Fenger Pointing

Becky Fenger | October 14, 2009

Scary ideas

Becky FengerWith Halloween just around the corner, I turn to my own list of scary tidbits:

U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat from New York, ranks in the Top Ten Most Liberal senators by National Journal's 2008 vote ratings. He has introduced a bill wherein every newborn baby in the U.S. would be given $500 cash from taxpayers. For you lovers of horror films, I would call this nutty idea of his "The Seed of Chucky."

The International Energy Agency warns in a new report just released that it will take $10 trillion in carbon-abatement technology over the next 20 years to limit the rise in the earth's temperature. Tee hee. But as long as the world believes such goblin-d-gook and looks to the U.S. for the lion's share of cash, the laugh is really on us.

The State of Arizona does not need $3 billion or $4 billion to close the coming budget gap. The actual, factual number is $5 trillion, and not a trillion less. Now, that's hair-raising frightening!

USA Today prints that reported rapes have fallen to the lowest level in 20 years due to DNA evidence helping to send more rapists to prison and the willingness of victims to work with police and prosecutors. Landis Aden, President of the Arizona State Rifle and Pistol Assoc., suggests maybe we ought to give some credit to the 29,931 women with concealed carry permits just in the state of Arizona alone. The lead in their guns scares the lead out of the bad guys' pencils, you know.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration hired 1,100 people just to process the paperwork associated with the Cash for Clunkers program. Even witches should be able to trade in their old brooms with that sort of job creation.

The Heritage Foundation did the math and informs us that President Barack Obama is planning on spending $250,000 for each American living in poverty, or one million dollars for every poor family of four, over the next decade. Welfare gone wild!

One of the worst jobs in the world has to be that of Bladder Monitor for All Nippon Airways, a Japanese company. Employees will be stationed at the boarding gates in terminals to request of passengers that they relieve themselves in restrooms before entering the airplanes. All this on the theory that empty bladders mean lighter passengers who will weigh less on the flight and help cut carbon emissions. It gives new meaning to the term "flying on empty."

Recently deceased New York Times columnist and author William Safire once wrote that First Lady Hillary Clinton is a "congenital liar." It's too bad he won't have a chance to write about new First Lady Michelle Obama, who is giving Hillary a run for her money. When Michelle journeyed to Copenhagen to lend her support to Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games, she gushed over what the games meant to her as a little girl. She told the committee that some of her best memories were sitting on her dad's lap, cheering on Olga, Nadia, and Carl Lewis. Lewis won medals in the 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996 Olympic Games. Michelle would have been 20 years old when Lewis won his first Olympic medal.
That's some tall lapful for her father, infirm with multiple sclerosis at the time.

Here's a quote from U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood that would have spooked our founding fathers: "About everything we do around here is government intrusion in people's lives." He had been asked if his Livability Initiative, admittedly designed to coerce people out of their cars, wasn't government intrusion into people's lives. Fengernails to government planners.