I wish I could embed this clip, but I can't. Let me assure you it is worth the click. For those of you that haven't yet started watching the IT Crowd, it is time you did. Open your eyes to the world of IT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWc3WY3fuZU
Cash for clunker program frozen
Less than four days after launching a popular cash-for-clunkers program, the Obama administration warned Congress the plan already had burned through its $950-million budget, setting off a rush for more money while leaving thousands of dealers and consumers in the lurch.
Incredible news. Who knew that scientists could find solutions to problems rather than just throw their hands up and admit defeat?
Oh it had to be a 16 year old kid, someone that didn't know we were doomed to be covered by a pile of plastic waste.
The Record reports that Burd mixed landfill dirt with yeast and tap water, then added ground plastic and let it stew. The plastic indeed decomposed more quickly than it would in nature; after experimenting with different temperatures and configurations, Burd isolated the microbial munchers. One came from the bacterial genus Pseudomonas, and the other from the genus Sphingomonas.
Burd says this should be easy on an industrial scale: all that’s needed is a fermenter, a growth medium and plastic, and the bacteria themselves provide most of the energy by producing heat as they eat.
The only waste is water and a bit of carbon dioxide.
For those of you that haven't seen this guy in action, he is pretty sharp. Not your typical politician imo. He is like Romney without the stiffness.
And here is Arianna Huffington bringing a knife to a gun fight.
I thought this was a very good summary of why Government controlled health care is a terrible, terrible idea, so I am going to quote it in full. It was written by Hunter Baker at RedState.com:
The argument from federalism: One of the great benefits of federalism is that the states can act as the laboratories of democracy. If a new public policy is tried in the states and works (as happened with welfare reform in Michigan and Wisconsin), then a similar program has a good chance of succeeding at the national level. The welfare reform went national and proved to be one of the most successful public policy initiatives of the last half century. On the other hand, major governmental healthcare initiatives have been tried in Tennessee and Massachusetts. Neither of those have panned out. That should be a cautionary sign to avoid rushing ahead to just get a bill done!Read more...
The argument from misery: I cannot think of any encounter with my government that I willingly seek out. I hate going to the DMV. I hate going to the post office. I hate getting my car inspected. I hate getting a passport renewed. All of these things eat up productive time in my day and are filled with useless, inefficient waiting. This basic situation also applies to people who rely on the government for their healthcare. When my wife did indigent care in Houston, her clients did not pay for her services. They paid with their time. LOTS OF WAITING. I don’t need more waiting in my life. And because government employees are typically unionized, I don’t need to be at the mercy of a bunch of unionized employees any more than I already am.
The argument from incentivization: If the government provides the care too cheaply, then there will be a glut of clients who overwhelm the system and create the nightmare of waiting as the price to pay. If the government offers the care too expensively, people will opt out which is exactly what they wanted to avoid. If the government tries to control utilization by deciding what services you can and can’t have, then you are up against a far worse foe than the worst HMO you ever faced. And the government will go where the insurance companies fear to tread. They will decide who should live or die.
The argument from missing the verdammten point: It is exceedingly clear that a huge reason for the skyrocketing costs of medicine is the problem of predatory litigation driven by lawyers looking for 30-40% of a bloody fortune from an industry thought to be able to afford it. Between the cost of malpractice insurance, the payouts, and the defensive medicine that must be practiced to ward off lawsuits, it is easy to see why healthcare is outrageously expensive. Yet, the president very clearly said he would not seek to deal with that problem in the legislation. WHAT? WHY? Because the trial lawyers are very good political donors? Not a compelling reason for the formation of a particular public policy.
The argument from economic theory: Look at two sectors of the healthcare market that are typically paid out of pocket without the influence of insurance providers or the government. I am thinking of plastic surgery and lasik procedures for improving eyesight. Both of those services are becoming less expensive in real dollars rather than skyrocketing out of control. This happens to be the portion of the healthcare industry where actual market conditions apply. Customers pay for and receive value at a price that is becoming more reasonable all the time.
There is a crisis!!!
Even if there were one, trust me, you don't want what we have here in the UK. A coworker's wife was doubled over in pain this morning. He took her to the doctor and 15 minutes later she had antibiotics. Great right? Not really, he just had to leave to rush her to the emergency room. Apparently they didn't have Dr. House doing the diagnostics on her. Things have gotten worse for her, not better.
Proving that wacky conspiracy theories permeate both sides of the political spectrum (Truthers) the Birthers are foolishly pursuing the idea that Barack Obama is an illegal president because he may have been born outside the United States. This is such a monumental waste of time. There are legitimate problems with the Obama presidency – his economic and foreign policies – the growing unemployment rate, wars on two fronts and threatening gestures from Iran, North Korea and Pakistan, to name but a few.
Why is anyone wasting time, money and effort trying to chase down a ridiculous conspiracy about where B.H.O was born? Personally I am more concerned about his many Communist and Marxist mentors and his college transcripts than I am about where his mother delivered him into the world.
However, before you Democrats snicker about the Birther movement, understand that it originated with you, that is, your party:
The birth-certificate business is not a uniquely conservative phenomenon; the allegation that Obama was born in Kenya seems to have originated with a Hillary Clinton supporter at a blog called The Blue State. Either way, this fantasy is not particularly widespread within the conservative movement, but it has attracted enough interest that it needs to be addressed.
We are used to seeing conspiracy theories from the Left, for instance among the one in three Democrats who believe that 9/11 was an inside job conducted with the foreknowledge of the Bush administration. We’ve seen everything under the sun blamed on Dick Cheney and Halliburton, and Rosie O’Donnell has given us much mirth with her metallurgical expertise, while Andrew Sullivan has beclowned himself and tarnished the good name of The Atlantic with his investigation into the “real” parentage of Trig Palin. Most notable, the Iraq War summoned the craziness in a big way, and there are those who still shudder over their espressos at the mention of the Carlyle Group. And there is a fair amount of crossover between those fixated on Obama’s birth certificate and the 9/11 “truthers” — lawyer Phil Berg, for instance, is a player in both worlds. There is nothing that President Obama’s coterie would enjoy more than to see the responsible Right become a mirror image of the loopy Left circa 2003.
We hope he takes the day off—or even the whole week, the briefest of respites from his busy schedule of truncating our liberties while exhausting both the public coffers and our patience.
Newsweek Magazine recently proclaimed that "We Are All Socialists Now". In some ways, they were correct. At least in thier observation that the GOP is partially responsible for our economic distress. However, I believe that in reality, Newsweek could not have been further from the truth.
We are all conservatives.
Now, before your head explodes, or you start hammering out your rebuttal, let me elaborate. I believe that the people of the United States are a conservative, liberty seeking, freedom protecting people. We have embraced a free market that has elevated our entire way of life – from our standard of living to the amount of leisure time we enjoy. Everything we hold sacred in our lives, from our families to our opportunities to our basic God given rights are a product of our own proclivity to find, protect, and pursue freedom.
Even those who consider themselves politically liberal live out their lives in a fundamentally conservative manner. In fact, what today we call conservative was originally known as "classical liberalism". It was founded on the idea that men are free and at liberty to make their own choices, and to face the consequences of those choices without government intervention, meddling, or over-regulation.
Today, each of us is pursuing our own vision of liberty, our own vision of happiness. We work at a job whose survival depends on our labor, our intellect, our ability to help earn a profit. Without such profit, the company would wither and die. We are free to seek out better jobs and better opportunities. We are free to expand our abilities and our knowledge, all in the hopes of improving our ability to earn and provide. We take our earnings and invest them in a home, a family, a vacation, or into other companies and interests, all in the name of bettering our station, our situation, of making our lives better tomorrow than they are today.
Some would say that this crass consumerism is harmful to the human character, that it exploits those who have not, or cannot, or refuse to engage in the libertarian pursuit of wealth (however you may define it) and economic freedom. To them, I would say, "nonsense". Our history is filled with examples of men and women who started with nothing, only to build empires that in turn, created empires, and so on. How much wealth and opportunity has Microsoft created? Bill Gates invented an entire industry, an industry that today enables our entire way of life. When one man succeeds, it gives all other men that same opportunity. There is nothing corrupt or crass about success.
But conservatism, or classical liberalism is not only about economic freedom and prosperity. It has to do more with the individual and his own pursuit of prosperity. Indeed, that prosperity is up to him to define, up to him to pursue, and up to him to ultimately achieve.
There is nothing that the government can provide for each one of us that we cannot better provide for ourselves. Certainly there are aspects of our lives that the government can play a vital and appropriate role, but they almost all have to do with protecting our ability to pursue happiness without interruption. From law enforcement to our national defense, to the Bill of Rights, each is designed to protect our individualism. It is we, the people who are the deciders of our destiny. Not the president, nor any other agent of change from the government.
And so, I believe that though we disagree in the marketplace of ideas, that ultimately we are all on the side of liberty and freedom. And when I see a government start to encroach upon those ideals, those ideas, I shirk in response. I do not need, nor do I want to be taken care of. I do not desire the warm blanket of mediocrity to be draped over my life by a maternal entity known as the federal government. And I believe that the vast majority of our fellow citizens feels the same way. As Dean Alfange once said,
I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon – if I can. I seek opportunity – not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say, this I have done.
I don't always agree with Noonan, but I think this is an interesting take on Obama. She is a republican that has been a pretty strong Obama supporter, but seems to be shifting.
The White House misread the national mood. The problem isn’t that they didn’t “bend the curve,” or didn’t sell it right. The problem is that the national mood has changed since the president was elected. Back then the mood was “change is for the good.” But that altered as the full implications of the financial crash seeped in. The crash gave everyone a diminished sense of their own margin for error. It gave them a diminished sense of their country’s margin for error. Americans are not in a chance-taking mood. They’re not in a spending mood, not after the unprecedented spending of the past year, from the end of the Bush era through the first six months of Obama. Here the Congressional Budget Office report that a health care bill would not save money but would instead cost more than a trillion dollars in the next decade was decisive. People say bureaucrats never do anything. The bureaucrats of CBO might have killed health care.
Under a national health-care plan we might be hearing that a lot. You don’t exercise, you smoke, you drink, you eat too much, and “the rest of us have to pay for it.”
It is a new opportunity for new class professionals (an old phrase that should make a comeback) to shame others, which appears to be one of their hobbies. (It may even be one of their addictions. Let’s stage an intervention.) Every time I hear Kathleen Sebelius talk about “transitioning” from “treating disease” to “preventing disease,” I start thinking of how they’ll use this as an excuse to judge, shame and intrude.
So this might be an unarticulated public fear: When everyone pays for the same health-care system, the overseers will feel more and more a right to tell you how to live, which simple joys are allowed and which are not.
Now, I know you think that based on the title of this post, that I am talking about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (I just love the names of these bills lately), but I'm not. Not this time. In fact, it is in reference to some of the far-reaching stats that baseball sabermetricians come up with in their ongoing quest to out-nerd each other. The oft quoted Wall Street Journal recently featured an article highlighting some of these absurd, and absolutely pointless stats:
...according to researchers at Wayne State University, major-league players who have nicknames live 2½ years longer, on average, than those without them...In another study, we learn that players whose first or last name begins with “K” strike out more than those without “K” initials. And in case you were wondering, research finds Democrats support the designated-hitter rule more than Republicans.
...they suggested that the DH, introduced in the American League in 1973, not only represented radical change from tradition, but also struck some conservatives as anticompetitive. “Liberals all like the designated hitter,” Prof. Zorn contends, “because it’s sort of a welfare program. It lets hitters hit longer into their careers and takes responsibility away from the pitchers.”
Earlier this week my friend and fellow author, Sam, posted an outright assault on my character and manhood. So I thought I'd play along.
Sam and I have been friends for about six years. I've always known Sam to put family first. Above everything. I've struggled with it at times, but I've grown to respect it. I always gave him crap for his goofy method of skipping out on guys' nights or basketball or football games. He would always verbally commit up front and you'd plan on him being there...until the night before. "Bitner," he would say, "I'ma hafta gracefully bow out for tomorrow. Gotta put some quality time in on the home front. Know what I mean?" He would 'gracefully bow out' in the name of family time. Every time.
At least that's how it was presented.
Sam's commitment to family now seems like nothing more than a thin veil. Apparently Sam has been spending quality time 'in da club' bumpin and grindin. Yep. How else do you explain that Sam, the man with a lovely wife and two kids, can rap and grind as well as Eminem?
I found this video of "Sammylicious" on the stage with two other women. It may have been the epitome of cool in that moment, but I can't say that it was his most shining moment as a 'loving husband and father.' I would encourage his wife to monitor his behavior at work or when he is 'on a bike ride.'
Just because he comes home sweaty dudn't mean he been ridin' a bike.
Game. Set. Match. Bitner.
Is anyone else entertained by the notion that the health care push by Obama could be his Waterloo? I think if Napoleon were alive he would be horrified at having his list of impressive accomplishments, capped off by a disaster in Russia and then the ultimate defeat by the British at Waterloo, compared to Obama's accomplishments of having given some great speeches.
Memo to politicians and news anchors: you can't have a "Waterloo" moment until you first defeat Prussia, England, Italy, Austria, Spain, and a host of smaller, minor countries. Seriously, Waterloo? This is more like his Carter-moment that many of us predicted. Welcome to obscurity Mr. President, prepare for a lifetime of humanitarian efforts and possibly a Nobel peace prize if you can deliver enough anti-American speeches.
This is how wikipedia describes Carter's presidency for reference (I'm calling my shot): Carter's administration suffered from inexperience in politics: Carter paid too much attention to detail, was quick to retreat under fire, seemed indecisive, and did not define his priorities clearly. He seemed uninterested in working with other groups, or even with Congress controlled by his own party, which he denounced for being controlled by special interest groups. Though he made efforts to address many of these issues in 1978, the approval he won from his reforms did not last long.
One thing struck me today as I grapple with health and wellness issues. One of the benefits of having employers paying for healthcare costs is something we are seeing right now playing out in the benefits world. Thousands of companies have realized that health costs are out of control and are proactively looking for ways to improve their employees' health to reduce their health costs.
This is serious business, and companies are seeing serious ROI on it. Tipping point has been reached on health care costs and we now have laboratories filled with the minds of the best and the brightest searching for ways to proactively reduce health care costs.
That's one for our side.
So today while reading an interesting new book (Nudge) I saw a reference to the Jonestown massacre and was a little curious. I'd always understood it to be a cult that committed mass suicide by drinking Kool-aid laced with cyanide, but I wasn't sure about the particulars. My curiousity was piqued, because I'd always assumed based on the way it was presented that the cult was a religious cult similar to the mormon splinter groups in Utah/Arizona (except with suicide in their playbook).
I went to wikipedia to find out a little more, and I think the findings may be interesting to others so I'll post the highlights. Let me warn the readers, this is a heavy subject and not suitable to everyone. Please don't read this aloud if there are children in the room.
The Peoples Temple was formed in Indianapolis, Indiana, during the mid-1950s. It purported to practice what it called "apostolic socialism." In doing so, the Temple preached to established members that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment — socialism."
After the Temple's move to San Francisco, it became more politically active. After Peoples Temple participation proved instrumental in the mayoral election victory of George Moscone in 1975, Moscone appointed Jones as the Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission. Unlike other figures considered as cult leaders, Jones enjoyed public support and contact with some of the highest level politicians in the United States. For example, Jones met with Vice Presidential Candidate Walter Mondale and Rosalynn Carter several times. Governor Jerry Brown, Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally and Assemblyman Willie Brown, among others, attended a large testimonial dinner in honor of Jones in September 1976.
The Temple chose Guyana, in part, because of its socialist politics, which were also moving further to the left during the selection process. Former Temple member Tim Carter stated that the reason for choosing Guyana was the Temple's view of creeping fascism, the perception of the dominance of multinational corporations on the government, and perceived racism in the U.S. government. Carter said the Temple concluded that Guyana, a predominantly black, English-speaking socialist country, would afford black members of the Temple a peaceful place to live. Later, Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham stated that what may have attracted Jones was that "he wanted to use cooperatives as the basis for the establishment of socialism, and maybe his idea of setting up a commune meshed with that." Jones also thought it was important that Guyana's leadership consisted of several black leaders and that the country was small and poor enough for Jones to easily obtain influence and official protection.
After Jones arrived, Jonestown life significantly changed. Entertaining movies from Georgetown that the pioneers had watched were eliminated in favor of propaganda shorts on Soviet life provided by the Soviet embassy and documentaries on problems such as elderly life in the U.S. and returning Vietnam veterans' adjustment to civilian life. Bureaucratic requirements after Jones' arrival sapped labor resources for other needs. Buildings fell into disrepair and weeds encroached on fields. School study and night time lectures for adults turned to Jones; discussions about revolution and enemies, with lessons focusing on Soviet alliances, Jones' crises and the purported "mercenaries" of Timothy Stoen.
For the first several months, Temple members worked six days a week, from approximately 6:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., with an hour for lunch. In mid-1978, after Jim Jones' health deteriorated and Marcy Jones began managing more of Jonestown's operations, the work week was reduced to eight hours a day for five days a week.
Children, generally surrendered to communal care, addressed Jones as "Dad" and some at times were only allowed to see their real parents briefly at night. Jones was called "Father" or "Dad" by the adults as well. The community had a nursery at which 33 infants were born.
Everyone, including the children, was told to line up. As we passed through the line, we were given a small glass of red liquid to drink. We were told that the liquid contained poison and that we would die within 45 minutes. We all did as we were told. When the time came when we should have dropped dead, Rev. Jones explained that the poison was not real and that we had just been through a loyalty test. He warned us that the time was not far off when it would become necessary for us to die by our own hands."
In response to reactions of seeing the poison take effect on others, Jones commanded "Stop this hysterics. This is not the way for people who are Socialists or Communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity." In addition to Jim McElvane, several other temple members gave speeches praising Jones and his decision for the community to commit suicide, even after Jones stopped appreciating this praise and begged for the process to go faster
When I was in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1998 I was often accused of being a mindless drone, brainwashed, controlled by an oppressive church. Otherwise, there was simply no rational reason for my being there, in a shirt and tie preaching religion to this bastion of radical, progressive, cutting edge idealism. In truth, I was there because I wanted to be. I knew it would be good for me. It was something I needed to do, for my benefit.
In other words, it was in many ways, a selfish choice. But it was again, my choice.
Where I am going with this?
Today we are witnessing the birth of a new religion, one hell bent on eliminating one's ability to choose (the very antithesis of religion). However, this is not done in any sort of totalitarian brutality - not like Iran, for example. But rather it is done under the guise of "taking care of this delicate planet". Prince Charles, in an effort to remain relevant in a world that has long cast him off as an insufferable mediocrity recently said that we, the good peasants on the kingdom of Earth have but just 96 months to save the planet from this evil, oppressive, "age of consumerism".
But don't worry. The left does not use fear mongering to make their points.
Mark Steyn, the British ex-pat and author expresses very tightly what I seem to always be ranting and raving about - dependency and control, and how environmentalism, the religion of Green, is being used to control nearly aspect of our lives. From what we eat, to the cars we drive, to how fat we are allowed to be:
It takes a prince, heir to the thrones of Britain and Canada and Australia, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, and a bunch of other places, to tell it like it is: You pampered consumerists are ruining the joint. In the old days, we didn’t have these kinds of problems. But then Mr. and Mrs. Peasant start remodeling the hovel, adding a rec room and indoor plumbing, replacing the emaciated old nag with a Honda Civic and driving to the mall in it, and next thing you know, instead of just having an extra yard of mead every Boxing Day at the local tavern and adding a couple more pustules to the escutcheon with the local trollop, they begin taking vacations in Florida. When it was just medieval dukes swanking about like that, the planet worked fine: That was “sustainable” consumerism. But now the masses want in. And, once you do that, there goes the global neighborhood.
Environmentalism opposes that kind of mobility. It seeks to return us to the age of kings, when the masses are restrained by a privileged elite. Sometimes they will be hereditary monarchs, such as the Prince of Wales. Sometimes they will be merely the gilded princelings of the government apparatus — Barack Obama, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi. In the old days, they were endowed with absolute authority by God. Today, they’re endowed by Mother Nature, empowered by Gaia to act on her behalf. But the object remains control — to constrain you in a million ways, most of which would never have occurred to Henry VIII, who, unlike the new cap-and-trade bill, was entirely indifferent as to whether your hovel was “energy efficient.” The old rationale for absolute monarchy — Divine Right — is a tough sell in a democratic age. But the new rationale — Gaia’s Right — has proved surprisingly plausible.
This is my friend, Bitner. He is an author here at TTKS for those of you who don't know him. He is a real man's man; loves sports, his wife, a good bratwurst or burger... or so we thought. This disturbing photo was forwarded to me by a concerned coworker of his. Apparently Bitner has been sneaking off on his lunch hour with an older man*. Anyway, the position that Bitner is in, in relation to the driver made me a little uncomfortable so I went to the source of all things bikes, Harley Davidson. The poll below comes from a forum on their popular website. I took the liberty of switch out the word B@#ch for Bitner. The position that you see Bitner in is commonly refered to as "riding Bitch." Excuse my language. But I hereby propose that the term by coined, "riding Bitner" for all TTKS readers.
It is both more kosher for a mixed audience and has a nice ring to it. All in favor, please manifest it.
*I can neither confirm nor deny that Bitner frequents the back of this gentleman's bike. But once was enough for me.
How many of you would ride bitner to your wife/SO?
| I've rode bitner to her |     | 3 | 8.82% |
| Not a chance |    | 26 | 76.47% |
| I'd love having my man on the back |    | 0 | 0% |
| Only if we break down! |    | 5 | 14.71% |
I don't know if these guys are real Mormon missionaries. But I would not be surprised if they are:
On July 11th, President Barack Obama gave a major, historical, unprecedented speech in Africa (my goodness, it is long). And yet, there has been little coverage of that major, historical, unprecedented speech here in the United States. What's more, is that the speech itself was, in my opinion, one of the best the new president has given. When I read through it I was amazed at the amount of common sense it contained, indeed, I wondered if perhaps the TelePrompter was playing a cruel joke on the president, and had swapped out an old Reagan speech for the one Obama had planned on giving.
In that speech Obama declared to the people of Ghana that "No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top".
Of course, that is true. Businesses, both small and large, want to operate in an environment where they can generate the most income, at the lowest cost. And when the government "skims 20 percent off the top", a large portion of that profit is eliminated.
In the United States, the government "skims" 39.3% off the top, second in the world only to Japan's 39.5%. Which explains, in part, why corporations are laying off people at an alarming rate (some 2.3 million jobs have been lost since the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was signed into law), and sending their offices overseas, where they can operate in a more profit friendly environment. It also explains why small businesses are struggling to stay afloat. The very same businesses that will sink like a lead anchor if "health care reform" and cap and trade become law.
Obama went on to say that "No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves". The irony in that statement, coming from Barack Obama, the man who is enriching his political base - the unions mostly – at the expense of American prosperity goes beyond audacity. It is downright ridiculous.
He also said "History shows that countries thrive when they . . . create space for small and medium-sized businesses that create jobs."
Surely this cannot be the same Barack Obama that is trying to destroy the American system of capitalistic economics? Can it? Why is limited regulation so good for African countries, but not for the United States?
Bret Stephens, writing in the Wall Street Journal (have we ever quoted the WSJ here before? This might be unprecedented) commented about creating space for small businesses:
As for creating "space for small and medium-sized businesses," it's ironic that Mr. Obama would make this point on the same weekend that House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel is calling for a 3% surtax on the wealthy -- many of whom, as Scott Hodge of the Tax Foundation notes, happen to be business owners. These are the same people now facing the prospect of next year's expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the return to the 55% top rate on estate taxes, another scourge of small-business owners.
Finally, if the $2.3 trillion the West has given in foreign aid over the past five decades -- a "stimulus" package if ever there was one -- has done nothing to raise Africa out of poverty, why does Mr. Obama think that any amount of stimulus spending is going to revive America's economic fortunes? At least in Africa's case, the West could periodically forgive its debts. Who will forgive ours?
For those interested in the F-22 debate going on, here is an interesting post about it.
Read more...
I was intrigued the other day by a Dan Patrick poll question and thought I'd bounce it off the TTKS crew:
With which living president would you most enjoy watching your favorite Major League Baseball team play?
Dan's choice, and the one I would tend to agree with, is Bush Senior. Dubya or Slick Willy are the obvious choices as they seem to be the most fun-loving, to say nothing of Dubya's pitching skills and history of Rangers ownership. But I lean to Bush Senior. He played college ball, is a war vet, was a CIA guru, Vice President under the very beacon of conservatism, and has a grandfatherly nature about him that's so conducive to a baseball game. Probably the fact that my dad died young and I never had a grandfather is tainting my feelings a bit, but I'm curious as to your thoughts.
If you want to open it up, it doesn't even have to be a living president. Could be any president in the last 50 years.
I was dinking around on my blackberry this morning trying to wake myself up for an early round of golf (on my first day of unemployment :) and I saw and read Rick Reilly's column on his Top 10 Must-See Live Sporting Events. I gotta tell ya, not only is my list crazy-better than his, Reilly's list has got some mind-boggling entries. And, yes, he's a sportswriter by profession. I keep telling myself I will be a sportswriter in my next life.
[The Home Run Derby is] better than the All-Star Game because it's never ended in a tie. Besides, it's everything real baseball is not. Guys swing at every pitch. Every third ball is a souvenir.
Remember when Adam and I were accused of being too pessimistic about the Obama presidency and what it could potentially do to the country? Things are going about how I expected they would go. Here is some feedback from the budget office on the health care socialization.
"We do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount," Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, told the Senate Budget Committee. "On the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health-care costs," he added.
When it came to the stimulus package, the president and his administration promised, in the words of National Economic Director Larry Summers, "You'll see the effects begin almost immediately." Now it's clear that those promised jobs and growth haven't materialized.
So Mr. Obama is attempting to lower expectations retroactively, saying in an op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post that his stimulus "was, from the start, a two-year program." That is misleading. Mr. Obama never said if his stimulus were passed things might still get significantly worse in the following year.
We haven't had enough Thomas Sowell on this website.
Anyone who says that they want to take the UK health care system and bring it to the US either hasn’t seen the UK health system in person or they have little comprehension of health care issues, or perhaps both. You know me, I hate painting with a broad brush, but my experiences with the local hospitals this past week has scared me and left me trembling at the prospect of ever getting hurt and spending time there.
Listen, if you spend your whole life and the only restaurant you have to eat at is Denny’s then you can’t be blamed for thinking they have a pretty good menu. They hit all the major meals, there is a wide selection of desserts, and sometimes the servers are even pleasant. But to tell someone that regularly dines at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse that you want to build a Denny’s right next to their restaurant and make it so that Denny’s prices are 1 dollar per meal and Ruth’s Chris meals cost $1,000 would probably upset them. That is the best way I can think to describe what the switcheroo will look like to those that haven’t seen the inside of a UK hospital. Let me use my best efforts to describe my family’s own experiences and these are based on visiting 3 hospitals and talking to our associates at work and church.
A woman at our church had to get an angioplasty 2 weeks ago. This involves going through the artery in the leg and doing something to the heart. She was not knocked out as it is a fairly routine procedure. While starting it up, they nicked her artery and she started losing blood by the heart beat (a scary experience, which I’ve been through myself while surfing, but that is another story for another post). They clamped it off in time to save her life and scheduled her for an artery-repair surgery in 4 days. While waiting for this she contracted MRSA, a serious staph infection. They went in to repair her artery and severed it again; once again she was losing blood by the heart beat. So now she is in the hospital with the potential of losing her leg, dying, and being overcome by a staph infection that is resistant to antibiotics.
You are probably thinking, “Yeah Ryan, but that is just one bad luck case and shouldn’t be used to extrapolate on a whole health care system.” This is a common story actually. Well maybe not the artery severing part (2x), but people routinely contract MRSA at UK hospitals and have additional complications, we have 3 people in our church that have caught it at the hospital. A woman who watches our son broke her leg and they set it wrong a couple of weeks ago. I’ve heard from several colleagues at work as well about their family members contracting diseases while at the hospital or other complications.
So what does the hospital look like on the inside? Imagine a hospital from the 70s or even 60s. Put 5 or 6 people in a room with a nurse desk. People with open sores lying in bed moaning while you visit someone a bed over. No information desk when you walk in, so you have people wandering in and out through a maze of rooms with old contraptions that you imagine could be used to aid people in a crisis. How about delivery of babies? Well we are driving to a hospital 30 min. away because it is cleaner and has less incidence of MRSA. They still pack their new mothers and babies into a room with 5 other women. There is no baby nursery; your baby can never leave your side (if you’re the mom). Most people are in there for the minimum 3 hours and then leave the hospital because there is no reason to stay unless you have complications.
I don’t fault the medical professionals here, it isn’t their fault they have no money to get new equipment or have adequate facilities. They get paid very little so there isn't quite the talent draw towards medicine. The population is aging and there is less and less tax base to pay for improvements so the situation is only going to get worse.
I don’t want that in my country. We have problems, but let’s not cut off our head because we have a headache.
**And yes I am aware there are plenty of MRSA infections in US hospitals. So I'll preempt that discussion with my acknowlegement, however I have never lived in a place where there is such local fear about going to the hospital.
President Obama, fresh off his second stimulus tour of duty, is throwing out the first pitch at tonight's All-Star game. With ratings slipping, the economy still dragging, and with the haze of unfulfilled campaign promises, he steps on the mound with Prince Fielder-heavy pressure on his shoulders. I know he loves to hoop it up and that he is athletic, which means this shouldn't be out of the question for him to throw a strike, but I sure hope he recognizes he must throw a strike here.
Since there is no female author to tackle this, who better to toss it up than the author who has five sisters but nary a brother? :)
"There's no such thing as work-life balance," Mr. Welch told the Society for Human Resource Management's annual conference in New Orleans on June 28. "There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences."Mr. Welch said those who take time off for family could be passed over for promotions if "you're not there in the clutch.""We'd love to have more women moving up faster," Mr. Welch said. "But they've got to make the tough choices and know the consequences of each one."Taking time off for family "can offer a nice life," Mr. Welch said, "but the chances of going to the top on that path" are smaller. "That doesn't mean you can't have a nice career," he added.
The idea of the 'mad scientist' is nothing new. He is a classic Hollywood character, seen in movies, cartoons, comic books, video games and on and on. The mad scientist is an iconic villain - from Frankenstein to Dr. Evil, we all have our favorites.
However, the mad scientist is not only a fabrication of action packed storytelling. History is full of real-life examples, from Nazi scientists to Saddam's nuclear baker's to Paul Ehrlich, the doomsday bell-ringer of the 1970s who predicted (spectacularly wrong) repeatedly of a coming ice age. His modern equivalent once served as the Vice President of the United States.
To be fair to Ehrlich however, he was not alone in his insane diatribes and prophecies about overpopulation and his advocacy of eugenics - the practice of dictating the reproduction of the unfit. Which, incidentally was/is a doctrine heavily pushed by originalist progressives. One need only look at Justice Ginsburg for the latest line of thought. One of Ehrlichs colleagues and co-authors a man named John Holdren, is a man that advocated for the following, and I think universally lunatic, frenzied and utterly ridiculous policies:
This is interesting on several levels. First Don might think that the reception of Obama is unprecedented because of his sheltered access to news (working for CNN notwithstanding). Second here we see a reporter not going along with the media standard obama-love script. Third, isn't Don's reaction great, they even have to take the camera off him after he recovers from the body-shot.
Now accepting caption submissions.
(Photo courtesy of Yahoo! at http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//090709/ids_photos_wl/r3356552547.jpg/#photoViewer=/090709/ids_photos_wl/r3356552547.jpg. Thanks to Drudge for bringing it to our attention)
Like the economy, Obama seems to be sending everything, including his own approval index, into the red. But hey, everyone still hates Bush. In fact, I think Obama inherited these slipping numbers from Bush. After all, Bush lied and then everything bad in the world - hurricanes, high gas prices, extremism in a religion founded on extremism, impotence, and Michael Jackson's death - all stemmed from the neocon conspiracy designed to destroy America by fettering us all in the chains of tax cuts and a fictional War on Terror. Damn that Bush!
Although, for all the fascism (and unintelligent blithering) that George Bush fostered, at least his White House staff could spell his name correctly. Barak Obama's on the other hand...well, let's just say that they (like their boss) are learning as they go.
And speaking of fascism, Lebron James is starting to act like a real King. After getting dunked on by a college sophomore at the Lebron James Nike Camp of Awesomeness, The Chosen One decided that the tapes rolling on the game ought to be confiscated. And who could blame him? We, the adoring public could not bear to see our hero, the archetype of good sportsmanship and basketball excellency showed up at his own camp!
Upon hearing the news of Lebron (and those fascists from Nike) putting the skids on the video footage, George W. Bush called The King and offered him a job at the CIA.
Congress is pushing hard to pass the so called "Cap and Trade" legislation. Never mind that when the bill narrowly passed the House, no one had actually read it. In fact, it had not even been completely written.
No, never mind that massive oversight. I want to know exactly what a "carbon credit" is. And I think the answer is simple: nothing. It's nothing. A made up, pleasant sounding term designed to make Global Warming Zealots feel better about themselves when they can't explain why American industry is fleeing the country and outsourcing jobs, and while the tax rates, energy bills, and food costs, have, to use Obama's word, "skyrocketed".
And since a carbon credit is a non-thing, I started to wonder what the ratio of a carbon credit to a Shrute buck is. And the answer is of course the same as the ratio of a Stanley-nickel to a Shrute buck.
Which everyone knows, is exactly the same as the ratio of unicorns to leprechauns. 
I have less than 8 days before I lose my income and begin a two-year life on loans (in business school). Every day for the last 4-5 weeks I have been either stressing about or working on securing the needed loan money to sustain a reasonable livelihood for the fam when we move to Virginia. As I've talked with friends and acquaintences in business school about the debt life, I was introduced to the idea of using Food Stamps to minimize debt for living expenses.
I wrote this last year, but thought you might enjoy it this year. I hope y'all had a fantastic Independence Day.
July the 4th. Independence Day. Everywhere the smell of grills cooking, smoke bombs burning, and fireworks crackling. A blue haze wafts lazily throughout the neighborhood. Sparks fly, lights flash, packaged fire, made in China, with names like Jade Blossom and Butterflies in Flight go boom and crack and pow.Read more...
Our own domestic miniature shock and awe.
Another parade, another crowded park full of kitsch; Peruvian wood flutes, bolo ties, stuffed animals, pencil sketches of dead celebrities and caricatures of living ones, pewter jewelry, homemade quilts, navajo tacos and gigantic lemonades, funnel cakes, painted faces, overweight ladies in tank-tops and men wearing button down western shirts with gaudy patterns of red white and blue despite the triple digit heat. A man dressed like Ben Franklin rings a big bell on the street corner. His clanging is tolerated today. Any other day and he’d be hauled off to jail.
And then, like December the 26th, or the second day of school, or a grey Monday morning, July the 5th dawns with a thick hangover.
Blue black stains are burned into every driveway. Scraps of this and that, exploded evidence of the night before, drift down the gutter. Stale, cold franks still sit hopefully on the greasy grill, waiting for relish, mustard, and the warm comfort of a bleached white flour bun.
It was 1986. I was 9. I awoke early on the morning of the 5th. I ran out of the house with a box of matches and a plastic bag. The street outside was littered in confetti, the remains of cups, plates, toys, and fireworks all blasted into oblivion the previous night. There were burned out cardboard tanks, empty charred shells, hand sized symbols of American might. Toxic snakes were dry and crusty, lying in their own soot as the heat of the day turned them into ash. Dixie cups, half burned spotted the pavement, their waxy coating melted in a semi solid puddle around them. Like a drunk in his own vomit.
I scoured the asphalt with peeled eyes, looking, hunting, for unlit pyrotechnics. I knew that in the rubble of burned up celebratory explosives that lost, un-erupted fireworks were lingering, not unlike the hot dogs on the cold grill, waiting to be discovered, ignited, and consumed. I was determined to stretch Independence Day into the new morning, and beyond, if luck–and a trip to the firework stand–allowed.
But, alas, that luck would run out. Finding only a handful of Black Cats and ground flowers the reality of July the 5th started to sink in. Bleary eyed now, and tired, the heat of the July sun starting to beat down on the dark asphalt, I walked homeward. Grumpy and irritable. The routine of summer staring me directly in the face.
Those 4ths of July during the late 1980s seemed especially exciting. Perhaps it was because I was finally old enough to appreciate the risk of blowing off a hand with honest to goodness, bought in Evanston, Wyoming (at Porter’s Fireworks and Firewater), quick-wicked Black Cat firecrackers. We’d strap them to action figures and plastic cups, drop them down the sewage drain, or toss them high in the air, timing the explosion just right, so the loud crack would echo through the neighborhood at the apex of flight. We’d find creative ways to use gasoline, bottle rockets, PVC pipe, and pellet guns. Everything was a potential burn victim. Our toys, our clothing, a mailbox and the neighbors yard. If it could be blown to bits, we blew it to bits.
Those were the years that several dads in the area would pile kids into Suburbans and pick up trucks and make the trek to Evanston. Once at Porter’s it was hard for them to object to our Black Cats and bottle rockets when they themselves had a cart full of explosive illegalities that would make any smuggler, no matter how crooked and accomplished, blush with envy. We’d pull out onto I-80, the vehicle heavy laden with contraband flammable excitement and head back home. Always one eye on the rear view mirror, and the other on the speedometer. In the distance, rapidly growing smaller was Porter’s marquee. “Welcome back Utah, Happy 4th!”
It was no secret, all that border crossing with loads of pure, street credible fireworks. The highway patrol was in on it. They’d had to be. After all, they wanted a good show at home, in their driveways as well. Chicago cops have nothing on rural Utah.
Fireworks are tame nowadays. At least the ones that the grocery stores sell. Fountains of emitting sparks, crackling balls, snaps. But the proof of continued pilgrimages to Evanston lights up the night sky each and every 4th. A deep thump, followed by a shower of multi-colored fire high in the sky above our calm suburbia is a living symbol of all that is right in the world. Despite what troubles we deal with, no matter our health or our finances, our fear or anxiety, there is always in America that one day of the year when we are encouraged to blow crap up.
And now, today, the streets are quiet. Like New Year’s Day. Red-eyed and tired, friends greet each other. The desire to extend the great American holiday another day or so burns shallow, but every day life demands otherwise. Bills are due, deadlines loom, and life, paused for a few flammable moments, moves on. One by one the masses fall back in line. The short lived, but universal rebellion is over. Hot dog sales slump. Red white and blue t-shirts appear on the clearance rack. And that man dressed like Ben Franklin is out of a job.
Like a line of black ants, America returns to it ordered life, the 9 to 5 of punching the clock. Life, restored. Order, threatened, but victorious. A heavy sigh drifts from coast to coast. And everyone, nose back to the grindstone, looks forward again to blowing up more crap.
Until next year, God Bless America.
What is today celebrating? July 4. Most know the answer, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, but on this day I want to put such an act in historical context.
The ideas espoused in The Declaration were not new. Philosophers had been talking about them since ancient Greece. The idea that people could govern themselves, choose their own laws and social contracts by which they would be held accountable to, was an ideal reached for time and again. Sadly, whenever the people rose up to form such a government, ultimately it was taken over by greed, ambition, and lust for power. In some cases (the Greeks) it was too weak to deal with external threats. For every Athens there was an Alexander, for every Rome, a Caesar.
What was it about the American experiment with democracy that allowed it to be successful? I'd be naive to claim the answer to be some one paragraph explanation as there were many variables that came together to allow such a nation to flourish. There is something special though that America started with that gave it a tremendous advantage. When viewed next to France, who had a much more robust understanding of the principles espoused by the Declaration but would struggle for 40 years to adopt them.
We had George Washington. Here was a man that was called on to lead the Continental Army, he wasn't a successful military leader up to that point, but as things were heating up he knew the mantle would fall on him. He spent his days studying military strategy prior to being named its commander so that he would be prepared for the ensuing war. Then during the war after repeated defeats at the hands of the British, as things looked their bleakest, he had the poise to draw up a 4 pronged coordinated attack on the British. Most of the coordination fell apart, but he captured his first victory and lifted this spirits of a struggling rebellion on the verge of collapse.
Washington always lead from the front in battle. A conspicuous target on his white horse, he was never killed though men around him fell. People began to believe that this was a man guided by God with a divine purpose to lead this country. He was called "His Excellency" by those addressing him. By the time he was finally able to trap and eliminate the British threat at Yorktown, his stature was such that everyone expected him to declare himself King or Emperor and establish a new kingdom in the new world.
He didn't, he stepped down and retired to his Mount Vernon. He had done his service and like the legendary Cincinnatus, was ready to step off the stage and leave the next phase to others. Unfortunately he would be called on twice more to leave retirement. The first to preside over the constitutional convention and the second to serve as the first president. With that said, I'm just going to post some quotes about him said by his contemporaries. For those seeking to understand why our republic was able to survive and thrive, I point to exhibit A, George Washington, as the most important factor in realizing the spirit of 1776.
“If he does that, he [George Washington] will be the Greatest Man in the World!“
George III, of the United Kingdom - His Hated War Enemy upon hearing of Washington's plan to retire as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army (1783), surrender power to Congress and go home to Mt. Vernon
[Washington did exactly that. Does this make him a World Leader?]
“Posterity will talk of Washington as the Founder of a Great Empire, when my name shall be lost in the vortex of revolution.
Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon I of France)
[Washington did found a Great Empire. Does this make him a World Leader?]
“[George Washington is] The great citizen, the First-Born Son of the New World."
Simón Bolívar
“[George Washington is] The Cincinnatus of the West."
Lord Byron
[Washington was the Cincinnatus-of-the-West: Does this make him a World Leader?][George Washington is]
You have in American history one of the great captains of all times. It might be said of him, as it was of William the Silent, ... he never lost a campaign. >
Von Moltke, Berlin
He is polite with dignity, affable without formality, distant without haughtiness, grave without austerity; modest, wise and good.
Abigail Adams, in a letter to John Adams, 1789; from Alexander Hamilton (2004) by Ron Chernow, p. 279
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