JustThinking.us

 

Here's maybe a better example on how government and the "Political Class" keeps America divided.

 

Let's say somebody earned $100,000 last year.

How much taxes did he/she pay?

 

Who the hell knows?

Everybody is different.

 

Do you have a mortgage?

Live in a high tax environment?

Breed excessively?

Drive far to work?

Save for retirement?

Support a church or a charitable organization?

 

There is only one area where everybody is the same.

Everybody is pretty damn sure everybody else is paying a helluva lot less. 

 

Let's take your Uncle Roany as an example.

I own my home free and clear, having bought a much smaller, cheaper house than I could have, had I been willing to mortgage.

 

So ....... here's my question?

Why the hell should I be expected to subsidize your purchase of a bigger

and nicer house than I have??????

 

I really like sex.

Really, really.

Seriously.

Early on in my marriage, I didn't realize that a lot of sex would result in a lot of babies.

I thought it was the fluoride causing it.

Why should you be asked to subsidize the consequences of my baser instincts and lack of training in the "Facts of Life"?

 

Because I have a pretty small house in a suburban bedroom community, my property taxes are pretty low.

Why should I have to subsidize your life style in a real cool, high tax city.

 

I like to give money away.

Why should you be expected to subsidize my religious, charitable or civic convictions?

 

How do you think people would feel about themselves, their neighbors, and their country, if everybody knew everybody was being treated the same?

Whatever that sameness might be?

 

 

Distractions abound in this country.

Cynical Roany thinks that this is by design.

The example of this that best speaks to me has to do with taxes.

Your "Silly Little Democrats ............." are always whining about tax cuts for the "The Rich".

Your "Formerly Feckless Republicans ............." counter that "The Rich" pay almost 90% percent of all the income taxes paid in this country.

The American people pick a side and go to arguing and finger pointing.

Anger and upset are the only outcome.

Media is complicit.

Everybody benefits except the citizenry.

Democrats have their union and legal haters pumping up the masses.

Republicans have their wealthy and middle class constituents feeling themselves to be under siege.

The media get their ratings and sell their advertising because promoting drama is good for business.

As for me?

I got questions.

First of all, who the hell is "Rich"?

As opposed to, who the hell is Rich?

I'd really like someone to define "Rich" for me.

Is "Rich" a function of income?

Are you "Rich" if you made $250,000 last year?

What if you've never made anywhere near that number ever before?

What if you're unlikely to ever make that much again?

That doesn't happen you say?

I know a raft of guys in the real estate business who had a big year that they have never duplicated.

How about if you're only making $60,000 a year, but it's from a $1,800,000 in CDs or treasuries, and you happen to be living in a nice little, paid for condo in Destin.

"Rich"?

 

 

 First of all, apologies to whomever put together the below chart.

I grabbed it off from somewhere thinking that there was some identification on the chart to acknowledge and link to.

There is not.

Now I can't remember where I found it.

If somebody has seen it before, let me know.

I will cheerfully give credit and link to the source.

 

The following chart provides an outstanding example of how our government keeps us apart and at each other's throats.

 

Anybody paying the slightest bit of attention has heard that the rich pay the lion's share of the INCOME TAXES in this country.

It is true.

The top 1% of taxpayers pay about 35% of our nations INCOME TAX.

The top 25% pays about 83%.

The top 50% pays about 96%.

It is also true, the rich earn the lion's share of our national income, but on a percentage basis they pay more in taxes than they earn in income.

 

But INCOME TAXES on individuals only makes up 43.5% of the total tax receipts of the federal government.

42.3% is paid in in the form of "PAYROLL TAXES" aka "WITHHOLDING TAXES" aka FICA, aka Social Security and Medicare taxes which are deducted directly from wage earners paychecks and are sent to the government.

The balance mostly comes from by corporate taxes which we all pay when using the goods or services provided by corporations, and some other relatively minor sources.

 

 

The withholding rate for "The Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund (OASI), again what most of us call Social Security or FICA is 12.4% of one's taxable income.

The rate for Medicare is 2.9% of one's taxable income.

For a total of 15.3% tax on wage earners above the INCOME TAX.

In the case of Social Security, the tax is largely paid by middle and lower income taxpayers because the income against which it is applied is capped at $106,800.

Here's where the truth gets bent (I'm trying to put the best construction on this).

 

You are told that the funds go to the "Social Security Trust Fund" or the "Medicare Trust Fund".

And that's true as far as it goes, but what really happens is that the Federal Government issues debt (bonds) which is exchanged for your (cash) payroll taxes.

And subsequently sends your payroll taxes (cash) to the general fund.

Every dime of income the Government collects regardless of source, ends up in the general fund where it is spent as though it were exactly the same thing as "INCOME TAXES".

 

Name an activity that the Federal Government participates in, and that is where your FICA is being spent.

Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, maybe Iran.

Defending Europe (NATO) from Russia, or Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan and South Korea from North Korea and China, the Saudis from Iran.

Not to mention from their own people. 

Welfare benefits, unemployment compensation, food stamps.

Government salaries, pensions, benefits and perks.

National parks, roads, bridges, education, research.

Office supplies.

 

Now, some of that stuff you can legitimately call an investment in America.

But is it appropriate to be investing people's health and retirement monies on all of the above?

Here's the government's argument,

"Some people are not able, or prepared to invest their retirement money themselves.  What if they make bad investment decisions and lose their money?

Were some people in control of their retirement funds they would indeed make some bad investments and suffer losses.

But just for fun, imagine a prospectus selling an investment in the defense of Europe.

 

Here's the offering.

You provide military equipment and personel to Europe free of charge, and in so doing allow the average European citizen a month of vacation every year, mostly free health care, and retirement at around age 58.

You don't get a plug nickel back, get to work until your 61.5 at least, but ................. you get to say that you're making the world safe for Democracy.

You can be a drooling moron and you're still passing on that opportunity.

So, here's the consequences:

Upper income people feel abused because they're thinking they're doing all the heavy lifting.

The middle class feels abused because they thought they were saving for their retirement, but are starting to realize that Social Security is likely to go broke, their money having been squandered. 

In truth, it ain't gonna go broke.

The government will print the dollars to pay you back.

The bad news is that each dollar is likely to be be worth a lot less than the one you payed in.

Retirement money is just being spent and not invested, which results in the poor feeling abused because there are no jobs, and subsequently no future.

While all they hear is "The Rich" bitching about their taxes.

 

If you've been in here and are going nuts because everything keeps changing, it's because I edited after I published.

Didn't know it.

 

When someone signs up as a user at this site, I send out an email to thank them and explain that there is absolutely no benefit at all associated with signing in here excepting that you can now post a comment (which nobody does anyway).

Well, it seems that there is a second feature that I had not thought of in that new users get to capture my email address.

Evidently, one of you forwarded my thank you through to your mom.

And your mom (Shelly) loves it here.

So yesterday, I'm at the tail end of clearing up the debris that had piled up during a two week vacation (almost three weeks actually if you count the week spent accomplishing damn near nothing while staring blankly at my screen thinking about being gone), when I decided to cruise through my junk email box to see if something worthy might be sitting there.

"Hmmmm." I say, "What's a Shelly?"

I'm not going to take up your time going into all the nice things Shelly had to say about the site ... the wit, the obvious intelligence, the great writing, etc.

Although I could, having memorized the entire note.

Shelly ended her note by asking, "Why are you doing this?"

"Hmmmm." I say yet again. "Why indeed?"

Well?

 

Just Thinking is where I decide what I think and what I believe.

 

I used to keep notebooks.

I save ideas, research, random crap that I think could amount to something someday, lists, quotes, etc.

Then, as computers became more useful, folders (I have folders holding folders of folders holding folders).

Then, as the internet bloomed, links.

I'm sure you believe me when I tell you, "I got the links".

Just Thinking is where I try it all out.

I grind around out there until something shows up.

When something I think has a chance finally pops up, I test it.

I grind around some more and honestly try to blow it up.

The more it fits into my world view, the harder I try to blow it up.

I'm not asking anybody to believe me on that one.

I write it down in my own hand (so to speak), stare at it a good long while ..... until I decide if I think it's true.

If I hit the publish button, you can be certain, I'm certain.

Now, the fact of my certainty does not necessarily mean that I think I'm always right, it just means that I'm certain.

One of my very favorite features when it comes to me, has to do with the fact that if I think I'm wrong, I just change my mind, and in so doing, become right.

While all the while, remaining certain.

To quote George Bernard Shaw one more time. 

And thank you Shelly for your kind words.

 

 

My little editorial inspired pretty close to twenty emails, about that number again in calls, two face to face conversations, and not one lousy posted comment.

Damn!!!!!

Out of probably forty total responses, thirty nine disagreed (mostly strenuously) about that part having to do with returning our troops to our shores, and retiring from providing military for the rest of the world's defense.

My very, very long time friend Terry D. was my single supporter.

Which made me laugh out loud, as I had told my secretary not more than a month ago that I could think of only one issue in over 35 years where Terry and I had not been in complete agreement ..... that exception of course being his first wife.

He did come around to my way of thinking on that one sometime after it was just too damn late.

His defense on this particular subject consists mostly of his accusation that all I had to say amounted to just a lot of "mumbling under my breath" and that had I felt that strongly about it, I should have just manned up and spoke out on the subject, and ..... in light of that fact that I didn't, I need to just shut up.

But I digress. 

My personal chef, Kelly doesn't want nuclear weapons to fall into the wrong hands as that could result in disaster.

Dougy F. wasn't totally disagreeing, but he did worry that if we scrapped out the offensive weaponry, "we will need it when the rest of the world falls into total chaos."  Then, "after a couple of years we can go in and clean up whatever is left and run it right".

T.G. finds the idea of "surrendering" to Islam to be unthinkable.

Tommy ? believes my plan would leave a vacuum, which as we all know nature abhors, that would likely be filled by the Chinese.

I mostly don't disagree with that one.

I also mostly don't care.

Japan, Russia and India have a lot of history with China.

All three of them will almost instantaneously start to rethink the way they go about their business.

Japan in particular will most likely get after developing a military that can deter Chinese aspirations.

Getting out of Europe is the best thing that can happen to us, if for no other reason than instead of supporting continental economies with American tax dollars, we will be supporting the local communities that are home to our military people.

You guys want a European Union?

Your gonna need to throw in the cost of defending it.

I'll admit to a twinge of guilt with regards to the British.

They are a great friend and ally (pretty much from the day they stopped attacking us).

Leaving them with the French seems cold.

But alas .....

What about Israel?

I'll cheerfully sell them missiles and warheads sufficient to roast anyone, anywhere that might think they want a go.

It's called "mutually assured destruction" and it's been working like a charm .............. so far.

 

Here's the issue as I see it.

We have within our capabilities the power to win any war we fight.

Including this war with Islam (not radical Islam) (or terror) that we are presently involved in.

The way to win it is to decide to win it.

I'll say it again.

 

The way to win this war is to decide to win it.

 

 

 

Understand now, this means going to war with the intent of killing everybody you can find and breaking everything you see until your enemy surrenders under your terms.

Wanna take Kandahar (Qandahar) Province?

Carpet bomb Kandahar (Qandahar) City.

Kill em all, break everything there (that's about 470,000 people, about 40 times that in sheep and goats), reduce it to rubble, then make that rubble bounce.

When you're finished there, move on up the road to Spin Bolduk.

Can you imagine the uproar?

The UN would be going nuts, people would be screaming about war crimes.

They'd spend hundreds of hours happily debating language for the non binding resolution condemning the action.

Now, just to make the point that you're no longer fooling around, move north to Khost (only about 160,000 people), continue the proceedure.

Every couple days, take the morning off from the bombs, and drop leaflets around the rest of Afghanistan which read as follows.

 

Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior?

 

Kidding.

Sort of.

Send copies to Mahmoud Ahmadinijad, Mullah Ali Khamenei, the entire Iranian Parliment, Bashar al-Assaad (President of Syria), Hamas and Hezballah.

When the calls come in wanting to negotiate some peace, forget to return them for a couple of days.

Set up the appointment for sometime around the end of next month.

Then stay busy.

You've just won your war.

And here's the best part, not one American mother's son has been lost.

Seem harsh?

I offer a series of letters from the month of September 1864 between Generals Hood, Halleck and William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army and the Mayor and members of the Atlanta City Council prior to the destruction of Atlanta.

 

These letters should be read by every citizen of this country.

 

Hell, they should be read by every citizen of the world.

 

They are reasonably short, to the point and with regards to General Sherman's final reply to Mayor Calhoun (go ahead, just scroll to the end), contain extraordinary wisdom.

Click on the gears.

 

Do it now, you're not doing anything important.

 

 

Now, it is my strongly held opinion that we are unwilling to do any of that.

And I say, that if we are unwilling to do what's necessary to win, and by win I mean force an unconditional surrender on our enemy, completely on our terms, what the hell is it that we are sacrificing the lives of our children for?

Our thinking here is that by invading someone else's country and keeping our military there to enforce our will, our enemy will soon grow fond of us, and want to become just like us.

Dwell on that one for just a moment.

Let's say just for fun someone else had the military power to successfully invade America with the same thinking.

What would you likely do.

My opinion is that a mess of people would roll over in the beginning, but another group would make it their personal business to kill and/or maim every foreigner they stumbled across ..... and then hide.

That's called Guerilla War.

It works pretty good.

Then what happens is your foreigners start getting frustrated and start killing people indiscriminately.

Which of course would include and subsequently enrage them that had previously rolled over.

Which would ultimately cause unacceptable casualties among the invaders as the formerly rolled over, now join in.

Which would ultimately result in your foreigner's withdrawal after an enormous toll was extracted from everyone.

So .....

Whoa whoa whoa .... wait a minute, isn't that exactly what you're proposing above?

Aren't you advocating indiscriminate killing out of frustration?

Nope, I'm just sayin' that if you want to win this thing, you're gonna have to get brutal.

If you're unwilling to get brutal, your gonna lose, and a bunch of your own will have been sacrificed for nothing.

My idea with regards to war is simple.

I'm disinterested in my enemy learning to like me, admiring me, or wanting to grow up to be just like me.

In this particular instance, I have little interest in walking off into the sunset arm in arm with my Muslim brother.

I think the entire concept of "nation building" is stupid.

After this is over, I'll be glad to do some business if he wants ... and there's a profit in it.

My idea is simply to make sure that everybody understands, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if you attack America, we're gonna come by for a visit, f&#$ you up real bad, and then leave.

Here's my ......

Whoa Whoa aren't you gonna piss off them that would have rolled over anyway?

Yup.

The difference here is that there aren't any Americans hanging around town waiting to be killed in retribution.

If I go, I'm "raining death and destruction" and then going somewhere real double tough for my enemy to get at me .... home.

The only guys hanging around to vent on will be the very guys that started the whole mess in the first place.

Poetic, ain't it.

Hey, they're just gonna attack us here.

Maybe, but they're doing that now.

And if/when they do, whether they are successful or thwarted, I would spend some time looking into who's responsible, and/or profited, and when my list is complete, go ape-shit crazy on everything they know.

The notion of "proportional response" should become, as they say, "another casualty of war".

 

The only real edge Islam has is the fact that everybody is pretty damn sure they're crazy.

Print a cartoon, they cut off your head.

Proportional doesn't register in the Islamic mind.

And for that reason, pretty much everybody is scared of em.

I believe it's a good thing when your enemy thinks you're crazy.

Makes em think twice ..... if not thrice.

My clear preference is to have my enemy think I'm crazy.

And the best part is, I'm going to have almost all my guys here at home where they belong, playing defense and helping out with thwartation.

 

You get only two choices with any chance of success in this kind of business.

Go to win, or don't even start.

Unfortunately we have attempted the "third way".

Just ask yourself here. "What do we really want?"

What I really want is for Islam to stop attacking the World Trade Center and killing innocent people.

I'd prefer it if Islam would play nice with Israel, but if Islam doesn't want to, the consequences are theirs.

If Israel chooses to make certain of it's survival as a jewish state?

(Should jewish be capitalized?)

Well ..... I can certainly understand that one.

Our decisions up to now have only resulted in the tragic destruction of our very best young people and a colossal waste of our resources.

If you're gonna fight the damn war, the idea is to effect the tragic demise and colossal waste on your enemy, and his resources.

If you're not up to it, leave it alone.

Apologies for the very long post, I'm well rested.

 

I can't remember any vacation remotely like this one.

To say that The Thumb of Michigan is slow, is to exaggerate in the extreme.

The cottage I mooched sits dead between Port Austin and Caseville at the northern tip of The Thumb and as such allows for a spectacular view of both the sunrise and sunset over Lake Huron.

The sun moves in a near perfect U around the cottage from about 3 o'clock at sunrise, to behind you at noon, and then sets at about 9 o'clock, at about 9 o'clock.

I caught both every day, coming and going.

Took my nap about 11.

The days' highlights were pretty much limited to sunrise, blueberry pancakes, adventure golf, nap, a walk, dinner, sunset, bonfire.

The occasional trip on the rope swing.

There was only lousy internet service anywhere nearby.

I failed to open any one of the eight books I brought.

As for scorekeeping.

Spain wins the world cup in a very ugly final, earning me a tidy little profit.

Treasuries are booming and thus kicking the crap out of my short position.

The stock market and gold are, in the grand scheme of things, pretty much where I left them.

With regards to "The Bradley Model" and "the summer of doom", the Cardinal Cross begins to perfect itself late this week.

I'll update charts and address another record breaking run of calls and emails tomorrow.

I missed you too.

In the interest of full disclosure, these are very, very, very small records we're breaking here.

 

 

I'm heading out for a two week vacation.

Usually, The Little Wiffer insists on a vacation spent if not at the full 90 mph, a for sure 60.

This time we'll be mostly hanging out at a friends cottage.

I may post a little if I can obtain a consistent connection, but I'm making no promises.

For purposes of score keeping, as of this writing, Serbia is out of the World Cup, and I'm out a hundred.

Spain is still alive as is my other hundred.

The "Head and Shoulders" top in US treasury debt never broke through the neckline and resumed it's climb, putting me upside down on my short there.

I'd give damn near anything to know how to get a good chart out of MetaStock two times in a row.

I'm still holding that trade as it has a very long fuse.

With regards to "The Bradley Model" and "the summer of doom", the jury is still out.

The Dow Jones Industrial average is forming the same Head and Shoulders top pattern that let me down so despicably with the Ten Year Treasuries.

I'm up some on my shorts, but would prefer to be completely wrong on this one as many (most) of my best friends are ignoring my pleas.

I'm short a little, they're long a bunch.

In the interest of full disclosure, if I were short a bunch, I'd probably be demonstrating a far less charitable attitude toward my friend's finances.

I've posted below a very nice vid of my very favorite band of the last 20 years, BR5-49.

Category, "Nothing To Do With Anything" is now the go to archive for all the video that's been posted here.

Enjoy your Fourth of July weekend, and as always, be reminded of the wisdom of Sgt. Phil Esterhaus.

 

 

 

Chad Selweski, the local columnist for The Macomb Daily, published an opinion piece in Sunday's edition of that newspaper the beginning of which follows below.

The point of the article being that issues having to do with the deficit are extraordinarily difficult, and the real problem with Tea Party types being that they want to enjoy the services provided by government, they just don't want to pay for them.

Click anywhere below to read the entire article.

 

I wonder how our local Tea Party activists spent their Saturday afternoon.

How many took advantage of yesterday’s national forum, a teleconference held in 19 cities (including Detroit) and for thousands of individuals online, to seek solutions to the nation’s bulging budget deficit?

Organized by a nonpartisan group, AmericaSpeaks, the unprecedented event provided a sobering view of our country’s $13 trillion debt and the limited options facing Congress if it tries to tackle the problem.

 

The op-ed ends as follows:

 

Much of this entire fiscal responsibility issue centers on arithmetic, not politics.

 

The following is my reply.

 

To begin with .....

I'm not a member of any Tea Party affiliate.

I do like them and will support them.

I belong to no organized political party, I'm a Libertarian (..... probably).

Having said that ...

Here are some ideas which if applied would probably enable principal payments on the deficit in year 1.

Not necessarily in this order...

 

1.  Remove all American troops and military bases from foreign soil, excepting those troops stationed within embassies.

Leave NATO, abandon Okinawa, and allow Europe, Japan, The House of Saud etc. to defend themselves.

American military personnel are presently posted on some 760 military sites within 63 countries.

I haven't checked it today, but most years our military budget has exceeded that of the rest of the world combined.

Europe is cutting military spending in response to their deficits because we defend them.

Japan's defense budget is nonexistent.

Europe, Japan and the rest of the world needs to defend itself.

Their defense ain't our job.

We need to maintain fearsome defensive military power.

We do not need offensive military weaponry such as carrier groups (they are nothing more than big assed targets anyway), long range bombers, etc.

Scrap em out.

We do not need to be maintaining military bases on foreign soil, anywhere.

And we damn sure don't need to be defending foreign despots while allowing them to abuse their own people.

Ya listening Faisel?

As an aside.

While you're at it, reduce our payment to the United Nations to a pro-rata share.

Those guys are hopelessly corrupt and largely a waste of skin.

 

2.  Raise the retirement age to 67 and 71.

From 1950 to 2005, life expectancy for an American male has increased from 65.47 to 75.2 years while the median retirement age has decreased from 66.9 years to 61.7 years.

At it's inception there were 41.9 workers per Social Security beneficiary, we are now pushing toward 3 workers per beneficiary.

As you would expect, we now have over 50 million beneficiaries, 10 million of which are collecting Social Security benefits for disabilities.

While we're on the subject, reviewing every last disability claimant seems prudent.

 

3.  Rather than paying 100% of medical costs for medicare and medicaid recipients and attempting to fix costs by legislation, provide for the federal government to reimburse 67% of all health care costs for those eligible for medicare and medicaid benefits.

Prudence will reign by virtue of people now being responsible for a third of their own medical expenses.

They can insure or not, negotiate or not, get care or not, but the fact that a third of the cost is skin (so to speak) will save a ton of money and probably improve care.

If you're flat broke, charities can and will pick up the slack.

Hell, you might be able to provide 30% to maybe 50% coverage for everybody else under that kind of an arrangement and still come out ahead.

And while we're on the subject.

 

4. Loser pays.

As a sop to my many and dear attorney friends, limiting liability is nonsense, but nuisances gotta pay.

 

5. Deduct the first $20,000 of income for every individual and corporate taxpayer, and apply a flat 20% tax on every dime of income thereafter, from every source, cash as well as the cash value of benefits. 

End all payroll taxes, they're going into the general fund anyway.

Remove all deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions (Americans give because Americans give, the deduction is gravy ... lose it), IRA's, dependants, state and local taxes, depreciation, depletion ..... and every other damn thing. 

Bigger incomes pay higher taxes.

Identical incomes pay identical taxes.

Account across the board, Cash in, Cash out.

While you're at it require public companies to account to shareholders exactly as they account to the IRS.

Businesses acquiring buildings and capital equipment can write purchases off in the year acquired (the economy will boom), that's cash out.  If buildings and equipment are sold or scrapped later on, that's cash in.  

Removing mortgage interest as a deductible item will cause huge problems in such a debt infested environment, and as such would probably have to be phased, do it as ruthlessly as possible.

In the interest of financing growth, you probably want interest to be a deductible item for business adventures, but not against personal income, you want to prohibit the LLC from buying the homestead, or at least deducting the mortgage interest.

Dividends should be a deduction at the corporate level (cash out) and income to the recipient (cash in) at the ordinary rate. 

Income from federal debt should be taxed at the same rate as all other income.

Capital gains should be taxed at the same rate as all other income.

 

6.  Close the Commerce Department, the Department of Education, and HUD, as well as the Department of Homeland Security (it's a joke).

Somebody has been stealing from HUD my entire adult life.

End it.

 

7.  Sell Fanny, Freddie, Ginnie Mae and whatever acronym handles student loans.

Never guarantee or imply a guarantee of anything or anybody, to anybody, ever again.

 

8.  Legalize it!  Then tax it.

 

9.  Tax foreign oil at the border ... big time.

Develop gasified coal (it worked for Hitler, it'll work for us), along with nuclear, wind, solar, etc.

 

10.  Invest a little money and finish the fence.

Invest a little more to find and deport every last illegal residing in this country.

While you're at it fine employers of illegals, while significantly reducing unemployment benefits.

Think it through.

Jobs will come open, wages will probably increase with subsequent increases in tax revenues and reductions in federal expenses.

That Compton might have to drive out to the fields and pick a little lettuce is a also good thing.

 

You may choose to disagree with individual items, but that there be one helluva start.

Do the arithmetic!!!

People should listen to their Uncle Roany ... I got answers.

 

 

Sometimes, I deliberately forget to take my medicine before I go to bed, knowing full well that I will come wide awake between 3:05 and 3:15 AM

Back in the day, I used to wake up making deals, deal making being one of the things I do for a living.

Now days, I usually wake up free of a thought.

I like it.

To my way of thinking, my head empty of noise is a good thing.

Now some of you are likely to take this opportunity to say that I've existed in this particular state, pretty much non-stop for at least the past ten years.

You know who you are!!!

So, let me say this about that. Before you call.

To take such an obviously cheap and easy shot is so unbecoming.

You need to move you game, if not your entire consciousness up to a much higher level.

And if that's the best you got, you should be completely ashamed of yourself.

Anyway .....

Having failed to take my medication last night I came wide awake at precisely 3:12 AM as expected.

Only this time, I was thinking about War.

War with Iran feels inevitable to me.

Paranoid Roany is pretty damn sure that "The Powers That Be" are goading Israel into a war with Iran that's gonna blow up into an ungodly horror in an effort to change the subject away from the absolutely criminal job they've done on our economy.

Evil Roany is pretty sure there's a mess of those Iranian assholes that need killing anyway.

Good Roany on the other hand ........ is uhhhmm ........ well ........ Good Roany ........ you know ...... is pretty much in agreement with Evil Roany on this one.

Which brings me to my point.

In the past, if we were mad at somebody, we'd declare war on the whole damn country.

We declared war on Germany (twice), Japan, I'm pretty sure we declared war on italy.

Korea was a little different.

That was a "Police Action".

It was authorized by the United Nations Security Council.

Basically, everybody was still sick of war after two "World Wars" so ......... they called it something different.

Same basic theory as "Liberal" and "Progressive".

Vietnam was also different in that it was authorized by "The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution" which was not a formal declaration of war, but rather provided then President Lindon Johnson with the authority to do whatever was necessary including the use of military force to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty (in this case South Vietnam) without a formal declaration of war.

Close enough for government work.

The "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678" authorized "The Gulf War".

The "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists" got us started in Afghanistan.

Congress authorized the present war in Iraq with the "Iraq War Resolution (formally the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002)".

Ok, so here's my thought.

I don't want to have a war with Iran.

Sure, there's a bunch of guys over there I'd like see dead, and would even cheerfully chip in toward their demise.

But I kind of like a lot of the Iranian people.

I'm on their side, I don't want to hurt em.

Hell, I think a lot of them are heroes.

So, instead of naming the damn thing something that's gonna drag a lot of people that I like into a mess they don't need, like "The resolution to get nuclear weapons the hell out of Iran".

Why not just declare war on the assholes?

Leave the Iranian people out of it.

So, if it's me, I'm naming it "The resolution to kill deader'n Hell; Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mullah Ali Khamenei, the entire Iranian Parliament, the couple hundred pricks still around who attacked our embassy, and anyone else dumb enough to want to attempt to defend the above named assholes.  After which we'll be as gone as Keyser Soze and wishing the rest of you (and your children) long, healthy and happy lives."

I know it's long, but it is beautiful in it's precision.

Here's where the beauty resides.

Let's just for fun pretend we're Iranian citizens.  And the word gets out that The United States of America has just declared war on us.

Ahmadinejad is all over the TV about how we must defend our country against the American invaders.  This is scary stuff, and because we're scared, we're getting real damn mad.  Our hearts are in our throats as we prepare to defend our families, our wives, our children, our selves, our country.

Then the word gets out.

The Americans aren't coming after us, they're coming after that dickhead Ahmadinejad.

Aahhhhhhh!!!!

This changes everything.

Now, instead of being scared and madder'n Hell, we're starting to channel Tonto,

"What do you mean we, white man?"

Now, instead of oiling up the AK-47 and running off to some damn barricade somewhere, we're oiling up the AK-47 but staying home.

I like to think that (if I thought I could get away with it), I'd pop a cap or two in one of the bastard's asses myself, if only to save a little time.

People should listen to their Uncle Roany.

I got answers.

 

 

Obituaries suck.

They pretty much have to.

Who the hell has the time to give a rat's ass about some other guy's friend?

What newspaper has the column inches to give anyway? 

The man below, you couldn't do justice to in ten thousand words.

The final issue here has to do with the fact that he wouldn't want it anyway.

Gerhard preferred to "keep things quiet".

So, I'll say this much and then leave it alone.

One of the two or three most honorable men I've ever known.

 

 

Gerhard Stadler Sr.

November 10, 1927 - March 19, 2010

 

Gerhard Stadler, Sr., beloved husband of Isabella (nee Baumgartner). Loving father of Katharina (Werner) Linder, Gerhard Jr. and Dr. Frank (Dr. Marcia Lu). Cherished grandfather of Alexander Linder; Christian, Nicholaus and Isabella Stadler. Gerhard worked at the First National Bank of Chicago for 30 years where he became Vice President. As a world renowed expert of precious metals, he began the Precious Metals Department. He later continued his expertise as Vice President of LaSalle National Bank. For the past 15 years, he owned and operated Water Tower Precious Metals at Lakeside Bank.

Rest in peace my friend.