Welcome Green Tire Systems!

According to the MDC Agenda for this Friday, July 30, 2010, representatives of Green Tire Systems are going to make a presentation to the MDC board.

So, who is Green Tire Systems? Let's check out a June 10, 2010 story in the Niagra-Gazette:

NIAGARA FALLS -- An international tire-recycling operation is considering opening its first U.S. factory here.

Green Tire Systems LLC has operated tire recycling factories in China and Taiwan the past decade. The owners of a patented process for reducing tires to original elements -- oil, carbon black, steel and gases -- established a North American division this past January and is scoping out factory sites around the United States.

According to the above news story, Green Tire Systems Economic Development Application and Green Tire Systems Economic Development Project Summary, (filed with the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency), they are seeking the normal array of tax breaks, abatements and financing from the NCDIA for the promise of $18 million in capital improvements and 50 jobs.

I do have to hand it to the local paper for printing the obvious goal (at least to us ED watchers) of the Green Tire pitch men:

Green Tire is fishing for best offers of incentives to open its first U.S. factory; it has been in discussion with economic development agents in Odessa, Texas, while also talking with NCIDA, Plum said.

"It's not a race between cities, we're just looking for the right opportunity and the right place" to launch U.S. operations, he hastened to add.

From another report, the company could be planning to operate at both sites, and they are just pitting the offers against each other for the "Right" to be the first facility and have each community make ever increasing comparable offers:

Plum said Green Tire is talking to officials in Odessa, Texas, about opening another plant there. It would be able to handle up to 40,000 tons of tires a year, twice the planned capacity of the Niagara Falls plant.

This is like the daughter of the flower shop owner having two boys compete for her affections by buying her ever more expensive flowers for the right to take her to Home Coming this fall while the "loser" gets to take her to the Prom in the spring.

So why is Green Tire Systems coming to the MDC when by all reports they are making an application to the ODC? Do you think it is about the money in the bank?

Personally, I like the concept of the company, if the process is all it is advertised to be, I just don't know why our local tax dollars have to support them setting up shop here. Say what you will, this venture is a gamble. There are environmental permits to obtain and their process has only recently scaled up in Taiwan and China. Then there is the matter of another tire recycling venture that is already probing the Economic Waters of Odessa.

If you're curious, here's the principal investor in Green Tire Systems.

Answer: 1929.

Victor Davis Hanson, wonderfully written and enlightening as usual.

We are now in relationship to 2008, as 1938 was once to 1929 -- lots of programs, still no jobs. The debt not just bothers, but embarrasses, us all. The reset button "he did it" foreign policy is unseemly, like the perpetual error-prone shortstop who complains about the pebbles on the playing field left from yesterday's game. Independents, without any help from Beck, Drudge, and Hannity, are tired of the play of the race card for wanting the federal immigration law to apply to everyone regardless of race. The voters are tired of a nonstop 2008 campaign mode in which the president keeps demonizing everyone from surgeons to wealthy people, while asking these various groups to pay more taxes to fund various redistributive plans -- in pursuit of an agenda (stimulus, more taxes, amnesty, cap and trade) that polls about 45% (and this from a president who in 2005-6 ridiculed Bush for pushing Social Security reform in the face of negative polls).

Read the whole thing.

Stay angry.

Would that I were the author of this, but I'm not.

I do not like this Uncle Sam,

I do not like his health care scam.

I do not like these dirty crooks,

or how they lie and cook the books.

I do not like when Congress steals,

I do not like their secret deals.

I do not like this speaker, Nan,

I do not like this 'YES WE CAN.'

I do not like this spending spree,

I'm smart, I know that nothing's free.

I do not like your smug replies,

when I complain about your lies.

I do not like this kind of hope.

I do not like it, nope, nope, nope!

A boffo article at Pajamasmedia by Roger Kimball.

Wealth. Health. Security. Freedom. "Conceived in liberty" - remember Lincoln's words? As you stand at the helm of the Ship of Statism, is it gratifying to witness the many ways your administration has blighted the liberty and freedom of Americans? You're in the process of making them poorer, so they will have less wherewithal with which to negotiate life's vicissitudes. You've made them more subject to the state in matters large and small: when it comes to their health care, to the kinds of cars they drive, even the sorts of light bulbs they may use.

Read it all. Stay angry.

A tasty tidbit from the tribune of Far Eastern California, the Denver Post:

We endorsed Obama in 2008, believing his plans for the fragile economy and frozen financial markets were superior to John McCain's erratic ideas. But we also hoped he would restore the nation's reputation with the rest of the world. But instead of being vilified, as we were under Bush, the United States is now suddenly bordering on being irrelevant.

Yep. That nails it. Emphais mine. Disaster ours. Failure his.

Read the whole thing, but don't waste your time on the comments. My blood pressure is just now coming back down toward its normal 140 over 110.

When you get this level of criticism from one of The Won's lappiest of lapdogs, you know things are turning.

Stay angry until November!

A couple of days ago Walsingham opined that our stadium marketers couldn't even hang on to "Thunder in the Desert."

I theorized that the loss of Thunder in the Desert was probably due to:

those Midland High Band boosters / directors who coordinated it in the past have moved on and the organization was ill prepared to continue after that loss of leadership.

I seem to be correct that the Midland High team that hosted this event folded for some reason, and left the field wide open for another host to grab the slot:

According to Dojahn, "I called Drum Corps International and asked, "Where did the show go? They said no one wanted to host it. I said you have a school now. OHS wants to sponsor it. They sent the contracts, we signed them and the rest is history."

For an enterprise such as the Stadium Complex, which is supposed to be marketed by SEAM and the Chamber for the benefit of the City and MISD, the loss of an event that was a fund raiser for an MISD band program and a money making event for the Stadium comes across as a real lack of leadership. Especially when Odessa didn't even have to out bid Midland, they just had to pick up the unwanted contract.

I know from personal experience that these types of events take lots of volunteer input to pull off, but you would think the paid professionals that are concerned with the utilization of the facilities would step in and shore up the volunteers to keep viable events coming to the Stadium.

With the 4B board and council advertising for a "professional" firm to market the sports complex and events like this vanishing, it makes you wonder how much real effort has gone into the marketing of the complex since it opened.

Based on my recollection of media reports over the years, excuses about MISD's & the Rockhound's scheduling control and other factors seem to dominate success in marketing the complex. Makes you wonder who's paying the freight on the Stadiums?

I think we've pretty much wasted about $63,000~$80,000 on marketing support through the CVB PLUS $25,000~$50,000 in advertising all these years.

UPDATE: I just realized that the Lynard Skynard / Pat Green Concert is going to be out at Christensen Stadium. You remember that place, it was one of the venues that *had* to be replaced to attract things like, stadium shows.

Still I do know that some of the organizers of the Cinco de Mayo celebrations in California suggested that the celebrants leave a lot of the radical stuff at home because he realized that they were treading on thin ice.

But are they? Perhaps not. It'll be a race to see if America can overthrow our American-contemning statists in Washington before they can so change the very fabric of our civilization that America disintegrates.

Aristotle wrote that it is entirely possible for a group of people to steal control of a framework of government so that its structure looked very much the same but its essential character has been completely undermined and it is now run by a clique of deeply undemocratic people, and for their benefit only.

We are seeing how that works.

Greg Gutfield is the host of Red Eye, which appears at 2 AM on Fox News. If you haven't seen it, it's very funny and irreverent, and some of the jokes that Greg makes used to make me turn red--and he's evidently straight and married. Amusing that he's doing better at 3 AM on the east coast than most of MSNBC does in prime time. To give MSNBC credit though, they did invent Smellovision. I can smell the nut fudge cooking beneath the skulls of the people in front of the camera.

Gutfeld has come out with The Bible of Unspeakable Truths. Short pieces, few over one page, and most of them are rather pithy. I'm halfway through the book and have noted 20 good articles on an inside page. And you can read a page or two online at Amazon.

One example: he loves corporations. Exxon in 2007, according to Gutfeld, paid $30 billion in taxes, which is the same amount of taxes that the lowest 50% of income-tax-paying people in America paid. He points out the enormous cash that corporations bring into our economy and thinks we all them a big, wet, sloppy kiss.

And he's right. I've dilated about rat-bastard capitalism before, at perhaps too much length, and I have over the weekend found even more reason to hate AT&T, not that I had run out. But still, I can fire AT&T, if I don't want an iPhone or 3G on the iPad. And I cannot fire anything that comes from Washington.

Gutfeld has good common sense, and he has completely seen through the left's sodden pieties, and he's funny. This is the perfect toilet book.

Because, you know, in 2010 something called the Young Men's Christian Association is just waaaaaaay too churchy. Or something.

And probably sexist, too.

The national organization denies it, of course. But that is what it is.

If you have ever had the occasion to wade through the explanations provided by the Church of Economic Development on how they go about determining which companies are deemed worthy of corporate welfare and which are not, you will remember that the process, as described by them, sounds almost like a combination of higher-level science and hard, hard financial analysis.

In fact, the process of determining to whom and how much of our....um....municipal affections would go was described as being so extensive and so disciplined that any company that was lucky enough to begin getting public assistance would only be doing so under an agreement that was ironclad in it's protection of the taxpayer. Further, the level of subsidies would be tied to the number of jobs created and maintained using a formula that calculated the risk v. reward and the return on investment down to the last red cent. The. Last. Red. Cent. I mean, it was all done by Certified Economic Developers! The best kind!

At this point we are aware that the City Council has, with a unaminous vote and two abstentions, rendered clawback provisions and iron-clad agreements protecting the taxpayers as somehow passe', if not altogether obsolete.

But what about the damned-near hard science of calculating the proper balance of corporate welfare incentive money to jobs created? Surely they got that right. I mean, it's just a mathematical equation, right?

Right?

So how come every time one of these deals fails to meet the performance requirements spelled out in the original agreements, the same people who assure us that they know exactly how to calculate the proper level of incentives never fail to tell us that, sure, "Company A" was supposed to create 115 jobs....and, sure, they have only created 25....but it is still a good deal!"

It is always salaries and property taxes paid this, and economic impact that, etc., etc. It is how the Trace deal is being spun and it is how the collapse of the Mother-of-All ED Deals, Cingular, was spun.

Here's a hint: When any numbers you plug in to "The Formula" all end up with "ED Success Story!!!" as the result, it is a pretty good indication that there is no actual formula.

Alternate Headline: None dare call it a "Bailout".

From MyWestTexas.com:

Midland Development Corp. directors voted Friday to revise their jobs creation and $325,000 incentives deal with Trace Engines and resubmit it to the City Council.

The plan calls for Trace, with 23 employees at its 3000 W. Interstate 20 plant, to maintain at least 25 full-time jobs each year through 2016 with the positions averaging $59,123 in annual salary. (Note to Mr. Campbell: When asking about "average" annual salary amounts, please ask these companies for both the mean and median income figures. -- Ed.)

On April 13, the council had declined to lower the company's target from 114 jobs to 25. Hatley, though, said council members had indicated during an executive session this Tuesday that the new terms would be acceptable.

So there it is. A dog bites man story if there ever was one. The fact of the matter is that the combination of decision makers, ED proponents, and beneficiaries of corporate welfare are so completely inbred that the trigger was/is never going to be pulled on Trace Engines no matter what.

Think I am kidding? Try cross referencing Trace investors, current and former city councilmen, and former and current Chamber board members and decide for yourself if anything that was done here can be called an "arm's length transaction."

Now for the comedy gold. Any time there are attempts to rationalize a train wreck there will be much hilarity to be found.

Second Runner Up:

"I think most of us will be fine as long we achieve something that protects jobs and at the same time lives up to the basic concepts of the agreement."

You mean the amended agreement, right?

First Runner Up:

"I think the council should support the agreement because it will be a good contract with the new amendment. The protections are still in place."

Not those old and busted protections that we declined to enforce. We mean the new and improved protections that won't be enforced by our successors on the MDC board either, should it come to that.

First Place:

..." the MDC and council have since gained a better understanding of aviation...."

Taxpayers, finding themselves now pantsless and bent over a barrel, are about to gain some understanding of their own.

This is kind of cool, though. The actual agreement is posted on MyWestTexas.com. More like this, please!

For more on the history of and justifications for an Economic Development Sales Tax...and an insight on just how far off off the rails the High Priests of the Church of ED have gone see:

• 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.

"We believe that Mom would say she was mortified to have taken a large role in the election of Harry Reid to U.S. Congress. Let the record show Charlotte was displeased with his work. Please, in lieu of flowers, vote for another more worthy candidate."

...and send that flower money to their campaign.

Whole thing here.

Cage Fighting?

Roberts-Spence's goal is to have the center host 200 events a year and have it be a sought-after venue. Although performances are still a year away from being booked, she hopes the center will feature everything from Broadway and local productions to mariachis, jazz and cage fighting.

Like every other venue project we all knew the utilization hyperbole had to begin sometime.

I wonder if there is a consultant's report behind all the bravado?

Cage Fighting at the Performing Arts Center must compliment the Antioch Christian Church Choir, all those Black Tie Events and High School Dances that are sure to be on the 200 event agenda. Previous consultants told us those things were looking for a multi-million dollar home.

Since the money has already been appropriated from University of Texas tuition bonds, local taxpayers and various benefactors, I wish the PAC all the success, but somebody from the 4B needs to give a heads up to the PAC spokesman before she keeps putting out quotes like this:

"My goal is to have people drive from Dallas and have to be here for an 8 o'clock curtain call because they couldn't see (the attraction playing here) in Dallas."

If I lived in Dallas, I can think of lots of other places I can be in 5 hours to see a show that isn't playing in town:

US Airways 1596 10:50 am Depart Dallas (DFW) Arrive New York (LGA) 4:58 pm.

Nine of 10 respondents said they favor the continued public financing of new sports stadiums, but only if the old ones are imploded in an elaborate pyrotechnic display that everyone can watch from reclining chairs as AC/DC's "Highway To Hell" blasts in the background.

How to REALLY waste the stimulus money. More here.

OK...yeah...so we need to rent bleachers and set them up along the access road for the Loop and put rows of Lay Z Boyz in the parking lots...the citizenry can take the chairs home if they have made a "contribution" of 10 bucks...

President Barack Obama today held a press conference stating his plans for NASA.

I will direct my NASA to stop all research on another flight to the moon. We would never consider disturbing the nesting season of the cockle-throated sapsucker or the spawning season of the stickle-back minnow.

This is the nesting season for moonbats and therefore it is imperative that we not disturb their incubation. Once they are incubated properly, they will be strong enough to populate the media, academe, and my administration. But until that time, no more landing on the moon.

NASA's luster began to fade when it started in on the religious chant of global warming, global warming, global warming. Twenty years ago a spokesman for NASA snorted and said that there was no global warming, and that was before the fifteen-year cooling period that even Phil Jones, the utterly discredited liar at the University of East Anglia, admits we're in right now. So NASA is going along with the AGW scam. This is galling for anyone or anything. It is particularly irritating when it's an agency which is supposed to be dedicated to science. It's a bit like finding out that your surgeon, the kind Dr. Smith, is really Hannibal Lecter.

In keeping with his policy of destroying everything proud and good about America, Barack Obowma first killed our space exploration and then he nominated General Charles Bolden to be NASA's administrator.

General Bolden gives us this:

When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he (Obama) charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering,

NASA has no business in making any people feel good about themselves. Their business is getting payloads into orbit, and science is notably uncaring about the feelings of the people it interacts with.

But then why not make Muslims feel good about themselves? Let NASA develop a new jet cockpit which doesn't even require flying lessons in Phoenix.

I was sitting around having beers with some friends the other night, when the usual conversational topics of music and movies were raised. As we talked about what albums and films we'd consumed lately (and whether or not we had liked them), my buddy Ryan mentioned that a former Midlander, a twenty-something named Jackson Rathbone, has a starring role in the new M. Night Shyamalan film The Last Airbender, currently playing in theaters.

The more I thought about it, the more the name Rathbone sounded familiar to me for some reason. So I went to IMDB and looked up Jackson Rathbone's bio. That's when I made the connection: Monroe Jackson Rathbone (the actor's full name) is one of the teens who got arrested back in 2002 here in Midland for setting another kid on fire and videotaping it in trying to emulate the old MTV series, Jackass.

From Wikipedia:

2002 arrest in 'Jackass'-style teen burning stunt

In July 2002, Rathbone, along with two other teenagers, was arrested in Midland, Texas on assault charges for allegedly dousing then 17 year-old Jonathan Perry with lighter fluid and setting him ablaze in a stunt intended to replicate the MTV television series, 'Jackass' [16]. According to reports in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Perry was a willing participant in the stunt and sustained 3rd-degree burns to 60 percent of his body [17]. Rathbone and the other teens videotaped Perry as he burned. Perry survived, but was horribly disfigured.

In October of that year, a Midland County (TX) Grand Jury declined to indict Rathbone and the other teens, Eva Marie Cedillo and Casey Tim Owens. It was reported that Perry specifically requested to the court that no criminal charges be pursued. [18]

It certainly is a small world, and an ironic one at that. Here I've been, diligently paying attention to my karma for the past 30 years in an effort to bring good things my way, and meanwhile one of Midland's infamous "Jackass" pack ends up a movie star.

Hmm, maybe I've been doing things all wrong. Perhaps if I drown a few puppies and beat up an old lady or two, I'll finally get that spot on World Series of Poker I've been lusting for.

Another internet bit of fun. I believe General McChrystal's resumé utterly; I don't believe that this man has padded it.

The biography of General McChrystal

Commander, International Security Assistance Force/
Commander, United States Forces Afghanistan
United States Army
SOURCE OF COMMISSIONED SERVICE: USMA EDUCATIONAL DEGREES
United States Military Academy - BS - No Major
United States Naval War College - MA - National Security and Strategic Studies
Salve Regina University - MS - International Relations
MILITARY SCHOOLS ATTENDED:
Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced Courses
United States Naval Command and Staff College
Senior Service College Fellowship Harvard University
FOREIGN LANGUAGES:
Spanish
PROMOTIONS DATE OF APPOINTMENT:
2LT 2 Jun 76
1LT 2 Jun 78
CPT 1 Aug 80
MAJ 1 Jul 87
LTC 1 Sep 92
COL 1 Sep 96
BG 1 Jan 01
MG 1 May 04
LTG 16 Feb 06
GEN 11 Jun 09
FROM TO ASSIGNMENT:
Nov 76 Feb 78 Weapons Platoon Leader, C Company, 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Feb 78 Jul 78 Rifle Platoon Leader, C Company, 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Jul 78 Nov 78 Executive Officer, C Company, 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Nov 78 Apr 79 Student, Special Forces Officer Course, Special Forces School, Fort Bragg, North Carolina

A guy, having no real accomplishments, nonetheless writes two autobiographies by age 46.

Admit it. It really is kind of weird, huh?

The headline reads: "Want economic stimulus? Don't build a sports stadium."

Although, the headline may have been incomplete. Perhaps it was supposed to say, "Don't build a sports stadium that doesn't have a really sweet batting practice cage."

But then again, maybe not.

For many years the "economic boom" idea of building stadiums seemed to make sense and city after state pumped billions of taxpayer's dollars into such projects. But starting in the early 2000s, economists began to have enough data to show that the claims of beneficial end result of building stadiums was not as advertised.

In fact, these days economists that disagree amongst each other about so much have developed a wide consensus based on the belief that sports teams in and of themselves are not great economic engines for a city and that building giant new stadium complexes are not the automatic boon to the area such as they were sold.

The reason that these stadiums are not as great an investment as previously thought is threefold according to Andrew Zimbalist, the Robert A. Woods professor of economics for Smith College and renowned sports economist. Zimbalist spoke in early 2009 to Freakanomics author, Stephen J. Dubner in the pages of The New York Times.

For one thing, Zimbalist says, the money that will be spent on the events held at the new sports arena or stadium is money spent by local residents. This is not new money but money that would simply have been spent on other entertainment in the metropolitan area if the stadium didn't exist. Secondly, the big money that goes to players, owners and investors does not stay in the area but is invested elsewhere. Third, the city or state is often chipping in up to a third of the continuing costs and this is tax money wasted, not revenue made.

Of course, everyone involved with our own "Lemon Bowl" knew this to be true almost instinctively. But since this involved spending OPM (Other People's Money) the usual fiscal constraints (and restraints) did not apply. At that point, emotions and ego take over and a decision that should have been based on "Does this really make economic sense?" became "Don't we want a stadium that Midlanders can be proud of?"

In other words, we spent $40 million dollars to "win" a pecker contest.

And we couldn't even manage to hang on to "Thunder in the Desert."

Yawn.

Except for one thing found in the article:

It is likely she will be placed in a special segregated cell for celebrities. However, it is possible she will only serve 23 days behind bars due to overcrowding and the non-violent nature of her crime.

They have special cells for celebrities? And they are way overcrowded?

Who else is doing time in the celebrity cell?

Our attorney general, you know, the one who won't prosecute voter intimidation if it's done by blacks, has as you know decided to sue Arizona for its KKK law. Which he admitted he hadn't read. Now you can read it here.

Not all that evil, is it? Roger Kimball, to whom I would tip my chapeau if I had one, quotes Federalst 45:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.*

Kimball is right. Just where is our modern James Madison? This country has not been in such severe danger perhaps since the time the Brits burned the White House.

*Emphasis mine.

Supposedly this was placed in a San Francisco paper. If you've read some of them on line, you can believe it without even a hiccough. This is actually no more lunatic than anything written by Mark Morford.

And the joke is that this person can vote and may have committed parenthood. And probably voted for Nanski Peloski.

Or may be Nanski Peloski.

It's not true that the stimulus has not worked. Here's a black bear ready for someone to bring him dinner.

He's a Democrat bear, and named Bearack Obearma.

Sorry.

Washington of course refuses to control the borders because it knows that illegals are the Democrats' best chance to stay in power. Just think about this: the political party of the United States which is in control of both houses of Congress and the Presidency knows that its best chance for power is to help people break laws. In other words, the Democrats are relying on felons. But then I'm not surprised, are you? I would not at all be surprised to find the party affiliation of prisoners is 99.99% Democrat.

Last I heard, our attorney general Eric Holder, Obowma himself, and Janet Napolitano have all admitted that they have not read the Arizona law, but this does not debar them from denouncing it and calling people who approve of it racist. (The catcall of "racist" I officially retired when Janeane Garafalo stated to Keith Olbermann that people who disagreed with Obama were racists. The word obviously has no meaning now.)

The law does not enable cops to roust people just because they look as though they came up from a tunnel from Nogales. The cops are supposed to ask for identification if they come into contact with someone in the normal course of business and if they have suspicions. In other words, sort of like what they do now to you and me when we get stopped. This is such an unremarkable idea that it's remarkable that it's remarked on.

Most of the stuff which is forwarded to me is so much Pelosi, but this one was rather good.

I'm a legal American citizen and I must show my ID when:

1. Pulled over by the police.

2. Making purchases on my department store credit card.

Pathetic.

I have delighted, most recently a few minutes ago, in watching the left eat its own. But the Texas GOP has released a document which may be even more cannibalistic. I've no problem with fiscal restraint, of course, but there are bits of this which are just plain loony.

(Note to Texas GOP: independents often are socially laissez-faire and fiscally conservative and, listen really carefully now, if you don't get the independent vote, you have an unbroken stream of social engineers and greedy publicans running your life. Think Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. Like that? I didn't think so.)

Now for a bit of the idiocy. First, they want to make it a felony for anyone to issue a marriage license to a gay couple. Such licenses are already invalid in the state. This is a gratuitous swipe.

And there's more:

• "We believe that the practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases."

• "Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country's founders, and shared by the majority of Texans."

• "Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable "alternative" lifestyle in our public education and policy, nor should "family" be redefined to include homosexual "couples."

I don't have too much of a problem with not teaching homosexuality as an acceptable "alternative" [notice the sneer quotes] lifestyle in schools. After all, how many gay couples have children who will be in those schools? I'm not sure that in ten years I won't have changed my views and now might be a bit much for parents in Wall, Texas, to hear that Susie is reading stories about Bobby's two mommies, but I'm not rigid either way. Now.

But paragraph one above is the sort of raving nonsense that has caused us the very problem we're having now: an infestation of the world with statist Democrats who have a deep disdain for people, life, and in particular America. The hard right votes Republican. The hard left votes Democrat. The independents, who have decided all elections recently, are swayed by what they hear from both parties.

Well, relative honesty. Just as a cat box is relatively clean compared to a West Virginia cesspool. Which reminds me, I haven't cried a single tear for Senator Byrd.

I came across this

They eat their own. Which is lovely to watch, considering how Republicans have been so good at it.