vote for me

i have some ideas. in fact, i think i have some pretty good ideas. no one seems to think to ask me for my ideas. but i have some that i think might be pretty darn good. and in the right situation, i may be willing to share.

and i'm not the smartest person in the world. sure, i'm reasonably ingtelligent but i don't claim to be a genius. and people we elect to public office? well, i think they're pretty smart, too. for the most part. but what i think is the people we elect seem dreadfully lacking in the area of common sense. so i've decided i'm gonna run for office on a common sense platform.

you see, lawmakers make a lot of laws these days. and let's just be downright honest. most of the laws they make favor some special interest group, or, if they favor the public in general, they're generally laced with "line items" that sneak through little laws that are favorable to some campaign contributor. that's not right. line items in a bill should pertain to the main topic the bill is addressing. dontcha think?

so here's the first thing that's wrong. campaign contributions. bad on many levels, campaign contributions serve mainly to sway a candidate into favoring some special interest group that has a lot of money. pharmaceutical firms may contribute to one candidate's fund. in doing so, they sure are gonna expect a favorable vote on the passing of some bill that has something to do with fda requirements. duh!

unions may contribute to a candidates fund. and when they do they certainly expect that if their man gets elected he'll vote in their favor on any issues involving labor.

and political action committees. commonly known as pacs. they may be the worst. they'll withhold (only on a volunteer basis, of course, after a reasonable (or unreasonable) amount of pressure on their employees), from employee paychecks so they can contribute to the campaign fund of whatever candidate(s) that they feel will best represent the interests of those employees. maybe. or maybe they'll contribute to the candidate that offers the best overall favor to the pac itself.

these laws need to be changed. my law would be: no political contributions whatever. a fella announces he's running for office, the governmental entity, be it city, county, state or federal, hosts a series of forums where the candidates speak. tv stations can broadcast. no spending necessary on the part of the candidate, no automatic election for the richest. no special interest groups or huge corporations unduly influencing politicians. there ya go. common sense.

here's another of my ideas. well, a little background first. i lived in arizona when we, the voters, enacted a law requiring anyone living in the state and operating a motor vehicle to have liability insurance. and most states did the same thing along about the same time. but guess what. four times while living in arizona and once since i've been in oklahoma i"ve had my vehicle hit by the other guy. his fault. and only one of the perpetrators (i watch cops on tv) had liability insurance. so if insurance is mandatory, why are all these folks running around hitting my car without having that mandatory coverage? the law just doesn't work.



so here's my brilliant idea. eliminate liability insurance. i'm saying that not only should we not require it, we should ban it entirely. here's the alternative. add a penny to the price of fuel. or two. i haven't even tried to work out the numbers. i think a penny would do it, but certainly two cents would be more than adequate. add that penny, or two, to the tax on fuel. and then cover everyone who buys fuel in that state. not only would everyone be covered with liability type insurance, but we'd all be paying varying amounts pretty much depending on how much we drive. or the type of vehicle we drive. those that drive gas guzzlers would pay more than those of us that drive economical, practical little cars. how fair can you get? and no one would get their car crashed by an uninsured motorist. people who live in the state. people that drive through the state. everyone pays their fair share for liability coverage. yep, that's one of my simple, brilliant ideas.



i have other ideas. drugs. drugs are a real problem in our country. we spend billions upon billions of bucks trying to keep drugs off the streets, to bust the drug pushers, the dealers, the importers, and on an on. ad nauseum. well, i have a simple solution. legalize drugs. yeah, all of them. and while we're at it, close down all the bureaucratic drug enforcement departments. save lots of money. and here's the good part. make the drugs available through your local drug stores. make users register to buy them. tax the holy crap out of them (see what a great idea this is? we save tax money by dumping the drug enforcement agencies. we generate lots of income by taxing the holy crap out of drug sales. perfect! in fact, i haven't run the numbers, but if you have enough drug users you could probably just eliminate all income taxes. or at least pay down the federal deficit. and then maybe if we generated enough drug tax income we would be able to just shut down the i.r.s., saving even more tons of money.) and allow pontential employers free access to the registry of drug users. and don't penalize them for refusing to hire someone on this registry. we'll eventually eliminate a lot of drug usage - users can't get jobs, can't buy drugs, so they quit, end taxation of income, and pretty much eliminate the underworld crime faction as well, cause they wouldn't have any business.



simple ideas. common sense. there are more. they flash in my mind now and then. global warming? well, mister gore, i'm glad you asked. ever walk by an air conditioner unit while it's running. it may be cooling the interior of a home, but it's sending air out heated up to 200 degrees. and build more houses, build more businesses, build more industries in the desert? that'll keep the world warm with all that heat generated. right there has to be the major source of global warming.

so, let's just solve it. stop building business, homes, airports, etc. in the desert. build where it's cooler. i was just in salt lake city. there's lots of open land available. and few people have air conditioners. it's just not that hot. so here's the plan. levy a tremendous tax on anyone building a home or a business that includes an air conditioner. that'll discourage growth in desert areas. and what's the harm? the desert turns back into, well, desert.

utah, colorado, the pacific northwest, well, they're not gonna favor this plan. but isn't democracy all about majority rules?

yes, folks. i have lots of ideas. so remember this . . . a vote for me is a vote against everything wrong with the world. i just gotta figure how to get my name on the ballot.

if the rain comes

i really like rain. at least, summer time rain. it's cool. it's cleansing. and it sounds neat. and makes the grass grow. if, that is, you live in a geographical area where grass does grow.

and that's a big part of why i like oklahoma. grass does grow. green. lush. i lived in the desert for most of my life, and i can't count the number of visitors who would say something like "oh my oh my. the desert is so beautiful!" hmmm. well, when you're raised in the desert, you don't think of it as beautiful. you think of it as dirt. and weeds. and hot. and laced with evil things like reptiles and scorpions.

even as a mere child i remember appreciating the beauty of green, lush grass. and rolling hills and trees. in my opinion much prettier than the stinking desert. not to mention that it's lots cooler than the desert. but i know. arizona has "dry heat". here we have humidity. well, let me address that.

have you ever opened your oven door when something's been baking in there for a while? and you feel this big blast of "dry heat" hit you in the face? yep. that's "dry heat". and it's hot. but the humid heat, while it certainly can make you sweat and feel uncomfortable, will not bake you like an oven would. and no matter how high the mercury rises here, if you're outside, in shade, and there's at least a bit of a breeze blowing, you're not nearly as uncomfortable as you would be in an oven.

back on point . . . as one may have guessed, it's raining out. and here in the first week of august when we're expecting the temperature to be in the high 90's or just over a hundred, the rain is a refreshing, welcome break from all that. and the earthworms crawl up on the sidewalks, so if you're inclined to go fishing - there's your bait.

rain is just really cool.

and another thing i like is zip lock bags. wow. i hope whoever invented zip lock bags is a billionaire by now. what a great idea. kinda like tupperware, but you can just toss them in the trash. maybe not so ecological sound as we should be. but oh so convenient. yep. i like zip lock bags.

if i wanted to i could take a zip lock bag out and capture the rain. wow, that's getting too weird. think it's time to do something constructive.