Monthly Archives: December 2009

Throw da Bums Out

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I have mentioned Radio Guy Josh Mothner on these pages before. Mr. Mothner hosts the Morning Mix on WGMX-FM here in the heart of the Florida Keys. In real life, he is a banker and mortgage broker. He is also a community volunteer and a serious, big-D, Demorat. He often rants about one or another of my pet peeves; sometimes he even comes down on the right side of an issue.

Mr. Mothner was in full rant this morning with pretty much the same message I’ve sent for a year: Throw da Bums Out . All of them. Every single elected official in Washington. Even yours. And yours. His is the first media commentary I’ve heard outside the blogosphere with that message.

Pick any issue of import, Mr. Mothner said this morning. Congress has bumbled it either because they act sooooooooo sloooooooooowly or because they simply get it wrong. Usually they get it wrong and it takes forever to do so.

Consider, for example, ObamaCare. If you recognize Senate Bill S.4 (the Comprehensive Health Reform Act of 2009) or House Bills HR3200, HR3962, and HR3590 (Affordable Health Care for America times two and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Acts), you’ll understand that Congress has been diddling while America burned.

Sadly it matters not at all whether you fervently believe that

(a) government is incapable of filling potholes let alone managing a process as big and complex as your health care; or
(b) only government is able to manage a process as big and complex as your health care.

Whatever your core beliefs, the Congress We the TaxedPeople elected has managed to assure none of us are well served by any of the more than 10,000 pages of “affordable” health care proposals now papering Washington D.C.

Have you noticed? Congress lurves the word “affordable.” They plan to force a baker’s dozen affordable issues on We the TaxedPeople this year alone. So far. Have your taxes gone down? Did your rent get cheaper? Your life must be more affordable, right? Congress says it is. Here are the baker’s dozen “affordable” bills from thomas :

  • Affordable Access to Prescription Medications Act of 2009
  • Affordable Care for Women Act
  • Affordable Food and Fuel for America Act
  • Affordable Footwear Act of 2009
  • Affordable Gas Price Act
  • Affordable Health Care Expansion Act of 2009
  • Affordable Health Care for America Act
  • Affordable Health Choices Act
  • Affordable Housing and Community Development Act of 2009
  • Affordable Housing Preservation and Revitalization Act of 2009
  • Affordable Housing Preservation Tax Relief Act of 2009
  • Affordable Reloaded Munitions Supply (ARMS) Act of 2009
  • Affordable Tutoring of Our Children Act

Affordable, huh? That would be the same Congress that just passed a 12% bump in their spending budget at the same time they ruled the Cost of Living flat for senior citizens. The flat Cost of Living we see at the pump, no doubt. After all we do have the Affordable Food and Fuel for America Act and the Affordable Gas Price Act.

Perhaps Hillary Clinton summed it up best: “A camel (that would be a race horse designed by Congressional Committee) is a well-designed animal,” she told Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) in recent hearings.

Throw da Bums Out! You go, Josh.

But first, throw out the Congressional Rules that allow them to pass laws that do not apply to, well, Congress Critters.

Then Throw da Bums Out, indeed. We can’t afford them.

Don’t Rust!

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 9, 2009) — Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced the definitive solution to Global Warming today.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday issued a final ruling that, in addition to methane, carbon dioxide also poses a significant danger to human health and to the environment.

E.P.A. administrator Lisa P. Jackson said that the 2007 Supreme Court decision required the agency to regulate CO2 as well as methane. The E.P.A. plans to limit emissions from human sources, all cars and trucks, power plants, refineries, cement plants and other big factories, and large farms. It appears that locomotives, trolley cars, cruise ships, and government aircraft may remain exempt.

Senator Reid says he has a better idea that does not involve pedal cabs.

“We’re going to galvanize everything that doesn’t move,” Senator Reid said. “Not only will it suck all the CO2 out of the atmosphere, it will ensure that nothing made in America ever corrodes again.”

Hot dip galvanizing is a metallurgical process that coats steel or iron with zinc to prevent rusting and other corrosion of the ferrous products. It has been in use for more than 150 years.

Galvanizing protection builds over time by a mechanism where the zinc first oxidizes. Then oxide absorbs water and becomes zinc hydroxide. The zinc hydroxide absorbs CO2 from the air. That forms a dense, impervious coating of zinc carbonate. If it were lime, we would call it “slaking.”

“It pulls carbon dioxide straight out of the air,” Senator Reid said. “What could be better or more useful today?”

I love science. Or I did before it became poli-sci.

Of course, Rust Never Sleeps™ even with galvanized steel; rusting is inevitable, especially in U.S. regions plagued with acid rainfall.

Rufus wants me to point out what sucking the life out of the atmosphere has done to companies in the Rust Belt but that is a subject for another day.

Don’t Fart!

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 7, 2009) — The Environmental Protection Agency on Monday issued a final ruling that methane poses a danger to human health and to the environment.

E.P.A. administrator Lisa P. Jackson announced that the 2007 Supreme Court decision required the agency to regulate methane because it threatens human health and welfare.

The E.P.A. website states that “Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that … is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period and is emitted from a variety of natural and human-influenced sources.” The primary human-influenced source is flatulence, Ms. Jackson said.

There are also high levels of antimony tri-oxide in flatulence (it provides some flame retardance against afterburner ignition) in human-sourced methane.

In her prepared remarks, Ms. Jackson reported on the Methane to Markets Partnership. “It is intended to reduce global methane emissions, with a focus on cost-effective, near-term methane recovery from colorectal sources primarily in the United States,” she said. “A healthy individual releases 3.5 oz. of gas in a single flatulent emission, or more than a pint every single day.”

Beginning in early-2013, the E.P.A. will phase in a program to capture all human-sourced methane at each originator. “Our research shows it is far more effective to issue each citizen with an individual, belt- or shoulder-mounted, man-portable collection and storage tank (MOST).” The program will begin in ten large urban areas including New York City, Los Angeles, and Orlando in the first two years, then fan out across the country.

“My Agency is working with three prime contractors to produce prototypes now,” Ms. Jackson said. Recycling centers will be tasked to retrieve the MOSTs for emptying and return to other users.

Industry groups have criticized the decision, saying that the regulation of the near-ubiquitous methane, will be technically challenging, legally complex, and will impose huge costs on an already challenged economy.

“The fake-leaked British climate research group e-mail messages have stirred doubts among a number of people about the integrity of some climate science,” Ms. Jackson said, “but we have serious research to back up the methane regulations we are announcing today.”

Writing — It’s Not for Sissies

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Last week, I began what will become a four-or-more-part series on writing. As I wrote, I didn’t realize that my pedantic need for encyclopediana would pop up here. A friend’s comments brought me up short immediately after I posted, “My job as a writer is to get it right.”

My friend expressed surprise at “a bunch of white guys defending Sosa’s skin bleaching.”

Unfortunately, that piece was about writing. Equally unfortunately I broke two rules, one of which is my own.

About a century ago in Internet time meaning in about 1997, Inklings Magazine commissioned me to codify the rules of editorial writing. The result was a pretty good article (if I do say so myself), Dick Harper’s 10-1/2 Hot Tips for Small-town Op-ed Writers .

Tips doesn’t explicitly say “Write so well that your readers understand you.” Tips does explicitly say:

2. Keep to exactly one (1), uno, single point.
Multiple arguments in an op-ed confuse the reader, the editor, and, probably the writer.

Regular readers know my strong points do not necessarily include staying on task. In Writing — It’s Not Just Cosmetic Anymore I blew the stay-on-task rule because I introduced three points in that piece: (1) writing well, (2) “problematic” portraits of people of color in literature and, indirectly, (3) Sammy Sosa’s relative blackness.

Some readers noticed the diversion into writing while black or white. Other readers thought my mention of Sammy Sosa’s name meant I had taken Mr. Sosa’s side. Or, perhaps, Mr. Pitts’. Not enough readers recognized that I wanted only to talk about writing well.

Means I must not have done that. I’ll try to do better next time.

I have edited the original piece in this series to remove some of the ambiguity. Next I shall look at wilful disregard on both the writer’s and reader’s part as well as at “writing while black.”

Guest Post: George says Scary Indeed!

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I purchase about $300 a month from Sam’s club, and prolly another $300 from WalMart. I buy everything from cat food to prescription drugs to fresh veggies, ammo and cheap Texas wine. The only thing I don’t buy from WalMart is gasoline because their clerk has big tits, and she hits on me.

Here’s my point:
Coupla days ago a company called Unilever™, the maker of Slim-Fast, kicked off a global recall of its products because of the possibility of a low-level food poison bacteria. (you can read about it by Googling Unilever’s website, keyword recall.) Gives people the runs.

Anyway, sandwiched in the middle of all my Sam’s Club purchases is the occasional purchase of one or two 15-can boxes of Slim-Fast Low Carb Diet chocolate drink. It is a superior product: tastes great and has only 2 impact carbohydrates per can in a ratio with 20 grams of milk protein. I have drunk it for several years and enjoyed its benefits.

Guess what? Today I got a call from Sam’s Club advising me to return the unused Slim-Fast for full refund regardless of whether I had a receipt or not. I was surprised. No, I was shocked…that such a trivial, menial record pf my small purchase existed.

But the fact is obvious that everything we’ve ever bought — prolly anywhere in the world — is on record. Not only every gun, but every box of ammo as well. Prolly every monthly issue of gun magazines and every accessory item made for the guns.

If you pay your TitsOnline.com membership fee with a credit card or check, somebody has written it down in digital form. It’s out there. If you pay your Scientology pledge with electronic money, somebody has a record of it for posterity…or worse.

Someone somewhere even knows how much Jack Daniels I buy–and if I bought Depends™ undergarments they would know that too. Everything is on record somewhere and can be easily retrieved upon demand/request.

So, I’m taking the Slim-Fast back to Sam’s and get my money–in cash if possible.

When the SHTF all electronic money will be gone. Come to think of it, so will greenbacks.

— George Poleczech