It has always amazed me that voters would decry the existence of federal earmarks on one hand, and pat local politicians on the back with the other for coming up with matching funds, and outright give always from the nations coffers.
While we have had our attention misdirected on players in our nations capitol, homegrown artful dodgers, and Fagin's have their way with the change in our pockets.Some are admirable, and well grounded goals, but I have yet to see a beautification project, or river walk help put food on the table, or help pay a laid off autoworkers medical expenses. It is merely putting lipstick on the problems we have as a community. Dressing up a locality in new logo's, and garnishing our sidewalks with brick walkways may well give the impression of affluence to corporate investors, but the hard sell comes when prospective employers see blocks with empty houses, announced school closures, and multiple pages of foreclosure notices in our local paper.
The sickness does not evolve from the proper idea that government can, and should help those in need. It comes from the idea that everyone else is getting a piece of the action, and if we don't ask for giveaways we will get nothing and lose our place in line. Two wrongs, don't make it right.
In tough times such as these we as citizens need to prioritize what may be needed, and what is merely a bump, and grab from the pockets of our citizens. The last time I looked, health care costs, mortgage scandals, and the economy were the biggest issues on the minds of voters. We have two wars to pay for, and the well being of people caught in disasters on our minds. Bridges to nowhere, over priced hockey rinks, and the mating habits of crabs need to be put on the back burner. We need to realize that every penny asked for from the federal government is going on a giant credit card given to us by foreign interests.
Those that would run up the tally, need to be admonished for not having the nations best interest in mind. Change is needed in the White House, but in order for it to be effective it must begin in our local governments houses.
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When you remove the lipstick from a pig, you have pork! What is this new word for pork? Why is an "earmark" a better word for "pork"? I understand that pigs get identified by cutting wedges from their ears, but pork barrels are different.
The exception that I would mention is probably the original intent of these barrels. Taxable income obviously is not yet a level playing field and barrel-filling money from wealthy areas for projects that benefit the entire nation has merit. Getting the local folks to buy into these projects is a good idea, too. When a government signs on to a global treaty to improve air quality (in the future), for example, the solution probably will not be focused on rural Virginia (or wilderness Alaska). Taxes from deep pockets can be shifted.
Somehow, our leaders seem to be expert in tipping the outhouse upside down and coming out smelling roselike.
When I was a Republican, I would have argued that most of the bike paths, and boulevards, were financed by the deepest pockets in town. Today, the goal of every business is to become a successful "public" corporation to avoid personal responsibility (commonly called "liability"), and there are fewer local deep pockets.
One sad feature of blogging is that when a successful business person gives generously to a local project you can expect derisive comments that focus on dirty underwear instead of appreciation for the gift.
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I wonder what the commission is on an $85 Billion dollar loan? Do you suppose the interest will go toward the expenses of the Chair of the Banking, Insurance or Commerce Committee?
I'm not politically savvy. Can somebody explain why McCane will be able to regulate Wall Street better than GWBII? Why will this be easier to get done some time off in the future? Did I miss the news report when the President and John McCane refused to accept any more money from the government and took early retirement? Did we get to lay them off? Were they fired?
As they say, "I don't get it"!
As long as we are still alone....
Gov. Sarah Palin is popular, likeable, pretty, aggressive, uses e-mail, physically strong, memorizes well, young, has great teeth, has a deserving child, etc., but more importantly she is against abortion, and for unborn people, is for execution of criminals, torture of Muslims, unilateral war and more armaments, inadequate care for wounded veterans, under-reporting of civilian deaths and atrocities, smart-ass foreign policy, promoting her version of morality, insulting other countries, thinks each of us should drive a Hummer, wears her christianity on her sleeve, and "energizes" females (at least 50% of voters), diverting our attention from the depressing subjects of the economy, bail-outs, bankruptcies, subsidized agriculture, insurance and stock brokers, no-bid contracts, mercenaries from Holland, oil contracts to foreign investors, our failure to compete successfully in global markets, the real estate crash, and other subjects being well-managed by our current Republican President and the invisible Republican puppeteers that will continue to suck the life out of this country.
If I was a girl, I would vote for her, change my hair style, wear glasses and lipstick, and body-check an animal while cheering my kids to gut their neighbors (or is it the other way around?)Whatever.
My closest confidant would be a guy who can drive a "snow-machine" really, really, fast.
Being a guy, I guess I can still vote for anybody who shows that he is smarter than I am, and can avoid solving conflicts without resorting to violence.
Glad I'm not a girl and can think for myself.
Just my opinion.
Is McPalin still running for President? Does the White House have a nursing home wing?
McPalin rehearsal for the Presidential Debate..
The economy of Michigan is fundamentally strong!
The economy of Michigan is fundamentally strong!
No, I meant;
The economy of the USA is fundamentally strong!
Oh! The economy of the USA is fundamentally strong!
No, I meant;
The world economy is fundamentally strong!
Oh, yeah! The world economy is fundamentally strong!
No, I meant;
The general economy is fundamentally strong!
Right! In general, the economy is fundamentally strong!
No, I meant;
The economy is fundamentally pretty strong!
Right! The economy is fundamentally kind of strong!
No, I meant;
The economy is fundamentally pretty strong for the US!
Oh! The economy is pretty strong for us!
Well, actually;
The workers are pretty strong!
Oh, I get it. Fundamentally the economy favors the strong
and we who have enough extra to invest in the stock market.
No, but if we don’t get richer with our investment surplus, the strong workers will bail us out.
That part is fundamentally strong.
Can we pay back the Chinese with funny-munny as long as Paulson is printing more?
He tells me that he is hammering out the deal as we speak.
They don’t speak English so they can’t be very bright!
As long as we are alone here;
If you are tiring of McPalin Lipstick.....as I am....
I have frequently asked readers to be aware of the growing intelligence in our hemisphere in spite of the portrayal of brown people as ignorant illegal immigrants by the Bubba delegation.
If you would be interested in some factual information instead of the same old party-line rants, go to:
(cut-n-paste, por favor)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolivarian_Alternative_for_the_Americas
It is a reasonably complete account of "ALBA", which may give you a somewhat different perspective. Note that Bolivar is the name of their equivalent of George Washington. Bolivia is a country.
The President of Honduras, who is not very happy with our insensitivity to his poverty problems, will be visiting GWBII soon (if he isn't arrested for being a non-white Catholic brown person "Muslim").
I thought this was about local pork?
I drove through downtown middleville and had to shake my head. Nice cement and brick work offset by black pavement with bright yellow stripes. My first thought was, how are these bricks going to hold up against a snow plow blade? I've already heard we dont have the proper equipment to clearmthe sidewalks so I have to believe we don't have what we need for the streets.
Years ago, in Key West, I came across a men's restroom with a blackboard and chalk.
I think this may have been the first blog.
Middleville has become very attractive. It is far more advanced in governance than the rest of Barry County. The bike trail is a tremendous asset (to the south). It is a bit more like a rising ostrich (see illustration) than a rising phoenix, but any rising from ashes is OK with me.
The debate continues to rage between Russia and the USA over who is actually the worst when it comes to locking up its citizens. Nuclear war is looming on the horizon between these two confinement superpowers over who is the most brain-dead.
In addition to all of the rest of the problems in the overweight rust-belt state of Michigan, we still manage to budget SIX BILLION Dollars to the misnamed Department of ”Corrections”, where we warehouse a huge number of our citizens for a while before releasing them back into society. What is the “success rate” for this SIX BILLION Dollar program of “correction”? Since the history of putting people in jails, prisons, dungeons and other forms of confinement goes back thousands of years we must be getting pretty good at “correcting” anti-social behavior, right? Our success rate must be approaching 100%, right? Zero-recidivism must be our middle-name, verdad? Well, actually, …No!
The truth is that we would be just as well off, and maybe better, if we didn’t even try to catch these people, and devoting years and megabucks to making them more offensive. So, why are we spending SIX BILLION Dollars a year, repeating the same stupid actions expecting the results to miraculously change? Could it be that “not correcting people” has become a major industry?
How much would you spend on a program that actually can prove that it has an 85% success rate at eliminating repeat performances? Since nearly all offenders (juvenile and adult) were abusing alcohol or other substances when they committed their crimes, would you include some rehabilitation in the program? Since this program succeeds, would you wait until a capital crime happens, or would you start an actual correction program with early intervention? How much are you willing to spend to support a program that can prove that it works? An expert told me that a solid statewide program would cost 15 MILLION Dollars a year! That seems like an intelligent approach to me.
So why is the State of Michigan only budgeting our Drug Courts … $600,000 ….for the whole State of Michigan???
Meanwhile, the newly-re-elected Barry County Sheriff and County Commissioners are planning to build a newer and bigger County Jail for millions of dollars. What is wrong with these pictures?
If I had been an advisor to John McCane, I would have thrown Katie Couric's bonnet into the ring. My favorite line, so far, is "I don't want to beat this to death, but my question was...."
Sarah set me off (again) last night when she defended having a nice shiny new passport by deriding the parents of her peers who encouraged foreign backpacking. All but one of my six kids had that experience and have a wider world view than Sarah. At the very least, they wouldn't publicly refer to Canada as a "foreign" country. I suppose she also considers visitors from our northern (her southern) neighbor to be "foreign immigrants".
I suppose what bothers me the most is her lack of understanding of our world and how all the parts relate to the whole. We have been going around bad-mouthing Cuba and Venezuela, without realizing that they are in the forefront of a rapidly changing Latin American society that could leave us frothing at the mouth while they align with friendlier nations. Our foreign policy under the incompetent GWBII has been operating on assumptions made back in the '60s. The White House needs to buy some new books.(and learn to read)Sarah is advertised as a "quick-study", but she needs to learn from up-to-date advisors.
The much-needed "energizing" of the Republican Party was more like a cheap thrill. As Sarah is allowed outside to play, she is alienating more and more women who normally would vote for her because she is female. As much as they would like to see a woman Veep, they don't want to be represented by a hollow shell.
McCane claimed he was going to "suspend" his campaign in order to save us from GWBII. He should have remembered to "suspend" Sarah while he was gone.
Have you noticed that things said by the remarkable impressionist on SNL are being confused with what Sarah actually said?
The Republicans should consider hiring the actress to stand-in for Sarah, Thursday night. I suspect that she is more articulate than Sarah, and since memorizing lines and not thinking are the qualifications, she seems to be doing a better job than the "future President of the United States". I wonder who writes their stuff?
Come to think of it, the Republicans could have hired the actress to "energize" the convention, and then could have selected somebody else to be the candidate who has the leadership we need. (A girl, of course, to get the girlie vote.)
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