Well, isn’t this interesting…

…rock guitar legend Eric Clapton doing the old Don Williams hit “Tulsa Time,” at Deep Tracks, Sirius Ch. 16. I’d heard Clapton was a country fan here and there, but I didn’t expect this. Pretty good, though. A bit faster and more guitar-driven than the DW record, but I like it. I wonder what else Mr. Clapton listens to in his spare time…

One more reason Ron White is the man….

Just heard this bit on Sirius, and I laughed my ass off!

“I did not know that about myself.” ROTFLMAO!

There’s so much left unsaid and un-discussed here…

…that it’s just not even funny…

WASHINGTON — Texas Democratic lawmakers Thursday defended President Barack Obama’s stimulus package against criticism from Republican leaders, saying Texas is making economic progress with the help of recovery funds.
Texas state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, said that without the $16.5 billion in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, steep cuts would have been made to the state’s budget.
“We would have been in severe trouble if we had not had it,” Van de Putte told reporters in a Democratic National Committee-sponsored conference call.
Van de Putte said the stimulus money has led to the creation of about 69,000 transportation jobs, an $800 pay raise for public school teachers and accounts for $1.7 billion in other education funds.

…
So what happens when that money is spent? Another stimulus? Austin pols jetting back to Washington for another handout? And about those 69,000 jobs…I’m sure Ms. Van de Putte will forgive those of us who are skeptical about that. I suppose Jim Dunnam has a point about the state having to borrow money to pay unemployment benefits, but that is just as much the fault of him and his fellow legislators as it is the governor, because the Legislature didn’t even think about certain ways to raise funds for the budget — because of the stimulus money. And those methods would have been, again, another one of those ongoing infusions of cash into the economy as opposed to a one-time thing. And Mr Dunnam says Perry’s out of touch with reality? I wonder if he’s familiar with the phenomenon of projection…

Yep, that’s the way it’s done…

…rat-there…

A male teen was fatally shot and two others are in custody after they apparently confronted a delivery driver late last night in southeast Houston.
The shooting occurred about 11 p.m. Thursdayin the 8600 block of Martin Luther King Blvd.
The teen, who has not been identified, was shot at least once, police said.
Investigators said a vendor was delivering products to a store when three confronted him and asked him to give them some of the items. He refused and they began beating him.
The vendor pulled out a handgun and shot one of them.

But remember folks, you don’t need to carry a gun because the police will protect you! They will always get there in plenty of time!

Mmm, yeah, Merle doing western swing…

…at Willie’s Place, Sirius Ch. 64: “…in your hearrrrt, please just remember…right or wrong, I’m still in love with you….”
I had heard about Merle Haggard’s Tribute to the Best Damn Fiddle Player in the World a few times over the years, as it was the record that got George Strait interested in Western swing. I finally picked it up about eight years ago, and, just like everything else Haggard touched over his career, it was solid gold. He actually recorded it with a few members of the Texas Playboys, and you can tell by listening to it they were having a ball. With the way Haggard sang it you can tell he really loved that music, too. I was honestly surprised to find out it was still in print, but from what I remember quite a few of Haggard’s albums have been reissued on cd. I highly recommend that one.
…and for you know who…all those times I sang you the fat bug song? (“Roly Poly,” for the rest of y’all…) Merle Haggard’s version, from this album, was the one I was singing…

Wow, stop the presses…

…because not only am I NOT fuming at Froma Harrop’s typical wrongheadedness, I actually agree with every single word she writes here:

Legalizing marijuana would save billions of dollars
…
California’s costs of enforcing the marijuana ban — policing, the courts, jail time — at $981 million a year. Nationally, legalizing marijuana would save $7.7 billion a year on drug-war spending, according to Miron. And it could raise $6.2 billion annually in tax revenues.
A vain hope rose that President Obama’s naming of Gil Kerlikowske as drug czar would lead to a more rational policy on drugs. As Seattle’s police chief, Kerlikowske oversaw the city’s annual Hempfest (a giant and mellow smoke-in) without bothering the celebrants.
But Kerlikowske announced this month that “marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit.” And to end any idea that the hip, liberal Obama administration would ease up on pot, he added, “Legalization is not in the president’s vocabulary, and it’s not in mine.”
…
A bill to “tax and regulate” marijuana like alcohol now before the California legislature has strong support. But it’s not going anywhere as long as “legalization” is not in Obama’s vocabulary. The word “hypocrisy” has apparently made the cut.

Yep, that’s pretty much the long and short of it. One would think as enlightened libertarian types, the people in charge would start trying to pull us out of this Reefer Madness mentality. I guess it just goes to show you they’re every bit the closed-minded authoritarian pricks they proclaim conservatives to be.

What was it I was just saying…

…about how the government spins job creation by way of federal grant money?

PORTLAND, Ore. — How much are politicians straining to convince people that the government is stimulating the economy? In Oregon, where lawmakers are spending $176 million to supplement the federal stimulus, Democrats are taking credit for a remarkable feat: creating 3,236 new jobs in the program’s first three months.
But those jobs lasted on average only 35 hours, or about one work week. After that, those workers were effectively back unemployed, according to an Associated Press analysis of state spending and hiring data. By the state’s accounting, a job is a job, whether it lasts three hours, three days, three months, or a lifetime.
…
At the federal level, President Barack Obama has said the federal stimulus has created 150,000 jobs, a number based on a misused formula and which is so murky it can’t be verified.

Wow. Of course, none of this is surprising, as anyone with any grasp of economics knows. This sort of thing has often been likened to filling the deep end of the swimming pool by dipping water from the shallow end, and you could say that’s more or less exactly what it is. I don’t know who in the hell thought a one-time shot of money into the economy, especially one of this nature, was going to make for a sustained economic boost. Wouldn’t tax cuts work better for that, considering they’re effectively a multiple-year, sustained injection of money into the economy? Or is that the evil capitalist in me talking?

Just a question…

…raised by reading this story…
When that tiny town of Anguilla, Mississippi spends all that federal money to hire those cops, and they don’t have any more to spend on those cops’ salaries…what then? What I’m about to remember here has an admittedly biased source, but everyone remembers back in the 1990s when Bill Clinton was pushing his crime bill he was saying it would put 100,000 more cops on the streets? Well, I remember Rush Limbaugh saying that those 100,000 cops would only be on the streets for one year. I don’t know where he got that, but it did make sense to me considering the money was going to run out sooner or later. And I seem to recall that number amounted to significantly less staffing increases when the money appropriated by the bill was finally doled out. Why is no one talking about any of that?

Another demonstration of ‘when seconds count…"

“…the police are only minutes away…”

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Everett Skinner and his family have started keeping their windows closed at night after a bear broke into their southwest Oregon home and he fatally shot it.
The bear ripped off a window screen and climbed into their den Saturday night, Skinner said.
Skinner’s daughter Nicole awoke at about 11:30 p.m. to a strange shuffling sound and was the first to spot the bruin. She quickly retreated to her parents’ room to get help.
Everett Skinner grabbed his shotgun and went to the den, where he and the bear saw each other at about the same time. He said the animal stood up and headed toward him, so he fired.

But remember, friends, Paul Helmke and Michael Beard say we don’t need guns because it’s the police’s job to protect us! After all, they’re the only ones professional enough! And of course we all know if Mr. Skinner had just given the bear what he wanted instead of shot him, everything would still have turned out juuuust fine….

There is so much I could say…

…to Nick Anderson’s most recent asininity, but Bill Whittle does it so much better here that I’ll just direct you to him.