Free kibbles

LIBERTY:

How can a war settle a constitutional question? If the federal government can rewrite the constitution by waging war on the states, why bother with the constitution in the first place? I think Scalia is way off base here.

Thomas Sowell reports that politicians are taking away our freedom. You don't say. I wonder if he found that out by reading my blog.

SOCIALISM:

Contrary to what Boortz says, this is not the problem with government unions or unions in general:

"Albany Police Officers Union President Chris Mesley says that, regardless of the faltering economy, a no-raise new contract is unacceptable.

And to hell with the public.

"I'm not running a popularity contest here," Mesley said. "If I'm the bad guy to the average citizen . . . and their taxes have go up to cover my raise, I'm very sorry about that, but I have to look out for myself and my membership."

Mesley added: "As the president of the local, I will not accept 'zeroes.' If that means . . . ticking off some taxpayers, then so be it.""

I have no problem with anybody negotiating the best deal for himself and his partners at any time. The problem is coercion. In this particular case, the government takes money from people by force to pay the unions. Unions force people to unionize against their will. Laws make it hard for scabs to break strikes. The government pressures businesses to cave into unions. In a system of voluntary exchange, the desire to get the best deal for oneself creates powerful benefits for society. The power of coercion corrupts that desire into a socially destructive force.

RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS:

Great list of pithy firearms wisdom.

ECONOMY:

After publicly claiming gold was overpriced, George Soros bought a bunch of gold. This guy is crony capitalist, government-loving crook.

TAX AND SPEND:

In 2007, 2008 Michigan lost the most households, New York second and Ohio third. California and New Jersey were in the same ballpark. That's what a state income tax does.

I just got this in the mail:

"One year ago today, President Barack Obama signed the massive $862-billion "stimulus" bill. (You probably remember the number $787-billion, but the official cost estimate has already increased by $75 billion.)"

That figures. What kind of dumb headline is this?

"Obama starts push to cast stimulus bill as success"

Have these guys been asleep for a year? Obama's been lying about the failure of his stimulus for a year. But he is increasing his efforts by going on tour. Only one-third of stimulus funds have been spent. We suffered from that money being taken out of the economy, but only one-third of it has been put back in so far. That's a good thing because every dollar government spends takes resources from profitable companies that provide goods and services people want and shifts them to unprofitable enterprises that produce goods and services people don't want. Maybe the rest can be stopped.

Foreign demand for US treasuries drops. This trend will continue long term, driving up interest rates in spite of the Fed. But it may no continue in the short term. When the big global collapse comes, but all accounts this year, lots of investors will buy treasuries and the dollar because they're traditionally safe assets. But that won't last.

My copy of the Constitution fails to mention a power to hand out food stamps.

"Food stamp usage is at record levels according to the New York Times, with one in eight Americans now receiving benefits."

That's what government has reduced us to.

"A big woman with a broad smile, Ms. Bostick-Thomas swept into the group’s office a few days later, talking up her daughters’ college degrees and bemoaning the cost of oxtail meat. “I’m not saying I go hungry,” Ms. Bostick-Thomas said. “But I can’t always eat what I want.” The worker projected a benefit of $147 a month. “That’s going to help!” she said. “I wouldn’t have gone and applied on my own.”"

This is what government has transformed Americans into.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

How central banks and moral hazard led to the PIGS problem, which is just the tip of the global iceberg.

EDUCATION:

Cato reminds us that government schools cost significantly more than private schools, and they do a terrible job at educating children.

HEALTH CARE:

Labor unions backing off support for Obamacare over fears it won't be oppressive enough.

GLOBAL WARMING:

Anthony Watts's study of biased temperature stations is getting mainstream media coverage - in Great Britain.

Donald Trump calls for revoking Gore's Nobel Peace Prize. I want to revoke all the money he's made off this scam.

You can't judge climate by individual weather events, as we've been telling the global warming frauds for a decade, so the recent snowstorms in the east can't be used as evidence of global cooling. But this report that the snow extent is the second greatest on record is evidence of global cooling. The snow line is moving south.

Greenland glaciers melting due to sea current change, not surface temperatures.

Disgraced CRU director Jones wants to go back and submit corrections to his old studies. This guy is scrambling like eggs on a hot plate to save his skin. Jones interview confirms everything skeptics have been saying:

"Specifically, the Q-and-As confirm what many skeptics have long suspected:

• Neither the rate nor magnitude of recent warming is exceptional.
• There was no significant warming from 1998-2009. According to the IPCC we should have seen a global temperature increase of at least 0.2°C per decade.
• The IPCC models may have overestimated the climate sensitivity for greenhouse gases, underestimated natural variability, or both.
• This also suggests that there is a systematic upward bias in the impacts estimates based on these models just from this factor alone.
• The logic behind attribution of current warming to well-mixed man-made greenhouse gases is faulty.
• The science is not settled, however unsettling that might be.
• There is a tendency in the IPCC reports to leave out inconvenient findings, especially in the part(s) most likely to be read by policy makers.

"

Yes, Virginia, AGW is a fraud. Jones just gave prosecutors all the evidence they need to prosecute Al Gore and his fellow con artists.

Study predicts sun is moving into a lower energy state more consistent with the average of the last 10,000 years instead of the highly active state of the last century.

ENERGY:

The government should not fund nuclear reactors any more than it should fund any other types of energy.

POLICE STATE:

Sheriffs handcuff six year old girl. Mother says she won't send her back to school because the sheriff and school officials are too dangerous. Right on. But she probably ought to spank that kid and get her to behave.Of course if she spanked her, the government would probably take the kid away. This is the intersection between bad parenting and abusive government.

WAR:

The White House changes the story on the underwear bomber again.

Afghan forces raise flag in Marjah.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Pat Buchanan considers Iran's nuclear boasts are a bluff.

"According to a report last week by David Albright and Christina Walrond of the Institute for Science and International Security, "Iran's problems in its centrifuge programme are greater than expected. ... Iran is unlikely to deploy enough gas centrifuges to make enriched uranium for commercial nuclear power reactors (Iran's stated nuclear goal) for a long time, if ever, particularly if (U.N.) sanctions remain in force."

Thus, ISIS is saying Iran cannot make usable fuel for the nuclear power plant it is building, and Gibbs is saying Iran lacks the capability to make fuel rods for its research reactor.

Which suggests Iran's vaunted nuclear program is a busted flush."

Yes it does. Saddam's WMD programs were a bluff. This would also explain why the west thinks Iran would surrender low enriched uranium in return for 20 percent enriched uranium in the future.

It looks like Israeli agents killed a Hamas commander in Dubai.

POLITICS:

Nevada Tea Party severs ties with Republicans to form its own party. If the rest of the tea party movement would follow that lead, it would give the country hope because Republicans would be forced to move to accommodate them, but I don't see that happening. The Republican establishment won't stand for freedom, and the tea party movement won't either.

I wonder what would have happened if Chelsea Clinton had been a down's syndrome child and people had made fun of her.

Is Obama waging war on Toyota to boost GM and to punish Japan's government for wanting to oust US troops?

"Ironically, Toyota does not make the sensor-equipped accelerator pedal for its recalled vehicles. Elkhart, Indiana-based CTS (formerly known as Chicago Telephone Supply) manufactures the pedals for Toyota, as well as for Ford and GM. China’s Jiangling Motors has complained about sticking gas pedals from CTS and the firm has developed a reputation for faulty accelerator pedals and their associated sensors. CTS’s president and CEO is India-born Vinod Khilnani. Curiously, the Obama administration, which is flush with Indian-Americans at high levels, has not criticized CTS, especially since it supplied the very same accelerator pedals it manufactures for Toyota and GM to the U.S. military."

Made in America.

"WMR has learned additional details about the hype by the Obama administration over Toyota’s accelerator pedals. We are informed by a knowledgeable source that the earlier problem with 2002-2004 Toyota models regarding the so-called sticking floor mat has nothing to do with Toyota Corporation, since the mats are fastened to the floorboard with clips and there’s a space around each pedal. The problem occurs when a cheap substitute carpet is installed by a garage or a cheating dealer. Toyota always prefers to see its own products used inside their vehicles. WMR has also learned that the Prius brake problem is not serious and that it is caused by a difference in torque when the car switches from engine to electric motors."

It sounds like the problems are real, but exaggerated. I wonder if US cars are experiencing the same accelerator problem. The claims of this article don't jive with only Toyota having problems.

52 percent of Americans don't think Obama deserves a second term. The other 48 percent aren't paying attention.

44 percent of Americans say their representative doesn't deserve to be re-elected. But almost every one that doesn't retire will get re-elected anyway.

The ACORN president appoints another ACORN official.

MISC:

Science is vindicating the Atkins diet and proving the classic food pyramid we all know so well with carbohydrates at the base as unhealthy. Needless to say, government is the primary pusher of the food pyramid, and farmers are the biggest beneficiaries. Politics poisons everything government touches, and it can never be any other way.

"It is also undeniable, note students of Endocrinology 101, that mankind never evolved to eat a diet high in starches or sugars. ''Grain products and concentrated sugars were essentially absent from human nutrition until the invention of agriculture,'' Ludwig says, ''which was only 10,000 years ago.'' This is discussed frequently in the anthropology texts but is mostly absent from the obesity literature, with the prominent exception of the low-carbohydrate-diet books."

There it is. The food pyramid is all about boosting farmers.

"The common thinking, wrote a former director of the Nutrition Division of the United Nations, was that the ideal diet, one that prevented obesity, snacking and excessive sugar consumption, was a diet ''with plenty of eggs, beef, mutton, chicken, butter and well-cooked vegetables.'' This was the identical prescription Brillat-Savarin put forth in 1825.

It was Ancel Keys, paradoxically, who introduced the low-fat-is-good-health dogma in the 50's with his theory that dietary fat raises cholesterol levels and gives you heart disease. Over the next two decades, however, the scientific evidence supporting this theory remained stubbornly ambiguous. The case was eventually settled not by new science but by politics."

They came right out and said it. Good for the New York Times.

" ''What right,'' Handler asked, ''has the federal government to propose that the American people conduct a vast nutritional experiment, with themselves as subjects, on the strength of so very little evidence that it will do them any good?''"

Like the government cares. It's all about buying votes, not what's good for Americans.

"More than two-thirds of the fat in a porterhouse steak, for instance, will definitively improve your cholesterol profile (at least in comparison with the baked potato next to it); it's true that the remainder will raise your L.D.L., the bad stuff, but it will also boost your H.D.L. The same is true for lard. If you work out the numbers, you come to the surreal conclusion that you can eat lard straight from the can and conceivably reduce your risk of heart disease."

I'm not going to eat lard from the can, but I've already given up all low fat foods. I recently switched to whole milk after years of drinking two percent or skim. I buy real cheese. I did this because I keep running into a wall after exercising six weeks or so, and I think the problem is I'm dropping fat too fast, so I'm happy to read this article supporting what I observed in my life.

"To be precise, annual grain consumption has increased almost 60 pounds per person, and caloric sweeteners (primarily high-fructose corn syrup) by 30 pounds. At the same time, we suddenly began consuming more total calories: now up to 400 more each day since the government started recommending low-fat diets."

That's a huge change.

"Think of insulin as a switch. When it's on, in the few hours after eating, you burn carbohydrates for energy and store excess calories as fat. When it's off, after the insulin has been depleted, you burn fat as fuel. So when insulin levels are low, you will burn your own fat, but not when they're high."

Which is why I switched to exercising in the morning on an empty stomach, to burn more fat, and it's why I think I keep running into that wall.

"He notes that when diabetics get too much insulin, their blood sugar drops and they get ravenously hungry. They gain weight because they eat more, and the insulin promotes fat deposition. The same happens with lab animals. This, he says, is effectively what happens when we eat carbohydrates -- in particular sugar and starches like potatoes and rice, or anything made from flour, like a slice of white bread. These are known in the jargon as high-glycemic-index carbohydrates, which means they are absorbed quickly into the blood. As a result, they cause a spike of blood sugar and a surge of insulin within minutes. The resulting rush of insulin stores the blood sugar away and a few hours later, your blood sugar is lower than it was before you ate. As Ludwig explains, your body effectively thinks it has run out of fuel, but the insulin is still high enough to prevent you from burning your own fat. The result is hunger and a craving for more carbohydrates. It's another vicious circle, and another situation ripe for obesity."

This sounds like what happens when I eat Chinese food, but you don't see many fat Chinese people. I think American Chinese food is different than Chinese Chinese food. This article mentions corn syrup all through it, and the corn lobby must have a significant impact on the food pyramid. I just realized this article is from 2002.

"After 20 years steeped in a low-fat paradigm, I find it hard to see the nutritional world any other way. I have learned that low-fat diets fail in clinical trials and in real life, and they certainly have failed in my life. I have read the papers suggesting that 20 years of low-fat recommendations have not managed to lower the incidence of heart disease in this country, and may have led instead to the steep increase in obesity and Type 2 diabetes. I have interviewed researchers whose computer models have calculated that cutting back on the saturated fats in my diet to the levels recommended by the American Heart Association would not add more than a few months to my life, if that. I have even lost considerable weight with relative ease by giving up carbohydrates on my test diet, and yet I can look down at my eggs and sausage and still imagine the imminent onset of heart disease and obesity, the latter assuredly to be caused by some bizarre rebound phenomena the likes of which science has not yet begun to describe."

I'm the same way. We've been so thoroughly brainwashed to think fat is bad for us, it's hard to overcome it. This article doesn't explain how people all around the world eat tons of bread in different forms, and they don't seem to get fat. It's got to be fiber.