Poverty in America

After a 'friendly' discussion with my soon-to-be mother-in-law, I needed to post about this. She is an ultra-liberal, while I am, of course, quite the conservative. My main contention was that poverty was being overblown by manipulating statistics by the left; there were other much more pressing concerns. In my mind, oil should come first. Nothing else needs to get done until these idiots in Washington lift drilling bans offshore, in Alaska, in the Rockies, and start turning coal into oil.

Here's why I think that:

1. Of those defined as poor by the census, 89% had enough food to eat throughout the year and only 2% had regular bouts with hunger.
2. 96% of poor households avoided utility shut off and 99% avoided eviction.
3. Did you know that 55% of POOR households own 2 or more TVs. And 63% have cable or satellite. 25% own a big screen TV. If that many of them are spending money on these LUXURIES then they don't need the governments attention.
(stats pulled from Glenn Beck's An Inconvenient Book)

Now you must be thinking I am some sort of callous bastard who sticks his nose up at poor people. Not true. My plan for oil will help poor people immensely. Right now, the cost of EVERYTHING is skyrocketing (3.69/gallon of milk?!?!) because of oil prices. And without the serious threat of us becoming more independent, those gas prices are not going anywhere but up. If the cost of everything continues to rise, then the poverty rate will rise with it as well. The poverty line right now is at $9,979 and if common goods such as milk start costing $5/gallon and upwards, then we are pricing more and more Americans out of these goods.

My last point/dig at liberals is if you look at the cities with the highest poverty rates in America, most have been run by non-republicans since 1965:

Cleveland is #1 on this list with 32.4% poverty rate and there has been a Republican Mayor just 38% of the time since 1965. In fact, of the worst 11 cities with regards to poverty, 8 have not had a SINGLE REPUBLICAN MAYOR since '65. Food for thought.

Lost Phone

Last night after leaving Brother's Bar in campustown, I was walking back to my friend Dave's apartment and found a cell phone in the street. Literally right in the middle of 3rd Street at the intersection with Green St. After some calls (and a tad bit of snooping) I was finally able to get ahold of someone. She told me she would call me tomorrow. After some more snooping on the phone, it turns out it was the phone owner's birthday and apparently had also lost her wallet and camera on Friday night.

Having lost a phone at a bar once myself, I was glad to be able to return one to the rightful owner. When I lost mine, I called it that night, someone answered, said hello, hung up and never answered it again. Ass. Not that I am still bitter.

Political Correctness or Idiocy?

It's been a while since my last post, but getting engaged eats up a lot of your time (especially when the goal is for a winter wedding in 7 months). But this absurdity had to be posted on. For those of you who have not heard, at a meeting of county commissioners in the Dallas area, one of the commissioners (who happens to be white) said the filing system had turned into a 'black hole'. Harmless, right? Well not to two of the black members at the meeting. One retorted with, "Don't you mean a white hole?" while the other demanded an apology. I recommend watching the video in this link, it is quite astonishing when you stop to consider that second graders understand it is simply a scientific term.

But it does not stop there. Commissioner Price (the 'white hole' genius) now has come out and alleged racism on cakes! Angel's food cake and Devil's food cake to be exact. Also no one can be called the black sheep of the family either according to his genius intellect. (Nevermind the fact that the phrase was coined due to black sheep born into a herd of white sheep) Perhaps Jesse Jackson should threaten to cut his nuts off. (Full disclosure: I whole-heartily believe Jesse Jackson is an attention whore and a moron. Dating all the way back to his days at U of I.)

Engaged!

Monday, June 30 was Betsie's birthday and I took her up to Michigan Avenue to celebrate. We got there in the afternoon and did a little bit of shopping/sightseeing/tons of walking. We stayed at The Seneca, which is on Chestnut St just east of the Hancock building. We had dinner at 7:00pm at Mity Nice Grill, which is in the Water Tower and followed that up with a drink in the Signature Lounge in the Hancock Building. She knew about all of these plans but the rest of the night was a surprise. After that, we walked down Michigan Avenue to the intersection of Huron where we took a planned horse carriage ride that I had arranged. They took us to a garden area with a gazebo in the center, and of course a family of three goes in the gazebo right as we arrive. So with some quick thinking, we just went behind the gazebo in the garden where after she opened her birthday card, I got down on one knee and proposed to her. She of course said yes and there was much joy throughout the land.