Mostly Cajun, All American and Opinionated

“We’re here to help.” That’s a scary thought.

Let’s take a look at my most recent experience: Work visas. Yeah, yeah, it’s good thing to have the government interested in protecting American jobs by requiring foreign nationals coming to work in the US to have special work visas, unless, of course, you’re coming across the border from Mexico and points south.

But let’s say, for the sake of discussion, that you’re not a sub-literate escapee from some Central American hell-hole. Instead, you’re a highly educated and capable engineer. You’re not trying to sneak across the border with a couple of changes of jeans rolled up on your back, you’re trying to fly in from Europe.

You’re not looking to do any job you can get with minimal skills, you’re one of the factory experts on a highly specialized piece of equipment of which only a hundred examples exist in the entire world.

You’re not coming in to compete with America’s hordes of semi-literate manual labor force laying bricks in one of Houston’s new housing developments, you’re coming in to provide technical support to an industrial client when your company’s product fails.

So today the Cajun is pissed. I drive through the northwestern outskirts of Houston Texas and I pass dozens and dozens of construction sites employing hundreds of folks of Hispanic (isn’t that a sterile term?) descent working as laborers and carpenters and cement finishers and bricklayers, but let me try to get ONE German engineer in on a work visa so he can help us fix our three-million-dollar drive, and you’d think I was taking a shovel to the foundations of the Statue of Liberty herself.

But Cajun, why didn’t they send you an AMERICAN engineer? Well, bunkie, glad you asked. It’s freakin’ new technology. It was designed and built in Germany, oddly enough, by Germans. The American branch of that huge multinational corporation is more than glad to help, but nobody on this side of the pond is sufficiently up to speed to do what we need to do yet. They will be, but right now they aren’t, and so the expertise has to come from Germany.

That’s the trouble with getting the government to fix a “problem”. They ALWAYS produce a set of rules and then mindlessly apply them to every situation that comes close to their jurisdiction. Limiting foreign workers that can take American jobs? Might be good. Keeping out one of the four engineers who designed my stinkin’ equipment? Foolish to an exponential degree. No. Make that quantum foolish. Foolish in dimensions that the human mind can’t comprehend. But it makes perfect sense to a government bureaucrat with a rulebook and a job for life.

But it’s our government. And Obama is gonna fix it.

Right?

1866 - Charles Hires invents root beer. Well, he takes credit, anyway. I like a good root beer. Buy some Zatarain’s root beer extract, make it with real cane sugar, and then carbonate it yourself, and it’ll take you places your tongue won’t go on commercial stuff these days.

1868 - President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment fails by just one vote. What OTHER US president was impeached, hmmmm?

1960 - The first optical laser is tested at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California. Now you can’t swing a cat without running across a laser.

Alligators up to my beltline and the swamp desperately requires drainage.

Actually I am at one of my sites working to get some equipment put back together. I may be out here late, so if you don’t see anything besides this, you’ll know what is going on…

I expect normal levels of bloggage to resume tomorrow evening, or Saturday at the latest.

The pastor asked if anyone in the congregation would like to express praise for answered prayers.

A lady stood and walked to the podium. She said, ‘I have a Praise.’ Two months ago, my husband, Jim, had a terrible bicycle wreck and his scrotum was completely crushed. The pain was excruciating and the doctors didn’t know if they could help him.’

You could hear an audible gasp from the men in the congregation as they imagined the pain that poor Jim experienced.

She continued, ‘Jim was unable to hold me or the children and every move caused him terrible pain. We prayed as the doctors performed a delicate operation. They were able to piece together the crushed remnants of Jim’s scrotum and wrap wire around it to hold it in place. Again, the men in the Congregation squirmed uncomfortably as they imagined the horrible surgery performed on Jim.

She continued, ‘Now, Jim is out of the hospital and the doctor’s say, with time, his scrotum should recover completely.’

All the men sighed with relief. The pastor rose and tentatively asked if any one else had anything to say.

A man rose and walked slowly to the podium. He said, “I’m Jim and I want to tell my wife, the word is ’sternum.’

(From a post on (you guessed it) CSP Gun Talk’s Political Page by ol’ Clyde)

1948 - Israel officially declares independence when David ben Gurion reads the Israeli Declaration of Independence. Israel establishes its provisional government. Every one of the neighboring Arab states immediately attack, starting the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. since Israel is still around, you can guess who won.

1955 - The Soviet Union and its puppet states in Eastern Europe sign the Warsaw Pact to counter NATO. The idea of the Warsaw Pact roaring through the Fulda Gap into Germany causes nightmares for almost forty years. I know. I had some…

1973 - Atop that last Saturn V rocket, US launches Skylab.

I thought that the dimmocrats were all about exit strategy for the troops. Well, bunkie, I found us a dimmocrat who want to keep the troops in Fallujah (on the Mississippi), otherwise known as New Orleans.

From Chad Rogers’ “Dead Pelican” comes this little gem:

Nagin asks Jindal to keep National Guard troops in N.O.
5/13/2008, 5:27 p.m. CDT
By MELINDA DESLATTE
The Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said he’s asked Gov. Bobby Jindal to postpone a planned phase-out of National Guard troops, who have been in the city as a way to help fight crime after Hurricane Katrina depleted police force ranks.

If you want to see when this all started, here’s my post about that in June of 2006!

Yes, Hurricane Katrina depleted the ranks of the NOPD. Some of them were looting, some stole luxury SUV’s and fled the city, some just up and quit, and there’s really good possibility that many never existed at all except as names on a roster for which paychecks were issued…

The governor had planned to begin a three-month phase-out of the 360 soldiers patrolling New Orleans neighborhoods in June, but Nagin said that would be too quick because the city still is trying to recruit new police officers and needs more time for that effort.

Nagin needs to talk with Obama or one of the other anti-war dimmocrats and just yank those troops out and let the Iraqis New Orleanians learn how to swim on their own. (Interesting metaphor, there, boy) You know, that old “gravy for the goose, sauce for the gander” thing. Of course, we know that those Iraqi votes won’t count for the dimmocrat presidential candidate, and that sort of changes the perspective a bit…

“We thought the June 1st deadline was coming a little too quickly,” Nagin said Tuesday after meeting with Jindal in Baton Rouge. “We haven’t really ramped up our recruitment. We have a major campaign running right now.”

Uh, excuse me. I have a question here. It’s been over a year and a half and “We haven’t really ramped up our recruitment”? What have you been doing over there, playing tiddly winks? Besides whining that the entire United States isn’t dumping every spare buck into the cesspool that you’ve made New Orleans, don’t you think you MIGHT have had time to recruit new police officers?

Seventy-five people have been murdered in New Orleans so far this year, and overall violent crime has increased. The police department announced this month that it will begin a national campaign that it hopes will land at least 200 new officers for the city.

Yeah, they’ll be tripping over each other to come down here and work for one of the biggest buffoons in America, in a city where the diversity has turned the justice system into a revolving door and where the citizenry coined a new term, “misdemeanor murder” to explain how things work.

Nagin said he’d like the National Guard troops to stay in the city through the summer, with a reassessment of the need in the fall.

The mayor said Jindal “said that he would be very flexible. We didn’t talk about any specific timelines or anything, but in previous conversations with he and his staff, he said he would work with us and that the June 1st deadline was not a hard deadline.”

“The mayor said…” How do you tell if Ray Nagin is lying? His lips move.

A Jindal spokeswoman was noncommittal about whether the governor would postpone the phase-out, saying Jindal needed more details from city officials.

“We are willing to be flexible to make sure they have the resources they need. Currently, we are waiting on the city for information on their police department’s benchmarks and their projected timeline to be fully operational in policing the city without needing additional assistance from the Guard,” Melissa Sellers, Jindal’s press secretary, said in an e-mail.

Got news for you, missy. There’ll always be an excuse…

Louisiana has paid more than $56 million to keep the soldiers and state police troopers patrolling in New Orleans since Katrina. Only Guard troops remain on duty; the final state police withdrawal came in late 2007.

If I wanted to write a sad song about Louisiana, much of it would be verse upon verse of the billions of dollars that have disappeared into the cesspool that is New Orleans. If you want to give the state an enema, I can tell you where to stick the tube…

So gas prices are going through the ceiling. A gallon of gas passed $3.50 a while back. My gas bill for my company car last month was $450.

It’s because of THOSE EVIIIIIL OIL COMPANIES! All those fat cats making HUGE profits.

Ooops! According to his graphic that’s popping up all over the blogosphere, I’m one of those fat cats.

That’s because my 401k’s are invested in some of those mutual funds.

But that’s not the point. Hillary and Obama say that the oil companies are making obscene profits. They mean to stop that. How are they going to stop that? With government’s biggest tool: Taxes. They’re gonna tax Big Oil.

By simple substitution, they’re taxing me. Why? Because THEY, Hillary (who made $100,000 on a $1000 investment, but that was okay, because she’s like, all compassionate and everything, you know) and Obama, have determined that people who make money by taking things, crude oil in this case, and turning them into other things, in this case gasoline, diesel, etc., are making too much money. The company **I** own shares in, it was doing what **I** as a shareholder wanted it to do: make a profit, thereby making my investment worth more money. But our dimmocrat friends think that **I** shouldn’t be like that.

What happens when you tax a corporation? If you think that the taxes collected are skimmed off the top of the profits, you likely have a login ID at MoveOn.org. No, puppy, taxes are part of the cost of doing business. What do you, as a business, do with costs? Watch out. Here it comes. YOU PASS COSTS ON TO THE CONSUMER!

So what does THAT mean? That means that dimmocrats add MORE taxes to the gallon of gas you’re bitching about because it’s already too high. The money collected goes into the treasury where a dimmocrat majority of Congress can dole it out on vote-buying thinly disguised as “earmarks”, today’s kinder, gentler term for PORK, and “social programs”.

Now, what do you think the chances are that this proposed tax is going to HELP us get better prices at the gas pump? I’ll tell you: Get yourself a nice little snowball. Toss it gently down the main street of Hell. And see how far it gets…

This one is rather dicey for me to write, I guess.  You see, I’m a conservative white male from the deep south, and in the eyes of many, that screams “Racist.”  Born at the middle of last century, I grew up in an age that had “colored” water fountains and “colored” waiting rooms separate from facilities reserved for white people.  There were ‘colored schools.  I was in high school in 1966 when my high school had its first TWO black students out of a student body of 1500.  Our graduating class had five.

I know the whole ‘racist’ drill.  That was then.  This is now.  Somewhere along the lines, things changed.  In 1976 I was the only white ‘race relations’ NCO in the Eighth Infantry Division in Germany.  When I got out of the army in 1977 I entered the industrial workforce in south Louisiana and it was a whole new world.  Here in the ‘racist’ south, black and white were working in the plants side by side at the same jobs for the same money.

In the intervening years I have grown in the knowledge of my pretty darned technical field of employment and during those years I have studied under a lot of fine engineers and technicians.  Most of them have been white, but some have been Asian and black and North African and Lebanese.   I didn’t worry about the color of a man’s skin, just whether or not he knew what we were trying to accomplish.

In today’s workplace as I know it nobody is held back by the matter of skin color.  Stupid, ignorant and lazy will get you fired, black or white.  Intelligent, conscientious and eager will get you recognized.  No, I’m not naive enough to say that’s always the case, but as they say, it’s the safe way to bet.

I said all that to say this:  When it comes to politics, I am unashamedly conservative.  It seems like there is an undercurrent developing about Obama’s race, basically implying that if you don’t vote for Obama, you’re doing it because you’re racist.  That’s purest, finest, unadulterated bullsh*t.  Barak Hussein Obama is a LEFTIST.  He’s to the left of Hillary (hauugghhhh! spit!) Clinton.  He’s to the left of Teddy “Swim, bitch!” Kennedy.  If he gets in office, he’s gonna make New Orleans’ mayor Ray “chocolate City” Nagin look positively sane.  He’s gonna make Jimmuh “I never met a dictator I didn’t like” Carter look like Ronald Reagan.  THAT’S why I can’t vote for Obama.

You show me a black conservative running against a white liberal, and you’ll see exactly how racist I can be.  It’s that old “not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” thing that somebody once talked about.

From Brickmuppet Blog. He’s a Coastie himself, so his glee is unrestrained.

Coast Guard rescues midshipmen from boat
May 12, 2008 - 3:56pm

ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The Coast Guard rescued 14 people, including some Naval Academy midshipmen and coaches from the academy, after their ship suffered a broken mast.

Having been in a small sailboat when it lost a mast in a bad gust of wind, that’s not a good situation in which to find oneself. I was fortunate. I always carried a few simple tools and was able to retrieve and restep the mast and splice a broken stay to make it back to the landing. On bigger boats, that’s just a very untenable option. Worse, all that rigging going overboard and you’re likely to have rendered your boat’s engine and propeller inoperable.

Coast Guard Petty Officer John Edwards says the mast of a 49-foot Mameluke broke overnight in the West River.

It’s even worse in the dark: a tangle of springy wire, what seems to be an acre of sailcloth, slippery and stiff and flapping madly in the wind, and you’re drifting into who knows what…

A 41-foot Coast Guard boat rescued everyone aboard the Mameluke. They were then taken to Annapolis.

Still, it makes a good story: Navy rescued by Coast Guard…

1607 - First permanent English settlement in North America founded at Jamestown, Virginia.

1846 - United States declares war on Mexico. This sets the stage for that “from the halls of Montezuma” thing that the Marines sing about.

1865 - American Civil War: Battle of Palmito Ranch – in far south Texas, more than a month after Confederate General Lee’s surrender, the last land battle of the Civil War ends with a Confederate victory. Word travels slow in those days. Or it just might be those hard-headed Texans.

1912 - The Royal Flying Corps (now the Royal Air Force) is established in the United Kingdom.

1913 - Igor Sikorsky becomes the first man to pilot a four-engine aircraft. In 1919 he moves to America where he pioneers the helicopter.

1940 - Germany invades France AGAIN. Gee, guys. This is getting boring… Three generations of German men have now ‘vacationed’ in France.

We’re waiting for a technician to show up from the big German “we build every da*n thing” company to fix our problem at one of my stations.  Seems that there’s some sort of difficulty in him obtaining the proper visa to come to the US and work with us.

In my unending quest to help things along, I suggested that they fly him into Mexico City and have him come on across with the thundering herd of Mexicans.  If he gets caught he can tell them his name is Günter-Friedrich Gonzalez…  I guess the idea of a six-foot tall German…

Can you imagine how I felt when the ungrateful basta*ds didn’t take my advice?

Over at Meanderings.

Lots of interesting recipes are linked there, along with several recipes of her own sister.  Go visit.

1780 - British forces take Charleston, South Carolina in the American Revolution. Dimmocrats in Congress advocate immediate withdrawal and capitulation.

1942 - The First Battle of Kharkov. That’s from World War Two. It’s in the Ukraine, and the major players were The forces of the Soviet Union under General Timoshenko and Germany, under Field Marshall von Bock. When the battle ended on May 30, the Russians had lost almost 240,000, killed or captured, and the Germans had lost 20,000. THAT was war…

What a pleasant night’s sleep! In the early hours of the morning thunderstorms to the south of us provided a dreamlike lightshow and the rumbles of distant thunder. I woke up at the beginning and then rolled over and LISTENED. And went back to sleep. One of my favorite things, it is…

Woke up this morning to find that the rain missed us, the morning was velvety damp and cool, and the sun is shining as I walked out to get the paper.

Today we have two hospitals reporting fifty births between April 1 and May 5. Of the fifty, twenty-one are to unmarried parents and a half dozen of the new mommies decided that the daddy’s name shouldn’t be part of the birth record.

Starting off, we’ll look at those fine folk who can’t seem to meet all the obligations of “name your baby after Grandma”, and “It needs another syllable to be poetic”, so they have three given names:

• Stacy F. & William H. present their new daughter, little Brylei Reyce RaeLynn. What a trainwreck of a name: Made-up names, “innovative” spellings, and playing games with capitalization.
• Christian & David D. present their daughter, little Elizabeth Marie (wouldn’t have been bad if they stopped here, but noooo…) Alyse.
• Dielle & Robert B. tag their baby girl with Schantell Emma Lise.
• Barbara & Gerald P. name their baby boy Travis Jackson Logan.

Next we’ll just look at names that make you ask “did you spill your Scrabble set or what?”

• Courtney W. & Isiah R. Sr. pop out a son, little Isiah Nakeith Jr. Oh, well, “Honey, mom and dad screwed up MY name, so lets do it to the baby…”
• Mr. & Mrs. William T., in a fit of trendeighness name their new daughter Kinley Beth.
• Mr. & Mrs. Charles S. have a new son, little Talin Ethan. If it weren’t for an “I” they’d have named their kid after a bird’s toenail…
• Miss Mardell L. presents her new son, little Bryceson Joseph. Is he REALLY Bryce’s son? She doesn’t list a baby daddy.
• Mr. & Mrs. Shane B. celebrate their Hebrew heritage by naming their son Kohen Joseph. Great! Except the family name is decidedly Cajun and they probably don’t know a Levi from a Cohen from Achmed the goat-herder.
• Miss Sheena B. shows us her new baby girl, little Keavanna Tocarra. She doesn’t show us who the daddy is.
• Harlene (!) M. & Jeremy J. have a new daughter, little Jamaya Daniella. Compared to “Harlene”, “Jamaya” is almost a relief.
• April P. & Paul A. tag their baby girl with Meikayla Paulicee. You pronounce that middle name. Go ahead. I’m waiting. No do it without smirking.

We have a few folks who have decided that the key to a great name is to jack around with the spelling:

• Rebecca S. & Schane R. figured that the goofy spelling worked so well for the daddy that they’d visit it upon the son, presenting us with Caiden Schane.
• Megan & James M. present their baby girl, little Carlee Rhaine. Apparently they like the sound of the middle name but they didn’t want to name the kid after precipitation or a small town up the road in Louisiana.
• Check out all the “K’s”: Kristen (1) P. and Kasey (2) W. name their son Kasey(3) Robert.
• Tessie D. & Rex B. like the letter “K” too and tag their son with Kason Gage, hiding the fact that they named their kid after an excavation tool and a process indicator.
• Ramona & Richard C. apparently think that “K” stands for “kool” too, naming their baby girl Emily Karson. Whose son?
• Miss Shalonda G. ALSO likes the letter “K” and uses it on her son, little Traejon Kayn.

Lastly we have a little spark of the “Punctuation makes my baby special” bunch:

• Mr. & Mrs. Ronald R. present their new daughter, little La’Deja Olivia, invoking the “capitalize the first letter after the goofy-a**ed apostrophe” rule

And that’s the way it is in southwest Louisiana…