The Savage Republican

The Coleman recount

I've posted on the organizational problems at Team Recount Coleman. It has not gotten better.
I'm a member of the Republican Party of Minnesota State Central Committee. Members are elected from their Senate District conventions in odd numbered years. Our terms are for two years. The officers of the Republican Party are elected by the State Central Committee and they serve for two years.We meet as called. And we were called to meet on 6 December at the Sheraton in Bloomington. After the business of the day, there was a meeting to update us on the senate race recount. Very interesting stuff that you'll never hear in the MSM. One point: those 133 "missing ballots"? Not necessarily...Seems that the precinct with the "missing ballots" is at the University if Minnesota. Also seemsm that this is the second 'serious" problem at that precinct. But, here's what happened with the "missing 133": There were 133 ballots short on the reconciliation tape from the optical scanners versus how many people signed the voter register. So, there was discrepnacy. Now, the lines at this precinct were up to 2 hours long. These are University students who have classes and jobs to get to. It is perfectly reasonable to assume that they got of line to go to class, their job, they got impatient. Sue Jeffers over at KTLK has a daughter who was in a line to vote where she goes to college. She lefrt the line and came back later. But, our intrepid George Soros backed Sec of State said "AH HA! These ballots are missing!!!" Of course they were. Nothing suspicious about his proclamation about missing ballots in a heavily Franken leaning enclave. Anyhow, back to Team Recount Coleman.

So, at this meeting is guy taking names to help with the recount. I approached him and told him of my previous failure to be contacted by Team Coleman. I told him of my background: a former election judge, a former SD Executive Chair, State Central Committee member, I'm 6'2', 250# and have played rugby and can be intimidating, and so on and so forth. He had his laptop open. He took and entered my name and cell number. He told me I'd be contacted "today". He gave me his card. I told him I'd email him as soon as I got home. I emailed him directly at 5:54 p.m., Saturday, 6 December, with, as promised, my name and county in the subject line.

As of this writing, I've yet to hear from Team Coleman or this gentleman.

And now, look, look I say, look upon our new Senator brought to you by inept Republicans:

Twitter

Amendment X is on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AmendmentX .
Any guesses as to what this is a picture of (it's the picture I've associated with my #AmendmentX):

Seeing the future in a teacup, twice.

Last night I was wasting an hour of my life watching "Parking Wars" on A&E. It's a real reality show based on the adventures and the never ending war between parkers and the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA). There are four scenarios: those that walk the streets issuing tickets, those that boot scofflaws, the impound lot and occasionally the tow truck drivers. What caught my attention in my mildly "EUREKA" moment was a scene from the Impound Lot where towed vehicles go to be redeemed by their owners.
Teacup One
A man and his wife had literally just moved to Philly and had their trucked towed within 12 hours of their arrival (in small print on a sign "No Parking 7:30-9:00 a.m.) and away she went!
I didn't hear how the figured out or were told that their vehicle was at "The Impound".
So, off they went, information and a Discover card in hand for the ticket and the tow. A simple process: pay the ticket and the tow, car released, drive away and Welcome to Philly. Enjoy your stay. Yah, right!
So this guy shows up having lived in Philly for less than 16 hours and is about to run into "The Bureaucracy". He's told of the ticket and the towing charges ($125 I believe). OK. "We need your registration and proof of insurance before we can release your car." They're in the car. OK, here's a red permission card that will allow you to go to your car to get your registration and proof of insurance. Just present it to the officer (not attendant, "officer") at the blue booth. he does as he's instructed. And tells the "officer" (instant respect with that title, right?) that he also needs to get his wallet and cash. SCREECH!!!! Oh, no, she (the booth "officer") says. She then tells him why he needs a new card, completely filled out, to get his wallet, HIS wallet out of HIS car. But, he protests, I just want to get my wallet also. Nope. And she makes it clear, VERY clear that he needs a new form, again telling him to have it completely filled out to be able to retrieve anything BUT his registration and proof of insurance. he begins to express his frustration and is told, in NO uncertain terms "Don't you go off on me like that!!!" OK, he'll just get those documents and shut up.
He retrieves registration, proof of insurance and gets back in line. He then notices that the PPA takes Visa and Mastercard. No Discover card. He gets to the window. New "officer" behind the bullet proof window. The man tells the "officer" what's transpired and that he needs to retrieve his wallet where he has a Visa card. No problem, says the officer. Take this card to the "officer" at the blue booth and the "officer" will escort you to your car. The card the "officer" gives the man is a red card. The man dutifully again does as he's instructed. Upon his arrival at the blue booth, Mizzzzz "Officer" CompassionandTolerance sees his red card and hears what he needs to retrieve and immediately berates him as she was abundantly clear on his last visit that he was ONLY allowed to retrieve registration and proof of insurance. The man (as tempted as I am to refer to him as the "victim") repeats the same story he told the bullet proof officer. Officer CompassionandTolerance repeats again, in a sharply voiced reprimand, that she was quite clear in what the red card allowed. The man repeats again that he was clear what he wanted in his description. Seems Officer Bullet Proof was hasty and gave the man the wrong card. No fault of the man's part. No fault at all. No matter. Rules is rules are rules. We have a process says Officer CompassionandTolerance. So, back to Officer Bullet Proof for the proper form, completely and correctly filled out. This time, finally, everything works out and the man has all the proper forms, cards, credit cards, and approval of "The Bureaucracy" to be able to pay his fine, tow charges and get the other proper form at another window showing he has fully paid all, then gets a release form that he then presents to, who class, who...? CORRECT-Officer CompassionandTolerance, who still is berating the man for Officer Bullet Proof's mistake. And the man and his wife retrieve the car and begin their life in Philly.
Teacup Two
After a night of clubbing, a woman and her brother (celebrating his 21st birthday) had parked in a "No Stopping" space. She mentioned that the sign was posted with a number of others and all were fairly confusing. Well, a new Officer Bullet Proof agreed with her (there was then a video shot of three signs with an arrow on each pointing three different directions complete with three different times, all confusing. Real confusing. But, ya gotta put the sign where the bureaucrat says "put this sign there").So, again "proof of registration and insurance, please." You know where they are. Red card, blue booth. Thankfully Officer CompassionandTolerance is off duty. The woman who owns the car is also handicapped from a motorcycle accident and walking long distances are painful for her. But, off she trudges and retrieves the necessary documents. Back to new Officer bullet Proof. Oh, oh...Insurance has expired. Date on the insurance card reads "12-21". This is late May. What to do at 2:00 a.m.? Walk back and look again. Nothing. So,call the 24 hour line at USAA and have USAA fax the current insurance info to the PPA at the fax number in new Officer Bullet Proof's office. 24 hour line called. A recording is heard: "The system is temporarily down. Please call back later." The PPA Impound Lot office closes at 3:00 a.m. Brother and sister call again and again. Tick, tock on the clock, closer to 3:00 a.m. and pumpkin time for our hapless clubbing brother and sister (whose leg is now bothering her). Finally, success! The USAA system is up and the request is taken and the current insurance information is on its electronic way to new Officer Bullet Proof. Fax arrives. Oh, oh...Now, as it's 2:57 a.m and locks are being put on PPA Impound Lot entrance/exit, new Officer Bullet Proof's supervisor , Sergeant IHaveAWhiteShirtandBadgetoShowIAMinChargeHere takes over. We have a problem he intones with much, much bureaucratic seriousness. The information faxed from USAA is exactly the same as what our now frustrated painful leg car owner has retrieved form her car. The date is still "12-21". However, there is another glaring "oopsy" from our gallant PPA. The submitted insurance card and the new fax from USAA clearly states that the insurance "expires six months" from "12-21". Well, our intrepid new Officer Bullet Proof was told that, but insisted that "12-21" was the expiration date (after all, could he be faulted that nearly all other insurance companies mark their cards with an expiration date rather than an "expires six months from" date? I hear a federal regulation on expiration dates in the offing...). Well, now that new Officer Bullet Proof and new Officer Bullet Proof's supervisor , Sergeant IHaveAWhiteShirtandBadgetoShowIAMinChargeHere finally see their mistake, we also learn that new Officer Bullet Proof's supervisor , Sergeant IHaveAWhiteShirtandBadgetoShowIAMinChargeHere is also a math genius. "12-21" (December 21st) plus six months = "5-21"(May 21st). And therefore, the insurance is expired. No, brother and sister attempt to instruct new Officer Bullet Proof's supervisor , Sergeant IHaveAWhiteShirtandBadgetoShowIAMinChargeHere. "12-21" plus six months="6-21". Repeat new Officer Bullet Proof's supervisor , Sergeant IHaveAWhiteShirtandBadgetoShowIAMinChargeHere's addition of six months onto "12-21" to get 5-21 proving that he's waiting to hear from Lawrenece Livermore to accept the post as Head of Theoretical Physics. Sister and brother repeat. And lo and behold new Officer Bullet Proof's supervisor , Sergeant IHaveAWhiteShirtandBadgetoShowIAMinChargeHere sees that he forgot to carry pi to the e in the regressive application calculation.
And so, at 3:00 a.m., after having wasted a full hour of their time while the highly trained PPA staff once again earns their pay, off sister and brother drive.
So, what was the future I saw in these two scenes? Here is my eureka moment: what I was seeing, on a micro scale at the PPA Impound Lot was how national health care was going to be run, administered, practiced and enjoyed.
National health care is not going to be run by you. It will not be run by your doctor (assuming that you'll be able to have a doctor, "your" doctor that will have a comprehensive view of your health history). It will not be run by your family. It will not be run by mothers and fathers for their children and family. It will not be run by sons and daughters for their aging parents. It will not be run by health care specialists or hospital staff. It will not be run by a Health Care Czar.
It will be run by faceless, nameless bureaucrats that you may or may not ever see. It will be run by functionaries that have rules and procedures that must be adhered to. It will be run by the health care equivalents of Officer CompassionandTolerance and new Officer Bullet Proof's supervisor Sergeant IHaveAWhiteShirtandBadgetoShowIAMinChargeHere.
These people may, or may not, give a rip about you, your health, your cancer, your child's suffering at 2:57 a.m. because there are rules, hours, procedures and closing times. And those rules, hours and procedures must, repeat MUST be adhered to!
The two most important things I saw? Above all, they have the power over you! They may be little, faceless people at a crappy government steel desk,sitting in a crappy government desk chair, in a government paint job office someplace, putting in their exactly 8 hours a day (with 45 minutes for lunch) but, by checking one box or another, they have power! POWER!
The second thing I saw: if they make a mistake, you suffer. They don't. Period! Again, they have the power. And again,you don't. An appeal to the upper levels, or at least a higher level, to correct an obvious mistake will yield whatever that level decides. Good luck!
Oh, and one more thing: you can't fire them. You can't go anywhere else as that would be black market health care and there will be severe penalties for freedom of choice being exercised in America.
That's what I saw watching videos of the PPA in action with the citizens of Philadelphia, PA.

Einstein was right...again...twice

As I'm waiting to make a phone call to a supplier out west, I came across a great video that explains complicated and failed Keynesian economic theory in a short lesson. John Maynard Keynes was the new whiz kid in the 20's and 30's that Herbert Hoover and FDR looked to in taking the country from a recession to a depression to the Great Depression. And yet, the left, after eight decades of evidence, still repeats and applies failed theory. Despite all the disaster and disasters Keynesians have wrought, the children and grandchildren (and now the great-grand children) of economic failures still tout failure as success.
Here is a simple, easy to understand, put the cookies down where the kids can get them video. Watch and learn (from Right Wing News. The instructor is Dan Mitchell of Cato) :

BTW, Einstein being right twice? "The definition of insanity is repeating the same action and expecting different results." "We can not solve the significant problems of our lives at the same level of thought we were at when we created them." (I've paraphrased. So sue me).

Kill the messenger

I read the article on the Bernard Madoff disaster in Prairie Pravda. I decided to try an experiment. I wrote in comments nothing but the truth to see how many peole would agree with my comments.
Here is what I wrote:
Comments aplenty

I entered comments before about Social Security and Medicare not being mere billions, but an order of magnitude 1,000 times greater. Yah, it appears that Madoff and Petters committed fraud. However, with any kind of background check it would have been apparent that these guys were too good to be true. There was a potential Petters investor that asked a private firm to investigate. They found Petters to have a rather spotty background and the investor passed. The situation here is that all these people voluntarily gave money to Petters and Madoff. You and I also have a choice when it comes to Social Security and Medicare: we can choose to participate/contribute or go to jail as SS and Medicare have the force of law. With Petters and Madoff if we didn't contribute we didn't go to jail. The current unfunded liability of Social Security and Medicare is calculated to be $99,000,000,000,000 by none other than the head of the Federal Reserve in Dallas (http://www.dallasfed.org/news/speeches/fisher/2008/fs080528.cfm ). So Petters and Madoff are small potatoes compared to what Congress has been doing for decades.
Nothing in my comments was an opinion. All is the truth and facts. And yet only 9 of 17 people agreed with my comments as of this writing.
Kids, we are in real deep trouble. Those 8 people who didn't agree with my comments would disagree with them on what basis? My facts are wrong? Where? Why? What was there to disagree with?
Again, we are in deep trouble and it won't get better for a long, long time.

Using what we have

Does anyone know that we have a government created economic problem on our hands (I won't say crisis as that may be the natural progression from here as the authors of this disaster promise us they can fix it)? As everyone seems to line up for your money, there is a delayed fuse ordnace ready to blow us into that crisis: energy prices. The economy runs on credit, production and cheap energy. As Congress refuses to allow Americans to use the plentiful oil, gas and coal resources we already have untapped, this news article caught my attention: OPEC's Oil Supply Cuts Could Be Its Deepest. As crude oil prices have fallen to less than one third of their highs this past year, OPEC and Russia are going broke and don't like it. So, if the Saudis decide to cut production (already cut by 8%), prices go up at just the wrong time for any hope of recovery. This again is the consequences of the flaming idiots in Congress who will not look beyond the next election, who gave us high food prices with ethanol, the sub-prime crisis that echoed around the world and so on and so forth...
We have allowed Congressional Democrats (abetted by chicken Republicans) and their anti-American enviro allies to imperil our security on many levels. What Congress has done is to say to hungry Americans: "Nope, we will not allow farmers to plant and grow on land that is now fallow. Instead, we'll import food and subsidize hydroponic gardening. And be sure to vote for us!!!"
We are incredibly vulnerable to so many aspects of Congressional lunacy in energy policy.
My idea for Congress: get out of the way. Drill wherever there is oil. Cut taxes on profits for oil. Increase the oil depletion allowance. 100% depreciation for equipment. Very simple. Not easy if, of course, you are a radical anti-American as so many in Congress are.

What's not said Part 1

I was talking to my Mom last night. She asked what I thought of "this guy" who threw his shoe at the President the other day. My response was "What on earth is he angry about?" I went on to say that six years ago he would have executed for even saying he wanted to throw a shoe at a guest of the then current Iraqi leader. The irony is that the reporter was angry at the man who was responsible for his ability to throw a shoe and live. But there is another angle to my talk with Mom. I asked what she thought of Sarah Palin's church being burned? What? Though she gets Prairie Pravda every day and listens to WCCO, she hadn't heard that Gov. Palin's church had been set ablaze. Not a word from her usual news sources. But she knew in detail about a the "shoe" incident. There's more about the arson in Wasilla:
The fires were set at the entrances. And an accelerant was used. That the fires were set at the entrances would indicate to me that the arsonist wanted to seal the exits (an entrance to is also an exit from). Therefore the people inside would reach the exit and stop because they see flames. The hope of the arsonist is that the delay will cause confusion and further delay while the fire spreads. In other words, he or she plotted to burn the occupants alive.
And where do we see this reported? Not in the MSM. And the alternative press asks the rhetorical question: what would the MSM report of the Obamamessiah's (may his name be blessed) ~~church~~ (sorry) FORMER church been burned or set ablaze?
We know exactly how that story would be handled.

There's something...

I'm a WWII history buff. I have been since I was five.
When I saw this picture,though, there was something about it that reminded me of, well...

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Saturday, December 20, 2008

The Coleman recount

Thursday, December 18, 2008