Desktop Dynamo

Dear White House:

Rahm on the attack!

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel railed today against Republican charges that the Obama Administration will tax the bejesus out of the middle class.

"Let's be clear. Let's be unequivocal. This Administration will not increase taxes on the middle class. The tax burden will be placed on those making over $250,000."

"All these rumors about increased taxes on the middle-class are just the ramblings of paranoid, whack-job, nutball, right-wing conspiracy freaks.

"If you make less than $250,000 we're not touching you. Got it? If you make more, bend over baby, the freight train's a-coming!

When informed of Emanuel's crude comments, President Obama said: "Rahm gets a little pumped up. He really should have calibrated his words more carefully."

The Obama Administration today announced a surprise measure to radically boost the minumum wage. The move took analysts by surprise, as minumum wage jumped from $6.55 to $7.25 just a few weeks ago.

"We're going to jump-start this economy," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis.

The Obama plan will raise minimum wage to $125.00 per hour, and mandate full time pay for all Americans, regardless of actual hours worked. Annual income for most Americans will be $260,000.

Tax increases will go hand-in-hand with the higher minimum wage.

Big bucks on the horizon?

"Most Americans will fall into a new 95% tax bracket," said an Obama Administration insider. "That may seem steep, but we all need to sacrifice."

When asked how Americans will survive on less than $10,000 annually (after state and local taxes take their bite), the official said: "Easy. If you can't afford your mortgage, the government will buy your house and let you live there for a nominal rent. Health care will be free. You'll be safer, too, because guns will be banned from residences. Firearms aren't permitted on government propery."

When asked how this plan will affect the middle class, Secretary Solis said: "You haven't been paying attention. There won't be a middle class. Everyone will be making more than a quarter million dollars a year. We'll all be rich. God Bless America."

Rumor has it that Timothy Geithner has already cranked up the printing presses to start churning out the dough for the new wages.

When asked about employers who can't afford to pay the new minimum wage, Solis said: "If they can't solve a simple payroll problem, we'll fire their asses and run the company."

...That's me, according to some. I'm guilty of sounding crackpot at times, I suppose ...but mark my crackpot rantings with an asterisk. Why? Because if I'm wrong, I'll 'fess up. A true crackpot goes to the grave with his beliefs, despite any evidence to the contrary.

I admit that I can be a bit eccentric. Odd, perhaps. (Okay, sometimes more than a bit odd; let's be honest). But not, for the most part, a crackpot (though I have moments, particularly this past winter).

With that as the set-up, here are some of my views on the state of the nation. Let's see if I set off a crackpot alarm or two (take them all with a grain of salt):

This past Sunday, I had the privilege of attending the last Mass at St. Mark's Church in Inkerman. St. Mark's is yet another church that is being closed by the Diocese of Scranton. Many of the parishioners will come to my parish in Laflin. Some may decide to go elsewhere. Hopefully none will walk away from the Church.

I wasn't a member of St. Mark's parish, but that little church in Inkerman holds a special place in my heart. Several years ago I started doing some annual data entry work for Father Ed Masakowski, then the pastor at St. Mark's. These are wonderful, happy memories for me. A number of evenings each year, Father and I would sit in front of his old PC and do some hard work together. Julie, his housekeeper and a wonderul woman, would keep the ginger ale flowing while we toiled. We were a heck of a team ...a well-oiled machine by the time we finished working together.

As much as I will miss working with Father Ed, I know it can't touch the pain St. Mark's parish feels right now. It must be extraordinarily hard for people to see their churches shuttered. A church is often the center of a community's life. Weddings. Baptisms. First Communions. Confirmations. Funeral Masses. Parish bazaars. Midnight Mass. Easter Sunday. So many memories built over the lifetimes of so many people. In the case of St. Mark's, 108 year's worth. And then, one day, the doors are simply locked.

"I don't like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand right back and if possible get a pillar between me and the train. I don't like to stand by the side of a ship and look down into the water. A second's action would end everything. A few drops of desperation." - Winston Churchill

A few months back, I saw my weekly paycheck was suddenly a little bit fatter.

"It's your Obama tax cut," the payroll folks explained.

I got on the horn with the White House.

"Hey, O ...what's this extra dough in Dynamo's payroll?"

"Tax Cut, Dynamo!"

"Looks like about a weekly pizza's worth! Can I use it for wings?"

"Hey, baby," said the Big Guy, "It's a stimulus! Go forth and stimulate on whatever you want!"

So the Dynamo household started having weekly Friday pizza nights again. And there was abundant joy in Dynamoville.

But next came 50 straight days of increases in gas prices, and most of that Dynamo pizza ended up in the gas tank. Just enough remained for a weekly bag of java beans for the morning coffee.

Then Smiling Ed Rendell, PA's Governor, came to town to announce a plan for a whopping 16% increase in personal income tax.

"Hey," said smiling Ed, "It's not a big deal. A mere pittance. About a week's worth of java."

And there went the rest of Dynamo's stimulus.

And so I got right back on the horn to the Big Guy.

"Hey, O ...Big Oil and Smiling Ed have are trying to abscond with my stimulus!"

"Can't really talk now, Dynamo," said the Big Guy. "Gotta come up with a plan for all those hundreds of billions we're putting into Health Care."

"Say, Big Guy," I asked. "Isn't that bass-ackwards? How's about a plan first, then a budget?"

"Gotta run, Dynamo," said the Big Guy. "Joe B's here to walk my new doggie, Bo."

"But what about my stimulus pizza?"

Women are always having baby showers for expectant mothers. How do those things work? Do you pop the kid out, hose'em down, then pop'em back in? I don't get these weird female customs.

I wrote about this once years ago, but it bears repeating. If you're having a god-awful day, one for the record books, and you want to lash out ...here's a perfectly legal way to do it. On your drive home, go exactly the speed limit. Soon you'll have a line of cars behind you that stretches nearly to the horizon. If you're deaf like me, it's even more fun, because you know they're blowing their horns.

The best part is watching the amusing gestures in the rear-view mirror. Oh, it gets quite colorful. Folks also pound their steering wheels. They punch their dashboards. I do pull over if they wave firearms, but that's just a couple times a week at most. I also think the Governor spit out the window at me once as his limo driver passed me illegally. But it might have just been some bird poop hitting the windshield.

I drive the speed limit all the time now. It makes my bad days bearable, and my good days even better. Sometimes when I arrive home, I pass the house and just keep on driving, the line of cars in my rear-view growing longer with each passing mile. The stress just flows right out of me...

The speed limit. It's not just the law, it's cheap therapy.

Someone at work ran out of tape today. I left a roll of invisible tape on their desk, but they couldn't find it. I told'em, "...well, at least we know it works."

The war of words continues on the Korean peninsula.

Following a decision by the U.N. Security Council which bans North Korean weapons imports and exports and authorizes the inspection of North Korean sea, air and land cargo, a military spokesman for the isolated communist nation vowed a swift and merciless response.

True to their word, North Korean special forces raided South Korea last night and removed all of the nation's vowels.

"Ys, th vwls hv bn stln," a US General told reporters assembled for a press conference in Seoul.

One military analyst said that while the North Korean action was a serious provocation, its effect was limited. "The military can run on consonants alone. But it certainly makes it more difficult."

Reports say that many y's may have been spared in the raid, due to confusion over whether that letter is a vowel or consonant. "We hear about half of them survived," said an analyst.

US forces issues an ultimatum to the North: "Rtrn th vwls r w wll bmb yr cntry bck t th stn g."

After the ultimatum, US Special Forces teamed up with Korean alphabet specialists and raided North Korea, removing all consonants. Analysts say the US action was likely far more damaging than North Korea's raid on vowels. As proof of the raid's effectivness, the US military released an intercepted message from the North Korean high command: "Aa ieiaey. Aiiae e Eey!"

Upon receiving the message, some North Korean units disbanded, some attacked other North Korean units, and one battalion inexplicably disrobed and went swimming in a nearby river.

"An army can't fight on vowels alone," said an analyst.