Ash Wednesday

Yesterday I stopped by my favorite coffee shop to get my afternoon cup of coffee and noticed that one of my favorite baristas had gone to Ash Wednesday Service.

I immediately thought how unusual the mark of ash is in Southern California when it used to be pretty common.  The Church I attend didn’t even have an Ash Wednesday Service.

Take a look at a cute video by clicking below.

Joe Biden on Ash Wednesday

CDsailor

Bipartisanship

President Obama asks for more bipartisanship when considering his health care bill.

There is a lot to say on this issue, at least two or three more posts, but for now let’s do the math.

In the Senate there are:

• 100 votes, 60 votes are controlled by Democrats and 40 votes are controlled by Republicans.  This is, of course, before the Massachusetts election.
• President Obama’s health care plan showed no bipartisanship and instead the vote was straight down party lines.

Now let’s add the proper amount of bipartisanship.  60% of Democrats change their mind and vote for the minority and 40% of the Republicans change their mind and vote for the majority.

The final vote in favor:

• 24 Democrats and 16 Republicans for a grand total of 40 votes in favor.

The final vote opposed:

• 36 Democrats and 24 Republicans for a grand total of 60 votes opposed.

President Obama’s health care bill fails.

Since that didn’t work out so well, lets just say that 50% of Democrats will decide to become more bipartisan and 50% of Republicans decide to become more bipartisan.

The final vote in favor:

• 30 Democrats and 20 Republicans for a grand total of 50 votes in favor.

The final vote opposed:

• 30 Democrats and 20 Republicans for a grand total of 50 votes opposed.

President Obama’s health care plan fails again.

Anyway you cut it, President Obama’s call for bipartisanship will not work.  That is unless Republicans are more bipartian than Democrats but since it is the Democrat President calling for bipartisanship, wouldn’t you think that more Democrats would follow his lead than Republicans? 

President Obama must mean something else when he calls for bipartisanship.

CDsailor

Unstigmatizing Food Stamps

A New York Times article notes New York’s  success at taking the stigma away from food stamp recipients by replacing the old stamps or funny money with debit cards.

New York also recruits people to sign up for food stamps declaring it’s good for farmers and good for business.  It’s almost a civic duty!

It got me thinking.  What stigmas are left?  Does society stigmatized any behavior?

• Smoking Cigarettes is probably the biggest stigma of all.  There may be a bigger stigma against cigarettes than doing illegal drugs.
• Scientific articles opposing Global Warming seem to be stigmatized.
• Public expression of Christianity is being stigmatized.
• Opposing anything on “moral grounds” is stigmatized.
• Sport Utility Vehicles are stigmatized.

It may be that as we get more “sophisticated” we’ll stop stigmatizing behavior and attempt to stigmatize thought.

To the “unsophisticated” mind thought is just thought but actions or behavior needs to be controled.  To the “sophisticated” mind, it is thought that needs to be controled.

In both cases labels are how we attach stigmas.

In the old days the labels were:

• Lazy
• Unreliable
• Unkempt
• Self absorbed
• Uncharitable
• Lack of control
• Impolite
• Foul mouthed

Todays labels are:

• Racist
• Sexist
• Homophobe
• Anti environment
• Anti science
• Neanderthals (meaning anyone who disagrees with me)

CDsailor

Slowing Economy Clarifies Government Spending Decisions

The two hard and fast rules for increasing federal spending are as follows:

1. During times of slowing federal revenues due to economic downturns it is important to increase spending, sometimes dramatically, to keep or save jobs and to stimulate the broader economy.
2. During times of a booming national economy fueling increased federal revenues it is important to increase spending, sometimes dramatically, to insure that government programs are fully funded and no new programs over looked.

Translation:

• It is always a good time to increase spending, sometimes dramatically.

The two hard and fast rules for increasing federal employment are as follows:

• Please see above.

I’m not sure what should be more frightening in a USA TODAY report.  The fact that the federal government grew by more than 25,000 jobs last year or the fact that 25,000 federal jobs represents 1.3% of the federal work force.!

CDsailor

Stimulus Money Directed to Unions

Is President Obama above the corruption in Washington as he has recently suggested?

I would have never known about this story except for a caller to a radio talk show that only had 30 seconds to speak before he was cut off for a commercial break.

I must admit, I gave him little credibility because what he was saying sounded like some type of conspiracy theory stopping him from working.  At the end of his 30 seconds I remembered him saying “they’re called PLAs.”

I hoped I would remember those initials.

When I found some time on a rainy Friday morning, I decided to find out what the caller was talking about.

Project Labor Agreement (PLA)

A PLA is a way government has of awarding public contracts to Unions only.

From the website of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation I found this:

A project labor agreement requires all contractors, whether they are unionized or not, to subject themselves and their employees to unionization in order to work on a government-funded construction project.  This is done by including a union collective bargaining agreement in a public construction project’s bid specifications.  In order to receive a contract, a contractor must sign the agreement and subject its employees to union control.

Project labor agreements usually require contractors to grant union officials monopoly bargaining privileges over all workers; use exclusive union hiring halls; force workers to pay dues; and pay above market prices resulting from wasteful work rules and featherbedding.

Lets not forget that under the National Labor Relations Act, workers have the right to unionize or not to unionize!

President Obama signed an executive order ”encouraging” PLAs.

Since stimulus money is applied for by State and Local governments, you can bet that on the application they will make sure it is known that they will use the PLA for their project because they want to increase their chances of being awared stimulus money.

Lou Dobbs reported on the PLA’s, click on the link below and take a minute to view the report.

Lou Dobbs on the PLA

The caller to the radio show was correct.  President Obama is doing what he can to direct stimulus money to a group who helped get him elected.  Of course the irony is that many of the people negatively affected by President Obama’s executive order are non union workers who voted for him, and maybe even campaigned for him.

The other irony is that for the last several days President Obama has tried to hold himself above the “ways of Washington.”

Would you say that this is corruption?  I would say that directing tax money to political supporters is the definition of corruption.

Would you say this is fair?  Of course it isn’t fair.  Those of you who look to the government because the world just isn’t fair are looking in the wrong place.

CDsailor

A Nuclear Free World

Is President Obama’s vision of a nuclear free world a vision worth supporting?

On its face it looks like one of the custom Harley Davidsons I saw when I was young.  It was sitting there by the curb, long and lean.  I liked everything about it.  I liked the long extended front fork, the V Twin engine, the chrome, the pipes, and the big fat rear tire.  I promised myself that I would have one some day.

Over time, I realized that this bike was more of a piece of art then a motorcycle and I wanted a motorcycle not a piece of art.

Nuclear Disarmament may be more of a beautiful concept then a beautiful solution.

What would happen if 100 years from today all nations with nuclear weapons cooperated, did not hide weapons, did not cheat, and all nuclear weapons were destroyed.

Would the world be better?  Safer?

Thomas Sowell asks, “For the sake of argument, what if we were successful and eliminated all nuclear weapons?  Then what would happen when a rouge nation decides not to cooperate and builds a nuclear weapon?  Wouldn’t that make this nation the only nation in the world with a nuclear weapon?”

Good point, Mr. Sowell!

Now what shall we do?  Mr. Sowell wasn’t asked that question so I don’t know his opinion but my thought would be to find the technology that would render nuclear weapons ineffective, or at least less effective.

The Strategic Defensive Initiative would be one such technology.  A technology fiercely opposed.

Why such fierce opposition?  As near as I can tell, many people abhor putting the words military and spending together in the same sentence.

CDsailor

Babies are not Born Good

A 2010 addition to this blog is to list core beliefs / values.

I’m always surprised there is not more agreement on this.

Babies are not born good, babies are born innocent.  It is the main obligation of parents and society to raise the child to be good.

It is also the role of religion to help us develop good people because if a religion can not help in this goal, of what good is it?

Besides good teachers, and good examples, being good requires a person to constantly evaluate their actions.  Actions that may seem harmless may actually be effecting others negatively.  If no thought is brought to ones actions, no correction will be made.

Babies just have not yet had the good teachers, the good examples nor would ever consider whether or not he could have waited until mommy wakes up before crying out for attention for the eighth time in one night.

By believing that new born infants are basically good, we devalue how important it is for society to build strong character and goodness into this infant as he or she grows to adulthood.

Dennis Prager recently wrote and interesting paper on “Have We Stopped Trying to Make Good People?”

CDsailor