Big Dogs House

Turtles Are Not This Smart*

Jun 17, 2009 Political

* But they are at least as smart as the dumb people who thought up this boondoggle. This is indicative of the mindset of people who really do not know the value of a dollar, combined with the total ignorance of how turtles think and act, among other things. This is just one of the more ridiculous things that  our money is being spent on.  Look, I would have no problem with this project if I thought that  turtles would actually use and benefit from this underpass built with several million of our dollars- of course, that would be an awful lot of turtles to make this project cost- effective.

The 13-foot tunnel near Tallahassee, Fla., runs under Highway 27 — a busy road that has the highest road-kill rate for turtles in the world, according to state officials. 
Josh Boan, the Florida Transportation Department’s natural resources manager, said a large number of turtles and other wildlife are killed in the area. In addition to protecting wildlife, he said the project is needed for safety: turtles hit by vehicles can become flying projectiles.
foxnews.com

This is an example of government gone wild  with regards to budgets.  If turtles would or could use this, perhaps  could almost wrap my mind around this, as I have spent countless amounts of time picking turtles off of roads where they are trying to get to the other side for whatever reason.

But the sad fact is that turtles are not reasoning creatures- they do not see this tunnel and think, “Cool, a better way to cross”, simply because they do not think on a cogent level. They are primatives in their thoughts, reacting to danger and comfort pretty much exclusively.

In studies, the turtle was shown to not even notice cars, since the speed of these cars were above the perception of these creatures. Nor have they ever been shown to have any logical thought processes- they are strictly instinctual creatures, so they will not travel to a tunnel to cross the road, because they are incapable of the thought it would take to make that connection. Therefore, all creatures who did employ this tunnel would truly do so by accident.

Don’t you think there could be better uses for what little money we really have, than to satisfy some delusional politician’s ecological feel- good nonsense at this time?  I grew up catching snakes and turtles- I know how they think, and I am sympathetic to their plight, but this is so wrong- headed as to defy common sense on several levels. Turtles will cross the road whereever they come to the road, and that is a sad fact.<
So say goodbye to 3.4 million dollars of your money, used on something that will not help that which it is intended to do- but that is the story of America's government when it comes to spending our money- they just have to spend it, or they will have some kind of budgetary aneurysm, and they just have to spend it on worthless stuff that sounds great, but does nothing.

Can’t we just, for once, actually spend money wisely? Does the President and Congress have to act like drunken lottery winners, spending money just because they can?

This is money we can not spare, not even for turtles.

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Tags: government waste, insanity, stupidity, turtles

Democrats Downplay What They Once Assured Us

Dec 22, 2008 Political

In the run up to the 2006 midterm elections the Democrats told us they had the solutions to the problems facing America. Vote for them, they said, because they can lower gas prices and fix the ailing economy (that wasn’t exactly ailing at the time). They were unable to accomplish this and they needed more power to right the ship of state. In 2008 they won even more seats and America elected a man whose citizenship is in question, all on the promise of hope and change.

Well, gas prices are the lowest they have been in years but they had to cause a complete financial meltdown to accomplish that little task. The Democrats set the table for the financial meltdown when people like Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, and Barack Obama were on the payroll of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Despite at least 17 warnings by the Bush administration, these people continued to insist that all was well. It was, if you were one of their friends making millions of dollars working for Fannie and Freddie.

Now though, the Democrats actually won and they will have to make good on the promises that they can fix it all. They will have to live up to promises that they can fix the economy and get people back to work. But, in true Democratic fashion, they are now lowering the bar. Once self assured in their ability to repair what is broken, the Democrats are now saying that things will take a long time to mend and that the 800 BILLION dollar stimulus package they are working on might not exactly do much.

Well who would have known? The first stimulus did not work. The bailout did not work and there is no indication that throwing more money, money we don’t have I might add, at the problem will actually fix it. The Democrats realize that they fooled millions of people into voting for them and those people will expect results. The same Democrats who wanted something done NOW are saying it might take a while.

I never had any doubt it would take a while and I also knew that stimulus packages and bailouts would not solve any problems. The end result of all the spending is that we don’t know where the money went, how much was actually spent (and what the final tally will be), or where we will find the resources to pay it back.

During the Great Depression the government threw money around and tried creating jobs. This, among other things, prolonged the depression and made things much worse.

The free market system will work out problems but it has to be a free market. We cannot have the government making rules that run contrary to the principle of a free market. We cannot allow people who do not have the means to buy a home to actually buy one. We cannot make credit rules so lax that college kids can apply for credit cards and be approved even though they are saddled with debt and have little or no income. George Bush said he is abandoning free market principles in order to save the economy but abandoning those principles is what got us in this mess in the first place.

Democrats in Washington are still subscribing to the idea that they can intervene in a free market and make things right but they are also realizing that this tact is having little effect. Thus, they are pulling back from those things they once assured us rather than admit they knew not what they were talking about in the first place.

Someone once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

It would appear that the Democrats are insane.

Source:
Wall Street Journal

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Tags: bailout, Democrats, expectation, insanity, stimulus package