Injuries and Usurpations

Obama and congress should have kept their mouths shut about Iran. Things were going along swimmingly until he had to pull a Bush and say something. Just days ago, I praised him for staying out the mess and then he had to open his big trap and give an opinion. Now Iran’s new leadership is pissed off at us.

“We are surprised at Mr. Obama,” Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in remarks to judiciary officials broadcast on state television. “Didn’t he say that he was after change? Why did he interfere?”

“They keep saying that they want to hold talks with Iran … but is this the correct way? Definitely, they have made a mistake,” Ahmadinejad said.

We are all disgusted by how Iran is treating their own people. There are countries all around the world who do things we don’t “approve” of, but we can’t continue to endanger our own interests to give opinions on or attack everyone out there who doesn’t see things like we do. It isn’t isolationism, its self preservation. Is it selfish? Let me put it this way. I have neighbors who, once a week, methodically remove all they ATV and motorcycle covers and run them in the field a few houses behind me. My neighbors never bother me. They have nice kids who play with mine, they help me mow my lawn, I’ve invited them to parties…but apparently they ride their bikes near other people’s homes who don’t like it. They other people are battling my neighbor along with a few of his friends to make them stop riding. If they were riding next to me, I would probably complain too. If I were to complain about what they are doing over on the other side of town, I would jeopardize a friendship with them and my children’s well being. My little guys could lose their friends and I could lose my peace of mind in my own home sine I have a feeling they would just ride more. I am being selfish, but only as much as I need to protect my family and my home.

There are terrible ethical decisions that we face every day. I like to turn to the founding fathers whenever anything seems questionable. Here are some good ones for you:

I have always given it as my decided opinion that no nation had a right to inter-meddle in the internal concerns of another; and that, if this country could, consistent with its engagements, maintain a strict neutrality and thereby preserve peace. George Washington – Letter to James Monroe, August 25, 1796

We certainly cannot deny to other nations that principle whereon our own government is founded, that every nation has a right to govern itself internally under what forms it pleases, and to change these forms at its own will. Thomas Jefferson – To Thomas Pinckney, December 30, 1792

This country, which has given to the world the example of physical liberty, owes to it that of moral emancipation also. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) To John Adams, January 22, 1821

America well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extraction, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit. John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) Address, July 4, 1821

On a side note, there was a sad little telling statement of our priorities at the end of the article.

Television coverage of Iran’s turmoil has fallen since Jackson’s death Thursday; on the Twitter micro-blogging site, Iran remained among the most discussed topics, but fell below Jackson and comments about the movie “Transformers 2.”

OK, so this news story came from Fox News, but it is still interesting.

700 New York Teachers Are Paid To Do Nothing.

The teacher’s union in New York City protects teachers who on on leave waiting for disciplinary actions. These teachers sit in a special room and await their hearings on anything from sexual misconduct to the lesser offense of insubordination.
Because the teachers collect their full salaries of $70,000 or more, the city Department of Education estimates the practice costs the taxpayers $65 million a year. The department blames union rules.

“It is extremely difficult to fire a tenured teacher because of the protections afforded to them in their contract,” spokeswoman Ann Forte said.

City officials said that they make teachers report to a rubber room instead of sending they home because the union contract requires that they be allowed to continue in their jobs in some fashion while their cases are being heard. The contract does not permit them to be given other work.

The unions say the teachers are entitled to due process before being fired. The teachers claim that bosses target some people for elimination and would fire people at will if given the chance.

If my husband’s employer decides he doesn’t like my husband anymore, he can fire him. If my writing becomes substandard, my clients will fire me. There is no debate on the issue. Employees in other professions are considered “at will,” so I don’t feel bad for these guys.

This mess is partly the city’s fault as well. If I knew that the city cash drawer was open for millions of dollars in waste, I would be getting off my butt and getting the hearings underway. Whether of not I agree with it, that is the process they agreed to and they should be hustling to get these people either in or out of the classroom.

Waste. Blah!

I love to see that the people are starting to wake up from their Obama dream. A new poll has shown that the public is getting uncomfortable with many of the financial moves that the administration is making.  After that stimulus bill, the deficit was so bloated it should have been popping Stimerex ES, but instead started eating up bigger chunks of the economy. With the GM takeover and rising deficit front and center, it looks like the people are realizing that things are getting ridiculously out of control.

Of course, the stars aren’t completely lifted because they largely still blame the Republicans.

But not blaming Obama
Despite their concerns, the American public isn’t blaming Obama for some of the current problems he’s facing. Asked who was more responsible for the size of the deficit, 46 percent cited the Bush administration, 21 percent said the Democrats in Congress, 7 percent said the Republicans in Congress and just 6 percent said the Obama administration.

I see it like this. I chip the corner of a vase. My husband comes in and says that I dont’ know what I’m doing and he should fix it because he is a vase-fixing expert.  As he tries to glue the corner back on, he drops the vase and it shatters. He says that he wouldn’t have dropped it if I hadn’t chipped it.

The American people (not me!) gave this administration its trust and backing on the economy and they have yet to prove why they should have it.

It is not to get directly involved in the problems in Iran. It is a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation and the only course of action that makes sense to protect our own interests is to remain neutral and deal with whoever ends up running the country after the dust settles.

I have to respect Clinton, who according to Reuters said:

“The outcome of any election should reflect the will of the people and it is for the Iranians to determine how they resolve this internal protest concerning the outcome of the recent election.”

Such a relief from a time when the administration would have given strong opinions quickly and potentially boxed us into a corner.

On a personal note, I think it is rather an interesting situation. I’m never an advocate of violence in any fashion, but I do find it to be fascinating to see people rise up, whether or not we agree with their stance. While the majority of Americans are happy to ignore the rest of the world, sit in their recliners, watch reality TV and debate over the best diet pills, the other side of the world is witnessing a kind of unbound haphazard freedom.  Now if only that hate wasn’t sort of directed towards us…

I’ve watched a crew rebuild the road through my town and the road right in front of my home. I also watched them knock down sidewalk pieces and cover over manholes, drainage holes and various necessary items like that.

The town is making a list of all the areas they made a mistake in and trying to mark all the areas that they think the manholes and sewer outlets used to be. The crew is still working on the project at hand, as about 5 miles worth of state road is left to be done. When that stretch is complete, they will be coming back around and repairing everything they messed up.

I was taught that you do a job once and you do it right.

Apparently, these guys were told that if they messed up enough stuff they could keep their jobs for another month or so after the road was done. It took them a week to pave my little 200 foot stretch of road, so I can’t even imagine how long it is going to take to go through and find and uncover all of the necessary items and correct the damage done to the sidewalks.

I need to invest in a good camera or look at some camcorders so I can capture that effort on video. How many hours to find a manhole cover? I’m betting on about three hours per. Any takers?

I wanted to take a moment to give a little perspective to the amount of debt that the US is currently in.

Lets take 1776 as the official founding year of the US. That means we’ve been around or 233 years.

The current national debt is around $11.4 trillion. That’s 12 zeroes after the 11.

$134,000,000 multiplied by 233 years = $312,220,000,000

$312,220,000,000 multiplied by 365 days in a year = $11,396,030,000,000

That means that our national debt is about the same as having spent $134 million every day since the day we came into existence.

Absolutely ridiculous. If a business ran this way, they wouldn’t have a business. Or rather, the government would own them when the fed’s repeated attempts to save the company would fail.

Instead of encouraging a debt diet for all of us, spending is encouraged and everyone is worried about credit being freed up.

Living in credit is as American as being overweight. While poor countries sit and starve to death, we keep getting fatter. Instead of buckling down, sacrificing the things we want, doing everything possible to get where we need to be, we sit by and expect someone else to fix it for us. We read exercise and diet pill reviews and think they may work, but don’t have the balls to do anything about it. We complain about how tough it is to be fat, but we don’t get off our butts. We get surgery to avoid having to do real work and when surgery doesn’t magically fix it all and we get fat again we say it doesn’t work. We blame it on metabolism or some other hidden secret instead of being honest with ourselves about it.

Until the fed is willing to admit its mistakes and stop repeating them, it will continue to be one big bloated mess of fat and excess with excuses and no solutions. They’ll get their fix from China again and when that doesn’t work, they’ll blame someone else (probably the other party).

Before any overweight people jump down my throat-I’ve been there- I am there. I get it. I’ve got a whole blog about that. I’m just being honest about it.

I found this “odd news” and thought it was interesting.

SANDUSKY, Ohio — An Ohio man arrested for mowing unkempt grass at a public park said he just wanted to make his city look nice. John Hamilton said he took control of the situation because the grass in Sandusky’s Central Park was about a foot high. According to a police report, a witness said Hamilton was blowing grass onto the sidewalk and shredding trash in the park that had not been picked up.

Police said they arrested 48-year-old Hamilton after he refused to stop mowing and charged him with obstructing official business and disorderly conduct.

City Manager Matt Kline called the arrest unfortunate and said he understands Hamilton’s frustration. Kline said budget cuts have left Sandusky understaffed for seasonal maintenance work.

Only in today’s society would someone be arrested for voluntarily caring for a public park. My little town has been without a maintenance worker for months and some of the townspeople have stood up and mowed the lawn to a small playground that otherwise would have gone unkempt.  The council was ecstatic that someone was doing it.

As far as the people who complained about a little grass on the sidewalk and ripped up trash. I’m sure they were too busy complaining to think that maybe they could have gotten their asses up off their sleep number bed and taken a broom to the sidewalk or raked up the trash and grass shavings or even just picked up the trash themselves.

Its called community.

If there was any one thing I could have said about Dick Cheney it was that he stuck to his values- however wrong they may have been. His gay daughter stood by while he was virtually silent on the issue during his time in office. Our assumption was that he didn’t support gay marriage because he never spoke out on it.

Now, he is saying that he supports gay marriage.

“I think, you know, freedom means freedom for everyone,” Cheney said in a speech at the National Press Club. “I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish, any kind of arrangement they wish.”

Well, good for him. It would have been really nice if he had come out with one of his “Dick Cheney says its OK” custom rubber stamps of approval when he had virtual control over the senate. How convenient that he decided to hold it for a time when he has no power over anything and the Republicans are ignoring his rants.

I completely understand why unions were first formed. There was a time in history when workers could be shamelessly abused, used and discarded. The idea behind unions was a good one- to protect workers who had no voice.

My question for you today is: are the people represented by unions the ones that need protection anymore?

Today, rules and regulations protect workers from harassment, minimize poor working conditions, prevent them from being paid less than minimum wage and ensure workers safety while working on dangerous projects. Companies carry extensive insurance to take care of workers who are injured. It is not “The Jungle” anymore.

Back in the day, someone could be fired for looking at the boss. Nowadays, human resource managers are bound by so many rules that they practically need an executive order to fire someone. I had a friend who couldn’t fire someone who looked at pornography from their computer at work because it was “discrimination.” Someone else had a guy who was constantly late because he had “Adult ADHD” when really the guy played xbox 360 every morning and couldn’t get away from it in time for work. Yes, these are anecdotes. The point is that there are numerous protections in place today for America’s workers.

We’ve seen how the car manufacturers had their hands tied by the UAW for decades. In that situation, all they did was deny the business the right to do what was necessary to stay afloat and eventually contributed to the liquidation of several US automakers. The Union meant to protect workers contributed to their unemployment.

In my area, there are significant struggles with school taxes. The budget is way out of whack and the only thing that can be done to fix it is raise our taxes and cut programs. Sports and Music programs are being cut, some “dispensable” employees like janitors and aides are losing jobs, and our taxes are still going up.  Meanwhile, the teachers are guaranteed a 2% raise next year thanks to the union. Some teachers have already come forth and said that they will refuse the raise, but the union will not allow it and the school board won’t accept it. In a year when many locals are losing jobs or pay and taking PT jobs to make up the difference, the school district is still giving a raise to the teachers.  Many residents had their homes reassess this year to save themselves a few dollars in taxes. There goes that idea as well as an addition 3% for the rest of us who did not have a reassessment.  The teachers in my district are one of the highest paid in the state, but it doesn’t stop the unions from “protecting” them.

Maybe its time to rethink the place of the union in this century.

Maybe its just me, but I find much irony in the new credit card and auto manufacturer bills/proposals.

With the Credit Card Bill, what I find funny is that these practices are things that the credit card companies should be adopting to save themselves. To tell them they have to do certain things is like telling a little kid that they shouldn’t bounce on the bed because they might fall off. The difference is, the kid needs someone to tell them they might fall- the credit card companies should know it. People are crying about how much the credit card companies take advantage of them. Well, don’t spend their money. I racked up significant credit card debt and whose fault is it? Mine. I had all the paperwork. I signed the papers and I didn’t have to. When they jacked my rate up to 23% because I missed a payment, I was shocked - but I shouldn’t have been. It says it right in the paperwork and I was stupid enough to get the card anyway.

Here is the thing. That 23% made it more difficult to make the payments, so I missed another. Eventually, I had to go on a payment plan for hardship. The company offers 1% for 3 years so I can get the balance paid down a bit. Who loses money in the end? Not me. If they want to save themselves, they have to work with the people they gave too much credit too- that’s just plain and simple survival.

The government shouldn’t have to play babysitter to every company out there. They either survive and thrive or they fail. They are reasonable and fair or they will fail. I don’t need the federal watchdogs looking out for my credit card bills any more than I need them licensing the person who gives me a haircut or setting pricing limits on my Outer Banks rentals for vacation.

The fuel standards proposal is funny to me. We are going to increase the fuel efficiency of cars, which involves making cars smaller and lighter. One article even said that SUVs will be a thing of the past. Tell that to my 3 toddlers, 1 dog, 2 strollers, and various accessories. Sure, I think we absolutely have to improve fuel efficiency. I have this rally radical proposal. I call it "stop using it." BAM! Why spend all that money trying to improve fuel efficiency? Lets just get the hell off of fuel.

What will this groundbreaking proposal do for us?

It will decrease negative effects on our environment by a minuscule amount. We’ll still be using fossil fuels, we’ll still be creating emissions.

It will increase the cost of cars, while supposedly decreasing the cost of fuel used, but that depends on if the cost of fuels is $2 or $7 a gallon by 2016.

It will limit the types of cars available to us- if smaller lighter cars are the norm, my Explorer will be too big for companies to want to produce. That means I have less room for my large family, or I pay exorbitant amounts for a vehicle the size that I need. As if the cost of having what was once an average family isn’t already crazy, here is a way to add more cost to everyone.

Perhaps I’m the only one thinking this, but won’t the need for lighter vehicles may mean the need for new materials to be developed? The costs for these materials will have to be made up somehow.

Everyone sits around patting each other on the back for all of these accomplishments when in reality they accomplish very little in the long term. Everyone is happy because everyone got something, but when everyone gets something everyone loses something too. A little of everything is not as good as a lot of something.