So. The massive cold front that is wrecking the Midwest, and soon through to New York City, made an appearance here to Austin at precisely 3:32:08 am last night. I know the specific time because that was when the 60 MPH winds blew a tree into a power line out to the Ranch Road that serves as my residential street.
The power outage caused my emergency generators to kick on, and they sound an alarm before starting that sounds a little like a WWII air raid siren. Which scared the shit out of the two gay lovers who live in my closet, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Perry.
My pet pig and ostrich came ripping from the closet screeching and snorting like it was the end of the world. They jumped on the bed and rammed under the covers and almost smooched the Squirt. She likes to snuggle against me when she sleeps over. She starts the night at my feet and inches her way towards my face as the hours pass.
Since it was 3:30, she was almost to my face in preparations for her daily beg for breakfast act.
Now me, I’ve got an iron stomach and my keen sense of smell doesn’t make me queasy. Squirt smells like a vacuum cleaner bag a day after she has a bath, so after a few hours trapped under my heavy down comforter, a crack in the covers leaks unpleasant Hoover smells.
Add to that the odor of nervous sweat from a 500 pound hog and a 350 pound flightless bird and you get a nearly toxic mix. Plus, I spent the rest of the night fighting for covers, and against all the spooning efforts of my bird. Anything with a four foot neck, and size thirty feet containing deadly claws, requires care and skill, and dexterity, when spooning.
Rick likes to push his head anywhere that gives him a sense that he’s hiding.
Anyway, today’s weather is windy and cold and miserable. I don’t know you guys up north tolerate it. But hey, kids, what greenhouse gas influences?
Today my thoughts are focused on the other Rick Perry, the Texas governor. Do you guys remember back when the federal health care package was getting passed how Little Ricky went on the warpath, and on the record, about how Texas don’t need no stinking federal health care assistance? Remember when he was saying that he knew how to take care of business and Texas had the strongest state treasury of any state? Did you hear the one about how Texas was going to lead the way in fiscal responsibility for the rest of the country under his leadership?
Well I for one misunderstood the little shitball. What he meant was that he can fuck up our health care without federal help, that the Texas budget hole was the largest of all states at a negative $27 billion, and that Texas will show how to go from Number 1 to bankrupt in record time– under his watchful eye.
Oh, but wait. See, little Ricky had his Attorney General filed a lawsuit to defeat federal health care mandates, which seems to have been effective under a recent court ruling. Word of that effect reached us here to Texas at the same time when we discovered that, “Oopsie,” maybe $27 billion is a touch short on the state budget deficit because, drum roll…………….
Our state Medicaid budget appears to be many billions worse off than the Rickster thought. And guess what. The latest state budget, in which 25% is for Medicaid, shows that the Medicaid budget is $35.2 billion See there, you liberal communist federal health care pushers, told you we can handle our own health care.
Oh wait, “Oopsie again!” The state is only contributing $13.6 of the $35.3 billion budget, and those nasty feds are supplying the rest.
Ricky youse been a bery bad boyyyy!
But it somehow manages to get worse. In June, the federal match goes down from 70% to 60%. This little detail will be cured by, “We hope to secure an additional $1 billion from US Congress.”
Unless of course, we might need an extra three, or four. Billion, that is.
I know I’m not very smart, but I’m a good watcher. As I like to say, all of my best ideas have been stolen. But I think I have a smart idea. How about we try something in politics– conservative or liberal or nut-case all three. How about we start telling the truth and stop manufacturing talking points. Let’s forget our individual special interests and take the time to determine what is “actual”.
My Gram didn’t finish high school but I’d bet the ranch that she can tell you that a budget based on fiction is a novel. A novel with a very unhappy ending. And the truth will help with more than just budget deficits.
How about we declare February 2011 to be “Truth in Government Month”. All politicians get a free pass on all of the lies and twisted truths they have told in the past. We citizens promise to forgive past indiscretions if you will just tell the truth for one fucking month!!!
Who knows, maybe it will catch on. Yea, and maybe Honest Abe will dust the dirt off his bones and make a comeback.
Drink Carta Blanca beer. Manana, y’all.