Salary of retired US Presidents ………….$450,000 FOR LIFE
Salary of House/Senate members ………. $174,000 FOR LIFE
Salary of Speaker of the House …………. $223,500 FOR LIFE
Salary of Majority/Minority Leaders ……$193,400 FOR LIFE

Average salary of a soldier deployed in Afghanistan – $38,000

Average income for seniors on Social Security – $12,000

I think we found where some budget cuts should be made!

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Now playing: Sixx:A.M. – Lies Of The Beautiful People
via FoxyTunes

Ted Nugent, rock star and avid bow hunter from Michigan, was being interviewed by a liberal journalist, an animal rights activist.

The discussion came around to deer hunting. The journalist asked, ‘What do you think is the last thought in the head of a deer before you shoot him? Is it, ‘Are you my friend?’ or is it ‘Are you the one who killed my brother?

Nugent replied, ‘Deer aren’t capable of that kind of thinking. All they care about is, what am I going to eat next, who am I going to screw next, and can I run fast enough to get away. They are very much like the Democrats in Congress.’

The interview ended.

A United States Marine was taking some college courses between assignments. He had completed 20 missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the courses had a professor who was an avowed atheist, and a member of the ACLU.

One day the professor shocked the class when he came in. He looked to the ceiling and flatly stated, “GOD, if you are real, then I want you to knock me off this platform… I’ll give you exactly 15 min.”

The lecture room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. Ten minutes went by and the professor proclaimed, “Here I am GOD, I’m still waiting.”

It got down to the last couple of minutes when the Marine got out of his chair, went up to the professor, and cold-cocked him; knocking him off the platform. The professor was out cold.

The Marine went back to his seat and sat there, silently.

The other students were shocked and stunned, and sat there looking on in silence. The professor eventually came to, noticeably shaken, looked at the Marine and asked, “What in the world is the matter with you? Why did you do that?”

The Marine calmly replied, “God was too busy today protecting America’s soldiers who are protecting your right to say stupid stuff and act like an idiot. So He sent me.”

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Now playing: Newsboys – I Am Free
via FoxyTunes
The classroom erupted in cheers!

I’ve been mulling over this post for about a week now, so here goes.

You know, it’s really kind of sad. Our entire country, heck – most of the world, mourned the loss of Steve Jobs. I’m not really going to go into what kind of person Steve Jobs was here, but let’s not speak ill of the dead just yet and say he was an egomaniac who drove at least as many bright minds away from Apple as he drew to Apple. More on that in another post. Yes, he was a visionary. Yes, he was a great marketer (how else can you get people to buy overpriced hardware?). But he had little to no technical knowledge.

What’s really sad is that only a few in the computer industry mourned the passing of one of the true giants in the computer field Dennis Ritchie. I know, I know… you’re asking “Who the heck is Dennis Ritchie?” Dennis is truly a superstar in the computer field. He is the father of Unix and the C programming language. Not in the sense that Steve Jobs is the father of Apple, but in the sense that he CREATED Unix and he CREATED the C programming language.

So now you’re saying, “So what? Did he bring us all the gadgets that Steve Jobs did?” The answer to that is “No, he didn’t bring us the gadgets. He brought us what makes the gadgets work.” Apples two main operating systems are Mac OS X (on their computers) and iOS (on their handheld devices and tablets). Both are derivatives of Unix. Without Unix, Steve Jobs wouldn’t have been able to leave Apple and creat NeXT. For those of you who conveniently forgot, Steve Jobs was driven out of Apple for his chaotic managerial style. Much of NeXT has been integrated into OS X. And the original Mac OS? Written from the ground up in…. you guessed it… C. Much of Microsoft‘s own software was originally written in C. C and it’s derivative languages are the most popular programming languages out there.

So without Dennis Ritchie and his monumental creations, Steve Jobs (and many other so-called computer wiz-kids) wouldn’t have been able to get out of their parent’s basements. Well, in Steve Jobs’ case it would have been Steve Wozniak who did all the work to get them both out of Jobs’ parents’ living room. Jobs has always had very little to offer in technical knowledge. It has been said that his contribution to the original Apple computer was “Beige plastic… make the case beige plastic”. He was the “front man” for Apple.

But without Dennis Ritchie, none of the gadgets we have today would have been possible. They ALL use either a Unix derivative for their operating system or have used C or one if its derivatives to make them work. Here’s to Dennis Ritchie. A true giant of the computer industry.

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Now playing: Evan Olson – Not What I Wanted
via FoxyTunes

This just might make your day a little brighter!! You, who worry about Democrats versus Republicans — relax, here is our real problem.

In a Purdue University classroom, they were discussing the qualifications to be President of the United States. It was pretty simple.

The candidate must be a natural born citizen of at least 35 years of age. However, one girl in the class immediately started in on how unfair was the requirement to be a natural born citizen.

In short, her opinion was that this requirement prevented many capable individuals from becoming president. The class was taking it in and letting her rant, and not many jaws hit the floor when she wrapped up her argument by stating,

“What makes a natural born citizen any more qualified to lead this country than one born by C-section?”

Yep, these are the same kinds of 18-year-olds that are now voting in our elections!

THEY BREED AND WALK AMONG US…

LORD —WE NEED MORE HELP THAN WE THOUGHT WE DID!

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Now playing: The Maine – Everything I Ask For
via FoxyTunes

Happy birthday, Howie!

Happy birthday, Laura!

Happy birthday, Jessie!

Happy birthday, Geoff!

Oh My God! Are these fools for real? The “Occupy Wall Street” protest group (or should I say loony left gathering?) has published thirteen “demands”. Here’s the list of “demands”. This post is going to be somewhat longer than most of my posts as I’m going to go through and critique each of their “demands”. I know that I can’t persuade any of these goofballs to look at facts, but maybe I can make someone see the lack of reason in their “demands”. Also, I have not edited their list of “demands” for spelling, capitalization or syntax.

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending “Freetrade” by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

The minimum wage has NEVER been a living wage. EVER. Of course, we haven’t had a minimum wage here in the US for very long; only since 1938. And many European nations (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy) do not have a minimum wage – they rely on trade groups and management to come to such a figure through collective bargaining. And imposing tariffs as well as raising the minimum wage will raise prices on all goods and services; to which they will again demand a raise in the minimum wage and then goods and services will raise… an endless cycle.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

The government does such a great job in its other endeavors that we should allow them to run health care? Really? (It has to be government to run this because we couldn’t have it privately run, could we?) Private insurers banned because they take money from doctors, nurses and hospitals? It’s the government that puts regulations on such things that prevents them from doing their jobs. And the private insurers hand the money they earn to Wall Street investors? Instead of the shareholders? Right….

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Ah, so you want a “living wage” (apparently the magical $20 per hour figure from demand one) regardless of the job? So the guy who mows lawns should get the same as the guy who repairs electrical grid systems for municipalities? Or are you saying, with the “regardless of employment” phrase that everyone should be paid a “living wage” even if they are not employed?

Demand four: Free college education.

I imagine that professors and deans and such (as well as the support and infrastructure staff of colleges and universities) really do want to work for free, right? Oh, they will still get paid? How? Raise taxes to pay for it? Well, since everyone will be making a lot more because of the “living wage” there will be a lot more collected in taxes.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

I’m all for this as long as we don’t ration the amount of energy we currently consume. But right now, with today’s technology, alternative energy sources simply aren’t up to the task of running our economy. I, for one, don’t want to take steps backwards.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Uhhhhhh….. what was the stimulus package again? To rebuild all of the infrastructure you talk about here, wasn’t it? And just how did that work out? Judging by the fact that you are making it one of your demands, I’d say “That didn’t work out so well, did it?”. What makes you think that another trillion dollars would make a difference? It’s been a liberal mantra for as long as I’ve been alive that “we just didn’t spend enough money or it would have worked out”.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America’s nuclear power plants.

Well, since the trillion dollars spent for infrastructure worked out so well, why not a trillion on these things? I know of several towns near where I live that if we allowed “the natural flow of river systems” to happen, these towns would cease to exist. And really? Decommission nuclear power plants? Do you actually believe the dramatizations in movies? Or have you looked around Europe and seen all of the safe nuclear power plants there? All this demand is going to do is cost us a trillion dollars and kill jobs.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Let’s see. 1972′s Equal Rights Amendment pretty much covers it. Of course, it’s not an official amendment because enough states didn’t vote for it (as laid out in the Constitution). But it is common business practice today (EEOC ring a bell?)

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Now wait a second. First, in demand one, you state “This demand can only be met by ending “Freetrade” by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market” and now you want to reinstate free trade so anyone can work and live anywhere? Oh yeah, try moving to Mexico to live and work there and see how far you’ll get.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Riiiiiight…. and it happens now in the dead of night with no one watching. In fact, those people counting the ballots just make up numbers and turn them in, don’t they?

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.” World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the “Books.” And I don’t mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Nice. So all the people who have borrowed money now have no incentive to work to pay off the loans they have taken out. I guess in a convoluted way that fits right in with demand one. But seriously, just forgive all debt and claim a “do over”? Are you and adult or in elementary school?

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Of course, if demand eleven is followed through with then why have demand twelve at all? There won’t be any debt and certainly no use for credit reporting agencies. Unless you allow credit companies and loans to come about again, but why would you? According to demand one everyone will be getting a “living wage” and won’t want for anything, right?

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

This contradicts demand one and demand three. What good is a union if everyone is making a “living wage” and we are all paid equal? Isn’t that what a union is all about? Paying everyone equally regardless of talent, skill or abilities? Why have a union if this is already in place?

And to top it all off the goofballs that wrote these demands end with this statement:

These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

I can’t believe that someone can grow up in the United States and believe in any of these thirteen demands. And yet they are vowing to continue their protest on Wall Street until these demands are met. I’m betting on Mother Nature ending the protest some time in January at the latest. We all know about the New York winters.