Tag: baseball

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-04-26

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-04-26

  • I hate rainy days and Mondays and the way this one is going it is worse when they are combined. #
  • Dead laptop! There are times like today that I absolutely hate technology (or that I have become dependent on it). #
  • Will Oracle own the whole IT industry? Is Larry secretly that villain from a James Bond film? #
  • Forbes says the Cinti Reds are worth $342M. They play in a park that cost $325M in 2003. Seems like a bad investment. #
  • Video blogs suck. Unless you have a voice like Walter Cronkite or look like a Playboy bunny – just type! #
  • Beautiful day. 80 degrees. Lots of yard work. Eldest son tried out for college basketball. Daughter 1st in cheer. Youngest – baseball 2nite #

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Least qualified President in decades/century?/ever?

Least qualified President in decades/century?/ever?

The current President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, has had a very troubled start to his Presidency.  Not only did he inherit a mess in the economy, but he has had multiple mis-steps in his selection of his cabinet and advisors.  While the tax problems with Daschle and others have plagued the first few nominations, now there is even some concern about his most important advisor, his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.  There has also been some criticism for his first international discussions, the first phone call he made to a foreign power was to President Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority.

There is also a great deal of controversy about the replacement to BHO’s Senate seat although it is likely that none of this is his fault (even if it makes one wonder how he could have thrived in such a corrupt political environment as Illinois / Chicago politics).

Why is there such turmoil in the first 100 days of the BHO presidency?
It is quite likely because he is so inexperienced at being in such a large stage.  He has had little experience in this area.  In fact, he is easily the least experienced President in decades and he is probably the least experienced President in over 100 years.  The table below lists all the Presidents since 1900.  It shows their previous national office as well as other significant positions that they held.  Most Americans allow a Governorship to be qualification for office and so I am lumping this in with Senate and Congress service.

A quick look takes us to Hoover before we get to someone that didn’t get elected to a major office and hold that office for a term or two.  Hoover did run a major cabinet before the election and was very prominent in world and national politics and had been a moderately successful businessman so it is arguable that he was less experienced in a national office.  He is also not a President that most people regard as being very successful!  In addition, while the election of the President was a populist effort at that time (dirty politics aside), the selection of candidate by the party was very much decided by power brokers in the parties of the day.

A little farther down the list, we see that Harding and Taft didn’t have a great resume for national office but they did have a bit of experience in running a territory or State and, like Hoover, were major players in the political machines of the day. Harding is often referenced as being among the worst President’s ever and takes specific criticism for his cabinet and appointees.

So the conclusion that we must draw is that BHO has less experience for national office than, at a minimum, the previous 12 men who held that office.  It is also reasonable to conclude that he has less experience than any President since Teddy and the leadership of the United States within the world has definitely evolved since Teddy was talking about big sticks!

The final conclusion is simple, with such an inexperienced man as POTUS, we will continue to see mistakes until he figures out how to do the job.  Let’s all hope that this is a quick learning curve since we need to dig ourselves out of the mess that Mr. Obama inherited.

List of 20th and 21st Century Presidents
(data collected and confirmed from Presidential library sites and Wikipedia)

President Previous national office Other significant position
Barack Hussein Obama US Senator (didn’t finish first term) Illinois State Congressman (1 term)
George Walker Bush Texas Governor (didn’t finish 2nd term) Part – owner of a professional baseball team
William Jefferson Clinton 12 years – Governor of Arkansas Attorney General Arkansas
George Herbert Walker Bush Vice President of the United States – 2 terms US Congressman, CIA Director, Ambassador
Ronald Wilson Reagan California Governor – 2 terms President of union
James Earl Carter, Jr. Governor Georgia – 1 term Georgia Senator (2 terms)
Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr. Vice President of the United States (2 yrs) US Congressman (25 yrs)
Richard Milhous Nixon Vice President of the United States (2 terms) US Congressman (2 terms), US Senate (didn’t finish term)
Lyndon Baines Johnson Vice President of the United States (didn’t finish first term) US Senator (2 terms), US Congressman (6 terms)
John Fitzgerald Kennedy US Senator (2 terms – didn’t finish the second) US Congressman (3 terms)
Dwight David Eisenhower Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe 5 star General in the US Army
Harry S. Truman Vice President of the United States (didn’t finish first term) US Senator (2 terms)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt New York Governor State Senator, Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Herbert Clark Hoover United States Secretary of Commerce Head of the American Relief Administration
John Calvin Coolidge, Jr. Vice President of the United States (didn’t finish first term) Massachusetts Governor
Warren Gamaliel Harding US Senator (1 term) Ohio Lt. Governor
Thomas Woodrow Wilson New Jersey Governor President Princeton University
William Howard Taft United States Secretary of War Governor of Phillipines
Theodore Roosevelt Vice President of the United States Governor New York

38 ways to fill the stimulus bill with pork and save our economy

38 ways to fill the stimulus bill with pork and save our economy

There has been quite a bit of complaining that the current stimulus bill that was just passed by the House and is going to Senate is filled with pork and special spending projects. This is a silly complaint – of course it is!

The bill is a spending bill.  It should be loaded to the gills with pork.  That is what spending bills do – they spend money.  In fact, it should have so much pork in it that a reasonably religious person of Jewish descent should run for the hills!

Of course, it shouldn’t have silly things in it like contraceptives.  That does nothing for the economy despite the silliness of Ms. Pelosi.  But it should be filled with pet projects from every mayor and county commissioner in the land.  If the mayor of a 20-30,000 citizen city CAN’T get a million or two out of this bill – they should be run out of town!  In case there are any mayors or governors out there that can’t figure out what to ask for that they can spend money on RIGHT NOW then I made a list of projects that they should consider.

The overall goals for the pork should be to get people working, spending money, and kickstart the economy.  We know that housing is hurting.  Housing has a couple of different contributors to the economy but mostly it is the sale of the raw materials and the employment of the laborers.  Let’s get them all going again.  Also, since we want to make ourselves as efficient as possible, lets try to do things that will help the environment a bit as well. Finally, in the cases where we have to buy some products, lets try to keep them mostly made in the good old USA.

This bill should be absolutely packed with new bridges, roads, baseball parks, swimming pools and public gymnasiums.  Some of these new bridges and roads may not be able to be “shovel ready” so let’s expand the list a bit.  Many of these things that I list will take labor to install (which is a good thing), labor to manufacture and ship (more good) and raise everyone’s spirits a bit as well.

  1. The schools should be talking about new wings, and new fields (as well as bonuses for their worthy teachers).
  2. Every school desk that is older than 10 years old should be replaced (and the old one should be put on some of those empty cargo containers and sent to Africa)
  3. Replace every chalkboard that is over 10 years old in every school in the land.
  4. Buy a dictionary for every student (while you are at it – throw in the works of Mark Twain, Jack London, Edgar Rice Borroughs, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare and HG Wells)
  5. We should be painting every curb and park bench in every town in the land.
  6. We should have armies of unemployed people walking the highways and byways and rivers collecting trash and cleaning up stuff (zero unemployment right there).
  7. We should replace every single bathroom fixture in every public school and government building that is older than 10 years old (that should keep some plumbers busy).
  8. Every government parking lot should be cleaned and relined.
  9. Every public basketball court, tennis court and soccer field should be repainted and new fixtures installed.
  10. Every school classroom that has not been painted in the last 10 years should be repainted.
  11. We should buy 10 reams of paper for every student in the land and deliver it to the school that they are attending (throw in some pencils too) (keep some factories busy).
  12. Give every teacher of a public school a laptop (keep some factories busy).
  13. Wire every school in the land for the Internet (keep some electricians busy).
  14. Put one computer for every 5 students into every school in the country (more factories churning away).
  15. Provide every student over the age of 10 with a high end calculator (and still more factories).
  16. We should plant wildflowers in every mile of every median of every interstate in the country (when all the unemployed from 6 get done cleaning up, they can go back and plant flowers – more zero unemployment).
  17. Every public pool should be drained and painted (we might run out of painters with all of my ideas).
  18. Every park bench over 10 years old should be rebuilt.
  19. Every park should get a double amount of picnic benches made out of wood.
  20. Every park should get an outdoor shelter (don’t forget that we need the carpenters to be busy).
  21. Any park that has a swing set or recreational set older than 10 years should replace it with a new one.
  22. Every window that is older than 15 years of every government building should be replaced.
  23. Every government park or parking lot or basketball court that has a chain link fence around it older than 10 years should be replaced (more factories).
  24. We should give 50 yards of 3 inch insulation to every family with an income under 50K so that they can cut their heat bills (and undoubtedly pay a worthy carpenter to install it).
  25. We should give new high efficient windows to every home that is over 20 years old and is owned and lived in by a family with an income under 50K provided the installation is done by a qualified installer.
  26. We should paint and re-shingle every home that is over 20 years old and is owned and lived in by a family with an income under 50K provided the work is done by a qualified installer.
  27. We should put a high efficient water heater and furnace in every home that is over 30 years old and is owned and lived in by a family with an income under 50K provided the work is done by a qualified installer.
  28. We should plant 15 new trees on the grounds of every school, federal, state, city and county building (good for the unemployed to do this and also good for the environment).
  29. Every public bus, fire truck, police car and school bus should get new tires, new hoses, and new brakes (keep the mechanics and the factories working).
  30. Every public bus should be converted to natural gas.
  31. The government should offer to match 50 cents on the dollar for the downpayment of any car that is 55% made in the USA (lets get GM, Chrysler, and Ford out of the red).
  32. Every farmer should be given the opportunity to have a 50 cents on the dollar match for the downpayment of any one piece of farm equipment (Cummins, Deere, and Caterpillar need to get going too).
  33. Any fluorescent bulb in any government building or school that is not a high frequency bulb should be replaced.
  34. Every city over 50,000 should install wi-fi throughout their city and then allow companies to bid on running the service (stimulate new business as well as employ some electricians).
  35. Free admission to any zoo or museum for the months of June through August (lets fill these with kids so that they learn and at the same time pump the money into these facilities).
  36. $100,000 grant that matches dollar to dollar to any city over the size of 5,000 for fireworks on July 4, 2009 (everyone will feel better for this and that will help turn things around).
  37. Employ every orchestra and symphony in the land to give free concerts in the park every Saturday night (let’s get people out and feeling happy again)
  38. A free turkey or ham on Thanksgiving to any family with an income under 50K.

There should be no way we should need to spend money on things like contraceptives. The list is too easy to generate on things that would improve infrastructure, make the world a bit nicer, use materials that are produced in the US and employ manual laborers to install.

I am sure that I missed things but literally this list took only 5 minutes of thought to create and I probably spent a couple hundred billion dollars and employed between 50,000 and 100,000 people for at least 1 year.  This doesn’t include any big projects like roads and bridges that are already able to be funded but were trying to find the funds.  It also doesn’t factor in any multiplier effect that will occur by the spending of this money. 

If you agree that this list is on the right track – send it to you Senator and your Congressman.  While you are at it, send the list to your Mayor and Governor.

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RANT! Pull your pants up!

RANT! Pull your pants up!

Okay, I get it. Teens like to wear clothes that make old people upset. This happened in my day with bell bottoms, embroidered jeans, and long hair (yes, I am that old). But common sense dictates that if you can’t jog down the street or play a casual game of basketball (baseball, Frisbee throwing, hopscotch – take your pick) without holding up your pants, then you aren’t fully dressed. I don’t care about baggy or ripped but can you please pull your pants up?

The sad part of all of this is that this “style” is actually a throwback to being in jail where the guards will remove a prisoners belts to avoid its use as a weapon or noose for suicide. The style was originally called “jailin” or “sagging” and was made mainstream by the Rap culture. By wearing pants below the buttocks, teens are actually making the statement that they are imprisoned and that is simply not true.

The current Atlanta bill and Dallas bill are probably going over the edge. Laws shouldn’t dictate what people wear because then someone will say I need to wear a tie to work again (and that isn’t happening).

HEY TEENAGER – PULL YOUR PANTS UP – I DON’T WANT TO SEE YOUR UNDERWEAR! YOU PROBABLY DON’T EVEN KNOW THAT YOU ARE MAKING A POLITICAL STATEMENT!

Here is some related reading for you to enjoy:
A ban on baggy pants?
Should baggy pants be banned?

I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday.

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