Global Warming is man-made. With erasers and computers

Some more Global Warming/Cooling/Climate Change scientists may have been naughty.

Here's the latest update in the Tree Ring Circus (Mark Steyn's term):

The New Zealand Government's chief climate advisory unit NIWA is under fire for allegedly massaging raw climate data to show a global warming trend that wasn't there.

The scandal breaks as fears grow worldwide that corruption of climate science is not confined to just Britain's CRU climate research centre.

In New Zealand's case, the figures published on NIWA's [the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research] website suggest a strong warming trend in New Zealand over the past century:

Wow. Hotter than a whore in church. Hot enough to make you return things that you didn't steal. Hotter than the hinges of hell. Hotter than two bears fighting in a forest fire. Hotter than two cats in one pair of long johns. Hotter than a two dollar pistol on Georgia asphalt. Hotter than the Presbyterian hell for dead babies. It looks hot.

But what happens when you look at the raw numbers, before the guys in the white lab coats massage them to weed out politically incorrect readings ? It doesn't look as hot. In fact, the trendline looks erratic and random. Surely not hot enough to give the Hopers and Changers near-control of the rest of the economy.

I've been wrong about this ever since I started blogging, having always acknowledged that there have been wild swings in earth's temperature but denying that those swings were caused by man. Well, the swings recorded in the first chart were man-made, weren't they? Man caused the earth's recorded temperature to increase by using erasers and hitting the "delete" key on their computers, not by running factories or driving SUV's.

I apologize for my earlier hardheadedness. Man does indeed cause Global Warming. Men with doctorates, mostly.

Here's Robert Tracinski, at Real Clear Politics:

The damage here goes far beyond the loss of a few billions of taxpayer dollars on bogus scientific research. The real cost of this fraud is the trillions of dollars of wealth that will be destroyed if a fraudulent theory is used to justify legislation that starves the global economy of its cheapest and most abundant sources of energy.

If you haven't read Ayn Rand's novella "Anthem" yet, now is a great time to do so. You can read it standing in the aisle at Barnes & Noble in about 30 minutes. One of the great moments in the book comes when you realize that the government in the story won't allow the hero to supply everyone with his new discovery - the light bulb. Why not? Because it would endanger the livelihood of the candlemakers.

It sounds so ridiculous doesn't it? But we're getting so close. Imagine all those ridiculous Green Jobs slowly circling the drain, about to disappear forever unless somebody does something to preserve the ongoing farce.

Obama is going to Copenhagen soon, to help re-invent the flat tire. The Fix is in.

From Minnesotans For Global Warming: Hide The Decline !

From the geniuses at Minnesotans For Global Warming:



Just think of all the grant, subsidy, and porkulus money that disappeared as a result of these guys cooking the books.
We owe the Hockey Team a debt we can never repay. (For those new to the Climategate scandal, the "Hockey Team" refers to the folks who created Al Gore's hockey stick chart showing an upward spike in earth's temperature.)
Another question raised by the Climategate incident.... The mainstream media is doing their best to ignore this story. The blogosphere is going wild over it. The Minnesotans are wondering if this makes Al Gore wish he'd never invented the internet.

Happy Thanksgiving ! ! !

I put this together about two years ago. Figured it was time to re-post. Hope everyone has a great weekend ! !

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody !

Teleprompter Jesus Seeks Salvation

You know those scenes in the Sci-Fi movies where the hero does some sort of horrific damage to the villain, and the bad guy is revealed to be (gasp!) a robot who keeps repeating the same stock phrases, or merely repeating nonsense, or not making any sense at all?
Remember that scene in The Wizard Of Oz, where Toto pulls back the drapes to reveal Professor Marvel madly turning wheels and pushing levers, and saying "PAY NO ATTENTION TO THAT MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN ! ! !"

Well, this is one of those golden moments. May they increase tenfold.

T. Christopher has been busy

T. Christopher has been busy.

The New Republican Litmus Test

Here's The Washington Post:

Conservative Indiana Republican James Bopp Jr. on Monday began circulating a draft resolution calling on the Republican National Committee to end funding and endorsements for any candidate who deviates from three or more of its ten planks.

Bopp, an attorney, is vice chairman of the RNC; ten other committee members signed onto his call to arms.

There follows a lot of blah blah blah and "Whereas Ronald Reagan", and "Whereas the Republican party", and "Whereas we're trying to avoid another electoral meltdown", blah blah blah.....

I'll cut to the chase. Bopp wants RNC cash limited to candidates who can affirm their beliefs in at least 8 of these 10 agenda items. It really isn't a system of beliefs, it's just a list of things that irritate Republicans.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee identifies ten (10) key public policy positions for the 2010 election cycle, which the Republican National Committee expects its public officials and candidates to support:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill;
That's a good start. Less government.

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;
We're doing great. Once again, less government.

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
I can't believe it. The Republicans are for letting the market find less expensive solutions to the energy non-crisis. They're for less government !

(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check;
The secret ballot is the best way to ensure that there is no intimidation on the part of union thugs. And, as a general rule, less unions = less government. Go Republicans !

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
Hang on a second....a lot of those illegal immigrants are paying money into the Social Insecurity fund, money that they'll never be able to collect. Who or what is going to replace their contribution to the tax base and to the workforce? I don't see unemployed Wall Streeters applying to pour all that concrete or hang all that sheetrock. Oh well....the immigrants aren't worth taking a stand over.

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
Wait a minute, wait a minute....let's go back to #1. How are we going to have smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes if we're going to go surging into The Sandbox, especially when each additional thousand troops costs us a billion dollars?
I think we have a contradiction here. #1 and #6 might be mutually exclusive.

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;
I support containment of Iran and North Korea too. Especially when the containment is being done by France, Switzerland, South Korea, and China. See #1. I think we have another contradiction in the Republican Litmus Test.

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
Once again, #1 rears its head. How can you advocate a "smaller government" everywhere but in bedrooms?

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing, denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and....
Well, dammit, did they totally forget #1 ? Is the government going to eliminate ANY denial of healthcare? Are our county "charity" hospitals going to be required to do kidney transplants on indigent 90-year-olds? The market currently acts as a rationing device, BTW.

Was this list generated by dividing up into small groups, and then each group appointing a spokesperson, and each group got to contribute two items, no matter what?

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership; and be further

RESOLVED, that a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above stated public policy positions of the Republican National Committee, as identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee.....

Wouldn't it be fun to question Republican candidates about their commitment to these ten resolutions?

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

The picture of people taking the loyalty oath came from here.

I own me, You own you, Guess what Harry Reid can do? (With apologies to Barney the purple dinosaur)

I am the owner of me.
You are the owner of you.

I don't care what you do to yourself, as long as it doesn't hurt me or mine. If I know you, and you run out of money, or need help with hospital bills, or groceries, and you call me? I'll probably help you. I really will.

I just don't care to funnel the money through a den of thieves who have proven to be totally incapable of spending money wisely.

And I appreciate your concern for my healthcare, I really do. If I were to lose my current insurance, I hope I could rely on friends, family, charities, and the long-suffering congregation at Broadway Baptist Church. Heck, I'm already working in a family-owned business..... But if you're insisting that I, or anyone else, pay for medical insurance, I'm afraid that you have some ulterior motives. I think you're on a power trip.

Imagine the outrage if Harry Reid insisted that everyone who owned their home "free and clear" owned homeowners insurance, and pushed for penalties for those who didn't pay up to his buddies in the insurance industry.

I bet you could cut medical costs in half through tort reform, by allowing more people into the medical professions, and by letting nurses perform procedures that are currently restricted to doctors.

But that wouldn't allow any rent-seekers to profit from the solution to our healthcare non-crisis, would it?

So here goes, sung to the tune of the Barney theme song.....

I own me,
You own you,
Guess what Harry Reid can do
With his great big plan
That he's trying to push through?
Go find someone else to screw.

Mary Landrieu Turns A Three Hundred Million Dollar Trick

From the 50 Books blog comes a story often attributed to a Winston Churchill/Lady Astor conversation. The 50 Books Blogger attributes it to George Bernard Shaw:

A certain gentleman inquired of a lady whether she would be willing to sleep with him for 50,000 pounds. After some hesitation, the lady replied that she supposed she would, in consideration of the magnitude of the offer. Then he asked whether she would sleep with him for twopence.
"Certainly not," she responded with indignation. "Just what kind of lady do you think I am?"
"Madam, I believe we have already established that," he remarked calmly. "Now we are just haggling over the price."

From Newsvine.com comes this gem about Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu:

Staffers on Capitol Hill were calling it the Louisiana Purchase.
On the eve of Saturday's showdown in the Senate over health-care reform, Democratic leaders still hadn't secured the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 60 votes needed to keep the legislation alive. The wavering lawmaker was offered a sweetener: at least $100 million in extra federal money for her home state.
And so it came to pass that Landrieu walked onto the Senate floor midafternoon Saturday to announce her aye vote -- and to trumpet the financial "fix" she had arranged for Louisiana. "I am not going to be defensive," she declared. "And it's not a $100 million fix. It's a $300 million fix."

Why aren't people marching on Washington? Why do we sit back and act like our representatives are anything other than crack whores? I mean, this senator is going to go back to Louisiana bragging about how she slutted herself out, then took $300,000,000.00 from the public trough, in exchange for allowing the government to take over 1/6th of the economy.
Do they routinely allow senators to raid the Treasury in exchange for votes? Is that how this works?



Here are a few more questions and propositions for Senator Landrieu....


1. How much would you charge to dress up in full dominatrix gear, meet Harry Reid in a Vegas hotel room, and make him crawl about on all fours while slapping him on the buttocks with a rolled up copy of the Healthcare Bill?

2. What would it cost to have you participate in a threesome with Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore, if CNN were to be there with a film crew and Anderson Cooper provided narration and commentary? (All funds raised from video sales would go toward ACORN get-out-the-vote initiatives.)

3. Senator Landrieu, when I get home from work, having walked around warehouses all day, my feet are really nasty. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not into anything like this. I'm just curious..... How much would it cost to have you put on a Hillary Clinton mask and lick my toes while I type nasty notes into the Government Is Good comment fields? (I really, really, really don't want to experience anything like this. Just looking for a budgetary proposal. For curiosity's sake. Call me.)

4. Do you do fraternity parties? If so, do you charge a flat rate?

5. Why are the Fort Worth prostitutes working on Lancaster and Rosedale streets in constant danger of arrest, while you are applauded for turning a Three Hundred Million Dollar trick?

Why Obama bows

Much has been written and debated about President Obama's habit of bowing to assorted princes, emperors, and other hereditary lottery winners.
(This is the same guy who gave Britain's leaders a DVD collection and an iPod. I'm generally against any tax increases, but I'd be willing to make an exception to buy Obama a new Protocol Droid.)

Here's a clip that clarifies the situation, relative to the habits of other leaders:



Here's veteran China watcher Martin Jacques, on "Why America Must Learn To Bow".

In fact, the opposite was the case. The defeat of the Soviet Union flattered only to deceive and mislead. In a world increasingly defined by the rise of the developing countries, most notably China, the United States was, in fact, in relative decline. It took the global financial crisis to begin to convince the U.S. that it could no longer take its global supremacy for granted. This dawning realisation has come desperately late in the day. Even now most of the country remains in denial. Never has a great power been less prepared or equipped to face its own decline.

Let's rephrase that last sentence. "Never has a great power done so much to encourage, prepare, and hasten its own decline." People who repeatedly hit themselves in the head with hammers shouldn't seem surprised by the results.

Fortunately, in Barack Obama the nation has a president that possesses a rare characteristic for that office, humility.

Humility? Barack Obama is humble? (Make a selection from the assortment of links.) Never mind. Let's don't run that rabbit today....

He has made it clear from the outset that the U.S. cannot run the world on its own but only in co-operation with others.

Do ya think that the world just might be a better place if so many Messianic Bastards didn't think they could actually run it ?

In Beijing he welcomed China’s rise as a positive and sought a relationship of partnership with it. But as with the U.S. financial crisis, Obama is making it up as he goes along. Like the rest of the ruling elite, he finds himself ambushed by American decline, a situation that his administration was entirely unprepared for. Those who criticized his performance in Beijing as being too weak are not even at the starting line: They refuse to face up to the reality of a fundamental shift in the balance of power with China.

And why do we have a fundamental shift in the balance of power with China? And Brazil? Ecuador? Russia? Libya? Yeah, freakin' Libya? Why did Enzo the Baker have a shift in his balance of power with Marlon Brando in The Godfather?

BECAUSE HE OWED HIM ! ! ! It really is that simple. We're paying for Reagan's "Morning In America" and Bush The Elder's "A Thousand Points Of Blight" and Clinton's "Bridge To The 19th Century" and Bush's "No Child Gets Ahead" and Obama's "Hope And Small Change" with borrowed money. We simply must stop.

Our system was set up to allow for maximum liberty and freedom. It doesn't work well as a socialized hog trough. Agreed: we obviously don't have enough protections and regulations in place to protect us from Messianic leadership or the Statist mindset. If we're going to allow trainloads of messiahs, tycoons, wall-streeters, bailout seekers, economic witch doctors, and scam artists to line up at the bar for drinks on your credit card, then, yes, we need more regulation.

One regulation. We can't spend any more money.

Even Saturday Night Live has figured it out. This is brilliant. If SNL can figure it out, can Congress be far behind?



Here's a picture of Enzo The Baker, bowing to The Godfather. Unless something changes, future U.S. presidents should prepare to do the same.

The Beginning of Climategate

Sometimes you wake up in the morning and everything has changed. A gear has slipped in the planet. This is going to be a big, big deal.

I was too busy yesterday to listen to much radio, so I didn't get any of this until reading Glenn Reynold's Instapundit. Holy Data Manipulation, Batman ! Look at this stuff ! ! !

You can go here or here or here or here or here for more info, but let's start with The Telegraph (UK). As usual, they have the best summary of what's been going on. My apologies to author James Delingpole for scraping his entire article. I had no other choice, since perfection really can't be edited. Hit the link on his name for his other recent work. Lord have mercy, that boy can type. Here's Jimmy :

If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth (aka AGW; aka ManBearPig) has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka Hadley CRU) and released 61 megabites of confidential files onto the internet. (Hat tip: Watts Up With That)

When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at Hadley CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:

Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organised resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more.

One of the alleged emails has a gentle gloat over the death in 2004 of John L Daly (one of the first climate change sceptics, founder of the Still Waiting For Greenhouse site), commenting:

“In an odd way this is cheering news.”

But perhaps the most damaging revelations – the scientific equivalent of the Telegraph’s MPs’ expenses scandal – are those concerning the way Warmist scientists may variously have manipulated or suppressed evidence in order to support their cause.

Here are a few tasters. (So far, we can only refer to them as alleged emails because – though Hadley CRU’s director Phil Jones has confirmed the break-in to Ian Wishart at the Briefing Room – he has yet to fess up to any specific contents.) But if genuine, they suggest dubious practices such as:

Manipulation of evidence:

I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.

Private doubts about whether the world really is heating up:

The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.

Suppression of evidence:

Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?

Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.

Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t have his new email address.

We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.

Fantasies of violence against prominent Climate Sceptic scientists:

Next time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat

the crap out of him. Very tempted.

Attempts to disguise the inconvenient truth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP):

……Phil and I have recently submitted a paper using about a dozen NH records that fit this category, and many of which are available nearly 2K back–I think that trying to adopt a timeframe of 2K, rather than the usual 1K, addresses a good earlier point that Peck made w/ regard to the memo, that it would be nice to try to “contain” the putative “MWP”, even if we don’t yet have a hemispheric mean reconstruction available that far back….

And, perhaps most reprehensibly, a long series of communications discussing how best to squeeze dissenting scientists out of the peer review process. How, in other words, to create a scientific climate in which anyone who disagrees with AGW can be written off as a crank, whose views do not have a scrap of authority.

“This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board…What do others think?”

“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.”“It results from this journal having a number of editors. The responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ. He has let a few papers through by Michaels and Gray in the past. I’ve had words with Hans von Storch about this, but got nowhere. Another thing to discuss in Nice !”

Hadley CRU has form in this regard. In September – I wrote the story up here as “How the global warming industry is based on a massive lie” – Hadley CRU’s researchers were exposed as having “cherry-picked” data in order to support their untrue claim that global temperatures had risen higher at the end of the 20th century than at any time in the last millenium. Hadley CRU was also the organisation which – in contravention of all acceptable behaviour in the international scientific community – spent years withholding data from researchers it deemed unhelpful to its cause. This matters because Hadley CRU, established in 1990 by the Met Office, is a government-funded body which is supposed to be a model of rectitude. Its HadCrut record is one of the four official sources of global temperature data used by the IPCC.

I asked in my title whether this will be the final nail in the coffin of Anthropenic Global Warming. This was wishful thinking, of course. In the run up to Copenhagen, we will see more and more hysterical (and grotesquely exaggerated) stories such as this in the Mainstream Media. And we will see ever-more-virulent campaigns conducted by eco-fascist activists, such as this risible new advertising campaign by Plane Stupid showing CGI polar bears falling from the sky and exploding because kind of, like, man, that’s sort of what happens whenever you take another trip on an aeroplane.

The world is currently cooling; electorates are increasingly reluctant to support eco-policies leading to more oppressive regulation, higher taxes and higher utility bills; the tide is turning against Al Gore’s Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. The so-called “sceptical” view is now also the majority view.

Unfortunately, we’ve a long, long way to go before the public mood (and scientific truth) is reflected by our policy makers. There are too many vested interests in AGW, with far too much to lose either in terms of reputation or money, for this to end without a bitter fight.

But if the Hadley CRU scandal is true,it’s a blow to the AGW lobby’s credibility which is never likely to recover.

All this, just in time for the big Hopenhagen summit in Denmark. When saying your Thanksgiving prayer next Thursday, remember to express your gratitude to God for creating hackers.

Nick Gillespie's latest fund-raising ploy for Reason magazine. Brilliant.

Why you should support Reason magazine:

A Target-Rich Environment

Have you ever gone dove hunting on a baited field? It's not much fun. There are so many birds, that you don't get a feeling of accomplishment when you bring one down.

Ever shot a deer from a herd that was enclosed in a small barbed-wire fence? Me neither. Hope I never do.

Have you ever gotten a fishing license, gotten your poles, lures, bait and boat together, and then gone to dip a few fish out of the live well at a Red Lobster restaurant? Well, I haven't either. I can't imagine why anyone would want to do that.

But that's what it is going to be like every time I visit this site.

The cool picture of the guy with too many targets to shoot at came from here.

There is only one goddess Gaia, and Al Gore is her prophet

Here's Al Gore on Conan O'Brien trying to explain one of the perpetual motion machines that he will soon force upon the gullible:


Here's some of the transcript, compliments of the good folks at Hot Air:

Conan: Now, what about … you talk in the book about geothermal energy …
The Goracle Of Music City: Yeah, yeah.
Conan: ....and that is, as I understand it, using the heat that’s generated from the core of the earth …
The Goracle Of Music City: Yeah.
Conan: … to create energy, and it sounds to me like an evil plan by Lex Luthor to defeat Superman. Can you, can you tell me, is this a viable solution, geothermal energy?
The Goracle Of Music City: It definitely is, and it’s a relatively new one. People think about geothermal energy — when they think about it at all — in terms of the hot water bubbling up in some places, but two kilometers or so down in most places there are these incredibly hot rocks, ’cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot …

Several million degrees? Do some Googling. Maybe he was thinking of the Sun. It doesn't really matter. His heart is in the right place and he means well. Give him your money. Give him control over manufacturing, trucking, and your thermostat. Who you gonna believe, Al Gore, or a thermometer?

Pray For Obama

Idea shamelessly stolen from a friend of Denny.

Here's a link to Psalm 109:8 if you can't Google it.

I don't want to associate myself with any of the verses that follow #8, BTW.

Texas bans all marriages. Including yours.

From Dave Montgomery at the McClatchy Newspaper Group:

AUSTIN, Texas - Texans: Are you really married?

Maybe not.

Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for state attorney general, says that a 22-word clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state.

The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares:

"This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."

Architects of the amendment included the clause to ban same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships. But Radnofsky, who was a member of the powerhouse Vinson&Elkins law firm in Houston for 27 years until retiring in 2006, says the wording of Subsection B effectively "eliminates marriage in Texas," including common-law marriages.

She calls it a "massive mistake" and blames the current attorney general, Republican Greg Abbott, for allowing the language to become part of the Texas Constitution. Radnofsky called on Abbott to acknowledge the wording as an error and consider an apology. She also said that another constitutional amendment may be necessary to reverse the problem.

"You do not have to have a fancy law degree to read this and understand what it plainly says," said Radnofsky, who will be at Texas Christian University on Wednesday as part of a five-city tour to kick off her campaign.

Abbott spokesman Jerry Strickland said the attorney general stands behind the 4-year-old amendment.

"The Texas Constitution and the marriage statute are entirely constitutional," Strickland said without commenting further on Radnofsky's statements. "We will continue to defend both in court."

A conservative leader whose organization helped draft the amendment dismissed Radnofsky's position, saying it was similar to scare tactics opponents unsuccessfully used against the proposal in 2005.

"It's a silly argument," said Kelly Shackelford, president of the Liberty Legal Institute in Plano, Texas. Any lawsuit based on the wording of Subsection B, he said, would have "about one chance in a trillion" of being successful.

Shackelford said the clause was designed to be broad enough to prevent the creation of domestic partnerships, civil unions or other arrangements that would give same-sex couples many of the benefits of marriage.

Radnofsky acknowledged that the clause is not likely to result in an overnight dismantling of marriages in Texas. But she said the wording opens the door to legal claims involving spousal rights, insurance claims, inheritance and a host other marriage-related issues.

"This breeds unneeded arguments, lawsuits and expense which could have been avoided by good lawyering," Radnofsky said. "Yes, I believe the clear language of (Subsection) B bans all marriages, and this is indeed a huge mistake."

Breeding unneeded arguments, lawsuits and expense? That's the purpose behind most legislation.
We're in the best of hands.
Government must intervene.
We simply must do something, rather than stand idly by.......
Healthcare will be different. They'll get it right.
Please pass the Kool-Aid.

75,000 stimulus jobs just disappeared

The Washington Examiner has done a bit o' Googling, and pulled together accounts of false stimulus results from about 30 city newspapers.

The results?

The Teleprompter Jesus And Company have been claiming that The Porkulus Swindle created or saved 640,000 jobs.

It ain't so. 75,343 of them don't exist. Hit the link for a morbidly fascinating map. The chart at the bottom of the page is equally dismal.

More than ten percent of the jobs the Obama administration has claimed were "created or saved" by the $787 billion stimulus package are doubtful or imaginary, according to reports compiled from eleven major newspapers and the Associated Press.

But wait, there's more.....

Today's report from ABC News tells us that prior to releasing its jobs report, the administration cut out 60,000 additional jobs from unreliable reports, none of which appear to overlap with the ones we've highlighted here. Had those jobs been included in the original count, the number of jobs "created or saved" by the stimulus would have exceeded 700,000, and the number of imaginary or doubtful jobs would have approached 20 percent.

The point is that the Obama administration at least did a preliminary fact-check to weed out the more obvious falsehoods.

The Examiner hasn't even published findings from others. They're putting out the call to the citizenry to email reports from local papers.

Do you have examples of inflated jobs 'created or saved' by the stimuls? Send a link to DFreddoso (or) MHemingway@washingtonexaminer.com

Now, on to the remaining 90% of the Porkulus jobs......

There are businesses all across the nation that want to swap their merchandise and services for your money. I take it as a given that you are the best judge of how you want to spend your money. Or not spend your money. It is, after all, yours.

Every time you spend a dime, you are casting a vote for which jobs to create or save.

The Stimulus Bill took that choice away from you and your children, and gave the money to the most bizarre assembly of hacks, toadies, vote-wranglers and victims that they could get away with.

Advocates of the bill argued that only government could get the funds into the system fast enough to prevent a total meltdown. But if that's the case, why have they only spent about 40% of the funds?

You probably missed this year's book burning. Mark your calendars for 2010. Bring everything but a King James bible.

From the Amazing Grace Baptist Church KJV.com website.... (When he refers to TR, he means "Textus Receptus". Generally used in scholarly circles to mean "the received text", or "the one we've ended up using".)

Come to our Halloween book burning. We are burning Satan's bibles like the NIV, RSV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT, Good News for Modern Man, The Evidence Bible, The Message Bible, The Green Bible, ect. These are perversions of God's Word, the King James Bible.
We will also be burning Satan's music such as country , rap , rock , pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel , contempory Christian , jazz, soul, oldies but goldies, etc.

We will also be burning Satan's popular books written by heretics like Westcott & Hort , Bruce Metzger, Billy Graham , Rick Warren , Bill Hybels , John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll , John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol, Franklin Graham , Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn , Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa , The Pope , Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Donald Miller, Shane Claiborne, Brennan Manning, William Young, etc.
We are not burning Bibles written in other languages that are based on the TR. We are not burning the Wycliffe, Tyndale, Geneva or other translations that are based on the TR.

We will be serving Bar-b-Que Chicken, fried chicken, and all the sides.

That last line has brought me more joy and happiness than you can imagine.

This year's book burning has already taken place, but the 2010 event already has its own link. Go here to get directions.

One other thing that I can't resist mentioning.... King James was gay.

Pics of the King James Only controversy came from here.

Paul Krugman - Lets imitate Germany

Here's Paul Krugman, who won a Nobel in Economics for consistently saying that the economic policies of George W. Bush, the failed economic policies of the past 8 years, were bad, bad, bad.

Free to Lose - Paul Krugman

Consider, for a moment, a tale of two countries. Both have suffered a severe recession and lost jobs as a result — but not on the same scale. In Country A, employment has fallen more than 5 percent, and the unemployment rate has more than doubled. In Country B, employment has fallen only half a percent, and unemployment is only slightly higher than it was before the crisis.

Don’t you think Country A might have something to learn from Country B?

Well, if someone were genuinely curious about the question, he would first ask "From what baseline are both countries starting?"

This story isn’t hypothetical. Country A is the United States, where stocks are up, G.D.P. is rising, but the terrible employment situation just keeps getting worse. Country B is Germany, which took a hit to its G.D.P. when world trade collapsed, but has been remarkably successful at avoiding mass job losses. Germany’s jobs miracle hasn’t received much attention in this country — but it’s real, it’s striking, and it raises serious questions about whether the U.S. government is doing the right things to fight unemployment.

Mr. Krugman might want to amend that to read "has been remarkably successful at avoiding additional mass job losses."
He goes on to suggest new programs to pay employers for employees that they don't need, using money from, uhmmm....you.
But, I digress.
Here's the German unemployment rate, relative to the U.S.

Go here to see some additional history. Any U.S. political party that tried to emulate Germany's economic policies and results - 10% unemployment during the previous economic boom - would be thrown out.

Every now and then, we have to drop back and punt. If we aren't happy with the results, we throw out the current regime and put in a new one.

Don’t you think Country A might have something to learn from Country B?

No.

In closing, here's an October, 2009 article about German Chancellor Angela Merkel's next challenge: Germany's rising unemployment rate.

What the hell was Krugman thinking?

Die quickly, mainstream media. Die quickly.

Update from 8:00 p.m. Here's what Don Boudreaux of George Mason University had to say about Krugman's article. Posted a couple of hours after mine, and making the same points and then some.

What does this mean? It means that if GMU Economics Professors and Fort Worth Shipping Managers take time out of their day to rip your editorials to shreds, just because its so dang easy, you should consider hiring a fact-checker.

No one should have a drivers license without a high school diploma ??

I've been in Mississippi for my Aunt and Uncle's 50th wedding anniversary. I found this in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.

Living with Children
John Rosemond
Copyright 2009, John K. Rosemond

My oldest grandson, not yet 15, is already taking drivers education. In fact, he’s already been behind the wheel with his instructor, on an interstate highway no less. I’m resigned to his obtaining his license in a little more than a year. I’m not happy about it. I’m resigned. Mind you, he’s more trustworthy and responsible (in my objective opinion) than nine-point-nine out of ten of his peers. He’s a good if not great kid, and as my readers know, my standards are high. Still, I’m shaking my head in incredulous resignation.

Sir,
With a few truly disfunctional exceptions, everyone's grandchildren are more trustworthy and responsible than nine-point-nine out of ten peers. They are also better looking. Ask any grandparent.

Disclaimer: When my kids turned 16, each received a car from their hugely naïve parents. Would that I had some things to do over again.
Two weeks ago, a San Diego journalist called asking for some quotes for a story he’s doing on teenage drivers. The story was prompted by the recent automobile deaths of two San Diego teens in separate accidents. My beloved grandson’s life flashed in front of me.

I told said journalist that giving a drivers license to a teenage child (and if anyone has failed to notice, they are still children) under age 18 was like giving the kid a revolver with ten thousand chambers, only one of which is loaded with a bullet, and telling him to point it at his head and pull the trigger. Would any responsible parent do such a thing? Then, pray tell, why do otherwise responsible parents allow teenage children to obtain drivers licenses and provide them with cars?

Well, why do we let anyone drive? Why let anyone fly in an airplane? Why let anyone get out of bed in the morning, considering all the risks? Granted, teenagers are 10% of the population, but account for 12% of the automobile craches. The chart in that last link shows ages 16-20 accounting for 5,658 automobile deaths in 2006. That's a five year age span. But ages 21-24 accounted for 4,701 automobile deaths in just a four year age span. Do a little math to equalize the age brackets, either on the high end of the older age group, and the 21-24 (now the 21-25) age group has a higher fatality toll than the teenagers !
In other words, it's not quite honest to compare 5 years worth of teenage fatalities with only 4 years' of their elders. The elders are more dangerous.

When would I allow driving privileges? he asked. When two conditions were satisfied­—the 18th birthday and a high school diploma. Would that reduce the drop-out rate or what?

One thing you learn if you study statistics and economics for very long, even at the high school level: Half the high school kids are below average. I repeat, half the high school kids are below average. Just like half the florists, plumbers, morticians, doctors, fast food restaurants, Beatles albums and philosophy professors are below the "average" for florists, plumbers, morticians, etc.
A lot of those kids can't do high school work, just like a lot of their older brethren can't do college work. But many of them are great drivers. Many of them will become professional drivers. How in the heck do you justify tying high school proficiency to a drivers license?

The 16-year-old driving privilege was established when cars were less powerful, roads were less crowded, and 16-year-olds were considerably more mature than they are today. Furthermore, these laws were passed to allow teens to participate more fully in the operation of family farms. They were not passed with the intention that teens would drive for discretionary, largely recreational purposes.

That paragraph deserves a rant of its own. The government granting "privileges" to the serfs, based on lofty, noble "intentions", and whether or not the driving is discretionary, recreational, necessary, vital, or used to further the glorious ambitions of the state..... Naw. Let's don't get sidetracked.

Do teens need driving privileges, much less cars? Obviously not. In Europe, where teens seem to live satisfactory lives (by all measures, they are much happier on average than US teens), the driving age is 18. Even then, few young adults drive cars. They walk, ride bicycles, use public transportation, or putt around on scooters.
Someone clamors for my attention: “But John! Lots of small towns and rural areas don’t have public transportation!” But the same is true in Europe. And, to repeat, European teens are lots happier than they are on this side of the pond.

This reminds me of the first road trip we made to Oklahoma with our friend and employee Igor, who came from the former Yugoslavia. We were driving north on the I-35 wilderness between Fort Worth and Oklahoma City, seeing nothing but pasture for miles around. Igor finally broke the silence by saying "In my country, we put our towns closer together."

I suggest that the primary reason the driving age is not going to be raised any time soon is because the current law is a huge convenience to parents. They are not only relieved of having to transport the young licensee, but they can also assign him to driving younger siblings to after-school activities and the like. So even though these young drivers cannot vote, state legislators are going to protect their driving privileges. Given that interstate commerce is involved, we can only hope that Congress will take up the issue.

The kid drivers don't just transport younger siblings. They transport.... our parents. Their parents' parents. Think of the implications and reasons for that assignment. I trust my teenage daughter on I-20, and will take a nap in the car when she's driving. If my mother is driving, I'm on full alert. I usually go ahead and take the wheel.

Given the facts, which lead to the inescapable conclusion that giving driving privileges to a teen, any teen, puts the youngster at far, far more risk than letting a 5-year-old play outside unsupervised (which most of the same parents would not allow), I must conclude that this is not, to be polite, the most prudent of moves.

I'd like to see the data on that statement. I don't think anyone keeps records on the danger of letting 5-year-olds play outside unsupervised (although I played outside, unsupervised, both at home and in town quite a bit.) The idea of the current generation of Precious Snowflakes doing anything unsupervised is supposed to terrify us into agreement, though.

I invite anyone out there to justify this to me in rational terms. You can send your comments to me through my website at http://www.rosemond.com/.

Let's look at the data..... From the previous link:

Of Male drivers killed between 15 and 20 years of age 38% were speeding and 24% had been drinking and driving.
About 30% of teens reported that within the previous 30 days, they had been a passenger in a car with a driver who had been drinking alcohol. One in 10 teens said that they personally had driven after drinking alcohol.
Teen drivers killed in auto crashes after drinking and driving, 74% did not wear a seat belt.

And then from the chart. In 2006, 578 drivers who were killed were under 5 years old. 516 were age 5-9. 1079 were age 9-15.

It's illegal to speed, and it's already illegal to drink and drive. We have laws that say you have to wear a seat belt in an automobile. We have laws that prevent 5 year-olds from driving.

But all of those things still happen. Giving the Nanny State another sacrifice on the altar will merely result in more kids giving rides in larger groups. If there are five kids in a car, I want my kid to be the driver, and I don't care if my child is 15 and the others are 19. It's kinda like that grandparent thing, noted above.

We don't need more laws on the books to prevent bad things from happening to kids. Especially when there are more bad things happening to a slightly older group that is already allowed to vote.

Family psychologist John Rosemond’s latest book, The Well-Behaved Child, is now in bookstores.

My new career as a Rent-Seeker

Rent-Seeking behavior.
Once you understand it, you'll see it everywhere.

This morning's browsing unearthed two excellent posts on the subject.

Here's Captain Capitalism.

Here's Little Stevie Smith, at A Beginner's Guide To Freedom.

Stephen, meet The Captain. Captain, this is Stephen. In exchange for introducing you two and sending a smattering of traffic in your direction, I expect to be blogrolled, linked, and quoted liberally on your sites from now on. I'm lobbying Congress to make this a requirement for everything I link in the future. I have, after all, provided this valuable service, and expect to be compensated for it.

I also need grants and subsidies to support the employees I'll be hiring to monitor compliance on your sites. (This will create jobs AND stimulate the economy.) After all, if my employees don't monitor your sites, your sites would remain unmonitored.

Thank you both for being my first clients as a professional Rent-Seeker. My team will keep you posted about any new requirements.

UPS vs Fedex

I've had to do a lot of UPS vs Fedex comparisons lately.
Here's Nick Gillespie of Reason magazine with his opinion.

Happy Veterans Day

Thomas Sowell on the motivations and incentives of politicians

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.
This month, Saint Thomas gives us a variety of new observations to ponder, mostly on the perverse desires of those who would gain control over every aspect of our lives:

No statement is more unnecessary than the statement that the government should "do something" about some issue. Politicians are going to "do something," whether or not something needs to be done, and regardless of whether what they do makes matters better or worse. All their incentives are to keep themselves in the public eye.

Let us continue with a later next verse:

One of the few advantages to the country in having Congress overwhelmingly in the hands of one party is that the lack of need to compromise lets the leaders of that party reveal themselves for what they are-- in this case, people with unbounded arrogance and utter contempt for the right of ordinary people to live their lives as they see fit, much less the right to know as citizens what laws are going to be passed by their government. The question is whether voters will remember on election day in 2010.

The man has spoken.
Thus endeth the reading from The Gospel According To Saint Thomas.
You may be seated.
Those of you interested in other lessons from this sermon series from the writings of Saint Thomas may go here.

Fred Phelps, Gays, Jews, and Bullshit

Fred Phelps, the gay and lesbian hating minister of Westboro Baptist Church, recently took his "God Hates Fags" publicity circus to protest outside of Sidwell Friends, the Quaker-founded school attended by Sasha and Malia Obama.

This, of course, is crossing the line.

Phelps likes to protest near military funerals of servicemen and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. His "logic" is that God is punishing us with 9-11 and military failure because of our semi-acceptance of gays and lesbians.

When I started looking for something to post tonight, I figured I would trot out the Biblical Re-interpretation schtick I've been running with for the last few weeks....I could claim to discover that 2000 years of anti-homosexual persecution was due to a typo, and that God Hates Figs, not Fags. I could end the post by suggesting that Phelps go protest outside the headquarters of Fig Newton manufacturer Nabisco. It coulda been funny.

Then I started looking around the Fred Phelps/Westboro Baptist website. There's not much there to laugh about. First of all, they have a link to a charming site called Jews Killed Jesus.

Speaking of Jewish people, here's the Westboro Baptist protest and demonstration schedule schedule, along with Biblical commentary, from November 11th when the church planned to demonstrate outside the U.S. Holocaust Museum:

U.S. Holocaust Museum - You haven't seen ANYTHING, WAIT 4 IT 100 Raoul Wallenberg Pl. SW
The sorrow which some Jews experienced during the WWII Holocaust, at the hands of the vicious German, and other Gentiles is NOTHING compared to what the Lord Jesus Christ is going to inflict upon His return.
Check it out, suckers:
2 Thesalonians 1:5 Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which ye also suffer:
6 Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;
7 And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,
8 In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
9 Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;
10 When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.

Flaming fire = holocaust, dummies! The Lord Is Coming. AMEN!

In other words, the pain Hitler inflicted during the Holocaust was nothing compared to what the Holocaust victims are now enduring in Hell. You see, most of those unfortunate people who died in the camps weren't Christians. They didn't believe that Jesus was the one and only sacrifice for their sins. Therefore, God is having them tortured forever.

I'm sorry, but that's bullshit. Fred Phelps' interpretation of it, in my opinion, is 100% accurate. Whoever wrote it meant exactly and precisely what Phelps says it means. If you don't believe that God had a son who was also himself, who died horribly to get Himself to forgive us, then God/Son/Spirit are going to torture you forever. That's what those verses mean.

And that's bullshit. I've yet to meet a Christian who I can't persuade to privately affirm that it's bullshit. Mostly it's because they've never really thought about it. But once you think about it, you eventually realize that there is no Presbyterian Hell For The Torture Of Dead Babies. There is no hell filled with bewildered Asian non-Christians who died in the year 396 A.D. And Hitler's concentration camps weren't a preview of Hell for the Jews who suffered there.

It's the year 2009. We've been to the moon. We're mapping the human genome. I'm sitting in a dining room in Fort Worth, Texas and within an hour people will be reading these words in Australia, Europe, South America, and even Yazoo City, Mississippi. When will we outgrow our tribalism?

In my first 23 years, I read, studied, and memorized more Bible than many of you can imagine. A lot of it is merely false, and some of it is downright harmful. And that passage above, from 2nd Thesalonians? It's bullshit. It causes us to hate the people who aren't like us.

The Islamic beliefs of Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the gunman who killed 12 soldiers at Fort Hood? His religious beliefs that "infidels" should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats? That's tribalism. His religion caused him to hate people who weren't like him. Therefore....it's bullshit.

I'm tired of arguing with people who can't reference anything but bullshit. I'm tired of hearing people justify atrocities by reciting chapter and verse bullshit. I'm tired of enduring people who have no interest in learning about the origins of their bullshit or the evolution of their bullshit.

You can start to view the world through a lens of logic, reason, and basic decency, or you can remain loyal to Tribal Bullshit. Pick a side. Fred Phelps is waiting.

Little girl with God Hates Fags poster came from here.

Pre Traumatic Stress Disorder?

I hate to say this, but the U.S. mainstream media really can't die quickly enough. This is the money quote from the most recent Time magazine essay on the Fort Hood murders:

As an army psychiatrist treating soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, Major Nidal Malik Hasan had a front row seat on the brutal toll of war. It is too early to know exactly what may have triggered his murderous shooting rampage Thursday at Fort Hood — Hasan is accused of killing 12 people and wounding 32 others before he was wounded by a police officer — but it is not uncommon for therapists treating soldiers with Post Trumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.) to be swept up in a patient's displays of war-related paranoia, helplessness and fury.

There you have it: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder By Proxy. It is "not uncommon".

Thank God for the Brits. Why do I spend more and more time reading British and Australian accounts of our political events? Here's The Telegraph (U.K.):

Fort Hood gunman had told US military colleagues that infidels should have their throats cut
Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the gunman who killed 13 at America's Fort Hood military base, once gave a lecture to other doctors in which he said non-believers should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats.
He also told colleagues at America's top military hospital that non-Muslims were infidels condemned to hell who should be set on fire. The outburst came during an hour-long talk Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, gave on the Koran in front of dozens of other doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington DC, where he worked for six years before arriving at Fort Hood in July.

Colleagues had expected a discussion on a medical issue but were instead given an extremist interpretation of the Koran, which Hasan appeared to believe.

Fort Hood killer linked to September 11 terrorists.... It was the latest in a series of "red flags" about his state of mind that have emerged since the massacre at Fort Hood, America's largest military installation, on Thursday....

Red Flags? Nobody has lifted that many Red Flags since Chairman Mao died. Good Lord, for the past year Hasan did everything but behead some infidels in the mess hall, and he still got promoted to major. But I digress....

Here's someone named Jeffrey Goldberg, on the special status given to Muslims in the U.S. media:

Here's a simple test: If Nidal Malik Hasan had been a devout Christian with pronounced anti-abortion views, and had he attacked, say, a Planned Parenthood office, would his religion have been considered relevant as we tried to understand the motivation and meaning of the attack? Of course. Elite opinion makers do not, as a rule, try to protect Christians and Christian belief from investigation and criticism. Quite the opposite. It would be useful to apply the same standards of inquiry and criticism to all religions.

Here's a hint for Time magazine. If someone runs around shooting people while yelling Allahu Akbar (God Is Greatest), his religion might have something to do with the murders.

Hit that link to read about the eyewitnesses to Hasan yelling "Allahu Akbar". It'll take you to an excellent account that appeared in, uhmm, The Guardian (U.K.)

Projected Unemployment - with Porkulus, without Porkulus, and Reality Based

This is from Greg Mankiw's blog. Mankiw is an Economics professor at Harvard, where he teaches Econ 101 to our future elites, so they can forget everything he's taught them when they go to be our Lords And Masters in government (ahem) "service".

The light blue line shows what the Teleprompter Jesus predicted would happen if he wasn't allowed to throw $750,000,000.00 to Wall Street, the Unions, Detroit, ACORN, and various manufacturing friends. This 3/4 of a Trillion was to be spent on bridges, roads, and Turtle-Tunnels. This line blue line was generated by Team Obama prior to the bailout. At the time, this line represented the scariest unemployment number imaginable.

The dark blue unemployment line shows what the Teleprompter Jesus predicted would happen if we would just allow his buddies to get into your wallet. Or purse. Or, more accurately, your childrens' savings. This line looks a lot better than that light blue scary line, doesn't it? Once again, these were Team Obama's estimates. What a nice, soothing dark blue line.... Too bad it's as fake as....well....as fake as a thing that somebody made up to get their hands on some money.

The line composed of the red dots represents what has actually happened with unemployment in the real world, as opposed to the scenarios fabricated by The Chicago Gang. What direction do the red dots seem to be going?

Let me state this one more time, and I'll try to be brief. If you take money from taxpayers to "create" a job, it doesn't count. You're just moving money from the shallow end to the deep end of the pool. The people you're taking the money from don't get to choose which job the money is spent on. Nancy Pelosi gets to decide.

If you print money to "create" a job, that doesn't count either. It produces inflation, now or in the future. We've got a certain amount of money, and a certain amount of stuff. We use one to swap for the other.

Want to create some jobs, some great jobs? Lower the tax burden on business and individuals. Give entrepreneurs a reason to open a factory here, as opposed to, say, North Korea. Encourage the entrepreneurs to get filthy rich, Social Justice be damned. Otherwise, they're going to keep going John Galt on you, and sit on their hands until someone takes over in Washington who is slightly less full of Llama manure.

Want to create some more great jobs? Drop all this business about tax cuts for small and medium-sized businesses. Regardless of the Newspeak coming from D.C., corporations don't pay taxes. Individuals in those companies pay the taxes. Owners, investors, and employees. You don't think that the janitors at a mega-company receive less pay because of corporate taxes? Guess again. At least some of the money flushed to Washington comes out of their potential pay.

Next time some Student Council Refugee starts blathering about tax cuts for small and medium-sized business, he's talking about a tax cut for the #1,#2, and #3 people at those small companies. The #53,487th employee at the mega-corporation isn't eligible for this compassionate tax relief.

Want to create some more great jobs? De-regulate. De-regulate. De-regulate. Remember that the subprime mortgage/real estate crisis was caused by people following regulations to the letter.

Remember that employers aren't looking to hire indentured servants, dependents, or vassals who are going to be with the family for decades. Do you want to set up a business and be required to provide for the health insurance of other people? Do you want a piece of that? Well, most people don't. They also don't want to be lectured on the subject by a 3rd rate Community Organizer who couldn't organize a Chinese Fire Drill in a dead K-mart parking lot.

Let insurance companies operate anywhere in the U.S., so that changing jobs isn't such a risky endeavor. Is there anything that locks someone into a job more than insurance?

Want to do even more, especially for teenagers? End the fake "minimum wage". (The real minimum wage is Zero, and 26% of teenagers are now earning it, the most since World War II.) Let employers pay whatever they want to pay. Let workers agree to work for whatever wage they're willing to take. The teenagers would get some experience. The employers would get some help in a tough time. New businesses would take off. Next thing you know, the employers would have to pay the good workers more and more as they established themselves. It really would be "stimulative" for the economy. Millions of people would find work and make money, but we'll never do it. We're too compassionate.

Oh well. Those are the numbers. This is what we get when government must intervene. For government to do nothing would be irresponsible.

Note to the turtles: I hope you like the tunnels.

September 11th as Architectural Reform

During the unpleasantness of last November, I signed up as a supporter on all the political websites (Demoblican and Libertarian). and I still get mail from both. President Obama left this gem in my inbox sometime last night.

Whited --

This evening, at 11:15 p.m., the House of Representatives voted to pass their health insurance reform bill. Despite countless attempts over nearly a century, no chamber of Congress has ever before passed comprehensive health reform. This is history.

Where to begin, where to begin..... Let's start with the way we use the word "reform". If you destroy something, are you reforming it? Were the 9-11 attacks "Architectural Reform"? In 1941, did the Japanese Air Force carry out a policy of "Naval Reform" at Pearl Harbor? Did Jack The Ripper carry out a policy of Prostitute Reform? Yes, this is history.

But you and millions of your fellow Organizing for America supporters didn't just witness history tonight -- you helped make it. Each "yes" vote was a brave stand....

Brave? Person A takes money from person B to give to person C, so that C will support A in the next election? That's bravery?

.... backed up by countless hours of knocking on doors, outreach in town halls and town squares, millions of signatures, and hundreds of thousands of calls. You stood up. You spoke up. And you were heard.

Speaking of knocking on someone's door, reaching out in a town hall, and making a few thousand phone calls, Joe Cao of Louisiana was the only Republican who voted for this abortion, mostly because it won't allow federal funds to be used for abortions. Please contact Joe, and let him know how you feel about him voting to give government control of the medical industry (because it will keep government out of the abortion industry).
Thank God for Louisiana. Their politicians make those of Texas and Mississippi look like the Founding Fathers.

So this is a night to celebrate -- but not to rest. Those who voted for reform deserve our thanks, and the next phase of this fight has already begun.

Like I said, hit the link. Thank Joe.

The final Senate bill hasn't even been released yet, but the insurance companies are already pressing hard for a filibuster to bury it. OFA has built a massive neighborhood-by-neighborhood operation to bring people's voices to Congress, and tonight we saw the results. But the coming days will put our efforts to the ultimate test. Winning will require each of us to give everything we can, starting right now.

Please donate $5 or whatever you can afford so we can finish this fight.

I suggest you hang onto your $5.00 and start hoarding penicillin.

Tonight's vote brought every American closer to the secure, affordable care we need. But it was also a watershed moment in how change is made.

I just woke up the Sepulchral Wife, half the neighbors, and all 12 dachshunds, banging my head through the refrigerator door. Can ANYONE name something that our government has voluntarily made more affordable? (Note: spreading the costs around to people still in diapers doesn't count.) Your share of the national debt is already near $40,000.00 Your share of the unfunded future liability is somewhere between $350,000.00 and $400,000.00

Safe. Secure. Affordable. As long as you die within 5 years. Everyone after that is screwed.

Even after last year's election, many insider lobbyists and partisan operatives really thought that the old formula of scare tactics....

Here's Thomas Sowell, on the use of scare tactics: What is so wrong with the current medical system in the United States that we are being urged to rush headlong into a new government system that we are not even supposed to understand, because this legislation is to be rushed through Congress before even the Senators and Representatives have a chance to read it?

....D.C. back-scratching and special-interest money would still be enough to block any idea they didn't like. Now, they're desperate. Because, tonight, you made it crystal clear: the old rules are changing -- and the people will not be ignored.

Here's some more from The Good Doctor Sowell: All this makes a farce of the notion of a "public option" that will simply provide competition to keep private insurance companies honest. What politicians can and will do is continue to drive up the cost of private insurance until it is no longer viable. A "public option" is simply a path toward a "single payer" system, a euphemism for a government monopoly.

In other words, the D.C. back-scratchers and special interests are buzzing around this thing like green flies swarming over a fresh cow patty. (That additional commentary is mine, not Dr. Sowell's)

In the final phases of last year's election, I often reminded folks, "Don't think for a minute that power concedes without a fight," and it's especially true today. But that's okay -- we're not afraid of a fight. And as you continue to prove, when all of us work together, we have what it takes to win.

Yep. Anyone robbing Peter to pay Paul will always have the support of Paul. And Joe Cao. Here's Cao going home to read what he voted for. This YouTube is actually on his website:

Please donate to OFA's campaign to win this fight and ensure that real health reform reaches my desk by the end of this year:

https://donate.barackobama.com/History

I'm tempted to hit the link and send the damn fool some money. If he sends out emails this funny for free, no telling what I can get for $5.00.

Here's Jerry Pournelle: With Detroit a ruin and manufacturing industries on the ropes, small business is the only possible engine of recovery from what they don't call a Depression; so the Congress is going to add an 8% tax on employing people. We already have the longest period of increasing unemployment since the Great Depression; I presume we are going for a really big record setting period of increasing unemployment.

What incentives people have to invest and create new jobs in this environment is pretty murky now; with the health bill there will be fewer incentives to invest in new jobs in the US. The incentives are now to the job black market -- hire illegal immigrants who don't have to have health insurance -- or to export the job if that can possibly be done.

Let's keep making history,

President Barack Obama