Now let’s compare the rhetoric to the actual map of the district, before and after redistricting.  Here is a map of PA districts for the last 10 years:

In this map, Erie County is the only county that is not carved up.  Warren County looks like dragon claws are clutching it.  Crawford County, for some strange reason, has Titusville carved out of it.  Mercer County is mostly in the third district, except for a tiny chunk in the southwest corner that belongs to the 4th district.  Venango County is split up between the 3rd and the 5th , and Armstrong County is split between the 3rd and the oddly shaped 12th.  Butler County is about 80% in the 3rd, and the remaining 20% is in the 4th district.  As you can see, these lines were not drawn with any respect for county lines, and the district is rather funny-looking.  However, it looks positively square compared to the 12th and 18th districts.

Here is a map of the new PA districts:

The 3rd district is no uglier than before, and in fact, it keeps Crawford, Mercer, Butler, and Armstrong Counties intact.  Erie County is divided, but Warren and Venango Counties are not.  It also includes most of Lawrence County and part of Clarion County.  Yes, this district is more Republican than before, but it also keeps more counties intact.  Meanwhile, the neighboring 12th and 18th districts are still ugly, but not as bad as before.

So why are Democrats complaining?  They say that splitting Erie County will reduce Erie’s influence, and that is probably true.  But we deserve that.  Our population has been stagnant for decades, and redistricting reflects that, and there is nothing we can do about it except have more babies who grow up and stay in Erie.  Really, the charge of gerrymandering is silly, since all the districts in Western now look less gerrymandered than they did before.  Yes, the maps are drawn in a way that favors Republicans, but that is what Republicans do when they are in the majority and get to draw the maps.  Democrats would have done the same thing if they had won the 2010 elections.

In my opinion, the Democrats are whining because they want an issue to fire up their base.  The problem is, their charge is not true for Western PA, so they have to make it up.  And they are assuming that their followers in Western PA are too stpid to actually look at a map.  They might be right about that.  Besides, this is the map that PA Democrats proposed.  Remember, the Democrats are supposedly against gerrymandering:

This map totally butchers Western and Central PA.  Incidentally, it looks like it redistricts our congressman right out of our district, or at least puts him on the very edge.

If PA Democrats were a bit smarter, they would focus on where the real gerrymandering was, over in eastern PA.  In the Republican map, the 6th, 7th and 13th districts look like a newly hatched nest of vipers.  This plan only passed the State Senate by 26-24, as many Republicans didn’t like it.

If the Democrats had accepted the western PA map, while proposing some needed changes in Eastern PA, they might have taken the moral high ground, and they might have raised a public outcry that could have led to some compromises.  However, their own plan was also rather partisan, so they gave up any claim to the moral high ground.

Jack Stull, my stepfather, decided to run for Waterford Township Supervisor.  (For my non-local readers, Waterford Township is a rural township south of Erie with a population of about 3000.)   It was too late to get on the Republican or Democratic ballot line, and I don’t think he is happy with either party right now, so he collected enough signatures to get on the Constitution Party line on the ballot.

Usually a third party candidate doesn’t have a chance, but Jack has lived in Waterford all his life, and he knows EVERYONE.  He made sure to get out and talk to everyone too.  The Republican and the Democrat did not work nearly that hard.  Apparently the Republican was complacent, and the Democrat, well, let’s just say that Democrats are rather outnumbered in that township.  The Erie Times-News runs a short article about all of the local races, and the Democratic candidate didn’t even bother to answer a few questions for the newspaper.

Jack also made several large signs out of plywood and 2 x 4′s.  No cheap plastic signs with the metal frames for him.  These signs were sturdy, and were painted in bright yellow and green, and were placed strategically.  Everyone, even the most apathetic voters, knew he was running.  He also sent out a few hundred letters, explaining his stance on a local issue.

There are only two polling places in Waterford Township.  On election day, he and a few local family members worked the polls, and made sure that everyone was invited to vote for him.

On Election Night, I called my mom and asked jokingly how things were going at campaign headquarters.  I figured that he might come in second, just because the Democrat was apparently not trying.  My mom said they were just about to go to the polling stations to see how the counting was going.

A few minutes later she called back.  “We won!! By 23 votes!”  I told her not to celebrate too hard.

Jack had received 264 votes.  His Republican opponent got 241 votes, and the Democrat got 128 votes.

After the election, Jack had put a “Thank You” over his signs, and he left them up for the rest of the week.  On Sunday, I was down to visit, and he was busy retrieving his signs.

“Raymond,” he said, “If you want to run for office some time, we’ll just paint these signs a new color.”

I don’t really care that she got on “Dancing With the Stars” with a female partner in the first place.  After all, the shortage of men to dance with is an eternal problem, one noted by Elizabeth Bennet, who rebuked Mr. Darcy when she said, “Gentlemen were scarce, and more than one lady was forced to stand up with her sister.”  So the idea of a woman dancing with a woman is not novel.

I definitely don’t blame Chastity Bono for changing her name to Chaz.  If you want to name a daughter after one of the Puritan virtues, try “Faith,” “Hope,” “Charity,” or even “Patience” or “Silence.”  “Chastity” is just a bad idea for a name.  No one gets credit for living up to that virtue, but if you have that name and don’t live up to the virtue, prepare to hear about it forever.   You can also expect to have a terrible junior high school experience with a name like that.

I also hardly care that a transgender person got on DWTS.   Saint Paul predicted that women would behave badly in this and similar ways, as a result of their own sins and as a response to the sins of men in the surrounding culture.  With a 50% divorce rate, we are just about guaranteed to have all sorts of sexual confusions in our culture, and some of them will get on TV.  I know the producers of DWTS were trying to shock people like me when they picked Chaz Bono, but they failed.  Yawn….

There are two things I do care about, and those are the pronouns that are used to refer to her.  [Warning: I am about to say something terribly shocking and politically incorrect.]

CHAZ BONO IS A WOMAN.  SHE IS A SURGICALLY ALTERED WOMAN, AND MOST LIKELY A CONFUSED WOMAN, BUT SHE IS STILL A WOMAN.  And when we write about her, we need to be honest and say “she” and “her,” not “he” and “him.”

If you disagree, think about this.  Let’s say that Chaz Bono committed a crime.  Perhaps (speaking completely hypothetically, of course) she throttled one of the judges who gave her the boot, but in the process of throttling said judge, she was slightly injured and left some of her blood and skin at the scene of the crime.  If the police reached the crime scene and did a DNA test on the tissue sample, they would look for a female suspect.  Chaz Bono’s plastic surgeon would have created an extra challenge for the investigators, but the DNA would not be lying.

I know some of my readers are liberals who don’t care about the cold hard facts of present-day biology, and who think that gender is whatever you decide to be.  For those readers, please read the articles about Chaz  here and here, and listen to the way she expresses concerns about her weight and appearance.   She doesn’t sound one bit like a guy.   Chris Christie, Rush Limbaugh, or Michael Moore would not talk that way about their appearance.  For men, weight is a practical issue, and that is why we rarely ask, “Does this shirt make me look fat?”  We probably already know the answer.  But if we do ask, our wives can answer the question honestly, without fear, and we can put on a bigger shirt.  Apparently the surgery did not solve her body image problems, and one has to wonder if she, like many others who have had plastic surgery, would have been happier skipping the surgery, and seeing a counselor.  But that is a secondary point.  The main point is that the surgery and subsequent hormonal treatments did not cure her of being female.  And because the surgery did not ultimately change her, clear thinking people everywhere need to refer to Ms. Bono as “she.”

I recognize that this is a minority position that will face strong opposition, and I propose that this position be called “BC”, for “Biological Correctness.”  BC is only one of many necessary antidotes to Political Correctness.

To help share the Truth about Him, of course we must combat the disinformation spread by those nasty lying Rethuglicans, like Ed Koch and State Senator Ruben Diaz.  We must stop attacks on him by racists such as Herman Cain, Michelle Malkin and Nikki Haley.  We must “Get the facts” and “Fight the Smears.”  In fact, if you find someone saying something bad about our President, you are invited to “Report an Attack” by going to AttackWatch.Com.  This site is paid for by Obama For America.

I tried this, and I ratted out my co-worker.  Maybe if the secret police take him away I can give his job to my nephew.  I reported that he called Obama a “commie b*st*rd” who was probably born in Kenya.  (I have a lot of co-workers, and at least one of them believes this.  I am merely reporting what I hear.)

I thought they would pay me for this valuable information.   I mean, this guy has long hair (what is left of it) and a ponytail, and he looks like he smoked a lot of pot in the 60′s.  He  should be a natural to vote for Obama, but the Dems lost him somewhere between Hope and Change.  This is valuable information.  If He lost this guy, He might lose the Jewish vote in NY-9 next.  But instead of a reward, all I got was a quick thank you and then I was sent to a site asking me to donate to the Obama campaign.

I didn’t donate, and now they suspect me of disloyalty.  Actually, they know, because someone (I don’t know exactly who, but I have a short list of suspects) decided to rat ME out, and they wrote this about me:

“Keep an eye on that bookstoysgames blog.  My dad has said that you attended a racist church for 20 years.  He doesn’t think you are a secret Muslim, but he is sure that you think more about your golf game than about what is going on in church, because otherwise you might have noticed that your pastor was a black supremacist, anti-semite, and general raving lunatic before it became a campaign issue and you dumped him like a crazy ex-girlfriend.  He also is critical of your speeches at times, and he strongly suspects Michelle wears the pants in the family. He also hopes that the voters retire you in 2012, so you can join the PGA Seniors Tour, because you spend more time on the golf course than Tiger Woods.”

So here I am, in an undisclosed location, waiting for the secret police to knock on my door.  All I have to say is, “Come and get me, Copper!”

The text of the President’s jobs speech can be found here.  The condensed version, which sums up the speech for those of us who are tired of the idea that we need just one more speech from The One to make everything better, is here:

Here are some thoughts about the speech, in no particular order:

1.  The repetition of the phrase “pass this jobs bill” is grating.  It sounds like the rotten kid in Wal-Mart who is demanding that his Mama buy him a candy bar, and is using his full rhetorical skills to get it.  Unfortunately, that kid is 4 years old and has not developed any rhetorical skills yet.

2.  That rhetorical repetition is even more grating, when you realize that President Obama had not even submitted a jobs bill at the time he made the speech.  Let’s say that he had a compliant Congress who answered “How high” whenever he said “Jump.”  They simply could not “pass this jobs bill,” because it doesn’t exist yet.  He even said “Pass this jobs bill, and tomorrow…” when the written bill is not even going to be submitted until next week.

The Republicans were correct not to have an official response to this speech, because the speech left them nothing concrete to respond to.

3.  The idea that “there is nothing controversial in this bill” is just silly.  Obama’s rhetorical trick here is to say that since some Republicans and some Democrats have supported an idea in the past, that it is therefore not controversial.  But that is just silly.  We got rid of a lot of Republicans who had some of these ideas in 2006 and 2008, and in 2010 we purged a large number of Democrats, after eliminating a bunch of incumbent Republicans in the primaries.  And some of the ideas were proposed at a time when our government was not completely broke.

4.  The president proposed a $4,000 tax credit for hiring a worker who has been out of work for more than six months.  (As opposed to just hiring the best qualified person for the position.)  As a manager who makes hiring decisions, this strikes me as a particularly stupid idea.  When I hire someone, I should be choosing the best person for the job, not the person who will give me a small, temporary tax break.  If I let my decision be swayed by a relatively small benefit, I will probably regret it in the long term.  The kind of thinking displayed by the president is the thinking of a person who hasn’t made real hiring decisions that involve financial consequences.

5.  He also proposed a temporary 50% cut in the (Social Security) payroll tax.  This cut would affect both employers and employees, and it would be significant.  Part of me likes this, in the same way that Ron Paul probably likes this idea.  However, if Obama wee smart, he would not be proposing this cut.

Social Security is based on the idea that payroll taxes come in, and then they go out to retirees.  We were allegedly running a surplus that went into a Social Security trust find (which only exists on paper, but people in government like to pretend), and now that the Baby Boomers are retiring, we are drawing from this trust fund in addition to payroll taxes.  If present trends continue, the trust fund will run out around 2042, and everyone’s benefits will be cut.

If we reduce the payroll tax now, then Social Security receipts will be cut in half for a while, the Trust Fund will be further reduced, and date of Social Security’s insolvency will move forward.  If this goes through, you had better take every penny of this tax cut and invest it in your future (paying your debts down would be a good idea), because the government won’t be taking care of you.

6.  All this stuff about building bridges, repairing schools, etc.  Didn’t we just do that with the $787 stimulus?  Why should we need to do that again?  Did we botch the first stimulus or something?

7.  He says this will all be paid for, but that is highly unlikely.  First of all, his proposals are estimated to cost $447 billion. ( The number will change when it a real bill is submitted.)  According to Keynesian theory, a stimulus should be “timely, targeted, and temporary.”  That means that the $447 billion should be spent over 1 or2 years, which means that the deficits in the next two years will be increased by $447 billion, or about 20%.

To pay for this, he is telling the deficit commission to find more savings.  This commission, consisting of 6 Republicans and 6 Democrats, was charged with finding $1.5 trillion in savings over the next decade.  If the American Jobs Act is passed, they will have to find $2 trillion in savings.  Except that since a dollar now is worth more than a dollar in the future, they really need to find about $2.5 billion in savings over the next decade.  Their job just got 60% harder, and getting Democrats and Republicans to agree to anything is hard enough.  Instead of proposing anything, he just waved off the problem, and is trying make others deal with it.

8.  The fact that he is asking them to change their mission a mere month after he agreed to their current mission, shows that he has contempt for congress, and regards them as an obstacle to doing whatever he wants to do.  Either that or he is just plain desperate.

However, I have a very simple solution to this problem:

LET’S JUST ASK ENGLAND TO TAKE US BACK.

I know that back in 1776 we had the Declaration of Independence.  It says that we declared independence because we experienced  “a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object… a design to reduce them [us] under absolute despotism” and then it went on to list the abuses.

But guess what?  George III is dead, and England has come a long way since then.

And independence didn’t always work out so well.  Take slavery, for example.  The British got rid of it peacefully, without a civil war, in 1834, a generation before we did.  But once we got the idea of leaving and starting another country, our Southern brethren had to try it again, with very messy results.

Then there’s the matter of taxation.  When we left England, tax rates were an intolerable 2-3% of our income.  (Less if you didn’t drink tea.)  Now, having declared that “taxation without representation is tyranny”, our taxes are consuming about 18% of our GDP.  Now that’s progress.  What would Patrick Henry think about this rate of taxation?

When we declared independence, we said that King George “has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”  Yup, we sure solved that problem, and now we won’t even be able to buy incandescent light bulbs soon.  Imagine Sam Adams, patriot and brewer, being told he had to put health warning labels on his beer.  How long do you think he would put up with that?

So, we need to call Queen Elizabeth II, and tell her that it was all a big mistake, and could we please re-join the British Empire.

There would be just one condition.  The British throne would have to pass from Elizabeth to Prince William, bypassing Prince Charles.  Because English kings named Charles have not worked out so well, and Camilla is just too darn ugly to be Queen.

“How would this help our debt situation?” you might ask.  The answer is simple.  We have run up this debt during our unfortunate 225 year period of rebellion.  If we took the modest step of re-joining Great Britain, we would cease to be a country.

All of our government debt would melt away, just like Confederate War Bonds.

Sam was a traveling salesman with a promising future, except for one problem. You know the joke about the traveling salesman and the farmer’s daughter?  Well, in this case, the farmer was armed, and extremely angry.  On a particularly bad Monday, Sam soon found himself at the Pearly Gates, talking to Saint Peter.

Sam’s Aunt Myrtle had warned him about the wages of sin, so he looked sheepishly at Saint Peter, wondering if he really belonged there.

“Don’t look so surprised,” said Saint Peter.  “Things up here don’t work quite the way your Aunt Myrtle  said.  (She’s in room 342,978,047A, by the way.) In fact, everyone gets to choose their eternal home.  Camp out by the gate tonight, and tomorrow you will get your tour of heaven.  The next day you will get to tour hell, and on the third day you can make your final decision.”

“Well, can’t I just sign on the dotted line and choose heaven now?” said Sam.

“Sorry, Sam, I wish it were that easy.  But we have a policy we have to follow.  We like to keep our 100% customer satisfaction rating, and to do that, we need to make sure that our competitor gets to make his pitch too.”

So Sam woke up the next morning for his tour of heaven.  It was everything he remembered from Sunday School, and more.  Harps were playing beautiful music, and the heavenly choir was in perfect pitch.  He even thought he could hear Aunt Petunia’s voice.

“Is that my Aunt Petunia?” He asked his tour guide.  “She tried to get me to become a preacher.”

“Yes, that’s her,” said the guide.  “But we forgave her for that.  And for a lot of other things you never knew about.  BTW, she’s in room 342,978,048C, right next to your Aunt Myrtle.  They haven’t argued with each other once since that tornado in 1987.”  Sam was deeply impressed.

After the singing, there was the feasting, the welcoming of new arrivals, the meeting of new friends, followed by more singing and feasting, and the Ultimate Frisbee game between the Angels and the Saints.

At the end of the day, he went back to Saint Peter.  “How did you enjoy your tour?” the old fisherman asked.

“It was great,” said Sam.  “I was particularly impressed by the improvement in Aunt Petunia’s singing.  Do I have to go to the other place tomorrow?”

“Yes, we have to be ethical up here,” said Peter.  “It’s OK, a day there never hurt anyone.  You just have to get out before the Devil knows you are staying there.”  Then the old saint went to usher in some new arrivals, who had just rejected the competing sales pitch.

The next day, Sam woke up, and took the down elevator to his tour of Hell.  Satan met him, wearing an expensive looking suit, and holding a martini in one hand and a big fat cigar in the other.  “We’ve been expecting you, Sam.  Come party with us.”

Hell was definitely NOT what Sam expected from his Sunday School lessons.  It looked like one big, wild party.  There was an open bar, where men drank, smoked all the cigars they wanted, and flirted with scantily clad, willing women.  Harry recognized an old friend, and asked Satan about him.

“Oh, yeah, Stan,” chuckled old Scratch.  “No more drunk driving convictions for him.  And guess what?  His pickup lines work now.  Haha.”  Sam looked, and the hottest woman he had ever seen sat on Stan’s lap and gave him a huge kiss.

“With all this drinking and smoking,  don’t you get a hangover in  the morning?” asked Sam. “And what about the risks of cancer?” It all appeared too good to be true, and not at all like the way Aunt Myrtle described it.

“How can you get a hangover?  Remember, you are dead!  There’s nothing to worry about here.  No OD’s, no hangovers, no diseases, no jealous husbands.  When you are dead, nothing else bad can happen, so it’s one big party down here!!!”  Sam could not argue the Devil’s point.

At the end of the day, Sam went back up to the Pearly Gates, with a lot to think about.

One the third day, he went to Saint Peter.  “Well, Peter,” said Sam, “I’m glad you insisted I take the other tour.  Heaven is really nice, and I know some people there, but I think the other place fits my lifestyle a bit better.”

Saint Peter looked sadly at him.  “I understand.  The other guy makes a good sales pitch, and a lot of people choose the way you did.  Well, there is the down elevator, Sam.”  Sam walked into the elevator, with a few others who had made the same choice, and pushed the down button.

Halfway down the bottom fell out of the elevator.  Sam was dropped into a vat of burning oil, where he frantically tried to tread water.  He heard the screams of others around him, and something like a gigantic shark was swimming under him, biting at his feet, while demons stabbed at him from above with their pitchforks.  He got thirsty very soon, and begged for a drink.  A demon handed him a huge margarita.  Sam drank it immediately, only to find that it was made from habanero juice instead of lime, and the worms in the tequila were still alive.  “Drink up,” the demon laughed.  “Coffee break isn’t for 10,000 years.”

Sam looked over and saw Stan, who he had last seen in the arms of a hot babe.  Now Stan was wrestling a huge squid-like creature that appeared to be trying to dunk him in the burning oil, while trying to eat him.  “Stan,” he cried.  “What went wrong? It was so nice here  yesterday.”

Between gasping for breath, Stan relied.  “Sam, you are a salesman.  You should know better.  Yesterday you heard the sales pitch.  Today, you made your purchase.”

Personally, when I use two wheels, I supply my own power, but to each his own.  However, the event shows us something about human nature.

I have seen thousands of men riding solo.

I have seen hundreds of women riding solo.

I have seen hundreds of  men riding with a female in the back seat, supported by a vertical fender strut.

What I have NEVER seen ANYWHERE is a motorcycle driven by a woman, where a man is sitting in the back, supported by a vertical fender strut.

Are there no feminists in this crowd?  Isn’t there a single “liberated” woman, even in a crowd of 50,000, whose husband shares driving time, and occasionally takes his turn in the back?  Not even once in a while?

Apparently, feminism has its limits.

However, there is a time-honored method to resolving disputes like this, and break the gridlock.

SINGLE COMBAT.

Sometimes, after you have given peace a chance, you have to try another method that is more decisive and violent.  Remember David vs. Goliath?  Menelaus vs. Paris? (If Aphrodite had let Meleaus finish the job, the Trojan War would have ended much faster.)  Harry Potter vs. Voldemort?  Burr vs. Hamilton?  Romeo vs. Tybalt?  Romeo vs. Juliet? (OK, that wasn’t a case of single combat, but if they had married based on 14 year old infatuation, it would have led to combat by the time they were 35.  Dying young was the best thing that happened to their marriage.  But I digress.)

So anyhow, Obama and Boehner need to engage in single combat to determine who decides how to resolve the debt crisis, and the rest of the House and Senate need to accept the result.

Please note that I am NOT suggesting that anyone get killed here.  That would be mean.  Besides, If Obama died, we would have President Joe Biden, and Republicans would not like that.  And if Boehner died, we might have Speaker of the House Michelle Bachman, and Democrats REALLY wouldn’t like that.

So Obama and Boehner need to play golf.  For high stakes.  2/3 of the House and 2/3 of the Senate need to agree to the following terms:

For every hole that Obama wins, he gets a $100 billion increase in the debt ceiling.  If he wins all 18 holes, he might not have to beg for a higher debt ceiling until the voters retire him and he can join the PGA senior tour.  If he does less well, he has to come back for another round when he is out of money.  Since he has golfed more than Tiger Woods in the last year, he should feel confident about his game.

For every hole Boehner wins, he gets $100 billion of spending cuts.  Republicans get to pick the cuts, and Democrats will be sore losers if they complain that the cuts will starve the poor and place Grandma on an iceberg to die.

To spice up the action, we can have a few more rules.

If Obama wins a hole with an eagle, he gets $100 billion in additional revenues (that’s “Tax increases” in politi-speak.)   If Boehner wins a hole with an eagle, he gets $100 billion in tax cuts.

Finally,

If Bohner gets a hole in one, Obamacare gets de-funded and repealed.

If Obama gets a hole in one, the 22nd amendment will be repealed and he will be allowed to run for a third term.

I am not saying that this is best way to solve our government’s problems, but it will probably produce a better result than we will get by the normal political process.

1.  If you were going somewhere and wanted to take music with you, you had to bring a cassette tape and put it in your Walkman.  The cassette tape held about a dozen songs, and you had to play them in order, unless you used the fast forward and rewind buttons.

2.  And speaking of music, The Supremes (not Phil Collins) sang “You Can’t Hurry Love”, The Eagles were a rock band, and Michael Jackson was still black.  (Oops, excuse me, African-American.  You can’t say black anymore.  When I was your age you could say “black”, but it was racist to say “colored”, unless you were talking about the NAACP.)

3.  You could take a Swiss Army Knife or aspirin to school without getting expelled.

4.  There was an East and a West Germany, and a North and South Yemen.  (The way things are going, we might have an East and West Libya by next year.)  Mumbai was Bombay, Beijing was Peking, and Burkina Faso was Upper Volta.

5.  Jerry Brown was still governor of California, having replaced an actor who served as governor before him.