One less decoration

Christmas will be a bit less festive in Rivoli Downs this year. The adult-size reindeer with joyful lights and life-like movements will no longer be part of the Maier’s holiday decorations.
“I brought him down from the attic and set him up in the yard like always,” reports owner Rick Maier, “but when I plugged him in, his head wouldn’t rotate. The lights worked, but the motor has finally failed.”
Former Coroner and neighbor Ed Bond declared the reindeer dead. “Looks like natural causes,” he said. “No foul play is suspected.”
That’s good news for the oldest Maier child, Matthew, who has been under scrutiny recently for a variety of teenage boy behaviors.
Neighbor Dan Slagle added that Maier had been setting up the reindeer Christmas decoration for many years. “Between you and me,” said Slagle, “I won’t miss it. Those things were tacky even when they were popular back in the 90s.”

Next for Obamalism: regulate tipping

Tipping - distributing treasure based on one’s judgment of the performance of others.

That is such a republican notion that I’m surprised it hasn’t gone the way of ethnic jokes, fur coats, opening the door for a lady, riding without a helmet and other politically incorrect practices.

The Federal government needs to regulate tipping because it’s just so uneven. Customers tip less for poor service, even though the server may be having a bad day through no fault of their own. That’s not fair! Some people get great service and stiff their server, which leads servers to profile customers for preferential treatment. That’s not fair!

How do we know that servers are reporting all their tips to the IRS? The government should require us to send 1099s to everyone we tip so they can collect more taxes.

Then there’s the bothersome math. How can progressive people be expected to calculate 15% of the bill if they’re already using their phone to text, post on Facebook and listen to Springsteen?

Wealthy, white, men probably tip the most, so it must be an unfair, racist, male chauvinist pig practice. And homophobic and unenlightened.

And don’t people tip more around Christmas? Don’t they know that the President declared that we are not a Christian nation?

Everybody write a letter to Barney Frank and Barbara Boxer. We need legislation to ensure fairness, spread the wealth and create more green jobs in Washington.

Get your boot off our throats

Want to know why unemployment is high, jobs are moving overseas and so many commercial buildings are empty?

Here are some hints: FLSA, IRS, workers comp, FMLA, unemployment, ADA, Obamacare, DOL, EEOC, OSHA, OASDI, Sarbox, plaintiff’s attorneys, EPA, unions, I-9, plus an array of industry-specific controls (banking, education, health, energy).

Obama didn’t create these regulations, but he’s rapidly increased their complexity and intensified enforcement in ways that suffocate employers. For example, Obama spent hundreds of millions in stimulus dollars to hire Dept of Labor agents to enforce the over-reaching FLSA rules. He boasts that he created jobs, but he’s actually squandered hard-earned taxpayer money to harass job creators.

The mounting heap of regulations distracts leaders from growing jobs and causes uncertainty that stifles growth. Hordes of bureaucrats keep attacking until good people are made to feel like lawbreakers.

Democrats don't understand the difference between governing and micromanaging. Their obsession with redistributing wealth is simply spreading misery.

Riled up for Nov 2 election

A few short videos show why Americans are angry with the Democrats and excited about new leaders like Christie...

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N.J. Gov. Chris Christie calls Jon Corzine quintessential limousins liberal Democrat in America

Sad bear story

A disturbing trend is occurring as well-intentioned people ignore warnings not to feed the wildlife. Animals have learned to just sit on their butt and wait for the government to provide for their care. The Democrat Party is fighting hard to allow these animals to vote.
Shown above is a charmer named Bearack.

Merge right

The sign on I-75 said ‘left lane closed 1 mile’.
Most of us merged dutifully to wait our turn, while a few zoomed by on the side that was coming to an end.
Once again, the elitist and non-thinkers on the left increased the burden for those on the right.

Questions for this political season

Why do Democrats have more campaign money than Republicans?

How can voters make informed decisions if the press only reports some of the news? Have you compared CNN, CBS or NYT headlines to Fox News lately? And where was the report that 88% of political contributions from ABC, CBS and NBC execs went to Dems in 2008?

Why does Laura Bush speak so admirably of her husband while Tipper Gore left big Al? (I saw Laura speak recently, and she is one bright, bold, classy lady.)

Why is Barney Frank, poster boy of the financial crisis, still in office?

Can Barack and Michelle squeeze a lifetime of vacations into 48 months in office?

Who said “Every dollar the government gives to someone has to first be taken away from someone else”? He must have been very wise.

Will Romney-Ryan beat Clinton-Gillibrand in 2012?

To my ‘progressive’ friends: It’s a lot easier being negative than defending the guys you voted in, isn’t it?
“Any jackass can kick a barn down. It takes a carpenter to build one.”

No room for Danny Thomas in Lebanon today

The first time I became aware of Lebanon was in the 1960s when TV star Danny Thomas spoke proudly of his parents’ homeland. He seemed like a good guy, so I figured that Lebanon must have been a good place.

What’s happened to Lebanon over the past half century is appalling. Let’s hope it’s not where the rest of the civilized world is headed.

From its origins as the Phoenician empire in 1800 BC to the early 1980s AD, Lebanon was a shining light in the Middle East. Blessed with great natural resources and good governance, the once French colony became known as the Switzerland of the East; Beirut was called the Paris of the region. Muslims and Christians worked together to create a vibrant capitalistic economy and tourist trade. Education flourished around open borders and a progressive, Western-style culture.

Hezbollah, with backing from Syria and Iran, began making trouble in the 1980s. They killed 241 Marines in their sleep in the U.S. Embassy in Beirut – men who were there to protect the Lebanese and provide stability in the region. Since then, the open, tolerant culture in Lebanon has been increasingly terrorized by Islamic extremists.

As Christians and moderate Muslims are killed, go underground or flee, the Switzerland of the East is fast becoming another Iran to the west.

This erosion of Western culture is also apparent in Europe where countries that once civilized the world are now drowning in welfare and hogtied by political correctness. Muslim immigrants pour in, and while the majority are peaceful and industrious, they include the few extremist who can cause great havoc.

It’s about time we understand the difference between tolerance and weakness of conviction. The diminished outrage over recent events in the U.S. - Sharia honor killings, Fort Hood, acts of terror, failure to deport criminals here illegally – makes me wonder if America is heading down the same path as Lebanon.

Health Care Deform

The train wreck of Massachusetts health care provides a daunting vision of how Obamacare will play out across the nation over the next few years:

• Millions of people will get nearly free medical coverage. The Feds will mandate employer benefits.
• Insurers will be forced to raise rates, the government will impose price controls and the current, mostly private system will steadily deteriorate. As many as 160 million employees who now enjoy private insurance will get Medicare-like coverage.
• An entire industry of insurance professionals (brokers, insurers) will be replaced by government bureaucrats.
• Instead of becoming public employees, doctors will retire early, kick back or look elsewhere for income.
• More demand and less supply will lead to long delays and rationing for medical treatment. ER rooms will get more crowded.
• Boutique medical services will sprout up for those who can afford the expense. More Americans will travel to Asia for medical procedures. The U.S. will no longer be the health safety net for Canada and the rest of the world.
• States will cut other essential services, or go bankrupt, under the mounting Medicaid burdens. Federal debt and unfunded promises will soar even higher.
• Research and development for drugs and prescriptions will decline dramatically.

The American people have been hoodwinked into thinking that Obamacare would cover the uninsured without increasing costs or disrupting the services we enjoy today. Those who voted for the legislation could not have understood the details because they are still being written. Some Congressmen made side deals, others were okay with letting future generations deal with the consequences.
Obamacare is another back-door redistribution of wealth, another setback to the American standard of living. The system needed repairs, not a lobotomy. Democrats have thrown the baby out with the bath water.
We must elect a new Congress in November and reverse this nonsense.

Government buildup –waves lapping at our sandcastle

I think of government as a kind of necessary inconvenience, like referees on a ball field or trips to the dentist. Governance and checkups are required, but only at a minimum.
Democrats in DC keep expanding government with hopes to eliminate what they consider to be unfairness. Nice thought, but trillions of dollars and 50 years of social engineering has led to more people demanding fish than folks willing to learn to fish. And years ago the bureaucrats ran out of other people’s money to redistribute.
The heaping pile of recent financial, health care, tax, education, welfare, environmental and other regulations is suffocating the tax base. Worse, the anti-business climate in DC creates dark clouds of uncertainty for those who would create jobs.
Government is inherently inefficient because it operates outside the natural rules of economics – living within your means, survival of the fittest, measure and reward results, colorblind. Government workers have no edge on virtue, as can be seen by the recent news of porn at the Pentagon, record low ratings of Congress and partying while oil gushed into the Gulf.
Maybe the big-brother nanny state is an unavoidable step in our evolution from bondage to liberty, to abundance, to apathy, and back to bondage. If only the Dems would quit stomping on the accelerator.
The American economy is as messy as it is exceptional. If you can’t embrace it, at least do no harm to those who do.
Don’t let the surging tide of government destroy our kids’ opportunity to build sandcastles of their own.

The thin man with the flat tire

Late to join his daughters and wife on vacation in Maine, the tall, handsome man was about to leave when he noticed that the rear tire was nearly flat. No past experience had prepared him to deal with this, so he summonsed his car czar in the next Suburban.

“Probably a nail,” said the czar - a lucky guess for someone who had also never fixed a flat.

“I see it right there,” exclaimed the tall, articulate man. “Nail clippers!” he hollered, and the nearby suitcase czar immediately slapped trimmers in his hand. The man, the one who we have been waiting for, reached down and popped the nail out of the tread. Air swooshed out and the tire went flat.

The crowd of czars stood there, their mouths and eyes wide open.

“That nail was here before me and it wasn’t fair to the tire,” scoffed the tall, thin man. “Let’s go,” he yelled, and the entourage drove off. No one, especially the fawning media, questioned his decisions.

The tire spewed thick smoke until they finally stopped at a repair shop. What could have been a $20 plug turned into a $900 tire and wheel replacement.

The tall, confident man didn’t give it a second thought. In his mind, he was creating or saving some tire maker’s job. And besides, someone else would pick up the tab.

The Right likes Obama as much as Left liked Bush

Piece in CommentaryMagazine.com by John Steele Gordon on April 23, 2010:

The so-called financial-reform bills now working their ways through each house of Congress are, like the health-care-reform bill before them, not about reform at all. They do not reform anything. Instead, they make the federal government the major player in a major industry. Just as the health-care-reform bill will transform private insurance companies into the equivalent of public utilities, whose every major decision needs government approval and whose returns on capital are more or less guaranteed, these bills would do the same for big banks and other financial institutions.

President Obama gave a typical speech yesterday in the same room where, a 140 years ago, Abraham Lincoln gave a most untypical speech. Well, perhaps typical for Lincoln: eloquent, tightly reasoned, profound, and consequential in its effect. (As an aside, I have spoken in the Great Hall of Cooper Union myself and had a powerful feeling that I was standing upon holy ground while I did so; Obama, I suspect, felt he was only adding to its sanctity.) Obama’s speech was typical in that it set up straw men, fearlessly knocked them down, assigned blame without evidence, told falsehoods while demanding that others stop lying, and asked for discussion as long as every discussant agrees with him. Everyone else and every other opinion is “illegitimate.”

Wall Street was hardly blameless regarding the financial crisis of 2008 and reforms are necessary to prevent the same things from happening again. Niall Ferguson and Ted Forstmann explain what’s needed in today’s Wall Street Journal. (In a nutshell: moving derivatives trading from back rooms to exchanges and limiting the leverage that banks can use.) The Senate bill wouldn’t do that. Instead it would move most derivatives trading to exchanges but allow the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to decide what derivatives can still be traded over the counter. Does anyone see there a hugely empowered federal official (not to mention a golden lobbying opportunity for banks and members of Congress alike)? Is a back room at the CFTC an improvement over a back room at Goldman Sachs?

And Fannie and Freddie? They were at the heart of the mortgage meltdown and political piggy banks that were so badly (and corruptly) regulated that they are likely to cost the taxpayers $400 billion when all is said and done. But neither of these bills even mentions them. Fannie and Freddie are classic examples of crony capitalism, where government and business are in bed together. Obama wants to expand that disastrous model to the likes of JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs.

It is the business of business to take risk and seek profit. It is the business of government to regulate business to ensure that the public interest is not put at risk. That’s exactly what government failed to do before 2008. As Judge Richard Posner put it in his most recent book, The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy, “Calling bankers greedy for taking advantage of profit opportunities created by unsound government policies is like calling rich people greedy for allowing Medicare to reimburse their medical bills.”

The Obama administration’s ruthless pursuit of ever greater concentration of power in Washington — and calling it reform — just keeps getting scarier.

Driving drama

The rule was simple when I learned to drive: left turns yield to everyone. Then intersections got fancy. Separate right-turn lanes curved inside triangular islands, ending with yield signs demanding that drivers turning right stop if necessary.
It’s 2010 and I’m trying to teach my 15-year-old daughter how to drive. Fuel, tire pressure, seat belt, hands at 10 and 2 – check. Ke$ha on XM, vibration of cell phone – disregard. Having the slightest clue of where we are on the ‘map in your head’ – hopeless.
We’re heading south on Rivoli Drive, preparing to turn left on Northside. Daughter stops just short of turning.
“Go!” I say, louder than I intended.
“You told me to wait for the intersection to clear before I make a left,” my daughter responds, frustrated.
“That’s usually true, but they have a yield sign.”
Three cars are now sitting at the intersection – us, a car coming in the opposite direction making a right, and a car on Northside waiting to turn left to go south on Rivoli.
“How should I know that they have to yield?”
“There’s the back of the yield sign…”
“Really? I’m supposed to see that?” she replies with rising annoyance.
“And they’re in a right turn lane.”
“So left turns don't yield when there’s a right turn lane in the opposite direction?”
“Not always. And there’s the island.”
“I don’t see an island,” daughter responds.
“It’s painted on the road. See those striped lines in the shape of a triangle?”
Daughter would be glaring hatefully at me if she didn’t have her eyes on the road.
“Just go,” I say.
All three cars lurch forward, then all three suddenly stop. Finally, daughter goes.
Daughter is smart, so that particular scene will not happen again. Driving past an accident at that same intersection last Friday will reinforce the need to stay focused.
Moral of the story: There’s enough drama in driving. Don’t drive distracted.

Nancy's Password

During a recent Congressional security audit, Nancy Pelosi was asked why she used such a long password:

MickeyMinniePlutoHueyLouieDeweyDonaldGoofySacramento

The Speaker replied that she was told that it had to be at least 8 characters long and include at least one capital.

Our own Greek tragedy

BY Mark Steyn Washington Times February 26, 2010

While President Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand new, even more unsustainable entitlement at the health care "summit," thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split screen - because they're part of the same story. It's just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They're at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is further upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do is catch up with the Greek canoe. Chapter One (the introduction of unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter 20 (total societal collapse): The Greeks are at Chapter 17 or 18.

What's happening in the developed world today isn't so very hard to understand: The 20th century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of people to stick it to. In America, the feckless insatiable boobs in Washington, Sacramento, Albany and elsewhere are screwing over our kids and grandkids. In Europe, they've reached the next stage in social democratic evolution: There are no kids or grandkids to screw over. The United States has a fertility rate of around 2.1, or just over two kids per couple. Greece has a fertility rate of about 1.3: 10 grandparents have six kids have four grandkids - i.e., the family tree is upside down. Demographers call 1.3 "lowest-low" fertility - the point from which no society has ever recovered. And compared to Spain and Italy, Greece has the least worst fertility rate in Mediterranean Europe.

So you can't borrow against the future because, in the most basic sense, you don't have one. Greeks in the public sector retire at 58, which sounds great. But, when 10 grandparents have four grandchildren, who pays for you to spend the last third of your adult life loafing around?

By the way, you don't have to go to Greece to experience Greek-style retirement: The Athenian "public service" of California has been metaphorically face-down in the ouzo for a generation. Still, America as a whole is not yet Greece. A couple of years ago, when I wrote my book "America Alone," I put the Social Security debate in a bit of perspective: On 2005 figures, projected public pensions liabilities were expected to rise by 2040 to about 6.8 percent of GDP. In Greece, the figure was 25 percent. In other words, head for the hills, Armageddon, outta here, The End. Since then, the situation has worsened in both countries. And really the comparison is academic: Whereas America still has a choice, Greece isn't going to have a 2040 - not without a massive shot of Reality Juice.

Is that likely to happen? At such moments, I like to modify Gerald Ford. When seeking to ingratiate himself with conservative audiences, President Ford liked to say: "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have." Which is true enough. But there's an intermediate stage: A government big enough to give you everything you want isn't big enough to get you to give any of it back. That's the point Greece is at. Its socialist government has been forced into supporting a package of austerity measures. The Greek people's response is: Nuts to that. Public sector workers have succeeded in redefining time itself: Every year, they receive 14 monthly payments. You do the math. And for about seven months' work - for many of them the workday ends at 2:30 p.m. When they retire, they get 14 monthly pension payments. In other words: Economic reality is not my problem. I want my benefits. And, if it bankrupts the entire state a generation from now, who cares as long as they keep the checks coming until I croak?

We hard-hearted, small-government guys are often damned as selfish types who care nothing for the general welfare. But, as the Greek protests make plain, nothing makes an individual more selfish than the socially equitable communitarianism of big government. Once a chap's enjoying the fruits of government health care, government-paid vacation, government-funded early retirement, and all the rest, he couldn't give a hoot about the general societal interest. He's got his, and to hell with everyone else. People's sense of entitlement endures long after the entitlement has ceased to make sense.

The perfect spokesman for the entitlement mentality is the deputy prime minister of Greece. The European Union has concluded that the Greek government's austerity measures are insufficient and, as a condition of bailout, has demanded something more robust. Greece is no longer a sovereign state: It's General Motors, and the EU is Washington, and the Greek electorate is happy to play the part of the United Auto Workers - everything's on the table except anything that would actually make a difference. In practice, because Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland are also on the brink of the abyss, a "European" bailout will be paid for by Germany. So the aforementioned Greek deputy prime minister, Theodoros Pangalos, has denounced the conditions of the EU deal on the grounds that the Germans stole all the bullion from the Bank of Greece during the Second World War. Welfare always breeds contempt, in nations as much as inner-city housing projects. How dare you tell us how to live! Just give us your money and push off.

Unfortunately, Germany is no longer an economic powerhouse. As Angela Merkel pointed out a year ago, for Germany, an Obama-sized stimulus was out of the question simply because its foreign creditors know there are not enough young Germans around ever to repay it. Over 30 percent of German women are childless; among German university graduates, it's over 40 percent. And for the ever dwindling band of young Germans who make it out of the maternity ward, there's precious little reason to stick around. Why be the last handsome blond lederhosen-clad Aryan lad working the late shift at the beer garden in order to prop up singlehandedly entire retirement homes? And that's before the EU decides to add the Greeks to your burdens. Germans, who retire at 67, are now expected to sustain the unsustainable 14 monthly payments per year for Greeks who retire at 58.

Think of Greece as California: Every year an irresponsible and corrupt bureaucracy awards itself higher pay and better benefits paid for by an ever-shrinking wealth-generating class. And think of Germany as one of the less profligate, still just about functioning corners of America such as my own state of New Hampshire: Responsibility doesn't pay. You'll wind up bailing out anyway. The problem is there are never enough of "the rich" to fund the entitlement state, because in the end, it disincentivizes everything from wealth creation to self-reliance to the basic survival instinct, as represented by the fertility rate. In Greece, they've run out Greeks, so they'll stick it to the Germans, like French farmers do. In Germany, the Germans have only been able to afford to subsidize French farming because they stick their defense tab to the Americans. And in America President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are saying we need to paddle faster to catch up with the Greeks and Germans. What could go wrong?

A blueberry in the pancake

Job approval for Congress is now at one of the lowest points on record. The RCP average is 18.8% approval, with Fox at 14%, NYT at 15% and Gallup at 18%. Ratings for both parties are flat as a pancake.
I find the recent hearings of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee particularly contemptible. Last week they verbally flogged the CEO of Toyota, the latest of many public spectacles where corporate executives (job creators) are raked over the coals by a Congress that can’t see the log in their own eye. No one has caused more misery in this country than Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, but don’t hold your breath for their much deserved comeuppance.
One Congressman who stood out like a blueberry in the pancake last week was Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan. While Obama and the Dems continued their tired campaigning for government takeover of health care at the “summit”, Ryan gave a six minute summary of clear facts that should put the whole bungled bill to rest.
Congress should serve and protect the American people, but first they need to get their own house, and Senate, in order. November will be here soon.

The Hair Cut

One day a florist went to a barber for a haircut. After the cut, he asked about his bill, and the barber replied, "I cannot accept money from you, I'm doing community service this week." The florist was pleased and left the shop. When the barber went to open his shop the next morning, there was a 'thank you' card and a dozen roses waiting for him at his door.
Later, a cop comes in for a haircut, and when he tries to pay his bill, the barber again replied, "I cannot accept money from you, I'm doing community service this week." The cop was happy and left the shop. The next morning when the barber went to open up, there was a 'thank you' card and a dozen donuts waiting for him at his door.
Then a Congressman came in for a haircut, and when he went to pay his bill, the barber again replied, "I can not accept money from you. I'm doing community service this week." The Congressman was very happy and left the shop.
The next morning, when the barber went to open up, there were a dozen Congressmen lined up waiting for a free haircut.
And that, my friends, illustrates the fundamental difference between the citizens of our country and the politicians who run it.

Email blast from a friend, author unknown.

Unsustainable spending

Let’s say you make $100,000 a year and buy a house with a $180,000 adjustable rate mortgage. You promise your kids that they can attend expensive colleges and assure your parents that they will enjoy a comfy retirement for life. You agree to support your unemployed brother-in-law, but don’t cut back on a fancy lifestyle that maxes out your credit cards.
Sounds reckless, doesn’t it?
That’s how Washington is managing the US economy. Debt and promises are many times annual income. In fact, each taxpayer’s share of the $59 trillion national debt (including unfunded liabilities) is over half a million dollars.
The big spending politicians in DC find economic experts to sing Hakuna Matata. Special interest groups and people on the receiving end of taxpayer dollars shriek at any mention of slowing down the gravy train. The media fails to sound the alarm.
A rising number of bankrupt states and cities preview what may happen to the US. Republicans won’t raise taxes and Democrats won’t stop spending. Foreign investors may stop buying US notes. Printing money will only cause a future hidden tax - hyper inflation.
It’s frightening to see the strength and prosperity of the US slip away while Washington continues to spend money they don’t have on loaded welfare, wasteful earmarks, benefits to illegal immigrants, expanded health benefits and premature alternative energy investments.
The first rule when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.

Good intentions

A man found the cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared.
He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to squeeze its body through the tiny hole. Then it stopped, unable to go any further.
So the man decided to help the butterfly by snipping off the remaining bits of cocoon with scissors. The butterfly emerged easily, but had a swollen body and shriveled wings.
The man continued to watch it, expecting that any minute the wings would enlarge and expand enough to support the body. But neither happened. In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around, never able to fly.
What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required by the butterfly to get through the opening was a way of forcing the fluid from the body into the wings so that it would be ready for flight.
Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. Going through life with no obstacles would cripple us. We will not be as strong as we could have been and we would never fly.

Washington getting louder and funkier

We have some serious policy disagreements in this country, and Washington is only obfuscating the issues. Several things I read this week make the same sad point.
An ER doctor sent the President a letter expressing how he’s fed up with treating patients with expensive clothes and jewelry, tattoos, fancy phones, who smoke, drink… and receive Medicaid. Another doctor added that he’s weary of giving up his Wednesdays to treat these patients for free. The rising realization is that we don’t have a health crisis, we have a cultural problem where people do what they want and expect to be taken care of for free. Personal responsibility for one’s health is fast becoming the state’s problem.
On the manmade climate change front, I’ve listened carefully to explanations of how greenhouse gases warm the planet to cause this year’s record cold and snowfalls. I don’t get it.
In addressing the economy, health care and environment, the Democrats in Washington continue to press legislation that - when you strip away the spin - do not fix the problem as much as they significantly increase taxes, debt and regulations. There’s way too much class warfare and far too little understanding of how free market capitalism built the resources that this nation now takes for granted.
I can’t watch President Obama without thinking of the old marching band analogy – the drum major grabbing all the attention as he struts around the field, while the guy on the ladder on the sideline quietly does the real work of leading.
The third of Americans on the left and third on the right may never agree on the role of government. But can we agree that when your car goes into a skid on a slippery road, the first thing you do is take your foot off the accelerator?

Raising teenagers

Some favorite quotes about raising teenagers:

Too many of today's children have straight teeth and crooked morals. ~Unknown high school principal

The young always have the same problem - how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another. ~Quentin Crisp

When buying a used car, punch the buttons on the radio. If all the stations are rock and roll, there's a good chance the transmission is shot. ~Larry Lujack

Mother Nature is providential. She gives us twelve years to develop a love for our children before turning them into teenagers. ~William Galvin

The best substitute for experience is being sixteen. ~Raymond Duncan

Violet will be a good color for hair at just about the same time that brunette becomes a good color for flowers. ~Fran Lebowitz

The invention of the teenager was a mistake. Once you identify a period of life in which people get to stay out late but don't have to pay taxes - naturally, no one wants to live any other way. ~Judith Martin

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. ~Mark Twain

Teenagers complain there's nothing to do, then stay out all night doing it. ~Bob Phillips

The average income of the modern teenager is about 2 a.m. ~Author Unknown

Telling a teenager the facts of life is like giving a fish a bath. ~Arnold H. Glasow

The average teenager still has all the faults his parents outgrew. ~Author Unknown

You can tell a child is growing up when he stops asking where he came from and starts refusing to tell where he is going. ~Author Unknown

How strange that the young should always think the world is against them - when in fact that is the only time it is for them. ~Mignon McLaughlin

At fourteen you don't need sickness or death for tragedy. ~Jessamyn West

Can I set your hair on fire, too?

My neighbor, an otherwise good guy, asked me for $6,000 to build a fence between our yards. I told him no; I didn't want a fence, it was against the covenants and I didn't have an extra $6,000. He went around telling people I was an uncooperative cheapskate. That's what it's like to live next door to a Democrat.

Relief and pride

The victory of Scott Brown served many purposes. It was a huge boost to the conservative platform and a kick in the head to the elitist, soft-on-terror statism of Obama and the Democrats in Washington.
Thank goodness the race wasn’t close and Coakley had the class to concede early. The last time a Senate race was contested we got Al Franken.
The best thing about Brown’s win was it showed that I was not alone in feeling downright hopeless about the direction of the country under Obama rule. There are kajillions of people who are fed up, even the citizens of the bluest state.
I feel a giant sense of relief now. And excited about the future.
Middle Georgia can have a Scott Brown experience in November. Angela Hicks is a fantastic person and would represent the 8th District well in Congress.

Minimum wage killing jobs in Samoa

60 Minutes had a good piece on why American Samoans make such great college and NFL football players. I don't know how it slipped through, but the CBS report mentioned that the island's primary industry, tuna canning, has been nearly destroyed by well-intended but wrongheaded regulations. One plant shut down and the other may close, all because of the high minimum wage passed by Congress in 2007.
What a great example of how tinkering with the free market destroys lives. It’s no wonder national unemployment has risen from 5% to 10% since the Dems took over Congress.
Here's a counter intuitive solution to unemployment that should have just the right unintended consequences: fire all the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington.

A cry for leadership

Over the past few decades, the PC bunch has played down the importance of leadership in favor of ‘it takes a village’ collectivism. It’s not working.
One big test of leadership is an unexpected disaster. We see what a lack of national leadership has done in Haiti. We remember what poor local and state leadership did after Katrina.
Leadership isn’t holding office, but statesmanship that comes from experience, surrounding yourself with great people and getting out of the way.
Another test of leadership is the slow, steady strengthening of an organization. It’s participative and unselfish. There’s nothing glamorous about creating a plan and working the plan over the long haul.
Our country is facing tremendous challenges – record unemployment, record debt, unsustainable promises and terrorist attacks. We could blame the people for being so uninformed and apathetic, but good leadership could work wonders.
It’s time, to borrow a phrase from Maureen Dowd, for captain obvious to learn the limits of cool.

It’s cold out

Not since my first winter in Macon in 1985, when it was minus five degrees and the pipes in my house froze, do I remember such a cold snap.
What really chaps me is that the new cold realities won’t stop the Dems from pushing cap & tax, sacrificing the economy to try to make the climate cooler.
The cold weather should be our signal to return to reason - to a balanced approach to conservation and respect for nature. We should stop the political BS – the anti-capitalism, redistribution, power-grab baloney. Hollywood and government make matters worse with their superficial, feel-good nonstarters.
CO2 is not a pollutant. It is not clear that human activities significantly impact the climate. There is nothing we can do to stop sunspots and volcanic eruptions under the oceans. Global cooling is a whole lot worse than global warming.
It’s time for the Prius and SUV to share the road.

2010: Obama announces Auto Reform

Obama car (price as shown with optional teleprompters and decal: $37,999).

Having fixed health care, Democrats will now move to the next frontier: making driving safer and more affordable. The goals for Auto Reform parallel those of the hugely popular health care legislation – increase benefits, reduce costs, redistribute wealth, create jobs, reduce the deficit, centralize power, secure world peace and save the planet.
The media has their demonization plan ready to launch: oil company excesses, fatal crashes involving SUVs and Southerners driving pickups running over squirrels by the scores. Hollywood plans to release Return to Avatar, where tall skinny half-nude blue people make human drivers look like idiots, this time in 4D, where smelly black soot sprays onto the audience every time a corporate or military human opens his mouth.
The Obama plan calls for government-run GM to manufacture millions of fuel efficient cars, one model in your choice of pinko or baby blue. Americans won’t be forced to buy the car, named the Hugo, but a combination of taxes, regulations and subsidies will ensure that it will cost at least 40% less than any other make. (PC police insist that Hugo be pronounced hug-“O" to show allegiance to the first world president.)
All adults, regardless of citizenship, will be entitled to zero-down, zero-percent, zero-payments financing through Vinnie Mae, a government financing program designed by Barney Rubble Frank.
The program will be funded by setting up ten-mile check points on all streets and highways. Gatekeepers will interview drivers to determine if their pre-registered “trip plan” is politically correct and green. School children will affix Obama stickers to each bumper at the stop. $3 per stop fees will fund government alternative-fuel stations constructed next to existing post office branches. ACORN workers will staff the booths and stations under the leadership of the SEIU and TSA.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Barbara Boxer pledge to pass the legislation by May Day without reading or understanding a single provision of the 4,174-page bill. All drivers with jobs will pay into a trillion-dollar public option car insurance fund administered by the trial lawyers association, which will base awards on means testing.
In announcing his plan, President Obama said (sans teleprompter): “When I took office, millions of my Americans could not afford cars… Let me pause to give a shout out to George Clooney and Katie Couric for standing with me… I will fix the appalling injustices of the previous administration because I represent hoax and chains, I mean hope and change.”