An inspired decision…
My friends, I have come to a decision, inspired by the example of Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg. I want to play first base for the Atlanta Braves this coming season. My qualifications you ask?
1. I played baseball when I was in middle school
2. My dad and grandfather both played and coached baseball on some level
3. My grandfather actually played for the Washington Senators for a very short time.
Now, some of you may be thinking: ” But, he never talks about baseball…” That’s true. I can’t even name the current first baseman for the Braves. I never was one that gave even the slightest instant of interest in memorizing sports statistics or strategy… a fact that vexed my father greatly. I didn’t even collect baseball cards for any significant length of time. Still others may posit that I have only been to a combined total of 3 games in the last 10 seasons (all of which were paid for by someone else, by the way). So what? Mrs. Schlossberg is on video tape saying that her personality would not be well suited for a politician’s role… and according to the polling location records where she is listed, she hasn’t even VOTED in a recent election. That hardly speaks to a high level of qualification for the office of Senator. None of this, however, gives me the slightest pause. If her level of success in pursuing Hillary’s Senate seat is any indication, I should be sending out tickets on the first base line to all of my good friends by March. As you can see, I am just as qualified to start for the Braves as Caroline K. Schlossberg is to be a US Senator.
I think we can… I think we can…
So I get news today that Barack is going to be emulating Good Ol’ Abe Lincoln for his trip to Washington for the Inaugural. What a pandering load of horseapples. He’s NOT Abraham Lincoln any more than I am Queen Elizabeth. Barack has decided that rather than take the fast, secure and easy to guard plane ride to Washington, he is going to take a circuitous TRAIN route to the inaugural. WHAT? You want to use the technology of yesteryear and travel along hundreds of miles of usually unguarded railroad just to play at a flimsy (completely useless and incorrect) illusion? Lincoln took the train because it was the fastest way to get there at the time… now, it is certainly NOT. Especially when you are going from Chicago to Philly to Delaware to Baltimore to DC. Could this be an omen of things to come? Is this “Change we can believe in”? How many otherwise useful police and secret service officers will be standing out in the freezing cold northern winter (since global warming seems to have taken the year off) to guard all this rail line? What kind of expenditure is this to the taxpayers? Couldn’t those officers be doing other things than guarding an overly long, and completely outdated route to Washington? Way to look out for the middle class there, Barak. Think of the absolute limits of an expenditure for a flight.. private plane, existing secret service detail, MAYBE an armed escort of F-16’s… done. Instead we have countless man hours protecting and monitoring rail lines for weeks and months ahead of the trip, the guards at every bridge and overpass on the day of, the guards, surveillance and planning at each stop along the way… we’re already into hundreds and hundreds of man hours, plus equipment and gas. You know that train is going to be retrofitted with Bullett Proof Glass… which ain’t cheap. This really burns me up. I hope all of his “change” doesn’t reek of the 19th century.
You know what though, maybe that’s not such a bad idea. Medicare will start demanding that doctors “bleed” patients to cure ailments and leeches will be used for all sorts of fun illnesses. Of course this would lead to a severe and rapid decline in the number of people on medicare (which might solve some of the budget overruns). We could start hanging convicted murderers in the square rather than giving them years and years to suck up taxpayer cash in appeals and frivolous lawsuits about broken cookies. Now THAT’s change we can believe in…
Auto Bailout Update
Quick update on the auto bailout.
First, I pointed out a while ago that Union’s will do anything to retain their considerable power. They’ve already flexed their muscle regarding the bailout by stating they they would make no wage or benefit concessions with the auto companies and they expect the government to step in to make sure that the American auto industry doesn’t crumble. Now they are showing their true colors. After some Southern Republicans sank an auto bailout bill in the house, UAW leaders accused these Senators of conspiring with the foreign auto makers to drive UAW wages down so that there would be no benefit to joining the union. The UAW knows that their time of controlling the auto industry and having enormous political power is ending, so they will do whatever is necessary to retain that power. Even if it means accusing members of Congress of conspiring with their competitors.
Personally, I think these Senators should be commended for saying enough is enough. I’ve made my thoughts on the bailout of the auto industry quite clear but I’ll reiterate them here. The American auto industry has been completely mismanaged for decades and they are going to die with or without our money. Don’t drag out their death by wasting our money; let them die now.
The truly sad part of this whole story is that the actions of these Senators will be all for naught in the end. The Bush administration has that they will make money available to the auto industry, possibly from the $700 billion bailout kitty.
The second thing I wanted to comment on is this announcement from GM. They are temporarily cutting production and jobs in order to adjust to declining demand for their cars.
I don’t what’s funnier – that it’s taken GM 20+ years to make a sensible business decision or the fact that this is all a temporary move. They are facing extinction and their answer is to temporarily cut production as opposed to permanently cutting capacity and costs.
Do they think that the American public will one day again clamor for poorly made American crap?
Public Works Project
It’s late, so I’ll try to be brief in voicing my displeasure.
Obama hasn’t even taken oath yet and he’s already got big plans for your money. He plans to institute a public works project on the scale of the construction of the interstate highway system in the 1950’s. This is his plan for reviving the economy and creating jobs.
You are probably asking yourself, “Where is he going to get the money to pay for all this?”
Well, there are really on 2 viable options. 1) Raise our taxes. 2) Borrow it.
I think I’ve made my views on the government dipping into my wallet to pay for garbage like this very clear. So let’s take a look at option 2 – borrowing to pay for the public works project. Obama could potentially take us even further into debt to pay for his project. It would be refreshing if someone in the government would acknowledge that part of the reason companies and individuals are in the mess that they are in financially right now is because they carried an unhealthy amount of debt. Yet, as a country, we have saddled ourselves with ENORMOUS debt to pay for various pet projects, socialist programs and vote buying schemes. In fact, if you were to calculate our country’s credit score, it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 0. If America was an individual, the phones at the Capital would be ringing off the hook with calls from collection agencies, Ari Force One would have been repossessed and the White House would be in foreclosure. That is unacceptable. Yet Obama could very well INCREASE the amount of debt we carry. How is this a good idea?
There is an easy solution to avoid rasing taxes and borrowing to pay for Obama’s plan – DON”T DO IT! We don’t need to “create jobs”. If you have to create a job, then the job is not needed. It’s basically the same as a rich uncle giving his idiot nephew a job to make sure that he’s got money to live on, because he’s too stupid to get a job elsewhere. The government is basically creating jobs to make sure that their idiot nephews (those who chose to go to work in dying industries and are too dumb or lazy to try and get a job anywhere else) will have somewhere to go. And I haven’t even looked at the vote buying aspect of this scam…er, plan.
Corporate America understands that when times are tough, you tighten the belt, make some tough choices and cut spending. Our government doesn’t get it. They think that they should borrow more money (this is on top of the $8.5 trillion and counting spent bailing out various companies) to try and improve the economy. It’s absurd.
Would a smart, financially savvy individual borrow more money than they could ever payback in an attempt to improve their financial situation? No. Going into debt weakens your financial strength.
Obama’s public works project will weaken the US even further financially and give all our idiot cousins jobs.
YAY GOVERNEMENT!
The future of Education…
Barack put forth his selection for education secretary today, Mr. Arne Duncan, who has been in charge of (insert suprised facial expression here) Chicago Public Schools for the last seven years. Most of the media about this guy pegs him as a ‘reformer’ who took the bull by the horns in the nations 3rd largest school system. We’ll see. A quick drive through the CPS website reveals a chart of dropout rates that has actually shown some positive progress in the last seven years, although the best rate that could be shown was 42%. Yup, that’s right folks, in Chicago public schools, only 6 out of 10 students actually graduate! I bet the intensely educated masses up there do a good job of electing politicians that will actually promote freedom and liberty and not handouts and welfare…
So now this guy is going to be in charge of the nations education policy… we’ll see how he does. Apparently, he plays basketball (which is some sort of resume enhancement according to the press) and he went to Harvard. He’s on a number of different non-profit boards – none with known terrorists that we know of yet – and has the blessing of our current Secretary of Education. How about this… what does he think about lessening the Federal Government’s Power in deciding the fate of our education system? What is his stance on providing each student with a voucher and letting their parents pick the best school? How about school competition? Surely, the man that went to HARVARD knows a thing or two about the value of having a diploma or degree from a school with a prestigious name and pedigree.
We see that very issue come to life around here with our local high schools. Parents go absolutely catatonic when they hear the words “school redistricting” because their baby might not get to go to Harvard if they don’t attend the right high school. We had such a problem a while back with some of our MIDDLE schools. EVERY school (according to Newsweeks 2008 Top 1300 Highschools in the Nation) that these middle schools feed into is on the list. Walton – 109, Pope – 1118, Lassiter -435, Kell – 1195, Wheeler – 873, Sprayberry – 1178, see the article and list here. Yes folks, these people (who’s children will ALL go to public high schools that rank in the top 5% of the NATION) are bitching about which middle school their children will go to because some are ‘better’ than others.
All of this serves to illustrate my point. If schools are dependent upon the performance of their students for their well-being and success, they will either get better or get gone. Some kids may not get into the school that they want, but where is it written that we should always get what we want, much less the first time out of the box? Challenge in a person’s life can bring about great things. Our second ‘First Lady’ Abigail Adams had something to say about that:
“It is not in the still calm of live, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities which would otherwise lay dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman.”
- Abigail Adams to her son John Quincy Adams
Let these children strive for greatness, challenge their minds, reward excellence and let the lazy fall to their place in society.
Just as an afterthought: Anyone want to put up all the schools in Conservative areas of the county against the Liberal areas for basic academic performance? Just think, Cobb County Georgia versus say… Chicago. That ought to be fun. I can’t imagine that the schools around here have 42 dropouts between them, much less 42%. Hmmm…
Waste of Money
I’m sure you’re already aware that Congress wastes your money. Sometimes it’s wasted on pork spending. Sometimes its wasted saving poorly run auto companies from themselves. But, no matter how bad we think those are, they are no where near as bad as this.
That’s right. Congress will now spend time on legislation designed to scrap the BCS and implement a play-off in college football. Now, I want to make it clear, that as an avid football fan (and a rabid Alabama fan), that I am in favor of some sort of play-off system in college football. But I don’t think that the American public’s time and money should be wasted in an attempt to get a play-off implemented.
Does Congress have nothing better to do right now? We’re in the middle of the worst recession since 1980 and Congress is going to waste our time and money debating the merits of this legislation. And did anyone notice who it was that introduced this garbage legislation? That’s right, Republican Joe Barton from Texas. Anyone care to take a guess as to which team felt they got screwed by the BCS this year? That’s right! The Texas Longhorns. This jackass is TAKING A DUMP ON THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS so that he can maybe score a few more votes from the Longhorn fans.
I might not be this pissed off, if this wasn’t a persistent problem in all levels of government. Last year, the legislature in my home state of Georgia passed legislation supporting the implementation of a play-off in college football. This was after the Georgia Bulldogs felt they were screwed out of the title game. Last year and earlier this, the US Congress spent an insane amount of time and resources investigating steroids in baseball.
Government needs to stay the hell out of sports. The American people have their hard earned stolen from them by Congress and in turn, Congress wastes that money on bullshit like this. Write your Senator and your Representative and tell them NOT to waste your time – and it is your time if you elected them to serve you – on crap like this. Make sure they know that there are worse problems in this country than the Texas Longhorns not playing for the national title. The last thing we need is for Congress to ignore the demise of the country in favor of getting their hands into sports.
Besides, government has already screwed up education; they’d probably screw this up too.
A fighter down in “Fightertown”…
So I’m sure that you’ve heard about the recent crash of an FA-18-Super-Hornet near MCAS Miramar (that would be Marine Corps Air Station for all you NON Military brats) . You might recognize that name from the movie Top Gun. Miramar, California has long been known as “Fightertown USA”. The residents of this area are very familiar with the sight and sound of freedom flying overhead, and are no doubt also aware of the danger that it presents. Unfortunately, we recently had a reminder of the inherent danger of flight. The fighter fell from the sky on final approach and struck a residential area killing a number of people. Fortunately, the pilot managed to eject before the plane struck the ground.
I’m sure there are the few ignorant, military-hating fools out there saying “He bailed out and let them die…” Well, let me address that with this: Military pilots don’t let people die if they can do anything about it. It is my confirmed belief that the pilot involved bailed because there was nothing left for him to do. I’m sure that the final investigation will show the actual cause (and clear the pilot if I am right).
According to an anonymous congressional aid, the pilot lost his right engine and set course to return to the airbase at Miramar. En route, his left engine flamed out and he was basically in a large, falling piece of steel. For those of you who do not understand the way a fighter works, it must be moving through the air for the steering to work. If you’re not moving forward (in this case at a speed required to maintain lift) nothing works. Its called Minimum Control Air Speed. (That’s the second MCAS in one post…) Without that, you basically have a large steel brick falling to the earth. Smaller, lighter planes can sometimes glide, but these planes are designed to haul ass. The speedometer STARTS at fast and goes UP from there. I’ve seen the Map and this guy only landed a few hundred yards from where the plane hit. He didn’t bail until the last minute. You’ll also note that he wasn’t that far from the south end of the runway. My guess is that he did all he could to save lives. Another thought: ejecting from an aircraft can REALLY hurt you, so It’s not something that pilots do for fun at parties…
All this to get to the bottom line: The men and women that fly these planes put their life on the line EVERY time they leave the ground. They learn to fly to protect you. They practice extremely difficult carrier-based landings to protect you. They engage in high-speed aerial combat simulations to protect you. These people are likely to die protecting you at any time, and they KNOW it when they get up and go to work in the morning. The next time you see or hear a military aircraft go overhead, know that the person at the controls is maintaining your freedom. Just because they aren’t “over there” fighting, doesn’t mean they aren’t risking everything so that you can live your life.
If you’ll remember the incident a few years back involving the capture of one of our planes by the chinese, a very sober example of this devotion is this: When that story hit, I heard the following words from a former navigator on the same type of aircraft: “They should have ditched it in the ocean, even if it cost them their lives.” Period. End of statement. No caveat, no conditions. That plane was NOT a small plane. That decision would have cost many (like two dozen) lives most likely, but the sentiment was there; resolute, even jarring. Those men were in charge of technology, equipment and information that keeps Americans safe. I was glad to hear that they managed to ’sanitize’ the plane before it landed, even if that is the only the ‘official government line’ but that former Navy officer was totally serious about it, and I have no doubt that he would have accepted and carried out his duty to country even at that cost.
I love the sound of jets. Afterburners and jet wash make my hair stand on end. I can name most any US warplane in the air by sight and some by sound alone. I cried when they mothballed the F-14. Seeing ‘Top Gun’ was a formative event in my life (mainly because right after that screening I got a GI JOE Skystriker – see below… Notice the eerie resemblance to the aforementioned F-14 Tomcat.) *sniff*
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I grew up surrounded by the sights and sounds of the military. The men and women I mentioned above were my friends’ moms and dads. These people love their country enough to die for it EVERY day. So if you see them around, thank them. Buy them dinner in the airport…whatever. They and their families sacrifice daily for you…
Update!
So the three of you that read this blog will be glad to know that somebody took my ‘Gunboat for Hire‘ idea and ran with it… hey, what can I say? Half of the name of this blog is ‘Brainstorm’.
Apparently, Blackwater will be sending their ship, The MacArthur, into the pirate-ridden waters of the Gulf of Aden. They have been approached as a ’security solution’ to the shipping issues that have been experienced in that region. Sweet. American Privateers with a reputation for pulling the trigger…Capitalism strikes again! Get ‘em boys! (and fly that flag high while yer doin it!)
blackwater-joins-fight-against-sea-piracy
Random Stuff
I’m taking a page from my compadre and posting a few random thoughts about the economy and the runoff election in Georgia.
First, there was a report issued by the National Bureau of Economic Research that states the US has been in a recession since December of 2007. That’s right, it’s taken almost a year for the NBER to figure out what the American public has known for quite some time. What was it that clued them in? Was the housing crash? The financial crisis/credit crunch? The drop in the Dow? Hard to believe that these academics are almost a year late in determining that we are in a recession. Further proof that you college folks shouldn’t take everything your professors say as gospel. Do they teach you some good stuff? Yes. Are they the foremost experts on every economical and political issue? No. They spend too much time patting themselves on the back for their perceived intellectual prowess to realize what’s going on in the real world.
Up next: Ford. Ford’s CEO, Alan Mulally, must have giant brass balls. He has stated that he will work for only $1 a year if the government supplies them with bailout dollars to keep the company afloat. That’s a very generous gesture. I’m assuming that it would be modeled after Ed Liddy’s contract at AIG ($1 in salary but loads of company stock). Here’s the problem. If Mulally really wanted to see Ford succeed, he would have cut executive salaries and reduced his own salary long before Ford hit rock bottom. Instead, he has waited until it looks like his company might not get the tax payers money and made one last desperate grab at our money. He sacrificed everything he could before he was willing to cut his own bloated salary. And anything over $0 is bloated for a man who has helped destroy one of the largest companies in the world through poor management. Sadly, I think that Congress will fall for this move and give Ford and the other automakers $25 billion of our money.
Finally, Georgia held its runoff election today between Democrat Jim Martin and incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss. As of 9PM, Chambliss leads Martin 59% to 41% (50% of precincts reporting). This lead is good for 2 reasons. First, if Saxby retains his seat, then the Democrats will not have a super majority in the Senate. This is good for the long term health of our country. Nothing would be worse than a liberal president and more than enough votes in the Congress to back anything he wants to do (like expand social programs and government run health care). Second, and perhaps most importantly, there will be no more Chambliss and Martin campaign ads on TV. And after enduring 6 months of these ads, I’m sick of seeing them.
A few random thoughts…
Well, it’s the holiday season. I love this time of year. With that in mind I will take a brief interlude to opine on a few things only tangentially related to politics…
First, this whole “Green” thing has GOT to stop. I went to my local Large Orange Hardware store on Friday afternoon to buy a Christmas tree. 6-7′ Fraser Fir… Nice tree, good price. There atop the tree was the tag with all the pertinent info about the product and the price. On the front of the tag was a nice picture and a little green bar with the following text:
“Staying Green: This spring, the person who grew this tree will plant another one in its place.”
Really? Wow! How nice. The guy who GROWS TREES FOR A LIVING is going to plant another tree where this one used to be. Man, do I feel like an Eco-warrior now! I think I’m going to start a campaign our of this… imagine, all the farmers replacing the corn that they cut down each year with more corn… and the fields of waving golden wheat that will be replanted where wheat stood the previous fall. This is GREAT!! Pretty soon well be replanting all of our crops every spring in an effort to maintain our green lifestyle!
The sick part is that there were people that actually thought they were doing something for the environment. Doesn’t cutting down a tree of any sort for any reason qualify as grounds for excommunication from the Church of Global Warming? What a load.
Then there was Tim Brando ruining the halftime enjoyment of watching Alabama steamroll the Auburn Tigers. I myself am a Bulldog, but ROLL TIDE!!!! I hope they KILL Florida. Anyway, back to the outrage. So Tim Brando decides (or rather the guys that script him decide) that the resignation of Sylvester Croom marks a good time to bitch and moan about the lack of black coaches in Division I college football. They mentioned that even though (and these are their numbers from my memory not mine) roughly 70% of the players in Division 1 football were “of color’ (again, their words), less than 1% of the coches were. GOOD GRIEF. Are you serious?!! Perhaps we should have a quota system whereby a college has to make sure that there are enough black coaches before they get to hire anyone. Here’s an idea: give two extra scholarship spots to any school that hires a black head coach. This is absolute stupidity and here’s why:
If you want to talk numbers, lets look at the percentage of the US population that is black. Let’s see… nope, it’s not ANYWHERE near the ‘highly representative’ 70% of players that are black. Perhaps we should be limiting the number of black players to a more representative portion of the population. Now we all know that even THINKING about suggesting such a ridiculous system would have me hanging from a yard-arm with the word RACIST carved into my face, but if we’re gonna complain about percentages…
How about this, Brando: The colleges get to hire whomever the heck they think will do the best job (regardless of color) and you guys shut up about race relations. Do you mean to tell me that there is a Division 1 college out there that would actually have the onions to consider not hiring someone because they’re black??? Sylvester Croom was a coach in Mississippi. For those of you who went to a government school, that’s as deep south (read: racist) as you can get. Anyone seen Mississippi State in the rankings recently? No, that’s because they generally only talk about the top 20-25 teams. (For the record, Mississippi State has not ended a season in the AP Top 25 Poll in the last 6 seasons… and that’s as far back as I cared to look.) So perhaps Sylvester Croom, although he’s black and ostensibly a football coach, ISN’T VERY GOOD AT WHAT HE DOES.
What a load of crap this whole argument is. Apparently, the NFL now has a rule that says any team looking for a new head coach HAS to interview a black coach. I guess that means that there aren’t any qualified black head coaches, just the short list that must be interviewed, qualifications be damned.
This type of thought is more divisive than even blatant racism is. At least those who ARE racist are open and up front with the fact that they think that black coaches (or whatever) are less capable. This whole affirmative action garbage purports to be helpful to the very people that it by definition assumes aren’t numerically qualified anyway.
Perhaps there is another reality out there: that existis somewhere in the mists… between the smaller portion of the population that is made up of black people in this country and the fact that there are only 100 some-odd coaching positions out there, amidst the realities that there are only so many men (of any race) that ARE good coaches. A reality wherein the field is becoming narrowed to the point that we have only a few black head coaches in Division 1 football… what a fantasy world that would be. I bet they’d have halftime commentators there that try to talk about stuff other than football…