Patrick's Rants

Jon Kyle. He voted to go to war without worrying about how it was going to be paid for. He voted for the Bush tax cuts without worrying about how they were going to be paid for. He’s been arguing that the Bush tax cuts should be extended, without worrying about how they will be paid for. But for people who have been out of work for over two years Jon Kyle wants the Democrats to come up with other spending cuts to “pay for” the unemployment extension. It’s time to throw out these greedy Republican bastards.

This is the worst economic environment since the Great Depression. Cutting off the few hundred dollars per week that people who are unemployed through no fault of their own is like kicking a wounded dog. History shows that you don’t try to balance the budget during a depression/recession. Give them back their measly unemployment checks, they spend that money right away on food, gas and rent. And as I’m reminded by some of the talking heads, unemployment insurance is paid while you work to help out when you get laid off. They are getting back some of the money they have paid in over the years.

Jon Kyle, let’s cut off spending on the war to pay for unemployment. Let’s remove the depletion credit that oil companies receive for every gallon of oil pumped out of the ground. That’s how you pay for it. Stop being an obstructionist. Lead, follow, or get out of the mufuggin way. And don’t forget the wounded dog is very likely to bite you when you try to kick it.

I sent my brother a text message as I was leaving the boat dock at Lake Mary late last night. Technically it was first thing this morning. I had to tell him what just happened to me.

I had been looking forward to doing a little catfishing out by the boat ramp for a couple of days. I haven’t had any luck out at Lake Mary, but I keep trying; the very definition of insanity, I know. My brother calls the lake, “Lake Maybe”, when he’s being nice. A dirty whore of a lake that takes and takes and never gives anything back when he’s not. Many bobbers, weights, hooks and bait are gobbled up by the lake with little to no return of fish.

Last night I headed out with two poles and other gear to try to hook an elusive fish. I forgot my landing net (which I seem to do quite frequently) and I got out to the lake much later than I thought I would, around 9:00. I fished with anchovies and catfish bait for most of the night. The anchovies were stripped off the hook by those roaches of the water, crayfish. The catfish bait might have been as well.

I fished from shore because even though it was late there were still boats on the water and the dock was a bit busy. I was really hoping to have the boat dock to fish from, but the lake didn’t clear out until around 11:00pm. I moved over to the dock once everyone left the parking lot and continued my less than stellar fishing experience. About 12:30am, I pulled the remaining bait from one of my lines and thought just for the heck of it I’ll put on a lure and cast out a few times. I walked to the furthest end of the dock and cast and reeled in three times. I heard the bell attached to my other rod start to jingle and turned to grab the pole sitting about 20 feet away. I could make out the pole bobbing up and down in the dark. The fish hit the drag and it zzzzzzipped out. Six feet away from the pole it dropped off the pickle bucket that it was propped on and headed toward open water. I dropped down onto my knees to reach for it, but my hand only grabbed air. I missed the pole by two or three feet. Somewhere in the lake is a fish with a pole mounted over its fireplace.

I guess I will have to use some kind of light rope to secure my poles when I’m fishing this way. I guess we chalk that up to a life lesson.

Buz Mills has dropped from the Republican primary. Apparently he doesn’t know how to talk about anything other than spending.

“Mills, in a prepared statement, said he entered the race hoping to offer voters an alternative to “career politicians” who believe in more spending and higher taxes.

“Under normal circumstances, strong fiscal conservatives do well in Republican primary contests,” Mills wrote.

Mills also was counting on his personal wealth to overcome his lack of name ID in campaigning against a sitting governor. At last report he had spent close to $3.2 million of his own cash, more than anyone else in a primary bid.

But he said the debate over illegal immigration has made this anything other than normal circumstances.

“SB1070 has regrettably taken the focus off of job creation and fixing the state budget,” Mills said in his statement.”

Well guess what Buz? There’s more to government than spending. You have to be able to deal with all kinds of things, from illegal immigration to traffic cameras. It’s more than a narrow-minded focus on the budget. Too bad he had to spend so much of his own money before he realized he was wrong. Or maybe not. Maybe this means we won’t have to hear from him for a while.

I haven’t read Bob Cringely as much as I used to, but it’s nice to see that he somewhat agrees with me on social notworking He suggests downsizing your friends list and I can’t disagree with him. At least on here, there aren’t many commenters regardless of the number of readers so everything here is important. And everything on Bob’s blog is important to Bob and sometimes, such as here, important to our readers as well.

Let me repeat something that I have said before – all water is reclaimed water. All water is recycled. There is no more and no less of it. All the water on the earth is water that has always been here. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed; it’s a law of physics. Sure it can be combined with other chemicals and some reactions that make it something different – hydrocarbons for instance contain the basic molecules for water, burning oil based fuels will release some water vapor. Heck, breathing and plant respiration both release water vapor.

Native tribes, and some European transplants (yes, Caucasians, I’m looking at you) don’t want snow making at Arizona Snowbowl. They don’t want snow making because the “reclaimed” water “desecrates” the peaks. Give me a break. The First Amendment protects me from your wacky religious ideas as much as it makes an argument in your favor. Freedom of Religion canceled out by Freedom From Religion. Your religion cannot impinge on my freedoms just as mine cannot impinge on yours.

They don’t want it because there is “not enough research” into the effects of reclaimed water on the environment. Again, all water is reclaimed water. Reclaimed treated water is cleaner than incoming water in the water treatment plants. It is cleaner than water that you naturally find flowing down the streams. It is clean. Drop the bogus claims already. To use a phrase that has been floating around lately, your claims are vapid and hollow.

Bottom line, your side lost. You have lost at every step of the way. Howard Shanker has filed for an injunction in the related article,

“To win a temporary retraining order, Shanker must prove either that he is likely to win this case, or that irreversible changes (logging, for example) will result if construction proceeds before his case is heard.”

The recent 15,000 acre Shultz fire in Flagstaff shows what happens when the forest is allowed to become too thick, too dense. Fires that might have been small and burned naturally end up burning tens of thousands of acres due to injunctions against cleaning and clearing land. Don’t get me wrong, I like trees. I like my hair too, but I’m not about to never cut it because it would be “unnatural” to do so. Shanker and his clients have lost over and over again. It’s time to step aside, you have lost. You have nothing left to prove and you are using the legal process to vex and harass.