Those Aren't Cuts!

Remember that budget deal that all of those weasels in Congress waited until the very last freaking minute to agree upon? Yeah, that's the one. And remember how they were all smiles afterward and acted like they had accomplished something monumental? (I know that whenever they do nothing they think it's monumental, but this time they were really pleased with their own act.) And then after it was all said and done we were told that they managed to cut about $38 billion dollars? Remember? Of course you do! It was only a couple of days ago for cryin' out loud. It turns out that the $38 billion dollars that they claim to be cutting isn't anywhere close to what they actually cut. No, in fact, the amount that they actually cut is so ridiculous that it seems damn near pointless to cut it at all. It really is a "Why bother?" scenario.

This new but not surprising information comes to us from the fine folks over there at The Washington Post. They learned from the Congressional Budget Office that "A federal budget compromise that was hailed as historic for proposing to cut about $38 billion would reduce federal spending by only $352 million this fiscal year, less than 1 percent of the bill’s advertised amount". Now look, I'm not one to be someone to claim "Oh, that's just a drop in the bucket." But, come on! $352 million?! Less than one freaking percent?! How did this happen? I'll tell you how this happened. It happened in part because "...$13 billion to $18 billion of the cuts involve money that existed only on paper and was unlikely to be tapped in the next decade." Oh, good! They're trying to fix our impending fiscal doom with accounting tricks. Next up? Fun house mirrors! And they act so freaking proud of themselves.

Here's the best part. Even though those $352 million in cuts will happen, for some reason, no one felt like factoring in "emergency" money for military action. You know. Like if we end up in Libya or something like that. (Yeah, like that's really going to happen. Wait. Didn't we....? Yeah. We did. Hmm. Disregard that statement.) Now, I don't know why they wouldn't factor those things in. If I'm doing a household budget and I have emergency money that I have spent or am spending, I'm going to have to factor in that it's going to get used. There's no way around that. You can call it whatever you want, but you still have to count it. But I'm guessing that the reason that they didn't want to count it when they were forming the budget out of snake oil is because if they did then "...the overall spending for this fiscal year may actually increase, by more than $3 billion." Oh, for cryin' out loud!

Their little accounting tricks don't end there. "A Washington Post analysis of the 459-page budget revealed at least 98 cases in which Congress took back unused IOUs and called it a cut." HOW is that a cut? Don't answer that. There's more. "When the Capitol Visitor Center was under construction, lawmakers allotted $621 million to pay for it. The project wound up costing less than $600 million. In the compromise budget, lawmakers took back $15 million of the unused budget authority." Well, I should hope that they took it back! They didn't USE IT!

I'm making myself crazy here. This is insane. Instead of saving any money at all, Congress has very well (and probably very likely) passed a budget that is going to be costing the country MORE money. And people wonder why folks get so up in arms about spending! It's because it is out of control. President Barry said the other day that the greatest threat to our national security was our debt. And if he truly believes that and he ends up signing this budget, then we are so scroomed that there's not even any point. If both sides of Congress are going to flat out lie to us, it's over. And both sides, by saying that this budget cuts $38 billion dollars, are lying to us. Thus, it's over. We're scroomed. Goodbye, sweet America.

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No Mo Spending!

Holy crap. Someone in Washington (well, more than one someone) has actually come up with a list of proposed cuts to cut Federal spending. It actually happened. I'm stunned. Now, there's no guarantee that any of these things are going to actually get cut. But as I read the list, I was wondering how in the world we ended up spending a freaking DIME on some of these things! Seriously. Did you know that annually, the Federal government shells out $1 million in (wait for it) mohair subsidies?! Subsidies for the hair of a mo! I've never even seen a mo! How much hair do they have? How much do they need? Why do the mos and their hair require my money?! Ah, so many questions, so few answers. Let's look at some other proposed cuts that I can't believe we're already spending money on. (For the record, while I am a proponent of almost any sort of cut in spending, I am against any cuts to any sort of non-wasteful, effective spending on our military and for our veterans. Listen, you take a job knowing that you could end up stationed in one of the crazy, crazy Sand Lands for a few years, the least I can do is help you out a little bit when you get back.)

Get this: Did you know that there is a "death gratuity" for members of Congress? There is. Do you know what that means? I didn't, but when I looked it up, I was appalled. If you're a member of Congress and you die, your family gets a payment (that is paid for by the taxpayers) that is equal to one year's salary. According to something called The Daily Caller, when crooked ol' John Murtha croaked it "his family got a $174,000 payment". When the overly ancient Sen. Robert Byrd died, "...his family received $193,400." When Sen. Ted Kennedy died, "...taxpayers footed the bill for $174,000 in payments to his family." Do you think that ol' Ted Kennedy's family needed almost $200k? I can't possibly imagine that they did. Apparently, this thing "...was at one time meant to act as a form of life insurance for the families of Members who met an untimely demise". But now that almost every single Senator is a millionaire, I'm hardly thinking that this is necessary. (By the way, when my dad died, do you know how much the Social Security payout was to my mom? $252. Not $252 thousand. $252. I was so insulted I almost told them to keep it. Oh, and this was in 2005, not the fifties or anything. And I know that it's sort of apples and oranges, but they're both fruits, so there's some parallel here. Man, I like fruit.)

What else? Oh, they want to eliminate the Davis-Bacon Act (which has been screwing taxpayers since 1931) to save more than $1 billion annually. This Act basically made it so that government contracts must pay a prevailing wage. According to Wikipedia (take it for what it's worth), "All federal government construction contracts, and most contracts for federally assisted construction over $2,000, must include provisions for paying workers on-site no less than the locally prevailing wages and benefits paid on similar projects." So, there's no getting anything done cheaper if you can. Nope. No sense in even bidding low. Nope. That it costs over a billion dollars a year makes me insane. That it has been in effect since 1931 (even though it has been suspended from time to time), makes me even crazier. Wouldn't you think that someone would realize that if it is being suspended (for reasons such as faster recovery from hurricanes) on occasion and things are just fine without it, shouldn't it pretty much be deemed unnecessary? Oh, wait. It's a government program. Never mind.

Did you know that we provide economic assistance to Egypt? We do. Do you know how much assistance we provide Egypt? $250 million per year. Do you know WHY we assist Egypt? Neither do I. Their economy ranks 27th in the world. That's not too shabby. Their unemployment rate in 2009 was 9.37%. Um, that's kind of about the same as the unemployment here in the US. You don't think that we could have used that $250 million to economically assist our own citizens? Unbelievable. By the way, we're also giving $17 million dollars each year to Ireland. No answer for that one, either.

And this little recap wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention that we spent $76 million annually on something called the Appalachian Regional Commission. According to their website, "The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) is a regional economic development agency that represents a partnership of federal, state, and local government." Why just in the Appalachian region? Let's see...well, it was established in 1965 by an act of Congress. OK. I'm noticing that it seems to encompass all of West Virginia, so I'm going to have to assume that a Senator from West Virginia was heavily involved in this getting started. Hmm...I'm also reading that it has something to do with the War on Poverty in the mountains. OK, that's it. What a bunch of crap. $76 million? Really? For 40 years? Unbelievable.

Below is the entire list of cuts that are proposed by my new heroes (well, for today), the Republican Study Committee (courtesy of The Huffington Post). Their study claims that "The plan would reduce federal spending by $2.5 trillion over a decade". So when you hear some softhead say something to the effect of "it's just a drop in the bucket", please remind their dense, non-functioning selves that if you don't start putting drops of water IN the bucket, you're never going to fill up the bucket! You have to start somewhere! What part of that don't people understand?! Stop spending my money on the hair of the mo!

➢ Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy. $445 million annual savings.

➢ Save America's Treasures Program. $25 million annual savings.
➢ International Fund for Ireland. $17 million annual savings.
➢ Legal Services Corporation. $420 million annual savings.
➢ National Endowment for the Arts. $167.5 million annual savings.
➢ National Endowment for the Humanities. $167.5 million annual savings.
➢ Hope VI Program. $250 million annual savings.
➢ Amtrak Subsidies. $1.565 billion annual savings.
➢ Eliminate duplicative education programs. H.R. 2274 (in last Congress), authored by Rep. McKeon, eliminates 68 at a savings of $1.3 billion annually.
➢ U.S. Trade Development Agency. $55 million annual savings.
➢ Woodrow Wilson Center Subsidy. $20 million annual savings.
➢ Cut in half funding for congressional printing and binding. $47 million annual savings.
➢ John C. Stennis Center Subsidy. $430,000 annual savings.
➢ Community Development Fund. $4.5 billion annual savings.
➢ Heritage Area Grants and Statutory Aid. $24 million annual savings.
➢ Cut Federal Travel Budget in Half. $7.5 billion annual savings.
➢ Trim Federal Vehicle Budget by 20%. $600 million annual savings.
➢ Essential Air Service. $150 million annual savings.

➢ Technology Innovation Program. $70 million annual savings.
➢ Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program. $125 million annual savings.
➢ Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization. $530 million annual savings.
➢ Beach Replenishment. $95 million annual savings.
➢ New Starts Transit. $2 billion annual savings.
➢ Exchange Programs for Alaska, Natives Native Hawaiians, and Their Historical Trading Partners in Massachusetts. $9 million annual savings.
➢ Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants. $2.5 billion annual savings.
➢ Title X Family Planning. $318 million annual savings.
➢ Appalachian Regional Commission. $76 million annual savings.
➢ Economic Development Administration. $293 million annual savings.
➢ Programs under the National and Community Services Act. $1.15 billion annual savings.
➢ Applied Research at Department of Energy. $1.27 billion annual savings.
➢ FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership. $200 million annual savings.
➢ Energy Star Program. $52 million annual savings.
➢ Economic Assistance to Egypt. $250 million annually.
➢ U.S. Agency for International Development. $1.39 billion annual savings.
➢ General Assistance to District of Columbia. $210 million annual savings.
➢ Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. $150 million annual savings.

➢ Presidential Campaign Fund. $775 million savings over ten years.
➢ No funding for federal office space acquisition. $864 million annual savings.
➢ End prohibitions on competitive sourcing of government services.
➢ Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act. More than $1 billion annually.
➢ IRS Direct Deposit: Require the IRS to deposit fees for some services it offers (such as processing payment plans for taxpayers) to the Treasury, instead of allowing it to remain as part of its budget. $1.8 billion savings over ten years.
➢ Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees. $1 billion total savings.
➢ Prohibit taxpayer funded union activities by federal employees. $1.2 billion savings over ten years.
➢ Sell excess federal properties the government does not make use of. $15 billion total savings.
➢ Eliminate death gratuity for Members of Congress.
➢ Eliminate Mohair Subsidies. $1 million annual savings.
➢ Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. $12.5 million annual savings.
➢ Eliminate Market Access Program. $200 million annual savings.
➢ USDA Sugar Program. $14 million annual savings.
➢ Subsidy to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). $93 million annual savings.
➢ Eliminate the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program. $56.2 million annual savings.
➢ Eliminate fund for Obamacare administrative costs. $900 million savings.
➢ Ready to Learn TV Program. $27 million savings.

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Mayoral Sanctioned Squandering

Many, many idiotic notions have been gaining steam lately. There is just a large segment of society that has embraced the asinine and gone with it. One of the more notable segments would be all of the lawmakers in various cities around the country who have voted to boycott Arizona because of their implementation of an immigration enforcement law that almost exactly mirrors federal law (but differs because it isn't as strict as federal law). Morons.

Now, listen...the last time that I checked, the majority of individual cities and states across this great nation of ours have enough problems of their own. They really don't need to be spending a lot of time worrying about what other states and cities are doing. They certainly don't need to be wasting both time and money on what other states are doing. So why in the world the Sacramento City Council was wasting their time and money on deciding whether or not to boycott Arizona (in opposition of their perfectly legal immigration enforcement law) is completely beyond me. That is, it was completely beyond me until I heard Mayor Kevin Johnson explain the rationale behind the asshattery that seems to be going on.

I realize that I should be providing a link for the quote below. But I can't find it. I had to transcribe it from the Hour 4 segment of the Armstrong & Getty Show podcast from yesterday (somewhere right around the 20:00 mark). Usually they have links to these sort of things, but yesterday they didn't. It's there, though. I swear it's there. I wouldn't mislead you. Much. But today, not at all. Here is what the mayor of Sacramento had to say about the allegations that passing such sanctions against Arizona is squandering and wasting taxpayer dollars. I hope you're sitting down.

"I would say that for those of us who believe that we squandered and wasted taxpayer dollars, um, I believe a threat, um, you know, an unjust law anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. But we squander taxpayer dollars at a lot of council meetings by wasting time on issues that are city issues. So I'd like to see us be much more efficient on the way we conduct ourselves. Not just on non-city issues, but certainly within the city of Sacramento." Wuck?!

That's right. Don't worry about the taxpayer dollars that were squandered just on the Arizona immigration law boycott because they squander taxpayer dollars all the freaking time! No worries! It happens all the time! They are completely inefficient at making the best use of taxpayer dollars! This is nothing new! Don't get yourself all in a wad over this! No big deal. It's a very every day occurrence. ::: sigh ::: I want to stab myself.

Does he realize that he admitted that the Arizona boycott was a "non-city issue"? That it is an issue that doesn't have anything to do with the city? Thus, the city shouldn't be doing anything about the issue, let alone squandering taxpayer dollars?! When I can finally locate the clip so that I can link to it, you'll have to hear how he laughs when he makes that statement. He thinks it's pretty funny that they're all a bunch of inefficient losers. Nice. Just what Sacramento needs leading it into doom. A funny man mayor. Great. Let's see how this whole boycott thing works out for you, Sacramento. Actually, with a mayor with that sort of attitude, let's just see how everything else works out for you. Enjoy your squandering!

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No More Funds For Fatties

For all of you who reside in the US and are just in love with all of these taxpayer subsidized programs that President Barry is enacting, you'd better slow down and check yourselves just to double check to think about whether they're really a good idea or not. After all, when people start to just be handed things without any effort on their part, they become a people that I don't think having an entire country full of would be of any great benefit. I don't even think it would be of any small benefit. The only benefit I see coming out of President Barry's social programs is that the programs will give us plenty of examples of what not to do in the future should the notion ever come up again that some people should be handed everything in their lives. It doesn't end well. Just take a gander over at the UK there to see what I'm talking about.

For instance, let's look at a one 25-year old Laura Ripley who lives somewhere in the UK. According to the Daily Mail, Ms. Ripley is unemployed and overweight. The unemployed moniker is probably a stretch though, as she has never worked in her quarter of a century on this planet. And the overweight moniker could be worse, as she used to weigh 38 stone (one stone = 14 pounds. I don't know why they go with "stone". Probably because they use "pound" for their currency and would be getting the two different pounds mixed up all of the time.) and now she weighs a mere 22 stone. I'll do the math for you so that you can be shocked that she used to weigh a whopping 532 pounds and now is down to a comparatively speaking svelte 308 pounds. Still a large gal, yes. See for yourself. Behold!

Definitely tough to knock over. But I digress. Anyway, she is, of course, on the British version of welfare because she's (wait for it) too fat to work. Well, she was too fat to work...until the British government paid for gastric band surgery and she lost 224 pounds! Fabulous! Now she can work, right? Not so fast. See, part of the money that she was receiving from the government was disability money because she's what? Too fat to work, that is correct. But when you drop off 224 pounds and you end up weighing only 308, you're still linebacker material, no getting around that fact, but you're not the entire defensive line anymore, so I'd call that progress! And so does the British government. And it's just the kind of progress that they were hoping for when they were the ones that footed the bill for her gastric bypass surgery! (That's quite a system you've got going over there, Britain. Quite a system indeed.) Here's why they offered it to her. Behold!

Because of all of the weight losing, Ms. Ripley no longer gets the money that she used to receive for being what? Too fat to work, that's right! And she is now...what? Bitching about it, correct! Because when fat, one receives £600 a month in benefits, but when one gets rid of some fat then they lose about £340 a month. (Now here's where the British pound comes in. Again, different from the US pound and when converted we learn she was receiving $984.78 a month in benefits and is no longer eligible for the $558.02 of "too fat to work money". (I'm paraphrasing there, of course. I don't think that's really what they call it. It'd be a good name for it if they needed one, though.)

Now that loss of free and effortless income really is tough for some people. I think that the degree of entitlement is directly proportional to the degree of irrationality of the complaint of the hardship. Both of those factors are in direct proportion to how much other people cannot stand this sort of person. According to Ms. Ripley, "'Without my disability allowance I'm left with just £210 ($344.67) incapacity benefit which I get because of my depression, and £100 ($164.13) income support I receive every two weeks and out of that I have to give them back £70 ($114.89) towards the cost of the £500-a-month ($820.65) flat I'm living in." Seriously, does she say this with a straight face?

Listen up, buttercup. You're paying 14% of what your rent actually is, yet living in 100% of the flat. And even though you're paying that 14%, technically you're not even doing that because you're not working and that money is being given to you by your government! You're 25 years old there, honeybabe, and you've never worked a day in your life? And you're complaining about this arrangement? Is this ALL you're complaining about?

Sadly, no. See, now that she doesn't get as much free fat money, "This means she cannot afford to eat healthily - causing her to pile the weight back on." Wait. What? Can't afford it? What does she do? Glad you asked! "'I can't afford to buy Weight Watchers crisps and cereal bars any more so I eat Tesco's chocolate bars and packets of Space Invaders crisps, sometimes four of each a day', says Laura, who spends seven hours a day watching TV." Oh. My. God.

No! No! Hold that thought! There's more! See, before when she was getting the Funds for Fatties, that "...was spent on gym workouts, healthy food and having her hair highlighted." Because having highlighted hair really slims a person down, is that it? I don't think it is! See, this is what happens when people spend other people's money. They don't CARE what they spend it on because it's not theirs and they didn't have to EARN it. And they can always make justifications for why they do what they do with money that they don't have to earn. Sort of like how she explains her food choices by saying "'People ask why I don't snack on an apple - they're cheap, but emotionally I don't always feel like an apple." Um, what now?

That's why she eats crap. It's not that she can't pay for it, it's that she doesn't want to. Essentially, she's throwing a tantrum because her Funds for Fatties were discontinued. Oh, sure, she could go and get a job, but she's holding off on that because she'd like to get a tummy tuck-like operation "which would normally cost £12,000, to remove the saggy skin left behind after the dramatic weight loss, but only if she sheds a further five stone." Well, clearly, that isn't going to happen if she's all out of free money! Five stone..what is that? Seventy pounds? She just gained fourteen pounds over the past three weeks! I don't think that five stone is going to just melt off of her! But that's why she's not looking for a job to supplement her income.

Hold on. What?

Right. She's not looking for a job. Even though she's been deemed "fit to work" (and really, you'd have to be Manuel Uribe, the World's Fattest Man, at the very least in order to actually be too fat to work) and she needs the money, she's not looking because "'I'm not even applying for work at the moment because I'm only going to have to have lots of time off when I have more surgery." But you're not having any surgery until you lose another seventy pounds there, Einstein! Even if you lost a miraculous 5 pounds a week, that's fourteen weeks you're going to have until they can get you all tucked in again. MINIMUM fourteen weeks, but that's totally unrealistic, so it would be at least double that, I'm guessing. Still, that's 28 weeks. Can a person drop 70 pounds in about 7 months? Maybe, but not eating chocolate bars and chips all the live long day they can't.

But here's the best part. Here is where I completely twisted off. It's not like she's happy with this situation. No, it saddens her, as evidenced by this statement: 'It's heartbreaking that after all my hard work losing this weight someone's come along and ruined it."

Sooooooooo....by someone do you mean you?! You're the only one doing the eatin' over there! You're the only one watching seven hours of TV a day. (My God, seven hours? I'd shoot myself first.) You're the one not exercising and eating crap. If that's what you mean, then, yes, it is a shame that someone decided to choose to sabotage all of the work that had been done up until this point. See, if you had paid for that gastric bypass yourself, you would have felt like you made some sort of an investment in the whole deal. After all, if you're spending that kind of money on something, you wouldn't want it to be for nothing or to go to waste because you ballooned up like it was Super Bowl time and someone ordered up the Goodyear Blimp. But hey! You didn't spend the money, so what do you care if you end up as big as a house again? Not a bit. Nope. Don't care a bit.

Her parting plea for more free money really summed up how this woman looks at the world and what she feels that it is obligated to give to her. "I sometimes feel guilty about all the taxpayers' money that's been spent on me but I only want an extra £100 a month, that's all." I don't think that's guilt you're feeling. I think those are hunger pains. Oh, wait a minute. No they're not! Never mind, scratch that. But it still isn't guilt that you're feeling there, cupcake. (Mmmmm...cupcakes.)

That "extra £100 a month" that you want is (and pay attention here) SOMEONE ELSE'S MONEY! Someone else had to get up and go to work all day, every day whilst you sat at home in your flat which is heavily subsidized (sort of like you are!) and watched TV! Tell you what...you go out and find someone who works a full time job and then explain to them that you don't want to work but you do want them to give you £100 a month from their paycheck and see how well that goes over.

Talk about a 'Fail Whale'.

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Nice Job, Budget Hole

Wow. The California Legislature just does not get it. They just don't. This whole budget debacle has the state on the brink of insolvency and their solutions involve accounting and paperwork tricks, piracy and/or thievery of local governments, borrowing with an interest rate that has increased because the state has almost earned itself junk bond status, and making residents pay an accelerated income tax which results in another 10% being deducted from worker's paychecks. And the best part of this whole dealio? They ("they" being the legislature) act like this is something that has been done TO them. Rather, they've spent the last several years spending money like drunken sailors on leave in a whorehouse. (Sorry drunken sailors. Really, thanks for your service to our country!) They were warned/notified/slapped upside the head time and time again by not just fiscal conservatives, but by regular people who knew that the level of spending that California was doing was simply out of control and was going to result in financial doom. It did. But don't let that stop the Representatives from continuing to blame everything and everyone but themselves. They are awfully proud of their own act, I'll tell you what.

The budget was supposed to have been done sometime back in February, I think. Definitely by May. June 30th at the latest. Here it is the 24th of July and still no budget. But they claim to be close! In fact, theyu were so sure that they were close that there were pictures accompanying all of the news articles about this and they just showed the "Big 5" (which, while also the name of an awesome sporting goods store, really has nothing to do with sports and is just a newly made up term to refer to the top 5 honchos in the Legislature.) standing there just beaming with pride. And The Governator was just gushing about how they had done such a good job with this "difficult problem". Um, perhaps you self-important folks have forgotten this, but, uh, let's see...how do I put this? Oh, right! That's YOUR JOB!! That whole balancing the budget thing? YOUR JOB! Why are you so proud of yourself for doing YOUR JOB? And please don't forget that the only reason that you're having to "struggle" through this in the first place is because of YOUR reckless and irresponsible spending! It's YOUR fault and now YOU'RE fixing it and you act like you've just learned how to levitate! Don't like it? How about you try not forking out so much cash in the future there, Spendy McInsolvent-State.

Here's how they're going to save $1.2 billion (by the way, the amount of the government created deficit is $26.3 billion. I know! Didn't know they had it in them, did you? Yeah, try living here for a while. Nothing will surprise you. Nothing much.): Instead of paying state employees on June 30, they're going to pay them one day later on July 1. July 1 is the start of the new fiscal year. Thus, if you don't pay them on the last day of the old fiscal year, it won't be deducted from that year's budget! Isn't that ingenious of them?! It's such a brillia.....wait. What now?

That's the stupidest solution that they might have come up with yet. Are you kidding me? That's like if you can't figure out how you're going to make your car payment AND your house payment one month. You look at all of your expenses and finally you exclaim, "Honey! I've got it! We just won't pay our car payment this month and that will make it so we have enough money! I'm SO smart!" No. If you think like that, you're not smart, you're an idiot. You still have to PAY for it. Thus, in this example, next month you'll have to pay your car payment for that month AND you'll have to come up with the payment for the month before that you skipped. Er, I'm sorry, I mean "put off". For the payment that you "put off". It's not like they're not going to have to come up with another $1.2 billion EVENTUALLY. Or are they just planning on making this a regular occurence every year? They probably are. Consider it done.

They also always seem to want to borrow money from the lottery fund as well as tax the hell out of cigarettes, tobacco and alcohol. Now, while it might seem fiscally responsible to bank your state's budget on the lottery and cigarettes, it's a ridiculous tax in those instances. Sure, I understand that the theory/justification for taxing those products is because they have adverse effects to those who use them and the extra money collected as a tax goes toward things that are supposed to...I guess either warn people of the evils that await them should they indulge in those sinister produts or to help people after their lives have been ruined by that one wine cooler on a hot afternoon. And I'll concede that smoking is incredibly bad for you and will not end well. The jury is still out on whether any alcohol at all is fine and dandy, but overall, as long as used in moderation, alcohol hasn't nearly earned the scourge that has been attached to it. But here's where that argument falters: If it's the adverse effects of using these products, does that mean that there's going to be a bacon tax in the future? An ice cream tax? A pie tax? (Mmmm. Pie.) Obesity is a huge problem (no pun intended) in this country and it's due to the abuse of the fatty foods. But do you hear anyone screaming for the Hostess Police? Only if they've stolen your Twinkies. Ouch.

One of the other highlights in their pathetic proposition is to cut funding for state parks by $8 million. The Governator had originally wanted that budget cut by $70 million. Both rather small pittances considering that the state budget is about $26.3 billion in the hole. Nice job, budget hole. Here's the thing, though: For each dollar that is used to operate state parks, $2.35 is generated in return, for a 135% profit margin. It's MAKING money. Want it to make more? Try raising the fees by a dollar or two. Nothing major. A couple of bucks tops. But they're going to cut one of the more effective sources of revenue instead. Good idea! Sure. Any more bright ideas, budget hole?

Of course there are! But how about the things that they WON'T talk about? They act like making cuts is a bad thing. The state is spending too much money, you morons, you! Yes, I'm sure that at some point, those programs or whatever were a fine idea. Then again, you folks want to turn California into some sort of Shangri-La utopian society. Please remember that the guy in the book that found Shangri-La, he went crazy by the end of the book! What does that tell you about "paradise"? It ain't all it's cracked up to be, that is correct.

Look, almost one third of the California prison population is illegal immigrants. Who's up for a mass deportation project?! Anyone? Hands? Wait. What? What's the problem? There has to be a problem because NO ONE talks about illegal immigration. It is costing the state a gazillion dollars for services for folks who are not even supposed to BE here! Over $7 billion alone just for what it costs to fund education and to make provisions for the vast number of kids in schools that are illegal and, shocking, do not speak English. Yeah, it's hard to get a good education when you have no idea what the crap the teacher is talking about. Really tough that way.

And the waste. My God, the waste! Do you think even one of those Reps has suggested any sort of audit? Anything to account for...well, anything? The waste is insane. Fortunately however, we have The Governator who is willing to do whatever it takes. Not only that, he'll Tweet about it also! WTF? Behold!

Oh what the hell was that? What's with the big knife there, Arnie? And could someone please explain to me that watch he's wearing that is the size of a pie plate. Nearsighted much, Arnold? Sell off some of the state cars! Now that's a brilliant idea. Of course, it WOULD help things if you knew just how many cars the state had. Last time they checked, they couldn't nail down the total amount, but they guessed it was between 70,000 and 78,000. Ah, I forgot that it wouldn't matter what the total is anyway. That time when they counted? Yeah, they couldn't account for almost 20,000 of the vehicles. Hard to say what's up with that.


But hey, if you want to sell what we've got, Arnold, you go right ahead! How about selling some of those legislature seats while you're at it? What's that? Oh, yeah. I forgot. The legislature has already been bought.

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Just Plane Ridiculous

Picture if you will downtown New York City. Manhattan area. Business district. It's early on a Monday morning and the workday is in full swing. You look up and, in an unwelcome moment of deja freaking vu, you see a large plane, a 747, flying ridiculously low and just a bit too close to buildings for the comfort of anyone and everyone downtown at that moment. And if you were going to try to talk yourself out of panicking at that moment, whatever it was you were going to say to yourself became obsolete the second that you noticed the two F-16 fighter planes following the 747. Insert mass hysteria and 'holy shiite' right about here.

Or don't. Yeah, don't. That's because "Two officials told CNN that "the White House Military Office was trying to update its file photos of Air Force One." Later they said "The flyover...was a training mission....it was also a government-sanctioned photo shoot." And later than that the FAA said that the 747 "...was taking part in a classified, government-sanctioned photo shoot." Well, whatever it was, it wasn't because we were under attack again. It was because there are dumbasses in high government positions that don't think New Yorkers need to be informed ahead of time that a low flying jet will be circling Manhattan and to not be alarmed because it's only a photo shoot for publicity photos. What a bunch of morons.

This whole incident was so wrong on so many levels. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out that an incident like this could very well set off a riot, a fracas, a small melee or a number of other scenarios in which the entire public is consumed by fear and reacting to it in a complete state of panic. They had to plan out the whole photo shoot to begin with. They couldn't add to that plan a little part about alerting the public that "this is just a drill"?

Now, this 'photo shoot' was to take some 'public relations photos'. Why is it that we need 'public relations photos' of Air Force One? Are we selling rides on it? Are we putting the plane up for auction on eBay? Are we trying to encourage more tourists to visit the plane during the summer family travel months? What are we publicly trying to relate the plane to? I don't get it.

Of course, when all was said and done and everyone had a full head of steam, the White House apologized, but they did so in a way that made it sound like it was a totally honest mistake that, really, anyone could have made. Anyone who is just visiting this planet, perhaps, but other than that? I wouldn't have thought anyone could be so freaking ignorant, but I guess they can and I guess they work for the government. Good to know. As for who has been held accountable for this, well....so far "A New York City employee was disciplined for failing to pass on the FAA fly over information when it arrived on the employee's desk at City Hall."

Huh. Disciplined. Disciplined HOW? According to city officials, "...the employee was "reprimanded" and a "letter was placed in his file." " GASP!!! Not a letter! Not in his file! His permanent file? Oh, dear God, however will he go on?1 That poor, poor pinheaded dumbass.

:::: sigh ::::

So where are these photos? If they were 'publicity photos', let's give them the 'publicity' that they wanted them to have and let's see them! Uh, no. No? No.
That's because according to the fine folks over there at Politics Daily, the White House has said that they will not be releasing any of the photos from the incident. They continue to blow smoke up our collective arse by saying that "...this is not a new decision and the plan not to release the photo has remained the same since news of the incident broke last week." Wait. THE photo? As in singular? As in one? ONE?

This waste of someone else's money (which is clearly how those who are in charge of these things must think about it, otherwise they'd be a little more careful with it) ended up costing the taxpayers $328,835, $35,000 of which went for fuel! 300 grand and you only have ONE photo and you're not even going to show it to me?? It's MY money! That's MY photo! Gimme!

But seriously, how much sense does any of that make? None! The sole purpose of this Three Stooges-esque caper was to take new publicity shots of the presidential jet over the city. Publicity. As in "for the public?" Well, not if you're asking Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. He explains (as if he's speaking to morons) "The photos . . . are classified -- that's ridiculous." No, what's "ridiculous" is that you seem to think that "publicity" and "classified" are interchangable. Seriously, Pete, what is it? A big Federal Government game of "I've Got A Secret"?

But the aspect of this fiasco that I love the most is this: To take public pictures for the public and then hide them from that same public and do so under the fake pretense that the public photos are classified, cost the taxpayers over $325k and it also scared the living daylights out of every single person in Manhattan that morning. Could they not have saved all of that money and eliminated all of that fear and terror by just Photoshopping the damned jet in front of the Statue of Liberty or anything else that they wanted? Duh.

Of course they could have! But that's how much those folks seem to care about how efficiently they spend taxpayer money, which is to say not at all! Of all of the people that it took to organize that thing, not ONE of those folks said, "Can't we just Photoshop this and save the time and the money?" Even if they're so stupid that they never would have even considered the emotional impact of a low flying 747 followed by F-16 fighters over the business district, wouldn't you think that perhaps at least ONE of them, just ONE might have thought about Photoshop? Even if they only suggested it because they were so freaking lazy and figured Photoshop would be easier, I wouldn't have cared. It's the most obvious solution to this need.

You could put Air Force One flying over the G-D moon with Photoshop! OH, look. I just did. Behold!

How about Air Force One at the maiden voyage of the Titanic? Ta-DA!

Air Force One and the Hindenburg?
I said AND the Hindenburg! Not AS the Hindenburg! But whatever. What about under the sea?
Not bad. How about the Taj Mahal
Whoa! That was close! OK, this one is tricky. The view from my window.

Very impressive! Now what about some of those landmark figures that they wanted to get pics of Air Force One in front of? Let's start with the Empire State Building.
Not exactly what I had in mind, but it makes the point. How about the Statue of Liberty? Done!

Whoops! Got a little too close there. Let's try that again. Behold!

No! No! No! Just let it go by this time. Behold!
That first time was just an accident. It won't hit you. Once more. Behold!

Oh, for cryin' out loud, never mind! You see my point though, right? Of course. And I don't know if the White House saw my point or not, but it turns out they are going to release at least ONE photo and they claim that they'll be doing it soon. Whatever. All I know is that if whatever picture they show us, if it has even the slightest hint of being Photoshopped, I'm pretty sure my head will explode.

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