Global Warming - Sensible Solutions that Stick it to the Corporations!

Big Idea Number 1

In the midst of what for many in the U.S., Europe and Asia is a record-breaking winter of unrelenting ice storms and blizzards, I think it's time to talk about sensible, bi-partisan solutions to the problem of global warming. For liberals, talking about doing something is just as good as actually doing something, so this ought to make them happy because we're going to talk about it aplenty.  For conservatives, this idea won't cost taxpayers any money and in fact will save them plenty if the globe ever decides to warm up for real.

One of the great worries that global warming alarmists talk about is the flooding of coastal areas like Rosie O'Donnel's neighborthood by the rising oceans. Millions will be displaced we are told and it will cost the government trillions of dollars in federal flood insurance claims. If you look carefully, you can see already where I'm going with this.  This is the idea:.

LET'S REPEAL THE FEDERAL FLOOD INSURANCE PROGRAM

The federal flood insurance program is a program that makes flood insurance affordable for people who build houses on flood plains or in coastal lowland areas. Affordable flood insurance encourages people to live in these areas where EVIL CORPORATIONS buy up the land for a song.  They get it cheap because, after all, the land IS located on a flood plain.  Then they build fancy houses, condos and shopping malls there, giving potential customers a false sense of security. Then they convince people that buying property on a flood plain is smart, since the federal government offers them affordable flood insurance if they live there. After all, there isn't any real the risk in building someplace where everything you own can be swept away in seconds, if you have good flood insurance.

Oh, those tricky evil corporations!

Now here comes the bi-partisan part.  If you get rid of federal flood insurance, the government can lay off a ton of bureaucrats who administer the program, they stop making paperwork and other agencies can lay off people who no longer have to handle federal flood insurance program paperwork AND you don't have to pay claims when floods actually flood the flood plains and wipe out millions of people. Conservatives are happy since the only thing conservatives like better than paying lower taxes is seeing lots of people drown.

But wait!  I promised some good old fashioned stick-it-to-the-corporations action for my liberal friends too and boy howdy do we got some of that.  By ending the federal flood insurance programs, we remove all incentive for greedy corporations to build permanent structures on flood plains and areas soon to be innundated by the rising oceans.  Boo-yah!  The only people who will buy homes and businesses on flood plains will be those too stupid to care about having flood insurance and the super-rich who have so much money they don't care about the odd house or two that gets washed away.  Since stupid people are primarily conservatives and Republicans anyway, according to MSNBC and Ariana Huffington, then only good can come from having several millions of them washed out to sea as the sea-level rises. As a bonus, the corporations get stuck with a lot of undevelopable land and have to give it away to the Sierra Club and Nature Conservancy for a large tax write-off, since no one will want to buy it. The rest of the uninsurable properties become slums inhabited by stupid conservative rednecks who are divorced, don't wear shirts and their pants fall off. The rising oceans would be a blessing to those people - put 'em out of their misery so-to-speak.

For pro-eugenics progressives, the rising oceans efficiently, cheaply and dramatically reduce the number of slow-witted folks from the gene pool. Talk about a final solution.

For the practical moderates and mainstream environmentalists out there, the process of getting a home mortgage without flood insurance will frustrate the efforts of those trying to get loans for lowland properties threatened by global warming.  Fewer houses, cities, industries and businesses will be built in those areas because they can't borrow the money to build.  Less building allows the land to return to its natural state.  As those sea-levels rise, much of this land will become wetlands which is something wildlife conservationists and environmentalists all say we don't have enough of.

PROBLEM SOLVED!

Crisp, clean and (for the militant nutritionists out there), no caffeine.  Let's review:

1. Evil Corporations wouldn't be able to use taxpayer dollars to make billions in evil profits.
2. The wetlands would return naturally.
3. It wouldn't cost anything to do it - in fact you could save more polar bears with the government money saved.
4. Super-rich Republicans would be washed out to sea in large numbers.
5. And lots of rednecks stupid people and global warming deniers would also be drowned after the seas rise.

I say it's a win/win all around.

I'm just sayin'

Tom King - Tyler, TX

Obama Claus is Comin' to Town

by Tom King
(with apologies to Gillespie Coots)

Oh, you better watch out

You better not rant

Better not complain

I'm telling you you can't

Cause Obama Claus is coming to town

They're making a list

Down at the FCC

They got Glenn, Rush and Hannity

Obama Claus is shutting them down

They watch you when you're surfing

The Internet at night

They know if you've been bad or good

And if your blog leans left or right!

O! You better watch out!

You better not write

Criticism of the Left

Or support for the Right

Obama Claus is coming to town

Obama Claus is coming to town

 

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Ask George the Third about "Tea Party Morons"

(c) 2010 by Tom King

A Republican friend of mine called me a moron today.  Well, not me individually, but me as part of the Tea Party Movement.  He was saying we blew it because we supported Sharron Angle in the Nevada senate race against Harry Reid and now that's we've got all this junk going on in Congress.

I have a message for Republicans.  You go right ahead with the anti-Tea Party, "Tea-baggers are morons" rhetoric. THAT is exactly why the Republicans keep missing big opportunities to fix things. The Republican leadership continues to play politics, hoping to husband a little more power and a little more power, instead of risking doing the right thing whatever it may cost them.

NEWS FLASH TO THE GOP:  The Tea Party is not about political maneuvering. The Tea Party is about standing up to those who want to gut the Constitution and steal our liberties from us.  Have Republicans lost because of Tea Party action.  YOU BET!  So what?  Mistakes are part of the process of any revolution. George Washington looked for all the world like he was losing the war, right up until he won it! Movements driven by the people tend to be messy and without much in the way of "style".

But such movements are inexorable if they are right!

The essential message of the Tea Party movement is the same as that behind the original Boston Tea Party.

It is an expression of righteous anger and frustration. The Tea Party is NOT about making sure the Republican party controls the Congress. Au' contrere! I'd settle for control by conservative Democrats and so would most of the folks in the Tea Party movement.

Movements are often about sending a message to your own party (or at least the one perceived as most sympathetic to your cause).  The message we're sending is that we have had quite enough thank you and that if Republicans want us to help them achieve political power, they damned well better address the issues we care about. If they don't, we'll do it without them.  Whether we succeed or not at first, we are true believers, just like the socialists, Islamist, Zionists or whatever "ist" you want to name. We will not bend in the name of expedience. Boy do I hope I am right about that too.

I once had a T-Ball team made up of kids from a treatment center for emotionally disturbed children. We played as a team and everyone was skeptical as to whether the kids would be able to function out in the public, especially something as highly charged as a ball game.  Before we started, I told the kids what standard of behavior I expected and what the consequences of poor behavior would be.  The kids turned out to be the best behaved team in the league.

Then one day, a local bully picked a fight and three of my boys unloaded a string of profanity at him. He doesn't know how lucky he was that they stopped with profanity and didn't rearrange his face with baseball bats.  As a result of the incident, I suspended three of our best players for cursing in public. At our next game, we were losing badly as my three disgraced players watched in misery.  One of my direct care people, apparently elected for the job by his fellow staffers, approached me.

"Why don't we put the suspended kids back in the game?" he asked. "It's bad for the kids to be losing like this."

To my surprise, one of the suspended boys who was sitting within earshot spoke up.

"He can't let us play," the boy explained patiently to his counselor. "It wouldn't be fair."

That boy taught us a powerful lesson about right and wrong. He had accepted the conditions under which he was allowed to play ball. He knew cursing would get him a suspension. He lost his temper and violated that condition of play and therefore, under the rules, had to miss a game. That was perfectly right and clear to him.

Remember, this kid came from a horrific home and neighborhood where there was no order and no sense of right and wrong - only what was expedient for survival. Domination by whoever was the most powerful bully in the immediate area was his reality. Rule by mutually agreed upon law was to this boy a relief and a revelation. His counselor's suggestion that winning a baseball game was worth subverting the rule system he had come to depend upon for stability in his world was just too awful for him to contemplate.

We went on to lose that game, but we won the war- with this boy at least.

We may lose some battles, some seats in Congress and even some liberties along the way, but I pray to God the Tea Party movement continues to stand rock solid for the principals outlined in our constitution and that we remain unwilling to compromise those principals in order to gain a little political power for a party that has for too long looked down its nose at the very people who are the party's base.

In the end, it will be those who stand on principle and not on what's best for the party's political position who will prevail. We will not march lockstep with the country club Republicans who seem to think they are our betters, if not our masters. We will not take orders from plastic-haired politicians who consider themselves the elite of our nation and qualified by their money and position to manipulate the rest of us for our own good.

Instead, we will keep on pitching tea over the side, even if it does turn the harbor green; even if we have to do without iced tea for a while. And we will keep pitching until the gold-plated jackasses in Washington, in our state houses and in the mayor's offices hear us. We don't have time to play politics. We have businesses to run, families to care for and T-ball games to coach.

And if Republican know-it-alls want to call us morons, so be it. You guys just try and win your power back without us. In my book you're no more on our side than are the Democrats. At least they make it clear that they have no respect for us and that they want to turn our country into a big old socialist gulag. If it's a choice between "Gulag" and "Gulag Light", I choose "none of the above".

Tom

No Virginia, There Is No Obama Claus.....

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December 8, 2010 - We received the following letters to the editor at "The Nosy News" from 10 year old Virginia.  Virginia asks hard questions.

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Dear Editor:

Conservatives believe in helping themselves at the expense of others; Liberals believe in helping others at the expense to themselves. Everyone knows that.  So, why don't you people believe in the Obama Claus?

Your Friend,

Virginia





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Dear Virginia,

You have it all wrong. You assume that only conservatives are greedy people.  There are greedy people of both political persuasions that believe in helping themselves to other people's money (see redistribution of wealth and Ponzi schemes - which are the same thing).  In fact, Bernie Madoff, convicted of the largest Ponzi scheme in history (he defrauded his clients of billions of dollars), was a heavy donor to the Democrat party and was a major Obama supporter.

Percentage wise, conservatives actually give more to charity than any other group. They give more foreign aid annually than the federal government - it just goes to people that need it instead of to greedy warlords and corrupt third world government officials.

You say "Liberals help others at the expense of themselves."  Really? Who is it that wants to take money from the wealthy (not themselves) to fund all this giving? Liberals claim to represent the poor and downtrodden, who are, by definition, from lower income groups.  Folks with no money probably don't pay any taxes anyway.  So I have to ask myself, Virginia, from whom is all this largesse, that liberals supposedly give, going to come from?

When we give to charity directly, to our church or to people who need our help directly, all the money goes to help people in trouble, not to support a fat bureaucracy that generates more paperwork than help.

Obama Claus is, after all, a myth designed to convince us we don't need to to be generous - that someone else will do it for us.

Your Friend,

The Editor

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Dear Editor

My family donates hundreds of dollars and hours to our church. They haven't exactly offered to help us with my Dad's unemployment or my sister's medical bills. They did however, ask us to make an extra, "end of the year" ...donation to make sure they make budget.


I love my church and it provides me with spiritual guidance and education, but I don't quite see how it is going to help us find a job. It did teach me that I should feed the poor, comfort the hurting and help the sick, but that sounds too much like medicaid and healthcare reform.

Exactly what are we supposed to ask them to provide?

Your friend,

Virginia

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Dear Virginia,

I don't know what church you belong to, but in mine, I'm actively involved in the process of deciding where the church budget should go. If you want to feed people or help people who are struggling , be part of the decision-making process when you grow up. Get on the church board. Become a deacon or volunteer to run the food pantry or soup kitchen. When you have a home of your own, give a homeless person a room till they get on their feet.

You talk about your church as "them" in the same way you talk about the government in the third person - as though both church and governments were some kind of magical god-like creatures that are supposed to fix our problems for us. The government and the church are "us", Virginia.  Both organizations are run by people with various philosophies and values systems.
The question then is, dear Virginia, "Do you trust your pastor and the church elders or the politicians and the bureaucrats." My money's on the church folks.

And "What exactly do we ask them to provide?"  The answer is, "Whatever you think your church should be providing."  It is, after all, YOUR church.

Though I think sometimes the government is helpful for stuff like this, I'm not sure they are the most efficient way to dispense charity. 

Besides, I think the Obama Claus is up to something, myself.

Your friend,

The Editor

Separated at Birth?

James Carville and Lord Voldemort?

J.C.:  Trust me, they'll improve your aim a hundred percent, Bro.

L.V.:  How do you keep these things on?

J.C.:   Hey, you're the magician. Conjure up yourself a nose for cryin' out loud!

Did Some Good Come Out of Wiki-Leaks

One thing Wiki-leaks recent document dump may have inadvertantly done is blown away the liberal fiction that the United States has acted the bully in the Middle-East all this time and that our presence is not wanted in the region.

As it turns out, apparently the leaders of the surrounding Arab nations are just as creeped out by folks like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Saddam Hussein as Western nations.  Arabs, as has been pointed out by historians and as many Arab commentators themselves have explained, the Arabs are basically businessmen. The political aspirations of tyrant powers like Iraq and Iran are destabilizing to the region. An unstable Middle-East is bad for business and many local Arab diplomats have, apparently, expressed their concern about Iran's leadership over the years, even to the point of suggesting the U.S. "cut off the head of the snake". 

Sadly, these concerns have all been expressed in private. Publicly, the leadership of Iran's neighbors have been conspicuously silent all these years. Liberal pundits and politicians have seized on this silence to criticize Republican presidents for becoming militarily involved in the region.  What has not been revealed clearly before the recent Wiki-leaks dump is how heavily the more peaceful Arab nations of the region depend on U.S. military might to back their own security.

They'd never say it, but secretly, I bet many Arab leaders (and a significant portion of the U.S. diplomatic corps) would really love it if Israel would bomb the heck out of Iran's nuclear facilities. That way the threat would be eliminated and everybody could blame the Israelis for "over-reacting" and make the the villains in the piece.

It appears from Wiki-leaks, that the U.S. understands how to play Islamo-politics better than most liberal pundits would ever admit.  The name of the game for the Arab nations in that volatile region is to get the U.S. or Israel to slap around the local bully-boys, while they register "official' disapproval for our actions. They are like the kids on the playground that won't challenge a bully for fear of attracting his attention to themselves.

In a region where people blow themselves up and you with them if you make them mad, it's little wonder local Arab leaders avoid criticizing thugs like Ahmadinejad, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar. It's a good way to get yourself personally blown up.

Business people can't do business if you blow them up.  So a practical businessman wants to avoid that sort of thing and as we all learned on the playground in elementary school, the best way to avoid drawing the attention of bullies is to either remain silent or laugh at their jokes. Everyone is always relieved when the teacher shows up to enforce the rules.

Anti-American Wiki-leaks founder, Julian Assange, may have inadvertantly helped America in posting all those documents.  If that's the case, you can bet the documents will soon "disappear" or be universally ignored.  Can't have United States policy proved to have been correct, now can we? I'll bet old Julian is really unhappy about that.


Tom