New Addition To The Family!

Did I mention that we have a new addition to the family?

Her name is Yummy and she's the cutest little hen you'd ever meet. She arrived last weekend (as a gift from my uncle Will in Vermont) and was immeadiately accepted as part of the family. Except by our precious felines, who've been acting rather standoffish; giving her really nasty  looks.

Mrs. Will suggested we call her Yummy after her deceased guinea pig. I wasn't keen on it cause I never liked the guinea pig. But the process was democratic; decided after intense and rancorous deliberation. The other contenders the family threw out were: Clucky, Chickie, Fluffy, and Whitey. Care to guess which was my submission? Maybe another time huh. Oh, she does respond to Yummy.

She’s a welcome addition. Keeps the floors impeccably clean (except for the occasional dropping), loves attention, and makes a soft clucking sound that’s quite soothing. All in all she's low maintenance. We’re hoping to get a dozen eggs out of her every week, but ain’t sure how that part works. Do we need a rooster? That’d freak the neighbors out big time.

There is a problem. Alpha, Beta, and Delta – the family felines - have been going bonkers since she arrived; being deprived of our lavish affections by being banned outdoors, a situation we have to maintain until we can accommodate all parties. I’m thinking of keeping Yummy until I can fatten her up for a nice chicken dinner. Got a delicious recipe ready. But that'll be a tough call; the family ain’t gonna take that calmly. We’ll see.

New Toy

It’s a computational knowledge engine that generates intelligent output from computations based on a proprietary knowledge base, instead of generating tangential web search results. Click through graphic.

It's The Event You've All Been Waiting For - Chili Cook Off August 7th!

Chili is my favorite sustenance of all sustenance's. Heck, I'd eat it for breakfast if only...

Yup folks, summer is rapidly approaching Massachusetts and I'll bet your taste buds are in need of a hefty jolt of Tabasco and sizzlin chili peppers, a cold beer, and lots of sunshine.

Fanfare!!! It's the summer event you've all been waiting for folks, the umpteenth annual Winchendon Chili Cook-Off.

I'm entering the competition again. The all important question is, who will garner the honor for best Chili this year? I say, who cares. It's all about being outdoors, carousing, and drinking cold beer!

Unfortunately my contribution, the world famous Willy's Wonder Chili (a real crowd pleaser if ever there was one) won't be entered in this years' competition. Seems my secret ingredient (peyote buttons) is no longer a secret. The DEA is on to me. But fear not Wusta, I spent the past 8 months  perfecting the latest recipe. Can't say much now, the competition is everywhere.

For you chili aficionados out there, here's an interesting link: Dick's Chili World and the International Chili Society - I'm a dues paying member ya know - I take this stuff pretty seriously.

So, make it up to Winchendon on Saturday, August 7th, folks and see ya ole buddy do some magic.

Chili and beer - Food of the Gods!

We Know It's You Eric...

Tale of the Anonymous Blogger

Cruising a potholed filled street. 
Wisps of rancid sewer vapor seeping upward. 
My destination in front of me.
Suddenly I catch the silhouette of a man. 
In an alley to my right. Camera in hand.
It’s dark. I think strange. At this hour.
I park. I approach him. I look closely. 
Not a man. In fact quite unlike a man.
Unrecognizable to my eyes. Yet oddly familiar. 
Curiosity slowly impelling me closer. 
Suddenly headlights illuminate the alley. 
Hooded. Large white glowing eyes. 
Unsightly facial features. 
An amazing nocturnal creature. 
I approach. Unsteady. Sizing it up. 
It sizing me up. I sense an innate familiarity.  
Big Asshole is that you, I inquire. 
It nodded knowingly. Sensing my desperate curiosity.
Camera in hand. I aim.
He quickly recedes into the night.

Surfs Up!

Guns and Pizza

Notice the two green dots in MA.

According to user generated Google Maps place-marks, gun references exceed pizza shops and strip clubs references in the Land of the Seven Hills.

Got the staff thinking... sign of an insurrection? It may not necessarily be the citizenry who are up in arms. The Boston Globe has reported on the accumulation of thousands of weapons by a particularly sizable segment - as in army sizable - of the population: Even Small Localities Got Big Guns.

After you read the Globe article consider why the 23 man Clinton, MA police department needs 18 assault rifles and a Sherman tank. Hint. They got sumptin really big to protect from dastardly terrorists.

Anyway the author of The Great American "Pizza Map, Matt Zook, has a somewhat different take. He's spent considerable time over the past months analyzing the distribution of a number of strangely juxtaposed social phenomenon (ranging from religion to bars), today's map should come as no surprise to anyone. After all, isn't the comparison between the number of user generated references to "pizza", "guns" or "strip club" an obvious one to make? Perhaps not, but we're doing it anyway. ...

On Your Mark. Set. Go!

His name is Delta.

Observe the sleek aerodynamic form. The subtle stealth. The feline focus. Perfect huh?

Actually Delta has no legs. Well three little stumps. A birth defect or sumptin I guess. At least that's what they told us when we got him from the shelter last year. Been teaching him a bunch of tricks.

He's a fast learner. He just loves to run.

Blogging Fool Award - Worcester Magazine

There are fools and then there are fools. From the venerable chambers of City Hall, to the hallowed halls of academia, to the front seat of a rusty Yellow Cab, Wusta has more than its share of them.

The past week has been one that our offices haven’t experienced in months. Seems the entire city had a massive case of sunstroke after experiencing a run of 70 degree days recently. We think a few brain cells got scrambled in the process.

So here's the moment you've all been waiting for. Drum roll please... After no deliberation whatsoever, the staff at WWW has unanimously voted the esteemed WWW Blogging Fool Award to Worcester’s very own Worcester Magazine for it’s April 1st editorial, Worcester Needs Jobs. (We think it's meant to be an April Fool's joke).

Seems the less than astute WOMAG staff has a very short collective memory and an astoundingly poor understanding of business issues, like their brethren at WBJ. As you recall, last year WOMAG fired a dozen employees and cut salaries to the bone for no other reason than to boost its bottom line. In socialist Worcester no less.

And it seems Gareth Charter (no relation to the cable giant Charter Communications) did us all a favor by firing a bunch of aging hippies and bringing in fresh blood - anemic, but fresh none-the-less. Their April 1st editorial is proof that you get what you pay for.

So to the staff at WOMAG, for all your hard work, dedication, and your ability to oversimplify and misinform citizens, and being completely naive and partisan on the subject of taxation, we at WWW present you with the WWW Blogging Fool Award.

Apart from the histrionics, the question remains. How is Wusta to boost employment and increase its tax base when every sweat shop like WOMAG is throwing it's taxpaying and voting citizens out on the street? Would a cut in the commercial rate actually have saved those jobs? Of course not.

And anyone who says so is a ... Blogging Fool.

Slaughter on Main St., Worcester, MA

Or why taxes are bad for your health. Or the continuing saga of how it all came to this?

This may burst a bubble or two out there, but no corporation with any smarts is going to come here and throw jobs at us. Worcester has nothing to offer except a city council and municipal bureaucracy that caters strictly to non-profits.

In fact the entire city is populated with non-profits with a sense of entitlement - the horror of all horrors for any potential investor in this city. As an example, do you recall our socialist Mayor Joseph C. O’Brien’s recent public antics? Picketing in front of Clark University for higher wages for non-Clark cafeteria workers? That sends a persuasive message to potential investors eh?

What's the affect of the dozen non-profit colleges and universities on investing in Worcester. Of critical importance to a potential investor is a qualified workforce, which is notably missing here considering the presence of the dirty dozen. Ironic huh? Extrapolating that thought. How many high-tech, low-tech, or no-tech start-ups have Holy Cross, Clark University, or WPI graduates incorporated here in the last 3, 5, 7 or 10 years?

How many of their graduates are in the local workforce (we know there are thousands of Clark grads populating the non-profit sector) considering that in the last 10 years those three have awarded some 30,000 degrees. If it were noteworthy, we’d have surely heard about it right? But we haven’t. Have we? So much for the Worcester Consortium and its propaganda machine eh?

Ya know, one would think among all those pampered twerps ensconced in one of those bastions of higher education, somewhere a Brainiac is chilling out in a dorm room munching Twinkies and cruising the internet for porn, and maybe, just maybe, incubating the next big idea that will propel him to fame and fortune and boost Worcester's profile as a high-tech incubator. Nope – ain’t happening here, cause that pimply twerp has three things on his mind – sex, beer, and gettin the hell outta Wusta!

The simple fact is, Worcester is nothing more than an incubator for 12,000 plus pubescent children to sow their wild oats and then move on, leaving behind a path of destruction in the surrounding neighborhoods - Clark University and Holy Cross College being the worst – and on the lives of voters and taxpayers, while the City Fathers and City Mothers turn a blind eye to hundreds of serious student indiscretions. Not to mention a couple murders and rapes.

Well, having put that in perspective, what can Worcester do to prevent the impending financial meltdown due August 12, 2011? Before Worcester can become a magnet for investors, it needs to renounce it socialist dogma and rescind its pathological non-profit protectionist stance. But, you're thinking, that’s impossible? And you're right.

The only solution is a PILOT program. Worcester colleges have a tidy $1,266,100,931.37 in endowments. A couple million wouldn’t make a difference to them. Would it?

If a PILOT program (successfully implemented in Boston) is not mandated, what will become of Worcester? Nothing good I’m afraid. The repercussions will be hard and in some cases devastating on the taxpaying residents, because the city council doesn't have the courage to make the life saving critical decisions.

And so, the slaughter of residential taxpayers by the very people you elected to represent you is being planned as you read this, lead by Worcester Mayor Joseph C. O'Brien. And bought and paid for by your local police and teachers unions.

Why I Love my Grandparents...

... they're so cool. Here's a recent shot of them at one of their Tea Party demos.
Gramps still thinks Eisenhower is coming back. 
Nana thinks the world of Jackie O.
And they both love JFK. Got pictures all over their house.

The Worcester Business Community and the Tax Fallacy

Part II of O'Brien's Business Task Force in the Kingdom of Non-Profits. Meanwhile back on the ranch…

The “business community” here is  just a bunch of small shops - as in the Mayor's Task Force - who in the grand scheme aren’t gonna make an iota of difference to the local economy if they disappear: Nail salons, autobody shops, donut shops, gas stations, bars, insurance agencies, slum lords, and the worst of the lot, the hundreds of contractors -  builders, plumbers, and electricians - who bilk folk by charging $100 hourly rates for questionable service.

Those business mavens in the Task Force are unequivocally stating that a lower commercial tax rate will turn Worcester into a boomtown. That is blatantly disingenuous. Because - pay attention here -  businesses don’t pay taxes. That’s right – you heard it here first. A tax is an outlay by a business that is recovered via the price of the product or service. Better said, the tax is built into the price, which we all know, the consumer pays.

In Worcester’s case we got a handful of business folks arguing that, if the taxes were lower it would attract more businesses to Worcester and that local businesses would further invest in their businesses, hire locals, and consumers would pay less. In other words, we all stand to reap the benefits of a tax cut - that's patently untrue.

Think about this. What types of businesses thrive here? Don't forget that Worcester is an incubator for pimply college kids and a mecca for social services, and with a socialist city government, no businessman or woman in his or her right mind would venture his or her capital here. Do you think Intel, Goldman Sachs, or Curt Shilling's Studio 38 LLC would move here if there were no taxes? Sorry - I don't think so. The city has nothing to offer profit-oriented businesses.

As for a business cutting prices after a tax cut - never happen. As a smart business owner would you cut prices if you got a tax cut? Of course you wouldn't. Those additional profits aren’t going anywhere but into their pockets to pay for that vacation house on the Cape. The point is, screaming that taxes are killing them is a self-serving fabrication. Recall the Reagan era tax reductions? Big time studies have shown that the tax savings went into the pockets of executives who bought some pretty neat toys - Rhode Island size ranches and fleets of Gulfstreams.

Let me present a second and critical argument deliberately not introduced in the propagnada from the Worcester Regional Research Bureau (read their blog, its full of information - WRRB Blog), Chamber of Commerce, or the Worcester Citizens for Business. Businesses in the outlying towns do not pay less commercial tax than a business in Worcester. That’s right – they do not. The fact is the towns have higher assessments (valuations) than in Worcester. That means a higher valuation multiplied by a lower tax rate equals a lower assessment multiplied by a higher tax rate. The bottom line is the same.

Try this on for size. How many jobs have our local profit oriented businesses created in the past 3, 5, 7 or 10 years? How many businesses have opened and closed, and why? Keep in mind the most cited reasons for business failures is undercapitalization and poor business judgment. If the WRRB, WCC, and WCB had any data that would support their arguments, they sure as heck would be shoving that in our collective face wouldn’t they? The fact is they don't.

This is fun huh? To be continued...

Women March Topless in (Insert Name of Your Locality)

My last post was a bit on the serious side. Now to liven things up. 

From The Portland Press Herald: Women March Topless in Portland Without Incident.

Imagine if it happened in Worcester, MA? If it's for a worthy cause, why not?

Imagine Councilors Lukes, Haller, and Toomey baring it all in the name of equality or breast cancer? Or? How about Rosalie Tirella baring it all? Makes ya wanna vomit huh? But she's sorta already done that. And how about her biggest fan Nicole? Who'll do anything for attention. So Nicky whata ya say? Ladies show us your tits! It's for a worthy cause.

Since that little demo was about double standards, what about having Councilor Ricky Rushton expose his prodigious physique. Second thought not a good idea. I'd call the WPD and report a gross lewdness incident; which pretty much sums up everything he does.

But alas this is Wusta, nothing exciting happens here. But imagine if something did? It'd put Wusta on the map. Might even attract a few tourists with some coin. But where would they spend it?

And what about that Brattleboro, VT thing a year ago? Naked kids in a local park. That got Brattleboro international attention and a lot of curious visitors.

O'Briens' Business Task Force in the Kingdom of Non-Profits

... or why Wusta's brand of socialism ain't such a good thing after all. Or how the soul of Capitalism got ripped out by a bunch of old men?

Mayor Joseph C. O'Brien's long awaited Business Task Force got some news in the T&G yesterday: Task Force Eyes Business. Note the Mayor's list of local Shakers & Movers. LOL!

Been giving the issue about the Worcester tax rates fandango some thought and I’ve come to the conclusion that local businesses are the root of the problem. They're anti-competitive.

What I mean by that is, businesses demand handouts, and they usually get i.e. low commercial tax rates, abatements, and TIF's etc... (See Boston Globe: Tax Incentives article - Worcester businesses getting $51 million in tax breaks) and that they've lost sight of the fact that the only way to make money is to earn it. It’s gotten to the point that when any sign of competition appears on the horizon, the whiners run to City Hall to recruit councilors to nip it in the bud.

Boston Globe: Interactive map of tax breaks in MA:

The fact is businesses in Worcester simply refuse to compete. It’s part of a mentality that’s solidly entrenched in the city bureaucracy and continually reinforced by a city council that stubbornly refuses to budge from its archaic socialist dogma. The most recent examples characterizing the city council’s anti-competition stance are the hotdog vendor and the limo service fiascoes. Follies of the worst sort.

It's roots are in the industrial era a hundred years ago when it was a boomtown with lots of competition, with well placed monied interests. Eventually they - history knows who they are, since laid out in Rural Cemetery - strong armed the City Fathers (it was quite easy in fact) to implement anti-competitive policies and practices - they being the beneficiaries. Competition thus was eradicated in Worcester once and for all.

What hath they wrought? Well, fast forward 100 years to the predicament we’re in now. A city filled to the brim with non-profits that don’t pay taxes, and a bunch of whiny businessmen, and women too, who don't want to pay taxes. 

If you don’t already know this, the Worcester business community is comprised of a collection of rinky dink sole proprietors and LLC’s. Not savvy MBA's with big ideas and pockets full of venture capital. The reality is, any business who has an idea, fortitude, and capital to setup shop in Worcester has all the tools it needs with billions in city, state and federal largesse for the asking. Even a pliant city council.

To be continued...