eBrizz

Today another fool drove onto railroad tracks and got hit by a train. It seems to be happening more and more so I can only assume that people are getting dumber. When I was in school we learned about the dangers of stopping on railroad tracks. We also learned about guns, blasting caps and any other things that could hurt or kill us. There was no hysteria or fear - just rational discussion about being careful around things that could pose a danger.

Many schools today seem to care more about social engineering, high self esteem and inculcating fear than education. So I'm glad you feel good about yourself but please remember your Prius is no match for a locomotive.

Let me give a little advice to those of you fast food workers and others who are protesting for higher wages. Your employer isn't going to pay you more because you have a mortgage or kids or a desire to travel. You are being paid what you are worth. Therefore, if you want to make more money you need to increase your value to the company.

Who do you think is going to get ahead in business - the employee who innovates, works hard, learns new things and looks after the best interests of the company or the whiner who demands things for nothing in return?

And NEVER ask for a raise, much less demand one. In my 30+ years of working I never did - I just kept seeing where there were inefficiencies and devised ways to fix them. I have received five-figure bonuses for twenty minutes of work. Sometimes I did things that were not my job. Did I step on some toes? Sure did. But the result was always better running operations and a sizeable pay raise for me.

What if your regional manager shows up? Or maybe even the CEO? You have two minutes to make an impression - what would you talk about? Are you aware of the latest marketing campaign? Do you even know your company's stock price? Do you own stock in the company?

If you owned the company, would you be happy with your own performance?

I must be slipping. Two years ago I wrote this:

You know that lady in Michigan who won half-a-million in cash but continued taking food stamps? I predict that within a year she'll be broke and back on government assistance. I know I'm going out on a limb here...

Well, I just now got around to looking up the story to see if my prediction was right and it wasn't! Oh, she had blown most of the money but before she could spend all of it she died of a suspected drug overdose.

I'll try to do better in the future.

AUSTIN — President Barack Obama, celebrating a half-century of the Civil Rights Act, praised Lyndon B. Johnson on Thursday as a towering figure who seized a time and a cause to solidify the promise of civil rights into reality.

Really? Lyndon Johnson opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and did everything he could as Majority Leader to gut it. It was Dwight Eisenhower who championed civil rights and voting rights for all but you know what they say about who writes the history books.

Thanks Tomcat.

So today the front page of my noosepepper says "The Doctor Gap - A shortage of family physicians could jeopardize the success of national health reform in 2014."

Way to start lowering expectations. But I seem to remember that after Canada started its foray into socialized medicine they lost about a thousand doctors a year. Turns out people don't go into medicine so they can get paid peanuts while taking orders from government bureaucrats. So the headline just as easily could be be phrased this way:

"The Doctor Gap - Due to impending government control many students now reject a career in medicine."

A couple of my shuttle photos taken on approach to NASA Ames in Mountain View.

That fiasco at the Democratic National Convention with Antonio Villaraigosa should be an eye-opener for those who think democracy is a good idea. The delegates voted No three times and the vote was ignored three times. Frustrated that he didn't get the response he (and the President) wanted, Villaraigosa simply declared the matter passed. What else could he say when the outcome was already scripted in the Teleprompter?

Democracy can always be thwarted by the criminal element in power. Just when it looks like one candidate has won the election, amazingly a trunk full of ballots is "found" that changes the outcome in favor of our overlords. The fact that this last manipulation at the convention was done openly and in front of the cameras says to me that the rules are for saps and those in power think they no longer even have to pretend to care what you think.

Given the sparse to non-existent coverage this incident received in the media, they're probably right.

Yesterday, in reference to Mitt Romney and Bain Capital, the president said "I think most Americans figure if you're the chairman, CEO and president of a company that you are responsible for what the company does."

I assume that means Mr. Obama will take full responsibility for Fast & Furious, the horrible unemployment rate and all the trillions he's added to the national debt and stop blaming George Bush.

Tonight 60 Minutes did a story on the many health hazards of consuming refined carbohydrates. I waited patiently for the medical establishment to apologize to Dr. Atkins but it didn't happen. Oversight I'm sure.

So Keith Olbermann was fired by Current TV. How pathetic do you have to be for Al Gore to not like you? Gore said this:

"We created Current to give voice to those Americans who refuse to rely on corporate-controlled media and are seeking an authentic progressive outlet. We are more committed to those goals today than ever before.

Current was also founded on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers."

Mr Gore, where do respect, openness and collegiality fit in with the progressive agenda? Progressivism is based on group identity, racism and theft. You can blame Olbermann all you want but your channel is floundering simply because the overwhelming majority of Americans reject your message.

So Newt Gingrich now says we should build a base on the Moon. For what purpose? With what money? I can't imagine why he said such a thing when he was in Florida... Oh - I get it.

Another SOTU and another plea for collectivism, government spending and, of course, the president's need for four more years. The only thing missing from his speech is the part that's actually mandated by the Constitution: The state of the union! How does our GDP compare to our debt? What are we paying in interest? How soon will our entitlement programs go broke?

If you owned a company and your CFO gave a smoke-up-your-ass speech like that instead of reporting on the financials you'd get a new CFO.

I saw a protestor carrying a sign that said "We're an investment - not an entitlement." In the real world, if you want me to invest in you or your business, you first have to convince me that it will be financially worthwhile for me to invest in you. In this case, these people really want the government to steal my money and give it to them which they justify by calling it an "investment." But guess what? It's really an entitlement, isn't it?

2011

Note to my newspaper: Please move Paul Krugman's column to the comics page where it belongs.

Also, you might as well move Doonesbury to the obituary page.

So it's been 42 years since the United States made the huge blunder of landing on the moon. Easily the dumbest thing we ever did because it just gave fuel to every do-gooder, progressive and loon. If we can put a man on the moon then why can't we have universal healthcare? If we can put a man on the moon then why can't we feed everyone in the world? If we can put a man on the moon then why can't we build high-speed rail? If we can put a man on the moon then why can't we ever find a freestanding Chick-fil-A?

Let me start by saying that I love the oil companies. They go into crazy, dirty countries and deal with crazy, dirty people. They drill huge wells, put the oil into tankers, ship it here, refine it into gasoline, load the gas into tankers and deliver it to my neighborhood for my convenience.

Congress has been grilling the oil companies over high prices while the president has been blaming “speculators.” Both viewpoints are incorrect.

The price of gasoline in 1964 was $0.30 per gallon BUT back then our money was backed by silver or gold. Coins back then were 90% silver as opposed to today’s coins which are 100% crap. So in 1964 you could buy a gallon of gas for three dimes or about 1/3 ounce of silver.

As I write this (which is right after the recent correction), the price of silver is about $36 an ounce and the price of gasoline is about $4.00 per gallon. Roughly, that means 1/3 ounce of silver will buy more than TWO gallons of gasoline today. In other words, in real terms, gasoline is far cheaper now than it was in 1964.

Lay off the oil companies. The real culprits here are the Fed and the federal government inflating and destroying our currency.

The other night I watched a show about the greatest movies of all time as voted on by simians. Gone With the Wind was voted the best picture with The Godfather in second place. Fletch was a better movie than either of those two. Casablanca (which should have won) was third. They also had a category for best screen kiss and the top spot went to Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh in GWTW. What a load of crap.

Didn't any of the voters see A Mighty Wind?

In the SOTU address, I see that the parsdent is still pushing his insane high-speed rail idea. First, since this is a government undertaking, you may reliably take whatever they project the construction cost to be and double it. And with high probability, you can triple it. And I'll put even money on quadrupling it.

Second, a little simple math (all I'm capable of) shows the flaw in using trains to transport passengers: Assume the train carries 1000 passengers who each weigh 200 pounds. All of that weight can be carried on ONE flatbed rail car. From that we may assume that freight trains are very efficient and passenger trains are just plain stupid.

Finally, fully aware of the inefficiencies, proponents believe that a passenger rail system is cost effective if 25% of its operating costs come from fares. In other words, after shelling out huge sums of money to build this turkey, the taxpayers will be on the hook for paying 75% of the operating costs - FOREVER.

2010

So President Obama's Science Advisor John Holdren now says we should start calling global warming "global climate disruption" instead. Back in the 70's he told us we were heading for a new ice age but when that didn't happen he changed it to global warming. Now that people are no longer buying the warming story, he wants to change it to something else - something with a really scary name.

In a related story, the producers of high-fructose corn syrup want to change the name of their product to "corn sugar." Turns out that HFCS, being linked to diabetes, obesity and a host of other diseases, now has a bad reputation. So instead of taking this poison off the market, they too just want to change the name.

The one thing these stories have in common? These people think you're stupid.

Let's get this straight: Petulant flight attendant boy is a narcissist who doesn't care whether he causes his passengers to miss their connections or be late for their appointments. Nor does he care about the cost, not only of replacing the emergency slide, but of taking the plane out of service for an unplanned maintenance.

So stop calling this detritus a hero - he belongs in prison and five years sounds just about right.

A lot of people (mostly Democrats) have been impugning the intelligence of Alvin Greene, the newly-nominated Senate candidate from South Carolina. I'm not exactly sure why except for the fact that he talks very slowly and doesn't seem to understand much about politics. But you could give him a frontal lobotomy, sever his corpus callosum and hit him in the head with a hammer and he'd still be smarter than Maxine Waters.

A picture of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan playing softball, which was recently published in the Wall Street Journal, is causing a small uproar among the overly-sensitive. Apparently, if you show a picture of a woman playing softball it means you're implying she's lesbian. Who knew? But back in 2000 we sure saw this photo a lot:

I guess Bush is a lesbian too.

So President Obama criticized the new Arizona immigration law and said, "But now suddenly if you don’t have your papers and you took your kid out to get ice cream, you’re going to be harassed, that’s something that could potentially happen." I can certainly empathize with Latinos fearing they will be harassed by the government because of their race.

That's because it has happened to me - just this past week - when a surly census taker came to my door demanding to know my race. I explained to him that I had sent in the form with the information the government had a right to know, namely, how many people are living in the house. He didn't seem to care much for that answer. After arguing for a few minutes and trying to intimidate with the threat of a fine, he snottily said "I'll go ask your neighbors" and he turned and walked away. I'm guessing that after trying to get my neighbors to rat on me, the little snipe invaded Poland.

So, Mr. President, how about showing as much concern for the rights and privacy of U.S. citizens as you show for those here illegally?

That's a nasty oil spill in the gulf. Too bad BP didn't buy oil spill credits.

So new reports are coming out that say Vitamin D can be effective in preventing and even reversing cancer. This is on top of the research that shows how useful it is in battling or preventing MS, ALS, strokes, heart disease, osteoporosis, flu, the common cold and a host of other diseases and ailments.

So why are we so deficient in Vitamin D all of a sudden? Gee, I don't know. Maybe it's because for the last forty years, so-called "experts" have told us to avoid the two most natural sources of Vitamin D: sunlight and saturated fat.

Idiots.

We had an injured sea lion out in San Francisco Bay and he kept eluding rescuers. When they finally caught him, a local news anchor reported that "They decided to name him Abagnale after the character played by Leo DiCaprio in the film 'Catch Me If You Can.'" Really? That's like saying they named him Abraham Lincoln after a character played by Raymond Massey in "How The West Was Won."

So our local news media is rejoicing that finally the steel structures for the new Bay Bridge are arriving from China. Not a hint of concern nor even a small flash of recognition that this great American bridge is being built overseas.

Meanwhile, there are lots of old men sitting on park benches in Pittsburgh, bragging about how much money they used to make before their union priced them all out of work and bankrupted their companies.