The Greek Slippery Slope

Greece is in crisis. Its government has failed financially, it can no longer meet its obligations.

There are those in our country who point to Obama and his administration and claim that he is dooming us to the same desperate state Greece now must rectify. The pundits on the right are claiming, as they always do, that one step towards the left will indelibly lead us to full socialism. That's a shame.

There are many countries which are more socialistic in their approaches to governing than we are and which are doing no worse than we, indeed better! This list is long.

Yet the right is correct about some things regarding Greece. Balance and common sense in government programs must exist. The right is correct when it says that entitlements are dangerous because they can cause a decrease in self-reliance. The Greeks have been unwise. The have fostered entitlements to an exaggerated point. Retirement payments for some (maybe most) at 100% of quitting year salary! The State of Utah pays 60% of quitting year salary for its employees, but guess what? That is going to change. Newly hired workers for the State of Utah can now look forward to only a 45% plan of quitting year salary. My social security benefits will comprise only about 35-40% of what I will be making at retirement at 66 years old. If I want to live at the same rate of income (100% of what I was making while working), it is up to me to make up the difference before or during retirement. I have been diligently doing so.

Health care presents similar problems. Indeed, I can plan for most everything, even some awful level inflation, but the wild card that threatens even the most financially prudent (who is not in the privileged classes - who can buy their way out of medical disaster) is that of health care.

The goal of social security and health care should be to provide safety nets that ensure bare and reasonable minimum standards of living for all. Greece is a bad example of how this works, Canada, Denmark and many others are good examples of what is possible. Our country must address our problems of accessibility and affordability to health care all the while maintaining the safety net of social security in all its forms. Yet we must not follow the example of the foolish Greeks.

Why MSNBC ratings are in the tank

This photo says it all. The headline at the bottom of the photo reads "Law makes it a crime to be illegal immigrant."

The Audacity of Thinking the People are Stupid

Regular American citizens are busy with work and family, and those Americans who aren't busy normally don't pay attention to the big budget numbers flying around these days.
A recent ad by GM surprised me. Perhaps you've seen it. The CEO of GM walks through a factory and claims that "GM has paid back $5.8 billion to the U.S. Treasury and Export Development Canada...--in full, with interest, years ahead of schedule--loans made to help fund the new GM." My first reaction was "Great!" but after then commercial played a few times something began to nag at me. Wasn't the loan to GM much bigger, say between $42 billion and $58 billion (*1). It seems that some of the loans have been reclassified as equity purchase. In other words, the government has purchased a large chunk of GM (Government Motors?). This was once called a loan, but is now being quietly called "equity equivalent." The next question is "Where did GM come up with the $5.8 billion payment? GM is the fourth worst loser among corporations in the US. In fact, they lost $30.9 billion in 2009! They couldn't have paid the money back from profit -- they had none. It turns out that they used TARP money to pay the government back. So the bottom line is GM borrowed money from the government to pay back the government (albeit indirectly). It's a shell game. Are the American people stupid to believe this rubbish? No, they are busy working to pay taxes and provide for their families. They don't have time to dig into every little nefarious scheme that the elites contrive. In essence, the people are not stupid, they are too busy to be bothered.
(*1) There are many numbers floating around and I can't find the correct one)

George Will and me

I have become quite a follower of George Will's biweekly blog posts via my Kindle. He publishes on Sunday and Thursday. I read each one at least twice and often more. He writes extremely well, argues logically, and challenges my positions. If I can respond to his positions succinctly, I feel I have sharpened not only my defense of my positions but my intellect generally. You have all done me the same favor on occasion. I encourage you to read him when you have the chance.

Sometimes he wins me over, but rarely. Our views philosophical, social, and political differ too much, but I will endeavor to share with you examples of when he wins me over.

Sometimes I disagree on principle(s), sometimes because I don't think he carries his thoughts to the conclusions that I see as logical and inescapable.

The following is an example of what I mean by carrying his thoughts through to conclusion. Not unsurprisingly, he is against the recently passed health care initiative. The principle reasons are that personal responsibility will continue to be eroded and that government ought not be involved in this arena to such an extent. As a way to encourage personal responsibility, he proposes a tax credit, I repeat a tax credit, for those who purchase their own insurance, not a mere tax deduction. Given that personally purchased insurance ranges from easily $500 a month to over $1,000, many would end up paying absolutely no federal income tax. Take my case: I've checked, the cost for insurance for me if I were purchasing it on the open market would be, given my age even without a health checkup, over $500 a month depending on benefits. Umm. Multiplied by 12 = $6,000. My tax after deductions was 5,831. Fair enough.

I would not pay a penny.

I know that he can't deliver his entire tax code proposal in a blog, but I can't figure out where this suggestion would lead us. What do you think of his idea?

Abby has two Moms

Buried a handful of posts past, I have been ardent in my opposition to Teresa's concerns regarding her anecdote on the subject of gender reassignment.

It appears obvious to me that Teresa's adamancy in her position stems from her set of morals concerning gender/sexual issues and children. My moral positions are different and thus my take on her position is contrary in this case.

Here is my own anecdote that I lived this year. I gave the assignment to my ninth grade French I class to present a Powerpoint exhibit of their families. Naturally, the students were to talk about their families, each member's likes, dislikes, talents, age, work etc. A ninth grade girl whom I will call Abby has lesbians mothers who adopted her nearly at birth. She presented her family matter-of-factly as it is. She has been in the school for some time and has made similar presentations throughout her grade school career. Her mothers have done what all mothers have done: cupcakes for the class on Abby's birthday, room mother responsibilities, etc. No doubt children in her classes have had to ask the question, "Why does she have two mothers in her family?"

Given your responses to Teresa's anecdote regarding gender reassignment, I am not sure how the above scenario would be analyzed by those of you who commented. I suspect that you will see it as different, perhaps very different, but I am not sure why. It is obvious that a child's confusion is not the first concern: children deal with terrible and much worse confusion routinely enough. I know that Alan mentioned natural happenings and the need to explain them to children as part of natural patterns, that one protects children from what one can. Although I understood what he wrote, I don't know why a child needs protection from either of these two scenarios. Unless, of course, morality such as you perceive it, is the guiding principle. If this is the case, then we must take on the continually thorny question of whose morality dominates the public square.

Some thoughts about 2012

Not the movie. The presidential election.

The Democrats: While I can't imagine Pres. Obama not running again. I keep wondering if Hillary Clinton cannot resist one more try. Although she denies it, I think she still harbors ambitions, and I think she disagrees with Obama on many foreign policy initiatives. That is why she is often off to Africa or the Far East when much of the foreign policy action is centered on Israel and Iran. Prediction: Obama is the nominee. Bold Prediction: Obama will dump Biden and choose someone who appears more serious.

The Republicans: If Republican voters follow custom, Governor Romney will be the nominee. In recent history, there has been a stark difference in how the Democrats and Republicans choose their nominees. The Democrats often choose underdogs and dark horses: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. Republicans, on the other hand, almost systematically choose the next guy in line, i.e., whoever finished second last time, or whoever appears to have earned the nomination by long-term service to the party. Hence, we got Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bob Dole, and John McCain. It's a remarkable trend.

Prediction: Romney is the nominee. Bold Prediction: He will choose Pawlenty as his running-mate. Easy prediction: Sarah Palin will be Head Cheerleader (Is it sexist when it's the truth?) and as such will be a keynote speaker at the Republican Convention.

Energy Saving Turbo Entabulator Transmission

I recieved an email saying that after Pres. Obama listened to this gentleman's explanation of the Energy Saving Turbo Entabulator Transmission, he offered him the position of Health Care Bill Czar. No confirmation of that as of yet though. So research it for yourself and find out if it is true. Let me know what you find out. I cannot confirm or deny it at this point through my research.

Pogoplug

I have long tried to find a way to provide a central repository for family videos, photos, documents, etc. that we all have. It was either very expensive or very complicated or both. I finally found a device that is within my price range ($129) and that allows us to upload and download data from a central repository. It's called a Pogoplug. I finally arranged some time to set it up and it is currently running in a closet next to my office. I have attached a 120GB hard drive that I wasn't using. As a first offering, I have uploaded video of the family reunion we had on August 19, 1990. You will shortly receive an invitation by email to view the video, and I encourage you to upload materials that you have. To do so, you will need to install a small program that will allow you to access the hard drive as if it were on your own computer. Download and install the program from http://www.pogoplug.com/downloads/.
I will make periodic backups of the hard drive so that we don't lose any data. I encourage everyone to have a backup of the data as well. The more redundancy there is, the safer our valuable family files will be.

The Best Georgia's 4th District has to offer

Now do you see what I have to put up with here in Georgia? This is Rep. Hank Johnson, on the Armed Services Committee discussing alloting 8000 more service personnel to the island of Guam.

This is the best Georgia's 4th District has to offer!

The Best Georgia's 4th District has to offer

Alas, can you see what I put up with here in Georgia! This is just so classic of how stupid, ignorant, and uneducated some of our congressmen are. At least Rep. Johnson! I mean the guy must have been elected by uneducated voters! Why can we not realize that uneducated districts only elect uneducated people! It goes to show that there are those who vote for a living. I can only assume that the parasite class voted this man into office. He obviously doesn't have the intelligence to be there.

The naval officer being questioned, I am sure is infinately more intelligent than Mr. Johnson. I am sure he is just wondering how he landed in front of such a stupid man.

Just my opinion.

Gender Reassignment

My friend is facing a very difficult challenge right now. The school where her three children ages, 6, 9, 11 are attending (A local Belgiun school)anounced that their male gym teacher will be undergoing a Gender reassignment and will be coming back to school as a female instead of a male. They made the announcement and met with the parents to inform them that this will be the case and that the school will provide clinical counseling to parents and children who feel they might need help to make this a smooth transition for their child.

Am I crazy to think that they are doing this backwards? Instead of offering phychological help to the children and families, thinking they should be the ones who need the help in learning to adjust to anothers inability to live life as they were born. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't they be offering the teacher the help to treat the gender personality disorder, instead of throwing this disorder in the face of many young innocent children and asking them to conform? Can you imagine telling your 6 year old that today your gym teacher is a man, but tomorrow, he'll be a woman and so must call him/her a different name. Talk about confusing information. That's like asking us to eat an orange and then telling us to believe that it tastes like an apple, when you have always known it to be an orange and genetically speaking it is an orange.

You know children see things as black and white as part of their development process at that young age...I just can't imagine why an adult mind would want to even put that in their face like that and confuse them. Even crazier to me....other adults, like the school and perhaps the law are saying...great, let's teach the kids about tolerance and make them accept this as the norm. Yikes! I believe that the gym teacher should resign his postion....make the change and then go get a job where no knew him as a male and not confuse the young children's minds.

Perhaps I sound intolerant. But again...my issue is always with the safe, healthy development of the child....and I am a proponant for traditional values as the best way to achieve that for a child's sake. This situation simply is not healthy for the child, and not fair to the families trying to raise their child with those values. It appears that my friend will be pulling her kids from the school and plant them somewhere else, and this is frustrating to her, as now her kids are displaced and will have to start over with new friends and new surroundings. It doesn't seem right to me that they have to make that decision. What is good is that they have the choice to make. But then, so does the gym teacher...and he chose to stay where he is at and make everyone else conform.

Not to mention my other question, who's locker room/bathrooms does the gym teacher get to go in? The girls, the boys? or both? Who knows if he/she prefers males or females? Will there be potential of abuse? :( Confused and dismayed in Belgium.

1933 American Airlines Infomercial

This is real nostalgic. The only similarity that exists today is that pilots still wear a coat and tie when we fly. Oh yeah, Dad does too! Flight attendants wear dresses on Delta too! Other than that the glamour of the flying has so diminished that people don't dress like they used too.

Don't miss the racial slur though at 4:30 into the clip. This would never stand today as it shouldn't. For the first time, Al Sharpton would really have a case today on this one.

Notice is says you can travel from Chicago to Los Angeles in just a little over a day! How about just a little over 4 hours! So sitting on the tarmack for 3 or 4 hours ain't so bad after all!

Also it says when you fly you can arrive just as fresh as you were when you left! Remember that, all you who complain that flying makes you tired.

Just click on the title of the post to see the clip.

March Madness Bracket Competition

I have been mindlessly busy, so I haven't been able to post much.
However, I have belatedly set up Yahoo! bracket for our annual competition and I have sent out invitations to those who participated last year.
If you didn't participate last year and you would like to join in the fun, just let me know and I will send out an invitation ASAP.

Obama Comes Through

I just want to everyone to know that although I disagree with most everything Mr. Obama stands for, I will admit when he does the right thing.

I just read that he has donated his entire $1.4 million prize money from being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to various charities. I will not list them all but I was glad to see that he did not keep the money for an award that I do not believe he earned...yet.

Bravo. I applaud the action Mr. President.

How do you feel?

As a pilot, and without divulging my opinion, I was wondering how you all felt about this event of the controller allowing his kids in the tower. I assume we have all heard the tapes. Do you feel less safe?