Ravenscroft Dog Farm

Which Foot Are You Shoeing?

2010-06-29T12:31:00.002-05:00

While looking for info and reaction to Elena Kagan's confimation hearings, I came across this:

Interestingly enough in the last several years there have been four big SCOTUS cases which IMHO, really define our freedoms and personal liberty Kelo property rights; Citizens United free speech; Heller 2nd amendment and now McDonald.

I hear a lot from liberals about how the right wants to curtail freedoms, we’re fascists yet when I look at where the liberal Justices ruled or dissented in those aforementioned cases I think it’s pretty clear who are the real curtailers of freedom and liberty.

After all when the State can take your property, restrict your political speech and disarm the populace, you really don’t have much left in the way of freedom.

I'd like to know what Kagan's opinions are on those cases.

Does This Man Look Capable of Kicking Any Ass?

2010-06-10T21:08:00.002-05:00

More thoughts on this theme here.

His compulsive, reflexive finger-pointing at Republicans, George W. Bush and vague villains on the right is not only unbecoming, it also reinforces the gathering public verdict that Obama is a weakling.

Victims do not make good leaders.

Even if Republicans were responsible for every evil attributed to them by Democrats, why bang on about it after 17 months in office? The only answer is self-preservation, which is an unattractive trait in someone who's supposed to be leader.

Last Night was the Last "Tonight" of the Season

2010-06-10T13:47:00.001-05:00

Okay; YOU Give it a Try

2010-06-03T13:52:00.001-05:00

Go ahead; run Gaza:

Turkey’s Islamist government, not known for its compassion to, say, Kurds in Turkey, has been shedding crocodile tears over Gaza for several years now, and helped instigate the flotilla fiasco. So I have a modest proposal: if Turkey is so concerned with the welfare of Gazans, why not let Turkey run the place. Israel doesn’t want it, and never has; it tried to give it back to Egypt several times, but Egypt doesn’t want it, either. Meanwhile, Gaza is controlled by a terrorist government that is both cruel and incompetent; and Israel is not going to lift its siege to long as Hamas is in charge.

"Light of the Morning" by Band of Skulls

2010-06-03T11:03:00.000-05:00

Way Better Than a Smart Phone

2010-06-03T10:01:00.001-05:00

Memorial Day, 2010

2010-05-30T22:46:00.000-05:00

Why Bully Breeds are so Awesome

2010-05-25T20:16:00.001-05:00

Because there's a party in their heads.

Remeber When Bush Ran the World?

2010-05-24T22:12:00.002-05:00

Yea, me neither. Creepy-but-true part 1:

A love of autocracy often lurks beneath the liberal veneer. There’s this idea that the right answers are known and the people are just too deluded and distorted to see what they are and to vote for them.

Creepy-but-true part 2:

Every murderous totalitarian government of the 20th century began with some insulated group of faux-intellectuals congratulating each other on how smart they are, and fantasizing about how, if they could just install a dictatorship-for-a-day, they could right all the wrongs in the world.
It is the ultimate fantasy of the narcissist. And we’ve got whole generations of them, in control of our media and our government, all intent on “remaking America.”

Oh, Like Anyone's Paying Attention

2010-05-21T16:40:00.002-05:00

Why would that pesky, pesky Pittsburgh Tribune keep paying attention to stuff like this?

Just weeks after taking office, President Obama signed an executive order encouraging use of project labor agreements (PLAs), which require contractors to agree to union representation and work rules. A federal rule implementing that order took effect May 12, benefiting the 15 percent of construction workers who are unionized -- and hurting the 85 percent who aren't.

This, in an industry with 27 percent unemployment. And with study after study showing PLAs hike costs 10 percent to 20 percent -- and the rule essentially ending open, competitive bidding for federal construction contracts -- taxpayers will feel plenty of pain, too.

Nothing More EVIL Than Free Enterprise

2010-05-21T10:59:00.001-05:00

Bad Guys Win Again

2010-05-21T10:46:00.002-05:00

I use the term 'guys' since, you know, women are lucky to ride in the back seat of the same car.

From the story's comment section:

Islam is nothing more than fear. Fear generated by unseen devout Muslim believers willing to commit violence in the name of Islam. A larger Muslim population equals more fear. Look at it here, in little old Seattle. Molly Norris has now been silenced, by fear generated by unseen religious thugs. In NYC South Park has now been silenced by unseen Muslim religious thugs. In Western Europe the newspapers, museums, artists, Theo Van Gogh and more have all been silenced by a growing number of unseen Muslim religious thugs. The greater the Muslim population, the greater the number of potential Muslim religious thugs - the greater the fear. And here it is - right here in Seattle. Isn’t multiculturalism a great thing?

As With Any Common Gang, Control is Everything

2010-05-19T12:26:00.006-05:00

"Sometimes people (engaged in free enterprise and open commerce) don't do what's best for our society unless congress holds hearings."

Who is this freak? Meet Cass Sunstein. He's the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration.

But wait; there's more! There's always more, unfortunately.

Politics is Showboating

2010-05-18T22:44:00.002-05:00

And too often it's sad-clown, leap-without-looking, head-up-ass showboating:

The Los Angeles City Council voted to boycott the state of Arizona over its new immigration-enforcement law, and now the Arizona Corporation Commission has responded. Gary Pierce, one of the commissioners chosen in state-wide elections to the utility regulation panel, notes that Los Angeles gets about 25% of its power from Arizona producers. If the City of Angels really wants a boycott, Pierce offers his services to help, as he explains in a letter to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Read it all, it's quite a call-out.

No Sence Steering Now

2010-05-18T13:05:00.002-05:00

Can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, the insurance companies will learn, but one can still examine it. This exam is from a doctor:

Under any system of mandatory insurance, the government must necessarily determine what constitutes an "acceptable" policy. This creates a giant magnet for special interest groups seeking to include their favorite benefit in the mandatory package. Under the similar Massachusetts system of mandatory insurance, insurers must offer (and residents must purchase) numerous benefits that consumers may neither need nor want, such as in vitro fertilization, autism therapy, and chiropractor services. This raises costs for everyone to benefit the politically favored few with lobbying clout.

When insurers recently pointed out that ObamaCare did not actually require them to immediately offer coverage for certain children with preexisting conditions, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius immediately threatened to issue regulations forcing them to do so -- regardless of the actual letter of the law.

Although it is tempting to take delight at the insurance industry's self-caused plight, the inevitable collapse of the private insurance market would also leave millions of Americans without coverage. Even though this crisis would be caused by government policies, liberals would gleefully portray it as a "failure of the free market" and demand that the government "rescue" health care. The end result would be a "single payer" socialized medical system like Canada's or Great Britain's, with rationing and long waits for medical care.

The Vodka is Clear

2010-05-15T21:28:00.001-05:00

With a twist of Green:

Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposed $12.4 billon in cuts to California’s budget would reduce state spending to levels unseen since… 2008!

Surely, Californians were suffering a from a dearth of government all those years ago.

Bingo.

Saturday Night Blast from the Urban Deck & Backyard

2010-05-15T21:21:00.001-05:00

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but
those who torment us for our own good, will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” ~ C.S. Lewis

Hypocrites at the Gate

2010-05-11T13:24:00.002-05:00

You really should read all of this:

Last week, the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post identified several members of Congress and the Senate who, during the financial crisis, took short positions in the market, betting against the U.S. economy. This behavior is not just hypocritical. It marks yet another breach of the public trust.

In the course of their workday, (elected officials) meet with government officials, captains of industry, and foreign leaders. When these same elected officials phone their Wall Street brokers and take a financial position against the very entity which they are charged with preserving and protecting — the United States — how could it be anything other than a breach of the public trust?

Now why was Sen. Carl Levin so eager to paint Goldman Sachs as a bunch of crooks? To advance the Democrats’ embarrassingly weak and misguided financial reform agenda, naturally.

You Are Not a Molecule. Are You?

2010-05-11T13:06:00.000-05:00

“The fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism. Socialism likewise maintains that the good of the individual can be realized without reference to his free choice, to the unique and exclusive responsibility which he exercises in the face of good or evil. Man is reduced to a series of social relationships, and the concept of the person as the autonomous subject of moral decisions disappears.”

— Pope John Paul II

More here.

Song and Dance Alive & Well

2010-05-11T12:58:00.002-05:00

I don't care a lick if he's a savant or a dunce with regard to technology. What I do care about is the continual, audience specific jive and chameleon story telling.

That line about not being able to "know how to work" an iPad or Xbox succeeded in drawing some laughs. But it worked against Obama when the reactions from technology enthusiasts online began pouring in.
Obama "drinks from the 'information overload' Kool-Aid," claimed one blog headline. Having not actually spent time trying to optimize his workflow with a device like the iPad, the president appears to have little basis from which to make such a contentious claim.

So if Obama doesn't know how to use Apple's portable music player -- a product hailed for its ease-of-use, even for a Harvard Law graduate -- was the preelection Rolling Stone magazine article about what's on his iPod a farce?

It reminds me of the heady days when Hilary Clinton was trying to decide who she was, you know, depending on where she was dining.

Whistling Past the Graveyard on the Way to the Congressional Budget Office

2010-05-10T18:49:00.003-05:00

It's a story of fiddling and burning and you know the end:

If only a few countries faced these problems, the solution would be easy. Unlucky countries would trim budgets and resume growth by exporting to healthier nations. But developed countries represent about half the world economy; most have overcommitted welfare states. They might defuse the dangers by gradually trimming future benefits in a way that reassured financial markets. In practice, they haven't done that; indeed, President Obama's health program expands benefits. What happens if all these countries are thrust into Greece's situation? One answer -- another worldwide economic collapse -- explains why dawdling is so risky.

Abdication of Duty Articulated

2010-05-07T23:49:00.002-05:00

It's laid out in Article IV, Section 4. Not that anyone in the Executive Branch cares.

The Quiet is not Better

2010-05-04T19:42:00.004-05:00

Ernie Harwell 1918-2010

More here:

So a deal was set up. The Dodgers sent a catcher, Clint Dapper, to Atlanta. And the Atlanta club sent Ernie Harwell to the Brooklyn Dodgers. So Ernie was the first and only baseball broadcaster to be involved in a trade.

Right Proper Spanking

2010-05-03T10:53:00.002-05:00

VDH scores with eloquence and reason:

Collate the anti-capital rants of a zillionaire currency speculator George Soros, the green sermons from a late Ted Kennedy who stopped a wind farm from marring his vacation home’s views, a John Edwards of “two nations” fame constructing a Neronian Golden House, a Tom Friedman warning of the consumer habits that lead to a hot, flat earth from a 10,000 square foot English-style estate of the sort that 18^th-century English barons built after successful careers in the Raj, the comic case of Jeremiah Wright moving to a mostly white golf course to dream up more sermons about “white folks’ greed runs a world in need,” or a $5 million a year earning Obama — with all his expenses picked up by the government — lamenting out loud why rich people seem to want ever more money they don’t need. Some spread the wealth around.
We can call this malady Gorism — living not merely at odds with your zealotry, but living entirely against your zealotry.

"Cops Didn't Stomp Anyone" says cops.

2010-04-29T15:15:00.000-05:00

Government Madates Versus Scientific Retality

2010-04-25T21:29:00.002-05:00

Of course, it helps if your scientists aren't already in the bag for The Narrative:

Biofuels such as biodiesel from soy beans can create up to four times more climate-warming emissions than standard diesel or petrol, according to an EU document released under freedom of information laws. The European Union has set itself a goal of obtaining 10 percent of its road fuels from renewable sources, mostly biofuels, by the end of this decade, but it is now worrying about the unintended environmental impacts.

Unintended impacts - gee politician have never railroaded the citizenry into that before, right?

(B)iofuel production soaks up grain from global commodity markets, forcing up food prices and encouraging farmers to clear tropical forests in the quest for new land. Burning forests releases vast quantities of carbon dioxide and often cancels out many of the climate benefits sought from biofuels. Biodiesel from North American soybeans has an indirect carbon footprint of 339.9 kilograms of CO2 per gigajoule -- four times higher than standard diesel -- said the EU document, an annex that was controversially stripped from a report published in December.

This story not playing anytime soon on American Tee Vee Newz.

How's the Planet Doing? Ask Those People at Pompeii

2010-04-24T10:36:00.001-05:00

The Heavy

2010-04-15T14:44:00.000-05:00

Be Quiet Children, an Adult is Speaking

2010-04-10T09:38:00.003-05:00

Now children, I know you've all got spring fever and are already thinking about summer vacation and cannot wait to ride your bicycles all over the paths and hop on the light rail to go to a puppet show and hop off the light rail to get an ice cream cone before Sponge Bob comes on your school-provided laptop via the city-provided wifi system, but if you could just hold your tongues for a minute or two, a grown up is going to explain a problem with the Barista Utopia you've been building:

A new study comparing corporate headquarters costs ranks Minneapolis as the 15th most expensive of 50 U.S. cities, and second only to Chicago among 12 cities in the Midwest. Minneapolis' property taxes were the main reason for its relatively high ranking in the study by the Boyd Co. Inc., a Princeton, N.J.-based corporate relocation consultant.
Q How can Minneapolis become more competitive?
A Hold the line on taxes, especially property taxes. You need to understand that the impact of Minneapolis' high property taxes is compounded by the fact that land and construction costs are also high. The effective property tax rate in Minneapolis is about twice as high as the study's low-cost option, Sioux Falls.
Q Does the trend toward smaller, less expensive cities apply to any type of corporate facility? We're used to seeing companies move manufacturing operations but keep corporate offices here.
A It can be a national, regional or division headquarters. This is the next frontier of corporate cost-cutting. It's now in style for companies to associate themselves with markets that are less expensive. It makes them seem more fiscally responsible to their shareholders.

Perish the thought! Progressives forever tell us that it's the irresistible lure of liberal arts colleges and subsidised art cabals that make Fortune 500 employers beat a path to our frozen wasteland over a climate that's more affordable and usable more than 8 months each year.

Q Aside from costs, what role do amenities play in a company's decision about where to locate? How important are things like proximity to colleges and universities, a highly educated local workforce, cultural attractions, major-league sports teams?

A Historically, those have been very important drivers. Now it's becoming less about those qualitative issues and more about quantitative issues, like the state's business climate and taxes.

Now while the mayor gets his nostrils all flared out about the idea of Bicycle Mecca, he may want to consider, for 5 minutes, who is going to be riding those bicycles around the diseased core of Minneapolis in 5, 10 or 20 years from now.

She Was In Favor of State's Rights Before She Was Against Them

2010-04-08T12:02:00.004-05:00

Alas; party is put before policy once again:

The federal government wants to impose an unprecedented one-size-fits-all approach onto every citizen and force them to buy insurance many of them don’t need. Minnesota’s insurance premiums will definitely rise, as we have seen when the same approach was taken in Maine and Massachusetts. As Swanson wrote less than two years ago, state government is more responsive to the citizenry, and in this case the citizenry can decide for themselves, too.

The only changes between August 2008 and now is that ObamaCare is a much bigger arrogation of power by the federal government than the program Swanson publicly challenged at that time … and a Democrat is in the White House now.

Someone remind me of the benefits from having the Minnesota Attorney General be a partisan, elected position.

The Fibbing Politicain Soils Opening Day

2010-04-07T16:17:00.001-05:00

Once the talking points have run out, the greatest orator of our time is left with nothing; not even the name of a single person, from a span of 109 years, who's ever played for his conveniently favorite team.

Even Dumber Than the Chairs on Which They Sit

2010-04-05T13:04:00.004-05:00

Power + idiocy + ideology = Henry Waxman and so many others:

This became apparent when various large businesses responded to the enactment of Obamacare by taking accounting steps to reflect tax changes brought about by the new health care legislation. The additional costs created by Obamacare, conveniently enough, weren't going to strike until later, after the November elections.
But both Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and Securities and Exchange Commission regulations require companies to account for these changes as soon as they learn about them. As the Atlantic's Megan McArdle wrote:

"What AT&T, Caterpillar, et al did was appropriate. It's earnings season, and they offered guidance about , um, their earnings."So once Obamacare passed, massive corporate write-downs were inevitable.

They were also bad publicity for Obamacare, and they seem to have come as an unpleasant shock to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who immediately scheduled congressional hearings for April 21, demanding that the chief executive officers of AT&T, John Deere, and Caterpillar, among others, come and explain themselves.

Obamacare was supposed to provide unicorns and rainbows: How can it possibly be hurting companies and killing jobs? Surely there's some sort of Republican conspiracy.

The Way of the Coward

2010-04-01T21:24:00.003-05:00

To wit:

Cherry-picking solitary slogans he finds offensive out of thousands of posters and blindly accepting charges of racism without a shred of evidence, King indulges in his own bigotry and basks in the hatred of a caricature he has created about an Other he refuses to know.

For not sharing his desire to spend someone else’s money, King libels your friends and neighbors as heirs to a craven ideology.

King’s cowardly refusal to engage anything more substantial than a strawman is a common shortcoming among the would-be intelligentsia. A day earlier in the New York Times, columnist Paul Krugman labeled the majority of Americans opposed to ObamaCare as “right-wingers” and “extremists” dedicated to “eliminationist” rhetoric, obliquely asserting that the controversial legislation was only opposed by would-be terrorists.

Quite purposefully and without shame, he turns a deaf ear to the cacophony of assassination fantasies his compatriots fetishized during the previous eight years.

A friend of mine has taken to mocking the occasionally poor grammar found in some of the signs carried at Tea Party events. I wonder if he'd propose some use-of-language litmus test to precede the granting of First Amendment rights (that was tried about 70 years ago in Germany). God know the SEIU would never stand for use of English as a precursor for individual rights, even for the non-citizens it purports to represent.

Some more from my hero VDH:

For the once-giddy Left, which misinterpreted the causes of the Obama landmark victory, the current pushback is seen as somehow terribly unfair, and thus arise both their own furor and their amnesia about their own past attitudes during the Bush years. I think ultimately many "progressives," adherents to relativism, feel that the past furor over Bush in all its creepy manifestations was justified because of who Bush was; but that a similar methodology (or, in fact, far softer manifestations) of dissent toward Obama is unacceptable because of who Obama is (i.e. one can act rudely toward clearly bad people, but not rudely toward unquestionably "good" people). It is that simple.

Stop Thinking for Yourself; You're in College, After All

2010-03-26T13:43:00.004-05:00

Us stupid Americans should learn that it's not nice to scare precious Canadian children - who are 18-24 years old and still completely helpless.

Perhaps I’m exposing myself as a starry-eyed idealist, but is not incumbent upon university officials like Houle to encourage a free and open exchange of ideas, no matter how loathsome some thin-skinned students might find them? And if the poor dears of the University of Ottawa suspect that they might be “offended” by Coulter, might I recommend that they retire to their dorm with an Antonio Gramsci book?
Sameena Topan, a conflict studies and human rights major who spoke to the Ottawa Citizen “on behalf of a group of protesters,” gloated that “we accomplished what we were here to do, to ensure that we don’t have her discriminatory rhetoric on our campus.” It is good to see that the University of Ottawa, which provides a salary to mad 9/11 truthers like Michel Chossudovsky, is teaching its students that to resolve conflicts and agitate for human rights, one only needs to prevent speech they deem “discriminatory.”

"We stand on guard for thee" has never rung less true.

Hope & Change Goes Largely Unreported

2010-03-26T13:37:00.003-05:00

In the age of Obama, the nation's balance sheet no longer means anything; it's been replaced by the air of compassionate governance.

President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget will generate nearly $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 years, $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected, and raise the federal debt to 90 percent of the nation's economic output by 2020, the Congressional Budget Office reported Thursday.
"An additional $1.2 trillion in debt dumped on [GDP] to our children makes a huge difference," said Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "That represents an additional debt of $10,000 per household above and beyond the federal debt they are already carrying."
"That level of debt is extremely problematic, particularly given the upward debt path beyond the 10-year budget window," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

How You Like Me Now?

2010-03-22T13:53:00.002-05:00

It's so very disheartening to see so many embrace the lie in order to feel better about themselves and gloss over any buzz-killing detail. Here, coincidentally, area a few key details to kill the buzz:

The “reconciliation bill” is not a “health bill” but an anti-health bill. It relies heavily on price controls, taxes and fines to punish doctors, hospitals and formerly innovative companies the produce prescription drugs and medical devices. If we treated farmers, food companies and grocery stores the way Congress threatens to treat the health industries would anybody expect food to become better or cheaper?
The 3.8% tax on both labor and investment income is not a “Medicare tax.” It’s surtax on income that goes into the slush fund, not the Medicare trust.
The bill could not possibly cost “only” $940 billion unless it contained a sunset provision — repealing the law after 2019.

and some bigger picture:

Fortunately, the welfare state that we have inherited is visibly bankrupt in more than one way. Medicare in its current form is unsustainable; Social Security is no longer viable. The cohort of retirees is growing ever larger, and they live on and on. The cohort of those within the work force is not growing at a faster rate. Taxes can perhaps be raised but if they are raised too much they will choke off investment, get in the way of economic growth, cease to bring in the revenue requisite for supporting our entitlement programs.

Stiff Ache Up My Neck

2010-03-21T20:21:00.002-05:00

Here's where my head is:

There is dancing and rejoicing, which is stupid, because no one knows what's going to be voted on. No one knows what's in it because the president never put the proceedings on C-SPAN or put the bill on the internet like he said over and over and over.
It's sickening to me that those who are cheering this have no sense of shame or embarrassment over how this all went down.
What will run out first; the money to pay for such folly, or the ink it will require to document the bribes, pay-offs and kick-backs.
Bart Stupak got OWNED by Obama's executive order bullshit; pro-life . . . what a fool.
From this point forward, the political left NEVER gets to complain about how the opposition may ram through future legislation.
I never want to see or hear legacy media ever waste my time with any more weepy stories about how ANYONE isn't fit and healthy, can't get health care or that the whole shebang is out of money.

Leadership Through Bribery an Other Crimes

2010-03-20T08:45:00.005-05:00

Anything for a vote; no matter the cost, transparency or ethics involved. It's the Hope and Change, stupid:

On Tuesday, the Department of the Interior announced it was increasing water allocations for the Central Valley of California, a region that depends on these water allocations for local agriculture and jobs. The timing adds to our suspicions.
According to the Interior announcement, "Typically (the Bureau of) Reclamation would release the March allocation update around March 22nd, but moved up the announcement at the urging of Senators (Diane) Feinstein and (Barbara) Boxer, and Congressmen (Jim) Costa and (Dennis) Cardoza."

Blue Dog Democrats Costa, who represents California's 20th Congressional District (Fresno), and Cardoza, who represents the 18th (Stockton to Modesto), are both listed as "undecided" in the upcoming vote on health care reform, whether it be on the Senate bill itself or the "deem and pass" resolution known as the Slaughter rule, after Rules Committee Chairman Louise Slaughter.

The rule subverts the Constitution by allowing the bill to pass without members actually having to vote on it. Interior's announcement gives Costa and Cardoza something to assuage the wrath of angry constituents just in time for any vote. They chose what was behind door number one.

The 2-inch-long delta smelt, a fish destined for the Endangered Species list, plugs the drains releasing water to the farmlands. So to protect it, environmentalists filed lawsuits and the decision was made to restrict the water flow and safeguard the smelt, even if that meant turning some of America's best farmland into the functional equivalent of Death Valley.

More on the bribed Democrats in Nebraska and Louisiana filth here.

And since were talking about breaking every rule in order to get His Majesty's legacy made, there's this:

The White House Office of Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle has been feverishly sending out unsolicited email messages to federal employees in an effort to build support for President Barack Obama’s health reform package over the last several weeks.
DeParle’s unsolicited emails have been regularly coming to some federal employees’ official government email inboxes for weeks without permission or request, causing some federal employees to feel threatened by the overt political language.
The Department of State employees, who receive hundreds of official government emails every day, have complained about the annoying and partisan emails but are nervous to go public for fear of retribution. The emails are addressed to the federal employees by name and use the official .gov address.

Oh, and since we're still here:

If we pass this thing, no American politician, left or right, is going to cut any of these programs, or raise the broad-based taxes necessary to pay for them, without any compensating goodies to offer the public . . . until the crisis is almost upon us. I can think of no situation, other than impending crisis, in which such a thing has been done--and usually, as with Social Security, they have done just little enough to kick the problem down the road. The idea that you pass a program of dubious sustainability because you can always make it sustainable later, seems borderline insane. I can't think of a single major entitlement that has become more sustainable over time. Why is this one supposed to be different?

One, Two Punch

2010-03-18T22:55:00.002-05:00

While Pelosi, Reid and Obama desperately claw out legacies for themselves and work the shadows with bribes and jive, there are some things to consider from Robert Sameulson:

(Obama's) telling people what they want to hear, not what they need to know. Whatever their sins, insurers are mainly intermediaries; they pass along the costs of the delivery system. In 2009, the largest 14 insurers had profits of roughly $9 billion; that approached 0.4 percent of total health spending of $2.472 trillion. This hardly explains high health costs. What people need to know is that Obama's plan evades health care's major problems and would worsen the budget outlook. It's a big new spending program when government hasn't paid for the spending programs it already has.

and from Nina Owcharenko:

On the eve of the House of Representatives push to jam through the misguided and highly unpopular Senate health care bill, , the President continues to try and convince the American people that the health care bill would reduce cost while showing his commitment to creating jobs and improving the economy. The raw facts make it clear that he cannot keep either of these promises.

Fascinating Study in Political Psychology

2010-03-14T13:48:00.002-05:00

Remember what the Enlightenment Gang says; "she's not a woman, she's a Republican!"

I used to dismiss these contradictions as simply hypocrisy, but perhaps these people are angry at Palin because of her perceived similarities to Barack Obama, not in spite of them. They need someplace to ground the lightning of their frustration and disappointment, and they’re not allowed to be angry at Obama. They wear a set of rusty intellectual chains that require them to believe all criticism of Obama is racist, or paid for by his fat-cat arch-enemies. Accepting the notion that government power is morally superior to free enterprise, and a virtuous nation therefore has a very large government, requires belief in the masters of the State as titans of mind and spirit. How could a gigantic State be morally defensible, if its leaders aren’t supermen? If you find yourself suspecting the architect of the largest, most expensive government America has ever known might not be as smart or wise as you were led to believe last November, your entire world-view is threatened.

It’s very important for liberals to deflect those suspicions onto a designated, culturally approved target. Sarah Palin is a convenient hate fetish for increasingly nervous and confused Left, because she embodies the qualities of the red-state America they loathe… and serves as a voodoo doll for uncomfortable criticisms of Obama, which they project onto her. As events continue to demonstrate those criticisms were far more important than any of the superficial or imaginary reasons they voted for him, they’ll jab pins into that voodoo doll with increasing fury, even though the object of their anger now spends her days working for a news network none of them would be caught dead watching.

Read it all. It reveals quite a lot about those who, when talking about Sarah Palin, wind up with a bit of spittle on the corner of their mouths.

Don't Squander the Good on the Bad or the Ugly.

2010-03-13T16:19:00.003-06:00

Of all the things the fools in Washington could fowl up, this could be really big one:

There will be transformative applications that need all the bandwidth they can get. Medical, Transportation, Defense, Gaming, Simulations and who knows what. As computers become more powerful, we need to be able to send more data to the cloud where they can crunch data and return it to us.

That is the value of an open internet. The things we cant imagine today. The applications that are just dreams because they dont have enough horsepower and bandwidth to work today. I want the internet to be a platform for amazing. Not Gilligan’s Island reruns.

In the event some form of ubiquitous entertainment comes first , takes over the net and saturates it, how is the FCC going to solve the bandwidth traffic jam ? They wont ever be able to put the bandwidth genie back in the bottle. Screaming at broadband providers to spend the money wont work any better than screaming to expand highways helps to alleviate rush hour traffic.

Protesting for Dummies

2010-03-10T21:00:00.002-06:00

These supposedly smart college students aren't smart enough to connect the dots; perhaps they're so desperate to be provided an education:

Hundreds of University of California students rallied against a 32% tuition hike last week. Let's hope their future employers get a better work product. With just a little research, the students could have discovered that compensation packages won from the state by unions were a big reason for the hike.
In 1999, the Democratic legislature ran a reckless gamble that makes Wall Street's bankers look cautious. At the top of a bull market, they assumed their investment returns would grow at a 8.25% rate in perpetuity—equivalent to assuming that the Dow would reach 25,000 by 2009—and enacted a huge pension boon for public-safety and industrial unions.
The bill refigured the compensation formula for pension benefits of all public-safety employees who retired on or after January 1, 2000. It let firefighters retire at age 50 and receive 3% of their final year's compensation times the number of years they worked.

In 2002, the state legislature further extended benefits to many nonsafety classifications, such as milk and billboard inspectors. More than 15,000 public employees have retired with annual pensions greater than $100,000.

In the last decade, government worker pension costs (not including health care) have risen to $3 billion from $150 million, a 2,000% jump, while state revenues have increased by 24%. Because the stock market didn't grow the way the legislature predicted in 1999, the only way to cover the skyrocketing costs of these defined-benefit pension plans has been to cut other programs (and increase taxes).
Memo to marching students: The governor can't save you. You guys need a new legislature. This one is selling you out. Organize an opposition and vote them out in November. Plan B is quit school and become a state billboard inspector.

Bring on the Orange Stuff

2010-03-06T14:59:00.001-06:00

Although it ain't cheap:

In the 5 minutes it took to de-ice us this morning, they used 42 gallons (158L) of heated Type I Oh, did I mention it's $16.95/gallon ($4.49/L)? That adds up when they fire the stuff out of a cannon, in this case to the tune of $712. That's about $20 for every second they sprayed us.

I know that sounds outrageous, but it was actually a lot cheaper to deice in Omaha than in our home base of Toronto Pearson, where the airport association has a monopoly on de-icing facilities and they jack the price outrageously because they can. Last time we got de-iced in Toronto, the bill was $2,500.00. Still, it's better than trying to fly an iced-up plane and littering the countryside with aircraft parts, so that's what we'll continue to do.

Left-Coast Scruitiny

2010-03-04T15:56:00.001-06:00

A shot of Victor for your thoughts:

To drive through downtown Santa Barbara is to count the amazing variety of Volvo, Mercedes, Lexus, and BMW SUVs — and wonder where the gasoline comes from, as off-shore drilling declines. You get the picture — our top echelons have become quite prissy. The redwood deck is beloved, not the falling coast redwood tree; kitchen granite counters are de rigueur, not the blasting at the top of the granite mountain; the Prius is a badge of honor, not the chemical plant that makes its batteries; we now like stainless steel frigs, but hate steel’s coke, and iron ore, and electricity lines; arugula is tasty, not the canal that brings water 400 miles to irrigate it; I support teacher unions and -studies courses in the public schools, but not with my Ivy-League bound children.
At the other end of the social spectrum, the underclass seems to be growing. I don’t expect to see much cash at mega-supermarkets in my area. Food stamps — and yet expensive food — are the norm. The school systems of California’s major cities are broken; the wealthy praise them and flee, and the poor complain about their inadequacy, but insist on the sort of identity “pride” politics curriculum and staffing that ensure the inadequacy.

It is taboo to ask our failing youth a simple question, “What exactly have you done the last month to ensure your birthright to the world’s most sophisticated lifestyle propped up by advanced math, science, social stability, and political tranquility?”

I Am Not Your Child

2010-03-02T15:17:00.002-06:00

Stop voting for people who treat me as such:

I doubt very many liberals see themselves as children in need of the government’s guidance. Instead they see themselves as the parents who know how to properly guide everyone else. People don’t pass laws against trans fats because they’re afraid they themselves will eat unhealthily otherwise; those types of laws are for everyone else the liberals feel they need to forcefully parent for their own good. While the adult freedoms are freedoms we want for ourselves, the child freedoms are mainly inflicted on others we imagine need our control for their own betterment.
This is where the progressive European governments and the backwards Islamic governments share a similarity: they are both concerned with what their citizens may do without the government’s interference — the Europeans are worried about non-PC behavior, and the Islamic governments are worried about influences from the West and other religions. The end result is both types of government feel they have the right to treat their citizens like children in need of direction.

The United States of America was supposed to be different.

Bad Guys with Guns

2010-03-02T14:54:00.002-06:00

A street gang by any other name:

94 percent of the state's SWAT deployments were used to serve search or arrest warrants, leaving just 6 percent in response to the kinds of barricades, bank robberies, hostage takings, and emergency situations for which SWAT teams were originally intended.
Worse even than those dreary numbers is the fact that more than half of the county’s SWAT deployments were for misdemeanors and nonserious felonies. That means more than 100 times last year Prince George’s County brought state-sanctioned violence to confront people suspected of nonviolent crimes. And that's just one county in Maryland.
The use of these paramilitary police units has increased dramatically over the last 30 years, by 1,000 percent or more, resulting in the drastic militarization of police. It's a trend that seems to have escaped much media and public notice, let alone informed debate about policies and oversight procedures.

Oversight - THAT is why you vote, folks.

Congrats to Retired War Vet

2010-02-27T08:31:00.002-06:00

Let's hear it for Treo!

The heroic nine-year-old black labrador twice averted catastrophe by seeking out rigged devices with his handler Sergeant Dave Heyhoe.
And today loyal Treo — who is now retired — was handed the highest honour for a military dog, the Dickin Medal, by animal charity PDSA.
Devoted Treo saw frontline action patrolling with soldiers in Sangin, Afghanistan, in 2008 — dashing into danger with his super-sensitive nose to sniff out deadly devices.
"They give a unique contribution to the troops on the ground searching for these devices on a daily basis.
"This medal is a unique honour for all of our dog handlers, particularly all the military working dogs and their handlers that are serving in Afghanistan."

Mr. Harvard Law Doesn't Know a Thing About Insurance

2010-02-27T08:17:00.001-06:00

Simply unbelievable.

Just Another Day Islamic Savages

2010-02-27T08:07:00.002-06:00

Always a nice touch to machine gun civilians in their sleep.

Islamist militants have attacked a village in the southern Philippines, killing at least 11 people, military officials have said. About 70 members of Abu Sayyaf, a group linked to al-Qaeda, raided Tubigan village on the southern island of Basilan, an army spokeswoman said.
Lt Steffani Cacho said homes had been raked with gunfire and set ablaze in a pre-dawn attack.
Most of the victims were still asleep when they were strafed and then their houses were torched," he said.

I guess the Filipino people there just aren't Muslim ENOUGH for these animals.

Politicians I Could Get Behind

2010-02-15T17:18:00.002-06:00

For they speak the truth:

In good times and bad, in economic sickness or economic health, government keeps spending more of your money. In recent years, policymakers, legislative commissions and state economists found a further troubling trend: long-term demographic changes threaten the state's fiscal well-being, especially public health spending expectations for the needs of retiring and disabled individuals.
-----------------------------
If you make $40,000 this year, you don't set a larger budget for next year based on the possibility that you will make more money. You certainly can't storm into your boss's office during a recession and demand a 20 percent raise to meet your lofty spending visions. But that is exactly what government does. It sets a budget based on what it hopes to have, and comes calling for more of your money if that hope turns out to be wrong.
-----------------------------
We expect vociferous opposition from our colleagues who benefit by promising out pieces of the government's ever-expanding checkbook. They will warn of doom and disaster if our amendment passes, but they fail to recognize the peril of continuing our broken system.
We are simply asking voters to set the maximum amount for government to spend. The Legislature will still retain the flexibility to debate how much under that limit would be spent for education, public safety and other priorities. We will also ensure the proposal allows us to meet our needs during times of extraordinary crisis or emergencies.

Honestly - try arguing against this outlook.

Flying the Grifty Skies

2010-02-03T20:32:00.002-06:00

Old weird eyes is making chumps of us all:

According to the documents, obtained by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the Speaker’s military travel cost the United States Air Force $2,100,744.59 over a two-year period — $101,429.14 of which was for in-flight expenses, including food and alcohol. The following are highlights from the recent release of about 2,000 documents:
Speaker Pelosi used Air Force aircraft to travel back to her district at an average cost of $28,210.51 per flight. The average cost of an international CODEL is $228,563.33. Of the 103 Pelosi-led congressional delegations (CODEL), 31 trips included members of the House Speaker’s family.
One CODEL traveling from Washington, DC, through Tel Aviv, Israel to Baghdad, Iraq May 15-20, 2008, “to discuss matters of mutual concern with government leaders” included members of Congress and their spouses and cost $17,931 per hour in aircraft alone. Purchases for the CODEL included: Johnny Walker Red scotch, Grey Goose vodka, E&J brandy, Bailey’s Irish Crème, Maker’s Mark whiskey, Courvoisier cognac, Bacardi Light rum, Jim Beam whiskey, Beefeater gin, Dewars scotch, Bombay Sapphire gin, Jack Daniels whiskey, Corona beer and several bottles of wine.
According to a “Memo for Record” from a March 29—April 7, 2007, CODEL that involved a stop in Israel, “CODEL could only bring Kosher items into the Hotel. Kosher alcohol for mixing beverages in the Delegation room was purchased on the local economy i.e. Bourbon, Whiskey, Scotch, Vodka, Gin, Triple Sec, Tequila, etc.”
The Department of Defense advanced a CODEL of 56 members of Congress and staff $60,000 to travel to Louisiana and Mississippi July 19-22, 2008, to “view flood relief advances from Hurricane Katrina.” The three-day trip cost the U.S. Air Force $65,505.46, exceeding authorized funding by $5,505.46.

Legacy Media - Always Afraid of the Wrong Villian

2010-02-03T17:01:00.002-06:00

In case you're still worried about "Big Business" having access to the First Amendment, try this on for size.

(A)s union membership has grown in government, so has union clout in pushing politicians (especially but not solely Democrats) for higher wages and benefits. This is why labor chiefs Andy Stern (SEIU) and Rich Trumka (AFL-CIO) could order Democrats to exempt unions from ObamaCare's tax increase on high-cost health insurance plans. To the extent Democrats have become the party of government, they have become ever more beholden to public unions.

The problem for democracy is that this creates a self-reinforcing cycle of higher spending and taxes. The unions help elect politicians, who repay the unions with more pay and benefits and dues-paying members, who in turn help to re-elect those politicians.

Are You SURE You're a Good Driver?

2010-01-24T21:56:00.001-06:00

Mort's Buyer's Remorse

2010-01-20T17:52:00.002-06:00

I wish I could have written so succinctly about how I felt about W back in 2006:

In the campaign, (Obama) said he would change politics as usual. He did change them. It’s now worse than it was. I’ve now seen the kind of buying off of politicians that I’ve never seen before. It’s politically corrupt and it’s starting at the top. It’s revolting.
Five states got deals on health care—one of them was Harry Reid’s. It is disgusting, just disgusting. I’ve never seen anything like it. The unions just got them to drop the tax on Cadillac plans in the health-care bill. It was pure union politics. They just went along with it. It’s a bizarre form of political corruption. It’s bribery. I suppose they could say, that’s the system. He was supposed to change it or try to change it.
I’m very disappointed. We endorsed him. I voted for him. I supported him publicly and privately.
The political leadership of the world is very, very dismayed. He better turn it around. The Democrats are going to get killed in this election. Jesus, looks what’s happening in Massachusetts.

The Most Open and Transparent Administration Ever

2010-01-14T13:02:00.002-06:00

OPEN!

President Obama has not held a full news conference at the White House since July 22, the night he said that the Cambridge Police "acted stupidly" in the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates.
Since then, the president has delivered dozens of speeches and taken a few questions from reporters while with world leaders on foreign trips. But, lately, it is rare for him to take questions from the media at events or meetings at the White House.

TRANSPARENT!

In fact, today's Biden schedule highlight is a meeting with the chief of transparency for economic recovery. But, unfortunately, the transparency meeting is non-transparent, closed to the press. (See his full schedule below.) Which makes it -- what? -- secret openness? Open secrecy?
DAILY GUIDANCE FOR THE VICE PRESIDENT, Thursday, January 14, 2010:
In the morning, the President and the Vice President will receive the Presidential Daily Briefing and the Economic Daily Briefing in the Oval Office. These briefings are closed press.

At 11:30 AM, the Vice President will meet with Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to discuss the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This meeting is closed press.

Afterwards, the President and the Vice President will have lunch in the Private Dining Room. This lunch is closed press.

At 1:00 PM, the Vice President will meet with Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd al-Mahdi in the Roosevelt Room. There will be a pool spray at the bottom of this meeting; gather time is 1:45 PM in the Brady Briefing Room.
Then, at 2:15 PM, the Vice President will meet with Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board. This meeting is closed press.

And This is Just the Shootout

2010-01-09T22:36:00.003-06:00

What. A. Game. Minnesota	Mikko Koivu shootout goal
Chicago	Jonathan Toews shootout saved
Minnesota	Guillaume Latendresse shootout miss
Chicago	Patrick Kane shootout goal
Minnesota	Marek Zidlicky shootout miss
Chicago	Marian Hossa shootout miss
Minnesota	Antti Miettinen shootout saved
Chicago	Patrick Sharp shootout saved
Minnesota	Eric Belanger shootout saved
Chicago	Kris Versteeg shootout miss
Minnesota	Kyle Brodziak shootout miss
Chicago	Andrew Ladd shootout miss
Minnesota	Cal Clutterbuck shootout saved
Chicago	Troy Brouwer shootout saved
Minnesota	Owen Nolan shootout goal
Chicago	John Madden shootout saved

Campaign Applause Line ot Outright Lie?

2010-01-06T10:28:00.002-06:00

Eight chances to recall the bullshit:

Politically Correct to the End

2010-01-05T17:02:00.002-06:00

A slow but methodical march toward the end of society:

(A) civilization becomes incompetent not only when it fails to learn the lessons of its past, but also when it becomes crippled by them. Modern Germany, to pick an example, has learned from its Nazi past to eschew chauvinism and militarism. So far, so good. But today's Multikulti Germany, with its negative birth rate, bloated welfare state and pacifist and ecological obsessions is a dismal rejoinder to its own history. It is conceivable that within a century Germans may actually loathe themselves out of existence.
In the U.S., our civilizational incompetence takes various forms. For instance: No country in the world collects more extensive statistical data about its own population than the U.S. And no country is as conflicted about the uses to which that data may or may not be put than the U.S. So what exactly is the point of all this measuring, collating and parsing?

Our deeper incompetence stems from an inability to recognize the proper limits to our own virtues; to forget, as Aristotle cautioned, that even good things "bring harm to many people; for before now men have been undone by reason of their wealth, and others by reason of their courage."

Can't See the Forest for the Lies

2010-01-05T16:58:00.001-06:00

"Watch the Nice Hand; don't worry about what the Naughty Hand is doing:

Under the "Cornhusker Kickback," the federal government will pay all of Nebraska's new Medicaid costs forever, while taxpayers in the other 49 states will see their budgets explode as this safety-net program for the poor is expanded to one out of every five Americans.
Obviously Congress treats different states differently all the time, via earmarks and the like, but in this case there is simply no plausible argument for some kind of "general" benefit. The only state that gains from special treatment for Nebraska is Nebraska—and this actively harms all other states, which will have fewer tax dollars for their own priorities while effectively subsidizing the Cornhusker state.

The reality is that national taxpayers have subsidized New York and California's social services for years because Medicaid's funding formula rewards higher state spending. That spending helps explain why these two states, plus New Jersey, are in such budget fixes today. But we welcome Mr. Paterson's discovery that redistributing income via progressive taxation is harmful.

If It's Monday

2010-01-04T12:54:00.002-06:00

Then it must be time to get back to work wondering about stuff that very few others are worrying about, like where are all the killer hurricanes I was promised?

First, they concur with the believers that the Earth has been warming since the end of a Little Ice Age around 1850. The cause of this warming is the question. Believers think the warming is man-made, while the skeptics believe the warming is natural and contributions from man are minimal and certainly not potentially catastrophic a la Al Gore.
Second, skeptics argue that CO2 is not a pollutant but vital for plant life. Numerous field experiments have confirmed that higher levels of CO2 are positive for agricultural productivity. Furthermore, carbon dioxide is a very minor greenhouse gas. More than 90 percent of the warming from greenhouse gases is caused by water vapor. If you are going to change the temperature of the globe, it must involve water vapor.

Third, and most important, skeptics believe that climate models are grossly overpredicting future warming from rising concentrations of carbon dioxide. We are being told that numerical models that cannot make accurate 5- to 10-day forecasts can be simplified and run forward for 100 years with results so reliable you can impose an economic disaster on the U.S. and the world.

Life or death matter in Cliff Claven's hands:

If we suffer an anthrax attack, everyone who's been exposed will need antibiotics within three days of the attack. That's within two days of our discovery of the attack, if we're lucky. Every day of delay after that is a death sentence for roughly five or ten percent of those exposed.

How will we get antibiotics in the hands of what could be hundreds of thousands of really worried people? The Administration's answer is contained in an executive order released quietly last week: We'' get the Postal Service to do it.

Whether in Washington, Chicago or Kailua - The situation is being monitored.

It speaks eloquently to the Obama administration's priorities that it took the White House four days to acknowledge the "catastrophic breach of security" that led to the failed bombing of a US-bound jet on Christmas Day - but a scant four hours to accuse Dick Cheney of coddling terrorists.

The Second Ammendment and You

2010-01-02T15:52:00.002-06:00

Are you, by chance, one of those folks that seems content to let ol' #2 pass you by?

Danish police have shot and wounded a man at the home of Kurt Westergaard, whose cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad sparked an international row.
Mr Westergaard scrambled into a panic room at his home in Aarhus after a man wielding an axe and a knife broke in.
Danish officials said the intruder was a 28-year-old Somali, who they did not name, but said was linked to the radical Islamist al-Shabab militia.

There's really no act more selfish than trying to kill another person because they are not devout enough in your eyes.

His house has been heavily fortified and is under close police protection. Police said the man had entered Mr Westergaard's house armed with a knife and axe and had shouted in broken English that he wanted to kill him. Mr Westergaard ran to a specially designed panic room where he raised the alarm.

Police awareness and passive fortification didn't seem to suffice in this instance.

Fritz Keldsen, deputy chief superintendent of Aarhus city police, told the BBC: "We got the alarm message from this address, yesterday evening. And we came in strong numbers. "When we saw the suspect, he was moving away from the scene. Then he attacked the police patrol. He did that with such skill, that they had to shoot him. "The suspect was armed with an axe and a knife, which he used against the police. The police patrol managed to subdue him, with the use of firearms."

Going after the cops with the axe - somewhere along the line the "religion of peace" somehow got lost on this caveman.

Mr Westergaard told Jyllands Posten he was shocked that his five-year-old granddaughter, who was in the house at the time, had witnessed the attack.

Oh now that's a nice touch; just the memory making that makes time with ones' grandchild very special.

Just because you don't involved in and high-risk behavior like . . . cartooning . . . doesn't mean you won't ever face a lethal threat. Remember, when seconds count, the police are minutes away.

Dodd Just Gets Dodd-ier Every Day

2009-12-29T10:42:00.002-06:00

Anyone would be hard-pressed to find a worse example of how diseased the US Senate has become than Chris Dodd:

Back in July, Senator Chris Dodd, D-Conn., proposed an amendment reducing aviation security appropriations by $4.5 million in favor of firefighter grants -- a notoriously inneffective program. In fact, the money was specifically "for screening operations and the amount for explosives detection systems." The amendment was also sponsored by Sen. Lieberman, D-Conn., and Sen. Carper, D-Del., but Dodd deserves to be singled out here because the firefighters union is a pet constituency of his.

Blind slavery to labor unions screws normal Americans once again. Dodd cannot be put out of work soon enough.

Boarding School Does Not Equate Education

2009-12-29T10:26:00.002-06:00

It's possible to have it all and still turn out baffled, stupid and alone:

The 23-year-old Nigerian man accused of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of an American airliner apparently turned to the Internet for counseling and companionship, writing in an online forum that he was "lonely" and had "never found a true Muslim friend."

"I have no one to speak too [sic]," read a posting from January 2005, when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was attending boarding school. "No one to consult, no one to support me and I feel depressed and lonely. I do not know what to do. And then I think this loneliness leads me to other problems."

Magnificent

2009-12-12T09:51:00.000-06:00

And now here we are. Right here in your own backyard, an American company creates a brilliant phone, and that company hands it to you, and gives you an exclusive deal to carry it — and all you guys can do is complain about how much people want to use it. You, Randall Stephenson, and your lazy stupid company — you are the problem. You are what’s wrong with this country.

Follow the link and read it all.

Hey, Neat How THIS Worked Out

2009-12-11T14:07:00.002-06:00

Government will consume 100% of the gross national product in our lifetimes.

Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months — and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.

When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.

"There's no way to justify this to the American people. It's ridiculous," says Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a first-term lawmaker who is on the House's federal workforce subcommittee.

This Disaster Was Nearly Elected President

2009-12-11T13:36:00.002-06:00

I know, who among us are really poets? Instead of mocking his art, let's mock him for being a rat fink liar.

Everyday I Get in the Queue

2009-12-08T21:22:00.001-06:00

I get on the bus, it takes me to you.

So Simple Even the President Could Understand

2009-12-02T15:29:00.000-06:00

Not Just the Smoking Gun

2009-12-02T11:47:00.002-06:00

But photos of it actually firing:

I am seriously worried that our flagship gridded data product is produced by Delaunay triangulation - apparently linear as well. As far as I can see, this renders the station counts totally meaningless. It also means that we cannot say exactly how the gridded data is arrived at from a statistical perspective - since we're using an off-the-shelf product that isn't documented sufficiently to say that. Why this wasn't coded up in Fortran I don't know - time pressures perhaps? Was too much effort expended on homogenisation, that there wasn't enough time to write a gridding procedure? Of course, it's too late for me to fix it too.

Now that has all the hallmark of IRREFUTABLE SCIENCE!

Bold Leadership on Display

2009-12-01T17:33:00.002-06:00

It might exist somewhere in Washington DC, but with the junior senator from the state of Minnesota - no chance.

The silent treatment reached an apex (or nadir) of sorts on Tuesday, when I caught Franken on the way to the Senate Democratic policy lunch to ask him the obvious question-of-the-day: What did he think of the Obama administration's plan to increase Afghanistan troop deployments by 34,000.

Franken turned slowly to face me and pursed his lips as if to speak. Just then his body man intervened and flicked out the business card of Franken's well-regarded spokeswoman, Jess McIntosh.

CNN's Dana Bash tried her luck: "What do you think as far as what you heard from the President so far?"

Franken: "You gotta talk to Jess McIntosh..."

Body guy: "We run everything on the record through the press shop."

Me: "Every other Senator we talk with, we ask a question, they answer the question.. I really find it unusual.."

Franken: "Well, give Jess a call and talk about this."

Somewhere in the unwritten rules of representing the people is being able to represent the people; not just shoo them off to some PR flack back in the office somewhere. What a putz.

I Agree with the Dead-Tree Media Guy

2009-11-22T20:58:00.002-06:00

Mike Sweeney lays it down:

(Minnesota Public Radio) has successfully lobbied state government for years to secure millions in subsidies to help finance its nonprofit business expansions, most recently obtaining $2.65 million in Legacy Amendment funds over a two-year period. Apparently MPR will use some of those taxpayer funds to compete with private media companies. In a time of such scarce government resources, should public money be allocated to a healthy nonprofit so that it can compete more aggressively with private, for-profit businesses?

Weather I care for his paper's product or not, I'm very happy to see him standing up for his side.

Do I Look Like Mrs. Obama?

2009-11-22T20:15:00.000-06:00

All New for 2009!

2009-11-21T13:24:00.002-06:00

The Louisiana Purchase:

On page 432 of the Reid bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for “certain states recovering from a major disaster.”The section spends two pages defining which “states” would qualify, saying, among other things, that it would be states that “during the preceding 7 fiscal years” have been declared a “major disaster area.”

Sounds so suspicious it's got to be fishy, right?

I am told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democrat Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill. In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world: Louisiana. (This may also help explain why the bill is long.)

Found the fish!

Senator Harry Reid, who drafted the bill, cannot pass it without the support of Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu. How much does it cost? According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.

Harry Reid; now we've also found the weasel to go with the fish.

Here’s the incredibly complicated language:

SEC. 2006. SPECIAL ADJUSTMENT TO FMAP DETERMINATION FOR CERTAIN STATES RECOVERING FROM A MAJOR DISASTER.

Section 1905 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1396d), as amended by sections 2001(a)(3) and
2001(b)(2), is amended— (1) in subsection (b), in the first sentence, by striking ‘‘subsection (y)’’ and inserting ‘‘subsections (y) and (aa)’’; and (2) by adding at the end the following new subsection:

‘‘(aa)(1) Notwithstanding subsection (b), beginning January 1, 2011, the Federal medical assistance percentage for a fiscal year for a disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State shall be equal to the following:
‘(A) In the case of the first fiscal year (or part of a fiscal year) for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), increased by 50 percent of the number of percentage points by which the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year after the application of only subsection (a) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5 (if applicable to the preceding fiscal year) and without regard to this subsection, subsection (y), and subsections (b) and (c) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5.

‘‘(B) In the case of the second or any succeeding fiscal year for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection for the State, increased by 25 percent of the number of percentage points by which the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection.

‘‘(2) In this subsection, the term ‘disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State’ means a State that is one of
the 50 States or the District of Columbia, for which, at any time during the preceding 7 fiscal years, the President has declared a major disaster under section 401 of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act and determined as a result of such disaster that every county or parish in the State warrant individual and public assistance or public assistance from the Federal Government under such Act and for which— ‘‘(A) in the case of the first fiscal year (or part of a fiscal year) for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year after the application of only subsection (a) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5 (if applicable to the preceding fiscal year) and without regard to this subsection, subsection (y), and subsections (b) and (c) of section 5001 of Public Law 111–5, by at least 3 percentage points; and ‘‘(B) in the case of the second or any succeeding fiscal year for which this subsection applies to the State, the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the fiscal year without regard to this subsection and subsection (y), is less than the Federal medical assistance percentage determined for the State for the preceding fiscal year under this subsection by at least 3 percentage points.
‘‘(3) The Federal medical assistance percentage determined for a disaster-recovery FMAP adjustment State under paragraph (1) shall apply for purposes of this title (other than with respect to disproportionate share hospital payments described in section 1923 and payments under this title that are based on the enhanced FMAP described in 2105(b)) and shall not apply with respect to payments under title IV (other than under part E of title IV) or payments under title XXI.’’.

You can follow that, right average citizen?

Fools with Guns

2009-11-21T13:12:00.002-06:00

And we are all paying for this farcical illusion of safety:

(Montana U.S. Senator Conrad) Burns showed his U.S. Senate identification to a TSA agent who refused to accept it, telling him she was not familiar with the government-issued photo ID. He had to produce another form of picture ID she demanded. In an attempt to be funny, Burns offered his Sam's Club shopping card. The agent accepted it and sent Burns on his way.

Nice.

Tough Day at the White House

2009-11-17T11:14:00.001-06:00

Ethics Quiz Time

2009-11-16T16:56:00.003-06:00

I guess we're supposed to believe that Obama's flunkie's didn't recognize Stern wandering the halls.

President Obama has always made a pretty big deal about not working with “lobbyists”. Registered lobbyists can’t get stimulus money, can’t be White House advisors and are not allowed access to meetings and summits. So how does one get around that? It’s simple; you just don’t register as a lobbyist.

During the first calendar quarter of 2009, Mr. Stern went to the White House on 11 separate days, including twice on February 18. In the second calendar quarter, Mr. Stern visited on 9 days, and twice on April 13 for a total of 10 visits. Since White House personnel, including the President and Vice President, are considered “covered” officials under LDA, all of Mr. Stern’s communications with them during these 22 visits covering 20 days would constitute “lobbying contacts.”

Thankfully, Big Media is ignoring this story in order to continue to prop up the current administration. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that Stern was whoring for the SEIU.

Lucre Pyre

2009-11-16T16:36:00.002-06:00

No, you guys shovel my money into the incinerator and keep playing Public Kingdom; why should I have any business wondering where my money is going?

The University of Minnesota Board of Regents rejected a request by the Metropolitan Council to speak before the board Friday about issues surrounding the Central Corridor light-rail line.
Clyde Allen, chairman of the board , said specific channels are already in place to address the issues and they should continue to be handled that way and not publicly.
Met Council spokesman Steve Dornfeld said Chairman Peter Bell has attempted to address the regents on multiple occasions in the last year. He said the idea was to speak directly to the governing board instead of passing the information through staff.

As if You Were Wondering

2009-11-16T16:27:00.001-06:00

if the whole thing was bullshit, it is:

Here's a stimulus success story: In Arizona's 9th Congressional District, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending. At least that's what the website set up by the Obama Administration to track the $787 billion stimulus says.
There's one problem, though: There is no 9th Congressional District in Arizona; the state has only eight Congressional Districts.
There's no 86th Congressional District in Arizona either, but the government's recovery.gov Web site says $34 million in stimulus money has been spent there.

Here's the fun map for those too stupid to read. Oversight's a bitch.

If There is a Parade in Minneapolis . . .

2009-10-31T20:23:00.004-05:00

. . . you can be sure that city hall will be there with the rain.

The bureaucratic tangle involves two city ordinances. The first requires businesses to obtain a license to sell parking spots. But when several of these smaller, family-run businesses headed over to City Hall to apply, they were told they don't qualify.

That's because a long-term neighborhood plan, approved two years ago by the Minneapolis City Council, established something called a Transit Station Area Pedestrian Oriented Overlay District. (George Orwell, call your office!) The idea was to get cars and parking lots out of the area to make way for more bicycles, walkers and light rail in 2014.

Take the case of Tech Huy Ung, whose family has owned the popular U Garden Chinese restaurant for nearly 17 years on University Avenue.

At the first game, he braced for an onslaught of customers. None showed up, fearing traffic snarls. So, for the second game Sept. 19, he charged $25 to let customers park and receive a gift certificate for a free meal any time. City licensing inspectors photographed him waving cars into his 60 spaces and issued two warnings.
Ung says his property taxes have gone up $6,000 to nearly $42,000 a year since the stadium went up, but now he has no customers on game days and no ability to make parking revenue, while he must pay employees to manage the lot so no tailgaters sneak in and violate another ordinance for which he can be fined. "They treat me like a criminal on my own property," Ung said. "It seems like they have too much control."

Make no mistake - if it happens with the U on the horizon, the U will control all aspectsBetween the oligarchs at the University of Minnesota and the city of Minneapolis who will do all their bidding, the glow of that new, outdoor, on-campus stadium will dim much faster than it would otherwise.

Read it all. It just gets worse. What a diseased political and civic culture they have over there.

So Stupid it's Halloween Scary

2009-10-31T20:03:00.003-05:00

Part 1

Part 2

"I was taken down to the office, and they told me that a student told them that I was carrying a knife," Whalen said. He said he told them "they could search me and everything, and they said, 'There's no need for that.'"

"And they said, 'Do you own a knife?' I said, 'Yes, I'm a soldier and an Eagle Scout — I own a knife.' "And they were like, 'Well, is it in your car or anything?' And I told them, 'Yeah, it's in my car right now.'

"And they asked me to show it to them. I didn't realize it was going to be a problem. I knew it wasn't illegal — my police chief grandfather gave the knife to me."

Whalen said he took school administrators to his car because he thought their fears would be allayed when they saw it was just a 2-inch knife. "They thought I had a dagger in my car or something like that, so I thought yeah, I'd show it to them," Whalen said. "I showed it to them, and they told me I had a knife on school property and had to be suspended."

But things didn't end there, Whalen said.

"They brought a cop in, who told them 'he's not breaking any laws, so I can't charge him with anything.'" Whalen said he asked Macri why a 2-inch pocketknife would be considered more dangerous than other everyday items around the school. "I said to him, 'What about a person who has a bat, on a baseball team? That could be a weapon.' And he said, 'Well, it's not the same thing.'"

"They gave me the five-day suspension, because that is all a principal can suspend a student for," he said. "And from there, they had a superintendent hearing to see if the superintendent wanted to suspend me for longer.
"They asked me if I wanted to say anything, and I told them all my accomplishments and what I've done, and the principal even admitted that I had no intent to use the knife, that I had no accessibility to the knife."

But school officials decided to suspend Whalen for an extra 15 days anyway, he said. And unless the decision is changed, he will not be allowed on school grounds until Oct. 21.

"I've been told by someone who works for the district that they had to do it, because if someone else had a knife and they saw that I didn't get a suspension, that it would look bad for the school."

"Zero Tolerance" continues to be code for "Administrator Too Lazy/Stupid to do the Job They Were Hired for." The public sector is just rife with cowards, frauds and idiots.

Your Government Explained

2009-10-29T15:39:00.002-05:00

It's the old adage all over again - when all you have is a hammer, everything stars looking like a nail.

In a world defined by nearly 100,000 iPhone apps, a world of seemingly limitless, self-defined choice, the Democrats are pushing the biggest, fattest, one-size-fits all legislation since 1965. And they brag this will complete the dream Franklin D. Roosevelt had in 1939.

The culture still believes the U.S. has a hipster for president. But the Obama health-care bill, and maybe this whole administration, is starting to look totally out of sync with the new zeitgeist, the spirit of the age.

Everything about the health-care exercise is looking very old hat, starting with the old guys working on it. Max Baucus, Patrick Leahy, Pete Stark—all were elected to Congress in the 1970s, and live on as the immortals in Washington's Forever Land. But it's more than the fact that Congress looks old. The health-care bill is big, complex, incomprehensible and coercive—all the things people hate nowadays.

It's easy to make jokes about how insubstantial the millions of people seem to be who are constantly using technologies like Twitter. But these new digital and Web-based technologies, which have decentralized virtually everything, now occupy most of the average person's waking hours at work or at home. Mass media is struggling to stay massive in a world whose people want to break up into many discrete markets.

So long as the Democratic Party is the party of the Old Hat People, dependent on public-sector unions with Orwellian names like the Service Employees International Union, it will remain yoked to a pre-iPhone political model that will increasingly strike average everyday American voters as weird and alien to their world.

Today the House pooped out a 1,990 page bill full of WHO KNOWS WHAT. Tell me how that's modern, forward or (HA!) progressive.

Well Played, Baxter

2009-10-29T14:18:00.001-05:00

Nothing like a good dog.

Rest in peace, Baxter; you've done your part.

"OnStar Calling . . ."

2009-10-25T18:37:00.001-05:00

This is what happens when you run a modern GM product at extreme g-forces:

I Call 'Bullsht' on This

2009-10-24T08:35:00.002-05:00

Why does it not surprise me this sort of jive comes from New Zealand:

A pair of New Zealand researchers claim a medium-sized dog has about the same carbon footprint as a sport-utility vehicle due to its diet.

Robert and Brenda Vale said in their new book, "Time To Eat The Dog: The Real Guide To Sustainable Living," that a medium-sized dog eats about 362 pounds of meat and 209 pounds of cereal each year, with 43 square miles of land needed to create just 2.2 pounds of dog food cereal, Sky News reported Friday.

The Vales calculate the carbon footprint of a medium-sized dog as 2.08 acres, more than twice the 1.01 acres needed to create enough energy to build a Toyota Land Cruiser. However, the pair said the average driver travels about 12,000 miles a year, making the carbon footprint of the Toyota and the dog roughly equivalent.

However, some experts cast doubt on the book's claims.

"Everything has an impact on the environment but I'm surprised by the size of these numbers. Without analyzing them further I find it difficult to believe," said John Buckey, managing director of carbonfootprint.com.

So today, for the first and maybe last time, I agree with someone from Carbonfootprint.cmo

Calling the Man Out

2009-10-21T16:17:00.002-05:00

The natives (if you go along with the boilerplate that he's from Chicago) are restless:

You'd think it's October 2008, the final month in the Obama presidential candidacy, rather than October 2009, nine months into the Obama presidency. Yet the Obama White House is in full campaign mode -- maybe because it needs to mask the shortcomings of the Obama presidency.

Take, for example, all the talk of inheriting the worst economy since the 1930s crisis. That came in response to the news that the federal deficit hit $1.4 trillion.

Yet just a few months ago, the Obama camp was singing a little different tune. It was under criticism for the $787 billion stimulus package it bulldozed through Congress on grounds that massive spending was needed to keep the unemployment rate from breaching 8 percent. When joblessness hit 9.5 percent in June, Vice President Joe Biden said, "We misread how bad the economy was."

They inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression, or the economy turned out to be worse than they thought. Which is it? It can't be both -- unless your brain is completely addled by the Obama charisma.

Read it all; I'll wait here.

Recession Proof and Reality Proof

2009-10-21T15:11:00.004-05:00

Times are tough. People are out of work. Retirement accounts have crashed. Retail sales are stagnant. Credit is tight, and you can't even sell an excellent new car unless the federal government rides in with an ill-conceived pay-off.

But the cost of a college education continues to go up at a rate higher than inflation for, what, the 25th year in row? So much for the laws of economics.

With the economy struggling, parents and students dared to hope this year might offer a break from rising college costs. Instead, they got another sharp increase.
Average tuition at four-year public colleges in the U.S. climbed 6.5 percent, or $429, to $7,020 this fall as schools apologetically passed on much of their own financial problems, according to an annual report from the College Board, released Tuesday. At private colleges, tuition rose 4.4 percent, or $1,096, to $26,273.
"Every sector of the American economy is under stress, and higher education is no exception," said Terry Hartle, senior vice president of the American Council on Education. "It's regrettable, and it's yet another piece of disappointing economic news that affects families."

See, that's where you're fatally wrong, uh, Terry. In every other part of the economy, anything you'd want to buy is more affordable than ever. Anyone providing goods or services has dropped prices and sweetened offers in order to drive business . . . except Big Education.

Across the nation, the price increases came despite painful cost-cutting by colleges on everything from faculty to cafeterias and sports travel. And as usual, the rise in tuition outstripped the overall inflation rate.
In fact, during the period covered by the report, consumer prices declined 2.1 percent. So the latest tuition increase at public colleges was closer to 9 percent in real terms. "It's only natural for parents to question why colleges are raising their prices yet again, while the rest of our economy is inflation-free," said James Boyle, president of the group College Parents of America.

The only reason tuition can keep going up is because government keeps pumping money into Big Education. The only reason money keeps getting pumped into Big Education is because terrified politicians will never turn off the spigot and let the system settle to a sustainable equilibrium.

Time to Face Your Inner Hypocrite

2009-10-21T14:51:00.002-05:00

John Ashcroft made your brain steam because you believe in freedom. You went off the deep end over Alberto Gonzales because (you allege) he did not uphold the US Constitution. Now, I ask you, Mr and Mrs. Politically Astute American . . . where are you these days?

KINSTON, N.C. | Voters in this small city decided overwhelmingly last year to do away with the party affiliation of candidates in local elections, but the Obama administration recently overruled the electorate and decided that equal rights for black voters cannot be achieved without the Democratic Party.
The Justice Department's ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their "candidates of choice" - identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.
The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters' right to elect the candidates they want.
"The Voting Rights Act is supposed to protect against situations when black voters are locked out because of racism," said Abigail Thernstrom, a Republican appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. "There is no entitlement to elect a candidate they prefer on the assumption that all black voters prefer Democratic candidates."
Whites typically cast the majority of votes in Kinston's general elections. Kinston residents contributed to Barack Obama's victory as America's first black president and voted by a margin of nearly 2-to-1 to eliminate partisan elections in the city.
In a letter dated Aug. 17, the city received the Justice Department's answer: Elections must remain partisan because the change's "effect will be strictly racial."
"Removing the partisan cue in municipal elections will, in all likelihood, eliminate the single factor that allows black candidates to be elected to office," Loretta King, who at the time was the acting head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, wrote in a letter to the city.
Ms. King wrote that voters in Kinston vote more along racial than party lines and without the potential for voting a straight Democratic ticket, "the limited remaining support from white voters for a black Democratic candidate will diminish even more."
Ms. King is the same official who put a stop to the New Black Panther Party case. In that case, the Justice Department filed a civil complaint in Philadelphia after two members of the black revolutionary group dressed in quasi-military garb stood outside a polling place on election last year and purportedly intimidated voters with racial insults, slurs and a nightstick.

By crapping your pants over AGs that served under Bush and letting this Holder creep slide by, you expose yourself as shallow and blinded by the growing-dimmer Obama light.

Guaranteed to put You Ass in Traction

2009-10-12T21:08:00.001-05:00

Oh Looky, Looky!

2009-10-08T22:46:00.002-05:00

What could possibly go wrong with this . . .

(Dalia) Mogahed, appointed to the President's Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was "oversimplified" and the majority of women around the world associate it with "gender justice".

Oh really? Do tell.

The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party.

I'll bet that was Must-See TV

The group believes in the non-violent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of an Islamic state under Sharia Law across the world.

Go on (I mean, I'm sure you have a hell of a definition of 'non-violent destruction' which I'm dying to hear.

During the 45-minute discussion, on the Islam Channel programme Muslimah Dilemma earlier this week, the two members of the group made repeated attacks on secular "man-made law" and the West's "lethal cocktail of liberty and capitalism". They called for Sharia Law to be "the source of legislation" and said that women should not be "permitted to hold a position of leadership in government".

Sounds like a fun, modern, evolved bunch.

Miss Mogahed made no challenge to these demands and said that "promiscuity" and the "breakdown of traditional values" were what Muslims admired least about the West. She said: "I think the reason so many women support Sharia is because they have a very different understanding of sharia than the common perception in Western media.

Or maybe so many Muslim women "support" Sharia Law because they don't want to get stoned, beheaded or stabbed to death.

Miss Mogahed, who was born in Egypt and moved to America at the age of five, is the first veiled Muslim woman to serve in the White House. Her appointment was seen as a sign of the Obama administration's determination to reach out to the Muslim world.

Just more 'progress' from your Executive Branch.

Watching the Stupid Repeating Failure

2009-10-08T21:51:00.002-05:00

I know, we'll get the RICH to pay for everything!

New Jersey enacted its half millionaire millionaires' tax in 2004. Pitched by the state's unions as the cure for Jersey's budget woes, the state collected $9.5 billion in personal income taxes in fiscal 2005. Last year, four budget cycles later, the state collected only $10.3 billion and this year it's estimating just $9.4 billion from the same tax. Revenues have fallen so far below projections that Jersey has actually had to cut its spending (not just its rate of spending, like most states) by more than $3 billion this year despite $2 billion in federal stimulus aid for the state budget. And even so, Jersey had to skip payments to its pension system. If it were a business Jersey would be insolvent, a remarkable achievement in a place whose residents boast the highest personal income in the nation.

Maryland enacted its millionaires' tax in the fall of 2007. Earlier this year the state scrambled to enact mid-year budget cuts because of a sharp shortfall in revenues. Year-to-date personal income tax collections are off by about $650 million, and the Maryland comptroller has said, "It seems reasonable to assume...that there will be a significant decline in the number of returns with taxable income over $1 million and a substantial decline in the income reported on those returns."

-----------------------------------------------------------

The really bad news, however, is that there is no easy way out of this for many of these states. Their budget problems are structural and long-term and can't be fixed merely by trimming a little waste and pork here and there. Most of these states have wracked up huge debts, for instance, so that bond payments are now weighing down their balance sheets. Their bondholders must be fed or chaos will ensue.

These states also suffer from huge public employee pension and benefits obligations that are often guaranteed by law. In fact, the pension funds of these states are so underfunded they make the Social Security Trust Fund look solvent by comparison.

For decades, failed governance on both the state and federal level have written checks to their political patronage that they can no longer cash. Like a bounced check, it's time to also bounce the flunky constituents, from dog catcher on up.

Every One 'Ya

2009-10-06T23:57:00.001-05:00

Don't Forget the Cost to Feed Oprah

2009-10-04T19:07:00.002-05:00

The password is "junket:"

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's failed bid to bring the 2016 Olympic Games to Chicago cost more than a bruised ego.

Taxpayers shelled out probably $1 million or more for the president, his wife and others to fly to Copenhagen and back to woo members of the International Olympic Committee.

A 2006 congressional study pegged the cost of flying Air Force One at $56,518 an hour. The Pentagon recently said it cost $100,219 an hour to fly the huge, reconfigured Boeing 747 without Obama aboard. The Pentagon estimate included more costs for support needs, such as maintenance.

At those rates, the president's 14-hour trip to Copenhagen and back (air travel cost alone) cost about $790,000 to $1.4 million.

Every time the public contributes to a sports stadium, a freeway, launching the space shuttle, etc, all I hear are the bed-wetters cry about starving families, rundown schools or empty food shelves. Well, predictable sheep, where are you on the matter of O's failed voyage to Denmark?

Voting For Other Peoples' Tax Increases

2009-10-01T21:03:00.002-05:00

You don't still wonder about the gap between rich and poor do you? Do you wonder about the politicization of it?

In 2009, roughly 47% of households, or 71 million, will not owe any federal income tax, according to estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

Some in that group will even get additional money from the government because they qualify for refundable tax breaks.

So there you have it - almost half the country gets to vote on the ever-increasing tax bill paid for by the other half. Now, who wants to reopen that crap about the "rich" not paying their fair share?

Today's Executive Branch Embarrasement

2009-10-01T19:31:00.003-05:00

She's always place the importance of the sound bite ahead of the facts.

Hillary Clinton, defending Obama's Afghanistan policy this weekend:

Now, the decision that was made to add troops in the spring has not even been fully implemented yet. You know, you don't get up and just deploy the 82nd Airborne, and they get there the next day.

Actually, Madame Secretary of State, yes they do. With six hours to spare, in fact:

Army Brig. Gen. William Mayville shared his concerns as the division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team trains to re-assume its role in June as the U.S. global response force. In this capacity, the brigade will be on 24/7 standby, ready to deploy anywhere in the world within 18 hours.

May I Come In?

2009-09-30T21:55:00.001-05:00

The Sound of the Other Shoe Dropping

2009-09-30T19:27:00.000-05:00

Got 'Em All

2009-09-29T22:13:00.001-05:00

Way to go Jalopnik!

No "old-school" media outlet bothered providing readers the full list of every car traded-in under the Cash For Clunkers program because it might be too unwieldy. We know Jalopnik readers demand more. Below, the list of all 690,114 trade-ins.

Of course, it was horseshit policy from the children playing Oval Office, and it also lent a hand in the destruction of perfectly legitimate, legal, functioning cars, whose equity was destroyed along with the nation's debt ceiling.

Did you remember the part of how your $4,500 'credit' from the government is taxable income? Don't forget to tell your accountant!

Just Another Unreported Crime

2009-09-29T16:34:00.002-05:00

This is so sad; all for a bullshit publicity stunt.

Make Big $$$ in Art!

2009-09-24T21:54:00.000-05:00

It's true — U.S. government demand for art and art-like products has never been higher! Uncle Sam and the good folks at the National Endowment for the Arts are on the lookout for go-getting, obedient artists like you for a fast-paced career in state propaganda. With the quick and easy Federal Art Instruction Institute course, now you too can get a first class ticket on the federal art gravy train!

Details here; don't delay!

Of Course I Want One

2009-09-24T20:09:00.002-05:00