Excuse Me Whilst I Ramble

The level of government waste, abuse and just plain stupidity is too great for me to keep up with and that’s just on the local level.

Every now and then I have to say something or I'll explode.

Today’s “Object de Scorn” ... ... ... None other than the OHSU tram (which rhymes so well with scam).

Some moron up at OHSU decided that an overhead tram would help solve parking issues up on Pill Hill.

They conducted a study to see what kind of support such an idea might garner. They found they had minimal support at best. But this is Portland Oregon, so we press forward and get bids to build this thing.

Winning bid, $15,000,000.00. So now we’re going to build this tram that the majority of people that have to pay for it, will never ride and didn’t want in the first place.

To me, that’s like telling a guy, “Hey, I’m going to punch you in the face. It’s going to cost you $15,000,000.00, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Be prepared to pay up!”

Now remember, we’re in Portland Oregon where a firm construction bid of $15,000,000.00 means … … … NOTHING!

So we (the taxpayers) are now looking at $55,000,000.00 if there’s any hope of finishing this thing. Apparently there is no penalty to the winning contractor for being SO far off with his bid. That throws up a little red flag.

On top of our initial cost, (did I mention this is Portland Oregon?) once this albatross is built, it will require a staff to run and maintain it. Just as with MAX, this is a formula for large chunks of lost revenue and like MAX you can bet your hobby horse that here in Portland Oregon, we will find a way to run that bad boy at a significant deficit.

The new “threat” is if we stop this project now it will cost the taxpayer’s $20,000,000.00. Yeah, so? That beats the hell out of $55,000,000.00 plus large daily lost revenue upon completion, plus yearly operating expense. BAIL!

Just a heads up to Randy Leonard and Eric Sten et al., when I entrust my investment counselor with my money, he knows it’s his ass if he looses it. When I entrust government officials with my tax money, I feel the same way. I like to see a quality return on my money not how fast a group of idiots can squander it.

Best be packing your bags boys, your rein of stupidity isn’t going to last much longer. I believe the voters have had just about enough.

Have a nice day!

Could it be that George Bush was right and the people of the United States were wrong?

Dubai Ports World is among the largest if not the largest operator of ports in the world specializing in Container business. They are ranked as one of the top (as in doing it right) Container port operators worldwide. That means, if your ship leaves the United States from a US owned / operated port, chances are very good that before it returns, it will dock and use services provided by Dubai Ports World and the U.A.E. That also means, Dubai Ports World is a well run global business.

Dubai Ports World services more US Military ships than all other independent run ports in the world.

The Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend. Hmmmmmmmmm Maybe, but not always I suspect. There is no doubt that it is desirable for the United States to have an Ally in the Middle East. Having an Ally that is wealthy and a great business partner is extremely desirable.

I hear talk about the UAE raising the price of a barrel of crude now that we nixed the 6-port deal. I know a lot of people get nervous about that, but how many times do we have to be told, most of our crude comes from Venezuela. The UAE knows that raising the price of a barrel of crude oil will affect their non-USA customers causing them undeserved angst, and not really hurt us. It doesn’t make sense that they’d do that in retaliation for the failed port operation sale. If we had any brains, we’d be pumping Mexico dry to pay for all the health care we give their Illegals, but that’s a different topic.

I know that on the books, the UAE wants to see the total destruction of Israel. While I’m not Jewish, I do have some Jewish friends, which take exception to that sort of thing. I don’t like to see my friends upset. While we’re at it, if we dust off the old books and have a hard look, we find that the folks of the UAE would like to see pretty much everybody that doesn’t believe spiritually the same as they do gone. That means me, and probably you.

Before they discovered that their crude oil was worth so damn much money (which was really just a few decades ago), that’s the sort of thing that occupied most of their thinking. Now that they have obscene amounts of money, their thinking goes more like, “Israel, yea I’d like to see them gone, but look what I bought in New York!”

Now they think more about being part of the global economy and making more money. As it turns out, you give these guys a little education and they become shrewd business people. I think that’s respectable. Off subject a little, have you see some of their modern architecture? Wow!

If we look back through time, we see that most conflicts / wars etc., were started over religion. “My God is better than your God.” Most religions have learned to get along with one another over time. That doesn’t mean that wording in a particular book mysteriously changed over night, it means intelligent, thinking people determined that it was impractical to keep trying to destroy each other and more or less, agreed to disagree and now for the most part live virtually seamless, harmonious lives. I know the people of the United Arab Emerance may not quite be at the seamless harmony part of the story yet but remember, we’ve had centuries to make the change, they’ve only have a few decades.

I believe that we had the single largest knee jerk reaction in history. When I first heard of the 6-port deal, my knees jerked right up to my forehead. I couldn’t believe that MY PRESIDENT and his staff seemingly just gave the keys to 6 of our mainland based ports to these towel-headed, camel riding murdering thugs. After it was announced that Dubai Ports World had called off the deal, I, in my ignorant bliss went, “Wow, we really dodged a bullet on that one.”

After doing a little research, my relief turned to disappointment in myself and my fellow Americans that had thought the same way as I. We didn’t dodge a bullet we blew a great opportunity.

In the first place, if this was some great plan to take over the 6 ports in order to smuggle in a dirty bomb or several, I can think of several ways a guy might do it for a heck of a lot less money. It was alluded to on one of the evening news shows that now, even though Dubai Ports World doesn’t operate any ports in the United States, it does operate a large percentage of ports where ships are loaded and sent to the USA. Now because of the failed port deal, the UAE may want to retaliate by sending a bunch of containers loaded with god only knows what.

Oh come on – If they wanted to harm us, they certainly could have done it before now.

As I said earlier, Dubai Ports World is recognized world wide as a leader in Container Port Operations. That means jobs, revenue and taxes right here at home. Yeah, a certain (probably large) percentage of the profits will be going home and filling UAE coffers, but we’d have 6 ports run by a world class organization, no doubt bringing those ports up to their superior standards as opposed to letting them flounder or worse yet, be run by our government which runs… nothing very well.

Here’s another reality check for you. After witnessing all of the flak over the deal, it was Dubai Ports World that pulled the deal. We didn’t tell them to pack their camel and hit the road, I’m sure they became disenchanted with the whole thing and said forget it!

In their eyes they were trying to put together a mutually beneficial business plan with their Ally in the Middle East to further cement our relationship among other things I suspect.

For my initial take on the situation, I apologize to my President. Mr. Bush, you were right on the money (no pun intended) on this deal.

To the folks at Dubai Ports World, my sincere apologies. Sometimes we as a people are faster to act than to think.

I never accept ignorance as an excuse and neither should you. I do feel that the port deal was more or less sprung on the American People without any lead in or other information as to why this was a good idea. I don’t think anybody likes things of that magnitude just dumped in their collective laps without some finessing. Sometimes the President of the United States needs to be a great salesman. If you don’t finesse the prospective buyer, even though you may have the greatest product in the world, chances are, he won’t buy.

Again, my apologies for being something that I abhor.