Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Skim, Baby, Skim!

Hey, I'm no community organizer, but this oil slick is sure crying out for one.  Wouldn't it be great if someone figured out a way to organize the entire world so it would quickly mobilize and clean-up that oil for us?  Interestingly, there is an organizing technique called a "market" and when harnessed through incentives, it is the most powerful tool in any organizer's quiver.   If a decent community organizer was in charge today, he'd surely turn the market loose by paying a huge BOUNTY for any recovered oil. 

Imagine what a bounty of 10 times the going price for a barrel of oil would do:  Do you suppose an idle Saudi tanker or two, half-way across the world, might make a bee line to the Gulf of Mexico to skim millions of barrels of oil and make a huge profit?  Heck yeah!  Might you lease a monster boat and head for the Gulf if you were an unemployed sailor with some equally idle mates?  Would some Somali pirates turn their talents to skimming oil instead of ransom?  Might Turkish ships turn to skimming black gold instead of running Gaza blockades? You betcha! You betcha! And you betcha.  

But alas, community organizers who understand markets and incentives are in extremely short supply, so instead of a solution, we get threats of an "ass kicking".  Now who wouldn't want to sail around the globe and skim, baby, skim, for a good ole' ass kickin'?           

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Ground Zero Mosque

By now you've probably heard about the 13 story mosque being proposed a stones-throw from ground zero in New York. The city has approved the plan and Mayor Michael Bloomberg has warmly embraced the mega-mosque as a symbol of American tolerance and freedom of religion. Yada yada yada.

This is not the last time we will be duped by “takia” (or "taqiyya"), the concept in Islam that amounts to a command to never speak truth to infidels. We hear the soothing words of the so-called “moderate Muslims” and repeat the unsupported mantra that most Muslims are vehemently opposed to terrorism and support tolerance and freedom of religion. That is absolute hogwash and The Mayor of New York should at least understand this and remain neutral. This mosque is an end-zone dance on the graves of the 9/11 victims and must be understood as such. As prominent New York Rabbi Joseph Potasnik stated, “Just because something is legal, doesn’t make it right.”

Yes, the Mosque should be allowed as a matter of law and so should my proposed project which will surround the 13 story mosque on all four sides:  First there will be the “Divine Church of the Naked Female” a 20 story building shaped like, well, a sexy naked female and built directly on the Mecca side of the mosque looking down on it. Next would be the new home of the “US Hog Farming Association”, a 15 story building shaped like a pig and just to the right of the mosque. On the other side would be a giant synagogue (no view of the USHFA bldg.) also towering over the mosque and shaped like either a Star of David or the State of Israel. To the rear and shaped like a large cocked working catapult complete with flaming catapult ball would be the new “Museum of Crusader Victories”, a 20 story monument to Christian victories during the Crusades.

Peace be upon you…

Stupidity Defined

If you’ll permit me another health analogy ( I just love ‘em!), what would you learn from the following scenario? After a lifetime of smoking, eating junk food, being sedentary, and feeling mostly ok, you then play a few minutes of basketball only to suffer horrible chest pains. If you were intelligent, you might heed the warning and quickly change your lifestyle, quit smoking, eat healthy foods, exercise regularly, and play basketball only within your fitness level. If you were downright stupid, and knew nothing about health, you might conclude the opposite and determine that exertion is just totally unhealthy. After all, you never had chest pain before! Obviously, exercise is way too dangerous and should be avoided at all costs while smoking, eating junk food, and sitting around is the way to never have chest pain again. Phew, glad we dodged that bullet!

The latter is exactly the policy equivalent of Barack Obama and the ruling Democrat party when it comes to the economy. According to their Re-Distributionist and Demand Side Economic Policies, free markets, hard work, risk, reward, and equality of opportunity are the bane of our economic system when in-fact, they are the healthy lifestyle and cardio-vascular excercises which have made us a vibrant healthy economy for much of our history. Re-distribution, Demand Side Economics, bailouts, government takeovers, and equality of outcomes are the cigarettes, junk food and sedentary lifestyles which are the official policies of our current government.

The next basketball game is going to be very interesting…