Category: BullShit

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The FRC Has got to be kidding!

When I started writing this, I was annoyed, and very sarcastic. As I wrote I calmed down and the sarcasm level dropped. I went back and removed or re-worded the venom because I’d like this not to be a rant as much as I’d like it to be something that people read and say humm, I hadn’t thought about it that way.

The FRC (Family Research Council) published an article on their web site expressing their concern about modifications to the UCMJ (Universal Code of Military Justice).

They used a headline that reads “BESTIALITY SHOULD GIVE LEADERS PAWS IN TROOP BILL” saying they’re concerned about congress changing the UCMJ so that it wouldn’t include bestiality as an offense. 

The idea that our congresspeople wouldn’t understand how to edit a line like this is preposterous, but it gave FRC something to rattle cages with.

Specifically they’re concerned about the line that reads;

“Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy.”

I pray to God these folks review their Christian beliefs and consider the following; 

Not all troops are gay. Those that are gay, really worked hard and sacrificed a lot for the privilege of serving their country.

Yeah, most Gay Soldiers I’ve talked to think of it as a privilege.

Sadly, gay troops sometimes face open hostility from other gay people because they’re soldiers.

So much of the gay community is so far to the left that sometimes gay soldiers are treated like traitors or criminals. (You should see how the gay community reacts if you’re a Republican! You’re not even dateable.) This from the very community that is supposed to be inclusive and proud of them…

Yet they serve, without complaint, without drama, they just do their jobs.

The conservative religious people are effectively asking that America reward that kind of dedication and love of country with what?

Lies? Fear? Never being able to dance in public with their loved one? Revulsion? Being treated as something “Less” but good enough to die? It doesn’t seem very Christian to me, and it’s sure as hell not American.

The bottom line for all of our service members regardless of sexuality is this;

They shouldn’t have to lie, to serve.
They shouldn’t have to live in fear, to serve.
They shouldn’t have to live a half life, to serve
They protect our way of life and should be respected and treated fairly and equally due to their service.

The FRC will wrap itself in the flag, talk about equality and fairness and vehemently defend its rights while at the same time hypocritically denying others their rights.

But they’ll never answer the simple questions “Why are you afraid, and of what?”

Is it any wonder that so many people look at religion and religious institutions with suspicion?

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Occupy (Whatever)… It’s time for you to go.

I don’t have a problem with protests.

I don’t have a problem with freedom of speech, I exercise that right, in this space pretty regularly.

Hell, I’m unemployed and part of the reason I’m unemployed is that my industry was linked to the government. As the markets became uncertain, so did congress. One of the first things congress did was  to stop making decisions about funding.

As the time for decisions passed, contracts in my industry starved. This caused a slow painful death of the project I was working on and many others. The deaths of those projects meant thousands of people being laid off.

If anyone would have a reason to be encamped with an Occupy (whatever) protest it would be me!

I am, however tired of the Occupy Wall street movement. I’m  tired of their directionless unfocused protests.

I’m pretty sure that there are a lot more people like me at this point than there are of the protesters.

Whatever point these people were trying to make they’ve made. It’s now time for them to exit the stage and stop being PAINS in the ASSES!

These Occupy people are costing all the tax payers money. This at a time when most cities are having a hard time meeting  budget in the first place. It’s not just about the special police protection… It’s about clean up, and disruptions in traffic.

In LA anything that disrupts traffic (Including Presidential visits!) costs everyone time and money in the form of work and gas.

The LA Occupy Wall Street group is sucking up even more tax payer money by asking a Federal Judge to stop their eviction. This is plan wrong on it’s face.

It’s interesting to note… while these people are against capitalism, they are selling buttons to fund their cause. If that’s not capitalism in it’s purest sense I don’t know what is.

LAPD as said that they’re going to evict these people. They made a big deal about setting a deadline. The deadline came and went they’ve still done nothing.

LAPDs inaction and failure to execute their plan makes them look weak and impotent. Exposing to anyone else in LA that the rule of law and authority need not be followed.

The Occupy crowd needs to move on and change the world by finding the architects of the banking collapse and exposing them. Bring the people who caused and fed the criminal banking excesses to account.

Then Occupy will have done something useful.

Anything less than that and it’s pretty obvious that Occupy really was nothing more than a bunch of overeducated, unemployed, whiny never do wells,

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500 Billion needed to maintain the Roads?

So California is talking about raising the gas tax to fix the roads?

Because the state is projecting a 500 billion shortfall by 2020.

WTF?

Maybe they shouldn’t have been raiding the DMV fees, and reallocating other highway maintenance funds to purposes that WERE NOT highway related.

Of course we will never find out what happened to all the funds “Borrowed” to fix other shortfalls.

Oh yeah… We’re not supposed to remember that… And we’re not supposed to mind paying some of the HIGHEST license fees in the country.

I’ve got a salvage title on my 13 year old truck and have an annual 120.00 bill, same on my 10 year old bike. But the real killer is the 600 dollar bill on my passenger car.

Add it all up and the state of California gets 840.00 a year just for me to license my vehicles.

Add to that the 50.5 cents per gallon of gas and long commutes and I end up paying… and I’m estimating here, about an additional 480 to 600 dollars in added taxes per year.

That’s a grand total of  around 1300.00 per year to the state. Don’t even think about the additional costs of repairs CAUSED by the bad roads, or the cost of vehicle insurance.

You’re telling me that’s not enough!?! How do other states have great roads?

Why is it that when you cross the Nevada or Arizona boarder magically the potholes are gone and the roads are smooth? Why is I-75 on the East coast clean and well maintained?

If you factor in fuel wasted sitting in traffic, sitting behind morons that drive like they’re driving pace cars at Indy, and the idiots that slam on their brakes when a bird flies overhead, it’s probably a safe bet that most folks are filling their tanks at least twice a week.

So multiply just half of what I’ve been paying, by the number of drivers in the LA area alone and that’s an OBSCENE amount of money.

Then do the same for all the cities in the state and you’ve got a crazy obscene amount. So Sacramento… tell us again how we don’t have enough cash to maintain the roads?

Here we are;

Rock… Us ….Hard Place.

Our roads are for shit and decaying more every day, that hurts the economy. On the OTHER side of the coin Sacramento RAISING the taxes on a critical item like gas screws the economy.

This is especially true of most cities in California because WE DON’T HAVE MASS TRANSIT.

With the exception of the San Francisco Bay area, cities in California opted for commuting instead of trains / buses that run on time. 

Yeah,  Yeah, The talking heads and politicians speak breathlessly about the success of the light rail in Los Angeles.  

I’ve ridden it folks… yep you can get from one point that’s 40 miles away from your home to another point that 10 miles away from your place of work as long as you’re in the LA basin.   

Oh and by the way it can take you an hour to go the same distance you can go in 15 minutes driving your car during rush hour. If you want to bicycle that last 10 miles to work…. TOO BAD, you’ll have to wait for a train that has one of 4 bicycle slots open.  

Since the trains run more or less  every 10 minutes well you could be on that platform for a while. So you put your bike back on your car and drive to work. So much for being green, getting some exercise, and saving some money. 

The Folks in the Valley and Orange County??? Uhhh well you’re screwed… have a nice day!

Again with one exception, there is no mass transit in California.

Which leads us back to the decaying infrastructure, and what to do about it.

As one article pointed out, construction costs have risen considerably since the last time the gas tax was raised. Really? I guess we in the middle class hadn’t noticed that or the rising cost of living and our more or less static wages!

I’ve mentioned it before, I’m going to repeat it again.

It’s a given that he largest cost of major projects isn’t the material… it’s the labor.

We have a standing labor force in prisons throughout the state.

Instead of feeding, clothing, housing, and providing HBO, & Gym facilities to
these folks, how about we feed & clothe them and let them pay their debt to society with real work?

Prisons wouldn’t be as crowded…

At least not during the day while the work crews were out, and at night… well folks are sleeping and then all they’re worried about is having a bunk.

I’d even be for incentivizing. For each year you work on a road crew without incident, it’s a year subtracted from the sentence. You have to admit it’s a very real way to teach someone that WORK is rewarding.

I personally think that’s a lesson worth teaching.

I also think that little Johnny or Susie riding with Mommy & Daddy in their Prius would see a prison work detail as a cautionary tale of the consequences of right vs wrong.

That might have a beneficial effect in the future, reducing prison overcrowding and the costs associated with our penal system.

After Sacramento implements my suggestion… then lets talk about raising taxes.

Until then…

Keep YOUR wasteful greedy hands out of my pocket!