Boston Attack Re-Energizes Push for Truck Control Legislation

CNN has sourced the strategy for planting the type of deadly pressure cooker bombs detonated at the Boston Marathon finish line to the Al Qaeda Magazine Inspire.  The magazine laid out how to use the cooking device.

"The pressurized cooker should be placed in crowded areas and left to blow up. More than one of these could be planted to explode at the same time. However, keep in mind that the range of the shrapnel in this operation is short range so the pressurized cooker or pipe should be placed close to the intended targets and should not be concealed from them by barriers such as walls."

CNN also reported Inspire magazine provided tips on using a pickup truck as a weapon,

An article titled "The Ultimate Mowing Machine" calls for using a pickup truck as a "mowing machine, not to mow grass but mow down the enemies of Allah." 

The article says that such a plan could be implemented in countries where people back the "Israeli occupation of Palestine, the American invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq or countries that had a prominent role in the defamation of Muhammad."

It said a four-wheel-drive pickup truck is needed -- "the stronger the better."  "To achieve maximum carnage, you need to pick up as much speed as you can while still retaining good control of your vehicle in order to maximize your inertia and be able to strike as many people as possible in your first run," the article says.

The media's revelation of this mow-them-down advice has renewed the drumbeat for pickup truck control legislation.  Early in the 113^th Congress, Senator Jon Tester (D – Mont.) introduced truck control legislation that specifically targeted the “strong” pickup trucks preferred by Al Qaeda.  As originally drafted, Senator Tester’s legislation would have limited pickup truck ownership to a needs based ownership class and would have outlawed the use of pickup trucks by city slickers, suburban cowboys and gentlemen farmers.  The bill’s stringent ownership restrictions and resale regulations would have also prohibited pickup truck purchases by garden variety Al Qaeda terrorists. 

Pickup Pride Advocates

Though recently released studies provided empirical support for moving truck control forward, under pressure from pickup pride advocates (see picture on right) Senator Tester withdrew his proposed legislation. To justify his about face, the junior senator from Montana argued that pickup trucks were so intertwined with the pickup pride cultural core that pressing for truck control could violate the advocates’ civil rights.  Tester asked Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D – Nev.) to refrain from bringing the truck control legislation up for a floor vote.

Truck control coalition leaders, Hans Opelgänger, Director of Sustainability at BMW USA and Sven Olafscar, Managing Director of Volvo USA, hope the Boston tragedy will spur recognition of the need to regulate pickup trucks and re-energize truck control legislation.  They are asking that truck control supporters visit their website  www.wedontbuildpickuptrucks.com for information on what can be done to support the cause.     

Damn the Sequester, Full Snowplows Ahead -- Yellowstone or Bust

WYDOT Plowing Moving North from Jackson through South Entrance

To counter Barack Obama's Washington Monument game opening delays, Wyoming Department of Transportation rotary plows are clearing the South Entrance of Yellowstone National Park.

Snow Plowing Progress Map, Effective 4/12

Major progress is being made by Wyoming crews from Cody and the East Entrance as well.  In leading the effort from the Wyoming entrances, Governor Matt Mead said,  “This is an example of what this country needs right now – people working together,”  He continued, “The federal government made cuts that would have shutout visitors for two weeks. I decided Wyoming will not bail them out, but we do want to find solutions. Our towns of Cody and Jackson rallied to raise money and the beneficiaries are all of the visitors who want access to America’s first national park who will now have it.”

Effective Tuesday, Wyomning Crews met a major milestone,

The Wyoming Department of Transportation crews spent 11 days plowing westward from the East Entrance. They met Yellowstone crews plowing eastward about 15 miles inside the park gate, according to department spokesman Cody Beers.

Meanwhile, roads from Yellowstone's West Entrance in West Yellowstone, Montana and Mammoth Hot Springs to Old Faithful will open as originally scheduled (i.e., not on Obama's in your face sequester delayed schedule) this Friday, April 19.  Roads will open starting at 8 a.m. on Friday morning. Kudos to the Town of West Yellowstone which overcame Obama's gamesmanship, with plowing efforts, and by sending a grader and operator into Yellowstone during the last week of March to assist with the removal of snow and ice on park roads near the West Entrance.

To Meet a Grandmother (On the Road to Bathgate Act 4a)

I blogged last week about the forthcoming meeting with my cousin where we would introduce ourselves properly.  We had a pleasant dinner last night at Ted's Montana Grill in Bozeman; I met with my cousin and his wife again this morning to share notes, trade stories and work on creating some new lore.  They are a gracious, fantastic and fascinating couple.  One of the many awesome products of our meeting is they shared a photocopied picture of my paternal grandmother, Laura Elizabeth Armstrong Foster, which they had retrieved from the Mormon family history library in Salt Lake City.

Never, until this day, had I seen her image.  Pleased to make your acquaintance Grandma Foster.  Thank you for continuing on to that 11th child!  The family exploration continues.  This is great!

Open Borders -- Pop Culture Idols at Work

It's hard to understand all the controversy over JayZ's and Beyonce's recent visit and celebration of the repressive regime in Cuba.  Heck, when you consider Dennis Rodman's recent success as an emissary to Kim Jong-un and North Korea, why not give the singers a chance?  To quote the ex-NBAer, "Kim is not one of those Saddam Hussein type characters that wants to take over the world. He doesn't want to kill anyone -- he wants to talk peace."  Listen to these people.  Take them seriously.

Saturday Pictures

Saturday Pictures, April 13, 2013

(click for full size)

Elk herd, off of Sourdough Rd.., Bozeman, MT.

Bridger Mountain Range, Mt Baldy, Bozeman, MT

Gallitan Mountain Range, Bozeman, MT

View Down Mc Leod St. Big Timber, MT

Grand Hotel, Big Timber, MT

Have a great weekend!

Obama's Fair Share Lie Exposed

I have a real family, with real income and real expenses.  We pay real taxes.  If you were to listen to Barack Obama, my family is being screwed by rich people who aren't paying their fair share.  That could not be further from the truth.  

There is nothing better for understanding what is going on than to look at a problem from both ends. Serendipity has given us those views.  Our 2011 taxable income was very high -- the highest ever -- due to one-time influences.  I earned my full salary during most of the year and received a substantial payment for accumulated annual leave when I retired in September.  Knowing we were going to retire and move, we used 2011 to sell out the inventory in our home business.  We bought essentially nothing for the business during the year -- all revenue, no expense and high income from the sell out.  2012 was completely different -- no salary or unusual one-time payments, we were fully retired -- plus no more home business.  Our 2012 income consisted of pension payments plus dividends. 

If the truth be known, our standard of living has increased, in large part because we took the initiative to move to a lower cost of living area.  But the way the numbers worked out our income dropped 50 percent from 2011 to 2012.  At the same time, our federal income taxes dropped a whopping 95 percent. Our 2012 effective tax rate is about 3 percent.  Even though our income is still is comfortably above the national household median, the dollar amount of our tax bill is less than at any time since 1978, when I was still in school.  If our income had dropped to the national median we wouldn't owe any taxes at all. In fact, due to child tax credits, the federal government would be cutting us a check.  We would be part of Romney's 47 percent. 

How ridiculous is that?  I hesitate to look into how close we might be to qualifying for food stamps.  The give away, dependency, victimhood, class-warfare-driven, welfare-state system is totally out of control. Romney was politically inept and factually correct.  We are doomed.

Intel and Microsoft -- Walking Dead

When IBM launched the PC in 1981 it was still wrangling with the Department of Justice over a 13-year monopolization antitrust suit.  To prove once and for all to the boys in the Antitrust Division at the Justice Department that it had clean hands, Big Blue designed and integrated a personal computing system based on Andy Groves' CPU (8088) chip and Bill Gates' operating system software (DOS).  No monopoly here, IBM said.   This is open architecture -- we won't control the computing market anymore.  Sure enough, DOJ dropped the antitrust complaint.  What happened, instead, is IBM bequeathed the incipient PC hardware monopoly to Intel and a new software monopoly to Microsoft, enriching Grove and Gates beyond belief.

Since then IBM has become a totally different company, not a purveyor of computers anymore and software per se, more of a consultant and data miner than anything else.  Meanwhile, Intel and Microsoft have stayed close to the safe havens granted by IBM.

Looking at their stock prices, we can see how Microsoft's and Intel's fortunes are still tightly linked, more than 30 years later.

The ten-year growth rates are less than 15 percent.  Over the same period IBM's stock price has risen 168 percent.  The PC market is imploding.  The end won't be tomorrow, but Microsoft and Intel are two firms that have gone beyond maturity into old age, and, if they don't transform themselves substantially and painfully, will be walking down the zombie trail sooner rather than later.

Armed Protection Works

I remember the moment on December 14, 2012 that I learned of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.  It was just after 10 in the morning in Montana, and a bit past noon in Connecticut.   I climbed into the Jeep and turned on the radio as we were leaving the Holiday Pageant performance at Irving Elementary School.  I had just watched our then 6-year old, first-grade daughter sing with her classmates the sweetest songs.  The performance was touching -- it was precious.

Then I heard the Newtown news, that first graders, 6- and 7-year old children had been massacred.  I was crushed.  I cried. 

Our Bellamy, Irving Elementary School Holiday Pageant, December 14, 2012

I believe the kids should be safe.  I believe in protecting the kids -- all of them.

For 33 years I worked in a building that had armed guards at each of its four entrances, who demanded id of every entrant, and, during most of those years, required that anyone entering the building be authorized by an occupant.  The guards carried loaded handguns and had an arsenal of assault rifles ready at their command post.  Guests were screened through metal detectors.   It so happened we also had inspectors housed on the third floor, typically dozens of well trained men and women, each packing personal heat.  That’s not at all unusual in DC.  Much of the security is visible to the public.  Some of the federal complexes, like the Forrestal Building at the foot of L’Enfant Plaza and the Federal Reserve’s edifice on Constitution Avenue, have high profile, heavily armed guards patrolling the grounds, enforcing perimeter security.   

Somebody correct me if I am wrong, but with all this security, other than the occasional suicide, in my 33 years working in the area I don’t recall a single civilian shooting death up and down the National Mall, despite all the high profile targets.  There certainly were no mass killings -- tens of millions of school children visited safely.  Several federal officers responding to attacks lost their lives in the line of duty, but in each case attackers were subdued before completing their murderous plans.    

It has been safe.  Can you imagine the carnage if the National Mall were declared a gun free zone and armed security eliminated?  The White House, the Capitol, the Smithsonian’s, the IRS, The Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, the FBI, the State Department and the Monuments would all be vulnerable and subject to violent and successful attacks.  

Frankly, I cannot comprehend the logic of those who oppose training and arming select personnel at public schools.  It’s done at many exclusive private schools.  The public university two blocks from my kids' elementary school has its very own police force.  I would welcome a local school board decision to arm and protect.  My three kids would be safer for it.  The most important implication of armed school protection is that it plants a huge seed of doubt in the minds of cowardly attackers who, by definition, are seeking to assail defenseless innocents.  Their targets would not be defenseless anymore.  

The nutcases are looking for a path of least resistance.  Guarding and arming are enormous deterrents.  Block the easy path. 

A Happy Median

The most affected victims of the sequester continue to rollick along on the real estate bandwagon.

March median sales price by jurisdiction

	2013	2012	YoY
DC metro	$372,500	$345,000	8%
Falls Church	$631,000	$458,300	37.7%
Arlington	$515,000	$509,450	1.1%
Alexandria	$487,500	$391,950	24.4%
District	$460,000	$405,000	13.6%
Fairfax County	$430,000	$398,500	7.9%
Fairfax City	$392,500	$443,750	-11.5%
Montgomery County	$375,000	$345,000	8.7%
Pr. George’s County	$176,500	$158,000	11.7%

Source: RealEstate Business Intelligence

Row Houses, Washington DC Style

To Meet a Cousin

This coming Sunday, we have arranged to meet a cousin and his wife for the first time.  They traveled down to Salt Lake City to do some genealogical research and are stopping by on their return to Alberta for proper introductions.  Our common ancestor is my great grandfather, William Foster, born in the early 1800’s, and founder of Bathgate, North Dakota in 1881. 

I’ve been in contact with the Mrs. the last couple of years courtesy of cyberspace.  She had posted a request for family information that I responded to.  I’ve done a bit of research – if I have it right, it appears her husband, the family member actually my cousin, is a semi-retired provincial judge, who once was Attorney General and MP in the Alberta province.  I mentioned that to my kids, and they asked, like a real judge, with robes and all that?  I said sure, not only robes but maybe even a powdered wig, Canada being part of the British Commonwealth.   They could ask.  The kids seemed a bit intimidated, so Teresa reminded them that their grandfather was a judge, a county judge down in Texas.

Doc's County Judge License Plate

Judge Wagamon served as Walker County Judge from 1995 to 2003.   The kids are eagerly looking forward to the meeting once again.  

I am guessing, but don't really know, that I am a second cousin, once removed, which would make my kids second cousins twice removed, or something like that.  If my Aunt Margaret were here, God rest her soul, she knew all the ins and outs of cousin classification   Whatever the technicalities, the meeting will be interesting and fun.

Insight

OK, yeah, this is my fourth blog post of the day -- normally it's one.  I thought why not post this photo in case you might be interested in knowing why.  I mean, it's spring.  Sigh!  7:35 pm:  But it has been quite the wildlife day -- deer, elk, rabbits and fox.  Go figure!

RIP Annette Funicelo

RIP Annette Funicelo.  I can still taste the after-school chocolate covered graham crackers I ate watching the Mickey Mouse Club -- escapism at its best.

On the Road to Bathgate Act 6: Norval Baptie Champion Skater

Norval Baptie
Champion Speedskater

My dad was born and raised ten miles south of the Canadian border in Bathgate, North Dakota. He talked of skating on the frozen surface of the Tongue River, snaking into and down through town. When my dad laced up he wore racing skates, the long-bladed variety with tubular support, in the style worn by speed skaters, flashing left, right, left, right, left, right as they powered along.  

Dad spoke in mythical terms of a skater from Bathgate by the name of Norval Baptie – an unbeatable speed skater and champion barrel jumper, a man who conquered the skating world but whose heart never left home. This has got to be hyperbole I thought -- dad’s recollection skewed by youthful small town perspective. I could not have been more wrong -- Norval Baptie is a legend.

Norval Baptie was born in Bethany, Ontario, March 18, 1879, and was moved with his family to the Bathgate, N.D., area at the age of one.  He was the eighth of 10 children born to Jonathan and Elizabeth Baptie.  Norval began ice skating at a very young age and was often spotted in the railroad ditches racing the Great Northern trains as they passed by.  As a youngster he maintained a regimen of constant exercise and rules for keeping fit. 

Baptie’s career tracked an amazing trajectory.

The Masters

Masters week is here.  The golfing world’s attention will be focused on the lush fairways, rolling hills, lightening fast greens and historic layout of Augusta National Golf Course, located just south of the South Carolina, Georgia border.  For those not in the know, The Masters is the first of golf’s four majors – the others being the United States Open, The (British) Open Championship and the PGA Championship.  The course and tournament are progeny of golf legend Bobby Jones, who nursed each from infancy to become the most renowned course and revered tournament in golf.

     

Augusta National 13th Hole

Each year The Masters itself is about renewal and rebirth.  It is presented by flowering spring bulbs, blooming azaleas and dogwoods, flowering magnolias framing the the clubhouse lane and towering pines along the fairways.  By virtue of its position the Masters both creates and limits the potential of infinite possibility.  Only the winner of The Masters can achieve the most coveted (and never accomplished in modern times) feat in golf – coming home victorious in each of the season’s four majors, the Grand Slam of golf.

The Masters is link between young and old.  It is haven for tradition and pioneer as well.   The Masters is the youngest of the majors but the most revered.  For the old of it this year, Phil Mickelson has been popping in and out of top form, including a decisive early season victory in Phoenix.  For the the established of it, Tiger Woods has come roaring back with three impressive early season victories to return to world number one.  And for the younger of it, at world number two, sweet swinging Rory McElroy, is knocking at victory's door, finishing a surging second at last week's Texas Open.  This could be an all-time classic.

Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player
The Big Three in their Masters Green Jackets

The Masters bestows uniquely among the majors the honor of first teeing off Thursday morning to living legends.  This year the honorees are Jack Nicklaus (6 time Masters champion), Arnold Palmer (4 time champion) and Gary Player (3 time Masters champion).  They once dominated professional golf as the Big Three.  Decades later they are being honored for lifetime achievement and lasting contributions.  They have earned the privilege of driving the first  tee shots into the morning dew.   

Byron Nelson, Gene Sarazen and Sam Snead

For the better part of two decades the honorary threesome had been Sam Snead (3 time Masters champion), Byron Nelson (2 time Masters champion) and Gene Sarazen (1935 Masters champion), gentlemen who legitimized professional golf in the post Bobby Jones era.   Sadly, they are no longer with us, but we still have memories of Snead’s slamming swing, Nelson’s ruthlessly efficient stroke and Sarazen’s elan.  Ken Venturi had the honors once.

 

Jock Hutchison and Fred McLeod
First Honorary Starters

The remaining two members of the exclusive honorary starters club are Jock Hutchison and Fred McLeod, who paired up from 1963 through 1973, which happens to interesect with the nine years I caddied at Glen View Club in Golf, IL.  Why those two?  Neither man won The Masters. But each did win another important tournament at Augusta. Bobby Jones was an organizer of the PGA championship for senior golfers, what today is called the Senior PGA Champrionship. And the first two Senior PGAs were played at Augusta National Golf Club. Hutchison won the first one in 1937, and McCleod won the second one in 1938.  Jock Hutchison was a member at Glen View.  I caddied for him and unfortunately did not believe a word the old fellow said when he pointed to a club in his bag and said “I won the Open Championship with this mashie niblick laddie.”  But thanks to Jock I can say today that I caddied for a successful pro, a one-time honorary starter at the Masters and a British Open and PGA champion.   I can say that with confidence because now we have the Internet.

Politidumb of the Week

PEZ and Spring
Loaded Dispensers

You would think that someone who creates a persona and advertises oneself as a reformer and advocate would invest some time and effort in learning about the object of their advocacy.   It's a pretty simple concept.   

When it comes to gun control, anyone who has ever seen or used a PEZ dispenser knows how a gun ammunition magazine works.  But taking a minute or two to figure that out was apparently too great of a burden for Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), a lead advocate and sponsor of “fundamental" "common-sense” gun control legislation. 

When questioned about the efficacy of banning new high-capacity gun magazines when there are already large numbers in circulation she said, 

“These are ammunition, these are bullets, so the people who have them now are going to shoot them.  And so, if you ban them in the future, the number of these high capacity magazines will decrease over time, dramatically, because over time because the bullets will have been shot and there won’t be any more available.” 

Just like a PEZ dispenser becomes useless when you eat through the initial candy supply?  Or how you dispose of a car when it runs out of gas?  Sure.  Right.

The Denver Post reported,

Rep. Diana DeGette came under fire for an egregiously incorrect statement last week. And deservedly so.

The Denver Democrat, who's led the charge on many high-profile issues in her lengthy career in Washington, demonstrated complete ignorance of how gun magazines work during our forum on gun bills Tuesday, telling the audience that magazines are unusable after bullets have been fired.

I've heard elected officials say things over the years that were regrettable, insensitive and just plain wrong. The stunning thing about DeGette's remarks, however, was that they showed a lack of knowledge about a topic on which you'd expect her to be well-informed. She is, after all, primary co-sponsor of a bill that would regulate magazine size.

As for the issue of bad guys having access to weapons she would prohibit law-abiding good guys from owning, Ms. DeGette told an elderly man not to worry about defending himself, that he’d “probably be dead anyway."

Ms. Degette’s assertions are politidumb gifts that keep on giving, no doubt to be recited and played back many of thousands of times in the years to come by the NRA.  

Saturday Pictures

April 6, 2013
(Click for full size)

Gallitan Valley Mill Co. grain elevator -- cottonwoods bordering the Gallitan River in the background, with peaks of the the Bridger Range peeking above the treetops.

View up the Bridger Range from the 10th tee at Bridger Creek Golf Course.

Bozeman Strums

Bozeman is a music town. It's in the air. Before the moving boxes were unpacked last August the kids decided to learn guitar. We found a music store. 

Music Villa says it is a Gibson 5 Star Dealer.  The store is on our side of town, just 3.3 miles they say from the Bozeman, MT Gibson acoustic factory, which has put out this promotional video.

. \ 

We bought acoustic guitars for the older girls and a ukelele for our 7-year old, cause it has fewer strings and is easy to hold.  They needed an instructor, so we came across Ty straight away.  Who has lusher dreadlocks and rocks out better than Ty?

Blythe introduced Ty to Alvin Lee (God rest his soul) and Ten Years After, "I'd Love to Change the World."

I mentioned Herman's Hermits.  Ty said "Who?"  I said, "You know, 'I'm Henry the Eighth I Am'" with "Second verse same as the first."  Ty said, "What?"  Before returning to his native Montana last summer, Ty had lived in Nashville and toured for several years across the USA and internationally.   There is a generation gap -- more like 2 or 3.  We're closing it and having fun.

Progressive Triple Header: No Responsibility Nation Surges Forward

Progressives Got Their Way, 
Bless Them!

Congratulations Barack and the progressives!  You are surging forward on three fronts.

First, hundreds of thousands (half a million in March) of people moved out of the labor force (i.e., they don't even bother looking for a job) on top of the millions of labor force participants that Barack's entitlement nation has already suckered out.   Labor participation rates are back to what they were in the Jimmy Carter era -- you know back in the days when women didn't work -- that's progress.

Second, now in the fourth year of economic recovery, food stamp rolls continue to swell to record levels month after month, up 70 percent during the Obama administration.  I know, I know, it's just not fair to ask people to feed themselves when they have so many other uses for their disposable incomes. 

Third, young adults are more clever than ever.   In record numbers people who are not old enough to retire are working the disability system to receive lifetime social security payment annuities, in many cases, decades before they have contributed their fair share.  I know, I know, that poor dude who shows up for work at the Costco everyday in his wheel chair, checking membership cards and receipts -- that's asking way too much -- cut him a check.  

And that's just the news in the last week.  Mr. President and your progressive supporters, you are breaking the bank and brokering away the future.   Social and economic justice are wonderful things.  You are running a hell of a show!

Obamacare Incompetence

The headline reads "Obamacare Incompetence" -- that's Time Magazine's lead, not mine, on a column authored by rabid Obama supporter, far left apologist Joe Klein, no less.  The cover story is unraveling.  The emperor wears no clothes.  He never did.

I remember the days when I bused across the 14th Street bridge, over the Potomac River and into work up Independence Avenue in Washington, DC. The vehicle was half loaded with Department of Health and Human Services employees, mostly with job titles like program manager or specialist.  During our early morning rides, some of these folks had trouble distinguishing between the Style and Sports sections of the Washington Post. After all, both start with "S", don't they?  From among this population come the architects and administrators of Obama's health care law. It's guaranteed to crater. The administration's resulting answer to competition and choice is to offer the typical government tyrannical solution of one high-cost inefficient choice -- my way or the highway.

Klein says,

Let me try to understand this: the key incentive for small businesses to support Obamacare was that they would be able to shop for the best deals in health care superstores — called exchanges. The Administration has had three years to set up these exchanges. It has failed to do so.

This is a really bad sign. There will be those who argue that it’s not the Administration’s fault. It’s the fault of the 33 states that have refused to set up their own exchanges. Nonsense. Where was the contingency planning? There certainly are models, after all — the federal government’s own health-benefits plan (FEHBP) operates markets that exist in all 50 states. So does Medicare Advantage. But now, the Obama Administration has announced that it won’t have the exchanges ready in time, that small businesses will be offered one choice for the time being — for a year, at least. No doubt, small-business owners will be skeptical of the Obama Administration’s belief in the efficacy of the market system to produce lower prices through competition. That was supposed to be the point of this plan.

Cost Growth
Joe Klein's FEHBP Model

It's even worse than Klein says. His model FEHBP "market" depends on turgidly written, menacingly thick, imponderable pamphlets, that I would guess 1 or 2 out of every hundred federal (supposedly highly educated) employees has actually read, much less understood. I couldn't understand the booklets and I graduated college Phi Beta Kappa and attended a top 5 ranked law school. Klein says the federal government "operates markets" and then attacks the resulting "efficacy of the market system." Government operated markets?   The man wouldn't know an oxymoron if it hit him over the head.  

Obama's Foreclosure Nation Gambit

Even lefty academics are on to this one.  Barack Obama is pushing banks to issue high-risk, subprime mortgage loans, under the rubric of supporting a home ownership culture.

This seems vaguely familiar. The Obama administration has started a full court push to get banks to make more home loans available to people with weaker credit. After the housing collapse leading to the tanking of economy, many experts pointed out in congressional hearings on the problem of loans to unqualified owners and that Congress spent years demanding more and more loans to low income families with bad credit

Obama will hold banks harmless for the insanity because they will be helping poor people own homes. Isn't that precious?  I so wish it were still April 1st.  

The loans being pushed by the Administration concern applicants who, even with the low interest rates, are not viewed by banks as good risks to actually pay off the loan. While more homes are likely to be built in helping the economy, more people will likely lose their credit and down payment money in foreclosures.

That's what is called a real estate bubble and a meltdown.  You get what you vote for.

Seventy Percent Waste

The HUD Inspector General reports that $700 million out of a billion dollars granted to New Orleans "victims" of Hurricane Katrina were wasted. As befits the mission of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, that money was specifically channeled to homeowners to retrofit their homes, increasing elevations to protect from future floods.  The aid recipients cared not at all about the contracts they signed and aid stipulations; they did as they pleased. For all practical purposes the money has disappeared, just like sands laying in the path of an oncoming storm. And when the storms come again their homes will be as vulnerable as ever. 

We live in a nation of irresponsibility and dishonor fed by progressive enablers, big government power brokers and brain dead bleeding heart liberals who continue to build up the burden of prodigious debt that will break the backs of our children and grandchildren.

Top March Posts!

Page through the list, if you please, for your very own highlight reel -- Along the Gradyent's top March posts to date, ranked by page views:

1. Growing Up in Morton Grove -- youthful memories.
2. On the Road to Bathgate Act 5:  Founding and Early Years -- Bathgate, North Dakota from its founding in 1879 through the turn of the 20th Century.
3. On the Road to Bathgate Act 4:  Introducing the Foster Family Offspring -- the Foster family during my dad's generation, founders of Bathgate.
4. Golf Anyone? -- Golf options in the Gallitan Valley.
5. New Studies Support Jon Tester’s Truck Control Agenda -- the truck control coalition looks to the European experience to rid the roads of killer pickup trucks.
6. The Washington Monument Game -- the budget games presidents play.
7. Your Spite President at Work -- the budget games Obama plays.
8. Million Dollar Bus Stops -- essential spending in the world of the sequester, a late month post that's rising up the list fast.

Enjoy!

You Paid for It

We blogged last week on the million dollar bus stop in my old neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia, pulling material from local news media, my old neighborhood listserv and a CBS news report.  Now CNN reports.  CNN points out federal funds paid for $800,000 of the $1.1 million, sequester or no sequester.

I hope you like it because there are 23 more of these coming -- with Arlington County's inside the Beltway mavens hoping to limit per stop costs to $800 or $900K for stops that the riders don't really want. 

The editor of the local weekly (the Sun Gazzette) rag reported on the bus stop as follows, 

The Washington Post was a smidge late to the game – no surprise there –but had a feature yesterday about the nearly $1 million spent by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority on a new “Super Stop” bus shelter on Columbia Pike near South Walter Reed Drive.

It’s the first of nearly two dozen such modern bus shelters planned by the county government, using $20 million that is a mix of local, state and federal funds. (Not to mention Chinese yuan, as they’re the ones funding our federal government these days.)

A friend of mine, who shall go nameless to protect the guilty, was so incensed upon reading the Post story that she got in her car and – those of you in 22207 will shudder – toodled south of Route 50 just so she could see what all the hullabaloo was about.

She was, to put it mildly, not impressed with what the nearly $1 million purchased. Profanity ensued.

In Arlington we referred to Route 50 as the DMZ.  Nobody, none of the limousine liberals in the north, travelled from the north to south (where I and the majority of the black and Hispanic population lived) except under extreme duress.

It's appropriate that this fleecing of the taxpayer (and our children and grandchildren who will assume the prodigious debt) is occurring on Columbia Pike, named such because the road leads to the District of Columbia, where the leadership is ensconced whose senseless and undisciplined spending is driving our country into fiscal oblivion.  When Columbia Pike was originally built it was a turnpike, a revenue raiser.  In the world of Obama and the progressives it is a revenue sink.  My, how far we have fallen.

Competition is Good

John Boehner Ignores
Barack Obama

There has been plenty of talk about dysfunction within Congress and between the White House and Capitol Hill.  And while those relationships are anything but cooperative, they have resulted in healthy competition and some surprisingly positive fiscal and economic results this year.  As a result, the USA is headed for the first sub trillion dollar deficit since 2008.  That news is not nearly good enough, but a good start nevertheless.

As a right wing blogger puts it,

Because I’ve been sharing good news recently – which definitely is not my normal style, I joked the other day I must be on coke, in love, or rolling in money. For example:

• The fiscal cliff was a smaller loss than I expected.
• The sequester was a real victory.
• We have good evidence that the Tea Party has made a positive difference.
• The Democratic-controlled Senate rejected a permanent expansion of funds for the IMF.
• The burden of government fiscal policy has been reduced since the 2010 elections.

Well, the drugs, love, and money must still be in my system because I’m going to share some more good news. Our lords and masters in Washington have taken a small step in the direction of recognizing the Laffer Curve. 

I would add to his list of positives the Senate passing a budget (which the idiot Committee Chairwoman from Washington state says increases employment by increasing taxes) and reinstatement of the full social security withholding tax, which plugs a hole in the dike (one of many sadly) of the single government benefit program universally viewed as sacrosanct.  For those not initiated with the arcana of budget accounting, recognizing the Laffer Curve involves accounting for positive macroeconomic growth effects of tax reductions (and macroeconomic penalties of tax increases).

The President's lies, distortions and exaggerations have destroyed his credibility and rapidly made him an irrelevant arbiter in ongoing fiscal and policy debates.  Once again, he's transformed a chance to be a leader of the many into being a messiah for the few.  Obama's got C Team advisors and cabinet officers (most prominently Hagel at Defense, whatshisname as Chief of Staff, Low or Lew or whatever at Treasury and the charity gal at OMB) in place so his influence will continue to do little but wane.  That's all to the good, so let the games continue.