To Haiti with All Possible Speed

Haiti has always been a exceptionally poor country, claimed to be “the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.” The folks in that awful place have been devastated in the past by one of the most brutal dictatorships ever understood, by AIDS and now by this catastrophe.

Clearly the country was not prepared in any way for this disaster thus the massive global humanitarian effort is stymied by the simplicity of blocked roads. Life is tough and many people died and will die because this country had neither the resources nor the will to provide for the safety of the populace.

Thousands of people are already dead and many more thousands will die despite the effort. No one is to blame. Maslow would conclude that people who scramble for meager rations don’t pay much attention to “amenities” such as building codes. In our country the incident must NOT be politicized. (Danny Glover, the all-knowing” master of things global warming has declared the earthquake was a result of just that).

Let’s just get going with all possible speed. It looks as if those coordinating the efforts are thinking out of the box to devise ways of distributing aid in spite of horrible, gruesome obstacles. Good for them because those people are running out of time.

Full steam ahead; these people do not deserve this fate.

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Washington Governor Gregoire and Her Shill

Christine Gregoire has enlisted Lisa Brown, the tax ‘n spend state senator from Spokane to pitch against us evil state employees. Gregoire’s predecessor and a democrat-dominated legislature, then perpetuated by Gregoire herself, forced unionization of every non-management state employee and now claims state employees are greedy, not accepting pay cuts or furloughs. Knock me over with a feather!

She is the problem. Not the employees. I am a state employee who is NOT (happily) a member of the union. Gregoire wants it both ways; she wants the union votes; she wants to be the budget-balancing heroine without the flack. Lisa Brown “represents” a district that is NOT dominated by union labor so she can be the governor’s shill without costing her re-election.

I don’t want a furlough but believe it is the governor’s job to impose one (or pay cuts) on ALL employees and then stand up and defend it.

Don’t count on it. She is protecting her hoped-for opportunities either as a Federal senator from this state or a Federal cabinet appointment and to do that she must not offend organized labor. To avoid that she has enlisted Lisa Brown.

Another example from Gregoire’s handbook on quality governance

Our Integrity-Impaired Governor Lies Again

Christine Gregoire, the unimaginably dishonest governor of the state of Washington, continues to weave her lies as she postures doom and gloom to justify raising taxes this next year.

This governor cavorts with some of the most obnoxious union thugs in the labor “business” and then blames the greed of state employees for her looming budget woes. This governor’s equally big-labor predecessor, Gary Locke, with a Democrat legislature, passed the state’s first law requiring collective bargaining AND requiring (12th hour insertion in to the contract) ALL non-management employees to belong to the union. Gregoire has had yearly opportunities to submit legislation to reverse that at contract termination, and has not done so.

I am blessed that I am management and thus not a part of the union. These are awful people who have no more interest in the individual members than Enron Execs did of their employees. Gregoire knows this and continues her cavorting; to then blame the employees for her budget woes is an outright lie. Over this last year, she and the bleeders spent $4 BILLION in one-time stimulus funds to balance the budget so they would not have to curtail spending they had put in to place or to offend taxpayers with tax increases. She loves the word "sustainability." How sustainable is THAT?(Thank you, states with balanced budgets for contributing, albeit unwillingly, to our fiscal irresponsibility.) The budget has exploded…and she blames the employees. Wow! What does she smoke! I am fervently anti-union as unions are just one more irresponsible big business working against the public interest but not all the individual employees are greedy (many are). Given the uncertain economy and the uncertainty of the public opinion of the democrats over the next few years she is simply making sure the finger is not pointed at her for the budget woes.

If she means her assertion that employees (she does not say the word “union”) are responsible for our “situation” then we should expect some legislation to curb the goons this next session, beginning in early January.

Unless you look good in blue, I would not hold your breath.

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Tell Laura I Love Her...And Not to Sue

In 1960, Ray Peterson had a #1 hit with the lost-love genre song, “Tell Laura I Love Her.” There were many such songs (huh? Otherwise that would not be a “genre,” Milquetoast!) but that was the only one that ever made me cry.

In the shower, which is where most of my thoughts originate(including those not suitable for publication), I decided that such an accident today would elicit the following litigation and protection from future such horrors, as only the trial lawyers and our government can provide:

1) Laura would sue the race track for the loss of her love and she would win even though the tabloids had already reported that Tommy was “with” other women and was about to leave Laura anyway. The award would be super-sized as she stated during the trial that she hoped to get pregnant so "the accident" cost her Tommy's sperm donation as well. Tommy was not around to rebut that argument.
2) OSHA would hire ten extra staff, at wages far higher than the $1,000 Tommy hoped to win at the racetrack, and spend months investigating the racetrack for safety violations, thereby, in conjunction with Laura’s suit, forcing the race track in to bankruptcy.
3) OSHA would find nothing (but see #5 below) but neither an apology nor a cost reimbursement was in order and would never be tendered…since there COULD have been a violation.
4) Congress rushed to pass a law, with some number of cold and uncaring Republicans dissenting, that in order for any future driver at any racetrack to file for an event, s/he would have to produce a certificate that s/he had taken a course in “defensive high-speed driving.” The fees would be stiff and would be used for drug and sex education in the government-run pre-schools.
5) As OSHA was wrapping up its well-“spun” and widely-publicized investigation, one of that organization’s staff slipped on a slick of some sort and, per protocol, notified the EPA of the mysterious substance. Presuming guilt, the EPA would fine the racetrack several million dollars and place the racetrack on the EPA Superfund. Later, it would be discovered that approximately one gallon of gasoline had been spilled but the spill had (as it so happened) killed a colony of endangered-species ants. The multi-million dollar fine remained in place, $100 for each ant lost in this travesty...and to cover the cost of the efficiently-run investigation
6) The Energy department just to make sure the public never suffered this multi-faceted tragedy again, would cease sales of government-owned gasoline to the racetrack.
7) Consistent with our country's thirst for “change and hope” corporate law was modified retroactively to allow the Feds and Laura to take all personal assets of the now-demonized and reclusive racetrack owners.

The racetrack owners were lucky; they all had heart attacks (that is not the "lucky" part) but health care reform had not yet been implemented so they really did receive quality health care (THAT'S the "lucky" part). Because they had no money the state paid the medical bills. The shame of helping these criminal racetrack owners!

Can you imagine the outcome of “Moody River” or Last Kiss” in a land that has finally learned to enjoy the real value of “change”?

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