Maxine Waters

This is a bit obscure unless you follow CA politics or have worked in career colleges. Maxine Waters is a Representative from CA. Ms. Waters, a democrat, has been trying to legislate for-profit education out of existance. She has been successful in getting some tough regs but not enough to kill the industry.

Now she is being investigated for using her position to help a business in which her husband is invested. Surprise, surprise - another elected representative who is critical of other's ethics who has, at a minimum, done something that appears to be unethical.

It would be reasonable to fire her.

That Punk Rush Limbaugh

I love it - Rush Limbaugh was apparently punked or in old school speak - he was duped! A blogger placed a bogus story about Barack Obama (then a student) writing a thesis titled "Aristocracy Revisited," that supposedly showed Barack's disdain for the constitution and the Founding Fathers.

The blogger used Time Magazine's Joe Kline' name and Rush picked up the story. He figured out that he had been punked half way through his show. Supposedly he admitted he was punked, but that he went with it because it felt true.

What would Rush say if a real journalist ran a story because it felt true? Especially a liberal one?He would correctly lambaste said reporter. The hypocrite will not lambaste himself however. That would be too reasonable.

Bailout Dollars

This is interesting. John McCain has been tweetin' away daily and lamenting the bailout dollars (for which he voted yes). And we should all be concerned. What we don't hear about much is those that have paid it back already, and the $12B earned in interest from warrants.

Follow the link (the first list is those who got TARP dollars and how much so I highly recommend a good glass of red wine to calm your innards) and then dig deeper to find those who paid back and also how much the warrants are worth. The picture gets better as you go - almost palatable - almost reasonable, but only almost.

http://bailout.propublica.org/main/list/index

Interesting Discussion

The average student in the U.S. now takes about 6 1/2 years to earn a bachelor's degree. Wow.

Read an article written by Lamar Alexander, former Secretary of Education for Bush Sr., and President of University of Tennessee. He is advocating the three year BA/BS degree for some people. This is not new, of course, in the for-profit world but relatively new in the public and more traditional colleges.

Some schools are simply accelerating the number of courses a student takes during each semester so that they are taking 20 credits per semester. That would be tough. Some are pushing for year round as most colleges' facilities are actually used about half of a year, yet up keep, debt financing and maintenance (the monthly nut) never ends. A university could save millions per year if they better used their facilities. The student would end in 3 years and save 25% on tuition and fees. That is a lot of coin, scratch, cheddah, dineros, etc.

The whole idea of two semesters, fall to spring, was in place back in the American Revolution days because of our agricultural needs (kids working on the farms and plantations.) Lamar Alexander's point was very topical.

He used the fall of GM and the rest of the American automobile industry as an example. 30 years ago, 80% of cars sold in America were built in America. Now it is less than 50% as Toyota has perfected the small car and become the largest seller of autos in the world. Likewise, America has 35 of the worlds top 50 research universities. Research universities have a great deal to do with why we produce 25% of the worlds wealth.

What he is saying is that we need to find a way to preserve the research universities because the output is enormous. Keeping the status quo for 250 years isn't going to do that. Universities need to adapt to the modern age.

Cleverness - Here You Gogh

Family Tree of Vincent Van Gogh (no originality on my part - this was sent to me):
His dizzy aunt ----------------------------------------------- Verti Gogh
The brother who ate prunes------------------------------- Gotta Gogh
The brother who worked at a convenience store ------ Stop N Gogh
The grandfather from Yugoslavia ----------------------------- U Gogh
His Missing uncle ---------------------------------- Where-diddy Gogh
His Mexican cousin ---------------------------------------- A Mee Gogh
The Mexican cousin's American half-brother ------------ Gring Gogh
The nephew who drove a stage coach --------------- Wells-far Gogh
The constipated uncle ------------------------------------- Can't Gogh
The ballroom dancing aunt -------------------------------- Tang Gogh
The bird lover uncle -------------------------------------- Flamin Gogh
The fruit-loving cousin -------------------------------------- Man Gogh
An aunt who taught positive thinking ------------------ Way-to-Gogh
The little bouncy nephew ----------------------------------- Poe Gogh
A sister who loved disco -------------------------------------- Go Gogh
And his niece who travels the country in an RV --- Winnie Bay Gogh

I saw you smiling . . . there ya Gogh!

Tailgating Being Killed?

I like the sports writer Rick Reilly, formerly of SI and now ESPN Magazine. His latest piece is on the death of tailgating. Unreasonable!

Here is the beginning and then you can follow the link to read the whole thing. Humorous.

Of all the gates -- Watergate, Monicagate, Spygate -- there is only one gate this country can be proud of: the tailgate.

A parking-lot spiral, a cheese brat whispering sweet nitrates and a decent ticket in your pocket. Buddy, that's more American than deficits. So why is America trying to kill tailgating?

Look around: Outside Soldier Field -- home of the Chicago Bears -- fans are getting kicked out of the parking lot once the game starts. Heresy! A lot of Bears fans can't afford tickets ($245 for a nosebleed), but they love pulling into the south lot (for which they pay $46), opening up the camper van, putting one satellite dish on the tailgate and one on the roof and living and dying for their Bears. Tailgating is a tradition that's been in place for 90 years, and now it's forbidden? Why don't they just clean our Weber grills with the American flag!

The link is:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=reilly_rick&id=4577871&sportCat=nfl

The Loyal Opposition

I am amazed that Barack Obama let his staff get all involved in this fight with Fox News. Making them the enemy only gives them credibility. I didn't like when Bush made all detractors "Un-American" and I don't like that Obama is singling out Fox. While I despise most of the nonsense espoused on Fox, they have a right to do so without being mauled by the administration.

I get that Fox "reporters" are loud mouthed blow hards, and nearly impossible to ignore, but Obama should just stick to his agenda and stay above this ridiculous and unreasonable stuff.

Capitalism Wins

Rush Limbaugh is a big supporter of free markets, as we all should be. I noticed however that when the free market went against Rush - he was quick to blame President Obama, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton rather than himself.

The free market spoke and Rush is dropped from the group pursuing the St. Louis Rams. Those investors made a market decision - Rush will not be good for their investment as he is too divisive. They may even agree with Rush, or not, but what they do know is that they cannot alienate a large number of people when you are trying to sell an expensive product to the public. In other words, Rush wasn't good business.

Capitalism does work - reasonably well.

Balloon Boy Nuttiness

A co-worker pointed out that Facebook, etc. are designed to say, "Look at Me!" And, he opines that this narcissistic trait is what causes things like balloon-boy-gate.

Not sure that I would assign that much blame to the Facebooks of the world as millions join and happily say, "look at me" without also creating havoc and wasting thousands of dollars.

The Heenes should be put in jail for creating this hoax. A few idiots will follow suit, but only a few because they won't want to go to jail also. Denver airport service was disrupted for a little while, causing a ripple effect in lost business, late flights, etc. It is equivalent to sending viruses out via the Internet and crippling business. This was just more fascinating. The BBC and Al Jazeera even followed the "event."

Nuttiness and unreasonableness abound.

Bad Reds - But Necessary Reds

Russians didn't play nice on Iran sanctions this time but I hope Obama keeps talking and working with them and avoid caving to conservative sabre rattlers. Russia is important as it has a huge arsenol of WMD. Iran might get a few. Err on Russia's side.

Rush - Team Owner?

Rush Limbaugh, along with Dave Checketts (owner of St. Louis Blues hockey team), is trying to buy the St. Louis Rams football team. Very interesting.

Per Questia.com about 65% of NFL players are African-American. So, assuming the Rams are fairly typical, Rush will own the rights to a whole bunch of black men. This will probably satisfy some of his longest standing dreams.

Now, a few players and the Players Association have begun to weigh in on Rush's proposed purchase. Can you guess what they think?

Personally, I hope the NFL tells him "no deal buddy, there are consequences to your hateful rhetoric over the years." Not that Rush will learn, but at least he will be shown for what he is - a blow hard, negative, racist.

Nobel

As Barack Obama is pretty new to the position of President, it seems a bit odd that he was chosen for the prestigous Nobel Peace Prize. However, the Swede's group is clearly saying that they like the direction Obama has set for the U.S. in terms of world positioning.

What is more interesting is the critisizm of the private organization that has for more than 100 years given out a variety of awards. The folks over there at the Nobel Prize offices know what their namesake wanted to support. So I say, "good for them."

Besides, as my son pointed out, it is good to see an American win this award. I couldn't agree more, especially with the poor outlook the world has had for us.

Also, glad to hear Barack will donate the $1.4 Million to charity.

Michael Moore

Michael Moore has another movie out, this one about capitalism. Like Rush Limbaugh, he is a loud-mouthed media person who is hypocritical. Rush - drug addict who earlier said white drug addicts should go to jail. In Moore's case, I am sure he is not working for the average wage of an American - say $40K per year. Millions, more like it.

Perhaps he is giving it all away? Who believes that?

If there is justice in the afterlife, Rush and Michael will be locked in a room together for eternity.

Favre - A Legend!

With the possible exception of my brother-in-law (a die-hard Steeler fan), my entire family will probably disown me for admitting that I rooted for Favre last night against the Packers. Truth be told, I would have been pleased had the Packers won on some last second miracle (not caused by a Favre error), but that didn't happen.

Did anyone notice the laser beams this guy throws at 40 years old? What a joy to watch once your not blowing a gasket that he is throwing those lasers in that dreaded purple uniform.

What did happen, as evidenced by the very emotional Favre after the game, he showed Packer's GM Ted something-or-other that he can still play and perhaps they shouldn't have given up on him so quickly. After all, they were in the NFC championship game the last time Favre was quarterback and now they have a losing record since. The debate before and after was, "is this a revenge issue?" I think he reasonably wanted to say to Ted - "told you so!"

Afghan War Again

Afghanistan is a tough situation. President Obama has military advisers who think we should escalate the war effort, including more troops, and those who say it is unnecessary. He also has congress with a variety of opinions, all which make strong arguments for and against. Public opinion isn't helping him either - even FoxNews admits there is an even split in public opinion.

Obama and McCain both ran for President saying that the Afghan War is where the action is in terms of getting the terrorists. Since I don't see the daily briefings, it is hard to know. However, I do trust McCain on this matter and have decided that escalating there one more time may be necessary. The only caveat to McCain is that early on in Iraq he stated we didn't need to be there and then changed his tune, at least slightly. He tried during the campaign to make the issue in Iraq about support for the "surge" rather than rejecting the need for the Iraq war in the first place. He lost.

Had we stayed in Afghanistan with full attention, and stayed out of Iraq, we wouldn't be chasing down Taliban right now. Bush did a good job of defeating them and freeing the Afghans from these nut jobs. But going to Iraq made us take our eye of the ball, and allow them to rearm and regroup.

All said, I guess we need to stay, no matter how unpopular this becomes if the majority of military minds think we can win. I still believe winning the Afghan War seems like a misnomer but......

In the end, the whole thing is totally unreasonable caused by a bunch of unreasonable men with long beards and a disdain for the West, women, civil rights, Jews, etc.

The Billion Dollar Man

Forbes magazine announced that Tiger Woods is the first athlete to reach $1,000,000,000 in earnings - yep, that is a billion. Wow! Apparently poor Michael Jordan has only reached $800,000,000 in his 25 years in the limelight. Palmer and Nicklaus are still making millions per year at their age (Palmer is 80!) so can you imagine what Tiger will amass in his lifetime? Double wow!

The thing about Tiger, who doesn't have an entourage of hangers-on, he doesn't really employ that many people. That leaves him, and his family, and his foundation with a ton of dough.

At least it can be said that he is unequivocally the best at what he does and the bulk of the money comes from endorsements. Apparently Tiger sells, thus he can command the big dollars. As far as golf goes, it is not a team game, thus whatever he can earn, good for him. While I routinely root for his biggest competitor, I admire the man's grit and determination and incredible feel for the big moment.

If he could can that grit, determination, and incredible feel for the big moment, he would make some serious money.

Time For Grown-ups To Get To Work

This is what happens when public discourse becomes uncivilized. Some people say, "so what, why are people so sensitive?" The answer is because as a nation we cannot afford to waste so much time and energy to make the other guy look bad. It simply doesn't resolve anything. In fact, poor civil discourse makes the problems worse. Totally unreasonable.

• Nancy Pelosi should be fired for her ongoing nasty rhetoric
• Any Republican who repeated "Death Panel" non-sense should be fired
• Any Congressman who yells at the President - "you Lie" should be fired
• Any Congressman, at any level, that invokes Nazis, Saddam Hussein, death camps, etc. in a way to compare to our President or a fellow member of Congress should be fired. This is true regardless of party
• Every time Rush Limbaugh shoots off his mouth, the conservative members of Congress should say, "shut up - you are hurting more than helping." They can't fire him or compel him to shut up officially.
• Every time someone says they are for family values or proposes legislating morality and is caught having an affair, not paying their taxes, having an illegal immigrant working for them, etc. they should be fired
• Every minister, Baptist, Lutheran, whatever, who is Black, White, Hispanic, Brown, Yellow, whatever, should lose their tax exemption the minute they weigh in on political matters or the appropriateness of killing our President.
• Any state legislator that is in a state with a budget deficit, should be fired for introducing legislation that has anything to do with prosecuting a past government official, trying to reverse Roe V. Wade in their state, get rid of guns, make guns available to school kids and drunks, and every nut job, etc. In other words - get to work!

Democrats and Republicans are acting like children, the ones with which you wouldn't let your kids play, and they are now digressing to the level of ridiculousness.

They all need to apologize to us, the public who foolishly sent them to Washington to help. What is the point of getting control of power if all you do is try to hold onto it, or when lost, to get it back. If they tried to hold onto or regain power by putting forth effort, proper civil discourse, strong ideas based on their true beliefs, then work would be done.

I don't know what the answer right now is because the Republicans and the Democrats are both failing to do their jobs.