Just Another Brick in the Wall

Got this in an e-mail today and thought it was tragically true but funny.
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THE JOB - URINE TEST

(Whoever wrote this one deserves a HUGE pat on the back!)

Like a lot of folks in this state, I have a job. I work, they pay me. I pay my taxes and the government distributes my taxes as it sees fit. In order to get that paycheck, I am required to pass a random urine test with which I have no problem. What I do have a problem with is the distribution of my taxes to people who don't have to pass a urine test.

Shouldn't one have to pass a urine test to get a welfare check because I have to pass one to earn it for them? Please understand, I have no problem with helping people get back on their feet. I do, on the other hand, have a problem with helping someone sitting on their butt, doing drugs, while I work. . . . Can you imagine how much money the state would save if people had to pass a urine test to get a public assistance check?

I guess we could title that program, 'Urine or You're Out'.

With all this talk about tax cuts, tax increases, cutting programs, socialized health care and 'sharing the wealth', I've begun wondering why it is that 40% of the U.S. workers pay NO income tax while the richest five percent pay 40% of ALL taxes, yet some think that just isn't fair - the rich aren't paying their fair share. Their conclusion is that we need to tax them at a punitive rate and the government should decide who 'needs' more money.

I will barely even mention that every time the government passes out money, they start by lining their own pockets first. But hey, they've earned it, right? That's what I thought.

Anyhow, I promised a course on the Bell Curve and its relationship to Socialism...

We all know what a bell curve is - we've all had at least one math class and at the very least have fallen prey to a teacher that thrills at the thought of that lowest percentile getting an 'F' - even if they scored a 95%. What I'd like you to consider is the relationship of the Bell Curve to virtually every aspect of life. For example, work ethics. If you really think about it, there are some people out there are are miserable unless they are neck deep in their work. Some people wouldn't think it worth their effort to carry a brick of gold into a pawn shop. However, the vast majority of people do work. Some work harder, some have to drag themselves to their job. It doesn't take much imagination to put Work Ethics into a Bell Curve, does it?

Let's try something else...religion. Most people in the U.S. call themselves Christian (of one make or modle). The vast majority of which are 'luke warmers'. They go to church, believe, but spend more of their time practicing hypocrisy than they do practicing their religion. Some are better, some worse. When it comes to the truly dedicated (I'm talking Pope-level), there are only a handful. The same can be said about athiests (i.e. the anthesis of Popeism). In other words, you can actuall view Religion from the prism of a Bell Curve.

Another example - Intelligence. There are some incredibly smart people out there - a few even smarter than me <grin>. On the other end of the scale, a few imbiciles (I use that as a technical term, not a derogatory remark). However, the vast majority of people are relatively intelligent (i.e. of AVERAGE intelligence - which should resonate the words: Bell Curve.

The topic of the day is Wealth (i.e. income, taxes and wealth redistribution). Even in this arena we have a handful of filthy rich, some very rich, and the vast majority of people that are in the 'middle income' bracket. Some are poor but, generally speaking, most can make ends meet as long as they are frugal with their money...you get the picture. Amazing, isn't it...that even wealth distribution seems to naturally fall into a bell curve.

Which brings us to Socialism and, for that matter, 'Progressives' (better known as Liberals). They believe that there should be no extremely rich (Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, etc.) or exteremely poor - even if this person is unwilling to lift a finger to help themselves. What they want to do is use tax policy and government handouts to 'flatten' the bubble of the bell curve into something that mroe resembles a nearly straight line. I suppose you could argue that instead of 'squishing' the middle they are advocating 'scrunching' the wealthy end into the middle, thereby forcing the 'poor end' of the curve to raise up.

This is a lovely theory, but it fails to take into account one simple fact - a Bell Curve is natural. All things being equal, the Bell will restore itself. This isn't just because there are greedy people out there that are willing to exploit the stupid and lazy, but because the poor tend to have no ability to save. How many of you have (or know someone that has) gotten a tax rebate check of $500, $1000, $1500 or more - and spent it within a week? In all fairness, some people use this capital to pay off some bills or get caught up on things that are late. Some even purchase items that are desperately needed like clothes, school supplies and food. However, large chunks of cash also get blown on things like cars (for which they can't afford insurance, plates, gas, maintenance or payments), alcohol, strip bars - shall I go on? This spending is great for the economy, but the reality is that the poor are once again poor - but with a 63" High Def Plasma Television to watch the Superbowl.

Let's contemplate a microcosm of 100 people on a deserted island that is quite capable of sustaining life. Let's give every person $50,000. OK, it could be quarters, poker chips, or even polished rocks - the point is that everyone gets the same amount. Assuming we select these people at random, you will have some intelligent and some ignorant; some industrious and some lazy; some creative and some structured; some flexible and some rigid. On this island, some won't have a clue how to build a house, but some will. Guess what the indrustrious home builder does? He builds houses and charges for his (or her) efforts. However, our homebuilder may not have the time or knowledge to maintain a garden so needs to buy the services of the grocier/farmer. And so will develop the social structure of our microcosm. In this group, someone is bound to be ignorant or lazy (or both) and can't or won't take care of themselves - so they pay everyone else to take care of them. To keep this example relatively compact, the long and short is that the workers will collect money and can afford to purchase other's services. The frugal will horde their money for a rainy day. In the end, a few of the people will control most of the money and the Bell Curve has established itself as nature intended.

But wait, don't stop there. It's not fair that some collected all the money. Let's take that money and redistribute it evenly among the inhabitants. Three things just happened:
1. Those that had money learned that they should hide it - lest it be taken from them and given to the undeserving.
2. Those that were lazy learned that if they blow their money it doesn't really matter because they'll get more for free later.
3. The Bell Curve was pushed into an unnatural state. In six months it will re-establish it's natural order once again.

All is not lost though - the answer is Education - but that's another topic for another blog. I promise I'll write it soon. Forgive the typos - it's nearly 4:30 am and I don't have the energy left to edit tonight.

I know most of you won't read a dissertation on this subject, so lets use a very recent example - the cost of gasoline. I realize that gas prices aren't taxes, but they are a cost that none of us can control, so, like taxes, they affect the decisions we make every day.

At first the higher prices were just an inconvenience, but within a few months we saw delivery companies tacking on fuel surcharges. A few months later the manufactures had to incorporate their higher costs into the price of the goods they produced. Now, every product you purchase costs more. Milk, eggs, cheese, potato chips, clothing, cars, etc. - all because one irrepressible aspect of the cost of doing business increased.

The long and short of this argument is that one fact is abundantly clear - increased costs to businesses are not paid by the business - those costs are passed on to the consumer. When the government takes more revenue in the form of taxes, businesses pass that cost on to the consumer - that's you, me and 305,000,000+ other Americans.

When a candidate tells you he'll only raise taxes on the rich, he may be telling the truth, but the rich won't (ultimately) be the ones paying those taxes. You will.

Next up, "Why should we give California $8 Billion when they spend far more that that on 'entitlements' for illegal aliens?"

Anyone that has been watching the news lately (especially Fox News) has certainly caught the story about mygallons.com and how much money you can save using their service. Moments ago, I went to their site and used their calculator to determine how much money I could save, based on my vehicle and driving habits (not really, but I ran the same numbers through their calculator that I ran through mine, just so I had their take).

My proposed MPG and Miles/Year (Both numbers are national averages):
22 MPG
10,000 miles/year driven

When I punched these numnbers into their site, they said I would save about $321.23 per year. WOW! But wait, how did they figure that?

Here are the figures that aren't getting much attention. The annual fee for this program ranges (nobody says what factors account for this range) from $30 to $40 oer year. Additionally, each time you use your card you will be subject to a $2 processing fee. So let's examine the real numbers.

By working some simple math we can see that 10,000 miles per year / 22 MPG = 455 gallons of gas per year.
If your vehicle has an 18 gallon tank (as does my Saab 900s), you will fill your tank 25 times per year. (thats 455 gallons / 18 gallons per tank = 25.3 fillups)

The $2 fee per use = $50 per year in use fees, plus the $40 per year annual fee for a total of $90 per year to use their service. Note: If you don't fill up the tank completely, your costs actually go up because you will have more processing fees.

We are buying 455 gallons per year and paying $90 in fees. That means our mygallons.com fees per gallon come out to about 19.8 cents per gallon. Therefore, if you save at least 20 cents per gallon on the program, you win. If gas prices go down or don't increase at least 20 cents/gallon before you use the card, you lose.

This analysis also does not take into account the Future Value of Money (i.e. how much you could make by investing the money while you wait for gas prices to inflate). If you add that to the mix and could expect a 13% ROI, the price of gas would have to increase by approximately 73 cents per gallon before you 'won'.

Note: To save their estimated $321.23 per year, gas prices would have to increase at least 90.4 cents per gallon (i.e. their estimates are based on buying gas today at $4.10 and using the card when gas hits $5.00/gallon).

I expect that most of you know that about a year ago our esteemed (uh hum!) Al Gore decided to put his money where his mouth is...so to speak. That's right, he gave the Gore mansion a makeover - complete with solar panels, energy efficient light bulbs and a geothermal heating/cooling system. Bravo and Kudos to the former Vice Prez.

But the story doesn't end there. It's time for an update. How much did Mr. Global Warming save? Nothing. Less than nothing, actually. The year following his 'green-up' they consumed a modest increase of 10% over the year prior.

If that weren't bad enough, their total energy consumption was a paltry 213,000 KW. That's enough to run 232 average homes for a month! To be fair, let's look at that in the same frame of reference - that's more power that 19 average families consume in a year.

Seems to me he would have been better off putting his money where his mouth really is. I'll give you three guesses where where that is...and the first two don't count.

(Here's a hint - his mouth is attached to his head)

With each new report from Gitmo, reporters seem hell-bent on pointing out that KSM was water-boarded while in the custody of the CIA. For those that have never seen the facts surrounding this event, I think it's important to read this article: "Five Minutes Well Spent" by Jonah Goldberg. Below is a repost of another blog I did several months ago.
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For those that won't read it to the end, here's a quick summary…

With all this talk we've heard about how the big, bad U.S.A. tortures at Guantanamo, Cuba, the actual number of detainees that we have water-boarded is…

Three. That's it. Three. How long did we do this – a grand total of less than five minutes. The worst of the worst of Al Qaeda and none of them could withstand this for as long as it takes most of us to brush our teeth in the morning.

According to Wikipedia, at least 200 people jumped to their deaths from the World Trade center on 9/11. My physics is a bit rusty, (and to spare you the math) the total amount of time those people spent freefalling to their deaths was about 27 minutes (about 8.12 seconds per person x 200) – so we tortured the terrorists for one fifth of the time it took just those 200 to die.

Oh yeah, and did you know that it is part of U.S. Military training to water-board our troops to show them what to expect if they are captured by our enemy? Thank God we didn't decide to show them how Daniel Pearl felt when he had his head chopped off by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

This is in response to a news story "Lesbian Kiss Sparks Controversy at Seattle Mariners' Ballpark" as reported on Fox News.

I'm really sick of hearing pro-gay-anything people painting anti-gay-everything people as homophobic or discriminatory. What's so hard about understanding that some people believe, as taught by their religion, that it's simply wrong? These same people claim that the church is commanded by Christ to love everyone equally, but completely ignore the lessons of Sodom and Gomorrah - both of which were cities in the Old Testament that were destroyed by the wrath of God for their immorality - in particular homosexual acts.

And by the way, the lesson of Christ was to forgive people their sins, not to endorse those sins as acceptable, alternative lifestyles. Love the sinner, abhor the sin.

Trust me, I am about as far from being a religious man an one can be. To be perfectly honest, I really couldn't care less that people do in their own bedrooms. What really cranks me up in this arena is the dishonest manner in which people of faith are portrayed as hate-filled freaks. What baffles me is why you never see any anti-gay person being interviewed on television making this point. They all cave to the pressure of leaving their faith out of the conversation when that is exactly the reason that they have the opinions for which they are being interviewed.

And somebody please answer this for me: Why is it that the Left, for all their rhetoric about  tolerance, acceptance and peace, is always the group most willing to stop at nothing - including violence and murder - to force everyone to accept their way of thinking?

All right. I've had enough. This latest attempt flies in the face of every citizen that works hard and follows the rules.

To illustrate my point, let's look at Bob. Mr. Nobody. He's followed the rules but falls on hard times. In a final act of desperation he robs a bank. The money he steals, he invests in his business and becomes very successful. Does he deserve the money from the business? What if he repays the bank with interest? I can't see any of you saying he should get anything from his illegal act but a long prison sentence. However, someone that commits a felony by entering this country illegally not only feel entitled to take whatever they want, they are now demanding that they get the same rights as citizens of this country. I may not be politically correct here, but they don't deserve a damn thing - except a one-way ticket to prison (or back to their country of origin - whether that be Mexico, China, or Great Brittan). The argument that they are here to do jobs that Americans won't do is EDIT. Stated accurately, they are here to do jobs that Americans wont do at the pay rates offered. Pay me enough money and I'll do nearly anything.

Look, I'm all for legal immigration and I think we need more of it. The fact is that right now it is easier to enter this country illegally than it is to enter legally. If we relax the rules to come in legally and harden the borders with every resource (electronic surveillance, manpower, fences, land mines, whatever it takes), we could stem the tide of illegals to a trickle. If we cripple businesses that willingly hire illegals (thereby eliminating jobs for illegals), there would be no reason to come here illegally.

As for those illegals that are here already, they can't possibly be working and 'paying taxes' without committing at least one more felony - false identification or identification theft. But you know what? I'm willing to overlook even that - if they follow these simple steps:
1. Register as a Non-Citizen resident. Give a reasonable time frame like 6-12 months to get registered. Anyone that doesn't registered will be hunted down and deported.
2. Meet reasonable requirements in learning both spoken and written English.
3. Maintain consistent, full-time employment. This is not to say that they should be deported if they lose a job and it takes a month to find a new one. But after a grace period, they must remain employed two days for every day of unemployment - maybe 3:1. My argument here is that if they can't be employed at least eight months our of every 12, they aren't contributing to our society and must return to their country of origin.
4. If they commit any felony, they will. in exchange for a suspended sentence, be deported. They will not be eligible to return to this country - even to visit. If they are caught in this country for any reason they will serve their sentence and be deported. If they return again, they will receive five years hard labor and be deported.
5. As a Non-Citizen Resident, they will have no right to vote.

These rules are harsh, I admit, but compared to what you would get if you illegally entered any other country, they're pretty fair.

My whole point is this: Come to the United States. We welcome you! Just follow our laws - beginning with how you enter the country and we'll get along just fine.

She doesn't make a lot of these, and this isn't the first time she's compared her campaign to Bills '92 run and the assassination of Bobby Kennedy.

Personally, I wouldn't vote for Hillary is she were the only candidate on all the tickets. Her policies scare me - and the funny part is...she's the conservative democrat candidate. That said, I don't believe she intended to suggest that someone should take out her competition. However, she's vicious, ruthless, immoral and dangerous. I doubt she would lose a moments sleep if it did happen. Publicly she would be all tears, but she'd drown her sorrows in Dom.

My minor in college was Systems and Decision Sciences (i.e. Statistical Analysis). We have a saying: "Numbers don't lie, but if you squeeze them hard enough, they'll say anything you want ". All this hysterical reporting is a perfect example.

Yes, I know, gas prices are outrageous and getting worse, but the way news organizations (including Fox News) are reporting these numbers is doing more harm than good.

On Your World with Neil Cavuto today, it was reported that the average vacation this Memorial day will be 640 miles and will cost the vacationer $110. Also reported is the current national average gas price of $3.87. Last year at this time, the average national price was $3.22 (for those bad in math, that's an increase of about 65 cents per gallon)

Basic math tells us that this 'average vacationer' will use 28.5 gallons of gas [ $110 / $3.87 = 28.5 gallons]. Since the increase in price is 65 cents/gallon, the total increase in the cost of the trip (just for gas) is only $18.46 from last year.

Not so much as to really have any serious effect on a families plan.

This is a follow-up to my very first blog post on this site titled Due Diligence or Misguided Malfeasance. At the time I questioned whether or not the actions by the police to raid the compound and take the children from their parents was based on a solid legal basis or if they had overstepped their bounds. Today we got that answer from the Third Appellate Court of Texas. The court ruled that there was no evidence that these children were in immediate danger of physical abuse. According to Judge Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News Contributor, these children will be reunited with their families within a week.

I can't say I'm surprised by this outcome. However, my next question is about the ability of the authorities to use DNA evidence collected in this case to build cases against the men of this cult with regard to sexual battery of a minor.  Although many of the pregnant girls have been determined to be of consensual age, about half of the pregnant girls are under age.

Another question this raises is, if the fathers of these children are convicted of sex crimes against a child, will the cult take any action to prevent them from having access to children in the future.

We're all aware that more than 130,000 people died in the May 2 cyclone in Myanmar and that an estimated 2.5 Million people are homeless and starving while hundreds of tons of food and supplies wait offshore for the Junta to allow the aid to be delivered.

It has been reported in the Myanmar state-controlled media that U.S. warships which are capable of delivering massive amounts of relief very quickly will not be allowed into the country because of "fears of a U.S. invasion aimed at grabbing the country's oil reserves." (source)

This has been the resounding cry of the democrats about the war in Iraq and it has now infiltrated the dominant political thinking of the Junta to the inevitable death of tens of thousands - if not millions - of survivors of the cyclone. These selfish and dishonest accusations by the liberals and Bush-haters has done more to damage the reputation of this country than 'the madman in the oval office'. I'm reminded of the 1996 Presidential Campaign where we heard over and over again that "Words have meaning". As it turns out, they also have a price. This time it's paid with innocent blood. The disaster after the disaster rests squarely on the shoulders of Democrats.

I've been scratching my head for many hours now trying to figure out exactly what Obama was saying on Fox yesterday. When asked about his promise to speak on a presidential level with Iran he said that the last eight years of the Bush Policies hadn't stopped Iran from building their nuclear program. He also said that the point of direct talks with Iran is to show the world that the U.S. is open to negotiations and if there is no progress it is not the fault of the U.S. (i.e. After all, we tried to negotiate with the Psycho, he just won't listen to reason - my words, his implication).

I walked away from this interview with the strangest feeling that something really didn't add up. Then it hit me. Obama confessed that direct talks with Iran would produce no tangible results - and he knew that! See what I'm getting at? He says that the Bush policies allowed Iran to continue building nukes, but also confesses that his plan to talk to Iminthemoodforjihaad would have absolutely no more success than what's been tried to date. The only reason to have these talks would be to give the impression that the U.S. is not the obstacle to progress.

Indirectly, Obama has confessed that his plan would do nothing more than what the McCain team has been saying all along - these talks would only lend legitimacy to our enemies.

I wish that the McCain camp could say it better than I did in that last paragraph, but the people in this country don't seem to have the attention span to hear more than once sentence. I'll explain it anyhow and maybe someone from McCains campaign will pick up on the argument.


To date, the only claim Iminthemoodforjihad can make to the Iranian people is that they have the right to develop their own nuclear weapons - regardless of the fact that they signed on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [when Iran signed the NPT is unclear, but the treaty has been in effect since 1968]. One also has to understand that the Iranian media is a state controlled entity. The people of the country get virtually all their news from the government. If a sitting President of the U.S. (or any other country trying to block their entry to the nuclear family) would make an appearance with Iminthemoodforjihad, the headlines in Iran would read that their push to build nuclear weapons has succeeded into forcing the U.S. and it's allies into negotiating. That they scared the U.S. so badly that we had no choice but to negotiate. What's said at the meetings would be irrelevant - they would claim victory on nothing more than the idea that we called a meeting.

For those that have never negotiated a large business transaction (I've participated in several mylti-million dollar deals), there is one simple rule to negotiating - you can't win if you don't have the upper hand. You have to have something that the other wants. For example, you have to be better than your competition, faster than the competition, or be able to meet some other specific condition that the client demands (like being green-friendly or being able to meet a specific budget number). Political negotiation isn't all that different. You can't get what you want from your enemy if you don't have something they want. You can't go into the negotiation with nothing more than the hope that they will be reasonable. Kennedy tried that with Khrushchev and the result was the Soviet Union saw Kennedy as weak. This soon led to the construction of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Those that don't study history are doomed to repeat it.

Today, polar bears were added to the Endangered Species list.. No, their number's aren't dwindling. Quite the opposite - populations are up several hundred percent in the last two decades. The reason they have been added is that "Climate Change is melting the polar ice caps". So what does that mean to you?

In the short term, nothing much. To see the long term effects, we have to look at the reason they were added to the list and the history of actions against industries that impact these species. Initial news reports are focusing on how it will affect drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (i.e. ANWAR). Since the Porcupine Caribu and the Bowhead Whale have been effectively employed to prevent drilling (as well and tricky political wrangling in congress), one has to realize that this is about more than the estimated 5.5 - 16 billion barrels of oil off the north shore. (See: Arctic Refuge Drilling Controversy and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for details).

Historically, the government has taken legal actions to prevent activities that endanger a species. For example, banning or limiting whale hunting, banning the import of Ivory (in an effort to stop wholesale slaughter of elephants for their tusks), etc. In some cases, individuals have been prosecuted and their livelihoods taken from them to protect a species. I can't find any web links to the story, but about ten years ago a California farmer was out plowing his field when ran over a mouse that was listed as an endangered species. He was arrested. Although I don't recall the details or the eventual outcome of the story, the point remains that his farm was at least temporarily taken away from him in order to protect a mouse. These are just the facts. They don't constitute an endorsement or a condemnation of the actions taken.

Now we have to question why there has been such a push to put Polar Bears on this list. Although it bolsters the case to prevent drilling in ANWAR, it also provides a major stepping stone to stop all use of fossile fuels. Follow the argument:

1. The habitat of the Polar Bear is endangered by Global Warming.
2. Global Warming is caused (in part) by Greenhouse Gas emmissions.
3. Burning fossile fuels (gasoline, natural gas, etc. in cars and power plants) creates Greenhouse Gas.


Based on this line of logic, you could be arrested for killing endangered animals for using a natural gas water heater in your home. Is it reasonable? No. But mark my words, this is just the thing some environmentalists have been looking to do.

I had to laugh when I saw this, but somehow the reporter missed the obvious.

Background: This happened 5/13/08. A car ran through the front of the Marshalls store in Stoneham, MA. The reporter joked that the sales were so good, the driver just kept on going. What she failed to notice is the sign that covers the left third of the screen. Clearly, the driver misunderstood what the sign was suggesting.