This is a link to an Ann Coulter piece about gas prices.

I've been looking into this lately. With all the bru-ha-ha about gas prices. I remember seeing the old stickers that used to appear at the pumps showing how much of the cost in each gallon of gas was taxes.

You think they are bad in the States? 1 liter of gas, here is about 1.30 euro, off post. A liter is just ever so slightly more than a quart. So, a gallon of gas here is about 5.2 euro, or, under the current exchange rate, gas is about $6.30 a gallon, here.

Ann Coulter states that the oil companies make about $.09 a gallon in profit from each gallon of gas, the Federal government makes about $.18 a gallon in taxes, and each state varies, with New York taking most, at $.44 a gallon in taxes.

In all of my research, the numbers differ, but the relationship between them remain the same. For every cent the gas companies make, the Federal government makes 2 and the states make up to 5.

If this was not bad enough, Congress is talking about imposing a "windfall profits tax", on the oil companies. A tax on the oil companies because they are making so much money. Tell me what you think. Do you really believe that if this tax is passed that the oil companies are going to just absorb this tax without passing the cost of this expense on to the consumer, meaning you and I?

If US legislatures, state and federal, really want to help the average American, then they should roll back their current taxes, not add more.

There is a lot of noise from legislators about price gouging. Look at the numbers. I agree with them that there is. The legislators are the ones that are doing it.

If you don't like the price at the pump, write your Congressman, and demand that he/she drop the tax rate on your gas. They get more of your money than the oil companies.

If you read my post "A Good Day", then this is a follow-up to that.

Today would not have been called a good day by a lot of people.

I got up earlier than I, normally, prefer, on a Saturday. Joined the gang from before, and headed down the road to Furth. It was about an hour's drive down the Autobahn.

It was the official home opener for the Furth Pirates, today. The weather was gloomy. It was cold in the stands. The team got off to a sluggish start in the first game of the double-header. Especially, our favorite player, Moses Clerk, an American. It was like he was recovering from a hangover. (I've found out that they always play double-headers) AND the Pirates (our team) lost both games.

On the other hand, our German friends are really getting into going to the games. They are almost cheering like Americans. We saw friends that we had made two weeks previously again, and caught up with them. Amy, even, made friends with some previous acquaintance's dog, Boogie. Our group grew by one. Isa and Anke's brother, Ingol, came to the second game, and seemed to have a good time. Chad and I, both, kept scorecards. We had some fun and lively conversations on how to score, and whether a given play was good baseball strategy. While the Pirates lost, they battled in each game. They played some good ball, after the sluggish start. In each game, they came real close to winning it near the end. While it was bad that our team lost, twice, it was good baseball.

It was exciting. It was fun. We spent quality time with friends.

Going home after cheering winners would have been nicer, but it was still a good baseball day.

This is the fifth post for the day.

Scroll down for the substance.

This is a "puppy-vibes" post.

Here is the pup, and "crippled" dog.

(The pup is the one with the mostly black face, and, yes, they are from the same breed.)



This is the handicapped dog. You know, the one in the wheel-chair.

My bad. The boy can stand, walk, and have a major attitude.

Here he is, refusing to stand still enough to not be blurred in a picture (He's "talking" about it, too, BTW).



Then, there is Radar.

My boy ... okay, Little(Grumpy)Old Man is more appropriate.



But, you know what?

It's getting pretty late here.

I'm going to do a Gimli ... according to these last pics.





Schon Abend.

Buenos noches.

I forget the Korean.

Good Night.

(Or southern)

'Nite Y'all.

The article linked in the title of this is by Wesley Pruden, of the Washington Times. It's his latest "Pruden on Politics" piece.

It's worth taking the time to read.

He closes with this:

A curious and telling fact about the flags in the demonstrations in downtown Los Angeles is that the Mexican flags seemed to have been held aloft mostly by Mexican-Americans who were born here, perhaps as a romantic gesture of homage to a homeland past and gone. The Stars and Stripes were carried by new immigrants, who only just escaped from a place they're eager to leave behind. They know better than to indulge romance.

I'm reminded of a story I heard about people in the Army.

The person telling the story told how there were quite a number of black people in his unit. All, but one, were born American citizens.

He related how that all of the black people in his unit demanded to be called "African-Americans" ... except for the one that was not born an American citizen.

That one guy was, actually, born in Africa. He had immigrated to the US, enlisted in our Army, and earned his citizenship while wearing the uniform of our country.

He refused to be called "African-American". He insisted on just, plain "American".

Go figure.

So, I'm listening to Rush tonight, with my headphones on, while Amy watches TV. (Actually, I am watching and listening. He has a webcam in the studio.)

He reads what is, basically, a eulogy over the air. It was from some podunk local newspaper in south Florida.

It was sent to him, by email, from a listener. He read it on the air.

Kind of unusual for Rush.

Especially, once I realized that it was a eulogy for a dog. A Great Dane, named Jake. Apparently, Jake was something of a local icon in Arcadia, Florida. So much so, that when he died at a ripe old age, for a Great Dane, there was a write up in the local paper.

If you are a dog lover, the link in the title of this post is DEFINITELY worth following. The stories of how this 162 pound, horse of a dog stole the hearts of an entire town and a US Senator are, truly, heartwarming.

That still didn't explain why Rush was spending all of this time reading all of this stuff on the air.

I didn't get it.

Until Rush read this quote from Jake's owner, Garry Phillips:

"Oh, he was a conservative Republican," Phillips said. "He'd hear the theme music of the Rush Limbaugh show (on radio) and he'd come from wherever he was to lie on the couch near the radio. He'd stay there until the show ended, then he'd get up and go back to his place."

I laughed so hard!!!

My wife became concerned. So much so, that I had to take off my earphones, and, partially, explain.

But it hit home for me.

Let me explain.








The cat is Booger. "Boog"

On July 22, 1985, I gave my wife, of one month, this tiny grey and white kitten. He could sit up in the palm of my hand.

The last picture is of him and our first dachshund, Hugo. Hugo was about the size of Gimli, in that picture. As you can see, Boog was bigger. He weighed about 20 pounds.

We had to put Boog down in April of 2001.

Anyway, the Jake and Rush story reminded me of one of my favorite Booger stories.

It was December 1985. I was home studying for finals. I had the third opera of Wagner's Ring Cycle of operas playing on the stereo.

It is the height of the opera. The orchestra is roaring. Sopranoes and tenor screeching. It was loud. It was raucous.

Now, Boog is a kitten. He's a smart kitten.

If he is doing something that is "allowed", I can hear him. He makes noise.

If he knows that he is doing something he shouldn't, then he goes into "stealth" mode.

I realize that I can't hear the cat anymore and I can't see him.

I go tearing through our apartment, going to all of the places that he shouldn't be.

Then, I get to the living room. Where the stereo is.

There, curled up in front of a speaker, with his head leaned back against the speaker, is Boog, with his eyes closed. I think he is asleep. Then, I make a noise. His eyes open, and his face gets this expression that says, "WHAT?!?!?!".

He was "jamming out".

I noticed, over the next few weeks, that when I played the classical music that I was studying, Boog was as close to a stereo speaker as he could get. When Amy put on the country music that she liked, he ran from the room as fast as he could, and got to the farthest point in the apartment that he could away from the stereo.

So, when I heard about Jake and Rush, I laughed, again. Part of it was for Jake, the ultra-conservative Great Dane, and part of it was for my Boog, the opera lover.

Of course, I didn't "tear up", at all, during any of this. I'm a "dog person", after all.

The article linked in the title of this post is from the LA Times. The LA Times' editorial page is not normally a place where I find material I agree with. This is a notable exception.

On the face of it, this article sounds like it is on global free trade, lowering trade barriers, etc. It's not. I's Niall Ferguson's take on the current immigration debate.

Since, it seems, everyone else that can voice an opinion on this matter has, I might as well take a stab.

Let's start with some facts.

The illegal immigrants that come here come here for something. Basically, they want a better life than what they can get where they are from.

Some come here and don't even try to "get ahead". They just become drains on the system.

Some come here and want to work for a better life. ... For themselves and their families.

The bulk of illegal immigrants have little or no marketable skills, or education.

The types of jobs that these illegals end up taking have existed throughout American history. They did not come into being because the hispanic illegals starting coming over our borders.

Let's start with those who come across the border and act as parasites on society. As you can tell by my choice of words, I don't approve. I'll get to my solutions later, but let's just say, as far as I am concerned, we have enough deadbeats in our country. We don't need to import more.

Next, since, at least 1989, I have been an advocate of reform in the way we deal with immigration.

Let me explain why.

There is an entire strata of jobs, as Ferguson points out in this article, that there simply has not been enough Americans to fill. Actually, Ferguson points out two stratas in the job market that we are woefully short in. I won't deal with the second, as it has little bearing on what I have to say, but I do agree with him (that's a hint: I highly suggest reading the article. If I didn't think it was worth the time, I wouldn't have linked to it, and written this post.)

The strata that most concerns the illegal is jobs unskilled, blue collar jobs.

The fact of the matter is that America has not produced enough people with the appropriate qualifications for these jobs, without making them overqualified.

In other words, because we have not produced high school dropouts in significant enough numbers in the appropriate regions, our job market does not contain enough people uniquely suited for these jobs.

This is not a slur.

Historically, there have either been enough immigrants, or uneducated to fill these jobs. Our modern immigration laws, and our education system have cut down on the people available for this strata.

Let me make this personal.

My Grandpa Robertson was a gandy dancer. Not exactly a "yuppy" occupation. Grandpa never graduated from high school. My dad was 1 of 8 children (6 survived childhood). He was born in a one-room, shack with a dirt floor in a town called Possum Grape in Arkansas.

My Grandpa was part of that social and economic strata that I am talking about in this post. He did a tough, low paying job, but it was necessary for the Southern Pacific to keep running in an era when the US still lived by it's rail system.

Grandpa instilled in my Dad a drive to be more, know more, and do more. Dad graduated from high school, but never finished college. He went to work in retail. Mainly managing stores for firms like Wal-Mart. Now, he owns his own very successful janitorial supply business.

Dad instilled the same drive in me. On the Robertson side of the family, I was the third granchild to graduate from college. There are 23 grandchildren, and I fall, pretty much, in the middle, chronologically.

Sorry for the tangent on my family history. But, it illustrates something.

This issue is personal for me. I have known several illegals. Worked with a few, in fact. I saw my Grandpa in them. They came here, so that they could have a better life, and their kids an even better one. Most importantly, they were willing to work to make that happen.

I think that immigration law needs to be reformed.

I think we need to be tougher on those that just come to the US to be parasites on our society. On the other hand, I am passionate in my belief that those who want to come here, be a part of our society, add to it (like the immigrant generations before them), and work to better themselves and their families should be given the opportunity.

Let me rephrase what I am saying.

I am a college graduate, with a successful career, and plenty of opportunity ahead of me when I end this career in a few years. I could not be where I am today if it weren't for that almost illiterate, hillbilly, gandy dancer that I called Grandpa.

If we choose to kick out all the, now, illegal immigrants that want the same things my Grandpa wanted, then we deprive our society of people like ... my family, and me.

The flipside of that is, like Ferguson says, we need to start a new initiative in our education system.

We need to let those kids that are at risk for dropping out know, that there probably won't be a job, at all, for them. Our immigrant class has them all sewn up. (You REALLY need to read this article. It has a great ending!)

I have, in the past, entire articles by Arnold Ahlert, a writer for the New York Post editorial page. He writes some short and to the point beauties.

Here is another:

April 10, 2006 -- ARE all "little people" equal? For the American Left, the answer is decidedly no.

There are two groups of "little people" currently dominating the political scene in America: illegal immigrants and ordinary Iraqis. The former group has the undying support of the American Left for all the "right" reasons: they are refugees from politically and economically dysfunctional countries who only want to make better lives for themselves and their families. Illegal? An "unimportant detail" when so much suffering can be alleviated - if only we "care" enough.

Ordinary Iraqis? That same American Left is more than willing to abandon them to terrorist savages.

Ordinary Iraqis - who've demonstrated tremendous courage and determination to better their lives - are of no concern to those whose "compassion" is apparently restricted to the Western Hemisphere's downtrodden.

Guess some "little people" are simply more equal than others.

ahlert@adelphia.net

Today was a good day.

I rarely have a truly bad day. Even when I was in Iraq, I rarely had a truly bad day.

I learned a long time ago that life is sweet, and that you have to enjoy it. Stop and smell the roses. You know.

I think that is one of the reasons that I REALLY love baseball. It's that kind of game.

So, here I am in Germany.

Tell me, do you think Germany and baseball go together?

Apparently, it does.

Let me explain.

Isabelle. Our friend. The one that calls Gimli "Kasper". Married my friend Chad last Saturday.

Chad loves baseball almost as much as I do.

Chad loves baseball the way that someone that used to play it does. I love it the way that a person that is fascinated by it, but truly sucked at playing it.

Isa is this truly beautiful soul that wants to understand and enjoy the things that her husband enjoys, and, since she is probably going to spend the rest of her life in America, wants to understand and enjoy American things.

So, Isa found baseball in Bavaria.

I'm not talking about Little League or something like that. I am talking about teams and players that were working on representing Germany in the World Baseball Classic.

It was a big outing. Isa and Chad; Amy and I; Isa's sister, Anke, and her boyfriend, Jurgen; and their friend Andrea went to see what we thought was this game. We had no idea what to expect. We were just trekking 70 kilometers down the autobahn in search of baseball.

Isa had emailed the team's front office, and found out that the tickets were only 3 euro (about $3.60). How bad could it be?

Isa, demanding an "American" experience, had bought 2 cases of Budweiser, encouraged all of us to wear appropriate "American" attire for a baseball game (I supplied multiple caps), translated "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" into German, and got me, Amy and Chad to teach the song to everyone else ... on the drive down.

We got there.

It was this sad little field.

Or that was my first impression.

Short outfield fences. Only two bleachers, no other seating.

We found the home side, and set up our lawn chairs, just in time for the first pitch.

The first pitch of what we found out to be a double header.

Shortly after it started, Chad and I went in search of the souvenir stand. We found this guy, George. It turns out George is the president of the Furth Pirates Baseball Club, we found out later. He shows us around the entire complex, and shows us everything that you can buy ... to include fitted (not adjustable) caps that the players wear. Chad buys a cap. Amy has my cash. So, I don't buy anything.

We go back in time for the second inning.

It was better than college baseball, but not quite AA minor league ball. I'm thinking A or Rookie league ball ... or VERY good independent league in the States. 9 innings.

Very "small ball" (bunts, steals, "hit and run" plays, etc) kind of game.

My favorite.

BTW, our little group of 7 sang "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" at the 7th inning stretch, even though the rest of the crowd and the announcer didn't go there.

About the 7th inning stretch is when we found out it was a double-header.

The Pirates won the first game.

We knew that we were going to root for the Pirates coming in the door because the Pirates are from Franconia (a region in Bavaria[our region of Bavaria]), and the other team wasn't.

The Pirates won the second game, as well.

I kept score, and enlightened my German friends about the "ins and outs" of the game.

There were more than a few players that Chad and I, both, thought should be playing in the Minor Leagues in the States.

It was the first baseball game that I have been to since the summer of 2003. My parents took me to Bush Stadium to see the Giants play the Cardinals.

It was well played. They played the type of game that I enjoy the most.

I left with a fitted team cap, and a team jacket.

... And we never paid for our tickets. We were, apparently, honored guests.

We came home. Amy crashed. Gimli ... Kasper and I ... I put on my Pirates jacket and cap, and we went on a walk for an hour.

I've had a great baseball and dog day.

I hope your weekend is, at least, half as good as mine. Because if it is, then you have had a heavenly weekend.