Thoughts on Memorial Day

The title says it all: A Nation Better Than We Deserve. David French served in Iraq and pays tribute to those who fell in his unit. It is worth reading.

www.nationalreview.com/article/418789/nation-greater-we-deserve-david-french

Cuba Libre

All the usual suspects are gushing about President Obama's recognition of Cuba. They are going and coming back and saying they just LOVE what Fidel has done with the island, replete with its retro 1950 cars. My question is, so while Americans will be free to go and gawk in the People's Paradise, will all Cubans be similarly free to come to the U.S. and do likewise? Hmm?

Thank You for Your Ultimate Sacrifice

Becoming a "None"

A Pew poll released last week has caused some waves when it showed a pronounced drop in those who profess themselves to be Christians since President Obama took office. Of particular interest to some was the growth in the category of "None" as in no faith or belief of any kind. A number of writers characterized people describing themselves this way as hip and sophisticated and a natural outgrowth of advanced educational attainment. Well, not so much. 

Dr. Thomas Williams commented about the poll in Breitbart:

"Flying in the face of the common belief that irreligiosity tends to rise with education and income, the exact opposite trend emerges from the Pew Center’s most recent comprehensive report on religion in America.

Those who identify with the label of religiously unaffiliated—sometimes known as “nones”—tend to be high-school educated, white males who earn less than $30,000 a year."

There you have it! If you are a beer-guzzling, party-going, video-gaming, I don't-wanna-grow-up member of the Peter Pan Club, you too can be a "None." Okay all you Ph.D sophisticates out there, any takers? At least the former folks are honest, they simply don't give a rat's posterior for anything else than having a good time - PARTAY! Definitely a nuanced and well thought out position. 

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/14/pew-religious-nones-tend-to-be-undereducated-poor-white-males/

Never Waste a Crisis

An Amtrak train derails in Philadelphia and before it skids to a mangled, deadly stop the cries arose that it was poor infrastructure that caused the crash. Perhaps a tad premature as it turns out. Black box evidence now shows the train hit a 50 mph curve at 102 mph and from there the laws of physics took over. That'll do it. The only question left is why the Sam Hill the engineer was going that fast. 

Generally, I am in favor of trains where they make sense and they do make sense in the Northeast with its many dense population centers. Let's focus on safety, however, and not on politicizing everything with bogus statements. If everything is politicized, safety suffers because no one knows if it's a real issue or one that is made-up. There is a safety issue in this crash but it centers on the human factor, not the infrastructure.

www.nationalreview.com/article/418328/shameful-rush-blame-amtrak-crash-our-infrastructure-crisis-ian-tuttle

Stop It!

Katherine Timpf reports in National Review that a new report from the University of Illinois asserts that for "students of color":

" ... just 'walking into or sitting in' a classroom full of white people is a microaggression in itself."

Oh my. Perhaps uncomfortable, I would understand. I could go with ill at ease, unsure, intimidated, or a host of other adjectives, but "microaggression." Puh-lease! It's time to end the crap that is so rampant everywhere we look. 

www.nationalreview.com/article/418273/university-report-room-full-white-people-microaggression-katherine-timpf

Chicago: Junk Dealer to the World

Chicago saw its credit rating reduced to junk bond status this week, joining former greats like Detroit in this revered position. Now we'll see if Chicago starts following the Detroit model in other ways by essentially throwing everything and everyone else overboard to preserve public pensions, including the public safety of its citizens. Chicago has had a lot of murders under Rahm Emmanuel as mayor. I wouldn't be looking for that to go down. 

www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/12/moodys-downgrades-chicago-credit-rating-to-junk-bonds-status/

Amid All the Hoopla

The Feds reported a 5.4% unemployment rate. Woo-hoo! Let the good times roll! Happy times are here again, yada, yada! Except that a record number of Americans are out of the employment pool altogether who would like to be in it - precisely 93,194,000 of them. That's a participation rate of 69.45% which is the lowest since 1977 and Jimmy Carter's Days of Malaise. 

What does it mean? There's not a lot of strength in the economy. Essentially, the Fed is floating the economy with funny money or, more graphically, the U.S. is living on credit cards and someday the credit will be cut off and the bill will be due. That's not something the politicians like to talk about. 

www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-08/americans-not-labor-force-rise-record-93194000

It's for the ...

Fill in the blank - kids, decaying infrastructure, starving animals, one-eyed Purple People-Eaters, etc., etc. Michigan voters were recently asked to raise a variety of taxes to supposedly buck-up the state's crumbling infrastructure. It received bipartisan political support, it was showing in the polls, it was God, country and apple pie by gum! And it lost 4-1, the biggest such defeat in 50 years. What happened?

As National Review points out, as voters read the fine print they saw a whole lot going for things other than infrastructure. For example it went to schools, to the Earned Income Credit (that's a tax giveaway to "poor" people), local governments, and all sorts of places where politicians love to play the Money Fairy. Well, enough of being Uncle Sucker! The voters turned off the money faucet big time. 

Will the politicos learn? Probably not. They'll be more clever in hiding their true intentions next time. Maybe even make it top secret and tell the voters they have to pass the bill to see what's in it. Heckuva a way to run a railroad but kudos to Michigan voters for at least slowing down the governmental money machine a little. 

www.nationalreview.com/article/418193/wary-michigan-voters-crushed-tax-increase-measure-patrick-l-anderson

What Really Happened in Baltimore

It's really not all the police and it's not just the black citizens of Baltimore behind the recent riots. No, David Simon, the writer of the gritty television crime drama The Wire set in Baltimore, and a local reporter and expert on the city, lays the blame squarely at the feet of Martin O'Malley, the ex-mayor. 

In case you don't recognize O'Malley's name, he is now running for President as a a Democratic progressive to the left of Hillary. When he was mayor of Baltimore he ordered police sweeps without any probable cause of black residents of Baltimore to pad his resume. The way the game worked he would have mass police sweeps, then release all the non-perps if they signed a release saying they wouldn't sue the city for false arrest and the like. O'Malley would then tout the arrests to show how tough he was on crime and how he was getting a handle on crime. Unfortunately for Baltimore, though, O'Malley's game caused a massive cynicism and distrust of the police and the whole political system so that when Freddie Gray came along a few week ago, the fumes were simply waiting for a match to set them of. Boom. It happened. 

I hope that one day the black community will wake up and realize that the Left simply want to keep them on the plantation as a reliable block vote. The average Joe/Joella Progessive-in-the street probably really does want to help the black community which is disintegrating further daily in front of our eyes, but progressive politicians are using them big time for their own purposes. Oh sure, they'll ply them with goodies to keep them pacified but from the virulent reaction when any high profile black ever dares to question the wisdom of their Progressive Masters (white or black BTW) and even remotely threatens to leave the plantation, their true colors come out and it's not pretty. 

www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/05/09/the-wire-creator-demolishes-baltimore-crime-myths-pushed-by-martin-omalley/

Get Back You Scurvy Curs!

Love it! A bipartisan bill to prohibit our esteemed Congressmen and Senators from flying first class on we the People's business. It's about &*$# time! If you guys want to upgrade, use your miles or pay like the rest of us!

townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2015/05/08/bipartisan-legislation-introduced-to-stop-congress-from-flying-first-class-on-your-dime-n199625

They Once Were Blind But Still Can't See

Dennis Prager has an interesting column today about the new verboten word - the "T-word." Yup, the T-word, meaning "thugs" like those folks rioting in the streets of Baltimore last week. I've always viewed the term as an equal opportunity noun and have applied it to despicable sociopaths of all colors. But just when I think the Left has run out of new and creative ways to be loony, they come up with a new off-the-wall form of opprobrium that gives you whiplash when you go, "Say what??!!" 

Prager dissects the "why" the Left does this and his analysis is worth reading:

"One reason is that the left does not divide the world between traditional notions of good and evil. Rather, it divides the world between white and black, rich and poor, and powerful and weak. One therefore sides with the non-white, the poor and the weak.

A second reason is that the left rarely fights evil (it fights those who fight evil). It fights such things as inequality, fossil fuels and an alleged "rape culture" on American campuses. But it doesn't fight real evil (like rioters).

A third reason is that the day even a third of America's blacks come to believe that their problems are largely a product of poor cultural values, they will have become conservative and the left will have begun to lose its most important demographic group."

His #1 and #3 points are true enough. The Left is a prisoner of its own ideology and therefore can't see reality (#1), which trait is reinforced by the fact that it's politically inexpedient to do so (#3) - sort of ignorance is bliss for several reasons. It's #2 that really interests me, though, as time and time again the Left has demonstrated that it cannot recognize evil and does not fight it, but perversely fights against those who do. 

The most recent illustration of this trait is the Islamic jihadists. The Left is so fixated on its bizarre ideas of a totally politicized world that it elevates and defends the jihadis in its fight against the "real" enemy, conservatives, e.g. - the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Never mind that if and when the fight is over the jihadis will gleefully slit the Left's throats too as infidels that Allah has no use for - no, the Left never sees that coming which is why Lenin referred to them as "useful idiots." They run interference and are camouflage for the true monsters until the monsters completely seize power and then the useful idiots are washed away in the inevitable bloodbath that follows, surprised that hell and not heaven has arrived on earth: think Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot. What an irony that they are now even pimping for fascists so deep is their delusional hatred of the "real" enemy. Dangerous people the Left - to themselves and others.

townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2015/05/05/why-the-left-wont-call-rioters-thugs-n1994385

Bet Playboy Never Did a Cover Story About This

A Muslim cleric has issued a fatwa ordering a woman to agree to sex with her husband even if they are on the back of a camel. Nope, not going there but suffice to say I doubt this has been a hot topic even in our sex-obsessed society. 

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3061101/Muslim-cleric-issues-fatwa-wives-agree-sex-husbands-riding-camel.html?ito=social-twitter_mailonline

Deja Vu All Over Again

Yesterday the Oregon Supreme Court overturned the Legislative attempt from several years ago to at least start cleaning up the PERS mess. Great. That means more police and fire cuts - it's axiomatic that government always cuts the positions that cause the most pain to the Body Public - and probably tax increases. 

What does this mean for the future? As one economist put it:

"That puts Oregon in a challenging economic position for the next couple of decades. Families and businesses can choose Washington, with similar amenities, but without the legacy costs of an ill-devised pension system ... Washington will be able to offer better public services at all levels of government."

True. And Idaho and Nevada and Montana and ... In other words, we just became an economic backwater. Again. 

How bad is it? Not good. There has been lots of happy talk from the usual suspects these last few years that we don't need no stinkin' cuts because the stock market (which we hate) has grown and will cover the deficit. Nice try but wrong to the tune of - $14 BILLION. That's a minus sign not a dash in front of the dollar sign sports fans.

So here we go hippity hop down the same trail as California. This is not going to end well. Idaho is looking better and better for retirement. 

www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/04/oregon_supreme_court_overturns.html#incart_big-photo