Let me see if I understand this....
Our elected leadership in Washington, D.C. felt the need to bring our federal government to a screeching halt. The reason was to fight over a law that was passed more than two years ago and that has survived over 30 attempts to overturn it. In the end we got a compromise to raise the debt ceiling temporarily, bring government back to work, and basically just postponed the pain until next February.
But there are some interesting surprises in that bill. Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell is facing a potential challenge to his reelection next year. So in order to win his support, an increase in federal spending of more than $1 billion was added to an appropriation already in place for construction in the Lower Ohio Valley.
The District of Columbia is now immune from shutdown for the rest of this federal fiscal year, thanks to another surprise in that bill.
Toss in another $450 million for repair of flooded roads in Colorado, on top of $100 million already allocated for that project.
And while the tradition of paying the widow of a member of the House or Senate who has died a tax-free death benefit of one year's salary has been around since the 1800s, paying out $174,000 to the widow of the late Senator Frank Lautenberg seems a bit stupid. After all, the family's net worth at the time of his death was somewhere between $55 million and $110 million. Did she really need that money? Did she need it when you consider that 30 years from now, we will have spent over $300,000 to borrow that money in interest expense and will still owe the entire amount to bondholders?
The 535 spendthrifts we keep sending back to Washington, D.C. keep spending and don't seem to grasp that there isn't an unlimited supply of money to keep wasting. If you want some detail about government waste, check this out from Citizens Against Government Waste: http://cagw.org/reporting/prime-cuts-1. It is very informative. It's filled with billions and billions of spending cuts that could be made with little harm done to our nation and our nation's economy. Except of course for the constituents of those 535 jerks who want to keep being reelected. The key to a return to the Beltway is pork.
* * *
Erin Cox got suspended for doing the right thing. She did not drink alcohol. She did not violate her school's "zero-tolerance" policy about alcohol. She got a message from a friend who was too drunk to drive herself home. She went to be a designated driver and ensure that her friend got home safely.
Now she's been suspended from school, demoted from being a captain on the school's volleyball team and suspended for five games of competition.
So next time a sober student gets a message asking them to get a drunk student home safely, apparently the administration and school board that are in charge of North Andover High School want that student to do nothing. Stay away from the party because they might be accused of violating policy and be suspended. When some student winds up dead because these clueless people can't understand what is truly important, maybe saner brains will prevail.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
When President Obama said "...there are no winners here..." in describing the end to the budget stalemate he hit the nail on the head. We all lost because of a group of morons.
Two Latinos pleaded guilty to racially motivated hate crimes against black youths in Compton and this is just the latest in a long-line of such crimes involving gang members. What is really driving such hatred and animus?
Oreo cookies are as addictive as cocaine? Makes sense. Too much of either can ultimately lead to death by heart attack. I'd say to ask Len Bias but he's been dead from cocaine use for a long time now.
Sometimes the best thing to do is remain silent even though you want to defend yourself from unwarranted criticism. That's because there are some situations which the perception of what you did or didn't do or whatever you're being criticized for can't be altered, no matter what evidence you offer. Just take the criticism and go forward.
If Melissa McCarthy is happy with how she looks on the cover of Elle, everyone else needs to chill out.
Snowden took no secret files to Russia. So why are they letting him stay then?
Jackie Chan is alive and well, in spite of internet rumors to the contrary. That's reassuring. If the internet gets things wrong, situation normal.
Christie Brinkley may be 59 but she's still attractive as hell.
* * *
October 17th In History:
539 BC – Cyrus the Great marches into the city of Babylon, releasing the Jews from almost 70 years of exile. Cyrus allows the Jews to return to Yehud Medinata and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
456 – Battle of Placentia: Ricimer, supported by Majorian (comes domesticorum), defeats the Roman usurper Avitus near Piacenza (Northern Italy) .
1091 – London Tornado of 1091: A tornado thought to be of strength T8/F4 strikes the heart of London.
1346 – Battle of Neville's Cross: King David II of Scotland is captured by the English near Durham, and imprisoned in the Tower of London for eleven years.
1448 – Second Battle of Kosovo, where the mainly Hungarian army led by John Hunyadi is defeated by an Ottoman army led by Sultan Murad II.
1456 – The University of Greifswald is established, making it the second oldest university in northern Europe (also for a period the oldest in Sweden, and Prussia).
1558 – Poczta Polska, the Polish postal service, is founded.
1604 – Kepler's Star: German astronomer Johannes Kepler observes a supernova in the constellation Ophiuchus.
1610 – French king Louis XIII is crowned in Rheims.
1660 – Nine regicides, the men who signed the death warrant of Charles I, are hanged, drawn and quartered.
1662 – Charles II of England sells Dunkirk to France for 40,000 pounds.
1771 – Premiere in Milan of the opera Ascanio in Alba, composed by Wolfgang Mozart, age 15.
1777 – American Revolutionary War: British General John Burgoyne surrenders his army at Saratoga, New York.
1781 – American Revolutionary War: British General Lord Charles Cornwallis surrenders at the Siege of Yorktown.
1800 – Britain takes control of the Dutch colony of Curaçao.
1806 – Former leader of the Haitian Revolution, Emperor Jacques I of Haiti is assassinated after an oppressive rule.
1814 – London Beer Flood occurs in London, killing nine.
1860 – First The Open Championship (referred to in North America as the British Open).
1861 – 19 people are killed in the Cullin-La-Ringo massacre, the deadliest massacre of Europeans by aborigines in Australian history.
1888 – Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie).
1905 – The October Manifesto issued by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia
1907 – Guglielmo Marconi's company begins the first commercial transatlantic wireless service between Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada and Clifden, Ireland.
1912 – Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia declare war on the Ottoman Empire, joining Montenegro in the First Balkan War.
1917 – First British bombing of Germany in World War I.
1919 – RCA is incorporated as the Radio Corporation of America.
1931 – Al Capone convicted of income tax evasion.
1933 – Albert Einstein flees Nazi Germany and moves to the United States.
1941 – For the first time in World War II, a German submarine attacks an American ship.
1941 – German troops execute the male population of the villages Kerdyllia in Serres, Greece.
1943 – Burma Railway (Burma-Thailand Railway) is completed.
1943 – The Holocaust: Sobibor extermination camp is closed.
1945 – A massive number of people, headed by CGT, gather in the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina to demand Juan Peron's release. It calls "el día de la lealtad peronista" (peronista loyalty day)
1945 – Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens becomes Prime Minister of Greece between the pull-out of the German occupation force in 1944 and the return of King Georgios II to Greece.
1956 – The first commercial nuclear power station is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in Sellafield,in Cumbria, England.
1956 – Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer play a famous chess game called The Game of the Century. Fischer beat Byrne and wins a Brilliancy prize.
1961 – Scores of Algerian protesters (some claim up to 400) are massacred by the Paris police at the instigation of former Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, then chief of the Prefecture of Police.
1964 – Prime Minister of Australia Robert Menzies opens the artificial Lake Burley Griffin in the middle of the capital Canberra.
1965 – The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair closes after a two year run. More than 51 million people had attended the two-year event.
1966 – A fire at a building in New York City kills 12 firefighters, the fire department's deadliest day until the September 11, 2001 attacks.
1966 – Botswana and Lesotho join the United Nations.
1970 – Montreal, Quebec: Quebec Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte murdered by members of the FLQ terrorist group.
1973 – OPEC starts an oil embargo against a number of western countries, considered to have helped Israel in its war against Syria.
1977 – German Autumn: Four days after it is hijacked, Lufthansa Flight 181 lands in Mogadishu, Somalia, where a team of German GSG 9 commandos later rescues all remaining hostages on board.
1979 – Mother Teresa awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1979 – The Department of Education Organization Act is signed into law creating the US Department of Education and US Department of Health and Human Services.
1980 – As part of the Holy See – United Kingdom relations a British monarch makes the first state visit to the Vatican
1989 – 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (7.1 on the Richter scale) hits the San Francisco Bay Area and causes 57 deaths directly (and 6 indirectly).
1992 – Having gone to the wrong house for a Halloween party, Japanese exchange student Yoshihiro Hattori is shot and killed by the homeowner in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
1994 – Russian journalist Dmitry Kholodov is assassinated while investigating corruption in the armed forces.
Famous Folk Born On October 17th:
John Wilkes
Jean Arthur
Irene Ryan
Pope John Paul I
Jerry Siegel
Arthur Miller
Rita Hayworth
Montgomery Clift
Tom Poston
Beverly Garland
Jimmy Breslin
Evel Knievel
Gary Puckett
Michael McKean
Margot Kidder
George Wendt
Howard Rollins
Lawrence Bender
Vince Van Patten
Alan Jackson
Rob Marshall
Norm McDonald
Ziggy Marley
Ernie Els
Wyclef Jean
Eminem
Sharon Leal
Movie quotes for October 17th come from 2000's "Best In Show" which included Michael McKean among an all-star cast in a very funny mockumentary from Christopher Guest:
Stefan Vanderhoof: [discussing the calendar] We're not gonna sell, just give it out to friends.
Scott Donlan: I think we should try to sell it.
Stefan Vanderhoof: Really?
Scott Donlan: Yeah.
Stefan Vanderhoof: Well, if we could give the money to Shih Tzu rescue.
Scott Donlan: They have plenty of money.
Stefan Vanderhoof: Well so do we.
Scott Donlan: What Shih Tzus need rescuing anyway? You don't see Shih Tzus straggling around the streets in an old coat "help, alms for the poor".
Stefan Vanderhoof: Like the little match girl.
#2
Meg Swan: We met at Starbucks. Not at the same Starbucks but we saw each other at different Starbucks across the street from each other.
#3
Buck Laughlin: Tell me, do you know the difference between a rectal thermometer and a tongue depressor?
Nurse: Uh, no.
Buck Laughlin: Remind me never to come to you for a physical!
#4
Buck Laughlin: I don't think I could ever get used to being poked and prodded like that. I told my proctologist one time, "Why don't you take me out to dinner and a movie sometime?"
Trevor Beckwith: Yes, I remember you said that last year.
But there are some interesting surprises in that bill. Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell is facing a potential challenge to his reelection next year. So in order to win his support, an increase in federal spending of more than $1 billion was added to an appropriation already in place for construction in the Lower Ohio Valley.
The District of Columbia is now immune from shutdown for the rest of this federal fiscal year, thanks to another surprise in that bill.
Toss in another $450 million for repair of flooded roads in Colorado, on top of $100 million already allocated for that project.
And while the tradition of paying the widow of a member of the House or Senate who has died a tax-free death benefit of one year's salary has been around since the 1800s, paying out $174,000 to the widow of the late Senator Frank Lautenberg seems a bit stupid. After all, the family's net worth at the time of his death was somewhere between $55 million and $110 million. Did she really need that money? Did she need it when you consider that 30 years from now, we will have spent over $300,000 to borrow that money in interest expense and will still owe the entire amount to bondholders?
The 535 spendthrifts we keep sending back to Washington, D.C. keep spending and don't seem to grasp that there isn't an unlimited supply of money to keep wasting. If you want some detail about government waste, check this out from Citizens Against Government Waste: http://cagw.org/reporting/prime-cuts-1. It is very informative. It's filled with billions and billions of spending cuts that could be made with little harm done to our nation and our nation's economy. Except of course for the constituents of those 535 jerks who want to keep being reelected. The key to a return to the Beltway is pork.
* * *
Erin Cox got suspended for doing the right thing. She did not drink alcohol. She did not violate her school's "zero-tolerance" policy about alcohol. She got a message from a friend who was too drunk to drive herself home. She went to be a designated driver and ensure that her friend got home safely.
Now she's been suspended from school, demoted from being a captain on the school's volleyball team and suspended for five games of competition.
So next time a sober student gets a message asking them to get a drunk student home safely, apparently the administration and school board that are in charge of North Andover High School want that student to do nothing. Stay away from the party because they might be accused of violating policy and be suspended. When some student winds up dead because these clueless people can't understand what is truly important, maybe saner brains will prevail.
* * *
Random Ponderings:
When President Obama said "...there are no winners here..." in describing the end to the budget stalemate he hit the nail on the head. We all lost because of a group of morons.
Two Latinos pleaded guilty to racially motivated hate crimes against black youths in Compton and this is just the latest in a long-line of such crimes involving gang members. What is really driving such hatred and animus?
Oreo cookies are as addictive as cocaine? Makes sense. Too much of either can ultimately lead to death by heart attack. I'd say to ask Len Bias but he's been dead from cocaine use for a long time now.
Sometimes the best thing to do is remain silent even though you want to defend yourself from unwarranted criticism. That's because there are some situations which the perception of what you did or didn't do or whatever you're being criticized for can't be altered, no matter what evidence you offer. Just take the criticism and go forward.
If Melissa McCarthy is happy with how she looks on the cover of Elle, everyone else needs to chill out.
Snowden took no secret files to Russia. So why are they letting him stay then?
Jackie Chan is alive and well, in spite of internet rumors to the contrary. That's reassuring. If the internet gets things wrong, situation normal.
Christie Brinkley may be 59 but she's still attractive as hell.
* * *
October 17th In History:
539 BC – Cyrus the Great marches into the city of Babylon, releasing the Jews from almost 70 years of exile. Cyrus allows the Jews to return to Yehud Medinata and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.
456 – Battle of Placentia: Ricimer, supported by Majorian (comes domesticorum), defeats the Roman usurper Avitus near Piacenza (Northern Italy) .
1091 – London Tornado of 1091: A tornado thought to be of strength T8/F4 strikes the heart of London.
1346 – Battle of Neville's Cross: King David II of Scotland is captured by the English near Durham, and imprisoned in the Tower of London for eleven years.
1448 – Second Battle of Kosovo, where the mainly Hungarian army led by John Hunyadi is defeated by an Ottoman army led by Sultan Murad II.
1456 – The University of Greifswald is established, making it the second oldest university in northern Europe (also for a period the oldest in Sweden, and Prussia).
1558 – Poczta Polska, the Polish postal service, is founded.
1604 – Kepler's Star: German astronomer Johannes Kepler observes a supernova in the constellation Ophiuchus.
1610 – French king Louis XIII is crowned in Rheims.
1660 – Nine regicides, the men who signed the death warrant of Charles I, are hanged, drawn and quartered.
1662 – Charles II of England sells Dunkirk to France for 40,000 pounds.
1771 – Premiere in Milan of the opera Ascanio in Alba, composed by Wolfgang Mozart, age 15.
1777 – American Revolutionary War: British General John Burgoyne surrenders his army at Saratoga, New York.
1781 – American Revolutionary War: British General Lord Charles Cornwallis surrenders at the Siege of Yorktown.
1800 – Britain takes control of the Dutch colony of Curaçao.
1806 – Former leader of the Haitian Revolution, Emperor Jacques I of Haiti is assassinated after an oppressive rule.
1814 – London Beer Flood occurs in London, killing nine.
1860 – First The Open Championship (referred to in North America as the British Open).
1861 – 19 people are killed in the Cullin-La-Ringo massacre, the deadliest massacre of Europeans by aborigines in Australian history.
1888 – Thomas Edison files a patent for the Optical Phonograph (the first movie).
1905 – The October Manifesto issued by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia
1907 – Guglielmo Marconi's company begins the first commercial transatlantic wireless service between Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada and Clifden, Ireland.
1912 – Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia declare war on the Ottoman Empire, joining Montenegro in the First Balkan War.
1917 – First British bombing of Germany in World War I.
1919 – RCA is incorporated as the Radio Corporation of America.
1931 – Al Capone convicted of income tax evasion.
1933 – Albert Einstein flees Nazi Germany and moves to the United States.
1941 – For the first time in World War II, a German submarine attacks an American ship.
1941 – German troops execute the male population of the villages Kerdyllia in Serres, Greece.
1943 – Burma Railway (Burma-Thailand Railway) is completed.
1943 – The Holocaust: Sobibor extermination camp is closed.
1945 – A massive number of people, headed by CGT, gather in the Plaza de Mayo in Argentina to demand Juan Peron's release. It calls "el día de la lealtad peronista" (peronista loyalty day)
1945 – Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens becomes Prime Minister of Greece between the pull-out of the German occupation force in 1944 and the return of King Georgios II to Greece.
1956 – The first commercial nuclear power station is officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II in Sellafield,in Cumbria, England.
1956 – Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer play a famous chess game called The Game of the Century. Fischer beat Byrne and wins a Brilliancy prize.
1961 – Scores of Algerian protesters (some claim up to 400) are massacred by the Paris police at the instigation of former Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon, then chief of the Prefecture of Police.
1964 – Prime Minister of Australia Robert Menzies opens the artificial Lake Burley Griffin in the middle of the capital Canberra.
1965 – The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair closes after a two year run. More than 51 million people had attended the two-year event.
1966 – A fire at a building in New York City kills 12 firefighters, the fire department's deadliest day until the September 11, 2001 attacks.
1966 – Botswana and Lesotho join the United Nations.
1970 – Montreal, Quebec: Quebec Vice-Premier and Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte murdered by members of the FLQ terrorist group.
1973 – OPEC starts an oil embargo against a number of western countries, considered to have helped Israel in its war against Syria.
1977 – German Autumn: Four days after it is hijacked, Lufthansa Flight 181 lands in Mogadishu, Somalia, where a team of German GSG 9 commandos later rescues all remaining hostages on board.
1979 – Mother Teresa awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1979 – The Department of Education Organization Act is signed into law creating the US Department of Education and US Department of Health and Human Services.
1980 – As part of the Holy See – United Kingdom relations a British monarch makes the first state visit to the Vatican
1989 – 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake (7.1 on the Richter scale) hits the San Francisco Bay Area and causes 57 deaths directly (and 6 indirectly).
1992 – Having gone to the wrong house for a Halloween party, Japanese exchange student Yoshihiro Hattori is shot and killed by the homeowner in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
1994 – Russian journalist Dmitry Kholodov is assassinated while investigating corruption in the armed forces.
Famous Folk Born On October 17th:
John Wilkes
Jean Arthur
Irene Ryan
Pope John Paul I
Jerry Siegel
Arthur Miller
Rita Hayworth
Montgomery Clift
Tom Poston
Beverly Garland
Scott Donlan: I think we should try to sell it.
Stefan Vanderhoof: Really?
Scott Donlan: Yeah.
Stefan Vanderhoof: Well, if we could give the money to Shih Tzu rescue.
Scott Donlan: They have plenty of money.
Stefan Vanderhoof: Well so do we.
Scott Donlan: What Shih Tzus need rescuing anyway? You don't see Shih Tzus straggling around the streets in an old coat "help, alms for the poor".
Stefan Vanderhoof: Like the little match girl.
#2
Meg Swan: We met at Starbucks. Not at the same Starbucks but we saw each other at different Starbucks across the street from each other.
#3
Buck Laughlin: Tell me, do you know the difference between a rectal thermometer and a tongue depressor?
Nurse: Uh, no.
Buck Laughlin: Remind me never to come to you for a physical!
#4
Buck Laughlin: I don't think I could ever get used to being poked and prodded like that. I told my proctologist one time, "Why don't you take me out to dinner and a movie sometime?"
Trevor Beckwith: Yes, I remember you said that last year.
posted by me at 7:00 AM
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