I Try To Help The Economy, And What Happens?

I have been living the life of a monk for a number of months. I've (kinda) kept up with my bills...damn, when you get to my age, months roll by in what seems like days. I go to work and go home. Grocery shopping every couple of weeks. That's about it.

Over the months, I was able to save up a pretty good chunk of cash sitting in my checking account...so I decided to splurge on myself.

I bought a big screen TV (before Kalifornia could make them illegal), a blue ray player, plus some blue ray discs to play on them.

I decided that I needed new clothes, so I bought 3 pairs of pants, 6 new shirts, lotsa socks and underwear, pajamas, a belt, and new hat.

And a couple of other fun things.

Tonight I stopped on the way home from work to put gas in my truck...no problem. Walked into the mart to get a carton of cigs, and my card was declined...BIG PROBLEM!!! Didn't have enough cash (remember cash?) to buy a carton, so I blew it off. Went across the street to my liquor store to pick up some beers, declined again. I did have enough cash for the beer, but now I was a bit miffed. I knew I had more than enough in the bank, so the paranoids start to set in...the IRS is after me for something...someone has gotten my card number and...wait a minute...I've gone from normal spending of about $1K per month (mortgage not included) to spending close to 2.5K in about a week and a half...wonder if that could be the problem.

Went online when I got home, and confirmed that there was ample cash in my account, so I called the "Help line" and I have to admit, they were helpful! Inside of 10 minutes, my card was unblocked, so life can return to normal tomorrow...even though I'll have to get up 15 minutes earlier to buy cigs on the way into work in the morning.

I tried to help pull us out of this Depression, well, no good deed goes unpunished.

In Football People Get Hit

You look at the play and tell me what was illegal or...anything that should have set off a brawl between coaches and parents. (The controversial play starts at 0:26 and sorry, CBSNews cannot get their embed correctly set up, gotta cut and paste)

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6910808n

Looks clean to me. Why the hell would someone put their kid into Peewee football and get freaked because their kid got clocked on a play?

I LOVE football, but I'm torn about Peewee leagues, because I can understand the love of the game, but I also take into account the damage that the sport can cause. However, two 90 +/- lb. kids running into each other doesn't equal two men at 250+ colliding.

Now because of the parents not being to act like adults two teams have no chance of making the playoffs regardless of whether they are good enough for the honor.

I hope the "adults" can at least tell their kids they should go through the season and win as many games as they can and IF they should have made the playoffs with their record, the parents were responsible for screwing up.

Where I'm At

Heard a song today and it hit home about what's going on in my life. For some reason I listened to the words and heard them all over again. This song came out back when I was in Jr. High so forgive me if the lyrics had kinda faded into the background.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

I haven't been posting lately because, even after my insisting I was going to get in the spirit of the season, it still took a couple of days to get out of my normal Grinch mood...I finally did. Just in time for a minor medical problem to crop up, which being a man, I ignored and denied until it became a big minor problem.

I got to visit our excellent local ER (Verdugo Hills Hospital) yesterday morning because I was in intense muscle quaking pain when I stood, sat, walked or lay down, and you should have seen me when I even contemplated transitioning from one phase to the other.

All is okay now, just semi-infrequent minor pains to remind me of what happens with putting off until tomorrow would be best handled today.

As to Christmas, I hope you have all enjoyed a great day with family and friends. I was hoping that Santa would have dropped off a nice shiny new conceal carry piece, but...maybe next year.

In that vein (and the spirit of the season) I'll give you this video (which, of course they won't let me embed):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TC2xTCb_GU

Sanity In California?

It won't do any good, but at least somebody stood up and said it.



I've got to feel for Lockyer, a Democrat, who has finally come to the conclusion that spending more money doesn't solve the problem of not having the money to spend, and when 3/4 of the stuff you're spending it on is "junk". The man, belatedly, has shown that he does care about what is going on (could we see a conversion to the Dark Side here?).

Everything the Government Runs is Bankrupt!

(I tried to post this yesterday, but FoxNews can't get their embeds or links written correctly and it wasn't up on YouTube yet.)

Judge Napolitano explaining why government cannot be allowed to take over health care.

When government wants to save money, it shut down like Chicago's City Hall did yesterday.

When private enterprise wants to make more money, it works overtime.

That is going to be posted on the wall above my desk along with:

I have never been given a job by a poor person

Need a good sign for a rally you're going to try this one.

The Crap Just Keep Piling Up

The congresscritters from both sides of the aisle are running scared. Their August break is a time when they are able to drop by home for a couple days and tell the great unwashed what a wonderful job they are doing for us before flying off to the Bahamas to see if "Climate Change" has made it warmer down there this year.

They are going to need that junket when they hie their butts outta town. They have found themselves caught in a maelstrom of really pissed off constituents from all over the political spectrum.

Trying to explain how a bill that hasn't been written is going to save us all just ain't flying. Like every bill this Administration has come out with, there is a basic form, but no details, and after it passes, when they fill in the details, it doesn't do anything that they told us it was going to do.

The proles are starting to wake up and demand specifics BEFORE the ObamaCare bill gets through.

It has forced the Dimi's to dig deep into "Rahm's magic bag of Chicago political tricks ™" being they've thrown out the "RACIST" card too many times and everyone is just ignoring it.

Here's a cute one that they tried to pull, but it worked too well and they got caught with their pants down:

Democrats Send Out Phony Tearjerker Letters

An Oakland County [Michigan] Democratic Party official used interns to send falsified letters to Republican county commissioners in order to persuade them to vote for a health care resolution, according to a commissioner who received one of the letters.

Shelley Taub, R-Bloomfield Township, said she received a letter on July 9 from an unidentified woman from West Bloomfield Township who said she felt that she failed as a mother because she couldn't afford health care for her ill son.

"I got this letter and it tore my heart apart," Taub said. "When I read that this woman thought she was a failure as a mother because she couldn't provide health care, I thought, 'My God, I can do that. I know so many people (in health care). I'll get this kid help.' "

Taub and her husband searched for information about the woman, found out that she actually lived in Fraser, so Taub called the home phone number and left a message.

Taub said she received a phone call that night from the mother of the woman who sent the letter who informed Taub that her daughter was not married and is a student at the University of Michigan.

The woman who sent the letter explained to Taub that she had recently finished an internship with the Oakland County Democratic Party in Bingham Farms, Taub said. The woman said she and two other interns were given sample letters and told to modify them, change the return address and send them out, Taub said.

You think that with all the people they keep telling us that are desperate for Health insurance, they could come up with a couple of real people and give them a few bucks to write their story. I guess it's one of those "Jayson Blair" moments...we know the someone is out there with close to this type of story, but dang it, it's so much bother to go out and actually find one.

Pelousi and her gang have tried to say that we're "un-American" if we don't just shut up, sit down and inhale (deeply and hold it in) their talking point platitudes.

Of course if you don't heed their warnings about rocking the boat, well they have ways to correct that behavior too:



It's a poorly lit video, but they only come out at night...at least so far.

(Can't wait for "Card Check" to start!)

As an addendum to my post below I want to put this in:

Government Medicine Should Horrify Americans
By Deroy Murdock

Imagine that your two best friends are British and Canadian tobacco addicts. The Brit battles lung cancer. The Canadian endures emphysema and wheezes as he walks around with clanging oxygen canisters. You probably would not think: "Maybe I should pick up smoking."

The fact that America is even considering government medicine is equally wacky. The state guides health care for our two closest allies: Great Britain and Canada. Like us, these are prosperous, industrial, Anglophone democracies. Nevertheless, compared to America, they suffer higher death rates for diseases, their patients experience severe pain, and they ration medical services.

When Congress reconvenes I pray they start hammering out some detail on this crap sandwich real quick. Telling us to 'trust them", it "has" to be done "NOW" has worn way to thin.

The tar is being heated and the chickens plucked!

Going Postal

So government thinks it can take over Health Care and provide more service and reduce costs.

Lets look at a simple government entity with a simple goal. Taking a product and making it move from point "A" to point "B". The government has been doing this for over 200 years, and they use to do it for free.

In my lifetime the cost of a 1st class stamp has gone up 106% while wages have gone up about 30 some-odd percent, yet they still have an expected shortfall of 7 billion dollars this year.

This is your government at work. They do not worry about overhead or unprofitable details, they know they get bailed out even if they screw it up...year after year, after year....

When e-mail ate into the amount of units they had to handle, did they reduce staff? No, they promote unnecessary people to management because the Union says they can't unload someone just because the position isn't necessary any longer, or hell really wasn't needed to begin with.

Now the government wants to run Health Care?

It always works out so good. People whose income counts on taxing people who really produce something. In other words, they require me to make money so the taxes that I pay can pay their salary.

The two biggest employers in the world are:

1) The Chinese Army @ 2.3 million

2) Indian State Railways @ 1.5 million

Followed by the NHS of Britain @ 1.3 million people

Let me insert one of those obnoxious staticsical thingys in here:
(click to biggify)



Even though;

Cancer survival rates in Britain are among the lowest in Europe, according to the most comprehensive analysis of the issue yet produced

England is on a par with Poland despite the NHS spending three times more on health care.

Of course the fact that the U.S. is sitting there proudly at the top of the lists...there is something wrong with our system and it must be made to fall in line with the countries below us.

It's only fair.

There is no way way you can convince me that the government is here to help me as far as my personal life. It is written into the bill that computer models are going to decided what treatment is "recommended" to be most cost effective.

If this gets through and you want recourse that your provider didn't do the right thing at the proper time.....

SORRY, YOU CAN'T SUE THE GOVERNMENT, THEY MADE THEMSELVES EXEMPT.

The Reason For My Fear

The Only Thing We Have to Fear . . .
is Obama.
by Fred Barnes

Presidents with strong nerves are decisive. They don't balk at unpopular decisions. They are willing to make people angry. President Bush had strong nerves. President Clinton, who passed up a chance to eliminate Osama bin Laden, did not. Obama is a people pleaser, a trait not normally associated with nerves of steel.

What Day Is It?

I;ve lost track, depression is a bad thing. After the elections I just went into a funk that I couldn't throw. Then I found this website that I thought was saving me, it made me feel better for a while, but I stopped keeping track of the minutes adding up while I was there. Now I'm still depressed and my credit cards are maxed. These people will say anything to keep you online.

Republican Call Girl | Funny Jokes at JibJab

I Want My Relief! UPDATED

Where is it?

I bought my house 23 years ago. We tried Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but we didn't qualify, so we went with an adjustable. The interest was around 7.25%, but the payments were very affordable.

A little over a year later, the interest rates took a small jump (with economic indications of more increases to come), so we refinanced with a fixed rate. Got a decent deal and knew what our payments would be and could plan.

A few years later, the tax rules were changed so that interest on auto loans and a bunch of other things you do in everyday life couldn't be written off. We needed new cars, we had a ton of equity in the house, interest rates had dropped, so over the next few years, we pulled some of the equity out got decent vehicles, added a little to the home loan (tax deductible)and moved on with life.

I'm now separated from my now minimally waged wife (income cut in half), with all the same responsibilities, plus some debts that were a...surprise. When I signed those contracts, I didn't know that these things were going to happen! It isn't fair.

I've muddled through, so far. I'm paying off what I can when I can. I just deal with it one thing at a time. Once something is gone, I move to the next. Constant stress, but I keep hoping that there are no new things popping up. It's got to stop somewhere.

I had the privilege of listening to Maxine Waters today telling me that people who signed contracts saying they didn't understand them, or what could happen if interest rates go up. She informed me that due to lack of regulation, it wasn't their fault.

Let's go see what was said:
(Maxine starts at 2:00 and runs thu 3:18, but you really should watch the whole thing)




I was yelling at the TV so loud that I scared my dog.

I then got to hear a Republican(?) Rep from Michigan try to tell me that giving money to the auto companies is in my best interest.

(paraphrased)

Cavuto: Why should the taxpayer give their money to a failing company to continue?

Representative: It's not their money.

Say What?

From what I've read, about $3,000 of that 1 trillion is mine. $6,000 with my (still) wife. Either I pay it all now, or they just print more dollars that are worth 5% less...which will work out great for me trying to get out of my personal debt...what's another 5% added on?

I'm seriously considering not paying my mortgage for three months so that I can get the gov't to reduce my payments. Damn stupid of me to play by the rules of personal responsibility and to pay off any debt I incurred. I didn't understand everything in the multitude of pages I signed or initialed during refinancing...but I'm just a dumb oilfield worker, not a lawyer, so how can they hold me to it. The three biggest corporations in the world, with all their lawyers couldn't foresee signing contracts with the UAW would bankrupt them? Why do they get gov't money to correct their mistake, but not me?

I've lost faith in my country's ability to face up to missteps. When the market doesn't go they way they want, it's the fault of somebody else. Nobody told them that the economy cycles? After way too many years of an up market, nobody expected a down correction?

I bought my house at around 100K (I felt it was overpriced, but I loved and wanted to live in my home turf), and last year was it would list at around 550K...pretty good return. I didn't foresee this either. If I don't weather my current storm and have to sell my house, I'll still come out OK. I bought at a good time and survived long enough. Luck!

My Uncle gave me some of the best advice when I was around 16 and becoming aware of the stock market. He said "Never invest money that you can't afford to lose."

UPDATE:

I couldn't find the video of that asshole cogresscritter telling us "It isn't our money" at first, but ran across it at Hot Air this morning. This guy lost his reelection bid, but I bet the guy replacing him has big plans for HIS money also.

The Obama Youth Movement: UPDATED

I'm sure most of you have seen the exploitation of children that the supporters of Nobama have gone to: "We're sorry, this video is no longer available". It's been pulled, guess the rumbles of using children singing about the "Great Leader" made them realize they'd pushed the 'Cult of Obama" too far.

Update: (before posting: actually, it's still available, just designated as "This is a private video. If you have been sent this video, please make sure you accept the sender's friend request."

If I can find it again, and I will, I'll update.
----------------------
UPDATED:Found the bastard. I knew someone would grab it before it disappeared didn't exist.


----------------------
The two other songs this was compared to were:

From Cabaret: Tomorrow Belongs to Me

and Children Palace


I put these on to give background to this next video. I will admit that if you read the info next to the video at YouTube, the Asst. Dean, when contacted about this video

He assured me that they stopped this "regiment" because they felt the person who was organizing it was pushing his political agenda.

He then asked me, nicely, "what's the main concern? Because I want to understand where you're coming from so that I can figure out how to handle this."

Nicely, I told him that the video looked militant. I told him about the Colburn School video and how it resembles propaganda films from Communist dictatorships. I told him that the US military is frowned upon for going to high schools trying to recruit potential grads into joining their ranks. Why shouldn't we frown upon those who come to a school like yours to encourage kids to worship a politician? One who is not even a president.

I also said that if this was done to make kids feel better about themselves, why do it in the name of Obama? Why not encourage kids to believe in the power of themselves?

Why not indeed? I was always led to believe that the individual was the focus of the liberal party. No longer, I guess. It's sacrificing your self for the good of your neighbors, or I will achieve great things in the name of "this man", and all things I achieve will be because of him alone. If he hadn't existed, I would be nothing, because we know that without the "Great Leader" there was nothing and I had nothing to inspire me to push myself that extra inch.

Fuuunnny!!!

Where the hell did this week go? Work is ...well, not bad, but I guess has kept me busy.

My friend, Cheapshot911 (he's a fellow Rottie, so I will make the assumption he's my friend) posted this:



I took karate in my youth, but I know now that it's best to keep it a secret till absolutely necessary. The more you tip your hand, the harder you get smacked.

Feh!

The last two days at work have been...frustrating.

Not bad, not good. Not getting ahead, but not falling behind. Just a lot of walking trying to figure out an adjustment to make on some piece of equipment that would at least let me feel like I accomplished something beside maintaining our meager status quo.

I was talking to my relief tonight about the work we use to do 20-25 years ago in the oil field (I still have all my fingers)and while this job can be a bitch, we wouldn't want to go back to "the good old days", but it got me thinking about "those days" on my drive home and it made me remember this song by Madonna.

I'm not a Madonna fan, but I like some of her songs and don't think about her politics when listening. The exteriors of this video were shot on property that belonged to the company I worked for. As a favor to the employees, the owner would insist that a company rep (me) had to be on site during filming paid by the filming company. Long hours of boredom watching them shoot the same scene over and over (the kiss at 3:24...I watched them film it about 5 times, then went to dinner...good food...sat around and BS'ed with the cops on "crowd control", went back....and they were still filming the same kiss), followed by intense chaos of the crew moving everything for the next shot. I talked to Madonna, she just showed up next to me before I realized who she was (she's a dink, I'm 6'2" and she didn't even come up to my shoulder). The closing scene of her and the kid dancing up the street, if you look at the trees on the right side of the street, you can see some movement. There were probably about 50 people from the neighborhood behind those trees.

Our big starring moment comes at 3:45, that's our oil well.



If you ever rep for a company during a film shoot, bring a lawn chair and a book. I've worked a few and it's boring as hell.

Oil Profits

Gee, someone else out there gets it.

Mark Steyn: Your car can't run on Congress' hot air

I was watching the Big Oil execs testifying before Congress. That was my first mistake. If memory serves, there was lesbian mud wrestling over on Channel 137, and on the whole that's less rigged. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz knew the routine: "I can't say that there is evidence that you are manipulating the price, but I believe that you probably are. So prove to me that you are not."

Had I been in the hapless oil man's expensive shoes, I'd have answered, "Hey, you first. I can't say that there is evidence that you're sleeping with barnyard animals, but I believe that you probably are. So prove to me that you are not. Whatever happened to the presumption of innocence and prima facie evidence, lady? Do I have to file a U.N. complaint in Geneva that the House of Representatives is in breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?"

Another waste of taxpayer money going over the same thing they went over a few years ago. Libtard thinking, every time the price of gas goes up, it must be BIG OIL causing it,with their 8% profit margin.

Once the show with Oil Execs is going nowhere and is over, they come up with the brilliant idea of suing OPEC members (sovereign nations) over the use of their own commodity...because we want it.

and then they went off and passed 324-82 the so-called NOPEC bill. The NOPEC bill is, in effect, a suit against OPEC, which, if I recall correctly, stands for the Oil Price-Exploiting Club. "No War For Oil!," as the bumper stickers say. But a massive suit for oil – now that's the American way.

"It shall be illegal and a violation of this Act," declared the House of Representatives, "to limit the production or distribution of oil, natural gas, or any other petroleum product ... or to otherwise take any action in restraint of trade for oil, natural gas or any petroleum product when such action, combination, or collective action has a direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable effect on the market, supply, price or distribution of oil, natural gas or other petroleum product in the United States."

I would assume that this law with penumbras and such, could be used to sue Fwance for limiting the import of Brie to the U.S. causing action, combination, or collective action has a direct, substantial, and reasonably foreseeable effect on the market, supply, price or distribution of Brie, or other cheezy stuff in the United States."

After all Nancy Pelosi may have a fund raiser for re-election and she wouldn't want to have to serve any of that nasty California cheese.

Er, OK. But, before we start suing distant sheikhs in exotic lands for violating the NOPEC act, why don't we start by suing Congress? After all, who "limits the production or distribution of oil" right here in the United States by declaring that there'll be no drilling in the Gulf of Florida or the Arctic National Mosquito Refuge? As Rep. Wasserman Schultz herself told Neil Cavuto on Fox News, "We can't drill our way out of this problem."

No, we can't...but:

Well, maybe not. But maybe we could drill our way back to $3.25 a gallon. More to the point, if the House of Representatives has now declared it "illegal" for the government of Saudi Arabia to restrict oil production, why is it still legal for the government of the United States to restrict oil production? In fact, the government of the United States restricts pretty much every form of energy production other than the bizarre fetish du jour of federally mandated ethanol production.

But we're protecting "our" environment, and you guys live in a sandbox.

Nuclear energy?

Whoa, no, remember Three Mile Island? (OK, nobody does, but kids and anyone under late middle age, you can look it up in your grandparents' school books.)

We have been operating a nuclear navy for decades now without mishap. I have a brother-in-law who would have loved to come out of the Navy, after running the reactor for 10 years and gone into a civilian job doint the same thing.

Coal?

Whoa, no, man, there go our carbon credits.

OK, how about if we all go back to the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe, and start criss-crossing the country on wood-fired trains?

Are you nuts? Think of the clear-cutting. We can't have logging in environmentally sensitive areas such as forests.

Coal has progressed to where the technology is much, much cleaner than the old smoke belching stacks of the '50's, but future advances are limited when using it for a fuel source is just ruled out.

Rep. Wasserman Schultz believes in "alternative energy," which means not nuclear (like the French) but solar and wind power. At the moment, solar energy accounts for approximately 0.1 percent of U.S. electricity production, most of which is for devices that heat swimming pools. So if there was a tenfold increase in swimming pool construction you might be able to get it up to 1 percent, but the only way all those homeowners would be able to afford to build their new swimming pools is through the kinds of economic activity that depend on oil, gas and other forms of federally prohibited energy.

Concentrating solar rays in an area enough to produce meaningful energy, gee, I duuno, might cause an unnatural increase in the temperature in the surrounding area, thereby making it to hot for the two-tongued horny-toad to survive. (No one has seen a two-tongued horny-toad in over 60 years, but they could be out there and we wouldn't want to kill one.)

So, instead, Congress hauls Big Oil execs in for the dinner-theatre version of a Soviet show trial and then passes irrelevant poseur legislation like the NOPEC bill. The NOPEC bill is really the NO PECS bill – a waste of photocopier paper passed by what C.S. Lewis called "men without chests."

But, they did something, right?

The New Yorker ran a big piece the other day called "The Fall Of Conservatism." Indeed. This November isn't going to be pleasant for those of us of a right-wing bent. Many conservative voices in the media say: This is the way it is, get used to it. Voters want the government to "fix" health care and "fix" gas prices and "fix" the environment and, if all you're offering is the virtues of small government, you too sound small – and mean and uncaring about the real issues in real people's real lives. Standing athwart history yelling "Stop!" was a cute line from William F. Buckley, but it's not a practical position for a political party that wishes to stay in business. "The fact of change is the great fact of human life," writes my National Review colleague David Frum in "Comeback," his thoughtful critique of the conservative movement.

Frum is right. Change is a constant. You're a big railroad baron,and things are going swell, and then someone invents the horseless carriage and a big metal bird that holds hundreds of people and you never saw it coming – because you thought you were in the train business rather than in the transportation business. That kind of change is the great exhilarating rhythm of American life. [emp. mine]

Our countries past ability to glimpse around the next corner, that seem to be missing today.

But government "change," Obama change, NOPEC change is nothing to do with that. In fact, it obstructs real dynamic change. On energy, on environmentalism, on health care, government "change" generally does nothing more than set in motion the next crisis that the next change-peddling pol has to pledge to address.

So we complain about $4-a-gallon gas, and our leaders respond with showboating legislation like NOPEC and feel-good environmental regulatory overkill like putting the polar bear on the endangered-species list, while ensuring that we'll continue to bankroll every radical mosque and madrassah on the planet. In Britain, new "green taxes" do nothing to "save" the planet, but they are estimated to cost the average family about $6,000 a year. That's change you can believe in.

We refuse to recognize what needs to be done, try to push the blame off on others (NOPEC, the hearings) and continue to dig ourselves in deeper.

One final note: The Big Oil companies are not setting the price of a barrel of crude, they are having to pay that price, because if they don't, some other country will and we lose.

Miley Cyrus

Why do I care about Miley Cyrus? I really don't. To me she is just the newest preteen fad. I have never seen her program nor listened to her music.

My kid is 19.

I had to live through "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and his, since past, love of "wrestling" (not while I'm home and if I open the front door and I see more than the channel changing, there will be consequences).

I served my time in hell.

Miley, who is only 15, cannot be held responsible for this debacle. Nor do I think her parents should take the complete blame. This child was put into a situation, with adult supervision that was suppose to watch out for her and got snowed by the media image industry into they were just advancing Miley's career.

Annie Liebowitz as photographer, for Vanity Fair? A little research should have told the Cyrus' that either Mom, Dad, or both should have handle this session.

Billy Ray has said he regrets what happened and from what little I've seen of interviews with him and his feelings of family, I'm willing to give him this one.

Being this affects me little, I think if the parents cool their jets, we'll just remember her as this.

Just Got Back From OZ

I haven't been around a while, not that too many are going to notice. I'm on day shift and that is backwards from what I'm comfortable with, so I've been cranky and tired. I did write a looong post a few days ago and I was in a really foul mood about work and life. I was about 7/8ths of the way through a total pityfest, when I got on the phone with my Mom and brother, who I hadn't talked to in three weeks.

Seems my Mom decided to sign up with Vonage for the phone, but being she's not the most techno savvy person, didn't realize you have to have a broadband line (or any computer line) to get the service. Vonage transfered her phone number to their service, so they had no phone at all.

When I got off the phone with them, my anger at life had dissipated, so that post is sitting in drafts, probably never to be published.

The reference to OZ in today's title goes back to about four days ago, the Santa Ana (actually Santana or devil)winds came blowing through my valley. Gust of 60 to 70+ mph, enough that even though I've have pretty good weather striping on my front door, it whistles like crazy. I was lucky this year, it usually peels the rolled roofing off the flat part of my garage during one of these wind storms, to bad my neighbors down the street weren't so lucky.



Typically, these people had just gutted, renovated and added to their house less than 2 years ago. It was an almost two year project.

HT to my boy for letting me borrow his digital camera for the pic.

Why Johnny Can't Read

The wonderful LAUSD (Los Angeles School District)decided they needed a new computer system to issue payroll. The initial cost for this was 95 million dollars. Now see if this surprises anyone...the damn thing doesn't work!

The projected cost to fix it, 210 million dollars and they're not sure it will work then. So what does the district have to say?

From the L.A. Times Opinion:

LAUSD's unending payroll problem


The district's chief operating officer hopes, but can't promise, that it's fixed.
November 14, 2007

Confronted recently about L.A. Unified's exasperating payroll scandal, the district's chief operating officer acknowledged that, after nearly a year, he still can't promise that the problem is solved. "We have," he said, as if this would reassure, "a higher degree of confidence than ever before that we are accurate." That's an answer unworthy of a student, much less a leader. So, Supt. Brewer, yes, we expect more. But you have our sympathies as well.

Of course being they are going slightly over budget in a district that is scrounging for money to teach our children, they hire a PR firm for a couple of hundred thou to try to put a palatable spin on this debacle.

This comes right on the heels of the fraud they uncovered by administrators in procurement card purchases:

Follow-Up: LAUSD Credit Card Paper Trail
by David Goldstein

LOS ANGELES (CBS) ― This report is a follow-up to David Goldstein's riveting report from last week in which he exposed a myriad of abuses of procurement cards being used by LAUSD officials...including a $500 coffee maker.

"Did you have any idea they were spending upwards of $5 million a month on procurement cards?"

No, no!

Teachers Union President A.J. Duffy had no idea.

The necessary items to instruct the kids:

$995 for a mattress. Another $995 for a company that produces video games. $995 for flowers. We found charges for fishing tackle...stuffed animals...purchases at Bed, Bath and Beyond.

Smart & Final and Trader Joes...Linens and Things. Millions and millions of dollars in charges.

I don't live "in" L.A., so it's not my property taxes paying for this FUBAR entity, but as long as I live on SoCal, I'm going to have to deal with whatever they manage to spit out after high school.

My animosity towards LAUSD goes back to when I did live and work in downtown L.A.

When I first started working in the "Old Los Angeles Oil Field", I was single and not making much. I rented a house from one of our customers in the middle of the barrio. About two blocks away (I could sit in my kitchen and the football games) was Belmont High School. This was a school built in 1923 for 500 students, today the student population is 5200. Think things might have been a little tight there?

To alleviate the overcrowding, the LAUSD bought out a shitload of houses, torn 'em down and started construction on the Belmont Learning Center. When about 60% complete, someone noticed the oil wells in the area (this would include the four the LAUSD owned plus another well they had to buy and re-drill to relocate). The project ground to a stop.

It wasn't safe for the chiilldreen!!

This was BS for many reasons. One being that they had put a vapor barrier and venting system under the school...and half the kids that would attend lived right there in the middle of the fracking oil field in houses that were built in the '30's and '40's. Doubt they considered any oil field gases back then. The kids would have been safer in school than in their own home.

As far as that newly discovered earthquake fault that runs under it, if you're right over it or 1/2 mile away...

Oh yeah, they've started work on the Learning Center again, it's just been 10 wasted years.

One major disappointment during the Belmont Learning Center fiasco was that I kept being called in by the state for my "expert" opinion on the status of the oil filed and the activist that was bitching about the whole thing was, you guessed already I bet, a Hollywierd celebratty. She could take what I said and twist it just a bit so that it sounded like I had said the complete opposite. When I'd insist that wasn't what I said, she'd insist that, yes, that's what I meant.

Ahh, well. She did play a Dr. on T.V.

The Mother of War

I know where she's coming from, but I cannot buy the premise. Watch this and we'll discuss.

I have heard this argument throughout my life, yet I always come back to what has happened in my life.

Indira Gandhi - war with Pakistan

Golda Meir - war with the arabs

Margaret Thatcher - war in the Falklands.

The idea that when women are in charge all conflict ceases is a fantasy.

This is twice she's lost it while accepting an award. I don't expect better from actors/actresses, it's just that people who live by their emotions just do not seem to be able to separate reality from the world they want.

Tammy Bruce said something today that really struck home. [paraphrase] Mothers are more likely to fight to protect their children."

I'm so disappointed because I have been in love with Sally since "Gidget" and the "Flying Nun". Even now when she's doing ads for osteoporosis, I still look at her and see her in her twenties.

Another of my icons just bit the dust.

I cannot remember where I ran across theseaudio clips while bouncing around different site a few days ago, but it has stuck in my head since.

The man who pulled me to the dark side explains the inherent flaws in Socialized Medicine and what it leads to. I was particularly struck by the start of Part II when he explains that where you work will be dictated by the government. You've grown up in Boise, and want to work there, tough luck, Boise has enough doctors, you are needed in Minot N.D. (place a friend of mine described as summer lasting from June 30 to July 1..on a good year).

I'll let (pre)President Reagan explain: