Home Sweet Home

I arrived back into Oscoda County today after a three week stint absent internet access. It was three weeks that included a lot of hard work and over three thousand miles in the old Buick on my now too-flattened backside.

I ache and need sleep.

The trip home had its highlights. There was the Georgia broadcast of a local Atlanta citizen in trouble with the government for, gasp, growing and selling too much food produced on his own property.

There was the news report on Lexington, Kentucky's attempt to get its citizens to voluntarily adopt European style energy regulations on windows, doors, and who knows what else. You know, the kind that have not been seriously considered anywhere else in America. Then again, I suppose no serious attempt to herd people off the cliff can end successfully without a lone brave lemming out front.

There was also the conversation I had with a gentleman outside a hotel who carefully lit his cigarette outside the hotel's entrance in order to comply with the new local ordinance that makes smoking a criminal offense if it is committed within 25 feet from the entrance. He defiantly stood in a misty rain exactly 26 feet away from the front door--he'd measured.

I have one short week here in Michigan before I again venture out into a world where a job is available...that would be an out-of-state job of today and not one of the blessed jobs of Michigan's tomorrow that Jennifer Granholm would love me to have the patience to wait for.

Change of Scenery

I am leaving Michigan this weekend for several weeks to work in Atlanta. The job is very short term likely lasting only two to four weeks. I want to see a Braves' game, might visit the zoo, and, if the opportunity arises, I'll flip off that socialist tyrant wannabe Ted Turner and that Marxist hag wife of his.

I have been told that I will have access to a computer but I seriously doubt I'll do much blogging--what with my spare time already divided between geriatric fisticuffs and the frequent application of a glistening sheen of soothing Aloe Vera. Hey, I burn! (Besides, it ain't like I'm doing much blogging these days anyway.)

Enjoy my absence. Can one of you bums water my plants?

Go On, Guess

Take a wild guess as to which city in the world ranks number one in murder.

Is it in a war zone or one that experiences frequent bombings? Is it a city like Detroit or Chicago that has for years suffered from American decline? Is it a city torn apart by drugs or racial divides?

Or is it a budding social paradise but waiting on the anointed Leader to get his entire agenda into place?

h/t Power Line

I Haven't Seen This Much Blood Since an Unfortunate Junior High Basketball Accident

Caution to the wayward troll that ventures into Jeff Goldstein's lair.

Already Trillions in Debt, What's a Few Million More?

Just how stupid are the those in charge of our benevolent government?

Is broadband access in rural Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula worth spending $81 billion borrowed Chinese dollars when we already have over $100 trillion in debt and unfunded mandates sitting on the books?

But its stimulus dollars!

Oh, I guess its free then.

What You Intend Does Not Matter: Dr. Laura Edition

We have become a country where the speaker too often has lost the upper hand to the interpreter. That is, what we say and what me mean has become irrelevant to people who are willing to, in bad faith, misinterpret what is being communicated so that the interpreter can vilify the speaker for what he or she never uttered.

It is this sad state of affairs that allowed John Wiley Price the platform from which to call a fellow Dallas County Commissioner a racist for using the term "black hole" in a meeting.

This is how Bill Bennett was attacked for supposedly championing eugenics when he did no such thing, how Rush Limbaugh was attacked for his racism when he is no racist, and how the use of the word niggardly can be reason enough to get a person excoriated. None of these well documented situations in any way signify a racist attitude on the part of the speaker, yet mean spirited interpreters were allowed to completely twist the words of the utterer into a misshapen dialog that was then used as a reason to attack the speaker.

The results of such verbal acrobatics is a stifling of honest debate on a topic that, as Eric Holder wass quick to point out, we are cowards for not addressing.

We can add Dr. Laura Schlesinger to the list. During a conversation with a caller last week Dr. Laura said this:

SCHLESSINGER: Black guys use it all the time. Turn on HBO, listen to a black comic, and all you hear is nigger, nigger, nigger.

I don’t get it. If anybody without enough melanin says it, it’s a horrible thing; but when black people say it, it’s affectionate. It’s very confusing. Don’t hang up, I want to talk to you some more. Don’t go away.

Is this the type of conversation that Eric Holder was calling for when he accused us of cowardice on race relations?

I think it is. And yet, Schlesinger is being pilloried. She is not being attacked for the intent of her comments but rather because she is a conservative and, because of her card-carrying inclusion within that group, her comments are being intentionally misinterpreted to expose an erstwhile unknown latent hostility toward blacks.

Charges of racism are used more often to silence well-intentioned non racists than they are to expose and attack true racists.

Schlesinger is packing in her radio show over the incident effective at the end of the year (if protesters don't get her sacked prior to that time.) Hey, that is the free market and if protesters can influence businesses through withholding money to advertisers, more power to them.

If we are ever going to arrive at a post-racial society we'd all better learn to listen honestly to what other people have to say. Otherwise Eric Holder will have every reason to point his finger at us again in the future.

Progressive Pie

I jumped to conclusions, for when I heard that Carl Levin had been attacked by a pie-wielding protester in Michigan, I assumed that it had been one of those crazed right-wing zealots that we hear so much about.

You know the ones. The ones that shout racial epitaphs at black congressmen. The ones that deliver death threats to politicians. The ones that spit. The ones that mean spiritedly call for Muslims to forgo their plans to build a mosque of triumph on the same plot of land where the landing gear of Mohammad Atta's plane came tumbling down.

Then I discovered the truth.

Hmmmm.

Maybe Ahlam M. Mohsen should build a pie stand in a dark corner of the Pepper's Cafe and Deli.

Jackson to Deliver Same Tired Speech in Detroit

Jesse Jackson has been lobbying for good urban economic conditions for decades. He has battled for the little man, for the common man, for the disadvantaged man, for the union man, for the frustrated man. During those same decades, however, for all the sweat that has evaporated from his furrowed brow he has done nothing but promote destined to fail economic policies that have predictably resulted in crumbling urban islands devoid of plausible hope.

He is at it again in advance of his appearance in the Motor City on August 28th. The appearance will include speeches, a march, and an attempt to once again expound on his beliefs--as if Americans hadn't already tired of having their noses rubbed into the underbelly of Detroit's urban decay.

The march marks the launch of the "Rebuild America" campaign, which aims to convince national leaders to enact policy that will promote the skills and talent of workers.

"With The Big Three, we've gone from making cars to shuffling cars," Jackson told the television station. "And the impact of that of course is massive unemployment, maybe three times the national average."

There are a number of things that we can expect Jackson to say. America's corporations are driven by greed. A small number of Americans are controlling more and more of the nation's wealth. America is largely racist. The American Dream is being denied to city dwellers through poor education, poor city services, and poor national planning.

A theme that we can confidently believe will not be addressed is how "national leaders" have made it difficult for corporations and other businesses to operate profitably in a global marketplace and how these same leaders and their minions have created atmospheres in which corporations are forced to flee across city, state, and national borders in order to remain viable and survive.

As a brazen socialist and anti-capitalist, Jesse Jackson is unwilling to fathom that wealth is not a naturally occurring resource. He is unwilling to believe that the major difference between the extravagantly wealthy and the miserably poor is not just dumb luck.

Businesses that lose money do not create jobs. Businesses that must work inefficiently in order to comply with crippling work rules and regulations are unable to compete on even terms with companies that are not so encumbered.

Businesses that make decisions on where to locate or expand must make those decisions not based solely on today's conditions, but must also consider the future decisions of 'national leaders' who routinely prostitute themselves in order to pack polling precincts on election night. They must weigh the future costs of mandated health care, retirement plans, family leave acts, punitive environmental regulations, zoning, tort run amok, union belligerence, Jennifer Granholm's green economy, and localized crime.

Jesse Jackson has an eye keen enough to detect the never ending and symptomatic oozing boil of poor economic policy, yet he is either incapable of diagnosing the disease behind the pock or too invested in his career of poverty pimping to care one way or the other.

In either case we're going to hear the same tired speech again.

Fear No Weevil

One of my fondest memories of childhood involved the summertime collection of monarch butterfly caterpillars and observing them as they grew, turned into chrysalises, and then later hatched. It was a mesmerizing experience watching each stately monarch break free of its pupae prison and slowly stretch out to become one of the world's most beautiful and colorful insects.

In the world of creepy crawlers a monarch butterfly could easily counterbalance the existence any ugly spider or odoriferous stink bug.

During the past several weeks I've been revisiting this childhood joy. I've been watching a half dozen milkweeds near my yard in hopes of spotting an early monarch caterpillar. I was thrilled when about ten days ago I noticed several of the gluttonous caterpillars.

Nearly every day since then I've walked to the milkweed patch to witness the caterpillars' progress. I found several more smaller ones during my subsequent visits that were almost impossible to detect--meanwhile, the original ones grew longer and fatter.

That was until yesterday. Before church I sauntered over to the driveway to visit my new friends. Every single one of the caterpillars had either disappeared altogether or was laying there dead.

Attached to two of the caterpillar corpses were several weevils who had punctured the caterpillar hides with their long ooze-sucking snouts. The caterpillars were deader than doornails and turning black.

I had always thought that monarch caterpillars were more or less protected from predators. By eating almost exclusively milkweed they bloated themselves on the white sap of the weed which is bitter, sticky and poisonous. This might come as a shock to Rougblog readers, but I had thought wrong.

There were at least two different types of weevils burrowed into the bodies of the caterpillars. Being a Christian, and this being a Sunday, I crushed the little bastards with a rock.

The next time I find healthy caterpillars near my house I'm going to collect them and put them in glass jars like I did when I was young. When they safely hatch they can fly free to lay eggs on milkweeds hopefully not infested with weevils.

I did some quick research on monarch predators and found that they are often the prey of wasps and birds. I did not find any accounts of weevils being the culprits.

I wonder if anyone else has any experience with these evil weevils.

The Enabler In Chief

Who was really shocked at our President's endorsement of the proposed 9-11 mosque and community center near Ground Zero? The proposed structure is to be called Cordoba in recognition of an historical Islamic conquest.

"We must all recognise and respect the sensitivities surrounding the development of lower Manhattan, Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground. But let me be clear, as a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practise their religion as anyone else in this country.

"That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community centre on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are."

He told the group of US Congressmen, government officials and foreign dignitaries that America's tradition of religious tolerance distinguishes it from "our enemies".

"Al-Qaeda's cause is not Islam," he said, "it is a gross distortion of Islam".

In one respect I agree with Obama. I believe that the organization behind the mosque's construction has the legal right to build their monument to religious conquest on the same ground where the ashes of 9-11 victims settled.

But, should they do it, and more importantly, should we allow it to take place without loudly pronouncing that we understand completely what this project is ultimately all about and without lodging a strong moral protest against it?

Apparently Mr. Obama thinks so. We are not to say that "true" Muslims should erect their new mosque at a different location in the city. We are not to say out loud that the leadership behind the mosque's erection are being totally insensitive to the families of those who were murdered and to all American citizens who saw their country attacked for no reason other than Islam has failed through the centuries to purge itself of ravenous dickheads dedicated to murdering all of those who believe differently than they do--be they Christian, Hindu, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, westerner, easterner, atheist, agnostic, homosexual, infidel, Sufi, Shiite, Sunni, Virgo or Gemini.

I do not believe that we can legally keep worshipers of Allah from building this mosque in NYC. I do, however, believe that we should do everything that we possibly can to convince the Muslim supporters of the project that they should not go forward.

Obama's mewling does nothing to send this message.

No politician should support the building of the mosque. No bureaucrat should grease the skids. No construction worker should agree to work on its foundation. No citizen should stand idly by as the walls go up.

Muslims celebrated in dozens of countries around the world as the towers fell, and those same ones will be giddy with delight if this mosque is ever built.

Robert Spenser says:

This is not a religious freedom issue. No one has ever understood the freedom of religion as granting an untrammeled license to build any structure anywhere, as long as it's religious. If the KKK announced plans to build a shrine at the site of the 16th Street Baptist Church, would Obama be talking about religious freedom?

If I were forced to hazard a guess I would say that this will never occur. I think that the project will ultimately prove to be too difficult for the planners to pull off. Being sensitive to the religions of others does not mean that we have to be patsies. We do not have to cower in front of those who want to subjugate us.

I wish the President realized this.

Nanny-State in a Box

Just the latest in the never ending performance of crackpot progressives doing their best to control the lives of those whom they wish to rule.

God lets me eat what I want. Rajiv Bhatia, not so much.

Intenet Absence Creates Windfall

In an effort to trim back my personal finances amid the ruins of Michigan's Granholm depression, I made the difficult decision of canceling my internet account. I wisely discerned that I still had internet access at my on-again off-again employer and since I was already spending too much time jabbering about control freak socialists wanting to control my every movement for the purpose of making my life more healthy and enjoyable, I could afford some time away.

Alas, I have finally come to what should have been an obvious conclusion six weeks ago when I made that move of pure genius--that conducting a job search without internet access is next to impossible.

I suppose I should be thankful to progressive visionaries such as Al Gore who were so instrumental in developing our world wide web. At least with the 'tubes we victims of the economy that the likes of Gore worked so hard to create and sustain (Go Cap and Trade!) are able to seek out work in locations far away from the children we love, raised, and are loathe to leave.

In other excellent news, in the six weeks I was separated from my dial up account I saved about $18. To get reconnected to the internet I had to pay a reconnect fee of $15.

Three bucks saved.

Cha-ching!

Checking In

My reader has probably noticed that Rougblog entries of late have been sparse.

This lull in the action began as I prepared for the graduation of my daughter from high school, persisted through the planning and execution of the graduation party, and then continued as the job search heated up and I was called out of town for several, at the time, encouraging prospects. Alas, these prospects have produced bupkis for me and as a result I have decided to pare back some home expenses until I can get some regular dollars into my bank account.

Thus, I am currently without internet service at my house. If things get bad enough I might even have to stay out of the casino, cut back on the vodka, and start to avoid the strip clubs. But seriously, first things first.

Too much is going on politically in this country and state for me to stay silent too long. There are oil giants to punish into oblivion, union favors to curry, industries to bring into the fold, citizens to be forced into state favored behaviors, an ever-present cloven hoof to be pried out of the vice president's mouth, and yesteryear's villains to blame it all on.

Who could possibly want to miss all that?

Cher, Sting, Madonna, Pele and Now....Rory?

Harry Reid possesses anti-coattails. So toxic are Reid's political fortunes that even his own son, Rory, is tiptoeing around his surname.

A Michigan Smoking Ban Protest

I did something on Monday night that I have not done in probably close to two years; I went down to the corner bar, sat on a stool, and ordered a beer. That night I also did something for the first time in my entire life; I went down to the corner bar, sat on a stool, ordered a beer, and breathed smoke free air.

It has been over six weeks since Michigan's ban on smoking in most bars and restaurants took effect, and I have to admit it was nice sitting there without the smoke entering my lungs and permeating my clothing.

It was not so nice for the cook or the bartender, who can no longer smoke on the job, or for the business owner whose revenues are off about twenty percent since the ban started.

To compensate, some employees' work hours have been scaled back. The cook and bartender, who depend on tips to supplement their already less than attractive wages, are finding that both their paychecks and the tip jar are a bit lighter.

It isn't that crowds of people are avoiding the bar now that the ban is in effect, though some people certainly do that. The problem for the owner and employees is that shortly after patrons come into the bar and order a drink, that familiar craving for a cigarette starts to kick in. Shortly after that the patron gets up and goes home--taking his nearly full wallet with him.

Oddly, benevolent proponents of the legislation have not been frequenting taverns often enough to make up for the losses even though their squawking prior to law's enactment made it sound like the only reason they weren't down there cutting a rug or playing pool 24/7 was those damn Camels.

Its almost as if our dear overlords were making a law aimed primarily at controlling the legal behavior of other people in a private establishment. On the other hand, maybe it wasn't until after the smoking ban took affect that they discovered most bars use paper napkins and blare George Jones on the jukebox.

From a comfort standpoint, I like the ban. From the standpoint of freedom, I think that our overlords in Lansing are engaging in a tyrannical power grab and sticking their bulbous noses where they do not belong.

I am not here today to rehash my arguments against the ban, I've done that enough times that even Mom is bored with it. What I am posting about today is a response that many bar owners affected by the ban are undertaking--a boycott of Michigan Lotto for one business day.

That day would be today.

Of course government lottery officials are arrogantly sticking their noses in the air over such short-sighted protests. The businesses are "only hurting themselves" they say flippantly while reaching, pinkie in air, for the Almas.

However, what else should Lansing expect from taxpaying private business owners and their taxpaying employees who have had their incomes slashed by government for no other reason than George Washington isn't around today to kick our legislators' asses?

While government officials mock restaurants and bars for their resistance, businesses that operate on low margins might have only one other recourse left, and that might be to shut the doors once and for all. Which, come to think of it, might suit the state just fine. Out of business taverns are also smoke free.

Ah...Frugal Government Strikes Again

Okay, I know, with a national debt laying comfortably above the $13 trillion mark and with additional unfunded government obligations hurtling well past the $100 trillion threshold, it is almost petty to point out individual situations that help to turn small government projects into larger ones.

A local Oscoda County project is just one minute example of how small becomes bigger and, by projection, how large can become gargantuan.

Residents of Perry Lake in Comins Township are being subjected to a $400,000 special tax assessment for the construction of a $98,000 dam project to help regulate water levels. The difference between the $98,000 and the $400,000 is, you guessed it, fees, permits, and engineering.

I'm not the kind of guy that wants some other guy with a shovel and a third grade education out there building a dam in sensitive wetlands without any direction, and I don't want some rabid homeowner taking out this sort of project on his own either. However, to get to the point where a three week long, $98,000 project ends up taking seven years and $400,000 to even get started strikes me as being government at its most typical.

Hope and Change: Milk Police Edition

The EPA desires to regulate the very gas we exhale as a pollutant. By classifying CO2 as a greenhouse gas it would grant our federal government unprecedented powers to regulate business, commerce and individuals to an extent that would get EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's ass kicked by any one of the Founding Fathers had she the misfortune of making her case in the 1700s.

It appears as if Washington, Franklin, Hancock and Adams would have yet another reason to bruise the backsides of today's purveyors of the nannystate as the EPA makes strides toward classifying milk as a hazardous waste.

Believe it or not, according to Obama's legions in Washington, Elsie is spewing toxins out her udders. The Earth may never recover.

Words Versus Action: A Presidential Primer

What day is it now? Day 45, 50, 55?

Regardless, as we near the end of the second month since the US's most destructive ecological disaster in history began, our President has not spoken to BP's CEO, the man in charge of the company responsible not only for the initial disaster, but the company also spearheading efforts to stop the oil leak, and the company being held responsible for paying for the clean up.

Nearly two months after the explosion on and collapse of the Deep Well Horizon, our Ass Kicker in Chief still has not figured out that speaking to BP's CEO might be a good thing.

President Obama, have you spoken with the CEO of BP to discuss the oil spill in the Gulf?

“No… when you talk to a guy like the BP CEO, he’s going to say all the right things to me. I’m not interested in words. I’m interested in actions.”

Those are mighty good sounding words there, Mr. President. Now, how about you actually do something and speak to the man?

A Retirement Seventy Years Too Late

Helen Thomas has retired after controversial comments she made over the weekend concerning Israel and her beloved Jews.

"Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine."

"Remember these people are occupied and it's their land, not Germany and not Poland.

"They can go home, Poland, Germany, and America and everywhere else."

That this gargoyle of a woman could hold down such an esteemed job for so many years is a testament to the acceptance of progressive ideology among journalists.

Detroit's Image

Detroit's image is a concern to anyone hoping that the state of Michigan ever makes a significant economic comeback. Much of the city stands knee deep amid the crumbling structures that housed the manufacturing and manufacturers of the Motor City.

The city government is millions in debt, its schools system is recognized as being among the worst, if not the worst, in the whole country, its halls of politics have been greased with corruption for generations, and its history of crime and poor race relations stain its blemished skin like a botched $13 tattoo.

Dave Bing has a lot of ground to make up.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing knows he has a long road ahead as he attempts to attract new businesses and residents to his struggling city.

"We need to work hard as hell to change our image," he said Friday at the Detroit Regional Chamber's 2010 Mackinac Policy Conference.

And yet, when asked point blank by Paul W. Smith whether or not he would support making Michigan into a Right to Work state, Bing tosses out a simple and unhesitating "no."

Businesses locate to an area for many reasons, but the most important reason for any business to move to another location is because of the potential profitability in the new area. That's it.

Grand libraries and a well trained work force are great, and they might even be the deciding factor in a business choosing one city over another if potential profit margins are more or less equal among competitors, but secondary factors are nothing more than secondary factors.

What Detroit's political leaders do not currently understand will haunt that once great city for future generations.