Insanity!

I am sick to death of the crazy spending binge by Congress. It continues to snowball. Now the proposal is to spend $900 million in Gaza. You've got to be kidding.

We have no business piling this debt on top of an almost insurmountable mountain of debt. Congress has lost touch with reality and the American public.

On top of it all, it is to be funneled through the UN. You can read more about it here.

A Four Year Itch

Man, the time sure flies! Today ends my 4th year of blogging at Tulsa Chiggers. I must admit I have lost some steam and focus on blogging over the past year. My goal is to get back into it and blog more consistently. There should be plenty of things to comment on.

Weekend Roundup

Let's see...

Some of the things happening in and around T-Town lately are: A Broken Arrow church teaching The Shack to tickle the ears of attendees. What happened to teaching the Bible?

This follows a story in 2008 of a church (gathering) of people in Jenks teaching life principles derived from the Andy Griffith Show reruns. I would prefer reruns from Green Acres once the Andy Griffith shows are exhausted.

Eleven bank holdups so far this year. We gave banks a $700 billion bailout, I guess the crooks want to be shown the money!

Mayor Kathy Taylor announced her intentions to run again for mayor of Tulsa. The filing period isn't until July. With the Dollar Thrifty stock in the dumpster, she will need to depend on the kindness of strangers instead of using her own immense wealth to buy this important position. The Chigger strongly suspects Mayor Taylor will be tapped by the Obama administration for business development, she has done such a great job here.

Blatent Fear Mongering

Listening to the rhetoric of an impending catastrophe and that we are in a disaster, I can't help but think that this is nothing more than fear mongering. Fear is an effective, but utterly useless form of motivation. And President Obama is only continuing the drumbeat started by former President Bush and his Treasury Secretary. We passed the $700 billion TARP funding using the same arguments. And we can already see how that performed. Shaping up to be a gigantic waste of our future tax dollars.

I recall a phrase that my mom used to say, "I'm going to do something, even if it's wrong!" I firmly believe that is the current mantra from our Federal government.

Mark my words. This path of a dominant Federal government, combined with it's socialistic economic policies will result in the near term with increased inflation, the governments best friend.

Tara Vreeland at KOTV

KOTV has quietly slipped in a new weekend anchor named Tara Vreeland. She most recently came from the CBS affiliate in Cheyenne, Wyoming KGWN Channel 5. Interestly, the KOTV website still does not have her bio listed as part of the team. Does this mean she is on probation?

On her first broadcast here in T-Town, she was poised and professional. She did an outstanding job with no appearance of nervousness. She is a keeper.

Welcome to Tulsa, Tara!

Tulsa Public Works Reforms

Mayor Kathy Taylor has hired a high-priced accounting firm to conduct a forensic audit of the Tulsa Public Works Department. This is in response to the explosive revelation of bribery and corruption in the Department, perhaps to the tune of $4.2 million.

Over the past week news has leaked out about exactly how the bribes and kickbacks were accomplished. It was not just one way, but several ways. Having some first hand experience as the victim of embezzlement, I too discovered that it was not done in just one way, but in several. I also learned from that experience that any system can be improved, but it is nearly impossible to guarantee that it won't happen again.

Two of my best suggestions to the Mayor are: a) have all contracts bid competitively, and b) have all construction contracts be fixed priced bids.

And it is always a great idea to have more people involved in the process, for better internal control and less likelihood of collusion.

And by the way, what is Tulsa doing to get our $4.2 million back?