Posts
March 27, 2009
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo
Office of the Attorney General
The Capitol
Albany, New York 12224-0341
Mr. Coomo,
Lillian Hellman would be proud. So would Joe McCarthy.
Even though Sweet Lil, as hatchet faced a harridan as this country produced in the 20th century, made her bones by NOT NAMING NAMES she would have approved of this crusade. Perhaps jihad would be a better word. The reason would be simple: The target was not a cabal of traitors but, rather, businessmen.
Joe McCarthy would have been proud also. He never met a witness he couldn’t intimidate. When a Congressman from Colorado with the horribly inappropriate name of Polis [look it up] snarls at fellow citizens “We will hunt you down” sphincters tighten. When you subpoena men who, having lived up to their contracts, expected others to live up to theirs, something is jarred in the universe of freedom. When the government not only responds to the mob’s wishes but leads it into frenzy something else is fractured. Daniel Webster would come back from the grave to ask his famous question “Neighbor, how stands the Republic”? The answer he always wanted was “Iron bottomed and copper sheathed” would not the one he would get today.
Is it not a “slippery slope” we tread upon, would it not have a “chilling effect” on agreements between free men, when the government decides ex post facto that it doesn’t like an agreement between two consenting adults?
Senator McCarthy’s first counsel, the not quite yet sainted Bobby Kennedy, would have liked it also. What ever else he did he had no qualms in wiretapping Martin Luther King, remember?
Most of all, your father would have liked it.
Who can forget his principled stand on abortion? Delivered at a Catholic university it showed the conundrum faced by modern American Liberals whenever conscience and the law collide. Since he had no allegiance to the “permanent things”, since he had no fixed star to set a course on, his following line of reasoning was applauded.
Your father said that while he was personally opposed to abortion he would uphold the law because it was…the Law.
The problem with Logic is that it is not a parabolic curve.
It would follow, ERGO, that if he were Governor when Dred Scott was on the run, and had he been captured in New York, he would have shipped his free Black ass back on the first Southbound train because it was…the Law.
Modern American Liberals, when they have the whip hand, act like 17 year old boys with a case of beer and the keys to the family car.
The Rule of Law is a fragile thing. It’s bad enough when the more feral members of society attack it. When the government, at any level, leads the assault on it the foundations of a just society are undermined.
Like father, like son.
Shame on both of you.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
Leonard Pitts, The Miami Herald
March 25, 2009
Leonard Pitts
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: A nation’s “hate” and how to prosper from it. A hopefully amusing take on your Jeremiad about how the biases of White Southern Democrats – as if there were any other kind - are still with us.
Mr. Pitts,
I am bound and determined not to be cliché ridden but, Jeepers, doesn’t every cloud have a silver lining? You get to write a column on how most of the country longs for the good old days of the Klan. I get to write a letter saying “Dad gum but you’re right. ‘Men are not angels’.”
At least now we know that there are only 926 ‘hate’ groups in the country. I would have bet the over on that.
For years I have been asking “Where the Hell is Cheney? What was he doing at those ‘undisclosed locations’?” Now we have the answer. He and his wife were making a fortune stitching up all those Klan robes. His mail order “Burn a Cross” kit is one job that won’t be outsourced. He wouldn’t allow 3rd Worlders to touch any of his Kleagle attire.
Speaking of “hate groups”, and God knows I hate to tell you this, but what the Hell is the Southern Poverty Law Center? I’ve spent a lot of money on stamps trying to uncover their background. Try as I did I can’t get a certified financial from them. Why is that?
Their founder, a dude named Morris Dees, would be welcome at neither a VFW convention nor the local meeting of The Federalist Society. I say founder too quickly. Who knows who founded them? Who knows where their money comes from? I know that if you keep Poverty in your title you must have deep pockets somewhere. Would it be hateful to ask them about it?
Speaking of gratuitous hating would it be beyond the pale – another cliché, this one of Irish origin - to suggest that Vice President Curley Biden and Treasury Secretary Giethner should be “struck regularly, like gongs”?
Biden is so dumb he makes my finger nails curl backwards.
It was obvious that Giethner was a weasel. What became obvious was that he was/is/shall be a Homerically incompetent weasel.
Could it be that the President, and let me say that he is the best President we have, keeps them around to make him look better?
You say that while we have a Christ-killer in the Senate, a towel headed bomb thrower in the House, and a wet back Governor in New Mexico, so what? I know what you’re thinking. Those terms are pure “hate”. If President Bambi can get a laugh out of making fun of retarded kids, and on national TV to boot, I can stretch the limits of the permissible, can’t I? After all, the best five words in the Constitution still are…Congress shall make no law…aren’t they?
You say that there is no national “goal line which, once crossed, will allow the nation to declare itself cured, and once cured, we’ll never have to grapple with hatred again. But it doesn’t work that way.”
Imagine the “goal line” is like the horizon. Let’s give it a name. Let’s call it Utopia. [Utopia means, literally, nowhere.]
No matter how fast you run you will never get to the goal line, let alone cross it.
You will never get to Nowhere.
And, if you did, how would you know where you were?
But hark back to the Silver Lining.
You get to write a column speaking about the empty portion of the glass.
I get to write a letter asking why we never see anybody “swimming to Cuba”.
Leonard Pitts
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: A nation’s “hate” and how to prosper from it. A hopefully amusing take on your Jeremiad about how the biases of White Southern Democrats – as if there were any other kind - are still with us.
Mr. Pitts,
I am bound and determined not to be cliché ridden but, Jeepers, doesn’t every cloud have a silver lining? You get to write a column on how most of the country longs for the good old days of the Klan. I get to write a letter saying “Dad gum but you’re right. ‘Men are not angels’.”
At least now we know that there are only 926 ‘hate’ groups in the country. I would have bet the over on that.
For years I have been asking “Where the Hell is Cheney? What was he doing at those ‘undisclosed locations’?” Now we have the answer. He and his wife were making a fortune stitching up all those Klan robes. His mail order “Burn a Cross” kit is one job that won’t be outsourced. He wouldn’t allow 3rd Worlders to touch any of his Kleagle attire.
Speaking of “hate groups”, and God knows I hate to tell you this, but what the Hell is the Southern Poverty Law Center? I’ve spent a lot of money on stamps trying to uncover their background. Try as I did I can’t get a certified financial from them. Why is that?
Their founder, a dude named Morris Dees, would be welcome at neither a VFW convention nor the local meeting of The Federalist Society. I say founder too quickly. Who knows who founded them? Who knows where their money comes from? I know that if you keep Poverty in your title you must have deep pockets somewhere. Would it be hateful to ask them about it?
Speaking of gratuitous hating would it be beyond the pale – another cliché, this one of Irish origin - to suggest that Vice President Curley Biden and Treasury Secretary Giethner should be “struck regularly, like gongs”?
Biden is so dumb he makes my finger nails curl backwards.
It was obvious that Giethner was a weasel. What became obvious was that he was/is/shall be a Homerically incompetent weasel.
Could it be that the President, and let me say that he is the best President we have, keeps them around to make him look better?
You say that while we have a Christ-killer in the Senate, a towel headed bomb thrower in the House, and a wet back Governor in New Mexico, so what? I know what you’re thinking. Those terms are pure “hate”. If President Bambi can get a laugh out of making fun of retarded kids, and on national TV to boot, I can stretch the limits of the permissible, can’t I? After all, the best five words in the Constitution still are…Congress shall make no law…aren’t they?
You say that there is no national “goal line which, once crossed, will allow the nation to declare itself cured, and once cured, we’ll never have to grapple with hatred again. But it doesn’t work that way.”
Imagine the “goal line” is like the horizon. Let’s give it a name. Let’s call it Utopia. [Utopia means, literally, nowhere.]
No matter how fast you run you will never get to the goal line, let alone cross it.
You will never get to Nowhere.
And, if you did, how would you know where you were?
But hark back to the Silver Lining.
You get to write a column speaking about the empty portion of the glass.
I get to write a letter asking why we never see anybody “swimming to Cuba”.
Stephen L. Goldstein, The Sun-Sentinel
March 29, 2009
Stephen L. Goldstein
The Sun-Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: Florida’s economy and how everybody giving everybody a big hug will make us better people except for those rich people who still eat out. Some comments on your gravity defying column this morning.
My dear Professor,
I left you alone for a while because I did not want to intrude on the bliss you must have enjoyed basking in the “Yes, we can” euphoria of hope and change.
Sunday’s column is one of your classics.
Facts are irrelevant.
Logic is discarded.
Feelings are substituted for ideas.
Just like the old days.
I have come to the conclusion that there is no sense in being a half-assed modern American Liberal. If you are going to eat the lotus blossom take big bites. Quaff deeply of the “balloon juice” so that you can better enjoy your “rainbow stew”.
You mention the 36 billion dollars already spent in Iraq.
Perhaps you’ve forgotten but more than 3/4ths of Congress voted for this country to go to war in 2003. If you say that Congress was misled or lied to that is a prima facie case for those members to be removed from office. They should be flogged on the way out the door.
It may have escaped your attention but how was the war financed?
Did Varth Cheney slip in at night and steal 36 billion dollars when nobody was looking? Tall about hanging chads and the like but how did he get those members to vote for it every year?
Candidate Bambi hinted that American troops would be out of Iraq before he finished his Inaugural Address. What happened?
Now he wants to up the ante in Afghanistan. Is he channeling Lyndon Johnson?
How is he going to pay for Afghanistan?
Bake sales? Car Washes? 50/50s?
Doesn’t Congress have to appropriate the funds? Aren’t both Houses of Congress controlled by the Democrats? How is he going to do that?
Maybe he’ll do it Chicago style. White envelopes stuffed with cash have always worked in Cook County. That’s where he’s from, isn’t he? I bet his wife would be proud to help him.
You then say
“It’s a misleading mantra that raising taxes is always catastrophic.”
I agree with you.
Just because something has always been “catastrophic” doesn’t mean that it will always be catastrophic. Just because throwing gasoline has always been “catastrophic” doesn’t mean that the next time you throw the can - How are you fixed for volunteers? – it won’t be “catastrophic”. A prudent man would place his wagers accordingly but I did say that there was no sense in being a “half-assed”, didn’t I?
Look at the War on Poverty, America’s longest and costliest war.
Just because we’ve been at it since 1964 doesn’t mean that the corner won’t be turned soon. All we need there is a well thought out and brilliantly executed surge. As soon as it works we’ll all be farting through silk. I think raising the minimum wage to $18.65 an hour and getting rid of WAL*MART would be a good start. If doing away with the secret ballot at union elections is a good idea why do we need to have a secret ballot every time we pick our leaders? And to show that we mean business on social issues, let’s legalize 4th and 5th trimester abortions.
You say that a $10 tax on all Floridians would raise $183 million dollars. I always knew that you were a wiz at math. You told us that a $100 tax on Floridians would raise, you know what I’m saying, 10 times as much. I didn’t even check the math. Did Weasel Geithner help you with the math?
How much more would we have if the Obama appointees, layabouts all, had paid all of their taxes? How about any of their taxes?
Meanwhile, I’m still on the hunt for a “shovel ready” project.
Send up a flare if you find one.
Stephen L. Goldstein
The Sun-Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: Florida’s economy and how everybody giving everybody a big hug will make us better people except for those rich people who still eat out. Some comments on your gravity defying column this morning.
My dear Professor,
I left you alone for a while because I did not want to intrude on the bliss you must have enjoyed basking in the “Yes, we can” euphoria of hope and change.
Sunday’s column is one of your classics.
Facts are irrelevant.
Logic is discarded.
Feelings are substituted for ideas.
Just like the old days.
I have come to the conclusion that there is no sense in being a half-assed modern American Liberal. If you are going to eat the lotus blossom take big bites. Quaff deeply of the “balloon juice” so that you can better enjoy your “rainbow stew”.
You mention the 36 billion dollars already spent in Iraq.
Perhaps you’ve forgotten but more than 3/4ths of Congress voted for this country to go to war in 2003. If you say that Congress was misled or lied to that is a prima facie case for those members to be removed from office. They should be flogged on the way out the door.
It may have escaped your attention but how was the war financed?
Did Varth Cheney slip in at night and steal 36 billion dollars when nobody was looking? Tall about hanging chads and the like but how did he get those members to vote for it every year?
Candidate Bambi hinted that American troops would be out of Iraq before he finished his Inaugural Address. What happened?
Now he wants to up the ante in Afghanistan. Is he channeling Lyndon Johnson?
How is he going to pay for Afghanistan?
Bake sales? Car Washes? 50/50s?
Doesn’t Congress have to appropriate the funds? Aren’t both Houses of Congress controlled by the Democrats? How is he going to do that?
Maybe he’ll do it Chicago style. White envelopes stuffed with cash have always worked in Cook County. That’s where he’s from, isn’t he? I bet his wife would be proud to help him.
You then say
“It’s a misleading mantra that raising taxes is always catastrophic.”
I agree with you.
Just because something has always been “catastrophic” doesn’t mean that it will always be catastrophic. Just because throwing gasoline has always been “catastrophic” doesn’t mean that the next time you throw the can - How are you fixed for volunteers? – it won’t be “catastrophic”. A prudent man would place his wagers accordingly but I did say that there was no sense in being a “half-assed”, didn’t I?
Look at the War on Poverty, America’s longest and costliest war.
Just because we’ve been at it since 1964 doesn’t mean that the corner won’t be turned soon. All we need there is a well thought out and brilliantly executed surge. As soon as it works we’ll all be farting through silk. I think raising the minimum wage to $18.65 an hour and getting rid of WAL*MART would be a good start. If doing away with the secret ballot at union elections is a good idea why do we need to have a secret ballot every time we pick our leaders? And to show that we mean business on social issues, let’s legalize 4th and 5th trimester abortions.
You say that a $10 tax on all Floridians would raise $183 million dollars. I always knew that you were a wiz at math. You told us that a $100 tax on Floridians would raise, you know what I’m saying, 10 times as much. I didn’t even check the math. Did Weasel Geithner help you with the math?
How much more would we have if the Obama appointees, layabouts all, had paid all of their taxes? How about any of their taxes?
Meanwhile, I’m still on the hunt for a “shovel ready” project.
Send up a flare if you find one.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Eric Felton, The Wall Street Journal
March 29, 2009
Eric Felton
The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, New York
RE: How’s Your Drink, language, and those words mean whatever I want them to mean. A comment on your column of Saturday, March 29, 2009.
Mr. Felton,
First, let me congratulate you for, inter alia, bringing me back to Gin & Tonics. It was a marvelous column of forgotten joys of sunny afternoons pool side.
Second, what the Hell were you thinking when you included the following lines
“If only Chandler had thought to change some
ugly racial caricatures in his rewrite…”
in your delightful column on Whiskey Sours?
I think the ending of King Lear is too upsetting. Let’s rewrite that one.
Likewise for the last scene of Hamlet. Can you imagine if Sam Peckinpah or Quentin Tarantino had filmed it? Nunnery, as when Hamlet tells Ophelia “Get thee to a Nunnery”, means whorehouse. Shouldn’t that go too?
A Nobel Prize winner wrote a book titled “The Dreaded N Word of the Narcissus”. The “dreaded ‘N’ word” is the word that White men dare not use. Dick Gregory titled his autobiography “Nigger”. What gives?
We probably shouldn’t use any of your drinks while reading Huckleberry Finn, should we?
Wetting your whistle doesn’t mean swallowing your tongue.
Eric Felton
The Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, New York
RE: How’s Your Drink, language, and those words mean whatever I want them to mean. A comment on your column of Saturday, March 29, 2009.
Mr. Felton,
First, let me congratulate you for, inter alia, bringing me back to Gin & Tonics. It was a marvelous column of forgotten joys of sunny afternoons pool side.
Second, what the Hell were you thinking when you included the following lines
“If only Chandler had thought to change some
ugly racial caricatures in his rewrite…”
in your delightful column on Whiskey Sours?
I think the ending of King Lear is too upsetting. Let’s rewrite that one.
Likewise for the last scene of Hamlet. Can you imagine if Sam Peckinpah or Quentin Tarantino had filmed it? Nunnery, as when Hamlet tells Ophelia “Get thee to a Nunnery”, means whorehouse. Shouldn’t that go too?
A Nobel Prize winner wrote a book titled “The Dreaded N Word of the Narcissus”. The “dreaded ‘N’ word” is the word that White men dare not use. Dick Gregory titled his autobiography “Nigger”. What gives?
We probably shouldn’t use any of your drinks while reading Huckleberry Finn, should we?
Wetting your whistle doesn’t mean swallowing your tongue.
Carl Hiaasen, The Miami Herald
March 29, 2009
Carl Hiaasen
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: Horse’s Ass? You? Yeah
Mr. Hiaasen,
As founder, CEO, and sole shareholder of the world famous “TU QUOQUE” Society I chuckled at your column setting out with geometric precision why taxes should be higher. As you say, “the math is pretty basic”. You buttress your argument by saying that Warren Buffet wants to pay more in taxes. Finally, and as an overwhelming codicil to your argument, you tell us that John Boehner [R – Ohio] is, in his own words, “cozy with lobbyists”.
That would convince most rational adults that it is time to take the medicine, time to be as Curley Biden says, “patriotic”, and pay more taxes. Incidentally, I call him “Curley” in homage to Curley, the smartest Stooge. Speaking of patriots and taxes you may want to find out what Judge Learned B. Hand said about those two subjects.
One of the tenets of modern American Liberalism is that results are ignored. What counts is the nobility of the intention. Empirical evidence, the evidence of your own eyes, cannot overcome the thumb on the scale of sensitive and caring politicians whose public policies are based on truths revealed to true believers in the Church of Loondom.
You say, without a hint or irony and/or sarcasm, that
“…if government is serious about re-booting the economy,
reforming health care and improving public education
everybody’s going to have to pay for it.”
I hate to be the turd in the punch bowl but since Lyndon Johnson declared War on Poverty, the main weapon of which was Homeric amounts of money and brobdanaglian amounts of Balloon Juice, can anyone tell me where that money has gone. Compared to that, the war in Iraq cost about as much as the fireworks display on the Fourth of July.
Your assault on Logic lets you make John Boehner and his lobbyist pals the final reason for higher taxes. Pray tell but what do you make of the coziness between AIG and Senator Obama [D-Illinois] and Senator Dodd [D-CT}?
They split almost $205,000 in contributions from AIG in 2006.
With Dodd it is simply a matter of the acorn not falling far from the tree. His father was also ethically challenged and was censured by the Senate for having his hand in the cookie jar. The one good thing that can be said about Sleaze Ball Dodd is that there is no record of him ever joining the KuKluxKlan.
With Obama it may be different.
He is a Chicago pol reared the culture of cash stuffed white envelopes. Just because he moved to DC doesn’t undo that tradition. Has Governor Blago been beamed up to the Starship Enterprise for transport to one of Jupiter’s lesser moons so as not to embarrass President Bambi?
Speaking of foul mouthed little shits, I think the reason why Rahm Emanuel [D-Ill] will not be teaching kindergarten is because his time at Freddy Mac was too short. It took him 15 months to make $1,200,000 there. Now that he has his stash hidden where it would take a metal detector to find it he wants to raise everybody else’s taxes.
How about Barney Frank [D-Ma]? For 10 years he was doing the Hershey Highway Two Step with a fellow rump wrangler from Fanny Mae. [Fanny & Freddie? Now I know the difference! What does Sallie Mae do?] In the summer of 2008 he was telling us that widows and orphans should be at the front of the line to lend their money to Fanny, Freddie, and Sally, remember? Is the fucking we’re getting worth the fucking he got?
And your solution is to raise taxes.
“I’ll retire to Bedlam.”
Thus, for making non-sequiturs the basis of public policy and for raising “eclectic indignation” to an art form, I hereby name you
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
There is a big test coming up.
In May the price of a first class stamp is going up by 2 cents.
Do you expect service to improve?
If you say yes you belong in one of your novels as the catcher on the javelin team
PS – Have you ever sent more money to the IRS than you owed in taxes? If not, why not?
What are the dues for membership in “The triumph of hope over experience” marching society? You are President, aren’t you?
Finally, your home work assignment for this week is to find out how many “shovel ready” projects were “shovel ready”. Can you tell me where the first one is?
Carl Hiaasen
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: Horse’s Ass? You? Yeah
Mr. Hiaasen,
As founder, CEO, and sole shareholder of the world famous “TU QUOQUE” Society I chuckled at your column setting out with geometric precision why taxes should be higher. As you say, “the math is pretty basic”. You buttress your argument by saying that Warren Buffet wants to pay more in taxes. Finally, and as an overwhelming codicil to your argument, you tell us that John Boehner [R – Ohio] is, in his own words, “cozy with lobbyists”.
That would convince most rational adults that it is time to take the medicine, time to be as Curley Biden says, “patriotic”, and pay more taxes. Incidentally, I call him “Curley” in homage to Curley, the smartest Stooge. Speaking of patriots and taxes you may want to find out what Judge Learned B. Hand said about those two subjects.
One of the tenets of modern American Liberalism is that results are ignored. What counts is the nobility of the intention. Empirical evidence, the evidence of your own eyes, cannot overcome the thumb on the scale of sensitive and caring politicians whose public policies are based on truths revealed to true believers in the Church of Loondom.
You say, without a hint or irony and/or sarcasm, that
“…if government is serious about re-booting the economy,
reforming health care and improving public education
everybody’s going to have to pay for it.”
I hate to be the turd in the punch bowl but since Lyndon Johnson declared War on Poverty, the main weapon of which was Homeric amounts of money and brobdanaglian amounts of Balloon Juice, can anyone tell me where that money has gone. Compared to that, the war in Iraq cost about as much as the fireworks display on the Fourth of July.
Your assault on Logic lets you make John Boehner and his lobbyist pals the final reason for higher taxes. Pray tell but what do you make of the coziness between AIG and Senator Obama [D-Illinois] and Senator Dodd [D-CT}?
They split almost $205,000 in contributions from AIG in 2006.
With Dodd it is simply a matter of the acorn not falling far from the tree. His father was also ethically challenged and was censured by the Senate for having his hand in the cookie jar. The one good thing that can be said about Sleaze Ball Dodd is that there is no record of him ever joining the KuKluxKlan.
With Obama it may be different.
He is a Chicago pol reared the culture of cash stuffed white envelopes. Just because he moved to DC doesn’t undo that tradition. Has Governor Blago been beamed up to the Starship Enterprise for transport to one of Jupiter’s lesser moons so as not to embarrass President Bambi?
Speaking of foul mouthed little shits, I think the reason why Rahm Emanuel [D-Ill] will not be teaching kindergarten is because his time at Freddy Mac was too short. It took him 15 months to make $1,200,000 there. Now that he has his stash hidden where it would take a metal detector to find it he wants to raise everybody else’s taxes.
How about Barney Frank [D-Ma]? For 10 years he was doing the Hershey Highway Two Step with a fellow rump wrangler from Fanny Mae. [Fanny & Freddie? Now I know the difference! What does Sallie Mae do?] In the summer of 2008 he was telling us that widows and orphans should be at the front of the line to lend their money to Fanny, Freddie, and Sally, remember? Is the fucking we’re getting worth the fucking he got?
And your solution is to raise taxes.
“I’ll retire to Bedlam.”
Thus, for making non-sequiturs the basis of public policy and for raising “eclectic indignation” to an art form, I hereby name you
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
There is a big test coming up.
In May the price of a first class stamp is going up by 2 cents.
Do you expect service to improve?
If you say yes you belong in one of your novels as the catcher on the javelin team
PS – Have you ever sent more money to the IRS than you owed in taxes? If not, why not?
What are the dues for membership in “The triumph of hope over experience” marching society? You are President, aren’t you?
Finally, your home work assignment for this week is to find out how many “shovel ready” projects were “shovel ready”. Can you tell me where the first one is?
CT Attorney General Richard Blumenthal
March 26, 2009
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal
55 Elm Street
Hartford, CT 06106
Mr. Blumenthal,
Since you lack the wit to be named either a POMPOUS FART or a SMARMY BASTARD you can at least console yourself with another honor. You are hereby named
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
I grant this despite your 11th hour conversion to states’ rights and, mirabile dictu, the 10th Amendment.
Your inane prattle about how the Connecticut Wage law does not apply to the AIG bonuses was consistent with all the obfuscatory persiflage for which modern American Liberals are renowned. Rhetorical incontinence, verbal diarrhea…whatever you choose to call it you are the poster boy for it.
The next time I visit your state I will be wearing my SOUNDS LIKE BULLSHIT TO ME shirt.
Meantime, why not bring the full majesty of Connecticut law to bear on a home grown public nuisance named Christopher Dodd?
He began his public life by stealing hot stoves and the pennies off dead men’s eyes. As if the money he got from Fannie Mae and the Irish House deal weren’t bad enough he has his wife filling her swag bag too.
Is flogging still allowed in your state?
How about you and the Dodds whipping each other at halftime of a Huskie game?
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal
55 Elm Street
Hartford, CT 06106
Mr. Blumenthal,
Since you lack the wit to be named either a POMPOUS FART or a SMARMY BASTARD you can at least console yourself with another honor. You are hereby named
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
I grant this despite your 11th hour conversion to states’ rights and, mirabile dictu, the 10th Amendment.
Your inane prattle about how the Connecticut Wage law does not apply to the AIG bonuses was consistent with all the obfuscatory persiflage for which modern American Liberals are renowned. Rhetorical incontinence, verbal diarrhea…whatever you choose to call it you are the poster boy for it.
The next time I visit your state I will be wearing my SOUNDS LIKE BULLSHIT TO ME shirt.
Meantime, why not bring the full majesty of Connecticut law to bear on a home grown public nuisance named Christopher Dodd?
He began his public life by stealing hot stoves and the pennies off dead men’s eyes. As if the money he got from Fannie Mae and the Irish House deal weren’t bad enough he has his wife filling her swag bag too.
Is flogging still allowed in your state?
How about you and the Dodds whipping each other at halftime of a Huskie game?
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Fred Grimm, The Miami Herald
March 22, 2009
Fred Grimm
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: “Cigarette Tax is what Florida Needs” – Your column this morning and where its Logic forces me to go.
Mr. Grimm,
If, as you say,
“…a dozen tobacco companies combined to give the state
Republican Party and five leading Republican legislators
$914, 517 over the last three years”
the reason why “only five backwater states extract less from a pack of smokes”, what other politicians have sold their honor and their birthright to lobbyists?
Here’s one.
In 2006 Senator Barack H. Obama got $102,000 from AIG. The only other Senator to get more was Christopher Dodd. He got $103,000. Dodd has been in the Senate since 1980 so who knows what Obama could have done with two terms under his belt. Both men are Democrats.
Does that mean that Obama is a poltroon who has sold out his country? Does that mean that they acquiesced in the great AIG raid on the Treasury? Does that mean that the “white envelope” tradition of Chicago politics is the template for doing business with the Obama White House? Does that mean that President Obama is a crook?
Further, you say that it is OK for one group of Floridians [smokers] to commit suicide in slow motion so that another [students] won’t have to pay the full cost of their tuition?
There is a Moral Imperative open to modern American Liberals in the politics. It is also available to their toadish servy boys in the press.
How about introducing legislation banning the use of tobacco in all forms in Florida? “Just say no”, only this time it has the force of law. If we can ban it in restaurants and public building and beaches why can’t we ban it in the rest of the state? The answer is simple. Yes we can! It’s the change we have been waiting for!
The savings of not having to pay for uninsured smokers dying in our hospitals can be applied directly to college tuition relief.
Assuming there are capital markets left after the current batch of dummies gets through with them it would be a natural for them.
Secretary Geithner – Everybody knew he was a weasel but no one knew he was a boob to boot - says that the deficit will be cut in half by not paying for the Iraq war for 10 years. Florida can claim the current value of non-existent future Medicaid expenses for uninsured smokers and borrow on it now. Wall Street will eat it up. Maybe the students can get Plasma TV laptops.
Before Thursday there may have been some Constitutional problems. No more. If Congress can ignore two things specifically prohibited by the Constitution to address a serious social problem can the solons in Tallahassee do less?
It is the opposite of what modern American Liberals said about Affirmative Action. In the confusion concerning goals and quotas the mantra was “Mend it; don’t end it”. Here the solution is simple.
End it.
CC – State Representative Jim Waldman
Fred Grimm
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: “Cigarette Tax is what Florida Needs” – Your column this morning and where its Logic forces me to go.
Mr. Grimm,
If, as you say,
“…a dozen tobacco companies combined to give the state
Republican Party and five leading Republican legislators
$914, 517 over the last three years”
the reason why “only five backwater states extract less from a pack of smokes”, what other politicians have sold their honor and their birthright to lobbyists?
Here’s one.
In 2006 Senator Barack H. Obama got $102,000 from AIG. The only other Senator to get more was Christopher Dodd. He got $103,000. Dodd has been in the Senate since 1980 so who knows what Obama could have done with two terms under his belt. Both men are Democrats.
Does that mean that Obama is a poltroon who has sold out his country? Does that mean that they acquiesced in the great AIG raid on the Treasury? Does that mean that the “white envelope” tradition of Chicago politics is the template for doing business with the Obama White House? Does that mean that President Obama is a crook?
Further, you say that it is OK for one group of Floridians [smokers] to commit suicide in slow motion so that another [students] won’t have to pay the full cost of their tuition?
There is a Moral Imperative open to modern American Liberals in the politics. It is also available to their toadish servy boys in the press.
How about introducing legislation banning the use of tobacco in all forms in Florida? “Just say no”, only this time it has the force of law. If we can ban it in restaurants and public building and beaches why can’t we ban it in the rest of the state? The answer is simple. Yes we can! It’s the change we have been waiting for!
The savings of not having to pay for uninsured smokers dying in our hospitals can be applied directly to college tuition relief.
Assuming there are capital markets left after the current batch of dummies gets through with them it would be a natural for them.
Secretary Geithner – Everybody knew he was a weasel but no one knew he was a boob to boot - says that the deficit will be cut in half by not paying for the Iraq war for 10 years. Florida can claim the current value of non-existent future Medicaid expenses for uninsured smokers and borrow on it now. Wall Street will eat it up. Maybe the students can get Plasma TV laptops.
Before Thursday there may have been some Constitutional problems. No more. If Congress can ignore two things specifically prohibited by the Constitution to address a serious social problem can the solons in Tallahassee do less?
It is the opposite of what modern American Liberals said about Affirmative Action. In the confusion concerning goals and quotas the mantra was “Mend it; don’t end it”. Here the solution is simple.
End it.
CC – State Representative Jim Waldman
Friday, March 20, 2009
President Barack H. Obama
March 19, 2009
President Barack H. Obama
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
President Obama,
I applaud you for dropping the term “enemy combatant”.
May I suggest a way to reach out to the Muslim world that would be electric? It would signal a new page, a new beginning, a fresh start in our dealings with devoted followers of Islam.
Pardon Sirhan Sirhan.
Get on Air Force One. Go to Gaza. Bring him with you. Fill up the plane with as many Kennedys as you can find.
The road to peace starts with a single step.
Please take it.
President Barack H. Obama
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
President Obama,
I applaud you for dropping the term “enemy combatant”.
May I suggest a way to reach out to the Muslim world that would be electric? It would signal a new page, a new beginning, a fresh start in our dealings with devoted followers of Islam.
Pardon Sirhan Sirhan.
Get on Air Force One. Go to Gaza. Bring him with you. Fill up the plane with as many Kennedys as you can find.
The road to peace starts with a single step.
Please take it.
IN DEFENSE OF AIG BONUSES
“This country is planted thick with laws. Man’s laws; not God’s. And if you
cut down every tree to get at the devil where would you hide, the laws all being
flat, when he turned on you? I would give the Devil the benefit of the Law
for my own safety’s sake”
I knew we were in trouble when the reader on Fox Morning News said, “I don’t care about contracts”. The young man, I believe his name is Clayton, should be flogged.
Has everyone forgotten about Fletcher v Peck? I asked 4 lawyers if it had been secretly repealed. If it were the trail would have led straight to Cheney. It sounds like something he would do. I was relieved to find out that it is still on the books.
There exists a number of contracts between AIG and certain of its employees. Both parties entered into these voluntarily.
AIG has received one hundred and seventy three billion dollars from the taxpayers of the United States. That’s $173,000,000,000. At least 50 billion dollars has gone to foreign banks. That’s $50,000,000,000. These were payments that it was contractually obligated to make. AIG paid bonuses totaling one hundred and sixty five million dollar. That’s $165,000,000. That was the amount that they had agreed to and contractually obligated to pay.
Gary Peters [D – Michigan] is a typical Democratic dunderhead on the subject. He has the advantage of not being ethically challenged by previous actions with AIG. Not so Senator Christopher Dodd [D – Ct] Apparently the only corruption he has avoided is any involvement with Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed. He just nosed out Senator Barack H. Obama for contributions from AIG in 2006. He has proposed a tax of 98% on the bonus money received. At least it wasn’t 105%.
In a town filled with Constitutional scholars – Editor of the Harvard Law Review, teacher of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School, things like that – I guess everybody has forgotten that Bills of Attainders were specifically forbidden by the Constitution? For those who didn’t go to Harvard or teach at the University of Chicago there are two things to know about them. #1 – Congress cannot pass a bill to punish an individual. Only courts can do that. The 5th, the 6th, and the 14th apply here. Due process is impossibility in a legislature. #2 – Don’t believe me. Look it up. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3. James Madison put it in there on purpose.
The fact is that everything in there was put there on purpose.
The Constitution tells us what our government can do and how it can do it.
The Bill of Rights and other Constitutional proscriptions tells us what government cannot do.
I would give the devil the benefit of the Law
for my own safety’s sake.
We pursue these people at our peril.
cut down every tree to get at the devil where would you hide, the laws all being
flat, when he turned on you? I would give the Devil the benefit of the Law
for my own safety’s sake”
I knew we were in trouble when the reader on Fox Morning News said, “I don’t care about contracts”. The young man, I believe his name is Clayton, should be flogged.
Has everyone forgotten about Fletcher v Peck? I asked 4 lawyers if it had been secretly repealed. If it were the trail would have led straight to Cheney. It sounds like something he would do. I was relieved to find out that it is still on the books.
There exists a number of contracts between AIG and certain of its employees. Both parties entered into these voluntarily.
AIG has received one hundred and seventy three billion dollars from the taxpayers of the United States. That’s $173,000,000,000. At least 50 billion dollars has gone to foreign banks. That’s $50,000,000,000. These were payments that it was contractually obligated to make. AIG paid bonuses totaling one hundred and sixty five million dollar. That’s $165,000,000. That was the amount that they had agreed to and contractually obligated to pay.
Gary Peters [D – Michigan] is a typical Democratic dunderhead on the subject. He has the advantage of not being ethically challenged by previous actions with AIG. Not so Senator Christopher Dodd [D – Ct] Apparently the only corruption he has avoided is any involvement with Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed. He just nosed out Senator Barack H. Obama for contributions from AIG in 2006. He has proposed a tax of 98% on the bonus money received. At least it wasn’t 105%.
In a town filled with Constitutional scholars – Editor of the Harvard Law Review, teacher of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School, things like that – I guess everybody has forgotten that Bills of Attainders were specifically forbidden by the Constitution? For those who didn’t go to Harvard or teach at the University of Chicago there are two things to know about them. #1 – Congress cannot pass a bill to punish an individual. Only courts can do that. The 5th, the 6th, and the 14th apply here. Due process is impossibility in a legislature. #2 – Don’t believe me. Look it up. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3. James Madison put it in there on purpose.
The fact is that everything in there was put there on purpose.
The Constitution tells us what our government can do and how it can do it.
The Bill of Rights and other Constitutional proscriptions tells us what government cannot do.
I would give the devil the benefit of the Law
for my own safety’s sake.
We pursue these people at our peril.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Mayor Barrie Parsons Tilghman, Salisbury, Maryland
March 16, 2009
Mayor Barrie Parsons Tilghman
City Hall
125 North Division Street
Salisbury, Maryland 21801-4940
Madame Mayor,
The indulgence I granted to all of Maryland for not electing Kathleen Kennedy Townsend – The word twit does not do her justice. She was/is/shall be the poster girl for fathead mooncalves - governor is hereby revoked. I can do that because I have “rights from beyond the stars”. One of those is “Free men speak with free tongues”. You may want to familiarize yourself with it. It is painfully obvious that is an alien notion to you.
The Internet and what would John Adams have done about it is an intriguing question. Back when it took up to 3 days for a message to get from Boston to Washington he signed the Alien and Sedition Act into law. If he had to face the Internet he would have made Abu Ghraib into a rest home.
You say that “malicious blogs endanger Salisbury”. I rubbed my eyes when I read that because I thought it surely must be datelined the other Salisbury, the one in England. That’s the one with the big stones where the Druids gather every June 21st to welcome summer. They wear long robes and kill cats and chant “OOOM” when ever there is an eclipse. So far it’s worked. The sun has always, ALWAYS, come back. That Salisbury.
Have you ever heard of the Committees of Correspondence? Silly me! Of course you haven’t. They were groups of men who gathered in taverns up and down the colonies before the American Revolution. Whenever the King and his lackeys did something particularly egregious they would, like Revolutionary bloggers before Microsoft and Mackintosh, communicate.
You say that these people are “suspicious”. Further, they are “mean spirited” and that they “focus on the negative”. Why don’t you get some sycophants – that means “asskissers”, even in Salisbury – and start a blog to answer your critics? Start with stuff like “We Love our Mayor even though she is a Horse’s Ass”. Perhaps “Barrie: Our Boob with Boobs”.
The essence of a free society is that people can be “suspicious” about its government. They can be both “mean spirited” and “negative” about it. The government does not have the “right” - governments have no “rights”, they have duties and obligations - to hinder, harass, or suppress those who do so.
Would Cuba or Nazi Germany have been better served had there been an active blogosphere for its time?
Did you know that possession of a photocopy machine in the USSR was a capital offense?
You are in your last month as Mayor.
Try not to stain the rugs on your way out.
PS – In the words of your Delmarva neighbor Vice President “Curley” Biden – “Curley” because he was the smartest Stooge – “Give me a fucking break”.
Mayor Barrie Parsons Tilghman
City Hall
125 North Division Street
Salisbury, Maryland 21801-4940
Madame Mayor,
The indulgence I granted to all of Maryland for not electing Kathleen Kennedy Townsend – The word twit does not do her justice. She was/is/shall be the poster girl for fathead mooncalves - governor is hereby revoked. I can do that because I have “rights from beyond the stars”. One of those is “Free men speak with free tongues”. You may want to familiarize yourself with it. It is painfully obvious that is an alien notion to you.
The Internet and what would John Adams have done about it is an intriguing question. Back when it took up to 3 days for a message to get from Boston to Washington he signed the Alien and Sedition Act into law. If he had to face the Internet he would have made Abu Ghraib into a rest home.
You say that “malicious blogs endanger Salisbury”. I rubbed my eyes when I read that because I thought it surely must be datelined the other Salisbury, the one in England. That’s the one with the big stones where the Druids gather every June 21st to welcome summer. They wear long robes and kill cats and chant “OOOM” when ever there is an eclipse. So far it’s worked. The sun has always, ALWAYS, come back. That Salisbury.
Have you ever heard of the Committees of Correspondence? Silly me! Of course you haven’t. They were groups of men who gathered in taverns up and down the colonies before the American Revolution. Whenever the King and his lackeys did something particularly egregious they would, like Revolutionary bloggers before Microsoft and Mackintosh, communicate.
You say that these people are “suspicious”. Further, they are “mean spirited” and that they “focus on the negative”. Why don’t you get some sycophants – that means “asskissers”, even in Salisbury – and start a blog to answer your critics? Start with stuff like “We Love our Mayor even though she is a Horse’s Ass”. Perhaps “Barrie: Our Boob with Boobs”.
The essence of a free society is that people can be “suspicious” about its government. They can be both “mean spirited” and “negative” about it. The government does not have the “right” - governments have no “rights”, they have duties and obligations - to hinder, harass, or suppress those who do so.
Would Cuba or Nazi Germany have been better served had there been an active blogosphere for its time?
Did you know that possession of a photocopy machine in the USSR was a capital offense?
You are in your last month as Mayor.
Try not to stain the rugs on your way out.
PS – In the words of your Delmarva neighbor Vice President “Curley” Biden – “Curley” because he was the smartest Stooge – “Give me a fucking break”.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Michael Mayo, The Sun Sentinel
March 15, 2009
Michael Mayo
The Sun Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: The moral hazard of raising cigarette taxes or maybe the petard you find yourself hoisted upon is of your own making. As reported by you in this morning’s Sun-Sentinel.
Mr. Mayo,
Do you remember the Delaney Amendment?
Delaney was a Congressman from Brooklyn – Don’t be silly. Of course he was a Democrat – who put an earmark into a bill before they were known as that. It said that if any product contained carcinogenic material it would be banned. Not taxed higher than before, not restricted, banned.
The side story is that Delaney, in the words of Hinnisy the publican, “seen his opportunities and took’em”. He founded the first au naturel organic vitamin and health food company. This was in a time when the only time the word organic was used was in advanced high school chemistry. [If you want to get some strange looks stand under the organic produce sign at Publix and ask where the inorganic celery is. Specify long strand polymers if in season.]
From the time it was passed the detection capacity of electron microscopes went from one part in 10,000 to one part in 1,000,000 to part in 100,000,000 to one part in an Obama stimulus package. Still, Delaney and his surrogates defended his amendment like Horatius at the bridge.
My memory is dim. Did it just enrich the Delaney cabal or did it cure cancer?
It’s been 25 years since my last Monte Crisco and 20 years since my last Camel. I have been told that my 3 cancers and unwell heart since then are not the result of nicotine.
Anyway, back to raising the cigarette tax
Isn’t it a bit of a moral hazard to allow people to kill themselves for the potential gain in state tax revenue? Even in the no sharp edges allowed world of modern American Liberalism where victims cry out for villains, the ones who caused them to be victims, to be punished isn’t it a bit of a stretch to allow people to kill themselves for budgetary purposes? You want people to die so that we don’t “soak college students with higher tuition”?
Isn’t that a bit like “destroying the village in order to save it”?
What if, Heaven forefend, this cigarette tax increase proves, yet again, that Supply Side Economics works, and causes a net drop in revenue? Will those college students still “get soaked”?
What if, because of the higher taxes, the lure of higher profits subsidizes and enables the smuggling and black market of tobacco to flourish?
Would it be truer to the tenets and glorious History of modern American Liberalism - Rosa Parks not giving up her seat, Gandhi eating the salt, my grandfather’s uncle dying at Gettysburg with the Irish Brigade on July 2, 1863 – not to raise the taxes on cigarettes but, rather, to take the Crusade to its Logical and Moral conclusion?
The big guy in the White House is from Chicago. Who says that God doesn’t have a sense of humor?
I would “hope” that the “change” would be the introduction of legislation banning the use and consumption of all tobacco products in Florida. Are there no honest modern American Liberals left in the press or in the legislature?
We’ll see.
CC – Representative Jim Waldman
Michael Mayo
The Sun Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: The moral hazard of raising cigarette taxes or maybe the petard you find yourself hoisted upon is of your own making. As reported by you in this morning’s Sun-Sentinel.
Mr. Mayo,
Do you remember the Delaney Amendment?
Delaney was a Congressman from Brooklyn – Don’t be silly. Of course he was a Democrat – who put an earmark into a bill before they were known as that. It said that if any product contained carcinogenic material it would be banned. Not taxed higher than before, not restricted, banned.
The side story is that Delaney, in the words of Hinnisy the publican, “seen his opportunities and took’em”. He founded the first au naturel organic vitamin and health food company. This was in a time when the only time the word organic was used was in advanced high school chemistry. [If you want to get some strange looks stand under the organic produce sign at Publix and ask where the inorganic celery is. Specify long strand polymers if in season.]
From the time it was passed the detection capacity of electron microscopes went from one part in 10,000 to one part in 1,000,000 to part in 100,000,000 to one part in an Obama stimulus package. Still, Delaney and his surrogates defended his amendment like Horatius at the bridge.
My memory is dim. Did it just enrich the Delaney cabal or did it cure cancer?
It’s been 25 years since my last Monte Crisco and 20 years since my last Camel. I have been told that my 3 cancers and unwell heart since then are not the result of nicotine.
Anyway, back to raising the cigarette tax
Isn’t it a bit of a moral hazard to allow people to kill themselves for the potential gain in state tax revenue? Even in the no sharp edges allowed world of modern American Liberalism where victims cry out for villains, the ones who caused them to be victims, to be punished isn’t it a bit of a stretch to allow people to kill themselves for budgetary purposes? You want people to die so that we don’t “soak college students with higher tuition”?
Isn’t that a bit like “destroying the village in order to save it”?
What if, Heaven forefend, this cigarette tax increase proves, yet again, that Supply Side Economics works, and causes a net drop in revenue? Will those college students still “get soaked”?
What if, because of the higher taxes, the lure of higher profits subsidizes and enables the smuggling and black market of tobacco to flourish?
Would it be truer to the tenets and glorious History of modern American Liberalism - Rosa Parks not giving up her seat, Gandhi eating the salt, my grandfather’s uncle dying at Gettysburg with the Irish Brigade on July 2, 1863 – not to raise the taxes on cigarettes but, rather, to take the Crusade to its Logical and Moral conclusion?
The big guy in the White House is from Chicago. Who says that God doesn’t have a sense of humor?
I would “hope” that the “change” would be the introduction of legislation banning the use and consumption of all tobacco products in Florida. Are there no honest modern American Liberals left in the press or in the legislature?
We’ll see.
CC – Representative Jim Waldman
Myriam Marquez, The Miami Herald
March 15, 2009
Myriam Marquez
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: If Tony Montana could learn English why can’t these kids? A solution to “lowering the bar for ESOL teachers” that is a bit different from the one you offered in your column this morning in the Miami Herald.
Ms. Marquez,
First, an update on my annual appeal to the Miami Herald.
If it isn’t Global Cooling it’s Global Warming. Then it morphed into Climate Change. Who cares what it’s called as long as we do something about it. Since 1997 I have been pleading, cajoling, begging, imploring, maunding, - Thank God for Roget! – to have the Miami Herald show us the way.
Turn off the air conditioners at World HQ by the bay.
Besides being on the moral high ground you would save a lot of money. Since the bond market values your debt just above Zimbabwe it could be a good thing. Just think how many would follow your lead. If you need to have phased in plan how about banning all air conditioning from coal powered or nuclear powered plants? Ideally, only the borborygymous eructations from organically fed sheep would keep the elevators running. Alas, that may be a hope too far.
Back to “lowering the bar for ESOL teachers”.
There is one answer before any others.
English must become the official language.
By that I mean that all contracts, all laws, all traffic signs, all of everything that can become a public record is written in English.
History and Logic demand this.
It doesn’t mean that foreign languages are banned. On the contrary, merchants serving a foreign tongued clientele would be wise to serve their markets. When it comes time to sign the credit card slip it is Ingles solamente. [I personally think French should be banned because of odious nature of les merdes du Quebec but that’s something else.]
I was raised in Bayonne, New Jersey. It was known as the City of Churches. It was also the pot in which many tongues were used. My father worked on a produce wagon. Until his death he was able to call out the names and prices of any frit or vegetable that he saw in 3 languages.
I mention the churches because until the 1960s 3 of them [Saint Joseph’s, Mount Carmel, and Assumption] taught Slavish, Polish, and Italian in their grammar schools. Saint Michael’s offered Lithuanian on Sunday. Parents who chose to send their children there wanted them to remember where they were from. They focused on where they were and what they wanted them to be.
ESOL [English as a Second Language] is like a “woman preaching”. Doctor Johnson compared it to a “dog walking on its hind legs”. He said it “wasn’t a question of how well it was done but why was it done at all”?
My wife’s grandfather arrived here with zero knowledge of English. His son earned two degrees from Harvard. ESOL never entered into it. The total immersion of the streets of Bayonne shaped it.
Since Spanish is the dominant language here I’ll end it in that language. Absent English as the official language we risk a generation lamenting “He arado en el mar”.
Meanwhile see if you get the air conditioning shut off. Regardless of the language we owe it to the drowning polar bears.
Myriam Marquez
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: If Tony Montana could learn English why can’t these kids? A solution to “lowering the bar for ESOL teachers” that is a bit different from the one you offered in your column this morning in the Miami Herald.
Ms. Marquez,
First, an update on my annual appeal to the Miami Herald.
If it isn’t Global Cooling it’s Global Warming. Then it morphed into Climate Change. Who cares what it’s called as long as we do something about it. Since 1997 I have been pleading, cajoling, begging, imploring, maunding, - Thank God for Roget! – to have the Miami Herald show us the way.
Turn off the air conditioners at World HQ by the bay.
Besides being on the moral high ground you would save a lot of money. Since the bond market values your debt just above Zimbabwe it could be a good thing. Just think how many would follow your lead. If you need to have phased in plan how about banning all air conditioning from coal powered or nuclear powered plants? Ideally, only the borborygymous eructations from organically fed sheep would keep the elevators running. Alas, that may be a hope too far.
Back to “lowering the bar for ESOL teachers”.
There is one answer before any others.
English must become the official language.
By that I mean that all contracts, all laws, all traffic signs, all of everything that can become a public record is written in English.
History and Logic demand this.
It doesn’t mean that foreign languages are banned. On the contrary, merchants serving a foreign tongued clientele would be wise to serve their markets. When it comes time to sign the credit card slip it is Ingles solamente. [I personally think French should be banned because of odious nature of les merdes du Quebec but that’s something else.]
I was raised in Bayonne, New Jersey. It was known as the City of Churches. It was also the pot in which many tongues were used. My father worked on a produce wagon. Until his death he was able to call out the names and prices of any frit or vegetable that he saw in 3 languages.
I mention the churches because until the 1960s 3 of them [Saint Joseph’s, Mount Carmel, and Assumption] taught Slavish, Polish, and Italian in their grammar schools. Saint Michael’s offered Lithuanian on Sunday. Parents who chose to send their children there wanted them to remember where they were from. They focused on where they were and what they wanted them to be.
ESOL [English as a Second Language] is like a “woman preaching”. Doctor Johnson compared it to a “dog walking on its hind legs”. He said it “wasn’t a question of how well it was done but why was it done at all”?
My wife’s grandfather arrived here with zero knowledge of English. His son earned two degrees from Harvard. ESOL never entered into it. The total immersion of the streets of Bayonne shaped it.
Since Spanish is the dominant language here I’ll end it in that language. Absent English as the official language we risk a generation lamenting “He arado en el mar”.
Meanwhile see if you get the air conditioning shut off. Regardless of the language we owe it to the drowning polar bears.
Beth Reinhard, The Miami Herald
March 14, 2009
Beth Reinhard
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: After you the deluge? The tragic fate that awaits Florida if the Miami Herald goes the way of the Pony Express, ice boxes, the Village People, vaudeville, Hudson motor cars, Dictaphone, Green Stamps, Penn Central, the Shakers, Betamax, the Bayonne Times, the Flat Earth Society, Anabaptists, cigarettes for women, packing the Supreme Court, Circuit City, Tibet, Krebiozen, people who still believe that Alger Hiss is innocent, and the Berlin Wall as lamentingly outlined in your column this morning.
Ms. Reinhard,
First, some housekeeping.
“This is the best thing that ever happened to
crooked pols since manila envelopes.”
I am from Hudson County, New Jersey. It is the ancestral home of “hanging chads”. Row A was the line of the regular Democratic Party for 62 years on Election Day. 1916 to 1978. The protocol was for a white envelope to be offered on Birthdays, anniversaries, eclipses, non-eclipses, and any month that had more than 2 Sundays in it. If the swag were in a manila envelope it would be too bulky. Of course, in the days of equal rights, we see that zoftig women have an advantage when it comes to hiding the loot. That lady in Boston went from a C cup to a KLM cup as she was stuffing Benjamins into her brassiere for the FBI Candid Camera shows that she went through the Glass Ceiling.
Thank God for the Greeks and the Romans.
The Greeks told us how narcissism leads inexorably to solipsism.
You alone are the finger in the dike, a dike that holds back evil, corruption, petty politics, pernicious lobbyists, sub rosa public officials, no-bid contracts, nepotism, and the FCATs. It must be lonely up there.
I’ve only been here 13 years. I assume, based on the premise of your column that you and your struggling co-workers – Talk about Horatius and Horatia at the bridge! – are the only ones left who fight for truth, justice, and the American way.
This may come as a shock to you but the Broward County Commission is den of vipers. And that’s with newspapers! One of them uses a different name when she is lobbying in Tallahassee. Hot stoves in the cafeterias are double bolted to the floor whenever these grifters are in the building. It’s bad enough that these poltroons are Gorilla Glued to the nearest lactating public mammary but they cut their spouses in for some loot also. The former Sheriff, the only public official to oppose the 3rd Amendment, Emperor Kenneth the Short, had plans to invade and occupy The Bahamas. Their theme should be “Nothing Lost but Honor”.
I suppose I shouldn’t say that the inept Broward County Judiciary is inbred but the majority, the overwhelming majority, of them could look through a key hole with both eyes.
They share one thing in common with the lately lachrymose members of the 4th Estate. “Non-malodorous fecal matter” is a shared malady.
The Romans called it Post hoc ergo propter hoc. It is a false line of reasoning that is popular still because it is so easy. It doesn’t require thought. Wednesdays are not caused by Tuesday. Correlation is not causation. Look it up.
You seem to have turned it on its head.
You are saying that if you and your noble profession are no longer “turned to” like “rough men standing watch so we may sleep safely in our beds” evil will befall us.
Thank you for inviting me to join your crusade – “we need you more than ever to be our eyes and ears on the ground” – to keep us pure and worthy of the “change” that is upon us. And from Chicago too! Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?
“Somebody has got to get to that
Tuesday night city council meeting.”
Is it too late for the Herald to get some TARP funds? How about some Saturday car washes so you can cover that meeting? One of the benefits of Lent is that you can spend time on the Cross without drawing too much attention to yourself. Around here it will easy to find some thieves so you don’t get lonely.
Beth Reinhard
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: After you the deluge? The tragic fate that awaits Florida if the Miami Herald goes the way of the Pony Express, ice boxes, the Village People, vaudeville, Hudson motor cars, Dictaphone, Green Stamps, Penn Central, the Shakers, Betamax, the Bayonne Times, the Flat Earth Society, Anabaptists, cigarettes for women, packing the Supreme Court, Circuit City, Tibet, Krebiozen, people who still believe that Alger Hiss is innocent, and the Berlin Wall as lamentingly outlined in your column this morning.
Ms. Reinhard,
First, some housekeeping.
“This is the best thing that ever happened to
crooked pols since manila envelopes.”
I am from Hudson County, New Jersey. It is the ancestral home of “hanging chads”. Row A was the line of the regular Democratic Party for 62 years on Election Day. 1916 to 1978. The protocol was for a white envelope to be offered on Birthdays, anniversaries, eclipses, non-eclipses, and any month that had more than 2 Sundays in it. If the swag were in a manila envelope it would be too bulky. Of course, in the days of equal rights, we see that zoftig women have an advantage when it comes to hiding the loot. That lady in Boston went from a C cup to a KLM cup as she was stuffing Benjamins into her brassiere for the FBI Candid Camera shows that she went through the Glass Ceiling.
Thank God for the Greeks and the Romans.
The Greeks told us how narcissism leads inexorably to solipsism.
You alone are the finger in the dike, a dike that holds back evil, corruption, petty politics, pernicious lobbyists, sub rosa public officials, no-bid contracts, nepotism, and the FCATs. It must be lonely up there.
I’ve only been here 13 years. I assume, based on the premise of your column that you and your struggling co-workers – Talk about Horatius and Horatia at the bridge! – are the only ones left who fight for truth, justice, and the American way.
This may come as a shock to you but the Broward County Commission is den of vipers. And that’s with newspapers! One of them uses a different name when she is lobbying in Tallahassee. Hot stoves in the cafeterias are double bolted to the floor whenever these grifters are in the building. It’s bad enough that these poltroons are Gorilla Glued to the nearest lactating public mammary but they cut their spouses in for some loot also. The former Sheriff, the only public official to oppose the 3rd Amendment, Emperor Kenneth the Short, had plans to invade and occupy The Bahamas. Their theme should be “Nothing Lost but Honor”.
I suppose I shouldn’t say that the inept Broward County Judiciary is inbred but the majority, the overwhelming majority, of them could look through a key hole with both eyes.
They share one thing in common with the lately lachrymose members of the 4th Estate. “Non-malodorous fecal matter” is a shared malady.
The Romans called it Post hoc ergo propter hoc. It is a false line of reasoning that is popular still because it is so easy. It doesn’t require thought. Wednesdays are not caused by Tuesday. Correlation is not causation. Look it up.
You seem to have turned it on its head.
You are saying that if you and your noble profession are no longer “turned to” like “rough men standing watch so we may sleep safely in our beds” evil will befall us.
Thank you for inviting me to join your crusade – “we need you more than ever to be our eyes and ears on the ground” – to keep us pure and worthy of the “change” that is upon us. And from Chicago too! Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?
“Somebody has got to get to that
Tuesday night city council meeting.”
Is it too late for the Herald to get some TARP funds? How about some Saturday car washes so you can cover that meeting? One of the benefits of Lent is that you can spend time on the Cross without drawing too much attention to yourself. Around here it will easy to find some thieves so you don’t get lonely.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
M.J. Stephey, Time Magazine
March 9, 2009
M.J. Stephey
Time Magazine
Rockefeller Center
New York, New York 10020-1393
RE: A Brief History of Abstinence – The issue dated March 2, 2009 about which “I shall speak daggers to you, but use none”.
Mr. Stephey,
I was torn, briefly, about which award to give you. As the owner, in fee simple, of three of the most coveted awards in Christendom I am oft-times racked with indecision about who gets what. The awards, listed below, are given to public figures who are worthy of recognition. They are
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
POMPOUS FART OF THE MONTH
SMARMY BASTARD OF THE YEAR
I re-read your quote on abstinence.
1601 – William Shakespeare’s Hamlet condemns Ophelia to a life of celibacy
“Get thee to a nunnery!”
I hereby name thee HORES’S ASS OF THE WEEK with all the honors appurtenant thereto.
It is empirically self evident that you lack the wit to be a “SMARMY BASTARD”. And, since this is the first time I have ever read anything by you, you haven’t entered my free fire zone enough to be considered a “POMPOUS FART”. It is now 22 years since I purchased either of the ass-wipe weekly magazines. A wise decision. A magazine whose pages were once graced by Whittaker Chambers is now reduced to ohmadauns and tomnoddies assaulting word processors!
“Get thee to a nunnery”, in the time and context of Hamlet’s dumping of Ophelia, was not an invitation to a life of celibacy. It was rather the opposite. “Nunnery” was shorthand for whore house.
The sound I am straining to hear is Henry Luce spinning in his grave. Didn’t he invent the term “fact checking”?
I am undecided if you are a moron or a twit. One thing for certain, you are a
“HORSE’S ASS”
I was going to end this with “The rest is silence” but I want you to save me a stamp.
Could you tell Gilbert Cruz, the book reviewer of “A Slobbering Love Affair” by Bernard Goldberg, the man who shared your page, that he is not quite as smart a smart ass as he thinks he is? Tell him to insert Step 3. Step 3 would not be needed if the mainstream media were not filled with people whose only literary skill is that they are blivit-stuffed with “non-malodorous fecal matter”. This is a trait particularly common to modern American Liberals who confuse feelings with ideas.
The good thing to come from this is that it will be 22 more years before I read Time Magazine again. There is one condition. You will have to pay me. A lot.
M.J. Stephey
Time Magazine
Rockefeller Center
New York, New York 10020-1393
RE: A Brief History of Abstinence – The issue dated March 2, 2009 about which “I shall speak daggers to you, but use none”.
Mr. Stephey,
I was torn, briefly, about which award to give you. As the owner, in fee simple, of three of the most coveted awards in Christendom I am oft-times racked with indecision about who gets what. The awards, listed below, are given to public figures who are worthy of recognition. They are
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
POMPOUS FART OF THE MONTH
SMARMY BASTARD OF THE YEAR
I re-read your quote on abstinence.
1601 – William Shakespeare’s Hamlet condemns Ophelia to a life of celibacy
“Get thee to a nunnery!”
I hereby name thee HORES’S ASS OF THE WEEK with all the honors appurtenant thereto.
It is empirically self evident that you lack the wit to be a “SMARMY BASTARD”. And, since this is the first time I have ever read anything by you, you haven’t entered my free fire zone enough to be considered a “POMPOUS FART”. It is now 22 years since I purchased either of the ass-wipe weekly magazines. A wise decision. A magazine whose pages were once graced by Whittaker Chambers is now reduced to ohmadauns and tomnoddies assaulting word processors!
“Get thee to a nunnery”, in the time and context of Hamlet’s dumping of Ophelia, was not an invitation to a life of celibacy. It was rather the opposite. “Nunnery” was shorthand for whore house.
The sound I am straining to hear is Henry Luce spinning in his grave. Didn’t he invent the term “fact checking”?
I am undecided if you are a moron or a twit. One thing for certain, you are a
“HORSE’S ASS”
I was going to end this with “The rest is silence” but I want you to save me a stamp.
Could you tell Gilbert Cruz, the book reviewer of “A Slobbering Love Affair” by Bernard Goldberg, the man who shared your page, that he is not quite as smart a smart ass as he thinks he is? Tell him to insert Step 3. Step 3 would not be needed if the mainstream media were not filled with people whose only literary skill is that they are blivit-stuffed with “non-malodorous fecal matter”. This is a trait particularly common to modern American Liberals who confuse feelings with ideas.
The good thing to come from this is that it will be 22 more years before I read Time Magazine again. There is one condition. You will have to pay me. A lot.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Myriam Marquez, The Miami Herald
March 9, 2009
Myriam Marquez
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: Good law, bad law. How is a policeman to know? Your take on
Ms. Marquez,
THE RULE OF LAW…
means, in the first place, the absolute supremacy of regular
law as opposed to the influence of arbitrary power, and
excludes the existence of arbitrariness, of prerogative,
or even of wide discretionary authority on the part of government,”
The Law of the Constitution
A.V. Dicey
Let’s start there.
Why are the most active real estate buyers last year in Miami/Dade citizens of foreign countries?
Two reasons:
#1 – Bargain plus currency swings.
#2 – The deed is recorded in a court house above which flies an American flag.
No loud mouthed thug like Chavez saying who will survive and prosper. An entire continent – Africa – is now devoted to settling disputes with a policeman’s Billy club rather than a Judge’s gavel. The Rule of Law is the first casualty. Cui bono?
You say that street cops shouldn’t enforce Federal immigration laws. Would you be so kind as to publish your list of which laws they must enforce, which laws they should enforce weather permitting, which laws should or should not be enforced depending on the age of the alleged law breaker, and which other laws must never be enforced?
Because of budget restraints and cutback should a Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy come to the aid of U.S. Postal Worker who is being assaulted? Following your Logic, a difficult enough task under normal circumstance because you show no familiarity with the discipline, the policeman whose “lot is never a happy one” will now have to decide which laws to enforce. You ask “Is this what the public wants”?
Should the precinct pre-shift muster now include the results of overnight tracking polls?
Your culprit, the notorious 287G program of the Immigration and Customs Agency, has simple enough solution. Have Congress ban it. Change the rules if you must. Don’t have the referee change them every time the period ends to be “fair”” to the losing side.
“This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast. If you
cut them down…who would protect you when, the laws
all being flat, the Devil turned on you?”
President Grant said, “The best way to get rid of a bad law was to enforce it”.
You put the burden, unfairly, on the cop on the beat.
Like I said, Logic is not your strong suit.
Myriam Marquez
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: Good law, bad law. How is a policeman to know? Your take on
Ms. Marquez,
THE RULE OF LAW…
means, in the first place, the absolute supremacy of regular
law as opposed to the influence of arbitrary power, and
excludes the existence of arbitrariness, of prerogative,
or even of wide discretionary authority on the part of government,”
The Law of the Constitution
A.V. Dicey
Let’s start there.
Why are the most active real estate buyers last year in Miami/Dade citizens of foreign countries?
Two reasons:
#1 – Bargain plus currency swings.
#2 – The deed is recorded in a court house above which flies an American flag.
No loud mouthed thug like Chavez saying who will survive and prosper. An entire continent – Africa – is now devoted to settling disputes with a policeman’s Billy club rather than a Judge’s gavel. The Rule of Law is the first casualty. Cui bono?
You say that street cops shouldn’t enforce Federal immigration laws. Would you be so kind as to publish your list of which laws they must enforce, which laws they should enforce weather permitting, which laws should or should not be enforced depending on the age of the alleged law breaker, and which other laws must never be enforced?
Because of budget restraints and cutback should a Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy come to the aid of U.S. Postal Worker who is being assaulted? Following your Logic, a difficult enough task under normal circumstance because you show no familiarity with the discipline, the policeman whose “lot is never a happy one” will now have to decide which laws to enforce. You ask “Is this what the public wants”?
Should the precinct pre-shift muster now include the results of overnight tracking polls?
Your culprit, the notorious 287G program of the Immigration and Customs Agency, has simple enough solution. Have Congress ban it. Change the rules if you must. Don’t have the referee change them every time the period ends to be “fair”” to the losing side.
“This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast. If you
cut them down…who would protect you when, the laws
all being flat, the Devil turned on you?”
President Grant said, “The best way to get rid of a bad law was to enforce it”.
You put the burden, unfairly, on the cop on the beat.
Like I said, Logic is not your strong suit.
State Senator Eleanor Sobel
March 7, 2009
Senator Eleanor Sobel
224 Senate Office Building
404 South Avenue Street
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-1100
RE: Words that “offend” and what shall we do with them?
Senator Sobel,
“A South Florida lawmaker wants the word ‘shylock’ struck
from Florida statutes. Senator Eleanor Sobel, D- Hollywood,
said…”the word is discriminatory and offensive to Jewish people”.
If the word “Shylock” is offensive in Florida statutes how much more offensive is it in Florida libraries and school text books? Shall we go through the libraries with Magic Markers or should we just burn them in the parking lot?
I think parts of the Old Testament are offensive. Abraham’s child abuse towards his son should be struck from the book. What David did to get a leg over on Bathsheba is the stuff of afternoon television. I don’t think children should be exposed to it.
A Nobel Prize winner wrote a book called “The Dreaded N Word of the Narcissus”. Dick Gregory wrote an autobiography called “The Dreaded N Word”. In case you haven’t gotten it the Dreaded N word is the word that White people dare not use.
While I was on trial in Federal Court a copy of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, an official publication of the United States Government, was introduced as documentary evidence. [That the United States Government opposed the introduction of one of its own documents is the subject of a different discussion.] There, in a book paid for by the taxpayers of this nation, were a number of references to places with the names “Nigger Creek” and “Lynch Creek”. The latter was the remedy for the former. What would you do about that?
I think Homer is offensive to one-eyed oversized cannibals who have a weakness for drink. We live in a more sensitive age. Polyphemus should not be mocked for his disabilities.
James Joyce could have named his traveler Luigi Boomerino. He named him Leopold Bloom. Do you find that “offensive”? What legislative remedies do you have for that?
At the bottom of every modern American Liberal is a quasi-Fascist thug. “Free Speech for Me but not for Thee” is the title of an interesting book on speech by Nat Hentoff. The last time we talked I mentioned him.
Abraham Lincoln was called a “baboon” by the Democratic Party and the New York Times in 1864. The New York Post was excoriated for tangentially suggesting that Obama was an ape. Are primate references acceptable as long as the target is Caucasian?
Why were comparisons between Hitler and President Bush not found “offensive”?
Are any pork products offered in the Broward County public schools? Wouldn’t Jewish students be “offended” if they were? G-d forbid any Muslim child should stumble on some bacon. Fatwas would be flying.
I have been visited by police [men with badges and guns] three times for things I have written to public officials. There was one common denominator. They were all modern American Liberals.
One of the policemen began his interrogation by telling me I was not in trouble. “What do you mean I’m not in trouble”, I asked him. “You have a badge and a fucking gun. What do you mean I’m not in trouble?”
Isn’t it time for the offstage chorus to begin chanting “Chilling Effect” and “Slippery Slope”?
A quintessential Dead White European Male, and a combat veteran to boot, wrote a long time ago that
“Free Men Speak With Free Tongues”
Good advice then; better advice now.
CC - SRJW
Senator Eleanor Sobel
224 Senate Office Building
404 South Avenue Street
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-1100
RE: Words that “offend” and what shall we do with them?
Senator Sobel,
“A South Florida lawmaker wants the word ‘shylock’ struck
from Florida statutes. Senator Eleanor Sobel, D- Hollywood,
said…”the word is discriminatory and offensive to Jewish people”.
If the word “Shylock” is offensive in Florida statutes how much more offensive is it in Florida libraries and school text books? Shall we go through the libraries with Magic Markers or should we just burn them in the parking lot?
I think parts of the Old Testament are offensive. Abraham’s child abuse towards his son should be struck from the book. What David did to get a leg over on Bathsheba is the stuff of afternoon television. I don’t think children should be exposed to it.
A Nobel Prize winner wrote a book called “The Dreaded N Word of the Narcissus”. Dick Gregory wrote an autobiography called “The Dreaded N Word”. In case you haven’t gotten it the Dreaded N word is the word that White people dare not use.
While I was on trial in Federal Court a copy of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, an official publication of the United States Government, was introduced as documentary evidence. [That the United States Government opposed the introduction of one of its own documents is the subject of a different discussion.] There, in a book paid for by the taxpayers of this nation, were a number of references to places with the names “Nigger Creek” and “Lynch Creek”. The latter was the remedy for the former. What would you do about that?
I think Homer is offensive to one-eyed oversized cannibals who have a weakness for drink. We live in a more sensitive age. Polyphemus should not be mocked for his disabilities.
James Joyce could have named his traveler Luigi Boomerino. He named him Leopold Bloom. Do you find that “offensive”? What legislative remedies do you have for that?
At the bottom of every modern American Liberal is a quasi-Fascist thug. “Free Speech for Me but not for Thee” is the title of an interesting book on speech by Nat Hentoff. The last time we talked I mentioned him.
Abraham Lincoln was called a “baboon” by the Democratic Party and the New York Times in 1864. The New York Post was excoriated for tangentially suggesting that Obama was an ape. Are primate references acceptable as long as the target is Caucasian?
Why were comparisons between Hitler and President Bush not found “offensive”?
Are any pork products offered in the Broward County public schools? Wouldn’t Jewish students be “offended” if they were? G-d forbid any Muslim child should stumble on some bacon. Fatwas would be flying.
I have been visited by police [men with badges and guns] three times for things I have written to public officials. There was one common denominator. They were all modern American Liberals.
One of the policemen began his interrogation by telling me I was not in trouble. “What do you mean I’m not in trouble”, I asked him. “You have a badge and a fucking gun. What do you mean I’m not in trouble?”
Isn’t it time for the offstage chorus to begin chanting “Chilling Effect” and “Slippery Slope”?
A quintessential Dead White European Male, and a combat veteran to boot, wrote a long time ago that
“Free Men Speak With Free Tongues”
Good advice then; better advice now.
CC - SRJW
Myriam Marquez, The Miami Herald
March 6, 2009
Myriam Marquez
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: You’re gaining on it! – Some comments on your marvelous column about new solutions to old problems in today’s Miami Herald
Ms. Marquez,
“I know. It’s nuts to raise taxes in a recession.”
You
The admission of ignorance is the first step on the road to knowledge. Who knows what will come next? Perhaps wisdom. Quien sabe?
I share with you a nugget of wisdom from my magic bag.
#26 – “If you tax something you have less of it.”
Ergo
If you increase taxes in a recession in anticipation of raising more revenue you wind up with less than when you started.
What if the Miami Herald were to raise its sales price again? Surely the drop in revenue caused by the drop in sales would be offset by the rise in price. Why not make the daily price $2.00? How about $7.50 for the Sunday version? The perception of value would be such that some people would buy two or three copies.
If you come back through the mirror and take a peek at the reality of raising prices to offset drops in revenue you will experience “the triumph of hope over experience”. “Experience” says Edmund Burke “is the only school at which some people will learn”. Alas, the same lesson is going to be learned again.
The House of Representatives passed a budget that is 8.4% higher than last year. What were those people drinking? Is there a family in America that does not begin each day with the hope that its life will not be turned upside down by noon? Congress believes in the perpetual supply of golden egg laden geese. They are an endangered species. In Broward County the number of students enrolled in the public school system has gone for 4 years. Is that reduction anywhere reflected in any part of the expense budget? Would not fewer students suggest fewer half pints of milk? I’ll spare you the suspense.
NO!
You talk about closing loopholes in Florida’s sales tax
Here’s a symbolic place to start.
Why not have the peripatetic matadors who sell your newspaper in the crossroads of South Florida collect sales tax on each sale? If those pesky pennies prove problematic take it out of your end. What’s fair is fair, right?
I end today’s tutorial with another quote from you.
“The biggest unfairness if billions lost to companies that
sell their stuff on the Internet. Florida law requires
sales tax be collected on those sales…”
You – redux
Suppose I buy a lobster pot in Wiscasset, Maine. It is put on a truck and begins its journey to Florida. Do I owe sales tax to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia?
You continue
“Crist and the Legislature need to draw the line at Internet sales and tax them.”
Alas gentle lady, the turd in the punch bowl is the neither Governor Crist nor the Legislature can do that. You are right when you mention the Supreme Court. The relevant case is Gibbon v Ogden. It has all the elements of today’s headlines. “Special interests”, lobbyists, corrupt politicians – Thank God for the good old days! The one “iron bottomed, copper sheathed” principle to emerge from it was that no state can tax the transactions of another state. It was decided in 1824.
Your road to more money does not begin in Tallahassee. It starts at the Supreme Court of the United States. Just get them to reverse themselves.
You go, girl.
Like I said, “you’re gaining on it”.
PS – Rule #16 – “If you are going to panic, be the first.”
Myriam Marquez
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: You’re gaining on it! – Some comments on your marvelous column about new solutions to old problems in today’s Miami Herald
Ms. Marquez,
“I know. It’s nuts to raise taxes in a recession.”
You
The admission of ignorance is the first step on the road to knowledge. Who knows what will come next? Perhaps wisdom. Quien sabe?
I share with you a nugget of wisdom from my magic bag.
#26 – “If you tax something you have less of it.”
Ergo
If you increase taxes in a recession in anticipation of raising more revenue you wind up with less than when you started.
What if the Miami Herald were to raise its sales price again? Surely the drop in revenue caused by the drop in sales would be offset by the rise in price. Why not make the daily price $2.00? How about $7.50 for the Sunday version? The perception of value would be such that some people would buy two or three copies.
If you come back through the mirror and take a peek at the reality of raising prices to offset drops in revenue you will experience “the triumph of hope over experience”. “Experience” says Edmund Burke “is the only school at which some people will learn”. Alas, the same lesson is going to be learned again.
The House of Representatives passed a budget that is 8.4% higher than last year. What were those people drinking? Is there a family in America that does not begin each day with the hope that its life will not be turned upside down by noon? Congress believes in the perpetual supply of golden egg laden geese. They are an endangered species. In Broward County the number of students enrolled in the public school system has gone for 4 years. Is that reduction anywhere reflected in any part of the expense budget? Would not fewer students suggest fewer half pints of milk? I’ll spare you the suspense.
NO!
You talk about closing loopholes in Florida’s sales tax
Here’s a symbolic place to start.
Why not have the peripatetic matadors who sell your newspaper in the crossroads of South Florida collect sales tax on each sale? If those pesky pennies prove problematic take it out of your end. What’s fair is fair, right?
I end today’s tutorial with another quote from you.
“The biggest unfairness if billions lost to companies that
sell their stuff on the Internet. Florida law requires
sales tax be collected on those sales…”
You – redux
Suppose I buy a lobster pot in Wiscasset, Maine. It is put on a truck and begins its journey to Florida. Do I owe sales tax to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia?
You continue
“Crist and the Legislature need to draw the line at Internet sales and tax them.”
Alas gentle lady, the turd in the punch bowl is the neither Governor Crist nor the Legislature can do that. You are right when you mention the Supreme Court. The relevant case is Gibbon v Ogden. It has all the elements of today’s headlines. “Special interests”, lobbyists, corrupt politicians – Thank God for the good old days! The one “iron bottomed, copper sheathed” principle to emerge from it was that no state can tax the transactions of another state. It was decided in 1824.
Your road to more money does not begin in Tallahassee. It starts at the Supreme Court of the United States. Just get them to reverse themselves.
You go, girl.
Like I said, “you’re gaining on it”.
PS – Rule #16 – “If you are going to panic, be the first.”
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Myriam Marquez, The Miami Herald
March 3, 2009
Myriam Marquez
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: Wasn’t hate a target of the Stimulus Plan? Everything else was. Your column of March 1, 2009 and the question of do umbrellas cause rain is asked yet again.
Ms. Marquez,
You ask
“Was this a hate crime based on the presumption that
the Chileans, who were in Florida for a six-month
work-study program, were illegal immigrants”
In 1864 the New York Times and the Democratic Party acquiesced in the notion that Abraham Lincoln was a “baboon”.
In this era of “hope and change” can we retroactively add their names to the list of conspirators in Lincoln’s assassination? Using your Logic we can.
Would the visiting Chileans be any deader if they had been killed by cousins or jilted suitors or lightning or a drunk driver?
You say
“The courts will deal with Baker’s [the alleged assailant] guilt
or innocence, his motivation, and whether he is mentally ill.
His actions serve as a warning about brewing hatred in
pockets of our country. Hatred that’s fanned by the
Internet and anti-immigrant rhetoric spewed on talk
radio and some cable TV shows – twisted into
vendettas against the Innocent.”
A small thing, “no bigger than a man’s hand against the horizon”, but if he is found not guilty be reason of insanity how can you construct a universal – the Internet and talk radio lead to violence from this particular – the death of visiting Chileans? The elements of a crime, indeed the elements of a mortal sin, would not be present.
Speaking of constructing universals from particulars, do you think Rush Limbaugh was responsible for the deaths in Miramar Beach?
There is no such thing as “Left-Wing” talk radio. This being Florida it is said that red necked, blue collared, red pickup truck drivers, having stumbled on to a wing nut “moon bat” humming Kumbaya by accident, have shot their radios.
That leaves “Right-Wing” talk radio. The 800 pound gorilla – I can still use primate references if the target is Caucasian, can’t I? – is Rush Limbaugh.
Did Rush Limbaugh cause the murders of the two tourists?
What if the perpetrator [alleged] had listened to hip-hop gangsta rap before he went out and shot them? Would you accuse the Rasta haired, gold tooth enemies of melody of “brewing hatred in pockets of our country”. Would you have a solution in mind for that?
2500 hundred years ago a Dead White European Male, a combat veteran, said
“Free men speak with free tongues”
Do you think the above is “hate speech”?
PS – How about those Mohammed cartoons?
Myriam Marquez
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: Wasn’t hate a target of the Stimulus Plan? Everything else was. Your column of March 1, 2009 and the question of do umbrellas cause rain is asked yet again.
Ms. Marquez,
You ask
“Was this a hate crime based on the presumption that
the Chileans, who were in Florida for a six-month
work-study program, were illegal immigrants”
In 1864 the New York Times and the Democratic Party acquiesced in the notion that Abraham Lincoln was a “baboon”.
In this era of “hope and change” can we retroactively add their names to the list of conspirators in Lincoln’s assassination? Using your Logic we can.
Would the visiting Chileans be any deader if they had been killed by cousins or jilted suitors or lightning or a drunk driver?
You say
“The courts will deal with Baker’s [the alleged assailant] guilt
or innocence, his motivation, and whether he is mentally ill.
His actions serve as a warning about brewing hatred in
pockets of our country. Hatred that’s fanned by the
Internet and anti-immigrant rhetoric spewed on talk
radio and some cable TV shows – twisted into
vendettas against the Innocent.”
A small thing, “no bigger than a man’s hand against the horizon”, but if he is found not guilty be reason of insanity how can you construct a universal – the Internet and talk radio lead to violence from this particular – the death of visiting Chileans? The elements of a crime, indeed the elements of a mortal sin, would not be present.
Speaking of constructing universals from particulars, do you think Rush Limbaugh was responsible for the deaths in Miramar Beach?
There is no such thing as “Left-Wing” talk radio. This being Florida it is said that red necked, blue collared, red pickup truck drivers, having stumbled on to a wing nut “moon bat” humming Kumbaya by accident, have shot their radios.
That leaves “Right-Wing” talk radio. The 800 pound gorilla – I can still use primate references if the target is Caucasian, can’t I? – is Rush Limbaugh.
Did Rush Limbaugh cause the murders of the two tourists?
What if the perpetrator [alleged] had listened to hip-hop gangsta rap before he went out and shot them? Would you accuse the Rasta haired, gold tooth enemies of melody of “brewing hatred in pockets of our country”. Would you have a solution in mind for that?
2500 hundred years ago a Dead White European Male, a combat veteran, said
“Free men speak with free tongues”
Do you think the above is “hate speech”?
PS – How about those Mohammed cartoons?
Monday, March 2, 2009
Eliott Rodriguez & Al Sunshine, Channel 4 News
February 27, 2009
Eliott Rodriguez & Al Sunshine
Channel 4 News
8900 NW 18th Terrace
Doral, Florida 33172
RE: A twin double!
R & S,
It is so seldom that I see such a pair of horses’ asses as you two were last night that I was taken aback.
Your comments about the banks – “I’d like to hold a hammer over them” and “Bankruptcy Judges should be able to change mortgage contracts” – border on the outer edges of lunacy, of madness. I hold no brief for any financial institution that has a policy of selling umbrellas until it starts to rain and then demands them back. As someone who is perpetually in “disfavor with fortune and men’s eyes” I am not of the landed gentry. I own no bank stock.
I do know that if you give a Judge the right to alter a contract unilaterally it is inimical to the Rule of Law. Absent that and people behave like six cats in a bag.
What if another Federal Judge decides that the interest rate – to be precise it is the discount rate - on T-Bills is too high? What if he decided, the precedent being set in the Bankruptcy Court, to lower it? Do you think that the Chinese might not like that?
What if, as the Great Rush just said, if another Federal Judge decided to stop car repossessions because he was compassionate and kind? [That could hit the banks AND the car companies at the same time. Talk about a Twin Double!]
“This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast.
If you cut them down to get at the Devil where would you hide,
The laws all being flat, when he turned on you?”
Thus I bestow on you, the both of you, a rare honor.
Eliott Rodriguez is a
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
Al Sunshine is a
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
Wear your laurels proudly.
You got them the old fashioned way.
YOU EARNED THEM!
PS – There is an article in today’s business section of the Miami Herald about television news being irrelevant. Gee. Where would that idea come from?
Eliott Rodriguez & Al Sunshine
Channel 4 News
8900 NW 18th Terrace
Doral, Florida 33172
RE: A twin double!
R & S,
It is so seldom that I see such a pair of horses’ asses as you two were last night that I was taken aback.
Your comments about the banks – “I’d like to hold a hammer over them” and “Bankruptcy Judges should be able to change mortgage contracts” – border on the outer edges of lunacy, of madness. I hold no brief for any financial institution that has a policy of selling umbrellas until it starts to rain and then demands them back. As someone who is perpetually in “disfavor with fortune and men’s eyes” I am not of the landed gentry. I own no bank stock.
I do know that if you give a Judge the right to alter a contract unilaterally it is inimical to the Rule of Law. Absent that and people behave like six cats in a bag.
What if another Federal Judge decides that the interest rate – to be precise it is the discount rate - on T-Bills is too high? What if he decided, the precedent being set in the Bankruptcy Court, to lower it? Do you think that the Chinese might not like that?
What if, as the Great Rush just said, if another Federal Judge decided to stop car repossessions because he was compassionate and kind? [That could hit the banks AND the car companies at the same time. Talk about a Twin Double!]
“This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast.
If you cut them down to get at the Devil where would you hide,
The laws all being flat, when he turned on you?”
Thus I bestow on you, the both of you, a rare honor.
Eliott Rodriguez is a
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
Al Sunshine is a
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
Wear your laurels proudly.
You got them the old fashioned way.
YOU EARNED THEM!
PS – There is an article in today’s business section of the Miami Herald about television news being irrelevant. Gee. Where would that idea come from?
Myriam Marquez, The Miami Herald
February 28, 2009
Myriam Marquez
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: “Don’t Blame Honest Poor for others’ Greed” – Whether the stone hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the stone it’s pretty much going to be the same for the pitcher, right? A somewhat different take on how we all came to be in this revolting situation.
Ms. Marquez,
I’ll start with an easy one.
Every time Detroit built an”energy-saving vehicle” the American car buying public stayed away in droves. The American car buyers wanted SUVs. All the modern American Liberals from car producing states got them counted as trucks to get around the CAFÉ standards. The same scoundrels then kept caribou rutting areas in Alaska and about 1/3rd of the Gulf of Mexico away American drillers. Chavez, the towel heads in Iran, and, soon, Castro will always sell us the crude oil we need. Sometimes it sounds like a conspiracy, doesn’t it?
Let’s stipulate – perhaps not in full throated treacley Kumbaya mode – that honest Everyman, trudging down the rocky path that he has no choice but to stay on as he tries to get a leg over on life and having a rock, a large rock, fall on him shall not be blamed for being the catcher on the shot put team.
Since you make the distinction of a class called “Honest Poor” I rather imagine there will be a ring with many “Dishonest Poor” souls Gorilla Glued to it awaiting Dante’s final disposition. Their only plus is that they will always be higher in the Inferno than any employees of Halliburton or stockholders of WAL*MART.
In your achingly formulaic Jeremiad about evil you specifically mention who shouldn’t be blamed. Ellen Seidman, who ran the Office of Thrift Supervision from 1997 to 2001, is, as you say, one of those who can cast stones. Further, she says that any attempt to blame any part of the mortgage dustup on the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 is “chutzpah”.
Ms. Seidman, whose term in the waning days of the Clinton Administration could be compared to playing the piano in a busy cat house, knows not of what she speaks.
And, alas, neither do you.
It’s not “chutzpah”. It is “emmis” that the 1977 law started the ball down the chute.
Modern American Liberals are unaware that ideas have consequences and that legislation has unintended consequences. That’s how the Davis-Bacon Act of 1936 became the most anti-Black law passed on the Federal level in the 20th century. Like the Community Reinvestment Act made everybody feel good Davis Bacon did the same. When legislators substitute feelings for thought chaos follows. Witness the boobs in DC marching off the cliff whenever the minimum wage is mentioned.
If people will live better because the entry level wage is increased by $1.25 would not Logic dictate that the minimum wage be $28.50? That would allow simultaneous conspicuous consumption of veal and stone crab and the ultimate in hedonism, farting through silk.
You are entitled to your own opinion but as that old neo-Con, Senator Moynihan said, “you are not entitled to your own facts”.
“Clinton delivered a $300 billion surplus to Bush, and the
economy – except for a short dot.com bust in 2000 – was
rockin’. During the Eisenhower years, this country’s boom
years, this country’s boom years that created a huge
middle class, the marginal rate was 91 percent.”
#1 – The Federal budget process, not having any provisions for capital items, can neither be in surplus nor can it be in deficit. Ask your accountant.
#2 – Federal budgets say that aircraft carriers and “midnight basketball” are to be treated the same. That is an offense to good husbandry. If you disagree with this stop reading.
#3 – If, and thank God for the subjunctive, Clinton produced a “$300 billion surplus” why didn’t the national debt go down? It is a matter of public record that the total debt of the United States never went down by a penny in the years that the budget was supposedly in surplus. You can look it up.
#4 – Are you saying that the higher the marginal rate the better off the country will be? If so your Logic and History dictate that that our marginal tax rates should be 105%.
#5 – Senator Kennedy ran for the Presidency promising two things. He would close the “missile gap” with Russia that Eisenhower had allowed. The thought that the man who led 10,000,000 troops in combat, the man who caused Hitler to eat his gun 48 weeks after D-Day, would allow his country to slip into mortal peril is absurd. The other promise was to get the country “moving again”. His weapon of choice in that fight was tax cuts. You can look that up too.
I wouldn’t hold #5 against the country.
We all enlisted in the War on Poverty, America’s longest war; we all blinked when Jimmy Carter fought rabbits and the American people; now we want to see if we can tax our way to prosperity.
Proof positive that God does bless America.
PS – There is good news, however. If “Curley” Biden isn’t the dumbest man in public life there sure ain’t a long list in front of him. He continues the tradition of “dumber than a box of hammers” Democratic Vice Presidents. Vice President Alpha Gump has an 8 year head start on him. “Curley”, named after the smartest of the Stooges, has a lot of ground to cover. Those two couldn’t find their respective asses using all of their hands.
Myriam Marquez
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: “Don’t Blame Honest Poor for others’ Greed” – Whether the stone hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the stone it’s pretty much going to be the same for the pitcher, right? A somewhat different take on how we all came to be in this revolting situation.
Ms. Marquez,
I’ll start with an easy one.
Every time Detroit built an”energy-saving vehicle” the American car buying public stayed away in droves. The American car buyers wanted SUVs. All the modern American Liberals from car producing states got them counted as trucks to get around the CAFÉ standards. The same scoundrels then kept caribou rutting areas in Alaska and about 1/3rd of the Gulf of Mexico away American drillers. Chavez, the towel heads in Iran, and, soon, Castro will always sell us the crude oil we need. Sometimes it sounds like a conspiracy, doesn’t it?
Let’s stipulate – perhaps not in full throated treacley Kumbaya mode – that honest Everyman, trudging down the rocky path that he has no choice but to stay on as he tries to get a leg over on life and having a rock, a large rock, fall on him shall not be blamed for being the catcher on the shot put team.
Since you make the distinction of a class called “Honest Poor” I rather imagine there will be a ring with many “Dishonest Poor” souls Gorilla Glued to it awaiting Dante’s final disposition. Their only plus is that they will always be higher in the Inferno than any employees of Halliburton or stockholders of WAL*MART.
In your achingly formulaic Jeremiad about evil you specifically mention who shouldn’t be blamed. Ellen Seidman, who ran the Office of Thrift Supervision from 1997 to 2001, is, as you say, one of those who can cast stones. Further, she says that any attempt to blame any part of the mortgage dustup on the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 is “chutzpah”.
Ms. Seidman, whose term in the waning days of the Clinton Administration could be compared to playing the piano in a busy cat house, knows not of what she speaks.
And, alas, neither do you.
It’s not “chutzpah”. It is “emmis” that the 1977 law started the ball down the chute.
Modern American Liberals are unaware that ideas have consequences and that legislation has unintended consequences. That’s how the Davis-Bacon Act of 1936 became the most anti-Black law passed on the Federal level in the 20th century. Like the Community Reinvestment Act made everybody feel good Davis Bacon did the same. When legislators substitute feelings for thought chaos follows. Witness the boobs in DC marching off the cliff whenever the minimum wage is mentioned.
If people will live better because the entry level wage is increased by $1.25 would not Logic dictate that the minimum wage be $28.50? That would allow simultaneous conspicuous consumption of veal and stone crab and the ultimate in hedonism, farting through silk.
You are entitled to your own opinion but as that old neo-Con, Senator Moynihan said, “you are not entitled to your own facts”.
“Clinton delivered a $300 billion surplus to Bush, and the
economy – except for a short dot.com bust in 2000 – was
rockin’. During the Eisenhower years, this country’s boom
years, this country’s boom years that created a huge
middle class, the marginal rate was 91 percent.”
#1 – The Federal budget process, not having any provisions for capital items, can neither be in surplus nor can it be in deficit. Ask your accountant.
#2 – Federal budgets say that aircraft carriers and “midnight basketball” are to be treated the same. That is an offense to good husbandry. If you disagree with this stop reading.
#3 – If, and thank God for the subjunctive, Clinton produced a “$300 billion surplus” why didn’t the national debt go down? It is a matter of public record that the total debt of the United States never went down by a penny in the years that the budget was supposedly in surplus. You can look it up.
#4 – Are you saying that the higher the marginal rate the better off the country will be? If so your Logic and History dictate that that our marginal tax rates should be 105%.
#5 – Senator Kennedy ran for the Presidency promising two things. He would close the “missile gap” with Russia that Eisenhower had allowed. The thought that the man who led 10,000,000 troops in combat, the man who caused Hitler to eat his gun 48 weeks after D-Day, would allow his country to slip into mortal peril is absurd. The other promise was to get the country “moving again”. His weapon of choice in that fight was tax cuts. You can look that up too.
I wouldn’t hold #5 against the country.
We all enlisted in the War on Poverty, America’s longest war; we all blinked when Jimmy Carter fought rabbits and the American people; now we want to see if we can tax our way to prosperity.
Proof positive that God does bless America.
PS – There is good news, however. If “Curley” Biden isn’t the dumbest man in public life there sure ain’t a long list in front of him. He continues the tradition of “dumber than a box of hammers” Democratic Vice Presidents. Vice President Alpha Gump has an 8 year head start on him. “Curley”, named after the smartest of the Stooges, has a lot of ground to cover. Those two couldn’t find their respective asses using all of their hands.
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