Must-See Video

A great photo-essay on the Iraqi elections here. Great choice of music too: Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Rights of Man.

The Slippery Slope

So, you want all the social benefits of the utopian, socialistic society, eh? You want our culture to be more "liberated" in it's thinking, eh? You want us to be more "progressive" in our views of sex, eh?

Look at what it got the Germans:

A 25-year-old waitress who turned down a job providing "sexual services''
at a brothel in Berlin faces possible cuts to her unemployment benefit under
laws introduced this year.

You see, now that prostitution is legal and a recognized "career", you can't turn down the "opportunity" to take a job as such if one is offered by the all-powerful government.

Under Germany's welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job – including in the sex industry – or lose her unemployment benefit.

Be careful what you ask for......you may just get it.

Deductable?

via Acidman

A bank robber has been allowed to claim the £1,400 cost of the gun he used
as a legitimate business expense.

The 46-year-old criminal was able to set the price of the pistol
against his gross proceeds of £4,700, which he stole in the southern Dutch town
of Chaam.
Jailing him for four years, the judge at Breda criminal court
reduced his fine by that amount.
The Dutch prosecutors' service said
yesterday that the judge had followed sound legal precedents.

Leendert De Lange, a spokesman, said: "You can compare criminal acts to
normal business activities, where you must invest to make profits, and thus you
have costs."

Read the rest. Oy. Citizens are treated like criminals when they defend themselves and crimals are treated like legitimate businessmen when they deduct the "tools of the trade". Good grief. And Michael Moron thinks we should be more European? Over my dead body.

Social Security Reform

There is a lot of banter lately about President Bush's proposal to allow younger workers to place some of their retirement funds in private accounts. The seasoned citizens and many, many, many others are wailing and gnashing their teeth over this. I heard a report this morning where an older gentleman said: "They should just leave it the way it is, I don't want my benefits cut." and a young(er) lady said: "I don't know anything about investing, I think they should just do it for me."

Sheesh. Where is the personal responsibility that everyone is so keen on? Where is the knowledgeable debate? The old guy should have known that his bennies wouldn't be affected by this reform. He's golden and going to stay just like he is. The lady makes me sick by her logic that since she doesn't want to learn about it, the rest of us should suffer.

The plan is to allow younger workers (probably younger than 45, I hope, since I'm only 41!) invest a portion of their SS monies into a privately-managed account. That means that we could invest some of this just like we do our 401k and other retirement assets. What's so scary about that? I know why the polititians are not supporting it...Because it takes away some of their power. But why are the citizens opposed to it? Good grief. Do you not know that all of the money you "contribute" to the Social Security fund is:
1. No longer yours
2. Not in a fund at all

Al gore talked all about his "lock box", but no one ever brought up the fact that there is no money in SS at all. NONE. AT. ALL. Did you get that? All of the money that is take in under the current system is immediately put in the general fund and spent with reckless abandon, with an I.O.U. slip put in the SS "lock box". Luckily, we still put more money in than is taken out, so the IOU's aren't more than the revenues needed to pay the recipients. That is all going to change...Soon.

Did you also know that no matter how much you "contribute" to the fund, there is no guarantee

that you will get any of it back. remember, it's your retirement money. You earned it sweating out the years at work, but you have no claim to it at all. If you should die at the age of 50, having contributed 10's of thousands of dollars, your estate does not own any of that asset.

What if it was in a private account and you died? Hmmmm? Your estate would control the funds and they could be used any way your deem proper. That thought strikes fear and loathing into the hearts of the money-grabbers on Capitol Hill.

Think about this before you have a knee-jerk reaction to the breathless reporting from the press.

Local Politics

From Chris Graham

LANDES MARKS SUCCESS IN EFFORT TO STRIP THE CODE:
Weyers Cave Republican Del. Steve Landes has been working since 1997 to
remove outdated and obsolete laws from the state code.

On Tuesday, the sixth bill in his 2005 legislative package aimed at
stripping down the code book passed the House of Delegates.

The legislation covers areas from definitions for highway vehicles to a
1950 law requiring Dickenson and Buchanan counties to pay for game wardens to a
1954 prohibition against hunting deer with a rifle in Essex County.

"I am grateful to my colleagues in the House of Delegates for adopting
these common-sense measures to reduce the number of obsolete laws we still have
on the books in Virginia," Landes said on Tuesday.

"This yearly effort, which is now completed by the Virginia Code
Commission on which I serve, simplifies and clarifies the Code of Virginia and
the Acts of Assembly for all our citizens," Landes said.

This is a great effort. Any time a legislator removes laws, it is a good thing. Go Steve!

Blog, Interrupted

Sorry, life got in the way for a couple of weeks. But mom-in-law is now moved in and we should be getting back to a somewhat normal schedule now

Bush Certified, Dems Cry

Bwaaaaaaa




Barbara Bozo Boxer in a moment of relaxed defeat.
Story

Bill meets Mike without puking

Bill Whittle recounts his recent editing session wherin he has to make Michael Moore look good. Then he segways nicely into a point MM was trying to blovate about. That is: Why do Righty Actor/Politicians get elected and Lefty Actors don't? Brilliant, as usual.

Back in the Saddle

I have been reading, reading, commenting, reading and reading some more on other blogs, but have been piss-poor in making posts of my own. No more, I say! Blog I have, and Blog I will.

I found this site today. Good review and analysis of Virginia Politics. Give them a look-see.

Thoughts from 37000 feet

November 17, 2004

I am again hovering 37,000 feet above the Earth moving around 300 MPH and having thoughts about life, why the clouds look like a beach sand, and why is there a women weighing in at over 300 pounds feels like she should take up 2 seats and only pay for one. Life amuses me at moments. I am fascinated by the prospect of success and failure by making one wrong decision that sometimes I am wrapped up into making that decision. Of course it most likely won’t be life threatening but it could very well be a life lesson. I have taken the steps to channel this focus by reading the Traveler’s Gift, seven life lessons for success. Now the implementations of those steps are the critical factor in my changing paradigm of life. As a trained scientist one of basic premises that I always allow myself is to ask one simple question, why? The question of “why” could be damning or enlightening depending on its use. My experience so far has lead me to conclude that when I ask someone why that is not confident they typically get angry and defensive but that leads me to ask them, “why are you getting angry and defensive?” We all knows were this is going to lead. How can one three letter word be so threatening, why?

One my many travels to date, one thing that I wanted to do but never did was to create a journal of my experiences and write a book about it, entitled Life in a Silver Tube. A catchy fun look at life as a business traveler. Recount things such as: the bad restaurants and the good ones, the fun time I had with the TSA agents one night, they don’t get amused to easily especially since they don’t really have any power and desperately want more, or more fun, my exploits as I people watch. For those that are amused by people watching, I can recommend a good layover stop in just about any airport but the hubs get the most activity. Especially when you mix east coasters and the west that is quite fun indeed. These United States of America have some pretty amazing funny people, no wonder the rest of the world either wants to be one of us and immigrates or wants to be one of us and criticizes us for being Americans. We don’t have the history, homes, topography, or diversity as Europe but we have something better. The destined desire to be ourselves and to be free, just like the license plates states boldly, “Live Free or Die” Yeah buddy. We have bastardized the Old World English language to suit our needs and have even departed that to create didactic regional differences.

For me, I am a southerner. I love everything about the south, the people, the places, the music, and the stories. But I also love to interact with others from around these states. One of my good friends is a die hard liberal from the Northeast. Lives in NYC and went to undergraduate school in Boston. You really can’t any more liberal than that if you ask me but I love to banter back and forth with him. I love that he can’t stand the three speeds of the south slow, stop, and dead. To him he is so much on the move that he wants only to sleep when he is dead. Me, I love to stop by the side of the country road and taste the honeysuckle. Such a dichotomy but still both very American and that is the country that I see. Which is why I laugh at the thought that the talking heads have their panties in a twist that this country is “divided”, well duh? Ever since the War of Northern Aggression there has been a division. When I look at the map of who voted for whom, I see a large swath of red and small densely concentrations of blue; a good friend of mine made a good observation of the political map, since the left are the so called champions of the poor, why is it that they only have strongholds in the most rich sections of the U.S. and can’t even make a dent in the “poor” sections. Heck look at California and you will see that the majority of the state voted for Bush but the rich population centers, San Francisco and Los Angeles all voted for Kerry. I personally think that the votes Kerry got were not by people who really wanted Kerry but by those that fell into the “Anyone but Bush” crowd. Now that is a scary thought. But we don’t have to worry about that until 2008. For now, Buffett is playing in my headset, the sky is still blue, the clouds remind me of the beach at low tide, and that very large women has finally given up trying to squeeze into one seat and has raised the armrest and spilled over to the middle seat.

Ciao

Post-Election wrap

Yes, I haven't posted anything since the election. Frankly, I was in awe of the fine job everyone was doing everywhere else. Besides, no one reads this blog! (yet, that is)

So anyway, you all know what's going on. I am thinking about a piece about this whole "morality" vote.

The Global War on Terror - Where We Stand

Kevin from Wizbang has done an excellent job recapping the history and current position we find ourselves in the WoT. Go read the whole thing, you won't be dissapointed.

Launch Point