This is what happens when I get snowed in. I find stupid shit to post from my hotel room. I guess there's worse places than Reno to ride out a blizzard. Actually you'll love this...stolen without remorse from William Banzai at ZeroHedge. The last outpost of truth. This first piece is rated PG. The second one, a catchy tune, is a re-run and rated R.   hehe

My retirement seminar occurred in November this year. This is a group of fossilized people who gather for one day to hear all of the nuances of our public retirement system. For thirty years, the date "1/1/11" has been etched into my mind. Limping into retirement with a few marbles, a few teeth, and some hair. The word hair, as I use it, is singular. As I took my seat near the back of the fossil room, we were given these clicker things. They ask you some questions with associated slides and you click on the appropriate answer. They split us into four groups and that way we could have some silly competition. It's all a lot of malarkey and the real reason we were given clicker things is so that our answers would be recorded. There is no real reason to take your name and the serial number of the device you are using unless you are keeping an individual tally. After all, it's not like I came to the fossil meeting looking for a nice new clicker to steal. I have too damn ...

I've watched the Chevy Volt saga for years. I watched as President Obama demanded that the price of the car remain as close to 30k as possible. I suppose when you allow your government to buy a bankrupt auto maker, you get the proven track record of an owner that has screwed up everything it has touched. Obama, master car designer and businessman, lynched GM CEO Rick Wagoner shortly after the takeover. It was an easy sacrifice. I mean after all, Wagoner had the audacity to fly in a corporate jet to those congressional hearings. The outrage! The Chevy Volt costs an astounding 41k. Throw in some sales tax, an option or two, dealer prep and doc fees, some bank interest and voila! You have a 50k car. Oh you'll be eligible for a tax credit.The same tax credit you'd get on another hybrid vehicle. I can't get excited about GM's new flagship car. Here are my reasons why in no particular order. 1. The price. I don't give a shit about tax credits. The cost of this c...

Thankfully, we voted in those Republicans just in time to extend the Bush tax cuts. Give the elite a little more largesse. That and they kicked the can down the road exactly two years- to the next election. To call these guys cowards- gives cowards everywhere a bad rap. Our government simply doesn't have the spine God gave a jellyfish. Each taxpayer in this country owes 125,000 dollars. That's you. Go ahead and just send it to me and I'll take care of it for you. Make your check payable to Frankenstein Government. If you are feeling really responsible, scroll down to the bottom line and note that you actually owe just a shade over a million bucks and send that amount in. I'd do it now before interest rates rise. http://www.usdebtclock.org/ Travel day for me. The smoldering ruins of Boise States' Rose Bowl dreams, Reno.

I started writing publicly about five years ago. Back then, I would craft what I believed to be some insightful masterpiece, edit the obvious errors, and whack the publish button. I would then tuck myself in for the night. I had three problems back then. I was writing on a business site that I did not control, I was the Police Chief and I was expected to behave accordingly, and I had an idiot for an editor. I eventually resolved those first two issues but alas, I cannot resolve the third. I still have an idiot for editor. There are some emotional risks that you inherently agree to- when you write publicly. You are about to expose what kind of person you are, your readers are going to dissect what you have written, and most importantly- if you are a shitty writer people won't be interested in reading what you write. Those are some of the risks. That and nasty commenters. Imagine being a small town Police Chief, having "die hard" libertarian views, and trying to write...

In my waning years as a lawman, I was introduced to the concept of restorative justice. Initially I bristled at this new term as I pondered what it meant for traditional crime and punishment themes. That and I inherently did not trust the liberals that introduced new concepts like this to me in Moonbat Valley. I quickly became a convert. On a small local scale, I had the unique ability to actually listen and comprehend what crime victims were telling me. In our offices, in our courtrooms, and at our post office. Victims who would find that our criminal justice system doesn't really give a rat's ass about their being victims. Was that true? Well, I had heard it dozens if not hundreds of times. So often actually, it became difficult to ignore. The problem the legal system has is the same problem our government has. It makes sense- they run both systems. They don't listen. They don't think they have to. Here then is a comparison and the different approaches of these ...

I can't tell you that visiting a radioactive graveyard is on my bucket list. Apparently the Ukraine thinks they have found some sort of nuclear disneyland. In reality, I'm sure there will be people "just dying" to see the place. I do not number among them. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_ukraine_chernobyl_tourism;_ylt=AsPUxb5kAEiX8eeMb976GQRv24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTM2NWxlOTZkBGFzc2V0A2FwL2V1X3VrcmFpbmVfY2hlcm5vYnlsX3RvdXJpc20EY2NvZGUDdmlld3NoYXJlBGNwb3MDOQRwb3MDOQRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA3VrcmFpbmV0b29wZQ-- I found the price. Reasonable. Only about 150 bucks. Tour information. http://www.ukrainianweb.com/chernobyl_ukraine.htm I love that part about the reactor still leaking. That'll draw them in by the thousands. I'm guessing you have to pay in advance.  

We can all agree on one thing. We need affordable health care. We can agree on a second thing. We don't have affordable health care. We might even agree that you cannot fix health care by writing a 2407 page health care bill that nobody in Congress bothered reading before passing. Or do you think they read it? Everything that has happened during and after that sham of a bill passing, the backroom deals in Louisiana and Nebraska to buy votes, this great national debate, is a waste of time. Everything. I am no longer willing to debate the merits of a law that was a non starter to begin with. Obama, the Democrats, and that bill have done more to divide our country than any single piece of legislation in our history. I am convinced of it. We fight among ourselves, we debate the merits and legality of a law that has no Constitutional authority. A bill that slicked in income reporting, taxes on real estate sales, and everything else they could think of. A bill that created the most...

So I read this article on Yahoo. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101213/ap_on_bi_ge/us_health_care_overhaul_virginia Then I think, the White House will be calling the judge any minute. Asking the judge to resign. Have you noticed the increasing number of idiots who compare compulsory health insurance to auto insurance? We are truly a nation of idiots. My sis in Seattle has survived quite nicely without a car most of her life. She actually chooses to ride her bike to work. Thus she avoids depreciation, bank interest, car insurance, taxes and registration, and the Saudi gas subsidy. She has taken those savings and piled up quite a bit of cash for retirement. She figures it amounts to 5 to 6 thousand dollars each year. My sister cannot avoid health care. Like many of us, choosing to live in pain or die, is not an option. It's not a choice.  Like owning a car might be. We haven't given up our divine rights, bestowed by our Creator, to a life at the mercy, pleasure, servitude, ...

Last week our President caved in to political pressure. He extended the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest and bartered for 13 more months of government largesse for the unemployed. Then he went on national TV to whine about it. Later at a press conference, Obama turned the podium over to White House Lewinsky molester, Bill Clinton. Then Obama ran out of the room. Clinton as you might recall, is married to astute cattle futures trader and international spy, Hillary Clinton. http://www.therightscoop.com/obama-walks-out-leaves-bill-clinton-at-podium The newly elected Republicans, bent on protecting their elite friends, drew a line in the sand. Obama, the Coward in Chief, nabbed the consolation prize- a few billion more from the taxpayers for his unemployed voters. Let me score this. Government Cowards 2, American Citizens and Taxpayers 0.  Now lest ye think I am picking on the current crop of cowards, let me retrace my steps back to Bush II. Bush as you might recall, was the Pr...

Next week on Jun 8th at the Butte Archives there is going to be a lecture about the greatest hard rock mining disaster that had ever happened up until that moment in time- Jun 8, 1917. So I thought I'd edit and re-run this old piece from 2010. This is an old story. It is about an agreement that I made some forty years ago. An agreement I made with my friends and the effect it had on my life as I got older. It is about loyalty, blind trust, and misconceptions. I told this story recently and as I reflected back on it, I realized it was an indoctrination. It was not necessarily true or untrue. But we believed that it was true. It was a choice we made. We were just kids, many of us, the sons of miners. I wasn't the son of a miner. In the 1900's, Butte, Montana was known as the richest hill on earth. The city was bustling and busy- a stark contrast with today. A huge open pit mine had replaced underground operations but I can still remember the electric whirr and ...

When I was a child, newspapers had a habit of telling the truth about one's cause of death. If someone committed suicide, the obituary would often state that the deceased took their own life. Over the years, I have noticed a shift in the way obituaries are written. We no longer state the truth. Telling the truth is no longer important to us. We are far more concerned with being "sensitive." We justify and rationalize that sensitivity for a grieving family outweighs any need for telling the truth. If Mark Madoff had been just anyone, I doubt the manner of his death would have ever been disclosed. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101212/ap_on_bi_ge/us_madoff_son The sad truth is that many of the citizens of this country fear suicide to such a degree that we are forbidden by custom from even discussing it. Many believe that suicide is something to be ashamed of. We feel guilty when our loved ones take their own lives. We feel diminished or less than because we could not p...