Central Kentucky’s U.S. Representative Ben Chandler drank the Obamessiah KOOL-AID and voted for the Cap-and-Trade bill and is proud of it. Oh yeah…he said he had to struggle about this decision but didn’t mention that he, as was the case with all the rest of the solons, had never read the bill and had no idea what was in it. He never read the “ stimulus bill,” either, before voting on it, so what else is new in Washington these days? Speaker Pelosi crooks her little finger and the lawmakers fall in line.
According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, Chandler said, "When I cast this vote, I thought about my children, their future and the duty all of us have to stewardship. For me, this was a decision that I feel is right and a decision that will, with time, fundamentally change the way our nation and our state produce and use energy, while creating better opportunities for our people." How would he know how the bill would or would not do anything since he never read it and since the democrat leadership made it impossible for a copy (over 300 pages added just during the preceding night) to be available on the House floor so anybody could read it?
All of the latest data developed by top U.S. scientists (not the UN-IPCC gang) indicates that mankind has absolutely no significant effect on global-warming or climate-change or whatever the propaganda crowd calls cyclical climate-conditions these days. Indeed, the planet entered a cooling trend some years ago, forcing the alarmist/opportunists (like Al Gore) to force everything at full-speed-ahead so the public will forget these strong-arm tactics before the elections next year. Indeed, there’s more ocean ice now than there was in 1980.
Both Pelosi and one of the bill’s sponsors, Representative Markey, have significant financial interests in this legislation, which will hasten the country’s journey toward that of Spain, a country that’s passed cap-and-trade and is now experiencing an unemployment rate over 18%. Significantly, both Australia and Japan have turned it down. Senator Kerry was blathering in that chamber of millionaires the other day (thanks to C-Span) that this country absolutely must pass this legislation in order to have the bona fides to change such countries as China and Russia during the big international climate-clambake in Copenhagen next December.
Besides the fact that Kerry is loony-tunes anyway, China and Russia are like sharks circling in the water as they watch Obamessiah and Pelosi – with help from Chandler – deliver the U.S. into their incisors. China is the world’s heaviest polluter but is not even required by the laughable Kyoto treaty, never ratified by this country, to do anything to curb its emissions. Neither is India, with its 1.2 billion – that’s 1,200,000,000 – people, four times as many as in the U.S., filling the atmosphere with stuff…like launching gases is the greatest thing since peanut butter. Russia will enact no restrictions (remember Chernobyl), either, so Chandler is helping put his own country at risk with respect to its position in the world market.
But not to worry, China has only 1.4 billion – that’s a measly 1,400,000,000 people in the midst of building coal-fired electricity plants on practically a daily basis…with no plans to even give a serious thought to global warming or cooling or whatever…certainly not to putting scrubbers in operation – too expensive by half. The Chinese laugh as they watch the exodus of even more industry from this country to theirs, since Obamessiah and Pelosi mean to wreck the U.S. manufacturing base by taxing it to death – with Ben Chandler’s help, of course.
The word on a news program yesterday was that Al Gore stands to become the first billionaire created on the back of this legislation. He already has interests in place to take full advantage of this legislation…helped along by Ben Chandler. The only hope is that there are enough senators with spine – doubtful – to stand up to Obamessiah and say a loud NAY, not on our watch. The scientific facts fly in the face of all this skullduggery, so the question has to do with motive.
The motive seems clear enough. Obamessiah is a product of Barack Obama, Sr. and the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, the touchstones of his books. Obama, Sr. was Muslim, as was Obamessiah’s stepfather. Wright, besides probably also being a closet Muslim like his bosom buddy Calypso Louie Farrakhan, is a genuine America-hater, with no peer in the intensity of that hate. The president is intent on bringing down this country, and a Congress (at least the democrats) that is obviously stupid or a willing accomplice or both is in on the game. Obamessiah is running the banks, other financial institutions, Chrysler, General Motors, and will soon force Ford and Toyota to give up. He means to have it all and at the same time make a total shambles of the economy…a bloodless coup, in other words.
Oh yes…remember! Representative Ben Chandler is in on the game, in the messiah’s pocket.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
KEEP...Now Out of the Gate!
The “horsey set,” including Governor Beshear and former governor Jones, now the president of the Kentucky Equine Education Project (KEEP), the super-lobby outfit (with deep pockets) stumping for slots (now euphemistically called video lottery terminals) at ONLY the racetracks met their Waterloo when the slots bill didn’t make it out of the Senate committee this week, so the legislators simply did their duty and passed a budget the guv and crowd had claimed depended absolutely upon the slots. Their attempt at fraud was thus complete.
So…what was KEEP to do? Why…KEEP staged a rally to celebrate its loss (and probably wondered how it could spend so much to gain so little, actually nothing). KEEP head honcho Jones allowed that the state Senate was akin to a “third-world dictatorship,” presumably with Senate head honcho Williams being the horsey version of Idi Amin or maybe Hugo Chavez or even (gasp) FIDEL…well…OLE! The Louisville Courier-Journal claimed that 900 folks were at the rally, which featured speakers vowing swift revenge against republicans whose minds were so warped that they didn’t realize that horseracing is Kentucky’s “Signature Industry,” whatever that means.
Not mentioned, of course, was the fact that the slots measure received only 52 votes of a possible 100 in the House. There are only 35 republicans in the House, so, accounting for the fact that a few republicans probably favored the slots, a whole boatload of democrats, supposedly in the horsey set’s pocket, voted against slots at the tracks. Beshear spoke of the need for a revolution to turn out the repubs in the Senate, but he’d better be thinking about the mini-revolution against the slots in his own party. He campaigned on the promise of bringing more gambling to Kentucky (anyone for casinos these days?), but so far hasn’t come close to delivering.
For his part, Jones might be remembered as the governor of the 1990s who, with the help of the usual (at that time) huge democrat majority allowing for all legislation to be discussed, cussed and passed in just the democrat caucuses, got a bill through to help the horse industry. Under the legislation, who got the first payout? Jones, of course! Jones and his band of jolly lawmakers also managed to bring about the exodus from the state of all but one health-insurance provider. Something like 45 of 46 insurers decided that the state government would not run their businesses for them. Jones discovered that the companies didn’t respond like stall-knockers and horses.
If the horseracing industry is dependent upon state-supported gambling for its existence and thus feels that it deserves special treatment, what about all the other industries in the state that need help? How much of the tax from the slots should go to them? Or…should every industry or store in the state be allowed to place slots on their premises in order to jack-up their revenue and thus stay in business?
KEEP will say a big NO to that, since this means a diminution of its take. Only a very small segment of the population in Kentucky gives a fig about horseracing. The citizens stay away from the tracks by the millions, and always have; however, multitudes of them will go to the corner service station/convenient store to give the lottery a chance to steal their hard-earned cash.
KEEP knows this, so it must insist that the “horsey set” is more equal than all other enterprises. Instead, its members should figure out how to make their operations pay off. The casinos on the Ohio River haven’t bankrupted Kentucky yet; nor have they sunk Kentucky horseracing. Or…the operators, if they can’t make it, can do what myriads of other business people have done…go out of business and find something else to do. A lot of folks used to mine coal and raise tobacco the hard way in Kentucky – perhaps “Signature Industries?” Has anyone, including the governor and legislature, done anything to cover their costly adjustments? Of course not…they can just eat cake…but not the horsey set! It’s special!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
So…what was KEEP to do? Why…KEEP staged a rally to celebrate its loss (and probably wondered how it could spend so much to gain so little, actually nothing). KEEP head honcho Jones allowed that the state Senate was akin to a “third-world dictatorship,” presumably with Senate head honcho Williams being the horsey version of Idi Amin or maybe Hugo Chavez or even (gasp) FIDEL…well…OLE! The Louisville Courier-Journal claimed that 900 folks were at the rally, which featured speakers vowing swift revenge against republicans whose minds were so warped that they didn’t realize that horseracing is Kentucky’s “Signature Industry,” whatever that means.
Not mentioned, of course, was the fact that the slots measure received only 52 votes of a possible 100 in the House. There are only 35 republicans in the House, so, accounting for the fact that a few republicans probably favored the slots, a whole boatload of democrats, supposedly in the horsey set’s pocket, voted against slots at the tracks. Beshear spoke of the need for a revolution to turn out the repubs in the Senate, but he’d better be thinking about the mini-revolution against the slots in his own party. He campaigned on the promise of bringing more gambling to Kentucky (anyone for casinos these days?), but so far hasn’t come close to delivering.
For his part, Jones might be remembered as the governor of the 1990s who, with the help of the usual (at that time) huge democrat majority allowing for all legislation to be discussed, cussed and passed in just the democrat caucuses, got a bill through to help the horse industry. Under the legislation, who got the first payout? Jones, of course! Jones and his band of jolly lawmakers also managed to bring about the exodus from the state of all but one health-insurance provider. Something like 45 of 46 insurers decided that the state government would not run their businesses for them. Jones discovered that the companies didn’t respond like stall-knockers and horses.
If the horseracing industry is dependent upon state-supported gambling for its existence and thus feels that it deserves special treatment, what about all the other industries in the state that need help? How much of the tax from the slots should go to them? Or…should every industry or store in the state be allowed to place slots on their premises in order to jack-up their revenue and thus stay in business?
KEEP will say a big NO to that, since this means a diminution of its take. Only a very small segment of the population in Kentucky gives a fig about horseracing. The citizens stay away from the tracks by the millions, and always have; however, multitudes of them will go to the corner service station/convenient store to give the lottery a chance to steal their hard-earned cash.
KEEP knows this, so it must insist that the “horsey set” is more equal than all other enterprises. Instead, its members should figure out how to make their operations pay off. The casinos on the Ohio River haven’t bankrupted Kentucky yet; nor have they sunk Kentucky horseracing. Or…the operators, if they can’t make it, can do what myriads of other business people have done…go out of business and find something else to do. A lot of folks used to mine coal and raise tobacco the hard way in Kentucky – perhaps “Signature Industries?” Has anyone, including the governor and legislature, done anything to cover their costly adjustments? Of course not…they can just eat cake…but not the horsey set! It’s special!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Thursday, June 25, 2009
BC, Dementia &"Slots Bill"
Back in August 2006, Lexington Herald-Leader Boy Columnist (aka Larry Keeling) allowed as how he had been having health problems accruing to inhaling the fumes of his lawn mower, perfectly understandable, but no one else seems to ever have that problem out in the wide-open spaces of lawns so maybe the fumes were coming from something else…h-m-m. His mower could have caused a bit of dementia, however, that might have carried over to the present day.
Back in the Fletcher administration along about the year 2006, Boy Columnist almost suffered typographical trauma (same as “shocked and appalled” for politicians) when he discovered to his sanctimonious horror that Fletcher had cost the state (gasp) $5,000 for the installation of an extra door in his office. In light of that magnitude of perfidy, what could a Boy Columnist (especially of the “sacred journalist” genre) do but point out that the governor was a rogue, a spendthrift, a ne-er-do-well out to raid the state till for all he could? BC got into high gear and let the guv have it with both barrels of deadly Word Processor.
But…about that dementia! During the special session of the Legislature just now ended, House Speaker Stumbo okayed some new rugs and wires for legislative offices that cost some $230,000, or 46 times as much as Fletcher spent on the door. That’s 4,500% more than the door. Question: Did Boy Columnist ever mention this? I don’t think so, but it would have been so natural…so fair…to have done so, especially for a “sacred journalist,” so one has to conclude that Boy Columnist would have had to be crazy not to have done so, fairness being so important and all to the Fourth Estate. If I’m wrong, my apologies to BC!
Now, about the slots thing. Boy Columnist has plugged so hard for the slots to be placed at the racetracks that one could almost believe he had a stake in the whole thing. Slots Bill was his character (or horse) and he rode it for all it was worth, even though his own editorial board wrote a “thumbs down” on the whole and perfectly transparent effort by the “horsey set” to pad their paddocks with green not made of grass.
Without the slots, the public was led to believe by the “set” and such folks as the guv and speaker, that the state was irretrievably doomed to bankruptcy. As an aside, these rich folks also stated that the slots would just happen to save their businesses. Problem: The Senate deep-sixed the slots gimmick and the Legislature took care of the budgetary problems, thus proving that the slots were never necessary to save the state.
So…after shilling long and hard for the money-people and coming out on the short end, Boy Columnist is now busily pointing out the lawmakers who both opposed the slots and are standing for reelection next year. Actually, Slots Bill never got out of the Senate Committee, so the perpetrators of this profound Slots Bill pooh-poohing were not hard for even someone with leftover-lawnmower Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder to finger. Chalk one up for BC, now hard on the campaign trail. Who knows…maybe Boy Columnist will desert the editorial board and become a consultant for KEEP next year in seeing that these dastardly destroyers of Slots Bill get their due.
The most profound of the many smells of this affair is the notion by so many legislators and newsies that the public is not only stupid but is certainly to be damned with torpedoes full ahead vis-à-vis raiding the state till and buying off the state government in behalf of greed. The slots thing was never about enhancing the state treasury. It was always about appeasing a special-interest group – the horsey set, whose mantra is that slots must be ONLY at racetracks and nowhere else, notwithstanding that the LOTTERY is everywhere anyone wants to install it. That’s called fairness, but the smoothies are not interested in that.
The bottom of the barrel was scraped when Stumbo made as if to convince the public that slots (probably unconstitutional anyway) would pave the way for erecting all kinds of buildings all over the state. What rubbish! The lottery was supposed to save education (while KERA damned it) back in the 1990s, but the lottery money went right into the general fund, with the school-folks left to eat cake. The Legislature made sure to put it there, where it could be “porked-out” and used to enhance what? Why…incumbency, of course!
So…Boy Columnist is left to ride Slots Bill…right out to pasture. He opined on 25 June that the democrats must get credible candidates lined up to change the Senate next year, assuming some can be found, and that Slots Bill should then be back in the starting-gate at the first opportunity.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Back in the Fletcher administration along about the year 2006, Boy Columnist almost suffered typographical trauma (same as “shocked and appalled” for politicians) when he discovered to his sanctimonious horror that Fletcher had cost the state (gasp) $5,000 for the installation of an extra door in his office. In light of that magnitude of perfidy, what could a Boy Columnist (especially of the “sacred journalist” genre) do but point out that the governor was a rogue, a spendthrift, a ne-er-do-well out to raid the state till for all he could? BC got into high gear and let the guv have it with both barrels of deadly Word Processor.
But…about that dementia! During the special session of the Legislature just now ended, House Speaker Stumbo okayed some new rugs and wires for legislative offices that cost some $230,000, or 46 times as much as Fletcher spent on the door. That’s 4,500% more than the door. Question: Did Boy Columnist ever mention this? I don’t think so, but it would have been so natural…so fair…to have done so, especially for a “sacred journalist,” so one has to conclude that Boy Columnist would have had to be crazy not to have done so, fairness being so important and all to the Fourth Estate. If I’m wrong, my apologies to BC!
Now, about the slots thing. Boy Columnist has plugged so hard for the slots to be placed at the racetracks that one could almost believe he had a stake in the whole thing. Slots Bill was his character (or horse) and he rode it for all it was worth, even though his own editorial board wrote a “thumbs down” on the whole and perfectly transparent effort by the “horsey set” to pad their paddocks with green not made of grass.
Without the slots, the public was led to believe by the “set” and such folks as the guv and speaker, that the state was irretrievably doomed to bankruptcy. As an aside, these rich folks also stated that the slots would just happen to save their businesses. Problem: The Senate deep-sixed the slots gimmick and the Legislature took care of the budgetary problems, thus proving that the slots were never necessary to save the state.
So…after shilling long and hard for the money-people and coming out on the short end, Boy Columnist is now busily pointing out the lawmakers who both opposed the slots and are standing for reelection next year. Actually, Slots Bill never got out of the Senate Committee, so the perpetrators of this profound Slots Bill pooh-poohing were not hard for even someone with leftover-lawnmower Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder to finger. Chalk one up for BC, now hard on the campaign trail. Who knows…maybe Boy Columnist will desert the editorial board and become a consultant for KEEP next year in seeing that these dastardly destroyers of Slots Bill get their due.
The most profound of the many smells of this affair is the notion by so many legislators and newsies that the public is not only stupid but is certainly to be damned with torpedoes full ahead vis-à-vis raiding the state till and buying off the state government in behalf of greed. The slots thing was never about enhancing the state treasury. It was always about appeasing a special-interest group – the horsey set, whose mantra is that slots must be ONLY at racetracks and nowhere else, notwithstanding that the LOTTERY is everywhere anyone wants to install it. That’s called fairness, but the smoothies are not interested in that.
The bottom of the barrel was scraped when Stumbo made as if to convince the public that slots (probably unconstitutional anyway) would pave the way for erecting all kinds of buildings all over the state. What rubbish! The lottery was supposed to save education (while KERA damned it) back in the 1990s, but the lottery money went right into the general fund, with the school-folks left to eat cake. The Legislature made sure to put it there, where it could be “porked-out” and used to enhance what? Why…incumbency, of course!
So…Boy Columnist is left to ride Slots Bill…right out to pasture. He opined on 25 June that the democrats must get credible candidates lined up to change the Senate next year, assuming some can be found, and that Slots Bill should then be back in the starting-gate at the first opportunity.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
IMAGE Is Everything!
Dear Car Czar Rattner:
You have been in your job salvaging the auto industry for a few months now, with only two companies going bankrupt (May I presume to compliment you?), but, while recognizing your accomplishments and obvious ability, I write to offer the services of the Institute for Modifying All Government Entities, known in Washington and throughout the world by its acronym, IMAGE. Its purpose is to create for the public a persona in keeping with the requirements of any government job. IMAGE’s success is universally recognized. For instance, IMAGE taught a usually frowning Jimmy Carter his famous smile, as well as how not to break his face while exercising it, though in one lapse after terminating his IMAGE-contract he did throw a jaw out of place, keeping him quiet for three weeks, which many believe led to his presidency.
Perhaps IMAGE’s most renowned success was accomplished some time ago when it made Dick Cheney appear to be human and taught Bill Clinton how to be convincing in claiming to feel everyone’s pain and how to successfully handle perjury by redefining the word is. If Secretary Hillary Clinton had been a client of IMAGE, she would never have concocted that yarn about coming under sniper fire in Bosnia in 1996, where people are still laughing and celebrate SNIPER DAY every March 25. Unfairly, she claimed IMAGE was too expensive.
You are a special case, since both you and the republicans have made it clear that you know nothing about automobiles, which ordinarily would amount to a disqualifier, although it was mean of some conservative, rabid, right-wing talking-heads to claim that you don’t even know how to check the oil. This being the case, an agency at IMAGE has been personalized just for you. It is the Clutch Headquarters for Rehabilitating YUGO Sedans, Lost Edsels and Rattner, known as CHRYSLER, for short. I hope you won’t be offended in being grouped with famous losers, but I hope you get the point that you will be a loser if you do not sign with us for a makeover.
There’s another reason for mentioning the YUGO and Edsel, namely, that the president is on the record for wanting everyone to ride in the smallest car possible, as well as in a car that is likely to fail so often that people will simply turn to walking, thus saving the polar bears and keeping Al Gore away from Washington, where he incites riots by ending his congressional-hearing appearances by screaming (taught by Howard Dean) “Burn, Baby, Burn!”
CHRYSLER will rehabilitate your image from that of a high-stakes Wall Streeter (not too popular right now) and political fund-raiser to one exuding engineering genius, vision, and friend to Treasury Secretary Geithner, meaning that you will no longer have to genuflect at his throne at Treasury’s conference room for permission to do everything, but can walk right into his office and genuflect in privacy. CHRYSLER will also give you a crash course in understanding the internal combustion engine and how to fertilize whatever crop is used in making ethanol, up to and including marijuana. As a starter (no pun intended), a spark plug is not a stripper at O’Hannigan’s Emporium, and ethanol is not drilled for in Texas.
It will be necessary for you to become teleprompter-savvy, since you will be required to make speeches and conduct press conferences. The president, as you know, has just sent out a memo to all czars requiring this expertise, but also requiring that czars be able to speak off-the-cuff when a teleprompter fails or when one is assailed by a Fox News reporter. IMAGE’s agency for carrying out this task is called Gear-up for Motormouthing, or GM, for short. Plainly speaking (unusual, granted, in Washington), GM will prepare you to state the obvious in a way that makes you appear to be advancing profound knowledge, the premise being that the citizenry is too dumb to know the difference. This will be doubly important when you appear in a Congressional hearing, since most of the lawmakers actually do fit that description.
An important part of GM is the Bureau for Labeling Accurately Bureaucrats, Blather and Erratic Rhetoric, known, of course, as BLABBER. This agency will help you especially understand your fellow czars. For instance, you need to know if Regulatory Czar Sunstein, who has no practical experience in management or government, is actually regulating anything or just running the OMB while at the same time running off his mouth about the importance of his job. Example of BLABBER’s acumen: Treasury Secretary Geithner never finishes a three-syllable word in public, or even a two-syllable word if he’s explaining policy anywhere, the theory being that no one will ever know what he meant in order to criticize. So…you take him at his word, which amounts to both blabber and erratic rhetoric, and act accordingly. Actually, he is a good role model for you.
You will not be alone in being an IMAGE client. The rumor is that Vice President Biden, who was appointed stimulus-overseer czar in February, has no idea where the stimulus money has gone and therefore will soon approach IMAGE for help in acquiring a persona indicating that he knows to the penny where stimulus money, for instance in fighting obesity, is being spent 24/7. IMAGE is gearing-up for him by establishing an agency to be known as the Bureau for Indentifying and Defining Economic Nitwits, or BIDEN, for short. When you engage our services, you will be taken off the list.
Respectfully,
I.M. Reverself, CEO
IMAGE
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
You have been in your job salvaging the auto industry for a few months now, with only two companies going bankrupt (May I presume to compliment you?), but, while recognizing your accomplishments and obvious ability, I write to offer the services of the Institute for Modifying All Government Entities, known in Washington and throughout the world by its acronym, IMAGE. Its purpose is to create for the public a persona in keeping with the requirements of any government job. IMAGE’s success is universally recognized. For instance, IMAGE taught a usually frowning Jimmy Carter his famous smile, as well as how not to break his face while exercising it, though in one lapse after terminating his IMAGE-contract he did throw a jaw out of place, keeping him quiet for three weeks, which many believe led to his presidency.
Perhaps IMAGE’s most renowned success was accomplished some time ago when it made Dick Cheney appear to be human and taught Bill Clinton how to be convincing in claiming to feel everyone’s pain and how to successfully handle perjury by redefining the word is. If Secretary Hillary Clinton had been a client of IMAGE, she would never have concocted that yarn about coming under sniper fire in Bosnia in 1996, where people are still laughing and celebrate SNIPER DAY every March 25. Unfairly, she claimed IMAGE was too expensive.
You are a special case, since both you and the republicans have made it clear that you know nothing about automobiles, which ordinarily would amount to a disqualifier, although it was mean of some conservative, rabid, right-wing talking-heads to claim that you don’t even know how to check the oil. This being the case, an agency at IMAGE has been personalized just for you. It is the Clutch Headquarters for Rehabilitating YUGO Sedans, Lost Edsels and Rattner, known as CHRYSLER, for short. I hope you won’t be offended in being grouped with famous losers, but I hope you get the point that you will be a loser if you do not sign with us for a makeover.
There’s another reason for mentioning the YUGO and Edsel, namely, that the president is on the record for wanting everyone to ride in the smallest car possible, as well as in a car that is likely to fail so often that people will simply turn to walking, thus saving the polar bears and keeping Al Gore away from Washington, where he incites riots by ending his congressional-hearing appearances by screaming (taught by Howard Dean) “Burn, Baby, Burn!”
CHRYSLER will rehabilitate your image from that of a high-stakes Wall Streeter (not too popular right now) and political fund-raiser to one exuding engineering genius, vision, and friend to Treasury Secretary Geithner, meaning that you will no longer have to genuflect at his throne at Treasury’s conference room for permission to do everything, but can walk right into his office and genuflect in privacy. CHRYSLER will also give you a crash course in understanding the internal combustion engine and how to fertilize whatever crop is used in making ethanol, up to and including marijuana. As a starter (no pun intended), a spark plug is not a stripper at O’Hannigan’s Emporium, and ethanol is not drilled for in Texas.
It will be necessary for you to become teleprompter-savvy, since you will be required to make speeches and conduct press conferences. The president, as you know, has just sent out a memo to all czars requiring this expertise, but also requiring that czars be able to speak off-the-cuff when a teleprompter fails or when one is assailed by a Fox News reporter. IMAGE’s agency for carrying out this task is called Gear-up for Motormouthing, or GM, for short. Plainly speaking (unusual, granted, in Washington), GM will prepare you to state the obvious in a way that makes you appear to be advancing profound knowledge, the premise being that the citizenry is too dumb to know the difference. This will be doubly important when you appear in a Congressional hearing, since most of the lawmakers actually do fit that description.
An important part of GM is the Bureau for Labeling Accurately Bureaucrats, Blather and Erratic Rhetoric, known, of course, as BLABBER. This agency will help you especially understand your fellow czars. For instance, you need to know if Regulatory Czar Sunstein, who has no practical experience in management or government, is actually regulating anything or just running the OMB while at the same time running off his mouth about the importance of his job. Example of BLABBER’s acumen: Treasury Secretary Geithner never finishes a three-syllable word in public, or even a two-syllable word if he’s explaining policy anywhere, the theory being that no one will ever know what he meant in order to criticize. So…you take him at his word, which amounts to both blabber and erratic rhetoric, and act accordingly. Actually, he is a good role model for you.
You will not be alone in being an IMAGE client. The rumor is that Vice President Biden, who was appointed stimulus-overseer czar in February, has no idea where the stimulus money has gone and therefore will soon approach IMAGE for help in acquiring a persona indicating that he knows to the penny where stimulus money, for instance in fighting obesity, is being spent 24/7. IMAGE is gearing-up for him by establishing an agency to be known as the Bureau for Indentifying and Defining Economic Nitwits, or BIDEN, for short. When you engage our services, you will be taken off the list.
Respectfully,
I.M. Reverself, CEO
IMAGE
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Friday, June 19, 2009
The Right Connections?
How much is a life worth? That might be the pertinent question with respect to the recent events connected to Donte Stallworth, a Cleveland Browns receiver in the National Football League. Stallworth, driving quite drunk, killed Mario Reyes, a pedestrian, last March in Florida and has been facing a possible 15-year prison term.
But not to worry, as it turns out Stallworth was punished by a paltry 30-day jail sentence, which he is now serving, presumably with great thanks to a Florida judge, who virtually took Stallworth’s admission of guilt as satisfying the DUI laws, although he required Stallworth to undergo “house arrest” for two years, which nevertheless would not have kept him from playing. One wonders how that works, since the Browns play all over the country, but that’s what Stallworth’s lawyer said.
So…about that worth of a life? Stallworth reached a “confidential settlement” with the victim’s family…cash settlement, that is, never mind that the family could have sued Stallworth any old time in civil court and just about named its price. Apparently, the judge thought such an out-of-court deal was good enough to nullify Florida DUI laws, although just any old drunk couldn’t have pulled this off. Stallworth’s salary last year was $5,155,000, so what’s a few million here or there when a long prison term must be bought-off at all costs?
Naw…Stallworth won’t play for a while…maybe. NFL Head Honcho Roger Goodell has suspended him indefinitely, though Mr. Goodell will contact Stallworth’s “representatives” before determining just how long that suspension will last. Michael Vick, former Atlanta quarterback, has just served serious time in the penitentiary or somewhere because he conducted dog-fights, a grisly inhumane operation but one that certainly did not involve murdered human beings, only dogs.
The difference? The whole nation exploded in an uproar over the dog-fights, but the death of a man just getting off from a night shift and crossing the street at the wrong time is hardly worth the print or a brief mention on TV. Vick may never play again, and it seems that he’s lost everything in the bargain. He was another multi-million-dollar guy (total salary of $8.4 million in 2006), worth much more than Stallworth, but killing dogs is (gasp) much worse than killing people.
Stallworth, on the other hand, will play again since…well…he was drunk and everyone knows that a crime committed under the influence – even murder – is not that bad. Doesn’t just everyone get a little too much once in a while? And…he did pay the family, didn’t he? So…what’s the big deal? A starting place might be in determining how much the deal was worth to the whole gaggle of people involved.
Obviously, the family was satisfied…no need for expensive lawyers with whom to split the loot, as well as months or years of trials and appeals, when all that loot could just be plopped in the bank, immediately. Eat your heart out, John Edwards! And what about the judge? Well…what about the judge? What might it have been worth, considering the deep, deep pockets of a receiver in the sacred NFL? And then the prosecutors! Don’t they do all the wheeling and dealing and plea-bargaining? Ah, those deep, deep pockets! Thirty days in exchange for 15 years ought to be worth something to any prosecutor worth his salt, even with a couple years of roaming-the-country house-arrest thrown in.
And what about Goodell, chief operator of the steroid-gang? Why does he need to speak with Stallworth’s representatives in order to set the suspension-term? Can’t he decide for himself…or…what might it be worth to come up with something like sitting out the first six games in 2009? After all, Stallworth’s mouthpiece said house-arrest means nothing, unless, of course, Stallworth could somehow enter the game through his TV?
Flash back to November 1998. Jason Watts was the starting center for the University of Kentucky. He owned a pickup, so he and two of his buddies – all three drunk – spent an evening in a bar in Lexington, then set out down U.S #27 for south Kentucky in the pickup. In his drunken stupor after about 70 miles or so, Watts managed a horrific one-vehicle wreck in which both his passengers were killed, while he suffered an injured arm that was patched-up post-haste.
Watts pleaded guilty, of course, to two counts of reckless homicide (euphemism for “murder while drunk”) but was released on shock probation after serving four months of a 10-year sentence. By the next tryout season for the NFL, he was busy attempting to catch-on with some team, while his buddies lay “mouldering in their graves.” Watts was not wealthy, BUT could he become wealthy if he caught on? He was signed by the Denver Broncos soon after his release from jail. What was in the mind of the circuit judge who set him free?
If the ordinary John Doe had done what either Stallworth or Watts did, he would have been trucked off to the Big House to serve some serious time, as he should have been. But in this sorry state of affairs with both sports and the courts, if he happened to have a boatload of money or the potential for same, perhaps he could look at a few days of inconvenience, a few years of meaningless probation, and – VOILA! – happiness ever after!
Eat your heart out, Michael Vick! You killed dogs and paid dearly for it. You should have operated football-player-fights instead of dog-fights, and you’d still be raking it in, with a few carcasses here and there…but, hey, who’s counting?
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
But not to worry, as it turns out Stallworth was punished by a paltry 30-day jail sentence, which he is now serving, presumably with great thanks to a Florida judge, who virtually took Stallworth’s admission of guilt as satisfying the DUI laws, although he required Stallworth to undergo “house arrest” for two years, which nevertheless would not have kept him from playing. One wonders how that works, since the Browns play all over the country, but that’s what Stallworth’s lawyer said.
So…about that worth of a life? Stallworth reached a “confidential settlement” with the victim’s family…cash settlement, that is, never mind that the family could have sued Stallworth any old time in civil court and just about named its price. Apparently, the judge thought such an out-of-court deal was good enough to nullify Florida DUI laws, although just any old drunk couldn’t have pulled this off. Stallworth’s salary last year was $5,155,000, so what’s a few million here or there when a long prison term must be bought-off at all costs?
Naw…Stallworth won’t play for a while…maybe. NFL Head Honcho Roger Goodell has suspended him indefinitely, though Mr. Goodell will contact Stallworth’s “representatives” before determining just how long that suspension will last. Michael Vick, former Atlanta quarterback, has just served serious time in the penitentiary or somewhere because he conducted dog-fights, a grisly inhumane operation but one that certainly did not involve murdered human beings, only dogs.
The difference? The whole nation exploded in an uproar over the dog-fights, but the death of a man just getting off from a night shift and crossing the street at the wrong time is hardly worth the print or a brief mention on TV. Vick may never play again, and it seems that he’s lost everything in the bargain. He was another multi-million-dollar guy (total salary of $8.4 million in 2006), worth much more than Stallworth, but killing dogs is (gasp) much worse than killing people.
Stallworth, on the other hand, will play again since…well…he was drunk and everyone knows that a crime committed under the influence – even murder – is not that bad. Doesn’t just everyone get a little too much once in a while? And…he did pay the family, didn’t he? So…what’s the big deal? A starting place might be in determining how much the deal was worth to the whole gaggle of people involved.
Obviously, the family was satisfied…no need for expensive lawyers with whom to split the loot, as well as months or years of trials and appeals, when all that loot could just be plopped in the bank, immediately. Eat your heart out, John Edwards! And what about the judge? Well…what about the judge? What might it have been worth, considering the deep, deep pockets of a receiver in the sacred NFL? And then the prosecutors! Don’t they do all the wheeling and dealing and plea-bargaining? Ah, those deep, deep pockets! Thirty days in exchange for 15 years ought to be worth something to any prosecutor worth his salt, even with a couple years of roaming-the-country house-arrest thrown in.
And what about Goodell, chief operator of the steroid-gang? Why does he need to speak with Stallworth’s representatives in order to set the suspension-term? Can’t he decide for himself…or…what might it be worth to come up with something like sitting out the first six games in 2009? After all, Stallworth’s mouthpiece said house-arrest means nothing, unless, of course, Stallworth could somehow enter the game through his TV?
Flash back to November 1998. Jason Watts was the starting center for the University of Kentucky. He owned a pickup, so he and two of his buddies – all three drunk – spent an evening in a bar in Lexington, then set out down U.S #27 for south Kentucky in the pickup. In his drunken stupor after about 70 miles or so, Watts managed a horrific one-vehicle wreck in which both his passengers were killed, while he suffered an injured arm that was patched-up post-haste.
Watts pleaded guilty, of course, to two counts of reckless homicide (euphemism for “murder while drunk”) but was released on shock probation after serving four months of a 10-year sentence. By the next tryout season for the NFL, he was busy attempting to catch-on with some team, while his buddies lay “mouldering in their graves.” Watts was not wealthy, BUT could he become wealthy if he caught on? He was signed by the Denver Broncos soon after his release from jail. What was in the mind of the circuit judge who set him free?
If the ordinary John Doe had done what either Stallworth or Watts did, he would have been trucked off to the Big House to serve some serious time, as he should have been. But in this sorry state of affairs with both sports and the courts, if he happened to have a boatload of money or the potential for same, perhaps he could look at a few days of inconvenience, a few years of meaningless probation, and – VOILA! – happiness ever after!
Eat your heart out, Michael Vick! You killed dogs and paid dearly for it. You should have operated football-player-fights instead of dog-fights, and you’d still be raking it in, with a few carcasses here and there…but, hey, who’s counting?
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Hedonism, Anyone?
His critics in the Democrat Party – like Senator “Leaky” Leahy – worried that George Bush was gathering too much power to the presidency; however, Bush was small potatoes when compared to Obamessiah, who has just decreed that same-sex partners of employees at the federal trough will get the same benefits as married partners. Thus, another blow at states’ rights has been delivered, since well over half the states have Constitutional fiats describing marriage as between a man and woman. It’s safe to say that in those states there also are laws on the books prohibiting benefits to same-sex partners.
This is the “change” the Great Deliverer promised – the direct approval of the perverted homosexual unnatural acts that are the bane of civility and the stuff of venality. This is the shot across the bow at the military leaders who insist that homosexual behavior – actually homosexuals themselves – is/are not to be accommodated in the nation’s fighting forces. The reasons are too obvious for elaboration here, and only the dumbest would wonder why.
It goes much deeper than that…right straight to the nation’s finances. Taxpayers will now be paying for some homosexual to be a lay-about while his “partner” gets the goodies for him that a heterosexual employee earns for his family…at least as long as the two “gay partners” have a “loving” relationship. The homosexuals have no worry about children or anything else. They have only themselves to preen over. Now, the government will subsidize their perversion, and all the straights can just eat cake. This is so disgusting that it’s hard to imagine…and would never have been brought about until someone who has the gall to use three Air Force planes and crews, with all the other necessary adjuncts, to have a night on the town in the Big Apple.
It’s the reparations thing, Stupid! The HLBGT gang says it has been…well…enslaved, put upon, cheated out of its share. Where has this been heard? It’s been heard from the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Obamessiah’s mentor, the source of his book-title, who recently stated that all those Jews around “him who walks on water” won’t let the good reverend speak to his protégé. Of course, 20 of the 21 czars whom Obama has appointed to actually run the government and report directly to him ARE Jews (at least that’s been reported), not that there’s anything wrong with that, so the rev may be right. It’s payback time for those who mean to be parasites.
It goes deeper than that. Just as all the great empires rotted out from within, so now is a democracy – the U.S. – in the process of rotting out. This approval of some of the most depraved, heinous behavior imaginable – homosexual and bisexual or tri-sexual practices – goes way beyond the pale, notwithstanding how politically incorrect it is to say so. One does well to read up on the ancient Greeks and Romans to discover the magnitude of degrading practices, especially with what was done to boys by the men in power, and connect the dots in the self-destruction of those governments caused by a rampant hedonism.
From the head honchos of the Taliban came a list of 30 rules a while back. This is from The Guardian of December 2006, with adjunct reporting by the Associated Press: “Rule 19 says that mujahedeen may not take young boys without facial hair onto the battlefield - or into their private quarters, an attempt to stamp out the sexual abuse of young boys, a problem that is widely known in southern Afghanistan but seldom discussed.” This is not surprising, considering the abuse the Taliban affords its women. The Taliban is as rotten as the perverts of old.
Giving the stamp of approval to unnatural/depraved erotic practices through awarding its practitioners with monetary gains is a sign of hedonism serious enough to shake any right-thinking person’s contemplation about where this nation is headed under its current leadership, a leadership so anti-American as to be scorned as traitors.
The founding fathers worried about federalism and a central government that could usurp rights that should be held by the states. It’s obvious now that states’ rights mean nothing to Obama and his gang of elitists, with the mental capacities not rising above the instincts of community-organizers, Obama’s stock-in-trade, interpreted by him when he mentioned “spreading around the wealth.” This country’s in for a very bad ride as these governmental hooligans bankrupt it and then try to take it over.
The PBS-TV offering on 16 June concerning what actually happened prior to the “bank bailout” of $700 billion last fall was instructive. Governmental high-handedness reached a new low in that affair, though the bankers had already been swimming in the swill of their own greed, both parties being equally slimy. One wonders how long it will be before enough people take enough notice to then take to the streets. Citizens will soon be told what to buy, what to drive, what to eat, where to go…and to ante-up, since Obamessiah’s commissioned all the new programs imaginable, with nothing to pay for them except soon-to-be-enacted tax ripoffs. HEDONISM – that’s the new name of the game.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
This is the “change” the Great Deliverer promised – the direct approval of the perverted homosexual unnatural acts that are the bane of civility and the stuff of venality. This is the shot across the bow at the military leaders who insist that homosexual behavior – actually homosexuals themselves – is/are not to be accommodated in the nation’s fighting forces. The reasons are too obvious for elaboration here, and only the dumbest would wonder why.
It goes much deeper than that…right straight to the nation’s finances. Taxpayers will now be paying for some homosexual to be a lay-about while his “partner” gets the goodies for him that a heterosexual employee earns for his family…at least as long as the two “gay partners” have a “loving” relationship. The homosexuals have no worry about children or anything else. They have only themselves to preen over. Now, the government will subsidize their perversion, and all the straights can just eat cake. This is so disgusting that it’s hard to imagine…and would never have been brought about until someone who has the gall to use three Air Force planes and crews, with all the other necessary adjuncts, to have a night on the town in the Big Apple.
It’s the reparations thing, Stupid! The HLBGT gang says it has been…well…enslaved, put upon, cheated out of its share. Where has this been heard? It’s been heard from the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Obamessiah’s mentor, the source of his book-title, who recently stated that all those Jews around “him who walks on water” won’t let the good reverend speak to his protégé. Of course, 20 of the 21 czars whom Obama has appointed to actually run the government and report directly to him ARE Jews (at least that’s been reported), not that there’s anything wrong with that, so the rev may be right. It’s payback time for those who mean to be parasites.
It goes deeper than that. Just as all the great empires rotted out from within, so now is a democracy – the U.S. – in the process of rotting out. This approval of some of the most depraved, heinous behavior imaginable – homosexual and bisexual or tri-sexual practices – goes way beyond the pale, notwithstanding how politically incorrect it is to say so. One does well to read up on the ancient Greeks and Romans to discover the magnitude of degrading practices, especially with what was done to boys by the men in power, and connect the dots in the self-destruction of those governments caused by a rampant hedonism.
From the head honchos of the Taliban came a list of 30 rules a while back. This is from The Guardian of December 2006, with adjunct reporting by the Associated Press: “Rule 19 says that mujahedeen may not take young boys without facial hair onto the battlefield - or into their private quarters, an attempt to stamp out the sexual abuse of young boys, a problem that is widely known in southern Afghanistan but seldom discussed.” This is not surprising, considering the abuse the Taliban affords its women. The Taliban is as rotten as the perverts of old.
Giving the stamp of approval to unnatural/depraved erotic practices through awarding its practitioners with monetary gains is a sign of hedonism serious enough to shake any right-thinking person’s contemplation about where this nation is headed under its current leadership, a leadership so anti-American as to be scorned as traitors.
The founding fathers worried about federalism and a central government that could usurp rights that should be held by the states. It’s obvious now that states’ rights mean nothing to Obama and his gang of elitists, with the mental capacities not rising above the instincts of community-organizers, Obama’s stock-in-trade, interpreted by him when he mentioned “spreading around the wealth.” This country’s in for a very bad ride as these governmental hooligans bankrupt it and then try to take it over.
The PBS-TV offering on 16 June concerning what actually happened prior to the “bank bailout” of $700 billion last fall was instructive. Governmental high-handedness reached a new low in that affair, though the bankers had already been swimming in the swill of their own greed, both parties being equally slimy. One wonders how long it will be before enough people take enough notice to then take to the streets. Citizens will soon be told what to buy, what to drive, what to eat, where to go…and to ante-up, since Obamessiah’s commissioned all the new programs imaginable, with nothing to pay for them except soon-to-be-enacted tax ripoffs. HEDONISM – that’s the new name of the game.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
The President & Race
In light of what’s happened in the nation since Obama took office, one is forced to wonder if and/or to what extent racism is one of the president’s attributes. This is from ABC News of 23 January 2009:
As the president, he had told Kyl after the Arizonan raised objections to the notion of a tax credit for people who don't pay income taxes, Obama told Cantor this morning that "on some of these issues we're just going to have ideological differences." The president added, "I won. So I think on that one, I trump you."
The president didn’t say, “We won” or “We trump you.” He said I both times. One thinks back to Obama’s close association with the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, of whose church he was a 20-year member, listening to Wright’s anti-American and anti-white rants punctuated by such declarations as “God damn America” and such preposterous charges as that white-America afflicted black-America with HIV/AIDS, presumably to decimate the black population.
Wright has been deeply involved in the “reparations movement” that has been prominent for a number of years. It involves the notion that the government is obligated to pay black Americans reparations for the hardships suffered by their ancestors. Wright, the keynote speaker at its convention in 2007, is a darling of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA), thus making one wonder if any of Wright’s philosophy rubbed off on the president in those 20 years.
This is from Fox News of 10 June: "In a racially charged interview, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright said that President Obama hasn't spoken to him since they parted ways last year, because 'them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me.' (Virginia's Daily Press)." Does Wright know something that the president doesn’t know, since one would suppose that Obama, while of critical necessity cutting himself away entirely from the reverend last year, surely would not refuse even to speak to his former pastor of 20 years. What part does race play in the Obama White House?
Or…with the unemployment rate standing at more than nine percent the other day, as well as thousands of people losing their homes and the country in bankruptcy, Obama used three Air Force planes and crews, a coterie of secret service agents and who knows how many other persons or things just to have a night on the town in New York City. Was that an in-your-face “I won” gesture to show the country, 75% white, that black now trumps white, never mind that whites elected him to the privilege? Is it “payback” time? Reparations anyone?
Or…while the unemployment rate stands at 9.4% now and folks, instead of being bailed out of bad mortgages, as promised, are still losing houses all across the board, the president’s wife and daughters, another coterie of Secret Service personnel, another Air Force plane and crew and who knows what other persons and things (hairdressers, chefs, manicurists, aides?) are tied up with the wife’s week in Paris. This is the lady who announced loudly and clearly last year that only then was she proud of the nation that she also characterized as “mean,” never mind her $300,000 per year salary at the University of Chicago, a job now not even in existence. Is her escapade another “I won” in-your-face gesture?
Obama reminds people, as he did in his much ballyhooed conquest of Berlin last year, that he’s black, never mind that his mother was white, making him only half-black. In Philadelphia last year in conjunction with an almost frantic unsuccessful effort to “explain” Wright to the public, Obama characterized his own white grandmother, who raised him, as a “typical white person,” i.e., one who was uncomfortable around people of his color. In his now famous Hollywood fundraiser, held just before he campaigned in Pennsylvania last year, he talked about those white people grasping their Bibles and firearms and looking for immigrants, presumably to hunt them down and turn them in. Do these things reek of a bit of racism?
Once in office, what would a person obsessed with race attempt? Would he attempt to subvert the government from a system that has made it the world leader while making it possible for him to rise to the top…or would he attempt to use a known product and make it better or, as is the case now, rescue it from danger? The answer seems clear enough…the former.
The amazing thing is that supposedly smart people in Congress are going along with this ride toward a fiscal train-wreck that will eventually be marked by socialistic mediocrity in everything up to and including the military, which is all that stands between the nation and survival in a world almost universally hostile to the United States, through sheer and now often maliciously expressed envy and hate.
One obsessed with race would understand that bankrupting a nation is a better way to form a dictatorship than going the bloody route…sorta taking it over from the inside and then marshalling the national police force after the fact. One hopes that this is not the case, but the evidence seems to be otherwise.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
As the president, he had told Kyl after the Arizonan raised objections to the notion of a tax credit for people who don't pay income taxes, Obama told Cantor this morning that "on some of these issues we're just going to have ideological differences." The president added, "I won. So I think on that one, I trump you."
The president didn’t say, “We won” or “We trump you.” He said I both times. One thinks back to Obama’s close association with the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, of whose church he was a 20-year member, listening to Wright’s anti-American and anti-white rants punctuated by such declarations as “God damn America” and such preposterous charges as that white-America afflicted black-America with HIV/AIDS, presumably to decimate the black population.
Wright has been deeply involved in the “reparations movement” that has been prominent for a number of years. It involves the notion that the government is obligated to pay black Americans reparations for the hardships suffered by their ancestors. Wright, the keynote speaker at its convention in 2007, is a darling of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA), thus making one wonder if any of Wright’s philosophy rubbed off on the president in those 20 years.
This is from Fox News of 10 June: "In a racially charged interview, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright said that President Obama hasn't spoken to him since they parted ways last year, because 'them Jews aren't going to let him talk to me.' (Virginia's Daily Press)." Does Wright know something that the president doesn’t know, since one would suppose that Obama, while of critical necessity cutting himself away entirely from the reverend last year, surely would not refuse even to speak to his former pastor of 20 years. What part does race play in the Obama White House?
Or…with the unemployment rate standing at more than nine percent the other day, as well as thousands of people losing their homes and the country in bankruptcy, Obama used three Air Force planes and crews, a coterie of secret service agents and who knows how many other persons or things just to have a night on the town in New York City. Was that an in-your-face “I won” gesture to show the country, 75% white, that black now trumps white, never mind that whites elected him to the privilege? Is it “payback” time? Reparations anyone?
Or…while the unemployment rate stands at 9.4% now and folks, instead of being bailed out of bad mortgages, as promised, are still losing houses all across the board, the president’s wife and daughters, another coterie of Secret Service personnel, another Air Force plane and crew and who knows what other persons and things (hairdressers, chefs, manicurists, aides?) are tied up with the wife’s week in Paris. This is the lady who announced loudly and clearly last year that only then was she proud of the nation that she also characterized as “mean,” never mind her $300,000 per year salary at the University of Chicago, a job now not even in existence. Is her escapade another “I won” in-your-face gesture?
Obama reminds people, as he did in his much ballyhooed conquest of Berlin last year, that he’s black, never mind that his mother was white, making him only half-black. In Philadelphia last year in conjunction with an almost frantic unsuccessful effort to “explain” Wright to the public, Obama characterized his own white grandmother, who raised him, as a “typical white person,” i.e., one who was uncomfortable around people of his color. In his now famous Hollywood fundraiser, held just before he campaigned in Pennsylvania last year, he talked about those white people grasping their Bibles and firearms and looking for immigrants, presumably to hunt them down and turn them in. Do these things reek of a bit of racism?
Once in office, what would a person obsessed with race attempt? Would he attempt to subvert the government from a system that has made it the world leader while making it possible for him to rise to the top…or would he attempt to use a known product and make it better or, as is the case now, rescue it from danger? The answer seems clear enough…the former.
The amazing thing is that supposedly smart people in Congress are going along with this ride toward a fiscal train-wreck that will eventually be marked by socialistic mediocrity in everything up to and including the military, which is all that stands between the nation and survival in a world almost universally hostile to the United States, through sheer and now often maliciously expressed envy and hate.
One obsessed with race would understand that bankrupting a nation is a better way to form a dictatorship than going the bloody route…sorta taking it over from the inside and then marshalling the national police force after the fact. One hopes that this is not the case, but the evidence seems to be otherwise.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Saturday, June 06, 2009
The Public School & Same-Sex Marriage
In a column of 05 June in the Lexington Herald-Leader, Roger Guffey, a math teacher at Lafayette High School, did a masterful job of pointing to the fact that children who come from homes lacking a father have, and present to the schools and the public, serious problems. Predictably for a math teacher, he cited a plethora of statistics to back up his claim, although he mentioned that while he had never had a student from a “same-sex home environment,” he could attest to the “results of hundreds of dysfunctional heterosexual families, particularly those households without a father present.”
The point of the column seemed to be that the time has come for same-sex marriages to become legal, presumably so that there would be a father in the home. Guffey has astutely and with great accuracy pointed out for years the catastrophe of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990, but his reasoning in this instance is weird. A same-sex home would have either two fathers or two mothers but not just one of either, by definition. Indeed, homosexual couples can’t have children in the first place, so the whole premise is moot, and in Kentucky such “marriages” are prohibited constitutionally anyway.
Guffey took the usual tack that the problem exists because of religious reasons and furnishes the usual harangue concerning the “self-righteous religious zealot.” The Bible does condemn homosexual behavior – and thus homosexual “marriages” – but the actual problem is marked by both biological and legal ramifications, the latter derived from the former. The state Constitution recognizes this purely tangible aspect, without any reference to religion. Government does not look to religion or religious documents in the making of laws.
People who can’t (homosexuals) or won’t (heterosexual shack-ups) enter into a legal and binding commitment that absolutely protects, though not perfectly, the welfare of children should not be allowed any of the advantages – legal or otherwise – of those who are willing to make that commitment, accepting its constraints and costs. The fact that many marriages fail does not make them inferior to perverse couplings, especially since the marriage/divorce laws are designed to create the best result for the children.
In trying to make his “religion” point, Guffey mentioned that the “sin of Sodom” also included arrogance, gluttony, indifference, and failure to care for the poor, but those are things condemned by all civilized people, whether religious or not, and certainly in no way excuse the unconscionable behavior associated with homosexuality. It just happens to be the fifth sin worthy of condemnation, as in the case of the other four.
Seventy and thirty percent of births, respectively, among blacks and whites are illegitimate and form the main cause of fatherless homes, not the absence of same-sex marriages. Guffey didn’t mention this but he would have been well advised to do so in order to actually get at the root of the problem of fatherless homes…and be fair. Until both black and white men bring themselves to function responsibly, and until all women do the same, the problem will only intensify, notwithstanding all the glorification of actually impossible same-sex marriages.
Guffey probably is a fine math teacher, but the school system is ill-served when this kind of stuff is spread throughout the community in general, but in the schools, especially. Teachers have the right to their opinions and certainly have the right to express them, but parents have a right to expect that teachers not push their ideas in classes, especially when what they propose is clearly unconstitutional. Since the paper remarked Guffey’s position, the article does impinge, at least indirectly, upon Lafayette and pushes that which clearly is both illegal and unnatural.
Guffey wrote that he is “tired of this same-sex marriage debate obscuring real problems facing families today.” So are we all, so why bring it up again, especially since there’s absolutely no connection between same-sex marriage and fatherless homes?
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
The point of the column seemed to be that the time has come for same-sex marriages to become legal, presumably so that there would be a father in the home. Guffey has astutely and with great accuracy pointed out for years the catastrophe of the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990, but his reasoning in this instance is weird. A same-sex home would have either two fathers or two mothers but not just one of either, by definition. Indeed, homosexual couples can’t have children in the first place, so the whole premise is moot, and in Kentucky such “marriages” are prohibited constitutionally anyway.
Guffey took the usual tack that the problem exists because of religious reasons and furnishes the usual harangue concerning the “self-righteous religious zealot.” The Bible does condemn homosexual behavior – and thus homosexual “marriages” – but the actual problem is marked by both biological and legal ramifications, the latter derived from the former. The state Constitution recognizes this purely tangible aspect, without any reference to religion. Government does not look to religion or religious documents in the making of laws.
People who can’t (homosexuals) or won’t (heterosexual shack-ups) enter into a legal and binding commitment that absolutely protects, though not perfectly, the welfare of children should not be allowed any of the advantages – legal or otherwise – of those who are willing to make that commitment, accepting its constraints and costs. The fact that many marriages fail does not make them inferior to perverse couplings, especially since the marriage/divorce laws are designed to create the best result for the children.
In trying to make his “religion” point, Guffey mentioned that the “sin of Sodom” also included arrogance, gluttony, indifference, and failure to care for the poor, but those are things condemned by all civilized people, whether religious or not, and certainly in no way excuse the unconscionable behavior associated with homosexuality. It just happens to be the fifth sin worthy of condemnation, as in the case of the other four.
Seventy and thirty percent of births, respectively, among blacks and whites are illegitimate and form the main cause of fatherless homes, not the absence of same-sex marriages. Guffey didn’t mention this but he would have been well advised to do so in order to actually get at the root of the problem of fatherless homes…and be fair. Until both black and white men bring themselves to function responsibly, and until all women do the same, the problem will only intensify, notwithstanding all the glorification of actually impossible same-sex marriages.
Guffey probably is a fine math teacher, but the school system is ill-served when this kind of stuff is spread throughout the community in general, but in the schools, especially. Teachers have the right to their opinions and certainly have the right to express them, but parents have a right to expect that teachers not push their ideas in classes, especially when what they propose is clearly unconstitutional. Since the paper remarked Guffey’s position, the article does impinge, at least indirectly, upon Lafayette and pushes that which clearly is both illegal and unnatural.
Guffey wrote that he is “tired of this same-sex marriage debate obscuring real problems facing families today.” So are we all, so why bring it up again, especially since there’s absolutely no connection between same-sex marriage and fatherless homes?
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Friday, June 05, 2009
More Apologies, Anyone?
President Obamessiah is deep into yet another “apology adventure,” this time into the Middle East, Germany, and Normandy, making speeches that surely will wear out his entire complement of teleprompters. He is pandering to the Muslims this time, but got off to a bad start in a private interview with some news-lady when he reckoned that the United States is among the most heavily populated Muslim countries in the world, but apparently was unaware that Muslims constitute much less than one percent of the U.S. population.
There are about three times as many Muslims in Azerbaijan, smaller than the state of Maine, than there are in the whole U.S. The prez is always in deep trouble when he speaks without a teleprompter, such as when he said during the campaign that his great-uncle was in on the liberation of Auschwitz when actually he was at Buchenwald, not that any great harm was done. And, the U.S. is probably somewhere between the 34th and 48th nation in terms of Muslim population, so Obama’s attempt to “Islamacize” this country is merely pathetic.
In his Cairo speech, hailed as virtually a watershed event in at least the last five centuries, Obama lamented the fact that there was a Holocaust (take that, doubting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad!), then said “on the other hand” and proceeded to compare that with the miseries of the poor Palestinians who have suffered for lo!…these 60 years. What he didn’t mention was the fact that the Palestinians refused to become a nation with borders well- and more than fairly- defined by the UN in 1948, preferring to wait a few months and then just obliterate the Israelis, who had accepted the terms and formed a recognized government, even though a huge amount of their some 8,000 square miles was comprised of the useless Negev Desert.
Comparing the slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews, who met torture and death through no fault of their own, with the relative handful of misplaced Palestinians, who chose to be displaced, perennial refugees, was not just disingenuous…it was patently dishonest, an unconscionable distortion of history. Nor did he mention the reasons for the Israeli expansion when he instructed the Israelis during the speech to back away from their settlements, those reasons being the efforts by Israel’s surrounding Muslim nations in especially 1948, 1967, and 1973 to wipe out Israel altogether.
Strangely, during the campaign Obama mentioned that his father was an agnostic or atheist, but in Cairo his father had miraculously become a Muslim. The changing of the mind is okay, as Senator Specter recently illustrated when he switched parties, but Obama’s father died many years ago and so couldn’t have switched “no faith” for “Islamic faith” in the last few months. Of course, Obama once referred to former first lady Nancy Reagan’s séances (untrue, naturally), so maybe he did the same and had a talk with the deceased sire, with a view toward converting him to Islam, at least for this trip. Egad!
Of course, he-who-walks-on-water could hardly get through a diatribe in a Muslim nation (Egypt gets close to $1.7 million a year in U.S. foreign aid, 72% of which is for the military) without mentioning his idea of U.S. perfidy, to wit, torture and Gitmo. He inferentially characterized the U.S. as a “torture nation,” an accusation so dishonest as to make one gag, especially in a Middle East country, where actual torture is an accomplished and recognized art-form. According to Looklex Encyclopaedia, there are about 17,000 political prisoners in Egypt, so Obama might have done well to leave the subject alone in Cairo.
He promised in Cairo that Guantanamo will be closed “early next year,” whatever that means. He did this with a straight face, knowing full well that he is about the only person in Washington, wherein can be found people who actually know what they’re talking about when they say that mustn’t be done, and made the promise anyway. It went over well.
So…it’s on to Germany…to Dresden, that is. Why Dresden? It was the site of a horrific bombing by British and U.S. forces a few months before the end of WWII. The bombing, which lasted 63 minutes, started fires that ultimately claimed the lives of between 18,000 and 25,000 Germans, according to a recent report by historians commissioned by the city, according to TIME/cnn. One wonders if the president is a closet member of the hate-America cult that seems to be loudly heard among the liberal democrats…maybe headed by the Hollywood crowd, from which much money can be gleaned.
Maybe the prez will apologize to the French for that time on 06 June 1944, when American GIs tore up a bunch of French turf when they landed at Normandy and started spilling their blood by the barrels in liberating France, which, while the folks in London were being bombed to smithereens in 1940, just handed their country over to the Germans without a fight. One still sees the picture of an ecstatic, pompous Hitler and his martinets at the surrender-signing outside that rail car in June 1940.
Political theater? Of course! President Clinton, who, as well-documented, loathed the military, looked strangely out of place in his visit to Normandy on its 50th anniversary in 1994. But for spoiler Ross Perot, that visit would have been made by George H.W. Bush, an authentic warrior and an appreciator of both the need and conduct of war. Obama may look just as out of place…without a clue. A bright spot: The great-uncle, Charlie Payne, is scheduled to make it to Normandy. At 84, he chose not to make the five-day trip with the president, but his presence at Normandy will give that event special authenticity.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
There are about three times as many Muslims in Azerbaijan, smaller than the state of Maine, than there are in the whole U.S. The prez is always in deep trouble when he speaks without a teleprompter, such as when he said during the campaign that his great-uncle was in on the liberation of Auschwitz when actually he was at Buchenwald, not that any great harm was done. And, the U.S. is probably somewhere between the 34th and 48th nation in terms of Muslim population, so Obama’s attempt to “Islamacize” this country is merely pathetic.
In his Cairo speech, hailed as virtually a watershed event in at least the last five centuries, Obama lamented the fact that there was a Holocaust (take that, doubting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad!), then said “on the other hand” and proceeded to compare that with the miseries of the poor Palestinians who have suffered for lo!…these 60 years. What he didn’t mention was the fact that the Palestinians refused to become a nation with borders well- and more than fairly- defined by the UN in 1948, preferring to wait a few months and then just obliterate the Israelis, who had accepted the terms and formed a recognized government, even though a huge amount of their some 8,000 square miles was comprised of the useless Negev Desert.
Comparing the slaughter of 6,000,000 Jews, who met torture and death through no fault of their own, with the relative handful of misplaced Palestinians, who chose to be displaced, perennial refugees, was not just disingenuous…it was patently dishonest, an unconscionable distortion of history. Nor did he mention the reasons for the Israeli expansion when he instructed the Israelis during the speech to back away from their settlements, those reasons being the efforts by Israel’s surrounding Muslim nations in especially 1948, 1967, and 1973 to wipe out Israel altogether.
Strangely, during the campaign Obama mentioned that his father was an agnostic or atheist, but in Cairo his father had miraculously become a Muslim. The changing of the mind is okay, as Senator Specter recently illustrated when he switched parties, but Obama’s father died many years ago and so couldn’t have switched “no faith” for “Islamic faith” in the last few months. Of course, Obama once referred to former first lady Nancy Reagan’s séances (untrue, naturally), so maybe he did the same and had a talk with the deceased sire, with a view toward converting him to Islam, at least for this trip. Egad!
Of course, he-who-walks-on-water could hardly get through a diatribe in a Muslim nation (Egypt gets close to $1.7 million a year in U.S. foreign aid, 72% of which is for the military) without mentioning his idea of U.S. perfidy, to wit, torture and Gitmo. He inferentially characterized the U.S. as a “torture nation,” an accusation so dishonest as to make one gag, especially in a Middle East country, where actual torture is an accomplished and recognized art-form. According to Looklex Encyclopaedia, there are about 17,000 political prisoners in Egypt, so Obama might have done well to leave the subject alone in Cairo.
He promised in Cairo that Guantanamo will be closed “early next year,” whatever that means. He did this with a straight face, knowing full well that he is about the only person in Washington, wherein can be found people who actually know what they’re talking about when they say that mustn’t be done, and made the promise anyway. It went over well.
So…it’s on to Germany…to Dresden, that is. Why Dresden? It was the site of a horrific bombing by British and U.S. forces a few months before the end of WWII. The bombing, which lasted 63 minutes, started fires that ultimately claimed the lives of between 18,000 and 25,000 Germans, according to a recent report by historians commissioned by the city, according to TIME/cnn. One wonders if the president is a closet member of the hate-America cult that seems to be loudly heard among the liberal democrats…maybe headed by the Hollywood crowd, from which much money can be gleaned.
Maybe the prez will apologize to the French for that time on 06 June 1944, when American GIs tore up a bunch of French turf when they landed at Normandy and started spilling their blood by the barrels in liberating France, which, while the folks in London were being bombed to smithereens in 1940, just handed their country over to the Germans without a fight. One still sees the picture of an ecstatic, pompous Hitler and his martinets at the surrender-signing outside that rail car in June 1940.
Political theater? Of course! President Clinton, who, as well-documented, loathed the military, looked strangely out of place in his visit to Normandy on its 50th anniversary in 1994. But for spoiler Ross Perot, that visit would have been made by George H.W. Bush, an authentic warrior and an appreciator of both the need and conduct of war. Obama may look just as out of place…without a clue. A bright spot: The great-uncle, Charlie Payne, is scheduled to make it to Normandy. At 84, he chose not to make the five-day trip with the president, but his presence at Normandy will give that event special authenticity.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
Monday, June 01, 2009
De-Masculinity & the U.S.
As the government is methodically taking over key industries and financial institutions, the people's attention is being diverted to – what else – diversity, the be-all and end-all of the social agenda that has been driven for some 30-40 years by the so-called liberals, with women's militant feminist organizations in the vanguard. The term diversity has been primarily utilized as remarking ethnic/gender considerations, but actually it has been code for the term "de-masculinity," applied mostly to white Anglo-Saxon males…and within an entirely pejorative framework.
In the local paper, the Lexington Herald-Leader of Lexington, Ky., on 31 May was a diagram on the editorial page remarking the 110 Supreme Court justices who have served since the beginning of the nation – two black males, two white females, and 106 white males. The point was being made that the time had come for a Latina woman to take a seat on the Court, notwithstanding whether or not she could even spell her middle name. In a speech a few years ago, the current nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, made it plain that a Latina woman would make better decisions than any white male, thus exhibiting her feminist/gender bona fides for the job. This, of course, was a racist statement but the president and his coterie have been "explaining" (spinning) how she could not possibly have meant this.
This is but the latest example of the emasculating of the government, the castration of it insofar as actions/responsibilities of white males are concerned. Sotomayor, in an appeals court case that she has just handled, heaved and brought forth the opinion that promotions in a fire department should go to minorities, even though they scored lower than a number of white males on the required tests. This decision, then, gave her the added ethnic bona fides to further the affirmative action agenda, no matter the degree and kind of reverse-discrimination involved. The highest scorers were white males, thus, in Sotomayor's thinking, they would not make good decisions…OR…she has an agenda, not a bent toward interpreting the Constitution. Either way, Omamessiah should look for someone else, maybe a left-handed, one-legged, ex-con female from Lower Slobbovia…to give DIVERSITY to the Court.
There are coincidences. The first judge to rule against the whites was a woman. Two of the three appeals judges, including Sotomayor, who upheld her ruling were women. The case went to the SCOTUS and a ruling will be out in June. The appeals court ruling was not even a detailed, signed opinion, just a summary essentially saying, "We agree but won't explain why from a legal standpoint." Apparently, the Baake case of 1978 went right by these folks.
One can only laugh when wondering what would have happened if the discrimination suit had been brought by either blacks or women. White males are toast in the new social order, having as a feature some sort of special bona fides by both women and Governor Schwarzenegger's "girly-men."
Women out-populate men in law schools by a rather wide margin and seem to slowly and surely be taking over the courts (even the TV fiascoes) and the justice-system itself. And why not? Judges make good money and can have regular hours. Being a judge provides an ideal situation for particularly a married woman. There's no argument with a woman's right to a judgeship, but to argue that her gender is a main qualifier for the job is bogus and exhibits a contempt for men, especially white men, that is unconscionable.
This speaks to the larger question, however, that involves the gradual feminizing of government, including even the military, where mixing of the sexes in duty stations is and always has been detrimental to overall proficiency, though this will never be enunciated officially even by military leaders, especially white males, who now understand that DIVERSITY trumps plain common sense.
Lost in the shuffle is the fact that the nation, from its inception to the present, has rapidly become the world's only superpower and virtual guarantor of freedom for whole nations as the direct result of the leadership of white males, not perfect white males but by white males who have learned from mistakes, made humongous strides in effecting social justice, and have the results to vindicate their actions, taken as a whole, including in the courts.
These white males are the embodiment of Western Civilization, now in disrepute everywhere from churches to universities as the "enlightened" ones embrace shallowness in everything from governance to religion to the arts. This shallowness is abundantly evident in Washington in both the administration and the Congress, though white males still – but probably not for long – are in the majority there. Often, they seem thoroughly cowed by both the militant feminists and the socialists, such as Obamessiah and his Keystone Kops who, if they aren't stopped soon, will wreck this country.
This may sound like the ranting of an old, old curmudgeon – which it is – but actually that might give it some validity. Anyone who's been around a while has watched this country in its gradual slide over the last 40 years into mediocrity, as the white male has given up more and more of the turf he's designed and implemented and for which he's fought…and that turf is actually the result of everything he's done from make laws to adjudicate laws to going out and giving his blood in battle areas throughout the world to make it all work.
All this may sound chauvinistic. If so – so be it. It isn't meant to be anti-anything, including the great distaff side of the equation. It's merely an observation of the culture…or, perhaps more accurately, the fact that the people most responsible for this nation are losing the culture war.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
In the local paper, the Lexington Herald-Leader of Lexington, Ky., on 31 May was a diagram on the editorial page remarking the 110 Supreme Court justices who have served since the beginning of the nation – two black males, two white females, and 106 white males. The point was being made that the time had come for a Latina woman to take a seat on the Court, notwithstanding whether or not she could even spell her middle name. In a speech a few years ago, the current nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, made it plain that a Latina woman would make better decisions than any white male, thus exhibiting her feminist/gender bona fides for the job. This, of course, was a racist statement but the president and his coterie have been "explaining" (spinning) how she could not possibly have meant this.
This is but the latest example of the emasculating of the government, the castration of it insofar as actions/responsibilities of white males are concerned. Sotomayor, in an appeals court case that she has just handled, heaved and brought forth the opinion that promotions in a fire department should go to minorities, even though they scored lower than a number of white males on the required tests. This decision, then, gave her the added ethnic bona fides to further the affirmative action agenda, no matter the degree and kind of reverse-discrimination involved. The highest scorers were white males, thus, in Sotomayor's thinking, they would not make good decisions…OR…she has an agenda, not a bent toward interpreting the Constitution. Either way, Omamessiah should look for someone else, maybe a left-handed, one-legged, ex-con female from Lower Slobbovia…to give DIVERSITY to the Court.
There are coincidences. The first judge to rule against the whites was a woman. Two of the three appeals judges, including Sotomayor, who upheld her ruling were women. The case went to the SCOTUS and a ruling will be out in June. The appeals court ruling was not even a detailed, signed opinion, just a summary essentially saying, "We agree but won't explain why from a legal standpoint." Apparently, the Baake case of 1978 went right by these folks.
One can only laugh when wondering what would have happened if the discrimination suit had been brought by either blacks or women. White males are toast in the new social order, having as a feature some sort of special bona fides by both women and Governor Schwarzenegger's "girly-men."
Women out-populate men in law schools by a rather wide margin and seem to slowly and surely be taking over the courts (even the TV fiascoes) and the justice-system itself. And why not? Judges make good money and can have regular hours. Being a judge provides an ideal situation for particularly a married woman. There's no argument with a woman's right to a judgeship, but to argue that her gender is a main qualifier for the job is bogus and exhibits a contempt for men, especially white men, that is unconscionable.
This speaks to the larger question, however, that involves the gradual feminizing of government, including even the military, where mixing of the sexes in duty stations is and always has been detrimental to overall proficiency, though this will never be enunciated officially even by military leaders, especially white males, who now understand that DIVERSITY trumps plain common sense.
Lost in the shuffle is the fact that the nation, from its inception to the present, has rapidly become the world's only superpower and virtual guarantor of freedom for whole nations as the direct result of the leadership of white males, not perfect white males but by white males who have learned from mistakes, made humongous strides in effecting social justice, and have the results to vindicate their actions, taken as a whole, including in the courts.
These white males are the embodiment of Western Civilization, now in disrepute everywhere from churches to universities as the "enlightened" ones embrace shallowness in everything from governance to religion to the arts. This shallowness is abundantly evident in Washington in both the administration and the Congress, though white males still – but probably not for long – are in the majority there. Often, they seem thoroughly cowed by both the militant feminists and the socialists, such as Obamessiah and his Keystone Kops who, if they aren't stopped soon, will wreck this country.
This may sound like the ranting of an old, old curmudgeon – which it is – but actually that might give it some validity. Anyone who's been around a while has watched this country in its gradual slide over the last 40 years into mediocrity, as the white male has given up more and more of the turf he's designed and implemented and for which he's fought…and that turf is actually the result of everything he's done from make laws to adjudicate laws to going out and giving his blood in battle areas throughout the world to make it all work.
All this may sound chauvinistic. If so – so be it. It isn't meant to be anti-anything, including the great distaff side of the equation. It's merely an observation of the culture…or, perhaps more accurately, the fact that the people most responsible for this nation are losing the culture war.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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