Friday, January 21, 2011

Flush 'em Friday 1 21 11 Edition

A Portable toiletImage via Wikipedia
It is time for another edition of "Flush 'em Friday!" The following represent a random list of people or things I fell should be flushed down, around and/or out of wherever they are and whatever they doing.

  • California Governor Jerry Brown for even thinking about let alone mentioning more taxes.
  • Drivers who don't use their blinkers at all or wait until AFTER they have turned or changed lanes. This includes the group of drivers who stick their arm out of their window, point and turn without looking.
  • Gavin Newsome for being Gavin Newsome whether I like it or not.
  • Supervisors who dump crap on others and call it delegating, and then tell you it needs to be done by this afternoon before you leave which is long after they leave.
  • Drivers who take up two spaces when parking either because they believe their car is worth it,and/or because they just seem destitute of any car parking skills.
  • ObamaCare because it is just a government cluster#$#*% of mismanagement via government agencies, cronies and basic knuckleheads. Forcing anyone to purchase something is a minus in the freedom column  no matter how "progressive" you try to paint it.
  • Representative Jane Harman for voting against the repeal of the job killing health care bill. She should go see what has happened to the hundreds and thousands of people in her district who have lost their jobs and find out where the jobs went. 
  • Community Organizers for being the paid henchman of unions and the left.  
Who do you think I should add to this list?
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Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Job Creation via Government?

Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles as seen fr...Image via Wikipedia
It looks like LA Mayor Antonio Villarigosa is planning on lobbying the new congress and President Barack Obama on strategies to help create jobs. This is why Los Angeles and California are in the horrendous condition they are in financially. Herein lies the problem with all Democrats and liberals: the solution to business problems are, in their belief system, in government regulation and "funding." What is telling is also that La Mayor does not go to his Governor first. He knows his state has no money, but, the feds will at least print some more up if they feel they need money. La Mayor is not looking to help businesses flourish in a free market system, he is looking for a handout. 

It can't be the mythological green jobs candidate Jerry Brown promoted during his run for Governor but has scarcely mentioned since would help LA or La Mayor would seek those. If green jobs were the answer La Mayor would surely know how to open up opportunities for small business entrepreneurs and thus create jobs all over LA. 

Here's the deal: Job creation via government intervention is only as good as the intervention lasts. In other words, when the funding stops, so do the jobs. So called infrastructure creation such as roads is really just government payouts to unions. If the roads do not produce an industry that will outlast the funding they are only temporary jobs, government payouts. 

As I drive around Los Angeles I see empty building that once housed industries. Industries that created products not dependent on government subsidies. Industries that provided jobs for my grandparents and parents. Where are they now? Some are out of state, some are overseas. Why? Maybe we should ask the likes of Democrat Jane Harman who when informed of the loss of over 500 jobs in her district was "blindsided" and "didn't see it coming". Clueless. We dare not go there for help. That is why I will repeat myself and say that since 2005, under the Democratic legislature California has lost over 1,200,000 jobs and counting.

So, off you go Antonio. Ask the POTUS if can print some money to send California's way to "create" handouts, err, I mean jobs. 
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Monday, January 17, 2011

Martin Luther King, Jr. Outstretched Hands and Pointing Fingers

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X meet bef...Image via Wikipedia
Happy Marting Luther King Jr. Day.

For me, racism can be approached two different ways, either with an outstretched hand or a pointing finger. When I think back upon Martin Luther King Jr. I think of an outstretched hand. In his time honored "I Have a Dream" speech he called on Americans to look not to the color of our skin, but to the content of our character. My mother used to say that there are good and bad people, no matter the what they look like on the outside. 

Unfortunately, much of the rhetoric I hear ignores the content of men and women's character and focuses on the color of someones' skin. Basically, it is the pointing finger approach that I hear. I once had a friend of mine tell me, "You have no idea what it is like to be black and be an American!" Here's the deal: I NEVER said I did. I was eating my lunch, saying nothing, precisely because I am not black and growing up black is not my experience. The flip side is that my friend, (I gently replied that I never said I did know what his experience as a black man was like), had no idea what my experience as a white man was like, although he was pretty much assuming he did. My friend and I went to the same private school in elementary and middle school. we both went to private colleges. We both had the same positions in our company. That does not mean our experiences were the same getting there. My friend had just read a book by a white liberal guy blaming all the other white, mostly conservative white people, for all the crimes, injustices and poverty known to African Americans. A pointing, blaming finger without many solutions, just deflection of blame.

When I talk to people, no matter their color, race, religion, or political hankering, in the end we have the same hopes and dreams. What disturbs me the most is that most political dialogue does not unite us but divides us. As a parent I believe I am like any parent in that I want my child to grow up in a world where he or she is free to be who God created them to be. I know the world is not like that. But, I teach my children as I was taught that there are good and bad people, no matter what they look like on the outside and that the inside is what counts. And I teach them to reach out their hands and treat others as you would like to be treated. 
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