Archive for May, 2010

Brett Noel

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Steven Hutson

In an age-old fable, three blind men examined an elephant.  One held a leg and declared, “an elephant is like a tree.”  The second grasped the tail and observed, “an elephant is like a rope.”  A third ran his hands across the rough weathered hide, and concluded “an elephant is like a tent.”

Hill to die on?

Which of these accounts is true?  Which is false?   The answer to both questions, of course, is “all of the above.”  Each report was factual, yet none was complete.  For each man could only describe the beast from his own limited perspective.

For about the last two years, the government of France has pondered enacting legislation that would forbid the public wearing of a veil or mask that hides a person’s face.

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Bob Franken

How sad it is that the energy company enablers in our government don’t determine that the Gulf coast is “Too Big to Fail”. Maybe then they would stop dithering and take whatever decisive action necessary to prevent further ecological and economic destruction.

When is someone really going to do something about this?

We could call it Tar Prevention, “TARP”. But instead of throwing money at the corporate offenders, the taxpayers would immediately seize whatever assets of British Petroleum it will take to effectively and quickly jam a cork in this devastating diarrhea.

Sorry if that seems impolite, but what better way to describe the fouling of so many beaches and marshes, to say nothing of the lives of those who rely on their precious section of Mother Earth.

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Gregory D. Lee

In probably the most outrageous statement a federal official could ever make, John Morton, Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said that his agency would “not necessarily” process illegal aliens captured by Arizona law enforcement. Isn’t that his job?

Incompetent.

Morton, backed up by his boss, Secretary Janet Napolitano, said that ICE has the discretion to not process illegal aliens they encounter. He agrees with the president when he said that Arizona’s recently passed immigration law was “misguided,” and he recently said that the solution to the illegal immigration problem was through a comprehensive federal approach, and not patchwork by the various states. Translation: Amnesty to all illegal aliens. He also said that ICE will instead concentrate its efforts in other states to go after employers who knowingly hire illegals.

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Dan Calabrese

YEAH YEAH . . . SPOILERS GALORE, YOU TIVOers:

In an age when Americans were still willing to embrace such ideals, a young president vowed that we would pay any price, defend any friend, oppose any foe and bear any burden in the defense of liberty.

In today’s age, if someone with absolute integrity, rock-solid determination and the ability to deliver was willing to honor those words, what kind of price would he ultimately have to pay?

Bear any burden.

The answer may come in the form of Jack Bauer, whose eight-season run as the main character of Fox’s 24 ended last night in perhaps the only way it could have – unless the producers had been willing to kill him, which I’m glad they weren’t.

Assessing the finale of an iconic series is always a dicey proposition, especially because you always butt up against what you thought they would do, and what you thought they should do, and what you thought you heard they would do. When Fox started teasing “the biggest surprise ending ever,” I was thinking about something like Tony Almeida suddenly showing up and saving Jack’s life, or his wife Teri turning up alive. Something huge and completely unanticipated.

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Brett Noel

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Large version for newspaper publication.

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Bob Franken

Let’s thank the Washington Post and reporters T.W. Farnam and Carol Leonnig for an comment that speaks volumes about a political system in the United States that is bought and paid for.

In their Saturday story “PACs betting on GOP takeover”, one of them got a quote from Rep. Greg Walden who is Deputy Chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee. He’s not just a

Mwahahahahaha!

House member, but a party fundraiser, who says that in pitching corporate givers to spread some of their wealth to his side “I tell them ‘I understand you have to give money to Democrats, but I want to be back in the majority’”, “‘You don’t have to give (this Democrat) $5,000. Give them $2,000. You can give $3,000 elsewhere. Now let me show you some open seats where you can make an investment in a Republican candidate you will like.”

“INVEST”???!!! What the hell does that mean? What is the return on that investment? We know the answer. It is favored treatment for the “investor” by the investee. And it is as close to a sure thing as you can get. Particularly when you diversify your holdings.

Toss a teeny bit of your riches into what we euphemistically call “campaign contributions”, what others might label “legalized bribery”. Make sure you spread it around, to Republicans and Democrats alike, to officeholders and challengers alike, hedging your bets with both sides. Reap huge rewards.

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Mark Watson

Isn’t it time for outraged citizens throughout the country to boycott Washington, D. C. for enacting racist legislation authorizing the profiling of illegal aliens?

After all, look at all the city councils around the country, and other compassionate people, demanding a boycott of Arizona for its audacity in merely enforcing the wretched federal illegal immigration laws?

Oh this? I'll give it a glance.

Since they don’t have to read the federal law to determine it offends profiling sensibilities, city councils in Seattle, El Paso and Los Angeles will surely rush to boycott the federal spigot center.

Of course, if these council members actually read the Arizona statute they might a learn their complaints about the profiling nature of Arizona’s law are neither legitimate nor truthful.

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Herman Cain

Most people are able to avoid committing all of the seven deadly sins (vanity, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed and sloth), but our government has managed to solve none of the seven deadly problems that could destroy the future of our nation – health care costs, financial reform, Social Security, Medicare, national debt, immigration law and lack of real job growth.

Not that they're listening.

These seven deadly domestic problems have three things in common. First, inept politicians and bureaucrats have consistently worked on the wrong problem. They have put political agendas and political pandering ahead of what’s best for the people.

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Bob Maistros

So Congress is about to pass a financial reform bill.  I don’t have any idea what is in the bill.

You read these? Yeah, right.

But this much I know — this is your financial system:  tens of billions of financial transactions undertaken by billions of actors  every second of every minute of every day.

This is your financial system under government:

1.  I own a couple of SEPPs and IRAs, and every few months I get these huge, thick disclosure reports that I know cost the plan managers hundreds of thousands of dollars to put together, approve, print and distribute.  There are no interesting pictures in these documents.  I never read them.  Neither do you. Read the rest of this entry »