Barack Obama arrives at NATO Green Energy Summit in "Beast" Limo

From the "Good for thee but not for me" department, with a fresh coat of Whitening to Yahoo News:

LISBON (AFP) – The Portuguese hosts of Friday's NATO summit hoped to use the event to promote clean-energy and electric cars, but all eyes were on US President Barack Obama's diesel-guzzling "Beast" instead.


As is usual when he travels, Obama's eight-tonne armoured behemoth of a limousine was flown out to Lisbon before the US leader's arrival, and it ferried him from the airport tarmac to his first meetings of the weekend.

Doubtless he didn't intend the Beast's roar to drown out his hosts' green message, but a US presidential motorcade and its attendant escort of Secret Service SUVs do attract attention, even at the most elite gatherings.

Earlier, Prime Minister Jose Socrates and his fellow Portuguese, the president of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, had arrived at the summit in quiet, zero-emission electric cars.

"I'd like to underline the priority both our countries assign to renewable energy and electric vehicles," Socrates said, after meeting Obama, amid amused sniping from the Portuguese press at the mixed messages.

Portugal is proud of the lead it has taken in introducing what it says is the world's first national electric vehicle charging network, with 100 power outlets in 25 towns and plans to install 1,300 by next year.

The government was particularly keen for the press covering the summit to underline this, and a news release describing the recharging network was already on each of the tables in the media centre as the global pack arrived.

Within the highly secure summit site, electric buses were put on to ferry journalists between venues.

In theory, at least, Obama was on side with the plan, remarking: "An area where I want to congratulate the prime minister and the Portuguese people is for the extraordinary leadership that you?ve shown in clean energy.

"The prime minister's leadership on electric cars will create new opportunities for American companies here in Portugal ... and this is an example of what Portugal and America can achieve together."

But there was no immediate reaction from the White House to criticism of Obama's rather less green form of transport, and the administration has in the past said that the president's security arrangements are non-negotiable.

Of course they are non-negotiable.  The green scam does not apply to them, and it never will.  TSA patdowns don't apply to John Boehner.  ObamaCare doesn't apply to Congress, or the staffers who wrote the bill.  Social Security's "contributions" don't apply to schoolteachers. 
Good for thee, but not for me. 
How much longer are you going to take it? 

The Great TSA "My-Ding-A-Ling" Singalong

Okay, everybody, get warmed up and follow the bouncing ball(s)....

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.

Thomas Sowell on tax cuts

Please stand for this month's reading from The Gospel According To Saint Thomas....

Economist Thomas Sowell, the smartest man in the world now that Milton Friedman is dead, has given us an assortment of new scriptures to ponder.

As Saint Thomas has grown old, his offerings to his disciples have become shorter, but no less pithy. We should treasure them, ponder them, and hold them in our hearts.

In this reading, The Good Doctor has arisen from his pallet to straighten out the issue of perverse incentives, tax cuts, and the issue of why people hire people and bother to be productive in the first place. 
We know that it has become tiresome for Saint Thomas to be bothered with stamping out ignorance in his old age, and value his contribution all the more because of his patience. 

Please remain standing until the end of the reading from the scriptures:

The first big cut in income taxes came in the 1920s, at the urging of Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon. He argued that a reduction of the tax rates would increase the tax revenues. What actually happened?

In 1920, when the top tax rate was 73 percent, for people making over $100,000 a year, the federal government collected just over $700 million in income taxes-- and 30 percent of that was paid by people making over $100,000. After a series of tax cuts brought the top rate down to 24 percent, the federal government collected more than a billion dollars in income tax revenue-- and people making over $100,000 a year now paid 65 percent of the taxes.

How could that be? The answer is simple: People behave differently when tax rates are high as compared to when they are low. With low tax rates, they take their money out of tax shelters and put it to work in the economy, benefitting themselves, the economy and government, which collects more money in taxes because incomes rise.

High tax rates which very few people are actually paying, because of tax shelters, do not bring in as much revenue as lower tax rates that people are paying. It was much the same story after tax cuts during the Kennedy administration, the Reagan administration and the Bush Administration.

The New York Times reported in 2006: "An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year."

Expectations are in the eyes of the beholder-- and in the rhetoric of the demagogues. If class warfare is more important to some politicians than collecting more revenue when there is a deficit, then let the voters know that.


The man has spoken.


Thus endeth the reading from The Gospel According To Saint Thomas.

You may be seated.

We do not ordinarily show videos on pull-down screens here at the Chapel of Saint Sowell, but in this case, as an aid to worship, we have included the following:
This is a video of someone who just....doesn't....get it.  If you have children in The Chapel who can't view this type of material without laughing, please take them to the nursery now. 

This is why Our Gospel must be spread throughout our land, the world, even to D.C. and The New York Times. 
 


Thank you all for attending our services this morning. Let's all go to Luby's !

Can you balance the U.S. budget in 5 minutes?

The New York Times has posted a budget simulator that allows you to mess around with the current U.S. budget deficit by cutting programs and salaries or by raising taxes. 

This being the New York Times, they don't acknowledge that if you raise too many taxes to a higher level, the amount of revenue drops. 
The Bush tax cuts raised the amount of money coming into the Treasury. 
The percentage of the total taxes paid by the evil top earners increased after the Bush tax cuts. 
Getting the NYT to admit this would be like getting them to acknowledge the effectiveness of HUD.  Or busing.  Or rent control. 

The simulator won't allow you to cut military spending by 75%, bring the boys and girls back home, and have the remaining troops defend the borders.  (Our borders.  Not Korea's.)

You can't legalize weed, allowing for a 50% cut in police, judges, narcotics agents, border guards, parole officers, probation specialists, jailers, counselors, piss-testers, urine samplers, stool-sniffers, and Sharia Law enforcers. 
You can't eliminate the Departments of Energy or Education.
You can't sell off the prime real estate currently occupied by the U.N. 
 
Other than that, it is a interesting little exercise. 

My employer, Jukt Micronics, went through a similar exercise a couple of years ago.  The only difference?  It was real.  We had to cut employees.  We had to examine every penny in purchasing.  For the second time in the company's existence, some people had to take pay cuts.  Forget about pay raises.  The percentages in cuts that we had to deal with were twice as large as the cuts proposed by the Times.  We sold off every unnecessary asset.  We sold off some assets that were necessary.  (Lee, I'm still pissed off about those 8 tires of mine that you sold.) 

If we hadn't done these things, we would be out of business.  (We can't print money.  Go here to see how Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is trying to harm low income people for the benefit of those at the top who want the spending orgy to continue.)

If you take the test, you'll see that Starving The Beast won't be easy,but it should be simple.  We just have to decide when we're going to do it.  So why the delay?  Here's a comment from an Instapundit reader:

I think they are sending the wrong message with this calculator– it shows me how easy it is to eliminate the deficit! I was able to do so in a few minutes, even within the constraints imposed by the NYT’s calculator. If I can do it so easily, why can’t the politicians?


That’s a rhetorical question– the answer is that there are not enough opportunities for graft in deficit elimination.

There you have it. 


The cartoon came from here.  The "grim reaper on a budget" poster came from here. 

Councilman Michael Wolfensohn shuts down cupcake stand after discovering that his city isn't getting a percentage.

A politician in a New York suburb called police on two 13-year-old boys for selling cupcakes and other baked goods without a permit, according to a report Monday.

The Journal News in Westchester County said the boys, Andrew DeMarchis and Kevin Graff, had a brisk business selling cupcakes, cookies, brownies and Rice Krispie treats for $1 each in a Chappaqua park.

However, New Castle Councilman Michael Wolfensohn called the police after discovering the sale was not for charity, the newspaper said.

Anyone wanting to contact the city of New Castle, or Councilman Wolfensohn, can go here, BTW. 
Kevin’s mother, Laura Graff, said the teens were “good kids” who were scared by the police call.

“I am shocked and sad for the boys. It was such a great idea, and they worked hard at it,” Laura Graff, Kevin’s mother, told The Journal News. “But then some Town Board member decided to get on his high horse and wreck their dreams.”…

“All vendors selling on town property have to have a license, whether it’s boys selling baked goods or a hot dog vendor,” Wolfensohn said.

He said “in hindsight” he perhaps should have told the boys they needed a license rather than calling the cops. “The police are trained to deal with these sorts of issues,” he told The Journal News.

A permit to sell things in the park costs $150 to $350 for two hours and a $1 million insurance certificate is also required, the paper said…

Andrew DeMarchis told The Journal News of his disappointment.

“We were being entrepreneurs,” he said, “but now I feel a little defeated.”

Here's Radley Balko's take on the incident, which, as usual, is priceless.

I think I’ve changed my mind about these stories. If the point of having your kid start a lemonade stand, cupcake stand, or some other little venture is for him to learn what it’s like to be an entrepreneur, he might as well learn early on that part of being an entrepreneur is dealing with asshole politicians, petty bureaucrats, and rivals willing to use the law to shut you down rather than compete with you. It also means understanding that the costs of complying with all the bullshit hurdles the government puts in the way of starting up a business may mean you can never get your business off the ground, no matter how good your idea.


The cupcake kids will at least now grow up with a healthy distaste for politicians, and probably some newfound respect for the people who do actually manage to start a business in hostile environments that include requirements for million-dollar insurance policies and political slime like Michael Wolfensohn.

And that’s actually a pretty valuable lesson.

The picture of Michael Wolfensohn came from here. 

The Wal-Mart Greeter Blues

After walking away from it for about 25 years, I've started writing songs again. 

I heard some guy on a radio program say that if you're upper class in America, your name is on the building.  If you're middle class, your name is on your desk.  If you're working class, your name is on your shirt. 

When I heard that, I was reminded of this old-timer I once heard ranting at The White Elephant Saloon in the Fort Worth Stockyards.  He was talking about how his land was disappearing, how he couldn't make it as a rancher, and how "that Wal-Mart Greeter job is looking better every day". 

This is what I did with it.  Will put up a YouTube as soon as I meet someone with the time and the camera.

Intro:

Granddad lifted me up high, and he put me on his saddle,

He said “Look at that horizon, boy, y’know one day soon all of that’ll,

That’ll be the land where your whole clan can feed and herd your cattle.”

But he didn’t prepare me for this concrete prairie,

My new home on the range, where the shopping carts rattle….

Here’s how I got the Wal-Mart Greeter Blues:

Verse:

My granddad built an empire, and my old man drank it dry,

Then I lost a lot in Vegas, and those taxes were so high,

Some went to my last three wives, and the cost of just getting by,

That’s how I got the Wal-Mart Greeter Blues.

Chorus:

So keep those steers a movin’, boys!  Pampers are on aisle four. 

Come on boys, we’re burning daylight!  Just get ‘em in the store. 

Drive that herd to the preferred products on the floor,

Check the receipts, keep the lobby neat, and then

Herd ‘em out the door. 

Verse:

I saw my granddad’s cattle brand all over the West,

I only saw my old man’s name on that sign that was on his desk,

My name ain’t nowhere but on this blue nylon vest,

And now I’ve got the Wal-Mart Greeter Blues. 

Repeat Chorus

So keep those steers a movin’, boys!  Detergent is on aisle four. 

Come on boys, we’re burning daylight!  Just get ‘em in the store. 

Drive that herd to the preferred products on the floor,

Check the receipts, keep the lobby neat, and then

Herd ‘em out the door. 

Verse:

Look at you, you sweet young thing, with that cart there all by yourself.

Girl, I’ve got what your shopping for, and it ain’t on the shelf.

If I wasn’t stuck here, girl, I would help you find it myself. 

Instead, I’ve got the Wal-Mart Greeter Blues. 

Repeat Chorus. 

So keep those steers a movin’, boys!  Wishes are on aisle four. 

Come on boys, we’re burning daylight!  Just get ‘em in the store. 

Drive that herd to the preferred products on the floor,

Check the receipts, keep the lobby neat, and then

Herd ‘em out the door. 

The picture of a Wal-Mart Greeter came from here. 

Joe Biden said this.

I don't know how I missed this, but Joe Biden, using his own lips, teeth, tongue and throat, under his own free will, made the following statement a few weeks ago:

“Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive,” he said. “In the middle of the Civil War you had a guy named Lincoln paying people $16,000 for every 40 miles of track they laid across the continental United States. … No private enterprise would have done that for another 35 years.”

You can go here to experience a joyous rebuttal from The Cato Institute:

Early American railroads were built almost entirely with private funds. These railroads provided such superior transportation that by 1850 they had put most toll roads and canals out of business. Individual states still competed with one another for business—and may have offered various favors to the railroads serving those states…. For the most part, however, no federal and few state subsidies went to railroads in the eastern United States.

But what about other areas?

Whenever politicians interfered in the railroad business, however, corruption and inefficiency inevitably occurred.....There was no money to be made from operating a railroad through a desolate wasteland, yet the federal government rewarded railroad contractors with big subsidies: a thirty-year loan at below market interest rates; twenty sections (12,800 acres) of government-owned land for every mile of track; and an additional subsidy of $48,000 for every mile of track laid in mountainous regions.

Thomas Durant, Oakes Ames, and other officers of the Union Pacific Railroad, which went a thousand miles west from Council Bluffs, Iowa, started the Credit Mobilier company in 1867 and retained it to do the construction. Credit Mobilier distributed to shareholders profits estimated at between $7 million and $23 million, depleting the Union Pacific’s resources. In an effort to stop congressional investigations, the officers bribed Speaker of the House James G. Blaine and other congressmen with Credit Mobilier stock. Seldom modest about their thievery, congressmen voted themselves a 50 percent pay raise. The Union Pacific Railroad fell deep into debt, without enough revenue from passengers or shippers, and went bankrupt in 1893.

Here's a Cato transportation timeline entry on all you need to know about the Credit Mobilier scandal:

1872:  The New York Sun exposes the Credit Mobilier scandal, perhaps the largest business subsidy scandal of the 19th century.8 Credit Mobilier is a construction company financially controlled by the leaders of the Union Pacific Railroad that makes huge profits at taxpayer expense. Congressman Oakes Ames (R-MA), who is an agent of Credit Mobilier and part-owner, distributes shares of the firm's stock to members of Congress at a discounted value. In return, those members treat Credit Mobilier favorably in a variety of ways, such as by voting to appropriate funds for the firm. The scandal illustrates the corruption that usually results when the government intervenes in the economy and subsidizes businesses.

If that's not enough, George Will opens a great column with Biden's quote.  In this case, its about our next transportation-subsidy-scandal-waiting-to-happen....The Chevy Volt. 
You might think that you've never purchased a Chevy Volt.  But you have.  Yes, you have. 

The federal government, although waist-deep in red ink, offers another bribe: Any purchaser can get a tax credit of up to 50 percent of the cost (up to $2,000) of an extra-powerful (240-volt) charger. California, although so strapped it recently issued IOUs to vendors, offers a $5,000 cash rebate for which Volt buyers are not eligible but purchasers of Nissan's electric Leaf are. Go figure.

In April, in a television commercial and a Wall Street Journal column headlined "The GM Bailout: Paid Back in Full," GM's then-CEO Ed Whitacre said "we have repaid our government loan, in full, with interest, five years ahead of the original schedule." Rubbish.

GM, which has received almost $50 billion in government subventions, repaid a $6.7 billion loan using other federal funds, a TARP-funded escrow account. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) called this a "TARP money shuffle." A commentator compared it to "paying off your Visa credit card with your MasterCard."

Meretricious accounting and deceptive marketing are inevitable when government and its misnamed "private sector" accomplices foist state capitalism on an appalled country. But those who thought the ethanol debacle defined outer limits of government foolishness pertaining to automobiles were, alas, mistaken.

And finally, Reason magazine jumps on the dogpile with this:

What was the "government vision and government incentive" that produced the assembly line?Motion-picturefilm?  Airconditioning? The electric guitar?

How about the personalcomputer? The mobile phone? Non-violentresistance?  Aspirin?

Though Biden is generally not to be taken seriously, the government-centrism of his comments are an accurate reflection of his boss, and part of the reason why next Tuesday is going to be an awkward day
of work at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

As it turns out, last Tuesday was an awkward day of work at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Unfortunately, Democrats were replaced by Republicans.  Republicans who favor many of the same economic interventions but for different industries. 
Bummer. 

Oh well.  Joe Biden really did make that statement.  No eggs were thrown and no one laughed because it went largely unreported and unanalyzed in The Mainstream Media. 
Go here to read about The Mainstream Media's quest for a journalism subsidy. 

Joe Biden - A Real Man Of Genius

Watts up with the "Don't Panic" stories about the weather?

Anthony Watts, of the Watts Up With That site, has a fine collection of Global Cooling, Global Warming, Global Climate Disruption, and whatever else they're calling it this week stories, from all over the world. 
It's been a very bad week for the Panic Community. 
What it amounts to?  The world's governments are running out of money to run cover for this mess, and the facades are starting to crack.  Just think, if we had a good economy, we'd be buying carbon credits/Papal Indulgences from Al Gore by now. 
I usually don't scrape someone else's site, but I hope Mr. Watts will understand my swiping all of what you see below. 

This is a collection of news story excerpts this past week. AGW proponents and environmentalists is general are taking hit after hit in the media this week. – Anthony (Watts)


From the GWPF via email: The Crisis of Climate Catastrophism



The threat to tropical rainforests from climate change may have been exaggerated by environmentalists, according to a new study. Researchers have shown that the world’s tropical forests thrived in the far distant past when temperatures were 3 to 5C warmer than today. They believe that a wetter, warmer future may actually boost plants and animals living the tropics. – David Derbyshire, Daily Mail, 12 November 2010


There are many climactic models today suggesting that … if the temperature increases in the tropics by a couple of degrees, most of the forest is going to be extinct. What we found was the opposite to what we were expecting: we didn’t find any extinction event [in plants] associated with the increase in temperature, we didn’t find that the precipitation decreased. — Carlos Jaramillo, The Guardian, 12 November 2010




The spectre of imminent thirst and/or starvation for billions by 2035 from melting glaciers would appear to have been confirmed as the worst kind of alarmist scaremongering. — Lewis Page, The Register, 11 November 2010




Bjorn Lomborg should be careful about what he wishes for. The unintended consequences pursuant to a renewable trough worth $250 billion has the potential to spawn a lot more nonsense, given its potential for increasing the size and direction of government and making energy policy even more political, much less meritorious. The skeptical environmentalist has become far too credulous. –Jon Boone, MasterResource, 11 November 2010



MORE than $1 billion of taxpayers’ money was wasted on subsidies for household solar roof panels that favoured the rich and did little to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, a scathing review has found. –Tom Arup, The Age, 11 November 2010


Despite a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government, Solyndra, a maker of solar panels in the southeast San Francisco Bay Area city of Fremont, will close one of its manufacturing plants, lay off 40 permanent and 150 contract workers, delay expansion plans of a new plant largely financed with the government-guaranteed loan and scale back production capacity more than 50 percent. Despite the hype and tax money, Solyndra seems unable to compete with Chinese manufacturers, whose prices are lower. This is the latest bad news for the company touted by Mr. Schwarzenegger and President Barack Obama as one of the green industry’s supposed shining lights. – Editorial, The Orange County Register, 11 November 2010

Christian woman sentenced to death in Pakistan for Blasphemy

From The Telegraph (UK):

Asia Bibi, a 45-year-old mother-of-five, denies blasphemy and told investigators that she was being persecuted for her faith in a country where Christians face routine harassment and discrimination.

Christian groups and human rights campaigners condemned the verdict and called for the blasphemy laws to be repealed.
Her supporters say she will now appeal against the sentence handed down in a local court in the town of Sheikhupura, near Lahore, Pakistan.
Ashiq Masih, her husband, said he had not had the heart to break the news to two of their children.

"I haven't told two of my younger daughters about the court's decision," he said. "They asked me many times about their mother but I can't get the courage to tell them that the judge has sentenced their mother to capital punishment for a crime she never committed." Mrs Bibi has been held in prison since June last year.

The court heard she had been working as a farmhand in fields with other women, when she was asked to fetch drinking water.

Some of the other women – all Muslims – refused to drink the water as it had been brought by a Christian and was therefore "unclean", according to Mrs Bibi's evidence, sparking a row.

The incident was forgotten until a few days later when Mrs Bibi said she was set upon by a mob.

The police were called and took her to a police station for her own safety.

Shahzad Kamran, of the Sharing Life Ministry Pakistan, said: "The police were under pressure from this Muslim mob, including clerics, asking for Asia to be killed because she had spoken ill of the Prophet Mohammed.

Heck, Mohammed was a pedophile who owned (black) slaves.  How much worse can it get?  Did the woman accuse him of poor dental hygiene? 
"So after the police saved her life they then registered a blasphemy case against her." He added that she had been held in isolation for more than a year before being sentenced to death on Monday.

"The trial was clear," he said. "She was innocent and did not say those words." Earlier this year, Pakistan's internet service providers were ordered to block Facebook to prevent access to supposedly blasphemous images.

Human rights groups believe the law is often used to discriminate against religious minorities, such as the country's estimated three million Christians.

Although no one has ever been executed under Pakistan's blasphemy laws – most are freed on appeal – as many as 10 people are thought to have been murdered while on trial.

Ali Hasan Dayan, of Human Rights Watch, said the blasphemy laws were out of step with rights guaranteed under Pakistan's constitution and should be repealed.

"It's an obscene law," he said. "Essentially the blasphemy law is used as a tool of persecution and to settle other scores that are nothing to do with religion.

"It makes religious minorities particularly vulnerable because it's often used against them."

Guess who is to blame for the coming hyperinflation ??

Unbelievable. 
We're about to have some hyperinflation.  Printing money is the only way that Uncle Sam can pay his debts. 

It's not the fault of the Republicrats or the Demoblicans, who have spent money like they'll all be dead before the bills are due. 
It's not because of the Federal Reserve, which is now printing money faster than the stimulus projects can spend it. 
It's not the fault of the Nanny State. 
It's not because of open-ended wars. 
No, Time magazine, which I'm hoping will soon go the way of Newsweek, has found the culprit ! 

Go here.

Veterans Day

A suggestion to the Feds for the large graphic warning labels soon to be required on cigarette packs

From the L.A. Times:

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Corpses, cancer patients and diseased lungs: These are some of the images the federal government plans for larger, graphic warning labels that will take up half of each cigarette package.

The images are part of a new campaign announced by the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday to reduce tobacco use, which is responsible for about 443,000 deaths per year.

"It acts as a very public billboard because you all of the sudden are reading something about lung cancer from that pack behind the cash register, whereas before you were just reading 'Marlboro,' " said David Hammond, a health behavior researcher at the University of Waterloo in Canada, who is working with the firm designing the labels with for the FDA.

....Anti-tobacco advocates are applauding the federal campaign and the new warning labels.


"This is going to stop kids from starting to smoke ... and it's going to give smokers a strong incentive to quit smoking," said Patrick Reynolds, the grandson of R.J. Reynolds and executive director of the Foundation for a Smokefree America. Reynolds' father, brother and other relatives died from smoking-related illnesses.

It remains to be seen how well the scare tactics will work.

"I don't think they're going to be a deterrent at all for people who already smoke. Most people start smoking when they're young, and I don't think they're going to think about the effects," said 27-year-old Zak Hoffman, who has been smoking since age 14.

Well, Zak, that's because I'm not the one picking out the pictures. 
Forget cancer, gum disease, and tongue amputations. 
Put me in charge of the pictures, and I'll scare the hell out of some smokers. 

How about the now-proven link between smoking and economic retardation, communication difficulties, and an inability to speak without prompts? 

I got yer frightening graphic images right here.  Get the kids out of the room, back away from your computer, and hit this link. 

A fresh coat of Whitening to the P.O.W. In California for the heads up on this one. 

The Statist Sincerity Detector

There are people of good will and good sense who disagree with the Libertarian desire for a smaller, less costly government. 
They see government spending as a net good, they see central control as a benefit, and elected authority as a comfort. 
I don't get it. 
I win some arguements with these folks, some arguments end prematurely, and some taper off into the weeds and thickets of guns and ObamaCare and that single mother with 5 kids who just can't make it on the minimum wage paid by greedy corporations. 
In my way of thinking, I'm the best judge of how my money should be spent.  And if I'm going to take someone else's money by force, it better be for a great cause.  I have lots of friends and meet lots of people who don't see it that way, though.   

Well, there is now an online "sincerity detector" that will be useful in these little spats.  Anyone with an iPhone, iPad, or a laptop can see if their Statist friends are truly committed to the cause.  (Most of the time, they're just posturing.) 

If someone claims that the government is the best judge of how to spend money, send them here. 
Step back. 
Ask them to put up or shut up.

Police raid barber shops for cutting hair without a license

I remember asking someone at a barber shop why she had to have a license to cut hair.  She told me that the licensed barbers and stylists were taught to use a straight razor to give someone a shave, and that the state didn't want that to become "a lost art". 
This conversation took place about 25 years ago, and I was not yet a politically aware individual.  But I knew that her answer was horsecrap. 
If you're willing to cut my hair for $5.00, and I'm willing to give you $5.00 for a haircut, it is no one else's business.  That also goes for embalming, dentistry, interior decorating, medicine, and flower arranging. 
Unfortunately, all of those are our government's business.  Hit the links.  You'll be amazed. 

Haircuts are a regulated industry, for reasons that I've never understood. 
Here are the consequences of those idiotic requirements, via The Orlando Sentinel:

As many as 14 armed Orange County deputies, including narcotics agents, stormed Strictly Skillz barbershop during business hours on a Saturday in August, handcuffing barbers in front of customers during a busy back-to-school weekend.

It was just one of a series of unprecedented raid-style inspections the Orange County Sheriff's Office recently conducted with a state regulating agency, targeting several predominantly black- and Hispanic-owned barbershops in the Pine Hills area.

In "sweeps" on Aug. 21 and Sept. 17 targeting at least nine shops, deputies arrested 37 people — the majority charged with "barbering without a license," a misdemeanor that state records show only three other people have been jailed in Florida in the past 10 years.

The operations were conducted without warrants, under the authority of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation inspectors, who can enter salons at will. Deputies said they found evidence of illegal activity, including guns, drugs and gambling. However, records show that during the two sweeps, and a smaller one in October, just three people were charged with anything other than a licensing violation.

Orange County sheriff's Capt. Dave Ogden, who commands the area that includes Pine Hills, described the operations as a "minuscule" part of a larger effort to snuff out crime in one of Central Florida's notorious hot spots.

Asked why his unit made arrests for licensing violations, Ogden said: "It was a misdemeanor crime being committed in our presence. We decided to make arrests."

But many of the barbers who were swept up in the operations are still angry months later.

"They made a big charade about it," barber Jason Abrams said, "like we were selling drugs or something."

Brian Berry owns Strictly Skillz, a barbershop on Pine Hills Road. He says he's used to licensing inspections, but what happened in his shop Aug. 21 was something else.

Berry said deputies entered his store and told his barbers to stop cutting and put their hands behind their backs. As barbers sat on the ground in handcuffs, he said, deputies removed his customers — including children — from the store, and began searching workstations and checking licenses without explanation.

Barbers and witnesses at several shops told the Orlando Sentinel that deputies shouted and cursed during the raids, demanding the location of illegal drugs, which they searched for extensively. They never found more than misdemeanor amounts of marijuana at eight of the nine shops they raided.

The lone exception: Just Blaze on Semoran Boulevard in Apopka, where an arrest report shows deputies found Ski Joseph Vasquez, 40, with "2 baggies of cocaine in a prescription bottle" and cutting agents in the barbershop's office during the Sept. 17 sweep. Vasquez was arrested on drug- and gun-related charges after deputies said they found a handgun in his car.

On the same day, deputies raided two other barbershops and found no illegal activity other than unlicensed barbering. And besides the arrest at Just Blaze, reports show the two sweeps turned up the following: evidence of gambling, equipment "that appeared to be used" to make pirated DVDs and CDs, "some sort of tax service," two handguns and misdemeanor amounts of marijuana.

During the smaller operation Oct. 8, deputies arrested two additional people on unlicensed-barbering charges at one salon.

With the exception of two misdemeanor marijuana charges and Vasquez's arrest, deputies were unable to connect any of the illegal activity to anyone. Meanwhile, store owners reported property damage from the raids, including a large hole employees said deputies busted into a wall at 809 Barbershop in Ocoee.

However, several owners said the damage to their businesses and reputations has been much worse.

To those who live in the communities they serve, these barbershops are more than places to get a haircut.

"They are the centers of political discourse and political organization in black communities," said Melissa Harris-Perry, professor of African-American studies at Princeton University.

Harris-Perry, author of "Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought," called the idea of deputies invading shops during both a recession and an election year "pretty horrifying."

She said by violating the barbershop's role as a "safe place" in the black community, deputies may have placed the community's trust in local law enforcement at risk. "It's exactly counterproductive," she said, adding that targeting minority barbershops sends a message about "which communities deserve to be disrupted and which don't."

Still, Bishop Kelvin L. Cobaris of Empowerment Ministries Church of Pine Hills defended the actions of the Sheriff's Office. He said deputies have been effective in reducing crime in the area, and if the searches were legal and criminal activity was discovered, the deputies' approach to entering the shops "shouldn't matter."

However, if barbers who weren't committing crimes were detained, "that would be something that would leave me with concerns," Cobaris said.

On a recent Saturday afternoon, about a dozen boys and men gathered at Strictly Skillz. Many chairs were empty. Berry said he can't be sure it was the August raid that caused business to dip. While the young boy whose hair he was cutting watched football on the nearest television, Berry watched the door. He heard the Sheriff's Office had been back out.

"They should know these barbershops are the cornerstone of the community," he said. Still, he worried his last inspection was only the first of its kind.

If you didn't know cutting hair without a license was a crime, you're not alone. An arrest for barbering without a license is not just unusual — in the state of Florida, it's nearly unheard of.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement records turned up only 38 jail bookings on the misdemeanor charge across the entire state in the past 10 years — and all but three of those arrests occurred during Orange County operations during the past few months.

Most of the barbers charged with licensing violations as a result of the sheriff's operation pleaded no contest and were ordered to pay fines of about $500 — which is about equal to the ones inspectors issue when a barber or stylist has an expired license.

A licensing inspector determined that Strictly Skillz was in compliance and everyone working had a valid license displayed in plain view — but not before barbers said they spent an hour sitting in handcuffs.

Abrams, who works at Barber Kings in Pine Hills, said he knew his license wasn't current when inspectors entered, and he expected a slap on the wrist and a fine.

When he and the eight others arrested at Barber Kings that day got to jail, "everybody laughed at us," Abrams said. "Even the judge was like, 'Are you serious?' "

Abrams said inspectors could have just fined him, rather than parading him in handcuffs in front of his community. "It was just uncalled for," Abrams said.

Justifying the operations, Orange sheriff's officials said the shops targeted had displayed a lack of cooperation with state inspectors and had a history of criminal activity.

In terms of inspection history, the barbershops appear to have little in common. Records show some shops had lengthy histories of noncompliance, while others never had a complaint.

In terms of demographics, the shops had clear similarities: Their clientele, owners and staff were predominantly black or Hispanic, and all were located in or near high-crime areas.

And, although the Orange County barbershop raids were unprecedented in Florida, they're not the first of their kind.

Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the city of Moreno Valley, Calif., among others, after authorities conducted what the civil-rights group described in its complaint as "a series of raid-style searches" of black barbershops.

The case has not yet been resolved, but records show some of the plaintiffs settled for $33,000 earlier this year.

The suit alleged that "police in Moreno Valley, in coordination with local and state inspectors," targeted black barbershops that "housed legitimate, respected businesses" that served the community as "social centers and gathering places."

Many of the west Orange County barbers made similar claims. Said Berry of Strictly Skillz, "There's a fine line [between] doing your job and violating a person's civil rights."

Green Bay Packers 45, Dallas Cowboys 7, and a history of all the coaches that Jerry Jones has fired in an effort to discover the root cause of the problem

I played left guard for one year at North Sunflower Academy.  I was in the 9th grade.  That's enough to qualify me to comment on this issue.  I'm probably going to repeat this post every week until Jerry Jones discovers the problem with his team.   

Lord have mercy, what an ugly game.  The Dallas Cowboys got spanked, and I mean spanked by the Green Bay Packers, 45-7. 
Can you believe that Detroit is actually looking forward to playing us? 

What needs to happen?  Well, let's look at some history. 

The Cowboys franchise got its start in 1960.  Tom Landry was head coach.

When Landry was fired by Jerry Jones, he had a career record of 270-178-6.  However, Landry (before the start of the 1989 season) had not won a playoff game since 1983.  That's five years.  It was probably time for a change. 

When Jerry Jones purchased the team, he made himself General Manager.  He has supposedly been in charge of all personnel decisions since 1989. 

Jerry put the great Jimmy Johnson in as head coach.  Johnson had been coaching at the University Of Miami, and was familiar with many of the players soon to be drafted by the NFL.  We'll never know who made the decisions that led to the Cowboys era of greatness in the 1990's, but my money is on Jimmy. 

Jimmy Johnson coached his Cowboys to Super Bowl victories in 1992 and 1993.   But he couldn't get along with Jerry and left after the 1993 season.  

The details remain shrouded in a late-night haze, but it seems the trouble started when Jones toasted the Cowboys and was offended when Johnson reciprocated but did not invite Jones to join his table. A few hours later, Johnson alleges, Jones told a group of reporters in a bar that he planned to fire Johnson and replace him with Barry Switzer, an old foe of Johnson's from his college coaching days.

Then General Manager Jerry Jones....

....appointed Barry Switzer as Cowboys head coach. 

Using Jimmy's players, Switzer was able to win a playoff game in 1994, and he won the Super Bowl in 1995. 
The Cowboys won a single playoff game in 1996 (a year soon to be known as "the good old days), but went a disappointing 6-10 in 1997. 
General Manager Jerry Jones.....

....knew he had to do something after his head coach didn't win a playoff game in 1997.  He fired Switzer, and replaced him with Chan Gailey. 

Gailey went 10-6 in 1998, and then 8-8 in 1999.  He didn't win any playoff games. 
So then, Jerry Jones, who was supposedly still making all of the personnel decisions....

 
...fired Chan Gailey and replaced him with Dave Campo. 

Campo was head coach in 2000, 2001, and 2002, and had a won/loss record (respectively) of 5-11, 5-11, and finally, 5-11.  No playoff wins. 
So General Manager Jerry Jones, who was still in charge of ALL personnel decisions....

....fired Campo and replaced him with Bill Parcells. 

Despite winning a couple of Super Bowls with the Giants, and an AFC Championship season with The Patsies, Parcells was unable to do anything with Jerry's Kids in Dallas.  There were lots of discussions about "They want you to cook the dinner, at least they ought to let you shop for some of the groceries."  Some former Parcells players got signed, and Parcells had some small authority over the team. 
From 2003 through 2006, the Dallas Cowboys went 10-6, 6-10, 9-7, and 9-7.  They didn't win any playoff games. 

(It was at the beginning of the Parcells era that I discovered that God hates Jerry Jones, and I started making a small fortune betting against Dallas.  That has nothing to do with the matter at hand.  I wasn't worth a crap at left guard at North Sunflower Academy, but I can tell who God doesn't like.)

Parcells retired. 

Then Cowboys General Manager Jerry Jones, who hadn't won a playoff game since 1996....

...thought that he could improve the situation by bringing in Wade Phillips. 

Maybe Jerry Jones had discovered the source of his problems.  Maybe this coach would be the one who could properly use Jerry's draft choices. 

The first year, 2007, it almost worked.  The Boys went 13-3, but didn't win a playoff game. 

The next year, they went 9-7, but didn't make the playoffs. 

In 2009/2010, perhaps to illustrate the old proverb that "even a blind hog can sometimes find an acorn", Jerry's draftees went 11-5, and beat the Philadelphia Eagles in a playoff game.  The curse was lifted. 

The next week Minnesota beat the tar out of them 34-3. 

This year, the mighty Dallas Cowboys have started the season with one win and seven losses.  They just finished losing to Green Bay, and they're about to lose to DETROIT.  Yes, DETROIT.  

   

Jerry Jones and the city of Arlington have taken people's homes by force, bulldozed them, and built the greatest sports facility on this planet on the site of their theft.  All to host this mess.  That was like tearing down the Taj Mahal to put up a movie theatre that only shows "Jackass 3". 

That's the history of the Dallas Cowboys coaches and their playoff wins.

Let's hope that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who is a brilliant businessman, can figure out the root cause of his problems.

Well, not really.....
Update from 11-8-2010:
Jerry has now fired Wade Phillips and made Jason Garrett the interim Head Coach.  Garrett was sorta the Offensive Coordinator and Head Coach In Waiting, the one that Phillips didn't get to choose.  Kinda like he didn't get to choose anyone else on his team. 

That makes 7 head coaches who had to be fired or replaced by one General Manager.  It's hard to find good ones. 

Pics came from here and here and here and here and here. 

Ron Paul and Jack Balkin on the Fed's decision to create a 600 billion dollar "stimulus" with no Congressional approval

From Balkinization, the website of Jack M. Balkin:

....if President Obama had showed up at the press conference immediately following the elections and announced that regardless of the results of the elections, he was proposing a new 600 billion dollar stimulus plan, and that he expected Congress to pass it immediately, reporters would have thought he was delusional.

Now imagine that President Obama said: "And if Congress doesn't act immediately to pass my 600 billion dollar stimulus package, I'll simply enact it myself without Congress." Reporters would have thought he was doubly delusional. And a dictator to boot!

Now imagine that President Obama also said: "And, you know what, I'm going to structure my new 600 billion dollar stimulus by giving the banks windfall profits. That's right, the very same banks that got those lovely bailouts before!" The Republicans' heads would explode!

So what exactly did Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke do on that very same Wednesday? He ordered the Fed to purchase 600 billion dollars of United States bonds. Who owns those bonds? Well, um, banks, investment banks, brokerage houses and other financial institutions; you know, many of the same players who got those lovely bailouts that the voters hated so much. And by purchasing 600 billion dollars in bonds in a relatively short period of time, he is effectively driving up their price, thereby giving a windfall to their owners. (Even better: many of the owners are in foreign countries-- so it's effectively a bailout for foreign banks too! I'm sure the voters will love that.)



And he can do all this without asking Congress's permission. Why? Because he's Ben Freaking Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, that's who.

He doesn't have to pay attention to any polls or popular outrage about bank bailouts or Republican opposition to a second stimulus. He don't need no stinking stimulus package! He's more powerful than the President of the United States! He's our maximum leader.

If you've made it this far, I can predict that your eyelids are getting heavy.  This isn't as interesting as ObamaCare, Abortion, Gun Control, Gay Marriage, or even NAFTA, is it? 

True. 

Our leaders are happiest when you're wondering if Christine O'Donnell is a witch, if Rand Paul worships Aqua Buddha, or if Barack Obama wants to take away your Bible. 

The Federal Reserve is about to create $600 billion dollars from someplace, probably that big printing press they have on Blue Mound Road in Fort Worth, Texas. 

If there are 300 million Americans, that means that your share of the cash in the U.S. is about to be worth $2000 less than it was before this announcement. 
Here's Ron Paul on the subject.  This is from his book The Revolution: A Manifesto. 

When the Fed intervenes like this, increasing the money supply with money and credit it creates out of thin air, it causes all kinds of economic problems.  It decreases the value of the dollar, thereby making people poorer.  and in the long run even the apparent stimulus to the economy that comes from all the additional borrowing and spending turns out to be harmful as well, for this phony prosperity actually sows the seeds for hard times and recession down the road. 

First, consider the effects of inflation, by which we mean the Fed's increase in the supply of money, on the value of the dollar.  By increasing the supply of money, the Federal Reserve lowers the value of every dollar that exists. 

(That's why the government is trying to get you out of dollars, and into purchases of things they want you to buy.  Like purchasing all the houses that they're stuck with from their Community Reinvestment Act/Fannie/Freddie real estate debacle, or purchasing cars and trucks from those new auto companies they acquired.  They are honest to God trying to get you to spend money by announcing that your money will soon be worth less.  Those who know how the system works have responded appropriately.  Notice the recent stock jump?)

If the supply of Mickey Mantle baseball cards were suddenly to increase a millionfold, each individual card would become almost valueless.  The same principle applies to money: the more the Fed creates, the less value each individual monetary unit possesses.  When the money supply is increased, prices rise -  with each dollar now worth less than before, it can purchase fewer goods than it could in the past.  Or imagine an art auction in which bidders are each given an additional million dollars.  Would we not expect bids to go up?  The market works the same way, except in a free market there are numerous sellers instead of the one seller in an auction. 

All right, some may say, prices may indeed rise, but so do wages and salaries, and therefore inflation causes no real problems on net. 

Bullshit. 

This misconception overlooks one of the most insidious and immoral effects of inflation: its redistribution of wealth from the poor and middle class to the politically well connected.  The price increases that take place as a result of inflation do not occur all at once and to the same degree.  Those who receive the new money first receive it before prices have yet risen.  They enjoy a windfall.  Meanwhile, as they spend the new money, and the next wave of recipients spend it, and so on, prices begin to rise throughout the economy - well before the new money has trickled down to most people. 

The average person is now paying higher prices while still earning his old income, which has not yet been adjusted to account for the higher money supply.  By the time the new money has made its way throughout the economy, average people have all this time been paying higher prices, and only now can begin to break even.  The enrichment of the politically well connected - in other words, those who get the newly created money first: government contractors, big banks, and the like - comes at the direct expense of everyone else. 

These are known as the distribution effects, or Cantillon effects, of inflation, after economist Richard Cantillon.  The average person is silently robbed through this invisible means and usually doesn't understand what exactly is happening to him. 

And almost no one in the political establishment has an incentive to tell him. 

Pics came from here and here and here.