You'll Put Your Eye Out!!!

The tension involved in this story must have been phenomenal!

Woman Sues Victoria's Secret, Claims Injury From Defective Thong

Now it's been covered by many sites, so you can go there and see what they said:

Lawsuits Over Thong Malfunctions...
from Blackiswhite.

Well hell, the other locations were OT and just part of a thread looking for a venue, and I can't locate them now.

Onward!

Patterson's lawyer told The Smoking Gun that a "design problem" caused a decorative metallic piece on the underwear to fly up and hit Patterson in the eye while she was putting the underwear on.

Maybe a case of "I take a size 2, the hell if I'm 220 lbs., it look good on me".

I know L.A. Parking Enforcement. They swear there is no quota involved with the job.....BUT, the officers worked pretty close to the same hours that I did and I drove by their yard on my way home. By 1:00 PM, there would be two Parking Enforcement Officers parked a half block down the side street of our site with the officers snoring away, and this is just over half way through their shift.

I occasionally got to follow these asshats to their yard on my way home. I can only assume that they wrote their 25 citations and figured they were done for the day. Hell if they start writing 35 a day, someone might expect them to write 35 everyday (don't make waves and make others look bad...and there is no quota).

My assumption would be this was a lazy ass city employee who just took an opportunity to sue someone so she could claim disability, get a huge reward and deprive everyone else of the joys of Victoria's Secrets.

It's Sunday, So I'm Just Going To Kick Back

I read what little news there was last night, and nothing I saw is sticking with me at the moment, so I think I'll just post some music.

I'm going to pick something that's relatively recent just to show I can change a bit in spite of getting old. My boy is 19, so I get to hear new stuff as it comes out. A lot of the time it's as it comes out of my house when I get home from work at around 500 decibels. Hell, I use to do it to when I was his age, so if he turns it down when I whack in the back of the head it's OK.

I really like the whole album that these are from, so it was hard to pick which ones I wanted to showcase. I picked two that you don't often hear on the radio.

The first is "Smile Like You Mean It".



And for number two: "Jenny Was A Friend Of Mine".



Tomorrow is a busy day at work. I've got graveyard then I stay over to help clean out a sump and trough with a vacuum truck, so it'll be a double shift. Nights have been quiet lately so it shouldn't be too bad, but I doubt I'll get to post when I get home.

Joe For President!!

A big HT to LC FORGER - Imperial Blacksmith over at the Rott for this.

Some citizen sat down and thought about what's going on in the world and came up with an actual plan to help save this country, something the people running for President can't seem to come up with.

It's 9 minutes long, but worth it and you won't even notice because you'll be going yeah, of course that's what I had in the back of my mind.



Is it to late to get this guy on the ballot for November?

Unmitigated Gall

Here's another example of why the U.N. should be disbanded, the building torn down and the earth it stood on salted.



Britain should get rid of the monarchy, says UN

[all emphasis: mine]

A United Nations report says Britain should abolish its monarchy.
13 Jun 08: The UN has said that the UK must consider asking the public whether they would like to keep the Royal Family.

The UN Human Rights Council said the UK must "consider holding a referendum on the desirability or otherwise of a written constitution, preferably republican".

The council has 29 members including Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Sri Lanka.

It was the Sri Lankan envoy who raised concerns over the British monarchy.

Let's see here, the "Human Rights Council" that seats some of the biggest human right abusers (China, Saudi Arabia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cuba and pick any of the 13 African countries)are dictating to England that they should give up what's worked for them since 1707, and really much longer than that.

And you noticed who was the "enlightened" country that proposed ridding Britain of her monarchy? Sri Lanka, who even in Wikipedia is noted as:

was considered one of the "world's most politically unstable countries" by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank in 2004. The Economist labels Sri Lanka a "flawed democracy" in its 2006 rankings

.

People in glass houses...

The resulting report said Britain should have a referendum on the monarchy and the need for a written constitution with a bill of rights.

The monarchy costs each adult in Britain around 62p a year but even groups representing taxpayers said there was no case for getting rid of it.

$1.35 (US dollars) a year per adult to support the Queen and her brood.

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "With so many human rights abuses around the world the UN should be busy reporting on issues of starvation, execution and the denial of the vote to huge numbers of people around the world.

"Saudi Arabia and Cuba should pay a little more attention to their own human rights record."

No, it's just so much easier to point at countries were the people are free to live their lives without fear of being hauled away in the night by "special police" rather than have anyone take notice of what's going on in their own country. Besides, if Britain got to vote on a referendum we all know they would chose a system even more socialist that the one they have. You know "Workers Unite" and all that rot.

The UN report was also critical of the UK's treatment of immigrants from Sudan.

Syrian representatives accused the UK of discriminating against Muslims and Iran complained about the UK's record on tackling sexual discrimination.

They mean the mooselimbs that riot at every perceived slight, threaten to behead anyone who won't bow down to islam, blow up train stations and airports. And sexual discrimination...this from Syria...no sexual discrimination there, if anyone brought up that they were discriminated against sexually, why they'd cane that bitch...or hang the queer.

A royal source said: "People here certainly haven't detected any appetite for a referendum. The Queen is a focus for national unity, identity and pride."

Can't have that now, can we?

Terrorists Are U.S. Citizens Now

Supreme Court opens up Gitmo lawsuit floodgates; Scalia: “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today. I dissent.”

Unbelievable.

We now give constitutional rights to illegal combatants.

I'd been thinking about this since the ruling came down and trying to think of how this would pan out in the future. My thoughts went to the "unofficial" ROE are going to change. If the bastard we just rounded up from a location that we were receiving fire from most likely is one of the terrorists that was shooting at my squad and even though he is an illegal combatant, he now has U.S. constitutional rights if I arrest him and take him into custody, now gets to go through a U.S. federal court to make sure his "rights" weren't violated. What's next, reading Miranda rights to every terrorist we pick up?

As I was driving home this morning I came to the conclusion that there will be a lot less terrorists taken prisoner. The Geneva Conventions state that a combatant with no uniform can be summarily shot. No breaking of the rules here. All "civilized" nations have signed this agreement and have vowed to abide by the rules.

Right after my thoughts, on the radio, a Viet Nam vet was calling into Bill Bennett's show and brought up that back in that war, with no consistent ROE and no uniform for the enemy, the attitude was "better safe that sorry". If you thought they were the enemy better shoot them now rather than let them go and have to fight them again tomorrow.

War sucks! It always comes down to killing more of the guys on the other side than they kill on yours. The Geneva Conventions were drawn up to reduce the civilian deaths by establishing who was fighting for who by stating that uniforms must be worn. If you chose to ignore the rules, then any civilian deaths that occur due to your actions fall back on you.

Gun Rights

Bouncing around and ran into this: Packing in public: Gun owners tired of hiding their weapons embrace 'open carry' from of all places...The L.A. Times

A response.

24. If you are trying to promote America as a friendly country with friendly people. A nice place to visit. Then having a civilian population that thinks it's living in "Westworld" is hardly the right image to project. To those of us in the rest of the world it just confirms our worst fears that America is a dangerous place full of intimidating overbearing gun nuts who appear to have no concern about how they look to the rest of the world.
Submitted by: Frank
12:44 PM PDT, June 10, 2008

What about promoting an America where it's citizens are mature enough that they can be trusted with firearms, will not use their gun to settle petty disputes, and will come to your aid if someone threatens your unarmed person.

Of course you just have to ignore the facts to come up with that conclusion.

Friday!!!

Well, it's my Friday.

Off for a day and 3/4 then 7 on graveyard shift (then 5 1/2 off).

Haven't posted in a bit because they've been making me work (the bastards), so by the time I get done reading all my other sites when I get home, there isn't the time or the energy to post all the things I have marked.

Today I just want to hit a few of the things I meant to do the last few days.

GuyK demanded that I go over here and read this: "McCain's Better Half" at Tall Cool Drink of Water

Conservatives see a problem and figure out how they're fix it. Libs whine about the gov't not throwing money at the the problem.
___________________

A bunch of stuff from Hot Air:

McCain: Obama’s running for Carter’s second term

Just "Oh God, Noooo...!!!!" I lived through Jimmy Peanut's "change" which sounds an awful lot like Barack's "change". Now I know why so many of his supporters are young, they didn't have to go through gas lines and incredible inflation and "malaise". They probably think we're old farts and are exaggerating the ordeal through senility.

I know I'll come back to this subject in more detail, but wanted to get this story in: So when will Congress act on gas prices?

We expect the rest of the world to rape their ecosystem, but ours is somehow sacrosanct and shouldn't be impacted, nay...even touched. The ultimate in elitist thinking, but the world shouldn't hate us for that.

We were told, oh about 7 years ago that if we produced ANWAR, it wouldn't do any good for 7 years. Some of that oil trickling in about now probably would have been a good thing.

Congress isn't going to do anything about the price of oil now or after the elections. Gov't (Fed, state, local) get 24% of every dollar spent on gas, with no investment, while the oil company get 8.5% with trillions in investment. You tell me who's getting "Windfall Profits"?

On the Dhimitude of the free world: Anglicans: British gov’t pays more attention to Islam than to us; British gov’t: Of course we do

Because the ragheads are going to riot and burn if their fweelings are hurt, we better make sure they are front of the line for gov't attention. Won't matter if giving in to them dilutes or removes the rights of a majority of the population, can't have cars burning on the evening news like in Fwance.

Listen to a MP Ms Blears:

It is “common sense” for Christianity to be sidelined at the expense of Islam, a Government minister claimed on Sunday…

She said it was right that more money and effort was spent on Islam than Christianity because of the threat from extremism and home-grown terrorism.

It gets better.

She added: “We live in a secular democracy. That’s a precious thing. We don’t live in a theocracy, but we’ve always accepted that hundreds of thousands of people are motivated by faith. We live in a secular democracy but we want to recognise the role of faith.”

Secular democracy? England? Even I know about Henry VIII, but I'll let the Rt Rev Stephen Lowe, Bishop for Urban Life and Faith of The Church of England rebut.

“She said we live in a secular democracy. That comes as news to me – we have an established Church, but the Government can’t deal with Christianity.”

great britain, shave your heads, lock your women away and get ready to pray at the appointed hours, or pay your dhimi tax, you are done.
_____________

That's all the Hot Air stuff. I saved the best for last. Got this through Sig94 who sent me to Transsylvania Phoenix to read this post: The British called, they want their guns back


I'll post the You Tube here just to peak your interest.


So maybe I shouldn't write the Brit's off to fast. I just hope we can look at what a crock and failure this was and not make the same mistake.

Credit Where Credits Is Due?

I use to be a big basketball fan. Then it became thug ball and I left.

I've watched a few games over the last few years, but just couldn't generate any team spirit or enthusiasm with most of the players shooting 38% from the free throw line.

Having gotten by the Shaq/Kobe years, the Laker's are back in the play offs, so I watched a few of the games and have kinda enjoyed B-ball again.

(As usual the above isn't the reason for my post.)

At half time, they did a "up close and personal" story of Leon Powe of the Celtics.

The man has a lot to speak for his character. He was the oldest of seven children growing up in the hellhole of Oakland, Ca. He talked about his mother giving up food so that her children could have something to eat and that he gave up food so that his mother and siblings could eat. He got good grades and according to his teachers, chased them down to find out how to do better. He had a natural ability to play basketball, but worked as hard as that as he did at academics.

His Mom died at (I think they said 42, just as he graduated HS)and his dad left when he was two. The house they lived in burned down when he was seven and they were homeless.

His Mom got arrested for shoplifting, which I can understand her motivation, not condoning it, but...if I'd needed to feed my kids. All the kids ended up in foster care.

Powe worked to keep the family together. This is a man.

The thing that was not mentioned in the story is where is his dad? There was one kid, and I guess probably another on the way, so did he just decided to cut out?

Now Mom had one, maybe two, kids by daddy one, where the hell did the other five come from? I know a few people from many ethnic groups, but I can't think of another that has SEVEN fucking children with no father around.

I'll say Powe is 100 times the man his father was...but what is it in our society that overlooks the lack of a father in the life of children and celebrates the fact that in this one case there was a gifted child that was able to pull his family out of that death spiral of welfare?

If dad had still been there, Powe would have had his innate talent and would have gone to great things anyway. I'm just sorry he had to fight his way up to the elite of American sports.

Only in America!

Buffalo Farts

Haven't been around for the last few days. I had my "weekend" which was half relaxing and half busy. The ultimate insult, was that over they last two days at work, those bastards actually wanted me to do some physical labor. Worse than that I had to design, get the tools together, the supplies necessary and put the whole mess together.

Two of the best days I've had in a long time, and there is a project for tomorrow.

I got hurt today. I slipped in some oil and while catching myself I wrenched my left elbow pretty good. Didn't know it for an hour or so after work, but bad enough that I tried some "ICY Hot" that smelled nice, but did nothing. A half hour with a heating pad, and I fell good enough to type.

I don't take meds!!! I haven't taken an aspirin, or anything else in over three years, but this time it hurt. I still haven't taken any pharmaceuticals. The heat and slowly working it out (I think it was a strained tendon) but I've got about 98% movement back without pain.

We'll see tomorrow whe I wake up.

What the hell does this have to do with buffalo farts, nothing I just dropped by the Rott and found this post: A ClueClubbing™ Of Astronomical Proportions

I haven't even had a chance to read the comments, but just reading the blockquote made me want to post:

I would like to point out that before the introduction of cattle, millions upon millions of buffalo dominated the Great Plains of America. They were so thick you could not see where the herd started and where it ended. I can only assume that the anti-meat, manmade global warming crowd must believe that buffalo farts have more socially redeeming value than the same flatulence emitted by cattle. Yes, this is absurd, but the deeper one looks into this global warming juggernaut, the weirder this movement becomes and the more denial is evident. (Emphasis mine—B.)

This made my arm feel better also.

What Have I Been Saying?

There hasn't been an offshore-oil-well blowout since 1969. The onslaught of Gulf hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 ripped apart drilling rigs and pipelines, but not one drop of oil made landfall.

So why do we block energy companies from exploring many of our offshore waters for oil, including Florida's Gulf Coast?

Going green means having green to spend

Read it!

Uncaring America

I've heard this so many times from inside and outside the U.S. that I was starting to wonder if it were true.

Then I read: "Americans lead world in generosity" by Star Parker.

[all emphasis: mine]

Americans are hearing so much these days about how bad we are that we're starting to believe it. "We are such a rich nation and care little for the poor, we should give more."

In a recent Gallup poll, 68 percent said they are "dissatisfied with the position of the United States in the world today," and 55 percent said they think that the rest of the world views us unfavorably.

See I wasn't the only one.

However, as I page through a publication called the Index of Global Philanthropy, which is produced annually by the Center for Global Prosperity at the Hudson Institute in Washington, it becomes obvious that these American feelings of self-deprecation are misguided.

This is the just-released third annual edition of this index. It produces a unique snapshot portraying the full extent of American generosity to developing countries, by amount and by source.

Usually when the question of aid to the developing world arises, we think of government funds. But this index shows that, whereas it may be the rule in the rest of the industrialized world that most aid is government aid, in our country this isn't the case. Most of the contributions that Americans make abroad are private and voluntary. And they are large.

And how large?

In 2006, the latest year for which data are available, the index reports that Americans contributed privately and voluntarily $34.8 billion to individuals and organizations in developing countries.

Philanthropy is distinct from government aid in that it originates with private citizens and is voluntary, but also the recipients are private individuals and organizations, as opposed to governments. Private to private versus government to government.

The $34.8 billion in philanthropy from private Americans exceeded the $23.5 billion in official U.S. government aid abroad by $11.3 billion, or 48 percent.

Damn near 50% more that the U.S. gov't gives, and remember, we taxpayers gave that $23.5 billion also.

This private philanthropy is flowing from foundations, corporations, private and voluntary organizations, universities and colleges, and religious organizations.

Of particular interest in this year's index is the $8.8 billion reported from religious organizations. According to Carol Adelman, who directs this work, the data were produced by commissioning "the first national survey of congregational giving to the developing world" ever done.

The average contribution of congregations was $10,700.

Only $10,700? when you add it all together that is 25% of the total being given, voluntarily by these congregations.

To put this in some kind of perspective, the $8.8 billion in giving from American religious institutions to developing countries was $1.5 billion more than the total giving from all private sources in 30 of the world's major industrialized democratic countries combined.

You got that? You add up the total from next 30 democratic nations and we've still given $1.5 BILLION more!

When consolidating all assistance funds flowing from the United States to developing countries, the total is $129.8 billion. This is the total of government aid, philanthropy and remittances – funds sent directly by private individuals to other private parties in developing countries, often family members. A far second in total giving behind the United States is the United Kingdom at $20.7 billion.

The next most generous country in line, Great Britain, gives 16% of what we do.

There are a couple of important messages here.

First, of course, is the incredible compassion and generosity of Americans. American largesse does not need to be pried or forced by the government. It flows organically from free, civic minded and often religiously motivated citizens. And it comes from citizens of every income strata. The religious giving data show that whereas the average congregation gives $10,700, the median number is $2,500, indicating that there are many smaller, less wealthy congregations engaged.

The other headline is the central importance of the private sector in both generating prosperity, but also in sharing it.

We know how good we have it here, and we want to help those in need or who have been hit by disaster and we are willing to sacrifice some of our blessings to the rest of the world..."the median number is $2,500, indicating that there are many smaller, less wealthy congregations engaged." Help when you can, as much as you can.

Bookshelves now strain with studies showing the failures of government-to-government aid.

Always seems to end up buying munitions to further suppress the people it was suppose to help, or they just build another palace.

It is individuals who create wealth. Compassion and personal responsibility reside in the breasts of those same individuals. Neither can be said of government bureaucracies.

Amen!

Barack Obama spoke at the commencement ceremony at Wesleyan University the other day. He talked about national service and, recalling John F. Kennedy, committed to doubling the size of the Peace Corps if elected president.

From what I see and what the data show, Americans don't need government to make them care, contribute and volunteer. If anything, they need less government so they'll retain and keep control of more of what they produce and subsequently share with those in need.

Like I said at the beginning, I was starting to believe the BS that maybe we don't give enough. They can take that a shove it sideways.

Other countries may have their own motivations for what causes them to view Americans the way they do, but the data are clear. Americans are unmatched in creating prosperity and sharing it.

It's time to pay closer attention to what Americans do rather than what others say.

I don't know about you, but my family also give to charities that operate strictly within the U.S., so the numbers there are not figured into the grand total.

Gotta Pee?

If you're modest and live in Colorado, you better go before you leave the house.

Guv strikes state's gender-specific restrooms

With today's signature on SB200, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat, has eliminated gender-specific restrooms and locker rooms statewide, giving woman and girls reason to fear being confronted by predators, cross-dressers "or even a homosexual or heterosexual male," according to a critic.

The state's new "transgender nondiscrimination" bill makes it illegal to deny a person access to public accommodations, including restrooms and locker rooms, based on gender identity or the "perception" of gender identity.

If you were afraid to let your kids go into a public restroom before, imagine what it's going to be like now.

"Henceforth, every woman and little girl will have to fear that a predator, bisexual, cross-dresser or even a homosexual or heterosexual male might walk in and relieve himself in their presence," Dobson said. "The legislation lists every conceivable type of organization to which this law applies, including restaurants, bathhouses, massage parlors, mortuaries, theaters and 'public facilities of any kind.' Those who would attempt to protect females from this intrusion are subject to a fine of up to $5,000 and up to one year behind bars.

I've been to events, concerts, ballgames, where the line going into the ladies facility is about 5 miles long and had women sneak in the guys bathroom and it never bothers anyone, but the idea of some of the guys I know going into the ladies room while my wife or daughter (if I had a daughter) is in there, I guess I'd be looking at a $5,000 fine.

"And by the way, because of the way this bill is written, it is not subject to the initiative process. There is no recourse,” Dobson said.

(James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, the Christian publishing and broadcast ministry in Colorado Springs.)

The hell with whatever the people feel is proper, the gov't knows best.

Maxine: Read the Constitution!

I'm still reeling from Maxine's declaration during the Congressional hearings on gas prides:

Borrowing liberally from: Maxine: Read the Constitution! by Henry Lamb

And guess what this liberal will be all about? This liberal will be about socializing – would be about, basically, taking over, and the government running all of your companies.

That someone cannot take all the facts of OPEC cannot produce much more than they are, Russia's oil industry is an ecological nightmare, and we have at least a 60- to 70-year known supply of domestic oil available, but can't touch and world demand has outstripped supply, that prices are going to be high.

Congress does expect us to ignore that while "BIG OIL" is making under 8% profit per gallon, the gov't gets a 23% profit through taxes.

Government intervention into the marketplace is justified only to ensure consumer safety and honest competition. Beyond this, government intervention into business affairs creates a drag on the economy, and the greater the intervention, the heavier the weight that drags down the economy.

And the fun thing about gov't intervention is that when dealing with the multiple agencies, City, State and Federal, they all have their own rules that often run counter to each other, but expect you to comply with theirs, and being they all seem sit in their office all year then in a flurry try to catch up on inspections, you end up wasting time readjusting equipment to comply with whichever agency is coming in this week.

Maxine Waters' remedy – to nationalize the oil companies and, by inference, any other business she thinks the government can run better than the owners – is a sure-fire formula for the destruction of the U.S. economy and of the nation.

You can be damn sure the taxes won't be dropped, they'll probably be increased as a subsidy for a give back to the "poor". So now the gov't will get 31%+ profit from gas, but there will be no "Windfall Profit" brought up.


The main points are:

The more government dictates what business may and may not do, and the more costs the government imposes upon business in the form of taxes and regulatory compliance, the slower the economy turns.

and

Unless the elected representatives at every level of government get a grip on the principles of freedom the Constitution holds, the United States of America will continue to descend into the collectivist, dictatorial regime that Maxine Waters threatened. It may already be too late. A generation or more of people have been taught to expect the government to take control and solve whatever problems may come along. This is the mentality that drives the likes of Maxine Waters and Hugo Chavez.

Obama to TUCC: Under The Bus Please

Hat tip to Radical Redneck, who posted this pic at the Rott.

The Obamessiah has once again shown that there is no one that is not expendable in his run for President. This time it isn't just a person he's thrown under the bus, but all the congregates of Trinity United Church of Christ. He's finally decided that what he thought he was hearing for the last 20 years really wasn't what was being said.

If you need examples of what the sermons where about go here:

"When You See These Videos You Will Never Vote for Barack Obama" from The Patriot Room

When the central tenet of your churches philosophy is based on "Black Liberation Theology", where you have to accept that to be a true Christian you believe God is going to kill all whites...that if you make money, you must give it all up for the sins of your fathers...in order to for this country progress, the U.S. Constitution must be torn up and rewritten...and any means to accomplish these goals is justified. (Kinda sounds like another bothersome theology.)

Of course he made the announcement on a Saturday, so let's see if the story sticks around till Monday when people sorta pay attention to the news again, but then we still have to deal with "Obama's inerrancy" as far as the left and the MSM (redundancy) are concerned.


By Eric Allie
© 2008

It's My Blog And You Ain't the Boss Of Me

I may have posted on this before, but I was in the mood for it again, and I may post it again at a later date, but I was bouncing around cyberspace tonight and ran across this:

Lee Michaels

Bastards won't let me embed it, but it's a short sample of Lee Michaels and Frosty just blowing the windows out. (Hint: Crank your volume to 11).

If you liked that here a longer music sample of them just kicking ass.



Hope you got 12 on your system, it you ain't moving during this set, you dead.

Someone once said Lee Michaels is the Jimi Hendrix of the Hammond B-3 organ, isn't that the truth.

It Couldn't Happen Again, Could It?

Just when he thought it was safe to go back in the water, Barrack "The Uniter" Obama has another of his campaign’s pastoral advisory committee (Ret), show, again, the type of people that he has used as mentors.

Let's see there are two race baiter's, a husband and wife team of terrorists and a racist Grandmother.

My friend Blackiswhite has a post on the reverend Pfleger's sermon that covers all I wanted to say (and more) so drop by his site and read.

If you want to hear this asshat reverend in his own words:

Someone Stole My Cat ...Again!!!

It's not the first time it's happened, and probably won't be the last, but it seems that about every two years some asshat decides to steal my cat.

She's been missing for about four days now, so if history is any indicator, she should be back in the next day or so. Whoever has her will get comfortable with trying to keep her in the house, and she'll make her break and be back home banging on the front screen wanting to be fed.

Long ago we had a kitten take up residence in my company's yard and the guys and I started feeding it. It lived in a shed and just hung around like cats do. The only problem was the few times it would get locked in the shop at night, we had motion detectors and the third time the boss got called at 2 AM because of the cat, he said it had to go. My wife had recently lost a cat, so I figured to earn some brownie points by bringing home a new kitten.

This was a brilliant idea on my part. Being responsible pet owners, we took her to the vet for all the shots and get it spayed/neutered. We found out it was about 6 months old and pregnant (little slut). That was vet bill that ranked up there in the "holy crap!" range. Oh, boy, a free kitten.



Isn't she gorgeous?

She lived in and out of the house for a few years, but gradually just started spending more time outside. Now, she never comes in the house. She's always around, but prefers to live in the garage. The highlight of her day, outside of getting fed, is when I come home so she can get on the hood of my truck with the warm engine and crash out.

Tessa loves everyone. If you're walking down the street, she's up on our front wall waiting for the pets due her regalness. I've watched little kids pick her up upside down and she just tolerates it. That's the problem, for some reason these people who have seen this cat at my house for weeks, decided they are going to give her a better life and they take her.

We tried collars with tags, but we always got the breakaway kind, and after losing the fourth collar in 6 months, we gave up.

For 12 years, she's come back, so I'm going to believe she'll be back again shortly. I miss her greeting me on the front porch no matter what time I get home. Of course the usual position I recognize her in is:

What The Dem's Really Want

The *spit* Hon. Maxine Waters (D-L.A.) let slip during the House Judiciary Committee's Task Force on Competition Policy and Antitrust Laws hearing to investigate competition in the oil industry what their real plans for the country are.



Waters: "And guess what this liberal will be all about? This liberal will be about socializing--would be about, basically, taking over and the government running all of your companies."

Yeah, they'll take the price of a gallon of gas down from $4/gal. to $2.35 (a $1.65 "saving), but in order for the gov't to do it, they'll raise your taxes by $2.50/gal. to subsidize it.

The only thing I found even slightly amusing about this was watching the two Reps in the background try to stifle their laughter when this crap fell out of her mouth. Not only is what she says she going to do unconstitutional, but by allowing the oil industry to fall into the hands of gov't, they will have total control on how much we can drive and where we can go.

I felt it wasn't going to be to long until one of them let it slip that they were planning on taking any business they felt like "for the good of the people". Welcome to the Brave New World, comrade.

Remembering

May we all take a few moments today to think upon the gift of freedom bestowed upon us by this country and of all those men and women who have stepped up and given up their lives to protect that freedom.

God bless them and bless their families who have lost loved one for us.

Oil Profits

Gee, someone else out there gets it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No, we can't...but:

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

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

Nuclear energy?

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

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

Coal?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But, they did something, right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Child Abusive Services?

I cut and pasted this from my post on the Rott, we had discussed these asshats on the first of the month, so when I read this, I went back and posted. After all that work, I wanted a copy for my site.


Court blasts state’s strip-search of children
Social worker enters Christian school without cause, tells kids to remove clothing

Two children who attended a private Christian school in Wisconsin were illegally strip-searched and had their constitutional rights violated by a state social worker, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled Monday.

These kids were 8 and 9 years old, are drug dealers that young now a days?

In Michael C. v. Gresbach, the court said state worker Dana Gresbach violated the children’s Fourth Amendment rights to freedom from unreasonable search when she entered Good Hope Christian Academy in Milwaukee, Wis., had the children pulled from the classrooms and told them to remove their clothing when she suspected the parents of spanking in February 2004.

OMG, spanking. Hell, my parents used hands, belts or a bamboo switch, not overly often, but I usually ( :em93: ) deserved it and it was never excessive. With my boy, from 2 to 5 a swat with a cupped hand to the pampers got his attention. I came out alright :em95: and my son seems to be OK…for a teenager. :em98:

“The social worker performed these strip searches as a matter of routine, estimating that in perhaps one-half of the 300 or so cases she handled every year she subjected kids to a partial disrobing,” he said. “In fact, she testified that she considered it so routine that she did not bother to discuss her intentions with her supervisor, even though she spoke to her on her way to the school.”

I guess her attitude is I drove over here, I’m going to find something, after all, if I don’t find abuse…somewhere, what am I doing to earn my salary?

When Gresbach entered the school, she handed her business card to Principal Cheryl Reetz and told her she needed to see Ian and Alexis. Reetz asked the social worker if she could call the children’s parents, but Gresbach refused to allow it, saying she would contact them at a later time. The principal then asked if she could remain in the room to observe the interview, but she was denied permission to do so.

No independent advocate for the children…she could have inflicted bruises on the kids and claimed they where cause to put the kids in foster care..not that they would do that. :em02:

The social worker spent nearly 15 minutes alone in the room with each child. She searched Ian’s wrists for bruising and asked him to pull up his shirt. He complied, and she examined his back for suspicious marks. Gresbach then privately inspected Alexis, asking her to pull down her tights and lift up her dress. The worker was unable to find any sign of injury on the children’s bodies.

G-d, someone you don’t know has you pulled out of 4th/5th grade class, starts asking you ( all alone) questions, then tells you to remove clothing…wonder if these kids aren’t a little bit damaged? I’d be willing to bet more than from a spanking.

Gresbach claimed she was entitled to qualified immunity because her actions were reasonable under the Fourth Amendment; however, the court disagreed.

“We do not exempt child welfare workers from adhering to basic Fourth Amendment principles under non-exigent circumstances – to do so would be imprudent,” the court stated. “… we do not believe that requiring a child welfare caseworker to act in accordance with basic Fourth Amendment principles is an undue burden on the child welfare system, particularly when it is necessary to conduct an examination of a child’s body, which is undoubtedly ‘frightening, humiliating and intrusive’ to the child.”

Wow! A Court with some common sense in it. I was losing hope. I’m all for protecting children, but the kids have rights, the parents have rights, just because some civil servant get a state parking lot sticker for their car, doesn’t mean they get to determine how the law is applied.

Someone, Please!! Tell Me What Is Going On: Updated

This has reached epidemic proportions now.

Via: Newsbusters
Not the Catholic Church? MSM Mum About Huge L.A. School Sex Abuse Scandal
By Dave Pierre | May 19, 2008 - 09:28 ET

A major child sex abuse scandal has erupted in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Where's the national media?

* Steve Thomas Rooney faces 13 felony sex-related counts, including charges that he had unlawful sex with two female students, ages 13 and 14, during the time he was an assistant principal at a middle school. And here's the kicker: In August 2007 LAUSD assigned Rooney to his job even though it knew that police had investigated him about an alleged sexual relationship with a student at his previous job at a high school. The former high school girl has since testified that Rooney impregnated her. (LAT coverage)
* KNX 1070 Newsradio has reported "21 teachers and administrators have been yanked from schools in the past year because of allegations of inappropriate sexual contact with kids." Most of the cases happened since only January of this year.
* Two LAUSD administrators face criminal charges for failing to report suspected child abuse by a substitute teacher. Yet LAUSD has sent the pair back to work at school! (LAT)
* During interviews, LAUSD Superintendent David Brewer has often come across utterly uninformed on the scandal. (Listen to this must-hear KNX audio.)
* When LAUSD Deputy Superintendent Ramon Cortines was questioned over the phone about the scandal by KNX reporter Charles Feldman, Cortines became agitated and hung up on Feldman. (Hear the audio.) In discussing the scandal with KNBC-TV in Los Angeles, Cortines defiantly responded, "This is not out of the ordinary for school districts all over the nation. These things happen."

Twenty-one!! Twenty-one teachers under investigation for sexual abuse...with most of them occurring since last January?

I had read about the cluster of cases over in Florida, and other cases scattered around the country, but I hadn't heard word one about this going on in the LAUSD, and one of the reasons is the answer of LAUSD Deputy Superintendent Ramon Cortines uses the "Well, it's happening everywhere" dodge.

Cortines is correct though, it is happening all over the nation. WorldNetDaily has a list that they update of the female teachers that have been busted for sex with students: "The big list: Female teachers with students". The list is much longer since the last time I looked at it.

It's been 36 years since I got of HS, and Glendale Unified was a relatively small district back then, with good teachers. I can only remember one teacher in my senior year that talked politics, outside of history and gov't classes, and there was never a slant. We got both sides and were allowed to debate. This was all during the hippy years of the Viet Nam War, LBJ & Nixon, all that crap.

My kid just graduated last year and he would tell me that his math teacher would go off on a 20 minute "discussion" on Bush, Iraq, etc in the middle of class, then go back to what he was suppose to be teaching.

Teachers today just do not seem to be the professionals they were back in the day. For them to steal time from students is nothing (to them).

Why are there all these teachers (I'm sure there are males that should be on a list, but the women have a shock value) suddenly unable to control themselves? What could cause these people to become involved with a kid literally half their age?

Narcissism: (A need for excessive admiration. Will use others to achieve her / his goals. Lacks empathy)...one of the wonderful benefits to come out of the "Free-love" and "Me" generation.

All guys had at least one hawt teacher they would fantasize about, I had two, but no matter how much extra attention they gave you, you knew it wasn't to be.

That was then, today:



Update: I haven't changed anything above, though after reading the story for this update, I now feel really ill.

Woman charged with kidnap, rape of 10-year-old student

A former elementary school teacher in Tacoma, Wash., is behind bars for allegedly kidnapping and raping her 10-year-old student numerous times.

Jennifer Rice, 31, is said to have met the fourth-grade boy shortly after being hired last year as a replacement teacher at McKinley Elementary School.

10 years old. I cannot conceive how sex could enter into a relationship between a 31 year old and a ten year old. I want to puke. If this had happened to my kid, there would be blood and death involved.

According to the Tacoma School District, Rice was hired last October and placed on leave in April. Her contract was not renewed after McKinley Elementary received complaints she was socializing inappropriately with students.

So rather than anything being done to call attention to her activities, they put her "on leave", I'm sure with pay, so she was able to get one more quicky in.

I see no "caring about the Chiiilledren" here. I see a Union holding onto power and a bureaucratic system trying to deny they have lost all control of what is happening around them.

First Record

Although I had been listening to music since 1964 with the advent of the Beatles, I had never bought a record of my own until 1967. The song that pushed me over the edge to pony up some of my allowance for something besides candy and comic books was this song.

I bought the 45, costing me IIRC around 85 cents (an album ran like $2.35). I played this over and over til the grooves turned white. I think the disc is still in a box in the garage somewhere.

The group has reformed and still performing this song: "Incense and Peppermints" by Strawberry Alarm Clock

A Wee Mistake

I had a ton of stuff to post on, but after dropping by the Rott and the other sites I support, by the time I finished posting on their sites, I was just burned out.

Today, try my sidebar of places I go and see if I enlighten you there. Even if I didn't post there, these are good people who write gooder than me, and dropping by will make your day better.

But I'm Tired.

(With due respects to George Thorogood.)

Just been occupied for the last week. Nothing big, just stuff I didn't really want to deal with, but it was just better to dive in and get it over with. Such is life.

The week has been news worthy.

Kalifornia's Supreme Court decided that no matter what the people want the law to be, they know better and found a loophole to make same-sex marriages legal. I'm fine with civil unions and am in favor of the Church's being remove from the legal side of it altogether. Have a State recognition of the pairing for the gov't, then if one choses, to have the union blesses by God at the Church of their choice, have a separate Church service. This way the Church is not refusing to uphold state law by denying gays a service that their beliefs say cannot be sanctioned.

There was a major donnybrook over at the Rott (that I missed most of) regarding whether you were a better Republican by voting or not voting for McVain in November. It got to where each side accusing the other of being communist and the dreaded RINO slur was used widely.

The Emperor had to step in and swing his mighty clue bat scepter and remind everyone that we are all working towards the same end, we just differ as to which way to get there.

I got my voter pamphlet early this week for the June elections. It's just for a few County/City things and judges...lots of judges. It reminded me that up until this year, Kalifornia had no say in the Presidential nominee (maybe this was a good thing), however, even though the Primaries were moved up 3 months, I still wasn't given a choice. I voted for Romney, but he had, in reality, already ceded the race. So much for my (somewhat populous) state getting a say after a few dinky states get theirs.

On top of that, I'm voting in March (primaries), June (local) and again in November (General). That's three elections in 9 months. I really try to take my vote serious and make an informed choice, but damn, this is too much. I've just taken a breath from the current election and the choices for the next are sitting in my mailbox when I get home. That our representatives refuse to make a decision and let it drop down to a referendum, just pisses me off!! What the hell did we elect those people to do.

It usually works out that the State Supreme Court rules that someone forgot/or put an extra semicolon in the wording of the bill, so it's "unconstitutional", so we get to start all over again and nothing happens to correct the problem.

Teddy "the Swimmer" Kennedy had couple of seizures today. Politically and morally, I loathe the man, but I cannot wish death on anyone, unless they are actively trying to kill me. He may be trying to enslave me, but he is only a threat to my and my kid's future living standard, and I'm sure with his Hawvard education and somewhere between $43-162 million, he knows what is best for the little people like me. Although the work he has ever done is to try to keep his or some family members ass out of jail or the scandal sheets.

Well I think that little rant made up for the last week, so in closing I'll include the song referenced at the top.

But I'm tired. :lol:



We saw Thorogood and the Destroyers at Dodger Stadium at a "Rock the Stadium" after game event and my kid, who was about 10 at the time, was bouncing around so much, we thought he would fall out out the cheap seats we were in and be dancing in front of the stage.

Hope You Made It Through Mothers Day

I had to work, no I mean work. It wasn't a babysit the site Sunday, we have a inspection by the State today. I've spent the two days scrubbing oil tracks off the concrete and yesterday slapping paint on equipment.

I had to explain to the people I work with about the difference of a professional paint job and a commercial paint job. The higher up wanted to scrap tanks down, by hand, and put two coats of paint on, with roller and brush. No power washer, no spray painter...Mwahahahah.

We are doing commercial(you look at it from a distance, it looks good, up close looking for flaws, you'll find some. In three days, we've got a coat of paint on 5 units, as opposed to having one really pretty tank that would be run over and looking like it did a few months ago.

So you made it this far and are wondering how I'm going to tie in the video you see crawling up the screen while you've been reading this. Well, it's a really short story, because there is no tie in. I just gave a rundown of my last few days and I'm going to hang a song that I like on the end.

L.A.- Crapper again

High School in South Los Angeles Locked Down after Fight
Last Edited: Friday, 09 May 2008, 10:31 PM PDT
Created: Friday, 09 May 2008, 1:37 PM PDT

Police were called in after an "incident" at Locke High School on Friday afternoon. Some students were taken into custody.
Police at Locke High School


South Los Angeles -- A fight involving African-American and Hispanic students at a South Los Angeles high school resulted in four arrests but no major injuries, a school official said on Friday.

The brawl broke out at around 1 p.m. among Locke High School students who had apparently been talking about fighting for some [time].

So from 1 p.m. on, all the students in the school were deprived of education, because the non-racist blacks couldn't get along with the non-racist mexicans

It's made so much difference now that it's called South Los Angeles as opposed to South-Central L.A...You know it was just the name that made the area dangerous.

FETE

Miley Cyrus

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

My kid is 19.

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

I served my time in hell.

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

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

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

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

A Musical Interlude

If I had to pick my favorite between David Bowie or Pink Floyd I couldn't do it. "Dark Side of the Moon", "Wish You Were Here" and "Ziggy Stardust", "Aladdin Sane" are albums that I can put on, no matter my mood, and be completely into the music on the first rack.

With that said, I'm going to pick two Bowie songs that aren't on either of the albums mentioned above.

First: Heroes



Second: Cat People (Putting Out Fire) this is overlaid on the open credits of the (excellent)movie but it works.



The soundtrack version is infinitely better than than the one on "Let's Dance" IMHO also because I rule all here, I wouldn't want to deprive you of the live version.



I've seen Bowie live three times, and if you haven't, you've missed one of the greatest performers of of generation.

Why Is L.A. Going Down The Crapper?

First I'm going to point out that I don't "live" in L.A. City. I live in Glendale, north of L.A. and I live in the La Crescenta Valley on the northern edge of Glendale. I can't vote for the asshats in L.A. city, but I've worked in downtown L.A. for 30 years, so what happens there affects me.

Second, the asshat in this piece comes from a line of asshats. We first had Kenneth Hahn (Supervisor from 1947-1992), followed by Gordon Hahn, who replaced him on the Los Angeles city council, while another, John, was assistant county clerk. His son James K. Hahn was elected Mayor of Los Angeles in 2001. His daughter, Janice Hahn, currently sits on the City Council, representing San Pedro and Wilmington.

Janice is the one we'll focus on here.

I lived in San Pedro 30 years ago, still with my parents, and it was a city of contrasts. I lived on cliffs overlooking the ocean, but drove a school bus through some of the most gang infested parts of the that area.

This piece by the local Fox news station covers how Ms. Hahn has set up a program that puts convicted gang bangers on the city payroll. (It's a two parter, so it goes awhile)

Video: Gang Intervention Money

I particularly like the part where the guy gets busted for being someplace he had an injunction telling him to never go their again, gets busted for being there and Janice's office bails him out. Not to mention that during his interview he keeps saying that he works for Janice Hahn.

The City Of Los Angeles is now paying the criminals of the city to do something about the rampant crime. And there are no guideline or instructions attached, just, I guess, hinted at goals.

This woman is willing to pay thugs a "city gov't" income with taxpayer money and have no explicit restrictions or expectations of what the job entails. She just expects because she slipped them some cash, they won't take it an run as long as they can while doing the same as they did before.

Liberalism is a mental disease.

Plant Rights

Yep, you read that correctly, the Swiss are debating the morality of harming flora.

A few years ago the Swiss added to their national constitution a provision requiring "account to be taken of the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms." No one knew exactly what it meant, so they asked the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology to figure it out. The resulting report, "The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants," is enough to short circuit the brain.

A "clear majority" of the panel adopted what it called a "biocentric" moral view, meaning that "living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive." Thus, the panel determined that we cannot claim "absolute ownership" over plants and, moreover, that "individual plants have an inherent worth." This means that "we may not use them just as we please, even if the plant community is not in danger, or if our actions do not endanger the species, or if we are not acting arbitrarily."

I am now starting to believe the human race is on the verge of extinction.

This goes to 11

While cruising around today, I ran across this site which reminded me of why "This Is Spinal Tap" is one of the funniest movies ever. My boy and I use to use this saying as code to each other when talking to someone who has left common sense behind.

Windfall Profits?

OK, here it comes. Just yesterday I was bitching about nothing to write about and what happens...one flies down the pipe.

Profits Of Doom?

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, May 01, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Profits: Exxon Mobil's first-quarter earnings of $10.9 billion, up 17% from a year earlier, are stirring outrage in Washington. Some are calling such profits "obscene." What a sad lack of understanding of economics.

I said it a few times before, I kept hearing these whispers of "Windfall Profit Taxes" being imposed again. I had just started working in the oil industry when Jimmy Peanutbrain tried this back in the early '80's. It didn't work then and it won't work now. "The Congressional Research Service has analysed that the windfall profit tax brought in $80 billion in extra revenues for the United States government, which was far less than the projected $393 billion. Also, domestic oil production by oil producers was said to be lowered."

Case in point: Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Like her rival, Barack Obama, she's pushing a massive "windfall profit" tax on those "greedy" oil companies. "There is something seriously wrong with our economy when Exxon's record $11 billion in quarterly profits are seen as a disappointment by Wall Street," Clinton said Thursday. "This is truly Dick Cheney's wonderland."

No, what's seriously wrong is that politicians such as Clinton can cynically manipulate public opinion to enact disastrous policies.

[all emphasis: mine]

Believe me, it will be disastrous. They know what happened last time they tried this, so I'm fairly sure that if elected, they won't really push this too hard...either that, or they are insane. (They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.)

Our free-market economy is built on profit. Higher profits mean more jobs, higher incomes, more investment in equipment and people, higher standards of living. Yes, profits are the engine for all of this — and that includes the profits of "Big Oil."

By signaling that supply is scarce, higher profits encourage more production. Except, that is, when Congress through its inept lawmaking stands in the way. And that's the case now with the oil industry.Our free-market economy is built on profit. Higher profits mean more jobs, higher incomes, more investment in equipment and people, higher standards of living. Yes, profits are the engine for all of this — and that includes the profits of "Big Oil."

Congress seems almost constantly at war with the oil companies — slapping them with taxes and pillorying their CEOs while ignoring the fact that higher profits lead to more exploration, drilling and development.

Why is this? Having a domestic oil supply is what made this country grow and, over the last 100+ years, show the rest of the world what people can accomplished, given the means to develop an idea, manufacture it, and get it to a population spread over huge distances and still be worth the effort (profit).

If anyone is to blame for our current energy mess, it's Congress. At least 20 billion barrels of oil sit untapped in Alaska and another 30 billion lie offshore. Such sources that could help satisfy U.S. demand for years to come. Yet, Congress has put them out of bounds.

ANWAR has been blocked for years...because of the way oil was developed back in the 1890's. I've seen pictures of the "Old Downtown L.A. Oil Field" (where I started, see pic above), in a book, and the chapter's title was "Oil In The Streets Of Los Angeles". There where lakes of oil right next to the houses and wells gushing when brought in, but the industry doesn't work that way anymore.

At the price of oil, especially now-a-days, you don't just let that stuff just dump on the ground. The industry has really evolved over the last century and they understand and take (overly regulated) precautions so that doesn't happen any more.

Instead, Congress scapegoats oil profits. In reality, according to Ernst & Young, from 1992 to 2006 the U.S. oil industry spent $1.25 trillion on long-term investment vs. profits of $900 billion.

Truth is, oil industry profits are in line with the rest of American industry. In 2007, a record year, they earned 8.3 cents per dollar of sales. Beverage companies and cigarette makers, by contrast, earned 19.1 cents. Drug makers, 18.4 cents. Indeed, all manufacturers, 8.9 cents on average, made more than "Big Oil."

I know...I know, they've put extra ("sin") taxes on liquor and cigarettes, but did that "punish" the corporations for their perceived windfall profits....NO!! It only increased the consumers price of the product more. These taxes do not affect the profit of the company, just the amount you pay.

Besides, we've tried windfall profits taxes before, in the early 1980s, and they were an utter failure. As the Congressional Research Service found, revenues produced for the government were nearly 75% below what was expected. Meanwhile, , while oil imports surged 16%.

That's just poor policy, and even worse economics.

Oh. come on, give 'em a chance...They'll make this formula work this time.

NOTE: domestic oil output fell 8%

Due to this tax, for independents, it wasn't making money so they just shut it down.

Remember: Oil companies don't really pay "windfall profit" taxes, anyway. You do. Some 50 million Americans today own oil company stock, either directly or through 401(k)s and mutual funds. Don't be suckered: "Windfall profits" taxes come right out of your retirement account, not out of the oil industry's business.

Oh sure, Big Oil's profits are up. But so are the taxes they pay. In 2006, that came to $90 billion — up 334% in just four years.

As to the added tax, I covered that, however, did you notice that the taxes that they pay under the current system is up 334% in just four years.

Note: Those that were able restarted idled wells because they could make some money off producing. Nobody is going to pay $1.50 to deliver a commodity that you pay $1.00 for.

This is how Clinton-style populism works. It starts with ignorance and ends with serious damage to our economy.

I've never understood how anyone that has held a job and had the slightest grasp of the cost to keep a company going and still get enough return to make the hours worth the effort, unless you're Union.

Oil prices aren't high because profits are up; they're high because we don't have enough oil. By clamping down on drilling, refusing to move forward on nuclear energy and hitting producers with punitive taxes, Congress is doing all it can to ensure we don't have enough in the future.

I'm all for getting us off dependency on Middle East, Venezuelan, Mexican, even Canadian oil. I favor Nuclear myself. If the Frogs can handle it, I think we can.

If we started drilling today, it would be almost 12 years for ANWAR to be producing. I bet we could build quit a few nuclear plants in that time frame.

If you want to keep paying $100+ per barrel for oil, I'm not going to complain, you've guaranteed my income.

8.3% profit...damn them.

The Muse Is Missing

I've had nothing lately.

Global Wormering has had me pissed off lately, the temps here have gone from in the 100's a few days ago to the mid 70's this week, so I have to admit, the climate does change.

I thought the illegal rallies yesterday would get me het up, but with the anemic turnout here in L.A., I lost steam.

The only thing I can give you is this song that has stuck in my head for the last week. Why it's there I can't say, but maybe by posting it it'll move on.