Purveyors of Truth

Cain is Still Able

2011-11-08T10:55:00.000-06:00

The left and their allies in the media are doubling down on the attacks against Cain. This shows you that Cain is the candidate they fear the most. The added benefit, is that they get to distract from Obama scandals such as Solyandra and Project Gun runner.

So let's summarize the case against Bialek:

She has illogical actions at the time of her story
---She was distraught but didn't file sexual assault charge
---She asked him to drive her back instead of just getting out
---She said "stop I have boyfriend" , not "get away from me you pig"
She is money hungry
--- Bankruptcy in 1997
--- Bankruptcy in 2001

---Sued in 2007 for failure to repay loan

--- Tax lien in 2009

--- Sued in 2009 for failure to repay loan

She has a poor employment history
--- She worked at four different companies between 1993-1996.

She has motive
--- She was fired from the NRA in 1997

She has recent actions and evidence that reduce her credibility:
--- She told her 13 year old son the details and he urged her to come forward (but didn't tell her boyfriend at the time)
--- She met and hugged Cain and posed smilingly for a photo with him, which is inconsistent to how real victims of sexual assault act around their attacks
--- She claims she did not know Cain was going to be there. Cain was expected.
--- Lives in the same apartment complex as David Axelrod.

Murky past of Hermain Cain accuser Sharon Bialek starts to emerge
Witness: Cain Accuser Hugged him at Tea Party Event

My Questions for Candidates

2011-10-18T13:59:00.000-05:00

While questions at the debates have ranged from social issues to the economy, I haven't heard one on the TSA yet.

Are the TSA's use of Backscanner devices and enhanced patdowns on all airline travelers a violation of the criteria for warrantless searches as defined by Terry v. Ohio 392 U.S. 1 (1968)? (The ruiling stated a level of documentable suspicion is required for a warrantless patdown)
Would you, as President, stop enhanced pat downs and the use of Backscanner devices at airports unless someone has demonstrated documentable suspicion?

Romney is Obama's Choice for Nomination

2011-10-18T08:08:00.000-05:00

Liberals want to run against Romney, who:

Is white - Obama gets to play the race card
Born rich - Obama gets to continue with the class warfare b.s.
Mormon - Yes, if he is nominated, you'll see Mormon stories in an effort to turn away independents and reduce turnout of Evangelicals.

Liberals are deathly afraid of Herman Cain. If Cain is nominated, Obama has no way to attack him.

I'm an Occupy Wall Street guy.

2011-10-18T07:45:00.000-05:00

I don't want to work. I want you guys to work, and give me money. I'm entitled to the stuff you've worked for. I want to borrow money and not have to pay it back.

My Daddy is rich, that is why I can sit on Wall Street for a month without needing to work.

I went to Columbia. They told me Mao Se Tung and Josef Stalin were a great leaders.

I majored in Parapsychology and now I can't find a job. It's someone else's fault.

Communism didn't work the first 38 times it was implemented because it was done wrong. If we do it once more, it'll work this time.

The Skinny on Corporate Taxes

2011-09-21T11:21:00.000-05:00

Evil corporations, blah blah blah. Is that all we hear in today's world of class warfare?

Corporations are owned by average people and do two major things with profits. They reinvest it (which will spur job growth) or they give it to owners in the form of dividends. Most owners are average citizens through their 401Ks and mutual fund investments.

Higher taxes will result in less investment, or less dividends. Many senior citizens rely on corporate dividends for income.

Dividends are taxed twice. First the corporation is taxed. Then granny is taxed on the dividend. So if the company makes $100, the government takes $39 in taxes, and gives $61 to granny. The government now takes another $17.

In total, out of $100 that the corporation makes, Granny gets $44 while Obama gets $56.

Who is being unfair? How much would be fair for Obama?

Obama's class warfare

2011-09-20T08:31:00.000-05:00

Obama's class warfare is tiring. A few facts and arguments for the memory bank:

1. He makes it seem that the wealthy are weathly at the expense of the poor. In truth, Steve Jobs got rich selling Ipad and Ipods. No one had to spend one dime on his products if they didn't want to.

2. People are stuck in a "class" and can never move. The Forbes 400 (list of wealthiest people) was first published in 1982. Compare the list then to now. See how many names remain.

3. 50% of Americans pay no income tax. Some pay a "negative income tax"... they essentially get welfare. The top 1% of earners in 2008 brought home 20% of gross income but paid 38.02% of all federal individual income taxes. Who exactly isn't paying their fair share?

Obama's Solution: Let the government forcefully take more money from productive people and give to their cronies, like Solyandra, who squander the money in failed ventures.

Don't Ask... Do Tell!

2011-09-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

"Repeal of gay ban causing few waves in military" - not true The military brass have to comply because its the new law. The soldiers can't say anything publically or they will be disciplined. The media will bring out some backoffice desk clerk to say how wonderful it is. But that person goes home every night and has his own private shower. But, if you listen to what soldiers on the front lines are saying, you'll hear lots of grumbling.
It's going to hurt enlistment which is what liberals want all along. Liberals love the draft. What?? Yes. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) has proposed a bill to reinstate the draft at least 3 times. It didn't get anywhere because recruitment levels were high. Put in gays, and you will kill recruitment.

During the Vietnam era people were drafted, which liberals used as a rallying cry to gain power. During the Iraq war, their protests were ineffectual, because the people fighting volunteered. Liberals need a strawman to attack.

You might say, well liberals don't like wars. Not necessarily true. Liberals have gotten us into several wars in which we weren't attacked: World War I, Korea, Vietnam, Somalia, Bosnia, and Libya.

Liberals also love telling people what to do: what kind of car to drive, what kind of food to eat, what light bulb to use, what sources of electricity you can use, what school you must go to, etc.

Repeal of gay ban causing few waves in military

WASHINGTON (AP) — After years of debate and months of final preparations, the military can no longer prevent gays from serving openly in its ranks.

Repeal of a 1993 law that allowed gays to serve only so long as they kept their sexual orientation private took effect Tuesday at 12:01 a.m. EDT.

Some in Congress still oppose the change, but top Pentagon leaders have certified that it will not undermine the military's ability to recruit or to fight wars.

The Army was distributing a business-as-usual statement Tuesday saying simply, "The law is repealed," and reminding soldiers to treat each other fairly.

Obama's Job's Speech: More Cowbell!

2011-09-08T19:44:00.001-05:00

1. Shovel-ready jobs: I thought he learned there were no such thing. Okay he called the "quick infrastructure projects"

2. Short-term temporary tax cuts / new hire tax breaks: If you want to open a factory, do you think a short-term tax break is going to make a difference whether the factory will be profitable? Crushing regulations like the new EPA mandates, Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, and the NLRB union lawsuits are going to still kill your idea

3. More unemployment insurance. If you extend unemployment insurance for the rest of someone's life, it's called welfare. I believe in unemployment insurance, but there is a limit.

Congressional District Changes in Texas

2011-08-31T10:21:00.001-05:00

As a result of the 2010 census, and the accompanying growth in population, Texas has gotten four extra Congressional districts (#33-#36).

Here's how Houston is changing:

Old Map

New Map

The Fast and the Furious

2011-08-30T21:04:00.001-05:00

Botched sting? No way! No one is so stupid to sell guns to cartels to "track them."

Their goal was to "find the guns later" and then "show how they were getting them from the US." Gun control has little support in Congress. The only way that the leftist Obama regime could take away guns from law abiding citizens was to manufacture a crisis.

Rahm Emmanuel said "never let a crisis go to waste." Holder doubles down an manufactures the crisis to not let go to waste. Of course, it backfired on them and now a border agent is dead.

What did Holder and Napolitano know, and when did they know it?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration announced on Tuesday a major shake-up of the U.S. agency that botched an attempt to track weapons smuggled to drug cartels in Mexico after guns were allowed to flow freely over the border.
Kenneth Melson, who has been acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives since 2009, was reassigned after admitting mistakes in the sting operation meant to try to crack down on weapons reaching violent drug gangs from U.S. gun stores.
In further fallout from the operation, the U.S. attorney for Arizona, Dennis Burke, has resigned effective immediately after acknowledging mistakes in the operation. The lead prosecutor on the case, Emory Hurley, has also been reassigned, an Obama administration official said.
Another administration official said the shake-up at ATF was a chance for a "fresh start given everything they've gone through lately."
The sting operation, dubbed "Fast and Furious," has spawned congressional and internal Justice Department probes and put the Obama administration on the defensive about whether dangerous weapons were knowingly allowed to cross the border.
Authorities had hoped they would be able to follow the guns to cartel leaders, but ATF agents did not track the weapons after they were transferred from the initial buyer to others who smuggled them across the border. Some agents have testified that they were not allowed to continue the pursuit.
Attorney General Eric Holder and Melson both issued statements but steered clear of any comments about the controversy. Holder has referred the entire matter to the department's inspector general for an investigation.

Beyond Bias

2011-08-29T13:01:00.000-05:00

BEYOND BIAS!

The Yahoo headline says "Bachmann: Hurricane is God's message to politicians", but the actual article indicates that she is clearly joking.

Someone reading the headline is not going to see that she is joking, and it portrays her as a "bible thumper".

I used to call this bias, but it is beyond bias. It is actively and intentionally trying to destort what a candidate says in order to harm that candidate. Yahoo should fall under the regulation of FEC, because they are clearly in Obama's pocket.

S&P Head Out - Timing and Replacement Quite Suspect

2011-08-23T10:16:00.000-05:00

NEW YORK (AP) -- The president of Standard & Poor's is stepping down, an announcement coming only weeks after the rating agency's unprecedented move to strip the United States of its AAA credit rating.

The McGraw-Hill Cos., the parent of S&P, said late Monday that Deven Sharma will be replaced by Douglas Peterson, now the chief operating officer of Citibank N.A., Citigroup Inc.'s chief banking arm.

Sharma, 55, "was ready for new challenges" after helping S&P separate its data, pricing and analytics business from its ratings business, McGraw-Hill said in a statement. The company unveiled that restructuring at S&P late last year. Peterson, 53, will take over the helm of S&P starting Sept. 12.

Timeline:

2009-2011: Citigroup receives $476B in bailout money (the most of any bank)
Aug 5, 2011: S&P downgrades US debt rating
Aug 10: Obama investigates S&P (but not Moody's or Fitch)
Aug 23: Head of S&P stepping down
Sep 12: VP of Citigroup to be head of S&P

How independent do you think the S&P will be now? Wait for this headline:

Nov 1, 2012: S&P upgrades US debt rating

Obama's Path to Economic Failure

2011-08-17T13:36:00.000-05:00

I'm on the edge of my seat. Obama says he will unveiling a new economic plan.

Obama says his plan will:

1) Increase infrastructure spending
2) Reduce deficit even more than promised
3) Not raise taxes

How will he spend more (another "stimulus") and cut the deficit without raising taxes? Obamath is why we are in this mess.
If the Trillion Dollar stimulus failed the first time, how will it succeed the second time? Do we need to gamble another trillion dollars?

If Obama wants to help the economy, he should reverse everything he's done in the past few years. Obama policies are failures:

1. Obamacare hinders hiring. Companies dont' know what's fully in it, so they hesitate.
2. The National Labor Board will sue you if you open a plant in a right-to-work state (like it is doing to Boeing)
3. The EPA's policies are shutting down manufacturing and preventing new ones from opening due to many burdensome regulations.
4. Dodd-Frank bill hurts small businesses from getting loans.
5. The ban on oil drilling forced thousands out of work.
6. There is tax uncertainty beyond 2012, with Obama saying he wants to raise taxes (which will effect small businesses, not just millionares)
7. The stimulus did nothing but funnel money into slush funds, payback supporters, and hire more bureaucrats, but it left the country with a $1T in more debt to pay.
8. Obama's crony capitalism: government subsidizing certain industries gives those industries an unfair competitve advantage. Companies receiving your taxpayer dollars will funnel some back to Obama's reelection.

The Spin on China's Ugly One-Child Policy

2011-08-14T23:28:00.001-05:00

So the one child policy is a "boon for girls", but 43 million girls have "disappeared" in China due to gender-selective abortions? How is massive prevalence of gender-selective abortions result in a news title that describes the policy as a good thing?

Of course, the bad stuff is buried at the bottom of the article, while the puff-piece on the one gender policy is at the top. That way the writer can say she is neutral, but knowing that most people only read the first couple of paragraphs.

To liberals, murder is okay so long as someone gets an IPad. Eugenics is "progress" for the liberals at the AP. This type of warped thinking would be akin to the AP saying in 1944 that Final Solution was great because it was lowering the cost of food due to reduced demand.

BEIJING (AP) — Tsinghua University freshman Mia Wang has confidence to spare.
Asked what her home city of Benxi in China's far northeastern tip is famous for, she flashes a cool smile and says: "Producing excellence. Like me." A Communist Youth League member at one of China's top science universities, she boasts enviable skills in calligraphy, piano, flute and pingpong.
Such gifted young women are increasingly common in China's cities and make up the most educated generation of women in Chinese history. Never have so many been in college or graduate school, and never has their ratio to male students been more balanced.
To thank for this, experts say, is three decades of steady Chinese economic growth, heavy government spending on education and a third, surprising, factor: the one-child policy.

...... (buried at the bottom of the article) ... With the arrival of sonogram technology in the 1980's, some families no longer merely hoped for a boy, they were able to engineer a male heir by terminating pregnancies when the fetus was a girl.
"It is gendercide," said Therese Hesketh, a University College London professor who has studied China's skewed sex ratio. "I don't understand why China doesn't just really penalize people who've had sex-selective abortions and the people who do them. The law exists but nobody enforces it."
To combat the problem, China allows families in rural areas, where son preference is strongest, to have a second child if their first is a girl. The government has also launched education campaigns promoting girls and gives cash subsidies to rural families with daughters.
Still, 43 million girls have "disappeared" in China due to gender-selective abortion as well as neglect and inadequate access to health care and nutrition, the United Nations estimated in a report last year.
Yin Yin Nwe, UNICEF's representative to China, puts it bluntly: The one-child policy brings many benefits for girls "but they have to be born first."

My take on satire:

Yahoo/AP, 1943 Headline: FINAL SOLUTION BOON TO GERMANY

"Low food prices are abound in Germany thanks to the final solution that has eliminated many Jewish mouths to feed. With reduced demand, lower food prices were enjoyed by all of Germany. Wilhem Huebner has struggled to provide enough food for his family due to high prices. Often, little Heidi Huebner, 4, had gone hungry every night. However, ever since the final solution was implemented, prices have come down due to reduced demand. and little Heidi is hungry no more.........(several paragraphs down)... The decreased food prices come at a cost, says Michael von Faulhaber, and he further states that "several millions Jews have disappeared, never to be seen again. Inquiries into their location have been met with official silence." Still, for Heidi, that full stomach at night is a great feeling."

Scott Walker Leads the Way

2011-08-11T08:25:00.000-05:00

Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, led the state to pass some modest reforms of public sector unions. Democrats and unions attacked hard. Walker (and the legislature) didn't back down. Democrats tried recall elections, but the Republicans survived.

This should be a lesson to all weak kneed Republicans who think by placating the left, it will make them more popular. John McCain found out in 2008 how quickly one could go from media darling for his opposition to Bush, to "Bush's Third Term."

WSJ - The larger lesson here is that you can attempt major, meaningful government reform and live to tell about it. Amid the winter brawling, some conservative fainthearts had joined the media in declaring that Mr. Walker had "exceeded his mandate" by taking on the monopoly bargaining power of public unions.

But unions would hardly loathe him any less had he and the GOP aimed lower, or blinked when the opposition got tough. With state government no longer automatically collecting dues for unions, many rank-and-file members will choose not to provide dues for political purposes. Union monopoly power will diminish. Taxpayers will benefit

Shooting the Debt Messengers

2011-08-09T15:12:00.000-05:00

The Democrats and the media are now conspiring to kill the messengers:

Yesterday, the tea party was to blame
Today, its the S&P

The US won't default as it can always print money. But what good is a dollar if its purchasing power is halved through rapid inflation? If you buy a 10 year T-bill paying 3%, but inflation rises to 5% next year and every year afterwards, you will effectively get a negative return at the end of the 10 years.

Yahoo: Days after Standard & Poor's downgraded the United States' credit rating, a powerful backlash has set in against the move. Washington leaders of both parties, as well as investors, have seemed to shrug off the ratings agency's verdict--and some analysts have even raised questions about S&P's basic competence and credibility.

On Friday, S&P lowered its rating for long-term debt issued by the U.S. Treasury by one notch, from Triple A--its highest rating--to AA+. Explaining the move, it said Washington hadn't done enough to reduce the long-term deficit, and expressed doubt about the ability of political leaders to work together to solve the problem.

Poll Pushing by the Times (shocked!)

2011-08-05T16:33:00.000-05:00

Poll BIAS!!

Not mentioned in the article, but the poll overweighted Democrat respondents.

If you go and find the numbers of poll (link), which are not listed in the article. the poll asked 960 people, of which 247 are Republicans, 321 Democrats, and 392 Indepedents.

Ignoring independents, there are 30% more Democrats asked than Republicans. With that type of polling, of couse the NY Times is getting the answer it wants.

Of course, the article itself is filled with bias. Regarding the underlined below, it is written to influence you to think the tea party is "outside the mainstream." Not mentioned is that spending is at unprecedented levels. The underlined could have also read: "without reining in unsustainable spending levels."

Yahoo : ...Not all the anger is necessarily aimed at Washington, however. Public perception of the tea party movement, which many see as the driving force that kept Republicans from voting to raising the debt ceiling without implementing unprecedented spending reductions, is at a record low. In a New York Times/CBS poll released Friday, 40 percent of respondents said they held an "unfavorable" view of the movement, up from 29 percent before the debt negotiations began in April, and higher than any number since pollsters started asking the question last year. One in five respondents said they approved of the tea party, down from 26 percent a few months ago.

Congress, as usual, fared the worst. The legislative branch almost never gets high marks from the public, but never before has it earned this level of disapproval. Eighty-two percent in the poll said they disapprove of how members of Congress are doing their jobs--the highest such rate since 1977, when the poll was first taken.

President Obama, on the other hand, was the only one to really escape the negotiation process without deeply damaging blows to his perception, the poll suggested. Almost half (48 percent) said they approve of the way Obama is handling his job as president, a number that has remained stable since late 2009.

Government Raising the Cost of Healthcare

2011-08-01T16:44:00.000-05:00

This move is designed to further increase the cost of insurance, in order to gain support for a complete government takeover of healthcare. You'll see more of this.

The left's plan is:

Burden the insurance industry with required coverage of unnecessary items.
Continue frivilous lawsuits which increase premiums (legal fees, awards, defensive medicine)
Complain about the rising cost of healthcare
Blame greedy insurance company executives,
Say that a government takeover is the only solution to control costs.

Back to liberals and their false advocacy of choice. (The only time they care about choice is when it comes to abortion). You now CANNOT get a plan that doesn't include birth control pills, but you are paying for it. Why do they want to take away choice from the consumer.

..WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration says health insurance plans must cover birth control for women with no copays.

The requirement, affecting most insurance plans, is part of a broad expansion of women's preventive coverage. Breast pumps for nursing mothers, an annual "well woman" physical, counseling on how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases and other services will also be covered at no cost to the patient.

The new benefits won't take effect for at least another year, Jan. 1, 2013, in most cases. Insurers are expected to pass the cost on to their customers through slightly higher premiums.

The rules issued Monday by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius include a provision that would allow religious institutions to opt out of offering birth control coverage.

..

Ron Paul on the Debt Debate

2011-08-01T14:50:00.000-05:00

Well said:
The Hill: One might think that the recent drama over the debt ceiling involves one side wanting to increase or maintain spending with the other side wanting to drastically cut spending, but that is far from the truth. In spite of the rhetoric being thrown around, the real debate is over how much government spending will increase.
No plan under serious consideration cuts spending in the way you and I think about it. Instead, the "cuts" being discussed are illusory, and are not cuts from current amounts being spent, but cuts in projected spending increases. This is akin to a family "saving" $100,000 in expenses by deciding not to buy a Lamborghini, and instead getting a fully loaded Mercedes, when really their budget dictates that they need to stick with their perfectly serviceable Honda. But this is the type of math Washington uses to mask the incriminating truth about their unrepentant plundering of the American people.
The truth is that frightening rhetoric about default and full faith and credit of the United States is being carelessly thrown around to ram through a bigger budget than ever, in spite of stagnant revenues. If your family's income did not change year over year, would it be wise financial management to accelerate spending so you would feel richer? That is what our government is doing, with one side merely suggesting a different list of purchases than the other.
In reality, bringing our fiscal house into order is not that complicated or excruciatingly painful at all. If we simply kept spending at current levels, by their definition of "cuts" that would save nearly $400 billion in the next few years, versus the $25 billion the Budget Control Act claims to "cut". It would only take us 5 years to "cut" $1 trillion, in Washington math, just by holding the line on spending. That is hardly austere or catastrophic.
A balanced budget is similarly simple and within reach if Washington had just a tiny amount of fiscal common sense. Our revenues currently stand at approximately $2.2 trillion a year and are likely to remain stagnant as the recession continues. Our outlays are $3.7 trillion and projected to grow every year. Yet we only have to go back to 2004 for federal outlays of $2.2 trillion, and the government was far from small that year. If we simply returned to that year's spending levels, which would hardly be austere, we would have a balanced budget right now. If we held the line on spending, and the economy actually did grow as estimated, the budget would balance on its own by 2015 with no cuts whatsoever.
We pay 35 percent more for our military today than we did 10 years ago, for the exact same capabilities. The same could be said for the rest of the government. Why has our budget doubled in 10 years? This country doesn't have double the population, or double the land area, or double anything that would require the federal government to grow by such an obscene amount.
In Washington terms, a simple freeze in spending would be a much bigger "cut" than any plan being discussed. If politicians simply cannot bear to implement actual cuts to actual spending, just freezing the budget would give the economy the best chance to catch its breath, recover and grow.

Ron Paul on the Debt Debate

2011-07-20T10:34:00.000-05:00

Great video by Ron Paul.

"It baffles me that the solution to the debt problem is to add more debt."
Default isn't going to happen and shouldn't be the worry - it is the potential for inflation which makes your social security checks worthless.

The Media's Re-Elect Obama Strategy

2011-07-19T12:53:00.000-05:00

The media's "re-elect Obama" strategy:

1. Discredit Republican minority candidates

--Paint Bachmann as racist (Yahoo front page story today)

--Paint Herman Cain as anti-Muslim (Yahoo front page story yesterday)

2. Let a white guy win the Republican nomination

3. Attack Republicans as anti-black and anti-women

Abortion: The only choice allowed by liberals

2011-07-14T16:09:00.002-05:00

Killing the unborn is the only "choice" liberals want you to have. Otherwise they:

1) Tell you want kind of car to drive
2) Tell you want kind of food to eat
3) Tell you how much of your money you need to give to them
4) Tell you what kind of light bulb to use
5) Tell you whether you can smoke outside
6) Tell you what source electricity must come from
7) Tell you who you must hire despite differences in qualifications
8) Want the government to be the sole provider of healthcare

It's the Uncertainty, Stupid

2011-07-13T15:39:00.000-05:00

Pseudo-intellectuals through the liberal world can't figure out why the economy hasn't recovered. It's the uncertainty, stupid!

Taxes:

What's the tax rate in 2 years? Obama says he wants it to go higher. The higher taxes are, the fewer business ideas are potential profitable, the less people get hired.

The EPA:

Strict EPA requirements will require extra costs which may make a potential factory go from being profitable to unprofitable.
The EPA and groups like the Sierra Club may sue to stop the plant from opening. Delays, legal fees, and the uncertianty of completion scare potential investors.

Obama's Ban on Drilling

Imagine if you shut down Apple for 10 months. Everyone gets fired and they go elsewhere (Google, Samsung, etc). Now you allow Apple to operate again, but the people, the capital, and equipment are elsewhere. It won't restart overnight.

Obamacare:

Employees which are "nice to have" at one price, may get replaced by automation if employee costs rise too much. (E.g., bag boys at grocery stores are eliminatted and check out clerks are replaced by self-checkout)

The National Labor Relations Board

Obama's team has sued Boeing for opening a plant in South Carolina instead of Washington. South Carolina is a right to work state, meaning unions have little control.

Adventures in Socialized Medicine

2011-07-11T16:25:00.000-05:00

Socialized care contians costs by denying care. What good is "health insurance" if you can't get the care?

Daily Mail - The condition can be treated with a £14,000 operation to fit a gastric pacemaker - although this is still considered to be an experimental treatment.

A young woman who is starving to death after being diagnosed with a paralysed stomach has been told that NHS bosses refuse to fund an operation to save her.

Rudi Hargreaves, 22, has shrunk from a healthy 10st to a skeletal 5st 10lb after being diagnosed with the crippling condition last year.
Within weeks of being diagnosed with gastroparesis, Rudi found her size 12 clothes were hanging off her - as her stomach became unable to digest food at a normal rate.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2013434/Help-Im-starving-death-6st-woman-paralysed-stomach-refused-life-saving-operation.html#ixzz1RpmjMCu9

But health chiefs have refused to fund the surgery, saying 'insufficient supporting information' has been provided by her GP.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2013434/Help-Im-starving-death-6st-woman-paralysed-stomach-refused-life-saving-operation.html#ixzz1RpmfZJL6

Debt and Deals

2011-07-11T13:16:00.000-05:00

In order to increase the debt limit, Republicans want to get future spending under control. Democrats want tax increases, so any deal has progresssed.

I think Republicans are still wary from 1991. George Bush (Sr) agreed to Democrats' demands that spending cuts had to come with tax increases. Then the Democrats turned around and used the tax increases as a campaign tool against him. (Bush famously said in 1988, read my lips no new taxes).

So Democrats are just trying to bait Republicans into agreeing to tax increases, so they can just use it again as a campaign tool in 2012.

If we hit our debt ceiling, the interest payments will still be made. Obama will have to decide what else to cut then, which he doesn't want to do. So many of his voters are takers (get more from the government than they pay in), so cutting anything is going to hurt his reelection. So Obama wants to goad Republicans into making a false move. It was smart of Boehner not to budge.

Much Ado about Nothing

2011-07-07T14:27:00.000-05:00

So if Texas executes a convicted murderer and rapist, it will do irreparable harm to relations with Mexico? Americans are kidnapped and killed by Mexican drug cartels in Mexico. Drug cartels kill civilians and state officials daily. Shoudl Mexico be really that hung up about a convicted murderer getting executed? I think not

The Atlantic -

"The case of a Mexican man scheduled to be executed on Thursday in Texas threatens to
disrupt U.S. diplomatic relations abroad and creates a politically volatile dilemma for Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who is considering a run for president.

Unless Perry or the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes to stay the execution, Texas plans to execute Humberto
Leal Jr. at 6 p.m. Central Time for the 1994 murder of 16-year-old Adria Sauceda.

The International Court of Justice ruled in 2004 that the United States violated the rights of Leal and more than three dozen other Mexican nationals on death row because law enforcement officials didn't advise them of their right to have consular access to officials from their home country under international law.....

Neither the Obama administration nor the Mexican government contend that Leal is innocent. Rather, they argue that the United States has an obligation to comply with international law. In a 76-page application to the Supreme Court for a stay, the Obama administration argued that the execution "would place the United States in irreparable breach of its international-law obligation." "That breach would have serious repercussions for United States foreign relations, law enforcement and other cooperation with Mexico, and the ability of American citizens traveling abroad to have the benefits of consular assistance in the event of detention," the administration wrote.

Adventures in Socialized Medicine

2011-07-07T10:53:00.000-05:00

In the normal world, people and businesses avoid repeating disasters, but not in politics. We constantly seek to take failed ideas from around the world and repeat them.

Everyone know that monopolies are bad when they are run by businesses, but many don't realize that government monopolies will result in the same bad outcome.

These long waiting times are due to the government run nature of healthcare. Obama complained that we Americans pay much more for healthcare than other countries. But the real question is what do you get for that cost? Is it all for nothing? No. We actually have enough MRI machines to meet demand. There isn't a 6 week wait for an MRI in the US. It's unheard of. But MRI machines aren't free.

What's the downside of waiting? Perhaps the difference between stage one and stage four cancer.

Daily Mail: Thousands more patients are facing lengthy delays for vital tests to diagnose cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.

Nearly 16,000 people a month are now forced to wait more than six weeks for ultrasounds, CT scans and various hospital checks, a four-fold rise compared with this time last year.

Last month’s Department of Health figures show that 15,929 patients were waiting longer than six weeks for one of 15 tests used to diagnose cancer, heart problems, dementia and osteoporosis, compared with 3,495 for the same period in 2010.

The number includes 2,152 who waited more than six weeks for an MRI scan, commonly used to diagnose cancer, strokes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, compared with 374 the previous year, nearly a six-fold increase...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2011911/Hospital-waiting-times-Scrapping-targets-leaves-16-000-waiting-weeks-key-tests.html#ixzz1RR1d6IgM

The indefagitable, Thomas Sowell

2011-03-23T13:45:00.000-05:00

Love reading Thomas Sowell's columns. Some things worth repeating from today's column:

The vocabulary of the political left is fascinating. For example, it is considered to be "materialistic" and "greedy" to want to keep what you have earned. But it is "idealistic" to want to take away what someone else has earned and spend it for your own political benefit or to feel good about yourself.....

When political commentators from the Fox News Channel had books whose sales would normally make the New York Times' non-fiction best-seller list, the New York Times changed the rules for putting books on that list. Thus best-selling political books by Mike Huckabee and Dick Morris appeared last Sunday on a more obscure list of miscellaneous personal advice and how-to books, such as "Weight Watchers New Complete Cookbook."....

The Obama administration seems to be following what might be called "the Detroit pattern"-- increasing taxes, harassing businesses, and pandering to unions. In the short run, it got mayors re-elected. In the long-run, it reduced Detroit from a thriving city to an economic disaster area, whose population was cut in half, as its most productive citizens fled.

Ownership of Gun Saves Life

2011-03-22T22:30:00.000-05:00

Had they not owned a gun, perhaps we would be hearing about the "tragic murders" in Florida. The media tends to ignore stories where guns save lives.

When a burly ex-convict forced his way into a posh Florida home last week, he had no idea what awaited him -- a 25-year-old beauty queen with a pink .38-caliber handgun.
Meghan Brown, a former Florida pageant queen, shot and killed 42-year-old Albert Franklin Hill during a home invasion March 12 at the 2,732-square-foot house she shares with her fiance in Tierra Verde, Fla.
Hill barged into the home at around 3 a.m. after Brown responded to a knock at the front door, according to a police report. He allegedly grabbed the 110-pound Brown around her nose and mouth and dragged her to an upstairs bedroom.
The woman’s fiance, Robert Planthaber, said in an interview that he was quickly awakened by the altercation and ran to Brown’s side.
"I attacked him and took a severe beating to the head," Planthaber told FoxNews.com. "But I got him off of her long enough for her to scramble to the room where she keeps her pink .38 special.”

Brown, who reigned as the 2009 Miss Tierra Verde, snatched her gun from a nearby bedroom and shot the suspect several times – hitting him in the chest, groin, thigh and back, her fiance said. Hill was pronounced dead at the scene.
Panthaber, a 42-year-old arborist, said he believes he and his fiancee were targeted because of their wealth. He claimed a pizza delivery man and possible accomplice staked out the home for three months before Hill attempted to burglarize it.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/03/22/armed-beauty-queen-fatally-shoots-intruder-florida-home-invasion/#ixzz1HOEHA7ln

Japan and Nukes

2011-03-17T10:49:00.000-05:00

While the earthquake and subsequent tsumani has caused tremendous problems at a nuclear power station in Japan, I don't see how these problems should cause the world to panic about existing nuclear facilities.

Germany is rushing to shut down all nukes. I expected better from Merckel.

The appropriate questions should be:

Are you on a fault line?
Are you next to the ocean?

If "no", then the whole incident is not applicable.

Obama, DOMA, and Gay Marriage

2011-03-01T09:53:00.000-06:00

One word: Laughable!!!

Is Obama suddenly against the estate tax? Obama and the Democrats have the big proponents of the estate tax, but now they use the estate tax to justify getting rid of DOMA. No estate tax, no tax bill for Windsor.
If Windsor received the money tax free, then died, her heirs would pay the $350,000 tax bill. How is it less of a sob story?
Similarly, if Syper left all her money to her sister, wouldn't liberals attack the sister if she complained about the tax bill?
Where's all the talk about "the rich" not paying their fair share? Windsor inherited about $4.5 million! (In 2009, the estate tax deduction was $3.5M + the remainder is taxed at 45%=). In other circumstances, liberals would be outraged that Windsor is complaining over a tax bill.

Yahoo News: The Obama administration announced last week that it will no longer defend in court a part of the Defense of Marriage Act that forbids the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage.

One widow's story was one of two cases pending in federal courts cited in the announcement of President Obama's decision, Bloomberg reports.

Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer were together for more than 40 years when Spyer died in 2009. Not longer after her partner's death, Windsor received a $363,053 federal tax bill--a liability that she would not have faced had the federal government recognized their union.

The New York couple married in Canada in 2007 in their 70s, after they found out that Spyer's multiple sclerosis was getting worse. Spyer was a psychologist who had become quadriplegic from the disease before her death, and Windsor worked for IBM. They met in the 1960s at a restaurant in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. "We danced so much and so intensely that she danced a hole through her stockings," Spyer said in the New York Times' write up of their wedding.

Windsor is suing for the tax money back from the federal government, and the Obama administration has effectively decided she's right by dropping its defense. The administration will continue to enforce the law unless it is struck down by the courts or Congress.

Euthanasia in Socialized Medicine

2011-02-28T20:53:00.000-06:00

A Canadian hospital has given in to demands to send a terminally ill baby home so he can die surrounded by family. But the hospital is still refusing to give thirteen-month-old Joseph Maraachli treatment that his parents believe will prolong - but not save - his life.
The London Health Sciences Centre in Ontario has now beefed up security after the threats in the growing dispute over the rights of Baby Joseph, as he has been dubbed.
Joseph has a fatal neuro-degenerative disease and can only survive with the aid of a ventilator.

His parents Moe Maraachli and Sana Nader want to him to have a tracheotomy, which would allow him to breathe without the respirator and which they believed could prolong his life by up to six months.Then they want to take him home so he can die surrounded by relatives. But doctors are refusing to do the tracheotomy, saying that it would needlessly prolong his life. Instead they wanted to turn off the life support machine and let him die on the ward.
Today the hospital announced it has backed down on its refusal to let the family take Joseph home and let him die there. But officials are standing strong over the tracheotomy, instead insisting that hospital staff take Joseph off the ventilator once he gets home - perhaps only giving him minutes to live. Joseph has been on life support at the Centre since last October.

Eight years ago, his parents had another child, a daughter named Zina. She had a similar condition, was given a tracheotomy, and managed to survive for six more months after the family took her home....
‘I do my best for my baby. My son is not a criminal . . . to just let him die,’ said Mr Maraachli. ‘I cannot pray like this. I want to cry, I want to feel with my baby and I cannot do this.’ Ms Nader added: ‘When I’m in the hospital, I don’t feel I’m in Canada, I feel I’m in some country with no human rights.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1361593/Canadian-hospital-caves-refusal-send-terminally-ill-baby-Joseph-Maraachli-home.html#ixzz1FJPpWM4V

Let the parents decide instead of some childless bureaucrats! I'd take my baby for six months over a few days despite the problems. It's a trach - not a heart transplant. These operations are common and inexpensive. Its just that bureaucrats want to decide who lives and dies.

Everyone who screams for "free" healthcare end up transferring all control of their health decisions to the government. If you are of no value to the state, you will be eliminated. A 6 month old will never pay taxes.

God bless the family and I'll be praying for them.

A Series: People kill people

2011-02-14T10:03:00.000-06:00

With guns essentially banned in Britian and parts of the US, criminals have turned to knives and other weapons. I want to use this blog post to document news stories of attacks in Britian. A gun is a great equalizer. If a house invander and a little old lady both have guns, the little old lady has a reasonable chance of protecting herself. If they both have knives or baseball bats, the stronger younger attacker will most certainly defeat any resitance.

Febuary 14, 2011:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1356807/Manchester-schoolboy-13-stabbed-pet-Rottweiler-slaughtered-knifeman-dogs-clash-park.html

February 13, 2011: Guy kills four with knife
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1356536/Maksim-Gelman-said-ex-girlfriend-die-tributes-pour-rampage-victims.html

February 11, 2011: Thug stabs three
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1356051/Thug-stabbed-teens-pays-just-300-compensation-walks-free-court.html

February 9, 2011: Home invader kills three with knife,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1354984/Matthew-Hoffmann-Confession-burglar-murdered-3-raped-girl.html

Mapping Stereotypes

2011-01-21T11:36:00.000-06:00

A European blogger created Mapping Stereotypes, which I thought was brilliant. An area for addition is to look at the USA by state.

The USA According to New Yorkers:

Bush vs. Obama

2011-01-20T14:37:00.005-06:00

Posted elsewhere (not mine), but worth repeating. It certainly highlights the things that the left gives Obama a pass for, whereas they would have hammered Bush:

If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a TelePrompTer installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?
If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan's holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?
If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the nonexistent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?
If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had stated that there were 57 states in the United States , would you have said that he is clueless.
If George W. Bush would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in Texas , would you have thought he was a self important, conceited, egotistical jerk.
If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?
If George W. Bush had misspelled the word "advice" would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoes as proof of what a dunce he is?
If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite?
If George W. Bush's administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11?
If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?
If George W. Bush had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America , would you have approved.
If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?
So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in two years-- so you'll have two years to come up with an answer.
I would add this tidbit – If President Bush or any other President refused to provide/prove their valid and official birth certificate, would you approve?

Guns: The Great Equalizers

2011-01-18T13:47:00.000-06:00

In light of the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, gun control advocates are frustrated that they can't get much traction for additional gun control.

Guns are the great equalizer. They benefit women, handicapped, and the elderly the most.

Imagine if you are a little old lady. A guy has just broken into your house. You have the same weapon he does. Which weapon would you prefer to both have:

a) brass knuckles
b) a knife
c) a baseball bat
d) a gun

In options a,b, & c the old lady gets killed 99.9% of the time. With option d, she has a much higher chance of survival. Even a warning shot (assuming they are in seperate rooms), is enough to scare him off. Criminals like easy targets. That's why the rob the elderly in the first place.

Guns helped women become independent, because they didn't need to rely on men. Remember the old Westerns were a mother scares off a neer-do-well with her shotgun. Yeah, a gun allowed her to do that.

Rifles for both Home Defense & Hunting

2011-01-06T19:27:00.007-06:00

If you want a rifle that can serve dual purpose as a home defense and hunting, there are a few choices. Yes, I know, a shotgun is great for home defense. I'd go with a Ithaca Model 37, but this is about rifles.

The rules are that it would have to look relatively like a hunting rifle, have a barrel length no longer than 20", and be semi-automatic. So no pistol grip and no bolt-action rifles. We're evaluating semi-automatic rifles with a rifle grip.

Springfield M1A Scout - The most powerful round, the most accurate, the most expensive, and the heaviest. The heavier weight reduces recoil which may help hunting. However, the weight would be make it more unwieldy to use in home defense. If you live in a suburbia, you run the risk of over penetration, meaning your round might enter the neighbor's house.
Ruger Mini-14 - .223 ammunition is not the best for hunting. Some states don't even allow it. Rifles made prior to 2005 have a reputation for the barrel overheating, but they were redesigned in 2005 with a thicker barrel. There is a variant which takes new 6.8mm SPC rounds, which would boost its hunting potential, although the caliber is be expensive and can be limited in availability
Ruger Mini-30 - The Mini-30 is a version of the Mini-14 which takes larger, AK-47/SKS ammo (read: cheap). It is slightly less powerful than the 30-30 cartridge. The shorter barrel, and lighter weight makes it more wieldy, but the accuracy of the rifle at long distances is not as good as the M1a. It has similarities to an SKS, but is new and not made in China or Yugoslavia. Internet chatter says that it's effective range is about 150 yards.
M1a Carbine - The 30 carbine cartridge is like a big pistol round. I'd prefer it to any handgun for self defense, but for hunting, the caliber ranks lower than the .223 which is not saying much. It's currently made by Auto-Ordinace, but there are older surplus models for cheaper.
Marlin 336 - Lever action means a much slower rate of fire, and you have to take the gun off the target to reload. The 30-30 cartridge has round head to prevent a spitzer point from hitting the primer of the round in front of it in the tubular magazine. While this limits it's "effective range", it is still quite usable out to at least 150 yards. This gun has been around for a while, so there is also an access to a wide used market.

Manufacturer & Model	Caliber	Defense	Hunting	Barrel	Weight	Capacity	Cost
Springfield M1A Scout	7.62x51 Nato	2	5	18	9.3 lbs	20	$1680
Ruger Mini-14	5.56	3	2	18.5	7 lbs	20	$730
Ruger Mini-30	7.62x39	3	4	16.1	6.75 lbs	20	$790
M1a Carbine	0.30 Carbine	4	1	18	5.2 lbs	30	$780
Marlin 336	30-30	2	4	16.25	7 lbs	6	$430

Home Defense and Hunting numbers are ratings on a 1-5 scale.

Bottom Line: Based on my subjective composite ratings, it is a tie between the Mini-30 and the M1a. Another factor is how often you plan on using it. If you plan on going 5 times in the next 10 years, perhaps you do not need the most expensive rifle.

The best .380 pistol?

2011-01-05T17:30:00.026-06:00

Since the beginning of 2008, the amount of compact .380 pistols have exploded. The .380 is considered the smallest adequate round for personal protect. The .380 is actually the same diameter as a 9mm, but has a 17mm length opposed to the 19mm of the 9mm. However, the .380 is smallest enough to allow the pistol be operated on a simple blowback design. (Larger pistols have a locked breach, short recoil operation.) One driver of the increase in .380 guns is the increase in State laws allowing concealed carry have caused the market for compact pistols to explode.

The first group are very small, DAO (Double Action Only), carry 6+1 rounds, and look very similar: Kel-Tec P3-AT, Ruger LCP, Taurus 738 TCP, Kahr P380, S&W Bodyguard, Micro desert Eagle, and the North American Arms Guardian.

The differences: The S&W appears to be the only one with a safety, although safeties on DA guns are not needed. Micro Desert Eagle claims to have a gas assisted blowback which would reduce recoil.
The upsides of the group: This group of guns are very concealable and easy to carry.
The downsides: DAO needs some practice to get a handle on the triggger pull. Magazines with an extended grip are need to avoid the dreaded pinky hang.
Comments: The Ruger was subject to a recall because it could go off if dropped.

The second group are SA/DA. You can pull the trigger in double action for the first shot and the remaining shots are single action. Alternatively, you can cock the hammer for hte first shot. These include the Bersa Thunder 380, Walther PPK, and Sig P232. The new Walthers are made by S&W. The Bersa is the cheapest of the bunch and is made in Argentina.

The differences: The Bersa Thunder can carry 7+1 rounds. S&W appears to be the only one with a safety, although safeties on DA guns are not needed. Micro Desert Eagle claims to have a gas assisted blowback which would reduce recoil
The upsides: The longer barrels will result in a higher muzzle velocity. The larger size will also have less recoil
The downsides: The larger size makes them not quite as convenient to carry, or more difficult to carry in the summer when you are wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

The last gun is the Sig P238. It is small in size, but slightly larger than the DAO guns. It is based on the Colt Mustang (1986-1997) and is a SAO (Single Action Only), which is similar to the M1911 45 cal pistols. It has an aluminum frame and a stainless steel slide.

The upsides: Compact, well made. Lighter trigger pull.
The downsides: Safety is convenient for only right-handed shooters. Safeties can be something that get in the way if copious amounts of adrenaline are flowing through you. This can be mitigated through lots of practice.

There are other .380 guns on the market. I've excluded models that are so larger they should be 9mm, such as the Walther PK380. I've also excluded models made by a company with a low reputation, such as Hi-Point or Jimenez.

Overall impressions: All of these guns are probably considered acceptable, but they may vary in terms of misfired or stovepipe jams. I've been able to handle all of these at a gun show, but I've only been able to fire the P232. I like the P232, but its size can be an obstacle to carrying it on a regular basis. The Kahr is the most expensive of the DAO guns, but it does seem to be well made.

Manufacturer & Model	Length	Barrell	Width	Height	Weight	Trigger	Muzzle Velocity	Capacity	Cost
Kel-Tec P3AT	5.2"	2.75"	0.77"	3.5"	8.3 oz		819 fps	6+1	$250
Ruger LCP	5.16"	2.75"	0.82"	3.6"	9.4 oz	8 lbs	811 fps	6+1	$250
Taurus 738 TCP	5.25"	2.84"			10.2 oz		802 fps	6+1	$250
Kahr P380	4.9"	2.5"	0.75"	3.9"	10 oz	9 lbs	811 fps	6+1	$525
S&W Bodyguard	5.25"	2.75"			11.9 oz			6+1	$400
Micro Desert Eagle	4.5"	2.22"	0.9"	3.7"	14 oz			6+1	$450
NAA Guardian	4.75"	2.5"	0.93"	3.53"	18.7 oz	10 lbs		6+1	$400
Sig P232	6.6"	3.6"	1.2"	4.7"	17.6 oz	10/4.5 lbs	893 fps	7+1	$570
Bersa Thunder CC	6"	3.2"	1"	4.5"	16.4 oz			7+1	$280
Walther PPK	6.1"	3.35"	1"	4.3"	22.4 oz			7+1	$520
Sig P238	5.5"	2.7"	1.1"	3.9"	15.2 oz	7 lbs	798 fps	6+1	$550

Muzzle velocity is based on Winchester 95-grain FMJ bullet at 10 feet from muzzle.
Price is a competitive dealer price for a no-frills version.

The Michelle Bachmann Hit Job

2011-01-04T17:02:00.000-06:00

"and popular support for centrist compromise growing" - Really? The writer cites no statistics to back up this claim. The writer infers this support for compromise and then as a result, deems Bachmann a problem.
However, if voters are concerned with Republicans keeping campaign promises, then Bachmann will be a positive force.
Btw, there was never a Yahoo article "The Democrat's Alan Grayson problem" even though he was certifiably insane, and Yahoo has never called Chuck Shumer powered by media attention, although everyone knows that the most dangerous place in the world is to be between Chuck Shumer and a TV camera.

Slate via Yahoo: Michele Bachmann had a very good 2010, by most measures: She held on to her Minnesota congressional seat by a wide margin, raising more money than any other House Republican candidate along the way. She enjoyed more media attention than ever, beloved as she is by TV bookers for her willingness to be memorably bombastic and serve as a near parody of the far-right. (A recent Huffington Post roundup of Bachmann's "greatest hits" included her comparison of financial reform to fascism, a description of health care reform as enabling a "gangster government," and her conspiracy-minded refusal to fill out the census.) Her savviest move of the year, though, was turning her anti-tax rhetoric into Tea Party stardom and forming the Tea Party Caucus in the House, which made her into the gatekeeper for an important new voting bloc......

If Boehner's gratitude is nowhere to be seen, it is because Bachmann presents a particular headache for the GOP. The Tea Party helped propel Republicans into office by attacking Democrats; now, with the dirty work done and popular support for centrist compromise growing, wild cable TV statements are looking more like a liability. And Bachmann is Exhibit A. But by withholding from her the formal power she believes she has earned, the GOP has probably compounded the problem. As Bachmann's time in the Minnesota state senate made clear, rejection by party elders has a way of energizing her. If things had gone her way, Bachmann might have been tempted to move past Mama Grizzly extremism, but now, she'll be sticking with it. Boehner should have seen this coming.....

Instead, the steering committee slotted her for the House Intelligence Committee, a rather Machiavellian move: While on paper it's a prestigious assignment, the committee's workings are intrinsically hush-hush. As one observer told Politico, "If you're looking for media and controversy, that's not the committee to be on." That's particularly rough for Bachmann, powered as she is by media attention."

Social Security, Medicare, and Fuzzy Math

2010-12-30T15:41:00.000-06:00

The figures in the article are bull, because they ignore the time value of money. If you get $10 taxed from you at age 22, you cannot compare that to a $20 benefit received at age 65. That $10 would have grown to $54 at modest 4% interest. At a 4% interest, the medicare payments would be equivalent to $298K.
(I can recreate their $114,000 number by simply mulitplying 2.9% on $89,000 for 44 years, age 22-65.)

Social Security is a huge rip off. If that couple had social security in ultrasafe bonds earning a 4% interest rate, then they would have amassed $1.2 million, versus the $550K they will receive from the gov't. Coca-Cola, a very safe company, pays 4.875% on recent bonds.

AP: WASHINGTON – You paid your Medicare taxes all those years and think you deserve your money's worth: full benefits after you retire.

Nearly three out of five people say in a recent Associated Press-GfK poll that they paid into the system so their benefits shouldn't be cut.

But a newly updated financial analysis shows that what people paid into the system doesn't come close to covering the full value of the medical care they can expect to receive as retirees.

Consider an average-wage, two-earner couple together earning $89,000 a year. Upon retiring in 2011, they would have paid $114,000 in Medicare payroll taxes during their careers.

But they can expect to receive medical services — from prescriptions to hospital care — worth $355,000, or about three times what they put in.

The estimates by economists Eugene Steuerle and Stephanie Rennane of the Urban Institute think tank illustrate the huge disconnect between widely-held perceptions and the numbers behind Medicare's shaky financing. Although Americans are worried about Medicare's long-term solvency, few realize the size of the gap.
"The fact that you put money into the system doesn't mean it's there waiting for you to collect," said Steuerle.
By comparison, Social Security taxes and expected benefits come closer to balancing out.

The same hypothetical couple retiring in 2011 will have paid $614,000 in Social Security taxes, and can expect to collect $555,000 in benefits. They will have paid about 10 percent more into the system than they're likely to get back.

Many workers may believe their Medicare payroll taxes are going for their own insurance after they retiree, but the money is actually used to pay the bills of seniors currently on the program.

Republican Choices in 2012: None of the Above.

2010-12-20T16:41:00.000-06:00

Palin can't win. She's nice and I don't disagree with her on any major issues, but she isn't articulate and is too folksy. You can be folksy if you have serious experience, like Reagan, but not if your experience is in question.

Gingrich cheated on his wife plus promoted man-made global warming with Nancy Pelosi. He's a non-starter. If he can keep a promise to his wife before God, what makes us think he'll keep a promise to a voter?
Huckabee is a lightweight. It would be like running Dole again.

Romney would be the best if it wasn't for Romneycare, which is eerily similar to Obamacare, and is failing. He can say it was good in theory and has failed in implementation, but what big government program does not follow that same pattern?

Failures in Socialized Medicine

2010-12-06T08:26:00.000-06:00

Continuing to document stories, here are additional stories over the last two weeks:

Dec 3: One in five mothers left alone in labour as maternity care 'still letting down women'

Nov 29: NHS shamed by third-rate hospitals: Needless deaths and thousands of blunders exposed

Nov 22: Retired NHS care worker killed by stomach cancer despite 50 visits to hospital and GP

Nov 20: Woman, 26, died of DVT after being 'fobbed off' by nurse who relied too much on computerised guide

Read more:

Read more:

Failures in Socialized Medicine

2010-12-06T08:02:00.001-06:00

I see stories from the UK that highlight the failure of socialized medicine and like to post them because the US media won't. While the care was "free" (funded by taxes), the downside that is hard to quantify is the decline in quality.

These stories will continue and continue. They are a product of NHS being a monopoly. A decline in quality of service is a symptom of all monopolies.We all learn that corporate monopolies are bad, but we somehow think that government monopolies will be better.

The aggregate cost of healthcare can be cut if people just die quickly. The poor woman died at 44 and had no costly chemotherapy and hopsital stays because the doctors kept misdiagnosing her.

Daily Mail - A mother has died of stomach cancer after her GP and ten doctors failed to diagnose the disease. Angela Skeffington had reported classic stomach cancer symptoms since April but was not given a specialist CT scan until late August, when the disease was finally spotted. But by then the cancer had spread to her liver and lymph nodes and Mrs Skeffington, 44, from Birmingham was told she only had weeks to live.

The former warehouse worker had previously been misdiagnosed with anorexia, depression and period pain.
Her angry relatives have now attacked the NHS for failing to diagnose the cancer earlier. Her sister Christine Layton, 45, from Rugeley, West Midlands, said: 'Doctors tried giving Angela chemotherapy, but it was too late by then and didn't work. 'I know survival rates are not always very long, but my sister could still be here today if the doctors had listened to her. 'She may not have had a lifetime, but they could have given her more time with her children and grandchildren.' For five months, the grandmother-of-five claimed she complained of stabbing pains to the stomach, blood in her vomit and stools, plus a loss of appetite to her GP, Dr Atta Shah at the Khyber Surgery in Saltley, Birmingham, along with a further ten doctors during 12 visits to Heartlands Hospital A&E. Dr Shah had booked a referral to hospital for Mrs Skeffington in June, but she was still awaiting an appointment when she was diagnosed with cancer in August. Speaking after she was first diagnosed with terminal cancer, Mrs Skeffington, who lived with partner John, had said: 'I was made to feel like a nuisance by all the doctors. 'I was treated worse than an animal.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336057/Birmingham-mother-3-dies-11-doctors-fail-diagnose-stomach-cancer.html#ixzz17L6ajjSg

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336057/Birmingham-mother-3-dies-11-doctors-fail-diagnose-stomach-cancer.html#ixzz17L6Xehti

UK Gives a Big Payout to Terrorists

2010-11-18T21:02:00.000-06:00

I wonder if this settlement money is earmarked for attacks against the UK or if it will just go into a general fund?

Giving money to people actively trying to kill you, while your country is going bankrupt. In 100 years, historians aren't really going to need to do a whole of indepth analysis to determine why the Britian collapsed.
"

AP - LONDON – Britain's agreement to pay hefty settlements to former Guantanamo detainees who accused the government of complicity in their torture averts a protracted legal battle that could have compromised national security and disclosed sensitive U.S. intelligence.
The agreement, which came after months of legal wrangling, was a first official step toward distancing Britain from the interrogation tactics sanctioned by President George W. Bush during the U.S.-led war on terror.
The payout could prompt other former detainees to push for compensation in U.S. courts and elsewhere — even though Britain admitted no guilt.
Justice Secretary Ken Clark did not disclose the size of the settlement or who was involved, saying in his announcement to parliament Tuesday there was a binding confidentiality clause.
However, a British lawyer with knowledge of the terms told The Associated Press that at least seven former detainees — all British citizens or residents — would receive payments and one man would receive more than $1.6 million (1 million pounds).
British spies were not accused of torturing detainees themselves, but former detainees alleged that British security services violated international law by knowing about the abuse and doing nothing to stop it.
Speaking to the House of Commons, Clarke said the government had not admitted any "culpability" in the settlement and the plaintiffs had not withdrawn their allegations.
"The alternative to any payments made would have been protracted and extremely expensive litigation," Clarke said, adding that the government could not be certain it could "defend the security and intelligence agencies without compromising national security.""

Your Choice: Virtual strip search or Groping.

2010-11-18T14:06:00.001-06:00

Recently the TSA unveiled its new security procedures. If you are randomly selected you must go through the new enhanced scanner which can see through your clothes via x-rays or microwaves. The scanners are so detailed that they can tell if a man has been circumcized. If you don't like that, you can get an "enhanced pat-down" which involves the TSA worker feeling all parts of your body including your crotch.

I don't have time to write a flowing narrative on my thoughts, so I've providing it in bullet format.

I don't like being given the choice between low-tech molestation (aka groping aka enhanced pat-down) or high-tech molestation with a dose of radiation.
The TSA refuses to profile, which would be much more effective. Instead they put on security theater designed to fool people into thinking they were safe, while maintaining strict politcal correctness.
Randomly searching people when there is a discernable pattern present is not effective. A random search would be appropriate if previous terrorist attacks were commited by people with the following characteristics: a 4 year old girl, a 35 year old woman, a 80 year old woman, 40 year old male, and a 73 year old male in a wheelchair. Is that true? No. Terrorists have all been single males between 20 and 40. (You can't necessarily determine someone's religion necessarily by looking at them, so that is not even included).
Janet Napolitano blatently lies when she says that images are deleted immediately, because it's been news that 35,000 were found saved.
Janet Napolitano is snide when she says "people are free to other means of transportation if they don't want to be virtually strip searched or groped" (paraphrase of course). People aren't always free to choose any form of transportation. Some people have to travel to work. Some people have to fly for medical treatments. Some people find it difficult to visit family 2,000 miles away by driving. What is next? Can a city say, "We can search your house without a warrant. If you don't like it, you are free to live outside the city limits." When did the 4th amendment stop being applicable?
The Feds are reactionary. If terrorist hijack a plane with box cutters, they will ban box cutters, even though box cutters wouldn't be sufficent next time due to other passengers, an armed pilot, and a reinforced door.
The Feds refuse to enforce border protection. Drug cartels and who knows what are coming into the US through the southern border. It's like have a window locked tight, but leaving the front door open.
A lot of liberal groups that screamed when Bush was wiretapping phone calls to Yemen are surprisingly quiet when Obama's TSA goons are trying to frisk little girls. Why are liberals so willing to give up their rights when its a liberal making them do it?

For Reference, The 4th Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Revealing Cost of Trip May Endanger National Security

2010-11-05T21:08:00.000-05:00

Re: Obama's $200M/day trip to India

Obama denies it cost $200 million per day, but refuses to state what it does cost and cites "security concerns."

It's almost laughable excuse. Why would disclosing the cost of a trip to a ally be a security risk?

Additionally, it's apparently not a security risk to let us know that it didn't cost $200 M per day. However, indicating whether the price is higher or lower, is a security risk.

Obama borrows $200M per day from the Chinese to pay for his opulent trip while there is 10% unemployment here. Obama knows he's toast in 2012, so he's going to live like a King.

Next Up 2012 - The Senate Elections

2010-11-03T14:10:00.000-05:00

In the 2010 elections, Democrats had 18 Senate seats up for re-election, and about 10 were in play (Nevada, Colorado, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Arkansas, Pennsylavania,, Washington, West Virginia). They will lose 6-8 of them.Republicans had 19 Senate seats up for reelection and defended them all.

For 2012, Democrats have more seats up for reelection: 21, plus 2 independentst that caucus with the Democrats. I think 14 are in play (in blue) and 10 have higher potential (in bold)

Republicans, on the other hand, have only four seats in play (in red), only which 2 have a higher potential (in bold)

2012 Senate Elections Democratic incumbent elections

Dianne Feinstein of California
Tom Carper of Delaware
Bill Nelson of Florida
Daniel Akaka of Hawaii
Ben Cardin of Maryland
Debbie Stabenow of Michigan
Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota
Claire McCaskill of Missouri
Jon Tester of Montana
Ben Nelson of Nebraska
Bob Menendez of New Jersey
Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico
Kirsten Gillibrand of New York
Kent Conrad of North Dakota
Sherrod Brown of Ohio
Bob Casey, Jr. of Pennsylvania
Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island
Jim Webb of Virginia
Maria Cantwell of Washington
Joe Manchin of West Virginia
Herb Kohl of Wisconsin

Independent incumbent elections

Joe Lieberman of Connecticut
Bernie Sanders of Vermont

Republican incumbent elections

Jon Kyl of Arizona
Richard Lugar of Indiana
Olympia Snowe of Maine
Scott Brown of Massachusetts
Roger Wicker of Mississippi
John Ensign of Nevada
Bob Corker of Tennessee
Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas
Orrin Hatch of Utah
John Barrasso of Wyoming

Election Predictions

2010-11-02T17:01:00.000-05:00

First the semi-professionals:

Electoral-vote.com (run by a Democrat)
Senate: 51 Dem, 48 Rep, 1 Ind
House: 217 Rep, 201 Dem, 17 ties

Electionprojection.com (run by a Republican)
Senate: 49 Dem, 49 Rep, 1 Dem (+8 Rep)
House: 241 Rep, 194 Dem (+62 Rep)

For the Senate, Republicans are projected to pick up: Nevada, Colorado, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Arkansas, Pennsylavania,
Dems hold onto: Oregon, Washington, California, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New York (2), Vermont, Connecticut.

Me:
Senate: 51 Republicans
House: 255 Rep, 180 Dem

I think the turnout among Democrats is going to be low. Ancedotally, yesterday I posted "I've been looking forward to tomororow for a long time". All my friends that are Republicans knew what I was talking about. Friends that are liberals, asked, "What's tomorrow?"

In addition to the predictions by electionprojection, I think Republicans pick up two of three of the following: West Virginia, Washington, California.

Since polls only track about a third of the races that pundits have deemed competitive, I think there are several races which are not being considered in the equations. No pundit would have predicted the Scott Brown Senate win in Massachusetts, five months before he got elected. I think an additional 10-15 seats may break Republican.

It all may be wishful thinking, but I don't see a reason for Democrats to go to the polls.

Why ARE so many modern British career women converting to Islam?

2010-10-27T10:39:00.000-05:00

People instinctively know there is a God of some sorts. Career women are have inquisitive minds, so they are also seeking truth. They learn there is emptyness in debuachery. They also want structure from a faith. The Church of England has been saying "believe what you feel like" for the last several decades.

Muslims are aggressive in prostalytizing. When learning about Islam, these women hear about all good things. Of course, some women who marry Muslims get a rude awakening into the finer points of their new subservient role.

People are also converting to Catholicism, because the Catholic Church still stands for things and resists pressure from secularists to modify their belief system. Catholics are also moving Catholicism towards orthodoxy rather than the liberal Catholicism that was prevelent in the 1970s. Look at the surging interest in the old style (Tridentine) Mass.

Tony Blair’s sister-in-law announced her conversion to Islam last weekend. Journalist Lauren Booth embraced the faith after what she describes as a ‘holy experience’ in Iran.

She is just one of a growing number of modern British career women to do so. Here, writer EVE AHMED, who was raised as a Muslim before rejecting the faith, explores the reasons why.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1324039/Like-Lauren-Booth-ARE-modern-British-career-women-converting-Islam.html#ixzz13ZewuYsN

Predicting November 2nd.

2010-10-18T10:42:00.000-05:00

When looking at predictions for election, I think looking at the betting can be better than the polls. Intrade lets people bet on the election. Right now, the odds are 89% that the Republicans take the House. There is a 72% the Republicans will get 48 seats, but only 18% that they will get 51.

Of course, after the election, the media will circle the wagons. The media is already asking Democrats questions like, "how come you could not get your message out?" We've gotten the message. We don't like it.

After the 1994 election, the media talked about "angry white men." This time we will see a similar line of dialogue. Voters will be classified as either irrational, emotional, or impatient. Essentially, all voting was illogical.

Men Vs. Women Salary Differential Explained.

2010-10-07T08:02:00.000-05:00

This dumb statistic again. They try to use it to show some sort of systematic discrimination. All it is, is the average of all salaries.

If a man in West Virginia goes into the coal mines, and a woman answers telephones for the coal company, the man will make more. It's more dangerous, it's hot, it's dirty. There's compensation.

Show me a male and female college graduate in accounting who hire into the same firm, doing the same job, and get paid different salaries.

As careers progress, people make different choices. With lawyers, some men work 100 hours a week and make a lot of money. While some women do as well, more women choose to work 50 hours a week and make less money. This is a lifestyle choice, not discrimation.

ABC NEWS: In fact, from Alaska to Rhode Island, only women located in one place brought home more than the estimated $45,485 average median salary for men in all 50 states -- the District of Columbia, where women earned an estimated median salary of more than $54,000 in 2009.

While the women earners in D.C. trailed men in the same area by more than $7,000, the capital is likely to pay women 88 percent of the earnings of men -- a high percentage for the United States.

Yawn: New Spitzer / Parker show on CNN

2010-10-05T22:03:00.000-05:00

Spitzer has no credibility and poor ratings will show for it. Who wants to listen to commentary from a man who wrecked his family by sleeping with countless prostitutes?

And where supposed to listen to his commentary on Palin? She's a idiot? She didn't wreck her career over a fling like Spitzer. That's pretty idiotic.

All Spitzer will do is spout the party line. Look for Geitner to be sacked in a couple months. He will be the fall guy. It's the entire administration headed by Obama that is pushing bad economic policy after bad economic policy.

Parker is a pretend conservative. She's too interested in being liked by the Washington elite (read: liberal) that she doesn't have any true principles. She's not conservative enough for conservatives to watch and not liberal enough to bring in liberal viewers.

Failures in Socialized Medicine

2010-09-20T08:15:00.000-05:00

The understated problem with socialized medicine is that quality suffers.

Daily Mail: A brave mother found the strength to be at her son's first day of school before cancer claimed her life the following day.
In a final act of defiance against the disease, 31-year-old Gemma Hogg checked out of the hospice where she had gone to die to see four-year-old Thomas go to infant school.
She then returned to the hospice in Crawley, Sussex, and passed away a day later on Tuesday, September 7, surrounded by her family....

Her husband, an IT project manager, considered taking legal action against the NHS, for what he believes was a 'long summer of misdiagnosis' after a lump, initially discovered by his wife in around 2007, was dismissed as harmless breast tissue, then mastitis, and was later treated as a cyst.
It was only when Mrs Hogg paid to go private that the severity of her condition was discovered.....

Continued Media Bias

2010-08-27T22:15:00.000-05:00

Yahoo headline says "Glenn Beck lashes out at media portrayal"

More bias. "Lashing out" is what the media says about conservatives who respond to liberal accusations.

When liberals responds to conservative accusations, the media says that "Obama rebuffs..."

"Rebuff" is very clear headed and logical. "Lashing out" is done by people who are not in full control of their emotions.

Bill White & guns

2010-08-06T07:57:00.000-05:00

Just because Bill White owns a gun doesn't mean he is pro-gun. Ever hear of "do as I say, not as I do." Al Gore wants you to cut your carbon footprint but flies a private plane everywhere. Rosie O'Donnell, staunch gun control activist, -- her bodyguard carries a gun.

AUSTIN, Texas – If he were running for governor of New York, Democrat Bill White would probably be considered a pro-gun enthusiast. He's got a shotgun and a 9 mm pistol, opposes any new laws on firearms and says he'd like to sign up some day for a concealed weapons permit.

But this is Texas, where incumbent Rick Perry recently shot a coyote while out jogging and enjoys hunting deer with a bow and arrow. The love of weaponry is so ingrained in state culture that having a legal permit to carry a handgun will get you waved through the Texas Capitol security lines without going through a magnetometer.

Against that backdrop, the former Houston mayor heads into the 2010 governor's race playing defense on a powerful political issue. The biggest liability for White is his past membership in a New York-based gun control group. White says he resigned after finding its positions too restrictive, but his participation in Mayors Against Illegal Guns riled up those who live to preserve Texas' pro-gun culture.

"Anywhere in the civilized world you would be able to make the argument that everybody should be able to be against illegal guns. But we're not in the civilized word. We're in Texas," said Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson.

White only needs to look a few years back to find candidates who have lost campaigns over the issue. The last Democrat who was elected governor, Ann Richards, lost her re-election bid in 1994 in part after opposing concealed handgun legislation and vetoing a referendum on it.

George W. Bush signed the bill into law in his first year after defeating her to become governor....

Levi Johnston - As Predicted

2010-07-07T16:49:00.002-05:00

Last year, I predicted what would happen to Levi Johnston, naive baby-daddy to Bristol Palin, and today I was proven correct. (Trackback: Levi Johnston - use and discard)

He finally realized that the media used him to bash Palin, while Palin was probably someone who actually cared about him.

Producers probably told him about how bashing Palin would lead him to Hollywood career. Once his purpose was done, those producers who promised connections, didn't return his voicemails.

Then he probably realized what a mistake he made and who is real friends were. (Not the producers of the Tyra Banks show and the editors of Vogue).

Nonetheless, he was man enough to publically apologize, so good for him.

The former boyfriend of Sarah Palin's daughter has admitted telling lies about the Republican vice presidential candidate and her family.
Levi Johnston, 20, said in an online story that since his untrue statements were made in public, 'I owe it to the Palins to publicly apologise'.
It is unclear which statements he was referring to. In the past he has accused Sarah Palin of trying to adopt the child he had with her daughter Bristol so people would not know she had been pregnant.

Mr Johnston told People magazine: 'Last year, after Bristol and I broke up, I was unhappy and a little angry.
'Unfortunately, against my better judgement, I publicly said things about the Palins that were not completely true.
'I have already privately apologised to Todd and Sarah. Since my statements were made public, I owe it to the Palins to publicly apologise

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1292676/Levi-Johnston-apologises-untrue-Sarah-Palin-jibes-split-Bristol.html#ixzz0t2Hhtl00

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1292676/Levi-Johnston-apologises-untrue-Sarah-Palin-jibes-split-Bristol.html#ixzz0t2HbNlYJ

Will on Kagan

2010-06-28T16:22:00.002-05:00

George Will has proposed a list of questions that Kagan should be asked. I like the list and hopes that Senators use some. My favorite:

-- Can you name a human endeavor that Congress cannot regulate on the pretense that the endeavor affects interstate commerce? If courts reflexively defer to that congressional pretense, in what sense do we have limited government?

Lists here and here

More Bias (This time on guns)

2010-06-28T12:42:00.002-05:00

Headline AP: Justices extend gun owner rights nationwide

No, they affirmed gun owner rights. The headline as written implies that the rights were not there. Gun rights were already nationwide, just not in Chicago and some other places.

Media Bias Example

2010-06-27T20:39:00.003-05:00

So this is the headline from Yahoo:

Yahoo actually modifies it from the AP, which read "GOP senators: Can Kagan be impartial judge?"

Now if there was a Republican President and Kagan was a conservative, the headline would read perhaps:

1. Kagan faces tough questions of controversial stances.
2. Does Kagan's positions lack compassion?
3. Many Senators uneasy about Kagan's ability to be impartial

McChrystal Falls on his Sword?

2010-06-22T12:52:00.002-05:00

AP WASHINGTON – The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan was fighting for his job Tuesday after being summoned to Washington to explain a magazine profile that included derogatory comments about President Barack Obama and his colleagues.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Gen. Stanley McChrystal's comments were "distractions" to the war in Afghanistan.

McChrystal, who publicly apologized Tuesday for using "poor judgment" in an interview in Rolling Stone magazine, has been ordered to appear at the White House Wednesday, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

He'll be expected to explain his comments in the magazine's profile, titled "The Runaway General," to the president and top Pentagon officials, officials said.

One of the more intriguing analysis is here:

Big Government: The interview of General McChrystal and his in Rolling Stone was not an accident, it’s a perfect example of suicide by interview. The General knew that every criticism would be “on the record.” He also knew that the President will have no choice but to relieve the General of his command after their meeting tomorrow.

McChrystal is a Four-Star General, a position you do not achieve by being an idiot. Today’s military leadership is well schooled not only in war-making but in diplomacy. He knew what the content of the article would be. He also knew that the article would lead his own dismissal (or the proverbial resignation letter where he says he’s quitting to spend more time with his family).

The Rolling Stone interview highlights the difference in the leadership styles of the President and the General. When this President faces a crisis, he looks for someone either internally or externally to blame. On the other hand, the General sees the War in Afghanistan reaching a crisis point because of the way it is being waged, rather than looking to find a scapegoat in his ranks as Obama would do, McChrystal found a way to let the country know what is really happening, while at the same time redirect any criticism for the war effort, away from his men and on to his own wide shoulders.

.... The Military commander was sending his troops and the administration a message. To the troops he was saying ” I have your backs even to the point of hurting my own career.” The message for the administration was, “Your way isn’t working, let us do what is necessary to win this war. Even though this was a violation of the Code of Honor, the General’s statements were a service to America and to his men by confirming what we all suspected, the President and his administration does not have a clue.

Minerals in Afghanistan - No Good Outcome?

2010-06-14T07:25:00.004-05:00

I don't see how the discovery of minerals in Afghanistan has a good outcome for most of the people living there. Foreign companies will come in and setup all the mining operations and pay royalites to the current dictator in charge. They'll use that cash to extert control over the general population or export religious ideology across the globe. There is no undeveloped economy where the discovery of vast natural resources has benefited the general population. If the US leaves Afghanistan, there are four outcomes:

Possible Outcomes:

A Secular dictatorship - Strong man keeps wealth for himself. He's so dominant that there isn't much rival wars, but he's too busy with himself to bother exporting jihad.
A Saudi Arabia - nominally peaceful, but exports extremist Islam across the globe.
An Ivory Coast or Congo - an African diamond rich country full of internal bloodshed as people fight over minerals
An Afghanistan circa 2000, with tons of money - Actively recruits and trains jihadists and pretends to be an innocent peaceful country.

NY Times — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys.

The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.

While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war. ...

Obama and the Oil Spill

2010-06-08T19:02:00.003-05:00

Now that oil spill in the gulf has continued for over 50 days, there has been chatter about whether this is "Obama's Katrina" referring to the seemingly ineffectiveness of Bush in providing leadership during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

So is Obama to blame?

Can Obama propose the engineering solution to fix the leak? No, but he could do more than just leave it to BP. He could coordinate bringing in other experts, other companies, even BP's competitors. More importantly he could help lift the bureaucracy that is standing in the way of preventing environmental damage. There are twelve bureaucracies involved in the oil spill and they often get in they in the way. As the Chief Executive, he could get them out of the way!

Human Events: On May 11, [Louisiana Gov. Bobby] Jindal applied for 24 permits to create sand barriers for the coastal marshes; the administration did not respond until eight days later. Even worse, they waited for 15 days to approve just six of the permits, and to this day, BP has only funded one so far.

The government/BP reaction horror stories continue. Terrebonne Parish requested 180,000 feet of hard boom. The Coast Guard approved 90,000 feet, but, under BP orders, didn’t deploy it all, and the hard boom was left on the docks while the oil hit the beaches.

The Student Loan Debt Crisis for Worthless Degree Receipients

2010-06-02T10:28:00.004-05:00

For years, increases in university tuition have heavily outpaced salary growth. Mindless people have gone to college, taken out student loans in order to major in a degree than have little job prospects. Now we are supposed to feel sorry for them?

The primary driver of her problem is that she major in "women's studies", a degree with non-existent career options. So she spent $100K to get a degree than is essentially worthless. We've heard the term "worthless liberal arts degree", but now that comes at a heavy price.

I've had massive student loans, which could have easily hit $100K if I deferred it a few years. The big differential is that I majored in engineering and then business, degrees that offers job prospects. But before taking out the loans, I evaluated the cost of the degree against the benefits BEFORE going to school. And of course, while I was giving up weekends and nights to study, I'm sure she was out on the town.

Here's the story [with my comments in brackets]

NY Times: Today, however, Ms. Munna, a 26-year-old graduate of New York University, has nearly $100,000 in student loan debt from her four years in college, and affording the full monthly payments would be a struggle. For much of the time since her 2005 graduation, she's been enrolled in night school, which allows her to defer loan payments.

This is not a long-term solution, because the interest on the loans continues to pile up. [Yeah, and 8% interest on $97,000 is about $650 per month! It's a car payment just to keep the status quo]. So in an eerie echo of the mortgage crisis, tens of thousands of people like Ms. Munna are facing a reckoning. They and their families made borrowing decisions based more on emotion than reason, much as subprime borrowers assumed the value of their houses would always go up.
Meanwhile, universities like N.Y.U. enrolled students without asking many questions about whether they could afford a $50,000 annual tuition bill. Then the colleges introduced the students to lenders who underwrote big loans without any idea of what the students might earn someday — just like the mortgage lenders who didn't ask borrowers to verify their incomes

Ms. Munna does not want to walk away from her loans in the same way many mortgage holders are. [Awfully nice of her]. It would be difficult in any event because federal bankruptcy law makes it nearly impossible to discharge student loan debts. But unless she manages to improve her income quickly, she doesn't have a lot of good options for digging out. [Things she should have thought of yesterday].

It is utterly depressing that there are so many people like her facing decades of payments, limited capacity to buy a home and a debt burden that can repel potential life partners. For starters, it's a shared failure of parenting and loan underwriting. [Why is a failure of loan underwriting if they can't discharge the loan with bankruptcy?]

But perhaps the biggest share lies with colleges and universities because they have the most knowledge of the financial aid process. And I would argue that they had an obligation to counsel students like Ms. Munna, who got in too far over their heads.

How many people are like her? According to the College Board's Trends in Student Aid study, 10 percent of people who graduated in 2007-8 with student loans had borrowed $40,000 or more. The median debt for bachelor's degree recipients who borrowed while attending private, nonprofit colleges was $22,380.

The Project on Student Debt, a research and advocacy organization in Oakland, Calif., used federal data to estimate that 206,000 people graduated from college (including many from for-profit universities) with more than $40,000 in student loan debt in that same period. That's a ninefold increase over the number of people in 1996, using 2008 dollars. [The big question is why has university tuition increases doubled or tripled inflation year after year.]

The Family

No one forces borrowers to take out these loans, and Ms. Munna and her mother, Cathryn, have spent the years since her graduation trying to understand where they went wrong. [You took out too much money]. Ms. Munna's father died when she was 13, after a series of illnesses.

She started college at age 17 and borrowed as much money as she could under the federal loan program. To make up the difference between her grants and work study money and the total cost of attending, her mother co-signed two private loans with Sallie Mae totaling about $20,000. [Mama should have checked her degree].

When they applied for a third loan, however, Sallie Mae rejected the application, citing Cathryn's credit history. She had returned to college herself to finish her bachelor's degree and was also borrowing money. N.Y.U. suggested a federal Plus loan for parents, but that would have required immediate payments, something the mother couldn't afford. So before Cortney's junior year, N.Y.U. recommended that she apply for a private student loan on her own with Citibank.

Over the course of the next two years, starting when she was still a teenager, she borrowed about $40,000 from Citibank without thinking much about how she would pay it back. How could her mother have let her run up that debt, and why didn't she try to make her daughter transfer to, say, the best school in the much cheaper state university system in New York? "All I could see was college, and a good college and how proud I was of her," Cathryn said. "All we needed to do was get this education and get the good job. This is the thing that eats away at me, the naïveté on my part."

But Cortney resists the idea that this is a tale of bad parenting. "To me, it would be an uncharitable reading," she said. "My mother has tried her best, and I don't blame her for anything in this."

The Lender

Sallie Mae gets a pass here, in my view. A responsible grownup co-signed for its loans to the Munnas, and the company eventually cut them off.

But what was Citi thinking, handing over $40,000 to an undergraduate who had already amassed debt well into the five figures? This was, in effect, a "no doc" or at least a "low doc" subprime mortgage loan. [Not really. A buyer could walk away from a house and mortgage debt in bankruptcy. If the lender can't walk away from student loan debt, why would a bank hesitate giving a loan.]

A Citi spokesman declined to comment, even though Ms. Munna was willing to sign a waiver giving Citi permission to talk about her loans. Perhaps the bank worried that once it approved one loan, cutting her off would have led her to drop out or transfer and have trouble paying back the loan.

Today, someone like Ms. Munna might not qualify for the $40,000 she borrowed. But as the economy rebounds, there is little doubt that plenty of lenders will step forward to roll the dice on desperate students, especially because the students generally can't get rid of the debt in bankruptcy court.

The University

The financial aid office often has the best picture of what students like Ms. Munna are up abbgainst, because they see their families' financial situation splayed out on the federal financial aid form. So why didn't N.Y.U. tell Ms. Munna that she simply did not belong there once she'd passed, say, $60,000 in total debt?

"Had somebody called me and said, 'Do you have a clue where this is all headed?', it would have been a slap in the face, but a slap in the face that I needed," said Cathryn Munna. "When financial aid told her that they could get her $2,000 more in loans, they should have been saying 'You are in deep doo-doo, little girl.' " [Come on, you're a big girl. It's always someone else's fault]

That's not a role that the university wants to take on, though. "I think that would be completely inappropriate," said Randall Deike, the vice president of enrollment management for N.Y.U., who oversees admissions and financial aid. "Some families will do whatever it takes for their son or daughter to be not just at N.Y.U., but any first-choice college. I'm not sure that's always the best decision, but it's one that they really have to make themselves."

The complications here go well beyond the propriety of suggesting that a student enroll elsewhere. Colleges don't always know how much debt its students are taking on, which makes it hard to offer good counsel. (N.Y.U. does appear to have known about all of Ms. Munna's loans, though.)

Then there's a branding problem. Urging students to attend a cheaper college or leave altogether suggests a lack of confidence about the earning potential of alumni. Nobody wants to admit that. And once a university starts encouraging middle-class students to go elsewhere, it must fill its classes with more children of the wealthy and a much smaller number of low-income students to whom it can afford to offer enormous scholarships. That's hardly an ideal outcome either.

Finally, universities exist to enroll students, not turn them away. "Aid administrators want to keep their jobs," said Joan H. Crissman, interim president and chief executive of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. "If the administration finds out that you're encouraging students to go to a cheaper school just because you don't think they can handle the debt load, I don't think that's going to mesh very well." [Actually the big issues is that if NYU and other colleges with a big liberal arts program would be comitting harikari if they started telling their students, "How are you going to pay back these student loans with this worthless degree that will never net you any higher salary than your high school diploma alone. ]

That doesn't change the fact, however, that the financial aid office is still in the best position to see trouble coming and do something to stop it. University officials should take on this obligation, even if they aren't willing to advise students to attend another college.

Instead, they might deputize a gang of M.B.A. candidates or alumni in the financial services industry to offer free financial planning to admitted students and their families. Mr. Deike also noted that the bigger problem here is one of financial literacy. Fine. He and N.Y.U. are in a great position to solve for that by making every financial aid recipient take a financial planning class. The students could even use their families as the case study.

The Options

The balance on Cortney Munna's loans is about $97,000, including all of her federal loans and her private debt from Sallie Mae and Citibank. What are her options for digging out?

Her mother can't help without selling her bed and breakfast, and then she'd have no home. She could take her daughter in, but there aren't good ways for her to earn a living in Alexandria Bay, in upstate New York.

Cortney could move someplace cheaper than her current home city of San Francisco, but she worries about her job prospects, even with her N.Y.U. diploma. [It's a worthless NYU diploma]

She recently received a raise and now makes $22 an hour working for a photographer. It's the highest salary she's earned since graduating with an interdisciplinary degree in religious and women's studies. [Finally the article gets to the core of the problem. I see she isn't using her degree. What kind of job did she expect with women's study degree? It's not like you got a degree in construction and are having a tough time finding a job given the economic environment. She never stood a chance of getting a job in any economy. What was her rationale? Students will have to learn the cost and benefit of majors. Perhaps perspective students will think twice about majoring in "women's studies" in the future.After taxes, she takes home about $2,300 a month. Rent runs $750, and the full monthly payments on her student loans would be about $700 if they weren't being deferred, which would not leave a lot left over. [And interest keeps accruing. Is she waiting for a bailout?]

She may finally be earning enough to barely scrape by while still making the payments for the first time since she graduated, at least until interest rates rise and the payments on her loans with variable rates spiral up. And while her job requires her to work nights and weekends sometimes, she probably should find a flexible second job to try to bring in a few extra hundred dollars a month.

Ms. Munna understands this tough love, buck up, buckle-down advice. But she also badly wants to call a do-over on the last decade. "I don't want to spend the rest of my life slaving away to pay for an education I got for four years and would happily give back," she said. "It feels wrong to me." [It is wrong to have spent a lot of money on a worthless degree.]

U.S. Government Anti-Piracy Tactic Manual

2010-05-30T09:17:00.003-05:00

US Government Anti-Piracy Tactic Manual

Increased levels of piracy in East Africa are largely being driven by African-Somolians who face economic hardship at home and racial discrimination abroad. Some of the drivers of the rate they turn to piracy have been the lack of US action to pass legislation to combat global warming, the Arizona immigration law, the increasing gap between rich and poor in America, golden parachutes for bank executives on Wall Street, and the lack of full and equal civil rights for the LBGT community in the United States.

Piracy in East Africa and the world abroad is expected to be completely eliminated on August 25, 2010 as the IMO's "High Seas Gun Control Act" goes into effect the same day. The new IMO regulation bans all handguns and assault rifles on the high seas unless you are a member of the military and have registered with the United Nations.

Until then, it is advised to continue practicing the approved U.S. government anti-piracy tactics. The economic hardship pirates have faced means outreach is more important than ever. While the US policy has been that the US is for the pirates, but against the piracy, the words "piracy" and "pirates" is divisive and can lead to discrimination. They will be hence-fore replaced with "compulsory redistribution" and "economic equalizers"

If approached by a pirate ship, stop your ship immediately and welcome them for they are hungry and lack money for basic necessities like food, water, and affordable housing. If you surrender quickly, the pirates won't be as mad at you. It is also advised for you to quickly convert to Islam if requested by your new guests, so as not to harm their self-esteem. Have a travel bag ready, because they may insist that you take an extended vacation in Somolia while some haggling over the future of your former ship takes place.

No government healthcare?

2010-05-18T16:35:00.001-05:00

I thought the Democrats told us there was no government healthcare in the Obamacare bill?

VPR: "If you're sick - or have ever been sick - and can't get insurance, the new health-care law promises fast relief: access to guaranteed coverage through a special federally funded insurance program starting in July. The goal is to provide comprehensive and affordable coverage to more people."

On the Shroud of Turin

2010-05-14T15:48:00.004-05:00

The Pope visited the Shroud of Turin, as it is on display for the first time since 2002, so it's been in the news.

The basic evidence that Shroud is real.

Biblical account of the crucifixion are verified: There is wounds from the crown of thorns, the spear, and the scourging. There are nail marks in the wrists and feet. The legs are not broken.
The cloth is a very expensive cloth for the time. This lines up with the Biblical account of Joseph of Aramathea who purchased an expensive cloth.
Pollen fibers in the cloth are local to Israel.
There is no paint.

I can provide the validity of the shroud by being able to disprove the arguments against it.

The most popular argument against it is that it is a medieval hoax by an accomplished artist. This is the most popular, driven by that records of its existance prior to to the mid 14th century is unclear and a 1988 carbon dating test placed in in the 13th century.

The most compelling argument against the hoax theory is simple logic:

I'm supposed to believe a hoaxer in the middle ages created an magnificent fake that wouldn't really be visible for another 500+ years by technology unknown at the time?
Im supposed to belive that this hoaxer want to make a very faint image such that it would attract little attention. What kind of hoax is that? Remember the Shroud's prominence only really grew after it was first photographed and revealed to be a negative.
I'm also supposed to believe the 13th century hoaxer also used some other method creating a faint image instead of paint because he knew that paint could be identified by scientific testing in 500+ years.

The other theory is that it is another man that was crucified, not Christ. However there are two major arguments against that:

The crown of thorns was not a common practice. It was unique to Jesus due to being mocked as a king.
While common criminals were crucified, the were not buried in expensive burial cloths.

So if it isn't a fake and it isn't someone else from the time period, who else could it be?

I believe God put evidence out there for people to believe, and I think it is keeping with his style to not make the evidence irrefutable. Jesus certainly provided evidence to His divinity when he was on Earth through discrete miracles, but His works were done in such away that an active unbeliever could convince himself that Jesus was not the Christ.

The evidence in the Shroud is strong enough to help believers solidify their faith yet he leaves out that definitive proof so people who don't want to believe can find an out. He's given everyone evidence just as he presented himself to "Doubting" Thomas.

If you believe that the Shroud is real, then you must believe Christ is real, and everything he said is real too.

Arizona's New Immigration Law

2010-05-12T09:17:00.002-05:00

Arizona's new law that makes it a crime to be in the state illegally and allows police to check citizenship at traffic stops and in arrests. Liberals have been up in arms that it is "racist" and will promote "racial profiling."

Democrats pander to illegals because they want to add 30 million voters who can be swayed by the Democrats efforts to give away other people's money.

Establishment Republicans think they can win the support of "Hispanics" by giving amnesty. Why would legal Hispanic immigrants have a lovefest for illegals who "cut the line?" It's a stupid play in identity politics.

Mexico's Calderon doesn't like the Arizona law, but has he looked at Mexico's laws and they way they treat their illegals from Central America?

Obamacare is going to force us to prove to the IRS that we have health insurance. Why is it so unreasonable to prove citizenship (via a drivers license) if pulled over? We need a drivers license to drive anyway.

Every politicans who opposes the Arizona law should be required to move their summer house from the Hamptons to the border. They are out of touch with reality.

Aborting Girls in India

2010-05-11T13:35:00.002-05:00

Daily Mail - It is difficult for those of white British origins, who come from a culture where the safe arrival of a healthy baby girl is a cause for celebration, to understand the deep-rooted commitment of British Indian families to what has become known as 'son preference'.
You have to travel to India itself to even try to understand it. For it is only there that you begin to grasp the extraordinary paradox that is modern India.
On the one hand, you have one of the most vibrant and fast-growing economies in the world; on the other, you have a deeply patriarchal society, where women are not just seen as second-class citizens but as potentially ruinous economic liabilities, too.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1276902/Britains-hidden-gendercide-How-Britains-Asians-copying-Indian-cousins-aborting-girls.html#ixzz0neEoJimX

More proof that not all cultures are equal, yet we are taught multiculturism ad nauseum. Britian and the Western culture have been relentlessly criticized for decades. Few in Britian are even proud of their heritage. They self-flagilate themselves over colonialism and revere third world countries as being noble.

Honor killings in Islam, aborting girls in India, and leaving infant girls out to die in Atheist China are just the tip of the iceberg. Slavery still exists in parts of Africa and the Middle East. Ethnic genocide is rampant in other parts of Africa and south Asia. Mortality rate of Chinese construction workers is extremely high because human life is not valued.

What made the West different had been Christianity. Now that many in Britian have lost their faith, it won't be long before they are doing the same. The British and others in the West are aghast that girls are aborted because girls and have been deemend inconvienent, but are many Westerners much different?

In the West babies are aborted becuase:
--- a test says they may not be physically perfect
--- people don't want to take responsibility for their actions.
--- they are inconvienent --- they get in the way of their lifestyle.

Before we look down on Indians for aborting baby girls, we should hang our heads in shame because we abort babies that aren't deemed perfect or are deemed inconvienent.

Fuzzy Math for Stay-At-Home Salaries

2010-05-05T13:48:00.004-05:00

NEEDHAM, MA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 05/05/10 -- Salary.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: SLRY) announced today the results of its annual Mom Salary Survey. For 2010, Salary.com determined that the time mothers spend performing the 10 most popular "mom job functions" would equate to an annual cash compensation of US$117,856 for a Stay-at-Home Mom. Working Moms would earn US$71,860 above their regular salary for their mom duties....

The job titles that best matched a mom's definition of her work in both countries are: laundry machine operator, janitor, van driver, computer operator, housekeeper, day care center teacher, cook, chief executive officer, psychologist, and facilities manager. The salary benchmarks for these jobs are based on salaries for a small company, as company size is a key factor that affects pay.

According to the Salary.com survey, the working mom puts in more than 96 hours a week when you combine her full-time job, mom hours, and mom overtime -- an increase of four hours from last year....

This is the stupidest thing I have to read every year. The value of something, when unknown, can be defined by the cost of alternatives. I could hire a full time nanny AND a maid for well less than their $117K figure. If stay-at-home Mom's would have such a high salary, then people that substitute for their duties would be paid more.

The value of raising your children to be good responsible adults is invaluable. No one needs outside valadition for the work they do by trying to valuate their job.

Is the US Going to the Greek?

2010-04-28T09:49:00.002-05:00

Let's recap:

1. Greece spend public money frivulously.
2 .Raised taxes on "the rich" (code for everyone)
3. Economy suffered and tax revenue fell
4. Now Greece can't pay back loans

Where is the US on this list? Why is it that the worst states economically (California, Michigan, etc) are the ones that the Democrats and the unions have controlled? Why do we want to repeat these failed policies on a national scale?

Red States are Actually in the Black

2010-04-19T15:54:00.002-05:00

Missing from the article is the mention of the lack of unions and low taxes. The lack of unions helped maintain a competitve cost of labor and allows companies to fire people when needed. Companies that can't fire people, are hesitant about hiring them.

Also not mentioned is lack of land use restriction laws. California has land, you just can't build on it because you might disturb the natural habitat of the spotted earthworm. Thus housing supply is artifically constrained.

While less strict zoning was mentioned as a driver of Texas missing the housing bubble, it is liberals that always push for zoning. Texas companies could turn an old commercial property into residential housing units without having to bribe government officials or deal with massive bureaucracy.

Credit was given to Texas's natural resources, but other states have their own natural resources. The residents just can't use it. How many jobs are lost in California because they can't drill off the coast?

Why is it that the blue states are the ones doing poorly economically? Why would we want to export those failed policies onto a national scale?

Lone Star - Why Texas is doing so much better economically than the
rest of the nation. (Daniel Gross - Slate)

On several measures of economic stress, Texas is doing quite well. The state unemployment rate is 8.2 percent—high, but still one many states would envy. (California's is 12.5 percent; Michigan's is 14.1 percent.) It entered recession later than the rest of the country—Texas was adding jobs through August 2008—and started slowly adding jobs again last fall, thanks mostly to its great position in the largely recession-proof energy industry....
The Texas housing market also has fared better than many. The mortgage delinquency rate (the portion of borrowers three months behind on payments) is 5.78 percent, compared with 8.78 nationwide, according to First American CoreLogic. That's partly because relaxed zoning codes and abundant land kept both price appreciation and speculation down....

As it has for decades, energy is driving Texas' economy. In recent years,
natural gas has been undergoing a renaissance.....

The state has its own electricity grid, which is not connected to neighboring states. That has allowed it to move swiftly and decisively in deregulating power markets, building new transmission lines, and pursuing alternative sources.

Manufactured goods like electronics, chemicals, and machinery account for a bigger chunk of Texas' exports than petroleum does.

Freeloading - The New American Dream?

2010-04-07T15:45:00.003-05:00

As the percentage of people who don't pay any income tax increases, look for the demand for government services to increase. If people get benefits paid for by others, why not vote in further benefits.

This spells disaster in the long run as deficits are unsustainable. Increasing the tax burden on "the rich" will further reduce the amount of money they have to buy things. When the rich buy boats, the boats are built by those who are not rich.

Democrats want the control and power of taking an ever-increasing share of people's money and then allocating it as they see fit. Part of it can go to fund "community outreach groups" which are shell organizations to recruit voters for Democrats.

History dictates that this will cause economic decline.

Nearly half of US households escape fed income tax– AP- Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it's simply somebody else's problem. About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That's according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization....

The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education. It is a system in which the top 10 percent of earners — households making an average of $366,400 in 2006 — paid about 73 percent of the income taxes collected by the federal government.
The bottom 40 percent, on average, make a profit from the federal income tax, meaning they get more money in tax credits than they would otherwise owe in taxes. For those people, the government sends them a payment. "We have 50 percent of people who are getting something for nothing," said Curtis Dubay, senior tax policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
The vast majority of people who escape federal income taxes still pay other taxes, including federal payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare, and excise taxes on gasoline, aviation,alcohol and cigarettes. Many also pay state or local taxes on sales, income and property....

Obama has pushed tax cuts for low- and middle-income families and tax increases for the wealthy, arguing that wealthier taxpayers fared well in the past decade, so it's time to pay up. The nation's wealthiest taxpayers did get big tax breaks under Bush, with the top marginal tax rate reduced from 39.6 percent to 35 percent, and the second-highest rate reduced from 36 percent to 33 percent.
But income tax rates were lowered at every income level. The changes made it relatively easy for families of four making $50,000 to eliminate their income tax liability.
Here's how they did it, according to Deloitte Tax:
The family was entitled to a standard deduction of $11,400 and four personal exemptions of $3,650 apiece, leaving a taxable income of $24,000. The federal income tax on $24,000 is $2,769. With two children younger than 17, the family qualified for two $1,000 child tax credits. Its Making Work Pay credit was $800 because the parents were married filing jointly. The $2,800 in credits exceeds the $2,769 in taxes, so the family makes a $31 profit from the federal income tax. That ought to take the sting out of April 15.

Democrats' November chances

2010-04-02T10:11:00.002-05:00

Time thinks the Democrats should be worried for five reasons:

1. Michael Steele - Says he makes gaffes and the result of the incident
with the staffer blowing RNC money at nightclub 2. Fundraising - RNC hasn't raised as much money as in 1994
3. Tea Parties - Says there's a disconnect between the tea party GOP
candidate and the establishment GOP candidate and that will hurt them. Also references the loss of House seat in upstate NY where there was essentially a very liberal Republican and a conservative running against a Democrat.
4. Who's the Leader? - No Newt
5. Legislative Wins - Democrats have had legislative wins
unlike 1994.

My Take:

1. The RNC may be hurt by scandal, but donors will just give money to candidates directly. I don't see how aggregate funding of candidates is hurt

2. Today its easier ability to donate directly to a candidate via the web. I think people are preferring to do that, especially the small donor.

3. Times assumes that the "tea party" candidate is not a Republican. Charlie Crist is typical of the establishment Republican that can win an election, but often votes for government expansion. Marco Rubio is a Republican and will win Florida. The NY state election was a one-off incident based on the extreme liberal views of the Republican candidate and the late entry of the Conservative candidate.

4. There is a bit of a leadership void, but there are some candidates that may jump in such as Eric Cantor or Paul Ryan. Anger at the Democrats alone will win several seats, but Republicans do need a clear action plan, like the contract. They need to clearly state how they will dial back government overreach, instead of just being the slow road to socialism instead of the fast road.

5. Just because Democrats passed something, that won't help them. People are angry with the Democrats forcing healthcare bill despite huge opposition. The Dems can't hook people onto benefits since they dont' start until 2014.

The Fall of Detriot

2010-03-31T17:16:00.002-05:00

Time: "Detriot's Beautiful Horrible Decline. Two French photographers immortalize the remains of the motor city on film"

Beautiful, but sad photos.

It is a stark reminder of the long-term effect of corrupt unions, taxes, and heavy regulation on business. Companies either moved out of state, move out of country, or went out of business.

If companies priced in the cost of taxes, regulation, unions, they would not be competitive with products made in Tennessee. Why would a consumer buy the widget made in Detriot for $100, when he could buy the one made in Tennesse for $80?

Even if they could lower prices and break-even, investors would flee. Who's going to invest in a company whose projected rate of return in 0%, when safe T-bills pays at least 4%? How would they raise capital or get loans?

2010-03-26T05:37:00.002-05:00

The media is still in the tank for Democrats. Here's the headline off Yahoo from the AP:

Senate Republican holds up jobless benefits
WASHINGTON – As Congress raced to leave Washington for its Easter recess, a Republican senator blocked a stopgap bill to extend jobless benefits, saying its $9 billion cost should not be added to the national debt.
As a result, some people who have been out of work for more than six months will at least temporarily lose benefits. Newly jobless people won't be eligible to sign up for generous health insurance subsidies.

At the center of the battle is Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who's insisting that the measure be "paid for" so as not to add to the nation's $12.7 trillion debt.

"What we are doing is stealing future opportunity from our children," Coburn said Thursday.

Republicans offered legislation to finance the monthlong extension of jobless benefits by rescinding unspent money from last year's economic stimulus bill. The effort was killed on a party-line vote.

All Coburn wants to do is to have the benefits paid for. Here's how it should read: Senate Democrats Refuse to Fund Benefits Plan

Thoughts on Health Care "Reform"

2010-03-21T16:15:00.007-05:00

Where to begin?

First off, my general feeling is that is a big step towards socialized medicine... where government decides who gets covered, medical advances cease, waits for surgery increase, and taxes skyrocket.

With passage of the law, people will have to buy health insurance or pay a fine to the government. At the same time, insurers can't deny people with pre-existing conditions. The fine is much less than the cost of healthcare insurance. What's the downside for someone to pay then fine and then get insurance once they get sick. Insurance works by people paying a small premium to offset the risk that they would need to cover large expenses. You can't call an auto insurance after you get in an accident or get homeowners insurance after your house burns down. Insurance rosters will be made up of a greater percentage of sick people than they have been. As a result, insurance companies will have raise premiums faster than before the law.

Is this naivete on the part of Pelosi and Obama or is it designed to collapse the healthcare insurance companies? If a law was passed that prevents the insurance companies from fiscally surviving, then the government can step in a take them over.

Bart Stupak caved and got his 30 pieces of silver. He got a face saving "executive order" to implement the Hyde Amendment, but it won't trump law.

Stupak and Abortion

2010-03-18T09:59:00.002-05:00

The Hill: "Leading a revolt against President Barack Obama’s healthcare legislation over abortion has been a “living hell” for Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.)."

In 50 or 100 years, abortion will be viewed as slavery is today. Those who supported abortion will be viewed as monsters and their legacy will have a big stain on it. Those who bucked the status quo and fought for life, will be hereos.

William Wilberforce wasn't widely lauded in his day.

2010 Census = 17 choices for race plus one for "white"

2010-03-15T19:43:00.003-05:00

The Census wants to know three things

1. Name
2. Age
3. Race

Under Race

Mexican, Chicano
Puerto Rican
Cuban
Other Hispanic - with space to input the specific origin
Black, African American
American Indian or Alaskan Native
Asian Indian
Chinese
Fillipino
Japanese
Korean
Vietnamese
Native Hawaiian
Guamanian or Chamorro
Samoan
Other Pacific Islander - with space to input the specific origin
Other Asian - with space to input the specific origin
White

So white people get lumped into one category without distinct. My suggestions:

Anglo-Saxon,
Mediterranean,
Scandinavian,
Gaulic,
Slavic,
Other Caucasian

Thoughts on Recent Political Events

2010-01-20T12:55:00.004-06:00

Yeah for Massachussetes - In 2008, voters favored Obama 62%-36% and favored Kerry in the Senate 66%-31%, spreads of 26% and 35%. Last night, Scott Brown beat Martha Coakley 52% - 47%. Obama and Pelosi's teams are blaming Coakley as a candidate. Sorry, although she said a couple dumb things and ran a poor campaign, that won't cause swings of 31-40%.

Democrats won't get the message. I thought attitudes of moderate Democrats would change after Democrats got trounced in the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia. If Jon Corzine couldn't win re-election in a blue state that he's won twice, any Democratic seat in Arkansas, Montana, or North Dakota would be in serious jeopardy. No one flinched and the healthcare votes continued.

Doesn't Ben Nelson look stupid? - He sells out his re-election chances for the healthcare bill that won't pass now because Scott Brown won.

Why should voters believe Obama's promises on healthcare - "You'll be able to keep your doctor", etc. If Obama can't keep promises on things he can directly control (airing debates on C-Span, posting bills on-line for five days), why should anyone believe his promises on the effect of the healthcare plan?

Photographer Loses Bid to Refuse Same-Sex Wedding Jobs

2010-01-10T20:13:00.001-06:00

Photo District News: A New Mexico wedding photographer who refused on freedom of speech and religion grounds to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony in 2006 has lost her anti-discrimination appeal.

Photograph Elaine Huguenin was challenging a 2008 ruling by New Mexico's Human Rights Commission(NMHRC). Last month, a state court judge affirmed the commission's finding that Huguenin had violated New Mexico's Human Rights Act by discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.

The case arose after Vanessa Willock of Albuquerque contacted Huguenin's business, Elane Photography, about photographing her commitment ceremony. Elaine Huguenin told Willock by e-mail "we do not photograph same-sex weddings," but gave no explanation.

The next day, Willock's partner, Misty Pascottini, asked Elane Photography via e-mail if the studio would photograph her wedding in Ruidoso, New Mexico. Pascottini didn't identify herself as Willock's partner. Huguenin responded that she would be willing to travel to photograph Pascottini's wedding, and sent her pricing information.

Willock filed a discrimination claim in December 2006 with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission. She sought attorney's fees, but no other damages. The NMHRC finally heard Willock's claim in January 2008, and handed down its decision against Elane Photography in April, 2008.

Under the state's Human Rights Act, it is discriminatory (and illegal) for "any person in any public accommodation to make a distinction in offering or refusing to offer its services" on the bases of race, religion, color, sex, sexual orientation and several other factors.

This case has provoked a lot of debate in the photographic community. Most it comes down to political views. Should the photographer have a right not to photograph an event that she objects to on religious grounds? Does her 1st amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion supersede the civil law.

Here are some common talking points and my responses:

She wasn't asked to change her views, just to photograph the event:
If a religion doesn't think homosexuality is kosher, then photographing a gay wedding would be involving yourself in a "scandolous activity" and wouldn't be kosher either. Forcing someone by law to violate their religious principles isn't the basis of a just society.

Would you make a Hindu photograph cows being slaughtered?
Would you make a Muslim photograph a pork eating contest?
Would you make atheist photograph a Christian baptism?
Should laws force a Orhtodox Jewish photographer to work on the Sabbath?

It's the law and she should have followed the law:

Should have Rosa Parks just went at sat in the back of the bus because it was Alabama law?

Non-religious people are going to say that the Christian photographer should be forced to photograph the ceremony because of the existing civil law. Civil law is the only law they know, so I don't see why they would argue anything else.

Religious people also have religious law, which they feel trumps civil law and are sometimes think that religious law first. While these don't often clash, there may be more cases like this come up. (Catholic doctors being forced to perform abortions is another issue)

Should a medical doctor being allowed to decline services to a black person?
Equating being forced to photograph a gay union and not providing emergency medical care to a person of a different skin color is a complete red herring. To begin, it's not a life and death situation. I do think that a doctor has a right to refuse to do an abortion or a sex change.

What specifically do you disagree with the Court's ruling:
The Court said that she wasn't required to participate in the ceremony, just photograph it. As such, that shouldn't violate her religious views (page 12). I think that they have taken a very narrow view of participation. I think photographing a ceremony has a sufficient degree of participation in it.

She can't deny services based on sexual orientation:
The photographer is objecting, on established religious grounds, to the action being performed, not the people involved. Remember, the photographer didn't deny any services to the lesbians, they declined photographing the event. If the straight mother-of-the-bride would have tried to hire her for the ceremony, and she declined, would it be illegal? Some photographer don't do weddings at all or some don't nudes. I imagine if she hired by the lesbians to photograph them and their dog in a studio session, she would have said yes.

The photographer is a bigot:
Some people have been quick to throw out the term bigot. If disagreeing with certain behavior or activity is bigotry, then most of us have a level of bigotry

For all of those who call the photographer a bigot, consider this:
--Do you approve of polygamy?
--Do you approve of an adult brother and sister marrying?
--Do you approve of father selling his 6 year old daughter off to be married?

All of these things happen today or have happened in the past. If you think they are wrong, then you could be classified as a bigot by those that support these activities.

Now if you disagree with a Sudanese man selling his 6 year old daughter to be married, would that make you a racist? No, because you are disagreeing with the action being taken, not the race of man doing it. The photographer wasn't refusing to perform photographic services at all for gays, but declined to photograph a gay union.

Dave Barry's Year in Review

2009-12-31T08:53:00.002-06:00

Classic, funny, and well worth the long read:

Miami Herald: It was a year of Hope -- at first in the sense of ``I feel hopeful!'' and later in the sense of ``I hope this year ends soon!''

It was also a year of Change, especially in Washington, where the tired old hacks of yesteryear finally yielded the reins of power to a group of fresh, young, idealistic, new-idea outsiders such as Nancy Pelosi. As a result Washington, rejecting ``business as usual,'' finally stopped trying to solve every problem by throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at it and instead started trying to solve every problem by throwing trillions of taxpayer dollars at it....

Depressed over Obamacare

2009-12-20T09:22:00.003-06:00

So Ben Nelson sold out and we will likely have Obamacare. The notion of a "blue dog" Democrat is now purely a myth... like the unicorn.

I imagine the House Democrats will sign onto any bill. Sure it's not what the liberals wanted 100% (no public option), but that doesn't mean that they can't add a public option in 3 years... especially after the current bill makes insurance premiums skyrocket. No abortion? No problem... they'll just get the courts to rule it unconstitutional.

Pay No Attention to the Men Behind the Curtain

2009-12-02T17:35:00.003-06:00

I've always known that man made Global Warming was a load of bull, but Climategate may finally provide proof to the outside world. The elitist media are trying to bury it, but here's to hoping it gets wings.

Many people, even in the power industry, are unaware of Climategate. I guess the media is too busy speculating over Tiger Woods to investigate the fraud behind the "science" that is seeking to tax people heavily for their energy usage.

Here's an excellent recap of Climategate:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/01/lord-moncktons-summary-of-climategate-and-its-issues/

News-weak on Palin

2009-11-17T14:04:00.003-06:00

For the second time since Sarah Palin stepped into the national political spotlight, a photo of the former Republican vice-presidential candidate featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine is sparking controversy. Palin herself blasted the "out-of-context" cover as "sexist" on her Facebook page.

Originally published in the August 2009 issue of Runners World, the photo features the former Alaska governor in short runner's shorts. It was part of a multi-photograph slideshow that accompanied an article about Palin and her love for the sport titled, "I'm A Runner." In her Facebook post late last night, Palin took issue with Newsweek using a photo from an article about health and fitness to promote an analysis piece contemplating her relevance as a political figure

It is sexist. The photo and the accompanying title says, "She solves problems by being cute". It tries to demean any intellectual capacity and trying to make her look unprofessional.

Five Disasterous Things in the 9/11 NYC Trial

2009-11-16T20:05:00.004-06:00

Obama and Holder have decided to try the 9/11 terrorists in a civilian court in New York City, giving them the rights and privileges of American Citizens.

1. Change of venue - If the defense can show that they can't get a fair trial in New York, they can get the venue changed.

2. Miranda warnings - Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) wasn't giving Miranda warnings.

3. Illegal search and seizures - The Army didn't have warrants to arrest KSM and company.

4. Evidence gained under waterboarding - We all know KSM was waterboarded. Anything he said will be thrown out.

5. Cross examination - Defense will ask questions of CIA witnesses questions such as: "Explain how you did reconnaissance."

Spinning Poor Leadership

2009-11-12T19:19:00.003-06:00

This is how the AP characterizes Obama's indecision on Afghantistan

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's drawn-out decision-making on Afghanistan is sending messages. To the Afghan government: Clean up your act. To the Pentagon: I'm no rubber stamp. To the American public: More troops can't be the sole answer.

So the AP is trying to turn Obama's indecision into a strength? How about:

Iran: He ain't going to stop our bomb
To Russia: I can invade Georgia
To the understaffed American forces: Drop dead

The Ultimate Folly of Kelo vs. New London.

2009-11-09T16:25:00.002-06:00

One of the worst Supreme Court decisions, Kelo vs. New London, the Court ruled that the town of New London, Ct, could claim Ms. Kelo's house to give to Pzifer, who would build something that would deliver more tax revenue. Today, however, Pfizer abandoned the project. So Kelo's house was destroyed for the "public benefit" (higher tax revenues) that never materialized. Now the "public" is worse off, because the site of Ms. Kelo's house is now a lot of weeds gaining no tax revenue at all.

Thoughts on the Treason at Fort Hood

2009-11-09T09:46:00.004-06:00

Last Thursday, Army pyschologist, Major Malik Nidal Hasan yelled "Allahu Akbar" and starting shooting fellow Army personnel at Fort Hood, Texas. All totaled, 13 were killed and 38 were wounded.

Military has become politicized. Diversity is now a strategic imperitive. Despite knowing that he had tried to contact Al-Qaeda, the intelligence services did nothing (ABC News). Hasan previously attended a radical mosque that included two 9/11 hijacker alumni.

The military cannot carry guns on base. Why not? They are all trained responsible people. What's the downside? The unarmed military personnel at the base had to wait until cops got there. How many people could have been saved had everyone been armed?

Meanwhile the media is trying to say he was a lone crazy. The big story has become that Muslims fear an anti-Muslim backlash. They don't want to deal with the real story of removing other potential radicals from the military and dealing with CAIR.

Why I Won't See "2012"

2009-11-04T16:32:00.003-06:00

I wasn't surprised to see the trailer of Hollywood disaster flick "2012", blowing up Christian landmarks (St. Peter's Basilica and the Christ the Reedemer Statue in Rio). There's no leftist fantasy greater than destroying religion, especially Christianity.

However, a recent interview shows that director Roland Emmerich was too scared to blow up any Islamic sites.

scifiwire - In 2012, he takes on landmarks in Rome, Rio de Janeiro and, yes, Washington, but there is one place even he couldn't bring himself to obliterate. We caught up with Emmerich in Jackson Hole, Wyo., where he told us why he chose various landmarks to lay waste in 2012, and about the one that got away.

Why? ..."Because I'm against organized religion," Emmerich says."

But.....

But Emmerich was thinking of something even more explosive: the Kaaba, the cube-shaped building at the heart of Mecca, the focus of prayers and the Islamic pilgrimage called the Hajj; it is one of Islam's holiest sites.

Really?

"Well, I wanted to do that, I have to admit," Emmerich says. "But my co-writer Harald said I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie. And he was right. ... We have to all ... in the Western world ... think about this. You can actually ... let ... Christian symbols fall apart, but if you would do this with [an] Arab symbol, you would have ... a fatwa, and that sounds a little bit like what the state of this world is. So it's just something which I kind of didn't [think] was [an] important element, anyway, in the film, so I kind of left it out."

Why? Islam is a religion of peace. We all know it. Make your movie how you want it to be made.

A Death Blow to Obamacare and Cap & Trade?

2009-11-04T15:59:00.002-06:00

Last night two Republicans won governors races widely seen as a referendum on the Obama administration. While Obama carried Virginia in 2008 by 7%, McDonnell won by 20%. More importantly, in New Jersey, a state Obama carried by 13%, the Republican, Christie, won by 5%. If the Republicans won only Virginia they could easily blame the candidate. In New Jersey, however, Corzine had previously won election in 2005 as governor and previously won a Senate race there.

So if a sitting governor in a dark "blue" state, New Jersey cannot win reelection because of discontent with Obama's idea of "change", what is a Senator from a red state thinking about his re-election change if he joins the Obama lemming train?

Accounting Madoff would be Proud of

2009-11-04T08:15:00.002-06:00

Laughable. I'm glad people are realize what a joke the Obama adminstration is. This was supposed to be the administration that was going to be "open" and "accountable."

AP — President Barack Obama's economic recovery program saved 935 jobs at the Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, an impressive success story for the stimulus plan. Trouble is, only 508 people work there.

The Georgia nonprofit's inflated job count is among persisting errors in the government's latest effort to measure the effect of the $787 billion stimulus plan despite White House promises last week that the new data would undergo an "extensive review" to root out errors discovered in an earlier report.

About two-thirds of the 14,506 jobs claimed to be saved under one federal office, the Administration for Children and Families at Health and Human Services, actually weren't saved at all, according to a review of the latest data by The Associated Press. Instead, that figure includes more than 9,300 existing employees in hundreds of local agencies who received pay raises and benefits and whose jobs weren't saved.

That type of accounting was found in an earlier AP review of stimulus jobs, which the Obama administration said was misleading because most of the government's job-counting errors were being fixed in the new data.

Solar Economics

2009-10-28T17:16:00.001-05:00

Fox: The President visited DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy center, billed as the largest solar photovoltaic center in the country. The company's 90,500 solar panels are able to generate about 42,000 megawatt hours each year, but the project cost $150 million to build and only provides power to 3000 homes, prompting critics to say the administration doesn't have an overall energy strategy.

In remarks after a tour of the plant, the President blasted his opponents on energy reform, saying, "The closer we get to this new energy future, the harder the opposition's going to fight. The more we're going to hear from special interests and lobbyists in Washington whose interests are contrary to the interests of the American people, " Obama said.

Normally people pay about $0.15 /kW-hr on their bill. The company would have to charge customers at least $0.80 /kW-hr for this plant in order not to go under.

People want to think solar and wind are free because there is no fuel, but the capital costs are so high and you don't have much control over when you can use it.

You also have yearly maintenance costs, plus just the cost of financing the $150 million, which will be at least $10 million /yr.

Politicians live in dreamland and want people to think that it is free.

Example on How the Media Pushes Healthcare

2009-10-19T15:26:00.004-05:00

Here's how the liberal media promotes Obamacare. Here's a story of how a 39 year old lost his job, his wife has cancer, and is joining the Army for the health benefits, but will now be forced to be seperate from his family.

The message is that if there was national healthcare, he wouldn't have to do this. You don't want to seperate a man from his wife with cancer, do you? So you should go support national healthcare so something like this doesn't happen.

For this one story, there are many others which can be sited which demonstrates the fallacies of

Is the story heartbreaking? Absolutely! But the media is showcasing this one story, at the expense of others. It's not just what the media prints, it is what is doesn't print. How many times have the printed a story about someone being denied care in the UK?

Bible Translation History 101 for N.C. Pastor

2009-10-14T10:19:00.005-05:00

A pastor in a small Southern town plans to burn and Bible or religious material that isn't the King James Version.

What makes the King James Version so special? Does it sound fancy and official because it's in old English?

It borrowed heavily from the previously published Douay-Rheims Bible. This English language Bible was translated from the Latin Vulgate Bible. The Latin Vulgate was itself a translation by St. Jerome in the 4th century. When the Bible Canon was being originally formed, Jerome was tasked by Pope St. Damasus with translating the scriptures from Greek and Aramaic into the one language that was being commonly spoken at the time, Latin.

In the centuries between the Old and New Testatment, Hebrew became a dead language and the Hebrew bible was translated into Aramaic by Palentians Jews. Greek Jews also translated the Bible between 250-100 B.C. Called the Septuagint, the Greek Orthodox Church still uses this version today in some of its liturgy.

While versions of the Bible have been created over the centuries which either unintentionally or intentionally distorted a truer translation, most of these have already been purged.

CANTON, N.C. (October 13, 2009)—The Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C. will celebrate Halloween by burning Bibles that aren’t the King James Version, as well as music and books and anything else Pastor Marc Grizzard says is a satanic influence.

Among the authors whose books Grizzard plans to burn are well known ministers Rick Warren and Billy Graham because he says they have occasionally used Bibles other than the King James Version, which is the sole biblical source he considers infallible.

According to the church’s Web site, members will also burn “Satan's music such as country, rap, rock, pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel, contemporary Christian, jazz, soul (and) oldies.

“We will also be burning Satan's popular books written by heretics like Billy Graham, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll, John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol, Franklin Graham, Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn, Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa, The Pope, Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Donald Miller, Shane Claiborne, Brennan Manning (and) William Young.

The World Reacts to Reckless Spending

2009-10-13T17:12:00.003-05:00

Gold hit a record of $1068 today, and other countries are dumping the dollar. The Post puts blame on the Fed, but Congress and Obama share some of the blame. There are two ways to dump dollars on the market. One is via the Fed, but the other is by borrowing and spending.

It was Congress that added $1 trillion to the debt with the "stimulus" plan, and now the Obama administration is seeking to add trillions more in debt with his largely unfunded government healthcare program.

This all leads leading to fears that the government will monetize the debt.

So what happens next?
NY Post - Ben Bernanke's dollar crisis went into a wider mode yesterday as the greenback was shockingly upstaged by the euro and yen, both of which can lay claim to the world title as the currency favored by central banks as their reserve currency.

Over the last three months, banks put 63 percent of their new cash into euros and yen -- not the greenbacks -- a nearly complete reversal of the dollar's onetime dominance for reserves, according to Barclays Capital. The dollar's share of new cash in the central banks was down to 37 percent -- compared with two-thirds a decade ago.

Fed boss Ben Bernanke may be forced to raise rates in order to restore faith in the dollar — and help bring the euro and the yen back to earth.
Currently, dollars account for about 62 percent of the currency reserve at central banks -- the lowest on record, said the International Monetary Fund.

Bernanke could go down in economic history as the man who killed the greenback on the operating table.

After printing up trillions of new dollars and new bonds to stimulate the US economy, the Federal Reserve chief is now boxed into a corner battling two separate monsters that could devour the economy -- ravenous inflation on one hand, and a perilous recession on the other....

Investors and central banks are snubbing dollars because the greenback is kept too weak by zero interest rates and a flood of greenbacks in the global economy.

They grumble that they've loaned the US record amounts to cover its mounting debt, but are getting paid back by a currency that's worth 10 percent less in the past three months alone. In a decade, it's down nearly one-third.

The Human Casualty of Political Correctness

2009-10-13T16:59:00.003-05:00

What is more important to Obama, Afghan "civilian" casualties or American Marines? Bush was no stranger to impeding the military with strict rules of engagement, but Obama's new rules takes it to a higher level.

This not only hurts morale, but it hurts recruiting. Who wants to go sign up under these conditions?

AP: Then Bernard's only son, 21-year-old Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard — a Marine like his dad — was killed in an insurgent ambush in Afghanistan's volatile Helmand province, the latest victim of a surge in U.S. combat deaths....

The loss of his son and the furor over the photo have given new resonance to his view that changes must be made in how the war is fought before President Barack Obama sends any more troops to battle the Taliban and al-Qaida....

Bernard's criticism is aimed at new rules of engagement imposed by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the senior American commander in Afghanistan, five weeks before Joshua Bernard was killed. They limit the use of airstrikes and require troops to break off combat when civilians are present, even if it means letting the enemy escape. They also call for greater cooperation with the Afghan National Army.

Under those rules, John Bernard said, Marines and soldiers are being denied artillery and air support for fear of killing civilians, and the Taliban is using that to its tactical advantage. In a letter to his congressman and Maine's U.S. senators, Bernard condemned "the insanity of the current situation and the suicidal position this administration has placed these warriors in."

"We've abandoned them in this Catch-22 where we're supposed to defend the population, but we can't defend them because we can't engage the enemy that is supposed to be the problem," he said in an interview with the AP.

The military says the new rules, while riskier in the short run, will ultimately mean fewer casualties.....

Marines are trained to "kill people and break things," not to be police officers and nation-builders, he says.

The Taliban "are tenacious and you have to fight them with the same level of tenacity," Bernard said. "If you're going to try to go over there as a peacekeeper, you're going to get your butt handed to you, and that's what's going on right now."

Bernard also disagrees with U.S. troops working side by side with Afghan soldiers and police. The mission on which his son was killed was compromised by someone who tipped off the Taliban, he says, citing gunfire from all directions that targeted the Marines' helicopter when it landed. Bernard believes the Marines were led into a trap.

Making Nobel Irrelevent

2009-10-12T08:48:00.003-05:00

Alfred Nobel's Peace Prize has quickly become irrelevent. The once vaunted prize which highlighted efforts to better the world through peace, has become a sham in which Norwegian committee endorses politics. Eventually, it's irrelevance will become known and few people will tune in to find out who won.

Historically the award not only rewarded the person, but their effort as well. While Mother Theresa was "discovered" by Malcolm Muggeridge, her efforts received a huge boost with the award of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The first slip was awarding it to Stalinist Le Duc Tho in 1973 for the Paris Peace Accords. The Nobel committee was awarding a prize to the aggressor for the pretending to talk about ending the war. Imagine if Hitler came to some peace agreement after conquering Poland, and then being awarded a peace prize. Even Tho declined the award stating there was no actual peace. Of course, peace to him was conquering Vietnam.

When the Nobel committee awarded Yassar Arafat the award in 1994, it resulted to wishful thinking that Arafat had renounced his violent past. When he instigated violence shortly thereafter, the Committee should have renounced his award.

At least the few examples up until 2000 were under the semblance of peace. After 2000 the Prize was used often to endorse political stances. In 2001, Kofi Annan won for opposing Bush. In case you didn't get it, they gave it to vocal Bush critic, Jimmy Carter. The feckless Mohammed ElBaredei won in 2005. All hell broke loose in 2007, when Al Gore won for global warming. Few could say with a straight face that promoting global warming alarmism is akin to peacefully resolving a conflict. Gore had one major advantage: he's not Bush.

So, it should be really no surprise Obama won, for doing only one thing: not being Bush.

From Obama's acceptance speech:

To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize — men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace. [Okay so decline it]

But I also know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes. [Really? Which one?]

Afghanistan Needs an Exit Strategy

2009-10-08T11:04:00.003-05:00

What happened to the media asking questions about exit strategies? Ever since Obama has been elected, critical questions about the war effort has ceased. Anyone with half a brain could guess the effect of Obama's strict rules of engagement on morale.

9/11 brought us to Afghanistan but it doesn't have to keep us there. We don't have to nation build.

It's high time we get some leadership from Obama on Afghanistan and get a critical media again. Can Obama answer any of these basic questions:

What's our mission?
Why is it important?
What are our objectives?
What are our alternatives?
What does success look like?

The Times (of London), a credible broadsheet, reports on the declining morale:

Times of London - American soldiers serving in Afghanistan are depressed and deeply disillusioned, according to the chaplains of two US battalions that have spent nine months on the front line in the war against the Taleban....

“They feel they are risking their lives for progress that’s hard to discern,” said Captain Sam Rico, of the Division’s 4-25 Field Artillery Battalion. “They are tired, strained, confused and just want to get through.” The chaplains said that they were speaking out because the men could not....

“We’re lost — that’s how I feel. I’m not exactly sure why we’re here,” said Specialist Raquime Mercer, 20, whose closest friend was shot dead by a renegade Afghan policeman last Friday. “I need a clear-cut purpose if I’m going to get hurt out here or if I’m going to die.”
...
Sergeant Christopher Hughes, 37, from Detroit, has lost six colleagues and survived two roadside bombs. Asked if the mission was worthwhile, he replied: “If I knew exactly what the mission was, probably so, but I don’t.”
...
The men are frustrated by the lack of obvious purpose or progress. “The soldiers’ biggest question is: what can we do to make this war stop. Catch one person? Assault one objective? Soldiers want definite answers, other than to stop the Taleban, because that almost seems impossible. It’s hard to catch someone you can’t see,” said Specialist Mercer....

The soldiers are angry that colleagues are losing their lives while trying to help a population that will not help them. “You give them all the humanitarian assistance that they want and they’re still going to lie to you. They’ll tell you there’s no Taleban anywhere in the area and as soon as you roll away, ten feet from their house, you get shot at again,” said Specialist Eric Petty, from Georgia.

The soldiers complain that rules of engagement designed to minimise civilian casualties mean that they fight with one arm tied behind their backs. “They’re a joke,” said one. “You get shot at but can do nothing about it. You have to see the person with the weapon. It’s not enough to know which house the shooting’s coming from.”...

The soldiers joke that their Isaf arm badges stand not for International Security Assistance Force but “I Suck At Fighting” or “I Support Afghan Farmers”.

To compound matters, soldiers are mainly being killed not in combat but on routine journeys, by roadside bombs planted by an invisible enemy. “That’s very demoralising,” said Captain Masengale....

"You carry on for the guys to your left or right,” added Specialist Mercer.

Media's Health Care Blitz

2009-10-08T07:56:00.012-05:00

The media is blitzing to force public opinion on healthcare. They are trying to show that there is momentum for support. They know people in general like bandwagons so they want to demonstrate that the right bandwagon is to be pro-Obamacare. The AP produced a "dramatic" poll showing a uprising of momentum:

WASHINGTON — The fever has broken. The patient is out of intensive care. But if you're President Barack Obama, you can't stop pacing the waiting room. Health care overhaul is still in guarded condition. The latest Associated Press-GfK poll has found that opposition to Obama's health care remake dropped dramatically in just a matter of weeks. Still, Americans remain divided over complex legislation that Democrats are advancing in Congress. The public is split 40-40 on supporting or opposing the health care legislation, the poll found. An even split is welcome news for Democrats, a sharp improvement from September, when 49 percent of Americans said they opposed the congressional proposals and just 34 percent supported them.

So this is the poll that the AP has cited as a game changer.

However another poll question shows that people still don't like Obama's approach:

What the report on the poll doesn't mention that the poll asked more Democrats this time. Compare the percentage of Democrats and supporters:

Not to be outdone, Yahoo wants to show how a "silent majority". Even ignoring the breakdown of the AP's poll respondents, the 40% that support hardly constituets a majority.

Letterman and Power

2009-10-05T14:43:00.002-05:00

David Letterman, left wing late night comic, was forced to reveal that he had been shagging the staff for many years due to an extortion plot.

The left wants to give Letterman a pass because it was consentual. (Consent doesn't actually matter, because the same left wing as wants to give Roman Polanski a pass).

In reality, it is an abuse of power. He's created an environmental in which females have to sleep with him to get ahead. One of his girlfriends/staff, Stephanie Birkitt, was frequently on the show as part of sketches. Would she have been there had she not been sleeping with her boss. Can anyone in corporate America imagine the results of a boss constantly promoting female staff that he was schtuping?

So where is the feminist movement on this abuse of paternal power?