Clean My Foot! No, I Mean Clean My Foot.

Hey, have you heard the latest from the oil companies? Well, okay the price of oil has just dropped below $100. But no, I'm talking about the "clean" oil they're beginning to tell us about. Now, when have they ever mentioned that their product isn't clean?  Right now they're talking about oil sands. It's actually tar in sand buried in the ground. To get it out, you dig it up. When you dig it up, some is going to spill out on the surface. And if you pay close attention, they're really saying that they can make it as clean as the regular stuff. Which isn't all that clean. Otherwise why would they say they can make it as good as? So, this stuff must be a lot dirtier. Well of course it is. It's tar. Have you ever heard that kind of blarney before? Yep. King coal. Coal companies are always saying they can make coal clean. They haven't yet. Neither have the oil companies. So, why isn't it clean? I mean either one of them? Because there's a whole lot of poisons in them. I don't mean to suggest that it can't be done. In fact, I'm certain that they can remove the poisons from both coal and oil.  Trouble is, whatta ya do with the poisons after you take them out of the fuels? I mean it's not like you can wrap it in a dirty diaper and put in the garbage. We're talking about millions of tons, based on the consumption of oil and coal in this country. We haven't even figured out how or where to dispose of spent nuclear fuel yet. Look at it this way, if you take a clean bottle and you pour in a cup of ink, that's one thing. You can pour the ink out and wipe the bottle clean. But you still have the ink.  No matter where you put it, it still shows up as a stain.

It's That Texas Textbook Again.

I don't know if you remember my telling about the Texas state School Board coming up with a new history textbook? Well as it turns out the guy who is responsible for it is David Barton. He's a math teacher/ high school principal/ ordained preacher. He has no history degree. He claims to have widely read much literature and writings from the first century of our country. Especially the founding of the country and it's founders. The thing is, he's a fundamentalist who is convinced that America was supposed to be a Christian country.  Problem is, the founding fathers, who were very explicit on nearly everything, also explicitly left that out of the constitution. He claims that it wasn't left out of six of the original states' constitutions. Now I think that if it was in the states' constitutions and they left it out of the National Constitution, there must have been a good reason. No matter which came first. And there was never a decision by the founders to make any change to agree with Mr. Barton. Never the less, he advises conservative presidential contenders. Seems to me that Mr. Barton is a novice who cherry picks words and phrases to suit his agenda. I mean no disrespect, because most everyone does some of that  kind of thing. But of course, most everyone isn't in a position to influence the whole country's policies. Or change history to agree with our opinion.
He likes to point out that most, if not the whole country's schools are buying his history textbook. However, because Texas is the single largest buyer of textbooks, publishers choose that one to print. Anyone who wants anything else is pretty much out of luck. It's a take it or leave it deal. Sounds like nothing to crow about.

National Bullying Awareness Campaign.

Here's the scene. A 9th grader stands in front of the Principal's desk. The principle says" what do you have to say for yourself, young man". The boy says "my dad says it alright for me to do it". Don't give me that. No parent would tell his child that it's okay to bully. Well, that's what he said, only he doesn't think it's bullying. He did not say any such thing. Yes he did, he said he does it all the time at work. Young man, no employer would allow bullying in the workplace. Well his does. In fact he got a promotion for doing such a good job of it. That can't be. You shouldn't lie to me like that. I'm going to call your father, what's his phone number. You can't call him right now, he'll be busy bullying somebody. Well then who does he work for. I'll call them and register a complaint and then call the newspaper to report them. He works for the U. S. Government.  WHO??? I said the... Never mind, I heard you. Are you telling me that he bullies people for the government? Yes and he doesn't get in any trouble for doing the same thing I did.  Which was to push the kid's head into the toilet because he wouldn't tell me the combination to his locker. Exactly what is it that your father does for the government? They call it enhanced interrogation. Only he uses a piece of wood somehow. But that's called waterboarding, That's torture. Not if you're asking questions and the person you're asking won't give you the answers you want. That's patriotism. My dad said so. The Government said so.

Maybe We Should Pay Attention To Who We Vote For.

Would you like to know what's keeping America from developing more jobs? Well here it is in all it's wondrous glory. Our workforce is too well educated and were striving to make it an even better educated workforce. Say what? See, what corporate America wants in an American workforce is a poorly educated, docile workforce capable only of being trained to push the right button at the right time to enable the robot to do the work. You think I'm wrong? Then why does corporate America continually send jobs to third world countries? Because labor is cheaper? Well of course it's cheaper. It's workforces are docile, poorly educated, but capable of being trained to push the right button at the right time. I had a conversation with a  conservative friend of mine the other day. He told me about his friend who ran a company some years back. The friend laid off people when the minimum wage went to $5. years ago. He decided he'd rather loose money then pay such an exorbitant wage. If corporate America had it's way, they'd still be paying American workers three dollars a day for twelve hour shifts. The workers would still be living in company homes in company towns. We'd be back in a feudal society. There would only be the poor worker class and the wealthy landlord/company executives class. Oh, and a few wallstreet hedgefund managers.
Healthcare would consist of a pink slip if you got sick. 18th century France tried that. It worked so well that many of the rich got so caught up in it that they lost their heads over it. The thing is that here in
America, corporations are rewarded for shipping jobs overseas. It's just an added incentive. Who would do such a thing? The guys we voted for.

Education Instead Of Politicians, For Corporations.

While everyone is focused on the Bin Laden story, I'm looking at the future of America. So, with states and the Federal government trying to figure out how to cut back on education spending, I've come to the conclusion that we need to spend a whole lot of money on alchemy research. Cause we're gonna need to start turning rocks into gold. Problem is, with that much new gold, it'll probably not be worth much more then the rocks. Really. We need to figure out how to spend more on education, but we need to figure out how to spend it all, wisely. I think we should double down on taxes on all corporations. But then give them big tax cuts for working with high schools, colleges, universities and trade schools. If they hire teachers and buy equipment in the areas of expertize needed to manufacture their products, we cut their taxes by 60%. Of course this will only work if the corporations actually pay taxes. So toward this end, all tax loopholes for corporations would need to be done away with. Harsh yes, but necessary. Probably the first loophole we need to do away with is the idea that corporations are persons. Sorry Supreme Court, but this is too important to skip. After all, it's not like corporations have souls. Next we do away with corporate sponsorship of politicians and their campaigns. Once we do that, campaigns can be run on a twenty dollar bill. With enough left over to buy a cup of coffee and a doughnut. Make mine glazed, like my eyes.

Bin Laden's Demise Is Good For Us.Life Goes On.

Well by golly Bin Laden is kaput. There really isn't anything to laugh about in this. He was an enemy, he killed Americans in a cowardly way, he has hid from justice for a very long time, he's been killed. Our forces did the job they were asked to do. Not much else has changed. We'll still face the threat of terrorism, we'll still have politicians bickering loudly, and there'll still be lots of material for comedians to use. The price of oil will continue to rise and people will continue to find reason to complain while driving. Food will continue to rise in price and people will continue to gain weight while overeating. Politicians will continue to complain about the deficit and the debt while increasing their pet projects. Political Action Committees will continue to lie about their mentor's opponents. And we still won't allow politicians to touch our Medicare or Social Security. There's a lot of comfort in these things. And that's to the greater advantage of politicians. Because when the electorate is worrying or complaining about things like these, they aren't watching legislators closely enough. That's when politicians are most mischievious. If you're not watching all the time, legislators legislate. That's not good. Whether it's a corporation or a government, someone has to keep an eye on them. Either a uniom or a government inspector or a news reporter, but someone. Otherwise, no good will come of it.

The Truth About Politicians And The Wealthy.

If you ask me, I think there's a conspiracy going on here. I mean look at the fact that we can't increase taxes on the rich or even the super rich. In fact we can't even step back to the Clinton era tax rates when we were enjoying a surplus. So who was and is to blame for that? The Republicans, that's who. Now, along comes Timothy Geithner, President Obama's man at the head of the Treasury Department. He's from
Wall Street. He has decided that  there's no reason for oversight of a $4 trillion a day derivatives business. You know, the kind of business that caused the financial disaster that led to the Great Recession. It's not as risky as some other markets, says Mr Geithner. Not as risky as some other markets? What does he describe as risky? If somebody walks into a market with a gun, is that risky enough? These people don't use a gun, they use a calculator and a computer. So who's to blame for this? It would appear that the Democrats are. This confirms my suspision that you can't trust a Republican, but you can't trust a Democrat, but you can't trust an independent either. About the only thing or people you can trust, is that rich people will find a way to buy a politician and get even richer. Heck, the reason you can trust rich people to buy politicians is that they've been doing it for years. Why do you think so many jokes are told about it? Here's one for you; A rich guy walks into a bar and meets a politician, the politician says "not in here, let's go out back". Oh! Wait! That's a true story.