Missoulapolis

The Talking Game

2012-02-17T18:59:00.004-07:00

MISSOULA- Two more sexual assaults have been reported on the University of Montana campus.

The University of Montana released a statement on Friday saying that two women came forward to report a sexual assault.

Both stated they had received a ride to their on-campus housing from a male who forced them to drink alcohol and then, attempted to or did, sexually assault them.

After all the talk since last December - the investigation, the forum, the brainstorming - nothing changes. It's as if the rapists aren't paying attention to UM's carefully measured response...or don't give a rat's ass. And we still don't have a single perp's name.

Something is wrong here, and talking is not fixing it.

Bailout City

2012-02-01T10:22:00.001-07:00

Lyn Hellegaard neatly summarizes the City Council's bailouts of "workforce housing" to date:

■ $354,474 from a combination of CDBG and HOME funds (City of Missoula);

■ $200,000 from a Montana Community Development Corporation commercial loan;

■ a $670,674 NeighborWorks loan to facilitate the bailout of three Missoula banks in March of 2010. Since one of the banks was going to foreclose on this project, NMCEC applied for federal taxpayer funds to bail out two of the three banks' construction loans.

■ $400,000 in Title 1 Funds (City of Missoula) for the bailout of the third bank holding a construction loan;

■ $77,960 in HOME program operational funding (City of Missoula).

Then there are the other bailouts:

■ $3.5 million bailout to Playball Montana;
■ $120,000 debt forgiveness to Playball Montana;
■ $45,000 debt forgiveness to Missoula Housing Authority;

Why the City residents so passively go along with this is beyond me.

Bubble Fallout

2012-01-12T20:25:00.008-07:00

A sobering post at Naked Capitalism, estimating that there are 9,800,000 houses in shadow inventory nationwide.

We’ve written relentlessly about servicer abuses, but we’ve almost always contextualized these abuses through their effect on borrowers. Staring through data, especially data at this scale, complexity, and with strong economic ramifications, is like looking through a dirty window. But as we wipe away layer after layer of schmutz the picture is becoming clearer. Yes, servicers continue to prey upon ordinary Americans. But evidence suggests that they’re also preying on investors. Individual American families do not deserve to suffer these behaviors, that increase the losses while delaying the uncertainty, and neither do pension funds, European villages, municipalities, or other unsuspecting entities who actually funded these loans...

There is a strong argument that campaign donations are at work, but given the lopsided donations from the financial services industry to Republicans one would think Obama would send a message by taking firm control over the FHFA, the FDIC, the SEC, the OCC, the Treasury, the Justice Department, and strong-arming the Federal Reserve into offering substantive help to borrowers and investors. Yet, at every level, the President has failed ordinary Americans. Even the most egregious behavior results in dead silence .. we don’t even get a yawn. Every program has been an unmitigated disaster, especially HAMP. When Administration figures do intervene their influence is overtly skewed in favor of the banks.

Read the whole thing. And plan accordingly.

Who Coulda Known

2012-01-08T12:15:00.001-07:00

Gee, what a surprise.

A cherished neighborhood nonprofit is straining under debt from a $2.7 million affordable housing project and looking to the city of Missoula and possibly the Missoula Housing Authority for help.

In 2008, the North Missoula Community Development Corp. completed the Burns Street Commons, a cooperative grocery store, community center and complex of 17 affordable homes on the Westside. Then the recession hit, the housing market slumped and the organization sold just seven of the housing units.

The corporation still owes an estimated $1.14 million on the project. A proposal to convert a $400,000 loan from the city of Missoula into a grant is among the solutions on the table to keep the neighborhood nonprofit in business and put families into affordable homes...

Councilman Bob Jaffe, who is proposing the city make that $400,000 a grant instead of a loan, said the contribution would be a permanent investment in affordable housing because the corporation holds the land in its housing projects in trust for perpetuity.

Translation: A cossetted community organizer is seeing his ~~real estate~~ "workforce housing" project go TU. And now it looks like we will all pay for it. Next up: Section 8.

In other news, for our housing hangover, the Federal Reserve recommends hair of the dog: EZ Money!

Immigration

2011-11-29T09:24:00.002-07:00

Thomas Sowell's column of the hour on Newt Gingrich's immigration views:

Let's go back to square one. The purpose of American immigration laws and policies is not to be either humane or inhumane to illegal immigrants. The purpose of immigration laws and policies is to serve the national interest of this country.

There is no inherent right to come live in the United States, in disregard of whether the American people want you here. Nor does the passage of time confer any such right retroactively.

Moreover,

When you import people, you import cultures, including cultures that have been far less successful in providing decent lives and decent livelihoods. The American people have a right to decide for themselves whether they want unlimited imports of cultures from other countries.

At one time, immigrants came to America to become Americans. Today, the apostles of multiculturalism and grievance-mongering have done their best to keep foreigners foreign and, if possible, feeling aggrieved. Our own schools and colleges teach grievances.

By the way, it has come to my attention that other states are being plagued with refugees from some of the most miserable failed cultures in the world and are saying Enough.

...Manchester [NH] is not the first in the Nation to scream—stop! The NYT does mention Ft. Wayne (IN) and that is because that city and Detroit (MI) have gone beyond any capacity to absorb more poverty. In the case of Ft. Wayne, the health department in Allen County became swamped with cases of HIV and TB. Then there was Waterbury, CT where another International Institute was shut down because of the poor care refugees were getting. Then there is Greensboro, NC—same story. Fredericksburg, VA ditto. The whole state of Tennessee was so frustrated with the refugee overload that they passed a law that seeks to give some control back to the state in determining how many refugees WILL BE DROPPED OFF BY FEDERAL CONTRACTORS for local taxpayers to care for!

Query: Much of this resettlment is being spearheaded by churches (including my own denom) on the make for grant money. Other than this 2003 audit of the Missoula Refugee Assistance Corporation, I find little evidence that Montana has yet been targeted, at least not since the influx of Vietnamese and Russion immigrants decades ago.

Does anyone know of any resettlement efforts under way in Montana?

What's Really Behind the OWS Protests

2011-10-27T09:58:00.012-06:00

From the Bookworm Room, a story similar to my own:

It never occurred to me to take on a debt load that I might not be able to repay. My college choice and student loans were calibrated to my expectations. I even chose an affordable (albeit marvelously wonderful) law school. By the time I graduated, after 7 years of higher education, I had only $15,000 in debt, which I paid off within three years...

I went through the same calculus. UM cost only about $300-400 a quarter back then; usually I made it in three payments. Law school debt totaled $10,500, because I declined applying for loans the third year. As it was, my debt seemed unsurmountable. So, I hung up my practice after a couple years and hired on as a house counsel.

It’s pretty clear that a core issue animating these protesters is the ridiculous debt obligations that they voluntarily assumed. It’s therefore almost funny to see the working class union types leaping on board to help out kids whose demands, if acceded to, will pile ever greater debt on the ordinary working stiffs in America.

In contrast, I know bright people, often from the small towns of Montana, who moved to Missoula after high school but just started working, or took a year or two at Vo Tech, because they did not want to take on a lot of debt for uncertain ends. One became a cook, one a medical assistant, one a TV control room engineer, another an RN. But that was nearly a generation ago. Why the humility then? Why the grandiosity now - is it a regional thing? Maybe it's a function of supply.

Free money for entitled young people has created all sorts of problems. First, of course, it’s driven up college tuition costs. With the government writing the check, there’s no reason not to have creeping tuition inflation.

You'd think the protesters would see that. Why aren't they demonstrating on the campuses of NYU, Columbia...and UM? Why do the university administrations get pretend they are not part of the problem? Cleverly, they maneuver the students into lobbying the legislature to get them more money - to do their bidding for them.

Suckers.

Sign Fail

2011-10-24T17:20:00.001-06:00

Not much help for the pizza delivery guys. But it's solar!

Endling Homelessness: Questions

2011-10-07T10:19:00.008-06:00

From a meeting at City Hall last night.

Group members learned 573 children have been identified as homeless in Missoula County public schools.

"We feel we need to put a stake in the ground, and make the best possible start, not just to manage homelessness in Missoula, but to end homelessness," said Missoula United Way's executive director Susan Hay Patrick.

The group's focus is to ensure affordable housing for the homeless and those on edge. Reaching Home says some homeless just need help with first and last month's rent.

Others need more comprehensive services.

Okay, so let's provide these comprehensive services, and a home, for the families of the 573 children now identified as homeless. Come to think of it, I believe resources like WORD, the YWCA, the Missoula Housing Authority, Dickensen Learning Center, the County Health Department and Poverello et al already provide a lot of comprehensive services. I've personally witnessed several people bootstrap themselves up through those comprehensive services.

But, how do we control the number of people coming here from other places, because the social workers in Butte or Plains or Lewistown told them they are more likely to find homes and awesome comprehensive services here? How can you "end homelessness," if more homeless keep coming here?

Discuss.

Bitterroot Fires

2011-09-10T13:41:00.001-06:00

From Daly Mansion.

Smoke

2011-09-08T17:15:00.000-06:00

Ugh.

The Truth About Nonpartisan Elections

2011-09-02T10:13:00.007-06:00

Here we go again.

Geoff Badenoch wants the Democrats to back off of Missoula's city council elections -- and he's a Democrat.

"It's just been kind of a low-level irritant, year after year," he said...[snip]

"Groups with money and influence are trying to shape the outcome of elections -- it diminishes the individual voter," Badenoch said.

The Missoula County Democrats are formally endorsing a handful of candidates for council. Badenoch says they have the right to do that under the first amendment, but he believes doing so disrespects the voters' desire for a non-partisan system.

Earth to Mr. Badenoch: The problem is that 90% of the voters have no freaking clue who these candidates are, much less know their political philosophies. Maybe, just maybe a voter was home when a candidate knocked - if the candidate in fact walked - and they got to talk. If the voter was impressed he might have gotten a brochure just so he could remember the candidate when the time came.

Even people who see themselves as politically savvy are often totally uninterested in local stuff. Give 'eme the Big Picture, the races they see on CNN/MSNBC/Fox! The dirty old party label designation gives them at least some clue on downticket or off-year elections, and even then many voters skip those races and vote only for the top offices - you know, "Which Side are You On?" as Pete Seeger sang. I thought Democrats were all hip to that kinda consideration.

But the good government goody two shoes really think that each voter is going to thoroughly investigate each race...give me a break.

The parties will always be there, nonpartisan or not. Who else is going to help with money and moral support and volunteers, signmakers, printers etc.? So even the nonparty aspirant will end up at one central committee or another with hat in hand. As to why we ended up with nonpartisan elections - well that was a Progressive fad going around in the 1990s that of course Missoula had to jump on. mainly so New Party candidates could fly under the radar.

Anyway, comes the expert with the Standard Counterpoint:

University of Montana Political Science professor, Dr. James Lopach, says the idea behind non-partisan systems is that city government shouldn't be about inter-party squabbling, but about getting things done."There is no partisan way to pave the street," he said. "There's no partisan way to pick up garbage."

Uh, actually there is. Local governments levy taxes and set priorities on spending, just like the state and federal governments do! Moreover, people disagree about same! There always seems to be office holders who want to spend more money on stuff, while assuming or hoping that tax revenues will be able to keep up enough so that services like street paving won't have to be cut. Why would that be any different on the local level? It's called politics. And it's been pretty clear, most recently from the Ogren Park vote, that one party puts more emphasis on fiscal responsibility while the other covets new acquisitions. Heh.

I'm rather surprised a Poli Sci professor wouldn't know that. But I think he does.

Gee, can we do this in Montana, too?

2011-08-26T10:23:00.003-06:00

From George Will:

...teachers unions may no longer automatically deduct dues from members’ paychecks. After Colorado in 2001 required public employees unions to have annual votes reauthorizing collection of dues, membership in the Colorado Association of Public Employees declined 70 percent. In 2005, Indiana stopped collecting dues from unionized public employees; in 2011, there are 90 percent fewer dues-paying members. In Utah, the end of automatic dues deductions for political activities in 2001 caused teachers’ payments to fall 90 percent. After a similar law passed in 1992 in Washington state, the percentage of teachers making such contributions declined from 82 to 11.

Democrats furiously oppose Walker because public employees unions are transmission belts, conveying money to the Democratic Party. Last year, $11.2 million in union dues was withheld from paychecks of Wisconsin’s executive branch employees and $2.6 million from paychecks at the university across the lake. Having spent improvidently on the recall elections, the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the teachers union, is firing 40 percent of its staff.

Montana politicians are scared to death of the unions. Need they be?

Cute Chicks

2011-08-22T16:58:00.000-06:00

Another Housing Casualty

2011-08-19T10:07:00.014-06:00

The *historic* Worden House at 328 East Pine is for sale. Only $549,000. Zillow shows the value soaring in 2009, which is curious given the housing crash which began in 2006, and then collapsing this year.

It's also in foreclosure, auction date set for October, with an estimated market value of $497,500.

Owner is listed as Ellen Boldman Hill, former executive director of Poverello and current is representative from house district 94.

Public Service Announcement

2011-08-10T19:29:00.004-06:00

From Instapundit.

AARP Goes to War

2011-07-27T06:44:00.006-06:00

When the government first started trying to rein in Social Security in the 1980s, I quickly learned to not expect objectivity about the issue from the entitled or soon-to-be-entitled, my parent. She fought and raged and then cried, at any suggestion she would not get the reward she was promised when she began work at Pac Bell in 1937.

I said to myself, I hope I don't lose my objectivity when I am in her shoes.

So here we are, I am the age she was then (x - y + 7). AARP is flooding airwaves and the Postal Service with high-dollar pissing and moaning that Congress is going to cut Social Security and Medicare. We're not members anymore, but no matter; we're on their precious mailing list nonetheless. Last night I saw a TV ad featuring Chris Matthews and Larry "neck veins" O'Donnell wailing about the threat to *our* future security. That these two should be my advocates was personally humiliating.

On cutting entitlements, I am of two minds. I anticipate Max Bucks will say, I should not even be depending on this income. But I am, and it is a future property interest.

When you don’t fight for your own property interests, you're a chump and the powers-that-be know it. If you give an inch, you're a fool. Anyone who cooperates is a tool. So AARP goes to war and gives no quarter.

I suspect the PTB including AARP hope that loose immigration ultimately will solve the problem, when all we're doing is importing poverty. That worked much better before the US became a welfare state.

But what will happen if the entitlements are not reduced somehow? Will we the elderly really be able to live our lives while the rest of the country suffers? I doubt it. So not cutting threatens even more draconian cuts, if Congress can ever summon the balls to do it.

I don't buy that cutting the military would make up for the huge entitlement expense, especially for Medicare. And it would mean even more layoffs, in the military, which is already sqeezing out its less-than-stellar recruits at the end of their tours of duty.

I shall remain objective, for four years, then all bets are off. Nobody wants to be a chump.

Ovando, Montana

2011-07-23T15:14:00.001-06:00

With trash can.

Waxwings

2011-07-17T12:38:00.000-06:00

My favorite birds, besides ducks.

Superior, Montana

2011-07-05T10:58:00.000-06:00

Where it is just a little bit better.

Last Race at Pimlico

2011-07-04T11:22:00.003-06:00

It's recession time in Missoula, again, and the fast-talking freebooters are upon us. And our desperate local sucker base is listening!

In the clear, swirling air above a 10.6-acre plot of grass near Missoula International Airport, Seth Bloom sees a towering hotel, its glass walls angling upward and outward like an inverted pyramid.

An inverted pyramid? Um, no, please.

At its crown, a ritzy restaurant offers 360-degree views of the surrounding Missoula Valley. Through the halls and posh suites below tread stars of screen and stage, preparing for another day of work.

Like we don't have enough restaurants. How'd that Epicurean Bistro work out?

Perhaps on this day, Edward Norton and Brad Pitt are here, working on an HBO miniseries about the adventures of Lewis and Clark.

Ooh, Hollywood stars! As if we weren't already tired of hearing that Hank Jr. and Huey Lewis live in the Bitterroot!!!!11

They won’t have to travel far – just down the elevator and out the door to the 36,000-square-foot main soundstage of Pimlico Studios, a sprawling, sparkling complex of production and post-production studios, soundstages, production support facilities and retail spaces surrounding the four-star hotel.

Well, that is more glamorous than the cookie factory and *feminine product* manufacturer we were promised in the 1980s recession.

Or perhaps this is the day that Bono comes to town for a benefit concert by his band, U2, for the Dalai Lama, to be held in another of the soundstages – which has been converted into a 3,500-seat performance venue for the event.

Omigod - Bono! Wouldn't that ever put us on the map!

Seth Bloom sees these things. And if he can just find the investors willing to underwrite the project’s cost, then Bloom, a 39-year-old actor and creative director with his family’s book packaging and print brokering company, sees himself eventually sitting at the helm of a 500,000-square-foot development comprised of nine business units, all centered around the concept of bringing a state-of-the-art, full-service film and television production studio to western Montana.

That's right, start at the top. Go first cabin. Don't start out in funky little ware house studies the way Thomas Edison and the early Biograph studios did. What did they know?

“We’re proposing to build a market, bring the industry in here,” says Bloom. “We’re talking about economic stimulation through construction, an increase in the tax base, a significant increase in the amount of major-production filming that would happen in this state.”

Yep, prosperity through construction...build it and they will com! Well maybe for a tax break, or something.

Last week, in a meeting at First Interstate Bank, Bloom unveiled his business plan for Pimlico Studios to a group of local civic and government leaders. Slated for a plot of land adjacent to the DirecTV call center in the Missoula Development Park, the concept is of a scale heretofore unprecedented in Missoula.

So I suppose they want all the goodies and giveaways DirectTV got. And our government is ready to play!

As to the whole of Bloom’s concept, “it’s a pretty big dream,” said Jean Curtiss, one of two Missoula County commissioners who attended last Wednesday’s presentation at First Interstate Bank. “I want to believe.”

She wants to BUH-LEEVE! But it's not a religion, Ms. Curtiss, it's business. It's hype by name-dropping hucksters who can ultimately up and walk away if things go sour. They're promoters, they're gamblers. They even gave you a hint in the proposed name Pimlico Studios. Yeah that's a Montana name if I ever heard one.

But a two-dollar bet is fine by me, long as you use your own money.

Staycation Duck Watch

2011-07-04T08:22:00.001-06:00

Still hoping for ducklings this year.

Old Highway 10

2011-07-03T12:30:00.001-06:00

Near Superior, Montana.

The Natelson Matter

2011-06-18T11:34:00.015-06:00

Rob Natelson was not one of my professors. But I certainly knew who he was because he ran for office twice and tangled with both Democrats and GOP. Everyone knew where he stood. He was and is an indefatigable and prolific warrior for conservatism.   And it was painfully obvious his tenure at UM Law School was not an easy or collegial one, and it all seemed to come down to ideology.

So what rankles me about his being denied Emeritus status is that anyone who has been through that school in the last 30 years has been subjected to the insidious fetish of leftwing law academics, Critical Legal Theory.   This intellectual fad, in the 1980s, came fresh from the Ivy Leagues by way of UCLA. Why, it was positively the latest thing.

So here we were in first year, maybe IIRC even in that first, interminable, orientation month, learning that *perhaps* the law wasn't anything special, no just whatever Dead White Men had made up or what the judge had eaten for breakfast.   In other words, Critical Theory was a postmodernist attack at the Natural Law theory underlying our Constitution and founding documents.   After all, we wouldn't want reify a the abstractions of the Founding Fathers into something binding and everlasting, would we?   It's just words, smoke and mirrors, right?

Now, they didn't exactly indoctrinate us - no, they just kinda put it out there. Constantly. We had to read insufferable law journal articles by the likes of Andrea Dworkin, Carol Gilligan, and others I've forgotten. These were not legal analyses at all, but emotional, sociological, third-wave feminist tracts arguing how women are different from men, and the law-as-it-is is mean to them.   Just for our legal argument repertoire, you know.

Some students fought back, some were puzzled, and there was much grumbling in the first-year locker room. I don't think many of us had any idea, at the time, just how political this whole critical theory movement was. It represented the endeavor of neo-Marxist Frankfurt School radicals to change American society as it could not change it legitimately, by legislating, but by burrowing deep into our legal system. I thought I had that all behind me when I ran smack into it again when I stupidly took Philosophy of Law. My mistake. [Recent grads: is CLS still being taught?]

So, if it is Natelson's ideology that is keeping him from Emeritus status, it's wholly unfair, and a disgrace. If it's his teaching style, then how is it he'd taught at UM for 23 years? And this rejection was the result of a mere personality contest, then shame on the UM law faculty.

Oh, and what Rabid Sanity said. And Ann Althouse, and Eugene Volokh.   (Have I missed anyone?)

Friday Night, Rocky Mountain Grange

2011-06-11T11:49:00.003-06:00

Hamilton, Montana.

High Water, Lake Mullan

2011-06-08T11:52:00.000-06:00

Our Glorious Leader - ?

2011-05-04T13:42:00.004-06:00

From [edit]*an alleged* White House insider:

President Obama was literally pulled from a golf outing and escorted back to the White House to be informed of the mission. Upon his arrival there was a briefing held which included Bill Daley, John Brennan, and a high ranking member of the military. When Obama emerged from the briefing, he was described as looking “very confused and uncertain.” The president was then placed in the situation room where several of the players in this event had already been watching the operation unfold.

Do read the whole thing!

Query: Who in the WH is pushing this story, and why?

End of an Era

2011-04-28T18:52:00.004-06:00

Big Sky Drive-In on West Broadway appears to be permanently closed. If so it joins the late great Jumbo Burger, Gump's, Brownie's, Snow King, and 93 Stop and Go in indy gut-bomb joint heaven. (Who have I forgotten?)

UPDATE: The sign has been changed to say Opening Soon.

The Lonely Strip Mall

2011-04-17T19:35:00.002-06:00

About that great Euro welfare system..

2011-04-05T15:54:00.000-06:00

This story is making the rounds today.

According to one 2007 source, immigration, of which Muslims comprise a significant part, “costs Sweden at least 40 to 50 billion Swedish kroner [approximately $7 billion] every year … and has greatly contributed to bringing the Swedish welfare state to the brink of bankruptcy...”

The statistics from Norway are even more shocking. According to a University of Oslo study, “non-Western immigrants” are ten times as likely to be on social assistance as native Norwegians.

In Germany, Muslims are four times as likely to be receiving welfare as non-Muslims...

Research by Daniel Pipes and Lars Hedegaard from 2002 reveals that mostly Muslim immigrants in Denmark “constitute five percent of the population but consume upwards of 40 percent of the welfare spending.” In that country, numerous “single” women who receive social assistance are really the wives of polygamous Muslim men.

I'm so glad it can't happen here.

Inside "Inside Job"

2011-03-02T06:45:00.000-07:00

This is an old story to us now, but still engrossing: How the lenders lost their minds.

...groups like the Greenlining Institute saw the banks as potential agents of economic restructuring: If banks could be forced to grant homeownership to poor people, then that would be the first step for the lower classes to climb out of poverty, since everyone knows that owning one’s own home instills a sense of pride, self-worth, and self-reliance.

And so, using the bullying tactics described above (and in the original article which first inspired my post), the Greenlining Institute (and similar groups) twisted the banks’ arms to make risky loans, for the purpose of “social justice,” to use the activists’ own terminology.

Forced into this situation, the banks then went to great lengths to disguise the risk they had foolishly assumed; to fob the bad loans off on unsuspecting other investors, they devised convoluted financial instruments that obscured the danger of the investments; and so on.

It is these after-the-fact shenanigans that Inside Job focuses on. And like any good propaganda, it’s effective because it’s technically true: Everything shown in the film pretty much did happen as depicted. But here’s the key point: It may be true, but it’s irrelevant. The filmmakers are focusing on the glorious gory details of the financial explosion caused by the subprime loan crisis, but they aren’t showing you who lit the fuse.

Read it and weep, because with the apparently successful deflection of blame pulled off by the film's producers, the problem isn't going away.

Meanwhile, in South Africa...

2011-02-27T08:47:00.005-07:00

Our correspondent writes:

It is municipal election time in South Africa and our political overlords are traveling the length and breadth of this fair land, in big shiny cars, interacting with the electorate. At an election meeting in a rural area, President Zuma had the following to say, "When you vote for us you vote for Heaven, when you vote for the opposition you vote for Lucifer. You will struggle until you die, the ancestors will turn their backs on you, and you shall be damned." He went on to promise that the ruling ANC would be in power "until Jesus comes."

In response, the following email is doing the rounds.

If you vote for Zuma, we will all go to "HEAVEN"

HEAVEN got work
HEAVEN got money
HEAVEN got electricity
HEAVEN got bright future
HEAVEN got decent roads
HEAVEN got decent schools
HEAVEN got honest police
HEAVEN got decent hospitals
HEAVEN got safety or security
HEAVEN got literate President

You still want to go to "HEAVEN"?

...As I type this, the ruling party is announcing its election manifesto for the upcoming municipal elections, and on TV there's a bunch of fat government officials clad in Armani dancing under the hot sun to the tunes of Dubuli'bhunu (Shoot the redneck cracker) soon these same buffoons will be making speeches calling for racial harmony and co-operation.

The song Dubuli'bhunu has been adjudge by the courts to be hate speech, yet, the ruling has been ignored by the governing party which calls it a folk song. Below is a translation.

The white cowards are scared
Shoot, shoot
The white cowards are scared
Shoot, shoot
Shoot, shoot the redneck crackers.

Not to be confused with President Zuma's theme song Umshimiwami - Bring me my machine gun...

And in other news, yesterday was the start of our late harvest festival which saw multi-hued crowds of locals enjoying a day of grape picking followed by grape stomping and then wine drinking and barbecuing. Throw in a few local bands, family fun and gorgeous weather and it's almost possible to think you live in a normal society.

Condo Update

2011-02-26T20:03:00.002-07:00

For Mullan Heights condos, a Notice of Trustee's Sale. Out of 40 condos, one was sold. Last time I looked, nitial asking price of $199,000 for a one-bed was down to $139,000. These are just off West Broadway behind Sunset Memorial and across the Clark Fork from Missoula Redi Mix.

Sums owing, almost $7 million. Maybe someone can pick them up cheap and rent them out at a profit.

I wonder how the others are doing.

Tea Party Co-opted or Smeared?

2011-02-25T16:26:00.002-07:00

A telling story today by Matt Gouras.

HELENA - With each bill, newly elected tea party lawmakers are offering Montanans a vision of the future.

Their state would be a place where officials can ignore U.S. laws, force FBI agents to get a sheriff's OK before arresting anyone, ban abortions, limit sex education in schools and create armed citizen militias.

It's the tea party world. But not everyone is buying their vision.

I'm sorry, but how are these measures all attributable to the "tea party"? Does the Legislature have a tea party caucus putting its imprimatur on these bills? I didn't think so.

The tea party movement was about fiscal sanity, not abortion, not jury nullification, nor even illegal immigration. It was all in the spirit of Rick Santelli's original rant on CNBC. Even wikipedia gets it right. Gee, it's as if people with differences on social values had tacitly agreed to set them aside for the time being, for the sake of fiscal reform. Upon polling you could find some commonality of social views, but that was not the message.

But Gouras smears the tea party by ascribing to it the hoary fetishes of the crackpot caucus. Gee, I wonder where he got that particular slant.

And I often wonder, if the right ever declared a social issues "truce" à la Mitch Daniels, whether those long calling for such a truce would even recognize it.

Nice Folk

2011-02-23T13:15:00.011-07:00

Pish-Tosh, Piffle, Stuff and Nonsense

2011-02-02T19:41:00.000-07:00

Dextra is dead. Long live Dextra.

Decline and Fall

2011-01-20T14:04:00.000-07:00

Mark Steyn is back.

What happens when, as a matter of state policy, you debauch your human capital? The United Kingdom has the highest drug use in Europe, the highest incidence of sexually transmitted disease, the highest number of single mothers; marriage is all but defunct, except for toffs, upscale gays, and Muslims. For Americans, the quickest way to understand modern Britain is to look at what lbj’s Great Society did to the black family and imagine it applied to the general population. One-fifth of British children are raised in homes in which no adult works. Just under 900,000 people have been off sick for over a decade, claiming “sick benefits,” week in, week out, for ten years and counting. “Indolence,” as Machiavelli understood, is the greatest enemy of a free society, but rarely has any state embraced this oldest temptation as literally as Britain. There is almost nothing you can’t get the government to pay for.

Well at least we're not that bad (yet).

Earmarks Database

2010-12-16T13:30:00.001-07:00

Well, this is pretty cool.

Courtesy of that troublemaker Sen. Tom Coburn.

GOP Sellout in the Works?

2010-12-02T11:21:00.002-07:00

I hope not. But we do like our cheap labor and docile servants, yes?

When I worried that the Obama White House might have a plan to enact the so-called DREAM Act in "some sort of insidiuous tax-cuts-for-amnesty grand bargain," I figured it was just paranoid speculation. That's what bloggers are for, right? Unfortunately, the possibility of a lame-duck grand bargain that would include a big immigration amnesty has become more realistic since then.

Two things have happened: (1) The White House, Hill Republicans, and Hill Democrats have appointed a special negotiating group to hash out lame-duck issues, especially what to do about the expiring Bush tax cuts, and (2) 42 Senate Republicans have signed a letter pledging to vote against cloture "on any legislative item [including, presumably, the DREAM Act] until the Senate has agreed" on a plan to extend the tax cuts and also to fund the government.

If any such quid pro quo comes to pass, you can bet on a third-party challenge in 2012.

A Note for the SUV-sters

2010-11-24T10:10:00.001-07:00

A trucker's words of wisdom from the Daily Kos (I know, a stopped clock, etc):

...STOP WATCHING THE COMMERCIALS!! Four wheel drive WILL give you increased traction to get started on snow or ice (or mud or sand), but, at speed, it makes you MORE likely to get in a skid and makes any skid MORE likely to result in a loss of control, and SUVs are invariably more top-heavy than other passenger vehicles and thus more prone to rolling over, always a bad thing. A four wheel drive vehicle CAN proceed on snowy or icy roads roads better than a two-wheel-drive vehicle, but it CANNOT safely proceed faster, because the limiting factor, once in motion, is not driving traction, it's steering traction, and having power to the steer tires does NOT increase steering traction. Front-wheel-drive cars are NOT better on snow because the front tires both steer and drive but because the weight of the engine sits over the drive tires. I see dozens of wrecks every winter that could easily be avoided if folks would understand this one paragraph.

There's no added traction for taking corners while on the cell phone either.

OK, that's enough...

2010-11-23T18:45:00.001-07:00

This clever-wine-name thing has gone too far.

The Bottom Line

2010-11-23T06:46:00.002-07:00

Interesting notes from an accountant in Massachusetts who attended a continuing ed seminar for tax lawyers and CPA's on ObamaCare.

... then we started talking about employer mandates. Do you know that employers with over 50 employees have to offer affordable health insurance to their employees? Otherwise they have to pay $2,000 penalty a year per 30 hour employee. The employers have to make sure the employee's health insurance copay is less than 2% of their household income. Note: domestic health care spending is about 17% of Gross Domestic Product, but we're limiting cost to 2% of income.... uh... But, aside from that zombie math, a really good question is how does the employer know what the employee's household income is? And how do they know that when deciding what health insurance package to buy? Or who to hire? If they screw up in calculating this unknowable number then they have to pay the $2,000 penalty.

What that means is they have to give their employees a benefit worth approximately $6,000 each (more for families) or face a $2,000 penalty.

o.O

Meanwhile, an update on the state of MittCare:

Remember how I told you that clients were coming to me and saying they wanted to stop working before they hit the limit to stop getting subsidized health insurance? Well, apparently I'm not the only one. The other accountants in the room were seeing the same thing, and the numbers are backing this up: MA projected that subsidized health insurance would cost $700 Million at this point five years into the Experiment. Well, it's coming in at $1.3 Billion, off by a factor of two five years in. Gee. Imagine that.

The Federal limit for being subsidized is 400% of the poverty level. That's about $88K for a family of 4. Guess what, guys: this just became the de facto new top income for most of the people in America. After that, why bother working any more? (People on salaries don't understand this, but self-employed do: I'd rather play with my children than work when working actually costs me money.)

So, what we have here is the vast majority of Americans losing their employer-based health insurance and going on subsidized health insurance the day it becomes available in 2014.

Read the whole thing.

Aha, an answer...

2010-11-22T09:48:00.002-07:00

At last, I think I know what Alex Apostle means by SCHOOLS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY!!1!!eleventy-leven1!!!.

...even as some parents and educators express unease about students’ digital diets, they are intensifying efforts to use technology in the classroom, seeing it as a way to connect with students and give them essential skills. Across the country, schools are equipping themselves with computers, Internet access and mobile devices so they can teach on the students’ technological territory.

..a way to "connect with students"! Pathetic. Case study #1, Woodside High School in Silly Valley:

The principal, David Reilly, 37, a former musician who says he sympathizes when young people feel disenfranchised, is determined to engage these 21st-century students. He has asked teachers to build Web sites to communicate with students, introduced popular classes on using digital tools to record music, secured funding for iPads to teach Mandarin and obtained $3 million in grants for a multimedia center.

He pushed first period back an hour, to 9 a.m., because students were showing up bleary-eyed, at least in part because they were up late on their computers. Unchecked use of digital devices, he says, can create a culture in which students are addicted to the virtual world and lost in it.

“I am trying to take back their attention from their BlackBerrys and video games,” he says. “To a degree, I’m using technology to do it.”

Because they have no bloody idea what else to do. Of course, what today's students really need to learn is audio production:

Big Macintosh monitors sit on every desk, and a man with hip glasses and an easygoing style stands at the front of the class. He is Geoff Diesel, 40, a favorite teacher here at Woodside who has taught English and film. Now he teaches one of Mr. Reilly’s new classes, audio production. He has a rapt audience of more than 20 students as he shows a video of the band Nirvana mixing their music, then holds up a music keyboard.

“Who knows how to use Pro Tools? We’ve got it. It’s the program used by the best music studios in the world,” he says.

...because what the world really needs is more cluttered, compressed and over-produced pseudomusic.

“Today mixing music, tomorrow sound waves and physics,” he says.

No, tomorrow remedial math.

Do.Something.Please.

2010-11-11T06:47:00.002-07:00

I'm hardly a disinterested party, yet I would go for this makeover.

The co-chairmen proposed a $3.8 trillion deficit-cutting plan yesterday that would trim Social Security and Medicare, reduce income-tax rates and eliminate tax breaks including the mortgage-interest deduction. It would reduce the annual deficit from $1.3 trillion this year to about $400 billion by 2015 and start reducing the $13.7 trillion national debt...

The plan would raise gas taxes, slash defense spending and farm subsidies and bring down health-care costs by clamping down on medical malpractice suits. The Social Security retirement age would rise to 68 in about 2050 and 69 in about 2075.

Okay that last part hurts me personally. But, really, (1) people are living much longer than they were when Social Security was created, (2) Gen X and younger are not expecting Social Security anyway. (Yeah, keep saying you'll "never see a dime of it" and that's what will happen. See how that works?) Me, I'm gonna work until I'm 70.

Now, what to do about the millions of useless and unemployed sixty-somethings who will no longer have at least early "retirement" at 62 to make ends meet.

Discuss.

I-164: Payday Loans

2010-10-29T09:04:00.012-06:00

So, I voted against this one. Got a problem with that? These lenders have always been around in one form or other, though their establishments may not have been painted bright yellow and orange. I knew a guy who made it month to month with title loans on his old Chevy van, and this was back in the 1980s. He didn't even have a credit card. When I was a kid my mother got a loan ti tide her over from the local godmother in Arcadia, Mama Petrillo. I'm quite positive the interest rates were not favorable to the borrowers. That was not the point of being the neighborhood moneylender!

Don't get me wrong. I loathed the appearance of the tacky payday loan outfits - I mean, why the bright colors? The flowering of commerce seemed to coincide with the proliferation of gambling joints in Montana. Hey, suppose there's any connection? Let's see, payday loan places are where poor folk go, of their own free will, to get a quick money fix until payday. Casinos are where they go on payday, of their own free will, after the lender is paid off. Hmmm... I've been in your average casino (strictly as an observer), and that's not your crème de la crème in there. I've seen people I knew playing for hours, whom I had no idea had money to burn like that. Maybe they don't. But it's their right, yes?

Then I heard about someone's widowed mother-in-law who got a HELOC on the "family home" and spent it on the machines. Were her kids ever in a tizzy! LOL.

Of course, no one puts an initiative out there to close the casinos. Are you kidding? They'd get killed. You can't throw a rock without hitting a gambler or someone with an interest in a casino. They're good for the economy! JOBS! If we don't have them here, everyone will go to the reservations to gamble at the establishments of the sovereign nations. And after all, no one is forced to gamble.

But I agree, these places are not nice. But that's what we are now. You wanted Aspen, Boulder or Eugene? We got Pottersville.

Hmmm...

2010-10-27T13:11:00.003-06:00

From 1984:

Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments …, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction.

Well, he sure was a reactionary, wasn't he.

MERS Mess

2010-10-15T17:06:00.005-06:00

There is a lot of buzz on the nets over this law review article about the Mortgage Electronic Registration System and its connection with the foreclosure debacle. Key pull quote:

Even though not a single state legislature or appellate court had authorized this change in the real property recording, investors interested in subprime and exotic mortgage backed securities were still willing to buy mortgages recorded through this new proxy system.

I was going to blog the article but there was so much in it...anyway, Karl Denninger sums sums it up rather nicely so why bother. Enjoy!

BTW, we are so screwed

Missoula's Troubled Assets

2010-10-11T20:14:00.016-06:00

Well it's almost property tax time again, happy-happy joy, etc. I don't know about you but I bust my A to get my taxes in to the county on time. But I am rather rigid by habit and financially risk-averse.

But from the looks of the delinquent tax list, some people are pushing the envelope.

Today I was looking at what paltry online property info we have in Missoula County, and this one jumped out at me: Clawson Manufacturing owes for 2008 and 2009, over $76,000. They made the windows in my house. A few years ago they were constantly advertising for help. So I decided to peruse the entire list.

Jim Palmer Trucking owes for 2009, on several parcels. I didn't add them up.

Six Mile Tavern owes from 2007, almost $6,000. It used to be Larry's Six Mile, but Larry is gone.

The business that likely owns the Claim Jumper, behind for 2009. Red Bird Buildings LLC - I assume this is the restaurant - owes over $11,000 for 2009. I saw the Fat Cat Casino on the list, and even the Liquid Planet coffee kiosk at Mullan Station. The Moose and the Masonic lodges are behind on taxes for their buildings.

Familiar names include architect Eric Hefty, Bruce Doering (owns Marshall Mountain) and Scott Cooney (Bonner mill site).

Maybe it's a part of tough business brinksmanship to let the taxes slide a couple years until the economy snaps back. But will it? Watching with keen interest are the developers of Circle H Ranch (circling the drain), Running W Ranch (running for cover), Canyon River (oh never mind), Bitterroot Trails (i.e. Tom Maclay), and other various ventures and concerns whose line of business I can't make out. So that's lots and lots of...lots, all in arrears.

Enough for the assets - we also have condos! Unsold Clark Street Condos, University Flats, Verde Condos, Mullan Heights condos, Uptown Flats, The Factory Condos, The Corner Condos (Eric Hefty), The Babs condos, and even a few of the Wilma condo conversions are delinquent.

Apparently the edgy urban lifestyle sells only in times of prosperity. Who knew?

Happy Coltrane's Birthday

2010-09-23T19:39:00.001-06:00

It's a matter of great debate whether he led jazz to new heights or off a cliff, or both. But he was still a great player and student of music. This is the best live video I have found so far.

John Coltrane, September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967.

War on Savers to Continue

2010-09-22T06:32:00.002-06:00

When all you have is a hammer...

WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve, meeting for the last time before an election that hinges on the weak economy, edged closer Tuesday to jumping in to help and suggested it's more worried about prices falling than rising...

If the Fed does act, Chairman Ben Bernanke last month indicated a preference to buy large amounts of government debt — a move to lower rates on mortgages, corporate loans and other debt and get people and businesses to spend more money.

Yeah how'd that work out for us so far?

Vote Dumb

2010-09-19T15:28:00.003-06:00

Chuck Johnson is out of it. Or maybe Montana's Reporter just recycled a story from decades past.

HELENA - An increasing number of tools are available on the Internet for voters to learn more about congressional candidates, where they stand on issues and who supports them financially.

These websites offer valuable information about candidates to supplement the campaign coverage provided by the media.

The latest comes from Project Vote Smart, the national nonpartisan, nonprofit group based in Philipsburg. In addition to its traditional online information about candidates, Project Vote Smart has developed a quick and easy way for people to compare their own views with the stances of congressional candidates on a dozen key issues.

How long have we been reading these biennial pieties about Project Vote Smart? Like, forever and a week? But take a look at just how few candidates even participate in this thing: Here are the state house candidates, and here are the senate candidates. For the senate, in our area, only Bob Lake of Hamilton bothered with it. Look at all the zero responses for house districts 91-100 in the Missoula County region. The non-responsiveness cuts across party lines, though for all their sniveling about "transparency" the Democratic candidates are surprisingly reticent.

But wait, you say, these are just the stinking legislative candidates. Who cares about their picayune races? The average voter has no idea who these people are, who come to the door, hang stuff on the doorknob and leave messages on their answering machines. No one knows who they are or who they're running against. Gee, maybe someone can come up with a web site to help with that.

Meanwhile, Project Vote Smart has a new app to help you with the easy ones.

Is the Price Right?

2010-09-17T07:16:00.003-06:00

It's about time.

HELENA - An interim legislative committee voted Thursday to endorse a bill that would make public the sale prices of residential and commercial real estate.

The Revenue and Transportation Interim Committee, by wide margins, endorsed two separate bills that will be introduced in the 2011 Legislature to make these prices public. Sales prices of agricultural and industrial property would continue to remain confidential.

Only Montana and nine other states by law keep real estate sales prices confidential, while it's public information in the other 40 states.

Yeah and it's available online, along with the mortgage amount, and the number of HELOCs...

Joe Roberts, lobbyist for the Montana Association of Realtors, opposed the bills, saying he considered making the sales prices public a violation of the state constitutional right to privacy.

Hahaha, nice try, Joe. Make it a constitutional thing. The real reason is, they don't want you to know the comps. Right now that could put a little downward pressure on prices, yes?

Going Native

2010-09-15T19:36:00.000-06:00

But she wears the thing so dangerously back on her head...

Getting Away

2010-09-09T06:44:00.005-06:00

Why do people move to Montana thinking they can just leave all their problems behind?

HAMILTON - Ravalli County attorney candidate Bill Fulbright told supporters in August that a battle over student loan payments had forced him to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2003.

He didn't tell them the bankruptcy included a $250,392 professional malpractice claim from a lawsuit filed the year before in California.

So, he was practicing without malpractice insurance, got it. Either that, or he had other claims which made these exceed his coverage?

Fulbright is running as a Republican candidate against incumbent Ravalli County Attorney George Corn. He currently serves as a deputy county attorney....

He said his family's decision to file bankruptcy was the result of a 10-year "running battle" with the Federal Student Loan Commission over its decision to capitalize interest on his student loans.

I don't understand this. I f you get deferments doesn't the interest capitalize automatically? Or is he saying he paid the interest and was being wrongly dunned for it?

Fulbright said Monday he didn't know the Larkin case had been filed in superior court.

"I was never served in that case," he said.

Well, hell, he should be able to get the judgment set aside...oh never mind.

Fulbright said he didn't remember the details of the Gomez case, except that it involved a personal injury.

"She was an unhappy client ... after practicing law for 10 years, you get people who are mad at you," Fulbright said. "It happens."

Fulbright said he and his family had already moved to Montana when the two cases were filed.

Oh, that's different then. He said goodbye to all that when he left Cali - to go to Montana, where men are men, and a guy can just forget the past and start over, and run for office. It might have worked, say, 100 years ago.

The Big School Reform Hustle

2010-08-20T17:19:00.025-06:00

Our dynamic and well compensated school superintendent, Alex Apostle, says he wants to prepare Missoula County schools for THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY. Why? Because of all that cool new technology out there.

The director of the Watson Children's Shelter awoke one morning two years ago to a heaping plate of eggs delivered to her room. And Dad wasn't home that day, so Albrecht asked, "Where did you get the eggs?" "I Googled ‘How to scramble eggs,' " said her daughter, quite nonchalantly.

Wow! She Googled - for a recipe! So, the experts surmise that since the kids know how to Google, and text each other, and play computer games, and stuff, we should leverage all that sophisticated TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY knowledge to, you know, basically teach them about how to do what they already do now - ?

Thursday marked the beginning of the massive community- and school-driven effort to not just change Missoula's school system, but to reimagine it.

"...reimagine." Is that a word? Or is it kind of like "visioning"?

The committee met Thursday afternoon to outline its broad agenda for the next year - which will require the time and efforts of teachers, administrators, students and the public.

They all have my deepest sympathies.

MCPS has hired the educational firm Public Consulting Group Education of Portsmouth, N.H., to oversee the process. The contract cost around $150,000.

Always hire a consultant to validate what you already want to do. It makes it all seem more...valid.

And the firm said Thursday that what Missoula is embarked on is truly groundbreaking. Districts around the nation have been talking about "21st century education" for years, but Missoula is leading the way, PCG said.

It must be true - our consultant said so!

"It is the most exciting project in the country," said Steve Kutno, project director at PCG. "What we have here is an opportunity for us to say, ‘What should education look like?' "

Far different, in all likelihood, than what it looks like now. The model will try to address the reality of instant communication, hyper-speed changes in technology, and the skills needed to work and live in a world where science fiction becomes reality every day.

Casualties could include the requirements for graduation, the 9-3 schedule that students currently keep and even the walls that segregate classrooms.

What, graduation requirements, a casualty - ? And back to the open classrooms thing from the 1970s? (And walls segregate classrooms - who knew?)

Finally, we get to the bottom line:

And all of it will largely depend on the passage of school levies; MCPS has already said it will seek figures in the millions of dollars.

And there you have it! This is just a big hustle to get more funding for schools by raising your taxes - for the children.

The puff piece in the Missoulian coincides with an op-ed in the New York Times by Paul Tough.

HOW much evidence does the government need before trying something new in the troubled realm of public education? Should there be airtight proof that a pioneering program works before we commit federal money to it — or is it sometimes worth investing in promising but unproven innovations?

Oh hell yes, we don't need no stinking proof that some "new" innovation will work; "experts say - " is usually enough for school district bureaucrats and schools of education, yes? Tough discusses the Obama administration request for $210 million to fund "Promise Neighborhoods" around the country, based on a similar project in Harlem that has not yet proven itself despite copious hype.

A certain skepticism with regard to innovation is always wise, especially in public education, where highly touted new programs often turn out to be disappointments.

Especially when lax testing is suddenly updated, revealing that achievement gaps have not really narrowed at all. Then there is the enduring travesty of Head Start. (Tough inexplicably concludes yet more innovation is needed.)

Apostle must sense that the locals are unaware of all the decades of highly touted but failed reform efforts around the US. He goes almost apocalyptic.

"The destiny of our children is at stake," said Apostle, who was hired two years ago, in part, to enact such reforms. "There is no failing here. None whatsoever."

My, Mr. Apostle is living up to his name. He is an apostle for the Bold Innovation. He will push these "sweeping reforms," dragoon all the "stakeholders" into months of tedious meetings, brainstorming and navel-gazing, culminating with the recommendation that yes, we the people need to cough up more money for schools so we can buy more of that technology and stuff. Then that way, the students might be more entertained, and not have to work so hard at learning.

Missoulapolis predicts: Apostle will then declare victory, move on to some other district on the strength of this "success" (at raising money) or retire to work as a consultant - in education, of course. And we'll be left with the tax bill, and little to show for it.

So what is education for THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY? It's already been reimagined for you right here. Yes, it's the same old progressive ed agenda - only now it's for THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY! Let the kids learn what they want, let the curriculum be fun and relevant. Make it relate to real life - a life of texting, Googling and gaming! And in 10 years when Jeremy still can't read or write or multiply fractions, we'll just have to come up with another Bold Innovation.

V-J Day, Honolulu

2010-08-14T13:07:00.003-06:00

Via Iowahawk.

VJ Day, Honolulu Hawaii, August 14, 1945 from Richard Sullivan on Vimeo.

Query

2010-08-13T09:21:00.004-06:00

This is more of a Tweet, but my Twitter account is deactivated.

Do people really, literally spit out coffee over their keyboards when they read something funny online?

The Slug

2010-08-11T17:06:00.000-06:00

The Slug.

The Slug

Angry Pharmacist on a Tear

2010-08-03T13:40:00.000-06:00

I love this guy's anger.

You may think that I’m blowing smoke out up your ass, but take a look around next time you are in a public place at the amount of morbidly obese people are mouth-breathing around. Look at their kids and the crap they stuff into their face at an alarming rate. Its not ignorance thats fueling this, its the simple fact that when push comes to shove they will get treatment without payment. We are afraid to say “You did this to yourself, you deal with it” because of some bullshit excuse like “its not their fault”. You may think that sounds uncaring and callous, but take a second out of your candyland outlook and look around you at the people who are pissing their health down the toilet on your dime just because they can.

Healthcare is a business, All of us; doctors, pharmacists, nurses, PAs, NPs, and the staff that help us all have bills to pay and families to provide for. Charity won’t put food on the table, and the sooner you realize this the better off you are. If you want charity and “helping those in need” then work for free and see how far that gets you.

Under Construction

2010-08-03T06:16:00.000-06:00

Back on Blogger.