James Pyle – Author

October 7, 2013

I’ve loved beautiful Colorado ever since living there in the sixties, vacationing through the eighties and owning a vacation home in the nineties. People are friendly, outdoorsy, and active in a youthful culture – overall, a great place to be.   (Pardon my sigh.)

Unfortunately, over the past ten years, it’s also become a haven for environmental wackos, weenie apologists of every stripe, non-English-speaking voters and uninformed knuckleheads opposed to oil shale fracking.  They tend to cluster in the Denver metro area.    (Pardon my middle finger.)

Finally, there is resistance. Twelve northern counties are beginning the process of seceding to form a new state based on conservative views and values. Tentative name is New Colorado.   (Where is the contribution office?)

Stay tuned here and pay attention. Could be a prototype for the rest of the disenfranchised.

October 6, 2013

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any nuttier within the beltway – Congress Acts!  Not once – but twice.

First was to recall all those essential civilian workers at the Defense Department: You know, like, ‘financial managers’ and ‘ministers’. Apparently our hard working DOD employees can’t balance a check book without help or even pray to their God without a government advisor. We’ve always known they are no good at managing money; but they can’t pray by themselves?

Second, the House of Representatives met yesterday and voted 407 to 0 to guarantee back pay for all furloughed federal workers. WHAT THE F _____? You mean, that after Chicken Little, Wolf Blitzer and others struck fear in our hearts that the world was about to end if the government shut down, we end up giving these hard working government workers a paid vacation?  Where the hell is Putin when we need him?

I need a government education expert to help me spell:

R-E-V-O-L-U-T-I-O-N

October 3, 2013

‘The federal government shutdown has forced Sikorsky Aircraft to take the drastic step of furloughing about 2,000 workers, effective Monday,’ claims today’s CT POST..

I guess that means they are non-essential.

But, Representative Rosa deLauro said, “The disastrous implications of the reckless Republican shutdown are quickly being felt in Connecticut.”

The reason for the company’s action? ‘The production and delivery of Sikorsky helicopters for DOD, including the Black Hawk, cannot proceed without the help of Defense Contract Management Agency. They are a critical and required part of our U.S. government aircraft and parts inspection, acceptance and delivery process,’ said a company spokesman.

Critical and Required? What utter nonsense. Their non-presence would likely speed up production.

When I worked at Rockwell International, another large defense contractor, our DCASA representatives, on the days they bothered to show up, could be found in the cafeteria, chatting up the secretaries. If we needed a government signature on a document, we went first to the cafeteria, then to the nearest golf course.

Representative DeLauro would do the nation a service by learning a bit about defense contracting before mouthing more political blather.

October 1, 2013

Here we are on day one of the mandated changes to health care – the day when states are required to open their state-managed health exchanges. Of course, 32 states have opted out of the program leaving it to Washington to ‘manage, or partially manage’ (whatever that means) their plans. But no matter, charge on, all ye  believers in the fantasy that government is the best alternative for those lacking any semblance of common sense. (See my August 6^th posting: Benign Dictator.)

The good news is:  Those who screwed up the government program to assist homeowners defrauded by big banks will be operating the exchanges.

Band-Aids, anyone?

September 30, 2013

It’s silly season once again. Threats to shut down the government cloud the daily news. In the midst of all the hyperventilating on cable news about which agencies will be forced to cut back, I submit another brilliant solution. Suspend all Congressional pay until the problem is resolved. (Resolved will be the subject of a future blog.)

For now, let’s just not pay Congress. Eliminate their pay two days for every one day the government is closed. The old timers who have already gotten rich won’t care, but the newcomers will eventually get the message. We’ll get much better results than failing to pay our soldiers, closing national parks and eliminating grants for scientific research.

Now that’s a solution we can all agree with. Tell your representatives.

You are welcome!

September 16, 2013

Let’s be honest. What poses the more immediate threat to the U.S. struggling economy: Syria’s religious war or Wall Street’s war on ordinary consumers? I submit it is the latter.

The latest example of unbridled greed, coming on the heels of Aluminum ingot manipulation by Goldman Sachs and others, is the stockpiling of an obscure, but highly profitable trading moniker for Ethanol called Renewable Identification Number. It is, in reality, an ‘energy credit’ devised by our feckless Congress in the name of cleaning the environment – again. And, wherever there are credits to be traded, guess who keeps the books and handles the trades? Right you are! The too-big-to-fail banks who receive millions in fees for their ‘services’ are the Congressional go to guys – the same banks who fund their next campaign. Your gas prices have been increased by seven to ten cents per gallon thanks to Wall Street’s JP Morgan among others.

For those who don’t know what Ethanol is: It’s a product of corn or grain fermentation formulated to replace MTBE and its earlier cousin, lead, in gasoline. Originally intended to eliminate “knock” in your engine and cause it to burn cleaner, it actually reduces your mileage by 5-10% and is so destructive to rubber and plastic components in marine engines, lawn movers and other small engines, that mandates for those uses were eliminated.

Just one more, in a litany of unintended consequences triggered by the morons we elect to lead us and their much smarter, but gluttonist, big bank enablers.

September 8, 2013

I have to admit it: I’m tired! Not age related, work related.

No sooner did I solve the problem with Mexico (see my post of 8/27/13 ‘Mexico Border Issue’): now I gotta deal with the Syrian mess.

Why is it that world leaders never address real problems, but get caught up attacking symptoms? Inevitably they lose face, prestige and trillions of dollars fighting non-issues and suffering unintended consequences which always cost more in the long run.

The real issue in the mid-East is not sarin gas; it’s religion.

It’s time, people, to face the fact: there is no God.

To prove my point I’m inviting Obama, Putin, Assad, Morsi, Netanyahu, and whoever is running China these days to a dinner at my place in Bridgeport (Veggie lasagna, barbeque ribs and stray cat).

Conversation will focus on disbanding the old state boundaries and creating new ones based on tribal beliefs, not territories staked out by the bumbling British in the 1940s. New names will be created after the brandy is served; e.g. Sunniland, Shiitesylvania, Persiastan and Turksville.

If there is a God… my place will be struck by lightning before we ever get to the ice cream .

If we survive without burning in Hell, my point will have been made, so…

Get over it. Dig a well, plant some seeds, raise a chicken or two. Life will be great.

Mazel tov!

September 3, 2013

Can there be any doubt that allies and enemies alike no longer trust America? Our bumbling leaders have proven this country has not a clue about dealing with the horrific unrest in the Middle East. Have you noticed Israel and Iran are both silent on the latest mis-calculation by Washington over whether to bomb Syria? They stand stunned on the sidelines while the U.S. mouths verbal threats and warnings, all of which go unmeted while Russia smirks.

Withholding force until our interests are threatened is wise. I think that was, and still is, the reasoned approach to uprisings we don’t understand and cannot control. Perhaps our effort should go towards working with the Arab League to re-draw the artificial borders imposed by England and France in the late 1940s, providing financial support for those who choose to move to areas where others share the same beliefs.

You cannot bomb a religion.

August 30, 2013

Responsibility: 1) The state, quality or fact of being responsible for oneself or others. 2) Moral, legal or mental accountability.

Somewhere in the eye of America’s perfect storm of multiculturalism, educational decline, loss of family, liberalism and gender bending, a lack of responsibility has evolved like an out-of-control virus; initially unnamed and undetectable, it now threatens the very fabric of our society.

Obama thinks chamber maids should aspire to be captains of industry, uneducated fast food workers feel they should be paid double the market rate simply because they show up for work, football players with concussions now claim they were not told the game carried the risk of injury (DUH!).

If you have children: You are responsible to ensure they are healthy and educated, not the state. If you cannot do so, don’t have children.

If you chose not to work hard for an education when you were young, don’t complain that you must now work for minimum wage.

If you were naïve enough to think you need only work for twenty years in the public sector and would be rewarded with a lifetime of income and benefits, shame on you.

If you earned a multi-million dollar salary playing a brutal game, don’t complain and demand compensation because you never envisioned getting hurt.

By opening our doors to the third world we are slowly adopting the same value systems that people came here to escape.

The state won’t help. It has been corrupted to benefit only itself.

The time has come to stop this foolish plunge backwards. We must identify career politicians who pander to these non-performers and banish them to the long line of unemployed fast food workers. Term limits must be imposed over the objections of these feckless politicos. That is our responsibility.

August 27, 2013

I offer a simple solution to the complex Mexican border problem. The United States should buy Mexico.

So far, twelve million Mexican nationals (give or take a million) have indicated a preference for living and working in the US. The total remaining population of Mexico is 112 million.

If we buy Mexico and install U.S. laws, benefits and protection the remaining 90% won’t have to move. The bad news is they’d have to pay our tax rates and purchase ObamaCare health insurance.

Since 9/11 we’ve spent in excess of $90 Billion trying to secure the border from terrorists. In 2012, 364,000 migrants were apprehended – not one proved to be a terrorist! It cost U.S. taxpayers $18 Billion in 2012 alone to detain lettuce pickers and small time smugglers of marijuana which we are rapidly legalizing. The current Senate proposal for increasing the size of the Border Patrol will make that agency 25% more costly than the FBI, Secret Service, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, DEA and the U.S. Marshall’s Office combined.

Fences, at a cost of $3.9 Billion per mile (GPA est.) have not and will not work. Thus far we’ve fenced 700 Miles of the entire 1,954 mile border. Take a wild guess as to who builds the fences. Correct: US contractors employing Mexican labor (who also build tunnels below).

PEMEX, the national oil company has proven reserves in excess of 20 billion barrels. At $100/barrel, that would yield Two Trillion dollars, or, twice Mexico’s current GDP. Let’s make an offer of $100,000 for every man woman and child in Mexico and we get to keep the oil.

It’s a win-win for everyone. Muy bueno!