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.”