I don't give a healthy crap about the selfish national group known as stockholders, Ken. They're as piggish and greedy and selfish as the corps. they bow down to. Since when did the needs of a community/state/nation be superceded by the greed of an ever-growing, more demanding faceless corporation? These would be the corps. that: bank off-shore to avoid their responsibilities as U.S. taxpayers, which in turn means they are accepting and using all manner of local and state resources without contributing their fair share to the maintenance, upkeep, and delivery of those resources: police, fire, water, sewer, trash, electric, gas, schools, libraries, roads, bridges, etc. These are the corps that hire armies of accountants and tax lawyers to find every conceivable loop-hole to avoid paying their fair share, that you and I and our neighbors cannot afford to. These are the corps. that have bought Congress, and managed to get the U.S. Supreme Court to alter/revoke the rules of the game, tilting the field to the corps. advantage. We now live in a plutocracy, the United Business States of America. We are lucky to retain the few freedoms we have. Everything else we once knew is an illusion. Six major corporations own and are responsible in our once-great country for 1500 newspapers, 1100 magazines, 9000 radio stations, 1500 t.v. stations, and 2400 publishers. Where's the diversity, the individuality, the willingness to point at Washington, D.C. and say STOP! or ask questions, or investigate. There is very little individuality left in America, Ken. Our malls, strip malls, fast food joints, our cars, retail box stores, WM with its $7 Billion taxpayer subsidy, all look-alikes in a look-alike, PC world, a socialist world of conformity and quiet compliance.
For every shareholder who benefitted from a stock deal, there are more losers that have been hurt. For every corp. acquisition, there are people out of work whose losses spiral throughout their communities. We're out of balance, sir. Do you like the direction America has been in, for years? I sure don't. The middle class, responsible for supporting the other two, has all but disappeared. Community school districts across the nation are struggling to educate. Tax and Spend has been the applied response, but that has never worked, isn't working, will never work.

All we seem to have heard about over the months since Aug, is how Black Lives Matter. I am not seeing much evidence of that among blacks in the St. Louis metro area, both sides of the river, or nationally. Again, all shades commit all manner of atrocities. That isn't likely to change. What's confusing, in my fertile, aging mind, is the sheer volume of public nonsense (fights, shootings, police killings, beheadings, etc) from an ethnic group that constantly and consistently complains that: white don't treat them fairly; police harass them; banks don't loan them money; retail security guards follow them around stores, and all the rest. Personally, I think there is a correlation between how members of this ethnic group, blacks, live on a daily basis, and the ways in which they are perceived and treated in kind. Maybe it's just me. I dislike stereotypes. At the same time, 14% of our country's population is black, yet make up 40% of our prison population. The entire national criminal justice system can't be biased towards blacks. There's too many of them crossing the line of social behavior to believe that. I understand that we are only 4-5 generations removed from U. S. slavery conditions, and that it does indeed take time for any group to re-form itself. But how long does it take? Public schools are open to all. Public universities are open to all. Bank loans and mortgages and rental properties and homes for sale are open to all. Motels and restaurants and nightclubs are open to all. Major league sports teams are integrated. Voting rights are established for all. How many different immigrant ethnic groups have migrated here, established themselves within a generation or two, and not been a societal burden to the extent blacks have been ? Yet, blacks have high high school drop-out rates, high teenage pregnancy rates, tend to live in higher crime zones, own less homes and operate fewer banks and businesses, go to college less. It's very disheartening to read and see and watch an ethnic group basically hold itself back, embarass itself, and be a public burden. I don't know what the answers are. Common sense, personal pride, family structure, life goals, these are not restricted to any one group. I just don't get it. I don't.

From a Sunday NYT article about overhauling U.s. tax code:

"....the official corporate income tax rate is 35%. This is second highest in the world behind only France. But there are so many loopholes and tax dodges that the effective rate is 27.9, according to World Bank.

....However, a GAO study of profitable US companies with at least $10m in assets put their tax rate at (only) 12.6 % in 2010. Many companies pay NOTHING (my emphasis).

....CBO reported in January that corporate tax receipts would shrink to 1.8 % of the economy in ten years, from 2.3% in 2016, and individual income tax rates would rise during that same period from 8.7 to 9.5 %."

Just exactly why, do any of us intelligent active voters put up with this? It means a lot of Fortune 500 companies, conglomerates that control many of the brands we buy, pay little or nothing of their fair share. Those missing tax dollars are missing from your child's schools; your libraries, your city governments, your state coffers, etc., etc. Yet, just try, just try not paying taxes yourself. The IRS will be all over you, for years.

It's a long, long article and much more worthwhile reading than Kim Kardashian's antics, or whomever. Your choice. Your life. Your children and grandchildrens' lives.

A review of the week's events reveals all is well in the world:

-a MA university is denying enrollment in its science and engineering classes to Iranians. More room for American students???

-newer, allegedly safer oil tanker r.r. cars derailed into a river. Hmmm. Maybe the pipeline does make sense.

-NASA, the space rocket agency, is sending a submarine into space. Sigh.

-Bostonians, clearly going mad, are jumping from as high as 3 stories up, in their underwear only, onto snow banks below. I'm waiting for one of them to hit a buried car.

- a white elementary school principal in Hannibal MO has been arrested for drug dealing, thus becoming the first white guy arrested for drugs in America in years.

-a fed. judge in Texas stood up to Obama and said no. Who knew states still had rights?

Barry Bond's drug dealer gets four years in jail for dealing steroids, but Barry never took none of that stuff. R-i-i-g-h-t.

-two Aussies chose to sail their newly-purchased boat off the MA coast in winter snowstorm #4, thus putting an entire Coast Guard crew at great risk to rescue their sorry butts. They currently are tied for first place in the Darwin Awards competition with:

-the 16 year old Phx AZ kid who, locked out of his house, tried entering via the chimney and got stuck. Shocking. and:

-the 17 year old CA kid who killed himself playing Russian Roulette.

-meanwhile, in Carlyle, our squirrels are sitting on the bird feeder and sitting in the bird seed box stuffing themselves, while the birds are attacking the corn cobs I threw on the front lawn for the squirrels.

We're good here.

(A Chicago-area woman, supported in her search and obtaining of weapons and ammo from friends in St. Louis, MO and upstate NY, was arraigned Fri in fed court on charges of assisting ISIS terrorists.)

Nah. No sleeper cells in America. These immigrants are here to live among us peacably. How many more such people and cellls must be uncovered, before Americans put down their Kim Kardashian Daily, and turn off their electronic devices, and realize these people mean to wipe us and our way of life off the face of the Earth. 

Personally, about five minutes after they are found guilty, walk them back to her apartment, put a noose around each neck, and throw them off the balcony. A lot cheaper than jail, a lot more humane than setting a person on fire.


Wonder what was discussed in your neighborhood mosque and grocery mart today?


You should be.

They are the latest generation of a movement that for 1300 years has terrorized and waged war against much of Western Civilization, by any historian's account. 

Enough, is enough. I am not a fan of war. It's senseless, and afterwards, many of the same problems stll exist waiting to be solved.

Against ISIS adn Taliban and Al Qaeda, I have no problem wiping out the entire Middle East. Any country that ends in STAN is a target, along with Syria, Lebanon, Libya, and any other country that harbors people who wish the West evil. 

No society on Earth has even been perfect, nevr will be, either. Tolerance understanding, patience, and faith in a higher being of whatever fits your imagination should be enough for all of us to live relatively peacably with each other.

Clearly, the arms dealers and the military industrial complexes and the war-based economies of the world won't be satisfied until nuclear war destroys the planet for all time.

Sad.  Stupid. Preventable.

The last time America went all in was WW II. Entire nation, save a few C.O.s like John Wayne, supported the international effort to rid the world of a scourge.

We didn't do that in Korea, the Forgotten War, the Reluctant War. We sure didn't do that in Vietnam, the Divisive War.

But, I like the Jordanian approach. President straps on a fighter jet and goes off to bomb the crap out of the neighbors. So much for talk and diplomacy, clearly failed approaches to the latest world scourge.
So, I am in favor of carpet bombing the Middle East: Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, just about anything ending in Stan, and eliminating the scourge and pestilence once, and for all time. 

The 5,000 year leap took place in America. The earliest pioneers made their own way, with their own tools, with their own hands, clearing the land, making trails, cabins, farming fields, railroad beds, you name it. They made incredible leaps forward in human progress and technology, because they were free from government and religious restraint to do so. 

We look at the Middle East today, and outside major cities, people still walk miles to draw well water, haul items by camel and mule on dirt roads, stepping through the camel shit to get to their hovel before sundown because they have no electricity. So, bombing them back to the Stone Age isn't possible. They're still living in it.

 I have zero tolerance for an alleged religion and its followers who have zero tolerance for any lifestyle or beliefs other than theirs. Load up the B-2s. Push the ancient creaky nearly 60 yr old B-52s down the strip, and carpet bomb every country that wants to mess, is messing, or has messed with Western ideology. Our Western ways have much room for improvement, too. But we aren't flying planes into buildings, setting people on fire, beheading people, bombing schools and marketplaces in honor of our religions. Enough of this crap. If only we had leadership in the WH.

Potential POTUS candidates in 2016:
Ben Carson, doctor, possessing huge amounts of common sense, no political experience (like current POTUS).
Hilary Clinton, sham, possessing no amount of common sense, lots of political experience that was used to escape Whitewater, Vince Foster death, Benghazi, and claim residency in NY to reach the Senate, because Arkansans know better..
Sarah Palin, whom, by Obama's record these past six years, apparently has more common sense than originally given credit for
Mitt Romney who apparently can't find work elsewhere.
Donald Trump, who at least has run a corporation of fair size, so he would be knowledgeable about tax code loopholes, hiring independent contractors instead of full-time workers that would deserve benefits and a living wage.

Man, I hope someone else declares