It's A Pity Party, Bring Your Own Violin

I must say, liberal talk show callers must have gotten a new set of talking points this week.

Every third call seems to be some business owner calling to support socialist health care because their business, usually small, can't afford to provide health care for its employees.

Ignoring for the moment, the fact that maybe these business owners would be doing better if they weren't calling into talk shows during the work day and also ignoring the fact that all these tax hikes and penalties that will be used to fund the healthcare will wipe out small business owners and the employees they claim to care so deeply for, I have one answer for all these seminar whiners.

So what.

So what that you can't provide healthcare for all your employees?

One way you can tell that all these callers are leftists is the belief that every job should provide cradle to grave health care and enough money to raise a family of four. This is indicative of a certain detachment from reality.

No employer is obligated to do anything more for his employees than what is legally mandated plus whatever the terms of the work agreement are. Quite often, this doesn't include health care. This should only be an issue between employee/employer. If the potential worker is cool with the arrangement, then who are any of us to raise an objection?

It's bad enough that a large part of this country has decided that the primary responsibility for the providing of their general welfare belongs to somebody other than themselves, these chronic alarmists have apparently decided that any segment of the population that wishes to remain self-sufficient poses a serious threat to society. A threat to the fragile delusion of the nanny state is more like it.

This hysteria over health insurance is really just and extension of other alarmist threats such as second hand smoke, obesity, drinking, red meat, coffee, global warming and violent movies. It's hard to fathom how these people find the time to try and dictate the terms of our lives while simultaneously running their own lives. Multitasking indeed.

All of these things can be broken down to one fact; people in this country are getting weak in both mind and body. A little hard work, hard living and a good swift kick in the ass might be just the remedy. It might just be hard to find.

Not Just A Lucky Guess Friends

As this administration, with help from Congress, continues to speed down the path to big government mediocrity I find myself concerned about losing the big focus while trying to counter every insane thing the government does?

Stimulus II doesn't work? Let's do stimulus III!
The stimulus is working perfectly.
We underestimated the condition of the economy.
We wouldn't do anything different.
She didn't mean what she said she meant what she meant.
The CIA lies! Oh wait, they didn't? ......uh,.... all Americans need free health care!

And on and on and on . . . . until everything loses all meaning.

It can all be simplified very easily. I hate this government because I love Federalism.

Federalism is our system of separation of powers. The Federal government responsible for some things, the State responsible for everything else and an independent judiciary to uphold the Constitutional rule of law.

All of that is in the process of being destroyed. The role and Independence of the State is being depleted rapidly. This is partially due to weak state governments who would rather pass problems off to the Fed rather than deal with them but it also because the Fed is highjacking State roles by having agencies (like the EPA) manadate Federal standards for everything and by attaching so many strings to bailout money that the State is simply a marionette at the control of Congress and the White House.

The judiciary is an even bigger joke. A judge who is at best an activist and at worst a racist is going to be on the Supreme Court barring some miracle. Justices all over the country are admitting to deciding cases based on their own feelings of fairness or justice and finding laws to fit the ruling, even if they have to use laws from other countries. Law should be the easiest of all branches to control, it's words on paper, easily understandable, yet even that is in doubt as judges redefine words to fit their personal preferences. Judges who simply apply the law as its written are considered draconian or ultra right wingers but pointing out that all these activist judges are left wing radicals? Oh no! Conspiracy theorist!!! Please.

So now we have the most liberal Administration and Congress ever working hand-in-socialist hand working their hardest to consolidate power by taking it from the States and the People, we have States that are in cahoots or are too weak and stupid to resist. Whatever power the Fed can't get through these methods, the courts give them through judicial fiat.

This centralization of power is exactly why the founders of this country set up a federalism, to keep any one group of people from consolidating too much power. this was to protect us from the kind of passive tyranny we are experiencing now. Luckily, they haven't taken away elections yet, we can save our federalism in 2010 & 2012.

After that, who knows.

Really? Yeah!

Some things are just to good to be true.

Allen Iverson to the Clippers.

Ahhh, just to let that sink in feels great. It's not a done deal yet but oh sweet Jesus it would be sweet. It's almost like the Clips are trying to find new ways to wreck the franchise. Why in the world would the Clippers want a player like Iverson?

Lets see, they've got a good young guard in Eric Gordon, who needs time and the ball to develop...... so let's pair him with the black hole. Not a good idea.

Youngster Blake needs a practice role model.......nope.

Baron Davis is such a motivator and leader of men that he'll get the best out of AI? The Clips will be lucky if both of them show up in uniform.

Chris Kamen needs somebody to get high with? ........ Maybe, but he better be ready to hold the stash when they get pulled over.

The only possible reason for Sterling to sign AI is that he knows that the inevitable Dunleavy-Iverson explosion will make for some high theatre. All the Clippers hate the coach anyway and your just wasting your money anyway believing he can coach so why not try and see how tense and dysfunctional you can make a team. Say what you want about the JailBlazers, people were talking about them all year. That should be good enough for Donald Sterling to cash a few more checks and for season ticket holding Bill Simmons to write at least five 10,000 word columns.

This all assumes that the Clippers having a plan for something which is dubious but even unintentional drama is compelling enough for me.

It's Faaaaannnnnnnntastic!

Twice As Nice In Colorado

Sometimes the sun shines a little brighter, the air is a little cleaner and life is generally more pleasant.

And sometimes liberals do something so stupid that we conservatives/Republicans can exploit it for two different reasons. Such an occurrence comes courtesy of my own beloved Colorado and our hapless, unpopular Governor.

According to the Denver Post (I read about it on RedState), Gov. Bill Ritter (D) awarded a nice state contract to his former employer. A former employer who happens to have members who still contribute heavily to the Governor. If that kind of obvious favoritism wasn't bad enough, it seems Ritter is paying his former employer six times(!) what the Colorado Attorney General said they could do it for.

In this time of serious economic decline, how is it justifiable that the Governor could even try to pull this kind of thing? Well, Colorado AG John Suthers is an elected Republican so maybe Ritter just didn't want him working on a high profile assignment, one that might raise Suthers star just a bit.

And what, praytell, is so important that Ritter decided he needed high priced counsel to hash out? Oh that's right, it was how to handle federal bailout money. Of course you wouldn't a Republican involved with that.

Now we get to the second delicious irony. How exactly did Governor Ritter pay for these high-priced experts(cronies)?

He used the payment of Colorado federal bailout money.

Yes, the money that was supposed to put people to work, fixing roads, bridges, digging ditches or whatever the hell these leftists think this money is for. Nope, Ritter felt the first priority should be to unscrupulously give a big fat contract to his former employers/current cronies. All you people with shovel ready jobs can shove it and wait for the next round of money, assuming Ritter doesn't have any other friends who need a taste.

This event makes two things very clear. First, Ritter is a bad Governor and this new era of liberal transparency and compassion in government is a joke. Second, it shows that the whole stimulus is a joke. You think Ritter is the first politician who decided to play politics with that money? No way. He couldn't even wait until the stimulus money was flowing freely, he gave the handouts rights away. Pathetic.

Here's a good list of potential GOP opponents for Ritter in 2010 by 5280.com

http://www.5280.com/blog/?p=7977

Voluntary Quagmire

Recently it has been in the news that American forces are turning over areas of Iraq to Iraqi military forces. Despite a predictable rise in insurgent (fanatical Muslin terrorist) attacks, the transition has gone smoothly.

While this is news now because the handover is becoming official, in reality American forces have been pulling back from some time now, allowing Iraqi forces to take the lead on and responsibility for securing cities.

Yet since the pull back began violence had started to flare up again, this time in Afghanistan. The Afghan war has been on the back burner for at least a couple of years but it seems Taliban/Al-Qaeda forces have decided that they have been regrouping long enough and have started the offensives again.

The real question is why NATO forces, especially with American forces from Iraq available, aren't kicking the hell out of these terrorists as we speak.

I know President Obama isn't exactly a warrior but the Afghan war was the one everyone agreed on in the beginning, so what's up?

I realize that chasing Ahmed through Waziristan isn't like invading a city but it seems that we know about where they are, after all, they have to be fairly close to kill U.S. soldiers.

Also, our forces obliterated that country with relative ease deposing the Taliban, even our limited forces should be kicking some serious ass.

I can't believe the problem is the military. Destroying things and killing people is what they do best. So the problem must be political and that problem lives in the White House.

After all that bitching from liberals about how W. forgot Afghanistan they are willfully doing the same thing. Why? Easy. Liberals in the American government have decided to burn all their political capital and our country's money on their social restructuring programs. If they committed to an Iraqi-esque surge or some special offensive, they would have to justify that to the American people. The administration has already burned every bridge with Republicans, even the moderate, sissy ones who became star-struck with Obama during the campaign. If they commit the money to really fight the war in Afghanistan, all the radical, anti-war leftists will be howling for their heads as well. Essentially, Obama decided turning our country into a European Socialism was a more pressing need than giving our troops the tools they need to fight the war and fulfill our promise to the Afghan people.

The second reason is Obama's warped foreign policy views. I'm sure he thinks his hands are tied given that many of the terrorists are in Pakistan now, specifically the border/Waziristan area. Following his pattern of letting unstable countries full of fanatics do as they please, he'll just wait until the Pakistan situation plays itself out then do something, maybe.

There are a few problems with that. First, Pakistanis lie to the U.S. all the time. They have no interest in clearing Waziristan. They can barely control the "civil" parts of the country. Besides, some Pakistani leaders like having those nut jobs around. They can be useful in the right circumstances. Secondly, they can't clear Waziristan if they want to. They have no control over that area. In reality, that part of the world is just a void. Not existing in a country, not sovereign, no recognized government. Just a black spot full of militants, plotting and planning their next violent action.

President Obama shouldn't give it any legitimacy by treating it as a territory issue with Pakistan. What he should do is break out the A-10's, B-52's and B-2's and give that a whole area an old-fashioned Dresden style bombing. Might as well see if you can bomb somebody back further than the stone age.

Putting this conflict on the back burner during the Iraq war is one thing but it's embarrassing that the Taliban has been able to regroup. The only reason Afghanistan is a third world country is because he we haven't defined a fourth yet. We should be mopping them up by now.

It's time to get it in gear, bloody some noses and let our troops put this thing to bed.


(Baitullah Mehsud, head Waziristan tribal terrorist. Planned assassination of Benazir Bhutto.)

Easy There, Big Guy

ESPN's Chad Ford came up with a list of NBA teams that had iproves themselves this offseason. At number six, Ford had the Magic, basically arguing that Vince Carter+Ryan Anderson would end up being better than Hedo+Courtney Lee. The one caveat Ford allowed was that Orlando would be hurting a little bit if they lost Gortat to the Mavs but Orlando still has a chance to match.

The Sports Guy Bill Simmons took a little bit of umbrage with that, declaring that the only two teams to get better this offseason were the Spurs and Clippers. Not only that, he had Orlando on his list of "definitely got worse."

Easy tiger, lets forget that Orlando knocked off your beloved Celtics (and they responded with Sheed) and look at some facts.

First of all, the Spurs absolutely got better but the Clippers? C'mon. The Clippers get worse everyday because they're the Clippers. Saying they get any better because they got Blake and traded Zack is like saying a forest fire is getting better because it's burning down ugly houses.

Second, no way is Orlando worse. Maybe break even but not worse. Vince for Hedo may be statistically a wash but one of Orlando's biggest problems was that nobody could attack the rim. Vince does that and shoots 3's, albeit not as well as The Turk. People remember Turk's big shots during the playoffs but he also choked away some big free throws in crunch time and really only has one move that should be easy to defend. I don't know much about Anderson but I know Lee bricked away a chance to beat the Lakers at the end of the game and went cold in the clutch. How much worse could Anderson be?

Worst case scenario, they get an erratic scorer and an unknown guard. Exactly what they had. Best case, they get the "I Need One More Big Contract Vince" and a serviceable guard. No harm done.

Now, I love the Sports Guy as much as anybody else but in this case maybe we should throttle back on the Twitter.

Speaking of Twitter, you can find the Sports Guy and his legions of followers at www.twitter.com/sportsguy33 and you can find me and my follower at www.twitter.com/paddymcgarry.

And yes, by follower I mean that one young lady trying to sell me cable.

The Cigar Review Page

Arganese Nicaraguan Full Robusto (5 x 50) - 72/100 - Smooth taste, even burn, average ash, burns hot. Medium-Full.
Arganese Connecticut Medium Petit Corona (5 x 42) - 69/100 - Burns hot and is a little bitter but pretty decent for a quick smoke. Medium.

Montecristo Original - Robusto (5 x 50) - 90/100 - Awesome in every way. A little flakey but who cares? Medium.