Al Gore's carbon footprint expands again.

Let's start this post with a profanity alert.  If you're offended by Baptists cussing a lot, read no further. 

Ok, let's assume for a moment that humans cause global warming.  Not by making God angry, the way the evangelists claim that the gays and lesbians in New Orleans made God angry prior to hurricane Katrina.  Not by offending Allah, the way the Iranian mullahs claim that women exposing too much of their breasts causes earthquakes. 
Let's assume that humans cause global warming in the way that Al Gore - The Goracle Of Music City Tennessee - claims that we cause global warming: our "carbon footprints" are too big.  Our homes require too much heat and air conditioning.  We waste water. 

Next, let's assume that this article in The L.A. Times is not filled with typos.  Let's assume that the person who wrote it wasn't drunk. 

Former Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, have added a Montecito-area property to their real estate holdings, reports the Montecito Journal.


The couple spent $8,875,000 on an ocean-view villa on 1.5 acres with a swimming pool, spa and fountains, a real estate source familiar with the deal confirms. The Italian-style house has six fireplaces, five bedrooms and nine bathrooms.

I have no idea how many square feet of house are required to accomodate 6 fireplaces.  I don't know why Al and Tipper need five bedrooms.  But I do have theories about Big Al's biological composition, and why nine bathrooms are a requirement.  The man is full of more shit than the latrines at Fort Pemberton. 

I believe that seatbelts could save my life if I'm in an accident.  Therefore, I wear a seatbelt.  I'm starting to believe that what I've been eating and drinking for the last 40 years could kill me.  Therefore, I'm now watching what I eat.  But if Al Gore believes that we are causing global warming, I'll kiss his ass on the courthouse steps and give him thirty minutes beforehand to draw a crowd.   His behavior does not match his rhetoric, except in the smallest symbolic gestures. 

My online friend in Korea, Cedric Katesby, recently mailed me a treasure-trove of good books.  The one I'm currently reading is called "Why People Believe Weird Things". 

I don't have a copy in front of me right now, but one of the great chapter headings goes something like this: "Smart people often believe weird things, because they're so good (smart) at defending beliefs they adopted for non-smart reasons". 

A lot of people side with The Goracle on global warming simply because he's a Democrat.  To oppose him is to give aid and comfort to the enemy.  Well, whatever floats your boat.  Yeah, we should protect the environment.  But we can safely discount Gore's claims that unless we give him money, the oceans will boil.

He.   Does.   Not.   Believe.   It. 
 
You can hit the "Al Gore" label at the bottom of this post and see that Gore doesn't believe any of this mess.  Not a word. 

He's all set to become the world's first carbon-control billionaire. 
He calls his investments "putting his money where his mouth is". 
Bullshit. 
He wants to require YOU to put YOUR money where his mouth is. 

The scale and magnitude of the scam he's trying to execute is beyond anything we've ever seen before. 
He's the most hypocritical son of a bitch that God put guts in. 

The smart people who continue to defend him should admit that they do so for non-smart reasons.

On San Francisco's city employee travel boycott

Let me get this out of the way first.....
If it weren't for the entitlement giveaways that our politicians throw out as if every day were Mardi Gras, I would favor "open borders". 
(Yeah, we would have to stop pissing off the rest of the world, which would greatly reduce the chances that someone would bring in a nuke from Toronto.  And we would have to reduce the size of government by about 90%, so the Statists would have nothing to gain by importing more Statist voters.  Probably a fantasy, but it would be nice.  The #1 predictor of whether you'll be wealthy or miserable?  The lines of latitude and longitude where you happen to be born.  That ain't right.) 

Anyway, because of the Arizona's recent crackdown on illegal immigrants, the city of San Francisco is banning travel by all of their city employees to Arizona.  Here's the San Francisco Chronicle's City Insider Blog:

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced today a moratorium on official city travel to Arizona after the state enacted a controversial new immigration law that directs local police to arrest those suspected of being in the country illegally.
The ban on city employee travel to Arizona takes effect immediately, although there are some exceptions, including for law enforcement officials investigating a crime, officials said. It's unclear how many planned trips by city workers will be curtailed.

I like that a lot.  I hope that Los Angeles, San Diego, Fresno, and Long Beach do the same thing.  And on the other hand, I hope that Phoenix, Tucson, Tempe, and Tombstone Arizona retaliate by not allowing their employees travel to anywhere in California.  Or anywhere else. 

I hope the Fort Worth, Texas, City Council doesn't allow its city employees to travel anywhere at all.  I hope that they tell all city employees to stay their asses at home and repair the potholes that are all over the East Side. 

It would be nice if the Booger Den, Mississippi, City Council declared that there would be no more travel on the government tit.  Never ever. 

Why restrict this protest to the city and town level?  I think the world would be a better place if Obama had a sit-down with Hillary and told her something like, "Mrs. Clinton, they've passed a racist, fascist, hate-filled anti-immigration law in Arizona.  And in protest, I need you to stay out of Arizona, China, Israel, Jordan, Africa, and Mexico.  Stay home."   

Would we have more money in the Treasury if we told our defense employees that they couldn't spend any more time defending, say, Germany and Japan, and that those nations were going to have to provide their own defense?  Would our boys and girls currently fighting in the Middle East Sandbox be better off it we told them to come home and get their feet back under their Mamas' kitchen tables?  Let's get them back to defending the borders, and nothing else.  That would solve any and all immigration "problems" right there.

The San Francisco Government Travel Boycott - may it spread far and wide.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The cartoon came from here. 

Neighborhood Hope & Change lab busted

From Op-Toons:

Lorrington, Wisconsin--Police busted another hope and change lab in a Madison suburb yesterday, saying it was "one of the worst we've seen."

Law enforcement officials said unemployed youth were "sucking so hard to extract anything they could from empty hope containers, they were hyperventilating before they passed out."


Police said they were tipped off to the hope and change lab because neighbors said the kids next door were laughing nervously, slurring their speech, and walking listlessly into local coffee shops.

You can go here to read about other groups going through withdrawal. 
And go here to add Op-Toons to your favorites list. 

Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen express their concern for the planet

Here's a 30-second video of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady asking us to turn off all our lights for Earth Hour. 



Brady's wife, ultra-super-duper-model Gisele Bundchen, has been named the U.N.'s "environmental ambassador" because of her willingness to make environmentally-correct noises whenever someone pulls the string in the back of her neck.  Here's a sample quote:

On climate change, Gisele noted, "Climate change is something we can't deny? It affects all of us. At the end of the day, it's our planet ? we all have to feel accountable."

Here's a picture of the new Brady/Bundchen home. Lord have mercy.

All Prius-driving, toilet paper-recycling, cow fart-suppressing Disciples Of The Cult Of Gore just had their efforts negated.
This monster has 20,000 square feet of space, with an elevator and a freakin' lagoon.  It has a SIX CAR GARAGE. 

The new Brady/Bunchen Carbon Blaster is even worse than Al Gore's house.

It's not quite as bad as Thomas Friedman's house. 

But it is incredible. 
I'll believe that we have an environmental crisis when all the Global Warming spokesmodels start living like it is a crisis. 

Picture from the anti-Palin protest in Eugene Oregon

I don't know if everyone got the email about Eugene being a Hate Free Zone....

On devalued currency

Here's an old one dollar bill from the 1920's.  It's a "silver certificate", meaning that you could swap it for one dollar's worth of silver.  The current one dollar bills couldn't be swapped for enough silver to fill a gnat's rear end.  Our government has printed too many of them. 

See this picture of Andrew Jackson?  In 1905, a $20.00 bill could be swapped for $20.00 worth of stuff, including gold. 
If you made the foolish decision to save a $20.00 bill from that era, it will now only purchase 5% of what it could in 1905.

This hundred dollar bill will only do the job once done by a $5.00 bill.  The Federal Reserve system, created in the early 1900's to stabilize our currency, has succeeded in destroying 95% of our currency's value. 

And if you've got any of these, you might want to spend them now.  If current trends continue, they're going to have to print enough of them for all of us. 

This is a variation of a chain email sent to me by The Whited Mama. 

Jonah Goldberg: There are no socialists

I found a link to this Jonah Goldberg piece on the Cafe Hayek site.  Am copying a vast section of it here so I can force myself to memorize huge chunks of it:

If by "capitalist" you mean someone who cares more about his own profit than yours; if you mean someone who cares more about providing for his family than providing for yours; if you mean someone who trusts that he is a better caretaker of his own interests and desires than a bureaucrat he's never met, often in a city he's never been to: then we are all capitalists. Because, by that standard, capitalism isn't some far-off theory about the allocation of capital; it is a commonsense description of what motivates pretty much all human beings everywhere.

And that was one of the reasons why the hard socialism of the Soviet Union failed, and it is why the soft socialism of Western Europe is so anemic. At the end of the day, it is entirely natural for humans to work the system--any system--for their own betterment, whatever kind of system that may be. That's why the black-market economy of the Soviet Union might have in fact been bigger than the official socialist economy. That is why devoted socialists worked the bureaucracy to get the best homes, get their kids into the best schools, and provide their families with the best food, clothes, and amenities they could. Just like people in capitalist countries.

(And it's why Shasha and Malia Obama are going to a private academy instead of one of their Daddy's hellholes.) 
It's why labor unions demanded exemptions and "carve-outs" from Obamacare for their own health-care plans. And why very rich liberals still try their best to minimize their taxes.

The problem with socialism is socialism, because there are no socialists. Socialism is a system based upon an assumption about human nature that simply isn't true. I can design a perfect canine community in which dogs never chase squirrels or groom their nether regions in an indelicate manner. But the moment I take that idea from the drawing board to the real world, I will discover that I cannot get dogs to behave against their nature--at least not without inflicting a terrible amount of punishment. Likewise, it's easy to design a society that rewards each according to his need instead of his ability. The hard part is getting the crooked timber of humanity to yield to your vision.

And it's also why the problem with capitalism is capitalists. Some people will always abuse the system and take things too far. Some will do it out of the hubris of intellect. Some will do it out of the venality of greed.

I bring all of this up because many in Washington seem convinced that the solution to the problem with capitalists is always less capitalism. To be sure, a free-market society is in some sense a government program. The government must prosecute criminality, enforce contracts, and demand that the rules be observed. Few lovers of free markets are so laissez-faire as to want to strip the government of its role as referee.

But few should want the ref to suit up and play the game.

Why big corporations love government regulations

Remember a couple of years ago when the toys from China were found to be contaminated with lead paint?
Our Nanny State passed a bunch of regulations designed to end the lead paint menace.  All toys have to go through an expensive, time-consuming testing process prior to sale.  Used toy dealers have to do the same. 

This has put a lot of the smaller toy manufacturing companies out of business.  Many thrift stores simply don't carry used toys any longer.  Who can afford to do all that testing just to sell a used toy?

But what about Mattel, the giant toymaker who imported the poison toys in the first place?

They get a free pass.  They are, after all, Mattel.  They don't have to get independent testing on their products. 
Here's the Hot Air blog:

So let’s get this straight. Mattel buys millions of items from China that violate American product-safety laws and standards. Congress reacts by punishing the entire industry, especially those small businesses that can’t afford independent testing, especially on products that don’t really need it. Thrift stores can’t resell merchandise without testing, making their business model impossible and threatening the charities that rely on those sales. Meanwhile, the economy of scale means that this law gives Mattel a competitive advantage from their own malfeasance — and they get the waiver on independent testing?

Yesterday, we discussed crony capitalism. This is exactly what is meant. This is a perfect example of government picking winners and losers in the marketplace through legislation written to be sympathetic to big businesses, and an enforcement mechanism that favors the big players even beyond the legislation Congress passed. Mattel can push its smaller competitors out of business, or force them into buyouts, because they broke the law in the first place.

Exactly.  It's For The Children™ .
Just wait until these clowns finish regulating Wall Street. 

What to do with your new Tim Geithner currency:

As you probably know, the Secretary Of The Treasury gets to put his name on all the new currency.
As you probably know, the Secretary Of The Treasury went out of his way to avoid paying his taxes, despite his advocacy of lots and lots of new taxes. 
Go here to order your Tim Geithner "Tax Cheat" stamp. 
Yeah, it's supposed to be a crime to deface currency.  It's also a crime to be a tax cheat. 
Call it Civil Disobedience.  A consciousness-raising event. 

And surprise, surprise, the guy who is selling the "Tax Cheat" stamps is now the victim of an audit from Geithner's Goon Squad.  Go here to contribute to his defense fund. 

John Stossel on Myths About Capitalism

If you didn't catch John Stossel last night, there's still time.  Fox Business channel reruns each feature about 4 times.
Last night was about American myths.  Here's Michael Medved on myth #4:

Myth No. 4: The current downturn means the death of capitalism.

"Capitalism is alive and well," Medved said.
"I'm also bugged when people argue that today's problems prove that capitalism "failed." What failed? We had a correction. A bubble popped. But from 1982 to now, the Dow rose from 800 to 11,000. Had it happened without the bubble, we'd say this is one of the great boom periods.
Medved added: "This is one of the biggest lies — the idea that because of capitalism, we're all suffering. ... Poor people in America today, people who are officially in poverty, have a higher standard of living in terms of medical standards, in terms of the chances of going to college, in terms of the way people live, than middle-class people did 30 years ago. It's an extraordinary achievement of technology and of the profit sector."

On a related note, here are some stats from The Austrian Economists site:

% Households with:	Poor 1984	Poor  1994	Poor 2003	Poor 2005	All 1971	All 2005
Washing machine	58.2	71.7	67.0	68.7	71.3	84.0
Clothes dryer	35.6	50.2	58.5	61.2	44.5	81.2
Dishwasher	13.6	19.6	33.9	36.7	18.8	64.0
Refrigerator	95.8	97.9	98.2	98.5	83.3	99.3
Freezer	29.2	28.6	25.4	25.1	32.2	36.6
Stove	95.2	97.7	97.1	97.0	87.0	98.8
Microwave	12.5	60.0	88.7	91.2	1.0	96.4
Color TV	70.3	92.5	96.8	97.4	43.3	98.9
VCR	3.4	59.7	75.4	83.6	0.0	92.2
Personal computer	2.9	7.4	36.0	42.4	0.0	67.1
Telephone	71.0	76.7	87.3	79.8	93.0	90.6
Air conditioner	42.5	49.6	77.7	78.8	31.8	85.7
Cellular Telephone			34.7	48.3	0.0	71.3
One or more cars	64.1	71.8	72.8 (2001)		79.5

Ah, the failures of free market capitalism....
Remember to watch John Stossel.

Picture worth at least a thousand words

Dr. Ralph sent this to me from Pundit Kitchen. 

The Texas Trade Surplus

From a Slate.com essay on why Texas is doing so much better than the rest of the nation:

....(Texas) surpassed California several years ago as the nation's largest exporting state. Manufactured goods like electronics, chemicals, and machinery account for a bigger chunk of Texas' exports than petroleum does. In the first two months of 2010, exports of stuff made in Texas rose 24.3 percent, to $29 billion, from 2009.

That's about 10 percent of the nation's total exports. There are more than 700,000 Texan jobs geared to manufacturing goods for export, according to Patrick Jankowski, vice president of research at the Greater Houston Partnership. "A lot of it is capital goods that the Asian, Latin American, and African [countries] are using to build their economies."

So....should these Asian, Latin American, and African countries worry about their trade deficit with Texas? 
Heck no. 

What matters is how much "stuff" you swap, and who you're swapping with doesn't matter.  It's all about trades per hour.   
Should Fort Worth residents worry about their trade deficits with cities on the other side of Highway 360 ?
Should Texas residents worry about their trade deficits with states on the other side of the Red River?
How about countries on the other side of the Rio Grande? 
Or the Pacific? 

The lines of latitude and longitude of the factory simply...do....not....matter.  The more you restrict trade, the fewer options your manufacturers have for sourcing raw materials and for exporting finished products. 
Penalizing trade serves no purpose but to negate the gains provided to society by technology, labor, ingenuity, determination and progress. 
If Target or J.C. Penney has a sale on items that you want to purchase, would you avoid those stores because the low prices aren't fair to Wal-Mart? 

Illinois Protesters: Raise My Taxes !

From The Chicago Tribune:

SPRINGFIELD --- Thousands of protesters bused down by labor unions and social service advocates rallied at the Capitol today in an attempt to pressure state lawmakers into raising the income tax to avoid more budget cuts.....

"Raise my taxes! Raise my taxes! Raise my taxes!" they chanted, lined up shoulder to shoulder for a few hundred yards stretching a street in front of the Capitol.

(See all the homemade, witty, and creative signs these protesters are using to display their commitment to their cause?  What a spontaneous, diverse, grassroots group !  You can go here for the complete photo gallery.) 

....Jennifer Ritchason, a middle school social students teacher in Bloomington, came armed with hundreds of letters from her students asking legislators for more money for schools. She said she hopes the children’s words will resonate with the governor and House Speaker Michael Madigan, among other legislators the letters are addressed to.

“If you don’t care about your future, I don’t know what you can truly care about,” she said.

Well, Jinny, there are lots of ways to care about the future. 
Here's a chart showing Federal Spending vs. Federal Revenue.  I care about it deeply.  O so deeply:

Well, you say, if taxes aren't rising as fast as spending, shouldn't we be paying more taxes?  Or should we take a long hard look at where the tax money is going? 
Here's a look at what we're now throwing down the Government School Rathole, as compared to 1970:

See the flatlines running along the bottom?  That's not Jimmy Hoffa's pulse rate.  Those are the reading, math, and science scores. 
The government spending line in blue has been adjusted for inflation.  I suspect that the flatlines at the bottom have been adjusted upward for grade inflation also. 

I'm so tired of banging on this particular drum. 
1) If you want to pay more taxes, pay more taxes.  Don't go on talk shows or attend protests demanding that your rates be raised.  Just pay more taxes.  It's easy.  Don't take any deductions.  Write the check for 50% more than you have to.  Then explain your actions to the men in white coats, because your friends and family are going to call them. 
2) With the possible exceptions of a few things relating to infrastructure and the use of force, everything that is privatized runs more efficiently than things that aren't privatized.  Don't bother bringing up G.M. or Chrysler as examples to the contrary.  No one reading this woulda voluntarily contributed their own money to saving those companies.  In the real world, businesses that don't work properly go under. 
3) Can you imagine the employees of Microsoft, Target, Exxon, or Starbucks taking to the streets with signs, demanding that we, their customers, give them more money?  If you felt that they deserved it, would you shop there more?  Or would you politely hint that they get a job with better hours, pay and benefits elsewhere?
4) Does anybody know anyone who has been laid off from a government job in the last two years? 

The Salt Ban

From The Washington Post:

In a complicated undertaking, the FDA would analyze the salt in spaghetti sauces, breads and thousands of other products that make up the $600 billion food and beverage market, sources said. Working with food manufacturers, the government would set limits for salt in these categories, designed to gradually ratchet down sodium consumption. The changes would be calibrated so that consumers barely notice the modification.

The legal limits would be open to public comment, but administration officials do not think they need additional authority from Congress.
"This is a 10-year program," one source said. "This is not rolling off a log. We're talking about a comprehensive phase-down of a widely used ingredient. We're talking about embedded tastes in a whole generation of people."
The FDA, which regulates most processed foods, would be joined in the effort by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees meat and poultry.

Please remember one thing.....
These are the people who used to recommend between 6 and 11 servings per day of grains and starches, a habit that made many Americans fat enough to have our their gravitational fields.

I'm not betting that they're wrong. 

I don't doubt that they mean well. 

We should do all things in moderation, including salt intake, gambling, eating, spending, and bombing Arabs.  But this salt ban sounds like something they're going to screw up.  Fifty years from now, look for a lot of kids suffering from Hyponatremia.  Or asking their neighborhood drug pusher for salt tablets. 

From Thomas Jefferson

Found it on Tom Lewis's blog.

Bill Clinton: Remember what led to Oklahoma City (and, unhhh....forget about Waco)

In which Radley Balko takes Bill Clinton to the woodshed:

In today’s New York Times, Bill Clinton once again tries to tie the Oklahoma City bombing to those of us who hold “the belief that the greatest threat to American freedom is our government, and that public servants do not protect our freedoms, but abuse them.”

Of course he sort of proves those of us who do believe such things right by continually using April 19 to tie us to a deranged murderer instead of acknowledging, taking some responsibility for, or expressing any remorse whatsoever for another anniversary we observe today: the Clinton administration’s slaughter of 76 people, including 20 children, at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. Waco gets all of a sentence in Clinton’s op-ed.

Wow.  Bill should have checked his calendar a more closely before hitting the "send" key on that one. 
Clinton's NYT OpEd is nothing more than the latest step in the administration's opposition demonization program:  The Tea Party protesters are all racists.  Opposition to The Obamessiah is unpatriotic.  How could you dare say that you want the President to fail.  If you oppose The Teleprompter Jesus, you're encouraging irresponsible behavior. 
Well, good luck to 'em.  They're going to need it.  Here's something else from Balko's site:  A Pew Research survey that goes all the way back to Ike.  It charts the level of "trust in government".

As a libertarian, of course, you want to see this line dipping on down into the single digits until government is trusted with nothing more than roads, sewers, protecting the borders, and selling raffle tickets for their annual fund-raiser.

Back to Balko.  Here's are his closing paragraphs:

The thing is, Mr. Former President, if I may address you directly, is there are far too may public servants who, as you put it, “do not protect our freedoms, but abuse them.” I document them every day on this site. And so despite your admonition, I will continue to criticize them for it. And when, for example, they out and out murder innocent people in the name of a senseless, wasteful, and fundamentally illiberal policy (a policy, incidentally, that you enthusiastically support, despite your admission that you yourself have broken the country’s drug laws), I’ll go ahead and, to borrow your word, demonize them for it.


And you know what? I won’t feel the slightest tinge of guilt about doing so. Nor will I feel the least bit of responsibility for acts of anti-government violence, past or future, even when they’re committed in the name of one or more ideas I might otherwise endorse.

Because fundamentally and categorically, I repudiate the use of force and violence to impose my beliefs, political philosophy, or policy preferences on other people. Until you can say the same thing, Mr. Former President (and we both know you can’t), you can spare me your goddamned lecture.

Happy 4-20

From Snopes.com:

It's both more and less than people make it out to be. '420' began its sub-rosa linguistic career in 1971 as a bit of slang casually used by a group of high school kids at San Rafael High School in California. '420' (always pronounced "four-twenty," never "four hundred and twenty") came to be an accepted part of the argot within that group of about a dozen pot smokers, beginning as a reminder of the time they planned to meet to light up, 4:20 p.m. Keep in mind this wasn't a general call to all dope smokers everywhere to toke up at twenty past four every day; it was twelve kids who'd made a date to meet near a certain statue. It's thus incorrect to deem that '420' originated as a national or international dope-smoking time, even though the term began as a reference to a particular time of day.

These days '420' is used as a generic way of declaring one likes to use marijuana or just as a term for the substance itself. Its earliest connotation of having to do with the time a certain group of students congregated to smoke wacky tobaccy is unknown to the overwhelming majority of those who now employ the term.

Here's a short little video on why marijuana is illegal.  The answer, of course, is politics. 



I'm indirectly responsible for the drug-testing program for one section of my company, and I support the program 100%.   If employers don't want to hire people who smoke dope, drink alcohol, cuss, don't love Jesus, or are left-handed, that's nobody's business but their own. 
But should any of the above be criminalized, as long as smoking dope, drinking alcohol, cussing, failing to love Jesus, or being left-handed harms no one else? 
No.  Absolutely not. 

Happy 4-20 ! 

Blackjack And Taxes

I love to play blackjack.  Love it, love it, love it. 

The odds are good, relatively speaking.  The house has a relatively small advantage, which I can usually overcome.  I do this by having God on my side, and doubling down after losses. 

My employers at Jukt Micronics love, love, love to go way out on a limb, putting everything at risk, to try to make money by selling goods and services to grocery stores.  They often place "bets" that make my blackjack strategy look rational. 

I will not ever, ever, ever play blackjack in Oklahoma.  Oklahoma casinos have a weird little rule mandating that players put an additional chip in a special "dealer" circle prior to every hand.  There is no way for the player to come out ahead when playing blackjack in Oklahoma.  Not using my strategy, anyway.  I'll bet $5.00 to try to win $10.00, but I won't bet $6.00.   Therefore, I avoid playing blackjack in Oklahoma. 
After all, there are only two things that can happen when using my strategy:  I can loose everything, or I can double my money.  I'm not going to put my money at risk for the possibility of a less-than optimal payout. 

The Jukt Micronics President and CEO have choices also.  They can continue to take risks, putting their money where their ideas are and creating meaningful jobs and excellent products that people want. 
But are they going to continue to take these risks if Washington continues to enforce a greater and greater tax penalty for success? 

At some point, they're going to start avoiding risk the way that I avoid Oklahoma casinos.  They'll either start playing elsewhere, where the penalties for success are lower, or they'll avoid the game altogether for a few election cycles. 

Go here to read an excellent piece from The Cato Institute about the increasing number of people becoming "Tax Traitors".  That's Washington's word for them, not mine.  I prefer the term "smart gamblers".

From 1880

I found this on Libertarian Reddit:

Let’s consider, say, the year 1880. Here was a society in which people were free to keep everything they earned, because there was no income tax. They were also free to decide what to do with their own money—spend it, save it, invest it, donate it, or whatever. People were generally free to engage in occupations and professions without a license or permit. There were few federal economic regulations and regulatory agencies. No Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, bailouts, or so-called stimulus plans. No IRS. No Departments of Education, Energy, Agriculture, Commerce, and Labor. No EPA and OSHA. No Federal Reserve. No drug laws. Few systems of public schooling. No immigration controls. No federal minimum-wage laws or price controls. A monetary system based on gold and silver coins rather than paper money. No slavery. No CIA. No FBI. No torture or cruel or unusual punishments. No renditions. No overseas military empire. No military-industrial complex. As a libertarian, as far as I’m concerned, that’s a society that is pretty darned golden.

Another example of the Nanny State at work:

Thank God for Qatar, Norway, The Netherlands, France, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, and France. They make us look fiscally responsible ! !

From The Washington Times:

Americans are used to taking comfort in the fact that European countries such as Sweden, France and Finland are inefficient "welfare states." Even if American competitiveness slacks off a bit, the thinking goes, we'll always be on top because the United States would never allow government to get as burdensome as it is in socialist foreign lands. It's time to start thinking differently as the U.S. bureaucracy expands to record levels.

....even after adjusting for differences in the cost of living and the number of citizens in each country, total U.S. government spending per capita in 2009 exceeded that of all but eight nations in the world. More than 95 percent of countries have smaller relative governments than we do. In total, U.S. government spending came to $17,400 per capita, or about $70,000 for a family of four. The per capita cost of our government is much more than the per capita income of most of the world.

(These numbers do not yet include the increased costs due to ObamaCare™ or the upcoming Porkulus spending.  Plus you could leave out the money we're borrowing from China to protect Japan and Taiwan from China, plus all other defense spending, and we'd still be ahead of 93% of other countries in non-defense spending per capita.)

....We can't afford to throw away $70,000 on government for a family of four. If that fortune weren't funding the bureaucratic leviathan, it would be invested, saved or spent on consumer products people want.

Hell, we're even spending more money than some of the "Social Democrat" nations that provide healthcare, 4-week vacations, subsidized everything, and guaranteed employment, all from cradle to grave.  From erection to resurrection.  Where the hell is the money going? 

It could be used for productive purposes to get the economy moving again. Instead, the money goes down a rathole, dragging America's competitive edge with it.

Just think....They are spending, I repeat, they are spending $17,000.00, per year of your money.  And for what ??? 
You can tax the rich and the fortunate wealthy.  You can apply a punitive tax to Wal-Mart.  You can confiscate every penny from every American earning more than $250,000.00 per year.  All you'll be doing is giving them incentives to stop being productive, or force them to raise the prices of the goods and services that they provide. 
We have to stop voting for people who want to spend money.  We have to stop. 
Socialist flag pics came from here and here. 

What "Turning The Corner" Looks Like

To paraphrase Vice-President Biden, this is one Big F***ing Graph:

I found it over at the Ace Of Spades HQ. 

From the comments: 
So this is what Barry's laser like focus on the economy gets you.

And then:
Yeah, if he applied such focus to foreign policy we'd be at war with everybody but the Cubans.

Please, please, please.....stop the politically motivated violence

I've begged and begged, numerous times over the last few weeks.....
The politically motivated violence associated with anti-Obama sentiment has GOT TO STOP ! 
But it got out of hand again yesterday. 

Dial it back, people, dial it back.  The mainstream media groups are watching. 
They are watching, aren't they? 

Hello, media ???   Are you there?  Anybody reporting on this? 

Oh.  Sorry.  This incident doesn't fit the preferred narrative. 

My bad.   

Lewis Black doesn't think that Lewis Black pays enough taxes. So he has a tax accountant do his taxes.

I watched this Lewis Black/Anderson Tucker interview during last night's Mandatory Treadmill Time.  It's part of the celebrity guilt festival that we see every tax day:

You'll have to go here for the very brief clip.  YouTube won't let me embed this one. 

If Lewis Black feels that he doesn't pay enough taxes, he should simply pay more taxes. 
If Lewis Black believes believes he doesn't pay enough taxes, but has hired a tax accountant?  He should fire the tax accountant.  It really is that simple. 
If Lewis Black feels that he should "give something back", he should continue to produce stand-up comedy routines, bestselling books, and all the other things that have made him one of the top 10% earners in the U.S.   "Giving something back" is not a synonym for "Flushing it down the toilet". 

End of rant. 

Well, Congress just wanted you to know that they're, like, keeping an eye on you

The witch hunts that I wrote about a few weeks ago have been cancelled.

Henry Waxman (D-Mars) has cancelled the show trials Congressional hearings that would have given congress a chance to grill the CEO's who have written off upcoming losses due to ObamaCare™
Turns out that Waxman's own accounting rules required the companies in question to report the write-offs exactly as they did it, and when they did it. 
Go here. 

Things that don't fit the preferred narrative

But I thought the Tea Party movement was filled with ignernt hillbillies? 
Here's The New York Times:

Tea Party supporters are wealthier and more well-educated than the general public, and are no more or less afraid of falling into a lower socioeconomic class, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

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

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

-Mark Twain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The thing that is supposed to be the sincerest form of flattery

Here's a video that's going viral, prominently featuring The Teleprompter Jesus:



But shouldn't this have gotten a link? Or a footnote?  Or, better yet, a royalty payment? 
Nah, the lyrics don't have anything in common except the Teleprompter Jesus reference.
But it's good to see the idea taking off.

The U.S. tax code: Saving and creating unnecessary jobs

Here's a video from The Center For Freedom And Prosperity about the hidden costs, the opportunity costs, and the obvious right-out-there-in-your-face costs of the American tax system:



Here's an example of the Hong Kong tax system:

It's a freakin' postcard. 
In the Hong Kong system, you don't get deductions for doing what Barack and Nancy and Harry like.  You don't get credit for politically correct behavior. 
You pay a percentage of your income to the government. 
(They do have an alternative form, where taxpayers are allowed to take deductions for a few things like charitable donations, care of elderly relatives, and retirement savings.  Go here to read more.  But for the most part, citizens send in the form shown above.)

Now, think of the time and effort you've spent calculating your taxes.  Think of the tax accountants in the U.S. who have spent the last few months discovering tax loopholes, protecting their customers' money from the government, despite the fact that many of these same customers recently voted for a guy whose stated goal was for the government to spend more money. 
Think of the things that your business can't do because of the tax implications.
Think of the employees you're now reluctant to hire because it would put you in a new Obamacare bracket. 

If you're in the Obama administration, think of how much energy was required for you to be a successful tax cheat. 
The Flat Tax is an idea whose time has come.  Hit the link to learn more. 

The New Jim Crow - by Michelle Alexander

* There are more African Americans under correctional control today -- in prison or jail, on probation or parole -- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.


* As of 2004, more African American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.


* If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African American men in some urban areas, like Chicago, have been labeled felons for life. These men are part of a growing undercaste -- not class, caste -- a group of people who are permanently relegated, by law, to an inferior second-class status. They can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits -- much as their grandparents and great-grandparents once were during the Jim Crow era.

Scary stuff, isn't it?

During my morning mandatory treadmill time, I watched the following C-Span interview with Michelle Alexander.

She's the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in The Age Of Colorblindness. 

The video is around 45 minutes long, and I'm posting it here for future reference.  Lord have mercy, what an indictment against our government.   



I see victims of the system every day.  They come in applying for jobs.  They've been unemployed for years.  Decades, in some cases. 
Why?  Because when they were 19 years old, they got busted for marijuana possession. 
They have a permanent mark on their record that leaves most employers unwilling to take a chance on hiring them. 
Combine that with idiotic, racist, minimum wage legislation, and Ta-Da !    You've created permanent Food For The Machine. 

Let me explain. 

We have more prisoners than any other nation - 25% of the world's total, despite having only 6% of the world's population.  According to the Michelle Alexander interview, if we were to go back to the 1970's-era incarceration rates, we would have to release 4 out of 5 prisoners currently doing time.

We have so many prisoners that we're having to privatize the cages that we're using to lock up black kids.  Ordinarily, Big Gubmint likes to run everything, but this particular growth industry is beyond them.  Marijuana prohibition creates tens of thousands of jobs, public and private. 

The prison lobby advocates building more and more cages.  (Here's a great link on the prison lobby.  Here's a more specific one on how it works in Texas.)

When the prisoners are released, many of them have to pay for part of the cost of their incarceration. 
They often have to pay for their own parole officers, counseling sessions, etc. and after talking to ex-cons for about 10 years, I'm of the opinion that most of these counselors couldn't counsel a 3-year-old to go the potty. 

If they fail to make these payments, they're either locked up again, or their paychecks are garnished.  After all, the private prison system has to be paid, right?  (Some of these private prison groups are traded on Wall Street.)

Now that you have all that info, can you explain the difference between the current system and slavery?
Do you understand why the prison lobby, in its public and private form, fights so hard to preserve the system? 

Go here to read about John Kerry, John Edwards, and John Dean's "youthful indiscretions" with marijuana use.  Go here to read about Al Gore smoking weed.  Then add George W. Bush, who affirms that he's smoked marijuana, and Barack Obama, who admits to all of the above, plus cocaine. 

What would've become of Barack Obama if he'd been locked in a cage at age 19? 

Marijuana use isn't held against presidential candidates.  So why the hell are we using it to justify creating slaves for the government? 

In which Ron Paul says that which must be said....

The Unspeakable meets The Unfiskable

My friend NickM, of the Counting Cats blog, is never at a loss for words.  Never.  Ever. 
But then he encountered THIS. 

All he could do was highlight the worst parts.