Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Eminent Domain

During my recent Arizona gig, I had the privilege of visiting Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's house, studio, architectural intern boot camp, and place where he built lots of stuff and then tore it down, just to stay in practice. 

It was a great experience, and if you ever find yourself in Phoenix, I hope you'll make time to visit.  Wright was a genius. 

Now....imagine that you're an architectural genius who has been diagnosed with bronchitis and pneumonia, and you need to find a new winter home, someplace far away from the near-arctic weather in Wisconsin.  Imagine that you settle on a place near Phoenix/Scottsdale, and you buy enough acreage to control the view from your house. 

The view is why you chose the site, built the house, and started the architecture school at that site.  The view of YOUR property.  Remember, you're a genius, and you think buildings should fit their surroundings, both in materials and placement. 

You whip out a masterpiece.  It's exactly what you want. 

The next part I have to piece together from our tour guide and from the internet.  Some government dweeb, long forgotten except for this solitary act of vandalism, decides to invoke his Eminent Domain privileges and run powerlines across your property.  You fight it, you even go to Harry Truman to try to get him to intervene.  The powerlines totally ruin the view. 

(The powerlines erected during Wright's lifetime were much smaller than these monsters, but they were enough to piss Frank off for the rest of his life.) 

The wall to the left was once almost 100% window.  Wright bricked it in halfway up so he wouldn't have to see the powerlines in the distance. 

He changed the main entrance from the front of the house to the back of the house, all to avoid looking at the reminder of the theft of his property. 

This is the man who built Fallingwater, recently voted as the most architecturally significant building of the 20th century.  And even he had to put up with that kind of crap from his government. 

Oh well.  That's enough ranting about Eminent Domain.  A tour of the house, the meeting rooms, concert halls, grounds, and architecture school only costs $24.00, and it's well worth it. 

The guides won't let you take pictures in the living quarters for some reason.  But at one point, our tour leader asked if there was a pianist in the house, someone who could show off the acoustics of the den.  I volunteered, and therefore was able to get my picture taken playing Frank's Steinway.  A rare privilege.
(Organic, natural, architectural materials look great, by the way.  But they are no good at keeping pianos in tune.  I'm just sayin'.....)

I can now say that I've played The Electric Light Orchestra's "Evil Woman" on Frank Lloyd Wright's Steinway, and "Dixie" on Robert E. Lee's piano at Arlington House (See pic below. Long story). 

Taliesin West, in Scottsdale, Arizona.  Go there. 

Pics came from here and here and here and here and me. 

Dallas Independent School District suffering from "Black Flight"

A recent piece in the Dallas Morning News has created a bit o' controversy. 
Remember the "white flight" of the 1970's and 80's, when white families left the cities by the dumpster-load, creating boomtowns out of sleepy little hamlets like Aledo, Colleyville, Weatherford, etc.? 
Many of these refugees were accused of being racists. 
Well, it ain't necessarily so. 

The Dallas Independent School District is now experiencing "black flight". 

The number of black children attending DISD schools has reached its lowest point since 1965.

I repeat....

The number of black children attending DISD schools has reached its lowest point since 1965.

Where are they going?  Charter schools.  Private academies.  And, of course, the suburbs. 

Today, about 41,000 black students attend DISD schools. They make up 26 percent of the district compared with 106,000 Hispanic children, or 68 percent. White students are 5 percent of the district.

Wow.  What could be going wrong?  Here are a couple of charts from The Cato Institute.  This one shows enrollment from 1970 to 2010, as compared to school employees from 1970 to 2010.

Hey, it takes a lot of employees to run off that many customers. 

Here's another one showing the spending per student vs the reading, math, and science scores:

Is there anyone, anyone at all, who can justify keeping this system going instead of privatizing the whole thing?  Or at least offering a voucher system for those who can't afford to get out? 

Does the United States really need another Aledo or Colleyville? 

How to explain the benefits of Free Trade

Here's how to explain the benefits of Free Trade in less than three minutes. 
The next time you hear Lou Dobbs or Nancy Pelosi griping about the "unfair advantages" of those pesky Chinese, Japanese, Messicans, or any other minority they don't like, please think of the Bastiat quote that closes this video:

"Through exchange, they are, in fact, compelled to allow us to share in those unfair advantages"



If you still disagree, think of it this way....What is the last item that you purchased because it was on sale for a great price? Did you ever consider NOT purchasing the item because it would be unfair to the retailers who couldn't offer the same low price?

Go here for more good stuff from The Atlas Network. 

Are You Smarter Than A Libertarian????

Grab a piece of paper and a pencil.  Answer these eight questions with 1) Strongly Agree, 2) Somewhat Agree, 3) Somewhat Disagree, 4) Strongly Disagree, or 5) Not Sure. 
I've changed a few of the questions from negative propositions to positive statements, and vice-versa, to make the scoring easier.
Don't just read it.  Get a piece of paper and write down your answers.   

1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services.
2) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago.
3) Rent control leads to housing shortages.
4) A company with the largest market share is not a monopoly.
5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are not being exploited.
6) Free trade does not leads to unemployment.
7) Minimum wage laws raise unemployment.
8) Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable.

Ok, class, before we evaluate your answers, let's discuss a few of the "givens" here.  There are things that the overwhelming majority of Biologists simply "know", and take for granted.  Photosynthesis, for instance.  Biologists don't debate very often about whether it happens. 
Math instructors generally don't debate how many 90 degree angles are required to  form 360 degrees.  Most musicians generally agree that the A above middle C vibrates at 440 times per second. 

There are other things that Economists generally "know".  Those things are included in the questions above.

If you answered "Strongly Disagree" or "Somewhat Disagree" with any of the statements above, count that as a wrong answer. 

Please remember that ease of grading, I've changed the wording on a few of the questions.  All of these came from an editorial by Daniel B. Klein, writing for the Wall Street Journal, in a piece called "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?"  Here's Mr. Klein:

Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country—liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.


Zogby researcher Zeljka Buturovic and I considered the 4,835 respondents' (all American adults) answers to eight survey questions about basic economics. We also asked the respondents about their political leanings: progressive/very liberal; liberal; moderate; conservative; very conservative; and libertarian.


Rather than focusing on whether respondents answered a question correctly, we instead looked at whether they answered incorrectly. A response was counted as incorrect only if it was flatly unenlightened.


Consider one of the economic propositions in the December 2008 poll: "Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable." People were asked if they: 1) strongly agree; 2) somewhat agree; 3) somewhat disagree; 4) strongly disagree; 5) are not sure.


Basic economics acknowledges that whatever redeeming features a restriction may have, it increases the cost of production and exchange, making goods and services less affordable. There may be exceptions to the general case, but they would be atypical.


Therefore, we counted as incorrect responses of "somewhat disagree" and "strongly disagree." This treatment gives leeway for those who think the question is ambiguous or half right and half wrong. They would likely answer "not sure," which we do not count as incorrect.


In this case, percentage of conservatives answering incorrectly was 22.3%, very conservatives 17.6% and libertarians 15.7%. But the percentage of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly was 67.6% and liberals 60.1%. The pattern was not an anomaly.


How did the six ideological groups do overall? Here they are, best to worst, with an average number of incorrect responses from 0 to 8: Very conservative, 1.30; Libertarian, 1.38; Conservative, 1.67; Moderate, 3.67; Liberal, 4.69; Progressive/very liberal, 5.26.


Americans in the first three categories do reasonably well. But the left has trouble squaring economic thinking with their political psychology, morals and aesthetics.


To be sure, none of the eight questions specifically challenge the political sensibilities of conservatives and libertarians. Still, not all of the eight questions are tied directly to left-wing concerns about inequality and redistribution. In particular, the questions about mandatory licensing, the standard of living, the definition of monopoly, and free trade do not specifically challenge leftist sensibilities.


Yet on every question the left did much worse. On the monopoly question, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (31%) was more than twice that of conservatives (13%) and more than four times that of libertarians (7%). On the question about living standards, the portion of progressive/very liberals answering incorrectly (61%) was more than four times that of conservatives (13%) and almost three times that of libertarians (21%).


The survey also asked about party affiliation. Those responding Democratic averaged 4.59 incorrect answers. Republicans averaged 1.61 incorrect, and Libertarians 1.26 incorrect.


Adam Smith described political economy as "a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator." Governmental power joined with wrongheadedness is something terrible, but all too common. Realizing that many of our leaders and their constituents are economically unenlightened sheds light on the troubles that surround us.

This reminds me of a P.J. O'Rourke line, from Eat The Rich, where he talks about systemic poverty in Russia: 

I had one fundamental question about economics: Why do some places prosper and thrive while others just suck? It’s not a matter of brains. No part of the earth (with the possible exception of Brentwood) is dumber than Beverly Hills, and the residents are wading in gravy. In Russia, meanwhile, where chess is a spectator sport, they’re boiling stones for soup.

It doesn't matter how smart you are.  If enough of your leaders fundamentally disagree with the 8 statements above, you're eventually going to find yourself boiling rocks to make soup. 
And if you're a Capital "L" Libertarian and got ANY of these questions wrong, please change your name or change your ways.

What the new Robin Hood movie is really about

You can go here and here and here and here and here and here to read libertarian perspectives on Ridley Scott's (relatively) new Robin Hood movie. 

Or you can go see it and develop your own theory of what it all means. 



Lord have mercy, it's a mess. It's a rousing pro-liberty, anti-tax call to arms, but it's still a total mess. The plot doesn't make a lick of sense, and the movie has more anachronisms than Ye Olde Northe Texas Renaissance Faire.
My favorite? The wooden landing craft that the invading French army (long story) uses to land on the British coastline.  They're near replicas of the metal versions that we used five centuries later to go the opposite direction into Normandy.  I don't think troop transport vessels with a hinged front end were on the market during the Middle Ages. 

Still, the movie is enjoyable if you understand the basic metaphor at its heart.....

King Richard plays George W. Bush, who got his country into debt with a pointless war against Muslims.  Robin Hood plays the returning Iraqi vet, who feels guilty about slaughtering Muslims. 

King Richard dies in battle and is replaced by Barack Obama, played by King John.  This new king cranks the spending even higher, and needs even more taxes. 
 
At one point early in the film, King John actually blames all the continuing high taxes and astronomical debts on the previous king.  If you don't laugh at that point in the movie, you need to watch the news more often.

Friar Tuck, Will Scarlet, Alan A'Dale, Little John some Lost Boys left over from a Peter Pan movie, they all portray various Tea Partiers, Libertarians, Constitutionalists, and Campaign For Liberty members. 

Godfrey, the evil tax collector, does a good turn as Timothy Geithner. 

The Sheriff Of Nottingham portrays Senator Arlen Spector, who tries to play both sides from the middle and gets shunned by everyone. 

That's all you really need to know about the characters, other than Maid Marion.  Maid Marion plays the mandatory female lead who, despite having no military or combat training, shows up in armor at the final battle so she can get knocked unconscious in the middle of the fight and distract Robin Hood from killing Timothy Geithner. 

At one point, King John/Barack Obama burns the new constitution, but stops short of requiring all his subjects to spend money with health insurance companies. 

Before the final fight, King John/Barack Obama, who is totally unqualified to do anything except be his own glorious self, says to the troops “Gentlemen, let’s go to war. It’s my first time – I’ll lead”.  If you don't laugh at that point in the movie, you probably thought that it was ok to vote for a presidential candidate who had absolutely no executive or management experience. 

Fun movie, but I only gave it 6 stars due to sloppiness in the plot and dialogue, plus none of the kings had a court jester portrying Joe Biden. 

Robin Hood, directed by Ridley Scott, and starring Barack Obama, The Tea Party Movement, Timothy Geithner, and George W. Bush, is still showing in theatres.

The Thrill Is Gone

Please play this while you read.



Here's Jack Kelly writing about how The Thrill Is Gone. A brief excerpt:

The low point came when Mr. Obama professed not to know whether Elizabeth Birnbaum, the woman he appointed to head the Minerals Management Service, resigned or was fired. No one expects the president to don scuba tanks and plug the hole himself. But he at least ought to know what's going on with his own people.

"He came across as a beleaguered bureaucrat in damage control," wrote Craig Crawford of Congressional Quarterly.

Here's Maureen Dowd, a former worshipper of The Obamessiah:

It’s impossible not to feel sorry for President Obama, pummeled by the cascading disasters, at home and abroad, unleashed by two war-mongering oil men — plus scary escalations by Israel, Iran and North Korea. (Dick Cheney’s dark influence is still belching like the well. BP just brought on a new public relations executive: Anne Womack-Kolton, who served as Cheney’s campaign press secretary in 2004 and worked in W.’s White House and at the Energy Department.)

Well, actually it is possible to avoid feeling sorry for the Messianic muttonhead.  I know a lot of  people who accomplish the feat every waking hour. 
If you like, you can go here for a similar column written by Newsweek's Jonathan Alter.
IMAO, what we're dealing with is the inevitable disappointment in the leadership style of someone who has been given the toughest job in the world, but who has never even had to deal with the heavy burdens of running a Whataburger night shift. 
What kind of competence were they expecting?     
I hope you're enjoying the B.B. King/Eric Clapton jam.  (That's a much younger, less bald Phil Collins on the drums, BTW.)

I found this in the comment field of the New York Post article up at the top:

Bush has been out of office for almost 2 years and you're STILL crying about him.
Did Reagan ever blame Carter for the mess he left?
Did Carter ever blame Ford for Nixon? For ANYTHING?
Did Nixon ever blame Vietnam on Kennedy or Johnson?
Did Kennedy blame Ike or Truman for the Cold War and the Cuban Missle Crisis?
Did Truman blame FDR for WW2?
Did FDR blame Hoover for the Depression?
Or did these men focus on the issues instead of acting like a child and pointing fingers?

Well, they probably did.  But I don't have time to research it. 
It's been a year and a half, and the guy and his minions still can't speak  to the media without saying the phrase "what we inherited".  What they're doing is "more of the same". 

I hope you'll listen to King and Clapton all the way through to the end.  The last minute of that video is like listening to Zeus talk to Thor.  Great stuff. 

The Pro-Hole Agenda

The almost tragic Arizona bacon story

I'm spending about a week and a half in Arizona, filling in for another guy at the Phoenix Jukt Micronics warehouse.  Most of our Texas transplants are staying at The Marriott TownePlace Suites since the rooms are more spacious, have kitchens, and are a little easier to live in for 6 months.  There are lots of good folks working there at the TownePlace Suites, and I owe them a lot. 
Here's why:

I've worked in manufacturing for so long that I have a hard time doing anything in small quantities.  If I buy laundry soap, I get a 3-month supply.  When I cut my food, I generally slice everything on my plate and THEN start eating.  It's called "batching your tasks".  You don't have to handle your tools so many times. 

So when I cook bacon, I throw an entire package in the skillet, stir it around for about 15 minutes and then put it in a ziplock bag.  I'm through cooking bacon for the week. 

The good people at the Marriott TownePlace Suites (Phoenix) provide each resident with a couple of small skillets, but those aren't big enough for a full production run of bacon. 

The other option would be to purchase microwaveable bacon, but that's against my general philosophy.  Bacon is meant to be fried. 

That left me with only one choice.  The dutch oven. 

The Dutch Oven provided by the Marriott TownePlace Suites (Phoenix) is not as sturdy as the one shown above, but it would do in a pinch.  I opened up the meat package, sorted out the slices of bacon into the pot, and then concentrated on scrambling eggs. 

So you can visualize the next few minutes of crisis, here's what a Marriott TownePlace Suites (Phoenix) kitchen looks like:

 

If you're cooking an entire package of bacon at once, some strips will get ready before others.  You just fish 'em out with a fork, throw them on a paper towel, and wait on the slackers to catch up.  By the time an entire package is done, there's at least an inch of boiling grease in the bottom of the skillet.  Even more if you're using a small Dutch Oven instead of the traditional wide skillet. 

I was almost through with the bacon.  Maybe 2 or 3 strips weren't done yet.  All of a sudden the grease started bubbling violently and dark smoke started coming out of the Dutch Oven.  I dredged out the last few pieces of bacon just in time to see the grease go up to the halfway mark inside the pot.  A black cloud started coming out of the Dutch Oven, a cloud so big that it  looked like Israelites should be following it through the wilderness for 40 years. 

All I could think of was "what if the fire sprinklers go off?" 

I moved the pot to an empty burner, but the grease didn't show any signs of settling down, and I was afraid it would spontaneously ignite. 

So I put the lid on it. 

The grease settled down within a few seconds.  Then I tried to remove the lid so I could dispose of the grease (the room was full of smoke, BTW). 

The lid wouldn't budge.  Putting the lid on top of all that heat had created a vacuum inside the Dutch Oven.  I got a fork and tried to pry it off, but got nowhere.  

Next I tried putting some Mississippi physics to work on the problem, reasoning that if heat had created the vacuum, cold might eliminate it.  I put the whole cluster o' metal and grease in the sink and slowly ran cold water over the lid.  

I heard creaking and groaning from the lid.  The pot then pulled the lid into itself about two inches, the metal going from convex to concave before my eyes.  With all the smoke and bubbling I almost expected a Linda Blair voice to come out of the Dutch Oven, saying "THE LID IS MINE, PRIEST ! ! !"   

When the going gets tough, the tough eat their breakfast.  I sat down in my smoke-filled room....

....and ate my scrambled eggs and hard-earned bacon. 
Before I left for work, I made a point of opening the windows and leaving the vent-a-hood and air conditioning turned up to "Geronimo".  I left the satanic Dutch Oven in the sink. 

Ten hours later which I got back to the room, the bed was made, the countertops were wiped down and everything seemed normal, except the place still smelled like someone had turned a pyromaniac loose in the Chicago Stockyards. 

I can't imagine what the housekeeping crew thought when they walked into that horrific room.  I have no idea how they pried the lid off the Dutch Oven, but there it was in the drawer with the other cookware, misshapen lid and all.  I owe them big-time. 

I might invite all of them over to eat tonight.  I'm cooking lasagna.   

John Stossel on how to fight bigotry without government

Here's John Stossel, weighing in on how to fight bigotry without government:

"Backwards and hateful ideas ... oust John Stossel," said Colorofchange.org.

In a newspaper, the organization went on:

"It's time that FOX drop Stossel ... we'll go directly after the network with a public campaign unlike anything we've pursued to date."

Media Matters joined in: "By airing Stossel's repugnant comments, Fox legitimizes his indefensible position."

What "indefensible" position did I take?

I said this: "Private businesses ought to get to discriminate. I won't ever go to a place that's racist, and I will tell everybody else not to, and I'll speak against them. But it should be their right to be racist."

Read that carefully: I condemned racism. I said I'd speak out against and boycott a racist's business. But to some people, I committed heresy. I failed to accept the entire catechism. I didn't say that we need government to fight racism and prohibit racist policies in private establishments.

For this, they demand that I be fired.

This controversy started when Rand Paul, who had just won a senatorial primary, told TV talker Rachel Maddow that the part of the Civil Rights Act that bans discrimination by private business is improper interference with property owners' rights. He, too, condemned racism.

But the chattering class's reaction to Paul's statements must have made him uncomfortable. The next day, he issued a statement saying that he would have voted for the entire act because federal intervention was needed.

Maybe. At the time, racism was so pervasive that such an intrusive law may have been a good thing. But, as a libertarian, I say: Individuals should be surrounded by a sphere of privacy where government does not intrude. Part of the Civil Rights Act violates freedom of association. That's why I told Fox's Megyn Kelly, "It's time now to repeal that part of the law."

You can't say that in America?

America's fundamental political philosophy has deteriorated quite a bit if we can't distinguish between government and private conduct. I enthusiastically support the parts of the civil rights act that struck down Jim Crow laws, which required segregation in government facilities, mass transit, and sometimes in private restaurants and hotels. Jim Crow was evil. It had no place in America.

Racist policies in private restaurants are also evil, but they do not involve force. Government is force, so it should not be used to combat nonviolent racism on private property, even property open to the public.

I just don't trust government to decide what discrimination is acceptable. Its clumsy fist cannot deter private nonviolent racism without stomping on the rights of individuals. Today, because of government antidiscrimination policy, all-women gyms are sued and forced to admit men, a gay softball team is told it may not reject bisexuals and a Christian wedding photographer is fined thousands of dollars for refusing to take photos of a homosexual wedding.

I'll say it again: Racial discrimination is bad. But we have ways besides government to end it. The free market often punishes racists. Today, a business that doesn't hire blacks loses customers and good employees. It will atrophy, while its more inclusive competitors thrive.

In the pre-1964 South, things were different. But even then, private forces worked against bigotry. White owners of railroads and streetcars objected to mandated segregation. Historian Jennifer Roback writes that in 1902 the Mobile Light and Railroad Company "flat out refused to enforce" Mobile, Alabama's segregation law.

In cities throughout the South, beginning in 1960, student-led sit-ins and boycotts peacefully shamed businesses into desegregating whites-only lunch counters. Those voluntary actions were the first steps in changing a rancid culture. If anything, Washington jumped on a bandwagon that was already rolling.

It wasn't free markets in the South that perpetuated racism. It was government colluding with private individuals (some in the KKK) to intimidate those who would have integrated.

It was private action that started challenging the racists, and it was succeeding—four years before the Civil Rights Act passed.

Government is a blunt instrument of violence that one day might do something you like but the next day will do something you abhor. Better to leave things to us—people—acting together privately.

Well said, Mr. Stossel.  For those of you who aren't living and working out of Arizona hotels that don't carry the Fox Business Network, John Stossel can be seen on Thursday nights.  Each installment is shown several times throughout the week.  Easily the best libertarian program on the tube. 

I'm going out to find someplace to fight racism sobriety.  Y'all have a good night ! 

What's so bad about living and working in Mexico?

I'm working in Arizona for the next couple of weeks. 
There are some great folks out here. Unfortunately, some of them aren't legal. 
(The more I think about it, calling someone an illegal is kinda like the old days when we used to call some children illegitimate.) 

Arizona has decided to enforce the laws that are already on the books at the Federal level. 

This has pissed off the Statists, since they generally rely on Hispanic votes. 
This has motivated the Republicans, since they generally favor Law'n'Order, unless it's the laws that the ACLU supports. 
Most all of which frustrates the libertarians, who generally favor clogging the Rio Grande with copies of the tax code, import/export documents, Nancy Pelosi's autobiography, and let everyone who wants to do so walk into Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas on dry paper.  

Here's CNN on Obama and Arizona governor Jan Brewer's recent sit-down about immigration:

President Barack Obama emerged Thursday from a meeting with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer proclaiming limited progress on the immigration issue that divides them, but sticking to his opposition to her state's controversial immigration bill.

Here's the rub:  Say that someone is arrested in Virginia or Maryland.  The person has no identification.  Fingerprints reveal that the arrestee is here illegally from, say, Lichtenstein.  Should the Virginia or Maryland authorities deport the person, as the existing laws say they should, or should they release him?  Is there anything more to it than this? 

"I've told Governor Brewer that we've already put more resources into border security than we ever have," Obama told CNN's Larry King in an interview to air at 9 p.m. Thursday.

"Resources" is one of those words that makes my bullshit detector go off.  (Another is "persons" used in place of the perfectly good word "people".)  In spite of the resources, people are still coming across by the thousands.  Daily. 

"We have got more border guards in Arizona than we ever have. We just made decisions to put in additional National Guards. But without comprehensive immigration reform -- that is Congress' responsibility -- we are not going to solve this problem and that's what we have to do."

Barry, Barry, Barry....what part of the situation needs "reform"?  (That's another word that is starting to alarm me.  I've written elsewhere about icebergs being used as "Titanic reform".) 
Do we need to tighten up the existing policy of DON'T CROSS THE DAMN RIVER WITHOUT PAPERS?
Or do we need to let people come here to work and contribute to the economy by creating and consuming? 
Pick one.  Just saying reform reform reform reform isn't working. 

....Although I understand the frustration of the people of Arizona when it comes to the inflow of illegal immigrants (saith the Teleprompter), I don't think this is the right way to do it. I think this puts American citizens who look Hispanic, are Hispanic, potentially in an unfair situation."

More importantly, he said, "it also creates the prospects of 50 different laws in 50 different states when it comes to immigration."

(Note to the Teleprompter Programmer: Barry is supposed to be a constitutional law perfesser.  Do some reading on the 10th Amendment, or people are going to start questioning your typing skills.  50 different laws in 50 different states is what most of The Founders hoped for.  Well, 13 different laws in 13 different states.  You get the idea, I'm sure, even if Barry doesn't.  As long as the Feds don't distort the process, it's the best way to find out which policies are best.  Just think if every state had identical laws and policies, and they all had to match.....California's.)

So here are the big questions that no one is asking. 
The Teleprompter can say reform reform reform until it shorts a circuit.  The U.S. can continue building bigger and better useless fences.  The Republicans can hold rallies.  The Democrats can hold hands and march in solidarity with their oppressed brethren.  But is anyone, anyone at all, asking why the U.S. is so much better than Mexico?  Is anyone asking what's wrong with Mexico?  And if we know the answer, are we doing anything to ensure that we don't make the same mistakes as Mexico?

I don't think so. 

My favorite drummer of all time

This is my favorite drummer of all time.  He gets cranking around the 1:00 mark.  By 1:30 you'll fear for his health. 

Chicago's Victim Disarmament Laws once again achieve their purpose. 25 in 30.

Chicago's Victim Disarmament Laws are proving to be highly effective.  Here's ABC News, from a link provided by NewsAlert:

May 30, 2010 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- It has been a violent weekend in Chicago: in a 30 hour period, 25 people were shot, and one man died from his injuries.

The fatal shooting happened early Sunday in the 5100-block of S. Laflin.
Darius Murphy, 19, died after he was shot in the head.
Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis said nearly half of the shootings appear to be gang-related.
He said there are no suspects in any of the cases.

Also from NewsAlert....You can go here to learn why Chicago Alderman Fred Rotti was so enthusiastic about preventing citizens from defending themselves. 

The sign came from here. If you hit the link, check out his "celebrate diversity" sign. 

Memorial Day Hypothetical Question

We've been putting in 60-70 hour weeks at Jukt Micronics.  We've worked all weekend, and I'm working a small crew today (Memorial Day) getting a major project out the door. 
Assorted Vice Presidents and Operations V.P.'s have come by every day bringing lunch for my crews. 
The Sales V.P. who came by today didn't bring enough ice so I went a few miles up the road to a convenience store to pick up some.  Since I'm fundamentally a lazy person I took my time getting back to the warehouse, driving through a couple of Richland Hills TX industrial parks to see if anyone else was working on the holiday. 

Instead of the hundreds and hundreds of cars and trucks outside the warehouses, this is what I saw:

In front of one warehouse I saw a Mercedes-Benz. 
Parked in front of another was a Jaguar. 
Further down, nobody was working except one more Mercedes owner. 
In the next row of warehouses, there was one beautifully restored 1960's (?) era Cadillac. 
Finally, there was a Ford F-250 with all the bells and whistles, the kind I'm going to buy if The Aggie ever gets out of college. 

I get a  feeling that these vehicles don't belong to the forklift drivers. 

So here are some hypothetical questions for your holiday weekend.

1) Do you think there is a correlation between working ridiculous hours (like holidays) and getting to own a Mercedes, Jag, Cadillac, or mid-life crisis F-250?
2) Chances are, these Mercedes, Jag, Cadillac, and F-250 owners are the ones who took the risk of starting the companies where they're now spending their holiday today.  What do you think?
3) And finally, since the Mercedes, Jag, Cadillac and F-250 owners are "more fortunate", how much do they owe the people who are spending their holiday in their back yards or at the lake? 

Here's our Secretary Of State on that subject:


I hope you'll ask yourself how much longer the Mercedes, Jag, Cadillac, and F-250 owners will continue working holidays if a larger and larger percentage of their potential profit is going to be confiscated by this idiot.
Have a good holiday !   Some of us are still out there SAVING AND CREATING JOBS ! ! !

From the Tim Hawkins/Uncle Sam musical theatre....

From The Whited Mama, once again proving that my particular apple didn't fall too far from the tree. 

Why I am no longer a religious fundamentalist

Happy Memorial Day ! (30 years later edition)

I LOVE this video, which I found on Harper's site.
When I first started buying KISS 8-tracks in the late 1970's, my father had a good time making fun of the makeup and the costumes.
My mother just made faces, and said she couldn't believe I was enjoying that mess.
Various youth ministers (Hello, Danny White !) warned that KISS had satanic influences, and that there were documented instances of demonic possession during KISS concerts. 

Thirty years later.....
Here's KISS bassist and Lead Growlist Gene Simmons entertaining the troops, and leading a singalong of The Marine's Hymn, The Caissons Go Rolling Along, Anchors Aweigh, and Off We Go Into The Wild Blue Yonder. 
He's backed up by the Marine drum and bugle corps. 
Simmons closes the patriotic medley with "God Bless America".  (Kate Smith made the song famous, but she's dead.  Do you think Gene Simmons will ever be known as the "God Bless America" singer?  Naw....It will never happen.) 
Anyway, this is a fun video.  It's funny how much difference 30 years can make.   
Hope you like it, and have a good Memorial Day. 

Mommy, make the bad men go away !

I found this on the Tom Lewis Blog:



I don't know who Len Britton is, but if he's wins the election I bet he lasts about two months before he starts trying to save and create jobs, earmarking, voting to go overseas and blow shit up, subsidizing, and empire-building.  He is, after all, a Republican.
Funny ad, though. 

Happy Memorial Day !

In honor of my father, his brothers, my father-in-law, and everyone else who was ever asked to fight.
Hope everyone has a good weekend !

Let's Get Caesar Involved

I wrote this one in about 30 minutes last night.  It shows. 
Imagine this song done by an old-time Gospel quartet.  Will try to put up a YouTube if time ever allows. 

"Jesus taught the multitudes one day in Galilee,
Must have been five thousand, and they all got hungry....(fermata)
Disciples came to Jesus, and said "Get those people fed.
Jesus turned toward heaven, and this is what he said:

(bass) And he said

Let's get Caesar involved !
Caesar will get your problem solved. 
Go away and let me relax, that's why I pay all that tax,
You need to get Caesar involved. 

Three men saw a traveller that thieves had robbed and beat.
Two men were too busy, but one man stopped to speak (fermata)
"Buddy that looks painful, yeah sometimes life's a bitch. 
Samaritans no longer pull your ass up out of the ditch !

(bass) And he said

Let's get Caesar involved !
He will get the problem solved.
I used to go the 2nd mile, but in your case I think that I'll
Just try to get Caesar involved.

A wedding feast in Cana had just run out of wine,
One man said to Jesus, make us some moonshine (fermata)
But Jesus had no permits, nor a license to distill,
So he said I can't help you, but I know one who will

(bass) And he said

Let's get Caesar involved !
Government will get the problem solved. 
Give to Caesar what is his, next you'll give him all their is,
So let's get Caesar involved.

So if you're on life's highway, pulled down by sin and shame,
Just call on Big Brother, just call out his name (fermata)
Don't call out for your neighbor, or friends and family,
They will just refer you to Washington, D.C.,

(bass) And they'll say

Let's get Caesar involved !
He will get the problem solved. 
If you find that you can't cope, call on Mr. Change and Hope....
That you can get Caesar involved.

(Repeat chorus forever and ever, praising Caesar and thanking him for his great and glorious works.) 

From the front page of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram

From The Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

Energy efficiency is on the mind of every homeowner, but the same could be said of Uncle Sam.
Officials at Naval Air Station Fort Worth are increasingly embracing greener initiatives to reduce electricity, gas, water and fuel consumption and use alternative energy sources.

Here's the picture that accompanied the article.  It's one of the green, wholesome electric cars (highly subsidized, I'm sure) that are now running all over Carwell Air Force Base.  (Carswell AFB is the military installation that protects Fort Worth from sneak attacks by Oklahoma.)
These go-carts are manufactured by Daimler-Chrysler, which is now owned by Obama/Reid/Pelosi and the UAW. 

Is there anyone out there who doesn't think this picture is hilarious? 

This is one of my all-time favorite meaningless symbolic gestures.  The boys at Carswell take the mega-planes up once or twice a week, just for the hell of it as far as I can tell, and totally negate any and all justification for these little Tonka Toys.  More fuel is consumed on takeoff...aww...never mind.    
I'd pay $100 for a picture of General Patton going across Europe in one of these.  
This has had me in a good mood all day.