I guess this means we are doomed.

Samizdata quote of the day

The quote of the day comes from someone named Mr. Ed, commenting on the Samizdata website. 

The whole purpose of politics and hence of government is to reward failure, if people succeed and prosper, the they don’t need government. Politicians* promise unearned rewards, and the more vicious ones promise to penalise success. Some set out to penalise success and promise reward to those who set them on their way.

*We know that there are exceptions, more common than vegetarian hyenas.

Hard to say it any better than that. 

 

Barack Obama and the 900 Foot Jesus

There's a quote in atheist circles that goes something like "Give me all the reasons that you don't believe in all the other gods, and you'll have the reasons I don't believe in yours." 

In other words, list all the reasons that you don't believe in Anahita, Anat, Anath, Andhrimnir, Andraste, Andvari, or Angrboda - to name just a few gods from the beginning of the alphabet - and you'll have a good list of why some people don't "believe" in the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 

You've probably heard of TV evangelist and faith-healer Oral Roberts.  (Please hang with me.  I'm going somewhere with this.)  Here's Roberts' CNN obituary:

In 1977, (Oral) Roberts said he had a vision of a 900-foot-tall Jesus, who told him to found the City of Faith Medical and Research Center. The biography said the center was aimed at "merging the healing power of medicine and prayer."
In 1986, Roberts announced that God would "call him home" unless he raised $8 million to send medical missionaries from the center -- an announcement that was widely publicized.

Are hospitals a good cause?  Yes. 

Do medical missionaries generally do good work and save lives?  Yes. 

Did you, or anyone else with good sense, donate money to Oral Roberts?  No. 

Why not?  Because most of us knew that a lot of the money would not be spent on the hospital.  We suspected that a 900-Foot Jesus didn't really appear to Oral Roberts in a vision, or tell him to send medical missionaries across the globe.  And finally, most of us prefer to give our charitable dollars to other causes. 

Several years ago, Barack Obama decided to radically change America's healthcare system.  He was going to give free (or at least affordable) healthcare to low-income Americans.  He had a plan.  And people on the political left seemed SHOCKED that this compassionate action was opposed by conservatives and libertarians. 

Given a choice, I'd give my dollars to the Oral Roberts City of Faith Medical and Research Center before giving it to Obama and the government (assuming there wasn't a 3rd option of burning the money).  I don't think that the government acts responsibly.  I believe that government spends a massive amount of money on itself.  I think Obama uses tax money to buy votes and keep his faction in power.  Plus, the Oral Roberts City of Faith doesn't operate drones or have an army going all over the place pissing off Arabs. 

Give me all the reasons you didn't donate to Oral Roberts, and you'll have the reasons that I oppose ObamaCare. 

Give me all the reasons that you wouldn't let Bernie Madoff do your investing in stocks, bonds, and commodities, and I'll give you the reasons that I get downright giggly when some Congressman starts blathering about "investing" in education, infrastructure, or the future. 

Carefully list all the reasons that you don't want Mexico or Brazil raising huge armies and navies and going around the world, making the planet safe for democracy.  You'll have the reasons that many libertarians don't want America doing that either. 

And on and on.....

Government isn't society.  Society can accomplish wonderful, wonderful things without government intervening.    Here's some Frederic Bastiat:

Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all.

           We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.

With that said, here's some MC 900 Ft Jesus.  Enjoy. 



 

There's no way to rule innocent men

There's been a lot of rejoicing amongst my pot-smoking friends because of Attorney General Eric Holder's decision not to enforce some of the existing marijuana possession laws. 

I take an opposite view. 

The best way to get rid of bad laws is to enforce the hell out of them. Create some outrage.  Giving prosecutors the authority to pick and choose which laws to enforce gives them the authority to pick and choose which groups to favor, and that is a bad, bad thing. 

"Prosecutorial Discretion" works like this: You want to build a warehouse.  The government inspector in charge of plumbing finds that your contractor has violated some bullshit rule about plumbing.  The inspector agrees that it's a bullshit rule, and he ok's pouring a bunch of concrete on top of the pipes and drains that make up the plumbing system.  But he always, always, always makes a note that your plumbing broke the law. 

At that point, he owns you.  If you raise hell with City Hall about anything for the rest of your life, or if you contribute to the mayor's opponent, or if you want to simply fight some other ridiculous law,the plumbing inspector can waltz in and insist that your rip up the concrete in your warehouse and repair the plumbing that isn't up to code.

The same thing happens with those possessing marijuana.  They let you slide with small amounts, but they make note of it.  You have broken the law.  You think that you're ok with The Man, but you aren't.  Not even close.  The next time you try to fight a zoning ordinance, protest a war too loudly, or run for office, they've got you.  You were found to be in possession of an illegal amount of marijuana. 

They own you !! 

Here's one of Ayn Rand's villains in "Atlas Shrugged" explaining the concept:

"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

 There's no way to rule innocent men. 

 

On "evil" corporations

No corporation has ever forced me to purchase a failed product like "New" Coke, Betamax cassettes, McSpaghetti, Crystal Pepsi, or a Yugo. But another organization is forcing me to purchase Social Security, a Stimulus Package, a "Troubled Asset Relief Package" for some bankstas, some green energy boondoggles and a bunch of drones that kill brown people. Hmmmm.....

 

Food For The Machine - Anger Management Edition

We worked last Saturday (yesterday) .
One of my temp employees asked if he could leave at 9:30 in the morning.  It seems that he has to go to a series of  court-ordered "Anger Management" sessions on Saturday mornings.

Any time the government mandates that someone do something for his own good, I'm automatically skeptical, so I asked the kid if the meetings were worthwhile.  Here's what he said:

Well, you have to pay this lady $15.00, and then we sit around and smoke for about the first 30 minutes because it never starts on time.  Then this dude comes in and we sit in a circle and bullshit for a while, then somebody tells about how he was in this bar a few days ago and somebody bumped him, and how before the meetings he woulda kicked that dude's ass, but now that he's going to the meetings he didn't.
And we'll all start clappin' and shit, and some other dudes will start crying, and the counselor dude says that's really good and how we all need to keep it up.
You don't have to talk or even be awake.  The main thing is giving that lady $15.00.  

This kid could've spent most of his morning building displays for grocery stores.  Instead, he had to give his time and money to a couple of government lifers.

The more I learn about our government, the greater the likelihood that I'll be going to the Anger-Management sessions.  Sheesh.

Warren Buffett, sleep easy

"(G.M.) is again losing market share, and its stock, of which taxpayers own 26 percent, was trading Thursday morning at $21, below the $33 price our investor in chief paid for it and below the $53 price it would have to reach to enable taxpayers to recover the entire $49.5 billion bailout."  - George Will

Simply allowing G.M. and Chrysler to declare bankruptcy would've allowed them to restructure their truly godawful union arrangments, rework their deals with suppliers, and would've let them make the multitudes of changes necessary to compete in a world that's changing every day. 

That was politically impossible. 

But somehow, some way, our investor in chief likes to declare that G.M. is "roaring back". 

Incredible. 

The Horror. The Horror.

"I find your lack of gratitutde....disturbing".
Give me more of your money. 
You don't deserve all of it. 
We gave you help, whether you asked for it or not. 
Undeclared wars, trillions in debt, massive drug war casualties, an illiterate populace, wretched schools, millions on the government tit, and a nation of cynics.
And he still wants more.
To demand that he give us less is considered "outside the mainstream".
Unbelievable.
Here's the complete context that they keep harping about. 

The top 12 things that Libertarians wish that everyone knew

Here are the top 12 things that Libertarians (IMHO) wish that everyone knew:

1)  The only Fair Trade is Free Trade.  All other arrangements are designed to protect political supporters.  And no, slavery isn't "Free Trade".  Slaves aren't free to make a choice. 

2)  You can't legislate morality.  There will always be a market for alcohol, tobacco, drugs, whores, gambling, and other things that the state doesn't like.  Prohibitions create a black market, and make the activity more dangerous.  This creates jobs for bureaucrats, which is probably the only rationale for the prohibition. 

3)  War is a racket.  Check out this rant from Medal Of Honor winner General Smedley Butler. 

4)  If you want to discourage something, tax it.  Or even threaten to tax it.  Now, take a look at our economy. 

5)  If it weren't for our arbitrary political boundaries, we wouldn't have the words "exports", "imports", "globalization", or "offshoring". 

6)  You can oppose government healthcare, education and safety standards and still support healthcare, education and safety standards.  I'm almost violently opposed to the public school system, but I like the idea of education.  Amazing, isn't it? 

7)  The "Invisible Hand", the way that markets work in a spontaneous unplanned way because of people trying to make a profit, is far more effective than any "planned economy".  See: Cuba. 

8)  There really isn't that much difference in Barack Obama and George Bush. 

9)  Gary Johnson, who spent twice as much time as governor as Mitt Romney, left his state with a budget surplus.  He vetoed more bills than all other governors combined.  He once told me that if he had been dictator of New Mexico, he could've cut government jobs and spending by 40%, and nobody would've noticed.  This would've left the taxpayers with more money to spend in the manner of their own choosing.  Gary Johnson is considered radical, and "outside the mainstream". 

10)  One day Cash For Clunkers will be linked with Mao's Cultural Revolution in lists of the most insanely destructive policies ever pursued by a government.  I might have to write the list myself, but it's gonna happen. 

11)  ObamaCare adds no doctors, only IRS agents and bureaucrats.  Therefore, it is going to be a disaster. 

12)  No private industry is as scary as any government agency.  Unless, of course, the private industry has the support of a government agency. 

Government didn't invent the internet

I always thought that our government invented the internet, and usually conceded that point in barroom arguments. 
I was wrong, and I apologize for the error. 
From the Wall Street Journal.  I'm scraping the whole thing before it disappears behind a paywall:

A telling moment in the presidential race came recently when Barack Obama said: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen." He justified elevating bureaucrats over entrepreneurs by referring to bridges and roads, adding: "The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all companies could make money off the Internet."


It's an urban legend that the government launched the Internet. The myth is that the Pentagon created the Internet to keep its communications lines up even in a nuclear strike. The truth is a more interesting story about how innovation happens—and about how hard it is to build successful technology companies even once the government gets out of the way.

For many technologists, the idea of the Internet traces to Vannevar Bush, the presidential science adviser during World War II who oversaw the development of radar and the Manhattan Project. In a 1946 article in The Atlantic titled "As We May Think," Bush defined an ambitious peacetime goal for technologists: Build what he called a "memex" through which "wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified."

That fired imaginations, and by the 1960s technologists were trying to connect separate physical communications networks into one global network—a "world-wide web." The federal government was involved, modestly, via the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. Its goal was not maintaining communications during a nuclear attack, and it didn't build the Internet. Robert Taylor, who ran the ARPA program in the 1960s, sent an email to fellow technologists in 2004 setting the record straight: "The creation of the Arpanet was not motivated by considerations of war. The Arpanet was not an Internet. An Internet is a connection between two or more computer networks."

If the government didn't invent the Internet, who did? Vinton Cerf developed the TCP/IP protocol, the Internet's backbone, and Tim Berners-Lee gets credit for hyperlinks.

.But full credit goes to the company where Mr. Taylor worked after leaving ARPA: Xerox. It was at the Xerox PARC labs in Silicon Valley in the 1970s that the Ethernet was developed to link different computer networks. Researchers there also developed the first personal computer (the Xerox Alto) and the graphical user interface that still drives computer usage today.

According to a book about Xerox PARC, "Dealers of Lightning" (by Michael Hiltzik), its top researchers realized they couldn't wait for the government to connect different networks, so would have to do it themselves. "We have a more immediate problem than they do," Robert Metcalfe told his colleague John Shoch in 1973. "We have more networks than they do." Mr. Shoch later recalled that ARPA staffers "were working under government funding and university contracts. They had contract administrators . . . and all that slow, lugubrious behavior to contend with."

So having created the Internet, why didn't Xerox become the biggest company in the world? The answer explains the disconnect between a government-led view of business and how innovation actually happens.

Executives at Xerox headquarters in Rochester, N.Y., were focused on selling copiers. From their standpoint, the Ethernet was important only so that people in an office could link computers to share a copier. Then, in 1979, Steve Jobs negotiated an agreement whereby Xerox's venture-capital division invested $1 million in Apple, with the requirement that Jobs get a full briefing on all the Xerox PARC innovations. "They just had no idea what they had," Jobs later said, after launching hugely profitable Apple computers using concepts developed by Xerox.

Xerox's copier business was lucrative for decades, but the company eventually had years of losses during the digital revolution. Xerox managers can console themselves that it's rare for a company to make the transition from one technology era to another.

As for the government's role, the Internet was fully privatized in 1995, when a remaining piece of the network run by the National Science Foundation was closed—just as the commercial Web began to boom. Economist Tyler Cowen wrote in 2005: "The Internet, in fact, reaffirms the basic free market critique of large government. Here for 30 years the government had an immensely useful protocol for transferring information, TCP/IP, but it languished. . . . In less than a decade, private concerns have taken that protocol and created one of the most important technological revolutions of the millennia."

It's important to understand the history of the Internet because it's too often wrongly cited to justify big government. It's also important to recognize that building great technology businesses requires both innovation and the skills to bring innovations to market. As the contrast between Xerox and Apple shows, few business leaders succeed in this challenge. Those who do—not the government—deserve the credit for making it happen.

Arizona is now outsourcing corruption.

Ok, most every libertarian I've ever met believes that government intervention in the economy is a bad thing.  It gives bureaucrats and donation-seekers a chance to pick winners and losers.
 
Here's the Coyote Blog's take on the situation:

I have written before about government corporate subsidies and attempts at venture capital investment in the context of the “big shot” effect.  Many times I have come to suspect the biggest beneficiary of these programs is to the administrators themselves, who have no money of their own and wouldn’t ever be trusted to manage a private portfolio but get to act as “big shots” with other peoples’ money.  They get the psychic benefit of being little junior Donald Trumps.

Every libertarian I've ever met believes that giving subsidies, quotas, tax breaks and (ahem) "incentives" to some segments of the economy is a bad thing.  It gives bureaucrats and politicians a chance to pick winners and losers, reward friends and punish enemies. 

Every libertarian I've ever met also believes that a huge chunk of government activity should be left to the private sector or non-profits.  (Exceptions would be for activities requiring the use of force.) 

Most libertarians delight in pointing out how government screws up just about everything it touches.  (Exception granted for the military.  If you want to go overseas and blow up brown people, our forces are the best.) 

I'm as lazy as the next person.  But if I were to go work for the government, I'd want to control the distribution of the pork, the shoveling of the slop, and the gathering of the graft. 

The great state of Arizona has admitted that it can't even do that. 

Arizona has outsourced its corruption.  They've created a public/private "partnership" called the Arizona Commerce Authority to  hand out special priviliges, pork, and tax breaks.  I don't care who you are, what political label you wear, or even if you think tax breaks for donors are a good thing.  I don't care.  Because...This....Is....Funny !!

They've admitted they can't even dish out pork and patronage effectively.  Hell, what would the Daleys of Chicago think of this? 

Go here to read more at the Privatization Blog. 

Go here for the Coyote Blog's take on it. 

Then turn your ears toward Phoenix and listen for the sound of the scoops rattling around inside the slop buckets.  Come and get it !!! 

The Life Of Julia - Libertarian Remix

The Obama campaign has rolled out an unintentionally hilarious slideshow called "The Life Of Julia".  It shows the life of a woman through her government benefits.  If you have even the slightest interest in Victimology, you've gotta check it out.  I don't care who you are, or which hoss you support in this race.  This thing is funny.  The parody potential is massive.  For starters, just look at the first slide.  It touts the benefits of HeadStart?!??!!!   Really?  Even if the Department of Health And Human Services says HeadStart probably doesn't make a difference? 

Want to know what else is super creepy about this accursed thing? 

Tribalism. 

Not only can Julia not exist without help from Dear Leader, The Teleprompter Jesus, but she might also have some difficulties if she doesn't align herself with a tribe.  (In case you're new to my blog, I see religious, ethnic, and national tribalism as the #1 curse on humanity.)  Check out this drop-down menu from the Obama campaign at the beginning of the slideshow:

I honestly can't believe that the Democrats had the cajones to put LGBT Americans on their site.  Barack Obama is the highest ranking gay marriage opponent in the United States.  But enough about the obvious....Julia needs the government for almost everything, and she needs to be aligned with a special-interest group, right?  Right. 

Parodies of this thing are all over the place.  Iowahawk's is greatness. Go there. 
 
Reason magazine is a much bigger outfit with a much bigger budget for these amusements, so I'm going to borrow most of their pics.  Go here to see the pics in context.   And please go here every day.  It's great stuff.

Here goes, from Reason:

Then, just 6 months later, disaster strikes Julia's family:

Julia turns 18, and is ready to take on the world !!!  (Be sure to check out Iowahawk's parody.  At this point, Iowahawk has Julia going to get a degree in Feminist Website Design.) 

Just seven years later, Julia graduates.  And like most recent graduates, she's a victim of Barackaganda. 

Julia's son goes to school.  There is no mention of Julia's sperm donor on the Obama website, BTW.  Who needs a Daddy when you've got a Big Brother? 

Thanks to the new, Weimer Germany-levels of government debt and inflation, Julia is able to start a business !!

Julia is now resigned to working the rest of her life, providing stimulus funds for Washington to send to supporters and campaign contributors.  A life well-spent and well-lived, Julia.  You have the thanks of a grateful nation.  The government was bribing you with your own money the whole time, but you didn't bitch about it.  Great job !!

Go here, to Reason Magazine, to see the actual stats backing up the jokes (also known as Obama and Romney policy statements.) 

One other thing - Here's a good breakdown of the Obama/Julia Victimization Slideshow from Hot Air. 

3 years old – Julia gets a new-and-improved Head Start, which a new HHS study shows won’t do anything for her anyway.

17 years old – Race to the Top improves Julia’s SAT scores. Is there any evidence at all to support that argument? Even so, she’s down the list from all of the home-schooled children and the charter- and private-school students who actually got an education rather than an NEA indoctrination. However, thanks to the NEA indoctrination, Julia is now better prepared for a life on the government dole.

18 years old – Julia’s family qualifies for a $10,000 tuition tax credit spread out over four years, while Obama’s student-loan subsidies drive tuition costs up even faster.

22 years old – Julia undergoes surgery, which has to be funded by her parents’ employers despite Julia being an adult, and which will be most likely delayed as providers decline in number thanks to the economics of ObamaCare.

23 years old — Thanks to the Lily Ledbetter Act, trial attorneys get rich by filing lawsuits against employers that otherwise wouldn’t have been brought, leaving fewer resources to hire Julia. No college job for our intrepid Julia!

25 years old – Julia finally gets her 4-year degree in seven years, thanks to the inability to handle the tuition bubble and the lack of work. However, the good news is that the $200,000 in student loans will only hang over her head for 20 years, while taxpayers like Julia end up paying for the costs of default.

27 years old – Julia wants to have sex for the first time in her life, apparently, and is looking for contraception. Her employer would provide it for free thanks to the ObamaCare HHS mandate … if she could only find a job.

31 years old – Julia gets pregnant, which tells you all you need to know about free contraception. Oddly, Julia hasn’t gotten married first, probably because the economy is so poor by this time with the huge entitlement debt crisis breaking that no one can conceive of putting a home together. Fortunately, ObamaCare makes pregnancy possible, because until Obama took office, no one ever got pregnant, since government support and approval for it didn’t exist.

37 years old – Julia’s son Zachary, named after his sperm donor, starts school. Head Start has long since disappeared, apparently, but Race to the Top still exists. Must be a marathon.

42 years old – Julia starts a business with an SBA loan, which also apparently never existed before Obama took office. Her student loans are just three years away from defaulting onto the backs to taxpayers, so that’s good news.

65 years old – My, how time flies! (Do women do nothing of value between 42 and 65?) Julia enrolls in Medicare, which ceased to exist decades earlier, thanks to the fact that Obama and Tim Geithner didn’t have a plan to address the debt crisis — all they knew was they didn’t like anyone else’s plan. You can get the cards at Spencer’s as a gag gift.

67 years old – Julia retires, since the entitlement collapse wiped out her business and the rest of the American economy. The timeline stops here, which suggests that the IPAB probably denied her care, as she was nothing but a drain on society by this time, and the few resources they have left had to be used to pay for face lifts for members of Congress.

There you have it — a timeline filled with government interventions in a fantasy lifetime, with absolutely no sense of the cost it would take to provide Government Nanny to Julia and the rest of the country. At least they picked the right name for their fantasy woman trapped in an all-encompassing government; Julia was the name of the lead female character in George Orwell’s 1984, after all.

Lord have mercy, I'm glad to be alive for all this.  Interesting times, interesting times. 

Reinventing the already invented

Go here to learn about The Department Of Energy's exciting contest for app developers!!!  The D of E wants  you to start developing a phone app to monitor energy usage !!!! !! ! !!!!

YOU COULD WIN....ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS ! 

Go here to see Facebook's and OPower's already existing app that already accomplishes the same goal, and that was developed without taxpayer money.  Unfortunately, it does nothing to keep D of E lifers busy. 

The government uses force and the threat of violence to take money away from you to pay for this redundant crap.  (Unless you are part of the .0001% who voluntarily contribute more than the enforcers demand.)  Unbelievable. 

Coming soon:  A Department of Transportation contest to develop solid circular objects that can be fitted onto axles to expedite movement.  They want to call it "The Wheel". 

Pic of wheel came from here. 
A fresh coat of Whitening to Paul Conner for the links. 

Let's go into business together !!

I found this on Libertarian Reddit:

We will go into business together.

Now, I don't have any money, since I have never produced anything, and I have no ideas. You will have to come up with an idea, a business model and all of the capital, but we will be partners and I will take 35% of the profit.
I will tell you what you can not produce, I will tell you what materials you may not use, I will tell you where you may not locate your factory, I will dictate the working conditions of your employees including the number of hours they work and how much you must pay them.
I will make you jump through hoops.
In exchange for all of this, all I ask is 35%.
Then, after growing and maturing your business over years and years, when you are ready to retire you may sell your business and I will take 20% of everything that you have spent your entire life building.

Sound like a good deal?

I'm sorry, this is NOT a choice.

Why too much spending sometimes isn't enough

From Andrew Coulson of The Cato Institute:

The Washington Times reports today on a candle-light vigil beseeching the federal government for extra cash for new computers. The group organizing the vigil, OurDC, shares this “horror story” from former technology teacher Toval Rolston:

I’ve been in D.C. schools where the computers are so antiquated that you can’t even download a basic pdf file; our children don’t have the tools to compete in today’s high tech world.

The twin implications of this plea are that DC schools are underfunded and that more money will actually be spent wisely. The first statement is false and the second is decidedly unlikely. The last time I calculated total spending on K-12 education in DC, from the official budget documents, it came out to over $28,000 per pupil  (the linked post points to a spreadsheet with all the numbers).

How do you manage to spend $28,000 per pupil and not manage to keep your computer hardware up to date? Or, for that matter, manage to have among the worst academic performance in the country? Maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with not being capable, or perhaps even inclined, to spend the money on what works.

The Washington Times, by the way, points out that OurDC is headquartered at the same address as the Service Employees International Union. Go figure.

This one is easy.  They're spending $28,000.00 per pupil in the D.C. public schools.  Multiply that by the number of kids in a typical classroom (let's call it 20), and you'll get $560,000.00 per classroom of kids. 

The kids aren't doing well in the D.C. schools. 

This is very similar to the problem that we had with the last Stimulus Package.  We spent $750,000,000,000.00 (that's $750 billion) to revive the economy and it didn't work.  Economist Paul Krugman explained the poor results:  The stimulus was too small. 

That is obviously the problem with the D.C. schools.  We're spending enough to hire someone from (ahem) "The 1%" to teach each classroom of kids.  But it's not working.  The results are horrific.   

Therefore, more spending per child is necessary.  We need to be spending enough to hire someone from The 1% of The 1% to teach each classroom of kids.   

Anytime the nation needs someone to explain these things, I provide this service at no charge. 

The picture of the Memphis Jr. High School's "Literacy Night Tonigt" came from Memphis resident Scott Moore's Facebook page. 

Elizabeth ! Warren !! is back !!!!!!!!!!

Back in 2010, a writer named Brent Budowsky almost put himself in the hospital from just thinking about the nomination of Elizabeth ! Warren !! to a Consumer Protection boondoggle of some sort. 

Most of the rational world had a great time with his piece, an editorial in which Budowsky imagined peace in Israel, justice in this life, the lion laying down with the lamb, the Democrats rallying behind Obama, and other unlikely scenarios - all from the nomination of Elizabeth ! Warren !! to a bureaucracy. 

Elizabeth ! Warren !! is back, and she's running for the Senate.  Here's something she had to say a few days ago at a political rally:

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there — good for you!


But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that maurauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea — God bless. Keep a big hunk of it.

But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

Ok, let's look a little closer.....

Tax units in the lowest quintile (20%) pay 0.4 percent (of the total tax burden), while those in the second, third (or middle), and fourth quintiles pay 2.3 percent, 7.7 percent, and 17.6 percent respectively.


The top quintile pays 71.9 percent. The top 10 percent pays 55.9 percent while the top 0.1 percent pays 12.3 percent.

What it boils down to is that some very rich people have a lot of money, and Elizabeth ! Warren !! wants more of it.
Here's the pic that's currently making the rounds on Facebook, which I think sums up the situation nicely:

But wait !!!    It keeps getting better.  I found this parody here. 
Enjoy. 

Their faith is in the legislator, not in mankind; ours is in mankind, not in the legislator.

Stephen Smith, of the Beginner's Guide To Freedom blog, left the following Frederic Bastiat quote underneath my previous post. 
Here's the whole thing:

"But, by a deduction as false as it is unjust, do you know what economists are accused of? It is, that when we disapprove of Government support, we are supposed to disapprove of the thing itself whose support is discussed; and to be the enemies of every kind of activity, because we desire to see those activities, on the one hand free, and on the other seeking their own reward in themselves.

It really is possible to love things like art, medicine, compassion, education, and jobs and still be opposed to government support of art, medicine, compassion, education, and jobs. 

Thus, if we think that the State should not interfere by taxation in religious affairs, we are atheists. If we think the State ought not to interfere by taxation in education, we are hostile to knowledge. If we say that the State ought not by taxation to give a fictitious value to land, or to any particular branch of industry, we are enemies to property and labour. If we think that the State ought not to support artists, we are barbarians who look upon the arts as useless.

And if we think that government shouldn't be trying to create jobs, we are nihilists.  Or nihlists, depending on which spelling Google likes the most. 


Against such conclusions as these I protest with all my strength. Far from entertaining the absurd idea of doing away with religion, education, property, labour, and the arts, when we say that the State ought to protect the free development of all these kinds of human activity, without helping some of them at the expense of others, - we think, on the contrary, that all these living powers of society would develop themselves more harmoniously under the influence of liberty; and that, under such an influence no one of them would, as is now the case, be a source of trouble, of abuses, of tyranny, and disorder.

Yeah, if you blow $538,000,000.00 of Other Peoples' Money on a company that is supposed to turn sunbeams and fairy farts into electricity, that's $538,000,000.00 that those people can't use for other, more productive purposes.  The same goes for all other subsidies, set-asides, prevailing wage regulations, earmarks, stimuli, and the like.  Some authorities are even thinking that this behavior might prolong recessions. 

Our adversaries consider, that an activity which is neither aided by supplies, nor regulated by Government, is an activity destroyed. We think just the contrary. Their faith is in the legislator, not in mankind; ours is in mankind, not in the legislator."

It's been 150 years, but I don't think anyone can improve on those 3 sentences.  No interpretation necessary. 
Here's a picture of Frederic Bastiat the economist along with Fred Bastiat the dachshund.  You're welcome. 

Charlie Rangel thinks that Jesus would get Caesar involved....

Here are some theological musings from noted tax cheat Charlie Rangel, via CNN:

Washington (CNN) - Veteran Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel made an impassioned plea to religious leaders Friday, calling on them to lobby members of Congress and the Obama administration to remember the "lesser of my brothers and sisters" during this weekend's debt negotiations.

"What would Jesus do this weekend? Or Moses. Or Allah. Or anyone else," the New York congressman said at a press conference on Capitol Hill. "I don't want this book (debt negotiations) closed without the clergy having an opportunity to forcefully express themselves as well as I know they can do."

The idea of Jesus getting his Galilean disciples to agitate for King Herod's favorite projects has always made me break out in giggles.  (Check out Jim Wallis and Sojourners to learn more about the concept.) 
To reach this level of gullibility, one has to assume that government is always good, and that stated intentions eliminate all other outcomes, and that the wisdom and administrative expertise of Charlie Rangel is enough to cancel the need for any other options for the "lesser of my brothers and sisters". 

Top congressional leaders and the White House have been steeped in contentious negotiations over raising the nation's $14.3 trillion debt ceiling.Treasury Department officials, along with top economists, warn that a failure to raise the limit by August 2 could lead to a global economic crisis and dire consequences for the U.S., including skyrocketing interest rates and a falling dollar.

Rangel said he was stumped as to why Washington wouldn't be "besieged by spiritual leaders saying 'do what you have to do - but not to the homeless, the jobless and the helpless. Not to the sick. And certainly not to the aging that are sick or those depending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.'"

"And certainly not the 60,000 troops we have who aren't fighting the Russians in Europe, but are stationed there anyway.  Or the 45,000 we have who are not fighting the North Koreans in South Korea.  Or the hundreds of thousands of black males who are living in cages because they violated marijuana prohibitions, but whose feeding and maintenance and after-care supervision creates tens of thousands of government jobs.  Or the tens of thousands of bureaucrats in the useless departments of Education and Energy.  We want to decrease my grandchildren's debt, but not on the backs of those worthy people."

"I have not heard from those people who have been called by God to protect the poor. I haven't heard them," he said. "The issues that are going to be discussed this weekend involve spiritual, moral issues."

And Rangel's plea to the poor and helpless? Call your religious leaders and ask, "what is Medicare all about? What is Medicaid all about? Why do we have taxes?'"

Great question, Charlie.  Great question. We have taxes so you can take your cut off the top, and funnel the rest to your supporters in the name of helping "the least of these, my brethren". 

Here's my favorite song on the topic.  I really need to get the YouTube done on this thing. 

"Jesus taught the multitudes one day in Galilee,
Must have been five thousand, and they all got hungry....
Disciples came to Jesus, and said "Get those people fed.
Jesus turned toward heaven, and this is what he said:

(bass) And he said

Let's get Caesar involved !
Caesar will get your problem solved. 
Go away and let me relax, that's why I pay all that tax,
You need to get Caesar involved. 

Three men saw a traveller that thieves had robbed and beat.
Two men were too busy, but one man stopped to speak
"Buddy that looks painful, yeah sometimes life's a bitch. 
Samaritans no longer pull your ass out of the ditch....."

(bass) They just say...

Let's get Caesar involved !
He will get the problem solved.
I used to go the second mile, but in your case I think that I'll
Just try to get Caesar involved.

A wedding feast in Cana had just run out of wine,
The groom, he came to Jesus, and said make us some moonshine...
But Jesus had no permits, nor a license to distill,
So he said I can't help you, boy but I know one who will

(bass) And he said

Let's get Caesar involved !
The government will get the problem solved. 
Give to Caesar what is his, next you'll give him all their is,
So let's get Caesar involved.

So if you're on life's highway, burdened with sin and shame,
Just call on Big Brother, just call out his name....
Don't call out for your neighbor, or friends and family,
They will just refer you to Washington, D.C.,

(bass) And they'll say

Let's get Caesar involved !
The empire will get the problem solved. 
If you find that you can't cope, call on Mr. Change and Hope....
That you can get Caesar involved.

(Repeat chorus forever and ever, praising Caesar, King Herod, and Charlie Rangel, and thanking them for their great and glorious works.) 

Rod Blagovich - a symptom, not a disease

Rod Blagovich, former Illinois governor, was convicted of trying to sell the former senate seat of The Teleprompter Jesus to the highest bidder.  There was plenty of other stuff involved, but that was my favorite of the indictments. 

He's the 4th Illinois governor (see: Otto Kerner, Dan Walker, and George Ryan) to be sent down the river in about 35 years. 

So why do people want to keep giving more money and power and responsibility to politicians? 

It costs far, far more to win the election than the job pays.  In return for their contributions, most supporters of a candidate are going to be wanting far more than they've contributed. 

What results are we expecting?  Who are these angels that we apparently believe are going to flap down into these roles and govern honestly after spending millions to get a job that pays in thousands? 

The only solution to this problem, IMAO, is based on libertarian principles:

1) Institute a Flat Tax, with no exceptions for saving the environment, employing more people, growing wheat for ethanol, or saving the whales.  Anyone granting a tax break to a constituent can be assumed to be corrupt, and gets to go live with the Illinois governors. 

2) Shrink the size of government to the size of an infant dachshund.  They're going to spend about two billion on the next presidential election campaign.  Why?  Because it's worth it. 
If the government were to be involved in roads, infrastructure, the court system, defending the borders, and nothing else, (see: U.S. Constitution) the opportunities for graft would shrink exponentially.
Any politician wanting to get the government involved in activities in which government sucks (education, energy, housing, literacy, nutrition, changing the weather, etc.) can be assumed to be corrupt, and gets to go live with the Illinois governors.   

3) There is no #3. 

Nice work if you can get it

James Hansen, one of the more famous of NASA's global warming/cooling/changing alarmists, has been milking the AGW cow in double shifts.  In addition to his government salary of $180,000.00, he's pulled in the following:

-- A shared $1 million prize from the Dan David Foundation for his "profound contribution to humanity." Hansen's cut ranged from $333,000 to $500,000, Horner said, adding that the precise amount is not known because Hansen's publicly available financial disclosure form only shows the prize was "an amount in excess of $5,000."

-- The 2010 Blue Planet prize worth $550,000 from the Asahi Glass Foundation, which recognizes efforts to solve environmental issues.

-- The Sophie Prize for his "political activism," worth $100,000. The Sophie Prize is meant to "inspire people working towards a sustainable future."

-- Speaking fees totaling $48,164 from a range of mostly environmental organizations.

-- A $15,000 participation fee, waived by the W.J. Clinton Foundation for its 2009 Waterkeeper Conference.

-- $720,000 in legal advice and media consulting services provided by The George Soros Open Society Institute. Hansen said he did not take "direct" support from Soros but accepted "pro bono legal advice."

As long as the weather continues to get either warmer, cooler, or changier, Hansen will be able to claim that 1) he predicted it, and that 2) it is your fault, and that 3) taxpayers should continue to give him more money. 
Nice work if you can get it. 

The pic of Hansen traveling to a protest to speak out against traveling came from here.