Tuesday, September 28. 2010
Graph above via Government Pay Growth Outpaces Private Pay Growth
Mead: How China's growing power aids US influence in the East
For first time in almost a century, Russian train arrives in Nice. Cool.
Local Tea Party group may have uncovered massive vote fraud in Texas
At Newsmax,
Sen. Patrick Leahy has introduced a bill affecting the Internet that could have a “dangerous impact on freedom of speech,” according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Surber: Guess what the New York Times didn’t like
Who is going to rally in DC next? And yes, they are bussing them in.
Democrats Face Skeptics in Rural Areas
WSJ:
One out of every three dollars earned in the U.S. goes to pay for or comply with federal laws and regulations, and new policies enacted in 2010 for health care and financial services will increase this burden.
Obamacare: The pain begins now
Light rail doesn't work in Phoenix/ It's a city that grew up with cars. NYC has heavily-used subways (light rail) because it grew up with them.
In the war between social and fiscal conservatives the question on everyone's mind is: who (or what) comes first?
we need to fundamentally restructure our economy and re-establish popular control over the private corporations which have distorted our economy and hijacked our government. That’s a long-term job, but one we should start now.
Monday, September 27. 2010
Thanks, Sipp.
The Stolen Valor Act, which some judges say abridges free speech, will end up before the Supreme Court. Here's the latest case of "free speech". The Denver Post reporter who previously, in her words, "was duped" by the false claims, reports:
Kevin Grimsinger came forward this summer as a special forces veteran who had lost parts of his legs in Operation Enduring Freedom. I wrote about him in July when he led the movement in Colorado to qualify veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder for medical marijuana.
As it turns out, the double-amputee didn't serve in Afghanistan and wasn't injured by a land mine, as he claimed. Records show his military service ended a decade before he said he was hurt fighting in Kandahar in 2001.
He was, in fact, paralyzed as a civilian in a crash on a mountain road in Southern California where, as he now tells it, he was trying to kill himself....
For his aunt in Northglenn — the first to speak out about his history — it's a classic case of stolen valor.
"It's not right that he's living his life pretending to be some kind of war hero," said Linda DeBruyn, whose husband and son are war veterans....
Slingers, as the 42-year-old likes to call himself, moved to Denver some time around 2003. He since has misrepresented himself to the Denver Mayor's office, which appointed him to a special commission. He pulled one over on state lawmakers when testifying earlier this year. And he hoodwinked medical-marijuana advocates who were all too eager to wheel him forward as a valorous poster guy.
He has misled about 200 people participating in a veterans outreach program he runs at Budding Health, a pot dispensary in Denver. Most folks there and at VFW Post 1 — where Grimsinger was a quartermaster — know him as the guy whose legs were blown off in Afghanistan.
"Holy crap. Holy crap," VFW commander Izzy Abbass said when learning Grimsinger's history. "This just detracts from what everybody else endured and suffered."
Hey, judges, no harm done, huh. Influencing legislation, being appointed to a government commission, misleading veterans in need of help, no big thing. How about impersonating judges? Would that count?
 At American Thinker, Hoven's The Government Tapeworm:
Government is an organism that tries to maximize its energy intake. It is, in effect, like all other organisms.
Read it. It's about the Romer-Laffer Curve, and how greedy governments can enslave you - almost to the point that you give up, but not quite. A successful work camp never works its inmates to death...unless they are too old or sick to be productive to the State.
Photo is a human tapeworm. They can be up to 35' long, and lay millions of eggs daily. They can be an effective aid to slow and manageable weight loss.
 The College Board keeps selling college:
“For reasons that are not entirely clear, more people are questioning whether it’s necessary to go to college.”
If she had been paying any attention, she would know that the reasons are very clear. Many of the young people drawn into college are academically weak and disengaged; they learn little or nothing in their college years; they accumulate loads of debt; they end up working in jobs that almost any high-school student could easily learn to do. Furthermore, as we increase the percentage of people in the labor force who have college credentials, that ratchets up credential inflation, making it harder for those who don’t have college credentials to find good employment.
Via Insty:
People who choose to work with their hands are looked down upon by the chattering classes. It used to be that getting into college was hard. Now it’s just expensive. Getting into a post-college profession was even harder. People were impressed if someone went to college. And even more so if they went on to become a lawyer or doctor.
Walter Russell Mead's 6 Tips About What Really Matters in College
Many British University Grads Working in Call Centers
For-profit education under assault by the government. New rules that do not apply to the old-fashioned schools.
From Re-thinking Education at Rebel:
Everything testifies to the great benefit of charter schools, private schools and home schooling, so why do we continue to provide education in such an antiquated method? Again, it doesn’t serve the teacher’s union to break the kids out into smaller and smaller schools and classes where information can not be controlled and might even become contradictory to earlier “government” teachings. What government employee would benefit from a revolution in education delivery? None.
A good analysis by Keith Hennessey.
Speaking of unforced errors, Segway inventor drives self off cliff. Sheesh.
 Toon via Theo
High- and low-divorce careers
Update on Dion
Lady Gaga visits a nursing home... dressed as a dominatrix-style Hillary Clinton h/t Schneiderman
Mankiw: How much would the President raise the top tax rate?
Shrinkwrapped: There'll Always Be An England?
Dems plan to extend Bush's middle-class tax rates
Proofiness vs. Truthiness
Young Adults, Health Insurance Is Available for About Same Monthly Cost as A Cell Phone
MA Gov Patrick: “It’s a free country. I wish it weren’t, but . . . it’s a free country.
More revealing Leftist talk, at the NYT: Keeping the money you make is a "present" from the government.
Democratic candidates across the country are opening a fierce offensive of negative advertisements against Republicans, using lawsuits, tax filings, reports from the Better Business Bureau and even divorce proceedings to try to discredit their opponents and save their Congressional majority.
It’s not just a band of flannel-shirted environmentalists any longer; it’s become a big-money, major player in Washington power politics and American elections.
Sunday, September 26. 2010
Larry Ellison seeks to change the America's Cup rules, so it's not just for billionaires.
You know - I hope he pulls this off. It's his prerogative to change the design rules and site for racing - I hope he does it. When you consider the amount of money these one design hi-tech maxi-racers burn through, it sounds like he's on the right track.
State-of-the-art one design smaller boats with strict rules sounds good to me. Then it is all about wind, weather and tactics and not the biggest and deepest pocket.
 Another good GOP Pres candidate: John Thune (pic, with Sen. Thune on the right, via Gateway).
Glass recycling
Google Earth finds recent crater
Asperger's: The Boy Who Couldn't Make Friends
Sen Kerry: Voters are clueless/ But not when they vote for you, Senator?
The Tea Party Movement Is a Women's Movement
The gold bubble
Obama Stimulus Made Economic Crisis Worse, `Black Swan' Author Taleb Says
You Can't Say That: Against its wishes, Europe’s political class is hip-deep in immigration debates.
How California ran out of toilet paper
Via Betsy, The beliefs behind the tea party movement
Bob Shrum: Americans aren't listening to Obama. No. We have heard enough.
 1 Timothy 6:6-19
6:6 Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment;
6:7 for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it;
6:8 but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.
6:9 But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.
6:10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.
6:11 But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.
6:12 Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
6:13 In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you
6:14 to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
6:15 which he will bring about at the right time--he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords.
6:16 It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.
6:17 As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
6:18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share,
6:19 thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.
Saturday, September 25. 2010
Pence is a serious person. This speech is a serious speech, from Sept 22 at Hillsdale. It's about humility. I encourage readers to enjoy this Washingtonian speech. I would vote for him, but Mrs. BD would happily vote for Sarah:
 I guess we don't have to worry about that baloney. I was hoping a good one would hit up here, so I could have an excuse for a day or two off work to catch up on my chores. We know how to deal with bad weather.
Globalistical warmening fails again. Funny how negative results never make headlines or get attention. Even important negative findings in science have trouble getting published in scientific journals. There must be a fallacy term for that, but I'm not sure what it is. If a good hurricane hit land this year, the Al Gore folks would be all over it.
What am I smoking? A Griffin corona. Nice. No, actually, it's not a corona. It's bigger than that. Tasty, whatever the Griffin is that I bought from my local upscale cigar store Indian.
 My NYC pal, who happens to be a "private wealth" money manager, and I had an interesting a conversation this week.
I commented to him that it seemed to me that, the more money people had, the more they worried about money. (I also told him about some doubtless BS study that said that peoples' general life happiness doesn't improve much after an income of $75,000. - assuming the life they constructed is not totally dysfunctional.)
He told me that he had thought about this too, and that his observation about my point was that wealthier people did tend to worry more about their money the more money they have - up to the point of $17 million in the bank.
At 17 million, he said, for some psychological reason, prosperous people generally stop worrying unless they are highly neurotic - or if they try to live as if they had $100 million.
He also said, however, that "Everybody is neurotic about money. The hard part of my job is the Psychiatry, because it's not rocket science to determine a good bond price and it's not rocket science to preserve capital."
 A bedbug at Bloomingdale's. I blame the Jihadists.
The Colorado River runs dry. Without looking it up, do you remember where that river used to run into the sea before it was sucked dry by human needs?
What's all this about cookstoves? Sounds like Cultural Imperialism to me.
Powerline's appeal to Yale alums
From HBS - Stimulus Surprise: Companies Retrench When Government Spends
Where are all these Malik Shabazzes coming from? I've never seen so many of them.
Turtle Bay, Where the Outrageous Is Normal. The UN is a joke.
Spitzer: Cuomo ‘Dirtiest, Nastiest’ Of Politicians. He is not a good person. It would be amusing if he loses.
A HUD inspector gets it: ACORN Spinoff Smacked Down by HUD Inspector General
Tom Friedman's Totalitarian Temptation:
Last May on "Meet the Press," Friedman fantasized about a government that could implement the "right solutions" without all that bothersome democracy...
Tom Friedman as Dictator for Life. There's an idea. BTW, I think Tom is a pompous ass. Not stupid, but unwise.
h/t to Neoneo for today's astonishing verse -
 Mr. Flood's Party
Old Eben Flood, climbing alone one night
Over the hill between the town below
And the forsaken upland hermitage
That held as much as he should ever know
On earth again of home, paused warily.
The road was his with not a native near;
And Eben, having leisure, said aloud,
For no man else in Tilbury Town to hear:
"Well, Mr. Flood, we have the harvest moon
Again, and we may not have many more;
The bird is on the wing, the poet says,
And you and I have said it here before.
Drink to the bird." He raised up to the light
The jug that he had gone so far to fill,
And answered huskily: "Well, Mr. Flood,
Since you propose it, I believe I will."
Alone, as if enduring to the end
A valiant armor of scarred hopes outworn,
He stood there in the middle of the road
Like Roland's ghost winding a silent horn.
Below him, in the town among the trees,
Where friends of other days had honored him,
A phantom salutation of the dead
Rang thinly till old Eben's eyes were dim.
Then, as a mother lays her sleeping child
Down tenderly, fearing it may awake,
He set the jug down slowly at his feet
With trembling care, knowing that most things break;
And only when assured that on firm earth
It stood, as the uncertain lives of men
Assuredly did not, he paced away,
And with his hand extended paused again:
"Well, Mr. Flood, we have not met like this
In a long time; and many a change has come
To both of us, I fear, since last it was
We had a drop together. Welcome home!"
Convivially returning with himself,
Again he raised the jug up to the light;
And with an acquiescent quaver said:
"Well, Mr. Flood, if you insist, I might.
"Only a very little, Mr. Flood--
For auld lang syne. No more, sir; that will do."
So, for the time, apparently it did,
And Eben evidently thought so too;
For soon amid the silver loneliness
Of night he lifted up his voice and sang,
Secure, with only two moons listening,
Until the whole harmonious landscape rang--
"For auld lang syne." The weary throat gave out,
The last word wavered; and the song being done,
He raised again the jug regretfully
And shook his head, and was again alone.
There was not much that was ahead of him,
And there was nothing in the town below--
Where strangers would have shut the many doors
That many friends had opened long ago.
Friday, September 24. 2010
We're happy stranded here on this 'island' in western Maine."
My wife and I noticed the utter breakdown of enormous parts of the lives of average Americans, the destruction or subversion of many formerly useful institutions, and a general retreat to barbarism masquerading as progress. We decided to change our lives a while ago, and not unlike the Swiss Family, the last three or four years took even the last lifeboat we found ourselves in and smashed it on the rocks. We have reinvented ourselves, and we'll tell you how we're doing it, if you're interested.
Damn hippies all over again. This is a wonderful, love-filled family. Insane, or Thoreauvian? Don't ask me. I am not ready to move too far from NYC or Cape Cod, but I have no idea how I might feel tomorrow. Plus I have ye olde farme homesteade to worry about.
"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.' Henry David Thoreau
That makes me poverty-stricken, Henry, because I still want to go everywhere and do everything.
Thanks to all who have taken the time to respond to my questions this week.
 My final question is just for fun.
You have just won a one-week trip, all expenses paid (except gratuities), with however many passengers the airplane can hold (or fewer), on a round trip flight on a G-650 to anywhere - but only to one destination to which the airplane can fly non-stop - and an airport on which it can land.
What's your destination?
Are all Americans entitled to equal protections under the law? Of course, except if relying upon the current leadership of US Department of Justice. Reluctantly, only after misrepresentations were made to Congress by officials of the US Department of Justice, the chief of the DOJ’s Voting Rights Section – with over three decades service in the DOJ -- claimed whistleblower protections to spill the beans to Congress the US Commission on Civil Rights.
In his testimony, Christopher Coates, recounting his direct experiences, summed up “the hostility in the Civil Right Division (CRD) and Voting Section toward the equal enforcement of some of the federal voting laws.”:
What I am pointing out is that I believe that some minorities are just as likely to resort to lawlessness in the voting area as are some whites….In our increasingly multiethnic society, that [ignoring minorities’ breaking of electoral laws] is a clear recipe to undermine the public’s confidence in the legitimacy of our electoral process….We do not have the discretion to decide not to enforce the law based upon the race of the perpetrators or the race of the victims of the wrongdoing. Those discretionary decisions cannot constitutionally be based upon race.
Another Voting Rights Section attorney who resigned to blow the same whistle comments, “My profession has not seen a hero like Coates since the giants of the civil rights movement convinced the courts to eradicate legal racial discrimination. Coates has dedicated a lifetime to following in their footsteps, to ensuring free access to the ballot.”
I just checked Google news. No MSM coverage yet. I just checked another major aggregator of news wires. No coverage yet. Surely there will be, some. That is not enough.
It is up to the voters in November to see that there’s a Congress which conducts proper oversight of the Obama Justice Department, to ensure equal justice for all.
"Isn't it great to live in a society where the penalty for lying to a congressman can be up to 30 years in jail, but the penalty for a congressman lying to you is another two years in office."
Peter Schmuck, a Baltimore Sun sports writer, concerning the indictment of Roger Clemens
I have to admit, I'm a little upset.
A witch ruined my Maggie's post.
Well, okay, part-time witch and newly-elected Delaware Republican candidate Christine O'Donnell ruined my Maggie's post. It really hurt.
A few days before the Delaware election, I was reading various articles in both the MSM and MSB and, in regards to the Tea Party spirit, was planning on writing an interesting piece on "who gets it" and who doesn't.
From the Left:
David Brooks: Tea partiers are narcissistic, egomaniacal, self-righteous people who distort the truth!
I think it's safe to say that ol' Dave doesn't get it.
Jacob Weisberg: The Tea Party movement has two defining traits: status anxiety and anarchism
Or ol' Jacob.
Continue reading "ProCon: Personally, I blame Christine O'Donnell"
 What are those things on the dam?
"ObamaCare addresses every healthcare problem, with every solution further centralizing power and decision making in Washington. The promises do not come cheap." At The American, Still No Good News for ObamaCare
Michelle Obama’s healthier eating plan runs up against a fat reality: Americans don’t wanna
Powerline: The Central Issue of Our Time: Federal Spending
The Repubs put forth their agenda. So what's the Dem agenda?
Zuckerman: The American Dream of Home Ownership Has Become a Nightmare
Scott Brown blasts Harvard over ROTC ban
Socialism breeds selfishness: I, me, mine.
UN Chief: "...the world still looks to the United Nations for moral and political leadership." Really?
What do you think of this?
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