Wednesday, September 29, 2010

What Kind of Union ... ?

Watching reports about Steven Colbert testifying before Congress about illegal immigrants at hearings ultimately sponsored by the United Farm Workers made me wonder about something that left me puzzled for some time. What kind of union takes care of its workers by encouraging workers who would undercut the employability of its members? What could they possibly think would happen to their current workers by encouraging dilution of the work force? The argument they make is that then all the workers will be union and the wage will not be undercut; but this benefits only the union coffers and not the individual worker - neither the existing member nor the new one. Typically, work is fairly divided with each getting a supposedly equal share. (I know this one having suffered through it doing union work in the 70's and 80's. We spent a lot of time is US District Court) But what that really means is that the worker makes less than they would have without the union. But the union officers ... they do well.

Similarly what was the AARP thinking when they pushed a medical plan that takes from Medicare to give to people of an age when they should be working and able to pay their own way. Shooting their members in the foot they are.

Endgame

(Let me be the gloom preceding everyone's doom)

In life as in chess, moves sometimes are inevitable and unavoidable after a point. I think politically we are there now. Everyone is so relieved that the Republicans are (most likely) going to retake the House of Representatives and Senate in six weeks. But let me tell you how it will play out due to a fifth column press and unthinking gullible voters.

The lame duck House and Senate will ram through a number of seriously damaging pieces of legislation in the remaining weeks of 2010, "Cap and Trade", "Card Check", "Amnesty for illegal aliens" and probably more. President Obama will sign them immediately. The incoming House and Senate will try to rescind or repeal those nation-destroying bills of the 111th Congress.

The President will veto them.

The press will demonize the 112th Congress for being against the common man even though most of the new laws that they are trying to overturn benefit certain elite groups and individuals.

There will be insufficient voting strength to overturn the veto.

The new laws of the 111th congress will further deteriorate the economic state of the US, with expatriation of the super-wealthy, with collapse of the remaining industrial base, and disruptions in fuel and food supply.

The whole time the press will excoriate the 112th Congress for the damage they have have done in exact counterpoint to how they blamed Bush for the damage of the 110th Congress.

And finally, debt will collapse the US dollar which will render moot the U. S. Constitution and leave George Soros, Obama, and Obama's brownshirts* (who are currently mobilizing for an anti-tea-party march in Washington DC) to step-in to fill the void to the thanks and the cheers of the ignorant American underclasses, the press, and the newest political elites.
Checkmate!

Where are Proportion and Consistancy?

As I was driving between jobs this morning, I noticed three police cars arranged in a semi-circle blocking off a through road nearby. As I drove on I passed a police command-and-control truck as large as a fire truck racing toward the scene. But, a little further away on a side street I found the front of a sub-division where one of my schools is located blocked.
I went on to my destination, another school and went about my business. Later, I found out what the scare was about: a woman threw a box under a bus while both were stopped at a stoplight; and the bus had proceeded on to its destination, a minor elementary school. Now, when the police are called they must do their thing and go by the book. But who called and why? Did a student on the bus exaggerate someone littering to avoid a test or overdue homework? Or did some passerby see someone dispose of their McDonald's breakfast out the window? Or maybe, it was a serious but inefficient serious threat from the bus driver's jilted spouse or lover? In any reasonable event, it was not an international jihadi terrorist going to claim her 72 virgins at Minor Elementary.

But all this is prelude to my point. After hearing the news report on the radio I spoke with several people at a nearby middle school who were all of the opinion that we can't be too careful in this day and age, it just might be a Muslim terrorist. Now why the Muslim extremists would pick this minor elementary, Minor Elementary, I have no idea. World Trade Center, Pentagon, Eiffel Tower I can see. But a minor school in the middle of nowhere in suburban Atlanta? Why start here?

But even this is only prelude. MY real observation is that these women that are telling me that there is every reason to always fear the worst about the possibility of terrorists attacking this group of kindergarteners through fifth graders are the very same ones by whom I recently was lectured about how the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks on 9/11 were Bush's staged inside jobs. Now, which is it? Are they out to get us or aren't they? Or are they only really out to get us if a Democrat is President?

But seriously, ladies, if the world is that scary and fearful a place, maybe you better go home and hide under your bed - all day, every day.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Aren't Progressives Wonderful People?

This is a fascinating speech by War Against the Weak author Edwin Black who also wrote IBM and the Holocast.
It was an interesting dissertation about the English and American origins of Eugenics in the Hitlerian style. What was conspicuous to me though was that there was no mention of the terms Fabian, Socialist, or Progressive; even though he named many of the most important people in those movements. It almost seems like a conscious omission. He even answered a question whether the eugenics movement still existed by saying "Yes, in the Aryan Nation". That is a prison gang and of no general influence in the outside world. Later, he calls in and answers a question about whether socialized medicine has eugenic impact by stating emphatically that "no, only national policy would do that", completely ignoring that rationing would accomplish exactly that while all would be benignly blaming economics; and further ignoring that the elites will always have the best access to medicine whether they are corporate giants or powerful and connected politicians thus naturally selecting themselves and their kin and ilk.

WARNING: This is an hour and three minute long video. You should watch but it is long.

Monday, September 13, 2010

More Foreclosure ... I thought there was a recovery.

I have been following the legal notices for some time now. A year ago I was astounded how many foreclosures there were in the paper of record for Gwinnett County (suburban Atlanta) where I live. Last Thursday was this month's posting. Still more than 150 nine column pages of foreclosure notices. I found myself wondering how many there actually were, but I am too lazy to count. Fortunately, WSB news counted for me and broadcast the news as I was driving to one of my schools. 2100 foreclosures this month. Last year at this time I computed the count of column inches as 28,000. This years there are almost exactly the same number of pages with exactly the same number of columns, 9 per page, for a total again of 28,000 inches - 10 inches per listing. Only one problem the ones I see are not 10 inches long. I think they have under-reported the number of foreclosures. Could that be deliberate?

Saturday, September 4, 2010

A Little Disappointed

For a long time, I have been defending the "Tea Party Movement" from charges that Tea Party is a religious movement, from the perception that somehow fundamentalist Christians were the only ones who opposed a massive Federal government. The media tries very hard to paint those who oppose the ever-increasing concentration of authority and power at that one level of governance as narrow-minded "think-as-I-think" religious zealots. Well, many of us are handing them the brush to paint us with.

On Saturday August 28th, Glenn Beck held a gathering at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. He called it the Restoring Honor rally. Although I did not go, it seems to me that this is more than an honorable, admirable pursuit, it is a necessity if we are to prevent becoming slaves to a modern feudal system based out of Washington, DC. But suddenly I am seeing in my mailbox and on my Facebook watched an undercurrent of "Glen Beck is a ... Mormon". "He is trying to be the religious leader of the country". There seems to be as much backlash from the far right Christians as from the far left Socialists. Well, I missed the part where he was trying to make me a Mormon. I heard it as go back to your church; and he appears to be trying very hard to keep a balance of faiths so it remains non-sectarian. I guess there really are levels at which the far-right and far-left are similar. Both are screaming as they see a threat from individual thought and freedom.

So, to the "Tea Party" candidate who barrages my mailbox daily, You miss the point. It is not about replacing one earthly master with another. We are no better served as servants of a theocratic ruling class than a secular one. It is about our personal sovereignty. We do not belong to the Imperial Federal Government to be used and abused as the ruling class desires; no matter whether that ruling class is bureaucrats or theocrats. They belong to us. They are our employees and as such we can give them no more rights than we have ourselves. We can not give them the right to steal or the right to kill. These are not rights that we ever possessed to give them. It really is time for us to remind them and put them back into check. We will never be able to do that as long as we self-divide on whether we are Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Atheist, or Mormon. We will have to stand together on this. We shall all stand together or we shall all hang separately.

Indian Givers

I was never certain if the term Indian Giver referred to the South-Asian sub-continent or the American aboriginal Indian. But now I am fairly certain that it refers to the American aboriginal variety - Mexican in particular. There is a tremendous area of southern Arizona that has become off-limits to American citizens due to being unsafe. I have not once heard the mainstream media refer to this area by its name. That name we all had to learn in sixth grade geography: The Gadsden Purchase. Known as Venta de La Mesilla, or "Sale of La Mesilla" in Mexico, this was the last territorial acquisition of the continental United States and was purchased by Franklin Pierce for a mere ten million pre-inflation gold dollars. (Someone on Wikipedia extrapolates that to 241.333 million of todays dollars. 25 to 1 is a four cent dollar. About right.)

I do understand that the purchase gives the continental United States that linear filled in geometric look of our border that we are all familiar with, but if the Mexicans really want that land that badly; and if, apparently, our Government does not really wish to continue owning it; then maybe, they should sell it back de jure rather than give it back de facto. With improvements, it should be worth considerably more than 241 million dollars in gold. Lets see, there are highways, and the restaurants in Tucson and ...