Notes Concerning the Partial Government Shutdown

There seems to be a lot of mythology concerning what's happening in Washington now.  Let's get a few things straight.

The Senate and the President could work with the House.  They won’t so they’re as stubborn as the Congress.  Although the Senate and the President approved on paying members of the military, they refuse to pass the multiple bills proposed by the House to fund many of the government programs and services that are so dearly beloved by the Democrats.  These bills have nothing to do with ObamaCare, yet these same Democrats tell us how terrible it is that this stuff isn’t funded.

The Democrats want this partial shutdown.  They believe they can use it to convince Americans that Republicans are taking stuff away from them.  They are actively trying to make us unhappy by shutting down monuments and historic sites that require more funding and effort to shut down than to just leave them be.  They are actively preventing commercial fishing boats from fishing.  Again, it costs more and requires more effort to do this, but Democrats think it’s worth it because they believe they can blame these dastardly deeds on Republicans.  As long as they believe they can pull a fast one on the American public, they will be perfectly happy to continue the partial shutdown and tell us how terrible it is.

If you are thinking ObamaCare is some kind of government-run socialized medicine program similar to Canada’s or England’s, think again.  Understand that I would be against such a thing as well, but that’s not what ObamaCare is.  ObamaCare is a sweet deal made between the U.S. Government with health insurance companies.  By forcing people to buy insurance – especially young people who commonly wouldn’t buy it, the healthcare industry gets more customers.  The government, in return, gets more control, power, and funding.  This is great for the healthcare executives and the Washington politicians.  It screws the majority of Americans in raising rates and cutting services and access to doctors.

A vast majority of doctors are against ObamaCare.  It will mean less pay for them and more for administrators.  It also means they will spend less time with each patient.  This is causing and will further cause doctor shortages.  It just isn’t worth going through years and years of schooling, going deeply into debt, only to end up making the same salary as some government bureaucrat.  The number of applicants for medical schools around the country is going down.  The would-be doctors of the world are going to law schools instead where the number of applicants is going up fast.  The government hasn’t figured out how to screw lawyers yet.  This is probably because most politicians are lawyers.  Incidentally, the doctors who support ObamaCare tend to be the ones staffed by hospitals.  It doesn’t affect them so much.

ObamaCare is cake – as in “Let them eat cake”.  Politicians don’t want it.  Anybody who has any political clout is lobbying to be exempt from it.  Nancy Pelosi keeps telling us how wonderful it is but wouldn’t dare have it for herself or her family.  The rest of the Left keep reminding us that ObamaCare is LAW.  Well if it is LAW, then Congress and everyone else in Washington is under the LAW as well.  That’s how America works.

I am paying twice as much for my healthcare policy as I did a year ago.  My premium is supposed to go up even more next year.  I’ve also lost my doctor whom I had for over 10 years.  He wants no part of ObamaCare.  My situation is the norm, not the exception.  Years ago, Barack Obama promised my rates would go down and I would be able to keep my doctor.  Did Barack Obama lie or did he badly miscalculate?  How much have your rates risen?

A Different Game

Once upon a time, someone invented a sport called "soccer" or "football".  The game obviously appealed to a lot of people as it has been very popular from then to this day.  It is in fact, the world's most popular sport.  How popular is it?  It is so popular that it has been re-invented many, many times.

The rules are pretty straightforward.  Start with a rectangular-shaped grass field and put goals on each end and basically, two teams kick, pass, and shoot a ball and try to get the ball into the defended goal on the opponent's side of the field.  With the exception of the player defending the goal (the goalie), the players play both offense and defense simultaneously.  The game is played for a given time limit. There are a few rules such as not using hands and not kicking the ball outside of the rectangular arena.  That's more or less, the game of soccer.  It's simple enough where a thing or two can be changed and a brand new game can be invented.

For example, instead of kicking a ball, have the players use sticks to strike the ball.  Now you have field hockey.  Field hockey is essentially soccer.

If the players use nets, you have lacrosse.  Lacrosse is essentially soccer.

Now replace the grass field with an ice rink and use a rubber disk instead of a ball.  Now you have ice-hockey.  Ice hockey is essentially soccer.

Okay, replace the ice with a hardwood floor.  Change the angle of the goal from horizontal to vertical and you have basketball.  Basketball is essentially soccer.

Put the grass field back and now have the players ride horses and hit a ball with a stick and you have polo.  Polo is essentially soccer.

Instead of having continuous motion, have set scrimmages and allow players to run with or throw an elongated ball forward.  Now you have American football.  American football is essentially soccer.

Instead of putting an object into a goal at the end of the rectangle, let's just make the rule where the object just has to be struck to the opposing side where the opponent can't hit it back.  Now, we have a whole slew of new sports.

Play that way with your hands and you have volleyball.  Volleyball is essentially soccer.

Play volleyball in the water and you have water polo.  Water polo is essentially soccer.

Go back to a hard surface and strike the ball with a tightly netted paddle and you've got tennis.  Tennis is essentially soccer.  For that matter, so is badminton.

Shrink the rectangle and raise it up as a table and you have table tennis or ping pong.  Table tennis is essentially soccer.

Now, cut the rectangular arena in half, put a wall on one end and have opposing players on the same side of the wall.  You have racquetball and handball.  Racquetball and handball are essentially soccer.

Here's a bit of a stretch but bear with me.  Take the rectangular arena and spin it round.  Instead of a net, have just a pole with a soccer ball hanging on a rope from the top.  You've got tether ball.  Tether ball is essentially soccer.

Let's sum it all up.  Field hockey, lacrosse, ice hockey, basketball, polo, American football, volleyball, water polo, tennis, badminton, table tennis, racquetball, handball, and tether ball are all variants of soccer.

Do you know what isn't soccer?  Baseball isn't soccer.  Baseball breaks many of the rules of soccer and soccer variants.  Players are either playing defense or offense, never at the same time.  The defense handles the ball.  There's no time limit or set scoring.  The object is for the player to reach the goal, not the ball.  Baseball is different.

Yes, baseball is different.  This is perhaps why so many don't seem to care for it.  One views a soccer game or variant and can very quickly figure out the basics of the game.  Baseball really needs to be explained to the newcomer or it will seem very confusing - especially if this newcomer is expecting another form of soccer. 

Baseball is the sport of physics and mathematics.  So many principles are there where a student of these disciplines can have a field day (pun intended).  It's a game where geometry and statistics is intertwined with physical action and mental toughness.  Unlike soccer and variants where strategy is about specific plays, strategy in baseball is fluid and constant.  So much so that the untrained spectator doesn't perceive it.  To enjoy baseball, one must be willing to be involved in it and not just passively watch it. 

Professional baseball doesn't always seem to get it.  It seems that some believe that changing a thing or two here and there to make it more "soccer-like" will get the unwashed masses who spend their money on tickets and jerseys for soccer and soccer variants to give baseball another look.  It isn't going to happen.  Why?  Because baseball is different.

Is adding instant-replay to baseball really going to improve baseball?  I don't think so.  Umpires and their all too human abilities and inabilities having to make instant decisions over a split-second occurrence is part of what makes baseball different, and better I might add.  Players and managers screaming at umpires over a perceived blown call is part of the fabric of baseball.  Why even try to get rid of it? 

For that matter, get rid of the designated hitter.  A baseball player is both a batter and a fielder.  Save the specialty players for American football.  It has no use in baseball except for those out there that believe an extra batter in the lineup is actually going to get a soccer person's attention. 

Baseball is different.

I want a Bat Mitzvah

Yes, you've read the title correctly.  I believe I deserve a retroactive Bat Mitzvah.  If some citizens get to have a party just for reaching a certain age, well, I should have one too. 

Can you believe some narrow-minded, bigots have the gumption to say I can't have one.  They argue by using ridiculous, Torah-thumping, sexist, ageist comments suggesting that I can't have a Bat Mitzvah because I'm not a thirteen year old Jewish girl.

Is this not America?  Don't we have discrimination laws?

How dare these people infringe on my rights by invoking some silly, antiquated religious rule!  Let's organize a march on Washington to raise awareness so the Supreme Court can rule on this travesty that is so unfair to us non-Jewish adult males.

The Deal

Here's an offer from the Left of America that's been going around recently:

"Dear Red States:

We're ticked off at your Neanderthal attitudes and politics and we've decided we're leaving.

We in New York intend to form our own country and we're taking the other Blue States with us.

In case you aren't aware, that includes California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and the rest of the Northeast.

We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation and especially to the people of the new country of The Enlightened States of America (E.S.A).

To sum up briefly:

You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.

We get stem cell research and the best beaches.

We get Andrew Cuomo and Elizabeth Warren. You get Bobby Jindal and Todd Akin.

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get OpryLand.

We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.

We get Harvard. You get Ol' Miss.

We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs.

You get Alabama.

We get two-thirds of the tax revenue. You get to make the red states pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

With the Blue States in hand we will have firm control of 80% of the country's fresh water, more than 90% of the pineapple and lettuce, 92% of the nation's fresh fruit, 95% of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90% of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the US low sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

With the Red States you will have to cope with 88% of all obese Americans and their projected health care costs, 92% of all US mosquitoes, nearly 100% of the tornadoes, 90% of the hurricanes, 99% of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100% of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties.
We're taking the good weed too. You can have that crap they grow in Mexico.

Sincerely,

Citizen of the Enlightened States of America"

Now, I'm a conservative who lives in California so it's a bit awkward to speak on behalf of the Red States but let me try.

I'll take the deal.  Hold on everybody on the Right.  Hear me out!

First of all, this proposal isn't entirely fair.  For example, the Blue States think they're entitled to having places like Yosemite.  Let me remind them that although Yosemite is in California, it's in the eastern - Red part of the state.  In fact, California, like most Blue states, is vastly Red geographically.  It would be a Red state if it weren't for the Los Angeles and San Francisco urban areas. 

Of course, Lex Luthor showed in Superman: The Movie that a few miles east of the west coast is "just hundreds and hundreds of miles of worthless desert land". 

I don't want to argue small details, I'll concede Yosemite.  After all, we get Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier, and Great Smoky Mountain National Parks.  We also get New Orleans.  The current (mostly Democrat) residents are certainly welcome to stay there but they will have to switch ideologies.  Otherwise, you can have them.

I object to you referring to the south as "Slave States".  What century are you people living in?

By the way, condors have been introduced into the Grand Canyon.  There's another National Park we get.

"38% of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62% believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44% say that evolution is only a theory, 53% that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61% of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals then we lefties"

You people believe that Hurricane Sandy was caused by humans contributing .0028% of the Earth's greenhouse gases.

Now, here's why I take the deal.

We get Alaska, Texas, Oklahoma and the Dakotas.  We get the oil.  Without the hysterics in our midst, we will build enough refineries and have cheap gasoline.  We'll be happy to sell you some but it's going to cost you.

We'll have lots of open space for wind and solar power too.  We're not against this, we just object to the government "investing" in these technologies.  If there's jobs and profit to be made, we'll do it - and not burden the taxpayers.

We'll be very business-friendly.  Businesses large and small are welcome.  Were not big on unions, so our companies will be competitive.  You'll have Ford, GM, Chrysler, and Honda.  We'll have Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, and Nissan.

"We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs."

Do you really think they'll stay with you?  You're going to want to significantly tax these people.  We're the ones who will actually be "fair".  Everyone will pay the same flat tax rate.  These entrepreneurs are going to be mostly Republicans anyways.  They're going to want to come to us.  How are you going to stop them from leaving?  Maybe, you will build a wall?

Anybody who wants to leave the Red States certainly may.  We won't stop them.  These will most likely be the people who don't work and scam welfare benefits.  They won't like living in the Red States.  They can be your burden, not ours.

Like any new nation, we'll have our share of problems.  Since no one will be on welfare, we'll all have a stake in making this work.  We'll find solutions.  Your economy will tank as your bluetopia* cannot possibly work. 

We believe in a strong military.  It will be a major priority.  Who's going to defend you?

In ten years or so, our nation will be going strong.  Your's will resemble Greece.

When that happens, we'll invade and the hippies and drug-addicts (you know, the ones abusing that "good weed") that will comprise a significant percentage of your nation will be unable to do anything about it. 

We'll re-instate the Constitution and get our country back.

We win.

*bluetopia (def.):  A community or group of communities where all workers make a comfortable "living wage" performing services - depending on their abilities, for the rest of the community.  Children of all races grow up in a harmonious, pollution-free environment with no violence, no crime, and therefore, no guns.  All conflicts are handled within and outside of the community with compassion and diplomacy.  Businesses don't compete with each other.  They just have set, "fair", pricing so anybody and everybody can afford anything.  All profits are re-distributed evenly back to the community. 

-From the Department of Alternate Universes (it would be a very boring place to live, anyways)