More NEW Jobs in Texas

Good news from Zacks concerning the natural gas industry in Texas.  Specifically the Eagle Ford Shale in Mont Belvieu (just East of Houston).

"As Eagle Ford Shale is gaining traction, pipeline companies and midstream operators are increasingly looking to the South Texas play for opportunities to build new networks. Hence, exploration activities of the companies have made Eagle Ford the most happening shale play. Approximately 170 rigs are presently operating in the play, with more than 900 wells running production and approximately 1,400 wells in various stages of drilling and completion.
With a current production level of approximately 850 million cubic feet per day (MMcf/d) of natural gas and 140,000 BPD of crude oil and condensate, this emerging South Texas resource play continues to beat industry expectations."

Barry The Pretender has all but halted the petroleum exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, but Enterprise Products Partners, LP is capitalizing upon what we can do - at least until the adults return to the mansion of the Chief Executive of the Yankee Nation.

With the drought at disaster proportions and the wildfires having burned much of our land, we're still having a tough go of it.  That's allright though.  Despite the Aggie In Chief (who can't seem to make up his mind on immigration) and the Half-Blood Prince temporarily enthroned in the Federal District, Texans are finding a way to re-assert our independence.

Deo Vindice

Creceando Huevos

It's probably no huge surprise to anyone living here, but Texas can claim at least 1.2 million Tonks as being resident here.  We are second to California which has about double that number living there.  The majority of the Tonks in Texas are Mexican.  Nation-wide, the total Tonk population is estimated to be about 8.5 million (which is a 5 million increase since the estimate made in 1990).

During his last campaign for the Governor's office, Rick Perry asked all legislators to refrain from passing "divisive" measures of legislation.  Perry asked for this because he said that he didn't want Texas to "appear like Arizona".  Then, in 2009 and in 2010, he changed his position and called for State measures which would punish businesses for hiring illegal aliens.

Perry has long said border security must come before immigration reform. In 2007 and again 2009, lawmakers dedicated about $100 million to border security efforts, at his request.  Now, at this point, the Yankee government has fallen down on this issue, so he's taken a stronger stance on employer sanctions.

This Aggie - this man-of-mystery - this will-he-or-won't-he-run dude needs to be held to account for the words his handlers have placed into his mouth.  Texas, right now, could take a few lessons in creceando huevos  from Arizona.  So could Perry.

Deo Vindice

Please - Let Us Keep The Aggie!

Porkus Maximus Tex

If you still can't resist our good ole' Texas Aggie, Rick Perry, you might want to snoop around on a blog dedicated to Perry's support (now veiled) of a foul land-grab scheme known as the Trans Texas Corridor.

The kindest thing anyone can say about Perry's plan is that it is Imminent Domain run rampant and managed by a foreign national corporation.

Perry, originally, solicited actors who could mockingly exude Texas ethos (Wilfred Brimley and others) to make commercials attempting to sell the plan to the voters.  We wouldn't buy it.  The TTC is, now, being re-packaged for another round of  low-brow hucksterism.


Perry, as I've noted below, is easily-led and open to suggestions from his intellectual betters (who are numerous).  If y'all make him POTUS, then that leaves us with a true Progressive-in-moderate's-clothing: Lt. Governor David Dewhurst as our Governor.  Please don't do that to us!

Deo Vindice

Victim Disarmament in New York

Two customers dead.  Two employees dead.  Is anyone in New York asking why they still believe Victim Disarmament to be a workable solution to societal vermin who prey upon others? 

A New Reason For More Illegals

According to the Wall Street Journal,

"Mexican crime groups have virtually taken over the pipeline system of Mexico's state oil monopoly, stealing growing amounts of fuel and gaining an important source of new revenue as they fight other gangs and Mexico's government, according to the oil company."

I was wondering how long it would take until the cartels began to diversify from drugs and kidnapping-for-ransom.  Petróleos Mexicanos (PMEX) is the nationalized oil company of Mexico.  It is the third largest revenue source for the Mexican government.  Alternating between first and second place is the annual dollar amount wired or mailed back home by illegal Mexican aliens living and working here in the Yankee Nation.


Many believe that it is the Zetas (being employed by the Gulf Cartel) who are tapping into the pipeline.  Whether or not it is the Zetas is immaterial.  The important consideration is: how much (if any) will this cause the price of Mexican Crude to increase?  If the price does increase, will it be enough for Barry the Pretender's administration to begin to issue new drilling permits for domestic oil production?


El Presidente Calderon has a huge problem on his hands as well.  If the Gulf Cartel is siphoning-off sales and tax revenue normally received by the Mexican government, will he finally declare war on the Cartels and use the military to attempt to stomp them out?  Either way, look for more Mexicans pushing lawnmowers in your neighborhood  or loitering in front to the nearest Home Depot.

Barry Beats The Bushes

Prosecutions for attempting to enter the country after having “been denied admission, excluded, deported, or removed” are on pace to surpass 37,100 for the year, an increase of more than 1,200 from 2010. If the trend continues, the Barry's administration will have prosecuted more illegal immigrants for illegal re-entry than George W. Bush’s administration did in his two terms combined.


How can this be explained?  The Republican mantra is that the Democrats want all the Tonks possible into the country because they are all future Democrats.  If the head Democrat is racking up the "reentry prosecutions" then the Republicans might be wrong.  There's gotta be another reason; there's gotta be .....


Golly, gee Mr. President, if your predecessor was a war-mongering racist, what does this prosecution fact (coupled with the continuation of Bush's one war and three of your own) make you?


Deo Vindice

Bad Eagle Doesn't Mince Words

In a new post, my contemporary,  Bad Eagle, has succinctly stated what I have long believed about the current Chief Executive of the Yankee Nation:

"The alien, lying black African Muslim Communist traitor had succeeded in another of his innumerable initiatives to utterly humiliate and denigrate the American people."

Bad Eagle's post is concerning not so much Sarah Palin (although she is the exemplar of the dynamic) herself as it is concerned with the dynamic of virtual rape the media accomplishes with great glee.  The public's demand for this can be directly linked to the fact that we no longer have public executions.

Deo Vindice

Cesar and the Big Man

Mr. Chavez in his younger days

It has frequently amazed me, as I drive upon a street named for Cesar Chavez or past a high school with his name on it.  I wonder if people who believe that he was an advocate of the illegal alien know that he really wasn't.

He called an area just North of Yuma his home: Bard Valley.  When I first came on duty in the Border Patrol, his folks were still living - and that's where they lived.

Chavez became an organizer at a young age (notice the photo above).  He traveled throughout Arizona and California on behalf of what was, at first, known as the Valley Farm Workers.  The organization, later, morphed several times and changed its name along the way.   In the early days, Chavez' outfit was composed of I-151 (green card) holders or of full-blown U. S. citizens.  All of them were migratory workers who traveled mostly between California and Arizona.  Occasionally, they'd get as far East as the Carolinas if the work was slow in the West.

It was some time in the early 1970's that the Valley Farm Workers were having a huelga - a strike - on the citrus growers in Yuma County.  The growers, not wanting their citrus crops to rot on the trees, began to let it be known around the border towns in Sonora and Baja California that they were willing to hire Tonks to harvest the citrus.

True to union form, the Valley Farm Workers were willing to call a scab a scab.  Illegal aliens were coming into Arizona to pick citrus and to, effectively, put a damper on whatever smoke the Farm Workers' strike was generating.  Chavez and the Farm Workers weren't going to sit still for that.  One morning, about a hundred of them showed up en masse just East of the Port of Entry at San Luis, Arizona.  They spread out Eastward from the Port with one Farm Worker about every couple of hundred yards.  Every one of them was armed with impact weapons: clubs, chains, baseball bats, etc. .

By noon time, several Tonks had tried to run the Farm Workers' gauntlet - with the predictable result.  All available Border Patrol Agents on the day shift were ordered to leave their assigned areas and to report to the desert area East of San Luis. The Senior Patrol Agent In Charge showed-up as well.  Our job, on that day, was to defend innocent life: the innocent life of the Tonks (all of whom were unarmed).

The SPAIC, was a big guy; he was called Big Man.  It didn't take long for the Agents to begin herding the Farm Workers into a manageable gaggle while Big Man sought out Chavez, the leader.  Big Man spoke quietly with Chavez and asked him to take his entourage back to the union hall in San Luis.  It was at that point that Chavez lost it and, loudly, threatened Big Man's life.  Many Agents and Farm Workers heard it.

At that point, Big Man had a decision to make.  He could arrest and prosecute Chavez for the communicated threat (and make Chavez a martyr).  He could ignore it.  Or he could let Chavez know that, since the threat that was made had no time stamp upon it, that, for his own personal safety, Big Man would shoot Chavez on sight for reasons of self-protection.

Of all those three possible courses of action, Big Man chose the latter.

Some years later, Big Man retired and is still living in Yuma County to this day.  And Chavez?  He never came back to Yuma County.  Until the day he died, he conducted his organizing in California and Texas.  When he needed something done in Arizona he'd send his subordinates.  Big Man had a big iron on his hip.

Texas Singer Songwriters

My friend, Old Rebel, usually starts Fridays with some good Southron music on his blog.  I thought I'd pop an occasional offering of Texans along those same lines.  I first heard "Trashy Women" in a recording by Confederate Railroad and had no idea that Chris Wall wrote it until very recently.  Please note the Texas National Flag in the background.

Don't worry, Old Rebel, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

ANM

Sit, Aggie .... Stay!

How many Aggies does it take to eat an armadillo?


Two.  One to eat the armadillo and the other to watch for cars.


This is the man who has been our governor for quite some time.  We are familiar with his verbiage; especially at election time.  He has an excellent cadre of handlers who are masters of coaching him in all the right moves and words.

Each re-election time, Perry declares that he's going to be tough on illegal aliens and border crime.  His words are cheap.  Today, the Governor of Alamaba signed some really significant legislation that will probably cause Tonks to flee Alamaba.  Texas is still waiting for such legislation.

For all his bluster, Perry the Texas Aggie cannot deliver on much of anything his advisors have told him to promise.  Mostly, this is because Perry has a job that is fairly weak when compared to the powers of Governors of some other States.  This is good for Texas and it's a good place to have an Aggie if he's going to be a Governor: there's a Constitutional limit to the actual damage he can do.

But what if he were to become President of the United States?  He might look great and sound good to some of you, but are you really ready to have an Aggie as President?

How do you keep an Aggie busy?

Write "please turn over" on both sides of a piece of paper.

Deo Vindice

Head Wounds Bleed A Lot

Airborne and Anglico were working the Railroad Yards one 1600 to 2400 shift.  It was hot in Yuma and it was the middle of July.  The Tonks, after they entered without inspection, tried to make their way to the Railroad Yards and hole-up in a Westbound freight train.  The job of the Border Patrol Agent was to enter the Yards and eject them from the railroad cars before Southern Pacific pulled out and headed for Indio and Los Angeles.


About 2000, Airborne boarded a moving boxcar wherein he found several Tonks making their journey toward the Promised Land.  Airborne was busy throwing them off of the moving train and Anglico was collecting them.  That's when Airborne was blindsided by one of the Tonks and thrown off the train, himself.

Anglico was close by and witnessed Airborne's fix.  Fortunately, the train was still  moving slowly so Anglico hauled himself into the boxcar and ejected Airborne's assailant.

Now, at that time in his life, Airborne was a rowdy sort.  His comprehension of frontier justice was rather complete in its application..  When he and Anglico had collected all the Tonks they had thrown-off the train, Airborne buttonholed his assailant for "special attention".  To say that Airborne "wailed" on the guy would be to put it mildly.  The Tonk understood.  After all, that was how he would have expected to have been treated by the Federal Police in Mexico.  In fact, the Tonk had so many bruises on his face and head that Airborne and Anglico decided to simply take him to a hole in the fence and send him back to Mexico with a stern warning never to come back.

Fast forward to the next night.  Airborne and Clutch were working together in an area of California known as Andrade.  The game that evening was to sit on top of a hill until a seismic sensor was activated and then race the Tonks to a choke point in their line of travel.  The choke point was known as "the spillway".  It was surrounded by sand, greasewood bushes and Russian Flax.

At about 2100 the sensors went off.  Clutch and Airborne raced to the spillway and the Tonks scattered; each of them finding a tree or bush under which to try to hide from the Migra.  Clutch has pulled several out from their hidey holes while airborne was struggling to extract his first from under a tree.  Airborne was a strong man and he pulled and pulled on his Tonk's ankles but was unsuccessful in getting him free.

Finally, Clutch walked around to the front of the Tonk and shined a light on him.  "His head's stuck, Airborne!  Stop pulling!"

Airborne stopped pullung and found that the Tonk's head was, indeed, stuck in an inverted "Y" of branches.  Then he saw why.  It was the bandages on the Tonk's head that had allowed him to become stuck.  It was the Tonk from the previous night; the one pushed back through the fence by Airborne and Anglico.

If the Tonk recognized Airborne, he didn't reveal it.  He simply said, "Pues, Oficial, usted me pesco... era mi propia culpa".

Yanqui, Go Home! Donde? Taco Bell!

As much as I dislike being called a Yanqui (Yankee), that is what the Mexicans call anyone who lives North of the Rio Grande.  Many of them (The Meskins)  are so dense that they cannot comprehend that many of us are deeply suspicious of Yankees as well.  We Texans are especially proud of the fact that we were our own Republic for nine years before our affiliation with the United States by treaty.

Rodolfo Lopez-Negrete, Mexico's chief minister of tourism, has appealed to the State of Texas to lift its travel advisory on his sad, fly-ridden third world country. Senor Lopez-Negrete concedes that places such as Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, Cuidad Acuna and the like are not nice-to-be places at the moment.  But, he said, interior destinations are much safer for Texans and other assorted gringos.  Really?

Today, Texas Rangers took incoming fire from elements of a Cartel.  This sort of thing happens frequently on The Border, but what about the interior of the country?  For example, just before Spring Break weekend this year, twelve taxi drivers - and their passengers were killed in Mexico's mecca for tourists: Acapulco.  There are numerous other examples of why Tio Rodolfo is puffing hot air.

Mexico is a place that no one should visit.  It is a violent, dirty environment that is hospitable only to those who are permitted to be legally armed (which is precious few).  Perhaps Mr. Lopez-Negrete would like to consult with the widows of the several beheaded Mexican chiefs of police who also live in the "safe" interior.  Even the illegal Mexican aliens, hiding in our in our several States, know the danger.  Do you think that they want to be sent back home to the Land of Manana?  No, they do not; that's one of the chief reasons they're here.

The short of it is, if you want to take a vacation with an "international" flavor, just go to Taco Bell.

Atlas' Sorry Existence

George Washington said it best:

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

This was one of the foremost proven results of the War To Prevent Southern Independence (1861-1865).  For the Federals, it was a question of power; for the Confederacy, it was a question of existence. The only thing resolved at Appomattox was the fact that the crushing power of Leviathan reigned supreme.  The Fedgov had out-lasted and out-spent the "enemy", but it had not conquered their identity.

Given into the hands of those who would control others, the power of government (as we know it today) is the power to destroy or to bend.  That same Fedgov has created at least two entirely new conditions of servitude: one voluntary and the other involuntary.

The voluntary servitude has been inflicted upon those  who survive on the teat of the Fedgov.  Programs to numerous to count ensure that all those who come within a particular program's jurisdiction shall be beholden to the Master for provision of some sort.  The most notable of such programs is the one providing unemployment benefits - now extending to three years - and providing an easy market of affiliation for whatever political party or candidate making such largess possible.

With rare exception, people (should I call them "victims of the state"?)  choose to participate, voluntarily, in this charade of being free people.  Their condition is nothing more than a mockery of what a free man or woman actually is.  The lie is apparent to all but them.

This brings one to consider the involuntary servitude of the present day.  The current crop of slaves-against-their-will are the citizens who are paying for all of the "programs".  We watch our money being spent by those who have taken it from us with the threat of force (the Fedgov).  We notice that it is being spent, quite often, upon cementing the voluntary slaves into their position of fealty and dependence.

We, the involuntary slaves, also are fond of saying that we are free.  The fact is that we are not any more free than are the voluntary slaves.  Both groups will be perpetually locked into our squirrel-cage existence until one of one decides that the humiliation must cease.  H. L. Mencken said, "Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under".  One day, the humiliation and the shame will become too great to bear.  Only then will Atlas shrug.

Deo Vindice

Sucker-Grade Snake Oil

The famed Stimulus Plan has been a complete work of smoke and mirrors by our man Barry The Pretender.

* Obama's stimulus, passed in his first month in office, will cost more than the entire Iraq War -- more than $100 billion (15%) more.
* Just the first two years of Obama's stimulus cost more than the entire cost of the Iraq War under President Bush, or six years of that war.
* Iraq War spending accounted for just 3.2% of all federal spending while it lasted.
* Iraq War spending was not even one quarter of what we spent on Medicare in the same time frame.
* Iraq War spending was not even 15% of the total deficit spending in that time frame. The cumulative deficit, 2003-2010, would have been four-point-something trillion dollars with or without the Iraq War.
* The Iraq War accounts for less than 8% of the federal debt held by the public at the end of 2010 ($9.031 trillion).
* During Bush's Iraq years, 2003-2008, the federal government spent more on education that it did on the Iraq War. (State and local governments spent about ten times more.)

It has, in fact, been a grand bill of goods sold by hucksters who have more in common with snake oil salesmen than they do with anything that resembles statesmen.  The Stimulus Plan was proffered upon us in the wake of the Bush-initiated bail-out of General Motors and Chrysler.  (I can only imagine what Thomas Jefferson would have thought of that.)

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, passed in February 2009.  Democrats pushed the legislation as a way to create jobs and extend unemployment benefits through a mix of government spending, tax cuts and financial aid to cash-strapped states. It adds $830 billion to the budget deficit between fiscal years 2009-2019, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Whether of not the ARRA actually did get people "back to work" is not as important as the political philosophy behind the legislation.  Succinctly, it was founded upon the assumption that it is the federal government which creates jobs in the private sector by either spending or by tax cuts for selected industries.  In the reality of our world, the ARRA did neither with any measurable difference from the status quo ante.

More properly, job creation in a real Constitutional Republic is a result of what the government dosen't do than it is a result of what it does do.

The extension of unemployment benefits does not equate to job creation (which is not the Constitutional business of the Yankee fedgov anyway).  The increase is fedgov jobs has been chiefly temporary ones with the Census Bureau and - more scarily - with the IRS.

How much more can we take of Bush 43 and his logical extension, Barry The Pretender?

Deo Vindice

Read more (and see another good graph) at the Washington Examiner:

The Shores of Tripoli

U.S.M.C. Officers' Mamaluke Sword

USA today (probably proudly) proclaimed:

For better or worse, the United States and its allies have joined the fight in Libya, where a determined but disorganized rebel force is battling against a tenacious dictator who has vowed to drag America and its allies into a "long war."

I don't want to seem odd or unpatriotic but ... why?  For what purpose?  Barry the Pretender, grabbing at any excuse he can, said "We are not going to use force to go beyond a well-defined goal — specifically, the protection of civilians in Libya."  Pardon me, but that's the same reason given by Theodore Roosevelt for sending the Marines there during his administration.  In fact, it was during that time that Marine Lieut. O'Bannon was presented with the Mamaluke sword by a high-ranking Arab.  My own Mamaluke is sitting in a closet.   So far, we've sent the Libyans cruise missiles... but what about the Marines of today?

At least one source relates that 2,200 of them are embarking out of New Bern, NC for Lybia.  So much for no boots on the ground.  That kind of force is roughly about the size of a Regimental Landing Team (or whatever the Corps is calling it these days).  Any way you cut it, 2,200 Marines are capable of extensive property damage as well as increased mortality rates among the local population.

One thing this state of affairs proves about Barry the Pretender: he is a liar.  Starting new wars in the Middle East is just another proof in a long list of proofs of violated campaign promises.

Deo Vindice

The Fool On The Hill

Barry the Pretender and his Court Fool, Eric Holder, have been handed a stinging rebuke by the Supremes.  It seems as if the the Yankee Department of Justice filed suit in federal court over Arizona's revoking the business license of any business that the State knows is hiring Tonks.

The case wound its way to SCOTUS wherein the decision was 5-3 against the bad guys.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion: “It uses the federal government’s own definition of ‘unauthorized alien,’ it relies solely on the federal government’s own determination of who is an unauthorized alien, and it requires Arizona employers to use the federal government’s own system for checking employee status.”

Beautiful!  I'm glad that there is someone (or at least five of them) who knows how to think in that court.  Roberts used the Yankee's own law against them and turned it around in favor of a State.

One question that begs to be answered is this:  Despite their flimsy attempts at proof up to this point, if it were to be proven that there is a Tonk living in the Chief Executive's mansion, whose license may be revoked?  It would seem that such a fraud would be the ultimate reason for a serious call to secession.

Deo Vindice

Eat Your Heart Out, Barry!

Our friend Will is a graph maniac.  I've been following him for some time and this one (and its accompanying graph) was just too sweet to pass-up.

The inventory of private-sector jobs in Texas increased by 732,800 between April 2001 and the same month this year, according to an On Numbers analysis of new federal employment data.

No other state registered an increase of more than 100,000 private-sector jobs during the decade. Only 19 states and the District of Columbia posted any gains at all.

 Even with an Aggie for Governor, Texas seems to be doing something right.  Maybe that's because, in Texas, our Governor's main power is in signing the legislation that is permitted to come to the floor by the Lieutenant Governor.  In that way, Lieutenant Governor Dewhurst wields much more power in Austin than does Rick Perry.


Be very careful if Governor Perry should he decide to enter the beauty contest for Chief Executive of the Yankee Nation.  Here in Texas, Perry always talks a good game before election time and then goes back to his Liberal-appeasing ways after he had been re-elected.  True, he does carry a laughably impotent .380 ACP when he's out and about.  He even made headlines here last year after shooting a coyote with it while jogging.

As Governor, Perry's job is more ambassadorial than anything else.  He has done a good job of enticing various manufacturers to relocate to Texas and has wheeled and dealed enough to cajole legislators into ensuring tax breaks for them.  Hence, Will's graph shown above.

Before Perry's last re-election he went out to the Big Bend area of the State and toured the Border.  He, then, proceeded to harangue the voters with tough talk about how he was going to stem the tide of Tonks ... since the feds weren't doing it.  After the election, Perry sent 1,200 Texas National Guard personnel to various sections of the Border.  The only problems are that (1) these Guardsmen are not actually on the Border (they're pretty far back); and (2) those of them who have weapons have not been issued any ammunition.  Their job is little more than those flag worshippers who call themselves Minutemen: report what they see to the Border Patrol (who are, mostly, administratively precluded from doing anything about the reports they get).

Go ahead.  Push Perry into running for Yankee President.  But just remember what we say here:  "Why did the Aggie cross the road?  Because it was the chicken's day off.

Deo Vindice

Free At Last ..... Free At Last ...!

Zadvyas v. Davis may not be a hot topic of conversation around the water cooler, but it does have some import for what happens to illegal aliens after they have served time (in the United States) for murder.  In short, what this piece of case law allows is: no matter what crime a foreigner commits, the government may not detain him indefinitely while he awaits deportation for his offense. The immigration authorities, the court ruled, may not hold a foreigner more than six months before deporting him. After that, he must be released. In other words, if his home country won’t take him, tough luck for the crime victims. The criminal must be freed to protect his “constitutional right” to walk the streets and commit more crimes.

Between 2001 and 2004, ICE reported that, it released 27,947 criminal aliens, adding that 20,967 (75 percent) of these criminal aliens originated from countries where the notorious Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang members are known to be active. MS-13 is the brutally violent gang from El Salvador. Between 2001 and 2005, ICE released 45,008 illegals from countries somehow involved with terrorism either by sponsoring terrorism or supporting the terrorists.

All of the above happened on the watch of Republican darling George W. Bush - along with Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff - his Secretaries of Homeland Security.  Barry the Pretender and Janet the Clueless are going to have similar numbers.  Just don't expect to see them before November of 2012.

Deo Vindice

Yellow Dog Takes A Burn

Yellow Dog Democrat Lloyd Doggett of Austin (Travis County area), Texas is singing the blues.  It seems as if the conservative-controlled legislature has redistricted him out of at least 600,000 residents who voted for Barry the Pretender. 

Speaking to a reporter from KUT, Doggett said that this action has "plunged a dagger into the heart of Travis County".  It's strange how politicians tend to believe that they, themselves, are their districts.  Similar to his Houston contemporary, Sheila Jackson Lee: if Doggett is the answer, it must be a really stupid question.