Snow Removal

In response to the recent failures on the part of the Daley machine to remove snow from Chicago's streets, the older boy has volunteered his time and talents to assist the helpless residents of Chicago in clearing their roadways.

Godspeed

Facts Get in the Way of Good Israel-bashing

A recent Rasmussen poll showed the biases of the pollsters and the cluelessness of its respondents with regard to Israel's long overdue action to stop Hamas-sponsored rocket attacks from Gaza. Rasmussen reported the results as follows:

A majority of Democrats (55%) say Israel should have tried to find a
diplomatic solution first, a view shared by just 27% of Republicans.

There are three very large problems with this report: (1) the question erroneously assumes that Israel did not attempt to find a "diplomatic" resolution; (2) the question erroneously limits its definition of "diplomacy" to talking through diplomats rather than including military force as one of many potential actions that constitute diplomacy; and (3) there is an utter cluelessness on the part of 55% of Democrats and 27% of Republicans who obviously assume that Hamas is interested in conducting diplomatic talks with Israel.

Roland Burris

Blagojevich has made a terrific scandal even more terrificer by appointing Roland Burris to fill PE Obama's Senate seat. I find myself secretly cheering on Governor Blago for no other reason than it provides a load of pure entertainment.

State of Corruption

I have never enjoyed a political scandal as much as I've enjoyed the Blagojevich train wreck. From the indictment on December 9, 2008 until today, Blagojevich has entertained the State of Illinois and the whole nation with his unbelievable antics. Not only did he try to shake down the Director of a Children's Hospital in Chicago for campaign contributions, but he allegedly tried to sell a seat in the United States Senate. Blago's actions resemble the actions of an African dictator.

Of course, Blago's act is only part of the great Illinois tradition of bullsh_t in our multiple layers of government. Corruption is endemic in our political system. From the Daley underlings to Todd Stroger's kleptocracy to the slush funds managed by each of our state legislators, Illinois' system of government actively encourages and has institutionalized corruption.

Why is this so? One reason for the endemic corruption in this State is the simple fact that we have more government than anyone else. There are school boards, water reclamation districts, forest preserve districts, community college districts, town committeemen, county boards, village and city boards, and health districts, just to name a few. On my most recent property tax bill, I counted seventeen different levels of government tapping into my pocketbook. Most of those levels of government are not even elected but are appointed. All that government requires elected and appointed politicians to fill the positions. With that many politicians around and that many positions to fill, there is bound to be payoffs and corruption.

Corruption is so institutionalized that the law permits state legislators in Chicago to maintain their own slush funds to dispense with as they see fit. A typical practice in this state is for each state legislator to accept requests for state funds from various organizations in their district and give out state money to these organizations in their sole discretion. Of course, there is nothing to prevent the disbursement of state funds to "organizations" run by the legislators' own families and there is nothing to hold them accountable for who they decide gets the money.

This system also applies to the various aldermen in the City of Chicago who have absolute control over their own wards. The aldermen basically have sole power to decide what development occurs in their own wards and they each control who gets building permits in their ward. When I lived in Chicago, a few people from my condominium association and I visited my alderman with some complaints regarding a developer and his failure to complete a construction project on a neighboring property. The alderman essentially admitted to us that the developer's project was held up because the developer had bought off the previous alderman but had not yet presented himself to the present man in charge. In other words, his construction project was held up because the developer had not yet paid homage to the new alderman.

This corruption is magnified by the fact that there is a complete lack of competition in Illinois politics. For as long as I've lived in Cook County and beyond, we have had one party rule. There is less competition in Cook County politics than there is in Communist China. City and County officials have nothing to fear from the voters because it is all but guaranteed that the voters will return the corrupt Democrats to office. The Todd Stroger election is a perfect example. It is hard to believe that there could be a more incompetent and corrupt official in any government position in the United States. While Stroger openly appoints his relatives to high paying, do nothing jobs, and he institutes the highest sales taxes in the country, the voters of Cook County will nonetheless return him to office when he runs again.

The only thing we have going for us right now is the U.S. Attorney's office who has at least thrown a few of these bums in jail. However, his efforts are like trying to empty out Lake Michigan with a Dixie cup. The institutionalization of corruption in this State guarantees that the next generation of politicians will be just as corrupt as the previous generation.

So, even as I sit and enjoy the day to day drama that is Blago, it is assured that the removal of our corrupt governor will do nothing but open up a place for the next corrupt "public servant" to feed at the trough filled with taxpayer money.

Fading England

In yet another example of the decline and death of English culture, the Oxford University Press made the "culturally-inclusive" decision to remove certain imperialist and church-related words from its Junior Dictionary to replace them with new words supposedly more relevant for today's society. Words such as "bishop", "aisle" and "monarch" have been replaced with "mp3 player" and "celebrity", for example.

Whatever happened to old England. It appears the whole lot of them have completely lost their minds. Why would a kid need definitions for words like "mp3" and "celebrity" with which they are saturated every day? Wouldn't it be more appropriate for a dictionary to be a resource for less common words for which a child might need to consult a reference source?

Of course, if they control the language, they can also control the way we think and communicate with each other.

The Third

Isn't he beautiful?

He is 4 1/2 months old B.C. (Before C-Section).

Impartiality

I am not one to rage on and get offended about media bias because, well, I have come to accept that there is biased media. The LA Times, New York Times and Chicago Tribune, among others, openly advocated an Obama presidency and used their market power to make it happen. Having said that, these media outlets still have the ability to shock me from time to time in how far they have gone in abandoning what used to be a journalistic principle of appearing to be unbiased. Apparently, the LA Times and New York Times, among others, have made more than a tidy sum selling Obama hats and t-shirts and other momentos of the "Historic Election." This is mind-boggling in its hypocrisy. I guess it is true what Victor Davis Hanson has said about this election marking the year the media died.

See "Papers Sell Obama Gear...and their Objectivity?"

Plagiarize This!

A professor at Texas A&M International - Laredo, came up with a novel way to combat plagiarism amongst his students. Before the semester began, Professor Young warned students in writing that if he caught them plagiarizing, he would automatically fail the offending students, report them to school authorities, and publicize their names. Sure enough, Professor Young found six students plagiarizing and published their names on his blog.

Of course, the University came down hard on the violators by ... firing Professor Young.

State Bailouts

In addition to the proposed GM bailout, several states have requested federal bailouts as well. This is a very dangerous proposition as a federal bailout of a particular state would jeopardize the entire Constitutional system. The American Federal government system depends upon separate levels of government with all power not delegated to the National government being reserved to the States or the People. If the National government agrees to transfer funds to a particular State, it will do so only when certain conditions are met by that State. The State, therefore, gives up its sovereignty to the National government. This undermines the basis for our whole system of Government by creating the all-powerful central state.

That is not a precedent I want to set.

Auto-Bailout

For the second day in a row I write on the automakers' bailout being pushed in Congress. The New York Times frames the current debate between the Democratic Congress, on the one hand, and the Bush Administration and Congressional Republicans, on the other hand, not as whether the bailout should occur but what the source of bailout funds will be. The Democrats want to use a portion of the $700 billion financial industry bailout to fund the "rescue" package while, according to the NYT, the Rebublicans want to use a $25 billion fund already set up for the automakers to help them meet energy efficiency standards.

Assuming that the New York Times accurately described the debate (not a given), I am concerned that we have apparently decided to bypass the debate whether a bailout is correct in the first place. Any kind of bailout of these automakers merely ratifies bad business practices by their business leadership and their unions. It encourages them to remain inefficient and lets the unions continue to enjoy their anti-competitive compensation and benefits packages. Plus, why should we as taxpayers be asked to fund the bloated union contracts and pensions?

Finally, where does it stop? At least the financial sector bailout could kind of be justified as remedying a systemic problem - the freezing of the credit markets for the economy as a whole. Bailing out a particular industry opens up dozens of other industries to potential government intervention.

Auto-bailout

For the first time in my life, I called my Congressman's office to ask him to oppose a piece of potential legislation. I begged and pleaded with his intern that answered the phone to please, please, please vote against any bailout of GM, Ford and Chrysler. The mere thought of it makes me sick. The reason that all three American car manufacturers are ailing is their labor cost and benefits costs. Their own managerial incompetence, coupled with union greed has put them in this position. It is essential that Congress reject any attempt to reward these companies' bad behavior. To do otherwise would be like giving an addict more heroine. Please stop the madness before it begins.

NFL Thursday Nights

I know they've been doing it for the past couple of years, but I think that the NFL's decision to play Thursday night games is plain stupid. Whatever happened to playing the games on the weekend? The only football we should see on Thursday night is the latest MAC East v. West who-gives-a-crap-game-of-the-week.

Then again, I guess I am not the target audience of this idiocy because there is no way I stay up past 10 p.m. for any football game during the week.

Fool Me Once

In 1992, recognizing the will of the American people, Democrat Bill Clinton ran on a platform of passing middle class tax cuts. In 1993, the Clinton Administration immediately reversed its promises of a middle class tax cut by increasing the top individual income tax rate to 36 percent and creating a new top rate of 39.6 percent, by repealing the cap on Medicare taxes, and increasing gas taxes. See Heritage Foundation citing the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Tax Analysis, "Revenue Effects of Major Tax Bills," September 2006.

Time Magazine recognized as much in 1994 in its story about then-President Clinton's plans to cut taxes in time for reelection (or at least promise such cuts):

To candidate Clinton that seemed to be the case in 1992, but he abandoned his pledge of a tax cut for the middle class as soon as he moved into the Oval Office.

In his second term, once again, President Clinton broke his pledge.

Now it appears that President-elect Obama's allies at the Associated Press are laying the ground work to allow the new man in charge to follow in the well-worn footsteps of his Democratic brethren by abandoning their pledges of a middle class tax cut. The AP's Alan Fram And Trevor Tompson lead off their story today with this opening line:

People want the tax cuts promised during the presidential campaign, but may be willing to wait while President-elect Obama takes on the larger issue of fixing the economy.

How many times do they have to do this to us until people stop believing that Democrats are ever going to cut taxes?

Ron Paul

I must be losing it, but, aside from his foreign policy stances, Mr. Paul sure seems to be making a bit of sense here and elsewhere in his recent commentary:

But what the Republican leadership didn't realize was that ALL spending is a tax on middle-class Americans through price inflation and that eventually the inevitable consequence is paying for the extravagance with a financial crisis.

Congressman Paul did excite a large minority of young people prior to this year's election. I wonder if the excitement stemmed from his anti-strong defense view or from his views regarding strict interpretation of the Consitution. I'd like to hope it is more the latter than the former.

Obama's Congestion Tax?

The Manchester (UK) Evening News reports that Barack Obama's transition team has been in contact with Manchester, UK officials inquiring about Manchester's congestion tax placed on automobiles in the city centre. The concept is that the government would impose a tax on automobiles, perhaps during peak hours, to decrease traffic in high volume areas. Also included in the article and others I've seen are proposals to tax people based upon mileage travelled. I assume such a tax would required monitors to be installed on all cars that function like water meters.

How does this proposal to increase taxes on automobiles and their use square with President-elect Obama's promise not to raise taxed on 95% of all Americans. Let's hope this proposal never gets past the study phase because we certainly do not need to government telling us how much we can drive.

Mexican Drug Wars

Last month, a six year old Las Vegas boy named Cole Puffinberger was kidnapped by members of a Mexican drug cartel who were steamed because the boy's grandfather allegedly owed them money. An "Amber Alert" was issued and later rescinded as the facts became known and the boy was returned.

The fact that Mexican drug cartels are carrying out major crimes in the United States is a great cause for concern. This year, over 4,000 people have lost their lives as a result of Mexico's ongoing drug war. Now that the Mexican drug war has started to spread to this country, the rationale for enforcing and securing the border has never been higher.

During the immigration debate of last summer, I was ambivalent. I sympathized with the arguments made on both sides. If done correctly, I thought that a comprehensive plan to deal with the issue was proper. With the current situation in Mexico, however, it truly is a matter of national security that the United States enforce that border and enforce it now.

A good summary of the situation in Mexico is contained in the IBD editorial today which recommends supporting the Mexican military in the same way that the United States supports the Columbian military.

Veterans Day

On November 11 each year Americans and Canadians from what I understand commemorate the sacrifices made by soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen in serving the country. In my mind, it is the second most important civil "holiday" we have in the United States behind Independence Day. Both of my grandfathers served their country in the Far East, Grandpa Tony at Guadalcanal and the Pacific as a Marine during World War II and Grandpa John in Korea immediately after World War II. Regrettably, I never took the opportunity to speak with either of them about their experiences except briefly with Grandpa Tony after he had started to lose the ability to speak. Even in his eighties and with great difficulty communicating, Grandpa Tony remembered his experience and showed a reluctance to speak about it in a great amount of detail. Imagining what he and millions of soldiers and Marines like him did during the War in the Pacific and since then is awe-inspiring.

Two Boys

HOPE AND CHANGE

Animal Farm

It appears that the Obama team has spent some time scrubbing its change.gov website of some inconvenient statements made at barackobama.com during the campaign. This reminds me of a recurring theme in the book Animal Farm by George Orwell. In that book, after the pigs took over the farm, they drafted a set of Seven Commandments which would govern the animals' new bolshevik paradise. The Commandments were posted on the wall of the barn and included such affirmations as: "All animals are equal."

As the pigs on the farm grew in power, they began to set themselves apart from the other animals and slowly began to take advantage of the other animals to benefit themselves. Also as time went on, the pigs slowly and secretly changed each of the Seven Commandments a little at a time while the dim-witted animals just followed along. At the end, for example, the seventh Commandment read, "All Animals are Equal, but Some are more equal than others" and the dim-witted animals could not remember what the Commandment had originally said.

I am not saying that President Obama seeks to create a bolshevik paradise or that the American people are dimwitted animals. However, as with all politicians, it is important that we hold these politicians to their promises and not let them rewrite history to serve their present ends.