The Tax Payers are Tired

I am tired of working for the government. I keep getting taxed more and more. Our government takes our money and spends it foolishly at best. Their party days need to end. We need serious leaders not career politicians. I want the return of the founders vision where people go to Washington for but a season and then return to their personal affairs. These limited exposures to all the money and power could get us a real working government that understands and observes the limits of our constitution.

Maybe we need a new pay system for our leaders. Full payment for service up to two terms and then reduce it by half for every term afterward with no retirement package.

Maybe they need a new itinerary that says they have to spend more time with their constituents then in Washington DC. Perhaps if they had to spend time with those who want them to represent them, we might actually get represented.

Probably the number one thing on our list is stop spending. We can only be bled out so far and I think we have reached that point.

We don't need to raise the debt ceiling we need to cut the legs off of the spending plans.

We don't need to raise the debt ceiling we need to raise employment so more people pay into the system.

We don't need to raise the debt ceiling we need to stop illegal immigration and the massive funding that feeds these leaches on the system.

There are a lot of things that We The People want done. Unfortunately, everyone we elect to do them turns tail. I will say I am rather impressed with our current freshman class in DC. We need to send a few more like them. It is nice to see a politician with a spine and a conscious.

Stop Spending

Is it simply too obvious?

Could the American people make it any plainer?

The CATO Institute did a great job of boiling it all down for us. Please go and review the information and come back.


Our government has gotten bloated with redundancies and special interests. Now is the time to go back and remove all the waste. There are thousands of unnecessary programs and departments that are eating away at our nation. Year after year we send people to Washington DC to address these issues and time after time they have turned a blind eye to these while enacting more bloated wasteful programs.

Have you ever watched someone who is addicted quit cold turkey? We have tried various interventions and weening programs only to find America back on the spending wagon in short order. We must stand now. We must put our foot down and accept the situation for what it is -- bad. For the good of our nation and the future of our children we must stand strong.

Yes, I know there are those who have become dependant on the government programs. Real leaders would be going before our nation and asking charity groups and religious institutions to prepare. They would be sending out notices to those about to lose this crutch to seek other sources. Why should our bloated government that wastes most of its money on layers of bureaucracy be even attempting to do what local charities can do for so much less? This should be a state or community project as our constitution would suggest.

Stand strong and say No More. Our children and grandchildren will thank you. Don't wait for them to ask what you did with their freedom.



Something to think about. It is worth the watch.

Pitty Party

Have you ever done something wrong and then felt so bad about it you tell everyone? I mean you go from person to person with your head hung low and you hand out pity party invitations to all you come in contact with.

It starts off like a high school dance where everyone is a wall flower and nobody gets involved. Then someone secure in themselves or nutty in the head, starts to dance and everyone joins in.

In the case of the pity party, everyone starts slamming you. Suddenly you realize you don't like it and you start getting mad. Now you invited everyone to the party and now you want them to quit and go home. You should have never started this in the first place.

It is all right to feel down when you make mistakes. It is a sign of high moral character when you can admit them. The challenge is doing it in such an way that it breeds learning and future success. Don't let a mistake stop you permanently. How you come back from a set back makes a difference. Failure is an event not a life style.

Science Continues to Solve Life's Problems

I don't know if any of you caught this the other day.

Algae Could Be Key to Cleaning Up Nuclear Accident Sites

Algae can secrete biofuels and pump out biologic drugs, and now researchers think it could help clean up radioactive accidents like the one unfolding at Japan's Fukushima nuclear facility.
A Northwestern University researcher has identified a certain kind of common algae, known as Closterium moniliferum, that has a unique penchant for sequestering strontium into crystals, a trick that could help remove the dangerous radioactive isotope strontium-90 from the environment.
Strontium-90 is particularly hazardous because of its similarity to calcium. Because the two atoms share similar atomic properties, radioactive strontium can end up getting into the same places calcium can, like milk, bones, bone marrow, and blood. But strontium-90 isn't a dominant element in reactor waste -- there is usually billions of times more harmless calcium than strontium in a nuclear spill -- so being able to separate the two is critical for quick and efficient cleanup.
That's where C. moniliferum comes in.


Read more

I find this article to be wonderfully interesting. The possibilities and advantages of using an algae is pretty incredible and wonderful at the same time.

The Truth About Unions

The unions of our parents and grand parents don't exist any longer. No longer is it about the worker. It is now about the Union and only the union.


Why Unions Are Harmful to Workers
By John Lott


Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has finally won his first battle with public employee unions. But the fight against excessive union rights now moves to Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Tennessee.
Of course, union leaders are upset, with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka recently telling PBS’s "News Hour": “This is about [Gov. Scott Walker] trying to take away the rights of workers to come together to bargain . . . .”
But in fact, Governor Walker’s budget will help the vast majority of workers in the state. Mr. Trumka naturally wants to make it appear that he is fighting for workers generally, but that is not the case. He is just fighting for some workers, but he is hurting other workers -- other union workers who are laid off because the state cannot afford them or other workers who are forced to pay higher taxes.
Unions are harmful because they act as monopolies. If the union members won’t work, the law makes it extremely difficult for anyone else to step in and do their jobs. As a result, union workers have little competition -- so they can demand higher wages and do less work.
By threatening to stop work if companies don’t pay employees more, unions force companies to layoff some workers. That hurts some union workers. Unions don't just pit workers against employers. They pit a select group of workers against consumers, stockholders, and other workers. Unions don't even make agreements that are in the interest of all their own workers, just those in the majority, usually just older workers with more seniority.

Suppose demands for higher wages or benefits means 20 percent of unionized workers would be fired. That isn't such a hard decision for a union. Twenty percent of its members will oppose the agreement, but they won't be union members for long. Most of the remaining 80 percent are likely to support the agreement.
Unions also protect seniority, not the most productive workers. When layoffs occur, it is the most recently hired workers who are laid off first.
Recently, there have been cases of teachers’ unions holding lotteries to see who gets laid off. When was the last time you saw a private company make hiring/firing decisions that way?
Union advocates talk about the "right" to collective bargaining, but it is unclear why this "right" trumps the right of other workers to have a job.
In Wisconsin, Governor Scott Walker threatened to lay off 6,000 workers if he wasn't able to get his union bill passed. But Trumka and other union members, over the objections of Wisconsin’s non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, claim that the layoffs are all part of budget trickery, alleging that Wisconsin actually has a budget surplus.
Bad corporate monopolies face competition. By restricting sales and raising prices, other companies see a chance to start producing the product and make profits.
There is a reason why only 6.9 percent of private sector workers are in unions. Unions have tried reduce this competition by representing the workers in an entire industry, such as steel, cars, or coal mining. That way they can raise wages without worrying about non-union companies getting the jobs. But ultimately there is still competition from foreign workers. Unions help ship a lot of would be American jobs overseas.
So how do unions end up representing 36.2 percent of public sector workers? Simply put, they have an additional type of monopoly. Not only do unions have a monopoly in bargaining with the government, the government has a kind of monopoly as well.
Take education. Parents pay for public education through their property and other taxes -- whether they send their kids to public or private schools. Public schools must really be a lot worse than private ones before parents are willing to pay the public school taxes and still pay private school tuition on top of that -- effectively paying twice for school.
In contrast, private schools that kept paying more and more for teachers would quickly find themselves out of business. Not surprisingly, teacher unions not only oppose any weakening in their current rules that they alone represent teachers in any negotiations, but they also strongly oppose anything that would create competition for public schools, whether it be charter schools, vouchers or tax credits.
Gov. Walker was willing to compromise and let public employee unions negotiate over everything: salaries without limit, mandatory overtime, performance bonuses, hazardous duty pay and classroom size for teachers. Yet, he drew the line at pensions, which have accumulated huge unfunded liabilities. At least voters could see the current costs of paying public employees higher salaries, but both politicians and unions have proven untrustworthy over the hidden long-term costs of these retirement payments. But even that was too much for the unions and their Democratic allies.
Wisconsin’s public employee unions have been problematic in another way: high mandatory dues. With union dues of $500 to $1,000, employees have had to give money to unions whether they approved of what they did with the money or not. Walker’s changes finally give government employees the choice of whether they would rather spend their money on something other than unions. The new law doesn’t supersede union contracts that are already in place.
Unfortunately, Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug La Follette, a Democrat, has taken the unprecedented practice of delaying a governor’s request to immediately publish the new law, a requirement that must be met before the law goes into effect. Delaying the publication date until March 25 allows unions and local Democrat officials around Wisconsin rush to pass contract extensions that protect unions from increased contributions to their pensions and health care benefits.
Few would sympathize with a company that raises prices by restricting the amount they produce, let alone supporting the government protecting the monopoly from competition. But unions do that and more, and they only accomplish this through government force.
Well-paid union members shouldn’t be given benefits at the expense of other Americans.


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It's Not Fair

I'm going to take my ball and go home. You guys don't play fair and I ain't going to put up with it.

The new tool of the democrats seems to be elementary and preschool standards we all grew up with. If you can't get your way, you make sure no one else can either. Play yard tactics seem to be the only thing left for the Democratic party. This is evident in Wisconsin and Indiana. I am sure it will be adopted across the US. It has become clearly evident over the years who are the adults in leadership positions.

Apparently the Democrats don't understand how serious the debt issues are for all areas of government. Their focus is only on their dream Utopian ideals that can't be fed the vast sums of cash we don't have to make them happen. They need a reality check and a serious kick in the pants. I hope those of you who have a say over keeping these children in office will make your intentions clear.

We need serious adults who desire the restoration of real American values that work. Sound fiscal disciplines in government and true freedom returned to its citizens will solve much of what ails us. The private sector has demonstrated time and time again that it can and will over come obsticals if government will get out of its way.

Here is a demonstration of that very fact in action today.


So tell the children to get back to the jobs they were sent to do. Stop running and trying to hide. These are real problems that need to be fixed. Yes, there may b e some initial pain but the future for your children is at stake. If you would like to reduce their suffering then cut the spending. It is time for everyone to live within their means, including the government.

Good News about Oil

It is way too late but better then never. That is the way I saw it when I read the following article. We need to do so much more.

New Drilling Method Opens Vast U.S. Oil Fields
Published February 10, 2011


A new drilling technique is opening up vast fields of previously out-of-reach oil in the western United States, helping reverse a two-decade decline in domestic production of crude.
Companies are investing billions of dollars to get at oil deposits scattered across North Dakota, Colorado, Texas and California. By 2015, oil executives and analysts say, the new fields could yield as much as 2 million barrels of oil a day -- more than the entire Gulf of Mexico produces now.
This new drilling is expected to raise U.S. production by at least 20 percent over the next five years. And within 10 years, it could help reduce oil imports by more than half, advancing a goal that has long eluded policymakers.
"That's a significant contribution to energy security," says Ed Morse, head of commodities research at Credit Suisse.
Oil engineers are applying what critics say is an environmentally questionable method developed in recent years to tap natural gas trapped in underground shale. They drill down and horizontally into the rock, then pump water, sand and chemicals into the hole to crack the shale and allow gas to flow up.

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Because oil molecules are sticky and larger than gas molecules, engineers thought the process wouldn't work to squeeze oil out fast enough to make it economical. But drillers learned how to increase the number of cracks in the rock and use different chemicals to free up oil at low cost. "We've completely transformed the natural gas industry, and I wouldn't be surprised if we transform the oil business in the next few years too," says Aubrey McClendon, chief executive of Chesapeake Energy, which is using the technique.
Petroleum engineers first used the method in 2007 to unlock oil from a 25,000-square-mile formation under North Dakota and Montana known as the Bakken. Production there rose 50 percent in just the past year, to 458,000 barrels a day, according to Bentek Energy, an energy analysis firm.
It was first thought that the Bakken was unique. Then drillers tapped oil in a shale formation under South Texas called the Eagle Ford. Drilling permits in the region grew 11-fold last year.
Now newer fields are showing promise, including the Niobrara, which stretches under Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas; the Leonard, in New Mexico and Texas; and the Monterey, in California.
"It's only been fleshed out over the last 12 months just how consequential this can be," says Mark Papa, chief executive of EOG Resources, the company that first used horizontal drilling to tap shale oil. "And there will be several additional plays that will come about in the next 12 to 18 months. We're not done yet."
Environmentalists fear that fluids or wastewater from the process, called hydraulic fracturing, could pollute drinking water supplies. The Environmental Protection Agency is now studying its safety in shale drilling. The agency studied use of the process in shallower drilling operations in 2004 and found that it was safe.
In the Bakken formation, production is rising so fast there is no space in pipelines to bring the oil to market. Instead, it is being transported to refineries by rail and truck. Drilling companies have had to erect camps to house workers.
Unemployment in North Dakota has fallen to the lowest level in the nation, 3.8 percent -- less than half the national rate of 9 percent. The influx of mostly male workers to the region has left local men lamenting a lack of women. Convenience stores are struggling to keep shelves stocked with food.
The Bakken and the Eagle Ford are each expected to ultimately produce 4 billion barrels of oil. That would make them the fifth- and sixth-biggest oil fields ever discovered in the United States. The top four are Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, Spraberry Trend in West Texas, the East Texas Oilfield and the Kuparuk Field in Alaska.
The fields are attracting billions of dollars of investment from foreign oil giants like Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Norway's Statoil, and also from the smaller U.S. drillers who developed the new techniques like Chesapeake, EOG Resources and Occidental Petroleum.
Last month China's state-owned oil company CNOOC agreed to pay Chesapeake $570 million for a one-third stake in a drilling project in the Niobrara. This followed a $1 billion deal in October between the two companies on a project in the Eagle Ford.
With oil prices high and natural-gas prices low, profit margins from producing oil from shale are much higher than for gas. Also, drilling for shale oil is not dependent on high oil prices. Papa says this oil is cheaper to tap than the oil in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico or in Canada's oil sands.
The country's shale oil resources aren't nearly as big as the country's shale gas resources. Drillers have unlocked decades' worth of natural gas, an abundance of supply that may keep prices low for years. U.S. shale oil on the other hand will only supply one to two percent of world consumption by 2015, not nearly enough to affect prices.
Still, a surge in production last year from the Bakken helped U.S. oil production grow for the second year in a row, after 23 years of decline. This during a year when drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the nation's biggest oil-producing region, was halted after the BP oil spill.
U.S. oil production climbed steadily through most of the last century and reached a peak of 9.6 million barrels per day in 1970. The decline since was slowed by new production in Alaska in the 1980s and in the Gulf of Mexico more recently. But by 2008, production had fallen to 5 million barrels per day.
Within five years, analysts and executives predict, the newly unlocked fields are expected to produce 1 million to 2 million barrels of oil per day, enough to boost U.S. production 20 percent to 40 percent. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates production will grow a more modest 500,000 barrels per day.
By 2020, oil imports could be slashed by as much as 60 percent, according to Credit Suisse's Morse, who is counting on Gulf oil production to rise and on U.S. gasoline demand to fall.
At today's oil prices of roughly $90 per barrel, slashing imports that much would save the U.S. $175 billion a year. Last year, when oil averaged $78 per barrel, the U.S. sent $260 billion overseas for crude, accounting for nearly half the country's $500 billion trade deficit.
"We have redefined how to look for oil and gas," says Rehan Rashid, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets. "The implications are major for the nation."


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There Are Those Who Still Believe....In Obamacare

Facts can be pretty stubborn things. Someone finally took a look at the facts and it wasn't pretty.


Paul Ryan: Actually, Obamacare Will Increase Budget Deficit by $700 Billion Over 10 Years
1:02 PM, JAN 6, 2011 • BY JOHN MCCORMACK

Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan said this afternoon that contrary to claims that Obamacare will reduce the deficit, it will actually increase the deficit by roughly $700 billion.


Ryan said this afternoon at the National Press Club that the only reason a Congressional Budget Office letter claims the national health care law will reduce the deficit--i.e. bring in more revenue through tax hikes and Medicare cuts than it spends on Obamacare--is because "the books have been severely cooked"--not by the CBO but by the Democrats who wrote the bill.

"CBO has to score what you put in front of them," Ryan explained. "And if you put a bill in front of them that ignores the discretionary cost of the $115 billion you need to spend to run this new Obamacare program, that double counts the Medicare savings, that double counts the CLASS Act revenue, that double counts the Social Security revenue, that does not count the "Doc Fix"--you add all that stuff up, net it out, we're talking about a $701 billion hole--deficit."

"So if you actually do real accounting, get away the smoke-and-mirrors, get away the budget gimmicks, this thing is a huge deficit-increaser. And so we're not interested in enshrining, and endorsing, and accepting all the budget gimmicks the Democrats used to cram this thing through [Congress]," Ryan continued. "Mark my words: this thing will not reduce the deficit. I am very confident in saying that. They have a piece of paper from CBO that they contorted to suggest that it does. But that's not reality."

Liberals vs. the Constitution

If you swear to uphold the constitution, shouldn't you know what you are promising to do? It seems reasonable to any thinking person for one to read and understand it. I guess if you don't read it you somehow think you aren't responsible for your mistakes? Perhaps we need to add an amendment to the constitution that requires not only reading but test based knowledge of the document to which you are about to swear to uphold.

Liberals vs. the Constitution
By Robert Bluey

For the first time in the 221-year history of Congress, members of the U.S. House today read aloud the U.S. Constitution. It served as an important reminder for lawmakers to reflect on the limits of their authority and the powers delegated to them.

But the mere utterance of “We the people” has set liberals, especially in the news media, into a tizzy. The Washington Post begrudgingly called it the “tea party-ization of Congress.”
In a rant on his MSNBC show last night, Keith Olbermann questioned whether Republicans would even understand what they were reading:

“The reading embraced by new Speaker Boehner but originated by Tea Party original intent, Founding Father worshippers, who think that tomorrow’s reading will somehow part the seas for their vision of the country to emerge. They might be in for a shock tomorrow. That is, if they even understand the words they will read.”

You would think the Constitution was written in Greek, based on Olbermann’s description. In reality, it’s a concise document -- seven articles and 27 amendments -- written in plain English. You can carry it in your pocket.

Vanity Fair suggested the reading alone would cost $1,071,872.87, an absurd estimate based on House salaries and expenses among other things. No word yet from Vanity Fair how much the previous Democrat-controlled House spent on commemorative legislation recognizing "National Pi Day” or honoring golf legend Juan Antonio “Chi Chi” Rodriguez.

Republicans rightfully banned such acts as part of their rules for the 112th Congress. The new rules require lawmakers to cite constitutional authority when they introduce legislation. After today’s reading, expect that to become the Left’s next target.

Rather than celebrate this return to first principles, The New York Times condemned the GOP -- even suggesting the Constitution’s reading was a racist maneuver.

Read The Rest.

Congress discovers the Constitution

I don't know how many of you caught this article but it is well worth the read.

Congress discovers the Constitution

WASHINGTON — January 5, 2011 – The Majority Leadership of the 112th Congress is “going where no Congress has gone before” by reading the actual Constitution and all of its Amendments into the Congressional Record. It obviously has taken a page from my book, The National Platform of Common Sense (page 61 to be exact). You see, if you serve in Congress, you have taken the following oath:

“I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

The ACLU need not be concerned as I’m sure that devout atheists will be allowed to “affirm” to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States” rather than being forced to “swear” to God or invoke His help. Of course, that will all occur after Congress is brought to session with its opening prayer. I guess you can say “Amen” for that tradition.


House Speaker-designate John Boehner of Ohio walks to the floor of the House on Capitol Hill in Washington Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2011. (Photo: Associated Press)

Common sense tells us that if our Congressmen are going to swear (or affirm) to uphold the Constitution, they should at least be familiar with it. In The National Platform of Common Sense, I call for them to be tested on it. Can you imagine what a political catastrophe that would be?

Yet, many political pundits are assailing the reading of the Constitution as political grandstanding. Ezra Klein, a staff writer for The Washington Post and an MSNBC Contributor, recently portrayed the reading as “a gimmick” and stated, “The issue with the Constitution is that the text is confusing because it was written more than 100 years ago and what people believe it says differs from person to person and differs depending upon what they want to get done.”

Perhaps, Mr. Klein and the other naysayers are correct. They are, after all, objective journalists.

The Constitution is actually over 223 years old, so the issue of archaic language may present even a greater obstacle than Mr. Klein suggests. Let’s see: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Hmmmm … other than the spelling of “defence,” the language appears to be reasonably clear.

Go Read The Rest.

Chaos

Life has been moving real fast lately. Problems abound with me needing to deal with them. I expect life to return to some form of order in about a month. Until then I will make an effort as time allows.

Those of you who visit regularly have been much appreciated. The occasional comments good or bad help me stay focused. If you spot something that needs to be talked about, point it out to me. I will dive in. Nothing like a little direction in the chaos.