Tag Archives: debate

Best Palin Pre-Debate Quote

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This was so funny, I had to blog it.

In surfing around the Web this evening, I stumbled upon a comment from Tom Wright on a Talking Points Memo reader post regarding tomorrow night’s vice presidential debate:

Beware, Palin’s infuriating verbal squirming may cause Biden’s head to explode.

People making the mistake of trying to understand her unparseable constructions suffer greatly. Only by matching her smile and blank cheerfulness can one withstand the sucking black hole of unreason that is Palin attempting to communicate with words.

He was referring, of course, to all interviews done so far — yes, all three of them — in which Palin has proven again and again that she is completely clueless.

Aircraft User Fees

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And why general aviation pilots and businesses should be fighting back.

There’s been a lot of talk — and fighting against — the Bush Administration’s “Next Generation Air Transportation System Financing Reform Act of 2007.” I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t have all the details. But here are a few things that seem pretty clear to me.

Higher Fees Hurt Business

The User Fee system proposed by the Bush Administration may severely cut the activities of general aviation pilots. According to AOPA President Phil Boyer, “Nine out of 10 AOPA members have told us that this would reduce, curtail, or end their flying.” What’s that going to do for the aviation industry? As current pilots who can no longer afford to fly regularly sell off their aircraft, the used aircraft market becomes flooded. Fewer people will be buying new aircraft, so manufacturers will suffer. Suppliers to those manufacturers will suffer, as will employees all around.

As costs increase for general aviation businesses like flight schools, charter services, and tour outfits, those costs get passed along to consumers. That drives prices up, possibly making these services too costly for the marketplace. There are fewer customers. Businesses fail. This continues the cycle of used aircraft sales and unemployment.

Proposal Seems to Ask General Aviation Pilots to Bail Out Airlines

Shifting the cost of ATC services from airlines — which are responsible for hundreds of thousands of passenger hours a day — to general aviation is simply unfair. Many of these companies are failing financially because of their top-heavy management organization and unreasonable pay scales. Why is it that some airlines — Southwest comes to mind — are financially fit and offer good service to their customers while other airlines — think United — can’t stay afloat without government funds and pension rule changes? Could it be that some companies are simply managed better than others?

Do you think it would be fair for all people who use banks to pay a certain tax to the government for a fund that’ll bail out mismanaged banks that go under? Like the ones that gave out mortgages to anyone capable of writing their name on a form, no matter what their financial situation was?

Or how about a tax on drivers to be put in a fund to bail out automakers who don’t build the cars we want to buy at a price want to pay?

Or a tax on homeowners living in the desert for a fund that rebuilds oceanfront summer homes destroyed by hurricanes?

Is any of that fair?

Get Involved!

If you think the administration’s proposal is a bad one — or even if you want to learn more — get involved. If you’re an AOPA member, you can sign up to get e-mail notifications of developments, as well as instructions on how you can contact your government representatives to tell them what you think.

You can also go to this page to get more information about the funding debate.

Don’t wait until it’s too late. Act now.

Site Comment Policy

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I need to make a few things clear(er).

June 30, 2014 Update
I’ve finally gotten around to writing up the site comment policy on a regular page (rather than post) on this site. You can find it here: Comment Policy.

Although I discuss my comment policy briefly on the Contact Me page of this site, allow me to expand on what’s there in this post.

Comments Overview

This site allows comments on blog posts (often referred to as “articles” here). To enter a comment, fill in the comment form at the bottom of the post. If the form doesn’t appear, click the Comment link at the bottom of the post to display it. Registration is not required.

The name, e-mail, and comment fields of the form are required. If any are left blank or if the e-mail field is an obvious fake, the comment will be deleted.

First names only or handles are fine for the Name field, as long as they don’t use words that are in poor taste.

If you enter a company name or Web site name in the Name field, there’s a pretty good chance your comment will be deleted as spam.

Speaking of spam, if your comment was posted solely to advertise a product, service, or Web site, it’s likely to be deleted as spam. I have zero tolerance for spam or spam-like postings.

All Comments are Moderated

Because of the problem with comment spam on frequently-visited blogs, this site uses two types of comment moderation:

  • Automatic moderation through the use of spam prevention software. I use two different spam prevention software packages. One can automatically determine whether a site “visitor” is really a spambot and prevent it from posting a comment. It’s about 75% effective and generally catches 5,000 to 10,000 individual spambot accesses each week. The other spam prevention package uses established algorithms to identify messages that are likely to be spam. It holds these messages in a special moderation queue for me to review. But since there are usually 50 to 200 of these messages a day, I normally just delete them without an in-depth review. The best way to stay out of this spam bucket is to minimize links within your comment.
  • Manual moderation through the review of comments that have not automatically been identified as spam. If a comment makes it through the first two lines of defense, it’s put in a moderation queue. I read the comment and determine whether it’s appropriate for this site. If it’s not, I delete it. If it is, I approve it. If it’s spam, I mark it as such to help “train” my spam detection software. If you post a spam message on this site just once, I’m not likely to see any of your future comments, since they’ll automatically go in the spam bucket.

Please don’t expect your comment, no matter how appropriate, to appear immediately or even within a day or two. I’m a busy person and try to moderate comments daily, but that doesn’t always happen. Don’t post the same comment repeatedly; I’ll just have to delete the extras.

I’m always interested in reading the opinions of others, as long as they’re presented in a reasonable and friendly way. Rudely bashing me or other commenters is a good way to get your comment deleted — or, worse yet, marked as spam so I never see one of your comments again. I’ll allow comments with differences of opinion if those differences are presented in the spirit of friendly debate.

I also reserve the right to edit comments. I don’t modify content, but I might delete something I think is offensive or overly commercial if the rest of the comment is something other readers might benefit from.

I do want to remind all visitors that I am responsible for this site’s content — including comments. I simply won’t let the site be used for anything other than a place to share information and ideas. The site maintains a PG-13 rating in both content and language.

If you believe I’ve deleted your comment because I didn’t think it was appropriate, you will be wasting your time if you attempt to repost it or e-mail me about it. Your comment will not appear and I will ignore your e-mail. It takes only seconds to delete either one, so you’re not wasting my time at all. There are a lot of small minded, nasty people out there and I’m not about to waste my time dealing with any of them.

And That’s How It Is

While I realize that this policy might be harsher than the policies in place on other sites, this isn’t one of those sites. It’s my site. You’re my guest, and I don’t expect my guests to abuse my hospitality. If you have a problem with this policy, then you have a problem with me and my site and I don’t expect you to waste your time here.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Your comments are appreciated — really! You know where to put them.