Flotsam and Jetsam

"Random thoughts", as a franchise, has already been taken by Thomas Sowell and Frank over at IMAO, so what's a fella to do? I reconnected with the phrase flotsam and jetsam describing Obama's appearance, recently, at yet another presser where nothing of any substance was discussed.

Here then, are bits of debris, not substantive enough perhaps, for an entire post, but whatever "washed up on the beach":

Back in March the police busted a pair of Romanian nationals in the country on journalism visas for hacking Dunkin' Donuts gift cards into ATM cards...The magnetic strips on the gift cards had been re-encoded with stolen account info belonging to myriad banks (including Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, and HSBC), where that bank info came from is still unclear. At the time of their arrest the pair had $17,703 in stolen cash on them and 66 Dunkin' Donut gift cards which had been tampered with.

Insert gratuitous cops and doughnut shop remark here:___________________

Back in July,

On the same day that California State University trustees are expected to boost tuition by 12 percent, they are also set to make San Diego State University’s new president the highest paid in the system...“At the same time they’re telling us they’re losing millions, at the same time they’re voting to hike tuition,” said Peter C. Herman, a professor of English at SDSU, “they’re voting to give the new guy 33.3 percent more than the previous guy. That sends the wrong message.”

The trustees are expected to approve a salary of $350,000 in state funds for Elliot Hirshman, who took over as SDSU’s president July 5. Hirshman also will receive $50,000 annually from the university’s nonprofit fundraising arm. He will live in university housing and receive a $1,000 monthly car allowance. The pay package puts Hirshman slightly ahead of Jeffrey Armstrong, who became president of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in December, as the highest paid president in the 23-campus system. Hirshman’s predecessor, Stephen Weber, earned just under $300,000, lived in university housing and received the same car allowance.

C'mon! The guy has to run the entire university all by himself! Surely that kind of talent is worth more than a mere US senator ($170,000), or the California state Governor who has to scrape by on $175,000 (which, to his credit, the Governator did not accept), and the President of the entire United States, who might have a couple of more responsibilities than a UC president, does get more: $400,000.

In all fairness to the UC president, Joe Biden gets $230,700, and a UC president is worth way more than Joe!

I have often looked upon the state university system as a microcosm of the Healthcare debacle being forced upon us. Under the wise and benevolent rule of government, (stop laughing!) the UC system serves fewer and fewer students each year, rationing education, if you will, while the costs to the participants continue to go up.

"Pay more, get less." There's the slogan Obama should run on in 2012!

Update : I apologize. In saying that the President of the United States made more than this guy, I was looking at straight salary, I wasn't looking at the extra fifty grand the university's "nonprofit fundraising arm" was kicking in. That means that California taxpayers, primarily, are paying this guy as much as we do the President of the United States, to oversee one (1) university of California campus. That doesn't sound unreasonable at all! /sarc