A Red Mind in a Blue State

Sainthood for John Paul II?

2011-01-14T08:16:00.005-05:00

The Roman Catholic Church is speeding towards naming Pope John Paul II a saint. My take? 3 words.

Molested little boys.

It's not just that the scandal erupted on his watch.

It's not just that the perversion against the Church's most devoted followers happened during his long tenure as priest, cardinal and Pope.

The reason JPII shouldn't be a saint is that he did nothing--nothing--to react to the scandal when it broke. In fact, he went out of his way to protect the most guilty (like moving Cardinal Law to the Vatican to escape investigation and prosecution).

He should have acted swiftly and with a vengeance that this church seems to reserve only for gays and women.

He should have come to America to smite the offenders and personally comfort the victims.

He should have done..something.

Instead he dithered and he lied and he protected the guilty wolves from the offended sheep.

Not very Christ-like.

So should he be beatified and eventually granted Sainthood?

Nope.

He should be vilified and excommunicated.

But hey, that's just me. When I think of Saints and martyrs I think of people who protected others, who died for others, who tried to uphold the highest degree of morality.

Not this Pope. Not this...bureacrat.
(see my earlier post for more details)

The Dole

2010-12-01T00:53:00.002-05:00

We are never going to be able to confront this nation's financial mess until we start telling some truths.

Here's one you don't hear in too many places.

Social Security and Unemployment "insurance" are merely forms of welfare.

Both programs are couched as "insurances" and "rights" because people allegedly pay for them. They were started that way because most Americans back then rejected handouts. They wanted to earn what they received.

Quaint notion, eh? Hard to conceive of that in a day and age when virtually every American, of every race, creed, color and economic strata eagerly pushes their way to the government trough of benefits, contracts, grants, etc. In fact, our blatant desire to grab government largess may be today's defining American character trait.

The problem with calling Unemployment and Social Security "insurances" and paid-for benefit programs is that for the most part, they aren't. The benefits of these programs--each of which was supposed to be self-sustaining-- have been repeatedly and regularly increased by our politicians of both parties. But the payments into the programs haven't been, unless you count the increased taxes on higher wage earners and businesses.

Latest example? The continuing cry to extend unemployment benefits. Now, it is extremely difficult to say you want someone who is unemployed to lose the little income afforded by this program. No one wants to see people suffer.

But the extensions do not come without costs. There isn't a magic tree to be shaken for those dollars. The funds come from former employers-- meaning there is less money to hire-- and from the general tax pool.

Now, when the suggestion is made that people on unemployment be required to perform services for their pay--anything from picking up trash, to reading to kids at schools, to working with seniors or providing day care services for the working poor-- the cry goes out NO! I paid for those benefits--it's unemployment INSURANCE.

Except it's not. And certainly the unpaid-for extensions aren't.

Which means that unemployment--to the extent at least of the extension-- is what used to be called "the dole"--welfare.

Same thing with Social Security. Most seniors got all their money back within a few years. Arbitrary increases, COLA's, increased Medicare coverages, the drug coverage, etc.--these are things that simply were not paid for by seniors. Which means Social Security is, for want of a better term, welfare--not something people earned or paid for during their working lifetimes.

For instance, take a 75 year old retiree. When he was 25 back in 1960 the FICA rate was 6%-employer plus employee! Capped at $4,800 in income. Thus the maximum contribution was $288. For the whole year.

When he was 35? Employer and employee combined paid 8.4% on a maximum income of $8,400. Total maximum contribution? $655.

You get the point.

The average senior today receives about $1,100 per month. It doesn't take too many months for benefits (forgetting Medicare and the drug benefit) to completely outstrip lifetime FICA contributions.

Are too many seniors in poverty? You bet. Do we need a better system to care for the unemployed and our seniors in need. You bet.

We need to find a way to help those in need, and, indeed, a way to pay them much more than they receive. But the systems now don't work and common sense changes are rejected out of hand becaus eof this fantasy that people have somehow paid for these benefits.

Thus we have people with large incomes and significant assets receiving the same benefits that truly needy people receive--and we have healthy people with skills sitting at home on the couch (or working off the books) receiving money while there is work to be done.

It's time to get serious. Let's at least start the conversation by telling truths.

A Winter's Quest

2010-11-28T11:57:00.005-05:00

I'm ready for an adventure.

I'm ready for a change in attitude, if not latittude.

I'm ready for a big challenge, somethng beyond the borders of my town.

I've been very lucky to date. I've been involved in my community, and have been honored to have been honored for my work (though everything I've done has been as part of a team--thus it has been more than a little embarrassing being honored individually for a group effort.)

I've kicked around stating a local arts council. I've thought about volunteering with an established local group.

But, to tell you the truth, I've done that.

I want to do more, something that will have a more lasting influence, over a broader spectrum.

I don't know what "it" is yet--but I'm searching. I've been watching and listening to TED Conference presentations (great stuff!) and banging around the 'net.

I've been thinking about the core things that affect humans-- energy, the environment, education. Maybe population control. Nothing has sparked yet. Maybe it won't.

But I'll be spending the Winter in contemplation--and asking friends--

What would you do if you had time, energy, a moderate ability to organize and create events and organizations, and a driving need to want to help?

Important Stuff

2010-04-15T08:07:00.004-04:00

I haven't written much here in a long while. I'm still yelling at the TV and now I make the occasional comment on Facebook--though referencing anything political on Facebook feels like a faux pas.

But I am compelled to document my thoughts on a subject of vital importance to me.

Not health care. Not nukes. Not immigration or taxes. Neither the Tea Party nor President O.

Something much more important.

The Mets.

My Mets.

My Mets...suck.

And there is no hope in sight.

I can deal with St. John's being bad, and I've become accustomed to the Islanders being wholly horrible, year in and year out. The Knicks? I'm a Knick fan in theory only, like someone who says they'd rather take the Lotto money they hope to win in one lump sum rather than over 20 years. Will I root for the Knicks if they ever again field a basketball team? Yeah, probably.

The Jets surprised us all, but as much as I love football, it seems a temporary thing--something to get us through from the World Series to pitchers & catchers.

But the Mets? They're the only team that can, and regularly do, break my heart.

As the season started I noted on Facebook how disappointed I was with the team. I was told I had to believe. I responded:

"I lost hope when they didn't fire the GM or manager, when they didn't make a run at Roy Halliday, or John Lackey, or even Orlando Hudson, and when they went into the season with a #1 pitcher and 4 possible #5's, no first baseman, no second baseman, an overrated--and hurt--SS; a hurt CF'er; a hope-he'll-play-well RF, and no catcher. And no bullpen leading up to an admittedly super closer.

I see lots and lots of 6-2 losses.

Lots."

I didn't throw in the owners. Unfortunately Madoff didn't steal Fred Wilpon's first born along with Fred's money--that would have been a great help. Little Jeffrey the Idiot falls into that same new class of owners plaguing NY-- Jimmy Dolan, Jeffy Wilpon and Hank Steinbrenner-- morons whose only reason for their position is that they won, in my brother's words, the sperm lottery.

Ah, the Mets. As I write this they are 2-6. Can 3-11 be but a week away?

I hate it when my sports summer ends in April--though truly this season ended in January.

What am I going to do this summer--follow soccer?

Maybe I'll get lucky and the Weber grill will explode, leaving me in a coma til the football season starts.

A Crisis of Competence

2010-01-07T06:21:00.002-05:00

As we enter the third year of this economic mess, I am more convinced than ever that this isn't a crisis caused by greed or a failed system.

It is a crisis caused by a lack of competence.

This is a short list of people or organizations who just simply haven't done their jobs in recent months. It is not a complete list. It isn't even a well-researched list. These are just the ones I recall--in no particular order:

The FAA-- massive delays, an antiquated air traffic control system
TSA- need I elaborate?
Immigration authorities
Every banker who OK'd a 110% loan
Every financier who agreed to bundle, buy and sell packages of 110% loans
Consumer Product Safety Commission-- how many lead-based toys does it take to kill a generation?
Toyota-- record number of recalls
GM, etc-- for decades of crap cars
FEMA
CIA-- for Iraq, for starters
Congress--both sides of the aisle
The Army personnel who ignored/didn't see the Fort Hood situation develop

The list goes on.

Consider your day-to-day transactions. How many clerks do you run in to that have no idea what they are doing? How about the "customer service reps" you talk to on the phone?

Watch the news for a few days--you may find yourself asking, as I do: "Is anyone around here doing their job?"

The one underlying theme that ties all of these together-- incompetence. If people simply did their jobs, many of the crises we've seen should not, would not have happened.

Is it that American workers don't care anymore?

Or is it that our education system has produced decades of students incapable of performing basic functions--and now those failures are coming home to roost?

We have heard warnings about our failed education system for decades. Yet little has changed. We are stuck in a system that fails. Even our best and brightest are coming out with an education that pales against the education learned men possessed in years gone by. (And if you don't believe that, read a bit about our Founding Fathers, or even a speech by FDR-- literate writings and speeches meant for the "common man" reflecting a breadth of knowledge that should shame us-- it certainly shames me-- and I hold an advanced degree).

We have acted as a society as if the issue of whether the schools are "good" or not is equivalent in its effect to whether the movie we just saw was a "good" one or not. We have ignored, at our peril, that the result of turning out generations of poorly prepared students is this: a society that ultimately fails, often in catastrophic ways.

Economies collapse.

People die.

It's time for a change. Real change.

Interracial Couples

2009-10-17T12:22:00.002-04:00

An idiot Justice-of-the-Peace in Louisiana has refused to marry a couple because they are interracial.

Yes, seriously. You don't have to check your calendar, it really is 2009.

His reason? "He was concerned for the children who might be born of the relationship..."

Yeah.

Children of interracial marriages never amount to anything.

Just ask, I don't know....President Obama.

or Tiger Woods.

or Derek Jeter.

Hard to imagine people like this still alive. The only good thing, I guess, is the near-universal denunciations that have crashed down upon this moron.

Hypocrites

2009-10-09T00:01:00.000-04:00

Two items in the news, both of which show us why the dictionary contains the word "hypocrite".

First, NOW blasts Letterman, and is planning all sorts of juicy retribution.

"As 'the boss,' he is responsible for setting the tone for his entire workplace — and he did that with sex," O'Neill (President of N.O.W.) said. "This places all employees — including employees who happen to be women — in an awkward, confusing and demoralizing situation."

A powerful man with a public forum like Letterman, O'Neill said, can get away with turning women into sex objects because "he can crack a few jokes and publicly apologize for his mistakes."

"It is this kind of hypocrisy that perpetuates the image of men in power preying on women, while many look the other way," O'Neill said.

NOW urged CBS to take immediate action against Letterman for his lewd behavior...

Really? Really??

Did NOW just come up with this stance? The biggest "boss" in the United States is the President. The most vulnerable employee is arguably an intern.

Where was NOW when the disbarred former President was turning women into sex objects? Silent, that's where.

Hypocrite 2-- the Black Caucus. They claim that they are out to protect the poor and disadvantaged from being preyed on by the rich and powerful. Their defense of Charley Rangel gets them the title this week.

The Black Caucus should not have protected Rangel this week. They should have disowned him and attacked him themselves, months ago.

Not because Charley didn't pay taxes. Not because he didn't list a few assets on his disclosure form (what's a few million between friends, heh?).

No, because of a reprehensible thing he did that Congress isn't even investigating him for.

That sonuvabitch took over 4 rent controlled apartments for his own use--three he cobbled together for a huge duplex. The fourth he uses as his campaign office!

That's three apartments that poor people-- the people the Black Caucus claims to represent-- could have used.

Worse, according to the New York Times, Charley has been silent about abuses his landlord has allegedly perpetrated on the good people of Harlem. Why? Perhaps in exchange for 3 extra apartments he never should have had, at ridiculously low rents (the Times estimated he was saving about $4,000 per month)?

And yet the Black Caucus protects him--instead of riding him out on a rail.

Shameful behavior on the part of Letterman and Rangel.

Greater shame falls on NOW and the Black Caucus for failure to protect their constituents.

Unemployment "Insurance"

2009-10-08T07:08:00.002-04:00

As an employer who pays unemployment insurance, I have a question in the face of yet another extension of benefits, which, again, I will pay for:

Here in NY everyone contributes a little each week towards the 6 month standard unemployment benefit package. Fine. It works like insurance. There are few, if any, restrictions on what a person can do while unemployed--presumably they are looking for a job.

But when the payments get extended beyond the 6 month period, the "fund" no longer has the money to pay for the benefits. They come from two sources- former employers and the taxpayers.

Is it unreasonable to ask that anyone receiving extended benefits report each day for "work" (except for those times actually interviewing, etc.?). Is it unreasonable to ask the unemployed to perform functions that might serve the community in exchange for the extended benefits? Working at soup kitchens, helping out at day care centers, fixing up playgrounds and ball fields, delivering meals-on-wheels, reading to folks at hospitals and nursing centers, etc?

Wouldn't that help our communities, provide services to our other needy, as well as weed out those who are working off the books, or who are delaying re-entering the workforce for some reason?

And wouldn't that help the long-term unemployed combat depression by getting them out of the house each day with a purpose?

Just a question or two as the Senate prepares to vote.

A Swiftian Question

2009-08-19T23:47:00.003-04:00

If I have to pay for your and your family's housing, education, food--and now, health care, can I have a say in how many damn kids you have?

The number of people who can't afford any of life's basics, yet have 3, 4, 5 or more kids, is astronomical.

I would never begrudge anyone having a child. But number 2? 3? 8?

Don't we have a right to say no (or at least that there are no benefits)-- if only because we are being REQUIRED to pay for them?

According to the Census Bureau, of the families with zero children, only 4% are below the poverty line. 1 or 2 children? 12% 3 or 4? Then it jumps to 23%.

Of the families with five or more children, 41.5% are below the poverty line!

That means of the 8 million families with 3 or more children, over 2 million are below the poverty line--meaning they qualify for the full buffet table of government subsidies, handouts and aid.

Now, there are people who had 3 kids, could afford 3 kids until something bad happened.

But come take a trip with me to Family Court someday--you'll see plenty of women and men who have had children they could never take care of.

I don't suppose any of that is covered in the health care reforms before Congress.

A Couple of Quick Health Care Questions

2009-08-17T07:32:00.004-04:00

I haven't heard or read anyone, other than me, talk about increasing the supply of health care workers, including doctors, to help lower health care costs and increase health care availability. Which leads me to this question: If one of the main goals of this effort is to insure the 45 million uninsured, and to move people away from emergency room care to preventative and primary care physicians-- do we have enough doctors?

Here on Long Island we have probably the lowest doctor-to-patient ratio in the country. Yet most times we have to wait for appointments and sit in the waiting room, sometimes for hours. I know doctors who are turning patients away. Doctors all claim to be overworked.

I assume the situation is the same, or worse, around the country.

If 45 million people show up next year for an annual physical, who is going to treat them?

Why aren't we addressing the supply portion of this equation?

2) The key problems I keep hearing are people being denied coverage for preexisting conditions; being booted from their plans for being sick; and lack of portability.

Can't those problems be addressed without a massive federal program? Haven't many states done so?

If the goal is to make health care better, and not let more power settle in Washington, aren't there better ways to go than the bill(s) presently in the House & Senate?

Health Care FAQ

2009-08-13T07:59:00.002-04:00

Dems are bleating that the protesters of health care reform are misleading the public--yet I haven't heard anyone, including Pres. O, give a point-by-point explanation of the proposed legislation.

Pres. O and his team are so Internet-savvy--you would think it would be easy for them to whip up a web site, complete with a simple explanation of the bill--and FAQ's for people to see, easily, how this will affect them.

Some of the reforms I've heard I think I approve of. Some I am very concerned about. I hear talk that the bill must not add to the deficit--but if we are now going to offer health insurance to 40+ million, how can that not create new costs--and who will pay them? And how much?

The problem is that Pres. O left this to Congress. The same Congress that has about a 15% approval rating. And he's wondering why Americans are upset!

Quick Notes

2009-08-11T08:17:00.002-04:00

...Problem with this health care "debate" is that we have no idea what we are debating. And that's Pres. O's fault. Of course people are angry, upset and, in the minds of the Dems, misinformed.

We ALL are misinformed--if that word means lacking information.

Pres. O should have met with his Dem leadership, put together a package, explained it to America, then passed it. They control everything--they can't be allowed to blame Republicans or conservatives. You have control. You think you have a way to deliver better, cheaper health care? Pass it.

Just don't blame us if we're concerned that your plan, whatever it might be, winds up being another FEMA.

...Governor Sanford should be impeached for leaving his post. They shouldn't have to be making up financial improprieties from years ago regarding flights he took that weren't the cheapest available. Nonsense. No one who runs a company or a State has any right to be missing that long-- what if a hurricane or train wreck or flue epidemic had hit? Didn't the people of South Carolina have the right to have their governor making decisions?

...Hillary got all up in the face of an African teenager for asking what her husband thought about an issue. The typical Clinton response--it was OK, because the boy was mistranslated.

Huh?

The Secretary of State looks and acts like a petulant child--in response to a question from a kid--and its not her fault? The Clinton morning news was great--she was tired; he was mistranslated; its about respect.

BS. It's about a woman who should have been able to handle that question with ease and who, as our leading diplomat, should have handled herself better.

She should apologize. I know that word isn't in the Clinton vocabulary--but she should. Without the usual Clinton spin and dance. Apologize and move on.

Health Care

2009-08-06T17:35:00.004-04:00

My good friend Bruce wrote in a recent piece:

The question should not be why is health care so expensive. It's so expensive because it saves lives.

The question should be how do we save everybody's life.

I am really disappointed with the turn this health care debate is taking.

I agree with him.

Republicans blew it--on this and so many other issues--when we had control. Trying to keep demand down on health care is doomed to failure. Americans will not put up with restrictions on the quality or length of the lives of themselves or their loved ones.

The answer is supply side. We should be doubling and then doubling again the number of medical schools in this country. Doctors have imposed limits on the number of medical students-- there are about the same number now as 25 years ago, when there were less of us and we were demographically much younger.

We should have built dozens of new medical schools, or provided financial support for the independent creation and expansion of existing ones. Competition would go a long way towards lowering the cost of and increasing the access to medical care.

There obviously is no silver bullet. However, a combination of vastly increasing the supply of medical care providers, health savings accounts, public clinics (especially for Medicaid patients), the computerization of medical records (so you don't have to fill out the same damn clipboard 804 times), some med mal reform, and reasonable restrictions on insurance companies makes the most sense.

I like President Obama. I honestly do. However, this is the second time that he has pronounced the need for a solution to a problem NOW, and then let Congress come up with a "solution". It failed miserably with the so-called stimulus "plan". And it is failing now with health care.

Pres. O will get a bill. But it will be a bill cobbled together by the likes of Pelosi and Reid and Frank & Kennedy--4 people I guarantee few Americans would be happy to have babysit their kids, let alone decide the fate of our nation.

A Few Thoughts on GM

2009-06-02T08:10:00.002-04:00

A couple of random thoughts about GM:

-- I'd feel a lot more comfortable with the Obama/Bush "strategy" of taking shares in exchange for bailout money, for GM & the banks, if there was a set timetable for the government to orderly dispose of the assets. For instance, the U.S. now holds 60% of GM. I would love it if the Administration announced that commencing January, 2010, we will be auctioning off 1% per month. That amount shouldn't shake the market; it gives us a better timetable for withdrawal from GM than we have from Iraq; and it would make it clear that Obama is not doing this to create a socialist society, but rather only as a needed short-term stop gap.

--This should have been done in the Fall, some $50 billion ago.

--I have no remorse for the retired GM workers. The ones who worked there in the '70's and '80's were the cause of this, with rapacious contracts and terrible work ethic. I remember sitting in my dorm room, in 1976, discussing GM with my roommate (his Dad owned a Chevy dealership)--and the topic then was the miserably built and designed cars. People used to take it as fact that you didn't want a car that came off the line on Monday (hangover day) or Friday (getaway day). This is simply a matter of reaping what was sown years ago, when people like me simply could not find a vehicle made by GM that was...satisfying.

--The first new car my wife & I bought was a Chevy Chevette. But we moved on, basically because for less money we were able to buy Japanese cars that were made better. Period. About 7 years ago I looked for a middle-age crisis car--I wound up with a Saab convertible after looking at every..single..American dealership. Nothing was made as well, nor designed as well. The last two years I've been driving a Prius--and I love it. Why don't American companies have similar cars? (And, except for the engine, mine was made right here. American workers can do the job-- is it our engineers who are lacking? Or is it some kind of Midwestern still-living-in-the 1950's nonsense that is keeping GM from designing cars most Americans will buy?

--I'll believe the Volt when I see it.

This is the Best?

2009-05-17T16:44:00.002-04:00

Really? Really?!?

This is the best we as a nation can do?

Joe Biden- revealing state secrets this weekend, adding to his thousand other "gaffes." But, oh, how, cute the media treats him. Chuckle, chuckle, there goes Crazy Joe. (As opposed to the rip jobs done on Palin, Quayle, etc.)

Nancy Pelosi--who told six stories in 4 minutes --and, by the way, the people who should be most outraged are the liberals who thought she was protecting their interests all these years. As for her position (her 4th, I think) that she couldn't do anything about waterboarding in 2002--hey, hasn't she been Speaker since 2006? Are you telling me, if she was really troubled by the interrogation methods, instead of on a junta-like political retribution attack, that she couldn't have put a stop to them 3 years ago? Or at least ordered hearings then?

Barney Frank.

Harry Reid.

Any of the half-dozen or so people in Obama's cabinet who didn't pay their taxes.

These are the men and women who snuck in under Obama's skirt while we allowed him to waltz into office.

Our best and brightest? Really?

Get What We Pay For

2009-05-15T05:19:00.003-04:00

News that the co-pilot of that crashed flight out of Buffalo was earning less than what a CVS clerk with 2 years experience earns is troubling. The calls from liberal circles is for re-regulation, wage scales, etc.

The problem is, we are getting what we deserve--in so many ways, so many places.

I'm not saying those poor people on that flight deserved to die. What I am saying is that the airlines are left with no choice but to cut service, slash maintenance, hire as cheaply as they can-- resulting in, predictably, poor service, long delays when planes are taken out of service on an emergency basis, and, well, incompetent personnel.

Who is forcing them into these choices?

We are.

The American consumer.

We have gotten to the place in this country where all we care about is price. Consumers should be making informed choices taking into account a whole host of factors--price among them. But we have stopped doing that.

Our short-sightedness has lead to airlines stripping down their industry because people base their traveling decision solely on the price of the ticket-- an extra $40? No way!

We base our clothing and sundry purchases solely on price-- in a throw-away society, who cares if the shirt is well made? Probably only going to wear it a few times anyway. Do we care if our clothes are made in China by slave labor? Not if it means a dress shirt for $14. American industries close? Screw 'em. I want a $99 color TV.

Our towns are devastated in hidden ways by the Walmarts and Home Depots of the world. We lose our businesses, our community leaders, our volunteers when store after store closes. But, hey, I can get a wrench for $3 less! Will it last? Who knows? Who cares? They're so cheap, I'll buy another! Do I care that the guy running the local hardware store sponsors Little League teams and particpates at the local senior center and hires local kids to work summers and actually knows his product line? Nope.

I don't have the answer. I'd like to wrap this situation up into my theory that the Boomers, no doubt the most selfish generation in American history, have continued to rip through our culture, debasing it in every way--and that the Walmart-ing of America is just another example of their me-me-me disdain and disregard of all things, well, American.

Is government control The Answer? Any time I even start to be lulled by that siren call, I look at my TV and see Pelosi & Reid and Frank, and, for that matter, Boehner and W, and FEMA and the SEC and...well, you get the point. These people can't run what's on their plate now--how can we possibly think for a second that they could really run an entire economy. That has never worked, anywhere, ever-- and it won't save us now.

What we probably need is a cultural shift--a shift to self-respect, to self-control, to accountablilty. And what are the chances of that?

Odd Day

2009-05-07T13:08:00.002-04:00

It was just brought to my attention that today is Odd Day-- 5/7/09--and that Odd Days, where the dates are consecutive, happen only 6 times a century (01/03/05, 03/05/07, etc.).

Reminded me of an incident with my younger daughter--one of the first that gave us fair warning of the type of individual we were growing.

She must have been, I don't know, 3 or 4-- whatever the appropriate age is for kids to count.

Me: "Hey, Ali, can you count by twos?"
Her: "Sure, Dad!"
Me: "Let me hear it."
Her: "1, 3, 5, 7, 9..."

Who in the world counts by twos using the odd numbers?

It was a sign. I should have been better prepared for what came later, and, for that matter, what continues to come.

Odd Day, indeed.

Any Openings?

2009-05-06T17:08:00.002-04:00

One of our local Democratic County legislators was arrested today on charges he failed to report, and pay taxes on, $226,000 of secret income he allegedly received from a contractor. The same legislator has had tax problems in the past.

Figure there is a Cabinet post left for him in the Obama Administration?

Jack Kemp, RIP

2009-05-04T08:51:00.003-04:00

My GOP is going through some tough times-- not unlike the Dems did in the 1980's when Jack Kemp helped lead the Reagan Revolution. I have always been, and always will be a huge Jack Kemp fan. A decent, good, optimistic, upbeat, can-do man--full of big ideas and an effervescent enthusiasm in the delivery of those ideas.

Our party moved away from him, to the Bush family and the Southern Christians, and hence we have the problems of today. Long before it was fashionable, Kemp preached that the GOP should be the party of the working person--and he especially fought to bring a message of hope and individual accomplishment to minorities. He felt that conservative ideas--like school choice-- benefited poor and working families better in the long run than the socialist programs of the liberals. He was truly a big-tent Republican.

Our party chose, instead, to follow Bush and Rove, and pander to narrow-minded, one-issue target groups--and thus we have lost the Northeast, and in a time when more people now live in cities than anywhere else, we have lost metropolis'. Good for W--terrible for our party.

Kemp preached a different gospel--one where we help each other, regardless of race, creed, etc., because in helping others we make America stronger. Again and again I heard him say we need everyone on the team to be prepared and play well for the team to win--against businesses from other countries.

Kemp's vision of America included low and fair taxes; empowerment zones; individual freedom; and a commitment to helping others. It was a compelling vision--and our party would do well to revisit Jack Kemp's stands as we restructure the party.

From Jack Kemp:

There are no limits to our future if we don't put limits on our people.

There really has not been a strong Republican message to either the poor or the African American community at large.

Pro football gave me a good perspective. When I entered the political arena, I had already been booed, cheered, cut, sold, traded, and hung in effigy.

When people lack jobs, opportunity, and ownership of property they have little or no stake in their communities.

There is a kind of victory in good work, no matter how humble.

Every time in this century we've lowered the tax rates across the board, on employment, on saving, investment and risk-taking in this economy, revenues went up, not down.

Notary Public Enemy

2009-04-12T09:26:00.003-04:00

My writing here has been a bit spotty. Some of that has to do with "news fatigue". Some of it with work being hectic, as I try to shoot the rapids of this recession.

And a good deal of it has been because of other writing I have been doing.

Thus far, in the last year or so, I have had 12 poems published--with 3 more accepted.

And now, my novel, Notary Public Enemy, has been accepted for publication!

Diversion Press, a new, small publisher in Tennessee, is going to publish my murder-mystery novel.

Peter De Stio is a fallen star litigator settling uneasily into a quiet life, one that no longer includes alcohol, marriage, family, or his partnership in a premiere law firm, when he is accused of a multimillion dollar bank fraud and murder. He can't account for his notary stamp and signature on forged deeds, and their relationship to the fraud that occurred while he was in the throes of an all-out alcohol-induced free fall.

Peter's old law school buddy, Joel Levine, has given him an office at his firm, an expense account, and a few newly employed "students", including a pretty, former Bronx assistant D.A., to train for Joel's firm. Thrust into the bank fraud and murder investigations, and wondering if the law is the right career for him, Peter dodges a disbarment proceeding, a civil suit, and a brutal beating with a crowbar to defend himself against the charges.

Though his instincts are to weather the crisis alone, he is forced to rely on others to help clear his name. It is through a network of young lawyers, a private investigator, old friends, satisfied clients and twin toddler nephews that Peter follows the trails left by the true conspirators to find the truth about who he is, and his path to redemption.

No date yet for launch--but I'll keep you all in the loop!

Happy Easter!

New York's New Stadia

2009-04-04T08:44:00.004-04:00

The new Yankee Stadium and the Met's new CitiField are set to open.

Soon the new Giant/Jet stadium will replace the perfectly-good Giant Stadium in Jersey.

Taxpayer money and guarantees abound. Ticket prices have skyrocketed, meaning most taxpayers will no longer be able to afford to go--but that is merely supply and demand at work-- New York has about 20 million people in our "fan radius". We have two baseball teams and two football teams. At 10 million potential fans per team, we have the largest fan base, by far, of any major sports league city.

That said, two points about these stadia.

Phil Mushnick pointed out in a withering article in the NY Post, that the Roman Coliseum, built 2,000 years ago, had no obstructed seats.

Both of the new baseball stadia will have seats from which you can't see the whole field!

What Phil didn't mention was this: the Roman Coliseum had a retractable canvas awning that covered the top to shield patrons, sitting on white marble, from the glaring Roman sun. And it was designed to catch the breeze to cool fans--a form of early day air conditioning.

In other words, the Coliseum had a retractable roof. And provisions for fan comfort!

2,000 years later, here in New York, we will have baseball teams playing games in cold, wet April and May, and, hopefully, frigid late October/November, and football teams playing in miserable December, in the open air.

Three new stadia in New York.

Not one with a roof!

Meaning no SuperBowl. Meaning more 4 hour rain delays as baseball teams, heedless of fan comfort, try to jam in sold-out games without resorting to double-headers.

How ridiculous is that?

U.S. Civilian Corps.

2009-03-30T08:01:00.003-04:00

Dan, in a comment to my post on Fargo, warned of creeping forced volunteerism by the Obama Administration.

This got me thinking of a conversation I had with my good friend Bruce, where I disputed that FDR's policies, in any way, ended the Depression. And it wasn't the massive spending for the War that did it either.

The Depression ended, or at least the unemployment caused by the Depression ended, when we took tens of millions of men out of the civilian workforce and gave them government jobs--with the Army, Navy, Marines and Army Air Corp.

So what about now? One way to take 3 million people out of the workforce, while simultaneously creating a huge force to build houses for the homeless, clean up parks and roadways, tutor failing children, man affordable day care centers, help at nursing homes and hospitals, run soup kitchens, coach kids' sports--and on, and on, is this-- "draft" every 18-22 year old in America for a year of Civilian Corps. Service.

Pay 'em a thousand a month. House them like an Army. Train them and use them to free up other local government assets, or do jobs we don't have the manpower or money to do.

Benefits?

It would make our kids grow up--too many are horribly immature upon college graduation.

It would pull newcomers out of the market, thus opening up jobs for people who have mortgages, bills, etc.

It could help kids become part of the larger American fabric, just like Army service does.

It could help ease government budget woes--and personal ones (for instance, free day care).

It could provide some useful training for those in specialties or without direction.

Cost? It you say $30,000 per for salary, housing, training, supervision, etc., we're talking $90 billion, or less than one-third of what we've spent on AIG.

Just a thought.

Police Outrage in Dallas

2009-03-27T11:44:00.003-04:00

I would venture a guess that I support cops in about 98% of the controversies that hit the papers.

A few years ago, for example, my respect for Bruce Springsteen plummeted when he recorded that despicable, wholly biased, "41 Shots". I was at the Garden the night they recorded the song and I was one of many who sat silent. Springsteen made his money off of being the favorite of blue collar working Americans--and then has shoved it in their face in pursuit of a diseased liberal agenda.

That said, the cop who prevented the Houston Texan's running back Ryan Moats from seeing his dying mother-in-law should be fired--and it's too bad we don't publicly humiliate people anymore, like with the stocks or on a rail, because he deserves at least that, if not worse.

Check out this idiot. I can't tell whether race was involved, but I can tell you this is a person who shouldn't have any power or authority at all, over anyone or any thing. As did the police chief, I give the Moats' family huge credit for handling the situation much better than most of us would have.

Fargo Flood

2009-03-26T11:40:00.002-04:00

I know this is a bit off the beaten track, but watching the coverage of the efforts to stave off flooding in Fargo, as the Red River rises to 41 feet, I was struck by two things:

First, there was a video of hundreds of people shoveling sand into sand bags. The reporter called the work "grueling". Sand was dumped in huge piles on the floor of an arena or stadium--then people were shoveling sand into white bags--and then hauling them, by hand, up and onto pickup trucks for transport to the river.

Why?

I cannot believe there isn't some kind of automatic-bag-filler available, together with engine-powered devices to lift the bags onto (and off of) the pickups. The process would have to be quicker, more efficient, and safer.

Sure, no town can be expected to buy and maintain that kind of equipment on the odd chance it might someday need it. But isn't that what FEMA should be doing? Wouldn't it make sense for FEMA to own and maintain that type of emergency equipment that could be airlifted in as needed?

And my second thought, as the reporter said the mayor had called for an additional 2,000 volunteers, was this--I've said it before, and I'll say it again-- I think we should have a standing, civilian, emergency corps to provide massive help in situations like floods, hurricanes. tornado-aftermaths, wild fires. A huge team of specialists who can help provide emergency manpower before and during a crisis, and help restore electricity and services in the immediate aftermath.

Sort of a civilian National Guard, but with personnel specifically trained to handle the challenges of natural disasters-- evacuations, sandbagging, firefighting, triage, provision of emergency shelter, power, etc.

The way we are reacting to these natural crises now is simply insane.

AIG Bonuses

2009-03-17T09:44:00.003-04:00

AIG apparently paid over $140 million in bonuses to executives in the same unit that, in good measure, caused much of this financial meltdown.

Virtually everyone, left, right and center is outraged, and with good reason.

But, as with most of this mess, the fault lies as much, or more, with our elected officials than anyone else.

The Democratic Congress, at the request first of the Republican President and then his Democratic successor, has opened the treasury and thrown, indiscriminately, billions and billions of dollars, at economic conditions, both real and perceived, without any forethought whatsoever.

We can't do anything about the bonuses now. Too late. What should have happened was before any of the several bailout installments were given to AIG, the government should have demanded reforms--just like we conservatives have been calling for with the auto makers.

Everywhere you look, at every single one of these financial debacles, we see governement failures--on both sides of the aisle. The SEC, the Fed, the Treasury. Congress forcing banks to make bad loans, banking regulators not enforcing the few regulations remaining.

This is not a housing crisis.

This is not a banking crisis.

This is not a liquidity crisis.

This is a competency crisis.

I wrote early in the campaign that I wished one of the candidates would step forward and actually enforce the laws on the books--actually manage the governement. What we have seen, on virtually every level, is a lack of intelligence, forethought, managerial skill and plain old hard work. Our food and water are not safe; our kids' toys have lead. No one is enforcing the immigration laws (this is not a debate about what the laws should be--I'm simply saying that the laws that are there aren't being enforced.) Obviously the SEC is a joke. FEMA. Need I go on?

I think the economy came to a standstill in October, waiting for Obama to come in January with some answers--not solutions, but a setting of the new rules of the game. Unfortunately, his "team" stumbled badly, and so the crisis continues.

Competency. A competent warden of the public funds would have prevented AIG's bonuses, just like it would have placed restrictions on what the TARP money could be used for.

Competency. Is there any left in the U.S.?

Is anyone doing their job?

The Bottom?

2009-02-12T10:30:00.004-05:00

OK, this will be one of those posts that, when I look back on it, I will think, my, wasn't I smart! or jeez, how dumb could I be?

I think we've hit bottom.

I think this economy is starting to turn around--that what we needed was to get past the election cycle, get past the unrelenting doom & gloom, and to re-set the economy.

I'm a referee for forclosures here in Nassau County. I get assigned a very, very small proportion of the forclosures here, but I am, about once a month, present during the every-Tuesday forclosure sales.

Go back about 2 years ago--very few forclosures made it to sale (the mortgages were either refinanced, or the house was sold privately. The ones that did make it to auction would regularly be bid on by the business people who specialize in buying forclosed houses. On very few occassions would the bank have to eat the house--that is, actually have to take the house back because no one bid more than the outstanding balance of the mortgae, late fees, etc.

The past 6 months? Virtually every house was bought by the bank. We would go through 40-50 sales with not a single private bid. Not one.

This past Tuesday? Of the 40 or so houses on the auction block, about 6 were bid on--a few very vigourously. Which means that the pros in the room think there is now a margin between the fair market value of the homes and the purchase price.

A small sign--and maybe a false one. But for the first time in a long time there was excitement in the room.

Now today's news brings the good tidings that January retail sales were up. Surprisingly up.

And, further, jobless claims were down.

Don't get me wrong--even if we've stopped the downward spiral, there are still waves of pain to be felt, and it could be a long time before the economy starts to grow again. But many conservative economists think that the stimulus bill is unnecessary, and possibly harmful. And if we are already starting to see signs of healing, then they may very well be correct.

We Needed This Guy?!?

2009-02-10T17:35:00.002-05:00

President Obama and Congress insisted we needed Timothy Geithner, that no one else could engender the confidence of both Wall Street & Main Street needed in this turbulent market.

In fact, we needed him so bad, they overlooked his failure to pay more than $35,000 in taxes. So instead of going to jail, Geithner got to go to the Cabinet Room.

Then, like a kid with a term paper to do, he asks for an extra day--to put the final touches on his plan to save America.

Then he unveils the plan. Which turns out to have virtually no specifics.

The TARP announcement "was a huge disappointment," said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS Greenwich Capital. "There's been an incredible buildup for weeks and then they release a plan that has little in the way of details."

And how does Wall Street react to the Junior Savior's plan?

The Dow plunges 382 points (although CNN, laughably, refers to it on their site as "tumbles", the difference being, I guess, is that if the President is Republican, and the market goes down almost 5%, it's a "crash", but if he is a Democrat it's "a small correction".

Seriously. This is The Guy? This is the plan to spend $350 billion dollars, money that has been available since October?

My brother and I, drunk, came up with a better plan Saturday night.

Economic Silver Bullet

2009-02-07T14:26:00.003-05:00

WARNING: THIS MAY BE DEEMED POLITICALLY INCORRECT

This idea hit me this morning as I drove to work through an economically-challenged neighborhood.

The U.S. economy has lost about 3 million jobs since the recession started.

We have approximately 10 to 20 million illegal aliens in our midst (estimates vary), holding approximately 4 to 10 million jobs (again the estimates I found are all over the place).

I realize it may be rude, but may we ask those here illegally if we may have our jobs back?

And concomitantly, may we stop providing many of them with free health care, free education, etc.?

Think of it as a wedding party. Illegals aren't our guests-- they are more like party crashers. Perhaps many of us didn't mind when there was plenty of food and drink to go around, but our stocks are running low. Whom should we feed first--our invited guests, or those who cut the line to get in?

One always sounds mean when talking about illegal immigration. Yes, they are people. Yes, I know and like many. But the truth is this country is very much like a lifeboat-- if everyone climbs in, we all sink. That's unfortunate, but that's the truth.

President Obama-- you say you want to save or create 3-4 million jobs? Enforce the immigration laws.

It'll be a heckuva lot cheaper than $1 trillion bucks.

Friday Quickies

2009-02-06T07:09:00.004-05:00

...I see Michael Phelps got himself in a jam by being photographed suckin' on a bong.

Three thoughts:

First, I am ever so grateful that there were no cellphone cameras when I was in college.

Second, I find myself more and more forgiving when young athletes do stupid things. Three middle-aged golfers standing at the tee box waiting our turn, talking about some rich, young athlete doing something idiotic in a late-nite club.

Me: The more I think about it, if someone threw millions of bucks at me when I was 22, I'd have been broke by 24.

Golfer #2: I'd have been in rehab.

Golfer # 3: I'd have been dead.

Finally, when are we going to doing something about these ridiculous, hypocritical marijuana laws? Candidate Obama scored "cool points" when he jokingly expressed pride in having inhaled.

But what if he had been arrested and convicted of possession?

Would he be in the White House? Or would any of a dozen doors have closed on him on his way.,. just another black kid with a record?

What if anyone reading this had been arrested & convicted for possession--or worse?

The phrase "there but for the grace of God..." keeps rattling in my brain.

....The cap on salaries is insane for so many reasons, far beyond the mere fact that we have gone from a capitalist society to a Marxist one without a shot being fired.

Lenin must be chuckling somewhere in hell.

But, if we are insistent on this flight of lunacy, then, hey, let's do it right.

Anyone who gets a federal subsidy, or a government contract, should have their compensation capped.

That includes: Farmers; sugar industry executives; defense contractors; lobbyists; "ministers" who run "community outreach" programs; University presidents; medical school professors and deans; etc. etc.

And why stop there? Using the same liberal "interstate commerce" analysis, why not simply raise the tax rate for any sum over $500,000 to 100%.

That'll show 'em.

Oh, and when the bailed-out banks can't compete against the other banks (or the new banks formed with Saudi or Chinese money to exploit the situation) because Congress is dictating how they compensate their employees, woo their clients, etc., and they fail again, what do you think happens to the value of the preferred shares we got with the bailout money?

Yep. Congress. That's Latin for "collection of idiots".

.....This "Stimulus" bill is a mess, and President O gets the blame for allowing Pelosi and the bunch of idiots on the Hill to craft the thing.

I'm all over the place on this, and I have a jumble of random thoughts on it, but here are some:

a) I'm told that no stimulus plan has ever worked, here or abroad. Japan tried it; we've tried them, including in the 1930's. They don't work.

But if we are intent as a nation to borrow a passel of money and throw it around in the hopes that this time it will work, well, then, let's build things, or fix things that are broken.

FDR's spending may not have stimulated the economy, but decades later we are using the bridges and tunnels and courthouses and parks he built.

The American Society of Civil Engineers puts out a report card detailing America's infrastructure needs. They currently list the cost for the necessary repairs and expansion of our transportation, water & sewerage, aviation, etc. to be approximately $1.6 trillion.

So spend a big chunk of this money on those needs--not the piddly amount contained in the House plan.

b) Our government oversight has fallen to pathetic levels. Want to hire a mess of people to put money directly and quickly into the economy--and still have it be beneficial to us long-term, as opposed to make-work projects?

Then hire auditors for the SEC and HUD; inspectors for the FDA & the FAA; chemists and scientists for the CDC and NASA; engineers and construction workers and emergency response teams for FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers; border guards and investigators to enforce the immigration laws.

In other words, pump the enforcement and watchdog sector of the government--and then make them do their damn jobs. Or, outsource it to private companies with the mandate to make sure our water is clean, our food and toys free of poisons, the books of our public companies aren't cooked, etc. etc.

c) Give some immediate relief in the form of extended unemployment benefits and grants to soup kitchens and shelters;

d) Pump a bunch of money into solar and wind projects, to move our country from dependence on oil;

e) Provide incentives, such as the short-term tax credit for a house purchase--throw in an incentive to buy a car, as well. That's the kind of tax break we need--not some BS $10 per week cut that sounds good, but will help little, if at all;

f) Reform the system that got us into this trouble. Repeal mark-to-market, a ridiculous accounting reform that forces banks to declare a loan as "bad" even if the note is being paid, if the underlying asset decreases in value. Housing prices fluctuate; if the loan is being paid, why deem it bad? Why clutter the balance sheet--which makes banks more likely to hoard cash and less likely to lend?

I don't know. My fear is that at the end of the day, Congress will ram through a wasteful, useless bill and we will see things we haven't in 25 years:

Inflation

High interest rates.

And, man, those are soooo much worse than unemployment.

.....Bill Clinton once said that every mistake he made , he made when he was tired.

Most of the mistakes I've made have been when I was rushing.

Congress isn't going to take its time and do this right, so we'll have a mess as always. Recent examples:

Last year's bailout--Congress threw $700 billion dollars at the banks without thinking through ANYTHING. No reforms; no guidelines on how the money was to be spent. Nothing.

Another example? In knee-jerk reaction to the Chinese lead-in-the-paint toys, Congress mandated that all products sold or distributed or made available to kids under twelve had to be certified as lead free by this month.

Sounded good. Except they drew up the law so sloppily that the American Libraries Association advised its members that the Consumer Product Safety Council considered books to be within the scope of the law--so that all books in public libraries had to either be destroyed or tested and certified.

Retailers, who originally thought the bill applied to products they purchased after the February date were recently told that it applied to the inventory on their shelves as of that date.

Only after convincing pleas of the dire consequences of the law finally got through did the CPSC delay enforcement of the law for several months--presumably giving Congress the opportunity to do now what it should have done last year--to thoughtfully consider the consequences of their actions.

But it seems like Congress' in general, and this one in particular, are more interested in the headline and the soundbite than in whether a law is carefully crafted, or whether it will work

....And now a quote from the great Theodore Roosevelt:

The government is us...You and me!

Forclosures

2009-01-26T14:15:00.004-05:00

Just my two cents on the recovery plan.

If I were King, or Pres. O and his merry men & women, I'd take a big chunk of the bailout--maybe $200-300 billion-- and do the following:

1) Purchase foreclosed homes from the banks.

2) Pay 'em fair market value, plus 10%, in exchange for a promise that they will re-lend the money over, say, the next year or so. This way they would take bad assets off their books, the banks would be re-liquefied, the money would go back into the housing market (but, theoretically, to qualified borrowers this time, at the banks' discretion);

3) Hold the houses off the market for a minimum of 3 years--with an understanding that they would be feathered back into the market so as not to create a tsunami of supply in 2012--when they would be sold by the government at the then fair market value; and

4) In the meantime, lease the houses to working families who can afford to pay the taxes and upkeep of the house.

By taking a million to two million houses off the market, we would be using market forces to stabilize the housing market. Pulling all that supply off the market, while correspondingly making mortgage money available, should stop housing prices.from continued falling--and may even give the market a little bounce. Stable prices should lead to buyers who are waiting for the bottom of the market to come back into play. It should also allow homeowners to refinance and take out equity loans to stimulate the economy.

It might also stave off more foreclosures. Once borrowers and lenders of homes "on the fence" see that the bottom isn't falling out, workouts will make more sense.

For instance, I have a client who is several months behind in her mortgage because of a job interruption, etc. Last year the house would have sold for $425,000; now it's down to $325,000 and dropping. She owes, all in, about $325,000. She could afford to reinstate the mortgage, rolling in the arrears and maybe extending the term a few years--but both she and the bank are reluctant to do it for fear that the value won't be there. But if the market leveled off? This house would probably be saved.

The other issue is this-- handing money to people who aren't paying their mortgage is unfair to those many people who struggle each month to make the payment--and it threatens future lending practices as well.

We would be providing affordable housing to people who need it now.

And, ultimately, the government would have a chance to recoup some or all of its money--and may even make a billion or two if housing prices rise again.

Anyway--that's what I'd do with our money if I had the power.

Inauguration Day

2009-01-20T08:37:00.005-05:00

I started this blog in September, 2004, a Republican living in a Democratic state.

I've been a Republican in spirit since I was a teenager, but my sense of where I stood on the political spectrum truly coalesced in my soul the summer of 1980 during a trip with my wife to Washington, DC. I was just 22, had just finished my first year in law school, and this was my first trip to DC.

I was overcome by the history, by the majesty, by the feeling of awe I felt in the presence of monuments to greatness. And though I knew intellectually that Carter was a small, failed man, and that I agreed with Governor Reagan on many issues, it was during our walk through Arlington Cemetery that it hit me in the gut that we needed leaders who thought big, who aspired to greatness.

In "Charlie Wilson's War" Tom Hank's Charlie Wilson tells of when he fell in love with America.

I know it's corny, but that moment in Arlington was when I did.

The polls say that about 80 % of America is rooting for Pres. O to succeed, which is about 25% more than voted for him. I like that statistic. I like to think it's because my fellow Republicans are more likely to put America first than our Democratic brethren (see the whining and brutally vicious attacks on W after he defeated Gore), but the truth is that in good part it is because Pres. O has handled himself throughout this transition with dignity and strength and intelligence (kudos, too. to the Bush team--every report is that they are more than cooperating).

I try to put myself in the position of Democrats in 1981. I'm not forsaking my party--indeed, all I need do is look at the Democratic Congress to reassure myself that I could never stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Reid, Pelosi & Frank, secure in the knowledge that if left to their devices this country would indeed fall.

Many Democrats voted for Reagan (Carter having been their W), but even more supported him at the outset of his Presidency.

I'm in the 25% that voted for McCain but fully support Pres. O and his team. Of all the Democrats he could have chosen, he has, by and large, surrounded himself with men and women who appear sober and competent. I believe his biggest challenges in the months ahead will not be from moderates and Conservatives, but from the lunatic left fringe of his own party, people who just do not understand how the world, or normal people, act.

I hope he gives a great speech today.

I hope there is in his Presidency things I can support wholeheartedly-- energy independence, a return to civic responsibility, a call for personal responsibility for all, a rebuilding of our infrastructure.

I didn't help elect the first African-American president, but I recognize how great a day it is for our country. Perhaps it is a poor rationalization, but I know in my heart I did not vote against Obama and certainly not because of his color-- I voted for John McCain and my party. And because of that I can smile and enjoy today, not as much as an African-American, certainly--and not as much as those who pulled a lever--or two-- for Pres. O. But as an American I intend to enjoy the moment.

The fate of our nation, and the futures of our children and grandchildren, rest to some extent in his hands-- so I wish President Barack Obama well.

Friday Quickies: Miracle On the Hudson

2009-01-16T09:34:00.004-05:00

Quick thoughts about the amazing splash landing and 100% rescue of that US Air airplane on the Hudson yesterday:

.....Surprised PETA hasn't issued a statement decrying the death of the geese that apparently were sucked into the engines.

.....Does US Air get to count that as an "early landing" when they do their FAA stats?

....They say that the geese population is up 400% since the 1990's-- mostly attributable to mild winters (aha! Global Warming strikes again!!) and suburban open areas, such as soccer fields, that provide the geese with predator-safe grounds.

I'm thinking this:

Too many geese, and their droppings, are spoiling our fields, playgrounds, water and air traffic lanes.

Our homeless shelters and food banks are being stretched to the limits.

Problem One meet Problem Two.

Solution? Goose dinners.

....This is the answer, I guess, to the old standup routine: "Y'know, they tell you that the seat cushions become flotation devices. If they can do that, why can't they turn the plane into a boat?"

....If this happened next week, people would have credited Pres. O, and it would have been one of three documented miracles he will need to achieve Sainthood.

Seriously, it was a great feel-good story all the way around; everybody did their job with efficiency and valor. As a nation we needed this.

....And now a quote from the great Theodore Roosevelt:

"It is by no means necessary that a great nation should always stand at the heroic level. But no nation has the root of greatness in it unless in time of need it can rise to the heroic mood

-Fear God and Take Your Own Part, 1916

Blago & the Senate Seat

2009-01-02T11:31:00.002-05:00

So the charged & arrested (but not indicted) Gov. of Illinois has selected someone to fill Pres. O' s Senate seat. Conventional wisdom, and what passes for wisdom in the Senate, is that the appointee should not be seated.

Why not?

Nobody has said that the appointee has done anything wrong-- his name hasn't been mentioned in any of the leaks regarding the scandal.

The appointee has held high elected office on a number of occasions-- far different from Caroline Kennedy here in NY-- so presumably he is at least marginally qualified. Actually, even if he wasn't qualified, what right would Sen. Reid and his cohorts have to decide otherwise? A slippery slope if the Senate gets to question the credentials of a duly appointed Senator--what's next? Questioning the credentials of a duly elected official?

Blago has the right to choose whom he wants to choose. He is still in office. Illinois, like NY, and many, if not all, states permits the Governor to appoint interim Senators--that may or not be wise, but in America we live by rules. If the people of Illinois, or the legislature, didn't like this rule, they could have changed it. They didn't.

You can't disqualify a Governor, or any elected official, from acting in his or her official capacity merely because a DA has brought charges, nor even if they are indicted. If we did that, every official within the jurisdiction of some politically motivated State or Federal DA would be arrested within 5 minutes of being sworn in.

Conviction? OK. But presumed innocent is a pretty big deal- here in the good ol' USA--it distinguishes us from the French--or at least that's what I learned long ago.

And the Illinois legislature hasn't impeached Blago yet.

So should the appointee sit? You betcha.

Speeches

2008-12-31T08:32:00.002-05:00

My good and great friend Bruce has been posting excerpts from various inaugural addresses throughout our history. Interesting stuff.

Here's a piece from an Inaugural address in the past-- tell me that Pres. O couldn't include this passage in his speech a few weeks from now (the identity of the President who gave this speech is in the comments section.)

Standing in this same place..., Franklin Delano Roosevelt addressed a Nation ravaged by depression and gripped in fear. He could say in surveying the Nation's troubles: "They concern, thank God, only material things."
Our crisis today is the reverse.
We have found ourselves rich in goods, but ragged in spirit; reaching with magnificent precision for the moon, but falling into raucous discord on earth.
We are caught in war, wanting peace. We are torn by division, wanting unity. We see around us empty lives, wanting fulfillment. We see tasks that need doing, waiting for hands to do them.
To a crisis of the spirit, we need an answer of the spirit.
To find that answer, we need only look within ourselves.
When we listen to "the better angels of our nature," we find that they celebrate the simple things, the basic things—such as goodness, decency, love, kindness.
Greatness comes in simple trappings.
The simple things are the ones most needed today if we are to surmount what divides us, and cement what unites us.
To lower our voices would be a simple thing.
In these difficult years, America has suffered from a fever of words; from inflated rhetoric that promises more than it can deliver; from angry rhetoric that fans discontents into hatreds; from bombastic rhetoric that postures instead of persuading.
We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another—until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

Caroline Kennedy?

2008-12-30T07:33:00.005-05:00

The more Caroline Kennedy opens her mouth, the more convinced I am that if we didn't permit trusts to exist in America the present day Kennedys would all be broke.

There would be a helluva lot of rich bartenders and hookers up and down the East Coast.

And Caroline would be behind the counter at a Madison Avenue boutique, and not a customer.

Any comparisons between Sarah Palin and Caroline Kennedy are totally out of line.

Palin has actually run for office (and won) a bunch of times. She has successfully run both a city and a State government. And she is wholly self-made.

Kennedy on the other hand is a typical member of this generation of her family-- great educational resume (although I think we all know how they got into those schools), light on brains (remember her brother took a few times to pass the bar), heavy on press-fed mystique, and carrying a huge load of entitlement.

Someone once called the Royal Family of Britain England's most famous welfare family. Except that it's Joe's bootleg money, and not taxpayer's funds, the Kennedy's are our's.

People are sniping at Gov. Paterson for failing to appoint her quickly, to end these attacks on her. Our Governor-by-hooker is showing himself to be a pretty adept politician. He is simply waiting, letting this incompetent dilettante burn herself out in the press, then he can pick whom he chooses.

Smart Governor.

Typical Kennedy.

J...E...T..ah, whatever.

2008-12-29T08:52:00.002-05:00

The Jets collapse is as frustrating as...the Mets collapse(s).

Today's topic is whether Eric Mangini, the Jets' coach, should be fired.

In analyzing Mangini, let's not forget that coming into this season Chad Pennington was NOT his starting quarterback; Mangini was going with the backup. Great evaluation of talent, right there.

Favre never looked comfortable. Maybe it's too much to ask of a guy to come in and be successful in his first year--but the collapse came at the end of the season--not the beginning. If anything, you would think the Jets offense would have gotten better as the season went along--not fallen off a cliff like it did.

To me the reason Mangini should be fired is the stat about how lame the Jets have been in opening the second half-- I think yesterday was the first opening drive score in a couple of years. I always thought the sign of a good coaching staff was that they could make adjustments at halftime--clearly Mangini was unable to do that.

I am a Met, Jet, Islander, Knick & St. John's fan. I think I am entitled to a bailout of some sort, no?

The Big Three

2008-12-12T17:28:00.004-05:00

Two car leases ago I made an effort to buy or lease an American car. I went to every single American dealership, in person. I'm not a car guy--this was my first such effort, ever. My car buying usually lasts about an hour. This was a big deal.

I was looking for a middle-age crisis car. Something that handled well, that was sporty, that had some umphh! to it.

I couldn't find anything. Nothing.

I wanted a convertible; the best the Americans offered was a Vette--not my style, and ridiculously overpriced. The Mustang was a piece of garbage--even the showroom floor model looked and felt like it was ready to fall apart.

The Sebring looked sharp, but had no power, and handled awfully--and was more expensive to lease than the car I ultimately got.

I wound up with a Saab 93 convertible (GM subsequently bought Saab).

Maybe it was my taste, maybe I had been spoiled by foreign cars that were well-built, handled well and were, dollar for dollar a MUCH better value. Maybe it was hype.

All I know is, I honestly feel I gave the American cars a shot--and they fell far short.

Our last American car was a Ford van--whose transmission fell out in month 9. I vowed never again.

I drive a Prius, my wife drives a Honda. The Big 3 will have to change a whole heckuva lot to get either of us to buy one of their cars--especially since I believe both of our cars were made here in the US anyway.

Regarding the bailout--I would have voted no also unless the UAW renegotiated now. Their promise to come to the table later is worthless-- put up or shut up before billions of taxpayer dollars are wasted trying to prop up companies that simply are not managed well enough to survive.

The Dems can blame the Senate Republicans--but the truth is they should have had the UAW guys sitting next to the CEO's during their hearings--and the "plans" submitted by the car companies should have included the UAW's concessions.

Anything else was simply a charade.

The Great American Bailout tour seems to have hit a snag--and not a moment too soon.

A Couple of Quick Thoughts on Blagojevich

2008-12-10T07:52:00.002-05:00

1) After hearing about the arrest of yet another Illinois Governor, I flipped around the news channels. Watching MSNBC for a few minutes, my goodness, you would have thought all of their parents were in a plane that went down. Glum, solemn-- how might this affect The One?
Pitiful.

2) Last week David Axelrod volunteered that Pres. Obama had been in touch with Blagojevich; yesterday, Obama stumbled in his answer--first saying we, then quickly changing it to I, had no contact with the Governor about his replacement.

Uh oh. If that had been Rove & W, instead of Axelrod & O, that would have been the lead story. But not now, not for The One. Just a small sidebar, and, oh, by the way, Axelrod misspoke last week.

Two year campaign, the man was virtually perfect. Now, on the precipice of office, we have communication problems?

Or is he lying? And if so, why?

3) I think Obama is clear here, by the way, which made yesterday's stumbling so silly. Hell, the Governor is apparently on tape calling O a m-fer for not "going along". Sounds like a great endorsement to me--seriously.

And I hope he's clear, too. The last thing the country needs now is a scandal of any sorts.

4) Is the prosecutor, the same guy that nailed Libby, going to yank as far reaching a group of people into this mess as he did with that prosecution?

5) Finally, somebody is going to have show me more than was released yesterday to make me believe there was crime committed. The language was coarse, but how was the notion of what do you give me if I give you this a crime in politics. Obviously if he asked for cash for his pocket, he's got a problem.

But doesn't government, or at least politics, run on quid pro quo? How are they going to prove criminal conduct here--and if saying I'll give your guy a job if you get my guy a job is a crime, well, the easiest and cheapest thing to do would be to put fencing and barbed wire around the Capitol building and call it the latest federal penitentiary--cause they ALL do it.

(For instance, didn't reports say Hillary would consider bowing out of the primary race if O agreed to help her raise funds to pay off her debt?)

Inauguration Day

2008-12-08T05:25:00.002-05:00

The Constitution originally provided for Inauguration Day to occur on March 4th--which gave the members of the Electoral College plenty of time to cast their ballots (GW actually wasn't sworn in until April 30, 1789.)

Of course, a trip across the ocean back then would take a Man O' War a month.

The 20th Amendment to the Constitution changed the day to January 20-- so FDR was sworn in for his 2nd term on January 20, 1937. The four month lapse during the economic crisis of 1933 was the impetus for the change.

The Congress we elect in November takes office on January 1st.

So should the new Presidential term.

With modern technology, with the pace of the modern world, with the need to keep the country moving, we can no longer afford almost a three month inter-regnum. Let the President be sworn in on New Year's Day and get to work on the 2nd.

Right now, everyone is kind of waiting, waiting, waiting for President Obama. For those of us old enough to remember, it is reminiscent of when the British declared war on Argentina over the Falklands, then took weeks to amass and send their Navy. It was surreal--and so is this interminable waiting period.

I understand he needs a bit of time to catch his breath, pick a Cabinet, etc. But enough is enough.

The New Year should start fresh--fresh resolutions, fresh Congress, fresh President.

Especially in hard economic times, let's not forget this about American business-- the rules matter, but not as much as stability. Americans can adapt to most circumstances--higher taxes, lower taxes, tax breaks for this, not that, regulation, no regulation. We adapt. But uncertainly--that's the killer.

Until businesses know what the rules for 2009, 2010 and on will be, everyone is going to stay hunkered down.

The same goes for foreign affairs.

People are looking to President Obama, but because he's not in yet, all he can answer are questions about whether he will smoke in the White House, what does he think about Richardson's freshly-shaved face, and other issues of great import.

January 1st.

Let's get to work.

W, AIDS & Africa

2008-12-05T09:39:00.003-05:00

Daughter-the-Elder sent along this article from RealClear Politics- a good and fair point about W and Africa.

They Won't Give Him Credit

Excellent article. For all his faults and failures, and I acknowledge as many or more than most do, W has done right on this issue.

Pres. O & Printing Money

2008-12-03T07:29:00.003-05:00

Watched Pres. O's appearance with the Governors yesterday. Impressive.

Two things he said struck a chord. I know the people in the room heard the first--I hope they heard the second as well.

The part the Governors heard that they liked is that Pres. O wants to borrow a whole bunch a money and send it the Governors for roads and bridges and other large projects. As I wrote last January, I think that's an acceptable way to try to move the economy, especially if we're doing it with borrowed money.

The part I was happy to hear, that I know no one in that room bothered to listen to, and the part I'll believe when I see, was when he said that we have to get through this, but we can't keep printing money.

Finally.

These past three months have been a blur. Essentially we went from a capitalist society to a socialist one in about a week without anyone firing a shot. Some of that can be undone in the future when it fails, as it will.

But hyperinflation caused by an explosion of federal debt is something our economy cannot withstand. People I trust are saying that right now this massive borrowing is OK because we are in a deflationary spiral. Fine. But we can't keep pumping indefinitely, and my fear is that once politicians (or individuals, for that matter) get a taste of spending without limits, it is almost impossible to stop. Think crack or meth.

The metaphor that keeps popping in my mind is a small car facing a huge hill. It's necessary to put the pedal to the floor to grind the car up the hill. But, if you don't let up after you crest the hilltop, you are going to speed yourself into a ticket or a crash on the downhill.

Pres. O's statement yesterday was the first indication that any Dem gets it-- let's hope he can ease the accelerator at the right time.

Hillary, Secretary of State

2008-12-02T06:33:00.003-05:00

I guess he knows what he's doing, but I think President Obama may have underestimated the evil that is the Clintons. A few thoughts on the selection of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State:

1) I don't see how she's qualified, but then I didn't see how she was qualified to run for President. But I will admit she has the public demeanor to look the part, she's smart--or so everyone says- and she has had tea with the spouses of world leaders(loosely quoting Candidate Obama), so, sure, why not? Our last two Secretaries of State were lifelong career people in the international/security arenas-- I don't think Hillary's resume matches up. But it's Pres. O's appointment;

2) It gets her out of New York, so that's a big plus for us. Of all the Dems the Governor-by-hooker is considering, Caroline Kennedy is the most palatable to me. But once carpet-bagging Hillary is out of here, she ain't ever coming back--so that's a big win for us NYers'

3) Bill. Bill. Bill. He's the nine hundred pound redneck in the room.

Hillary couldn't control him.

Obama won't be able to control him.

Bill can't control himself.

The whole despicable Clinton machine will be in force, behind the scenes. They'll embarrass Pres. O if it helps Bill or Hillary--just ask John Kerry. Bill's inability to shut his mouth will hurt Pres. O, which would be good entertainment for us Red Minds, except that when people at that level play games people die and the country could be hurt.

4)If Hillary does lay claim to the "Clinton legacy", well, then, even including W a case can be made that Bill was one of the worst foreign policy Presidents ever. So are we going to get O's world view, or a Hillary-shaded one?

5) Pres. O is apparently infatuated with Doris-the-plagiarizer-Goodwin's account of how Lincoln named a cabinet of rivals. He must not have read the last several chapters wherein 3 of the 4 rivals didn't last a year, and where they proved to be both distractions and detractors--sound like Bill?

6) I thought Pres. O was all about change, about putting the last 16 years of bitterness behind us. Both Republicans & Obama supporters have to be at least puzzled, if not concerned, by Pres. O bringing the Bill & Hillary show back to DC.

7) And finally, I harken back to a piece I wrote back on April 17, 2007, when Hillary was a candidate and was talking about using Bill as an ambassador to the world:

Richard Gere has an arrest warrant out for kissing an actress at an event in India.
Which means Hillary, who is considering using her husband as an "Ambassador-to-the World" better think twice about sending him to India---if Gere is facing 3 months for just kissing a woman, you know ol' Bill will wind up on death row there.

Mumbai

2008-12-01T08:03:00.004-05:00

Simply terrible. Again, Muslim extremists have wreaked havoc on innocent people.

I don't know what Pres. O and SOS Clinton can or will do about this. But it feels like the Muslim world is creating a circle of victims about it--first, really, were the Israelis; then some European cities; then the Russians (Kosovo); then us; then Japan, Indonesia, England & Spain; now India. The list is longer than that, and unfortunately, growing.

How long will it be before it breaks down simply to this: Muslim v. non-Muslim?

Will this just bleed out for more decades? Or will some nation and probably not us, take the bait and engage the Muslims in a way that will make this truly WW III? India could do that. So could the Chinese.

Were it not for the oil, I imagine the entire region would be quarantined--nobody, especially no young men, in or out for any reason--business, tourism, education, etc.

But, 4 decades into this disaster, we still need their oil. Of course, with gas prices falling, it would not be unexpected for the US to abandon alternative fuels and run back to our SUV's.

I am forcing myself to stay optimistic despite what the world is facing--so I hope that the new administration will find a way at least not to make things worse-- and I certainly hope we really push towards energy independence,

Because the day is going to come when some nation is not going to stand politically correct, and will react violently against the entire Muslim world that breeds, supports, and enables these monsters. And when that happens, the first thing they'll hit are the ports, the pipelines and the refineries. If we are not prepared, shame on us.

Happy Thanksgiving All!!

2008-11-26T07:07:00.002-05:00

A Happy Thanksgiving to you all, and to all you hold dear.

Some Thanksgiving quotes I like:

Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence. ~Erma Bombeck

Thanksgiving, man. Not a good day to be my pants. ~Kevin James

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving. ~H.U. Westermayer

An optimist is a person who starts a new diet on Thanksgiving Day. ~Irv Kupcinet

Thanksgiving is an emotional holiday. People travel thousands of miles to be with people they only see once a year. And then discover once a year is way too often. ~Johnny Carson

There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all we Americans who are not self-made go back to the old home to eat saleratus biscuits and marvel how much nearer to the porch the old pump looks than it used to. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American. ~O. Henry

The funny thing about Thanksgiving, or any huge meal, is that you spend 12 hours shopping for it and then chopping and cooking and braising and blanching. Then it takes 20 minutes to eat it and everybody sort of sits around in a food coma, and then it takes four hours to clean it up. ~Ted Allen

Thanksgiving is so called because we are all so thankful that it only comes once a year. ~P. J. O'Rourke

Got no check books, got no banks. Still I'd like to express my thanks - I got the sun in the morning and the moon at night. ~Irving Berlin

I love Thanksgiving turkey. It's the only time in Los Angeles that you see natural breasts. ~Arnold Schwarzenegger

Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds. ~Theodore Roosevelt

Happy Thanksgiving all!

Friday Quickies

2008-11-21T00:17:00.000-05:00

...You know it's going to be bad when the economic reports on TV come on with a "crisis logo", and the theme song is Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'".

....You know things are bad when not only have illegal aliens started to go home, but they are smuggling Americans with them. "This is my friend Justin. He bought a house that was 5 times more than he could afford, then lost his job when Starbucks retrenched. I used to cut his lawn on Long Island. Now he cuts mine here in Tiaquilpa. Dios Bendice México!"

....I think as far as our 401k accounts are concerned, we are all racing towards a 5k. I stopped looking at my statements a while ago--not sure when I'll open the suckers again.

....I'm not sure if this is right or not--just something I've been kicking around in my head.

I think traditionally Republicans/conservatives have had more respect for the Presidency than liberals/Democrats have shown, which is why I think that while Republicans have opposed Democratic Presidents, they haven't detested them--with the exception of Bill-the-disbarred-lawyer.

In my lifetime: It was really the venom from the left that toppled LBJ, not from conservatives.

Liberals hated Nixon (see more below);

Liberals hated Ford for pardoning Nixon;

Nobody hated Carter (at least while he was President);

In fairness, most Dems opposed Reagan and Bush I, but the venom we've seen wasn't really there (for all of these, I'm excluding the nut cases on each side);

Republicans detested Clinton--but not because he was a Democrat.

Liberals have hated W from the hanging of the first chad.

So I think while Obama may face opposition from Republicans, I don't think he'll see the poisonous anger that liberals heaped on LBJ, Nixon, Ford and W.

As for Clinton, it was his blatant disrespect for the office that drove us over the edge. Selling the Lincoln bedroom; Monica; the bribes from the Chinese; the pardons; etc. etc.

Nixon lost the conservatives, who could have stonewalled like the despicable Congressional Democrats did with Bill, really when the tapes came out and the right was shocked by the gutter language Nixon used right IN THE OVAL OFFICE!!!

I've said it before, and I may be wrong, but I can't see President Obama disrespecting the office. There is a dignity to the man (and to people around him, like Tom Daschle); I would be absolutely shocked if he pulled any of the trailer-park sleaze stuff that Bill-the disbarred-attorney and his wife pulled.

....Speaking of Bill-- how ironic is it that the thing that might keep Hillary out of the State department is that her husband, a former President!, can't pass the vetting process!! Amazing.

....Instead of simply yelling at each other, I wish the talking heads on TV would actually think critically.

Republicans can rightly point out that Freddie and Fannie were defended vigorously by the Dems--but, damn it all, we controlled the House, the Senate and the Oval Office. We should have slammed the brakes on them.

Likewise, Pelosi and Reid and the rest are screaming about how the bailout money is being used, abused, etc.

Helloooooo. Idiots. YOU passed the legislation! YOU authorized the money! YOU can put on any restrictions you'd like. How in the world can the Dems get away with criticizing something THEY authorized?!?!

Is it just me, or does it seem like we've fallen down a hole, through a looking glass?

And, finally, a quote from the great Theodore Roosevelt:
The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole.

Detroit

2008-11-20T07:52:00.003-05:00

I think the thing that may be most troubling this economy is that even us arm-chair amateur pundits don't believe we know the answers--and certainly, the people in charge, and the people-in-charge-in-waiting, all also seem to be shrugging their shoulders and looking around.

Detroit? How can we bail them out?

Then again, how can we not?

Who knows?

In the end, though, if I was the person who had to make the choice, I think I would want management and the Unions to sit in a room and come out with a pre-packaged bankruptcy plan.

Let them come out with internal controls on executive compensation and restructure the pension plans and health benefits so that the cars can be made affordably. Balance the hurt among the suits, the workers, the retirees, the bond holders and the stockholders. If we have to toss in a few billion to fill the gaps, I would reluctantly do it--probably would save on the additional employment and health costs the government would wind up paying anyway.

But a straight bailout? I'm sorry, but that's pouring water onto sand.

Is it unfair that some guy retired at 50 and now can't look forward to 15 years of premium health insurance? Yeah. But remember, anyone who worked in Detroit in the last 40 years or so--anyone, at any level, participated in this collapse by making crappy cars.

The alternatives to bankruptcy, or the voluntary restructuring of the costs and debts, are either the loss of tens of thousands of jobs or the further piling on of debt for us, our children, grandchildren, etc.--and a further bailout when this horribly run industry comes begging again in a few years.

As Frank Borman said-- Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell. Neither works in the long run.

Detroit's problems were not caused by an unforeseen crisis; there was no 9/11 like event. Detroit's problems stem from the fact that for at least 40 years they have made bad cars.

Really, really bad cars.

And while the Great Bailout America Tour continues to roll on, it should nevertheless take a pass on these open hands. If for no other reason than the people who are asking for the money, the people upon whose judgment we are being asked to trust to wisely invest this money, these pompous morons, each took their own private jet from Detroit to DC. (And, by the way, how come none of the Union leaders were sitting with the CEOs?)

So bailout Detroit. Absolutely not.

I think.

Probably.

Tom's Two Hats

2008-11-19T14:30:00.003-05:00

On Monday, I wrote that I expected Tom Daschle, former Senate Majority leader and the real mover behind Obama's campaign from its infancy, to land a major job--and that Secretary of State certainly seemed in the running.

I was right in one way--wrong on two others.

Wrong--Not Secretary of State.

Wrong- He didn't land a major job--he got two.

Apparently he will be both the Secretary of Health & Human Services (a position which oversees a budget of over $700 billion dollars, or as we fiscally conservative people like to call it, one Socialist Bail-out unit) and the Health Care Czar, or, as we call it, Socializer-of-17%-of-our-Economy.

At least he's not another re-used Clintonite. I certainly hope somebody asks Attorney General-designate Holder about the Clinton pardons--particularly the shameful and blatantly corrupt payoff driven Marc Rich pardon.

Sorry, No Pity

2008-11-18T00:05:00.000-05:00

They say a fool and his money are soon parted.

This twit held on to hers too long:

Oregon Woman Loses $400,000 to Nigerian E-Mail Scam

SWEET HOME, Ore. —
An Oregon woman who is out $400,000 after falling for a well-known Internet scam says she wasn't a sucker or an easy mark.
Janella Spears of Sweet Home says she simply became curious when she received an e-mail promising her $20.5 million if she would only help out a long-lost relative identified as J.B. Spears with a little money up front.

Spears told KATU-TV about the scammers' ability to identify her relative by name was persuasive.

"That's what got me to believe it," She said. "So, why wouldn't you send over $100?"

Why wouldn't you? Because it is the oldest email scam on the 'Net, you idiot! How this woman (who is a nursing administrator, mind you) had the mental capacity to turn the computer on is beyond me.

Here's the worst part. She's out 400K and that's too bad--but think what she could have done with the money:

A year of Saturday meals for 1,194 elderly neighbors

A year's tuition at a local community college for 200 single moms

2,000 Chevy Cobalts to help GM stave off bankruptcy

Heck, she could have grabbed a great deal on Expedia.com and taken 200 friends for a week in Maui.

But instead this twit sent the money to Nigeria--in the hopes of garnering millions.

Especially in times like these, that's disgraceful.

Hillary For Secretary of State

2008-11-17T06:30:00.002-05:00

I mean, why not?

The change Pres. Obama seems to have meant thus far is swapping Bush people for Clinton people--though I expect that will change a bit as the rest of the appointments roll out.

I'm still waiting for Tom Daschle, who I understand to be the low-key, behind the scenes force behind the Obama candidacy from its infancy, to get a huge plum--and State would certainly make sense. And the way the Obama people have worked thus far, I assume Hillary's name is being floated, not as a serious notion, but as a courtesy.

Which is a bit dangerous if Hillary's people think that Obama has passed her over a second time.

But Hillary? Works for me.

Our foreign policy is going to be much different anyway--and at least this gets her out of New York!

New Tech, Smart, Smart, Smart

2008-11-13T08:41:00.003-05:00

Pres. Obama's "people" have announced that they will continue to utilize the massive database they created during the campaign to help Pres. Obama promote his agenda.

Brilliant.

His Facebook page has over 3 million supporters--which means with a push of a button he can get out a message instantly to 3 million people. Add to that the massive donor list, email list, text message list, etc. and he has a way to fly over the heads of the media directly to millions of supporters. No filter. Direct, one-on-one contact on a massive scale.

A couple of clicks, a call to arms and millions of people can be urged to contact their Senator or Representative and tell them to support the Pres.'s plans.

I am very afraid of where we are being led on this trip, but you have to be impressed with the tour guides. Republicans have got to play catch-up---and fast.

Why Us?

2008-11-12T06:02:00.002-05:00

Americans are not a super-race.

We hold no physical or mental attributes inherently superior to any other nation's peoples.

So why have we been able to forge the most diverse, the richest and still the freest society on Earth?

"When you've got nothing, you got nothin' to lose," so says the philosopher Joplin.

"Anyone desirous of success, should spend some time in introspection and contemplation". Sam Vada.

"Losing sucks." Anonymous.

Those of us in the Republican Party need to take a step back and let President Obama and his super-majority go to it. We need to take this time to look within, see what we believe, and then plan for where we want to go.

Power for power's sake is the goal of dictators and fools (that's my quote--feel to use it freely--unless I subconsciously stole it, in which case please tell me and I'll delete it!).

If the Dem's policies work and the country prospers etc., wonderful. But my life's experiences tell me otherwise--that giving something for nothing, while it works well for Santa and OK for us in the short-run, destroys the fabric and underpinnings of a free society. And works neither for the giver nor the receiver in the long run (see unfettered welfare, rent control, etc.).

Putting that aside, the first thing we need to reach a consensus on, because it is the most vital, is this:

What makes America uniquely America? What must we make sure stays alive as Change sweeps the land?

Is it the competition of a capitalist system? So should we worry about the Bailout America Tour leaving us socialist?

Is it the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution? So should we worry about the government dictating how we can hire, fire, insure, pay employees, learn, worship, who we can love...in esssence, how we live?

Is it our educational system?

Is it our streak of self-reliance?

Is it our demand for change itself, the notion that good enough isn't good enough for us?

Is it our willingness to help each other out?

Is it our tax system?

Is it our freedom of speech and dissent? So should we be worried about the Fairness Doctrine?

Is it our belief, now truly confirmed, that we are a caste-free society, and that anyone can become President?

Is it our justice system?

Is it our openess to diversity and immigration? Or is is our traditional requirement that immigrants by and large leave their old ways behind and graft onto the American tree of traditions, language and core beliefs?

What is it?

Some of the things I just mentioned will, quite frankly, be enhanced by the Dems.

Some will be hurt.

Some will be destroyed.

As conservatives and Republicans we first have to decide for ourselves which of these attributes got us here--and which we need to protect for a free and prosperous future.

Hug A Veteran

2008-11-11T06:57:00.002-05:00

"A man who is good enough to shed his blood for his country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards. More than that no man is entitled, and less than that no man shall have."

-Theodore Roosevelt, speech to veterans, Springfield, IL, July 4, 1903

Before Congress finishes its "Bailout America" tour, I hope they will allocate funds to make sure that our veterans are given, as TR said, a fair deal.

A couple of years ago there was a big push to fund a specialized physical rehab center for injured service men and women--I remember being ticked off that the amount needed to be raised was so small, especially in the face of the billions being spent (and profits being earned) in the war effort.

And, of course, all Americans were rightly upset over the deplorable conditions at Walter Reed.

In honor of Veteran's Day, I hope Congress and the Administration will take a hard look at what's going on, and make sure our people are well taken care of.

And if you are inclined to help personally, Charity Navigator has a list of Veteran's charities, with their efficiency rating: here.

And to my friends and loved ones who served, starting with my Dad and my Uncle Jim, a big, big thank you.

Happy Veteran's Day!

A Sign of the Apocalypse?

2008-11-10T08:24:00.002-05:00

Maybe we are nearing the end of days--I'm actually citing an article written by Donna Brazile.

That's right. Donna Brazile, Al Gore's campaign manager.

My daughter-the-elder passed this on to me. It's a good read:

A Letter to the Losers

"As someone who knows from experience, I write this open letter to all staff members, volunteers and supporters of candidates who lost last Tuesday.
No matter how much it hurts to lose a campaign, know that this, too, shall pass."

Friday Quickies

2008-11-06T22:43:00.009-05:00

...So we're watching a news report about the re-election of the recently convicted Sen. Stevens of Alaska, and the reporter intones that even if Stevens takes his seat, he probably won't be able to serve, as the Senate may banish him because "the Senate doesn't want felons sitting among them."

To which my lovely wife responded: "When did they put in that rule?"

....Lots of nasty post-mortems coming from and about the McCain campaign. Wonderful to watch the rats pointing fingers as they flee the grounded ship. I'll have more to say about Sarah Palin, but I think almost any criticism of her is completely unfair.

Phil Esposito was one of the greatest hockey players ever, an unbelievable scorer. Hockey fans used to say that Jesus saves, but Espo puts in the rebound.

Hockey humor-- nothing better.

Anyway, I heard Espo tell a story that during his time with the Blackhawks he was playing for a coach who hated him--and apparently the feeling was mutual. There came a game where the coach pretty much benched Espo, hardly playing him at all. With the Blackhawks losing by 4 or 5 goals, and less than a minute to go in the game, the coach finally told Espo to go on the ice.

Espo turned to the coach and asked him if he'd like him to win the game or merely effen tie it.

That's what happened to Palin.

I touted her as a VP candidate on February 1, and I'm a know-nothing peon. McCain, or some of these low-life staffers wielding the daggers, should have had her on the radar back then as well. They should have used February, March, April, May, and on to roll her out to the American public, if for no other reason than to give her some seasoning and gauge America's response to her.

Like Espo, Palin was tossed into a losing game way too late, and asked to do way too much. In a few short days she had to:

introduce herself to America
get across her very compelling storyline
energize a conservative base distrustful of McCain
learn on the fly how to deal with the partisan national media
raise funds for a lagging campaign
provide vitality to the campaign
draw and inspire crowds the Presidential candidate could not
and act as the traditional attack dog

Way too much to ask anyone to do in such a short period of time.

How different things would have been if this compelling woman would have been introduced to the American public back during the Spring as an energy expert--which she is. If her first introductions would have been low-key. as a surrogate for McCain on TV interviews, etc. talking about ANWAR and energy, people would have been saying, hey, did you catch that engaging, intelligent, attractive woman on Meet the Press Sunday? instead of their first impression being Tina Fey's "comedy".

How different would people have reacted to her nomination if only they would have had a chance to know her first?

....I say this as an Italian-American man, a group long considered a bastion of sexism: there is no one as sexist as a liberal female attacking a conservative female. The libs attacks on Palin were extraordinary. Her clothes. Her looks. Her time with her family. If some Joey Bada-bing had said half the stuff liberal women said about Palin, NOW would have torched his house.

....Very sorry to see Michael Crichton passed away. A simply amazing writing career-- Andromeda Strain, The Great Train Robbery, Jurassic Park, Sphere, Terminal Man, ER, Rising Sun--man. the list goes on and on and on.

The last book of his I read was NeXt, a truly thought provking book. He will be missed.

...As I write this both North Carolina and Missouri are too close to call, though Obama is ahead in Carolina, and McCain is ahead in Missouri. Not that it matters.

Still, there is an interesting twist: In Missouri, where McCain leads by 5,859, Nader received over 17,000 votes. If one assumes that Nader's votes would have gone to Obama, well, there went the state.

In North Carolina, Obama leads by 13,993, Bob Barr got over 25,000 votes. Again, one would think that those were McCain's votes.

Nader and Barr were thus spoilers in the two closest races.

....Conservatives are hungry for any silver lining in this mess. Jonah Goldberg, in a wonderful article in the NY Post, said:

Well, now the Democratic Party is for all practical purposes America's super-majority party. It has complete control of the presidency and Congress. It's time to put away childish things and govern.

If Democrats govern from the center, good for the country. If they govern from their instincts, good for the Republicans.

The other thought to brighten up a Red Mind's day: Unless something horrible occurs, Hillary's designs on the White House are O-V-E-R.

...We Republicans lost this election because we deserved to lose. Our President and our Congress failed to do the things we sent them to do.

We expected them to govern well--they failed miserably. Yes, the Dem's caused this house of cards to fall by promoting Fannie and Freddie, and brow-beating banks to lend to those who could never repay.

But we controlled the House, the Senate and the White House. We were supposed to stop that nonsense.

Republicans have always prided ourselves on the ability to govern. But see the FAA, the FCC, FEMA, the FDA, and on and on and on. Put Afghanistan and Iraq completely aside-- Bush and the GOP failed to enforce immigration laws, keep lead out of our kids toys, etc. etc.

And, perhaps worst of all, they spent like, well,...Democrats. And ran up huge deficits, to boot.

Why am I not as upset with Obama's victory as I might otherwise have been? Close your eyes and tell me who ran the country for the last 8 years. If you didn't know any better, you'd swear it was the Dems.

So who do we, as a party, have to blame? The media? Sarah Palin? Barney Frank? John McCain?

Uh, uh. Time to check the mirror, or as the great Theodore Roosevelt said:

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.

Sympathetic Joy

2008-11-05T06:57:00.004-05:00

Buddha taught the practice of "sympathetic joy", which is loosely defined as being happy for someone else's good fortune and happiness (the opposite of jealousy). Sympathetic joy is wonderful because it allows us to feel good, even when the source of the happiness isn't "ours".

Watching millions of Americans, with whom I agree on many core things but with whom I disagree on certain others, rejoice last night, made me smile.

I didn't vote for President Obama yesterday, but I came away proud to be an American, proud of how far we've come, proud of John McCain for his classy concession speech last night, and impressed and moved by the President-elect's acceptance speech, and especially his demeanor.

I most likely will disagree with President Obama in this space in the future. But as he has promised to be the President of us all, I make a promise to myself in this little space, for the little it is worth to anyone but myself-- I refuse to take the low, destructive, corrosive road so many liberals took after 2000. I will try to support President Obama where we agree, and to serve as part of the loyal opposition where we don't, but remembering always that as long as he respects his office, as I no doubt this solemn, thoughtful man will, I will respect it, and him, as well.

Sympathetic joy is a fun thing. Congratulations to my friends on the left.

I think I feel like much of the country feels this morning---President Obama set the tone last night. His speech was more serious than off-the-hook celebratory. It was a call to arms for this message:

It's time to get back to work.

Election Day

2008-11-04T07:12:00.002-05:00

I am a Republican Committeeman, so one of my duties is to open my polls, make sure our workers showed up, etc. I also bring the munchkins and muffins for all the workers, Republicans and Democrats.

Polls open at 6 am. I showed up at 5:30-- there were 5 people waiting. Unprecedented.

By 5:45 there were over 60 people waiting, excited to vote. Beyond unprecedented.

Nobody is excited about voting for McCain--these were Democrats and Independents, and probably a fair number of Republicans, who couldn't wait to vote for Obama.

I then went to vote at my local elementary school. Huge turnout for 6:10 am. I was the 19th person to cast a ballot in my A-K book--and only the 2nd Republican. This in a precinct that's 65% Republican.

I feel like a guy standing on a beach watching the Tsunami coming in.

Enjoy my liberal friends. This is the fourth time in my life I've seen this-- Johnson in '64 (OK I was only 6, but I remember that election, believe it or not!); Nixon in '72; and Reagan in 1984 (tho this really feels more like Reagan in 1980 as far as nationwide ideological shift).

My prediction, for what it's worth:

Obama: 377 Electoral votes.

Dem's pick up 9 Senate seats.

The House? Who can count that high?

Tomorrow starts the real battle for the soul of the Republican Party. Conservatives: saddle up.

Obama. President Obama.

2008-11-03T19:42:00.002-05:00

Here we sit on the eve of the election, and I assume that Barack Obama will win a sweeping victory tomorrow.

And while much of the credit goes to him and his campaign staff, who ran perhaps the best political campaign I have ever seen, I offer 3 other people whom I believe were responsible for this apparent victory:

Osama Bin Laden. Yes, Osama--stop throwing things at the screen, my liberal friends, and listen. I think that fifty years from now historians will view 9/11 as the watershed year for racial peace in America. I have written before, and I truly believe, that much of the white-black venom ended on that fateful day. I find in my daily life much more acceptance, much more collegiality among races than ever before--and I've heard this from others.

W. For two reasons--one apparent, the other maybe not so. First, with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, W has run the most inept administration in my lifetime. Forget Iraq. I'm talking that there isn't a federal agency that's working--FAA, FDA, Immigration, FCC, SEC--and on and on. It opened the door for any Democrat to win.

The second reason W was key is this: for all his other faults, no one can deny that W put in place perhaps the most integrated cabinet ever--and the fact that the last two Secretaries of State have been African-American helped America get used to the idea of an African-American at the highest reaches of power.

Powell and Rice didn't serve as Secretary of HUD--they held the most prestigious Cabinet position there is.

Finally, there is Hillary Clinton. For this I'll use a sports metaphor. You are a Giants fan. You hate the Cowboys. The Cowboys play in the NFC championship against say, Tampa Bay. You don't care one way or another about Tampa Bay, but you root hard for them to beat the hated Cowboys.

Now, two weeks later Tampa Bay is playing against the Jets in the Super Bowl. You ordinarily would root for the Jets--and you still might. But you rooted so hard for Tampa you have a soft spot for them.

That's what happened here. So many of us Hillary-haters rooted so hard for Obama,during the primaries, made the argument for Obama against the Clintons, forgave Obama his missteps in the face of the Clinton machine, that the wind was out of our sails by the time of the general election.

If you were dismissing Clinton's attacks on Obama for his relationship with Rev. Wright, how could you look favorably on McCain when he tries to use the connection?

You can't. Hillary effectively inoculated Obama for the general election. (And as an aside, this turned out to be a very clean campaign, relatively speaking. Of course there were sharp elbows--these people were running for President, for goodness sakes. But compared to other campaigns, it was very civil. The primary campaign, as it turns out, was much nastier and much more race-oriented.)

Get out and vote tomorrow. If you are a Republican like me, and the vote comes out the way we all expect it to, take heart in this: we will have, as a nation, taken a huge step towards making true the statement that anyone can be President of the United States. Of course, that statement won't be fully true until Sarah is elected President in 2016.

And that's something we all can be proud of.

Distance

2008-10-14T18:27:00.003-04:00

After Jesse Jackson told a World Policy forum that under Barack Obama "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" would lose some of their influence with Obama in the White House, and that "decades of putting Israel's interests first" would come to a close, Obama moved swiftly to distance himself from Jackson.

Wide receivers would like to put as much distance between themselves and cornerbacks as Obama puts between himself and his former friends and colleagues.

Let's see. By my count Obama has:

1) Distanced himself from his pastor and mentor of over 20 years, Rev. Wright, claiming he never heard the kind of inflammatory, and idiotic, statements that ooze from Wright like pus from a never-healing wound;

2) Distanced himself from his political mentor and financial backer, (and the guy who effectively bought the Obamas their house) the now-convicted Tony Rezko;

3) Distanced himself from his foreign policy advisers, one for meeting with Hamas, one for calling Hillary a monster;

4) Distanced himself from the man who threw his first fund raiser, and sat on boards with him, just because the public seems to be upset that the friend is an unrepentant terrorist (William Ayers);

5) Distanced himself from John Edwards;

6) Distanced himself from a military adviser over, again, statements which call into question Obama's commitment to Israel.

And now, Jesse Jackson.

How many more people will Obama jettison?

And, (rhetorical question): Will the media ever question Obama how these people came to be his friends and advisers in the first place?

In Their Own Words

2008-10-05T00:16:00.001-04:00

Rhetorical Question--Am I Crazy?

2008-10-03T07:42:00.003-04:00

All I am hearing from politicians running for office and a news media intent on scare, scare, scare, is that this is the worst economy ever, huge crisis, etc.

Anyone who says differently is shouted down as insensitive or stupid or crazy.

I know it's tough for some people out there-- no question. Some of it is cyclical, some of it is the fault of greedy businesspeople and incompetent, or worse, government officials. And some of it is our own fault.

In 1976 Jimmy Carter introduced the misery index,--add unemployment and inflation. (Many of us add to that interest rates for a more complete picture. For example, as bad as the "credit crisis" is being touted, when my wife and I purchased our home, money was so tight that, with perfect credit and 25% down, we had a choice of a 19% fixed rate mortgage or a 15 1/2% adjustable rate, a far cry from today's interest rates.)

Currently, inflation is at 5.4% (much of that being oil-related, which should now start to abate) and unemployment (before today's figures) is at 6.1%. See

That's a total of 11.5. Not good, I'll grant you.

But not the worst.

The highest the misery index reached at some point in recent Presidencies?

Truman: 13.63
Eisenhower: 10.98
Kennedy: 8.38
Johnson: 8.19
Nixon: 13.61
Ford: 19.9
Carter: 21.98
Reagan: 19.33
Bush I: 12.47
Clinton: 10.56

Today: 11.5

Now there are a lot of factors involved; some of those numbers were carry-overs from prior Administrations, some dealt with specific short-term crisis. Still, I offer these for perspective--simply perspective.

Everyone needs to calm down.

No matter how you look at it, these are NOT the worst of times. That doesn't make it any better for someone losing their home or job, I'll grant you. But the media and the election year hysterics are scaring people much more than they should--and with economics, that can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I just wish someone would come out and say that.

Approval Ratings

2008-10-01T08:07:00.001-04:00

Once again, I found myself leaving as a comment something I probably should have posted here--so I will. At Capital Gains & Games, the question was asked why, if the polls say people overwhelmingly don't want this bailout plan, did Congress' approval rating drop after it failed to pass it?

My guess:

Approval ratings may be dropping, not because they didn't pass the plan, but rather because people once again focused on how inept, inane and incompetent these people are.

Whether you are for or against the plan, the failure of the Congress, and especially the leaders on both sides of the aisle to explain what they were doing and to count votes to avoid the embarrassment of losing the vote has to lower any "esteem" you may have for these people.

Add to it the partisan nonsense of the Speaker, the abject lying by members about their former positions on issues such as regulation and Fannie and Freddie, and the general ineptitude shown by the members who couldn't explain their vote or answer simple questions, and you have a recipe for a further deterioration of their approval rating.

Quite frankly, I see W's ratings in the 20's and Congress' in the teens and I have to ask this question--who would have thought the President and Congress had that many family members?

Some Questions

2008-09-30T10:39:00.002-04:00

I left this as a comment on the wonderful site Capital Gains & Games-- I highly recommend it:

When I bought my house there was a credit crisis on--my choice, with excellent credit and 25% down was: 19% fixed or 15 1/2% variable rate.

1) If the credit markets have frozen up because of the bad debt on the books, why hasn't supply & demand shot the interest rates through the roof?

2) Why will getting bad loans off the books make banks more likely to lend money? Shouldn't they be wanting to make good loans now to generate income? What's going to change after the bad loans are removed--will the banks go back to making risky loans?

I'm simply confused. Forget PR-- I just don't understand at all what's going on.

(And re: the Mets-- the great thing about living in NY is that there is always the next sport--Mets gone? Let's Go Jets!)

And check out Rant & a Half!

Shea Stadium, RIP

2008-09-28T13:22:00.003-04:00

I wrote an article a few years back that was printed in USA Today magazine--not the newspaper, but the Journal of the Society for the Advancement of Education. I reprise it here on Shea Stadium's last day:

I TURNED Willie McCovey recently. (That's 44 for those of you who don't associate age with the numbers worn by ballplayers on their uniforms.) That's a big year to live up to.

When I was a kid, there were only a few occasions I went to the ballpark. We didn't have season tickets, or weekend season tickets, or even the popular Tuesday-Thursday-alternate Saturday season ticket plan. We needed a special occasion to go, and that in itself made those days and nights exceptional.

My brother and I each got to go to a game for our birthday. Johnny being a New York Yankees fan, we went to the Bronx for his; mine, a seat in the third deck at Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets. I'm Willie McCovey now, but I have no plans to go to the park for this birthday.

Birthday games had rules. They had to be on a Sunday. They had to be doubleheaders. Mom made bologna sandwiches, with mayonnaise that ripened nicely over the course of a few hours in the sun. We each were bought a hot dog, a Coke, and one ice cream. I do recall a couple of bags of peanuts: I'm sure there was more, but not much more. Certainly, the idea that a cap, pennant, or T-shirt might be coming home with us was nuts. We didn't even think of it, so it wasn't that we were disappointed. It simply was out of the sphere of possibility, as removed from our reality as a trip on the Queen Elizabeth or a visit with the Pope.

We always arrived early--very early. We got our money's worth. We saw batting and fielding practice, and then two games for the price of one. I loved those games. Although my mind would wander sometimes, it was during those Sunday afternoons that I came to appreciate the game and my father.

It's an old story that sons and fathers bond over baseball and, even in the roughest or most awkward of times, men can intergenerationally "talk baseball." I know this is true. Other than "I'm very sorry for your loss," the phrase most spoken by men at funerals is "How 'bout them Mets (or Yanks, or Cubs, or Sox)." I don't know what they do in locales where people seem less substantial, like California, or where major league baseball is so new that its roots haven't taken hold yet, like Tampa Bay, but in real cities, where baseball preceded the designated hitter, it is acceptable to talk baseball anywhere, anytime. I imagine that more than one father, at a loss for any other words as he is handing off his daughter to her groom at the end of the aisle, has whispered "Any score?" and heard his soon-to-be-on-in-law murmur "Mets. 3-2. Top six."

Sunday doubleheaders were wonderful. We picked out our birthday games as soon as the schedule arrived, usually as part of the comics page in the Sunday New York Daily News, which would print out the schedule in color. I got to go to "Johnny's game"; he got to go to mine. This gave us a chance to enhance our two-years-apart sibling rivalry--I rooted for whatever American League team was playing the Yankees, while he became the biggest San Francisco Giants or Pittsburgh Pirates or Cincinnati Reds fan in the world. Dad sat between us to referee.

The games were lazy and fun and hot and drifted along. Dad would point out players, telling us to watch how they adjusted--see where they're playing this guy; look at the fight fielder. You couldn't see this on TV--at home you only saw the standard over-the-pitcher's shoulder-from-center-field shot. Who knew there was all this action going on behind the mound? Going to a game and really observing is like having a view of backstage while simultaneously watching the actors on stage. In later years, I've enjoyed being at the game with semi-fans, or my wife or daughters, and saying, "Look at the shortstop. He'll hide his face, and flash an open mouth or closed mouth to the second baseman so he'll know who's going to cover on a steal." The rest of the inning will be an explanation of the open-mouthed thing. I love it, even if my audience just looks and says, "Oh ... yeah ... I see." Some don't understand, and that's okay. I didn't get a family trust fund; what I did get was lots of love, great doubleheaders, and the behind-the-glove signal. I wouldn't trade--unless, of course, we're talking about a really big trust fund.

At game's end, we piled into the station wagon, prayed that it would start, prayed that it would make it home, prayed that the traffic would let up so we could get home before the next dawn. The car was filled with taunts from the winner, cries of retribution from the loser, the occasional shove, and the not-so-occasional "Knock-it-off!" bellow from Dad. As a father myself, I look back at those days and wonder what in the world he was thinking. Even though the games were only two and a half hours or less, this was a door-to-door 10-hour day with two boys who, while they have grown to be as close as two brothers can be, didn't have much tolerance for each other as kids--in traffic; in the sun; back in traffic; those mayonnaise sandwiches doing their work; the ballpark hot dog helping out. There were times I'm surprised Johnny and I weren't left to wander home on the parkway. "Honest, hon," he could have said to my mother, "it's not that far of a walk."

My dad worked a while for Pergament, a home improvement and paint chain. I was young, maybe Ed Kranepool or Yogi Berra. He'd get the company box once a year. Oh my God, were those great seats--at Shea; yellow seats: eight rows behind the visiting dugout. You could see into the Mets' dugout and watch the players; heck, see the players! Best of all--they were night games. For a seven- or eight-year-old, night games meant only one thing--pure magic! Dad received four tickets. It was the three of us, and usually my grandfather. I saw the Mets beat Sandy Koufax of the very hated Los Ang ... actually, we could refer to them as the Dodgers, but I don't think we were allowed to mention the city they were playing in. Some wounds take a long time to heal, and the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn for California was still very fresh when I was Willie Davis (3) for my Dad. It still hasn't healed, and he is approaching Carlton Fisk (72).

I also went to one game a year with the Little League. It was meet at the school, in your team shirt and cap; get into a bus with 40 screaming kids; go to Shea; listen to screaming for two hours; then ride back home. The game was better watched on TV. I always knew it was missing something, even if I wasn't sure what it was. I know it now. When Johnny and I went to the game with Dad, it was special. It was our time--with our father. The stadiums were quieter then; the fans didn't need to have bad rock `n' roll blasted at them from crappy speakers between innings. They didn't need to cheer on the cartoon planes as they "race" around the scoreboard. Instead, people talked. Dad always found a guy or two around him, someone who knew the old Dodgers like Carl Erskine or Pee Wee Reese. It was somebody who also couldn't understand why the manager was leaving the pitcher in: He's already run the count three balls on the last four hitters. Look out; a double! Didn't I tell you?

Little League games, though, were anything but quiet. They were filled with kids who weren't watching the game. How could you not watch the game? Why are you here? Don't you know how special this is? Why would you open your mustard pack and run it along the back of the seats? My mother is going to kill me when she sees the stains on the legs of my dungarees. Why are you flicking globs of ice cream at us younger kids from the rows up above? Why do we have to go to the bus in the eighth inning--the game isn't over?! It was like watching kids skateboard on the altar at church.

The seats we had were the ones nobody else wanted, all the way up and all the way out. The players look mighty small from up there. At Shea, there are only a few seats in fair territory, way out in left and right field. Except for one player's four times at bat, I hated those games.

It seems like every game we went to with the Little League was against the Giants. Their star first baseman was McCovey, who was left-handed--and powerful. Luckily, we seemed to most always sit in right field, where a left-hander naturally hits home runs.

McCovey hit 521 home runs in his Hall of Fame career, the same as Ted Williams. I swear I saw at least 80 of them. Four times a game he'd get up--four moments that would stay with me, make the miserable day worth it and more. He always seemed to send one towards us, fair or foul, but more often fair. Glorious, towering arcs, streaking fight at us, upper deck, right field. It made those the best seats in the house. I still get shivers.

I don't enjoy baseball games much anymore. I don't have a young boy's knowledge of the players; there are too many teams; and I never was into rotisserie baseball, so I don't know who plays third for the Houston Astros. I guess that's normal with age and the pressing of other responsibilities. When my summer was spent playing whiffle ball with Johnny in the backyard, a "borrowed" shopping cart as the strike zone, I had the chance to memorize the hated Pirates' lineup, batting left-handed and right-handed as appropriate, making sure that their light-hitting shortstop didn't pop any over the house for a home run. Those games were fun, though they instigated as many fights as extra-base hits. Years later, when I pitched for my high school freshman team, the coach questioned my pitching form. "Your follow-through is okay most of the time, except when you have two strikes on the batter. What gives?" I replied, "Simple, Coach. Whenever I struck my brother out, he threw the bat at me. So when I throw a pitch to a guy with two strikes, I just naturally duck." Not surprisingly, I didn't play varsity.

It's funny how it goes. When we were limping into the parking lot in that old station wagon, I was aware of the car, thankful it got us there. Now I zip into the lot with a nice, expensive, middle-age-appropriate vehicle and I don't think of it at all. When there was one "Game of the Week" I rarely missed it, even on sunny Saturdays. Now, cable brings me dozens of games I skip through on my way to the Food Channel or a movie. I get tickets when I want and sit in great seats, but there's no rush of adventure, like when I used to spend hours picking out just the fight doubleheader, or thrill like that first night game.

Today, I find the whole at-the-game experience loud, nasty, and money-grubbing, like some kind of high-tech, amplified Persian bazaar. I appreciate very much the games I go to with my dad, wife, and girls, for the time I spend with them. However, with yelling to them to be heard over the blaring, "We will, we will rock you" music in the second inning, even though there are no men on base; cringing at some drunk's obscenity-laced diatribe against their fight fielder, our third baseman, or the beer vendor; surviving through a three-hour-plus get-in-the-damn-batters-box-and-hit marathon; or watching some steroid-filled millionaire stand in the box and preen after hitting yet another meaningless home run, it just isn't the same. I guess that's the kind of thing you say when you reach Willie McCovey.

Friday Quickies

2008-09-26T12:07:00.004-04:00

....Don't know much about history. Don't know much biology. Don't know much about a science book. Don't know much about the French I took.

But I do know that one and one make two.

And that this bailout doesn't add up.

Do we need something? Pretty obviously. But do we need $700 billion?

Don't know.

And my biggest problem is that there is not a single person I've seen yet whom I trust.

Think about it. Is there anyone who is talking whose word you can honestly count on?

As much as the nation is endangered by the lack of confidence in our financial institutions, this decades' long warfare, the Bork-inization of American politics, has destroyed our confidence in our political institutions. At the end of the day, that is the most serious crisis, I do believe.

....Have to agree with George Will that McCain looks foolish, and Obama is appearing the more cautious, the more grounded, the more Presidential candidate.

Still, when there is a serious debate about whether the first term Alaskan governor or the Democratic Presidential candidate is more ready to lead this country, you know there is something very, very, wrong.

....I like Sarah Palin. I think she's wonderful. But please, no more comparisons between her experience and that of Teddy Roosevelt's.

By the time TR, a Harvard graduate, was elected Vice-President, he had already served as a reformer in the New York State Assembly; served as Assistant Secretary to the Navy (a big deal position back then); was a war hero; had successfully served as head of the federal Civil Service; and was a Police Commissioner of NYC (probably bigger even then that the Alaska National Guard is today). He was also a noted historian and naturalist, and had written several books. Not to mention Governor of a, ahem. a real state.

Again, I like Sarah, and I think she is just as ready to run the government as Obama is-- which, I will admit is scary.

But neither is a TR.

....I think the Mets are trying to kill me. Seriously. Kill. Me.

....I agree with the Democrats about executive compensation in this bailout--you can't take billions of taxpayer's dollars for the company you screwed up and take millions for yourself. No way. Frank Borman, former astronaut and, ironically, President of an eventually bankrupt Eastern Airlines once said that "capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell".

To stay within the Catholic metaphor, we shouldn't forgive these companies their sins without exacting some penance.

....And, finally, a quote from the great Theodore Roosevelt:

"We demand that big business give the people a square deal; in return we must insist that when anyone engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right he shall himself be given a square deal."

-Letter to Sir Edward Gray, November 15, 1913

The Lobster Chronicles

2008-09-13T10:14:00.006-04:00

When on vacation, I try to pick up a book by a local author, or one that is set in the area. My wife and I took a few days last weekend and went up to New Hampshire. Although we went for the Hampton Beach seafood festival, we found two gems--Portsmouth, NH and Linda Greenlaw's "The Lobster Chronicles".

Portsmouth was exactly the type of town we like to visit-- lots of small shops, a college-town feel, coffee shops with sidewalk tables--the downtown quad felt like a piazza- and good restaurants, both fancy and homespun.

Linda Greenlaw was the real-life captain characterized in "The Perfect Storm" by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. Her book, "The Lobster Chronicles" has been around a while, but it was "new to me"-- and it was suberb. Describing a season of lobstering from the small Maine coastal Island where she grew up, Greenlaw is funny and poignant and unfailingly interesting.

The book combines lobstering and life on a small island and a 40-ish woman's search for a mate and happiness. Her voice comes across with such intelligence and grace, it is impossible to believe she has trouble finding a companion, but she is brutally frank about it. Still, this is an ode to life on an island many of us here on the over-crowded Long Island dream of-- a place where there are about 70 year-round residents, a place where traffic and congestion are as foreign as peace and quiet are here.

Excellent read. I highly recommend it.

Sarah Palin!

2008-08-30T12:04:00.002-04:00

So back on February 1st I said:

Republicans? Less to choose from, I think, and no person who challenges a Democratic stronghold (except maybe Rudy, but I can't see that happening).

My out-of-the-box choice?

Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. see Friday Quickies, 2/1/08

I like her, and I like what I've seen so far-- except....

I know McCain wanted a "surprise" choice. And the surprise knocked the afterglow of Obama's speech right off the screen. But the last surprise choice looked great on paper, and proved to be a disaster--Dan Quayle.

I only wish McCain would have trotted Palin out weeks ago. Let her do the national talk shows; let her give some surrogate speeches on his behalf, much like Gov. Pawlenty did the last month or so.

Then we'd know better if she's really ready.

From her opening speech, it sounds like she is. But when the networks were looking for some B-roll video to show of her, all they could find was an interview she did with Glenn Beck--which is seen by about 6 people. No Meet the Press, no Larry King, no FoxNews. It wouldn't have been hard to book her for any of those spots-- dealing with energy, Alaska drilling, wasteful spending/earmarks, her kid going to Iraq, or how she's handling a Downs syndrome new born.

All compelling stories, all relevant for America today.

The Obama campaign is the tightest, best run campaign I've ever seen. McCain's campaign, while better than it was, continues to show flashes of the incompetence we've suffered the last 8 years. And that concerns me.

Sarah Palin? Everything I've seen so far makes me stand and applaud. I just wish we'd have seen a bit more before now.

18

2008-08-18T20:43:00.004-04:00

College Presidents have come out for lowering the drinking age--make that the legal drinking age-- back to 18.

As a father who just dropped off his 18 year old daughter at college, I can not agree more.

First of all, you can join the Army and vote at 18, and those are two things you shouldn't have to do sober.

Seriously, 21 is nonsense. Any law that a free people overwhelmingly disobey and hold in abject contempt should be changed-- that is one of the tenets of a free society. (This argument holds for marijuana as well.) Is there an American alive who waited until 21 to drink? Are all of our citizens under the age of 42 criminals?

I know MADD thinks that the higher age works. It doesn't. Education has worked, stiffer penalties have worked, greater publicity has worked, and the sea-change in societal acceptance of drunk driving, brought about in great part by MADD, has worked.

But the higher age? Nope. Kids are still drinking, just fewer of them are driving drunk. That said, still too many Americans, of all ages, continue to drink and drive, something that I just can't fathom.

The drinking age should be lowered. There is not a politician in office who doesn't have a kid who drank at 18--they are just too hypocritical, and too cowed by MADD to do the right thing. And that's a shame.

Brooklyn Water Works 1

2008-08-05T14:24:00.003-04:00

Schoolhouse Green, August 4, 2008

2008-08-04T23:07:00.002-04:00

Sunken Meadow, 7/31/08

2008-08-01T13:11:00.000-04:00

Where Am I?

2008-07-08T14:21:00.001-04:00

I started a literary reading series last summer--every Monday night, June , July & August. I find that it takes not only my time, but my "creative" juices, such as they are.

See Summer Gazebo Readings.

But I'll be back as soon as something ticks me off enough to head back to the computer--or the summer ends, whichever comes first!

If I Were King: Energy Edition

2008-06-23T08:38:00.000-04:00

I've been playing this out in my head for a while now, and I've posted various pieces of it over the years--indeed, long before gas prices took off.

Here's what I would like to see done as a comprehensive energy policy:

1) Standardize gasoline formulations. Right now there are several different sets of gasoline formulations throughout the US, all designed to help meet EPA Clean Air standards. The problem is, given our limited refinery capacity, oil companies have to make guesses about regional demand--and the cost to revamp the refineries to produce different formulations impacts our prices at the pump. Congress should immediately standardize US gasoline formulations.

2) We haven't built any new refineries in the US since Carter was President. We have to authorize the immediate construction of at least 2 new refineries, preferably in areas away from the existing ones, so that the next hurricane doesn't send us into an economic tailspin.

3) We have to immediately fast-track the siting and construction of nuclear power plants-- at least the 45 that McCain is calling for, probably many more. (France gets 70% of its power from nuclear.) If we are going to shift transportation and home heating away from oil, then we will need the additional electric capacity that only nuclear can provide us.

4) We need to use solar power, our modern day manna from heaven, to break away from carbon based fuels. If we could "find" $165 billion for a BS tax refund, we can find similar funds to finance solar fields and solar panels for residences and businesses. The more units we install, the faster the costs will come down, and the more efficient they will be made--that's the way American technology and business works. Start spending $165 billion per year on solar installations and see what our minds will create.

5) We should set a standard for miles-per-gallon for new vehicles--say 100 mpg. Any new vehicle sold below that standard will be taxed $X per mpg, increasing as you go below 50 mpg, then again below 25 mpg. We can phase the tax in over 3 years or so, to give manufacturers a chance to alter their production. But the point is that if you are driving a vehicle getting 15 mpg, you are hurting the nation far beyond the cost of the gas. We need to be energy independent.

Taxing new vehicles is better than adding a tax to the gas itself--which only hurts businesses and individuals. And by taxing only new vehicles, we avoid any huge impact on the working poor.

6) We need to drill for more oil here in the short run, and expand credits for new production. You can't make the oil companies the villains, penalize them for providing us the product on which we are addicted, and expect them to continue to produce it. Life doesn't work that way.

7) We need to subsidize the electric companies to help them retrofit their plants that use oil, as opposed to coal, to generate electricity (about 1 1/2% of our capacity) and to upgrade their delivery system. If more cars turn to electricity for power, we are gong to need more power generated through the electric grid--and that needs to be upgraded badly.

8) All new construction needs to have a renewable energy component, and a significant increase in energy-saving technology--both active and passive-- installed. Solar panels, energy efficient appliances, insulation, windows, motion-sensitive lighting, CFL fixtures-- and more. We may need to have national building code requirements.

9) We need a cluster of smaller projects as well--things like converting all stop lights to energy saving LEDs instead of bulbs, re-insulation of homes and businesses, design of TV's and computers so that they don't draw energy even when they are "off". More recycling. Better traffic controls and patterns.

Shifting away from oil gives us several benefits-- it should lower our carbon emissions, which should please the global warming crowd. It will lessen our dependence on foreign sources, decreasing the likelihood we will need to send our armed services into harm's way to protect our energy suppliers--which should have the support of military families and their supporters. It will require massive use of our technological know-how and resources, which is great news to Silicon Valley,and the next generation of scientists and venture capitalists.

We can substantially reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, and especially on foreign oil, but it will take a concerted effort involving pieces that not everyone would like. If there was a simple answer, we'd have found it. But do we have the political will to get it done? I hope so. I've sat on gas lines in my lifetime, and I'm watching now how we cater to petty dictators, and allow nations like Iran to develop nuclear weapons, all because we need their oil. I hope my grandchildren won't have to.

Unfortunately, the way modern American politics works, instead of looking at a comprehensive package as a whole, individual constituencies will attack the portion they detest, and something like this would likely never pass. Still, I don't know how else we shift this economy onto more solid ground then we are on--at least until a depression strikes us down.

Hillary to Drop Out

2008-06-05T10:13:00.001-04:00

ding dong

Pension Reform?

2008-05-05T06:42:00.004-04:00

People in New York, particulary on Long Island, don't ever get it when we read stories about the need to put more money into education.

Latest example why? The list of the top ten recipients from the New York State Teacher's Pension system just came out.

Number One? James Hunderford, who receives $316,000 per year.

And guess what? He's only 64 ...and he's back working for another Long Island school district at the bargain rate of $200,000 per year.

The two school districts he worked for, by the way, are considered mediocre-to-average by Long Island standards, so it's not like this guy turned around a troubled district, or shephered the Harvard of Long Island.

But there are no reforms needed in education, are there?

Cyrus Follow Up

2008-05-02T16:42:00.002-04:00

My post on Miley Cyrus generated some heated comments between my friends. Here's my comments on those:

1) First, I wasn't trying to say that liberals support child pornography. What I meant was that when faced with a situation where an "artist" crosses the lines of generally accepted civil decency, it is virtually always liberals who rush to the defense. For example, the infamous "Christ in a Bucket of Piss" and the defecation-Madonna drew widespread criticism, but there was a legion of liberals who cried "McCarthyism" and who came to the defense of the "artist".

A quick Google of blogs supports my point-- there are quite a number of defenders of Liebowitz, and while I can't tell the political leanings of all of them, many have Impeach Bush or pro-Hillary/Obama messages on their sites.

Liberals have shown a reluctance to draw critical lines when it comes to art. Rightly or wrongly, I think that is a true statement.

2) I will grant everyone that it is also true that the Right has no lock on morality, nor do those who call themselves religious, of any affiliation. My point, made obviously inarticulately, was that there is a group of people in this country who make money off exploiting children, by peddling sex and violence to children, by foisting onto our children video games, TV shows, movies, music lyrics, etc. that are full of hate, violence and age-inappropriate sexual content.

It is not just liberals who are doing it-- I'm sure there are many registered Republicans who reap the financial benefit of this garbage-- it's just that liberals have traditionally provided the intellectual cover for it. And I think it is also fair to say that the vast majority of the Hollywood establishment are Democrats.

3) I have said many times and I repeat here, that I think that virtually nothing should be censored from adults. I see no reason why the Sopranos, or Sex in the City could not have appeared on network television. My problem has been the lack of labeling, and the inappropriate placement of shows and promos for shows. See prior post.

4) As for parents just shutting the TV off-- simply impossible. Inappropriate material is thrust at our children (I include teens in that category) through too many venues. Unless we all become Amish, there is no way to shield our children from it all. See prior post.

5) Lastly, Buck asked me my opinion as to whether America is a Christian nation.

I don't know. I have to think about it, quite frankly.

I know that the word God does not appear in our Constitution, a fact I personally am very proud of.

And clearly our laws are based on the Judeo-Christian ethic to a great extent.

And I know that when the Founding Fathers were talking about Christianity, they weren't including Mormons, Quakers or Catholics, by and large.

Still, until I formulate my own opinion, I think the best I can do is reprint a bit of a post from 3 years ago which contained an exchange from "Meet the Press" I found fascinating:

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Lieberman, when you hear political leaders, religion leaders say, "America is a Christian nation," as a Jewish American, how do you feel?

SEN. LIEBERMAN: I hear it this way, and this may be a companion piece to what Reza has just said. This is a country founded by Christians, a majority of whose citizens are Christians. But going back to the premise I spoke to before, those rights to life, liberty and a pursuit of happiness, which we have as the endowment of our creator, have been given to everybody. So though this is a nation that--the majority of which is Christian, I will say to you as a Jewish American that I believe in the 5,765 years of Jewish history, there has never been a country, other than Israel during certain times of its history, which has given Jews more freedom. The same can now be said of Islam and Buddhism and Hindus, etc., etc., etc. That's the glory of this country and, frankly, the grace and gift of the Christians who founded the country and who continue to be the majority within it.

And incidentally, I think this is an important message for us to convey to the rest of the world, because when--those rights that were in the Declaration of Independent, we didn't say that only Americans got this endowment from our creator. That's a universal declaration of human rights. And the best encouragement to people in the Islamic world outside of America, that we're not about Christianizing the rest of the world, is what's happened here in the United States of America. Everybody's got a right to choose. This is about freedom. And I'm very heartened by what Reza has said, and I do want to say that this war on terrorism, our enemy, which is not Islam--It is extremist Islamic terrorists--we are facing the first theologically based enemy in a long time. This is a theological war by a small group of Muslims, but they are inviting a reaction from the majority of Muslims, who Reza speaks for, and I think in the end, there is great hope in that for all of us."

Friday Quickies

2008-05-02T06:01:00.002-04:00

.....Been as busy as I ever have been, compounded by the time I have to take off next week for Daughter-the-Elder's college graduation-- a truly proud and happy Daddy event.

So busy, in fact, that I haven't read my own blog in days. My last post engendered a surprising flurry of comments, some I fear that may have caused ill feelings between my friends. I certainly hope not.

In fact, I haven't read the comments yet--just scanned them, which was enough to get a flavor of the tenor of the conversation. (Benny--bust a nut? Almost caused me to spit-take coffee on my computer.) I will read all the comments this weekend, and make any comments at the end of the last post.

We've been a civil group of people holding markedly varied views on life, politics and the world. I hope this remains a fun place for you all to come, stand on the virtual soapbox and voice your opinions.

In the end, when faced with an uneasy situation, I find myself reacting as most American men do, and thus I have one final comment on the whole Miley Cyrus controversy and all of your comments:

How about them Mets?

....Seems to me Obama used Rev. Wright to give him, Obama, some legitimacy in the Chicago African-American scene at the start of his career. It must have worked well, opened some local doors, and helped Obama get started.

Too bad for him that Rev. Wright came straight out of Central Casting, perfectly playing the part of the angry black radical who causes fear and loathing in white America.

Worse still for Obama is the fact that Wright chooses to ignore or downplay legitimate grievances that exist, and instead continues to espouse idiotic theories about AIDs, 9/11 and white-government conspiracies.

There is no way Obama didn't know that Wright believed this garbage --and given her prior statements, there is a question in my mind how much of it Mrs. Obama buys into-- but once he made his deal with the devil there was no way Obama could have left the Church without undermining his local base.

So I give Obama credit for handling this situation, but he takes a hit for lying about not knowing what Wright was espousing.

....By the way, think Hillary and Barack would like to get Al Gore to stick Bill and Rev. Wright on an Arctic ice floe for the balance of the contest?

.....Great story hitting all the morning shows. A college kid hits a homer, but rips up her knee rounding first. If helped by her teammates, she has to be declared out. So what happens? The opposing team picks her up and carries her around.

Huge thumbs up to Mallory Holtman of Central Washington State, the first baseman who came up with the idea.

An excellent Friday morning feel-good story:

...And finally a quote from the great Theodore Roosevelt:

Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage.

Miley Cyrus

2008-04-29T06:53:00.006-04:00

What is it about our entertainment industry that it insists on peddling porn and debasing humanity at every turn?

No doubt the typical knee-jerk reaction by America's liberals will be that art is art, and we conservatives are too stupid and too uptight to "get it". The word "McCarthyism" will no doubt fly soon, though in fact the only place true McCarthyism is currently practiced on a regular basis is on our uhber-liberal college campuses.

Annie Liebowitz is a pornographer. This time she did it with a 15 year old known for being "squeaky clean"--thus making her a perfect target for this type of exploitation. "Innocence" may be the only dirty word known to "Hollywood".

Ah, peddling sex to children and through children. What a wonderful way to make a living. I hope Dante was right and the circle of hell set aside for America's entertainment executives, directors, producers, etc. is an especially hot one.

For prior examples, see Brittney Spears, virtually every PG-13 movie, teen-targeted music and TV show, and a prior post.

Giving

2008-04-24T00:05:00.001-04:00

Now that the candidates have all filed their tax returns, I have to say I am impressed with all of them on one point: all three are generous givers to charity.

I know the more cynical of us might say, hey, giving to a charity is a great way to garner loyalty and support from the people involved in that charity, and to that extent, the donation is merely a politician's business expense.

Still, in a land that is the most generous in the world (Americans give 1.7% of our GDP to charity, the highest ratio of any nation) I think it is important that our leaders join in the effort.

I recall that Al Gore, when Vice-President, was severely, and properly, criticized for only giving $353 to charity on $200,000 in income in 1998. And I know that the Obamas gave a relatively paltry amount (less than 1% of their income) through 2004. Still both Gore and Obama gave larger contributions in later years.

The Clintons and John McCain are also to be applauded for their contributions, which were sizable both in amount and in percentage of their incomes.

That said, in 2006 we Americans gave away over $295 billion dollars to charities. What is needed is some insight into how the charities use these funds. I truly believe the entire industry needs a little sunshine-- there is many a scandal hiding behind the doors of charitable foundations, religious organizations, and other non-profits.

I don't want government interfering with how these organizations operate--I do want to see some transparency in their operations. We give too much, too willingly, as a nation not to know where the money is going, and how it is being spent.

Mets 54 Strikes, Phillies 52 Strikes

2008-04-23T11:11:00.003-04:00

Like a baseball announcer who reports the results of a game based on the number of strikes each pitcher threw, instead of the runs scored, the Mainstream Media insist on reporting results of primaries (and general Presidential elections) based on total votes, instead of what really counts--delegates (or, in November, Electoral College votes).

Who cares that Hillary received more votes in Nevada or Texas--Obama received more delegates in each state.

And last night, true to form, the buzz was all about Hillary's 10% victory.

Which is totally irrelevant.

In case you haven't seen it elsewhere, here are the true results of yesterdays' Pennsylvania primary: Hillary received a net gain of 6 delegates.

6.

Obama still is ahead by 162 pledged delegates, meaning Hillary would need to win another 27 Pennsylvania's to tie him.

And there ain't 27 Pennsylvania's left.

By the way, check out Disbarred Bill's latest expletive deleted explosion/lie. If there is a lower life form than Bill Clinton (OK, maybe Howard Wolfson), I've never seen one.

Do They Bowl On Alpha Centauri?

2008-04-22T08:37:00.003-04:00

Stephen Hawking, one of the most truly amazing human beings to grace this planet, speculated that there probably is life elsewhere in the Universe.

He noted that there are three options as to why we haven't heard from anybody: the first is we are alone; the second is that they advanced technologically to the point they blew themselves up. Hawking said he prefers the third option, that

"Primitive life is very common and intelligent life is fairly rare," he then quickly added: "Some would say it has yet to occur on earth."

In a related story, both the Obama and the Clinton campaigns announced that their candidate was the only one who could relate to truly alien cultures, thus reaching out to intergalactic primary voters, and, of course, listeners of Air America, the "progressive" radio network.

Jimmy Carter Meet Jack Nabors

2008-04-21T07:55:00.002-04:00

Jack Nabors was a pitcher for the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics. He set the record for the most consecutive losses in a row-- 19.

And now, with his nonsensical Hamas venture, Jimmy Carter extends his string of being wrong about foreign affairs, threatening Nabors' dubious record.

I don't know if I can name them all, but the biggies for Carter include Iran, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and Korea.

The next President would do well to take away the man's visa and give him a hammer. At least when he hits the wrong nail then, he only hurts himself.

Texas Polygamy Case

2008-04-17T07:34:00.002-04:00

Short question: We are seeing tons of coverage about the children taken from the Texas compound. And now, in a media blitz, the mothers of the children are all over the news.

Putting aside any other comment or query, I have this question:

Where are the fathers of these children? We haven't seen any. We haven't heard from any.

And the media isn't even mentioning them.

Inaction & Insincerity

2008-04-15T21:27:00.004-04:00

The Pope has hit U.S. soil, and finally, more than 16 years after the stories of the first pedophile scandals broke, and more than 6 years after the extent of the cover-ups was exposed, we have a sort of apology.

The problem is this Pope, while a Cardinal and now as Pope, has consistently hidden pedophiles and especially their Church-hierarchy protectors, from justice. Exhibit One is the despicable Cardinal Law who, thanks to Pope Benedict, serves in a position of great honor at the Vatican, instead of as an inmate in a U.S. jail.

“Our love must not be a thing of words and fine talk. It must be a thing of action and sincerity" (1 John 3:18).

If this Pope were sincere, he would act, not talk. And all of those involved in secretly shipping predators around from parish to parish to prey on the Church's most devout and innocent would be banned from the Church--not coddled and supported for the rest of their lives.

This scandal has cost the church over $2 billion thus far. Catholics should remember that a portion of their weekly tithe, however small it may be, goes to put food on the plate, and golden robes on the back, of Cardinal Law and his brethren.

The Pope is Coming

2008-04-13T17:24:00.002-04:00

Many American Catholics have been waiting for years for a Pope--this one or the prior-- to speak out about the unspeakable acts inflicted by priests on children, and moreso about the reprehensible way the Church hierarchy dealt with its pedophiliac priests.

The stain of that scandal, his refusal to handle it--indeed, his protecting and rewarding of criminals such as Cardinal Law and his assistants-- should follow the memory of Pope John Paul II forever.

As for this Pope, there hasn't been this much excitement about an ex-Nazi coming to New York since Kurt Waldheim became Secretary General of the United Nations.

Friday Quickies

2008-04-11T00:05:00.001-04:00

...I wrote yesterday of my distaste for the Olympics. On second thought, maybe if they combined some of the sports I might find them more interesting.

How about combining archery with the pole vault-- see if they can nail the suckers before they clear the high bar?

Taikwando and gymnastics? See who can kick the head right off one of those little anorexic pixies?

Fencing and trampoline?

Wrestling and water polo?

....Bob Barr is considering a third party candidacy against John McCain. Now I'm no huge fan of McCain, but Barr? It's men like Barr, and Trent Lott and Tom DeLay that cost the GOP the Congress and the moral authority in this country.

As they say, not enough bad things can happen to a man like Barr.

....Watching this John Adams HBO series makes me hope they do an in depth story on the life of Alexander Hamilton--especially his virtually lifelong feud/rivalry with Aaron Burr.

....Saw that horrific video of those teenagers beating on that girl. Two thoughts crossed my mind.

I loved how the media kept telling us how despicable it was that the girls were taping the beating for the purpose of uploading it to the Internet, how awful the idea was of the video being distributed--all the while they played it again and again and again in an endless loop.

Hypocrites.

And my second thought was, at least from the clip they kept showing--damn, this girl could take a punch!

....Jimmy Carter.

That's all I can type with clenched fists and gritted teeth.

....I'm generally a government hands-off guy, and I've always been a big proponent of deregulation.

But this airline system of ours' is broken. The companies keep losing money, the safety is suspect, the air traffic system is antiquated, and the customer is treated about as well as an inmate at Abu Ghraib.

Something needs to be done.

I hesitate to think of the government getting more involved, but clearly the industry has been unable to right itself. Passengers are left stranded; departure and arrival times are barely good guesses; too many times passengers are trapped for hours and hours on tarmacs, without water or clean facilities.

The disruption is hurting our economy.

Something needs to be done. I wish someone had an answer.

Years ago a wise friend of mine (OK, not really wise--he's dead wrong on just about everything except the Mets and that his daughter is both beautiful and intelligent) repeatedly said that someone could get elected running against the cable company.

I think today someone could get elected running against the airline industry. I honestly am perplexed by this whole situation, but in the end I refer you to the quote below.

....And finally, a quote from the great Theodore Roosevelt:

The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent, experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it, if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

Olympic Flame and Idiots

2008-04-10T07:25:00.002-04:00

The protests surrounding the Olympic flame have given rise to the usual nonsense about the purity of the Olympics, how they are uplifting, how they bring the world together, yadda yadda.

Nonsense.

First, let's remember that the Olympic torch procession is nothing more than a brilliant marketing device to promote this useless, and in many ways harmful, commercial affair.

The Olympic Games seem to make even usually rational people into misty-eyed idiots.

The latest evidence: David Broder in the Washington Post this morning cast a weary eye on the state of sports in general-- but then had to add the obligatory Olympics nonsense:

What was once a competition of individual athletes of sublime quality has become a race for medals among the superpowers and a stage for fighting out the issues that statesmen and politicians cannot resolve.

"Was once...". When?

The Olympics have always been dominated by politics, starting with Game One of the modern day Olympics, through Hitler, through the Cold War games, til today.

The Olympics have always been filled with hypocritical administrators and judges; with cheating athletes; with money; with drug use; with corruption; with an ability to bring out the worst in people.

As an athletic event it is pitiful. The television coverage the last two decades or so has been skewed to give emphasis to stories of athletes overcoming personal obstacles--some truly admirable, but more and more made up and grossly exagerrated. It makes for bad sports and worse soap opera.

And it all surrounds a bunch of sports most people won't watch for free, or even at gunpoint, the other 3 1/2 years.

Iraqi Oil

2008-04-09T08:35:00.003-04:00

I have to agree with the Democrats on this issue: Iraqi oil should be paying for this entire operation.

I bought into the argument at the beginning that the Iraqis were going to need the oil revenue to rebuild their nation, and that if we "seized" the oil fields it would just play into the conspiratorial fantasies of the "Arab street", and American liberals, that this was merely a power grab.

That said, the Iraqis have had too long to get their act together.

So I would immediately crank open that spigot to the max, pump oil as fast as I could, sell it, and use it to pay us for the ongoing security force and to repay us for the cost of this endeavor.

Increasing supply should help stabilize, or decrease, the price of oil.

As for the revenue we would receive, I'd start slapping solar panels all over America; tax credits for hybrid cars; tax credits for building nuclear facilities; tax credits for use of alternate fuels and pay down some of this horrendous debt that has us increasingly beholden to China.

I'd use the Iraqi oil money to help lessen our dependence on all oil. So that maybe in the future 4,000 brave Americans wouldn't have to die because the Middle East is so vital to our way of life.

Next?

2008-04-08T07:25:00.003-04:00

Sometimes as I'm banging around on the World Wide Web, I remember my first Texas Instrument calculator--what a wonder of technology!-- and think, what will be next?

This story caught my eye--

The Internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.

At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.

The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call. (rest of the story)

Friday Quickies

2008-04-04T00:05:00.004-04:00

...So Bill Clinton, the disbarred lawyer, blew up speaking to California Superdelegates the other day, insisting that Gov. Bill Richardson had told him 5 times that Richardson wasn't going to endorse Obama.

Richardson says he never told Bill anything of the kind.

Two comments:

First, Clinton apparently got all red-faced with the delegates, and wagged his finger--so we know he was lying.

Second, if Clinton was telling the truth, I can see why he was so upset. After all, didn't Richardson learn in Bill's Cabinet that the only time you are allowed to lie is when you are under oath?!?

...I saw Al Gore on "60 Minutes" last Sunday. He was unveiling a series of commercials he's running urging movement on the fight against global warming. One features Rev. Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson; another features Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich.

Here's my take: I would run commercials featuring the families of fallen soldiers. Show shots of mullahs and sheiks, terrorists and petty dictators and rich Arabs lavishly spending money.

I'd say we must move away from an oil based economy so we don't have to send our money to these criminals (or worse) and so we don't have to send our brave men and women into areas like the Middle East to protect our oil interests. If a side benefit is less CO2 emissions, so be it.

By the way, the fun starts on the global warming front when liberals finally acknowledge that there is no way we can seriously reduce carbon emissions without extensively increasing our use of nuclear power.

Then the fur will really start to fly--so to speak.

....Speaking of global warming, carbon emissions, etc. PERC, the free-market based environmental research group just released its Spring issue. One of the articles, by a Clemson professor, discusses the various free market options available:

By applying FME principles to climate change policy, it is possible to build a no-regrets outcome that reduces carbon emissions and yields important long run economic benefits to America and the world. Incentives, property rights, and decentralized experimentation can form a foundation for effective environmental policy.

.....David Paterson has been Governor of New York 18 days without an indictment.

Whoo-hoo!!

....There is a great series of very short "parables" poking fun at Hillary and some of her more ridiculous positions (though nothing on the sniper attack yet).

Here's an example parodying her take on the Michigan and Florida delegates:

....This FAA mess is simply disgusting. My wife hit it right on the head the other morning--is anyone in the government actually doing their job? People who seem to have fallen asleep at the switch? Just about everyone working at the FAA, the Fed, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the FDA, customs, immigration, FEMA -- the list goes on and on and on.

As I've stated earlier, somebody should be campaigning on the issue of governing with competence.

....And finally, a quote from the great Theodore Roosevelt:

''I believe in men who take the next step, not those who theorize about the 200th step.''

Sen. Obama- Meet Kyesha Bennett

2008-04-03T06:17:00.004-04:00

I watched most of the Obama love-in on Hardball yesterday. Absolutely entertaining-- he was personable, the students at West Chester University were beyond enthusiastic. It was a sit-down rock concert.

But...

For all of his talk about a new politics, his solutions are the same-old, same-old.

When asked by a student about our failing educational system, he rattled on about the need for more dollars for pre-natal care, for pre-pre-K programs, for pre-K programs, for more money for lunch programs and teacher's salaries, etc. etc.

Yesterday the NY Daily News ran an essay by a young mother from Harlem entitled "N.Y. Parents Must Unite to Demand Better School Choices."

In the article she outlined her mother's battle to get her and her brother into a school other than their local one--and her battle for her own child.

I have written before how I felt that school choice (the current name for vouchers) is and should be a civil rights cause. And so I was pleased to read Kyesha Bennett (who is not, to my knowledge, a reader of this blog) state:

My experience made me realize that all parents should have good school choices. That's why I've joined with other mothers and fathers to found a group called Harlem Parents United. I consider this a civil rights movement - because civil rights is about freedom, and freedom is about making choice.

It certainly is.

Give every kid in America a voucher, a ticket, whatever you want to call it, and let their parents decide where that money will be spent--you will see the blossoming of thousands of different schools, designed to meet the needs of the students--not the educational bureaucracy.

Too bad Obama can't break from the tired old liberal dogma to embrace an idea that truly will provide hope to millions of kids.

Perhaps it is too audacious of an idea.

T-Shirt Lunacy

2008-04-02T00:05:00.001-04:00

A teenager in Texas is fighting his school district because they booted him off campus for wearing a "John Edwards for President " T-shirt.

Apparently the District refuses to allow political T-Shirts to be worn on school grounds.

Forget the First Amendment issues--how stupid is this? We have young people who are turned off and tuned out to politics, who are too busy playing X-box to worry about the ballot box, and "educators" are trying to stifle an interested kid?

Why?

It simply makes no sense. We should be encouraging participation, thought, the free exchange of ideas-- the District should be less worried about keeping decorum in its hallways and more worried about firing the synapses in the heads of kids whose brains have been worn dull by countless of hours of reality TV and Internet porn.

This is particularly outrageous since the T-shirt wasn't obscene.

I mean, it was a shirt supporting Edwards, not Hillary!

I Hereby Endorse H....

2008-04-01T09:07:00.002-04:00

I had this elaborate post in mind-- I was going to confess I was wrong and endorse Hillary.

Trouble was, every time I tried to input the post, my hard drive locked up and the keyboard glowed red.

Even as an April Fool's Day prank, my computer rejects the concept of supporting a Clinton.

Father of the Year

2008-03-31T00:08:00.002-04:00

As I've mentioned before, when my daughters were born my parenting goal was to see them off to college, not pregnant.

I thought that would encompass a few positive attributes rolled into one sentence.

As they grew older, and my confidence in my parenting skills waned, my goal shifted to the hope that they wouldn't need significant psychotherapy until they were on their own health plans.

But as unsteady as I feel sometimes as a parent, I can always take comfort that there is some idiot less equipped than me:

LI man jumps from Jeep during police chase,

leaving kids inside

A Riverhead man left his two children in a moving car when he jumped out of a 1993 Jeep during a high-speed police chase Saturday and ran away, authorities said.

Keith Griffin, 41, of 40B Wood Road Trail, was arrested after a short foot chase, police said. He was charged with driving while intoxicated, resisting arrest and endangering the welfare of a child, and will be arraigned Sunday in Central Islip, police said.

Around 2:45 a.m. Saturday, Griffin was driving on Wavecrest Drive at Mastic Road in Mastic Beach when a Suffolk County police officer attempted to pull him over for an unknown traffic violation, police said.

Griffin refused to stop and led the officer on a short high-speed chase, and at one point he slowed his Jeep drastically and jumped out while the car was still moving, fleeing the police, said Sgt. Jeffrey Maggio.

"A male passenger managed to slide over to the driver's seat and stop the car," Maggio said.

Police found Griffin's 12-year-old and 6-year-old children in the backseat, along with his girlfriend, whom authorities declined to identify.

No one was hurt. Attempts to contact Griffin Saturday were unsuccessful.

Friday Quickies

2008-03-28T07:00:00.000-04:00

.....I see that there is a growing controversy over a Vogue magazine cover featuring Lebron James and Gisele Bundchen.

Supposedly the shot is racist because it evokes the image of King Kong clutching Fay Wray.

Maybe it's me.

It took me several tries looking at the photo to realize LeBron was even it.

....Here in New York we are keeping our fingers crossed. It has been four whole days since a Governor of our State has confessed to soliciting, misuse of public funds, fraudulent use of campaign funds, adultery, drug use or any other felony or misdemeanor.

If we make it to next Wednesday State offices will close for a day in celebration!!

....If you haven't watched any of the "John Adams" series on HBO, you are missing out on something truly special. Adams is an altogether interesting man, and an underrated Founding Father. Maybe this series will help propel him into the Nation's conscience. I don't recall there being any significant monument to the man, other than our democracy, of course.

....New York's law requiring the callous idiots who run the airlines to provide water and bathrooms to people stuck in a plane, on a tarmac, for hours, was ruled unconstitutional by a federal Court.

Which means airline passengers continue to have less rights than a prisoner at Guantanamo.

Maybe it's time, Mr. Adams, for a little revolution.

....Don't know what you watch in the morning, but I enjoy Joe Scarborough's "Mornin' Joe". He took over the old Imus time slot on MSNBC, and the show attracts many of the same political characters who used to come on Imus. Scarborough is a former GOP Congressman from Florida.

While he certainly leans right, he comes across as a nice guy, very smart, with an ability to call it as he sees it. For instance, he has been highly critical of all three members of the Presidential Mod Squad--and has praised them all in turn.

Unfortuntely, I'm finding "Mornin' Joe" unwatchable because of Joe's sidekick, Mika Brzezinski, the daughter of Carter's National Security Advisor. She mugs for the camera; she incessantly interrupts; she's nasty and quite frankly–she's not too smart.

I find Joe fascinating–not because we both agree on a lot of issues, but because he, of any personality on TV, has been willing to call it fair–and has been legitimately impressed with those who don't necessarily agree with him.

But she's making it impossible for me to enjoy the show.

...And now a quote from the great Theodore Roosevelt:

"We demand that big business give the people a square deal; in return we must insist that when anyone engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right he shall himself be given a square deal."
Letter to Sir Edward Gray, November 15, 1913

Break's Over -- Chelsea Clinton

2008-03-27T00:05:00.002-04:00

Chelsea Clinton is 28 years old. She's not the gawky 12 year old kid she was back when the Lewinsky scandal first broke.

She has degrees from Stanford and Oxford. She is actively campaigning for her mother--indeed, the Clinton campaign has called her their secret weapon with young people.

So why was the question, asked at a campaign stop at Butler University, about her mother's credibility involving the Lewinsky affair so out of bounds?

You know what? The question may have been rude, but so was Hillary's attitude and conduct during that time--as a member of the vast right-wing conspiracy I still await my apology. She has questions to answer about her role back then--especially the attempts to stonewall the truth. Did she play any part in her disbarred husband's perjury?

Why isn't that a fair question?

The Clinton campaign has a total hands-off policy regarding Chelsea-- no interviews, no questions from the press.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. If she is out campaigning for her mother, she is subject to the same rules that apply to any surrogate of the candidate.

Still, it's nice to see the Clintons so protective of their 28 year old daughter.

If you can't ask Chelsea a question without the Clintons going ballistic, just think what they would have done if, when she was, say, a 22 year old student, some 49 year old college President used her as a sexual toy!!

Too bad they forgot that Monica was somebody else's 22 year old daughter when Bill took advantage and the whole Clinton team geared up to destroy her--until the blue dress evidence made that smear campaign pointless.

A Break From Hillary

2008-03-26T00:05:00.003-04:00

As much as I love beating up on Hillary, there are a great many other things that I find interesting, and that capture my attention.

Movies, for one. My daughter-the-elder has me close to convinced to join Netflix, their recent computer problems aside.

I came across a blogger's opinion of the Top 10 Greatest Film Speeches of All Time. Some I agreed with, some I didn't.

I think my Top 10 speeches or monologues (as opposed to best line) would include, not necessarily in this order:

1) Groucho Marx' "why a duck" sales pitch in "The Cocoanuts"

2) Jack Nicholson's "you can't handle the truth/you need me on that wall" in "A Few Good Men"

3) Clint Eastwood's "We all have it comin'" from "Unforgiven"

4) Michael Douglas' "greed" speech in "Wall Street"

5) Mel Gibson's "freedom" speech in "Braveheart"

6) Humphrey Bogart-- just about any part of "Casablanca"

7) Albert Brook's "devil" speech from "Broadcast News", the one I have always thought fit a certain unnamed-in-this-non-political-post former President -- except the last line:

(What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I'm semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing... he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance... Just a tiny bit. And he will talk about all of us really being salesmen. And he'll get all the great women. )

8) Wilford Brimley's movie-stealing scene in "Absence of Malice"

9) John Belushi, rallying the troops in "Animal House" (Was it over when the Germans attacked Pearl Harbor?)

10) Gregory Peck's closing in "To Kill A Mockingbird".

I am ashamed I couldn't think of a great speech by a woman--though Katherine Hepburn's porch scene with Henry Fonda in "On Golden Pond", and her scolding of Jane Fonda in the same movie come close.

Others that should be on there are Gene Hackman's "Hoosier"'s speech, just about anything from "The Godfather", Anthony Hopkin's "chianti" scene in "The Silence of the Lambs", Robert Shaw's "Indianapolis" speech from "Jaws", and Bill Murray's "Dalai Lama" ramble in "Caddyshack"

And, of course, breaking my own "rule" about choosing speeches or monologues, not single lines, the greatest speech ever uttered on any movie screen, ever, though it be short:

“Yippy-Kay-Yay-Motherf#@!#r”

Hill-ary's a Liii-aarrr!!!!

2008-03-25T00:05:00.004-04:00

Back during the Iowa caucuses I read that Hillary had been going around with a BS story about going to Bosnia and landing "under sniper fire".

Sinbad, the comedian-actor, came out with a mocking account of that trip--one he took with Hillary (and Chelsea and Sheryl Crow) to Bosnia back when she was Bill's Sunday morning, going-to-church girl.

Sinbad said:

"I never felt that I was in a dangerous position. I never felt being in a sense of peril, or 'Oh, God, I hope I'm going to be OK when I get out of this helicopter or when I get out of his tank.'"

In her Iowa stump speech, Clinton also said, "We used to say in the White House that if a place is too dangerous, too small or too poor, send the First Lady."

Say what? As Sinbad put it: "What kind of president would say, 'Hey, man, I can't go 'cause I might get shot so I'm going to send my wife...oh, and take a guitar player and a comedian with you.'"

I assumed that Hillary would figure, hey, let me drop this BS from the stump speech before someone calls me on it.

But, noooo, not Hillary. She can't apologize and she can't stop telling a lie that sounds good. So she's still telling this whopper--now adding that they were under enemy fire, so the welcoming events were canceled. She repeated it, in detail, as late as St. Patrick's Day.

Now finally, the main stream media is picking up on this story.

Ooops: they have video!

Ooooooh, that must have so scary!

The Clinton campaign's response, via the despicable Howard Wolfson? "Senator Clinton misspoke."

She misspoke? She's been telling this lie for months now--it wasn't a one time slip, or a momentary memory lapse. It was a detailed, dressed up lie.

She lied. Poorly.

To my grave disappointment, she and her disbarred hubby have been lieing with less and less style as their campaign slips into panic.

I once wrote :

In my lifetime I've had the privilege of watching Magic Johnson and Larry Bird and Michael Jordan play basketball, Wayne Gretzky play hockey, Muhammed Ali box, Tom Seaver pitch, Tiger Woods golf.

And I've heard the Clintons lie.

Greatness comes in many forms.

I guess, like aging boxers who stay in the ring after their skills are gone, the Clintons are sliding into pugsville.

It's so sad.

He Has a License To Kill

2008-03-23T21:16:00.003-04:00

New York State's new governor, David Paterson, is our new James Bond.

He has a license to kill, steal, drive drunk down Broadway, embezzle-- whatever he wants to do.

He has already admitted to not one, but a series of affairs, some with State employees.

No problem.

He has admitted illegally using campaign funds for personal expenses, including furniture, suits, hotel rooms for his affairs, dinners, etc.

No problem.

He has admitted paying his former girlfriend $500 from campaign funds-- and his explanation has changed twice. His first explanation is an admission of a crime (that he reimbursed her for a campaign contribution she gave another candidate). The second explanation is patently ridiculous.

No problem.

Why? Why are there no calls for investigations, no inquiry into the clearly illegal activities of this formerly unknown politician?

Because our New York Constitution couldn't provide Gov. Paterson with more protection if it was made out of Kevlar.

When he was elevated to Governor, it left the position of Lt. Governor vacant--and my understanding is that there is no provision for filling it. The next in line is the head of the Senate, who happens to be an aging Republican warhorse, currently under investigation himself, Joseph Bruno.

New York State provides the heads of its two legislative bodies, the Assembly and the Senate with extraordinary powers. Effectively, we have a three-headed government--the governor, the head of the Senate and the Speaker of the Assembly. Nobody else has any power in NY. These three men control it all.

In order to bring impeachment hearings against the Governor, the Assembly, controlled by the Democrats, would have to bring charges. If impeached, Republican Bruno would rise to Governor.

So that's never gonna happen.

Add to that the current situation In the Senate-- the Republicans majority is down to two-- so if Bruno gives up his seat, and a Democrat takes it-- the Senate would be lost by the GOP.

So no Republican is calling for action against the Governor.

We could find pictures of David Paterson shooting steroids with Roger Clemens, sharing a bed with former Governor Spitzer and $25,000 worth of hookers, and beating dogs with Michael Vick, and all of New York will shrug and go, "Ah, that David--he's so sociable!"

He's got a ticket to ride, and all of New York don't care.

Friday Quickies

2008-03-21T00:05:00.003-04:00

....So I see that the Hannah Montana dolls, made in China, of course, are chock full of lead, a metal which causes harm to intellectual development.

Hannah Montana fans (and especially their mothers).

Diminished intellectual development.

It's a chicken and egg thing, I think.

...I can't win. They tell me to switch my light bulbs to CFLs (compact fluorescent light) to help save energy and thus prevent global warming. Which I did-- and even posted on it.

Now I hear the damn things are chock full of mercury, and the instructions for dealing with a broken bulb are :

1. Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more.
2. Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one.
3. Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
4. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
5. Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes and place them in the glass jar or plastic bag.
6. Do not use a vacuum or broom to clean up the broken bulb on hard surfaces.
7. Immediately place all cleanup materials outside the building in a trash container or outdoor protected area for the next normal trash.
8. Wash your hands after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing cleanup materials.
9. Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your specific area. Some states prohibit such trash disposal and require that broken and unbroken lamps be taken to a recycling center.
10. For at least the next few times you vacuum, shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system and open a window prior to vacuuming.
11. Keep the central heating/air conditioning system shut off and the window open for at least 15 minutes after vacuuming is completed.

Um, hey guys, nobody told me I was trading in my admittedly energy-wasting bulb for something that has more disposal instructions than a nuclear reactor.

I should have known something was up when Walmart started pushing them-- they're probably made with the toxins left over after the Chinese finish making our kids' toys.

....Joann Jacobs, who writes a great education blog, posted about a school which was forcing kids to take the AP test, even though they weren't really ready. I posted this comment:

Here in NY we have a unique issue involving the AP. NY students take a Regents exam at the end of the year, a state-wide competency test in each subject. Traditionally, you needed to take all of your major subjects in a “regents” class and pass the test to get a Regents HS diploma. If you didn’t take all of the tests, or didn’t pass them all, you could still graduate, but with a lesser “General diploma”.

The problem was that since no other state knew what a Regents diploma was anyway, a lot of college-bound kids opted out of the Regents programs, and cherry-picked their courses. To raise the level of competency, NY State did away with non-regents diplomas. Everybody has to take the regent’s classes.

And the problem with that is most schools had a three-tier system in each course (tracking if you will)– AP for the most advanced student; Regents, for the regular-to-good student; and non-regents for the weakest students and the disciplinary problems.

When the non-regents classes were terminated, the Regents classes became more remedial–and the better students started to flock to the AP classes, in the hopes they would actually learn something.

Our AP classes swelled, including with students who have no business taking AP, and who, in fact, weren’t taking the AP test–just the course. Since they knew they weren’t going to take the test, their approach was different than kids taking the course “for real”.

Then came Newsweek with that stupid high school ratings system based on the number of AP tests taken–not passed.

And so, predictably, school districts in NY are now requiring the kids who escaped the Regent’s classes into the AP classes to take the test. They don’t need to pass the test–in fact, since the results come after the school year ends, the results are not included in the kid’s grades. But if they don’t sit, they don’t get credit for the course.

So now will come a flood of unprepared kids taking the AP–and a host of 1’s and 2’s.

Which helps the kids how, exactly?

.....I wrote yesterday about Donald Trump's assault on Jones Beach. The need to balance commerce and keeping some nature around us is a powerful one. One of the shames of the former Republican majority was that it failed to institute conservative ideas and policies in areas where those ideas could have been helpful.

A wonderful organization, PERC (Property & Environment Research Center) regularly puts forth thoughtful studies on how to achieve that delicate balance, using market and free enterprise forces. For instance, they recently wrote about a Nature Conservancy program in Komodo National Park, that is using a multi-faceted approach of creative financial incentives and education to help local inhabitants earn a living without destroying the local ecology.

To merely outlaw all development is a fool's errand. The problem with the Trump project is that this development will ruin the very thing that draws millions of people, and millions of dollars in parking fees, to this beach.

Using common sense, and looking at the economics of an action as well as its overall impact on an environment, is the intelligent, adult thing to do.

...And now a quote from the great Theodore Roosevelt:

"Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to champion them by saying the 'the game belongs to the people.' So it does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people.
The 'greatest good for the greatest number' applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction.
Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations.
The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method."

A Book-Lover's Holidays in the Open, 1916

Trumped (For Now)

2008-03-20T07:22:00.006-04:00

Long Islanders are justifiably proud of our signature State park, Jones Beach. Donald Trump is invading, though for now he seems to be stalled. Unfortunately, he's still coming.

Jones Beach, part of a string of ocean beaches on the South Shore of Long Island, is virtually undeveloped. About 6 miles long, it has no hotels; no casinos; no condos.

It's just miles of sand and shore, with minimal facilities.

And we love it that way.

There has for years been a small restaurant tucked next to a small stretch of nondescript boardwalk. It hasn't been successful, mostly because the food was mediocre and people simply don't go to Jones Beach for food. We go to the beach for, well, the beach.

But in the waning days of the Pataki Administration some idiot decided hey, let's lease the restaurant concession to the man most unlike the rest of the facility--let's give a piece of this low-key, nature-sensitive, quiet, reserved oasis to....Donald Trump.

When I first heard this, I thought for sure it was a gag. When I realized it wasn't a joke, I did in fact have a gag reflex.

Trump's first plan was, typically, huge, glitz-filled and classless. Thankfully, he wanted a basement, which isn't allowed in the flood plain. Undaunted he now wants to raise the restaurant higher, over 43 feet high, making it more of an eyesore, a blinking electronic rhinestone zoot-suit in the cathedral pew.

This isn't over, but even if we have to buy back the lease, I hope the new Paterson Administration will do whatever it takes to stop this atrocity.

One of my first posts was on Jones Beach, its beauty and its importance to Long Islanders. To allow Trump, or any other developer, to ruin this gem is a sin.