New Jersey City Pays Dead Man $130,000 a Year
A recent audit of cash-strapped Camden, N.J. school district's finances found it was paying an employee $130,000 annually — and he's been dead for more than three decades.
City officials were shocked by the discovery.
Shocked I tell you. I'm not. You liberal idiots who think that government gives us our rights, protects our rights, ensures our standard of living and is directly responsible for our happieness.
Example after example of financial (and other) mismanagement and people still have faith in the public schools. So sad.
25 comments:
Remember when one of the local media groups caught city supervisors and workers sleeping and otherwise not performing their jobs? The idiot Vera's response?.....Repaint city vehicles from "the city of roses" to "the city that works." Hey, problem solved!
I'm sorry, would you like to go without government? Live in an anarchist society for a while? Be my guest. Let me know how it goes.
Kaelri: Portland is already without a government and is controlled by the anarchists. Winess the anarchists running a legitimate business out of town, and Taliban Tommy and the Toadies doing absolutely nothing about it, including not letting the police do their jobs in protecting that business.
Vera said, "The city that works". If that is "working", then it is working to keep business out of Portland and going somplace that is a lot more friendly toward them. It is surprising that more businesses are not leaving Portland for a more pleasant environment.
liberal idiots who think government gives you your rights...
Um, unless you're accusing A Gonzales and GW Bush of being liberals you're pointing at the wrong crowd. They are the ones yanking or infringing rights that predate the Constitution and that are guaranteed by the COnstitution, not granted. Oh, I know terrerisss and all, in 1790 they might have avoided hanging...
You might want to pick your accusations a little more carefully.
As for economics and happiness no the govt only guarantees those for the top 1% and other BushCo allies.
Since you're blogging rather than owning some MSM you really can't afford to be on that side.
Kaelri: I don't recall seeing where Daniel or Bear are saying no government. The argument is limited government as the Founders intended. There are legitimate functions for government which are few, and there are many illegitimate functions of government. Government's number one function is to protect our God given rights.
“Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have.” Barry Goldwater
Our rights come from God and the constitution keeps government from infringing upon them. That's the way our country was set up.
I don't want to see no government, I want to see minimal government.
And I wasn't aware that you had to be in "the top 1%" to be happy. Is money everything?
I was going to post a smart-ass reply to the idiotic comment above, but God told me not to and that He will deal with Daniel later.
Daniel is right. But for people who don't believe in God, they aren't likely to see it that way. I agree 100% that government doesn't give us our rights, but, at least in Oregon, local governments sure do curtail them here. People can rail on Bush and the Feds all they want. I have no problem with that, but lets keep the topics separate. Our mommies taught all of us, I think, that two wrongs don't make a right. So even if Bush and the Feds are guilty of whatever, such doesn't give the right to Oregon's left-wing governments to substantially curtail our rights at the local level.
And let's all remember that the only thing standing between us and a socialist dictatorship here in Oregon is the U.S. Constitution. Thank God, btw.
How has local government "substantially curtailed" your rights at the local level? What is it YOU want to do that local government is preventing you from doing?
I'll give you one: DHS is now running ads claiming that everyone has "the right to clean air, wherever we go."
They made this right up. And what about a bar owner who would let his customers smoke? Does he have rights? Could a patron choose not to visit that place if they don't want to smell smoke or do all potential customers have "the right" to not encounter any smoke anywhere?
In many cases, people can't use their land. Remember property rights? Yes, it's not absolute, even so, the balance in rural Oregon tilted so far away from the land owner that M37 was passed by the people.
Local government dragged their feet. Now Salem wants to undo the people's vote.
Who is behind that operation?
The "Democratic" wing of the Democratic party.
I wish it was just the far-left of the Democratic Party. No, the whole Democratic Party of Oregon is intent on taking property rights away.
Where is the respect for property rights?
Sorry, the collective must rule, you will be absorbed, resistence is futile.
"Kaelri: Portland is already without a government and is controlled by the anarchists."
You see the oxymoron, I hope? "Controlled by the anarchists?"
"Kaelri: I don't recall seeing where Daniel or Bear are saying no government."
Probably because they weren't. I was. As a hypothetical. To muster up some sense of perspective against the idea that a belief in the basic necessity of government is "liberal idiocy." That said, I'd be quite amiable if you want to compromise and just call it "liberal."
"Daniel is right. But for people who don't believe in God, they aren't likely to see it that way."
It is insulting to suggest that this has anything at all to do with a belief in God.
Then BE insulted! It's ALL about the founding fathers' desire to acknowledge God, our creator, as the grantor of our rights.
Kaelri: If I'm reading you correctly, you are saying that a city ruled by the anarchists is a "government"? And you are calling that an oxymoron? I call that a travesty! Any government, whether it be city, county, state, or national, that will allow a gang of malcontent, ne'er-do-well, jobless rabble-rousing thugs force a legitimate business to leave a location that has been in place for 112 years is no government at all.
Surely you are smart enough to see that. If not, then one can surmise that you were part of the anarchist gang that was downtown running Schumacher out of town, or at least in sympathy with them.
Taliban Tommy and his Toadies are a city government in name only. I reality, they are just taking up space in City Hall and making a bunch of noise that no one listens to. Except, of course, the Fish Wrap.
Do the rights of Iraqi citizens also come directly from God, or are they mediated through "The Decider"?
kaelri,
You go out of your way to be a smart-ass, don't you?
Whatever Daniel posts, you have to get in a few shots, no matter how stupid they sound.
Don't bother responding with some patronizing b.s. You're about as annoying as Mike Mayhem.
"Then BE insulted! It's ALL about the founding fathers' desire to acknowledge God, our creator, as the grantor of our rights."
It's not. Our rights - life, liberty, property - these don't need the endorsement of any Yahweh or Allah or Vishnu or Flying Spaghetti Monster to be so elemental that a child could understand them. We have the right to be, the right to think, the right to create a better world for our children, up to the point of stepping on another person's rights to do the same. That is why we have government, and why our government has a constitution, and those things are true regardless of why this planet is here and whatever the hell we're doing on it.
Scottiebill: I have no interest in arguing the politics of Portland. I live on the other side of the country, so I don't really have the slightest idea what's been going on over there. I was only pointing out that it's impossible for actual anarchists to control anything, since the point of anarchism is to oppose control.
"kaelri,
You go out of your way to be a smart-ass, don't you?
Whatever Daniel posts, you have to get in a few shots, no matter how stupid they sound."
If you look at my record, Stirred, you'll see that this isn't true. I do not respond to the majority of Daniel's posts, and I have been known to agree with him, from time to time.
But more importantly, I assure you, I never make an argument here unless I strongly believe in its importance. I write here with every intention of breathing life into the debate and changing people's minds. I'm seventeen years old, for heaven's sake; you think this is what I do for fun? I had a pretty full Saturday, and yet it's midnight over here and I just spent a half hour replying to R Huse a few posts down - some nonsense about Iraq and terrorism and why war is evil. You know why? Because it disgusts me that while I'm sitting here in front of my $967 Dell Inspiron B130 notebook, a kid my age in Iraq is wondering if she'll ever see another bottle of clean water in her lifetime. If by being a smart-ass I can make people sleep a little less soundly at night in their belief that these things are tolerable and justified, then I'm pleased to be of service.
Daniel, its New Jersey, EVERYONE'S CORRUPT!
Kaelri, I think it diminishes and the issue to simply say that the idea that our rights all flow from some divine Creator is merely insulting. Whether it insults is the least of the problem. It DOES speak to a sweeping ignorance of philosophical history, religion and American history, and it is also symptomatic of a staggering intellectual backwardness in a country that is in some respects quite advanced. Daniel might as well come out here and insist that the premise of Groundhog Day is scientifically sound, and he would sound just as ridiculous. I don't think we need to worry about being insulted, but we obviously need to be extremely concerned about the dangerous mix of stupidity and moral righteousness at work here. There's only a few shades of grey difference between Daniel and Bear and the fanatics who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center towers. Is that insulting to the rest of us? No, but it is definitely something we need to be concerned about and to work on.
"Kaelri, I think it diminishes and the issue to simply say that the idea that our rights all flow from some divine Creator is merely insulting."
That isn't what I took offense to. What I find insulting is the idea that those who do not believe in the existence of a divine Creator are somehow less capable of understanding the basic principles of government and morality. It's an elitist myth.
That said, though, you're right, and I thank you for providing some neglected sense of perspective. I like to think that I'm working on it a little, at least, by coming here and contrasting ideological fantasy with complex argument.
LOL!!
Bear, I suggest you jump ahead to Daniel's "Random Questions" entry. A bit more your speed, I think.
As a non-practicing Agnostic please allow me to add the following to the Gumbo: From Pat Buchanan's book, The Death of the West.
The earliest settlements in America were Protestant enterprises.
In the 1st. Charter of Virginia, the colonists' declared goal is to "spread the Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God."
"In the name of God, Amen "are the 1st. 6 words of the Mayflower Compact. Which adds..."by the Grace of God...having undertaken for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian Faith..."
The U.S. Supreme Court declared in 1892, "this is a Christian Nation."
In 1911, the New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson said, "America was born a Christian nation, born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of the Holy Scripture."
At Placenta Bay, where he crafted the Atlantic Charter with Churchill, FDR declared that America was "founded on the principles of Christianity."
In 1947 in a letter to Pope Pius XII, Harry Truman affirmed, "This is
(continued)
a Christian Nation."
I don't understand what difference you think that makes. The constitution doesn't depend on the existence of God. It protects the rights of our citizens regardless of whether they believe in the existence of God. It was inspired by a Declaration of Independence that enshrines principles of government, and of philosophy, not of God. We may well be a "Christian" nation, but we're a republican nation first, defunct charters and politicians' rhetoric notwithstanding.
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