Montana Bullets and Blades

Please someone tell me they are joking…

New Congressional Law makes Children’s books illegal

This has got to be some kind of joke. What evidence exists that these pre-1985 children’s books pose some kind of threat? I actually have a number of them (many were mine when I was growing up) that I have either saved for my own children/grandchildren or are collectable books. Some of those books date back to the mid-twentith century or earlier.

Talk about a nanny state…

Moorcat

As a prelude to this story, let me make something clear… I am secure enough in my own masculinity to not suffer from homophobia and I am not a religious fanatic that believes that everyone who follows an alternative lifestyle (sexually) is some kind of abomination that needs to be eraticated from the planet. That said, I found this story on CNN to be particularly painful…

The video may not be safe for work as many employers scan for catch phrases that exist in this video…

Now I really don’t care that Silverton’s mayor is a transsexual male. If the people of Silverton don’t care, it is none of my business. They elected him and it was clear when he was running for the position that he was a transsexual.

What I found… interesting.. about this story is not the the fact that the mayor follows an alternative lifestyle, but how he is representing his position as Mayor. This situation would be no different if the mayor was a 20 something knockout woman. If she wore a backless mini-dress to speak (as Mayor) to a group of students, I would be complaining too. His/Her choice of attire was not, by any means, responcible or representative. To make matters worse, it appears that the town of Silverdale has a dress code for thier elected officials and I certainly don’t think his/her attire even comes close to meeting that standard.

This story harkens back to something I learned in my younger, activist days. If you want people to take you seriously about your choices (be in an alternative lifestyle, a political movement, or a protest of some injustice you see in the world), dressing to shock people is not the way to go about it. People stop listening to you or taking you serious (focusing instead on your outragious clothing and actions) and you do more harm to your cause than good. If this person wants to be taken seriously, he should have given more thought about his attire when speaking to a group of youth from the Silverton Together organization.

Moorcat

This program has been recieving a lot of pixels recently and there are a couple of things I want to address here.

The Program - that gives new car buyers a $3,500 or $4,500 credit on buying a new car if it is more fuel efficient than the one being traded in - was meant to accomplish two goals -

1) Stimulate car sales to aid the car dealerships and manufacturers
2) Get less fuel effecient cars off the road

What I find interesting is that the blog entries seen across the Montana blogs aren’t even looking at whether this program is even accomplishing it’s goal - they seem to want to equate this program with the idea of government health care reform… I don’t get it.

So let’s actually look at this program and whether it is working.

In terms of getting people to buy new cars, there is no question it is working. In fact, it is working so well, that the money for the program ran out and Congress voted to add an additional Two Billion dollars to the program. People have flocked to the dealerships to trade in thier cars and get the savings on buying a new car.

Unfortunately, this program has worked better at selling Toyotas and Hondas than it has at selling Ford or GM’s. I find it interesting that we are spending taxpayer money on a program that is doing more to help our foriegn competition than it does to help American Companies - Companies that we just bailed out of bankruptcy. This is my real issue with the program. It should have been limited to American Made Cars.

As far as getting less fuel effecient cars off the road - again, it is has somewhat accomplished that goal. A car only has to have four miles a gallon less fuel effeciency to qualify for the program so it isn’t a HUGE change in fuel effecency, but it is a step in the right direction. This program will reduce the fuel consumption of those people who participated to some extent and that, in turn will reduce the overall fuel consumption of the country - by some infintesimally small amount.

So is the program a success? - obviously. You can try to get around that success by saying it doesn’t really reduce greenhouse gases or point out that the dealerships have had to wait more than 10 days for thier checks, but those are smokescreens to the program’s actual success. Did it sell more cars - Yes. Did it reduce gas consumption for those buying cars - Yes. It was a success.

Gregg - you might want to reconsider using this to say that a Government Program for Health Care won’t work…

Moorcat

One option a number of people are considering - given the rediculous cost of health insurance today - is starting “Health Care Accounts”.

Simply put, instead of opting into Employer offered Health Insurance, they take the money that they would have been paying into the health insurance and putting that money in a “Health Care Account” to be used to pay for any medical bills that occur.

This isn’t as crazy as it sounds. Take our medical care over the last three years as an example. We have paid out over $25,000 in health care expenses given the health issues I have had in the last 18 months. We have paid over $30,000 in Health Care Insurance. Instead of earning interest (and profit) for the Health Insurance provider, this money would have earned US interest and the money we paid out over the amount of our Health Care would be ours instead of the insurance company’s.

Now there are definitely issues with that idea. For example, my wife’s employer matches half of the amount we pay in insurance to the Insurance Company. That money would not go to our “Health Care Account”. Further, if we did have some kind of serious health issue that exceeded the amount of money in our “Health Care Account”, we would have to cover those expenses out of our pocket. That said, it is definitely something to consider as Health Insurance continues to climb. Given that my wife works for the State, she did not get a pay increase this year but her Health Insurance did increase - meaning less disposable income for us. If this continues, we might have to consider a “Health Care Account” when it comes time for her to renew her insurance this year.

Some banks have even taken advantage of this idea and are offering special interest bearing accounts specifically for people doing this. If enough people do this, maybe the insurance companies will get the message. It also wouldn’t surprise me to see to legislation appear protecting those accounts or giving tax incentives for those people creating them. It certainly isn;t a perfect solution to the Health insurance issues but it is one that many are exploring.

Moorcat