Crazy Frickin’ Canucks, eh?

Recently the government up there in the Great White North decided to ban incandescent light bulbs in the near future.

In favor of lower wattage flourescent and LED’s to, you know, like, save the planet and shit.

What are the costs to society when such irresponsible policies, under a pretense of responsibility, result in inordinate costs due to toxic chemicals present in the new, energy saving, “green” light bulbs?

You break an incandescent bulb, it makes a deliciously satisfying ‘pop’- but no toxic contamination. C’mon.

If this is where society is heading, I’d like a show of hands: anyone want to flee with me to an island of sanity?

Anyone? I’ll have fudge!

Living Beyond Their Means

The woman profiled in this article sounds like such a whimpering douche. Why? She’s portraying herself as SUCH a victim.

And perhaps typical of the po folks that let the sub-prime pimps sell them The American Dream they could scarcely afford.

I’m so sorry but you’ll have to give it all back now. Party’s over. Everybody! Out of the pool.

Sorry that your kids got roped into your bad decision making and stuff. Perhaps you can take comfort that their suffering will help to build character. Point out how your bad decision making put them in the poor house.

Credit card debt? Then refi the family home to pay it all off (Repeat six (!) times). Trouble with both your cars? Go out and buy two brand new ones. Were they Hummers per chance? Credit card company sending you pre-printed checks? Hell, that’s free money- go ahead and pay the mortgage with ‘em, you only live once!

Great choice of solutions each time. I can’t see how it all went pear shaped.

Maybe the circuitous route you took to personal financing was you flushing your family down the toilet?

“You never would’ve thought this could happen, having had a 700-plus FICO score.”

“                       .”

“We accumulated a lot of stuff as a family that I can sell.”

“                       .”

“I see so many listings on Craigslist and eBay where families are selling everything.”

“                       .”

The blank quotes? That’s me being speechless.

So moral of the story is: Unless you are at the top of the pyramid, walk away from the scheme. “Wait,” you ask, “how can you tell?”

Easy.

With any group of people, if you can’t pinpoint the schmuck, then the schmuck is you.

The Real Green

It’s not “being green,” as in a recycling demon, or belonging to the Green party, or even being Kermit. It is not the color of the global warming promoters who bark about conclusive proof but never provide it (because it does not exist), even though they might profess to bleed chlorophyl instead of blood.

It’s just a new way to tax. See the dead presidents? That’s what being green really means.

Did you know developers in Los Angeles can (must) pay cash to buy credits for air space over the flat low-rise structure that is the LA Convention Center, in order to build high rise condos downtown, because laws enacted (just for this purpose) effectively limit high-rise development?

As this Financial Times article points out, the whole idea of a carbon trading market is just as bonkers- it’s really a ”carbon neutrality” sham. Or, scam, if you prefer (I do).

I got your carbon credits right here. Heheheh.

Just like the rush to fund “global warming” officers in government and academia (“just watch our grants climb! kaaaa-ching”), and planning state and local budgets around an expected rising sea level (puh-lease) is the real scam.

And apparently this deceit doesn’t bother the conscience of those people who believe their actions are promoting a good cause. Well, if there is a little teensy bit of a scam, at least nobody got hurt.

After all, pollution is wrong, and we have been powerless to stop it to our satisfaction.

Last point taken. But manufacturing a charade is no way to bestow integrity on your movement, doc.

A little background. Twenty years ago I worked in industry, in a foundry. One of my responsibilities was tracking the permits issued under the auspices of the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

Once the equipment was identified, every year the permit was renewed and paid for. And every year-did you guess?- the fees doubled.

This didn’t tackle pollution. One-third of this company’s permits were for dormant equipment. Because if you ever added a new piece of equipment, you needed to have reserve to trade. Because you were unlikely to get a new permit- even though it would probably be more modern (and efficient) equipment.

This perceived “threat of global warming” inspiring “carbon credits” is just a way to levy taxes, pal, to collect money. Just like the SCAQMD didn’t actually do anything, beyond collecting “fees” for the “right” to pollute. Well, perhaps monitoring air quality- but they have instruments to do that.

This new green path is getting postioned to become the biggest, fattest, bloated-est bureaucracy ever.

The SCAQMD never limited emissions; you simply paid more. Oh, and it became a repository for placement of still-warm bodies for political patronage. Almost 75% of this agency’s budget is for ”salaries/benefits. ” I always wondered what the average term of employment is for people there. I’d bet it’s off the charts.

Can you see where “carbon neutrality” is heading? Do you want to borrow my glasses?

In fact, that company I worked for seventeen years eventually moved its operations overseas because the cost of manufacturing in the US, and especially California, became prohibitively expensive.

So three thousand jobs were lost to an impoverished neighborhood that sorely needed it.

Ten years ago the equipment was dissembled and sold off, production off-shored, the executive and adminstration moved out of LA county. About five years ago the buildings were converted to rubble, the land was dug up for eventual redevelopment (A Lowes distribution center, which probably won’t employ that many people because it will mostly be automated).

It sits today as just a big 27 acre hole in the ground.

So if I am skeptical about “global warming,” this old ecologist, this old lefty, wants you to know it is not without some strong evidence and first-hand experience that comprehensively refutes the motives of the “movement” behind it.

Besides, the folks behind it just don’t pass the old sniff test.

Postscript: several years ago, the SCAQMD built a fabulous new palace on a hill in the East San Gabriel Valley. I’m sure it was constructed with all environmentally friendly materials. In fact, I’ve always wondered who oversaw it’s construction?

BTW, these days, what does the SCAQMD do? There is much less pollution today from stationary sources than twenty years ago, because there is much less manufacturing (Gee, I guess the SCAQMD really were effective once upon a time).

The same old major local sources of pollution here in El Lay- the oil refineries- are still there, and the agency has never even attempted to intrude into this domain to enforce any policy. The oil companies (and by extension, you and me) just pay more for the privilege.

Automobile pollution is the major culprit of dirty south coast basin air, and that source is covered by (yet) another agency.

Are people burning leaves again in the backyard? Hardly. Don’t tell me the SCAQMD is now a superfluous government bureacracy? If not, then what do they actually do?

Surely You’re Joking Ms. Clinton

Of course, if what she’s really promoting is eventually going to wind up with paycheck parity you can bet that men and women will be paid equally.

This will be accomplished by men getting paid less. Win-win!

er…

Read this and learn. It’s about the way the world works. Nothing to do with sexism. Sure, it is contrary to conventionally held beliefs. But there is no grand conspiracy to keep the whiners gals down.

IYKWIM.

You Have to Admit, This Soldier Has a Point

The shooting at VT was certainly a tragedy. But seemingly, to the adminstration that governs our country, the soldiers dying daily receive no such tribute.

“I find it ironic that the flags were flown at half-staff for the young men and women who were killed at VT, yet it is never lowered for the death of a U.S. service member,” Wilt wrote.

The President has NEVER attended a funeral of one of our dead American soldiers from Iraq. Does he care? Apparently not. They’re simply there- to be used in hos folly.

The adminstration has forbidden the photographing of body bags and caskets simply because it would become to clear to Americans what a tragiedy is unfolding two or three continents away.

And this same adminstration makes no tribute recognizing the sacrifice of bracve American soldiers.

For shame, President Cheney, for shame.

Are we not worthy?

Says it All, Really

If Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had gone to the Senate yesterday to convince the world that he ought to be fired, it’s hard to imagine how he could have done a better job, short of simply admitting the obvious: that the firing of eight United States attorneys was a partisan purge.

How do we Tax Government?

More, more, more, more & more.

Bedtime for Gonzo?

Seriously?

“President Bush was pleased with the attorney general’s testimony today,” Dana Perino quoted the president as saying.

Denial is not a river in Egypt, dude.

This is the caliber of our government officials when a C student gets the top job. He doesn’t know- can’t possibly grok- a person of superior intellect.

He picked his private counsel to be AG. Without realizing he was an Alzheimer’s sufferer.

He thought his other private counsel would be a solid choice for the Supremes.

The person he chose to select his running mate chose himself.

The best and brightest apparently come out of Regent U.

His Enron posse are dead or in jail (or under indictment).

He stands idly by while the biggest redistibution of wealth in this country takes place.

Seriously, this is the best we could do?

At least Clinton was a competent steward and left office with a budget surplus.

This country hasn’t won a war since 1945. What’s up with that?

Someone once said we get the government we deserve. After all, the Current Occcupant was elected fair and square. Right?

Riddle me this, asswipes: What do you call some fucker who gets caught with his hand in the till, and then refuses to resign?

’nuff said.

Wanted: Scapegoat

Your mission, if you chose to accept it, is to run the show in Iraq and Afghanistan, in the newly created position of Imperial War Czar. Take ownership, champion a “win-win” scenario, manage the conflict with an eye toward eventual military “success,” and optimize/utilize funding streams downline.

In your new position of “War Czar” you will deflect “flak” from upper management and meticulously micro-manage each and ever aspect and optimize the benefit to our shareholders and contractors.

You must be willing and have the capacity to suspend belief about the overall organizations seeming inability to succeed at “war,” while paying lip service to traitors who cannot possibly understand the big picture in inoffensive and non-confrontational ways.

You will have at your disposal a public relations entity very well lubed, with supporters/cheerleaders selectively planted in the ranks. If you can utilize these resources well, your long tenure is assured.

You must possess the requisite mental aptitude and positive attitude necessary to multi task in a multi-org environment (a third region will be awarded to you very soon once you have passed the required probationary period) then please send your resume to:

 

President Dick Cheney
White House
Washington, DC, 01010

Remember BCCI?

Now that the U.S. Congress is investigating the truth of President George W. Bush’s statements about the Iraq war, they might look into one of his most startling assertions: that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

Critics dismissed that as an invention. They were wrong. There was a link, but not the one Bush was selling. The link between Hussein and Bin Laden was their banker, BCCI. But the link went beyond the dictator and the jihadist — it passed through Saudi Arabia and stretched all the way to George W. Bush and his father.

BCCI was the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a dirty offshore bank that then-president Ronald Reagan’s Central Intelligence Agency used to run guns to Hussein, finance Osama bin Laden, move money in the illegal Iran-Contra operation and carry out other “agency” black ops. The Bushes also benefited privately; one of the bank’s largest Saudi investors helped bail out George W. Bush’s troubled oil investments.

Karl Rove: The Formative Years

Two Big Ones Squeez It Out