First Baptist Church Of Dallas, Robert Jeffress, And The Earthquake In Japan

This Sunday morning, the Reverend Doctor Robert Jeffress is going to address the congregation of First Baptist Church Of Dallas on the subject of "Earthquake Theology". 

The sermon will be centered around these blood-curdling scripturea from the book of Nahum, chapter one:

2 The LORD is a jealous and avenging God;
the LORD takes vengeance and is filled with wrath.
The LORD takes vengeance on his foes
and vents his wrath against his enemies.
3 The LORD is slow to anger but great in power;
the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished.
His way is in the whirlwind and the storm,
and clouds are the dust of his feet.
4 He rebukes the sea and dries it up;
he makes all the rivers run dry.
Bashan and Carmel wither
and the blossoms of Lebanon fade.
5 The mountains quake before him
and the hills melt away.
The earth trembles at his presence,
the world and all who live in it.
6 Who can withstand his indignation?
Who can endure his fierce anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire;
the rocks are shattered before him.
7 The LORD is good,
a refuge in times of trouble.
He cares for those who trust in him,
8 but with an overwhelming flood
he will make an end of Nineveh;
he will pursue his foes into the realm of darkness.
9 Whatever they plot against the LORD
he will bring to an end;

And all this time I thought earthquakes were caused by plate tectonics. 

If you go here, you can see Dr. Jeffress's schedule of media-whoring.  Hit the KRLD link, and you'll hear Jeffress claim that the Japan earthquake and tsunami were either caused by God, like he caused the flood that killed everyone except Noah's family, or he "allowed" the disasters in the same way he allowed the death of Job's family. 
Seriously.  God is working his purpose out.  In the biblical examples and murders that Jeffress mentions, God was either killing off sinners or just trying to make a point during an argument with Satan.  Pick one. 
If the KRLD interview is a preview, then that will probably be the nurturing message for First Baptist Dallas this Sunday.   

That ol' Yahweh, he's quite a guy, isn't he? 

Some people and some cultures just can't comprehend that things....just....sometimes....happen.  There is no deeper meaning to them.  Hurricane Katrina wasn't caused by gays in New Orleans.  The earthquake in Haiti wasn't "allowed" to happen because Haitians practice voodoo, no matter what Pat Robertson says.  If it doesn't rain for a while, you don't need to pray harder and longer.  If your crops die, you don't need to burn a few witches.  There is never a good reason to throw virgins into the volcano. 

People want to believe that they're responsible for everything that happens to them, that they can take control of their environment, and that prayer, positive thinking, crystals, or talismans can improve their odds.  This is why some people give money to Dr. Robert Jeffress.  And this is the main reason why I've always been skeptical of the idea that the Goddess Gaia will be appeased if we'll just stop driving SUV's.and give more money and power to climate evangelists who claim they can change the weather. 

According to Dr. Robert Jeffress, God either caused or allowed the earthquake in Japan.  It makes no difference if God made it happen or was just taking the morning off. God was in control of the situation.  If the collection of books and stories that we call "Bible" is 100% true, then Jeffress is 100% correct, and I have a grudging admiration for Jeffress for having the cajones to be somewhat consistent. 

If I have a point here, it's that our ancient and holy books, and our ancient and holy concepts of gods and curses might be due for an upgrade.  Otherwise, Robert Jeffress is right. 

God decided to kill 10,000 Japanese people. 

Hit the "Taking X out of Xmas" label below to read about the Christmas campaign that First Baptist Dallas gave us last year.  Hit the "Earthquakes" label to read about what kind of bumpersticker God would put on his Cadillac. 

Ron Paul, the cost of diapers, and Ben Bernanke's toilet paper

Kimberly-Clark is about to raise the prices of diapers and toilet paper. 

DALLAS, March 17, 2011-Kimberly-Clark Corporation (NYSE: KMB) today announced that its baby and child care and consumer tissue businesses are notifying customers of plans to raise prices in North America during the second and third quarters of 2011. The company said the increases are necessary to offset inflationary pressure from higher raw material and energy costs.

Net selling prices in the U.S. and Canada for Huggies baby wipes and diapers, Pull-Ups training pants and GoodNites youth pants will increase on average between 3 and 7 percent, with implementation timing ranging from June 19, 2011 to August 17, 2011. In addition, net selling prices in the U.S. for Cottonelle and Scott 1000 bathroom tissue will increase approximately 7 percent, effective June 19, 2011. The price changes vary by brand and pack size. Kimberly-Clark's net sales in North America for these consumer products exceeded $4 billion in 2010.

Here's who the price increase is hitting the hardest, from a piece by Monika Diaz of WFAA:

DALLAS — A Dallas non-profit is keeping a close eye on the disposable diaper price hike soon to hit stores, and it worries it will hurt their budget.
"We can't afford to be hit," said Jeanne Reyer, executive director of Captain Hope's Kids.
Every week, the charity distributes 9,000 diapers to agencies that help homeless babies and toddlers across North Texas.
"We are spending nearly $7,000 in diapers a month," Reyer said.
Irving-based Kimberly-Clark Corporation announced it is going to increase its prices in North America for products including diapers, tissue paper and toilet paper.
For example, the cost of Cottonelle toilet paper will go up 7 percent; the price for Huggies diapers, baby wipes and and training pants will jump between three and seven percent.
Kimberly-Clark claims the hike is needed because of the rising costs for raw materials to make its products.
Other companies, including Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive, are also looking at rolling out price increases.

And here's the reaon for all of this misery, as explained by Dr. Ron Paul.  Ron Paul's political opponents paint him as naive, out-of-the-mainstream, an extremist, and overly pessimistic. 
They call him Dr. No. 
But he's almost always right. 
This is an excerpt from his book The Revolution: A Manifesto:

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

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

(That's why the government is trying to get you out of dollars, and into purchases of things they want you to buy.  Like purchasing all the houses that they're stuck with from their Community Reinvestment Act/Fannie/Freddie real estate debacle, or purchasing cars and trucks from those new auto companies they acquired.  They are honest to God trying to get you to spend money by announcing that your money will soon be worth less.  Good God in heaven.)

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

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

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

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

These are known as the distribution effects, or Cantillon effects, of inflation, after economist Richard Cantillon.  The average person is silently robbed through this invisible means and usually doesn't understand what exactly is happening to him. 
And almost no one in the political establishment has an incentive to tell him. 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why the price of diapers and toilet paper is going up.  There isn't a long-term shortage of wood pulp, paper, or anything else.  There's an increase in the money supply.   Ben Bernanke is printing it. 
If you caught someone in your home stealing 3-7% of your savings, I hope that you would shoot him, or at least knock him in the head, "civility" be damned. 
Nobody voted for this, nobody is debating it.  The Fed is paying off Washington's debts by printing more money.  It doesn't hurt the rich that much, since they typically get to spend the funny money first, and it's a horrible burden on the poor. 

If current trends continue, we won't have to worry about the high cost of Kimberly Clark's toilet paper.  Ben Bernanke's will be a lot less valuable. 

Pics came from here and here and here. 

In which Charlie Delta uncovers a government scam....

My friend Charlie Delta over at the Gotta Get Drunk First blog was involved in a traffic accident in Kalifornia, the land of his birth.  Charlie Delta rear-ended a government employee.  At 3 miles per hour. 

There was no damage to either vehicle. 

Go here to read an account of the accident.  This doesn't require a profanity alert, it requires a profanity radiation suit, as CD doesn't suffer fools or the Department of Transportation (pardon the redundancy) lightly. 

But here's the catch....I spend more than a little bit of time examining false accident reports.  Somehow, a repair shop someplace has billed Kalifornia for $896.00 to repair non-existent damage to the front end of the car.  CD never mentions the magnitude of the obvious scam that some of Kalifornia's public servants are pulling.  There had to be at least three people in on this racket - the driver, a patrolman, and a supervisor.  The repair shop is getting money from the taxpayers, and then they're turning around and trying to collect it again from CD.  They figured his insurance company wouldn't care.  Amazing. 

I mean, hell, if those people want to elect Jerry Brown as governor, they're getting what they deserve. 

A brief rant about CSA 2010. Or 2011.

One of my drivers came to me a few days ago and asked to be considered for a warehouse or desk job.  When I asked him why, he said "I'm tired of government son of a bitches telling me how much damn money I can make."  (Somewhat edited to delete 90% of the profanity.) 

Here's what is at stake.  The Department of Transportation is rolling out a new program called CSA 2010.  It claims to be a safety program with a system that tracks each driver's and each company's safety record.  Every driver and every company gets a score based on roadside inspections, accidents, driver fitness, and lots and lots of paperwork. 

The purpose of the program?  To create jobs for goverment parasites. 

The purpose of the program? To make it easier for top-heavy union employers to compete against lean and mean upstart companies. 

The purpose of the program?  Safety.

Despite being named CSA 2010, the program hasn't been implemented yet.  I think they've pushed it back twice.  The government keeps having computer issues and nobody's score is accurate.  The trucking industry has been fairly patient with these delays, and I wonder if our Lords and Masters in the Department of Transportation will be as patient with companies that take as long to comply? 

Anyway, you can go here to read about the program. 

If that picture reminds you of the scary old Hillarycare flowchart, well, it should.  They both sprang forth from the same mindset.  My email system is plagued by entrepreneurial ex-DOT employees who have started companies and programs designed to help get me into compliance with this mess.  (For the low, low price of $999.00 !!!!) 

Now you would think that an organization that couldn't roll out something named "2010" until late "2011" would be modest about rolling out additional regulatory crap. 

Well, you're wrong.  Here's what else they're cooking up.  Imagine the paperwork, the mind-numbing regulations, documents, time stamps and civil service leeches necessary to guarantee compliance with this next set of hoops to jump through.  There are going to be extensive roadside Talmudic discussions between truckers and highway patrolmen that last for days:

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) today issued a regulatory proposal that would revise hours-of-service (HOS) requirements for commercial truck drivers.



This new HOS (hours of service) proposal would retain the "34-hour restart" provision allowing drivers to restart the clock on their weekly 60 or 70 hours by taking at least 34 consecutive hours off-duty. However, the restart period would have to include two consecutive off-duty periods from midnight to 6:00 a.m. Drivers would be allowed to use this restart only once during a seven-day period.



Additionally the proposal would require commercial truck drivers to complete all driving within a 14-hour workday, and to complete all on-duty work-related activities within 13 hours to allow for at least a one hour break. It also leaves open for comment whether drivers should be limited to 10 or 11 hours of daily driving time, although FMCSA currently favors a 10-hour limit.


Other key provisions include the option of extending a driver's daily shift to 16 hours twice a week to accommodate for issues such as loading and unloading at terminals or ports, and allowing drivers to count some time spent parked in their trucks toward off-duty hours.

God help us all. 

People don't understand what this kind of uncertainty does to a business.  Freight companies build their terminals a certain number of hours apart, based on the government regulations in place at the time.  They set up local driver routes to comply with Hours Of Service regulations. 

And then it all changes.  Because of.....????  Have the number of accidents been increasing?  An increased percentage of fatatlities?  Has there been a public outcry for more paperwork?  Nope. 

Your employees (the government ones) just need something to do. 

Be sure to check out the chart shown here.  Big Oil, of course, gets some exemptions.  Not because they're safer, or different, or better.  They just get them. 

Michael Moore T-shirt

Go here to get one for yourself. Or for me. I'm back down to "large" instead of "Extra-large", just in case you're wondering.

Scariest Tsunami Video EVER, with unlikely comparisons to debt and inflation

I keep hearing and reading accounts of the Japan earthquake and tsunami that state that people continued to mill around, conduct business as usual, and assume that everything would be ok.  Just because everything had always been ok before. 

See previous post. 

Some Gloomy Predictions

Several years ago, I happened to be sitting next to a high school defensive line/football coach during a Cowboys game.  Well into the 2nd quarter, on a non-crucial play, with everything looking to me like it had looked throughout the game, the coach said "Number 89 is about to get an interception". 

Sure enough, #89 read the quarterback's mind, and placed himself in the exact spot to come down with the football.  I looked at the coach with a new level of respect, and asked him if he'd like to go to Las Vegas with me sometime. 

The guy laughed it off, and said it was just a hunch.  The QB was getting predictable, he was signalling his intentions with his play-calling and body language, #89 was showing signs of picking up the patterns, and on and on. 

On a similar subject, I've read about baseball journalists who will sometimes get a hunch, stand up in the pressbox, and say "Home run, left field bleachers !!" when the pitcher is still in his windup.  A lot of the time, the batter launches one into the left field bleachers.  The writers just have hunches. 

Ok, enough of the throat-clearing.....

Here's my hunch. 

The U.S. is 15 trillion in debt. 
The yearly deficit is around a trillion and a half. 
Our "leaders" are extending the spending spree by two week intervals, rather than face the cuts.
China is going to figure out really soon that Washington has no adults in the room, and that we aren't going to pay off our debts with anything resembling real dollars. 
Combine that with some turmoil in the Middle East and a supply chain disruption in Japan, both of which are going to echo throughout the manufacturing and shipping sectors of the economy.  That's gonna hurt. 

I think we're going to have another major slowdown, this time accompanied by mega-inflation.  With reduced tax revenue, the only legal way that Uncle Sam will be able to meet pension, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and subsidy obligations is to print money. 

Most of us know this is going to eventually happen, right?  So I'll call it.

Major economic meltdown by September 1, 2011.  You heard it here first. 

Y'all have a good Monday !!!!

Some tax advice for Stephen King

Here's one of my typing heroes, Stephen King, on the tax code, compliments of a link from Don Surber:

Some of the highlights:

Now you might say, what are you doing up there? Aren’t you rich? The answer is: thank God, yes. Because I grew up poor. I lived in a family where my mother asked donated commodities from a Republican administration and got turned down. That’s where I came from. And you know what, as a rich person I pay 28% tax.

What I want to ask you is why am I not paying fifty?

The answer, Mr. King, is that you have chosen to pay less.  Just like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, John Kerry, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Moore, Harry Reid all pay less than they could.  Why do they pay less than they could? 

Because none of them are idiots, and because all of them pay accountants to ensure that they pay less. 
Stephen King, unless he's a total idiot, has a tax advisor.  This person works very hard to see to it that Stephen King's money isn't wasted. 

If Stephen King wants to pay more, he can write a check to:

Gifts to the United States

U.S. Department of the Treasury
Credit Accounting Branch
3700 East-West Highway, Room 622D
Hyattsville, MD 20782

On Prayer, Japan, and Bumperstickers

Because of this site, I've got Facebook friends all over the world that I've never met. Since the libertarian cause seeks to be a very big umbrella, I've corresponded with Rastafarian marijuana enthusiasts, Bible-quoting homeschoolers, transgendered gay rights activists, gun fetishists, anti-war activists, free market economists, property rights devotees and more than a few people who don't like going outside because of all those black helicopters that follow them around.

Because of the horrible destruction in Japan this morning, a lot of my Facebook buddies are asking everyone to pray for the people of Japan. 

Why? 

Should I ask God to prevent any more destruction?  Or should I ask God to not cause any more destruction? 

How much involvement on God's part are we assuming here?  Does God only intervene when enough of us ask him sincerely enough?  Can God be trusted to do the right thing without us having to nag him about it, kinda like I sometimes have to be reminded to set the recycling out on Thursday mornings? 

I have a standing joke with two of my employees about work and bumperstickers.  There are some people who go through life figuratively wearing this bumpersticker:

Things are beyond their control.  Life happens to them.  They are victims.  People wake up in the morning just to take advantage of them.  Most of their lives are predestined. 

And then there are those joyous souls who obviously have a different philosophy. 

These people exercise some serious "scene control".  They either control their own destiny, or believe that they do.  They believe that they have a free will, that they are responsible for their actions and the consequences. 

Which bumpersticker do you think God would put on his Cadillac?  Does he just set things in motion and let them play out?  Or does God make things happen? 

Another Don Boudreaux Karate Kid Crane Kick

Of all the anti-protectionist slapdowns Don Boudreaux has ever issued, this is my favorite:

9 March 2011

Mr. Ian Fletcher

Dear Ian:

In your latest essay at the Huffington Post you state that sensible protectionists, like you, want to use tariffs to protect, not “dying” industries, but, rather, only industries of “the future” (“Protectionism of the Past vs. Protectionism of the Future,” March 9).

Who but a backwoods bumpkin doesn’t cheer for the industries of “the future”? But I’ve some questions.

- How do we identify such industries? Who’ll be charged with determining which industries are of “the future” and which industries are sufficiently passé as to be left unshielded from being slain by foreign competition – slayings that you suppose are the inevitable fate of all U.S. industries not protected by high U.S. tariffs?

- What criteria will be used to distinguished industries of “the future” from what I suppose we ought to call “industries of the past”? Rates of return on capital? Total volume of employment? Productivity per worker? Rates of annual productivity growth? Rates of export growth? Total amount of corporate taxes paid? The technological ‘wow-ness’ of the industries’ outputs – as determined, perhaps, by the amount of positive attention such outputs receive from nightly network news reporters? The age of the industry?
Oh! I know the answer: total dollar amount of contributions to the political campaigns of incumbent members of Congress and the U.S. presidency.

Ok, here comes the Don Boudreaux Karate Kid Crane Kick, the takedown, the crushing blow:

- In those inescapable instances when dispassionate minds, such as yours, discover that protection was mistakenly given to industries of the past that were for a time wrongly thought to be industries of the future, will the shareholders and workers in those industries, whose prosperity has for a long time been made possible only by the tariff protections that their industries received, gracefully accept the revised determination that they have all along been investing in, and working for, industries of the past and, therefore, must now lose their assets and jobs for the greater good? What will you tell these poor workers, shareholders, and bondholders?

- Finally, if an industry really does have such a promising future that even government bureaucrats recognize this promise, why wouldn’t this same promise be recognized by private investors? Seems as though it would. And private investors, then, will pour sufficient amounts of private financing into this industry. Isn’t it one of the central functions of private capital markets to identify – and to shower with liquidity – upstart firms that are likely to be parts of industries of “the future”?

I’m eager to receive your replies.

Sincerely,

Donald J. Boudreaux

Hit the link at the top to read his readers' comments, involving Godzilla, Bambi, priests, and some discussion about failed "Industries Of The Future". 

A modest wager about NPR funding

Ok, unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard something about this video.

James O'Keefe posed as a potential NPR donor, and extracted the following from Ron Schiller (then president of the NPR Foundation and senior vice president of development):

The current Republican Party, particularly the Tea Party, is fanatically involved in people’s personal lives and very fundamental Christian. I wouldn't even call it Christian; it's this weird evangelical kind of move.


The current Republican Party is not really the Republican Party, it’s been hijacked by this group; that is, not just Islamaphobic but really xenophobic. I mean, basically, they are, they believe in sort of white, middle American, gun toting — I mean, it's scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.

Besides bashing the Tea Party movement, Schiller also advanced the bigoted stereotype that the media is Jewish-owned and/or has a pro-Israel bias. He and Betsy Liley, another NPR executive at the lunch, both reveled over the joke that NPR stands for “National Palestinian Radio.”

Oh, I forgot to mention....O'Keefe was posing as a donor from the Muslim Brotherhood. 

Ok, all of this skullduggery merely confirms what anyone with one eye and half-sense already knows.  NPR is a seriously biased news organization.  Big deal.  CNN, Fox, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, and the Sunflower County News are all seriously biased news organizations.  Bias is what happens when you sit down and start typing. That's why governments should never be allowed to fund journalism.  

The point of all this is to get the Republicans to defund NPR.  NPR recently fired their only remotely "conservative" commentator, Juan Williams.  One of the money shots from the O'Keefe video is when Schiller affirms that NPR would be better off without government funding. 

NPR has totally crapped in the punch bowl.  They are the leading Statist propaganda tool. 

And the Republican Party will NOT defund them.  Republicans don't cut programs.  They just talk about it. 

I repeat....The Republican Party is going to continue funding NPR.  I'm betting $20.00 to the first commenter that NPR will still be getting government funds until the 2012 elections. 

Any takers? 

Here's what happens in a free market, with unlikely comparison to healthcare

This is from Slashdot:

"Joe Konrath has an interesting interview with independent writer John Locke who currently holds the coveted #1 spot in the Amazon Top 100 and has sold just over 350,000 downloads on Kindle of his 99 cent books since January 1st of this year, which, with a royalty rate of 35%, is an annual income well over $500k. Locke says that 99 cents is the magic number and adds that when he lowered the price of his book The List from $2.99 to 99 cents, he started selling 20 times as many copies — about 800 a day, turning his loss lead into his biggest earner. 'These days the buying public looks at a $9.95 eBook and pauses. It's not an automatic sale,' says Locke. 'And the reason it's not is because the buyer knows when an eBook is priced ten times higher than it has to be. And so the buyer pauses. And it is in this pause—this golden, sweet-scented pause—that we independent authors gain the advantage, because we offer incredible value.' Kevin Kelly predicts that within 5 years all digital books will cost 99 cents. 'I don't think publishers are ready for how low book prices will go,' writes Kelly. 'It seems insane, dangerous, life threatening, but inevitable.'"

1) Should government intervene, and put in a price floor on books? 

2) Should President Numb Nuts initiate another "Cash For Clunkers" program to take old copies of, say, James Michener and Earl Stanley Gardner novels out of circulation to create demand for new books? 

3) Should we be prepared to bailout Random House, Putnam, Simon and Schuster, and all the rest? 

4) And what about this incredibly selfish and destructive writer, John Locke, who now has a $500,000.00 income?  He took a huge risk, and has been rewarded handsomely for it.  How thoroughly should he be punished? 

5) What would happen if we allowed one nurse in every city to set up shop on his/her own, with no regulations, no oversight, and hell, no training requirements.  Just like this John Locke character is doing with publishing.  Let the good ones prosper and the bad ones go under.  And what if we gave these nurses an exemption from lawsuits and insurance programs?  Ditto for their suppliers?  And what if we allowed more and more nurses into the program based on market demand???  And then a few doctors?  Kind of like writers are going to do with John Locke's monstrosity. 
Do you think medical costs would drop like a stone? 

This John Locke must be found and stopped before his ideas catch on. 

In which Jesse Jackson Jr. proposes a constitutional right to an Ipod and a laptop

Here's noted manufactuer and constitutional law expert Jesse Jackson Jr., proposing a constitutional amendment to give every ghetto kid a "right" to an Ipod and a laptop.  Imagine if someone had proposed similar sentiments 30 years ago.

"Every ghetto kid should have a constitutional right to... an 8-track tape player !  And then a Sony Walkman !  And then a Betamax ! And every child in these United States should have a constitutional right to a TRS-80 !!! No, wait, a Commodore 360 !!

And if you take the time to watch the video, he really does frame all of this lunacy in terms of creating jobs.

We are slowly, slowly losing our minds.
 

Guess who manufactured the planes and helicopters for the Libyan Air Force

Here's a partial list of the aircraft that Gaddafi/Qaddafi/Khadafi is using to train pilots, transport soldiers, and move equipment in his campaign against the Libyan people.  I found it on Wikipedia, not the most reliable of sources, but it seems to check out. 
Make and model is on the left, country of origin is in the center, followed by purpose, and then quantity on hand. 

Gulfstream II

USA

Light transport

1

Lockheed C-130H Hercules

USA

Heavy transport

10

 

Bell 206 JetRanger

USA

Training helicopter

4

Bell 202 Twin Huey

USA

Light transport helicopter

2

Boeing CH-47 Chinook

USA

Heavy transport helicopter

8

I know that we're trying to Save And Create Jobs in the military/industrial complex, but....

Did the Libyan dictator have to pass a background check before he purchased these? 

Do we sell these planes and helicopters to Middle Eastern nutcases knowing full well that we would eventually be sending our own soldiers and pilots to fight against them? 

Some of these helicopters went to Italy first.  Then they wound up in Libya.  Should Italy take responsibility for enforcing the much-discussed no-fly zone over Libya?  Especially since we're kinda busy elsewhere? 

Manufacturing aircraft to sell to our enemies so we can boost our economy by blowing them up later....Is that a sustainable economic model?

Are the manufacturers of these aircraft not happier than old hogs in new slop, knowing that they might be supplying equipment to both sides in yet another conflict? 

Should we not put some restrictions on this type of sale before we worry too much about forcing me to have a permit for a handgun? 

The map of the Military/Industrial complex came from here. 

The Green Industry - A few things you probably already knew

This bit of brilliance is by Timothy P. Carney of the Washington Examiner. 
No, the industry of painting machines green isn't driven by a a desire to save the planet. 

Environmental policy is not driven by tree-hugging activists, earnest liberal bloggers, or ecologically minded citizens. Instead, it flows from the lobbyists and executives of well-connected multinational corporations and built-for-subsidy startups that see profit in the loan guarantees, handouts, mandates, and tax credits Congress creates in the name of saving the planet.
K Street is the epicenter of this green-industrial complex, and ground zero might be the firm founded by Democratic revolving-door earmark lobbyist Steve McBee.

McBee, a former top staffer for Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and powerful House Appropriations Committee member Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., reportedly wrote key provisions in the stimulus bill to open the spigot of green corporate welfare. Also, he has hired up the Capitol Hill staff at the center of big environmental legislative pushes like cap and trade.

Exploring corporate lobbyists' central role in Obama's "green energy" push provides us two important lessons. First, it reveals as hypocritical the Democratic attack that opponents of cap and trade and other green policies are simply shills for big business.

Second, it ought to heighten our skepticism that these "green" policies are really crafted with an eye to helping the environment -- they are more likely skewed toward the bottom line of lobbied-up Big Business.

McBee's clients include SolarCity and the Green Tech Action Fund as well as electric-car maker Better Place Inc., waste-to-power company Ze-gen, and solar-power developer BrightSource Energy. But the big guys -- Boeing, JP Morgan, and Google -- also hire McBee to lobby for green-energy subsidies.

Electric car company Tesla signed on with McBee days after Obama's election, and soon won a $465 million loan guarantee to aid in building a new all-electric car.

With McBee's former boss being a senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, McBee Strategic used to be an earmark factory. After Obama's election, though, McBee pivoted to green energy and saw revenues soar in 2009.

"I attribute it to the bets we've made on clean energy and energy," he told Roll Call.

Late last year McBee hired Kathleen Frangione, described by Politico as "Sen. John Kerry's top climate staffer." You see the play: advance green legislation, then lobby for the companies trying to make money off that legislation.

Hit the link up top to read the whole thing. 
The pictures of the Room Cleaner (a space heater with a feather duster taped to it) and the gasoline powered alarm clock, both of which were approved as "Energy Stars" by regulators, came from here. 

Matt Damon, you ignorant slut

Matt Damon, the guy who narrated last year's brilliant Academy Award winning documentary "Inside Job" on the origins of the housing bubble/crisis...

Matt Damon, who brilliantly plays Jason Bourne, the lead character in Robert Ludlum's Bourne Identity/Supremacy/Ultimatum series.  My favorite spy thrillers EVER.... 

Matt Damon, who plays one of the angels in Dogma, my favorite theological comedy....

Yeah, that Matt Damon.

Compliments of Libertarian Reddit, here's this embarrassing Matt Damon Facepalm moment in defense of the Nanny State:

I just got a 3 per cent tax cut. Do you think I'm going to start a small business with that money? You're out of your mind if you think so. I'm going to put it in the bank. So is every other guy that makes the kind of money I make.

Yeah.  Hit the links and you'll see that Matt Damon thinks he's undertaxed.  Banks don't loan out his money to start small businesses, do they?  Only the government has the wisdom and knowledge to loan out Matt Damon's money, via stimulus and kickbacks. 

Good God in heaven. 

Stuff from my laptop

I have a bunch of pictures that I've saved on my laptop for future use.  Some of them may have been posted before.  I don't know.  Don't remember. 
I have no idea where most of these came from.  Will give attribution if someone wants it. 

That's all for now.  If these get linked and Tweeted a lot, I'll post the rest later on. 

From "The Rational Optimist" - Best book of 2010

This is from the ending of Matt Ridley's "The Rational Optimist", probably last year's best libertarian book.  The ending is pure, undiluted greatness. 
Ridley argues that the world is NOT going to hell in a handbasket, as long as people are free to freely exchange goods and services, and most important - ideas. 
The item on the left, a primitive handaxe, is one of the oldest human artifacts.  One person made it.  The item on the right is approximately the same size and was made by hundreds, if not thousands of people, each one working on a small part of the project and reflecting "multiple strands of knowledge". 
The one on the left is the result of a system with cultural, geographic and trade barriers in place.  The product on the right can only be efficiently manufactured when people are left alone to seek their own self-interest. 
Pick a side, pick a side. 

Here's Matt Ridley:

Politicians are increasingly corks tossed on the waves of public opinion.  Dictators are learning that their citizens can organise riots by text message.  'Here comes everybody' says the author Clay Shirky. 

People will more and more freely find ways to exchange their specialised production for diversified consumption.  This world can already be glimpsed on the web, in what John Barlow calls 'dot-com communism': a workforce of free agents bartering their ideas and efforts barely interested in whether the barter yields 'real' money.  The explosion of interest in the free sharing of ideas that the internet has spawned has taken everybody by surprise.  'The online masses have an incredible willingness to share' says Kevin Kelly.  Instead of money, 'peer producers who create the stuff gain credit, status, reputation, enjoyment, satisfaction, and experience:.  People are willing to share their photographs on Flickr, their thoughts on Twitter, their friends on Facebook, their knowledge on Wikipedia, their software patches on Linux, their donations on Globalgiving.com, their community news on Craigslist, their pedigrees on Ancestry.com, their genomes on 23andMe, even their medical records on PatientsLikeMe.  Thanks to the internet, each is giving according to his ability to each according to his needs, to a degree that never happened in Marxism. 

This catallaxy will not go smoothly, or without resistance.  Natural and unnatural disasters will still happen.  Governments will bail out big corporations and big bureaucracies, hand them special favours such as subsidies or carbon rations and regulate them in such a way as to create barriers to entry, slowing down creative destruction.  Chiefs, priests, thieves, financiers, consultants and others will appear on all sides, feeding off the surplus generated by exchange and specialisation, diverting the life-blood of the catallaxy into their own reactionary lives.  It happened in the past.  Empires brought stability at the price of creating a parasitic court; monotheistic religions bought social cohesion at the price of a parasitic priestly class; nationalism bought power at the expense of a parasitic military; socialism bought equality at the price of a parasitic bureaucracy; capitalism bought efficiency at the price of parasitic financiers.  The online world will attract parasites too: from regulators and cyber-criminals to hackers and plagiarists.  Some of them may temporarily throttle their generous hosts. 

....There is even a new reason for such pessimism: the integrated nature of the world means that it may soon be possible to capture the entire world on behalf of a foolish idea, where before you could only capture a country, or perhaps if you were lucky an empire. 

....Imagine if the globalised world of the twenty-first century allows a globalised retreat from reason.  It is a worrying thought.  The wrong kind of chiefs, priests and thieves could yet snuff out future prosperity on earth.  Already lords don boiler suits to destroy genetically modified crops, presidents scheme to prevent stem-cell research, prime ministers trample on habeas corpus using the excuse of terrorism, metastasising bureacracies interfere with innovation on behalf of reactionary pressure groups, superstitious creationists stop the teaching of good science, air-headed celebrities rail against free trade, mullahs inveigh against the empowerment of women, earnest princes lament the loss of old ways and pious bishops regret the coarsening effects of commerce.  So far they are all sufficiently localised in their effects to achieve no more than limited pauses in the happy progress of the species, but could one of them go global? 

I doubt it....Said Lord Macaulay, 'We see in almost every part of the annals of mankind how the industry of individuals, struggling up against wars, taxes, famines, conflagrations, mischievous prohibitions, and more mischievous protections, creates faster than governments can squander, and repairs whatever invaders can destroy.'

....The twenty-first century will be a magnificent time to be alive. 

Dare to be an optimist. 

I hope you'll check out this book when it's released in paperback.  It's greatness. 

Hey, hey, Mr. Union Man !!

Here's some Cate Brothers Band to brighten your day !!

Ron Paul mops a floor with Hillary Clinton. Bonus !!! A list of U.S. supported dictators

Here's a video of Ron Paul cleaning a floor.  The person impersonating a mop is our Secretary Of State, also known as She Whose Name Is Not Spoken. 

Here's the accompanying article from ABC News:

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Tex, has made a career out of being the contrarian in Congress, and with uprisings sweeping across the Middle East he took the opportunity today to point out one of the inconvenient truths of American foreign policy: its support across successive administrations for key Middle East leaders who ally themselves with the United States in a difficult region, yet do not respect basic human rights and democracy in their own countries.

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

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

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

Here's the money quote from She Whose Name Is Not Spoken:

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

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

Precisely.  That's why James Monroe came up with something eventually known as The Monroe Doctrine.  We're going to stay out of everyone else's business, because we "sometimes don't" get it right. 
In fact, I'm going through a mental list of dictators, trying to think of one we've supported and got it right by doing so. 


Can anyone out there help me out?  How many of these guys were instances where we got it right? 
I've swiped a list of dictators supported by the U.S. from this dude.  Lord have mercy, I wish that the Congressman had done a roll call through the list, asking when we "got it right".   

{Update from 3-3-2011, to eliminate any confusion....If you follow all of the links back to the originator of this list, his basis for inclusion is "rulers who received aid (economic/military), training of military/intelligence/security forces, and/or political support from the US".  It's freakin' terrifying.  See the comment field below about Pol Pot.}

Please respond with the names that give you that warm, fuzzy feeling of supporting a great cause.

Africa
MOBUTU SESE SEKO
Dictator of Zaire 1965-1997
MOHAMMED SIAD BARRE
President/Dictator of Somalia 1969-1991
GEN. IBRAHIM BABANGIDA
Military Dictator/President of Nigeria 1985-1993
GEN. SANI ABACHA
Dictator of Nigeria 1993-1998
HASTINGS KAMUZU BANDA
Dictator of Malawi 1966-1994
LAURENT-DÉSIRÉ KABILA
President/Dictator of the Democratic Republic of the Congo 1997-2001
GNASSINGBE ETIENNE EYADEMA
Dictator of Togo 1967-2005
FELIX HOUPHOUET-BOIGNY
Dictator/President of the Ivory Coast 1960-1993
HASSAN II
King of Morocco 1961-1999
TEODORO OBIANG NGUEMA MBASOGO
President/Dictator of Equatorial Guinea 1979-present
ZINE EL ABIDINE BEN ALI
President-Prime Minister/Dictator of Tunisia 1987-2011
ANWAR EL-SADAT
President/Dictator of Egypt 1970-1981
HOSNI MUBARAK
President/Dictator of Egypt 1981-present
IAN SMITH
Prime Minister of Rhodesia (white minority regime) 1965-1979
PIETER WILLEM BOTHA
Prime Minister of South Africa (white minority regime) 1978-1984, President 1984-1989
DANIEL ARAP MOI
President/Dictator of Kenya 1978-2002
HAILE SELASSIE (RAS TAFARI)
Emperor of Ethiopia 1928-1974
WILLIAM J. S. TUBMAN
President/Dictator of Liberia 1944-1971
SAMUEL KANYON DOE
Dictator of Liberia 1980-1990

Asia
MOHAMED SUHARTO
Dictator of Indonesia 1966-1998
NGO DINH DIEM
President/Dictator of South Vietnam 1955-1963
GEN. NGUYEN KHANH
Dictator of South Vietnam 1964-1965
NGUYEN CAO KY
Dictator of South Vietnam 1965-1967
GEN. NGUYEN VAN THIEU
President/Dictator of South Vietnam 1967-1975
TRAN THIEM KHIEM
Prime Minister of South Vietnam 1969-75
BAO DAI
Emperor of Vietnam 1926-1945, chief of state 1949-1955
LEE KUAN YEW
Prime Minister/Dictator of Singapore 1959-1990; behind-the scenes ruler since then.
EMOMALI RAHMONOV
President/Dictator of Tajikistan 1992-present
NURSULTAN NAZARBAYEV
President of Kazakhstan 1990-present
ISLAM A. KARIMOV
President/Dictator of Uzbekistan 1990-present
SAPARMURAD ATAYEVICH NIYAZOV
President/Dictator of Turkmenistan 1990-2006
MARSHAL LUANG PIBUL SONGGRAM
Dictator of Thailand 1948-1957
FIELD MARSHAL THANOM KITTIKACHORN
Prime Minister/Dictator of Thailand 1957-58, 1963-1973
CHIANG KAI-SHEK
President/Dictator (Nationalist) of China 1928-1949
President/Dictator of Taiwan 1949-1975
CHIANG CHING-KUO
President/Dicator of Taiwan 1978-1988; Prime Minister 1972-1978
DENG XIAOPING
De facto ruler of China from circa 1978 to the early 1990s
FERDINAND MARCOS
President/Dictator of the Philippines 1965-1986
SYNGMAN RHEE
President/Dictator of South Korea 1948-1960
GEN. PARK CHUNG HEE
President/Dictator of South Korea 1962-1979
GEN. CHUN DOO HWAN
President/Dictator of South Korea 1980-1988
SIR MUDA HASSANAL BOLKIAH
Sultan of Brunei 1967-present
GEN. LON NOL
Prime Minister/Dictator of Cambodia 1970-1975
POL POT
Dictator of Cambodia 1975-1979
MAJ. GEN. SITIVENI RABUKA
Dictator of Fiji 1987-1999
ASKAR AKAYEV
President of Kyrgyzstan 10/27/1990-2005

Europe
FRANCISCO FRANCO
Dictator of Spain 1939-1975
ANTONIO SALAZAR DE OLIVEIRA
Dictator of Portugal 1928-1968
COL. GEORGIOS PAPADOPOULOS
Prime Minister/President/Dictator of Greece 1967-1973

Latin America
ANASTASIO SOMOZA GARCIA
Dictator of Nicaragua 1937-1947, 1950-1956
ANASTASIO "TACHITO" SOMOZA DEBAYLE
Dictator of Nicaragua 1967-1972, 1974-1979
MANUEL ESTRADA CABRERA
Dictator of Guatemala 1898-1920
GEN. JORGE UBICO CASTANEDA
Dictator of Guatemala 1931-1944
COL. CARLOS ENRIQUE CASTILLO ARMAS
Dictator of Guatemala 1954-1957
GEN. JOSE MIGUEL YDIGORAS FUENTES
President/Dictator of Guatemala 1958-1963
COL. ENRIQUE PERALTA AZURDIA
Military Junta, Guatemala 1963-1966
COL.CARLOS ARANA OSORIO
Dictator of Guatemala 1970-1974
GEN. FERNANDO ROMEO LUCAS GARCIA
Dictator of Guatemala 1978-1982
GEN. JOSE EFRAIN RIOS MONTT
Dictator of Guatemala 1982-1983
MARCO VINICIO CEREZO ARÉVALO
President/Dictator of Guatemala 1986-1991
MAXIMILIANO HERNANDEZ MARTINEZ
Dictator of El Salvador 1931-1944
COL. OSMIN AGUIRRE Y SALINAS
Dictator of El Salvador 1944-1945
CIVILIAN-MILITARY JUNTA, EL SALVADOR
1961-1962
COL. ARTURO ARMANDO MOLINA BARRAZA
Dictator of El Salvador 1972-1977
JUNTA, EL SALVADOR
1979-1982
ALFREDO FÉLIX CRISTIANI BUKARD
President/Dictator of El Salvador 1989-1994
TIBURCIO CARIAS ANDINO
Dictator of Honduras 1932-1948
COL. OSWALDO LOPEZ ARELLANO
Dictator of Honduras 1963-1975
ROBERTO SUAZO CORDOVA
President/Dictator of Honduras 1982-1986
GEN. OMAR HERRERA-TORRIJOS
Dictator of Panama 1969-1981
GEN. MANUEL ANTONIO MORENA NORIEGA
Dictator of Panama 1982-1989
AUGUSTO PINOCHET UGARTE
Dictator of Chile 1973-1990
GEN. JORGE RAFAEL VIDELA
Dictator of Argentina 1976-1981
COL. MARCOS PEREZ JIMENEZ
Dictator of Venezuela 1950-1958
GEN. ALFREDO STROESSNER
Dictator of Paraguay 1954-1989
ALBERTO FUJIMORI
Dictator of Peru 1990-2000
FRANCOIS "PAPA DOC" DUVALIER
Dictator of Haiti 1957-1971
JEAN-CLAUDE "BABY DOC" DUVALIER
Dictator of Haiti 1971-1986
MILITARY JUNTA / LT. GEN. RAOUL CEDRAS, GEN. PHILIPPE BIAMBY and LT. COL. MICHEL-JOSEPH FRANCO
Haiti 1991-1994
GEN. RENE BARRIENTOS ORTUNO
President/Dictator of Bolivia 1964-1969
GEN. HUGO BANZER SUAREZ
Dictator of Bolivia 1971-1978
DR. GETULIO VARGAS
Dictator of Brazil 1930-1945, 1951-1954
GEN. HUMBERTO DE ALENCAR CASTELLO BRANCO
Dictator of Brazil 1964-1967
CARLOS PRIO SOCARRAS
Dictator of Cuba 1948-1952
FULGENCIO BATISTA
Dictator of Cuba 1933-44, 1952-1959
GERARDO MACHADO MORALES
Dictator of Cuba 1925-1933
RAFAEL LEONIDAS TRUJILLO
Dictator of the Dominican Republic 1930-1961

Middle East
MOHAMMED REZA PAHLAVI
Shah of Iran 1941-1979
SADDAM HUSSEIN
Dictator of Iraq 1969 (1979)-2003
GEN. MOHAMMED AYUB KHAN
President/Dictator of Pakistan 1958-1969
GEN. AGHA MUHAMMAD YAHYA KHAN
President/Dictator of Pakistan 1969-1971
GEN. MOHAMMAD ZIA UL-HAQ
President/Dictator of Pakistan 1977-1988
PERVEZ MUSHARRAF
Dictator of Pakistan 1999-2008
ABDUL IBN HUSSEIN I
King of Jordan 1952-1999
TURGUT ÖZAL
Prime Minister of Turkey 1983-1989, President 1989-1993
SHEIK JABIR AL-AHMAD AL SABAH
Emir of Kuwait 1977-2006
Prime Minister of Kuwait 1962-1963, 1965-1978
FAHD IBN ABDUL-AZIZ AL SAUD
King and Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia 1982-2005