Friday, May 17, 2013

A SPEECH YOU WON''T HEAR FROM OBAMA

My Fellow Americans,

The Benghazi fiasco happened on my watch.

The IRS targeting of conservative groups, pro-Life groups, global warming skeptics and others happened on my watch.

The Department of Justice has bugged the telephone and other communication lines of the Associated Press, and that happened on my watch.

One of my predecessors, Mr. Nixon, resigned when confronted with the Watergate affair, where some hotel and meeting rooms belonging to the Democratic party were bugged.  And then, when discovered, he attempted to cover it up.

That was a far lesser breach of the public trust than the three breaches I mentioned above.

I was tried, and found wanting.

Mr. Nixon recognized what a man of honor must do, and set the example that I now must follow.

Effective Monday I will resign as President of these United States.  The Vice President, Joe Biden, will be your president for the remainder of my term.

Good night, and Godspeed.

BENGHAZI

It Isn't Complicated

Skipping all the lead-up pleas for more security, let's just look at what went on, and why, once the embassy reported being under terrorist attack on September 11, 2012.

The State Department was notified.  So was Obama. A quick evaluation within Hillary's State Department made the obvious leap to the understanding that since Obama was campaigning on how he had Al Qaeda on the run, this wouldn't look good for him.  Worse, since embassies such as the one in Benghazi are an extension of the State Department, admitting that there was no security for the Benghazi embassy would look very bad for Hillary.

I can't prove it, but even a numbskull would have to realize Obama was told both of the above.  He is Commander in Chief, after all, and it's his job to be brought into the situation.  Only he could issue a 'Stand Down' order to the military, which had standing Rules of Engagement covering embassy protection.  Then he disappeared for seven hours.  No one has come forward to tell the world where he was.  Seven hours is enough time for a couple quick rounds of golf.  He is a 16 handicapper, after all.  In the meantime and in his absence the State Department concocted bogus talking points - not those provided by the CIA, which were professional and factual - and came up with the You Tube video story we've all heard about.  Which was also bogus.

The story they decided to stick to was that this was a spontaneous outrage protest over that video, instead of what it really was: an Al Qaeda attack of a US embassy on September 11.  The story was concocted as damage control for Obama's re-election effort, and to preserve Hillary's viability for a presidential run in 2016.  The military was not called in to help because that would be an admission that the situation was an actual attack, not just a protest.

It worked for Obama, but it probably won't work for Hillary.

That's all there is to it.  They went into spin and cover-up mode, instead of rescue the people mode.  Four died as a result.  Lies, in  other words, cost four American lives, and no one has stepped up and credibly claimed responsibility.  Plain and simple.  

Now, don't try holding your breath until Obama tells the world where he was in those missing 7 hours, and provides absolute proof.  He lay doggo so that no decision about the embassy could be traced back to him.  You may have noticed that this president never knows a thing about anything, that he hears about it on the news just like you do.

Look around you.  More than half of the people in your field of view voted for him.  Twice.  Some of them several times.  Is there any hope for this country? 

Thursday, May 16, 2013

CLOSE TAX LOOPHOLES

A Good Idea, Right?

We hear it all the time: "Close Tax Loopholes!"  There's even an apparently anonymous campaign urging just that, right here in my own state.

Most people nod their heads in agreement with that sentiment.  After all, it would be only fair, right?

Not so fast.  Before we can close a tax loophole, we have to know what a loophole is.

Easy, some people think.  A loophole is any legal way to avoid paying taxes.

Okay, let's examine that.  Let's say that you own a home - or, more accurately, own a home mortgage.  You pay $$$$ every month on that mortgage.  Most of that money goes toward the interest you have to pay, and the rest against the principal of the loan.  Luckily, though, you get to deduct the interest you pay every year - or, to be exactly correct, you get to deduct your tax bracket's worth of that interest - when you file your taxes.

By our definition, that's a loophole.  Should we close it?

No?  Then we need to re-define the word 'loophole.'  Either that, or change our objective to something like "Close SOME tax loopholes."

Now that's something your Ostrich Killer can get behind.  I want to close all those loopholes that don't benefit me.  And there, o gentle reader, is the rub.  That's what EVERYONE who says 'Close Tax Loopholes' wants.

Which 'loopholes' benefit me?  Any loophole that drives down the cost of goods and services does.  For example, Big Oil gets exploration cost deductions.  If they didn't get those, the cost at the fuel pump would be higher.  Anything made of plastic would cost more.  Small businesses get to deduct much of their start-up costs.  If they didn't, many of them wouldn't start up.  If they didn't start up, their goods and services wouldn't be available to me. 

Here's a loophole I could close happily:  the dependent child deduction on personal income taxes.  All my children are grown, so I don't have that deduction available to me.  So you shouldn't either.  It would only be fair, after all.

Back to that campaign in my own state.  Those road-side signs also say "Put our families and kids first."  Not sure how closing loopholes helps families and kids, but I can guess that means removing loopholes from business taxes.  What happens if we do that?  The businesses will be faced with suddenly far less profit.  What do you think they'll do about that?  Pick one or more of the below:

  1. Raise prices.
  2. Reduce overhead and number of employees.
  3. Go out of business.
  4. Move to another state- Texas? - or country.

Will families and kids benefit from any of those outcomes?

The point to be taken is that loopholes are often necessary.  Think of them as tax incentives, meant to encourage certain kinds of fiscal behavior.  Without them, or at least some of them, that behavior would not be readily undertaken.  In most cases those tax incentives were written into law ON PURPOSE to encourage that sort of fiscal behavior.

So to put families and kids first, it would be prudent to think twice about closing tax loopholes.

This has been a public service announcement by your Ostrich Killer.  

You're welcome.  Now down to the boat.

Sunday, May 05, 2013

Twentieth Century Biggest Killers

Name The Top 4, if you can.


Right about now you're thinking someone like Ted Bundy, or Charles Manson, or some other similarly deranged and disgusting sub-human.

But you'd be wrong.  You have to think bigger.  Much bigger.

Let's start the list with the biggest killer of all, according to accepted research, and work our way down.

1.  Mao tse Tung  -  China  -  70 million in various purges, exterminations, etc.
2.  Rachel Carson  -  America -  50 million, give or take a few tens of millions, through publishing a fantasy and false alarm.  Her fantasy is still killing millions, with no end in sight.
3.  Joseph Stalin  -  Soviet Union  -  30 million in various purges and exterminations.
4.  Adolph Hitler  -  Germany  -  10- 15 million through purges, exterminations, cleansings, etc.

Of the above 4 above, only one is still killing.  She's long dead, of course, but her work is still killing.

What else do the above have in common?  Christianity, or more properly the lack of it.  None of the above had any significant connection to any mainstream religion, much less Christianity.

Other things we can learn from Rachel Carson:
1.  Words kill.
2.  Governments won't act to correct an obvious wrong, out of fear of being thought badly of by envirowackos and other uninformed do-gooders.  Including, and especially, the United States government.  No matter the consequences of continuing that wrong.  PC, political expediency and faux science win over clarity of thought and action based on actual science.

All of us should be - there has to be a word stronger than 'ashamed' to express it.  Worse, most of us are unaware of what Rachel Carson has done - all with the best of intentions, of course - results don't matter, only intentions do if you're an envirowacko / progressive - and, in fact, most of us probably saw her name in the above list and immediately thought "Who?"

I need another cup of coffee.

Thursday, May 02, 2013

Wargaming Global Warming

The Oceans will Rise.  So What?


The eco-alarmists among us would have us believe that global warming exists, and that it is caused by man burning stuff.  While your Ostrich Killer is agnostic about global warming, and a 'denyer' about man's activities being a significant contributor, let's pretend that those Chicken Littles are correct.  So what?

So what?  So what, you ask?  Won't the seas rise a couple feet over the next century or so as polar ice melts?  Won't millions of people living on the coasts flail about in the suddenly high water?  

No.  Oh, the seas would rise, all right.  But not over night.  They will rise minutely each year.  And each year, as coastal communities continue to build and evolve, those that build will build high enough away from the actual coastline that their structures are safe.  The sea will gradually reclaim the existing shorelines and create new ones.  The shapes of those new shorelines will be different than the existing shorelines.  So will the shapes of the coastal communities.  This rise in the oceans will be, for all intents and purposes, unnoticed and unfelt.

So no need to panic.  You don't need to wear a life preserver when you go to bed.

But even better news: we seem to be in a cooling period, not a warming period.  So if you lose sleep over the size of the arctic ice packs, you can sleep easy.  If you worry about the shape of the existing coastlines, you can sleep easy.  On the other hand, if you were hoping you wouldn't have to keep heating your home into the month of May, I'm afraid you're out of luck.

And now for some coffee.