OK, we allow crazy people with bombs and their shoes and fireworks strapped to their crotch on planes, but we put 6 year old girls on the “Do Not Fly” list? Was she carry a knitting needle on board (which is allowable, and which I’ve seen)? Did she look at a flight attendant wrong?

The father of a 6-year-old Ohio girl who turned up on the U.S. government’s terror watch list says the worst thing his daughter has ever done is probably been mean to her sister.

But Santhosh Thomas, a doctor from Westlake, Ohio, says he’s sure that’s not enough to land his 6-year-old Alyssa on the no-fly list of suspected terrorists. “She may have threatened her sister, but I don’t think that constitutes Homeland Security triggers,” he told CNN.

Federal authorities have acknowledged that such a no-fly list exists, but as a matter of national security, they won’t comment on whose names are on it nor why. “The watch lists are an important layer of security to prevent individuals with known or suspected ties to terrorism from flying,” an unnamed spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration told Fox News.

[read the full story]

This will probably get me put on “the list” for saying this, but our government is apparently ran by complete morons.  Is it really that hard to find competent people for the  job? Boy, do I feel safer now that this 6 year old girl can’t fly.

I’m feeling sorry for my friends in California tonight. Your GOP candidate for governor is the Meg Whitman.  The lady who “diluted the magic of eBay” and did everything in her power to run the company into the ground. “Hey lets buy Skype but not the patents to the technology.” BRILLIANT!  Not to mention the other dumb business moves made during her short tenure at the helm.

On the other side of the coin you have former Gov. Jerry Brown. I don’t know anything about Mr. Brown, but one can venture to guess.

For the sake of your local economy (which has a direct impact on my own livelihood) I really hope that you have some decent third, fourth & fifth “party” candidates in the race.  I know you can do it!

All teachers, principals fired at poor-performing R.I. high school.

A Rhode Island school board has voted to clean house at Central Falls High School by firing the entire staff of 93, including all teachers, guidance counselors, p.e. instructors and the principal.

Education is one topic that gets me fired up, and this one takes the cake recently.  And honestly, I’ll be shocked if this improves anything and would venture to guess that things will actually get worse.

Some things to think about:

1. What about the parents/guardians? I have seen first hand that some kids just don’t care about school if they don’t have a good at home support system in place.
2. What about the kids?  While not ideal, maybe the kids are indeed below “average”. Not everyone can be in the top of the class.
3. What about the government? I don’t even have the time to properly touch that one other than to say they clearly don’t think things through a lot of the time.
4. What teachers looking for a job would be eager to jump on board after they just threw everyone else under the bus?  Given the economy I’m sure they’ll find teachers, but I can’t imagine that they’ll have the school or the kids in mind for more than a stepping stone onto a better job.

That said, yes, it could be the teachers too, but I can’t believe that it’s all of them. This just seems totally irresponsible to me.

Via The Wall Street Journal:

A senior Democratic official said Sen. Evan Bayh, a centrist Democrat from a Republican-leaning state, is ready to announce he will not seek re-election.

The 54-year-old was ready to appear at a news conference in his home state of Indiana to reveal his plans. His departure continues a trend in which several senators and members of the House from both parties have decided to retire. Polls have shown rising public dissatisfaction with both parties and with Congress in the face of continuing high unemployment, mounting deficits and lucrative bank executive bonuses.

This is sort of a surprising move, but I’ve gotten the feeling recently that the tides may be changing here in Indiana.  However I would be quite surprised if you didn’t see Bayh back in the political arena down the road.

As this President’s Day rolls around I bet Honest Abe is rolling over in his grave due to some of the nonsense that’s going on in Washington D.C. in 2010.

Yesterday I heard that “professor” was a racial slur.  Really?  Derogatory in certain contexts, maybe.  But racist?  Give me a break.

Of course, this is coming from the political realm, so take that for what it is.

All I have to say is, GROW UP PEOPLE! If we don’t stop trying to turn everything into a pigment issue we’ll never achieve equality of any sort.  We may achieve an overall switch of perceived “racial superiority” (which is just a wrong idea to start with), but we will never have true equality until we no longer see people for their gender and/or the color of their skin. [Insert your own John Mayer remark here...and he reportedly says that he needs to grow up.]

But this is coming from a crazy mostly “white” male that no one listens to.  Go about your business.

Via USA Today:

Some conservative commentators seized on President Barack Obama’s deep bow to Japan’s Emperor Akihito over the weekend, accusing the U.S. commander in chief of groveling before a foreign leader.

OK, it should be quite apparent that I am not a fan of our sitting President. But the latest groveling “news” story I heard just seems silly to me, especially when there’s so much more that you could legitimately go after the man on.

But I have a solution to solve the Obamanator’s foreign follies. And it’s a simple one.

STOP THINKING THAT YOU ARE THE SAVIOR OF MANKIND!!!

Ditch all of the out of the country nonsense and keep yourself at home and figure out a solution to actually help the citizens without putting them any further into debt than you’ve already managed to do so.

Wait a  minute, I was thinking about someone who had both common sense and business sense. Let me rethink that…

On second thought, please spend ALL of your time outside of the country. And please take the “media” and your entire cabinet with you.  That way, maybe, just maybe, we the people can figure out a way to fix the economic woes you’ve created and continue to create. But that is a very tall order.

Via ABC, there are millions of dollars of jobs ‘saved or created’ in Congressional Districts that don’t exist, using Stimulus funds.  While I don’t know if this money has legitimately used elsewhere, this is just crazy.

And the most ludicrious part:

The Recovery.gov Web site was established as part of the stimulus bill “to foster greater accountability and transparency” in the use of the money spent through the stimulus program. The site is a well-funded enterprise; the General Services Administration updated it earlier this year with an $18 million grant.

It does not take $18 MILLION dollars to create a website like that, no matter how you cut it. Creating websites and programs is my business, so I know that first hand what something like that should run on the high end! What a bunch of buffoons that continue to squander away OUR money while taking everything else away from us and asking us to fill up the coffers.

Via CNN:

The social networking site Facebook on Monday pulled a third-party application that allows users to create polls after a site member built a poll asking if President Obama should be killed.

The U.S. Secret Service, the agency assigned to protect the president, has launched an investigation, agency spokesman James Mackin said.

…

The possible responses to the poll were “yes,” “maybe,” “if he cuts my health care” and “no.”

I actually spotted this when I was removing the majority of my Facebook applications earlier today (that’s a future post topic) and I was shocked.

First, I don’t care who they are, if you disagree with someone, this is outright wrong to think, let alone ask others.  Not to mention whoever is behind this is just going to throw more fuel on the idiotic “race” fire (anyone with half a brain knows that it’s not about race at all, but party policies).

Second, who in their right mind would 1) publish this active poll, 2) take it & 3) add it to their Facebook page? Seriously, you’d have to be completely out of your mind and/or completely ignorant that any threat, real or not, against the President of the United States of America is taken seriously and can land you in a federal prison for quite some time. While you may not like the man, this is an extremely stupid way to show that dislike.

For the sake of our country I certainly hope that they determine this to be the work of someone outside of the States.

Via the Indy Star:

The [Indiana] lottery proceeds fell by nearly $40 million in the past fiscal year, the highest percentage drop in the nation.

And you say that like it’s a bad thing? Seriously? Yes, I know that the lottery “helps” out with a lot of things like the Excise Tax, but come on, this isn’t a good way to go about it.

Sure, I’ve gambled before, but I can do the math and realize going in that I’m probably not going to get my money back. Which is why I’m more of a penny slot kind of guy if I’m in a casino (or even better, the half-penny slots).  And which is why I’d rather put my money into the stock market where you at least have a fair chance to make a profit as long as you’re not foolish about what you’re doing.

That said, I don’t have a fully formulated answer to a better solution at the moment.  But I do know that dangling the slim chance of getting “rich” in front of the middle class & poor as a means of collecting more money is just wrong. We’ve got to do better. Maybe the state should start acting like a productive business as opposed to a welfare recipient sitting on the couch munching on chips and chocolates.  Maybe the state should create something useful that our citizens (and anyone else for that matter) could buy instead of legally stealing the money of those who don’t understand probability and/or who have a gambling addition.  But of course, this is an inflated bureaucracy we’re talking about here. I’m just a small business owner who has worked his tail off to make a successful go at it. What do I know?

As a small business owner, this “Health Care Reform” nonsense makes me cringe & uncontrollably start muttering things under my breath. While I won’t get nailed with this at the moment, it’s not hard to see what will happen for many small businesses.

It’s really quite simple actually:

1. Small businesses will hire fewer employees. We’re seeing this already all over the place due to the economy.  Less money equals less jobs. So sure, let’s keep that unemployment ball rolling along.
    
2. Employees will be offered crappy insurance coverage and/or pay through the nose to have it. Anyone who has worked for a small business probably has seen this already. Yes, there is insurance available, but if you’re in need of family coverage you’re probably going to get hosed with the cost of this.  And many will opt to not take the coverage as taking the risk and paying for doctor visits out of pocket looks to be cheaper (I have seen this in very large corporations as well).  So how is that helping the health insurance situation?

Anyway, if they do pass this it’s going to be interesting to watch as they begin to see this work itself out on paper. “What do you mean we’ve poured all of this money into it and we haven’t helped matters? Go fix the numbers and don’t come back until you do. In the meantime, lets raise taxes some more to cover it.”

I know that those two predictions will anger some people, but I don’t see how health care can truly be reformed until we get to the source of the problem; the insurance companies.  While I hate the government meddling in things like this, if all of the people who voted for this administration really want the governments’ help in the matter, how about having them require insurance companies to offer the same policy to everyone for the same price, regardless of the size of your company.  Yes, there are still some flaws in that (like, dare I say it, the portion paid by the employer), but at least it’s a start.

Am I wrong? Let me know your thoughts.