Good Golly! You Want To What?

Hello People! I'm sure that you, like me, spend a good part of each day worrying about the environment and our impact on it. Well, good news! The EPA is once again spending our tax dollars to help us help ourselves. The EPA operates on an annual budget of about $9 billion dollars. They're requesting a $481 million dollar increase for fiscal 2016. It's money well spent. This year alone the EPA has launched a study to examine 'particulate emissions' coming from your backyard barbecue. They're proposing a 'secondary air filtration system' to go along with the drip tray. We don't know what those 'particulate emissions' are yet. Nor do we know if they're harmful. But, why wait for pesky details? Thanks EPA! I was just saying to the girls that backyard grills aren't nearly expensive enough. This will certainly take care of that!
The EPA has also launched a program to create a wireless system that will track how much water hotel guests use in the shower. Think about that for a moment. The EPA wants hotels to install wireless monitors in all of their showers to measure water usage. Gee, what could possible go wrong with that? Apparently they've never heard of water meters. It's a much better idea to install wireless electronics in our last bastion of privacy! You can't make this stuff up. The University of Tulsa has already received a grant to develop the technology.
This is the same agency that required companies that blend gas to use cellulosic biofuel or face significant fines. Unfortunately for those businesses, cellulosic biofuel doesn't exist on any kind of commercial level. So, the EPA first fined the refiners for not using the non-existent fuel, then mandated that they increase their use of it by 60%.
The EPA isn't alone. The Department of Health and Human Services just spent $500 million dollars on a program that will, among other things, seek to solve the problem of 5-year old kids who "can't sit still" in kindergarten classrooms. The Feds spent $30 million on a program designed to help Pakistani farmers produce more mangos and $3 million for a UC Irvine project to research the video game World of Warcraft! And you thought your tax dollars were being wasted. I'll leave you with this; the Heritage Foundation reports that the US military spent $998,798 dollars to ship two 19-cent washers from South Carolina to Texas and spent $293,451 dollars to ship one 89-cent washer from South Carolina to Florida. I could do this all day! Too bad there's no money left over to fix the water mains exploding all over America!
Sway

Oh My MY

People, people, people. Is the earth spinning too quickly for you? Are you all dizzy? Is that the problem? Every day I become more convinced that only two things in life are true. I am stunningly beautiful and you are completely nuts! Let's start in Washington, the home base of the National Crazy Train.
Six months ago our President touted Yemen as a success story; a shinning example of American diplomacy in action. Now, with Yemen in total chaos, one would think the White House would walk that statement back. Nope. Yesterday, when an ABC reporter asked White House spokesman Josh Earnest if they still considered Yemen a success story, Earnest replied, "A successful counter-terrorism strategy is one that will build up the capacity of the central government...". "That is a template that has succeeded in mitigating the threat in Yemen and Somalia". What? Build up the central government? Doesn't Yemen's President fleeing the country in the middle of the night kind of end the central government? Earnest went on to say that the White House was still communicating with the Yemeni government. Which government would that be? My Friends, these people are so divorced from reality, reality should be paying them alimony!
Let's move on to school news. An elementary school in Tennessee threatened to suspend a 7-year old student because they deemed his "high and tight" military style haircut to be a distraction. School policy prohibits any "mohawk or extreme cuts". You be the judge:

The boy, Adam Stinnet, wanted to honor his soldier step-brother with the cut. His mother was told he would have to change the haircut or he wouldn't be allowed back in school. She shaved his head. The irony here is that the school, Bobby Ray Memorial Elementary School, is named after a Medal of Honor winner who was killed in Vietnam. The school's gym bears the name of Spc. Jeremy L. Brown, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2010. So, apparently, they support the military, just not their hairstyle.
Finally, a pro-Hillary Clinton group called HRC Super Volunteers, sent a letter to about 150 media outlets warning them against spreading "any form of sexist news coverage" regarding the former Secretary of State. The group warned that they would be "watching, listening and protesting coded sexism". They were even kind enough to supply a list of "sexist" references. Are you ready?

• Polarizing
• Calculating
• Disingenuous
• Insincere
• Ambitious
• Inevitable
• Entitled
• Over confident
• Secretive
• Will do anything to win
• Represents the past
• Out of touch

Okay, call me crazy, but that reads more like a Hillary Thesaurus than a list of sexist terms! What will they think of next? Enjoy the weekend!

Sway

You're Serious, Right?

Hello People! I'm back from vacation. You're welcome. As I ease back into my pre-vacation routine, I can't help but notice that the crazy train just keeps chugging along. Where to begin?
Let's start here. While the President and his band of merry men continue "historic" nuclear negotiations with Iran, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, delivers a speech to his faithful saying, "Of course, death to America"! The White House response? No big deal, The Ayatollah's comments were "intended for a domestic political audience". Excuse me? Apparently, according to the White House, the Supreme Leader was just playing to the crowd. I guess secretly he really loves America and wants to be our partner in peace, right? Right.
Starbucks raised some eyebrows, and some ire, when they decided to write "Race Together" on their coffee cups to "open a discussion about race in America".  What it did was spark outrage. Gee, who could have seen that coming? It did open a discussion on race. Like, why doesn't Starbucks have any black executives? And, why doesn't Starbucks have stores in any black neighborhoods? So, after 5 days of discussion, Starbucks canned the cups. Hey Starbucks, here's a rule of thumb, people come to you for overpriced coffee, not political or cultural insight. Give the people what they want.
Seattle, Washington, proudly took it's place in history as the first city to raise their minimum wage to $15 an hour. Good for you Seattle! The wage hike takes affect on April 1st. There's a problem though. The Seattle Magazine reports that restaurants in The Jet City are closing at a record pace. A spokesman for the Washington Restaurant Association told the Washington Policy Center, "Every operator I'm talking to is in panic mode, trying to figure out what the new world will look like". I can save you the trouble of wondering. It will look something like this:

Good luck with that!

Sway

The Immortal Words of Mark Twain

Hello People. Where have I been? Thank you for asking. I've been banging my little head against the wall. Why? Because this world has gone nuts, seriously nuts, and the crazy seems to be spreading like wildfire! Mark Twain famously said, "Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience". Some days, as I scroll through Farcebook, I can actually feel my brain cells dying. Why people, why? Just today I saw a flurry of posts stating that "The President if Iran school Senate Republicans on our Constitution. This, of course, is in response to that stupid letter that 47 Senate Republicans sent to the leaders of Iran. I don't really care which side of the debate you come down on. I do care that you're stupid and aren't afraid to show it. I guarantee that not one person who posted that even knows who the President of Iran is. How do I know that? Because the statement they were all referring to was made by Javad Zarif, the Iranian Foreign Minister. Hassan Rouhani is the President of Iran. Splitting hairs? No. It's another case of people spouting off about something they know nothing about. Don't let the facts get in the way of your outrage people. It's this constant perpetuation of misinformation that dumbs down the entire society. By the way, and with all due respect, sending an open letter to foreign leaders does not, in any way, violate our Constitution. Not that it really matters.
Hillary Clinton used a personal email account during her entire run as Secretary of State. An email, I might add, that was hacked in 2010 by a group with ties to Ukraine. Since this was made public, we've been treated to a host of excuses and reasons why it's a non-issue. It is NOT a non-issue. Excuse #1, Mrs. Clinton was just used to using that account. Really? Because records show that she registered that account in 2009, on the day of her Senate confirmation hearing. It was clearly her intent, from day one, to eliminate any paper trails. Excuse #2, Mrs. Clinton was unaware that a private email account violated department policy. Really?? Beacuse in 2011, the State Department, under Secretary Clinton, issued instructions to all employees not to use personal email accounts or forward department email to personal accounts "which is prohibited by government policy". That directive went on to say that "violators would face disciplinary action". Indeed, in 2012 former Kenyan Ambassador Scott Gration was forced to step down after an Inspector General report criticized him for using personal email for government business. Ridiculous, right? The bottom line is, she knew it was wrong and she did it anyway. It's okay though. No big deal. It's Hillary. Don't even get me started on the President claiming he didn't know anything about it until he saw it on the news. It just never ends.
There's a prisoner, in the Peoples Republic of Massachusetts, suing the Sheriff for a wage increase. The inmate, who is here illegally, says he should be paid the state minimum wage ($9 an hour) for work he does while incarcerated.
A Georgia garbage collector was sentenced to 14 weekends in jail. His crime? He started work too early. Yup. Kevin McGill started his route at 5am. Unfortunately, a city ordinance prohibits trash collection before 7am so, they're sending him to jail. Seems like a bit of an over reaction to me but, hey, who wants ambitious city workers. That'll teach them!
Sway