Ants and Nukes

Did you ever wonder from what planet some politicians come? Where they live, where have they been lately?

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) told a Pittsburgh newspaper this week that he did not support the Obama-backed regulatory overhaul of the financial system. Democrats say it is aimed at preventing another crisis in the financial sector. "This is killing an ant with a nuclear weapon," said Mr. Boehner.

On what planet does he live? Same one as John "I don't know how many houses I own" McCain? Does out of touch come to mind?

Has he read about Goldman and the Billion dollar fleecing they gave their clients? Has he heard anything about the continuing mortgage crisis? Derivatives ring a bell Johnny? What an idiot.

It is embarrassing. I wish President Obama hadn't pointed it out so clearly and concisely and with such humor. The rest of the world will now know just how ridiculous our politics have become. Ants? Really? I suppose the Gulf oil spill is just an ink blot! Totally unreasonable.

Universities and the Supreme Court

Interesting decision of the Supreme Court today. They voted 5-4 to support a college in California that said a religious group couldn't bar gay people from joining the group.

First, why would a gay person want to join the group, Christian Legal Society, that they know doesn't welcome them? Only to make a point I suppose.

The Hastings College of Law of the University of California allows a religious group to meet on its campus and the campus has a non-bias position. Thus the college has a right to tell groups operating on the campus that they must follow the anti-bias rule. The U.S. Supreme Court concurred. Justice Alito did file a scathing minority opinion basically saying this is political correctness gone amok. I agree, but I wonder if he would have had the same opinion had the group not been aligned with his Christian beliefs. Suppose the group was Jewish, or Muslim - would Alito have been as quick to label this PC gone amok?

Only he knows.

In the mean time it is unreasonable for the religious group to be required to let people in that they clearly find unacceptable.

McChrystal Follow Up

A tough decision for Obama but I believe the correct one. We have a system that has worked for our entire history, that of a civilian leadership of the military. When that is threatened or weakened, then changes have to be made. McChrystal was properly thanked for his dedication and work and sent on his way.

That General Patraeus was willing to step into the situation was very helpful.

General McChrystal

Between the rock and the hard place - that is where President Obama finds himself. What to do? If Obama fires McChrystal, he potentially sets back what is already a troubled war in Afghanistan. If he doesn't, he will be perceived as wimpy for letting McChrystal walk all over the him and his war advisers.

Geez - who wants to be the U.S. President?

Proves the old adage, be careful what you ask for.

World Cup Revisited

Rick Reilly is a sports writer for ESPN, formerly of Sports Illustrated. Here is his take on the World Cup. Enjoy!

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=5288738

World Cup

The World Cup is a pretty cool thing. Once every 4 years we get excited about the sport that the rest of the world loves best. It is a struggle for Americans to embrace a sport with so little scoring. Hockey struggles partially for the same reason, although the number of chances, and indeed the number of goals, are higher in Hockey.

Any way, when soccer teams get a play together and a goal is scored, it truly is "the beautiful game." Now, if they could just get rid of those annoying (and harmful) little horns. The beautiful game is nearly unwatchable because of the ridiculous noise caused by the Vuvuzola - a cheap plastic horn that makes a crazy loud noise. Ugh!! Totally unreasonable.

The Morning Joe

While thinking about Congressman Barton's stupidity, I thought again about some things that Joe Scarborough said last week. He indicated that Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are part of the problem, not the solution to the partisan politics situation.

Couldn't agree more.

The Line Has Been Found

What is the line that Republicans should not cross? Will it ever be found? Yes - it has apparently been found. Using the names Hitler and Saddam to describe Obama wanting to speak to school kids about staying in school wasn't over the line per the Reps. But, as I said, it has been found.

Rep. Joe Barton, Republican from Texas, apologized to the foreign company BP for what he called a "shakedown" by the President and the White House. The line must have been crossed because the Republican leadership called him on the carpet and forced him to apologize or they would strip him of his powers on some committee.

He apologized but you know he didn't mean it. He meant what he said because he has accepted many thousands of dollars from the oil industry. He would clearly like the oil company to do better than the shrimpers, fisherman, restaurateurs, etc. Those that the BP executive called the "little people."

Just Gotta Laugh Sometimes

This was sent to me and I had a good laugh so it is only reasonable to share.

"The other day I needed to go to the emergency room. Not wanting to sit there for 4 hours, I put on my old Army fatigues and stuck a patch onto the front of my shirt that I had downloaded off the Internet.

When I went into the E.R., I noticed that 3/4 of the people got up and left. I guess they decided that they weren't that sick after all. Cut at least 3 hours off my waiting time!

Here's the patch. Feel free to use the next time you're in need of quicker emergency service.

It also works at DMV. It saved me 5 hours. At the Laundromat, three minutes after entering I had my choice of any machine, most still running.

Don't try it at McDonald's though.....the whole crew got up and left and I never got my order...

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Oil, Oil, Everywhere Oil - Part Deux

This cartoon appeared in the newspaper. When we take our 4 cylinder, small cars to the gas station here in AZ, this is exactly what we see.

I applaud Obama for getting the BP pledge for $20B, yet not allowing that to be a capped figure. In the end, BP cut corners to save hundreds of thousands per day and those short cuts will cost them, and the guy in this cartoon, dearly.

Morning Joe

Apparently there is a show on MSNBC or Fox or somewhere with Joe Scarborough, a former conservative congressman from Florida. He gave a keynote address at the convention I just attended in Las Vegas.

He told a great story which I will relate here - just a bit later. First, he stated that he ran for congress in 1994 because he "hated" Bill Clinton - the current president. He was elected and over the next 6 years learned to work with the Republican congress and Clinton. He correctly identified that this was a period of unprecedented economic growth. You will recall that many months ago, I showed that since WW2 the singular most potent economic time was the 6 years of Clinton and the Republican congress. They had to work together.

According to Joe, he and Bill have become close friends - don't agree on a lot of things but respect each other's opinions.

Now the story: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams apparently disliked each other. The both had signed the Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July, 1776. 50 years later, as Jefferson lay dying (late July 3rd) he asked the doc if it was July 4th yet. Told no, Jefferson went back to sleep. He repeated this a couple of more times until the doc answered that it was indeed the 4th of July, 1826. Thomas Jefferson then died.

In another place, John Adams lay on his death bed and died on the same day. His last words to his family were, "Thomas Jefferson survives". Two old battlers who respected one another, died on the same day.

According to Joe S., the system is now broken. There is so much partisanship, that they cannot get anything done. He had equal blame on both parties for the partisanship. To be fair to Joe, he was brutal on Obama (he and I disagree here), just not so much on the partisanship issue.

There is Hope For Us All

This may seem trivial, but I simply don't agree.

In describing the events in baseball where Armando Gallaraga had a perfect game taken away from him by an imperfect umpire, Jim Joyce, I mentioned that the ump fessed up to his mistake.

So, does admitting one's mistake make a difference to Americans? I can answer yes in the case of myself and those from Detroit who go to baseball games.

As mentioned, Joyce admitted his mistake and you could see he was genuinely devastated by that mistake. The young man from Venezuela, Gallaraga, was very kind in saying that mistakes happen - we are all human. He could have exploded on Joyce, claimed racism against Venezuelans because of their idiot political leader, he could have cussed or been demonstrative. Who wouldn't? Gallaraga.

This incredibly poised young man had a rare feat stolen from him, and yet he smiled and graciously gave the ump an out. No pun intended. Wow.

The next day brings another game (same teams, same umps) so the manager of Detroit has Gallaraga take the lineup card to the umpire. The umpire is Jim Joyce. Because Mr. Joyce, who will be infamously remembered, had taken responsibility, and because Gallaraga had been so gracious, the fans cheered Jim Joyce, Gallaraga, and the Detroit Tigers.

There is hope for us - taking responsibility for one's actions, failures and successes alike, is still rewarded and appreciated. Incredibly reasonable.

Imperfect World of Sports

Yesterday a young man, Armando Gallarago, pitching for the Detroit Tigers, had a perfect game. 27 up, 27 down. Oops, the ump called the runner safe, almost inexplicably, and thus the perfecto was broken up. Instant replay clearly shows the error and the ump, to his credit, admitted his mistake.

About an hour after that, in game 3 of the NHL playoffs, Philly appeared to score a goal but the referee didn't see it so the play continued on for about 1 1/2 minutes. At the next whistle, they used video review and determined that a goal had been scored. They actually awarded the goal, and then wiped out the 1 1/2 minutes of action that had occurred erroneously.

My point is, the first game, baseball with all its tradition, couldn't get it right and the second game, hockey with all its traditions, could get it right.

MLB should rule the last out was an out and the perfecto was indeed achieved by Armando Gallarago.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could go back and fix all of the problems we experience in our lives just by reviewing video?

Politics - Becoming the Root of All Evil

Used to be that money was the root of all evil - or so the saying went. To borrow from the gun lobby - money doesn't create evil, people create evil. Now, having said that, people with money who steal from the rest of us - take bankers for example - are, in fact, evil personified.

As usual though, I digress. Politics has become evil incarnate.

Republicans, who have many things that they could be concentrating on - such as trying not to tork off the fastest growing sector of the electorate - have decided to try to make a connection between the Obama administration's response to the oil spill and the Bush administration's response to Katrina.

Look no further than elevation to see the difference. The problem in the ocean is that it is more than a mile underwater. You cannot just send thousand of troops to go plug the hole. You cannot send one to plug the hole. BP has the equipment, barely, to work in the PSI that far underwater. The coast guard is there to oversee the effort, again as best as they can.

Katrina - the city was under say 20 feet of water and the people were sitting on their roofs or in the attic. As soon as the wind died down and the water began to recede, thousands of federal troops could have been on the streets, in boats, etc. to assist those people.

No comparison. It is disingenuous to compare the lack of deep sea equipment with the terrible lack of compassion associated with Katrina. I think the goal of the Republicans is two fold:

• Try to embarrass the democratic president, thus helping their election prospects in November
• Try to deflect our attention from oil drilling gone bad, really bad, and make us some how think the government could have stopped this.

Isn't it interesting that they call Obama a socialist and now are critical that the government isn't enough involved?

Not that the federal government couldn't be doing more to help. They can assist with the attempt to keep the oil off the beaches and marshes. If that requires thousands of people, get at it.