything on the USPS version and I had already burned more than a third of my 30 days, I emailed the information. 

Two days went by and still they were not showing that they had received my information.  Assuming they had received it but hadn’t started working on it yet, and concerned that they at least acknowledge receipt before 30 days passed, I sent them an email stating when I had sent my information and asked if they could confirm receipt of my information.  The email was cordial and respectful.

The next day I got an email response.  This is what I received:

We received your submission. Documents are processed in the order of receipt and remain in a “pending paperwork” status until they have been reviewed and verified as complete.  No further action by you is required at this time. To that end, please do not resend. The website will not be updated until your documents have been reviewed by the triage team. Moreover, the message will not change until the documents are uploaded from the holding queue. Your request for redress will be reviewed and you will receive a final determination in writing. Reviews of requests for redress take a minimum of 30 business days.

If I may paraphrase:

Hey schlub, we received your stuff.  We’ll get to it when we’re good and ready.  However, you’ll have to guess as to whether we think you’ve sent us the right stuff or not.  We will not correspond with you until we make a unilateral decision and tell you whether you will ever again fly inconvenienced.  We won’t tell you what the normal expectation of time frame is because we are the government and have no expectations of accomplishing anything within a “normal” time frame.  What we can tell you is you will be inconvenienced a minimum of 6 weeks from the time that we decide to even start a review of your case!

Piss off!

The Government!

It’s probably just me but it would seem that a nice note saying “thanks for your inquiry.  We have received your documentation” and an update on their website indicating such, would have gone a long way to making me think these folks were actually serious about my information and serious about attempting to resolve my situation.  I would also think that resolving “he is who he says he is” issues like mine shouldn’t take more than a very few weeks.

Notice that my suggestions would improve both the effectiveness and the efficiency for both the agency and myself.  I’ll also point out that none of this requires anymore technology than the agency has available to them today.  In fact, I could step them back to 386 technology and do what I’ve suggested. 

For this particular agency to improve both their effectiveness and efficiency, no improved technology is required.  The only thing required is to use their brains rather than their CYA manual and they could improve themselves dramatically.

I know, I know, it’s not the people, it’s their tools!

It’s About Time!

by @ 5:25. Filed under MMSD - The Crap People, Politics - National.

It’s about time someone had the balls to do this: (I wish I could embed the video)

And yes, my choice of words WAS intentional!

Revisions/extensions (6:50 am 1/18/2010, steveegg) – ABC News video now embedded…

January 17, 2010

Jack is back

by @ 12:04. Tags:
Filed under Miscellaneous.

The Jack Bauer Power Hours start at 8 pm tonight (Central, of course). Of course we of Blogs4Bauer will be live-blogging.

Dammit, Jim, we needed to be able to take more options in the poll. The top 3 vote-getters are all winners.

January 15, 2010

Social Security crater – December 2009 preliminary edition

by @ 21:14. Filed under Social Security crater.

Earlier this month, I noted that the first set of December numbers for Social Security, the “investment” holdings, commonly called the “Trust Funds”, rose by a very-disappointing $24.153 billion in December. While the December Trust Fund Operations numbers are still not available from the Social Security Office of the Chief Actuary, the December Monthly Treasury Statement from the Department of the Treasury, which forms the basis of those numbers, is available. There is an interesting tidbit on the cover page – “Federal old-age and survivors insurance trust fund and Federal disability insurance trust fund benefit payments for January 3, 2010, were accelerated to December 31, 2009.”

That explanation of what I had hoped to be an anomaly is not entirely satisfying. First, I have to explain how I derived the numbers from the Trust Fund Operation time series – the “total income” and “total outgo” for a given month comes from the “income, outgo and assets” chart, while the “net interest” comes from the “income components” chart. The equivalent numbers on the Monthly Treasury Statement are, respectively, the “receipts” and “outlays” for each fund found in Table 8, and the “Interest Received by Trust Funds” for each fund found in the end of Table 5. While they are not 100% reconciled, the margin of difference is typically well under 1% (keep that statistic in mind).

Including the “accelerated” payments from Social Security, and also including the semi-annual crediting of “interest”, the “total income” was about $105.5 billion (of which about $58.5 billion was “interest”, in line with what was “credited” to the funds in December 2008), and the “total outlays” were about $87.7 billion, which should make the “net increase in assets” about $17.8 billion. Something is massively off, because that does not support the $24.2 billion increase in the “Trust Funds”. However, since I don’t have enough information to say what is off, all I can do until the Office of the Chief Actuary releases its numbers is note it and move on.

The total income estimate, which is 0.443% lower than it was in December 2008, is right in the ballpark of what is expected given the recent year-over-year history of the “Trust Funds”. In 2009, the 11-month average increase had been 0.271%, with the average year-over-year decrease over the prior 5 months being 0.446% and the average year-over-year decrease over the prior 3 months being 0.431%.

Accelerating a significant portion of the January 2010 payments to December 2009, which affects the total outgo of both months, makes apples-to-apples comparisons a bit “problematic”, with the December 2009 monthly change, the January 2010 monthly change, and the 12-month changes featuring only one of those months a challenge to estimate. However, calculating the recent average year-over-year change allows one to estimate what the outgo would have been without the acceleration. The average year-over-year increase in outgo was 9.648% in the first 11 months of 2009, increasing to an average year-over-year increase of 9.939% over the prior 5 months and an average year-over-year increase of 10.529% over the prior 3 months. Given that, my best estimate of the “December-only” version of total outgo is $58.1 billion.

Now it becomes possible to run a preliminary apples-to-apples comparison, with the caveat that at least one of these numbers may well be off. $105.5 billion in income (including “interest”) less $58.1 billion of “December-only” outgo and less $58.5 billion in “interest” leaves a primary “December-only” (or “unaccelerated”) monthly deficit of $11.1 billion, almost double the previous record of $5.9 billion last month. It also makes the “unaccelerated” Calendar Year 2009 primary surplus only about $3.5 billion.

Since I don’t have the usual numbers, I will not go further into analysis at this point. However, don’t be surprised if the panic button is pressed before April.

Friday Hot Read – John Hawkins’ “The Last Decade Of Liberalism In 40 Quotes”

by @ 9:44. Filed under Compassionate Lieberals.

This special from John Hawkins ties in so well with the NRE Dumbest Thing Said award. Just an unranked taste to whet your appetite…

“…I would further strongly urge Democrats who don’t believe marriage is between a man and a woman but who feel they ought to pretend to believe this in order to win elections (a plausible position) need to do a better job of pretending. I’ve heard a shockingly large number of politicians say things, in rooms where journalists are present, that make it perfectly clear that they think gay marriage is just fine but that the voters aren’t ready for it. That’s a sensible thing to believe, but you can’t go around saying it if you’re trying to win votes. If you’re going to lie, then lie — and lie convincingly!” — Matthew Yglesias

“Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.” — Rahm Emanuel

“It’s about time that we have an intifada in this country that changes fundamentally the political dynamics in here. And we know every — They’re gonna say some Palestinian being too radical — well, you haven’t seen radicalism yet.” — U.C. Berkeley Lecturer Hatem Bazian fires up the crowd at an anti-war rally by calling for an American intifada

Head on over to Right Wing News for where in the top 40 they rank, and for the rest of the infamous quotes.

A Simple Question

by @ 8:43. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Will Keith Olbermann say about Danny Glover:

“your life is not worth those of the lowest, meanest, poorest of those victims still lying under that rubble in Haiti tonight. You serve no good. You serve no god. You inspire only stupidity and hatred. And I would wish you to hell but knowing how empty your soul must be, for you to be able to say such things in a time of such pain, I suspect the vacant purposeless life you live now is hell enough already.

Yes, of course I already know the answer!

Are you ready for some fire?

by @ 8:21. Tags:
Filed under Politics - Wisconsin.

The Racine Tea Party and Americans for Prosperity – Wisconsin are teaming up for an afternoon bonfire tomorrow between 3:00 and 4:30 at 4505 Highway H in Franksville. Since there is expected to be more people than parking, they’re going to run a shuttle from the Racine Area Soccer Association field at 9509 Dunkelow Road (also in Franksville) starting at 1:30.

The full list of speakers is quite long, so I’ll send you over to the Racine Tea Party’s site for them. The weather is even supposed to cooperate, with sun and 30s expected.

January 14, 2010

You Are Not Alone!

by @ 14:00. Filed under Free Shoebox.

Well, at least I’m not.  Get this:

NJ Boy, 8, On Terrorism Watch List

 

Cub Scout Mikey Hicks Shares Same Name Of Person Who Has Drawn Suspicion Of Homeland Security Department

Oh, you’ll love this part:

His mother tells The New York Times she sensed trouble when her son was a baby and she couldn’t get a seat for him at a Florida airport. She says airline officials explained his name “was on the list.”

He was patted down as a 2-years-old at Newark Liberty International Airport.

Can someone explain to me how anything at the TSA qualifies as “intelligence services” when time and again they prove to use no “intelligence” in how they apply their rules?

The article does provide some good news:

Transportation Security Administration spokesman James Fotenos says in the coming months, the agency will cross-check names with birth dates and gender.

WARNING:  Next segment NOT SAFE FOR WORK!

Are you F$#*&ing kidding me?  These morons haven’t been able to cross reference their list to something as simple as a birth date and gender?????  Shit, Disney knows my birth date, sex, the age of my children, my preferences in lodging.  Google is able to gather more information on me than the largest domestic security organization ever known to the United States!

The government who is unable to match my name, birth date and sex (Hello, state department?  Yeah, have you issued a passport for this dude in Minnesota?  You have?  Great, could I verify the birth date and sex we have for him?  Huh, that’s what we had too!) is telling us that keeping track of the voluminous mountain of health care records for every single American and determining mandates for precise, successful treatments for every variation of malady is as easy as snapping their fingers!

In the words of H/T Chrisfromracine:  Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot!

There’s no way out of TARP, part 243,129

by @ 12:51. Tags:
Filed under Business, Politics - National, Taxes.

I’ve done so many of these that I’ve lost count. Fox Business has the dirty details on a brand-new attax…er, attack…er, tax on the cream of the American financial sector:

President Obama will announce today a new “financial crisis responsibility fee” on the top 50 financial firms that is designed to recoup at least $90 billion in projected losses in the government’s bank bailout program, a senior Administration official said….

The official said the fee would be set at 0.15% and, if approved by Congress, would be assessed starting in June for at least a decade on firms with assets of more than $50 billion, including U.S. subsidiaries of foreign banks and large insurance companies with bank or thrift subsidiaries.

If you thought that the biggest vacuums of TARP, specifically the now-government-owned companies which will never repay the money, were going to be part of this, or that those institutions that managed to not get strong-armed into TARP will escape this, think again:

The fee would be paid not just by some firms that received investment capital from the government’s $700 billion Trouble Asset Relief Program (TARP) and by many banks that have already repaid their TARP funds, but also by some firms that did not take TARP money. “All of them have benefitted both from the stabilization (measures), as well as the exceptional, extraordinary Federal Reserve actions,” the official said.

But the two auto companies that the government bailed out last year, General Motors and Chrysler, would not pay the fee, the official said, and neither would mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which the government also took over in 2008. He said the fee “does not and cannot work for a more industrial company like an auto company” and that charging Fannie and Freddie would amount to moving taxpayer money “from one pocket to another.”

That’s right; this is another wealth transfer from responsible companies to the most-irresponsible, government-subsidized companies. But wait, there’s more. Do note the “at least a decade”. If the TARP losses are less than the $90 billion that it’s “likely” going to be, where’s the rest of that money going?

Backhand smashes – not quite in the groove edition

by @ 9:35. Filed under Miscellaneous.

I’ve been out of it all week, and I’ve still got the remnants of a major overnight sinus headache, but there’s a few items that need to be explored:

  • Sen. Russ Slim…er, Feingold has been running into a wee bit of Tea in his recent listening sessions over his support of PlaceboCare.
  • Robert Stacy McCain is not letting either a shoestring budget or an ugly knockdown of a credentialed journalist deter him from wearing out the shoe leather to bring reports from the “unexpectedly-hot” special election to fill the Senate seat held for ages by Ted “The Swimmer” Kennedy. Related, the shenanigans are beginning, with the Democratic Secretary of State saying that, if Republican Scott Brown completes the upset, he won’t certify the election for 32 days, and the Democratic-controlled Legislature looking to change the certification laws again to delay it even more.
  • The White House has doubled tripled down on Porkulus after getting smacked by just about every semi-reputable news organization over its 600K “created/sved” number, now claiming every job at an entity that received so much as a dime of Porkulus money as “saved” to get to the 2 million number touted.
  • There will be new TARP fees on banks to make up for what the government spent to save seize AIG, GM and Chrysler (which will be exempt from said fees).

The Democrat Metaphor

by @ 5:20. Filed under Politics - National.

By now, you’ve all heard about the incident involving an “aide” of Democrat Senate candidate Martha Coakely, pushing a reporter. After having pushed the reporter to the ground,the “aide” thug offered to help the reporter back to his feet and then went into a blocking effort to keep the reporter away from Coakley.  If you haven’t heard/seen about it, go here and catch up.

As I read the various accounts of the incident and heard various talk shows discuss the incident, it dawned on me that this incident was a perfect metaphor for the Democrat’s approach to policy.

Think of all the ways that Democrats claim to help African Americans.  Hiring quotas, increasing welfare and the creation of “hate crimes” are just some of the ways that Democrats purport to aide African Americans.  However, in areas where African Americans could really benefit; school vouchers and welfare reform, the Democrats kick them to the curb.

Throughout the debate for placebocare, Democrats have been telling us how essential the legislation is and how American families would be unable to afford healthcare without this plan.  At the same time, their legislation kicks Seniors to the curb by reducing Medicare payments, kicks union members to the curb by taxing their cadillac plan and kicks the poor it purports to help to the curb by passing huge unfunded Medicaid increases to states that already have budget challenges.

The argument for a cap and trade tax is that we must reduce global warming.  If global warming is allowed to continue, increasing temperatures will cause food shortages, rising water levels will displace millions of people and more mega storms will occur which will have a devastating effect on people and property.  Of course, the Democrats seem to pass right by the fact that if cap and trade is implemented, energy costs will dramatically rise which will increase the cost of all food, all shelter, not to mention the cost of just getting to your job.  Once again, welcome to the curb America!

I could cite example after example where Democrats, under the guise of “I’m here to help,” offer us something with one hand while they punch us in the gut with the other.  This is exactly the behavior that Coakley’s aide exhibited and that Coakley herself didn’t even notice even though she was standing right next to the altercation.

I guess the moral to this story is that if you ever hear, “Hi, I’m a Democrat and I’m here to make your life better,” you should immediately protect yourself because the gut punch is on its way.

January 13, 2010

Who Knew, I’m A False Positive!

by @ 5:36. Filed under Law and order, Transportation.

ACLU Official Says It Is Not Realistic to Screen Air Passengers Against the Full Terrorist Watchlist

Get this:

Former FBI agent Mike German, now a terrorism expert with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said that using the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) of 400,000-plus names to screen airline passengers was not realistic, and added that it was “fundamentally ridiculous” to think the list was not flawed.

Oh, yeah!  It’s particularly HIGHlarious for those us caught in its hilarity!

“One of the most disappointing things about the whole review of this situation was this idea that the terrorist watch-listing system is not, itself, broken, which is fundamentally ridiculous,” said German.

Ah yup!  Big 10-4 there!

German said on Monday that the terrorist watchlist system has been broken “for years,” pointing out that names were added to the list incorrectly while others were kept on the list after investigators had cleared them of any involvement with terrorists.

Well, I guess I should be thankful that my portion of the list has only been broken for 11 days!

“There were people who were put on the list appropriately because they were under investigation, but when the investigation cleared them, they weren’t taken off the list,” said German.  “There were people who were known terrorists, there were people who he [the IG] identified as known terrorists who were not on the list.”

Oh, don’t forget about the people who were put on the list inappropriately and whose paper work you “just can’t find!”

“The whole listing process is broken and needs a fundamental overhaul,” said German. “We’re creating a system of tremendous false positives. We’ve created a system that creates hundreds, and probably hundreds of thousands, of false positives every day.”

Hey, hey, over here.  I’m false positive number 1!

January 12, 2010

If it’s the 2nd Tuesday of the month…

by @ 18:41. Tags:
Filed under Miscellaneous.

…you’ll find me at Papa’s Social Club (7718 W. Burleigh in Milwaukee) around 7 pm.

Remember You Heard it Here First

by @ 14:30. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Harry Reid will resign before the election.

Happy Birthday Rush Limbaugh!

by @ 7:58. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Today is Rush’s 59th birthday.

Entertaining and educational. I think it is safe to say there is no other like him and will never be again.

Stay out of the hospital, Rush! Here’s to another 59 years!

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