Friday, June 20, 2008

Scandal Brewing OR Who's Under the Bus This Week

The media has given a free pass to the Democrats by and large because the president and Republicans in general were a more popular target for venom and ridicule. So here we have this economic situation fueled largely by dropping dollars from the mortgage "crisis" (did you ever notice how every liberal issue is a "crisis"?) Anyway, where is the outcry in the media about these stories? They go very high up in the DNC echelon and hardly anyone is giving them page one treatment. Where's the angst folks? Where's the accusations and calls for censure? Pay special attention to the very close alliance between current and former Countrywide executives and the Obama campaign. Heck, one of them is vetting potential VP candidates. *pensive" Do you think that the views potential candidates have toward litigation of the folks involved with subprime loans will play into who is chosen? Just wondering
Story One
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Story Four

Saturday, June 14, 2008

About Eggs

(Cross posted at N.I.C.E.)
Remember when you were nine or ten and you sent away for the packets of seeds or greeting cards to sell? Remember how reluctant neighbors and relatives were to buy those seeds? But you had already made PLANS. You were going to buy a horse or travel the world or get a new mitt. You mother at some point told you
"Don't put all of your eggs in one basket." meaning that you can't assume that because something is supposed to work out one way, that you can insure it will work out that way.

Now consider ethanol. Our Congress has virtually forced corn based ethanol down our throats. Never mind that it was based on erroneous assumptions that we had endless supplies of corn. Never mind that the model it was based upon used more efficient sugar based ethanol. Never mind the way it slows down the refining system with the way it has to be handled. Never mind that corn is a source of animal feed and as such has forced the prices on all animal based food items to rise precipitously. No let's just go on our merry way and assume that because we are nice people and think good "green" thoughts, everything will be hunky dory.

Well boys and girls, everything is NOT hunky dory. In fact, with the recent rain and flooding, corn crop projections are lower. Do you think the good farmers and farm corporations are going to say no to ethanol subsidies? Do you think Congress will back away from keeping the likes of Al Gore and George Soros happy? Of course not. So read the story below and start finding a way to grow, hoard or otherwise obtain your own food because unless something changes soon (and not in the political acceptable way) food is going to skyrocket.

Story here.

Friday, June 13, 2008

New Blog

Because I have gotten fed up with the nonsense coming out of the minds and mouths of our elected officials, I have decided to start another blog for discussion of removing incumbents from office. When our founders were deciding who would govern, I am sure they didn't have in mind that anyone would willingly stay in office for an entire career. The system was designed that individuals would do their public service for awhile and then go home. What is missing from today's political scene is the going home part. How do we have anything remotely resembling true representative government when we have folks like Senator Byrd, who by all accounts is very feeble and only conducts subcommittee meetings with the oversight of his aide, or Ted Kennedy, who hasn't been coherent for years even before he became ill. It was never meant to be a lifestyle. Yet our elected officials get health care, retirement and other benefits that most of us can only dream about-and it's all on our backs because we are footing the bills. I will try to post timely links to articles supporting the premise that ALL incumbents need to go home. Right now much is made in the media of how low President Bush' rankings are, but few people know that Congress, the Democrat controlled Congress, has much lower rankings. They are doing nothing to benefit anyone but themselves and their cronies. So give it a look-see, the link is in the blog title for this article.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Who's In Your Corner (Not!)

You can turn on any newscast and the top story is the economy. The corollary story is the price of oil. Supposedly, people think the President has the power to "do something about the price of oil." Not so. The Executive branch can only act upon laws and bills passed by Congress. So what has Congress done lately to lower the price of oil? If the price is based on supply and demand, you would think that the reduced demand, as cited in the news, would help. Not so-the supplies were lowered by foreign producers to keep prices high. So the next step would be to increase domestic production. But the folks who are running the committees in Congress are now headed and filled with appointees from Pelosi and company. So what did the Congressional subcommittee do for you yesterday? They denied any drilling for oil of of Florida. But that's just for AMERICAN companies. It seems that Cuba, China AND India are all drilling from the same oil field just outside the 50 mile line from shore. The rest of the world is profiting from OUR resources, and then selling them back to us for a profit. The Democrat controlled Congress has done NOTHING to stem this, they insist on following a tangential line of quasi-environmentalism that is leading us to deny our own citizens a safe lifestyle. The case could easily be made that if, as many liberals contend, the war in Iraq was for oil, then what policy forced us to be so concerned about keeping safe our energy supply? In short, would we be in Iraq if environmentalists had prevented using our own coal and oil? And remember, while people can point fingers all they want at the White House, it's Congress that calls the shots. Oh, and by the way, the vote broke down by parties-Democrats opposing drilling, Republicans supporting it. Who's in your corner, really?

China Drills While Congress Piddles.
Subcommittee Rejects Drilling

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Everything You Know Is Wrong.

It's funny how politicians predicate their fortunes on what they perceive as a stable and unchanging economic fortunes. They assume that the poor folks they champion today will always be poor, and that the rich folks they villainize will always be rich. Well that's not exactly true. It seems that of men born in the bottom 25% of income, 32% of them end up in the top 25% of income. And vice versa. The Romans used to have a goddess called Fortuna, who was to be appeased for her flippant ways. Perhaps politicians would do well to recall that those they help now, may curse them down the road for punitive taxes.
Story here.
Excerpt-or how to be a high income wage earner:
"1. High-income households are not likely to consist of one person earning a very high income (as is often assumed); rather, they are likely to have two or more income earners:
-In 2006, a whopping 81.4 percent of families in the top income quintile had two or more people working, and only 2.2 percent had no one working.
-By contrast, only 12.6 percent of families in the bottom quintile had two or more people working; 39.2 percent had no one working.
(This is Important)-
The average number of earners per family for the top group was 2.16, almost three times the 0.76 average for the bottom.

2. Census data show a large difference in full-time work and in the number of weeks worked in a year.
-Less than one-third of families in the lowest quintile had a head of household working full-time; in the top quintile, more than three-fourths of families did.
-Thus, average families in the top group have many more weeks of work than those in the bottom and, in the late 1970s, the 12-to-1 total income ratio shrunk to only 2-to-1 per week of work, according to one analysis.

3. Workers tend to start out at a low income, increase their earnings with experience, and then have lower incomes late in their careers or in retirement. For example, peak earnings typically occur in the 35-to-54 age group. However:
-In the bottom income quintile, only one-third of households are headed by someone 35 to 54; whereas, in the top quintile, more than half of household heads are in that age range.
(I want you to consider seriously the large number of single parent families in certain demographic groups AND the much earlier age of first pregnancy for those single mothers-THIS more than anything is a predictor of poverty.)
-The bottom group also has a much larger proportion of household heads more than 75 years of age — 11.5 percent versus 2.3 percent for the top group.
(This is also the result of drug/alcohol abuse that has left many grandparents in charge of raising grandchildren. So the sex and drug revolution did produce some casualties.)
-The bottom also has more young heads of households ages 15 to 24 — 10 percent

So, if you want to be wealthy, get an education, don't do drugs or alcohol, and don't have babies out of wedlock. Gee, where have I heard this all before?

Monday, June 09, 2008

It's Not Easy, or Cheap, Being Green

An interesting break down of what Texas would have to pay in terms of higher costs for energy if certain measures make their way through Congress is Here.
The entire study is HERE
Just keep these number in mind when you vote.

Rewriting History

One of the scariest aspect of political correctness is the rampant attempt to force errant facts into the mix. Facts, as they say, is facts. Yet folks like Spike Lee play fast and loose with history and try to shape it into their own image. If this were a movie about the Buffalo Soldiers, it would be ridiculous and out of place to have Anglos, Hispanics and Asians in roles that they did not fulfill during that time in history. During WWII, like it or not, American forces were largely segregated. A majority of the soldiers who fought and died on Saipan, Iwo Jima and other islands in the Pacific were anglo. That may not go down well with Spike Lee, but once again, it's either factual or it's not. By the way, Lee's own racial tunnel vision is open to view because he failed to acknowledge one of the Iwo Jima heroes, Hayes, who was Native American. By the way, how many non-stereotypical, rhythmless anglo people has Lee featured in his recent epics? Isn't stereotyping a kind of racism? Where are the non-smart Asians and the legal upscale Hispanics in Lee's movies? I guess it's easy to throw down with someone who is forty years older than you, but when it comes to brass tacks, Lee, you don't have a clue what fairness really is.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Conquered From Within

In the bad old days of the Cold War, Moscow claimed that they would never need to use nuclear weapons, because they would ultimately conquer us from within. Likewise, the capture of American captives pushed Americans to vote Jimmy Carter out of office due to his lackluster attempt to deal from a position of equanimity rather than dealing with the preservation of the United States as his goal. So witness this spike in oil prices
HERE
Ask yourself a few questions-
Who is raising the prices?
Answer: speculators, foreign investors and producers-this is obvious because although consumption is dropping the prices continue to rise. As I have stated before, this is just the commodity equivalent of the flipping of real estate that precipitated the mortgage situation.
Who benefits from a weakening U.S. economy?
Answer: China, India, the Middle East, oil producing nations and Europe. By the way, someone might want to enlighten them to the legend of the "Goose and the Golden Egg."
Who bears the burden of cost?
Answer: American taxpayers
What could be the ultimate goal?
Answer: A crash on the American stock market with the goal being to overtake us economically, from within.
Who bears the burden/blame for opening our borders without imposing tarriffs and insisting on trade equivalence?
Answer: Washington-from Executive branch to the Congress they have opened our borders via NAFTA, they have refused to impose limits on illegal immigration which erodes our per capita resources. Someone needs to tell them the story about "The Emperor's New Clothes" and "The Little Red Hen".
You may think I am weighing in as an alarmist, but when you see the amount of investment in American companies by foreign investors, there is ample cause for concern. Congress can point fingers all they want at the White House, and there are reasons that the Executive branch has failed to stem this situation, but Congress has had a one party majority for TWO YEARS. And in that time they have done nothing to help develop companies and the related jobs on our own soil nor have they allowed Americans to find and use domestic resources for our own welfare. Isn't it about time we stop the beauty pageant nature of this campaign and start demanding some serious answers that don't involve smoke and mirrors?

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

Crazy Much?

This guy obviously has some beef with his employment, but if this wasn't just a staged stunt, I wonder how close we were to seeing yet another in a series of workplace assaults. Frankly, I am surprised that it doesn't happen more often, especially in school settings. Strange days indeed.


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