Pentagon makes another horrible decision
The United States Navy has talked about putting women on nuclear submarines for many years. Infact on at least two different occasions they have trained women for submarine service and then later abandoned the idea.
As many of you know I served on a nuclear submarine from 1991 - 1995. My submarine was the USS Pintado stationed at Pearl Harbor.
The idea of putting women on nuclear submarines to serve alongside men is absurd.
My reasons are as follows:
- There is no privacy on submarines. Bunks are stacked on top of each other and in some cases bunks are shared in a policy called “hot racking.” I “hot racked” on my first run.
- Radiation has been proven to be dangerous to women who are pregnant. This means the USN will have to continually test women; if they get pregnant they will have to be removed from the submarine.
- Submarines are an isolated environment like none of you can imagine unless you have served on one. On my longest run I was cut off from the world for 4.5 months. On that run I found out that my favorite Aunt died; I found out via a telegram. The environment is already such that there is a lot of stress. Introducing women will just add another new dynamic to an already stressful environment.
Political correctness is just killing this country.
Mike
WOWO and Pat White
One of the other Fort Wayne blogs (Fort Wayne News) has a post about WOWO’s recent firing of Pat White.
I have always liked WOWO; however, I have to admit that I am a little surprised that they gave Pat White no warning and let him go last Friday after he arrived at work.
I think that WOWO dropped Pat White because his ratings had dropped. Radio is a business and ratings are obviously quite important.
I have heard a lot of people bashing Pat White on the blogs and I think that is unfortunate. I think Pat White is a good person and I respect his background. I hope that Pat White can find another job that suits his talents.
Mike
Indiana 3rd Congressional District Race
Anyone who knows me knows that I absolutely cannot stand the incumbent in this race, Mark Souder.
I could spend hours discussing the things about Mark Souder that make my skin crawl. He has broken so many promises (or changed his mind on so many items) that I do not know how ANY conservative can vote for him.
I support Phil Troyer in this race.
Who do you support, and why?
Mike
New legislation concerning “deadbeat” parents and their gambling winnings
With huge bi-partisan support the Indiana House and Senate passed a bill that requires casinos to check an online database every time they issue gambling winnings above a certain amount. This online database is supposed to contain an accurate list of all of the people in Indiana who owe back child support of $2000 or more.
There are currently over 2 billion dollars of child support payments that are past due in Indiana. These payments are owed by over 150,000 individuals.
Basically the state of Indiana will maintain this online database and casino operators will have to check this database each and every time they pay out lottery winnings that are high enough to warrant that a W-2G is issued. If the casino operator finds that the individual is on the database then they will be required to with-hold enough money from the persons winnings and they will have to remit a payment on the individuals behalf to satisfy their back child support payments. The casino operator will be allowed to retain a fee that is equal to the lesser of $100 or 3% of the child support with-held.
What do you think of this new law?
Mike
2010 Indiana US Senate Race
The 2010 Indiana Senate race is going to be interesting due to the abrupt resignation of current Democratic Senator Evan Bayh. Evan Bayh resigned so late that there is not a Democratic primary; which is unfortunate for Hoosier Democrats.
The Republican primary is a very interesting race. There are five candidates and all five of them have interesting backgrounds and each has unique qualifications that each voter should examine.
I cannot vote for Mr. Coates. He does not live in Indiana and there is no way on this planet that I can vote for a DC lobbyist who just came back to Indiana to run for the US Senate.
The other four candidates are all quite interesting and all have some appeal to me. I highly suggest everyone voting in the Republican Primary research these candidates carefully and vote accordingly.
I have decided to vote for Marlin Stutzman. You can learn more about him here.
Who do you support in this race and why?
Mike
Upcoming primary elections
The 2010 primary elections are just two weeks away. I certainly hope that all of the readers this blog go out and vote!
As most of you know I am a CPA and I work about 75 hours a week from the middle of January through the middle of April. Until the last few days I have not been able to study the upcoming election as much as I would like.
There is a new blog that has been created recently and it is well worth your attention. This blog lists the candidates for each election and provides a link to their campaign website when possible.
I am going to write a series of posts in the next few days concerning the upcoming primary and I hope that you will chime in about the upcoming match ups and let us know who you support and why!
Mike
When does a professed “conservative” act like a “liberal”?
Monday morning “Conservative Breakfast” this week featured Allen County Commissioner Linda Bloom. She expounded and bragged about how she has “traveled to Washington,DC” often to be instumental in getting “many dollars in Federal money” for her constituants in Allen County, Indiana. She also indicated that she has worked our Indiana government in Indianapolis for “State dollars” for Allen County.
Ms Bloom and at least one of her fellow commissioners, Mr. Peters seem to think that their major charge by those that have voted them into their positions is to “milk” other governmental funtions to fund our counties needs. And then they run on what they think is a ”fiscally conservative” platform! This is “male-cow excrement” in a big way!!
Any one who considers themseves as a conservative, CANNOT believe that funneling tax dollars through Washington DC to accomplish local projects, can EVER be more efficient than using those revenues locally in a direct manner! Somehow politicians have gotten into the habit of using the fiction of “Free Money from Above” as their fall-back to remove any thought of their personal responsibility for local spending decisions from their backs. As an example, the commissioner’s removal of the “bridge maintenance” funding from the Allen County budget some years ago - then asking the State to pick up this local service cost!
And the comments of Paul Lagemann( carpetbagger Coats pusher) and Paul Morrison in support of this practice (probably due to the fact that they both rely on elected politicians for their livelihood) leads me to question how individuals with these fiscal principles can ever be included in a true conservative group! And we have to place our 3rd district congressional representative Souder in this camp also.
Isn’t it about time that we get rid of ALL incumbents, just to get back on track? How else can we begin to remove the fiscally- irresponsible cross we are loading on on children, our grandkids, our great-grandkids and their children? Our political forefathers did not foresee elected office as a life-time job! We have to correct what we have come to over the last 200 plus years- and soon - or we can just cash-in.
Detroit (as it stands now) is Dead
The funeral looks to be sooner rather than later for Detroit. A report entitled “The Fiscal Condition of the City of Detroit” (PDF) was released a few days ago by the Citizens Research Council of Michigan and explains how dire the situation is:
The Crisis Turnaround Team appointed by Mayor Bing to assess city operations and make recommendations estimated that, absent major changes, the average annual (structural) budget deficit for Fiscal Years 2010 through 2012 would be $260 million, and the accumulated deficit would grow to $750 million by the end of FY2012. (Pruitt: That’s on a $1.6 Billion budget folks - ouch.).
[...]
The average price of a residential unit sold in the January through November, 2009 period was $12,439, down from $97,847 in 2003. Remaining businesses and individuals are challenging property tax assessments on parcels that have lost value and, in some cases, cannot be sold at any price.
[...]
More than half of employed city residents work outside the city limits; the metro area has the highest unemployment rate of the 100 major metro areas in the U.S.
So how to fix it? Bankruptcy is likely the only option since none of the unions will agree to cutbacks but here is the conclusion from the report:
In order to address what could be an accumulated general fund deficit exceeding $400 million, Detroit city government must be restructured. The new structure must reflect both the reduced tax base and the limited ability of state government to provide shared revenues. Restructuring will necessitate process improvements, load shifting, load shedding, privatizing, concentrating service delivery on an area smaller than 138 square miles, and other strategies. The most recent Crisis Turnaround Team has recommended closing facilities, privatizing services, improving and centralizing processes, renegotiating contracts, improving debt collection, restructuring debt, and other actions. It remains to be seen whether the city’s elected officials will be able to implement these recommendations.
Bankruptcy and a drastic reduction in city size will be required. Bulldozing large chunks of the city and returning it to agriculture or simply grassland would go a long ways to fixing the problem…
Live Blog with Democratic Senate Candidate Brad Ellsworth
Thomas at Blue Indiana is hosting a live blog today for Democratic Senate candidate Brad Ellsworth from 7:30-8:30pm. However, you can leave your question at any time today and congressman Ellsworth will address it when he gets there. This is a great opportunity to get your question/concerns personally addressed so I would encourage everyone to take advantage…
Democrat Henry Waxman is an idiot
There are many disheartening provisions in the recent health care legislation.
Currently companies who provide generous drug coverage to their retirees who would otherwise be eligible for prescription drugs via Medicare get a subsidy from the Federal Government. They get this subsidy because as long as the private company is paying for prescription drugs for their retirees Medicare Part D does not have to.
The new healthcare legislation makes this subsidy taxable income. This of course means the subsidy is less valuable to the companies who receive it.
I do not understand the reasoning behind this provision.
Several large US companies have announced they are “taking a charge against earnings” due to the fact that a subsidy they receive from the Government just became taxable.
In many cases GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) forces companies to “take a charge against earnings” if a material event occurs that will effect the company in a negative way. This provision was enacted by Congress in an attempt to prevent companies from hiding adverse items from investors.
In other words; the companies in question are doing exactly what they are required to do by law.
Henry Waxman has issued “summons” to several of the CEO’s of these companies so they can explain these charges to Congress.
What a waste of time.
Henry Waxman is an idiot, a fool, and a bully.
Good Grief, Mike
