Regarding the Gulf oil spill ABC News reports, “…the federal government have amassed an army to clean the oil up, but there's one problem -- they're having trouble finding it. At its peak last month, the oil slick was the size of
Or, as I heard one commentator on
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a recent interview that his "foremost" mission as the head of
This has raised a few eyebrows but I think it’s a great idea. If we build a mosque on the moon maybe Obama could finally shut down
"This is about as important as it gets, because it deals with every single aspect of our lives." –Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.)
"No one will know until this is actually in place how it works.”—Sen. Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.)
"My guess is there are three unintended consequences on every page of this bill," Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas) said of the nearly 2,000-page bill.
Maybe now I can sleep better!
Residents get 6 votes each in suburban NY election
By JIM FITZGERALD, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jun 15, 4:08 pm ET
PORT CHESTER, N.Y. – Arthur Furano voted early — five days before Election Day. And he voted often, flipping the lever six times for his favorite candidate. Furano cast multiple votes on the instructions of a federal judge and the U.S. Department of Justice as part of a new election system crafted to help boost Hispanic representation. [Link]
Freedom of religion is the very first guarantee in the Bill of Rights: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
How, then, can we possibly deny the right of Muslims to worship as they wish? This question has been bothering me for quite a while.
Here’s an interesting observation by Andy McCarthy (in his book, The Grand Jihad) that I hadn’t thought about:
… though Islam aspires to be much more than a religion (it is an all-encompassing legal, political and social system from which the spiritual elements are indivisible), it is given the label of “religion.” [link]
This raises an interesting—and not entirely hypothetical—question: Do the American people have the right to divest themselves of their first amendment rights?
You might want to ask the Canadian people, who enjoy these Fundamental freedoms in Part I, Section 2 of their Constitution:
Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication
Now talk to author Mark Steyn, who is currently being prosecuted—in Canada—for statements critical of Islam in his book, America Alone.
I got to thinking about this today when commandos from the Israeli Defense Force—the IDF—tried to stop some “peace activists” from delivering “relief supplies” to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The Israelis were attacked with pipes and knives, and ended up killing nine of their attackers. (You may not have heard that this all happened after the ship refused an Israeli offer to escort the ship to port, inspect its cargo, and then allow it to proceed. They do this to prevent arms from being delivered into a highly volatile region.) I suppose it’s just a matter of time before the UN condemns the Israelis for having the nerve to defend themselves. And since Obama is the first citizen of the world he’ll have no choice but to, sadly, go along. (Dare I say, a fellow traveler?)
Anyway, back to the subject I never really left…
If Muslims themselves consider Islam to be more than a religion then it would seem apparent that we have the right (obligation!) to just say no! Isn’t it just a bit odd that Baptist pastors are threatened by the IRS if they endorse specific candidates, while Muslim Imams are free to preach a form of Sharia law that would condemn homosexuals and force women back into the 18th century? It’s painful for me to imagine an America where that itsy bitsy teeny weenie yellow polka dot bikini would have to covered by either a burqa or a barrage of stones.
| Gov Christie calls S-L columnist thin-skinned for inquiring about his 'confrontational tone' |
From Politico:
During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant (BP) and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records.
An Obama spokesman rejected the notion that the president took big oil money. [Link]
I thought this pair of headlines on Drudge today made for a revealing contrast:
Obama To Wall Street:
"I Do Think At A Certain Point You've Made Enough Money" [source]
Want to get rich? Work for feds [source]
As of 2008, the average federal salary was $119,982, compared with $59,909 for the average private sector employee. In other words, the average federal bureaucrat makes twice as much as the average working taxpayer.
I have a book recommendation that I’m a little hesitant about because it’s so irreverent. In fact for a while I was worried it was going to be sacrilegious but I don’t think it ever went quite that far (I was laughing so hard I may have missed it). It’s about the Apocalypse and it’s called “Mercury Falls”, by Robert Kroese. Mercury is a (sort of) fallen angel, and (sort of) a Mitch Rapp or Jack Bauer with wings. (He doesn’t really have wings, but that doesn’t really matter, either.) There’s also a fat slob named Karl who wins a contest to become the Antichrist. Plus lots of other seraphim and cherubim to keep things rolling along.
Up to now the funniest book I ever read was Don Quixote, but this one is right up there. I pedaled my stationary bicycle for 67 minutes tonight, laughing all the way, just to finish it. You can download it to your Kindle for $2.99. Or you can pony up $12 on Amazon for the paperback.
“Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change from radically impacting on our lives over the coming decades. This is the stark conclusion of James Lovelock, the globally respected environmental thinker and independent scientist who developed the Gaia theory.” [Link]
They couldn’t fool us with falsified temperatures and sloppy science, so now we’re stupid.
Sean Penn just oozes compassion. Or something.
When asked on CBS' "Sunday Morning" about those who question his motives for his humanitarian work in
"Do I hope that those people die screaming of rectal cancer? Yeah.” [Link]
US Marines airdropped into Taliban-held territory
Feb 19, 7:05 AM (ET)
By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU
MARJAH, Afghanistan (AP) - Elite Marine recon teams were dropped behind Taliban lines by helicopter Friday as the U.S.-led force stepped up operations to break resistance in the besieged insurgent stronghold of Marjah.
About two dozen Marines were inserted before dawn into an area where skilled Taliban marksmen are known to operate, an officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
Let’s see…in this story he’s revealed our troop strength, target and approximate location.
Does anyone besides me think this anonymous “officer” should be identified and shot?
For some reason Valentine’s Day always reminds me of a short poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay:
All the grown-up people say,
“What, those ugly thistles?
Mustn’t touch them! Keep Away!
Prickly! Full of bristles!”
Yet they never make me bleed
Half so much as roses!
Must be purple is a weed,
And pink and white is posies.
Here’s the latest headline from the global warming front:
UN climate change panel based claims on student dissertation and magazine article [Link]
I remember when I first heard of chaos theory that what grabbed my interest was the “butterfly effect” hypothesis that a wind current generated by the flap of a butterfly’s wing could set off a chain reaction resulting in a hurricane. It was a fascinating idea, but today I think it’s about as silly as the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) wanting to reorder the world economic system based on anecdotal evidence from one student’s science paper and a couple of mountain climbers. That certainly is a formula for chaos!
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration is considering several steps that would review the legality of the controversial Bowl Championship Series. [Link]
I know…what business does the US government have interfering with college football? Yes, I know, I know!!! But maybe, just maybe His Majesty will stay so busy screwing up something as harmless as the BCS then he won’t have time to screw up health care, the environment, and the economy.
Think of it as Tinker Toys for half-wits.
This just keeps getting better and better. The
The error that started it all was the one about the Himalyan glaciers melting by 2035. Syed Hasnain, the Indian glaciologist who was erroneously quoted about the melting glaciers, said he first noticed the mistake in 2008. But he didn’t mention it because he wasn’t working for the IPCC at the time—even though his boss, Dr. Rajenda Pachauri, was the head of the panel.
“I was keeping quiet as I was working here. My job is not to point out mistakes.”
I wonder whose job it is? Must be a union thing.
Here’s an excerpt from Victor Davis Hanson’s excellent column today:
Voters are sick and tired of a terrible year of big spending and big deficits — especially the sight of Obama and his congressional allies almost daily talking breezily about spending what we do not have.
Voters went for the hope-and-change Obama in part because he promised fiscal sobriety after the Bush $500 billion deficit. Instead, in utterly cynical fashion, Obama trumped that red ink four times over. In the process, he developed a terrible habit of promising favored constituencies a hundred billion here, a hundred billion there as if it were all paper money — rather than real borrowed currency that will have to be confiscated in the future from the beleaguered taxpayer. It only makes it worse than the more the administration borrowed, printed, and spent, the higher unemployment rose and the lower economic activity plummeted.
Most have had enough of pie-in-the-sky talk of massive new health-care entitlements, cap-and-trade taxes and regulation, more stimulus, and more takeovers of private enterprise. The country is broke and the people want to pay off, not incur more, crushing debt. What got us into the mess was too much borrowing, skyrocketing debt, and reckless spending — not too many balanced budgets and too much lean government.
John Stossel’s expose on “crony capitalism” was on Fox Business Network last night and will be repeated tonight at 9 PM Central.
Everyone in this country over the age of 12 should be required to watch it.
Take your blood pressure medicine first.
Review of the movie Avatar, by Cliff Raymond.
Caution! This review may contain ‘spoilers’. (I hope so, anyway.)
Remember the Alamo!
Remember Pearl Harbor!!
Remember 9/11!!!
Remember Tree Home!
Tree Home? Oh. Yeah, that’s the giant tree those evil Marine mercenaries knocked down for that evil corporation from Earth. You know—where the only good Marines are dead, captured or traitorous Marines. That peaceful tribe of tree-hugging Bambi lovers was about to get their tail shoved up their collective blue butt until Corporal Jake Tully, USMC, decided to become Tarzan of the Na’vi. The only thing missing was the Tarzan yell that told all the ferociously precious creatures on planet Paradox to attack and kill Jarheads! But never mind, he just got down on his knees and asked the Tree of Souls to do it for him. And boy, did he/she/it/Gaia come through. Those poor unsuspecting blue-baby-killers never had a chance against Mother Nature, Tully, his red flying steed and blue hissing girlfriend. (Not to mention a couple of well-placed grenades.)
If you’ve ever seen Tarzan, Gunfight at the OK Corral, and Dancing with Wolves, then you’ve seen this movie. Except for the special effects, Johnny Weissmuller did it better.
Remember when Hollywood made movies that actually made you proud of your country?
I do.
President Chavez brought the house down.
When he said the process in Copenhagen was “not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn’t that the reality of our world, the world is really an imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships” he got a rousing round of applause.
But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ - “our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that’s the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell....let’s fight against capitalism and make it obey us.” He won a standing ovation. [link]
These are the people who are trying to determine my future. And yours. And your children’s.
And they’re giving this Venezuelan thug a standing ovation.
Does any sane person really not understand that America is under attack?
For feds, more get 6-figure salaries
Average pay $30,000 over private sector
By Dennis Cauchon
The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a
Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months — and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.
Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.
The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.
When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000. [Link to full story]
Remember the Alamo, when Col. William Travis drew a line in the sand with his sword?
The Manhattan Declaration—“a call of Christian conscience”—is such a line. Here’s the final paragraph:
Because we honor justice and the common good, we will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia, or any other anti-life act; nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.
The full text is at http://manhattandeclaration.org/images/content/ManhattanDeclaration.pdf .
If you wish to sign the statement you can join me and over 228,000 other Christians at http://manhattandeclaration.org/.
This just in from www.TimesOnline.co.uk:
SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based. It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years. The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation. [Link]
Is anybody surprised? One thing for sure: the atmosphere at UEA is definitely getting warmer!
Kimberly Strassel in today’s Wall Street Journal writes
The more than 3,000 emails and documents from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit (CRU) that have found their way to the Internet have blown the lid off the "science" of manmade global warming. [Link]
Here’s a direct quote from one of the released emails:
OH **** THIS. It's Sunday evening, I've worked all weekend, and just when I thought it was done I'm hitting yet another problem that's based on the hopeless state of our databases. There is no uniform data integrity, it's just a catalogue of issues that continues to grow as they're found. [Link]
But what are all those monthly files? DON'T KNOW, UNDOCUMENTED. Wherever I look, there are data files, no info about what they are other than their names. And that's useless.. take the above example, the filenames in the _mon and _ann directories are identical, but the contents are not. And the only difference is that one directory is apparently 'monthly' and the other 'annual' – yet both contain monthly files.[Link]
This stuff is going to make an awful lot of Very Important People look Very Foolish. And that’s being kind.
For over two and a half years I’ve been posting anti-global-warming articles on this blog—at least 32 of them by my count (including this one). Please forgive my gloat.
Charles Krauthammer explains the problem with the House and Senate health care bills so clearly that even Dimocrats should be able to understand it. [Link]
I particularly like this suggestion:
The bill is irredeemable. It should not only be defeated. It should be immolated, its ashes scattered over the Senate swimming pool.
From GMANEWS.TV in the Philippines comes this new rationale for the world’s oldest profession:
Effects of climate change have driven women in communities in coastal areas in poor countries like the Philippines to risk dangerous jobs, and sometimes even into the flesh trade. Suneeta Mukherjee, country representative of the United Nations Food Population Fund (UNFPA), said women in the Philippines are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the country.
In the Philippines, small brothels usually pop out near the coastal areas where many women do sexual services to transient seafarers.
Who knew? When I was a Marine at Subic Bay in 1972 I thought all those girls in Olongapo City were just doing it for the money! If I had know it was only because of climate change maybe I probably might have given my girlfriend almost my whole paycheck and sent her packing. (As it was she took most of it anyway.) Too bad Algore wasn’t there to enlighten me; I guess he was busy inventing the Internet.
Anyway, It’s good to see on their website that Olongapo City is now a much more respectable town. I’m glad.
Here’s a thought for the Republicans: Introduce a bill to make Veterans Day a holiday for ALL veterans (and not just those that work for the Post Office).
Do it before the Dimocrats realize it’s a cheap way to make themselves look more patriotic than Republicans.
Semper Fi to all vets!
Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years. [Link]
From NationalReview.com:
“If Democrats succeed, Americans will lose their insurance, be subject to rationing, and be charged $1.3 trillion for the privilege.” [read full article]
If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed.
–Mark Twain
(And that’s why I read National Review!)
The Cato Institute's Chris Edwards commenting on the institute's Web site about a new report on federal employee pay levels from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis:
The George W. Bush years were very lucrative for federal workers. In 2000, the average compensation (wages and benefits) of federal workers was 66% higher than the average compensation in the
One of my favorite signs from the 9/12 Tea Party in DC:
Politicians are like diapers…
…they both need to be changed regularly, and for the same reason!
Everyone is always telling Boudreaux and Thibodeaux jokes, implying that Cajun's aren't smart.
But anybody who would build a city 10 feet below sea level, in a hurricane zone, and fill it with Democrats...is a genius!
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National Review made an interesting point about Obama’s speech last night.
I forget, though…
Did he denounce the use of “scare tactics” before or after he warned that “failure to go along with his plans would cause people to die.”
I also noticed a lot of angst over Joe Wilson (R-SC) calling Obama a liar in the middle of the speech. No one mentions that Obama had several times accused his opponents of not telling the truth. I believe that’s the same thing, isn’t it? And while the “lack of decorum” charge is probably reasonable, don’t forget that the Democrats booed Bush during his State of the Union speech in (I think) 2008. But it’s true, I suppose, that Republicans should have more class than Democrats.
This is the opening paragraph of a Wall Street Journal interview with David Walker, former head of the Government Accountability Office:
David Walker sounds like a modern-day Paul Revere as he warns about the country's perilous future. "We suffer from a fiscal cancer," he tells a meeting of the National Taxpayers Union, the nation's oldest anti-tax lobby. "Our off balance sheet obligations associated with Social Security and Medicare put us in a $56 trillion financial hole—and that's before the recession was officially declared last year. America now owes more than Americans are worth—and the gap is growing!"
Let’s do the math again, still assuming a million dollar daily pay down of the debt:
$56,000,000,000,000 / $365,000,000
= 153,424 years
…that the only thing worse than many Republicans is any Democrat.
"I recognize that all of you have an obligation to ask questions knowing that there's none of you smart enough to frame it in such a way that I'm going to respond."
--Charlie Rangel (D-NY) , responding to press queries about his failure to report “over $1 million in outside income and $3 million in business transactions”. [link]
The White House itself is projecting a $9 Trillion (yes that’s a ‘T’) deficit over the next 10 years. I heard a Republican congressman describe how much that really is, but didn’t believe him till I ran the numbers myself.
If we pay a million dollars a day ($365 million a year) on this deficit, how long will it take to pay it off? Grab your socks:
$9,000,000,000,000 / 365,000,000 =
24,657 years…and 6 months.
And that assumes Congress can balance the budget for the next 246 centuries.
U.S. moves toward formal cut off of aid to Honduras
WASHINGTON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - U.S. State Department staff have recommended that the ouster of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya be declared a "military coup," a U.S. official said on Thursday, a step that could cut off as much as $150 million in U.S. funding to the impoverished Central American nation.
This is shameful. The Supreme Court of Honduras ordered the army to remove Zelaya from power because he was unconstitutionally attempting to seize power the same way Chavez did in Venezuela. The vice president of the same political party—not a general—immediately assumed the presidency, again with the full support of Zelaya’s own party!
What coup?
I frankly can’t believe Obama and the Democrats are too dumb to understand this, but the alternative explanation is even more apalling.
This is hard to watch, but if you’ve ever thought about texting or dialing while driving, please watch this. I guarantee it will make you think twice.
Here are two headlines from The Drudge Report about the National Health Service in England:
I just can’t wait for Obama to make health care a “right” so I can get it for free! Let’s all go to London when we get sick. Even with airfare it’s probably cheaper than the Houston Medical Center.
What’s wrong with the Cash for Clunkers program?
Jonah Goldberg’s column on National Review explains the problem very clearly—and in English! [Link]
There was a story in the Wall Street Journal this morning about how they’re destroying car engines using sodium silicate, and that’s when it struck me what the Democrats are all about: destroying wealth. At least for everyone but themselves and their friends.
It just isn’t right. Our generation was raised to build and fix stuff, and only the military was supposed to kill people and break things. The Democrats have it upside down as usual. They’re all about destroying babies and old cars (and soon old people), and would prefer to turn the Marines into a “meal-on-wheels” outfit.
If you want to know how your Senators and Congressman voted on a bill, or what’s coming up on the Congressional calendar, there’s a website at http://www.congress.org/congressorg/megavote/ that will send a weekly summary to your email address. This is one of those rare occasions when Congress did something right (I think).
Sometimes Ann Coulter, besides being a funny lady, has a way of putting things into perspective. The “food crisis” for example:
Isn't food important? Why not "universal food coverage"? If politicians and employers had guaranteed us "free" food 50 years ago, today Democrats would be wailing about the "food crisis" in America, and you'd be on the phone with your food care provider arguing about whether or not a Reuben sandwich with fries was covered under your plan.
Here’s a link to her full column, which is excellent.
It's not too late to sign the petition!
http://www.freeourhealthcarenow.com/form.php
This is amazing! I just watched Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video for the first time in years, and the resemblance to the Democrat health care proposals now working their way through Congress is incredible! Thriller must have been filmed in Chicago. Where else will you find so many Democratic voters dancing in the street? Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgnlZs3uB2Q .
By the way, if you haven’t signed the petition to stop these zombies from taking over the health care system, stop wasting time and get over to http://www.freeourhealthcarenow.com/form.php . We need to deliver a million signatures to Washington.
I neglected to mention in my last post that the “33 minute” missile flight time from Iran or North Korea is an unlikely scenario. That’s actually much more warning than we’d really get, plus it would allow us to immediately retaliate against our attackers. Much more likely is the scenario in “One Second After”—a shorter-range missile launched from a freighter in the Gulf of Mexico. That would give us maybe 10 minutes, and no one to retaliate against.
“Congressional hearing to barbeque Wall Street executives are as fun as a circus, but with more clowns.”
--Alan Reynolds (Cato Institute) [link]
Justice Department political appointees overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a
"I do see this opportunity for climate change to be ... a game-changer."
"Every aspect of our lives must be subjected to an inventory ... of how we are taking responsibility."
-- Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca), speaking at
—To oppose a nominee because of his or her sex, race, ethnicity, or background is to act on bad reasons. Why then is it acting on good reasons to confirm a judge on such grounds—or to nominate one in the first place?
—The Republicans should thus do Judge Sotomayor the great honor of taking her thinking seriously, after the irresistibly ritual celebration of her story and background. She has been a judge for years, and judges think for a living—so the focus should be kept on what she has done and said that gives us an inkling of her thinking.
Matthew J. Franck on NRO
We just finished watching “Taking Chance”, an HBO movie about PFC Chance Phelps, USMC, who was killed in Iraq on April 9, 2004. The movie is based on the notes of the Marine officer who escorted the body home. (If you want to read the original notes, click here.)
I’m not normally a fan of HBO, but Taking Chance is a perfect movie for Memorial Day.
Nola was written in 1915 by Felix Arndt for his fiancee. It could be the happiest piano tune ever written! Mister Arndt died at age 29, in 1918 during the flu epidemic.
Here's Richard Dowling playing 'Nola'.
“The Heads of State and Government of Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela” have issued The Declaration of Cumaná [Link].
The first three points are:
1. 1. Capitalism is leading humanity and the planet to extinction.
2. 2. Capitalism has caused the environmental crisis, by submitting the necessary conditions for life in the planet, to the predominance of market and profit.
3. 3. The global economic crisis, climate change, the food crisis and the energy crisis are the result of the decay of capitalism, which threatens to end life and the planet.
Since capitalism is the economic foundation of freedom, the only thing that surprises me is that Obama, Pelosi, Reed and Gore haven’t signed on yet.
That Americans generally don’t understand the difference between Socialism and Capitalism isn’t surprising, either. Who’s going to teach them…government schools?
Here’s a fascinating story by Kimberly Strassel in the Wall Street Journal about the wisdom of Congress.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123993344387627879.html
James Hansen, a climate modeller with Nasa, told the Guardian today that corporate lobbying has undermined democratic attempts to curb carbon pollution. "The democratic process doesn't quite seem to be working," he said. [link]
Broken Fences—A Stimulus Story
Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House. One is from Minnesota, another is from Tennessee, and the third is from Chicago. All three go with a White House official to examine the fence.
The Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil. "Well," he says, "I figure the job will run about $900: $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me."
The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, "I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me."
The Chicago contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, "$2,700."
The official, incredulous, says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?"
The Chicago contractor whispers back, "$1000 for me, $1000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence."
"Done!" replies the government official.
And that, my friends, is “hope” and “change”.
