Appeals court upholds jury decision that the Port Authority is 68% responsible for the 93 World Trade Center bombing and the terrorists only 32% responsible. Talk about blaming the victim.
Because US and Iraqi troops are taking out the Mehdi Army in Sadr City, US casualties are at a
7 month high. Taking out the Mehdi Army has been long overdue.
The Soviets, oops, I mean Putin's Russians, send more troops into Georgia. Sounds all too familiar, kind of like the Cold War all over again.
It looks like Israel is doing an about face and they will allow Hamas time to regroup and rearm so they can attack more effectively in the near future. I wonder if the news agencies just recycle
the same stories about Palestinian terrorists and Israel year after year and decade after decade, but everybody just keeps repeating the same failed policies for decades on end. The violence will end when somebody disarms Hamas and Hezbollah, and not one minute before.
The US economy grew in Q1, but that's just an artifact of inflation. Rising gas prices and rising food prices mean we spent more money which means the economy grew, but we all have less value than before, so it should be considered a recession. The Fed cuts key interest rate by 0.25
of a point, further increasing the money supply and inflation. It's like the Fed thinks its job is to stop recessions. It's not. The Fed's job is too keep the money supply fit to the economy so inflation doesn't get out of control. The Fed is creating the next bubble that will pop in a few years right now.
Federal, state, and local governments are hiring new employees at the fastest rate in 6 years. OMG, we're entering another half-decade of disasterous growth in government. As if the growth in government in 2002 worked out so well for us. We have to stop this titanic government from taking us all the bottom of the ocean.
BP and Shell report record Q1 profit. It sure would be nice if oil companies competed with each other on price. This idea that profit margins are magic is baloney. In a competitive environment, these oil companies would lowing prices to try and steal market share from each other to increase profits. But the oil businesses isn't a competitive environment, it's corrupted by what I call "soft collusion", in which companies tacitly agree not to compete on price, instead setting profit margin goals. This is the inevitable result of the high price of entry into the market because no small competitor can come in and force competition. The price of entry is so high because of government restrictions, subsidies and taxes that always protect big corporations at the expense of small businesses, and capital requirements (but there's plenty of capital available right now thanks to the Fed's flooding the market with cheap dollars).
Patent appeals judges may have been appointed unconstitutionally.
Army investigates conditions at Fort Bragg. Army bureaucrats are the same as any other bureaucrats.
It looks like Zimbabwe will have its run-off election after all because the opposition candidate only won 47% of the vote.
Reason offers a great perspective on the abuse of power by Texas officials when the forcibly removed 463 (how come that number keeps changing, officials?) children from their parents at the Yearning for Zion ranch.
Reason anticipates an interesting battle for the Libertarian nomination. I'm looking forward to it.
In an Indiana campaign ad, Hillary Clinton blames George Bush for the loss of jobs in Indiana resulting from the sale of companies to Chinese companies in 1995, approved by the Clinton administration. This woman is the most shameless, prolific liar of any public figure I've ever seen. She and her husband sold our country out the Chinese in return for campaign contributions from the Chinese government, and she has the audacity to blame Bush for that. Unbelievable.
There's no way of knowing how accurate this unnamed source is, but unlike Obama's baloney, this article smells right. Obama is suddenly claiming he didn't know Rev. Wright's true character. That somehow he missed it in the 20 years Obama listened to his sermons. That's absurd. The comments Wright made publicly this week are the same things he's been preaching for 20 years. We have the tapes. We know this is true. If Obama hadn't been aware of Wright's dangerous radical viewpoints, why did he cut Wright out of his campaign? For Obama to claim he just became aware of Wright's positions 2 nights ago is a lie only Bill Clinton could get away with. And this article backs it all up.
I don't blame Wright or his church members at all for feeling betrayed. They feelt that way because it's true. Obama used that church like a tool when he was carefully crafting his political identity in Chicago as part of the radical black community, and now that that identity and the church works against his new ambition, he tossed Wright and the church aside like a worn out rag. That's not very Christian.
Cheney's lawyer says Congress cannot conduct oversight of VP. Oversight implies the VP answers to Congress, and that's crap. Separation of powers means the Executive Branch doesn't answer to Congress any more than Congress answers to the Executive Branch.
Instead of attacking Miley Cyrus, Disney needs to explain its Chinese underwear ad.
Gore firm creates second green investment fund. I like green investment, but you have to wonder how much investment is going into green technology, and therefore lining Gore's pockets, because of the global warming fraud. This industry didn't take off until Gore lied about climate change is his movie An Inconvenient Truth. Al Gore should be investigated for fraud.
Here's how companies can get more money without having to borrow from the Fed - sell more stock like Citigroup.
Cato says McCain's health care plan is far far better than either Clinton or Obama's. That's faint praise.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Free kibbles
Nancy Pelosi may hoist Republicans on their own petard. The Iraq war has been funded as emergency spending instead of going through the normal budget process since it started. Now Nancy Pelosi is considering skipping the appropriations committee process because the funding is emergency funding. Republicans are unhappy, but they're the ones who kept Iraq war funding as emergency funding instead of using the proper budget process for predictable, non-emergency, spending. Why is Pelosi adding $70 billion to the bill? You can bet that money isn't going to the troops.
Oil over $120. Blaming the falling dollar, OPEC reports oil could hit $200. How's the Fed policy looking now? Thanks Greenspan. Thanks Bernanke. Greenspan knew exactly what was coming, and that's why he retired. Why should OPEC pump more oil to cover up for bad US government policy? I don't blame a bit. We should take responsibility for this and oust both parties from power, replacing them with libertarians who will get government off our backs so free market forces can strengthen the dollar and increase the supply of oil and gasoline, driving down prices.
An ally actually did the US a favor. Azerbaijan held up Russian nuclear shipment intended for Iran until its determined the shipment meets the UN sanctions.
Government witness claims Obama partner Rezko said Fitzgerald would be replaced as UN Attorney. Too bad that didn't happen before his witch-hunt against Libby.
UN sets up food crisis task force. You can be certain task force personnel will siphon off food and sell it for personal profit in new heights of corruption.
While we're talking about food shortages, Australian scientists say they found a gene that speed up metabolism - allowing mice to lose weight while eating a lot. Great. Fat people will be able to eat even more than they do already. And probably die younger. The biggest cause of weight problems is we're starving ourselves of essential nutrients by eating processed food. We have to keep eating it because it doesn't satisfy the needs of our body.
Chinese are selling their children into slavery.
Bush blames Congress for economic problems. He's half right. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
Hillary Clinton supporter organized Rev. Wright's appearance at the Press Club. Funny. Press Club denies. Gingrich suggests Wright may be intentionally sabotaging Obama. I think Wright is more worried about Wright than Obama. Obama finally disavows Wright, saying "the man I saw yesterday was not the man I knew for 20 years." Baloney. We could all figure out what kind of extremist Wright was after listening to a few minutes of sermons. Then Obama must have
really poor judgment of men and situations. Now Obama is going to try and convince us that Wright has suddenly changed, not that Obama either misjudged him for 20 years, or that he welcomed Wright's extremism for 20 years, and only now that he's running for president is he repudiating it. Any way you slice it, this should disqualify Obama for office.
Obama's sudden and opportunistic repudiation of the man who married him and inspired the title of his book also says that Obama can't be trusted. Now he's saying that the man who baptized his children and was invited to be an adviser of his campaign wasn't his spiritual adviser. Obama attached himself to a crackpot for 20 years for political gain, and because of it, now he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.
In a vote buying extravaganza, Hillary Clinton requests $2.3 billion in earmarks for 2009 - nearly 3 times the next closest Senator.
Through strength of numbers and on the heals of a fiery speech, Ron Paul supporters take control of Nevada state convention and force rules changes to support Ron Paul - all by the rules. In response, the Republican establishment cancelled the convention.
McCain the Democrat calls for federal taxpayers to foot the tab for Americans without health insurance. What passes for choice in this election is the choice between bigger government and way bigger government. That's no choice at all. Why would anybody bother buying insurance if federal taxpayers provided "guaranteed access"? This will drive up the cost and problems of health care like every other government foray into the health care market. I love it when politicians expand government intervention in a market then claim they support the free market.
This is a really weak argument that the CIA enhanced photos from the Syrian nuclear reactor site. They probably did run some digital enhancement to have a better picture of the facility.
Reason describes how to build a gasifier to produce energy from carbon waste products. Why hasn't this been industrialized yet?
Microsoft creates USB thumb device to help cops quickly extract forensic evidence from computers. There's nothing wrong with this, but you know it will be misused.
Cato says the new farm bill is loaded up with subsidies and nutrition pork.
Cato explains the Fed has painted itself into a corner with recession on one wall and inflation on the other. The Fed should deal with inflation and the market recover itself (government spending and tax cuts would help that recovery).
Cato supports federalism in determining the trade-offs between voter fraud and access.
Contrary to what Democrats would have you believe, the percentage of income taxes paid by the rich are going up faster than their the incomes.
Boortz reports the IRS wants to tax personal phone calls on business cell phones. That'll be some fun record-keeping, won't it. How about we adopt the FairTax instead.
Roger Clemens is taking him down in flames. The day after his lawyer claimed Clemens never had an affair with young country singer McCready, McCready refuses to deny the same. He'll be lucky if he avoids a penalty for perjoring himself before Congress.
Washington politicians are pretending they were unaware of the consequences on food prices of mandating ethanol. Boortz provides links to many old news articles explaining the effects. It's sad the American people would let politicians get away with this. The politicians are saying that they had no idea that significantly reducing the supply of corn for food would cause food prices to rise. Either our politicians are lying or their dumber than fish. Either way, we should not allow them to keep their jobs.
What is going on with this fat acceptance movement? Instead of grabbing the donut, go for a walk. How hard is it? First you couldn't discriminate because of race or sex. Since I'm a huge supporter of freedom and private property rights, I don't like those laws. An employer can discriminate because he doesn't like a candidate's eyebrows or voice or pimples or one leg is longer than another or anything else. The law should treat everybody equally, but you can't force that on free people, otherwise it creates a situation in which the law doesn't treat everybody equally. For example, if an employer can't discriminate on race, why should he be allowed to discriminate against blonds? If an employer wants to be stupid and arbitrary and hurt his own business because of it, that's his right.
But when the movement started to ban discrimination against homosexuals, the debate changed.
At first, it was just about things you can't change about yourself. You can't chose your skin color. You can't chose your gender. But having sex is a choice, and you can chose your partners, or chose none. It's behavior, and that opened the door to making the case that government can force employers not to discriminate on behavior, which is really dangerous. I understand that there are genetic predispositions to homosexuality, but having sex with any given partner is still ultimately a choice. There are genetic predispositions to being overweight too, but ultimately, eating too much and exercising too little is a choice. We're going to see more and more people who make unpopular choices shoving door open to government to protect them at the expense of freedom.
I'm not saying homosexuals or fat people should change their behavior. I'm saying they shouldn't use the force of government to take freedom of discretion from employers. Everybody has the right to be fat. Everybody has the right to refuse to hire fat people. That's freedom.
George Will sees an opportunity for McCain to go into inner cities and champion school choice.
Expert climatologist skeptical of global warming fraud is under fire by his Colorado State University management. This is typical of skeptics who speak out.
Oil over $120. Blaming the falling dollar, OPEC reports oil could hit $200. How's the Fed policy looking now? Thanks Greenspan. Thanks Bernanke. Greenspan knew exactly what was coming, and that's why he retired. Why should OPEC pump more oil to cover up for bad US government policy? I don't blame a bit. We should take responsibility for this and oust both parties from power, replacing them with libertarians who will get government off our backs so free market forces can strengthen the dollar and increase the supply of oil and gasoline, driving down prices.
An ally actually did the US a favor. Azerbaijan held up Russian nuclear shipment intended for Iran until its determined the shipment meets the UN sanctions.
Government witness claims Obama partner Rezko said Fitzgerald would be replaced as UN Attorney. Too bad that didn't happen before his witch-hunt against Libby.
UN sets up food crisis task force. You can be certain task force personnel will siphon off food and sell it for personal profit in new heights of corruption.
While we're talking about food shortages, Australian scientists say they found a gene that speed up metabolism - allowing mice to lose weight while eating a lot. Great. Fat people will be able to eat even more than they do already. And probably die younger. The biggest cause of weight problems is we're starving ourselves of essential nutrients by eating processed food. We have to keep eating it because it doesn't satisfy the needs of our body.
Chinese are selling their children into slavery.
Bush blames Congress for economic problems. He's half right. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
Hillary Clinton supporter organized Rev. Wright's appearance at the Press Club. Funny. Press Club denies. Gingrich suggests Wright may be intentionally sabotaging Obama. I think Wright is more worried about Wright than Obama. Obama finally disavows Wright, saying "the man I saw yesterday was not the man I knew for 20 years." Baloney. We could all figure out what kind of extremist Wright was after listening to a few minutes of sermons. Then Obama must have
really poor judgment of men and situations. Now Obama is going to try and convince us that Wright has suddenly changed, not that Obama either misjudged him for 20 years, or that he welcomed Wright's extremism for 20 years, and only now that he's running for president is he repudiating it. Any way you slice it, this should disqualify Obama for office.
Obama's sudden and opportunistic repudiation of the man who married him and inspired the title of his book also says that Obama can't be trusted. Now he's saying that the man who baptized his children and was invited to be an adviser of his campaign wasn't his spiritual adviser. Obama attached himself to a crackpot for 20 years for political gain, and because of it, now he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.
In a vote buying extravaganza, Hillary Clinton requests $2.3 billion in earmarks for 2009 - nearly 3 times the next closest Senator.
Through strength of numbers and on the heals of a fiery speech, Ron Paul supporters take control of Nevada state convention and force rules changes to support Ron Paul - all by the rules. In response, the Republican establishment cancelled the convention.
McCain the Democrat calls for federal taxpayers to foot the tab for Americans without health insurance. What passes for choice in this election is the choice between bigger government and way bigger government. That's no choice at all. Why would anybody bother buying insurance if federal taxpayers provided "guaranteed access"? This will drive up the cost and problems of health care like every other government foray into the health care market. I love it when politicians expand government intervention in a market then claim they support the free market.
This is a really weak argument that the CIA enhanced photos from the Syrian nuclear reactor site. They probably did run some digital enhancement to have a better picture of the facility.
Reason describes how to build a gasifier to produce energy from carbon waste products. Why hasn't this been industrialized yet?
Microsoft creates USB thumb device to help cops quickly extract forensic evidence from computers. There's nothing wrong with this, but you know it will be misused.
Cato says the new farm bill is loaded up with subsidies and nutrition pork.
Cato explains the Fed has painted itself into a corner with recession on one wall and inflation on the other. The Fed should deal with inflation and the market recover itself (government spending and tax cuts would help that recovery).
Cato supports federalism in determining the trade-offs between voter fraud and access.
Contrary to what Democrats would have you believe, the percentage of income taxes paid by the rich are going up faster than their the incomes.
Boortz reports the IRS wants to tax personal phone calls on business cell phones. That'll be some fun record-keeping, won't it. How about we adopt the FairTax instead.
Roger Clemens is taking him down in flames. The day after his lawyer claimed Clemens never had an affair with young country singer McCready, McCready refuses to deny the same. He'll be lucky if he avoids a penalty for perjoring himself before Congress.
Washington politicians are pretending they were unaware of the consequences on food prices of mandating ethanol. Boortz provides links to many old news articles explaining the effects. It's sad the American people would let politicians get away with this. The politicians are saying that they had no idea that significantly reducing the supply of corn for food would cause food prices to rise. Either our politicians are lying or their dumber than fish. Either way, we should not allow them to keep their jobs.
What is going on with this fat acceptance movement? Instead of grabbing the donut, go for a walk. How hard is it? First you couldn't discriminate because of race or sex. Since I'm a huge supporter of freedom and private property rights, I don't like those laws. An employer can discriminate because he doesn't like a candidate's eyebrows or voice or pimples or one leg is longer than another or anything else. The law should treat everybody equally, but you can't force that on free people, otherwise it creates a situation in which the law doesn't treat everybody equally. For example, if an employer can't discriminate on race, why should he be allowed to discriminate against blonds? If an employer wants to be stupid and arbitrary and hurt his own business because of it, that's his right.
But when the movement started to ban discrimination against homosexuals, the debate changed.
At first, it was just about things you can't change about yourself. You can't chose your skin color. You can't chose your gender. But having sex is a choice, and you can chose your partners, or chose none. It's behavior, and that opened the door to making the case that government can force employers not to discriminate on behavior, which is really dangerous. I understand that there are genetic predispositions to homosexuality, but having sex with any given partner is still ultimately a choice. There are genetic predispositions to being overweight too, but ultimately, eating too much and exercising too little is a choice. We're going to see more and more people who make unpopular choices shoving door open to government to protect them at the expense of freedom.
I'm not saying homosexuals or fat people should change their behavior. I'm saying they shouldn't use the force of government to take freedom of discretion from employers. Everybody has the right to be fat. Everybody has the right to refuse to hire fat people. That's freedom.
George Will sees an opportunity for McCain to go into inner cities and champion school choice.
Expert climatologist skeptical of global warming fraud is under fire by his Colorado State University management. This is typical of skeptics who speak out.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Free kibbles
Supreme Court upholds voter ID laws, allowing states to combat voter fraud and make sure only US citizens vote. This doesn't impose any burden on anybody. The government will provide every American an ID for voting. If people chose not to get an ID to vote, that's their choice. Democrats are unhappy that illegal aliens can be stopped from voting.
Analysts predict $10 per gallon gas. If the Fed keeps driving down the value of the dollar and our government refuses to allow us to build refineries, that'll happen. It's sickening to realize that government has total control over this, nobody else, and it's the government aristocrats' fault gas is this high.
38 Shia militiamen have been killed by US and Iraqi troops in 2 days. 400 have been killed in recent weeks. Maliki is destroying Sadr's Mehdi army, and Sadr's forces are fracturing under poor leadership. It's about time the Iraqi govenment got serious about erasing this threat.
UN covering up arms dealing and smuggling of gold and ivory by UN peacekeepers in Congo. The UN is the largest, most unaccountable organization in history, and is therefore the most corrupt organization in history.
Zimbabwe opposition parties unite to take parliamentary majority.
Rice rationing in Israel. Just raise the prices and stop rationing.
Did the culture and wealth of J.R. Ewing and Dallas really help win the Cold War? Those imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain wanted to enjoy the same kind of wealth of Americans.
NYTimes Sunday circulation loses 9%. It couldn't happen to a more yellow newspaper.
Reason lists the many lies of Hillary Clinton and wonders why Democrats would support such a liar. They supported her equally shameless liar of a husband for 8 years too.
Rev. Wright says if Obama is elected, he will come after him to enact policies Wright favors. So if Obama is elected, we can expect the extremist Rev. Wright to be an adviser (just like Obama invited him to be an adviser to his campaign, before he disinvited him).
Ron Paul will not campaign for McCain. I won't either.
Iran says Barbie poses a danger that must be stopped.
I wish Miley Cyrus would keep her clothes on in public too. I'd hate to see her end up like the Olsens, Lindsay Lohan, or God forbid, Britany Spears. OK, she looks terrible in the topless/sheet pic, but why is she posing with her dad like they're lovers? I think that's a far more irresponsible pic. What was her dad thinking?
Gene therapy helps blind man see.
I guess nationalism is code for socialism. Cato says nationalism threatens the gains made by globalism.
Analysts predict $10 per gallon gas. If the Fed keeps driving down the value of the dollar and our government refuses to allow us to build refineries, that'll happen. It's sickening to realize that government has total control over this, nobody else, and it's the government aristocrats' fault gas is this high.
38 Shia militiamen have been killed by US and Iraqi troops in 2 days. 400 have been killed in recent weeks. Maliki is destroying Sadr's Mehdi army, and Sadr's forces are fracturing under poor leadership. It's about time the Iraqi govenment got serious about erasing this threat.
UN covering up arms dealing and smuggling of gold and ivory by UN peacekeepers in Congo. The UN is the largest, most unaccountable organization in history, and is therefore the most corrupt organization in history.
Zimbabwe opposition parties unite to take parliamentary majority.
Rice rationing in Israel. Just raise the prices and stop rationing.
Did the culture and wealth of J.R. Ewing and Dallas really help win the Cold War? Those imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain wanted to enjoy the same kind of wealth of Americans.
NYTimes Sunday circulation loses 9%. It couldn't happen to a more yellow newspaper.
Reason lists the many lies of Hillary Clinton and wonders why Democrats would support such a liar. They supported her equally shameless liar of a husband for 8 years too.
Rev. Wright says if Obama is elected, he will come after him to enact policies Wright favors. So if Obama is elected, we can expect the extremist Rev. Wright to be an adviser (just like Obama invited him to be an adviser to his campaign, before he disinvited him).
Ron Paul will not campaign for McCain. I won't either.
Iran says Barbie poses a danger that must be stopped.
I wish Miley Cyrus would keep her clothes on in public too. I'd hate to see her end up like the Olsens, Lindsay Lohan, or God forbid, Britany Spears. OK, she looks terrible in the topless/sheet pic, but why is she posing with her dad like they're lovers? I think that's a far more irresponsible pic. What was her dad thinking?
Gene therapy helps blind man see.
I guess nationalism is code for socialism. Cato says nationalism threatens the gains made by globalism.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Free kibbles
Iran considers a US attack unlikely because of Iraq, Afghanistan, and domestic problems. That's a huge misjudgement of George Bush.
Reports claim that 5 Britons kidnapped in Iraq are being held by the Revolutionary Guards in Iran. Britain denies, but this is the same Britain that sits on its hands and talks after Iran kidnaps its sailors and marines. Winston Churchill is turning over in his grave.
Mugabe imprisons 250 opposition supporters including babies and small children in ongoing
to intimidate voters before a hoped-for run-off election for president. Mugabe is the kind of monster that inevitably rises to the top of socialist governments to be a strong-man to enforce punishing socialist policies.
The Geneva Convention does not protect terrorists because they don't wear uniforms. Waterboarding is not torture.
Lawyer say Guantanamo drives prisoners insane. I think terrorists are insane to begin with. This is just another phony attempt to shut the place down. I think anybody who wants to shut down Guantanamo should volunteer to live next door to the released detainees for the next year. I'm sure they can talk the terrorists into becoming nice liberals like Obama's terrorist buddy Bill Ayers.
Today is the funeral for Matt Maupin, who was taken prisoner in Iraq and subsequently killed. I don't hear the liberals railing against the terrorists for not providing Geneva Convention protections to Maupin, who was a wearing a uniform and earned those protections.
Reason advocates a drug policy based on the alcohol model. I agree. Just like the original prohibition, the war on drugs is ineffective at stopping drug use, and the black market is far more costly and dangerous than the drugs themselves.
Overseas troops have trouble voting.
Obama's pastor Wright says he and his church received threats. Maybe. Maybe not. Anybody who says white Americans invented AIDS to kill off blacks has zero credibility. What we know for sure is every time he gets in the newspaper, Wright hurts Obama.
Bill Clinton taking over Hillary's campaign. Who wears the pants here? Who's running for president?
McCain is doing terrible raising funds. The Democrats are crushing him. In this particular case, I doubt it matters. Money will not overcome the problems Democrats have, and it won't overcome the anger that is bound to ensue from their media proxies calling every white person who doesn't support Obama a racist.
Democrats knee-jerk accusations of bigotry and racial motives are already being noticed.
Earthquake swarm grows in intensity in Reno, suggesting a major quake is coming.
Record snowfall in Anchorage. Must be global warming again.
College professor shows how liberals that undermined the discipline of kids and that their uninformed opinions were as valid as the informed opinions of their teachers, are reaping what they sowed in school violence, insolence, and poor performance, but even the
who have been crippled by attacks are unwilling to let go of their dogma.
Using Time magazine's cover of Iwo Jima marines planting a tree, Jonah Goldberg describes how liberals attempt to work the public into war frenzy over non-war issues to advance their collectivist agendas because they understand how people sacrifice during wartime. But any call to sacrifice is counter-productive. America is the sum of it's people. If the people sacrifice except for winning a war, the country is diminished. That's stupid. We want the people to be richer and more powerful so America is richer and more powerful.
While lampooning the loony-left drive for biofuels, Mark Steyn explains the Time cover of Iwo Jima marines planting a tree is a call to eco-colonialism. Since we have plenty of trees in the US, we must project US power into third world countries to make them grow more trees. This is what happens when we apply "climate change solutions" instead of just adapting to inevitable climate change. This is what happens when we drink Al Gore's kool-aid, inflate our egos and beat our chests, proclaiming we're the great masters of the world who are causing climate change and, with just a few socialist policies, we can fix it. Real people starve to death. But liberals feel better about themselves, so it's OK.
The McCain-Feingold abomination enables lawsuits to be filed to prohibit political speech. As far as government aristocrats care, the First Amendment, and the Constitution, be damned.
Liberal blames Bush for the problems with the North Korea deal, and supports the Clinton deal the North Koreans never honored.
This essay from Kay Bailey Hutchinson highlights just how bad our government aristocrats are for the US and the world. Mrs. Hutchinson does an excellent job of exposing how bad ethanol subsidies are for the environment and food production. But at the end, she claims these subsidies made sense at one point, and that's just wrong. They never made sense. Subsidies never make sense, and her misunderstanding (or at least misrepresentation) of that leads to a poor policy decision. Even though she does a great job exposing the detrimental effects, she introduces legislation to freeze them at current levels, leaving us and the world with the pain they produced, instead of introducing legislation to abolish them completely. This is just stupid, but she acts like she's doing us a favor and being altruist and wise. Pfft.
The revelation that the Syrian facility bombed by Israel last fall was a nuclear facility provided by the North Koreans verifies the accuracy of Bush's axis of evil description of North Korea, Iran, and Syria. That Israel was able to penetrate state-of-the-art Russian radar, destroy the site, and exit Syrian airspace undetected tells the Iranians we can do the same to their nuclear facilities any time we want. What's left unsaid in this piece is why Russia and China are supplying
weapons, technology, and diplomatic cover for this axis of evil. It's because China and Russia are using these terrorist proxies to drain our resources in a new Cold War of Terror.
PM Maliki and the political process was the big winner in Basra, and he has an opportunity to capitalize. You would think with all we've done for Saudi Arabia, they could open an embassy in Baghdad.
This is a great comparison of the decline of the British empire and analysis of the US position in the world. It's pretty long, but it reads easy and it brims with optimism, brushing off our entitlement crisis and education problems to be rectified. If they are rectified, the future is bright. But it finally does hit on the burden of government in the US compared to the rest of the world, even Europe. We talk the talk of freedom and free markets, but the rest of the world is walking the walk while we follow the Soviet model.
But it isn't political compromise we need - the compromise of Republican socialism and Democrats socialism is still socialism, and will accellerate our decline. By adopting freedom as our mantra, cutting the burden of government in half, adopting the FairTax and abolishing the government aristocracy by adopting term limits and making our representatives work in the real world for at least half a year, we'll stay the world leader for this entire century, and the rest of the world will have to adopt much greater freedom to compete. That makes for a much safer world.
Ralph Peters welcomes Def. Sec. Gates' nomination of Gen. Petraeus to command of CentCom, Gen. Odierno's nomination as commander in Iraq, and an Iraq veteran to Army vice-chief of staff.
Showing just how mistaken and bizarre the loony left, that has so much power over the
Democrat party and the mainstream media, of America is, Arriana Huffington calls Tony Snow "the enemy". How come the loony left never writes essays calling Osama bin Laden the enemy? When will the left figure out all Americans are in one boat, and stop attacking everybody else in the boat? Tony Snow is about as mainstream as it gets.
Democrat lists 10 facts in support of nominating Clinton over Obama.
Let's panic. Beetles are producing CO2 and causing the planet to overheat. I don't know how the planet has survived the hundreds of millions of years the beetles have been around. How come the warmers don't attack Gore for all the hot air he produces?
Bush basher beats up cerebral palsy victim in wheelchair.
9th Circuit rules that custom officials do not need reasonable suspicion to search laptops at the border.
Why is the city telling this property owner he can't display his art on his lawn? Where are the liberals to protect this artist? I guess this hurts the tax base, so in spirit of the Kelo decision, the city is intervening. Maybe they should tell him to paint his house and trim his bushes too.
Government has made doing business in the health care and health insurance sectors so painful that doctor stops dealing with health insurance companies at all, and just treats those without insurance. This is a real solution done by the free market in response to the problems caused by government.
Analysis of conditions that would lead to American success in Iraq.
Don't we have enough problems with false rape accusations without a woman claiming a man raped her over the phone?
California is using familial DNA tests to identify relatives of people who's DNA showed up in
unsolved crimes in order to turn up leads. Now you can be interrogated by the police for crimes your relatives did even though you know nothing about them.
I prefer to see people praying for lower gas prices than asking Congress to get involved to "fix" the problem.
Copied from Fark: The Massachusetts Turnpike is not running a speed trap. The extra police patrols, speeding tickets, and the line item in the budget requiring increased ticket revenue are just a coincidence.
Reports claim that 5 Britons kidnapped in Iraq are being held by the Revolutionary Guards in Iran. Britain denies, but this is the same Britain that sits on its hands and talks after Iran kidnaps its sailors and marines. Winston Churchill is turning over in his grave.
Mugabe imprisons 250 opposition supporters including babies and small children in ongoing
to intimidate voters before a hoped-for run-off election for president. Mugabe is the kind of monster that inevitably rises to the top of socialist governments to be a strong-man to enforce punishing socialist policies.
The Geneva Convention does not protect terrorists because they don't wear uniforms. Waterboarding is not torture.
Lawyer say Guantanamo drives prisoners insane. I think terrorists are insane to begin with. This is just another phony attempt to shut the place down. I think anybody who wants to shut down Guantanamo should volunteer to live next door to the released detainees for the next year. I'm sure they can talk the terrorists into becoming nice liberals like Obama's terrorist buddy Bill Ayers.
Today is the funeral for Matt Maupin, who was taken prisoner in Iraq and subsequently killed. I don't hear the liberals railing against the terrorists for not providing Geneva Convention protections to Maupin, who was a wearing a uniform and earned those protections.
Reason advocates a drug policy based on the alcohol model. I agree. Just like the original prohibition, the war on drugs is ineffective at stopping drug use, and the black market is far more costly and dangerous than the drugs themselves.
Overseas troops have trouble voting.
Obama's pastor Wright says he and his church received threats. Maybe. Maybe not. Anybody who says white Americans invented AIDS to kill off blacks has zero credibility. What we know for sure is every time he gets in the newspaper, Wright hurts Obama.
Bill Clinton taking over Hillary's campaign. Who wears the pants here? Who's running for president?
McCain is doing terrible raising funds. The Democrats are crushing him. In this particular case, I doubt it matters. Money will not overcome the problems Democrats have, and it won't overcome the anger that is bound to ensue from their media proxies calling every white person who doesn't support Obama a racist.
Democrats knee-jerk accusations of bigotry and racial motives are already being noticed.
Earthquake swarm grows in intensity in Reno, suggesting a major quake is coming.
Record snowfall in Anchorage. Must be global warming again.
College professor shows how liberals that undermined the discipline of kids and that their uninformed opinions were as valid as the informed opinions of their teachers, are reaping what they sowed in school violence, insolence, and poor performance, but even the
who have been crippled by attacks are unwilling to let go of their dogma.
Using Time magazine's cover of Iwo Jima marines planting a tree, Jonah Goldberg describes how liberals attempt to work the public into war frenzy over non-war issues to advance their collectivist agendas because they understand how people sacrifice during wartime. But any call to sacrifice is counter-productive. America is the sum of it's people. If the people sacrifice except for winning a war, the country is diminished. That's stupid. We want the people to be richer and more powerful so America is richer and more powerful.
While lampooning the loony-left drive for biofuels, Mark Steyn explains the Time cover of Iwo Jima marines planting a tree is a call to eco-colonialism. Since we have plenty of trees in the US, we must project US power into third world countries to make them grow more trees. This is what happens when we apply "climate change solutions" instead of just adapting to inevitable climate change. This is what happens when we drink Al Gore's kool-aid, inflate our egos and beat our chests, proclaiming we're the great masters of the world who are causing climate change and, with just a few socialist policies, we can fix it. Real people starve to death. But liberals feel better about themselves, so it's OK.
The McCain-Feingold abomination enables lawsuits to be filed to prohibit political speech. As far as government aristocrats care, the First Amendment, and the Constitution, be damned.
Liberal blames Bush for the problems with the North Korea deal, and supports the Clinton deal the North Koreans never honored.
This essay from Kay Bailey Hutchinson highlights just how bad our government aristocrats are for the US and the world. Mrs. Hutchinson does an excellent job of exposing how bad ethanol subsidies are for the environment and food production. But at the end, she claims these subsidies made sense at one point, and that's just wrong. They never made sense. Subsidies never make sense, and her misunderstanding (or at least misrepresentation) of that leads to a poor policy decision. Even though she does a great job exposing the detrimental effects, she introduces legislation to freeze them at current levels, leaving us and the world with the pain they produced, instead of introducing legislation to abolish them completely. This is just stupid, but she acts like she's doing us a favor and being altruist and wise. Pfft.
The revelation that the Syrian facility bombed by Israel last fall was a nuclear facility provided by the North Koreans verifies the accuracy of Bush's axis of evil description of North Korea, Iran, and Syria. That Israel was able to penetrate state-of-the-art Russian radar, destroy the site, and exit Syrian airspace undetected tells the Iranians we can do the same to their nuclear facilities any time we want. What's left unsaid in this piece is why Russia and China are supplying
weapons, technology, and diplomatic cover for this axis of evil. It's because China and Russia are using these terrorist proxies to drain our resources in a new Cold War of Terror.
PM Maliki and the political process was the big winner in Basra, and he has an opportunity to capitalize. You would think with all we've done for Saudi Arabia, they could open an embassy in Baghdad.
This is a great comparison of the decline of the British empire and analysis of the US position in the world. It's pretty long, but it reads easy and it brims with optimism, brushing off our entitlement crisis and education problems to be rectified. If they are rectified, the future is bright. But it finally does hit on the burden of government in the US compared to the rest of the world, even Europe. We talk the talk of freedom and free markets, but the rest of the world is walking the walk while we follow the Soviet model.
But it isn't political compromise we need - the compromise of Republican socialism and Democrats socialism is still socialism, and will accellerate our decline. By adopting freedom as our mantra, cutting the burden of government in half, adopting the FairTax and abolishing the government aristocracy by adopting term limits and making our representatives work in the real world for at least half a year, we'll stay the world leader for this entire century, and the rest of the world will have to adopt much greater freedom to compete. That makes for a much safer world.
Ralph Peters welcomes Def. Sec. Gates' nomination of Gen. Petraeus to command of CentCom, Gen. Odierno's nomination as commander in Iraq, and an Iraq veteran to Army vice-chief of staff.
Showing just how mistaken and bizarre the loony left, that has so much power over the
Democrat party and the mainstream media, of America is, Arriana Huffington calls Tony Snow "the enemy". How come the loony left never writes essays calling Osama bin Laden the enemy? When will the left figure out all Americans are in one boat, and stop attacking everybody else in the boat? Tony Snow is about as mainstream as it gets.
Democrat lists 10 facts in support of nominating Clinton over Obama.
Let's panic. Beetles are producing CO2 and causing the planet to overheat. I don't know how the planet has survived the hundreds of millions of years the beetles have been around. How come the warmers don't attack Gore for all the hot air he produces?
Bush basher beats up cerebral palsy victim in wheelchair.
9th Circuit rules that custom officials do not need reasonable suspicion to search laptops at the border.
Why is the city telling this property owner he can't display his art on his lawn? Where are the liberals to protect this artist? I guess this hurts the tax base, so in spirit of the Kelo decision, the city is intervening. Maybe they should tell him to paint his house and trim his bushes too.
Government has made doing business in the health care and health insurance sectors so painful that doctor stops dealing with health insurance companies at all, and just treats those without insurance. This is a real solution done by the free market in response to the problems caused by government.
Analysis of conditions that would lead to American success in Iraq.
Don't we have enough problems with false rape accusations without a woman claiming a man raped her over the phone?
California is using familial DNA tests to identify relatives of people who's DNA showed up in
unsolved crimes in order to turn up leads. Now you can be interrogated by the police for crimes your relatives did even though you know nothing about them.
I prefer to see people praying for lower gas prices than asking Congress to get involved to "fix" the problem.
Copied from Fark: The Massachusetts Turnpike is not running a speed trap. The extra police patrols, speeding tickets, and the line item in the budget requiring increased ticket revenue are just a coincidence.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Government Will Make the Sky Fall
John Stossel's essay titled The Sky's Not Falling highlights the hyperbole regarding the subprime mortgage and credit "crises" politicians and talking heads are using to scare the people into giving government more power. But the very problems Stossel points out with ever-growing government threaten to make the sky fall. I can name 3 existential threats we face that are the direct result of the burden of big-government.
Thanks to out of control entitlements, government has created the looming debt crisis, putting us $58 trillion in debt - a debt we can never pay. Unless we dramatically reduce the size and scope of government, this debt will cause our creditors to stop lending our government money. When that happens, we could collapse as quickly, and harder, than the Soviet Union. Many say that's impossible, but almost nobody predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union either. And the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Government has systematically destroyed our schools so that 17 of the nation's 50 largest school districts graduate less than half of their students on time. We cannot stay competitive in the
world market with an uneducated work force. Of course, it takes more than the destruction of
schools to make student performance that bad. It takes the destruction of the institution of the family as well. Government isn't satisfied with merely destroying the institutions of family and neighborhood schools, government is also destroying the neighborhood church by usurping the role of faith and religion. Systematically undermining the the principles of freedom, self-reliance,
and individual responsibility adds to the problem.
We are losing the new Cold War of Terror being waged against us by China and Russia. We often credit Ronald Reagan with winning the first Cold War, but as accurate as that acknowledgement is, it's also dangerous. It implies that government, led by Ronald Reagan, won the Cold War, but that's false. Ronald Reagan reduced the burden of government by dramatically cutting taxes, reforming the tax code, and cutting non-military discretionary spending and deregulating. Ronald Reagan dramatically reduced the burden of government on Americans, and American entrepreneurs and workers responded by out-producing the Soviets.
Dramatically reducing the burden of government, unleashing the power of free markets and free people, won the Cold War.
China and Russia learned that lesson well, but we failed to learn it. China and Russia responded
by adopting free market reforms to unleash the power of their own people. But George Bush,
Republicans, and Democrats responded by doubling the size and therefore the burden of government on the American people. We're losing this new Cold War of Terror because our enemies have adopted the strategy that we used to win the Cold War, and we've adopted the strategy used by the Soviets, crushing our own people under the burden of government, to lose
the Cold War. Many consider it inevitable that China will surpass the US, but it's not. It's
simply a consequence of the burden of big-government.
Unless we wrestle control of our government back from the government aristocrats who rule us as ineffectively as feudal lords, we will be surpassed by China and likely doomed to a collapse and break-up similar to the Soviet Union's. Freedom and free markets are the solution to our problems. As Stossel says at the end of his essay, "Freedom, not control, is the ticket to success."
Thanks to out of control entitlements, government has created the looming debt crisis, putting us $58 trillion in debt - a debt we can never pay. Unless we dramatically reduce the size and scope of government, this debt will cause our creditors to stop lending our government money. When that happens, we could collapse as quickly, and harder, than the Soviet Union. Many say that's impossible, but almost nobody predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union either. And the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Government has systematically destroyed our schools so that 17 of the nation's 50 largest school districts graduate less than half of their students on time. We cannot stay competitive in the
world market with an uneducated work force. Of course, it takes more than the destruction of
schools to make student performance that bad. It takes the destruction of the institution of the family as well. Government isn't satisfied with merely destroying the institutions of family and neighborhood schools, government is also destroying the neighborhood church by usurping the role of faith and religion. Systematically undermining the the principles of freedom, self-reliance,
and individual responsibility adds to the problem.
We are losing the new Cold War of Terror being waged against us by China and Russia. We often credit Ronald Reagan with winning the first Cold War, but as accurate as that acknowledgement is, it's also dangerous. It implies that government, led by Ronald Reagan, won the Cold War, but that's false. Ronald Reagan reduced the burden of government by dramatically cutting taxes, reforming the tax code, and cutting non-military discretionary spending and deregulating. Ronald Reagan dramatically reduced the burden of government on Americans, and American entrepreneurs and workers responded by out-producing the Soviets.
Dramatically reducing the burden of government, unleashing the power of free markets and free people, won the Cold War.
China and Russia learned that lesson well, but we failed to learn it. China and Russia responded
by adopting free market reforms to unleash the power of their own people. But George Bush,
Republicans, and Democrats responded by doubling the size and therefore the burden of government on the American people. We're losing this new Cold War of Terror because our enemies have adopted the strategy that we used to win the Cold War, and we've adopted the strategy used by the Soviets, crushing our own people under the burden of government, to lose
the Cold War. Many consider it inevitable that China will surpass the US, but it's not. It's
simply a consequence of the burden of big-government.
Unless we wrestle control of our government back from the government aristocrats who rule us as ineffectively as feudal lords, we will be surpassed by China and likely doomed to a collapse and break-up similar to the Soviet Union's. Freedom and free markets are the solution to our problems. As Stossel says at the end of his essay, "Freedom, not control, is the ticket to success."
Free kibbles
Oklahoma's unemployment rate has fallen about 25% since it adopted a strict new anti-illegal immigration law, driving illegal immigrants out of the state. As a result, employers are hiring Americans to fill those jobs. They're paying the Americans more money, which will lead to slight increase in prices, but this just proves the free market adjusts very well when the illegal aliens self-deport.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs highlights Iranian activity in Iraq including arming and training extremists to kill Americans. The administration is building the case for attacking Iran. This is the new justification since stopping Iran from building a nuke didn't seem to catch on with the American people or the world.
Since reformers were barred from running for office in Iran, hardliners take more parliamentary seats.
Zimbabwe recount shows that Mugabe's party lost majority in Parliament.
Critics say Texas authorities abused their power when taking away every child in the Yearning for Zion ranch.
Consumer confidence at 26 year low. Study predicts oil prices will double in the next 4 years.
Senate proposes raising taxes on fuel for private jets by 65% to fund air-traffic control upgrades. This won't generate the revenue they think it will because private jets won't fly as much.
Republicans call Nancy Pelosi's bluff on plan to lower gas prices. Unfortunately, nobody is listening now and everybody who was listening before the 2006 election has forgotten.
As if we need a report to tell us both Obama and Clinton accepted oil money donations.
Hamas fundraiser now raising funds for Obama.
Anne Applebaum lists a bunch of books on communism.
Congressman proposes restricting movement of diplomats from terrorist nations to the UN to a half mile radius from the UN building. I like this idea.
If no Americans were overweight, it would save an average of $4,270 per household per year. That's the opportunity cost of 3rd party payer health care systems. When Americans pay for their own health care, they'll stay healthier to keep costs down. When somebody else pays, they don't bother with the effort.
The Senate is stalemated on FEC commissioners, failing to fill the 4 vacant slots, rendering the FEC powerless. Our government is terrible.
ABC blames violence on the border on the 2nd Amendment. Did making drugs illegal stop the smuggling of drugs? Government creates a problem by banning drugs, empowering the drug cartels, and of course the liberals call for ever more government to "fix" the problem.
Al Gore voted as Senate president to mandate the use of ethanol in reformulated gasoline. Gore can afford the high price of food, so what's he care?
Giving away bibles in school is not establishing a religion. Every American should read the bible if for no other reason than it's the most important piece of literature in the history of western civilization.
What celebrities would look like if they lived in Oklahoma.
The media is continuing to lay the groundwork to denounce anybody who doesn't support Obama on the grounds of race. If you don't like Obama, it's because you're a cave man or KKK member. Obviously the only reason anybody would not support Obama is because of his race. Even though Obama gets 90% of the black vote and Clinton only gets 63% of the white vote, whites are racist. Implicit in this criticism is that it's OK for black people to support Obama just because he's black, but it's not OK for whites to support his opponent just because he or she is white.
We've watched Democrats tear themselves apart over race in this campaign, and you can be sure that if Obama gets the nomination, liberals will tear the country apart with these bogus racial charges against anybody who dares not support Obama. Exit polls consistently show Obama doing better than he actually does in private ballot contests. The more the press attacks white people, the worse this will get. Nobody wants to go on record not supporting Obama, but that's why we have secret ballots. Liberals are going to weild the race issue like a weapon in this campaign, and it's going to backfire big time, but the subsequent divisiveness will make the Bush years look like peace and harmony.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs highlights Iranian activity in Iraq including arming and training extremists to kill Americans. The administration is building the case for attacking Iran. This is the new justification since stopping Iran from building a nuke didn't seem to catch on with the American people or the world.
Since reformers were barred from running for office in Iran, hardliners take more parliamentary seats.
Zimbabwe recount shows that Mugabe's party lost majority in Parliament.
Critics say Texas authorities abused their power when taking away every child in the Yearning for Zion ranch.
Consumer confidence at 26 year low. Study predicts oil prices will double in the next 4 years.
Senate proposes raising taxes on fuel for private jets by 65% to fund air-traffic control upgrades. This won't generate the revenue they think it will because private jets won't fly as much.
Republicans call Nancy Pelosi's bluff on plan to lower gas prices. Unfortunately, nobody is listening now and everybody who was listening before the 2006 election has forgotten.
As if we need a report to tell us both Obama and Clinton accepted oil money donations.
Hamas fundraiser now raising funds for Obama.
Anne Applebaum lists a bunch of books on communism.
Congressman proposes restricting movement of diplomats from terrorist nations to the UN to a half mile radius from the UN building. I like this idea.
If no Americans were overweight, it would save an average of $4,270 per household per year. That's the opportunity cost of 3rd party payer health care systems. When Americans pay for their own health care, they'll stay healthier to keep costs down. When somebody else pays, they don't bother with the effort.
The Senate is stalemated on FEC commissioners, failing to fill the 4 vacant slots, rendering the FEC powerless. Our government is terrible.
ABC blames violence on the border on the 2nd Amendment. Did making drugs illegal stop the smuggling of drugs? Government creates a problem by banning drugs, empowering the drug cartels, and of course the liberals call for ever more government to "fix" the problem.
Al Gore voted as Senate president to mandate the use of ethanol in reformulated gasoline. Gore can afford the high price of food, so what's he care?
Giving away bibles in school is not establishing a religion. Every American should read the bible if for no other reason than it's the most important piece of literature in the history of western civilization.
What celebrities would look like if they lived in Oklahoma.
The media is continuing to lay the groundwork to denounce anybody who doesn't support Obama on the grounds of race. If you don't like Obama, it's because you're a cave man or KKK member. Obviously the only reason anybody would not support Obama is because of his race. Even though Obama gets 90% of the black vote and Clinton only gets 63% of the white vote, whites are racist. Implicit in this criticism is that it's OK for black people to support Obama just because he's black, but it's not OK for whites to support his opponent just because he or she is white.
We've watched Democrats tear themselves apart over race in this campaign, and you can be sure that if Obama gets the nomination, liberals will tear the country apart with these bogus racial charges against anybody who dares not support Obama. Exit polls consistently show Obama doing better than he actually does in private ballot contests. The more the press attacks white people, the worse this will get. Nobody wants to go on record not supporting Obama, but that's why we have secret ballots. Liberals are going to weild the race issue like a weapon in this campaign, and it's going to backfire big time, but the subsequent divisiveness will make the Bush years look like peace and harmony.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Free kibbles
Ship contracted by US Navy fires warning shots at unmarked fast boats, believed to be Iranian, in the Persian Gulf.
Judge in New York acquits 3 policemen for murdering, though the charge was only manslaughter for some reason, 1 and wounding 2unarmed men in New York. The police used the magic phrase, "suspected one of the men of carrying a gun", and when police utter that magic phrase, it makes them immune from the law, and they can kill anybody they want with impunity. Our society is twisted when it gives government officials, the power to be above the law. If a few of us got together and killed and unarmed man and wounded his 2 friends by firing 50 shots into
their car, and we "suspected one of the men of carrying a gun", we would spend the rest of our
lives in jail. And rightly so. These cops should be spending the rest of their lives in jail too. Their job does not put them above the law. This has nothing to do with race - the could very well have been white. This has to do with policemen thinking they are above the law and having it confirmed in court.
FBI wants to filter Internet backbone data to preempt crimes. This will lead to government databases of American's internet usage. Our country has gone nuts with this preemption concept. Some bad drivers may hurt somebody, so we punish all drivers with draconian drunk driving laws. Some drug users may hurt somebody, so we punish all Americans
with draconian drug laws. I'm willing to bet you that our courts have more cases of
victimless crimes than with crimes with victims. I bet Americans are more likely to be victimized by government than by criminals.
Europe to scan faces of airline passengers. In no time, this will be used to create databases of faces and travel information for every person who travels through Europe. Shortly after that, they'll link these databases to city surveillance cameras and internet usage databases, and they'll add the face scanning technology to city surveillance cameras as well. In 10 years, anybody who visits a big city or flies will have a huge database of everywhere they went every day for however long they were in sight of the all-seeing eye. Government will create profiling programs that examine this database and kick out warrant requests for anybody who fits the profile. It'll be fun!
Israel has Hamas on the ropes. You can tell because Hamas has offered a truce. Israel should press the advantage and not worry about the Gazans who can't food or fuel because those Gazan support terrorists. It's a folly of anti-terrorism policy that the people supporting the terrorists are "innocent".
China to meet with envoy of the Dalai Lama.
Supreme Court hears case on District Attorney immunity from lawsuits. Hell no, they shouldn't be immune. That immunity allows them to railroad innocent people with impunity. DA's must be forced to perform thorough investigations in order to assure they bring the proper charges if they bring any charges at all, otherwise budget issues and re-election concerns undercut justice.
NYTime prepares for mass firing of reporters. Serves them right for their yellow journalism.
Nancy Pelosi considers dream ticket a bad idea.
Clinton pressure's Obama for more debates. Obama's a lot of things, but I think he's dumb enough to fall for that.
Obama's pastor Wright puts himself back on the front page by criticizing the media for publicizing his anti-American, loony rants. I think this NC GOP ad that links Wright, Obama, and some NC Democrats, painting them all as extreme by showing one of Rev. Wright's anti-American rants is an excellent, honest ad. If Obama didn't want to be linked to Rev. Wright, he shouldn't have stayed in his church 20 years, had Wright marry him, invited Wright to his campaign (before he disinvited him), celebrated Wright in his book, named his book after a Wright sermon, etc., and if Democrats don't want to be linked with Wright, they should distance themselves from Obama. Or they could just whine like usual. You can bet the Democrat superdelegates are watching this.
Linked just for the headline: Dems always find way not to win. That's because no matter how bad the Republican candidate and policies, the Dems always run a worse candidate with worse policies. This isn't rocket science, some great mystery, a curse, bad luck, or anything other than stupidity.
The gun dealer who sold one of the guns used in the Virginia Tech massacre visits campus to promote carrying arms on campus. This guy did nothing wrong. He had no way of knowing his costumer was a lunatic mass murderer. And he's right on about the benefits of concealed carry. But I have to wonder about him being the messenger.
It's nice to see a woman in a typically liberal blog explain why women often make less money than men, and say that legislation has no place in this issue.
Food crisis eclipses climate crisis. Duh. How long have skeptics been saying that all the proposed solutions to climate change will harm the poor disproportionately without having any effect on climate? That's exactly what we're seeing the biofuels subsidies do. This isn't rocket science. If
implement any of these idiotic, Marxist plans to reduce man-made CO2, poor people are going to suffer and die, and climate will continue to change the same as it has for 4 billion years.
Professional panhandler pockets $50 an hour. This has been going on for over a decade at least.
Genetic analysis shows that humanity almost went extinct 70,000 years ago. I think this is old news. I wonder what neandertals would have done if we hadn't outcompeted them.
Greenpeace founder understands real environmental problems, promotes nuclear power, and realizes global warming is not caused by man.
Cato explains that the failure after Katrina was a big-government failure, not a Bush failure, any more than it would have been McCain's failure had he been in office.
Cato calls BPA worries false.
Cato explains that to fix the education crisis in America, we must not only abolish the Dept. of Education, but we must transfer power and accountability for education from bureaucrats at all levels back to parents.
Rahm Emanuel says that global warming is an issue for the elites, not the masses. I don't know exactly what that means, but I know it's bad for all of us. When the elites are making decisions instead of the people, we all lose.
I guess I would be remiss if I didn't mention Al Gore used fake footage in The Inconveniet Truth. Personally, I this is waste of my time an electrons to post. Gore, his movie, and his religion are frauds and always have been frauds, the magnitude of which are so dishonest and dangerous that they rival communism.
Bringing this up is like pointing out a pimple on a demon.
Judge in New York acquits 3 policemen for murdering, though the charge was only manslaughter for some reason, 1 and wounding 2unarmed men in New York. The police used the magic phrase, "suspected one of the men of carrying a gun", and when police utter that magic phrase, it makes them immune from the law, and they can kill anybody they want with impunity. Our society is twisted when it gives government officials, the power to be above the law. If a few of us got together and killed and unarmed man and wounded his 2 friends by firing 50 shots into
their car, and we "suspected one of the men of carrying a gun", we would spend the rest of our
lives in jail. And rightly so. These cops should be spending the rest of their lives in jail too. Their job does not put them above the law. This has nothing to do with race - the could very well have been white. This has to do with policemen thinking they are above the law and having it confirmed in court.
FBI wants to filter Internet backbone data to preempt crimes. This will lead to government databases of American's internet usage. Our country has gone nuts with this preemption concept. Some bad drivers may hurt somebody, so we punish all drivers with draconian drunk driving laws. Some drug users may hurt somebody, so we punish all Americans
with draconian drug laws. I'm willing to bet you that our courts have more cases of
victimless crimes than with crimes with victims. I bet Americans are more likely to be victimized by government than by criminals.
Europe to scan faces of airline passengers. In no time, this will be used to create databases of faces and travel information for every person who travels through Europe. Shortly after that, they'll link these databases to city surveillance cameras and internet usage databases, and they'll add the face scanning technology to city surveillance cameras as well. In 10 years, anybody who visits a big city or flies will have a huge database of everywhere they went every day for however long they were in sight of the all-seeing eye. Government will create profiling programs that examine this database and kick out warrant requests for anybody who fits the profile. It'll be fun!
Israel has Hamas on the ropes. You can tell because Hamas has offered a truce. Israel should press the advantage and not worry about the Gazans who can't food or fuel because those Gazan support terrorists. It's a folly of anti-terrorism policy that the people supporting the terrorists are "innocent".
China to meet with envoy of the Dalai Lama.
Supreme Court hears case on District Attorney immunity from lawsuits. Hell no, they shouldn't be immune. That immunity allows them to railroad innocent people with impunity. DA's must be forced to perform thorough investigations in order to assure they bring the proper charges if they bring any charges at all, otherwise budget issues and re-election concerns undercut justice.
NYTime prepares for mass firing of reporters. Serves them right for their yellow journalism.
Nancy Pelosi considers dream ticket a bad idea.
Clinton pressure's Obama for more debates. Obama's a lot of things, but I think he's dumb enough to fall for that.
Obama's pastor Wright puts himself back on the front page by criticizing the media for publicizing his anti-American, loony rants. I think this NC GOP ad that links Wright, Obama, and some NC Democrats, painting them all as extreme by showing one of Rev. Wright's anti-American rants is an excellent, honest ad. If Obama didn't want to be linked to Rev. Wright, he shouldn't have stayed in his church 20 years, had Wright marry him, invited Wright to his campaign (before he disinvited him), celebrated Wright in his book, named his book after a Wright sermon, etc., and if Democrats don't want to be linked with Wright, they should distance themselves from Obama. Or they could just whine like usual. You can bet the Democrat superdelegates are watching this.
Linked just for the headline: Dems always find way not to win. That's because no matter how bad the Republican candidate and policies, the Dems always run a worse candidate with worse policies. This isn't rocket science, some great mystery, a curse, bad luck, or anything other than stupidity.
The gun dealer who sold one of the guns used in the Virginia Tech massacre visits campus to promote carrying arms on campus. This guy did nothing wrong. He had no way of knowing his costumer was a lunatic mass murderer. And he's right on about the benefits of concealed carry. But I have to wonder about him being the messenger.
It's nice to see a woman in a typically liberal blog explain why women often make less money than men, and say that legislation has no place in this issue.
Food crisis eclipses climate crisis. Duh. How long have skeptics been saying that all the proposed solutions to climate change will harm the poor disproportionately without having any effect on climate? That's exactly what we're seeing the biofuels subsidies do. This isn't rocket science. If
implement any of these idiotic, Marxist plans to reduce man-made CO2, poor people are going to suffer and die, and climate will continue to change the same as it has for 4 billion years.
Professional panhandler pockets $50 an hour. This has been going on for over a decade at least.
Genetic analysis shows that humanity almost went extinct 70,000 years ago. I think this is old news. I wonder what neandertals would have done if we hadn't outcompeted them.
Greenpeace founder understands real environmental problems, promotes nuclear power, and realizes global warming is not caused by man.
Cato explains that the failure after Katrina was a big-government failure, not a Bush failure, any more than it would have been McCain's failure had he been in office.
Cato calls BPA worries false.
Cato explains that to fix the education crisis in America, we must not only abolish the Dept. of Education, but we must transfer power and accountability for education from bureaucrats at all levels back to parents.
Rahm Emanuel says that global warming is an issue for the elites, not the masses. I don't know exactly what that means, but I know it's bad for all of us. When the elites are making decisions instead of the people, we all lose.
I guess I would be remiss if I didn't mention Al Gore used fake footage in The Inconveniet Truth. Personally, I this is waste of my time an electrons to post. Gore, his movie, and his religion are frauds and always have been frauds, the magnitude of which are so dishonest and dangerous that they rival communism.
Bringing this up is like pointing out a pimple on a demon.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Free kibbles
CIA to continue rendition program. Possibly more than any other program, this program puts the US not only in the role of world cop, but the role of world bad cop. But there is no good cop counterpart.
Most of our security policies are just about feeling good, not really being effective. How secure
will New Yorkers feel having cops armed with sub-machineguns patrolling with terrorist dogs on the subway? I remember this in the Munich airport when I was in high school, and I was happy to live in a country that wasn't fearful. Remember when Bush said we shouldn't let the terrorists change our lives? How's that working out for us? I'm sure Bloomberg is getting lots of love for his beneficent plans.
Supreme Court affirms a case in which cops supposedly illegally arrested a man then searched him. The article talks about probable cause, but where did the officers have any probable cause? If they had reason to suspect he was dealing drugs before the arrest, that's one thing, but if not, there is no probable cause for to support this ruling. Since it was unanimous, I just think this article isn't providing enough facts about the arrest and search. This concept that police can search a car after arresting a suspect without a warrant is bogus. It's based on the "their own safety", but after the suspect is arrested, he's no threat, so there is no safety issue. This ruling has made the 4th amendment worthless when it comes to searching cars, because cops always claim they searched it for their own safety. Ginsberg's point is interesting. It may be constitutional, you can search the car with probable cause, but the Virginia law was more restrictive. And the article never explains how the officers had probable cause.
Just because a cop says he searched a vehicle for his safety or he had probable cause, doesn't make it so.
CIA presents evidence showing that North Korea helped Syria build a plutonium nuclear power plant.
If Brazil's newly discovered oil field's are as extensive as advertised, the US may stop patrolling the Middle East. Why not just drill for oil in ANWR and off Florida instead of waiting for Brazil? Because it might inconvenience some caribou and fish. Our government is the biggest threat we face, empowering our enemies to kill Americans, then putting Americans in harm's way to kill our enemies. Between our energy and drug policies, we're funding both sides of our wars and escalating the violence and the number of casualties everywhere.
Pakistani appeasement of Taliban terrorist leads to cease-fire that is doomed to end in violence after the terrorist gains more power.
It's not the government's business what anybody gets paid, women or otherwise. Every individual can negotiate his or her own wages and renegotiate later if they want. That's what free people do. The government should stay out of it.
Chicago wants to implement an assault weapons ban. That's unconstitutional.
Reason weighs in on Obama's bitter guns and God comments, pointing out that both Republicans and Democrats are run by government aristocrats (I wish they would adopt my term) who are out of touch with regular Americans who make this country great despite the efforts of those aristocrats.
Bush the Democrat's Democrat daughter, Jenna, may not support McCain the Democrat, possibly supporting the even more liberal Democrat instead. Children of privilege tend
to be liberals and Democrats, even the ones who pretend to be Republicans and conservatives,
because they don't understand the real world and they have everything handed to them
on a silver platter. They have no concern for freedom and benefits of freedom whatsoever.
Peta offers $1 million X-prize for anybody who can grow meat in a lab. I thought GM crops were bad for us. But not meat grown in a lab? I like my meat right off the bone.
Idaho ski resort open into May. Al Gore will probably ski there with all his fellow global warming prophets and their profits, then they'll leave and try to pass draconian laws punishing Americans for global warming supposedly caused by man-made CO2.
Scalia talks to the media.
Cato awards $500,000 Milton Freidman prize to Venezuellan university student who has spearheaded the resistance to Hugo Chavez. Good for Cato.
The Senate is prepared to pass a bill barring employers and health insurance companies from discriminating based on genetics. This is stupid. Congress won't allow insurance companies to use genetic risk factors to make their coverage more efficient. That would be like telling car insurance companies they aren't allowed to use risk factors in determining the price of car insurance. Think about how much lower insurance costs would be for nearly everybody if health insurance companies knew in advance who was genetically predisposed for certain diseases and who was not. This genetic testing would enable incredible efficiencies in health insurance, and Congress wants to block that and keep prices high for everybody. Our government sucks.
Obama's poor little pastor who runs around saying that white men invented AIDS to kill off black people thinks it's unfair that some of the accomplice press pointed out the trash he spews.
Thomas Sowell continues to explain how government subsidies drive up the price of college.
In this essay, Ann Coulter cuts Obama to the quick over Ayers, Dohrn, and the Weather Underground while still managing to blast the Clintons at the same time. The title is a classic: You Don't Need To Be A Weatherman To Know Which Candidate Blows.
Larry Kudlow says Obama's economics are bad and his social circle is filled with latte liberals. And Rev. Wright. And the Weather Underground.
George Will blames the failure of education in America on the disintegration of the family.
Michael Barone celebrates ABC, members of the mainstream media, asking tough questions of Obama.
The NYTimes suggests a combined Clinton-Obama ticket.
Essay illustrating just how titanic our government has grown over the last century.
The World Bank reports that almost all the world's increase in corn production from 2004 to 2007 went to heavily subsidized ethanol production in the US. How's that working out for us? Have you noticed the drop in fuel costs and how food has stayed so cheap?
Why Patrick Moore left Greenpeace.
Most of our security policies are just about feeling good, not really being effective. How secure
will New Yorkers feel having cops armed with sub-machineguns patrolling with terrorist dogs on the subway? I remember this in the Munich airport when I was in high school, and I was happy to live in a country that wasn't fearful. Remember when Bush said we shouldn't let the terrorists change our lives? How's that working out for us? I'm sure Bloomberg is getting lots of love for his beneficent plans.
Supreme Court affirms a case in which cops supposedly illegally arrested a man then searched him. The article talks about probable cause, but where did the officers have any probable cause? If they had reason to suspect he was dealing drugs before the arrest, that's one thing, but if not, there is no probable cause for to support this ruling. Since it was unanimous, I just think this article isn't providing enough facts about the arrest and search. This concept that police can search a car after arresting a suspect without a warrant is bogus. It's based on the "their own safety", but after the suspect is arrested, he's no threat, so there is no safety issue. This ruling has made the 4th amendment worthless when it comes to searching cars, because cops always claim they searched it for their own safety. Ginsberg's point is interesting. It may be constitutional, you can search the car with probable cause, but the Virginia law was more restrictive. And the article never explains how the officers had probable cause.
Just because a cop says he searched a vehicle for his safety or he had probable cause, doesn't make it so.
CIA presents evidence showing that North Korea helped Syria build a plutonium nuclear power plant.
If Brazil's newly discovered oil field's are as extensive as advertised, the US may stop patrolling the Middle East. Why not just drill for oil in ANWR and off Florida instead of waiting for Brazil? Because it might inconvenience some caribou and fish. Our government is the biggest threat we face, empowering our enemies to kill Americans, then putting Americans in harm's way to kill our enemies. Between our energy and drug policies, we're funding both sides of our wars and escalating the violence and the number of casualties everywhere.
Pakistani appeasement of Taliban terrorist leads to cease-fire that is doomed to end in violence after the terrorist gains more power.
It's not the government's business what anybody gets paid, women or otherwise. Every individual can negotiate his or her own wages and renegotiate later if they want. That's what free people do. The government should stay out of it.
Chicago wants to implement an assault weapons ban. That's unconstitutional.
Reason weighs in on Obama's bitter guns and God comments, pointing out that both Republicans and Democrats are run by government aristocrats (I wish they would adopt my term) who are out of touch with regular Americans who make this country great despite the efforts of those aristocrats.
Bush the Democrat's Democrat daughter, Jenna, may not support McCain the Democrat, possibly supporting the even more liberal Democrat instead. Children of privilege tend
to be liberals and Democrats, even the ones who pretend to be Republicans and conservatives,
because they don't understand the real world and they have everything handed to them
on a silver platter. They have no concern for freedom and benefits of freedom whatsoever.
Peta offers $1 million X-prize for anybody who can grow meat in a lab. I thought GM crops were bad for us. But not meat grown in a lab? I like my meat right off the bone.
Idaho ski resort open into May. Al Gore will probably ski there with all his fellow global warming prophets and their profits, then they'll leave and try to pass draconian laws punishing Americans for global warming supposedly caused by man-made CO2.
Scalia talks to the media.
Cato awards $500,000 Milton Freidman prize to Venezuellan university student who has spearheaded the resistance to Hugo Chavez. Good for Cato.
The Senate is prepared to pass a bill barring employers and health insurance companies from discriminating based on genetics. This is stupid. Congress won't allow insurance companies to use genetic risk factors to make their coverage more efficient. That would be like telling car insurance companies they aren't allowed to use risk factors in determining the price of car insurance. Think about how much lower insurance costs would be for nearly everybody if health insurance companies knew in advance who was genetically predisposed for certain diseases and who was not. This genetic testing would enable incredible efficiencies in health insurance, and Congress wants to block that and keep prices high for everybody. Our government sucks.
Obama's poor little pastor who runs around saying that white men invented AIDS to kill off black people thinks it's unfair that some of the accomplice press pointed out the trash he spews.
Thomas Sowell continues to explain how government subsidies drive up the price of college.
In this essay, Ann Coulter cuts Obama to the quick over Ayers, Dohrn, and the Weather Underground while still managing to blast the Clintons at the same time. The title is a classic: You Don't Need To Be A Weatherman To Know Which Candidate Blows.
Larry Kudlow says Obama's economics are bad and his social circle is filled with latte liberals. And Rev. Wright. And the Weather Underground.
George Will blames the failure of education in America on the disintegration of the family.
Michael Barone celebrates ABC, members of the mainstream media, asking tough questions of Obama.
The NYTimes suggests a combined Clinton-Obama ticket.
Essay illustrating just how titanic our government has grown over the last century.
The World Bank reports that almost all the world's increase in corn production from 2004 to 2007 went to heavily subsidized ethanol production in the US. How's that working out for us? Have you noticed the drop in fuel costs and how food has stayed so cheap?
Why Patrick Moore left Greenpeace.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Free kibbles
Despite having only 5% of the world's population, the US imprisons 1/4 of the world's inmates.
US on the decline: Toyota surpasses General Motors as world sales leader. We can thank the burden of government in the US for this. Japan has business-friendly VAT tax, meaning they export their cars everywhere in the world, including the US, with no tax burden. The price of every GM car sold contains the 22% embedded tax burden from the Federal government and additional tax burden from state and local governments. America does not have to decline or
be surpassed. We should adopt the FairTax and cut the size and scope, and therefore the burden, of government in half.
Bush promotes Gen. Petraeus to CentCom chief.
Why would Israel return the Golan Heights? Because Syria has changed its ways and proven such a peaceful neighbor to Israel? Sounds like appeasement to me. This will make Israel's enemies more aggressive, not more peaceful.
Zimbabwe election results begin to trickle out.
Sams's club limits sale of rice as Americans hoard food. That'll lead to more shortages. The days of cheap food are over, at least as long as government keeps screwing with the food market. Thanks for those ethanol subsidies, Republicans and Democrats. What's interesting about this is that maybe liberals including George Bush and John McCain will finally see the damage government does every time it sticks its nose in what should be a free market. Every sector of the economy, like health care, education, banking, finance, manufacturing, housing, all of them are currently damaged by government much the same way the food market is being damaged by government. Thanks to the interference of the US government, we don't have free markets in the US, and that has perverted the US and world economy to the detriment of every individual in the world. Maybe liberals will finally figure that out when they go to the grocery store. Get the government out of our markets!
We've been reading about promising new energy technology for decades, but it never appears. We need to rein in government so this new technology will be realized.
NYTimes calls Democrat race "mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contest." That describes the Democrat's campaign every presidential election year. Every election Democrats claim Republicans have an "October surprise" planned, yet every year the Democrat mouthpiece, the mainstream media, pulls out some bogus story attacking the Republican. Last time it was Rather's made-up story about Bush's national guard service. John Kerry also claimed Bush was going to bring back the draft. This is par for the course with Democrats, it's just unusual they do it to each other. Democrats are finally seeing other Democrats for who they really are and why they almost never win. They attack their opponents with phony race, class and gender attacks, and then they whine when legitimate critics like the Swift Boat Vets attack them.
Clinton wins a few more delegates than Obama in 9 point Pennsylvania victory.
Obama says they won't bring up the Clintons' old scandals. That's just dumb. Many voters today weren't even aware of politics in the 90s, and you can bet that Republicans will bring them up. The primaries are all about vetting the candidates and immunizing them for the general election. Obama isn't doing his part, and if Hillary beats him, it makes her a weaker candidate.
Ron Paul wins 16% of Republican vote in Pennsylvania.
'Anti-war critic tries to denigrate the victory of the Maliki government over al Sadr's Mehdi Army in Basra. Sadr's the one hiding out in Iran while Maliki walks the streets of Basra. This guy has been pushing only half the story from the beginning.
Man uses remote control security robot to protect his property. You know government demands a monopoly on force, so this won't last.
Scientists intend to control the weather. They can't even predict the weather, so that means we don't understand the mechanics of weather well enough to try and change it. The unintended consequences of this will be worse than the problems it hopes to solve. Reducing hurricanes will lead to widespread droughts.
China only has 12 days of coal reserves, and dropping. Something tells me this isn't a free market in China, or prices would have risen tremendously, prompting new investment in coal production.
Cato states Hillary hates freedom. Amen.
Cato explains that the failure of No Child Left Behind, the Dept. of Education, and education bureaucracies in general is that they all take power from the parents to insure their children obtain a quality education.
US on the decline: Toyota surpasses General Motors as world sales leader. We can thank the burden of government in the US for this. Japan has business-friendly VAT tax, meaning they export their cars everywhere in the world, including the US, with no tax burden. The price of every GM car sold contains the 22% embedded tax burden from the Federal government and additional tax burden from state and local governments. America does not have to decline or
be surpassed. We should adopt the FairTax and cut the size and scope, and therefore the burden, of government in half.
Bush promotes Gen. Petraeus to CentCom chief.
Why would Israel return the Golan Heights? Because Syria has changed its ways and proven such a peaceful neighbor to Israel? Sounds like appeasement to me. This will make Israel's enemies more aggressive, not more peaceful.
Zimbabwe election results begin to trickle out.
Sams's club limits sale of rice as Americans hoard food. That'll lead to more shortages. The days of cheap food are over, at least as long as government keeps screwing with the food market. Thanks for those ethanol subsidies, Republicans and Democrats. What's interesting about this is that maybe liberals including George Bush and John McCain will finally see the damage government does every time it sticks its nose in what should be a free market. Every sector of the economy, like health care, education, banking, finance, manufacturing, housing, all of them are currently damaged by government much the same way the food market is being damaged by government. Thanks to the interference of the US government, we don't have free markets in the US, and that has perverted the US and world economy to the detriment of every individual in the world. Maybe liberals will finally figure that out when they go to the grocery store. Get the government out of our markets!
We've been reading about promising new energy technology for decades, but it never appears. We need to rein in government so this new technology will be realized.
NYTimes calls Democrat race "mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contest." That describes the Democrat's campaign every presidential election year. Every election Democrats claim Republicans have an "October surprise" planned, yet every year the Democrat mouthpiece, the mainstream media, pulls out some bogus story attacking the Republican. Last time it was Rather's made-up story about Bush's national guard service. John Kerry also claimed Bush was going to bring back the draft. This is par for the course with Democrats, it's just unusual they do it to each other. Democrats are finally seeing other Democrats for who they really are and why they almost never win. They attack their opponents with phony race, class and gender attacks, and then they whine when legitimate critics like the Swift Boat Vets attack them.
Clinton wins a few more delegates than Obama in 9 point Pennsylvania victory.
Obama says they won't bring up the Clintons' old scandals. That's just dumb. Many voters today weren't even aware of politics in the 90s, and you can bet that Republicans will bring them up. The primaries are all about vetting the candidates and immunizing them for the general election. Obama isn't doing his part, and if Hillary beats him, it makes her a weaker candidate.
Ron Paul wins 16% of Republican vote in Pennsylvania.
'Anti-war critic tries to denigrate the victory of the Maliki government over al Sadr's Mehdi Army in Basra. Sadr's the one hiding out in Iran while Maliki walks the streets of Basra. This guy has been pushing only half the story from the beginning.
Man uses remote control security robot to protect his property. You know government demands a monopoly on force, so this won't last.
Scientists intend to control the weather. They can't even predict the weather, so that means we don't understand the mechanics of weather well enough to try and change it. The unintended consequences of this will be worse than the problems it hopes to solve. Reducing hurricanes will lead to widespread droughts.
China only has 12 days of coal reserves, and dropping. Something tells me this isn't a free market in China, or prices would have risen tremendously, prompting new investment in coal production.
Cato states Hillary hates freedom. Amen.
Cato explains that the failure of No Child Left Behind, the Dept. of Education, and education bureaucracies in general is that they all take power from the parents to insure their children obtain a quality education.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Time to End Goverment's Monopoly on Education
Time to End Goverment's Monopoly on Education
by Mark Luedtke
Grab the torches and pitchforks. It's time to storm the palace. Maybe you heard that 17 of the nation's 50 largest school districts fail to graduate half of their students. And the best of these fifty graduates only 77%. In a competitive world, America cannot survive with those graduation rates.
Or maybe you haven't heard. I pour over headlines and what I consider important stories every day, and I can't think of a more important story than the damage government is doing to our children's future, and therefore our nation's future. Forget Iraq. Forget China. Forget the terrorists. This and America's looming debt crisis are the 2 most important stories in America. But I discovered this story in a Wall Street Journal editorial, not on the front page of every newspaper where it belongs.
The liberal mainstream media and the conservative media both bury the major crises facing America caused by both parties while exaggerating the minor differences between the 2 parties to divide the nation and keep the 2 parties in power. This accomplice press forms the third leg of government, propping up Republicans and Democrats. The accomplice press buried what is arguably the most important story since the fall of the Berlin wall, because both Republicans and Democrats are to blame.
This isn't some somebody else's problem either. According to the study done by Colin Powell's America's Promise Alliance (APA), Cleveland is the third worst of the 50 at 34.1% graduation rate, and Columbus is 5th worst at 40.9%. At least Ohio is in bad company. Detroit is worst at 24.9%, Indianapolis second worst at 30.5%, and Baltimore 4th worst at 34.6%. New York, Los Angeles and Miami are all in the bottom 17. To call this a national crisis is more than an understatement.
So where's the news coverage? The Dayton Daily News website carried a 3/31 essay by Dayton Daily News education reporter, Scott Elliot, about changing the calculation to determine graduation rates, but it never mentioned the failure rates or the study. Mr. Elliot's article referenced a 3/30 article from the Columbus Dispatch by Jennifer Smith Richards, also about calculations, which dedicates 2 sentences of its 905 words to the study and Columbus' numbers.
Instead of raising the alarm about our failed schools, these 2 essays focused on calculating graduation rates. The APA study calculates what percentage of freshmen graduate on time. Simple. But government schools don't use that analysis. While government schools have been failing half of our students, they've spent their resources fudging the graduation rates to make them look better instead of solving the problem. And the accomplice press spends it's effort making excuses over calculations instead of raising the alarm and calling for the people to take up torches and pitchforks.
And government is not just fudging graduation rates. Washington D.C. schools, ranked 23rd worst at 58.2% graduation rate, also fudges the numbers on how much money it spends per student. Columnist Andrew Coulson reported in the 4/6 Washington Post that Washington actually spends $25,000 per student per year, comparable to tuition at Chelsea Clinton's chic private D.C. school, but D.C. reports it only spends $8,322 per student. Most private schools, which have high graduation rates, cost only $5,000 per student per year. Rome is burning while our naked emperors fiddle, the press disguises the story with calculator games, and the people entertain themselves with bread and circuses.
These problems are the predictable result of government's monopoly on education. We wouldn't give Ma Bell this much power over our telephones. We wouldn't give Microsoft this much power over our computers. The government school monopoly has failed, and the great experiment in freedom created by the Founding Fathers is going to fail with it. Protecting its monopoly, California recently ruled that homeschoolers must have government certified teaching certificates, effectively outlawing homeschooling.
Why would we give government, the most wasteful, politically motivated, ineffective institution ever created except for the UN, that kind of power over our children, their future, and therefore the future of our country? It's not because it's legal. The Constitution grants no power to the federal government to educate students. It's neither efficient or logical. We send our hard earned money to bureaucrats in Dayton, Columbus, and Ohio, they waste it, then send a smaller portion back to us with cookie-cutter mandates. It's not possible that some bureaucrat in Washington knows more about educating children in our neighborhood as well as the hundreds of thousands of other neighborhoods in the country than the people in that neighborhood. Same with the bureaucrats in state capitals and downtown.
Parents and students also share the blame. Government education is a form of welfare, and like all welfare programs, it's destructive to both provider and recipient. Education is an inherently family issue. When government subsumes the responsibility for educating students, parents respond by surrendering that responsibility. But nobody can educate a student. You can lead a student to school, but you can't make him learn. Only family can instill the responsibility to get an education in a child, and if that happens, the child will learn no matter the school or environment. Government gains the power it craves from education welfare, and parents think of government provided education as an entitlement. Welfare in the form of "free" education undermines the family's responsibility to educate children. Education welfare is training our children to become life-long welfare dependents.
Teacher's unions are also complicit in the failure of our schools. I have nothing against unions; workers are free to band together to take advantage of economies of scale the same as businesses. But teacher's unions protect bad teachers. Lack of merit pay hurts good teachers. The end result is teachers unions promote bad teachers at the expense of good teachers.
Neither our children nor our nation will succeed if we allow this to continue. Even a government school graduate like me can see the solution to our failed government schools: competition. Free market competition is what made this country the greatest country the world has ever seen, and competition will transform our schools into the best in the world. Parents should march on their education bureaucracies and demand school choice. Americans can have neighborhood schoolhouses on every street corner, competing to provide the highest quality education at the lowest price. Accountable to parents instead of bureaucrats, schools will succeed. The only way we can fail is if government forces us to fail, like it is now.
But Gov. Strickland is in the pocket of the teacher's unions. Strickland wants to create a new bureaucracy in Columbus to burden schools. As if a bureaucracy ever made anything more effective. Strickland is proud that he's taken more power and responsibility from parents and neighborhoods and transfered it to bureaucrats by increasing state funding for schools from 48% to 54%. The governor is against private schools even though they're cheaper and more successful. Money is not the problem. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, government is not the solution to failed schools, government is the problem. Free people are the solution.
by Mark Luedtke
Grab the torches and pitchforks. It's time to storm the palace. Maybe you heard that 17 of the nation's 50 largest school districts fail to graduate half of their students. And the best of these fifty graduates only 77%. In a competitive world, America cannot survive with those graduation rates.
Or maybe you haven't heard. I pour over headlines and what I consider important stories every day, and I can't think of a more important story than the damage government is doing to our children's future, and therefore our nation's future. Forget Iraq. Forget China. Forget the terrorists. This and America's looming debt crisis are the 2 most important stories in America. But I discovered this story in a Wall Street Journal editorial, not on the front page of every newspaper where it belongs.
The liberal mainstream media and the conservative media both bury the major crises facing America caused by both parties while exaggerating the minor differences between the 2 parties to divide the nation and keep the 2 parties in power. This accomplice press forms the third leg of government, propping up Republicans and Democrats. The accomplice press buried what is arguably the most important story since the fall of the Berlin wall, because both Republicans and Democrats are to blame.
This isn't some somebody else's problem either. According to the study done by Colin Powell's America's Promise Alliance (APA), Cleveland is the third worst of the 50 at 34.1% graduation rate, and Columbus is 5th worst at 40.9%. At least Ohio is in bad company. Detroit is worst at 24.9%, Indianapolis second worst at 30.5%, and Baltimore 4th worst at 34.6%. New York, Los Angeles and Miami are all in the bottom 17. To call this a national crisis is more than an understatement.
So where's the news coverage? The Dayton Daily News website carried a 3/31 essay by Dayton Daily News education reporter, Scott Elliot, about changing the calculation to determine graduation rates, but it never mentioned the failure rates or the study. Mr. Elliot's article referenced a 3/30 article from the Columbus Dispatch by Jennifer Smith Richards, also about calculations, which dedicates 2 sentences of its 905 words to the study and Columbus' numbers.
Instead of raising the alarm about our failed schools, these 2 essays focused on calculating graduation rates. The APA study calculates what percentage of freshmen graduate on time. Simple. But government schools don't use that analysis. While government schools have been failing half of our students, they've spent their resources fudging the graduation rates to make them look better instead of solving the problem. And the accomplice press spends it's effort making excuses over calculations instead of raising the alarm and calling for the people to take up torches and pitchforks.
And government is not just fudging graduation rates. Washington D.C. schools, ranked 23rd worst at 58.2% graduation rate, also fudges the numbers on how much money it spends per student. Columnist Andrew Coulson reported in the 4/6 Washington Post that Washington actually spends $25,000 per student per year, comparable to tuition at Chelsea Clinton's chic private D.C. school, but D.C. reports it only spends $8,322 per student. Most private schools, which have high graduation rates, cost only $5,000 per student per year. Rome is burning while our naked emperors fiddle, the press disguises the story with calculator games, and the people entertain themselves with bread and circuses.
These problems are the predictable result of government's monopoly on education. We wouldn't give Ma Bell this much power over our telephones. We wouldn't give Microsoft this much power over our computers. The government school monopoly has failed, and the great experiment in freedom created by the Founding Fathers is going to fail with it. Protecting its monopoly, California recently ruled that homeschoolers must have government certified teaching certificates, effectively outlawing homeschooling.
Why would we give government, the most wasteful, politically motivated, ineffective institution ever created except for the UN, that kind of power over our children, their future, and therefore the future of our country? It's not because it's legal. The Constitution grants no power to the federal government to educate students. It's neither efficient or logical. We send our hard earned money to bureaucrats in Dayton, Columbus, and Ohio, they waste it, then send a smaller portion back to us with cookie-cutter mandates. It's not possible that some bureaucrat in Washington knows more about educating children in our neighborhood as well as the hundreds of thousands of other neighborhoods in the country than the people in that neighborhood. Same with the bureaucrats in state capitals and downtown.
Parents and students also share the blame. Government education is a form of welfare, and like all welfare programs, it's destructive to both provider and recipient. Education is an inherently family issue. When government subsumes the responsibility for educating students, parents respond by surrendering that responsibility. But nobody can educate a student. You can lead a student to school, but you can't make him learn. Only family can instill the responsibility to get an education in a child, and if that happens, the child will learn no matter the school or environment. Government gains the power it craves from education welfare, and parents think of government provided education as an entitlement. Welfare in the form of "free" education undermines the family's responsibility to educate children. Education welfare is training our children to become life-long welfare dependents.
Teacher's unions are also complicit in the failure of our schools. I have nothing against unions; workers are free to band together to take advantage of economies of scale the same as businesses. But teacher's unions protect bad teachers. Lack of merit pay hurts good teachers. The end result is teachers unions promote bad teachers at the expense of good teachers.
Neither our children nor our nation will succeed if we allow this to continue. Even a government school graduate like me can see the solution to our failed government schools: competition. Free market competition is what made this country the greatest country the world has ever seen, and competition will transform our schools into the best in the world. Parents should march on their education bureaucracies and demand school choice. Americans can have neighborhood schoolhouses on every street corner, competing to provide the highest quality education at the lowest price. Accountable to parents instead of bureaucrats, schools will succeed. The only way we can fail is if government forces us to fail, like it is now.
But Gov. Strickland is in the pocket of the teacher's unions. Strickland wants to create a new bureaucracy in Columbus to burden schools. As if a bureaucracy ever made anything more effective. Strickland is proud that he's taken more power and responsibility from parents and neighborhoods and transfered it to bureaucrats by increasing state funding for schools from 48% to 54%. The governor is against private schools even though they're cheaper and more successful. Money is not the problem. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, government is not the solution to failed schools, government is the problem. Free people are the solution.
Free kibbles
This US, Canada, Mexico summit will probably advance the North American Union instead of the interests of Americans. Bush says now is not the time to renegotiate NAFTA. Of course it is. We need free trade agreements, not supranational organizations that undermine our sovereignty. We should ditch the NAFTA monstrosity and negotiate a simple free trade agreement with Canada and another with Mexico. Canada and Mexico can negotiate their own agreement.
How can this judge decide to force the Yearning for Zion children into foster care without having any evidence of abuse for them first? On what grounds is she doing this?
New York Judge rules prosecutors can indict suspects on the basis of DNA alone. This allows prosecutors to prosecute suspects after the statute of limitations has passed, once the suspect is identified by DNA. This is an interesting twist. I never understood the statute of limitations anyway. Evidence goes stale over time, but if that was the reason for it, the limit would be based on the evidence, not the crime. The problem with this is, since half of all rape allegations are fake, a woman can have normal sex with a man, then claim rape and provide his DNA, and the man who did nothing but have consentual sex will be subjected to a manhunt for the rest of his life. This law seems like prohibitionists trying to stamp out one-night-stands.
Dockworkers in South Africa refused to unload ship loaded with Chinese weapons for Zimbabwe,
and China may recall the shipment because of the election crisis in Zimbabwe. This is the power
of free people to do good.
Al Zawahiri is frustrated watching al Qaeda lose tactically and strategically around the world, and criticizes Muslims.
Food shortages hit extreme leftist countries Bolivia and Peru especially hard. Maybe they could grow their own food if they freedom instead. Ever notice how the extremely poor countries are always dominated by big-government and central planning?
It's always scary when the Senate debates anything, including the future of the Internet.
Subprime mortgages and the house flipping craze lead to a 327% increase in foreclosures in California. That's what happens when you try to get something from nothing. Government can't force lenders to make subprime loans and flood the market with money without suffering the consequences.
Prosecutors accuse American with spying for Israel.
Colorado state Republican representative calls Mexican workers illiterate peasants, and the chair bans him from the floor. This is interesting. If he's talking about illegal immigrants who can't speak English, this is a pretty accurate, though insulting, characterization. Illegal immigrants form a subclass of workers who work for less than the normal wage - that's why employers hire them. That's a pretty good description of a peasant. And if they can't read, write, and speak English, they're illiterate. And this characterization points out the fallacy of the legalization movement - if illegal immigrants are made legal, they'll no longer work for substandard pay, and employers will find a way to import more illegal aliens who will at the expense of Americans, legal immigrants, and the newly minted legal immigrants. It's a shame the chair banned him from speaking instead of allowing debate on what he said. Why isn't this man free to be insulting? I guess government will only allow politically correct speech.
Reason blasts the SAVE Act (Secure America through Verification and Enforcement Act of 2007) by showing that it would increase the requests for employment verification on the Social Security office by 13,000%. The federal government wants to make every American employer dependent on government to prove that every person they hire can legally work. That's almost as insane as building a fence between the US and Mexico. The solution is easy - employers check ID and birth certificate, visa, or green card on their own. Bartenders can do ID checks, so can employers. Problem solved. Central planning never works.
Reason calls Obama the lesser evil on judges. They're nuts. If Obama picks judges, the Court will be packed with Marxists for the next 40 years. Reason is letting its liberal, anti-war views override reason and libertarianism. Jonah Goldberg presents a sane viewpoint, that Obama's
view of judges, using the same quotes from Obama that Reason uses, is a prescription for rule by judicial fiat. He also points out that Justice Stevens outright admitted he uses neither the
Constitution nor the objective evidence presented in a case to make a decision - instead he uses his own conscious. Justice Stevens should be impeached immediately.
Bush disapproval rating highest in 70 years.
Republicans ignore and isolate extremists like this candidate who celebrated Hitler's birthday with neo-nazis, while the most powerful Democrats like Clinton, Obama and Carter embrace extremists and even terrorists like FALN, AMA, and CAIR; Ayers, Wright, and Farrakhan; and Hamas, respectively. And you can't forget KKK Byrd. It's amazing how liberals love terrorists and extremists, as long as they're fellow liberals, but they scream bloody murder about right-wing extremists. The mainstreaming of extermism and terrorism by the left versus the isolation of it by the right is one of the few practical differences between the ideologies.
Rice had warned Jimmy Carter not to meet with Hamas, but he did it anyway. He should consider himself lucky he didn't get beheaded.
Clinton suddenly changes her tune on Iran from a wishy-washy position to an unthinking position that she would obliterate Iran with nuclear weapons if it nuked Israel. No president or candidate should make such a blanket declaration. It's very likely that the best response to a nuclear attack on Israel by Iran would be overwhelming nuclear retaliation by the US against Iran, in which case that's what the president should order, but no president should make up his or her mind on that without first exploring every other option given the circumstances of such an attack. We don't need any knee-jerk reactionaries who have already checked their brain at the door in the presidency. We need sound judgment and thoughful leadership, which Clinton does not have.
Christopher Hitchens wonders why South Africa has tolerated years of Mugabe's misrule of Zimbabwe. Maybe because Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe, not South Africa? Why has the US tolerated generations of Mexican misrule? Because it's Mexico's problem to solve, not ours. Hitchens calls the dockworkers' refusal to unload the power of socialism, but that's baloney. Socialist workers would never have had a choice. Their government would have cut off their food or just had them all arrested or shot and forced other workers at gunpoint to unload the ship. You have to be free to have a choice.
Cato shows that NAFTA did not cost the US manufacturing jobs.
Great essay from Israel highlighting the messianic intentions of Obama and and the parallels to fascism, concluding that power-hungry Clinton is the lesser evil. The article spends a lot of time in the middle on Iran and Israel, but I think the exposing of Obama's messianic character is impressive. Our government has been steadily usurping the role of religion and churches in America, convincing people to search for happiness and solutions to their problems from government instead of from themselves and their churches. Both Clinton and Obama have coopted the traditional religious role of physical healer with absurd socialized medicine plans, fascist plans where government gives the orders and insurance companies carry them out, and Obama has taken it to a new level by offering spiritual healing as well. I prefer we elect a president who understands the limited powers of government and leaves people lets people find their own religion.
Rupert Murdoch calls for expanding NATO world-wide. This guy needs to stick to building his news empire.
Thomas Sowell explains that subsidies, because they pervert prices, sending inaccurate signals to consumers, lead to wasted resources, like wasted education. This is exactly why Sinclair is not working. Sowell also explains the dangers of CFL light-bulbs, which have not been figured into the market yet, even though government is on a crusade to ban incadenscents in favor of them.
Study shows the astronomical cost to taxpayers of immigrants, legal and illegal. We can thank Teddy Kennedy's for engineering the US by demographics and class, with huge quotas of poor, legal immigrants and immigrants from poor countries coupled with severe quotas on well educated immigrants and immigrants from rich countries, creating poor minorities in the US as
well as both parties supporting illegal immigration for decades.
My Bengals must be nuts to turn down a first round draft pick and a guaranteed 3rd round pick which could potentially transform into another first round pick for Chad Johnson.
How can this judge decide to force the Yearning for Zion children into foster care without having any evidence of abuse for them first? On what grounds is she doing this?
New York Judge rules prosecutors can indict suspects on the basis of DNA alone. This allows prosecutors to prosecute suspects after the statute of limitations has passed, once the suspect is identified by DNA. This is an interesting twist. I never understood the statute of limitations anyway. Evidence goes stale over time, but if that was the reason for it, the limit would be based on the evidence, not the crime. The problem with this is, since half of all rape allegations are fake, a woman can have normal sex with a man, then claim rape and provide his DNA, and the man who did nothing but have consentual sex will be subjected to a manhunt for the rest of his life. This law seems like prohibitionists trying to stamp out one-night-stands.
Dockworkers in South Africa refused to unload ship loaded with Chinese weapons for Zimbabwe,
and China may recall the shipment because of the election crisis in Zimbabwe. This is the power
of free people to do good.
Al Zawahiri is frustrated watching al Qaeda lose tactically and strategically around the world, and criticizes Muslims.
Food shortages hit extreme leftist countries Bolivia and Peru especially hard. Maybe they could grow their own food if they freedom instead. Ever notice how the extremely poor countries are always dominated by big-government and central planning?
It's always scary when the Senate debates anything, including the future of the Internet.
Subprime mortgages and the house flipping craze lead to a 327% increase in foreclosures in California. That's what happens when you try to get something from nothing. Government can't force lenders to make subprime loans and flood the market with money without suffering the consequences.
Prosecutors accuse American with spying for Israel.
Colorado state Republican representative calls Mexican workers illiterate peasants, and the chair bans him from the floor. This is interesting. If he's talking about illegal immigrants who can't speak English, this is a pretty accurate, though insulting, characterization. Illegal immigrants form a subclass of workers who work for less than the normal wage - that's why employers hire them. That's a pretty good description of a peasant. And if they can't read, write, and speak English, they're illiterate. And this characterization points out the fallacy of the legalization movement - if illegal immigrants are made legal, they'll no longer work for substandard pay, and employers will find a way to import more illegal aliens who will at the expense of Americans, legal immigrants, and the newly minted legal immigrants. It's a shame the chair banned him from speaking instead of allowing debate on what he said. Why isn't this man free to be insulting? I guess government will only allow politically correct speech.
Reason blasts the SAVE Act (Secure America through Verification and Enforcement Act of 2007) by showing that it would increase the requests for employment verification on the Social Security office by 13,000%. The federal government wants to make every American employer dependent on government to prove that every person they hire can legally work. That's almost as insane as building a fence between the US and Mexico. The solution is easy - employers check ID and birth certificate, visa, or green card on their own. Bartenders can do ID checks, so can employers. Problem solved. Central planning never works.
Reason calls Obama the lesser evil on judges. They're nuts. If Obama picks judges, the Court will be packed with Marxists for the next 40 years. Reason is letting its liberal, anti-war views override reason and libertarianism. Jonah Goldberg presents a sane viewpoint, that Obama's
view of judges, using the same quotes from Obama that Reason uses, is a prescription for rule by judicial fiat. He also points out that Justice Stevens outright admitted he uses neither the
Constitution nor the objective evidence presented in a case to make a decision - instead he uses his own conscious. Justice Stevens should be impeached immediately.
Bush disapproval rating highest in 70 years.
Republicans ignore and isolate extremists like this candidate who celebrated Hitler's birthday with neo-nazis, while the most powerful Democrats like Clinton, Obama and Carter embrace extremists and even terrorists like FALN, AMA, and CAIR; Ayers, Wright, and Farrakhan; and Hamas, respectively. And you can't forget KKK Byrd. It's amazing how liberals love terrorists and extremists, as long as they're fellow liberals, but they scream bloody murder about right-wing extremists. The mainstreaming of extermism and terrorism by the left versus the isolation of it by the right is one of the few practical differences between the ideologies.
Rice had warned Jimmy Carter not to meet with Hamas, but he did it anyway. He should consider himself lucky he didn't get beheaded.
Clinton suddenly changes her tune on Iran from a wishy-washy position to an unthinking position that she would obliterate Iran with nuclear weapons if it nuked Israel. No president or candidate should make such a blanket declaration. It's very likely that the best response to a nuclear attack on Israel by Iran would be overwhelming nuclear retaliation by the US against Iran, in which case that's what the president should order, but no president should make up his or her mind on that without first exploring every other option given the circumstances of such an attack. We don't need any knee-jerk reactionaries who have already checked their brain at the door in the presidency. We need sound judgment and thoughful leadership, which Clinton does not have.
Christopher Hitchens wonders why South Africa has tolerated years of Mugabe's misrule of Zimbabwe. Maybe because Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe, not South Africa? Why has the US tolerated generations of Mexican misrule? Because it's Mexico's problem to solve, not ours. Hitchens calls the dockworkers' refusal to unload the power of socialism, but that's baloney. Socialist workers would never have had a choice. Their government would have cut off their food or just had them all arrested or shot and forced other workers at gunpoint to unload the ship. You have to be free to have a choice.
Cato shows that NAFTA did not cost the US manufacturing jobs.
Great essay from Israel highlighting the messianic intentions of Obama and and the parallels to fascism, concluding that power-hungry Clinton is the lesser evil. The article spends a lot of time in the middle on Iran and Israel, but I think the exposing of Obama's messianic character is impressive. Our government has been steadily usurping the role of religion and churches in America, convincing people to search for happiness and solutions to their problems from government instead of from themselves and their churches. Both Clinton and Obama have coopted the traditional religious role of physical healer with absurd socialized medicine plans, fascist plans where government gives the orders and insurance companies carry them out, and Obama has taken it to a new level by offering spiritual healing as well. I prefer we elect a president who understands the limited powers of government and leaves people lets people find their own religion.
Rupert Murdoch calls for expanding NATO world-wide. This guy needs to stick to building his news empire.
Thomas Sowell explains that subsidies, because they pervert prices, sending inaccurate signals to consumers, lead to wasted resources, like wasted education. This is exactly why Sinclair is not working. Sowell also explains the dangers of CFL light-bulbs, which have not been figured into the market yet, even though government is on a crusade to ban incadenscents in favor of them.
Study shows the astronomical cost to taxpayers of immigrants, legal and illegal. We can thank Teddy Kennedy's for engineering the US by demographics and class, with huge quotas of poor, legal immigrants and immigrants from poor countries coupled with severe quotas on well educated immigrants and immigrants from rich countries, creating poor minorities in the US as
well as both parties supporting illegal immigration for decades.
My Bengals must be nuts to turn down a first round draft pick and a guaranteed 3rd round pick which could potentially transform into another first round pick for Chad Johnson.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Free kibbles
Oil passes $117. Gas hits $3.50. Cato explains that the Fed's actions to limit the credit crisis
have led to higher gas prices through both inflation and investment in oil as a hedge against inflation. More unintended consequences of government interference in markets.
Georgia claims a Russian Mig shot down its unarmed drone in Georgian airspace.
British Foreign Secretary reports that Mugabe is trying to steal election in Zimbabwe. Duh. This recount has been going on for 3 weeks.
Canadian Earth Day festival forced into tent by blizzard. Vancouver sees latest snow fall on
record. That's global warming for you.
Building on his legacy as a tool, Jimmy Carter reports Hamas is ready to accept Israel's right to exist.
Reason explains freedom means free to be a hate-filled imbecile too.
Reason highlights the debt problem of local governments.
Reason points out the left's double-standard on morality, and how it embraces Obama despite his close connections with terrorists and other extremists.
McCain says cutting taxes is more important than balancing the budget. Both are equally
important. We need to cut taxes and cut spending even more to reduce our debt. Democrat
plans to raise taxes and increase spending are worse for the country, but we shouldn't settle for assuming more debt. We're already sinking under debt and taxes.
Clinton's campaign has more debt than cash. Oops. We can expect more of the same for our government regardless of who wins the election.
Clinton camp is excited over projected 11 point lead in Pennsylvania. I don't think an 11 point win would change the race at all. She'll have to do better than that, imo.
Clinton and Obama trade attacks claiming each accepts support from special interests both claim to reject. They're a pack of liars.
Mickey Kaus exclaims he's a vulgar Marxist like Obama.
Richard Branson capitalizes on space tourism - to marry couple in space.
Rudimentary bionic eye implants.
Cato say cigarettes are overtaxed, but it's easy to raise taxes on them because the number of smokers is going down, so the number of people upset is small. This is case of the majority punishing a minority with harsh taxes.
Cato hopes the Supreme Court overturns the millionaire amendment, giving the political opponents of self-financed campaigns extra free speech through increased campaign donations, of McCain-Feingold. It's a shame only aspect of the McCain-Feingold abomination is before the Court.
Open source software has taken $60 billion from proprietary software companies.
Boortz goes off on a rant because Democrats voted to create a new bureaucracy to harass people using Health Savings Accounts to make them less attractive.
Our government is using taxpayer money to provide flashcards to immigrants to help them pass the citizenship test. Worse, the questions sound like something taught in government schools instead of serious questions with serious answers about America.
Obama and Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground.
Another fantastic essay from Mark Steyn explaining why God and guns are good for people and countries.
have led to higher gas prices through both inflation and investment in oil as a hedge against inflation. More unintended consequences of government interference in markets.
Georgia claims a Russian Mig shot down its unarmed drone in Georgian airspace.
British Foreign Secretary reports that Mugabe is trying to steal election in Zimbabwe. Duh. This recount has been going on for 3 weeks.
Canadian Earth Day festival forced into tent by blizzard. Vancouver sees latest snow fall on
record. That's global warming for you.
Building on his legacy as a tool, Jimmy Carter reports Hamas is ready to accept Israel's right to exist.
Reason explains freedom means free to be a hate-filled imbecile too.
Reason highlights the debt problem of local governments.
Reason points out the left's double-standard on morality, and how it embraces Obama despite his close connections with terrorists and other extremists.
McCain says cutting taxes is more important than balancing the budget. Both are equally
important. We need to cut taxes and cut spending even more to reduce our debt. Democrat
plans to raise taxes and increase spending are worse for the country, but we shouldn't settle for assuming more debt. We're already sinking under debt and taxes.
Clinton's campaign has more debt than cash. Oops. We can expect more of the same for our government regardless of who wins the election.
Clinton camp is excited over projected 11 point lead in Pennsylvania. I don't think an 11 point win would change the race at all. She'll have to do better than that, imo.
Clinton and Obama trade attacks claiming each accepts support from special interests both claim to reject. They're a pack of liars.
Mickey Kaus exclaims he's a vulgar Marxist like Obama.
Richard Branson capitalizes on space tourism - to marry couple in space.
Rudimentary bionic eye implants.
Cato say cigarettes are overtaxed, but it's easy to raise taxes on them because the number of smokers is going down, so the number of people upset is small. This is case of the majority punishing a minority with harsh taxes.
Cato hopes the Supreme Court overturns the millionaire amendment, giving the political opponents of self-financed campaigns extra free speech through increased campaign donations, of McCain-Feingold. It's a shame only aspect of the McCain-Feingold abomination is before the Court.
Open source software has taken $60 billion from proprietary software companies.
Boortz goes off on a rant because Democrats voted to create a new bureaucracy to harass people using Health Savings Accounts to make them less attractive.
Our government is using taxpayer money to provide flashcards to immigrants to help them pass the citizenship test. Worse, the questions sound like something taught in government schools instead of serious questions with serious answers about America.
Obama and Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground.
Another fantastic essay from Mark Steyn explaining why God and guns are good for people and countries.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Free kibbles
Texas judge orders DNA to be taken from all Yearning for Zion children and parents to establish parentage, and rules that all children will remain in state custody. I would like to see on what basis she made this ruling. It's impossible that she considered each child individually already. This a mess, and the state is acknowledging no limits to its power.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Free kibbles
Wave of the future: China surpasses the US as world's second biggest exporter. We can reverse this trend of China surpassing the US by adopting the FairTax and cutting the size and scope of government in half. The United States does not have to be eclipsed by China. They only reason that is happening is because of the burden of government in the US.
Chaos reigns in Yearning for Zion children's hearing. "Descends into farce."
Another no-knock drug raid on the wrong house.
Talk about out of touch. Time magazine co-ops flag raising at Iwo Jima, where nearly 7,000 Americans lost their lives fighting the Japanese, who lost nearly 21,000 men, in the cause of promoting the great global warming fraud. This is sickening. The Marxists and hate-America left will stoop to anything to harm this country and the people who make it great.
Those non-violent Canadians in Vancouver are tasering transit users who try to avoid paying. Law enforcement is out of control.
UK PM Brown says the world owes Bush a huge debt of gratitude. The world? Why? While it's great to have Brown's support, I don't get it. Yes, Bush's policies have kept al Qaeda from executing another attack on the US, but terrorism is on the rise around the world, especially in Europe. This actually sounds like over-the-top rhetoric in place of tangible support as the UK draws down troops from Iraq and continues to cut its military budget.
Mugabe links opposition to Britain and claims colonists are trying to steal the election. He is trying to capitalize on the poor education of his people, for which he is responsible. Mugabe is an expert at living off the backs of his people while he ruins their lives and country. Chinese supplying huge shipment of small arms to Mugabe. This might be what Mugabe is waiting for so he can kill, arrest, run off, and intimidate the opposition before a run-off election. Communists love that kind of stuff.
Citigroup posts $5.1 billion loss, will cut expenses 20%. That's how markets correct themselves. Government should stay out of it.
Why are authorities cracking down on cellphone use in subways? That's like cracking down on talking. Parents should just teach kids to be polite and limit cellphone use in tight places. Simple politeness makes many laws obsolete, and government should not regulate politeness in the first place.
Journalists irresponsibility, believing they are above the law, leads to many subpoenas.
Shouldn't there always be a bill in Congress to decriminalize marijuana?
Obama dismisses Iraqis as insignificant. Any US president must put the US first, but once you invade a country and take responsibility for the security of its people, you better follow through, or the US will be a big loser.
Peggy Noonan welcomes a serious speech from Hillary Clinton, but also notes that it's too late. She already ruined her campaign with lies, manipulations and sound bites, so nobody is listening.
Lab makes transistors 1 atom long.
I woke up last night with the bed rocking, and I put my hand on JG to see if she was moving around, and she wasn't. I figured Beanie was moving around in the bed, but it was pretty big movements from her. Now I find out there was an earthquake on the Illinois, Indiana border that was felt in Chicago. We're as close to the earthquake as Chicago. That had to be what I felt. We live on the third floor of a hundred year old building, and I bet it sways pretty easy when the ground shakes. Apparently earthquakes in that area are common.
So much for analysts who thought Google was in trouble - Q1 profit up 30%.
Cato explains the trade-offs of food versus fuel. It's not hard to figure out that if we put our food in our gas tank, we have less to eat and the price of food will go up. Government subsidies for ethanol are perverting the market so more food is going into our gas tanks.
Cato explains that government is putting taxpayers at risk to guarantee student loans.
Cato explains how California cities use housing restrictions to drive poor and middle class families out of town.
Cato reports that the Fed and Bush administration caused the subprime and subsequent credit crisis, and that by overreacting, the Fed is making the inevitable correction longer and more
painful. Author recommends buying more gold.
Thank goodness the Knicks fired Isiah Thomas. I've never noticed the Knicks in my life, but lately you can't watch basketball without hearing about how terrible Isiah Thomas is for the Knicks and the sport. Good riddance. Hopefully I'll never his name, or the Knicks name, again.
Chaos reigns in Yearning for Zion children's hearing. "Descends into farce."
Another no-knock drug raid on the wrong house.
Talk about out of touch. Time magazine co-ops flag raising at Iwo Jima, where nearly 7,000 Americans lost their lives fighting the Japanese, who lost nearly 21,000 men, in the cause of promoting the great global warming fraud. This is sickening. The Marxists and hate-America left will stoop to anything to harm this country and the people who make it great.
Those non-violent Canadians in Vancouver are tasering transit users who try to avoid paying. Law enforcement is out of control.
UK PM Brown says the world owes Bush a huge debt of gratitude. The world? Why? While it's great to have Brown's support, I don't get it. Yes, Bush's policies have kept al Qaeda from executing another attack on the US, but terrorism is on the rise around the world, especially in Europe. This actually sounds like over-the-top rhetoric in place of tangible support as the UK draws down troops from Iraq and continues to cut its military budget.
Mugabe links opposition to Britain and claims colonists are trying to steal the election. He is trying to capitalize on the poor education of his people, for which he is responsible. Mugabe is an expert at living off the backs of his people while he ruins their lives and country. Chinese supplying huge shipment of small arms to Mugabe. This might be what Mugabe is waiting for so he can kill, arrest, run off, and intimidate the opposition before a run-off election. Communists love that kind of stuff.
Citigroup posts $5.1 billion loss, will cut expenses 20%. That's how markets correct themselves. Government should stay out of it.
Why are authorities cracking down on cellphone use in subways? That's like cracking down on talking. Parents should just teach kids to be polite and limit cellphone use in tight places. Simple politeness makes many laws obsolete, and government should not regulate politeness in the first place.
Journalists irresponsibility, believing they are above the law, leads to many subpoenas.
Shouldn't there always be a bill in Congress to decriminalize marijuana?
Obama dismisses Iraqis as insignificant. Any US president must put the US first, but once you invade a country and take responsibility for the security of its people, you better follow through, or the US will be a big loser.
Peggy Noonan welcomes a serious speech from Hillary Clinton, but also notes that it's too late. She already ruined her campaign with lies, manipulations and sound bites, so nobody is listening.
Lab makes transistors 1 atom long.
I woke up last night with the bed rocking, and I put my hand on JG to see if she was moving around, and she wasn't. I figured Beanie was moving around in the bed, but it was pretty big movements from her. Now I find out there was an earthquake on the Illinois, Indiana border that was felt in Chicago. We're as close to the earthquake as Chicago. That had to be what I felt. We live on the third floor of a hundred year old building, and I bet it sways pretty easy when the ground shakes. Apparently earthquakes in that area are common.
So much for analysts who thought Google was in trouble - Q1 profit up 30%.
Cato explains the trade-offs of food versus fuel. It's not hard to figure out that if we put our food in our gas tank, we have less to eat and the price of food will go up. Government subsidies for ethanol are perverting the market so more food is going into our gas tanks.
Cato explains that government is putting taxpayers at risk to guarantee student loans.
Cato explains how California cities use housing restrictions to drive poor and middle class families out of town.
Cato reports that the Fed and Bush administration caused the subprime and subsequent credit crisis, and that by overreacting, the Fed is making the inevitable correction longer and more
painful. Author recommends buying more gold.
Thank goodness the Knicks fired Isiah Thomas. I've never noticed the Knicks in my life, but lately you can't watch basketball without hearing about how terrible Isiah Thomas is for the Knicks and the sport. Good riddance. Hopefully I'll never his name, or the Knicks name, again.
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