Ski Mississippi

I'm still getting over a cold/the flu/an upper respiratory infection/AIDS.  Or something. 
Obama's on vacation in Florida and hasn't been able to screw up anything. 
Congress isn't doing anything. 
The White House keeps fiddling with "the law of the land", rather than take the consequences of writing the legislative drivel known as Obamacare. 
Not much else happening.

So here's a rerun....   I sent this in to Delta Magazine on a Sunday night back in 2011, and they accepted it Monday morning.  One of my favorite Christmas memories.  If my father sounds like a great person, it's because he was. 

Merry Christmas, everybody !!
 

I can only remember one white Christmas from my Mississippi Delta childhood. Not because of the snow, which was the largest we’d ever seen, not because the snow was particularly beautiful on our plowed-under rice fields, which looked like someone had sprinkled a thin layer of white sugar on a Mississippi Mud Cake, but because of how my father decided to celebrate the snowfall.

He took us snow skiing.

The Mississippi Delta is flat and snow skiing requires a hill. Our nearest hills were the on-ramps for the I-20/Highway 61 intersection in Vicksburg. Eudora Welty once complained that the Mississippi Delta was maddening, and couldn’t imagine spending days with nothing to see but the horizon. (I tell friends about the time my dog ran away, and three days later I could still see him.) It’s flat.

So Delta natives water ski.

My father probably taught two hundred kids how to water ski. During summers for a couple of decades, he tread water in Beulah lake, supporting his students through failed attempts until they “got it” and skied. After each success, he would dog-paddle back to shore with his wet comb-over hanging triumphantly past his left ear lobe, grab something to eat, and then get back in the lake to teach another one.

But when my little brother Steven came along, teaching had become a challenge. Keeping unwieldy skis and someone else’s fat child on top of the water was no job for a 40-year-old. When Daddy saw a pair of “training skis” at a sporting goods store, he bought them.

Imagine a pair of skis, much shorter and wider than usual, connected at the toes with an 18-inch long board. A traditional ski rope and handle went from this board to the skier’s hands. We could tie this thing behind a boat and pull a screaming child all over the lake on the first try. Steven was no more than four years old the first time he got on them, and he instantly got the hang of it.

Back to our White Christmas…. We enjoyed playing in the snow, but we couldn't go into town to see our friends.

After the mandatory snowmen and snow angels, we went inside and dared to say that we were bored. Our mother shot back at us with one of her anecdotes about growing up dirt poor in Yazoo City, and spending her winters sitting in a semicircle with her sisters and spitting on a radiator to see whose saliva would disappear first.

Daddy told us to stop our bellyachin', get dressed for the snow, and come outside. Waiting for us in the rice field in front of the house were the training skis tied to the back of a Massey-Ferguson 1800 series 4-wheel drive tractor.

The Massey Ferguson 1800 series could pull anything. They didn't get stuck, no matter how deep the mud.
We’d long suspected this, but at that moment we knew. We had the greatest… father…. ever.

I got on the skis first, my younger siblings crawled into the cab with Daddy, and we were off. The tractor took off across the frozen field, and I was towed along about 30 yards behind. I could feel every frozen clod underneath the skis, but Lord Have Mercy, it was fun. Once we got up to the cruising speed of 35 miles an hour, it was downright exhilarating.

I could lean back against the rope handle and go wide left or right. When the tractor made a quick turn, it would fling me past the “wake” like a slingshot, and then snatch a knot in my neck when the slack disappeared. The other downside were the unplanned exits from the skis. Hitting frozen mud at 35 miles an hour HURT.

My sisters and brother got their turns, and soon the field had been rutted enough to give us some nice jump ramp opportunities.

(I just got off the phone with my little brother, who is now a history professor at Mississippi College. He remembers us doing this, but was too young to remember details. However, he says that when he sees the "Jackass" show on TV, where a deathproof gang of idiotic males attempt ridiculous stunts and expose themselves to bodily harm just for fun, he thinks to himself, "Yep. That's how we grew up.")

We rode those skis for hours. If YouTube had been around, movies from that day would've been passed all around the world, titled "Mississippi Ski Slope". Why no one suffered a broken leg is a mystery. The gravel road we lived on didn't get much traffic, but anyone who saw us stopped to watch.

There were families who went to Europe that Christmas. There were young Olympians skiing down the Matterhorn. Aspen Colorado was probably swarming with what would soon be called Yuppies, wearing thousands of dollars’ worth of special clothing and equipment.

We were zipping around a muddy field of frozen mud behind a tractor, in the flatlands between Merigold and Drew Mississippi. We wouldn't have traded places with anyone in the world.

Merry Christmas ! It's what you make of it.

Put down this magazine till tonight. Go outside. Find some kids and a field and nail some skis together.

Ski Mississippi.

 

Washington D.C. - Back To The Plantation

Southern plantation owners were responsible for the health, feeding, shelter, children and old-age provisions of their slaves. 

Emancipation supposedly ended all of that.  This is a good thing. 

(I don't want you or Barack to take care of my cholesterol level.  I don't want Michelle's advice and hectoring about the superiority of her damn organic garden.  I've already bought a house, and didn't need HUD to intervene between me and the previous owner. If I had the money I've "invested" in Social Security, I would already be retired, and doing quite nicely.) 

Why do so many people now want the government to behave like a plantation owner?

 

Fort Worth - March Against Monsanto, May 25, 2013

Here's the rant that I delivered at the "March Against Monsanto" in downtown Fort Worth yesterday.  Good times, good times. 

My name is Allen Patterson, and I’m Chair of the Tarrant County Libertarian Party.

Check us out at the Tarrant County Libertarian Meetup, The Tarrant County Libertarian Website, and remember to come to the NORML State Leadership Conference, Norris Conference Center, about 8 blocks north of here, June 7th 8th and 9th.

If you can’t remember all of that, Google Fort Worth March Against Monsanto sometime tomorrow. My website’ll be in the top 5 search results. Come see me over here any time this afternoon. I’ve got flyers, bumperstickers, and other info, and I’d love to talk to you about freedom and the Libertarian Party.

Why would the Tarrant County Libertarian Party participate in a "March Against Monsanto"? We’re supposed to be the small-government party, right?

Here’s why…. Monsanto developed some hybrid life forms. That's not problem for many of us.

Monsanto wanted a monopoly on these plants and started suing people who used "their" seeds without their permission. One of Monsanto's former lawyers, Clarence Thomas, was appointed to the Supreme Court, where he eventually wrote a majority opinion in a 2001 lawsuit, stating that "newly developed plant breeds are patentable under the general utility patent laws of the United States".

Sorry, Clarence, but if someone purchases a John Grisham novel and then re-sells it to Half-Price Books, that individual can't be sued because he didn't mail John Grisham a check. The same thing goes for purchasing, and then re-selling a car, a stapler, "Beyonce's Greatest Hits", or "Milli Vanilli - Unplugged". It's called the "First Sale Doctrine".

I own me. You own you. And if you grow some soybeans, you have a right to do what you want with the seeds. It really is that simple. Farmers have been growing plants and re-using the seeds for thousands of years, and should be allowed to continue doing so, Clarence Thomas, Elena Kegan, and Barack Obama’s FDA be damned!

But if you want Big Government, what you’re seeing today is exactly and precisely what it looks like.

Government puts a monitor in place (the FDA, the EPA) and within 25 years, the inmates are running the asylum. When you get a chance, Google the phrase “Regulatory Capture”.

Now....we’re going to play a game called “Name That President”.

I’m going to give you the name of a Monsanto employee, and you’re going to guess the name of the president who appointed him or her to regulate organizations like…..Monsanto.

It’ll be fun.

Which president appointed Monsanto director William Rucklehouse as acting head of the FBI? – Richard Nixon

Who was president when Monsanto’s VP of Government and Public Affiars was appointed as Deputy Administrator of the EPA? Clinton and Bush

Who appointed Michael Taylor, Monsanto’s Vice President of Public Policy, as Senior Advisor to the Commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration? Obama

This is what Big Government Looks Like!!!


Which president appointed former Monsanto attorney Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court? Bush

William Ruckleshaus is a retired Monsanto Board member. Which president appointed him as the very first head of the Environmental Protection Agency? Nixon

Earle H. Harbison, Jr. was once President of Monsanto. Who was president when Mr. Harbison was working his way up to Deputy Director of the CIA? (It looks like Ford, Carter, Reagand and Bush)

Who elected Monsanto lobbyist Toby Moffett to the U.S. Congress? You did, if you voted for him. 

Who elected Monsanto legal Counsel Dennis DeConcini to the U.S. Senate? You did, if you voted for him.

Who was president of the USA when Monsanto’s Chemical Lab Supervisor Margaret Miller was Deputy Director of the Food and Drug Administration? Daddy Bush and Clinton

This is what Big Government Looks Like!!!

Which president appointed Marcia Hale, Monsanto’s International Government Affairs Director to his White House Senior Staff? Clinton

Which President appointed Mickey Kantor, a Monsanto Board Member, as Secretary Of Commerce? Clinton

Which Presidents appointed Linda Fisher, Monsanto’s Vice President of Government and Public Affairs, as Deputy Administrator of the EPA? Bush, Clinton

Which President appointed Roger Beachy, the Director of Monsanto’s Danforth Center, as Director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture? Barack Obama

Folks, I could go on and on and on. There are about a dozen others on the list.

I often wonder if you move back and forth from Monsanto to Government, does it even count as a job change?

This is what Big Government looks like.

I’m Allen Patterson, Chair Of the Tarrant County Libertarian Party.

Check us out at the Tarrant County Libertarian Meetup, The Tarrant County Libertarian Website, and remember to come to the NORML State Leadership Conference, Norris Conference Center, about 8 blocks north of here, June 7th 8th and 9th.

If you can’t remember all of that, Google Fort Worth March Against Monsanto sometime tomorrow. My website’ll be in the top 5 search results.

Come see me over here. I’ve got flyers, and I’d love to talk to you about Liberty and the Libertarian Party.

We’re the party that is pro-choice about EVERYTHING, including what you can do with your own damn soybeans.

Congressman Stephen Fincher (R-Sugar Tit)

Back in 2010, an Agriculture Subsidies Welfare Queen named Stephen Fincher ran for Congress and won.

Here's a campaign pic of the smiling Fincher family, content in the knowledge that no one will ever legislate that they be Drug Tested prior to receiving their corporate welfare check.  CPS will never show up at their home to ensure that the parents of these kids aren't blowing the money (that you sent them) on crack.   You donated to the Fincher family on April 15, tax day, whether you wanted to or not. 

Here's some of the rant I posted about his campaign a couple of years ago:

Stephen Fincher, a Republican candidate for congress in Tennessee's 8th district, favors small-government, lower taxes, and he has an appropriate disdain for Obamacare.

Good for him.
He's also a gospel singer.
He's a succesful cotton farmer.

And in one eleven-year period, from 1995 - to 2006, Fincher and his wife received 2.5 million dollars in crop subsidies from government you.

Now, just for the sheer joy of it, imagine if the Democrats dared to nominate a traditional welfare queen for Congress. Someone who sits around the house all day, collecting welfare and producing little babies who will reliably vote for Democrats. Do you think there might be an uproar?

So what is there about this form of welfare that bathes Stephen Fincher in such down-home, cottony goodness?

When our government subsidizes a particular crop, it confuses the price signals. In a truly free market, if too much cotton was produced, the price would drop. Fewer people would grow cotton. The price would then reflect what people were willing to pay for it, and what farmers would willingly be paid to grow it.

If not enough cotton was on the market, the price would rise. More and more people would grow cotton until the price dropped again.

Are Obama and Pelosi and Reid paying too many people to grow cotton? We'll never know.

But are you having to pay too much for cotton T-shirts, shirts, socks and sheets because of farm subsidies and prohibitive tariffs on cotton imports? Hell yes.

The rant continues for a few more paragraphs, explaining how Brazil was going to retaliate with tariffs on our exported cotton because of Uncle Sam giving handouts to Welfare Queens like Fincher.  We compromised by buying most of the Brazilian Cotton crop.  I swear to God, that's how we solved the problem. 
I hope you'll read the whole thing. 
Go here for it. 
I grinned several times, having forgotten most of the thing.   

Congressman Fincher is back in the news, this time because he wants to cut food stamps while maintaining his own place at the public trough. 
Hell, I'm all for feeding people, but we could easily make a lot of progress on lowering the price of food by ending the Fincher Subsidy, and then ending all the quotas, tariffs, and limitations related to what Mr. Obama allows to come through the bars of our national cage.  The Institute for International Economics estimates the annual cost of U.S. foreign protectionism at $6,027 per household.   

I think that $6,000.00 per family would make up for a lot of food stamps, don't you?  But then Mr. Fincher's farm has to be protected.  Here's what was in today's Huffington Post:

Fincher has said his farm would have shut down without the subsidies, which he argued protect American farmers from more heavily subsidized foreign competition. "We would be all for not having government in our business," Fincher told the Washington Post in 2010, "but we need a fair system."

The federal government's complex system of farm subsidies is supposed to shield farmers from some of the uncertainties inherent to the industry, but critics like the Environmental Working Group say the safety net unfairly benefits the biggest farms at the expense of smaller ones.

You think that farming has "some uncertainties inherent to the industry"???  Try building fruitstands.  Open a restaurant.  Start a used bookstore.  Open a clothing store.  Go into the carwash business.  Drive a semi-truck.  Those businesses open and struggle and crash and burn every day.
There's risk everywhere. 
But the risk in farming is just more....wholesome, right? 

And that's how Welfare Queens like Congressman Stephen Fincher (R-Sugar Tit) wind up getting $70,000 a year from the government  from you. 

I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend, and that everyone pause for a few minutes to think of those who fought and died to support Stephen Fincher in the style to which he has grown accustomed. 

Too harsh.  Have a GREAT Memorial Day weekend!!!  Be safe!!  

The March Against Monsanto - Fort Worth, Texas Edition

Why would the Tarrant County Libertarian Party participate in a "March Against Monsanto"? (Saturday, May 25th at 1:00 p.m., General Worth Square, Downtown Fort Worth)


Because that's where a crowd is going to be !!! We'll be handing out flyers and spreading the word about the Libertarian movement.

And seriously.... Monsanto developed some hybrid life forms. That's not problem for many of us.

Monsanto wanted a monopoly on these plants and started suing people who used "their" seeds without their permission.

One of Monsanto's former lawyers, Clarence Thomas, was appointed to the Supreme Court, where he eventually wrote a majority opinion in a 2001 lawsuit, stating that "newly developed plant breeds are patentable under the general utility patent laws of the United States".

Sorry, Clarence, but if someone purchases a John Grisham novel and then re-sells it to Half-Price Books, that individual can't be sued because he didn't mail John Grisham a check.

The same thing goes for purchasing, and then re-selling a car, a stapler, or Beyonce's Greatest Hits. It's called the "First Sale Doctrine".

The Tarrant County Libertarian Party Executive Committee believes that corporations shouldn't "own" life forms. Where would it end? Farmers have been planting, growing, and then re-using their seeds for ten thousand years. Clarence Thomas and Monsanto should not be allowed to interfere in that process.

Hope to see you there, Saturday May 25th, General Worth Square, 900 Main Street. It starts at 1:00 p.m. Go to the open area north of the Fort Worth Convention Center. Look for the old hippies and passionate Gen-X'ers.

I own me. You own you. And if you grow some soybeans, you have a right to do what you want with the seeds. It really is that simple.

Economic Insanity From One Of Our Worst Presidents

Here's something from one of FDR's press conferences.  May 31st.  1935.
Anyone wondering why a recession was turned into The Great Depression need look no further than the economic goofiness of this Messiah On The Potomac.

1. And then finally you have a fifth great occupation of human life—the growing of crops. It evidently does not make any difference, after I grow my wheat, whether it is put in an elevator in a different State, perhaps to be commingled with other wheat and sold in Liverpool, or New York or Germany or in any other State of the Union-it does not make any difference. The fact is that the wheat was grown in one place, and therefore the growing of crops cannot be considered in any shape, manner or form as coming under the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. Perhaps wheat actually in transit under this decision may come under it. But it could not if it were in storage, for example in a bin, because there it would be tied to a definite locality.
2. And so it does bring us up rather squarely as to the big issue in the country and as to how we are going to solve it. The big issue is this: Does this decision mean that the United States Government has no control over any national economic problem?
3. The simple example is crop adjustment. Are we going to take the hands of the Federal Government completely off any effort to adjust the growing of national crops, and go right straight back to the old principle that every farmer is a lord of his own farm and can do anything he wants, raise anything, any old time, in any quantity, and sell any time he wants? You and I know perfectly well that if we completely abandon crop control—I don't care whether it is the present method or, let us say, the McNary-Haugen method, because, after all, that is a Federal method, too—if we are to abandon Federal relationship to any national crop, we shall again have thirty-six-cent wheat. You can't stop it. Under present world conditions we will have five-cent cotton. That is obvious.

What FDR didn't realize is that cheap wheat and nickel cotton are good things.  It means that people all over the world are working to give us things at the absolute lowest price possible at the time.  

But it was more important to FDR to keep plantation owners fat and happy on their plantations, and wheat farmers rich and prosperous all over Kansas and Iowa.  To hell with everyone who could've profited and prospered from cheap bread and clothing.    

That was the message from Washington until the attack on Pearl Harbor.  The Japanese distracted him.  The Great Depression ended.  

We now have a president who claims to be working very, very hard to end our economic slump.  

Note to Japan:  I'll have a ring of lights around Carswell Air Force Base tonight.  No one will be hurt.  Please be loud.  

Also, I found this pic while looking for the Obamessiah/FDR button.  

This decision didn't help either....

From The Splendid Table

A professor at NYU has attempted to read the entire 2012 Farm Bill, and teach its contents to her students.
It ain't pretty. 

Go here for the whole thing. 

Lynne Rossetto Kasper: You decided to teach the farm bill. Why?


Marion Nestle: Well, I didn't know anything about it. I knew that I would be asked about it by reporters, because I'm asked by reporters about everything and they think I know everything. In 2006, when the previous farm bill was under discussion, I actually tried to read it. I opened up the file that was on the Internet and the table of contents was 14 pages long. The entire thing was 663 pages and it's totally incomprehensible.

So, I've decided to take it on, and I must say I've had moments when I've regretted it deeply. But it's been absolutely fascinating and the class is enormously exciting. I've got 45 students who are jumping out of their seats because what they're finding out is so absolutely amazing and none of us knew any of this before. We're learning it together.

LRK: What's making them jump out of their seats?

MN: Well, it's so astonishingly irrational it just takes your breath away. This is a bill that started in the 1930s and has been added onto incrementally without anybody sitting back and saying, "[What would we do] if we wanted to promote farm policy -- a rational farm policy we all agree would feed everybody, would make a living for farmers, would protect farm workers, would protect the environment and would promote health?"

The bill does anything but that. It is designed to protect certain parts of the food supply but not others: commodities, not fruits and vegetables. With today's concerns about obesity, the idea that the farm bill does not promote production and consumption of fruits and vegetables seems bizarre.

Some things are so completely irrational they just take your breath away. For example, if a commodity producer decides to grow vegetables, that producer will either lose all of the subsidies he's getting or will have to plow the vegetables under. They are required by the way this law works to plow them under, treat them with Roundup and kill them, or let them freeze. But they're not allowed to actually grow and sell them.

There are real discouraging things in it that actually discourage the production of fruits and vegetables. You would think that somebody in Congress would sit back and say, "OK, let's take a look at this and let's try to get agricultural policy aligned with health policy." But that is so far from the political reality that what this course is really about is the political realities and what you have to do if you want to change those realities.

LRK: Is there any way for the consumer to get any kind of say on any of this?

MN: One of the things that's most disturbing to me about the bill is that it is so absolutely incomprehensible that nobody can understand it. It is so vast and includes the most astonishing details about the most astonishing number of programs -- dozens and dozens and dozens. I've not yet been able to identify them all.

Each section of the farm bill covers different kinds of programs. These range from tiny earmark programs that affect only a few people, to things like food stamps and the SNAP program, which affects 45-50 million people.

What the food assistance programs are doing in the farm bill is another thing. Neither one of them could be looked at rationally because they're completely linked. The reason that they're linked is the senators and House members who have interest in one or another aspect say, "I'll vote for yours if you vote for mine."

So, the food assistance programs are held hostage to farm subsidies and the farm subsidies are held hostage to food assistance programs. You cannot read the farm bill because each aspect of it refers to amendments to previous bills. So unless you know the 30 different previous bills that have been passed, you really can't. It doesn't read like a text.

One more point: Nobody in Congress can understand it either.

LRK: That's ... scary.

MN: That's scary.

The Whited Sepulchre: No, having a Department Of Agriculture, with Food Bills and Farm Bills and an "Agricultural Policy", all at the mercy of political contributors....That's what's scary. 

.

Pat Roberts of Kansas and the 2012 Farm Bill

For reasons that I don't quite understand, the infamous Farm Bill comes up for renewal every five years. 

It's one of the few scandalous giveaways that has to be reworked and reapproved. 


Here's Townhall.com:

Every vote in Congress can be viewed as an opportunity to either increase liberty or increase government. Right now, the Senate appears poised to choose the latter as they prepare to vote on the 2012 Farm Bill.

The 1,000-page bill that Senators Debbie Stabenow and Pat Roberts are pushing through the Senate is chock full of massive spending, new entitlements, and new regulations. With corporate welfare and generous subsidies thrown in for good measure, the bill reflects everything wrong with out-of-control government. No wonder Congress is sporting a 17 percent approval rating these days.

The farm bill is another in a long line of government boondoggles that simply builds on the big expenditures of a previous bill. The CBO estimates that the 2012 farm bill will up spending to $969 billion over the next ten years. Locking in at those levels in the midst of a debt crisis and credit downgrade is beyond fiscally irresponsible. Overall, the Senate farm bill punts on the opportunity to contribute to deficit reduction and shows a startling lack of political courage.

Ok, let's pause for a moment.  Farming is risky.  Erratic.  Unpredictable.  But, on the other hand, so is long-haul trucking.  So is running a lawn service or a coffee bar or an upholstery shop. 
Upholsterers aren't organized into a lobby, though.  Sucks to be them, doesn't it???

The 2012 farm bill’s most noticeable “reform” is the elimination of direct payments to farmers. In its place is a new entitlement program most commonly referred to as “shallow loss,” a new federal crop insurance program. It’s meant to serve as an income safety net that will automatically trigger payments to farmers when their crop yields fall below 90% of their average levels over the past five years. However, the past five years have seen a spike in crop yields, meaning that shallow loss is locking in rates that are due to fall. It’s unnecessary corporate welfare, despite what the farm lobby claims. According to the American Enterprise Institute:

“The current average debt-to-asset ratio in the farm sector is less than 9 percent and has been declining steadily over the past decade. Moreover, farms fail at a rate of less than one in two hundred a year, and, from a financial perspective, farms are better placed than almost any sector of the economy to handle year-to-year variations in revenues and costs by themselves. Yet, effectively, farmers want a tax payer-funded guarantee that their revenues will never fall below about 90 percent of their recent levels.

I'll throw in some more about "shallow loss" programs in a moment.  If you can't stand the suspense, go to the end of this post, and prepare to be depressed about the gullibility of the American public. 

The addition of a farm entitlement program is one of countless examples of the federal government encouraging dependence at the expense of liberty. Additionally, telling farmers that they can keep their revenues and have the taxpayers absorb their losses invites risky behavior on their end. Apparently too-big-to-fail has yet to go out of style.

Here's a quote on the Farm Bill from the New York Holy Times.  Any time you hear a politician or a "journalist" claim that people on both sides should reach across the aisle to get things done and break the gridlock?  You should hide your wallet, lock up your daughters and bury the family silver in the backyard.  You're about to get screwed.  Here are Democrat Debbie Stabenow and Republican Pat Roberts of Kansas:

“This bill represents significant reform,” said Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan and chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. “It cuts subsidies, it cuts the deficit and it creates jobs.”


Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas and the ranking member on the committee, called the legislation the best bill possible. “It shows what can happen if we break the logjam of partisanship and work together to get something done,” Mr. Roberts said.

 Debbie, you ignorant slut.
You claim that this theft "creates jobs".  But what is the cost of taking the money from taxpayer A and giving it to farmer B?  Has it occurred to you that taxpayer A might have wanted to create some jobs of his own, you Statist looter?  
And Pat, a lot of us were depending on that logjam that you just managed to "break".  We want it back.  We want you to be tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail.
In addition to wanting to give money to farmers, Pat Roberts also wants to lower the tax burden on Kansas taxpayers.  Gag me with a dirty diaper.  Anyone voting for this old fraud should have his taxes doubled. 


God almighty, I'm in a bad mood this morning. 

Here's the skinny on the "shallow loss" farming program.  The older programs guaranteed an income.  This new one guarantees a profit.  Well done, Pat and Debbie.  Well done. 

Shallow-loss programs are costly: Depending on structure and crop prices, these programs could cost the taxpayer as much as or more than the direct payments program they would replace, averaging as much as $8 to $14 billion a year over the next five years.

 

• Shallow-loss programs amount to a new entitlement: Payments would be automatically triggered by revenue shortfalls and would be linked to average revenues over the past five years. So, when prices and yields increase, payment triggers will also increase, creating a new, partially disguised entitlement program that locks farmers into near-record incomes at the taxpayer’s expense.

• Shallow-loss programs based on farm-level yields create incentives for the wasteful use of economic resources by buying down deductibles associated with federal crop insurance: Farmers would reap the benefits of record crop yields and prices. However, because a high percentage of revenues are guaranteed, farmers may adopt more risky farming techniques.

• The Congressional Budget Office’s cost estimates for shallow-loss programs assume that recent historically high prices will be sustained: If corn, wheat, soybean, rice, and cotton prices return to the average levels observed between 1996 and 2011, however, program costs will balloon. A county-based program would cost taxpayers between $8.4 and $13.98 billion, depending on the rate of reimbursement. The Stabenow-Roberts shallow-loss proposal would likely cost taxpayers between $5 billion and $7 billion, depending on the mix of farm-based and county-based programs.

• Shallow-loss programs will perpetuate the federal farm program tradition of giving the majority of subsidies to farms that do not need them in the first place: Shallow-loss subsidies, like direct payments and crop insurance subsidies, would be tied to the amount of land that households farm. Consequently, the largest and wealthiest farmers enjoy built-in buffers in the form of substantial equity in their farm operations (debt-to-asset ratios average less than 9 percent in the entire American agricultural sector). These individuals would receive the lion’s share of shallow-loss subsidy payments.

Here's how it ought to work.
If corn prices aren't high enough for farmers to make a profit, that means there are too many people growing corn.
The farmers affected need to grow something else. Or become upholsterers.

First they came for the Goat-Counters

First they came for the Goat-Counters,
But I did not speak out, for I was not a Goat-Counter....

Go here. 

Thanks to Radley Balko of The Agitator Blog for speaking out about the plight of government Goat-Counters. 
When the budget-cutters come for the government's Catfish-Counters, will YOU be the one who speaks out? 

Why Penn Jillette is a Libertarian Nut instead of just a Nut, and other stuff

I'm reading magician/comedian Penn Jillette's "God, No".  The chapter "Why I'm A Libertarian Nut Instead Of Just A Nut" is so good, so spot-on, that I was going to pound it into the internet this morning. 

This guy beat me to it.  So all I have to do is copy and paste. 

I don’t speak for all Libertarians any more than Sean Penn speaks for all Democrats. I’m not even sure my LP membership card is up to date. I’ve voted Libertarian as long as I can remember but I don’t really remember much before the Clintons and the Bushes. Those clans made a lot of us bugnutty. When I go on Glenn’s show he calls me a Libertarian, I think that’s my only real credential.

There are historical reasons and pragmatic reasons to be a Libertarian, but there are historic and pragmatic reasons to be a Democrat, a Republican or a Socialist. I don’t know if everyone would be better off under a Libertarian government. I don’t know what would be best for anyone. I don’t even know what’s best for me. What makes me Libertarian is I don’t think anyone else really knows what’s best for anyone. My argument for Libertarianism is simple - personal morality.

I start with the Declaration of Independence: “Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” So, essentially our government does what they do with my consent.

I know barely enough about Max Weber to type his name into Google, but it seems he’s credited with asserting the idea that the state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force. I put those two ideas together (my consent and use of physical force) and figure we all give our government the right to use force. So, the way I figure, it’s not okay for our government to use force in any situation where I personally wouldn’t use force.

For example, if I’m not willing to kill a cute cow, I shouldn’t eat steak. I don’t have to kill Bessy right now with my bare hands, but I have to be willing to snuff her if I want to chow down on a T-bone. If it’s not okay for me, it’s not okay for a slaughterhouse. Asking someone else to do something immoral is immoral. If it’s not okay for me to break David Blaine’s hands so my magic show has less competition, it’s not okay for me to ask someone else to beat him up. Someone else doing your dirty work is still your dirty work.

If I had a gun, and I knew a murder was happening, (we’re speaking hypothetically here, I’m not asking you to believe that I could accurately tell a murder from aggressive CPR), I would use that gun to stop that murder. I might be too much of a coward to use a gun myself to stop a murder or rape or robbery, but I think the use of a gun is justified. I’m even okay with using force to enforce voluntary contracts. If I were a hero, I would use a gun to protect the people who choose to live under this free system and to stop another country from attacking America. But I wouldn’t use a gun to force someone to love something like say…a library.

Look, I love libraries. I spent a lot of time in the Greenfield Public Library when I was a child. I would give money to build a library. I would ask you to give money to build a library. But, if for some reason you were crazy enough to think you had a better idea for your money than building my library, I wouldn’t pull a gun on you. I wouldn’t use a gun to build an art museum, look at the wonders of the universe through a big telescope, or even find a cure for cancer.

The fact that the majority wants something good does not give them the right to use force on the minority that don’t want to pay for it. If you have to use a gun, it’s not really a very good idea. Democracy without respect for individual rights sucks. It’s just ganging up on the weird kid, and I’m always the weird kid.

People try to argue that government isn’t really force. You believe that? Try not paying your taxes. (This is only a thought experiment though -- suggesting someone not pay their taxes is probably a federal offense, and while I may be a nut, I’m not crazy.) When they come to get you for not paying your taxes, try not going to court. Guns will be drawn. Government is force.

It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people yourself is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness. People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered. If we’re compassionate, we’ll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.

I’m a Libertarian nut because I don’t want my government to do anything in my name that I wouldn’t do myself.

Here's another excerpt where Jillette explains the connection between his religious beliefs (none) and his Libertarianism.  He doesn't believe that he knows.  He has no freakin' clue what is best for you, sitting there in Clovis New Mexico, or Birmingham Alabama, or Birmingham England.  He doesn't know what you need !!  Neither does Barack Obama, or John Boehner, or Rick Perry, or David Cameron, or The Pope.  They are ALL ordinary people that some of you good folks want to put on pedestals.  Penn Jillette doesn't understand why. 

“What makes me libertarian is what makes me an atheist — I don’t know. If I don’t know, I don’t believe. I don’t know exactly how we got here, and I don’t think anyone else does, either. We have some of the pieces of the puzzle and we’ll get more, but I’m not going to use faith to fill in the gaps. I’m not going to believe things that TV hosts state without proof. I’ll wait for real evidence and then I’ll believe.

And I don’t think anyone really knows how to help everyone. I don’t even know what’s best for me. Take my uncertainty about what’s best for me and multiply that by every combination of the over 300 million people in the United States and I have no idea what the government should do.

President Obama sure looks and acts way smarter than me, but no one is 2 to the 300 millionth power times smarter than me. No one is even 2 to the 300 millionth times smarter than a squirrel. I sure don’t know what to do about an AA+ rating and if we should live beyond our means and about compromise and sacrifice. I have no idea. I’m scared to death of being in debt. I was a street juggler and carny trash — I couldn’t get my debt limit raised, I couldn’t even get a debt limit — my only choice was to live within my means. That’s all I understand from my experience, and that’s not much.

It’s amazing to me how many people think that voting to have the government give poor people money is compassion. Helping poor and suffering people is compassion. Voting for our government to use guns to give money to help poor and suffering people is immoral self-righteous bullying laziness.

People need to be fed, medicated, educated, clothed, and sheltered, and if we’re compassionate we’ll help them, but you get no moral credit for forcing other people to do what you think is right. There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.

Here's a random Penn Jillette video on the merits of Libertarianism as compared to the other choice.  If you are offended by F-bombs, don't hit "play".  The F-bombs are, however, appropriate. 

Michele Bachmann - Corporate Welfare Queen

From the L.A. Times:

Reporting from Washington— Rep. Michele Bachmann has been propelled into the 2012 presidential contest in part by her insistent calls to reduce federal spending, a pitch in tune with the big-government antipathy gripping many conservatives.


But the Minnesota Republican and her family have benefited personally from government aid, an examination of her record and finances shows. A counseling clinic run by her husband has received nearly $30,000 from the state of Minnesota in the last five years, money that in part came from the federal government. A family farm in Wisconsin, in which the congresswoman is a partner, received nearly $260,000 in federal farm subsidies.

And she has sought to keep federal money flowing to her constituents. After publicly criticizing the Obama administration's stimulus program, Bachmann requested stimulus funds to support projects in her district. Although she has been a fierce critic of earmarks — calling them "part of the root problem with Washington's spending addiction" — the congresswoman nonetheless argued recently that transportation projects should not be considered congressional pork.

Next time you get one of those chain emails about the black lady with 8 kids in the supermarket paying for steaks and lobster with her food stamps, remember Michele Bachmann.  Send this link back to all the recipients.  Here are some details:
 
Yet despite her broadsides against "socialized medicine," Bachmann's husband, Marcus, applied for public funds for his counseling clinic, Bachmann & Associates. Since 2006, he has received nearly $30,000, according to Minnesota state records. The bulk of the money — $24,041 — came in the form of grants from the state Department of Human Services to train staff how to deal with clients suffering from chemical dependency and mental illness. That program was financed in part by the federal government.


Michele Bachmann lists the Lake Elmo, Minn.-based clinic — which aims to provide "quality Christian counseling in a sensitive, loving environment," according to its website — as one of her assets on her financial disclosure forms.

Another of Bachmann's assets — a family farm owned by her late father-in-law, Paul Bachmann — received nearly $260,000 in federal money between 1995 and 2008, largely from corn and dairy subsidies, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data compiled by the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research organization that scrutinizes such subsidies. Paul Bachmann died in May 2009, but the congresswoman retains a partnership in the farm.

Bachmann said in December that the subsidies went to her in-laws and she never received "one penny" from the farm, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. However, in financial disclosure forms, she reported receiving between $32,503 and $105,000 in income from the farm, at minimum, between 2006 and 2009.

Publicly, Bachmann has objected strongly to federal farm payments.

When she voted against the 2008 farm bill, a $307-billion package that would govern federal agriculture policy for five years, Bachmann declared that it was "loaded with unbelievably outrageous pork and subsidies for agricultural business and ethanol growers." She was one of two nays cast by Minnesota's eight-member delegation.

Well, good for her on that one.  If the government is going to throw your money at Michele Bachmann, she'd be a fool not to take it. 
But isn't it sorta sickening to see how much of your money the government gives to just one millionaire?  And then to realize this particular millionaire is just one recipient among several million others who get a big payout from Uncle Sam? 

*******************

The pic of the Welfare Queen came from here.  The Corporatism poster came from here.  Looks like Dan McCall's fine work, but I'm not sure. 

A final (imported) nail in the Locavore coffin

You might remember the "Locavore" movement, the anti-growth/anti-globalism folks who want to mandate that we supply ourselves within spitting distance of our front yards, or some such silliness.  At one time they were proposing legislation that required grocery stores to show how many "food miles" each product had travelled. 
Yeah.  Seriously. 

Yes, I guess you could grow oranges in Fort Worth, Texas, but they would have bigger carbon footprints than Al Gore's mansion(s).  And they would probably be so crappy that the producers couldn't get any economies of scale in their orange shipments.  I could go on and on, but there's no point in it. 

Here's another argument against the Locavores by Tim Worstall.  I found it on Samizdata:

Take local food. So, if everyone in North-Eastern Japan were to be reliant upon local food supplies then everyone in North-Eastern Japan would now be condemned to starvation in the next month or so. Not just the ten or twenty thousand who have already died, but the hundreds of thousands, millions, that make up the entire population. For in the wake of an earthquake that destroyed much and a tsunami that swamped the rest, there is no food, no saved food storage and no damn chance of growing any for the forseeable future.


"Localism” would kill all of these people. And the same would be true of localism in Pakistan when it floods, Queensland when it floods, Cockermouth when it floods, any damn where when there’s a drought and, in fact, any part of the planet that could be hit by any of those natural disasters which a vengeful planet can plop upon us, from the flood and drought already mentioned through to hurricanes, cyclones, potato or banana blight and plagues of frogs.

Think about any place suffering from a famine.  Famines happen when the local food supply doesn't come through, and the locals haven't been allowed to trade with neighboring (or faraway) nations. 

Ok, but what about the disruption to supply chains?  Haven't we all read about how Toyota plants in the U.S. and other a few other automakers are having to shut down assembly lines because they relied on Japanese parts? 
Wal-Mart figured that one out a long, long time ago.  They have a minimum of two suppliers for everything, just in case one of them goes broke, gets hit with an earthquake, a tsunami, or gets too uppity.  Within a couple of years, every one of Japane's major customers will have done the same. 

So good riddance to the Locavores.  If they had their way, I would be stuck eating local Texas barbeque. 

If you've got a few more minutes to kill, go here to read an account of a Locavore in British Colombia who drove all over town in a damn SUV to pick up food to serve at a locally-grown meal designed to get neighbors to turn off their floodlights.  I don't think he meant that part of it to be funny.  These are nice people, but they don't understand economies of scale. 

Keep Food Legal, The Department Of Agriculture, and Sherpas For Subsidies

There is a new political organization and website in town, and it is dedicated to something that I love dearly....Groceries. 
The Keep Food Legal group is dedicated to getting the government out of our farms, our pantries and our kitchens. 
We have one employee in the Department Of Agriculture for every eleven farmers.  The ratio of other leeches, parasites and regulators is even higher if you count the guards at our borders who make sure the prescribed quotas and amounts per nation (but no more) of food can cross the border into our cage. 

Here are some details from the Keep Food Legal site.  

We Love Food
Do you love food? If you’re like us, you do. Maybe you love particular foods. Do your tastes skew toward artisan cheeses, wines, and meats? Do you live for flavorful organic vegetables sold by small farmers and producers? Or do you prefer street foods—tacos, barbecue, and the like? How about fast food? Or maybe fine dining? Or, like us, do you love some or all of the whole range of food options available across America today?

We Hate Food Bans
If you’re like us, you’ve probably also noticed that there are too many restrictions on our right to procure the foods we love, and that these restrictions are growing. At the local, state, and federal levels, elected officials have banned or are working to ban or severely restrict everything from traditional farm products (like raw milk and cheeses) and locavore-friendly farm practices (like on-farm animal slaughter and meat packaging), are seeking to prevent chefs from using common food ingredients (like salt and trans fats), and are looking to ban others from selling a variety of foods (including soda, energy drinks, bacon-wrapped hot dogs, and giant pizza slices).

Our Mission
Does all this regulation make your stomach growl, leave your palate dull, and make your blood boil? Us too. That’s why we founded Keep Food Legal (KFL).
KFL is the first nationwide membership organization devoted to culinary freedom—the right of every American to grow, raise, produce, buy, sell, cook, and eat the foods of their own choosing. KFL’s mission is to promote goodwill, fellowship, and a sense of common purpose among those who grow, raise, cook, and sell food—and those who buy and eat it. We want to unite people in the middle of the food chain (like grocers and restaurateurs) with people at both ends of the food chain (like producers, farmers, and consumers), and to use the power of this union to create a meaningful and lasting partnership between all links in the chain. KFL will thrive and be a non-partisan force for culinary choice and freedom by coalescing the food community—food producers, farmers, food sellers, chefs, home cooks, diners, foodies, grocers, bar owners, and restaurateurs. The diversity and number of our members—people like you—will be our strength.

KFL on the Issues
What are some of the issue KFL take on? The list is too long to print here, but these are some of our most important targets:

• KFL will advocate in favor of abolishing all food-related subsidies. Government subsidies distort prices and demand, cause environmental problems, and have played a large role in creating America’s obesity problem.
• KFL will work to defeat food regulations and bans which limit our freedom to produce, cook, buy, and sell the foods we want. The government has no right to tell people what we can and can’t eat.
• KFL will advocate at the federal, state, and local levels in favor of more food choices. It is not enough to oppose bad new laws. We will work—in legislatures and in the courts—to roll back bad ones already on the books.

One thing KFL will never do is advocate in favor of (or against) any particular foods or dietary choices. We believe strongly that adults should eat what they want (or what they and their doctor think is best for them). And we also believe that children should eat what they and their parents think is best for them. Government shouldn’t tell you what to eat, and neither should KFL.

Go here for some reasonably entertaining rants about what happens to your waistline if you adhere to the Department Of Agriculture's food pyramid. 

My God, ELEVEN servings of bread, cereal, rice and pasta.  No wonder the USDA is, you know, ummm, bloated. 
Those jokers don't know any more about health, growing methods, crop rotation, or erosion than anyone who actually farms.  They are Sherpas for subsidies and quotas.  That is all.  Hit the "sugar" label below. 
Let's see if the Republicans shut 'em down.  Anybody think it's going to happen? 
I didn't think so. 

The Food Stalinization Act of 2010 has passed the Senate

Here's the Wall Street Journal on the most blatant "screw the consumer in favor of the producer" act since the Toy Safety Act.  It was almost held up because of a technical/parliamentary error, but too many Benjamins were at stake: 

The Senate waved through the largest expansion of food regulation since FDR on Tuesday, 73 to 25, and maybe the bill won the votes of 13 Republicans because there was hardly any public controversy. These days, the government needs to take over entire industries to get anyone to notice.


Not that this bill in the name of food safety isn't a down payment. The Food and Drug Administration will gain new powers over the 2.2 million farms and 28,000 food producers in America—including federal standards for agricultural practices and food processing, transportation and storage—as well as the authority to mandate nationwide recalls.

High-publicity outbreaks like salmonella in eggs or E. coli in spinach have obscured the reality that food-borne illnesses have fallen by nearly one-third over the last decade—largely because businesses have every incentive to police themselves. Meanwhile, Congress's increasing demands on the FDA—it regulates about 25 cents out of every dollar spent in the economy—mean that the agency does nothing well. When the FDA mistakenly fingered tomatoes as the source of 1,300 illnesses in 2008, the tomato industry suffered $100 million in losses. The real culprit was tainted jalapenos.

Not surprisingly, this bill's main critics have been the small farms and local and organic food outfits that don't have the profit margins to comply with new regulatory burdens like the "risk-based preventative controls" that the FDA will soon enforce. The House version applies even to farmers markets and roadside stands. Naturally, agribusiness and the processed food industry (and their legal departments) couldn't be happier, and it's not the first time big business has leveraged government to weigh down smaller competitors.

I bet the champagne corks are popping at Monsanto today.  The picture of all the screws came from here.  Go here to see a list of the Republicans who need to be primaried ASAP. 

Pilgrims, Chinese Farmers, and Property Rights

“Any man worth his salt would fight for his home but only a damn fool would fight for his boarding house.”
                                                                    -Mark Twain

Here's a story that I first heard in China several years ago, and I'm probably going to re-run this post about it every Thanksgiving until I die.  The best online account I've found is on the World Socialist Website (chuckle chuckle).  It's about some Chinese farmers who got tired of starving. 

On one night in Nov. 1978, 18 villagers of Xiaogang, including (leader) Yan Jinchang, risked their lives to sign secretly an agreement, which divided the then People's Commune-owned farmland into pieces for each family to cultivate.
This was a bold move, as it was seen as "capitalist" and might have led to severe punishment from the government at that time.
Thus, on that secret agreement covered with villagers' seals and red fingerprints, there was a wobbly line saying that "If any word about this is divulged and the team leader is put in prison, other team members shall share the responsibility to bring up his child till he (or she) is 18. "

The original copy of this agreement is now in a museum someplace in China.  It had a huge influence.  Instead of farming the land together, and putting up with slackers, loafers, regulatory parasites and the other inevitable Socialist baggage, this brave group of Chinese farmers decided that each family would be responsible for a certain section of the land. 
That clause about agreeing to care for each others' children was a simple insurance policy.  To the best of my knowledge, none of the farmers agreed to care for the families of those who didn't share their risks.  In other words, you couldn't waltz into the agreement AFTER losing your head of household.  There's not even a hint of Obamacare in this document. 

The facts proved that it's worthwhile to take the adventure. Allocating farmland to each household, also known as "household contract responsibility system", fired the locals' enthusiasm for agriculture production, which had been contained in the outmoded planned economy, and helped poverty-stricken locals out of starvation.

That's just what happened when they agreed to stop the collectivist nonsense.  Think of what could happen if they'd been allowed to own the land, instead of having it allocated to them by their "leaders".   

The grains that a local farmer turned over to the state in the following year almost totaled what he did in past two decades, recalled Yan Hongchang, one of the 18 Xiaogang villagers who initiated the contract system.
Their practice was later supported by Deng Xiaoping, chief architect of China's reform and opening-up drive, and recognized by the Chinese government. Xiaogang has since been labeled as the pace-setter of the nation's rural reform.

Here's a similar story, from the Volokh Conspiracy.  This one hits closer to home. 

Many people believe that after suffering through a severe winter, the Pilgrims’ food shortages were resolved the following spring when the Native Americans taught them to plant corn and a Thanksgiving celebration resulted. In fact, the pilgrims continued to face chronic food shortages for three years until the harvest of 1623. Bad weather or lack of farming knowledge did not cause the pilgrims’ shortages. Bad economic incentives did.


Time to quote Thomas Sowell for the 10,000th time.  Laws and policies should never be evaluated by their stated goals and objectives, but by the incentives they create. 

In 1620 Plymouth Plantation was founded with a system of communal property rights. Food and supplies were held in common and then distributed based on equality and need as determined by Plantation officials.

Like we're about to do with healthcare. 

People received the same rations whether or not they contributed to producing the food, and residents were forbidden from producing their own food. Governor William Bradford, in his 1647 history, Of Plymouth Plantation, wrote that this system was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. The problem was that young men, that were most able and fit for labour, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense. Because of the poor incentives, little food was produced.

In other words, when the hardest-working, most creative Pilgrims realized that they were working themselves to death for people who didn't want to work as hard?  They started Going Galt.   

Faced with potential starvation in the spring of 1623, the colony decided to implement a new economic system. Every family was assigned a private parcel of land. They could then keep all they grew for themselves, but now they alone were responsible for feeding themselves. While not a complete private property system, the move away from communal ownership had dramatic results.

This change, Bradford wrote, had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been. Giving people economic incentives changed their behavior. Once the new system of property rights was in place, the women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability.

Once the Pilgrims in the Plymouth Plantation abandoned their communal economic system and adopted one with greater individual property rights, they never again faced the starvation and food shortages of the first three years. It was only after allowing greater property rights that they could feast without worrying that famine was just around the corner.

And what have we learned from this? 
Nothing.  Absolutely nothing. 

The Socialism Kills sign came from here. 
The Pilgrims, from here.

Shirley Sherrod, the NAACP, and racism within The Tea Party The NAACP

Here's the Tea Party's first counter-offensive against its recent critics.  (You remember the Tea Party?  The organization with all the racists in its ranks?)


From Ed Driscoll:

The Agriculture Department announced Monday, shortly after FoxNews.com published its initial report on the video, that Sherrod had resigned.



“There is zero tolerance for discrimination at USDA, and I strongly condemn any act of discrimination against any person,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a written statement. “We have been working hard through the past 18 months to reverse the checkered civil rights history at the department and take the issue of fairness and equality very seriously.

Andrew Breitbart is going to post one of these counter-offensives every day this week. 
Welcome to Barack Obama's new post-racial America. 
The Tea Party is kinda goofy, but the charges of racism are nothing more than a ploy to intimidate fence-sitters and keep them from participating.  The NAACP really should've gotten the beam out of it's own eye before picking at the specks within the Tea Party. 

In the words of one commenter: “The difference between the tea party and the NAACP is if you are looking for racists at the tea party you look at the fringe and if you are looking for racists at the NAACP, you look to the stage.”

Don't get me wrong....I think Shirley Sherrod did the right thing by intentionally denying the tax money for the white farmer.  I wish all tax money could be denied to white farmers.  And black ones.

************
From Wednesday afternoon:

Go here for an update.  It seems that the video doesn't tell the entire story. 

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa

The real British Petroleum scandal

From the Powerline blog:

Corn is great food, but lousy energy. Energy derived from corn--ethanol--cannot compete in the marketplace with more efficient sources of energy, like petroleum, unless its producers get money from the government (i.e. you) to artificially lower the price of their product. This is what is known as "green energy."

It amounts to having a bonfire with your money. Well, no, not exactly a bonfire, since, while there is undeniably a net inefficiency and thus a destruction of wealth, your money doesn't go up in smoke. Rather, your tax dollars are transferred to a combination of Midwestern farmers and politically connected ethanol plant developers. Like other government subsidy programs, it's great if you get to cash the checks, but bad if you are a taxpayer or an energy buyer.

Ok, roll that around in your head for a minute, and then check this out - from Kevin Williamson of The Corner:

BP's oil-spill cleanup bill, so far: $3.2 billion

Money BP is setting aside for the total bill: $20 billion
Annual cost of U.S. ethanol subsidies: $5 billion
Ethanol subsidies going to BP this year: $600 million

Conclusions: Every four years, U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing the energy firms by an amount equal to the maximum that BP expects to spend on the cleanup. BP specifically will collect an equivalent amount every 33 years. This year's BP ethanol subsidy by itself will offset about 20 percent of what BP has spent on the cleanup so far.

And that's just one subsidy program.
Tell me again why this "green economy" stuff is not a scam.

The banks paid back their TARP money, and the nation remains scandalized by that bailout. What are the chances the energy industry is going to pay back a penny of the billions we're pouring on them through green energy subsidies?

Why America is great

Note to friends in Britain, Israel, Australia and Korea....
I bet you folks don't have any political ads like this one.



The only way to improve on this would be for Dale to hop on his horse and ride off into the sunset while shootin' varmints.

Let's subsidize Brazilians. Just to keep it fair.

We started subsidizing cotton farming sometime back in the 1930's. 
By "we", I mean you, me, everyone who pays taxes, and everyone who pays about twice what they should have to pay for t-shirts, sheets, etc. 

Here's the way the system works:  Wealthy individuals claim that they aren't making enough money by growing cotton.  They threaten to withold support for various politicians.  The politicians counter by giving them your money. 

What's really cool about the system is that since 1995, 78% of the 10.66 billion dollars in US subsidies for cotton went to only 10% of the cotton farmers.  Want to guess where these 10% fit on the income spectrum?

This has become a problem for the much-maligned World Trade Organization, the group with the thankless job of preventing these insane traditions from erupting into trade wars.  (Here's what they try to prevent: We subsidize cotton and put tariffs in place to keep out evil, foreign cotton.  African countries want access to our cotton market, but can't compete because of our government giveaway.  Africa retaliates by putting a tariff in place against American automobiles or steel, or whatever.  Next thing you know, it's 1930 all over again.) 

We now have a situation with Brazil.  Brazil wants to buy a lot of our stuff and we want to buy a lot of Brazilian stuff.  The WTO is trying to work it out.  (In an ideal world, of course, anyone restricting you from purchasing whatever from whoever would be told to go have carnal relations with himself....) 

But Brazilian cotton farmers claim that our system is unfair to them.  We apparently give more to our Agri-Business Welfare Queens than Brazil does. 

So what is the Obama administration doing to correct this problem? 

To make it fair, just, and equitable, they are now subsidizing the Brazilian cotton farmers. 
I repeat:  In order to continue shoveling money to wealthy farmers in the U.S., we are now shoveling money to farmers in Brazil. 

Here's Congressman Jeff Flake on the policy:
“This proposal takes our federal farm subsidy policy from the impractical to the absurd....only in Washington could this pass for logic.”

Even Congressman Barney Frank was able to lift his nose from the trough long enough to make this comment:
“The sensible thing for us to do with the WTO finding – which, unfortunately for American cotton farmers, is clearly correct – would be to reform our own inefficient system of spending millions of dollars a year to subsidize cotton farmers, many of whom are quite wealthy.  Instead, the Obama administration apparently feels compelled to preserve our right to subsidize American cotton farmers by extending that subsidy to Brazilian cotton farmers. People looking for an illustration of the meaning of the phrase, ‘from bad to worse,’ need look no further.”

Why even bother posting this stuff?  It goes on all day, every day.
Well, 3rd-graders can understand that it's a silly policy. 
9th-graders can understand how this hurts the poorest Americans more than any other group.  (Except for, maybe, African cotton farmers.  Go here for details.) 
Hell, even Barney Frank has figured it out.  If people aren't making enough money by growing cotton, it means that too many people are growing cotton.  The same thing once happened to buggy-whip manufacturers, blacksmiths, minstrels, and chimney sweeps.   

And yet we want to trust this D.C. den of thieves with healthcare, manufacturing, shipping, finances, and 40% of our incomes.  So many of us are now involved in the giveaways, the get-backs, and the wealth transfers that it's hard to tell who is paying who - all in the hopes that we'll be in the group that gets back more than they've paid in.  

The cartoon came from here. 

Dr. Robert Atkins vs. The U.S. Department Of Agriculture

"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."

-Mark Twain

I grew up on a rice farm in North Mississippi, in a family full of big-time eaters.  In addition to rice with every meal possible, we also ate a lot of bread.  Lots of spaghetti. 
When I was working on the farm, and then in warehouses, I never had to worry about weight gain.  It didn't matter what I threw in the furnace, it was going to burn. 

30 years later.....well, you know what happens.  I got up to 235 pounds.  I could feel my heartbeat in my neck without touching it.  When I was younger, my blood pressure was borderline anemic.  Earlier this year, I found out I was in danger of the problems associated with high blood pressure. 

What the heck?  I was making a point (more or less) of eating "balanced" meals, as I understood them.  I didn't eat many desserts.  I had looked at the USDA Food Pyramid on the back of bread wrappers enough times to understand how a regular healthy diet was supposed to work.  I would often sit down and knock off a mega-bowl of rice, and consider it healthy.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Pyramid, for those of you reading in other countries, used to look like this:

See those 6-11 recommended servings of bread, cereal, rice, and pasta at the bottom?  Remember this picture from the back of your old bread, cereal, rice, and pasta packages?  Why was the government advising us to eat more carbohydrates than a Chinese village?  Here's Buzzle:

During this time (2003-2004) controversy arose between the food pyramid of Harvard and that of the USDA. Proponents and supporters of the Harvard model claimed that the USDA pyramid was flawed. The argument had to do with the fact that it was the USDA, and not the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), that created the food pyramid. Ergo, the food pyramid of the USDA was prone to influence from lobbyists in the food industry.

You can go here for an interesting set of links about the sugar, beef, wheat, and tater industries scratching and clawing to preserve their places on Uncle Sam's menu recommendations.  Based on pressure from other health experts, dieters, and the fact that we were all getting fatter than the Sunday newspaper, (and we were dying a lot) the USDA eventually revised the pyramid to cut way back on the carbohydrates.  You can go here to see that they're now recommending 3 ounces of grains every day.  That's a heck of a lot less than 6 to 11 servings. 

So, back to my point..... I had to lose some weight.  I used to be in the bookselling business, so I went to the all-time bestseller, a title that spent about 4 years on the NYT Bestseller List: Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution.  Guess what I found inside? 

* The U.S. is the fattest nation in the world.  Many of our homeless people are overweight.
* Much of this has more to do with insulin resistance caused by eating too many carbohydrates.  We consume so many of the foods pushed by lobbyists (my words, not Dr. Atkins') that our bodies don't/can't burn off any fat. 
* Our epidemics of diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure can be attributed to these habits. 

There has been sufficient evidence to make these assertions for more than 30 years now.  But the heavy hand of government and such powerful organizations such as the Department Of Agriculture blanketed the nation with messages about low-fat dieting from the 1970's to the present.  In fact, U.S. government statistics from this time clearly demonstrate that along with the dramatic decrease in dietary fat intake....there was also a dramatic increase in the intake of refined carbohydrates, not only sugar, but white flour. 
There is no doubt in my mind that this increase in refined carbohydrates has been spurred by the media attention given to The Food Guide Pyramid, created by the U.S. Department Of Agriculture, which made 6-11 servings of wheat derivatives the basis of the pyramid.  I believe that the Food Guide Pyramid's recommendations have directly contributed to the twin epidemics of diabetes and obesity we now face in this country. 
(The food combinations that were recommended by the U.S.D.A.) are bad for your health, bad for your energy level, bad for your mental state, bad for your figure.  Bad for your career prospects, bad for your sex life, bad for your digestion, bad for your blood chemistry, bad for your heart.  What I'm saying is that they are bad. 

So....
About three and a half weeks ago, I started doing the exact opposite of what the U.S. Department Of Agriculture recommended, and went with Dr. Atkins' approach. 
I've lost almost 20 pounds. 
I've pulled in my belt by THREE notches.  Count 'em.  Three.  Yeah.  Three. 
I've lowered my resting heart rate by almost 10 beats per minute. 
I feel much better.  The sunshine looks brighter.  There's now enough room in my pants for a Mormon family. 
I don't have anyone to blame but myself for getting up to 235 pounds.  I've always known I shouldn't eat so much. 

But is there anything, anything at all, that our government can do better than the private sector? 

One more note: go to Snopes.com for the circumstances of Dr. Atkins' death.