Minimum Rage

Don’t get me wrong. Don’t misinterpret what I’m going to say. I have absolutely no problem with raising the Federal Minimum Wage, but I don’t understand what all the fuss is about. I don’t understand why it was such and issue in the recent elections, and I don’t know why people would cast a vote based on that. It’s not like there are really very many voting age people who would be affected by this and there are even fewer registered voters who would be affected.

The rallying cry has been that no one can support a family on minimum wage and you’ll get no argument from me. People probably can’t even support themselves very well on minimum wage. Fortunately, there aren’t very many people trying. Don’t believe me? Well take this test:

First of all, go find a full-time job that actually pays the Federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour. You’ll quickly discover that there aren’t really that many full-time jobs that pay minimum wage. The vast majority of minimum wage jobs are part-time positions and if you’re only looking for a part-time position, then you aren’t trying very hard to support yourself. Next, once you’ve found your full-time minimum wage job, look around at the other jobs that are available and ask yourself, “Why would I take this job in the first place?” Looking at the job market, you’ll probably discover another job opening that will pay more than minimum wage. The final thing to do is to investigate the pay-scale progression of the company that pays minimum wage. What you’ll find is that after 3 to 6 months of employment, the employee will receive a raise and will no longer be earning minimum wage.

So what does all of this tell you about the people to earn minimum wage? Well, it tells you that they are either working part-time, or they haven’t been working at their job for very long. So what will happen if the Federal minimum wage is raised? The initial starting pay for employees of companies who pay minimum wage will go up. That’s it. The few people who go to work for minimum wage will earn a little more for a few months. No one else’s pay will go up. There won’t be any benefit to anyone who has been working full-time for more than 6 months. In the end, the price of a burger at McDonalds or Burger King may go up a few pennies, but not much more will happen.

It’s hard for people to get by on a working class wage these days. There is no denying it, but raising the minimum wage isn’t going to change that.

Election Week

Well election week is finally here. Depending on when you read this, you’re either getting ready to vote, have already voted, or didn’t bother to vote. At this point, if you’re planning to vote you probably know whom you’re going to vote for and how you’re going to vote on the issues. There’s nothing new that’s likely to sway you or changed your mind at this point. However, once you’ve exited the polling station and over the next couple days as the results are announced, it’s time to start taking a close, hard look at how you voted.

The first questions you should ask yourself are about the candidates themselves. Does the person I voted for really represent me? Does this person share the vast majority of my opinions? Would this person make the same decisions as me? Do I believe in the character of this person? Would I leave this person alone with my children or perhaps my wallet? If you can’t answer “yes” to all of these questions, there’s only three possible reasons: you voted for the wrong candidate, you voted against another candidate, or you didn’t know enough about the race or the candidates to answer all of those questions.

If you couldn’t answer all of the questions, then you should resolve to challenge yourself to become more informed before the next elections. Chances are most people will encounter candidates in small local races that they are unaware of. Often these people are even running uncontested. It’s hard to choose the right candidate if there are no options! Or maybe it’s easier that way!

If you can answer all of the questions, but they’re not all “yes”, then you voted for the wrong candidate for one reason or another. Regardless of whether or not you did it on purpose you voted for a person who does not represent you. A lot of people do this in every election. Many of you will vote for the Republican or the Democrat simply because you don’t like or don’t agree with the other party. Even worse, you’ll vote for one or the other party because you dislike something that the other party stands for, and like more of what your party of choice stands for. If any of this applies, then you are not voting for someone who represents you and that is something that deserves some thought.

The Democratic and Republican parties have been around for a long time and they have their own agenda. They have far reaching plans for future elections and they are in their own right large extensive organizations that deal with significant sums of money. The candidates they support are members of the organization working towards its goals and attempting to improve their own station within it. If a candidate wants to continue his or her support, they must subscribe to the party’s objectives and actively work toward reaching them. It’s no wonder that these people don’t represent you. They represent multi-billion dollar organizations that are trying to gain an edge on one another!

Ultimately, you need to ask yourself if you’re truly happy with how you voted. Are the people you helped elect or tried to elect, really the kind of people you want in office? The two-party system that we have today has taken the choice of proper representation away from a lot of people. Perhaps it’s time to start looking at some of those other parties. Maybe it’s time to start encouraging the independents. If there’s a candidate you believe in, maybe it’s time to start voting for them even if they can’t win.

Forget About the Issues, Vote for the Nice One

I’m not sure what’s become of the issues in politics these days. It seems as though a candidate’s position on an issue is now taking a back seat to everything else. Commercials for the elected-officials-to-be don’t reveal a whole lot either. They’re mostly flowing praises for the candidate or insults hurled at the opposition. Where a candidate stands on something is anyone’s guess.

I often listen to an out-of-state radio station and I’ve been hearing a campaign advertisement lately about a race that I don’t know anything about. I still don’t know anything about this race in a neighboring state, but I thought the commercial was a great example of how ridiculous political campaigning has become. It goes something like this:

“If you listen to the radio regularly, you’ve probably heard all the horrible things candidate 2 has been saying about candidate 1.”

Actually, I hadn’t heard any such thing.

“Candidate 2 has called Candidate 1 a liar and said that candidate 1 will do or say anything to win election!”

Okay, so candidate 1 is a politician and politicians lie. Does anyone disagree with that?

“How could anyone vote for someone who would say such horrible things about their opposition?”

Wow! What could be worse than being called a liar? Oh, wait a sec, that’s really not so bad is it?

“It’s time we had a friend in office! It’s time for us to clean up that mess in Washington! Vote for candidate 1!”

Just exactly what mess are they talking about anyway? I’d really like to get some specifics. Apparently candidate 1’s platform consists of being nicer than candidate 2 and maybe being handy with a broom.

Fortunately I won’t have to make a decision in that race. Here in my state, the candidates are a lot more expressive regarding their positions on the issues. For example, I just got a flier in the mail from one of the candidates for State Senate. His top priority if elected will be to reduce our State’s dependence on foreign oil. That’s a good thing because I’m tired of having to drive across the state line to save 10¢ per gallon. We need to stop getting so much of our State’s oil from Texas. Oh, the prospective Senator also two sons along with a wife according to the flier.

So, do you know whom you are voting for this fall?

Date Added: 24-10-2006

Do They Really Want an Answer?

Someone asked me the other day what I thought of the war in Iraq. People that ask questions like these already think they know the answer and they are expecting you to confirm their belief in the what the media has told them. So it’s really amusing to see them stand there with a dumbstruck look on their face when you tell them without hesitation that you’re in favor of it. Why wouldn’t anyone be in favor of it? It was the right thing to do when we started and it’s still the right thing to do.

Sure there’s some doubt as to whether or not we’ve done the best job of managing the war, but then you can cast doubt upon the way just about anything has been managed. Sure, the media likes to shout about the lack of WMD’s, but then it was really more about Saddam Hussein than his weapons anyway. I haven’t heard about any “Free Saddam” rallies lately and I don’t see a lot of high profile lawyers volunteering to work on his defense team either. I haven’t heard of a lot of people who are sorry to see Saddam out of office.

Invading Iraq was the right thing to do simply because it was in our best interests and it’s still in our best interests to be there. Saddam Hussein and Iraq were a destabilizing presence in the Middle East and events there had to be brought under our control. Now we need to stick around until a stable, pro-American government has a firm grip on the country. Anything less than that would be seen as giving up and that would only encourage terrorists and the fringe groups in their efforts to cause us harm. Maybe we’re sticking our nose into things and perhaps the rest of the world hates us for it, but who cares? I say that if it’s good for us, well then it’s good for us!

Of course the next thing the media teaches the liberals to scream is, “what about the troops? Our soldiers shouldn’t be over there away from their families!”

Now that argument is simply ridiculous. What do these people think the Army is for? This is what they get paid to do. It’s their job. It’s what they do. Do they think we should just pay them to sit around and do nothing? That’s welfare! If it weren’t for the war, we’d all be hearing about projected base closings and personnel reductions for the military. In other words there would just be more unemployment in this country. The war is a good thing.

Once all of the bewilderment has finally passed, the liberal questioner will most likely follow up with a sarcastic, “I suppose you think we she go to war with North Korea now too, don’t you?”

Well, of course I do. We’re long overdue on that one. However, I favor a slightly different course of action on the Korean peninsula. Instead of invading, I think widespread carpet-bombing is in order along with strong Naval warship support. The Air Force hasn’t gotten a whole lot of practice lately. The Army and Marines have been getting all the work

Date Added: 17-10-2006

Check My Facts Please

What ever happened to proofreading, editing, and fact checking? They don’t seem to exist in any way, shape, or form in today’s media. These days, the mainstream media simply prints or announces whatever garbage their writers submit. I use the term “writers” very loosely when referring to those who report for the newspapers.

On any given day, you can skim through a half dozen articles from the AP and find grammatical errors, repeated sentences, and even spelling mistakes. Do AP writers computers not come with spellchecker? I really don’t understand. Half of the time you can’t even make sense of what the article is about. Didn’t these people have to write essays in High School? Don’t they even remember the basic structure of an essay? You know, the introductory paragraph, the body of the essay, which contains multiple paragraphs, and finally, the concluding paragraph. That’s pretty basic and simple. The simple choice is often the best choice.

Poor spelling and poor grammar prove to me that there are no more actual editors in the industry. After all, that much garbage couldn’t get out to the public if they still existed could they? The repeated sentences and words, which occur far more frequently than you would think possible, make it quite obvious that the writers themselves don’t even proofread their work. Didn’t they have any English classes in High School? Isn’t that the first thing they teach you about writing? Proofread what you wrote.

All of that is bad enough, but what really gets to me is the lack of fact checking. I can accept poor spelling and bad grammar. It just makes the author appear ridiculous or ignorant. What I can’t stand is misinformation and negligence. The media is often unwittingly feeding us garbage and we don’t even know about it. I know this to be true because of how often I discover incorrect information. How often do they tell me lies about things I don’t know about? They lead us to believe that we are learning things, but in reality we aren’t learning anything. Last week I was reading a local newspaper serving an area with a population of about 250,000 people. In the outdoors section there was a large color picture of a turtle sunning itself on a log in a body of water. It was a common Painted Turtle, which is perhaps the most prevalent type of water dwelling reptile in the Midwest. Painted Turtles can be found in just about every spot of water within 200 miles of the area this newspaper serves. The caption under the picture identified it as a Box Turtle. That’s when I threw the newspaper away.

They’re telling us lies and we don’t know it. We know they’re doing it, but we just don’t know when. Responsible, reliable, articulate journalism is long gone. Now we have to suffer through whatever garbage they want to print. We don’t have to like it, though.

Date Added: 26-09-2006

Fewer Shooting and More Bombing

Sometimes you really have to wonder how people can make such bad decisions. The week before the start of the NFL season, San Diego linebacker Steve Foley was shot 3 times by an off-duty police officer that suspected him of driving under the influence. Apparently Foley’s vehicle was observed weaving in and out of traffic at high speed by the officer who proceeded to follow it and tried to get Foley to pull over. When Foley finally did pull over near his house, the officer shot him.

So why is an off-duty police officer trying to arrest someone? What was this guy thinking? In this day and age who is going to pull over for someone dressed in everyday clothes just because he claims to be a police officer? The officer should have called the vehicle license plate in and ended his involvement at that point. Real life isn’t a movie. Cops aren’t on duty 24 / 7 and this one had no more responsibility in the matter than you or I. Now he’s suspended and Foley is out of work for the year.

Today reports “leaked” out that the U.S. military passed up an opportunity to blow up more than 100 Taliban fighters because they were at a funeral and bombing a cemetery would violate the rules of engagement. It seems like there are all sorts of bad decisions being made here. The first error in judgment seems to be on the part of the Taliban mourners. Funeral or no funeral, congregating out in the open in such large numbers does not indicate a very high group intelligence if you ask me. Now that the photograph has been released and publicized you can bet they won’t be doing that again, which leads to the next poor decision. Who’s the moron who gave the picture to a journalist? What good could possibly come from that? Gee, let’s show the world that we can take pictures of the Taliban fighters any time they come out of their caves. That won’t cause them to change their tactics and become more difficult to exterminate will it?

The final poor decision was the decision by the military not to bomb the gathering. I understand wanting to be sensitive to those who are grieving for the loss of friends and comrades in arms, but these people are the enemy. They are not a military organization that follows the Geneva Convention. They are guerrilla fighters employing tactics that standard armies including our own are ill equipped to deal with. An opportunity like this one should never have been passed up. If our military was worried about bad press if they bombed the bad guys, then they could have just kept quiet about it. It’s simple, blow up the bad guys at the funeral and just don’t tell anyone. It’s kind of like the Army’s policy about homosexuals, don’t ask, and don’t tell. Don’t ask for permission to blow up the bad guys at a cemetery and don’t tell anyone they were at a funeral.

Everyone makes bad decisions from time to time, but when your job requires a significant degree of judgment, you should be able to manage a little common sense. Picking the Packers over the Bears last weekend was a bad decision. Having to shoot someone because you thought they should take your word for it when you claimed to be a police officer is grossly negligent. Letting a hundred terrorists walk back to their caves and continue plotting our demise is suicidal.

Date Added: 13-09-2006

What Were They Thinking?

On the latest season of Survivor, CBS will divide the contestants up by race into four tribes. The tribes will be categorized as white, black, Hispanic, and Asian in what has been described by some as “Survivor: Race Wars”. Now what I would like to know is how on Earth did CBS decide that this could possibly be a good idea and have a positive outcome? What good could possibly come from purposely inciting racial conflicts on a reality TV show?

Oh sure, I understand the producers rational. They felt that they weren’t getting enough minority applicants for their show and felt that this would generate more interest among minorities. I also understand their position that they are not in fact promoting racial conflict, but are merely dividing (segregating?) the contestants in a new way. Unfortunately, neither of those arguments really applies to reality in what is supposed to be reality television. If there weren’t enough qualified minority applicants to begin with, where did they get the contestants for this show? Are they unqualified to compete on Survivor? Do they lack the skills and abilities necessary to survive? If so, has CBS set all the minority tribes up to lose? It doesn’t seem like that would be a positive thing to do. That would certainly open up a whole new can of worms. If the contestants are all qualified, then apparently there were plenty of minority candidates and Survivor could have chosen them at any time it wanted for any of the Survivor episodes. If they were only able to get the contestants because they knew that they’d be segregated, what does that say about the nature of those selected?

As for their position that it’s not about racial supremacy, but simple survival like all of the other shows, well it is of course true when you look strictly at the rules of the game. However, the way everyone including the contestants will see it is black versus white versus Hispanic versus Asian. There are four sides to the contest and it’s a battle to see which race will survive. When people discuss the show, they will refer to the contestants based on the color of their skin and they will identify the struggle in terms of race. Any team or individual achievements will be attributed to a race. Any failures will also be laid on a race of people regardless of their nature.

The show may or may not be a success in the ratings. The decision to divide the contestants by race will probably not spell the end of the show, nor will it doom CBS. Regardless of the final outcome, it will however serve to reinforce racial stereotypes and heighten racial tensions in one way or another. If the show ends up being a success, you have to wonder what they’ll do next. Will we see “Survivor: Jews versus Muslims”, or perhaps white supremacists versus black gang members, maybe criminals versus police? If the show is a commercial success, we will be bound to see a progression of more and more offensive and divisive follow-ups.

I am generally not in favor of ordinances, regulations, and censorship. Therefore I believe that CBS and the producers of Survivor have every right to conduct this show in any way they see fit. However, I do believe that everyone should exercise some level of social responsibility and a fair amount of common sense in both their personal and their professional lives. CBS and the producers of Survivor have failed in both regards.

Date Added: 29-08-2006

Overreaction

It seems like our society overreacts to everything these days. We can’t just calmly evaluate a situation and take appropriate action anymore. No, we must immediately perform a knee-jerk worthy of an NFL kicker. It’s not just an American thing either. It’s all of western civilization. We’ve forgotten how to take rational action in response to accidents, issues, and threats.

This morning I heard a news report that British officials had broken up a suspected terrorist ring that was planning to blow up airplanes. Tied into that report was the report that we can no longer take toothpaste or hair gel on commercial airplanes. That was the point at which I turned the TV off in disgust. I’m not even sure if the ban was for U.S. planes or British planes, but it doesn’t really matter. I didn’t hear the rationality behind this new rule, but I can probably guess it: A terrorist could make explosive material look like toothpaste and hair gel. Then he’d be able to detonate it while he’s on the airplane. Okay, I get it. I’ve watched enough Hollywood movies to understand the threat. I know the terrorists are bound to have thoroughly studied McGyver footage too. There is a potential for a security breach there, but do we really want to live out our lives in fear of everything? Taking fingernail clippers away from little old ladies and making children throw their toothpaste in the trash isn’t going to make things safer.

There’s no new threat. Nothing has changed other than our approach to things. The terrorists are getting what they want: we’re becoming terrified of everything. If someone were determined enough to blow up a plane with explosives hidden in a toothpaste tube, then they will just find some other way if they can’t bring toothpaste. We’ve got to stop being terrified of possibilities and get on with things. Search suspicious looking people and arm the pilots. Don’t worry about hurting anyone’s feelings and don’t be concerned about racial profiling. Search all the people who appear to be of Middle Eastern descent and anyone acting nervously. Then, if you think that there is something wrong with their Colgate throw it out, but don’t make everyone quit brushing their teeth just because of possibilities.

In Chicago they’ve outlawed the possession of BB guns that look like real guns in another fine example of overreaction. The reasoning is that the replica guns look so much like real guns that they can scare people and cause the police to mistakenly shoot children who are playing with them. I’ve got a better solution: Teach children not to point BB guns at people. It seems like that would be the very first thing to do. BB guns can be dangerous and you shouldn’t be pointing them at anybody. It’s pretty simple. Just make parents responsible for raising their kids properly. If the children know not to point guns at people, then the police (and everyone else) can feel free to shoot anyone who points a gun at them.

We’ve become afraid that people will say that we didn’t do enough or that we could have foreseen this event and that event so we overreact and over-legislate everything. We need to realize that the world is not a safe place and there is nothing we can do to change that. We need to stop performing ridiculous acts in the name of public good. We need to start making sense instead of headlines.

Date Added: 11-08-2006

Nix the Six

Last week the Democratic Party unveiled its campaign plan for this year’s election. There’s nothing like a little foresight and planning, but no one’s going to accuse the Democrats of looking too far into the future. One would think that they could have come up with a plan before now. There are only four months left until the November elections, you know. As for the plan itself, it goes something like this:

• National Security
• Jobs and Wages
• Energy independence
• Affordable healthcare
• Retirement security
• College access for all

Actually, that’s it. That’s the entire plan. There’s nothing more and there’s no explanation other than this is their campaign plan. It doesn’t seem like a whole lot to unveil this close to election time especially when I can’t even tell what it actually means. They don’t actually make any kind of statement about what they plan to do about any of these subjects. In fact they don’t even state what needs to be done. We, the voters are just left with the vague sense that something must be wrong and the Democratic Party plans to do something about it. Just don’t ask them what exactly they plan to do.

We can make a few assumptions about several of the six items. For example, we can be pretty sure that energy independence means not purchasing oil from foreign countries and that affordable healthcare means cheaper prices. Of course how those things will actually be accomplished is still a mystery. The rest of the items are a bit harder to decipher; just what exactly does the phrase “national security” really mean as a campaign plan? Do they want to increase it, decrease it, change it, or perhaps re-name it? We could just continue to assume, presume, and theorize, but that wouldn’t really tell us anything about what the Democrats are planning. It would only tell us what we think the issues at hand might be.

Ultimately, there are no details, no answers, and no real purpose behind the list other than make us think there might be answers. If there really were a workable plan, they would have told us already. Actually, if there were really a workable plan for any of these things, they would probably have already been implemented. The key word in all of this is “workable”. If the plan is not workable then it’s not much of a plan, and there’s nothing workable about the statement “retirement security”.

So what do we have in this plan that has been unveiled? Well, we’ve got a list of abstract thoughts with no substance or significance behind them. What we have is nothing more than a list of thoughts designed to make people think that the Democrats actually have a plan when in fact they have nothing new to share.

They’re going to have to work a little harder to get my vote. They could start by coming up with a plan.

Date Added: 31-07-2006

Vacation Time

No sooner had I commended the Administration for charging a moderate fee to those people being transported out of Lebanon than they did an about face and decided to do it all for free. So every U.S. citizen living or visiting Beirut now gets a free ticket home to the United States. Well, I suppose that’s all well and good. After all, it’s not like I have to pay for it. Oh wait a minute; I guess I do have to pay for it, don’t I? You do too, huh? I guess it’s all right; maybe they’ll get jobs and pay taxes once they get settled in here. If not, they can always draw unemployment or welfare. It’s all a part of what you’re entitled to as an American citizen.

Speaking of what every citizen is entitled to, it seems that the government has set a new precedent. U.S. citizens are now entitled to a free trip home from overseas. This morning I did a little checking and I discovered that a one-way ticket from Cyprus to my local airport is worth about $1500. So it appears that I am entitled to a $1500 airline voucher from the government. That’s a pretty good deal, isn’t it?

Now I’m not too interested in international travel to war-torn countries at the moment so the Middle East and certain parts of the African continent are really out of the question. After careful consideration, I’ve decided that I would like to trade my one-way Cyprus to the U.S. ticket in for a round-trip ticket to Hawaii. Doing so would not only enable me to save money on travel expenses to reach my destination, but it would save the government quite a bit of money as well. A round trip ticket to Honolulu from my local airport is only about $900, so I’m saving the administration $600! I really doubt that they’ll find a better deal and most people wouldn’t even give them that big of a break. I’m also willing to sign a contract stating that if I am ever in a foreign country, I will provide for my own transportation home or failing that, I will reimburse the Federal government for its expenses to bring me home.

So there you have it. This crisis between Israel and Lebanon is going to work out well for everybody. It’s summertime, it’s vacation time, and I’m glad I didn’t have to waste my tickets on a one-way trip from Cyprus. If anybody knows whom to contact at the State Department about claiming my travel voucher, please let me know. Now about that two-night cruise to Cyprus…

Date Added: 23-07-2006

No Free Cruises

The United States has sent a cruise ship to Lebanon in order to evacuate citizens who wish to leave the war torn country. The left-wing media is outraged! What they’re outraged at is that we have the audacity to charge the passengers for the trip. Just what exactly is the problem with that? It’s not like we sent these people to Beirut. They went there of their own volition and through their own efforts so why shouldn’t they pay a heavily discounted cruise fee? If they can afford to get there in the first place, they should be able to afford the tickets back. Besides, it’s not like anybody’s standing there at the dock demanding cash. All that’s required is that they sign an agreement to pay; and something tells me we’re not going to be garnishing anyone’s future wages over a few hundred dollars.

These aren’t poor, poverty-stricken refugees fleeing the ravaged countryside with nothing but the clothes on their back either. No, these are people who are in Beirut on vacation or have chosen to abandon the United States and take up residence abroad. As for the vacationers, maybe they’ll think about their vacation destination a little harder in the future. Let this serve as a lesson to them. As for those who have abandoned their country, perhaps we should charge them double. If they don’t want to live here, I certainly don’t want them back. If it were up to me, I sure wouldn’t be sending a ship to rescue them. They should be extremely grateful for any and all of the help they get regardless of the price.

No, I really don’t understand what the media is upset about. We can’t keep Israel from bombing Lebanon. We can’t stop Hezbollah from kidnapping Israeli soldiers, and nobody is in favor of us invading another country right now. So sending a cruise ship and charging passage seems like one of the best ideas anyone could have come up with at the moment. If the media wants to complain about something, perhaps they should check into just what purchasing a ticket on this ship entitles a passenger to. Do they get the all you can eat buffet all day long? Are drinks included in the fare? What about the ports of call? Are there opportunities to get off the ship and enjoy the local culture? How long is the trip and what are the general amenities on board the ship? Perhaps the media can find something to complain about in the answers to those questions, but there’s no reason to complain about the price.

Date Added: 18-07-2006

You Call That Research?

Once upon a time it took a lot to be a science professor. Long, long ago scientists were hard working lab rats and theorists who made great discoveries and helped to advance human kind. They earned our respect, they deserved our admiration, and they were considered geniuses, once upon a time.

That really does sound like a fairy tale, doesn’t it? The days of Albert Einstein are long forgotten. NASA can’t keep the space shuttles flying and the most adventurous space explorers are simply trying to sell low-orbit flight tickets to the wealthy masses. Isaac Newton is just an answer on a history test and Marie Curie is just half an hour of a forgotten classroom lecture now.

Science has become big business and research has been taken over by mediocre people of very average intellect trying to push garbage to public in order to say they’ve been “published”. It’s “publish or perish” in the scientific world where quality and content no longer matter.

In one of the latest examples of how far Science has fallen, a group of researchers last week concluded that things burn better when it’s hot and dry. Dan Cayan, the director of the climate research division at Scripps Institution of Oceanography along with his co-authors published a report linking the increase in temperature and drought conditions over the past 20 years with an increase in the frequency and severity of wildfires. Wow, now that’s really a breakthrough! The drier things are, the better they’ll burn and the longer things stay dry, the more fires will break out. I’m simply overwhelmed by this incredible scientific discovery!

Seriously, there probably are some third graders out there that haven’t already made this connection so perhaps the paper is aimed at them. As for the research itself, which was essentially data collected from public records; well I wouldn’t expect better from anyone less than 11 years old. This paper was nothing more than a piece of garbage thrown together in order to gain publication, but it would certainly be worthy of a B+ in most eighth-grade classes. Unfortunately, you can’t have co-authors in eighth grade. You have to do your own work there.

Ultimately, it’s sad state of affairs that this is what passes for research these days. Of course it’s perhaps even sadder that the paper is actually being published at all. But then, what can you really expect when one of the many authors is the director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Tree ring research in the middle of the desert being funded by the taxpayers of Arizona is a topic for a different day.

Date Added: 09-07-2006

Farming For Publicity

Actress Darryl Hannah was arrested in a walnut tree last week. She was evidently protesting the planned development of a 14-acre plot of land in Los Angeles. Local area residents have used the property in question as a garden for the past 10 to 15 years, but the property owner has decided to sell it. The thought of someone actually selling their own personal property so incensed the freeloaders who were gardening on the plot that the owner had to obtain a court order just to exercise his legal property rights.

Now I can’t really blame the local gardeners for being upset about the eviction, after all they’re getting to use someone else’s personal property and they don’t have to pay the property tax. However, this is not public property and the people who have been using it have absolutely no right to it. They have been using it by the good grace of the owner and nothing more. You can bet that most people wouldn’t have been as generous as he has been. The owner is perfectly within his rights to sell it, and those who are losing their gardens should be happy that they got to use it for as long as they did. The fact that this whole fiasco required legal action is appalling.

Personally, I think that a community garden is more appealing and attractive than a warehouse, a parking lot, or a 7-Eleven is, but my opinion doesn’t matter in a case like this. It’s private property and the owner can do what he wants with it. Private ownership of land is one of the things that are great about this country. Your opinion of what someone else should do with their property is worth about as much as a cup of sand in the desert.

So what does all of this have to do with Ms. Hannah anyway? Was she one of the local residents who were planting gardens on the property? No. Is she really in favor of putting an end to personal property rights in this country? Perhaps, but I doubt it. Her protest was nothing more than a publicity stunt. She doesn’t want Hollywood to forget about her. When was the last time Darryl Hannah had a lead role in a movie that anyone actually watched? The best way to be popular in Hollywood is to be seen as a champion of environmental or human rights and Hannah was able to hit the double whammy with this arrest! Hannah went after and received the publicity she needed. I didn’t hear anything about her trying to actually help the gardeners buy the land. They had the opportunity and were able to raise $10 million of the $16 million asking price. Don’t you think Hannah and her friends could come up with $6 million if they really cared? I didn’t hear Hannah invite all the local residents out to her Colorado ranch to continue gardening on her property either.

In the end it worked out for everybody. Darryl Hannah got her name in the paper and she’ll be at the top of everyone’s list in Hollywood again. The property owner finally gets to exercise his rights of ownership and the local residents get something too. The City of Los Angeles is giving them an 8-acre handout on the taxpayer’s dime! It’s a great day for everyone; except perhaps for the taxpayers in Los Angeles.

Date Added: 18-06-2006

What Are They Looking For?

Do you ever wonder about the people who get abducted by aliens? I’m not talking about illegal Mexican farm workers. I’m talking about the type of aliens that fly around in UFO’s and presumably come from some other planet. What exactly are they looking for? They don’t seem to be abducting a very large cross-section of our culture. In fact, the abductions don’t seem to be happening in other countries either. So they can’t be doing any sort of cultural or biological study of humanity. They’re being way too selective for that. The aliens have to be looking for something very specific, because they seem to keep abducting the same types of people.

The vast majority of the people who are abducted by aliens are infrequently employed, lower income Caucasians living in rural areas or small towns. I’ve never heard of an African-American being abducted. I haven’t heard of any Hispanics, alien or otherwise, being abducted either. The abductions themselves seem to follow a general pattern as well.

A standard abduction scenario goes something like this: The subject is driving his or her pick-up truck down a deserted gravel road about 1:00 A.M. when all of a sudden there’s a bright light and the truck stops running. The subject is frozen in place and some supernatural force lifts them into the air and on into the spacecraft where they are poked and prodded for a while. The subject is then returned to their truck and hours or days have elapsed even though they have very little memory of the event.

Alternately, you can substitute the truck and gravel road with walking through the town park, or sitting at home watching television. One things for sure though, all the abductions happen in the middle of the night when the subjects are alone.

So what are the aliens looking for? Why do they keep abducting the same people over and over for years? Why aren’t the abducting businessmen and women? Why aren’t they abducting Hollywood actors and actresses? I think I’ve figured it out. The aliens are looking for beer.

Since they don’t have any money or I.D. they can’t buy the beer for themselves, so they have to find it some other way. They’re abducting people with beer! Just think about the circumstances surrounding the abductions. The people who’ve been abducted never mention that they’ve been drinking and they never say that their beer is missing when they are returned, but they don’t have to. They’re driving down a deserted gravel road in a pick-up truck in the middle of the night. To go a step further, it’s often a Friday or Saturday night. You know they’ve got beer. They’ve got a 12-pack in the cooler in the back of the truck or they’ve got a 6-pack sitting next to them in the cab. You know its true.

The aliens don’t want people; they want beer. They’ve figured out that poor white people driving alone in pick-up trucks on gravel roads in the middle of the night are probably going to have beer with them. That’s why they don’t abduct anyone else; they’re just playing the percentages. The odds of getting beer are just better than if they grab lawyers in Mercedes at 2:00 P.M. and there are too many witnesses if they show up at Sunday afternoon barbeques.

Date Added: 11-06-2006

Is it Getting Warm in Here, or is it Just Me?

So what’s with all the fuss over global warming these days? It seems like it has become a major political issue of the past several years. The liberal politicians will tell you that it’s the greatest problem to ever face humanity and the conservatives tell you that it doesn’t even exist. Why has it even become such an issue?

The fact is that the general consensus among scientists is that the world has warmed a measurable amount in the past 100 years. That’s the basic, over-simplified bottom line. The world is warmer on average now than it was in the past. Most scientists who study the climate and climate changes will also tell you that it appears as though the world will continue to get generally warmer for the foreseeable future. A couple degrees on average in the next 100 years is even possible.

So why is there all this controversy? The data I’ve seen seems pretty solid. In fact it even seems to me that winter was longer and colder twenty years ago than it is now. Of course the scientists could be wrong, there’s always that possibility, but I don’t think that they are. So apparently the world is warming up. What’s the problem? Why are some politicians so adamant that it’s not happening? It’s probably because their counterparts are so certain that it’s a bad thing.

The liberal Politicians would have you believe that global warming is the worst catastrophe to ever face humanity. They would also have you believe that humans are the sole cause of it and that we must act immediately to stop it. They’re employing basic scare tactics, but what’s the point? I mean even if we could stop global warming, and the odds are that all we could possibly and practically do is slow down the inevitable, why would we want to? Think about it. Shorter winters, lower heating costs, longer growing seasons for farmers, and new lands open to agriculture and settlement.

Global warming is only bad if you live in Florida or along the Gulf Coast. For the rest of the country, it’s a bit of a blessing. Of course the skiing season might be a bit shorter, but we’ll adjust.

Even if we knew that Al Gore’s worst fears were absolute certainty, could we really do anything to stop it? We can’t control the whole world and there’s not likely to be a worldwide agreement on the subject. If we could shut down all of the factories in this country and park every vehicle would that even be enough to reverse global warming? I doubt it. Would you want to live without electricity and automobiles?

If the world really is warming up, we’re not going to be able to stop it. So maybe we should just focus on being prepared for it. Now might not be the time to buy that condo in Florida, but farms in Alaska may be the future.

Date Added: 01-06-2006

Approve This

Approval has been a big topic in the news lately. The most common subject associated with approval has been President Bush’s job approval rating. According to the latest polls, which by the way use a sample size of roughly five ten-thousandths of a percent of the U.S. population, the President’s job approval rating is only 31%. This of course is dramatically important since it will be very difficult for him to win re-election if his approval ratings stay so low. What’s that? Oh yeah, he can’t run for re-election anymore. Well, I’m sure the approval rating is important somehow. After all, you can’t go more than a day without some news anchor telling you about it. The President must be very concerned with his approval rating; otherwise it wouldn’t be “news”, would it?

Local and regional election campaigns are beginning to heat up and the political commercial spots are starting to increase. Just the other day I watched a campaign commercial about one hopeful candidate. At the end of the thirty-second spot, which had been narrated by his wife, the candidate himself came on and announced that he “approved” of the commercial’s content. Wow that’s a relief. I was beginning to get a bit concerned that he might not agree with all of the nice things that his wife was saying about him. I am also concerned about all of the “unapproved” campaign commercials out there too. You can’t be too careful about things like this.

Just last month, fans of the New Orleans Saints overwhelmingly approved of the Saints using their first round pick in the NFL draft to select running back Reggie Bush. At least that’s what all the headlines announced. I’m sure that was a great relief to the owners and the coaching staff. What if the fans hadn’t approved? Approval is everything when it comes to putting together a winning football team isn’t it? You just can’t win if the fans don’t approve of your players. New Orleans can rest easy now.

Approval seems to be the biggest fad in the media these days. Approve of this and approve of that. Who approves of what you’re doing and what you approve of seems to be the hottest topics. Every day we’re inundated with stories about approval. Perhaps you’ve even taken part in a poll about what you approve of. Just remember: Your opinion may matter, but your approval is probably not needed.

Date Added: 14-05-2006

Where am I?

Half of the young adults age 18 to 24 in this country can’t locate New York State on a map of the United States. Only 37% can find Iraq on a map of the Middle East. These are the kind of results obtained by a recent National Geographic poll. As disturbing as these results may be, the results themselves are not the most alarming thing. What should alarm and concern everyone is that these people are allowed to vote and they and others like them help decide who our governmental policy makers are. The results of a similar study conducted in 2002 were also remarkably bad, so this not something new. In fact these results probably hold true for a tremendous number of people in our country.

Perhaps the inability to identify Mississippi isn’t really all that important when it comes to choosing our elected officials, but how do you think the people in Mississippi feel about that? Geography certainly isn’t the most important thing that potential voters should know, however when 30% of the population thinks that the U.S.-Mexico border is the most heavily fortified in the world, I’d say we have a problem. I find it difficult to believe someone’s opinion on national and world events has any merit whatsoever if they don’t even know what continent Sudan is in.

Maybe it’s time to set some additional conditions on the right to vote. We don’t allow the ignorant to vote on decisions in private companies and we don’t put the uneducated in charge of our armies, so why should we let them decide who our lawmakers are going to be? If you’re going to vote in a National election, shouldn’t you know something about the nation? If you don’t know where the states are in the United States, why should you be deciding who’s going to be in charge of them? Give everyone a map of the country and a list of the states when they show up to vote. If they can correctly match 45 of them, count their vote. If they can’t, then throw their ballot away. Give every potential voter a map of each continent in the world and a list of its countries as well. If they can get 50% of them right then they can vote, otherwise send them packing. If they miss Australia, I suggest completely and permanently revoking their voting privileges.

I can hear the extreme left and the media screaming already: “That’s unfairly biased against the poor, uneducated, illiterate morons in this country!” Well, they’re right. It is biased against the uneducated and illiterate people in this country. I don’t want uneducated and illiterate people making decisions that affect me, and you shouldn’t either. I want the voters in this country to know something about the country and the world in which they live, and the first thing they should know is where everything is! I don’t think that there should be an elite ruling class in this country, but rule by the uneducated masses isn’t a good idea either.

Date Added: 07-05-2006

$100 Permission Slip

I’m not against drilling for oil in the arctic, but I’m not really for it either. Unlike most of the liberals out there, I don’t think the world will come to an end if we allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, nor to I think the caribou will go extinct. However, unlike many conservatives, I don’t believe oil drilling in the arctic will lower my gas prices anytime soon or make a noticeable impact by the time production begins. Maybe if we’d drilled ten years ago a gallon of gas would be a few cents cheaper now, but we didn’t.

I believe that oil drilling can be accomplished without dramatically impacting the refuge in an adverse way. Unfortunately, I don’t trust our government officials to be able to accomplish it. Especially not after they’ve resorted to bribery to get the public’s permission. Anything they decide to do would certainly involve committees, appointments, huge salaries, extravagant expenses, and in the end they’d probably do a piss poor job of running the program. I also don’t trust the big oil companies like Exxon and Mobil to do the job either. They don’t exactly have great track records with the Alaskan environment. Does the name Valdez ring a bell?

So here’s the real problem we should thinking about: How do we drill in the arctic without destroying everything we’re trying to save? Make no mistake; we will have to drill for oil at some point in time. It’s inevitable. Gasoline is not the only use we have for oil and soccer moms driving Cadillac Escalades aren’t the only reason we have high gas prices. We use oil in some manner in the manufacturing processes of almost everything in this country and our dependency on oil continues to grow every day. Hybrid electric cars and vegetable oil diesel engines aren’t going to eliminate our oil needs. We will need the oil in the arctic at some point in the future.

So, we need the oil, we don’t want to ruin the caribou habitat, we don’t want to put the government in charge of it, and we don’t trust the big oil companies. So who do we put in charge? It shouldn’t really take a genius to make yes and no decisions about whether the drilling companies are maintaining good ecological etiquette and we can’t afford to let the government pay someone to make those decisions. So what we need is someone of average intelligence, who has lots of free time, and who will be willing to work for free in order to improve the human condition while saving the caribou.

It sounds like we may have finally found a use for some of those politically active Hollywood actors! Someone needs to get Sean Penn on the phone because this would be perfect for him. Not only would he get to actually do something useful and productive, but it would keep him busy and mostly off our nightly news as well. Maybe we could get George Clooney to help him.

So keep the $100 check and get Penn / Clooney on board to oversee the project. Until then, just leave the refuge for the wildlife.

Date Added: 02-05-2006

Pull Out the Six-ShooterThe California Legislature is considering a new bill that would require pistol makers to design new firing pins that would mar

The California Legislature is considering a new bill that would require pistol makers to design new firing pins that would mark shell casings in a manner unique to the pistol that fired them. The aim of the bill is to assist police detectives in tracking down the perpetrators of “Gun Crimes.” At first glance, this bill seems rather innocuous and even somewhat technologically interesting. The idea of etching the firing pin of a pistol so that it not only leaves a unique mark, but one that can specifically identify the gun is rather remarkable. However, if you think about it a little bit, you quickly realize that it’s nothing more than another step towards eliminating one of our guaranteed Constitutional rights. In fact, you’ll also realize that the bill won’t really help law enforcement officers much at all either. It might even help the criminals.

The theory is that when the police arrive at the scene of a shooting and find bullet casings lying around, they can pick them up, take a look at the mark and immediately go pick up the perpetrator. The reality of the matter is that people aren’t that stupid. Shell casings can already be used to track down criminals. They can already be tied directly to firearms, and they often have fingerprints on them. The shooters who are leaving shell casings lying around now are people who know the gun can’t be traced to them because it’s stolen or unregistered, and who have wiped their fingerprints from the shell casings. If the gun doesn’t belong to them then it won’t matter if it leaves special marks on the shell casings. It won’t be traced to them, so who cares? The police are already easily catching the few people who aren’t taking the previous precautions. So what is the bill really going to do? Nothing except to move the gun-ban lobby one step closer to eliminate the average law abiding citizen’s right to bear arms.

Even if there were a great deal of people out there legally obtaining pistols and then littering the city streets with shell casing from their own guns, this wouldn’t stop anything. They’d just start buying and using revolvers. That way they can take their brass with them when they go and leave nothing for the police. Like I said earlier, the stupid criminals are already being caught. This bill does nothing to hinder the smarter criminals; in fact it might even help them.

If you want to send the police off on a wild goose chase every time you start shooting at people, all you need to do is take a trip to the local firing range and pick up some spent shell casings. Then after you shoot the place up, you just toss some of your firing range brass around for the police to pick up. Next thing you know, the police are interviewing Joe Citizen out in suburbs about why he was shooting drug dealers on street corners downtown. This bill’s not going to help the police much if they are spending all their time interviewing the many members of the county gun club.

Firearm legislation does nothing but hinder law-abiding citizens. Criminals will continue to commit crimes regardless of the law. That’s why they are criminals. The only way to reduce crime is to make it less appealing.

Date Added: 24-04-2006

I’m Disappointed

Somebody has all my money! Last week the multi-state Powerball Lotto was worth over $200 million and I didn’t win it. How can that possibly be? I was ready to retire, move to a small Caribbean Island and spend my days watching women in bikinis. I had even bought a tropical shirt in anticipation. Yet I didn’t win. Someone else won all my money.

Of course in all seriousness I didn’t really expect to win. The same can’t be said for all people though. After the announcement that one and only one person had won the grand prize, I witnessed an acquaintance literally trembling with excitement. She was so convinced that she had won that she just couldn’t contain herself. After all, the winning ticket had been sold in the same state that she purchased hers in. Unfortunately, her numbers were not the winning ones. They weren’t even second prize. She didn’t even win a free ticket. She was devastated. All her energy evaporated and it was back to her same old life.

Now there’s nothing wrong with playing the lotto. There’s nothing at all wrong with gambling in general. The problem lies with expectations. You’ve got to realize that even though someone will win, it probably isn’t going to be you. State lotteries are voluntary taxes. If you buy a ticket, you are willingly paying extra taxes. What are the definition taxes? They’re money collected by the government and used to fund various programs. Never mind that you might get something in return (think income tax return check), you are paying taxes whenever you buy a lottery ticket.

So quit planning your life around winning the lottery. When was the last time the government told anyone, “hey relax, we’ll let you live a life of luxury and we’ll even pick up the tab.”? Go ahead and keep buying lottery tickets. The more money you give, the more the government can spend. The more the government spends, the greater the odds that they’ll spend some of it wisely. Just quit planning your future around winning the lotto. It’s not going to happen. If you want a better life and a better future then work for it like the rest of us. It’s not going to be given to you just because you faithfully pay extra taxes.

If you’re disappointed, sad, or crushed after the weekly lotto results, don’t come looking for sympathy here. If you want your life to be better, you need to come up with a different plan. Somebody out there has your money too!

Date Added: 17-04-2006

Privilege Breeds Arrogance

Cynthia McKinney should be glad that Congress doesn’t meet in Los Angeles. If it did, or if Congressional offices were guarded by the LAPD, she might really have something to complain about. Of course, she might also be complaining from a hospital bed. Do you think Rodney King would have left his I.D. at home? Most people with any common sense will stop when the police ask them to and people who start throwing punches at police officers almost always end up in jail. In fact, two weeks ago I would have said anyone who starts throwing punches at police officers always ends up in jail, but Cynthia McKinney has changed all of that. It seems that if you are a member of Congress with no identification you can assault police officers without getting thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and carted off to jail, and that really isn’t right.

Imagine this scenario: You’re entering one of our nation’s Capitol buildings, you have no identification, and you’re going around the metal detector instead of through it. One of the police officers there asks you to halt. You ignore the police officer and he asks you to halt two more times. Finally, the officer places a hand on your shoulder to stop you and you start throwing punches at him. Do you think you’d be out of jail yet? Would the bruises have healed? If this scenario had occurred with some random person and the officer had broken the person’s arm during the takedown would you have felt it was justified?

The police and the metal detectors are there for a reason. They are there to keep the Capitol and the members of Congress safe. No one should be allowed to bypass them without proper identification whether they are recognized or not. For that matter, I don’t even believe that members of Congress should even be allowed to bypass them, and anyone, regardless of rank or privilege who assaults a police officer in public should go to jail immediately. The fact that Cynthia McKinney wasn’t arrested only adds to the perceived level of privilege enjoyed by our Congress and will only fuel future transgressions by them. Once the altercation was sorted out, McKinney was allowed to continue on her way and that was wrong. She should never have been allowed to enter the building unidentified without passing through the metal detector and once she hit the officer she should have been arrested whether they knew who she was or not.

McKinney may yet find herself in trouble over this event, but she still got away with it at the time. Our Congress members are not above the law and they really need to be reminded of that. Incidents like this only serve to reinforce the belief that these people, who are elected to represent us, live under a different set of rules and regulations than the rest of us. They are allowed to conduct themselves outside of the normal boundaries of the law and when they do break the rules, enforcement and punishment follow decidedly different paths for them. We shouldn’t need a Federal Grand Jury to decide if Representative McKinney did something wrong. She should have been treated like you or I would have been.

Date Added: 09-04-2006

Adios?

Nobody seems to like the state of immigration laws these days. More specifically, no one can decide what to do about illegal Mexican Immigrants. The President is currently pushing an immigration reform package that by his own admission contains some rules and regulations that he disagrees with. The Hispanic community in every major city is protesting like you’d expect if they’d all been declared degenerate rapists, and it doesn’t seem like anyone in Congress actually wants to vote for it anyway. So the big question is: What will be done to solve the problem? The answer: Probably nothing that will actually have an impact in any noticeable way.

The question that everyone should be asking is: What is the real problem? What is its root cause? And how do we fix it? If you start asking questions like these, you might be surprised at the answers. Even if the only person you ask these questions of is yourself, you may come up with some unexpected answers. One of the things you’re likely to discover is that illegal aliens from Mexico are not really a problem themselves. There have been thousands of illegal Mexican immigrants in this country for decades. They are here for work. It’s not like these are illegal immigrants from Iraq or other Middle Eastern countries. It’s not like they’re illegal immigrants from France or Canada, here to thumb their noses at us and tell us how much better things are in their country. These are Mexican immigrants who snuck into the U.S. to earn a better living. What’s the real harm in that?

People will tell you “they’re taking our jobs!” but that’s not really true. If employers won’t hire you over a non-English speaking illegal immigrant, then you probably don’t deserve a job in the first place. Just because you were born doesn’t mean that you deserve anything. That’s what capitalism is all about, you have to work at it to get somewhere in your life. A former teacher of mine once said, in reference to why some people don’t get job offers after graduation, “Some people can’t even work for their own Mothers.” Mexican immigrants come here because they want to work and they are willing to work hard. That’s why they get hired.

So if the immigrants themselves are not the problem, what is? The answer to that question and so many others these days is money. Aside from the money spent to find, catch, and return illegal immigrants, the U.S. and local governments spend a fortune in health, education, and community service for illegal immigrants. The solution is so simple and so politically incorrect that no politician will ever think to propose it: Stop. Stop the government spending on illegal immigrants. No welfare, no free healthcare, no assistance whatsoever from any level of government to anyone who cannot provide proof that they are a U.S. citizen. If they want to sneak into the country to work that’s fine, but don’t let them have any of the benefits of a U.S. citizen unless they are one. That may not stop or even slow down the influx of illegal immigrants into this country, but they weren’t really the problem anyway.

Date Added: 04-04-2006

There’s a Yellow Bird in My Yard

A little bird from Central America made a big stir in Albuquerque a couple weeks ago when it took up residence in a suburban back yard. The Yellow Grosbeak is rarely seen in the United States and has never before been spotted in New Mexico. The event has bird watchers traveling hundreds and even thousands of miles just to catch a glimpse of the small bird. The event has left bird watchers and scientists alike speculating on what may have caused the bird to travel so far away from its native range. Deforestation, pollution, and urban sprawl are of course popular choices, but I have another idea: Birds fly.

I’ve seen the pictures and I’ve seen the video on CNN. The Yellow Grosbeak is a pretty little bird, but it’s not especially remarkable and prior to it’s recent media coming out party, I’d never even heard of it. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to identify it. If I were to see a Yellow Grosbeak, my thoughts would probably go something like, “hey, there’s a yellow bird in my yard, how pretty.” Most people’s reaction to seeing this bird would be very similar to mine. The National Audubon Society boasts a membership of “over 400,000”. For simplicities sake, let’s say there are half million people in this country who could identify a Yellow Grosbeak (a gross exaggeration). Let’s also assume that there are 250 million people living in this country (a gross understatement). Simple math would tell you that only 1 in every 500 people could positively identify a Yellow Grosbeak if they noticed one. These pretty little yellow birds could be flying all over the southwest and we might never notice! In fact, I saw a couple pretty little yellow birds in my wife’s office the other day. Of course I’m pretty sure that they were Parakeets.

All I’m saying is that just because we haven’t noticed something doesn’t mean it’s not there. The same argument can be made about the previously extinct Ivory Billed woodpecker that was re-discovered in a flooded Arkansas forest last year. There are only about two and half million people in all of Arkansas to begin with. So if we use the same Audubon math that we used above there were no more than 5000 people in Arkansas who could have identified the bird to begin with. The woodpecker’s preferred habitat is flooded hardwood forest swamps that are generally only visited by duck hunters for a couple months out of the year. The duck hunter’s reaction to pictures of the Ivory Billed woodpecker: “Oh, I’ve seen those things before.” Sure, they probably actually saw Pilleated woodpeckers which are similar in size and appearance to the Ivory Billed woodpecker, but you never know. Those woodpeckers could be living all over the woodlands of Arkansas and Louisiana. There just aren’t enough people who are actually looking for them.

Birds can fly and birds migrate. The next time you see a pretty bird in your back yard, you might want to look it up and see what it is. Then again, would you really want hundreds of people from all over the country camped in front of your house with cameras and binoculars? If I saw a little yellow bird in my yard, you’d probably never hear about it.

Date Added: 20-03-2006

Keep Your Politics Out of My Entertainment

Last week I watched one of my usual television shows. It’s one of those shows that are not really very good anymore, but you’ve watched it for so long that you feel obligated to keep watching it out of an obscure sense of loyalty. The show in question is about a group of young doctors and nurses in a busy city hospital. For sake of keeping the show’s identity a secret, we’ll just refer to it as “CR”; short for “Cutting Room”.

Anyway, last weeks episode of CR featured a dual plot line. Not only did we get the usual hospital story line, but we also got a story about one of the former characters that is off doing volunteer work in a foreign land. It’s the extra story line that causes all of the problems with this episode. Doctor Rich (I made that name up) is off in some unidentified desert country somewhere in Africa providing basic medical care and surgery to the people who’ve been displaced by the country’s ongoing civil war. They may have actually mentioned what country it was, but I wasn’t really paying that close attention. Anyway, Dr. Rich is visibly shaken by the horrible conditions that the poor oppressed Muslims are forced to face in the midst of this civil war, although they are somehow able to keep their robes whiter than I can get my socks no matter how much bleach I use. Dr. Rich’s friend, we’ll call him Dr. Jessie J, continually tries to explain the facts of life to him. A paraphrase of their conversations goes something like this:

Dr. Jessie J: “The oppression will continue because the United States has flown the leader of the revolt to Washington for dinner.”

Dr. Rich: “Well, that’s the only way we they can get the oil. They must support the evil oppressor and killer of children.”

Dr. Jessie J: “If only we could get some aid for the poor and oppressed. Unfortunately, it’s always the same. No matter where it is, the Sudan, New Orleans, or here, if the faces are black, the help is slow in coming.”

Now I’ve had just about as much of this crap as I can take! It’s bad enough that I hear this on the news every night, but now I have to listen to this left-wing propaganda in the TV shows that I watch. I’m sick and tired of people whining that the United States government doesn’t care about black people. Aid for New Orleans in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina was slow for two reasons and neither involved the color of anyone’s skin. The first reason was that FEMA was somewhat ill prepared and unorganized. The second reason was that the people who needed help weren’t supposed to be there in the first place. An evacuation order was given to the city of New Orleans two days prior to Katrina making landfall. The people should have left! The only people who should have ended up in the Superdome are those who were too old or too frail to walk out of town.

As for the whole deal about oil being the motivating factor for the United States, I’ve just got to say, “Why is that a bad reason?” Take a look around. We need oil, lots and lots of oil, and it’s not just for gasoline. We need oil to make plastic and we need plastic for just about everything. Negotiating with those who control the oil seems like a good idea to me. Curiously enough, I didn’t notice any oil drilling equipment or any oil wells anywhere in the African desert setting of last weeks CR.

Everyone’s entitled to his or her opinion regardless of how ridiculous it is, even the writers of CR, but there’s a time and a place for everything. If I wanted to listen to political propaganda, I’d watch news programs and opinion pieces. When I’m watching a fictional television show, I want to be entertained. So stop trying to force your own personal manifesto on us and in the immortal words of Kurt Cobain, “Here we are now, entertain us.”

Date Added: 05-03-2006

Cartoons

All across the world, Muslims are showing up by the thousands to protest Danish cartoons. The funny thing is that they aren’t really spending that much of their effort protesting the cartoons themselves. The protests don’t seem to be targeting the author of the cartoons or the newspapers that published them all that much, either. Instead, they’re protesting America and Europe in general. So some Danish cartoonist drew a few caricatures of Muhammad in various unflattering situations and they got published in a newspaper. Big deal, get over it. I’ve seen the cartoons, it’s rather hard to avoid them if you have internet access and e-mail after all. There’s not much too them and they’re not really all that funny, although I suppose they beat reruns of Garfield. This appears to be nothing more than an excuse for the mindless masses to gather together, wave their hands in the air, and scream about things that they don’t really even know much about. Naturally, of course, one of the most common forms protest in these rallies is to chant “Death to America” or for those more polite, “Down with America”. This is perfectly logical, since the great evil beast that is America must surely control all of the published content in Danish newspapers.

These cartoons were first published in September of last year. That’s five months ago. There’s nothing like staying up with current world events, eh? It really makes you wonder if any of the protesters have even seen the cartoons. Of course actual knowledge of the object of a protest is generally not a prerequisite to demonstrate. Even if they haven’t actually seen the offensive pictures, well the masses have been told that they exist and that they should be offended by them.

In reality, these protests are just another way to grab media attention. The people leading these protests love the existence of the cartoons, because it gives them an excuse to rile up the masses. They just feed the mindless a few tidbits, tell them that they’ve been insulted, and send them out in the streets to complain. The mindless are certainly anxious to comply. After all they’ve been taught since a very young age that Western civilization is out to get them and America controls everything in the world. The protesters themselves are ignorant of what’s actually going on. They’re just doing what they’ve been conditioned to do. Protesting in the streets and shouting out against America is a kind of Pavlovian response to any political or economic event. They don’t really know what the issues are and it doesn’t really matter, its just time to protest.

It’s time to stop worrying about offending these morons. It’s time to stop publicizing their ridiculous anti-American protests. If they want to protest that’s fine with me, I really don’t care. If they want to shout and howl and wave their hands around, more power to them; just quit telling me about it. If you want to tell me about the protests, at least make sure the protesters are adequately informed. Distribute copies of the cartoons to all the protesters first, and then make sure that they all know who the cartoonist is and where he’s from. Otherwise, you’re just wasting my time.

Date Added: 27-02-2006

No Excuse, No Sympathy

Vice President Dick Cheney shot his longtime friend Harry Wittington last week during a hunting trip. There has been a lot of discussion in the media and in various blogs about who is at fault, why it happened, how it could have been avoided, and what if any penalties should be levied against Mr. Cheney. As you would expect opinions vary from one extreme to the other on every regard. Some people feel that it’s Mr. Wittington’s fault for not announcing his presence. Some feel that the Vice President should have known where everyone is and still others are of the opinion that no one is at fault and it’s just a case of “S**t happens”. I’ve heard arguments that the V.P. should be arrested and charged with some crime or another and I’ve even heard it said that Mr. Cheney was actually trying to shoot Wittington, although that hardly seems credible. All of these arguments contain some level of logic, but they are all essentially incomplete or wrong.

Vice President Dick Cheney is completely at fault. One of the fundamental rules of firearm safety is to know what you’re shooting at and where you are shooting. By all accounts the V.P. turned, fired, and then saw that his friend was in his line of fire. When you are hunting with a group of people, you should never fire anywhere but towards your front and you should always know where all of the members of your hunting party are. There is no excuse for the shooting, Cheney is wrong. Additionally, this is not just a case of incidental pellet spray at long distance. The Vice President was using a 28-gauge shotgun, which is a very small, and lightweight weapon that is essentially only effective at killing small birds and rodents. Mr. Cheney shot his friend at close range.

That’s not the entire story though and don’t start feeling sorry for Harry Wittington. Mr. Wittington got what he deserved and he is completely at fault as well. Mr. Wittington also violated basic firearm safety rules by putting himself into another person’s line of fire. He left the hunting group of 3 people (and no doubt a large contingent of secret service agents and medical personnel) to apparently retrieve some quail that he had already shot. After retrieving his birds he should have returned to the spot where he left the group and then followed behind the party in order to catch up. Instead he tried to save time and cut cross-country. Since quail are not going to flush after a hunting party has already passed them by, it’s fairly evident that Mr. Wittington must have been at least even with the lead shooter in the party (Mr. Cheney) if not ahead of him. By trying to save time to catch up with his party, Harry Wittington got himself shot. He made a stupid mistake and he paid for it.

Lost in all the hoopla is that none of those involved actually had the required state permits to even be out there shooting quail. By definition, these people were poaching. In most states failure to be properly licensed will result in heavy fines and in some cases seizure of firearms and hunting equipment. I have not heard of any fines or firearm seizures in this case and that can only mean one of two things. Either hunting laws aren’t enforced in Texas, or the people breaking the law are receiving preferential treatment. To me, this seems to be the worst and most embarrassing part of the whole story. If any fines or penalties should be assessed, this is what they should be for.

Ultimately, this is a story of mistakes, accidents, and errors in judgment. Everyone involve shares the blame and anyone involved could have prevented the accident. Both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Wittington can accept the blame for this accident because it was in each ones power to prevent it. The moral of the story is that you should always follow all of the rules of firearm safety at all times.

Date Added: 19-02-2006

On Second Thought

Ten years ago, a group of American Indians filed a class action lawsuit against the federal government over alleged mishandling of more than $100 billion worth of royalties generated from their land since 1887. Last week, a U.S. District court ordered the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to pay $7 million dollars for the plaintiff’s legal expenses. This order stemmed from a petition by the plaintiffs that the government (whom they are suing) pay for the costs of the lawsuit. They had originally requested $14 million.

The Bureau is of course a part of the federal government so essentially; the BIA is being sued by the same people they are supposed to be helping.

That, by itself seems pretty ridiculous. I mean, the defendant in this case has been ordered to pay for the lawyers suing them just so that they can continue to sue them. Is that really fair? No judgment in this case has been made yet, but the defendant is already being penalized. They are being required to fund a lawsuit against them that could ultimately cost them $100 billion dollars. That’s $100 billion of your money as a taxpayer! Essentially you are funding this tremendous lawsuit that could ultimately cost you more money in taxes.

Of course that’s the annoying and potentially infuriating part of the story. Now here’s the funny part: I’m sure that most people have heard the saying “You shouldn’t bite the hand that