el Bloggo

I sometimes wonder if I just talk/write to myself or if anyone actually reads this stuff.  I get an occasional comment, but not many.  But I noticed a couple of newspaper op-eds last week that were curiously (is that a real word?) similar to my blogs of earlier.

One had to do with the gasoline tax and bad roads.  It said what I said, that the state government must tell us where our gasoline taxes (the excise and the sales taxes!) are going before we will grudgingly agree to higher taxes.  Until the last year, the sales tax on gas didn't go to the roads at all, not a penny of it.  At the same time, the governor, who favors a gas tax increase, now has a budget for this year with a 7.3% increase in spending, about three times what he asked for in increased taxes on gasoline.  Why can't 1/3 of that increase be used for the roads?  Or what about the corporate and agrarian subsidies?  The state doesn't subsidize me; why should it give my (and other taxpayers') money to selected groups?  There are many places to find the money to fix the roads and keep them in good shape--without raising taxes.  If the governor thinks it's good to cut taxes on businesses, why doesn't he also think it's bad to raise them on consumers?  Hmmm......  Do I smell a rat here?  The state government just lacks the integrity, courage, intelligence, or whatever to do the right thing.

I also received an e-mail asking me to sign a petition favoring right-to-work legislation.  It acknowledged that Michigan has passed such a law, but fears that there is a movement to overturn it.  Well, two things.  First, it should be overturned.  Second, I'm not an advocate of right-to-work and never have been.  OK, readers know I've been critical of unions, almost exclusively because they protect members who don't deserve protection.  That is, they prevent people from getting fired who deserve to get fired.  But, as I noted in an e-mail I sent off in reply, despite all of the faults of unions, I appreciate that they can protect decent employees from stupid or incompetent bosses.  Employees who point out the stupidity or incompetence shouldn't face dismissal.  I certainly appreciate that, believe me.  And, something that really upsets me about those union members who are looking to opt out is that they still want all the benefits negotiated by the unions, but don't want to pay for them.  If they don't want the responsibility of paying for them, then at least have the integrity and honesty to negotiate on their own, as individual.  No doubt many of these same people gripe and grouse about "entitlements" that other get.  But it's OK for them to mooch off the efforts and money of others.

The apparent imminent fall of Iraq to the radical insurgents (al-Qaida?) is very disturbing.  Does that mean that the US lives lost there, several thousand, have been in vain?  Thinking of those who died in light of recent events turns my stomach.  And think of the billions and billions of dollars we spent there and have nothing to show for much of it.  No, I'm not blaming Bush for everything.  But how could he and Obama continue to give so much money--again, billions!--to the Iraqis with little or no oversight?  Much of it is unaccounted for; that is, there's no record of where tens of billions of dollars went.  This doesn't include even more that has been wasted.  I'm tempted to say there's a lesson here, but I also know that the Bozos in DC--politicians, appointees, bureaucrats--don't learn lessons.  After all, it's not their money.  The lives aren't theirs.  They remind me the story of the guy who walked past a pier and noticed another guy drowning.  "I can't swim!  I can't swim!," the drowning man cried.  So, the walking guy located a life buoy/ring, with a long line attached to it, and tossed it out to the drowner.  "Reach out and grab the ring," he shouted.  When the drowner did so, the walker nodded to him, said, "Good," then dropped his end of the line and moved on to do another good deed.

Imagine Tony Gwynn, the hitter.  He batted about 107 times against Greg Maddux, who only won about 350 Major League games.  Gwynn struck out, well, he never struck out against Maddux and had a .415 batting average against him.  A few weeks back, some guys were marveling that Al Kaline struck out only 63 times in one season.  That's an incredible number, a great testament to Kaline's hitting ability.  But the most number of times Gwynn struck out in a season was 40-something and had several years where his strikeout total was in the teens!  (OK, just a chance for me to preen a bit.  My sophomore year in college, I had about 130 at-bats and only whiffed once.  The story behind that is funny--now.  In fact, in my college baseball years, I think I struck out fewer than ten times--and I played every inning on the varsity and most, I think, on the freshman team.  Freshmen were ineligible for varsity sports back then--which tells people how old I am!)  I did hear Kaline say that, although he didn't/hasn't see/n as much of the National League, Miguel Cabrera is the best American League hitter he's seen.  And Kaline played against Ted Williams among others.  Wow!