Greatest Movie Lines Ever

Thanks to my Democrat friend Fred C. for this one.

“Most people say the greatest movie line was Clark Gable’s delivery to Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind: ‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn’.

But, the greatest, most accurate and most timely movie line was Bob Hope’s line from a real oldie—a 1940’s movie with Paulette Goddard and Richard Carlson.

Enjoy the 24 second clip!” Click on Bob Hope

Service Academies Combined Choirs Sing the National Anthem

How many times have we suffered the likes of some rock star or a crotch grabbing Roseanne Barr slaughter the “Star Spangled Banner” at a sports event? The combined choirs of the service academies demonstrate how the National Anthem should be done, stirringly and with respect. Senator and 2004 VP candidate John Edwards was fond of saying there are two Americas, one rich and one poor. He was partially right only the two Americas are the Barr ilk and the rest of us.

Tennessee Ford Update

Thanks to reader Tom B. for alerting me to this one.

Classical music trained turned country singer, Tennessee Ernie Ford, had a hit song in the mid 1950s called “Sixteen Tons”. It told the story of the hard life of a coal miner. An impersonator has updated the song to today substituting, by inference, taxpayer for coal miner. Enjoy.

Two Trillion Tons

On the Mound – Bush vs Obama

I’m sure this one has been around the net but it’s still funny, unless of course, you’re a beauty queen or a Democrat.

First_Pitch_Breakdown

Woman Solves California’s Problems

Please be seated when watching the below You Tube video. It may make you feel faint. While it is funny, it is more frightening that people like her are running around loose and probably vote. As a matter of fact, maybe it’s why California is a basket case.

Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yxe_kwc8klw

Thanks to Mr. Cynical on Sound Politics for the YouTube site address.

Abortion and You

President Obama at Notre Dame repeated the call for abortion to be safe, legal and rare. Rush Limbaugh mused if there is nothing wrong with abortion, why should we care if it is rare? An abortion doctor in Kansas is gunned down while attending church, an eye for an eye according to the more extreme pro lifers. The issue has divided the nation since before Roe vs Wade put the Supreme Court’s seal of approval on the practice. For America, some call abortion, after slavery, the great moral issue of our nation. Yet most people, unless they have faced an unintended pregnancy or have been moved by a religious or social cause, don’t give abortion much thought.

Where do you stand? Read the ten statements below and mark each one Yes (I agree) or No (I don’t agree). But before you begin, do you consider yourself pro-life, pro-choice or not sure? Now the ten statements:

1. Life begins at conception. Therefore abortion is murder and
never justified.

2. If bringing a fetus to term would likely kill the mother,
abortion is justified.

3. Pregnancies resulting from rape or incest may be aborted.

4. Abortion is acceptable if tests show the fetus to be mentally
or physically deformed.

5. Abortion is a reasonable backup if a tubal ligation or
vasectomy fails.

6. Abortion is acceptable if another child would force a family
into poverty.

7. A single woman gets pregnant. Rather than allow a moment
of passion to potentially affect her future life, she should be
able to choose abortion.

8. Abortion should be an option if another child would notably
lower a family or couple’s standard of living or delay
retirement plans.

9. “We always wanted a girl (boy) so there is nothing wrong
with aborting a fetus of the undesired sex.”

10. It doesn’t make any difference what anyone thinks; it’s the
woman who bears the consequences of giving birth or
aborting. The choice is up to her.

Review your ten answers. Are you now pro-life, pro-choice or not sure?

Budget Crisis in Olympia

Years ago when I was in the Washington State House of Representatives, I was among several cosponsors of a tax reform proposal. It would have eliminated the business killing Business and Occupation tax, lowered the state sales and property tax and, I confess, instituted an income tax. The so-called “three legged stool” of taxes would have spread the burden of state taxation across a broader base. The proposal was designed to be revenue neutral. To prevent legislatures from leap frogging tax increases, it included a constitutional provision prohibiting changing one of the taxes without a proportional change in the other two taxes. To no ones surprise, the proposal went into the dustbin with all the other past income tax tainted reforms.

Older but wiser, I’m sure even the constitutional mandate would not have been enough to prevent all three taxes from rising ever higher. We’d still find ourselves in a fiscal crisis at every economic downturn. Democrats would then want to add a forth or fifth leg to the stool. So “vital state functions” would not have to be cut. For supporting evidence, just look at the states with sales, property and income taxes. Virtually all of them are crying for even more money.

I don’t like the “starve the beast” philosophy expressed by some because government does require taxes to pay for basic services and necessary social programs. But I understand their frustration. Legislative bodies are genetically prone to spending. They also tend to operate in the short term neglecting to address the long-term effects of their actions. Public employee benefits are one example.

Nevertheless, Washington State’s constitutional balanced budget requirement combined with a serious recession has placed the State Legislature at a budget Rubicon. This time the usual inflated revenue forecasts, accounting gimmicks, fee increases and trimming around the edges fall far short of resolving the financial crisis much less systemic budget problems.

Democrats are already calling for increased or new taxes, even an income tax, and tying them to popular or “bleeding heart” items like education and children’s health care. Much of today’s money crunch is a result of relatively recent biennium spending and program increases. Better to eliminate these increases now before they become ingrained, court protected entitlements that threaten the solvency of the state.

(For another approach to the budget, see http://clearfogblog.wordpress.com/2007/12/01/a-letter-to-senator-adam-kline/ )

Funny Joke

Clear Fog is not a joke site (though some may consider it so) but occassionally the internet provides a good one. Enjoy:

Morris returns from the doctor and tells his wife that the doctor has told him that he has only 24 hours to live.
Given the prognosis, Morris asks his wife for sex.
Naturally, she agrees, so they make love.
About 6 hours later, the husband goes to his wife and says,
‘Honey, you know I now have only 18 hours to live.
Could we please do it one more time?’
Of course, the wife agrees, and they do it again.
Later, as the man gets into bed, he looks at his watch
and realizes that he now has only 8 hours left.
He touches his wife’s shoulder and asks,
‘Honey, please… just one more time before I die.’
She says, ‘Of course, Dear,’ and they make love for the third time.
After this session, the wife rolls over and falls to sleep.
Morris, however, worried about his impending death, tosses and turns, until he’s down to 4 more hours.
He taps his wife, who rouses. ‘Honey, I have only 4 more hours.
Do you think we could…’
At this point the wife sits up and says, ‘Listen Morris, enough is enough
I have to get up in the morning… you don’t.’

As Larry the Cable Guy would say, “I don’t care who you are, that there is funny.”

Seattle P.I. – The Chickens Come Home

Yes, there were numerous factors leading to the death of the Seattle Post Intelligencer. TV with its 24/7 news channels, Al Gore’s World Wide Web with free access to newspapers local and national, rising costs, competition from the “P.I in the mirror” Seattle Times all helped doom the paper even in a liberal market like Seattle. When all the reasons are finally cataloged, they should include the Letters to the Editor section in what turns out to be the final Sunday edition (March 15, 2009) of the P.I. It contains a couple of “Good riddance, the P.I. is too liberal for me” letters but it was the lead letter, captioned “Idiots deserve their fate,” that caught my eye.

Editor,

So sad to see the P-I winding down. Every day there’s less and less to read. But it’s so hard to run a business these days, isn’t it? What with over taxation, overregulation, extortionist lawsuits, runaway liability expenses, hostile labor unions, it’s a miracle any business in King County survives. And the P-I, after all, is only a business.

But wait a minute.

Haven’t the editorial pages of your newspaper always been for more taxes, for more business regulation, for more reasons to sue a business, for stronger labor unions, for anything and everything that makes running a business the arduous and thankless chore it has become? Yes, I do believe that’s true.

So, maybe, just maybe, you idiots richly deserve the fate that awaits you. The chickens are coming home to roost.

Jeffrey Weiser
Redmond

The New York Times, the Los Angels Times and the Seattle Times should keep their eye on “them chickens, don’t ya’ think?”

Born Again American

In these troubling times, here’s a musical video to stir your patriotic heart. Born Again American

Enjoy.