Curtis Dahlgren
NO, Virginia; there is no Santa Claus, "secret stash," or Global Warming
By Curtis Dahlgren
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."
- P.J O'Rourke
TIS THE SEASON OF GIVING, SO — I'm going to give you the cold hard facts. Some people think that Santa Claus is a trial lawyer firm, Hardy, Hardy, Barry & Sue. Some people think that Santa's middle name is SEIU (Service Emplyees International Union).** Not true.
Some people think that Santa's middle name is ALF (American Federation of Labor). Some professors think that all they have to do is ask the Regents for a 4 percent raise in pay (while the taxpayers take a five-year pay freeze). It's not true that whatever the professors want, the professor necessarily gets!
The universities used to tell us that we have to pay them more or they might move to California. That's funny! The taxpayers in California have figured out that they can move too — to the Northwest, the mountain states, and so on!
And taxpayers in the old rust belt — Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio — plus states such as Virginia and New Jersey, have begun to face the facts. Taxpayers realize that if things don't "change," states won't even be able to pay Lottery winners (that might get the attention of politicians)! Some people, sadly, are still preoccupied with fantasy football, the NFL, and Facebook, etc.
SPEAKING OF SPORTS — and everything else — though, how 'bout that Global Warming, eh? That Cancun conference really fixed it this time! The new definition of "Silent Night" is a Monday Night Football game in the Metrodome. The Met's "sky" opened up like a curtain and shut the place up (see photo below).
December 18, 2010 [forward via YahooNews]
Speaking of "DREAM"s, nightmares, and other surreal news items, take these examples:
- Free football tickets in Detroit; lighthouse "blacked out" by eerie ice in Cleveland.
- Four feet of snow on the Erie shore of New York state.
- Deep freeze spoils tomatoes and other crops in Florida.
- Government says there is no inflation.
- Once-in-a-decade storm hits California.
- Lliberals in Congress thrown under the Omnibus bill.
- Another 2,000 pages of unread paper wasted (or recycled as toilet paper).
Good News and "bad news" of course, but WHO writes that stuff anyway? At what cost?
Instead of all-celebrities 24/7 on TV, I'd love to see the pictures and names of the person or persons who write those bills with thousands of pages — and even more thousands of pages of implied "regulations"! I'm even curious about their nation of origin. Whose side are they on? They seem to be taking the ball and running with it — to our opponent's goal line. Six thousand+ earmarks at a measly few million apiece add up to billions, you know. And thousands of billions add up to trillions of dollars (a sizeable chunk of which is going to our universities for "research"). Here's the Quote-of-the-week:
"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow."
That line wasn't written by a frustrated tax accountant, but by the Father of our Constitution, James Madison, 200-some years ago (quoted by Imprimis, November 2010). Hillsdale College president Larry Arnn writes:
"Gone now is the caution about human nature that recognizes that human beings must live under law in order to protect their rights, and that those who make and enforce the law are no more likely to be perfect — or less likely to violate the rights of their fellow citizens — than others."
AS MADISON SAID, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."
I MIGHT ADD, if we're having trouble keeping checks and balances on our national government, WHO and/or WHAT would be the "controls" on the International government envisioned by the Global Warming enthusiasts? The more they push for international laws and taxes, the LESS controls and "checks" the American people will have. There would be less and less "control" until we had none — and we wouldn't be "governed by angels" either! If you want to see the Internet killed off, just keep lobbying for "international" court standards and so on.
Talk about the weather — I had a recurring dream about snow last summer. Even though I live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it was still a bit unusual to have 12 different dreams involving snow in the middle of the summer! Unusual enough to write down the dates, from May to August. I'm experiencing deja vu in December it seems. It was around zero in these parts this morning
"THEY" would naturally say that it's "climate change" now ("we never said it was Anthropogenic Global Warming or AGW")! But hey, "folks," the climate has always been "changing." Why do you think our ancestors invented fire and started burning things, eh?
We started burning mainly dead tree branches, the world's best renewable energy source — ethanol being the worst and very least "sustainable" source. And as if wearing out our soils and driving up the cost of food (and energy) wasn't bad enough, some of the enviro-mentals are literally proposing "20 years of no economic growth" to save the planet (ha ha). Check out the stories at www.ClimateDepot.com or www.WattsUpWithThat.com .
I can probably tell you who's going to win the next Presidential contest. It'll be the first man to propose building nuke power plants, oil refineries, a pipeline from ANWR, and a border fence. If not, it'll be the first woman.
Speaking of dreams, the other recurring dream I have been having is about going "back to school." "Back to School" is one of my favorite movies, and in this dream I'm always surrounded by young people and admiring co-eds. And I'm there on an athletic scholarship (it's sort of a comedy too). But as my writing career is progressing so slowly, my second-best goal would be to become the first 70-year-old college baseball player to hit .300, okay? So far I haven't actually dreamed about listening to a professor lecturing — that would be an absolute nightmare — but who knows: maybe if I go back to school they'll LISTEN to me this time?
And maybe the DREAM act will pay my way, eh?
**
P.S. Dumb question: If the Service Employees "International" Union gives money to a political candidate, does that mean that "foreign money" is perverting the process? "Naughty, naughty boys." A lump of coal in your stocking!
On second thought, coal is a good thing, and a few lumps of coal would be quite welcome right now.
More cold hard facts next week. Have a nice weekend. Which reminds me of the preacher on Christmas Eve who ended his sermonette by saying, "I'm saying solong to some of you until Easter, so have a nice Groundhog's Day. And if you never saw the movie, maybe you'd better read The Book."
© Curtis Dahlgren
December 21, 2010
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."
- P.J O'Rourke
TIS THE SEASON OF GIVING, SO — I'm going to give you the cold hard facts. Some people think that Santa Claus is a trial lawyer firm, Hardy, Hardy, Barry & Sue. Some people think that Santa's middle name is SEIU (Service Emplyees International Union).** Not true.
Some people think that Santa's middle name is ALF (American Federation of Labor). Some professors think that all they have to do is ask the Regents for a 4 percent raise in pay (while the taxpayers take a five-year pay freeze). It's not true that whatever the professors want, the professor necessarily gets!
The universities used to tell us that we have to pay them more or they might move to California. That's funny! The taxpayers in California have figured out that they can move too — to the Northwest, the mountain states, and so on!
And taxpayers in the old rust belt — Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio — plus states such as Virginia and New Jersey, have begun to face the facts. Taxpayers realize that if things don't "change," states won't even be able to pay Lottery winners (that might get the attention of politicians)! Some people, sadly, are still preoccupied with fantasy football, the NFL, and Facebook, etc.
SPEAKING OF SPORTS — and everything else — though, how 'bout that Global Warming, eh? That Cancun conference really fixed it this time! The new definition of "Silent Night" is a Monday Night Football game in the Metrodome. The Met's "sky" opened up like a curtain and shut the place up (see photo below).
December 18, 2010 [forward via YahooNews]
Speaking of "DREAM"s, nightmares, and other surreal news items, take these examples:
- Free football tickets in Detroit; lighthouse "blacked out" by eerie ice in Cleveland.
- Four feet of snow on the Erie shore of New York state.
- Deep freeze spoils tomatoes and other crops in Florida.
- Government says there is no inflation.
- Once-in-a-decade storm hits California.
- Lliberals in Congress thrown under the Omnibus bill.
- Another 2,000 pages of unread paper wasted (or recycled as toilet paper).
Good News and "bad news" of course, but WHO writes that stuff anyway? At what cost?
Instead of all-celebrities 24/7 on TV, I'd love to see the pictures and names of the person or persons who write those bills with thousands of pages — and even more thousands of pages of implied "regulations"! I'm even curious about their nation of origin. Whose side are they on? They seem to be taking the ball and running with it — to our opponent's goal line. Six thousand+ earmarks at a measly few million apiece add up to billions, you know. And thousands of billions add up to trillions of dollars (a sizeable chunk of which is going to our universities for "research"). Here's the Quote-of-the-week:
"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow."
That line wasn't written by a frustrated tax accountant, but by the Father of our Constitution, James Madison, 200-some years ago (quoted by Imprimis, November 2010). Hillsdale College president Larry Arnn writes:
"Gone now is the caution about human nature that recognizes that human beings must live under law in order to protect their rights, and that those who make and enforce the law are no more likely to be perfect — or less likely to violate the rights of their fellow citizens — than others."
AS MADISON SAID, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."
I MIGHT ADD, if we're having trouble keeping checks and balances on our national government, WHO and/or WHAT would be the "controls" on the International government envisioned by the Global Warming enthusiasts? The more they push for international laws and taxes, the LESS controls and "checks" the American people will have. There would be less and less "control" until we had none — and we wouldn't be "governed by angels" either! If you want to see the Internet killed off, just keep lobbying for "international" court standards and so on.
Talk about the weather — I had a recurring dream about snow last summer. Even though I live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it was still a bit unusual to have 12 different dreams involving snow in the middle of the summer! Unusual enough to write down the dates, from May to August. I'm experiencing deja vu in December it seems. It was around zero in these parts this morning
"THEY" would naturally say that it's "climate change" now ("we never said it was Anthropogenic Global Warming or AGW")! But hey, "folks," the climate has always been "changing." Why do you think our ancestors invented fire and started burning things, eh?
We started burning mainly dead tree branches, the world's best renewable energy source — ethanol being the worst and very least "sustainable" source. And as if wearing out our soils and driving up the cost of food (and energy) wasn't bad enough, some of the enviro-mentals are literally proposing "20 years of no economic growth" to save the planet (ha ha). Check out the stories at www.ClimateDepot.com or www.WattsUpWithThat.com .
I can probably tell you who's going to win the next Presidential contest. It'll be the first man to propose building nuke power plants, oil refineries, a pipeline from ANWR, and a border fence. If not, it'll be the first woman.
Speaking of dreams, the other recurring dream I have been having is about going "back to school." "Back to School" is one of my favorite movies, and in this dream I'm always surrounded by young people and admiring co-eds. And I'm there on an athletic scholarship (it's sort of a comedy too). But as my writing career is progressing so slowly, my second-best goal would be to become the first 70-year-old college baseball player to hit .300, okay? So far I haven't actually dreamed about listening to a professor lecturing — that would be an absolute nightmare — but who knows: maybe if I go back to school they'll LISTEN to me this time?
And maybe the DREAM act will pay my way, eh?
**
P.S. Dumb question: If the Service Employees "International" Union gives money to a political candidate, does that mean that "foreign money" is perverting the process? "Naughty, naughty boys." A lump of coal in your stocking!
On second thought, coal is a good thing, and a few lumps of coal would be quite welcome right now.
More cold hard facts next week. Have a nice weekend. Which reminds me of the preacher on Christmas Eve who ended his sermonette by saying, "I'm saying solong to some of you until Easter, so have a nice Groundhog's Day. And if you never saw the movie, maybe you'd better read The Book."
© Curtis Dahlgren
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(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
