Dr Ralph has thrown in the towel. But that doesn't change anything.

My friend Dr. Ralph has apparently given up on The Teleprompter Jesus.  We're sitting at my favorite bar, The Corporate Image, having finished an acoustic guitar jam.  The good Doctor was kind enough and gracious enough to direct me to this post. 

It doesn't say anything about the failure of Obama's Keynesian economic policies, just the defeats and failures on the topics nearest and dearest to Dr. Ralph's heart. 

Be sure to read the Doctor's last sentence.  It can be summed up as follows: 

Dr. Ralph has approved this message.  He now wants the world to know (now) that he was a Hillary delegate in 2008. 

I can't quite swing him over to the Ron Paul camp. Dr. Paul is too dang honest for Dr. Ralph's taste.  Dr. Ralph respects the fact that "Dr. Paul has removed the filter from his mouth and brain".  That's a direct quote from Dr. Ralph.

Dr. Ralph has approved this message. 

According to Uncle Sam, I can't employ alcoholics. Or fire them.

The U.S. Department Of Transportation is rolling out a program called CSA 2010 (Compliance, Safety, and Accountability - 2010).  They're having problems implementing the program because doing this kind of thing requires basic competence, which they ain't got.  People with a sense of humor now call it CSA 2011.  The Department Of Transportation has had some structural problems with the program. 

CSA 2010 is the most comprehensive driver safety program ever imagined on this, or any other planet.  Here are the rules on Alcohol Testing:

The FMCSA regulations require alcohol and drug testing of drivers, who are required to have a CDL. The DOT rules include procedures for urine drug testing and breath alcohol testing. Urine drug testing rules were first issued in December 1989. In 1994, the rules were amended to add breath alcohol testing procedures. In the years following the implementation of the drug and alcohol testing requirements, a number of factors including changes in testing technology, and the issuance of a number of written interpretations, required OST to review and revise the rules. Blah blah blah blah blah, you're not really reading this, are you?  In December of 2000, OST published final rules that incorporated these factors, as well as input from the public sector, into the existing drug and alcohol testing regulations. In August of 2001, the FMCSA revised modal specific drug and alcohol testing regulations published in 49 Code of Federal Regulations Part 382 to reflect the revisions made by OST.

Why would drivers need to occasionally pass a sobriety test?  Well, to see if they're driving drunk. 

I recently had to attend a one-hour seminar on Drug and Alcohol Awareness.  The goal was to train me to detect if a driver was drunk, or had been drinking.  I've got to sit through it every year, despite the known fact that I don't pay my drivers enough for them to purchase alcohol.  

This CSA 2010 thing is a big big deal.  I'm plagued every week by consultants, seminar providers, and software salemen who have kits and programs that will help me cut through the confusion that is built into the program.  (We've purchased a good one, BTW.) 

 

But hold on a minute.  Not everyone in Washington has gotten the message.  This is from the Heritage Foundation website.  The EEOC has declared that Old Dominion Freight Lines cannot fire alcoholic drivers. 

The federal government has sued a major trucking company for its firing of a driver with an admitted alcohol abuse problem.

Alcoholism is classified as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the suit maintains, and therefore employees cannot be prohibited even from driving 18 wheelers due to their histories of abuse.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which filed the suit against the Old Dominion Freight Line trucking company on August 16, noted that while “an employer’s concern regarding safety on our highways is a legitimate issue, an employer can both ensure safety and comply with the ADA.”

So how does an employer ensure safety and comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act?  Maybe the driver has gotten into a program and cleaned up.  But if he has a relapse and Old Dominion doesn't know about it, Old Dominion will still be liable if they let this guy drive and he drives the big rig into a school bus. 

Here's a suggestion....  Let's trim it all back to the bare bones.  Let's nuke the CSA non-programs.  If Old Dominion employs an alcoholic driver who hits the school bus, Old Dominion can be taken into court and sued for every penny they've got.   That's the program we need. 

Old Dominion's hiring and firing decisions should be left up to Old Dominion.  If they purchase alcoholic labor, they're going to have safety problems and they should be held responsible.  OD should be free to make that purchasing choice, just like you have a choice in where or how to purchase groceries, gasoline, education for your children, dog food, TV sets, light bulbs, or clothing. 

On Ron Paul and FEMA

Ron Paul is catching hell from the Statists and their Mainstream Media allies for saying that the U.S. should abolish FEMA.  (For the benefit of people in other countries reading this, FEMA is our Federal Emergency Management Agency.  And congratulations on having less debt than us BTW.)

But every now and then, in order to make the Bush administration look worse, someone slips up and publishes the truth.  For instance, this is from The New York Holy Times:

Far from deferring to state or local officials, FEMA asserted its authority and made things worse, Mr. Broussard complained on "Meet the Press."

When Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks loaded with water, FEMA officials turned them away, he said. Agency workers prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the parish's emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA, Mr. Broussard said.

If you have to put armed guards in place to protect your phone lines from a federal government agency, it is time to defund that federal government agency.  Leave disaster preparedness to the states. 

Amen. 

A list of proposed regulations for households. Yours in particular.

Several posts ago, I commented on some of the insane legislative crap coming out of California.  The latest example being the potential requirement that babysitters get 15-minute breaks, meal breaks, workers comp, etc. etc. etc.   

I had often tried to use babysitters as an example of what would happen to hiring in the babysitting field if government got involved.  People would stop hiring babysitters.  I thought it was a totally ridiculous analogy, but of course, there's always California.  California wants to do all of the above, complete with forcing you to bring in a "substitute caregiver" to cover for Babysitter #1's smoke breaks. 

The Coyote Blogger has taken it to a new level.  What would happen if a household had to abide by ALL of the same arbitrary, for-your-own-good, batshit crazy rules that a business has to consider every day?  Would you consider running a household under these terms?  Here's The Coyote: 

I have decided this is exactly the kind of thing California needs. I am tired of average citizens passing crazy requirements on business without any concept of the costs and injustices they are proposing, and then scratch their head later wonder why job creation is stagnant.

I want to propose that California do MORE in this same vein. Here are some suggestions:

• Every household will have to register for a license to conduct any type of commerce, a license to occupy their house, and a license to hire any employees. Homeowner will as a minimum have to register to withhold income taxes, pay social security taxes, pay unemployment insurance, pay disability insurance, and pay workers comp insurance.
• Households should have to file a 1099 for every payment they make to contractors
• All requirements of Obamacare must be followed for any household labor, including payment of penalties for even part-time labor for which the homeowner does not provide medical insurance
• No alcohol may be purchased by any individual without first applying for and receiving a state liquor license
• No cigarettes may be purchased by any individual without first applying for and receiving a state cigarette license
• No over the counter drugs may be purchased by any individual without first applying for and receiving a state over the counter drug license
• No eggs may be purchased by any individual without first applying for and receiving a state egg license
• Any injuries of any type in the household must be reported to OSHA
• Form EEO-1 must be filed once a year to catalog the race and gender of anyone who did any work in the home
• Any time one has a dispute in court with another citizen or an employee, they will now be treated the same as businesses in California, which means that the presumption, irregardless of facts, will be strongly in favor of any employee and against the homeowner, and in favor of any other party in any dispute whose net worth is perceived by the jury as less than the homeowner’s.
• At least once a year the home’s kitchen must be inspected and certified by both the fire marshal and the health department. Any deficiencies must be immediately repaired before the kitchen can be used. All code requirements for commercial kitchens will apply to household kitchens, including requirements for a three-basin washup sink, separate mop sink, and fire extinguishers
• All homes will be inspected once per year for ADA compliance. All parts of the home must be wheelchair accessible, even if there are currently no handicapped residents in residence. Homes more than one-story tall will require an elevator. All counters must be of the proper height, and all bathrooms must have ADA fixtures.
• Each home will be required to prominently display all its required licenses as well as state and federal information posters for workers.
• All homes will be audited at least once every three years to ensure that use taxes have been filed and paid on all out of state Internet purchases
• Material Safety Data Sheets must be on file for all household cleaning products and other chemicals and available for inspection by the fire marshal
• All gas tanks (car, lawnmower, portable 5-gallon) will be treated just like commercial gasoline storage tanks, and require monthly leak / loss reporting. Annually, a complete spill prevention plan must be filed with the state.
• A stormwater discharge plan must be filed annually with the state
• Any dropped thermometer or CFL bulb will require homeholder to call out (and pay disposal costs) of a state hazmat team
• Lifeguards are required at all home pools during daylight hours
• Households should file property tax returns in the same way that businesses must, listing individually every single piece of personal property they own, from their car to their lawnmower to the pink flamingo in the front yard.
• Homeowner must track the number of days any guests stay in their house so they can file and pay lodging taxes on a monthly basis
• Any homeowner who hauls a boat or trailer on US highways must register with the Department of Transportation and receive a DOT number. They must keep full driver logs and maintenance records available for DOT audit and inspection, and every driver must be drug-tested at least once per year.
• All food on pantry shelves must meet all state labeling laws
• At each entrance to the house, a sign warming those entering must be posted warning that certain cancer causing chemicals may be present

Finally, after spending the entire day complying with these rules, the homeowner must read at least 3 posts each day from progressive blogs explaining why anyone who complains about such rules as unreasonable is just a reactionary who doesn’t really know how to run his business very well, and they could certainly do better.

Postscript: Every single item on this list is something my company has been required to do. I am sure I left a bunch out.

Well said, sir.  Well said. 

The Coyote Blog.  Worth reading every day. 

Helpful Advice

Never go online to ask for proof...

If you really don't want something to be proven. 

On the joy of spending other people's money on people that you really like

If an entrepreneur is about to start a new business, he investigates every possible thing that can go wrong. 
If an investor is about to throw some money into a new enterprise, he investigates every possible thing that can go wrong. 
After all, these two hypothetical guys have something at stake: their money or their reputations. 

Would you invest in an entrepreneur's project if he had nothing at all at stake in the business?  If he didn't have any of his own money in the project? 

Here's Barack Obama at a plant/factory called Solyndra back in May of last year.  He's making a victory lap in front of the Solyndra employees, having succesfully shat $530,000,000.00 of taxpayer money into the business.  We'll never know why.  He didn't put any of his and Michelle's money into the place, as far as we know. 

There was apparently nothing special about Solyndra.  They were a good candidate for the Green Jobs scam of the last two years.  Their primary business was solar panels, but it could just as well have been Bottled Fairy Farts.  It was politically expedient for Obama to squat over Solyndra and bury the company with unearned dollars. 

Here's the great Milton Friedman on the 4 types of spending:

There are four ways in which you can spend money.

1)  You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money.

2) Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. 3) Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch!

4) Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income.

So what's the big deal?  Obama took a massive stimulus dump over a solar panel factory.  Jobs were "created".  Here's NBC:

President Obama faces political catastrophe in the form of Solyndra -- a San Francisco Bay area solar company that he touted as a gleaming example of green technology. It has announced it will declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy. More than 1,100 people will lose their jobs.


During a visit to the Fremont facility in spring of 2010, the President said the factory "is just a testament to American ingenuity and dynamism and the fact that we continue to have the best universities in the world, the best technology in the world, and most importantly the best workers in the world. "


It's not his statements the administration will regret; it's the loan guarantees. The President was celebrating $535 million in federal promises from the Department of Energy to the solar startup. The administration didn't do its due diligence, says the Government Accountability Office. "There's a consequence if you don't follow a rigorous process that's transparent," Franklin Rusco of GAO told the website iWatch News.


The President touted the federally back money as a way to create jobs. The President's opponents immediately jumped on the deal as Solyndra made its first layoffs.


Republican Congressman Cliff Stearns of Florida warned, "I am concerned that the DOE is providing loans and loan guarantees to firms that aren't capable of competing in the global market, even with government subsidies."

Another critic, Fred Upton of Michigan: "The unfortunate reality is that loan guarantee highlights many of the systemic flaws associated with the stimulus in the mad dash to spend hundreds of billions of dollars."

Why the Republicans shouldn't change the time of their debate

Somebody has scheduled The Teleprompter Jesus to make a very, very, very important jobs speech on Wednesday, September 7.  Obama is going to roll out his new plan to create jobs.  Very, very important. 

By accident or by design, this speech clashes with the Republican Primary debate to be held on the same date. 

Republican Speaker John Boehner, who apparently has the imagination of a potted plant, has actually asked The Teleprompter Programmers to schedule Obama's speech for a different time !!!!

The Republicans shouldn't dare push for a different time for Obama to read his jobs speech.  Opportunities like this one are rare.   

Jay Carney, the White House Press Secretary, came very close to the best solution.  Carney suggested that the Republicans postpone their debate by an hour. 

Close, but not quite good enough. 

Here's what the Republican Party oughta do.  (I'm in the shipping and freight industry, and that qualifies me to make these suggestions.....)

The Obama jobs speech should be allowed to roll, uninterupted, on a mega-screen onstage at The Reagan Library, somewhere to the left or right of the debaters.  Let Obama's speech play for about 5 minutes.  This will allow Obama's programmers to blame Bush, blame the earthquake, blame what all he inherited, blame the Japanese Nuke Meltdown, blame the moon for being in the cusp between Virgo and Libra, and all of the usual Barackaganda that we've come to know and love.  None of that mess deserves a rebuttal any longer.   

When those 5 minutes of Presidential Throat-Clearing have run their course, each candidate for the Republican nomination will be handed a remote control that will allow him or her to freeze Obama's speech for 45 seconds.  Whoever hits "pause" first would get 45 seconds to destroy whatever Statist lunacy our president has proposed.  Green Jobs, another stimulus, tax credits for behaving nicely, indebting unborn fetuses, investing in education, or whatever.  Rip it to shreds.  If someone wants to take a whack at, say, borrowing more money from China, he too can hit the pause button. 

The video could be programmed to ration one minute of Obama's Keynesian fantasies to every three minutes of Republican attempts at rebuttal, no matter how many candidates have hit the pause button.  After all, it's gotta end sometime.  I don't believe any responses but Ron Paul's would be worth listening to, but it would be some great freakin' television.  And if The Programmers know that the words they'll put in Obama's mouth are going to be ravaged in real time, it could possibly save the nation a few trillion dollars.  Who knows what could happen? 

One other question about this debate.... Why is the Lamestream Media's favorite Republican, Jon Huntsman, allowed to participate, while New Mexico's Libertarianish former governor Gary Johnson not allowed onstage? 

Just when I think I've created the dumbest analogy ever....

For the last few years, I've used the following analogy when trying to get people to understand how regulations and government involvement can discourage businesses from hiring employees:

When you hire a babysitter, do you look forward to withholding and paying her taxes? Do you feel obligated to provide for her health insurance? Do you believe that babysitters should be unionized, without benefit of a secret ballot election, and that you should then be forced to hire ONLY union babysitters? Would collecting taxes, providing healthcare, and paying more for union babysitters cause you to hire more or less of them?

What I try to do is convince people that if they had to provide babysitter healthcare, rest breaks, retirement plans, 401K's, tax withholding, and the like, they would simply hire fewer babysitters.  People probably wouldn't hire any babysitters. 

I use this example because in my mind, providing babysitter benefits is the most unlikely, stupidest proposal that I can think of. 

But I forgot about California. 

How will parents react when they find out they will be expected to provide workers' compensation benefits, rest and meal breaks and paid vacation time for…babysitters? Dinner and a movie night may soon become much more complicated.


Assembly Bill 889 (authored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, will require these protections for all “domestic employees,” including nannies, housekeepers and caregivers.


The bill has already passed the Assembly and is quickly moving through the Senate with blanket support from the Democrat members that control both houses of the Legislature – and without the support of a single Republican member. Assuming the bill will easily clear its last couple of legislative hurdles, AB 889 will soon be on its way to the Governor's desk.


Under AB 889, household “employers” (aka “parents”) who hire a babysitter on a Friday night will be legally obligated to pay at least minimum wage to any sitter over the age of 18 (unless it is a family member), provide a substitute caregiver every two hours to cover rest and meal breaks, in addition to workers' compensation coverage, overtime pay, and a meticulously calculated timecard/paycheck.


Failure to abide by any of these provisions may result in a legal cause of action against the employer including cumulative penalties, attorneys' fees, legal costs and expenses associated with hiring expert witnesses, an unprecedented measure of legal recourse provided no other class of workers – from agricultural laborers to garment manufacturers. (On the bright side, language requiring an hour of paid vacation time for every 30 hours worked was amended out of the bill in the Senate.)

Unfortunately, the unreasonable costs and risks contained in this bill will discourage folks from hiring housekeepers, nannies and babysitters and increase the use of institutionalized care rather than allowing children, the sick or elderly to be cared for in their homes. I can't help but wonder if that is the goal of AB 889 – a terrible bill that needs to be stopped.

No matter how far I try to stretch reality, no matter what dumbassed imaginary example I create, they always find a way to outdo me.  Unbelievable. 

Go here to read the entire bill. 

An interesting letter from Rick Perry, on Hillarycare

Here's a 1993 letter that Rick Perry wrote to She Whose Name Is Not Spoken. 

Hmmmmm..........

Robert Reich is a racist

Robert Reich was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. 

As best I can tell from his Wikipedia entry, he's never done anything but teach school, practice law, or help screw up the country as a government employee.  I don't think he's ever manufactured anything but regulatory burdens. 

Reich recently came up with a list of things that The Teleprompter Jesus could do to create jobs.  Half of the suggestions were the standard "give employers a tax credit for doing things that their Lords And Masters like".  The other half were the standard "take money from one group that I don't necessarily like (rich people, unborn fetuses, banks, etc.) and give it to another group". 

But the tenth proposal perfectly reflects the lunacy to which we've all descended, and that's the one that got my blood boiling.  Here goes:

10. Impose a "severance fee" on any large business that lays off an American worker and outsources the job abroad.

Before I unload on this Statist sonofabitch, let me get in some full disclosure.  I'm proud to work for an American manufacturer.  We make things in the United States, which, considering the regulatory environment, is just about impossible.  We also outsource some work to China.  We're warehousing some stuff in Canada.  We're about to get something big going with a manufacturer in Brazil. 

But in addition to bringing things in from other places, I routinely ship our American-made (and outsourced) products to stores all over the world.  Before my vacation this past week, we loaded out 5 full-sized shipping containers of freakin' fruitstands to Chile.  Yeah.  Fruitstands.  You can make fruitstands anywhere, but people in Chile like ours.  So do our customers in Mexico, Canada and Colombia.  "Trade" works both ways. 

Before we started bringing some of the simpler products in from China, our company had 300 employees in the United States.  And less than a decade after "outsourcing these jobs", in Reich's phrase, to China, we had....

600 employees. 

Yep.  We started making some things in China and this allowed us to double our U.S. workforce.  (We've cut back to around 500 since our peak a couple of years ago, but then, there's a madman in the White House.) 

To what degree should we be punished?  And who will decide how much we should have to pay for sending work to Chinese People and then hiring more American People in the United States as a result of our increased efficiency? 

Let's get to the next bit o' goofiness in Reich's proposal...   I once spent a phenomenally dull Spring welding these weld nuts into 7 3/4 lengths of steel tube. 

Before long, we had doubled the size of our metal shop, and instead of 4 employees, we had 8.  Somebody else welded those things into the steel tubes.  Then 3 people welded them.   

Next thing you know, we've got 3 shifts and 90 people working in our metal shop.  We don't have room to breathe. 

But at the same time, customers decided that they didn't want any more weld nuts tacked into 7 3/4 lengths of steel tube.  Instead of 3 people welding the things, we cut back to just one person doing the job.  Then, for a brief period of time, we occasionally set up a robotic welder to do it. 

Now we order a couple of thousand of the things from China a couple of times a year. 

How is the law firm of Reich, Rodham, and Reid going to determine what "severance fee" we should pay?  And to whom?  Especially since the metal shop has grown to 150 employees since we sent the simpler stuff to China and since no one purchases enough of them to keep an American busy full-time? 

I bet Uncle Sam would have to hire 5 Regulatory Gremlins to monitor our company alone, which is probably the goal of Reich's proposal.  Who knows.  Moving on....

Let's assume that we're succesful in our attempt at manufacturing fruitstands in Brazil.  Let's also assume that Robert Reich persuades The Teleprompter Jesus to slap a "severance fee" on any company that manufactures anything overseas. 

Do you really think that our customers in China, Colombia, Chile, Canada and Mexico will be able to continue ordering things from me at the same price?  Or will their governments turn around and slap a "severance fee" of some sort on manufacturers who purchase my component parts and complete products?

Remember, Robert Reich was educated/indoctrinated at Oxford and Yale.  He's one of the brightest and best.  God help us all. 

Next, put yourself in a company owner's position.  If there was even a remote chance that a new product could be made in China, would you ever consider making it in the U.S. if doing so meant you might one day be required to pay a "severance fee"? 

Hell no, you wouldn't. 

You would keep your U.S. workforce on your old product line.  The new product would be made exclusively in China from Day One so no one at Reich, Rodham, and Reid could ever accuse you of laying off someone and sending that job to China.  

Finally, let's get to the racial issue.  We recently put up a new Martin Luther King Memorial on the National Mall in D.C.  Here's a quote from the base of the statue:

"our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective."

Yeah.  What King said. 

I don't give a rip about the lines of latitude and longitude where something is manufactured.  Robert Reich wants to take that into account when HE decides what HE will allow in and out of what HE thinks of as our little cage.

I don't care about the nationality of the people my employer sells to, or the arbitrary borders on a map that show where they were born.  The ones I've met have been good folks, almost without exception.  I can say the same thing about the people oversease who we purchase from.  Robert Reich thinks that nationality matters more than "the content of their character".   

I don't give a rip about the skin color of the people making my fruitstands.  Robert Reich appears to be obsessed with it.  I wonder if Reich is disturbed that the MLK statue was outsourced to a Chinese dude....

I see no other explanation than to say that I believe Robert Reich is a racist of the worst possible sort.  (And an economic idiot.)  

Quote of the day

The cure for unemployment that we're waiting to discover

There are hundreds if not thousands of potentially devastating videos just waiting to be created about The Teleprompter Jesus and his ability to make bad situations worse.

Note the unemployment rate early on in this video, as employers defensively react to every word that this guy says.

Kinda like the way the stock market reacted during his speech on the economy.

Here's the Obama speech that employers are waiting to hear:

"Yeah, we made some mistakes.
We're not going to try to do anything else to create jobs for the rest of our lives.

Why not?

Because we suck at it.
Taking money from group A to give to group B so they will hire more people from group C ? That merely causes group A to hide their money, causes group B to create projects that Washington likes rather than consumers, and creates a nastly little political bloc out of group C.


Also, we're going to settle in on a Flat Tax system. It's going to slide between 5% and 15%. If you're homeless, you're still going to pay 5% of your "profits" to Washington. If you're Bill Gates, you're going to pay 15%. No loopholes in exchange for campaign donations. Ever.


Oh, and one other thing. ObamaCare is now over. If you hire someone, you're not expected to be his nursemaid, doctor, surgeon, or insurance agent.


I almost forgot... CardCheck is now over. If you hire someone, you don't have to worry about him banding all of your labor vendors together to force you to hire from a certain group.


I'm going to remain on vacation for the forseeable future.


Hope this helps.

Now, watch this swing....

The State Department wasn't the only one playing Footsie with Gaddafi

Muammar Kaddafi was "Dictator Du Jour" on this site a few days ago.  It's a new program I've started to honor the murderous dictators that our State Department blesses with lots of free stuff - training, military hardware, etc. 

(Note: I'm no longer even trying to spell this guy's name consistently from link to link.)

It gets better and better.  This is from The Business Insider:

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) promised to help former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi obtain U.S. military hardware, as one of the United States' partners in the war on terror," according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released Wednesday by anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

If the Nobel Peace Prize committee wants to atone for giving the prize to The Teleprompter Jesus, they oughta give it to Julian Assange, the founder and publisher of Wikileaks. 

The meeting, which took place just over a year ago on Aug. 14, 2009, included other influential Americans, such as Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Susan Collins (R-SC) and Senate Armed Services Committee staffer Richard Fontaine, the document explains.

McCain opened the meeting by characterizing Libya's relationship with the U.S. as "excellent," to which Liebermann added: "We never would have guessed ten years ago that we would be sitting in Tripoli, being welcomed by a son of Muammar al-Qadhafi."

"Lieberman called Libya an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends," the cable continues. "The Senators recognized Libya's cooperation on counterterrorism and conveyed that it was in the interest of both countries to make the relationship stronger."

Part and parcel to that relationship: military hardware, including helicopters and non-lethal weaponry, meant to ensure the security of Tripoli. In exchange for this and assisting the nation in rehabilitating its image with other lawmakers, Gaddafi pledged to send Libya's highly enriched uranium supplies to Russia for proper disposal.

Note that the article doesn't say "in exchange for this, Gaddafi gave us money".  It just says that "in exchange for this, Gaddafi pledged"....to do something or other. 

The cable does not mention anything about the senators pressing Gaddafi for democratic reforms. 

On the places where Warren Buffett chooses to invest his money, Part 3, The final conflict !!!

Warren Buffett wishes he could pay more taxes, if only someone would make him. 

Check out my two previous posts,

Then look at what this guy wrote. 

Lord have mercy, what a Corporatist/Statist tool. 

An update on the places where Warren Buffett chooses to invest his money

Read the previous post before you read this bit o' greatness....

Here's some more about Warren Buffett, who says he should be paying MORE taxes, out of fairness !!

But if he (Buffett) were truly sincere, perhaps he might simply try paying the taxes the IRS says his company owes? According to Berkshire Hathaway’s own annual report — see Note 15 on pp. 54-56 — the company has been in a years-long dispute over its federal tax bills.

According to the report, “We anticipate that we will resolve all adjustments proposed by the IRS for the 2002 through 2004 tax years at the IRS Appeals Division within the next 12 months. The IRS has completed its examination of our consolidated U.S. federal income tax returns for the 2005 and 2006 tax years and the proposed adjustments are currently being reviewed by the IRS Appeals Division process. The IRS is currently auditing our consolidated U.S. federal income tax returns for the 2007 through 2009 tax years.”

Americans for Limited Government researcher Richard McCarty, who was alerted to the controversy by a federal government lawyer, said, “The company has been short-changing the tax collection agency for much of the past decade. Mr. Buffett’s company has not fully settled its tax bills from 2002-2009. Yet he says he’d happily pay more. Except the IRS has apparently been asking him to pay more going on nine years.”

The mind recoils. 

On the places where Warren Buffett chooses to invest his money

Zillionaire Warren Buffett has been in the news a lot. 

First, he made worldwide headlines by complaining in a New York Holy Times editorial that he isn't forced to give enough money to our government. 

This is strange.  Anyone wanting to give more money to the government can do so by hitting this link, which gives you some helpful information, plus this address:

Gifts to the United States

U.S. Department of the Treasury

Credit Accounting Branch

3700 East-West Highway, Room 622D

Hyattsville, MD 20782

No New York Times editorials are necessary.  No complaining is necessary.  No righteous posturing is required.  All Mr. Buffett has to do is write a check for the amount he thinks he should be paying, mail it to that address, and his money will be wasted just as quickly as the money that Washington is borrowing from China.  (And if Mr. Buffett wants some publicity and increased stature amongst The Statists, that would do it.  The more rational half of the nation, however, would know that he'd gone stark, raving mad.) 

Or perhaps Buffett just wants other people to pay more money, but not himself.  We'll never know.  You can go here to read an analysis of why Buffett's claims about his tax rate are somewhat misleading.

Here's something else about how Warren Buffett chooses to spend his money, this time from The Wall Street Journal:

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will invest $5 billion in Bank of America Corp., giving the nation's biggest bank a much-needed vote of confidence amid questions about the credibility of its management.What do you think? Will that figure shore Bank of America up adequately for a return to profitability? Is Buffett seizing a golden opportunity, or taking too risky a gamble?

Hmmmm..... This is a strange one.  You can go elsewhere on the internet and read that it isn't just the 5 billion investment that has caused Bank Of America's stock to increase.  It's that Warren Buffett, The Sage of Ohama, has taken a look at Bank Of America, thought about it, and declared BofA to be worthy of his money and his shareholders' money.  If Warren Buffett says it's a good investment, it's a good investment. 

Why would Warren Buffett voluntarily throw money at a risky proposition like a failing bank, but complain about not being forced at gunpoint to give more money to a failing government? 

I think it is because Bank Of America is probably a good investment, and a good use of Buffett's money, and a good use of the money of the investors who trust Warren Buffett. 

The United States Government, under present leadership, is not. 

Money talks, bullshit walks.  Especially if it is Warren Buffett's money. 

Quote of the day, on a logical consequence of huge debt

I found this on Samizdata:

During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Christians were not supposed to charge interest. Therefore, the most common moneylenders-to-kings were Jews. They could loan money at a profit, and were thus more likely to lend it.

But whenever the King's debts got too large to repay, he began to demonise the Jews. And eventually came a pogrom. And hey-ho, the debt went away along with the Jews.

I'm seeing the demonisation of banks. I wonder how long before government throws a pogrom?

- Ellen Kuhfeld

I don't believe we have any boots on our throats yet, but....

....this is kinda cool to think about. 

Muammar al-Qaddafi - Our Dictator Du Jour (we were for him before we were against him)

Ron Paul has a reputation amongst The Statists as being totally naive on foreign policy. 

This means he is always right. 

Not just kinda right, but gloriously validated and vindicated.   You don't earn a bad reputation in Big Government circles by being wrong. 

Here's a little dustup that Paul had with our Secretary Of State, also known as She Whose Name Is Not Spoken:

“A lot of people in this country have come to the conclusion that our policy overhaul has been inconsistent; that sometimes we support the bad guys and the bad guys become our enemies,” Paul told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a hearing of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Rep. Paul pointed to America’s support for Osama bin Laden when he was fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, its collaboration with Saddam Hussein against Iran in the 1980s, and its propping up the Shah in Iran for decades before that.

“But we keep supporting Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, all these dictators, and yet we pretend that as soon as, well, it looks like the dictator might fall, we're all for democracy and we're for freedom and we're against these dictators,” he said.

To which The Hildabeast responded:

“Congressman, you make a very passionate argument, and my response is that, you know, the United States, over the course of its entire diplomatic history, has had to make some very difficult decisions,” she said.

“We try to balance what we believe to be in our interests. Sometimes, and I would argue most times, we get it right. Sometimes we don't,” America’s top diplomat conceded.

You can go here for a partial list of dictators that we've supported, and that most sane and sober people would examine and say "Dang, Hillary.  You sure got that one wrong.  What possessed you folks to give that dictator a bunch of money?"  

So here's today's update:  Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi is now on the run.  Rebels have almost taken Tripoli, and our State Department will soon be able to claim that our military involvement in Libya was justified.  But what about this, from 2009 ??

The State Department has designated $400,000 in international aid funds for two foundations run by the children of Libyan dictator Muammar Kaddafi, a move that two Republican members of Congress today called a misuse of taxpayer funds that should be immediately cut off by President Obama.

The Congress members’ complaints on Thursday came just a day after Kaddafi delivered a bizarre speech to the United Nations in which he suggested the Israelis may have been behind the Kennedy assassination and the swine-flu virus was cooked up in a corporate lab. It also comes amid mounting international criticism of Kaddafi’s regime after it provided a hero’s welcome to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence officer convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 that killed 270 people.

Ironically, one of the groups designated for $200,000 in State Department funds is the Kaddafi Development Foundation, headed by Saif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, the Libyan leader’s son who personally arranged for Megrahi’s flight back to Tripoli last month after the convicted terrorist was released on “humanitarian” grounds from a Scottish jail. Another $200,000—part of $2.5 million in State Department economic-support funds for Libya—is slated to go to an organization headed by Kaddafi’s daughter Aisha, to promote “women’s economic opportunities.”

“This waste of taxpayer dollars is particularly outrageous following the hero’s welcome given to the Lockerbie bomber,” said Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Relations Committee. Ros-Lehtinen wrote Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking her to cut off the entire $2.5 million designation for Libya, noting that it was provided by Congress in order to “promote democracy and human rights” in Libya. “How could this assistance effectively promote democracy when entrusted to the dictator’s family?” she asked.

Yeah.  Good question.  I think that funding got blocked, but I don't have time this morning to research it properly.  But how about this later attempt to give Qaddafi some money?  Not just some money but an increase in his allowance?  This was going on in March of this year !!!!

While President Obama calls Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi a threat to his own people, just one month before attacking Libya the president asked Congress to increase U.S. aid for Qaddafi's military to $1.7 million.

According to State Department figures, the money was earmarked to train Libyan military officers, improve its air force, secure its borders and to counter terrorism.

If this seems contradictory, welcome to the world of U.S. foreign aid, where billions of tax dollars go to people we don't like and nations some say don't need the help. The latest unrest has drawn renewed scrutiny to these policies. 

Hell, by the way they keep trying to throw money at him, you would think that Qaddafi worked for SEIU or ACORN or maybe the Wisconsin Teachers' Union.  If time permitted, I'd check to see if he got any stimulus funds. 

If you have time and don't mind getting depressed, you can go here and see that, through various aid organizations, we've given Libya $176 million since Qaddafi took over as dictator. 

Good job, Hillary. 

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

I think my next Dictator Du Jour will be Spain's Francisco Franco or Cambodia's Pol Pot.  We supported both of them until we were against them.  Or I can take nominations for other dicatators from you folks.  The floor is open, and there are plenty of candidates. 

The pic of our man in Libya came from here.  The Aid Trap picture came from here, and that entire article should be tattooed on Hillary's thighs. 

From the CBS News website Gift Shop

Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama, Kennedy. 

'Nuff said. 

Die quickly, Mainstream Media.  die quickly.