Would you buy a car from this man?

Cal Worthington, eat your heart out! Our benevolent car salesman in chief has promised that he will personally guarantee that warranty on your GM or Chrysler automobile. The Age of Obama is reaching a level of ridiculous proportions.

It is my hope that the steps I am announcing today will go a long way towards answering many of the questions people may have about the future of GM and Chrysler. But just in case there are still nagging doubts, let me say it as plainly as I can -- if you buy a car from Chrysler or General Motors, you will be able to get your car serviced and repaired, just like always. Your warranty will be safe.

In fact, it will be safer than it's ever been. Because starting today, the United States government will stand behind your warranty.

A couple questions for our Dear Leader:

If the warranty is "safer than it's ever been" because the federal government will stand behind it, why shouldn't all auto warranties be backed by the federal government so they can be safer as well?

Where do you, the president, get the authority to unilaterally guarantee these warranties without any corresponding legislation from Congress?

Even better, where is the Constitutional authority for the federal government - president or congress - to guarantee these warranties or to bail out these automakers in the first place? I have rechecked Articles I and II of the Constitution. It ain't there.

Tell me again, what is that word that describes a society in which private businesses are not owned, but are controlled, by the national government? Oh Yeah! Fascism.

Good Day to You, Sir

Reminder to teachers: Don't get sick

Or in my case, don't let one of your children get sick. On Thursday night - well, extremely early Friday morning - my daughter threw up several times in her bed. My wife and I would get her cleaned up and back to sleep, and then 30 minutes later, we would both be running toward my daughter's room in response to that frantic crying that accompanies the gurgling retching sounds of a vomiting two year-old. Ah, parenthood!

It was my turn to stay home from work, so I put in for a substitute teacher for that Friday. I pulled together a simple lesson plan and then emailed it to the school secretary so she could give it to the sub.

This morning, I entered my classroom and began reading the note left by the sub. The first thing that struck me was that some classes that are usually very well-behaved were uncontrolled chaos, according to the sub. She also gave me lists - that's plural - of students that she kicked out of class. Some students' inclusion on these lists didn't surprise me, but the lists also included students who are absolute mice.

Then, it all started to make sense. I checked my email and saw one from my vice principal telling me to disregard anything the sub told me in her notes, and that the sub will not be invited back to our campus. It turns out she is an absolute loon. Campus supervisors visited the class several times, and they all confirmed that the sub had no control of the classroom, and she was being totally inconsistent with her attempts at discipline, treating a whisper as harshly as a scream. As I sat there, shaking my head at the VP's email, the teacher next door, who teaches Yearbook, told me that he had sent a Yearbook student of his to borrow a stapler from my classroom. When the student asked this sub for my stapler, the sub began yelling at him and sent him to the office! So she was even removing other teachers' assistants for crying out loud!

A student with a Hispanic surname in my 1st period class (this is an honors class) told me that the sub couldn't remember how to say some word in Spanish, so the sub asked this student to call her mother to find out the translation (the student doesn't speak Spanish). The other students in the class confirmed this.

So today was a do-over. I had the students complete an almost identical assignment to the one that was supposed to be done on Friday. Many of the Friday assignments were not done because half of my classes were in the frickin' office. What pains me is that I am quite sure that there truly were some horribly misbehaving students. The problem is that since the sub poisoned the well, I can't take her word on who truly misbehaved.

So what is the lesson to be learned here? When you call for a sub, don't just let your sub be randomly picked by the district's system. Find out who the quality subs are, keep their ID numbers on file, and choose them when you call in (or go online) for your sub.

What's funny is that this sub was apparently so bad, that I got the feeling that my students were almost relieved that I was back in control of the classroom. Even my consistently worst behaving class (6th period) was quiet as could be as they completed today's assignment.

No worries; my two-week Easter Break begins this Saturday!

Good Day to You, Sir

Evil is good, and good is evil

I'm sure you have by now heard that four Oakland, California police officers were shot and killed by a career felon. What you may not know is that some people in Oakland think this is something worth celebrating:



So while those reprobates honor their scumbag, here are the images that should be remembered:

Sergeant Daniel Sakai

Sergeant Ervin Romans

Officer John Hege

Sergeant Mark Dunakin

Good Day to You, Sir

Has Dennis Prager seen the latest Indiana Jones movie?

After having Nazis as the bad guys in two of the first three Indiana Jones movies, how refreshing it was last year when the fourth installment of the cinematic franchise enlisted the Communist Soviets as the evil foils to the heroic archaeologist/professor.

I thought about this as I read Dennis Prager's latest column, where he gives seven reasons why Communism is not as universally despised as Nazism or Fascism, but it should be.

I got to hear Dennis Prager speak in person on Sunday night. His speech was every bit as enjoyable and cerebral as his radio show, to which I listen at every opportunity.

Good Day to You, Sir

This criminal doesn't get to have it his way

Florida is a "shall-issue" state, which means that if you want to carry a concealed firearm, it is up to the state to prove why you shouldn't, rather than the burden being put on you to prove why you should.

A criminal who tried to hold up a Burger King in Miami found out the hard way that there are citizens in the Sunshine State who have taken full advantage of their God-given right to defend themselves and others. My hat goes off to this heroic armed citizen!

Side note: Make sure to take notice of the purposely vague and misleading headline.

Good Day to You, Sir

Are you beginning to see a pattern here?

Public schools that accept federal money have to follow federal educational mandates or risk being closed down or having the entire staff fired under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).

Auto companies who receive bailout money can be told by the government how they will run their business and in some cases, what kind of cars they can make.

Financial institutions that have been bailed out by the government can have salary caps imposed, and bonuses canceled by the government.

And now, newspapers that are about to be bailed out by the government will not be allowed to endorse political candidates.

When will people learn that when you make government a partner in your enterprise, the government always becomes the controlling partner?

The whole situation reminds me of a scene in the wonderful mafia movie GoodFellas, where the mob boss, Paul Cicero, is made a partner in a local nightclub in which many of the wiseguys hang out on Friday and Saturday nights (Bad Language Alert!):

Now the guy's got Paulie as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the bill? He can go to Paulie. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Tommy, he can call Paulie. But now the guy's gotta come up with Paulie's money every week no matter what. Business bad? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning huh? Fuck you, pay me."

It's not a perfect analogy, but you get the idea. The tragedy is that in this day and age, comparing our government to the mafia isn't too far off base.

Good Day to You, Sir

Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States of America

What an immature, insensitive jerk. Has the buyers' remorse set in yet?



Gallows humor? Our Dear Leader must not realize that gallows humor is supposed to be made by the man with the rope around his neck (the American taxpayer), not the executioner (the Obamessiah). Even that dependable lefty, Steve Kroft, appeared to be appalled. I look and listen to this pathetic excuse for a man and continue to be dumbfounded that he is actually our president.

I should have swallowed the blue pill!

Good Day to You, Sir

Is a free house enough, or are her 14 kids still screwed?

Try as I might to not jump on the bandwagon, I can no longer hold my tongue. I was on the treadmill at the gym last night, and there she was on CNN's Anderson Cooper, cavorting about town with a couple of her brood in tow and enjoying every moment of the lavish attention this pathetic woman so obviously craves.

We all have read, watched, or heard about Nadya Suleman, the California octuplet mom, and her fourteen children. Many view this story as a miracle of life, while others view it as an ignorant temptation by a woman who wanted a big family, and an unethical doctor in search of fame.

The truth of the matter is that this divorced, unemployed, disabled and unsupported mother, who is also a student under debt. And even though her critical, but ultimately enabling, father gave her a new $560,000+, 2,500+ square-foot house, Suleman is financially bankrupt and cannot afford her children. As a result, of Suleman’s inability to take care of her children, the government must take action, by using taxpayers’ money, to help these children survive this tragic state of affairs.

In an NBC interview by Ann Curry, Suleman claimed that she has no intention to live off of taxpayers’ money. She stated, “If I am, if it's food stamps, it's a temporary resource. And I was so reluctant. I very much so look forward to the day when I am not getting any kind of help with food stamps, which I believe will end when I graduate in about a year or year and a half.”

Sadly, Suleman’s statement is based on hope and not reality. According to U.S. Department of Agriculture, for a single mom to raise a child to age 18, she will minimally spend between $118,590 and $250,260. Do the math, and that means this single mother with little financial means would have to cough up somewhere between $1,660,260 and $3,503,640 if she wanted to raise these kids on her own without the help of Daddy Government (read: taxpayer).

So who is really at fault here? Is it the mother who simply wanted to have more children, or the doctor who knew the result of his research and simply did not consider the consequences of his actions?

Unfortunately, there is enough blame to go around with everybody involved in the very sad situation. Dr. Michael Kamrava, Suleman’s physician and an embryo implantation specialist, should have assumed the consequences of his actions and advised his patient not to progress with the procedure. The mother should have considered the wellbeing of her previous six children, and now, her eight children--not to mention the millions of dollars it will cost taxpayers.

It is just plain wrong that California’s hardworking taxpayers should be the ones footing the bill for these very bad decisions made by individuals that are working the system. Taxpayers deserve better than this, and need to know that their precious dollars are being spent wisely--not for individuals who make selfish choices for their own personal gratification and gain.

Where exactly we go from here is uncertain but it is clear we need to address these ethical issues in order to prevent more tragic situations like this one from occurring—which has both huge human and financial costs.

Good Day to You, Sir

Follow the sinking squiggly line

It's becoming almost comical: every time the stock market begins to make a rally, our illustrious Dear Leader and his minions in congress and the Federal Reserve seem to do everything they can to reverse that rally:

U.S. stock rally fades as investors assess Fed moves

Good Day to You, Sir

For the record

In the Obama administration, terrorist attacks are no longer to be called "terrorist attacks," at least not according to Janet Napolitano, Obama's new Director of Homeland Security. During an interview with German magazine Der Spiegel (that's The Mirror to you yokels who don't sprechen Deutsch):

SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, in your first testimony to the US Congress as Homeland Security Secretary you never mentioned the word "terrorism." Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?

NAPOLITANO: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word "terrorism," I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.

Did she say "man-caused" disasters? Sigh, these Lefties are always about "nuance" aren't they?

Good Day to You, Sir

A fringe benefit of the sinking economy

Even the illegal aliens can't find work, so they are self-deporting. I received this email in my inbox at work yesterday. The names have been deleted.

Dear Staff,

Yesterday I spoke with ******'s mother who informed me that ****** will be disenrolling from school in a few weeks, and moving to Mexico. I asked Mom why and she said that her husband was recently laid off from work and cannot apply for unemployment because of his illegal status here in the United States, and the same goes for Mom. In addition, they cannot apply for any public assistance either. She told me that she told the children on Sunday that their beds will have to be sold because they need money for rent. Without going in too many details, ****** and her mother came to the US in order to be safe.

So basically, they have no money to survive on while they prepare to transition to Mexico where they have family.

I contacted the homeless liaison at the district to see what assistance he can provide the family until they leave, and [our principal] suggested I email the staff to see if anyone would like to make a monetary donation.


Very Truly Yours,

[the school secretary]

I have this student in class and she is a very well-behaved, considerate, and conscientous student. I hate to see her go. On the other hand, she is a victim of poor choices made by her parents. When they came here illegally, they must have known that something like this could happen. It's a shame they have to drag their daughter down with them.

Good Day to You, Sir

McClintock spanks the "Leftist Luddites"

I was forwarded the text of an outstanding and devastating (to the global warm-ongers) speech given by California congressional representative Tom McClintock. The occasion for the speech was the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, held in New York City earlier this month by the Heartland Institute.

There were a couple things I especially enjoyed about McClintock's speech.

First was his sarcastic, flippant tone that he used in the delivery. Remember, I only read the text, I didn't hear him speak; yet the words he used deliciously dripped with amused contempt for these people - dubbed "Leftist Luddites" by McClintock - who want to reduce our standard of living and our life expectancy in the name of solving a crisis that does not even exist: man-made global warming. People on the left get apoplectic when you laugh at their misguided beliefs, which for them, border on the religious in their intensity. This is one of the reasons that after twenty years on the air, Rush Limbaugh still drives the left crazy. He laughs at them; he makes fun of them. McClintock does likewise in this speech.

Second, McClintock pointed out the absurd contradictions of what the Luddites want to do in order to combat our so-called climate crisis. Observe:

In fact, I had a friend who paid $45 for one of these “carbon offsets” for his Lincoln Navigator. By paying $45, this company sends him a very attractive 10-cent decal that certifies his SUV now has absolutely NO carbon footprint.
But then he discovered that Priuses, which do have a carbon footprint, get to use our diamond lanes for free, while his Lincoln Navigator – which for just $45 now has no carbon footprint whatsoever – has to sit in bumper to bumper traffic with all the rest of us carbon sinners...

{Snip}

These carbon offsets are supposed to be used for such activities as planting more trees to absorb carbon dioxide. After all, young trees absorb much more of this “greenhouse gas” than old trees.
But isn’t replacing old-growth timber with young-growth timber exactly what lumber companies used to do until Al Gore’s acolytes stopped them?
Trees are also very important to reducing energy demand – we’re told that to conserve electricity we need to plant lots of shade trees to shield our roofs from the sun so that we don’t use our air conditioners. We’re also all supposed to install solar panels on our roofs, although they don’t work so well in the shade from our trees...

{Snip}

In fact, there are only two ways of generating vast amounts of clean electricity for electric cars and trains: hydroelectricity and nuclear power. But there’s no faster way to send these Luddites into hysterics than to mention that inconvenient truth.
The politically correct replacement is solar energy. Solar energy is roughly 17 times more expensive than either nuclear power or hydroelectricity – meaning, of course around 17 times LESS electricity to run electric cars and trains.
Energy conservation, then, is the answer, which is why we’re required only to use energy efficient fluorescent lights rather than the warm and fuzzy incandescent bulbs. But wait – California has banned the disposal of fluorescent lights with your trash because of the extreme environmental hazard they pose in our landfills...

That is just a taste folks. Read the rest of Tom McClintock's speech right here.

Good Day to You, Sir

Nobody's perfect

But I was close! My score was 31/33 (93.94%).

My latest issue of EducationMatters, the monthly newsletter from the Association of American Educators had an article about the abysmal state of our country's civic knowledge., based on the results of a civics quiz taken by over 2,500 Americans. The most amusing part is that of the 33 questions on the quiz, people who self-identified as elected government officials did worse than the average citizen on 31 of those questions.

Take the quiz for yourself and see if you can best the average score of elected officials and perhaps the stellar score of yours truly.

By the way, on one of the answers I got wrong, I could argue that I shouldn't have.

Good Day to You, Sir

Time to bring back a fading tradition

Pocketknives. They used to be something that men were simply expected to carry. I remember receiving one from my Dad for Christmas one year, and as a kid, I carried one quite often. Somehow, over time, I stopped carrying one. After reading this column, I have reversed course, and have added a pocketknife to the small pile of items that I stuff into my pocket in the morning. Not only to pocketknives come in handy, but they can also save a life:

...There was a time when the average boy, and the man he became, carried a pocket knife as a matter of course. As we have become more urban and less rural, many citizens have lost touch with the need to carry a knife. You see these pacified, civilized, emasculated citizens tearing at vending machine packages of potato chips with their teeth or their car keys. That would be comical, if not a bit sad... except that the stakes are a lot higher than being unable to open a Christmas present or a bag of pretzels. In some cases, the lack of the most basic technology results in the death of a human being....

I have probably 8 to 10 pocketknives that I have acquired over the years, and until I read this article, they were collecting dust in my dresser drawer. No more.

Good Day to You, Sir

What are you doing on April 15th?

Wanna go to a Tea Party? So far, 115 cities have signed up to protest the out-of-control spending in which our government is engaging.

Go to TaxDayTeaParty.com, and see where your nearest protest will be held. Unfortunately, April 15th is a work day, so attending a protest won't be easy; but what the hell? Our salaries are being raped anyway.

I will be checking with "She Who Keeps the Calendar" to see if I can take a half day off.

Good Day to You, Sir

Not the right kind of stimulus, I guess

"You can't take a trip to Las Vegas or down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers' dime...."

So said President Barack Obama back on February 10 of this year. His remarks were directed toward the CEOs of companies who made a devil's bargain and accepted the bailout money that was doled out by the Democrats earlier this year.

On a visceral level, Obama's comment initially seems reasonable: How dare a financially strapped company receive the lifeblood of the American taxpayer and then spend it on hotels and parties in Sin City?!

Upon more thoughtful deliberation, there are two problems with this line of thinking.

First, putting aside the fact that this writer does not believe that the taxpayers' money should be used for this sort of thing in the first place, the bottom line is that it has indeed been given to these companies, presumably with the goal of making them financially solvent again. One of the ways that companies stay profitable is to drum up business. This is done in a myriad of ways, to include, yes, wining and dining potential clients and customers in places like Las Vegas. Like it or not, that is how business gets done. To deny this marketing strategy to companies that have accepted federal bailout dollars is to ensure that they will not be competitive in the free market, and they will most likely fall further behind, thus wasting the sweat and toil of the taxpayers.

Second, I thought Obama and the congressional Democrats are trying to stimulate the economy by creating new jobs and saving existing ones. When these companies go to Vegas and spend hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, who do you think benefits from that spending? The waiters and waitresses; the casino table workers; the event planners; the alcohol and food suppliers; the mechanic who repairs the vehicles of the alcohol and food suppliers; the list is endless.

On today's Drudge, there is linked an article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal that brings up my latter point. In the last 90 days, over 340 events have been cancelled, costing the city an estimated $131.6 million. The article suggests that the mayor of Las Vegas should send Obama the bill for this loss of income.

As misguided as Obama's stimulus plan is, if it is to be forced upon the American taxpayer, perhaps it would be a good idea if our Dear Leader didn't sabotage our economy's attempted recovery by opening the gaffe-prone hole under his nose.

Good Day to You, Sir

Give it a rest, 24

They did it again. This time, it was the actress who plays the president, Cherry Jones, who did a PSA during 24 tonight, informing us that while "the events on 24 may be fiction, climate change is not."

So go to Fox.com everyone, and find out what you can do to reduce your carbon footprint in an effort to solve the problem of global warming. At least she also uttered "global warming" and not just "climate change."

These Hollywood types are such cause junkies; and to make matters worse, their causes are usually a bunch of misdirected hokum.

Good Day to You, Sir

Jason Mattera strikes again!

Jason Mattera of Young America's Foundation and Hot Air (see blogroll) has done a wonderful recurring series of ambush interviews where he corners these Congresscritters where they live and then asks them the questions that the lamestream media should be asking, but don't.

Past targets have included John Kerry, Teddy Kennedy, Jack Murtha, and "Dollar Bill" Jefferson. The latest object of Mattera's ire is that pathetic Kleptocrat Charles Rangel (D-NY). Feel the arrogance of this POS as he waves off Mattera with profanity. Actually Congressman, it is my "Goddamn business"!



Right there is the attitude of too many Congresscritters out there in DC Land. They have apparently forgotten that they work for the American People, not the other way around.

Good Day to You, Sir

Commies to the left of me, Nazis to the right...

Or is it that simple? A friend of mine forwarded me a ten-minute video that explains the various major forms of government, and it turns the whole left-right paradigm on its head, along with verifying what I have been saying for years: Democracy sucks!

Good Day to You, Sir

Oprah's non-judgemental homeless whitewash

I am a little late with this post, as the Oprah episode in question aired back on February 25th, but my lovely bride has quite a stack of unviewed episodes of Oprah on the DVR, so she got around to watching that particular episode just the other day.

I happened to be in the living room that afternoon when my wife sat down to watch Oprah - I usually retire to the office and do some blogging - but what was unique about this particular episode was that it was shot in my city of residence, Sacramento. Oprah had her investigative reporter, Lisa Ling (who is from Sacramento) do a story on the newly homeless here in the capital city. These newly homeless apparently had homes until the recent downturn with the economy. Not surprisingly, Oprah and her producers tried their best to make these Sacramentans look as sympathetic as possible, but I thought that "pathetic" was a more fitting adjective.

One family in particular caught my attention. Favor and Ryan Whitesides and their three children became homeless last year when the bank foreclosed upon their house due to the Whitesides' inability to make their payments. Now, Favor and the three kids walk the streets in an unsavory section of Sacramento because it is near the Loaves and Fishes homeless shelter where they spend their nights and the kids attend school.

I'm sure that if Oprah could have left it at that, she would have, because with each new piece of information about this family, my B***S*** detector began to go into overdrive. First, it was revealed that only the wife and the three kids, ages 13, 11, and 9, have to walk the streets and sleep in shelters with their worldly possessions in garbage bags. The husband lives in an apartment with friends. Way to live up to your husbandly and fatherly duties there, Ryan.

Next, it was revealed that the Whitesides had an adjustable rate mortgage. Disagree with me if you wish, but unless you have some damn unique circumstances, the necessity of an ARM means you shouldn't even be buying a house in the first place.

Next, it was revealed that until they lost their jobs, Favor was a home care provider, and Ryan did clerical work; both of these jobs are minimum wage or just over. But it gets better: in addition to losing their house, they also had to get rid of their... Lincoln Navigator.

Are you starting to get the picture?

But the Whitesides weren't done. At one point, Favor was being interviewed by Oprah's crew inside a homeless shelter. There is Favor, sitting on a couch in a lobby, telling her woe-is-me tale of poverty and homelessness - her brood sitting around her to remind us all that there are deprived children involved here. And what is Favor's 13 year-old daughter doing during this interview? She is sitting next to her mother, texting on a cell phone!

I am sure that there really are some hard-luck cases out there where people truly did the right thing but have still ended up in financial and residential straits. However, I must agree with radio host Neal Boortz, who often says that the reason the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is because the rich keep making wise choices that make them richer, and the poor keep making unwise choices that make them poorer.

Too bad Oprah, Lisa Ling, and the rest of the Oprah crew were too cowardly to question any of the unwise choices of the family that they hoisted up as the poster children of homelessness in Sacramento.

Good Day to You, Sir

Thanks for bursting my bubble, 24!

One of my few guilty pleasures of the fictional variety on television is 24.

There I was tonight, shaking with anticipation as terrorists are on the way to put the White House under siege, and Jack Bauer is - ahem - interrogating a suspect with a taser gun that Bauer had lifted off of a White House guard he pummeled.

Then cut to commercial, and what do I see? A PSA with Kiefer Sutherland telling us all about how the production staff at 24 has instituted changes in order to make their productions more "green" in an effort to combat "climate change." Oh, gag me harshly.

I clucked my tongue a bit when they cast that disgusting America-hating hag, Jeanene Garofalo, as an FBI office drone. But when you cut from Kiefer Sutherland acting like a deliciously sociopathic badass to him practically wimpering before the camera about so-called climate change, it seriously messes with my ability to suspend disbelief.

Isn't that what watching fiction is all about?

Good Day to You, Sir