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Tuesday, February 9, 2010 @ 8:15am

Will they show?

The President has finally decided to deliver on his most famous broken campaign promise -- to negotiate health care reform on television.

He's invited Republicans to join Democrats for a health care discussion televised live on CSPAN February 25th.

But now, the two top Republican leaders in the House are threatening a boycott unless Democrats scrap the reform bill and start over.

They admit asking for the meeting, but they say that "If the starting point is the job-killing bill the American people have already soundly rejected, Republicans would rightly be reluctant to participate."

Too bad. I think Americans wanted to hear some of the Republicans' ideas. When the President spoke to last month's Republican retreat, Rep Paul Ryan proposed ending the present Medicare program for people under 55 and replacing it with a voucher plan, as a way to give Americans a choice:

"Why not give people the same kind of health care plan we have here in Congress?"

Of course Mr. Obama kind of spoiled the moment by pointing out what happened last year when Democrats tried merely to trim a Medicare subsidy:

"We were attacked across the board, by many on your aisle, for slashing Medicare."

This all our fault. We're the ones who elected a crew that can't agree on anything, and now it's to the point they can't even agree to DISAGREE. They're worried about a matter/ anti-matter explosion. They don't even want to be in the same room -- and yet, in Democracy, that's what we pay them to do, isn't it?

Tell me, what would happen to you if you just decided not to show up for work?

"You're fired."-Trump

Something like that.

Monday, February 8, 2010 @ 8:25am

The Superbowl ads America really needs

That was a great Superbowl. Unless you believed that five point spread for the Colts.

For New Orleans, it was a clear message that their city is finally back - that was the biggest commercial message: New Orleans is back.

But a great game; reinforcing the Superbowl's role as the most powerful broadcast on television, as every advertiser knows -- that's why they spend so much.

Because of the Superbowl, millons of us will take a vacation in New Orleans.

Because of the Superbowl, millions of us will buy beer because we have warm feelings for a Clydesdale. We'll trade stocks online because a baby with a deep voice told us to. We'll eat a Dorito without having a clue why.

The Superbowl proves that nobody can beat America when it comes to mass manipulation for commercial purposes.

So then why--wasn't there even ONE stimulus commercial? "Stimulus commercial?" What are you talking about?

Most of the commercials where there to brainwash us into buying stuff.

But even brainwashed people can't buy stuff if they don't have a job! There should have been at least ONE commercial aimed at employers to brainwash them into HIRING people.

Drew Brees -- you just won the Superbowl, what are you gonna do now? I'm going to invest in good middle class jobs by hiring three new personal assistants, Boomer.

Or the deep-voiced baby: "I've made so much money investing on-line that once I wipe the strained peas off my cheeks I'm going to hire four union carpenters to build custom wooden toys for my pre-school. Something like that!

Give people jobs, THEN they can buy beer.

Saturday, February 6, 2010 @ 8:58am

Are Americans faking it?

On Monday and Tuesday, the Rasmussen poll - that's the poll that first detected the shift in the Massachusetts Senate race to Scott Brown - asked a True-False question as part of a poll on the budget.

The poll asked: True or False - Most federal spending is spent on only three programs-Social Security, Medicare and national defense.

Rasmussen picked those three because these are the programs that, if any politician tries to cut them, they get kicked out of office.

So that was the question - True or False, most federal spending is spent on Social Security, Medicare and national defense.

Now let me point out that unlike most poll questions, this one isn't asking for an opinion. There is only one correct answer …. And that answer is TRUE.

Social Security, Medicare and Defense are 54% of the federal budget.

But when Rasmussen asked the question, only 35% got it right by answering True.

20% said they were "not sure." So that means 20% of Americans are clueless about where most of their money goes. But at least they answered "not sure" so they KNOW they don't know. I'm sure they went and looked it up right away.

But the scary part is that 44% said it was false. That means 44% thought they knew enough to answer the question, but they're were faking it.

Of course - they could have just been punking the pollster - but as I say, Rasmussen has a pretty good accuracy record.

And so we learn that there's a good reason Congress seems too helpless to fix the budget. It is simply doing what a democratic institution should do: accurately representing its constituents. Because a majority of us - when it comes to the federal budget - are either faking it, or clueless.

Friday, February 5, 2010 @ 9:23am

Tancredo'd Enough Already!

The tea party convention is underway in Nashville - energized by those stunning deficit numbers, and fears of a socialist takeover of health care:

"People who could not even spell the word vote, or say it English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House... His name is Barack Hussein Obama."
- Former Rep. Tom Tancredo

Looking at the official schedule, I see a number of speakers and breakout sessions, but only one speech with a title - it's a Saturday morning speech called "Correlations between the current Administration and Marxist Dictators of Latin America."

Hmm - Barack Obama compared to Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. Interesting. I wonder how long before the Senators who voted against health care reform are arrested and tortured. For that matter why is this Tea Party convention being allowed? Maybe that will be discussed in the breakout sessions.

In any case let's all hope the convention figures out how to end the deficit while preventing Marxist health care. Because this week, new numbers came out about the cost of the current non-Marxist health care system. Total health care costs in 2009 increased by 134 billion dollars to about 2.5 trillion. 17.3% of GDP. That means on average, for every 100 dollars we spend, $17.30 goes to pay for a doctors, hospitals, and drugs. And in ten years, it will go to 20% of GDP.

And that's WITHOUT health care reform.

So by all means - save us from Marxism, tea partiers, please save us. But do it fast, OK? Because once health care starts taking 20% of everything we have, Marxism might start looking good.
Now this.

Thursday, February 4, 2010 @ 8:44am

And now, the Prius.

Toyota once upon a time couldn’t do anything wrong and now –

"Add the Prius to the list of vehicles with safety problems."-CNN

It’s starting to look like it can’t do anything right.

There will now be a federal investigation into the anti-lock braking system of the 2010 Prius – That’s on top of a Japanese government investigation.

The company said the Prius problem was detected early and was fixed by January, but this is not good for Toyota, or for hi tech cars in general. Because the message drivers are getting is that yikes! Even my BRAKES are controlled by a computer.

In the case of the 2010 Prius, there was a glitch that under certain conditions the computer would take close to a second to engage the brake.

That’s OK when you’re loading a web page, but not when you’re coming to a stop sign.

And now you have at least one safety analyst saying he thinks the gas pedal problem in the OTHER Toyota models is ALSO a computer glitch:

"These are completely computer guided systems. The problem with Toyota is they haven't built enough fail safe devices into their car to ensure drivers can control the vehicle when a failure happens." -SEAN KANE, Safety Analyst

...Plus now you have cars that can stop themselves, park themselves.

"I know everything hasn't been quite right with me, but I can assure you now that it's going to be alright again." -HAL, 2001

How about this: every dashboard has a big red OFF button.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010 @ 8:08am

Connecting dots.

This was a scary sound bite â€" did you hear this? Senator Dianne Feinstein with the intelligence chiefs:

"What is the likelihood of another terrorist attack in the U.S. homeland in the next 3 to 6 months?"
"The priority is certain."

We’ll spend hundreds of billions of dollars to make sure those attempts fail.
Meantime, another hearing was going on: The National Transportation Safety Board’s final verdict on the Colgan Air crash in Buffalo a year ago that killed 50 people. It was Pilot error. Pilot error and poor training. The cockpit tapes caught the crew chatting when the plane stalled, they pulled on the control wheel when they should have pushed.

The head of the NTSB saw the same old issues:

"Training, pilot performance, fatigue."

And here’s Michael Goldfarb, former FAA chief of staff, on CNN:

"$40,000 starting salary...as much as a McDonald's manager makes, and no offense to the hard working people of McDonald's."

Anyway, the aviation industry just can’t afford to pay more, and the government’s primary approach to protecting aircraft is hunting down terrorists, so as a nation, there’s just no money laying around to pay pilots or improve their training. They just need to suck it up.

Except, then you hear this story.

"About 100 million dollars, fresh round of bonuses for folks who work in AIG's financial products division. That's the unit responsible for some risky bets that brought the company down."

So let’s connect the dots… a hundred million to reward failure on Wall Street, hundreds of billions to stop terrorists from getting anywhere near your plane… but the folks in the cockpit trying to land your plane in Buffalo could make as much…supervising French Fries.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010 @ 8:32am

I've seen this film before!

You know it's Groundhog Day when the radio comes on with the same story you've heard for 17 years.

"The hearing comes some 17 years after Congress set the 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' policy." -CBS reporter

Congress is still debating Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. But this time they might finally get it right.

Actually, the issue has never been whether gay soldiers can do the job – because they’ve been in the military for years, and there’s no study I’ve seen that shows "gay-soldier-equals-weak-soldier."

The argument, for people who want to keep the policy, is that knowing the guy next to you is gay, hurts unit "cohesion" – because there’s a code of masculine honor that has no room for gayness.

But let’s think about that for a moment. The military is all about readiness, right? Soldiers must be ready to fight whenever the order comes down.

And we know that there are homosexuals in the military and that there always WILL be homosexuals in the military. We further know that those homosexuals have no problem fighting next to straight soldiers, because that’s what they’ve been doing.

But the theory behind "Don’t ask don’t tell" is that for some straight soldiers, finding out that the guy in the next bunk is gay will weaken the straight soldier’s will to fight.

That would mean that if there’s a weak link in the military – it’s those STRAIGHT soldiers. It means that an enemy could undermine American military readiness by looking up soldiers on Facebook and e-mailing them that their buddies are gay. Boy – don’t let THAT get out.

Monday, February 1, 2010 @ 12:36pm

Sen. Pam Roach lashes out after banishment

After being banned from the Washington state Senate Republican Caucus Sen. Pam Roach (R-Auburn) is firing back at Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt (R-Walla Walla).

The Republican Caucus banned Roach over an incident last year in which Roach apparently demeaned a staff attorney saying he should be fired.

Read the full MyNorthwest.com story.

Listen to the interview with Senator Pam Roach

Listen to the Republican response with Senator Dale Brandland

Dave Ross Commentary: The Superbowl ads America really needs 02.08.10

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