Rustling through the news and the talking-head programs has been the story of comments made by NASA Administrator Charles Bolden in an interview with the Al Jazeera news network. The reports I heard stated that he said “his ‘foremost’ mission as the head of America’s space exploration agency is to improve relations with the Muslim world.”

That seemed like a pretty stupid thing for the head of the United States space agency to consider as any part of his mission, but last night I actually heard the audio of his comments. The way it has been reported really does not capture the true essence of his comments. His actual words were, “When I became the NASA administrator — or before I became the NASA administrator — he [President Obama] charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science … and math and engineering.”

As far as I’m concerned, his actual words have nothing to do with improving relations with the Muslim world. In fact, if I were a Muslim I would be greatly insulted by his actual words. My reaction would be, “Who the hell do you think you are to suggest that as Muslims we are not proud of our historic contribution to science, math and engineering? You are going to help us feel good? Stick it up your ass, you pompous windbag!” Hell, I’m not a Muslim and that is still my reaction.

No one should be surprised by this kind of thinking from the Obama administration. It falls right in line with their elitist attitude that they know what is best for everyone and that anyone who thinks any other way is beneath their contempt. I guess it’s not just the citizens of the United States who are expected to bow down and worship his eminence, Lord Obama; now the Muslim world is also to thank His Holiness for making them feel good about their own culture.

Americans don’t much like people who consider themselves to be superior to the “unwashed masses.” You really have to wonder how Obama has gotten away with it so long. I hope that the answer isn’t that the majority of people in the U.S. really are capable of being hoodwinked by a smile and the ability to read off of a teleprompter. I have to admit that my hope appears not be well founded.

Happy Fourth of July to all my fellow American citizens!

While I hope you all have a fun day today, I also hope you take a moment to appreciate the freedoms we enjoy in this country, thanks to the actions of some very brave men two hundred and thirty-four years ago. And remember, you have inherited their fight! Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom – do not fail our founders!

I’ve been reading quite a bit of history lately, in particular U.S. history. Quite honestly, it’s depressing. It all reinforces that fact that while circumstances may change, people never do. The struggle between individual freedom and government control is an ongoing battle, and the origins of that battle, while refocused at the time of the American Revolution, go back to the beginning of human civilization.

What is humorous to me, in a darkly satirical manner, is the belief that many people hold that human beings are perfectible. Those people believe that if they create enough of the right laws, all people will fall into line and create the ideal society. Everyone will devote their efforts towards the equality of the whole. Self-interest will be sacrificed for “the greater good.” History proves this is never so, and human nature reinforces the fact that it will never be so.

It is obvious that the greatest failures of government come about through influence. Whenever someone, or some business, has a “friend” in government or is employed within that government, it is inevitable that he will profit from the actions of the government. Exceptions to this are so rare as to almost be fairy tales. The more the government tries to control such profiteering, the more pervasive it becomes. The only thing such efforts to change do is change the players, or make it more profitable for lawyers (and aren’t all politicians lawyers?) to find the new, legal paths to take advantage of the new legislation.

There will never be a perfect human society. The best that we can expect in a government is one that protects the rights of people to their property and their lives, and little more. Give government any more power than that and the little guy with no pull loses. If you want to succeed, you have to figure out how to meet the right people and gain the right influence. Hard work means diddlysquat if you don’t have an “in,” and it means even less when your competition has that “in.”

It’s like the old saying – if you like eating sausage, don’t watch how it is made. Unfortunately, you don’t have a choice with government. No matter where you live, you are going to deal with a government, like it or not. There is another old saying – follow the money. If there is a law, look to see who profits, because it is an almost 100% guarantee that someone does, and it is usually not you.

At this time, the most palatable sausage for me is the U.S. government, even if it does make me puke now and then. I guess that’s not saying much, but it’s all I have. Maybe that’s why I can’t stand writing about all the shit that keeps going on in our government. It just makes you want to give up, but as I said at the beginning, the more things change, the more they stay the same, and if you want to stay alive you just have to deal with it. Just bring your puke bucket with you.

The problem with blogging about current events is that you know damn well that all you are doing is flapping your gums, er, fingers, to no avail. You are not going to change anyone’s mind and, most likely, no one else is going to change yours. And yet, we persist, which is why I have to write this post.

Felipe Calderon, you are a two-faced, political snake. Then again, most politicians are, otherwise they wouldn’t be in office. Still, it takes a special kind of disingenuousness for the President of Mexico to complain about the United States’ immigration policies (among other things).

Cut the crap about looking out for “your people” living in the United States and just tell the truth that is blatantly obvious to all of us. You do not want the tide of illegal immigrants coming into our country to stop because your country could not survive without that.

I know that this has been covered a million times in a million different places, so there isn’t much point in repeating it all, but I feel compelled to do a little of that anyways. First, the tons of money that the illegal immigrants send “home” is what keeps your country afloat. If you didn’t have that influx of American dollars your government would be toast. Secondly, if all those illegal immigrants had to stay in Mexico not only would you miss those American funds, but you would have a vastly larger population requiring all the social services that they are getting in the United States “for free.” Since you would not have the funding to support them, you would not be able to stay in power without oppressing political dissent, of which I do not doubt you are capable.

Give me a break on your opinions on our laws regarding illegal immigration. How about we change our laws to be as draconian as those of Mexico? Would that make you happy? I didn’t think so.

And knock off that crap about wanting to have the United States re-enact the “assault weapons” ban. Once again, I can only assume that you know the truth and that you are lying through your teeth to cover your own sorry ass. The weapons the drug cartels are using in Mexico are not coming from the United States, or at least only a very small percentage of them are. Those that are, are NOT assault weapons. Most of the weapons the drug cartels are using are not legal in the States and cannot be sold here. Look to your southern neighbors for the source of those weapons, or overseas. They ain’t coming from here. Drug money can buy a lot of whatever the drug dealers want to buy, and until that situation is resolved, you could ban every gun in the United States and it would have zero effect on the problem in your country.

Lastly, why don’t you keep your nose in your own country’s business instead of ours? I acknowledge that you and your predecessor have made some progress in combating the pervasive corruption in your government, but you’ve got a long way to go, baby. Clean up your own house; then maybe we might think you have something valuable to say about ours. Until then, keep your sticky fingers out of our business.

How about it, Mayor Daley? Is the City of Chicago going to press charges against the man in the Chatham neighborhood who shot and killed one man and wounded another? He obviously owned, possessed and used a handgun in Chicago, all of which are against the law. Or are there, perhaps, reasons not to do so?

How about the fact that the man, a retired police officer, was coming to the aid of his son who was being attacked by three punks trying to rip off his motorcycle? Perhaps retired police officers are allowed to retain their firearms? How about the fact that his son was a current Chicago police officer and a veteran who had recently returned from two tours of duty in Iraq? Or maybe, quite simply, that the man did nothing wrong other than defend his life and that of his son, in spite of your stupid laws?

Unfortunately, the punks committing the crime were armed, though why they would be in Chicago where it is against the law must surely be a mystery to Mayor Daley. They didn’t hesitate to use their weapon (or weapons?) and they shot the young police officer in the head, killing him. I don’t know if the police officer who was killed was armed. He was not on duty at the time but I believe that Chicago police officers can carry a weapon while off-duty. If he was armed, perhaps he didn’t have time to react to the attack. More likely, he didn’t think that the streets that he grew up on in Chicago would be more dangerous for him than the battlefields of Iraq.

It’s a damn shame this young man lost his life. It’s a damn shame that only one of his three attackers wound up in the morgue. And it’s a damn shame that Mayor Daley insists that the people of Chicago not be allowed to own the means to protect themselves. Work on stopping the crimes, Mr. Mayor, and let the people have the means to defend themselves. As hard as the Chicago police work to control the violence, they cannot be everywhere all the time, and each individual citizen is their own first line of defense.

Common sense? Not in Chicago.

Where, oh where, oh where, do I begin with this? Maybe a better question is, where will this all end? Yesterday, Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve Chairman and current economic advisor to President Obama, floated the administration’s trial balloon on a VAT – value added tax.

This is a particularly pernicious tax that gets added to a product as it moves from one stage of production to the next. That iron ore gets taxed as it goes to the steel mill, then the steel gets taxed as it goes to the foundry, which then has to tax the widget it just made out of the steel, which then gets put into a sub-assembly that is taxed again when it is shipped to the final manufacturer of whatever the end product is. The end purchaser – the consumer – never sees the tax directly; the tax is rolled into the retail cost of the product. Depending on the product and the percentage of the VAT, this can be hundreds of dollars on things like cars, appliances, computers, etc.

Only a fool would think Volker was speaking off the cuff or only representing his own thoughts. This was one of the first salvoes to come out of the Obama administration in their pursuit of additional income to support their expansion of government programs. There is no expectation that Obama intends to stick to his promises of no new taxes on the middle class. Indeed, that idea was tossed out the window with the passage of the health care reform bill that includes all sorts of taxes, direct and otherwise.

This kind of tax is what politicians just love. It’s not in the open like a sales tax or an income tax. All the consumer sees is higher prices on the products he wants – and needs – to buy. Not only that, but this kind of tax soaks everyone, from rich to poor. This is obviously required if Obama’s additional programs go into affect. There is no way that taxes paid only by the rich will be able to cover the massive costs of these programs. We are all going to pay the piper on this one.

I have heard politicians commenting on Volker’s suggestion of a VAT. For some reason, which I cannot fathom, there seems to be an air of resignation that something like this is going to be necessary. This same situation exists in my home state of Illinois. The state government is spending more than it is taking in, so our governor’s solution is to raise the state income tax. Everywhere you turn, government entities are complaining that they are suffering from a downturn in tax receipts, a natural result of the downturn in the economy. Time and again, the only solution they can find is to raise taxes.

There is a political fear of cutting government programs. Someone, somewhere, is going to scream loud and long when their favorite program takes a hit, and there doesn’t appear to be a politician alive today who has the courage to lay out the basic truth that spending must be cut even if it means making people unhappy. Yes, someone is going to “suffer” when funding is cut, but are you willing to bring everyone down to that level of suffering for the benefit of the few who would be affected by program cuts?

Let’s not even talk about program cuts. What politician in his or her right mind would even consider creating new entitlement programs that are going to cost billions and billions of dollars? Why create a deficit that is going to demand some kind of new tax income right from the beginning? Obviously these are rhetorical questions because our federal government has done exactly that with this new health care reform bill. Were they just being stupid? Of course not. They knew that new sources of income would be required, as evidenced by the new taxes included in the bill, but they also knew that even more funding would be required than those provided for in the bill. From the very beginning they knew that they were going to have to rob Peter to pay Paul. Indeed, that is their ultimate goal – the redistribution of “wealth.”

While many politicians seem to almost consider a VAT or similar tax a fait accompli, I am not so sure that the American people are going to stand for it. They have just had a health care bill crammed down their throats and it is still stuck there. If any politician thinks that they are going to be able to slide a tax increase down that same throat I believe they will be in for a very unpleasant surprise when the taxpayer gags and throws up all over them. I certainly hope the citizens of the United States are not going to be so complacent as to allow themselves to be steamrolled again like they were with the health bill. I guess we will see what the mood of the country is after the next election. I only hope it won’t be too late to turn things around by then.

I am sick . . SICK . . SICK to death of Mayor Daley constantly singing his one-note song that it is the availability of firearms that is the principle cause of gang violence in Chicago. He was at it again today after another outbreak in gang violence.

I know that he is not a stupid man, but he has clearly lost his mind about this issue. He is so blinded by his anti-gun passion that he doesn’t even recognize the truth in his own words –

“They [the gangbangers] feel that that gun is bigger than the police badge, that gun is bigger than the police gun.  That’s how they feel.  And they don’t fear the criminal justice system.  They don’t fear the federal government.  They don’t fear the state system.  They don’t fear at all.  They don’t!”  (as reported by Bill Cameron, WLS News)

Well, duh, and double-duh!! Do you not understand the contradiction between your words and your desire for more gun control? Let me spell it out for you simply – the gangbangers do not obey the law – period. So what the hell good would any new laws be in stopping gang violence? NONE!!

Gang members are already breaking a great, big pile of laws. They don’t give a rat’s ass about your stupid gun laws. Putting more on the books only hurts those who need and want to protect themselves from the gangbangers.

Please, Mayor Daley, shut your mouth about more gun laws until such time that your Chicago police figure out a way to stop the people committing the violence. Believe me, you are not going to find a gun on the street shooting itself – it will be in a gangbanger’s hand! Concentrate your efforts on the people and the shooting will stop. It is so much easier, isn’t it Mr. Mayor, to blame the lack of gun control laws for gang violence than to admit your administration’s inability to do anything about it?

Hitting the news has been the story about a group called the Hutaree militia, presumably a “Christian Militia.” This small group is alleged to have been plotting to kill a police officer and then bomb the funeral service in order to kill many more. Assuming that there was an imminent risk to the public, the “federal authorities” stepped in and indicted nine members of the group, eight of whom have been arrested as of this moment, with the ninth being a fugitive.

The host on the talk radio station I was listening to this morning was asking people if anyone could explain the rationale of groups like this that advocate violence against the government. I could not help but think, “You’re asking the wrong people!” The people you should be asking are the friends of Barack Obama, like Bill Ayers, who openly advocated and participated in physical violence against the government and to this day does not regret what he did. They are the people who really understand the psychology of people who join groups like this.

I’m certainly glad that the government is keeping tabs on all terrorists, including the “home-grown” variety. I do not support, in any fashion, any group that proposes violence as the answer to their dissatisfaction with our government. There are rational, legal, and moral ways to create change. Indeed, way back in my college days in 1968 I was a lone voice saying the same thing about all the demonstrations and student strikes taking place on my campus. Of course, no one would listen to what I considered to be my words of reason then, and I doubt anyone will listen now – neither the radical right nor the radical left.

I have to admit that the timing of these indictments against the members of this group is interesting. Certainly if there was an imminent threat, it was warranted. However, given all the distress with which the Democrats reacted to a few threats of violence after the vote on the health care reform bill, one wonders if there was an increased urgency to bring groups such as the Hutaree to the attention of the public. It would be a logical step in an attempt to paint everyone who disagrees with the efforts of the Democrats as wacko right-wingers, giving the government reason to investigate such peaceful, legal groups as the tea-baggers. Perhaps, even, to be used as an argument for the curtailment of free speech. I’m just saying . . . but maybe not for long?

I helped my father-in-law fill out his census form today, but it was different from the form I filled out. At first I couldn’t figure out why it was different. It asked the same questions, but it was a three panel form as opposed to my multi-page version. Then I noticed – it was in English only. My form had English on the left side of each page and the same questions in Spanish on the right side.

This was really interesting. Obviously the government did a bit of racial profiling in their mailing. I’m not sure why they think that the town I live in is more Spanish speaking than the town my father-in-law lives in (his town actually has more Spanish speakers), but obviously they do. I wonder if it was even more fine-grained than just a city by city bias. I wonder if they reviewed names associated with the exact address (even though it was addressed to “resident”) and sent the Spanish forms to addresses that had certain last names.

I’m not suggesting any kind of conspiracy or anything. I’m just curious how they determined who got what form. Oh, and by the way, I did get my follow-up letter, in English and Spanish, making sure that I filled out the census form and mailed it. Three mailings for one census instead of just one. A nice little windfall for the post office.

I know this is getting old, but I still have to talk about the health care bill. There has been a lot of self-congratulatory blabbering amongst the Democrats and a lot of defeated blubbering amongst those who opposed the bill. It will be interesting to see how events proceed from this point. I’m not sure what the sequence of events is but I’m sure that Obama will sign the bill as soon as possible, probably this week.

I have heard commentators say that once the bill has been signed and put into law, the American people will slowly begin to let go of the issue and that it will have little to no effect on the elections this November. While I have to admit that the typical American tends to be focused more on the matter of the moment rather than on the past (or the future, for that matter), I cannot believe that this will be so on this issue.

Speaking personally, I have never put a political sign in my front yard at election time, and I can count on one hand the number of times I have contributed to any political campaign. My Congressman voted for the health care bill and I am committed to having him defeated in November. I will put a sign in my yard (whatever good those do) supporting the Republican candidate and I will contribute to his campaign, even though I am a Libertarian.

Maybe others will forget and forgive. I will not.