Rob Long, in the January 25 issue of National Review, had this hilarious article. Rob Long's articles and Mark Steyn's articles, appearing fortnightly, are alone worth the price of the subscription and that's ignoring the rest of the good stuff there:

WHITE HOUSE PRESS BRIEFING

JANUARY 5,2010
EXTRACT: 09:43 TO 10: 17

ROBERT GIBBS: Thank you all for coming. I have just a few housekeeping items. and then a major announcement. Today the president met with his
national -security team and discussed the current situation in Yemen and Iran. Later this morning, he met with his economic-policy team to review measures necessary to stimulate the economy. Later today he'll be on a conference call with members of the House and Senate to discuss pending health-care legislation.

Q: Will he be endorsing a health-care--

ROBERT GIBBS: If I could just finish, Major? Thanks. To continue, the president will speak to the nation tonight, addressing a whole range of topics. In a response to a constellation of issues that have arisen, he'll be declaring an all-out assault by the federal government, equal in scope to Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, or our current War on Terror.

[NOISE] [CROSSTALK]

Q: What will this war be?

Q: Is this a war on--

Q: Wall Street?

Q: On what?

ROBERT GIBBS: Tonight at 9 P.M., Eastern time, President Obama will declare a War on Reality. He will call on all branches of government and volunteer organizations to stand together and fight against reality in all of its forms.

[NOISE] [CROSSTALK]

ROBERT GIBBS: Any questions?

Q: In light of this new War on Reality, is the president planning to make any changes in his anti-terrorism policy in the wake of the so-called Under-Bomber and the lapses in security at Newark airport?

ROBERT GIBBS: Jake, I think this has been covered. But to reiterate: The system in place worked perfectly, except in the specific instance of a bomb-wielding passenger, previously known to us, boarding a transatlantic flight without luggage, paying cash for a one-way ticket, and attempting to murder several hundred persons.

Q: But isn't that... ?

A father watched his young daughter playing in the garden.

He smiled as he reflected on how sweet and pure his little girl was. Tears formed in his eyes as he thought about her seeing the wonders of nature through such innocent eyes.

Suddenly she just stopped and stared at the ground. He went over to her to see what work of God had captured her attention.

She was looking at two spiders mating.

"Daddy, what are those two spiders doing?" she asked.

"They're mating," her father replied.

"What do you call the spider on top?" she asked.

"A Daddy Longlegs," her father answered.

"So, the other one is a Mommy Longlegs?" the little girl asked.

As his heart soared with the joy of such a cute and innocent question he replied, "No dear. Both of them are Daddy Longlegs."

The little girl, looking a little puzzled, thought for a moment, then lifted her foot and stomped them flat.

"Well," she said, "that may be OK in California , but we're not having any of that crap in Texas."

Barack Obama looked in the mirror and noticed that he was white from the neck up. He went to the doctor for a diagnosis.

The doctor gave him a liquid and told him to drink it.

Obama did, and made a face. "That tastes like bullsh*t."

"It is. You were a quart low."

-------

After posting this I realized that, if anyone reads anything I write, this might be construed as a racist joke. That thought didn't even cross my mind until hours after I'd posted it: to me the clincher was the undoubtable fact that Obama = bullshit.

No, I certainly didn't mean anything racist. I am however very much set against the man who is destroying the country I love, and it was that which occasioned this joke.

We all have seen endless signs. The Don't Walk sign. The Children Crossing sign. It seems that we have a new international Obama sign:

To prove that we live in a satire-proof age, I offer the following. I read that Bill Clinton said that Lord Zero has the instincts of a Chicago thug. Indeed he does. And this is doubly remarkable for being the only thing that Bill Clinton has ever said that you didn't have to minutely inspect for a lie.

So, I'm doing some traveling and passed by the entrance to the dungeon that contains one of the most vile creatures in Theo's world....

A friend on another blog reminded me that once I'd written, "A government that knows it can be shot the next day is an accountable government." He's using that to annoy liberals in his Minnesota university. As a pastime annoying student progressives ranks high on my list; I did it often in the 70s. I still recall the spluttering round red face of a pirate named Richard who had designs on my money in college. I didn't get it back but he sure earned it.

Mine line about an accountable government was a throw-away line, of course, but there's truth to it. The EU is run by people who are not accountable. Our czars are not accountable. Since the present government governs entirely against the wishes of the public, it's acting as though it is entirely unaccountable.

The most important trait of anything--human or human organization--is accountability. Or of anything. Would you have even a piece of chattel which didn't serve its purpose? Anything that is not accountable is much loved by the people running it for it saves them the trouble of justifying their actions. Eventually it is resented by people who have not been reduced to sheep, because of its unaccountability because unaccountability is a trademark of the slave society.

We hold American Express accountable, and they do a damned good job as a result. When the phone company was a monopoly, it was not accountable to the customers and we all hated it. We hold Apple accountable, even fanbois do, and as a result they give good products. But our government is entirely unaccountable and the thrust of progressivism is to make individuals unaccountable and groups entirely accountable.

My brother M., who is even more cynical than I am, tells me of a neighboring town, even smaller than this one, which has built a new hospital with a sleep-disorder center in it. A town of about 6,500 people with a sleep-disorder center? M. of course instantly tagged empire-building bureaucrats and thought that the reason for the sleep-disorder center, as opposed to say one for aromatherapy, is that the hospital administrator must have had trouble sleeping at his desk.

We've heard, over and over, about the Icelandic volcano which is spewing ash, causing the closure of European airports. The Urban Dictionary, a reliable source of amusing neologism, calls a clear place that you can fly through an "ash hole."

Roger Kimball is, to my mind, one of the bright lights of conservatism. He's not a yapper like Hannity nor a polemicist like O'Reilly. He's lettered too. His blog is Roger's Rules, on Pajamas Media, and the RSS feed is worth something.

Here's the ultimate paragraph in his post of April 18. (The page I want is redirected; look in the third column under "If global warming doesn't work...")

Naturally, safety must be the airlines' first concern. But solvency is also a concern. And one wonders to what extent the danger posed by these dramatic eruptions from Iceland are exaggerated. When Mount St Helen erupted in 1980, there was a lot of damage and a lot of ash. But air travel in the U.S. was hardly affected. Are the restrictions being imposed in Europe an expression of laudable caution? Or are they an expression of politically motivated hysteria? I'm not sure we have the answer to those questions yet.

This is rather strong meat, to suggest that an entire continent would give over to politically motivated hysteria. But then for the last year we have been subject to nothing but politically motivated hysteria here in America. One of the many casualties of the totalitarians now running the free world* is that I am all too willing to believe anything disreputable that I heard about any government. And surely some government somewhere is not utterly evil, with designs on the property and freedom of its servants.

* Without question there are some countries viler than others. Zimbabwe under Mugabe for one; North Korea. But with the U.S. now in the hands of totalitarians, how much distinction is there now between the free world and the rest of the world? It's no longer a matter of constitution, but of dictator.

A man went into a bar, and it had a robot bartender.


The robot asked, "What will you have?"

The guy, slightly astonished, said, "Martini."

The robot brought back the best martini the man had ever had. After a sip, the robot asked, "What's your IQ?"

The guy said, "168."
The robot then proceeded to talk about physics, space exploration and medical technology.

The guy left, but he was curious. So he went back into the bar the next day. The robot bartender again asked, "What will you have?"

The guy said, "Martini."

Again, the robot made a great martini gave it to the man and said, 
"What's your IQ?"

The guy answered, "100."

The robot then started to talk about Nascar, Budweiser and John Deere tractors. 
 


The guy left, but found it very interesting, so he went back to the bar the next day.

The robot said, again, "What will you have?" 
The guy said, "Martini," and the robot brought him another great martini.

The robot then said, "What's your IQ?" 


Wondering how things would change this time, the guy answered, The guy said, "Uh, about 50.."

The robot leans in real close and said, "So. How's all that Hope and Change working out for you?"

Bruce L. Hargraves, retired sailor from Worland, Wyoming, wrote a letter to the editor:

To the Editor:

I object and take exception to everyone saying that Obama and Congress are spending money like a drunken sailor. As a former drunken sailor, I quit when I ran out of money.

It's well known that the TelePrompTer of the United States is the repository of President Obama's mentation; when it shows the wrong speech, he reads it, with predictable hilarity.

It seems that he may have been lip-synching his speeches too, according to this news clip from The Onion:

Every agency or community that receives State or Federal monies should know that when you don't get an appropriations earmark you have to massage the funding formulas. The EZ-Rider debacle mentioned formulas, but finding out what goes into that formula is another matter. Well, TxDOT publishes transit statistics, and in these reports are discussions about the funding formulas.

Trust me, the numbers are mind-numbing. However, in the part of the FY2008 report some staff member will point out to the political appointees is the gist of the "formula":

Of the funds appropriated by the State of Texas to the 30 Urbanized Bus Systems, each entity got money based on a formula that was weighted at 65% needs and 35% performance.

Needs is easy. You take 65% of the money, and then dole it out based on your area's population percentage of the 30 Urbanized Bus Systems. Since this is based on the Census, unless new urban bus systems come on-line in a budgetary year this is a fixed amount.

Performance is a bit tougher. I'll let the report detail what goes into those numbers:

The state funding formula distributes urban performance funds based on a weighted average of four indicators. The funds are then allocated based on the relative performance of the urban service providers. These four performance-based indicators are:

• Local investment per operational expense
• Unlinked passenger trips per vehicle revenue mile
• Vehicle revenue mile per operational expense
• Unlinked passenger trip per capita (Urban only)

So, things like more local funding improve your local investment score (or hide increased operational expense), while things like runaway overtime kill your local investment score. Also, a drop in fare and advertising revenue kills your local investment score.

The final 3 performance measures suffer when ridership drops or operational efficiency decreases. Negative indicators are things like driving planned routes while empty, fewer passengers per capita and rising costs per mile driven (caused by things like overtime).

However, looking at the FY2008 report, EZ-Rider was better than average in most of these categories. So, I speculate there are a couple of reasons why the State dropped their "Formula Funding" of EZ-Rider:

1) The State implemented a 5% across the board funding decrease for all programs, so every Bus System took at least a 5% hit, regardless of performance measures.

2) EZ-Rider's performance has been dropping relative to other systems in terms of ridership, efficiency and financial performance. This is supported by decreased ridership, lower fee collections and runaway operational expenses (mainly overtime).

So, Odessa may have reduced their funding by $15,000 this year, but it could have been easily made up by $15,000 in advertising revenue, fares, or operational savings and not affected the funding formula. Instead EZ-Rider has most likely spilled enough red ink to negatively impact the State allocation for years to come. So, a local bailout has implications now, and in the future.

Here's my takeaway from all of this:

EZ-Rider has been in control of their own destiny in terms of the "Funding Formula." Increase ridership, more State money. Increase fare collections, more State money. Decrease operating expenses, more State money. When you fail to do all three of these for the past couple of years you cannot come to the Cities of Midland and Odessa and ask for more local money to cover your shortfalls and improve the formula for future years.

It's always wonderful when the totalitarian mask slips and gives the world an unrestricted view of what lot of us have known about the left for decades. They're not for "the little people"; they're for complete, grinding control of everything and they become hysterical when you challenge one of their articles of faith.

And so it it now. This time it's one of the most self-righteous left-wing organizations with the bad press. It's Greenpeace and I find it very funny indeed.

Greenpeace has a blogger named Gene, who is undergoing some existentialist angst over the meltdown in the anthropogenic global-warming scam. To these True Believers, the leaked emails (the CRUtape Letters) are like having the Pope come across what had to be the bones of Christ or Achmed happening on a hadith which said, "Be nice to people and quit killing them."

Fascist Gene of Greenpeace snarls

"Let's talk about what that mass civil disobedience is going to look like.

If you're one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this:

We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work. And we be many, but you be few.

You think I am kidding? Read it and weep, baby. Read it and weep.

Still, the economic development news of this day was the Apache deal. According to the economic development agreement, Apache has leased 48,000 square feet of office space [Has leased? I guess they were pretty confident that the MDC was going to come through with that critical set of incentives, huh? -- Ed.] and anticipates creating a minimum of 51 jobs with "annual salaries and wages" totaling $5 million.

The MDC will provide Apache a pair of interest-free forgivable loans of $125,000 in both May 2011 and 2012.

Perry cited regional competition inside the economic development arena as a reason for the deal with a corporation the size of Apache. Perry said the city of Andrews was putting together its own package to offer Apache to house its regional headquarters. The Andrews offer, he said, included a building and tax incentives.

"What would have been worse is Andrews wins the deal and Apache moves to Andrews," Perry said. "How would that make us look?"

[Snip]

"Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars seemed to be reasonable help," Perry said. "It would have been a bad deal if they went to Andrews because Andrews gave them the better incentive."

Andrews. Let that sink in for a little bit. Andrews.

The official line is that two cash prizes forgivable loans given to Apache by the Midland Development Corporation in the amount of $125,000 each, the first to be given in May of next year and the second to be given in May of 2012 saved the day for Midland by keeping Apache from going to......Andrews. Andrews, which doesn't have the office space nor the housing inventory.

Andrews, which also doesn't happen to be the town in which several Apache transferees have *cough* already purchased homes.

How do you even say this with a straight face? Had they come out and said something like, "You know what? We know Apache is coming here anyway but this money is just sitting in the bank doing nothing and Apache will at least spend it on something so, what the Hell,....why not give it to them?", it would have been more acceptable.

At the very least it would not have been insulting.

When Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as president of the United States over a year ago, he was the most powerful black man the world had ever seen. He was the most powerful person that the world had ever seen.

More than a year later Barack Obama has been complicit in, and in service to, economic policy so ruinous that the Chinese have warned us not to spend so much. Vladimir Putin has warned us against walking down the road to Marxism, telling us that government cannot solve every problem. Only a progressive or totalitarian, but I repeat myself, would still believe in government's unlimited power.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France, warned Obama of the dangers of appeasement. The president of France warning against appeasement? This is like Colonel Sanders warning against fried chicken.

Last the year a Mardi Gras in Germany had a float of Obama, flying like an angel, dragging Europe, tugging his robe, along with him. This year the same parade had this angel fallen to earth, upside down.

Perhaps the most common question asked of me in the last five years was whether or not I had an iPad ordered. I decided not to get one. Why? I don't need it. I travel with a 17" MacBook Pro and have an iPhone; I have a 24" iMac at work and at home. Why get an iPad?

Why did I get an iPhone? I didn't need it. But Misti, an assistant, got one, and after 30 seconds in my hand I had a moment of such overmastering technolust that I had an iPhone ordered in 15 minutes.

A friend sent me to a link to an article by Stephen Fry in Time. Don't worry about clicking on the link; I've done it twice and my computer hasn't picked my pocket yet, even the article is in Time, the silliest of the supposedly respectable magazines. Fry has done some wonderful work in television, and my favorite is as Jeeves in the Wodehouse classics. He's a good deal more self aware than the normal celebrity type so I tend to read and listen to him.

It seems, however, that the Bookstore will have serious content suppression:

I think what really made me press the order button though was some wag's definition of what Microsoft will release

Microsoft's answer to the iPad is the "Technical Automatic Material Peripheral Onboard Notebook," or TAMPON. Coming real soon.

Representative Hank Johnson, a Democrat (of course) from Georgia, grills the military about Guam.

"Do you worry that [Guam] will become so heavily populated that it will tip over and capsize?" I hope I got that right; I was laughing so hard that I cannot review it. My stomach muscles won't let me.

Rep. Johnson serves on the House Armed Services and Judiciary Committees.

According to the MRT, it seems EZ Rider is $170,000 in the hole, and guess who they want to bail them out, you guessed it, the Taxpayers of Midland and Odessa.

In a rare episode of fiscal conservatism, Councilman John James held the line on the City's Contribution:

Esparza suggested asking the cities of Midland and Odessa to increase their contributions of $235,000 each, but Midland City Councilman John James shook his head to say no, that isn't feasible in this year of budgetary constraints.

Now, they say the issue is overtime and scheduling. This isn't new. According to the Odessa American, they were having this problem in 2008 because of low local unemployment. Either some Board Members need to be replaced or the General Manager needs to be canned if they can't get a handle on overtime repeatedly busting their budget.

I forget, we are talking the government. Poor performance in the realm of budgets doesn't always get you canned. Maybe everyone was waiting on the $3,949,578 in Stimulus Funds which is going to be used on "Bus, Amenities, Scheduling purchases" to fix the schedules and prevent all this overtime they haven't been able to trim for a couple of years now.

I do have to take a issue with the statement from TxDOT because it doesn't stack up with the figures from the National Transit Database:

Ex-officio bus board member Alfredo Gonzales of the Texas Department of Transportation said state funding "is formula driven," having been lowered from $500,000 to $446,000 last year because the cities had reduced their support from $250,000 each. The district gets most of its funding from the Federal Transit Administration.

FY 2009 isn't on the FTA's site, but the City of Midland's 2009 and 2010 budgets each allocate $235,000 for their half of EZ Rider, so I'm not seeing where TxDOT gets off saying the Cities reduced their support from $250,000 each, they have never provided $250,000 each, and what they did provide has stayed the same. However, as you can see from above TxDOT has been scaling back their payments for two years now. (Source: Where the Money Goes TxDOT Site).

That $60,000 cut in state funds doesn't cover the mismanagement of overtime, but TxDOT has no business telling the taxpayers of Midland and Odessa their Councils have "cut" local funding and that is the reason the TxDOT formula is providing less money, the numbers (and the State's 5% mandatory agency budget cuts this year) don't support that statement.

Which leads into the point I have been making ever since I posted my first analysis of EZ Rider on the Well:

How long will EZ Rider stay in operation if the State and Federal Monies that comprise the lion's share of the "operating revenue" drop and the Cities have to significantly increase their share to keep EZ Rider operating?

Councilman James has the first reaction, but I guess we're going to find out pretty quickly.

Update: First a word about the contributions from each City. Midland's budget and CAFR clearly show the amount given to EZ Rider from the general budget. Odessa's budget lumps the EZ Rider payment into a line item that includes all their required matching funds for all their federal grants. Basically, I couldn't find a source to show Odessa's contribution, thus the italics. I say this because the paper is reporting that Odessa gave $250,000 last year. So, they add $15,000 in 2009 and TxDOT cuts $6,000. In 2010 they take that $15,000 back and TxDOT cuts another $50,000.

Second, it seems the General Manager is being moved on in the McDonald Transit structure. So you could say a head was shuffled for all the red ink.

When Obama died, George Washington met him at the Pearly Gates. He slapped him across the face and yelled, "How dare you try to destroy the nation I helped conceive?"

Patrick Henry approached, punched him in the nose and shouted, "You wanted to end our liberties but you failed."

James Madison followed, kicked him in the groin and said, "This is why I allowed our government to provide for the common defense!"

Thomas Jefferson was next, beat Obama with a long cane and snarled, "It was evil men like you who inspired me to write the Declaration of Independence."

The beatings and thrashings continued as George Mason, James Monroe and 66 other early Americans unleashed their anger on the radical, socialist, leader.

As Obama lay bleeding and in pain, an Angel appeared. Obama wept and said, "This is not what you promised me."

The Angel replied, "I told you there would be 72 Virginians waiting for you in Heaven. What did you think I said?"

The last highlighted paragraph here illustrates the whole problem with the mindset of a committed "economic developer", i.e. the market isn't doing what we want so the market must be wrong.

Plus, it is a false choice. "Doing nothing" in this case should more properly be described as not getting in the way of "supply and demand" or, as some would call it, the free market. This is the default choice of 90% of those pushing the ED Sales Tax as long as we are talking about anything other than the ED Sales Tax. "Doing something" in this case means initiating an increase in taxes and creating at least two new layers of bureaucracy all so six unelected officials can...um...correct the mistakes of market participants by re-routing your tax dollars into private companies in sufficient levels for them to see the error of their ways.

"The economic development plan and sales tax is a 'stabilization plan', designed to attract businesses from other industries to relocate here, help diversify the economy and reduce our dependence on the oil and gas sector."

I guess the 'Stabilization Plan' was Plan A and resides squarely under the bus with Plans B and C. We are now at Plan D (MDC Image Rehab) which is why we are subsidizing parking garages for oil industry service company giant Basic Energy Services and slipping Apache Corporation some money to buy something pretty for themselves. If you think that perhaps Plan D might represent a clear re-purposing of the of ED Sales Tax funds as originally stated then you lack...you know..."vision".

".....and spending in the community like construction, materials, supplies, services, etc."

Remember: Washington Stimulus Package: Bad! Midland Stimulus Package: Good!

"All investments will be based on performance-based criteria."

[Snip]

"These investments will be paid back should the company not meet its obligations."

Again, the City Council has before it several decisions that will tell us whether that is indeed the case.

"In all cases, Midland will receive more than we will invest in any company."

Let us pretend that it is still 2001 and we don't have access to piles of evidence to the contrary that we have now. The campaign for an ED Sales Tax is still essentially a prospectus for an investment, is it not? Now can you imagine what your reaction would be if you saw this statement contained in any other prospectus? In the world of real investments they actually have laws against saying this kind of stuff. In the Land of ED, Unicorns, and Magic Fairy Dust? No problem. Zero risk in any and all ventures you say? Why, only an Aginner could be against that. Or a Midland hater.

• Part I: If we don't pass this tax, then the Terrorists will have won!
• Part II: This economic development stuff is easy!
• Part III: We will use this money to diversify the economy. Except when we don't.
• Part IV: Government bailouts? No problem!
• Part V: Naysayers! They have no vision!"
• Part VI: That Free Market thing? That's like sooooo Reagan. We're smarter than that now.

SHOCKA! The Rockhounds want us to buy them more goodies. This time around it is an indoor batting cage.

Midland RockHounds General Manager Monty Hoppel said he is "getting a lot of pressure from the home club" for a $325,000 indoor batting cage, which he said most other Class Double-A teams have. The RockHounds are affiliated with the Oakland A's.

Think about all of the millions that the taxpayers have spent subsidizing the local minor league baseball club. We have shelled out for a brand new stadium complex and countless smaller items from additional skyboxes to scoreboard upgrades.

And still we get veiled threats.

Actually, that isn't right.

It wasn't veiled at all.

"Official" Midland has done all that it should at this point. If the Rockhounds need more then the marginal costs should be borne by those actually attending the games. If public demand is extremely elastic and is very sensitive to an increase in ticket prices then take that as the demand signal from the marketplace that it is.

The City doesn't have an obligation to furnish baseball.

(More at Newsroom Stew)

This morning I was listening to Bill Bennett's Morning in America on XM Radio 166, and was astonished at the news. Bennett was having a conversation with Senator Rick Santorum, who was talking about the groundswell of opinion against Obamacare. There is a rumor that internal polling is such that the Obama White House is worried not only about Congressional losses in 2010 but also about a Presidential loss in 2012. The idea, which is much resisted, is that the best way to avoid this would be to back out most, if not all, of the health-care bill.

Partisan Democrats like Harry Reid will have none of it, of course, because too much statism is not enough. Nor of course will Nancy Pelosi. Still, there are enough Democrats, I heard, who behind closed doors are worried about their political careers that there is some emerging consensus toward repealing at least some of the worst parts of the health-care bill.

The shocking scuttlebutt is the whiff of hearsay that Obama himself will reintroduce the health-care bill and lobby five Senators to vote against it this time. Five, of course, in parlous districts.