The Sparrow

Which I stole from over at Sparrow’s.

Enjoy, and remember.

Rainy Day

It's a rainy day in the neighborhood boys and girls. Actually it rained all night and most of yesterday was either rainy or cloudy.

We need the rain though....although I could do without the pains in my wrists and shoulders that the moisture brings. Sometimes I think that life would move along a whole lot better if we were fitted with grease zerks so we could get a little slickum to the joints to keep out the rust.

Not much will get done with this steady rain keeping me inside. I might go up to the J & J to see if the foreign money guy is there. My buddy James found some Mexican coins in a storage locker and the money guy will buy them at some price. Most aren't worth much as the Gov't's south of the border keep declaring the old money worth less and issue new money at a rate of 10 to 1 or more on the old.....in effect allowing them to pay off debts for pennies on the peso. Just wait until they do that here. I figure it won't be long now. Even if they don't announce it on the boob tube it will happen as they're printing new greenbacks at a rate never before imagined.

I guess if we have any lead we can trade that back and forth. It's gonna be like the Hatfield's and McCoy's around her before long I reckon. Freedom lovers like me can only take so much, and freedom haters never know when to stop trying to take from me. Only one way to ensure that they'll quit and never do that again.
It makes a mess but is good fertilizer.

Just for a moment last night...

...had I not been able to reason.......

.......I might have thought that SPBO (sitting president barack obama) actually understood whereof he spoke.

But that didn't last long.




We still managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before. In other words, we have lived through an era where too often, short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election.

That's right! The only real and lasting path to prosperity is shedding our debt-centric economy and growing our domestic savings. And the only way to do that is to remind people they have to be responsible for themselves and they can't continue to live at the expense of their neighbors. Let's get rid of Social Security and stop government support of the FDIC and the banking industry. Stop printing money and taking on still more debts to save bankrupt companies. After all, how could we solve a debt crisis by simply spending more money that we don't have?

But then... only a minute or two into his speech... OBAMA! began to promise all of the things every politician promises, namely benefits without any costs. You know the drill: something for nothing. And most importantly, more debt!

The concern is that if we do not re-start lending in this country, our recovery will be choked off before it even begins. You see, the flow of credit is the lifeblood of our economy. The ability to get a loan is how you finance the purchase of everything from a home to a car to a college education; how stores stock their shelves, farms buy equipment, and businesses make payroll.

Wait a minute. While I have borrowed money to buy a house, I have never borrowed money to buy anything else. That's the way I was raised. My parents taught me what their parents taught them: If you want something you have to work hard and save your money to buy it. Isn't that what Americans have done for generations? Isn't that what the hard-working people of Asia are doing right now? And isn't that the real problem? We've spent the last 30 years borrowing money from around the world, to buy things we were too lazy to work for and to save to buy.

OBAMA! went on to repeat the old saw about our dependence on foreign oil. But that's not the real problem: The real problem is our utter dependence on foreign credit. Without all the money we've borrowed from the Japanese and the Chinese, we wouldn't have any cash to buy oil from the Middle East.

And then... at the end of the speech, my favorite part...

How will we pay for all of the spending the government is now promising? The truth is, of course, we won't pay for it at all. We will continue to borrow still more money from foreigners because as a nation we've lost the moral and ethical standards that made us a free people. We tolerate our leaders spinning lies and burdening our children and grandchildren with unpayable obligations. We tolerate our neighbors walking away from their obligations. We allow our government to use the threat of imprisonment to collect tax and then use our capital to support corporations whose managers and owners have acted irresponsibly for decades.

But rather than making decisions based on the sound principles of economics or in the spirit of the American tradition of small government, personal liberty, and personal responsibility, we now have a government that constantly seeks public acclaim and the contributions of special interests. And what does the public clamor for? OBAMA! knows all too well.

In order to save our children from a future of debt, we will also end the tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans...


We will eat the rich!

Keep in mind, America doesn't currently impose a wealth tax. So... it's not clear what OBAMA! means. But if you want to see an exodus of capital from the United States, try taxing people's net worths. On the other hand, if OBAMA! was speaking of people's incomes (which is much different than their wealth), the highest 2% of American wage earners already contribute about 35% of the government's expenditures. How much more blood can you wring from those stones?

And keep this in mind. OBAMA! is promising to reduce his first year's estimated $1.8 trillion deficit by 50% over the course of his four years in office. But he makes no promise to actually reduce the total outstanding debt, which this year will grow by more than the total government debt in 1982.

Our debts are piling up now at a pace that will leave us insolvent within a generation. We will not cure this problem by taking still more money from the highest wage earners in the country. The more OBAMA! promises, the more money he'll have to print or borrow. (And incidentally, the price of gold will go higher, too – it's already gone from $800 an ounce to $1,000 since the election.)

America is going bankrupt.

Wouldn't ya know

First I go off complaining about my blog disappearing for a little while and then I abandon it my-own-self for nearly a week.

Which in it's self is not too unusual.....I'm often at a loss for coherent thought and am likely to become so engrossed in the antics of others that I forget to let fingers do the walking.....but am never short of breath to talk your ear off in person. I'll often catch my wife rolling her eyes as I go on, and on, and on, and on....kinda like that rabbit with his stupid drum.

Anyhooooo......not so much going on around here. I did a little treasure hunting last friday and spent the weekend trying to separate the dross from the glitter. I hauled some metal for underpinning of the ol' Grumps rental trailer up to Carnesville so the Son and his wife could put it up for him to replace the tattered vinyl that had been there.

Folks....take it from me....vinyl underpinning may look good when first installed, but will lose to a weedeater every time.

For that kind deed I reaped the benefit of the excess metal that he'd ordered. Almost enough to underpin my storage and shop building completely. That's good. I did however learn that bending over and getting up and down does not come as easily as once they did. Forty pounds of excess belly will do that to you.

But I am making headway on my diet. The wife bought me a new set of digital bathroom scales to let me see how much weight I'm not losing. Just Damn.

The politicians are as venal and stupid as ever......I don't even want to think of that much.

I seem to recall that during my brief attendance at Dacula Elementary and High School back during the dark ages the Darwin Theory was brought up and we learned that mankind had steadily evolved from out of the primordial muck and was surely headed for great things......why, we might even venture off this rock and go visit some of our celestial neighbors, setting foot on that big wedge of green cheese we see in the sky at night sometimes.

The men in my basic training unit back in the summer of '69 thought that event was just the first step forward in a giant leap of evolution. That, however, sputtered out less than 10 years later and we've seemingly lost the urge toward greatness that we once had. Devolving into endless partisan bickering and squabbling like a pack of hyenas over the carcass of a, once mighty, now toothless and starved lion. Unable to match him even at less than his prime, they laugh and howl with delight as they snatch rotting bits to sate their grotesque appetites, delighting in his fall, rolling about in the fetid refuse of ruptured intestines and fecal matter, as if to carry away with them some steaming stench as proof of their supposed superiority.

Just Damn, no wonder that I gaze upon and cherish bits of yesteryear.

Wha........What th......

Where'd my blog go??

I click over there to check up on any comments (hardly anyone ever comments 'cept a very few, must be my bad breath) and there is nothing to be seen.

I can click on my archives and it's all there.......so WTH??

It could be that I'm going blind....but if that was the case you'd think it would have happened in my teens or twenties at the latest. Maybe there's a delayed reaction. I haven't had to shave my palms in years.

Don't guess many will miss me.

Think I'll go out and eat worms.

UPDATE; There it is......must have looked at it crosseyed.

545 to 300 million

545 PEOPLE
By Charlie Reese
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, theFederal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash.
The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party.
She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red .

If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Why do they do this?

Why do all the talking heads and so called leaders in this country strive so to keep us upset and worried?

Does it get you down at times?

"Do you imagine the universe is agitated?" asked Lao Tzu a few thousand years ago. "Go into the desert at night and look at the stars. This practice should answer the question."

Happy Valentines Day

Happy Lupercalia day Lovers and seekers.

I hope you all are out this evening eating prime rib washed down with expensive wine in the hopes of a chocolate covered dessert when you get home.

Me......I'm sitting her resting my tired ol' feet and thinking about a bed to sleep in.

I was up early (for me) at 5 am in order to go the the Peach State Archeology Society Show in May-retta (Marrieta GA) this morning.

In my never ending quest to garner shekles to pay the green grocer and other tradesmen for some of the necessities and niceties of life, I've jumped in the deep end of the pool once again and opened a website arrowheadantiques.com to move some of the (some would call junk, others fine collectibles) Stuff that I come in contact with. Today was an opportunity to Network as the youngun's say.

I'm always finding something that sparkles, and like a crow, I swoop down and snatch it up to carry away to my nest....where there it remains neither eating nor sleeping, but like the unworthy servant it also doesn't earn any return on the talents given for it.

We had a fine ol' time. Lots of dealers and members from the society. Unfortunately there were few buyers......whether due to the economy, or not enough people informed of where we were, ie, lack of advertising.... to sample our wares.

Still fun was to be had. I introduced young Serenity (all of a grown up 9 years old) to the pleasures of eating lamb, which made her go.........ooooohhhhh, wrinkle her nose up, and then chow back down with a hearty appetite. (Good girl)

One of my pieces of Pottery won the certificate for best pottery piece. I also cleaned up at the raffle held just before we wrapped up for the day, bringing back to the table a very nice Anasazi pot (small but extremely nice), and a replica pipe donated by the Etowah Indian Museum.

So a fine day.

The Missus and I will likely go out for Chinese on the morrow to celebrate at least 42 Valentines days, afterward to waddle back to the Kudzu Grotto stuffed to the gills........and later.....who knows? Maybe somebody will get lucky.

Ideas for a Stimulus Program


1. Payroll Tax Stimulus. With a temporary new tax credit to offset 50% of the payroll tax, every small business would have more money, and all Americans would take home more of what they earn.

2. Real Middle-Income Tax Relief. Reduce the marginal tax rate of 25% down to 15%, in effect establishing a flat-rate tax of 15% for close to 9 out of 10 American workers.

3. Reduce the Business Tax Rate. Match Ireland’s rate of 12.5% to keep more jobs in America.

4. Homeowner’s Assistance. Provide tax credit incentives to responsible home buyers so they can keep their homes.

5. Control Spending So We Can Move to a Balanced Budget. This begins with eliminating Congressional earmarks and wasteful pork-barrel spending.

6. No State Aid Without Protection From Fraud. Require state governments to adopt anti-fraud and anti-theft policies before giving them more money.

7. More American Energy Now. Explore for more American oil and gas and invest in affordable energy for the future, including clean coal, ethanol, nuclear power and renewable fuels.

8. Abolish Taxes on Capital Gains. Match China, Singapore and many other competitors. More investment in America means more jobs in America.

9. Protect Our Right to Vote in the Workplace. We must protect a worker’s right to decide by secret ballot whether to join a union.

10. Replace Sarbanes-Oxley. This failed law is crippling entrepreneurial startups. Replace it with affordable rules that help create jobs, not destroy them.

11. Abolish the Death Tax. Americans should work for their families, not for Washington.

12. Invest in Energy and Transportation Infrastructure. This includes a new, expanded electric power grid and a 21st century air traffic control system that will reduce delays in air travel and save passengers, employees and airlines billions of dollars per year.


Whadda YOU think??

What are you going to do??

I was talking with the ol' Grump at the lunch table today and he said something to me that caused me to start thinking, "Ya know, I'm not so sure this country is in as bad a shape as everyone is saying it is."

To put that in a little perspective you'd have to know that he's 80 years old, with a 3rd grade education, 6 years in the army during the mid-fifties, ran a plumbing business when I first met his daughter (a master card), and was the second ranking plumbing inspector for Dekalb county (GA) when he retired about 15 years or so ago.

Today with about 20% heart function he mostly sits around watching the TV news, or Judge Judy, and whiles away the time sharpening his little pocket knife and watching the great grand children when they come to visit. All that and keeping up with his doctor visits which come about once every 6 months since the wife got his eating habits and medication timing straightened out.

So taking to heart the counsel that "He who walketh with wise men, shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed" I thought at some little length on the matter.

I concluded that if a person had a steady job, or a secure income, this period of time is not very concerning to him. Many there are that have not yet come to the point of fear about the future. Indeed there are many who are optimistic and anxious to see the new days coming. Perhaps we should be asking them for their opinion rather than those who see nothing but Armageddon ahead, or at least would have you think it is coming so as to more easily deceive you, or control you.

Now... if you have just lost your job or had your hours or wages cut back, perhaps you might be feeling just a bit of anxiety. Does weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth get you anywhere......or does rolling up your sleeves and buckling down at whatever work or tradeskill you possess and maybe taking a job that pays less than half of what you used to make and cutting back on some of the un-necessities make more sense?

Me thinks the ol' Grump is not as stupid as might be thought.

Below can be found some ideas to consider.....not mine...but people who council together, whatever their leaning politically, and try to apply principals that work.

Bullshit

The world awaits with pregnant anticipation the implementation of the SPBO's (sitting president barack obama's) economic package and like many another hopeful fool I turned over to his little harangue on many of your local channels last night.

I see many ads on the internutz saying his IQ is 122 and inviting you to come check your own IQ. I have no earthly idea if is IQ is really that high or not. If it is, the last check of mine placed it significantly above his........maybe not...who really trusts those things anyway??

All I know is that I was raised on and owned a dairy farm for a number of years, and I've got damn near 6 decades of bad and good decisions behind me.

Trust me.....(or not).....what I heard last night was BULLSHIT of the finest type. I mean they reached 5 feet up that bulls ass to get the best they could for SPBO to spout last night.

A sixth grader would have more sense than that. Let one do the math (if you can find one that knows how to use a pencil and even let them cheat by using a calculator) and they'll tell you what a load of shit he was spouting.

Just answer me one question. Why has his message of hope and change suddenly switched to Doom, Despair and Agony on Me??

Buy all the precious metals (both shiny and leaden) while you still can. Plan those Victory Gardens now. Start scratching up the ground to put in a few peas and tomatoes.

Just sayin'

Go ....

Go now over to www.velociworld.com and read the words of the mighty lion of the blog-o-sphere, V-man his-own-self.

Stop the Change We Can Believe in

Belief leads one to think of Faith, which, I think it was Paul, described as "knowledge of things unseen".

I'm not from Missouri.....but I've always been of the "show me" persuasion.

Nothing I've heard coming out of the POTUS's mouth has appealed to what little common sense and experience that I have and made me believe the that the so called "stimulus package" of almost a Trillion dollars will help us dig out of the current economic doldrums.

Perhaps......if we could keep some of our own money...or maybe be given some of what has been taken from us.......we could do some real stimulating.

Consider..

Just Sad

After the wife and the pooch have given it up for the night and hit the sack, I come creeping into the computer room in stockinged feet to catch up on the news and activities of some of the other denizens of the world wide web.

I'm trying to flush out the garbage I watched as the Bill O'rielly show was broken into to show the new sitting POTUS addressed the elite of the Dim-0-crit party at their soiree down in Virginia and harranged them to quickly pass his spending bill lest the so called recession (really depression) becomes in reality a depression (really TEOTWAWKI).

All I could find on The Drudge Report was This little tidbit to assure me that our public officials are doing any thing productive at all.

We are not going to allow ourselves to have the sacred roles of women in our society usurped by a couple of plastic women........well, considering the amount of plastic and silicone on TV these day....we may possibly be too late.

Which makes one wonder........why can't a man have a consensual relationship with an inflatable date? Do we fear that some of the ladies going in and out of the Publix would be put out of business and have to start applying for food stamps or other methods of Stimulus ?

Well, we certainly don't want to put law enforcement officials, jailers, magistrates and lawyers out of business. Me thinks maybe this is a time for an enterprising young attorney to do a bit of advertising (trolling) for customers who might have a similar problem with John Q. Law.

Gives me hope for the whole human race, that does.

Cold

Colder'n an Eskimo witch's tit in a brass Büstenhalter.

That's what it felt like around here today.

Of course I know that the states north of here have been colder......but I don't care about them.......they deserve to be colder.....I on the other hand....because of my genteel Southern Nature am like a delicate orchid......beauteous, fragile, deserving of nurturing in a hot house....sprinkled with warm water and fed on bull shit from the talking heads in Washington........Well, 2 outa 3 ain't so bad.

But then, on the other hand, by the weekend it'll be getting up into the 60 degree range or better.......So all you Yankees.....kiss my ring.

Wanna Do Something

Then don't let these be the only voices heard. Add your voices to them in directly contacting your Senators.

For Immediate Release Contact: Alex Rosenwald

February 4th, 2009 Phone: (703) 383-0880

“The tide is clearly turning against the

Obama trillion dollar debt stimulus plan.”

—ALG President Bill Wilson.



ALG President Joins Conservative Leaders in Urging Senate to Defeat Trillion Dollar Spending Bill



February 4th, 2009, Fairfax, VA—Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson today in a letter joined with 18 free market and limited government leaders in strongly urging members of the Senate to defeat the spending bill that “will total some $1.2 trillion when interest is calculated over the next decade, and represents an unsustainable growth of government.”



The joint letter is critical of provisions in the legislation already passed by the House of Representatives, and leaders believe it will not boost the economy.



“The irresponsible expansion of the budget to bail out state governments from their own budget deficits, expand Medicaid, boost education spending, food stamps and unemployment benefits, build federal buildings, provide more for public housing, construct climate change supercomputers, erect trade barriers overseas, create refundable tax credits, and make special interest payouts will not stimulate sustainable economic growth,” according to the letter.



The letter calls for permanent tax relief for businesses and individuals. The leaders believe that “individuals and businesses only change their spending and investment habits significantly when they expect policy changes to be permanent.”



Specifically, the letter advocates “[p]reventing tax increases on individual income, capital gains and dividends, changing the tax code to allow full-cost, first-year expensing for business equipment rather than the arbitrary IRS depreciation schedule, and lowering the U.S. corporate tax rate, among the highest in the world, would yield much more bang for the buck in ensuring a rapid economic recovery than the current package of massive spending with a sliver of targeted tax cuts.



The letter portends that the U.S. “is running the serious risk that it will default on its financial obligations, as the nation's creditors during the current economic downturn may be unable to continue sustaining the uncontrolled growth of spending, leaving the nation in financial ruin.”



The current national debt is $10.7 trillion. That includes $4.3 trillion owed for Social Security, Medicare, and other commitments, and $6.4 trillion held privately, $3 trillion of which is held overseas. 40 percent of the debt held privately comes due this year.



“The only way for the government to pay [the debt coming due] is to borrow yet more money,” the letter reads.



The organizations represented disagree with the idea that additional spending is not necessary to stimulate economic growth.



As an alternative the free market and limited government organizations call upon the Senate to deliver “a real plan for change, to finally set the nation's fiscal house in order, to provide permanent tax relief to businesses and individuals, to free the American people from the boom-to-bust economic cycle, and to at last retire the national debt.”



Wilson believes that the legislation can be defeated in the Senate.



“The tide is clearly turning against the Obama trillion dollar debt stimulus plan,” said Wilson in a statement.



“It is now up to Senators who do not wish to engage in generational theft to stand up and make their voices heard, and vote 'no' on the 'stimulus,'” Wilson concluded.



# # #



Interview Availability: Please contact Alex Rosenwald at (703)383-0880 or at arosenwald@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.



###



Americans for Limited Government is a non- partisan, nationwide network committed to advancing free market reforms,private property rights and core American liberties. For more information on ALG please call us at 703-383-0880 or visit our website at www.GetLiberty.org.

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