Just-A-Small-Town-Country-Boy

Pedophile Enablers Continue to Enable Pedophiles

2013-04-27T11:29:00.000-04:00

Last year I wrote a couple of posts about the Pedophile Enablers (aka the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts respectively.) Well there I was this morning, looking through the news sites as I do, when I saw this article at the Lexington Herald-Leader about a priest who had been removed because of sex abuse allegations yet was basically allowed to remain in place with no one actually monitoring

Corporate Welfare and the Case for Taxes and Regulation

2013-04-25T13:23:00.001-04:00

Most everyone knows the most common use of welfare as helping those in danger of being left behind by society. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP although often still referred to as Food Stamps, and Medicaid are the most well known programs available to people. And no, Social Security and Medicare are not welfare programs. But just as

Earth Day 2013

2013-04-22T11:13:00.000-04:00

The first Earth day was declared by the UN for March 21, 1970 but for the US, the date of April 22 was established by then Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson. I do not really recall anything from either of the "Earth Days" from 1970. That was my senior year in high school at a military school and my guess is that date was right around the time when the school had its annual "Federal Inspection"

McJobs: Bad and Getting Worse

2013-04-15T16:37:00.000-04:00

A couple of years ago, you might remember that McDonalds got a lot of publicity out of a one day hiring binge. I wrote about it here with a follow-up about the Washington Post noticing that it was a "McJobs" economic recovery a couple of weeks later. So here we are, two years later and where exactly are we? At best, we are treading water. At best. Today, NBC News' web site had this article

The Concern Trolls Very Serious People Are Out

2013-04-12T14:39:00.000-04:00

Damn but just when I reach a point where I think things can't get any stoopider inside the Beltway, we have a week like this one with the release of President Obama's "budget" and once again the reality of stoopid is even worse than imagined. Word leaked last Friday (April 5) that Chained CPI was going to be part of President Obama's budget, prompting me to point out a simple truth, "A Bad

A Year of Life After a Death

2013-04-09T10:42:00.001-04:00

Dear Cissy, Last night I was scrolling through my newsfeed on Facebook when I saw this note that Beth had left on your page:Tomorrow will be one year ago that we lost you. There are so many times I reach for the phone to call you because I know you're up for everything. While it makes me sad, it makes me glad we were friends for so many wonderful years. I love you, Kissy Cissy. Me and so many

A Bad Idea Is a Bad Idea, No Matter Who Proposes It

2013-04-06T16:21:00.000-04:00

Let me state this right up front - Chained CPI is a bad idea. A very bad idea. Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich explains why here:Even Social Security’s current inflation adjustment understates the true impact of inflation on the elderly. That’s because they spend 20 to 40 percent of their incomes on health care, and health-care costs have been rising faster than inflation. So why

Today Is Opening Day

2013-04-01T13:36:00.000-04:00

PLAY BALL! DoG but I think those two sets of words, Play Ball and Opening Day, are among the best two word combinations available to us in English. Even as we have to endure so much ongoing bad news from so many directions: Tar Sands oil spills in Arkansas and Minnesota;Murder of a District Attorney and his wife in Texas two months after the murder of one of his Deputy DAs;Banksters paying

Are BRICS Agreements Signal of the Future Downfall of US Hegemony?

2013-03-26T12:54:00.000-04:00

As I was looking through various news web sites this morning, I saw a couple of articles about agreements among BRICS (Brazil, Russia. India, China, and South Africa.) Specifically, these were economics related articles that may presage some quite different times for the US in dealing with the rest of the worldwide economic environment. The first article was a short report from Reuters India

Jobs and Social Security

2013-02-01T10:43:00.000-05:00

The January Jobs reports are out and for once, there is a modicum of (somewhat) good news. The Labor Department reported 157K new jobs for January 2013 and significantly revised both November and December 2012 numbers upwards:Employers added 157,000 jobs in January, the Labor Department said, which was right in line with analyst expectations. The best news, though, was that revised estimates put

Today's Anti-Social Security Propaganda

2013-01-28T10:40:00.000-05:00

Well, it looks like there is a new push on in the long term destruction of Social Security today. Now, I usually write about the plight of the long term un and underemployed but I am getting close to Social Security eligibility so decided I would discuss the anti Social Security effort today. I'll start with Fact Free Fred Hiatt's Concern Troll op-ed in today's (Monday, January 28) Washington

Christmas Gift!

2012-12-25T10:56:00.000-05:00

As far back as I can remember, in my family, Christmas Gift! was the traditional Christmas Day greeting. My sister, Cissy, was the family master at this and usually "got" us all (i.e., she would say it before I could say it). It was how we answered the phone in those pre-caller ID days, just in case it was my grandmother or first cousins on the line. It is also one of the family traditions that

Let's Play With Some Numbers, Social Security Edition

2012-12-13T15:03:00.000-05:00

Boy howdy, but did I make a mistake this morning. I made the mistake of allowing myself to become distracted while I was "multi-tasking" and surfing the cable channels at the same time I was checking my emails AND getting a phone call. All of a sudden, I realized I was on MSNBC and listening to Moanin' Joe where the topic of the day appeared to be whining about how those dastardly libruls just

Veteran's Day 2012

2012-11-11T12:14:00.000-05:00

I am a Veteran. I served in the United States Air Force from 10 December 1976 to 9 September 1982. After basic training at Lackland AFB in San Antonio TX (yes, I spent Christmas and New Years in basic,) I did technical school for my future career field at Shepherd AFB in Wichita Falls, TX. My Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC) was 67251. In English that means I was an Accounting Specialist. I

And Now from the Department of Y'all Should Really Just STFU

2012-11-02T13:19:00.000-04:00

During this year's silly season aka the stretch drive to the November elections, I have been watching the self immolation of various Republican campaigns around the country with a bit of fascination. The topic of rape and incest as exceptions allowing a woman to have an abortion has caused great consternation amongst the chattering classes. From Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin's "legitimate

This is the "new normal"

2012-11-01T15:19:00.000-04:00

The ADP Report on private sector jobs came out today and showed an increase of 158K jobs. David Dayen at the FDL News Desk discusses this report and the Bureau of Labor Statistics report that will be issued tomorrow morning (Friday, November 2):Plug this all in and what have you got? The consensus forecast calls for an increase in 125,000 jobs. That would be an increase from last month’s

The Vortex of Stupidity, also known as Washington, DC

2012-10-22T19:46:00.000-04:00

I sometimes think that there has to be a crest to the levels of stoopid coming out of Washington, DC but obviously, I am wrong. Just the past two days, Dean Baker at his blog Beat the Press refuted three different pieces of so-called "conventional wisdom" by different members of the Beltway Village Idiots Pundits, Press, and Politicians in good standing. First up was his having to counter a

George McGovern, RIP (A Personal Reflection on a Political Hero)

2012-10-21T08:53:00.000-04:00

George McGovern, a political hero of my early adult years has passed away at age 90. It was obvious from news reports early last week of McGovern being admitted to hospice and being unresponsive that this was only a matter of time. Yet there is a pain to this. I first became aware of Senator McGovern in 1968 when he entered the Democratic presidential race after the assassination of Bobby

Oh Noes! Wall Street Might Not Get Their Bonuses!

2012-10-09T18:26:00.000-04:00

So I was doing my standard web surfing this AM after I had checked the (non-existent) jobs listings when I saw this from Bloomberg with the title, "Half of Wall Street Employees Expect Bigger Bonuses":Almost half of Wall Street employees expect their year-end bonuses to be higher this year than they were a year ago, according to an eFinancialCareers.com survey. Of the 911 U.S. financial

Final Pre-election Jobs Reports

2012-10-05T18:23:00.001-04:00

This week has seen the final jobs reports that will be available to make a possibly measurable impact prior to November 6. Wednesday's report from ADP had 162K new private sector jobs. Yesterday's (Thursday, October 4) Jobless claims report had a slight increase to 367K new jobless claims and 4 week rolling average of 375K new claims. Finally, today's (Friday, October 5) Bureau of Labor

Domestic Violence Awareness

2012-10-02T13:43:00.000-04:00

Well, here we are in October once again. There are two big "awareness" campaigns in October, Breast Cancer Awareness and Domestic Violence Awareness. I have written of both in previous years (here and here) but as I did in '09, I am going to concentrate this year on Domestic Violence Awareness. As personal as Breast Cancer Awareness is to me because of my sister, the 'pink ribbon' stories are

Some more pedophile enablers who need to hear the clang of the cell door behind them

2012-09-17T17:05:00.000-04:00

About two and half weeks ago, I wrote a post titled "Just put the damn pedophile enablers in jail already." Well, yesterday's LA Times had this article on how the Boy Scouts helped alleged child molesters avoid prosecution:Over two decades, the Boy Scouts of America failed to report hundreds of alleged child molesters to police and often hid the allegations from parents and the public. A Los

Labor Day Weekend, 2012 Economic Report

2012-08-31T16:01:00.000-04:00

Well, here we are once again. Labor Day weekend has rolled around; the time when all the politicians extol the virtues of the working man and woman. But as I pointed out last year, once a year praise by Beltway Village Idiots Politicians and Pundits or the local equivalent of same, does not actually make someone a friend of workers. Just last night, if you were so inclined, you may have

Just put the damn pedophile enablers in jail already.

2012-08-30T14:04:00.000-04:00

When I write blog posts, I usually try to stay away from certain hot button issues. I try to write about things that have a somewhat global impact such as the (execrable) state of the economy. But every now and again, I see an article or series of articles where the claims made are so egregious and the conduct so reprehensible, that I have to respond, even if it means burning a bridge. An

I Went and Looked at the Moon Last Night

2012-08-26T09:07:00.000-04:00

Unless you have been stuck under a rock, you probably know that Neil Armstrong died yesterday. In July 1969, I, like so many millions of others, watched as he made "One small step for (a) man; one giant leap for mankind." (I am using the words as he said he spoke them rather than how we heard them as I can fully appreciate how there could be a comm drop - as should anyone who has had a phone