Your tax dollars at work

Part of the "spend-u-more" plan passed by the Democrats included $300,000 to map radioactive rabbit feces in Washington state. No, I am not making this.....stuff.....up.

Democratic thinking

First Fox, then The Wall Street Journal, then the AP, now it's Edmunds' turn to fall into the crosshairs of Dear Leader. (first the 2nd, then the 13th, now it's the 1st Amendment under attack by Obama...I'll be waiting for him to send soldiers to live at my house next)

It's pretty telling as well; more or less, the White House is actually arguing that the numbers for "cash for clunkers" are better than Edmunds' reports because people could be expected to enthusiastically go out and buy cars they didn't need even if they didn't have a "clunker" to trade in. Don't believe me? Take a look.

In other words, Democratic policy-making actively presumes that people don't actually work the numbers before making a decision; in other words, that people are just plain stupid--an opinion, I must admit, makes some sense in light of last fall's election results.

On the other hand, here is Edmunds' original article, and it clearly demonstrates that while nearly 400,000 more cars were sold than the baseline in August, 150,000 of those were given back in September, and I'd guess will also be "given back" in October. So Edmunds is right here, and thankfully people are smarter when they buy cars than when they vote.

Loving my high cholesterol!

Why? Well, not only do statins have some hope of reducing the risk of colon and skin cancer, they also appear to hold some hope of preventing influenza mortality. Praise the Lord, and pass the Zocor!

Government competence

My family recently received a request from the Census Bureau to participate in a medical survey, and of course I told the survey taker that I was not going to participate because it was not part of the Constitutional charter of the Census Bureau.

The next day, I got a FedEx overnight letter asking me to participate. Now this tells me a lot about our government. First of all, they don't trust the Postal Service to deliver a letter. Second, they really don't mind throwing taxpayer money down the toilet by sending needless letters via FedEx overnight service. Third, they really don't have a clue that the Census Bureau is really authorized to ask only one question; "how many people live at this address?".

And some people want people like this to handle medical care. Yikes!

Awesome!

President Obama is now picking a fight with the AP. Hopefully journalistic types take the hint and start writing about the kind of man he really is.

(keep going, Barack, if you want to make it a very, very long four years!)

Now that we've banned incandescent bulbs....

.....can we stop the madness of Daylight Savings Time, please? Studies have demonstrated that the extra air conditioning cost of people coming home earlier in the summer exceeds the savings of lighting during the evening.

What do do with a windfall

King's post about what people have done with stimulus checks (2008 and prior) brings up the question of responsibility in finances. When citizens get a windfall (say the 2001 or 2008 "stimulus" checks), they overwhelmingly saved it--or at least used it to pay down debt. When government gets a windfall, on the other hand.....

....why is it that we so consistently send our most fiscally irresponsible neighbors to the legislatures of our nation?

More thoughts on education

I picked up my clarinet (originally my Mom's) for the first time in years yesterday, and much to my surprise, I was able to remember the fingerings and play pretty well despite the fact that I'd rarely picked it up for the past 25 years or so. Credit memory and the education I got--both in the schools and also in private lessons.

Going further, I noticed something else; I was finally able to do some things I'd never managed back in high school. Specifically, I was able to sightread and transpose music. And so I wondered why I was able to do this now, but not then.

Probably maturity has something to do with it, but probably more importantly, I'd learned to learn music far more quickly singing in church (picking out tenor and bass parts) than I ever had in school. My high school had a good band program, especially the marching band, but what we'd done there was mostly to pick a few pieces of music and learn them backwards, forwards, and every which way. We got pretty good, but in doing so, certain key areas of musicality were never really addressed--like really reading music well and music theory.

Given that a marching band is essentially a militaristic--really Prussian--idea in the same way the entire government school system is, I've got to think that one huge reason homeschooling (as anti-Prussian as it gets) succeeds is that it teaches in the day to day--like singing hymns in church--as opposed to a big production, like preparation for tests.

You can't make this stuff up....

In the October 19th issue of Time Magazine, the cover article is about why it's supposedly time to get rid of the 401K, and they (incredibly) make the argument that somehow we need to move back to pensions and such for retirement because the 401k option is too exposed to the vagaries of markets.

As if pension funds aren't invested in the very same securities held in 401k and IRA plans.

One of these days, I'm hoping that people realize that if there are no corporate and personal profits to make stock and bond investments profitable, there are also no corporate and personal profits to make pension plans profitable, and most importantly there is no tax base to make Socialist Insecurity and Mediscare solvent.

I'm finding it amazing that a journalist with a college degree had such poor thinking, and even more incredible that his editors allowed him to publish such nonsense. Does the entire staff at Time have a collective economic IQ of seven?

Jackbooted thug of the day...

....or, rather, drunken cop who "neglected" to disarm before going to the haunted house is Mr. Eric Janik of Baltimore County, who is accused of pulling his service weapon on a character in a haunted house who wielded a chainsaw.

Thankfully, no one was hurt, but hopefully Sgt. Janik will get the opportunity to pursue a career outside of law enforcement. There is no excuse for carrying a firearm while drunk, especially for those also carrying badges.

A touch of irony

In the effort to prevent mass swine (H1N1, or "hiney") flu infections, my employer is working to prevent viral infection by putting a antibacterial hand cleanser on each desk.

OK, it'll probably reduce the chances of getting swine flu and "something bacterial" at the same time....but I still find humor in it.

It's also coming out (h/t Cold Fusion Guy) that swine flu vaccine is slow to get to the public....it's as if the government took over distribution, and since the profit motive didn't spur work, it's not getting done.

Government healthcare is sounding more and more like that cart on Monty Python.....

More thoughts on Geithner cutting executive pay

If tax cheat Tim Geithner can cut executive pay for costing the Treasury tens of billions of dollars, shouldn't we do the same for the people whose actions have cost the people trillions of dollars?

Just sayin'.

(ramen; it's what should be for dinner in executive and legislative offices)

It'll be a good time to be a hiring manager

...for executives at Toyota, Honda, Ford, and banks not participating in the TRAP ('oops,' TARP) program. Why?

The Treasury Department, headed by admitted tax cheat Tim Geithner, is deciding to cut the pay of top executives at GM, Chrysler, and banks which have taken TARP money by about half. Now I would tend to agree that the inbred nature of executive compensation probably results in exorbitant amounts of money going to the "good haired tall executives," as Scott Adams would put it, but the fact remains that every once in a while, there are things that only a seasoned executive can do.

You would figure that the owner of these companies would figure out that cutting everyone's pay would be a bad decision, as you've just told the ones who can get hired elsewhere that they'd better do so while the getting is good. However, if a man can't figure out Schedule SE, then probably he can't figure this out, either.

More from Comrade Zero

It appears that the health care "bill", despite being 1502 pages or so, is slated to be substantially rewritten in conference after it is passed. In similar news, Dear Leader is excoriating financial industry workers for standing against a yet-unwritten plan for "reform" (read "deform") of financial industry regulations.

The phrase "all hat and no cattle" seems to have been coined for Pharaoh.

Almost as dumb...

as picking a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel is picking one with the people who run the nation's grocery stores, factories, and such. Evidently, having an Ivy League education is no insurance against such brilliance, however.

Barack Hussein Blagojevich Jackson Wright Pfleger Ayers Khalidi Rezko Daley Zedong Obama; making Carter look competent and Clinton look honest since January 20.

Missing the point of modesty

Evidently, Islamists in Somalia have taken to whipping women who wear a bra, and then force them to give their femininity a robust shake in front of men who are not their husband to prove their Sharia modesty.

To quote Dave Barry, no, I am not making this up. Sign the perpetrators up for a date with the business end of Iowa's hog doot cannon.

Proverbs not learned in the Ivy League

....include "never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel", apparently. I'm not always a fan of Fox News, but to pick a fight with a news organization--and demonstrably getting most of your facts wrong--is not behavior worthy of the office of the President.

Now that of "Dear Leader" or "Pharaoh," yes. Not a nation with a 1st Amendment, though. Make him pay, Fox.

Those efficient buses and trains?

Not really. Notice here that the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reveals that airline, bus, and automobile transportation all use about the same energy per passenger-mile as the passenger car. Interestingly, 3500btu/mile corresponds to about 30mpg, or a passenger sedan with slightly more than one passenger. Add the second passenger (or the 7th in my family's case), and the standard passenger sedan excels all other modes of transportation in efficiency.

Never mind the fact that it appears that the "source" for Amtrak's efficiency is a "personal note." No uncertainty in that one, of course. No fudging in the number of passengers carried or anything.

Note also that transit trains are not mentioned; given the frequency of starting and stopping, it would appear that these are most likely the worst of all modes of transportation in terms of fuel usage and emissions. Mass transit and mass transportation is many things, but "ecologically responsible" is not one of them.

Say What?

Michelle Malkin notes an article which tries mightily to make the case that Comrade Obama's Presidency somehow makes interracial marriage socially acceptable.

Now, given that there is one human race, inter-"racial" marriage is absolutely acceptable, but I'm having trouble seeing how Obama's example changes anything. He's not in a classically "interracial" marriage himself, and the short marriage of his mother and father--characterized by his father's bigamy and neglect of his mother--is pretty much the stereotype portrayed by opponents of inter-"racial" marriage in the 1950s and 1960s.

On the other hand, the marriages of Phil Gramm, Clarence Thomas, Michelle Malkin, and other....conservatives....probably make the case a lot better, I think.

Perhaps Pharaoh's ascendance lets liberals know they can discard their old Jim Crow attitudes, finally? I guess it's a good thing, if it indeed happens, but I would hope that we might get a resurgence of logic sometime, too.

Another title for Comrade Obama

Having a very real Messiah, I hesitate to commit the blasphemy of referring to Dear Leader by that name, and of course, given Obama's socialist tendencies, "Dear Leader" and "Comrade" make perfect sense.

I heard a new one last night, courtesy of my new pastor, who cited the work of a black pastor regarding Genesis 47:13-26. The pastor, whose name regrettably I did not learn, noted that in that time, the pagan Egyptians gave up everything for a bit of bread from the government, while the God-fearing Hebrews actually gained prosperity by following Him instead.

It suggests that those who believe that Obama will bring hope, prosperity, bread, and change to the country ought not refer to him in terms reflecting the Messiah, but rather.....

....as Pharaoh, perfectly in keeping with his history as one who would do some serious damage to the 13th Amendment in his policies.

Yet another reason to homeschool

Apparently, the superintendent of a school district that assigned "young skulls full of mush" to sing a nauseating song of praise to Dear Leader is claiming that it didn't indoctrinate. Here's the original video: to claim that this isn't worthy of a campaign ad, and thus indoctrination, is the work of a man who cannot process basic logic.

And this is the superintendent, not a kindergarten teacher. If you want your children to learn how to think, and not just what the government wants them to think, you'll do well to keep your children away from the government's schools.

In praise of paternalism

I've been thinking some lately about the way the word "paternalism" is used today, and how it's apparently a negative thing to act like a father. How strange; Jesus told us to pray to "Our Father." He spoke lovingly of His Father, and how He wanted to do His will. He describes, through the apostles, how our loving Father disciplines those He loves, and describes the role of apostles and elders in those terms as well.

And yet we describe it as a bad thing when a person acts as a father. Now while granting that at times (Obama administration) it's a bad thing when an unworthy person acts this way, I have to think that maybe, just maybe, our world would be a far better place if.....

.....we had a bit more paternalism in our world.

If you doubted....

.....that climatologists associated with the IPCC and elsewhere have completely forgotten basic scientific concepts, take a look at this description of recent work by the IPCC and its German affiliate, WBGU. Apparently, they're saying that in the next eleven years, the United States "needs" to cut its carbon emissions by up to 100%.

Based on climate models that have yet to actually come up with a reasonable match to historical data, along with monitoring stations that have a high tendency to be installed by air conditioner vents and parking lots, they're more or less saying that the entire world needs to be dead by 2050. People are not, after all, "carbon-free."

And of course, even if you were to drop a cyanide bomb over the whole world, that wouldn't stop the corpses from rotting, and it certainly wouldn't stop the 95% or so of carbon emissions from non human sources.

Peer review is so dead. H/T SayAnythingBlog

Why we homeschool, part 1,325,342,337

Six year old is about to be sent to reform school because he carried a Cub Scout eating kit to school. H/T just about everybody. Get your kid a Victorinox in honor of this insanity.

And here is another. Eagle Scout banned from school for 20 days for a 2 inch knife. Hopefully he still gets his 1911 and M16 at the USMA. The young man did well by pointing out that in a conflict, readily available items like baseball bats, track and field spikes, screwdrivers, and such could be far more damaging than his pocketknife.

It's amazing that people don't put two and two together and withdraw their children from such "no common sense" zones.

Ole, Lena, and Sven are hitting the aquavit again

Nobel Prize committee tells the world that Obama's peace prize was about what he did, when the nomination came less than two weeks after his inauguration, long before he'd done anything of note diplomatically. I'll concede that this one was better than Arafat, or Le Duc Tho, or a host of others who actually did harm to the peace process, but to claim the man had earned a prize before doing anything requires either insanity of intoxicants. I'm assuming it was Aquavit.

And another Bike Bubba Peace Prize to Boeing, which developed the B29, B50, B47, and B52, which have done more for peace than all the disarmament conferences in history.

Action movies save lives!

....or at least probably did in this instance, where at least 17 rounds were fired without apparently hitting anyone. Thank you, John Woo and others, for your tireless efforts to tell the gangbangers of the world that it really doesn't matter how you hold your firearm.

Why the Nobel Peace Prize doesn't matter

...or, rather, why it so consistently chooses the person who promotes war in the long run over the person who actually promotes peace; Nobel specifically wanted the prize to go to a person who would work to reduce and abolish standing armies and have peace congresses.

Now compare that with what Bastiat said about the issue; if goods do not cross borders, armies will. Nobel's tragic failure is to try to tinker with the size of armies instead of encouraging real peace--through trade--is why so many recipients are connected with disastrous initiatives like the Oslo accords and Kellogg-Briand--and so few recipients have had lasting fruit in their endeavors.

OK, a Bike Bubba Peace Prize to Bastiat, if only we could get people to listen to him.

On the Nobel Peace Prize

I had something of a shocking wake up this morning, as WCCO informed me that, despite having no major peace related accomplishments to his name, President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize.

And then I got to thinking that maybe this was something of an improvement, as at least this time, they've awarded the prize to someone who hasn't yet done major damage, like Yasser Arafat or Al Gore, or the numerous winners who sponsored the Kellogg-Briand pact that made World War Two far worse than it needed to be, or the numerous winners who stood against the nuclear shield that prevented World War Three for over half a century, or United Nations "peacekeeping" efforts that serve only to roast children over fires (yes it happened, by UN personnel) and allow the warring sides to re-arm.

So here's a list of people who should have won the Peace Prize for real peacemaking, but did not.

11. John Browning, inventor of the 1911 pistol and .50 BMG that made war less thinkable.
10. Douglas MacArthur, who defeated Imperial Japan with the island-hopping scheme.
9. Uziel Gal, inventor of the Uzi machine pistol that helped save Israel from invasion many times.
8. John F. Kennedy, whose space program created the knowledge for the ICBMs and SLBMs that preserved the world from Communist tyrranny.
7. Robert Welch, who warned the world about the real consequences of Communism and the United Nations. (no I'm not a Bircher, but credit given where credit is due)
6. Joe McCarthy, who warned our nation that the State Department was working for Moscow too often.
5. Harold Briggs, who devised the strategies that prevented a Communist bloodbath in Malaysia.
4. Dutch Kindelberger, whose P-51 Mustang enabled U.S. and British bombers to help stop Hitler and Hirohito.
3. Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer, whose atomic bomb prevented full scale war between superpowers from 1945 until the fall of the Soviet Union. (and arguably still does today between Russia or China and the U.S.)
2. Dwight Eisenhower, whose western offensive crushed Nazi Germany.
1. Ronald Reagan, whose "peace through strength" initiatives crushed the Warsaw Pact.

Congratulations to this year's winners of the "Bike Bubba Peace Prize."

Why praise songs to Obama ought to give us the creeps

Try this one on for size: to "O Store Gud" is the approximate tune. ("How Great Thou Art")

The flag high! The ranks tightly closed!
Obama marches with a calm, firm pace.
Comrades whom the GOP and reactionaries exposed
March in spirit within our ranks.

Clear the streets for the Czar battalions,
Clear the streets for the Obama Youth!
Already millions look with hope to the Obam-O
The day of freedom and bread is dawning!

Rollcall has sounded for the last time
We are all prepared for the fight!
Soon Obama flags will flutter over barricades.
Our servitude will not last much longer now!

The flag high! The ranks tightly closed!
Obama marches with a calm, firm pace.
Comrades whom the GOP and reactionaries exposed
March in spirit within our ranks.

Now here's the source. I only changed 11 words from the original, and it's got a decided similarity to the songs being sung in schools to the praise of Dear Leader. Hopefully one of these days, liberals will wake up to the possible consequences they're encouraging with the Obama cult of personality.

You knew it, but now it's official

I am a grumpy old man. First a MOBster, now this. Life is good, and I just had a cup of coffee and a raspberry donut. I want Matlock!

Kids these days....

A word to us all

This article here is written with the Jewish community in mind, but his point is well taken for all of us. We can have organization, but do we have something to be passionate about?

Say what?

Regulatory czar suggests that Americans may be "too racist" for socialism. I guess that would explain why all the socialist unions in the U.S. excluded blacks and Jews until the GOP got the votes together for civil rights legislation in the 1960s. It might also explain why socialist Robert Mugabe is using anti-white bigotry to bankrupt his country, why socialists Lenin and Stalin waged incessant war on the entrepreneurial classes, and why socialist Adolf Hitler actually diverted war material in 1944 and 1945 to make sure that the trains were arriving at Auschwitz on time.

Example 1, 324, 576 or so why the knowledge of "history" is essential for the proper exercise of logic. Mr. Sunstein, please learn some.

A song of tribute to the President

With all the kids being forced to sing songs of tribute to Dear Leader, I figure that I ought to get in the fun as well. One stanza didn't have to be changed at all--brownie points to the person who figures out which one it was.

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,
A tale of a shameful trip
That started from south Chicago
Aboard an ACORN ship

The Veep was a gaffey Senator
Dear Leader way too self-sure
Fifty-seven states set sail that day
For a four year tour, a four year tour

Economy was getting rough
Employment sure was lost
If not for the spending of the spendthrift crew
Recession would be lost, recession would be lost

Our land ran aground on the shore of the Great Depression isle
With Bidengin
Dear Leader too
Not the Bubba, but his wife
The talk show host
Eugenics prof and tax cheats
Here on Liberal Isle

So this is the tale of the tax evades,
They're here for a long, long time,
They'll help us make the worst of things,
It's an uphill climb.

The plagiarist and Dear Leader too,
Will do their very worst,
To make the others comfortable,
In a death panel hearse.

No phone, no lights no motor cars,
Not a single luxury,
Like Robinson Crusoe,
As primitive as can be.

So join us here each week my friends,
You’ll be taxed every mile,
By tax evading renegades,
Here on “Liberal Isle."

The real cost of socialized medicine

Take a look at the chart presented (H/T Gary Gross) by SCSU Scholars of the average wait times for a number of conditions. Notice that each procedure notes something pretty debilitating--you're not going to work if you need hip or knee replacement surgery, for example--at least not very comfortably.

It would suggest that there is an additional cost of socialized medicine; lost productivity and life due to the wait for necessary surgeries. I would, for example, might still be waiting to get my gallbladder out--or, as King notes, his and my gallstones might have disabled or killed us. My mother might never have lived to get a colonoscopy--in 2005--let alone the surgery and chemotherapy that extended her life until this year.

In other words, the death panels of Canadian health insurance would have had, most likely, some very negative effects on my family, both in terms of the health and lives of those we love, and also in terms of lost income from likely debilitation and/or premature death. When one adds these costs in, I dare suggest that our health care system isn't so expensive after all.

Yet again, on financial accountability

It appears that the blackmailer of David Letterman was deeply in debt. As pastors have told me for a long time, if you want a picture of a man's heart, look at his checkbook. Voting for a person for office, or considering someone to run your company? It might be a good idea to run a credit check or look at his financial disclosures before glancing at his positions, resume, or CV.

The same article features statements from Letterman's publicist that should win an award for "meaningless claim of the millenium"; that Letterman was not in violation of his own company's policies. In similar fashion, I believe Hobbes' buddy never ever committed a foul while playing "Calvin-ball."

No Chicago Olympics

The Northern Muckraker tells me that Chicago has (thankfully) been removed as a contender for hosting the 2016 Olympic Games, despite 100% turnout in favor of the proposal from the Burr Oak, Graceland, Rosehill, Oak Woods, Saint Boniface, and other fine Chicago neighborhoods.

And yes, "thankfully," as Hizzoner Daley has, with the help of the board of aldermen, run the city into the ground. Hosting the Olympics (with innumerable lies and paybacks and such) was simply a way that Mr. Daley hoped to cover up the results of his spendthrift incompetence.

Another reason to homeschool

Frater Libertas links some fascinating comments by sportscasters joking that a prominent quarterback might not be able to read because he was homeschooled. Of course, if the same sportscasters had not been educated in the government schools, they might have been able to read the study that demonstrates that if you want to find illiterate adults, you look for the products of the government schools.

Please, let's have compassion on the poor illiterate, uneducated sportscasters. Maybe if they're lucky, they'll meet a homeschooled child who will be willing to teach them their phonics, grammar, and logic.

Barking up the wrong tree?

When I see things like this--an Obama appointee under fire for counseling a boy to "use a condom" instead of reporting statutory rape--I have to wonder if "sex ed" programs would do well to start not with diagrams of the human body and such, but rather with a review of laws surrounding what ought to be the marital act. If we teach them what is and is not legal and why, perhaps they might respect their sexuality a little bit more.

And, forced to learn the laws so they could teach them to students, maybe teachers and school staff would be more likely to report things like suspected statutory rape.

Reflections on a funeral

If you wonder why people in nursing homes love children so much, spend a few hours with someone who is dying. After that, a toddler throwing a fit is sweeter music than von Karajan.

If you want free rein to quote God's promises in the Bible, minister to the dying. People want to hear hope at this time--and not just the one facing streets of gold or sulfur.

If you want to know the difference between vague promises of being "in a better place" and the real impact of the Word, attend to the dying and quote those promises.

If you want to know what it's like to serve another with no chance of earthly reward, attend to the dying.

If you want to know who really cared about a person, look at the guest book for their viewing and funeral.

If you want to know how important it is to study and memorize Scripture, visit the dying in a hospital room where the Gideons are not welcome.

If you want to know where paraphrases of the Scripture are not welcome, go to a funeral service. You will hear the KJV or other word for word translation.