The World's Smallest Political Quiz

This takes about 30 seconds to take. Let me know how you score. Here's what I got:

Your PERSONAL issues Score is 70%.
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 100%.

I'll be happy to educate you if your economic score is not > 70% :)

http://www.self-gov.org/quiz.html

Soccer Superstar, Kaitlyn Ready!

Our Spring soccer season just ended, and the kids did great. Mason scored his first goal tonight, which meant that every kid on the team scored this season! That made me happy.

What made me even more happy is how advanced the kids were playing. The last two games have really been quite amazing, and the kids have really started to learn the concepts of playing a position and teamwork. I wish we had another couple games to keep building on this foundation, but that will have to wait until the Fall, and we'll have a whole different batch of kids to work with.

The biggest news of all is that in Saturday's game, Kaitlyn scored her first goal ever! Logan got an assist with a nice pass to her in the middle, and she booted it right in. She was so excited! (as was everyone!)

Tonight's game, however, was Kaitlyn's best game ever. While she didn't score, she got 3 assists, all of which were done on purpose! She would have scored herself on the first one, had Emilie not booted it in before it rolled across the line, but that's okay. I teach the kids to chase the ball even if it looks like it's going to make it, and that's just what she did.

In fact, that was one of the top plays of the season. Liam passes it in (we don't do throw-ins) to Kaitlyn, who actually taps the ball upfield while turning, then Kaitlyn centers to Emilie who scores. Boo-yah!

In the second one she makes a steal, then centers for the score. And, in the third one, we essentially have a give-and-go where Kaitlyn does a great job of controlling the ball on a breakaway before centering back to Mason who gets his second goal (both on Kaitlyn-assists!). Now that she's got a little confidence, she's even showing some speed in the breakaway!

I know she would have liked to score, but she played a great game, as did the whole team. It's nice to have your best game of the year be your last game. Tomorrow night... pizza party!

Click the links below for video clips (hopefully!)

• Kaitlyn's First Goal Ever!
• Liam to Kaitlyn to Emilie
• Kaitlyn steals, then centers for the score
• Mason-Kaitlyn-Mason, Give-and-Go!

Thanks to the new Apple MacBook Pro, the importing and editing of video was pretty easy. However, even with Apple making it easy, I've got to tell you that messing around with video simply takes time. I'm sure I'll get faster at it, but it's a far cry from the ease with which you can just dump pictures to your harddrive and post them for the world to see. But I digress... enjoy the soccer clips!

Sound familiar?

You don't need to be a history buff for this to sound familiar... at least I hope you don't.

Iranian expatriates living in Canada yesterday confirmed reports that the Iranian parliament, called the Islamic Majlis, passed a law this week setting a dress code for all Iranians, requiring them to wear almost identical "standard Islamic garments."

The law, which must still be approved by Iran's "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenehi before being put into effect, also establishes special insignia to be worn by non-Muslims.

Iran's roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.

Full story: http://tinyurl.com/o5mro

Comic relief in the form of real events...

Hawkins recently sent me over to the Media Research Center, which collects all sorts of quotes to capture the liberal bias of the press. Some are funny, some are not. This one comes from the "it's funny because you are the stupidest human I've ever heard speak" file:

Anchor Elizabeth Vargas: "In Washington, the Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy added 470,000 new jobs last month. The Bush administration was quick to claim this was good news, but is it really? We turn now to ABC’s Betsy Stark for some perspective."

Reporter Betsy Stark: "Elizabeth, this may sound like good news, but investors are terribly nervous. More jobs mean fewer people in the unemployment line, and that means unemployment offices will lay off workers. More people with money in their pockets could drive up inflation, and oil prices could soar. And more new homebuyers could mean a further expansion of this huge housing bubble, indicating a possible crash ahead. That could leave a lot of families out on the street, Elizabeth."
— ABC’s World News Tonight

Jobs are bad for the economy. ROTFL.

Un-freaking-believable

The EU is going to make a proposal to Iran that will include "generous" incentives to stop it's nuclear program. These, of course, would be incentives (let's call them "appeasements"), in the form of an agreement, to rectify a situation that arose because of the last time that IRAN IGNORED ITS INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS.

What a bunch of dolts. This really is shaping up to be the rise of the Third Reich all over again. Maybe after they get it signed, the EU spokespeople can wear a Neville Chamberlin mask and throw a little "Peace for our time" into the press conference.

Maybe in a year or so, after we've withdrawn troops from Iraq, Iran will gear up it's army and, under threat of invasion and with internal Shite cooperation, Iraq will opt to "join" Iran. The new Iran will invade Kuwait because Kuwait "is a rogue state and is really part of Iran (Iraq) anyway". Saudi Arabia falls like a deck of cards, Jordan surrenders, Syria joins voluntarily and Israel goes down in a nuclear cloud. Pakistan revolts and joins as an independent Axis power (let's call it "Italy"), and Egypt is forced to join because of the rest of the region. Libya surrenders as well. Turkey remains neutral, for now, which essentially lulls parts of the EU into a false feeling of being safe. Meanwhile, Venezuela joins as an independent power (lets call it "Japan") and teams up with Bolivia and the new socialist government in Mexico. Columbia and Argentina join easily, leaving Brazil and parts of Central America as the key battlegrounds. China remains neutral, as do the Russians. At this point, there's really nothing stopping N. Korea from invading S. Korea, leaving Japan as a major battleground which we might be unable to help. The U.K., U.S., and Australia are really the only ones ready enough to do anything, perhaps with Germany and France joining this group (let's call them "the Allies") after the shit has already hit the fan. Oh, and P.S, the Allies have no oil...

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”
-George Santayana

Only 14 states require Economics in high school

Are you kidding me? This explains a lot.

http://tinyurl.com/lz7vd

Evil Capitalists

So Hawkins sent me this link which includes some propaganda about a new book that came out about Hillary Clinton. While I'm not about to say I know anything of the source, one element that caught my eye was this alleged Hillary quote:

“The unfettered free market has been the most radically disruptive force in American life in the last generation.”

Ugh. Sometimes you just have to shake your head in amazement.

More Communist Fun

At this point, nothing surprises me. Italy has selected a new president from the lead paragraph of this article:

"Italy picked a former communist, Giorgio Napolitano, to be its new president on Wednesday"

What more can I say.

Minutemen tracked by U.S. Government, Reported to Mexico (link)

This report says that the U.S. Border Patrol reports the location of the Minutemen to the Mexican government. If you don't know, the Minutemen are a group of volunteers that sit on the border looking for illegal crossings, and then report the location of the crossing to the Border Patrol.

So on one hand, this is about the most counter intuitive behavior you could think of, since it is, in fact, the Border Patrol that these guys are trying to help.

But more importantly, and regardless of what you think about illegal immigration, everyone should be distrubed that the location of law abiding American citizens who are breaking no law and who are contained within U.S. borders should be tracked by a U.S. Government agency and then reported to a foreign government.

Let me say that again: the U.S. Government is tracking U.S. citizens for the sole purpose of reporting their whereabouts to a foreign power.

This is the kind of thing that would make D.K. Michaels pround. What the heck is up with that? Besides the fact that it's just plain stupid, it seems like it must be illegal, and is certainly a bit creepy.

Mr. Happy Burger

Scott, Eno, and I took my plane up to Logansport today for a business meeting. When flying into small airports, they often have courtesy cars available for pilots to use free of charge for a few hours. In my experience, these cars are, well, what you would expect to get for free -- or in this case, for a $10 donation. Either way, it certainly beats going through all the trouble to rent a car from a car rental company. I've never had to do anything except grab the keys and go. Since they have your plane, I'm guessing they aren't too worried about you not returning the car. LOL.

In Logansport, we stumbled onto this place called "Mr. Happy Burger" -- needless to say, it called us in. Pictured here are Scott and I standing in front of the restaurant and right behind our slick ride. Nothing like showing up to a business meeting in this fine vehicle!

It was about a 35 minute flight to Logansport from Greenwood, and it was smooth and uneventful, although it was overcast and hazy on the way back. There isn't a whole lot to look at on the ground when flying in northern Indiana, but getting the chance to fly is always fun. And besides, who would pass up on the chance to cruise Logansport in a late model station wagon while chomping down on a Mr. Happy Burger. "Good Times!" as Dana would say.

Agreeing with Lou Dobbs?

Good ol' Hawkins pointed me in the direction of this Lou Dobb's article which proves (at least to me) that Dobbs has decided to take his editorial direction from the ramblings of yours truly. For serious.

Ok, well, maybe not. *BUT* it is worth pointing out that someone else has finally wised up to calling out the obvious dirty communist ties to this illegal amnesty movement. Granted, he's citing a Washington Post article about the same, but he does hail it as the only major newspaper to have half a wits clue as to the linkage here.

And go figure. Lou Dobb's isn't exactly Sean Hannity, politically speaking, so it's not like this can be dismissed as some right-wing conspiracy. Alright - well I'm sure it will, but it stands to reason that it shouldn't.

A quote from the article:

Just how significant is the impact of leftists within the illegal immigration movement? It is no accident that they chose May 1 as their day of demonstration and boycott. It is the worldwide day of commemorative demonstrations by various socialist, communist, and even anarchic organizations.

Beyond the communist tie (which is enough irritation in my book as it is), the article calls out some additional facts which I would think people would find interesting, if more of them actually dug into these sorts of issues. (props again to Hawkins who called out this quote on his own site):

"The meat packers are confirming what we know," says University of Maryland economics professor Peter Morici, "and that is that this large group of illegal aliens in the United States is lowering the wage rate of semiskilled workers, people who are high school dropouts or high school graduates with minimal training."

In fact, a meat-packing job paid $19 an hour in 1980, but today that same job pays closer to $9 an hour, according to the Labor Department. That's entirely consistent with what we've been reporting -- that illegal aliens depress wages for U.S. workers by as much as $200 billion a year in addition to placing a tremendous burden on hospitals, schools and other social services.

So what does all that other stuff cost? I found this report on the impact of illegal immigration which states the following:

• Illegal alien households are estimated to use $2,700 a year more in services than they pay in taxes, creating a total fiscal burden of nearly $10.4 billion on the federal budget in 2002. Among them:
• Medicaid $2.5 B
• Uninsured treatments $2.2 B
• Food assistance programs $1.9 B
• Federal aid to schools $1.4 B

That doesn't include the states cost of schools, which is where most of the school funding comes from. Does anyone else think that it's insane that we should be doling out almost $5 billion in heal services, $2.5 B of which comes from an actual entitlement program? Who oversees these things, and why should someone that just shows up be allowed to participate in our entitlement programs? I have enough reservations about these kinds of things, and that's when I assumed that only actual American citizens could participate in American entitlement programs.

And that's not all:

• If illegal aliens were legalized and began to pay taxes and use services like legal immigrants with the same education levels, the estimated annual fiscal deficit at the federal level would increase from $2,700 per household to nearly $7,700, for a total federal deficit of $29 billion.

So great. Grant amnesty and end up paying more. Muy Buen.

It really makes you wonder if we even need a "guest worker" program of if that's not just a pile of hogwash. Who wants a program, legal or not, that drives down wages and creates an additional deficit burden on the economy? At this point looks to me that that would be a horrible, horrible idea. I'd much rather see some kind of expanding immigration policy for knowledge and skilled workers -- the kind that contribute positively to the economy while helping the US maintain technological competitiveness.

Really - if you think about it - it's no wonder that the communists are tied in closely to the illegals. These are people that disregard the rule of law, feel that they are somehow entitled to the jobs they hold, and receive more in entitlements and wealth redistribution than they contribute to it. That reads like a Karl Marx dream right there.

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!"
- Karl Marx, 1874

Ok - so what *I NEED* is for all these people to get a clue and figure out that it's a free, capitalist society that created the economy, economic opportunity, and (unfortunately) entitlement infrastructure that these illegals are so anxious to demand the rights to. "From each" of you, I expect you to use your "abilities" to tell these people to wise up.

Commies marching in the streets of America in 2006. Who would have thought.

How do you say "total bust" in Spanish?

El mucho busto? Anyway, what a flop my day without an immigrant has been. I took some additional photos of the places I went but they are all basically just ordinary pictures. Not a thing was different anywhere I went, and I saw no protestors, marchers, or even hooligans.

What the heck? If the idea was to say "if there were no illigal immigrants, your life would be uneffected" then they succeeded there. I did peek into the back of Arby's and didn't see any non-english speaking latinos, and the gas station didn't have any of the latino construction force fueling up in the morning, but I had to strain to even notice that.

So what the heck - my shot at internet fame by documenting my day was el mucho busto. The only evidence I can find that something must have gone on was this snippet from the Indy Star:

And as the workday ended, more than 200 gathered for a rally at St. Mary Catholic Church just east of Downtown.

Mmmmm-kay. So besides the fact that I need to denounce my own faith for catering to the catholic hoards illegally entering the county, nothing of note happened. A few weeks ago there were 20,000 demonstrators downtown. What happened to them? I have a feeling that "a day without an immigrant" turned out to be "an immigrant vacation day". Fantástico! LOL

A fast food lunch without immigrants is a lot like...

A fast food lunch with illegal immigrants, I guess. I hit Arby's at 12:30 today and was in and out in 2 minutes. I've also seen not a single demonstrator, despite the fact that I've driven all over town from greenwood to downtown to carmel. Indy did have a big march last time, so it's not that indy is just out of the loop.

So far, the impact has been zero.

A Day Without Immigants

Happy Commie Day everyone. I still think its bad PR for this protest to happen on May Day, but no one consulted with me first.

I've got a ton of running around to do today, so I thought this might be a good blog-umentary opportunity to see how this no-illegals day effects my life.

I started the day with a trip to the gas station, shown here. No difference from any other trip to this Speedway, and no problem retrieving a Honeybun and Coke despite the lack of dayworkers to help me do that.

I'll keep you posted.