Click it or ticket. I understand that this has become a national campaign.
If I climb into my metal and glass cocoon and roll down the road without fastening my safety belt, I run the risk a police officer noticing this and giving me a ticket with an attendant hefty fine. This strikes me as absolutely hilarious, because I also ride a motorcycle.
Here in Texas, we have no helmet law, which means I can climb on my motorcycle wearing nothing more protective than a pair of shorts, and no police will harass me. And I have literally seen just that.
I saw a guy riding barefoot down interstate 35 in Dallas wearing a pair of shorts, a pair of sunglasses, and nothing else. Going 70 mph. The only thing he could have gotten a ticket for that day was the speed. The lack of protective gear would not have raised an eyebrow from a cop.
I must admit that I have absolutely no understanding of this. Why is it that I have the freedom to splatter myself unprotected over a quarter mile of highway while riding my motorcycle, but I do not have the freedom to be comparatively safe while riding seatbeltless in my car?
It puts me in mind of a bumper sticker I once saw: People are opposed to fur and not leather because it is safer to harass rich old women than biker gangs.
Perhaps that same thinking goes into the seatbelt and helmet laws.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Shakedown? How About Shut It Down?
I am continuously and repeatedly disgusted by the right wing of politics in America.
Shakedown? A 6-month moratorium on drilling is unwarranted?
All right folks, as soon as one of these blowhards figures out how to STOP THE GUSHER BP HAS VISITED ON US, then, and only then, can they talk about how any response thus far is the wrong one. As far as I see it, BP assured the Federal government that it, BP, had not only the equipment and manpower, but also the know-how to stop any disaster, BEFORE they were granted permission to start drilling this well.
Apparently they lied, just like they lied initially about the volume of oil spewing into the Gulf.
And from what I can tell, NONE of the other major or minor oil companies has a single clue how to stop this ongoing disaster.
As far as I am concerned, until someone can come up with a fix for this present problem, we need to have an open ended moratorium.
The claptrap I hear from Fox, Limbaugh, Beck, and all the other conservative voices is the rumbling of traitors as far as I am concerned. That Joe Barton, an elected representative of the American people would even CONSIDER apologizing to BP is, in my mind, the epitome of traitorism, and he should be shot by a firing squad for that offense. The folks who defend not only him, but also BP, should stand beside him for the next round of fire.
It seems to be quite in fashion for networks such as Fox to criticize President Obama’s response to this "spill", but not one single one of those critics has any idea what to do.
Joe Barton doesn’t want to live in a country where BP can be made to pay for its monumental screw up. I don’t want to live in a country where a corporation, foreign OR domestic, can be allowed to skate on such a maneuver.
And then these folks say that our government doesn’t have the right to make BP pay. Really? I know for a fact that if I am driving down the road and, for whatever reason, I lose control of my vehicle and take out a utility pole, I WILL be forced to pay to replace that pole. I don’t see any difference here.
Please, I know at least one of the folks that reads this has some way of spinning this situation where BP is some kind of victim here. Spin it for me. Please.
Maybe it will be one of the folks that are against regulation of any kind, asserting that, without regulation, companies will self-police and regulate themselves. Like BP did in this situation. Though, since these same folks seem to blame the regulators’ lack of regulating for this screw up, I don’t think I can take them seriously anyway.
Then, on the moratorium, we have folks asserting that, if there were a plane crash, the government wouldn’t shut down the entire industry while they figured out what went wrong. First, a plane crash involves only the folks on the plane and any unfortunates on the ground that happen to get landed on.
Second, anyone who had a ticket to fly on an airplane leaving an American airport at, say, 3pm on 9-11-2001: how’d that work out for you?
Shakedown? A 6-month moratorium on drilling is unwarranted?
All right folks, as soon as one of these blowhards figures out how to STOP THE GUSHER BP HAS VISITED ON US, then, and only then, can they talk about how any response thus far is the wrong one. As far as I see it, BP assured the Federal government that it, BP, had not only the equipment and manpower, but also the know-how to stop any disaster, BEFORE they were granted permission to start drilling this well.
Apparently they lied, just like they lied initially about the volume of oil spewing into the Gulf.
And from what I can tell, NONE of the other major or minor oil companies has a single clue how to stop this ongoing disaster.
As far as I am concerned, until someone can come up with a fix for this present problem, we need to have an open ended moratorium.
The claptrap I hear from Fox, Limbaugh, Beck, and all the other conservative voices is the rumbling of traitors as far as I am concerned. That Joe Barton, an elected representative of the American people would even CONSIDER apologizing to BP is, in my mind, the epitome of traitorism, and he should be shot by a firing squad for that offense. The folks who defend not only him, but also BP, should stand beside him for the next round of fire.
It seems to be quite in fashion for networks such as Fox to criticize President Obama’s response to this "spill", but not one single one of those critics has any idea what to do.
Joe Barton doesn’t want to live in a country where BP can be made to pay for its monumental screw up. I don’t want to live in a country where a corporation, foreign OR domestic, can be allowed to skate on such a maneuver.
And then these folks say that our government doesn’t have the right to make BP pay. Really? I know for a fact that if I am driving down the road and, for whatever reason, I lose control of my vehicle and take out a utility pole, I WILL be forced to pay to replace that pole. I don’t see any difference here.
Please, I know at least one of the folks that reads this has some way of spinning this situation where BP is some kind of victim here. Spin it for me. Please.
Maybe it will be one of the folks that are against regulation of any kind, asserting that, without regulation, companies will self-police and regulate themselves. Like BP did in this situation. Though, since these same folks seem to blame the regulators’ lack of regulating for this screw up, I don’t think I can take them seriously anyway.
Then, on the moratorium, we have folks asserting that, if there were a plane crash, the government wouldn’t shut down the entire industry while they figured out what went wrong. First, a plane crash involves only the folks on the plane and any unfortunates on the ground that happen to get landed on.
Second, anyone who had a ticket to fly on an airplane leaving an American airport at, say, 3pm on 9-11-2001: how’d that work out for you?
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Illegal Immigration, Get Behind It
It is with some concern that I note that the folks who are pro illegal immigration tend to brand those who are pro rule of law as bigots who are anti immigration. For the most part, nothing could be further from the truth.
Most see nothing wrong with legal immigration. It is the illegal aspect that many folks find that they have a problem with.
Last week, a radio talk show host read an email from an admitted illegal worker in Florida. The email said that the man had attempted to go about immigration legally, but the INS folks wanted proof of assets, job skills, education, etc. This man said that he had none of those, so he simply sneaked into the country illegally.
One supposes that this logic could be carried further. Say someone needs a new car, but the bank wants a good credit rating and a sizable down payment that this person just does not have. Would this person then be justified in simply taking the car he or she needs?
The Dallas Police Department conducted a sweep of used car lots in the past few weeks, attempting to shut down a car theft ring. In the course of this campaign, the officers of the DPD had an I.C.E. agent along with them. They apprehended something in the neighborhood of nine illegals implicated in this theft ring. One of the proponents of illegals seriously asked "since when does the I.C.E. agent have the authority to ask someone for their Green Card?" Indeed.
The opponents of the newly passed Arizona Immigration law say that the enforcement of this law will require profiling. So? Profile, I say. Apparently we are so worried about offending anyone that we would rather allow a Middle Eastern male, age 18 to 35, blow up a plane rather than risk offending him by profiling him.
We would rather allow 40 million illegal invaders to cross our borders and take over our country, demanding that we all learn Spanish so as to accommodate them, rather than risk offending them by profiling them.
Has anyone at all looked into how much extra money our government spends, from the local level all the way up to the federal level, by double printing every single form they print? I do not recall seeing pages in my census form that were printed in German, Korean, Chinese, or any other language. Perhaps one could specifically request a form in another language, but the only one that was a matter of course was Spanish.
The only immigrants we seem to coddle in this way are the ones that are most likely to be illegal. The ones that, no matter what proponents might like you to believe, are not paying their share of taxes. Most are working off the record, and the ones that are working on the record have either stolen someone else’s identification, or have made up a false one.
Do not misunderstand, not all persons illegally in the United States are Latino. But seriously, what percentage aren't?
Most see nothing wrong with legal immigration. It is the illegal aspect that many folks find that they have a problem with.
Last week, a radio talk show host read an email from an admitted illegal worker in Florida. The email said that the man had attempted to go about immigration legally, but the INS folks wanted proof of assets, job skills, education, etc. This man said that he had none of those, so he simply sneaked into the country illegally.
One supposes that this logic could be carried further. Say someone needs a new car, but the bank wants a good credit rating and a sizable down payment that this person just does not have. Would this person then be justified in simply taking the car he or she needs?
The Dallas Police Department conducted a sweep of used car lots in the past few weeks, attempting to shut down a car theft ring. In the course of this campaign, the officers of the DPD had an I.C.E. agent along with them. They apprehended something in the neighborhood of nine illegals implicated in this theft ring. One of the proponents of illegals seriously asked "since when does the I.C.E. agent have the authority to ask someone for their Green Card?" Indeed.
The opponents of the newly passed Arizona Immigration law say that the enforcement of this law will require profiling. So? Profile, I say. Apparently we are so worried about offending anyone that we would rather allow a Middle Eastern male, age 18 to 35, blow up a plane rather than risk offending him by profiling him.
We would rather allow 40 million illegal invaders to cross our borders and take over our country, demanding that we all learn Spanish so as to accommodate them, rather than risk offending them by profiling them.
Has anyone at all looked into how much extra money our government spends, from the local level all the way up to the federal level, by double printing every single form they print? I do not recall seeing pages in my census form that were printed in German, Korean, Chinese, or any other language. Perhaps one could specifically request a form in another language, but the only one that was a matter of course was Spanish.
The only immigrants we seem to coddle in this way are the ones that are most likely to be illegal. The ones that, no matter what proponents might like you to believe, are not paying their share of taxes. Most are working off the record, and the ones that are working on the record have either stolen someone else’s identification, or have made up a false one.
Do not misunderstand, not all persons illegally in the United States are Latino. But seriously, what percentage aren't?
Sunday, May 2, 2010
We Want Our Country Back
We want our country back. What an interesting mantra.
Exactly where (or when) do we want our country back to?
Do we want it back to where Blacks had to drink from a different water fountain?
Do we want it back to where there were no usable roads?
Do we want it back to the good old days when 11 year olds were forced to work 80 hours a week with no rights and little pay?
How about all the way back to when everyone "owned" at least a couple of other people?
What is it that we want back?
Do we want back the days when even adult workers had no rights? How does an 80 or 90 hour workweek with no overtime pay, no minimum wage, no sick time, no holiday pay, and no weekend sound? When the owner of a company could keep his employees under his thumb by paying them very little, and then extending loans to keep them working there? That song "I owe my soul to the company store" wasn’t just a song.
Oh, I know. Do we want back the days when everyone had to carry a weapon because there weren’t enough police to keep order?
Or do we want it back to where woman couldn’t vote, and could barely get a job?
How about we do away with all those costly government programs. We don’t need any federal agency to police our food and drugs. Those companies that provide that stuff will police themselves adequately. Just like the peanut butter folks a couple of years ago. Or the Vioxx folks.
Where, or when, is it exactly that we want our country back to?
How about the days when a person could be turned out of a hospital ER to die on the sidewalk just feet away because he had no insurance or cash to pay for treatment?
What DOES "We Want Our Country Back" mean, exactly?
Exactly where (or when) do we want our country back to?
Do we want it back to where Blacks had to drink from a different water fountain?
Do we want it back to where there were no usable roads?
Do we want it back to the good old days when 11 year olds were forced to work 80 hours a week with no rights and little pay?
How about all the way back to when everyone "owned" at least a couple of other people?
What is it that we want back?
Do we want back the days when even adult workers had no rights? How does an 80 or 90 hour workweek with no overtime pay, no minimum wage, no sick time, no holiday pay, and no weekend sound? When the owner of a company could keep his employees under his thumb by paying them very little, and then extending loans to keep them working there? That song "I owe my soul to the company store" wasn’t just a song.
Oh, I know. Do we want back the days when everyone had to carry a weapon because there weren’t enough police to keep order?
Or do we want it back to where woman couldn’t vote, and could barely get a job?
How about we do away with all those costly government programs. We don’t need any federal agency to police our food and drugs. Those companies that provide that stuff will police themselves adequately. Just like the peanut butter folks a couple of years ago. Or the Vioxx folks.
Where, or when, is it exactly that we want our country back to?
How about the days when a person could be turned out of a hospital ER to die on the sidewalk just feet away because he had no insurance or cash to pay for treatment?
What DOES "We Want Our Country Back" mean, exactly?
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Redistribution of Wealth
I listen to a lot of talk radio, and I hear a lot of people lamenting the idea that President Obama intends to redistribute the wealth in this country. Apparently the concern is that he will change the way we already redistribute wealth.
Ronald Reagan’s supply side economics, otherwise known as trickle down economics, worked quite well for this purpose.
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
In 1981, the top 1% of Americans controlled 24.8% of the wealth in the United States, and the rest of the population controlled 75.2%.
After nearly 30 years of trickle down, in 2007 the top 1% of Americans controlled only 34.6% of the wealth, while the remaining population controlled a whopping 65.4%.
Maybe it is just me, but this distribution seems to indicate that these folks are not using their gains to create more jobs.
Apparently if we give bigger tax breaks and incentives to the wealthy, they will indeed pass something along to the less well off. What they pass along is, however, in question. Money it ain’t.
Write to your elected representatives and let them know that you do not want them to change the way things work.
Let us continue the redistribution of wealth exactly the way we have been doing since Ronald Reagan was elected, rather than turning it around and passing it back to the folks who merely work for a living.
Ronald Reagan’s supply side economics, otherwise known as trickle down economics, worked quite well for this purpose.
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
In 1981, the top 1% of Americans controlled 24.8% of the wealth in the United States, and the rest of the population controlled 75.2%.
After nearly 30 years of trickle down, in 2007 the top 1% of Americans controlled only 34.6% of the wealth, while the remaining population controlled a whopping 65.4%.
Maybe it is just me, but this distribution seems to indicate that these folks are not using their gains to create more jobs.
Apparently if we give bigger tax breaks and incentives to the wealthy, they will indeed pass something along to the less well off. What they pass along is, however, in question. Money it ain’t.
Write to your elected representatives and let them know that you do not want them to change the way things work.
Let us continue the redistribution of wealth exactly the way we have been doing since Ronald Reagan was elected, rather than turning it around and passing it back to the folks who merely work for a living.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Deregulate Now
Government regulation of any type needs to go away. Our Federal government tells businessmen, the very people who create jobs, that money they could spend on creating new jobs must be spent on various things that curtail their abilities to create the jobs we, as Americans, depend on.
For instance, companies have to spend untold billions of dollars every year ensuring that their workers have a safe working environment. If they did not have to spend this money on frivolous safety measures, imagine how many more jobs they could create.
Imagine too, how much money businesses could save every year by not being forced to pay workers extra simply because they work more than 40 hours a week. Or, for that matter, a minimum wage. Workers around the world subsist on several dollars a day; we Americans are spoiled to the point that we insist on wages that will pay our bills. Get a second job people. Put your children to work to make ends meet. Whatever you have to do. Your insistence on making a so-called living wage hurts your employer’s ability to hire more workers, thus decreasing unemployment. Also consider that if Americans didn’t insist on such high wages, if our average pay was even less than what other countries have, we would have zero problems with illegal immigration.
And there is another one: why should a businessman have to pay into a pool that continues to pay a worker even after the business no longer needs his services? If wages were kept low enough to inspire hiring, then that worker could easily obtain another job, even after losing his previous one.
Who are we to tell the food industry that they have to spend a fortune on food safety? Without this unnecessary expenditure, they could lower the price of the foods that we buy; thus enabling them to not only make a better profit, but to hire more workers. How many thousands of tons of otherwise good, edible food is thrown out every day simply because it has reached some arbitrary expiration date, or been "contaminated" with some cleaning chemical or other innocuous substance?
What about the drug companies? How many millions of dollars do the pharmaceutical companies have to spend on needless testing of new drugs? If they didn’t have to spend this money, they could then hire even more workers to produce their drugs, thus, again, cutting unemployment. This would also have the effect of lowering drug costs.
The airline industry, already saddled with astronomical losses because of 9-11 and soaring oil prices, could save billions if they could do away with all these silly regulations about how often they have to perform maintenance on their fleets.
And don’t get me started on unions. The TWU is currently in "negotiations" with American Airlines simply because the executives at AA were given millions of dollars in bonuses while the workers themselves took pay cuts. So what? Those executives went to college for the very purpose of being able to have a job with such bonuses. If the airlines and other industries could crush their unions, they could save billions upon billions of dollars in wages and perqs. These savings would allow them to not only hire more workers, but also to pay bigger and better bonuses to their executives, ensuring that they have the best and the brightest at the top.
For instance, companies have to spend untold billions of dollars every year ensuring that their workers have a safe working environment. If they did not have to spend this money on frivolous safety measures, imagine how many more jobs they could create.
Imagine too, how much money businesses could save every year by not being forced to pay workers extra simply because they work more than 40 hours a week. Or, for that matter, a minimum wage. Workers around the world subsist on several dollars a day; we Americans are spoiled to the point that we insist on wages that will pay our bills. Get a second job people. Put your children to work to make ends meet. Whatever you have to do. Your insistence on making a so-called living wage hurts your employer’s ability to hire more workers, thus decreasing unemployment. Also consider that if Americans didn’t insist on such high wages, if our average pay was even less than what other countries have, we would have zero problems with illegal immigration.
And there is another one: why should a businessman have to pay into a pool that continues to pay a worker even after the business no longer needs his services? If wages were kept low enough to inspire hiring, then that worker could easily obtain another job, even after losing his previous one.
Who are we to tell the food industry that they have to spend a fortune on food safety? Without this unnecessary expenditure, they could lower the price of the foods that we buy; thus enabling them to not only make a better profit, but to hire more workers. How many thousands of tons of otherwise good, edible food is thrown out every day simply because it has reached some arbitrary expiration date, or been "contaminated" with some cleaning chemical or other innocuous substance?
What about the drug companies? How many millions of dollars do the pharmaceutical companies have to spend on needless testing of new drugs? If they didn’t have to spend this money, they could then hire even more workers to produce their drugs, thus, again, cutting unemployment. This would also have the effect of lowering drug costs.
The airline industry, already saddled with astronomical losses because of 9-11 and soaring oil prices, could save billions if they could do away with all these silly regulations about how often they have to perform maintenance on their fleets.
And don’t get me started on unions. The TWU is currently in "negotiations" with American Airlines simply because the executives at AA were given millions of dollars in bonuses while the workers themselves took pay cuts. So what? Those executives went to college for the very purpose of being able to have a job with such bonuses. If the airlines and other industries could crush their unions, they could save billions upon billions of dollars in wages and perqs. These savings would allow them to not only hire more workers, but also to pay bigger and better bonuses to their executives, ensuring that they have the best and the brightest at the top.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Family Values
Am I the only one that finds it amusing that the Republican Party’s idea of "family values" means hiring hookers, expense account strip joints, cheating on your wife with another woman, or cheating on your wife with a man?
Apparently letting gays get married would be far more dangerous to the "sanctity of marriage" than any of these things. From all of the reports of closet gay Republican politicians, I can see why they think so.
My guess is, to their way of thinking, if it is legal for a man to marry a man, ALL men will leave their families to marry other men. This must be a Republican phenomenon, because I have to assure everyone that, no matter how legal they make it for me to marry a man, I rather like women. Even if, by some awful twist of life, my wife was to leave me, I would still not marry a man to replace her. I have to think that most folks feel this way. Maybe I am wrong.
Most folks thought their Republican Congressmen were heterosexual, God-fearing family oriented men.
To quote one of my favorite Simpson’s characters: "HA HA"
Apparently letting gays get married would be far more dangerous to the "sanctity of marriage" than any of these things. From all of the reports of closet gay Republican politicians, I can see why they think so.
My guess is, to their way of thinking, if it is legal for a man to marry a man, ALL men will leave their families to marry other men. This must be a Republican phenomenon, because I have to assure everyone that, no matter how legal they make it for me to marry a man, I rather like women. Even if, by some awful twist of life, my wife was to leave me, I would still not marry a man to replace her. I have to think that most folks feel this way. Maybe I am wrong.
Most folks thought their Republican Congressmen were heterosexual, God-fearing family oriented men.
To quote one of my favorite Simpson’s characters: "HA HA"
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