31 October 2008

Happy Halloween

Hamburgers have been grilled and consumed.

The stew has been made up for tomorrow evening. (By the way, it's great. I highly recommend it. Try it with port wine.)

Costumes have been donned and pictures taken.

Treats have been obtained.

And at the end of the evening the car split it's radiator.

Big sigh. I guess I won't take tomorrow off after all.

Oh well. Happy Halloween everybody!

Interesting

I recently sent an Email to Senator Elizabeth Dole regarding her NO vote for the bailout package.

I didn't get the expected canned email response, and had put it out of my mind.

Today I got an actual letter from Senator Dole thanking me for my email.

It was, as expected, a canned response regarding the bailout bill, but still a nice touch.

She didn't say anything at all about my remark regarding the Fair Tax, but you can't have everything.

Wow, I've done a lot of posting today. I think I'll take the day off tomorrow.

Random Wandering Thought

Inspired by my trips through the interwebtubbie thingies (and not by the aforementioned port wine, honestly) comes this random thought:

Why is it the Left is full of people with advanced degrees in higher learning and other supposedly essential markers of higher civilization and yet who are absolutely devoid of anything approaching rational thought? (hat tip to Tam of VFTP)

And while we are at it, why should any American give a flying fornicative act at a rolling pastry what the You're-a-peeing's think of us?

I've been to many so-called garden spots in Europe, and have never seen anything I want to go back for. In fact, I'd rather be in the worst spots in the good old US of A, because I can always walk home from there if I need to.

Hmmm....

While trying out this recipe from our favorite lawman, I made an interesting discovery.

Port wine (the wine I chose for the recipe) is pretty good. And I'm not a wine conny-sewer.

More later. Maybe.

The Ten Cannots

By way of Lawdog is an introduction to The Reverend William J. H. Boetcker, who I had never heard of, and his Ten Cannots, which are ten pretty good reasons to hear of him.

For those of you who don't follow links, the "Ten Cannots" are listed below.

  1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
  2. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
  3. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
  4. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
  5. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
  6. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
  7. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
  8. You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
  9. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.
  10. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

29 October 2008

Cause and Effect

Let's say you are a small business owner. Lets say you own a plumbing business.

Why not. You are Joe. (Or at least you soon will be, as we will see.)

You have two teams, each made up of a master plumber, a journeyman plumber, and an apprentice plumber.

The masters have the knowledge, so they get 15 dollars an hour (just to keep it simple, I know they make probably twice that at least).

The journeymen do most of the work but don't have the knowledge or the license, so they each get 10 dollars an hour.

The apprentices are basically floor sweepers, so they get minimum wage, let's say 5 dollars an hour.

Each team makes you 50 dollars an hour (once again to keep it simple, good luck finding a decent plumber for 50 bucks an hour). Each team costs you 30 dollars an hour in labor costs, and the rest of your business expenses (gas for the trucks, tools, supplies, electricity, on and on) eats up another 20 dollars an hour. At the end of the day, you put 20 dollars an hour in your pocket. Life is good.

Bill down at the hardware store is doing pretty well, too. In fact, he's talking to you about putting in a hot tub. You can do that, sure. And it's not just Bill, it's Jim down at the appliance store who wants a new bathroom sink, and John over at the furniture place who wants floor drains put in his garage, and that doesn't even include Mr. Moneybags at the bank who wants his entire kitchen remodeled, which means a big plumbing job right there.

Business is picking up, so you look at hiring another team. You plan on promoting your senior journeyman to master, your two apprentices to journeymen, and hiring three new apprentices. You will make another 50 dollars an hour, minus thirty for labor, minus another ten for the new truck payment, insurance, and so on. At the end of the day you will be putting thirty dollars an hour into your pocket. Life is looking even better.

All of a sudden, the government steps in and increases minimum wage to 7 dollars an hour. You know that if your apprentices get a raise, your masters and journeyman damn sure better as well or they will end up quitting on you. So, each journeyman gets a $2.50 raise and each master gets a $3.00 raise. Your labor costs have just jumped by 15 dollars an hour, and you aren't making any more money. Expenses haven't dropped either, so now you are only putting 5 dollars an hour into your pocket. This just will not do! What do you do?

What happens is you fire one of your masters and you put your ass back into his truck. And all that business that was picking up? Well, Bill and Jim and John just had to do the same thing you did, so there won't be any hot tubs, or bathroom sinks, or floor drains, or anything else for that matter (except maybe for Mr. Moneybag's kitchen remodel). Gas ain't getting any cheaper, either. Now life is beginning to suck.

Not only that, but the master plumber you just fired is now drawing unemployment and welfare bennies. Instead of hiring three, you have fired one, so there's a net of four people in line at the unemployment office who weren't there before. Hello higher state tax rates!

Going one step further, he just defaulted on his mortgage and his car payment, and the credit card companies are calling non-stop. We know where that goes, don't we?

Now, this just happens to be an election year, and times are tough. Your Democrat Congresscritter, who is running for re-election, tells the now unemployed master plumber (and the three would-be apprentices) that he will pass a tax bill to raise your income and business taxes. The .gov will then take your tax money, since you are obviously doing well and just fired him because you are a heartless asshole, and give it to them. The higher taxes mean that you are now putting less in your pocket than the journeymen are. And, if that's not enough, Mama's pissed because she's not getting that swimming pool you promised, and the couch is cold at night. The suckage factor is increasing exponentially.

By the way, this is the same Congresscritter who you voted for the last time, and he is the guy that introduced the bill to increase the minimum wage for your floor sweepers.

Your former master plumber has just become a Democrat, and so have your three would-be apprentices.

Congratulations. You have just become a Republican.

Of course you are still outnumbered four to one. The best you can hope for is that the three would-be apprentices are too lazy to go vote, since they are just kids right out of high school and all.

Good luck, Joe.

24 October 2008

Link

I have been remiss.

My apologies to Greg at 454Monte.com.

Gee, wonder what kind of car he drives?

Busy Busy

I'm like an Oscar Meyer wiener lately, everyone wants to take a bite of me.

Actual content later when I have the time.

19 October 2008

I Am Joe


Iowahawk has another piece up.

If you go there expecting "teh funneh" you won't find it this time.

I think you will still like it, though. I know I did.

Sometimes (like when I think of Senator Tom Harkin) I'm not so proud of my Iowa roots.

But most of the time I am.

Click on the banner for a copy. Pay attention to the rules. No one makes money off of this except Joe.

18 October 2008

USS New York LPD-21

I got this in an Email today and had to pass it along. Feel free to copy and paste it into emails of your own to keep it moving.














She was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center.















She is the fifth in a new class of warship, designed for missions
that include special operations against terrorists. She will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft.















Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in
Amite, LA to cast her bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept 9, 2003, "those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence," recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. "It was a spiritual moment for everybody there."















Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the "hair on my neck stood up." "It had a big meaning to it for all of us," he said.
"They knocked us down. They can't keep us down. We're going to be back."

The ship's motto? "Never Forget"

05 October 2008

Budweiser American Ale

Eh, not bad. I still prefer Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, but I could get used to one or two of these as well.

Heh. Is this a great country or what? Here we are, faced with certain death because of the credit crunch/Obama presidency/McCain presidency/big atomic collider thingie, and I have time to drink beer.

Maybe we should follow Jimmy Buffet's advice.