This is the big CIA Secret? Sheesh.

There really has to me more to it than this. There simply has to be.

It is being reported today that the top secret operation that the evil Dick Cheney ordered that the CIA not reveal to Congress was a plan to target and kill al Qaeda leaders abroad. The plan was a work in progress, was never formalized, had resulted in little training, was never put into operations and, as luck would have it, was actually reported to Congress after all.

And this is the best the Democrats can do to attack the Bush administration?

We are at war people. All things considered, is it a major scandal to plot to kill the enemy?

A Weekend Round Up

I have been away from the computer for a few days. This afternoon I took a few moments to catch up on some things and I was astonished at the amount of interesting news that has occurred since Friday.

I'll briefly touch on some of it.

First there is this little tidbit that took place at 4:14 in the afternoon on Friday, a massive $540 billion tax increase for Obama's national health care proposal. I was in college when then President Carter proposed an entire federal budget that for the first time in the history of this country passed the $500 billion mark.

“The top federal tax rate currently stands at 35 percent, but Democrats have vowed to raise it to 39.6 percent next year, when cuts enacted during the Bush administration expire,” reported the Post. “Combined with other federal tax adjustments, the surtax could leave most taxpayers with annual incomes more than $350,000 facing top federal rates of at least 45 percent, said Robert Carroll, a senior fellow at the nonprofit Tax Foundation.”

What could possibly go wrong with a plan to punish the most productive members of our society who, by the way, also happen to be responsible for most of the job growth over the past half century?

Jules Crittenden reports today that while most everyone recognizes that war is hell, it is the use of tobacco products that some health experts want to ban amongst our military personnel.

Maybe its just me but I think that if a guy believes it is worth it to take a bullet for the freedoms we enjoy in this country we ought to at least let him smoke while in uniform. The nannies can always turn all fascist on him once he comes home for good.

The editorial writers at the Detroit Free Press try their own hand at a Pascalesque wager concerning global warming. Their thesis is that it would be better for today's society to try its best to influence global temperatures downward than to ignore global temperatures altogether only to have future generations regret the inaction.

It is one of the most stunningly inaccurate and misleading editorials I have ever read. Thankfully no one other than myself reads their crap any more.

What's the least bad scenario for the year 2100? That people will laugh about precautions their grandparents and great-grandparents took to stave off climate change -- or that they'll be cursing their ancestors for not doing enough?

For a price that reaches about $14.50 per month per household by 2020, it certainly seems worthwhile to insure against being damned by future generations.

Even in the unlikely event that the scientific consensus about global warming emissions were to prove wildly wrong, there still would be honor in having taken action to protect as yet unknown offspring. And even if the first U.S. plan to ratchet back on global warming gases looks sadly weak, it nonetheless marks a commitment that Americans have dodged until now.

Emphasis mine.

These are but the first three paragraphs.

In paragraph one we see the Freep's writers omit any reference to the advances the industrial age has motivated. Advances in medical science...forgotten. Advances in the war on poverty...forgotten. Advances in the war against malnutrition and starvation...forgotten. Advances in education, communication, transportation, infrastructure, etc., all of them forgotten.

Perhaps in the year 2100, after all of these initiatives are taken, the huddled peoples of Earth will have forgotten that their ancestors actually had enough food on the table to feed the children. What a laugh riot that will be.

Paragraph two only refers to the most optimistic (and partisan) estimates on what Cap and Trade would do to a consumer's energy bill and does not take into account the added cost of products on the shelves to consumers, added transportation costs, added costs of bureaucracy, and the added social costs of a restricted economy.

Paragraph three repeats the oft told lie that there is a consensus among scientists concerning AGW. There is no such consensus and thousands and thousands of scientists dispute this notion.

But then, this is the Freep. What should we expect?

Finally, Popehat led me to this: How John Mellencamp Interprets Freedom of Speech.

“I don’t think people fought and gave their lives so that some guy can sit in his bedroom and be mean. I don’t think that’s what freedom of speech is,” he continued. “Freedom of speech is really about assembly — for us to collectively have an idea. We want to get our point of view out so we can assemble and I can appoint you to be the spokesman. That’s freedom of speech — to be able to collectively speak for a sector of people. But somehow it’s turned into ‘I can be an asshole whenever I feel like, say whatever I like, be disrespectful to people and not be courteous.’ It’s not good for our society. Not being courteous is not really freedom of speech. …

To which Ken at Popehat snarkily replies "John, if it’s any comfort to you, I’m sitting on the living-room couch as I type that you are a whiny douche."

Is it any real surprise that this minstrel's most famous line might be "suckin' on chili dogs outside the Tastee Freeze..."

Ah...that rugged collectivism.

A Strike in Detroit?

How can the Detroit Federation of Teachers prove to the citizens of Detroit and the taxpayers of Michigan that they are determined to help the Detroit Public Schools recover from a backbreaking budget deficit, one so extreme that the state of Michigan itself had to assume control over its finances?

Yep, threaten a strike over the layoffs.

I am not so callous as to celebrate the loss of jobs that were once productive and necessary. But sad reality has to set in sooner or later and that looming $259 million dollar deficit for the upcoming school year is not a good omen. The city of Detroit itself is crumbling, is bleeding citizens, and many of those parents that do remain are doing everything that they can to keep their kids from attending a school system where recent graduation rates have been as low as 25%. Throw in a few insecure environments and what other choice does a caring parent have? Are all of these things the fault of teachers? Of course not, no more than it is the fault of a laid off custodian at the GM plant after some brainiac upstairs decided to produce the HHR.

DPS may have at one time been the perfect size for a city the size that Detroit once was. But times have changed. All businesses must adapt and public schools, as much as anyone wants to argue otherwise, are businesses with a product to supply to customers who are willing to consume the product. When the customers dry up, so do the coffers. This is where Detroit is at these days, and I have not even mentioned the massive amount of fraud and simple waste that have taken place inside those hallowed, paint-peeling, halls that helped to suck the bank accounts dry.

I do feel for the individual teachers of Detroit who have been laid off. In my opinion, however, it is time for them to take their degrees and move south to where the rest of us northerners will have to flock to soon enough, all of us with one of those "I voted for Jennifer Granholm and all I got was this lousy relocation pamphlet to Dallas" stickers on the bumper.

Threatening a strike against DPS under these conditions is not doing you any public relations' favors with the taxpayers that will have to foot the bill. Well, at least those taxpayers that haven't gotten out yet.

A Shocking Government Funded Failure

In what only could be interpreted as a shocking development, social interventionists in the UK have failed at reducing teen pregnancy by tossing around condoms, introducing at risk girls to promiscuous ones, and teaching the whole gaggle the proper (and various) ways to do it.

In the Daily Mail:

The Government-backed scheme tried to persuade teenage girls not to get pregnant by handing out condoms and teaching them about sex.

But research funded by the Department of Health shows that young women who attended the programme, at a cost of £2,500 each, were 'significantly' more likely to become pregnant than those on other youth programmes who were not given contraception and sex advice.

A total of 16 per cent of those on the Young People's Development Programme conceived compared with just 6 per cent in other programmes.

Experts said the scheme failed because it introduced girls 'at risk' of becoming pregnant to promiscuous girls they might not otherwise have met.

Because of peer pressure, the more timid teenagers were more likely to have sex and become pregnant.

What? Sex and pregnancy are somehow tied together? Where do the storks come in?

The article includes this case study:

Case study - Lucy Lanelly

By the time she reached the age of consent, Lucy Lanelly had become pregnant four times.

And on each occasion the teenager from Toll Bar, South Yorkshire, had an abortion.

Now 19, she became pregnant at 12 after a single encounter with a 15-year-old boy.

She was then given a three-month contraceptive jab but failed to get another one.

The following year Lucy became pregnant by a 19-year-old man at a party. Her third pregnancy was by a 15-year-old boy who said he was infertile.

The last pregnancy was by her boyfriend Jack, 20, when a condom failed.

Lucy said: 'I don't regret having the terminations because I was too young to have a baby, but I do regret having sex when I wasn't mature enough to deal with it.'

Sooner or later, probably much later, feel good social engineers will finally figure out that the tearing apart of the nuclear family was not a good thing. Except, of course, that it is the social engineers and abortion clinics that most benefit from an unending stream of aimless children with neither compasses of morality nor responsibility.

Hat tip Protein Wisdom via Cold Fury

A Glint in Daddy's Dead Arm

It is being billed as a major breakthrough that could lead to the end of male infertility. It is also a step being taken by medical science that opens many more doors to abuse than it ever would to benefit.

Professor Karim Nayernia has created the chemicals and process through which stem cells can be transformed into sperm cells.

The stem cells used were taken from embryos in the first days of life but the professor hopes to repeat his success with skin cells taken from a man's arm. These would first be exposed to a mixture that wound back their biological clocks to embryonic stem cell state, before being transformed into sperm.

Using IVF techniques, the artificial sperm could be injected into eggs, allowing men who do not produce sperm to father children of their own.

[...]

But the researcher also acknowledged that the technique could potentially be applied to skin cells taken from men who have been dead for many years, allowing them to 'father' children.

Not to be too dramatic, but could parentless children be created for the purpose of medical experimentation? Could tinpot dictators resupply their armies with thousands of parentless wards of the state for the sole purpose of carrying a rifle? Could grieving wives or parents try and replace their loved ones with the fruit of harvested skin cells in something strangely reminiscent of Pet Semetary. Nah, never happen.

In the absence of any of those crazy potential scenarios, we already have this unsettling one:

Josephine Quintavalle, of campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said: 'To take a viable human embryo and destroy it in a bid to create dodgy sperm to create a not-so-healthy embryo is experimentation for experimentation's sake.

The impractical among us might have said the same thing about Mengele.

A Good Man Gets it Wrong

Pope Benedict has delivered a letter to Catholics everywhere and to other "people of goodwill."

He writes as reported at the BBC:

"Profit is useful if it serves as a means toward an end," he wrote.

"Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty."

He warned that globalisation, properly managed, could "open up the unprecedented possibility of large-scale redistribution of wealth on a world-wide scale".

But badly directed, it could "lead to an increase in poverty and inequality, and could even trigger a global crisis".

I applaud the good sentiment in these paragraphs but beyond sentiment most of the ideas advocated here are decidedly what helped to create much of the strife we see in the world today.

Of course I am not supportive of fraud or theft. Where I differ with the pontiff is in his declaration that all profit must be pursued with the common good in mind and that profit pursued for profit's sake 'risks destroying wealth and creating poverty.'

It has been said that poverty is the human condition. Or at least it was the human condition until free markets were allowed to operate devoid of tyranny and widespread corruption. What we see now on Earth, in those areas where economic freedom abounds, is people living better than humans have ever lived in the history of this planet. These living standards were not the creation of profit earned for the purpose of the common good, but rather the simple byproducts of profitable operations.

Look at China. It was not until the communist dictators of China relaxed their economic "common good" vice on the people that the economy began to explode reportedly rescuing 1,000,000 Chinese from poverty a month! Similar situations are becoming evident in places such as Vietnam and India.

Foil that with Hugo Chavez' Venezuela where reportedly the "common good" is the goal of his excellency. The economy is in shambles while one by one the nation's industries are being swallowed up for "the people."

I am not suggesting that Pope Benedict is in league with Chavez or that he is anything but a decent, caring man. What I am suggesting is that he has a woefully inadequate understanding of how economies run and how successful ones, regardless of motivation, end up benefiting the weakest among us.

A strong economy and its greed driven profits are much better friends to humanity than is any endeavor undertaken solely for "the common good."

A Moment Wasted is a Billion Saved!

Look at the bright side, at least when our glorified caretakers are preparing motions of crap like this they are thankfully not authoring initiatives that will waste billions of taxpayer dollars.

I hope Congress spends 1,000 hours debating!

Too Late to the Debate

There has been an ongoing and rousing discussion over at Right Michigan the past few days concerning health care. I was out for the weekend and did not have time to give them my two cents worth.

When I finally did have a chance to sit down today I discovered that my comment was probably too long for anyone to read particularly as the 61st comment. So I thought I would post it here. At least here I am wasting Google's resources.

Here goes...

I hate to burst the bubble of everyone here, but there is no solution to the rising cost of health care if we are to accept the parameters and definitions that are being hoisted on the health care infrastructure by advocates. No solution at all. And, I'm an optimist!

The only reason that anyone can afford car insurance or house insurance or life insurance these days is because these insurances operate differently than does health insurance. In all of these other insurances the risk is spread out among all policy holders while at the same time what we are insuring against is the anomalous. (Life insurance has a few variations but is principally the same.)

There would be no affordable automobile insurance if each and every car on the road was wiped out by accident every few years. No, what we see in junkyards are primarily cars that spent their 15-20 years on the road and then rusted out, or had an engine blow out, or lost a transmission, etc. In these cases the car is no is longer worth the investment of a major overhaul to its owner. Therefore the risk of vehicles that were tragically smashed can be spread among all cars driven because, thankfully, most cars are not destroyed by smashing.

But advocates want health insurance to be different, and because of this they are not peddling insurance as we have grown to understand the term at all. There is currently little spreading of the risk in health insurance because death is not anomalous and postponing death is very expensive.

Enter our savior, the government.

First, our government is already inextricably linked to health care. This began years back when an earlier generation of bureaucrats thought they could solve the problems of health care. Then later generations of bureaucrats thought that they could fix the blunders of the older bureaucrats. Alas, they ultimately created even more complicated blunders. Wash, rinse and repeat. Forward that until we now have a system so complicated with bureaucracy and regulation that now, short of a total government bankruptcy and ensuing anarchy, government will always have its big fat butt firmly planted in our doctors' offices, forever.

Our government is notorious for attempting to manipulate the price of things, especially when they are footing so much of the bill. Of course, price and cost are two different things, and by arbitrarily reducing the price of health care and not considering the associated costs we will automatically get a shortage of supply. This shortage will include personnel, equipment, hospital bed space, more advanced medications, etc. That does not mean that there will not be any advances here and there, but it does mean that the rate of advance will be significantly curtailed, and that these advancements will be themselves only available to qualified patients.

As shortages become more and more apparent, rationing will become more and more necessary because the need for care will grow with the complications created by rationing. (You know, when that nasty growing mole that could have been removed routinely was allowed to grow into full fledged malignant melanoma that will require a surgical team to remove.) Rationing will not only amount to long delays in appointments and procedures but will also entail a designation of patient qualification. Certain patients will no longer be considered for certain procedures. The 80 year old will no longer get bypass surgery. The 70 year old can forget about that new hip. The 60 year old can kiss his Viagra (and perhaps his wife) goodbye. The 50 year old will finally be able to get that mammogram, though the mastectomy cannot be scheduled any sooner than 8 months after the tests are finally read.

Health care providers, if they want to keep their license, will ultimately be denied the right to operate outside the bounds of the system. This is the only way to make certain that all the rules of the game are followed. The rich, of course, will still get their care, they will just do so by flying to India or another nation willing to capitalize on our shortcomings. Rich Canadians will also go to India because the hospitals in Detroit and Buffalo will no longer be able to accept Canada's elite. I would not expect all of these things to happen in the first year or even five years, but they would develop over time as the system itself begins to creak under the weight of its own constraints and as the next generation of advocates try to fix the problems caused by the most recent fix.

The problem is, of course, that today's system, though not "national health care" is still replete with so many glitches that costs have outpaced the ability of many to pay. We also have to recognize that research and the introduction of new medicines and equipment are hugely expensive and that these costs are largely borne by the medical customer of this country because it is here, in our current system, that most of these advances are made. That is why I (amongst millions of others) do not have health insurance today. So, I am not defending the status quo, though I do believe it is a better system than it will become when it is ultimately handed over to any President and his group of bureaucrats.

I recognize that we have a dilemma and few people are happy with the way that health care costs have risen of late. Yet, the only proposal gaining any traction these days has been to enact a national system that will do little but add layer upon layer of bureaucracy to the current disaster. No one has had the backbone to suggest that government be totally extricated from the problem it by and large created.

The fact is that health care has always been rationed. In the past the free market allowed for rationing on the basis of wealth. The rich got everything they wanted, the middle class got most of what they wanted on the installment plan, and the poor did without or received the charity of the rich. But wealth has never been a acceptable way to dole out care, particularly when, as a percentage of population, poor and middle class people outnumber the rich, and it is voters that will drive the debate.

So, what we will ultimately end up with will be a system where rationing is decided by the bureaucrats, but this only after they have successfully absconded with another few percentage points of GDP. The new system will not be as efficient, it will reduce medical advances, it will strongly contract the medical industry, will lead to a shorter life expectancy in this country, and it will slowly restrict the freedom of citizens that wish to engage in sinful activities that might drive up the cost of Uncle Sam's medical bills such as smoking, consuming sugary drinks, eating fried foods or pork, riding a bicycle without a helmet, or mountain climbing. These intrusions into our private lives would have been enough to send the founding fathers to war. Today we are better at hurling insults.

Given a choice, and I say this as a non wealthy man, I really would prefer a system where wealth and common sense (providing free medical care to indigent illegal aliens and death row and other heinous criminals is insane) dictated who received care. When you lift the stifling hand of government off of the free market we get a much better product that is more affordable to everyone.

Politics is not for the Common Man

Can we, for a moment, forget that Sarah Palin is inexplicably perhaps the most despised political figure of today? Can we also forget that she is perhaps the most inexplicably popular poster child for a major political party?

Really, can we forget about Sarah Palin's politics for a moment? I'd like to look at her as a generic politician, neither savior nor devil. I would like to talk about her as if she was you or me.

Knowing what we know today, would any one of us take on the task of running for political office and subjecting our families to the sort of abuse that goes with it? Sure, it has been said, and it is certainly the truth, that the abuse of one's self and one's family goes with the quest for higher office. That internal desire to try and serve the public means that you will have approximately half of the population wishing you would shut up and willing to employ any strategy, regardless of how disturbing, to get you to do so?

Now, from what I have read, it does not appear that Sarah Palin is necessarily retreating from her Alaskan governorship to flee the hatred, though that is much of the speculation. Some are also saying that this flight from Juneau could mean that she is unemcumbering herself from the responsibilities of Governor so that she can begin to pursue a higher office. This was not specifically stated by Palin either.

My question is, do we want all of our politicians to be so thick skinned as a prerequisite for running for office, that as a bare minimum they have to be nearly sociopathic in nature to survive the taunting and accusations?

Mark Steyn has some thoughts.

Obama's Feelings Trump Troop Level Needs

How is it that the American people elected such a dizzying nincompoop to the office of president at the same time we were engaged in two wars? Oh sure, we were also involved in a tremendous downturn in the economy for which we needed a steadying hand. Thankfully Obama claims he has defeated that little problem, this during the same month when another 450,000 people joined the unemployment lines.

Jules Crittenden gets the thanks for alerting me toward this report on an astonishing conversation that took place at Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan between Obama's National Security Adviser James L. Jones and commanders in the field.

From Bob Woodward at the Washington Post:

During the briefing, Nicholson had told Jones that he was "a little light," more than hinting that he could use more forces, probably thousands more. "We don't have enough force to go everywhere," Nicholson said.

But Jones recalled how Obama had initially decided to deploy additional forces this year. "At a table much like this," Jones said, referring to the polished wood table in the White House Situation Room, "the president's principals met and agreed to recommend 17,000 more troops for Afghanistan." The principals -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Gates; Mullen; and the director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair -- made this recommendation in February during the first full month of the Obama administration. The president approved the deployments, which included Nicholson's Marines.

Soon after that, Jones said, the principals told the president, "oops," we need an additional 4,000 to help train the Afghan army.

"They then said, 'If you do all that, we think we can turn this around,' " Jones said, reminding the Marines here that the president had quickly approved and publicly announced the additional 4,000.

Now suppose you’re the president, Jones told them, and the requests come into the White House for yet more force. How do you think Obama might look at this? Jones asked, casting his eyes around the colonels. How do you think he might feel?

Jones let the question hang in the air-conditioned, fluorescent-lighted room. Nicholson and the colonels said nothing.

Here we have the National Security Adviser suggesting that officers in a dynamic field of war consider the feelings of Barack Obama before they mention their troop level needs.

Well, Jones went on, after all those additional troops, 17,000 plus 4,000 more, if there were new requests for force now, the president would quite likely have "a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment." Everyone in the room caught the phonetic reference to WTF -- which in the military and elsewhere means "What the [expletive]?"

You name an organization anywhere where the people who cannot communicate their needs openly with their bosses and I can point out to you an inefficient and ineffective operation.

Heaven help our armed forces and the people who they have been charged to protect. The good Lord knows we don't want our president's feelings disturbed. Priorities and all that.

Barney Frank: Mr. Consistent

One of the selling points of TARP (and I know I am using the term "selling points" with abandon) was that much of the money invested would, if the banking industry stabilized, return a profit to the taxpayers. The bill included a provision saying that profits from the program "shall be paid into the general fund of the Treasury for reduction of the public debt."

With the taxpayers on the hook for an astonishing amount of money, the idea that some dividends might be returned to the general fund to help pay off the enormous debt was thought of as at least a small silver lining in a huge dark cloud. Perhaps the taxpayers would be on the hook for a few billion less than was advertised.

Enter Barney Frank.

The wanton Massachusetts legislator has found a better use for the money than to pay down the debts of the taxpayers. Frank, one of the masterminds of the current financial crisis and perhaps the most significant apologist for Fannie and Freddie in their run up to insolvency, would rather see some of the money funneled into a trust fund that he could control to help with low income rental housing and would like to see additional portions of the profits funneled to support "neighborhood stabilization."

In case no one remembers, it was the artificial propping of low income housing that was partially responsible for this huge debacle to begin with, and it was extreme pressure from "neighborhood stabilization" groups that literally forced many lending institutions to engage in risky lending practices when they had failed to voluntarily do so at the government's urging. Now Frank, a dim bulb in a club of dim bulbs, wants to skim some of the few profits that might be realized by the TARP program and shove them right back down the same rat holes.

I suppose it should be comforting to me that at least some of our fearless leaders in Congress are consistent.

Sanford and his creeping Creepiness

How clueless can a man be? Here is a guy sitting atop all of politics in the state of South Carolina.

He has a supporting wife, wonderful children, was well thought of in his state, and had a growing national respect for the way he steadfastly resisted the windfall of federal stimulus. Admittedly, I had only heard Mark Stanford's name a few times prior to this past year and the stimulus brouhaha, but he was a man that spoke forcefully and seemed to want to do what he thought was right.

As it turns out though, Sanford's idea of right and wrong had little to do with his wife or his family or even his job. He put each and every one of these things behind his desire to score a few women.

Now, of course, he is apologetic. He is sorry for hurting his wife. He is very sorry for hurting his kids. And he is very, very sorry for letting down the people of South Carolina who had entrusted him with such responsibility, but mostly he is sorry that he might now lose his job for being a rudderless git.

Any man that cared for his children and had any desire to heal his marriage would put his political career out of his mind and try to work toward mitigating his gittiness. He would try to lessen the shame that he has heaped so thickly on those in his personal life that he has cared for almost as much as he has cared for himself.

But it seems that Mark Sanford has a better way and that is to slowly uncloak the true depths of his creepiness in front of the whole world so that the suffering of his wife and children can go on without any abandon.

Nice. This is just the kind of guy we need to see hang on in politics.

"That is 'Mr. Shrek' to You!"

We all have those moments in our life that we wish we could get back.

Monica Conyers may be having one of those moments today, a woman that has experienced very few of these in her public career. Not that she should not have, mind you, just that she has not.

She did not seem remorseful after her well documented hotel bar fight just prior to taking office. Why should she be sorry? She has a great right cross, did not get the black eye, scored a few drinks, and was able to beat any charges.

She did not seem too remorseful after screaming her head off in a Denver hotel at the Democratic National Convention. Why should she be remorseful? Her drop of the hat temper got her a room upgrade and some serious respect.

She did not seem remorseful either after baiting an elementary school student into a debate on character that was clearly won by the student. Why should she be remorseful over that little incident? Most of the debate went right over her head.

And, while she was certainly not remorseful at the time of repeatedly calling Detroit City Council President Ken Cockrell "Shrek", now that she could use a little sympathy from the lovable fairy tale character (after admitting to bribery charges on Monday) perhaps remorse is beginning to set in.

Your Ship Has Come In

McQ over at QandO has a great post on some of the political payback unions workers may receive for voting monolithically for their democrat keepers.

Special interest democracy – political payback – so blatant now that you don’t even have to wonder if it is being done. Democrats are shameless in their pursuit of it. If you’re in a favored group, your ship has come in.

The post highlights the proposal to exempt union negotiated health care benefits from taxation while sticking it to non-union workers that often times receive similar health care insurance benefits.

Such proposals have two specific goals, one to stick it to the rich (regardless of how errant that sticking actually becomes) and secondly to incentivize to workers the value of joining a union--an organization that can be expected to vote democrat in future elections.

Of course this congress and this president have taken great pains to reward one of their largest constituencies in only their first few months in office.

The ramrodded bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler placed union beneficiaries far ahead of secured creditors, regular stockholders, taxpayers and consumers. Cash for clunkers is essentially a program designed to taxpayer subsidize new life into our union dominated domestic auto companies that cannot compete on a level playing field with their non-union competitors. The Department of Education is hinting at sinking more and more money into our failing public school systems in order to reward the NEA and other large teachers unions. Along what party lines do you believe that Card Check voting will fall?

Alexis De Tocqueville penned that American democracy would fail when voters discovered that they could vote themselves money out of the national coffers. Sadly, the great American unions appear to have made a great American discovery.

For the Love of Sludge

How fitting is it that Monica Conyers, one of the dirtiest politicians in Detroit's long history of dirty politicians, would be taken down by a deal over sludge? The irony is as delicious as it is bitter for a city that deserves every drop of the crap it has been wading around in over the past few years for voting in one well fertilized crop of corrupt politicians after another.

A Belated Recognition of a Belated Apology

While on the road this past week I was lucky enough to be able to see David Letterman's sincere apology to the Palin family for his poor joke aimed at one of the Palin daughters. I am referring to the real apology and not the one he had made a few days earlier that was little more than an arrogant dismissal of well placed disgust.

What Letterman did, belatedly, was admit that he poorly delivered a poor joke that was easily interpreted wrongly. He clarified the joke (which was still poor) but took ownership of it and apologized.

I think his apology deserves a mention.

Redefining Innocence

Another month and another sex scandal. Another family stands in the shadow of marital ruins because another generic self centered politician hyped up on testosterone and immortality did not have the self restraint to keep another penis from taking a walk.

I was comforted to find out after listening to his public statement that Governor Sanford's indiscretions began innocently, as if brakes can never be applied once an accelerator has been stepped on in good faith. We might as well blame this whole mess on inertia.

Enjoy your fame Mr. Sanford. You deserve it, though your family does not.

Good posts at Protein Wisdom and Power Line.

Slowly Coming Back

I have been home now for a couple of days and am starting to settle back into the routine of getting a full six to seven hours of sleep a night and not having to rub the car seat shaped seams stamped into my back side.

My trip's success cannot be judged in the short term because my main goal was to get plugged back into the network of professionals I once worked with. It is my hope that they remember me for what I was good at and are completely able to forget the other 90 per cent of my performance. I will keep you posted on that.

I was heartened shortly after my travels began to discover that bureaucrats are similar regardless of location. For instance I was exposed to this delicious quote in the June 12th edition of the Quad-City Times.

`This moved us from theoretical discussions to endorsing concepts.`

Thus spake Joe Slavens in support of a suggestion that the Quad-City Development Group allow the area chambers of commerce to oversee the bringing of jobs to the area. Slavens leads the new group. His comment should be trademarked and marketed as the perfect answer to any question posed to a government official.

During my trip I crossed the Mississippi several times, visited two states where I had never been before, saw the Flint Hills of Kansas, accidentally found the both majestic and haunting old Joliet Prison, relearned the heat index blanketing Oklahoma, petted a wild turkey, and pushed my odometer nearly 3,500 miles in nine short days. Air conditioning is a good thing.

I will be slowly getting back to this blogging thing. That is, as soon as I can get some concepts endorsed.

It Is Time

I have come to think of Michigan as the best place on Earth in which to struggle to survive. Hey, if you have to have it tough, why not suffer all your trials and indignation in a state that simply explodes with spring flowers?

There are few places that can rival Michigan's beautiful forests, lakes and streams to a person having a difficult time living on credit cards. Where else in these United States can an unemployed person gaze upon so much beautiful coastline? Truly, Michigan offers four seasons of splendor to people unable to meet the basic needs of their children.

I think you know where this is heading.

This afternoon I will be heading out on a long journey to scout out other states for job opportunities. I leave both hopeful that I will find something and apprehensive that I just might. I was born here and raised here. My parents, 89 and 86, are both alive and enjoy twelve months a year of living in a state that they were never forced to leave. My brother and sisters as well as nearly all of my nieces and nephews still call Michigan home.

Leaving is not an easy thing to contemplate.

I will be on the road for two weeks (give or take) and hopefully will arrive back in town with some solid leads for future employment. Posting will be very light.

Wish me luck.

David Letterman: Making Sex Jokes About Children

There was a time when I thought David Letterman was funny, at least on occasion. I stopped watching him about a dozen years ago when he decided his best shot at getting a few laughs was making goofy faces at the camera. Most people outgrow that by the age of five, but with Dave it never has gotten old.

Now he is working on a new shtick...making sex jokes about the fourteen year old children of people with whom he and his network are politically unaligned.

John Hinderaker asks a very good question:

Malia Obama will turn fourteen during her father's term in office. What do you think the chances are that Letterman (or anyone else) will make obscene jokes about her on network television?

Letterman has been a sexist pig for years but now it seems as if he has turning out to be an asshole on top of it all. (In these trying times I suppose a guy has to keep working on his resume.)

Would CBS allow these jokes to air unchallenged if they were of Malia? Let us see what happens in the next day or so. I long to be pleasantly surprised.