Bush-whacked!

This "Bush-whack" (in bold) is from a Gore sympathizer, my responses are in italics. I expect all of you to read and commit the appropriate responses to memory for use at social gatherings, family functions and any other opportunity that may call for it. Like a fuzzy-headed PETA convention, for example.

Texas Under Bush................

And keep in mind, Bush was re-elected by a landslide majority, a significant portion of which were minority voters. So let's go over the "factoids" this joker offers, and let's get our BS antennae up and functioning. (A factoid is an item, presumed to be true by the teller, that has no particular relevance to anything.)

The state of Texas, under the leadership of Governor George W. Bush, is ranked:

50th in spending for teachers' salaries

Hooray for George. He seems to have a bit of a handle on the teacher's unions. Anyway, what does this mean to student performance? Hmmm, no mention of performance anywhere in this missive. Is it suggestive then that perhaps not able to deliver a negative comment in regards to student performance the author focuses on an irrelevant statistic? And what measure of spending are we talking about? Per capita? Per teacher? Per district? As a percentage of spending measured against other states? Ok, I'm bored with this meaningless bit of irrelevancy. Let's move on, class.

49th in spending on the environment

As defined by who's priorities, the Sierra Club? Earth First? Greenpeace? Why does the state have to spend money to have an effect on the environment? Does the state have any type of agreement with industry wherein business is responsible for a larger share of "environmental" spending than other states? Again, by what measure? As the largest contiguous state, Texas also has a significant portion of land in private hands. Do we measure the entire state? Only public lands? Is this factoid based on a per-capita analysis? As a measure of total land area? Dollars per acre held publicly? Come, class, we need more data!

48th in per-capita funding for public health

Do we include immigrant workers in this equation? I would suggest that Texas, being on the Rio Grande, has a larger share of illegal immigrants than any other state except California. And does their ranking behind California have anything to do with the state's policy of not providing as generous a raft of benefits to illegal immigrants as California? Just asking. Also, again with the data. How does the state rank in terms of longevity? Infant mortality? Chronic illness? Pre-natal health? Perhaps the state has more effectively budgeted its health care and as such hasn't the need to spend excess public dollars on an entrenched public health care system.

47th in delivery of social services

Again with the data. Delivery of social services as defined by what measure? Children on welfare? Families receiving public housing? Total monies spent on public aid? Per capita spending? I would suggest that the primary objective, and best measure of success in any social services program, is how well they enable the recipients to get off the dole, rather than to remain on or add members to that list, especially in this economy.

42nd in child-support collections

How do we measure this? In total dollars distributed? As a proportion of divorced fathers not paying for their children's upkeep? Because they have fewer children in need of child-support collections? Because state social services workers are by nature lazy and incompetent?

41st in per-capita spending on public education

Oh, I get it, we can get specific here on the economic unit of measurement, but we're still in the dark on how that affects performance. Hey, this is a no-brainer, see the first analysis. How do the kids do on graduation rates? Does the state have a larger proportion of privately educated children? What percentage of students eventually go to college, and actually graduate without need of remedial education? How many HS graduates can read their diplomas?

5th in percentage of population living in poverty

Top fifth? Bottom fifth? How does that compare to the standard of living in any states purported to be better? How many of them are on the dole? How many of those counted represent illegal immigrant farm workers? Did you factor them in or out? What measure of poverty do you use, the federal government's? You realize that by that measure, those in poverty are likely to live in a single family dwelling, own their own car, have televisions and VCRs, at least one phone in the home, and spend more on junk food in a week than the average Pakistani spends on rent and clothing in a month? Hardly a statistic of any relevance, especially given the dynamic of this economy.

1st in air and water pollution

What measure? Sure, Houston has been recently downgraded to worst air pollution city in the nation. Why hasn't bill clinton's white knights at the EPA saved them from themselves? Can it be that other factors are involved? Like drought, El Nino, La Nina? Surely the environmental impact of a drought must have devastating effect on an environment's ability to clean its air and water. I do know that Texas also has an incredible proportion of land dedicated to ranching and non-urban use. Have we only measured the cities and conveniently neglected to factor in the ameliorative effects of land dedicated to non-urban usage? Come to find out, the EPA is responsible. Yup, clinton/algore's favorite immutable independent agency is the EPA, the agency charged with approving environmental equipment upgrades. These upgrades are needed to clean up the air and water, and the EPA has apparently sat on the permits, well, for no good reason.

1st in percentage of poor working parents without insurance

Yup. In 1992, bill clinton rode in partially on the notion that we had 37 million workers without adequate health coverage. And guess what, after 8 years of clinton/gore, that number totals 47 million. So how much of that can we blame on Bush? And again with the data. How many of those poor are illegal immigrants? Transient farm workers? Do you like paying more for food, and are you willing to pay, out of your pocket, for health benefits to families as large as a dozen who are here illegally and with no intent of eventually pulling their weight and paying taxes to support others just like them? I thought not. But you'd take mine.

1st in percentage of children without health insurance

Again, did we factor out for the incredible burden that illegal immigrant families have on that state? And do we use the clinton/gore facade of proclaiming 26 year olds as children for the convenience of a quick little irrelevant factoid? And where the hell have the clintonistas been on this one? At a White House coffee? Lurking for interns in the Oval Office?

1st in executions (avg. 1 every 2 weeks for Bush's 5 years)

Oh, goodness, we might have to put a barbaric, murderous thug in the gas chamber. After 20 years, appeals up to the US Supreme Court, and how many millions in legal expense paid for by the tax paying victims of crime to prevent this execution, frequently on a minuscule technicality? How has the crime rate been affected in Texas by this factoid? I'll bet we're not brave enough to see how the crime rate has been reduced by law abiding citizens carrying concealed firearms. Now, I'm no fan of the death penalty, I believe that when the state decides to kill it almost always does so with prejudice and malice aforethought. Witness Waco, for example. Oops, that was the clinton administration, but you get the drift. Which brings us to the last statement, class.

Just think of what he could do for the country if he were President!

You know, I said that about bill clinton in '92. Arkansas was about 48th in the nation in education performance, a statistic that includes reading comprehension, math performance, graduation rates, you know, real measurements. They were about the 49th in terms of poverty, real, grinding, don't know where my next rent payment is coming from and moms can't buy milk kind of poverty. One of the worst in terms of corruption, everything from misused/stolen federal assistance dollars to judicial malfeasance, again, real issues and real dollars, not touchy-feely make-tears whining. Health care? How does near last in pre-natal care, infant mortality, chronic illnesses and teen pregnancy grab ya? Economic growth, well, they took Arkansas from about 48th in the nation to well, about 49th in the nation. In fact, in no measure, in no statistically significant indicator of standard of living, was Arkansas a state to emulate, but we elected the raping, harassing, corrupt, immoral incapable little turd because "we needed a change". And we ignore his corruption, his treason, his war crimes, his violation of law and subversion of the legal system because "he supports a woman's right to choose", or because "he feels our pain", or because "he wants to do something (anything!) for the children". How patently pathetic.

Don't even begin to tell me about how bad Bush is, especially with simplistic little irrelevant bits of specious triviality. Best clean up your own nest before you complain about the neighbors.