Put the death penalty to death, it's too good for them.

Well here we go into another sticky wicket...

The death of one Thomas Whisenhant who died Thursday at 6:20 p.m. of very unnatural causes.

Whisenant was guilty of the rape, murder and dismemberment of a beautiful young bride in the summer of 1977. Her husband never remarried. How could he. How could anyone live a normal life with a wife and children under the weight of the knowledge that twice or three times a year their lives would be disrupted by a knock on the door and "Papers".

Reminders of the event. Subpoenas to tell the tale again, news that the execution had been put off again and then again. Then finally thirty-two years, eight-months and twenty-six days later, after the lives that were to have been lived reach their twilight, they are called to view the photographs again and watch an old man die in relative comfort and peace.

It should make you mad. It angers me on a visceral level. Not that my heart bleeds for the dead but it bleeds for the living. The three mothers of the dead women this killing spree left in Mobile. The three boyfriends and husbands. The fathers and grandfathers and good friends. Being asked to recall again and again what she was wearing when she left for work, what she ate, what were the last words she spoke to her family.

And to put a fine point on it - my heart bleeds for you and me who lost not only parts of our own soul but a great deal of our pocketbooks with the care and feeding and financial responsibility of both the prosecutors and defense of this ruthless murderer.

No, my objection to the death penalty procedure is not from my bleeding heart for the killing of a rabid dog. My objection is to the pain and suffering of the survivors. The dead are dead but the living suffer on.

I believe that a year and a day should be enough time for appeal in death penalty cases.

But the whole thing begs the question -Who profits from dragging out these cases and upon whom does the burden fall?

What has this to do with the lawmakers of Alabama?

You tell me.

Le debt Nationalle'

My grandmother used to tell me a story about a snake that was lying in the grass and saw its own tail, swallowed it and completely disappeared.

This is my plan to pay the national debt.

Just follow this simple procedure.

Go to:

https://www.pay.gov/paygov/forms/formInstance.html?agencyFormId=23779454

Now do a little arithmetic, Open a second window and go to :

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Take the national debt (top left) and divide by The total number of US Taxpayers. (right side bar). Enter this number in line one. Fill out the remaining five lines, enter your credit card number, check credit and submit.{if arithmetic is not your thing just use $120,000.00 - that close enough}

And you are done.

Have every taxpaying member of your home do the same. When every household does this the national debt is paid. Simple – See how simple that was?

Be sure to check credit even though you have the cash on hand since this will be charged back to Citibank or one of the other bailout institutions too big to fail. The government will bail them out with a credit card all their own. Thus swallowing their own tail and completely disappearing.

( I once said jokingly that my ambition was to die owing a million dollars. Unfortunately it seems that it was no joke. It seems we all will)

The Community College System

Most candidates for office this year focus on "Jobs". So far no one has mentioned "Careers". In my view a career is a job that will feed the family. A career is a job one can retire from. A career requires an education to raise the employee above the average stock.

I believe that the Community Colleges need to live up to the purpose and obligations set by the State when the system was proposed in 1963. The obligation to create Careers.

In the beginning the Junior Colleges offered two years of collegiate education at modest prices to young men and women who might not be able, for whatever reason, to attend one of the larger taxpayer funded colleges or universities. Later the college system inherited the mission of providing advanced technical training for positions that do not require a four year degree. Every future policy coming out of our legislature, our Governors office, and our State Board of Education regarding the Alabama College System must reflect this history of service to the student.

The needs of the student must come first. Everyone is in agreement on this. Why then, are administrative suites bulging with men and women who have no contact with students. Why then, are classes increasingly taught by part time instructors who have few campus obligations and little personal commitment. To assess my perceived decline in commitment to the student some scientific comparisons should be made between the enrollment and outcomes of the full time and part time faculty. Comparisons should be made between present and past performance of the institution. If time has shown a difference then adjustments should be made.

Our teachers need to perform as if they taught at any college in the state. From English to electricity. Tenure needs a comprehensive review requiring more than the perfunctory three years of just showing up. In 2008 legislator Trip Pittman authored a bill which seemed to address these issues. The bill included five years to attain tenure rather than three. It offered tenure to administrators only with regard their teaching duties, and required continued professional growth of all faculty from the technical specialty to the doctoral.

I believe that all administrators should hold faculty appointments as happens in the four year institutions in this state. We need administrators who know first hand what is happening in the classroom. We need administrators who teach and interact through significant student contact (No, dealing with dissatisfied students doesn't count)

Our students needs can be kept on the forefront only if the decision makers are in touch with the reason the two year system is here. (The student).

Our Community Colleges fill an important need in in Alabama. Most of our Nurses, Emergency Medical Personnel, and Technical Service Providers come through the doors of the Alabama College System.

As the original mission provided two years of academic, technical and occupational training, so should present policies reflect a continuation of that vision and foster genuine reform. As we enter the next decade of the twenty-first century we should be ever mindful of the role Community Colleges play in creating those careers for our communities.

The straight dope.

One of the big city life problems we seem to be having is the addiction to hard drugs in our sleepy little towns. Methamphetamine, Crack Cocaine, and Oxycontin, Lorcet, cooked or raw. Attached to this we have theft, robbery, prostitution and loss of productivity in the work place. The inattention of children of the drug homes makes the problem intergenerational.

Sadly, our system allows generous disability benefits to those addicted to drugs and because of the economic downturn they can just as quick get on unemployment. Unemployment checks roll in while the drug store is "wide open".

One of the sad results of a community that grows into adolescence is the transformation from a time of innocence to the awareness of the pain and grief that goes along with adulthood.

This is above all why I am in the State Senate race. To get the laws passed that our current lawmakers have ignored. I don't want to go so far as to say they directly benefit from the sale of narcotics. But i will go on the record as saying lots of lawyers would be out of business without drug court.

I have been warned about revealing my plans that it might cost me votes. And it may, with ten thousand drug addicts in district six the drug vote could easily sway the election. ( I noticed one local candidate bowed out of the multi county meth bust for that very reason)

This is a little ramble about but to get to the point.

I have an eye for statistical anomalies. In a nutshell, I watch the ages of the people in the obituaries and if the Standard Deviation drops out of a certain range, well then as uncle Davis said when he saw the train wreck "Something caused that!"

This is not rocket science. Look at the paper today, yesterday, and tomorrow, you see men in their 60's to 80's and women in their 70's to 90's and then like a spotlight you see them. Anywhere from fifteen to twenty five percent of each newspaper's obituaries are men and women in their thirties who died suddenly of "heart attack."

Up very dramatically from last year.

The rash has something to do with unemployment. Something to do with quality control at the drug manufacturer (in Mexico usually) and something to do with just plain bad dope.

Before you write them off as just dope heads that are better off dead try to remember the children, the parents, wives and husbands, friends and employers who also suffer when someone close dies one of these drug related deaths. This fire must be fought at the base.

We must have a ban on over the counter sale of ephedrine and we must have mandatory registration of prescription drug sales to prevent doctor shopping.

As I said the pain of big city life includes deaths from dope. But something else is going on. Something is causing our people to die. And when they die we lose more than just the drug addict down the street. Something has to be done. It has to be done in Montgomery, and it is not being done by the people in office now.

Proud of what I have done for Phil Campbell?

When I mentioned to my boss at the college what I was planning to throw my hat into the ring, he said "Well I don't think the sitting senator has done a single thing for our school" .. I replied, "Yeah but when he hears I am running I promise you will get something before November."

My grassroots supporters came out early in my home town of Phil Campbell, I think a volunteer called on every house. The support was firm and fast.

Yesterday the Northwest Alabamian had a 180 point headline "$650,000 grant for the Phil Campbell Industrial Park"- “They’ve had a lot of people look at the property but they all required a sewer system,”

This has to be the most significant improvement in Phil Campbell since my uncle put in the water system in nineteen-ought-fifty-five.

This is good, very good, with unemployment raging at twice the national average in district six it is about time some incentives to get the people working again.

The shame of it has to be that it took a gentle shake of the Gentleman from Franklin County to get it done.

The Mexican Big Rig

Truckers Unite..


This morning I saw an accident near the Maud turnoff. A big rig hit a Cadillac in the fog. Somebody is going to pay for that.

NAFTA is about to have a come apart over the use of Mexican drivers on US roads. I have to come down on the side of the teamsters on this one. Perhaps give more fodder to my detractors who use my union support to suggest that I am "Not a real republican"

I have been concerned that a person who could smuggle a baby into the US could smuggle a nuclear dirty bomb. Now with the Mexican President in Washington trying to make us accept Mexican Trucks and drivers on Alabama roads anyone will be able to smuggle in an army.

Think about this a bit.

Mexican drivers bringing legal Mexican trucks across Alabama that do not have to comply with the rigorous CDL licensing of US drivers. Never mind the obvious possibility of using the trucks to smuggle in illegals.

And who pays when a Mexican big rig hits your family?

If I am elected I will pass legislation making every driver on Alabama roads an employee in Alabama.

_______________________________________________




Well there it is ... Some of you have found fault with my sign. The big red X.. One of my Yankee buddies said " You need to get rid of that racist symbol". I said, uh.. it is the Alabama Flag!

If you have to explain it then you can't explain it.

But, no I didn't X out my own name. And yes I did authorize it's use. The symbol is the symbol of the Alabama Tea Party. It is the symbol of lower taxes, smaller government, fiscal responsibility and term limits for my opponent.

_______________________________________________

Will The Real Slim Shady Please Shut Up

One of my greatest supporters, best friends, and political allies can't seem to stop saying in conversation " But you know he is not a real republican." This, I suppose, could be a point of debate, or even an asset in some circles, but it rankles me a bit.

His view comes from, I do suppose, the eighteen of the past twenty-seven years that I have spent defending the rights of fellow employees against unfair work practices. This has less to do with my political leanings and more to do with my big mouth. Which by the way, would have gotten me fired many times over had I not been a union member.

Or it could come from my statements that the financial burden of foreign war that changes nothing half a world away threatens to bankrupt our country. But that is not a party issue. That is a common sense issue.

So the question becomes, "Can a person support Labor and be a Republican?" I hope so. I hope so because the solid conservative Christian base that makes up the majority of the people of Alabama are people who get up and go to work every day. They are not the landed gentry. They are not the privileged few who are born with money { or pretty enough to marry into it.} They are salt of the earth people who believe that stability is the name of the game.

They get up at daybreak and get dressed and go to work even if they don't feel like it because they love their wife, their husband, their children, their community and their God. On Sunday they go to Church and their children go to school on Monday morning. They go to bed at night tired and satisfied that they have run the race well.

I listen with interest to my friends who promote the sound bite "I don't vote the party, I vote the man. " That sounds really good, and I can't help but smile at the Naivete' of the people who believe it, but I tell you no person who has ever put a hat in the ring believes it. As my friend Tommy said on his radio show. "It's like Verizon, it's the network"

And so it is. I am a republican because I signed the Republican Party Pledge. I will vote the republican plank and that means Pro Life and Pro Second amendment. It means Pro Job Creation and Pro Small Business environment. It means voting for lower taxes and higher standard of living for everyone -every chance we get.

The only time I would disagree would be if an individual member of that rich landed gentry tried to take control of the caucus and pass a bill that would grind a working man under heel for his or her personal gain.

I am a Republican in Alabama because, for the past several years, grinding the working man under the heel with low paying jobs and high taxes has been pretty much a Democrat pastime.

Mike JR Goens and the Times Daily Empire.

Mike J.R. Goens is the editor we all love to hate.

Of course only he and I are old enough to know who J.R. is - And know why this is a complement.

In fact, a few years ago I got so mad I canceled my prescription to the Times Daily. Now I have to drive to the Chevron station at five a.m. each morning and pay full retail price to get my daily dose of Mike's indigestion.

The source of my most resent indignation is Mike's assertion that not one of the candidates has put forth an actual plan.

He claims that in his extensive TV viewership that although no one is opposed to job creation or economic development no politician has put forth anything to actually create jobs to make life better for the people of Alabama.


This may contain a grain of truth as I might indeed not rise to the level of actual politician. I hope not, as this fits my overall philosophy that State Government is far too important to be entrusted to politicians.

This is somewhat akin to one of my lawyer friends in Russellville saying that all the candidates are law and order candidates, to which I replied "Yeah but you get indited a couple of times and it takes the edge off your argument. "

Likewise if you hold office thirty years and do absolutely nothing to create jobs, exports goods, or import dollars it kind of takes the edge off your job creation and economic platform.

Mike, if you choose to turn off the TV and listen for a minute, I do have a plan.

And although you warned me that actually disclosing a plan might cost a candidate votes -

Here it goes.


My plan is:


A block of wood!


That is correct.

A twelve inch by twelve inch by twelve inch block of wood.

Or a ten gallon aquarium filled with wood chips, About the same thing. .


Mike, Tele-port yourself, mentally if you will, to a random point in District six. The area roughly sixty miles wide and one hundred miles long in the Northwest portion of the state. More than five thousand square miles containing less than one hundred thousand people. Open your eyes. What do you see?

Trees.

Lots and lots of trees. Pine. Oak. Locust. Cedar, Scrubbrush. Now - be aware that one cubic foot of that forest is equal to one gallon of gasoline. One acre of the tops and scrub left after a good lumbering is eighty thousand pounds. The total standing timber in Northwest Alabama is equivalent of Ten Billion Gallons of gasoline. Forest byproducts left to waste and rot each year could be money in Alabama's pocket if there were a market for low grade wood chips.


My proposal is to offer a bond issue to a company that will build wood chip electrical generating facilities in District Six. Each fifty million dollar bond issue has the potential to put five hundred workers directly in jobs and indirectly employ another thousand. The demand for clean energy is so great that plants can be profitable and the loans can be repaid within three years. Add to this the latest EPA regulations that effectively destroy the potential of coal as an electrical generating fuel and you see we are left with. Nuclear plant licenses are forty years and have to be amortized over fifty. Wind farms are controversial and expensive, and wind in Alabama is seasonal. Solar is even more expensive and requires massive federal subsidies.

But wood is CO2 neutral. Clean Burning, Potash (fertilizer) Producing, Available and Renewable. In fact, wood chips can be added to existing coal facilities to help meet EPA requirements.

Now Mike that is a plan. And before you go shooting it down take a look at Haley Barbour in Mississippi and the fifty million dollar bond that Mississippi issued to take away Alabama jobs. When I see a newspaperman whining "Where's the Beef?" I feel kinda like asking "Ain't it easy to criticize the hypocrites from the outside? "


So Mike..Turn off the TV and tell me. " What is your plan? "

Arizona

Lets try again with this immigration thing.




I have said that I find no fault with hard working Christian people coming to America and trying to make a better life for them and for us. Frankly Alabama needs the population.

But, Imagine for a moment that a group of armed Russians landed on the Alaska shore.

Imagine that the Canadians tried to take Detroit.

Imagine even that the British invaded Boston harbor.

What would be the response of the American People?

What would happen if a state that borders Mexico suddenly found themselves facing armed insurgents who ruthlessly murder American Citizens.

Apparently nothing. Because this is exactly the situation in Arizona. Apparently we care too much about the sensitivities of the Mexican Government and too little about our own.

We worry about troops in Kandahar.. But say nothing of the National Guard in Chicago or the need for boots on the ground along the Mexican border.

We are slowly becoming an occupied land.

And the soldiers we need to prevent it are half a world away.

Oh Dear! I misspoke!

That is the trouble with talking about Immigration. Like any complex issue, painting with a broad stroke is likely to put a little whitewash the innocent victim. I said the problem was not Illegal Immigrants, but rather Legal Immigrants.

What I meant by that, and what I should have said was,

"The problem is a failed immigration system. "

What kind of country allows a foreign country to build a manufacturing facility and then staff it with people from the home country. Can Toyota build a plant then put up "little Japan right outside the gates?" I think not.. I hope not. Yet when we are talking about neighbors from the south it happens all the time. People legally in this country with a green card, brought in to work in a plant, while people who live with a mile of it are on state unemployment.

Please understand that there are thousands, even hundreds of thousands of people who immigrate from Europe and South America and Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras for legitimate reasons and become citizen-track Americans. These people need not carry the label immigrant. they are American Citizens.

Such is the problem with painting with a broad brush. Usually when we are talking about the Immigrant problem in Alabama we are talking Hispanic. In New York it is Asian, 40 years ago it was Irish. It has been in the past English, German, Italian, Irish, African, Chinese, Japanese, even Jewish as an immigrant group.

Arizona is absolute right. Something has to be done to stop the lawlessness that flows from the south. I think maybe we are blind to the fact that an invasion of another kind is happening in Arizona. An invasion that may require a military response.

About the new registration law in Arizona. I support it. If only to avoid a military occupation of Arizona. American history is filled with events that required drastic measures. However the Supreme Court seldom asks me about these things. Thus I promise you the law will be overturned before a single arrest is made.

______________________________________________

Oyey-oyey-oyey .. News reports indicate that the Gulf Oil Spill was miscalculated. Instead of 1000 barrels a day, then 5000 barrels a day, now the estimate is 75,000 barrels. - Three and a half million gallons a day.. Oh and the automatic manufacture of huge amounts of deadly Methane Hydrate massing around the spill.

Write it off and Blow it up! Do it Now!

Immigration, Arizona, and the Illegals.

"And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six." Rev 13:17-18


We are going to wade in some deep and murky water today gentle reader. To answer the question put to me -"What do you think about Illegal Immigration?"

My friend has a tag on his email that says something to the effect of

" What part of Illegal in Illegal immigrant don't you understand?".

I agree.

Sort of.

Just like I agree that we should all not cheat on our taxes and we should always obey the speed limits and we should always yield to the flashing turn signal on the driver in front.

Illegal border crossing is a problem. A huge problem. If a person can smuggle in a baby they can smuggle in a weapon of mass destruction. A nuclear or chemical device. Even a modified biological like a variation of deadly E-Coli on your lettuce. Preventing this from happening is the job of our nations highest military commander-n-chief.

And it is not being done.

We will have to wait until there is an explosion or people die to get excited about it.

But there is another side of the coin. The poor, the tired, the huddled masses. Mostly the poor that are legally imported by some ruthless manufacturer or chicken processor who wants to bring in cheap labor to keep the price of chicken soup or tomatoes low and take your job opportunities.

Actually the foreign burden on our health care system is largely Legal Immigrants. The jobs that are lost are largely the Legal Immigrants. The illegals don't get food stamps, or medicaid. They can't get a drivers license. If they work in a job that deducts social security or state taxes they don't apply for a refund. They don't get earned income tax credit.

This, I am afraid, is the dirty little secret. That Illegal immigrants actually make money for the State. So the elected leaders don't want to "find' them.

Then there is the third side to this coin. The idea that we can somehow check for legal status with "papers". I assure you that a criminal who can make a $20 bill can make papers as well. The only proven alternative is a national database of DNA (and this has been proposed) for citizens and a smartcard ID system that can take a blood or cheek swab on the spot.

That makes me nervous. Not the ID system so much. The people in D.C. who would be in charge of the information. That makes me very nervous.

<666>

I know all about Iran. I ran for Mayor and then I ran for Governor!

I have a confession to make.










No.. not that..

My favorite in the past Presidential campaign was Huckabee. He made sense. he was a Protestant Christian, and he played bass guitar. Anybody who can play all seventeen minutes of in gada da vida deserves my respect. My second choice would have been McCain. I call it the John Glenn syndrome. I have long said that all presidential candidates should have a rocket strapped to their behinees and shot into outer space. The ones God allows to return are alright with me.

The same applies if you happen to spend six years in a prisoner of war camp.

But frankly I was not much interested in the idea of President Palin. Or that other pushy broad for that matter.. (just kidding gals)

Lately though my opinion of Palin has softened. Maybe because a media blitz is trying to soften it for me. Maybe because some of my detractors are saying some of the same things about me in this race that I once heard about Palin.

And it stings... oh it stings.

Ice Crystals of What? / The Nuclear Option!

"Lighter-than-water crystals called hydrates have thwarted BP's attempts to contain the gulf oil leak with a 100-ton funnel. The extreme pressure and low temperatures at the sea floor are creating tiny shards of crystallized gas that clogged the steel and concrete cofferdam and threatened to make the structure buoyant. BP has moved the containment dome 650 feet away from the well while their engineers continue to evaluate options."

What?

The news stories from BP continue to be released. With nice nice like "BP plans to pay for all Damages" and "Our containment dome has been compromised by ice".. Well this ice ain't your mommas ice tea ice.

It is - sodium -methyl-sulfate something-or-nother..BP just doesn't want to come out and say "

Uh - now the thing is spewing deadly poison"

This along with the news that Alabama Law limits damages in courts to $75 Million Dollars.

About the damage to our beaches that occurred Tuesday afternoon.

I have to wonder, Does the US navy not have some kind of ordnance that will blow that hole shut?

Of course that would also blow shut any hopes BP has for making millions or even billions from this gusher after the blast.

It is beginning to appear that the need for profit is preempting the need to stop the flow of oil.

What do you think?

The Crash of 2:52

We have long feared the day Computers Became self Aware and took over the world.

Something like that is afoot.

Let me explain,

The market, and by extension the economy of the US and the world has been punctuated by bubbles and bursts over the ages. We come to know them as the Crash of the 19th century, The boom of the turn of the century, the crash of 1904, The crash of 32, the crash of October 07.. etc.
The trend is to mark these "corrections" in terms of a time.
The time getting shorter and shorter. Beginning with Centuries and reducing to Minutes. The Thursday crash was referred to by more than one financial pundit as the Crash of 2:52.

The reason, of course, is automation. All the trading firms have highly sophisticated algorithms that automatically buy and sell stock without human intervention. The programs are all different but they are evolving into a consensus about what the spread should be and what the "Delta T" of a stock is. The math professor within my gentle reader will recognize the term.

The crash of 2:52 occurred because 60% of all stock trades are done automatically, by machine, in something called "High Frequency Trading". With this going on individuals who trade online should glue a lever to the side of their monitor. It is like being in a gunfight with a robot Yul Brynner. (Sorry for the dated reference.. if you need to - look it up) People react in minutes or days, computers react in nanoseconds.

There is a condition, known as population inversion, in which most of the individual elements of a society become excited. This can happen with mobs of people in train stations, atoms in a ruby, or even nuclei of Hydrogen. The result is an explosion in the form of riots, or lasers, or atom bombs.. It even happens in your brain in the car lot when a sexy sales person is showing that that sporty little red number.

Unfortunately it can happen to computers too. If there happen to be a million computers trading and more than half trip at the same sell point the stock market will drop like the discharge from a 707 toilet. That happened at 2.52 on Thursday causing a number of cyborg traders to jump out their Microsoft window.

Some in the EU say it was caused when Hungry fried Turkey in Greece..

I think maybe it is Just Greed.

Greedy Little Computers.

A Mothers Prayer Day

Another one of those slow news days. The headline story is teachers insurance costs go from $2 to $15. Wow what a news item!

The Region story is about a guy arrested for coming into a woman's house with a gun and demanding money she owed.. DaNg! - What kind of people do you owe money to that makes collections in the middle of the night with a 357?, (I will give you a minute to ponder that)..

Most of my bill collectors are in ChInda anyway so I my worst worry is that they will call in the middle of the day .. IN INDIA.

But of some importance is the story on "National Day of Prayer" .. I suppose what day it is doesn't matter much as long as we have one but there seems to be some disagreement as to what day.. (We could make it April 15, as one person pointed out - everybody in the US of A is on their knees anyway.)

April 19 is considered.. Since for some reason the vampires on both sides of the isle seem to come out of their coffins on that day .. Then there is May Day, The Ruskkies would love that.. (sorry some of my best friends are .. never mind)..

There is Cinco De Mayo, Which has some controversy regarding illegal immigration. I guess we can't do that.


For my money, I could be persuaded to overlap it with mothers day.. After all if we could take our mothers to church, give them a nice corsage, hold their hand while we Pray . Knowing that every person in America who believes in God is holding the hand of their mother and praying for our Country would be a request the Lord God would not ignore.


I certainly wish I could pray with my mother on Sunday. If your mother is still of flesh and blood I promise you could give her no better gift.

(Although my mother has passed.. I assure you that this Sunday I will be praying. -And she will be right at my side.)



__________________________________________

Investment Tip of the day:

Cash in your 401K and put it on Super Saver in the Preakness.

Best Contest.

Oh Gosh.. better than the thriller in man'niller..

Young Boozer VS George Wallace Jr on Goat Hill

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY..!!!



Gosh... except this is not a WWE event or even NASCAR..

It is the Republican race for State Treasurer.

I know both guys.. in passing.. and frankly they are both quite qualified.

I Just think there is no better name a person can have for Politics in Alabama than George Wallace.

And there is no name better for a manager of State Finances in the coming storm than Boozer.. (sorry Mr Boozer but even Leno noticed)

I have the same trouble sometimes.. some put the wrong emPhasis on BoOner..

I think it was May West who said there was no bad publicity.

Nub Todd was credited with "I don't care what you say about me, Just spell my name right" A quote attributed to everyone from P.T Barnum to Mark Twain but of particular importance if a misspelling can get you censored or bleeped.

Anyway.. the names bring such focus to the contest that I don't know or care who is running on the Democratic side.

I think maybe you shouldn't either.


_________________________________

In other news;
Vast numbers of Politicians, Public Officials and Journalists have washed up on the Beaches at Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and Mobile Bay. No word yet on who will bear the expense of the cleanup.

Notes from the dead letter office.

My hip fell apart a few months ago. The healing will probably last longer than I will.

Last night I fell asleep, tired, but after an hour or two the discomfort got to the point that needed to stretch a little bit. I went to do my nightly security check of the kitchen. In a moment I had a Bacardi sniffer half full of warm milk and a couple of Advil.

Sitting at the dining room table, I noticed between the Pearl Tea Lites and the Plastic Cranberries, several envelopes of unread mail. Most were the legal size with the “bulk postage paid” look about them but one was a brown envelope, slightly smaller than the regular size, with tattered ears and even darker stains the color of the skin of a man who has worked hard all his life.

I pulled the corner of the envelope and with little resistance it slid from the pack toward me. The address was my Mt Hester Road, but the stamp -A three cent George Washington. I rubbed my thumb across the upper left corner thinking maybe a return address was lost in the gray brown patina. Nothing.

I weighed it in my hand a moment. Turned it over and slipped my thumbnail under the lip of it. It popped open with the sound and feel of an August touch-me-not pod.

The letter was written on a single sheet of note pad paper, torn ragged at the top edge. The script was barely legible, a pencil scrawl against a paper so old and frail that it threatened to break in my hands.

It began,

Son, - I love you.

Soon I will be leaving this place. I wanted you to know some things before I go.

First, I regret the mistakes I made, and I hope you can someday pray that line in the Lords Prayer “Forgive me as I Forgive others” without flinching.

I want to say that Heaven and Hell are the same place the only thing that makes them either is that we must live with only the treasures we brought along.

God refills the bucket when it is empty, so don't be afraid to give away your last crumb. Too many people live their whole lives trying to keep a little in the bottom and never realize that if they clean it out it will refill like the magic pitcher we read about when you were small.

I wanted you to know the Church is a lock, your Heart is the key, and what is behind the door you will never know from the outside.

I hope you understand that my personal hell is the way you looked at me in my rear view mirror that last fateful day.

And you must know, that on the last day of your life, the Angel of the Lord will grant you a day to review.

She will allow you to re-live it second by second.

The joke is the Angel chooses the day.

And the day she grants might be today.

So live every one carefully.

Very carefully.

And finally, As Yoga Berra will soon come to say “When you come to a fork in the road -take it.”

There is no sin greater than a life unlived.

I love you son.

I will see you soon enough..

It was signed in the familiar scrawl of my daddy's own hand.

I picked up the letter, carefully folded it back into the envelope. Drank down the last of my warm milk. Then bound it with a ribbon and laid it into my home safe. I went to bed and instantly fell asleep.

7:00 a.m.

"Honey?"

"What is it babe?"

"Why is the utility bill in the Freezer?"

_______________________________________

Apologies to Loyce Bonner, May 5th 1922 - October 4th 1960

May 4th - National Prayer and Reconciliation day.

There's blood in the streets, it's up to my ankles
Blood in the streets, it's up to my knee
Blood in the streets in the town of Chicago
Blood in the streets and it's following me

J. Morrison, 1970

As I make my way around the district talking to people most are concerned as I am about Immigration, Unemployment, Taxes, and Political Corruption.. But about one in, oh maybe, 100 pull me by the elbow or cuff and start talking about Pelosi and Obama and the coming blood revolution..

I remind myself, and them, that faith and obedience to God is the solution.

I quietly extricate myself, go back to greeting voters, kissing babies, and shaking hands as soon as possible.


Much has been said of Pelosi and Obama and Socialism and what is going on in D.C.

Much has been said of blood in the streets.


But I recall a nation divided.


I recall talk of revolution.

I recall blood in the streets.

And I didn't care for it.

Official Song of the State of Arizona

Come to this land of sunshine
To this land where life is young.
Where the wide, wide world is waiting,
The songs that will now be sung.
Where the golden sun is flaming
Into warm, white shining day,
And the sons of men are blazing
Their priceless right of way.

chorus

Come stand beside the rivers
Within our valley broad.
Stand here with heads uncovered,
In the presence of our God!
While all around, about us
The brave, unconquered band,
As guardians and landmarks
The giant mountains stand.

chorus

Not alone for gold and silver
Is Arizona great.
But with graves of heroes sleeping,
All the land is consecrate!
O, come and live beside us
However far ye roam
Come and help us build up temples
And name those temples "home."

chorus

Sing the song that's in your hearts
Sing of the great Southwest,
Thank God, for Arizona
In splendid sunshine dressed.
For thy beauty and thy grandeur,
For thy regal robes so sheen
We hail thee Arizona
Our Goddess and our queen.


Arizona
Written by Margaret Rowe Clifford

I don't want to say "I told you so!'

I am writing today from my somewhat imperfect memory. I encourage the gentle reader to check my facts and remind me of the true and narrow way if necessary. I recall an episode of the "Beverly Hillbillies" where Jed and Jethro were driving nails with the rifle. Ellie May says "Shucks that ain't no sport, we should be bouncing them off a flat rock first."

But as I remember, on April 19 of this year I spoke to you of the pending transportation bill in the Alabama Senate. I suggested that perhaps it would be wise to secure the Alabama Trust Fund for use in emergencies like Katrina, or for economic development for rural areas, instead of passing a billion pound pork roast around the populous areas of the state.

Then on April 20 the top blew out of a BP oil rig fifty miles from the Louisiana Coast. First land fall of the oil slick was right below the place where Katrina landed in 2005. The explosion instantly killed eleven men and injured several others. As you know drilling into a pressurized oil dome is dangerous. Doing it safely on the open ocean is almost impossible.

The origin of the spill is within 200 miles of the Gulf of Mobile and is presently spilling between 200,000 and 500,000 gallons of oil a day into the gulf.

In that time span the Gulf will have seen four and a half times the oil from the Exxon Valdez in 1989. Valdez was the largest oil spill in US waters and is still regarded the worst man made ecological disaster of all history. This is worse. Much worse.

What has this spill to do with the transportation bill?

Well, it has to do with the origin of the Trust Fund. It is my recollection that the State entered into an agreement with the oil and gas industry to produce oil and gas in offshore wells in the Alabama waters and forgot to pay.

The state sued and got a judgment for 20 Billion for back payments.

The companies appealed.

The judge reduced the payout to 6 billion.

Which they still did not pay.

The final payment amounted to an agreement to pay half and and to pay monthly payments. ( Of which we lost a third in the crash of 'ought'seven)

Natural Gas payments and a recovering market got the balance up to near the 3 billion dollar mark in 2009 and the Hogs began to squeal. This resulted in the present transportation bill that allocates the majority of a billion dollars to less than 5% of the State.

So; it appears the cost of tourism lost, (10 billion) the cost of Shellfish lost (5 Billion) the cost to the shrimp industry (15 Billion) makes our 2 Billion remaining trust fund seem like a bag of peanuts in the elephant exhibit. The total cost to Alabama could easily break 30 Billion. Louisiana says it will cost them 65 Billion to recover. If they ever do. The effects of this spill will be seen on our beaches for a hundred years. Never again will we advertise " The Pristine White Sands of Alabama"

The spill will reach Alabama within the next week despite all possible efforts to contain it. BP says they are drilling an intercept well that “should” stop the flow in about 100 to 150 days. This solution, provided by BP, is to drop a drill through a mile of water then drill another half-mile of rock and hit a four inch unseen target to divert the pressure. Sounds a lot like Jed Clampett shooting a possum in the eye at 100 yards off the reflection in a wet rock. Good luck with that.