"Super Committee" Failure to Trim Deficit

As was expected, the "Super Committee" has failed to come to an agreement on how to reduce federal spending. The current federal budget is about $3.5T per year. They were tasked with coming up with saving $1.2T, but it was not $1.2T per year, it was $1.2T over a 10 year period.

It would be easy to save $1.2T over just a single year -- all we would have to do is cut the funding to EVERY federal department by 1/3rd. The government has become too bloated and it needs to be cut back. Cutting everything by a third would be a really good way to start doing this.

Of course, there are some federal departments and expenditures that need to be cut more than others. Some even need to be entirely eliminated. For example, we could entirely eliminate the BATF, IRS, and foreign aid.

• IRS -- By eliminating the IRS, we could save $13.1B. We need to switch to a strictly consumption based tax system (e.g. FairTax.org) instead of the current repressive income based tax system.
  


• BATF --The BATF by it's very definition is an infringement upon our RIGHT to bear arms and as such, is totally unconstitutional. By eliminating the unconstitutional BATF, we would save $1.1B per year.
  


• Foreign Aid -- Why should we be supporting foreign governments? Let them sink or swim on their own accord. At best it is just a form of bribery and even so, they aren't honest enough to actually do what we want them to do after we bribe them. It's a waste of money. By getting rid of foreign aid payments, we would be saving $47B per year.

So, just eliminating these three things would save us $61.2B per year, or $612B over 10 years. Only took me 15 minutes of research to save half of what this "Super Committee" was supposed to come up with. Doesn't seem that difficult.

Birth Tourism?

I just read an article on the Houston Chronicle today that described a new twist on the immigration issue. It seems that some companies are providing "birth tourism" packages for pregnant women from foreign countries to come to the US for a few months around their expected delivery dates. By doing this, the child gets US citizenship and all the benefits associated with it. It is their belief that this gives their child education and other benefits. It seems that the State Department will not refuse to grant the women a visa just because they are near term on their pregnancy.

Personally, I do not agree with this. We have more people in this country than we need already and we don't need more coming here making it overcrowded like other countries around the world. We need to tighten up our immigration policy and one way of doing that would be to make it such that US citizenship is not automatically conveyed just because you are born here. I think that we should make it so that to be a US citizen at birth, your parents must be US citizens. As long as we're at it, we might as well define what it takes to be a "natural born" citizen. I propose that to be "natural born", it means that you must be born to parents who were also born in the US and who also had citizenship at birth.

Maybe we need to define it something like this:

1. Naturalized Citizen -- a person who meets the current regulatory requirements to become a citizen through specified immigration procedures.


2. Ordinary Citizen -- a person born in the US to parents both of which are either Naturalized Citizens or Ordinary Citizens.


3. Natural Born Citizen -- a person born in the US to parents who are both Ordinary Citizens.
   

Of course, only Natural Born Citizens would be able to be President. This change in definition would be a bit more restrictive than is currently in place. In fact, the term "Ordinary Citizen" is even more restrictive than what is currently used for "natural born citizen". There are some of the past Presidents who might not be classified to hold office under this new definition.

Islamic Terrorism? What's in a Name?

Well, it seems that Bama-Boy is saying that we should no longer call what his Islamic friends have been doing to us "Islamic Terrorism". I guess someone thinks that it just is not politically correct to call something by what it obviously is. Come now, what motivates these people? Their religion, of course! Maybe we could just call them "Camel Fucker Terrorists"? Is that politically correct enough for the idiots in DC? I don't seem to remember there being all that much of an uproar by the Irish when the IRA members were called "Irish terrorists"... One might think that we could call the Islamic Terrorists "Arab Terrorists", but that is not really that great of a description of them since that is not the major identifying factor in their terrorism. From what I understand, the terrorists from Iran are not Arab, but are rather Persian. So, being Arabic is not a prime identifying factor with them. Plus, there are US citizens who end up supporting the terrorists. These US citizens do not suddenly change their race and become Arabs. They do change their religion and become Islamic though. So, it goes back to what is the identifying factor in their terrorism and that is the fact that they are Islamic.

USB File System Corrupted -- US Government at Fault?

My laptop was running a bit slow today even after closing off nearly all my applications, so I decided to reboot it. Some of the applications would not close off even though I attempted to kill them via Process Manager. I lost a lot of work that I was doing in Visio thanks to this. I finally had to power off the machine to get it to reboot. When it came back up, the system decided to check the 1.5TB USB drive and it said that it was corrupted and proceeded to 'fix' it. It did not give me the option to cancel this 'fix'. Well, after it finished, the drive is basically useless now. The files appear to still be there, but they cannot be opened with any of the programs associated with them. The photos apparently have missing headers in the image files, the music files are also not playable. All in all, everything that was on that filesystem is now crap.

So, I have to wonder now... Was this some sort of attack by the US Government against me? The coincidence is just a bit too much for me to ignore the possibility since when I was visited by the two US Treasury Agents the other day, they explicitly said that they would be watching me. Is it just paranoia on my part? Then again, is it really paranoia when they really are out to get you?

I lost a lot of family photos and such that I had taken, but not backed up to anywhere else. To think that they can do this sort of thing and get away with it really pisses me off. I guess a bit of verbal intimidation wasn't enough for them, they needed to escalate the issue.

I'm not so naive that I don't think that the government spies on us, whether it is legal for them to do it or not. I just wish that they would write their spy software better so that it doesn't destroy the data on the machines that they are spying upon.

Is Anyone Actually Reading My Rants?

Thanks to my recent visit by two US Treasury Agents, I have received verification that at least someone actually reads these rants that I post here. Actually, I'm quite surprised. Considering the fact that no one posts in response to any of my posts on this blog, I was pretty sure that I was basically just talking to myself. Obviously, I have ONE person/group out there who actually reads my rants -- the US government. Apparently, they are also the only ones who are reading it. Should I be concerned? Maybe... They really could make my life miserable if they wanted to. I like to think that the 1st Amendment applies here -- Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press. I have to wonder though -- am I part of the Press if no one actually reads what I write?

As I look back over the time of my life, I have to think that our country has gone down the tubes over the last 50 years. Things that used to be legal are no longer legal. Does that mean that what we used to do was wrong? Personally, I don't think so... I think that what we have is a bunch of legislative idiots who think that everything can be solved by simply creating another law with respect to it. It's like, someone gets killed while walking across the street while not paying attention to traffic, so the legislative idiots decide to create a law against jaywalking. Perish the thought that we could just expect people to have a bit of common sense, right?

I guess what this really amounts to is that our rights are getting slowly eroded by the idiots that we elect. For some reason, they think that their job description is to create laws. Sometimes the laws that they create are not that bad, but most of the time, it seems that they are just creating them solely for the purpose of being able to say that they created one. I guess no Congress-Critter ever managed to make himself famous by the laws that he helped to revoke. Kind of sad, isn't it?

Texting While Driving

I read an article today where it stated that a study had shown that about half of all cell phone users send text messages while driving. Considering the amount of distracted driving that I see from day to day, I can believe it. I'm not about to say that I don't sometimes send a text message when I'm in the car, but I know my limits and as such, I only do it if I'm stopped at a light. I find it too irritating to be constantly switching my focus from something close up (like the cell phone) to something far away (like the view of the road). My old eyes just don't like it, so unless I'm stopped at a light, I don't do it. Too many people try to multitask and do both at the same time though. The end result is that they do neither all that well.

Having said that, I will have to admit that I wish that there was a way to more easily text while actually driving, but I don't see it happening when you are limited to a small handheld device. Perhaps this might consist of some sort of heads-up display where the text was displayed at the windshield level instead of on a separate device that you needed to look down at. Input could be accomplished by way of a keyboard that was part of and somehow oriented along the perimeter of the steering wheel so that you could type without taking your hands off the wheel and without having to look at where you were placing your fingers.

Visited by US Treasury Agents Today

I had an interesting experience today... I was visited by US Treasury agents. They had a printout of what was probably every post that I had ever made of a political nature in addition to photos of the various firearms that I had saved off in a private area of Picasaweb on Google for insurance purposes and reference. They did not like the fact that I was a pilot, an aircraft owner, and had made statements critical of the government. They did admit though that what I had said was totally legal since I had not crossed the line. I was pretty sure that I had not crossed the line and it is good to have that confirmed. It is perfectly safe to say that you wish that a planet killer meteor would drop on Washington and rid us of the jackbooted IRS thugs and the congress-critters, but unless you have a way to control the orbit of the meteors, they realize that it is still harmless talk. It is also apparently acceptable to say that you hope that one day you get the chance to piss on Bama-Boy's grave as long as you do not say that you want to hasten that opportunity or encourage someone else to hasten that opportunity.

Memorial Day

As we get ready for our Memorial Day celebrations, we should reflect upon what this holiday is really about. We use it to mark the start of the summer vacation season, as an excuse for BBQing, drinking beer, and shopping, but that is not what it is really about. It is a time for remembrance of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of this country. We might not like what our country has become over the years, but that does nothing to belittle the ultimate sacrifice that our service men and women have made over the years in defending our country. These are the true heroes of our country. Many of us went in one branch of the military or another. Some did so with more honor and bravery than others. Some just served their time and got out. That is not what this day is about though. It is about those who paid full measure in their service of this country and for this, I salute them.

IRS Building Crash

I read today that someone by the name of Joe Stack crashed a small private plane into the IRS building in Austin. From all the news reports, it appears that he has had a bit of a history with the IRS (in other words, the jackbooted thugs there had been harassing him for a long time). Although I have to commend him for taking action, I have to take exception with his manner of doing it. If you look at the damage to the building in the photos that have been published, it is quite obvious that the damage to the building was superficial at best. Although there are quite a few windows that will need to be replaced, the actual structure of the building was not really damaged. One thing that I noticed is that on the office right beside the point of impact, the sheetrock was still intact. I guess that just goes to show you how minimal a weapon a small aircraft makes. The fact that he only managed to kill one of the jackbooted thugs just proves this point. Hell, I would hazard to guess that he could have killed more people if he had just entered the building with an ice pick.

I suspect that the people who have a problem with what Stack did would have also stood by and done nothing while our Founding Fathers were standing up and doing what was necessary to free us from British oppression. The government that we have now does not reflect the will of the people. It reflects the will of the special interest groups. "Best government money can buy"... Although Stack made a noble gesture (in that he gave up his life for what he believed in, no matter how futile), in the grand scheme of things, it is probably worth nothing since he managed to only get rid of only a single IRS agent. Still, as far as symbolism goes, he definitely did a number cosmetically on that building. It should take them at least a couple of months to replace all the glass he broke. The IRS will just move everyone to another building and they will be back to harassing the taxpayers just like before soon enough. Although I would hope that this would be enough to get people to rise up and get the government afraid of us so that they could straighten out this mess of a tax system that we have, I doubt it...

What the IRS should learn from this experience is that if you harass someone enough, sooner or later that person will reach their breaking point. I guess the IRS is lucky that Stack did not realize how ineffective of a weapon a small personal aircraft might be. Maybe they'll realize that if you push someone so far that they feel that they have nothing else to lose, bad things can come of it. Somehow, I doubt it though...

There are those who defend the jackbooted thugs at the IRS by saying that they are "just doing their jobs" or "just following orders". Well, that's the same excuse that the death camp commanders and guards in Nazi Germany used when they were brought up on war crime charges at Nuremberg. They also claimed that they were only implementing the decisions of the people higher in the chain of command. Well, that excuse didn't work at Nuremberg and it doesn't work now.

Natural Born Citizen?

There have been those who question whether Bama-Boy was qualified to run for President because of his birth certificate. There are those who say that if he truly was born in the US, why doesn't he release his true birth certificate. Personally, I don't care what his birth certificate says since from my reading on the subject, given just the information that he has made public, there is no way that he meets the requirements to be President of the US since he is not a NATURAL BORN citizen. Look up what the Founding Fathers were wanting to ensure when they used that phrase. They wanted to ensure that the Commander in Chief of the Army had no possible allegiances to foreign powers like might occur if one of his parents was the citizen of another country. They wanted that the Commander in Chief of the Army to be the product of two citizens of the US. Since Bama-Boy's father was Kenyan and held Kenyan / British citizenship at the time of Bama-Boy's birth, there is no way that Bama-Boy qualifies as a NATURAL BORN citizen. So, where does that leave us? Exactly who is legally President right now? If the Democrats wanted to run a black for the office of President, they should have run Colin Powell. He tends to be a bit too far to the left for my taste, but assuming that his parents were naturalized before he was born, at least he is legally qualified for the office (unlike Bama-Boy). Powell's parents were from Jamaica in 1920 and 1923 and Powell wasn't born until 1937, so there is a good chance that they were citizens by the time he was born.

What Part of "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" Do You Not Fuckin' Understand?

When the Founding Fathers created our Bill of Rights, they were not listing something that was granted (i.e. a priviledge), but rather something that ever free man has by nature of being born free. Basically, free men are armed, slaves are not. Any government that tries to restrict the natural born right of men to be armed is considering them slaves, not free. As such, we do not need the permission of the government with regards to which firearm we might decide to own nor even if we choose to be armed. As far as I am concerned, every law that came after the 2nd Amendment is completely unconstitutional. The 2nd Amendment says "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED". It's doesn't say, "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED, EXCEPT IN THESE OTHER CASES". We don't need new gun laws. Hell, we don't even need the 10,000 gun laws that came after the 2nd Amendment. Why should there be a greater penalty for killing someone with a firearm vs with a knife or baseball bat? A firearm is nothing but a tool and as such, the punishment should be on the action, not the tool used to facilitate the action.

Slavery Apology

On Tuesday, July 29th, 2008, the House of Representatives issued an apology to blacks for the "wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws". Of course, they weren't honest enough to issue what would have been a more appropriate apology:

• Yeah, we're sorry that your own people sold you into slavery.
• We're sorry that you are too stupid to be able to integrate into our society.
• We're sorry that your 'culture' is so tone deaf that you think that rap and hip-hop are actually *music*.
• We're sorry that your females are so lazy that they would rather stay home and spit out baby after baby instead of getting an honest job and having respect for themselves.
• We're sorry that a disproportionate number of crimes are committed by you.
• We're sorry that you consider the likely possibility that you will be spending time in prison just part of "growing up" like most of your other male relatives.
• We're sorry that when you do find a white woman that will go to bed with you, she will be the ugliest skankiest white woman around and no white guy would have had anything to do with her.
• We're sorry that all the really nice looking black women want to be with us white guys.
  

OK, maybe we're not all that sorry about those last two...

Lincoln a Hero ???

Well, it seems that Bama-Boy wants to portray himself as somewhat akin to Lincoln. I have to wonder though if that is something that he really wants to do. Does he really want to compare himself with someone who was directly responsible for the death of 600,000 Americans? That's how many died as a result of Lincoln's election.

These people like to say that Lincoln "freed the slaves" with the Emancipation Proclamation. Maybe they should read it to see what it really did. It "freed" the slaves that were in the rebel states, not the slaves in the North. If the rebel states had rejoined the Union after the E.P. was issued, they would have been able to keep their slaves. Slavery was not ended until the 14th Amendment. Lincoln was just using the E.P. as an economic weapon against the South. If not, why would have have put specific language in it that reparations were not to be paid to slave owners whose slaves were taken from them? You have to look at it with respect to the attitudes of the time, not with current moral sensibilities. Back then, the slaves were property. How would you like it if the federal government was to take away your property now and not compensate you for it? Let's give it a modern perspective then... With the current leftists in power and all the green-freaks that are part of that group, it's not entirely unreasonable to think that perhaps one of them might decide that to better our country, they need to get rid of all the SUVs and pickups that the evil Republicans are driving since no true tree hugging leftist (aka Democrat) would even consider driving something so politically incorrect. In order to do this, Bama-Boy issues the SUV Emancipation Proclamation and takes away all of our SUVs and pickups without compensating us for them. How would you like that? People would be yelling that it was unconstitutional, right? Well, that's what Lincoln did. If Lincoln had truly wanted to do what was best for the country, he would have had the federal government purchase all of the slaves from the South and then send them back to Africa or put them in some US territory. That would have been a lot cheaper than what the war ended up costing, not to mention the 600,000 American lives that would have been saved.

In a lot of ways, what happened leading up to that war is what is happening in our country today. These days, we have a country that is moving away from what the rest of the country believes to be its core values. We have wanton spending by the leftists who are expecting the rest of us to pay for their idiotic ideas. It is no wonder that we have talke of secession again these days.

When to File Taxes

There has been quite a bit of discussion over the years with regards to when is the best time to file your taxes. Some people say to file it early so that you get your money back sooner. Some people just like to procrastinate and put off the unpleasant task as long as possible. Some people have a different theory based on theories about when you would be least likely to be audited. Personally, my philosophy is that I keep hoping that one of those big planet-killer type meteors will strike the Earth and wipe out all life on the planet. If it hasn't happened by around April 14th, then I do my taxes. I figure that I would feel really bad if I did my taxes early, a planet-killer meteor then came and destoryed all life on the planet, and I then realized that I didn't have to do my taxes that year.

Oh well... At least I wouldn't have to do them the next year...

Enforce Mexican Gun Laws?

Exactly why do the leftists think that we should be helping Mexico enforce their laws? I suspect that it is because they figure that they can use it as an excuse to attempt to restrict our 2nd Amendment rights. So what if I'm driving near the border with 20 AR15 rifles in the back of my pickup. I'm in Texas and that is perfectly legal. Furthermore, to attempt to restrict me from doing this is obviously an infringement on my 2nd Amendment rights.

What part of "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" do you not understand?

The leftists keep propagating the MYTH that the majority of the guns that end up in Mexico come from the US. In actuality, it is that the majority of the traceable firearms come from the US, but only about 20% are traceable which means that around 80% of the firearms come from somewhere else. The vast majority of the firearms that they recover are either from the Mexican military or have been brought into the country from Mexico's southern border. The problem is that speaking the truth in this matter does not allow them to advance their ultimate agenda of repealing the 2nd Amendment and taking away our rights as free men.

In fact, we should be suporting the importing of firearms into Mexico since obviously that can be construed as a human rights issue. The bearing of arms is a RIGHT, not a PRIVILEGE and as such, no country can morally take away that right. Free men bear arms, slaves do not. Choose whether you are free...

Teabaggers?

Well, we see today that thousands of people have gotten together to protest the unreasonable taxes that we have been afflicted with over the years. Of course, these are peaceful protests and as such, they will do little (if any) good. The politicians have gotten entirely too comfortable in their offices. They think that they can do whatever they want TO us and they don't have to suffer the consequences. At worst they figure that they'll get a few less votes and have to have to go back to the civilian life and be on the board of directors of some company or maybe end up as a well paid lobbyist. Politicians should FEAR the public. Maybe if we lynched all of them who voted on the Pork-ulus Bill or voted for higher taxes, they might get the right idea. We don't need more Tea Parties, we need an armed revolt against a government that has gotten completely out of control and abandoned the principles that were set down by the Founding Fathers. We didn't get rid of the British by having demonstrations with people hanging tea bags from their hats -- we got rid of them by force.

I see a lot of people these days using the electronic filing method for their taxes. I refuse to do anything to make it easier for the IRS to extort money from me. I take the 20 pages of tax forms, stuff them in a normal size envelope, put some packing tape across the back so that the envelope flap will stay shut, spit on it a couple of times, and then drive over it a few times in my truck so that it will be nice and flattened.

In some ways, I would like to see everyone on April 15th send the IRS a letter bomb, but I doubt it would do much good. All it would do is get rid of the low level crooks whereas the high level crooks would not be affected. Did you ever wonder what type of person decides to work for the IRS? People who didn't quite succeed in organized crime, perhaps?

Oh well... It's April 15th... I feel a need to rant and blow off some steam... I'm sure that there are plenty of other people out there that feel the same way, but in the end, we'll all be good little sheep and pay our taxes because the government can get rather vindictive if think that you are not giving them enough of your hard earned money. There might even be people who are far enough out there that they might even do something, but these are also the people who pay so little in taxes that they don't have a reason do actually do anything. Those of us who make enough to actually hate the IRS and the convoluted tax laws out there are also the ones who have too much to lose to actually do anything about it. Kind of funny how that works out, isn't it?

Houston Toll Road Price Increase

Well, it seems that Houston is wanting to increase the rates on the toll roads yet again. Just what I want to do -- pay more to sit in more road construction delays. Considering the speed of the traffic in some places, perhaps they should advertise it as an increase in the parking lot rates.

They say that they're already experiencing gridlock over on the Westpark Toll Road during certain hours. This is a very new road. Sounds about right for Houston though. The problem here in Houston is that the idiots that plan and design these roads base their plan on the current traffic flow at the start of the design phase, not on what the projected flow might be once the project is finally complete, much less what the flow will be within a few years.

Houston does not have an effective mass transit design and I seriously doubt that they ever will. As such, it will be very difficult to ween people from their use of their automobiles. Part of it has to do with out Texas desire to go whereever we want whenever we desire. We don't want to wait for a bus or train to take us there -- we want to just get in our cars and go. Never mind the fact that we might just be sitting in our car in a traffic jam -- at least we're in our car, not crammed into some public transportation bus with people who haven't quite discovered the proper use of body deodorant or women who believe that if they pour enough cheap perfume on themselves, they can disguise the fact that they didn't take a shower that morning. If you want to get Houstonians to use mass transit, you need to create something that is significantly faster than busses and automobiles. It needs to go every place that our current highways go. It also needs to be stylish enough that the urban professionals in the outlying communities will be willing to ride in it instead of using their cars. It also needs to be cheaper than what it would cost to actually drive someplace. Personally, I think we should develop an elevated high-speed monorail type system that parallels our existing hub and spoke highway system. It needs to be visible from the highways so that the people who are stuck in traffic will see it zoom over their heads while they are stuck breathing the exhaust of the car in front of them. Once people realize that they could already be at their destination instead of stuck in traffic, they'll start using it. You would need one along all the freeways leading into downtown (US-59, I-45, I-10, TX-288) in addition to a line around each of the loops that go around the Houston area (I-610, Beltway 8, TX-6/FM-1960, US-99). There would need to be stations where people could switch trains at every intersection of the hub and spoke system in addition to downtown. Houston is not a compact city like New York, so any sort of mass transit plan that wants to be effective needs to think big. Small stopgap measures like buses and light rail trains that don't go anyplace where people want to go just won't cut it. Think big or go home...