Behold the Pale Horse

Two articles today have brought to my attention something I fear I must share with everyone. In the first Jane Fonda is praising Laura Bush and their shared Christian values, and in the second Hillary Clinton and Newt Gingrich are having press conferences together and singing each other's praises and talking about health care policy.... And the seven angels came out of the temple, having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles. And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever. And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled. It's the time of Armageddon when men lie down with the animals and are scorched by the heat of the flames of hell. There can be no other explanation for these the most unholy of pairings. Gather your guns and head for the hills kids and don't forget a sturdy umbrella, because it won't be long before the frogs rain down from the sky and the land is flooded with the blood of the dead of centuries past

Don't say I didn't warn you!

Oddball Rodent

The headline on the health and science section of the International Herrald Tribune reads ''Oddball rodent' in Laos takes scientists by surprise'... Laos? What about the House of Representatives. You don't need to go to Laos to discover new and disturbing rodents.

United Airlines

I just don't understand... United Airlines just emerged from the courtroom after winning a "victory" allowing it to default on some $3 billion dollars worth of pensions. This means that the burden of paying these pensions falls on hard working American citizens and the already overstretched tax dollar. What's more is that this shift will, for many people, mark a steep drop in the pension benefits promised them. How do you win screwing people out of a promise you made to them before as much as 20 years of devotion. How do you get away with that? Most importantly why do I have to pay for it now? It's disgusting to me that there is an atmosphere in this country that promises can be made to people with no intent to fulfill. We waste government funding on millions of frivolous and wasteful programs, but we can be bothered to fulfill one simple rudimentary function of government; the prevention of large scale fraud in legitimate business affairs. In my left ear I hear screaming and crying about how more money and oversight by the public sector is necessary. Why give the government more money and power when they can’t manage the simple basic tasks we charged them with in the beginning? What amount of intervention can prevent a bold and ridiculous default on promises made to working men and women? Maybe it was time to let a giant fold before we let it escape its obligation. Maybe when the option is sacrificing the women and children first, the answer is to let the ship go down.

Tsunami relief?

Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day… Or something like that.

150,000 people I have never met are dead in a part of the world I have never seen. I’m not even sure how I’m supposed to feel about that. I should be overwhelmed I supposed but alas I am not. I can barely force myself to think about it when I have more pressing issues like it being the middle of the evening and I need a sandwich. That's what it's like to us in the western world. We'll all cry when in hurts our economy or if we happened to know someone there, but that's about it. Other than that we might send a check or something if we remember.

Here’s what I do think about when I do think about it. We’re sending millions of dollars across the sea for a relief effort. Which is awesome… I don’t think I have seen an outpouring of wealth voluntarily for nothing in return in as long as I can remember. But here’s the thing… Why just give them money, and goods? Sure they need them pretty badly and we must give enough to get these people through the initial shock. I say we divert some of this money though and start building factories and industry. I say we give them the opportunity to grow. Many of these nations qualify as third world and represent very little trade capacity. These were poor nations long before the sea swept across its borders and into homes. Why not take this opportunity to help them up beyond what they were before.

Imagine this; we talk to Nike, Hanes, Tyco and anybody else who is usually criticized for “sending jobs overseas” and offer them tax breaks to move industry into these devastated areas. We agree to invest the money we are already sending on infrastructure. We take a devastated labor force, put them back to work in jobs that to us are dirt cheap, but to them are tantamount to untold wealth. We use the money we are sending to hire local workers to rebuild these port cities. Then we hire them in our factories. Everybody wins. But here’s the kicker they don’t just win today. They win for a long time to come. Industry boosts the local economy. The influx of American dollars brings up the standard of living. And of course, trade begets trade. Growth begets growth. One industry needs structure and can’t afford it but many industries together will shoulder the cost of things like roads, energy, clean municipal water sources, working sewer systems and health care. The importation of cheap labor services will offset the cost and help boost American industry and the American economy.

Sure cold hard cash will feed these people this week. But industry will feed them long into the future. Industry will put clothes on their back and build schools for their children. Industry will turn Developing Nations into Developed Nations. And at the same time we get to import cheap labor which helps put goods in the hands of our citizens. Everybody wins. We have an opportunity to turn this tragedy and the outpouring philanthropic spirit into a fantastic gift for the world. Aren’t we obligated to do it?

Teach a man to sew Nikes and everybody eats.

Leftist pansies

Man the left is being petty these last few weeks. Here's my favorite... The blue states pay for all the red states. Hmmmm. Well maybe but here's the thing... Who feeds who. I gotta tell ya if they want to split off into two different countries I say lets' go. Let's take all the states that produce agricultural and commodity products in gross and cut them off from the states that just buy and sell things. Red staters will dress badly and blue staters will starve. Fucking idiots.

Crazy Dreams

I had a dream last night. It’s kind of disturbing so put the kids in the other room if you plan to read this aloud. I was on the campaign trail, walking through a hotel, somewhere in Ohio or Pennsylvania (a battleground state), looking for a coke machine. I turned a corner and walked past an open hotel room door. Inside I saw something that I may never clear from my mind. I saw naked and on all fours John Kerry giving Karl Marx a knobby while Pol Pot (dressed only in a silly little sailor’s hat) was giving him the reach around. Sensing that there was another person present JfK lifted his head and asked “have I ever told you about the environmental benefits of government subsidized drip irrigation programs?” then he went back to what he was doing. I turned away and continued looking for a coke machine.

It was, to say the least a disturbing dream. But it got me thinking, what is it about John Kerry that I don’t like? Hmmm. He seems like a friendly guy. He seems to care a great deal about something. What could it possibly be? Oh right, he’s a bleeding heart pinko communist. I forgot. Some would argue with me about him being a commie or just a “socialist” which is what communists in the states became when communism was associated with all those millions of murders in Russia, China and Cambodia to name a few. Nobody wants to be called a murderer just for his beliefs; even if his beliefs did take him on a plane to a foreign land to have secret meetings with the communist leadership of an enemy state with whom the United States was, at the time, engaged in combat. But then that’s just the North Vietnamese. We like them right? After all they were only killing their own people… and ours.