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.