Category Archives: Government & Politics

Federal, State, and Local Government… Taxes, Social Programs, and International Affairs.

Getting healthy…

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It’s hard to imagine that the trillion dollar healthcare plan passed by the House last night will do much of anything good for the vast majority of Americans. I’ll admit that I haven’t been following the issue as closely as others, but a cursory look seems to indicate that the federal government will be getting into head-to-head competition with private insurers. As a rule, I tend to believe competition in the marketplace is a good thing for consumers as it encourages development of new and innovative solutions and helps to control costs or dive them down. In order to do this, though, competition must take place on a level playing field. Private sector companies must look to their bottom line and compete using limited resources. The federal government recognizes no such resource limitations, making head-to-head competition with the private sector an inherently unfair proposition.

I don’t think Met Life or Blue Cross Blue Shield will go out of business tomorrow, but I do think the direct competition between the federal government and the private sector as defined by the House is going to be bad for all of us… Or at least all of us who are happy with our current insurance plan. Until someone can tell me how this program can be sustained over time without contributing to an increasingly unsustainable operating deficit or dramatically higher taxes, I remain opposed.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Good enough for government work…

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At least by one assertion the phrase “good enough for government work,” was coined at an ammunition plant and signified that the product met or exceeded all technical specifications and was suitable for delivery to the federal government for issue to the Army. Then again, that was the 40s and at the time government set standards were generally in excess of those commonly in use by industry. Now, of course, Good Enough defines the Dilbert-esq incompetence and indifference that the federal government labors under.

For the record, being Good Enough defines my entire goal for the rest of this week. On Friday morning, Good Enough gets the certificate as the honor graduate. So, here’s the deal: I’ll sit here quietly and not cause too many problems and you’ll give me that piece of paper at the end of the week… Then we’re going to go our separate ways and pretend that none of this actually happened. Good enough?

Forming, Storming… and that’s about as far as we’re going to get…

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OK, “Team” Four, I’m going to be perfectly honest with you here. We’re not a team. We’re barely even a group. Maybe the most generous description is that we are a bunch of people sitting in the same room chatting from time to time and occasionally tinkering with a few PowerPoint slides.

Realistically, I’m not at all sure that giving a few sentences of explanation, four hours, and a group completely unwilling to trust the actual technical expert in their midst is the best way to ensure that we develop a well researched, articulate, fully-justified, and detailed analysis of an issue. Of course deciding to change direction completely at 4:30 on Friday afternoon is not necessarily a constructive use of time, either.

With that said, I want to let you know that I’m done with the unpaid overtime racking up while we sit with our thumbs up our collective 4th points of contact. So in general, I need you to stop being jerkoffs and get your expectations a little more aligned with reality. Otherwise, I’m pretty much finished with the lot of you.

“It’s not a tumor…" (said in the style of Arnold Schwarzenegger)

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Well friends, now that we have government run banks, government run car makers, and are dangling on the brink of government run health care, the next logical step for the United States Senate is to determine if cell phones cause cancer. Wait… Maybe this is one of the Sesame Street tests where one of the things is not like the others. But seriously, the venerable Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee is promising to “probe deeply” at the bottom of the issue. Are you serious Senator Harkin? The nation is in the midst of two wars, the economy is a shadow of its former self, the treasury is beyond bankrupt, and you want to turn loose the investigative weight of the United States Senate to find out of my iPhone is going to give me a tumor?

Here’s the list of things now “known” to cause cancer: cetaldehyde, acrylamide, acrylonitril, abortion, agent orange, alar, alcohol, air pollution, aldrin, alfatoxin, arsenic, arsine, asbestos, asphalt fumes, atrazine, AZT, baby food, barbequed meat, benzene, benzidine, benzopyrene, beryllium, beta-carotene, betel nuts, birth control pills, bottled water, bracken, bread, breasts, brooms, bus stations, calcium channel blockers, cadmium, candles, captan, carbon black, carbon tetrachloride, careers for women, casual sex, car fumes, celery, charred foods, cooked foods, chewing gum, Chinese food, Chinese herbal supplements, chips, chloramphenicol, chlordane, chlorinated camphene, chlorinated water, chlorodiphenyl, chloroform, cholesterol, low cholesterol, chromium, coal tar, coffee, coke ovens, crackers, creosote, cyclamates, dairy products, deodorants, depleted uranium, depression, dichloryacetylene, DDT, dieldrin, diesel exhaust, diet soda, dimethyl sulphate, dinitrotouluene, dioxin, dioxane, epichlorhydrin, ethyle acrilate, ethylene, ethilene dibromide, ethnic beliefs,ethylene dichloride, Ex-Lax, fat, fluoridation, flying, formaldehyde, free radicals, french fries, fruit, gasoline, genes, gingerbread, global warming, gluteraldehyde, granite, grilled meat, Gulf war, hair dyes, hamburgers, heliobacter pylori, hepatitis B virus, hexachlorbutadiene, hexachlorethane, high bone mass, hot tea, HPMA, HRT, hydrazine, hydrogen peroxide, incense, infertility, jewellery, Kepone, kissing, lack of exercise, laxatives, lead, left handedness, Lindane, Listerine, low fibre diet, magnetic fields, malonaldehyde, mammograms, manganese, marijuana, methyl bromide, methylene chloride, menopause, microwave ovens, milk hormones, mixed spices, mobile phones, MTBE, nickel, night lighting, night shifts, nitrates, not breast feeding, not having a twin, nuclear power plants, Nutrasweet, obesity, oestrogen, olestra, olive oil, orange juice, oxygenated gasoline, oyster sauce, ozone, ozone depletion, passive smoking, PCBs, peanuts, pesticides, pet birds, plastic IV bags, polio vaccine, potato crisps (chips), power lines, proteins, Prozac, PVC, radio masts, radon, railway sleepers, red meat, Roundup, saccharin, salt, sausage, selenium, semiconductor plants, shellfish, sick buildings, soy sauce, stress, strontium, styrene, sulphuric acid, sun beds, sunlight, sunscreen, talc, tetrachloroethylene, testosterone, tight bras, toast, toasters, tobacco, tooth fillings, toothpaste (with fluoride or bleach), train stations, trichloroethylene, under-arm shaving, unvented stoves, uranium, UV radiation, vegetables, vinyl bromide, vinyl chloride, vinyl fluoride, vinyl toys, vitamins, vitreous fibres, wallpaper, weedkiller (2-4 D), welding fumes, well water, weight gain, winter, wood dust, work, x-rays (thank you, http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/cancer%20list.htm).

I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, Senator, but the fact is that from the time sperm meets egg, our bodies are already conspiring against us. Cells divide, mistakes are made, and those mistakes themselves are replicated. One of the only common threads among all people throughout time is that we all die. The endgame is the same for all of us; rich, poor, healthy, or unhealthy. It’s not that I’m taking cancer lightly or trying to make a joke at the suffering the disease causes. I am, however, making a joke at the expense of the Senate. Surely with these steady hands upon the rudder of the ship of state, what could possibly go wrong?

God help us.

Stealing the interwebs…

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It probably says something about me as a human being that I didn’t have many issues with the Patriot Act, but the prospect of the government being able to seize control of “critical” networks during what remains an Ill-defined future “cyber-emergency” makes me nervous beyond belief. One of the first steps in any well-developed plan is to take control of or destroy enemy lines of communication. In the olden days that meant a would-be revolutionary needed to control the airwaves either by blocking transmissions, occupying the local TV and radio stations, or simply destroying them. In the 21st century, controlling communications basically means taking down the Internet and cellular capability.

Ponder it for a moment; no email, no cell phone, no VOIP, no SMS, no Blogger or Facebook. Now, how do you communicate beyond the people who happen to live next door? Yeah, I’m scratching my head on that one too. Now take into account the other everyday things you do online – like banking, ordering prescription refills from the pharmacy warehouse somewhere in Iowa, or looking at porn. How do you do those things in a world after a declared cyber-emergency?

Are you worried yet? You should be. Take away the Internet and all the other elements covered under the proposed cyber security bill and we’re basically only seperated from 1957 by the lack of tailfins and chrome. In a world built on the rapid transfer of data from one place to another, steal the Internet and you’re well on your way to launching your own revolution… Or at least keeping the masses uninformed until you’ve gone too far for them to do anything about it.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Get Un-American…

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I promised myself that I was going to keep my peace on the healthcare debate; that I wouldn’t wade in and simply watch as the accusations and counteraccusations played out… and I’ve managed to keep it shut for a week, which may be a personal best record for me. The fact is that I’m not even sure if I need to be weighing in on this. Anyone who has checked in with any regularity knows where I’m going to fall on the subject. The issue that I’m most impassioned by isn’t the proposed healthcare plan at all, but rather that those who feel passionately about it and who speak out are labeled “un-American” by a Speaker of the House of Representatives.

There are crackpots everywhere. They control the far left of the Democratic party and the far right of the Republican party. They are everything from socialists to religio-fascists. But they have no less right to be heard than those of the silent majority who have remained relatively docile and have avoided staking out a position on either end of the political spectrum. The fact is, I think most of the country finds itself somewhere in the middle and tends to get embarrassed when the extremists on either side get too loud or gain to much press attention. Lord knows, I’m a proud conservative (at least on fiscal issues), but I cringe every time James Dobson or Dr. Laura show up with a microphone in front of their face. It infuriates me that they are the popular image of the American conservative, but I digress.

I like that the House website has nearly buckled under the strain of traffic that this debate has driven to it. I like that members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are taking their elected representatives to tasks on both side of the aisle. I like that the administration has been struggling mightily to regain control of the message and make its points. It’s all together right and proper that all sides make their points and that this storm blow long and hard across the land. It’s the very lifeblood of America and gives me the vaguest sense of hope that the country has not become too passive to take on the hard issues.

So yes, friends, we owe it to ourselves to do what is hard. Read the bills that are before Congress and tell your elected representative what you think, not what the talking heads on CNN of Fox tell you. Do your homework and get informed. And if that means I’m un-American, I guess I’ll be ok with that.

My name is Jeffrey D. Tharp and I approved this message.

Bubba…

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I always thought it would be a cold day in hell before I’d find myself taking my hat off to former president Clinton. I’ve grudgingly admitted in the past that he was probably a once in a generation mind and arguably had more raw political skill than any president of the 20th century. But seriously, pulling off a trip to North Korea, launching a full fledged comeback as America’s senior statesman, and all while his wife is Secretary of State is something I would have never imagined within the realm of possibility. He really is masterful that way.

In the warm glow of almost a decade’s distance, I have to admit that I’ve come to like Bill more than I ever did while he was in office. Perhaps that has something to do with him no longer being able to foist wild-ass policies on the populace while at the same time still being fun to watch. Oh, I still think a president ought to have more respect for the institution and the office than his decision-making allowed, but I have to admit that Bubba had a good day today… Although in fairness, I would have rather seen him bitch slap Kim Jong-Il just so the little troll knows America’s pimp hand is still strong.

Guiding light…

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The Declaration of Independence, unique in the holy trinity of the founding documents, is not a “how to” manual for governance. While the Constitution defines the scope of government and the Bill of Rights refines it, the Declaration is an altogether different thing. It is a statement of ideals written before the notion of liberty in America was a given and before there was a question of what that liberty would mean to those who lived in the outposts of empire.

One of the most frustrating aspects of teaching the Declaration, or of listening to pundits discuss its meaning on television, is that it is so often misinterpreted. If you study the Declaration, literally read the text, you discover that there are no guarantees made, no specially protected groups identified, or really any discussion of anything other than opportunity; the opportunity for the 13 united States to lay down their list of grievances and reasons for war against Crown and parliament and the opportunity of the people to better their lives and secure their liberty. The natural rights of the Declaration in no way guarantee that we will all live happily, but that we will have the opportunity to pursue happiness. The founders well understood that no state was perfectly free to pursue its own course any more than an individual is perfectly free to flail is arms wildly in a crowded room. Perfect freedom of the individual and the state is constrained at the point where the rights and freedoms of other individuals begin.

The Declaration reminds us all that neither government nor individuals is empowered to deliver us safely to the other shore. Each of us is free to set our own course, to pursue our own happiness where we find it. If you believe you deserve more from life, work for it… don’t blame others for preventing you from reaching your objective. We are responsible for our own destinies and when we fail to strive for what we want, or seek out the next opportunity, then shame on us, because we tarnish the idealism that is our birthright.

On this, 233rd anniversary of Independence, I remain an unabashed and unapologetic patriot. I believe the United States has been and continues to be the last, best hope of earth and that there is nothing more fine in this world or the next than simply being an American.

Hanging fire…

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I’ve been holding off on saying anything in the hopes that the overwhelming force of the US Navy would resolve the pirate issue. Alas, it appears four guys in a rowboat and a couple of AK-47s is enough to hold off the Navy, the FBI, the Department of State, and everyone except the French special forces. I’ll bet the Russians feel silly for spending all that money keeping up with us in nuclear weapons for all those years. Can someone tell me why this has been allowed to go on… And on… And on. Just for re record, if I’m ever being held hostage in a rowboat, let the SEALS do their thing. I’ll take my chances, thanks.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Milestone… But not the way you think…

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There’s a lot of talk today about the milestone of inaugurating a black president. Yes, it’s definitely a remarkable bit of history and not something I expected to see in my lifetime, but there hasn’t been much talk about the more important event that happened with the transfer of power to President Obama. In a time when the United States is at war in two countries, when entire sectors of the economy are collapsing, and when we the people are hell bent on hating one another for simple political difference there was a peaceful transfer of power from on leader to another. At a time when a Caesar or a Napoleon grasped the reins of power more firmly in other places and in other times, the Commander-in-Chief laid aside his powers and followed the long unbroken line of past presidents in the example set by the nation’s first chief executive. Instead of raising an army,

Of course today is a milestone in that it’s no longer acceptable to set limits based on race or to use it as an excuse , but it’s more important still in that we learned once again that the Constitution works; That our republic, despite its warts, remains strong. Could any of us really ask for a better milestone?

P.S. Could the Chief Justice at least have memorized the Oath of Office… Geesh…