Posts
February 7, 2009
Robert Reich
Goldman School of Public policy
University of California
2607 Hearst Avenue
Berkeley, California 94720-7320
RE: “Unions Can Strengthen America” or so you say in this morning’s Miami Herald
Professor Reich,
First, you must tell me if Bill Clinton still makes jokes about you being vertically challenged. They were laugh out loud funny, weren’t they?
Second, and I suppose you never kept copies, but when you were Secretary of Labor – I will resist the overpowering urge to say something about the world’s tallest midget – I wrote to you several times asking but 2 questions.
#1 – Did you ever do any physical labor?
#2 – Did you ever belong to a union?
I did hear back from one of your deputy assistant under Secretaries in charge of answering literate cranks that it was the policy not to comment on request for personal information about the Secretary. Assuming that Qui tacet consentit has not been repealed it would be safe to assume that you never ever did any physical labor and that you never ever had to join a union. I say “had to” because the two unions I was a member of I “had to” join. So much for employee freedom of choice, even then.
Your article shows an astonishing level of ignorance which I must conclude is not invincible.
“Hint: Go back about 50 years, when America’s middle class
was expanding and the economy was soaring.”
I remember a Senator from Massachusetts running for President 50 years ago. He had two themes that he repeated over and over. Long before the mantra was “stay on message” he “stayed on message”. Those themes are:
#1 – There was a “Missile Gap” that he would close. Some things are owed to the ledger. If memory serves the President was Eisenhower. He led 10,000,000 men in combat. 11 months and 2 days after he invaded Europe Hitler ate his gun. Is it possible that this man would have let his country slip into mortal peril? I think not.
#2 – Senator Kennedy spent a lot of his father’s money trying to convince the country that he would get it “moving again”. His method of choice was tax cuts. Perhaps that’s why you choose to forget about them. Perhaps you want to be “the last guy in the room” when President Bambi makes his final choices about the economy. If the middle class and the economy were soaring you could whisper in his ear that the Eisenhower tax rates, the top rate being 90%, made it happen. “What is past is prologue”, right?
“In 1955, more than 1/3rd of Americans belonged to unions.”
Assuming your numbers are correct, an assumption that is difficult to hold since one of the common traits of modern American Liberals is that everything is relative. For example, shape the facts to the argument is fair game for people without regard for the “permanent things”. No modern American Liberal ever met something he didn’t want to change.
If you wanted to say that “in 1955 more than 1/3rd of American workers belonged to unions” you should have, you know what I’m saying, said it.
Plucking some inconvenient facts out of the memory hole we find that in 1962 President Kennedy declared war on U.S. Steel. He even ordered his brother, the Attorney General, to send the FBI out in the middle of the night to roust all the executives of U.S. Steel and tell those bastards that they shouldn’t raise the price of steel.
If you worked for any steel company in America and carried your lunch to work you were in a union. How many union members are employed in the steel business in America today? How many people are employed in the steel business in America today?
If you worked for any part of the Big 3 and you carried your lunch to work you belonged to the UAW. Tell me the last time the Big 3 hired anybody, union member or not?
I believe it was 1971 when the economy switched from capital goods – “metal bashing” as they say in England – to services. Semi-conductors, Peoples’ Express, Pizza Hut, time shares, inter alia.
In the 1980s the 30 members of the Dow Jones Industrial Average added zero net new jobs to the economy. Companies like EDS, Federal Express, ADP, Intel, Microsoft, and MCI and me began to employ millions. Alas, this proved not to be fertile ground for descendants of Joe Hill, the Wobblies, and the AFL-CIO.
The 1990s gave us the Internet. I must add that I will never be able to thank former Vice President Alpha Gump for inventing it. That plus using one of the great phrases of the Clinton years, “no controlling legal authority”, makes him tops in my book. Yahoo and Google. I just can’t see a Tony Provenzano, a union leader to whom I personally paid dues, getting a stronghold in those industries.
“In 2007, nearly 12,000 janitors in New England, represented
by the Service Employees International Union, won a
contract that raised their wages to $16 an hour.”
I don’t know if you ever mopped johns. I did. One of the benefits of mopping johns is that you decide early on that don’t ever want to mop johns again. Edmund Burke was right. “Experience is the only school at which some people will learn.”
The only place where unions have grown is in the public sector. “Close enough for government work” is still a valid judgment, isn’t it? Spare me the rhetorical incontinence of saying that government employees in unions are descended from Samuel Gompers.
Here are 2 prerequisites for becoming Secretary of Labor.
#1 – You have actually done something that can be called “labor”.
#2 –You have actually “met” a payroll for others who have labored for you.
Your brief bio says that you teach at the University of California at Berkeley.
See if you can find a book on Logic. You may want to take a peek at Grammar and Rhetoric. I hope I haven’t spoiled the discovery of the Trivium for you. I know that you have never seen it up close and personal before. If you have then your entire adult life is like a “whited sepulcher”, rife with intellectual fraud
If, as you say, 1/3rd of the American work force belonging to unions in the 1950s led to a time of prosperity and security unequaled since the 5 Emperors, can it also be said that the dynasties of the New York Yankees, the Cleveland Browns, and the Montreal Canadians came about because so many Americans were in the AFL-CIO?
Did all those union members in the glorious ‘50s cause Elvis Presley? Mark Rothko? Rogers and Hammerstein? The hula hoop?
In your odyssey into Logic you may wish to become familiar with post hoc ergo propter hoc.
It could save you from making errors like the big one that filled your article this morning. Too bad it can’t be used retroactively.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
VEEP “Joey” Biden
February 3, 2009
VEEP “Joey” Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500
VEEP Curley,.
You’re the gift that keeps on giving, like the Clap.
The swearing in of Hillary Clinton was beyond comment. Almost. That you are a Horse’s Ass of Homeric proportions there is no doubt. Must you prove it 3 or 4 times a week? Apparently you do. For that I am most grateful.
I’d like to see you and Clinton’s designated funeral goer, the immortal Alpha Gump, go mano a mano in a Celebrity Death Match to see who can say the dumbest things in the shortest time.
He has 8 years on you so the comparison may not be fair. Then again a lot of things aren’t fair.
Taxes aren’t fair.
If you are a modern American Liberal the solution is simple.
Don’t pay them.
The big guy, B.O. Plenty, told me that you will be the last guy in the room when he makes a big decision.
Alas, the reason will not be the one you had hoped for.
Since he is “smart and no fool” he will have sent you out to get the aisle stretcher or the steam bucket, anything to get you out of harm’s way, anything to keep you from interfering with the adults.
Doubtless you will have exited via the broom closet. There, totally lost, you will pretend to be Gus-Gus the Mouse. If you hear President Bambi say that he intends to bomb Pakistan jump out and yell “Another campaign promise kept” or “You da man”. Two might be too much for you to memorize. Pick one and stick with it.
Once you complete your training program, and Lord knows how we are all pulling for you, there are big things in store for you.
As soon as you figure out what to do with your thumbs you will have two new assignments.
#1 – Two car funerals
#2 – Wet dreams
In carefully selected focus groups whenever your picture is shown most people shout “What a putz”.
Not me.
You go guy!
VEEP “Joey” Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500
VEEP Curley,.
You’re the gift that keeps on giving, like the Clap.
The swearing in of Hillary Clinton was beyond comment. Almost. That you are a Horse’s Ass of Homeric proportions there is no doubt. Must you prove it 3 or 4 times a week? Apparently you do. For that I am most grateful.
I’d like to see you and Clinton’s designated funeral goer, the immortal Alpha Gump, go mano a mano in a Celebrity Death Match to see who can say the dumbest things in the shortest time.
He has 8 years on you so the comparison may not be fair. Then again a lot of things aren’t fair.
Taxes aren’t fair.
If you are a modern American Liberal the solution is simple.
Don’t pay them.
The big guy, B.O. Plenty, told me that you will be the last guy in the room when he makes a big decision.
Alas, the reason will not be the one you had hoped for.
Since he is “smart and no fool” he will have sent you out to get the aisle stretcher or the steam bucket, anything to get you out of harm’s way, anything to keep you from interfering with the adults.
Doubtless you will have exited via the broom closet. There, totally lost, you will pretend to be Gus-Gus the Mouse. If you hear President Bambi say that he intends to bomb Pakistan jump out and yell “Another campaign promise kept” or “You da man”. Two might be too much for you to memorize. Pick one and stick with it.
Once you complete your training program, and Lord knows how we are all pulling for you, there are big things in store for you.
As soon as you figure out what to do with your thumbs you will have two new assignments.
#1 – Two car funerals
#2 – Wet dreams
In carefully selected focus groups whenever your picture is shown most people shout “What a putz”.
Not me.
You go guy!
Congressman Ron Klein
February 4, 2009
Congressman Ron Klein
800 East Broward Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: Exercising “moral authority”
Congressman Klein,
Last February you voted for a bill that would have outlawed “waterborarding”. Speaker Pelosi said “Failure to legally prohibit the use of waterboarding and other harsh techniques undermines our nation’s moral authority…”.
President Bush vetoed it.
There is a Democrat in the White House. Democrats control both Houses of Congress.
I know you plan to vote for it again,
Why don’t you introduce it?
After all, how many times do you get to support “moral authority”?
Congressman Ron Klein
800 East Broward Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: Exercising “moral authority”
Congressman Klein,
Last February you voted for a bill that would have outlawed “waterborarding”. Speaker Pelosi said “Failure to legally prohibit the use of waterboarding and other harsh techniques undermines our nation’s moral authority…”.
President Bush vetoed it.
There is a Democrat in the White House. Democrats control both Houses of Congress.
I know you plan to vote for it again,
Why don’t you introduce it?
After all, how many times do you get to support “moral authority”?
Senator Bill Nelson
February 4, 2009
Senator Bill Nelson
3416 South University Drive
Davie, Florida 32207
RE: Capitalist oil or Communist oil- What’s the difference?
Senator Nelson,
The Cubans are coming! The Cubans are coming! Only this time they are bringing the Chinese and the Indians [not the Comanches]
They just announced that they will begin drilling for oil by summertime, 2009. Since they are incapable of doing this themselves they have hired Chinese and Indian drilling companies to do it for them.
You have been adamantly opposed to drilling in American waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Cuba, a sovereign nation, will drill in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico within 50 miles of Florida’s most pristine beaches.
It would seem Logical to me that if Exxon or Chevron, both American companies, can’t drill there because of concerns for the environment then Cuba can’t drill there either. I have almost 20 years experience in drilling oil and gas wells. Things happen. Where Cuba will drill has the potential to foul both the Gulf and the Atlantic coasts of Florida.
In the end would not the United States Navy be the best way to enforce American wishes on an oil thirsty world?
If there is a reasonable alternative, one that has a chance of succeeding in keeping our shores pristine, could you share it with me?
Senator Bill Nelson
3416 South University Drive
Davie, Florida 32207
RE: Capitalist oil or Communist oil- What’s the difference?
Senator Nelson,
The Cubans are coming! The Cubans are coming! Only this time they are bringing the Chinese and the Indians [not the Comanches]
They just announced that they will begin drilling for oil by summertime, 2009. Since they are incapable of doing this themselves they have hired Chinese and Indian drilling companies to do it for them.
You have been adamantly opposed to drilling in American waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Cuba, a sovereign nation, will drill in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico within 50 miles of Florida’s most pristine beaches.
It would seem Logical to me that if Exxon or Chevron, both American companies, can’t drill there because of concerns for the environment then Cuba can’t drill there either. I have almost 20 years experience in drilling oil and gas wells. Things happen. Where Cuba will drill has the potential to foul both the Gulf and the Atlantic coasts of Florida.
In the end would not the United States Navy be the best way to enforce American wishes on an oil thirsty world?
If there is a reasonable alternative, one that has a chance of succeeding in keeping our shores pristine, could you share it with me?
Monday, February 2, 2009
Leonard Pitts, The Miami Herald
February 1, 2009
Leonard Pitts
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: “Why Politics Has Become So Destructive” –
Your achy breaky lachrymose comments about mean spirited guys, all of whom are Republicans, all of whom are mind numbed robots of Rush Limbaugh, saying nasty things about President Bambi and how that will hinder the recovery of the economy, increase Global Warming/Cooling, encourage teenage obesity, and continue the cycle of free men saying things freely.
Mr. Pitts,
Hillary Clinton was hired by the largest law firm in Little Rock when her husband was elected Attorney General of Arkansas.
Hillary Clinton was made a partner in the largest law firm in Little Rock when her husband was elected Governor of Arkansas.
Coincidence?
Michelle Obama was given a $4,000 a week raise – that‘s a bit more than $200,000 a year – when her husband was elected to the United States Senate.
Her husband arranged for her employer to get a $1,000,000 earmark.
Michele Obama left her job. The position will not be refilled.
Coincidence?
P.G. Wodehouse wrote that coincidences occur all the time like when you “find a trout in the milk”.
Have I “ravaged” anybody?
It’s been 6 days since an ice storm ravished Kentucky. Where the Hell is FEMA? Do you think it would be OK for a White singer to say that Barack Obama doesn’t like White people? If he were to say that would it be OK because that’s what a Black singer said about a White President?
You say that ravaging Obama because Bush was ravaged is wrong. Further, you say that such “childishness…becomes an intellectual strait jacket”.
I hate to disillusion you but since the election of 1800 that has been the American way. Ravaging, evil cartoons, vile rumors, half truths, and out and out lies have been the norm for elections in this country. H. Rap Brown, a 60s civil rights leader, said in a different context, it was as “American as apple pie”.
Free speech is meant to be sharp edged, rough edged, mean spirited, biting, nasty, not always 100% accurate, vituperative and ongoing.
We have a First Amendment that permits taxpayer subsidization of a play – Corpus Cristi – that says Jesus Christ was crucified because of a lovers’ quarrel. It seems that Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot, homosexual lovers, had a spat. You know how they are. Things got out of hand and Jesus winds up nailed to a cross. “Free men speak with free tongues” is still a good thing, isn’t it?
Having gone through the whore house of Chicago politics, and if the official bio is to be believed, emerged as a virgin President B. Hussein Obama can stand a few sharp elbows.
I recall Mayor Daley the First, father of Mayor Daley the Second, leaning over a rostrum and interrupting a Mike Royko question with the charming rejoinder, “If you don’t like it you can kiss my ass”.
I think it was somebody from Chicago who said “politics ain’t beanbag”.
By the by, “I’ll ravage your guy because you ravaged my guy” predates your column by almost 25 centuries
The DWEMs [Dead White European Males] cobbled together something called the Trivium. 2/3rds of it - Logic and Rhetoric – sometimes overlap. The Romans identified mutual ravaging as tu qouque Poor Logic but effective Rhetoric.
PS – You mention “trillion dollar surpluses” as if they were real. If there were why did the national debt never ever go down by one dollar during the glorious Clinton years? You and your recently converted fellow ravagers, modern American Liberals all, say it far too often for it to be invincible ignorance. I haven’t ruled out the possibility that you are just a horse’s ass. You aren’t, are you? I like to think that deep down you know that Davis-Bacon is the most anti-ColoredNegroBlack legislation passed in the 20th century that is still on the books. “Those words mean exactly what I want them to mean”, said Alice.
Leonard Pitts
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: “Why Politics Has Become So Destructive” –
Your achy breaky lachrymose comments about mean spirited guys, all of whom are Republicans, all of whom are mind numbed robots of Rush Limbaugh, saying nasty things about President Bambi and how that will hinder the recovery of the economy, increase Global Warming/Cooling, encourage teenage obesity, and continue the cycle of free men saying things freely.
Mr. Pitts,
Hillary Clinton was hired by the largest law firm in Little Rock when her husband was elected Attorney General of Arkansas.
Hillary Clinton was made a partner in the largest law firm in Little Rock when her husband was elected Governor of Arkansas.
Coincidence?
Michelle Obama was given a $4,000 a week raise – that‘s a bit more than $200,000 a year – when her husband was elected to the United States Senate.
Her husband arranged for her employer to get a $1,000,000 earmark.
Michele Obama left her job. The position will not be refilled.
Coincidence?
P.G. Wodehouse wrote that coincidences occur all the time like when you “find a trout in the milk”.
Have I “ravaged” anybody?
It’s been 6 days since an ice storm ravished Kentucky. Where the Hell is FEMA? Do you think it would be OK for a White singer to say that Barack Obama doesn’t like White people? If he were to say that would it be OK because that’s what a Black singer said about a White President?
You say that ravaging Obama because Bush was ravaged is wrong. Further, you say that such “childishness…becomes an intellectual strait jacket”.
I hate to disillusion you but since the election of 1800 that has been the American way. Ravaging, evil cartoons, vile rumors, half truths, and out and out lies have been the norm for elections in this country. H. Rap Brown, a 60s civil rights leader, said in a different context, it was as “American as apple pie”.
Free speech is meant to be sharp edged, rough edged, mean spirited, biting, nasty, not always 100% accurate, vituperative and ongoing.
We have a First Amendment that permits taxpayer subsidization of a play – Corpus Cristi – that says Jesus Christ was crucified because of a lovers’ quarrel. It seems that Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot, homosexual lovers, had a spat. You know how they are. Things got out of hand and Jesus winds up nailed to a cross. “Free men speak with free tongues” is still a good thing, isn’t it?
Having gone through the whore house of Chicago politics, and if the official bio is to be believed, emerged as a virgin President B. Hussein Obama can stand a few sharp elbows.
I recall Mayor Daley the First, father of Mayor Daley the Second, leaning over a rostrum and interrupting a Mike Royko question with the charming rejoinder, “If you don’t like it you can kiss my ass”.
I think it was somebody from Chicago who said “politics ain’t beanbag”.
By the by, “I’ll ravage your guy because you ravaged my guy” predates your column by almost 25 centuries
The DWEMs [Dead White European Males] cobbled together something called the Trivium. 2/3rds of it - Logic and Rhetoric – sometimes overlap. The Romans identified mutual ravaging as tu qouque Poor Logic but effective Rhetoric.
PS – You mention “trillion dollar surpluses” as if they were real. If there were why did the national debt never ever go down by one dollar during the glorious Clinton years? You and your recently converted fellow ravagers, modern American Liberals all, say it far too often for it to be invincible ignorance. I haven’t ruled out the possibility that you are just a horse’s ass. You aren’t, are you? I like to think that deep down you know that Davis-Bacon is the most anti-ColoredNegroBlack legislation passed in the 20th century that is still on the books. “Those words mean exactly what I want them to mean”, said Alice.
Friday, January 30, 2009
My classmate, the Judge
December 29, 2008
The Honorable Walter Barisonek
Assignment Judge – Union County
2 Broad Street
Elizabeth, New Jersey 07201-2202
Elizabeth, New Jersey
Judge Barisonek or, as you were known on 4th Street and 8th Street, Wally,
I already marked my calendar for 2055. I try to reach all of my classmates at least once every 47 years. Did I say 47 years?
I check the local Irish Sports Pages very early every AM. If my name isn’t in them down here I check the Star Ledger and the Jersey Journal. I opened the article entitled “Union County Jurist Retiring”.
I recall Brother Leo Sylvius telling us not to hide our lights under a bushel. At least you took his advice.
My retirement advice is from Tennyson.
“How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use.”
PS – In my checkered career I have 2 court events that stand out. I am the person responsible for Justice Clarence Thomas, an accomplishment of which I am quite proud. Also, do you remember June 3, 1993 at the Essex County Courthouse? The deputy whose life I saved later danced at my daughter’s wedding.
The Honorable Walter Barisonek
Assignment Judge – Union County
2 Broad Street
Elizabeth, New Jersey 07201-2202
Elizabeth, New Jersey
Judge Barisonek or, as you were known on 4th Street and 8th Street, Wally,
I already marked my calendar for 2055. I try to reach all of my classmates at least once every 47 years. Did I say 47 years?
I check the local Irish Sports Pages very early every AM. If my name isn’t in them down here I check the Star Ledger and the Jersey Journal. I opened the article entitled “Union County Jurist Retiring”.
I recall Brother Leo Sylvius telling us not to hide our lights under a bushel. At least you took his advice.
My retirement advice is from Tennyson.
“How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use.”
PS – In my checkered career I have 2 court events that stand out. I am the person responsible for Justice Clarence Thomas, an accomplishment of which I am quite proud. Also, do you remember June 3, 1993 at the Essex County Courthouse? The deputy whose life I saved later danced at my daughter’s wedding.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Congressman Ron Klein
January 24, 2009
Congressman Ron Klein
800 East Broward Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: Camp Gitmo and …and…what’s that word?
Congressman Klein,
I suppose it would be more fruitful “Waiting for Godot” than it would be waiting for the simple courtesy of a reply from you. After all, I am only a constituent of the district that you represent.
I write this with the sincere hope that you can get a message to the Big Guy in the White House.
He’s in charge. If he wants Camp Gitmo shut down tell him to imagine he’s back in Chicago and his name is Daley. “The wish of the Prince has the force of law” is just as valid in Chicago as it was in Florence. All the Mayor would have to do would be to whisper in one ear and the place would be broom swept and muzzein free in 3 days, 4 tops.
That leaves one vexing question.
What’s to be done with the prisoners?
How about bringing some of the really bad ones to the Super Bowl?
Weld them to some smart bombs, being sure to cover them in pig fat, and try to hit the logo on the 50 yard line. It would be the Logical next step in the tired Punt, Pass, and Kick contest. The winning pilot gets to lead the bomb run on Mecca
Too harsh?
OK. OK. Bring them to Broward County.
We have a lot of empty condos and apartment units. I am sure they would qualify for Section 8 subsidies. I know it could be construed as a bailout for land lords but look at the good side.
Broward is committed to diversity. It’s possible we could have the filthy WOG who cut Daniel Berg’s head off in an empty Century City condo. He could run for Condo Commando. I can see a Broadway musical and maybe a TV series coming out of this.
I may be over thinking this.
There may be a simpler solution at hand.
Cut a hole in the fence and send their sad sacked sorry asses to Cuba. Either they go to Cuba or, if they stay, they have to listen to Michael Moore talk over and over and over and over. And over. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment! They’ll be begging to be waterboarded.
I got it! I got it!
The word I’m looking for is…is…bullshit.
President Bambi is doing what President Lincoln, his idol, did.
#44 closes Gitmo except he doesn’t. #16 freed the slaves where he couldn’t and kept them in chains where he could have freed them.
The only difference I see is that the Democrats and the New York Times hated #16. You knew that, didn’t you? In fact, the Times called him a baboon. It will be a while before the Times calls Barack a baboon, don’t you think? It was acceptable, however, to compare Bush with Hitler.
Saint Augustine, another African of note, asked God to “make him strong but not just yet”.
When should we expect to be overwhelmed by change?
In anticipation of the courtesy of a reply I remain
Your most humble constituent,
PS – The Congressional Budget Office says that 2/3rds of the money in the current stimulus bill can’t be spent until 2011. How will that “create” jobs in 2009? Could it be that the theme of this note is valid again?
Congressman Ron Klein
800 East Broward Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: Camp Gitmo and …and…what’s that word?
Congressman Klein,
I suppose it would be more fruitful “Waiting for Godot” than it would be waiting for the simple courtesy of a reply from you. After all, I am only a constituent of the district that you represent.
I write this with the sincere hope that you can get a message to the Big Guy in the White House.
He’s in charge. If he wants Camp Gitmo shut down tell him to imagine he’s back in Chicago and his name is Daley. “The wish of the Prince has the force of law” is just as valid in Chicago as it was in Florence. All the Mayor would have to do would be to whisper in one ear and the place would be broom swept and muzzein free in 3 days, 4 tops.
That leaves one vexing question.
What’s to be done with the prisoners?
How about bringing some of the really bad ones to the Super Bowl?
Weld them to some smart bombs, being sure to cover them in pig fat, and try to hit the logo on the 50 yard line. It would be the Logical next step in the tired Punt, Pass, and Kick contest. The winning pilot gets to lead the bomb run on Mecca
Too harsh?
OK. OK. Bring them to Broward County.
We have a lot of empty condos and apartment units. I am sure they would qualify for Section 8 subsidies. I know it could be construed as a bailout for land lords but look at the good side.
Broward is committed to diversity. It’s possible we could have the filthy WOG who cut Daniel Berg’s head off in an empty Century City condo. He could run for Condo Commando. I can see a Broadway musical and maybe a TV series coming out of this.
I may be over thinking this.
There may be a simpler solution at hand.
Cut a hole in the fence and send their sad sacked sorry asses to Cuba. Either they go to Cuba or, if they stay, they have to listen to Michael Moore talk over and over and over and over. And over. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment! They’ll be begging to be waterboarded.
I got it! I got it!
The word I’m looking for is…is…bullshit.
President Bambi is doing what President Lincoln, his idol, did.
#44 closes Gitmo except he doesn’t. #16 freed the slaves where he couldn’t and kept them in chains where he could have freed them.
The only difference I see is that the Democrats and the New York Times hated #16. You knew that, didn’t you? In fact, the Times called him a baboon. It will be a while before the Times calls Barack a baboon, don’t you think? It was acceptable, however, to compare Bush with Hitler.
Saint Augustine, another African of note, asked God to “make him strong but not just yet”.
When should we expect to be overwhelmed by change?
In anticipation of the courtesy of a reply I remain
Your most humble constituent,
PS – The Congressional Budget Office says that 2/3rds of the money in the current stimulus bill can’t be spent until 2011. How will that “create” jobs in 2009? Could it be that the theme of this note is valid again?
Vice President Joey Biden
January 22, 2009
Vice President Joey Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500
RE: A sad tale to report: The “uncreation” of one very good job.
Dear VEEP Curley,
I know you’re asking – pleased don’t scratch your head lest the inorganic Chia Pet plugs you had Gorilla Glued and Moly Bolted on eject themselves and create a HAZ-MAT condition in the White House – why am I calling you Curley
Think of the 3 Stooges.
Who was the smartest one?
Bingo! Curley. And you got it on your first try! Good on you.
Anyway, the job you have “uncreated” is mine. I am in charge of very prestigious Awards Committee. Every week I have to find the public figure worthy enough to wear the crown
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
The other Awards, POMPOUS FART OF THE MONTH and SMARMY BASTARD OF THE YEAR, are a bit beyond your reach. To be a POMPOUS FART you have know that you are pompous and, since you lack the wit to be a SMARMY BASTARD it seems that you are locked into the first level of awards. My father’s father, Jack Smith, went to his grave trying to figure out why there were more horses’ asses than there were horses’ heads. He thought that the number should always be in balance. He died long before The Godfather.
The good news is that I hereby name you
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
in perpetuity – that means forever
Through skill and cunning I found out that you were always a horse’s ass. Several of you classmates at Archmere Academy – Brother Auks, if you will – told me that your Horse’s Ass tendencies began to show themselves in the fall of 1957.
Several of your football teammates called you a “cheesedick”. I too played football at a Catholic high school but it is a term – “cheesedick” – with which I am not familiar. I imagine it is some kind of Norbertine password known only to a select few.
Naturally my sources will remain confidential. President Bambi can sign all the Executive Orders he wants to. Thank God you’ve stopped waterboarding! I’ll never give them up. If pressed I will use the Geithner defense. It was a classic. “I forgot.”
Several of your classmates told me that while it was conduct very unsacerdotal every time he heard your name Father Diny shook his head and said, “What a putz!”
I will share something else with you. Since you are genetically incapable of keeping your mouth shut I expect you to babble about it instantly. Tell your wife – You’re right. She is a babe. – that I am going t make Congressman Barney Frank
SMARMY BASTARD OF THE YEAR
IN PERPETUITY – IT STILL MEANS FOREVER
Barney is from Bayonne. He knows that all politics is local. Since he took a successful run at Father Drinan’s seat he takes care of the locals first. This morning’s Wall Street Journal tells of his effort to help a bank in his district. I had to get all the way to the end before it was revealed that it was a minority owned bank, the only minority owned bank in Massachusetts. He said it would have been a “social tragedy” if it had failed. Particularly, says he, since “the bank’s problems were caused by the Federal Government”. That it got in trouble on Barney’s watch – he ran the Committee that had oversight on Fanny and Freddy – is sent down the memory hole.
Since he has already admitted that he spent the better part of the last decade canoodling down the Hershey Highway with an internal [sic] auditor from Fanny Mae God knows what he was doing with the boys at OneUnited. He said he spoke to Federal regulators whose names he has forgotten about “giving them a Federal injection”. It is not known where he would personally supervise this “injection”, it being something with which he has working knowledge. Also, the story did not make clear whether it was to be under the TARP or on top of same.
Spread the story; save me some stamps.
I’ll be in touch with you from time to time to highlight your coming achievements. Who knows how many they will be? I may have to hire someone just to keep track of your rhetorical incontinence. Meanwhile, revel in the fact that you are the first member of Team Obama to be cited. I can tell you that Carole Browner will soon be wearing laurels. You toil in a target rich environment. As a patriot it is the least I can do.
Vice President Joey Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500
RE: A sad tale to report: The “uncreation” of one very good job.
Dear VEEP Curley,
I know you’re asking – pleased don’t scratch your head lest the inorganic Chia Pet plugs you had Gorilla Glued and Moly Bolted on eject themselves and create a HAZ-MAT condition in the White House – why am I calling you Curley
Think of the 3 Stooges.
Who was the smartest one?
Bingo! Curley. And you got it on your first try! Good on you.
Anyway, the job you have “uncreated” is mine. I am in charge of very prestigious Awards Committee. Every week I have to find the public figure worthy enough to wear the crown
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
The other Awards, POMPOUS FART OF THE MONTH and SMARMY BASTARD OF THE YEAR, are a bit beyond your reach. To be a POMPOUS FART you have know that you are pompous and, since you lack the wit to be a SMARMY BASTARD it seems that you are locked into the first level of awards. My father’s father, Jack Smith, went to his grave trying to figure out why there were more horses’ asses than there were horses’ heads. He thought that the number should always be in balance. He died long before The Godfather.
The good news is that I hereby name you
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
in perpetuity – that means forever
Through skill and cunning I found out that you were always a horse’s ass. Several of you classmates at Archmere Academy – Brother Auks, if you will – told me that your Horse’s Ass tendencies began to show themselves in the fall of 1957.
Several of your football teammates called you a “cheesedick”. I too played football at a Catholic high school but it is a term – “cheesedick” – with which I am not familiar. I imagine it is some kind of Norbertine password known only to a select few.
Naturally my sources will remain confidential. President Bambi can sign all the Executive Orders he wants to. Thank God you’ve stopped waterboarding! I’ll never give them up. If pressed I will use the Geithner defense. It was a classic. “I forgot.”
Several of your classmates told me that while it was conduct very unsacerdotal every time he heard your name Father Diny shook his head and said, “What a putz!”
I will share something else with you. Since you are genetically incapable of keeping your mouth shut I expect you to babble about it instantly. Tell your wife – You’re right. She is a babe. – that I am going t make Congressman Barney Frank
SMARMY BASTARD OF THE YEAR
IN PERPETUITY – IT STILL MEANS FOREVER
Barney is from Bayonne. He knows that all politics is local. Since he took a successful run at Father Drinan’s seat he takes care of the locals first. This morning’s Wall Street Journal tells of his effort to help a bank in his district. I had to get all the way to the end before it was revealed that it was a minority owned bank, the only minority owned bank in Massachusetts. He said it would have been a “social tragedy” if it had failed. Particularly, says he, since “the bank’s problems were caused by the Federal Government”. That it got in trouble on Barney’s watch – he ran the Committee that had oversight on Fanny and Freddy – is sent down the memory hole.
Since he has already admitted that he spent the better part of the last decade canoodling down the Hershey Highway with an internal [sic] auditor from Fanny Mae God knows what he was doing with the boys at OneUnited. He said he spoke to Federal regulators whose names he has forgotten about “giving them a Federal injection”. It is not known where he would personally supervise this “injection”, it being something with which he has working knowledge. Also, the story did not make clear whether it was to be under the TARP or on top of same.
Spread the story; save me some stamps.
I’ll be in touch with you from time to time to highlight your coming achievements. Who knows how many they will be? I may have to hire someone just to keep track of your rhetorical incontinence. Meanwhile, revel in the fact that you are the first member of Team Obama to be cited. I can tell you that Carole Browner will soon be wearing laurels. You toil in a target rich environment. As a patriot it is the least I can do.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
The Honeymoon Is over
January 20, 2009
The college football season is over. I would have liked to have seen Tim Tebow run against USC, particularly #10, Brian Cushing. It will be 8 months before the term “true freshman” is heard once again. There are quite a few 18 year old who could have been “true freshmen” who are in pressure filled jobs. There are no unsportsmanlike conduct penalties or time outs in Afghanistan. There are more than a few red shirts.
The NFL is down to one game. Thank God that neither Philadelphia nor Baltimore will be in it. It would have been like watching two drunks hit each other with bats. Since the game will be in Tampa there will be no chance of hearing the term “lake effect snow” until Halloween. If the Global Warming caca is true maybe it will be Thanksgiving before it makes its dreaded reappearance by a lake other than Okechobee.
Speaking of a term that sounds like tinkling brass on a good day, fingernails on a blackboard on a normal day, and reach for the barf bag on a bad day nothing but nothing tops “shovel ready”. Can we please use some of those soon to be created jobs, jobs that will be created out of whole cloth, jobs that will appear fully grown straight out of Zeus’s forehead, jobs that will be created from the plow speeding mantras of hard working, well intentioned smart, very smart people to bury, inter is better, the term “shovel ready”?
One thing is certain. People who use the term “shovel ready”, people like the President and his Gang of 40, people like the cheerleaders who are all leg tingled reptiles who couldn’t lie straight in bed save for the advancement of the Cause, have never spent one minute ever getting something, anything “shovel ready”.
[I watched President Bambi take a shot at painting a wall. He had several advantages. #1 – Someone told him which end of the roller to put into the paint. #2 – The wall was not moving. #3 – He paused after his 3rd stroke to tell us that “It’s not exactly rocket science”. Earth to Bambi. Earth to Bambi. The only thing that is rocket science is…rocket science. There are good painters and there are bad painters. Good ones get paid more than bad ones.
Only someone whose only job experience before he found an uncovered lactating mammary in the government sector was as a community organizer would say that. Scratch that. A good community organizer would never insult the people he is trying to organize. That common sense rule was installed by King Daley the First and reinforced by his sons, heirs, and loyal vaasals.
Begin with this simple fact.
“Shovel ready” ain’t forever.
Once a project is “shovel ready” the shovel has to be used. The first rule of loading a rifle is that the sharp end of the cartridge goes up the spout first. The same rule applies to shovels. The long skinny end is only good for resting a hand.
I recall John “Pretty Boy” Edwards using a shovel at a photo op in New Orleans. I wasn’t sure if the yard he was digging in was on one of the homes he had foreclosed on but he damn well didn’t know what to do with the shovel. He handled it like it was on fire. Throw in toxic also. Whatever happened to him, anyway?
Ask people who use the term “shovel ready” if they have ever pulled a permit.
When teeth are pulled Novocain is recommended.
A quart and half of industrial strength gaga juice would be needed in all 4 cheeks to get you through the process.
If it’s “shovel ready” the rule is simple. Use it or lose it.
Part of the game plan in getting something “shovel ready” is getting your financing in line. The only people who get things “shovel ready” without having their finances in line are those who work for government. [Kirwin’s Ditch is an example of how far back lunacy can dominate infrastructure discussions]
Prices change. Interest rates change. Specs change. Markets change. Minds change.
Who knows which of the myriad projects are “shovel ready”?
One sure sign that change is in the air is that Reagan Airport reported that it landed the most private jets ever in the past two days. Excluded of course from this corporate flyby was the not so big Little 3. They were last seen hitch hiking down I 79 hoping to get an Eastbound convoy straight into D.C.
I believe that these planes are filled with First Amendment enthusiasts. They convinced corporations and cities that the best way to advance their “shovel ready” projects was to hire them to plead their cases to Congress and the Administration.
Their motto “YES WE CAN POUR ENOUGH CONCRETE TO PAVE OUR WAY TO PROSPERITY” is sure to be a winner.
What a refreshing change from the old way of doing business.
KS
PS – Two things about the Inaugural Parade
#1 – Your salute has got to go. Not because you doing it wrong but because you shouldn’t be doing it at all. If ever there was a President who cold hand salute it was Dwight Eisenhower. Eleven months after he led 10,000,000 men into Western Europe [and my wife’s father was there on D-Day] Hitler ate his gun. He wore 5 stars on each of his shoulders. From the time he was sworn in until the day he left office he never hand saluted. He put his right hand over his heart. Ask somebody. End of discussion.
Perhaps a “true freshman” confused by the possibility of “lake effect snow” and overwhelmed by the number of “shovel ready” projects absent the immediate implementation of same will result in the end of civilization as we know it before the icebergs melt and we all cook to death in the Fire Next Time, Global Warming, as predicted by former Vice President Alpha Gump would make such a mistake.
Unless your name is Clinton there are no mulligans when you are President.
Don’t let it happen again.
You’re the President. Just because you have the right to do it doesn’t make it right to do it.
#2 – What the Hell was your wife wearing this afternoon? It looked like she made it to the final cut of the Outside Pole Dancer at the Club Bada Bing. Have that gold outfit cleaned and burned.
One more thing, as Columbo would say. Curly Biden, named after the smartest of the Stooges, and now occupying the Vice Presidential jump seat so marvelously held by Clinton’s #2, the legendary Alpha Gump, was kind of right. He is kind of “articulate” and I hope he’s “clean”.
The college football season is over. I would have liked to have seen Tim Tebow run against USC, particularly #10, Brian Cushing. It will be 8 months before the term “true freshman” is heard once again. There are quite a few 18 year old who could have been “true freshmen” who are in pressure filled jobs. There are no unsportsmanlike conduct penalties or time outs in Afghanistan. There are more than a few red shirts.
The NFL is down to one game. Thank God that neither Philadelphia nor Baltimore will be in it. It would have been like watching two drunks hit each other with bats. Since the game will be in Tampa there will be no chance of hearing the term “lake effect snow” until Halloween. If the Global Warming caca is true maybe it will be Thanksgiving before it makes its dreaded reappearance by a lake other than Okechobee.
Speaking of a term that sounds like tinkling brass on a good day, fingernails on a blackboard on a normal day, and reach for the barf bag on a bad day nothing but nothing tops “shovel ready”. Can we please use some of those soon to be created jobs, jobs that will be created out of whole cloth, jobs that will appear fully grown straight out of Zeus’s forehead, jobs that will be created from the plow speeding mantras of hard working, well intentioned smart, very smart people to bury, inter is better, the term “shovel ready”?
One thing is certain. People who use the term “shovel ready”, people like the President and his Gang of 40, people like the cheerleaders who are all leg tingled reptiles who couldn’t lie straight in bed save for the advancement of the Cause, have never spent one minute ever getting something, anything “shovel ready”.
[I watched President Bambi take a shot at painting a wall. He had several advantages. #1 – Someone told him which end of the roller to put into the paint. #2 – The wall was not moving. #3 – He paused after his 3rd stroke to tell us that “It’s not exactly rocket science”. Earth to Bambi. Earth to Bambi. The only thing that is rocket science is…rocket science. There are good painters and there are bad painters. Good ones get paid more than bad ones.
Only someone whose only job experience before he found an uncovered lactating mammary in the government sector was as a community organizer would say that. Scratch that. A good community organizer would never insult the people he is trying to organize. That common sense rule was installed by King Daley the First and reinforced by his sons, heirs, and loyal vaasals.
Begin with this simple fact.
“Shovel ready” ain’t forever.
Once a project is “shovel ready” the shovel has to be used. The first rule of loading a rifle is that the sharp end of the cartridge goes up the spout first. The same rule applies to shovels. The long skinny end is only good for resting a hand.
I recall John “Pretty Boy” Edwards using a shovel at a photo op in New Orleans. I wasn’t sure if the yard he was digging in was on one of the homes he had foreclosed on but he damn well didn’t know what to do with the shovel. He handled it like it was on fire. Throw in toxic also. Whatever happened to him, anyway?
Ask people who use the term “shovel ready” if they have ever pulled a permit.
When teeth are pulled Novocain is recommended.
A quart and half of industrial strength gaga juice would be needed in all 4 cheeks to get you through the process.
If it’s “shovel ready” the rule is simple. Use it or lose it.
Part of the game plan in getting something “shovel ready” is getting your financing in line. The only people who get things “shovel ready” without having their finances in line are those who work for government. [Kirwin’s Ditch is an example of how far back lunacy can dominate infrastructure discussions]
Prices change. Interest rates change. Specs change. Markets change. Minds change.
Who knows which of the myriad projects are “shovel ready”?
One sure sign that change is in the air is that Reagan Airport reported that it landed the most private jets ever in the past two days. Excluded of course from this corporate flyby was the not so big Little 3. They were last seen hitch hiking down I 79 hoping to get an Eastbound convoy straight into D.C.
I believe that these planes are filled with First Amendment enthusiasts. They convinced corporations and cities that the best way to advance their “shovel ready” projects was to hire them to plead their cases to Congress and the Administration.
Their motto “YES WE CAN POUR ENOUGH CONCRETE TO PAVE OUR WAY TO PROSPERITY” is sure to be a winner.
What a refreshing change from the old way of doing business.
KS
PS – Two things about the Inaugural Parade
#1 – Your salute has got to go. Not because you doing it wrong but because you shouldn’t be doing it at all. If ever there was a President who cold hand salute it was Dwight Eisenhower. Eleven months after he led 10,000,000 men into Western Europe [and my wife’s father was there on D-Day] Hitler ate his gun. He wore 5 stars on each of his shoulders. From the time he was sworn in until the day he left office he never hand saluted. He put his right hand over his heart. Ask somebody. End of discussion.
Perhaps a “true freshman” confused by the possibility of “lake effect snow” and overwhelmed by the number of “shovel ready” projects absent the immediate implementation of same will result in the end of civilization as we know it before the icebergs melt and we all cook to death in the Fire Next Time, Global Warming, as predicted by former Vice President Alpha Gump would make such a mistake.
Unless your name is Clinton there are no mulligans when you are President.
Don’t let it happen again.
You’re the President. Just because you have the right to do it doesn’t make it right to do it.
#2 – What the Hell was your wife wearing this afternoon? It looked like she made it to the final cut of the Outside Pole Dancer at the Club Bada Bing. Have that gold outfit cleaned and burned.
One more thing, as Columbo would say. Curly Biden, named after the smartest of the Stooges, and now occupying the Vice Presidential jump seat so marvelously held by Clinton’s #2, the legendary Alpha Gump, was kind of right. He is kind of “articulate” and I hope he’s “clean”.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Carl Hiaasen, The Miami Herald
January 18, 2009
Carl Hiaasen
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: What a column! Forget a “tingle” up your leg. President Bambi has given you an authentic blue-veiner. A petard so stiff you could hang a bucket of water from it while a randy cat was trying, I hope unsuccessfully, to scratch it. No wonder the McClatchy lads raised the price of the Herald. What’s coming next week? Scratch and sniff? Box lunch at the Y? Lessons on riding Saint George? Does the Herald permit smoking in the outer labia? A somewhat different take on your paean to a Cook County Pol who was at the right corner when the right bus came along and had the great good sense to get on same otherwise maybe his kids’ tuition at private school would cause his wife to be really pissed off at this country.
Mr. Hiaasen,
I have a sense that tumescence and priaprism guided your hand in writing today’s column. Being experienced in these things I read your column back to front. Star with the climax, so to speak.
“…who once thought we knew better…”
You’re right. You should have known better.
Backwards I went to find the pearls you would have strewn. [At least I didn’t say “it was a dark and stormy night”]
Was the economy “purring” in 2000? I know that Darth Cheney was all powerful but even he could not have made the market tank in March, 2000, remember? Where did all those do.com companies go? Did Rumsfeld do them in?
You say the budget was in “surplus”. The first thing that tells me is that you have zero – zip – nada – knowledge of the Federal budgetary process. Any budget that treats aircraft carriers and “Midnight Basketball” the same can never be in balance. Any budget that has no capital items can never be in balance. I would tell you to ask the green eye shade guys at the Herald but they seem to be forming a circular firing squad.
If I grant – subjunctively, mind you – the presence of a budget surplus during the glorious years can someone tell me why the national debt, a debt that Hamilton said could be a national blessing, never, ever went down by as much as a one cent? My uncle Adam said that “running the affairs of a nation can scarce be different than running the affairs of a household”. When surpluses happen in households debt gets paid down and lockboxes become full. Why didn’t this happen in 1998, 1999, and 2000?
As a card carrying modern American Liberal you subscribe to the notion that facts can never interfere either with an argument or a belief.
So I read your wish list backwards hoping it would make some sense. It being Sunday I will have an extra day of rest before The Chosen One stands the Herculean tasks on their respective asses.
Actually, you gave him 7 tasks so the official day of rest is Monday.
[After he completes his tasks do you think he could do something about les merdes de Quebec?]
The original Doctor J, the great Samuel Johnson gave us the prescription of the caring and feeding of modern American Liberals. Although it was said in a different context his words, “the triumph of hope over experience”, are apropos.
You mention the shootings of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy by saying that “your country can be a mighty dangerous place for leaders who dare to speak out for change”.
I thought the shooting of any leader in a Republic would be a cause for alarm regardless of the change being spoken for. I think you feel differently. If you didn’t you would have mentioned Governor Wallace and President Reagan.
I am reminded of a story about Charles Parnell.
He was standing unopposed for reelection. Still, as a consummate pol – like Kendrick Meek after his mother willed him her Congressional seat without dying – he campaigned hard.
He came upon a group of workers cracking rock in an attempt to make the road smoother and straighter – Begorrah and to think we thought that our generation invented the term “infrastructure”! – who, after recognizing him, were beside themselves with joy. One in particular was unable to control himself. He said Parnell would make the salmon bigger and the bitter better.
Finally, in fear of the man becoming apoplectic with the malady of rising expectations, Parnell calmed him thus:
“Next week I’ll be returned to Parliament and the next day
You’ll be cracking rocks.
“The triumph of hope over experience” is made manifest by your last sentence.
“But it’s not a bad feeling.”
It’s a “short road to chaos” when supposedly rational adults confuse feelings with ideas.
Isn’t that what a lot of Germans said in the mid30s?
PS – After I finished the above I read that the Attorney General designate Eric Holder, he of the heavy thumb on the pardon scale when it comes to tax cheat fugitives and bomb throwing terrorists, said he approved of the FBI searching library and bookstore records to see who was reading what. Will you classify that as a “chilling effect” or a “slippery slope”? If you say it’s “different” when modern American Liberals do it I’ll be shocked, shocked. You may want to Google “eclectic indignation” for a diversion.
Carl Hiaasen
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: What a column! Forget a “tingle” up your leg. President Bambi has given you an authentic blue-veiner. A petard so stiff you could hang a bucket of water from it while a randy cat was trying, I hope unsuccessfully, to scratch it. No wonder the McClatchy lads raised the price of the Herald. What’s coming next week? Scratch and sniff? Box lunch at the Y? Lessons on riding Saint George? Does the Herald permit smoking in the outer labia? A somewhat different take on your paean to a Cook County Pol who was at the right corner when the right bus came along and had the great good sense to get on same otherwise maybe his kids’ tuition at private school would cause his wife to be really pissed off at this country.
Mr. Hiaasen,
I have a sense that tumescence and priaprism guided your hand in writing today’s column. Being experienced in these things I read your column back to front. Star with the climax, so to speak.
“…who once thought we knew better…”
You’re right. You should have known better.
Backwards I went to find the pearls you would have strewn. [At least I didn’t say “it was a dark and stormy night”]
Was the economy “purring” in 2000? I know that Darth Cheney was all powerful but even he could not have made the market tank in March, 2000, remember? Where did all those do.com companies go? Did Rumsfeld do them in?
You say the budget was in “surplus”. The first thing that tells me is that you have zero – zip – nada – knowledge of the Federal budgetary process. Any budget that treats aircraft carriers and “Midnight Basketball” the same can never be in balance. Any budget that has no capital items can never be in balance. I would tell you to ask the green eye shade guys at the Herald but they seem to be forming a circular firing squad.
If I grant – subjunctively, mind you – the presence of a budget surplus during the glorious years can someone tell me why the national debt, a debt that Hamilton said could be a national blessing, never, ever went down by as much as a one cent? My uncle Adam said that “running the affairs of a nation can scarce be different than running the affairs of a household”. When surpluses happen in households debt gets paid down and lockboxes become full. Why didn’t this happen in 1998, 1999, and 2000?
As a card carrying modern American Liberal you subscribe to the notion that facts can never interfere either with an argument or a belief.
So I read your wish list backwards hoping it would make some sense. It being Sunday I will have an extra day of rest before The Chosen One stands the Herculean tasks on their respective asses.
Actually, you gave him 7 tasks so the official day of rest is Monday.
[After he completes his tasks do you think he could do something about les merdes de Quebec?]
The original Doctor J, the great Samuel Johnson gave us the prescription of the caring and feeding of modern American Liberals. Although it was said in a different context his words, “the triumph of hope over experience”, are apropos.
You mention the shootings of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy by saying that “your country can be a mighty dangerous place for leaders who dare to speak out for change”.
I thought the shooting of any leader in a Republic would be a cause for alarm regardless of the change being spoken for. I think you feel differently. If you didn’t you would have mentioned Governor Wallace and President Reagan.
I am reminded of a story about Charles Parnell.
He was standing unopposed for reelection. Still, as a consummate pol – like Kendrick Meek after his mother willed him her Congressional seat without dying – he campaigned hard.
He came upon a group of workers cracking rock in an attempt to make the road smoother and straighter – Begorrah and to think we thought that our generation invented the term “infrastructure”! – who, after recognizing him, were beside themselves with joy. One in particular was unable to control himself. He said Parnell would make the salmon bigger and the bitter better.
Finally, in fear of the man becoming apoplectic with the malady of rising expectations, Parnell calmed him thus:
“Next week I’ll be returned to Parliament and the next day
You’ll be cracking rocks.
“The triumph of hope over experience” is made manifest by your last sentence.
“But it’s not a bad feeling.”
It’s a “short road to chaos” when supposedly rational adults confuse feelings with ideas.
Isn’t that what a lot of Germans said in the mid30s?
PS – After I finished the above I read that the Attorney General designate Eric Holder, he of the heavy thumb on the pardon scale when it comes to tax cheat fugitives and bomb throwing terrorists, said he approved of the FBI searching library and bookstore records to see who was reading what. Will you classify that as a “chilling effect” or a “slippery slope”? If you say it’s “different” when modern American Liberals do it I’ll be shocked, shocked. You may want to Google “eclectic indignation” for a diversion.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Pedro - Goodbye to a friend
January 18, 2007
Goodbye to a friend
I only knew Pedro for 8 years. We met in a saloon. I was there with 2 lawyers.
One of them was my son Sean, AKA The World Famous Attorney, the other was as
recently as last Monday, in my last conversation with Pedro, referred to as our “favorite
well dressed Cuban lawyer”, Carlos Reyes, un abogado grande y un amigo tambien
Although we kept meeting in saloons I never saw him take a drink. We spoke of
Many things; business, boxing, politics, and what has been called the “permanent things”
The reason why we bonded was because each knew that other believed, as the
Poet said
“That the world turns and the world changes, but one thing does not change.
In all my years one thing does not change
However you disguise it, this thing does not change:
THE PERPETUAL STRUGGLE OF GOOD AND EVIL.”
There are some deaths that upset the harmony of the universe.
This is one.
It is accepted that wives bury husbands after a long life. It is jarring when parents
Bury children. It is a consolation devotedly to be wished that good men lead long and
Useful lives.
Sometimes we stand too close to the tapestry. If we stand too close we see but one
Small section of the untidy, unruly, noisy, rough edged thing called life.
SURSUM CORDA!
LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS!
Step back and look at the whole tapestry.
There is but one truth, one fixed star that remains
Pedro, my friend Pedro, is where he wanted to be.
We are enjoined by the New Testament that it is indeed fitting and proper
To visit the sick and bury the dead.
Pedro visited me when I was sick – Indeed, this cane is a gift from
Tom Fiedler, his old boss when I was in the hospital.
I come now to help bury him.
The three of us, Pedro, Nuvia, and I were having lunch in an Indian
Restaurant. While I was trying to meld the cuisines Pedro said to me that a lot of Cuban
Didn’t like Indian food. I said that a lot of Indians didn’t like Indian food. That’s why
They come here. It’s hard to get even a bad Cuban sandwich at the Taj Mahal.
I was unprepared for the segue from whatever was on the plate to the coming
Rapture. What was a bit shocking was that they both, without qualifications, believed it.
More shocking to me, as an aging curmudgeonly New Yorker via New Jersey – 5 years
In the Empire State Building and 12 years twice a day in the World Trade Center – was
That they lived it.
They, by their professions, were in the world.
They, by their beliefs and lives, were not of the world.
“As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end he remains.”
UN CABALERRO VALIANTE,
UN HOMRE BUENO,
My friend, Pedro Bigantus
PASO POR AQUI
HASTA LUEGO, PEDRO, MI AMIGO
VAYA CON DIOS
And may flights of angels guide you safely home.
Goodbye to a friend
I only knew Pedro for 8 years. We met in a saloon. I was there with 2 lawyers.
One of them was my son Sean, AKA The World Famous Attorney, the other was as
recently as last Monday, in my last conversation with Pedro, referred to as our “favorite
well dressed Cuban lawyer”, Carlos Reyes, un abogado grande y un amigo tambien
Although we kept meeting in saloons I never saw him take a drink. We spoke of
Many things; business, boxing, politics, and what has been called the “permanent things”
The reason why we bonded was because each knew that other believed, as the
Poet said
“That the world turns and the world changes, but one thing does not change.
In all my years one thing does not change
However you disguise it, this thing does not change:
THE PERPETUAL STRUGGLE OF GOOD AND EVIL.”
There are some deaths that upset the harmony of the universe.
This is one.
It is accepted that wives bury husbands after a long life. It is jarring when parents
Bury children. It is a consolation devotedly to be wished that good men lead long and
Useful lives.
Sometimes we stand too close to the tapestry. If we stand too close we see but one
Small section of the untidy, unruly, noisy, rough edged thing called life.
SURSUM CORDA!
LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS!
Step back and look at the whole tapestry.
There is but one truth, one fixed star that remains
Pedro, my friend Pedro, is where he wanted to be.
We are enjoined by the New Testament that it is indeed fitting and proper
To visit the sick and bury the dead.
Pedro visited me when I was sick – Indeed, this cane is a gift from
Tom Fiedler, his old boss when I was in the hospital.
I come now to help bury him.
The three of us, Pedro, Nuvia, and I were having lunch in an Indian
Restaurant. While I was trying to meld the cuisines Pedro said to me that a lot of Cuban
Didn’t like Indian food. I said that a lot of Indians didn’t like Indian food. That’s why
They come here. It’s hard to get even a bad Cuban sandwich at the Taj Mahal.
I was unprepared for the segue from whatever was on the plate to the coming
Rapture. What was a bit shocking was that they both, without qualifications, believed it.
More shocking to me, as an aging curmudgeonly New Yorker via New Jersey – 5 years
In the Empire State Building and 12 years twice a day in the World Trade Center – was
That they lived it.
They, by their professions, were in the world.
They, by their beliefs and lives, were not of the world.
“As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end he remains.”
UN CABALERRO VALIANTE,
UN HOMRE BUENO,
My friend, Pedro Bigantus
PASO POR AQUI
HASTA LUEGO, PEDRO, MI AMIGO
VAYA CON DIOS
And may flights of angels guide you safely home.
Congressperson Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
January 17, 2009
Congressperson Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
10100 Pembroke Pines Boulevard
Pembroke Pines, Florida 33026
RE: What to do.
My dear Congressperson,
In your interview with Gregory Lewis in the Sun Sentinel on January 15 featuring Florida Firsts – you being the first Jewish Congresswoman from Florida - you say
“Jews are less than 2% of the population in this nation.”
I have heard you defending Affirmative Action many times. I marvel at the ability of modern American Liberals, you of course being the paradigmatic template for that venomous species [perhaps poster girl might be a better way of saying in case there are people reading this who did not go to private school] to reconcile competing ideas. I have heard you say that while goals are not quotas if they don’t act like quotas they will become quotas until we can make them goals again. You would always end by saying “Mend it, don’t end it.” Meantime, a man with a badge and gun and the full force of the Law will visit you and ask why the numbers don’t jive.
If “Jews are less than 2% of the population in this nation” it can be deduced that Jewish women are less than 1% of the population. Blacks in America are a bit more than 12% of the population. I place the number of Black women at a bit more than 6%. That means that the goal for members of Congress who are Black females should be 6 times that of Jewish women. While it may be literally impossible for you to do it it is a classic case of being hoist on your own petard.
Since religious overtones were introduced by you I daresay the Christian thing for you to do would be to resign you seat and begin to campaign for a Black woman to replace you.
The name Miriam Oliphant leaps to mind. Don’t worry about where she lives. Residency laws don’t count for modern American Liberals in Florida. God’s Holy Trousers but we have a Congressman, Toad Wexler, who doesn’t even live in the state.
Further on in your interview you say “it will be nice to have a regular dad in the White House”. Again, it would not be an offense to logic to assume that you believe that George Bush was not a regular dad.
I am not sure what the criteria are for “regular dad” status. I do know that he sent his daughters to Westlake High School in Austin, Texas. Westlake High School is a public school.
“Regular dad” Obama is sending his two daughters to schools, private schools, private grammar schools where they will be day students, where the combined tuition is almost $60,000. I think that’s a neighborhood that most “regular” dads would be unable to afford.
Would it not have been a true sign of change if he had sent his daughters to the nearest public school in Washington, D.C.? No school district in the United States spends more per student than Washington, D.C. Isn’t that the criterion that modern American Liberals most often use to rate schools? In fact, I have seen you on TV hammering Republicans over the amount spent per child in Florida and how if we could just spend more and get rid of the FCATs our students would win not just Merit Scholarships but Nobel Prizes. Think of it; just a few dollars more and the solution to Global Warming/Global Cooling is probably lurking in Dillard High School. Plus, as a serendipity, oodles of good paying green jobs will be created. Talk about win/win!
Don’t you agree that the children of all elected officials, particularly those officials who hector the public on the need to spend more money on public education, should attend the public school nearest to them? If busing is required to make sure that a “goal” doesn’t become a “quota”, don’t you agree that the first kids on the bus should be those of said officials?
That would be a “change”, wouldn’t it?
That would be another “Florida First”, wouldn’t it?
Congressperson Debbie Wasserman-Schultz
10100 Pembroke Pines Boulevard
Pembroke Pines, Florida 33026
RE: What to do.
My dear Congressperson,
In your interview with Gregory Lewis in the Sun Sentinel on January 15 featuring Florida Firsts – you being the first Jewish Congresswoman from Florida - you say
“Jews are less than 2% of the population in this nation.”
I have heard you defending Affirmative Action many times. I marvel at the ability of modern American Liberals, you of course being the paradigmatic template for that venomous species [perhaps poster girl might be a better way of saying in case there are people reading this who did not go to private school] to reconcile competing ideas. I have heard you say that while goals are not quotas if they don’t act like quotas they will become quotas until we can make them goals again. You would always end by saying “Mend it, don’t end it.” Meantime, a man with a badge and gun and the full force of the Law will visit you and ask why the numbers don’t jive.
If “Jews are less than 2% of the population in this nation” it can be deduced that Jewish women are less than 1% of the population. Blacks in America are a bit more than 12% of the population. I place the number of Black women at a bit more than 6%. That means that the goal for members of Congress who are Black females should be 6 times that of Jewish women. While it may be literally impossible for you to do it it is a classic case of being hoist on your own petard.
Since religious overtones were introduced by you I daresay the Christian thing for you to do would be to resign you seat and begin to campaign for a Black woman to replace you.
The name Miriam Oliphant leaps to mind. Don’t worry about where she lives. Residency laws don’t count for modern American Liberals in Florida. God’s Holy Trousers but we have a Congressman, Toad Wexler, who doesn’t even live in the state.
Further on in your interview you say “it will be nice to have a regular dad in the White House”. Again, it would not be an offense to logic to assume that you believe that George Bush was not a regular dad.
I am not sure what the criteria are for “regular dad” status. I do know that he sent his daughters to Westlake High School in Austin, Texas. Westlake High School is a public school.
“Regular dad” Obama is sending his two daughters to schools, private schools, private grammar schools where they will be day students, where the combined tuition is almost $60,000. I think that’s a neighborhood that most “regular” dads would be unable to afford.
Would it not have been a true sign of change if he had sent his daughters to the nearest public school in Washington, D.C.? No school district in the United States spends more per student than Washington, D.C. Isn’t that the criterion that modern American Liberals most often use to rate schools? In fact, I have seen you on TV hammering Republicans over the amount spent per child in Florida and how if we could just spend more and get rid of the FCATs our students would win not just Merit Scholarships but Nobel Prizes. Think of it; just a few dollars more and the solution to Global Warming/Global Cooling is probably lurking in Dillard High School. Plus, as a serendipity, oodles of good paying green jobs will be created. Talk about win/win!
Don’t you agree that the children of all elected officials, particularly those officials who hector the public on the need to spend more money on public education, should attend the public school nearest to them? If busing is required to make sure that a “goal” doesn’t become a “quota”, don’t you agree that the first kids on the bus should be those of said officials?
That would be a “change”, wouldn’t it?
That would be another “Florida First”, wouldn’t it?
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Queen Elizabeth the Second, Buckingham Palace
January 12, 2009
Queen Elizabeth the Second
Buckingham Palace
London, England
RE: The dustup about Harry and aren’t grandchildren wonderful.
Your Majesty,
There is a certain amount of irony involved when an American whose forebears came from Ireland [Ballyglass and Cork] can offer a comforting hand to an English Queen.
With regards to Prince Harry…
#1 – The video tape is 3 years old. It would not require a fantastic leap to think that beer may have had an effect on language and behavior. Speaking of language, it’s the way men talk, particularly when they are with their peers. Please not that peers is lower case.
#2 – Am I the only person left in the world who remembers Kipling? To give the first multicultural poet his due:
“We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints.”
#3 – Since the tape was made your grandson having “taken the Queen’s shilling” has “seen the elephant”. Cut him some slack.
#4 – For 30 years, beginning in a saloon in Antigua, I have enjoyed the friendship of two of your devoted subjects. I have shared pints and bumpers with Denis Greenough and Barrie Cooper. Both are army veterans. Denis landed in France on D-Day. Either of them will attest that I am good company in a pub. Should your grandson find himself on this side of the Atlantic have him give me a call. The afternoon will be on my slate.
#5 – Maybe you can help me. I found a 1919 American edition of “Heroic Record of the British Navy” by Hurd and Bashford. It belongs in your country. I am loathe to send it @ General Delivery – The Admiralty lest it fall into some civilian clerk’s hands [maybe a Paki] and not be appreciated. Give me the proper address to and it will be in the next post.
Fear God and Dread Naught!
Queen Elizabeth the Second
Buckingham Palace
London, England
RE: The dustup about Harry and aren’t grandchildren wonderful.
Your Majesty,
There is a certain amount of irony involved when an American whose forebears came from Ireland [Ballyglass and Cork] can offer a comforting hand to an English Queen.
With regards to Prince Harry…
#1 – The video tape is 3 years old. It would not require a fantastic leap to think that beer may have had an effect on language and behavior. Speaking of language, it’s the way men talk, particularly when they are with their peers. Please not that peers is lower case.
#2 – Am I the only person left in the world who remembers Kipling? To give the first multicultural poet his due:
“We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints.”
#3 – Since the tape was made your grandson having “taken the Queen’s shilling” has “seen the elephant”. Cut him some slack.
#4 – For 30 years, beginning in a saloon in Antigua, I have enjoyed the friendship of two of your devoted subjects. I have shared pints and bumpers with Denis Greenough and Barrie Cooper. Both are army veterans. Denis landed in France on D-Day. Either of them will attest that I am good company in a pub. Should your grandson find himself on this side of the Atlantic have him give me a call. The afternoon will be on my slate.
#5 – Maybe you can help me. I found a 1919 American edition of “Heroic Record of the British Navy” by Hurd and Bashford. It belongs in your country. I am loathe to send it @ General Delivery – The Admiralty lest it fall into some civilian clerk’s hands [maybe a Paki] and not be appreciated. Give me the proper address to and it will be in the next post.
Fear God and Dread Naught!
Congressman Ron Klein
January 12, 2009
Congressman Ron Klein
800 East Broward Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: I guess it depends on who the “surge” is for or against.
Congressman Klein,
I enclose copies of three letters that you have not answered. Maybe you couldn’t; maybe you didn’t want to. Either way I am a constituent of yours and, at the very least, am entitled to the courtesy of a reply however obfuscatory or scatological.
Your public statements say that you are opposed to American military involvement in Iraq. Yesterday, your presence at a rally favoring the Israeli “surge” into Gaza – Are people living in Gaza called Gazanians? – tells me that your opposition to American military responses is not a universal one.
Sherman, the architect of a very successful “surge”, said his actions were undertaken to make the people of Georgia and the Carolinas “howl”. He shortened the war by at least a year, possibly 18 months. There was another “surge” at the end of the Civil War. Sheridan went through the Shenandoah Valley in such a manner that a crow flying after him would starve, such was the desolation wrought by him.
You seem to object to Muslims being killed by Americans but not by Israelis. Why is that? Is a Muslim with murder in his heart killed by an American any more dead than one killed by an Israeli? How can you be in favor of one and opposed to the other?
Can I anticipate the courtesy of a reply or am I just being naïve?
Congressman Ron Klein
800 East Broward Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: I guess it depends on who the “surge” is for or against.
Congressman Klein,
I enclose copies of three letters that you have not answered. Maybe you couldn’t; maybe you didn’t want to. Either way I am a constituent of yours and, at the very least, am entitled to the courtesy of a reply however obfuscatory or scatological.
Your public statements say that you are opposed to American military involvement in Iraq. Yesterday, your presence at a rally favoring the Israeli “surge” into Gaza – Are people living in Gaza called Gazanians? – tells me that your opposition to American military responses is not a universal one.
Sherman, the architect of a very successful “surge”, said his actions were undertaken to make the people of Georgia and the Carolinas “howl”. He shortened the war by at least a year, possibly 18 months. There was another “surge” at the end of the Civil War. Sheridan went through the Shenandoah Valley in such a manner that a crow flying after him would starve, such was the desolation wrought by him.
You seem to object to Muslims being killed by Americans but not by Israelis. Why is that? Is a Muslim with murder in his heart killed by an American any more dead than one killed by an Israeli? How can you be in favor of one and opposed to the other?
Can I anticipate the courtesy of a reply or am I just being naïve?
Stephen L. Goldstein, The Sun Sentinel
January 13, 2009
Stephen L. Goldstein
The Sun Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: 2 thoughts plus how modern American Liberals fight through the pain of cognitive dissonance.
My dear Professor,
Holding two thoughts that are polar opposites would be a problem for a normal person. Modern American Liberals thrive on it. For example, it is wrong for Americans to kill Muslim terrorists but it is not wrong for Israelis to kill Muslim terrorists. All the elected officials who spent this weekend cheering on the Israeli killing of defenseless Gazanians are opposed when Americans do the same. Why is that?
#1 – Your epiphany moment – the one that said changing tax policy can influence behavior – came last week when you revealed yourself as a nascent “supply sider”, a Laffer acolyte, if you will. You probably have a shrine to the Great Reagan somewhere deep in a hidden closet.
The next step is obvious.
If higher taxes will discourage smoking lower taxes will encourage it.
Florida suffers from a severe revenue shortage.
Let’s cut the tobacco tax in half. We would have a tsunami of revenues flowing into the state treasury.
Think what you could do with the money
A – Midnight Basketball
B – Manatee suffrage
C – Health benefits for Sun Sentinel street vendors
D – Recount the 2000 election. Again. And again.
These are all good things that we have been neglecting. In addition, there is a public situation that cries out for a full court press. It is something for which modern American Liberals are justifiably famous. Things like the New Deal worked, Hiss was innocent, the Rosenbergs were framed, more money equals better education, the 1960 missile gap, a higher minimum wage is good for poor people, there is a “vast Right Wing conspiracy”, and “Why can’t we all just get along?”
#2 – Tim Tebow
Although I don’t think you are a big football fan even you must know that Tim Tebow’s performance in the BCS Bowl spread Florida’s name across the nation. The University of Florida is a public institution. It is supported by taxpayer money. The Constitution is not suspended when the referee blows his whistle for the kickoff.
Tim Tebow is a walking ad for religion. And he’s doing it on our dime. The eye shadow he wears is from the New Testament. It is some gibberish about dying for others. He is entitled to his own opinion. He is not entitled to use my tax money to proselytize them.
I call on you to lead the great crusade to ban all religious displays by University of Florida football players.
Maybe you could get all those goody two shoes – start with Coach Urban Meyer – to start smoking. The revenue flow to the state would be – forgive me – penance for the blatant public display of religion. Plus, it would keep your modern American Liberal license valid.
Don’t you love it when a plan comes together?
Stephen L. Goldstein
The Sun Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: 2 thoughts plus how modern American Liberals fight through the pain of cognitive dissonance.
My dear Professor,
Holding two thoughts that are polar opposites would be a problem for a normal person. Modern American Liberals thrive on it. For example, it is wrong for Americans to kill Muslim terrorists but it is not wrong for Israelis to kill Muslim terrorists. All the elected officials who spent this weekend cheering on the Israeli killing of defenseless Gazanians are opposed when Americans do the same. Why is that?
#1 – Your epiphany moment – the one that said changing tax policy can influence behavior – came last week when you revealed yourself as a nascent “supply sider”, a Laffer acolyte, if you will. You probably have a shrine to the Great Reagan somewhere deep in a hidden closet.
The next step is obvious.
If higher taxes will discourage smoking lower taxes will encourage it.
Florida suffers from a severe revenue shortage.
Let’s cut the tobacco tax in half. We would have a tsunami of revenues flowing into the state treasury.
Think what you could do with the money
A – Midnight Basketball
B – Manatee suffrage
C – Health benefits for Sun Sentinel street vendors
D – Recount the 2000 election. Again. And again.
These are all good things that we have been neglecting. In addition, there is a public situation that cries out for a full court press. It is something for which modern American Liberals are justifiably famous. Things like the New Deal worked, Hiss was innocent, the Rosenbergs were framed, more money equals better education, the 1960 missile gap, a higher minimum wage is good for poor people, there is a “vast Right Wing conspiracy”, and “Why can’t we all just get along?”
#2 – Tim Tebow
Although I don’t think you are a big football fan even you must know that Tim Tebow’s performance in the BCS Bowl spread Florida’s name across the nation. The University of Florida is a public institution. It is supported by taxpayer money. The Constitution is not suspended when the referee blows his whistle for the kickoff.
Tim Tebow is a walking ad for religion. And he’s doing it on our dime. The eye shadow he wears is from the New Testament. It is some gibberish about dying for others. He is entitled to his own opinion. He is not entitled to use my tax money to proselytize them.
I call on you to lead the great crusade to ban all religious displays by University of Florida football players.
Maybe you could get all those goody two shoes – start with Coach Urban Meyer – to start smoking. The revenue flow to the state would be – forgive me – penance for the blatant public display of religion. Plus, it would keep your modern American Liberal license valid.
Don’t you love it when a plan comes together?
Monday, January 12, 2009
Linda Robertson, The Miami Herald
January 11, 2009
Linda Robertson
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: Marve’s transfer
Dear Linda,
Me. Again.
What’s missing here?
Robert Marve, an independent contractor working for the University of Miami, wants to go elsewhere. The University of Miami takes a different view.
The University of Miami is able to dictate where he can or cannot work?
If that isn’t “a combination in restraint of trade” the term will have to be redefined.
In an age where every so called “right” seems to have been force fed steroids something is askew with this picture.
Speaking of contracts that are binding only at parties how can a 17 year old sign a document that commits him to one place for 4 years? He can’t drink legally. He can’t sign a promissory note for an automobile. To Hell with football playoffs! How about a Bill of Rights for student-athletes?
Linda Robertson
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: Marve’s transfer
Dear Linda,
Me. Again.
What’s missing here?
Robert Marve, an independent contractor working for the University of Miami, wants to go elsewhere. The University of Miami takes a different view.
The University of Miami is able to dictate where he can or cannot work?
If that isn’t “a combination in restraint of trade” the term will have to be redefined.
In an age where every so called “right” seems to have been force fed steroids something is askew with this picture.
Speaking of contracts that are binding only at parties how can a 17 year old sign a document that commits him to one place for 4 years? He can’t drink legally. He can’t sign a promissory note for an automobile. To Hell with football playoffs! How about a Bill of Rights for student-athletes?
Andres Viglucci, The Miami Herald
January 11, 2009
Andres Viglucci
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: “Dawn of a New Deal” – Your Page One story of what never was maybe becoming never was again. As Churchill said, “This pudding has no theme”.
Mr. Viglucci
The sub-headline of your Page 1 story is “economic recovery”.
Laying aside the mostly bad art, the attempt to pack the Supreme Court, the shibboleth of fireside chats saving the nation, and the willing suspension of both belief and disbelief about 6y years of economic data, the one overwhelmingly large beyond belief elephant in the room about the New Deal is that it didn’t work.
Facts are hard things.
If we begin the timeline on March 4, 1933 and do a month by month, quarter by quarter, year by year, state by state, industry by industry comparison the country was in worse shape in 1938 then it was in 1933.
You cite Miami Mayor Diaz, a man who obviously never lets facts interfere with either an argument or a belief, who says “the New Deal is credited with millions of jobs if that’s what we want to do. It worked. It’s proven. It can work again.”
It did not. In fact, it made the problem worse.
Look it up.
Andres Viglucci
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: “Dawn of a New Deal” – Your Page One story of what never was maybe becoming never was again. As Churchill said, “This pudding has no theme”.
Mr. Viglucci
The sub-headline of your Page 1 story is “economic recovery”.
Laying aside the mostly bad art, the attempt to pack the Supreme Court, the shibboleth of fireside chats saving the nation, and the willing suspension of both belief and disbelief about 6y years of economic data, the one overwhelmingly large beyond belief elephant in the room about the New Deal is that it didn’t work.
Facts are hard things.
If we begin the timeline on March 4, 1933 and do a month by month, quarter by quarter, year by year, state by state, industry by industry comparison the country was in worse shape in 1938 then it was in 1933.
You cite Miami Mayor Diaz, a man who obviously never lets facts interfere with either an argument or a belief, who says “the New Deal is credited with millions of jobs if that’s what we want to do. It worked. It’s proven. It can work again.”
It did not. In fact, it made the problem worse.
Look it up.
Mayor Manny Diaz
January 11, 2009
Mayor Manny Diaz
Miami City Hall
3500 Pan American Drive
Miami, Florida 33133
RE: I saw you say it, so there!
Mr. Mayor,
I enclose a letter I sent to Andres Viglucci of the Miami Herald about the rebirth of the New Deal. You feature prominently in it.
There is but one conclusion that can be drawn from the article.
You’re dumb.
Dumb as a box of hammers dumb.
That’s dumb.
I like to limit my forays into local politics to Broward County. However, when an elected official within driving an hour’s driving distance says something so egregiously, so “My God, what he said was so dumb it makes my hair hurt and my finger nails curl backwards” I owe it to my public to call it as I see it.
Accordingly, and under the rules of the Awards committee, I hereby name you
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
Keep up the good work. You’ll find yourself in contention for even bigger awards. Aim high. Stay dumb.
Mayor Manny Diaz
Miami City Hall
3500 Pan American Drive
Miami, Florida 33133
RE: I saw you say it, so there!
Mr. Mayor,
I enclose a letter I sent to Andres Viglucci of the Miami Herald about the rebirth of the New Deal. You feature prominently in it.
There is but one conclusion that can be drawn from the article.
You’re dumb.
Dumb as a box of hammers dumb.
That’s dumb.
I like to limit my forays into local politics to Broward County. However, when an elected official within driving an hour’s driving distance says something so egregiously, so “My God, what he said was so dumb it makes my hair hurt and my finger nails curl backwards” I owe it to my public to call it as I see it.
Accordingly, and under the rules of the Awards committee, I hereby name you
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
Keep up the good work. You’ll find yourself in contention for even bigger awards. Aim high. Stay dumb.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Altaf Ali, CAIR of Broward County
January 4, 2009
Altaf Ali
CAIR of Broward County
900 SW 86th Avenue
Pembroke Pines, Florida 33025
RE: Free speech, hate speech, and can I exercise either in Mecca?
Mr. Ali,
As my friend, the legendary Big Mike from Bayonne, the noted restaurateur and sportsman always says, “What a country!”
A funny thing happened in the race for lions and lambs to overcome their Historical imperatives. Better still, it happened in Fort Lauderdale.
The poet said, “After the first death there are no others”. This does not imply moral equivalence between enemies. It would be like saying that the viper, the biter, and the victim, the bitee, are equal. It states, in the starkest of terms, “that only the dead have seen the end of war”.
With the nods having been made to the rhetorically incontinent purveyors of pabulum – perhaps caca would be a better way of putting it - who focus on something called the “peace process”, let’s talk about what happened in Fort Lauderdale last week.
Somebody shot up a mosque in South Florida last week. You said it was a “hate crime”. No one knows who shot up the mosque. I know that the Sunnis and the Shias have not gotten along for about 14 centuries. I know that neither of them likes the Kurds. I know that before your religion, a religion that I am told is peace loving, was less than a hundred years old it had conquered Spain and Portugal and was half way across France Maybe one of your enemies did it. I don’t know if it would still qualify as a hate crime if that were the case. It would still be a crime.
Laying aside the grievances of both sides in the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict there is one concrete truth in it. If you kick the big dog enough he is going to bite your ass off. There appears to be a huge supply of young men desiring to be martyrs for Allah. The Israelis seem to be willing to accommodate them. An American President was once advised of the results of a military action. He wired back asking, “Have you killed enough?”
[As an aside, and perhaps as a hint of where you should direct your efforts, this bothers many American Jews. It is well to note that Kumbaya is high, very high, on the list of songs every young Cantor must know.]
Some 50 supporters of Israel stood in front of the very large Baptist church on the corner of Broward Boulevard and NE 3rd Street. Across the street from them were some 250 supporters of the Gazanians standing in front of the Federal Courthouse
I heard one of the young ladies supporting the Gazanians shouting “Fuck Israel”, “Nuke Israel”, and “Jews to the ovens”.
Some other facts are necessary to complete this tableau.
#1 – She had nail polish and make up, a lot of make up, on. I say this because some of your co-religionists, the Taliban in Afghanistan, would discourage the use of nail polish by pulling out the finger nails of any woman wearing it. They also outlawed whistling and balloons. Nice people
#2 – She wore neither a burqa nor a catcher’s mask. I have seen both on Muslim women in foreign countries. They look great. Not here.
In World War 1 the Supreme Court of the United States held that “prior restraint” could not be used to stop the publication of a German language newspaper. At that time the United States was fighting Germany.
In World War 2 the Supreme Court of the United States held that not saying the Pledge of Allegiance was a constitutionally protected right under two parts of the First Amendment. [You may wish to become a bit more familiar with the First Amendment. In fact, while you’re at it, read the rest of them.]
There is a certain amount of irony – I don’t know if irony is permitted under Sharia law – in that the Israeli supporters, presumably Jews, were vigorously protesting in front of a Baptist church while the irenic Islamists were protesting just as vigorously in front of a Federal Courthouse.
Vigorous public protesting is a tradition and custom protected by Law in this country. This country permits blasphemy. This country uses tax dollars to support it. There may be a country that is ruled by Muslims that has such a tradition. I am not aware of it. If there is one could you tell what its name is?
Although it is unknown who shot at the mosque let us assume that it was a hate crime. I don’t know whether there is a “hate crime” squad of super cops. If there is it should be dispatched to investigate immediately.
Is “Fuck Israel”, “Nuke Israel”, and “Jews to the ovens” a hate crime? If it is there is video tape of this young woman committing it. There will be no need to conduct a far reaching investigation. How many foul mouthed, heavily made up Muslim girls are there in Broward County?
Should I decide to burn an American flag could there be a better place to do it than the steps of the Federal Courthouse that protected the Muslim protestors?
Should I decide to burn a Bible to protest religion could there be a better place to do it than the steps of the Baptist church?
Should I decide to burn a Koran to protest the hate crime of the above named Muslim slattern where do you think would be the best place to do it? If the fire got out of hand would it be OK to urinate on it to protect innocent bystanders?
Big Mike would end by saying, “That’s why you never see anybody swimming to Cuba”. For you he would say, “That’s why you never see anybody swimming to Yemen.”
PS – Almost 14 centuries after Christ Dante wrote The Divine Comedy. 14 centuries after Muhammed is there any chance of an Islamic La Commedia?
.
Altaf Ali
CAIR of Broward County
900 SW 86th Avenue
Pembroke Pines, Florida 33025
RE: Free speech, hate speech, and can I exercise either in Mecca?
Mr. Ali,
As my friend, the legendary Big Mike from Bayonne, the noted restaurateur and sportsman always says, “What a country!”
A funny thing happened in the race for lions and lambs to overcome their Historical imperatives. Better still, it happened in Fort Lauderdale.
The poet said, “After the first death there are no others”. This does not imply moral equivalence between enemies. It would be like saying that the viper, the biter, and the victim, the bitee, are equal. It states, in the starkest of terms, “that only the dead have seen the end of war”.
With the nods having been made to the rhetorically incontinent purveyors of pabulum – perhaps caca would be a better way of putting it - who focus on something called the “peace process”, let’s talk about what happened in Fort Lauderdale last week.
Somebody shot up a mosque in South Florida last week. You said it was a “hate crime”. No one knows who shot up the mosque. I know that the Sunnis and the Shias have not gotten along for about 14 centuries. I know that neither of them likes the Kurds. I know that before your religion, a religion that I am told is peace loving, was less than a hundred years old it had conquered Spain and Portugal and was half way across France Maybe one of your enemies did it. I don’t know if it would still qualify as a hate crime if that were the case. It would still be a crime.
Laying aside the grievances of both sides in the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian conflict there is one concrete truth in it. If you kick the big dog enough he is going to bite your ass off. There appears to be a huge supply of young men desiring to be martyrs for Allah. The Israelis seem to be willing to accommodate them. An American President was once advised of the results of a military action. He wired back asking, “Have you killed enough?”
[As an aside, and perhaps as a hint of where you should direct your efforts, this bothers many American Jews. It is well to note that Kumbaya is high, very high, on the list of songs every young Cantor must know.]
Some 50 supporters of Israel stood in front of the very large Baptist church on the corner of Broward Boulevard and NE 3rd Street. Across the street from them were some 250 supporters of the Gazanians standing in front of the Federal Courthouse
I heard one of the young ladies supporting the Gazanians shouting “Fuck Israel”, “Nuke Israel”, and “Jews to the ovens”.
Some other facts are necessary to complete this tableau.
#1 – She had nail polish and make up, a lot of make up, on. I say this because some of your co-religionists, the Taliban in Afghanistan, would discourage the use of nail polish by pulling out the finger nails of any woman wearing it. They also outlawed whistling and balloons. Nice people
#2 – She wore neither a burqa nor a catcher’s mask. I have seen both on Muslim women in foreign countries. They look great. Not here.
In World War 1 the Supreme Court of the United States held that “prior restraint” could not be used to stop the publication of a German language newspaper. At that time the United States was fighting Germany.
In World War 2 the Supreme Court of the United States held that not saying the Pledge of Allegiance was a constitutionally protected right under two parts of the First Amendment. [You may wish to become a bit more familiar with the First Amendment. In fact, while you’re at it, read the rest of them.]
There is a certain amount of irony – I don’t know if irony is permitted under Sharia law – in that the Israeli supporters, presumably Jews, were vigorously protesting in front of a Baptist church while the irenic Islamists were protesting just as vigorously in front of a Federal Courthouse.
Vigorous public protesting is a tradition and custom protected by Law in this country. This country permits blasphemy. This country uses tax dollars to support it. There may be a country that is ruled by Muslims that has such a tradition. I am not aware of it. If there is one could you tell what its name is?
Although it is unknown who shot at the mosque let us assume that it was a hate crime. I don’t know whether there is a “hate crime” squad of super cops. If there is it should be dispatched to investigate immediately.
Is “Fuck Israel”, “Nuke Israel”, and “Jews to the ovens” a hate crime? If it is there is video tape of this young woman committing it. There will be no need to conduct a far reaching investigation. How many foul mouthed, heavily made up Muslim girls are there in Broward County?
Should I decide to burn an American flag could there be a better place to do it than the steps of the Federal Courthouse that protected the Muslim protestors?
Should I decide to burn a Bible to protest religion could there be a better place to do it than the steps of the Baptist church?
Should I decide to burn a Koran to protest the hate crime of the above named Muslim slattern where do you think would be the best place to do it? If the fire got out of hand would it be OK to urinate on it to protect innocent bystanders?
Big Mike would end by saying, “That’s why you never see anybody swimming to Cuba”. For you he would say, “That’s why you never see anybody swimming to Yemen.”
PS – Almost 14 centuries after Christ Dante wrote The Divine Comedy. 14 centuries after Muhammed is there any chance of an Islamic La Commedia?
.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Steven L. Goldstein, The Sun Sentinel
Steven L. Goldstein
The Sun Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: “Cut Through the Smoke and Raise Tobacco Tax” – The bottom line modern American Liberal answer to every problem up to and including merdes from Quebec, teen age obesity, Governor Blago, Mrs. Schlossberg and doesn’t she make Sarah Palin look like the head of Mensa, Global Warming, Global Cooling, and low FCAT scores is, perforce, raising taxes. Today, in the Sun Sentinel, you may have gone a step too far.
My dear Professor,
It’s good to see that some things never change.
Your low key Jeremiad this morning about heartless, gun toting, snake handling, gay bashing Republicans who hate poor people and do nothing for the children is, alas, typical.
Your premise is based on disavowing Logic.
If, as you say, smoking is evil, pernicious, and fatal to both the smoker and the people of Florida because of the increased Medicaid costs, would it not be a Logical imperative to ban all tobacco products in Florida?
Modern American Liberals like to ban things. Alcohol, DDT, Phisohex, and Free Speech leap to mind.
We can learn from the failure of the ban on alcohol. We learned from our failures in farm subsidies, didn’t we? We learned from the early failures in the War on Poverty, didn’t we?
Your solution to the tobacco problem, tax the bejeezuz out of the end user, still permits smoking in Florida.
The best thing to be done, the only Logical thing to be done, is to ban tobacco in all its forms in Florida.
That you want to discourage it but still permit inhaling is akin to being a German who sat around, hands in his lap, during the Holocaust. When it was over, when Patton surged through Bavaria, he said “Who knew? If only someone had told me.”
I am telling you.
Smoking kills. There can be no half way measures in fighting it.
[As an aside, and let’s keep this just between us, you are saying that raising taxes will discourage people from engaging in certain activities. I assume that cutting taxes would encourage certain activities. You are getting close to a “supply side” solution. It is one contrary to President Bambi’s take on “fairness” and the tax code. I guess there is no sense in being a modern American Liberal unless you like going through life squaring circles.]
You seem to be saying that raising the tobacco tax, while acquiescing in the death of countless Floridians – so close to Christmas and Scrooge saying something about “decreasing the surplus population”, remember? – will give us the money to fund needed social programs. Things like “midnight basketball”, 4th & 5th trimester abortions, manatee suffrage, and the old reliable, anything that can be labeled “for the children”.
Perhaps it is time to redo Florida’s tax laws.
An income tax is expressly forbidden by Florida’s Constitution.
May I suggest that, since you speak for the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party, we encourage all Democratic candidates for any office to come out of the closet? “Are you in favor of repealing the Constitutional ban on income taxes”? The follow up question, one that is forced upon us by Logic, is “Are you in favor of an income tax”?
Modern American Liberals favor “choice”, don’t they? Modern American Liberals favor “change”, don’t they? Bam! A double header, no?
PS – As the original multiculturalist Nobel Prize winning poet said, “A woman’s a woman but a good cigar is a smoke”. Leave it to President Handsome Billy from Hot Springs to combine them.
The Sun Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: “Cut Through the Smoke and Raise Tobacco Tax” – The bottom line modern American Liberal answer to every problem up to and including merdes from Quebec, teen age obesity, Governor Blago, Mrs. Schlossberg and doesn’t she make Sarah Palin look like the head of Mensa, Global Warming, Global Cooling, and low FCAT scores is, perforce, raising taxes. Today, in the Sun Sentinel, you may have gone a step too far.
My dear Professor,
It’s good to see that some things never change.
Your low key Jeremiad this morning about heartless, gun toting, snake handling, gay bashing Republicans who hate poor people and do nothing for the children is, alas, typical.
Your premise is based on disavowing Logic.
If, as you say, smoking is evil, pernicious, and fatal to both the smoker and the people of Florida because of the increased Medicaid costs, would it not be a Logical imperative to ban all tobacco products in Florida?
Modern American Liberals like to ban things. Alcohol, DDT, Phisohex, and Free Speech leap to mind.
We can learn from the failure of the ban on alcohol. We learned from our failures in farm subsidies, didn’t we? We learned from the early failures in the War on Poverty, didn’t we?
Your solution to the tobacco problem, tax the bejeezuz out of the end user, still permits smoking in Florida.
The best thing to be done, the only Logical thing to be done, is to ban tobacco in all its forms in Florida.
That you want to discourage it but still permit inhaling is akin to being a German who sat around, hands in his lap, during the Holocaust. When it was over, when Patton surged through Bavaria, he said “Who knew? If only someone had told me.”
I am telling you.
Smoking kills. There can be no half way measures in fighting it.
[As an aside, and let’s keep this just between us, you are saying that raising taxes will discourage people from engaging in certain activities. I assume that cutting taxes would encourage certain activities. You are getting close to a “supply side” solution. It is one contrary to President Bambi’s take on “fairness” and the tax code. I guess there is no sense in being a modern American Liberal unless you like going through life squaring circles.]
You seem to be saying that raising the tobacco tax, while acquiescing in the death of countless Floridians – so close to Christmas and Scrooge saying something about “decreasing the surplus population”, remember? – will give us the money to fund needed social programs. Things like “midnight basketball”, 4th & 5th trimester abortions, manatee suffrage, and the old reliable, anything that can be labeled “for the children”.
Perhaps it is time to redo Florida’s tax laws.
An income tax is expressly forbidden by Florida’s Constitution.
May I suggest that, since you speak for the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party, we encourage all Democratic candidates for any office to come out of the closet? “Are you in favor of repealing the Constitutional ban on income taxes”? The follow up question, one that is forced upon us by Logic, is “Are you in favor of an income tax”?
Modern American Liberals favor “choice”, don’t they? Modern American Liberals favor “change”, don’t they? Bam! A double header, no?
PS – As the original multiculturalist Nobel Prize winning poet said, “A woman’s a woman but a good cigar is a smoke”. Leave it to President Handsome Billy from Hot Springs to combine them.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Mitchell Kaplan, Books & Books
December 26, 2008
Mitchell Kaplan
Books & Books
265 Aragon Avenue
Coral Gables, Florida 33134 - 5008
Mr. Kaplan,
I read of your 1974 introduction to Kentucky hospitality in today’s Miami Herald Weekend.
If only our conversation in your store in 1996 had lasted longer than 45 seconds I could have confirmed that. I spent 12 years in the coal mining business in eastern Kentucky. They were good, caring people who were hospitable to a fault. And they sure loved their guns, didn’t they?
It’s been 12 years since our only conversation. It seems like yesterday to me.
I was in the poetry section of your marvelous store where I was attended to by a well read sales lady. What was most impressive about her was that knowledge of poetry went beyond Rod McKuen.
I asked her where Ezra Pound was located.
“We don’t carry him,” she said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Ask him,” she said, pointing to you.
I asked you why there was no Pound.
You told me he was an anti-Semite and that you would not stock any books by or about him.
One of the joys of ownership is that you can do what you want.
One of the joys of being a buyer is that you don’t have to.
For 12 years I have listened to you carry on about freedom of speech. For 12 years I have watched as other people speak highly of your regard for freedom, particularly as a champion of free speech. 12 years ago, in typical modern American Liberal fashion, you demonstrated that you principles were eclectic. “Free Speech for Me but not for Thee” as Nat Hentoff says. For 12 years you have been the poster boy for “non-malodorous fecal matter”.
Now, thanks to the frontier pushing of Governor Blago, the charming Mrs. Governor Blago, and Rahmbo Oh come Oh come Emmanuel I have found the word to describe your “speech is free…almost” position.
BULLSHIT
I was going to use strange language YES like James Joyce but you never would have read him because YES Ezra Pound edited him. I was going to toss in a few lines from Yeats but since Ezra Pound edited him he would be verboten to you. Ditto for Hemingway.
Did you know Ezra Pound was never arrested, never arraigned, never tried, and never convicted of anything? He was locked up for 13 years in a loony bin in a prequel to Camp Gitmo. Alas, you couldn’t have known that, could you?
Anyway, as my aunt from Hester Street used to say, “Don’t piss on my back and tell me it’s rain”.
Mitchell Kaplan
Books & Books
265 Aragon Avenue
Coral Gables, Florida 33134 - 5008
Mr. Kaplan,
I read of your 1974 introduction to Kentucky hospitality in today’s Miami Herald Weekend.
If only our conversation in your store in 1996 had lasted longer than 45 seconds I could have confirmed that. I spent 12 years in the coal mining business in eastern Kentucky. They were good, caring people who were hospitable to a fault. And they sure loved their guns, didn’t they?
It’s been 12 years since our only conversation. It seems like yesterday to me.
I was in the poetry section of your marvelous store where I was attended to by a well read sales lady. What was most impressive about her was that knowledge of poetry went beyond Rod McKuen.
I asked her where Ezra Pound was located.
“We don’t carry him,” she said.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Ask him,” she said, pointing to you.
I asked you why there was no Pound.
You told me he was an anti-Semite and that you would not stock any books by or about him.
One of the joys of ownership is that you can do what you want.
One of the joys of being a buyer is that you don’t have to.
For 12 years I have listened to you carry on about freedom of speech. For 12 years I have watched as other people speak highly of your regard for freedom, particularly as a champion of free speech. 12 years ago, in typical modern American Liberal fashion, you demonstrated that you principles were eclectic. “Free Speech for Me but not for Thee” as Nat Hentoff says. For 12 years you have been the poster boy for “non-malodorous fecal matter”.
Now, thanks to the frontier pushing of Governor Blago, the charming Mrs. Governor Blago, and Rahmbo Oh come Oh come Emmanuel I have found the word to describe your “speech is free…almost” position.
BULLSHIT
I was going to use strange language YES like James Joyce but you never would have read him because YES Ezra Pound edited him. I was going to toss in a few lines from Yeats but since Ezra Pound edited him he would be verboten to you. Ditto for Hemingway.
Did you know Ezra Pound was never arrested, never arraigned, never tried, and never convicted of anything? He was locked up for 13 years in a loony bin in a prequel to Camp Gitmo. Alas, you couldn’t have known that, could you?
Anyway, as my aunt from Hester Street used to say, “Don’t piss on my back and tell me it’s rain”.
Aaron Deslatte, Josh Hafenbrack, The Sun Sentinel
December 25, 2008
Aaron Deslatte
Josh Hafenbrack
The Sun Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: Florida’s budget woes – as reported by you in today’s Sun Sentinel
Gentlemen,
All I want for Christmas is an article about government finances that has some relationship with the real world. I suppose it would be a bit much to expect some working knowledge of the laws concerning gravity but Christmas is based on hope, isn’t it?
The headline says
MORE BUDGET CUTS NEAR AS FLORIDA BATTLES DEBT
Your first paragraph says that one of the ways that Florida will “battle debt” is by “going into more debt”. It is as if you are saying that going from 12 feet of water to 15 feet of water will make it simpler for me, a non-swimmer, to stay afloat.
I think Aristotle, one of the original dead White European males, spoke to that. “Something cannot be that which it is not.” On second thought the only exception is government. So much for lockboxes.
The next egregious line should be a flogging offense.
You say that Senator Atwater and Speaker Sansom “generally agree with the Governor on how to dig out of this hole”.
“Dig out of a hole”?
As someone who has dug holes in 3 countries I ask you to accept that I say with 100% absolute metaphysical certitude that you cannot “dig out of a hole”.
My international hole digging experience was good training for when I became a Chief Financial Officer of a public company. When you find your self in a hole too deep or a hole on the wrong side of the river you do not ask for a bigger shovel. The temporary solution is obvious.
STOP DIGGING
Good businesses build reserves in good times to help them get through bad times. Governor Bush left office with cash reserves of some $6,500,000,000, an amount exceeding more than 10% of his last budget. No one could have foreseen the devastation of the last year. Think how much worse it would have been had the good husbandry of the previous administration had not bee so pronounced?
Why, the head shaking taxpayer, an occupant of the real world, a world where “stones are hard and water is wet”, a world where billions of dollars have gone walkabout, a world where financial institutions once thought to be 10 feet tall and bulletproof have vanished over a long weekend, asks should governments be exempt from the chaos around us?
A quick example of water running uphill would be the Broward County School System.
For 4 years the number of students has gone down.
Has the budget, either expense or capital, reflected that?
Before you answer it may be time to get off Santa’s lap.
Aaron Deslatte
Josh Hafenbrack
The Sun Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: Florida’s budget woes – as reported by you in today’s Sun Sentinel
Gentlemen,
All I want for Christmas is an article about government finances that has some relationship with the real world. I suppose it would be a bit much to expect some working knowledge of the laws concerning gravity but Christmas is based on hope, isn’t it?
The headline says
MORE BUDGET CUTS NEAR AS FLORIDA BATTLES DEBT
Your first paragraph says that one of the ways that Florida will “battle debt” is by “going into more debt”. It is as if you are saying that going from 12 feet of water to 15 feet of water will make it simpler for me, a non-swimmer, to stay afloat.
I think Aristotle, one of the original dead White European males, spoke to that. “Something cannot be that which it is not.” On second thought the only exception is government. So much for lockboxes.
The next egregious line should be a flogging offense.
You say that Senator Atwater and Speaker Sansom “generally agree with the Governor on how to dig out of this hole”.
“Dig out of a hole”?
As someone who has dug holes in 3 countries I ask you to accept that I say with 100% absolute metaphysical certitude that you cannot “dig out of a hole”.
My international hole digging experience was good training for when I became a Chief Financial Officer of a public company. When you find your self in a hole too deep or a hole on the wrong side of the river you do not ask for a bigger shovel. The temporary solution is obvious.
STOP DIGGING
Good businesses build reserves in good times to help them get through bad times. Governor Bush left office with cash reserves of some $6,500,000,000, an amount exceeding more than 10% of his last budget. No one could have foreseen the devastation of the last year. Think how much worse it would have been had the good husbandry of the previous administration had not bee so pronounced?
Why, the head shaking taxpayer, an occupant of the real world, a world where “stones are hard and water is wet”, a world where billions of dollars have gone walkabout, a world where financial institutions once thought to be 10 feet tall and bulletproof have vanished over a long weekend, asks should governments be exempt from the chaos around us?
A quick example of water running uphill would be the Broward County School System.
For 4 years the number of students has gone down.
Has the budget, either expense or capital, reflected that?
Before you answer it may be time to get off Santa’s lap.
Chris Matthews
December 24, 2008
Chris Matthews
MSNBC Hardball
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, New York 10112
RE: Congratulations!
Mr. Matthews,
“I feel this thrill going up my leg.
I don’t have that too often.”
You
On the occasion of having the shadow
Of the Chosen One fall upon you.
Hardball implies that there is a pitcher and that there is a catcher.
If you don’t have that “thrill going up my leg too often” may I suggest a change in seating arrangements? Monica Lewinsky on one side and Barney Frank on the other. As that noted political sage, Woody Allen, often said, “Being a switch hitter doubles your chances of hooking up on a Saturday night”.
I hate to trivialize your lack of blue veiners, a condition relieved by B. Obama, one of Governor Blago’s good friends, but, Crikey, that was a dumb thing to say. Just for saying it in public you have won a much sought after award.
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
It’s a noble laurel that is not given lightly.
But wait. There’s more.
Because you didn’t try to walk that statement back by saying something like “Zounds but that was a dumb thing to say. Only a horse’s ass would say something like that. What was I thinking? If my grandfather were here he would kick my ass so hard I’d have to take my socks down to take a dump”.
Like the clap is a symbol wretched excess what I said is an example of what modern American Liberals would like to say but don’t. Usually your persiflage is particularly obufscatory unless your talking about President Bush or a United States Senate seat from Illinois.
For not trying to apologize for sharing the latent tumescence caused by President Bambi with everybody in Christendom you have won another award.
POMPOUS FART OF THE MONTH
With those two in hand and with a shortage of Irish Catholic award winners it was not such a great leap to give you the third and highest award.
You have earned this for two reasons:
#1 – You have been in the same room with noted troll Keith Doberman on several occasions. Why you have not him between the eyes, repeatedly, with the little hatchet that you keep in your ditty bag is beyond me.
#2 – Albert Hunt, another modern American Liberal rotter, made a gallant dash in the stretch for year end honors. Alas, he came up short. He told that us that one of the things that made Mrs. Schlossberg a serious contender for the United States Senate was that “she hails her own cab”. Next he’ll tell us that she picks her own nose and scratches her own ass. The Senate, a place where former KuKluxKlan member Bobby “Beat them Nigras” Byrd can rise to a position of leadership, a place where Harrison Williams [D-NJ] and Robert Torricelli [D-NJ] were figures of envy, needs people of gravitas, people with achievements beyond being President of the Lucky Sperm Club.
You have been consistent; both with your offensive to Logic statements and with your use of spittle as dangerous weapon, as a spokesman for mush brained, power crazed modern American Liberals. That, coupled with the one common denominator of mALs, “non-malodorous fecal matter”, earned you the highest honor.
SMARMY BASTARD OF THE YEAR
PS – In the words of Governor Blago, the charming Mrs. Governor Blago, and that noted secular humanist and semi-tough a guy as he thinks, Rahmbo Oh Come Emmanuel, “Go Fuck Yourself”
Chris Matthews
MSNBC Hardball
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, New York 10112
RE: Congratulations!
Mr. Matthews,
“I feel this thrill going up my leg.
I don’t have that too often.”
You
On the occasion of having the shadow
Of the Chosen One fall upon you.
Hardball implies that there is a pitcher and that there is a catcher.
If you don’t have that “thrill going up my leg too often” may I suggest a change in seating arrangements? Monica Lewinsky on one side and Barney Frank on the other. As that noted political sage, Woody Allen, often said, “Being a switch hitter doubles your chances of hooking up on a Saturday night”.
I hate to trivialize your lack of blue veiners, a condition relieved by B. Obama, one of Governor Blago’s good friends, but, Crikey, that was a dumb thing to say. Just for saying it in public you have won a much sought after award.
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
It’s a noble laurel that is not given lightly.
But wait. There’s more.
Because you didn’t try to walk that statement back by saying something like “Zounds but that was a dumb thing to say. Only a horse’s ass would say something like that. What was I thinking? If my grandfather were here he would kick my ass so hard I’d have to take my socks down to take a dump”.
Like the clap is a symbol wretched excess what I said is an example of what modern American Liberals would like to say but don’t. Usually your persiflage is particularly obufscatory unless your talking about President Bush or a United States Senate seat from Illinois.
For not trying to apologize for sharing the latent tumescence caused by President Bambi with everybody in Christendom you have won another award.
POMPOUS FART OF THE MONTH
With those two in hand and with a shortage of Irish Catholic award winners it was not such a great leap to give you the third and highest award.
You have earned this for two reasons:
#1 – You have been in the same room with noted troll Keith Doberman on several occasions. Why you have not him between the eyes, repeatedly, with the little hatchet that you keep in your ditty bag is beyond me.
#2 – Albert Hunt, another modern American Liberal rotter, made a gallant dash in the stretch for year end honors. Alas, he came up short. He told that us that one of the things that made Mrs. Schlossberg a serious contender for the United States Senate was that “she hails her own cab”. Next he’ll tell us that she picks her own nose and scratches her own ass. The Senate, a place where former KuKluxKlan member Bobby “Beat them Nigras” Byrd can rise to a position of leadership, a place where Harrison Williams [D-NJ] and Robert Torricelli [D-NJ] were figures of envy, needs people of gravitas, people with achievements beyond being President of the Lucky Sperm Club.
You have been consistent; both with your offensive to Logic statements and with your use of spittle as dangerous weapon, as a spokesman for mush brained, power crazed modern American Liberals. That, coupled with the one common denominator of mALs, “non-malodorous fecal matter”, earned you the highest honor.
SMARMY BASTARD OF THE YEAR
PS – In the words of Governor Blago, the charming Mrs. Governor Blago, and that noted secular humanist and semi-tough a guy as he thinks, Rahmbo Oh Come Emmanuel, “Go Fuck Yourself”
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Peter Franceschina, The Sun Sentinel
December 21, 2008
Peter Franceschina
The Sun Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33316
RE: “Living Outside the Law” – The sad tale of 4 Florida elected officials who don’t live in the districts that they represent and how they were able to overcome the stigma of breaking the law because of their devotion to public service and their desire to serve the people. As told by you in today’s Sun Sentinel.
Mr. Franceschina,
I thought the picture on Page One was marvelous.
Coming under the intriguing headline “Anger at GOP Luxury Jaunt” I thought you had found a bag lady – Check out those plaid PJ bottoms! – and that the story was going to be about how 8 years of Bush-Cheney just added more lashes to already bloody back of one of Broward’s undeserving poor. Boy oh boy but was I wrong! It was a picture of Lois Wexler [D-Plantation, Weston, Frostproof, Fountain of Youth, Niceville, inter alia] She was bent over like she had adult scoliosis. I would have bet that, had she had shoes, they wouldn’t match. Perhaps she was bent over by the burden of breaking the law every day. As a public servant she probably took an oath to uphold said law. The things people do to serve the public. Sometimes you have to break the law to help people, particularly when those people can’t help themselves
I was wrong.
The last 4 sentences of your story brought tears to my eyes. Where do we find such people? Maybe it’s time to update Profiles in Courage.
“Wexler offered to give the Sun Sentinel a tour of the condo
but then canceled and did not reschedule. She said the residency
requirement has been a hardship. “It has been very difficult on
me financially,” she said. “I’ve told this story to many,
many of my constituents, and it’s a sad story.”
Yes, it is a “sad story”.
Red lights and stop signs are “difficult” sometimes. They could even be considered a “hardship”.
Sir Thomas More said, “A man on oath holds his soul in his hands as if it were water. He opens his fingers at his own peril.”
Your story reveals still more suffering souls.
Jim Waldman [D – Coconut Creek, Ybor, Carol City, Mayport, inter alia]
Susan Bucher [D- Boynton Beach, Boca del Vista, Boca del Mentiros, Boca del Ladrones, Boca del Ginebra, inter alia]
Maria Sachs [D - Delray, Boca del Beppo, Boca del Caca, inter alia]
They have several things in common. They don’t live in the district that they represent. By publicly flouting the law and by publicly flaunting their disregard of the law, the glue that holds society together they share yet one more thing in common. They all have the letter D after their names.
It would be a chalk bet that they all swear allegiance to the law when it suits them. The reason they are able to do this is because they share another common trait. They are MALs. Modern American Liberals are all things to all men, particularly to themselves. Little things, things like where they live, are subordinate to the interests of making this a better place to live, a better place for the children, and, of course, the manatees. How can a silly law about where you live stand in the way of progress?
“This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast
and if you cut them down do you think you could
stand upright tin the winds that would blow then?”
Wexler, the trend setting Congressman from Florida, Maryland, and Oz, a man about whom it is impossible to say enough bad things, has more houses than Holiday Inn. Such is his devotion to public service that he has inspired his acolytes here to do likewise. He is Screwtape to these Wormwoods.
Are you sure his Broward namesake wasn’t a bag lady? She has that look about her.
Peter Franceschina
The Sun Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33316
RE: “Living Outside the Law” – The sad tale of 4 Florida elected officials who don’t live in the districts that they represent and how they were able to overcome the stigma of breaking the law because of their devotion to public service and their desire to serve the people. As told by you in today’s Sun Sentinel.
Mr. Franceschina,
I thought the picture on Page One was marvelous.
Coming under the intriguing headline “Anger at GOP Luxury Jaunt” I thought you had found a bag lady – Check out those plaid PJ bottoms! – and that the story was going to be about how 8 years of Bush-Cheney just added more lashes to already bloody back of one of Broward’s undeserving poor. Boy oh boy but was I wrong! It was a picture of Lois Wexler [D-Plantation, Weston, Frostproof, Fountain of Youth, Niceville, inter alia] She was bent over like she had adult scoliosis. I would have bet that, had she had shoes, they wouldn’t match. Perhaps she was bent over by the burden of breaking the law every day. As a public servant she probably took an oath to uphold said law. The things people do to serve the public. Sometimes you have to break the law to help people, particularly when those people can’t help themselves
I was wrong.
The last 4 sentences of your story brought tears to my eyes. Where do we find such people? Maybe it’s time to update Profiles in Courage.
“Wexler offered to give the Sun Sentinel a tour of the condo
but then canceled and did not reschedule. She said the residency
requirement has been a hardship. “It has been very difficult on
me financially,” she said. “I’ve told this story to many,
many of my constituents, and it’s a sad story.”
Yes, it is a “sad story”.
Red lights and stop signs are “difficult” sometimes. They could even be considered a “hardship”.
Sir Thomas More said, “A man on oath holds his soul in his hands as if it were water. He opens his fingers at his own peril.”
Your story reveals still more suffering souls.
Jim Waldman [D – Coconut Creek, Ybor, Carol City, Mayport, inter alia]
Susan Bucher [D- Boynton Beach, Boca del Vista, Boca del Mentiros, Boca del Ladrones, Boca del Ginebra, inter alia]
Maria Sachs [D - Delray, Boca del Beppo, Boca del Caca, inter alia]
They have several things in common. They don’t live in the district that they represent. By publicly flouting the law and by publicly flaunting their disregard of the law, the glue that holds society together they share yet one more thing in common. They all have the letter D after their names.
It would be a chalk bet that they all swear allegiance to the law when it suits them. The reason they are able to do this is because they share another common trait. They are MALs. Modern American Liberals are all things to all men, particularly to themselves. Little things, things like where they live, are subordinate to the interests of making this a better place to live, a better place for the children, and, of course, the manatees. How can a silly law about where you live stand in the way of progress?
“This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast
and if you cut them down do you think you could
stand upright tin the winds that would blow then?”
Wexler, the trend setting Congressman from Florida, Maryland, and Oz, a man about whom it is impossible to say enough bad things, has more houses than Holiday Inn. Such is his devotion to public service that he has inspired his acolytes here to do likewise. He is Screwtape to these Wormwoods.
Are you sure his Broward namesake wasn’t a bag lady? She has that look about her.
Ellen Goodman, Washington Post
December 19, 2008
Ellen Goodman
The Washington Post Writers Group
1150 15th Street NW
Washington, DC 20071
RE: You made it! A last minute addition to the highly coveted year end honors list
Ms. Goodman,
Sloth is the only reason for not naming you earlier. Mine; not yours. Your columns are so predictably bird brainish, so offensive to Logic, and so inimical to History that I stopped reading them lest I injure my eyes.
While waiting for my post operative purgative to kick in I began reading your column. I was, as Shaw [GB, not Bernard] once said, “in the smallest room in the house. Your column is in front of me. Soon it will be behind me.” The ultimate in recycling!
The Miami Herald titled your column “A Fine Senator in the Making”.
You say that “if life were fair…the first Kennedy woman to achieve high office would have been Kathleen Kennedy Townsend”.
Earth to Ellen. Earth to Ellen. She is a dolt. Do you remember when the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl? She came out of the stadium gushing about how when we “scored a football and then they scored a football we scored another football”. Stupid, bordering on world class dumb. Maybe life is fair after all. Since Mrs. Schlossberg shares a significant number of genes as Mrs. Townsend maybe she is just as dumb.
I am told that she raised money to support public schools in New York City. Would you know if any of her children went to those particular public schools? In fact, would you know if any of her children ever went to any public schools?
The media spent thousands of work hours trying to find something, anything, about Sarah Palin, her family, and her husband’s family that would suggest she was not what she seemed to be.
May I suggest some questions for Mrs. Schlossberg?
#1 – You’ve been a lawyer in Manhattan for 25 years. How would you get to the Tombs?
#2 – The first job your Uncle Bobby had was working as Counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy. Do you like what he did?
#3 – Your father’s father supported Hitler. Would you care to comment on that?
#4 – Why did you fail to vote in most of the elections held since you registered in Manhattan in 1988?
#5 – Your father supported huge tax cuts for business and individuals. Do you?
#6 – WAL*MART or Costco. Which store do you prefer?
#7 – Your father said that “we will pay any price or bear any burden in defense of freedom.” Do you agree with that?
#8 – When you were in Buffalo did you have beef on wick or fried baloney?
#9 – Uncle Teddy cheated in college. Did you?
Your final sentence is a modern American Liberal classic.
“You are choosing the emblem of a generation – and maybe a country –
coming back to life. Public life.”
Angels trumpeting “Ask not what your country can do for you…” are offset by the great Dr. Johnson’s description of second marriages, a not necessarily inappropriate analogy I might add. “It is the triumph of hope over experience.”
You say she is “coming home to the family business”. If History is a guide can we look forward to another Vietnam, another series of wire taps on civil rights leaders, and orvine sexual proclivities?
For these particular sins and for myriad past offenses against the common good you are hereby awarded the following honors:
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
POMPOUS FART OF THE MONTH
SMARMY BASTARD OF THE YEAR
Is twit gender specific or is it universal? Either way you share it with the next Chosen One.
PS – If she gets back to Buffalo tell her that she shouldn’t order Cosmopolitans if she winds up in the Anchor Bar.
Ellen Goodman
The Washington Post Writers Group
1150 15th Street NW
Washington, DC 20071
RE: You made it! A last minute addition to the highly coveted year end honors list
Ms. Goodman,
Sloth is the only reason for not naming you earlier. Mine; not yours. Your columns are so predictably bird brainish, so offensive to Logic, and so inimical to History that I stopped reading them lest I injure my eyes.
While waiting for my post operative purgative to kick in I began reading your column. I was, as Shaw [GB, not Bernard] once said, “in the smallest room in the house. Your column is in front of me. Soon it will be behind me.” The ultimate in recycling!
The Miami Herald titled your column “A Fine Senator in the Making”.
You say that “if life were fair…the first Kennedy woman to achieve high office would have been Kathleen Kennedy Townsend”.
Earth to Ellen. Earth to Ellen. She is a dolt. Do you remember when the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl? She came out of the stadium gushing about how when we “scored a football and then they scored a football we scored another football”. Stupid, bordering on world class dumb. Maybe life is fair after all. Since Mrs. Schlossberg shares a significant number of genes as Mrs. Townsend maybe she is just as dumb.
I am told that she raised money to support public schools in New York City. Would you know if any of her children went to those particular public schools? In fact, would you know if any of her children ever went to any public schools?
The media spent thousands of work hours trying to find something, anything, about Sarah Palin, her family, and her husband’s family that would suggest she was not what she seemed to be.
May I suggest some questions for Mrs. Schlossberg?
#1 – You’ve been a lawyer in Manhattan for 25 years. How would you get to the Tombs?
#2 – The first job your Uncle Bobby had was working as Counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy. Do you like what he did?
#3 – Your father’s father supported Hitler. Would you care to comment on that?
#4 – Why did you fail to vote in most of the elections held since you registered in Manhattan in 1988?
#5 – Your father supported huge tax cuts for business and individuals. Do you?
#6 – WAL*MART or Costco. Which store do you prefer?
#7 – Your father said that “we will pay any price or bear any burden in defense of freedom.” Do you agree with that?
#8 – When you were in Buffalo did you have beef on wick or fried baloney?
#9 – Uncle Teddy cheated in college. Did you?
Your final sentence is a modern American Liberal classic.
“You are choosing the emblem of a generation – and maybe a country –
coming back to life. Public life.”
Angels trumpeting “Ask not what your country can do for you…” are offset by the great Dr. Johnson’s description of second marriages, a not necessarily inappropriate analogy I might add. “It is the triumph of hope over experience.”
You say she is “coming home to the family business”. If History is a guide can we look forward to another Vietnam, another series of wire taps on civil rights leaders, and orvine sexual proclivities?
For these particular sins and for myriad past offenses against the common good you are hereby awarded the following honors:
HORSE’S ASS OF THE WEEK
POMPOUS FART OF THE MONTH
SMARMY BASTARD OF THE YEAR
Is twit gender specific or is it universal? Either way you share it with the next Chosen One.
PS – If she gets back to Buffalo tell her that she shouldn’t order Cosmopolitans if she winds up in the Anchor Bar.
David Fleshler, The Sun Sentinel
December 19, 2008
David Fleshler
The Sun Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: PANTHERS BEST HOPE – ROOM TO ROAM Is this a headline beyond parody? You didn’t think so. That’s how it reads on this morning’s Page One.
Mr. Fleshler,
Are the inmates running the asylum? In your case, are the boobies running the hatch? Is Professor Irwin Corey in charge of the Sentinel?
More panthers are good for Florida.
More panthers are good for Florida?
Is this the result of the Tribune – your parent company – bankruptcy?
You want to see more panthers in Florida?
How about some Great Whites in the intracoastal?
How about some Komodo dragons in the malls?
How about some Ebola viruses for the vegans among us?
Why should Zimbabwe have all the fun? Import cholera.
Madness.
David Fleshler
The Sun Sentinel
200 East Las Olas Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
RE: PANTHERS BEST HOPE – ROOM TO ROAM Is this a headline beyond parody? You didn’t think so. That’s how it reads on this morning’s Page One.
Mr. Fleshler,
Are the inmates running the asylum? In your case, are the boobies running the hatch? Is Professor Irwin Corey in charge of the Sentinel?
More panthers are good for Florida.
More panthers are good for Florida?
Is this the result of the Tribune – your parent company – bankruptcy?
You want to see more panthers in Florida?
How about some Great Whites in the intracoastal?
How about some Komodo dragons in the malls?
How about some Ebola viruses for the vegans among us?
Why should Zimbabwe have all the fun? Import cholera.
Madness.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Fred Grimm, The Miami Herald
December 14, 2008
Fred Grimm
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE – Bailing out the Big 3 and bailing out our schools – A different perspective on drawing sustenance from the eternally lactating public mammary.
Mr. Grimm,
First, a comment on lies, damn lies, and statistics.
You said that “members of Congress from the 48 states that spend more per student than Florida might balk at helping out schools in a state that won’t help itself”.
Are you saying that spending more money guarantees a better education? No place spends more money per student than Washington, DC. If, as you say, more money means better schools why are the Obama children not going to public school there? Why didn’t Chelsea Clinton go to public school there? Why didn’t any of the Gore children go to public school there?
President Bush’s daughters attended Austin Westlake High School – a public high school. You knew that, didn’t you?
Your comparison on the failing American automobile industry and the failing American public education system is predicated on never letting facts interfere with your argument.
After decades of failing the Big 3 want the American taxpayer to bail them out. They make an inferior product that is overpriced. These wounds, ones of design flaws and absurd union contracts, were mostly self-inflicted. The market place has spoken. There will be no end to the public transfusions.
American public education is predicated on the convoy system. The slowest ship sets the speed limit for the rest of the convoy. Since success can’t be rewarded and, worse, since failure can’t be penalized mediocrity is the norm. Taxpayers already pick up the tab. The notion that more public money will make a better product is offensive to Logic.
American education has been failing so long that it thrives on this public failure. It’s always someone else’s fault that Johnny can’t read. Florida high school football coaches have a very short use life. Effort doesn’t count; results do. If the coach doesn’t perform he is fired. If the math teacher doesn’t perform he gets a raise. If the principal has a stable filled with horses’ asses he is looked on as a friend to animals. If the superintendent looks on the letters FCAT as a vampire looks on a sun drenched holy water dousing he need but cry “More Money” and he is regarded as a saint.
Madness.
Since nothing else seems to work here is a modest proposal.
Each and every child of each and every public employee – appointed or elected – must attend public school. No exceptions.
How about culling the herd of jackass administrators? Did you know that the Broward Board of Education pays more than $100,000 a year to people who are listed as “diversity experts”? Use automatic weapons. Most of them couldn’t find a class room with a blood hound and a GPS.
You say that states that spend more per pupil would resent us. Shouldn’t Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama resent the Hell out of us? By refusing to drill off the Gulf coast of Florida we place an unfair burden on those states who do drill off theirs.
Even an educationally deprived Florida student, a student who has grown up hearing his teachers caterwauling “If only we had more think how much better we would do”, knows that.
Fred Grimm
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE – Bailing out the Big 3 and bailing out our schools – A different perspective on drawing sustenance from the eternally lactating public mammary.
Mr. Grimm,
First, a comment on lies, damn lies, and statistics.
You said that “members of Congress from the 48 states that spend more per student than Florida might balk at helping out schools in a state that won’t help itself”.
Are you saying that spending more money guarantees a better education? No place spends more money per student than Washington, DC. If, as you say, more money means better schools why are the Obama children not going to public school there? Why didn’t Chelsea Clinton go to public school there? Why didn’t any of the Gore children go to public school there?
President Bush’s daughters attended Austin Westlake High School – a public high school. You knew that, didn’t you?
Your comparison on the failing American automobile industry and the failing American public education system is predicated on never letting facts interfere with your argument.
After decades of failing the Big 3 want the American taxpayer to bail them out. They make an inferior product that is overpriced. These wounds, ones of design flaws and absurd union contracts, were mostly self-inflicted. The market place has spoken. There will be no end to the public transfusions.
American public education is predicated on the convoy system. The slowest ship sets the speed limit for the rest of the convoy. Since success can’t be rewarded and, worse, since failure can’t be penalized mediocrity is the norm. Taxpayers already pick up the tab. The notion that more public money will make a better product is offensive to Logic.
American education has been failing so long that it thrives on this public failure. It’s always someone else’s fault that Johnny can’t read. Florida high school football coaches have a very short use life. Effort doesn’t count; results do. If the coach doesn’t perform he is fired. If the math teacher doesn’t perform he gets a raise. If the principal has a stable filled with horses’ asses he is looked on as a friend to animals. If the superintendent looks on the letters FCAT as a vampire looks on a sun drenched holy water dousing he need but cry “More Money” and he is regarded as a saint.
Madness.
Since nothing else seems to work here is a modest proposal.
Each and every child of each and every public employee – appointed or elected – must attend public school. No exceptions.
How about culling the herd of jackass administrators? Did you know that the Broward Board of Education pays more than $100,000 a year to people who are listed as “diversity experts”? Use automatic weapons. Most of them couldn’t find a class room with a blood hound and a GPS.
You say that states that spend more per pupil would resent us. Shouldn’t Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama resent the Hell out of us? By refusing to drill off the Gulf coast of Florida we place an unfair burden on those states who do drill off theirs.
Even an educationally deprived Florida student, a student who has grown up hearing his teachers caterwauling “If only we had more think how much better we would do”, knows that.
Sasha Issenberg, The Boston Globe
December 14, 2008
Sasha Issenberg
The Boston Globe
P.O. Box 55819
Boston, MA 02205-5819
RE: “Kennedy Answers the Call” – The astonishing headline highlighting your story in today’s Miami Herald about someone named Caroline Schlossberg who is President of – and who says the glass ceiling hasn’t been broken? – the Lucky Sperm Club.
Ms. Issenberg,
We begin with the obvious questions.
What call?
Who is calling?
As a Roman Catholic I must tell you that, Vatican 2 notwithstanding, death is still the first step on a lengthy process ending in sainthood. She ain’t dead.
You say that the high point of her public life was raising money for a private charity that supports public schools.
I hate to be thought of as a turd in the punch bowl but do you know if any of her children went to public schools? Do you know if any of her first cousins or any of their children went to public schools?
If any of them did my brother the hunchback will straighten up.
Sasha Issenberg
The Boston Globe
P.O. Box 55819
Boston, MA 02205-5819
RE: “Kennedy Answers the Call” – The astonishing headline highlighting your story in today’s Miami Herald about someone named Caroline Schlossberg who is President of – and who says the glass ceiling hasn’t been broken? – the Lucky Sperm Club.
Ms. Issenberg,
We begin with the obvious questions.
What call?
Who is calling?
As a Roman Catholic I must tell you that, Vatican 2 notwithstanding, death is still the first step on a lengthy process ending in sainthood. She ain’t dead.
You say that the high point of her public life was raising money for a private charity that supports public schools.
I hate to be thought of as a turd in the punch bowl but do you know if any of her children went to public schools? Do you know if any of her first cousins or any of their children went to public schools?
If any of them did my brother the hunchback will straighten up.
Joan Vennochi, The Boston Globe
December 14, 2008
Joan Vennochi
The Boston Globe
P.O. Box 55819
Boston, MA 02205- 55819
RE: 20 words – infinite errors
Ms. Vennochi,
“As Paul Newman said at the climax of “Cool Hand Luke”
‘What we have here is a failure to communicate’.”
#1 – Paul Newman never said that.
#2 – The warden said, “What we have here is failure to communicate”.
#3 – The difference – a – is enormous.
#3 – Climax? My, my. Movies end. Movies stop. Movies never “climax”.
The aforementioned 20 words have earned you a special year end award.
“SEMI-LITERATE MARE’S ASS OF THE WEEK”
Congratulations and a truly non-denominational Season’s Greetings to you.
Joan Vennochi
The Boston Globe
P.O. Box 55819
Boston, MA 02205- 55819
RE: 20 words – infinite errors
Ms. Vennochi,
“As Paul Newman said at the climax of “Cool Hand Luke”
‘What we have here is a failure to communicate’.”
#1 – Paul Newman never said that.
#2 – The warden said, “What we have here is failure to communicate”.
#3 – The difference – a – is enormous.
#3 – Climax? My, my. Movies end. Movies stop. Movies never “climax”.
The aforementioned 20 words have earned you a special year end award.
“SEMI-LITERATE MARE’S ASS OF THE WEEK”
Congratulations and a truly non-denominational Season’s Greetings to you.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Three New Stooges
I think it was Churchill who said “Be of good cheer. Things will come right in the end.”
Evidence of that optimistic outlook is everywhere. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the arrival of The Chosen One has led to an accentuation of the positive with no more Mister in Between.
“Congressman Rostenkowski says all pols aren’t like Blago.”
“Gore says the world cares more about Paris Hilton than Global Warming.”
“Caroline Kennedy up for New York Senate seat.”
#1 – Rostenkowski, the paradigmatic template of ethical behavior, cautions us not to judge all pols like Governor Blago. Rosty went to jail for stealing from himself, his office, the House of Representatives, his constituents, and the people of America. His lesson, it’s always the rotten 96% who ruin it for the others, is worth noting.
#2 – Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., AKA Alpha Gump, noted Tennessee slumlord, wishes that the world was made up of more Paris Hiltons. Only people as bright as that ninny could agree with him, a 21st Century Lysenko, a man who gives horses’ asses a bad name, when he babbles on about Global Warming and drowning polar bears and reverse hockey sticks. As the head boob he should thank God for people such as Paris Hilton. Who else would listen to him without evacuating their bladders in paroxysms of uncontrollable guffaws? He makes her sound like Marie Curie. She makes him sound like someone who knows what color an orange is.
#3 – As the Manhattan doyenne of The Lucky Sperm Club Caroline Kennedy has one big thing going for her. She is smarter than her cousin Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland. Alas, that’s not saying much because that broad was so dumb she made my hair hurt. The label, Toes to the Front, is in all her shoes. She bats about .400. Maybe she gets dressed in the dark. Imagine if her name were Caroline Schlossberg. The only way she gets to the Senate is with the high school tour.
“Like I said “things will come right in the end”.
The Democrats are back.
Evidence of that optimistic outlook is everywhere. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that the arrival of The Chosen One has led to an accentuation of the positive with no more Mister in Between.
“Congressman Rostenkowski says all pols aren’t like Blago.”
“Gore says the world cares more about Paris Hilton than Global Warming.”
“Caroline Kennedy up for New York Senate seat.”
#1 – Rostenkowski, the paradigmatic template of ethical behavior, cautions us not to judge all pols like Governor Blago. Rosty went to jail for stealing from himself, his office, the House of Representatives, his constituents, and the people of America. His lesson, it’s always the rotten 96% who ruin it for the others, is worth noting.
#2 – Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., AKA Alpha Gump, noted Tennessee slumlord, wishes that the world was made up of more Paris Hiltons. Only people as bright as that ninny could agree with him, a 21st Century Lysenko, a man who gives horses’ asses a bad name, when he babbles on about Global Warming and drowning polar bears and reverse hockey sticks. As the head boob he should thank God for people such as Paris Hilton. Who else would listen to him without evacuating their bladders in paroxysms of uncontrollable guffaws? He makes her sound like Marie Curie. She makes him sound like someone who knows what color an orange is.
#3 – As the Manhattan doyenne of The Lucky Sperm Club Caroline Kennedy has one big thing going for her. She is smarter than her cousin Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland. Alas, that’s not saying much because that broad was so dumb she made my hair hurt. The label, Toes to the Front, is in all her shoes. She bats about .400. Maybe she gets dressed in the dark. Imagine if her name were Caroline Schlossberg. The only way she gets to the Senate is with the high school tour.
“Like I said “things will come right in the end”.
The Democrats are back.
Why We Have Newspapers
December 13, 2008
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: Thank you, thank you.
Sirs,
“UNDER THE BAY TUNNEL”
TODAY
PAGE 1
THE MIAMI HERALD
“UNDER THE BAY TUNNEL”
TODAY
PAGE 2
THE MIAMI HERALD
Thanks – twice – for clearing that up.
I thought – briefly – that it was the OVER THE BAY TUNNEL that was being scrapped. Speaking of which can you tell me where to find an OVER THE BAY TUNNEL? Google seems to know not whereof you speak.
Thanks again.
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: Thank you, thank you.
Sirs,
“UNDER THE BAY TUNNEL”
TODAY
PAGE 1
THE MIAMI HERALD
“UNDER THE BAY TUNNEL”
TODAY
PAGE 2
THE MIAMI HERALD
Thanks – twice – for clearing that up.
I thought – briefly – that it was the OVER THE BAY TUNNEL that was being scrapped. Speaking of which can you tell me where to find an OVER THE BAY TUNNEL? Google seems to know not whereof you speak.
Thanks again.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
He hasn't ven been sworn in yet
December 10, 2008
Governor Blago, Chicago, corruption, the old days in New Jersey, & the President
Just because he has hair that suggests a Satanic connection and just because he calls the President [elect] a “*otherfucker” are no reasons to indict him.
All the mush brained toads who are modern American Liberals were achingly tumescent when Fitzgerald, the United States Attorney – “Merry Fitzmas”, remember? - Oh, I forgot. Silly me! He was after Scooter Libby and Darth Vader Cheney then. It’s OK when they’re Republicans, right? Dreams of sugar plumbs and frog marching for Christmas, remember?
Jon Corzine bought a Senate seat in New Jersey in 2000.
Governor Blago tried to sell a Senate seat in Illinois in 2008.
The difference is…is…what?
Just like a not so silent fart in church the toxic aroma is going all the way to the White House.
What did the President [elect] know and when did he know it?
Governor Blago tried to get his wife a $250,000 a year job
Michelle Obama got a $200,000 a year raise when her husband was elected to the United States Senate. He got her employer a $1,000,000 a year earmark. If you say coincidence stop reading and try to find the nearest tooth fairy.
It is inconceivable that a Cook County community organizer – that sounds better than ward heeler or hack, doesn’t it? – could get from Chicago to the Illinois state senate in Springfield to the United States Senate to the White House without – A – having played the Chicago game or – B – known the rules of the Chicago game or – C – worst of all, thinking he could tip toe through the great lake of offal and not get any shit on his shoes.
If he didn’t know it he was a HORSE’S ASS. If he knew it and did nothing he is a SMARMY BASTARD.
If you believe that he didn’t know then you are comfortable believing that he sat in Pastor Wrong Wright’s church for 20 years and only heard Kumbaya and We Shall Overcome. It was the Saturday PM services where Whitey was the bad guy and Amerika sucks.
If you believe he didn’t know then you are comfortable believing that Bill Ayers never told him how to make a Molotov Cocktail. We know Bill the Bomber told him it's OK to send your kids to private school. Public schools in Chicago are for kids from the projects. Same in Washington.
The collateral damage caused by Governor Blago is that it knocks New Jersey off as being the top dog of corruption. As a proud son of Bayonne it was an honor that I am saddened. It was an honor that I cherished.
Where else could a college student go from being a bag man for Union City pols to the United States Senate?
If you were on the public payroll in Hudson County Mayor Hague got 3% of your gross pay. He knew that that was a big chunk. Benevolent despot that he was he got Beneficial Finance to come into Hudson County to help the employees live up to their obligation to the “Big Guy”. The pol who knocked off Hague – John V. Kenny – was the “Little Guy”. Only 7-11or Dunkin Donuts could rival Beneficial for locations.
The Hudson County jail was known as the Taj Mahal.
The Hudson County Police, as opposed to the Hudson County Park Police, and I am not making this up, the Hudson County Boulevard Police, was known as Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. The Hudson County Boulevard is 16 miles long and 20 yards wide. It had its own police force.
The Regular Democratic Organization had Row A in every election from 1916 to 1977. The odds of that happening by coincidence are about the same as a group of Mormons converting Ayrabs in Mecca.
I remember the Jersey City Board of Education accepting bids of $5,000 for storm windows, $4,500 for teachers’ desks, and $900 for class room waste baskets. It was 1958.
At one point there were more Hudson County mayors in jail than not.
A border line boob was sworn in as County Superintendent of Weights and Measures. After the ceremony he was asked how many ounces were in a gallon. “Give me a break, guys. It’s only my first day on the job.”
The Hudson County mortician exponentially increased his income by doubling up. He put 2 indigent stiffs into one box. 3 was a bit much because it required limb rearrangement.
A Jersey City Mayor, in a fit of frugality, shut down the Department of Psychiatry at the Medical Center. “We’ll have none of that voo-doo here.”
Uniformed police and firemen would line the hallway at various polling places. They thought it was their civic duty to inform the electorate about the candidates. Palm cards were available for the confused. Bullet voting still was in vogue.
“Dead men walking” was a common sight at election time. Why should death prevent voting?
The way Bayonne split the Black vote in 1964 is still a classic example of quiet discrimination. The lines were drawn to cut Black influence in half. Then Bayonne urban renewaled them out of town. Classic. Bayonne’s contingent of mush brained modern American Liberals kept all the Black and White Together nonsense in Mississippi and Alabama.
The upper income Negroes in Bayonne lived on West 44th Street. The majority of the other Negroes lived on either side of Avenue C from 18th Street to 26th Street. When Bayonne changed its form of government from commission to council it disregarded the plan drawn up by the non-partisan board. It used Avenue C as the East West dividing line. That cut the Negro soon to be Black vote in half. Then the city sold the apartments that they lived in replacing them with town houses and two family homes the prices of which precluded the previous tenants from buying.
Modern American Liberalism at its best!
Back to Chicago.
What did the President [elect] know and when did he know it?
Since it was acceptable to use Hitler as a base line when talking about President Bush it is fair, very fair, to ask if Hitler knew of Eichmann’s daily schedule. Also, if he knew about all the Eichmann wanabees.
B. Hussein Obama was a community organizer in Chicago. Absent 2 degrees from Ivy League schools and he would be known as a ward heeler. His career goals would have revolved around being Deputy Registrar of Deeds. Maybe some decent tickets for Da Bares or Da Bulls. He had the great good sense to be at the right corner when the right bus came along. He had the better sense to get on it.
A certain glibness like the guy shilling blenders on the midway coupled with enormous amounts of White guilt combined with a media that would have killed for him and an astonishing ability to fill 6 inside straights and his next stop is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Big Mike was right: “What a country!’
Every free turkey, every ticket that disappeared, every emergency sewer job, every summer job for Junior, every winter job for Dad, everything came from the Daley machine. “Marley is dead” is the opening line of “A Christmas Carol”. Everything flows from that just like getting ahead in Chicago flows from the Daley machine.
He went from demanding larger turkeys to the state House to the United States Senate to the White House. It all started with a free turkey.
Governor Blago, a man who gives new meaning to “He would steal a hot stove”, is now in the Hall of Fame for pols who couldn’t lie straight in bed. Special mention should be made of his wife. As foul mouthed a bitch who ever hornswoggled a pol with her vertical smile she makes Lucrezia Borgia look like a minor league Mother Teresa. A mating of vipers!
From whence came the Chosen One?
Kerner, West, Reynolds, Rostenkowski, Riley – all legatees of the Daley machine, all typical Cook County pols, jail birds all. The same machine that gives us the Chosen One.
In 20 years B. Hussein Obama went from fixing tickets and giving out free turkeys to the White House.
Did he know directly of Governor Blago’s latest shakedown request? Probably not. That’s why he brought Rahm Emanuel, his Frank Nitti, with him.
Speaking of turkeys, I wonder what kind of sound Rezko is making now?
Sometimes a free turkey can be very expensive.
Welcome to 4 years worth of a SMARMY BASTARD. If I’m wrong it will be 4 years of a HORSE’S ASS. Clinton or Carter?
Does President Bambi have any brothers?
Will Travelocity book the Lincoln Bedroom?
I miss Hudson County.
Governor Blago, Chicago, corruption, the old days in New Jersey, & the President
Just because he has hair that suggests a Satanic connection and just because he calls the President [elect] a “*otherfucker” are no reasons to indict him.
All the mush brained toads who are modern American Liberals were achingly tumescent when Fitzgerald, the United States Attorney – “Merry Fitzmas”, remember? - Oh, I forgot. Silly me! He was after Scooter Libby and Darth Vader Cheney then. It’s OK when they’re Republicans, right? Dreams of sugar plumbs and frog marching for Christmas, remember?
Jon Corzine bought a Senate seat in New Jersey in 2000.
Governor Blago tried to sell a Senate seat in Illinois in 2008.
The difference is…is…what?
Just like a not so silent fart in church the toxic aroma is going all the way to the White House.
What did the President [elect] know and when did he know it?
Governor Blago tried to get his wife a $250,000 a year job
Michelle Obama got a $200,000 a year raise when her husband was elected to the United States Senate. He got her employer a $1,000,000 a year earmark. If you say coincidence stop reading and try to find the nearest tooth fairy.
It is inconceivable that a Cook County community organizer – that sounds better than ward heeler or hack, doesn’t it? – could get from Chicago to the Illinois state senate in Springfield to the United States Senate to the White House without – A – having played the Chicago game or – B – known the rules of the Chicago game or – C – worst of all, thinking he could tip toe through the great lake of offal and not get any shit on his shoes.
If he didn’t know it he was a HORSE’S ASS. If he knew it and did nothing he is a SMARMY BASTARD.
If you believe that he didn’t know then you are comfortable believing that he sat in Pastor Wrong Wright’s church for 20 years and only heard Kumbaya and We Shall Overcome. It was the Saturday PM services where Whitey was the bad guy and Amerika sucks.
If you believe he didn’t know then you are comfortable believing that Bill Ayers never told him how to make a Molotov Cocktail. We know Bill the Bomber told him it's OK to send your kids to private school. Public schools in Chicago are for kids from the projects. Same in Washington.
The collateral damage caused by Governor Blago is that it knocks New Jersey off as being the top dog of corruption. As a proud son of Bayonne it was an honor that I am saddened. It was an honor that I cherished.
Where else could a college student go from being a bag man for Union City pols to the United States Senate?
If you were on the public payroll in Hudson County Mayor Hague got 3% of your gross pay. He knew that that was a big chunk. Benevolent despot that he was he got Beneficial Finance to come into Hudson County to help the employees live up to their obligation to the “Big Guy”. The pol who knocked off Hague – John V. Kenny – was the “Little Guy”. Only 7-11or Dunkin Donuts could rival Beneficial for locations.
The Hudson County jail was known as the Taj Mahal.
The Hudson County Police, as opposed to the Hudson County Park Police, and I am not making this up, the Hudson County Boulevard Police, was known as Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. The Hudson County Boulevard is 16 miles long and 20 yards wide. It had its own police force.
The Regular Democratic Organization had Row A in every election from 1916 to 1977. The odds of that happening by coincidence are about the same as a group of Mormons converting Ayrabs in Mecca.
I remember the Jersey City Board of Education accepting bids of $5,000 for storm windows, $4,500 for teachers’ desks, and $900 for class room waste baskets. It was 1958.
At one point there were more Hudson County mayors in jail than not.
A border line boob was sworn in as County Superintendent of Weights and Measures. After the ceremony he was asked how many ounces were in a gallon. “Give me a break, guys. It’s only my first day on the job.”
The Hudson County mortician exponentially increased his income by doubling up. He put 2 indigent stiffs into one box. 3 was a bit much because it required limb rearrangement.
A Jersey City Mayor, in a fit of frugality, shut down the Department of Psychiatry at the Medical Center. “We’ll have none of that voo-doo here.”
Uniformed police and firemen would line the hallway at various polling places. They thought it was their civic duty to inform the electorate about the candidates. Palm cards were available for the confused. Bullet voting still was in vogue.
“Dead men walking” was a common sight at election time. Why should death prevent voting?
The way Bayonne split the Black vote in 1964 is still a classic example of quiet discrimination. The lines were drawn to cut Black influence in half. Then Bayonne urban renewaled them out of town. Classic. Bayonne’s contingent of mush brained modern American Liberals kept all the Black and White Together nonsense in Mississippi and Alabama.
The upper income Negroes in Bayonne lived on West 44th Street. The majority of the other Negroes lived on either side of Avenue C from 18th Street to 26th Street. When Bayonne changed its form of government from commission to council it disregarded the plan drawn up by the non-partisan board. It used Avenue C as the East West dividing line. That cut the Negro soon to be Black vote in half. Then the city sold the apartments that they lived in replacing them with town houses and two family homes the prices of which precluded the previous tenants from buying.
Modern American Liberalism at its best!
Back to Chicago.
What did the President [elect] know and when did he know it?
Since it was acceptable to use Hitler as a base line when talking about President Bush it is fair, very fair, to ask if Hitler knew of Eichmann’s daily schedule. Also, if he knew about all the Eichmann wanabees.
B. Hussein Obama was a community organizer in Chicago. Absent 2 degrees from Ivy League schools and he would be known as a ward heeler. His career goals would have revolved around being Deputy Registrar of Deeds. Maybe some decent tickets for Da Bares or Da Bulls. He had the great good sense to be at the right corner when the right bus came along. He had the better sense to get on it.
A certain glibness like the guy shilling blenders on the midway coupled with enormous amounts of White guilt combined with a media that would have killed for him and an astonishing ability to fill 6 inside straights and his next stop is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Big Mike was right: “What a country!’
Every free turkey, every ticket that disappeared, every emergency sewer job, every summer job for Junior, every winter job for Dad, everything came from the Daley machine. “Marley is dead” is the opening line of “A Christmas Carol”. Everything flows from that just like getting ahead in Chicago flows from the Daley machine.
He went from demanding larger turkeys to the state House to the United States Senate to the White House. It all started with a free turkey.
Governor Blago, a man who gives new meaning to “He would steal a hot stove”, is now in the Hall of Fame for pols who couldn’t lie straight in bed. Special mention should be made of his wife. As foul mouthed a bitch who ever hornswoggled a pol with her vertical smile she makes Lucrezia Borgia look like a minor league Mother Teresa. A mating of vipers!
From whence came the Chosen One?
Kerner, West, Reynolds, Rostenkowski, Riley – all legatees of the Daley machine, all typical Cook County pols, jail birds all. The same machine that gives us the Chosen One.
In 20 years B. Hussein Obama went from fixing tickets and giving out free turkeys to the White House.
Did he know directly of Governor Blago’s latest shakedown request? Probably not. That’s why he brought Rahm Emanuel, his Frank Nitti, with him.
Speaking of turkeys, I wonder what kind of sound Rezko is making now?
Sometimes a free turkey can be very expensive.
Welcome to 4 years worth of a SMARMY BASTARD. If I’m wrong it will be 4 years of a HORSE’S ASS. Clinton or Carter?
Does President Bambi have any brothers?
Will Travelocity book the Lincoln Bedroom?
I miss Hudson County.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Carl Hiaasen, The Miami Herald
December 7, 2008
Carl Hiaasen
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: “Big Sugar” – Sweet or Reckless? – Some comments on your revealing column this morning on what a government should do
Mr. Hiaasen,
And the great good fortune of being born and raised in Bayonne, New Jersey is again shown in your column.
You speak of the Everglades as if they were my granddaughters. In New Jersey we know them – not Caitlin, not Caroline, not Julia – for what they are: swamps.
Eyetie gangsters, turnpike bond hucksters, fraternity pledges with a paint can, lonely radio stations – Who else would go there? Mosquitoes in the summer, fish with three eyes, ducks that fly backwards, a failed bent nose.
Let a peripatetic panther snatch a child from a Westin backyard and the panther problem will be solved by 50 A-10 Warthogs emptying their 30 millimeter cannons on anything that moves. About a week’s worth of sorties would solve that problem.
I read, with growing amusement, of your tale of almost woe about what “Big Sugar” did, can do, will do to Florida in the deal to “restore” the Everglades.
[Would it be a sign of my naïveté to ask “restore” to what?]
Anyway, I’m chuckling just short of borborygymous eructations when I get to the “chilling effect” or, perhaps, the “slippery slope” throwaway phrase, a phrase so common to modern American Liberals, statists all, “until the state cracks down”.
Up until the true colors were revealed it was a tale told by typical mush brained modern American Liberals. Did I just repeat myself?
Then it was revealed.
“Until the state cracks down…”
Should we send the Board of Big Sugar to Camp Gitmo?
Should we send their lawyers and lobbyists to Abu Ghraib?
What the Hell do you mean when you say “crack down”?
Is it OK to “crack down” when we want to help manatees? Is it not OK to “crack down” when we wish to enforce the laws concerning illegal aliens? Is there a meter to determine intentions when we choose which laws to enforce?
Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus. That was an example of a pretty strong “crack down”. Maybe we should have “cracked down” before 12/7/41. Maybe we should have “cracked down” before 9/11/01.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
PS – How about this for a “crack down”? Everybody knows that tobacco is evil. If we cannot ban the sale of it in this state how about banning the sale of it in drug stores and food stores? Would not the public be served, indeed well served, by this?
Carl Hiaasen
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: “Big Sugar” – Sweet or Reckless? – Some comments on your revealing column this morning on what a government should do
Mr. Hiaasen,
And the great good fortune of being born and raised in Bayonne, New Jersey is again shown in your column.
You speak of the Everglades as if they were my granddaughters. In New Jersey we know them – not Caitlin, not Caroline, not Julia – for what they are: swamps.
Eyetie gangsters, turnpike bond hucksters, fraternity pledges with a paint can, lonely radio stations – Who else would go there? Mosquitoes in the summer, fish with three eyes, ducks that fly backwards, a failed bent nose.
Let a peripatetic panther snatch a child from a Westin backyard and the panther problem will be solved by 50 A-10 Warthogs emptying their 30 millimeter cannons on anything that moves. About a week’s worth of sorties would solve that problem.
I read, with growing amusement, of your tale of almost woe about what “Big Sugar” did, can do, will do to Florida in the deal to “restore” the Everglades.
[Would it be a sign of my naïveté to ask “restore” to what?]
Anyway, I’m chuckling just short of borborygymous eructations when I get to the “chilling effect” or, perhaps, the “slippery slope” throwaway phrase, a phrase so common to modern American Liberals, statists all, “until the state cracks down”.
Up until the true colors were revealed it was a tale told by typical mush brained modern American Liberals. Did I just repeat myself?
Then it was revealed.
“Until the state cracks down…”
Should we send the Board of Big Sugar to Camp Gitmo?
Should we send their lawyers and lobbyists to Abu Ghraib?
What the Hell do you mean when you say “crack down”?
Is it OK to “crack down” when we want to help manatees? Is it not OK to “crack down” when we wish to enforce the laws concerning illegal aliens? Is there a meter to determine intentions when we choose which laws to enforce?
Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus. That was an example of a pretty strong “crack down”. Maybe we should have “cracked down” before 12/7/41. Maybe we should have “cracked down” before 9/11/01.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
PS – How about this for a “crack down”? Everybody knows that tobacco is evil. If we cannot ban the sale of it in this state how about banning the sale of it in drug stores and food stores? Would not the public be served, indeed well served, by this?
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
A New Way To Pick A Mayor
November 29, 2008
Letters to the Editor
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: Local Perspectives – A new way to pick a mayor
Sirs,
How can you not love this place?
Broward County, the Petri dish of modern American Liberalism, has been the cheerleader for the chorale of Jeremiads about stolen elections since 2000. The Republicans stole the election! The Republicans stole the election! The lyrics are the same. The music is rap, Gregorian chant, reggae, blue grass, inter alia.
It is well to note that the Torquemada chosen to investigate voting irregularities in 2000 was Daley, son of THE Daley, and a man who knew that the thing about recounts was that you counted and counted until you got the count you wanted. His selection was beyond parody. Also, it was impossible to satirize. Why? Because the toads in the 4th Estate wanted to believe that the fix was in.
This brings us back to Sunrise.
You may recall that President-elect Obama, on one of his tours around this 57 or 58 state country, called it Sunshine. Not once, not twice, but three times. Imagine if Sarah Palin had done that. MSNBC would have tried to Baker Act her.
One of the solutions to disputed elections, to cantankerous recounts, to the wrong people getting elected is simple. The test run in Sunrise, if successful, may well become the paradigmatic template of modern American Liberalism.
If you think the results of the election will not be to your liking cancel it.
Mayor Steven Feren of Sunrise was sent to the Bench by the electorate. He resigned. Deputy Mayor Roger Wishner, coached by Hinnisy, the famous publican, “saw his opportunities and he took’em”.
A word about Wishner is in order.
A few years ago then Commissioner Wishner filed a police complaint alleging that he was assaulted at a Commission meeting. In a heated exchange with another Commissioner, David Harlem, Wishner claimed that Harlem pointed his index finger at him and pulled it like a trigger.
A trait common to modern American Liberals is that while they love protests – drowning polar bears, the Dalai Lama, teenage obesity, “Don’t let’s be nasty to the WOGS”, things like that – they don’t want debate. It makes no difference whether the debate is intramural, intermural, extramural, or sansmural. Once the official line is established there is to be no deviance. That’s why Dr. Mengele would do well in a primary in Broward County. His progressive views on abortion, predicated for the most part on the works of Margaret Sanger a heroine to most modern American Liberals, would sway many voters.
If Commissioner Harlem had used his middle finger it would have had First Amendment protection. By using his index finger he stirred the pot about the Second Amendment.
Is there a modern American Liberal anywhere who does not become tumescent at the thought of disarming the Second Amendment? An index finger is a 50 caliber sniper rifle. A fist is a neutron bomb.
Stuart Michelson, Esq., the city attorney, doubtless acting under instructions from George Soros and Keith Olberman, canceled the election. He then anointed Roger Wishner Mayor for Life. No muss, no fuss, and no chance of the wrong guy getting in. According to confidential sources the Obama administration is studying this new method of choosing leaders very closely.
“All evidence is circumstantial”, said Bertie.
“Yes”, said Jeeves, “especially when
you find the trout in the milk.”
Stuart Michelson, Esq. is paid $8300 a week to represent Sunrise. [Sunrise, Sunset. No big deal.] That amount does no include expenses. Ski masks, shotguns, jimmies, shivs, crowbars – traditional burglary tools – are excluded from reimbursable disbursements.
The annual retainer, $432,000, was agreed to by the Sunrise commission.
I’m from Hudson County, New Jersey. Naïveté is beaten out of children. The fact that Roger Wishner, a man afraid of raised fingers, cast the deciding vote that gave Stuart Michelson, Esq. $432,000 a year is one of those things that just happened. Michelson the lawyer gets more than 8 grand a week and Wishner gets the crown. It’s just a coincidence. It happens as often as an Ice Age.
Next they’ll get the trains to run on time
Letters to the Editor
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693
RE: Local Perspectives – A new way to pick a mayor
Sirs,
How can you not love this place?
Broward County, the Petri dish of modern American Liberalism, has been the cheerleader for the chorale of Jeremiads about stolen elections since 2000. The Republicans stole the election! The Republicans stole the election! The lyrics are the same. The music is rap, Gregorian chant, reggae, blue grass, inter alia.
It is well to note that the Torquemada chosen to investigate voting irregularities in 2000 was Daley, son of THE Daley, and a man who knew that the thing about recounts was that you counted and counted until you got the count you wanted. His selection was beyond parody. Also, it was impossible to satirize. Why? Because the toads in the 4th Estate wanted to believe that the fix was in.
This brings us back to Sunrise.
You may recall that President-elect Obama, on one of his tours around this 57 or 58 state country, called it Sunshine. Not once, not twice, but three times. Imagine if Sarah Palin had done that. MSNBC would have tried to Baker Act her.
One of the solutions to disputed elections, to cantankerous recounts, to the wrong people getting elected is simple. The test run in Sunrise, if successful, may well become the paradigmatic template of modern American Liberalism.
If you think the results of the election will not be to your liking cancel it.
Mayor Steven Feren of Sunrise was sent to the Bench by the electorate. He resigned. Deputy Mayor Roger Wishner, coached by Hinnisy, the famous publican, “saw his opportunities and he took’em”.
A word about Wishner is in order.
A few years ago then Commissioner Wishner filed a police complaint alleging that he was assaulted at a Commission meeting. In a heated exchange with another Commissioner, David Harlem, Wishner claimed that Harlem pointed his index finger at him and pulled it like a trigger.
A trait common to modern American Liberals is that while they love protests – drowning polar bears, the Dalai Lama, teenage obesity, “Don’t let’s be nasty to the WOGS”, things like that – they don’t want debate. It makes no difference whether the debate is intramural, intermural, extramural, or sansmural. Once the official line is established there is to be no deviance. That’s why Dr. Mengele would do well in a primary in Broward County. His progressive views on abortion, predicated for the most part on the works of Margaret Sanger a heroine to most modern American Liberals, would sway many voters.
If Commissioner Harlem had used his middle finger it would have had First Amendment protection. By using his index finger he stirred the pot about the Second Amendment.
Is there a modern American Liberal anywhere who does not become tumescent at the thought of disarming the Second Amendment? An index finger is a 50 caliber sniper rifle. A fist is a neutron bomb.
Stuart Michelson, Esq., the city attorney, doubtless acting under instructions from George Soros and Keith Olberman, canceled the election. He then anointed Roger Wishner Mayor for Life. No muss, no fuss, and no chance of the wrong guy getting in. According to confidential sources the Obama administration is studying this new method of choosing leaders very closely.
“All evidence is circumstantial”, said Bertie.
“Yes”, said Jeeves, “especially when
you find the trout in the milk.”
Stuart Michelson, Esq. is paid $8300 a week to represent Sunrise. [Sunrise, Sunset. No big deal.] That amount does no include expenses. Ski masks, shotguns, jimmies, shivs, crowbars – traditional burglary tools – are excluded from reimbursable disbursements.
The annual retainer, $432,000, was agreed to by the Sunrise commission.
I’m from Hudson County, New Jersey. Naïveté is beaten out of children. The fact that Roger Wishner, a man afraid of raised fingers, cast the deciding vote that gave Stuart Michelson, Esq. $432,000 a year is one of those things that just happened. Michelson the lawyer gets more than 8 grand a week and Wishner gets the crown. It’s just a coincidence. It happens as often as an Ice Age.
Next they’ll get the trains to run on time
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