Delftsman

March 14, 2012

Quote of the day

"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily lives, and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom”
John F. Kennedy

In the face of the Obama Administration's assaults on our basic freedoms, I find a certain irony that the hero of the Democratic party had a far different vision for what America stands for. If he were alive today, I'm sure that JFK would become an Independent, if not a Republican, in the face of what his Party has done/tried to do vis a vis the personal liberties that are the birthright of every American.

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 05:11 AM | Comments (29) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

March 06, 2012

Rush was wrong -- to apologize

I'm sure you are by now aware of the recent flap over Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a "slut" and/or a "prostitute" because of her call for Georgetown Univ. to include "reproductive services" to their Student Health policies. This incident is raising a firestorm across the media spectrum; with eight (so far) long time advertisers withdrawing their business from Mr. Limbaugh's radio program.

This was a planned assault on Conservatives and Mr. Limbaugh was trapped in the net...I would have thought he was smarter than that, but alas it seems he wasn't.

Why do I think this? Seems that some facts have come out that show Ms. Fluke isn't exactly as first portrayed when the story first broke. She was portrayed in the beginning as a naive 23 yo undergraduate at Georgetown that was shocked to find that the University, having strong ties with the Catholic church didn't provide "reproductive" services (ie birth control pills). She stated in Congressional hearings that it would cost her over $3000. over the course of her tenure at Georgetown to pay for such services out of pocket.

The fact is though, that Ms. Fluke is 30 years old, and has been an ardent activist on feminist issues for over 8 years; moreover, she decided to attend Georgetown University SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE, as a Catholic institution, didn't provide reproductive services and she felt that this was a major wrong that she could use the courts to redress.

Now, assume Ms. Fluke decides to use the cheapest form of birth control; the condom, and decides purchase her own condoms. Buying them in the 36 pack at walmart costs as little as 38.8 cents each. So, $3000 would purchase 7732 condoms. Assuming 6 years of school, that is 1289 condoms per year, or 3.5 condoms per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year.
Seems that Ms. Fluke must have to have an extremely...brisk?..sex life if her figures are to hold to the truth.

Birth control pills average somewhere around $10. per month, or $120. per annum; so at the most it would have cost her a total of $720. for a six year course of study. Wonder what the other $2280.00 was for? Motel fees and room service perhaps?

I don't know about you, but when I was in school any woman that used 3.5 condoms a day would have been what we quaintly called a "slut"...,or if she got payed for the encounter, a "prostitute". (although, to be fair, if she had only 3.5 paid encounters a day, she must have been a high class call girl, not your average girl on the street corner in the shady part of town)

Rush MAY have been trying to "demonstrate absurdity by being absurd" as he often claims, but in this instance, I believe the terms were absolutely spot on the money,by the figures Ms. Fluke herself cited.

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 12:46 PM | Comments (110) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 26, 2012

Debt

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My question to you is: Just HOW can any responsible Citizen even CONSIDER re-electing our current White House Resident ?!?

The CBO has estimated that the U.S. will be $20 TRILLION dollars in debt by 2020 if something is not done to curb the PRESENT rate of Government spending; imagine what will happen if Mr. Obama is reelected and continues to spend at his current rate...

Remember, over half of the debt that Obama added to our budget is held by China; should China decide to demand repayment tomorrow, the U.S. would be bankrupt overnight.

Do you consider this responsible leadership?

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 04:21 AM | Comments (598) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

February 14, 2012

Man of the House



A husband had just finished reading a new book entitled, You Can Be THE
Man of Your House. Finding new courage that he never knew he had, he
stormed into the kitchen and announced to his wife, "From now on, you
need to know that I am the man of this house and my word is the 'Law.'
You will prepare me a gourmet meal tonight, bring it to me, and when I
am done eating my meal, you will clear the dishes and serve me a
scrumptious dessert. After dinner, you are going to go upstairs with me
and we will make love the way I want! Afterwards, you are going to draw
me a bath so I can relax. You will put on soothing music, wash my back
and towel me dry and bring me my robe. You will massage my feet and
hands to relieve any last bit of tension so that I can sleep like a
baby. Then tomorrow, guess who's going to dress me and comb my hair?"


The wife replied, "The funeral director would be my first guess, unless
I have you cremated."

H/T to Wayne

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 11:44 AM | Comments (70) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Happy Valentines Day !

I know that Valentines day is just a commercial ploy to force unsuspecting males to invest in chocolate,flowers, and Hallmark cards for their significant others, lest they be viewed as uncaring buffoons that are not worthy of sharing house space with.

That being said, I'm NOT going to be the one to buck the advertising peer pressure. Cards, candy, and all my love go out to all my dear womenfolk.

After all, it's only once a year, and it can't ever really be a bad thing to let your feminine counterparts know that you do have SOME sort of tender feelings towards them, can it? A $4.00 card and a $10.00 box of candy really won't cut THAT much into the drinking budget, and will go at least a short way to earlier forgiveness for your next (unavoidable --You ARE MALE,after all!) transgression of the feminine sensibilities.

This year I'm forgoing the (Red) Roses however, as a small protest of the annual guilt-fest we Males have to endure to keep the peace in our Castles, besides, I forgot about them until the flower shops had already been sold out by my over-eager compatriots....

Love YOU Beth, Joanna, Erin, and Anna

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This is what I imagine a Muslim must have to do to keep the gals in his Harem satisfied

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 10:53 AM | Comments (78) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

pResident Obama and the Constitution

I don't know how many of you have been following the Catholic Church/Contraception controversy, but you really should get informed about the issue; for it is the first overt overreach of Government into matters of conscience and is the first small step in the process of forcing all Citizens to become beholden to the State in ALL matters, large or small.

If this overreach is allowed to continue unchallenged; it WILL be the end of a free Citizenry in this Country and we will be halfway down the road to a totalitarian State.

Nancy Pelosi famously stated:

"We have to pass the bill to find out what is in it"

Well, we are beginning to find out just WHAT IS in it, and any person who values his or her personal freedom is livid at finding out that their freedom to choose will be a thing of the past in short order; indeed, they will no longer have the luxury of following their own conscience in their healthcare decisions. The Federal Government will be in charge of that now.

The time is drawing ever closer when it will be necessary to "water the tree of Liberty with the blood of tyrants and patriots"

Invest in copious amounts of precious metals NOW, both Brass and Lead.

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 10:29 AM | Comments (52) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 07, 2011

Want to know WHY everything is F--ked up Today?

Adam Corolla explains it all. Nuff said

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Day of Infamy

Today is the 70th anniversary of what President Roosevelt called a "day of infamy" in his sonorous tones; describing a "cowardly sneak attack by Japanese forces on the port in Pearl Harbor Hawaii". Thus began our active participation in WW ll .

Admiral Tokugawa, the leader of the Japanese fleet is reported to have said:"I fear we have awakened a sleeping bear" after the events that transpired on that Sunday morning, changing it from a beautiful sunny day to a day filled with horror and pain;with over 2000 dead and over half of our Pacific fleet either totally destroyed or heavily damaged.

President Roosevelt told us to "NEVER FORGET"....and we didn't; we went on to not only defeat the forces of Fascism in that bloody war, but we went on to become the single most powerful nation that has ever existed on Earth.

We are declining from that position today, as power inevitably does, but we still, at least for the moment, provide the single best example what a free and faithful people can be.

We are slowly being defeated from within, not from outside enemies, because we have forgotten our founding principles and our basic faith in the power of the common man to rule himself. We have forgotten that a man can only be free if he is allowed to succeed, or more importantly, FAIL, through his own efforts and not by effort of the collective. Failure is NOT the catastrophe;failing to learn from failure is. Every successful person has failed at times,indeed the more successful they are, the greater failure they usually have experienced.
Our present leaders have forgotten these basic principles that have served us so well in the past; they have come to believe that the individual is too weak to do anything by themselves and that it takes the power of government to accomplish anything, and that failure of the individual is inevitable and should be prevented at any cost;to the point were the individual isn't allowed to try anything,lest they fail. But I digress...

This is a day to remember,lest we relive the past.

Remember Pearl Harbor, remember the Twin Towers falling, REMEMBER or Founding Fathers and the Principles they held dear.

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 02:56 PM | Comments (676) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 05, 2011

Where IS the Line?

With all the hustle and bustle of getting ready for another Yuletide season, I think a great many of us forget the REASON for the Season.

Listen to this song and maybe it will make you reflect on the real reason WHY we celebrate this season every year.

I do not profess to be a Christian, but the thought that God could give us the gift of forgiveness through the sacrifice of His Son does make me feel...humble.

Guess the the old Jesuit saying of "give me a child until they're seven, and I'll have him for life" is really true....


Posted by: Delftsman3 at 08:32 PM | Comments (745) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

November 21, 2011

Yeah, It's Bush's Fault...

And we wonder why nothing ever gets fixed.

Here's a quick look into the three former Fannie Mae executives who brought down Wall Street...and where they are now!

Franklin Raines was a Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae. Raines was forced to retire from his position with Fannie Mae when auditing discovered severe irregularities in Fannie Mae's accounting activities. At the time of his departure The Wall Street Journal noted, "Raines, who long defended the company's accounting despite mounting evidence that it wasn't proper, issued a statement late Tuesday conceding that "mistakes were made" and saying he would assume responsibility as he had earlier promised. News reports indicate the company was under growing pressure from regulators to shake up its management in the wake of findings that the company's books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four years." Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by $9 billion.

Raines left with a "golden parachute valued at $240 Million in benefits. The Government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the accounting scandal became clear.http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/Fannie-charges/ . The Government noted, "The 101 charges reveal how the individuals improperly manipulated earnings to maximize their bonuses, while knowingly neglecting accounting systems and internal controls, misapplying over twenty accounting principles and misleading the regulator and the public. The Notice explains how they submitted six years of misleading and inaccurate accounting statements and inaccurate capital reports that enabled them to grow Fannie Mae in an unsafe and unsound manner." These charges were made in 2006. The Court ordered Raines to return $50 Million Dollars he received in bonuses based on the miss-stated Fannie Mae profits.

Net windfall . . . $190 million!

Tim Howard - Was the Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae. Howard "was a strong internal proponent of using accounting strategies that would ensure a "stable pattern of earnings" at Fannie. In everyday English - he was cooking the books. The Government Investigation determined that, "Chief Financial Officer, Tim Howard, failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae,"

On June 16, 2006, Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., asked the Justice Department to investigate his allegations that two former Fannie Mae executives lied to Congress in October 2004 when they denied manipulating the mortgage-finance giant's income statement to achieve management pay bonuses. Investigations by federal regulators and the company's board of directors since concluded that management did manipulate 1998 earnings to trigger bonuses. Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004.

Howard's Golden Parachute was estimated at $20 Million!

Jim Johnson - A former executive at Lehman Brothers and who was later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. A look at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's May 2006 report on mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae, and you'll see some interesting things about Johnson. Investigators found that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount of Johnson's 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it was $21 million." Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae.

Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

FRANKLIN RAINES? Raines works for the Obama Campaign as his Chief Economic Advisor.

TIM HOWARD? Howard is a Chief Economic Advisor to Obama under Franklin Raines.

JIM JOHNSON? Johnson was hired as a Senior Obama Finance Advisor and was selected to run Obama's Vice Presidential Search Committee.

Now add in the Solyndra and Fast & Furious scandals; and the authorization delays of the Canadian Pipeline project that would have provided at LEAST 150K good paying jobs in at least 4 states...

Chicago Machine Politics, Anyone?!?

We are in serious trouble here folks.

2012 is THE most important election in our nations history; it will determine whether or not we remain a free and viable country, or fall into an ever quickening downward spiral into insolvency and chaos.

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 05:15 AM | Comments (65) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

November 15, 2011

Another (Liberal)Jack-ass heard from

Yeah, I KNOW, I've been AWOL from writing for far too long...Life happens and there was just nothing I really had to spout off about...till now.

Seems that there is a certain Professor of Law (Constitutional Law at that !) at Suffolk University School of Law, one Michael Avery by name, that seems to think that any support shown for our Armed Forces is, in his words, "not particularly rational in today's world.", and "shameful"

The University organization had sent out an E-mail encouraging members of the Univ. community to send "care packages" to the troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And not only does he think it is shameful to support the troops; he also is offended by the fact that the University displays an over-sized American flag in it's atrium

This is the E-mail the Professor wrote in response:

I think it is shameful that it is perceived as legitimate to solicit in an academic institution for support for men and women who have gone overseas to kill other human beings. I understand that there is a residual sympathy for service members, perhaps engendered by support for troops in World War II, or perhaps from when there was a draft and people with few resources to resist were involuntarily sent to battle. That sympathy is not particularly rational in today's world, however.

The United States may well be the most war prone country in the history of civilization. We have been at war two years out of three since the Cold War ended. We have 700 overseas military bases. What other country has any? In the last ten years we have squandered hundreds of billions of dollars in unnecessary foreign invasions. Those are dollars that could have been used for people who are losing their homes due to the economic collapse, for education, to repair our infrastructure, or for any of a thousand better purposes than making war. And of course those hundreds of billions of dollars have gone for death and destruction.

Perhaps some of my colleagues will consider this to be an inappropriate political statement. But of course the solicitation email was a political statement, although cast as support for student activities. The politics of that solicitation are that war is legitimate, perhaps inevitable, and that patriotic Americans should get behind our troops.

We need to be more mindful of what message we are sending as a school. Since Sept. 11 we have had perhaps the largest flag in New England hanging in our atrium. This is not a politically neutral act. Excessive patriotic zeal is a hallmark of national security states. It permits, indeed encourages, excesses in the name of national security, as we saw during the Bush administration, and which continue during the Obama administration.

Why do we continue to have this oversized flag in our lobby? Why are we sending support to the military instead of Americans who are losing their homes, malnourished, unable to get necessary medical care, and suffering from other consequences of poverty? As a university community, we should debate these questions, not remain on automatic pilot in support of the war agenda.


Well, Professor Avery, I think it's shameful that parents and students are paying excessive amounts of money to be indoctrinated by the likes of you.

YOU are part of what has gone wrong in this great country we share.
It's one thing to disagree with a war, a political policy or program; it's quite another matter to excoriate those men and women that choose to lay their lives on the line every single day in defense of the Principles that are America.

Prof. Avery is symptomatic of what passes as higher education these days; it's no wonder we have the progeny of such poor educational system protesting in major cities all across America without any clear agenda other than "we hate rich people", and "poor us, give we have everything we want, right now (w/o working for it, of course)".

Your Thoughts?

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 07:40 PM | Comments (1005) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

September 11, 2011

IN MEMORIUM

Two thousand one, nine eleven
Three thousand plus arrive in heaven
As they pass through the gate,
Thousands more appear in wait
A bearded man with stovepipe hat
Steps forward saying, "Lets sit, lets chat"

They settle down in seats of clouds
A man named Martin shouts out proud
"I have a dream!" and once he did
The Newcomer said, "Your dream still lives."

Groups of soldiers in blue and gray
Others in khaki, and green then say
"We're from Bull Run, Yorktown, the Maine"
The Newcomer said, "You died not in vain."

From a man on sticks one could hear
"The only thing we have to fear.
The Newcomer said, "We know the rest,
trust us sir, we've passed that test."

"Courage doesn't hide in caves
You can't bury freedom, in a grave,"
The Newcomers had heard this voice before
A distinct Yankees twang from Hyannisport shores

A silence fell within the mist
Somehow the Newcomer knew that this
Meant time had come for her to say
What was in the hearts of the five thousand plus
that day

"Back on Earth, we wrote reports,
Watched our children play in sports
Worked our gardens, sang our songs
Went to church and clipped coupons
We smiled, we laughed, we cried, we fought
Unlike you, great we're not"

The tall man in the stovepipe hat
Stood and said, "Don't talk like that!
Look at your country, look and see
You died for freedom, just like me"

Then, before them all appeared a scene
Of rubbled streets and twisted beams
Death, destruction, smoke and dust
And people working just 'cause they must

Hauling ash, lifting stones,
Knee deep in hell, but not alone
"Look! Blackman, Whiteman, Brownman, Yellowman
Side by side helping their fellow man!"

So said Martin, as he watched the scene
"Even from nightmares, can be born a dream."

Down below three firemen raised
The colors high into ashen haze
The soldiers above had seen it before
On Iwo Jima back in '44

The man on sticks studied everything closely
Then shared his perceptions on what he saw mostly
"I see pain, I see tears,
I see sorrow -- but I don't see fear."

"You left behind husbands and wives
Daughters and sons and so many lives
are suffering now because of this wrong
But look very closely. You're not really gone.

All of those people, even those who've never met you
All of their lives, they'll never forget you
Don't you see what has happened?
Don't you see what you've done?
You've brought them together, together as one.

With that the man in the stovepipe hat said
"Take my hand," and from there he led
three thousand plus heroes, Newcomers to heaven
On this day, two thousand one, nine eleven

In Memory Of 9-11-01

Never Forget

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 12:31 PM | Comments (820) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

IN MEMORIUM

Two thousand one, nine eleven
Three thousand plus arrive in heaven
As they pass through the gate,
Thousands more appear in wait
A bearded man with stovepipe hat
Steps forward saying, "Lets sit, lets chat"

They settle down in seats of clouds
A man named Martin shouts out proud
"I have a dream!" and once he did
The Newcomer said, "Your dream still lives."

Groups of soldiers in blue and gray
Others in khaki, and green then say
"We're from Bull Run, Yorktown, the Maine"
The Newcomer said, "You died not in vain."

From a man on sticks one could hear
"The only thing we have to fear.
The Newcomer said, "We know the rest,
trust us sir, we've passed that test."

"Courage doesn't hide in caves
You can't bury freedom, in a grave,"
The Newcomers had heard this voice before
A distinct Yankees twang from Hyannisport shores

A silence fell within the mist
Somehow the Newcomer knew that this
Meant time had come for her to say
What was in the hearts of the five thousand plus
that day

"Back on Earth, we wrote reports,
Watched our children play in sports
Worked our gardens, sang our songs
Went to church and clipped coupons
We smiled, we laughed, we cried, we fought
Unlike you, great we're not"

The tall man in the stovepipe hat
Stood and said, "Don't talk like that!
Look at your country, look and see
You died for freedom, just like me"

Then, before them all appeared a scene
Of rubbled streets and twisted beams
Death, destruction, smoke and dust
And people working just 'cause they must

Hauling ash, lifting stones,
Knee deep in hell, but not alone
"Look! Blackman, Whiteman, Brownman, Yellowman
Side by side helping their fellow man!"

So said Martin, as he watched the scene
"Even from nightmares, can be born a dream."

Down below three firemen raised
The colors high into ashen haze
The soldiers above had seen it before
On Iwo Jima back in '44

The man on sticks studied everything closely
Then shared his perceptions on what he saw mostly
"I see pain, I see tears,
I see sorrow -- but I don't see fear."

"You left behind husbands and wives
Daughters and sons and so many lives
are suffering now because of this wrong
But look very closely. You're not really gone.

All of those people, even those who've never met you
All of their lives, they'll never forget you
Don't you see what has happened?
Don't you see what you've done?
You've brought them together, together as one.

With that the man in the stovepipe hat said
"Take my hand," and from there he led
three thousand plus heroes, Newcomers to heaven
On this day, two thousand one, nine eleven

In Memory Of 9-11-01

Never Forget

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 12:26 PM | Comments (769) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ten Years

Ten years ago there was an event that scarred the American psyche as almost nothing has before, except,perhaps, the Pearl Harbor attack in 1942. Even that was different, in that the world was already alight with the horrors of a world wide war. This attack came with no warning and with the world in a state of guarded peace.

We came together on that day ten years ago as a people united as we hadn't been in a long while. That unity lasted for perhaps a year, until certain elements in our society again questioned whether our actions/ reactions to the attack weren't reasonable and or truly justified. (In MY mind, not only were they reasonable;they didn't go far enough.) There are always a certain percentage of our populace that will not be willing to take the pain and pay the cost in either treasure or lives that it requires to do whats best for our country. Luckily, there are enough brave souls that will do whatever it costs them to take up the torch of freedom and hold it high against all enemies.

To all those brave Men and Women that protect us, I say THANK YOU , this Country owes you a debt that it can never truly repay, except that we remain the Country we have been, FREE, STRONG, and the greatest beacon for what can be to the rest of the world.

NEVER FORGET NEVER FORGET NEVER FORGET

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Posted by: Delftsman3 at 12:20 PM | Comments (1025) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Great Song

It seems the first amendment only applies when someone is trashing conservative views. The person that wrote and performed this song was a middle school football coach in Tennessee...he was fired when some parents complained to the school board.

Where is the outcry from those organizations sticking up for civil liberties?

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 11:44 AM | Comments (1071) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Great Song

It seems the first amendment only applies when someone is trashing conservative views. The person that wrote and performed this song was a middle school football coach in Tennessee...he was fired when some parents complained to the school board.

Where is the outcry from those organizations sticking up for civil liberties?

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 11:44 AM | Comments (139) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

August 28, 2011

WHY I'M DEPRESSED!!

I'd seen this one before, but it struck home particularly hard this time, as it describes some of my darkest feelings in a nutshell.

I've been fighting a semi-severe depression mood for about six months now, some caused by health problems, and some caused by what I see happening in this great Country of ours that I feel powerless to affect.

Over five thousand years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel ,

"Pick up your shovels, mount your asses and camels, I will lead you to the
Promised Land."


Nearly 75 years ago, (when Welfare was introduced) Roosevelt said,

"Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, light up a Camel, this is the
Promised Land."


Today, Congress has stolen your shovel, taxed your asses, raised the price
of Camels and mortgaged the Promised Land!


I was so depressed last night thinking about Health Care Plans, the economy,
the wars, lost jobs, savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc . .. ..
I called a Suicide Hotline.
I had to press 1 for English.
I was connected to a call center in Pakistan . I told them I was suicidal.
They got excited and asked if I could drive a truck......


Folks, we're screwed!

H/T Catfish

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 02:28 AM | Comments (154) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

August 17, 2011

The new Paradigm

The OBAMA motto:

We've got what it takes, to take what you've got!

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Look around you and see what's been going on for the last 2 1/2 years and tell me this isn't true. As RR said in his first presidential campaign, ask yourself

"Are you better off than 4 years ago?"


Posted by: Delftsman3 at 02:40 AM | Comments (604) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

August 16, 2011

The 'Nuge strikes Again

As usual, the Motor City Madman Ted Nugent tells it like it is. A must read.

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 05:28 PM | Comments (882) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Pentagon to Scrap traditional Retirement?

Seems that a Pentagon budget committee has proposed to scrap the current military retirement plan over the next 50 years or so and replace it with a 401K type plan.

Under the new plan, soldiers would have to contribute up to 16% (with government matching funds) to a government administered 401k type investment plan. Under this scheme, the soldier would not be vested in the plan until after 6 years, and would have to serve the present term of 20 year minimum to collect; if they retired after, say only 10 years, the money would be rolled over into his/her SS account. Another change is that the soldier would not receive any monies until he/she attained the 'normal' retirement age of 65.

IMHO, This plan is shortsightedly boneheaded as to defy belief. They are trying to equate the profession of arms to a corporate career, when the analogy just doesn't exist.

Many military families of the lower ranks are living near or at the poverty level already, yet they want to take up to 16% of a soldiers base pay off the top?!?

Those that choose the military profession know that the pay level stinks when they go into it; they still join because of a great love for their country and that they know they will receive a set retirement and benefits package according to their ability to rise in the ranks in return for their present sacrifices.

Critics will claim that soldiers don't have it that bad; pointing to the fact that many soldiers can get free housing and health care for their families while on active duty, and that's certainly true, but having been a resident of base housing and a participant in military medical care, I can personally vouch that the average citizen would not accept the same conditions without complaint.

The housing units are usually smaller than the average as compared to normal residential housing, and the medical care involves a great deal more bureaucracy than the average citizen experiences in a regular hospital setting.

I do not make these statements as a slur towards the military, the military as a whole does it's best to provide for their own as they can while still necessarily keeping budget costs down. There are always tradeoffs and people in the military recognize the reasons for those tradeoffs and accept them as a fact of military life.

Currently, retirees with at least 20 years service receive benefits from the time of their separation until their death. Critics point to this and declare it as "unfair"; "those in the Corporate world don't start to get drawing retirement benefits until age 65 in most cases."

Well, I say that they are comparing apples to oranges; just how many corporate types are sent to hostile environments for years at a time away from their loved ones ?

How many businessmen put themselves directly in harms way as a part of their normal jobs on a daily basis ?

If a business man makes a mistake, for the most part all he loses is some money, worst case his job; a soldiers makes a mistake and he loses his life, and possibly the lives of those nearest to him.

How many average citizens would consider it "normal" to wait up to two months just to see their PCP for a checkup on a health problem they may be experiencing, or wait in a clinic for 8-10 hours for a potentially serious health problem?

The average citizen would be outraged if forced to live under these conditions, yet the people in the military accept it as a normal fact of life.

I for one do not begrudge a single dime of the pay or benefits that a military retiree may receive; they earned far more than they will ever receive.

I think that if we are serous to reining in the budget, we should look into the pay/retirement package of those bureaucrats proposing these changes; I would wager we would save a lot more if they were changed.

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 05:10 PM | Comments (564) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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