Posted on

This is intended to be somewhat of a factual post

Some days it is best to just let the links do the talking. That is true, meaning, it is not intended to be a false statement. I suppose that would be the inverse of the answer from a press flak for Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona in response to the senator’s comments on Planned Parenthood during last week’s federal budget debate.

Kyl claimed that abortions were “well over 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood does,” as the womens’ health organization became the whipping boy for Republican opposition to the budget even though it is illegal for Congress to provide funding for abortions in the U.S. Just to leave the (I loathe abortion/I support the right to choose) debate for a minute, Planned Parenthood says abortions are actually only 3 percent of what the organization does. And yes, some debate that number. But Kyl substantiated Planned Parenthood’s claims by default when his flak told reporters that what the senator said “was not intended to be a factual statement.”

Let’s look at that phrase again. It “was not intended,” meaning the senator did not mean to make “a factual statement.” So, it was all said as a lie, big ol’ lie, liar, liar, pants on fire. Well if the statement from the press flak was correct and honest, then perhaps we have a rare example of a politician telling the truth although that is rather doubtful. Kyl and his office, or so it seems, could be just a tad deceitful via their double-speak.

Fly the unfriendly skies

Sen. Inhofe: I think that big X down on the runway means we can land there.

No, this is not about more sleeping air controllers.

This is instead a short mention of Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, yes another Republican, and his problems with landing an airplane.

It seems Inhofe was in South Texas awhile back and as a witness put it, “Scared the crap” out of some folks fixing a runway when the 76-year-old senator hopped over a group of construction workers and six vehicles while landing his Cessna at the Cameron County Airport. The airport had a big “X” on its threshold, which perhaps Inhofe mistook for “land right here.” It could be an Oklahoma thing, or it could be some kind right-wing thing to which those of us who don’t know the handshake are not privy.

The Smoking Gun, which filed a Freedom of Information request for recordings and documents involved in this debacle, lays it all out for the public to see. The FAA made Inhofe take a remedial class and would “expunge” the letter in his file regarding the incident and action in two years provided Inhofe doesn’t’ kill someone first.

Posted on

My exhaustion elixir is “Justified”

Exhausted. Maybe I am anemic after all. I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I feel like I’ve been eaten by a wolf and s**t over a cliff. My late friend Betti should have copyrighted that saying. The big ol’ redheaded nut. I sure miss her.

Seriously, I am going to answer an e-mail then kick back and wait for “Justified” to come on the tube. I read an interesting article about one of the stars of that show, Joseph Lyle Taylor who plays the son of the marijuana-growing matriarch of Bennett County and whom is also that corrupt county’s corrupt county sheriff, Doyle Bennett.

Taylor grew up in Vidor, Texas, across the Neches River from where I live here in Beaumont, where he was a seriously underweight linebacker in high school football, and claims he was the slowest player in his whole district. He took drama in high school thinking it would be an easy class but met a teacher who was serious about the subject. Taylor apparently had a great teacher in Adonia Placette, who now is theater director at local Lamar University. Good story about a teacher making a difference in someone’s life.

Posted on

Shoot! The Muffler Men done took over our state bowl game

This afternoon I am a bit on the tired side. Going back to work after more than a couple of days off — I had four in a row — is hard to do. As much as I try not to face it, I am busier than scientists studying cats flying backwards. Yeah, give me a “Huh?” It is one of my busy times of the year at work, I haven’t stopped to look at my schedule for too long because it keeps changing but it looks like I will be working every day for the next three weeks. That isn’t to say I will work a full day every day, but still, work is work when you get right down to it.

Personally, I’d like a job naming college football bowl games. Like the latest, “The Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas.” Yes, dear friends and neighbors, that is what the Texas Bowl — I didn’t even know there was one until this past football season although its been played since 2006 in Houston which is about 80 miles away from where I live — will be called.

Meineke, isn’t that a chain of muffler shops?  Maybe the world’s largest muffler will be on display at half-time on the 50 yard line. I’m sure the world’s largest muffler is somewhere. Let me see. Well, I didn’t find the world’s largest on my first pass o’er ye ol’ Internet. Now I will be up all night looking, searching for that elusive largest muffler in the world.

Nevertheless, Meineke started out in the muffler business in 1972 and since the early 2000s the company has evolved into a full-blown “car care” service with 900 franchise stores worldwide. And they apparently forked over a world’s largest muffler full of moo-lah to have this bowl game named after them. Glasspacks anyone?

I wouldn’t mind it so much if it was the Jacksonville (Texas) Bill Day Tire Center Tomato Bowl or the Baptist Church Branch Davidian Bowl in Waco being named, well, maybe the Waco thing is a little over the top. But the Texas Bowl? Have a little bit o’ respect for your state, son! I mean, I’m not one of those secessionist like our good-haired governor. But Texas deserves a certain amount of reverence, at least if you use the name for a football contest. Why there is nothing more important in the world than guns and football in Texas. I am surprised no one has thought to playing football while armed to the teeth.

The quarterback could take out that linebacker real easy with a Glock 22, which offers 15-rounds of .40-caliber love that will make the defense think twice about crossing the line of scrimmage. Can you say, center mass? Hey, Gov. Goodhair and his band o’ Merry Men known as the Republican Texas Legislature, wants to arm college students. So it is just simple evolution, oops, that’s not discussed on college campuses in Texas anymore, it is just the natural order of things. It’s just intelligent design. That’s kind of a funny phrase when you pair it with football. Not that football players are less than intelligent. I mean, there is Terry Bradshaw after all.

Posted on

Budget settled for a few months at least.

The budget “showdown” is over for now, thank goodness. With a little luck Congress should have the fiscal year’s budget ready for the president’s signature by Saturday. Then, in less than six months, the fiscal year will end. What a national government!

Having gone through Friday night’s insanity and that of months before between the two parties playing games with people’s lives over the budget, I have a couple of thoughts:

First, if you think that all the so-called “drama” which led up to a budget deal averting a government shutdown only an hour before deadline was pure political drama, think again. What it was was pure government horse pucky.

Second, if you think the government budget battle culminating late Friday evening was strictly about the budget, think again some more. It was all about pure government bull pucky.

Whether it be horse or bull manure, or from a donkey or an elephant for that matter, the so-called dramatic “budget battle” was just a matter of political parties posturing and playing puerile pursuits — for alliteration’s sake. At least the president cleverly had the ability to make it appear he was sitting on the sides acting the grownup’s part. Although as has been the case in several of Obama’s important decisions over the past year I felt his leadership was disappointing.

Nonetheless, Obama came out looking  well to the majority of the public and I think that is good because I don’t see anyone else in the offing in either the Democratic or Republican crop for 2012 who look capable of running the country other than the incumbent.

What? Am I saying Donald Trump wouldn’t make a good president? Exactly, I wouldn’t let Donald Trump run a crawfish race.

Posted on

Watch the soap: “As The Government Turns”

The machinery of the federal government is gearing down toward a halt. I know this from personal experience, but I will not go into it just because. No, I could relate some of that familiarity but I see no reason to, it being fairly pedestrian. Besides, we still have more than eight hours to go even though I don’t believe in miracles — at least when the federal government is concerned. By federal government, I include Congress.

Give us your tired, your poor and your idiots, the latter of whom will make our laws.

Military men and women aren’t happy campers, reports Navy Times, for the same reason I am not doing cartwheels. The threat of no pay sometime down the road is on our minds. The American Federation of Government Employees, a mighty fine labor organization I might say, a.k.a. AFGE, is seeking an injunction which would prohibit military and other federal workers who are deemed essential from having to work without pay. The AFGE says they have the Constitution to back them up.

“Hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be required to work during a shutdown, and there’s no guarantee that Congress will keep the administration’s promise to pay those employees once the shutdown is over,” AFGE National President John Gage said.

The suit charges that the Obama administration is violating the Appropriations Clause and Thirteenth Amendment by requiring federal civilian employees to work without pay during a period of lapsed federal appropriations.

Interesting.

Really, there isn’t anything to do but sit back and watch all the foolishness and silliness in this gargantuan soap opera played out by the people who govern the “greatest nation on Earth.”

For a little insanity not directly related to the government shutdown: BP has bought an eastern-facing beach of Cat Island, a barrier island in the Mississippi Sound. The part of the beach is the top of the “T” of the T-shaped island that is about eight miles south of Gulfport, Miss. Parts of the island were long in private hands. So, says a BP press flak,  it would be easier for the company to clean up the beach, due to the massive Deepwater Horizon explosion-caused oil spill which happened one year ago this month, than to have to deal with the regulatory niceties of cleaning up private property. You break it, you buy it, I guess. Candy, I bet. S**t, I reckon.

On that note, I know I am off from my part-time job until at least Tuesday. We shall see if it is longer than that, and if I will be back to begging for donations on the blog if the threatened shutdown materializes.