Monday, June 29, 2009

I Had Some More To Say To Mary

Congresswoman Mary,

You may wish to consider changing your vote on HR2454...unless losing your seat in Congress is your game plan.

I will be walking the precincts here in Indio campaigning for someone -- anyone! -- else come 2010. Why? Because ANYONE else would be better than a RINO.

It is the worst kind of leadership to pander to special interests and phony arguments. A hundred years ago Americans were free. We paid virtually NO taxes! What are you doing?! Are you trying to turn America into the Soviet Socialist States of America (SSSA)?

What was your payoff? An expensive, inefficient and ineffective solar farm like the one outside Las Vegas? The PRIVATE sector will find the best solutions to our energy/transportation/medical/consumer needs, not government! (If you don't know THAT, Mary, you don't know squat about being a Republican.)

Was it government that invented the internal combustion engine? Or fueling stations from sea to shining sea? Or Penicillin? Does government stock the shelves at Wal-Mart? No! Government, by and large, hinders progress and development.

You say "What about the space program?" What about it? A boondoggle! Private enterprise is achieving far more (for the dollar) than NASA ever could! If we ever have commercial space travel, it will be because of PRIVATE ENTERPRISE, not government.

Your vote FOR HR2454 (for reasons I've explained in other emails) was a silly, uninformed homage to discredited computer models and absurd predictions regarding CO2's role in NATURAL climate change. You lent sick support to a fraudulent scheme to steal more and more of America's wealth and transfer it to global entities and shameless profiteers. You slopped the pig trough, Mary, with our tax dollars. And you're a fool (beg your pardon) if you think we're going to let you get away with this nonsense.

We'll do our best to throw you out on your ear and change the laws so that you can kiss your cushy life-long Congressional retirement "good-bye".

In fact, if you were a true Republican, that's exactly what you'd be doing right now: changing the law.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Shooting a R.I.N.O.

I wrote Congresswoman Mary Whittaker Bono Baxley Mack a second time after she foolishly voted for HR2454: the "cap-and-tax" bill that will transform all our lives.

Congresswoman, that was the last straw.

You voted for the most massive tax-increase and wealth-transfer bill in earth's history -- and didn't even read it!

Shame on you!

Worst of all, the entire bill is based on bad science. Carbon dioxide emissions are not the cause of "global warming". Global warming is the cause of increased CO2 emissions (principally from the oceans, due to the decreasing solubility of gases in warmer waters). What was your grade in high school chemistry, Congresswoman?

THE SUN warms the earth (if you haven't noticed). CO2 is of utter insignificance. Water vapor -- another "greenhouse" gas -- is eight times more effective at trapping heat than CO2 -- and hundreds of times more prevalent in our atmosphere. Are you planning on banning water, as well? Or sunshine? How asinine.
You were foolish to go along with it.

I don't fault you for voting to raise taxes in the worse recession in my lifetime (although that was bad enough). I fault you for being a dumb leader who betrayed the Constitution in the name of "saving the planet" or some other such nonsense.

Where does the Constitution give Congress the right to regulate what "energy" I use? The People (by the Constitution) give the federal government ENUMERATED powers, not the reverse. And under no circumstances does the Constitution enumerate that the federal government shall have TOTAL power over the states or the people. The Commerce Clause was NOT intended for that purpose. Otherwise, why have a Constitution at all? Just say "The Federal Government has total power to do whatever the hell it pleases."

As I said, Congresswoman, you've made a political opponent of me. I must now do what I can to throw you out of office, not to save our planet, but to save our country. You're dangerous! You saddle us with onerous taxes and increase our burdens with greater regulations, all while limiting our freedoms to use our own resources as we see fit by foisting junk science and foolish energy schemes upon us.

You were one of eight Republicans to do so. That's eight Republicans too many.

You and the Governor talk like Republicans, but you lead like Democrats.

And that's our problem. Not global warming.

Good day.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Why Johnny's teacher can't read

YOU NEED TO KNOW the "education" industry is a socialist racket. A fraud. A waste. A charade. And every time teachers' union leaders open their mouths, they are lying.

THE CURRENT FABLE being promoted is that California schools are underfunded and overcrowded. Asinine news articles like these portray California's Prop 13 as responsible for our current fiscal dilemma. Yet historical data show that tax revenues under Prop 13 have FAR OUTPACED INFLATION. Clearly, it is SPENDING that is out of control.

California schools are awash in money. Over 50 BILLION dollars are spent "educating" Californians (and untold millions of non-Americans) each year. FIFTY-SIX PERCENT OF CALIFORNIA STATE EXPENDITURES now go to unionized teachers, cafeteria workers, custodians, bus drivers, groundskeepers, and secretaries, as well as administrators and hired "consultants" (who frequently get paid thousands of dollars per day!). Are all these "essential" services? No. Virtually anybody could do these jobs with little (or no) training.

MOST of the money spent on California's "education" doesn't even make it into the classroom. (Only about a third goes to teachers or textbooks.)

In the midst of our economic "crisis", my district purportedly managed to pay a retired administrator $400,000 last year to show veteran teachers (who are already "certificated" and supposedly "well trained") how to write their own lesson plans!

Imagine that!

Now imagine that kind of "fraud" replicated in thousands of school districts across this country.

Our state is going bankrupt paying union (above-market) salaries to cafeteria workers serving mostly taxpayer-subsidized breakfasts, lunches and (sometimes) dinners to millions of California children dropped off by parents often driving Navigators and Escalades. What's up with that?! Why can't they bring their own lunches to school? Or eat at home?

Because you're willing to pay for it.

Our state is going bankrupt paying above-market salaries to grass cutters, floor sweepers, bus drivers and secretaries.

These salaries are almost always non-competitive and virtually non-negotiable. (And they usually go up every year, NEVER down.) The unions hold school districts and taxpayers hostage, threatening to shut down the whole process so that some (often non-English-speaking, hardly legal) union-dues-paying worker can keep a job that could be filled at significantly lower cost by hiring Americans at entry-level positions (perhaps recent high school graduates, for starters?).

Why do these low-skilled jobs have to be "career" jobs anyway? I swept floors and cleaned toilets...when I was 16! Should people still be doing that when they are 25? Or 50? Must we pay maximum-skill wages for minimum-skill labor?

TENS OF BILLIONS MORE go to housing, feeding, clothing, supervising, medicating, and entertaining millions of California youths and their families in the name of "education".

What do we get for our "education" dollars?

It appears, mostly mis-education. In many urban school districts, half the students don't even graduate. Many who do, sadly, remain functionally illiterate. Grade inflation, social promotion and academic fraud are not just common. Too often, they're the rule.

Our tax dollars are being thrown down a rat hole. So why are we still paying?

I won't be making friends by telling you that teachers are among the dumbest people I know -- my circle of teaching friends excluded (of course!). The data prove it. College-bound students majoring in education consistently rank in the bottom third (compared to other majors) on their SATs. Every prospective California teacher has to pass a basic academic proficiency test called CBEST. The CBEST is an 8th-grade math and 10th-grade reading/writing test. According to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, the pass rates among college graduates who take this test are 80% for whites, 59% for Asian Americans, 49% for Latinos, and 35% for Blacks. To put it another way, one in three COLLEGE GRADUATES who try to become teachers in California CAN'T FUNCTION AT THE HIGH SCHOOL SOPHOMORE LEVEL.

Is it any wonder we're in trouble?

In a world where every (other) aspect of society is made cheaper and smarter and faster by technology, public education just gets dumber, more dangerous, moribund and costly. It remains almost immune to innovation or improvement.

Why? Because public school isn't about teaching students. It's about employing teachers. The sooner you understand that, the sooner you'll understand EVERYTHING about "public" education.

Private schools, on the other hand -- and even "unlicensed" home schools -- routinely outperform public schools in virtually every category...except drug use, delinquency, teenage pregnancy, suicide, failures and drop-out rates.

Will the current economic melt-down break the strangle-hold socialist unions have upon California's public education system? I don't know.

But one can always hope!