We Can Always Return to the Iceberg Strategy

Social Security

Recently I read an article by Anya Kamenetz, if that is not a Northern European name what is, on the looming Social Security disaster. She mentions:

The shaky economics of the program became apparent with the first beneficiary; a legal secretary from Vermont named Ida Mae Fuller. From the age 63 to 65, Fuller paid 1% of her income into the system --- a total of $24.75. She lived to be 100 years old and collected a grand total of $22,888.92 in benefits. In other words Ida made a 100,000% return on her social security investment. According to the Congressional Budget Office, Americans born between 1876 and 1937 will receive a total of $8.1 trillion more from the social security system than they paid into it.

In 1972 social security was tied to the growth in wages COLA, Cost of Living Adjustment. When wages go up benefits go up, not allowing reserves to build up.

She continues:

Alan Greenspan designed a bailout plan that raised payroll taxes, cut benefits, shifted the retirement age from 65 to 67, and taxed social security benefits of the rich. Signed into law by President Reagan in 1983, the Greenspan package worked. Social security began to run up a sizable surplus. … according to the plan, the surplus went into a “trust fund’ to help pay for the retirement of future generations.

… During the 2000 presidential campaign George W Bush and Al Gore promised repeatedly to stop “raiding the trust fund.”

Nevertheless, … Bush used the social security surplus to cover government expenses. By early 2007, the Bush administration had spent $1 trillion of social security money at the rate or $500 million per day.

In October 2007, a New Jersey school teacher named Kathleen Casey-Kirschling retired and became the first of the 80 million Baby Boomers to file for social security benefits. Right now there are about 3.4 workers paying into social security for every one retiree. But as the Baby Boomers leave the workforce, that will change. By 2030, there will be 2.2 workers per retiree. In other words the system won’t be able to sustain itself, and the pyramid will start to tip over. … In previous eras, old age and poverty went hand in hand. But in postwar America it is rare. … Today less than 10% of the elderly live below the poverty line. Without social security it would be 40%.

We can always learn from history. In the 1800s Alaskan Inuit set their grandparents adrift on icebergs and wave goodbye. We should hurry before Global Warming wipes out our retirement options….

In election 2008, don’t forget Angry White Man

There is a great amount of interest in this year’s presidential elections, as everybody seems to recognize that our next president has to be a lot better than George Bush. The Democrats are riding high with two groundbreaking candidates — a woman and an African-American — while the conservative Republicans are in a quandary about their party’s nod to a quasi-liberal maverick, John McCain.

Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

His common traits are that he isn’t looking for anything from anyone — just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field. In many cases, he is an independent businessman and employs several people. He pays more than his share of taxes and works hard.

The victimhood syndrome buzzwords — “disenfranchised,” “marginalized” and “voiceless” — don’t resonate with him. “Press ‘one’ for English” is a curse-word to him. He’s used to picking up the tab, whether it’s the company Christmas party, three sets of braces, three college educations or a beautiful wedding.

He believes the Constitution is to be interpreted literally, not as a “living document” open to the whims and vagaries of a panel of judges who have never worked an honest day in their lives.

The Angry White Man owns firearms, and he’s willing to pick up a gun to defend his home and his country. He is willing to lay down his life to defend the freedom and safety of others, and the thought of killing someone who needs killing really doesn’t bother him.

The Angry White Man is not a metrosexual, a homosexual or a victim. Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina — he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter.

His last name and religion don’t matter. His background might be Italian, English, Polish, German, Slavic, Irish, or Russian, and he might have Cherokee, Mexican, or Puerto Rican mixed in, but he considers himself a white American.

He’s a man’s man, the kind of guy who likes to play poker, watch football, hunt white-tailed deer, call turkeys, play golf, spend a few bucks at a strip club once in a blue moon, change his own oil and build things. He coaches baseball, soccer and football teams and doesn’t ask for a penny. He’s the kind of guy who can put an addition on his house with a couple of friends, drill an oil well, weld a new bumper for his truck, design a factory and publish books. He can fill a train with 100,000 tons of coal and get it to the power plant on time so that you keep the lights on and never know what it took to flip that light switch.

Women either love him or hate him, but they know he’s a man, not a dishrag. If they’re looking for someone to walk all over, they’ve got the wrong guy. He stands up straight, opens doors for women and says “Yes, sir” and “No, ma’am.”

He might be a Republican and he might be a Democrat; he might be a Libertarian or a Green.

He knows that his wife is more emotional than rational, and he guides the family in a rational manner.

He’s not a racist, but he is annoyed and disappointed when people of certain backgrounds exhibit behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race. He’s willing to give everybody a fair chance if they work hard, play by the rules and learn English.

Most important, the Angry White Man is pissed off. When his job site becomes flooded with illegal workers who don’t pay taxes and his wages drop like a stone, he gets righteously angry. When his job gets shipped overseas, and he has to speak to some incomprehensible idiot in India for tech support, he simmers. When Al Sharpton comes on TV, leading some rally for reparations for slavery or some such nonsense, he bites his tongue and he remembers. When a child gets charged with carrying a concealed weapon for mistakenly bringing a penknife to school, he takes note of who the local idiots are in education and law enforcement.

He also votes, and the Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton. Her voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a rock. He recoils at the mere sight of her on television. Her very image disgusts him, and he cannot fathom why anyone would want her as their leader. It’s not that she is a woman. It’s that she is who she is. It’s the liberal victim groups she panders to, the “poor me” attitude that she represents, her inability to give a straight answer to an honest question, his tax dollars that she wants to give to people who refuse to do anything for themselves.

There are many millions of Angry White Men. Four million Angry White Men are members of the National Rifle Association, and all of them will vote against Hillary Clinton, just as the great majority of them voted for George Bush.

He hopes that she will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, and he will make sure that she gets beaten like a drum.

Gary Hubbell is a regular columnist with the Aspen Times Weekly.

Just in Case You May Think this Person Would Make a Good President…

Hillary Clinton has been telling America that she is the most qualified candidate for president based on her 'record,' which she says includes her eight years in the White House as First Lady – or 'co-president' - and her seven years in the Senate.

Here is a reminder of what that record includes:

* As First Lady, Hillary assumed authority over Health Care Reform, a process that cost the taxpayers over $13 million. She told both Bill Bradley and Pat Moynahan, key votes needed to pass her legislation, that she would 'demonize' anyone who opposed it. But it was opposed; she couldn't even get it to a vote in a Congress controlled by her own party. (And in the next election, her party lost control of both the House and Senate.)

* Hillary assumed authority over selecting a female Attorney General. Her first two recommendations (Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood) were forced to withdraw their names from consideration, and then she chose Janet Reno. Janet Reno has since been described by Bill himself as 'my worst mistake.'

* Hillary recommended Lani Guanier for head of the Civil Rights Commission. When Guanier's radical views became known, her name had to be withdrawn.

* Hillary recommended her former law partners, Web Hubbell, Vince Foster, and William Kennedy for positions in the Justice Department, White House staff, and the Treasury, respectively. Hubbell was later imprisoned, Foster committed suicide, and Kennedy was forced to resign.

* Hillary also recommended a close friend of the Clintons, Craig Livingstone, for the position of director of White House security. When Livingstone was investigated for the improper access of up to 900 FBI files of Clinton enemies (Filegate) and the widespread use of drugs by White House staff, both Hillary and her husband denied knowing him. (FBI agent Dennis Sculimbrene confirmed in a Senate Judiciary Committee in 1996 both the drug use and Hillary' involvement in hiring Livingstone. After that, the FBI closed its White House Liaison Office, after serving seven presidents for over thirty years.)

* In order to open 'slots' in the White House for her friends, the Harry Thomasons (to whom millions of dollars in travel contracts could be awarded), Hillary had the entire staff of the White House Travel Office fired; they were reported to the FBI for 'gross mismanagement' and their reputations ruined. After a thirty-month investigation, only one, Billy Dale, was charged with a crime - mixing personal money with White House funds when he cashed checks. The jury acquitted him in less than two hours.

* Another of Hillary's assumed duties was directing the 'bimbo eruption squad' and scandal defense:

• She urged her husband not to settle the Paula Jones lawsuit.
• She refused to release the Whitewater documents, which led to the appointment of Ken Starr as Special Prosecutor. After $80 million dollars of taxpayer money was spent, Starr's investigation led to Monica Lewinsky, which led to Bill lying about and later admitting his affairs.
• Then they had to settle with Paula Jones after all.
• And Bill lost his law license for lying to the grand jury
• And Bill was impeached by the House.
• And Hillary almost got herself indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice (she avoided it mostly because she repeated, 'I do not recall,' 'I have no recollection,' and 'I don't know' 56 times under oath).

* Hillary wrote 'It Takes a Village,' demonstrating her Socialist viewpoint.

* Hillary decided to seek election to the Senate in a state she had never lived in. Her husband pardoned FALN terrorists in order to get Latino support and the New Square Hassidim to get Jewish support. Hillary also had Bill pardon her brother's clients, for a small fee, to get financial support.

* Then Hillary left the White House, but later had to return $200,000 in White House furniture, china, and artwork she had stolen.

* In the campaign for the Senate, Hillary played the 'woman card' by portraying her opponent (Lazio) as a bully picking on her.

* Hillary's husband further protected her by asking the National Archives to withhold from the public until 2012 many records of their time in the White House, including much of Hillary's correspondence and her calendars. (There are ongoing lawsuits to force the release of those records.)

* As the junior Senator from New York, Hillary has passed no major legislation. She has deferred to the senior Senator (Schumer) to tend to the needs of New Yorkers, even on the hot issue of medical problems of workers involved in the cleanup of Ground Zero after 9/11

* Hillary's one notable vote, supporting the plan to invade Iraq, she has since disavowed.

Quite a resume, isn't it? Sounds more like an organized crime family...

Drunks, Drug Addicts, Victims

Reference The Mountain Press editorial, Monday, February 11, 2008, “Is performing a award?”

I agree with your point BUT Ms Winehouse, (I am old enough to have no idea who she is) was not rewarded as much as the program was rewarded and was able to avoid negative press. Can you imagine the outcry if she was not permitted to perform? The producers of the reward show would have been attacked throughout the media for judging and punishing poor Ms Winehouse. She would be on CNN for the next week as a victim of the do-gooders. One other thing, I believe because she has a problem she should be punished. She made the problem and she is the only one who can correct it. Ignoring it does not help. She is a 24-year-old drunk and drug addict. She is the scourge of society. She should be ostracized until she eliminates the problem. At that point we can let her return to proper society.

Associating album and DVD sales with talent is problematic. Talent has little to do with sales and they can be and are most of the time, mutually exclusive. Does she wear skimpy enough clothes as to get the hormones of both young and old excited? Does she rebel against the establishment by using drugs and alcohol AND sex to get a lot of media attention? Talent is the least of the parts of the equation.

Your comment “our culture is taking another situation and glorifying it for society” is right on. As no one besides me of course believes Ms Winehouse should be punished, we let her be a victim. Remember that local drunk and drug addict Renfro(?). How about Ledger (?)Drunks and drug addicts. Victims......

Mosaics: ...the oldest members of the youngest generation, currently 18 or 19 years old
Busters: ....those 20 to 38 years of age
Baby Boomers: ....ages 39 through 57 and
Elders: ....a combination of the two oldest generations, comprised of people 58 or older


Views On "Morally Acceptable" Behaviors,
by Generation
The data trends indicate that the moral perspectives of Americans are likely to continue to deteriorate. Compared to surveys conducted two years ago, significantly more adults are depicting such behaviors as morally acceptable. For instance, there have been increases in the percentages that condone sexual activity with someone of the opposite gender other than a spouse, abortion (up by 25%), and a 20% jump in people’s acceptance of ‘gay sex.’

Men were more likely than women to deem nine of the ten behaviors to be morally acceptable. (The exception was sexual relations between people of the same gender, which women were slightly more likely to condone.) The most sizeable gaps were related to pornography (men were twice as likely to deem pornography acceptable) and drunkenness.

Among people aligned with faiths other than Christianity, half or more described each of seven behaviors as "morally acceptable" - gambling, co-habitation, sexual fantasies, having an abortion, having a sexual relationship with someone of the opposite sex other than their spouse, pornography and profanity. Atheists and agnostics were the people most likely to describe any of these behaviors as morally acceptable. In total, atheists and agnostics defined nine of the ten behaviors as morally legitimate, dismissing only the use of non-prescription drugs.

Political Correctness is Destroying US

Spanish writer Sebastian Vilar RoIdrigez and published in a Spanish newspaper on 5-22-07

ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ By Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez(*)

I walked down the street in Barcelona, and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz . We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world.

The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art, international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned.

And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride.

They have blown up our trains and turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime

Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts.

And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition

We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for hoping for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs.

What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe.

A lot of Americans have become so insulated from reality that they imagine America can suffer defeat without any inconvenience to themselves. Absolutely No Profiling! Pause a moment, reflect back,

These events are actual events from history. They really happened! Do you remember?

1. 1968 Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed by A Muslim male extremist between the ages of 17 and 40

2. In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, athletes were kidnapped and massacred by: Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

3. In 1979, the US embassy in Iran was taken over by: Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

4. During the 1980's a number of Americans were kidnapped in Lebanon by: Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

5. In 1983, the US Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by: Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

6. In 1985 the cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked and a 70 year old American passenger was murdered and thrown overboard in his wheelchair by: Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

7. In 1985 TWA flight 847 was hijacked at Athens, and a US Navy diver trying to rescue passengers was murdered by: Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

8. In 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed by: Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

9. In 1993 the World Trade Center was bombed the first time by: Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

10. In 1998, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by: Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

11. On 9/11/01, four airliners were hijacked; two were used as missiles to take out the World Trade Centers and of the remaining two, one crashed into the US Pentagon and the other was diverted and crashed by the passengers. Thousands of people were killed by: Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

12. In 2002 the United States fought a war in Afghanistan against: Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

13. In 2002 reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by: Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40

No, I really don't see a pattern here to justify profiling, do you? So, to ensure we Americans never offend anyone, particularly fanatics intent on killing us, airport security screeners will no longer be allowed to profile certain people. They must conduct random searches of 80-year-old women, little kids, airline pilots with proper identification, secret agents who are members of the President's security detail, 85-year old Congressmen with metal hips, and Medal of Honor winner and former Governor Joe Foss, but leave Muslim Males between the ages 17 and 40 alone lest they be guilty of profiling. Let's send this to as many people as we can so that the Gloria Aldreds and other under-headed attorneys along with Federal Justices that want to thwart common sense, feel ash amed of themselves -- if they have any such sense.

As the writer of the award winning story "Forrest Gump" so aptly put it, "Stupid is as stupid does."

Gatlinburg, London, Sister Cities

Prince Charles , warned that historic sites like the Tower of London have been “vandalized” by high-rise construction that threatens to ruin the character of the capital.

The heir to the British throne, who spoke at a conference on city planning, argued that poor planning could damage the integrity of Britain ’s historical areas, particularly criticizing tall buildings that dwarf smaller structures.

“We seem to be determined to vandalize these few remaining sites which retain the kind of human scale and timeless character that so attract people to them and which increase in value as time goes by,” Charles said at St. James’ Palace.

Change “ Tower of London ” to Mountain View Hotel” or “Greystone Hotel” or “Gatlinburg Inn” and change “ Britain ” to “Gatlinburg”, and “high-rise construction and tall buildings”, to “cabins, cabins, cabins,” and change “St James Palace” to “ Gatlinburg City Hall ” and it kind of hits home, don’t you think?

It appears Gatlinburg is suffering from an international problem.